I am immortal
I have inside me blood of kings
I have no rival
No man can be my equal
Take me to the future of you all
Queen - "Princes of the Universe". Here's the song. It's awesome, and it's from HIGHLANDER, also awesome. It has meaning that is forthcoming.
So let's talk AEW.
It was good. I liked it. It had good matches and good storytelling.
Ratings-wise, both AEW Dynamite and NXT suffered in the ratings this week having to go up against a World Series game. Both shows lost more viewers. Moving on.
Now onto NXT and HOLY SHIT I NEVER SAW THIS COMING IN A MILLION YEARS.
This is why I'm not really talking about AEW this week. Don't get me wrong; it was good from bell-to-bell. But NXT was on a whole other level. And I'd like nothing more than to discuss Finn Balor for the entire column, but there's a lot to discuss.
First off, that opening match between Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley. This whole opening was just fantastic storytelling and a fucking great match. You can't get much more power in that match than Belair and Ripley who are both terrifyingly strong, but it's worth remarking how incredibly over Rhea is in NXT. Both at Full Sail and in the UK, Ripley has been super over despite being a heel. It took Kay Lee Ray being even more heelish than Ripley to take the belt off Toni Storm, and that was a feat. Since her arrival at Full Sail, though, Ripley has been a true tweener badass and I am just head over heels in love with her. But the booker also didn't forget that Io Shirai has a beef with Ripley, and that Candice LeRae also has beef with Shirai. There's more beef here in these feuds to get to the top of the Women's division than the Buffalo hunt in DANCES WITH WOLVES. But now that LeRae and Ripley are allies of convenience, this will make them stronger and will give Ripley a slight babyface appeal while still having all of her badassery intact and I want more.
But while it's still clear that AEW has a pretty small women's roster, since they had Dr. Britt Baker DMD on for the second week in a row with only one women's match (I know she's a Pittsburgh native and her having a match there was great for her, but they could have done without another Young Bucks tag match and put another women's match on there, or just shortened the Young Bucks match and had a squash with Nyla Rose or something), NXT had a short and sweet Women's tag match with Team Kick going up against Team Horsey, and wouldn't you know it, but it was another match with stakes because the winners would go on to challenge the Kabuki Warriors next week on NXT for the Women's Tag titles!!!! However, it is abundantly clear that Duke and Shafir need to put in a lot more work in order to look like they can actually, y'know, wrestle, but it was also clear that they weren't looking to throw Tegan Nox into a super-competitive match right now since her and Dakota Kai picked up the win and are going to be fed to very hungry Japanese wolves next week. I'd say that this is going to be easy as hell to call, but I've been shocked before... oh, who am I trying to kid? Team Kick is going to get absolutely murderized. And we're going to get Candace vs Io in a rematch next week. This is how NXT's women's roster should be functioning right now, and I honestly don't think that Shayna is long for having the strap around her waist. Her absolute stranglehold on that title has lost some of its luster over the last few months and it's time to change hands, and there are many capable hands waiting to take it and run with it.
Also, Matt Riddle vs Cameron Grimes... I honestly was down the middle on this. It's not like either of them have perfect records and I could absolutely see Grimes going over Riddle with his surprise victories over the past few weeks, but a nice thing happened: Riddle won, but still put Grimes over in defeat, and that's, as I've stated in the past, something that literally everyone in the wrestling business should be doing, and that's working as hard as possible to make someone look good even in defeat, and Riddle is that kind of cat. Except he's not going to do that with Goldberg. He's going to make Goldberg look like a fucking chump in the match that will never ever happen, but damn, I'm loving how that beef is translating to the kayfabe world with the "Riddle" chants. But Grimey stepped right into it because Tyler Bate was there in the front row and he gave Bate a shove, which was just a bad bad bad idea, because Bate would then give him Bop and Bang which Grimey sold like a champ. So the match was terrific, and it'll be fun to watch Tyler vs Cameron.
About this time in the show, I thought to myself, "You know, self... it's been a while since we've had a Tag division match" because for a hot minute, I forgot who the tag champs were because O'Reilly and Fish haven't been out competing since the premiere episode where they beat Street Profits to get the titles back. And as if the universe heard me wondering this, and they responded by giving me Breezango and Isaiah Swerve Scott vs Forgotten Sons, and if there's another future star that's coming out of this match, it's Shane Strickland... I mean Killshot.... I mean Swerve. He's got the skills to pay those bills and I want to see a lot more of him competing. Using Jaxson Ryker as a fleshy stump to perform a moonsault off of was literally my favorite use of Ryker so far in NXT. I still don't like Forgotten Sons, and I'll always like when people beat them. The Forgotten Sons is one of those ideas that I feel that Hunter workshopped with the rest of NXT Creative and they put it in the "Maybe" pile and then said, "eh, fuck it; give it to Wesley Blake and the other bearded dudes."
