Welcome to the “Week 8 of the Wednesday Night Wars” edition of The Wrestling List.
Becky Lynch opens up NXT at Full Sail to a big pop. Crazy seeing her standing back in that building again. She talks of NXT memories and also talks about that she is there for Shayna. It was interesting to watch the crowd jump back and forth with her. Becky chants and then they would support Shayna with chants. She calls out Shayna but instead Rhea Ripley’s music hits. Rhea walks out and the challenge is on between those two. I cracked up at the Full Sail crowd with the “ring the bell” chant wanting that bell to ring to officially make this match a go. Fun match between the two. As the two are down on the mat late in the match, Shayna and her crew run in. I liked the simple booking of the fact that Shayna waited for the perfect opportunity when both were down. Becky and Rhea are able to fight back and send Shayna and crew back. Fun opening match. The NXT invasion continues as we roll into the next segment. Kona Reeves is on his way to the ring when he is attacked by Ricochet. Big pop from Full Sail. Reeve’s opponent was set to be Matt Riddle who makes his way to the ring. Riddle and Ricochet challenge each other and the match is on. Big pop from the crowd and I start looking around looking to see who they see. Cesaro and Nakamura from Smackdown jump in. They attack both. Riddle does get the pinball on Cesaro on the distraction before things got crazy. Nakamura is about to lay out Riddle when Strong jumps in attacking Nakamura. Another crowd pop. Now, who are they popping for? LOL. I should also point that my basis Wrestling List style now of recapping these shows is basically a live blog if you haven’t figured this out by how it reads. I type as I watch to save myself time. Action is so fast here that I can’t even keep up. Finn Balor jumps in and attacks Riddle. Brawl is on between those two. Awesome exchange between these two. Riddle does get the better of Balor. Revival is up next. You can tell the difference in the crowds with NXT vs. the main roster. Crowd is doing the “yeahhhh” chants during their theme music. Something I haven’t heard since they moved up to the main roster. Revival is taking on Undisputed Era of Fish and O’Reilly. Nasty suplex out of the ring early on. This is awesome. “Tag team wrestling” chants break out at Full Sail. You know Revival loves this being able to get in here and go like they want to. Love the little things that Revival do such as the grabbing the tag rope for the legal tag and then hitting the superplex/splash combo. Revival are so old school and I love it. This is The Revival that we haven’t seen since they left NXT. Revival hit the shatter machine but Fish breaks up the pinfall and sends them into the barricade. Undisputed Era getting on a roll. A nasty knee drop to the back off the top rope by O’Reilly on to Dawson. That looked stiff. Undisputed Era get the pinfall. Backstage, we see The War Raiders have arrived and are being held back by security, If they make it inside, please let the NXT crowd chant their names “War Raiders”. LOL. Notice I have never called them by their new name? They are the War Raiders. I don’t care about their ten main roster name changes. Awesome video package runs on the women’s WarGames match set to Poppy’s song, “I Disagree”. Awesome production on that! NXT UK women’s champion, Kay Lee Ray is up next taking on Dakota Kai. A run of fury on the floor by Dakota rocking Ray. That was awesome and intense from Dakota putting Ray into the steps and then hitting the kick. Ray battles back and gets the pinfall. Fun match. Good showing from Dakota. Keeps momentum on Ray as she continues to build to WarGames. The next invasion happens as Carmella appears on the apron. Then, here comes Rose, Deville, and Dana too. NXT women’s division runs in. Here comes more from the Raw division. I can’t even keep up with who all is out here. I did do a double take when Mauro said there is Sarah Logan from Raw. Poor Sarah Logan. They haven’t done a thing with her since they broke up The Riott Squad so this is a strange one to run out there. I am still on my why did they break up The Riott Squad mode???? Kairi gets involved and she hits the insane elbow as she runs in. Kairi chant from the NXT crowd who still loves her. Io Shirai then faces off with Kairi. Before they can go at it again with