Harley Race died this week, and that’s as good a time as any to tell you that Harley Race was awesome.
I did not know Harley Race. Harley Race was from a different time than I. I have heard stories of Harley Race that have filled me with joyful thoughts on the sport of professional wrestling, I have heard stories of Harley Race that have filled me with a great concern for the fundamental sanity of mankind.
The Harley Race I heard about was a legend. There was the CM Punk story where he couldn’t remember the Ultimate Warrior’s name, the Stone Cold story where he played the scariest chiropractor of all-time, and everybody’s story where Race is asked what the finish will be, he asks what the guys’ finishing move is, takes a drag of a cigarette and deadpans, “I’ll move.”
The Harley Race I watched was a legend too. There are some boring Harley Race matches out there, that came with the territory. There are also Harley Race matches out there that are more real than anything you will ever see on wrestling TV again. He did his hold-trading, selling, bumping, and everything in between with respect for both the realism of the sport and the fact that a bunch of fans paid money to watch him do his thing. He was commonly given a half-hour or an hour for his matches, and he used that time wiser than many men I have seen do those type of matches.
Harley Race is also this amazing link in wrestling history. Gene Kiniski bested Lou Thesz for the NWA World Heavyweight Title in 1966, Dory Funk Jr. bested Kiniski in 1969, Harley Race bested Funk Jr. in 1973. His run on top from 1973 to 1981, occasionally trading the title with a Brisco or a Funk or a Baba, ultimately culminated in Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes rising to the top of the business. After all this, Race made big money in late-80s WWF, acted as Vader’s manager during his amazing early 90s WCW run, and when he opened up his own training school and wrestling company in the late-90s, he had the foresight to partner up with Mitsuharu Misawa’s NOAH, an early experiment between independent wrestling in Japan that certainly helped along where we are today.
RAW (7/29/19)
A fun show even if SummerSlam feels very far from the Biggest Party of the Summer. The first hour had an awesome long Gauntlet Match and a pregnant lady becoming the 24/7 Champion, the second hour had a fun Triple Threat Tag Titles match and Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss, and the third hour had Seth Rollins getting annihilated by Brock Lesnar and a blatantly Heyman-influenced chaotic finish that put a bunch of new faces in interesting places.
I’ve got some complicated thoughts on the 24/7 Title being both incredibly dumb and providing the most layered story on WWE TV right now. First Mike Kanellis wins his first championship after the opening Mosh Pit Mixed Tag Team Match (I don’t know), then later on his pregnant wife Maria demands he lays down for her. She wins the championship, and walks around yelling “PREGNANT CHAMPION! PREGNANT CHAMPION!” while everybody who’d normally be chasing somebody for that title avoids her. Is there a word for something that’s both terrible and fascinating?
This show had a half-hour Gauntlet Match that featured Cesaro vs. Rey Mysterio ripping it up for 10 minutes, Rey pinning Sami Zayn very quickly, Rey vs. Andrade once again being the best, and finally Andrade vs. Ricochet. It all ruled. Rey’s baseball slide to headscissors on Cesaro, the delivery and crash of the Euro uppercut counter of a springboard crossbody, the wheelbarrow to bulldog combo OFF THE TOP ROPE … c’mon!!! These guys are incredible. Rey did more neat stuff with his young rival Andrade, which included a 619 that was caught by Andrade and turned into a side backbreaker.
Andrade vs. Ricochet packed some wild stuff into 5 minutes and is a match I’d like to see many times in the future. The spot where Ricochet booted Andrade away from the corner and Ricochet did a roll-through dropkick blew my mind – the speed and precision to pull that thing off and make it look legit is unthinkable, but Andrade’s ultra-quick backward roll to get in place made it happen. It’s sad he still won’t be over after this. 🙁
Hope Ricochet vs. AJ Styles at SummerSlam doesn’t suck.
