You don’t have
to be on the KhanKoin media payroll to see that things have been looking pretty good
for All Elite Wrestling recently.
Nevertheless, you’re the best Tony!
An excellent Double or Nothing PPV, which is reportedly the second best performing the
company have ever done, signing Mark Henry from outta nowhere, and Andrade debuting for
the promotion on last Friday’s Dynamite.
But therein lies the disaster: Friday’s episode of Dynamite, where it’s been shifted
to from its normal Wednesday night slot because of the NBA Playoffs.
And it’s now done its worst rating in the show’s history for the second week in a
row.
Friday’s Dynamite drew an average of just 462,000 viewers - which is down over 37% year
on year.
While there are many caveats to this, like it not being the regular timeslot, there’s
still definite cause for concern for the promotion.
Firstly, this is the second show in the timeslot after the 28th May’s Double or Nothing go-home
episode - which drew 526,000 viewers.
This means AEW lost almost 60,000 viewers, 5% overall, despite it not being the first
week of the move and with a post-pay-per-view bump.
Secondly, these low ratings could continue through the rest of the month, as the NBA
will continue to push Dynamite onto Friday or Saturday nights - derailing a lot of the
momentum the show has built up this year.
Thirdly, NXT managed to beat AEW - which they hardly ever do.
And fourthly, and most importantly for AEW and TNT’s future plans, Friday nights currently
does not look like a good time for more wrestling programming.
AEW’s second show Rampage is set to premiere this August 13th on TNT, the idea being people
will have just watched WWE SmackDown on Fox, and they’ll just flick over to watch more
wrestling - which rather misses the point of a third hour of wrestling on Monday nights
being seen as an objectively bad idea even when Raw is good.
Do you think AEW putting their second show after SmackDown is a good idea, or doomed
for wrestling burnout?
Let me know in the comments down below, because I’ll be replying to as many people as I
can for the first 30 minutes after this video goes live FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
Speaking of rampages, congratulations to the new IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shingo Takagi,
who beat Kazuchika Okada at Dominion yesterday after Will Ospreay vacated it due to injury
last month.
Will wished his successor well, tweeting: “Congratulations Shingo, Google the word
“interim” That’s all you are.”
Good old wrestling bants.
Maybe we’ll see Will in the next WWE Draft.
THAT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN SEGWAY!
According to Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast, “the WWE Draft is scheduled for
8/30 and 9/3.”, which would put it the week after the Raw after SummerSlam.
Who do you want to see moved across?
Let me know in the comments - telling me why Eva Marie is a round 1 pick.
All Red Everything’s return was announced on last night’s Raw for next week, but according
to reports, she might not be alone.
WrestleVotes has tweeted that “the plans for Eva Marie’s return include her having
a “muscle” of some sorts by her side.
The two names I’ve heard most discussed to pair w/ her are Mercedes Martinez -OR-
NXT UK star Piper Niven.”
Sean Ross Sapp then corroborated the report, adding: “Niven is the plan I’d heard of
as a few weeks ago, but plans do change, pal.”
Go to WrestleTalk.com for loads more news, like WWE not having anything for Big E and
WWE’s threats to talent backstage if they leave.
But now it’s time for my review of last night’s Raw, in about 5 minutes.
I was going to do a bit this week where I’d just play my review from last week to see
if anyone noticed the difference.
But, to Raw’s credit, they actually put on different match ups from the same ones
we’ve seen the last three months.
Impressively, they still managed to do one of their worst shows ever.
The episode seemed set to open right on the action of a tag team battle royal to determine
the No. 1 contenders for AJ Styles and Omos’ titles, but not before 10 minutes of promos!
Which dragged, but Riddle seemingly making Orton corpse was funny, as was Miz rolling
down the ramp on wheelchair.
I’m a simple man.
The match saw Mace and T-Bar dominate early, but getting eliminated by everyone teaming
up.
Riddle saved Orton from a Kofi Kingston elimination, but the Viking Raiders got rid of both of
them off the distraction - meaning they won.
I expected RKBro to win this match, and I’m glad they didn’t.
SummerSlam is a much better fit for them going for the titles, and it allows their story
with the New Day to breathe.
More on that in a bit…
And, meanwhile, it lets AJ Styles and Omos feud with the Viking Raiders over eating turkey
legs.
God dammit, WWE.
Elias got attacked by a shaved head Jaxon Ryker and then he ran out on the ensuing match.
They really do seem to be doing a PTSD angle, which I fully entrust WWE to handle sensitively.
Bobby Lashley had to finish up entertaining his sisters before his contract signing - wow,
he really is a family man - so like a man who’s just listened to a history podcast
and really wants to tell you about that part he found interesting, Drew took the time to
tell the story of King Bruce losing a battle and to vote Scottish National Party.
