By Jeff Knapp

One of the biggest nights in all of wrestling happened on Saturday 6/26 when AEW and New Japan gave us Forbidden Door. This was a great show from start to finish. Chris Jericho’s team picked up the win and now gets the one-man advantage going into Wednesday’s Dynamite “Blood and Guts” cage match.

PAC became the inaugural AEW All Atlantic Champion when he defeated Clark Connors, Malakai Black and Miro.

FTR defeated Rapongi Vice and The United Empire’s Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb to retain their ROH Tag Team Championships BUT also became the NEW IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.

Will Ospreay defeated Orange Cassidy and retained his IWGP US Championship

The Switchblade Jay White retained his IWGP World Heavyweight championship when he defeated Adam Cole, Okada and Adam Page.

Claudio Castagnoli (FKA Cesaro) is now All Elite

Jon Moxley defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to become the Interim AEW World Champion. Moxley will then face CM Punk at some point to unify the Title.

Logan Paul has signed what appears to be a multi-year contract with the WWE that should take him into possibly 2024

Bellator MMA women’s fighter, Valerie Loureda has signed with the WWE and should be heading to the performance center very soon

WWE – RAW

This week we saw the return of the Doctor of Thuganomics, Mr. Hustle, Loyalty and Respect, Big Match John…John Cena. There were videos from Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, JBL, Steph McMahon and AEW stars such as Bryan Danielson, Chris Jericho and Paul Wight. They mentioned his unrivaled devotion to Make a Wish and other charities and what type of person he is in and out of the ring.

There was a “last Chance” battle royal for the last MITB ladder match this Saturday that was won by Riddle.

On the women’s side there was a “last Chance” match for MITB which was won by Becky Lynch, who defeated Doudrop, Shayna Baszler,Xia Li, Tamina  and Nikki A.S.H.

Carmella made her case for winning the Raw Women’s championship at MITB. Bianca has it all, but we can’t count out the tenacity of Carmella. This match could surprise us this Saturday.

In singles action, Montez Ford defeated Jey Uso leading into their tag team title match this Saturday.

NXT

To start things off, we got a NXT Women’s tag team #1 Contenders match. Roxanne Perez & Cora Jade defeated Kayden Carter & Katana Chance and will now face Toxic Attraction at the Great American Bash

We find out that at the GAB, the North American Champion Carmelo Hayes will face Grayson Waller when Carmelo unknowingly signed a contract to the match thinking he was signing an autograph for his fans in Australia (Waller is Australian)

After Roderick Strong gets the loss in his 6-man tag with the Creed Brothers to Joe Gacy and his minions, there is a NXT Tag Team Championship made at the GAB between the Creed Brothers and Roderick Strong & Damon Kemp.

In the Main Event, the returning Nikkita Lyons took on NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose. This match was doomed when Toxic Attraction attacked Lyons causing the DQ. Will Nikkta be the one to finally dethrone Mandy? If she isn’t then who is?

AEW – DYNAMITE

Off the heals of Forbidden Door, AEW gives us Blood and Guts that is main evented by the 10-man steel cage tornado match, basically it’s War Games in a nutshell.

Until then Orange Cassidy defeated “All Ego” Ethan Page when Dan Lambert got involved and cost Page the win.

Luchasaurus crushed Serpentico when he came out with Christian Cage. Cage is on a roll and his heel promos have been homeruns, but we wouldn’t have expected any less from him. We are still waiting to find out what Cage said to cause Luchasaurus to turn heel and come out with darker ring attire.

Is there tension brewing in the Gunn family? After Max Caster & The Gunn Club lost to Danhausen & FTR, an argument between The Acclaimed and the GC ensued, and it ended when Billy Gunn finally had enough and shoved his son Austin to the mat. After that, Austin and his brother Colten left the ring alone. Facing off with FTR is almost an automatic loss anyways since FTR is the greatest Tag Team on the planet.

Jay Lethal challenges ROH Television champion Samoa Joe to a match at the next ROH PPV, Death Before Dishonor. That will be worth the price of admission alone.

We are now ready for the main event, the dual ring inside a cage known as Blood and Guts. This match has The Blackpool Combat Combat Club & Friends (Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, Santana, Ortiz) vs. The Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Jake Hager, Daniel Garcia, Matt Menard, Angelo Parker)

The JAS has the upper hand very quickly the blood starts to flow. At one point a few of the men escape and go to the top where Eddie Kingston tosses Sammy Guevara off the top of the cage onto the table below.

