Forrest Hollingsworth: Blood AND Guts? In this economy?
Charlie Davis: That’s what they tell me, Forrest. Though I will say all my blood is still inside of my body and my guts are still intact too. I would like a refund.
Vishal Gullapalli: Blood and Guts more like Blankets and Pillows, am I right? Am I right??? (Please laugh)
Mikey Zee: Unfortunately, our laugh track is AR-only. So only the TV audience will see it floating over this week’s iteration of our wrestling recaps.
Monday: Monday Night Raw, That’s J-PW! #7
CD: I uh. I must admit that I went very deep into the sleep zone on Monday night, which means that I missed all of RAW. A shame, I know. But I did manage to catch up afterward! And seems like the same old same old, but I also regret to inform you that I am very much enjoying RKBro and that… I do not like that. This is mostly a Riddle problem and not a Randy problem, considering everything swirling around Riddle outside of his stoner goofball character. I am mostly upset that I wish I could like it more! I wish I could go all in on it, but this is two times now that it seems like WWE has turned someone with very real accusations leveled against them into the “loveable goofball” no matter if they are heel or face. Something about that doesn’t sit right with me.
FH: I don’t disagree with regards to Riddle (Who, if people don’t know, is actively in court contesting sexual assault allegations. We have decided to continue to cover the product pending outcome.) But I do like what it’s doing for Randy! Randy is the second most appearing Raw roster member of all time with 421 televised matches, second only to Kane with 436. Randy’s willingness to reinvent himself in the last year plus has been refreshing to see, and I’m interested in seeing where they go from here. That his 420th match being with stoner bro Riddle is the kind of impossible to anticipate wrestling stat that I really appreciate.
Elsewhere, I thought Raw was pretty okay by current standards, too! Here’s some quick takeaways:
- Congratulations to Mansoor who made his main roster debut in a decent, but ultimately losing match with Sheamus! Mansoor looked good, and I’m glad to see his diligent, quiet work at Main Event and other C shows being rewarded. It’s unfortunate that he lost his 49 win streak on his debut, especially since this was a non-title match for Sheamus, but I’m choosing to be optimistic about where he goes from here.
https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1389404850836869128 - Drew Gulak and Angel Garza put on a good, lighthearted match. If creative doesn’t have compelling serious angles for them despite their ability, I’m glad to see two guys that are at least happy to embrace the silly.
- Damian Priest picking up the win on John Morrison is good, the feud is going a little long but if it culminates in a big solo win at WrestleMania Backlash for Priest I think he’ll be in an arguably better place than he ever was on NXT.
- An Asuka vs. Rhea rematch at Backlash is disappointing, inserting Charlotte is worse.
- Alexa Bliss mentioned that someone caught Lilly’s eye, that someone appears to be Sonya Deville:
MZ: Okay! So, while I didn’t watch RAW, I DID watch Monday’s That’s J-PW! as promised! Can I just say… this show was an utter delight from the start with English interviews from both of the tag teams in the match, to the final bell. The “White Dragon” Rika Tatsumi & “Vivid Honey Mustard” Suzume saying they’re going to win because they are a dragon and a bee, and that’s stronger than karate? Honestly incredible. The “Pink Striker” Miyu Yamashita immediately stood out to me as a lady hoss, which was interesting when paired with “Yamato Nadeshiko Fighter” Moka Miyamoto’s traditional garb and winning smile.
Sezume is a rookie with only a year of wrestling experience, but honestly she stood out to me even before the commentary team highlighted her as a rising star. Not only does she embody the bee gimmick well, but she’s honestly so talented as a wrestler. When she had Moka in a full body submission maneuver, making her crawl to the ring ropes and punishing her? That’s good shit right there. Even Moka’s karate gimmick won me over by the end of the match, especially when she got to do a great tag team move with Miyu, delivering synchronized stiff karate strikes to the side of Rika’s head.
