Welcome to the “Week 5 of the Wednesday Night Wars” edition of The Wrestling List.
Let’s jump into AEW first. Charleston, SC was the site for this week’s show on TNT. We open the show with something that looked very old school NWA-esque and flashbacks of Flair and Dusty. Tony Schiavone was shown at the airport waiting on Cody to get off of the plane. They hop the limo together and ride to the arena. Throughout the night, we had Tony talking to Cody in the car. Something different to continue to build Cody. I couldn’t help but laugh at one point with the bouncing camera as I said this is one rough road they are on. LOL. The next part of the open features audio of Jon Moxley meeting behind doors with Tony Khan. Moxley is asking for a match with Omega but Khan will only give it to him as an unsanctioned match saying it won’t count on the win/loss records. Moxley is livid saying he goes after Khan’s boy and this is what happens to him in retaliation. First match is Hangman Page against Guevara. Solid opener. Guevara had the advantage late and was going for a top rope move. He instead got arrogant and dropped off to slap Page instead. That fired Page up. He ended up winning with the lariat. After the match, Page got on the mic saying it is no secret that things haven’t went well for him lately in the ring. He promised to beat Pac at Full Gear. Women’s match up next with two I have not seen before. Shana (Portugal’s Perfect Athlete) taking on Hikaru Shida. I did laugh at Shanna on her entrance. There was somebody in the corner ringside area dressed in a full Incredible Hulk costume and she was walking to the ring high fiving fans. When she saw him, she busted out with a smile and laugh high fiving him as well. Solid match here between the two. Shida won with a double running knee. Rock N Roll Express were introduced. They had been previously announced as presenting the tag team titles to the winners of the tournament that night. As they start their promo, they are attacked by Santana and Ortiz. They then launch Morton off the stage with a powerbomb. Wow, Ricky Morton still taking big bumps in 2019. Always was tough and still is. The Bucks ran out after this happened to run the heels off. Next was the crossover promotion match and I honestly did not pay much attention to this one. This was a way to promote the Rick and Morty show coming back on Adult Swim. It had Best Friends and Orange Cassidy against Silver, Reynolds, and Marshall. Comedy spots. Got the cross promotion they wanted. Best Friends and Cassidy victorious. Halfway mark of the show and Chris Jericho arrives for the contract signing with him and Cody. He walks out wearing a purple and gold pumpkin covered jacket. He looked like something straight out of late 90’s Monday Nitro Jericho. LOL. Cody arrives with Tony. Jericho completely ignores his entrance and doesn’t even acknowledge him. I did laugh at Jericho saying “Skee-a-vone” to Schiavone for some funny throwback. Cody signs it first as the challenger. Jericho signs after saying that he can’t wait to disappoint all the millennials that want Cody to win. Jericho says they are both professionals and they are going to handle this contract signing with class extending his hand for a handshake. Cody shakes. Then, hands are pulled back as they go to walk away and they go nose to nose. Jericho says “we can stand here all night but there may be some other place you need to be”. Up on the screen, we see Guevara talking about what is going on outside. Hagar is attacking Dustin in the parking lot. Cody sees it and takes off. They show a dent where Dustin’s head hit the car. Then, Dustin gets his wrist slammed in the car door that reminded me so much of Halloween Havoc 91 when Windham and Dustin were arriving. Windham was attacked by the Enforcers and Windham’s wrist got slammed in the car door as Dustin ran in to help. The Elite of Omega and The Bucks are up next taking on Hybrid2 and Kip Sabian. Omega hit his finish for the win. Lots of high flying crazy spots. Bucks celebrate with the crowd when two guys in Rick and Morty masks attack them. Wow, are they getting every bit of their Rick and Morty crossover on this show?! Santana and Ortiz are the attackers. They take down the Bucks while Omega makes the save. The Librarians arrive next. That should have screamed that a squash was coming. As they are doing their promo, Moxley runs in from the crowd laying out Peter Avalon. Moxley is still livid over the non sanctioned match saying he has always been treated as different throughout his career. He promises that if people thought he was out of control that they haven’t seen anything yet. Main event time. Tag titles on the line in the tournament final. SCU vs. Lucha Brothers. That spot with Fenix jumping multiple ropes before landing that arm drag was awesome! Kazarian had a scary moment when he missed a top rope rana and crashed on the apron on his back. He is said to be ok the day after this match.. A ton of crazy spots. Sky then hooked a cradle to win the match and titles. Good line on commentary when they said, after all that, a cradle wins it. I thought the same thing. It was fast, fast, fast, fast, and then it just stopped quick with a cradle. SCU is the tag team champions as the show goes off the air.
