AEW Dynamite 10/23 Review

AEW Dynamite 10/23 Review

Monday Night Raw 10/21 Review

The show opens with Ric Flair (WOO) making an appearance to announce Drew Mcintyre as the final member of Team Flair at Crown Jewel. Drew comes down and we go into the first match of the night. 

Match One- Ricochet v Drew Mcintyre- This match is dominated by Drew. Mcintyre uses his massive size advantage over Ricochet. Ricochet tries using his speed to get back into the match and is shut down each time. Ricochet does eventually manage to put together some offense, getting a near fall with a shooting star press. In the end, Mcintyre delivers a brutal claymore kick to win the match. This could have been a boring squash match but wound up being a pretty good match to start the show.

Basic heel interview with the OC. They talk trash about the Street Profits and about Cleveland, then they leave. 

Rusev comes to the ring for an interview with Jerry Lawler to address the behavior of Lana and Bobby Lashley. Before he can start to speak, Lana and Lashley appear on the screen on a date to rub their relationship into Rusev's face yet again. I absolutely hate this storyline. Rusev does not deserve what WWE creative has continually done to him. I wish they would just take him off of TV.

Match Two- Andrade v Sin Cara- Good high flying fun in this match. Sin Cara actually looked to have the match won several times but Zelina Vega interfered multiple times to get the save. Andrade hits the hammerlock DDT to get the win. This was the right call on this match and Sin Cara still looks good in the loss since Andrade won through interference. 

 We see the Street Profits again to talk trash to the OC to build hype for the main event. They continue to tease revealing their tag team partner for Crown Jewel.

Another segment with Rusev, Lashley, and Lana. Rusev attacks Lashley in the restaurant Lashley and Lana are in. They are quickly separated and Rusev is taken away. End this storyline now. 

Rey Mysterio comes to build hype for the match between Cain Velasquez and Brock Lesnar. Paul Heyman comes on screen to respond to Mysterio. While they go back and forth Shelton Benjamin runs out to defend Lesnar and push Mysterio around. The segment ends with Cain Velasquez beating down Shelton. 

Match Three- Seth Rollins v Humberto Carrillo- This was a very good match bw\etween two very good wrestlers. Carrillo made his Raw debut and Seth did a good job making Carrillo look good. Rollins eventually puts him away with a stomp but does shake Carrillo's hand after the match. 

Main Event- Street Profits v The OC- The match begins before the Street Profits' mystery friend shows up. Good tag team wrestling from both teams to get the match started. The Street Profits pick up a huge win after Kevin Owens comes down to cause the distraction. 

The wrestling on this show was very good. Unfortunately there just wasn't very much of it. The Rusev, Lana, Lashley storyline is terrible. Every segment feels like it is building for Crown Jewel, which nobody cares about. The WWE product is boring to me. They have way too much TV time with not enough actual wrestling. Too much other stuff bogs down these shows and is just boring. Overall the show wasn't too bad this week. I just wish they could cut some of the filler. 

My top five from Raw 

1. Street Profits

2. Humberto Carrillo

3. Kevin Owens

4. Drew Mcintyre

5. Rusev

Friday Night Smackdown 10/18 Review

Friday Night Smackdown 10/18 Review

Match One- Shinsuke Nakamura v Roman Reigns- Smackdown gets started with the Intercontinental Champion taking on Roman Reigns for the title. Roman dominates most of the match, but Nakamura manages to get back into it with help from interference from Sami Zayne on multiple occasions. After getting a near fall, Roman is taken out by the hands of Baron Corbin, ending the match in DQ. Daniel Bryan comes to the aide of Roman to fight off Corbin and Zayne. 

A promo involving The New Day and Heavy Machinery building up the tag team turmoil match at Crown Jewel. Didn't go too long, was funny at moments. 

Match Two- Chad Gable v Curtis Axel- I don't understand why commentary is so determined to make fun of Gable for being short. He is very good in the ring and is super underutilized. Gable puts away Axel very quickly with am ankle lock. Good babyface promo by Gable after the match. 

Hulk Hogan shows up on the Tron to let us know that Ali and Gable will be joining team Hogan at Crown Jewel.

Match Three- Heavy Machinery and The New Day v The Revival, Robert Roode, and Dolph Ziggler- Fun tag team action to start, The New Day and Heavy Machinery bring tons of energy to this match. Otis gets the hot tag and lays out all four of his opponents. Dawson bling tags in while Otis is busy with Ziggler in an attempt to steal the win. That doesn't work as Otis manages to get the tag and put away Dawson.

MizTv segment with Bayley and Sasha- This segment just further enforces Bayley's heel turn from last week. Miz antagonizes Bayley trying to pit her against Sasha, Bayley responds by putting down her fans. The competitors of the six-pack challenge interupt and bog down the segment. A decent segment brought down by too many people being involved.

Match Four- Six-Pack Challenge- Sonya v Mandy v Nikki v Carmella v Dana v Lacey- Pretty standard multi-competitor match. Each woman gets their signature offense in throughout the match. Sonya and Mandy work together to gain an advantage. Nikki picks up the win and stares down Bayley.

