It’s SEASON PREMIERE week and that means all the shows in this TV Week in Review are in a different order and we’ve got new intro music and sets and and Dio Maddin and THE FIEND and AEW got a great debut number and uhhh fuckin Tyson Fury and Cain Velasquez are here WHAT IS GOING ON!?
RAW (9/30/19)
It’s the Season Premiere of RAW and we’ve got new “Then Now Forever” music, we’ve got a new theme song, we’ve got a new set, we’ve got new graphics, we’ve got pyro, and we’ve got Vic Joseph, Dio Maddin and JERRY LAWLER on commentary. I don’t think Jerry Lawler and I fundamentally agree on certain sets of morals but as a commentator guy he seems like a good call right now with this new team. He still has it, is all I’m saying. To judge this new trio on the first night is kind of impossible though. The new presentation isn’t quite overwhelmingly different, though the way they shoot backstage stuff has been subtly changing over the last month and the BIG DOOR is sweet.
They also opened the show with one of the most amazing wrestling angles I’ve ever seen. Rey Mysterio came out to talk about his Universal Title match later with Seth Rollins, with his budding wrestler son Dominick watching from the front row. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman interrupted Rey, and I’ll tell you what: Rey taking the mic from Heyman was one of the coolest things Rey Mysterio, WWE Superstar, has ever done.
But then they went somewhere else. Lesnar attacked Rey, because of course, and then it didn’t end there. He started looking at Dominick, just staring him down, which was compelling enough – but then he actually attacked him. And it was legitimately vicious. I know Dominick is trained, I know Brock has a track record as a safe guy to work with, but despite all that this was some tremendous stuff that legitimately shook me. Brock grabbing Dominick like a weed from the front row throwing him down like a ton of bricks to the ground really set the tone, and Dominick was taking some BUMPS to get this over.
That German suplex, man. Commentary stating the obvious helped for once too: “HE’S A TEENAGER!” Rey laying over Dominick, knowing he’s unable to fight back opposite Brock, was amazing stuff. I’m not sure I’m a fan of where any of this is actually going, but for these 10 minutes I was watching some of the best sports entertainment I’ve seen in a long time.
The angle loomed over the entire show too, which was great. It’s times of change in the business like these when I, the wrestling fan, always get excited over the dumbest stuff: oooh new intro music, oooh an ambulance sound during a match, oooh they’re saying Lesnar is being interviewed by the authorities, oooh Miz is sending support his to Rey and Dominick. It’s part of the fun of this weird hobby.
There was some wrestling on this show too. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss was an OK match with an amazing finish: Sasha kicking Alexa’s leg and rolling her up then smiling. Lawler made the Heavy Machinery vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode RAW Tag Titles match fun: “Are you kidding me – a dropkick!?” Otherwise, another OK match with an amazing finish: the Trash Compactor finish countered with a superkick to Tucker, then a superkick to Otis into a Glorious DDT by Roode.
The Viking Raiders vs. The O.C. had another fine match, with the staredown between Gallows and Erik striking me the most. These hot finishes are getting the Raiders over, boy. Ricochet vs. Cesaro with Ricochet defending Rey from Cesaro’s shit talk was good stuff, and the match had some expected spectacular stuff like a press slam GTS by Cesaro and Ricochet busting out a West Coast Pop. Natalya vs. Lacey Evans happened later in the show and other than Lacey’s head slam into the steps and the eye rake finish, I didn’t much care for it.
“I think I might’ve done some Larping back in my day” – JERRY.
Match of the Show was AJ Styles vs. Cedric Alexander for the U.S. Title, which brought what these guys promise: high impact wrestling. Lots of fun bits like Cedric out-wrestling AJ on the mat and Cedric responding to AJ’s strike combo with one big back elbow to the side of the head. The Lumbar check to Styles Clash counter to finish was gorgeous too.
There was some solid go-home stuff too, including Heyman hyping up the stakes of Brock’s match with Kofi Kingston on SmackDown (on FOX!) and Sasha bursting into the frame for one last promo on Becky.
AOP‘s dialogue in their vignettes is getting more ridiculous by the week and I kind of love it. “He who is the violence becomes the author of pain.”
I’m not sure if it was a good promo, and it was definitely a bad angle, but Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair trading lines on MizTV to hype up what will surely be a terrible 5-on-5 tag match for Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia sure was special television. Flair always one quick pivot from going heel cracks me up – he’s embracing the WOOO’s and then suddenly, “I’ve had to listen to that music for 30 years, I’m TIRED OF IT.” It was especially hilarious coming directly after Hogan officially calling Flair the greatest of all time.
