9/9/2022

 Been a minute, hasn’t it? Since I started over at Wrestling Inc. I thought I’d have more time to write, like, overall. Turns out life has gotten in the way of that and so, I’ve been more focused on writing about Maki Itoh and Brock Lesnar and less about, well, keeping y’all up to date on what’s going on in the world of pro rasslin! But we’ve got a few more of those in the hopper and since my brain is a little overloaded with personal stuff today, I felt like it’s as good a time as any to update the old Let’s Watch Some Wrestling blog. 

And what a week (month?) it’s been! Last weekend saw big events for WWE, AEW, and NXT. WWE had their first big event in like 15 years over in the UK, and there were some amazing matches on that show. AEW had their annual All Out show, which is arguably their biggest show of the year. (AEW only does four big pay per view shows a year, as opposed to the WWE’s 12 to 14.) That ended with a new champ and then a championship vacancy. NXT did a show combining their UK and American counterparts into one for now, as NXT UK prepares to reboot itself. Maybe we better just dive right in. 

WWE’s stuff on both SmackDown and Raw has been great! A real revelation since Vince stepped away for, you know, reasons. Former wrestler Triple H has taken over the booking (storytelling) and things have been really interesting, with a lot of returning talent and some refreshing angles for old favorites. Those stories culminated in last Saturday’s Clash at the Castle show in Wales. If you happen to have Peacock, that show and all WWE’s premium live events are included. And if you’re an Xfinity (Comcast) customer that’s all thrown in too. 

Sheamus, via his Twitter after his match! YIKES!

I tell you this because there’s a match on that show, Sheamus versus Gunther, that is one of the best things I’ve seen on WWE programming in a minute. If you have the time and motivation, GO WATCH IT! Sheamus is an Irish pugilist, more clear than white. Gunther is a giant of a man, a stoic ring general type who just bullies his opponents. In a match that a lot of people overlooked on paper, these two just beat the hell out of each other! The thing with Sheamus is, he’s so pasty white that bruises show up almost immediately on him. Putting him in a match with a guy like Gunther, who is known for his powerful chops and brutal offense, just clicked perfectly. Sheamus is no slouch either - he’s been a mainstay in WWE for years now, a multi-time champ on both Raw and SmackDown. Just a fantastic, brutal, delightful match. If you’re wondering how they’re faking those chops so they don’t hurt…they aren’t. That’s just two dudes in there straight up hurting each other for our entertainment.

The rest of the show was really good too! The main event saw Drew McIntyre face champion of everything Roman Reigns, and that UK crowd was super behind their guy. I probably should have known better, but I definitely thought the outcome was gonna be different. LIKE A FOOL! Roman retained despite his cousins not being available, by bringing…another cousin into his Bloodline group! It was pretty cool.

And then there was AEW’s All Out show on Sunday night. The show itself was good, I think? The events afterward overshadowed the thing, which is awful. If you haven’t heard (and if you haven’t I thank you for reading) Chicago’s own CM Punk won the AEW Championship in the main event of the show. He then decided to vent a ton of personal issues he has with other AEW talent during a post-show press conference, as the owner of the company sat next to him, dumbfounded. He laid into former friends and current EVPs while eating muffins and being kind of a jerk. He then (allegedly) got into a fight with those EVPs in his dressing room, although all the details of that are a little fuzzy. Suffice it to say, you can’t do that stuff and the owner, Tony Khan, ended up suspending both Punk, his friend Ace Steel, and several others including the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, who had won the Trios tournament earlier that night. So, down four champs, Khan did a soft reset on Wednesday, having a match for the now vacant Trios belts and setting up a Tournament of Champions for the vacant AEW Championship, which will be settled at their next big show in a few weeks. It’s madness!

We also saw the return of MJF, a guy who is just the best at blurring the lines between reality and wrestling drama. He was on his best behavior, which is probably in everybody’s best interest right now, but during All Out he did win a ladder match that guarantees him a title shot in the future - kind of like the Money in the Bank thing we discussed in our Raw primer from a few weeks back. I’m sure he’ll find the perfect time to cash that in, when our new champ is at their weakest.

It’s a shame there was so much drama after the show, because the show itself featured some amazing wrestling. The Trios match was fantastic, and the Tag Team Championship match between The Acclaimed and Swerve in our Glory was way better than it had any right to be. Looking forward to that rematch in a few weeks. 

I’d love to write a little more about that whole dramafest, if you’re interested. Wrestling Inc. is fantastic for my research heavy stuff, but they have a team of news guys who keep the nerds like me up to date on all the behind the scenes drama. I, in turn, would be happy to make another primer for those of you still learning the ropes (no pun intended) in the pro wrestling world! So let me know if you’d like to read more about SmackDown, AEW Dynamite, or backstage stuff, and I’ll be happy to knock something out for ya. 

