Sunday, January 15, 2017

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Jan 9-12)

ALL OF THEM!
NXT takes the week thanks to a somewhat lackluster 205 Live, even with jack Gallagher. Raw continues to be the more inconsistent show, with highter highs and lower lows, while Smackdown continues to be consistently mediocre.



THE GOOD:

(NXT) The opening women's segment in which the Aussie Bad Girls attack Asuka in the parking lot, squash a couple of jobbers in the ring, beat up an injured Asuka out for revenge, and then get DESTROYED by an insane Nikki Cross who then, of course, attacks Asuka too. Beautifully esablishes Cross where she should be, near the top of a still slight NXT women's division. And then, right at the end, Asuka. "ALL OF THEM!" Fucking awesome.

(NXT) The tag title rematch between DIY and The Revival. These guys always put on such dynamic matches. Nothing formulaic about them. Just flowing from spot to spot and bit to bit, telling a great story the whole time. DIY retains, unsurprisingly, but I had doubts a couiple of times anyway, which is how you know it's a really good match.

(SD) AJ Styles correcting the shit out of Mauro when Mauro called Corbin's sidewalk slam the "Deep Six". I don't always like AJ on the mic, but I fucking loved that. AJ was doing commentary on the Cena-Corbin main event, which I had hopes for, and was going well, until Cena did his usual "make a guy look good for five minutes then win by  making him look like a chump at the finish" match. People always give him credit for "putting guys over" like this, but he sells the moves and not the match.

(Raw) Roman Reigns is no longer the United States Champion, and it only took the Universal Champion, a WWE Legend, a pre-match beatdown (that Reigns initiated and lost), cheating, and a powerbomb on the apron followed by two Codebreakers to do it!

(Raw) Rusev's weird charm when he almost breaks character. It's happened a few times, and it's always so awesome I really wonder what a face Rusev would be like. Probably more fun than face Roman. Also, to a lesser extent, Shawn Michaels' self-deprecation.

(Raw) The Undertaker's promo. I like the idea that the Undertaker character is above such petty bullshit as "brand extnsions". I also marked out a little for Taker in the Royal Rumble, and I'm not a huge Undertaker fan. Of course, how many times, on how many shows, is he gonna say he's back before actually being back?

(SD) American Alpha retained their titles, defeating the Wyatt Family with a rollup in a decent match, marred by Randy Orton's ineffective heel turn and the entire story being subservient to drama between Randy Orton and Luke Harper.

THE BAD:

(NXT) A squash match still trying to make Elias Samson a thing. Nobody wants him.

(SD) Baron Corbin becoming like the sixtieth heel to inform Jonn Cena that Cena's time is up and the heel's time is now. STOP IT WWE.

(SD) Heel Dolph Ziggler not changing his music or entrance except for some extra scowling. If anyone would want to abandon his trappings and his new pink WWEShop shirt, it's Heel Ziggler. At least he's gone back to a mostly mat- and submission-based offene, but the crowd was still chanting for him, and not in a smarky "yay heel turn" way. He lost the match with Kalisto, leading of course to a post-match beating of both Kalisto and Crews.

(Raw) How unstoppable, exactly, is Braun Strowman? Because he's a lot more unstoppable when facing Sami Zayn than he's been in two outings against Seth Rollins. There are degrees of dominance, after all. The match was fine, but the need to protect Rollins while pushing Strowman leads to some awkward calculus.

(205)  Whatever the fuck Alicia Fox thought she was doing in the locker room after her and Cedric Alexander did their middle school play version of the Insecure finale. Alicia helped Creepy Noam Dar in his match against Cedric, of course, so Cedric dumped her and Fox went into her acting super crazy thing.

(Raw/205) Are they burning through Jack Gallagher too quickly? In his feud with Daivari, he's already gentlemanly interfered, they've had a duel, and now they're having a parlay? There are's a limited supply of entertaining antiquated Britishisms for Gallagher to employ, and I hop they're thinking longer term with him than it looks like they are. That said, the parlay essentially turned into a contract signing for an "I Forfeit" match, with both guys doing great promo work that the crowd refused to acknowledge. Having Gallagher name his umbrella is a bit opportunistic and New Day, though.

(Raw) Everthing else about the Enzo/Cass/Rusev/Lana/HBK/Jinder Mahal promo and match. Ugh. Also, I'm glad Michals feels he can be comfortable, but dude dresses like a homeless Ted Nugent.

THE WEIRD, AMBIVALENT, AND BORING:

RAW: nEVILle defeated Lince Dorado in a nothing match, debuting a new submission finisher, possibly replacing the superplex. Post-match beat-down brings out Rich Swann, of course. Sheamus beat Luke Gallows after Cesaro and Anderson got into it at the announce table. Titus O'Neil continues his New Day shenanigans to little effect. Nia Jax gets her win back over Bayley in a tag match.

SMACKDOWN: Dean Ambrose and Miz are both in the Rumble. Seems odd for one brand's champion to be trying to get the other brand's title. Natalya and Nikki can't have a match because they're too busy fighting each other.

NXT: Cien Almas got his Japan win back over Oney Lorcan.

205: Brian Kendrick won a sloppy match against Sean Maluta to sort of further his feud with Tajiri. Rich 'swann defeated Tony Nese in a very good match that was really just there so they could announce Neville-Swann at the Rumble.

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