Casual Friday: the week in review for 5/27/2022

 Hey, we made it to Friday. A lot of stuff happened in the world of professional wrestling, which is cool because we could all use a distraction these days. Let’s dive right into the glory of predetermined sport, because it’s Casual Friday!

Here’s some stuff worth talking about from the week of May 21-27, 2022:

The Usos actually did the damn thing! They won the undisputed tag team championships, unifying the titles by beating RK-Bro last Friday. To be honest, I’m as shocked as anyone. I was SO SURE there would be a DQ finish, or a run-in to turn it into a six man, or some other shenanigans. And, yes, Roman did interfere, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have a stable with all the belts that matter to WWE right now.

Don’t believe that? Quick, name me all the other champs without looking. I’ll wait.

So where do we go from here, is the question? WWE has basically spent the last few months making any tag team or world championship contender eat loss after loss. Even if they held the titles, in the case of Randy Orton and Riddle, they were still losing singles matches or non-title matches.

My guess is, since there’s still three shows between when I’m writing this and Hell in a Cell, maybe Randy heals up and demands a match in the Cell; the only one scheduled so far is Cody vs Rollins 3: The One Where Cody Can Bleed Without Repercussions. I’m fine with that. The Usos had that great HiaC match with the New Day, and Randy has been in the cell before. I would guess that the Usos still manage to retain, and maybe we finally get to the Orton vs Riddle feud we’ve all been fantasy booking since the day after they teamed up.

Double or Nothing looks like a pretty good time! According to Wikipedia, there are eleven matches on the card as of now. That’s probably more than enough, although Rampage hasn’t aired yet so they might add something else to either the preshow or the main card. The TNT Championship is the only belt that isn’t being defended, but we’ll talk about that whole thing in a minute. The low number of pay per view shows AEW puts on annually definitely lends itself to an air of importance for these shows. As an aside, my wife and I went to Revolution this year. If you have the opportunity, go to a live show - they’re fantastic!

I think several of the matches have the opportunity to steal the show, especially Punk and Hangman and the tag team championship match. But I’ve learned that anybody in AEW can put on a Match of the Year contender with enough time and patience, so we’ll see!

I’ll do a full on preview with some guesses on Sunday morning, before the event itself. I usually take notes during the shows and rewatch segments I feel like I missed, but I learned from Backlash that that formula doesn’t exactly work for PPVs. The matches are a little more fast paced, even in the WWE style, so I imagine I won’t have time to blink during an AEW card. I’ll watch live and probably rewatch with the notebook for round two early Monday.

WWE chose to move Money in the Bank to a smaller venue! The pay per premium live event was set to take place at Allegiance Field, where the Las Vegas Raiders call home. Apparently ticket sales weren’t to their liking, so the E changed to the smaller MGM Grand Garden Arena, which I last visited for Tito Ortiz vs Ken Shamrock in UFC. It’s been a minute! It's probably better to have an enclosed arena where the screams all reverberate, rather than a half empty football stadium where they’ll have to pipe noise in. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. They also scheduled the consecutive Money in the Bank, Summer Slam, and Clash at the Castle in three larger stadiums. Summer Slam, obviously. Clash, it’s their first UK premium live event since before the pandemic, and those crowds are bonkers.

It does bring up the question of, why book that large a stadium for a B-Show in the first place? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Money In The Bank. I would also love it as a match on the Wrestlemania card, as it was originally. As it’s own show, it’s essentially a two match card with some filler in the middle. With live attendance not as big a profit driver these days, isn’t the image of a loud, rockin, full house better for the at home audience, as well as for the folks in attendance?

Anyway, it seems like they realized that and hopefully they pack the house. Even the worst Money in the Bank match is still a great watch.

The TNT title isn’t being handled terribly well. In fact, I think it’s being handled terribly! This whole convoluted mess of a storyline just needs to be burnt to the ground. Tay Conti and Sammy Guevara have established themselves as bad guys, but then they tried to turn that around last week by having Dan Lambert be a worse guy. Scorpio Sky had a face tease that lasted, what, a week? Frankie Kazarian makes sense against Sky, but not when he’s smushed inside of the Guevara feud. And Ethan Page…well, Ethan Page continues to exist.

