This Week in WWE

With the WWE presenting fans with so much content it can be difficult to review every single show every single week yet I find myself with so much I want to talk about regarding each induvial show and so I have decided that every Thursday I will be uploading a blog post looking back at the week in the WWE. It’s here I will discuss RAW, Smackdown LIVE, NXT, 205LIVE, and NXT UK listing some of the standout moments, biggest news and developments regarding PPV’s and some of my favourite segments and matches. This is something I’m easing into so bear with me and let me know what you think!

Monday Night RAW

This weeks Monday night RAW was an interesting one. I did struggle to find myself completely invested but that simply falls to me being very sleepy! With that being said there were several moments that grabbed my attention and I believe are worth discussing.

-          John Cena Returns to RAW

With the week prior seeing John Cena return to Smackdown LIVE it came as no surprise to see the former multi-time champion show up on the first LIVE episode of Monday night RAW of twenty nineteen. Always good and special to see Cena back on our screen’s he revealed he would be entering this year's Royal Rumble match. The announcement didn’t surprise me but none the less it was awesome to see him open the show strong and I’m excited to see what awaits Cena in the Rumble and heading into Mania season.

-          A Moment of Bliss

This week RAW also saw Alexa Bliss make history when she became the first female superstar to have their own talk show. In all fairness this was a pretty solid segment involving the RAW women’s champion, Sasha Banks and Nia Jax. I genuinely did find this entertaining, I felt as though everyone had their place, Bliss did a good job, Nia was, in particular, a big standout and I’m so glad to see Sasha Banks pushed a little higher and entertaining a scene she seriously deserves to be in.

-          Seth Freaking Rollins

The man of the night this week was most certainly Seth Rollins who competed in two bouts including a title match, was a key focus and involved in multiple moments throughout the night. Twenty nineteen is a huge year for the former IC champ and he is by far the most exciting man on Monday nights right now.

-          Overall

    To conclude the RAW section, I felt this was a solid show with some very interesting and revealing moments including Drew McIntyre confronting John Cena, the RAW return of Hulk Hogan, the face to face segment between Lesnar and Strowman and developments for the likes of Ember Moon, The Revival, and Apollo Crews.

Smackdown LIVE

I’ll admit that I did most certainly enjoy this week's Smackdown LIVE far greater than this weeks episode of RAW. From the opening consisting of Daniel Bryans promo to the in-ring competition and storyline development all the way to the fantastic main event, the blue brand provided an excellent show most certainly worthy of tuning into!

Daniel Bryan’s Promo

While Cena’s opening on this week’s episode of RAW was solid to say the least what fans witnessed from the WWE Champion, Daniel Bryan was particularly entertaining. Going down as one of my favourite DB promos of all time we really got see even more of his character and what Bryan’s run as champion will look like and the promo remained a huge talking point throughout the night.

Andrade’s Win

One of the best matches of the week in WWE came from the tag team bout involving Andrade Cien Almas and Samoa Joe taking on the duo of Rey Mysterio and Mustafa Ali. With four fantastic in ring performers sharing the spotlight this was bound to be an epic match and while I would have loved to have seen this bout go on much longer for the time, we got this was a true standout of the week. Andrade picked up a huge and much needed win while Mustafa continued to standout and Rey left fans desperate to see him and Almas clash in a full-on feud in the near future!

Becky Lynch is Heading to the Royal Rumble

This week's Smackdown LIVE main event was quite simply another favourite the week for me. Carmella, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch took to the ring for some triple threat action in a matchup that would totally steal the show. The length of the contest, the spots, the character work, the build, and the storytelling all made this an excellent and worthy main event that genuinely left fans on the edge of their seats and completely invested. Carmella had arguably her best in-ring performance to date showing just how far she has come and far from a third wheel in this bout while Flair had her dominant and impressive moments, however, it was the eventual winner, Becky Lynch who took the limelight once again scoring the win everyone was hoping for.

The night also saw a solid segment from Rusev, growth in the angle involving Mandy Rose, Naomi and Jimmy Uso and Shane and the Miz announced as the Bar’s opponents for tag team gold at the Royal Rumble.

NXT

As always this week's NXT consisted of excellent in-ring competition, strong storytelling and with the next NXT Takeover event looming there was more intense and exciting build to that live special!

Nikki Cross vs Bianca Belair

One of my favourite matches of the week came from the NXT Women’s division as number one contender to the NXT Women’s championship, Bianca Belair went toe to toe with Nikki Cross. The two superstars have a strong history and fans know from previous matches just how well they work together, however, this was by far their best encounter to date. Despite being very different both in in-ring style and character the two women worked fantastically well and complimented each other’s styles amazingly! This was a very exciting, action-packed match with the chemistry from the two really making this an even stronger standout.

The Opening

This was my second favourite WWE opening to a show this week. Gargano’s promo was solid, I loved the involvement from Ricochet and seeing their up and coming title match grow in terms of a story and the highlight promo of the night came from Aleister Black and the way that was aired!

The Main Event

This week NXT Main event saw Adam Cole and EC3 go one on one and while it was good but I was left a little disappointed. I do believe that if they had more time this could have been a lot stronger than it was but over it was decent and far from weak. We also saw the War Raider pick up some momentum ahead of their title match by taking out the Undisputed Era.

This week's NXT was decent but not the best we have ever seen. The right superstars picked up much-needed momentum, there was an entertaining and important focus on the build to NXT Takeover, and I loved seeing a small spotlight on the story between Ohno and Riddle.

205LIVE

I’ve admitted before I haven’t always been the most loyal 205LIVE Viewer only ever really dipping in and out and watching shows here and there but my goal for this year is to pay more attention. What I noticed straight away this week was how in terms of match quality 205LIVE dominated. It’s here we had the best matches of the week and pretty solid story and character development. There was a far greater focus on the quality of matches more than any other shows this week. The opening match was extremely strong and I was very entertained from the get-go, I really liked the backstage segment involving Maria and Mike and the two are the most I’m currently interested in on the roster.

My personal favourite WWE match of the week came from the singles bout between Hideo Itami and Cedric Alexander. As two highlights and two of the strongest stars on the roster in terms of popularity, star quality and in-ring abilities this was sure to be a must match and I’m so glad I tuned in for this epic encounter. The two worked very well together and showed the world exactly what the cruiserweight division is all about. The action was a little slower paced than the first match of the night especially when we saw Hideo in control but with both men so passionate and so focused on heading to the Royal Rumble PPV you could really feel how important the win was for both stars. The length of the match was good, it was great to see Hideo in a big match and Cedric again proved why he is such a major and important star over on 205LIVE. 

NXT UK

And the final show we are going to be looking at is NXT UK. This week’s episodes both consisted of great matches, a strong build to this Saturday’s show and awesome storyline development. I particularly enjoyed the singles matches between Xia Brookside and Isla Dawn as well as all of the tag team action we saw. For me, the standouts of this week's NXT UK shows were without a doubt Jordan Devlin and Joe Coffey with the press conference segment involving Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm also going down very well.

I will, of course, be live tweeting throughout this weekend's NXT UK Takeover event as well as reviewing the show next week!

And that was my first version of this blog post! I know this was a long one and I am looking to make these a lit shorter as we go on and there may be weeks I don’t upload just because there is so much content and it can be difficult to keep up but let me know what you think and whether you like this idea of want separate reviews for just RAW and Smackdown LIVE!