All of this to say, with this as my first time watching TJPW product, I will definitely be back. The production quality and shots were good and followed the action well, the commentary was good at explaining both the match itself as well as technical elements (like the brutal nature of TJPW’s turnbuckles). While I probably won’t be able to catch every episode and event TJPW puts on for the column (like this week’s Yes! Wonderland, much as I want to finally watch a match with Sakisama), I’m definitely going to try to keep up more with this athletic and entertaining promotion. That being said, I do think it’s worth pointing out that Yes! Wonderland has an incredible card and English commentary, so if you have room in your heart and/or wallet for another streaming sub, I highly recommend checking it out on Wrestling Universe.
Tuesday: NXT
CD: Can I mention again how much I appreciate whatever god or metrics decided it was a good idea to move NXT to Tuesdays. I know I didn’t watch NXT very much weekly when it was sharing the same night with Dynamite, but I do know that everything about that period felt like hot shot booking after hot shot booking to try and get more eyes on the product. Something that really just sullied the product after it moved to USA from the WWE Network (RIP). That’s gone now and it seems like we are back on track to lay the groundwork for some longer term stories to get told.
I really like what The Way is doing, even if I have a similar issue with Austin Theory as I do with Riddle and an even bigger problem with him making jokes about sexual innuendos on screen. Even so, that doesn’t take away the work that Johnny, Candice and Indi are doing to establish the faction or the story. Everything about this works for me and damn, the Street Fight between Candice and Indie v Shotzi and Ember was great! We even have new tag champs and Johnny Gargano was nowhere to be found at ringside! Bless! I love that Candice finally has a belt, even if it’s well overdue.
The Way and Cameron Grimes’ segments were the ones that really stuck out to me this week. Everything else… not so much. I REALLY have an issue with how doofy Karrion Kross is being presented. He came out this week looking like a magician looking for his Las Vegas call time. If they wanted to present him as a monster, which they very much were doing before his injury, he should not be cutting promos in the ring. If Scarlett is supposed to be his angel of death… then let her cut the promos for him. What is happening now, is not it. Not to mention that way magician Karrion Kross made Finn Balor, of all people, look like a chump by taking him out in one punch. This is not befitting of the Bullet Club founder at ALL.
FH: For a guy that debuted as a joke, Leon Ruff has really turned into a compelling watch week to week and his Falls Count Anywhere match with Isaiah “Swerve” Scott was no different. NXT is exceedingly good at “making” people through their internal gauntlet in this way, and I think it feels even better without the, as you called it CD, ‘hot shot booking’ that the ratings war era was informed by.
Coincidentally, Karrion debuted a year ago this week and has successfully convinced me he’s nothing but a wet fart.
VG: This is my show, and it continues to be my show… that is until Karrion Kross struts around with the NXT title he is not nearly good enough to have. I get why Charlie says that this period is better than the hotshot booking of the AEW competition era but if I’m being completely honest the idea that the two champions NXT wanted to spotlight coming into their new day on TV were Karrion Kross and Raquel Gonzalez confuses me.
That’s not to say that Raquel’s not great! She is! But I’ve never really felt convinced by anything she’s done surrounding the championship, and beating out Io Shirai (who for my money is the best NXT women’s champion since Asuka and honestly might be the best NXT champion of all time) for it never really clicked for me. It felt like they realized that having someone pin the champion in War Games was a good stepping stone for the title with Rhea and Shayna, but Raquel isn’t (NXT) Rhea and (second reign) Shayna was never Io.
It’s not surprising at all if you know me that The Way and Johnny Gargano’s North American Championship run is the highlight of my tuesdays, but honestly it’s not just because Johnny’s my favorite wrestler. I think there’s a lot of really fun character work being done, and NXT being more willing to dip into comedy in their main event scene is strengthening the product significantly.
Speaking of the comedy scene at NXT, Cameron Grimes is slowly becoming the star of their mid/undercard. He’s a genuinely great wrestler and while some people might not like his promos (I may have spent a little too long looking at user ratings on cagematch), I think he brings in a theatricality and attitude that makes him a perfect comedy heel. His current storyline with Ted DiBiase is fantastic. I’ve been pulling for Grimey to win the North American Title at some point, and while I don’t think he can get it from Johnny, I could easily see him being 2 title changes away from holding the gold himself.
