The Week in WWE: 1/1/17-1/7/17

Via WWE.com

Welcome to the first edition of the Week in WWE review series, which is where I'll be giving thoughts on weeks of WWE programming. I hope that most weeks I'll have it up on Fridays, but because of some other stuff I'm working on and having to entertain a guest, it's a little late this week. Everything will be done show-by-show, bullet-by-bullet. I may play around with the formatting a little bit. PPVs will get their own articles for sure. So right now this covers Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live and NXT. Let's get this started.

Monday Night Raw (Jan. 2, 2017)

-        The first segment of WWE programming in 2017 is the WWE Raw special. Authority figures set up matchups we’ve already seen a million times leading up to a talk show segment main event. Foley was particularly bad in this, and it’s just sad how his character is on this show. Stephanie McMahon having to put herself over everybody else would normally be the worst part of this, but I don’t think Foley could’ve finished the segment without her to save his ass a bit. Jericho and Owens were entertaining here, like they always are (on the mic). D

-        The first match is Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens, and the loser will be banned from ringside during the United States Championship match. It’s the same Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens match we’ve been seeing for months, but it’s got the least amount of stakes so it’s completely forgettable. These two are great wrestlers who are dead in the water with bad booking. Owens disqualifying himself was dumb and unlike what we’re supposed to expect from him. C-

-        Karl Anderson vs. Cesaro was a nice little surprise of a match. It looks like we’re getting The Club vs. Cesaro and Sheamus for the next tag program, which could be sneaky good. They put on a nice little match and Sheamus is good on commentary. There’s a distraction finish with Sheamus and Luke Gallows involved, but everything else is so fun that that doesn’t matter too much. More things like this. B.

-        The last man standing match between Sami Zayn and Braun Strowman was awesome. This is what we should’ve gotten at the PPV, but instead we got 10 minutes of neither guy really trying that hard. This had the intensity it needed and was a ton of fun. Zayn is at his best when he’s getting murdered and Strowman is really turning into something cool. I hope they don’t ruin him. I loved how if Sami started to get up, Braun would pick him up and knock him down to make sure he’d stay down. It was a nice little touch. So fun. A-.

-        The New Day came out and Titus tried to get them to join Titus brand. New Day calls him lame and it transitions to a match between Titus O’Neil and Xavier Woods. It was short and to the point, with Woods going over. I think Xavier’s really underrated as a wrestler so it was nice to see a showcase for him. I could do without the WWE’s finding ways to embarrass Titus though. C+

-        Drew Gulak actually gets a win this week (his first on the main roster maybe?) against Cedric Alexander but it has absolutely no heat. It’s crazy how you can have two of the best workers in the world go at it and have nobody care, but that’s where the Cruiserweight Division is right now. Gulak wins via distraction rollup because they’re torturing us with this Alicia Fox nonsense. C.

-        Chris Jericho and Roman Reigns have their battle and like Rollins/Owens earlier, it’s everything you’ve seen from these guys before. Unlike Rollins/Owens, this one might have actually been one of their better outings because it has stakes. What I don’t get is the booking here. Jericho has distractions, the Guerrero-style faking being hit by a weapon, and a Codebreaker but doesn’t win. Roman retains. I’m a Roman defender but this is ridiculous, and I don’t know why he’s still got this belt. Raw’s midcard is already been weak and taking one of the midcard belts out of the equation for them is laughable. C-.

-        There’s more cruiserweight action you don’t care about as T.J. Perkins takes on Brian Kendrick for the 40567^th time since the CWC. It’s an alright match but like Gulak/Alexander, the crowd couldn’t care less. Hopefully these guys are done with each other for a while. C.

-        Enzo’s injured this week, so we have Big Cass taking on Jinder Mahal and Rusev in a handicap match. I admit I zoned out a bit during this match, but I didn’t seem to miss much as the Bad Foreigners™ use the damn numbers game to take care of Cass. C.

