Welcome to the “week 23 of the Wednesday Night Wars” edition of The Wrestling List. Back to recap the shows and give my random thoughts on the booking as I watch along.
AEW Dynamite kicks off from Denver with the new AEW champion, Jon Moxley opening the show. I’m pretty excited for this show to see the follow up to what was a good Revolution PPV from everything I have heard. Victory lap of sorts as he roams the crowd letting them take in the celebration with him. This crowd is hot chanting for him including “Moxley” and “you deserve it” chants. Moxley uses that word “professional wrestling” again taking that shot at “sports entertainment”. Moxley throws a challenge out to anyone. Jericho’s music hits and here comes Inner Circle. Jericho is having quite the battle with this crowd and I am laughing out loud at the chants going back and forth. Jericho says that they are putting the whole roster on notice cause they are taking out everyone. Jericho says that Moxley will be first. He promises that he will take a leave of absence for 60 days if Moxley walks out of that building on his own after this night. Setting up a main event match here for the end of the night with Moxley and Allin against Jericho and Guevara. There is a “Bucks of Youth. I Knew You’d Come” sign in the crowd. LOL. Liking that Broken Hardy reference with that sign. First up match wise is SCU and Colt Cabana against The Dark Order in an eight man tag. Cabana made the save for SCU against the Dark Order on the PPV. Daniels also showed that he was SCU inside and out by doing a fake out on Dark Order. Daniels laid them out at Revolution. So, this 8 man is a follow up from the PPV. Crowd is big behind Cabana here. Cabana gets the pinfall with the Chicago skyline. Afterwards, Dark Order is on the mic furious saying this isn’t how this was supposed to go. Saying the exalted one is going to be furious when he learns of this and that there will be payback for it. Ok, this seems like a perfect landing spot for Broken Matt Hardy, doesn’t it? Awesome video recap of the tag title match at Revolution. Britt Baker has arrived on commentary. Women’s division is up next with Big Swole taking on The Librarian. It really is wild to remember that this was Blue Pants back in NXT and how over she was there. That character became a phenomenon in a short time. Squash match here however with Swole winning in probably a minute or so. Another great video package and this time it is of Cody and MJF from Revolution. Was that Adam Lavine in the crowd at Revolution? Wow, didn’t know he was a fan. Back to Denver and Cody is arriving. Again, I love his entrance. Cody wants MJF to come to the ring and tell him face to face that he beat him fair and square. Oh wow! We aren’t getting MJF but we are getting Jake The Snake Roberts instead. Big pop for Jake. Jake says that he is tired of listening to Cody complain. He says the only reason he is here is that he has a client and that the dark side is coming to AEW. He says he will be outside of the ring when his client arrives and says Cody can bring that “one trick pony Arn Anderson with you”. He says he is not in AEW to take the whole pie and just wants to take Cody’s share. Jake says that he always was told to never turn your back on someone you fear and proceeds to turn his back quickly and walk out. That was a pretty awesome promo. So, who is the client of Jake’s??!! Best Friends is up next with Orange Cassidy as Chuck Taylor takes on Pac. Pac gets the submission win in a solid match. Pac and Trent then go nose to nose after. Then, Orange Cassidy pulls Trent out and goes nose to nose with Pac. Lucha Brothers then run in and take out Best Friends and Orange Cassidy. Pac gets on the mic and announces that they are a trio now called Death Triangle. Well, that is going to be a force wit those three. Funny moment when JR says “well, Shawn Spears is still looking for a tag team partner” as he throws to the video package. I said to myself, I didn’t even know Spears was with the company with how he hasn’t been on TV in ages. LOL. I can’t understand that either. He and Tully announce that they are looking for the perfect partner and how they are taking applications. Well, ok then. Just glad they are looking to use the both of them again. How awesome is it going to be when we get our first TV moment with Arn and Tully face to face again??!! QT Marshall in action next accompanied by Dustin and Brandi. Marshall vs. Jake Hager who is accompanied by Inner Circle. Hager wins by submission. Dustin gets involved immediately. So do Santana and Ortiz. Here comes Cody. He gets the advantage for a bit until a chair shot. Dustin covers up Cody. Matt Jackson arrives to help and goes face to face with Hager. Matt fights for a bit but then Hager takes him down too. Page arrives and JR points out that Omega is not there tonight. Page gets involved and is able to fight off Hager. Nope, Page is still not having Matt Jackson showing him what he thinks of him as he leaves the ring. Page has gotten way over too. Seems like the stars that they have gotten the most over that weren’t as established are Darby Allin and Adam Page. Video package being shown on the women’s title match from Revolution with Nyla Rose retaining. They are doing a really good job putting these video packages in here of the PPV. Good timing on them and they are really telling the story of the match without giving away everything wanting replay buys. Backstage promo from MJF and Wardlow where MJF is wearing a shirt that says “I Pinned Cody”. LOL. Main event time with Moxley and Allin against Jericho and Guevara. They are getting the whole last 30 minutes of the show. As Moxley is coming down through the crowd, three guys in mask attack Moxley and take him into the lobby area. It’s Hager, Santana, and Ortiz. Moxley is down in the lobby so Darby is all about going it alone and the match is underway. Darby is holding his own here. Awesome full force dive by him out of the ring on Jericho. Darby tags himself at one point which was a cool spot as he went on offense on to Guevara. Darby then coffin drops to the outside on to all of Inner Circle who are at ringside. Darby is about to put this match away but Jericho is able to make the save. Numbers are now catching up. Guevara gets the pinfall. They made Darby look strong here fighting the odds and the crowd was big behind him. So, now the question is on whether Moxley is not going to be able to walk out? Well, he’s back with a chair. LOL. Moxley is laying waste to Inner Circle left and right. Hager then nails him from behind. Now, the Inner Circle group attack continues on Moxley. They do a Shield like power bomb off the stage on to the table on the floor. Inner Circle is left standing as the show goes off the air. Looks like they held to their promise of that Moxley was not going to walk out of this building.
