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pu7pl3:
WWE SMACKDOWN REVIEWS RECAPS AND REACTIONS


This show was bookended by some of the best and worst of WWE. Let’s start with the good.
Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns lived up to at least my own expectations at Crown Jewel, with Paul Heyman managing to play both sides to maintain his spot with whomever best serves him in the moment. In this case, that ended up being Reigns, who used an assist from The Usos to defeat Lesnar to retain the Universal championship.
Lesnar, good and pissed off about this, vowed to show up to SmackDown to put the boots to Reigns in retaliation. He did just that, throwing Reigns around like a rag doll and getting especially violent with Jimmy and Jey when they inevitably joined the fray.
Seriously, I want you to look closely at Lesnar as The Usos rush him and he moves to dealing with them. That kind of speed and power in such a large man is what makes him so terrifying, and his execution is so violent you almost can’t help but feel scared for what might happen to the poor bastards he has his hands on.
It’s why I will always say that Lesnar is one of the best to ever work in WWE. You just don’t get this anywhere else.
What followed was an angle we’ve seen before, Lesnar unhinged and breaking cameras before tossing officials around and ultimately attacking Adam Pearce. He was suspended indefinitely, which is how they’re getting him off TV for a while.
It works just fine, because, again, we got to see the proverbial bull running through the china shop.
Now that Lesnar is gone, though, the focus turns back to Reigns and his seemingly strained relationship with Heyman. It’s clear there is a great mistrust there but trust and usefulness are not mutually exclusive.
It will be most interesting to see what’s next.


Now to the bad.
And my god was this bad.
WWE is often a victim of Vince McMahon’s shortsighted ways, and this is another good example of that. Despite the fact that McMahon controls every aspect of this promotion, we somehow ended up in a situation where the women’s champion on each brand was drafted to the other brand and neither lost their title before the switch went into effect.
It’s clear they didn’t plan for this even one little bit, and one need only look at the above segment to see evidence of that.
Beyond a title exchange being dumb and devaluing, they quite literally had Becky Lynch, one of the coolest characters of the past decade, and Charlotte Flair, who has quickly become one of the top stars in the promotion, acting like children fighting over toys and who would give theirs up first — complete with throwing them around and playing keep away — while Sonya Deville played the role of the parent trying to keep the peace.
When they finally managed to actually exchange the titles, Flair suggested a winner take all match, which would have been an actually interesting way of going about this, before Sasha Banks showed up to get in the way of it and Lynch just left. She literally just walked off to go to Raw, stopping long enough to say “I’ll see one of you at Survivor Series.”
Banks even smiled and said “bye” as she walked away.
This was painfully bad, one of the worst segments I can remember either of these two taking part in. What sucks is they aren’t even necessarily to blame for it.
At least it’s done now and we can move on to the next thing that won’t make any sense, when Lynch wrestles Flair at Survivor Series in a brand warfare match where Lynch will represent Raw despite spending the last year on SmackDown and Flair will represent SmackDown despite spending the last year on Raw.

The Rest
If you didn’t know
Drew McIntyre is a guy I should be far more excited about having on SmackDown than I am. He’s a big hoss type who can absolutely go in the ring. I just have a hard time connecting with him. There just isn’t much there beyond “big fella who maybe tries a little too hard.” Here, he showed up to issue an open challenge, one answered by a much deeper, far more fleshed out character in Sami Zayn. Of course, Zayn did the job, going down to the Claymore Kick as a way to firmly establish McIntyre in his first full day on the blue brand.

A ceremony was held to crown Xavier Woods the new King of the Ring. Kofi Kingston was there, and joy was had by all. I guess I expected something more of this because of who was involved, but it felt like a standard segment you would get for such a thing.

For the second night in a row, Mansoor defeated Mustafa Ali. They had a decent match. There isn’t much to say about it otherwise.

They didn’t change much of anything about Hit Row’s presentation from NXT, and that is absolutely the right call. They’ve got bars — legit, too, they’re actually good at this — and WWE finally went back to using a couple jobbers to put them over big in their debut, with Swerve Scott and Top Dolla squading up to score the team’s first win on the main roster. There’s a LOT of potential here, and that much was obvious in this first showing.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Happy Corbin is a perfect feud featuring two wrestlers who amuse me to no end with their character work involving sidekicks. By the way, if you’re team Madcap Moss over Team Rick BOOGS, get out of my face right now. It’s worth pointing out how utterly insane it is that Nakamura is more of a character wrestler in WWE considering his history, but hey, take what you can in this world, right? Corbin scored a win in part thanks to Moss, and they kept calling it a contenders match, so we can reasonably expect a title match between these two in the near future.

