We’re past the Clash and onto Hell in a Cell but more importantly SmackDown on FOX! Plus this week NXT made its debut on the USA Network. STUFF IS HAPPENING!
RAW (9/16/19)
At the end of the show, I wrote in my notes: “OK Heyman’s in charge now.”
Great wrestling, a return for Rusev, character development for AOP, The Fiend lurking, and some of the honest-to-god best legitimate comedy on RAW in decades: Knoxville County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, the Gender Reveal ridiculousness, Ricochet’s “…not that I wouldn’t” in relation to banging Maria Kanellis, Renee Young’s baby daddy line, Street Profits being Street Profits, Titus O’Neil hyping up Ricochet… SUCH GOOD SHIT.
Plus you had stuff like “REY MYSTERIO IN ACTION!” all over the show in big letters that resulted in a random Rey vs. Cesaro match. Also everybody just seemed looser too. The news out of the show was Vince was out of town, and that feels like too easy of a reason but god damn: did you SEE Michael Cole leaning against the announce table!? oh my GOD.
Where to start? Well, starting with a Seth Rollins promo isn’t the best, even if he is Universal Champ. It did give us the first appearance of Wyatt and The Firefly Fun House though.
Then Braun Strowman beat up both sets of tag champs, Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode and The Revival, who for a brief moment made up a pretty great bizzaro Four Horsemen. “Take a good hard look at greatness.” Anyways, it was all for naught. Even Heyman falls curse to the “all top WWE babyfaces are pricks” trope.
After that, we were off to the races.
Cedric Alexander & The Viking Raiders vs. The O.C. The Official Original And Only Club That Matters was a sweet showcase for the Raiders with a sweet Ivar hot tag. The car crash spot where everyone got a shot on was mesmerizing, and Cedric took what might’ve been the greatest bump off the Phenomenal Forearm of all time. AJ is going to put Cedric over and it’s going to be awesome.
I’ll be frank with you: I did not expect this evening to feature Kane appearing in several cameos playing the role of any cheesy Town Mayor that has ever shown up on television, showing R-Truth and Carmella around town: dropping knowledge about Knoxville’s own Pat Summitt, taking Truth to Neyland Stadium to beat him for the 24/7 Title, taking a bump on concrete later on so Truth can regain it – you know, Mayor stuff. I loved it, especially his “I… STILL… GOT IIIIT!” as he ran off with the championship.
And even this had more of a payoff later on.
But before that, the King of the Ring Finals. Chad Gable vs. Baron Corbin. The thing about Chad Gable is that he very well might be one of the best wrestlers in the world when he gets some time to actually wrestle, even moreso when people are given a reason to care about said match. Go watch him vs. Rusev on SmackDown from like last year – it was the last match he got anything like the time he’s gotten in the King of the Ring, and it ruled.
So did this match. I mean I loved just about everything about this, and it delivered on the Gable underdog story so well that that he did NOT win was really the only thing that took away from this career best match for both guys. They both put out an incredible performance and the crowd helped them along by completely buying in. Plus there were a bunch of Game of Thrones references on commentary.
Right from the bell they set the story, with Gable tricking Corbin to drop down and applying a front facelock, which prefaced 10 minutes of Corbin just kicking Gable’s ass. It was great. Gable got back body dropped into the timekeeper chairs. He fired back with elbows, but Corbin rebounded off the ropes and knocked him down, screaming “NO! NO CHANCE!” He caught Corbin with a Minoru Suzuki ropes armbreaker, but Corbin powerbombed out. He fought out of a chinlock, only to get thrown against the ropes and lay dazed as Corbin aggressively taunted the crowd.
The finish was a trip, with Gable eventually getting on an ankle lock, only for Corbin to escape, only for Gable to keep it on. Corbin escaped again and hit what HAS to be a Top 10 Deep Six, only for his under-the-ropes lariat to be countered with the Chaos Theory German Suplex. As will happen in a 15-minute Gable match, the crowd rallies behind their guy and chants his name. He goes for a moonsault, misses, but avoids an End of Days with an ankle pick and ankle lock. Gable scissoring the lock was such an amazing TAPTAPTAP moment, but Corbin got to the ropes and hit a brilliant tilt-a-whirl End of Days to win King of the Ring. Amazing. Astounding. Awesome.
The Mike & Maria Kanellis saga continued this week with a little more charm than usual: a Gender Reveal Party, Maria randomly claiming RICOCHET is the father, Ricochet actually seeming cool, and Titus hyping him up to go fight Mike. Angelo Dawkins thinking he might be the father was phenomenal too.
Ricochet vs. Kanellis was the best: Kanellis storming out to the ring with the fucking blue and pink patches on his shirt, Ricochet coming to the ring all “cmon mannnn” before soundly squashing his ass after some initial reluctance. Renee’s “Mike Kanellis just got his ass kicked by his own baby’s daddy” line was SPECIAL, especially since you could feel how ridiculous she knew it was.
Speaking of ridiculous, Maria added another layer to her tale and introduced RUSEV as the father, a Rusev sporting a shredded bod and manly mustache.
