Smackdown LIVE | Review

Smackdown LIVE was LIVE (obviously) from Phoenix, Arizona 

We began the show with "The Man Becky Lynch talking about her Royal Rumble win, same as Seth Rollins on Raw the previous night. It's standard wrestling logic that says when a face starts a promo it's "natural " that he or she is interrupted and vice versa, an example being Charlotte here, interrupting Lynch and taking credit for her success. (No this isn't a review of RAW again) ending with a brawl. I think there will be another match in one of the two pay-per-views. 

Up next was Shinsuke Nakamura defending his newly won US championship against R-Truth who was rewarded a shot of the title after missing out on the Rumble match, the referee botched the three count and Truth was announced as the winner, I was waiting for an "authority figure" (because there's not a lot of those around in wrestling these days) to restart the match, that wasn't the case, Rusev appeared and wanted a match for the title, the champion said no. Rusev and Shinsuke beat up Truth. 

Becky is seen limping whilst walking, claiming she is not injured, interesting to see where this storyline is headed. 

Rey Mysterio v Samoa Joe never happened after Andrade attacked Rey, laying him out with a hammerlock DDT. Looks like this one is perhaps headed to Wrestlemania, the two always have entertaining matches, so it's all good. 

Miz and Shane held a tag title celebration, we saw Miz's dad in this segment, later Shane announced a four corner tag match: Usos v New Day v Bar v Heavy Machinery. Which was won by the Usos. The brothers will face the champions at Elimination Chamber. Could there be new tag team champions crowned? Maybe....

Daniel Bryan started off the "main event" promo by introducing Rowan, he then threw the WWE Championship in the bin, thus unveiling of a new look championship, I believe it's a hemp type belt but at first glance it looks like another women's championship. Skipping ahead a little here, Triple H announced that Bryan will defend the title at the Elimination Chamber against AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Samoa Joe, Jeff Hardy and Mustafa Ali. A brawl between the five guys in the ring ended the show.

I'm happy I've decided to write about Raw and Smackdown after an event has taken place on a Sunday, I sense that we will see repetitive matches and segments in the coming weeks where if you missed a week or two of these shows, you won't really miss much. It's been like this for a very long time and it won't change. 

I'll be back for the next pay-per-view event with predictions. Thanks for reading. 

Monday night RAW | Review

Let's talk about Monday night RAW,  which was broadcast LIVE from Phoenix Arizona.

Seth Rollins opened the show talking about winning the Royal Rumble the night before, the usual stuff we, the viewers, hear after every Rumble, including pointing at the Wrestlemania sign, something that's probably going to be done on every Raw, Smackdown (pay-per-views included) til April.

Triple H comes out, gets a nice reception from the crowd, see what happens when you don't appear on TV every week? You get cheered. He bigs up Rollins and then Ambrose intervenes, the past is talked about, Ambrose goads Triple H to make the match between him and Rollins or does he have to ask Vince's permission. 

The match is made. Seth won the back and forth match with a stomp to Ambrose, back from the commercial, Ambrose is still in the ring. All of a sudden interrupted by Nia Jax and Tamina. I like that they are having Nia interact with the guys in the ring after all, she's not like most girls as it says in her theme song. Her getting Dean out of the ring is interesting, could they be building to some sort of match between these two? I kinda wanna see that to be honest. 

Nia and Tamina went on to defeat Alexa and Mickie via a impressive double Samoan Drop from Nia to advance to the next round. Next we see a battle of two former General Managers. Kurt Angle was beaten clean by Corbin. The Olympian looks so out of it now, he needs to retire. I think they are building to that story. Perhaps ending at Wrestlemania. 

Other things that happened were, Finn Balor beaten up by Lashley and his "hype-man"  Lio Rush. The Revival defeated Hawkins and Ryder via the Shatter Machine. If your wondering why we are seeing a lot of the lesser talent on tv. The words AEW might have something to do with it, that is all I'm going say about that.

