It's The Let's Watch Some Wrestling WWE Survivor Series/ WarGames Preview!

 

Good Morning!

It’s Friday morning as I’m sitting down to write this. The house is still asleep since my wife had to stop in to the emergency animal hospital she helps manage, and I slept in after cooking a massive Thanksgiving meal for the two of us and our buddy. So, leftovers for the next week or so it is! And not just any leftovers: the best idea from one of my favorite TV shows of all time, interpreted by one of my favorite YouTube cooks. It’s Thanksgiving Balls!

That’s right. As Shawn Spencer says, “It is an entire meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and an Andes mint rolled into a ball, battered, and deep fried.” A whole-ass Thanksgiving dinner, deconstructed and re-constructed into a handy little ball. And while Psych had a tendency to make up some outlandish foods without giving the viewer much background -- quatro quesos dos fritas, for example -- this is one that the internet was nice enough to prepare a recipe for. I’ve made them in the past, and I’ll be sure to post some pics of the glorious final product.

As for the week, I understand that many folks have a tough relationship with Turkey Day. It can be hard to deal with family for any number of reasons, and pressure to do what one is “supposed to” can really wreak havoc on the nerves. I ain’t here for all that! We run a low-key household, where we welcome anybody to eat and watch Mystery Science Theater and generally just relax. It’s been especially cool to have friends who just moved out here get to enjoy a meal or two with us before they gain a foothold and establish their own traditions, whether that’s with their own families or chosen ones. I just like cooking, eating, and watching robots make fun of movies on Thanksgiving. I’m a simple man that way.

The WWE Survivor Series/ WarGames Preview!

First things first here: I don’t really like the whole “Survivor Series as WarGames” gimmick. WWE went through all the trouble of getting rid of the contrived Hell in a Cell pay-per-view only to do the same thing with WarGames -- force a narrative so that a pair of big matches have to happen for a gimmick match at a gimmick show. And don't get me wrong, Survivor Series was that same thing before it was turned into Triple H’s new baby. But it at least made a little more sense, as teams were generally like-minded individuals, and the matches weren’t of the Blood and Guts variety.

The Fed considers Survivor Series to be one of its “Big Four” shows, although I would say that we hadn’t had many consequences for this big show for years, until recently. Before WarGames, the tacky “Raw vs SmackDown” storyline popped up every November, with superstars briefly becoming incredibly loyal to the brand they wrestled on, just long enough to squeeze a few matches out. But it was the format that I liked! Sole survivors, multi-person tag team elimination format, loose alliances with cool team names. 

Give me that over lousy builds for matches that are way too high-stakes for the storylines. I get it for the Bloodline vs Bloodline thing, that’s just an ongoing feud where every match at this point seems like it’s worth adding a stipulation. But the women’s WarGames match this year stands out for its slapdash construction. And yeah, WWE had to pivot away from Jade Cargill when she got injured, slowing the breakup of our women’s tag team champs. But it’s still a very flimsy set of good guys, teaming up to bring down the champs of both main shows plus some flunkies. And there’s no real stakes, either. You win, you celebrate, you move on. No championships or number-one contenderships are on the line…although there is still a Money in the Bank briefcase in play. We’ll get to that in a bit.

But I digress! The women assembled for this year’s WarGames match include some of the best in recent WarGames history, IYO SKY and Candice LaRae in particular. Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley are top-tier superstars, and if this match somehow leads to a match between the two of them while Cargill heals up, all the better. And Bayley, well…we love Bayley. I’ve heard some talk that folks would like to see her turn heel again, but I think it’s too soon for that. She had a bummer of a championship run this year, and her theme music and character motivations are crap, but she’s still great in the ring. I just don’t feel like giving up on one of the greatest babyfaces in recent history for a quick bump in crowd noise is necessary -- at least not yet.

So let’s get into this preview. Aside from the two big WarGames matches, we’ve got three championships on the line on Saturday night as well. And since I enjoyed doing it, we’ll do the WWE 2K24 simulations alongside my own predictions. There’s a little hiccup in that the game can only handle eight wrestlers in the ring at a time, meaning our Survivor Series matches will have to lose a member of each team. I tried to pick the person who will have the least impact for their team in terms of outcome and storyline. 

