News

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw: Who won this week? December 24, 2018

Published

4 years ago

December 28, 2018

The Good

For Raw, it was funny to see Rhyno make a comeback to help out Heath Slater. During Slater’s match with Jinder Mahal, Rhyno dressed up as Santa Claus and was handing out gifts during the match. When it looked like Slater was about to win the match, the Singh Brothers interfered to help out Mahal, giving Slater the win via DQ. Rhyno then came to the ring to save the day. I guess that this means that they are back to being in the tag division.

For Smackdown, we have a new United States Champion! In the main event of Smackdown, Rusev was able to defeat Shinsuke Nakamura in a great match. This match was given a good amount of time and it was able to show what each competitor was about. Overall, this was an interesting change considering Nakamura’s title reign wasn’t really effective, so this is a change to embrace.

The Bad

For Raw, when WWE announced that we would see new matchups, I expected some interesting things to see in the future. But, WWE decided to recycle the Riott Squad versus Bayley and Sasha Banks once again. This matchup was literally shoved down the WWE fans’ throats when the Riott Squad first came onto Raw and now they seem to be bringing it back. Hopefully though, one of these teams moves to another brand during this new era.

For Smackdown, one thing I noticed was how much they edited the crowd and other things during this show. A prime example was during Rusev’s entrance, they showed a clip of a fan chanting Rusev Day, which a shot that was taken earlier in 2018. Along with that, a majority of the crowd noise was edited too, which doesn’t give it much of a authentic feel.

The Final Verdict

Both brands put on a pretty good show. The Royal Rumble isn’t for another month so building it up extremely wasn’t necessary this week. Both shows were entertaining and helped integrate the Christmas theme too. With that said, I would have to say that Smackdown had the better show this week. With a new US champion, and a very interesting exchange between AJ Styles and Vince McMahon to close the show has questions going into next week. In conclusion, Smackdown continues to roll with solid show week after week so it’ll be interesting to see where this goes for 2019.

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All Elite Wrestling

Adam Cole Discusses Troubling Injury Recovery

Published

4 months ago

February 5, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

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.

News

Donovan Dijak Suffers Injury at NXT Vengeance Day

Published

4 months ago

February 5, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

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.”

All Elite Wrestling

Tony Khan Open to AEW/WWE Crossover

Published

4 months ago

February 5, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

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.