During the match Santana severely injures his knee, and as of this writing there is no word on his condition, so I wish him a very speedy recovery.

In the final minutes we see Kingston locks a submission on Jericho while Castagnoli secures one on Menard while all 4 men are on top of the cage. Menard is the 1^st to tap out to Claudio and that gives the BCC the victory.

The crowd was on fire for the entire match.

IMPACT

This is the go home show of Impact leading into this Friday’s Against All Odds PPV (It does seem like they just had a PPV about 2 weeks ago)

In a #1 Contenders match for the X-Division Championship at Against All Odds, Trey Miguel def. Chris Bey, Steve Maclin and Laredo Kid and will now challenge X-Division Champion “Speedball” Mike Bailey.

Trey is an amazing talent and should be a corner piece to that division just like AJ Styles and others were at one point.

Most of the show consisted of them setting up the final card for AAO with with main events being Impact World Champion, Josh Alexander defending his title against Joe Doering and HNM will be in a 10 man tag match again, this time they face the Impact Tag Team Champions, The Good Brothers, AMW (for 1 night only) and…Heath

I have a funny feeling somebody may turn, but I will be honestly upset if Wildcat Chris Harris turns on them, since America’s Most Wanted was my favorite tag team in all of pro wrestling when they were at the height.

WWE – SMACKDOWN

The show starts off with the 6 men who have already qualified for the MITB match, which lead to many of the wrestlers from the back coming out saying why they need to be in that final 7th spot. 

Adam Pierce comes out and makes a battle royal to release some of the hostility and anger that is in and around the ring. After a hard fought battle royal, Happy Corbin sneaks back into the ring and eliminates Drew and Sheamus at the same time to win the match.

We get a preview of the Smackdown women’s championship match between Ronda Rousey and Natalyia. I am very excited for this match and believe this will be one of the best matches for either competitor. 

The New Day call out the Viking Raiders after getting attacked from behind last week only to be decimated again. I’m sure the announcers will be using the term “The new vicious viking raiders” for some time. I’m hoping they don’t add that to their logo too.

In a 6 woman “Raw vs Smackdown” tag team match, we saw Raw’s Alexa Bliss, Asuka, & Liv Morgan take on SmackDown’s Raquel Rodriguez, Lacey Evans, & Shotzi. It was great to see Shotzi and Liv get some great ring time and they are both deserving of the spotlight, but in the end Liv connects with oblivion for the 1-2-3 on Shotzi. Will she be miss MITB after this Saturday? 

At MITB there is not enough hype around the Tag Team Championships after the great in-ring promo between the Usos and the Street Profits. They stole each other’s tag lines and it was something to hear. You could feel the emotions in the ring and the Usos bring it everytime.

Maximum Male Models finally debuts. I assumed it was going to possibly be 1 or 2 men from the NXT roster in order to give them a chance. Here comes Eli Drake…I mean LA Knight…I mean Max Dupree who introduces us to…Mace and Mansoor? I got a kick out of the change to the name pronunciations and I’m secure enough to admit that Ma’ce is a handsome dude but it sounded like the crowd wanted no part of this. I give Pat McAfee for doing what he does best and his excitement saved this segment.

In the main event, we had a fatal 4 way for the final MITB spot this Saturday. We saw Madcap Moss defeat Ezekiel, Happy Corbin and The Miz when he took advantage of Corbin hitting end of days on Zek when tossed him into the ring post to pick up the win.

AEW – RAMPAGE

Things get started off with a 2 ring 20 man battle royal where 10 men to a ring until the final 2 men are left. The winner will get a title shot at Jon Moxley for the interim AEW heavyweight Championship this coming Wednesday on Dynamite. 

After choking out Darby Allin and hanging him from the outside the ring then dumping him to the floor, Brody King is declared the winner and has a date with Moxley this Wednesday.

AEW World Tag-Team Champions The Young Bucks faced Hiroki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi with the stipulation that if Goto and Hashi won, they would get a future shot at the tag team titles. 

In the end The Young Bucks hit a BTE Trigger followed by the Meltzer Driver for the win.

Next week we will see ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham in tag team action with Lee Moriarity vs 2 men from Tully Blanchard Enterprises. The world will witness one of the greatest technical wrestlers in the world.

The main event tonight we witnessed Toni Storm take on Nyla Rose. I along with the rest of the crowd was fully behind Toni Storm. Anybody who has her talent, but also has a tribute to Nikki Sixx of Motley Crew below her right eye gets my support.

