Working Man’s WWE TV Review: 12/6/20 – 12/12/20

I was the one who had it all
I was the master of my fate
I never needed anybody in my life
I learned the truth too late

The Week in Review

Best Matches: NXT UK Heritage Cup: A-Kid [c] vs. Tyler Bate (NXT UK 12/10/20)

Best Promos: The Gargano Family Celebration (NXT 12/9/20), Bayley/Bianca Belair Confrontation (SmackDown 12/11/20)

Best Angles: Rhea Ripley/Raquel Gonzalez Staredown (NXT 12/9/20), Roman Reigns sends a message to Kevin Owens’ Family (SmackDown 12/11/20)

Who made this worth it?: Cedric Alexander, Cameron Grimes, Pete Dunne, Raquel Gonzalez, A-Kid, Big E

Notable Trends: RAW is Bad, Lazy Title Match Setups, The Gargano Family Re-invented, 205 Live: The New Class

RAW (12/7/20)

If I told you this show had Asuka vs. Shayna Baszler, Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt, Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Lashley, and Cedric Alexander pinning Kofi Kingston would you believe me? Would you believe me if I told you none of it was any good?

Even The Miz can’t make this show work. Bad.

Rating: 2/10

NXT (12/9/20)

NXT is still too toxic production, narrative, and occasionally personnel-wise, but alongside some good wrestling matches this was a cautious step in the right direction: Heel Johnny Gargano and Family is fun, The Bruiserweight is back, and the women’s division was re-shuffled into something more interesting.

Pete Dunne interrupting Finn Balor was a tremendous start to a show, but the promo got progressively worse as more and more people had to get involved: Kyle O’Reilly, Damian Priest, and eventually Scarlett to remind us that Karrion Kross might be back soon. Ugh.

I thought WWE redeemed it as instead of a multi-man match (still time!), they put everybody in a more interesting situation: Dunne scowling and back to form in an awesome brawl with Killian Dain, Priest confronting Gargano then being attacked by Kross who actually DID return. I really just want a Balor/Dunne feud though.

Jake Atlas and Ashante “Thee” Adonis have been a couple of gems in COVID-era WWE and hopefully they’ll do something besides quiet 205 Live matches when audiences actually return. They had a good match this week.

The NXT singles divisions were re-shuffled well enough, but the tag division remains messy. Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Imperium vs. Ever-Rise was… a thing.

Overnight shipping IS so expensive! It’s so true! Lame dad Johnny Gargano is a lot better than vengeful Napoleon or whatever he was.

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon was a good main event… Rhea/Io from a few weeks ago was a more standard “big match,” but this felt like it accomplished a lot more. Ember did tremendous work moving and bumping for Raquel, who DOMINATED. The big boot and Eclipse counter spots were phenomenal.

Rating: 6/10

MAIN EVENT (12/9/20)

Main Event was a one-match show, with Angel Garza all cleaned up and probably giving a confused McMahon thoughts about Eddie Guerrero. He wrestled – wait for it – Keith Lee in a more inspired Main Event match than usual. It wasn’t one worth watching, but also one that with more juice could probably headline TLC.

In the first segment Elias played a song alongside his new bodyguard Jaxson Ryker (ugh) before 24/7 Title hijinks (ugh).

Rating: 4/10

NXT UK (12/10/20)

This was another NXT UK that will lose you on everything but the main event, a great match between the returning Tyler Bate and A-Kid for the NXT UK Heritage Cup, which I guess is an actual thing A-Kid defends now.

It was the best Heritage Cup rounds match there’s been, impressive and competitive European-style wrestling with well-timed out pinfalls: Bate with a surprise cradle in the third round, then A-Kid with an astoundingly delivered springboard backflip DDT at the end of the fourth to tie it up before a surprise cradle by A-Kid at the end that’s sold brilliantly.

The match got setup with the assistance of Noam Dar‘s new Supernova Sessions, which – I mean. Well. Sure. Whatever. The music is funny and it’s better than a Gallus or Xia Brookside match or something.

Jordan Devlin vs. Oliver Carter for the Cruiserweight Title was OK.

Rating: 5/10

SMACKDOWN (12/11/20)

FOX is lucky they have Roman Reigns and Big E, because they’re so fun to watch that it overcomes this show not being very good.

Genuinely could not tell this was a new venue for the ThunderDome – not sure if that says something about WWE or me.

Hollywood Sasha Banks is playing an attitude more scattered than the Young Bucks: her matches have been incredible, but the build-ups had plenty of bad mic performances. So she’s not carrying a feud with cougar Carmella, who challenged for the SmackDown Women’s Title and closed the show laughing after she won by DQ and smashed a champagne bottle over Sasha’s head. Weird.

The Roman Reigns/Kevin Owens feud got a solid follow-up this week, while the Chad Gable/Otis feels like it’s been fully milked a week in.

Trying to appreciate how much of a jam Big E’s new theme is while recovering from him not doing the New Day intro. Him vs. Sami Zayn was a good match: got time, good contrast of characters, and an actually clever countout finish. Zayn’s crossbody caught and rolled through by E was a beautiful thing.

The Big E vs. Roman Reigns Mania pipe dream is definitely more a dream for maybe uhhhhh TLC next year though.

Rating: 5/10

205 LIVE (12/11/20)

Tony Nese/Arita Daivari vs. The Bollywood Boyz didn’t move me – why would the boys not team up with the Boyz? There’s a bunch of young punks around!

Curt Stallion is getting the ultimate generic video game CAW push, this week tagging with his friends to score a surprise 6-man tag win over Legado del Fantasma. Then he ran them off to end the show. Awwwwww yeah. Heating up.

Rating: 3/10