their rivalry, Nikki Cross runs in with a trash can lid getting a big Nikki chant from the NXT crowd. Nikki takes out everyone and stands alone in the ring as the fight ends. War Raiders up next and the NXT crowd is already chanting “war” as their music plays. LOL. “Welcome back” chants are next. They take on The Forgotten Sons. Ryker keeps interfering for Forgotten Sons and he ends up getting kicked out by the official. For the theme of the night, War Raiders are getting to do things they haven’t gotten to do since they left NXT. This match was way more entertaining than anything of their main roster stuff. Raiders get the win. Cathy Kelley here as she hypes up the rest of the night. Glad to see her getting to do this on USA as this was the show that she loved getting into all of this. Now, she gets to do this on NXT as it has grown up to national TV. Main event time with the WarGames advantage on the line. Adam Cole taking on Dominik Dijakovic in a ladder match. Well, this should be nasty. Nasty indeed as Dominik nails a nasty chokeslam on to the ladder in the corner. Cole follows with the nasty Panama Sunrise off the ladder. Cole and Dominik end up battling on top of the ladder trying to grab the case. Cole nails him in the face with it and Dominik takes a nasty back bump into the ladder sitting horizontal behind him. Cringe face from me on that landing. Cole gets the win. Undisputed Era arrive to celebrate but they are stuck in the middle of Smackdown and Raw who have them surrounded. The brawl is on. All brands going at it. Drew arrives in the ring and takes out Dominik with a kick. Keith Lee runs in and spirit bombs Drew. Ivar and Lee face off and then do a dive together out of the ring on to both piles. Cole stands alone. Crowd popping huge again and it is Seth Rollins who lays out Cole with a super kick. Mixed reaction for Rollins at Full Sail. No One Will Survive. Ciampa’s music hits and he walks out slowly walking towards Rollins in the ring. I’m here for this. Ciampa lays out Cole first on the floor. Ciampa and Rollins then go at it as the show goes off the air. Lots happening on this show of NXT. Good stuff. Crazy to try and type up. LOL.
AEW opens up from Indianapolis with Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks taking on Fenix of The Lucha Brothers. This is a LIVE crowd for the show. They are standing and cheering early on during this match. This crowd is pumped for this show and we are just getting started. Fun opener with Fenix picking up the win by pinball. Women’s division is in action next with Britt Baker taking on Shida. Shida wins the match and we have yet another bloody nose for a female in the last week as Baker’s nose ends up bloody. So, we are two for two in results that I didn’t expect. I figured Jackson would win the first match and that Baker would win this one. Next up is the dynamite dozen battle royal. Final two will compete next week for the dynamite ring. I heard the crowd popping and looked up to see who they are cheering for. Turns out it was Billy Gunn. Big pop from the Indianapolis crowd for that surprise. Gunn starts dumping guys out. Jimmy Havoc then ends up using a staple gun in the match hitting competitors with it. Is this legal???!!! Apparently not as the refs escort him out of the match. Spears also shows up interfering and takes out Janela with a chair to cost him his chance. MJF continues to play crowd stopper when he eliminates Orange Cassidy while Cassidy was doing the kick gimmick to Gunn. I still say that I just don’t get the Cassidy thing but the crowd pops for it so they enjoy it every time. Gunn gets distracted by The Wardlow on the floor and it costs him as he gets eliminated. Jungle Boy does an awesome elimination and it comes down to the final two of him and Page. But we have a swerve when MJF pulls Jungle Boy out. MJF was never eliminated and was hiding away. So, it will be MJF vs. Page next week in Chicago. Fun battle royal. Tons of run ins. Can’t officials keep people away from the ring? LOL. AEW champion, Chris Jericho is next to open up hour number two. He arrives with Hager. Jericho is here for his big announcement. Jericho apologizes for his conduct last week after the show saying it wasn’t fitting of a champion. Well, his apology is him trying to say the word s-s-s-s-s-s-s and stopping. Hager then says he Jericho is trying to say he is