Traditionally, WWE pretty much takes it easy during the holidays because it's usually about making people happy, letting the faces win, making the kids happy, letting everyone go home with a smile on their faces, and having matches without any real stakes.
This year wasn't really any different, at least not entirely. There was definitely one cool surprise, but we'll get into that later. For now, let's start with Raw.
So we had the Miracle on 34th Street Fight between Elias and Bobby Lashley, which only requires one word to describe it: Legos. This was pretty ingenious, because I would honestly rather have an gluteus maximus full of thumbtacks than Lego pieces because either way, it's going to hurt, but Legos? Forget it. Add in some fire extinguishers, and eggnog being dumped on Lio Rush's head, and Elias hitting Lashley with a cello for the pin and win and you have the makings of a fun time. Certainly not a great match, but a fun one.
Next up was the Raw Tag Championship match between Roode and Gable vs The Revival. While the babyfaces won to retain, you get the feeling that this is going to become a rivalry since Gable didn't pin the legal man. What I'm legitimately hoping for is a rematch for the title (maybe at the Rumble), where not only The Revival get the win, since they're one of the few legit tag teams out there (there's a big difference between throwing two superstars together and being an actual tag team), but it comes at the cost of Gable doing something dumb and Roode turns on him and we finally get the heel Roode we've been wanting on the main roster since he got called up.
Then we had what I considered to be the match of the night (for purely personal reasons) and that was Finn vs Dolph vs Drew in a terrific triple threat. The match was terrific just by itself, but it ended with Finn picking up the W. To have Finn continue to go over strong contenders is a sign of a real push towards a title, and it's long overdue since he's spent a lot of time meandering around the midcard. It doesn't have to be the Universal Title, but it should absolutely be the IC title. Picture Dean with all his gas-masked acolytes coming out and beating the hell out of Finn and then we suddenly get The Demon King. It would be heaven for me because I love that man, and he deserves a legit title run.
Then came a promo from Satan Claws... I mean Vince McMahon, who made the "exciting" announcement that John Cena would be returning next week on both Raw and Smackdown (which doesn't really make any sense), but actually made a really exciting proclamation that we would finally have a women's tag division! Now that is actually really great news, and I'm glad that they're doing this because it's an actual indication that they're listening to the fans, which is what they're purporting to do. If I had to guess, the women's tag division would be cross-branded because I just don't see enough female talent on either show's roster to make up the 6 or 7 tag teams they would need on each show. But who knows? There could be more NXT call-ups for this specific reason. Or maybe the Bellas come back...
And then there was a 6-woman tag match between the team of Dana Brooke, Alicia Fox, and Mickie James vs Ember Moon and the Boss and Hug Connection. Again, the babyfaces went over, because Christmas, but the match looked pretty sloppy. The heel team couldn't quite get it in gear, but that really wasn't the point of this match. The point here was to put Boss 'N Hug over for them to immediately get stomped by The Riott Squad, marking the beginnings of a feud between the two teams that would get them closer to being the contenders for the just-announced women's tag titles.
Since it's a three-hour show, and this was pre-taped, we knew there were going to be promos and general silliness and video packages. Paul Heyman came out to sing, literally, the praises of Brock Lesnar and how he was going to come out on top of Braun in their Universal Title match at the Rumble, but naturally, Braun would come out and scare the hell out of Heyman.
Then came what confusingly wasn't the main event of the evening and that was the Raw Women's Championship match between Natalya and Ronda. For the life of me, I really don't understand how a minor feud match closed the show instead of their biggest star in a title match, but whatever. This was another really really solid outing from both competitors, and again, because Christmas and it being a face vs face match, there wasn't a heel turn from either competitor and Ronda went over.
Here's the thing about Ronda Rousey: I don't like her as a person. She's made a few transphobic statements in the past, she's not particularly good in her promos and she's also potentially a Sandy Hook truther, but damn, she's a fish to water when it comes to WWE. Her move set has expanded well, she's obviously gotten over her initial nervousness, and she's been looking awesome in the ring, not just at selling, but also learning to play up the emotional storytelling as well. She really seemed like she didn't want to hurt Nattie, and she played up the sadness of having to put her in the armbar. This was a great performance from Rousey, and just a terrific match all around.