This show was all about setting up the new roster and showing off some new faces, which they did for some — Ridge Holland, Aaliyah, Angel Garza & Humberto Carrillo, Sheamus — in the form of a brief promo backstage. To that end, it was always going to be a slower show without as much substance.

Grade: C+

ValeeLove:
lets leave Brock first. Do you guys know that Becky and Charlotte's segment was a shoot?!!! Its actually a serious issue right now. There was a real life backstage confrontation between them after the segment and Andrade tweeted about the issue. Charlotte got the heat from it.

pu7pl3:
I've not caught up on this news yet...what's happening with Charlotte? She has been getting in to these scuffles toomuch

ValeeLove:
yeah, I'll probably say it started with her dad and husband getting fired, then to her(the women's champion) losing to Nia Jax, of all people, clean on free TV where they had a shoot moment too; and now this.
After the backstage confrontation with Becky, Charlotte was reportedly escorted out of the building.
The rumors are back that once her contract is up she would be heading to AEW.

pu7pl3:
If she goes more room for other women to actuallyshine maybe

ValeeLove:
hopefully. We also heard Sonya Deville wanted to fight her backstage.

ValeeLove:
hopefully. We also heard Sonya Deville wanted to fight her backstage.

pu7pl3:
WWE NXT HALLOWEEN HAVOC REVIEWS RECAPS AND REACTIONS


Return of the Living Dead
Before we dig into this match, allow me to commend NXT for referencing the fact Chucky and Bron’s dad, Rick Steiner, have history. From the little doll showing up in the big man’s locker room and them exchanging familiar pleasantries, to Chucky alluding to making Rick’s life a living hell in 1998. Props, people. Props.
Youth and exuberance vs. age and wisdom. Tommaso Ciampa—dressed like Kratos—doesn’t believe Bron Breakker is ready for the moment. Ciampa believes Bron’s inexperience is his weakness and wanted to keep the match going as long as possible. Why? The longer the match, the better chance Bron makes a mistake.
Ciampa wrestled a slower pace than normal, opting to blunt Bron’s explosiveness. The champ went for submissions, body blows, and every tool in his arsenal to extend the match and weaken the challenger’s confidence. Ciampa even DDT’d the man onto exposed concrete.
Bron caught a couple second winds, but this was a different situation for the the young cat. His usual dominant moves, like the Frankensteiner, didn’t yield the same results.
But then it happened. Breakker survived Fairy Tale Ending and Ciampa, incensed, shifted to another gear. After a flurry of knee strikes and another Fairy Tale Ending, Bron finally went down for the count, bloody forehead and all.
This was a good enough main event for Halloween Havoc, showcasing Bron can hang with the best when his name is called. Of course, it also showed why Tommaso is the champ.
No shame in Breakker’s lost since Ciampa threw everything at him for the W. Breakker will get his time to shine but he’s not ready for Goldie yet. That said, he will get there.
Ask yourself if he’s ready to do for someone else what Ciampa did for him. If the answer is no—and it should be—then you know the right man won. The rumors of Ciampa’s demise were greatly exaggerated, and his particular brand of violence isn’t ready to die.


Trick R’ Treat
Oscar nominated actor Brad Douriff through his alter ego, Chucky, announced the NXT Women’s Championship would be on the line in a “Trick or Street Fight.” I love everything about that sentence.
The story going into this match Charles Lee Ray announced is Mandy Rose’s transformation and desire to rule NXT. Raquel González is a bit of a bystander. With that in mind, the street fight format enabled Ms. Rose to showcase this more vicious side to compete with Raquel’s noted mean streak.
Mandy trapped Raquel in an chair using a kendo stick, and then repeatedly bashed her opponent with said stick out of frustration. She tried to yank the champ’s shoulder out of the socket, she survived eating a face full of chair, and a spear through a table.
But Raquel gave as good as she got because of course she did. For several moments in the match, she was firmly in the driver seat but just couldn’t put it to bed. Mandy held on just long enough for Dakota Kai, revealing herself as the masked figure we kept seeing in promos, to hit Raquel in the back with a shovel. One running knee later from Mandy, and we got ourselves a new NXT Women’s champ.
Street fights are almost always normally fun. This one was no different, so let’s all thank Chucky and his infinite wisdom. We’re going to see if Mandy is the right choice for champion. She’s no slouch in the ring but she’s not top notch either; her character work is taking her over the top right now. If she can marry the two, it creates a very different dynamic for the women in NXT 2.0.
It was only a matter of time before Dakota got her revenge and she waited for the right moment to strike. That story didn’t feel done and I’m happy she and Raquel are going to tango at least one more time.


