For Raw, the opening segment and match was entertaining. Baron Corbin was with Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley to open up the show and Corbin was emphasizing that when he becomes the permanent GM, you are either with him or against him. This brought out Elias, who made fun of everybody in the ring and said that anybody but Corbin would be a good fit for a GM. This then led to a match between Bobby Lashley and Elias, in where Lashley won because Corbin decided to make a last second adjustment in the match and make it a no DQ match, which led to the three guys all beating up Elias.
For Smackdown, they had a celebration for Jeff Hardy and his 20 years with WWE and Smackdown. They produced a great video and had the entire roster out to celebrate. But, then Samoa Joe came out and crashed the party. Joe went into Hardy’s past trouble with alcohol and drugs and already started this rivalry out on a personal note. That is what Samoa Joe does best with his rivals and this rivalry with Jeff Hardy is already out to a great start.
The Bad
For Raw, they hosted a Intercontinental Championship open with Seth Rollins and while these are enjoyable most of the time, this week didn’t work out. The main reason being is because Rollins defended his championship this week against Dolph Ziggler, which feels like the millionth time. For as many people that they have on the Raw roster, to not have other than Dolph Ziggler be the one to face off against Rollins is a total lack of creativity from WWE.
For Smackdown, they had a segment where the Big Show decided to end things with the Bar and it fell flat. The main reason is because they didn’t even make this a main point on the show. Instead they just showed a quick backstage segment that was filmed before the show even started where Cesaro was upset with Big Show for not helping last week, only to take a KO Punch. This could’ve been made a bigger deal considering the Big Show was the whole reason that the Bar was tag team champions, but for some reason WWE doesn’t want to give the tag team division proper attention.
The Final Verdict
Overall, Raw was very bad this week while Smackdown was very good. For being the “superior show” after winning at Survivor Series, you would think WWE would be able to have better plans laid out for Raw. Instead, we get repeat matches or filler matches and segments that just don’t feel intriguing. While Smackdown, on the other hand, has great build up for TLC and gives the proper time to each rivalry they are trying to push. With all that said, Smackdown won this week by a landslide and have all the momentum going forward right now.
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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