By Jeff Knapp
Although this was the biggest news of the week, this might be the biggest news in over 40 years. Vince McMahon has retired from the WWE. I’m not going to go into what caused him to retire, but he has been at the forefront of wrestling since 1984 when he brought us WrestleMania. It appears that his daughter Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan will be CO-CEOs while Triple H has not only taken over talent relations but has taken over creative. If he is truly gone and will have no input into the WWE, then this is an end of an era. When Triple H took over NXT we saw what he was capable of doing. At one point it was the better of the 3 shows that the WWE put out and when Vince took that away, we saw what happened.
It appears that Tully Blanchard is no longer with AEW/ROH, but there isn’t much out there as to why, so I will not speculate on anything.
Speaking of no longer in AEW/ROH, it appears that former ROH Champion Jonathan Gresham has asked for his release. Once again, until there is anything said by either AEW/ROH and/or Jonathan Gresham himself, I will not go into why he asked, but many sites are stating it was because he lost the ROH Championship and a few other reasons. I am huge fan of him and hope to see him back on TV once again soon. If things don’t work out, then could we see him show up on Impact or even the NWA?
Over the weekend, ROH held their 2nd Tony Khan owned PPV, Death Before Dishonor, which was main evented by FTR vs The Briscoes in a 2 out of 3 falls match. I thought they couldn’t top their 1st encounter, but I was mistaken. This was just as good and possibly better. FTR retained the Tag Team Titles, but with The Briscoes signing a contract, you never know what could happen.
Speaking of DFD, congratulations to Claudio Castagnoli in winning his 1st major wrestling world heavyweight championship when he defeated Jonathan Gresham for the ROH World Title.
The 2 sleeper matches from the PPV were the Wheeler Yuta vs Daniel Garcia for the Pure championship and Mercedes Martinez vs Serena Deeb for the ROH Women’s championship. Top to bottom this was a solid PPV and worth the money spent.
This week AEW announced that on Sept 4th at the All Out PPV they will crown the 1st AEW Trios Tag Team Champions.
Speaking of Championships, there was an announcement made by STARDOM and NJPW at the recent 2022 STARDOM Strategy Meeting that an IWGP Women’s Championship Title will be introduced at the NJPW x Stardom Event on Sunday, November 20th at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan and that the inaugural IWGP Women’s Champion will be crowned during that event. It was also announced that the IWGP Women’s Championship will eventually be defended on NJPW’s Events all over Japan as well as in the United States.
WWE – RAW
Roman Reigns, The Usos and Paul Heyman come out. Roman has the Garden to acknowledge him then says that he doesn’t feel like talking anymore and hands the microphone to Paul Heyman. He talks about how Brock likes to piss on everyone’s parade, from ruining Randy Couture’s party, ending the Undertaker’s streak, sending John Cena to suplex city. This eventually leads to Theory coming out and talking trash, but Roman tells him that he appreciate what Theory’s trying to do but he has no clue what he’s doing with that briefcase, Roman says that Theory’s daddy isn’t here anymore, Roman says that if Theory keeps messing up he’s going to be his daddy, Roman says that he runs the Garden now, Jey then slaps Theory on the back of the head, Theory then hits Jey twice with the briefcase, Roman remains calm as The Bloodline walks up the ramp.
That was one of the best openings in a while on Raw.
In what was supposed to be Drew McIntyre vs Theory turned in to Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley vs Theory and Sheamus after Drew is attacked from behind.
In the end Ziggler comes out and distracts Theory which gets him put into the Hurt Lock and then taps out. After the match, Theory walks up the ramp to then be super kicked by the Usos.
Not sure where this is going, but I’m sure Dominik will eventually turn on his father, but in the meantime, Rhea Ripley returns and along with the rest of Judgement Day attack and destroy Rey Mysterio
In a tag team heavy match night in which we saw AJ Styles and Ziggler defeat Otis and Chad Gable… Shoosh !!! (How amazing that he got a simple Shoosh and thank you over?) The main event saw The Street Profits and Riddle face The Bloodline where Roman was dominate and speared Riddle for the victory. He is looking strong and confident going into SummerSlam.
After the match Rollins came out to an already defeated Riddle and curb stomped him onto the steel steps which injured him and not may not compete at SummerSlam.
NXT
This one was hard to get excited about. This program is feeling the effects of what Vince and Kevin Dunn did to it. The opening match was Wes Lee vs Grayson Waller and it was not bad, but I just don’t know the direction of either character.
Thankfully the show was saved by 2 really good matches. The 1st one being Andre Chase vs Giovanni Vinci and then the main event was Diamond Mine vs Tony D’Angelo where Roderick accidently kneed Julius Creed allowing Tony to hit his finisher for the win.
I’m 100% positive this will lead to some type of match in the near future, but how the Creeds are not the center of the tag division is beyond me.