NXT opened up with Io Shirai against Candice LeRae. Fun opener that continued their feud. Finish had Shirai going for a chair. The ref pulled it away. Candice then landed a kick that sent Shirai into the chair. Candice then followed missing her move landing on the chair. Shirai capitalized getting the pinball. Shirai continued the attack on Candice. Ripley gets involved and puts a stop to it as Shirai bails out. Finn Balor makes his way to the ring in the next segment as he cuts a promo on his NXT return and his target of Johnny Gargano. Next was Bronson Reed against Shane Thorne. This match was better than I was expecting. Fun back and forth. Reed gets the win with the frog splash. Women’s tag team titles on the line next with Dakota Kai and Tegan Nox challenging Asuka and Kairi Sane. Long match here with Dakota taking a Ricky Morton style length beatdown. She was beaten down forever before finally getting the tag out to Nox. The champs retain when Asuka puts the mist in Dakota’s eyes. Sane hits the inSane elbow for the pinfall. After the match, Shayna and her crew arrive. A brawl erupts which is soon joined by Ripley, Shirai, Bianca, and Candice. Regal yells for everyone to stop as he is up watching from the balcony. He said he has a simple and that is WarGames! Wow, the first ever women’s WarGames match will be happening soon! Incredible announcement. Next up is Cameron Grimes and Tyler Bate. Nasty move with the rana style match off the shoulders. My face was probably funny to see when that move landed. Grimes gets the win. Killian Dane attacks Bates after the match sending a message to Pete Dunne. Cathy Kelley here as she announces that Shayna and Ripley will be the team captains for WarGames. Main event time. Keith Lee and Matt Riddle against O’Reilly and Fish. Awesome spot to end when Lee nailed a pounce into Cole sending him into Strong on the floor. Fish and O’Reilly finish it off and win the match. Undisputed Era attack Lee after the match. No one will survive. We hear that over the sound system as Ciampa’s music hits. He uses the crutch on Undisputed Era and as he turns to Cole, Cole bails. Ciampa gets the mic and looks at Goldie on the mat. He says Goldie will have to wait cause daddy is going to war. A tease of another WarGames match.
Show of the Week: Going with NXT this week.
“Your book is overdue.” JR on the Moxley attack on the Librarians on AEW.
Match of the Night: Lucha Brothers vs. SCU from AEW.
What were the ratings? Well, as expected, both shows were significantly down as they had to go up against Game 7 of the World Series. AEW and NXT were both preparing for that as both shows ran replays Wednesday night. NXT did an immediate replay. AEW ran a replay around 11:00. AEW did win the battle to go 5-0. AEW did 759,000 viewers while NXT did 580,000 viewers.
The Raw rating was down to 2.1 million this week which is down from last week’s 2.3 million. So, there is still the overall trend across the board that all ratings are down.
Expect tonight’s Smackdown to be a bit of chaos. Most of the talent has had trouble getting out of Saudi Arabia after yesterday’s Crown Jewel show. The ones absolutely needed on the show appear to have been gotten out of there with immediate need. The rest are stuck there. I did not watch the show yesterday as I honestly just did not care about it. Big news out of the end of the show when Bray Wyatt defeated Seth Rollins for the Universal title which means that Bray will be taking that title over to Smackdown apparently.
That is it for tonight. Have a great weekend!
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