-        Bayley and Nia Jax was a solid match and I was hoping we’d get more of it, but Sasha showed up and distracted Nia. Not a great look because it makes Nia look like a chump. She’s still got the strength of ten Bayleys. A single Bayley-to-Belly shouldn’t take care of her because she heard Sasha’s music (no matter how dope her music is). C.

-        The show’s main event is the first-ever edition of Kevin Owens’ talkshow, the Kevin Owens Show. When it starts with him and Jericho, it’s awesome. These guys have such great chemistry together and I wish their wrestling was on the same level as their promos right now. The guest of the show is Goldberg, who interrupts KO and Jericho’s shenanigans. Heyman interrupts him to say Brock isn’t there. Roman shows up as well, followed by Braun because we gotta overbook the hell out of everything. Goldberg and Roman double spear Braun and it’s a cool little moment, but it didn’t feel earned. C+.

Overall: C. Nothing about Raw was offensively bad. The Anderson/Cesaro match was really fun, and the Last Man Standing was straight fire. Everything before and after those two segments was bland and forgettable. You’ve seen most of these matches before, and you’ll see them again. Like most of the finishes, most of Raw should serve as nothing more than a distraction. I did appreciate the show’s focus on wrestling with so many matches on the card, even if they didn’t exactly deliver.

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Smackdown Live (Jan. 3, 2017)

-        Raw this week was a lot of matches we’ve seen before but significantly worse, so I was worried about Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler considering how much we’ve seen it this year. I was surprised that it ended up being a pretty high quality match, definitely the best singles match these two have done. Corbin went over, which is the way to go. After impressing in the Chairs match at TLC, the three-way last week and this match, I feel like he’s ready to break out. Corbin rules. Kalisto chased Corbin away from doing further damage, but Ziggler didn’t appreciate it and turned heel. I’m hoping this helps him get a little fresher after losing so many matches. The backstage segment after the match doesn’t make it look like it though. A-.

-        We continue the La Luchadora saga, as Becky Lynch takes her on after interfering in last week’s championship match. Becky wins and unmasks Alexa Bliss. The real La Luchadora shows up after, and she and Alexa kick Becky’s ass. Silly fun. B.

-        It’s #ShootWeek for John Cena and AJ Styles at the contract signing. Bryan’s there at first but leaves after explaining to AJ why John’s in the match. AJ proceeds to run Cena down as a has-been. I can’t believe there was a time we were worried about Styles’ ability to cut promos because he’s been great and this was no exception. Cena does some Classic Cena “You’re Not a Man You Don’t Have BALLS” and says he lost all his respect for AJ, who doesn’t care about the WWE like he does. Then Corbin comes out to say that whoever wins doesn’t matter, because he’s winning the Royal Rumble and then he’s winning the belt. This distracts John and allows AJ to knock him down and Corbin to taunt him. Excellent stuff. This is how you set up championship matches and future storylines, and I loved how this wasn’t the main event. A.

-        Carmella has a match with the debuting Aliyah from NXT. Both women looked really solid and Carmella won with a little help from her new valet James Ellsworth. I really hope this doesn’t mean a callup for Aliyah soon though, because even if she looked decent, she’s not ready for the main roster and the NXT women’s division needs her. This Carmella/Ellsworth story is entertaining the hell out of me. B+.

-        American Alpha make easy work of Breezango. I wish this went on longer because I love Breezango and think they could be the best team on Smackdown if they were given time. Alas, it’s a squash match. After the match, The Wyatts call A2 out, but they also further tease tensions between Randy and Harper at the end of it. It did its job to set things up for next week. B.

-        Shoot week continues as Natalya and Nikki Bella go after each other. Nikki counters Nattie’s accusations that she coasts off her beauty and being John Cena’s girlfriend by saying she’s coasted off her family’s success. They bring up one of Uncle Bret’s tweets praising Nikki, and Nattie implies that Nikki screwed Bret(?) to get that praise. That’s preposterous because everybody knows that the only person that screwed Bret is Bret. I’m not the biggest fan of this feud, though I do appreciate how we actually have separate women’s feuds on this show. B-.

