Welcome to the “Week 11 of the Wednesday Night Wars” edition of The Wrestling List. Let’s recap the happenings and the results of the shows and talk some thoughts on the booking as we go.
AEW opens up from Garland, TX as Jon Moxley makes his entrance from the upper level of the building. Crowd was popping big for it. Justin Roberts then gives such an awesome ring announcement for him that just put chills through me to top off that entrance. I said awesome job, Justin, when I heard it. The ironic thing is when Justin tried to do that great energy intro in WWE, Vince would tell him to knock it off. I am completely not kidding. Read his book. Moxley wins a squash match against Alex Reynolds. After the match, Silver tries to jump Moxley but gets laid out too. Chris Jericho’s music hits and out walks Jericho with the Inner Circle. The segment is basically Jericho pitching Moxley on joining them. They make their pitch and say to talk it over with everyone and to let them know after the holidays. Moxley does not look sold on this obviously. Cody and QT Marshall taking on the Butcher and the Blade with the Bunny in the corner. I just love Cody’s entrance. He just looks big time every show with his entrance and that crowd reaction. Butcher and Blade are able to take advantage of QT and take him out for the win in the match. The story was that Cody has been told that he has no friends. After the match, Cody looks disappointed on the floor. Darby Allin walks out and walks over to Cody and offers a hand to him. He pulls Cody up off of the floor with a basic story of hey, he might have somebody to partner up with here. I’m not a Dark Order fan but these join the Dark Order videos are kind of cool. I thought this one was good which had Alex Reynolds watching a join the Dark Order informercial on the TV. Big Swole is next with women’s division action as she takes on Emi Sakura. They had put over big about how this is her first match since signing a contract with AEW. Ok, here is the problem with the record rankings that AEW is doing. They are putting over how big this contract signing is…..but on screen is where she is 0-4 in AEW ring action. So, that kind of works against her when they are hyping up how big a deal this contract signing is. Swole picks up the win. Announcing was kind of all over the place in this match. I was laughing at them with them with some of the jokes they were popping each other with. Next is Spears and Sabian against Page and Omega. No Tully. Where is Tully? Well, we find out when the lights go out. The lights come back on and Tully is tied up in a chair next to Joey Janela. Spears leaves to go fight Janela and they fight backstage. Page ends up getting the win in this match pinning Sabian. Next segment has Jericho arriving again as he and Hager head toward the announce table. Tony and Excalibur bail out. So, Jericho and JR call the next match with Guevara against Luchasaurus. JR and Jericho were talking and getting along great on commentary. Jericho was even defending JR in areas on commentary. Not what I expected. I figured Jericho would be in full heel mode against JR but they called the action on the same page for the most part. Luchasaurus picks up the win and then Jericho and Hager make their run in during the post match to attack Luchasaurus. Jungle Boy Jack Perry takes on Jericho as they battle to build to their match next week. I am looking forward to that one as that could be a really good launch for Perry to take him up another level. Perry hooks Jericho in a pin and Marco Stunt runs in making a three count. Definite build to next week showing that Perry can beat Jericho. AEW next shows a video promo for the next PPV which will be in Revolution in Chicago. Is it me or did the video and the voice over have two different dates. One said the 28th and the other said the 29th? Either that or the font really blended together to where it looked like a different number. Main event time with The Young Bucks taking on Santana and Ortiz in a Texas street fight. Lots of wild spots here with all the goodies. Bucks end up getting the win. Pretty amazing match even more considering Nick Jackson was battling the flu and laid in the floor of the locker room all day.
NXT opens up with Angel Garza challenging Lio Rush for the cruiserweight title. Solid match here and the title changes hands as Garza wins the belt. After the match, Garza brought his girlfriend into the ring after the match and proposed to her. She said yes. Not a bad night at all for Angel Garza. LOL. Second match has Raul Mendoza pinning Cameron Grimes. Next up is Travis Banks against Ryker. Banks prevails getting the pinball. A payback match is set up for next with Mia Yim looking for revenge against Dakota Kai. The heel turn for Dakota Kai is really working with me so far. Dakota gets the win when she puts Mia into the exposed turnbuckle and rolled her up for the pin. After the match, Mia recovers and takes the fight to Dakota on the floor. They battle through the production area inside Full Sail. Mia then back suplexes Dakota off of the production stage through a table on the floor. It looked nasty. You did see blood on the floor beside Dakota and she later required eight staples in her head for it. Surprise up next as Breezango make their entrance with a doctor focus to it. They take on the Singh Brothers. Breezango picks up the win here. Short. Solid. Women’s division is next with Kayden Carter taking on Bianca Belair. Belair gets the win following a spear and her finisher. Main event time as NXT champion, Adam Cole arrives. This will be the triple threat match with Balor vs. Lee vs. Ciampa with the winner facing Cole for the title next week. No one will survive. Cool entrance for Ciampa as we see him talk to the camera backstage before walking out for his entrance as his music plays. Triple threat gets underway. They do a crazy electric chair spot out of the corner during the match with Lee walking them out of the corner. Insane strength . Lee counters the sling blade and then Balor does the double stomp to counter Lee’s pop up move. That was pretty awesome! Ciampa shows incredible power by picking up Lee and hitting the air raid for a near fall. Lee hits the moonsaultt on to Ciampa for a near fall. As Lee hits the power bomb, Balor flies off to hit the coup de grace on Lee as Lee was landing to pin Lee. Pretty awesome finish. So, it will Cole vs. Balor next week.
Show of the Night: Going even. Enjoyed both.
Match of the Night: Keith Lee vs. Ciampa vs. Finn Balor from NXT.
Line of the Night: I honestly couldn’t pay close enough attention on this this week but I could probably pick out several from the AEW commentary this week.
Ratings. We have a tie! AEW and NXT tied this week in the ratings which is pretty amazing. Last week, AEW defeated NXT with 851,000 viewers to 845,000. This week, AEW and NXT both had 778,000 viewers. AEW had an 0.28 to 0.24 in the 18-49 demo.
Vickie Guerrero made her AEW debut this week doing commentary on AEW Dark. She was said to have gotten a huge pop in the building when she walked out.
Next week on NXT. We get the big championship match with Shayna defending against Ripley. That will be must see TV. That is it for this week.
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