And then, we had two former members of 3MB facing off as Heath Slater seemingly having turned in his ref shirt for his ring tights squaring up against Jinder Mahal and the Singhs. This was pretty standard fare for a holiday show as we had Santa going around the arena and tossing "gifts" to the audience while the match was going on. Heath got the upper hand by the distraction, but the Singh Bros came in and caused a DQ by stomping on Heath. This naturally was a setup for a declaration Heath had made before in the evening that he wanted his friend Rhyno to get his job back. Of course, it was Rhyno dressed up as Santa, and he intervened in the beatdown to save Heath. The spirit of Christmas indeed.
But we wrapped up the night with Seth Rollins and Baron Corbin. As I said in a previous post, I don't think Seth should be winning right now. He should be a shell of a man, broken by the loss of his IC title to his former brother Dean, broken by Dean's turn, and broken by Roman's absence. Beating him down even further will make us root for him harder at the Rumble, but it's Christmas and this is more of the thing they'd be doing (and are doing) in NXT. So... we had Seth going over Corbin. It wasn't a terrible match, but I don't think Corbin is very talented in the ring, so when he's going up against someone who is so obviously his superior, he never ends up looking good. The General Manager position was actually the best use of Corbin since he hit the main roster because he discarded his "lone wolf" character in favor of an ass-kissing megalomaniac. It was a serviceable match for the show, and I honestly think the reason this went on last was because Seth does a fantastic job of giving a thoughtful and thankful post-show promo to the fans.
So here comes Smackdown! Since this was on the evening of Christmas Day, my wife and I forced my eighty-year-old dad to watch at his house, so every once in a while, I'll be interjecting some of the things he said as we all watched.
It opened with The Fabulous Truth coming out with Truth as "Truthy Claus" and Mella as "Carm-elf-a". Soon a grinchy Daniel Bryan came out and really threw some truth bombs at the audience regarding the environment and he hates Christmas because of how wasteful and destructive our society is and how we're contributing to climate change and islands of garbage floating in our oceans. Only in Vince McMahon's WWE would we have a vegan environmentalist champ as the heel. The beatdown of Truth that would come actually works in storyline, since Truth is coming out as #30 in the Rumble, and Daniel should want to keep every edge he could.
Dad: "This is a wrestling show, right? Do people wrestle or what the hell?"
Then we got what could have been easily the match of the night if a more important and fun one didn't come later and that was Mustafa Ali against Andrade Almas. This was a fucking great match, and there's nothing I'm loving more right now than seeing these guys not only on TV, but seeing a pretty big push for Ali. This whole match was a big smile machine for me. And goddamn, Ali's cyclone DDT is a thing of beauty. And again, Ali went over setting up something cool later on.
Dad: "Oh, so that's what you call a wrestling match? In my day, it was two monsters beating the hell out of each other, not all this flippy crap." I guess I need to show him The Revival, apparently.
Then we had the 8-man tag match with The Usos and The Club vs The Bar and Sanity. Within kayfabe, I don't really understand how Sanity would want to tag with anyone. They're agents of chaos; they should be wanting to tear everyone and everything apart, be it The Bar or The Usos or whoever stands in their way of being on top of the SD tag division. But at least we're seeing them on TV and we're also seeing Alexander Wolff doing moonsaults. But it was The Club that hit The Magic Killer on Cesaro to put an end to this match, and that was fun to see The Good Brothers get the pin. This didn't further anyone's story, but it set up some momentum for The Club going forward.
Dad: "What the hell are all these people doing in the ring? What happened to just two guys beating the hell out of each other?"
I have to talk about the backstage segment where Mustafa walked around getting props from all his fellow cruiserweight faces, and he runs into Shelton Benjamin. It seemed like Shelton was going to get all up in his grill, but the real shocker was Daniel Bryan attacking Ali from behind. It was a good swerve but more importantly, it sets up a strong rivalry between Ali and Bryan that could very possibly be setting up a championship match between these two at the Rumble, and that would be fantastic, especially since I'm going. And WWE? Can we please get some Mustafa merch? I like Pro Wrestling Tees a lot, but their sizing is weird.