And lastly, Candice! Indi! I’m so happy that after being one of the hardest working women on the NXT roster, Candice has finally gotten a title around her waist. She’s deserved it for years now. Hell, the WWE 2k20 career mode’s AU version of WWE has her as a dominant champ that your female CAW has to fight, and honestly I can’t wait for that to become reality. That and Samoa Joe’s robot arm. But back to Candice and Indi, while I think that the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship has been… pretty lacking in prestige literally since it was created, and this hasn’t helped, but I think Candice and Indi have a pretty decent title reign with several defenses in them. I hope they get to show off their chops, especially after the absolute barn burner of a match they put on for the main event. I’d honestly say it was the best match this week.
Wednesday: AEW Dynamite: Blood & Guts
CD: Oh man. I am not even sure where I start with this. I thought, as a match, Blood and Guts was fine. Maybe that’s worse than either being really good or really bad, but I am happy that all the people involved made it out okay considering the amount of ACTUAL BLOOD that happened in the match. I have to give them the fact that they did live up to that part of the bargain, if nothing else. Jokes aside though! I actually really liked the episode at large even if I wasn’t really emotionally present for the actual Blood and Guts match.
A very fun tag match started the show, illustrating how fun Eddie and Mox are as a team and telling us just what Kenny thinks of his former good friend turned goon Michale Nakazawa. This was all just vamping for The Elite beat down that came after that filled me with a lot of joy. The Bucks and Kenny with the Good Brothers being rowdy and mean. Matt looking like he walked in from the hawaiian shirt store and NICK WITH A SEPTUM PIERCING. Everything The Elite are doing is working on so many levels for me. Gosh I love it so much. Even if it’s at the expense of one of my favorite boys.
There are a handful of other things I loved this week, but I want to leave the Ethan Page talk to you, Forrest. Which will allow me to dive into the thing that made the whole damn show for me. Kenny Omega’s masterful promo before the main event.
Kenny’s strange, heelish and frankly cartoon antics might not work for everyone, but it’s one of the things I love the most about him. Among an announcement that there is to be a championship eliminator match to determine Kenny’s opponent at Double or Nothing, Kenny slowly unwinds without Don Callis there to do the talking for him. Kenny’s promo was pure, unadulterated 2014 Cleaner with a bit of a sports entertainment twist. His strange pattern of speech, his bizarre references, his callback to not even knowing who Orange Cassidy is much like his post G1 2016 win in which he refused to even acknowledge the existence of Kota Ibushi. All of this coupled with his trademark evil laugh which almost made my heart stop, gave me everything I needed. I am so excited at the prospect of Orange Cassidy having a title match with Kenny. I am so excited to see more of this.
FH: CD you tagged me in to talk about Ethan and I’m going to do just that!
Look, I like Darby Allin. I like his look, I like his recklessness, I cheer for him cause he’s from Seattle and we have very few homegrown stars. But every Dynamite I can’t escape the feeling that his TNT title reign, the longest in the company’s history, is sorely lacking in defining moments. His blood feud with Ethan Page might be just the thing to deliver those — they’ve been there before after all.
Ethan and Darby’s animosity goes all the way back to their EVOLVE days, specifically EVOLVE 59 in 2016 where a debuting Darby Allin was handily defeated by a dominant Page. This squash — and believe me it was a squash — was maybe the singular catalyst for Allin to become the wrestler he is today, all chronicled through Evolve archives and up to today. Page ruthlessly mocked Allin after the match, thanking him for trying, but affirming that Allin would never be the talent that Ethan was.
Darby returned, defiant, tenacious, and fiery time and time again and he and Page set down a years long path targeted towards destroying EVOLVE, the ring, the talent around them, and each other.
As Ethan implied in he and Scorpio’s promo on Dynamite this week, they succeeded in doing that, nearly killing each other, next to no one saw it, and they went their separate ways. Ethan became an Impact tag title star, Darby became an AEW darling, and they could’ve moved on.
But they won’t. Blood in, blood out it’s now apparent that neither Ethan nor Darby has been able to stop thinking about each other in that grisly way that defines the best wrestling feuds and AEW intends to give us what we want (with Scorp and Sting at their sides to keep it fresh). They’re both more talented and defined in nearly every regard now, but they also can’t escape each other, Page’s recent signing bringing them back to each other in a deadly, magnetic way and his loss of an opportunity at the TNT title in his debut re-inciting the animosity, seething and coursing through the product week to week. It won’t go away and it’s exactly the kind of thing Darby, Ethan and the title itself need. I for one love AEW’s willingness to embrace their talent’s history elsewhere, the same as your feelings about Kenny The Cleaner above Charlie, and… I’m excited.
Otherwise I found this week’s Dynamite to be an unfortunate case of over-promising and under-delivering:
- The tag match was too short and irreverent to really warrant its inclusion on a Blood and Guts card, and MT Nakazawa’s in-ring murder was really undercut by him being perfectly fine later in the night at Kenny’s side.
- I understand the purpose of a match like QT and Cody’s but it came across more like the second half of the Exhibition match that sparked their feud, rather than a conclusion or new chapter.
- Blood and Guts was undercut by a year plus of hype, the shadow of NXT’s WarGames, and a limited production environment at Daily’s Place that it couldn’t have possibly circumvented before the poor pacing and camerawork. The worst thing I can say about it is that, even just a few days after its airing, I can’t remember much about it. Sammy did a coast to coast into Shawn Spears’ chair, Santana had a fork (a nice touch, sneaking weapons into prison uniforms), and MJF is a bad guy. It was fine but the commercials for us cable viewers cut into the worst possible moments like wrestler entrances, the turnbuckle being undone, and the mat coming up and the confused rules leading to MJF and Jericho on the outside of the cage undid the structure of the match in an unnecessary way. People will, and have, talked about the crash pad for a long time but I didn’t particularly want to see a 50+ year old Jericho take a fall like that to begin with. It wasn’t the bad editing call in the last minute, it was everything leading up to it. I commend them for trying, but there were some very obvious growing pains here too.
VG: I’m coming into this the Saturday after having watched Dynamite on Wednesday, and like… I don’t want to be cruel to AEW because they’re trying their best and my friends really like them but legitimately I think they are a sloppy promotion that is not able to live up to the hype of their best wrestlers. To date, the best AEW match is literally All Elite, and their next best is their two biggest singles stars in a blood feud. I can’t think of anything at the company that didn’t feature at least one member of the Elite that absolutely blew me away, and while I’m sure part of that is my own bias coming in, I still feel like they’ve done a much worse job than NXT of making their non-marquee talent look good.
At this point nearly everyone in the company that feels like a star has had a title, and the ones that haven’t are clearly being pushed in that direction. Darby Allin and MJF are the only homegrown AEW talents that feel like they matter, and everyone else is either building on reputations they fostered elsewhere or languishing. Some people will try to say that Jungle Boy is one of those stars but honestly they’re too obsessed with having him lose and look like a babyface for him to feel like he matters. I still can’t tell where they plan on pushing Orange Cassidy, but he simultaneously feels like they’re giving him a lot of focus and that he’s a non-entity. I hope he gets a title match against Kenny for Double or Nothing, at least.
But to focus on the main attraction of Wednesday, the match that was originally going to happen last year in my hometown’s nearest arena, the one that they’ve had a very long time to figure out and perfect – Blood and Guts. Honestly? I would actively recommend against people watching the whole match. To start, the commercial breaks destroyed any chance the match had of feeling like a big deal – when the biggest spots of the match happen during the commercial breaks (the ring getting cut open, Jericho and MJF climbing the cage), it can’t hold my interest. There’s two spots in the match that I remember aside from the finish – Chris Jericho hitting someone (don’t remember who) with the unscrewed turnbuckle, and Sammy’s Coast to Coast on (I think) Shawn Spears with a chair. Everything else was a hazy blur that didn’t really feel like it mattered. And what was going on in the ring when Jericho and MJF were doing their big conflict on top of the cage?
