Wrestle Review: Insane releases and Series of Lackluster Events

Nia Jax, Eva Marie(again), Mia Yim, Keith Lee, Harry Smith, Karrion Kross,, Lince Dorado, Gran Metalik, Jeet Rana, Katrina Cortez, Trey Baxter, Zayda Ramier, Jessi Kamea, B-Fab, Oney Lorcan, Ember Moon, Frany Monet and Scarlett Boardeaux were all released late this week from WWE. Some, like Keith Lee, totally stunned me. Others, like Nia Jax, I’m surprised it took this long. Of course, we all know why she stuck around as long as she did, don’t we? If you smell it……

Kross and Scarlett also shocked me. When someone on Twitter jokingly asked Kross about the mask they made him wear, he replied “you don’t want that piece of crap”. That tells me that Kross knew what they were doing with him was garbage. He went from a dominant force in NXT to a joke on Raw. Same could be said with Keith Lee. Oh, and the “Bearcat” nickname was a load of crap. Keith said as much. Isn’t it nice when a wrestling company tells the truth and doesn’t screw with talent?

WWE tv was straight garbage this week. Are you surprised? I’m not. The thing that stuck out to me, the thing that grabbed my attention the most, was the CM Punk/Eddie Kingston confrontation on Rampage that resulted in Tony making Punk vs Kingston at Rampage. The back and forth between those two was absolutely fantastic! I can’t wait for their match at Full Gear! But I’ll discuss Full Gear closer to time.

Remember when WWE had angles and matches on Raw and Smackdown to set up their Survivor Series teams? Saturday, I came back from being out to find that WWE just randomly announced the Survivor Series matches on their Twitter. So we’ve gone from filling Raw and Smackdown with matches to decide who would be on the Survivor Series teams to a general manager just announcing the teams on Raw a few years ago and now, they’re just announcing the team members randomly on Twitter. A little lazy, don’t you think? The rich piece of it all is that team Raw: Rollins, Balor, Owens and the Mysterio’s-all came over from Smackdown just a few weeks ago! They face another thrown together team of Drew McIntyre, Jeff Hardy, Xavier Woods, Sami Zayn and Baron Corbin. So we just gonna leave Kofi Kingston out to be Woods’ cheerleader?

The women’s match will be Rhea, Bianca, Liv, Carmella and Zelina for Raw vs Sasha Banks, Shayna Baszler, Shotzi, Natalya and, for some reason, Aliyah for Smackdown. These teams frustrate me. I understand the whole strange bedfellows of it all. But there’s absolutely no lead-up. It’s just like “here it is”. No thought and no excitement at all. I wonder what they’ll do on Raw and Smackdown for build-up.

I can’t leave on a down note. Friday night on Dynamite, Max Caster burned Bryan Danielson with his quip about Bryan’s father-in-law (head of WWE talent relations John Laurunitis), firing all those people the other day. “I’m gonna put you in the poverty dog because I end careers quicker than your father-in-law”! Hilarious stuff!

That’s all for this week. Make sure to check out my podcast, Blendertainment, and I’ll be right back here next weekend!