Flair had such glee in his eyes when he took off that jacket, and the crowd was pretty jacked up too until everybody realized it was to build up a Saudi Arabia match. Seth Rollins is captain for Team Hogan and Randy Orton is captain for Team Flair and I’m not sure anybody who’s watching is really all that happy but there is some serious cash exchanging hands here. Rollins doing all this silly stuff with The Fiend lurking seems kind of bad though, no?
I hope everybody – Vince, Heyman, WWE, the fans, and Miz himself – recognizes that Miz is maybe the only guy who can keep modern day Flair together on the mic.
The Fiend was all over this show even if his future victim had his head up Hogan’s ass or was defending his title against Rusev. This week’s Firefly Fun House was such a trip and in such a different dimension from the rest of this show. Wyatt doing the voices for all the characters and them all laughing leading into Ramblin’ Rabbit vs. Mercy the Buzzard in a Hell in a Cell match is one of those especially insane wrestling things that even an Adult Swim alt-cartoonist couldn’t come up with.
Rusev ending up Rollins’ challenger for the Universal Title instead of Mysterio tonight was not a direction I could have predicted, but then again I couldn’t have predicted Bobby Lashley returning and passionately making out with Lana so at least unpredictability has certainly returned to professional wrestling. Orton and presumed fellow Team Flair member King Corbin had to just stand there and watch Rusev/Rollins which was a fine match with some fine counters at the start and some fine Rollins flurries and fine stretches of Rusev in control.
I just have no idea why they went home to Hell in a Cell with the Lashley/Lana makeout. Like, I’m not against it. I think it all might be fun. I wanna see Rusev beat some Lashley ass. But why do this now? At this moment? In this slot?
Weird.
As soon as Lashley and Lana finished their hot makeout session though, The Fiend did appear and attacked Rollins again. Because HELL IN A CELL.
NXT (10/2/19)
This was the first full two-hour NXT on USA, and also the first one going up opposite All Elite Wrestling: DYNAMITE.
“If you’re looking for something different, you’re home” lmao god damnit.
It was a good show, but the NXT I really really really liked is when Bayley was trying to find her courage or Balor presumably seemed like a main eventer waiting to happen. Or when when Bo Dallas was slowly going insane or when Ember Moon just HAD to beat Asuka.
What we got this week was a lot of good wrestling. LOTS of it. Everybody went HARD. Especially the advertising salesman – MAN were there a lot of commercial breaks on this show, right? But really, all the in-ring folks went big and there were a couple major moments on top of that too.
Just tell some stories again.
Either way, the wrestling. My word was Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle for the NXT Title a good match. I think it was better than the match they had earlier in the year, which I really really liked too. Loved the visual pre-match of Riddle fist bumping Regal at the curtain and walking out to get to work. The match was going Riddle going full Riddle and Cole was gamwe for it, just a whole bunch of heated, hard-hitting, sweet-ass suplex bro shit. I’m not even being facetious – it was awesome, just this constant stream of badass grappling. I’ll hear an argument against the fighting spirit spots with the most open of ears, but JEEEZUS was this one fun.
Hey Finn Balor is on NXT now. I don’t – I don’t know?
Velveteen Dream did a promo. Not the one where he breaks out as a star on this new NXT. But a promo.
Mia Yim vs. Io Shirai RULED, another match where I wish there was more meat to the character of these two but character be damned as they just went completely balls out. Lots of Applebee’s ads, but also lots of great wrestling that created the character the match needed – these two badasses want to win. The superplex somehow felt like the biggest moment of the match.
Johnny Gargano vs. Shane Thorne was Johnny Wrestling just being BACK, a fun match and great showcase for Thorne. Not quite a breakout, a little too long, a little too not the right match for whatever spot Gargano is in right now, but all in all I had a good time.
Shayna Baszler vs. Candice LeRae for the NXT Women’s Title was good, but though they tried to keep it grounded the match still called for Shayna to pull off some complicated wrestling maneuvers and I don’t like it when Shayna Baszler has to pull off complicated wrestling maneuvers. Regardless, Candice was just casually incredible – this was the best showcase yet of just how effortlessly she moves around the ring. The sleeper hold cradle was a great near fall, and Candice’s quebrada countered with a choke was legit deflating.
Christ, this show. There was a Pete Dunne vs. Danny Burch match too. And it ruled. They grappled the heck out of each other and made sure every shot looked great and was all dramatic. Like everybody else, they went hard.
