WrestleMania Backlash (that’s the name) is Sunday and it just got real spooky in NXT.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: John Morrison, Leon Ruff, MSK, Hit Row, Noam Dar, Nathan Frazer, Roman Reigns, Rey Mysterio
World: RAW is Bad, Hit Row is Just Different, New Women’s Tag Champions, Tag Teams Going Single
Wrestling: Leon Ruff vs. Pete Dunne (NXT 5/11/21), Heritage Cup Rules: Nathan Frazer vs. Noam Dar (NXT UK 5/13/21), Rey Mysterio vs. Dolph Ziggler (SmackDown 5/14/21)
Entertainment: Hit Row Debuts (NXT 5/11/21), Nakamura puts on King Corbin’s crown (SmackDown 5/14/21)
RAW (5/10/21)
The show began with a 6-women’s tag that Alexa Bliss helped Asuka win with magic. That’s what we in the business call a hook.
Two rematches from last month’s WrestleMania here, one for the WWE Title and one for the RAW Women’s Title. It’s a week later and they are but a foggy memory, the momentum of Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, and Rhea Ripley lost to a glut of content and a red brand that stopped caring long before it was sentenced to the Thunderdome.
Jinder Mahal is back with a revised Indus Sher and he beat Jeff Hardy, looking all of on his way out of the territory. An 8-man tag was highlighted by a Randy Orton/Omos showdown that they cut to commercial break immediately on.
I feel like Sheamus‘ da – why did he take that sunset flip powerbomb from Humberto Carrillo??
Lucha House Party re-introduced themselves (kind!). Shelton Benjamin beat Cedric Alexander (weird!). John Morrison bumped around real big for Damian Priest and then Priest chose to face The Miz in a Lumberjack Match on Sunday. Very cool guy, very cool show.
NXT (5/11/21)
“It’s about to get real spooky here in NXT.”
WWE does introductions a lot better than follow-up, but Hit Row has arrived and got an intro that made me feel like a fan of NXT again: Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, Top Dolla (!), and B-Fab (!?). Names aside they all cut good promos, already feel like a fully formed crew, and Swerve Scott looks like a completely reasonable NXT Champion. It’s good to be excited about something in this weird black metal Triple H paradise.
Leon Ruff screamed at William Regal, Pete Dunne and Oney Lorcan are back together, and Bobby Fish dropped himself from Kyle O’Reilly. All good things.
Some pretty good matches too: Pete and Leon smacked the shit out of each other, as did Oney and O’Reilly. Breezango remains such a graceful tag team even though Fandango is like 47, and had a fun match with MSK. KUSHIDA vs. Santos Escobar 2/3 falls for the Cruiserweight Title was a good wrestling sequences in the middle of a stipulation they didn’t need.
The top two titles are in a spot though, and it drags the show down down dowwwwn: the Karrion Kross/Austin Theory previously ranked very high on a list of WWE singles matches I hope I never have to see, and Raquel Gonzalez vs. Mercedes Martinez didn’t really work either.
MAIN EVENT (5/12/21)
A Mustafa Ali promo kicked off the show and Nikki Cross is back – Main Event is where things happen! Nikki and her bad theme music beat Naomi, then Ali and Ricochet kind of tore it up for a little bit in this terribly sanitized environment before a double countout.
NXT UK (5/13/21)
Goddamn can Nathan Frazer hit a backflip DDT. I mean goddamn. He opened the show with Noam Dar in a Heritage Cup (European) Rules match and these two fellas can wrestle. Maybe not enough to recommend NXT UK, but they can wrestle.
Mark Andrews (who enters with his crew in black-and-white now) had a fine TV match Levi Muir. Tyler Bate and A-Kid reminisced. Sam Gradwell yelled “stupid” like five times at Trent Seven.
The main event was a Gauntlet Match to see who challenges Kay Lee Ray next. Isla Dawn mowed through Emilia McKenzie and Dani Luna before Meiko Satomura emerged to have a good run opposite Isla and Jinny. Sure, let’s do Kay Lee Ray vs. Meiko Satomura again.
SMACKDOWN (5/14/21)
Apollo Crews cracks me up. “Hold on, hold on: you’re going to reward their misbehavior?!”
This was pretty good: Rey Mysterio had a whole match with Dolph Ziggler and I think Shinsuke Nakamura will finally get to wear a crown. He just looks cooler that way.
Tamina and Natalya are the Women’s Tag Team Champions now too. Good for them. Confusing for everyone.
The Roman Reigns family drama carried the last show before (WrestleMania) Backlash: he actually got angry with Jimmy Uso and the great Roman promo really comes out when he’s angry. Jimmy wrestled Cesaro for a bit in the main event, and though Roman showed enough fear in the post-match angle this all seems more about the Usos now.
205 LIVE (5/14/21)
Asher Hale and Ari Sterling are here now! At the same time!! It worked this week.
Asher took down Ariya Daivari in a solid match, but the real story here was Sterling vs. Tony Nese which kind of ruled. It went from an ideal WWE young lion intro match to the most dramatic near falls on 205 Live since Buddy Murphy.
