February 22, 2020 - Evan Luebbe

SmackDown 2/21/2020

February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Updates on Cena and Sheamus

I would fully anticipate the first edition of SmackDown on FOX featuring John Cena on February 28 to experience a significant increase in TV ratings because of the star power Cena brings. In the meantime, let’s focus on this week’s episode.

Sheamus said he is very focused since returning to WWE. In the short-term, he’s directing his attention to winning the only title he has not held in WWE – the Intercontinental Championship. The Celtic Warrior hopes to go on to hold multiple world championships in WWE; he plans to be around for the next decade and prove he has many more years left in him.

Goldberg gets physical with The Fiend

Goldberg looked surprisingly good with The Fiend on this week’s episode of SmackDown. Hopefully their Universal Championship match in Saudi Arabia goes over smoother than Goldberg’s last match in Saudi Arabia with The Undertaker.

Naomi defeats Carmella to become the Number One Contender for the SmackDown Women’s Championship at Super Showdown

Carmella has significantly improved her in-ring work over the last couple years in WWE. It is finally starting to become noticeable, which is a very positive thing. However, it was the right call for WWE to book Naomi to face Bayley at Super Showdown because she has more momentum behind her at the moment. This is in large part due to the fact that she returned to WWE after quite a few months away.

Congratulations to the Bella Twins on being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame; this segment was relatively uneventful because neither woman could get physical with anyone since they are both pregnant

Daniel Bryan defeats Heath Slater with Drew Gulak at Ringside

This may ultimately lead to a few entertaining grappling battles between Bryan and Gulak before WrestleMania. This is the biggest thing Slater has done in years since he worked with Brock Lesnar briefly and was squashed by The Beast.

Braun Strowman and Elias defeat Cesaro (Keith Lee’s dream opponent) and Shinsuke Nakamura (with Sami Zayn) in a Symphony of Destruction Match

Zayn has been used by the company in a managerial role as opposed to an in-ring role because he is still dealing with discomfort from his shoulders. He had double shoulder surgery roughly 2 years ago. Hopefully, he can get back in the ring in the coming months because he is tremendously valuable in that role.

AEW Dynamite 2/19/2020

February 22, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Cody defeats Wardlow in All Elite Wrestling’s first-ever Steel Cage Match

Cody has officially fulfilled all three of MJF’s stipulations – not touching him, taking 10 lashings from MJF with a leather belt, and defeating his sidekick Wardlow inside a steel cage. The match between Cody and Maxwell Jacob Friedman at Revolution will now officially happen – as if that was ever in much doubt.

As far as the match itself goes, since this was the first steel cage match in AEW, it was a little bit of an experiment in that no one really knew what to expect audience-wise. It made total sense to put the EVP in this match to get a feel for reactions to a steel cage match. I personally ended up loving the idea of making the cage a little bigger – not quite as big as the Hell in a Cell cage in WWE, but it was big enough, so the wrestlers were not hindered by the cage. They had plenty of room to work.

Cody’s moonsault off the top of the cage was utterly fantastic. The steel cages in AEW are significantly taller than they are in WWE. One other interesting facet to this story is that AEW is essentially doing away with The Nightmare Collective because it wasn’t getting over very well. This was totally the right call. They were more annoying than anything. The company is instead opting to use Brandi Rhodes in a more human sense to gain more sympathy for Cody. She is being portrayed as a loving wife – and she is playing the role very well.

AEW’s Tag Team Division is one of the Primary Strengths of the Company

It’s obvious The Young Bucks are executives in AEW because the Tag Team Division is clearly a focal point. It is being portrayed at a main event level. The Bucks won the tag team battle royal to begin the show, earning a tag team championship match against Kenny Omega and Hangman Page. This should come as no surprise because The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega are members of The Elite, and Hangman Page’s disassociation from the group and his imminent heel turn has been rather apparent in the last several weeks.

The Bucks have also been unnecessarily thrown into this storyline, which makes it even more apparent that Page will complete his heel turn at Revolution. The next challenge for the company regarding this will be managing and responding to the reaction of fans. It may be tough to maintain Hangman’s heel persona for very long before turning him face again because he is such a fan favorite.

The pattern of his character may go similar to that of The Fiend in WWE. Even though Bray Wyatt is technically a heel, he still gets pops from the crowds like a babyface because fans are so enthralled with his character. Page may end up carving a similar path during his time as a heel in AEW.

The Tag Team Championship match between Omega and Page vs. Lucha Brothers was easily the best match on the night. It reiterated that the Lucha Brothers are one of the best tag teams in the world. AEW’s tag team division may very well be the best in the world.

Jon Moxley defeats Jeff Cobb; and Darby Allin returns to Help Out

Moxley has gone through every obstacle The Inner Circle has put in his way on the road to his AEW World Championship match with Chris Jericho. Allin is without a doubt a major star in the making. All he needs to cement his megastar status is to take a couple of victories against credible opponents. I can’t even begin to describe how impressive it is for him to have that level of presence about him and bring so much energy to an arena this early in his career.

Tazz did an excellent job calling the match as a special guest commentator. He is bringing the same vibe to AEW as he did with WWE in the early 2000s during the Ruthless Aggression Era.

