Welcome to the “Wednesday Night Wars Week 3” edition of The Wrestling List. First, let’s cover some of the big news of the week. WWE has let go of Eric Bischoff as executive director of Smackdown. Well, that didn’t last long. The story according to PWInsider is that he was let go after a creative meeting earlier this week. It appears to not be any certain incident that caused it but that WWE felt this was the move to make. WWE also announced that Bruce Pritchard is now the executive director of Smackdown and will report straight to Vince McMahon. So, this is all interesting. The thing with Bischoff is that he was more on the business side of Smackdown than he was on the creative end. Bruce is honestly a little scary to me to have in that position. Just for my preferences of the product. I thought the main roster product was strong at the Royal Rumble time this year and then it was announced that he was back within the company. Right immediately after that, I thought the main roster product spiraled to completely annoying to watch levels. I didn’t feel like it got back to a better level until Heyman took it over. There are also terrible ideas of the past that Bruce tries to defend to Conrad on their podcast to where I am right with Conrad on the question of “are you really trying to defend this right now?”. LOL. There is buzz that maybe Bischoff might be seen as the scapegoat for the big ratings loss of a million viewers from week one to two of Smackdown on Fox. I don’t know if there is truth to that or not. That rating was going to fall. No matter what. You aren’t going to hold that audience. Every show 90% of the time loses their audience from week one to two of a debut. So, that is the big happenings behind the scenes of WWE this week. It will be interesting to see how Smackdown does in the next several weeks with the new brand split and how the creative direction is with the show. I still say one issue on both shows right now is that they are hyping two matches involving crossover talent that a lot of the audience knows nothing about or even knows who they are. No offense to either obviously. I just legitimately don’t follow boxing or UFC so I am not aware of either.
Let’s get into Wednesday night. I enjoyed both shows again this week. I thought AEW for me was the better show and I had three matches on there that I really liked along with that Philly crowd hyping that show up even more. When you get a great crowd, that is going to automatically help your show because it puts a whole big energy about it. Since I am talking about AEW, let’s start there. The show opened with the tag team tournament. SCU was on their way to the ring when they were jumped by the Lucha Brothers. Daniels was injured meaning SCU was down a man in their tournament match. Scorpio Sky took the place of Daniels and they made sure to go with the storyline of it putting over how Sky was wrestling with one boot and one sock because he wasn’t expecting to wrestle. They take on the Best Friends. I did laugh at the heat that Sky got for breaking up the Best Friends hug followed the pop that the hug got afterwards. Crowd was super into this match. SCU got the win. Sky looked really good in this match. Next match had Santana and Ortiz victorious in a tag match. Pretty short match. Jericho appears up on the screen after the match hyping up his team saying that they want to challenge the Bucks at Full Gear. Next up was a video package on Cody that was just so incredibly produced talking about his journey. Interviews included from his family, Jim Ross, Schiavone, DDP, and MJF. Just a great way to elevate Cody. Women’s championship match up next with Riho defending against Dr. Britt Baker. I enjoyed this match. Not a big fan of the actual look of the women’s championship belt. Just not big on the design of it. Crowd was into this match too. I liked the story of the finish. Baker had the submission hold on but Riho had the move scouted and and wouldn’t open her mouth to where Baker could really complete it. Baker was so focused on getting her mouth open that Riho was able to roll her up for a pin to win the match. On commentary, they put over Baker’s inexperience had cost her the match and the veteran had got her on it. They shake hands after the match. Next, we roll into three matches that I loved. Tag tournament resumes with Lucha Brothers against Jurassic Express. No Luchasaurus as he was legit injured the day of the show. So, putting Marko Stunt in there was legit a last minute decision to team with Jungle Boy Jack Perry. And my goodness, does Jack Perry look like his dad. When he walked out on that ramp and gave a look at the crowd, he looked like his dad, Luke. Wow. I thought this match was a lot of fun. It was basically just launch Marko everywhere and let him hit moves. This was a spot, spot, spot, spot type match and I really liked it. I loved the spot where Lucha threw Marko toward each other looking to hit a move but he countered it into a DDT. He spiked it too and it was awesome. Just a ton of fun nasty spots in this match. Lucha Brothers win it when hook Marko into the arm breaker followed by the double stomp sit down powerbomb for the win. I said that was my match of the night after that match ended. Then, we get to Pac and Moxley against Page and Omega. Huge pop for Omega in Philly followed by a “happy birthday” chant at him. Page took a nasty back bump to the floor when Moxley pulled him off the apron. Those apron bumps are pretty