The WWE Week in Review #1: 3/6-3/12

JordanJoMo Presents: The WWE Week in Review

3/6-3/12 2016

Hey there ladies and gentlemen! Jordan Bass here (AKA @JordanJoMo on Instagram). For those who don’t know me, I am a wrestling fan of 11 years and have an extensive knowledge of not only the current wrestling with companies such as WWE, TNA, ROH, and NJPW, but I also consider myself a walking, talking wrestling encyclopedia. If you have a question about wrestling, chances are I will be able to answer it for you. Each week right here on thewrestlingclassic.com I will be putting out a blog known as “The WWE Week in Review” where I will run down that week in WWE and give a recap and review of the week itself.

This past week kicked off with Raw on Monday night where we actually got what I considered to be a good show. We got more advancement in the Ambrose/HHH rivalry heading into Roadblock, Shane McMahon got to deliver some pain, and Sami Zayn made his Raw re-debut, among other things.

About midway into the show Triple H set the main event of the night between Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt, which was reigniting an old rivalry from late 2014. That feud never held my interest at the time so you can say I didn’t find much to be excited about from this announcement. Something that did get me excited was seeing the team of Y2AJ, Chris Jericho and AJ Styles, take on The New Day with the WWE Tag Team Championship on the line. Many people, including myself, were concerned about whether or not Jericho and Styles were going to stay as a team coming out of this matchup. I can say my concern was only furthered with the release of the bland Y2AJ t-shirt. My concern was mainly in that I just really want Styles to be a singles wrestler for now in WWE, but I don’t have anything to worry about now considering after Styles and Jericho came up short against New Day where Big E got a clean pin over Jericho, Jericho delivered 3 Codebreaker’s to Styles and then stuffed the Y2AJ t-shirt in his mouth. This now has a lot of intrigue coming out of it. The real question is not if Styles and Jericho will wrestle again at Wrestlemania, but what type of match the two will face each other in. Even though there is already a No Holds Barred match currently set on the card between Ambrose and Lesnar, with how personal the feud of Jericho and Styles is getting, I would love to see a Falls Count Anywhere or Last Man Standing Match between the two.

Kevin Owens took on “The Man That Gravity Forgot” Neville on Raw this week in a stellar match that actually got me up on my feet near the end when Neville nailed a big corkscrew splash of sorts off the middle rope and got a close near fall. Owens came up with the cheap victory in the end and then assaulted the former NXT Champion after the match, leading to Sami Zayn returning to Raw and going straight after his rival Kevin Owens. This here set up the intrigue on whether or not Neville will be interjected into this feud or not. Coming out of Smackdown it also looks as though The Miz may have been introduced into this feud as well. A lot of speculation is circulating on whether the plan is to do Zayn vs. Owens or a multi-man match for the Intercontinental Championship. Personally, I just want to see Owens defend against Zayn, because that is the real feud here. I enjoy Miz and Neville a lot but they don’t need to be put into the IC Title match. They may once again go with the ladder match for the title and include the likes of Stardust, Breeze, and Ziggler, that wouldn’t shock me at all.

It looks as though Ryback may be starting a feud with the United States Champion Kalisto. Ryback is teetering on being a heel but nothing is for sure yet because he has yet to truly do anything dastardly towards another face because even the initial moment of him walking out on Kane and Big Show involved no attack on either man from Ryback. Ryback has just been laying waste to the Social Outcasts since then and this week he interacted with Kalisto, basically telling him it would be a good idea if he ditched Sin Cara and just became a singles wrestler. Can’t say I disagree, Ryback. The last time and only time we saw Kalisto vs. Ryback it was very good so a match at Mania would not have me upset, though I would rather see this match be the multi-man match. Kalisto defending in a ladder match against Sin Cara, Neville, Ziggler, Miz, Breeze, Ryback, and Stardust would be a ton of fun. Something has to be done quickly with Kalisto to keep the man relevant and make this title reign memorable.

So the Lana/Brie feud continued this week as my favorite Summer Rae defeated Brie Bella off a distraction from Lana. Lana then hit the Bella Buster on Brie post-match and did the same thing on Smackdown after Brie actually defeated Summer. I think I know what they’re building here, which is an 8 woman tag team match with Brie, Paige, Alicia Fox, and Natalya vs. Lana, Summer Rae, Naomi, and Tamina. They have yet to give us a real reason why these two are feuding and I honestly wonder if they ever plan to give us a reason, but I’m not really interested so far.

Shane McMahon spoke this week in a segment I saw I believe 5 times this week as they showed recaps of it on Main Event, Smackdown, Superstars, and This Week in WWE. It was a fine segment and I love hearing Shane speak. I forgot how good of a talker Shane is. Vince came out and stomped on a photo of the two together in an effort to make this a more personal feud. A McMahon vs. McMahon feud once again isn’t something I’m really into seeing in the year of 2016, but if this leads to Shane being back in power and The Authority going away then I’m all for this.

Dean Ambrose faced Bray Wyatt in the main event in a match I didn’t pay much attention to but the real story here was after the match. Ambrose beat Wyatt by DQ after interference from The Wyatt Family and then Triple H came down. Wyatt stared down with Hunter and touched the title and I feel like this would’ve been something people cared about over a year ago, but now Bray Wyatt is a failing character that is almost beyond recovery because he’s lost to everyone. The Wyatts left and Hunter looked as though he was about to lay another beat down on “The Lunatic Fringe”, but Ambrose got a quick Dirty Deeds in and held up the title to an awesome reaction. I really hope to see Ambrose get his moment with a title win at some point in 2016. They have to capitalize before it’s too late.