I benched Candice LaRae for Team Evil - Women’s Division, because even though she’s probably going to have a bonkers spot in the real life match, I think she’s the least likely to influence the finish of the match. She also threw off the balance between champs and pals, so she’s out. For Team Good (no relation) I pulled Naomi simply because she isn’t in the game, and I forgot to download her when I was assembling this roster. Sorry, Naomi, although I do see stuff happening with you down the road!

For the men’s match, I had to employ different logic for who to sit. With a tag team on each team, it made more sense to bench the member who’s less likely to affect both this match, and upcoming storylines. So Jimmy Uso and Tonga Loa both were pulled for this one, and non-family members CM Punk and Bronson Reed were allowed to stay.

Bianca Belair, Bayley, Naomi, IYO SKY, and Rhea Ripley versus Liv Morgan, Raquelle Rodriguez, Nia Jax, Tiffany Stratton, and Candice LaRae in a WarGames match

As I said earlier, this match is kind of a slapped-together bit of business. Part of that is due to Jade Cargill being replaced by Bayley, but the whole bad guy team is basically together because the good guys needed people to fight, and those championship rivalries were already established. 

Aside from the constant threat of Tiffany Stratton cashing in her title opportunity, there hasn’t been a lot of excitement from the WWE women’s division. Rhea came back from an injury to resume her feud with Liv Morgan, got injured again, came back again, and just resumed that rivalry. Nia Jax has been dominant as champ, and the assembly of a team of mean girls to help her retain that title has been good for getting other talent on TV, but never really feels necessary, you know? Nia’s not a cowardly heel, she’s a powerhouse that doesn’t need to fall back on the generic tropes that most bad guys in a group use.

So what do we have? A couple champs and their pals, one of whom is worth keeping an eye on throughout this match, as Stratton cashing in is always a possibility. On the other side, we’ve got Bianca Belair learning to trust Bayley, whom IYO SKY turned on earlier this year before turning face herself. Rhea we talked about. That leaves Naomi as kind of a wild card on the good guy team. I think we’ve seen some hints that she could turn heel, as her position as the third wheel to tag champs Belair and Cargill might have birthed a little jealousy. She is a former world champion, why is she relegated to helping the tag champs retain their titles? For that matter, why was she put into a group at all? 

I kind of like the idea of Stratton cashing in mid-match. Inject some fun chaos into this women’s division. While we’re at it, let’s turn Naomi soon, too. Hell, folks have been fantasy booking her into the Bloodline for a while now. Why not bring some women into that whole storyline, too? 

My Pick: The good guys win, Bianca looks strong, some new stories begin

These matches are LONG in real life, and watching the video game version of them felt like it would be a little daunting. But the downtime between entrants is shorter, and the health bars at the bottom of the screen give enough extra information to help navigate downtime. I ran this one after the men’s, and as such plotted entries a little better. Bianca and Tiffy started things off, as I imagined Bianca wanted to show her teammates why she’s the de facto leader of their side, and Nia would want Stratton a little run down early, just in case she decides to try to cash in again. 

A regular back-and-forth between those two was ended when Raquel Rodriguez, with sledgehammer, entered the brawl. Bianca took a helluva beating until IYO ran in to help her out, but her missed dropkick to Rodriguez led to both the good guys taking extended bludgeonings from the baddies. Bianca eventually recovered, tossing Stratton into the other ring and resuming their match for a while. Raquel beat poor IYO up even more before swapping rings to help Tiffy out, and by the time Nia Jax joined in everybody was in the right ring. 

Crowding in that ring did the bad guys no favors, as Raquel “accidentally” whaled on Jax with her sledgehammer a number of times while Bayley made her way to the cage. Bianca and Tiffy really stayed paired up for the better part of the match, which feels like a programming issue but also made me want more of that matchup in a real ring. Bayley separated Rodriguez from the rest of the group, but IYO SKY’s penchant for trash can offense in real WarGames matches came true in the game, and she accidentally took Bayley out after 3 finishers would have ended the match. Nia hit a pinfall on IYO shortly afterward, and that was that. 

2k24 says: Bad guys win due to miscommunication!

L.A. Knight © versus Shinsuke Nakamura for the United States  Championship

Shinsuke is a weird guy. And I don’t just mean, like, his whole aura. I mean he’s hard to figure out. Does he still care about wrestling? His matches aren’t great, and haven’t been for some time. When he hasn’t been injured, there have been long stretches where WWE just hasn’t used him. I wonder if it’s just a case of mutual burnout -- Shin isn’t used, doesn’t like that, doesn’t put his all into his work. WWE sees that, isn’t in any hurry to use him again, doesn’t book him into anything too consequential. 