Then Damian Priest attacked Pete Dunne. Hey, a story! Maybe!
The Undisputed Era vs. Street Profits in what may or may not have been the Profits’ send-off from NXT was pretty great. There was a long, and I mean LONG heat segment by Era, but they kicked some ass and it was kind of great. O’Reilly’s rolling Butterfly suplexes made me smile. I loved Fish missing the splash to setup the hot tag (there’s some joke about a fish missing a splash..), and Dawkins’ hot tag had all the confidence of a man who is crushing it on the main roster. It might’ve been a bit of a journey, but a great tag with a well-done screwy finish.
MAIN EVENT (10/2/19)
Look, No Way Jose vs. Mojo Rawley had their working boots on this week but I know you’re still not gonna see it.
Lucha House Party vs. EC3 & Eric Young wasn’t bad either – the Luchas (this time Dorado and Metalik) are basically always good, they just need fun opposition – EC3 and Young were willing to play along and bump around.
Nothing worth seeing, but two solid matches.
NXT UK 63 (10/3/19)
There was a pretty great standalone angle here, but NXT UK continues to feel like it’s just existing until someone figures out when the next UK TakeOver is.
Piper Niven vs. the MIA Isla Dawn had a real solid credible match with a lot of grappling and a hotter finish than you’d expect with Niven struggling to put down Dawn. Alexander Wolfe replaced the injured Ilja Dragunov to face Saxon Huxley, and Huxley is no natural babyface (hence why he was matched with Dragunov) but Wolfe dished out a pretty great ugly beating highlighted by an amazing Fujiwara armbar. Seems like Dragunov’s in Imperium’s sights or something.
One thing NXT UK does is just TRY STUFF with the way they film vignettes – it’s still usually got that veneer of WWE production, but on this show Ashton Smith (wearing a B.A. Star t-shirt) got interviewed in front of a black backdrop by a guy off-camera who had a weird single microphone that looked like something out of a porno. He said some stuff about his setbacks before The Grizzled Young Veterans burst in to talk some shit, with Drake rocking some over-the-top patterned velvet suit and shooing him off. I don’t know what this was, I don’t know it was meant to be, but a part of me enjoyed it.
The pretty great angle I referred to was a real local kind of deal, as MIKE BIRD, a hometown wrestling vet from Wales (which is allegedly where Cardiff is and is allegedly in the United Kingdom, allegedly). He trained Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster and came out to wrestle in the most classic of hometown wrestling vet attires: a Japanese-esque over-the-top hooded robe with an orange tucked in singlet underneath. He also did Bret Hart poses, such a wonderful mish-mash of almost star-quality wrestling amazingness.
Poor Mr. Bird got attacked by Wolfgang and Mark Coffey, which brought out Andrews and Webster for the save but also brought out Joe Coffey and led to Gallus standing tall. I liked Joe sneaking out past Webster and Andrews as they ran out for the save, but the only guy I really cared about during this whole deal was Mike Bird and I’m not positive that was the point.
Kay Lee Ray vs. Tegan Nox was the main event and it was a good match that really could’ve used the title on the line. I can’t say Ray’s beatdown was great or Nox’s comeback was great but past all that they built the drama up well and delivered a hot finish. I dug Nox’s knee playing a role throughout the match (including the finish), Nox powering out of Ray’s submission, and the foot-on-the-rope escape for Lee off the Shinest Wizard. Ray ducks a Nox kick into the post on the apron, which seemed like a dumb thing for Nox to try, and wins with the Gory Special.
SMACKDOWN (10/4/19)
This was a weird mish-mash of Hell in a Cell go-home angles, The Rock, and… Saudi Arabia pay-per-view build, somehow. I swear, there could be a novel – no, a series – written about WWE kicking off their run of TV on the FOX network by bringing in a couple fighters from outside wrestling to build to another chapter in every wrestling fan’s twice-yearly brush with morality, Vince McMahon’s Deal with the Devil: A Wild Saudi Arabian Ride for CASH! CASH! CASH!
So here we are here. On FOX. On network television. The actual TV. The TV that anyone can watch. TV socialism!
We’ve got ads on sports games. Like actual sports. Titus O’Neil and Roman Reigns are doing little cameos on games of sport. Sport celebrations are calling upon wrestling references, some forced and some not. My brother-in-law is texting me and asking questions about this. I don’t normally talk to my brother-in-law.
The synergy alive. The singularity is here. SmackDown is on FOX.
