What a great week for Womens’ Wrestling.

How about the faith put into womens wrestling this week huh?

The women of WWE main evented Raw in the first ever womens gauntlet match for number one contendership, they main evented smackdown live to become Ms. MITB, the first ever MITB match on SDLive TV, and they main evented NXT in the first ever last woman standing match. Each and every match was outstanding and every woman came to play and because of that my top 5 moments from WWE TV this week? It’s all about the ladies.

1. Nia Jax. She didn’t win the Gauntlet but she certainly had control of it. Nia lasted easily almost 35 minutes in that match running though Bayley, Mickie, Dana and Emma before falling to Sasha Banks in an incredible main event match. I think a lot of people are too quick to over look Nia Jax and I promise those people will continue to regret that and eat their hate the more she continues to progress.
2. Nia Jax vs Sasha Banks. I’ll never be able to deny Banks talent. ever. She is one of the best no question and her and Jax put on one heck of a match monday night. Jax gave it literally everything going through all the women to get to the end and Banks still had an uphill battle to beat Nia. Sasha becomes number one contender and I’m looking forward to her feud with Bliss because I feel a lot of real tension there. Whether that’s true or not I don’t care but they both give off the energy that they truly dislike one another and that can add so much to a match and a feud. As long as Alexa gets fair treatment and the spotlight isn’t all on Sasha, I’m looking forward to this.
3. Carmella. Not only did Carmella give an incredible promo in the ring to kick off SDLive this week but she also ended SDLive atop the ladder, once again being Ms. MITB. I wanted Carmella to win again because i was completely okay with her winning the first time, I just despised the way it was done. It’s clear that being Ms. MITB suits Carmella perfectly and I think it is going to do amazing things for her in the future. In the words of ms MITB herself, Not too bad for the last round draft pick huh? 😉
4. SDLive women. Is it crazy I almost think this second match was even better than the first? Don’t get me wrong their match was the PPV was great but I really think this one was even better. Naomi vs Lana has been short matches and a lot of talk BUT it shows Naomi being a fighting champion giving Lana chance after chance when she didn’t need too. It also gives Lana expose and ring time which is always good. She will only get better and Naomi will continue to spread all the Glow over SDLive. All year long these women have busted their asses to make this womens division everything that it is and they deserve all the recognition in the world. They always bring everything to any match, any promo, everything. It’s been incredible to see what these women have accomplished in just this last year and I’m beyond excited to see what’s next.
5. Nikki Cross vs Asuka. wow. When the last woman standing match was announced I think we all knew we were in for quite a treat but I don’t think we had any idea it’d be as crazy as it was. In my opinion, Asuka for me is a lot like Sasha is for me. I know how good they are in the ring and I’ll always announce that and respect them, but as far as being a big fan? They’re just not totally my cup of tea, but damn can they wrestle. Asuka proved to me once again why she is undefeated, why she is the longest reigning NXT womens champion and NXT Champion in general I believe too right? She’s just that damn good. Nikki Cross has quickly become an NXT Favorite for me. Her character is literally crazy and she plays it so well it’s, well, it’s insane! And she certainly has the in ring skill to match. Those two women beat the crap out of each other, endured pain I can’t even imagine with all those chair spots and so on. When Asuka suplexed NIkki off that ladder I actually screamed. It was everything I wanted, and more. Thank you ladies.

 

The Rest of This Week In Wrestling.

I was away on a mini vacation this week and because of that I didn’t watch Raw but was lucky enough to get back to the hotel in time to watch SDLive which I was so happy about because I did not want to miss that womens MITB ladder match rematch! I didn’t watch Raw because I was packing and quite honestly was binge watching something else and I had no desire to turn it on. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before and if it has I promise you it’s been a while, not a good sign as far as me caring about Raw goes. I was lucky enough to find the full womens gauntlet match in FULL on youtube and watched the rest through WWE’s youtube clips.

Here’s what I thought of Monday Night Raw.

