Welcome to the “Week 9 of the Wednesday Night Wars” edition of The Wrestling List.
NXT opens up this week after a very successful weekend at Survivor Series where they got over a lot of talent throughout the weekend having them mixed in with the main roster. NXT arrives with a celebration with the whole roster out celebrating their weekend. They walk out among the fans. Undisputed Era arrives on the stage and they want the credit for the success of NXT. Ciampa, Lee, Riddle, and Dominik are standing in the ring where Ciampa takes the lead on the mic against Cole. Ciampa says he had said that he told Goldie that he was going to war and that would delay things. He said the war is over and now he is coming for Goldie. Balor arrives saying he is in the way of Ciampa and Cole. A challenge is made between the two and the match is set for later between Ciampa and Balor. First up though it is the NXT tag team title match with Fish and O’Reilly taking on Dominik and Lee. We get to the finish of this thing and we have an AWESOME!!! spot where Cole tries to get involved and Lee pounces Cole OVER THE BARRICADE into the crowd. It was INCREDIBLE. Cole got nailed right at the end of the ramp and flew backwards sailing over the barricade touching nothing as he sailed. You have to see it. My face was probably one to see when that happened. The action stops in the ring as Dominik looked on in shock at what he had just seen. Strong and O’Reilly take advantage including hitting Dominik low for the win to retain the titles. Next match has Mansoor defeating Shane Thorne via pinfall. Next match has Candice LeRae looking for revenge for Tegan Nox as Candice takes on the newly heel, Dakota Kai. Liked the change in Dakota’s entrance and a very nice touch with her carrying Tegan’s knee brace. Very classic heel thing there and puts over what she did and how she carries that as a trophy. Good match here. I thought Dakota did good as a heel. I think this may work for her. I’m kind of using her and Bayley as comparisons on this heel turn. Both are very similar styled characters. I am curious to see which heel turn works better. Bayley’s isn’t working for me at this point. Dakota gets herself DQ’d when she nails Candice with the brace when Candice goes for a dive. Dakota then starts bouncing Candice between the ring post and steps. As she grabs a chair to do more damage, Rhea Ripley arrives to pull the chair away and Dakota bails out. Lio Rush retains the cruiserweight title against Tozawa via pinfall with the frog splash. Mia Li defeats Vanessa Borne with a kick just as Shayna, Shafir, and Duke arrive on the ramp. They take out Li. Shayna gets on the mic saying that she deserves the credit for NXT’s win saying there would be nothing to celebrate if it wasn’t for her winning against both the Raw and Smackdown women’s champions. Rhea then arrives. The two have words back and forth on the mic in a good showdown. This will clearly be the next battle for the NXT women’s title and a big challenge for Shayna. Like the build they are doing for them. Shayna starts to leave but Rhea calls her back out and Shayna gets back up on the apron to face off. Good stuff here. Main event time with Ciampa taking on Balor. Finish has Cole getting involved and Ciampa takes him out but the belt is left in the ring. Balor tries to use the belt but the ref stops him. Ciampa got a near fall. Balor hits the DDT on to Ciampa but lands it on the belt that was behind him. The spot was done where Balor looked at the ref of I didn’t know that belt was there and the ref looked with a I have to make a judgment call here and lets it slide. Balor then gets the win. Liked that finish. Cole jumps in the ring afterwards posing with Balor but then Balor kicks Cole and leaves him laying too.