AEW Forbes Summary Review

Raw 2/17/2020

February 22, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Seth Rollins gives his Sermon; later in the night, his Disciples Murphy and The AOP take on Kevin Owens and The Viking Raiders but it’s broken up by Rollins, Ending in a Disqualification

It was genius for WWE to have Rollins give a Sermon and to have Paul Heyman portray the Monday Night Messiah with a religious element. This will get Seth over as a heel in a major way, because the commentary team is right; all Seth is right now is a narcissist who wants Monday Night Raw to revolve around him, and he is masquerading as a Messiah.

One would be reasonable to imagine that Rollins and Murphy will lose the Raw Tag Team Championships a few weeks before ‘Mana, possibly even at the Elimination Chamber PPV on March 8. This will free up both men to work singles programs leading to WrestleMania as I personally believe they are more valuable assets to WWE as singles competitors as opposed to a tag team. Murphy and Rollins may even work a WrestleMania 36 storyline with each other.

This would make total sense because there is an easy story to tell. They could lose their titles to a younger team on the rise in the form of The Street Profits at Super Showdown. They could blame each other for the miscommunication, leading to a clash between Seth Rollins and Murphy at the biggest event of the year on April 5 in Tampa Bay.

Randy Orton viciously attacks Matt Hardy after delivering a Cryptic Promo

Randy Orton is a master at ring psychology and feeling out what a crowd needs in order to get emotionally invested in a storyline. This heinous attack was most likely done to write Matt Hardy off TV because his WWE contract expires on March 1. He will most likely go to AEW where he will have more creative freedom. This will be good for Hardy who is one of the most creative minds in wrestling.

This attack will benefit Randy Orton significantly because it ensures he is one of the most hated and relevant heels in WWE for the next several months and perhaps even longer. Orton has now attacked two superstars who the WWE universe has been attached to for a very long time in Edge and now Matt Hardy.

Charlotte Flair points out how entitled Rhea Ripley is because she hasn’t had to Struggle as much as Charlotte has

Flair did some of her best work on the microphone to date. She pointed out something that has a lot of truth to it, and because of this, fans most likely resonated with the message.

Ricochet defeats Karl Anderson; AJ Styles returns to Raw

Nothing about the match itself was very surprising. The result was never in doubt because the number one contender to the WWE Championship would never lose right before a Pay-Per-View. The same cannot be said regarding the return of Styles, which was much earlier than expected. Smart fans would not have anticipated him to be back for at least another month after injuring his shoulder at the Royal Rumble. Shoulder injuries are not easy to come back from (ask Finn Balor).

As reported by Dave Meltzer, Styles is slated to wrestle The Undertaker at WrestleMania 36 in Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It will be nice to see The Undertaker back in action at ‘Mania after taking WrestleMania 35 off. The Deadman feels AJ is “the modern-day Shawn Michaels,” which is probably accurate. This is due to his ability to do just about anything that is asked of him in the ring as well as his level of fluidity with the sports entertainment industry with over 20 years of experience.

Angel Garza and Bobby Lashley defeat Rusev and Humberto Carillo

Garza and Rusev were easily the two superstars who stood out in this match. It’s amazing that the WWE universe still has the attention span to remember Rusev Day so vividly and continue to chant it like they did this past week. This is an era of short attention spans after all due to social media in large part. Based on this, Vince McMahon can draw the conclusion that Rusev is a major star and all Mr. McMahon needs to do is give Paul Heyman the green light to make him a major superstar, possibly even a champion.

Rusev’s connection with the WWE universe needs to be taken advantage of because fans don’t latch onto a character like this very often.

On the other hand, Angel Garza has the potential to turn into the next Eddie Guerrero type of Latino character, but he needs a little more time to acclimate the WWE universe to his personality. After all, he is still relatively new. He is kind of reminiscent of a newer version of Chavo Guerrero, but he has the potential for sure to turn into Eddie. Angel needs to add a more serious element to his character rather than just as a lady’s man which would make the audience more deeply connect with him.

Aleister Black defeats Erick Rowan

WWE may want to seriously consider building up Aleister Black similar to what WCW did with Goldberg a little over 20 years ago. This could be done by continuing his undefeated streak against opponents who are legitimately credible for the remainder of 2020. It would also build on his mystique. Rowan might want to just discard his cage; at this point no one cares much about what’s in it and it serves almost as a distraction more than anything.

Brock Lesnar’s impressive Attendance Record in 2020

The Beast is still a part-timer since returning to WWE in 2012, but he has a great track record for 2020 through the first of the year. Brock has shown up in some form on every episode of Raw in 2020 except for two – February 10 and February 17. However, he is now advertised for the February 24 and March 2 episodes. Lesnar also entered the Royal Rumble match at number one, lasting over 25 minutes before being eliminated by the eventual winner Drew McIntyre.

This significantly helps his advocate Paul Heyman (who is the Executive Director of Raw). Having Lesnar on the show every week makes it significantly more interesting. He creates an unspoken aura of legitimacy as a former UFC Heavyweight Champion. No one else on the roster has enough credibility to provide this at the moment. He is Raw’s top titleholder as the WWE Champion.

Even without Brock Lesnar, this past week’s edition of Raw was still very successful as it managed to draw the most TV viewers of any episode in 2020. MVP also wrestled his final match on Raw, putting over Drew McIntyre