The Becky Lynch/Natalya feud continues to be a turd, but at least Becky got some time in the ring with Alexa Bliss this week where they put on a mighty fine match with Alexa credibly dominating and Becky throwing some sweet knees on her comeback. Then there was a weird ref stoppage and Becky wrestled Nikki Cross real quick for some reason before Natalya attacked Becky. Booooooooooo. Why must it all be so dumb? Fit Finlay took a nut shot to get this over.
Triple Threat RAW Tag Titles match with The Revival vs. The Uso vs. The … sigh … O.C. ruled – non-stop action with an Uso occasionally taking heat. Jimmy’s hot tag was wild, and they had the crowd banging off a Samoan drop near fall of all things. Legitimately surprising finish with The O.C. taking the RAW Tag Titles, the alluring elixir of championship silver that has kept all three of these teams away from The Young Bucks for at least another few years.
Still enjoying The Viking Raiders getting a Bludgeon Brothers run of cool squashes, and Johnny James is a heck of a jobber name.
Troll Dolph Ziggler entering to HBK’s theme legitimately cracked me up, though teasing the Dolph/HBK match and (as the rumors say) delivering Dolph against Goldberg doesn’t do poor struggling Bill any favors, does it?
Dolph and Seth Rollins had their usual fine match until Brock Lesnar ran out and did the angle you do a couple weeks before the big PPV in WWE, where he beat the shit out of him. In this case the method was a few F5’s onto a propped up steel chair, which both looked awesome and ended up with Rollins’ mouth all bloody. Then Brock dragged Seth out of an ambulance and beat his ass some more. There’s not much that a Brock vs. Seth feud can do to grab me right now, but at least we got this wild angle.
Appreciated the bit saying that Samoa Joe attacked Roman Reigns backstage while Seth was getting attacked by Brock. Good work everybody.
The show ended with one of those weirdo angles that happen sometimes on RAW, where it feels we’re on the verge of something actually Completely Different. In this case it was a very stupidly named Samoan Summit between Joe and Reigns, which very quickly turned into a big brawl on the stage where Drew McIntyre attacked Reigns, CEDRIC ALEXANDER ran out and made the save, Joe and Drew overwhelmed Roman and Cedric, THE USOS ran out to for a save, GALLOWS & ANDERSON ran out after them, and finally Cedric jumped off the set onto everyone, quietly getting That Push. A classic ECW/ROH “EVERYBODY BRAWLS AND DOES SPOTS!” finish, kind of silly and didn’t really clarify much for SummerSlam but still a total blast while it happened.
SMACKDOWN (7/30/19)
SmackDown continues to chug along with another “pretty good” episode of wrestling.
Kevin Owens vs. Drew McIntyre weirdly RULED, and I’m kind of fascinated how Owens is one of the only guys that works well with WWE’s Tall Boring Guys. He and Corbin have done some good stuff too, I swear it. Either way the crowd was ROCKING for this thing, which started with a pre-bell Drew attack and both guys brawling and everything being all energetic. Then Drew took over for a bit, and Drew does really bad stomps. Eventually KO did the cannonball and one outside and the match got hot again. That sit-out pop-up powerbomb near fall had the PEOPLE, and the people are what you need.
Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Bayley & Ember Moon had an alright beatdown from Alexa and Nikki, but overall kind of stunk. Bayley and Ember remain two very confusing people right now.
Sami Zayn challenging Aleister Black I’m into, Daniel Bryan taking what appears to be a vow of silence I’m into… WWE using someone calling someone a “bitch” as a catalyst for both the Becky/Natalya feuds and now the Charlotte Flair/Trish Stratus feud not so much. It’s always cool to see Trish, one of my first young loves, even if she had to awkwardly reminisce with Jerry Lawler and then get challenged by Charlotte in what was honestly a pretty lazy way of going about things. I have no idea how this match goes. O Canada.
