By Jeff Knapp
There have been reports that both Naomi and Sasha Banks have agreed to return to the WWE after falling out a few months ago. Whether this story is true or not, we will have this updated when it is 100% true.
Congratulations to Johnathan Gresham who earned a shot at the Progress championship when he won a 4-way match at Ric Flair’s Last Match PPV.
Speaking of that, Congratulations to Andrade and to the Nature Boy Ric Flair on their victory at that PPV when Flair pin Double J Jeff Jarrett
During this week’s Dynamite, Taz broke the news that as of that show Team Taz has officially disbanded. He wasn’t in the loops as far as Hobbs turning on Stark or Hook, challenging and winning the FTW Championship. He wished the 3 men all the best, but it’s time to move forward he says.
WWE Hall of Famer “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan revealed on Instagram that he has finished up his cancer treatment. That is amazing news. I was a huge fan of his as a kid and when I got to meet him a few years ago, I let him know how much I rooted for him. What a wonderful human being Duggan is.
Michael Cole Announced on Smackdown that the WWE will hold a tournament to crown new Women’s Tag Team Champions starting Monday
WWE – RAW
This was the 1st Raw under the Triple H regime and the biggest difference I saw was the extra 20 minutes of wrestling they had compared to the previous weeks.
There were 2 triple threat matches that night and the winners of both would face each other to see who would become the #1 contender to the US Championship currently held by the Almighty Bobby Lashley.
In the 1st match we had AJ Styles defeat The Miz and Mustafa Ali in an amazing sequence when Ali hit the 450 on Miz and when he propelled himself up from the impact, AJ caught him and connected in a Styles Clash. Great match and it was amazing to see Mustafa Ali get a chance to shine.
In the 2nd match, Ciampa defeated Dolph Ziggler and Chad Gable. I’m a fan of all 3 men, but it’s great to see Ciampa get the spotlight.
In the finals for the # 1 contendership, Ciampa defeated Styles when the Miz got involved and cause the distraction allowing TC to hit the Fairy Tale Ending and become the new # 1 Contender to the US Championship. I’m really curious how he will attack Lashley in their match next week. He’s one tough guy and was one of the greatest NXT champions of all time, but he’ll have his work cut out for him.
The rest of the show gave us some of the best matches on Raw in a long time. In my opinion, Iyo Sky gave Bianca Belair one of her toughest fights to date outside of Becky Lynch. Now that she has aligned with Bailey and Dakota Kai, this will be a very formidable trio. (Better than Toxic Attraction in nxt?)
In what has become par for the course, The Usos put on one hell of a fight when they defended their Undisputed Tag Team titles. This time they faced the Mysterios. I’m not positive how they earned the shot, but possibly based on the fact that Rey is celebrating his 20th year in the WWE.
With that said, Rey and Dominik put up one hell of a fight, but Dom gets nailed with the 1D and that’s it until the Judgment Day makes their way to the ring. Unfortunately, Edge Accidently hits Dom with a spear, but he is still able to fend off the Judgement Day.
NXT
NXT started off hot this week by having a NXT Women’s Tag team 4-way elimination match to crown the new Champions after they titles were vacated. The crowd was hot for this one as one of my favorite women’s tag teams in all of the WWE won their 1st championships. Kayden Carter & Katana Chance had every man, woman and child in the Capital Center jumping and cheer as they defeated Tatum Paxley & Ivy Nile, newcomers Yulissa Leon & Valentina Ferroz who showed some real spunk and finally knocking off Toxic Attraction’s Jacy Jayne & Gigi Dollin to become the new champions. They’ve fought hard, now we have to see them fight harder to keep the titles.
This was a hard night to figure out, we saw some good matches from Carmelo Hayes, who took on Nathan Frazer, Joe Gacy who faced Jensen. I’m a big fan of Gacy, who has the character who has the potential to be great if they just allow him to become darker, like Jim Jones.
Nothing against Alba Fyre but this match against Lash Legend was just not my cup of tea. How they think that Lash is ready for the spotlight of NXT is beyond me. She has all the athletic ability, but maybe some time in Level UP might be the best thing. I’m always looking to get emotionally invested in them, but her and Duke Hudson are 2 of those wrestlers who make me want to fast forward or use the bathroom.
It appears that Legado Del Fantasma has gone against the stipulation of their match and has broken away from the Mob. If Elektra Lopez is involved, do whatever you want. I’m hoping that Esobar takes out Tony Mamaluke once and for all. He has that face you just want to fast forward through.
In the main event we saw Solo Sikoa defeat Von Wagner in a falls count anywhere match in what was really entertaining. Solo has the bloodline to be amazing, but I want to give it up to Von Wagner. This was his best match to date and the fact that they paired him with Robert Stone was the best thing they could have done for him. If gives him a mouthpiece to get him over, once again proving my point that managers are needed more in the world of pro wrestling.
AEW – DYNAMITE
In what was seen as a surprise to some but not to others, Jay Lethal won clean over Orange Cassidy when he connected with his Lethal Injection finisher with little interference from Satnam Singh and Sonjay Dutt.
The Elite came to the ring, which consisted of The Young Bucks, reDRagon and Adam Cole Bay Bay. Cole talks about how he isn’t cleared to wrestle, and neither is Kyle. He talks about loyalty and that although he and Kyle can’t compete for the newly made Trios Titles, neither can the Young Bucks. This prompts reDRagon to Pearl Harbor job the Bucks also allowing Cole to get in a few kicks until Hangman Adam Page runs down and makes the save. I have seen something like this in the shadows when The Bucks seemed to have wanted to patch things up with Page, but just couldn’t get the alone time with him to talk things out. When the time is right, will we see those 6 men fight it out until an eventual returning Kenny Omega comes to straighten things out?