common place in wrestling now and whew, they look nasty every time. Omega’s snap dragon suplexes are nasty. Mox and Omega later faced off in the match and the crowd popped for it. Each goes to the floor and pull out the barbed wire weapons from last week. As they are ready to face off with them, Pac jumps in the ring and pulls it away from Moxley cause he doesn’t want them to get disqualified. Moxley then lays out Pac and leaves him. Page and Omega then finish off Pac for the win. Kind of a strange thing for Pac to get pinned that early on in his AEW run when they had pushed the undefeated thing for so long. I guess you could just use the well, he got pinned in a tag match thing and not on his own story but just odd to pin him in that match. After that match, I said ok, that ties the last match for my match of the night. Then, we get to the main event with the Philly street fight with Chris Jericho defending against Darby Allin. I keep wanting to call him Barry just cause I am so used to Barry Allen. LOL. My brain just automatically goes Barry Allen cause of The Flash. This match here was basically a showcase of Allin of hey, look what I can do with my hands tied behind my back!!! This was insane. During the match, Jericho duct tapes Allin’s hands behind his back so Allin wrestles the rest of the match doing spots with his hands tied. He is moonsaulting, dropkicking, doing a dive out of the ring. Just crazy stuff. Jericho power bombed Allin on to his own skateboard at one point. Jericho gets a chair and Allin is able to kick the chair back into his face. Allin is on the verge of victory when Hagar does a run in and punches Allin while Allin was on the top rope. Jericho then hooks the walls for the win. So, the story is that Jericho was close to getting beat and Hagar saved him. It thought the match was really good in showcasing Allin. After this match, I said yeah, that ties my match of the night too just for the insanity of what Allin was doing. So, I loved the AEW show. Really enjoyed it.
Let’s jump over to NXT. The show opened with Ciampa making his in ring return. He took on Angel Garza after the set up for the match last week where Ciampa punched him during the interview segment last week. LOL. Ciampa gets the win. Undisputed Era’s music hit and they circle the ring. Ciampa sits in his chair in the ring along with the crutch and it ends up just being a standoff. Next was Aichner and Barthel defeating Burch and Lorcan after they hit the powerbomb for the win. Johnny Gargano is interviewed by Cathy Kelley who asks him about Ciampa’s return and how he feels about it. Johnny said he isn’t sure how he feels until he is face to face with Ciampa. Glad that we still get the teases of those two never knowing where they are aligned. Ciampa and Gargano has been one of the greatest rivalries of all time in NXT and might be the greatest rivalry in all of wrestling for me in the last couple of years. Next is Io Shirai defeating Kayden Carter. After the match, Io does like the others last week with saying that she is the one that wants Shayna next. Rhea Ripley’s music hits and those two have a face off and words. Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic is up next with it now being a number one contender’s match for the North American title. The match does not have a finish after Roderick Strong gets involved causing a no contest. You know what that means. Regal announces that Strong will now have to defend against both of them next week for the title. Didn’t Strong do this recently too where he interfered in a match and got himself a triple threat match as a result of it? LOL. Seems like that happened a few months ago but maybe it was somebody else in NXT. I think it was Strong though. So, the storyline there could be that Strong never learns anything from his mistakes. LOL. Matt Riddle gets a win on Bronson Reed. Tegan Nox makes her in ring return. Glad to see her back as that was such a sad story from the Mae Young Classic where she suffered such a terrible injury in it. Nox takes on Taynar Conti. Solid match here. Nox gets the win. Cathy goes to talk to Nox who is also joined by Dakota Kai who is out there to support her friend. Shaya’s music hits and Shayna arrives with her crew. Nice face off here with words. I like that Dakota Kai is right back in the mix of where she was with Shayna before she got injured. Killian Dane gets the win over Boa. Main event time with Pete Dunne taking Damian Priest. Before the match, Dunne and Dain face off on the aisle with Dunne pulling on Dain’s fingers before walking away. Priest ends up getting the win on Dunne.
So, the ratings. AEW is 3-0 against NXT pulling in 1.014 million while NXT had 712,000 viewers. So, both shows are losing some of their audience every week so it will be interesting to see where each show levels off at.
Line Of The Night: “Marko is on a death mission” – JR calling the craziness of Marko on commentary. LOL.
Show Of The Night: I’m going AEW this week.
Match Of The Night: Three way tie. All from AEW.
Jungle Boy and Marko vs. The Lucha Brothers
Moxley and Pac vs. Omega and Page
Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin in the Philly Street Fight.
Sign of the Night: Let’s get real. Signs aren’t what they used to be so this category can’t happen on a weekly basis. However, that big head sign of Ted Turner in the crowd at AEW cracked me up.
That is it for this week. Have a great week!
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