With less than 2 weeks remaining until the big shows, the Royal Rumble card saw some major changes this week and NXT finalized the card for Takeover: Phoenix.
NXT Takeover Pheonix: Jan 26:
Riddle and Ohno will once again do battle on the undercard of Takeover. Thus, the card is now complete with one week left to hype the show.
NXT Title: Tommaso Cimpa© vs Aleister Black
NXT Womens Title: Shayna Baszler© vs Bianca Belair
NXT Tag Titles: Undisputed Era© vs War Raiders
NXT North American Title: Ricochet© vs Johnny Gargano
Matt Riddle vs Kassius Ohno
Royal Rumble: Jan 27:
With just 2 weeks remaining, the top of the Rumble card experienced a MAJOR shake up on Monday. Braun Strowman was removed from the Universal Title match in a storyline that saw him anger Mr. McMahon. Obviously, this must mean that they no longer expect the big man to be medically ready for a marquee match in two weeks. By the end of the night Finn Balor had been crowned as his replacement after defeating Jinder Mahal one on one as well claiming victory in a main event fatal 4 way vs John Cena, Drew McIntyre, and Baron Corbin. Balor was presented as the underdog who overcomes the odds and expectations. He also received the respect of Cena to close out the night. The original Universal Champion who never actually lost the title FINALLY gets his chance to earn it back, but can he overcome the Beast to do so?
In other title news, Bobby Lashley defeated both Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose to capture the IC Title. Some sort of title defense, likely a rematch, will probably be booked next week.
A few small, but expected updates have been made to the Rumble participant lists. Finn Balor and Kalisto have been removed from the men’s rumble now that both men are in title matches at the event (Balor for the Universal Title and Kalisto for the Cruiserweight Title). Likewise, Sasha Banks has been removed from the women’s rumble now that she’s facing Ronda Rousey for the Raw Women’s Title. Currently that leaves us with 18 men and 12 women announced for their respective rumble matches and a LOT of spots to be filled.
What we know so far…
*Universal Title: Brock Lesnar© vs Finn Balor
WWE Title: Daniel Bryan© vs AJ Styles
Raw Women’s Title: Ronda Rousey© vs Sasha Banks
Smackdown Women’s Title: Asuka© vs Becky Lynch
Smackdown Tag Titles: The Bar© vs Miz & Shane McMahon (I assume Miz will eventually come up with a catchy name for this tandem)
Men’s Rumble: Drew McIntyre, Big E, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Seth Rollins, Jeff Hardy, Bobby Lashley, Samoa Joe, Dean ambrose, John Cena, Elias, Baron Corbin, Jinder Mahal, Apollo Crews, Andrade, Mustapha Ali, Rey Mysterio, R-Truth (#30)
Women’s Rumble: Natalya, Bayley, Ember Moon, Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, Liv Morgan, Sonya Deville, Mandy Rose, Alicia Fox, Zelina Vega, Mickie James, Carmella (#30)
Cruiserweight Title 4 Way: Buddy Murphy© vs Kalisto vs Akira Tozawa vs Hideo
United States Title: Rusev© vs Shinsuke Nakamura
Injury Report
The Bludgeon Brothers are reportedly both healthy and cleared to return to action. There are confirmed reports that Harper and Rowan are both booked to travel and be on hand backstage for TV next week. That doesn’t mean they will for sure make their televised returns since much of the focus should be on final hype for the Royal Rumble. Still it’s good to know that the big men are all healed up and ready for action.
New Prospects
Former Impact wrestler Trevor Lee took the time at a live event last Friday to announce that he was on his way to WWE. The 25 year old Lee was a 3 time X Division champion and a tag champion during his time with Impact Wrestling. He’ll be fulfilling his remaining independent commitments before reporting to NXT.
205 Live
Starting this week, 205 has returned to its original Tuesday night timeslot and will once again be truly “Live.” When Mixed match Challenge was airing in that post-Smackdown position, they started taping the Cruiserweights before Smackdown and airing their show on Wednesdays before NXT. Personally, I think it was better for the show to tape when the audience was not already exhausted from a full night of Smackdown action, but apparently the powers that be don’t share my vision.
Release?
The Revival should be one of the top teams in all of WWE. They have an excellent throwback gimmick and dominated NXT as 2-time tag champions. They are respected by their peers and by the audience. Yet for whatever reason, the powers that be have not booked them that way on the main roster. Apparently Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder have grown as frustrated by this as their fans have. Reports are suggesting that the former “top guys” have asked for their release from WWE. I seriously doubt that this request will be granted given the competitors that would gladly sign and push such a talented team. Let’s just hope that McMahon and company don’t book them even worse out of pettiness. Now is the time to correct the mistake and book them properly, so that hopefully they don’t still want to leave when their contracts expire.
Mike and Maria Kanellis have also reportedly requested their releases from WWE.
Assorted News and Notes
The new Women’s Tag Team belts made their debut as part of a bizarre interview segment on Raw this week. Most of that segment had nothing to do with the belts, however we did learn that the inaugural champions will be crowned at the Elimination Chamber PPV. 3 teams from Raw and 3 teams from Smackdown will square off inside the Chamber with the winners emerging as the 1st ever WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.
Beginning Monday Jan. 21 you’ll be able to watch classic episodes of WWF Superstars on the WWE Network. Prior to the creation of Monday Night Raw, Superstars was the “A show” on which major angles played out. Unfortunately, there are rights issues that prevent them from loading the entire series onto the network at this time, but you will be able to pull up episodes from April 1992 onward.
Like Big E Langston and Alexander Rusev before him, Andrade Cien Almas appears to have quietly had his on screen name shortened to simply “Andrade.” No word on the reason for the change, but all announcers and graphics throughout SDL this week referred to him only as “Andrade.” Regardless of his name, he had what was arguably the match of the night (perhaps even match of the week) against Rey Mysterio.
