Mission 013 – The Margins Appear to be Tightening, Right?
Another excellent week of wrestling wherein the final ratings have yet to be reported and I will tell you that I have seriously enjoyed it. The margin of victory for Dynamite this past Monday was the closest margin that BWM Inc. has experienced since the fourth era; being under 2,000 viewers!
Aside from the close call, I wanted to break down what I thought of each show this week from our competition. Let’s get to it:
AEW Dynamite
The opening scene with Sami and Perfect was hilarious. Sami mistaking Perfect for the Boogeyman and delivering the Heluva Kick to him, only for Perfect to beg for another shot because he is so desperate to have his neck snapped again had me rolling. The drift into Sami’s madness is wonderful. Simply put.
One of the key highlights of the night came next, though, as Johnny Lawrence nabbed his second championship since his arrival in the industry just 15 months ago! He and Xolo managed to steal this one from ATDU because of the Acclaimed intervening and then subsequently sending the former champs on a dumpster ride to hell in like fashion to what happened to them at Aftershock! What a segment!
The next thing we see here is an excellent stakeout-style segment wherein Molly Holly and the reunited Harlem Turtles are contemplating reconnecting with Master Splinter. They never say his name, though, as we should all remember that AEW has banned any mention of the most respected wrestler of all time after he lost the Total Anarchy: All Elite match back in May. Still, the hints that this trio is willing to risk everything to get him back for “the war to come” leaves me very intrigued!
After that we are treated to a really fun vignette for Adam Page as he challenges Danielson and Omega to a Triple Threat match at Sympathy for the Devil. I love this feud and I really loved the energy that we saw from Page this past Friday (more on that soon), but I am not sure who I was to see come out on top here. Page may need it the most, but I am afraid that Omega is risking getting bogged down in a feud with the familiar faces and having the wrestling version of typecasting as a result. For now, I will trust the process and see where this journey takes us!
Sammy Guevara tries to play spoiler at ringside for Cody’s match against Jungle Boy, but it backfires as Cody comes out on top and leaves Sammy with a message that this is not over. Cody and Perry both looked great in this match, and I am definitely buying into Sammy more and more with each passing week. Great stuff.
A fun bit of banter and an exchange of brass knuckles between Logan Paul and MJF leaves me a tad confused as to whether we should cheer or boo MJF (I already know Lenny’s answer, so don’t ask). For the better part of the era so far I was left believing that MJF had turned over a new leaf, but now I am not so sure. We’ll revisit this shortly.
Call me crazy, but if it weren’t for the main event, I would have said that this match between Liv Morgan and Nia Jax was a contender for match of the night! The ladies tore the house down and I am here for it! Never-mind the fact that this included the third consecutive match featuring some kind of interference, I was hooked in as the ladies in the ring commanded everyone’s attention! Liv Morgan has always been a star and this only further proved that!
As Megan berates Robman for being supposedly incompetent, she slates the Gauntlet Match for Chaos to punish Rhea for getting involved in and costing Nia Jax the match against Liv Morgan. The character development for Megan and Zayn has been incredible since their story started earlier this year. It will always have my attention, for sure.
To conclude the evening for AEW, we see a clinic of a battle between MJF and Will Ospreay as MJF hands Will his first loss in AEW following MJF’s use of the brass knuckles bestowed upon him by Paul earlier in the night. Will has more to say about this on Friday, but MJF is the big winner here as he continues his march towards Elite Warfare. A classic night of action which would have completely blown Aggression out of the water in a normal week if it wasn’t for Aggression having an equally excellent night and earning ULW its highest ratings thus far!
WWE Wednesday Raw & NXT Supershow
After electing to skip Monday and Tuesday this week, WWE presented a “Supershow” to showcase the Raw and NXT lockers on the same night. Kicking things off was an hilarious segment seeing Flex Fuller breaking into Doc Brown’s lab to try and get back his Jesus Juice. Only, the elixir that he stole wasn’t what he thought it was as it subdued him so much that he wasn’t able to fend off the attack by DDP! More, please, more!!
We see some more creepy stalking by Sonya Deville as her obsession for Candice keeps her within the vicinity of LeRae’s home at all times. Here, LeRae is begging her husband to come home (something she has probably steadily been doing since last week) whilst her stalker hides in the shadows. I need a shower after this one.
There’s a brand-based argument which explodes between GMs Michaels and Bischoff and we are left with the impression that they are about to have a mini-war. Survivor Series is lurking around the corner, I suppose, so it seems fitting that this is where this all is headed.
A great bout for the NXT Title follows as Karrion defeats Gargano to retain. I think that LeRae just needs to let Deville kidnap her or whatever. She’s seriously getting in the way of her husband’s progress!
The night concludes with an awesome match featuring AJ Styles barely defeating Chad Gable, only to be viciously attacked by Finn Balor afterwards. This leaves me yearning for both the upcoming match between Styles and Balor at Badd Blood, but also to see where Gable goes next. It is very clear to me that WWE has big things planned for that young man!
AEW Chaos
Friday opens for AEW with a heated encounter between Logan Paul (who is doing a live on his phone) and a very angry Will Ospreay. Ospreay wants Logan to pay for what he did on Monday and Paul is not prepared to just let any old bloke destroy his phones. It made me laugh when Paul tried to say that giving MJF a deadly weapon to use on Monday against Will “wasn’t personal”. Of course it was! Get em’, Will!
Adam Page and Kaz then give us quite the entertaining match opener for the night, and this match shows us just how seriously Page is taking things going forward. He gets the victory here and then sends a message to Danielson and Omega by staring so hard into the hard cam that I nearly shit myself!
What happens next is a purely awesome sequence of events, but let me first skip to the middle portion of this to explain how much I loved it! We see Lady Love getting her vision board out and thanking Nyla Rose and Piper Niven for agreeing to be her bridesmaids at the wedding. The girls are more than happy to shower the bride-to-be with praise and thank her for inspiring them to get in the business. It’s a great day to be Lady Love…
…until it isn’t! You see, moments earlier, Rhea Ripley was getting ready to head out to the ring for her Gauntlet match that Megan slated out of spite. That was interrupted by the bane of Rhea’s existence: Nia Jax. The two women were tearing each other apart backstage and then the violence spilled into the wedding-planning room and resulted in Love going TIIIIIIIMBER and the vision board getting destroyed!
So, the bridesmaids became equally enraged as Nia and chased after the Hardcore Champion, with all of this chaos culminating in a fun main event wherein Rhea Ripley survived the challenge (much to the chagrin of Megan, I’m sure) and Dom limps away as if he had been through the gauntlet himself! Now that’s how you end a women’s segment!
In a brief change of course, I will be offering the preview of ULW for the week ahead separately after the live show report and the ratings report are both released in the next couple of hours! See you then!!
Until our next Quest, this has been Johnny with yet another mission!
World Of Wrestling: Murrey Universe 