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Good Morning!
It’s been a hell of a weekend so far, with some debuts, some big pay-per-views from a couple of promotions we don’t normally cover here, and INCREDIBLY COLD temperatures for a lot of the country.
Andy Reid’s mustache froze solid during Saturday night’s Chiefs game, and the announcers reminded us of the temperatures roughly seven thousand times during the broadcast. Another game, originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, has been moved because Buffalo appears to have transformed into Hoth over the last few days. Not ideal playing conditions, but apparently an extra day and some really invested hoping and/or praying will be enough to make Monday a more appropriate day for Bills/Steelers. I’m normally not a big football guy – being a Chicago guy might have something to do with that – but I do always tune in for the playoffs.
And speaking of playoffs, we’re in the WWE’s equivalent of a postseason. The “Road to WrestleMania,” that chunk of the year between the Royal Rumble and the biggest show on the wrestling calendar, is fast approaching, with the Rumble only a couple weeks out. So, since this new Monday blog still needs a bit of a template – I didn’t want to just copy and paste the Friday format, that’s it’s own thing – I figured I’ll lay down a bit of a beginner’s guide to this season, as well as pointing out who to watch out for if you’re checking out the Royal Rumble on Peacock for the first time. And it’s an excellent first bit of business to check out if you wanted to give professional wrestling a try – a show featuring two 30-person battle royales, as well as a handful of matches as well. But before we get to that, let’s run down the Friday and Saturday shows!
Weekend Watchlist
…a recap of what we watched over the weekend
Friday brought us another installment in the long running Bloodline saga on SmackDown!, as Roman Reigns' family had to deal with the consequences from their attack that ended last week’s show with a disqualification and the reveal that Roman would face Randy Orton, LA Knight, and AJ Styles in a Fatal Four Way match for Roman’s (deep breath) Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble. Roman couldn’t be bothered to show up for SmackDown, so a lot of the show followed Wise Man Paul Heyman as he tried to find a replacement that would be willing to work with Solo Sikoa and Jimmy Uso in a trios tag match against Roman’s challengers. Failing that, the Bloodline did what they do best and just jumped Randy Orton before the match began, evening things out until Randy made his way to the ring to get revenge before the show went off the air. Good guys win, but tension between the three showed that Roman still has a chance to hang on to his title in two weeks.
Some new groups emerged, as Carrion Cross joined forces with the Authors of Pain to establish a rivalry with Bobby Lashley and the Street Profits, who have looked decent but haven’t really gotten over as bad guys. But that’s okay, because they just…aren’t bad now. They also are called The Pride, which makes me want to sing like the beginning of the Lion King. Oh, and the AoP/Carrion group is now The Last Testament, which works in the way something would when I complain that these random pairings never get official names. Oh, and the continued gentle ostracizing of Bayley from her Damage CTRL buddies went on, as the group decided not to help their founder in her losing effort against longtime rival Bianca Belair. That split is coming, probably sooner than later. I would assume, based on post-match assurances that Bayley needs to win the Royal Rumble on her own, that the others will turn on her in that match. Maybe that leads to a full-on return to a good guy role for Bayley against Women’s Champ IYO SKY at WrestleMania?
Lumping Rampage, Collision, and Battle of the Belts IX all in one five-hour chunk of viewing was probably an unhealthy choice, but it was one I made for you, my loyal reader base. *checks view counter* All ten of you. Regardless, there was a good amount of action over the AEW weekend, as well as some pawn-moving as we head into Revolution season for the second-biggest North American pro wrestling promotion.
Rampage gave us some good, short matches featuring Hikaru Shida and Swerve Strickland, and a really fun and hard hitting match between sentient-pack-of-Newports Eddie Kingston and perpetually-needs-his-face-slapped Wheeler Yuta. The Dark Order won the main event to finish the week of Brodie Lee tribute matches, and while the outcome of literally none of the matches on Rampage was ever in doubt, it was a fun show anyways. We also saw Angelo Parker, current love interest of Ruby Soho, almost smooch Harley, the new addition to the Ruby/Saraya team, on a video Saraya showed to Soho as we watched. Parker, conveniently, arrived afterward to get a Ruby Soho birthday cake he brought smushed in his face as he vehemently denied what happened.
Collision featured a really good main event in FTR and Daniel Garcia teaming up against the House of Black. Every member of both teams had a great showing, and the continued parallel stories of the House recruiting FTR and Brody King and Daniel Garcia’s rivalry from the Continental Classic tournament met to give us some great spots in this battle, even though the bad guys won. The end of Collision segued nicely into Battle of the Belts, as announcer Tony Schiavone let us know that there was some brawling going on outside the arena as the Tag Title Street Fight began.