Then came the badass grudge match between Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy, where Joe won via DQ because Hardy's attack on him outside the ring was relentless. This will be an interesting rivalry going forward as Hardy goes a little darker, but not Randy Orton levels of brutality.
Dad: "Why the hell does that guy have that paint shit all over his face? And how could he possibly beat that big sonofabitch? He looks like he weighs about 500 pounds and here's this skinny dude doing all these flippy things. You kids are weird."
We also had The Miz with Shane McMahon on Miz TV, and it was... weird. Miz claiming that all he really wanted was his daddy's love, and that's why he's been pushing so hard to team with Shane, and in the spirit of the season, Shane agreed to be a member of "the Best Tag Team in the World", but also Shane telling Miz that if he screws him, there will be consequences. I'm laying the bet right now that it's going to be Miz vs Shane at Mania.
Dad: "Where the hell is the wrestling? What's with all this talking crap?"
We also had some backstage shenanigans with Mandy Rose trying to get Jey Uso to kiss under the mistletoe, which led to Naomi trying to get at Mandy, and calming down enough to kiss Jey. Awww... real life wrestling couples are cute.
And speaking of real-life wrestling couples... Lana accompanied Rusev to the ring for his US title bout against Shinsuke.
And Rusev WON THE TITLE!! IT WAS INDEED RUSEV DAY!!
This was easily match of the night. Filled with drama, some great and dramatic false finishes and all of the stops definitely being pulled out. This was arguably one of Shinsuke's most entertaining matches on the main roster, and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here with both of these guys, but I am certainly happy to finally see Handsome Rusev with a title again. Just imagine, though, if he had been given this opportunity when he was at the peak of how over Rusev Day was.
Dad: "Wow, I can't believe the Asian guy's head is still attached to his shoulders after that kick. That was pretty good."
But this wasn't the end of the show.
Backstage, A.J. ended up talking to Vince, who asked who the real A.J. Styles was. Vince kept pushing and pushing A.J. until he eventually snapped and hit Vince. A.J. was dragged off of him, snarling like a wild animal, and Vince smiled devilishly. This whole segment was fucking bizarre and if it had happened on Raw with someone like, say Seth, I wouldn't trust where they were going with his character, but since it's happening on Smackdown, I'm more likely to trust it and to tune in to see where this is all going to go with A.J. and Vince. And as awful of a human being as Vince McMahon can be most of the time, it can never be said that he's not willing to take a bump for entertainment's sake. For a 73-year-old, that's pretty ballsy.
The only disappointment that I really had from this episode was that there wasn't a single women's match, nor an appearance by Charlotte, Asuka or The Man. That was a missed opportunity. But at least we got to see the NXT call-up video package three times during both shows...
Speaking of NXT...
Right out of the gate, I do have to ask, did anyone else experience a total lack of commentary during the Jaxson Ryker match? That was such a weird thing to not have during a televised match.
And this whole episode was just... fine, which was strange because I didn't really feel particularly invested in this one, and usually, I'm a million times more likely to be invested in anything that's being done on NXT than anything else. I guess I was missing the top people. There was no Shayna, no Kairi (who I think is still out sick), only a video package for Velveteen and a selfie video for Ciampa, no Johnny, no Aleister, no Ricochet, no Adam (we saw him briefly at the end), and I didn't really get any sense of hype for either of the big matches that happened.
The fatal 4-way for the #1 Contender spot for the Women's Championship was a strong match for everyone, and I liked a lot of their chemistry, but for the life of me, I can't really figure out what they're doing with Candice La Rae. Mia Yim was the breakout star of the Mae Young Classic, certainly, and it seems like they're striking while that particular iron is hot. Io Shirai is a huge deal, but she's not really getting the push I'd expect for a performer of her caliber. Lacey Evans is someone I can honestly take or leave, and it seems clear that right now, they're pretty high on Bianca Belair. But it's been a while since we've seen Candice, because the last time she was around, she was on the Takeover Wargames pre/post-show battling Nikki Cross. I can only really think that they're saving her for something else entirely, and it probably has something to do with Johnny. Anyway, let's focus on the match itself. Everyone got their big spot in, except for Yim, and Bianca came out the winner and will battle Bayzler at Takeover Phoenix for the title. I don't know how long they intend to keep her undefeated, and that's actually a good call, because you honestly don't know how this match is going to play out at Takeover.