Video package building up the Universal Championship match at Crown Jewel between Seth Rollins and The Fiend.

Match Five- Strowman v Drew Gulak- Gulak tries to prevent getting destroyed by getting a microphone and trying to give advice to Braun for his match against Tyson Fury and Crown Jewel. That lasted about 15 seconds before Braun squashed him. 

Main Event- Nakamura and Corbin v Roman and Daniel Bryan- After the heel beatdown at the beginning of the show you knew where this match was going. Roman destroys Corbin and Zayne on the outside of the ring while Bryan beats down on Nakamura inside the ring. Bryan puts away Nakamura, a big babyface win to close out the show.

The main event was good, but not great. That pretty much sums up the entire show. There were some good points all the way through without any really bad points. There just wasn't anything really memorable. The worst part of the show was what is pretty much always the worst part of any WWE event; the commentary. Cole and Graves just get on my nerves ad really bring down the entire show. 

My top five for Smackdown this week-

1. Daniel Bryan

2. Nikki Cross

3. Otis 

4. Roman Reigns

5. Chad Gable

AEW Dynamite Ep. 3 Review

by Geoffry Modlin | AEW Analyst.

Episode three of Wednesday Night Dynamite was just like the first two; Very good. We saw two title matches this week, as well as setting up an exciting match for Full Gear. I Love Wrestling shows that start with wrestling instead of 20-minute promos, and Dynamite has not disappointed this week.

Match One- SCU v The Best Friends- Our opening match did exactly what an opening match is supposed to do, hype up the crowd. Dynamite started with another part of the tag team tournament to crown the inaugural AEW Tag Team Champions. The action got started before the bell even sounded when the Lucha Bros attacked SCU during their entrance. Christopher Daniels was injured during the attack and had to be replaced by Scorpio Sky. This was a fast paced, fun match that saw Scorpio doing most of the work for SCU since Kazarian was in bad shape after the pre-match beatdown. Scorpio got the crowd behind him fast and led SCU to the win over the Best Friends.

Match Two- Ortiz & Santana Squash Match- After a high energy start to the show, the crowd needed a chance to catch their breath and this squash match gave them that opportunity. There isn’t much to say for squash matches most of the time but this one helped paint Ortiz & Santana as the brutal pit bulls that Chris Jericho hyped them up to be last week. After the quick win, Jericho Shows up on the tron to brag about his guys being the best tag team in AEW and challenged the Young Bucks to a match against Ortiz & Santana at Full Gear.

Match Three- Riho v Britt Baker for the AEW Women’s Championship- I think this was a tough match for AEW to put on since Britt Baker is obviously going to be the face of the Women’s division in the near future, but taking the title from Riho this soon would make her reign seem very weak. I think they did a very good job in the booking of this one. Both women looked very good, going back and forth the entire match. The finish did a good job of not making either competitor look bad when Britt Baker locked in the lockjaw in the center of the ring, looked to have it won, but Riho managed to roll over for the cover and retain her championship.

Match Four- Lucha Bros v Jurrasic Express- The final match of the first round of the tag team tournament saw the Lucha Bros take on Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt. Luchasaurus was supposed to be in this match but was an injury kept him out. Watching 5’2 Marko Stunt facing off against Penta was funny at first, but Stunt did a very good job against one of the best tag teams in the world. Lots of high-flying fun from Jurassic Express made this a good match but ultimately it was taken by the Lucha Bros.

Match Five- Moxley & Pac v Omega & Page- I really want to see this as a four-way match and just see all four men destroy each other. It was obvious from the beginning that Pac and Moxley were unable to get along and that would be part of the finish. Hard hitting action from all four men got the crowd very into this match. The ending came when Omega and Moxley brought out the barbed wire bat and broom from their standoff last week and got ready to go at each other but were stopped by Pac. Pac tried to prevent Moxley from getting them DQed and Moxley responds with a quick deathrider and abandoned his partner. With no team mate to help him Pac quickly got beaten down by Page and Omega with Page getting the pin fall. Very good match by four very good wrestlers. A singles match between Pac and Moxley is set for next week.

Main Event- Chris Jericho v Darby Allin for the AEW Championship- The main event of the evening wound up being the best match of the night by far. This was a very good match between the always entertaining Chris Jericho versus the young future star Darby Allin. This match was given the Philadelphia street fight stipulation and both men used the no DQ rules to their advantage. Each man delivered brutal kendo stick shots to the other and Jericho got a steel chair involved as well. Close to the finish we saw Jericho tie Darby Allin’s hands behind his back to lock up the win. This did not work as well as he thought since Allin managed to not only sustain Jericho’s offense, but get in a decent amount of his own. The match ended when Allin went to the top rope with his hands still bound looking for the coffin drop to get the win. Right before he dove Jake Hager came out of nowhere to knock him down. With this attack Jericho easily locks in the walls of Jericho for the win. I love Jericho having to resort to shady tactics to get the win here. Darby still looks incredible while keeping the title on Jericho.

My top five performers from AEW this week-
1. Darby Allin
2. Chris Jericho
3. Jon Moxley
4. Adam Page/Kenny Omega
5. Lucha Bros