-        In the main event, Miz and Dean Ambrose delivered. Neither guy is exactly the ace of the company in the ring, but both are in the midst of hot streaks from a wrestling standpoint. The way this goes is awesome. Maryse slaps Dean which should be a DQ, but the ref allows it and tosses her from ringside instead. Dean survives being hit with the belt and a Skull Crushing Finale, gets the Dirty Deeds and wins. I wish they kept the belt on the Miz because he’s such a good champion, but I hope this means they might promote him to the main event when Styles/Cena is done. His work this past year has been so good. He deserves it. Really good match here, and Miz’s breakdown on Talking Smack later as Conspiracy Victim Miz was even better. A.

Overall: A. For the second week in a row, Smackdown delivers a fantastic show that really doesn’t have anything that’s unessential. This is the best weekly wrestling show on right now with a bullet, and that’s coming from a big fan of both NXT and Lucha Underground. And it seems like we’re only getting started.

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205 Live (Jan. 3, 2017)

-        205 Live starts up with a nice showcase of Tajiri as he easily takes care of Sean Maluta with a Buzzsaw Kick. Maluta’s pretty decent so I hope he gets to shine a little bit in the future. He’s fine as enhancement talent now though. After the match, Brian Kendrick comes up and welcomes a fellow pioneer of the division. Tajiri shakes his hand, but he doesn’t trust Kendrick so HE MISTS HIM. This was an awesome night of wrestling but I’m not sure if I loved anything more than that. Tajiri’s still got it, man. B+.

-        Next up is Tony Nese and Jack Gallagher, which is a really fun match. Nese hasn’t had a ton of opportunities to shine since the CWC, so it’s nice to see him and Gallagher go at it a bit. Eventually Daivari interferes and attacks Gallagher. I was figuring the duel wouldn’t be the end of the feud because it wasn’t really a real match (as awesome as it was), but I dunno where they go from there, man. What we got of this match was cool. B.

-        Mustafa Ali and Noam Dar get a bit more extended of a match, which I appreciate. It’s kinda ehhh for a while and Dar feels a bit off, but Ali manages to make the best out of it, popping the crowd and winning big. After the match, Dar says he’s still going to have a big 2017 and Alicia Faaaaaawks is still allowed in his corner any time. Dar plays the super creep really well, even if I’m not the biggest fan of him as a wrestler or the feud as a whole. Prince Ali is the truth, though. B.

-        Neville continues his reign of terror against TJ Perkins. I love just about everything about Heel Neville, and I hope he never leaves us. I love that 205 Live gives him a main event slot to really shine, too. This isn’t as fun as the Neville/Swann match last week, but it’s still really solid. Neville finishing matches with the superplex is awesome too. Keeps up with the “Neville is stronger than all the other cruiserweights” things and it’s not flashy like everything else he does. I appreciate it that he does Flippy Shit in the matches overall but when the crowd is getting into it, he stops. The heel turn stays awesome. B+.

Overall: B+. 205 Live is slowly turning itself around as a very good show. This was the best episode yet, as everything served its purpose. Tajiri’s reintroduction to the main roster was exactly what you’d want. Gallagher/Daivari keeps on keeping on. Mustafa Ali is establishing himself as one of the biggest stars on the roster. Then you’ve got Neville outshining everyone else in the best way possible. If the show keeps up like this, it might succeed yet.

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NXT (Jan. 4, 2017)

-        The show starts off with The Revival getting a win over Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli. Since this is house show footage, the match goes on a bit longer than we’d expect from normal NXT TV. That’s good though, because we get a little bit more of a look at Moss and Tino than we’re used to. Not a ton pops out about these guys just yet but they both looked solid in the ring. Top guys pull through to set up the final showdown with DIY next week. B-

-        More tag team action up next, this time with oddball couples. Elias Samson and Bobby Roode go up against Tye Dillinger and the hometown boy Buddy Murphy. It’s nice to see Murphy since he’s been mostly MIA since the Dubstep Cowboys broke up, makes you tear up seeing him get a big hometown pop :’) Crowd had huge heat for Samson which offset some of the big cheers Roode got. Another fun tag match. B.