ThunderStorm (Thunder Rosa & Toni Storm) took on the team of Britt Baker & Jamie Hayter, with Rebel. Britt and Jamie have been a team a lot longer and it shows when it’s time to get on the same page. Storm is also the #1 contender to Rosa’s Women’s championship, so at some point this will have to boil over. When that match does happen, I see nothing less than a barn burner that Thunder Rosa will come out on top on. This time around we see Hayter picking up the pinfall over Toni Storm
This week we also saw Ricky Starks unsuccessfully try to get some type of revenge on Powerhouse Hobbs, but Hobbs is just way too strong.
Christian Cage also defeated Matt Hardy with the Killswitch and Daniel Garcia claims he’s now the Dragon Slayer by defeating the American Dragon, Bryan Danielson. That was a short but very effective promo.
Finally in the Main event with his title shot on the line, Chris Jericho submitted Wheeler Yuta with the Lion Tamer submission.
Before I wrap up Dynamite, the internet was buzzing with the rap from Max Caster when he mentioned Vince McMahon’s retirement in his diss rap to the Ass Boys and Billy Gunn.
As of this writing, it’s been a nice change of pace to have both Raw and Dynamite have both quality shows, usually it’s just the one having it where I don’t feel the need to fast forward.
IMPACT
The night started off with 2 former champions, Deonna Purrazzo who took on the leader of Decay, Rosemary who was joined by Taya Valkyrie and Jessicka, who was once Havok but creative pulled a horrible another personality gimmick with her like they did with Su Yung…twice. Deonna picked up the victory after Jessicka somehow accidently distracted the ref.
We also saw Brian Meyers get what could be called a questionable win when he pinned Black Tarus, but Taurs’s feet were on the bottom rope. After yet another ref blunder, Marsha Slamovich devastated Gisele Shaw with a Snow Plow.
Back to tag team action where we saw the Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) get a pinfall victory over Violent By Design’s Deaner &Joe Doering) I have to give it to VBD. Although they lost tonight, they have made tremendous strides in the Impact tag team division over the past year.
Our main event is just around the corner, but 1st we have a very upset Sami Callihan in the ring dismantle Raj Singh with his Cactus Driver 97. The reason he is so upset is because of his frustrations with not being able to get his hands on Moose and Steve Maclin. After the match he gets his wish as Moose comes from behind and attacks Callihan. But is able to fight back until Maclin shows up and reverses the Cactus Driver 97 and groin shots Callihan, Moose then hits a spear followed by a DDT from Maclin.
We are now at the main event and this week we get The Bullet Club’s Doc Gallows facing PCO of HNM in a street fight. This is a wild match that goes all over the place. PCO takes the ring apart and at one point gets chokeslammed through the exposed wood by Gallows only to come back. In the end, with Gallows on the mat, PCO puts on a glove and loads it up with thumb tacks and leaps off the top onto Gallows who rolls into the sunken part of the ring and is then pinned by PCO for the win. How many times will PCO have to prove that he’s not the weak link in HNM?
WWE – SMACKDOWN
In what was a great show we started off right away with Pat Mcafee having me rolling with his breakdown of his match with Corbin at Summerslam. His use of the teleprompter just added to the hilarity of the entire segment.
Corbin, after being tired of being laughed at, challenges Ricochet to a match.
The match was one of Ricochet’s best matches on television in quite some time and proves that he needs to be in the conversation when it comes to not only high profile matches but in title contention when the opportunity comes his way.
Corbin had many chances tonight but had his mind more focused on Pat than on Ricochet and because of that got nailed with a perfect looking Shooting Star Press for the win.
In a match that had IC Championship ramifications, Shinsuke Nakamura faced Ludwig Kaiser with the stipulation being that if Nakamura wins, he will be the #1 contender to Gunther’s IC title. Although Kaiser had many opportunities even hitting a hard hitting European uppercut and wrist-clutch suplex, he was no match for the Kinshasa that Shinsuke eventually hit Ludwig with for the win.
There was an awkward moment tonight for Liv Morgan. I don’t think she was prepared to handle the audibly noticeable amount of boos she received talking about how she tapped out only after she pinned Ronda Rousey. This led to Sonya Deville to come out and chastise her.
This led to the gauntlet match that would determine the #1 contender who will face her at the next PPV.
The gauntlet match went as following:
Sonya Deville defeated Aliyah
Raquel Rodriguez powerbombed Sonya for the win
Raquel then defeats Shotzi, Xi Li and then Natayla making it 4 wins in a row.
After facing all those competitors, she finally fell victim to Shayna Baszler, who rolled her up for the win but not before locking in a few submission attempts. Raquel has a bright future, but personally I’d love to see Shanya have a long run with the title.
Lastly, we were greeted in the ring by Roman Reigns who talks about Drew McIntyre challenging him, which brings out Drew.
Drew doesn’t want to wait and just as he’s ready to enter the ring, new music hits and there is a strange figure in the entrance way and was attacked from behind from….Karrion Kross !!! Kross is back with Scarlett Bordeaux.
After he takes out Drew, Scarlett leaves a hour glass in the ring for Roman and is told tic toc.
Is Roman’s time going to run out at the hands of Kross? We can only hope for that match.
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