Then there was the aforementioned Jaxson Ryker match against [INSERT JOBBER NAME HERE], and it was pretty meh. But then, I'm not really that high at all on the Forgotten Sons. Part of me thinks they were forgotten for a reason, because they just don't feel like real competitors.
I do have to mention Ciampa's Insta-Slam video (that's what I call the cellphone videos we see in WWE, and I think it's fucking clever) and how he mentioned that perhaps Johnny should go at Ricochet for the North American title, and if that's a match they end up making for Takeover Phoenix, I am there all fucking day for that match. Johnny has been the MOTY machine in 2018, and has solidified himself as one of the best talents in the world this year. So 2019 is going to look really interesting for Johnny Wrestling, and I can't fucking wait.
And then we had the Tag title bout between Heavy Machinery and O'Reilly and Strong of Undisputed Era. This match was fun to watch even though you knew that since Heavy Machinery was being called up that they had zero chance of winning. Personally, when it comes to UDE, I don't think they should ever ever have a clean championship win. There should always be another member to come out and schmozz it up. But they got the clean win over Dozer and Tucky. If this was the sendoff match for those two, I think they did them a bit of a disservice, but by the same token, if they had gotten screwed by UDE, they would have had a legit claim for a rematch. So I can see both sides of that argument that I started with myself.
I still don't understand how I felt that NXT was weaker than it should ever be, but every great show has a few wonky episodes. And next week is their year-end highlight reel recap show, so that should be fun to look back and see all the awesomeness that NXT has brought us this year.
So until next time, kids... I hope you all had a fun and safe Christmas and I hope you will have a fun and safe and happy new year, and I'll see you in 2019!
This year wasn't really any different, at least not entirely. There was definitely one cool surprise, but we'll get into that later. For now, let's start with Raw.
So we had the Miracle on 34th Street Fight between Elias and Bobby Lashley, which only requires one word to describe it: Legos. This was pretty ingenious, because I would honestly rather have an gluteus maximus full of thumbtacks than Lego pieces because either way, it's going to hurt, but Legos? Forget it. Add in some fire extinguishers, and eggnog being dumped on Lio Rush's head, and Elias hitting Lashley with a cello for the pin and win and you have the makings of a fun time. Certainly not a great match, but a fun one.
Next up was the Raw Tag Championship match between Roode and Gable vs The Revival. While the babyfaces won to retain, you get the feeling that this is going to become a rivalry since Gable didn't pin the legal man. What I'm legitimately hoping for is a rematch for the title (maybe at the Rumble), where not only The Revival get the win, since they're one of the few legit tag teams out there (there's a big difference between throwing two superstars together and being an actual tag team), but it comes at the cost of Gable doing something dumb and Roode turns on him and we finally get the heel Roode we've been wanting on the main roster since he got called up.
Then we had what I considered to be the match of the night (for purely personal reasons) and that was Finn vs Dolph vs Drew in a terrific triple threat. The match was terrific just by itself, but it ended with Finn picking up the W. To have Finn continue to go over strong contenders is a sign of a real push towards a title, and it's long overdue since he's spent a lot of time meandering around the midcard. It doesn't have to be the Universal Title, but it should absolutely be the IC title. Picture Dean with all his gas-masked acolytes coming out and beating the hell out of Finn and then we suddenly get The Demon King. It would be heaven for me because I love that man, and he deserves a legit title run.