NXT starts this week with the cage match with Dakota Kai accompanied by Raquel against Tegan Nox. This is a fun match here. Crazy top of the cage dive by Tegan at one point on to Dakota. Also a nasty bump by Dakota on a chokeslam off the top rope as they stood by the cage. Loved this match quite a bit but I also really like this rivalry. I just kind of wish we didn’t have the Raquel stuff going on. Finish has Raquel blocking the cage door to where Tegan can’t escape. Raquel gets knocked to the floor and Tegan goes to climb out. As Tegan is on her way down on the other side, Raquel pushes the cage door against her pinning her to the cage to where she can’t go down. This allows Dakota Kai to escape and get the win. So, the numbers game again caught up to Tegan. Cool video package next with Rhea Ripley going to Tampa where they show her in the location of WrestleMania as she hypes her journey to get to that point. Good stuff. Next is the continuation of the qualifying matches for the number one contender’s ladder match as Blackheart takes on Chelsea Green. Green wins with the I’m Prettier. Not the unprettier. The I’m Prettier. I like that. Keith Lee walks out for a promo. Cameron Grimes interrupts him. The two go at it back and forth on the mic. Lee says they will have a match next week on NXT. Tag team action next as Lorcan and Burch take on Undisputed Era’s O’Reilly and Fish. Undisputed Era prevails. After the match, they tease that it is time for them to get their tag team titles back. Riddle and Dunne arrive. They are good with a rematch but are then attacked by Gibson and Drake. So, we will have to see who Regal gives the tag title match to hear. Swerve Scott takes on Austin Theory with Theory getting the win by pinfall. Why Johnny Why? That is what the topic of this interview is with an earlier recorded sit-down with Mauro interviewing Johnny Gargano. The basic why that I got out of this is that Johnny has lost his mind. LOL. Making bizarre comments at Mauro and taking verbal jabs at him. It gets the point where Mauro says he is uncomfortable doing this and is getting out of there. Johnny then pulls the camera toward him as Mauro leaves saying that Ciampa knows why. Main event time with our second steel cage match of the night with Roderick Strong against Velveteen Dream. I like that Strong is out here basically in street clothes. Little details like that where it puts over the story of that Strong is here for a fight after being pushed too far personally. At one point, Shafir runs out and gives Strong a kendo stick. I’m very curious to see what they do with Shafir and Duke as well with Shayna gone. They have basically just been her run in crew so it will be interesting to see their path from here. Undisputed Era gets involved later. They jump in the cage. Dream is on the offense here. Strong is trying to go out the door for the win and Dream stops him. Then, Dream pushes him to the floor giving Strong the win but it appears that Dream had a bigger plan. He pulls the door to where he is now locked in the cage with Cole. Dream takes out Cole while also taking out the rest of the Era trying to save him. Dream lays out Cole with a Death Valley driver on to the chair. As the show ends, Dream is on top of the cage holding the NXT championship.
Show of the Night: AEW
Match of the Night: Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai in the cage from NXT.
Ratings: AEW did see a bump up with coming off of the Revolution PPV and they did win the ratings again. AEW had 906,000 viewers compared to last week’s 865,000. NXT was up slightly getting 718,000 viewers compared to last week’s 717,000. In the 18-49 demo, AEW was up to a 0.35 from last week’s 0.30. NXT stayed even with a 0.23 which is the same as last week.
