There is a son I have named Owen, named after you-know-who even if the wife has a distaste for me admitting that out loud. He’s growing as fast as the cliché says at two-and-a-half years old and just recently he began to recognize the concept of narratives, a process of which was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Instead of a series of individual pages with pictures on them, there is now a visual and audible anticipation of what comes next as well as an acknowledgement if what comes next was expected or not.
Anyways, I don’t know why I decided to tell you about that.
The Week in Review
Best Promos: MVP starts The Hurt Business (RAW 8/3/20), Karrion Kross threatens Keith Lee (NXT 8/5/20), Big E on a Singles Run (SmackDown 8/7/20)
Best Angles: MVP starts The Hurt Business (RAW 8/3/20), Legado del Fantasma lays out Breezango (NXT 8/5/20), Pat McAfee punts Adam Cole (NXT 8/5/20)
Who made this worth it?: MVP, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Oney Lorcan, Cesaro, Big E
Notable Trends: MVP starts The Hurt Business, RAW UNDERGROUND!?, PAT MCAFEE!?, RETRIBUTION!?!?
RAW (8/3/20)
If you want to mess with presentation, may I suggest keeping the vibe I felt when MVP was ringside talking right to the camera? That was some wrestling.
I love how Apollo Crews‘ theme starts with the loud proclamation of “APOLLO!!!!!” now. Love it.
Not many better examples of the torture that is WWE acting/scripting than that Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan exchange, though the guys headlining the show Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton didn’t do much better. Is a weekly reminder that Vince McMahon stubbornly sticks to his guns when he has chosen to invest in boring white guys really supposed to hype anybody up for SummerSlam?
The pair of singles matches between Street Profits and Andrade/Angel Garza were just filler outside of Montez Ford being… POISONED!!! Bianca Belair ready to scrap with everybody on behalf of her dude made the angle worth it – screw Nia Jax beating up Pat Buck, give me Bianca wrecking Andrade.
“Akira Tozawa is a three-time 24/7 Champ.” – what a statement.
I enjoyed Shayna Baszler and Sasha Banks beating each other up for a bit before the Asuka run-in. Sasha and Bayley are enjoying themselves on career runs and though I’ll miss Kairi Sane a pairing of Asuka and Baszler is a very cool opposition. But it’s the only thing on the show that felt on the right track.
NXT (8/5/20)
McAfee has a name but I don’t think it’s the kind of name that should be presented as some kind of NXT Superstar, you know? At the same time this is the most I’ve been interested in an NXT Adam Cole match so there you go.
Otherwise? This show keeps getting worse. It lost the NXT charm a while ago, but sometimes this feels like a more backwards version of RAW. Mauro and Beth on commentary, Damian Priest and Bronson Reed exchanging bad dialogue, and the complicated explanation William Regal had to give for more Ladder Match Qualifiers all added up to a TV show I kind of resented.
I loved the Ridge Holland debut but absolutely did not need to hear a sentence begin with, “Earlier today, Ridge Holland Tweeted…” as he walked to the ring. STOP IT!!
The wrestling isn’t hitting either, with undefined characters having TV matches that could use some characters. The Robert Stone Brand is an attempt, but it’s not there yet. Rhea Ripley vs. Dakota Kai was a victim of roles, an easy babyface/heel match worked the opposite way with a lame finish on top of it.
Cameron Grimes did an admirable job being an annoying idiot who bumps for Keith Lee but why did anybody OK the stupid belly-to-belly spot? HOW DOES THIS HELP? The NXT Tag Titles match that setup the Cole/McAfee angle was, in a word, “OK.”
The only good match on this show was Ridge Holland vs. Oney Lorcan vs. Damian Priest. The brief Ridge I saw in NXT UK had him actually deliver on the early Brock Lesnar he is patterned after, an impressive feat. I missed an Oney with something to care about too and he brought the energy that made this an ideal non-stop action Triple Threat. Ridge impressively tossed Priest around while Oney slapped and bumped all over the place. Give me Oney vs. Ridge.
MAIN EVENT (8/5/20)
NXT UK (8/6/20)
SMACKDOWN (8/7/20)
Wow
This is so badly written
What the hell is going on
Love it so much lol
They had like Antifa come on and take over with bats
I groaned loudly to myself and shook my head, the kind of reaction well-known to anybody following WWE for any period of time.
The journey to what eventually became Retribution had a couple decent matches and a Big E promo surrounded by some genuinely terrible TV.
Sheamus and Matt Riddle grappled for 5 minutes before a run-inn while Cesaro and Lince Dorado had a blast working each other for 5 minutes. That was kind of it.
The Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville odyssey has occasional moments of inspiration but having “Mandy’s Hair” as a guest on MizTV would’ve been a low point for WWE if it wasn’t for like 10 other things they did last week. You can’t say the yuk yuks are for kids when you’re pulling creepy stuff like The Fiend putting his fingers in Alexa Bliss‘ mouth – PICK A LANE. Also, is Sheamus really going good guy? After he framed sober Jeff Hardy for a DUI and taunted him with his vice? We’re just moving on huh?
Then RETRIBUTION!!! They pulled the trademark chyron up 5 minutes later to run a BIG SUMMER ANGLE, which appeared on my TV screen as a bunch of little people in black ski masks and clothes running amok around the Performance Center like Nexus’ dumbass little brother doing stuff like beating up trainees and using a chainsaw to cut the ring ropes.
Is this a take on the summer of protests? A take on “Current Events”? Why do they think protesters would raise their hands and show off to the camera? They showed their bats to the camera like they were trying to be cool or something! Who thinks this is how protesters are other than the dipshits in charge of this operation? Bad TV, bad wrestling, bad commentary on society, etc etc etc.
