WWE Week In Review (7/30/18 – 8/5/18)
Welcome to this week’s WWE Week In Review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have a few big angles to discuss. Let’s get right to the review.
Mae Young Classic Roster Set:
The following is courtesy of WWE.com and ewrestling.com:
- Kaitlyn
- Rhea Ripley
- Io Shirai
- Nicole Matthews
- Jinny
- Kacy Catanzaro
- Deonna Purrazzo
- Tegan Nox
- Jessie Elaban
- Reina Gonzalez
- Taynara Conti
- Mia Yim
- Mercedes Martinez
- Kavita Devi
- Killer Kelly
- Zeuxis
- Isla Dawn
- Lacey Lane
- Karen Q
- Toni Storm
- Meiko Satomura
- Ashley Rayne
- Priscilla Kelly
- Xia Brookside
- Hiroyo Matsumoto
- Aerial Monroe
- Vanessa Kraven
- Allysin Kay
- Xia Li
- Rachel Evers
- MJ Jenkins
- Zatara
My Take: This is an excellent list of athletes for the tournament. The tournament will be taped next week and the finals will occur at the WWE women’s PPV, Evolution. With the women’s PPV coming later this year, perhaps this will lead to a women’s show, so they can have their own spot-light, instead of having to share with the men.
Best Moment Of The Week:
The best moment of the week is when Brock Lesnar beat the hell out Kurt Angle… and Paul Heyman. Garnering a massive audience on YouTube, this angle felt like hell was freezing over when he attacked Heyman. It’s been a long time since Lesnar and Heyman were at war with each other and the fact that Angle was involved with them, just like last time, could possibly be a tease of a reboot of that feud. Angle even promised he’d settle his score with Lesnar soon, so perhaps we’ll even see Angle get inserted into the title match, either as a referee or, maybe, a challenger? If the goal of this was to establish Lesnar as the ultimate force of nature, then I’d say it was an accomplishment.
Worst Moment Of The Week:
Smackdown Live had three matches in a two hour show and only two were long enough to mean any-thing. I just read an older interview that Disco Inferno gave, I think to Vince Russo, that I found on WrestlingInc.com. Inferno said some-thing to the effect that people don’t want to see a lot of wrestling on a wrestling show. I always get surprised when people say foolish things like that. Every casual fan that I have ever watched any wrestling show with, especially RAW, always tell me the reason why they don’t watch more or won’t watch at all is because there is too much talking and not enough action. Context is certainly important, but it doesn’t take two hours’ worth of promos to establish the reason why the matches are happening. Ten minutes worth of talking can completely handle all of your contextual needs for the card. The fact that Vince McMahon keeps relying on some-thing that only in-different customers find appealing for a small period of time is one that should trouble any-one that spends five minutes looking into the history of what has drawn the most in professional wrestling. I’m not in the profession of wrestling, but if I can ascertain this information from just intuition, then why can’t so many of the people that run wrestling leagues? Look at all of the film directors of the 1990s who learned how to make pictures just from watching movies on their VCR like Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, Paul Thomas Anderson, Baz Luhrman, Quentin Tarantino and Stephen Soderbergh, just to name a few. You don’t need to be there to know what happens there, as long as you analyze every-thing and are able to figure out why it all is the way it is. Any-way, Smackdown sucked this week.
Worst Match Of The Week:
Jinder Mahal versus Braun Strowman was like watching tapioca pudding get poured on burnt bread and thrown at a wall until it looked like mud.
Best Matches Of The Week:
5. Seth Rollins versus Drew McIntyre – RAW
4. Tony Nese versus Kalisto – 205 Live
3. Cedric Alexander versus Brian Kendrick – 205 Live
2. The Bar versus The Usos – Smackdown Live
1. Shayna Baszler versus Candice LeRae – NXT
These two women had the best WWE match of the week in a furious fight. Baszler seems to run on nitro, because she always seems like a fighter who is two seconds away from exploding. LeRae is a fabulous wrestler and one of the most exciting of her generation. If you enjoy professional wrestling as the fake sport it is, then you will likely get a real thrill out this match.
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Thank you for reading all this week and we’ll get back together next week to talk more about the WWE.