We also found out that there will be a 4 team women’s tag for the vacant tag titles. The teams will be Feroz & Valentina vs Chance & Carter vs Ivy Nile & Tatum Paxley vs Toxic Attraction. If I’m the booker the titles would go on Chance & Carter.
AEW – Dynamite
The show starts off with Interim AEW World Champion Jon Moxley defend his title against 2x ROH Champion RUSH (pronounced rooosh). 2 different styles that gave us an amazing match. Moxley ends up getting RUSH to tap out to the Bulldog Choke. After the match Jericho comes out and challenges Jon for the title, in which Moxley accepts but he wants to face the Lion Heart Chris Jericho and not one of his daily new titles like the wizard or something. Great segment
Ricky Starks put his FTW championship on the line against Danhausen and easily wins, but after that he says he’s ready to put it on the line again right now. This brings out Hook, the son of Taz, the man who invented that title. Hook ends up locking in Redrum and becoming the NEW FTW world champion.
The 2 men show a sign of respect to each other and then Ricky starts to talk about moving onto other titles but is laid out by his partner Powerhouse Hobbs. The crowd is shocked.
During the Shane “Swerve” Strickland vs. Tony Nese & “Smart” Mark Sterling match, Keith Lee is attached from behind by former ROH pure champion Josh Woods. I’m guessing Woods has aligned himself with Nese and Sterling.
In another successful title defense, AEW Women’s champion Thunder Rosa defeated Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling superstar Miyu Yamashita by way of pinfall after hitting her Thunder Driver.
In the amazing main event Bryan Danielson made his return and faced off against Daniel Garcia. When we though Danielson was going to win, he was grabbed by a mystery person under the ring, who ended up being Jake Hager, which allowed Garcia to lock in a sharpshooter and Bryan passes out and never taps.
IMPACT
The show starts off with 2 of the best that Impact has to offer, Eddie Edwards of Honor No More and Ace Austin of the Bullet Club. Eddie has been solid his entire time in Impact and Ace is leaps and bounds better than he was when he 1st arrived at Impact. This was hard fought and could have gone either way with both Kenny King and Chris Bey getting involved, but EE ends up connecting with the Die Hard Driver for the win.
The HNW and Bullet Club rivalry has become one of the top feuds in all of American pro wrestling over the past few months, so let’s see where this goes.
Although Tiffany Nieves defeated Jada Stone, nobody won after the match because we welcome back the returning beautiful, talented and hard-hitting Killer Kelly who takes out both ladies. I’m sure the Knockouts championship will be in her sites soon, but who will be the 1st woman in her path?
The one thing I can’t understand is that you have your world champion on the show wrestling, and this isn’t the main event. The Kushida vs Rich Swann match which was another solid match and had me the entire time and it was great to see Kushida back to his winning ways with a Hoverboard Lock submission on Swann, but how is your champion not in the main event? Alexander made Shera look as great as anybody could make him.
Before the Kushida vs Swann match we go to the truck where we see Honor No More. Scott D’Amore comes in and says they have gone too far but Mike Bennett is tired for being blamed for everything and that they deserve the tag team title shot. In response, D’Amore makes a match for Emergence in which it will be Honor No More vs. Bullet Club. The stipulation is that if they win, they get their title shot but if they lose, then they’ll have to disband forever.
WWE – SMACKDOWN
Smackdown starts off the way we need WWE shows to start off, and that’s with a hard hitting, exciting match. The fans got that this week with a no dq match between Sheamus and Drew for opportunity at the WWE World title in the UK at “Clash at the Castle” against whomever is the champion after SummerSlam.
Although Butch and Ridge all got involved, Drew was able to put Sheamus through a table and then connect with the Claymore to become #1 contender.
This type of physicality reminds me of the 80s when 2 big hosses would battle it out.
Tonight was the go home show for SummerSlam and most of the night were promos that set up everything for Saturday night.
The Usos brawled with the Street Profits and ended up accidentally super kicking Jeff Jarrett
I love Baron Corbin. He’s such an annoying pain in the neck and he’s great at getting the crowd really mad at him and that’s what I love about what he does with his character…or is it a character?
Aliyah vs Shotzi seemed like it came about for no real reason except that Lacey Evans couldn’t compete. I’ll admit that when I see Shotzi get any type of tv time and pick up a win, I’m a happy man. She is too talented to not be showcased on tv more often. She did pick up the win with the “never wake up” suplex cradle ddt or at least that’s what it looked like.
AEW – RAMPAGE
I love Orange Cassidy. A fan offered him his french fries and he accepts. Love his new theme, it just works.
It was also nice to see “All Ego” Ethan Page pick up a win
In what was the biggest news of the night, Jericho was goated into a match against Wheeler Yuta next week on Dynamite and Jericho was so sure he can beat Yuta that he is putting his AEW championship match against Jon Moxley on the line and if Yuta wins, he can take Jericho’s place.
In the main event Anna Jay put up one hell of a fight against a battle tested Ruby Soho and picked up the submission victory when she used her cast underneath the neck of ruby unbeknownst to the referee.
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