Working Man’s WWE TV Review: 2/2/20 – 2/8/20

Not great, though WrestleMania season brings the noise. That Friday night show on FOX still sucks.

WWE kicking off traditional Road to WrestleMania TV with build to the stupid Super ShowDown in stupid Saudi Arabia is a special kind of lousy but RAW was solid. Lots of angles and promos that weren’t THE angle or promo, but were low key quality continuations of the things RAW’s been cooking.

Randy Orton brooding for 10 minutes before not explaining the Edge attack, Drew McIntyre getting the good laugh lines and destroying Mojo Rawley, Aleister Black getting another squash and promo, even Kevin Owens getting beat up for 20 minutes only to lose and get a standing ovation for his efforts – this was all low key, quality continuation.

Not low key – ANGEL GARZA IS HERE. THE Angel Garza. A guy with the charisma and ability that reminds me of not just his tremendous dad Hector Garza but a guy I think very very highly of named Eddie Guerrero.

And he’s being introduced in a way that makes him seem like an intriguing part of a larger story – what show is this?? Zelina Vega has brought him to RAW because he is Humberto Carrillo‘s legitimate cousin but also because her usual main guy Andrade is spending 30 days suspended for something or another. He beat up poor Humberto and prepared to DDT him in the concrete (what a motif!), then wrestled no less than Rey Mysterio. It ruled and I hope it’s not temporary.

The match? It was cool. I’ll leave it to Happy Wrestling Land’s own Joshua Jericho when I asked he describe it to me without spoiling the result: “As long as you want it to be but not as good as you want it to be. That said, not bad either” – a painfully accurate description of most WWE TV matches. Still, awesome TV and the shot of Garza sticking out his tongue like a total asshole after dropping Rey Mysterio on concrete was EVERYTHING.

Elsewhere – Charlotte Flair going after the NXT Title is equal parts cool, necessary, and disappointing. Salt Lake City loved them some Rhea Ripley and made the angle work – actually, they loved most of this how and made most things work.

Asuka and Natalya took a standard RAW TV match and added a dash of “let’s go bitch!” and a pinch of “you wanna shoot on me!?” and suddenly their match felt more interesting than usual. Becky Lynch wore both sunglasses and confidence as she accepted Asuka’s challenge for a rematch next week. AMPED!

Seth Rollins vs. Ricochet vs. Bobby Lashley for a shot at Brock at the stupid ShowDown was your everyday Triple Threat with a dumber Tower of Doom spot than usual. I’d say this isn’t worth watching but then you’d miss Bobby Lashley’s contribution to that thing. Hesitant congratulations to The One and Only.

Rating: 7/10

I can gripe but the show is fun, TakeOver: Portland looks great, and Velveteen Dream is back.

The Undisputed Era searching for Tommaso Ciampa and messing with Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne throughout the show gave the festivities a little hook, leading to a 6-man main event that was all kinds of serviceable before the big reveal of The Dream. Riddle dicking around was good TV and I liked Bronson Reed getting a moment, though the eventual big pull-apart brawl felt a little silly.

The wrestling – one match in particular – was strong again, but the story this week was the promos. Johnny Gargano absolutely kills me with his whiny superhero act but calling Finn Balor “the guy who lost to Bobby Lashley like 17 weeks in a row” was a great line and the promo eventually got on track to giving Balor the edge he lost spending around 17 weeks losing to Bobby Lashley.

Charlotte Flair also showed up to consider challenging Rhea Ripley for WrestleMania and while Charlotte back at Full Sail University made for a fun atmosphere, Bianca Belair being in the middle made the segment deliver because she was outrageously good in all the best pro wrestling superstar ways.

Angel Garza vs. Swerve Scott was choc full of bombs and just genuinely impressive wrestling. Garza is a star. Throws a crazy superkick too.

Dominik Dijakovic vs. Killian Dain went by pretty quick but brought the generally impressive big guy stuff, though with all these heavyweights in NXT it is kind of disappointing to see these two have this even match filled with maneuvers when an alternative could be each guy wrecking somebody else or even just doing a match that feels more like you want to kill the other big fella and not one that feels like you want good marks from Hunter.

Bully heel with no time to spare Mercedes Martinez was not what I expected but I am tentatively in – she beat Kacy Catanzaro in a good old-fashioned to-the-point debut squash.