A lot of the IWC is complaining about the crash pads or fake metal sheets that Jericho fell into and honestly it didn’t bug me too much – better safe than sorry. My problem with Blood and Guts was the entire rest of the match. Coming out of this, the Pinnacle don’t feel legitimate, seeing as the only way they won was threatening to murder an old man, and the Inner Circle don’t feel like babyfaces. Even if I were to compare this to NXT’s first WarGames match instead of their more polished iterations, this felt sloppy and unnecessary. I would honestly say that Blood and Guts doesn’t even belong in the same conversation as most modern WWE-safe Hell in a Cell matches, it was a total slog and did a very poor job convincing me to watch next week’s show.
Thursday: Impact! clips, That’s J-PW! #8
CD: Oh Impact. One day. One day we will meet again.
MZ: Unfortunately I did tabletop on Thursday this week, so I wasn’t able to watch the whole show live, but I did see some of Kenny Omega’s… antics? this week, which put quite a few of my friends in deep pain.
Warning: This video might be not safe for work…
But in all seriousness. Kenny deciding to be at ringside for the Good Brothers?
CD: Yes! The Elite and Kenny especially are good at weaving all these story elements together and it does feel significant that Kenny comes down to the ring to stand ringside for Gallows’ match, yet hasn’t ever done that for one of The Bucks matches. For all The Elite are together, it seems as if The Bucks are still on the outside a bit. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that Don knew both that Kenny needed them and that he can’t let them get too close. The three of them actually rekindling their bond would threaten his control over Kenny.
MZ: Yes, I definitely agree. I doubt it will happen, but I’m curious if The Young Bucks ever show up on Impact to yet again call Kenny out on never seconding them… only time will tell.
I wasn’t planning to, but I also went ahead and watched Thursday’s edition of That’s J-PW! While still good, the singles match between Hyper Misao, a “hero protecting love and peace,” and Arisu Endo had a… bizarre, multi-tiered stipulation called “Alice in Hyperland.” It was solidly on the comedic side, which worked well for Arisu who is a 4-month rookie. While the episode had some fun moments, overall the match didn’t stand out as anything special to me. If you didn’t catch it, I don’t think it’s anything you need to go back for, but it helped me understand how broad TJPW’s oeuvre is at the very least.
Friday: SmackDown
CD: Oh BOY. This week’s Smackdown was a Throwback Smackdown. And as we approached Friday, a lot of people were speculating about just what that would actually mean. It turns out! WWE didn’t really know either. I know, what a surprise. Now, I am mostly joking, considering the WWE twitter account said they were throwing back to 2006 Smackdown, but that didn’t really mean anything? And resulted in a confusing mishmash of retro-style clips and theming that ranged back to the early 90’s (Smackdown wasn’t even around back then), the 2006 set and ref shirts, and clips from the early aughts sprinkled into the show. The theming was a bit of a confusing mess, even more so because every era of Smackdown has a really distinct theme and feel. They could have just used any of them. Instead of trying to do it all.
MZ: At least the title card graphics were pretty cool?
CD: That being said, this very special throwback edition of Smackdown ruled actually.
I’ve been waiting for something to puncture the bubble that is Roman Reigns at the top of the mountain, and Jimmy Uso returning looks like it’s about to do just that. Jimmy showed up not only not to take shit from his cousin, but to poke holes in the sway that he has over Jey. Jimmy Uso showed up to cause problems on purpose. That, plus the amazing Seth and Cesaro match to open the show which actually lead to a segment with ROMAN AND SETH AND SOMEONE ACKNOWLEDGING THEIR HISTORY. Dang. Great job everyone. It’s got me in my Shield feelings which is a feat in 2021.
MZ: Jimmy yelling things like “I NEED YOU! AND WE NEED EACH OTHER!” at his brother? I loved that. My soul was totally being fed by the family drama and the mixing of past and present. Despite the messiness of the theming, there was a lot to love this episode.
Also, they did have the fist! It was in AR! I don’t care whether it was a last minute addition or not, I for one appreciated it.
Finally, hey, get a look at these Fiend Shorts:
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
