Mission 036 – The Mission? Exploring the Week that Cody Screwed Jay
Whoa, what a week THAT was, am I right?
The gods of professional wrestling smiled big upon all of us this past week, and now it is time for a quick assessment of what we saw before offering a brief preview for what is to come with this week!
Warning: this may be a little out of chronological order, but I want to cover the biggest news, so it is what it is.
For starters, we look over at WWE, where the company seemingly paid close attention to my critique of the past few weeks and revived Michin’s actual title reign as Women’s Intercontinental Champion…only to place the strap around the waist of the exciting newcomer, Lyra Valkyria! Lyra was on ULW’s radar last summer during the draft, but the extra capital to acquire her contract wasn’t there. Either way, I am looking forward to seeing how far she goes in this women’s division which continues to try and find its identity!
As for Michin, she eats her second loss in as many weeks and I am left feeling sorry for this poor girl. She has some accolades, for sure, but now it is painfully obvious that her current status is that of an enhancement talent. I suppose not everyone can run the roost.
On a side note about the women’s division, it was nice seeing Alba Fyre debut. Another hot indie talent that the CME Board was watching closely. As opposed to Lyra, I don’t think that the season has much time left for her to make a significant impact, but we should all know better than to question the determination of WWE to get anyone over…regardless of the timeline.
Speaking of listening to my critiques about titles and whatnot, WWE officially put the NXT strap on Ethan Page this past Tuesday in a stellar cage match against Trick Williams. Page is a great guy to serve as the developmental standard-bearer as Trick finds his way to the main roster. Then again, this is the same NXT which held Karrion Kross hostage for an unreal period of time long after he was good and ready for main roster exposure…wait…where is he???
Meanwhile, Raw had a great showing last week, with a strong cold open between Jey Uso and Roman Reigns, as Roman attempted to coerce his cousin to hand over the Intercontinental Title. Jey put his foot down and rejected the familial pressure, and now we have long-awaited tension between Roman and his longest-serving loyalist. For all intents and purposes, I personally consider the stable known as the “Bloodline” to be dead, but the loose group which exists now still has some gas left in the tank, and this rivalry could prove beneficial to Roman, Jey, and the title in question!
This week full of WILD debuts saw the Creed Brothers join Chad Gable to form “American Made” en route to capturing tag gold. Two major notes here: 1. the Creeds were 100% on ULW’s radar ever since they powered through the indies last summer, and 2. I am pretty damn sure that this is the first time ever that a tag team has won major gold in their debut match!
Hearing Gunther’s trash talk about Seth during Seth’s exhibition against Dominik Mysterio helped keep that story going, and this also serves as the only world title in WWE to get ANY screen time last week, as the Rock was likely out on a vacation or something.
Speaking of the Rock, I want to quickly point out that I did NOT make an error with last week’s comment about Jey being the first in his family to win single’s gold. Why? Because the Rock is not actually blood-related to the Samoan Dynasty which includes Roman and Jey. His father is Rocky Johnson, but his mother was ADOPTED by the so-called “High Chief” of the family. So, while you can make the technical argument that the Rock was the first family member to win single’s gold, Jey is the actual first BLOODLINE member to do so.
ANYWAYS, moving on, WWE was absolutely on fire with the comedy last week, as we saw Hart and Spear on Raw, a truly hilarious set of “Life and Legacy” spots with Murrey learning that he may be the seed of the Mouse Family (LMAO), and the side-splitting movie-making scene which opened up NXT featuring the Van Dams. I was honestly in tears during that Van Dam segment. It was so damn funny!
The last thing we saw from WWE this past week, though, was the ongoing odd transformation of the Hollow as Braun Strowman attempted to force Lumis and Rowan to be as cruel as him. I’m still waiting for an explanation as to how we got here, and I feel confident that we will get an adequate explanation soon, but for now my perfectionist side is going bonkers trying to make sense of this.
ON TO AEW…
To say that the second installment of “Elite Warfare” was a success is a massive understatement. A night which featured a series of surprise debuts involving top-notch new talent is always guaranteed to be a draw, and there was honestly not a single weak point in the show!
From the kickoff with a stellar opening video package, we see Ospreay barely survive his challenge from Omega. Look, I always believed Ospreay would retain, but the match was still very well done, and then the return of Adam Page to AGAIN betray Omega caught me off guard. This time, though, Omega deserved it, and now we await the journey to their second clash!
