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Good Morning!
Another week down, and only three left for the year! It’s a little jarring to put it that way. It’s been a crazy 2023 in professional wrestling, and I think I would like to do some sort of recap. Sadly, my goldfish brain retains very little, so I’d have to do some actual research. Less sadly, I enjoy that sort of stuff, so I think I will do just that. Watch for it, or at least some extended versions of this here blog that incorporate some reminiscing, in the coming weeks.
As far as this week, I’ll be completely transparent in telling you I’m only getting around to the blog on Friday morning. It’s been a weird week here at the Pequeno household and even though I moved my office around, I think the lighting in there is less than conducive to getting things done. I’ll work on that. Meanwhile, I wanted to at least get something out there. Consistency is key in this blogging thing, I’m told.
While we’re chatting, we should talk about some wrestling – I mean, it is the whole point of this endeavor, despite the casually chatty nature of these opening bits. I always feel like I’m writing a monologue to introduce things before we roll into our regular segments, which I guess makes me some kind of unholy combination of Mike Tenay and Conan O’Brien. Eh, could be worse.
So about that wrestling…
We Watched Some Wrestling!
WWE’s match of the week, undoubtedly, was the shockingly good opening bout for Raw featuring a righteous Drew McIntyre and an equally motivated Sami Zayn really going at each other. Some great action on a show we’ve grown accustomed to not expecting it – especially not in the opening contest.
All Elite Wrestling has been putting on some clinics for its Continental Classic tournament. Dynamite featured a couple hard-hitting matches in Rush losing Jon Moxley and Swerve Strickland finishing off a win-or-get-mathematically-eliminated Mark Briscoe, and Collision’s beat-em-ups included Bryan Danielson defeating Eddie Kingston and Brody King and Claudio Castignoli brawling to a King win. We also saw Andrade El Idolo defeat Daniel Garcia and Jay White eliminate Jay Lethal in some less brutal matches, although I’d be remiss not to mention the “Let’s Go Jay / Jay is Awesome / Jay Forever” chants during the latter fight. We all remember the glorious dueling “Let’s go Adam / Adam Sucks!” chants during Revolution 2022’s Adam Cole vs Adam Page main event.
A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence
Some developments played out all over the wrestling landscape, but since we’ve been a bit AEW heavy so far we’ll jump over to the Fed. Randy Orton is officially a SmackDown guy, having decided to renew his rivalry with the Bloodline. Which, fair, they were the reason he missed the last year plus. This week will see C.M. Punk showing up on the blue brand, although I’d guess they will want to separate the two big debuts from Survivor Series now.
Drew McIntyre, prior to that great Raw match, continued to justify his actions, although it’s easy to see that his patience with the rest of the roster is wearing thin as we ease Drew into full bad guy territory. It’s a nice change from the boilerplate heel turn where one week a guy comes out and just blames “the fans” for their change of heart. On the other side of turns, Bayley continues to look like she’s gonna be the odd woman out as Damage CTRL, the group she brought with her when she returned from injury last year, makes plans without letting her in on them. Maybe we’ll get the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men back? WHO’S TO SAY?
Toni Storm continues to dominate the AEW women’s division, and the return of beloved ex-champ Riho might mean Storm has a challenger for World’s End. Storm’s “understudy” Mariah May teased her first match but didn’t reveal an opponent, and I’m hoping we don’t rush into the inevitable Storm match just yet. It also seems like Abadon, who’s getting TV time outside Spoopy Season for the first time in years, might be cozying up to TBS champ Julia Hart. I was hoping for a creepy faction to grow out of all the spitting Hart was doing a few months back, and while this ain’t that, any extra Abby appearances are welcome.
Sadly, the biggest news coming out of this week’s NXT, besides the finalization of the Iron Survivor match lineups, was Wes Lee’s announcement that he’s going to be out with an injury for the foreseeable future. It was a heart-wrenching watch, and you could really see the disappointment in the poor guy’s eyes. Of course, that dismay was quickly turned to anger when current North American champ Dominik Mysterio came out to run down the former champ. The show must go on, and sometimes that means kicking a dude when he’s at his lowest to get some cheap heat!
What else…Oh, Adam Copeland was laid out by a seemingly heel-turning Nick Wayne’s mom! I was reminded that Copeland did beat the hell outta her kid, so I guess recency bias allowed Momma Waye to forget about the whole “your father is dead but also was trash” theme of Christian Cage’s last few months.