In the end, Toni connects with a pendulum DDT on Rose for the victory.

After the match, Marina Shafir gets involved and attacks Toni until the AEW Women’s champion, Thunder Rosa hits the ring and helps clear the ring. 

Next week, I’ll cover Impact’s Against All Odds and WWE’s MITB PPVs.

First off, I’d like to send my condolences to the family of long time WWF/WWE referee Tim White. From what I’ve read he was very well respected and loved by the wrestlers. I had the opportunity to meet him many years ago at a signing along with Eddie Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero Jr. All 3 men were extremely nice.

Former NXT wrestler, KUSHIDA returned to NJPW at the New Japan Road event and confronted IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and Bullet Club member Taiji Ishimori. If he goes against Bullet Club, I hope he has back up.

Tomohiro Ishii is injured and will not be able to wrestle at Forbidden Door for the  AEW All Atlantic Championship.  

It appears that Triple H is back working with NXT. This is very exciting since NXT hasn’t been as good without him there.

This Sunday is the AEW / NJPW Forbidden Door PPV and below are the scheduled matches:

Interim AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Jay White (c) vs. Hangman Adam Page vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Adam Cole

AEW All-Atlantic Championship (Four-Way Match) Pac vs. Miro vs. Malakai Black vs. Clark Connors

IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship: Will Ospreay (c) vs. Orange Cassidy

AEW Women’s World Championship: Thunder Rosa (c) vs. Toni Storm

Winner Takes All for the ROH World Tag Team Championship and IWGP Tag Team Championships: FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) (ROH) vs. United Empire (Great-O-Khan and Jeff Cobb) (IWGP) vs. Roppongi Vice (Trent Beretta and Rocky Romero)

Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki vs. Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta and Shota Umino

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson’s mystery opponent

Bullet Club (Young Bucks, Hikuleo & El Phantasmo) vs Darby Allin, Sting, Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi

Impact – Slammiversary

This past Sunday, Impact had another solid ppv, with Slammiversary in Nashville back where they held their 1^st show back in 2002. I was lucky enough to be at one of those original ppvs when they were with the NWA.

They started the show of with Rich Swann vs Brian Myers. Solid match, and Rich is always putting on a great performance, but I’m just having trouble with a digital media championship. I’m guessing it’s their version of a TV title, but I’m not a fan of the concept.

Slammiversary was a big night for title changes, as we saw Taya & Rosemary become the new Knockouts tag team Champions, Jordynne Grace became the new Knockouts champion in a great Queen of the Mountain match, just as Tasha Steelz was gaining momentum as champion. It should be noted that I do see Jordynne remaining champion for quite some time.

We also saw The Good Brothers defeat the Briscoes to become new Impact Tag Team Champions and finally Mike Bailey is the new X-Division Champion. Congratulations to all the new Champions.

We also saw the return of Dixie Carter, Earl Hebner and Goldilocks, who was a backstage interviewer at one-point years ago. I wish they brought back Lollipop. Now currently, I’m not sure if the gimmick they used for her would go over today, but she was something else.

The Impact originals defeated Team HNM when Sabin pinned PCO. Once again, a great match, and these men and women keep delivering when the lights are bright. I just wish they could garner a crowd that was at least what we saw when they 1^st started. I was a little befuddled on why they chose Davey Richards as an Impact Original. He’s a great wrestler, but I was hoping for somebody that was there during the weekly NWA-TNA days. Possibly Elix Skipper or Monty Brown?

Moving onto the main event, we saw yet another amazing match from Josh Alexander. I can’t remember the last bad match this guy had, and he had it with Eric Young, who is a veteran in every sense of the word. I’ve been with EY since his team Canada days, and throughout his evolution as a character. I love the crazy EY. He is criminally under rated in the ring and on the mic.

WWE – RAW

It appears that Rhea Ripley will not be cleared to compete at MITB, so the WWE had another 5-way watch to see who will get an opportunity at becoming the champion. The crowd was none to happy to see Carmella pick up the victory, but she was in the right place at the right time. It wasn’t her fault everybody else was outside the ring when she connected with a kick to Liv Morgan. Liv is on the cusp and will get over that mountain one day.

When things couldn’t get worse for Riddle when he was defeated by Roman last Friday, he then lost his MITB qualifying match to Omos, who will be one of the favorites to win that match (He may not need the ladder) but after the match he was attacked by Seth Rollins. Will the WWE universe see Seth vs Riddle at Summer Slam?

