WWE TV - 9/25 - 10/1/2023

[Dolfan in NYC]

Well, this week is gonna be interesting.  NXT has their PLE on Saturday.  The upper roster has their own a in a couple of weeks. 

Unfortunately Fastlane has announced 3/4 of a match so far.  I'm guessing they'll fill it out this week?  Maybe?  

Some quick newz bites:

1) After LA Knight tested positive for COVID and was sent home, the WWE made the announcement that he was not going to appear and offered refunds(!)

2) Sheamus has a bad shoulder injury (I'm as shocked as you) and will be out indefinitely.  

 

Anyway, on with the week. 

[The Natural]

6 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Well, this week is gonna be interesting.  NXT has their PLE on Saturday.  The upper roster has their own a in a couple of weeks. 

Unfortunately Fastlane has announced 3/4 of a match so far.  I'm guessing they'll fill it out this week?  Maybe?  

Some quick newz bites:

1) After LA Knight tested positive for COVID and was sent home, the WWE made the announcement that he was not going to appear and offered refunds(!)

2) Sheamus has a bad shoulder injury (I'm as shocked as you) and will be out indefinitely.  

 

Anyway, on with the week. 

First I've heard about Sheamus. That sucks. Hope he and LA Knight get well soon. Yeah!

[Curt McGirt]

If you take the refund, do you still get to watch or do they kick your ass out?

[Cleavy]

8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

If you take the refund, do you still get to watch or do they kick your ass out?

presumably you would need to hand over your ticket (or show e-ticket?) as proof of purchase to get the refund.

[matt925]

They’ve been false advertising Bianca at all the current house shows so I don’t think they are offering refunds for that. I’m going on Saturday so I’ll see if they even acknowledge it. 

[Greggulator]

The main event and final segment was so hot. Felt so much like 80s NWA where the wronged faces chasing off The Horsemen and off we go to the War Games build. I really love how much of the show is based on Jey Uso — Drew’s official turn to the dark side. 

[Curt McGirt]

I was all in for the BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPIN MEAT match where Cole said "Like two big ol'... *long pause* male... buffalo." Wade helpfully reminded us that the Aussies lost to those damned Welshmen in rugby today, too, then later helps defend MJF's finish by saying it takes a "special person" to kick out of it when Ciampa makes Kaiser eat it. Kaiser also crumples spectacularly on the final knee, too. After that, every time I looked up someone was talking. Again. Well, at least until I came back in the room at the very end and every main eventer was fighting each other; someone will have to tell me the story behind that. 

[Phantom Lord]

Not a bad show tonight. Dominik Mysterio had easily his best match ever tonight. I don't know if it was all Dragon Lee or maybe Dom secretly is picking things up...but either way it was his best match.

Otis vs. BIG Bronson Reed (he's big you see so they call him big) was a match I wish went a little bit longer. 

The tag title match at the end was pretty good. JD (who my brother hates) is becoming a great stooge for the Judgement Day.

[Eivion]

Bronson/Otis was almost the big beefy mean slappin meat fest you'd hope for. Needed a few more minutes, but it was still pretty damn fun all around and another nice win for Reed.

Ciampa/Kaiser was good stuff. Dug Ciampa ramping up the chops and doing the Imperium pose at one point to mock Kaiser.

Nox/Nattie was short but a nice showcase for Tegan. This and the backstage segments building it up really served as a good reintroduction of Tegan Nox. Not sure why Nox didn't get the match with Becky last week, but it might have been blessing in disguise for her with audience getting to actually gain some familiarity with her after being off of tv for months. 

Dragon/Dom was fucking great. The two meshed together so damn well with Lee bringing tons of action to the table that had crowd cheering. The finish was particularly nice with the crowd clearly thinking Lee might actually have it for a bit only for Domto sleaze his way out with such a cheap asshole move. It feels like Dom is topping his performance each title defense. This was easily the best and probably the loudest the crowd was all night save maybe the main event. Both Lee and Dom came out of this looking great. Honestly makes me wonder how much longer they keep Lee in NXT.

The Nia Jax interview was mostly average, but it did serve as a solid setup to Jax/Stark which was short but solid. Thought Zoey came out of this looking good the way she stood up for herself and actually gave Nia a bit of fight despite the loss.

