IT’S MSG WEEK BABY
ALSO I’M BUSY, SO BUSY BABY
SOMETIMES WORK IS SO BUSY BABY
THE WRESTLING CALMS ME DOWN BABY
ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S MSG WEEK BABY
Oh yeah and Clash of Champions is Sunday.
RAW (9/9/19)
RAW was amazing because Stone Cold Steve Austin was there and he was BS’ing about MSG to start the show, traded banter with AJ Styles, straight-up said the word “asshole” on the very careful production that is WWE television, and – spoiler alert – ended the show celebrating with the good guys like Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, The Viking Raiders, and Cedric Alexander – an embarrassment of riches.
Rollins and Strowman were kind of top babyface bummers during the whole deal, but the opening segment of this show felt like some fantasyland where Stone Cold was playing with the new school, capped off with AJ taking a Stunner. So good.
Cedric and AJ casually had a fun 5-minute match to start the show too, then the Raiders got a big time pop for doing something more interesting than a squash by saving him from the O.C., and it all led to a 10-man main event including Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler. I love a big 10-man tag but things did get pretty irrelevant during that Cedric beatdown, didn’t they? Ivar’s somersault plancha into basically nothing on the floor and Cedric pinning AJ were some MOMENTS. And then Austin’s music hit. Stone Cold!!! Stone Cold!!! That was how the show ended.
The rest was pretty good. I mean REY MYSTERIO VS. GRAN METALIK, DUDE. A match that was a legit pleasure to watch, Metalik getting the better of Rey through smooth beautiful rope-running and professional wrestling early before they went balls out. Rey’s baseball slide body splash countered with a superkick was an incredible spot, followed by a second rope springboard rana from Metalik that was so good they abruptly cut a picture-in-picture replay. They built from their usual fun shtick to their big match shtick and it was a blast – great match on paper, great match in reality.
The Four Horsewomen are having a moment again and MSG got the big tag in Sasha Banks & Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch. It was a good match, better than the usual top-of-the-hour RAW TV match but also a top-of-the-hour RAW TV match. Becky in particular seemed fired up, going hard on the bump to setup her taking heat and then going hard when she got a hot tag later on. Bayley launching Becky to both escape the Disarmer and break the Figure-Eight was Good Wrestling. It was cool to see Sasha vs. Charlotte again too, even with the whiffed big boot and feather-light landing moonsault.
The King of the Ring Semi Finals were strong, a Triple Threat Match between Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin vs. Samoa Joe. It was a match that, in between the This is Awesome, got a point across. I dug the use of Joe, whether he was throwing hands with Corbin or swatting down Ricochet. Ricochet flew around like the most impressive wrestler guy in the world , but also got destroyed very impressively too. His Shooting Star Press off the apron onto both guys was wild. And then Corbin won. Ha. Hahaha.
That’s four solid pillars for a wrestling show. Otherwise, Roman Reigns brought out some Connor’s Cure Kids and it was adorable. I think Natalya told Lacey Evans to lay it in for their match. And Firefly Fun House was on for a bit which provided decent place-setting for what I assume is to come post-Clash of Champions.
SMACKDOWN (9/10/19)
Shane McMahon has always been improbable, from the Mean Street Posse midcarder to this gray-haired main eventer role he inhibits now. He’s an infuriating device that’s been used for good and bad over the last twenty years. This week, I think he was used for good.
I go back-and-forth on the Kevin Owens stuff – the end game usually seems to work, but the journey is rough, even accounting for the random Owens’ ad-lib.
There was a LOT going on for the main event and final King of the Ring Semi Final match – calling it convoluted would be an under-statement but everything did seem to have a respectable part in the machine that is the Chad Gable Project. Shane made Owens Special Guest Ref, hoping Owens could do him a little favor to revoke that $100k fine.
Then Gable pinned Shane in 10 seconds with the Chaos Theory, Shane restarted the match, Owens thought about helping Shane, and finally Gable forced Shane to tap. I’m not sure they needed ALL OF THIS but both a pin AND tap on Best in the World Shane by this guy who still comes off as a fired up newcomer is good shit.
Then Shane fired Owens. Because wrestling is a satire of capitalism, or something.
Fun opening segment too, with The Undertaker chokeslamming Sami Zayn, a man with the audacity to interrupt Taker’s hundredth trip down memory lane. Taker’s face when Zayn’s music hit – beautiful.
Love The Miz but his kung fu strike blocks and kicks versus Andrade were hilariously soft. They blew the moonsault to SkullCrushing Finale finish too, but what an idea! Shinsuke Nakamura also did commentary entirely in Japanese during this match, a total gas.
Mandy Rose calling Nikki Cross ugly got the wrong kind of heat – no heat. Their match was very much a TV match but the missed Mandy knee to Nikki rollup finish was good stuff – Mandy went ALL IN on that knee. I also liked the start with Nikki lunging at Mandy and the ref having to overhand motion for the bell to ring as he tried to contain the chaos.