Quick Finn Balor vs. Dolph Ziggler match led to another THE FIEND appearance, this time on the stage which Dolph Ziggler didn’t seem all that creeped out by as he walked past it after The Fiend disappeared. Quick Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Ali match was a good sprint with some quality kicking to the face. I hope the face-first second turnbuckle bump becomes an Ali staple.
Heck of a Randy Orton video to build-up the Kofi Kingston match at SummerSlam. This feud has the easiest built-in story to tell and I’m glad they are taking full advantage of it. “Kofi challenging me… stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Then Kofi and AJ Styles did some decent sub-10 minute TV wrestling. Like, these guys have got some signature spots and they will do them. There was some decent chaos at the finish, but ya never really want your chaos “decent.” The camera missed most of Kofi’s Trouble in Paradise counter of the Phenomenal Forearm, and I’m not one to question the production operations of Kevin Dunn but between this, a camera missing Nikki Cross pushing Alexa out of the way for the Eclipse, and whatever in God’s name the Roman Reigns angle at the end of the show was supposed to be… I’ve got some questions.
205 LIVE (7/30/19)
The Singh Brothers vs. Akira Tozawa & Brian Kendrick – average tag with with Sunil hitting Samir with the Bollywood award by mistake, setting up a Sliced Bread and senton bomb. And I guess it’s nice that the Sliced Bread and senton bomb are used on WWE TV.
Lot of Humberto Carrillo videos lately that don’t really feel like they’re accomplishing anything for him.
Did Lince Dorado say he vs. Humberto would be LUCHA LIT? What is wrong with this man? He vs. Ariya Daivari felt like a solid but unspectacular match from Cruiserweight Classic Round 1 mixed with the match length of a Round 2 match. I did not enjoy it.
I did enjoy Drake Maverick getting a bizzaro showcase in an Unsanctioned Match with Mike Kanellis: taking heat like a champ, rallying out of a chinlock like a champ, doing a fired up comeback like a champ, wearing kneepads over blue jeans like he’s in some Bunkhouse Match like a champ. I love a belt-whipping comeback too.
NXT UK 54 (7/31/19)
This brand moves at a snail’s pace but usually gets to the right place: WALTER vs. Tyler Bate for the WWE U.K. Title at TakeOver: Cardiff is the right match on a card shaping up OK, while Alexander Wolfe and Jordan Devlin got 15 minutes in the main event and I am suddenly a very big fan of Alexander Wolfe.
Imperium confronted Sid Scala and Johnny Saint to start the show like the meanies they are, which led to a Tyler Bate return and attack on all of Imperium which was equal parts a hot angle, completely goofy, and a way-too-convoluted way to setup what’s a pretty obvious match. The crowd was going wild but Bate was there throwing kung-fu kicks and WALTER was throwing silly swings at him and Aichner and Barthel were waiting on the ramp and ehhhhh.
There were some lines by commentary that killed me tonight, starting with, “Tyler Bate – we haven’t seen him in roughly a month!”
Mark Coffey & Wolfgang squashed Pretty Deadly was a squash in which Nigel said, “D’ya think Dynamite Kid could do that in his prime back in the day?” after a Wolfgang spot. WHY? I shuttered when they setup an in-ring promo, which led to a challenge to The Grizzled Young Veterans that if there is a Wrestling God will be some multi-team type of thing.
Bomber Dave Mastiff and Joe Coffey have been feuding, building up to a match that doesn’t quite hit TakeOver and instead airs the week before with it. I dig that kind of stuff. Keeps the shows interesting.
Rhea Ripley kicked Dani Luna‘s ass. It was good. So was the Toni Storm/Kay Lee Ray backstory video package. And the creepy Eddie Dennis surgery recovery video. All positive enough things.
The highlight of this show was Jordan Devlin vs. Alexander Wolfe, who in black boots and tights and showing off his gut opposite the smaller Devlin, looks like a proper monster. They wrestled a great tight match here with Jordan played bayface, getting a little run early with a slap and some stalling, followed by Wolfe just straight-up overpowering him, refusing to go up for the Spanish Fly and blocking a slingshot Stunner attempt with a deadlift suplex where he dropped Devlin gut-first on the ropes, which caused Devlin to basically explode.