Battle of the Belts featured no title changes, as per usual. Fun fact: Sammy Guevara holds the only two victories by a non-champion on “Battle of the Belts” shows. He won the vacant TNT Championship over Dustin Rhodes on the first event back in January of 2022, and he won the same title from Scorpio Sky on Battle of the Belts II, in April of that same year. There have been 26 successful title defenses of nine championships: the AEW International/All-Atlantic, TBS, AEW Tag, AEW Trios, ROH World, TNT, AEW Women’s, ROH Tag, and the FTW Championship.
The show had some good action, though, with the slightly-overlong AEW Tag Team Championship street fight being a highlight. It had some fun spots, as most Jericho-based brawls do, and the inclusion of both Konosuke Takeshita and Powerhouse Hobbs will dovetail into some progression in that story. Orange Cassidy and Julia Hart successfully defended their titles in matches that were good, but didn’t stand out for me.
Oh, and former WWE wrestlers Dolph Ziggler and Dana Brooke, now going as Nic Nemeth and Ash by Elegance, respectively, debuted on the TNA Hard to Kill show this weekend! I think they’re both really good gets for TNA, solid workers and respected, well known names. I don’t know if I'd consider them “needle movers” but they’re gonna have some really good matches over there. Mustafa Ali also appeared via a video on New Japan Pro Wrestling’s big Battle in the Valley show, teasing an appearance when that company heads to Chicago (his home and mine) later this year.
The Monday Thing of the Week!
…our list, guide, or little blurb for this week’s as-yet-untitled Monday blog
For our first edition of the Thing of the Week, I wanted to talk about the Royal Rumble, specifically the RAW side of it. I’ll follow up next week with the SmackDown entries. But first, a little background.
The Royal Rumble is the first big WWE show of the year; well, most years, anyway. There have been a few New Year’s-based shows before. It’s also the starting point of the WrestleMania season, as the results of this show directly affect the SuperBowl of wrestling that takes place in April. The show is based around the Royal Rumble matches. They’re big matches, too! Two people start in the ring, and after a set amount of time – usually around two minutes – another person is allowed to head down the entryway and into the ring. Eliminations occur when somebody is tossed over the top rope and both their feet hit the ground below. That bit is important, as in the past we’ve seen lots of folks flip over the rope but land on the apron, or land on a pancake or office chair, preventing them from technically touching ground and being eliminated.
The Royal Rumble winner, historically, gets a shot at the champion of their choice at that year’s WrestleMania. In 2018, a women’s Rumble was added, and now we usually get a Rumble to begin and end the show, although that wasn’t the case last year; the Undisputed Championship match between Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn main-evented the night. The match features a mix of RAW and SmackDown wrestlers, and often we’ll see some performers return from injury, or some debuts from other companies, or the occasional NXT call up as well. It’s a blast, and a great way to catch up or get introduced to a lot of the talent that will be the focus of the next few months of programming as we ramp up to ‘Mania.
We always get a handful of folks who announce their participation in the Rumble matches, to balance out the surprise entrants. Entry numbers are sometimes announced in advance, too – sometimes the story will focus on a guy entering at number one, having to fight the odds to get the win and the guaranteed WrestleMania main event. So far this year, RAW has had Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, Shinsuke Nakamura, Drew McIntyre, Nia Jax, and Becky Lynch throw their hats into the ring. SmackDown has just three confirmed entrants so far, with Bobby Lashley, Bianca Belair, and Bayley announcing their participation.
Punk and Rhodes are both interesting, as they’ve made their opponents known already. Cody wants to “finish the story” against Roman Reigns, the guy who beat him to end last year’s WrestleMania. Punk returned to the WWE after getting canned from AEW, and he and Seth Rollins, the WWE Heavyweight champ, had some real-life exchanges that have been turned into a storyline. I could see either of them winning, and frankly it’s pretty cool that we have so many entrants who could realistically main event WrestleMania already. If either of those guys don’t win, the next big show features another match that generally gets the winner a ‘Mania match – the Elimination Chamber. So don’t be heartbroken if your pick doesn’t win the Royal Rumble! There’s always another way in.
WWE typically produces a “by the numbers” video every year, giving stats and facts about the event. We haven’t gotten one for this year yet, but I’ll include it into next week’s blog if we get one then. The show is on January 26th, so I’d expect it this week or the next. Here’s last year’s, though!
Closing Up Shop
…in which I say goodbye for now
And that’s it! I’ll be using Mondays for catching up on the weekend action from here on out, although I might post these a little later than the Casual Friday blog. Look for Untitled Monday Wrestling Blog around the crack of noon on Mondays.
As per usual, this week we’ll be watching RAW on Monday night, NXT on Tuesday night, and AEW Dynamite on Wednesday night. Thursdays are for putting all that stuff into a nice, convenient blog for you to check out on Fridays – we call it the Casual Friday blog, and it’s up at 9am Mountain time on Friday, appropriately.
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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. Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here Fridays and Mondays. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!
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