Beyond all the other bad things, WWE TV is just boring. That becomes even more evident when they’re building to WrestleMania and featuring plenty of guys I like, and it’s still just boring.
They aren’t developing a World, no crowd hurts the Wrestling, and the shallow approach to Entertainment and general humanity destroys everything anyways.
“Who will receive a championship opportunity?” is not an interesting enough premise when there are like 40 championships, but all the shows are based around it. I’m not convinced everyone even wants a championship anymore.
No working man or woman has time for one episode of this, let alone all of them. How can you even expect them to anymore? Maybe that’s part of the issue. You can’t market something if you don’t even know what you’re expecting the people to do when they see it.
Working Man’s Recap
World: Slow Road to WrestleMania, Bad Bunny, The Undisputed Era Splits, Apollo Crews and Otis Heel Turns
Wrestling: Parts of the RAW Gauntlet Match (2/15/21), Some of the tags on NXT (2/17/21), Ben Carter vs. Josh Morrell (NXT UK 2/18/21)
Entertainment: Apollo Crews injures Big E (SmackDown 2/19/21), Otis gets DQ’d against Rey Mysterio (SmackDown 2/19/21)
RAW (2/15/21)
In a more lively era, Kofi Kingston and The Miz had a solid long singles match to get Kofi into the Elimination Chamber. The last hour was good too, comprised entirely of a Gauntlet Match with AJ Styles, Kofi, Drew McIntyre, Jeff Hardy, Randy Orton, and Sheamus. It felt a little sometimes like the RAW guys trying to make a point, like “HEY! We can still wrestle!”
Styles and Kofi had a whole psychologically-sound match with a beautiful finish setup, then Styles went hard with McIntyre too. It got silly eventually, but the lead-up was as quality a piece of wrestling as RAW has seen in a while.
There was also magic with Alexa Bliss and I think Braun Strowman is mad at Shane McMahon. Oh no.
NXT (2/17/21)
Legit callous that Malcolm Bivens isn’t doing anything. Failure to launch. You waste enough time and amazing stuff like a Shayna Baszler/Dakota Kai showdown doesn’t hit like it used to.
Finn Balor, Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong vs. Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch with Adam Cole interfering is a heck of a title picture and main event but, as usual, the script needs work.
Real strong wrestling though. That 6-man was fun. Without a finish caused by Austin Theory being found in the back of a van, Shotzi Blackheart & Ember Moon vs. Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell was as good as the Dusty Classic finals. KUSHIDA and NJPW Strong legend Tyler Rust went to work too.
MAIN EVENT (2/17/21)
NXT UK (2/18/21)
They gave a big match build-up including comments from Drew McIntyre and Sheamus for the mediocre Rampage Brown vs. Joe Coffey main event, and a cool serious press conference for Kay Lee Ray and Meiko Satomura. A couple weeks ago A-Kid gave WALTER a run for his money; this week he struggled with Sha Samuels.
Seems like Tyler Bate and Trent Seven are both going through some stuff and I’m not sure whether I should be intrigued or creeped out.
Ben Carter is good. A lot of NXT UK runs together, but Ben Carter stands out.
SMACKDOWN (2/19/21)
This was a week with two (!) solid heel turns and the usual welcoming presence of Roman Reigns, though even Roman is having trouble overcoming the lame WrestleMania approach. Roman vs. Edge isn’t a terrible idea, but Edge winning the Rumble still feels like one.
Bayley’s Ding Dong getup aside, the women’s division took a real detour: Reginald the sommelier outshined Bianca and Sasha Banks in a 6-person tag for some reason, and I have been watching since they began on TV feuding with each other: Natalya and Tamina aren’t going to happen.
Apollo Crews crushing steel steps over Big E and Otis crushing Rey Mysterio weren’t just newsworthy angles, but well-executed ones too!
Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan & Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn, Jey Uso & King Corbin is a heck of a lineup for a main event, but ended up just OK. Most intriguing possibility is still Roman/Edge.
Hope Seth Rollins is paying Gulak royalties.