I think we’ll wrap up here for now. I have two articles pending for the other site, one on WWE legend Eddie Guerrero and another on the top 15 wrestling movies of all time. I will, of course, let y’all know when those go up via my FB and Twitter. So, until next time, enjoy your weekend and maybe watch some wrestling!

Casual Wednesday (?!), 8/10/2022

 Remember when I used to write on a consistent schedule, putting out like four blogs a week, all over 2000 words? Yeah, me too. Sorry about that. Life, as Jeff Goldblum taught us, tends to find a way. In this case it finds a way to derail my plans on writing about every show I watch and instead turns the blog into a scattershot series of Casual (insert day here).

On the plus side, we got a paid gig as a features writer for an actual website to be named later! And the basement’s nearly finished! And we’ve got two interviews this week for mechanic-adjacent positions with a forklift and a golf cart company. So everything’s coming up Oso, as we say.

But enough about me, let’s talk about what happened over the past week! Triple H has unquestionably changed The Game (I’m so sorry) as far as Raw, SmackDown, and even SummerSlam. Bringing Dakota Kai, Scarlett, Carrion Cross, and IYO SKY onto the main roster showed Trips’ dedication to “his guys” and a willingness to rectify what he saw as mistakes in personnel management. I think it’s pretty great - let the guy use people he really sees something in and hopefully they can work in their first or second chances on the main roster. 

There was a lot more wrestling on our WWE wrestling programming as well! The women especially got a lot of time, even though the crowd wasn’t exactly great for Monday’s IYO SKY debut. Once the more casual Raw viewers get exposed to SKY’s abilities I’m sure they’ll be for her to do her thing. Also that’s gonna be really annoying to type every time, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. I mean, I did it for WALTER, right?

SmackDown brought the return of Carrion Cross and Scarlett, interrupting Drew McIntyre’s promo at the end of the show. An exciting return, as Triple H booked Carrion as an unstoppable monster before he was moved to Raw and, well, the less said about that the better.

Monday brought some welcome changes as well, with KO reverting to full on bad guy status, Bayley establishing her faction as a powerful force on Raw, and some creative camera work to boot! The crashed car in the background of the shot of Owens’ interview wasn't even referenced at the time, and was actually used later to set up (possibly) the ousting of Nikki Cross and Doudrop from the Women’s Tag Team tournament. Later, a nice panning shot from an interaction between Alexa Bliss, Asuka, and Bayley and pals seamlessly segued us into the main event, as we caught up with AJ Styles walking past the ladies on his way to the ring. A nice touch that really adds production value, and shows the audience that the backstage area as a living space for everyone instead of a series of staged vignettes.

Holy crap we also got a Women’s Tag Team Tournament! The Championships, dormant since Sasha Banks and Naomi left them on John Laurinitus’s desk and walked out of the company, are on the line over the next few weeks. We already had IYO SKY and Dakota Kai qualify, and I strongly feel like some shenanigans are afoot that may change other teams’ inclusion in the brackets. 

And what about AEW? Well, since we last chatted, we’ve had a fantastic week that started with last week’s Rampage featuring Jon Moxley defending his interim championship against Mance Warner, who was featured during Ric Flair’s Last Match show. A solid brawl between two solid brawlers, I thought it was a fun match, even if it wasn’t as violent as I would have expected between these two. Madison Rayne’s debut match was solid, if a little short and cut off by the lengthy picture-in-picture pseudo break. Takeshita had a nice squash of Ryan Nemeth to set up his match with Claudio Castignoli at Battle of the Belts, and the main event street fight saw Swerve in our Glory defeat Tony Nese and Josh Grey in a very fun TV match.

Battle of the Belts was Saturday, and I regret to inform you I missed that because Saturday was also my eleventh anniversary with my delightful partner, Mo Good. I plan on checking that out while I continue my flooring project after this blog posts, before tonight’s Dynamite kicks off. I have, of course, heard great things about the main event, so I’m looking forward to checking that out.

And I think that’s it for now! I’ll, of course, update you via Twitter and Facebook once I know when my first Features article posts.  I’m hoping to get a little more consistent here, but we all know what happens when I say that aloud.Still, I’ll do my damnedest to be back for Casual Friday to talk Dynamite, All Out, Battle of the Belts, and maybe expand on my hopes for the Triple H era.  Also, follow my Twitter for updates as I continue my quest to watch #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days!