Drew/Kofi was good as expected. Dug how Miz tv was used beforehand to give the match a stronger setup. The finish and post match with Ivar was good. I'm digging Drew's slow heel turn coming from being a cold bastard. He isn't even wrong per say, people just kidn fo want him to be a far better person than most would be given the circumstances with Jey.

Finn/Priest vs. Sami/Owens built into a pretty darn good match. Loved the strong start with the teams just fighting it out, and I dug Sami and Owens pulling out a couple of lesser used big moves from their arsenal. The finish was wonderfully chaotic and I dug the post match brawl between Judgement Day and the faces.

Raw always feels too long a usual, but this was a good show with the matches being actively good and/or moving stories/characters forward. Dragon Lee vs. Dom was fantastic and something all should check out. It continues to amaze me how much Dom pulls more from Eddie than Rey when it comes to being a good wrestler. He isn't as smooth as either, but he gets the job done. If it wasn't for that rolling single leg crab you would never guess the man was actually trained by Lance Storm.

[Hail Sabin]

5 hours ago, matt925 said:

They’ve been false advertising Bianca at all the current house shows so I don’t think they are offering refunds for that. I’m going on Saturday so I’ll see if they even acknowledge it. 

At our Last House Show here in Tally they were still advertising CODY after his torn pec. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Hail Sabin

[For Great Justice]

7 hours ago, Eivion said:

It continues to amaze me how much Dom pulls more from Eddie than Rey when it comes to being a good wrestler. He isn't as smooth as either, but he gets the job done. If it wasn't for that rolling single leg crab you would never guess the man was actually trained by Lance Storm.

You’re right, that’s wild. We need a “biggest heat magnet trained by the worst heat magnet” thread and I don’t think we’re topping this one unlike, like, Charlie Haas trained MJF or something 

Dom rules. Him 100% being more Eddie’s kid than Rey’s is some serious long term continuity and it’s great.

[dragonzombie]

Jade Cargill signed with WWE.

https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/38495601/former-aew-champion-jade-cargill-signs-wwe

https://www.wwe.com/article/jade-cargill-signs-wwe-multi-year-deal

AEW in the mud!

[nofuture]

Guess no one warned Jade about going into the most dangerous place on Earth: The Performance Center parking lot. 

 

[Cobra Commander]

Pillman Jr is whatever he is as an actual performer, but can you imagine how much unsorted Brian Pillman footage the WWE has in random parts of their tape library.

I doubt they're gonna add tons of early 90s WCW because they have Pillman Jr around because don't let TKO look at what doesn't get watched on the WWE Network.. but this is the promotion that can go deep into showing you how much Pillman Jr looks like his dad (hopefully without making people expect him to be as good a worker as his dad)

[Curt McGirt]

Wait, what? Pillman Jr. signed up with the E? If that got announced on NXT I missed it cuz the satellite went out due to a storm over here (I was preoccupied with a 30 for 30 on Leonard/Duran anyway). 

[Cobra Commander]

well, what I understand happened is that..

Spoiler

they aired a vignette that didn't explicitly say it was Brian Jr but it showed a distorted photo of a classic Brian Sr t-shirt and all the people who can figure this stuff out quickly figured it out since BPJ being in the WWE is already kinda-sorta known

 

[Cobra Commander]

If Austin Theory was a 50 of 100 (play along), where would Pillman Jr land compared to Theory?

[Ramo2653]

That was a chaotic episode of NXT in the best possible way. That was almost attitude era in it pacing. I don't know if I'd like the show to be like that every week, but it was fun for a change. Also Bron attacking Corbin on site was hilarious. 

[Cobra Commander]

16 minutes ago, L_W_P said:

if his name wasn't Pillman he probably doesn't get a shot

although there's probably no shortage of guys in major promotions who one could say similar things about, and usually the legacy hires sort themselves out in time

[Eivion]

Butch/Coffey was good as as expected. Dug the finish.

Trick/Gacy was surprisingly a short, but I do like how it led to Trick getting inserted into the no. 1 contenders match for the NA title.

Corbin/Briggs was short but fine while it lasted. Dug the post match brawl with Bron. The final brawl to end the show on was event better.

OTM vs. Hank & Tank was another short match but pretty fun. Both teams looked pretty nice. Wish it got a bit more time as you can feel Hank and Tank are probably more capable at this point. Not sure about Price and Nima though this gave me more hope.

The restaurant segments building to the 4-way title match for the tag belts at No Mercy were dumb but kind of fun as well.