That brings us to this match, which could be viewed as filler in Knight’s championship run. Since winning the title from Logan Paul at SummerSlam in early August, Knight has defended against Santos Escobar, Ludwig Kaiser, Andrade, and Carmelo Hayes. While those matches haven’t been bad, I’ve never felt like any of his challengers have really had a chance. It’s weird to pick against better wrestlers simply because a guy says YEAUH and the crowd loses their minds, but that’s where we’re at with LA Knight. He’s still super over, despite his ring work being average at best. Plus, look at how happy he looks in the game!

But what if he does lose here? What if Shinsuke feels like proving himself and we get a longer feud and some good matches out of this budding rivalry? Nakamura has only been back for a few weeks now, and it would be a bit weird to have him lose immediately after re-introducing him. And he’s made some good points about LA Knight in his promos: if the US title is Knight’s identity, a decent story could be built around Knight needing to win it back, maybe even turning heelish to do so. It’s more interesting than Knight being the lesser guy in rivalries with guys who always seem to have better matchups floating around while they’re also engaged with Knight. So why not? Let’s be bold here.

My Pick: Shinsuke Nakamura wins, even if only to drop the title back to LA Knight in the near future.

2k24 says:

LA Knight retains, which is probably more likely even if it is a little boring. 

Bronn Breakker © versus Sheamus versus Ludwig Kaiser for the Intercontinental Championship

Sheamus and Kaiser have gone back and forth for weeks now, interfering in each others’ matches when they aren’t fighting directly. So it makes sense to just toss them into a match with Bronn together, although I don’t get why Breakker gets punished for these other guys being idiots. 

Regardless, I can’t imagine this plays out any differently than it has for the buildup to this match -- Sheamus and Ludwig negate each other, and neither walks away with a championship. Bronn should be able to have some fun with the double-ring setup that WarGames provides, though. Maybe all that extra running room results in a super spear for the ages? Who’s to say!

My Pick: Bronn retains, and Sheamus and Kaiser continue their feud.

2k24 says:

Shockingly, Ludwig Kaiser! The little guy managed to sneak a win by taking advantage of Bronn Breakker’s hubris. Bronn laid Kaiser out inside the ring before annihilating Sheamus with a spear near the announce table, but then the champ decided to pose and clear off the table for a big finish. While he was doing that, Sheamus recovered and slid into the ring, right into a possum pin for the quick 1-2-3. Bronn was locked in an animation, and wasn’t able to slide back into the ring to try to break up the pin until it was too late, and his elbow drop to kaiser was just a second too slow. Unlikely, but that’s why we sim the games!

GUNTHER © versus Damien Priest for the World Heavyweight Championship

I think WWE has done a good job with this feud despite it feeling really predictable. Priest isn’t winning here -- I think we can all agree on that. But when the former leader of the Judgment Day (non-Ripley division) won the match that scored him this title shot, I know a lot of us sighed and just figured we were killing time until GUNTHER gets into a real program with a real big deal superstar. However, the narrative of the champ questioning himself, and seeing what happens to his confidence as a result, has made for a few weeks of interesting TV. At least they’re trying.

Priest is always improving, which is a little weird to say for a guy that has been wrestling as long as he has. I think he’s got a lot going for him, too -- the whole “bisexual Undertaker” label is a little much, but he’s definitely got a rockstar vibe working for him. People seem to want to cheer for him, but putting him back into a feud with GUNTHER this soon doesn’t really help him. We know he’s not winning, and while the TV has been good, it’s had less to do with Damien and more to do with GUNTHER and, to a lesser extent, Ludwig Kaiser.

I’m interested to see where both of these guys go after this show. GUNTHER has a number of challengers waiting in the wings, and Priest’s solo face run should get some more time before anyone declares it a success or a failure. But for the purposes of this preview, decent match, GUNTHER wins, we move on.

My Pick: GUNTHER retains

2k24 says:

The same! HOWEVER, it should be noted that Ludwig Kaiser was manager for this match. I didn’t know that when you pick Kaiser to manage GUNTHER, there’s a lengthy cutscene with Ludwig doing the ring announcing for the champ! It’s a cool little Easter egg in a game full of them. Ludwig also directly contributed to the win, distracting Priest several times throughout the match. After hitting a Razor’s Edge that could have won him the match, Damien got into a shouting match with Kaiser that allowed GUNTHER to lock a sleeper hold in, allowing him to retain in a much closer match than I think we’ll see on Saturday.

