Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (9/4-9/6)

THANK YOU ASUKA!
I was on top of shit this week. Look at that. All the week's wrestling, including four hours of Mae Young Classic, watched by Wednesday night. Boom. Here are the events of significance.


Asuka Gets A Heroic Sendoff

The heel turn is forgotten, down the memory hole, as Asuka relinquishes the NXT Women's Title, undefeated, as she heads to the main roster once she recovers from her collarbone injury. She gets to cut a face goodbye promo, the entire women's division plus a few extra dudes came out to the stage to cheer her off, she got a hug from Ember Moon, and William Regal said she always defended the title with honor, which is true of Asuka the performer but not so much true for Asuka the character. Still, when a truly beloved performer leaves NXT for bigger and better things, and everyone knows it, it's a genuine, touching moment (see also, Sami Zayn after his match with Nakamura).

Nakamura Will Face Jinder Mahal Again

I didn't bother watching the match, because Randy Orton, but I did watch Nakamura hit the Kinshasa on Orton, because Orton. He becomes the #1 contender again, and while I'm not excited to see Nakamura-Mahal II per se, because I don't think Mahal has anything else to offer anyone that he hasn't shown us yet, but I am excited to see Nakamura beat him at some point. Maybe this'll be that point.

I Guess Roman Reigns Is OK

There's no clearer distinction between an awesome thing that happens when a talented performer does what he's good at, and WWE trying to re-create that moment in a heavily scripted and controlled format that misses the point, just look at the difference between last week's Cena-Reigns faceoff and this week's. The only genuine-sounding line of the whole thing was when Reigns, in response to Cena telling him his zipper was down, responded "actually, I broke it. Big Dog." More of that reigns. Less of the gay panic ad-lib Reigns from like fifteen seconds later. THe whole thing was so sadly trying so hard to be last week again.

Shane-O-Mac Gets Violent

WWE is doing another "authority figure gets goaded into violence and this time it's a bad thing" angle where Shane beat up Kevin Owens and now Kevin Owens is going to sue or have Shane arrested or whatever, so SHane is suspended and Vince is showing up next week and all the rumors are Shane vs. Owens in the Cell at Hell In A Cell, which nobody needs to see. I mean, at least Owens can move, unlike SHane's last Cell opponent, but Shane can't fucking wrestle.

Fatal Four-Way For The Women's Belt

Emma and Nia Jax earned their way into the women's title match at No Mercy between Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks by winning a tag match I did not expect them to win. Not sure what the point of the four-way is, but I suspect they're just killing time until Asuka debuts and destroys them all. That may happen at No Mercy, or shortly after, depending on how legit her callarbone injury is.

Dolph Ziggler's New Thing Is Just Dolph Ziggler

He pretended to do Cena, Randy Savage, and Naomi's entrances and then yells at the crowd for liking entrances instead of awesome wrestlers like him and he's still Dolph Ziggler and he's still named Dolph Ziggler and this will go nowhere.

Jeff Hardy Loses The IC Title

This isn't particularly notable, because he lost to THe Miz as expected due to Maryseference as expected, but it was a title match so I should probably mention int.

Enzo Ruins The Cruiserweights

If Enzo succeeds in drawing more viewers to 205 Live, they're going to realize how often they use the same promos, same matches, and same finishes between 205 Live and Raw. The most recent six-man tag led to yet another #1 Contender's Fatal Five-Way on 205 Live, which he won. I mean, I was on board with the idea of bringing Enzo AMore to 205 Live. I was even on board with the idea of having Enzo win the belt to attract interest and get some guys over. Unfortunately, the reality has Enzo cheating to win, cutting lame promos, and just generally not doing the kinds of things that make you love Enzo. I don't know where this is going, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna go well.

No comments:

Post a Comment