Welcome back to a brand new Blogs Count Anywhere! First and foremost, hope everyone had a safe & healthy start to 2021! There was SO much wrestling this week that let’s waste no more time & start the blog!
New Japan Pro Wrestling put on an EPIC card to start the year: Wrestle Kingdom 15! There is a brand new champion after the smoke cleared as Kota Ibushi took home all the gold! It was such an incredible event that you need to watch #607TWS for a more in-depth breakdown of the card (Drop a follow while you’re there too)!
WWE started off with Monday Night Raw (Mondays 8pm EST on USA Network) & I have to be honest: Nothing great to write home about. Legends Night was pretty stat quo & the ending with the return (ugh) of Goldberg to challenge Drew McIntyre created some negative buzz (imo). Fearing that we’re now on the road to Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania, which isn’t making me want to watch.
Before we go into this past #WrestlingWednesday, I want to fully applaud the job AEW did for the Brodie Lee tribute show. This was one of the most amazing tributes shows I have ever seen. From start to finish, they did an incredible job honoring Brodie Lee. You need to watch it if you haven’t seen it yet.
Photo credit to All Elite Wrestling
Also, 2CW, where Brodie wrestled for many years before going to WWE are also honoring his memory. Check out http://www.prowrestlingtees.com/2cw where all 2CW shirts proceeds (until January 31st) will go directly to Brodie Lee’s family. There is a brand new “All day” shirt that is only available for a limited run. Support if you can!
This past week’s AEW Dynamite (Wednesdays 8pm EST on TNT Network). started off the 2 night card “New Year’s Smash. Night 1 delivered Snoop Dogg jumping off the top rope, Wardlow beating Jake Hager, and a wild ending to Fenix vs. Kenny Omega:
Photo Credit to All Elite Wrestling
The band got back…..together? After the match ends, Omega tried to take out Fenix. Jon Moxley runs in for the save. He doesn’t get far as Impact Wrestling Tag team Champs Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson rush the ring & drop him. This is continuing the invasion angle going on with AEW & Impact. It’s been fun but Impact looks VERY bad in this thus far. As “the locker room” try helping, The Young Bucks come out and…..turn on AEW? The final image is the Elite are back together with the Good Brothers.
Where do we go from here now? Is that certain faction from NJPW coming to AEW? How does this all shake out? Omega & the Good Brothers are scheduled for Impact on 1/16 for Hard to Kill. Next week, we should get some more answers BUT Impact stars needs to appear on Dynamite soon for this angle to feel not so lop-sided.
Kenny Omega also unveiled a new YouTube show: “2.Show”. It’s a must watch for anyone into Video games. The first episode is up now so check it out!
NXT (Wednesdays 8pm EST on USA Network) had their “New Year’s Evil” card. Highlights include: Karrion Kross defeated Damian Priest, Xia Li re-intro & Raquel Gonzalez defeated Rhea ripley in a brutal Last Woman Standing match. All had moments but none compared to the rematch with Finn Balor (c) & Kyle O’Reilly.
No commercials, No letdown. As brutal and bad-ass as their epic 1st go-around, Balor defeated O’Reilly in an instant classic. Now, it appears we won’t see a 3rd soon, but we’re looking at possible Pete Dunne or Karrion Kross as the next opponent for the Prince.
Friday Night Smackdown (Fridays 8pm on Fox) made a few eyebrows raise. New tag team champs as “the Dirty Dawgs” Dolph Zoggler & Bobby Roode defeated the Street Profits for the belts. Not gonna lie….didn’t see this coming. However, the biggest surprise was the apparent face turn of one Shinsuke Nakamura.
Nakamura was almost the last one standing after nearly 30 mins of a gauntlet match to decide who was going to face Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble. After defeating Daniel Bryan, there was a show of a respect that was ended by Roman & Jey Uso. This allowed Adam Pierce, who was forced into the mix as punishment by Roman, to win the match…..wrestling.
That’s a lot to digest so expect #607podcats to break it down further over the week. Join in the conversation on socials & let us know what you thought of this week’s wrestling action!
See you next time!