Welcome to the “here we go” edition of The Wrestling List. We are underway with the craziness that is this big week in wrestling. What a week it has been and we haven’t even gotten to the premiere of Friday Night Smackdown on Fox. So, let’s get into it.
Let’s start with Raw. Wow, Raw almost seems like an afterthought already cause of all the crazy of last night with AEW and NXT. Raw was the season premiere complete with new look, new graphics, and new music. First thought on that. Love the new theme song of Legendary by Skillet. Opening video looks really awesome with it. I like the new graphics. Those look really good. Only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the stage. I’m not crazy about the thing in the middle that just looks like a big slide. It just looks strange to me. You’ll notice that WWE was strutting their new network money with pyro returning on Raw. The show opened with Rey Mysterio being interrupted by Brock Lesnar. Brock beat down Rey. He looks over at Rey’s son, Dominik who is standing watching from the front row. When he sees Brock staring him down, Dominik sits down like any normal human being would do when Brock is eyeing you down. He goes over and pulls Dominik over the barricade and starts hammering on him. It is just brutal what he is landing on him. All I can think is whew, what an introduction to a main roster show to have Brock throw you around and Brock doesn’t have the reputation of being careful with people. Brock just destroys him. One thing that kept making me laugh was the fact that Lawler was pushing hard that come on, he’s a teenager. I started doing the math in my head of there is no way that he can be a teenager. I was remembering the lame Eddie/Rey storyline that had him in it during 2005 and how old he was there. Just no way he that he can be a teenager. So, I google it and it shows his age as 22. The whole storyline was that Brock assaulted a teenager and the authorities were talking to him. So, how come the “authorities” can’t google his age just like I did and learn he was 22. LOL. I know, logic. Yet, all you have to do is google. It took me 30 seconds to figure it out. Next is Sasha Banks taking on Alexa Bliss. Sasha gets the win after distracting when she calls for Bayley. No Bayley but it made Alexa look and Sasha took advantage getting the win. Becky had been on commentary during this match and they were talking trash throughout the match from between the announce table and the ring. They end up going at it after the match. Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler got the win on Heavy Machinery. I didn’t really pay attention to it. I couldn’t get into Heavy Machinery in NXT either. Next up was Miz TV with Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. I really liked this segment. Flair was kind of cutting deep on some of his stuff which was making me wonder if Flair was going rouge or something cause let’s be honest, Flair is going rogue a lot here lately with some of his comments about WWE and talent in the last year. Flair said he is tired of hearing the same Hogan music for 30 years to which Miz says, well, let’s be honest, we’ve had to listen to wooo’s longer than that. LOL. Here we are in 2019 and we have Hogan and Flair going nose to nose in a promo with the crowd standing up cheering for it. Crowd was even chanting “one more match”. That was awesome watching the crowd react to them like that. It made me feel like I was ten years old again. It is announced that Hogan and Flair will be coaches for their teams at Crown Jewel on Halloween. Each will have five members on their team. Rollins walks out and will be the captain for Team Hogan. Randy Orton arrives and says he will be the captain for Team Flair. Fitting with the Evolution link. Corbin gets involved which I groaned at. LOL. Rusev then ran in with the big babyface pop including Rusev Day chants to help Rollins. Later, he is asked about where Lana is and he doesn’t answer right away but responds that he isn’t here to talk about his problems at home. Foreshadowing. War Raiders defeat Gallows and Anderson in the next match. Yep, I am still calling them The War Raiders. Ricochet and Cesaro had the next match. Good stuff here but just wish it had been longer. Insane rana from Ricochet to get the win. AJ Styles got another win on Cedric Alexander. Lacey Evans was up next taking on Natalya. Lacey was able to get an eye rake around the referee which led to her rolling up Natalya to get the win along with hooking the tights to solidify the win. Rollins took on Rusev who was the replacement for Rey. Orton and Corbin watched from the ramp. As the show went to break during the match, we saw a quick shot of the Fiend saying “let me in”. A limo arrived backstage and the talk was well, who is this going to be? I go into a ton of ridiculous on texting people saying maybe it is Virgil and Dibiase, the driver of the WCW hummer, maybe Maria with the baby reveal, The Elite pulling a DX invasion, and just other silliness. Instead we get the reveal of Lashley making his return but then he brings out Lana. Lashley and Lana go into a full get a room makeout on the stage right in front of Rusev. How could they do this to him on Rusev Day of all days? Bray arrives and then lays out Rollins again as the show goes off the air. Yeah, the Lana stuff is lame. So is the Maria stuff. Can we get away from this silliness please?
