It's Rumble Weekend on the Casual Friday blog!

 

Good Morning!

So Netflix is getting into the rasslin’ business, with the Tuesday announcement that RAW is headed to the streaming service in January of 2025. It’s gonna be weird to not see Monday Night RAW on USA, although us olds remember the brief flirtation with Spike TV / The Nashville Network. Regardless, there’s also been talk that the tentpole of wrestling television may not even stay on Mondays. That’s kinda sad! 

I get it - there’s football, and college sports championships fall on Mondays too – but it’s always been MONDAY NIGHT RAW to me, with the Monday Night part being just as important as the show’s name! I remember hanging out in my friend Benny’s basement, taping Raw while watching Nitro live (or the other way around once WCW declined) just to crash on his couch, waking up at 5 the next day to walk off the hangover in brisk Illinois weather on my way to the animal hospital to feed the dogs n cats. Those memories won’t change because of that, but it’s kind of an institution, you know?

The other issue I have is that it’s Netflix, a service many of us have backed off of after frequent rate hikes, the addition of ads, and a crackdown on password sharing. It’s still the most popular streamer by a longshot, but here’s the thing: at this point, to keep up with the stuff I watch from WWE as of next year, I’ll need Netflix for RAW, USA (cable or a TV streamer like YouTube TV) for SmackDown, the CW (network TV via antenna or, more likely, a streamer) for NXT, and Peacock for PLEs. That’s … exhausting. Our buddies in other, distant lands will have Netflix as their provider for all of this stuff, which is pretty cool for them…at least it’s one, central deal. 

I find it a little frustrating, myself, but I’m sure smarter people than me already have plans in place for how to work around this stuff. I mean, if Netflix assumes you’re in the UK, doesn’t that mean you’d have access to all the UK-specific stuff too? That’s what the NordVPN ads I see on literally every YouTube video I streamed last month told me.

“It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence”

…in which I discuss the storylines that keep us watching week to week

RAW

Monday Night RAW started off hot and just kept going this week. As it was the go-home show before this weekend’s Royal Rumble, the show was bound to have more storyline developments than in-ring action – that’s just kind of the way it is before a big show. You don’t want anybody getting hurt, and you want to build anticipation for the matches at the show so you’ll get more eyes on the product (and buys of the show.) We watched Seth Rollins, the rumored injury-haver from the prior week’s match against Jinder Mahal, start a teary-eyed promo that had many fans believing he might be relinquishing his World Heavyweight Championship prior to the Rumble. After an interruption by Intercontinental Champ GUNTHER and his pals in Imperium, it was pretty clear that this was all a cunning ruse, and while the injury was real enough, Seth intends to defend his championship at WrestleMania!

It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here, though. Seth’s injury means that his title won’t be defended for the months leading up to the Show of Shows, and with Roman Reigns also (presumably) not defending after Saturday the closest we’ll come to a championship match is setting up contenders for the main titles at the Rumble and Elimination Chamber. Now, realistically, that might be what we were gonna do anyway – have CM Punk win the Rumble, challenge Seth, build the rivalry with interviews and promos. Let Cody Rhodes win his way into ‘Mania at Elimination Chamber. Neither of those requires Rollins or Reigns’ presence. 

Anyways, we also saw what might be the promo of the year when Cody Rhodes and CM Punk faced off to, um, discuss their Royal Rumble plans. I’m just gonna put it here for you to check out:

GOOD LORD MAN these two…they didn’t need to sell me on the Royal Rumble but if I hadn’t already been in, this work would have put me all the way in. Bringing up each other’s pasts while still dancing around the AEW stuff is the best way to have this conversation, and the intensity and tension built while also keeping things relatively calm until the end. This is how you perform a promo that silences a crowd, commands respect, and sells a show all at once.

Sorry, I’m just excitable. We also saw more aggression from the New Day as they continued to build a rivalry with Imperium, and R-Truth’s lovable shenanigans led to a main event loss for his pal Damien Priest against Drew McIntyre, which I’m sure will come into play during the Rumble too. 

NXT 

The build to Vengeance Day, which is not this coming Sunday but the next, continued as we saw Bronn Breakker and Baron Corbin take down Axiom and Nathan Frazier to lock in their spot in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Tournament final, where they’ll likely be meeting Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes. Melo interfered in Trick’s main event match, adding to the already tense relationship between the two superstars, and we’ll see if things escalate after (maybe) we see Hayes participate in the Royal Rumble. Hayes has made appearances on SmackDown lately, and it would be good storytelling to have him be completely hypocritical towards Williams by taking part in the Rumble the week before their finals match.

AEW Dynamite

A dead crowd that wasn’t that big to begin with kinda hurt this show, which had some good action on it and the lovely tones of our champion, Samoa Joe, on commentary. Page/Penta, Swerve/Hardy, Rosa/Velvet, and the main event were all good matches, but the highlight of the show for me was the half monochrome/half color interview between Deonna Purrazzo and Toni Storm. They gave a little bit of backstory and showed off some matching tattoos, just enough to get us on the hook for their backstory. There’s a great looking card for Collision this weekend as well, although most of us are probably DVRing that action for after the Rumble.

We Watched Some Wrestling!