Then Wolfe went after that gut afterwards, and they built towards a finish with a lot of nasty striking and Devlin selling the beating that preceded all of this. He eventually managed to to do both moves he couldn’t, using the extra momentum he got from the drama of a finish. Wolfe did an INCREDIBLE German suplex hold bridge towards the end, and eventually a MASSIVE sit-out powerbomb to get a very credible win and end a very intelligent war of a wrestling match.
One pet peeve: Devlin does that thing where when a guy kicks out of a sunset flip, he pushes them off. Why? WHY?
NXT (7/31/19)
There’s not much story left to tell with the NXT Title match, but the North American Title and Women’s Title matches got some live go-home segments, the Breakout Tournament Finals were decided, and there was a RETURN! By… FANDANGO! To save Tyler Breeze after The Forgotten Sons attacked him after Breeze got an upset win over big Ryker. I’m not positive WWE knows what they want to do with Forgotten Sons but someone’s just like, “Eh, Ryker is yoked – keep him on TV.” Either way, the Breezango reunion was legitimately heartwarming.
Bronson Reed vs. Cameron Grimes in the Semi Finals of the NXT Breakout Tournament was a solid match, with some a very good shoulder tackle and Vader Hammers from Reed and a nice subplot of Grimes just hanging onto stuff – the ropes, Reed himself – to avoid moves. Didn’t buy the double stomp finish though.
Shayna Baszler and Mia Yim had some quality time on the mic, though the “street trash” lines by Shayna probably aren’t the best due to there being such an asshole in the White House. A Mia win might feel real nice though.
Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai at TakeOver is very cool, and I find myself interested in Candice’s approach of being with William Regal outside as she requested it. You go into the office, you don’t get what you want. You take the man outside, maybe he’s got room to negotiate.
Roderick Strong vs. Pete Dunne had the match you expect from them, a more metro version of Hirooki Goto vs. Tomohiro Ishii with more enzuigiris. Loved the intense matwork early, Roddy bringing it to Dunne with strikes, Dunne running the ropes to take out Roddy. There was a lot of them grappling and struggling to find an opening, all while Roddy made a pinfall with his knee in Dunne’s face and pulled his hair – it was all so DIRTY and ruled. Even Nigel couldn’t contain himself with excitement as Dunne tried to rally back and Roddy just teed away at him with some nasty strikes.
Dunne took a rough bump off a backbreaker off the top rope on the apron that was really more Roddy pulling him down hard from the top on said apron. I thought Roddy’s corner-to-corner running elbows with Dunne out on the ropes was a cool spot, and it setup Dunne’s fired up hand and stomp-based comeback. Of course, because it’s These Guys, towards the end they do a sunset flip powerbomb on Dunne’s knees thing that reads less dramatic moment and more just something dumb. Eventually, Dunne stretched Roddy’s fingers into submission. Awesome match, just a little much sometimes. Velveteen Dream appeared post-match only to get laid out by Dunne, who has returned to NXT to DOMINATE.
MAIN EVENT (7/31/19)
God, this show. Bobby Roode, EC3 & Eric Young are doing a sort of gimmick with a Main Event Muscle Men stable that really just comes off as the saddest group of Dixie Carter victims that at least had cool NXT entrances once. They wrestled Lucha House Party in what I am sure entertained those in attendance. Dana Brooke vs. Lacey Evans opened the show and I’m not sure what to tell you here.
WWE TV Match of the Week: That Gauntlet Match!
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Alexander Wolfe
Above average week of WWE TV even if the buzz for SummerSlam hasn’t quite hit.
RAW: 7/10
SmackDown: 6/10
205 Live: 6/10
NXT UK: 6/10
NXT: 7/10
