Welcome to another late edition of The WWE-Ek. One of these days I’ll have a better name for this column.
Big stuff, small stuff, tough stuff, story fluff.
NXT had a major episode this week, with Samoa Joe cutting a promo and the rest of the show featuring an epic encounter between Finn Balor and Nakamura. The match was everything we wanted and delivered so much more. They lit up the ring, the live crowd, the crowd at home, everything. It was a work of art which Bob Ross would have approved of.
This likely was the swan song for Balor in NXT as it seems once you go Nakamura, there’s no going back. There is nothing left in NXT for Balor, and all the more to look forward to on the main roster.
The Cruiserweight Classic. Wow. The first episode featured four first-round bouts which were all incredible and fun to watch. The wrestlers put on a great show and really gave a great performance where I feel we get sucked into the story being told in the ring. Ho Ho Lun, Cedric Alexander, Kota Ibushi, and Gran Metalik all won their first matches to advance in the tournament. The action was mostly fast paced and each a show-stealer in their own unique style.
Yes, you can see spoilers on wikipedia. But don’t.
I have to say, I haven’t been this excited to see Cruiserweights since WCW in the mid-90s with Dean Malenko, Billy Kidman, Lizmark Jr., Psychosis, and Villanos IV and V.
Battleground is approaching, with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins leading the charge for their main event championship match, doing what they can while Roman Reigns sulks in a corner and thinks about what he did wrong. Bad dog.
The New Day and The Wyatts collided at the house shown in Madison Square Garden, and Neville had a match against Chris Jericho. Warm ups for Battleground maybe?
At the same show, John Cena pinned AJ Styles after interference. Now, I remember the days where house shows were considered as a warm-up of sorts for the big shows. Could we see similar results next Sunday?
Lastly, Brock Lesnar and the drug test controversy. Who knows what the hell is going on at this point. I found it intriguing WWE posted about it on their own site, acknowledging the issue. Now, they stated Brock has not competed for WWE since WrestleMania, so it is possible this is a way of saying “not our problem” or perhaps more responsibly “we are keeping an eye on the situation as it unfolds.” If this is indeed true, and Lesnar is in some sort of trouble, it would be hard for WWE to ignore it. He might still compete against Orton, but there may be some backlash about it.
It is difficult to guess what could happen. WWE is not UFC. WWE is entertainment, UFC is sport. Would one affect the other?