Elias is now back to being a heel, taking out Jeff Jarrett and Road Dogg with the Guitar. Natalya and Dana Brooke were defeated by Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan, I missed this match to be honest, I'm not surprised that the heels won this one. 

Ronda Rousey's open challenge was accepted by Bailey, interesting to see the crowd so against Ronda, probably because of her 'mania opponent. Ronda won that via the arm-bar. "The Man" interrupted and chose the champion for the main event in April. 

Braun Strowman v Drew McIntyre ended in a DQ. This part of the show, ended with Corbin and McIntyre laying out Strowman. So much for the new era, it's more like new year, same story. 

The main event promo was all about Rollins making a decision about who he was to face at Wrestlemania, Brock or Daniel Bryan. We never got to that as Brock gave Rollins F5 after F5 after F5 and more to end the show. 

Wrestlemania is a long time away, so there is no rush for Rollins to make a decision as to who he is going to face for the respective titles. Did I enjoy the show? Some parts yes, some no. I struggled to keep paying attention in the second half of the show, I deserve a WWE championship of my own for watching this 3 hour show show every week. Smackdown included. 

Click HERE for my thoughts on Smackdown. 

Royal Rumble 2019 Review |

The much anticipated Royal Rumble is in the books. Time to look back at the event starting with the kick off show. 

Shinsuke Nakamura won back the US championship from Rusev after Rusev collided with Lana, sending her off the ring apron to the floor, decent match overall.

Missed the majority of the next two matches to be honest so let's get to the main card. 

Starting off with the Smackdown women's championship match. Asuka going one on one against "The Man" Becky Lynch. 

It's great for Asuka that she remained champion by forcing Lynch tap out in a back and forth match, it also made things a whole lot clearer as to who was going to win the women's rumble later on in the show. 

Staying with the Smackdown brand, The Miz and Shane captured the tag titles from the bar in a very entertaining match. Let's see how long that reign lasts, I give it until fastlane. 

A match I was looking forward to delivered, Sasha and Ronda put on a action packed match. I thought the champion was going to tap but she managed to get out of that dilemma, in the end Banks tapped out. Ronda moves on to her next challenger and Sasha will attempt to move on also, probably to focus on the tag titles at the Elimination Chamber. 

The Women's Rumble match featured Pay-per-view debuts for Lacey Evans, Nikki Cross and other NXT talent, I picked number 20 Who turned out to be Zelina Vega. She hid under the ring for a while, sound strategy if you can make it work. 

When Lana walked out at number 28 injured, it became obvious that Becky was going to take her spot, the final two came down to Becky and Charlotte with "The Man" prevailing. 

Interesting to see what they do with Charlotte, I still stand by my prediction that the main event of Wrestlemania will be a triple threat match between Becky v Ronda v Charlotte. 

Going to quickly talk about the two WWE championship matches starting with Bryan v AJ. I had AJ to win this match up but it wasn't to be after numerous attempts to tap Bryan out, Erick Rowan returned to help the champion win the match. 

Rowan is obviously going to be Bryan's "heavy" I wonder if they'll mention Bryan's affiliation with the Wyatt family in the past. This match was slow and felt boring, go look back at the crowds reaction to this match or the lack of it. The women's rumble had something to do with it.

Ok, on to the Brock Lesnar v Finn Balor Match. Balor put on a great effort, attacking the beast from the get go, going after him after Lesnar hurt himself via the announce table, For me, Balor had it won but, one moment of lapse of concentration and the Kimora lock was applied, Balor tapped out right away. 

On to the main event, which lacked surprises besides NXT's Johnny Gargano and Aleister Black putting on a good show, the match was lacking some fire and became slow in my opinion because how long the event itself was, McIntyre was eliminated with Seth still in. I'm kind of getting tired of Kofi's escape scenarios, it's played out now I'm sorry. 

We knew R Truth wouldn't make it to the ring despite being the last entrant but I, like many didn't expect what happened next.