Random Rey Mysterio vs. Cesaro ruled. Before commercial there was a tope to tornado DDT, and as they returned from commercial Cesaro just annihilated Rey with a lariat. These two just casually crushed it, with some cool complex Rey spots mixed in with Cesaro just wrecking him. A lionsault to tornado DDT? Sure! A 619 to a press slam gutbuster? JESUS CHRIST, YEAH! Cesaro did the Three Amigo’s, Rey countered with a rana into the 619, then Cesaro caught another rana, which was countered with a Code Red. God DAMN. Rey’s got like a decade left doesn’t he?
AOP returned in vignette promo where they actually articulated who they are for the first actual time – cue aliens in Toy Story whoaaaaa. I dug the Paul Ellering stuff, but it was spooky mythic crap. The REAL Authors of Pain are guys who disappeared from TV because “every tag team in WWE is soft” and everybody is afraid of them. HELL. YAAASSS.
Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley was highlighted by Bayley adapting well to that Heel Life and Alexa deciding to up her striking game all of the sudden. I guess it was also highlighted when Bayley viciously tossed Alexa into the steel steps, yup. That led to Nikki getting worked over and it was good stuff. They pulled off a great near fall off of Nikki’s finish before the Bank Statement ended it.
Then Charlotte Flair tip-toed down the entry ramp in the highest of heels to big boot Bayley. This SHOW, man.
Sasha and Becky in Hell in a Cell – two strong promos, one monster match. What a time.
Lacey Evans vs. Dana Brooke meanwhile was a real piss break of a match and I really try not to use that term.
Seth Rollins vs. Robert Roode ended up the most solid little-match up for basic-ass WWE Champ Seth Rollins before Dolph and The O.C. ran in setting up the both completely obvious and completely unexpected Actual Kane save. The Kane intro REALLY needs the explosion but it was fun as hell…. and then, of course, THE FIEND showed up and laid out KANE and it was REMARKABLE.
Even more remarkable? They ended the show with a legitimate 200 seconds of the Firefly Fun House theme while special effects warped the logo.
What. A. Show. And it was FUNNY! On PURPOSE!!
SMACKDOWN (9/17/19)
Kind of a quiet show, even with a lot going on: Shane/Owens, Kofi/Orton, Bryan/Roman/Rowan, and Charlotte vs. Sasha. Oh and BROCK LESNAR!?
Dug a 6-man tag kicking off SmackDown, The New Day vs. Randy Orton & The Revival. It was nothing new but a good time. The post-match BROCK LESNAR and Paul Heyman challenge for the WWE Title was genuinely surprising and feels like a smart deal for the FOX debut. Should go without saying, but I liked Kofi not backing down too.
Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura are such absolute HEELS, my word – Ali didn’t just get laid out he got disrespected.
The Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens feud was… extended on this show, with the fired Owens appearing in the crowd and serving Shane with a lawsuit.
Cannot believe they just dropped Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks on TV, especially with OFFSET showing up to intro Charlotte. It wasn’t much, with Charlotte basically beating Sasha down unless they were split-screen with a commercial. They found a groove at the finish, but then it ended. The angle with Carmella saving Charlotte from Sasha and her pal Bayley was cool, but not sure the pros behind Sasha getting wrecked by Carmella right now.
The Coronation of King Corbin was not exactly a promising start, but Chad Gable kicking his ass and knocking down the throne was good TV.
Otis now wrestles shirtless – I LOVE IT. Heavy Machinery squashed The B-Team for the second time but that first part is your story.
The whole Roman Reigns Attacker story went off the rails a while ago but now that Luke Harper is back and Daniel Bryan is teasing a face turn I think it might be starting to have some kind of… layer? I think? Maybe? The Rowan sit-down interview wasn’t much – the guy looks the part, the guy is solid in the ring, the guy is not an interesting figure to center a feud around. And I’m all for Daniel Bryan in a main event feud, but him going at it with his buddy Rowan and Rowan’s buddy Harper to end the show felt… sudden? Like, when did we make the leap to all this? I don’t know. Let’s go to FOX.
205 LIVE (9/17/19)
20 minutes of Ariya Daivari vs. Lince Dorado had to be a rib. Poor Dio Maddin is getting a crash course in selling whatever is in front of you though: “You can see it on his face – he’s SO frustrated.” Arggghh.
Jack Gallagher vs. Brian Kendrick was sadly forgettable, though made slightly memorable by Kendrick turning heel again when he attacked Gallagher with a kendo stick, then Akira Tozawa when Tozawa tried to stop it. It was all very heatless but Kendrick vs. Tozawa is one of my favorite things. That should be the last match on 205 Live.
I’ve got one question about Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Nese: why?
NXT UK 61 (9/18/19)
Nothing to see here, really.
Travis Banks vs. Tyson T-Bone was a tough match to get through, especially when I had NXT already taped. Banks did a real crap inside cradle off a T-Bone suplex to win. Noam Dar talking shit to Trent Seven to setup their match next week was equal parts lazy and hilarious. Joseph Conners vs. Kenny Williams was, like Daivari/Dorado, a rib.
