Raw
Raw Results
- Braun Strowman def Mace & T-Bar – DQ (2-on-1 Handicap Match) – *¼
- Mace & T-Bar def Drew McIntyre & Braun Strowman – Count Out – *½
- Damian Priest & New Day def The Miz, Elias, & Jaxson Ryker – **½
- Randy Orton & Riddle def Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin – **½
- Rhea Ripley, Nia Jax, & Shayna Baszler w/ Reginald def Asuka, Lana, & Naomi – **¼
- Charlotte Flair def Mandy Rose w/ Dana Brooke – **
- Braun Strowman def Drew McIntyre – ***¼
This week starts out with Braun Strowman and Drew McIntyre arguing about not needing the help of the other and this leads to Strowman saying he will take care of T-Bar and Mace on his own and that is exactly what happens. Mace and T-Bar are in the ring and although they no longer have masks they do have face paint that looks like something a child would have painted on their face at a carnival. The handicap match doesn’t last long as T-Bar and Mace get themselves disqualified and then continue the beatdown on Strowman until McIntyre runs down to make the save just like Strowman did for him last week. We then get the tag match that was advertised and that match ends in a count-out. After the match, Strowman hits McIntyre with a powerslam as McIntyre accidentally hit Strowman during the tag match. Later on, McIntyre goes to visit Adam Pearce and of course wants a match with Strowman which Pearce grants him and then later on in the night Strowman goes to visit Pearce and he is fine with facing McIntyre, but he wants to make it where if he wins he is added to the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania: Backlash and Pearce agrees to that as well.
MVP and the All-Mighty WWE Champion Bobby Lashley would come to the ring and talk about how Lashley beat McIntyre at WrestleMania and will do the same at WrestleMania: Backlash, but then they start complaining about the fact that the match could turn into a triple threat match and then they say they will be watching the main event tonight very closely. After a really good slobberknocker of a main event we see Strowman come out victorious over McIntyre when Mace and T-Bar come out and cost McIntyre the match. We now have a triple threat match at WrestleMania: Backlash which is a nice addition as I really didn’t want to see Lashley vs McIntyre go against each other in a singles match once again, however, with that being said they chose the most convoluted way of getting there and made things way more difficult than they needed to be. As of right now, the WWE Champion feels like an afterthought in this match as it has felt like everything is centered around Strowman and McIntyre, but we still have a few weeks so I’m sure they will make him feel like an important part of the match by then.
We got a terrible edition of Miz TV which saw Miz, Morrison, Elias, & Jaxson Ryker do a horrible acoustic version of “Hey Hey Hop Hop” which leads to New Day and Damian Priest coming out and throwing tomatoes at them. Sheamus decided to issue another non-title open challenge and Humberto Carrillo answered it once again but this time Carrillo makes a comeback and hits Sheamus with a tope suicida which knocks Sheamus over the announce table.
Coming off their match last week Randy Orton walks up to Riddle and tells him that he underestimated him going into last week but after the match, he had earned his respect. Orton then suggests they try out that tag idea Riddle had last week and even got them a tag match made for tonight and they can even go by the RK-Bro, this gets Riddle excited as he has an idea for them to come out in snake skinned speedos but Orton stops him and tells him they will see how it goes tonight, surprisingly everything went well as RK-Bro got the win and after the match, Orton didn’t turn on Riddle like I was expecting him to. I would definitely be down with Orton and Riddle becoming a team as the tag division needs something to make it feel fresh and a team of two high profile names like Orton and Riddle could be that jolt that makes the division worth watching once again, however, we are still three weeks away from the next PPV so there is plenty of time for Orton to turn on him which I’m sure will happen before it’s all said and done.
Sonya Deville shows up on Raw and walks over to a door to let Charlotte Flair into the building despite the fact that she was suspended last week by Adam Pearce due to attacking the referee. We get a segment in the ring where Sonya explains that she thought Pearce’s decision was rushed and gives Charlotte a chance to apologize which she does, but then Charlotte wants an apology from referee Eddie Orengo who is standing in the ring and he apologizes for missing the fact that Rhea interfered last week to which Charlotte replies “good boy”. Sonya officially lifts Charlotte’s suspension and then says Charlotte will be in action later tonight and Eddie Orengo will be the referee in that match. When they get back to the gorilla position Pearce is furious about Sonya lifting the suspension without letting him know and he is not accepting her poor attempt at an apology. Charlotte would beat Mandy Rose later in the night and although she gets furious at the referee for only counting to two she doesn’t lay a hand on him.
