Friday, December 16, 2016

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Dec 12-14)

Sorry, Shinsuke. This is my new wrestling boyfriend now.
Bitter cruelty - the factors that made it very easy to find the time to watch wrestling this week also made it tough to write/post about it. But here's the Wroundup on a fairly average week in WWE as we had towards, wha tis it, Roadblock? Roadblock. Shit, that means I gotta do Roadblock predictions.

THE GOOD:

Jack Gallagher announcing his intention to interfere in the Daivari-Lince Dorado match, then interfering in said match. Gallagher is the best thing WWE has going right now, and the brightest spot in the Cruiserweight Division. While his match with Drew Gulak on 205 Live was pointless and nothing special, his backstage confrontation with Daivari was perfect.

The New Day beating Cesaro-Sheamus and The Clerb to retain the Tag Titles in the opening match. Cesaro stole the show, with another great sequence with Kofi Kingston and a completely insane sequence where he takes out five dudes around the ring. And the post-match party where Steph got soaked with champagne was fun too. Of course, that led to a SECOND triple threat title match, against Jeri-KO and Shields At 67%. The match wasn't as good as the opener, but The New Day prevailed. Was it overbooked? Sure. Did it make the tag titles subservient to two singles matches on Sunday's PPV? Sure. But they overcame the odds, and now, if they ever drop the titles, they can change their opening to "CLAP FOR YOUR LONGEST REIGNING TAG CHAMPS".

The heel work of Alexa Bliss. From condescending to, refusing to wrestler, and attacking her NXT jobber opponent, to a feigned knee injury and countout to keep the title, Bliss was spot on. I wish they'd ditched the post-match brawl, though. Bliss just stopping her limp halfway up the ramp would've been perfect.

Dolph Ziggler winning the #1 Contender's four-way on Smackdown. This goes at the bottom of the good list because the match was nothing special. It was OK, especially considering how much Luke Harper was in it, but Ziggler-Styles for the belt is a matchup I'm happy to see.

THE BAD:

The characterization of Mustafa Ali (205). I love the idea of him trying to change people's perspectives of him because of his background and the innate bigotry of a pro wrestling audience. But having him follow that up with a post-match beatdown of Lince Dorado after a double countout undercuts the whole thing and makes the bigots right to boo him. Bad show.

The Enzo-Cass-Rusev-Lana thing continued with a limp promo and a weak brawl between Rusev and Cass. (Raw)

The six-team Battle Royal to determine the #1 Contender (Smackdown).  Sloppily booked, barely wrestled, Vaudevillains continue to get buried, and the Hype Bros won. I mean, if they're gonna spend a few months feeding teams to build up Wyatt and Orton before starting a feud with Alpha, the Hype Bros aren't a bad way to start, but I also don't really need to see any of that happen.

The lackluster Rollins Report that set up the first part of the second Triple Threat (Raw). who says booking is convoluted?

"Bayley Bears" and a weird match between Bayley and Alicia (Raw) over Alicia's crush on Cedric Alexander, a storyline that exists entirely in pre-shows and announcer commentary. Also, Alicia reverting to the WOMEN BE CRAY CRAY mode that dominated so many pre-Revolution storylines.

The MizTV segment that opened MizTV where they'd clearly already decided who was going to be in the main event, and that's what determined the interruptions instead of story stuff. I mean, Ziggler, yeah, and Ambrose, yeah, but Luke Harper? He's not part of the title picture at all.

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Samoa Joe inside a steel cage from Melbourne to retain the NXT championship. This match was OK, and finished strong, but the feud was really done a disservice by having all these title matches, so close together, diminished by the limited production values of an NXT road show and, at least in the case of Osaka, with chunks cut out. I'm anxious for everyone to move on.

THE WEIRD, AMBIVALENT, AND BORING:

RAW: An underwhelming Criuiserweight match where Kendrick pinned Perkins, but at leas the crowd was sorta into them. A mediocre match where Bayley pinned Alicia Fox again over Alicia's weird jealousy angle.

The Sami Zayn / Braun Strohman / Mick Foley thing is a mess. I get what they were trying to do there, with Mick Foley goading Zayn into showing enough rage to be able to take on Strohman, but the way it played out, the weird, shitty match with Jinder Mahal that was included, and the lowering of the bar to "Can Sami Zayn survive ten minutes in the ring with Braun Strohman" like he's fucking Peter Parker drags the whole thing down.

Smackdown: Carmella, Natty, and Nikki Bella are still sort of arguing over who attacked Bella at Survivor Series, which was two PPVs ago and nobody cares.

NXT: Honestly, the entire show. Trying to fit the Joe-Nakamura cage match, in all it's low-budget, half-assed glory (although the finish was strong again) AND four rounds of the Wrangle of the Wrams in one show just shortchanged everything. I was dead on in my predictions, though. Dillinger (by DQ), Almas, Roode, and Strong (working face) are in the finals.

205: Perfectly acceptable buildup match where TJ Perkins beat Rich Swann asa part of the promo for the triple threat on Sunday.

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