Cool moment that was posted online after NXT where referee, Jessika Carr, had her last NXT show and got a great farewell on the mic from Ciampa and from the NXT audience. She also got a standing ovation from her fellow referee colleagues along with Triple H on the ramp. She got on the mic to talk to the crowd. Carr is the first full time female WWE referee and she is moving over to Smackdown beginning tonight. Sad to see her leave NXT as I have always thought she did a great job. A definite loss for NXT and hopefully this move over to Smackdown will be a great one. She works hard! Here is a link to see the farewell. Very awesome moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBX8_HgWsY
AEW opens up from Chicago this week. Chicago is one busy place this week. And who would have thought we would open up a show in 2019 with Virgil on screen? LOL. He opens up the Chris Jericho celebration with Inner Circle. It is the usual comedy stuff and a segment I enjoyed it. He gets Justin Roberts in the ring to read a prepared statement written by Jericho to put over Jericho. Jericho doesn’t like the way that he read it. Jericho asks where he is from and Roberts talks about his Chicago roots to a big pop. If you have read Roberts book, he has all kinds of stories about growing up in Chicago as a wrestling fan. His book is an awesome read by the way if you haven’t read it. Inner Circle ends up beating up Roberts. There was a celebration band at ringside playing for the celebration. Some of them jump in the ring to help Roberts and it is revealed to be SCU. Inner Circle bails out. Next segment is up. Best Friends are on their way to the ring for their match with The Lucha Brothers. Lucha Brothers attack them on the way to the ring to jump start the match. Best Friends are accompanied by Orange Cassidy. Cassidy gets involved balancing out the sneak attack with a dive off the top rope. Amazing to me that Turner was running a stand alone AEW Dynamite commercial based solely on Orange Cassidy, I said wow when I saw that commercial. Chuck Taylor is from Murray, KY???? That is what they said on commentary when he tagged in. I hadn’t heard about that. Best Friends get the pinball. Women’s division is up next. Bea Priestley teams up with Emi Sakura to take on Hikaru Shida and Kris Statlander. Mic stand shot by Sakura behind the ref’s back gets the pinfall victory for Sakura and Priestley. Backstage to Jon Moxley talking about how he made a challenge to anyone a few weeks ago putting over that he will take anyone out that steps up to him. Pretty awesome looking setting for the promo. Back from commercial and Cody is on his way to the ring. His entrance is so cool. His first match since the PPV. He takes on Matt Knicks in his AEW debut. This screams squash to me. Cody gets the submission win in under two minutes. Cody gets on the mic afterwards calling out MJF saying they can battle it out right now. We see someone emerging from a hole in the corner of the ring with his head covered. Cody turns to see them and gets attacked. Excalibur says “it’s the Blade”. JR speaks for me and many others when he says “who is it?” LOL. Apparently I am not the only one cause the crowd didn’t react to him at all either so they must not know him either. is the crowd chanting “who are you?” LOL. Another person comes out emerges through the hole. Excalibur says “it’s the butcher”. JR says “the blade and the butcher???”. Now there is a female pulling herself up into the ring too. I’m leaning on Excalibur here as he says it is the bunny. Alie. Ok, I have heard of Alie. I didn’t know her by the bunny name though. Excalibur says it is “the butcher, the blade, and the bunny.” JR says “the three B’s and they don’t stand for the better business bureau.” I laughed. So, me and JR are one here where I don’t know who these people are either except for Ali. LOL. Halfway point of the show. Pac is up for his match against Omega. Avalanche falcon arrow by Pac on to Omega from the top rope for a near fall which looked awesome. Right after that, we have counters to a rollup between them and Omega ultimately countered it into a pinfall. Next is the match for the dynamite diamond ring from last week’s battle royal as MJF accompanied by Wardlow as he takes on Hangman Page. Wardlow saves MJF by getting his foot on the ropes to break up the pinfall. The distraction helps MJF as Page knows what Wardlow did. Wardlow then nails Page while the ref is turned with MJF. MJF then hits a crossroads to mock Cody pinning Page. DDP arrives to present the ring. Pretty cool seeing DDP back in Chicago as Monday Nitro was a monster when it was in Chicago back in the day and DDP was a part of that. DDP is not a MJF fan but says he will be the bigger man and congratulate him like a man. Offers a handshake and MJF completely disrespects him. They go face to face and then Wardlow steps in front of MJF. DDP has a good line when he says that he needs to step back instead of having a 63 year old man destroy him. They start brawling and security gets between them. Back from commercial, Dustin is being interviewed before he gets attacked by Inner Circle. The Bucks get involved. The Bucks and Dustin win the battle. Main event time with Scorpio Sky challenging Chris Jericho for the AEW title. Hager gets involved but so does SCU and they battle back up the ramp Jericho goes to use the belt while the ref was distracted. Sky reverses and hits a TKO but Jericho escapes the pin at the last minute. Very awesome near fall. This is followed by several more near falls by Sky. Jericho gets the liontamer hooked on Sky and Sky taps out. Jericho continues to attack Sky and then Moxley’s music hits. Moxley walks out into the crowd and stands in the lower level staring off with Jericho. We have the tease of Jericho vs. Moxley as the show goes off the air.
Line of the Night:”Who gets beat up in their hometown?” Excalibur on Justin Roberts getting beat up by Inner Circle. Nice clever line cause we all know everybody gets booked to get beat up in their hometown. LOL.
Match of the Night: Keith Lee and Dominik vs. O’Reilly and Fish from NXT.
Show of the Night: Going even here. Enjoyed both shows.
No ratings report to tell about as the ratings this week are delayed due to Thanksgiving. I’ll have them next week. Hope you all are having a great and blessed Thanksgiving weekend!
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