Working Man’s WWE TV Review: 7/5/20 – 7/11/20

The new U.S. Title is boring and ugly. Thank you.

RAW (7/6/20)

COVID RAW has settled into a regular cadence of OK efforts in the ring and awful everything else, which I would like to say is par for the course but this has been extra bad. I’m positive running this circus is a tough gig, but there aren’t a lot of enterprises out there where you get to see the poor decisions in real-time.

Heath Slater returned to lose to Drew McIntyre in 20 seconds, but not before cutting a quality promo that made me think he shouldn’t be used to heat up Dolph Ziggler – Slater/McIntyre is the PPV match!

Randy Orton scolding Angel Garza during their 6-man with Big Show (yeah him) and The Viking Raiders was so good but I wish I could get excited about a possible Legacy 2.0 with Andrade – just doesn’t seem like something that will actually happen.

Kevin Owens & Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins & Murphy was pretty good despite building up a… sigh … Eye for an Eye Match. Dominick did great with the reaction shots. MVP & Bob Lashley vs. Ricochet & Cedric Alexander, also, was pretty good.

Ruby Riott straight-up calling The IIconics “dumbasses” felt like the realest thing on WWE TV ever – let the people loose!!!

Sasha Banks vs. Kairi Sane killed it, as did Bayley vs. Asuka in the main event – women’s wrestling is the only real wrestling going on in WWE right now.

Rating: 3/10

NXT (7/8/20)

Keith Lee is the NXT Champion now. It was nice liking Keith Lee.

It’s a moment that should have happened in front of a screaming audience of exciting wrestling fans but instead happened in front of a bunch of tired WWE employees who tried their best. He beat Adam Cole in a Winner Takes All match with his North American Title on the line too, and let me just say this: Keith Lee and Adam Cole work well together. It’s big prideful guy vs. small but dangerous wimp and they’re both willing to play along – tough to make Cole look credible against big Keith, but here we are. Tough to make Keith look awesome having so much trouble, but here we are.

Good chemistry, good dynamic, etc. This was a big match and treated like it – the shots of each guy prior to the match walking to the curtain were a nice touch. Cole worked side headlocks, Keith squeezed Cole’s hand really hard. Keith got sent through the plexiglass on the floor, Cole worked holds, and eventually Keith lifted Cole for a superplex like a BABY. The finish was filled with big bumps, quality “awwww WTF” reactions, and the expected batch of near falls. Cole’s pinky save was dumb, but Keith swatting his hand down after in frustration was undeniably cool.

The rest of Night 2 of Great American Bash was similar to Night 2 of Fyter Fest though: great main event, weak if not more stacked than usual undercard.

Candice LeRae vs. Mia Yim in a Street Fight was good solid fun, way over-the-top WWE gimmicky but they got ALL the gimmicks with a brawl in both the crowd and concession stand, or whatever a concession stand is when it’s only people that work at the Performance Center there. Both really went hard on the weapon shots – appreciate that.

Johnny Gargano vs. Isaiah “Swerve” Scott was the pretty good match you’d expect – nothing more, nothing less. Swerve is a prospect, but so was Gargano. Not sure I trust anyone working these matches on NXT every week to develop.

Elsewhere, I have no idea what Robert Stone is going for anymore. Not sure I ever did. Bronson Reed vs. Tony Nese was random but passable. Mercedes Martinez is getting a Warlord run, just a straight-up meanie.

Rating: 5/10

MAIN EVENT (7/8/20)

Titus Worldwide EXPLODED this week on Hulu.com with Titus O’Neil‘s in-ring return for a match where Akira Tozawa worked heel against him and did the Killer Bees switcheroo gimmick with his group of ninjas. What a world. Later in the show after a recap of all the hard-hitting WWE action this week, Bianca Belair continued to be Mrs. Main Event and had a solid match with Peyton Royce.

Rating: 3/10

NXT UK (7/9/20)

SUPERSTAR PICKS!!!

Andy Shepherd looks tired.

This was a HECK of a week of picks, three of the best WWE matches in recent memory.

Alexander Wolfe chose KUSHIDA vs. WALTER from NXT 10/9/19: This was a wonderful result of WWE’s Gotta Catch Em All recruitment strategy, two complete product wrestlers from different countries not just delivering but exceeding a main event level match on some random episode of NXT. It’s an extra hard-hitting version of David vs. Goliath, and I always love when poor WALTER has to do leapfrogs to keep up with a guy.

Xia Brookside chose Toni Storm vs. Meiko Satomura from the Mae Young Classic Semi Finals 10/24/18: I went the full five on this – exciting, violent, credible wrestling with some all-timer near falls and a young gal being put over by a professional wrestling legend. Storm’s STF choke that she wouldn’t let go of was epic.

Flash Morgan Webster chose Pete Dunne vs. Zack Gibson for the UK Title from NXT 8/22/18: All hail Pete Dunne just casually having classic WWE U.K. Title defenses. Their match Gibson won the U.K. Tournament was good not great. This right here was great. Wristlocks, chops, selling, and a wild finish, all highlighted by Dunne being a special type of fired up babyface refusing to stay down against this dickhead. Also really appreciated how Dunne used the cute finger break and hand stomp spots as ways to win, not to pop the folks.

Rating: 8/10

SMACKDOWN (7/10/20)

Low effort, the same matches they’ve done too many times over the last few months or years – Jeff Hardy vs. The Miz, Bayley/Sasha vs. Alexa/Nikki, New Day vs. Cesaro/Nakamura. There was a replay of the terrible Braun Strowman/Bray Wyatt match from Money in the Bank and a Karaoke Showdown in the middle. A failure.

Rating: 1/10

205 LIVE (7/10/20)

A decent show this week and more interesting than usual, with the return of Mansoor vs. Tehuti Miles. Mansoor wrestles like a guy making a play for a main roster spot and they had a rock solid match. Escobar Santos vs. Oney Lorcan was more enhancement-esque than I had hope, Oney got his stuff in but most of it was Escobar putting him in leglocks.

Rating: 5/10

What Made the WWE Move This Week?

Best Match: Keith Lee vs. Adam Cole, Winner Takes All, from NXT

Best Promo: Cesaro when he took offense to Sarah Schreiber’s question

Best Angle: It was probably Randy Orton interacting with the Ninjas

Who made this worth it?: Bayley, Sasha Banks, Asuka, Kairi Sane, Keith Lee, Randy Orton

Notable Trends: Keith Lee has ascended, Women’s wrestling is the only good wrestling, WWE is really bad at cinematic gimmick ideas