Coming off a Monday Night RAW honoring those that sacrificed everything for the United States of America, WWE fired more people.
Cutting Lana, Ruby Riott, Buddy Murphy, Aleister Black, and most surprisingly of all Braun Strowman (he beat Goldberg at WrestleMania last year!!) were business decisions but felt pretty nefarious, especially right before live crowds are about to back. Clear your books, set people free, but stop being such publicly disconnected weirdos about it — you know?
Anyways, it’s Drew vs. Bobby again at Hell in a Cell and Adam Cole’s back.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: Jimmy Smith, Kofi Kingston, Carmelo Hayes, MSK, Ilja Dragunov, Noam Dar, Liv Morgan, Kevin Owens, Rey Mysterio, The Usos
World: More WWE Releases, Just Waiting for Live Crowds, Adam Cole back at NXT, Roman Reigns & The Usos
Wrestling: Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston (RAW 5/31/21), NXT Cruiserweight Title: KUSHIDA [c] vs. Carmelo Hayes (NXT 6/1/21), Ilja Dragunov vs. Noam Dar (NXT UK 6/3/21), SmackDown Tag Team Title: Dominik & Rey Mysterio [c] vs. The Usos (SmackDown 6/6/21)
Entertainment: Kofi Kingston backstage interview on Drew McIntyre (RAW 5/31/21), Liv Morgan inset promo (SmackDown 6/4/21), Roman Reigns assaults Dominik Mysterio (SmackDown 6/4/21)
RAW (5/31/21)
Kofi Kingston rocked a promo and lost to Drew McIntyre in a fun TV main event, otherwise just another ridiculous show with the biggest news being that Jimmy Smith made his RAW commentary debut, concluding the Adnan Virk experiment. He did pretty great actually, vaguely capturing that mysterious sports but with stories vibe WWE seems to want on commentary. I’ll report back in a few weeks.
Ricochet and Humberto Carrillo beat Sheamus, John Morrison and Riddle made me laugh, and Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair are using Nikki Cross as a feud prop.
Cedric Alexander beat Cedric Alexander in 20 seconds, Mustafa Ali may be recruiting Mansoor, and Elias dropped Jaxson Ryker after they couldn’t win the tag titles. Big week for the power of collaboration.
We appear to be headed towards Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke challenging Tamina & Natalya for the Women’s Tag Titles.
Randy Orton did a powerbomb to Xavier Woods; Xavier Woods did a Fujiwara armbar to Randy Orton… match was too short to be anything though.
NXT (6/1/21)
For the first time in a while, NXT is trying new stuff out — and I don’t mean Unsanctioned Matches and mystical Chinese ladies. New guy Carmelo Hayes answered KUSHIDA‘s open challenge and had as good a toe-to-toe challenge as a new guy might hope for, a teaser trailer within a Cruiserweight Title match. Hit Squad and Isaiah “Swerve” Scott in particular seem like something out of a different TV show but it is a GREAT TV show.
Candice LeRae/Indi Hartwell vs. Zoey Stark/Zayda Ramier was a simple quality low key TV match but something that felt like a great hope too in this era of no apparent women’s division in WWE.
Speaking of hope: hey, folks! The NXT main event scene is semi-interesting again! Karrion Kross remains champ but the Johnny Gargano/Pete Dunne/Kyle O’Reilly match to start the show promised at least something more interesting than another Adam Cole run and then… oh. Well. Finn Balor out, Adam Cole in. OK then.
Dakota Kai kicked off the show putting the boots to Ember Moon, Jake Atlas and LA Knight got more time than usual (probably because Ted DiBiase was on-screen, and the MSK vs. Legado del Fantasma main event for the Tag Team Titles wasn’t some epic journey but WAS another fun outing for the boys, including a Bronson Reed run-in to setup some hot 6-mans in front of live crowds. Hopefully.
MAIN EVENT (6/2/21)
Fresh off his backstage appearance on RAW, Mansoor had fun with Drew Gulak and submissions. Fresh of the same backstage appearance, Mustafa Ali beat Jeff Hardy — who’s basically Great Kabuki right now.
NXT UK (6/3/21)
Like last week, a one-match show: Ilja Dragunov vs. Noam Dar opened and ruled. Ilja sold like a champ and was psychotic on the comeback, but Dar stood out the most looking like an absolute presence — he talked shit, tore up a body part, and both took and dished out nasty smacks to the back and chest. There was also — as Nigel McGuinness called – “a Gotch lift with an injured left knee!” That’s wrestling!
Elsewhere, new Heritage Cup Champ Tyler Bate appears to have fully embraced something involving zen, blindfolds, and nunchucks.
Three other matches here: Nathan Frazer was fun in the role as Tag Surprise Guy, teaming with Jack Starz to lose to Pretty Deadly. Joseph Conners downed Flash Morgan Webster; Joe Coffey downed Rampage Brown. What else is there to say?
SMACKDOWN (6/4/21)
Forward movement, good one-liners, fun characters… it isn’t great but I don’t ask for much, you know?
Helped that not just the first half-hour this week but the last one too was The Usos vs. Dominik & Rey Mysterio for the Tag Team Titles. That first half-hour ruled and it blows my mind that this was the first meeting of Rey Mysterio and either Uso. It was the Good Tag Work you’d expect from either pair, but every setup (heat, hot tag, finish) was performed sublimely: Rey’s baseball slide tope being caught with a Samoan drop into the table, Jey colliding into the corner, the apron senton by Rey followed by him getting bodied by a superkick. So good. Then they ran it back! More for storyline purposes, but Rey’s 619 setup was so so good. Cherish the legend.
Then Roman Reigns beat up Dominik and I guess it is still possible to get heat in a Thunderdome. The way he held Dom’s hands down as Dom tried to scrap back… just terrible, awful, heel shit. Give me Reigns vs. Rey on that silver platter.
SmackDown is usually a punch above anywhere in WWE with its’ one-liners, and they showed up this week: “You guys are six-time tag team champions who made the WrestleMania show once” – OW, Roman! “People have been trying to keep me down since I was 3 feet tall” – YES, Bianca! Even Chad Gable telling Montez Ford his frog splash lost some height was a good bit.
Liv Morgan crushed a promo and made me look up, then tapped to Carmella – just run this back and get Liv that win like Misawa over Jumbo already.
Shinsuke Nakamura and King Corbin may have ended their win-trading this week, while Kevin Owens couldn’t capture the IC Title from Apollo Crews in what was a pretty good match. Cmdr. Azeez attacked Owens BACKSTAGE, and Owens selling like he couldn’t walk provided a fine base for a wrestling match. They got a nice near fall off the pop-up powerbomb and Crews actually won with a DVD on the apron, which is something that should win when your opponent is all hurt and whatnot.
205 LIVE (6/4/21)
The New Class continued their success and decent wrestling matches: Ari Sterling continued to impress with a win over Sunil Singh, then August Grey beat Ariya Daivari. These aren’t even upsets.