• I loved the Goldust bit. The old school outfit, the personal camera man, dressed in gold AND the camera had gold on it as well? incredible. Then the camera guy is filiming and following Goldust every move right up close in the ring? Even more incredible. IF they continue to do this right, it could really be something.
• I only watched the WWE youtube clip but from what I gather from twitter the Balor/Hardys tag match against Elias, Sheamus and Cesaro was over shadowed by Josh Dumahal being on commentary. I didn’t catch most of that but I can understand it. 99% of the time that Raw has these celebrities on, it takes away from  the match, isn’t necessary, even if Sheamus is in the new movie, and isn’t anything more than a grab for main stream attention which is great for WWE as a whole, not great for anyone who just wants to watch the damn match. I also can’t help but be a little ticked that balor is in six man tag team matches while Lesnar is holding HIS title. but i’ll let that go for now.
• Speaking of unnecessary guest stars what the heck was all that mess of Miz TV? I read on social media that it had been a complete disaster and not even Miz could save it and then i watched the youtube clips and I couldn’t watch more than 2 minutes of it. It was unbearable. The six man tag team match involving Miz and Dean at the start of Raw also didn’t do much for me, maybe it was better live? but probably not.
• Joe and Lesnars segment was something I also skipped though until it got to the part where Joe locked the clutch in on Lesnar. It was just So i could see Lesnar taken down, because personally and probably unpopular opinion that’s my favorite thing because I can’t stand the guy.
• Lince vs Neville was an okay match from what I saw. I like Tozawa being the next guy in line to the title. It’s a huge question as to when and to who Neville will drop the title too and well if it wasn’t going to be Aries, My pick is absolutely Tozawa.
• Rollins vs Hawkins was quite the random match up, unless of course I missed some silly backstage thing that set it up but either way, still random. Another crazy promo from Wyatt claiming he’s going to save Rollins and cleanse him. I’m personally just looking forward to the match and if WWE doesn’t let these two go at it like they absolutely could that’ll be real disappointing.
• Roman excepted Brauns challenge and then Braun tossed him in an ambulance. Do they know they don’t have to do that everytime someone has an ambulance match? It didn’t do anything at all for me.
• The Enzo and Cass segment was good I thought. Made sense for Enzo to try to convince Cass to keep their thing going and not to give up on him. It also gave Cass some serious heat for pretending to apologize, do the whole swaft gig and THEN attack the shit out of Enzo on the ramp and throw him down it. That was rough for me. that got me. like damn Cass that’s just cruel. but it certainly adds some serious heat to the feud.
• As I said before the Womens gauntlet match was OUTSTANDING. Nia Jax was outstanding, her and Sashas ending match was outstanding. The one thing I didn’t like was Emma getting pinned in less than two minutes. She deserves better than that, and I honestly wanted her to win the dang thing. But regardless of that I thought she deserved more than that. And I’m slightly concerned for Bayley. Where the heck does she go from here?

 

Smackdown Live.

• Carmella gave two excellent promos this week and last week. She is coming into her own and I’m loving it. It’s crazy what proper time in NXT can do for them and her and Alexa are PERFECT examples of that!
• Usos vs Hype Bros was a pretty good match up. I don’t know what’s next for the Hype bros after the loss but i do know this ongoing program with Usos and New Day is some great stuff. They’re really working off one another wonderfully. This rap battle next week though? no thanks.
• I really don’t see the draw to this power of love thing with Maria and Mike. It’s actually kind of awful. the end.
• Sami vs Baron put on an excellent match as they have continued to do. I’m slightly worried what’s next for Sami but Baron is definitley in a good spot.
• Naomi vs Lana. As i mentioned before it was short and more pre match talk than in ring action but It proved Naomi is a fighting champion, gave her something to do while all this MITB stuff was happening and it gave Lana exposure. So there were many positives to it. Now that Lana has had two chancess at the title, I wonder who steps up next? and it’s always exciting to know Ms. MITB is lurking around somewhere. Oh and CONGRATS to Naomi on becoming the longest reigning SDLive womens champion, there might have only been two before her and the title may not even be a year old yet but clearly if your name isn’t Asuka long title reigns for the ladies is uncommon so congrats to Naomi!
• I like the idea of the Independence Day invitational for KO’s US title UNLESS it’s just so that Cena can win or so AJ can win because if that’s the case then what the hells the point?
• Jinder annoucning that him and Randy will fight in a pujabi prison match was interesting and kind of scary. I’ve only seen pictures of the structure and still haven’t watched Khali vs Batista’s match inside of one but this match should prove insane.
• As I already mentioned the SDLive women in the MITB ladder match blew me away once again. It was incredible. Carmella became Ms. MITB again, this time ON HER OWN, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. All the ladies should be very proud of all their work leading into this history making match.

 

NXT

I Don’t usually review NXT because I usually don’t watch it live and it takes me a week or two to catch up BUT with Asuka vs Cross’s last woman standing match I couldn’t not catch up next day and watch it. Oh and it was SO GOOD to hear Mauro calling the action in WWE again, it’s no secret he quickly became my favorite announcer and I was so bummed when he wasn’t on SDLive anymore. Really excited to hear him calling all of the NXT action! There were only three matches but here’s what I thought.

• Velventeen Dream vs HoHo lou.   I must say when I first saw the vingretes for the Velventeen Dream I was beyond skeptical and the first time we all saw him I was still skeptical, but I think I might actually like it. It’s definitely different and Clark does a great job with it. I think it might not be so bad.
• Hideo vs Lorcan was insane. Hideo getting busted open so quickly in the beginning but then the match restarting later on in the night was great. It added something to Hideo Itami, his will to get the match happening after the fact even if it was fueled by revenge he still did it and I think Lorcan is an incredible wrestler no question. I do believe in next weeks tag match with Hideo and ohno vs Sanity it’ll be the start of the real Hideo and OhNo feud, as I expect them to lose and for Itami to go off on ohno.
• Then we come to the main even of the evening with Nikki Cross vs Asuka and as I already mentioned thank you ladies for this incredible match that was everything I wanted and more. I don’t know what is next for them, but they have set the bar incredibly high for the NXT womens division!