The Hills Have Eyes
A Lumberjack-O-Lantern match! Half of the locker room left their Halloween party to survey the damage these two teams planned to do to each other.
It didn’t take long for the lumberjacks to make their presence known, issuing a perfectly legal beatdown to Fabian Aichner x Marcel Barthel, who just so happened to get tossed to the outside. I recently mentioned MSK is pushing themselves too hard to prove their merit as champs and they’re cruising for a bruising. If there’s one thing that might help them keep the belts, it’s having a bunch of meaty men ringside to pound on Imperium a bit every now and then.
As always when these two teams face off like Cage and Travolta, the styles clash. Nash Carter x Wes Lee did didn’t alter their strategy; they stuck with high risk moves even with the lumberjacks around the ring. Eventually, Lee and Carter’s collective crazy scared away the lumberjacks! Seriously, those cats left ringside, which is something I didn’t know was a thing until this week.
And you know what? Maybe that was their downfall. Without the extra help on the outside, it was just too much power for MSK to overcome. A fantastic match ended with an Imperium Bomb and new tag champs.
This was the only way it could end for MSK. And the rematch—if we get one—should be a bit of a banger.


Child’s Play 3
The NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships were on the line in a Highway Scareway to Hell ladder match. Io Sharai and Zoey Stark defended against two thirds of Toxic Attraction (Gigi Dolin x Jacy Jayne) and Indi Hartwell x Persia Pirotta.
In typical Halloween fashion, there were a couple frightful bumps, both courtesy of the champs. Zoey misjudged a 450 splash from the top rope and damn near bent her knee. Minutes later, her partner was launched from the top of one ladder onto a ladder bridged between the ring and the commentary table. Io looked like an animation from a WWE video game rather than an actual human being when she made impact with the steel apparatus.
Hopefully both women are okay because none of that looked fun in the least bit.
As for the match itself, the ladies got about 17 minutes to get as physical and as nasty in the ring as possible. Besides the aforementioned bumps, there were springboards onto the outside, spinebusters onto the ladder, oh and a Frankensteiner onto a ladder. It’s a Frankensteiner because it’s Halloween, duh.
Ultimately, it came down to the champs getting out of the paint. They were the most dominant team in the match, always on top of everyone and kept momentum on their side for as long as possible. The reason they’re no longer champs is because for one brief second, Io took her eye off the prize. She hesitated with the belts in her grasp and paid a heavy price of sweat and pain.
In the end, it was Toxic Attraction who did what they said they would do: takeover. With the champs out of commission, they seized the moment and the belts in a hot opening match.
Indi x Persia can still go after the belts but I’m not sure if Io x Zoey ask for a rematch. It feels like we’ve come to the end of their tale as 2.0 looks to the future.
Gigi Dolin is sexy asf, I just realised


The Rest
The House on Haunted Hill
The only reason I knew this segment would tickle my fancy is because Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes would make it work. The haunted house thing had all the makings of going off the rails and being too silly, but they—especially Trick—saved it.
Over the course of two segments, we saw the pair travel through “Dexter’s house” filled with zombies, mummies, vampires, Andre Chase, and dead kids. Yup, that last part is not a typo. And no, they weren’t actual dead kids. NXT 2.0 is “edgy” but it’s not necromancy edgy.
In the end, Melo and trick retrieved the North American Championship and screamed their way home after avoiding all of the psychos inside of the actual psycho’s house. The highlight was Trick seeing a portrait of a ghostly woman and proudly proclaiming “Oh, she’s fine!”
The perfect Halloween fun and I approve.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Roderick Strong and the Diamond Mine wanted a lot of smoke tonight. They issued an open challenge and guess who answered? No, not Chucky, but Odyssey Jones. Malcolm Bivens, rightly, noted Jones isn’t 205 lb. But hey, a challenge is a challenge and smoke was asked for.
Of course, the problem for Jones is the same as it is for most cats these days: Diamond Mine rolls deeper than the Dungeon Family and the Wu-Tang Clan combined. Until someone learns how to count, then beating any member of the Mine is impossible. The only thing one can do is succumb. Strong spent most of the match bringing the big man down to size, but it was interference by the Mine that sealed the deal.
It was an okay match but on an event of this magnitude, it feels pointless and weird.

