DEADL1NE recap, but shorter. Week in review, but too long? It's Casual Friday!

Image Credit: AEW

Good Morning!

Scheduling my weird life has become kind of an issue. See, I had worked normal schedules for the better part of my life. Straight out of high school, I worked at an animal hospital for ten years, typically doing open to close shifts five or six days a week. When the new owners decided to let me go, I decided to go to trade school to learn how to fix cars, a decision I’ll likely be paying for the rest of my life. During school, I worked at a lube shop, and after I finished up I got hired at Sears. That led to me transferring from Illinois to Colorado, in part for a change of scenery and in part because the girl I loved had moved to CO earlier and I missed her. 

Long story short (HA!) we’re married, have a house, and I’m out of the auto repair game after fifteen years. A combination of never having loved the job, physical toll, and the last place leaving a real bad taste in my mouth led me to take a little time off, which turned into more time off. 

The writing thing started in 2022 as a way to do something while we figured out my next job. It turned into that next job by way of a friend’s suggestion to apply at a wrestling website, which led to my paying gig at Wrestling, Inc. in their new Features section. It was cool, and I enjoyed it, but it shut down. Fortunately, my editor was really nice and got me on WINC’s sister site, SlashGear, where I continue to write about an article a week. I had some other wrestling sites give me opportunities, but both of those sites have since shut down, leaving me to resurrect the Let’s Watch Some Wrestling blog just to get my thoughts out of my head. 

Unfortunately, I’ve never shaken the thought that this isn’t real work. I have tried setting up Trello boards, dry erase boards, loose schedules, hour-by-hour schedules…nothing really sticks, though. I know what I need to do in my day – my duties as caretaker of the other animals (and human) in the house, alongside house cholo stuff all take time but I manage it all okay. The problem is setting aside time to sit down in the office and do the writing. I’ve gotten advice from friends, a job coach, even one of my favorite online writers, and they all say the same thing – make a schedule and stick with it.

And since my overall health has taken a bit of a nosedive (not sick, just less well) it seems like it would be a good thing to get on a loop, you know? Get up, maybe go for a walk, take meds (I saw a doc for the first time in like 15 years so of course I’m on a prescription now), get my wife ready, feed pets, shower, and work. Seems easy enough. But my body and brain just aren’t clicking right. Maybe this is the weekend it’ll all settle. I woke up early today, and I have a pretty loose schedule aside from checking out Joe Bob’s Christmas special tonight and maybe getting a tree. Hopefully it works out okay. It would be nice to get back into a nice, familiar rut.

We Watched Some Wrestling!

What a weekend for some unexpectedly great wrestling! Friday’s SmackDown that gave us all the C.M. Punk we could handle along with a good main event where Randy Orton and a game L.A. Knight (YEAUH) got the crowd on its feet! 

AEW’s counterprogramming started with Danhausen (and lil’ Danhausen) and gave us one of the best wrestling matches on TV in a while – ON RAMPAGE – in Brian Danielson versus Daniel Garcia. Go out of your way to check that main event out. We’ve actually got a couple good reasons to tune into tonight’s Rampage as well, with the Von Erichs teaming with Orange Cassidy, and a six man tag match between Top Flight with Action Andretti against El Hijo del Vikingo, Penta el Cero Miedo, and Kommander that’s been getting a ton of positive hype from folks who were in attendance at the taping.

On top of those great Friday shows, Collision tossed out a couple of Continental Classic Blue League matches:  Eddie Kingston v Claudio Castignoli and Bryan Danielson taking on Andrade el Idolo. AND we had the NXT premium live event, DEADL1NE! The weekend also included some of my own Christmas shopping getting done on Saturday, as well as a fancy Toys for Tots auction/dinner Friday, meaning I literally only just got caught up on Monday afternoon, which is why that DEADL1NE preview I foolishly thought I’d do as a separate bit went by the wayside. BUT we made predictions, and we gotta see how I did, so at least a short recap is necessary.

But on top of all that weekend wrestling – which I’m starting to think we might need to expand to twice a week recaps because of all the stuff that happens during the weekend – we had a Monday Night Raw that gave us the C.M. Punk - Seth Rollins faceoff we were waiting for, as well as the polar opposite of that on AEW Dynamite, with just one of the worst promo segments I’ve ever seen, between Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Ricky Starks, and Big Bill. We had great matches on Wednesday’s Dynamite, too, including Brodie King/ Andrade el Idolo, which was brutal AF. 

Yeah, maybe a weekend recap isn’t a bad idea…SO MUCH HAPPENS, and that’s just on the stuff I keep up with. We’ve got a Ring of Honor PPV tonight that I won’t watch because I’m cheap and I have other commitments, but it’s gonna be a banger with Athena facing former minion-in-training Billie Starkz in the main event. Athena’s gotta be in the conversation for wrestler of the year despite not being on TV for most of her matches. Here’s hoping 2024 sees her taking over the AEW women’s division.

The DEADL1NE Recap: The Short Version

Definitely a show I’m happy to move past because typing the title is a pain, DEADL1NE nonetheless gave us some pretty good in-ring action! We’ll go over results just to see how my prediction brain is working out:

Dragon Lee defeated Dominik Mysterio © to become the NEW NXT North American champion, surprising me and the audience with a couple finishers and a clean victory.

Trick Williams and Blair Davenport won their Iron Survivor matches, both fun and brutal bouts. Trick’s come-from-behind victory was especially cool given the meticulous plotting that must have gone into the finish. Give it a watch if you get a chance!

Kiana James beat Roxanne Perez in a steel cage when she was assisted by Izzi Dame. I never really got into this match despite really liking Perez…it just kinda happened to be in a cage, and that finish made it feel more like a speed bump than a destination.

Carmelo Hayes beat Lexis King, which in wrestling logic means Hayes couldn’t have attacked Trick Williams? This was proven less true on NXT’s Tuesday show, as Hayes “accidentally” struck his buddy with a belt. And Ilya defended said belt against Baron Corbin in a good-not-great main event. 

So my predictions went 50/50, with Dragunov, Hayes, and Williams all picking up the wins I called. If I got them all right it would be a much more boring watch, so I don’t mind. Still batting over .500 overall though!

Closing Up Shop

And that’s the end! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. I probably won’t be getting any pay-per-views or premium live events this weekend (although I’ll probably find the results to Ring of Honor’s Final Battle PPV), so it’s “just” the five hours of WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision to keep up with. 

We’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday blog...and as I said, maybe Monday or Tuesday for a recap blog too. I think I’d like Friday to be a little more conversational, rather than trying to cram in the results of a dozen hours of wrestling shows that you’ve probably also seen if you’re reading this. We, like this blog, are all a work in progress.

 If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow me on Twitter (X), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. It’ll help power me through the paid work I do on SlashGear, which in turn gives me a chance to work on this here blog! Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here next Friday. 

Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!