Then came a promo from Satan Claws... I mean Vince McMahon, who made the "exciting" announcement that John Cena would be returning next week on both Raw and Smackdown (which doesn't really make any sense), but actually made a really exciting proclamation that we would finally have a women's tag division! Now that is actually really great news, and I'm glad that they're doing this because it's an actual indication that they're listening to the fans, which is what they're purporting to do. If I had to guess, the women's tag division would be cross-branded because I just don't see enough female talent on either show's roster to make up the 6 or 7 tag teams they would need on each show. But who knows? There could be more NXT call-ups for this specific reason. Or maybe the Bellas come back...
And then there was a 6-woman tag match between the team of Dana Brooke, Alicia Fox, and Mickie James vs Ember Moon and the Boss and Hug Connection. Again, the babyfaces went over, because Christmas, but the match looked pretty sloppy. The heel team couldn't quite get it in gear, but that really wasn't the point of this match. The point here was to put Boss 'N Hug over for them to immediately get stomped by The Riott Squad, marking the beginnings of a feud between the two teams that would get them closer to being the contenders for the just-announced women's tag titles.
Since it's a three-hour show, and this was pre-taped, we knew there were going to be promos and general silliness and video packages. Paul Heyman came out to sing, literally, the praises of Brock Lesnar and how he was going to come out on top of Braun in their Universal Title match at the Rumble, but naturally, Braun would come out and scare the hell out of Heyman.
Then came what confusingly wasn't the main event of the evening and that was the Raw Women's Championship match between Natalya and Ronda. For the life of me, I really don't understand how a minor feud match closed the show instead of their biggest star in a title match, but whatever. This was another really really solid outing from both competitors, and again, because Christmas and it being a face vs face match, there wasn't a heel turn from either competitor and Ronda went over.
Here's the thing about Ronda Rousey: I don't like her as a person. She's made a few transphobic statements in the past, she's not particularly good in her promos and she's also potentially a Sandy Hook truther, but damn, she's a fish to water when it comes to WWE. Her move set has expanded well, she's obviously gotten over her initial nervousness, and she's been looking awesome in the ring, not just at selling, but also learning to play up the emotional storytelling as well. She really seemed like she didn't want to hurt Nattie, and she played up the sadness of having to put her in the armbar. This was a great performance from Rousey, and just a terrific match all around.
And then, we had two former members of 3MB facing off as Heath Slater seemingly having turned in his ref shirt for his ring tights squaring up against Jinder Mahal and the Singhs. This was pretty standard fare for a holiday show as we had Santa going around the arena and tossing "gifts" to the audience while the match was going on. Heath got the upper hand by the distraction, but the Singh Bros came in and caused a DQ by stomping on Heath. This naturally was a setup for a declaration Heath had made before in the evening that he wanted his friend Rhyno to get his job back. Of course, it was Rhyno dressed up as Santa, and he intervened in the beatdown to save Heath. The spirit of Christmas indeed.
But we wrapped up the night with Seth Rollins and Baron Corbin. As I said in a previous post, I don't think Seth should be winning right now. He should be a shell of a man, broken by the loss of his IC title to his former brother Dean, broken by Dean's turn, and broken by Roman's absence. Beating him down even further will make us root for him harder at the Rumble, but it's Christmas and this is more of the thing they'd be doing (and are doing) in NXT. So... we had Seth going over Corbin. It wasn't a terrible match, but I don't think Corbin is very talented in the ring, so when he's going up against someone who is so obviously his superior, he never ends up looking good. The General Manager position was actually the best use of Corbin since he hit the main roster because he discarded his "lone wolf" character in favor of an ass-kissing megalomaniac. It was a serviceable match for the show, and I honestly think the reason this went on last was because Seth does a fantastic job of giving a thoughtful and thankful post-show promo to the fans.
So here comes Smackdown! Since this was on the evening of Christmas Day, my wife and I forced my eighty-year-old dad to watch at his house, so every once in a while, I'll be interjecting some of the things he said as we all watched.
It opened with The Fabulous Truth coming out with Truth as "Truthy Claus" and Mella as "Carm-elf-a". Soon a grinchy Daniel Bryan came out and really threw some truth bombs at the audience regarding the environment and he hates Christmas because of how wasteful and destructive our society is and how we're contributing to climate change and islands of garbage floating in our oceans. Only in Vince McMahon's WWE would we have a vegan environmentalist champ as the heel. The beatdown of Truth that would come actually works in storyline, since Truth is coming out as #30 in the Rumble, and Daniel should want to keep every edge he could.