Here’s what I’m thinking after the first show. First of all, it’s a trip this is all happening. It feels big, both because they packed the show with MOMENTS~! but also because I think they were getting more cinematic in some of their camera work. I already hate the theme song but I’m into the design ideas of the intro and SmackDown definitely won the set lottery. There was a lot of buzzy stuff that happened, though a lot of which I wasn’t really into. For me the first show was solid, but not a home run, and definitely not wildly different from the usual STUFF.
It’s going to be interesting see how WWE melds the idea of AHHHH MAINSTREAM WOOOO with just having a wrestling show. They usually suck at that but also if the insanity is embraced it might work. I dunno. I guess we’ll see.
Vince and Stephanie doing the intro was either the passing of the torch to SmackDown as the A show or a cynical attempt to get them a photo op.
The biggest deal on this show, I’d say, outside of maybe former WWF superstar Rocky Maivia appearing, were the appearances of boxer Tyson Fury and Mixed Martial Artist Cain Velasquez on WWE TV to shoot angles for what will presumably be wrestling matches. And it’s Wrestling Bubble Time because I’ve got no read on either guy other than that Fury won a match people didn’t think he was going to and Cain beat Lesnar in the UFC, though that last one is just because Michael Cole told me.
So among other things on this show, there was a big ol’ 8-man tag between, uh, Randy Orton, AJ Styles, Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode vs. Braun Strowman, The Miz & Heavy Machinery, which was a swell enough way of getting 8 guys on TV getting their spots in. But know your show is a bit overloaded when AJ Styles is just casually playing guy on apron. And both during and after, Braun got into it with front row ticket holder Fury – first for fun, then after Fury jumped the barricade for REAAALLL. Or something. I don’t know. Braun’s officially the new Big Show and I’m not sure if this was any good or not.
Velasquez confronted new WWE Champ Brock Lesnar, who won the title in less time than it took Diesel to beat Bob Backlund from Kofi Kingston, who just got done wrong. So wrong. The leap right into the F5 was the lamest possible way to do this match, even if you were running the Cain angle or even if you were running short on time. Say what you will about Kofi’s title reign, this was also the lamest possible way to end it. As soon as Brock won the title, angry dad Rey Mysterio entered with Valsequez and Cain/Brock is a WWE thing now. Again I’m not sure if this was any good or not. The only thing I’ve got in my head is some Bill Hader type executive going “EYE BALLZZ, BAY-BEEE.”
Becky Lynch kicking things off was nice, Becky Lynch bantering and holding her own with The Rock was even better. Loved Rocky moving the camera and throwing his shirt over it, didn’t love his very 2007 roasting of King Corbin who was a game but generic guy for them to play off of. Cringey jokes aside, a segment that got its’ point across in that Becky Lynch has got some balls and Corbin is… well the same dork he always was, just with a crown and coat now.
Becky and Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley was a match that I can’t say was great or even very effective but it also felt like a BIG ASS MATCH and isn’t that what wrestling is ultimately all about? The Sasha/Becky showdown ruled and Charlotte did the moonsault to the floor. It was awesome.
Erin Andrews interviewed The New Day, which was neat.
Bray Wyatt‘s promo inside Firefly Fun House was goooooood. I am very fond of his mix of scary man and also serious pro wrestling championship contender. Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura was a couple moves before THE FIEND attacked Seth one last time before Hell in a Cell.
MATCH FLO. LOTS OF SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES ON FRIDAY NIGHTS.
The Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon Career vs. Career Ladder Match was a pretty cheap sprint of a gimmick match, with Shane doing an eh beatdown and hitting an elbow off the top through the commentary table to go to commercial, then a return from commercial with Owens doing a frog splash through Shane and a ladder and eventually winning. Shane being soundly fired and Stunned was a nice moment, although (Debbie Downer face) it probably should’ve happened months ago and was overshadowed by other things that happened on this show.
WHO IS DJ MARSHMELLO?
Roman Reigns was here too, and had an entertaining enough Lumberjack Match with Erick Rowan. Rowan powerbombed Ali into Roman. That was fun.
No 205 Live this week, so our last bit of wrestling on Friday nights is Lesnar being all AWWWWW SHIT at the sight of Cain Velasquez’s and Cain’s buddy Rey Rey.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle for the NXT Title
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Stardust
This company is crazy. They’ve got stuff like the Brock attacks Dominick angle and they’ve got stuff like prize fights for Mohammed bin Salman. And now it’s on FOX!!! I’m both interested and concerned.
RAW: 7/10
NXT: 7/10
NXT UK: 6/10
SmackDown: 8/10
