Casual...Wednesday?

 It’s Wednesday and I’m feeling … casual? No, I’m being weird because it’s the day before a flight, and I’m trying to get packed and receive a bunch of deliveries for basement stuff, as well as run to the laundromat and pick up a prescription and some groceries. SO, I figured I’d write about wrestling today and we’ll pick back up again next Tuesday with a review of tonight’s Rampage, and all the wrestling I’ll be catching up on on Monday (unless I can figure out how to download this stuff to my phone, because my laptop is just a bit too big to travel comfortably with me for this trip. 

I know, it’s a lot you didn’t ask for when you clicked on a pro wrestling blog. So we’ll try that new format of just talking about the shows, starting with Raw and working back. 

Let’s talk about Monday Night Raw…

I don’t know if I just wasn’t in the mood for it but Raw really felt like a nothing show this week. They made official additions to the SummerSlam card, but for the most part they were announcements that we have known were coming for so long that I was surprised when commentary told us these were new additions! 

The show started with Titus welcoming us to Raw by way of telling us that WWE is great and honest and good and just here to put a smile on our collective faces. You know, the kind of promo you’d expect when more and more details from that New York Times story about what a vile piece of trash Vince McMahon is. So we started off feeling kinda gross!

Bianca Belair versus Becky Lynch seemed like a given since Money in the Bank (and, if we’re being honest, since Wrestlemania). They made it official for SummerSlam after a lengthy segment were Lynch compared herself to a train, after which Belair appeared and argued that SummerSlam is her story (Becky replying, “No it isn’t” was perfection) and then Carmella arrived for a championship match that Belair could lose by countout for some reason. The bad guys beat Bianca up, Bianca recovered and won, so we’re a go for SummerSlam.

Talking segments from The Usos, Street Profits, MVP and Olmos set up a match for later, and the return of Kevin Owens followed. He did his talk show with Riddle, which was pretty funny and ended with Riddle getting mad at Owens for insulting the honor of Randy Orton. That led to a run in by Rollins to set up a match for SummerSlam. Later, Rollins and Ezekiel had a decent match to verify that Seth can still get a win once in a while.

Rey Mysterio had a match with Damian Priest, but that ended with the Judgment Day murdering Rey with chairs after Priest won. Dominik offered to join the Judgment Day if they would only spare his papa, but Priest told us that wasn’t how it worked and whacked Dom with a chair as well.

After the aforementioned Zeke match (which was actually really good, the best thing about the whole show to be honest), we teased Omos versus Angelo Dawkins but a quick interference DQ led to a tag match being booked by GM Adam Pearce. That ALSO ended in a DQ as the Usos, who were scouting from ringside, attacked the Profits. 

Theory had a promo and the crowd decided to “WHAT” the hell out of it. Theory tried to play into it but it just kept going, to the point where I was just annoyed with the crowd. AJ Styles joined Theory in the ring, and the two had a pretty good match. Dolph Ziggler joined to watch from ringside, and he delivered a superkick to Theory while the referee was distracted, leading to an easy win for AJ here. AJ delivered a Styles Clash after the match because, well, he’s the face in this rivalry and Theory is annoying.

A really well made video for Bianca Belair and Becky Lynch followed, this one focused less on train puns and more on music puns. There was a women’s six way tag match that existed only to do some 24/7 title shenanigans and at this point I was just kinda checked out. The time remaining told me that the main event was just going to be Miz and Logan Paul talking and I just … I don’t like that guy. 

And that’s it! The matches between Ezekiel and Seth Rollins and AJ Styles and Theory were high points of the show, but overall it just wasn’t a good watch start to finish. 

But what about Rampage or SmackDown, you ask? Anything good on those shows?

Yeah! Rampage, as always, was a quick watch that went down easy. House of Black had a fun match against Dark Order, even though the finish was never in doubt. Sting and Darby Allin came out afterward to stare down the Kings of the Black Throne.

Jonathan Gresham successfully defended his Ring of Honor championship against Lee Moriarty, getting a submission by Octopus and bragging about his dominant championship run after the match. That summoned Claudio Castignoli to challenge Gresham at Death before Dishonor and that card is really shaping up to be something special! I’ll be out of town but hopefully I’ll get a chance to watch it on the flight home.

Athena and Kris Statlander won a squash only to be beaten up by the Baddies afterward, and the Gunn Club tried to explain turning on the Acclaimed but got beat up for their troubles. And in the main event, Private Party lost to the Lucha Bros in a fun match between teams that are kinda between rivalries right now, at least until Rush and Andrade El Idolo clear their schedules elsewhere.

On SmackDown, Liv Morgan defeated Natalya in a continuation of this long running rivalry, Drew McIntyre defeated Ridge Holland as he works his way through Sheamus’s gang of toughs, Theory lost to Madcap Moss by DQ after he bonked Moss with his Money in the Bank briefcase, and Angelo Dawkins defeated Jimmy Uso despite Jimmy’s shoulder not being down, because that’s what this feud is about now. 

WWE also announced Jeff Jarrett as the special guest referee for the Tag Championship Match at SummerSlam, and he’ll be running straight out of the building to get to his match teaming with Jay Lethal against Ric Flair and Andrade El Idolo later that same night!

There! All caught up? I’ve been a little down on WWE programming because it feels like we’re just spinning our wheels until SummerSlam, but I am genuinely looking forward to a lot of the matches on the card. AEW’s Fyter Fest continues to be fun, and there’s some good stuff to look forward to tonight as well. The Ring of Honor show this weekend will be awesome, but I’m not familiar enough with the product to justify a preview blog. If I do end up watching it, I’ll write about it too!

One last thing - when I get back next week, I will be doing a trial article for a legit wrestling website, and if they decide to accept my work I’ll be sure to tweet about it at the usual place. 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’ve been studying style guides and other forms they sent over, and hopefully my work is good enough to get on their site. I guess we’ll see!

Enjoy your weekend!