On today’s news, there’s been a bunch more WWE releases, as appears to be the standard
for 2021, the reason for those releases has been revealed, and my review of last night’s
SmackDown.
I was going to do a really funny bit about getting you to subscribe today, but with all
the releases, it doesn’t quite seem appropriate.
But just trust me, it was the funniest thing you’d ever seen.
You should still subscribe though.
It’s 2021, you know what that means.
It means it’s time for WWE to start stripping away and getting rid of all the talent they
hoarded in years gone by, including some truly shocking names.
This trend continued last night, with a dozen more names from NXT being let go from the
company.
The full list of released wrestlers from yesterday is:
Former NXT North American Champion Bronson Reed, Former North American Champion Leon
Ruff, Tyler Rust, fromer Retribution member Mercedes Martinez, Bobby Fish, Ari Sterling,
Jake Atlas, Kona Reeves, Zechariah Smith, Asher Hale, Giant Zanjeer, Stephon Smith and
Desmond Troy.
Bronson Reed is the most shocking name on this list, for a few reasons.
He was North American champion until the end of June, he just had a match with Adam Cole
on NXT, and he reportedly was having dark matches in preparation of being called up
to the main roster, at the same time as current NXT Champion Karrion Kross.
He’s also a big lad, so you’d have thought that Vince would have been all over him.
Mercedes Martinez was a fairly protected wrestler, having feuds for the NXT Women’s Championship,
before unfortunately being concussed recently in a match against Xia Li.
Tyler Rust had just debuted for NXT as part of Roderick Strong’s Diamond Mine faction,
that now consists of him, Malcolm Bivens as a mouthpiece and Hideki Suzuki as his...trainer?
Bobby Fish was part of Undisputed Era, and since his return to NXT following a nasty
injury at TakeOver: War Games last year, he has done essentially nothing, including a
match with former Era buddy Roddy Strong, which was almost throwaway on this week’s
episode.
Ari Sterling and Jake Atlas had both been featured performers on NXT, and you couldn’t
escape Kona Reeves on NXT for a while.
Both Sterling and Asher Hale had only signed with NXT in January this year.
These releases don’t make any sense.
But that’s par for the course for WWE this year: doing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t
make any sense.
However the reason for these releases is not the same ‘budget cuts’ reason that’s
been used for a lot of other releases this year.
Instead PWInsider is reporting that WWE has plans to repackage NXT with a new logo, new
lighting and a different format to shows, with an emphasis on highlighting younger talent
going forward.
The ‘housecleaning’, and I use that term incredibly lightly, appears to be part of
heading towards that direction.
I don’t hate the idea of a repackaged NXT, as its shine has definitely been rubbed away
in recent years.
I do hate the idea of releasing Bronson Reed.
I love Bronson Reed.
This company.
But one wrestler it seems WWE are incredibly keen on keeping around is Adam Cole, whose
future is up in the air.
Reports emerged that AEW had offered Cole a contract, which Tony Khan has refuted on
Busted Open Radio with Fightful Select reporting that Cole and AEW haven’t had a “formal
conversation” yet, and now with Cole’s contract extension coming up soon, it seems
WWE have taken the next step into attempting to secure Cole’s services for the future.
According to Fightful Select, Adam Cole was called to SmackDown last night to have a “high-level”
meeting with Vince McMahon himself.
Bringing out the big guns.
I suppose there is a glimmer of hope that if Cole does get called up to the main roster,
they might be more inclined to treat him well after all they’ve gone through to ensure
he stays in the company.
But then again, it’s WWE.
And now it’s time for a review of last night’s episode of SmackDown, in about 5 minutes.
We kick off SmackDown with BOSS TIME.
That is an actual quote from Michael Cole.
I hate it.
After commentary recaps the Banks turn from last week, you know what we need?
A recap package showing the thing they just described.
Boy this is gonna be a good show isn’t it.
Banks cut a promo saying that Bianca would be nothing without her, before Bianca herself
came out and retorted saying she wants to fight Banks at SummerSlam.
But not so fast, because here’s Zelina Vega, saying hold on, you accepted my challenge
last week Bianca, so when’s my title shot?
Bianca said fine, she’ll fight Banks at SummerSlam, and she’ll fight Zelina tonight
for the championship.
Okay, that’s cool, we like a fighting champion.
And then the graphic came up that it’ll be Belair vs Vega for the title tonight, great.
And then Michael Cole said it’ll be Bianca Belair vs Sasha Banks tonight!
Come on Cole.
But then, later in the show, commentary quickly tells us with a new graphic that the match
has been changed to a Championship Contender’s match.
Which, I know has been on Raw, but this is the first time one has been on SmackDown.
So I’m going to say my thoughts on it.
Championship Contender’s matches, with the champion already in the match, is one of the
dumbest f***** ideas this f****** company has ever f****** done.
For f*** sake.
So why has this match become a Contender’s match?
Well Zelina Vega finds Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville backstage to question them about it,
and they say, no word of a lie, well they can’t just give a title match on TV with
no promotion.
Since f****** when?
They do title matches on TV without promotion all the time.