Nia is not happy about Charlotte being reinstated but Shayna tells her not to worry about that as she is still pissed at Nia for continuing to be distracted whether it be by Mandy and Dana or by Reginald and then she walks off. We then see someone bring Nia some flowers much to the surprise of both Nia and Reginald as he is not the one who sent her the flowers and then Angel Garza walks up and compliments Nia and wishes her good luck in her match tonight. Nia and Reginald walk down the hall and when Nia sees Mandy and Dana she throws the flowers at Mandy and tells her to put them in water.
Later on, during the 6 woman tag match, we see Mandy and Dana come out and Shayna tries to cut them off but they end up throwing a bucket of water on her and when Nia walks over she ends up slipping in the water. Thankfully the stupidity during this match didn’t lead to the finish as the match got going again after a commercial break with the heels coming out on the winning end but of course, Nia had to pick up the win rather than the Raw Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley. It sucks that Rhea and Asuka have to be involved anywhere near or adjacent to this terrible feud between Nia and Shayna against Mandy and Dana as they are both way too good and way too talented to be dragged into that shit show of a feud.
Finally, on Raw, we got our newest edition of Alexa’s Playground where she says that Lily is her BFF, her confidant, and both the angel and devil on her shoulder and if you want you can have your very own Lilly. Alexa then tells us to look into her eyes, concentrate, and then think dark and twisted thoughts because we all have them and then Alexa says to say Lilly’s name three times. Alexa then says to picture something peaceful and take deep breaths and as she does this we get a video of a bunch of peaceful things which is eventually broken up by a jump scare of Lilly screaming and this makes Alexa laugh hysterically. Alexa says that Lily is starting to become restless and she thinks it’s time that she unleashes her on the rest of the WWE. I’m beyond ready to see what happens next as I think they have done a good job of setting up this new Alexa Bliss character over the past few weeks with these Alexa’s Playground skits, but it’s now time to see how they execute the character and how it will affect how she interacts with the other women on Raw.
I was not a fan of this episode of Raw at all as it felt like they were drawing things out just to fill time as the first 15 minutes was just a rehash of the week before The women’s tag division story on Raw keeps getting worse but thankfully Asuka, Rhea, and Charlotte are holding up their end of the women’s division. I also felt like this was the least interesting week of Alexa’s Playground except for the fact that she said she would unleash Lily next week. I did like the RK-Bro stuff and the main event match but neither of those things lasted long enough to make up for the rest of this really bad show.
NXT
NXT Results
- Mercedes Martinez def Dakota Kai w/ Raquel Gonzalez – DQ – ***
- Zayda Ramier def Toni Storm – **¼
- Bronson Reed def Austin Theory w/ The Way – **½
- Imperium (Barthel & Aichner) w/ Alexander Wolfe def Drake Maverick & Killian Dain – **¼
- Legado del Fantasma def MSK & Kushida – ***¼
The show starts with some action from the women’s division as Mercedes Martinez is looking to get Dakota Kai out of the way so she can challenge Raquel for the title. Mercedes and Dakota have a really good match, but toward the end Mercedes and Raquel have words on the floor and Raquel enters the ring to attack Mercedes causing a disqualification because we can’t even start out NXT with a clean finish. Raquel continues her attack after the match as she sends Mercedes into the barricade and the ring post. It would later be announced that Mercedes will challenge Raquel for the championship in 2 weeks. Would it have really hurt Dakota to take the loss here and have Raquel beat down Mercedes after the match, that way we can have a clean finish and put Mercedes over strong?
