Hey, happy Friday! Feelin’ casual? Baby Kitten and I sure are.
Yes, that is my freshly washed laundry she’s chosen to lie upon and also shed all over. What’s your point? A lot of stuff happened this last week - hell, a lot of stuff happened TODAY - so let’s dive right in with…
SOME STUFF TO TALK ABOUT!
You may have heard that the Wall Street Journal published an article today about WWE’s Vince McMahon paying a LOT of “hush money” to several women he used to employ. The actual article is behind a paywall but 411mania has a good summary of the story. This whole thing has been a result of an anonymous email that led to the WWE board investigating McMahon paying off a former employee to sign a nondisclosure agreement and, basically, to go away.
There’s nothing good, or funny, or cool about this stuff. It’s gross to discuss and not related to the fun stuff we enjoy about wrestling. But real life often does its best to get in the way of a good time, and I’m going to find it a lot harder to enjoy WWE programming if Vince is kept around on or off screen. The audacity he’s shown since that initial report is kind of disgusting, putting himself on camera every chance he gets and even introducing John Cena just to get some of that adulation. It’s a bad look!
I don’t know enough about corporate stuff to really try to dive into what can or will be done to Vince with this new information being released. It seems like the board would do whatever they could to distance themselves from Vince as soon as possible, and since SmackDown is only an hour away from when I’m writing this I’ll definitely watch to see what (if anything) goes down.
In our preferred version of news, kayfabe news, Money in the Bank was this past Saturday! I wrote about it a bit, but it’s worth diving into some more. Aside from the two winners of the briefcases, the big news was Theory dropping the United States Championship to (seemingly) move on to bigger and better things with the Money in the Bank briefcase. But then Raw happened, and it looks like he still hasn’t had enough of Lashley. So we’ve got Bob and Theory at SummerSlam, as well as the looming threat of Theory cashing in his title shot during that show.
I gotta tell you, I’m not a big fan of Theory. I know folks say he was great in the indies and on Evolve, but I don’t see anything special about him on WWE programming. He’s fine. His moveset is unmemorable and I honestly don’t know anything more about A-Town Down than the name. WWE seems to be hitching their horse to the Theory wagon though, and I fear we will have another Cena / Roman style face-shoving on our hands.
I was happy for Liv Morgan but I don’t think it has anything to do with how she’s been booked. She seems like a lovely person but in kayfabe she took advantage of a hurt opponent and has lost every title opportunity she’s had in the last year or so. Her character these days is “you guys fired my friends, feel bad” and while I do feel bad, that’s not really a personality to build off of. Come to think of it, Alexa Bliss version X.0 has been very similar. Just kind of a pretty face but not a whole lot behind it.
It will be interesting to see where they go with Theory, and how crowds react to being told he’s the new face of WWE. To be fair, John Cena and Roman Reigns got booed plenty, and they both seem to have done well enough since.
AEW has A LOT going on, with Forbidden Door and Blood and Guts out of the way. They have Fyter Fest, one of their annual regular TV events, coming up next week. Dynamite very much felt like a show sandwiched between events. A lot of talky segments to set up future matches or re-establish old rivalries and quite a few nothing matches. AEW has been kinda up and down lately with their TV product, so I hope getting past all those big pay per view matches will let their writers settle down and put together some good stories. I’d feel a lot better if some regular ass matches had clean finishes and started new feuds, starting tonight!
Despite all the drama, we also had some fun wrestling this week. Let’s get to it with…
THE BEST MATCHES I WATCHED THIS WEEK!
1- Last week’s Rampage featured the very first Royal Rampage, kind of a two ring Royal Rumble. There are some kinks to work out in the presentation of this match, but I had a blast watching and thought it was a creative way to get some more use out of the two ring setup. Brody King was a surprising choice to win, and the choke he put on Darby Allin was brutal looking. I didn’t feel like the Moxley / Brody match was an all-timer but it was tough looking.
2- The women’s Money in the Bank match was the stronger of the two, and I suggest checking that out for a fun time with a bunch of dangerous looking ladder spots!
3- The Street Profits and Usos put on a hell of a match at Money in the Bank as well, and despite my complaints about their continuous presence, they showed that they still pair up well and can show out when they are given the stage and the time to do so. I look forward to their inevitable rematch at SummerSlam!
4- Lashley and the Profits versus the Usos and Theory on Raw was a lot of fun too! I’ve said it before but I love how much fun Lashley projects when he’s in the ring these days. It’s infectious, but in a good way. Unlike this rash…
5- Penta Oscuro versus Rush on Dynamite was a great showing with a new face in Rush. I’m a little over the mask removal gimmick, but I hope they are using that to build to something, whether it be a hair versus mask match or the implementation of a rule to disqualify villains who try to remove the lucha mask. It was hard hitting, fast paced, and made me really look forward to more matches between these factions.
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’ll watch SmackDown tonight while I’m working on painting my basement, and will write about that and Rampage after I watch the latter tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment