Eivion Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 Opening segment with the Bloodline, Cena, and Knight was good. Knight felt right at home as a star. I also dug Cena putting over Knight and Roman while admitting he feels he needs to earn a shot at the title. Brutes vs. Pretty Deadly was good. Its nice to have PD back. Love the whole EltonStrogn push. Its dumb and wonderful. Zelina/Bayley was something of an extended squash that served as a showcase for Zelina before Bayley and Damage Ctrl. shenanigans put Zelina down. Was nice to see Zelina's athletic aspects played up more and Bayley play the heavy role given the size difference. HHH's segment with Aldis, Dom, and Pearce was solid. Not big on Owens getting separated from Sami again, but I kind of hope it means they might give Sami a shot the the World title in the future. Never been big on the concepts of GMs, but I've generally been good with Pearce in the role the last few years. Not sure on Aldis though this was a decent introduction and having Dom play opposite of him here was a good way to get the crowd on his side initially. Was nice to see Chelsea and Piper on Smackdown for once and mention the curse. Hopefully the tease of new tag titles actually leads to new belts. The Jade/Charlotte tease was kind of neat, but it's hard to be excited on my part as I have little interest in Jade. Hoping whatever match they have planned between them doesn't involve a title. Cody/Jey vs. Waller/Theory was pretty solid. The post match faceoff between Cody/Jey and the Bloodline was a nice tease. At this point Cody is either winning the rumble twice in a row or taking the MITB from Priest. The tease for Roman/Cody II this week has been too strong for them to go another route. I prefer Cody takes the briefcase from Priest. Knight/Solo built into something good by the end. Dug all the slam teasers and eventual successful one by Knight. The finish was predictable but worked well. Post match with Reigns attacking was good. Guessing Roman/Knight will be the main event for Crown Jewel. Pretty solid show overall with some decent segments and solid-good matches. Was nice to see them already moving forward with future building for CJ, Survivor Series, and probably even Wrestlemania itself. Looking forward to Io/Charlotte next week. Hopefully Io retians and they get the main event spot. Would be nice to see them get the breathing room for a legit great match even if the finish is screwy. It feels like the two have been practicing with each other whenever they face off in hopes of it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 (edited) Our Denver feed went to ads right before the end of the tag match and came back like 45 seconds later to the Roman on the ramp with Cody bit. I was wondering if that happened everywhere but I guess not. Nevertheless, that was a great show. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of " Who the fuck is Nick Aldis?" comments out there. And that's fair. I barely know who he is. But Adam Pearce was exactly the same when they put him on TV, so I'm liking the consistency. Edited October 14, 2023 by Johnny Sorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 I like the doing the "who's going to win the managerial services of" version of what brand is Jade going to be on. Having her show up on all three shows or in the case on Raw, tweeting as if she's considering just appearing on the show makes her seem like so much more of a big deal. Looms like she'll be on Smackdown though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Lord Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 Smackdown was pretty good tonight. Looks like LA Knight is entering the next stage of the rocket that's been strapped to him with Roman and him going at it. Cena got a great response too, but we know he's gonna be gone soon so it's great to see Knight getting those huge reactions. Pretty Deadly cracked me up with the intro and the giant disco ball. Bayley vs. Zelina was good for what it was worth. Triple H's announcement was good. Nice to see they brought back the GM's for each show. Dom continues to get nuclear heat from the crowd. It's amazing how loud they get just from him trying to talk. Kinda felt bad for Aldis because you could hear the crowd say "who". But he should be a solid choice to be the GM for Smackdown. Jimmy testing Roman's patience was funny. "Drinking my water...sitting on my couch" The Cody/Jey vs. Grason/Austin match was good. Cody needs to work on the timing of that cutter though if that's the finisher...or at least set up for it. I liked the stare down between Cody and Roman after the match. Cody is still my pick to take the title off him. LA Knight vs. Solo was good. I liked the frantic ending with Cena running in to save LA Knight and hitting the AA only to eat a Samoan Spike. Knight wins and everyone rejoices. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rb9AOTzmslM Kevin Owens exclusive interview. Good on KO wishing Adam Cole well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 Oh I forgot to mention I love Heyman's hair being dyed back with color with Roman's return. The gradual greying when Roman was gone was a nice touch. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 I don’t watch Lvl Up but I saw a 3 minute long highlight package of Axiom/Riley Osborne that made that look really good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norwegian Rudo Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 5 hours ago, Cobra Commander said: I don’t watch Lvl Up but I saw a 3 minute long highlight package of Axiom/Riley Osborne that made that look really good. Looks like the finish was messed up judging by Axiom's reaction, but otherwise they both looked great. Osborne is UK wrestler Turbo Josh Terry who was on NXT UK some, but I don't think he was signed at the time. He is also dating Bea Priestley. I don't know why NXT doesn't do more with Level Up, they have SO MANY wrestlers who need ring time. I looked at Wikipedia recently and (not counting injured, main roster and yet to debut trainees), they have something like 25 women alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peck Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 Aside from the possibly botched finish, that Axiom/Osborne match was my TELEVISED MATCH OF THE WEEK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonzombie Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 The Grizzled Young Veterans contracts expired and they're free agents now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 (edited) 17 hours ago, The Natural said: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rb9AOTzmslM Kevin Owens exclusive interview. Good on KO wishing Adam Cole well. I shouldn't laugh but I believe that KO was referencing Adam Lash who was in surgery dealing with I believe removing a cancerous tumor in or near his kidney I mean he could have been wishing both Adam's get well knowing the guy he is. Edited October 14, 2023 by hammerva 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 "To all the Adams out there, I wish you the best" would be a solid insincere heel line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Moose Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 (edited) Meanwhile, on LVL UP: tl;dr: good episode, go watch it somehow. Ivy Nile d Kiyah Saint. This felt longer than expected, in a good way. Ivy gave Kiyah a good bit of time on control or establishing parity, but IMO this was more interesting in showing some challenges for Ivy and the model of the show as a whole. For Ivy - she has really effective physical charisma in contradictory directions. She's been able to pull off 'confident, cold, aggressive', and she can pull off 'desperate, uncertain, overpowered', but 1) being in relatively short matches against inexperienced oponents means that neither extreme feels earned, and 2) the latter is a stretch when she looks so much stronger than almost all her opponents. The other thing was that this was a decently compelling face performance from Saint, but the audience was generally very pro-Ivy the whole way through. The crowd's bias for familiar talent might be complicating the situation for the less-familiar ones. Axiom d Riley Osborne. Riley's entrance is hazardous for people with photosensitive epilepsy. There's a lot of very clean flipping and Malenko-Guerrero reversals starting this off, and we get a few moments of escalation that don't quite work for me. Early on, Axiom extends his hand and helps Riley up, midway Riley extends his hand and Axiom slaps it away, and then later we get Axiom letting Riley back into the ring cleanly, to which Riley shoves Axiom and Axiom responds with ... a very slow single-leg. A bit later we get a shout of frustration which is immediately followed by a forearm, rather than either a slap or punch. There's some very fun stuff - a rana with some real snap on it, something that might be called an armdrag over the top rope, a midair dropkick counter that evokes HBK/Shelton from the Gold Rush and a great frog splash over the ref into the finish - and I think you could pretty well call both of these dudes up to the main roster yesterday, but with a critical eye there are some subtle points that could be polished. Axiom leaning a bit heel is interesting, as flippy, heroic and masked is very uphill to boo, but it worked here. Edited October 15, 2023 by Iron Moose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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