Thought the promos from Blair were nice, especially the one after she beat Gigi down in the locker room. Vick looked scared when she took his mic.

Dijak/Thorpe was pretty solid, maybe even good, strap matches tend to only do so much for me. Still, I thought they used the stip pretty well, especially when Dijak was beating on Eddy in front his family. Once again I wonder how much they tell these kids as Thorpe's niece looked sad and horrified during the beating on her uncle.

Thea/Dani was nice but short. both got a pretty decent showcase even with the lack of time. In the end this was more about showing Thea's Toxification by Jacy. it worked well. Dug the looks Jacy was giving Chase post match as she hugged Thea. the woman is so evil.

Trick vs. Bate vs. Dragon vs. Axiom was generally good. Everyone got in a decent amount of action and moments like usual. The finish didn't make Trick look strong, but it also kind of worked well with the pacing and the crowd being so behind Trick.

The Melo/Ilja signing saw the two stumbling a pinch, but ultimately giving solid delivery. I kind of like how both feel like they at a bit of breaking point with Melo clearly questioning if he really won at GAB and Ilja refusing to accept his loss regardless of how it came to be.

[caley]

40 minutes ago, Ramo2653 said:

That was a chaotic episode of NXT in the best possible way. That was almost attitude era in it pacing. I don't know if I'd like the show to be like that every week, but it was fun for a change. Also Bron attacking Corbin on site was hilarious. 

Also Shawn Michaels office being seemingly built out of balsa wood.

I'm kind of fascinated by how someone in WWE/NXT is completely enamored of Noam Dar. He was one of the few cruiserweights to get promo time during the initial cruiserweight division; goes to NXT UK and gets the Heritage Cup; brought into NXT with a big hype video and the entire Heritage Cup division built around him; given his own group to lead; gets a tournament to face him and they set up a special lounge for him to watch the show from. Someone(s) must really love him. I haven't seen a ton of his matches. What would he be in the ring, say average, slightly above average? Promo-wise, he's got that great accent and oblivious a-hole character down pat, but he doesn't seem as can't-miss to me as one would think justifies this much attention and hype. But someone really must be in his corner, so I wonder if he ends up being one of the biggest stars from this crop of NXTers.

Trick's reaction and presentation on this episode really made him look like a superstar-in-waiting. 

I'm curious where they're going with Thea. I mean, the Chase U gimmick probably isn't transferable to the main roster but I'm not sure the new one will set her apart either. 

Baron Corbin seems like he's having a lot of fun in NXT, and i still love how Bron looks like his dad but sounds like his uncle. Undertaker is gonna sue him for gimmick infringment if he keeps sitting up like he did on top of that truck. Also, the POV shot of the fire extinguisher coming at the camera was so bizarrely random, it reminded me of that one Arrested Development where they had "gimmicks" to try to get people to watch the show including a "3-D" scene where Gob randomly throws a tomato at the camera.

[Eivion]

6 hours ago, caley said:

I'm kind of fascinated by how someone in WWE/NXT is completely enamored of Noam Dar. He was one of the few cruiserweights to get promo time during the initial cruiserweight division; goes to NXT UK and gets the Heritage Cup; brought into NXT with a big hype video and the entire Heritage Cup division built around him; given his own group to lead; gets a tournament to face him and they set up a special lounge for him to watch the show from. Someone(s) must really love him. I haven't seen a ton of his matches. What would he be in the ring, say average, slightly above average? Promo-wise, he's got that great accent and oblivious a-hole character down pat, but he doesn't seem as can't-miss to me as one would think justifies this much attention and hype. But someone really must be in his corner, so I wonder if he ends up being one of the biggest stars from this crop of NXTers.

Dar is fairly good ring wise and a solid character. The situation with him is the same as the other UK talent. They are technically in a holding pattern while waiting to see if NXT Europe ever becomes a thing. If it does you can expect all but a few to disappear from the main NXT.

I think the tournament was less about Dar and more about presenting the Heritage Cup as something special and worth fighting for.

[Shadow]

Random question: Who is the best technical wrestler in WWE now?

[odessasteps]

I’d think the most popular answer would be Gable, given it’s his gimmick, more or less. 

[Dolfan in NYC]

15 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

I’d think the most popular answer would be Gable, given it’s his gimmick, more or less. 

Yes, but I think the correct answer is probably Kevin, Sami, or Roman.