Roman Reigns, Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, Sami Zayn, and CM Punk versus Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, and Bronson Reed in a WarGames match

This match has been so, so well set up that I am willing to forgive the whole forced nature of WarGames for it. Of course, when you have a single narrative that’s been running for the better part of three years, weaving its members into any kind of match isn’t too difficult. However, the addition of CM Punk and Bronson Reed, and by extension Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre and Paul Heyman, has really put the outcome of this WarGames, and the direction of the story to come, into question. I legit have no idea if there’s a turn coming, although I did notice that Paulie was looking a little like a Solo Sikoa tribute in his red shirt and black jacket the other night. I haven’t seen spoilers for the taped SmackDown that airs tonight, and while I can’t imagine too much will happen before the PLE, you never know what little bread crumbs might be dropped.

I’ll say the bad guys win because there’s never not drama among Triple H’s good guys. It almost feels like the faces he writes are just waiting for their turn to, well, turn, because bad guys are just cooler. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it has made for a compelling story so far. 

There are just too many moving parts on the OG Bloodline team for me to think that everything will go smoothly. Punk brings the baggage of a Drew McIntyre storyline that hasn’t necessarily finished up. Seth Rollins can say he was really thinking about joining up after being attacked, and Punk is just taking yet another opportunity from him. Heyman may still be holding a grudge against both Punk and/or Roman Reigns, and maybe he’s got another Paul Heyman guy or two waiting for revenge. Sami Zayn and Jimmy Uso aren’t even necessarily on the same page, and that doesn’t even begin to get into Sami’s forever rival/brother Kevin Owens, or KO’s relationship with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes, too. And Roman, while playing nice for now, is only recently removed from a reign of terror that saw every show and every story revolve around his whims. On top of all that, there’s a nonzero chance that the Final Boss himself, the Rock himself, could make an appearance!

My Pick: As Dark Helmet said, “Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.”

Solo and Roman started things off, because I didn’t realize that the entrants aren’t randomized. Whoops! That’s fine, though -- let the respective heads of the tables battle it out before their subordinates jump into the fray on their behalf. After some back and forth, Solo nailed Reigns with a spike before Jacob Fatu came into the cage. Roman made a bit of a comeback before the New Bloodliners realized they didn’t have to take turns attacking, and he was at the mercy of the two until Jey Uso popped in to even things out. Jey went right after Solo, giving me the pairing of Jacob and Roman that I really hope plays out on Saturday. 

Tama Tonga was the first to bring a weapon with him into the match, tossing a stop sign and a table in before joining. Sami Zayn took that as inspiration, tossing a steel chair and sledgehammer in, too. Things started to spread out a little more now, with Zayn and Reigns teaming up against Solo in one ring, and Fatu and Loa getting more than they could handle with Jey in the other. The addition of Bronson Reed moved everyone into the right side ring, but crowding started to make things awkward -- twice, Reed tried to put Zayn through a table only for janky pathfinding to force him to abort the attack. 

CM Punk came in last, and Bronson Reed immediately put the veteran through a table for his troubles. That victory was short-lived, though. While that was going on, Roman found Solo Sikoa once again, and locked in a submission that resulted in Solo tapping out and Roman picking up the win for the good guys.

2k24 says: OG Bloodline, with Roman choking out Solo Sikoa.

And that’s it!

Survivor Series, for all its flaws, has become the beginning of the road to WrestleMania. While the Royal Rumble is where it gets going in earnest, I think we learn a lot about who WWE thinks is “main event material” on this show. I’m hoping for strong showings for several of the participants in the matches on this show, as I really do like a lot of the talent involved. Tiffany Stratton is a superstar in waiting. Ludwig Kaiser may have lost his biggest proponent in Samantha Irving’s announcing, but he’s shown a lot of character development to go with his in-ring acumen. Priest and GUNTHER have worked together enough to maybe surprise us with some new wrinkles in their work, and Bronn Breakker could steal the show with some insane spot. 

On top of the non-WarGames matches, that main event is really going to show us where the next few months will lead. Challengers for both GUNTHER and Cody Rhodes may materialize, and undercard titles will also start to have some direction. It’s an exciting time to be a fan, and I can’t wait to see where we are after this weekend! We’ve also got Collision and Rampage on Saturday for the AEW sickos, so I’ll try to make time to watch those before putting together a weekend review of everything for the early part of next week.