Is there anything Booby Lashley won’t do to get his hands on Theory and his US Title? After blinding Theory with water in the eyes, Bobby accepted a gauntlet match where if he defeats all 3 opponents, he gets a title shot at MITB. He plowed through Gable, Otis and then Theory himself to gain his shot at the championship. Theory could very well be the future, but right now the Almighty is here.

We’re seeing Ciampa randomly attacking people and picking up victories here and there, and Raw was no different when he attacked and then later lost his match to AJ Styles. Great match, but what is Ciampa doing? Is he trying to prove something?

I just have to say that I wasn’t that excited about the whole Ezekial thing, but with Kevin Owens involved this has taken a course to gold. I love everything that Owens gets his hands into.

Finally in the main event, Asuka defeated Becky Lynch in a MITB qualifying match after Becky complained to Adam Pierce earlier in the evening about being screwed over in her previous matches. MITB is 2 weeks away and there are a few spots left. Will she qualify in time or be left out and have to take a different path back to the Raw Women’s championship?

We also had another Mr. McMahon siting and this time he came to the ring and announced that John Cena will be back next week on Raw.

NXT

NXT started off with a match between the young Uso, Solo Sikoa and Grayson Waller. It’s just a matter of time when we see these 2 men make their way over to Raw or Smackdown. I’m sure Solo will be involved with the Bloodline story at some point and Waller, who I wasn’t high on earlier, has shown his athleticism and his amazing ability to annoy the hell out of you. He will be a heel when he arrives on Monday or Friday nights.

We got women’s tag team action pitting the team of Katana Chance & Kayden Carter against the young team of Yulissa Leon & Valentina Feroz. If given the chance, Leon & Feroz can improve, but the teamwork of Chance and Carter are impossible to deny, and I see them as the future NXT women’s tag team champions.

Before I get to the main event, we were subjected to matches that I just couldn’t get into, Lash Legend and Ven Wagner. I had higher hopes for the Cameron Grimes vs Edris Enofé but they were not given enough time to build to anything. It does appear that we are heading to Grimes facing Bron Breakker at some point.

The good news is that Nikkita Lyons is returning next week, and all eyes will be on her and how she wrestles after the injury.

The main event had generic Italian Tony Mamaluke or whatever his name is facing one of the top young wrestlers in NXT, Carmelo Hayes.

They have this story line that LDF had to join the mamalukes since they lost the 6-man tag match. Tony was all excited to have new underlings and now does everything in his power to undermine everything he’s accomplished. I just don’t understand the thought process.

The next thing I don’t get is that last week the crowd is all hyped by the return of Apollo Crews and what happens this week, there is a vignette where he is some avenging angel or something? Did the writers just watch Death Wish and want a watered-down version?

I’m still trying to figure out who in the WWE, besides Vince thinks this version of NXT is better than the previous version. This is just a cut above the 2011-2013 version of NXT.

AEW – DYNAMITE

This was the “go home” show for the Forbidden Door PPV.

The show started off on a sad note when Bryan Danielson came out and revealed that due to injury, he won’t be able to wrestle at the PPV or at Blood and Guts the following Wednesday but stated that he found the one person he can trust to be as technical and can beat Zack Sabre Jr. at the PPV. My money is on Claudio Castagnoli (FKA Cesaro) and some people are betting on Johnny Wrestling to show up. Either way, I couldn’t think of a better replacement than either one of those men.

Christian Cage came out and cut a promo of the year award winning type promo. He answers the reason that he turned on Jungle Boy Jack Perry. It all stems from the fact that JB eliminated Christian in a title tournament when he 1^st arrived. He talks about being a father figure and that it’s better than JB’s dad is dead, so he won’t see what he’s become. This brings out Luchasaurus who starts to choke Cage but is finally calmed down enough to talk in the back. This was a great promo that people should watch over again.

The Young Bucks say that at Forbidden Door they will rejoin the Bullet Club for one night and will take on Darby Allin, Sting and their team.

In the last qualifying match for the AEW All Atlantic Championship, Malakai Black narrowly defeated Penta Oscuro and will move onto Forbidden Door.

Hangman Adam Page defeated the debuting Silas Young but was then attacked by Jay White and Adam Cole until Okada came out to a huge pop to make the save.

In the main event, Jon Moxley & Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Chris Jericho & Lance Archer and after the match all hell broke loose as Eddie Kingston, Ortiz, Suzuki and others all came down to the ring as Mox and Tanahashi stood eye to eye in the ring.