The Grizzled Young Veterans come out and complain about MSK not defending their titles against them and this brings out Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher who talk about how they have a lot of the same qualities that GYV does. They talk about how they have been going back and watching GYV’s matches in NXT UK and they learned about the “Shoes off if you hate Gibson” chant and then Thatcher starts doing the chant while Ciampa takes off his boot and throws it at Gibson and a brawl breaks out with Ciampa and Thatcher standing tall in the end.
In other tag team happenings Drake Maverick and Killian Dain took on Imperium but prior to the match, Maverick was worried that Dain was going to turn on him due to the interaction Dain had with Alexander Wolfe last week. During the match, Barthel has Dain on the outside and orders Wolfe to hit Dain with the chair but he refuses and this leads to an argument between the two Imperium members. In the end, Imperium picked up the win with a European Bomb onto Maverick.
We got a second women’s match between Toni Storm and rookie Zayda Ramier but before the match starts Toni cuts a promo on Zoey Stark telling her that she should thank her for making her famous at Takeover and people only know who she is because she had a match against her. Toni says that at the end of the day Zoey will merely be a footnote in her legendary career and every time she slaps this rookie she is going to imagine it’s Zoey. Toni dominates the majority of the match as you would expect but when she has a chance to finish off Zoey she instead decides to set her up on the top rope which brings out Zoey who gets on the apron to distract Toni. Toni turns her attention back to Zayda and goes back up top Zayda fights her off sending her crashing back down to the mat and then she hits Toni with a shooting star press to pick up the upset win. That shooting star press Zayda’s shooting star press was scary as she almost didn’t rotate enough and we could’ve had another Brock Lesnar incident happen. I’m glad to finally see Toni in an actual feud as it has felt like she was just floating around for the past couple of months on NXT, her and Zoey had a good match on the pre-show of Takeover: Stand and Deliver and I’m sure they are capable of even better matches.
We get a few interviews, promos, and vignettes to set up things in the coming weeks, the first sees Isaiah Scott in his recording studio talking about Leon Ruff attacking him from behind and he is proud of Ruff as he didn’t think he had that in him. Swerve then challenges Ruff to a Falls Count Anywhere match which will be scheduled for next week. Next we have LA Knight talking about how he saw how Indi had a twinkle in her eye last week and that twinkle was for him and not Lumis and she can call him when Lumis disappoints her. We get a vignette with Xia Li, Boa, and Tian Sha which is in Japanese. We get a vignette for something called the Diamond Mine and the vignette has a lot of imagery from MMA as if this could be an upgraded version of Raw Underground. We get a promo from Pete Dunne who talks about nobody wanting to challenge him to a match and that’s because he has the entire NXT locker room shook. Dunne then calls out all of the champions in NXT trying to entice them to come to face him. Dunne says that when he walks into a room the mood changes because he is the baddest man in NXT and challenges anyone to prove him wrong.
We see a couple of videos of Cameron Grimes in a jewelry store looking for something nice and at one point he bites into a piece of gold and says it’s chocolate which got a chuckle out of me. Grimes tells the jeweler he is looking for the most extravagant watch in the city and the jeweler says he has something for him and that is how the first video ends. In the second video, Grimes is wearing the watch but isn’t sure about it as he says it isn’t even going tick-tock and that Karrion Kross would hate it. Grimes finally decides that is the watch for him and he will just wear it out of the store. Grimes is admiring his watch when a voice tells him it’s a nice watch but it’s not a million-dollar watch and as the camera pans over we see that it is indeed Grimes’s arch-nemesis Ted Dibiase upstaging him once again. Cameron Grimes is truly a highlight of NXT every week whether he is in a match or not as he has become one of NXT’s best comedy characters and he is doing a fantastic job in this role of a self-made millionaire who keeps getting upstaged by someone even richer than he is.
