For Raw, we got to see Dean Ambrose return to in ring action against Dolph Ziggler this week and he looked great. He presented some new moves, showed that he has more strength this time around, and was really smooth in his return to the ring. The ongoing rivalry between Ambrose and Rollins vs. Ziggler and McIntyre is still going strong and it will be interesting to see where they go from there, especially now that the Shield has formed back together.
For Smackdown, there were so many good things Smackdown presented this week, but the ongoing rivalry between Samoa Joe and AJ Styles is really starting to get intense and stuck out this week. After Styles got himself DQ’d at Summerslam for attacking Joe with a steel chair after Joe’s comments to Styles’ family at ringside, Smackdown decided to have an interview with Styles to explain his actions. While Styles was getting fired up talking about the situation, Joe snuck up behind Styles and attacked him. Then, Joe proceeded to throw more insults towards Styles’ family while Styles laid there unconscious. This rivalry has heated up and gotten really good these past few weeks and WWE fans should look forward to this rivalry going into Hell in a Cell.
The Bad
For Raw, they decided to have repeat matches this week and it is starting to make these rivalries feel stale. The matches Raw decided to have for what feels like the 5th week in a row are the AOP vs. Titus Worldwide and the Riot Squad vs. Bayley and Sasha Banks. WWE does realize there are other tag teams in their division that either of these teams could face? At least with the Titus Worldwide storyline, they are hinting that Apollo Crews may go on his own. But, as far as the Riot Squad vs. Bayley and Banks, its been the same story for the past few weeks and it seems like no progress is being made.
For Smackdown, they only had one match that didn’t really entertain much and that was Peyton Royce vs. Naomi. It just felt like filler this week but maybe they are trying to lay out something with the IIconics going forward.
The Final Verdict
Overall, WWE had to move forward from Summerslam and show what the layout is going to be for the rest of 2018. Raw was more about the aftermath from Summerslam while Smackdown went right towards building up Hell in a Cell. Due to that, I will have to say that Smackdown had the better show this week. Honestly, this was one of the best Smackdowns of the year. They already had a match prepared and built up with Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella vs. The Miz and Maryse and they did a really great job of building up some matches that we will more than likely see on the PPV (AJ Stlyes vs. Samoa Joe, Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton, Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch). Raw will lay out some matches going forward for this PPV, but Smackdown is already off to a great start post Summerslam and fans should look forward to the constant build up for Hell in a Cell.
AEW superstar Adam Cole has opened up about what he calls a “scary” recovery from a second concussion that he suffered at AEW and NJPW’s ‘Forbidden Door’ event back in June 2022, with Cole set to make his return to the ring soon.
Cole specifically talked about memory loss as the most troubling aspect of his recovery:
”The memory stuff is the really, really scary part to me” Cole said, during an appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t CagesideSeats). “When you’re in the middle of a ring and there’s thousands of people around you and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. That was really scary. So, I knew pretty early on after my memory started going that something was wrong.”
Cole’s road to recovery as an especially long one.
“The crazy thing was that after even a month, it was like that’s when real serious side effects started happening” he said. “Everything I said in my return in-ring promo that I did all of that was true, and more. There was a lot of stuff that was happening very late into the healing process, or, what I thought was late, like a month-and-a-half, two months.”
Cole is gearing up for his return to AEW, with all signs pointing to him stepping back into the ring at Revolution next month.
NXT Vengeance Day was a rousing success for WWE on Saturday which saw a number of headlines come out of the event that was well-received by fans, including an injury suffered by Donovan Dijak during his match with Wes Lee for the North American Championship.
Dijak suffered an apparent broken finger during the match, which was seen on camera and shared on social media.
Following the event NXT general manager Shawn Michaels provided an update on Dijak, stating he did not suffer a broken finger – “Yeah, everybody is good” Michaels said. “I announced it at gorilla, it’s got to be a miracle, It’s not broken.
“We got him x-ray, they said it’s not broken and so yeah, I guess what you do is you kind of numb it and put it back in place and that’s what’s happening now. But it is, again, a modern miracle because we all saw it, it was pretty gnarly looking. But, apparently, he’s going to be okay, which is obviously fantastic news for us and him.”
AEW owner and booker Tony Khan is certainly open to the idea of AEW and WWE working together for a potential crossover supershow, despite Khan’s consistent blasting of WWE over the last few years.
“It’s something I would certainly be open to and I think it’s an interesting thing for the future” Khan said during an appearance on WTF with Marc Maron. “It’s not something that’s ever really been done. They’ve kind of existed in their own space. We are working with a lot of wrestling promotions.”
Khan’s AEW has already worked with a number of promotions such as Impact Wrestling and NJPW, and WWE has even warmed to the idea of working with other promotions, as they have with Impact Wrestling, NJPW, and NOAH recently.
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