Welcome to the “2026 is here” edition of The Wrestling List. Tonight was the Netflix anniversary show with Raw so I’ll get right into it.
Tonight’s theme of the show besides it being the anniversary show of WWE moving to Netflix was the Stranger Things themed show as well. I wasn’t sure what all that was going to involve but it was basically just the look of the production area, music, graphics, etc. I figured they’d have some of the cast popping in at ringside but nothing. If they had someone, I somehow completely missed it. The themed show was just the production look to it. I did like the production look to the show but I don’t really know what the point of it was other than just cross promotion I guess. Vince McMahon would have done something crazy and had the cast run in during the main event and cost a win if he was still running the show. LOL. Vince Russo would have put the belt on one of them. Ok, I’m getting silly here….but that would have happened even if I’m being silly. Especially the last part and then Russo would have bragged that the cast member winning made it on to Entertainment Tonight so it was worth it to him. Tonight’s show itself was solid but I think I expected more with the expectations on it. I think we got spoiled last year with the big epic Netflix premiere that I thought we were getting a somewhat repeat performance this year. I thought it was solid though. I think the expectations were just higher. The finish to that main event with CM Punk and Bron Breakker was hard hitting with spots. Punk going face first on the floor during the dive spot and then takes a nasty table bump from Bron as he jumped off the top rope. It was a physical finish. The match itself saw The Vision get involved. Then, Rey, Penta, and Dragon Lee got involved to take them out. Then, Punk kept getting distracted by Heyman to where even my kayfabe self came out of me saying to the TV “quit getting distracted by Heyman”. LOL. Punk eventually takes Heyman out with a punch on the second distraction. Loved the finish with Punk blocking the spear with a knee followed by the GTS for the pinfall. Punk retains which I was happy about. Bron is going to get that championship run and it’s just a matter of when. I didn’t feel like tonight was the night to do it. I enjoyed the match and also loved the submission battle that they had going at one point in the match too. Punk went through a war to retain.
That was the only belt to not change hands as the other two title matches had new champions crowned. The show opened up with Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky winning the tag team titles from Asuka and Kairi Sane. Fun match there. With those four, you’re going to get a good match with the stars that they are. Becky Lynch won her second Intercontinental title from Maxxine Dupri after grabbing the rope to get the cheating heel win. So, I thought we were setting up for a championship vacating with the Stephanie Vaquer appearance with her coming out in the walking boot. We had Raquel run in and just put a beating on to Stephanie. I thought Stephanie might have been legit hurt and this was how they were going to get her off of TV. However when I saw her taking some of those shots to the ankle, I said surely she isn’t legit hurt if she’s taking some of these brutal looking shots. I did like that whole thing with building up a feud between those two. Raquel looked like a monster. Stephanie had all sorts of sympathy on her with the attack. That definitely made me want to see more of these two. Liv Morgan had her first match back in the ring tonight. I don’t know if she’s been working the holidays tours or not so I may very well be wrong if this was her actual first match back. First TV match anyway. She faced Lyra in a very fun match that saw Bayley and Roxanne Perez getting involved as well. Liv gets the win. AJ Styles stepped up and called out Gunther on his big talk including slapping Gunther with Gunther not stepping back to him. In the back, Gunther went to Pearce asking for a match with Styles. Styles then walked in saying look at you running around behind me again going to the general manager instead of talking straight up to me. Pearce made the match for next week. I loved this with Styles stepping up to Gunther. That match should be awesome in Germany next week.
Other notes from Raw. Je’Von Evans announced as being a part of the Raw brand. I found out by seeing Triple H posting a picture of himself and Je’Von. My first thought was oh geez, I guess I must have stepped away and missed this moment on the show. Nope, apparently it happened during a commercial break which isn’t the best move on their part. Need to show that on TV. We also got a Oba Femi promo during the show looking like he’s moving up to the main roster too. They showed his name at the end of it but there wasn’t a show graphic with it. I don’t know if that airing on Raw means Raw as that can go either way sometimes. No Chris Jericho tonight. I pondered if he’d show up but as the show went along, it just felt like there was zero anything of a feel of that wasn’t going to happen. I did eye roll with the fans chanting Y2J at one point during the Becky/Maxxine match. Come on fans, be better than that. That’s 2000’s stuff with chanting that type thing during women’s matches. I laughed out loud at CM Punk walking out with the spoof Steiner Brothers Michigan jacket. That was good stuff there. I laughed also at Adam Pearce getting annoyed during the Raquel attack on Stephanie when he pulled the chair away and then slammed it down on the floor outside out of anger. Pearce does such a good job in this role with him just looking like he’s fed up with trying to control all of his roster every single week. He just roams from chaos to chaos. LOL.
Smackdown saw two additions to it on Friday night. Trick Williams appearing and having a good back and forth with Sami. I did like hearing the crowd doing the chant during the entrance cause that made me say ok good, the crowd knows him cause you never know for sure if main roster fans are watching NXT or not. Sometimes, you’ll get a random crowd that clearly doesn’t watch NXT. This was not one of them. We also had the signing of Matt Cardona and it’s actually Matt Cardona instead of Zack Ryder. I’m so glad he’s going to be Cardona. That’s the way to go. I don’t know if a lot of the newer fans are as familiar with Zack Ryder the character cause it’s been a while since he’s been there. Cardona has built the Cardona brand huge after his WWE departure and that is what deserves to be back on WWE TV. He’s earned that. Ryder would have been going backwards. This needs to be Matt Cardona and it’s going to be.
I’ve been working my way through the John Cena interview on the Cody Rhodes podcast. They go through his thoughts on his last match, the heel run, and plenty more. Interesting discussion. In other podcast talk, Stone Cold Steve Austin is going to appear on a new Chris Van Vliet interview this week.
The trailer premiered for the new season of Unreal. It looks like it will focus on the build to last year’s SummerSlam including a big focus on the fake injury angle with Seth Rollins. Here is the trailer for the second season.
It’s been long overdue but I’ve finally picked up two books that I’ve been wanting to read and that’s the Saraya book and the Becky Lynch book. I’ve gotten way behind on my book reading and I’m really looking forward to reading both of them.
Tomorrow is the NXT New Year’s Evil show on The CW. Lineup includes Oba Femi vs Leon Slater for the NXT title. Jacy Jayne defending the women’s title against Kendal Grey. Tatum Paxley vs Izzi Dame. Thea Hail defending the North American title against Blake Monroe.
That’s it for this week. Happy New Year and have a great week!
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