Wrestling Report

WWE comes out swinging after Stomping Grounds

Cory De La Guardia
Jun 26, 2019, 4:47 am
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Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio, Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio shows www.nerdthugradio.com!

Coming out of Stomping Grounds the feeling was that the status quo had been maintained. Some things actually happened though to shake it up, including an interesting booking for Extreme Rules in three weeks. A mixed gender tag match scheduled between Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans vs Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins is now set for Extreme Rules; it's cool because you don't see a lot of mixed gender matches in the WWE but there are all the rage in the indy scene. The Undertaker made a surprise appearance in aiding Roman Reigns against Shane McMahon and Drew Mcintyre, a tag match between those four would be pretty exciting. Having both shows tag team champions on Raw fight The New Day and the Usos in an elimination match was an odd choice and the match between R Truth and Drake for the gimmick 24/7 title was just mean but overall Raw was entertaining.

Smackdown kicked off with a flat promo from Shane threatening the entire Smackdown roster, and then Kofi cut a great promo before it was interrupted by two time loser Dolph Ziggler. Kofi has been incredible for the WWE this week having a cage match Sunday, two matches against Samy and Kevin on Monday and then taking a beating from Samoa Joe before agreeing to another match on Smackdown, but yeah there's no chance of athlete burn out working for WWE or anything. Having the Smackdown tag team champions lose all the time is a really odd way to position the champs but for the second tag fight in a row involving the champs versus The New Day, they lost again. Mustafa Ali cut a promo where he gives his best green lantern impression and tries to seem like a super hero, if he's fighting injustices then why isn't he fighting Shane McMahon or Samoa Joe? Also in the category of odd promos Aleister Black continued his campaign of begging for a fight in a company full of professional fighters, it's confusing.

Overall this was a good week for WWE but there are genuine concerns or there should be genuine concerns about overuse for some of the more important WWE stars like the title holders. The Smackdown tag title holders, the WWE Heavyweight Champion both competed on both shows and on Sunday's big event. So what's the usage plan for these guys, how much longer can guys like Kofi and Daniel Bryant keep it up? The New Day being focused on is a great push for them and I think it's worth staying with for a huge amount of time but not all at once, spread it out and make it a brand specific story, don't burn these guys out in four months.

Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help fight cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio, Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio shows www.nerdthugradio.com!

If it feels like we're sprinting into another pay per view almost on top of the last one, it's because we basically are. Extreme Rules is this coming Sunday only three weeks after Stomping Grounds. The seeming break neck speed of event after event after event is annoying and honestly seems to be designed to force people to pick up the WWE network. If they just bought the occasional pay per view there is no longer an incentive to spend the $40 bucks for one because well for $10 a month you get one a month and every few months there will be a second one snuck into the long months, so the value is in your favor. It's annoying for fans though because suddenly wrestlers are cutting promos from event to event and sometimes yelling at a guy about a fight in three weeks while they have a fight with someone else that weekend. Say what?

This past week Raw had a few interesting bits, perhaps most interesting was the behind the scenes moves of putting Paul Heyman mostly in charge of Raw and him upping the shock factor up a level or two. As that continued you saw the rise of The AJ Styles and his boys Gallows and Anderson, I'm not big fans of them but it's fun for those guys to get back together and a heel turn is in an interesting choice for AJ Styles, because I'm not sure it was needed. The other big thing is the Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch mixed tag match against Corbin and Evans for both their titles is a cool match idea and these two matches should be exciting at Extreme Rules.

Smackdown delivered what was a rather underwhelming go home show for Extreme Rules, although Otis of Heavy Machinery looked great in the three-way match, that guy is just incredibly impressive physically for such an oddly shaped athlete. The Kevin Owens face turn continues as he seemed to go "off script" but it was probably a bit and it's trying to set him up as an antihero, the problem with that is that his buddy Samy is in the middle of a great heel run. The Roman Reigns/Undertaker tag match has built up to exciting levels as Shane McMahon has continued his rise to top villain in the WWE and deserving of a beating from the Deadman and the Big Dog. He's assembling a nice collection of B players to help push his agenda as good muscle and as a result they're elevating themselves as well. This match may either save or finally end Undertaker's part time career and the Extreme Rules event overall.

Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help fight cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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