-        We get a look at the future of the women’s division as Ember Moon takes care of Billie Kay and Liv Morgan in a triple threat match. This was good fun and all three of these women are looking better and better each time we see them. I did miss Peyton Royce by Billie Kay’s side here, though. Billie did a good job of dealing with hometown cheers and rejecting the Aussies chanting for her to be their girl. Ember Moon wins as is the natural order, because Ember Moon should win everything. B.

-        Coming up next is DIY vs. TM61 for the Tag Team Championship, and it’s as good as you’d expect it to be. I wish TM61 had more character and story than we’ve got with them now, but they’re a ton of fun in the ring and work well with Gargano and Ciampa. My big complaint with the match is that I wish one of the teams was working a bit more heelish, but overall the match was dope and got really good at the end. A-.

-        We saw an abridged version of the next match two weeks ago with Samoa Joe taking on Shinsuke Nakamura for the NXT Championship. This is a lot better than the abridged version that seemed almost like two different matches, but it’s still definitely time to move onto this feud. The match was fine, but when you’ve got two legendary wrestlers in a cage match, it should be more than fine. I did like the finish with Nakamura closing the door and finishing Joe off decisively instead of escaping. Wish they built up to it better. C+.

Overall: B. There's nothing must-see about the NXT show from Australia, but it's a lot of fun regardless. If you're looking for storyline development, you're not going to get it here since it's basically a televised house show and the one story-driving segment we got was shown in abridged form a couple weeks back. The matches are fun, though. If you've got two hours to kill, check this show out.

Wretro Wrestling: In Your House 10 - Mind Games

WWE Network

As promised yesterday, here's my newest Wretro Wrestling blog. This time, we randomly got to WWF In Your House 10: Mind Games from 1996. Looking at the card initially, only a few things really popped out at me to get me excited (basically just the main event between Mankind and Shawn). It's gonna be a bumpy ride, so hang on, folks.

Savio Vega def. Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw in a Caribbean Strap Match:

This wasn’t a very good start for me, because I’m not sure there’s a gimmick match I hate more than strap matches. Strap matches bloooooow most of the time. Someone watched wrestling and said, “Hey this is neat, but you know what it needs more of? People walking around and touching the turnbuckles like they’re playing duck duck goose.” There’s usually some brutality using the strap as a whip, but that’s about it.

Savio Vega is the king of strap matches, though. So we get to see this match between him and Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw. It’s kind of crazy seeing Bradshaw at this point in his career putting on curtain-jerker strap matches with guys like Vega when he’d go on to be a main eventer. I legit forget that he had gimmicks before the Acolytes.

The big deal with this match has nothing to do with the participants. Early on in the match, Bradshaw and Vega are brawling outside, and The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer from ECW just *happen* to be in the front row. Sandman spits beer at Vega and they try to jump the barricade, but get held back. This of course was one of the first seeds to be sown in the ECW Invasion angle of the mid-90s.

The rest of the match is your standard strap match fare. Vega sells pretty well when he’s running around touching the straps and Bradshaw yanks him back. It looked cool, so it’s got that going for it. The match finishes with the classic strap match trope of Vega following Bradshaw around while he touches the corners, discretely touching the corners himself. Then it’s a *surprise* to Bradshaw when he wins! I’m pretty sure that’s how at least 75% of strap matches are won. Touching corners has never been so exciting! Vega the Strap Match God does his best to elevate it (it’s the only kind of match that Vega probably could ever elevate), but it’s still a strap match. C-.