We go poolside for an interview conducted by Arash Markazi with Adam Cole who is making his first appearance since the match with Kyle O’Reilly at Takeover: Stand and Deliver. Cole says he is better than everyone else on the NXT roster even when he isn’t 100% and then says he had carried both the Undisputed Era and NXT as a whole on his back for the past four years. Cole says that Kyle O’Reilly got lucky at Takeover and despite what O’Reilly or anyone else thinks he is not ready to be in the main event and he sure as hell isn’t ready to be NXT Champion and as long as Cole is NXT then O’Reilly will never take his spot. Cole says that Karrion Kross is good but he doesn’t know if he is great and then he questions if that injury Kross suffered when he first won the NXT Championship was a freak accident or was it a consequence of just not being ready. Cole says if he decides to go for the NXT Championship then the clock is ticking for Kross. Cole says O’Reilly will never replace him and wherever Adam Cole goes next he will be the best Adam Cole that anybody has ever seen and that is a promise. As Cole finishes up the interview the camera pans out and we see Kyle O’Reilly watching the interview and he just shakes his head.
Here is the recap of this week on “As The Way Turns”. We get an interview with Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart who will be defending their titles next week against The Way, during the interview Franky Monet walks up and introduces herself. Shotzi and Ember are then each handed a bouquet of flowers and when Franky grabs the card and reads it we find out they are from Dexter Lumis which results in a funny reaction from Ember and Shotzi as they hand the flowers back and forth between each other as neither one wants anything to do with Lumis. Later on during the Austin Theory vs Bronson Reed match, we see that Indi is down in the dumps as she saw that the flowers that Ember and Shotzi received were from Lumis. Lumis ends up coming out during the match and Indi walks away from him but he follows her until she is in the ring and he is on the apron and then they stare each other down until Lumis pushes Indi out of the way so that she doesn’t get hit by a charging Theory. All of this would allow Bronson Reed to take control of the match and hit Theory with the Tsunami in order to win the match which guarantees him an NXT North American Championship match against Johnny Gargano.
We see The Way in the back later on and Gargano is upset about Theory losing but he puts that aside for a moment as he and Candice pump up Indi and tell her that Ember and Shotzi are trying to steal Lumis away from her (which makes it clear that Candice planned the whole thing with giving the flowers to Ember and Shotzi) and she should go teach them a lesson, this leads to Indi storming off to go find the women’s tag champions. Ember and Shotzi are making their way to the ring for their non-title match against Aliyah and Jessi Kamea but are attacked from behind by Candice and Indi as they throw the flowers at them and rubs cupcakes in their faces. While this is happening Aliyah, Jessi Kamea, and Robert Stone are celebrating in the ring as if they had just won the titles. I really liked how they told the Indi and Lumis story throughout the night while also being able to further both the North American Championship and Women’s Tag Team Championship feuds at the same time. I also love how Candice used Indi’s crush on Lumis to manipulate her into attacking Ember and Shotzi that was pretty clever of the Poisoned Pixie.
It’s amazing how NXT is an hour shorter than Raw is but yet they are able to accomplish a lot more with their time than Raw does as we got storyline continuation, teases to future matches and feuds, really good promos, funny skits, and in-ring action all packed into 2 hours. The one thing NXT needs to get away from before it becomes a habit is the DQ and distraction finishes as we see too many of those on Raw and SmackDown and we don’t need that on the brand of WWE that does in-ring wrestling and booking the best. As always I thought The Way and Cameron Grimes were the highlights of the show from a comedy and storytelling perspective while the 6 man tag main event tore it up in the ring as the best match of the night.
NXT UK
NXT UK Results
- Teoman def Rohan Raja – **
- Sha Samuels vs Levi Muir – **
- Meiko Satomura vs Aoife Valkyrie – ***¾
- Gallus def Symbiosis – ***
The show opens with a match between two of NXT UK’s newest stars at Teoman takes on Rohan Raja in a pretty mundane match that saw the referee call for the bell after Teoman snaps the arm of Raja while he has him in a crossface. This was a nothing match in my opinion and neither guy really sticks out to me as being a future big name for the NXT UK brand.
We get a video package featuring Mark Andrews, Flash Morgan Webster, & Dani Luna where they each talk about their own subculture and I think the video is supposed to make them look edgy, but it isn’t working as there is nothing about these three that says edgy.
Ilja Dragunov is interviewed about his downfall since his loss to Walter when Dave Mastiff walks up and challenges Dragunov to a match which he accepts.