Other notes from Raw. All things considered, I thought the commentary was all fine for a team that hasn’t worked together before. Alexa has cool pyro now. Becky’s steam is back. Brock’s pyro is back. AJ Styles pyro is back…..wait, where did his pyro go? His entrance still even has the gap in it from where it used to be. Strange that they didn’t bring his back. When you heard the siren during the Sasha/Becky match, was I the only one that said wait, Scott Steiner is here???? LOL. No, it was just the sound of the continuation of the Rey/Dominik thing in the back where he was leaving. Good job with the AOP video packages. You can tell they are doing what they can to rebuild that team. Vince did them zero favors when he brought them up. Normal sadly for NXT call ups. Triple H had them over as a monster heel tag team in NXT. Hopefully, Heyman can rebuild them.
Let’s get into the Wednesday Night Wars. There was so much buzz going into last night and I am still trying to figure out a strategy on how to watch it all. Shout out to Corey who hooked me up last night with a text of helping me on when I could jump in on the AEW replay. AEW announced that they were going to run a replay on TNT at 9pm but you know how that works. If they run over, I’m getting spoiled trying to jump in at 9pm. So, Corey hooked me up perfect on landing me into the 9pm AEW replay with no spoilers of the live show. What a moment watching AEW start up on TNT. I had absolute chills watching Cody’s entrance and hearing that crowd pop over and over for support. Cody getting to be the first one out on this show that he helped create. The first wrestling back on TNT in almost 20 years. Watching him and Brandi take it all in with that crowd roaring was a chills moment. Great job to the commentary team putting over that fact too. This was a big moment. Cody took on Guevara in the opening match. I really enjoyed it and I think the atmosphere of how historic this was added to it. We saw how this night was going with buzz when they said AEW was the number one and number three trending topics on Twitter at that moment to which I laughed at JR telling Tony that the only thing that mattered was if JR’s BBQ was trending. Great line. I think JR and Tony are going to be very fun playing off of each other again. Take a moment to think about that. We have the two lead announcers for the a lot of the Monday Night Wars era now together for AEW. Bizarre thing to think about,. Cody gets the win after kneeing the moonsault attempt by Guevara. After the match, Cody is going to be interviewed. Guevara goes for the handshake attempt and then Cody is attacked by AEW champion, Chris Jericho. Jericho hammers on him going into break and then when we return from break, Jericho is still hammering on him including powerbombing him on to two chairs on the floor. Kind of wild to think of Jericho back on TNT. Is he Wednesday Night Jericho now? LOL. Next was MJF taking on Brandon Cutler. MJF is a heat magnet and got the win. He’ll stir up a lot on the mic. PAC vs. Hangman Page was the next match. Good match here. The finish had PAC hitting Page low in a spot where Hebner couldn’t see it. He then hit the black arrow and hooked the submission for the win. They are definitely playing up his undefeated streak including putting over on commentary of how he was undefeated at a previous time for two years. So, keep an eye on that build. He moves to 2-0 in AEW. Women’s championship was on the line next to determine the first ever AEW women’s champion with Riho taking on Nyla Rose. I had seen these work a triple threat on a previous AEW show so I had learned what both were like. Nyla is the destroyer. Riho is the underdog overcoming the odds. That is what we saw in this match. Nasty spot with Nyla crashing on to the chair on the floor with the cannonball. I also loved the spot of Nyla pushing up through the stomp attempt by Riho. That was something rarely done and looked cool. Riho hits a northern lights off the top rope followed by a double kick to win the match and the title. Finish was kind of sudden for me as I wasn’t expecting that finish at that point. Riho again pulled through with the underdog win against the monster heel. Britt Baker was on commentary during the match to get eyes on her that she will be in the mix soon for the title. After the match, Nyla was laying waste to everyone and was about to lay out Riho till Kenny Omega arrived to make the save. that led us to the main event. The Bucks and Omega against Jericho, Santana, and Ortiz. Everything got crazy early on when we heard the crowd popping big for someone and then into our camera shot is Jon Moxley who is there to go at Omega. They brawl through the crowd and Moxley lays him out with double arm DDT through a glass coffee table in the VIP area. That was the last that we saw of them. Matt Jackson with the rolling suplexes was impressive. We get to the end and Jericho makes the pinfall after they all countered the Bucks. It gets crazy. Cody runs in to help. Big pop. Guevara returns and lays out Cody. Dustin gets involved and gets maybe the biggest pop I have ever heard Dustin get. Very cool moment. Then, we see someone run in and I say is that Jack Swagger???? Yep, it is. Crowd popped big for it. Going by Jake Hager now obviously. He puts a beatdown on and the crowd started chanting “we the people”. They pull the podium in the ring and Hager drops Dustin on it with a very nasty thud. Cody is beat down as well. All Elite is left laying in the ring as the heels stand tall. Quite the events at the end of that show and the crowd was popping for it. It was fun on TV.