The Gibb Reviews: Wrestle Kingdom 11

Hey folks,

One of my New Year's resolutions was to write more, so you'll be seeing me use this blog way more than I have. I'll be trotting out some stuff over the next few days and I'm hoping to make them regular segments. I was originally going to do a Wretro Wrestling Review (which is ready to go) and a Week in WWE Review (which is almost ready to go), but with all the talk about Wrestle Kingdom going on, I figured I'd start with that.

One of my wrestling resolutions this year is to watch more international wrestling. Last year I got way more into the indies, because that's probably what I love watching the most. Promotions like NJPW got pushed by the wayside a bit because I was all-in on that and WWE. I still watched plenty of stuff from Japan and the UK, but I'd like to stay caught up with them going forward.

I do have some problems with New Japan that I'm gonna state outright before the review begins. I don't care much for Gedo as a booker. Yes, he's done some excellent work building up stars. He's done especially well making up for the losses of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura in the last year. Of course, you can also look at the roster and say, "Of course New Japan was fine without them because they still have the best wrestlers in the world." Gedo also loves wrestlers playing hot potato with championships, to the point where many belts don't matter (seriously, name a championship that matters less than the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship. I'll wait). While the main events of shows are often incredible, the undercard is often weak, to the point where sometimes it takes two hours into a show before you get to a *good* match.

I've also been turned off the product a bit by New Japan fans. It's silly and stupid to let fans of something ruin a product for me, but it happens. Wrestling has all kinds of awful, annoying fans, but in my experience nothing compares to what I consider the "cult" of NJPW. Of course #NotAllNJPWFans are awful, but I've had a lot of terrible experiences with them. They're the kinds of people that will tell you that New Japan is objectively better than the WWE or American wrestling in general. If you've known me long enough to witness one of my many 2 a.m. rants on Twitter dot com, you'd know nothing triggers me more than people saying any kind of art - music, movies, wrestling, whatever - is "objectively" better than anything. They turn a blind eye to issues with the undercard and Gedo's booking and will say things like "Wrestle Kingdom was the best show I've ever seen," while also telling you that you can basically skip the first two hours of the show. Like I said, there's people like this all over wrestling fandom, but unfortunately New Japan seems to have the highest concentration of cult-like followers in my experience.

If you've read my previous reviews, you know I usually do letter grades instead of the traditional star ratings, because I kind of really hate star ratings. I'll probably stick with letter grades when it comes to weekly television, but I'm going to do star ratings for big shows. Just remember that this is not some sort of objective measurement about how good a match is. It's just my opinion and the strength of rating is just how strongly I recommend each individual match. If you think something I rated low is higher, that's fine! I love to discuss differences in opinion if you're not a dick about me not agreeing with you.

Anyway, I just thought I'd get some of that out of the way so you see where I'm coming from in regards to the company. Let's dive in.

I Watched a Wrestling: Survivor Series 2016

I really felt like my last review here was almost too positive, so I decided I would review the WWE event that happened the night after one of the best show of the year: Survivor Series. Also I have to write a 12 page paper that's due Tuesday but I really don't want to think about it right now. So here we are.
This  might be one of the most frustrating events of the year, because on paper it's a solid card even though not all of the build was that great. The one match that needed a convincing build was Goldberg/Lesnar because their first and only match that happened 12 years ago was straight garbage. They did a surprisingly good job at building that match up, because I guess Goldberg is good at promos now. Who knew? Everything else was... ehhhh. The three Survivor Series matches boasted a huge amount of talent, but we weren't given anything to go on besides "The McMahons don't like each other and want their team to beat the other one." That's weak. Give them something to fight for aside from bragging rights.

Normally I'd cover the pre-show matches but neither was really special. We got yet another cruiserweight six-man tag team match, and Kane beating Luke Harper, because you gotta keep Kane looking strong.  Let's get onto the main card.

Team RAW Women (Bayley, Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Nia Jax & Alicia Fox w/ Dana Brooke) def. team Smackdown Women (Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Natalya & Carmella)


Before the match happens, it's revealed that Nikki Bella was *mysteriously* attacked before the match, and now Smackdown team "coach" Natalya has to fill in, much to her dismay I'm sure. 

