By Jeff Knapp
From new rivalries brewing to title changes and debuts this was a busy week and we got it covered on This Week In Wrestling.
Over in the WWE & NXT, we saw Priest and Balor try to recruit Matt Riddle into the Judgment day. It was to no surprise that didn’t so well because Matt declined and ended up in a match with Finn that he lost due to outside interference from the rest of Judgment Day. After the match, Seth Rollins came back down to stomp a defenseless Riddle. Although Rollins turned down a rematch, he seemed to welcome a future retaliation from Riddle in the coming weeks.
Logan Paul returned to the WWE and had a massive what if, that was him challenging and defeating Roman Reigns for the Championship. This match is supposedly going to happen at the next Crown Jewel PPV in Saudi Arabia, but there is no official word yet. This brought down the entire Bloodline, minus Reigns. After Paul Heyman was unable to get through to Logan, Honorary Uso, Sami Zayn tried to get through to him and was punched in the face for his troubles. This set up a match with Ricochet that he eventually lost oddly enough due to Jey Uso.
This week we had plenty of other great in ring action.
Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark defeated Arianna Grace & Kiana James with Lyons’ split legged pinn that has the entire WWE universe wanting more.
Bayley defeated Raquel Gonzalez thanks to outside interference from the rest of Damage Control, but before things could get out of hand, a returning Shotzi came down to make the save in an apparent face turn.
It’s not every week that we get to see a championship change hands and this week we had 2 of them, The 1st one was on Raw when Iyo Sky & Dakota Kai AKA Damage Control defeated Raquel Rodriguez & Alyiah to become the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions in their rematch when it was brought to light that Alyiah pinned Dakota the previous week when she wasn’t the legal participant.
The 2nd title change happened the next night on NXT when, in his return from injury, Solo Sikoa defeated Carmelo Hayes in one of the best matches in the current version of NXT to become the new NXT North American Champion.
Johnny Gargano defeated Chad Gable in his RAW debut
Speaking of debuts, The Super Diva Quincy Elliott pinned Sean Gallagher very easily after connecting with what can be described as a Banzai drop.
Fallon Henley pinned Lash Legend in a very quick match
Solo Sikoa retained his NXT North American Championship on Smackdown against Madcap Moss
Bianca Belair(c) vs Sonya Deville in an Championship open challenge match
The D’Angelo Family lost in a match they thought would be an easy win when they assumed Cameron Grimes would be alone, but he had a partner come down to assist him, one he did NOT want. It was the master manipulator, Joe Gacy. Grimes refused to tag him in, but Gacy eventually got into the match and proved to be the difference maker and was the one who got the pin fall. Will Grimes grow to trust Gacy, who possibly has an alliterative motive, or will Gacy show his true colors before that happens?
Edge defeated Dominik Mysterio by DQ, but that came at a huge price when the Judgment Day tried to destroy Edge’s left knee with repeated chair shots to that knee.
Pretty Deadly retained their NXT Tag Team Championships against The Creed Brothers in a steel cage thanks to the help of Damon Kemp when he came down and handcuffed Julius Creed to the top of the steel cage.
And finally in a match with the biggest consequence, in which the winning team will be the next to challenge The Usos for the Tag Team Championships. The Brawling Brutes (Butch & Ridge Holland) defeated vs Hit Row (Ashante “Thee” Adonis & Top Dolla) vs the New Day vs Imperium (Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci)
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The biggest news coming out is that after defeating Sammy Guevara and Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson will both represent the Blackpool Combat Club as they fight next week in NYC for the vacant AEW World Title.
We found out that Stokely Hathaway and his stable that includes W. Morrisey, Ethan Page, The Ass Boys among others are called The Firm and they are also a stable on retainer for MJF whenever they are needed.
The in ring action was all in CAPITALS this week and AEW settled into the capital of NY, Albany.
Jungle Boy locked in his Snare Trap submission on Jay Lethal for the victory
Powerhouse Hobbs continued his dominance and as somebody to be reckoned with as he easily defeated local wrestler Matt DeMartino
Darby Allin responded to Matt Hardy’s challenge on Dynamite and proved why he was one of the forming pillars of AEW when he defeated Matt with his Last Supper finish for the 1-2-3.
The newish look Penelope Ford defeated Willow Nightingale via submission with an Indian death lock
Ethan Page pinned the very nice, very evil Danhausen after hitting the ego’s edge
AEW Tag Team Champions had another fight on their hands by the way of lucha great and former tag champions and 2/3s of the AEW Trios Champions, the Lucha Brothers.
In other tag team action, Serena Deeb & Dr. Britt Baker DMD defeated Athena & AEW women’s champion Toni Storm.
Is there tension with Britt and Jamie? After the match, Jamie came down and took the steel chair away from Britt and didn’t allow her to use it on Toni. How will the good doctor keep this team together or has that ship sailed?
Samoa Joe retained his ROH TV Title against one of his toughest opponents while in AEW, Josh Woods when he connected with his Muscle Buster finisher.
It was 2 big nights in the NY capital, and next week it will be even bigger when AEW crowns a new world champion.
From Albany, NY we now head southwest to the big D and by that I mean Dallas, Texas for Impact Wrestling.
Who was going to make the biggest Impact? That’s tough to say, we saw current X-Division Champion and possible top 10 wrestler of the year in my opinion, “Speedball” Mike Bailey who defeated Mascara Dorada (who had a few year run in the WWE as Gran Metalik) with his Ultimate Weapon finisher.
The others who made an impact were the Motor City Machine Guns who apparently sent the Good Brothers a loss in the final Impact match before presumably going back to Japan.
Now, getting back to Mike Bailey, he will face Delirious at Victory Road for the X-Division championship and his opponent at Bound For Glory after that will be determined at Victory Road in a Triple Threat Revolver 3 way elimination gauntlet match with AEW’s Kazarian, Impact’s Kenny King, Trey Migiel and Mia Yim, AAA’s Laredo Kid & Black Taurus (also is in Impact’s Decay stable) and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Yuya Uemura and Alex Zayne.
Speaking of Black Taurus, he and fellow Decay member Crazy Steve defeated the team of Moose and Steve Maclin, who just couldn’t get on the same page. With that said, good luck to them when they try to beat Sami Callihan.
Also in action this week we saw Killer Kelly easily defeat an outmatched Alisha Edwards, Mickie James kept her winning ways and her career going when she pinned Hyan
The Impact Wrestling Tag Team Championships were on the line when The OGK of Mike Bennett and Matt Taven of Honor No More got the win over Impact World Champion Josh Alexander & Rich Swann. This was a match I thought should have been the Impact main event.
From arenas and halls to now the studio, for some NWA action. Tag teams seem to be on the rise and tag team action started things off this week on Power when Pope & Kratos defeated Question Mark (Rodney Mack) who some referred to him as Question Mack & KC Roxx
Things got heated when Matt Cardona interrupted WWE hall of famer Bully Ray and set up a match in which Bully will have to find a partner and face the duo of Mike Knox and VSK.
In a Queen Bee match Max The Impaler, Natalia Markova, & Angelina Love defeated Roxy, Ella Envy, & Kenzie Paige, then Max went on to defeat Natalia Markova, & Angelina Love and received the Queen Bee crown then Max immediately stomped the crown into the mat.
In the main event, the NWA World Television Champion, Tyrus defeated Mims and left the ring without his title. Does this mean he’s going to relinquish the championship in order to face Trevor Murdoch for the NWA Worlds title?
A very busy week in the world of professional wrestling. Thank you for reading This Week in Wrestling.
The Sports Insanity Network 