He travels by light, a machine capable of two or three things. Tasks rain down like a gasoline, soaking the mind in a blazing reality incapable of responding to the weight of the road he is on — not to mention the other ones.
He assesses and engages with things of this world and maybe those that are not, concepts like love and fear and good and evil. He persists or endures, maybe a combination of the two, and despite a ball of fire always tailing he continues down the road. For he is… the working man.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Pete Dunne, Finn Balor, Mustafa Ali, Trent Seven, Sam Gradwell, Street Profits, The Usos
World: RAW is Repeats, New Day Push, Where’s the Women’s Division?, The Bloodline
Wrestling: Xavier Woods vs. Riddle (RAW 5/24/21), NXT Title: Karrion Kross [c] w/ Scarlett vs. Finn Balor (NXT 5/25/21), Street Profits vs. The Usos (SmackDown 5/28/21)
Entertainment: The Million Dollar Face-Off with Ted DiBiase and Cameron Grimes (NXT 5/25/21), Street Profits/The Usos promo (SmackDown 5/28/21)
RAW (5/24/21)
I’ll tell you what: these wrestlers can wrestle. This was a week of in-ring work and it… worked, with 3-4 quality matches of some length and a couple fine quick ones too (Sheamus/Humberto!. Everything had a pretty stupid finish but HEY — it must be Monday!
Drew McIntyre/Kofi Kingston, Charlotte Flair/Asuka, and Xavier Woods/Riddle — all of this rocked. Kofi and Drew threw a bunch of competition and intensity at each other including an SOS counter of the FutureShock and a head-spike Michinoku Driver. Charlotte vs. Asuka is on every other weke at this point but they will absolutely mess each other up, while Woods and Riddle went all G1 Climax on us. Big Power Woods, baby.
Natalya & Tamina vs. Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Title came in just under me saying it “rocked.” It got the main event spot and vaguely delivered, with some tricked out double teams by Natty and Tamina. The women’s division is a mess across all WWE brands right now though. Nikki Cross beat Rhea Ripley because Ripley couldn’t beat her in 2 minutes, so the RAW Women’s Title is going well. I think Baszler is feuding with magic?
Jaxson Ryker beat AJ Styles.
The lesson here is to drop Lilly and keep pushing New Day.
NXT (5/25/21)
The train is headed to TakeOver: In Your House, though this week was about saying farewell to Finn Balor.
Balor vs. Karrion Kross was another NXT match I’m kind of over, but against those odds they managed a solid match with a hot finish. Like, I was totally bored with most of it. But I can get why someone might think it’s good. Call it the Karrion Kross Story.
Pete Dunne and Bobby Fish had a whole Shibata match and it was kind of cool. The changes to Dunne’s music were unnecessary, but Bobby Fish’s new fish bone Tron is just perfect. The finish was Dunne escaping an armbar and hitting the Bitter End for 3 – loved it.
I’m officially a Cameron Grimes fan. Big chuckles off his new humble act. The Ted DiBiase stuff is a pretty obvious “we too love nostalgia” play but I’m all for watching NXT’s youngins’ (plus LA Knight) work a bit with him.
Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher – find some chemistry. Please.
Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Raquel Gonzalez & Dakota Kai – it was a match. Santos Escobar is going after Bronson Reed. Franky Monet made her in-ring debut. Mercedes Martinez got marked by Tian Sha.
Still love Hit Row but keep the momentum going.
MAIN EVENT (5/26/21)
Ricochet. Mustafa Ali. Matches on Main Event. They have one win apiece. There was a double countout. And now… two out of three falls.
It was good, good in that WWE Main Event on Hulu kind of way. Ricochet lost the first fall by countout looking like a goof, then Ali kicked the referee and got DQ’d like a goof. For the third fall though, the boys went Balls Out including a superplex off the barricade on the floor and Ricochet catching a tope suicida with his bare hands. Ricochet wins the series with the Ripcord.
NXT UK (5/27/21)
At its’ core, NXT UK is about waiting around for Meiko Satomura matches. There’s one in two weeks!
Really quiet show this week, though Sam Gradwell took down Trent Seven with a BURNING HAMMER in a top shelf and physical TV main event. Gradwell is ridiculously ready for a main roster run, the heir apparent to Sheamus (a high compliment).
Nathan Frazer and Sha Samuels had a very WWE TV match with an incredibly smooth backflip DDT by Frazer. Creepy Teoman beat Ashton Smith then got ran off by Oliver Carter, and Kenny Williams squashed a big fella named Andy Wild.
SMACKDOWN (5/28/21)
SmackDown is spinning its’ wheels but gets by with a strong core, mainly Roman Reigns and them Uso boys. With Jimmy Uso back, they ran The Usos vs. Street Profits right away and it ruled. This felt like the Profits/New Day tag at Survivor Series last year, one that lived up to the hype because it wasn’t just about good wrestling: it was about being pricks and finding out who’s the best at tag team wrestling. Montez Ford looked like an all-star here but everyone delivered, seamless wrestling sequences and big near falls at the end.
“I just don’t want you to go back to that place where people look at you and say, ‘Which one are you again?'” – gosh DANG, Roman.
Natalya & Tamina vs. Riott Squad was good just because Riott Squad got to do something, anything, for more than 5 minutes. Bianca Belair vs. Carmella was solid, Seth Rollins is still a jerk, and Kevin Owens spent his Friday putting over Commander Azeez‘ Samoan Spike (or whatever they’re calling it) like a champ.
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Chad Gable was too quick but a pretty amazing stream of suplexes until Nak hit the Kinshasa.
Dominik Mysterio went it alone against Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode in the main event after Rey Mysterio got attacked backstage, and I can tell you that Dominik is much less compelling wrestling Dolph and Robert than Rey is. The show ended with the Usos staring down the Mysterios though, so… strong core.
205 LIVE (5/28/21)
In Tom Phillips’ last hurrah on commentary, Tony Nese continued to give high-quality tryout matches and let Asher Hale do ALLLLL his stuff before tapping out clean to him.
Elsehwere, Ariya Daivari worked Ari Sterling‘s leg.