sorry. LOL. Jericho says next week in Chicago that he will finally be getting the thank you that he deserves from everyone including AEW and Turner executives. Jericho is so good on the mic. He continues to use Hagar every time he needs to say the word sorry. SCU arrives as Jericho wraps up talking. Talk turns to Jericho getting his first loss last week to Sky. This is a fun back and forth. Again, Jericho is so good. Jericho challenges Sky for a rematch next week in Chicago. SCU baits Jericho into putting the title on the line. This ends up in a brawl. Rest of Inner Circle gets involved and they have the numbers. They handcuff SCU to the ropes except for Sky who takes the beating from Jericho and Hager. Jurassic Express do a run in. Stunt and Perry get taken down quickly. Luchasaurus faces off with Hager. Hager steps away. After commercial break, it is Luchasaurus taking on The Librarian. Squash match as it is over in about 30 seconds with the Luchasaurus win. Next match up is Private Party taking on Santana and Ortiz. Missed spot where apparently Santana was supposed to grab the ref’s leg to break up the pinfall attempt. The ref stopped the count looking for his leg to be grabbed. Ref sold it but it was never grabbed. On commentary, they tried to change the narrative to the ref stopping saying the legal man wasn’t in the ring. They have had several of these ref spots mess up. I’m with some of the other opinions that the ref is just going to have to make a count if the talent isn’t there to do what they are supposed be doing. Makes the refs look bad. Matt Jackson gets involved when Santana and Ortiz try to cheat. Private Party wins. Guevara then runs out and attacks Jackson. Dustin gets involved and takes out Guevara. The babyfaces prevail in the fight. Video runs of Omega talking at his workout. He says he has lost himself and it was all due to All In with Pac. Main event time with Darby Allin vs. Jon Moxley. Darby arrives in a bodybag. He unzips himself out of it and then skateboards down the ramp. Pretty wild visual. Match jump starts when Moxley comes over the barricade and Darby dives right out of the ring on to him. As this match is starting, I’m thinking this should be a lot of fun. Darby does a somersault dive THROUGH the middle rope on to Moxley as we get the near the end of the match. Incredible! Darby is fun to watch but whew, he’s dangerous. Moxley puts Darby in the bodybag. Ref unzips him to get him out. Darby goes for the coffin crop and Moxley catches him in a submission as he lands. That was awesome! Moxley nails the paradise shift off the ropes for the pinfall. My facial of my mouth open says how nasty that landing looked. Really fun main event.
Ratings? The streak is over! NXT defeats AEW for the first time so the main roster crossover definitely helped the NXT rating. Both shows weren’t far under a million so I have to think both shows are happy with their numbers. NXT did 916,000 up from last week’s 750,000. AEW did 893,000 down from last week’s post PPV number of 957,000. AEW is concentrating big on that 18-49 demo and they did win that for the week. 0.39 vs. 0.30. Already have talking going on from AEW with Chris Jericho saying on Twitter that NXT did it with the main roster talent crossing over.
Show of the Night: I enjoyed both but I am going NXT here. I thought NXT was awesome.
Match of the Night: Revival vs. Undisputed Era from NXT.
Line of the Night: I have been partying all weekend. My DM’s have been blowing up. Even my high school crush, Melanie Parsons, called me up and we’re going out this week. Scorpio Sky to Jericho on his win on Jericho last week.
NXT Takeover is tomorrow night on WWE Network starting at 6pm central time. Two WarGames matches. The women’s match will be Team Rhea Ripley of Ripley, Candice LeRae, Tegan Nox, and Mia Yim against Team Shayna of Shayna, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair, and Kay Lee Ray. Men’s WarGames will be Undisputed Era against Ciampa, Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic, and a surprise. The surprise is being teased as a big one. Will it be Kevin Owens? They sure teased it this week on Raw. Finn Balor vs. Matt Riddle. This should be an awesome show!
That is it for today! Lots going on this weekend as we head into Survivor Series weekend starting tonight with Smackdown. Have a great weekend!
About the Author