I also have to say that I'm super impressed with Lio Rush since his return. He's been killer in the ring, and I kind of cringed when I was told that he was going to be on commentary but he really did a terrific job putting the match between Angel Garza and Jack Gallagher over, not to mention also putting himself over as a studious competitor. He wasn't shooting his mouth off and he wasn't being a jerk; he was super respectful of the match, and really just did terrific stuff. I wasn't particularly impressed with the short match they had, but I really felt like it was better than it was because of how Rush sold it on commentary.
To bring us home, we had the triple threat between Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic and champ Roderick Strong for the North American title and goddamn, what a match. I seriously don't understand why more fans aren't watching this show. I get it if you want to DVR this and watch AEW live, but you have to be watching NXT, people. This is the best wrestling on TV. This match just was... I honestly think that I could watch Dijakovic and Lee do this for years. They can have all these peripheral feuds, but they should always keep circling back to each other. I don't think that they could be the next Gargano/Ciampa, but they could get awfully close. And the storytelling of this match was ingenious. Both Lee and Dijakovic want Roddy out of the ring so they can continue their own feud, and all Roddy had to do was to wait for his shot, which he got after Keith and Dominik were trying to murder each other and got the pin on Lee to retain. Of course, the rest of Undisputed came in after the match and instead of just congratulating Roddy, they decided to kick the shit out of Lee, which brought out Ciampa first, with his trusty crutch and the crowd popped like lunatics.
Not long after that staredown started, Johnny's music hit and he came running out to the ring and the crowd popped even harder. Chants of "DIY" rang throughout the halls at Full Sail.
When Finn came out to join Ciampa and Gargano, it felt like Full Sail was about to explode. We had part of our War Games line-up and everything seemed kind of perfect.
But then...
For those of you who don't know, Fergal Devitt became a superstar while in New Japan as he went by Prince Devitt (because the Japanese ring announcers would have had too hard of a time with the name Fergal). Prince Devitt was one of the greatest heels in the business while in New Japan and is credited as the man who started Bullet Club in earnest. When he came to WWE and became Finn Balor, he was a beautiful babyface who occasionally dipped into his darker self when he became The Demon, but never went full heel in WWE. At least, not until now. In the Overhead Kick Heard 'Round the World, Balor sent Gargano out of the ring while UE took their opportunity to pile on in a 4-on-1 against Ciampa, but Balor's attention was strictly on Johnny Wrestling. He casually rolled out of the ring, and then hit Johnny with a shotgun dropkick that sent him through the barricade onto a bunch of dudes that are meant to be fans, but are just guys in developmental, and then gave Gargano a 1916 aka the Bloody Sunday on the ramp, and stood over his limp twitching body. While all the boys in Undisputed did their cute little hand symbol, the dread was palpable that somehow Finn would shoot it back, but instead he did this:
... and that should remind people of this:
This is when Prince Devitt was Best of the Super Juniors as a part of Bullet Club while in New Japan, and yes, that is indeed Karl Anderson behind him, as well as BC mainstay Bad Luck Fale.
Most fans of Prince Devitt would argue that the best time of his career was while he was in Bullet Club as the "Real Rock N Rolla", and it's very possible that the man who became Finn Balor would agree. When he was originally in NXT, Finn became its longest reigning champion (a fact that commentary has been only too happy to remind us of), but once he was injured during Summerslam '16 when he became the first Universal Champion of WWE, Vince scratched Finn off his list. Finn still remained wildly popular, and after being allowed to finally challenge for it against both Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, he carried the Intercontinental Title for a while after making an epic Demon King entrance at last Mania, but Vince clearly felt that the smaller Balor had plateaued on the main roster.
Triple H clearly didn't agree.
This is a heel turn that anyone who has been a fan of Mr. Devitt should have really seen coming, especially after the whole "My past is my future" line that has been in his taped promos, but we were just so fucking sure that WWE would never turn him heel that the shock of this honestly held my mouth agape for about 5 solid minutes. It was the prodigal son returning; the former champ who was held in check by shit booking and no creative input on the main roster coming back home to save us from the reign of an oppressive chickenshit heel and his cronies. There was no way he would be coming back as anything other than a babyface.
And yet...