Now that Guevara and Kaz have destroyed the TNT belt, and we’re getting a new one tonight, maybe we can squash this thing and move on in different directions. I know they want Paige Van Zant to get involved, but why not move that into a separate thing? Put Ethan Page with her, do the intergender match, and never speak of it again. Or! Do the Sky Guevera match one more time, send MIRO in to demolish the both of them, and Miro just gets the title because neither Sammy nor Sky can move. Literally anything is better than the slut-shaming, multi-turning, go-away heat generating storyline they’re feeding us now.

Sasha and Naomi continue to be on the mind of WWE, as evidenced by Raw using the same speaking points we heard on the night they left. It’s easy to control the narrative of that night when you’re the only voice on television, and until we hear something from either Sasha or Naomi, it’s the only side of the argument we’ve got. Unfortunately, a lot of people are taking WWE at their word and dumping on Sasha and (to a lesser extent) Naomi. It kinda sucks!

A timeline was released on Twitter from someone reliably known as a friend to Naomi. According to them, the champs left before the show even started, meaning WWE knew what was happening and deliberately let things play out the way they did to make Sasha and Naomi look bad. That’s just lousy, but this is a company where asking for your release frequently gets you sent home (Alistair Black) or put into embarrassing storylines (The Revival, Ali). So, lousy, but not unexpected.

Sorry to end that bit on kind of a downer. Let’s get that positive energy back up with…

THE BEST MATCHES I SAW THIS WEEK!

AJ Styles and Liv Morgan vs Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest, from Raw, was a good matchup. Sure, it ended in a bit of a shmozz, and Finn Balor was nowhere to be seen as poor Liv and AJ got murdered. But the chemistry these two pairs have is undeniable.

Also on Raw, Becky Lynch and Asuka had another good match, this one getting Lynch inserted into the Raw Women’s Championship match at Hell in a Cell. You put two of the best wrestlers in the world in a ring, you’re gonna get something good at minimum. This proved that, as they were about to tweak the match they had the week before. The little changes let this match feel unique, and the finish was good as well.

Over on Dynamite, the triple threat match between Jungle Boy, Swerve Strickland, and Ricky Starks was amazing. All three guys are phenomenal athletes, and the match they put together was a joy to watch. There was a good story in there too, as Swerve and Jungle Boy started off with an alliance that fizzled out by the end. I liked that all three guys were involved in the sequence at the end of the match. The post match sequence with the larger halves of these three teams got me excited for the tag team championship match at Double or Nothing, too. 

The Usos and RK-Bro put on a good match on last week’s SmackDown, even if it has been done to death. The fact that we got a win elevated this for me, and I’m genuinely curious to see where things go from here. Until then, the Bloodline seems to be running things.

Finally, my match of the week was Shawn Spears vs Wardlow in a steel cage. It wasn’t exceptionally long, but the presentation and the storytelling were top notch. MJF did everything in his power to mock Wardlow before and during the match, and his expression when Wardlow 

broke the handcuffs apart was priceless. Spears did great in a thankless position as well, selling the hell out of Wardlow’s offense and also gloating and preening when he had Wardlow at his mercy. That match at Double or Nothing is going to be a bloody mess, but Wardlow is already a star. MJF will see to it that he’s shot to the moon on Sunday.

Honorable mention to that Samoa Joe vs Kyle O’Reilly match, which was just a big meaty man and a…lean cut of beef (?) slappin’ meat. Strike after strike, submission after submission, those two worked the hell out of the twelve or so minutes they were given.

And that’s it! I appreciate you stopping by, and would love it if you drop your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also follow me on Twitter @ElOsoPequeno, where I try to remember to post whenever I update the blog - I also live tweet with the #MutantFam for Joe Bob’s Last Drive In on Sudder on Friday nights. I recap Raw, Dynamite, and Rampage weekly, and recap anything else I happen to watch. There’s also this weekly wrap up on Fridays, and I’ll do predictions before any big AEW or WWE pay per premium live events.

That means this week we’ll have the Rampage Report with a Side of SmackDown on Saturday, a Double or Nothing predictions blog on Sunday, the Double or Nothing recap on Monday, the Raw Review on Tuesday, our Dynamite Details on Thursday, and we’ll circle back around for Casual Friday. I might even try to watch an Impact or New Japan, but these next couple weeks are already loaded with pay per premium live events, so no promises.

Read them all! Tell your pals! Leave a comment! Tweet a tweet! Let’s make this my full time job so my poor wife doesn’t have to listen to my ramblings about pro wrestling! I sure would appreciate it - and I appreciate you for stopping by. Thanks, dear reader!

Have a good one!