Welcome to the “Lana, Rusev, and Lashley is something Vince Russo WCW 2000 would be proud of” edition of The Wrestling List. First off, happy Veterans Day to all the veterans! THANK YOU for all that you do! Let’s get into the happenings of Smackdown, Raw, and other things.
Smackdown opens up from the UK on delay. Baron Corbin opens up the show talking about the NXT invasion last week saying that is what everyone is talking about to which is gets a big NXT chant in the UK. NXT is the clear baby face in this three brand battle. Corbin puts the blame on Roman Reigns for the attack last week saying that they need a locker room leader and that Reigns isn’t it. He calls out Reigns and says Reigns isn’t there because he is doing a make a wish thing. Corbin says Reigns will be there later though and that he is going to prove that Reigns isn’t the man that he used to be. First match of the night has Kofi and Big E challenging The Revival for the Smackdown tag team titles. Tag team title change as The New Day win the tag team titles after Big E holds up Wilder for a trouble in paradise kick from Kofi for the pinfall. Backstage, we see Reigns arriving and talking to Gable. Gable is clueing him in on what Corbin had to say in the ring to open the show. Daniel Bryan runs into Sami Zayn backstage to where Sami is still bringing up the aligning with him discussion. He says if he had aligned with him at that moment he asked that Daniel would be the NXT champion right now. Heavy Machinery is set for action next when the NXT UK invasion happens. Imperium arrives and attacks. The Smackdown locker room empties and runs off Imperium. WALTER chant from the crowd. Bayley and Sasha are interviewed where they talk about NXT saying they built that division and that everyone there in NXT competes in their shadow. Nakamura teams up with Cesaro to take on the team of Ali and Gable. Daniel Bryan arrives on the stage as the match starts as Sami had invited him earlier to see what they have to offer him. Sami’s distractions get the win for Nakamura and Cesaro. Bryan then walks off after the match. Bayley arrives on commentary on the next segment as Sasha Banks takes on Nikki Cross. Interesting that Sasha’s music stopped on her entrance and I said uh oh. Music change but the change is to the WrestleMania Snoop Dogg remix version of it. Hmm, I don’t know. I really like that original music of Sasha. Maybe I’ll warm up the new version but I really like that original and it is one of my favorite theme songs in WWE. Nikki gets a big pop in the UK. UK crowd starts the ‘heyyyy Bayyyyyley, ooh ahh, I wanna know if you’ll be my girl” singalong to her. Bayley says on commentary that she wishes the fans would shut up. Nikki goes and runs over Bayley on commentary. She gets on the headset and yells something to which Cole and Graves comment on how they have no clue what Nikki said. LOL. Sasha wins with the bank statement for the submission. Ok, not feeling the music on the second go around of hearing at the conclusion of the match. I like the original. Bayley attacks Nikki after the match. Another surprise for the second week in a row as Shayna runs in through the crowd. She lays out Bayley. Sasha was up on the ramp as it happened. Shayna hits the attack and then walks back out through the crowd. Huge NXT chant from the crowd. Backstage again with Sami and Bryan. Bryan getting pressured for an answer on joining them. The lights flicker to which they both just glance at it quickly and keep talking. They did it well cause I said, well, that was weird saying they must have shot this live. The lights then go out and the lights go red. Bray Wyatt is standing with them. Sami runs. Bray hooks the claw on to Bryan and leaves him laying in the locker room. Big pop for Tyson Fury after the commercial break as he gets the hometown pop walking to the ring. He talks of having unfinished business with someone. He calls out Strowman who walks out. Fury thanks him for the fight and says it was one of the toughest fights he ever had. He offers a handshake to Strowman. They shake hands and Fury wants them to team up now which is random and out of nowhere. LOL. They say no one is stupid enough to want to fight them. Enter the B Team. You know how this goes. They get destroyed. Moving on to the next segment as quick as I can. Deville and Rose take on Carmella and Dana with the winning duo going on to join Team Smackdown at Survivor Series. Dana pins Deville with a senton for the pinfall. Wow, didn’t see that coming. I figured for sure that Deville and Rose would be on that Survivor Series team. Main event time with Roman Reigns against Baron Corbin. Wellllll, it’s not exactly Bryan vs. Cole from last week, is it? LOL. Roode and Ziggler get involved early on to help Corbin get the advantage. Did I hear a Corbin chant near the end of this match??? LOL. As we get near the finish, Ziggler and Roode get involved again and that is all the distraction that Corbin needs. Corbin gets the pinfall win on Reigns. That was a wrap for Friday Night Smackdown.
