Wrestle Review: A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On Submitted by Andy Sullivan on 05/30/2020 at 10:47 AM
The big news to most is the former Revival, now FTR, showing up on AEW Dynamite this past Wednesday. While not completely shocking-I knew they'd get there soon-it surprised me they showed up this fast. Puzzling that they helped the Young Bucks but I sense a turn eventually. We'll definitely get a build to a future FTR/Young Bucks tag dream match. The question is: what do they do this coming Wednesday?
Speaking of which. Jungle Boy Jack Perry won a battle Royal to be Cody's first challenger to his TNT Championship. Ironically, Smackdown had a battle royal last night. Theirs was to see who woul replace Jeff Hardy in a match against Daniel Bryan later that night. I figured that didn't matter, as we'd eventually get Daniel Bryan vs AJ Styles anyway. I was right. Jeff got "out of jail", showed up on Smackdown and costed Sheamus against Bryan. How do we feel about another storyline focusing on Jeff's real-life issues? Viince continuing to do storylines such as this just reinforces Jim Ross' not-so-favorable opinion of his former boss that he's written in his new book-Under The Black Hat. By the way, did you happen to catch Matt's twitter message to Jeff after he saw the segment last night? "Just to reiterate, I'm happy to be working for Tony Kahn on TNT on Wednesday". That was clearly meant for Jeff as a "come on over, brother".
Back to Cody for a second: did anyone else catch the subtle holding up of four fingers during his interview on Dynamite? Granted, it was reference to him being Tony Kahn's fourth phone call but could it mean something else? A Four Horsemen-esque stable in AEW? I'm thinking maybe Cody, FTR and another. Another Dynamite note: did Jim Ross take yet another shot at WWE with his "actual wrestling" comment this past week? I would've thought that, after some point in business, they'd quite taking shots at WWE. Impact finally did.
Matt Riddle finished up in NXT this past week and will debut on Smackdown next week. I hope he doesn't get lost in the shuffle. He's getting a rub from Kurt Angle so that has to carry some weight. In my last bit of NXT news: Nigel McGuiness was furloughed by WWE Friday. They already have 3 commentators on NXT so I wonder if they bring him back at all? Of course, this is most likely a safety issue for Nigel during this pandemic. I said the same when Gerald Brisco was furloughed a few weeks back.
Word came down a day or so ago that Samoa Joe would be permanently replacing Samoa Joe on the Raw commentary team. That's a good move. Jerry went from being embarrassing to, let's face it, racist. Listening to him made me cringe. In fact, most times when I'd watch Raw on Hulu, I'd mute the TV. Joe, on the other hand, is very knowledgeable. Joe doesn't have that cringe offensive factor, though. I do wonder if this means Joe is done in the ring? Or is this just until he's healed up again? Let's face it, Joe has been racking up the injuries and has been wrestling a long time. We'll see what the future holds. One thing is for sure: Raw will be easier to listen to now; even if they aren't easy to watch.
Ace Austin gets an Impact World Title shot against Tessa Blanchard at some point. This would make sense for him to get this shot and maybe even win the title. He took the X championship from Tessa in the ladder match. If he won the world title from Tessa as well? Well, they could make a storyline that continually losing to Ace makes Tessa so crazy that she eventually snaps. I am surprised he beat Elgin, though.
Everyone enjoy wrestling, stay safe and for God sakes, let's be reasonable and compassionate humans.