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 I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!

2024 Predictions

WWE Royal Rumble 2/4

NXT Vengeance Day 1/6

WWE Elimination Chamber Perth 4/4

AEW Revolution 9/11

NXT Roadblock 4/6

NXT Stand and Deliver 5/7

WWE WrestleMania Night One 4.5/7

WWE WrestleMania Night Two 4/6

AEW Dynasty 11/12

WWE Backlash 5/5

WWE King and Queen of the Ring (SSM XIV) 6/6

AEW Double or Nothing 9/12

NXT Battleground 4/6

WWE Money in the Bank 2/5

NXT Heatwave 3/6

AEW All In 6/10

WWE Bash in Berlin 3/5

NXT No Mercy 3/6

AEW Full Gear 8/9

Total Correct/Total Predictions 93.5/133

2K Predictions

AEW Full Gear 4/9

Donald Duck, my dad, a re-introduction, and some wrestling talk on a late Sunday night

 My dad was a … weird guy. I don’t mean that in a bad way. He was wonderful. But part of why he was wonderful owed to how damn weird he was. When we were kids, my dad would read to my sisters and I. Mom would too, but when dad did it, we got an added benefit: ad-libbed story beats and voices. We adored those voices, and the stories were different every time, whether they came from Little Golden Books, Elephant in Trouble, or the Barbie and Skipper Jet Ski Adventure (probably not the actual title). 

Dad had a full roster of characters. His best, and one of the few I’ve never been fully able to replicate, was Donald Duck. The best I can do is “boiling point Donald,” when the character went from irritated to fully irrational, just quacking and threatening anyone within earshot. My old man was able to do regular Donald speech, and I’ve never figured out how to twist my vocal cords to properly get that quack-talk. Dad did a lot of other voices, too, although most of his were just silly and not, like mine or my sister’s, celebrity based. (Ask Mandy to do her Will-Ferrell-as-Harry-Caray for you sometime.) 

Here’s why I bring this up. Have you ever wondered how many voices you can actually do? I know professionals have a roster of characters, but as a regular shmo who just does voices for kids, or when running a Dungeons and Dragons game, it’s something I never really thought of until recently. And ever since the thought popped in there, I haven’t been able to shake it. I do a lot, and while some of them are terrible (not my Morgan Freeman, though -- that one is solid) others are actually spot on. At the very least, I think they’re recognizable when I use them in games. They’re mostly exaggerated SNL-type bits, but I’m always adding more and it’s just something I think is fun to do. Just this past Halloween, I listened to Homer Simpson’s recitation of The Raven about 50 times in order to perfect the line, “Take thy BEAK from out my HEART, and take thy FORM, from OFF MY DOOR.”

Okay, actually, now that I’m thinking about it, there are two reasons I’ve been thinking about this lately. Aside from the dad thing, my lovely wife has been binging BONES and while she watches that, I tend to write or play a game on my computer in my office. But I rarely wear headphones, or if I’m listening to music I’ll just put one earbud in so I can hear if she calls for me. In the meantime, I’ve half-heard about ten seasons’ worth of Temperance Brennan’s particular cadence in her speech, and I kinda want to write a D&D one-shot that features the characters adventuring on behalf of a quirky fantasy forensic scientist and her government-appointed partner.

Anyway, my point is, I’ve never made that list of voices, and I’d probably be too embarrassed to publish it even if I did. These days the only times I ever bust out a silly voice are for games, and they are few and far between.  And given that adults have, like, lives and schedules that prevent large groups of us from meeting up for anything even close to a regular gaming session, I’ve been looking into running some kind of online game. I’ll update if I ever figure that out, but for now, I figure (as I often do) that writing and publishing it means I am at least a little accountable for actually getting it done.

A refresh/re-introduction

 Since last we spoke, there’s been (as always) a number of developments in the wrestling world as well as *gestures wildly* the world at large. While I’m not touching real world events here -- after all, a big reason a lot of us watch wrestling is for some escapism -- I would like to note that social media site BlueSky has seen a big influx in users over the past week. As such, I figured I’d do a bit of re-introduction, as far as letting people know what to expect before we dive head first into the abyss. I’m not a move-for-move recapper, although if you dig far back enough into the archives you’ll find reviews like that as I tried to figure out my online voice. 