And this is on the same show where Shinsuke Nakamura faced Apollo Crews for the Intercontinental
Championship, with no promotion.
I’m being f***** gaslit.
What is this company.
Anyway, that match is later, first we’ve got to get to a recap of the Mysterios vs
Usos feud, and then before we have between Dominik and Jey, because that’s one of the
combinations of Mysterios and Usos we haven’t had yet, Rey asks Dom backstage, why did you
challenge Jey?
And Dom says, I’m just doing what you taught me, and get in Jey’s head.
What does that even mean?
Get in Jey’s head?
By having a match with him?
I don’t...what?
It’s just words, there’s no meaning behind any of it.
Jey vs Dominik then happened, for basically no reason because we’ve got to keep that
plate spinning for SummerSlam and the only way WWE knows how to do that is to keep having
the same f****** match but with slightly different competitors, and Jey won after a few minutes.
Cool.
After a recap of Rollins & Edge, Edge backstage says he’s gonna wait for Rollins to get
here and then he’s gonna do something, I don’t know, I was so checked out of the
show, and it’s only like 15 minutes in.
As mentioned before, Shinsuke Nakamura then faced Apollo Crews for the Intercontinental
Championship, but did he really?
Because this match went for about a minute, nothing really happened, the crowd weren’t
into it at all, and then Azeez caused the DQ, and then Boogs played his guitar.
And literally nothing has changed since the start of the segment.
In other words, a complete waste of time.
After another recap package, of the contract signing from last week, where the dastardly
heel John Cena stole babyface Finn Balor’s title opportunity, Paul Heyman then speaks
to Kayla Braxton and says the contract situation is a joke, because Cena signed a contract
that wasn’t his.
Yes.
Paul Heyman is right.
Cena should not have this match.
This isn’t a heel having some sort of justification for their actions, this is just the heels
being right, and the babyfaces being wrong.
Big E then laughs at Paul Heyman holding the briefcase.
Cool.
Tamina then faced Tegan Nox in a quick match where Tamina got shot by the tank, which somehow
wasn’t a DQ.
Do I even care anymore.
Edge came out, and I really enjoyed this promo segment.
Edge wants a SummerSlam match with Rollins, who comes up on the tron and says that he’ll
think about it, but Edge should think about it too, think about what he’s getting into,
and his future, as a husband, as a father.
Edge snaps at this comment, and fires back, calling Seth Edge Lite.
And this enrages Seth, who accepts Edge’s SummerSlam match.
I really liked both the promos here, and I like that each of them knows how to get under
the other one’s skin.
This is good.
Kayla Braxton backstage asks Finn Balor a question, but Finn cuts across her, like a
dick.
“Finn last week-” “Kayla, Stop.”
That’s a direct quote right there.
Thankfully, Balor is actually mad at John Cena, thank god.
Not all the characters are really stupid.
That’s nice.
The Street Profits are back, that’s fun.
I don’t know how long they’ve been called the…*checks notes*...”sultans of swag”
though.
Hate that.
And they went straight into a match against Ziggler and Roode.
Hello 2020, nice to see you again.
Profits won in a quick match.
Bianca Belair faced Zelina Vega in their Championship Contender’s Match next...god I hate that
stipulation so much...Banks causes a distraction which gives Vega control, but Bianca fights
back and she wins.
Cool.
And then we got Balor vs Corbin, after another recap of that contract signing, and Corbin
tries to apologise for his actions for last week, but Balor does not his accept his apology
and beats him up.
And then he wins.
Balor then cut a promo after which I thought was pretty good!
He said that the Finn Balor of three years ago would have just smiled and accepted what
happened last week, but this Finn Balor isn’t smiling anymore.
He wants his Universal Championship match, and if he has to go through Cena to get it,
that’s what he’ll do.
He’s interrupted by Roman Reigns, who comes out to say that Balor should keep his name
out of his mouth...but Balor was saying how he wanted to still fight you for the title.
And he didn’t want Cena to.
Which is what Roman also wants.
But Roman now doesn’t want Balor doing that either?
I’m confused.
Balor pushes Roman out of the ring, but then gets attacked by The Usos, who he manages
to fight off, but then gets assaulted 3-on-1 and gets beaten up.
John Cena did not make the save.
I’m telling you, he’s a heel.
That was a show.
Let me know what you thought in the comments and by voting in our POLL ON A POLE MATCH
on our Community Tab where 87% of you voted for Edge vs Rollins confirmed!
Boy.
This show.
It wasn’t bad.
It was just incredibly boring.
Nothing really happened aside from a couple matches being confirmed that we already knew
were going to be confirmed.
What do I even rate this show?
It’s inoffensive, aside from the Championship Contender’s stuff, which is still the stupidest
thing I’ve ever heard, so by default it’s a 3 out of 5?
But...really I want to give it lower because it’s not good?
I dunno man.
I’m done.
Numbers scores don’t matter anyway.
Do you know what is good though?
It’s the return of Fantasy Booking Warfare, which you can check out right now on partsFUNknown,
where you can see Oli Davis vs Alex Queen of the Ring as both of them book Daniel Bryan’s
AEW debut, and you guys get to choose the winner!
Check
that out right now!