We’re still in the UK as the recorded edition of Raw airs tonight taking place from Manchester. The show opens with Becky Lynch on the mic for a promo. It leads to our opening match with Becky and Charlotte taking on Asuka and Kairi for the women’s tag team titles. During the match, Shayna Baszler arrived at ringside watching the match. Becky and Charlotte have the advantage near the end of the match. Shayna jumps up on the apron for the distraction. Bayley shows up and pulls Shayna off the apron. Shayna ends up knocking Bayley down. Becky is distracted and gets rolled up for a pinball allowing the champs to retain. Becky goes for Shayna but Bayley attacks Becky and leaves her laying on the floor. So, they now have gotten Bayley involved as a threat in this Survivor Series match. Story being that Bayley was tired of being overlooked in the Shayna/Becky attention in the match. Next is Drew McIntyre taking on Sin Cara. Nasty powerbomb by Drew on the floor. Nasty thud on the landing. Drew ends up getting the win in a basic squash. Next is R Truth against The Singh Brothers in a 2 on 1 handicap match for the 24/7 title. Most of the match is them running from R Truth. They run up the ramp with Truth behind them. We cut to backstage where they continue to run and hide behind doors. Singh Brothers lock themselves in a room and turn around to see Rowan who destroys both of the Singh Brothers. Truth walks in to see the aftermath with the Singh Brothers asking him for help. He says “looks like you all need privacy” and turns the lights off. Ummm, why wouldn’t you bring the ref in and pin one of them for the title? LOL. The ref was running with you earlier. That made zero sense. Hour two starts with Seth Rollins. Still looks so strange seeing him without the belt around his waist. Boos from some of the crowd as he starts to talk. Rollins starts talking about the NXT invasion. Imperium arrives led by WALTER. Challenge made and accepted so we have Rollins against WALTER. Back and forth match. Rollins is about to go for the stomp when Imperium interferes stopping the match. They pound on Rollins. Street Profits get involved but the numbers are not in their favor. Surprise next when Kevin Owens’ music hits. Rollins, Owens, and Street Profits take out Imperium. I turned out to be right as I figured this would end up being an eight man tag after we came back from commercial. Impressive superplex from Rollins on WALTER. Profits with an incredible swanton dive over the ropes on to WALTER. Looked like he was just going to keep sailing. LOL. Incredible. Rollins ends up getting the pin with the stomp to Wolfe. Andrade with Zelina took on Cedric Alexander in the next match. Solid match here. Zelina provides the distraction which leads to Andrade hitting the hammerlock DDT which is a very cool looking finisher. Hour three opens with Lana. Honestly, I zone out every single time this angle appears on TV. The second I see Lana, Rusev, and Lashley, my brain checks right out the door. Does anyone actually like this angle? LOL. She did announce that she is pregnant. Soooo, if the Mike and Maria Kanellis pregnancy storyline wasn’t enough bad for you, you get a double dose of it now. Make it stop. It almost sounds like they have the crowd turned down some with the boos at her throughout. She announces it is Rusev’s. The crowd chanted “daddy’s home” to which Lawler popped laughing for. It definitely showed that Lawler does not watch NXT when he acted like that was the first time he had ever heard that chant. LOL. Rusev wasn’t sold on the thought of her being pregnant. Rusev and Lashley brawl. Lana says she faked the pregnancy. Ok, I’m done recapping this terrible segment. I need to just recap it every week and say Lana, Rusev, and Lashley happened and leave it. LOL. IT’S TERRIBLE. This is the stuff on when you tell people that you are a wrestling fan and you hope that this isn’t the one segment they turn on the show to check it out seeing what you are watching. Make it stop. Let’s get back to anything else after that. Rowan is up next winning a squash match. Rowan has a cage with him that is covered up where you can’t see what is in it. One can only hope it is the person trapped in there that is writing the Rusev, Lana, and Lashley angle. LOL. Next is the latest random tag team of gimmicks to feed to The War Raiders. There is a definite formula every week of who they come up with to feed to them. Main event time. Randy Orton teaming with Ricochet and Humberto against The OC. The tease storyline here is that Ricochet and Orton are now teaming with one another after having issues in weeks past. We had the tease in the finish where it looked like Orton might go for Ricochet. He ends up RKO’ing Styles. Humberto then finishes Styles off for the pinball. During the celebration, Orton teases a RKO to Ricochet. Orton tells him that “I do what I what I want to whoever I want. Remember that”.
The Saudi Arabia story seems to have settled down a bit. Lots of misreporting out there on that story so it was hard to know what to believe. The hold on talent at the airport appears to be false. It appears that WWE was owed money and it sounds like it was paid. The mechanical issue of the plane does appear to be legit. The talent upset about being left behind was probably the biggest thing and that was discussed at a talent meeting at Raw the following week. The hold up at the airport seems to be the major false thing in the story and that it was a legit mechanical issue.
Announced today is the new Stone Cold Steve Austin interview series on WWE Network. The first episode will be him doing a two hour interview with The Undertaker as they talk about his career. It will premiere after Survivor Series. I am excited about this and am looking forward to it. Undertaker does not do many interviews like this over his career so this will be fun listening to these two look back on his career.
Sin Cara announced on his social media this week that he has asked for his release from WWE saying he does not feel valued as a talent or athlete. We’ll see if his release is actually granted.
AEW Full Gear was this past Sunday. I am not going to recap it or talk much about it because I didn’t see it. That $50 price tag is too high this day and age of prices on wrestling pay content. I can’t recap cause I haven’t seen it. Just going to talk about a couple of things. Interesting that AEW basically did the story that has been done several times which led to the heel turn. MJF throws in the towel to save his friend Cody from injury but it also costs Cody the title. I am trying to think of the most famous of those that has been done but I am blank. I can think of the angle where they had Owen doing that to Bret at Survivor Series in 1994 but that was different. Owen was a heel against Bret but worked his parents to throw in the towel. It feels like it was late 80’s NWA. Cody questioned him after the match and MJF apologized. Cody said it was ok and then MJF nailed him. Heel turn. They could have dragged it out a bit longer if need be. You could always have the confrontation on Dynamite this week where Cody is questioning him about it. MJF drags it out saying he was just doing what was best trying to protect his friend. Then, have MJF turn on him. They went full steam with it at the PPV though. I did see the moment with Ricky Morton doing the Canadian Destroyer and then doing the dive out of the ring. Just no stop in Ricky Morton. That guy will still be throwing dropkicks years down the line when he is 80. LOL. Sounds like Moxley and Omega was a nasty battle. Not much else I can comment on as I just didn’t see the show to where I could give a fair account on it either way.
That is it for this early week. Have a great week!
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