Incredible protein shake consumption by Otis on this show, and he and Tucker had themselves a great compact squash in which one of the opponents was named Alex Keaton. The Bayley/Ember Moon backstage exchange was awkward and their match wasn’t much. Woops.
Two big time-killer angles too: first, Roman and Rowan. They brawled here, as they tend to do, but this wasn’t just any brawl: a fan got powerbombed, a camera rig was used… only the greats like Rowan get all the tricks.
Kofi Kingston and Randy Orton also had themselves an angle that saw them just do the table spot again ten years later. Like they actually delivered on the table bump. I think that’s kind of cool. I also thought Randy’s line prior was savage: “I can’t go on listening to you talk about the two things you’ve done in the last ten years.”
205 LIVE (9/10/19)
Dio Maddin’s on commentary now!
I dunno. Two tags on this show with a whole lot of talent and I can’t tell ya if any of it was good or bad or not.
Jack Gallagher introduced KUSHIDA as his mystery partner to take on Brian Kendrick & Akira Tozawa and it’s pretty cool seeing KUSHIDA vs. Kendrick in MSG but they really robbed us of really any KUSHIDA/Tozawa exchanges and nothing got a reaction.
The Singh Brothers and Mike Kanellis are still here, and I know this because they got promos: one from the Bollywood Actor’s Studio, the other where Maria called her husband pathetic.
Gran Metalik, Lince Dorado & Humberto Carrillo vs. Drew Gulak, Tony Nese & Ariya Daivari was a match with two LONG heat segments that was highlighted by chants for a baby in the crowd.
I dunno.
NXT UK 60 (9/11/19)
NXT UK continues to find any kind of footing post-TakeOver: Cardiff… here we got some squashes, the return of Tegan Nox, and an NXT UK Tag Team Titles match.
Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel squashed Danny Jones & Harry Green, who sported some incredible jobber names. Ashton Smith got a little showcase opposite Jordan Devlin before he was brought down. Tegan Knox returned with her double kneebraces that scare me very much, and she had a very quick match with Shax to setup a very quick feud with Kay Lee Ray.
Dug them calling in Regal, Saint, Brookside and Nigel to hype next week’s British Rounds Match with Kassius Ohno vs. Sid Scala.
Noam Dar/Trent Seven feud ehhhhhh
The only thing with any kind of meat here was Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster defending their NXT UK Tag Team Titles against former champs The Grizzled Young Veterans, which was a pretty mediocre and pedantic tag match that was maybe almost good. The slingshout shoulderbreaker double team on Andrews was nice, the Gibson and Webster cradle exchanges not so much. A super reverse rana is still a stupid reverse rana.
NXT (9/11/19)
It’s the last NXT before the move to USA Network and NOT A WHOLE LOT IS HAPPENING.
Damian Priest vs. BOA had a fine high intensity heavy-hitting tall boy TV match. Hate saying it but once Vince sees BOA and his shorts I worry for Tozawa. Johnny Gargano is staying in NXT and Shane Thorne is not happy about it. There’s something about Cameron Grimes but it’s not there yet, and the double foot stomp finish is so bad. Love Raul Mendoza though, and Grimes’ squash of him was redeeming because of him.
The highlight of the show was the random but appreciated Pete Dunne vs. Angel Garza match, which wasn’t some epic but had a great dynamic to it and might’ve been a preview of something awesome to come. Garza is such an amazing little shit while Dunne stared him down like he was Taker and Garza was Zayn. Amazing rope-running, and we know Dunne can go fast-paced but Garza was right with him for everything. The match also had Nigel McGuinness saying this quote: “Speaking of blood rushing places, Angel Garza now down to his trunks.” YES.
Shayna Baszler vs. Rhea Ripley was real quick and I’m not sure it did much for Rhea but as far as a match that probably shouldn’t have been booked so early, it worked enough. Just a brawl, and then Marina and Jessamyn ran out.
Show ended with the same Undisputed Era promo they always cut.
MAIN EVENT (9/11/19)
Dana Brooke & Sarah Logan actually TEAMED this week opposite The IIconics before inevitable dissension. Bad finish by The IIconics.
Something Actually Happened on Main Event this week though, as former Knicks player (they’re in MSG remember) Enes Kenter came out for an interview before he was joined by R-Truth, won the 24/7 Title, revealed his Celtics jersey, and was then defeated by Truth. Silly fun stuff and surprised it wasn’t on RAW proper.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Ricochet vs. Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin from RAW
WWE TV MVP of the Week: AJ Styles, just for the Stone Cold banter
SO BUSY
RAW: 8/10
SmackDown: 7/10
205 Live: 4/10
NXT UK: 4/10
NXT: 5/10