I started writing in 2022, after leaving my auto mechanic job and being encouraged by my wife to try something from home. Soon afterward I started this blog, and was lucky enough to get a job writing for Wrestling, Inc.’s new Features department, which closed down about eight months later. The articles I wrote near the end of my run were more a product of “what was left in the hopper” than ideas I pitched, and as such I’m not super proud of listicles like “wrestlers who have large age gaps between them and their SOs” among other bullplop. However, during my eight months there I got to write about some of my favorite wrestlers, and adopted my sweet Cinnabon son, Konosuke Takeshita. And, it got me writing almost daily, something I’ve slept on recently but fully intend on doing again.

Even after that Features department closed, my editor was nice enough to recommend me to the folks at our sister site SlashGear, where I currently write an article or two a week on things like tools, cars, and technology. It’s mostly list-based stuff, but I’d like to think people find and use those lists to make informed purchases, and as such I do a good amount of research on various sites to collect and aggregate data before publishing anything. I also wrote the odd gaming review or wrestling article for a few other now-defunct sites, but for the most part this blog is where my stuff resides.

But enough about me…let’s talk about some wrestling!

ALL ELITE WRESTLING, depending on who you ask, is either headed for the dumpster or due for a revival. The former assumption is made by fools, as the company and its owner currently have more money than God. The latter is made by hopeful folks like myself, i.e. a different brand of fools, albeit a more gentle one. I love having two major wrestling promotions around, and I simply don’t understand folks who spend their time focused on something they hate. I DO understand people who won’t watch WWE for moral reasons, and while that’s not me, I respect that position. I tend to lean more towards AEW, since it’s the first time since Lucha Underground that I’ve been into a promotion since its conception. But I enjoy both big promotions, and regularly watch Raw, NXT, and Dynamite live. SmackDown and Collision are “if there’s time” shows for me, although I’ll always watch a Simon Miller recap or listen to a podcast to catch up if I miss them when they air. I do want to continue to be married, and there’s only so much wrestling I’ll subject my lovely wife to, after all.

So all that leads us to…what’s going on at AEW now? The major storyline follows Jon Moxley and his Death Riders, aka nWo mOx. I feel like most AEW fans are enjoying this story, which makes it all the more frustrating for me that I don’t. I like everyone involved. I think I’m just over the “we’re taking over” storylines in wrestling in general. Unfortunately, I came to this realization just as AEW started theirs. 

But that’s fine. AEW has always focused more on in-ring action, and they’ve got a lot going for them in that regard. Matches featuring guys like Ricochet, Will Ospreay, Hologram, THE BEAST MORTOS, and my son Konosuke Takeshita have raised the bar on what we expect from weekly TV shows, and there’s not a week that goes by that AEW doesn’t present at least one match that I want to recommend to other fans of the sport. 

Dynamite and Collision were fun, and while the crowds aren’t the loudest the action we’re being shown is great. Shelton Benjamin and Kommander had a helluva match on Saturday, and while I had high hopes for Ricochet and Dante Martin on Rampage, it felt like they were holding something back. That’s probably for the best, though -- Rampage for the warmup, Dynamite or even a pay-per-view to really show off. 

One thing I love doing, and probably the thing that works best in keeping me blogging about wrestling, is previews. I love guessing about what’s coming next, and I also enjoy comparing my records with both better pundits than myself and the WWE2K24 game, where I’ve put together current AEW, NXT, and WWE rosters in order to run preview matches, mostly for my own entertainment. At one point, I had a whole create-a-wrestler universe full of animal hospital employees that worked with my wife, and we even did a weekly YouTube show that I won’t be linking here for shame reasons. It was a blast though, despite my less than professional (but family friendly!) onscreen presence. All that is to say, I’ll probably be running (and posting) previews for Deadl1ne, Survivor Series, and Full Gear on the Fridays before those events.

WWE continues its … I don’t want to say “trudge” or “slog” so we’ll go with “leisurely stroll” towards Survivor Series and the unofficial start of WrestleMania season. While the Royal Rumble has become the de facto beginning to many ‘Mania storylines, it’s Survivor Series that tends to showcase the performers that will take the stage on the Showcase of the Immortals. Between Full Gear and WarGames, we’ll be eating good for the next few weeks. Thanksgiving pun fully intended.