Nia Jax attacked him and took his number 30 spot, eliminating Mustafa Ali and then things picked up when that happened as I thought "they wouldn't have her win the men's match would they?" The Superkick, 619 and RKO to her was crazy prior to her elimination. Royal Rumble tend to have unexpected things happening and this was one of those examples. 

Seth Rollins eliminated Braun with a stomp to win. He will go on to "BURN IT DOWN" at Wrestlemania whether it's against Lesnar OR Bryan time will tell. 

Overall this event was a 6 out of 10. My only gripe with this is that the show was so long. 5 hours. 7 if you count the kick off show. I'm very much looking forward to the halftime heat tag team match during the big Super Bowl game on Sunday. 

All eyes turn to Raw tomorrow night. (Morning if you're in the UK like me) I'm going to a write a one-off blog review for Raw and Smackdown over the next two nights.

Hopefully you've enjoyed reading this. Any feedback is welcome. 

Royal Rumble 2019 | Predictions

Welcome to the debut of this here blog, what better event to start with. The Royal Rumble. Here are my predictions. 

Kick off show matches 

United States Championship match: Rusev vs. Shinsuke Nakamura 

To my recollection there has no been zero to no build whatsoever, almost as if they just wanted to put these two together just to be about on the card. 

Am I missing something here? I thought there were no automatic rematch clauses again. Ah well. I see Rusev winning here.


Cruiserweight Championship Fatal 4-way match: Buddy Murphy vs. Kalisto vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Hideo Itami 

Long story short I haven't seen 205 Live so I'm just going to predict the winner for this match up. Buddy Murphy.

Royal Rumble predictions (in no particular order) 

Raw Women's Championship match: Sasha Banks vs. Ronda Rousey. I love that there is unpredictability for this match up and that's what is exciting because anything can happen with Ronda losing the match from interference from Becky and Charlotte as payback for Ronda costing them the match at TLC. 

Do I think Sasha is going to win? No because of the tag titles debuting at the elimination chamber. 

I've got Ronda to win this but will be happy for "the boss" if she wins. I've got another scenario for Ronda later on here so keep reading.

Smackdown Women's Championship match: Becky Lynch vs. Asuka. Many (myself included) have touted Becky to lose vs Asuka and go on the rumble match and win, but I ask, why does "the man" have to lose? For me it'll damage her character so that's why I pick Becky winning the match and the smackdown women's championship.

Smackdown Tag-Team Championship match: The Bar vs. Shane and Miz. 

I got the Miz and Shane winning this match and then later down the line Miz to turn heel and set up a Wrestlemania match between the two. 

WWE Universal Championship match: Finn Balor vs. Brock Lesnar

Winner: Brock Lesnar

This following contest is very intriguing in a sense that anything can happen, from Lesnar just "squashing" Balor to Strowman interfering and costing the Beast the match and the championship. 

Prediction: Brock Lesnar remains champion. 

A Finn Balor win would be great but I don't see it happening.

WWE Championship match: Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles 

Expecting a great match here between these two. Im going to predict an AJ styles win here. 

Women's Royal Rumble

The two favourites to win this match are Becky and Charlotte, however I take Becky out of the equation. 

I predict that the Wrestlemania main event will be Becky v Ronda v Charlotte (with Charlotte winning a opportunity before mania) 

Prediction: Charlotte or Ronda to win the Women's Royal Rumble. 

Men's Royal Rumble

A similar scenario to the women's rumble match where there are two standout favourites in Drew McIntyre and Seth Rollins. 

I mentioned his name earlier, that being Braun Strowman. Could he win here? Sure! But I hope not. He had so much momentum as a face but when he turned heel just to be a opponent for Roman Reigns, the momentum fizzled out rapidly. 

I do not wanna see another Lesnar v Strowman match so there you go.

Prediction. Seth Rollins win the Royal Rumble. 

That's it for the Royal Rumble predictions. I'll probably get everything wrong. This is my favourite event on the WWE event calendar. 

Enjoy the event if you're watching.