For Raw, the promo between Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre to build up their match for Wrestlemania kept the momentum going for this rivalry. After McIntyre pleaded Reigns to come to the ring to give him an answer to his Wrestlemania challenge, Reigns came to ring, accepted the challenge, and started a brawl between the two. When Reigns was gaining the upper hand, McIntyre hit a low blow and stood tall. The match between these two is getting a lot of attention and has a big fight feel to it, which how a fight like this should be.
For Smackdown, the tag team gauntlet match to determine Kofi Kingston’s future at Wrestlemania was solid from start to finish. While the gauntlet match idea is starting to run its course for this story because they have done these the past few weeks, this should bring an ending to this story. Xavier Woods and Big E put the New Day on their back as they were able to beat out all the teams thrown at them. Now, we wait and see wait happens as Kofi Kingston is set to face Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania for the WWE Championship.
The Bad
For Raw, the whole segment on a Moment of Bliss with Braun Strowman and the two actors from SNL was not good. First off, having these two guys from SNL compete in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal makes this match feel like WWE is not taking this seriously. Along with that, the delivery of all of this was just bad too. This is a match that won’t mean anything come Wrestlemania.
For Smackdown, we were told that we were going to have a fatal four way match to determine who would face Asuka at Wrestlemania. Instead, this match did not happen at all and Asuka defended her championship against Charlotte Flair this week. Surprisingly, Charlotte Flair won and really shakes things up for the main event triple threat match at Wrestlemania. While this is an intriguing way to go with the build up to the main event, Asuka’s championship run as a whole flopped, which is a shame considering how dominant she was in NXT.
The Final Verdict
Both brands continue to focus most of their time on the Wrestlemania matches. Some segments have been good, while others have been bad. As far as overall delivery this week, I will have to say that Smackdown had the better show this week. A feel good ending with the Kofi Kingston story, an added stipulation to the Miz versus Shane McMahon match, and a new women’s champion are why they were able to have the better show. Smackdown was due for a really good show and with all this new information going forward to Wrestlemania, it will be interesting to see how each one is handled.
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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