This Week in The Universe #8

 

As July came to an end and we entered August, The roads to SummerSlam and NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III continued with a huge week in WWE. Big momentum building matches, no.1 contender matches and a huge title match! Lets get stuck in!!

 

Raw starts as Raw often starts with a promo this time from GM Kurt Angle who was in his hometown. How nice! Before he could leave he was interrupted by Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman. Heyman theorises that Angle is trying to get the title off Lesnar by putting him in a Fatal 4 way match. Heyman finishes by saying if Brock loses he and Heyman will leave WWE. I don't see Lesnar winning at SummerSlam personally so either this will free him up to do the UFC stuff he wants to do or it writes him off TV for a few months til he comes back at Survivor Series or Royal Rumble. How often in story lines do people say they will leave and then they come back?? The Hardy Boyz take on Gallows & Anderson in a decent match with The Hardys getting the win. The Revival did a good job on commentary too and it ended in all 3 teams getting in a brawl on the stage. Great spot at the end with Jeff hitting a Poetry in Motion off the stage. Backstage stuff with Seth Rollins who is still trying to get back together with Dean Ambrose but Ambrose is still not convinced yet. After this Rollins is confronted by Sheamus & Cesaro who mock Rollins for having no friends. BULLIES! Seth challenges one of them to a match which Sheamus accepts. The match they had was fun but I thought they could have done better with more time. Seth wins with a SNEAKY roll-up but is immediately double teamed by the tag champs. This brings out Ambrose after the crowd was demanding he come out and then he gets beaten down. The story here being that Ambrose feels that Seth forced him into coming out so he didn't look like an asshole. I like the slow build they are giving this. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end! Cruiserwight 6-Man was pretty much the same as every one you've seen on Raw before. They are doing a good job of building Akira Tozawa's fighting spirit though. Miz TV with Jason Jordan was a fairly enjoyable segment. Miz did what he does best by making himself come across as a massive jerk. Jordan lacked a bit of fire at the start but started to show it once Miz started running down Kurt Angle. The belly-to-belly suplex on Miz that also knocked down the Miztourage was a cool spot. They seem to be heading towards Miz & Jordan at SummerSlam and I think they will have a decent match if that is the case. Bray Wyatt did one of his usual superiority promos until he was interrupted by Finn Balor who got revenge for last weeks attack. They seem to be playing mind games with each other so hopefully it will lead to a return of Demon Finn. MAIN EVEN....Wait it isn't the end of the show yet?? Well what seemed to be the Main Event is happening about half way through the show! Roman Reigns defeated Samoa Joe & Braun Strowman in a great and heavily hyped match. All 3 men gave decent promos throughout the night and it was a really fun brawl with some good action on the outside and use of weapons. A very good preview of what we could see at SummerSlam. Elias was in the ring...just Elias now...*sigh*...anyway he got some great heat running down his hometown crowd and then got a pretty easy win over Kalisto. Bayley faced Nia Jax for the umpteenth time and got a count-out win. She picked up a shoulder injury during the match and as of writing it doesn't appear clear whether its legit or not. Hopefully it isn't but we should have some confirmation on Raw next week. MAIN EVENT TIME!! I GUESS?!?! Big Show Vs Big Cass was boring as hell. Probably the most boring 'Main Event' I've seen on Raw in quite some time. Compared to main events of the other shows this week it is horrible. I have no desire to see Cass & Show face again but I fear they will. 