Thank God for Rhea Ripley though, this show’s saving grace. The aura of her is only increasing, this chick in her early 20s who comes off as this badass vet. She had a heck of a squash vs. Debbie Keitel , which wasn’t just a typical wrestling beatdown but more a “how dare you even hit me once I am going to kill you” kind of thing. The stuff with Jinny and Jazzy Gabert post-match was a drag though – Jazzy looked like a goof, and the intro of Jinny as a character post-vignettes has been a disappointment. She needs a dude or two around her.
The British Rounds Match between Kassius Ohno vs. Sid Scala was more an exhibition of a gimmick than a match, but kudos to everybody for trying something new. A WWE British Rounds Match has six 3-minute rounds, and the winner must either get two pins or submissions, one KO, or be ahead on falls at the end. Scala definitely has a charming Young David vibe to him and brought the cheeky escapes around what was mostly a lot of stretching from Ohno. There was a lot of hold-struggling, stiff shots, a few solid near falls, and rules to follow – I should’ve liked it, but I was bored.
NXT (9/18/19)
WE’RE LIVE, PAL!
This is so EXCITING! We’ve got the Full Sail crowd lights down and everyone’s hot for all these guys new to cable television so they’re coming off as STARS. Plus I think now the NXT TV in between TakeOver’s is going to actually have to be important!
Besides some rapid vignettes on USA Network to introduce some guys (Adam Cole, Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic, Damian Priest), they didn’t lie when they advertised No B.S. (yet) – this was a show about WRESTLING.
Candice LeRae vs. Bianca Belair vs. Mia Yim vs. Io Shirai for a shot at Shayna Baszler – Between a countered reverse rana and the the match being action-packed but incredibly going just 10 minutes it felt like a shot at AEW. Even when Candice DID pull off a reverse rana it actually led to the finish. Besides all that you had the crazy impressive gorilla press slam by Bianca, the Codebreaker on the apron by Candice, the moonsault to the floor by Io, and Mia… doing it for the kids. An amazing way to kickoff NXT on USA.
Raul Mendoza vs. Cameron Grimes – Grimes and his stupid hat feels like a parody of Hangman Page, and while on paper that seems good it is still coming off as bad. Poor Mendoza lost in 5 seconds to that stupid double stomp. I am pro 5-second squash match, I am anti it being all-time great squash wrestler Raul Mendoza in it.
Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong for the North American Title – I love that Dream has brought the top rope axehandle back as an offensive maneuver, even if beyond that the first half of this was kind of flat. Heckuva last half though, with the crowd rabid for the Stronghold. For a guy good at expression Dream sure didn’t kick out of the End of Heartache very well at the end though, did he? No classic, simply a good solid match which usually isn’t bad but for these two at this moment for this title it kind of was.
Pete Dunne vs. Arturo Ruas was an in-your-face kind of sprint, I loved it. You had them working the mat then Dunne just elbowing the shit out of Ruas, and both guys doing some rope-running and being good at that too. Ruas cartwheeled out of a triangle choke then did a breakdance superkick and German suplex hold. All in a row. It was crazy.
Xia Li vs. Aliyah – unfortunate slip aside, a great intro for the very impressive Xia freakin’ Li.
The only thing that wasn’t a match was an angle used to setup… WALTER vs. KUSHIDA!? WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT WORLD IS THIS? The whole thing was played brilliantly – first Denzel Dejournette comes out as a pitch perfect goofy jobber, then Imperium shows up (sans WALTER), which is cool because it establishes NXT UK guys can be on NXT, the crowd chants WHERE IS WALTER, and then WALTER actually emerges to a MASSIVE pop and cuts a promo, only to be interrupted by… KUSHIDA!!! WHAT. Loved it.
Oney Lorcan vs. Lio Rush for a shot at the Cruiserweight Title was another thing I did not expect to happen on this show, but here we are. These two had a squash on 205 Live a year ago that ruled while this was a lot longer and all the better for it: Oney was aggressive, Rush blew minds, Rush struggled in holds, and Rush pulled off the win. A fast-paced badass match and something that maybe wouldn’t work cold on the main roster but ruled here.
Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain was a brawl that very quickly went to the back and became a brawl between like 25 guys including Imperium, Street Profits, The Forgotten Sons, and Pete Dunne. Basically the entire roster. I think I saw Cezar Bononi in there. WALTER choking Riddle was a beautiful preview of things to hopefully come.
MAIN EVENT (9/18/19)
Mojo Rawley vs. No Way Jose – like Daivari/Dorado and Conners/Williams – another rib.
Lucha House Party vs. EC3 & Eric Young was literally 90 seconds of TV time.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Strong week for wrestling, but the King of the Ring Finals between Chad Gable and Baron Corbin topped it all
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Chad Gable
We’re really glad that you’re our friend. And this is a friendship that’ll never, ever end…
RAW: 10/10
SmackDown: 6/10
205 Live: 3/10
NXT UK: 4/10
NXT: 9/10
