In These Uncertain Times, the WWE has reluctantly embraced a studio TV wrestling show vibe for RAW and SmackDown and introduced clip shows for NXT UK and 205 Live. Main Event, for some reason, continues to air a pair of matches every single week.
RAW (4/20/20)
I wish Zelina Vega‘s group didn’t already feel like it was just there for Drew McIntyre to beat up, but it gives the show structure. Andrade looked like a puss in the opening segment, but he had a fine match with Akira Tozawa that included an AMAZING somersault senton from Tozawa – speed, precision, and Zelina screaming in the background. Austin Theory took a great Black Mass from Aleister Black after a decent match where they hit each other extra hard. Then Angel Garza was pretty easily beat by McIntyre in another fine but inessential McIntyre main event.
MVP single-handedly talking up the Money in the Bank gimmick and laying down for Crews was good work by MVP, while Rey Mysterio vs. Murphy went from a match where I laughed out loud at Rey saying “my fingers hurt” to a straight-up awesome bit of wrestling. They made Rey’s hurt hand a compelling part of the match and brought it home with typically incredible Rey flying. It was pretty much exactly what Rey/Murphy promises on paper, without a crowd and whatnot.
There was other stuff that was pretty inessential. Shayna Baszler continues to be a meanie. Charlotte Flair vs. Kayden Carter was fine. Shane Thorne & Brendan Vink looked good before they made Ricochet & Cedric Alexander look good. Nia Jax nearly killed Kairi Sane with a powerbomb. The Viking Raiders tried out a new chant in a promo that didn’t feel ready for prime time, both because it was bad and because people aren’t going to be chanting for a while. Bobby Lashley flipped a tire. You know.
NXT (4/22/20)
It’s probably bad that WWE feels they have to add spooky effects to ensure heel Johnny Gargano‘s promos are good, but heel Johnny Gargano also might be kind of promising. Yeah he might’ve been the best babyface in the world for a couple years, yeah the final match with Ciampa was real bad, but overall he is just so annoying now. Like compellingly so. In a way that I think might make a main roster run, whatever that might mean six months from now, more interesting than previously thought.
Heel Candice LeRae is unacceptable though.
The Cruiserweight Title Tournament isn’t much yet, with a few average matches that wouldn’t look out of place on… 205 Live. Drake Maverick vs. Jake Atlas was more notable for production choices only WWE could make: the careful editing around Jake Atlas outright saying he’s gay, the airing of Drake Maverick crying into a camera phone about his actual job loss before pivoting to a plug for a Triple H 25th Anniversary Special.
Amazing that WWE is still giving Tony Nese the cruiserweight intro videos 4 years later, like “Hi I’m Tony Nese, you might remember me from when I won a championship at WrestleMania.” Him vs. KUSHIDA was disappointing. El Hijo del Fantasma looked alright in a forgettable match with Jack Gallagher, then he got kidnapped. Just tossed into a truck after his wrestling match.
Tegan Nox & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez was straight-up ineffective, a match that took established acts and forced them to continue this paint-by-numbers WWE play feuding that never gets anyone over.
Speaking of paint-by-numbers, the Velveteen Dream vs. Finn Balor main event became Velveteen Dream & Keith Lee vs. Adam Cole & Roderick Strong, which ended up being Dream getting beat up for a few minutes in order to accomplish a few things: setup Keith Lee/Damian Priest with a Priest run-in, give Dexter Lumis a good spot as Lee’s replacement, and give Dream a 3-count win over Adam Cole. It did none of those things well.
MAIN EVENT (4/22/20)
NXT UK (4/23/20)
Here is what I wrote about this beautiful match last year:
A 45-minute professional wrestling main event championship match on the WWE Network. When you boil it down this is simple David vs. Goliath stuff but there was a lot going on here. It did a lot of what some of Bate’s best matches in WWE have done, and that’s deliver on the new school high impact fast-paced This is Awesome type of wrestling while also staying true to what makes old school wrestling great: stuff is teased and delivered on, everything from the holds to the urgency to win is sold dramatically, and at the end of the day everything is about absolute wonderful fake manliness with a little throwback BritWres thrown in there for fun. The match was smart, the match was fun, the match was epic. *****
A more extended take can be found in Happy Thoughts – NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff (8/31/19).
SMACKDOWN (4/24/20)
It’s got a tag team division. That tag team division has OK wrestling (The Miz & John Morrison vs. Lucha House Party) and a lot of bad catchphrases, particularly from The Forgotten Sons who threw like 15 into their promo at the start of the show. None worse than Lince Dorado trying to make “Lucha Lit!” a thing though.
There’s a Money in the Bank show coming up. Drew Gulak made for an ideal guy to get beat in an MITB Qualifier, in this case against King Corbin. I liked him using not just takedowns but straight-up elbows to go at Corbin before the inevitable defeat. With Sami Zayn MIA, it looks like Corbin might take on Cesaro and Nakamura as a group. Still no idea why Cesaro and Nakamura hate Bryan and Gulak, or why they ever really did in the first place.
Sasha Banks vs. Lacey Evans was the other MITB Qualifier and it was just nice to see Sasha Banks work an actual wrestling match, to be honest. They kept it to the point, with a pre-bell attack and nasty work over Lacey’s right arm before Bayley‘s manager shtick cost Sasha the match.
Sheamus seems a little too annoyed with Michael Cole just doing his job and reading introductions for what are just replays of Jeff Hardy‘s WWE 24 Special. More into Sheamus somehow throwing even harder strikes in this empty arena era.
There are still WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles, and they were defended this week by Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross against Carmella & Dana Brooke in a match that Just Wasn’t Much besides a sweet new finish from Nikki and Alexa.
There’s a main event scene too. This week, it was told through a historical video package.
There’s also Triple H. Doing a big 25th Anniversary celebration for an Executive after all the layoffs isn’t the best look, but at this point it might be more clear than ever that “best looks” aren’t what some people with money are after. He did bad shtick with Shawn Michaels, they took some FaceTime calls, and Vince McMahon came out to uncomfortably ramble. Not just bad TV, but off-putting TV.
205 LIVE (4/24/20)
Hart/Austin is a classic, with old school headlock work and big selling early before they moved to a fight on the floor. Might be something to say about these guys transitioning from old school NWA championship match work to what became the template WWE brawl. They make everything a competitive struggle, highlighted most late in the match when Austin grabs the ropes to escape a Sharpshooter attempt by Bret, leading to Bret just dropping the hold and punching at his face. Bret doesn’t get his foot all the way off the ropes as he counters Austin’s Million Dollar Dream sleeper with his famous rollup finish, but there’s enough impact for it to feel completely legit. Awesome match.
The Anything Goes Match is one of Ariya Daivari’s best matches in WWE, but it’s more occasionally fun than anything actually good. I had it at #38 of the Top 50 WWE Matches of Jult 2019. Ariya seems like a classic well-liked easy-to-work-with guy that doesn’t translate at all on-screen. Anyways, here’s the review:
Oney Rules because who else could have a Very Good Anything Goes match with the quiet hand that is Ariya Daivari!? It’s always fun to see these lower card guys get some gimmicks in a main event, even on WWE’s most irrelevant show. Oney storming out to silence bummed me out, but he and Daivari delivered on all the intensity they built up over the last month and just kinda hurt each other with them gimmicks – chairs, ladders, and CHAINS. And a We Want Tables chant led to… ACTUAL TABLES.