Sid Scala is in the ring and he introduces the longest-reigning NXT UK Women’s Champion Kay Lee Ray and she talks about how she has beaten everyone and wants to know who Scala has lined up next for her. Scala then announces a 5 woman gauntlet where the winner will face KLR for the NXT UK Women’s Championship. The five women in the gauntlet match are Jinny, Isla Dawn, Xia Brookside, Dani Luna, & Emilia McKenzie. I think the favorite here is Emilia as they seem to be high on her and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who finally takes the title off of KLR.
We get a video package on the NXT UK Tag Team Champions Pretty Deadly and their media appearances. We also saw a hype video for the Tyler Bate vs A-Kid match for the Heritage Cup which will be happening in 3 weeks.
We get an extended squash match as Sha Samuels beats Levi Muir pretty easily with a spinebuster.
We get a video from earlier where Trent Seven was going into the PC talking about how he is one of the founding fathers of NXT UK when he is interrupted by Sam Gradwell who doesn’t take kindly to this as he signed his contract the same day as Seven did and nobody considers him one of the founding fathers, they have a few more words but the result of this is a future match between the two.
We then go to the match that should’ve been the main event of this episode as Meiko Satomura takes on the undefeated Aoife Valkyrie and this was just as great as you would expect it to be as these two go back and forth in a very brutal match with a lot of kicks thrown by both women. Aoife tries to finish things off with the Peripeteia but Meiko avoids it and hits a DDT and then follows up with two cartwheel knee drops but Aoife is determined not to give up, but moments later she has no choice as Meiko hits her with the Scorpion Rising to pick up the win and break the undefeated streak of Aoife. After the match, Meiko and Aoife show respect to each other and Meiko lets Aoife have the ring where she sits and contemplates what’s next for her. This was just as good if not better of a match than I expected it to be and I have a feeling we have a lot more of these quality matches coming from Meiko.
We get a vignette for Eddie Dennis, Primate, and T-Bone who are now going by the name Symbiosis. We also get an extended video package for the No DQ Loser Leaves NXT UK match next week between Kenny Williams and Amir Jordan.
It’s now time for the match that shouldn’t have been the main event as Gallus takes on Symbiosis. In this match we got Joe Coffey being isolated by Symbiosis because they are still trying to get people to care about him, Joe finally makes a tag and after Wolfgang goes on a roll for a minute we get all 6 men in the ring brawling and eventually Wolfgang hits Primate with a senton and Joe follows up with the Glasgow Send-Off and All The Best for the Bells to pick up the win. This was a fine match but had no right to be in the main event slot over the Meiko vs Aoife match because no matter how hard they try people are not going to be into Gallus like they are Meiko Satomura because Meiko is an F’N legend.
If you take time out of your day to watch anything on this show let it be the Meiko Satomura vs Aoife Valkyrie match as it was fantastic and well worth your time.
SmackDown
SmackDown Results
- Street Profits & Bianca Belair def Dolph Ziggler, Robert Roode, & Bayley – **
- Natalya & Tamina def Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler w/ Reginald – *½
- Big E def Apollo Crews © w/ Commander Azeez (WWE Intercontinental Championship) – **¾
- Roman Reigns © w/ Paul Heyman def Daniel Bryan (WWE Universal Championship) – ****¼
We start the show with Bianca Belair coming to the ring to welcome us to SmackDown and then she is quickly interrupted by Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode who are interrupted by The Street Profits who are interrupted by Bayley and when Bayley comes out she just laughs hysterically just like she did last week when Bianca confronted her backstage. A brawl breaks out between all six competitors and that leads to the first match of the night. I didn’t find this match to be that good until the end as I felt like the chemistry between Bayley and Bianca was off tonight and the parts where it was Street Profits vs Ziggler and Roode were nothing special as it felt like many other TV tag matches I have seen. With all of that being said I did like the finish where Roode rolls Dawkins up in the O’Connor roll but Bianca breaks it by hitting Roode in the back with her hair which allows Dawkins to hit the Anointment and Ford follows up with the Frog Splash for the win.
