Hello everyone, I’ve sorted out my DVR issues and I’m done with vacations so I can run these threads again. The big story in wrestling this week, even over Survivor Series, was the New Day segment on Monday Night Raw. It’s one of the rawest (no pun intended) wrestling segments I’ve seen in a long time. It perfectly threaded the needle between being shocking and not being out-of-character shock value like a lot of shocking swerves are in wrestling. When Big E came out and offered to be a manager for The New Day while he waits to be cleared, you think this segment is going to have a happy ending. The New Day is back together and we’re going to have E wrestling again! Instead, we get Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston asking why he didn’t offer this before (especially with their arguments lately). It then turns into Woods and Kingston laying into him, saying that E will never be cleared again (I legit gasped at this part), and stormed off. The segment ended with Woods and Kingston telling each other that it’s just them. I’ve seen more than a few people compare this to the legendary Rockers break-up and it’s not unwarranted.
Other big stories this week:
-Survivor Series was this past weekend and it was a fine show. Not a great show but I didn’t dislike any of the matches (the women’s WarGames match had a lot of botches but I can’t hate a match that has IYO SKY dive-bombing while wearing a garbage can). The highlight was the men’s WarGames match, it had some great wrestling and amazing storytelling.
-Shinsuke Nakamura defeated L.A. Knight to become US champion. There were some rumblings that Pro Wrestling Noah asked for this, wanting Nakamura to hold gold when he makes an appearance there next month. I don’t know if I believe this, WWE has way more bargaining power in this situation.
-TNA held their Turning Point event over the weekend too. It had more dud matches than Survivor Series but it also had the best match from over the weekend too (Masha Slamovich vs. Jordynne Grace). The rumors are that Grace wants to jump to WWE next year and if this is their way of turning Slamovich into their new female ace, they’re doing a damn good job.
-AEW have completely severed ties with GCW after Effy’s comments about Tony Khan. Long time readers know I like to make fun of Tony Khan but Effy’s comments were reprehensible. It’s one thing to criticize Tony, it’s another to insinuate that his dad secretly hates him and is funding AEW to get him out of his hair. It’s telling that he still sends wrestlers to AAA despite Konnan criticizing him constantly (albeit not so much after their partnership with CMLL started).
-A lot of AEW fans are starting to criticize the company this past week. A combination of cratering ratings and the previously mentioned New Day segment has woken up a lot of fans to the realization that the company is stagnating from its peak in 2021, especially when compared to what WWE is doing now. A loud but ever shrinking minority of AEW stans are shouting everyone down and dismissing all criticism as bad faith but it’ll have to sink in eventually that things aren’t going well.
-Eric Bischoff said that Tony Khan should stand down and have Bully Ray replace him. I now understand why the AEW stans are quick to dismiss all criticism now.
-NXT really needs to start planning their show finishes better. They got so used to USA letting them go over time that they’re not prepared for CW cutting them off.
-Kota Ibushi may have wrestled with a Staph infection. At a recent show, he had a gross thing on his back that many people thought was Staph. I’ve seen people say it was just an old wound with a band aid but it looked real nasty. And Ibushi has a terrible record when it comes to keeping his body safe, so it would not be past him to do this.
-NXT Deadline is this weekend and it should be a good show.
-According to people at this week’s NXT show, Jaida Parker is insanely over with the live crowd. During a commercial break, the crowd was chanting “Jaida don’t play that” as she was waiting for a response from Lola Vice. She’s got wrestling talent and incredible charisma, WWE has a potential megastar on their hands.
-I’ve begun fast-forwarding through Chris Jericho segments and Dynamite is infinitely better.