Dad: "This is a wrestling show, right? Do people wrestle or what the hell?"
Then we got what could have been easily the match of the night if a more important and fun one didn't come later and that was Mustafa Ali against Andrade Almas. This was a fucking great match, and there's nothing I'm loving more right now than seeing these guys not only on TV, but seeing a pretty big push for Ali. This whole match was a big smile machine for me. And goddamn, Ali's cyclone DDT is a thing of beauty. And again, Ali went over setting up something cool later on.
Dad: "Oh, so that's what you call a wrestling match? In my day, it was two monsters beating the hell out of each other, not all this flippy crap." I guess I need to show him The Revival, apparently.
Then we had the 8-man tag match with The Usos and The Club vs The Bar and Sanity. Within kayfabe, I don't really understand how Sanity would want to tag with anyone. They're agents of chaos; they should be wanting to tear everyone and everything apart, be it The Bar or The Usos or whoever stands in their way of being on top of the SD tag division. But at least we're seeing them on TV and we're also seeing Alexander Wolff doing moonsaults. But it was The Club that hit The Magic Killer on Cesaro to put an end to this match, and that was fun to see The Good Brothers get the pin. This didn't further anyone's story, but it set up some momentum for The Club going forward.
Dad: "What the hell are all these people doing in the ring? What happened to just two guys beating the hell out of each other?"
I have to talk about the backstage segment where Mustafa walked around getting props from all his fellow cruiserweight faces, and he runs into Shelton Benjamin. It seemed like Shelton was going to get all up in his grill, but the real shocker was Daniel Bryan attacking Ali from behind. It was a good swerve but more importantly, it sets up a strong rivalry between Ali and Bryan that could very possibly be setting up a championship match between these two at the Rumble, and that would be fantastic, especially since I'm going. And WWE? Can we please get some Mustafa merch? I like Pro Wrestling Tees a lot, but their sizing is weird.
Then came the badass grudge match between Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy, where Joe won via DQ because Hardy's attack on him outside the ring was relentless. This will be an interesting rivalry going forward as Hardy goes a little darker, but not Randy Orton levels of brutality.
Dad: "Why the hell does that guy have that paint shit all over his face? And how could he possibly beat that big sonofabitch? He looks like he weighs about 500 pounds and here's this skinny dude doing all these flippy things. You kids are weird."
We also had The Miz with Shane McMahon on Miz TV, and it was... weird. Miz claiming that all he really wanted was his daddy's love, and that's why he's been pushing so hard to team with Shane, and in the spirit of the season, Shane agreed to be a member of "the Best Tag Team in the World", but also Shane telling Miz that if he screws him, there will be consequences. I'm laying the bet right now that it's going to be Miz vs Shane at Mania.
Dad: "Where the hell is the wrestling? What's with all this talking crap?"
We also had some backstage shenanigans with Mandy Rose trying to get Jey Uso to kiss under the mistletoe, which led to Naomi trying to get at Mandy, and calming down enough to kiss Jey. Awww... real life wrestling couples are cute.
And speaking of real-life wrestling couples... Lana accompanied Rusev to the ring for his US title bout against Shinsuke.
And Rusev WON THE TITLE!! IT WAS INDEED RUSEV DAY!!
This was easily match of the night. Filled with drama, some great and dramatic false finishes and all of the stops definitely being pulled out. This was arguably one of Shinsuke's most entertaining matches on the main roster, and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here with both of these guys, but I am certainly happy to finally see Handsome Rusev with a title again. Just imagine, though, if he had been given this opportunity when he was at the peak of how over Rusev Day was.
Dad: "Wow, I can't believe the Asian guy's head is still attached to his shoulders after that kick. That was pretty good."
But this wasn't the end of the show.