Throughout the night we got thoughts from several WWE talents on who they think will win tonight’s main event between Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan with the most noteworthy ones being Seth Rollins who challenges Cesaro to a match for next week and Cesaro who accepts that challenge.
We get yet another Natalya & Tamina vs Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler match as earlier in the night Natalya and Tamina attacked the tag champs backstage. This match was pretty much the same thing we have seen for weeks between these two teams as Reginald interfered like always which leads to Shayna getting pinned to the mat. Ugh just make this feud end already and bring back the Riott Squad who are a lot more fun to watch and are 10x more charismatic than Natalya and Tamina put together.
We got a commercial throughout the show hyping the fact that next week’s SmackDown will be going old school and I know people are getting excited and hoping for the return of one of the old sets such as the SmackDown Fist, but this is WWE and everything has to be sterile so I wouldn’t count on them doing anything to change the look or production of the show.
We get a promo from the Mysterios who talk about wanting to make history and become the first father and son tag team champions. We also got our second Aleister Black rambling spooky emo promo.
Up next was a video recap of Commander Azeez costing Big E the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania and this leads to an interview with Big E where he talks about getting back his baby the Intercontinental Championship. This leads to the Intercontinental Championship match which was a good match that was ruined by another DQ finish when Commander Azeez pulls Big E out of the ring and sends him into the ring post. After the match, Crews and Azeez continue their beatdown until Kevin Owens runs down for the save but he almost gets hit with the Nigerian Nail only for Big E to save him from it, Sami Zayn then runs down to join the party and he hits KO with the Helluva Kick. Crews and Azeez then have a standoff with Zayn where he tries to beg off, but Azeez hits him with the Nigerian Nail and Crews stands tall to end the segment. I guess this feud will continue between Big E and Crews, but it now seems that KO and Zayn have entered into the Intercontinental Championship picture so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a 4-way at WrestleMania: Backlash.
We get a video package showing how tonight’s main event came to be and this leads into an interview with Paul Heyman which is great as usual.
It’s now time for the match that this episode of SmackDown was centered around as it is Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan for the Universal Championship and if Daniel Bryan loses he will be banned from SmackDown. We get a nice surprise during the entrances as Roman Reigns has new music which he had said they were working on months ago and I say it’s about time as he has pretty much had the same theme since his debut with the only modification being they removed the Shield part at the beginning.
This is one of the longest main events we have seen on SmackDown in quite a while and to say that it delivered on what everyone was expecting would be an understatement as this match went back and forth with Bryan trying to use his technical skills and high impact moves to weaken Reigns but Reigns would come quickly regain control by just using his sheer power which included Reigns countering a top rope hurricanrana into a powerbomb off the ropes and later he would catch a suicide dive and hit Bryan with a belly to belly suplex on the floor. As the match goes on Bryan starts to work on the arm which starts to affect Reigns when he goes for the guillotine choke so he decides to bludgeon Bryan to death as he pummels him in the mount position and rear mount and then he locks in the guillotine with the other arm and that is enough to make Bryan pass out. This match is a top contender for the WWE match of the year and could be the best match we see on SmackDown this entire year. I would imagine Bryan is going to take some time off to be with his family and could perhaps be back in time for SummerSlam on Raw or perhaps if they really want to shake things up they can send him to NXT where there is a whole roster of new talent for him to work with and while I know he is in NXT UK I am crossing my fingers for a Bryan vs Walter match.
After the match, Reigns looks to continue his attack on Bryan as he grabs a chair but Cesaro runs out to make the save as he knocks Reigns to the floor but then Jey Uso attacks Cesaro and ties him up in the ropes, and forces him to watch Reigns hit Bryan with a con-chair-to.
While I won’t say this whole episode of SmackDown was strong as it felt like a lot of it was a place holder because they wanted the main focus to be on the main event I will say everything involving the main event was fantastic from the Paul Heyman promo prior to the match to the match itself to the post-match beatdown. It looks like we are headed for a Reigns vs Cesaro match at WrestleMania; Backlash and that is a match that could also become a match of the year contender.
