Sometimes when I’ve finished watching 3 hours of Raw, two hours of NXT, two hours
of SmackDown, and then 3 hours of a WWE PPV, I find myself thinking “I really wish there
was more WWE wrestling to watch. 10 hours a week just isn’t enough!”
Well lucky old me, because it’s being reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that
Triple H is currently “trying to find a way to implement some type of a show that
would get more NXT talent ring time and exposure. They aren’t going to do house shows but
they may add something in some form.” Isn’t that what Main Event is?
Now it’s definitely a good thing that stars who struggle to feature on TV might get more
ring time, but you can’t help but think of all the money WWE claimed it needed to
save earlier this year, which led to a reported 40% of its workforce being released or furloughed.
New shows cost a lot of money, but with nearly $1 billion of profit expected in 2020, I’m
sure they’ll find a few pennies to spare. They’ll just be hoping there aren’t too
many more lawsuits like this one... A few months ago, you may remember that the
City of Warren Police and Fire Retirement System accused WWE executives of deceiving
investors regarding its dealings with Saudi Arabia.
The lawsuit alleged that WWE executives artificially inflated their stock and that senior executives
sold more than $280 million of their shares at “fraud inflated prices.”
As part of the lawsuit, it was alleged that WWE did not disclose failed negotiations with
the Saudi government over their TV deal and that WWE was not able to expand in that region,
despite claiming otherwise. WWE has now paid $39 million out of court
to settle the lawsuit, and released a statement which read:
“The Company believes that resolving the matter is the right business decision and
that it is prudent to end the protracted and uncertain class action process.”
Perhaps they can get the money back through the Undertaker’s latest social media adventure.
As a young and hip man myself, there’s nothing I like more than sitting down with a glass
of port and checking out the latest bants vids and memes on TikTok.
It seems that The Undertaker is the same, because he has now officially joined TikTok,
just days after WWE announced that he’d be joining Cameo for a short time to help
promote his appearance at this Sunday’s Survivor Series.
His first post features the Undertaker and his wife Michelle McCool, with Michelle wearing
a rubber Undertaker mask and pretending to be her husband in the hashtag Undertaker Challenge,
which I’m sure will be the latest rad ting with da kidz.
Head on over to his channel for some more Tikkity Tokkity goodness. I bet it will be
jokes. Memes. And now it’s time for a review of last night’s
SmackDown in about 5 minutes! The show started with Street Profits plugging
Survivor Series, much like they used to plug Raw when they were the NXT Tag Team Champions.
Okay fine, it’s a go-home show, and then Big E interrupts, and the three have a pretty
good back and forth about their upcoming match with the New Day on Sunday. Big E then reveals
that Woods and Kingston are here tonight. You know, after their emotional farewell they
had about a month ago. They then waltz down to the ring, without
Big E I might add, despite Big E being, you know, right there, and then they cut a relatively
unfunny promo on the Street Profits, before they’re interrupted by Intercontinental
Champion Sami Zayn, King Corbin and Ziggler and Roode. After an unconvincing bait and
switch, the Street Profits came out to make it an 8-man tag, which the Street Profits
won after Sami Zayn was tagged in without his consent, and then he was hit with a spinebuster
and a Frog Splash and there’s your Intercontinental Champion everyone. The one person on that
4-man team who holds a title, and he’s the one he takes the pin. Sure. Alright.
Backstage an angry Zayn runs into Bryan, who pushes him over. Alright, sweet build to a
feud after Survivor Series guys. Definitely not the GM Adam Pearce then announces
the final member of the men’s Survivor Series team, Otis. Okay. Didn’t he lose to Seth
Rollins in a qualifying match? Hey do you remember at Hell in a Cell when Tucker turned
on him and cost him the MITB briefcase? You’d think he’d be more upset about that.
Definitely not the GM Adam Pearce then reveals to Natalya that he could also pick one member
of the SmackDown women’s team, why one person, we’ll never know, and he picked Bayley.
Natalya still gets a third chance to qualify though, in a singles match against Tamina,
which she won in about two minutes. Bayley called herself the captain of the team,
I really, really don’t care about these Survivor Series matches.
Up next was Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre having a contract signing. Sure, have all
the Raw stars on, why not. In a genius little move though, Reigns sat himself at the head
of the contract signing table. I see what you did there.
The pair cut very natural promos on each other, without mics, which only added to the real
feel of the promos. I was already excited for this match, and I am still very excited.
Nobody got put through a table this time, and I’m really glad they’re holding off
on the physicality between the two until the show tomorrow.
That being said, the camera cuts during these promos were f*****g obnoxious. Nothing is
happening, they’re both just sitting there talking. You don’t need dramatic cuts between
a wide shot and each individual expression on their face every few seconds when their
expression hasn’t changed. God. Also Michael Cole tried his best to sabotage
my excitement for this match by telling us “this is about bragging rights”. Ughhhh,
nothing kills my excitement more than being reminded that this show means precisely nothing.