Other notes from AEW. This show felt very Nitro like in areas. Especially with interviewers roaming ringside talking to people. The Jay and Silent Bob stuff. The interviews on the stage. Interviews in the ring. It felt very 90’s Nitro when Gene would roam around and just had a good feel to it. I liked that. Justin Roberts did a good job on ring announcing. The look of the women’s title reminds me of the old WWF women’s title from the late 80’s and early 90’s as far as the design of it. I liked that Jay and Silent Bob stuck around watching the show. What you see a lot of times with WWE is stars appearing on camera and then going back to the backstage area. Get their TV shot of look who is here and gone. I saw them out there throughout.
NXT went live for their first actual 2 hour live show on USA. The two previous weeks they went one hour on USA and then over to WWE Network for hour two due to USA already having network commitments to Suits. NXT started hot with the NXT championship match with Adam Cole defending against Matt Riddle. This match took up about the whole first half hour of the show with no commercials. NXT ran with “limited commercials” all night doing the picture in picture gimmick. Lots of awesome near falls. Cole ends up retaining after hitting Riddle with the cast and the last shot for the pinfall. After the match, we get the first surprise of the night when Finn Balor’s music hits and Full Sails pops with a what in the world sounding reaction. He faces off with Cole with Balor saying that he is now NXT. Good call putting Balor back on NXT. I think he will be a great addition to have back. Keep in mind that it was Bayley and Balor that were drawing the crowds for NXT for a good year when NXT went on the road for the first time. Velveteen Dream cut a promo where he is ready to get his championship back. Next was Io Shirai and Mia Yim. Good solid match here and Io has really been shining as of late in the new heel persona. Io gets the win. Io gets the moonsault win. This match went over multiple segments with the picture in picture involved as well. Johnny Wrestling was back as Johnny Gargano defeated Shane Thorne. NXT women’s championship on the line next and I was really excited for this one. Looking forward to seeing Candice LeRae get a run Ain a championship match. She took on champion, Shayna Baszler. Good back and forth and really liked what I was seeing out of Candice. Shayna ends up winning via tap out. I’m really curious on who it is that will take out Shayna. It very well could be Rhea Ripley or would they go Dakota Kai when they get momentum behind her again now that she is back. Pete Dunne took on Danny Burch next. Dunne picks up the win who is here to stay on the U.S. side of NXT. After the match, the lights go down except for a spotlight. Damien Priest arrives and lays out Dunne. Now, the main event. Undisputed Era defending the tag team titles against The Street Profits. An awesome match as expected. That dive by the Profits over the corner and basically nailing the barrier as well was insane good. Crazy athletic. Undisputed Era gets the win. After the match, Cole arrives up on the stage to continue the celebration of all four holding the titles. Then, we hear the music and the glass breaking up on the screen. Pop here as Ciampa makes his return walking out on the stage. NXT crowd popped for it. Good stuff as Ciampa stares down the belt more than he does Cole. Ciampa wants “Goldie” back. Crazy how good Ciampa is so I hope he is ready to be back in the mix. Awesome show from NXT last night.
Other notes from NXT. Several seen on camera during the show included Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Stephanie McMahon, Alundra Blayze, and Mark Henry.
So, what about those ratings? We have been waiting and waiting wanting to get a sample of that audience. Round one goes to AEW! They drew 1.4 million viewers. NXT had 891,000 viewers. So, fans did jump over to AEW on TNT. Big win for AEW in week one. WWE has even already congratulated them on their opening week. The next big thing will be how does week two stand up? Every show usually drops off from its premiere. That is true across the entertainment board. What amount of that audience will be there next week? Will they go down? Stay the same? Or even increase? That will be the big question next week. What do they do in week two? The winners were us as wrestling fans. We were the winners getting to watch these two companies compete last night. I loved both shows.
Next eyes are on Friday Night Smackdown on Fox tomorrow night. The Rock will be appearing on the show as well as Stone Cold Steve Austin and others. Big mix of legends and current stars as WWE looks to pop that rating on the first night. Kofi defends the WWE title against Brock Lesnar. My gut says Brock wins so WWE can have that belt on him as a big name for Fox out of the gate. Becky and Charlotte take on Bayley and Sasha tomorrow night as well.
So, how do I do The Wrestling List with all this madness going on? Lots to cover and programming is spreading throughout the week now. Tuesday was a nice sweet spot for me this year. Now, Tuesday really doesn’t work. I am toying with doing two Lists a week to cover it all. Maybe do one that covers Raw/Smackdown/PPV’s and then do another one that just covers AEW and NXT. Have any ideas? Let me know. Have a great week.
About the Author
