“Are You Ready for Another Week of this Stuff?” Asks WWE Raw and SmackDown

Arson is for Heroes

Seth Rollins has officially had enough. After being shown the underside of the ring by The Fiend last week, Seth escalated the situation the only way he could think of; by burning Wyatt’s home to the ground. He attacked a Fiend-less Wyatt during a Funhouse segment, then set fire to the house itself, burning alive not only his coworker, but several of his little puppet friends, who have continually been shown to have the personalities of children. The Fiend has pushed Rollins way past his limits if he’s out here effectively murdering people on live television. Seems like arson does not solve all problems, however, as The Fiend’s maniac laughter still echoed over his burning home.

Sponsored by Brazzers

Hell yeah, time to watch a man’s life fall apart as he loses the woman he loves on live tv! A backstage segment showed Lana getting a massage, as she is a professional woman with a lot of stress. Bobby Lashley, an untrained masseur, came in to give her a hand with her troubles. This bit made me feel like I had rented a PG-13 film from Blockbuster with my dad, and suddenly a sex scene happened and I had to just pretend like I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Wrestling as a business seems to have very little concept of what’s actually sexy, so it was kind of like this segment was made by people who had heard of sex before, but had almost definitely never experienced it themselves. Incredible television in almost every way, but at the same time, utterly unwatchable. This is the A-show, kids.

Short People Have Rights

Last week, the former Chad was officially billed as Shorty Gable, and this week he shortened it to ‘Shorty G,’ because naturally the last name was the part that wasn’t working there. He also cut a nice promo about not letting other people’s judgements define you and embracing what makes you different. So if you’re a 5’8” very attractive white dude, now you can finally feel good about yourself!

Nothing about this honestly feels real. I feel like I’m living in a hallucination where I’m the only person who can hear them call this man ‘Shorty Gable.’ Everyone is just acting like that’s a fine and normal thing to say to a human man and I’m over here pulling my hair out screaming ‘shorty’ at the top of my lungs. Can you guys hear this? Is this a William Wilson situation? Does Shorty Gable live in my head? Was I the real Shorty G all along?

Life is a F-ing Nightmare

Remember in sophomore year of high school when you discovered it was kind of cool to wear all black and get mad at random people for no real reason other than you just felt bummed that day? That’s kind of what Bayley’s going through now. After years of kissing babies and thanking bus drivers, she’s finally gone into business for herself. During Miz TV this week, Bayley showed little pity for the crying children she let down with her attitude adjustment last Friday, telling them to man up and get with the program. “Life sucks and then you die,” she bragged, recalling some advice she presumably read on a Hot Topic t-shirt. This emo version of Bayley kicks ass, frankly. She’s whiny and entitled and laughing in the face of weeping kids. Rip to the Hugger, because Badass Bayley uses these arms for fighting fools and smoking cigs only.

205 finds Fourth Life

With Humberto Carrillo, Akira Tozawa, Drew Gulak, and Lucha House Party all leaving for Raw and SmackDown, 205 Live’s roster looked a bit frail. This week, Drake Maverick announced that any NXT wrestler who makes the 205 lb weight limit is now allowed to compete on 205 Live. We’ve already seen promos for Isaiah “Swerve” Scott and Angel Garza making the move to the purple brand, and now this means we could see the likes of Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong, and others. 205 has existed as the red-headed step child for so long, it’s nice to see they’re finally attempting to integrate it with another show. I’ll vouch for the cruiserweights until I die or stop watching wrestling, whichever comes first.

Tokyo Drafting

Night two of the draft rolled on, promising surprises and yet still drafting each champion to their respective brand. This night’s selections had some exciting moments; we saw Andrade to Raw as a first round pick, which is exactly what he deserves. Humberto Carrillo was also drafted to Raw, leaving Aiden English heartbroken and 205 a little less handsome. Ali stays on SmackDown, and if anyone cares about me or wrestling as a whole, they’ll have him face Gulak on television at least once. Samoa Joe is taking his fresh accounting outfit and little hat to Raw. Carmella and R-Truth were regrettably split up, ending one of the most entertaining partnerships we’ve seen on WWE recently.

Here is a full list of the remaining draft picks:

WWE Banger of the Week: Cedric Alexander vs Buddy Murphy

Who else but two legendary former CW champs? An iconic rivalry on 205 Live, Murphy and Alexander just work so well together. This match was short but stayed hot the whole time, with the two first having a stalemate, proving just how well they know each other. Murphy really used his strength advantage against Alexander, but also managed to display some of the great athleticism that made him such a unique cruiserweight. Alexander is always exciting to watch, and almost had Murphy a couple times, although was unable to hit his Lumbar Check finisher. Murphy won this with Murphy’s Law, an absolute banger of a move that was very rarely, if ever, kicked out of on 205. I’d really love to see more of these two on Raw. Alexander has had a good run in recent months facing Styles for the US title, but Murphy got little television time when he was on SmackDown. A feud between the two on Raw would definitely give them the exposure and familiarity they need with a larger audience.