All three Survivor Series matches had some glaring issues, but the women's match was deeply flawed. This is the deepest women's division the WWE main roster has had... ever, but the booking of the match was lazy and tired. Nobody really looked good in this match. The best performer on the roster, Sasha Banks, got taken out early. Nia Jax should be booked like a monster, but she looked like a chump going out to a Disarm-Her like it was nothing. Eventually it comes down to Charlotte and Bayley against Becky Lynch, and Bayley wins. Charlotte acts like she's happy for two second before turning on Bayley, which everybody in the building saw a mile away. The match overall was just sloppy and made it hard to care about anybody, which is a shame because everybody involved (aside from maybe Alicia and Dana) have been doing some fantastic work lately even if their stories haven't been the best. C.

I Watched a Wrestling: NXT Takeover Toronto

Hi, folks. My semester is finishing up in the next two weeks, so I'm gonna have a lot more time to write for fun, which is awesome. In the meantime, I really don't want to edit a short story for a class at the moment, so I figured I'd talk a little bit about some of the wonderful graps that happened in the past weekend.

Before the shows even happened, I knew NXT Takeover Toronto was going to be a much better show than Survivor Series. I mean, most times the NXT show is better than the main roster show anyway, but this was even a bigger gap. For some reason I've heard from a good amount of people that the weekly TV series has taken a drop in quality, and I'm not sure where that's coming from. There was a little bit of an awkward transition because people didn't know who would be moving up to the main roster when the brand extension happened, but for most of the year, NXT has been the best regular weekly TV show in wrestling, aside from maybe Lucha Underground.

The weekly show got really good when the Dusty Classic started up again, and it had a chance to use the context of the tournament to build up some undercard and midcard guys. On top of the men's division, there's Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, and a huge drop, even considering guys like Austin Aries and Bobby Roode. So the Dusty Classic both were great in developing the tag division and giving singles wrestlers like Aries, Roode, Cedric Alexander, No Way Jose, Tye Dillinger, etc. stuff to do. Just think. NXT is telling great stories with Tye Dillinger while the main roster doesn't even know what to do with guys like Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens and Cesaro. Ugh.

Anyway, main roster ranting aside, let's get into the show.

Bobby Roode def. Tye Dillinger

Of everything on the card, this match had probably the best build, and that's because Bobby Roode's on a tear as his Donald Trump character. I wasn't sure how he was gonna fit in NXT and was worried he was just gonna be just another TNA guy, but his character is brilliant. And it is totally Donald Trump. Dude shows up and wants to make NXT great even though NXT already is great. He's a rich entitled jerkwad. He says and does things, and then when asked about it denies it all, even though there are record of him saying and doing the things. It's awesome. He begged Tye to team with him and then said Tye was desperate for him. Then he leaves Tye to get murdered alone at the hands of Sanity and blames the loss on him even though he bailed. It's great, great heel work.

The entrance alone with the choir deserves all the praise. And so does Tye Dillinger's weird Doctor Strange get-up. And the match is dope too. It's not gonna be the best match in the world, but it's solid as hell. Tye works so much better as an underdog babyface character than he ever did as a heel enhancement dude. He's still basically the Tyler Breeze Honorary Jobber to the Stars, but at least he gets some more shine in this role than what he was doing before the Cien Almas match. This was just a well-worked, character-driven match that further established Bobby as more than "TNA Guy No. 286." Tye is a better wrestler than he gets credit for, and this was one of his best-worked matches. Loved how he was hot right out the gate. Good work on the head/neck by Bobby as well to eventually set up the DDT, and some cool nearfalls that played to the super hot crowd. I really do hope at some point he can get at least somewhat of a push and maybe even win on a Takeover Special. B+

Wretro Wrestling: Royal Rumble 2007

Via WWE

Hi y'all. Welcome to my latest (hopefully) weekly column in which I dissect a classic pay-per-view available on the WWE Network, chosen by pure chance. I'm a Network subscriber, but I haven't watched as many old PPV's as I would like. Which is strange, because my original reason for subscription was so I could watch the PPVs I missed as a kid (my brother and I loved wrestling but never enough that would warrant our parents paying hefty costs), but I got too caught up in the current product to really dive in.