…in which I recommend some of the best matches I saw last week

Some decent stuff in a week I wasn’t expecting much! Between the Raw go-home show, NXT building for their PLE, and AEW having an off week with Dynamite, there wasn’t much of a reason to expect great matches. But seeing Adam Copeland and Minoru Suzuki share a ring was incredible as a longtime fan of the former Edge and a supporter of our Murder Grandpa Suzuki. Some highlights:

Just a couple cool older performers with amazing legacies having some fun while they still can, and putting on a show at the same time. Suzuki responding to Copeland’s offer for a post match handshake with a roar was everything it could be to put a lid on that bout, and I loved it.

NXT opened with a really fun tag team match between the team of Baron Corbin and Bronn Breakker and Nathan Frazier and Axiom. The littler guys were incredible, flying around all over the place, but the bigger lads really picked their spots perfectly, often snatching their opponents out of the air and slamming them into the mat. 

It’s The Let’s Watch Some Wrestling Royal Rumble 2024 Preview!

We’ll be pre-empting the often pre-empted “Let’s Remember A Guy” and “Mailbox” sections for this weekend’s pape, as per usual. There’s only four matches announced, and two of those are Royal Rumble matches, so we’ll have a little fun with our predictions this time around. But before we get into it: it’s my beloved By The Numbers Video!

With that out of the way, let’s crack in!

The Men’s Royal Rumble Match

As of Thursday afternoon, the Men’s Rumble will include Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, GUNTHER, Kofi Kingston, and Damian Priest. Priest still holds the Money in the Bank briefcase, meaning he could have taken Seth out on Monday and taken his title, but who am I to judge? I still believe this is a two-horse race between Punk and Rhodes, with the winner maybe getting a feud with Drew McIntyre to pass the time between now and WrestleMania. The loser would likely enter the Elimination Chamber match to challenge their chosen opponent – Seth Rollins for the Punker (assuming that match is still happening at all), and Roman Reigns for Cody. I’ll go with my gut here, ignoring my heart, and pick Cody Rhodes to repeat as the Royal Rumble winner, with a Final Four of Rhodes, Punk, McIntyre, and GUNTHER.

I still have no idea how The Rock fits into all of this. Does he face Reigns in Australia at the Elimination Chamber show? Is he involved in the Royal Rumble match? Does he take one of the main events at WrestleMania? Is he actually not involved at all, and simply teased a match for SummerSlam or somewhere else way down the road? WHO’S TO SAY?

Oh, and since it’s the Rumble, I like to pick a surprise entrant. This year’s will be, oh, let’s say Tyler Breeze. The wife and I love Breezy on UpUpDownDown and it would be great to see Prince Pretty make a grand return, maybe alongside his co-owner in a real life wrestling school Shawn Spears, aka Tye Dillinger.

The Women’s Royal Rumble Match

Significantly fewer announced entries for the Women’s Rumble match: Bayley, Nia Jax, Becky Lynch, and Bianca Belair are the only ones so far. But there are enough storylines floating around to keep things interesting. 

Asuka and Kairi Sane of Damage CTRL have a tag team championship match against Kayden Carter and Katana Chance, which they may just win for fun, but I think they are both going to be involved in the Rumble as well. This might be when the team decides they’ve had enough of Bayley, either because Bayley loses on her own or because they’re tired of her and toss her from the match. Either way, I believe we’re headed for Bayley versus IYO SKY and Becky Lynch versus Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania, both great matches that they’ve been slowly building for a while now. Because of that, my choice for Rumble winner is Becky Lynch. Final Four will be Lynch, Nia Jax, Bayley, and Belair.

And since she’s been on the roster for quite a while now, I’m gonna say we’re getting Jade Cargill as a surprise entrant. NXT has a lot of talent that’s ready to move up to the main roster, though – I wouldn’t be surprised to see the likes of Tiffany Stratton, Gigi Dolan, or Roxanne Perez make an appearance.

Logan Paul © versus Kevin Owens for the United States Championship

KO won his way into this match via a really good tournament in which he defeated Austin Theory, Carmelo Hayes, and Santos Escobar. The story of the match, though, is KO’s cast, which Paul argued was a weapon that gave Owens an advantage. Owens agreed to remove the cast for the match, and I imagine that will be his downfall. Paul remains a special attraction that people seem to be tuning in for, so he should probably retain his title until ‘Mania, where maybe he has a full match with rival Ricochet? I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that Logan Paul retains in this one.

Roman Reigns © versus AJ Styles versus Randy Orton versus LA Knight for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship

This should be fun even though that outcome is not at all in doubt. What’s more important is the interactions between everyone before Roman gets the victory, as we might see some of these guys in the Elimination Chamber next month or even building rivalries that end up at WrestleMania. Styles and Knight look to be headed in that direction, and I’m not mad at it. There’s also nothing that says these three can’t participate in the Rumble as well, so maybe Randy pulls double duty there. 

The Bloodline and possibly even The Rock may show up here, although I feel like there may be a ringside ban revealed on tonight’s SmackDown. That would eliminate Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa, but Rocky could mess things up for his cousin as he challenges for the title of Head of the Table. I feel like we’re going to see this as the main event, as we did last year for the Kevin Owens/ Roman Reigns match that saw Sami Zayn turn on his new pals in one of the best segments of 2023.  

Closing Up Shop

…in which I say goodbye for now

And that’s it! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. We’ve got the go-home SmackDown tonight, as well as both the Royal Rumble and a stacked AEW Collision on Saturday, so our Monday weekend in review should be pretty packed!

We’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday and Untitled Monday blog posts. 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.

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 Monday afternoon and next Friday. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!