The Thunderdome Era lacks a soul, but sometimes WWE pulls a Cena and overcomes the odds. RAW continues to be a mess, but the rest of the shows this week – all of them! – delivered really fun and occasionally incredible wrestling.
Halloween Havoc was the best NXT show in a year, WALTER/Ilja Dragunov was the best match of the year, Roman Reigns is Roman Reigns, and Pete Dunne is back in America.
Talk to you after Election Day.
The Week in Review
Best Promos: Pat McAfee on The Undisputed Era (NXT 10/28/20), Roman Reigns tells Jey Uso to fall in line (SmackDown 10/30/20)
Best Angles: Pete Dunne returns and turns on Kyle O’Reilly (NXT 10/28/20), Jey Uso tells Roman Reigns he understands and attacks Daniel Bryan (SmackDown 10/30/20)
Who made this worth it?: MVP, Sheamus, Pat McAfee, Pete Dunne, Candice LeRae, WALTER, Ilja Dragunov, Roman Reigns, Jey Uso, Bianca Belair, Daniel Bryan
Notable Trends: RAW is Bad, NX-McAfee, WALTER, The Tribal Chief Consolidates Power
RAW (10/26/20)
Randy Orton is champ again, The Fiend and Alexa Bliss are embarrassing, and Drew McIntyre is like if Stone Cold was a suck-up to management.
The Matt Riddle/Sheamus match was a genuine highlight at least, a legit war that ended when Riddle’s back gave out and Sheamus kicked him in the face. Best part of the show besides Kofi Kingston mocking Angelo Dawkins (“NAW FAM!”).
AJ Styles/Jeff Hardy and Keith Lee/Elias were a pair of average matches that put AJ and Keith on Team RAW (because Survivor Series) and kept that firecracker of a Jeff/Elias feud moving.
The women’s division on this show is a monotonous mess, though might still be better than this Hurt Business vs. Retribution feud. They had an Elimination Match on this show that ended by DQ and Mia Yim getting attacked by fire ants or something? Man.
NXT (10/28/20)
The Halloween set and Shotzi Blackheart embracing the weird was a great backdrop for a show that had all kinds of sports entertainment: Pat McAfee crushed a promo and filled in plot holes, Pete Dunne returned and aligned with Pat, and a few championships got defended – some with Spin the Wheel, Make a Deal gimmicks.
Also, they sandwiched an elaborate horror movie slash Cirque du Soleil performance with a Michael PS Hayes cameo in between it all??
Pete Dunne is back in an actual role on WWE TV and he’s dropped the halfhearted babyface act – we are ALL better when The Bruiserweight is a heel. His music hitting as backup for Kyle O’Reilly followed by immediate turn on O’Reilly was a great one-two punch of surprises from a company that seems to have an aversion to surprises.
I wasn’t into the – ah jeez – Devil’s Playground match between Johnny Gargano and Damian Priest. All the timing and athleticism is incredibly impressive but little Johnny hitting a Sliced Bread on big Priest on the steel steps kind of just takes the steam out of everything they’re even trying to do. Priest took a big bump into the… crowd? and Johnny won the North American Title.
NXT and 205 Live both haven’t done the new generation of COVID Cruiserweights justice but Santos Escobar vs. Jake Atlas for the Cruiserweight Title was a fine competitive squash that doubled as a quality showcase for Atlas.
Rhea Gonzalez is one of those capable NXT roster members that has had like 5 TV matches but on a Halloween Havoc against Rhea Ripley she’ll just show up and deliver everything needed.
Io Shirai and Candice LeRae landed on a Table, Ladders & SCARES match and it was kind of the usual Ladder-in-a-Thunderdome stuff for a while before Candice went ahead and took the craziest bumps you’ll see all year. Love Io but give LeRae the gold.
MAIN EVENT (10/28/20)
Then Ricochet and Angel Garza killed some time in a Main Event Match Worth Watching before they hopefully do more interesting things one day.
NXT UK (10/29/20)
But first: Aoifie Valkyrie looked great going over Dani Luna, The Hunt turned heel for Eddie Dennis (eh), and the returning Jordan Devlin squashed a guy who chose NXT UK over The Olympics.
Then: WALTER vs. Dragunov. WALTER has had a special title reign, all-time great matches Dunne and Bate that captured an aura of stakes and competition that’s rare in any era. His match with Dragunov is right there with them, if not even better. As soon as the bell rang they made clear there would be no messing, Ilja going right at WALTER with the HARDEST strikes. It’s a risky strategy, but Dragunov makes you believe – he is not only keeping the pressure on but outright hurting the big guy.
Every shift in offense takes the ultimate effort, whether that means grappling into it or chopping REALLY REALLY hard. WALTER’s beating is as mean and nasty and credible as usual but Dragunov adds an extra ingredient, selling like a wobbly-legged man on the verge of spontaneous combustion and throwing all his weight into every single chop as he valiantly fights back. They were giving me Kobashi/Hansen vibes in how they kept an aggressive pace from the bell and if there was any rest they were still somehow hurting each other during it.
The finish was epic – like seriously epic not just hyperbole 2020 epic – completely earning the shock and awe of both guys just throwing death blows in an effort to end each other before a bloody-mouthed Dragunov got caught in a bearhug of a sleeper hold and the bell rang.
A five-star match, just on some random NXT UK. Is it Sweeps Week or something?
SMACKDOWN (10/30/20)
I don’t know what makes me more uncomfortable – Roman Reigns tormenting Jey Uso, or how Roman Reigns and Jey Uso are doing some of the best angles and promos of all time EVERY! SINGLE! WEEK! The consistency is unbelievable. The BURDEN it must be to carry SmackDown at a time like this.
“Turn off the music, idiots” – Bayley for President
Fully support anything that puts over Bianca Belair – keep moving.
Kevin Owens (and his jeans) beat Dolph Ziggler to qualify for Survivor Series and these two can still pull off some great near falls together, even after all these years and even in the Thunderdome.
Would be cool to see Montez Ford in a world where a crowd was reacting. The Street Profits vs. Nakamura & Cesaro tag was pretty good, and featured a Nakamura diving knee into a Cesaro gutwrench suplex. Very cool.
The opening promo of Jey trying to convince Roman to be a human being hit just as hard as the closing angle, where after Jey beat Daniel Bryan in an awesome little match to qualify for Survivor Series (Bryan charging for corner clothesline right into a superkick… amazing), Jey attacked Bryan some more and told Roman he was with him. That he understood. Roman’s response? Make Bryan understand. Jey put Bryan through a table and we got yet another pitch perfect extension of this story.
205 LIVE (10/30/20)
Tony Nese and Ariya Daivari playing grizzled vets as the EVOLVE-ish guys come to the territory is an absolute trip, though it leans more boring than hilarious. Daivari lost by flash cradle to Curt Stallion as Nese displayed a very poor attitude on commentary.
Brian Kendrick & Mansoor vs. Ever-Rise wasn’t go-out-of-your-way good, but was probably the best showing for Ever-Rise on TV yet – so more of that please.
