It’s the WWE DRAFT! The SMACKDOWN SEASON PREMIERE! And we’re in the THUNDERDOOOOO-ahhh it’s all still bad, but sometimes good.
The Week in Review
Best Promos: Jordan Devlin return promo (NXT UK 10/15/20), The New Day Farewell (SmackDown 10/16/20)
Best Angles: Jey Uso attacks Roman Reigns with a chair (SmackDown 10/16/20)
Who made this worth it?: The New Day, Roman Reigns, Jey Uso
Notable Trends: The WWE Draft, New Day Splits, The Tribal Chief Carries WWE
RAW (10/12/20)
Monday was the conclusion of the WWE Draft, with RAW acquiring Braun, Jeff, Matt (not that one!), Lacey, Nikki, Alexa, and Fiend. Kevin, Robert, Montez, and Angelo are headed to SmackDown, and they just swapped their Tag Team Titles with and Kofi & Xavier backstage. That’s kind of bad but it really is just so convenient, no?
Kofi/Woods vs. Ziggler/Roode for the RAW Tag Titles was pretty good, an in-ring highlight of a show that was otherwise mostly promo interruptions and people brawling. The Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins match was OK, if only because it’s possible the Triple Threat is where middle-aged Jeff and AJ excel most.
Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton threw punches while Kevin Owens and Aleister Black took nasty bumps in a No DQ Match that in the Thunderdome setting came off just silly. Angel Garza with a huge wrap around his leg beat Andrade in a write-off as quiet as their tag run.
Were Mustafa Ali and Retribution even on this show??
The main event was a Battle Royal for a shot at Asuka and here’s the deal: Natalya and Lacey Evans were the last two left until Lana revealed herself as not eliminated and won.
NXT (10/14/20)
The wrestling is usually fine. Strong/Fish vs. Oney/Burch was good. Johnny Gargano vs. Austin Theory and Candice LeRae vs. Shotzi Blackheart were both OK matches, if not ones that’ll turn heads.
Toni Storm‘s return against Aliyah hit right, and the Drake Maverick & Killian Dain team borders on adorable.
There’s too much dragging this down though: the lame Indi Hartell interference for Candice, the lame Cameron Grimes interference in the main event, Vic Joseph screaming over the interference like a real lame dude. Ripley and Gonzalez are having the most paint-by-numbers feud and at the end of the day nobody even really matters. The NXT Champ‘s jaw is broken and everybody else is either MIA or in a “re-building” phase.
The main event – Damian Priest vs. Dexter Lumis for the North American Title – was a very solid championship wrestling match stuck on a show dragged down by too many things – and honestly one of those things is that they think it’s OK to main event with this match.
MAIN EVENT (10/14/20)
In the second match, Tozawa wrestled in his ninja outfit against Humberto Carrillo.
NXT UK (10/15/20)
It’s mostly because of the main event, but Jordan Devlin cut a fire return promo where he called people wearing Performance Center shirts in Florida STOOGES and the Heritage Cup match – Dave Mastiff vs. Joseph Conners – ended when Conners got KO’d by a random elbow. It was like the most psychologically-sound match of the Cup so far.
Piper Niven vs. Isla Dawn was pretty cool too in that instead of working straight WWE formula they went with just beating the fuck out of each other. Amazing!
Pete Dunne & Ilja Dragunov vs. WALTER & Alexander Wolfe was our main event and kind of ruled, though you wouldn’t always know it because it was missing the audience. Folks in WWE have found ways to work around COVID restrictions but they’re doing it with the benefit of the Thunderdome noise – these guys fought through basically silence and had what felt like the type of match people would flip for. Dunne and WALTER returned to the ring with a mission to apply tight headlocks before a Dragunov ass-kicking led into a full-on Real World Tag League tribute, big strikes and saves and everybody just being an absolute freakish badass. Bring them to the States! Wait – don’t.
SMACKDOWN (10/16/20)
Jeff Hardy did business on the way out for Lars Sullivan (WHY), Bianca Belair was introduced to FOX with an incredible vignette, Street Profits defended their SmackDown Tag Titles for 40 seconds before a DQ, and the returning Daniel Bryan bantered with Seth Rollins and the Mysterio Family as a kind of way to get everyone on the show.
The New Day proper – Big E, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods – wrestled their last 6-man tag for presumably a while as Kofi and Woods head to RAW and E stays on SmackDown. They did THEIR 6-MAN one more time with Sheamus, Cesaro & Nakamura and there weren’t any surprises, but you’ve got to appreciate the consistency FOLKS. An actually well-intentioned farewell – good stuff.
“I’m Sasha Banks, and my name is bigger than your title” – great line for a feud that WWE has been trying their best to cool off for some reason. Boss and Bayley will get through it.
Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman have had great matches in the past, matches that actually put a young Braun over in fact, but I was still surprised by how good their Universal Title match was here. They base their matches around momentum and big collisions and Roman is one of the only guys in modern wrestling that can make that kind of thing work. Roman sent his natural opponent off to RAW with a guillotine choke of all things, as if the Tribal Chief could get any more cool.
Oh, he can get more cool? Alright. The show ended with another classic angle, though what even is “classic” when they are just doing equally great promos and angles every single week? After Roman won (with a GUILLOTINE CHOKE!) he gave an ice cold warning Jey Uso: “If I can do this to him, imagine what I can do to you.” Jey had enough with his weird sociopath cousin and UNLEASHED with an Emmy-award winning chairshot delivery, all the while screaming again and again: “You love me? I love you too! You love me? I love you too!”
Then Roman got in a cheapshot and knocked him out, which seemed like a little much until the camera zoomed in on Roman’s face, the reflection of a man filled with disappointment over now knowing how bad he’ll have to hurt Jey Uso. Unbelievable how good WWE can be in these moments and then there’s the rest of the * gestures wildly above *…
205 LIVE (10/16/20)
Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs. Brian Kendrick was another good Kendrick vs. Newcomer match in 2020 – Spanky’s still got it.