This is awesome for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's going to get rid of the big smiley Finn we've seen for two years now because we know that behind that smile was a deep frown. He was so displeased with his booking and his lack of any kind of creative input with Vince that he barely spoke to him. He used to try to give ideas to Creative, but Vince was happy with where Finn was. He sold merch and he didn't need to be a main-eventer to do it. Second, it gives him an edge we haven't seen in years. Even when he first came out to the main roster, he was still kind of a smoldering badass, and while I'll be the first to admit that he has a killer smile, it will make me much happier to see that smile being flashed in satisfaction over something cruel or twisted that he's just done. Third, it officially paves the way for some real dream match shit. Yeah, we got Finn vs A.J. at TLC in 2017 and we got a Finn vs Shinsuke in NXT as Finn was on his way up. But Finn vs Johnny? It's a 99.999999% guarantee that we're getting that at War Games, particularly since Johnny was "injured" in the 1916 spot on the entrance ramp (supposedly, Johnny was taken to a "local medical facility" after the show which is a good indicator that this is a kayfabe injury). So that's going to be awesome. And the possibilities are somewhat limitless: Ciampa, Riddle, Velveteen; hell, he could go after the Cruiserweights if he really wanted to since he's still weighing in at around 190. But this is all prelude to what I see as being the main event, which is Finn vs Cole not only for the title, but for control of Undisputed Era. This is how I'm booking this, and if it comes to pass, I should be hailed as the greatest prognosticator since Nostradamus:
Finn comes to Full Sail, and just starts wrecking motherfuckers. Anyone. It shouldn't matter; babyfaces, heels, tweeners...
And once he's made it through them, he should start confronting members of UE individually, giving them Balor Club armbands telling them to think about it. And since Finn is straight-up murdering people, Roddy and Bobby and Kyle start to get a little nervous, and since they want Undisputed Era to continue with all the gold, it's finally down to Cole vs Balor in some kind of No DQ match for the title (which should be doubly fun considering they both have history with Bullet Club) and when it seems like Cole is on the ropes, he calls out Undisputed Era to help him, and they come and it seems like they're going to go after Finn, but instead they just end up attacking Cole, Finn hits the Coup de Grace and your new NXT Champion is...
Seriously, this opened the floodgates. We are going to be Balor crazy for a while. Even on whichever show that FS1 has for WWE with Renee Young and Booker T, Finn had a very short interview with them and said to cap it off that "The Prince is back", and while Finn being everyone's babyface bae was really fun for a while, him being a heel Daddy for a while is going to be way cooler.
Seriously, God bless NXT. If you're not watching, start. If you are watching, maybe alternate where one week you watch NXT live and DVR Dynamite and just alternate weeks because NXT has just raised the fucking stakes and right now, it's just better.
And that's undisputed.
To bring us home, we had the triple threat between Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic and champ Roderick Strong for the North American title and goddamn, what a match. I seriously don't understand why more fans aren't watching this show. I get it if you want to DVR this and watch AEW live, but you have to be watching NXT, people. This is the best wrestling on TV. This match just was... I honestly think that I could watch Dijakovic and Lee do this for years. They can have all these peripheral feuds, but they should always keep circling back to each other. I don't think that they could be the next Gargano/Ciampa, but they could get awfully close. And the storytelling of this match was ingenious. Both Lee and Dijakovic want Roddy out of the ring so they can continue their own feud, and all Roddy had to do was to wait for his shot, which he got after Keith and Dominik were trying to murder each other and got the pin on Lee to retain. Of course, the rest of Undisputed came in after the match and instead of just congratulating Roddy, they decided to kick the shit out of Lee, which brought out Ciampa first, with his trusty crutch and the crowd popped like lunatics.
Not long after that staredown started, Johnny's music hit and he came running out to the ring and the crowd popped even harder. Chants of "DIY" rang throughout the halls at Full Sail.
When Finn came out to join Ciampa and Gargano, it felt like Full Sail was about to explode. We had part of our War Games line-up and everything seemed kind of perfect.
But then...