Alright, seriously – Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Breeze ruled. The match is a tale of two segments broken up by commercial, one a rough start and the other an epic close. Jordy Devlin is a real character, an acquired taste kinda guy, and by that I mean one who in a cold Full Sail debut will bore the shit out of you and then suddenly the crowd is screaming their lungs out for Tyler Breeze making a comeback. The boys did it – match of the show.

Rating: 8/10

I’m not sure what’s going on with Cedric Alexander these days but he wrestled Shelton Benjamin on this show and they had a very solid match that got to “very good” territory once Cedric randomly gave Shelton a Spanish Fly and the crowd flipped OUT. Afterwards they gave each other a hug like “yeah this is the best we can do on WWE TV that was fun…”

Also, Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins vs. The O.C.. How about that?

Rating: 5/10

Some decent wrestling matches but once again nothing actually exciting even if they’re building to WALTER vs. Bomber Dave.

Piper Niven and newcomer Dani Luna had a match that was all about Dani having to work for every single thing against the bigger Piper, which I dug as a basic logical wrestling thing you don’t see much in WWE.

Tyler Bate vs. A-Kid was a fine match if not feeling like a little bit of a training session here and there – guess that’s what will happen when the setup is literally that the new and currently one-dimensional A-Kid looks up to Bate and wants to have a friendly rassling match with him. The incoming Joseph Conners match will be the true test of Tyler Bate.

Kay Lee Ray and Toni Storm talked each other into one match and what can I say? Seriously, what else can I say?

Trent Seven and Eddie Dennis wrestled each other in a Steel Corners Street Fight which I’d say wasn’t as cool as it sounds but I’m not sure if it even sounds cool. The goal here seemed to be to top the Razor’s Edge to the outside from TakeOver, and after some brawling Seven’s Burning Hammer off the announcer’s table sure did that.

Rating: 3/10

Again, WWE kicking off traditional Road to WrestleMania TV with build to the stupid Super ShowDown in stupid Saudi Arabia is a special kind of lousy and on top of that this show stunk. SmackDown is running at like seven different wavelengths but everything also still feels the same. There’s campy stuff like Otis preparing for his date with Mandy Rose and Goldberg challenging The Fiend (HUH) and there’s solid wrestling like Cesaro vs. Elias and The Usos vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode but I also sit and watch and think, “No. None of this will do.”

The Dirt Sheet video was kinda good? Hope John Morrison enjoyed the ten minutes he had to do something different on WWE television – God bless.

The Usos vs. Roode/Ziggler was a solid tag that The Usos can do in their sleep at this point while Robert Roode can at least be absolutely there for a finish. That waistlock to blind tag to double superkick to Superfly splash… yes.

Kind of loved Daniel Bryan just ruining Heath Slater to get back on track. Very, very, very, very good squash match.

The Revival are like Horsemen Impersonators for Hire, any time an act needs some backup here come these guys. Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura got some help this week, though even if they all stood tall over Braun Strowman at the end everybody still looked bad.

Poor Shorty G and Apollo Crews – guess we’re doing Sheamus again.

The Fatal 4-Way main event with Naomi vs. Carmella vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Dana Brooke was perfectly fine and occasionally exciting though I’m not telling you anyone in it is actually any good right now besides Naomi.

Rating: 3/10

Damnit.

Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Brian Kendrick & Ariya Daivari – Burch got leglocked, sweet Oney tag, then a chairshot DQ. Oney and Burch did a Dudleys GET THE TABLES tease after the match which was a little awkward but appreciated – let’s get weird.

The Singh Brothers are still doing squash matches. Good for them!

New Champ Jordan Devlin vs. Lio Rush vs. Tony Nese was your very strange main event, though Devlin is coming off as a star every shot he gets – NXT UK, Full Sail, even whatever this is. Him vs. Lio early was SO good and very much worth seeking out, as Devlin tried harder than anybody yet to keep up with Lio and he looked both desperate and completely credible. Also near the end Lio stopped a Tower of Doom spot by just smashing Devlin and Nese’s heads together. Liked that.

Rating: 4/10

WWE TV Match of the Week: Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Breeze

WWE TV MVP of the Week: Tie for Angel Garza and Jordan Devlin