I will skip over the single backstage segment of the night for now to look onwards towards the Tag Title bout as the Briscoes did exactly what I predicted in capturing the Tag Straps (in fact, I only got one prediction wrong for the whole show, but more on that later). This bout was absolutely chaotic and helped keep the theme of unstoppable action going!
Next, Toni Storm defended her title against Becky Lynch and Jade Cargill in yet another bout which topped the previous one. Each match proved better than the last, which was no easy feat, and the women killed it here! I appreciated the recognition of Jade and Becky’s accomplishments as highlighted by commentary and in the in-ring storytelling, but the climax seeing Blake Monroe emerge as Toni’s understudy completely floored me!
Let me tell you, there are few women who ULW has desired to sign more than Blake in the latest batch of new talent, so this is an awesome grab by AEW!
Lastly, we had the amazing main event! Last year’s inaugural take on this bout was a ton of fun, but this year’s installment saw more consistent storytelling, and it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout!
We saw my brother enter the fray and outlast all expectations. I booed pretty loud from my couch when I saw Cool Quest go over the top towards the end, but it was so fun while it lasted!
Christian’s standout performance leaves me believing that he will be more prominently featured in the next season to come, should he stay with AEW after the draft. The same can definitely be said for LA Knight, who was absolutely screwed over in the end…but more on that shortly!
MJF predictably betrayed Lashley, and that will certainly come back to haunt him, but one thing I didn’t see coming was the arrival of Oba FUCKING Femi!
Earlier in the night, we saw Paul Heyman getting his personal security team prepped to prevent Brandon Lee from costing Sean Olson the match, but little did we know that Heyman’s newfound archenemy, Doc Brown would appear with the OTHER MJF, and the present the product of his experiments: the aforementioned Femi!
Femi came out and decimated Olson, leaving him unable to finish the match, which was seconds away from its required final ten man restart. Now, with Olson gone, we had a great slate of candidates to win – including my pick, Mr. White -, but we should all know by now what happened.
You see, I had seen ahead of time the makings of a possible double-elimination of Knight and Rhodes, but what I didn’t see coming was that they would effectively pull this off in a clever way which allowed Rhodes to survive his elimination due to the official not seeing it, only to turn around and illegally eliminate Knight!
The crowd wasn’t having it for the rest of the match, and the commentary team could barely be heard over the displeased crowd, who had turned on Cody in an instant!
However, despite their displeasure, I was pleased to be wrong here as White was dumped over the top and we soon saw Cody standing alone as the victor. To be honest, I do believe that this was a great booking decision, and it makes Cody the de facto heel in his coming confrontation with Ospreay, which I think Cody is bound to win.
Overall, an amazing broadcast which, again, barely featured ANYTHING relevant to the Mouse Family. Just a note!
Looking forward to this week, I have no predictions for WWE, because I have no previews, but I do have the cards for ULW:
Aggression (1.19.26)
To kick things off, Aggression continues the tournament’s first round to crown a new Undisputed Champion with the Premier Bracket as the 18th Seeded Owen Hart squares off against the 17th Seeded Pac! The winner here takes on Bray Wyatt in the second round, just so you know!
Next, we were supposed to have a tag title match, but that got pushed off to next week, because Insane Intensity this past Friday concluded with a hellacious fight between Lesnar and Steiner! If you recall, Steiner arguably cost Lesnar the League Choice Lumberjack match a couple weeks ago, and then Lesnar responded in kind last week. Now the two are set to square off in a battle that may be a little risky for the Beast Incarnate, considering that this was supposed to be his rest period!
Finally, for tonight, we have the main event, as AJ Styles takes on CM Punk for a guaranteed final time. This match was slated because Styles lost to Magog on Friday, and now the winner takes the 6th Seed in the Premier Bracket while the loser is excluded from the coming draft exemption!
Styles was talked into this because Punk promised that if Styles wins the encounter that the Straight Edge Society will leave him be, but now the risk is higher than ever for AJ. He is already beaten and bruised by his encounter with Magog, and now he is set to face a well-rested CM Punk?
This will be one that you won’t want to miss!
Animosity (1.21.26)
This once-in-a-blue-moon broadcast is back with a single match of high importance, as the first round of our tournament sees the Extreme Bracket’s 16th Seeded Keith Lee take on the 15th Seeded Yokozuna for a chance to face Darby Allin in the second round!
All in all, there’s a lot to look forward to this week, even as AEW takes the week off. See you there!!
Until our next Quest, this has been Johnny with yet another mission!
World Of Wrestling: Murrey Universe 