Welcome to the “well, not a very exciting week of main roster shows” edition of The Wrestling List. Clearly both shows are trying to settle in with the new roster additions and trying to find ways to establish them. This is probably going to be really short tonight as there just isn’t a lot to talk about really.
Smackdown was in Indy on Friday night. Already got a new open for the show with the new additions to the roster and a new look Bayley included as well. Intercontinental title match opened the show with Nakamura defending against Roman Reigns. I’m sure I’m not the only one that thought Roman will probably win the belt here. Sami Zayn was a factor in the match causing distractions. Impressive that they let Nakanura kick out to the superman punch near the end. The match ended when Reigns was attacked with the scepter by Corbin. They put over on commentary that Corbin was looking for payback for Rock humiliating him so he is taking it out on his cousin. Daniel Bryan arrives to even up the odds and the crowd was popping for it. Bryan got stopped when Sami grabbed his leg. This was awkwardly long and I thought I heard someone say “Corbin get up” making me think that maybe he was supposed to do the attack instead of Nakamura who kicked Bryan. It was just an awkward long pause like they were waiting on someone to run over. Next up was Chad Gable against Curtis Axel. Gable got the quick win and then we got the official name for Gable. PWInsider had reported months ago that WWE had copyrighted the name “Shorty G” and I think everyone has been waiting to see if this name happened. Gable got on the mic saying he was embracing who he was and that you can overcome your insecurities. Names himself Shorty G. Sigh and ugh. Corey Graves talked to Hulk Hogan via Skype where Hogan announced that Rollins was off of his team due to the Bray Wyatt match. Later, we get the reveal that Roman Reigns is the replacement of team captain of Team Hogan. New Day and Heavy Machinery defeated Ziggler, Roode, and The Revival. Next was Miz TV with Bayley who brought Sasha with her. New music and a flashy gold looking entrance with the stage. Miz runs the video package of what Bayley did last week and they even roll the footage that some parent recorded of their kid watching at home of Bayley destroying the Bayley buddies. If you didn’t know, that clip made the viral rounds on the night of the turn and Bayley even retweeted it. Miz tries to get Bayley to talk to which she isn’t talking. Miz says are you Brock and is Sasha your Heyman? LOL. Miz goes into a rant of why did you do what you did? Were people not cheering you loud enough? Was it your insecurities? Bayley goes into her reasoning saying she gave and gave and gave and gave for people. All people did was take from her. She talked of how broken that she was after the title loss and was anyone there to help her? No. She put herself second for her whole career to be a role model and when she needed someone, where were they? She says she won her title back and she has outgrown everyone. She then added her own life advice at the end which made me laugh. So, that is the reasoning in the story of the Bayley turn. I’m good with it. It is what you would expect and makes the most sense. Then, we had the arrivals and promos from all the women in the number one contender’s match. Nikki vs. Lacey vs. Dana vs. Sonja vs. Mandy vs. Carmella. Winner gets a future title shot at Bayley. Nikki got the win by pinning Mandy. Nikki and Bayley then had a face off. Looking forward to that match. Main event had Bryan and Reigns against Corbin and Nakamura. Big spot had Reigns spearing Corbin through the barricade of the timekeepers area. Bryan then pinned Nakamura.
Tonight’s Raw was from Cleveland opening up with Ric Flair cutting a heel promo on the Cleveland crowd. He introduced his last member of his team for Crown Jewel. That was Drew McIntyre. McIntyre ended up facing Ricochet in the opener and picked up the win on Ricochet. I laughed when they showed Cardale Jones of the XFL in the crowd as I thought yep, here comes the heyyyyy, pay attention to the XFL crossover. LOL. Aleister Black won a squash match next. I’m just going to cover all the Rusev/Lana/Lashley stuff in this part instead of jumping around. Rusev is interviewed by Lawler. Fans were what chanting Lawler to which Rusev said hey, this is a hall of famer, knock it off with the what chants. Classy from Rusev. Rusev goes into the promo of how Lashley had poisoned Lana’s mind. Then, Lana and Lashley appear on the screen from their date at a fancy restaurant. Later, Rusev shows up and the brawl happens in the restaurant and Rusev is pulled out of there. I just zone out during these segments honestly. LOL. Andrade took on Sin Cara next. Zelina nailed an impressive rana on Sin Cara on the floor while she was wearing a dress which was impressive. If you watched Zelina in NXT, you know how impressive she is. Maybe this is the start of letting that show on the main roster. The rana helped Andrade get the win. 24/7 title changed hands when one of the Singh Brothers pinned R Truth. Later, Truth snuck up on one of them for the pin and the ref wouldn’t count saying he was pinning the wrong one. The Singh Brothers ran off celebrating. War Raiders won over Ryder and Hawkins in a near squash. Rey Mysterio arrived and cut a promo. Heyman appeared on the screen cutting a promo back at Rey. Shelton Benjamin arrived talking about how Brock is his family saying he roomed and trained with Brock in Minnesota. He started backing Rey in the corner when Cain arrived. Shelton tried to take him but Cain took him down multiple times before Shelton bailed. Humberto made his Raw debut being interviewed talking of his plans for Raw. Later, Rollins went and talked to him saying he had heard his promo and what he wanted to do on Raw. Rollins welcomes him to Raw saying how about you have your first match on Raw against me right now. This was a good spot for Humberto here. Put him in there with the champion and let him push Rollins in the match. Basically what they did with Cedric Alexander a few months ago. I thought they made Humberto look good in this match and then you had the moment after the match where Rollins went back in the ring after winning. He went and offered the handshake to Humberto and gave him a respect nod. Main event had The Street Profits in their first Raw match taking on The OC. Their third man for a partner showed up at the end as Kevin Owens ran out and laid out AJ with a stunner on the floor. Profits then got the win. They celebrated through the crowd and a really awesome shot at the end of the show. They posed with a baby and danced. I was watching thinking oh please get that shot before you go off the air with a closeup. Cameraman was blocked with a wide shot initially but got in there and got that awesome shot as the baby was smiling and dancing. Great stuff for the close of the show. Overall, the show was just there for me. No real excitement on it but you can see them trying to establish the new talent. Same feeling as Smackdown.
The Smackdown rating fell once again this week dropping down to 2.4 million viewers which was down from the previous week’s 2.9 million.
There was an injury to Xavier Woods on the European tour which will keep him out for several month.
Smackdown will be on FS1 this week due to the World Series.
That new WWE 2K commercial is really a fun one with all the dream scenarios. The Hogan/Austin face off in the room and then seeing the game play giving us a glimpse of what it could have been like. Shawn and Bret facing off. I watched the behind the scenes of the commercial and it is fun. Bret saying how it was fun to do this with Shawn cause people still think they have something against one another but that they are good now. Hogan and Austin joking with one another. The 2K commercials have been very fun this year.
Wait, there was not one women’s match tonight on Raw, was there???? I just now thought of that as I was wrapping up. Wow, disappointing.
That is it for tonight. Nothing exciting in this List. Just recapping basically. Have a great rest of the week.
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