The Fed has some intrigue with its neverending Bloodline stories,  as mysterious fifth members are being teased for both the OG Bloodline and Solo Sikoa’s new version. Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, and Jey and Jimmy Uso make up one side, while Solo, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, and Jacob Fatu comprise the new kids. Most folks are assuming Cody Rhodes may join up with the “good guys” while The Rock is a possibility as the as-yet-undisclosed true leader and Tribal Chief for the nü Blüdline. I think there’s a lot of wiggle room, and WWE has done a good job of keeping possible other members or distractions like Kevin Owens and Randy Orton viable as both allies or threats to either side. 

The most recent Raw saw a good chunk of the women’s roster interact during the main event, leading me to believe either a 4-on-4 is coming for those wrestlers, or we’re doing the “mystery fifth person” bit for the women as well. At the end of the show Monday, we saw Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, IO SKY, and Naomi stand tall over both main womens’ champs Nia Jax and Liv Morgan, along with Raquel Rodriguez and Tiffany Stratton. That’s a good match there, but I’d love to see some returns to round out both teams. We haven’t seen Becky Lynch, Asuka, or Charlotte Flair for some time, and only just got a return for Damage CTRL’s Dakota Kai during that Monday show. I hope they even out both the men’s and women’s Survivor Series matches to five a side, but I guess we’ll see. 

Aside from the WarGames matches at Survivor Series, the only big match I think is set in stone is Damien Priest against Gunther -- again -- for Gunther’s World Heavyweight Championship. Gunther is almost guaranteed to retain, but they do have a little redemption to shoot for after a bit of a sloppy ending during their last match. And both guys are supremely talented, so it’s possible for them to steal the show with a good match. At least, until The Rock’s theme hits at the end of the show.

And that’s it!

I think that’s where we’ll leave this catch-up version of the blog. I’ve honestly been working on this a while, just procrastinating on posting ANYTHING. But there’s no way to start something new without putting out something old, so consider this the clean slate before we dive into three straight weeks of premium-pay-per-live-events.

If you’re interested, I’m usually on BlueSky during Raw, Dynamite, and any other shows I catch as they air -- follow me there at elosopequeno.bsky.social if you want your feed invaded by all my bad jokes and observations -- and we’ll work on getting back to more regular posting. My hope is that I’m smart enough to realize I’m much more interested in writing about a show right after I watch it, and at least pump out an outline with some notes to make a post the next morning, if not the night of most shows. Previews will likely remain a Friday thing, rather than having Friday be the be-all end-all of posts. But we’ll see how it goes, as always.

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 I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!

A quick return to normalcy

 

We’ve gotta stop meeting like this. “It’s been a minute” gets old, and it’s entirely my fault. But here we are, post All In, post All Out, just knee deep in the season of change for AEW and NXT. I just finished pulling down all the Halloween decorations but wanted to post SOMETHING because it’s been too long and those of you who read this blog, and thanks for that, deserve some fresh, delicious content.

I think we’re gonna go with something a little less structured today, and we’ll just put together some thoughts from everything we’ve watched in the last few weeks, and what we’re looking forward to with AEW Grand Slam, NXT’s big new network debut, and WWE’s Bad Blood all on the horizon.

Raw and SmackDown seem to have settled down after the USA debut of the blue brand, but with NXT’s move to the CW in a couple of weeks we’re seeing some big names on our beloved little black-and-gold developmental. CM Punk came by Tuesday to hype the Giulia vs Roxanne Perez tag team match, and then to volunteer himself as special guest referee for Ethan Page and Trick Williams. Those matches will both take place in Punk’s backyard of Chicago for the CW debut show, and Randy Orton will be facing lovable scamp Ja’Von Evans in St. Louis a week later, too!

NXT has plenty to crow about, special guest stars notwithstanding. Giulia is revered as a goddess by the folks who have seen way more of her work than me, which means I have some catching up to do. The rivalry between North American champ Oba Femi and mafia family head Tony D’Angelo has escalated into full-on CINEMA, with the challenger admitting that he’s afraid to face the hulking champion after his loss. I think this is cool, even though I know it’s been said that it’s just the Rocky III plot. For a man, on a pro wrestling program, to admit fear? It’s refreshing, and not something to be waved away as derivative. Maybe Tony D will finally get that win, and scream out, “Yo Adriana, we did it!”

Unrelated -- do you pay for a music service like Spotify or Pandora? I’ve never been that passionate a music lover, but my wife is. However, we’re both notoriously cheap about streaming services, and she does most of her music listening via YouTube these days. I still have a radio in my garage (KBCO being just about the only Colorado station worth a damn) but I also listen to the livestream from the radio station in Wisconsin that my old friend Edgar DJs at. My point is, the terrestrial stations still have far fewer ad breaks than streaming, although I guess that’s the price you pay for not, well, paying the price for streaming.