The show opened with a match which is a nice change! AJ Styles defended the US title against Kevin Owens which even got the full in-ring intros for title matches which I though Greg Hamilton did a great job of. These two had another great match which they always do however with another controversial finish. AJ won with a roll up but the ref missed Owens shoulder up as he had previously been knocked in the eye. Understandably furious Owens was backstage and demanded a rematch which Shane McMahon gave him for SummerSlam. Owens however wanted a 'competent' ref who GM Daniel Bryan decided would be Shane. Hopefully this leads to us getting a final classic match from AJ & Owens and then transition into a feud between Owens & Shane. The Usos trolled everyone by doing a spot on impression of The New Days entrance and gloated about their attack last week. Usos are doing great work these days and I can't wait to see another match between them and New Day. Fashion Peaks was as good as you can imagine it being and its great to see that Twin Peaks fans and the show itself have acknowledged how good of a parody it was. Aiden English did some great singing and then got a surprise quick win on Sami Zayn to the surprise of everyone including English! After the match Maria and Mike Kanellis came out to gloat continuing their feud with Sami. Good tag match between Becky Lynch/Naomi & Natalaya & Carmella. Naomi looked strong in this match surviving the Sharpshooter and then doing an awesome counter of Carmella's Code of Silence into her Slay-o-Mission. Rusev Vs Chad Gable was a really fun and fresh match. Some great mat wrestling and some impressive shows of strength from Gable. He is putting in some outstanding losing performances recently and I hope it leads to a good push for him in the future. Rusev after the match demanded a challenge for SummerSlam which was answered by Randy Orton who teased and then delivered an RKO. I like the pairing of Rusev and Orton and I think they could have a great match. MAIN EVENT TIME! AND WHAT A MAIN EVENT!! John Cena & Shinsuke Nakamura battled in a much anticipated dream match. When Shinsuke signed with WWE this was one of those dream matches talked about most and I'm so happy we are getting to see it. It was definitely one of the best WWE TV matches of the year and I fully expect them to have better matches the more they interact with each other. Shinsuke kicking out of an AA was huge but then to take a second one and escape the roll through attempt for a third was brilliant. The suplex spot on Cena's neck looked nasty but he seemed OK. The man has muscles on his muscles so I have no doubt he's OK! Nakamura winning clean was amazing and I have a really good feeling that he will leave SummerSlam the NEW WWE champion. 

205 Live with a match between The Brian Kendrick & Jack Gallagher. Gallagher was furious with being made out to be a clown last week (as was I it was a terrible segment!) and he came out with full aggression which ended up costing himself the match by Disqualification. Gallagher continued to attack Kendrick after the match causing 'The Man with A Plan' to exit through the crowd. Hey Gran Metalik! Nice to see you! Oh you lost to Tony Nese and his awesome abs. Oh...Bye then! That Running Knee strike from Nese is pretty tasty to be fair. MAIN EVENT TIME! I really enjoyed this match between Akira Tozawa & Ariya Daivari. Tozawa showing more of his strong fighting spirit and Daivari relentlessly attacking the injured shoulder was a really good story they were telling. The crowd was solidly behind Tozawa and after a few really convincing near falls he got the win. Tozawa will now face Neville for the Cruiserweight title and I have a feeling Neville will finally fall.

NXT kicked off with the in-ring return of Johnny Gargano against Raul Mendoza. Great back and forth match for the time they were given and Gargano got the win. Just a shame Tomasso Ciampa wont be back for a while! We get official word that Authors of Pain will defend the NXT Tag titles against Alexander Wolfe & Killan Dain in Brooklyn. NOICE! Asuka is in the ring dressed to impress talking about her match with Ember Moon at Takeover. Moon comes in and after an exchange of words they fight. Asuka seems to get the upper hand dumping Moon on the outside but doesn't see her come back in and gets laid out with the Eclispe. Great segment for Ember and the crowd popped huge for the Eclipse! Bobby Roode his backstage giving his thoughts on what Drew McIntyre had to say last week. He is interrupted by Roderick Strong who wants a piece of Roode after the way he disrespected Strong's family. Looks like Strong might be inserted into NXT title match at Takeover. Sonya Deville took on Jenna Van Bemel in another match putting Deville over. They are building her up quite strong. Hideo Itami is backstage showing off his new attitude talking about feeling disrespected. He starts talking in Japanese and then heads to the ring still talking Japanese. He's interrupted by Aleister Black who gets right in Itami's face. Itami tries to attack Black but is knocked down by a Black Mass. Black takes a seated position ready for the MAIN EVENT!! His opponent is the debuting Kyle O'Reily! His tag team partner Bobby Fish faced Black a few weeks ago and now O'Reily is having a crack. Hell of a match between these two! A great debut for O'Reily and Black continues to look like an absolute machine. Black won with the Black Mass which in of itself is becoming an absolute beast of a finisher! Last week I thought we would get Itami and Kassius Ohno at Brooklyn in a No DQ match but instead we are getting Itami Vs Black?? OH HELL YEAH!!

And that was This Week in the WWE Universe! Overall I thought it was strong week for all shows even if Raw suffered a bit from a boring last hour. What did you guys think? Let me know on twitter @chris_dons or in the comments below. Thanks for reading!