Backstage, A.J. ended up talking to Vince, who asked who the real A.J. Styles was. Vince kept pushing and pushing A.J. until he eventually snapped and hit Vince. A.J. was dragged off of him, snarling like a wild animal, and Vince smiled devilishly. This whole segment was fucking bizarre and if it had happened on Raw with someone like, say Seth, I wouldn't trust where they were going with his character, but since it's happening on Smackdown, I'm more likely to trust it and to tune in to see where this is all going to go with A.J. and Vince. And as awful of a human being as Vince McMahon can be most of the time, it can never be said that he's not willing to take a bump for entertainment's sake. For a 73-year-old, that's pretty ballsy.
The only disappointment that I really had from this episode was that there wasn't a single women's match, nor an appearance by Charlotte, Asuka or The Man. That was a missed opportunity. But at least we got to see the NXT call-up video package three times during both shows...
Speaking of NXT...
Right out of the gate, I do have to ask, did anyone else experience a total lack of commentary during the Jaxson Ryker match? That was such a weird thing to not have during a televised match.
And this whole episode was just... fine, which was strange because I didn't really feel particularly invested in this one, and usually, I'm a million times more likely to be invested in anything that's being done on NXT than anything else. I guess I was missing the top people. There was no Shayna, no Kairi (who I think is still out sick), only a video package for Velveteen and a selfie video for Ciampa, no Johnny, no Aleister, no Ricochet, no Adam (we saw him briefly at the end), and I didn't really get any sense of hype for either of the big matches that happened.
The fatal 4-way for the #1 Contender spot for the Women's Championship was a strong match for everyone, and I liked a lot of their chemistry, but for the life of me, I can't really figure out what they're doing with Candice La Rae. Mia Yim was the breakout star of the Mae Young Classic, certainly, and it seems like they're striking while that particular iron is hot. Io Shirai is a huge deal, but she's not really getting the push I'd expect for a performer of her caliber. Lacey Evans is someone I can honestly take or leave, and it seems clear that right now, they're pretty high on Bianca Belair. But it's been a while since we've seen Candice, because the last time she was around, she was on the Takeover Wargames pre/post-show battling Nikki Cross. I can only really think that they're saving her for something else entirely, and it probably has something to do with Johnny. Anyway, let's focus on the match itself. Everyone got their big spot in, except for Yim, and Bianca came out the winner and will battle Bayzler at Takeover Phoenix for the title. I don't know how long they intend to keep her undefeated, and that's actually a good call, because you honestly don't know how this match is going to play out at Takeover.
Then there was the aforementioned Jaxson Ryker match against [INSERT JOBBER NAME HERE], and it was pretty meh. But then, I'm not really that high at all on the Forgotten Sons. Part of me thinks they were forgotten for a reason, because they just don't feel like real competitors.
I do have to mention Ciampa's Insta-Slam video (that's what I call the cellphone videos we see in WWE, and I think it's fucking clever) and how he mentioned that perhaps Johnny should go at Ricochet for the North American title, and if that's a match they end up making for Takeover Phoenix, I am there all fucking day for that match. Johnny has been the MOTY machine in 2018, and has solidified himself as one of the best talents in the world this year. So 2019 is going to look really interesting for Johnny Wrestling, and I can't fucking wait.
And then we had the Tag title bout between Heavy Machinery and O'Reilly and Strong of Undisputed Era. This match was fun to watch even though you knew that since Heavy Machinery was being called up that they had zero chance of winning. Personally, when it comes to UDE, I don't think they should ever ever have a clean championship win. There should always be another member to come out and schmozz it up. But they got the clean win over Dozer and Tucky. If this was the sendoff match for those two, I think they did them a bit of a disservice, but by the same token, if they had gotten screwed by UDE, they would have had a legit claim for a rematch. So I can see both sides of that argument that I started with myself.
I still don't understand how I felt that NXT was weaker than it should ever be, but every great show has a few wonky episodes. And next week is their year-end highlight reel recap show, so that should be fun to look back and see all the awesomeness that NXT has brought us this year.
So until next time, kids... I hope you all had a fun and safe Christmas and I hope you will have a fun and safe and happy new year, and I'll see you in 2019!
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