Let’s Remember A Guy
I liked the Kerwin White thing, but I’d like to put a little extra time into the next one and, as I said, I’m kinda just playing this week’s blog by ear. So next week we’ll get back to remembering. If you have a guy you’d like me to remember, drop them in the comments and we’ll get to them in the coming weeks!
DEADL1NE Preview
I have been a little lax in my NXT coverage lately, but I do still watch the show every week. For the uninitiated, NXT is kind of a combination of early 00’s WCW and a developmental product, but WWE decided it should be weekly content for TV and so these kids are learning on the job. If you’re willing to look past the occasional in-ring botch – they’re learning the craft on the fly here – you can see a lot of heart, a lot of potential, and a lot of fun in the writing and booking of this weekly show. It’s a little cheesy, the over-the-top characters and stories are what wrestling was built on!
Saturday night brings the latest Premium Live event, and the last of 2023 for any WWE brand, with the annoying-to-type DEADL1NE, featuring the Iron Survivor Challenge. It’s a weird match to describe, but I’ll give it a shot. So, since DEADL1NE replaced WarGames on the NXT schedule, which that match replacing WWE’s Survivor Series, we now have this 25-minute match featuring five competitors. It’s kind of an Iron Man match, with all five wrestlers trying to get the most pinfalls or submissions. Two wrestlers start in the ring, and every five minutes another is added. If somebody gets pinned or submits, they go into a hockey-style penalty box for 90 seconds, during which time they get to watch other folks rack up points. Last year’s matches were both a lot of fun, and WWE just put the women’s match on YouTube if you wanna check it out:
Since we’re operating on a bit of a DEADL1NE ourselves today (I'm so sorry) I’ll just list matches and pick some winners. I’m thinking I’ll follow up with a short recap on Sunday; if we go that route, I’ll be sure to post about it on socials. With Wes Lee having to tearfully bow out of his match against Dominik Mysterio, NXT booker Shawn Michaels has had to move some stuff around at the last minute, but it should still be a fun show! Here’s the card, per the ever-reliable Wikipedia:
A lot of good ones here! Axiom and Frazer should kick things off with some fast paced action, and I’d like to see Frazer pick up the win to continue his douchey ways. Dragunov and Corbin should be a slower, more hard-hitting affair, but Dragunov will retain his championship despite giving up like six inches and fifty pounds to challenger Baron Corbin.
Dominik Mysterio gets such easy hate from the crowd that losing to a last-minute replacement seems dumb. Dragon Lee is incredibly talented – he and Axiom actually had a really good one-off match on SmackDown a couple weeks ago – but it feels a little early to slap a title on him, even with injured dad and perpetual beloved underdog Rey Mysterio in his corner. Maybe SmackDown baddie Santos Escobar costs Lee the title – he’s the storyline reason for Rey’s injury, after all, and the whole reason Escobar turned on Rey was because he felt like Rey turned his back on him.
Roxanne Perez ought to beat Kiana James, who has been a thorn in her side for weeks, although it has been looking like Perez might be leaning towards a heel turn. She’s been due for a callup to the main roster for a while, though, so I could also see her losing and moving onwards and upwards after the Royal Rumble. That’s like six weeks from now, though, and Roxy will need to pass the time somehow.
Melo and King is interesting because King’s over the top heel shtick barely covers up the fact that maybe the former Brian Pillman Jr. just isn’t really good at this whole wrestling job yet. King won’t win, but that won’t stop these two from having a ten to fifteen minute drawn out match, with the Iron Survivor winner coming out to stare down the victorious Hayes.
As for the Iron Survivor matches, Trick Williams is the obvious call here. The tension in his relationship with Hayes has been building for some time now, and a big blow off at the next PLE should be fun and overdue. The women’s match is a harder call, but I’d like to see Tiffany Stratton get another shot at the NXT championship she lost to Becky Lynch. That should have been her chance to move on to bigger things – Stratton is great in the ring, fun on the microphone, and would make a great addition to any roster – but her not getting put over by The Man was a little surprising to me.
Closing Up Shop
And that’s the end! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. We’ve got NXT Deadl1ne Saturday night, and the usual weekend block of SmackDown, Rampage, and Collision to check out too. AND my wife has kindly invited me to the Toys for Tots auction her workplace is attending, so that should be fun. It’ll be a lovely weekend!
We’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday blog. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow us on Twitter (X), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.
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