NXT this week saw an unbelievable match as Sami Zayn faced Samoa Joe in a 45 minute 2 out of 3 Falls Match to decide the #1 Contender to the NXT Championship. These two went balls to the wall here. This is what a 2 out of 3 Falls Match is supposed to be. I despise 2/3 Falls matches where the first fall occurs 3 minutes in followed by  the second fall 2 minutes later and then we get the longer portion of the match in the final fall. The first fall should always be the length of a normal match, that’s the realistic thing to do and makes the match 10x better. The first fall in this match occurred 26 minutes in which was such a great idea and really added to the match. It showed how strong both of these men are as singles wrestlers. Joe got the win and will head on to face Finn Balor once again for the NXT Championship at the next Takeover.

This week on Main Event, the show opened up with a really great match between Zack Ryder and Tyler Breeze. These two work very well together and this match had a good amount of near falls that actually got the crowd into it. The last minute of the match was excellent as Ryder went for the Rough Ryder, Breeze ducked it, Ryder went to the top rope, knocked Breeze down, and then nailed the ElBro Drop for the surprising win. Ryback beat Bo Dallas in a quick match where Dallas got in a decent amount of offense. The Social Outcasts cut another entertaining promo before the match began. In the main event, Paige and Natalya came up short against Naomi and Tamina. This match actually felt pretty lengthy as Team BAD beat down Paige for a long stretch of time before Paige finally got the hot tag to Natalya. Nattie got a small amount of offense in before Tamina took out Paige and Naomi hit the Rear View on Natalya for the win. Good episode this week.

On Superstars this week, the show opened with yet another tremendous performance from Zack Ryder as he took on The Miz in one heck of a match. Go out of your way to watch this, these two put in a lot of effort and put together a very good back and forth match. The main event saw The Usos face The Ascension in a basic tag team match that saw The Usos get the victory after an Uso Splash on Konnor. The opening match is definitely worth seeking out but the main event wasn’t anything special.

On Saturday night, Roadblock took place. I saw a lot of criticism for this show but I really enjoyed the show as a whole. We kicked off with a fun promo from New Day as they talked about their “Booty-O’s” and then they defended the WWE Tag Team Championship against Sheamus and King Barrett of The League of Nations. New Day worked a semi-face style in this match and did a good job at it.  The last few minutes were slightly sloppy but the match as a whole I enjoyed. New Day retained after the Big Ending on Barrett. The next match was kind of confusing as they brought out Jericho to cut a heel promo that I didn’t really get to hear because my Network was buffering and I got out of it and got back in and heard him begin to talk about Jack Swagger. “The Real American” came out in Canada… as the America guy… as a face. Swagger is a really good face and I’m not saying they should’ve randomly used him as a heel, but maybe they could’ve used a different face for Jericho to go over. Goldust worked a dark match, Jericho beating Goldust would’ve been a good idea. Regardless, the match itself I thought was good and Jericho actually got the submission win with the Walls of Jericho.

The NXT Tag Team Championship was on the line as Dash and Dawson defended their titles against the dynamic duo of Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady. Man, I love Enzo and Cass. They are charisma machines and really put all the effort they can into every performance. This match was great but not as good as their match at Takeover: London. The Shatter Machine to Cassady on the floor was sick. Dash and Dawson retained following the Shatter Machine on Enzo. This was really cool to see, an NXT match on a WWE special is a fantastic idea. Sad to see Enzo and Cass come up short again but this will make their eventual WWE Tag Team Championship win that much bigger, and maybe that’s the mindset behind the booking of them always coming up short. Charlotte then defended the Divas Championship against Natalya in an excellent match. This was Charlotte’s best match since coming up to the main roster and once again proved that Natalya is one of the best female talents not only in WWE but in the world. Wasn’t a fan of the finish but the whole match was just so good. Charlotte got the win following a roll-up after Natalya slapped Flair.

The next segment was confusing as Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper came out and Wyatt basically announced that the match against Lesnar would now be a handicap match. Harper had a good showing against Lesnar, though it was brief, and Wyatt had no interaction with Lesnar. I heard Wyatt may be injured but I’m not sure. This could’ve just been to save an eventual Wyatt/Lesnar match for a bigger show. Sami Zayn beat Stardust in a lengthy, good match, and then we got the main event between Triple H and Dean Ambrose with the WWE Championship on the line. Ambrose held his own here in a very good 25 minute match. Ambrose legitimately pinned Triple H at one point following the Dirty Deeds in one of the most confusing spots I’ve seen since Summerslam last year between Undertaker and Lesnar. Apparently Ambrose had his leg underneath the bottom rope and you aren’t allowed to pin someone unless both of your bodies are fully in the ring, but I did not see Ambrose’s leg actually underneath the rope. The referee’s hand hit the mat on the 3 count in a moment that made my heart skip a beat and I almost got really excited until the referee made that call and the announcers attempted to explain it. Triple H ended up winning with the Pedigree after Ambrose barely got back in the ring following a crash through the announce table.

Lots of progression in WWE this week with storylines and we definitely have a lot of questions that people want answers to coming out of this week. What will the US and Intercontinental Championship matches be at Wrestlemania? Will Lesnar still face Ambrose and will Triple H still face Roman Reigns or will those matches be switched up or combined? Will Ryback become a full on heel soon? How will the Styles/Jericho feud progress? I can’t wait to see more progression and this road to Wrestlemania is really holding my interest.

Match of the Week: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match to decide the #1 Contender to the NXT Championship from NXT 3/9 (****)

Until next time, this has been the first edition of the WWE Week in Review! Thanks for reading; I hope you all enjoyed it. Leave your feedback, questions, or thoughts below. Make sure and follow me on social media!

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