After this was the blowoff, hopefully, between Seth Rollins and Murphy.
Murphy entered accompanied by the Mysterios, so yeah, Rollins vs Mysterios is kind of still
going on, and after Murphy held Rey and Dominik back and said “I’ve got this”, I thought
this would be Murphy’s big coming out party. This will be Murphy’s big win, the time
where WWE tells you to watch this man, because he is a future star. And I was sort of right.
Seth Rollins absolutely dominated Murphy for this match. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing.
Every time Murphy mounted some offense, Rollins shut it down. He beat up Murphy, he beat up
Rey, he beat up Dominik, and then he beat up Murphy some more. There was a great spot
where Murphy tried to climb back through the ropes and Rollins hit the stomp through the
middle rope, but Murphy managed to get his foot on the bottom rope from the pin.
Murphy then eventually came back, hitting about 17 running knees because that’s all
he knows, before hitting a Murphy’s Law and pinning Seth Rollins clean! Nice! Murphy
beat Rollins! That’s great! Would have been nice if he could have hit, I dunno, maybe
some moves through the match, but Murphy won! Good for Murphy. Here’s hoping he continues
to be treated like a star going forward. I’m not gonna hold my breath though, especially
with the way this segment ended. As Murphy and the Mysterios all gathered in
the ring and began to celebrate, Sasha Banks’ music hits, we’re reminded it’s Boss Time
on SmackDown and then it cuts to an ad break. You don’t get a celebration Murphy, look
at Banks, she was in the Mandalorian don’t you know.
After the ad break, it’s Banks and Raw Women’s Champions Asuka, who will be facing each other
at Survivor Series with absolutely no build. Granted, the match will probably be great,
because it’s Asuka and Banks. But they didn’t exactly make me excited for it with this promo
segment. Also why did Drew and Roman need a contract
signing, but Asuka and Banks didn’t? Eh, why do I even question these things.
Asuka started saying other wrestlers catchphrases? For some reason? And then Banks said she was
gonna win, and then Asuka said she wasn’t ready for Asuka, and then Carmella attacked
Banks again, while Asuka just watched her do it. What a...babyface?
And then finally, it’s time for the main event of the go-home show for Survivor Series,
it’s Jey Uso vs Daniel Bryan. With absolutely no stakes. Or any relevance to Survivor Series
at all. But, this was great. After promos from them both earlier in the night, and a
video package reliving Jey’s heel turn and attack on Bryan, there was some pretty significant
heat between the two. And the match was incredibly well worked,
with Bryan’s back and kidneys getting worked over for the majority of the match, even being
put through the announce table. While there wasn’t anything overly flashy or huge spots,
I really bought in to Jey’s beatdown of Bryan, so that when Bryan eventually fired
up and came back, I was into it. It’s almost as if Bryan and Jey are really good wrestlers
or something. And the finish managed to protect both of
them too, with Bryan only just managing to roll Jey up for the win. The match felt very
even, like on another day, Jey could have won, which we’ve seen already he can. But
this cemented that that win wasn’t really a fluke. It felt like Jey belonged alongside
Bryan, and they have done a fantastic job making him feel like a top player on SmackDown.
But no time to think about that it’s Drew vs Roman on Sunday and Undertaker’s final
farewell after 30 years, don’t forget to tune in, thank you for watching bye!
So that was the show - let me know what you thought in the comments and head on over to
our Twitter as we’ve brought back polls to grade the show! 68.9% of you thought this
show was Good or Excellent, but just like last week, I’ve got to go against the grain
here. I agree with Pablo here who said “first half was bad, second half was pretty good
imo”. The problem is that this is a go-home show for supposedly, one of your Big 4. And
despite have promo segments between the champions, I’m not looking forward to the show any
more than I was before. The good stuff on this show, was really good,
but it also was the stuff that wasn’t about Survivor Series. It’s almost as if Survivor
Series gets in the way of potentially great stories and is an obstacle that WWE and the
fans have to get through every November because brand warfare doesn’t f*****g mean anything.
If you’re going to keep Survivor Series, build to it properly. This felt really underwhelming
for a go-home show, and for that I have to give it a Poor rating. 2/4.
It’s Survivor Jams tomorrow - Olithority vs Team Luke Warm. And every time one team
gets a prediction wrong while the other gets it right, one member of that banished is eliminated
from the stream and must watch from the Loser’s Lounge, over on Wrestle2. But they’re not
watching Survivor Series, they’re watching everyone else react to the show. It’s Survivor
Series live reactions, live reactions. So press the video on the right now to set
your reminder, and press the video below to watch Laurie Blake’s latest Explained video,
looking at the entire career of The Undertaker. Trust me, it’s really good. While you’re
there, subscribe to partsFUNknown, it’s also, really good. Subscribe here for daily
wrestling news videos, I’ve been Corporate Chopper, Jam That Jam.