A few thoughts on Smackdown. Whew, this show has definitely gone back to being the weaker of the two again. There just isn’t much on it every week. I wanted to see how the crowd would react to the events of Super Showdown. Goldberg got boos. Totally expected that. His music hit and you could hear the mixed reaction but there were a lot of boos in that mix. You could tell he was acknowledging it just with the grin he gave as his music stopped and the boos got louder. Then, Roman Reigns comes out and the crowd is booing both of them. It does make you wonder if Vince is counting on the crowd to cheer Reigns because of them being against this Goldberg title change. I think the crowd boos both of them at WrestleMania to which I say that I don’t understand why Vince seems to book a main event almost every year there where you are guaranteed for the fans to boo both in a match. The show closed with John Cena. Big pop for him. The logic wasn’t really there with this segment. Cena announces that it is WrestleMania season and he has been figuring out what he was going to do and whether to get involved. He speaks saying that this year he was going to step back and not take a top spot from the hard working full time roster talent. He basically gives a farewell speech saying this isn’t goodbye but see you later for now. From a logic standpoint, I am saying what was the point of you showing up to give the speech that we heard the last time you were on TV? LOL. We’ve heard that Cena speech before so why show up and put up all that promotion of hey, Cena is back and then gone again giving you the same speech you have heard already. As Cena gets to the ramp, the lights start to dim a bit with the sound effects and The Fiend shows up behind him. The Fiend points at the WrestleMania sign. Great. So, the monster also likes to sign point. LOL. Fiend points challenging Cena for WrestleMania and Cena nods agreeing to the match and The Fiend disappears. Well, that wasn’t much of an arm twisting story development. Cena does the whole speech and then says ok, forget all that, I’m in. LOL. I know. Vince McMahon booking logic.
They are really doing some heavy story booking around this Edge and Randy Orton match build. Stuff in this angle that we really haven’t seen in a while. When Beth Phoenix walked out, I think everyone said like I did, she is taking a RKO here. It was the only thing that you could see in paint by numbers booking here of why they would have her in this segment. Good back and forth promo work between the two and she takes the RKO. I did kind of laugh at the commentary afterwards cause here they are selling it using the words horrific and hard to watch but…..they’re going to show you 50 replays of it. This is horrific……and we’re going to show it to you on a loop. All right then. I think this is all going to lead to a monster reaction for when Edge comes back. It was going to be a monster reaction anyway just based on the first angle but they are just stirring and simmering it now with what happened to Matt and now with Beth. One logic thing to point out with these segments. Where is all this help BEFORE something bad happens with Orton? Have you noticed this? I said this the night of the first angle when Orton teased for five minutes what he was going to do. I thought isn’t there one person out there in the back that would say oh wow, this guy had a career ending injury and would want to come and stop this? Same with what happens to Matt. If you saw what he did with Edge and he is teasing it with Matt, wouldn’t you run out? I did like the touch of having those closest to Edge and Beth run out at the end to check on Beth for the realism of the angle. Nattie, Ryder, and Hawkins. Again, where were you minutes ago? LOL. I know. Logic in wrestling story booking. When saves do and don’t happen has always been a strange blurred line of reality booking.
AEW announced that they will be doing a Dynamite show on March 25th which will feature War Games without the actual name War Games for obvious reasons since WWE owns the name. They are calling it Bood and Guts which makes you wonder if that is a play off of Vince using that description of AEW so much on a conference call last year. LOL.
Matt Hardy released a video shortly after midnight this past weekend after his WWE expired. He announced that he is a free agent and will be looking to see what he wants to do from here while complimenting WWE. I do hope he is AEW bound as I think he could have a really nice run there. Maybe Matt could save the Dark Order by having Broken Matt Hardy lead that. He did appear in a video with the Bucks this week so that sure throws a tease.
WWE has announced that Stone Cold Steve Austin will be on Raw on March 16th in Pittsburgh.
Wow, Elimination Chamber is this Sunday. This show is just really in the way of WrestleMania. We have the women’s chamber match with Shayna, Nattie, Liv, Asuka, Ruby, and Sarah with the winner getting Becky at WrestleMania for the championship. I’ll be shocked here if this is not Shayna’s. That is the obvious direction on where they are going but it is almost so obvious that it makes you wonder if they might swerve it somehow. The other big thing of the match will be the Riott Squad all in there together. How will they all interact? Tag team chamber match with Miz and Morrison vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Ziggler and Roode vs. Lucha House Party vs. New Day vs. Usos. Intercontinental champion Braun Strowman takes on Nakamura, Cesaro, and Sami in a handicap match. Whew, not the least bit interested in that one. Raw tag team champions The Street Profits defends against Murphy and Rollins in a rematch. Andrade defends the U.S. title against Carillo. No DQ match with AJ Styles taking on Aleister Black.
That is it for this week. Have a great week!
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