Wrestling Republic Weekly – May 11th, 2017

Welcome to The Wrestling Republic Weekly! You will see reviews, news, rumours, reports, predictions and more! Enjoy it!

Raw Review

This weeks episode of Raw was in the UK meaning it wasn’t live. However the show being in the UK is absolutely not a bad thing as it often means the overall show is better as they try and put on the best show possible! This years episode was no exception, as it was a really good episode!

The night started with Dean Ambrose on the phone to Kurt Angle talking about something which we didn’t know at the time. Dean then comes out and tells the crowd that he will be the GM for the night as Kurt is away. However then The Miz comes out and says that Stephanie has made him Co GM for the night! This segment was good and Miz and Ambrose being champions really did improve the show and made it a lot more interesting. However I thought that it would have made a lot more sense if The Miz came out first said that Stephanie had made him GM for the night before Dean comes out and says he will also be GM. The Miz could have them got all upset and annoyed over it and it would have made a lot more sense to do it that way.

Dean Ambrose then told The Miz that he would go against Balor to start the night. The match was alright but there was hardly any wrestling involved in the match at all! The Miz stopping the match was a great heel GM move and then Ambrose starting it again was also I good face GM move.

I personally thought the Kalisto vs Braun match had a lot of potential as I’m really enjoying the Kalisto redesign and I think that maybe now they can finally book him well. However it was really disappointing as Braun beat Kalisto up before Kalisto was ready! I thought that considering Braun only had one arm Kalisto should almost beat Braun but Braun would come back to win it, which would have been a lot better. But instead Reigns came out and beat Braun up which made no sense considering their match match will no longer happen as I will talk about later

Sheamus and Cesaro won the tag team turmoil match which means they will have a tag team championship match in the near future against The Hardy Boyz (presumably at extreme rules) It should be a very interesting match and I believe that Sheamus and Cesaro actually could win turning the Matt broken and The Hardy Boyz would split up as I know WWE and trying to give Jeff a singles run soon and Matt to become broken since WWE have bought the ‘broken’ rights off TNA

Samoa Joe vs Seth Rollins was a great match but the ending was a KO because Joe sent Rollins into and exposed turnbuckle! This is leading to one last match between these two presumably at extreme rules. This feud though is reminding me how much I miss heel Rollins and how he was booked.

The main event was Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt and after Dean kinda caused Miz to lose earlier in the night it was obvious that Miz would cause Ambrose the victory and it did happen.

Overall I thought Raw was a good show this week but it was kinda confusing because WWE didn’t know how bad the Braun injury was at the time so they didn’t know if they would have to change all the storylines because of this or not.

SDLive Review

SDLive opened with Jinder zooming out to Orton, Owens then coming out cutting an amazing promo saying that he will not only be the ‘Face Of America’ but soon he will also be the ‘Face Of WWE’. Styles then came out saying that he will win the US title off Owens at Backlash. Then finally Corbin came out after his week suspension but Zayn attacked him on the ramp! This would lead to a 6 man tag team match main event between the faces (Orton, Zayn and Styles) against the Heels (Jinder, Owens and Corbin)

Dolph Ziggler then called out Nakamura and they had a great segment which concluded in the news that a match would happen between them at Backlash in a match I’m extremely looking forward to! The feud is also giving heel Ziggler the spotlight he deserves and his promos have been amazing. I think we can be sure that the match will be amazing.

The 6 man tag team match main event was very enjoyable and entertaining with the match ending with Jinder pinning Orton after hitting the cobra clutch slam on him which I found very surprising but I also am pretty sure that this confirms that Jinder will lose as surely WWE wouldn’t have had Jinder control the entire feud making him look like he will beat Orton and then have him beat Orton! It’s something that WWE hardly ever do!

Overall I thought SDLive was boring this week and the worst one in a long time. I also think Raw was the better show yet again this week.

Weekly News

The biggest news of this week is that Braun Strowman has suffered an elbow injury and will be out for 4-8 weeks. The real reason this news is so big though is that this affects WWE plans a lot! The original plans was for Braun to beat a not 100% Roman in an extreme rules match at extreme rules where they would main event the PPV. Braun would then be announced as Lesnar’s next opponent at the Great Balls Of Fire PPV that he would lose in before having a rematch at Summerslam where he would lose again. Braun could be back by Great Balls of Fire if he is lucky but it would hardly make any sense for him to suddenly be put in a rivalry with Brock 2 weeks away for the show when the Braun and Roman rivalry hasn’t even finished yet! And WWE want to keep Lesnar and Reigns away from each other until mania which means WWE now are in a real difficult right now. The likelihood is that either Lesnar will be scrapped from the ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ PPV although he has already been advertised for it so it wouldn’t be the best idea or that Rollins will beat Joe at extreme rules and then have a No.1 contenders match on raw after extreme rules against Reigns and the winner would take on Lesnar at the Great Balls of Fire PPV. Braun would make his return during the match (he would still be injured at the time but should be able to pull it off) and cost Reigns the victory somehow. Lesnar would then beat Rollins at the Great Balls Of Fire PPV and in the same night Braun would beat Roman. Then at Summerslam it will be Braun vs Brock!

This week WWE held some tryouts in the UK. Some popular names from the UK independence scene were there! One of which is WCPW’s Martin Kirby. Surprisingly WCPW posted a picture of him at the tryout on IG. Could this mean a possible relationship forming between WWE and WCPW?

Even more injury’s have happens this week! Emma has suffered another injury. She has suffered a shoulder injury on the European tour. She has headed home early to have tests but it is still unknown how bad the injury is. NXT’s Ember Moon is also injured meaning that sadly she will miss NXT Takeover Chicago, where she was scheduled to be in a fatal four way match for Asuka’s NXT title. Many sources had even reposted she was expected to win the title

Batista was recently on Talk Is Jericho where he talked about a possible return to wrestling. He said he really misses pro wrestling but doesn’t miss the company (WWE) However if he did return it would have to be in what he said is his dream feud! And that would be against Triple H. Batista has contacted Vince several times about this and Vince has said he likes the idea but it isn’t the time right now every time Batista has asked!

Finally this week we found out that Hideo Itami will challenge Bobby Roode for the NXT Title at NXT Takeover Chicago. AOP will also have to defend their NXT Tag Team Titles against DIY in a ladder math at the Takeover. But arguably the biggest match announced for the PPV this week is Tyler Bate against Pete Dunne for the UK Championship. This is the first time the title will have been defended at a Takeover event! Takeover Chicago looks to be an amazing show!

That’s it for the Wrestling Republic Weekly this week! Follow me on IG @wrestlingrepublic , Twitter @wraslinrepublic and YouTube Wrestling Republic for more!