Bobby eventually came out and demanded if Drew loses, he can’t face Lashley for the
title again.
Hurrah.
So Drew said he wants it to be a Hell in a Cell match, and MVP said that’s fine, barely
an inconvenience.
Presumably sensing how uninspired this contract signing segment was, Drew tried to save it
by slicing the table in two with a sword.
It didn’t save it, but I appreciate the effort.
Sheamus came out dressed as Dashing Cody Rhodes circa 2011 to watch Ricochet and Humberto
Carillo fight to become the No. 1 contender to his US title.
They wrestled very athletically, as expect, and it ended in a double countout, also as
expected.
Cedric Alexander is trying to get over a disrespectful rookie vibe.
He’s been on Raw for five years.
He worked noticeably slower for Jeff Hardy to go through his usual spots, and then Hardy
won clean with a Swanton Bomb.
Way to build that new character, Cedric.
Eva-Loution was announced for next Monday.
They cut back to Corey Graves edging at the desk.
And then came Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley having to tag against Nikki Cross and Asuka.
But how will they co-exist?
The answer is they don’t co-exist.
Like, not even once.
After definitely Not Raw General Managers Adam Pearace and Sonya Deville booked the
match - totally throwing away whatever heel storyline they once had when Sonya was helping
Flair - the tag continued WWE’s fascinating experiment on seeing how unlikeable they can
make Rhea Ripley.
Despite apparently being a babyface champion, her and Flair did blind tags, hard tags and
made Cross look utterly useless, getting worked over by two people who were practically ignoring
her.
She eventually hot tagged Asuka, who somehow hot tagged Charlotte to beat Ripley with a
Natural Selection, and Cross got the pin.
So the champion was pinned, like an idiot.
Asuka and Cross celebrated a meaningless victory, like idiots.
But at least Charlotte looked good.
Mansoor reversed Drew Gulak’s tight-hooking pin to win - which was a nice detail to play
into Ali telling him backstage not to trust anyone.
Then came another really nice detail in Riddle vs Kofi Kingston, set up off the angle in
the battle royal earlier.
Riddle hit Orton’s draping DDT, continuing the theme of them both using each others moves,
but then got carried away, wanting to hit an RKO too.
Kofi had that scouted and won, while Orton walked off.
But what was really interesting was Kofi’s promo backstage beforehand.
MVP approached Kofi alone, blaming him for KofiMania petering out.
Kofi then cut a great, passionate promo about being a role model, but then did show a lot
more aggression against Riddle.
I really hope this is building to something - specifically Kofi turning heel and being
managed by MVP, which would also create a heel vs face dynamic in the New Day vs RKBro
feud.
But we can only have so much quality, because what came next was one of the worst endings
of Raw I’ve ever seen.
After running a promo about Alexa Bliss without ever showing a clip of The Fiend, like this
was always hers and hers alone character, Shayna Baszler came down for an in-ring Playground
segment.
It was obviously pre-taped with the multiple camera angles, which could only mean one thing:
spooky, spooky, spooky!
Shayna wouldn’t apologise to the doll, and stamped on its face.
This prompted spooky effects like lights flickering, pre-prepared pyro spots, and presumably Fake
Eric Rowan pulling down scaffolding backstage.
Shayna ran away and locked herself in a dressing room backstage in Kevin Dunn’s nauseating
camera cuts.
This is the company that said they want to be Marvel last week.
The company that’s always said ‘we make movies’.
Yeah, s*** movies.
Baszler barricades herself in, but just like Hulk Hogan seeing the Ultimate Warrior, Shayna
saw Lily the doll in a mirror’s reflection, but it wasn’t there in real life.
The commentators could see it too, just to make everyone look stupid.
Shayna punched the mirror and that’s how the show ended.
Why can’t we just have the Fiend?
Look, this is going to be hilarious when we watch this back in a year’s time when we’re
not in the thick of it and we get months and months of ironic detachment.
Shayna’s acting was awesomely wooden.
Which is fine, because you know she’s not a trained actor.
She’s a legit MMA fighter.
I cannot wait to eventually laugh at her for it.
But right now, this is terrible.
This is week to week.
This is the main event segment of your show.
And it’s up there with the lamest things Raw has ever done.
Do you agree?
Let me know in the comments.
Right now our Poll on a Pole match is giving the slight edge to being excited for MVP managing
Kofi Kingston.
While I enjoyed a lot on this episode, mostly the RKBro bits again, and the awesome tease
for Kofi, the women’s division creative is ruining Monday nights.
The last segment was that bad, everyone, so we’re going back to it: this week’s Raw
is 1 out of 5.