War Games 2018 did not disappoint. Lots of ring psychology and plot twists. A few blown spots, but they managed to smooth their way through it.
Some Mauro bon mots:
“Ricochet planned retribution but he got scuttled by Cole” - clever pun on coal scuttle
“O’Reilly is looking to deskeletize Rowe like O’Reilly was a piranha and Rowe was a water buffalo!”
“All four members of the Undisputed Era with more chemistry than a science fair!”
“Teamwork makes the dream work!”
“Dunne would like to set a table for four - preferably the Undisputed Era four!”
“Dunne may be a vegetarian but he has a propensity for finger food!”
“Cirque de Ricochet in Full Effect!”
“Ricochet is NXT’s cheat code!”
Referring to the area between the ropes of the adjoining rings as “The alleyway of brutality” - actually, that was Nigel’s.
Favorite spots
6 of the combatants are RoH alumni, as well as one of the commentators, Nigel.
Ricochet, Dunne and the War Raiders wear identical war paint.
Hanson and Rowe preempt Dunne from entering the match, leading to something bad happening to them later for their impatience.
Roderick Strong’s trifecta of two Urinagis and a Lung Blower on Ricochet.
When Bobby Fish is released from his cage, he sticks his hand in Dunne’s. Dunne falls into the “must break fingers” daze. Fish takes advantage and pulls Dunne face first into the bars, stunning him so that Fish could put his lock on Dunne’s cage and throw away the key.
When Dunne is finally released, he doesn’t charge into the cage bezerk. Instead, he takes time to throw PLUNDAH into the cage.
Hanson traps Cole in a trash can, and Rowe throws Hanson’s massive body on top.
O’Reilly has Ricochet trapped in a triangle choke while on top of a table, and Hanson does a splash off the top rope to break the hold and the table. Someone that size shouldn’t be able to do that kind of shit.
The 7-man suplex, followed by Ricochet’s 630 Splash off the top of the cage.
Frenemies Dunne and Ricochet double pin Cole, then hold their belts and stare warily at each other on top of the cage while everyone else wallows in agony below.
I disagree. It was the only schmozz on the show, and given that these two have had a number of singles matches, I can understand wanting something different from a booking perspective. If Sane were going over, I would have had them caught interfering and costing Bayzler a fall, then being ejected. With Bayzler going over, I understand the desire to give Sane a clean pinfall. Clusterf*cks are fine, especially when done early in the card and only once on a show. Closing with a cluster, or having them on 1/2 the matches, then it’s an issue. YMMV.
One - who did Samoa Joe piss off to deserve a depush like that?
Two - the last move I expected to see tonight was a Neck Pillmanizer - especially on Rousey. Okay, you could see how the chair was gimmicked (one of the legs was detached from the seat), but still…
(History lesson: a “Pillmanizer” is where a wrestler wedges another wrestler’s ankle in a folding chair, then stomps on the chair in an attempt to break the ankle, named for probably its most famous victim, Brian Pillman, at the hands of Steve Austin.)
SS has been getting good reviews from what I can tell, but I just couldn’t get into it. The brand shirts are distracting and take away the wrestlers’ identities, but the Charlotte/Ronda match made me forget about that, and the CW match was thankfully independent of brand politics. Otherwise, the RAW sweep took away any sense of balanced competition, and seeing a lifelong stalwart like Samoa Joe get taken out in 2 seconds completely destroyed the momentum for me. That, and the silly pee pants thing. At least NXT Takeover doesn’t book for kindergarten.
The Good: Rousey vs Flair; Bryan vs Lesnar; Murphy vs Ali; the crowd turning against Rousey (can Lynch be any more over?!?!)
The Bad: Jobbing out Samoa Joe and Finn Balor; Ignoring pre-show results
The Ugly: The close to the Tag Team match
As soon as I saw Spud playing with his pants, I knew where it was going and groaned and cursed the McMahon name. Took about 8-10 seconds for the announcers to catch up, and everyone involved should be embarrassed to have taken part and not united against VKM (and that includes the announce team).
Reportedly he’s now banned for life from the Staples Center, and tonight at Raw they had pictures of him at the entry points warning the ticket-takers not to let him in.
You almost have to pity how S-A-W-F-T he’s become.
In case one didn’t know that McMahon is surrounded by Yes-men, they doubled down on the pee-Spud’s-pants angle rather than acting like it never happened. I haven’t heard nor seen one positive or even neutral comment about that angle. But Vinnie Mac must think it’s funny, so no one is telling him the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
I’m really enjoying going back and watching all the old episodes of 205 Live. I’m on #6 right now. Cedric Alexander and Noam Dar feuding over Alicia “Foooooox”. Neville turning heel and running roughshod through Rich Swann and T.J. Perkins. I’m also watching the cruiserweight championship matches on the pay-per-views. But I’m relying on 205 Live episodes themselves to give me the big cruiserweight highlights of RAW. I’m not digging through every RAW episode to see every cruiserweight match there, let alone the promos, which aren’t bookmarked.
So, Starrcade happened. (You can find it under In Ring/WWE Network Exclusives). Absolutely nothing happened that I’ll remember in a month, except that Elias got to share the stage with Ric Flair. It was a full-length, glorified house show, but half the matches weren’t televised, including a match between Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.
Main event showed AJ Styles making Samoa Joe tap out to the Calf Crusher inside a steel cage. Joe can’t even beat him when there’s no title to change hands.
Terry Funk used to be the main heel in NWA back in the 70’s. The man could rip a promo to make the audience absolutely hate him. He had that sinister edge to his voice that added a little scariness as well.
Dean Ambrose perfectly channeled that last night. He showed his scorn for the audience by showing himself getting inoculated before entering <insert city here>. “This is for Dysentery! This is for Pneumonia! This is for Distemper! This next one’s for Rabies!”
Doctor: This will hurt a bit.
Dean: Comes with the territory. /hisses and grits his teeth
Dean rants some more as the doctor brings out a horse-sized syringe.
Dean, I love you again. This is much better than the face version of Lunatic Fringe. This was some Hamlet-level promo delivery.
Dean did the best he could do, and the best promo on that sad, sad, sorry show, but the angle was atrocious, as was every angle this week. That was a boring, horrible Raw. And did we need that much Corbin?
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