WrestleMania is in less than a month.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, Io Shirai, Pete Dunne, Daniel Bryan, Sasha Banks, Big E, Roman Reigns
World: Bobby Lashley Era, Shane Bullies Strowman, NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles, 2-Night TakeOver, Reginald!, Serious Big E
Wrestling: No DQ Match: Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus (RAW 3/8/21), NXT Women’s Title: Io Shirai [c] vs. Toni Storm (NXT 3/10/21)
Entertainment: Bobby Lashley beats The Miz again (RAW 3/8/21), Daniel Bryan explains himself to Edge (SmackDown 3/12/21), Big E promo on Apollo Crews (SmackDown 3/12/21)
RAW (3/8/21)
Randy Orton. Alexa Bliss. Fiend in a Box. The dumbest things define us now.
Braun Strowman traded a vacant WWE 2k game stare with Shane McMahon, who uncomfortably sniffed and heaved his way through a promo. Naomi challenged for the Tag Titles with Lana a week after getting bodied by Nia Jax. Charlotte Flair is mean. Rhea Ripley is on her way. Kofi and Woods and Retribution… are still just sort of hanging around.
I wish Bobby Lashley as champ didn’t feel so sudden, because everything about it — attitude, Hurt Business, suits, shoes, socks — fits.
Sheamus and Drew McIntyre had so much fun beating each other up last week they did it again, this time with No DQ rules and a double KO finish. It wasn’t as incredible as last week but was still really good.
NXT (3/10/21)
Most of this was comprised of wrestling matches, so that was good. Could’ve been more comprised of Kyle O’Reilly symbolically removing Adam Cole‘s armband or Velveteen Dream or something.
The hook here was two big (whatever that means) title matches, the first Io Shirai vs. Toni Storm which was a good match surrounded by all the usual drags of NXT, from general environment to the need to do stuff like Io countering a Toni diving headbutt with a crossface as if that was supposed to make sense.
Pete Dunne had the most interesting enhancement match with Jake Atlas right after.
Finn Balor vs. Adam Cole for the NXT Title got popping at the end, though take it from someone who inexplicably still keeps up with all this: I don’t want to watch these guys trade holds any longer.
Also, there are NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles now. Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez were awarded them for winning the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, which could’ve been for the titles in the first place but we don’t have to think about that.
They defended them an hour later against Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart and lost.
“Therapy ain’t free.” — Johnny Gargano
MAIN EVENT (3/10/21)
Fresh-faced new commentator Kevin Patrick tried really hard to make Lucha House Party vs. MACE & T-BAR seem interesting, then gave the same effort at Ricochet & Mansoor vs. Akira Gulak & Drew Tozawa or whoever. He did fine, but it’ll be a bummer when the joy is gone from his voice in next week.
NXT UK (3/11/21)
The NXT UK lads love editing videos, man. These shows are partially wrestling matches but mostly digital shorts. Eddie Dennis is torturing Wild Boar I think. Aoife Valkyrie had something to say. Nina Samuels made Xia Brookside’s bed. Tyler Bate is helping Trent Seven slim down to challenge Jordan Devlin, who’s already on a plane to the U.S.
In the ring, I like Tyler Bate and Dave Mastiff but not in a Heritage Cup Rules match for 20 minutes. Teoman won his debut match, though it wasn’t as impressive as the vignettes. Kenny Williams cheated to win a tag match and Amir Jordan was conflicted. Piper Niven/Jack Starz vs. Jinny/Joseph Conners was your main event.
They call Ben Carter a new name now: Nathan Frazer.
SMACKDOWN (3/12/21)
“Don’t even worry about this match, Bi-AN-ca!”
SmackDown is packed with wrestlers and gimmicks I enjoy, though right now they’re just good bits on the way to a still-iffy WrestleMania. Still helps the show fly by.
SmackDown has two strong pillars – Roman Reigns and Sasha Banks (ding dong…) – but it’s also built out a semi-interesting midcard and tag division, which results in things like a fun 8-man tag with the Mysterio Family & Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy and those other guys. Chad Gable did a perfect butterfly suplex hold and Montez Ford’s rotation frog splash finisher was awesome. Sami Zayn and King Corbin as perfect strangers isn’t Shakespeare but it at least gives them something to DO, which is sadly like WWE’s #1 problem.
Cesaro is being highlighted too like it’s either WrestleMania or contract season, and this week he did cool stuff opposite a game opponent (Murphy) before being attacked by his generic rival (Seth Rollins). Producer Jamie Noble holding back old boss Seth from the third curb stomp was great TV and I even dug Seth’s little showdown with Nakamura in the back too.
Big E‘s return promo ruled: “You Apollo… you made me go biblical.” Ohhhhhhh…
I still think the WrestleMania main event ends up Reigns/Edge, but the Road to WrestleMania has hit a detour — an extra annoying detour though that feels unnecessary and is so long you’re not positive you will emerge in the right place. Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan is the Universal Title match at Fastlane now, and of course Daniel Bryan is delivering so well you can’t help but wonder why he didn’t just win the god damn rumble and face Roman in the first place.
Edge encouraging Jey Uso backstage and referencing the Harper/Rowan vs. Usos Battleground tag was 50x better (I counted) than Main Event Edge, who would just be so much more fun if he was doing something like a street fight with Owens, Zayn and Corbin and not the Big Fake Main Event.
205 LIVE (3/12/21)
Curt Stallion & Mansoor vs. The Bollywood Boyz (with Ever-Rise on commentary) followed by August Grey beating Ariya Daivari. That was the show. Everything was Just Fine, but after the Ali/Buddy/Cedric era I still haven’t come across an actual point for 205 Live. I think it’s supposed to be a preview of what will eventually be an EVOLVE developmental show, but this preview has been going on for… good god.