IMPACT

Honor No More came out to talk about how they never really lost at Slamaversary Because of Tracy Brooks attacking Maria Kanellis, Eral Hebner counting the 3 and not being the official referee and so on.

This brings out one of the great tag teams in TNA/Impact history, America’s Most Wanted. They come out and trash talk, which leads to the Good Brothers and the Briscoes all fighting HNM.

In a less than desirable match Bhupinder Gujjar & Shark Boy defeated Johnny Swinger & Zicky Dice. I honestly have high hopes for Bhupinder in Impact, but I’d pull a Vince McMahon and either change his name or drop his 1^st name. It’s more palatable to the American audience, easier to announce and he isn’t losing his Indian name. Shark Boy used to be thin, now his stomach is hanging out over his tights. It looks sloppy. It looks like I put the wrestling gear on. You don’t want to see that.

We find out that Josh Alexander will defend his Impact Championship at the next PPV against Joe Doering, but until then he will face Deaner in a match that should have been the main event.

We also find out that Tasha Steelz will receive her Knockouts Championship rematch against Jordynne Grace at Against All Odds

Now I’m not sure if this will happen at the PPV, but Sami Callihan informs Gail Kim that he wants to face Moose one last time in Raven’s Clockwork Orange House of Fun match. I’m guessing this will be at Against All Odds, butyou never know with Impact.

In the Main event Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) w/ Maria Kanellis vs The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe) & James Storm

Taven and Bennett hit the Broton Pack on Mark for the 1-2-3 and then the rest of HNM come down and assault the Briscoes and Storm and eventually smash Mark’s leg in a chair as the Good Brothers try to make the save.

The thing about Impact is that with some of the talent there like the Good Brothers, the Briscoes, Josh Alexander for instance, they just can’t seem to pull in a respectable size audience for a TV taping. This was in Nashville and when I was there during the TNA weekly PPV days, they would give away tickets to fill it in just before the show started. They need to fill in the crowd to at least the size ECW would get in Queens or Philly.

WWE- SMACKDOWN

Another Smackdown without the Tribal Chief, but until he returns, “Honorary Bloodline Member” Sami Zayn took on and defeated Shinsuke Nakamura in a MITB qualifying match. 

Speaking of MITB, Adam Pierce, with a little pressure from Paul Heyman and upper WWE management that he had to inform Drew and Sheamus that due to the fact that neither man lost or won their qualifying match last week that neither man will be in MITB UNLESS they can put their differences aside and team up to fight the Usos. If they win, then they’re in. 

The 2 UK brutes did what needed to be done and with one Claymore kick, they both have officially advanced to MITB.

Speaking of MITB, there was a women’s qualifying match with Tamina vs Shotzi (Alyiah was supposed to be in the match, but due to injury Shotzi took her place). After nearly getting pinned, Shotzi connects with her Never Wake Up finisher and secures the 6th out of 7 spots in the women’s MITB match.

There was a heated promo between Ronda and Natalyia where Ronda talks about Natalyia’s choice of leaving less to the imagination online and her having some type of plastic surgery. 

After a 2 on 1 handicap match between Sonya and the team of Lacey Evans & Raquel Rodriguez, Sonya falls victim to Lacey’s Women’s Right finisher. Now we can see that Sonya does have some backup in the form of Xia Li and Shayna Baszler which could make a great women’s heel stable if given the chance.

AEW – RAMPAGE

This is it, the final AEW show before Forbidden Door, and they stated things out  with 2 men that won’t be wrestling at that show, Rey Fenix vs Andrade El Idolo.

This was an amazing hard hitting match that say Rey take some high risk chances that had my toes curl with anxiety. After Andrade’s  compañero, and former ROH World Champion RUSH (pronounced more like rooosh) joined in and hit a low blow, Andrade picked up the pinfall after hitting his hammerlock DDT. 

The newly formed Tully Blanchard Enterprises consisting of “The Machine” Brian Cage, Toa and Kaun challenge ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham & Lee Moriarty to a match.

In the Main event FTR’s Cash Wheeler took on The United Empire’s Jeff Cobb. It appeared that Cobb’s size was a bit much for Cash as he fell victim to Cobb’s Tour of the Islands finisher. After the match all hell broke loose again as a giant brawl between Dax Harwood, Great O-Khan, Will Ospreay, Orange Cassidy, and Roppongi Vice ensued. During the bedlam, Eddie Kingston attacked Chris Jericho who was at the announce table.