‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the ring… the wrestlers were bumping, in search of a thing.
WWE TV Recap (12/19 – 12/25/21)
Highlights:
- Street Fight: Raquel Gonzalez vs. Dakota Kai (NXT 12/21/21)
- Pete Dunne vs. Tony D’Angelo (NXT 12/21/21)
- Paul Heyman is interviewed about last week (SmackDown 12/24/21)
- 12 Days of Christmas 12-Man Gauntlet Match (SmackDown 12/24/21)
- Miracle on 34th Fight: Drew McIntyre, Kofi Kingston & King Woods vs. The Usos & Madcap Moss w/ Happy Corbin (SmackDown 12/24/21)
Stuff Happening: Day One, Omos Splits with AJ Styles, New Year’s Evil, Toni Storm Loses, Christmas
Good Work: Bianca Belair, Dakota Kai, Trick Williams, Paul Heyman, Sheamus, Ricochet
RAW (12/20/21)
Best part of RAW was when Bianca Belair lifted up Doudrop and got a big pop. Actually, think it was the best part of last week too.
- MizTV with AJ Styles & Omos led to a tag match against the Mysterios followed by the break-up of AJ and Omos. It was a whole journey. The last part should’ve been bigger.
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While the Becky Lynch/Liv Morgan feud sort of rolled on, Dolph Ziggler got a shot at the U.S. Title when he beat Damian Priest by countout because Priest was beating up Robert Roode so bad.
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Finn Balor and Mr. McMahon put in some extra shifts to steam up Austin Theory, as did Randy Orton for The Alpha Academy.
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Edge hosted The Cutting Edge with Maryse, then got laid out by The Miz.
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Big E vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens is at Day One in two weeks and that meant a tag team main event, playa.
NXT (12/21/21)
How is Malcolm Bivens still just on NXT?? C’mon man.
- The show opened with a Street Fight between Raquel Gonzalez and Dakota Kai, one of the last NXT 1.0 holdover’s remaining. They kept it moving. Dakota took a gnarly powerbomb on the steps and sold it marvellously.
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AJ Styles guest starred this week and had words with Grayson Waller, who continues his strange odyssey as the one or two guys WWE is pushing.
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New Year’s Evil is up next, delivering a pair of promos from NXT 2.0’s resident veterans (and champions): Tommaso Ciampa and Mandy Rose.
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The Joe Gacy and Harland act is sneaking its’ way into being OK. It has also momentarily brought back The Brian Kendrick.
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Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Creed Brothers – good ring time, bad match. Really don’t want to think about the Jacket Time commentary.
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Carmelo Hayes is headed towards the Diamond Mine while Trick Williams had a promo and match and continues to feel like a guy from another, better show.
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“I’m the same age, and I’m more hungry” – good point, Pete Dunne. He faced Tony D’Angelo in a perfectly acceptable if not rigid and unimpressive main event.
MAIN EVENT (12/22/21)
Veer Mahaan is just on Main Event wrestling every week I guess.
- Up first: Apollo Crews & Commander Azeez vs. R-Truth & Akira Tozawa. Made me think about when I thought Crews & Tozawa might tag up. Years ago…
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Veer took a really swell shoulder bump into the corner post en route to victory over T-BAR.
NXT UK (12/23/21)
Nina Samuels hosted a Special Holiday Edition of NXT UK, a sort of Best Of for the year.
- They chose the longest possible match to start. A-Kid vs. Jordan Devlin in a 30-minute Iron Man match from August killed enough time that they only had to pull two matches. King stuff.
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Meiko Satomura beating Kay Lee Ray for the NXT UK Title in June was the other match, and that was real good.
SMACKDOWN (12/24/21)
This was the second SmackDown taped in Chicago last week, a show I traditionally would have attended without the COVID and WWE not being good and all that.
- Charlotte Flair vs. Toni Storm for the SmackDown Women’s Title opened, and even if Charlotte had to steal the win with a rollup the best way I can describe this would be “uncomfortable squash match.” Not good.
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The middle of this show was a 12 Days of Christmas 12-Man Gauntlet Match for a shot at Shinsuke Nakamura‘s IC Title, and hey: maybe all WWE shows should just be Gauntlet Matches now. Guys like Ivar and Humberto got to wrestle with some stakes, while Sheamus and Ricochet in particular had excellent runs. Check out Ivar catching Angel‘s moonsault, random Sheamus/Cesaro, and Ricochet’s major league quebrada.
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Sami Zayn is up next for Nakamura.
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Drew McIntyre & The New Day closed the show with The Usos & Madcap Moss in a Miracle on 34th Street Fight. It wasn’t trigonometry or anything but we all had fun.
205 LIVE (12/24/21)
Fallon Henley/Ivy Nile, Solo Sikoa/Ru Feng, and Andre Chase vs. the debuting Damon Kemp were on tap this week.
- Kemp is the brother of Gable Steveson – from the Olympics.