For those of you who don't know, Fergal Devitt became a superstar while in New Japan as he went by Prince Devitt (because the Japanese ring announcers would have had too hard of a time with the name Fergal). Prince Devitt was one of the greatest heels in the business while in New Japan and is credited as the man who started Bullet Club in earnest. When he came to WWE and became Finn Balor, he was a beautiful babyface who occasionally dipped into his darker self when he became The Demon, but never went full heel in WWE. At least, not until now. In the Overhead Kick Heard 'Round the World, Balor sent Gargano out of the ring while UE took their opportunity to pile on in a 4-on-1 against Ciampa, but Balor's attention was strictly on Johnny Wrestling. He casually rolled out of the ring, and then hit Johnny with a shotgun dropkick that sent him through the barricade onto a bunch of dudes that are meant to be fans, but are just guys in developmental, and then gave Gargano a 1916 aka the Bloody Sunday on the ramp, and stood over his limp twitching body. While all the boys in Undisputed did their cute little hand symbol, the dread was palpable that somehow Finn would shoot it back, but instead he did this:
... and that should remind people of this:
This is when Prince Devitt was Best of the Super Juniors as a part of Bullet Club while in New Japan, and yes, that is indeed Karl Anderson behind him, as well as BC mainstay Bad Luck Fale.
Most fans of Prince Devitt would argue that the best time of his career was while he was in Bullet Club as the "Real Rock N Rolla", and it's very possible that the man who became Finn Balor would agree. When he was originally in NXT, Finn became its longest reigning champion (a fact that commentary has been only too happy to remind us of), but once he was injured during Summerslam '16 when he became the first Universal Champion of WWE, Vince scratched Finn off his list. Finn still remained wildly popular, and after being allowed to finally challenge for it against both Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, he carried the Intercontinental Title for a while after making an epic Demon King entrance at last Mania, but Vince clearly felt that the smaller Balor had plateaued on the main roster.
Triple H clearly didn't agree.
This is a heel turn that anyone who has been a fan of Mr. Devitt should have really seen coming, especially after the whole "My past is my future" line that has been in his taped promos, but we were just so fucking sure that WWE would never turn him heel that the shock of this honestly held my mouth agape for about 5 solid minutes. It was the prodigal son returning; the former champ who was held in check by shit booking and no creative input on the main roster coming back home to save us from the reign of an oppressive chickenshit heel and his cronies. There was no way he would be coming back as anything other than a babyface.
And yet...
This is awesome for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's going to get rid of the big smiley Finn we've seen for two years now because we know that behind that smile was a deep frown. He was so displeased with his booking and his lack of any kind of creative input with Vince that he barely spoke to him. He used to try to give ideas to Creative, but Vince was happy with where Finn was. He sold merch and he didn't need to be a main-eventer to do it. Second, it gives him an edge we haven't seen in years. Even when he first came out to the main roster, he was still kind of a smoldering badass, and while I'll be the first to admit that he has a killer smile, it will make me much happier to see that smile being flashed in satisfaction over something cruel or twisted that he's just done. Third, it officially paves the way for some real dream match shit. Yeah, we got Finn vs A.J. at TLC in 2017 and we got a Finn vs Shinsuke in NXT as Finn was on his way up. But Finn vs Johnny? It's a 99.999999% guarantee that we're getting that at War Games, particularly since Johnny was "injured" in the 1916 spot on the entrance ramp (supposedly, Johnny was taken to a "local medical facility" after the show which is a good indicator that this is a kayfabe injury). So that's going to be awesome. And the possibilities are somewhat limitless: Ciampa, Riddle, Velveteen; hell, he could go after the Cruiserweights if he really wanted to since he's still weighing in at around 190. But this is all prelude to what I see as being the main event, which is Finn vs Cole not only for the title, but for control of Undisputed Era. This is how I'm booking this, and if it comes to pass, I should be hailed as the greatest prognosticator since Nostradamus:
Finn comes to Full Sail, and just starts wrecking motherfuckers. Anyone. It shouldn't matter; babyfaces, heels, tweeners...
And once he's made it through them, he should start confronting members of UE individually, giving them Balor Club armbands telling them to think about it. And since Finn is straight-up murdering people, Roddy and Bobby and Kyle start to get a little nervous, and since they want Undisputed Era to continue with all the gold, it's finally down to Cole vs Balor in some kind of No DQ match for the title (which should be doubly fun considering they both have history with Bullet Club) and when it seems like Cole is on the ropes, he calls out Undisputed Era to help him, and they come and it seems like they're going to go after Finn, but instead they just end up attacking Cole, Finn hits the Coup de Grace and your new NXT Champion is...
Seriously, this opened the floodgates. We are going to be Balor crazy for a while. Even on whichever show that FS1 has for WWE with Renee Young and Booker T, Finn had a very short interview with them and said to cap it off that "The Prince is back", and while Finn being everyone's babyface bae was really fun for a while, him being a heel Daddy for a while is going to be way cooler.
Seriously, God bless NXT. If you're not watching, start. If you are watching, maybe alternate where one week you watch NXT live and DVR Dynamite and just alternate weeks because NXT has just raised the fucking stakes and right now, it's just better.
And that's undisputed.
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