Some weeks it’s just the nuance of Jey Uso getting me through it.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: Kofi Kingston, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Mercedes Martinez, Cameron Grimes, Kay Lee Ray, Meiko Satomura, Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, Roman Reigns, Rey Mysterio
World: Lashley/McIntyre – Still!, Shayna’s Scared, TakeOver: In Your House, Kay Lee Ray is Dethroned, Battle for a Crown, The Roman Reigns/Usos Saga
Wrestling: NXT UK Title: Kay Lee Ray [c] vs. Meiko Satomura (NXT UK 6/10/21), Kevin Owens & Big E vs. Apollo Crews & Sami Zayn (SmackDown 6/11/21)
Entertainment: Ted DiBiase’s Priceless Announcement with Cameron Grimes and LA Knight (NXT 6/8/21), Roman Reigns tells Jimmy Uso to be the best (SmackDown 6/11/21), Rey Mysterio challenges Roman Reigns and Roman powerbombs Dominik to the outside (SmackDown 6/11/21)
RAW (6/7/21)
Another skip for the red brand.
The Viking Raiders won a Tag Team Battle Royal that peaked at John Morrison/Lince Dorado, Jaxson Ryker is getting a babyface push, and Drew McIntyre sliced up a contract signing table with his sword.
Nikki Cross said she isn’t pretty or strong then danced with Asuka. Sometimes you just have to type it out.
Ricochet and Humberto Carrillo exchanged moves for the right to get beat up by Sheamus at some point and Mansoor beat Drew Gulak in like a second. Jeff Hardy beat Cedric Alexander and I am pretty sure they explicitly told Kofi Kingston and Riddle to go out and kill time with a singles match.
The show ended with Shayna Baszler scared and trapped in Alexa’s Playground.
NXT (6/8/21)
Dok Hendrix might have sold the shit out of it but TakeOver: In Your House on Sunday is still a card built around two random multi-man matches: a Fatal 5-Way for the NXT Title and a Winner Take All 6-man.
That last one was just announced tonight, as was a Ladder Match between Cameron Grimes and LA Knight for the Million Dollar Championship. Grimes has become straight-up tremendous during this angle with Ted DiBiase, an actual funny guy in an unfunny company.
Austin Theory did a wild corner springboard Spanish Fly in the opener against Oney Lorcan, who actually won. Mercedes Martinez made threats to Tian Sha and Tyler Breeze has a goatee now.
Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs. Killian Dain and Ember Moon vs. Dakota Kai were both fun matches. Swerve will seamlessly hit hard, flip around, and run full speed into a crossbody.
Poppy (a musical artist) met Triple H and William Regal, hugged Dexter Lumis, and ran off Candice LeRae with Io Shirai – what a night!
MAIN EVENT (6/9/21)
“Cheeky move by Mustafa Ali!” exclaimed commentator Kevin Patrick, reacting as Ali moved into position to slam Garza’s head into the turnbuckle post and just submit him – a creative finish for a solid match.
Jinder Mahal was back with Veer & Shanky to wrestle Shelton Benjamin too, and they had the match you think they did.
NXT UK (6/10/21)
Aside from WALTER making a (brief) statement and Pretty Deadly being Pretty Funny on commentary, this week was about one thing: Kay Lee Ray vs. Meiko Satomura for the NXT UK Women’s Title.
KLR and Satomura last wrestled a few months ago in a match I liked a lot, one where Kay Lee Ray kept her title. This one was similar, not to say it was redundant: good credible championship wrestling is always in style for me. Meiko does the windmill kick towards the end and when KLR tries to avoid it, Satomura’s boot brushes her head — it could look like a missed spot, but what it really looks like is the nasty consequence of a competitive match.
KLR developed the confidence of a Champion a long time ago, while Satomura exudes a veteran credibility dashed with the possibility she might not be able to keep up anymore. They played with that over 20 or so minutes, building to a pretty epic finish marred only by some suit telling them to tack on a DQ tease and Death Valley Driver on the floor. So begins the reign of Meiko Satomura and hopefully the United States emergence of Kay Lee Ray.
SMACKDOWN (6/11/21)
“I’m stuck in the middle of this and I don’t know how to get out of it!” – Jey Uso
The saga of Roman Reigns and The Usos continues to carry this show, a tight 30-minute scripted drama within 2 hours of weird wrestling. Jey’s tricky situation came to a head this week as his twin brother continued to argue with his cousin, who happens to be the Tribal Chief, Head of the Table, Universal Champion, and now just a scary asshole.
To maintain his place at the top (that may or may not be arranged already), rOMAN has traumatized Jey into submission for months. This week when Jimmy, returning from injury and ready to get back in the tag game, talked Jey into standing up for himself… it was Roman who looked traumatized. It was also Roman who began guilt tripping Jimmy immediately to fix it. The best part? All this is getting across on TV, or at least on mine. WWE backstage segments are generally bad, but the boys are putting genuine acting effort into a compelling story and it is holding my attention like nothing else in wrestling.
The boys aside, SmackDown is ran by the same dummies but continues to just have a different energy than RAW — first and foremost, it has an energy: the opening tag with Kevin Owens and Big E as the ultimate babyface team, Bayley and Seth Rollins laughing like goofballs before Rollins got beat up, Street Profits going back-and-forth with corny Chad Gable… this isn’t on fire, but at least it’s fun. Even Apollo Crews and Carmella have completely leaned into their WWE gimmicks and become a welcome part of the show — especially when ‘Mella is putting over Liv Morgan.
On top of stirring up competition between his twin cousins, Roman beat the hell out of Dominik Mysterio last week too and this week daddy wanted revenge. I thought Rey Mysterio pretty brilliantly played both distraught and vengeful father as he called out Roman to close the show, and while RAW ended with a lame attempt at a horror movie, SmackDown closed with what felt like an actual scary cliffhanger through the simple powers of pro wrestling.
Roman seemed charmed by little Rey’s challenge, like it was maybe number fifteen on the Tribal Chief’s list. He continued to look like a monster when Rey started battering him with a kendo stick and he responded as if it was a temporary inconvenience, not a real challenge. Dominik soon ran out to even the odds, but ended up even worse off than last week: Roman picked him up in a powerbomb position and just chucked him out of the ring and to the floor.
Thunderdome camera tricks and Dominik’s goofy selling aside, another incredible angle from the Tracksuit Sociopath.
205 LIVE (6/11/21)
Grayson Waller made his debut this week, but it was against Sunil Singh who dislocated a shoulder early in the match. Waller seemed more silly than good, but who’s to know?
Ari Sterling and Asher Hale played bickering partners against Tony Nese and Ariya Daivari in a quiet main event, the highlight of which was Daivari’s outburst of unbridled pent-up joy when the 205 Dads actually won.
