Wrestle Review: Something to Say Submitted by Andy Sullivan on 11/23/2018 at 10:31 PM
People jump on the internet and want to constantly trash wrestlers. WWE is the most popular to trash lately. Well, at least they filed their two hour show with more than one match. That's more than I can say for Impact Wrestling. Yes, it was Thanksgiving and there was likely no one home watching the show. But to open the show with a lottery of who gets on the 5 on 5 teams for later in the night, and then fill the remainder of the night with old TNA matches from the GWN, kinda felt like they phoned it in.
You say "they gave their employees off for Thanksgiving, what's wrong with that? Are you heartless? First of all, the show is taped. They would've been off anyway. Second of all, if you're going to kill two hours and show one match, why not show a "best of" show like they do in the last two weeks of the year? Of course, "Best of Impact" is sometimes playing fast and loose with the word "best"
Most of Raw was Steph bragging that "Raw swept Smackdown! Raw swept Smackdown"! We got two TLC matches. One of which was still intact by the end of the night. Actually, the Ambrose/Rollins IC Championship match was announced the previous night at Survivor Series. The mind games between these two are top notch. Their last feud was hot. I had no doubt this one would be as well. And they're just scratching the surface.
At the beginning of Raw, Steph announced Braun vs Corbin in a tables match. If Stroman won, he would get a title shot against "The Absentee Champion" Brock Lesnar. If Corbin won, he'd be permanent GM AND Braun wouldn't get his title shot. Sounded like a pretty good match shaping up, right? Well, Corbin and his crew shattered Stroman's elbow, though that's probably the smokescreen injury to weakly mask the fact that Braun has been limping for weeks. Whatever the case, looks like no Braun until at least after WrestleMania.
So WWE, you've got no Braun, no Shawn, no Triple H, no Kevin Owens, no Sami Zayn, no Becky Lynch, you refuse to push a deserving fan favorite in Fin Balor. Yeah, WrestleMania is going to be great.....I'm sure they'll figure something out.
I was listening to The Chick Foley podcast for this week that just dropped today(go subscribe), and Sheena mentioned something that is so prevalent among wrestling fans. She got a ton of hate replies to something on social media and it dealt more with the WWE product currently. Her advice on the show? If you don't like it, don't watch. She said it way better but that's just to sum up. Don't complain. Don't go on the message board and rail against the product that you will most definitely watch the next week. That's just stupid. Watch something else. There is, of course, the theory that you like being upset. I mean, that's why people watch the news, right? To get upset? It works every time, whether or not that's the intent. I honestly think some wrestling fans are the same way.
Enough of that rant. Here's something I wondered after Smackdown: are we heading towards a Shane McMahon/Miz program? They had issues before last Sunday. Then, Tuesday, Miz was seemingly sucking up to Shane. They teamed up to face a couple of locals and Miz took the pin. Are we getting more of these impromptu tag matches where Miz gets pinned and ultimately blows up at Shane, leading to a match at, say, TLC? I would've said Royal Rumble or WrestleMania because it's Shane McMahon. That's a little too far away, though.
That's all I've got for this week. As usual, I look forward to what comes next. I'm into being taken for an entertaining ride.