In Other News
Reports are coming out from Fightful Select that NXT referee Drake Wuertz was suspended and barred from entering the WWE Performance Center earlier this year due to WWE management being extremely displeased with the way Wuertz expressed his controversial far-right extremist views as he is a strong supporter of the Qanon child sex trafficking conspiracy. In addition to being suspended earlier this year, he has also been demoted as head NXT referee and also was passed over for the role of timing out the matches in NXT, and on top of all of that, he has significant heat with many at the WWE Performance Center. It seems like Wuertz has not learned from his suspension earlier this year as just yesterday he called into the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners meeting where he claimed “forcing and normalizing face coverings only makes it easier for sex traffickers to target kids”. These actions have once again caused the alarms of WWE management to be raised once again and given that they are already in the spring cleaning mood it would come to nobody’s surprise if he was released pretty soon seeing as most were surprised to see him still employed up to this point. To read even more on this check out this article.
Vice TV has sent out their press release for Dark Side of the Ring Season 3 which premieres Thursday, May 6 with a 2-hour premiere featuring the story of Brian Pillman. Season 3 will run for 14 episodes and will cover the following topics:
- Brian Pillman
- Collision in Korea
- Nick Gage
- The Ultimate Warrior
- The Grizzly Smith Story
- The Dynamite Kid
- The 1990’s Steroid Trials
- The story of FMW promotion
- Luna Vachon
- The Plane Ride from Hell
- The story of the XPW promotion
- Chris Kanyon
If you would like to read the full press release that Vice sent out please check out Fightful.com.
I am really looking forward to this season of Dark Side of the Ring as the topics look very interesting and most of them I am not as familiar with like I was with most of the topics in seasons 1&2, unfortunately, it’s going to be a few days before I get to watch next week’s premiere as I will be on vacation starting next Thursday, this also means there will be no This Week in WWE next week.
As I wrote last week WWE is looking to go back to touring in the second half of the year but before they go back full-time they are considering doing a couple of weekend house shows that would be used as a test to see what they need to do better and how the fans will handle all of the Covid-19 protocols that would be put in place. To read more on this check out this article.
As part of all of the changes happening backstage within WWE, it looks Jason Jordan has been given a big promotion as he will be taking over John Laurinaitis’s spot as lead producer now that Laurinaitis is back to being head of talent relations. Jordan’s new job will see him overseeing all of the other producers during WWE TV tapings and this job comes with a lot more responsibilities within the company.
New resorts from the Wrestling Observer and Figtful are saying that WWE is looking to start a working relationship with MLW similar to what NXT had with Evolve where NXT talent who haven’t been used on TV could show up in MLW.
In an update to the Mickie James story that happened last week this week Mickie went on the GAW podcast which she co-hosts and went into further detail about her time in WWE which you can check out here. In addition Fightful reached out to those currently and formerly in WWE about the reputation of Mark Carrano and the reactions to his release you can check that out here.
The NXT UK Takeover: Dublin show has officially been canceled. WWE had originally planned to have the event on April 26, 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic WWE decided to move the show to a later date (October 25, 2020) in hopes things would return to normal but when they didn’t WWE decided to postpone once again and this time set the date to June 20, 2021, now that we are a little over a month away and things still aren’t back to normal it looks like the WWE have finally decided to cut their losses and just cancel the entire event. Here’s to hoping that in the future the fans in Dublin and all over Ireland are able to get that NXT Takeover that is owed to them.
Coming up this Week
Raw:
- Return of the Raw Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Omos
NXT:
- Isaiah Scott vs Leon Ruff (Falls Count Anywhere Match)
- Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart © vs The Way (NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship – Street Fight)
- Return of Finn Balor
NXT UK:
- Dave Mastiff vs Ilja Dragunov
- Kenny Williams vs Amir Jordan (No DQ Match – Loser Leaves NXT UK)
- Supernova Sessions w/ guest Nathan Frazer
SmackDown:
- Old School SmackDown
- Cesaro vs Seth Rollins
There will be no This Week in WWE for next week (5/2-5/8) as I will be going on vacation, but I will be back the very next week so try not to miss me too much.
As always if you have any feedback to give whether it be positive or negative please feel free to contact me on Twitter @MTW3589.
