WWE in the ThunderDome continues to lack a soul, which one might find ironic considering the Final Farewell for The Undertaker they’re promoting currently. It was still a strong week of TV wrestling anyways: championship matches on RAW, NXT, and NXT UK that delivered along with a couple quality singles matches on SmackDown.
The Week in Review
Best Promos: Jey Uso on Daniel Bryan (SmackDown 11/20/20)
Best Angles: The Undisputed Era returns and attacks Pat McAfee & The Brand (NXT 11/18/20)
Who made this worth it?: Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Io Shirai, Piper Niven, Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan
Notable Trends: Survivor Series Season, Roman Reigns
RAW (11/16/20)
This was the usual irrelevancy with a couple matches kind of worth checking out. The New Day vs. Shelton/Cedric had the usual Kofi/Woods tag goodness plus a load of great near falls and Cedric Alexander doing a brainbuster.
Then Drew McIntyre regained the WWE Title from Randy Orton in a solid championship match between two guys absolutely OK with running through the motions as long as those motions still vaguely work. I’m not sure what the point of the last six months of this feud has been but I guess I ask that a lot.
Also, HEY! MUSTAFA ALI AND RETRIBUTION ACTUALLY WON A MATCH!
The rest was Team RAW (both male and female versions) killing time with in-fighting and the Jeff Hardy/Elias feud re-kindling for some reason. I bet there are multiple people backstage who take that feud very seriously.
NXT (11/18/20)
A pair of solid but forgettable women’s tag matches setup what would be an intriguing stable of Candice/Indi and Dakota/Raquel if it wasn’t definitely just something temporary for WarGames.
The Undisputed Era is BACK, bay-bay, and it… really isn’t that big of a deal. They beat up Pat McAfee who took a heck of a bump and Finn Balor was involved, but this tale has weaved a yawn-inducing web.
KUSHIDA vs. Arturo Ruas ruled, Cameron Grimes and Dexter Lumis committed to their Blindfold Match, and Tommaso Ciampa confronting Timothy Thatcher was logical though not quite awesome.
Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women’s Title was a lot of things: wild brawl, WWE main event, mini Rey Mysterio tribute. Most of it was good though it was another good NXT main event that will have trouble standing out, which at some point is just everybody’s fault.
MAIN EVENT (11/18/20)
NXT UK (11/19/20)
Kay Lee Ray vs. Piper Niven for the NXT UK Women’s Title – Falls Count Anywhere – was one of those COVID-era matches where I couldn’t stop myself from constantly asking WHY? WHY??? How are they just still doing gimmick matches like they always did!? The backstage stuff brawling was still 100x better than Edge/Orton at Mania, and KLR chucking a bell at the ring steps has to be the most genius way I’ve seen to make compelling audio since March.
The WALTER/Ilja Dragunov recap video was probably the other highlight. Sam Gradwell vs. Joe Coffey was physical boring, Pretty Deadly vs. Ashton Smith/Oliver Carter athletic and boring. Jordan Devlin is receiving challenges, Gallus is bickering with Alexander Wolfe, and Mark Andrews is all serious and yelling.
“The Hunt!!! I never thought you’d stoop this low…” – ah jeez, man.
SMACKDOWN (11/20/20)
In love with Sami Zayn being most relevant of the otherwise crappy SmackDown midcard heels, but uncomfortable with how strange it felt to see Daniel Bryan wear a facemask on WWE TV.
Seth Rollins put over Murphy in the type of match they’ve both gotten praise and hate for in the past, a bunch of smooth and impressive but lifeless wrestling not really enhanced by The Mysterio Family at ringside or ThunderDome or whatever.
