On last night’s episode of NXT, former North American Champion Velveteen Dream returned
after months of controversy surrounding his alleged behaviour outside the ring.
He was a surprise entrant in the North American Championship number one contender triple threat
match, which was won by Cameron Grimes, who pinned KUSHIDA. It’s quite the step down
from Dream, who was feuding with Adam Cole for the NXT championship shortly before he
disappeared from TV. Dream was first accused of sending inappropriate
images to a minor back in April - which he denied in a statement on social media. During
the Speaking Out movement in June, more allegations emerged - and it was reported by the Mat Men
Podcast: “Dreams days in WWE are numbered…was told by two totally separate sources.”
And then he was off TV for almost two months, suggesting that Dream was on his way out.
But now he’s back in NXT and set to face Finn Balor next week in a second chance match
to become number one contender for the North American Championship.
But that wasn’t the only newsworthy thing to happen on last night’s taping.
Just like Raw and SmackDown, NXT is currently being pre-taped in fortnightly batches to
limit travel and the potential spread of Coronavirus. That means next Wednesday’s episode was
actually taped yesterday - which saw Johnny Gargano take on Ridge Holland, who WWE officials
are apparently very high on. But POST Wrestling is reporting that match had to be stopped
when Gargano took a scary bump on his head. Apparently both Triple H and Shawn Michaels
rushed to the ring to see if he was ok. The match was restarted after a lengthy delay,
and Gargano was able to get to the finish after he pushed for the match to be restarted,
assuring everyone he’s ok. Hopefully he is, as the pro wrestler mentality is to continue
on regardless. He might be feeling the effects today instead.
But we likely won’t feel the effects next Wednesday, as the botch will probably be edited
out and replaced with a shot of Finn Balor looking all shocked.
NXT isn’t the only wrestling brand on Wednesday nights botching spots, though.
On last week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, Matt Hardy was left needing 13 stitches in
his forehead after Sammy Guevara threw a chair at him. It was reported shortly after the
show went off air that Guevara had accidentally picked up the wrong, non-gimmicked chair,
and there was serious heat on him backstage for busting Hardy open.
And now we’ve got some more details on the backstage fallout.
Fightful Select, run by the dastardly Sean Ross Sapp - JAM THAT JAM you motherjammer
- is reporting it was ‘chaos’ backstage after the botch, with a lot of people very
upset with Guevara for the spot. Apparently even Matt Hardy, who is normally
very mild-tempered backstage, was visibly annoyed, and was said to be extremely relieved
the injury wasn’t worse - as if the chair hit him a few inches lower, it could’ve
hit him right in the eye. Guevara has apologised, and now - because
pro wrestling’s gonna pro wrestle - Hardy is using the injury as an angle to further
his “stronger than death” gimmick. Their storyline was continued on last night’s
Dynamite, which I’ll be reviewing very shortly. But first, here’s what happened on last
night’s epic
QuizzleMania 2000… WrestleTalk’s reputation, it’s family-friendly
branding that appeals to 18-49 demo advertisers and, most importantly, its YouTube monetization
standings are on the line. On our SummerSlam live reactions, if Jam That Jam gets more
Superchat hashtags, FTF has to be gone forever! But if the unthinkable happens… and Fightful
get more hashtags… then WrestleTalk’s official tagline will have to be… F*** that
F*** Me and Luke have got this. We’re stronger
than ever. We won QuizzleMania 2000 last night. When Luke and I are together… we’re unbeatable!
And now it’s time for AEW Dynamite… in about 5 minutes.
This episode’s announced theme might have been Tag Team Appreciation, but, in practice,
it was abusing old people. Ricky Morton got a spike piledriver, Jake
Roberts was graffitied on, and ‘playing by the rule’ fans were let into the stands!
There was no Excalibur on commentary yet again, but the line-up of Taz, JR and Tony has really
gelled, though. The first match saw the Dark Order minions
jump the Young Bucks ahead of their Evil Uno and Stu Grayson tag match - letting a more
traditional work over one wrestler to build to the hot tag structure, rather than AEW’s
usual back-and-forth action. Uno and Grayson were superb here, but they
lost when Nick Jackson sneaked a pin while Matt was taken out on the stage.
MJF’s campaign has now stretched its poll lead over Jon Moxley to 1,500%. But what’s
his chances of winning at Sacrifice? Awesomely, MJF’s entrance involved a callback
to his Samoa Joe NXT entrance role, where he pushed an extra into the wall.
MJF trash talked Moxley thinking he wasn’t in the building in more of the same from the
last two weeks. But then a much needed escalation of conflict happened, when Moxley ran down
and hit a Paradigm Shift for their first proper physical interaction.