Halloween II
Joe Gacy came to the ring to disparage Halloween for not being an inclusive holiday. It’s all about exploiting the women. No comment from your friendly neighborhood smart ass.
Anyway, he, with the help of Harland dressed like Michael Myers, quickly defeated the man known as Malik Blade.

Dracula
Grayson Waller took over hosting duties tonight when LA Knight suffered a bout of “car trouble.” When Knight finally showed up, also dressed like a vampire, he and Waller argued until Solo Sikoa showed up to clean house. If you didn’t know he was related to Rikishi and The Uso’s, you definitely know now.

Don’t Look Now
Kay Lee Ray made a brief cameo to tell the world she deserves her flowers now! And if we don’t give them, she’s coming to take them.

Halloween Havoc was a fun two hours. Every title changed hands except one, and few matches disappointed. Any show with a fun haunted house segment will always get my thumbs in the up position. Next week? Trick x Melo tag against Dexter x Johnny, Tony D’Angelo finally sits down with Lash Legend, and more surprises as we pave the road to Survivor Series.

Grade: B+

Kaycee7:
Surprised this wasn't an A.

NicestDude:
When is the next nxt ppv?

ValeeLove:
To whom it may concern, ROH has fired every wrestler on their roster and rumours are their library is up for sale to the highest bidder.

Windham AKA Bray Wyatt's 90 days clause ends tomorrow.

What do you'll think?

#LoveNews

Kaycee7:
Windham to AEW feels like a done deal sha but I share Pu7pl3's reservations that that roster is getting too crowded. Maybe TNA, just to build up some following outside WWE, for a start.

ValeeLove:
Impact is good, but he'll get better exposure in AEW, and Pu7pl3 is right, the roster is getting crowded. They've got a number of 90+ male wrestlers to manage.

ValeeLove:
Who agrees with me?
Some people are saying Punk's run has been boring. This is the truth, but has little to nothing to do with Punk himself; It's the booking. The goal of every wrestler in any wrestling company is competition; to be the best and have the title to prove it. When this law isn't obeyed, then there's a problem. Since Punk came his goal has been to do other things aside be the best which his catchphrase says, and what I mean by 'being the best' is focussing on being the best wrestler and winning a title. He's not doing that and it's wearing everyone out gradually, bad booking Tony. You can mention every other thing, but this is the root of the not too exciting run he's having.
He wants to help others, maybe he should manage them. He's going through ring rust, maybe he should have trained properly before stepping in the ring again. But, if he wants to wrestle and be the best in the World again, he should run though that roster and beat everyone who steps in his way till he becomes the World champion as he did times before.
That's my take.
What's yours?

ValeeLove:
"It doesn't matter how elite you are, it doesn't matter what tribe you're chief to, it doesn't matter if you're the boss, women or man, the King or Queen... Hell you can add a new day to the week - I'm still the greatest champion in all of professional wrestling"

- Moose's promo on Impact this past Thursday.

Moose won the Impact World title by immediately beating Josh Alexander who defeated Christian for the Impact title at Bound For Glory this past Saturday.

pu7pl3:
If she goes more room for other women to actually shine maybe

Nezzjnr:
She should go please... She's just lucky she used her Dad's name to get to the Ranks in the Company.

Someone like Naomi should be in the place of Charlotte.

samistry:
Lmao impact title is the cruiserweight of world titles[. They got screwed hard by AEW. quote author=pu7pl3 post=107191900]

Roman Reigns says hi

pu7pl3:
Her dad helped but let's tell ourselves the truth, Charlotte is a better wrestler than Naomi

pu7pl3:
There is no way he can run through everyone, he is no longer the best...there are many wrestlers that are better in the ring and have better promos now
He is boring now cos that's just how he has regressed

samistry:
Lmao impact title is the cruiserweight of world titles[. They got screwed hard by AEW. quote author=pu7pl3 post=107191900]

Roman Reigns says hi

pu7pl3:
Roman Reigns says hi