This week was such a blurry shit-show that it was almost comforting to have WWE TV be so consistent: RAW is Bad, NXT is OK, SmackDown is Good.
The Week in Review
Best Promos: Kyle O’Reilly on TakeOver (NXT 9/30/20), Roman Reigns offers Jey Uso a rematch (SmackDown 10/2/20)
Best Angles: Ridge Holland lays out Kyle O’Reilly (NXT 9/30/20)
Who made this worth it?: Asuka, Kyle O’Reilly, KUSHIDA, Roman Reigns, Jey Uso
Notable Trends: RAW is Bad, The Development of Kyle O’Reilly, The Tribal Chief
RAW (9/28/20)
I guess The Hurt Business 6-man and that Keith Lee squash of that one guy were OK. Otherwise, what was this? WWE does a lot of talking instead of wrestling, but this felt extra – just endless promos and angles to expand on stories that no one in their right mind would want to see conclude or even develop.
There is more Mysterio Family drama, a new Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose tag team, and Aleister Black and Bianca Belair are doing new things that don’t hit.
RAW Underground and Retribution just weren’t on this week either, fuck it.
Poor Drew McIntyre‘s reign continued to limp along, this time with a show-long Open Challenge that had Robert Roode as the freakin’ punchline. The match might have even been good, I don’t know – it just ended eventually, and then Randy Orton put on night vision goggles and beat up some guys who used to matter.
NXT (9/30/20)
Kyle O’Reilly has quickly emerged as a guy who makes NXT interesting, a microphone and wrestling prodigy ready for the spotlight. It has had literally two weeks of build-up, but him vs. Finn Balor is the most interesting NXT match in years. The Adam Cole match/bit with Austin Theory makes it all the more interesting too.
The side-to-side promo for Santos Escobar vs. Swerve Scott was the last-minute hype this match needed, with Escobar going full Narcos villain and Swerve a little awkward at first before coming off as a natural human being.
See, promos and angles can make wrestling good. Take notes, whoever is in charge of RAW! Oh, it’s the same people? Huh?
There wasn’t much in the ring this week, though I thought the Johnny Gargano/Candice LeRae vs. Damian Priest/Io Shirai mixed tag main event was a much better mixed tag than usual. Ridge Holland just ripping up Cameron Grimes was nice, too. And while I enjoy KUSHIDA squashing Tony Nese, the G1 this year could’ve really used a KUSHIDA.
MAIN EVENT (9/30/20)
NXT UK (10/1/20)
It’s a different approach to WWE formula, but it’s still WWE formula. Alexander Wolfe vs. Noam Dar with Pete Dunne as referee opened the Cup, and it was the same match they’ve had before plus arguments with Dunne and generic rock music in between rounds.
The non-Heritage Cup stuff wasn’t much either. Kenny Williams vs. Amir Jordan vs. Ashton Smith was a very silly Triple Threat to qualify for the Cup, while Jinny and Xia Brookside looked a little ring rusty.
Also, Eddie Dennis‘ mind is a machine that’s always processing. He said so.
SMACKDOWN (10/2/20)
Jey Uso‘s exchange with Roman Reigns to start the show followed by a match and win over no less than AJ Styles was a welcome follow-up to Clash of Champions, especially considering I figured they’d just move on. The Styles match was real good, Styles in rare form opposite a Jey on the run of his life. They did a superplex off the apron onto the commentary table too. Come on!!
Otis and The Miz feuding in the court of law while Alexa Bliss plays Belle from Beauty and the Beast for The Fiend is a bit much in the STORYTELLING!! area, but I’ll take a direction.
I thought the Riddle/Dorado/Metalik vs. Corbin/Cesaro/Nakamura 6-man had some good energy, while a just a few minutes of TV time did well at building up Big E/Sheamus and Sasha/Bayley.
Then Sami Zayn headlined SmackDown against Jeff Hardy and retained the IC Title in a WHOLE match, another example this week of Jeff Hardy working like it was his dream to finally face El Generico.