MJF sold this great, almost shaking in fear with Mox’s entrance music hit, and then
overselling his neck like a petulant child afterwards.
Matt Hardy said he’ll be cleared next week to get revenge on Sammy Guevarra, but it was
played up like he’s still concussed, when he attacked a referee thinking he was Sammy.
Cody came out with his full Nightmare Family entourage next, complete with the finally
finished TNT title design. His match against Sssssscropio Sky had a similar big time fight
feel to the NWA title bout against Nick Aldis at All In.
Which was made even more newsworthy by the AEW debut of longtime WWE referee Mike Chioda,
who was released back in April. Cody and Sky had a fantastic match, from the
superficial tests of strength at the start, to brawling outside, to same great back and
forth counters in the final sequence. This was the best Sky has looked since his
World Championship match last year. He’s much better suited to a singles run, as in
my Bad Influenced head, he often feels like a third wheel to Daniels and Kaz in SCU.
Unfortunately he lost clean here. It was a great match, but I wanted just five minutes
more to really get over Sky in defeat. His several week push felt deflated by the loss.
Instead, AEW rightfully focused on the next big TNT title challenge, as Brodie Lee appeared
on the tron to set up a match on the 22nd August episode. Which is the most serious
threat to Rhodes losing the title yet. AEW are loading next week’s show not just
because they’ve got to push viewers to a different day from the NBA. But also because
they’ll be going up against NXT TakeOver XXX.
Kenny Omega continued his slightly heelish work through his and Page’s match against
Jurassic Express next - mainly trying to hurt Marko Stunt despite him not actually being
in the match. Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus put up a good fight, but the tag champs rightfully
won in about 10 minutes. In the main segment for Tag Team Appreciation
Night - The Young Bucks and FTR praised The Rock N Roll Express and Arn Anderson and Tully
Blanchard in the ring, respectively. It was a fantastic idea, drawing parallels
between the two all-time great teams, and their present day counterparts. Ricky Mortion
said FTR are incredible, but the Bucks are the best tag team in the world. While Arn
agreed the Matt and Nick have revolutionised tag wrestling, but the best team right now
is FTR. Tully, however, had no time for the circlejerk
- and pointed out neither have won any championships in AEW yet, and he still hates Arn for siding
with the Nightmare Family against him and Shawn Spears last year.
This disagreement caused a scuffle, allowing FTR to attack the Rock N Roll Express, and
spike piledrive Morton! It was a fantastic heel turn angle for the characters and story
so far. Omega and Page ran down to help, while Page was like, FTR WTF? I thought you were
good guys?! Shida squashed Heather Monroe in this week’s
Lipstick Service. I came up with that all by myself. I think that’s a pretty good
line. Jake Roberts cut a promo with Lance Archer
beating people up in the background. Lance then made Jake rip open his $200 shirt, turn
around, and reveal some Sharpie-written graffiti saying ‘Everybody Dies.’
So let’s unpack this. At some point earlier in the day, Lance wrote
‘Everybody Dies’ on Jake’s back. Then he let him get dressed, waited for the promo,
ripped off the shirt, and showed what he’d done to everyone.
And the main event saw the Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy rematch, with the $7,000 obligation
old school money stakes on the line. Unlike their first encounter, Cassidy went
straight into full effort mode - making this less of a comedy match, and more of a blood
orange feud [CUDDLY SECTION] I think I’ve squeezed the orange puns dry.
After trying to bribe Chioda with keeping his job earlier on, Jericho tried to use the
bat while Mike looked away. But Chioda stopped him from using it, allowing for an Inner Circle
and Best Friend run down spot, and Hager taking out Cassidy.
But Orange won with what was supposed to be his usual Mouse Trap pin, but Jericho botched
it by falling backwards, making for a clunky finish.
That was this week’s AEW Dynamite in about 5 minutes. Let me know what you thought of
the show in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE
SAYING JAM THAT JAM! This was another incredibly solid episode
in AEW’s astonishing consistent 2020 run. It was more of a set up show for next Saturday’s
big stacked episode, but very entertaining nonetheless. This week’s Dynamite is ⅗
by their very high standards. A major WWE angle might’ve been leaked!
Click the video on the right to find out what might go down in the SummerSlam main event!
And watch last night’s QuizzleMania 2000 featuring Team WrestleTalk vs Team Wrestling
With Wregret vs Team Going In Raw vs Team Fightful by clicking the video under that.
I’ve been Oli Davis - Jam that Jam.