In a week that saw legends return for special appearances and Championships change hands, not to mention the continued build towards Royal Rumble 2017, there were plenty of incidents that occurred in WWE that grabbed the headlines.
But as with most weeks, some of it was good and some were just bad…
#1 Bad – Horrendous HBK
In without a doubt the most cringeworthy segment in all of WWE this week, Shawn Michaels made a special appearance on Raw to primarily plug his new movie.
Michaels was interrupted during his promo by Rusev, along with Lana and Jinder Mahal, and then was later joined by Enzo & Cass to even up the numbers. On paper, this sounds quite fun, but what we got was a painfully long, awkward and unfunny segment that fell flatter than a pancake.
It was hard to watch a legend like Shawn Michaels fail badly at being funny, plus it had an effect on the current roster members involved who were not able to save this terrible segment.
#2 Bad – It’s time for a new ‘New Day’
It seems that the ‘power of positivity’ is too strong in New Day as they are still the happy, entertaining act they always have been despite losing their prized possession, the Raw tag team championships.
The general consensus a few months back was that Kofi, Big E and Xavier Woods were beginning to get stale in their current personas and that a change of direction was needed to reinvigorate them.
It appeared as though this would happen when they used some underhanded tactics to hold on to their titles towards the end of their reign. However, since losing the gold, they have reverted back to their stale, ultra-positive gimmick and, not only is it getting boring, it doesn’t really make sense.
#3 Bad – Too much, too soon?
Looking at Nia Jax, you’d expect her to be a force to reckoned with in the Raw Women’s division, and to a certain extent, that is how she has been booked.
But is she ready for that role?
Based on what we have seen so far, you’d have to say no. Jax is not convincing in anything she does, her in-ring work looks okay but that’s mainly due to her sheer size, although she doesn’t look like she actually wants to hurt her opponent when she should be going out there to destroy anyone in her path.
As for her promos, they have no conviction and are more likely to send her rivals to sleep, rather than strike fear into them. Thus far, it seems clear that Jax was called up from NXT way too soon.
#4 Bad – CJ Lunde
A close second to HBK’s ‘cringeworthy moment of the week’ was the Smackdown Live match between Carmella and CJ Lunde.
Lunde appeared fairly interesting to begin with, she looked like an old school Women’s wrestler in a similar mould to the likes of Fabulous Moolah. But then she started wrestling, and it was evident that these comparisons were way off.
Despite only having a short match, Lunde made several mistakes and pretty much everything she did looked awkward, she even botched Carmella’s finisher, that’s the one thing that jobbers have to get right! Safe to say that CJ Lunde will not be on WWE television again any time soon.
#5 Bad – ‘The lame wolf’
This was expected to be a big week for Baron Corbin as he continued his recent push towards the main event scene by going one-on-one with John Cena.
However, the match we got was unimaginative and meaningless, more so due to the booking rather than the performance of either man. Cena got the victory, which is fair enough given the fact that he is heading into a WWE Championship match against AJ Styles.
But, having Corbin lose clean in a straight-forward match has hurt his recent momentum and didn’t do much for Cena and AJ either. Corbin was an afterthought post-match and the tame stare-down between Styles and Cena didn’t add anything to their upcoming match at the Royal Rumble. I couldn’t help but feel that this match could have been so much more.
#1 Good – Women’s cage match
This week’s Smackdown Live main event might have been disappointing, but next week’s looks like it could be very interesting, as Alexa Bliss will defend her Women’s championship against Becky Lynch inside a steel cage.
This is sure to be historic as Smackdown look to rival Raw’s women division by putting their female performers in high-profile matches.
With the women likely to be the main focus next Tuesday night, will this be the final chapter of the Alexa vs Becky feud and will the identity of La Luchadora be revealed?
#2 Good – Dolph on Talking Smack
Dolph Ziggler continued to show a more vicious side this week as he yet again attacked Kalisto and Apollo Crews.
This wasn’t too surprising considering his heel turn last week, but what did come as quite a surprise was his demeanour on Tuesday night’s edition of Talking Smack.
Ziggler wasn’t the typical heel that many had expected him to be when he sat down to talk to Renee Young and this week’s co-host, Shane McMahon. Instead he explained his actions calmly and made some good points as to why we are seeing this more aggressive persona. This was something different and gives another dimension to Dolph’s character and it could be interesting to watch over the next few weeks.
#3 Good – Wyatt Family feud
The tension between Randy Orton and Luke Harper was turned up a notch this past Tuesday as Harper once again distracted Orton in his match, which led to another defeat for the Wyatts against American Alpha.
With this latest defeat seemingly ending the Wyatt family’s involvement in the tag division, it will be interesting to see whether or not they will be able to co-exist in the upcoming Royal Rumble match.
Or, will the apparently imminent implosion of the Wyatt Family lead to Randy Orton facing Bray Wyatt at this year’s WrestleMania?
#4 Good – Reigns loses U.S. Title
After a fairly lengthy, yet uneventful, reign as United States champion, Roman Reigns finally relinquished the title to Chris Jericho on this past Monday’s Raw.
While I think many would agree that the U.S. title is better off on ‘Y2J’, due to the championship becoming nothing more than an afterthought during Reigns’ tenure, I do feel that this switch would have worked better a few weeks ago. Jericho has had multiple chances at the Championship and the matches felt less important after every failed attempt.
However, now that Jericho has the gold, I look forward to seeing who he will feud with and defend the championship against over the coming weeks.
#5 Good – DIY vs The Revival
This week’s NXT was centred around the DIY vs The Revival tag team championship match, and rightly so after the two tag teams had one of the best feuds of 2016.
They also had arguably the best match of 2016, whether that was their match at Takeover: Brooklyn or the ‘2 out of 3 falls’ match at Takeover: Toronto, which were both recapped during NXT in the build-up to their main event match.
As for the match itself, it was another great contest between two talented teams and was perhaps the best match across all of WWE this week.
With DIY retaining their NXT tag team championships, what is next for The Revival? With their apparent feud with TM-61 being halted due to an injury to Shane Thorne, could a call-up to the main roster be in Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson’s near future?
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