Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (Jan 2-5)

DOS! DOS! DOS!

A pretty OK week for WWE overall, with 205 Live picking up a lot of the slack Raw left behind, and Smackdown doing its Smackdown thing that everyone else likes more than me but even I admit doesn't usually just suck.



THE GOOD:

(SD) TWO LA LUCHADORAS!

(205) The new EVIL entrance graphics and remixed music for nEVILle. I always appreciate it when a wrestler changes up their presentation and moveset for a face/heel turn, and it always bugs me when they don't cough cough Randy Orton cough cough. I'm not sold on the Superplex as a new finisher, though. I mean, as it was, the Red Arrow suffered from taking WAY too long between setup and delivery. Now, with two guys trying to get safely positioned on the top rope, it can take even longer, like it did this week when nEVILle beat TJ Perkins in an excellent match.

(205) Tajirigreen misting the ever loving fuck out of Brian Kendrick, and Kendrick selling the mist like a champ. Kendrick came out after a nothing establishment match (Tajiri d. Sean Maluta) to make a perfectly logical attempt to ally himself with another former Smackdown cruiserweight big shot. The mist was Tajiri's answer. A program between the two makes perfect sense.

(Raw) Kevin Owens using a guy with a Kevin Owens Show shirt and a Kevin Owens Show sign over his face to brand his talk show. The rest of the show is just standard posturing by Goldberg, Owens, Reigns, and Strowman. This went longer than my DVR would record for some reason, but apparently Goldberg and Reigns double-speared Strowman so yay that. I'm only keeping everything beyond Signface in the Good section for convenience.

(SD) The Styles and Cena promos that went with the contract signing. The Cena stuff was only diminished by Cena's history, but it was still excellent mic work. Then Baron Corbin came out and said he was in the Rumble and ruined everything.

(Raw) The New Day learning umbrella fighting from Jack Gallagher. Then they announce their entry into the Royal Rumble, which will allow Kofi to do his classic wacky Rumble escape, Woods to be tossed early, and Big E to get in some power moves and last a live. Then Titus O'Neil comes out, acts the fool, gets megaburned by Xavier Woods. This leads to a atch, which Woods wins clean, but not decisively. This stays in the Good as a segment but this better not be how the New Day keeps itself busy until the Rumble.

(205) Daivari's post-match attack on Jack Gallagher, because it means the duel wasn't the end of their feud, and because Daivari's heel work is on fucking point, even when you factor in the boost he gets from racism. WWE needs to be more chareful with Gallagher, though. When Neville debuted, he had this bit shere he did handsprings across the ring. It was impressive, but they had him do it at pretty much the same point in every match for months, and it started looking canned. A few of Gallagher's bits run the risk of being the same, like the corner handstand.

(Raw) Bayley ekes out a victory over Nia Jax via Banks distraction and a second rope Bayley to Belly. WWE protect-the-big-guy math hurts Bayley here but she gets the title shot at the Rumble, which is all that really matters to me right now.

THE BAD:

(Raw) Braun Strohman defeated Sami Zayn in a Last Man Standing match. Zayn got a five count on Strowman after putting him through a pile of tables. Strwoman picked up Zayn repeatedly intervening in the final ten count until finally winning with Braun Strohman Move #8, the Powerslam. What is this storyline doing for Sami, who's stretchered out after the match eventually after Strowman beats on him some more. With Strowman moving on to maybe Reigns or Goldberg, there's no opportunity for Zayn to win one over Strowman.

(Raw) The United States title and the Universal Title still being part of the same program. The opening Owens-Rollins match with the bullshit DQ finish, leading to Owens being banned from ringside for a Jericho-Reigns match nobody wants to see. Even on 2x speed it wasn't great, and Reigns no-sold Jericho's cheat-to-win scheme, kicked out of a Codebreaker, and hit a Spear for the win. And even if Jericho HAD won, it still would have tied the US belt up in the main event scene.

(SD) Everything about Carmella and Ellsworth.

(Raw/205) OK, the Alicia Fox / Cedric Alexander thing has stopped doing what tiny bit it was doing for the Cruiserweights, as she provided distraction for a Drew Gulak rollup win and nobody cared.

(Raw) Paul Heyman probably should have rethought the catchphrase "EAT SLEEP ELIMINATION REPEAT".

(Raw) Mick Foley's many signature flubbishes during the opening promo.

(NXT) This whole thing where they show us edited championship matches from foreign shows in the context of ongoing storylines, then show us extended house shows with the full matches later on as filler. This week was the Melbourne show that featured the Joe-Nakamura cage match, and honestly, I just skimmed through it to see what the matches were, and while I probably could have watched TM61 vs. Ciampa and Gargano, TM61 were wearing the same color tights and that makes it tougher for me to enjoy their work.

THE WEIRD, AMBIVALENT, AND BORING:

RAW: TJ Perkins defeated Brian Kendrick because they've been wrestling each other for a while.

SMACKDOWN: Dean Ambrose defeated The Miz to win the Intercontinental Title. I don't really understand this match, as it had essentially all the elements of the Ziggler-Miz Career Vs. Title match with only about a quarter of the build. And Ziggler's a bit more interesting to watch in the ring. I'll see where this goes. Coincidentally, Ziggler turned heel, explaining to me "why is Baron Corbin beating Ziggler clean and then being stopped from post-match beatdowns by Kalisto?" Also need to see where that goes. American Slpha squashed Breezango and got challeneged by Spooky WyattTron. Nikki Bella and Natalya gave an "establishing the reasons for our feud" promo.

205: Noam Dar and Mustafa Ali had a solid but meaningless match that at least cemented Ali's pure face adjustment from last week.