Good Morning!
Over the last week, there was some Twitter drama that was largely amplified by the CEO of AEW, Tony Khan. And while I try not to comment on this stuff – social media is generally its own thing, and very little that happens on there applies to real life or even pro wrestling – it was interesting to see how Khan’s comments, as well as those of Jinder Mahal, and HOOK, and the USA Network’s social media account, led to a pair of matches that were largely throwaway title defenses becoming far more important. Neither show directly addressed the internet drama, but they both did a lot to portray both Jinder and HOOK as legitimate contenders – and both men had really good matches, albeit in losing efforts.
“It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence”
…in which I discuss the storylines that keep us watching week to week
Oh, buddy, things are getting hot in the Fed. The in-ring stuff on Monday was largely forgettable, but the storytelling is on point and we seem to be going in some interesting directions as we head into the go-home week and next Saturday’s Royal Rumble! Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes had a little chat, and those two being on each other’s radar as we head into the Rumble is interesting. Drew and CM Punk had a similar talk last week, and next week there’s a face to face between Cody and Punk scheduled.
This all points to the Rumble largely being a three man race, but the best thing about that match is that WWE has occasionally done something unexpected, using the winner as a way to reset a bunch of storylines while also continuing others. My money is on Punk (yeah, I know) with Cody winning the Elimination Chamber match…but I wouldn’t be mad at Cody, Drew, or some surprise other entrant sneaking in for the win.
The women’s Royal Rumble match seems to be leaning towards a Bayley or Becky Lynch win, leading to those two facing champs IYO SKY and Rhea Ripley, respectively. But Raw leaned into the tag division, with a pair of tag matches establishing more challengers for Kayden Carter and Katana Chance’s titles. Maybe they are building to a tag team showcase like the one we had at last year’s ‘Mania, which brought us this incredible spot:
NXT continues to be dumb, silly fun. Trick Melo Gang has moved on in the Dusty Rhodes Cup Tag Team Tournament, but Trick has also agreed to challenge NXT champ Ilya Dragunov. Unfortunately, that would take place on the same night as the Dusty Cup finals! THE TENSION!
Elsewhere, bird lady Lyra Valkyria got to team up with her stalker slash protege Tatum Paxley, and Roxanne Perez won the Battle-Royale-Turned-Fatal-Four-Way main event match. Things are starting to come together for a solid Vengeance Day card in a couple weeks.
Dynamite pulled one of my most disliked tropes in pro wrestling – the “challenger picks when the match happens” bit, this time with Orange Cassidy accepting a long-winded challenge from Roddy Strong only for Strong to decide that match won’t happen until Revolution, in six weeks. While it’s in-character for Cassidy to not care one way or the other, I feel like I’d get irrationally angry and just tell the challenger to get to the back of the line if they tried to pull that shit.
We also saw the Bing Bing Ging pick up the victory, and the Ring of Honor Trios Championship, off of the Mogul Embassy. I guess it was a shock, although those titles don’t mean a whole lot right now. I could see Adam Cole’s Undisputed Pals going after these titles to match their RoH Tag belts…I guess we’ll see where it goes.
The Young Bucks have gone full heel, embracing their positions as executive vice-presidents and general douchebags in an interview that confirmed their return and their desire to purge AEW of superstars like Sting (although not necessarily Sting himself – they remained respectful of The Icon.) The Bucks are a great choice to be in Sting’s last match, both as two of the most important people in AEW and as safe workers who will make Sting look great while they beat the hell out of Darby Allen.
It also puts the Bucks on a good trajectory after that match. I can see them taking out some of the people brought in as castoffs from the Fed – Samoa Joe, Chris Jericho, FTR. It should be a good run, and I much prefer Matthew and Nicholas in their natural roles as unlikeable, cringeworthy, pretentious dicks.
We Watched Some Wrestling!
…in which I recommend some of the best matches I saw last week
Samoa Joe’s battle with HOOK was better than I expected, with the kid getting in some good shots on the champ. I don’t think any of us believed HOOK had a chance, but there were a few times in there that I wanted to believe!
Over on Raw, Xavier Woods and Ludwig Kaiser had a pretty good brawl, with Woodsy looking to exact revenge on Kaiser for his beat-down on Kofi Kingston the week before, which itself was retaliation for an errant headshot Kofi laid on Kaiser’s buddy Giovanni Vinci. A little blood in a WWE match is always a surprise, and Woods played up the anger and blood well, screaming a lot to show off his scarlet-tinged mouth and teeth.
Closing Up Shop
…in which I say goodbye for now
Thanks for coming with me on that. A shorter bit of business this week as we are trying to work around some issues with the site, i.e. the Kofi button not showing up on mobile, as well as a looming deadline elsewhere. But we’ll be back with the Mailbox (providing I find a question) and Remembering a Guy next time. I’m thinking about making the Royal Rumble preview and the usual Casual Friday post separate things, too, so it doesn’t just look like one huge intimidating wall of text. Thoughts?
No pay-per-views or premium live events this weekend, so it’s “just” the five hours of WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision to keep up with. Next weekend’s a big one, with the Royal Rumble and
We’ll see you next week for the blog, and that’s where we’ll preview the Royal Rumble too! I can’t imagine the go-home SmackDown will feature too much aside from a few more entrants into the Rumble matches, but who’s to say with Triple H leading the charge? We’ll recap all the weekend’s action on Monday, as well. 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 (use desktop view to access that until I figure out how to have it show up on mobile). Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here on Monday. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!
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