Thursday, May 24, 2018

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wrouindup (5/21-23)

Goddamn, these two are great together in the ring, and hey, Sullivan is there too.
“Which show is better” discussions are always funny, because for every week where Raw is good and Smackdown’s bad, there’s a week like this one, where Raw is an upper-deck turd and Smackdown is interesting and exciting. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE.


RIP Sami Zayn’s Dignity

He had to go out there and perform one of those long, painful in-ring bits that Vince must think are great, because we get them every once in a while. In this case, he invited Bobby Lashley’s “sisters” to the ring, who turned out to be three Local Talents in drag, because that’s always funny. I fast forwarded through the entire segment, checking in occasionally to listen to the crickets in the arena.

Nakamura-Styles: Last Man Standing

Nakamura announced the Last Man Standing stipulation in a fantastic segment on Smackdown that featured him first demanding a pillow fight, then beating the holy hell out of Styles, then counting to ten every time Styles was down. Easily Nakamura’s best non-wrestling segment since his NXT debut.

Natalya Qualifies

She beat both no-Riott Riott Squad members to advance.

Lana Qualifies

Lana still can’t wrestle, but thanks to Aeden English and Rusev Day, her quick, ugly victory over Billie Kay was HUGELY over with the crowd. I hope the rumors of Rusev turning on English and abandoning Rusev Day aren’t true, because if they are, it’ll just be WWE stubbornly refusing to go with something natural because it wasn’t their idea.

Naomi Qualifies

Had a pretty good match with Sonya Deville.

Daniel Bryan Beat Jeff Hardy To Face Samoa Joe For The Last MitB Spot

I have to imagine Joe will win the spot. I hope so, at least. Better match than you’d think to close out Smackdown

Gallows And Anderson Become Number One Contenders

I don’t like how quickly and easily they beat the Usos on Smackdown this week, but if someone’s gonna be sacrificed to the Bludgeon Brothers at Money In The Bank, it shouldn’t be the Usos again.

Velveteen Dream Turns On Ricochet

They were in an amazing handicap match with Lars Sullivan, just bouncing off him at high speed for like seven minutes, when Dream decided that Ricochet had wronged him in some way, hit the rolling Death Vally Driver, and left him for Sullivan to finish off. I assume they’ll be one on one at Takeover Chicago, and I can’t wait.

Candace LaRae Is The Latest Victim Of The Ciampa/Gargano Feud

Speaking of Takeover Chicago, looks like they’re setting up Gargano and Ciampa for another go. Gargano got knocked off the apron into his wife, who crashed “hard” on the entrance ramp and was “injured”. If they add marital strife to this angle I’m going to get cranky.

BONUS KUDOS

Bonus kudos to the entire opening segment between Miz and The New Day, and the subsequent match between Big E and The Miz, which The Miz won after The Bar interfered. The whole thing was entertaining, unlike the imilar opening segment on Raw, which lasted an hour, featured two Roman Reigns matches, and put me to sleep even with judicious fast-forwarding.

Bonus Kudos to Akira Tozawa and Hideo Itami for putting on an excellent main event on 205 Live. I haven’t been particularly invested in their half-assed tag team breakup story, and I’m not sure if Itami winning this week is the end of it, but I really enjoyed the match.



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