So this is my reason to go watch more classic (and not-so-classic) PPVs. All shows that happened before June 2015 (when I started watching again) are eligible. That includes WWE, WCW, ECW and NXT Takeovers. The first show that ended up being selected as the 2007 Royal Rumble, and I don't think I could've landed on a better time period. This is right about the time where I stopped caring altogether about wrestling because it was Stupid and For Babies, so I'm familiar with just about all the wrestlers here, but the specific time period escapes me. Let's dive into this.

The Hardy Boyz def. MNM

This is about as solid as an opener you can get without the opener being a potential show-stealer. The Hardy Boyz aren't at their best at this point in time, but they're still solid as hell because they're the damn Hardy Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz are a top 5 tag team of all time. MNM were a pretty underrated tag team as well. I'm disappointed John Morrison (or at the time, Johnny Nitro) never really had it together in the WWE because he had so much potential. That might be the WWE's fault considering how money he is on Lucha Underground, but still. The man deserved a better run than he ever got.

The match overall is a fun back and forth, with the Hardyz eventually picking up a win with Matt Twist-of-Fate-ing Johnny and Jeff going for the Swanton Bomb. Fun stuff, though I could've done without Melina's involvement. Wish Johnny had Taya throughout his career instead of her. B.

I Watched a Wrestling: EVOLVE 68/69 Reviews

Hey folks, I could keep up the illusion that I am capable of keeping up with WWE programming at a pace good enough to write about it regularly, but that's just not true. There have been weeks I've had to skip RAW/Smackdown completely, much less have time to write about it.

Something I can control better is reviewing big shows I watch and want to write about as I go for them. This is much better-suited for when I actually have free time. So I'm not going to do a regular column following a specific program, but instead review whatever I want when I want, because this is mostly for my own enjoyment anyway.

This past weekend I finally got to watching EVOLVE 68 and 69 shows. I know that this weekend was also the weekend of EVOLVE 70 and 71 shows, so this is clearly out of date right away, but I'm a little behind on my wrestling watching.

EVOLVE has had an up-and-down year. On one hand, most of the in-ring content has been great. They've worked out something great with WWE that benefits both companies, allowing performers to work WWN shows and WWE shows at the same time. Some of the best matches you'll find all year are on EVOLVE cards.

On the other hand, the booking has been bad. Aside from the Gargano/Galloway feud that evolved into something more along the lines of NXT vs. TNA, there hasn't been much to be inspired about. The company seems to only actually focus on one feud on the time, so it's mostly wrestling for wrestling's sake. That's not necessarily bad, but it's killed plenty a match in the EVOLVE Championship and Tag Team Championship divisions. Championship matches suffer when there's no real heat between the competitors.

EVOLVE 68 and 69 have some of those problems, but the lack of championship matches allows them to avoid some of the biggest issues the company has had. Let's dive in, shall we?

EVOLVE 68

Fred Yehi def. Jigsaw

The opening match of the weekend was extremely my jam. Jigsaw is an underrated performer who deserves more love than he gets, and I'm excited for him to be back with EVOLVE. Meanwhile, Yehi is one of the hottest things in the indies right now, in my opinion. He's got all the tools to be great and has some fantastic matches even though he hasn't received too much of a significant push in the bigger-name indies. With guys like Gargano and TJP moving on up, Yehi's gonna be one of the people that benefits the most. This is a really good match, and pretty much the perfect way to open up a show. Yehi needed a singles win after losing some big matches, and Jigsaw was a good person to get him over. Very solid chain wrestling here, and one of the best matches of the night. A-