It seems like the “did AEW go too far with All Out” discourse has died down, and thank God for that. As a fan of horror movies, I know this conversation all too well. Everybody has a line, and sometimes they don’t even realize it exists until they’re brought right up to it. With horror, the early aughts brought us the wave of “torture porn” that included movies like Saw, Hostel, and the like. Just mean films that dared you to look away, while also showing off some impressive practical effects. Smarter people than me have said that it was a response to 9/11, with the country feeling vulnerable and helpless, and how watching extreme cinema could help lessen the blow of the real horrors we saw during news coverage of that event. 

All of that is to say, I think the line that AEW toed with All Out’s main event, and really several of the matches in it, was okay. It was all earned violence, with blood feuds that had been built over weeks of programming. Things escalated to a head, and they did so in a way that felt natural and even made it through All In’s pageantry. If All In is AEW’s WrestleMania, then it seems natural that All Out, just two weeks later, would be its Backlash. 

We’re not going to see AEW turn into ECW anytime soon. It’s meant to be an alternative to the Fed, and that means doing the things that the biggest wrestling company in the world simply can’t. Longer matches, faster pacing, and, yes, some blood and guts are all encompassed in that ethos, I think. For fans of deathmatches, there are plenty of great promotions like GCW. As number two, AEW is fine just featuring the occasional bit of brutality every few months. Also, it’s worth saying that a lot of that “what about the children” discourse is brought about by… well, let’s just call them “bad faith” fans, or folks who just watch to complain or point out what AEW does wrong in their eyes. I’m definitely not one of those, if only because I’m old enough to realize that I can simply not watch something that doesn’t appeal to me.

Speaking of AEW, this week’s Dynamite had a couple incredible matches in both its main event and Ricochet vs THE BEAST MORTOS. Any time you get a talented hoss facing down a high flyer, you’re bound to have some fun, and these two put on a show that’s worth hunting down if you have the chance.

The main event, pitting the trio of the Young Bucks and Kazuchika Okada against Will Ospreay, Kyle Fletcher, and my sweet Cinnabon son Konosuke Takeshita, was a helluva display of the talents of these four, some of the best in the world. Ospreay remains a study in how to simply ignore gravity and physics, and Takeshita and Okada continue to build their rivalry into (hopefully) a title match soon.

Really, the whole show was a lot of fun and deserving of your time, but I wanted to highlight these two slobberknockers.

And to highlight a great match from the other guys, that hoss match between Braun Strowman and Bronson Reed on Raw was the epitome of BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPIN’ MEAT. It also literally involved a man used as a projectile, so that was fun. Here’s hoping both guys survive long enough to meet again at Bad Blood.

Speaking of…Bad Blood is gonna be a lot of fun too! Obviously we’re not getting a bloodbath like All Out, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been built to be a good revenge based show. Rhea vs Liv, Punker vs McIntyre in Hell in a Cell, Damien Priest vs Finn Balor, and the MegaPowers-adjacent team of Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns vs the Nu Bloodline should all lend themselves to some hard-hitting resolutions, and there’s a lot of potential for more with a couple weeks left. Probably not too many more, as WWE is content with 5 match cards for these non-Big Four PLEs -- and an early start time to account for the UFC PPV starting later means it’ll end right on time for the MMA fights. I will, of course, do a preview with some predictions next week. 

What else can we talk about while we’re here? I’m hoping to find the time to revive our Remember A Guy segment, in which I talk about a wrestler you might not remember. With spooky season in full gear in the Pequeno household, I’m thinking about Kevin Thorn. Remember that guy? Spooky vampire wrestler? No, not Gangrel and the Brood, although that entrance RIPS. 

So yeah, we’ll revive that! I’ve also got my annual birthday trip to Telluride for the Horror Show coming up in a few weeks. It’s a film festival in one of the most beautiful towns in Colorado, and a great little break to watch a ton of new movies before they get a wider release. It also happens to fall on my actual birthday this year, so that will be spent across three theaters in a small town, where I’ll be getting my fill of violence for the season. It’ll also provide a healthy distraction from contemplating 45(!) years on this lovely little planet.

And that’s it! 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. Have fun this long Labor Day weekend, whatever you end up doing!

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 I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!