This Week in The Universe #17 I WOZ THERE!!

This week's post a little different because as suggested by the title I was at the Raw, Smackdown & 205Live in Manchester! This was the first time I went to a live WWE TV taping so not surprisingly I was very excited!! After some decent taped matches for Main Event, RAW starts with Miz TV with special guest GM Kurt Angle. The Miz had a pretty mixed reaction and not surprisingly Angle got a huge pop from the crowd. This felt like it went really wrong but ultimately Miz insinuated Angle purposely got Daniel Bryan beaten up Kane last week and Angle didn't like that putting Miz in a match with Braun Strowman that night! First match of the night was a guitar on a pole match between Elias & Jason Jordan. Elias cut a great heel promo before hand running down Manchester's own Oasis. Jordan gets the win smacking the Guitar on Elias's back. SQUASH MATCH TIME! Asuka quickly defeated Stacy Coates who wrestles in the UK as Isla Dawn. After the match Alicia Fox named Asuka as part of Team Raw. Solid choice! Titus O'Neil is out with Apollo Crews for a match with Samoa Joe that never starts because Joe runs out and attacks both men. Joe stands in the ring and demands competition which brings out Finn Balor. His entrance is so cool live! Balor Vs Joe was an excellent match that I thoroughly enjoyed. Great back and forth action that spills to the outside and ends in a double countout. I didn't mind this result as this can set up future matches between these two to determine a true winner. The brawl is broken up by refs and security which brings out Kurt Angle who decides who wants Balor & Joe on his Survivor Series team! Backstage Angle is talking to Jason Jordan who he wants as the final man on his team because he wants someone he can trust. Foreshadowing perhaps?? Next up Bayley & Sasha Banks took on Alicia Fox & Nia Jax. The traditional 'Hey Bayley' song you hear on UK shows dominated most of the match and in the end Sasha made Fox tap out who decided that she needed Sasha on her Survivor Series team. Braun Strowman took on The Miz next in a fun match that showed how dominant Braun is. Braun is great and he got one of the best reactions from the crowd that night. Kane appeared to brawl with Braun causing a DQ and to further set up a feud between Braun & Kane. Enzo Amore came out for a promo that went WAAAAAYYYY too long til it was interrupted by Kalisto who took a seat at ringside as out came WWE UK Champion Pete Dunne and I MARKED OUT! Pete Dunne is freaking awesome!! Dunne got the win on Enzo which was a wonderful sight to see. MAIN EVENT TIME! Sheamus & Cesaro challenged Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose for the Raw Tag Titles. The Bar were wearing Liverpool FC shirts at one point which of course drew the biggest boos of the night. Rollins & Ambrose made their way through the crowd which was about 10 seats to the right of where I was! This was such an enjoyable match as it always is between these two teams. I maybe a little biased being there live but I think this was the best match I've seen them have. There was a couple of really near falls including when Ambrose hits a Dirty Deeds on Sheamus followed up by Rollins hitting the Frog Splash but the pin is broken up by Cesaro showing Ambrose onto Rollins. Suddenly The New Day's music hits and everyone starts freaking out! They informed that #UnderSiege part two was about to happen which brought out the Raw locker room. In the confusion Sheamus Brogue Kicked Rollins and got the pin for the win! This had me genuinely gob smacked that I was not expecting to see! Word is that they are working towards a New Days Vs Shield match for Survivor Series. YES PLEASE!!

The crowd for Smackdown Live was a tad smaller than the one for Raw but I definitely thought they were more vocal! Shane McMahon comes out to open the show to a huge Shane O'Mac chant. Shane bigged up The New Day for taking the fight to Raw the night before which brings them to the ring. They said they didn't intend for Ambrose & Rollins to lose their titles but they expected them to do nothing about it. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn came out and criticised Shane for putting the whole roster at risk by keep taking the fight to Raw. They called New Day 'puppets' which they responded to by saying Zayn looks like a 1930s Paperboy. Funny stuff! Shane sets up a match between Zayn & Kofi which happens right now! This was a fun match that hadn't seen before. Kofi is so underrated and crazy athletic. Kofi gets the win and they announced later on New Day will face Owens/Zayn next week. Aiden English sang beautifully to welcome Rusev to the ring for a match with Randy Orton. If Rusev won he would join Team Smackdown. Surprisingly after a savage RKO Randy got the win. Sad times! Next up was the battle of the sexes as James Ellsworth took on Becky Lynch with the Smackdown Women's team at ringside. This was a fun match that was mostly comedy with Becky getting the win with the Dis-Arm-Her. After the match Carmella superkicks Ellsworth and that seems to suggest that duo is over. They announce next week that Natalya will defend her title against Charlotte Flair. I SMELL A TITLE CHANGE! Next we had a Smackdown Tag Title match between The Usos & Chad Gable/Shelton Benjamin. This was more of a brawl and an angle as the match ended with Gable giving Jey Uso a vicious chop block on the outside and he couldn't get back in the ring. Very reminiscent of what happened to Gable last year when The Usos first turned heel. Before the main event they announced another titles match for next week this time the US Title with Baron Corbin defending against Sin Cara. Corbin should retain there. MAIN EVENT TIME!! Jinder Mahal defends the WWE Championship against AJ Styles. Say what you will about Mahal but his entrance is pretty badass. AJ comes out with the biggest ovation of the night by a mile. The crowd was hot for the whole match. This was the best match Mahal has had since becoming champion with him dominating for most of the match and Styles selling like only he can. AJ hits the springboard 450 but Mahal is dragged out by The Singh Brothers. I thought the ref would eject them but instead AJ takes them out. AJ goes for the Phenomenal Forearm but Mahal counters into the Khallas but AJ to the relief of everyone gets his foot on the rope. AJ avoids a top rope Khallas and this time hits Mahal with the Phenomeal Forearm for the win! Manchester erupts as we have a new WWE Champion! A truly historic moment as this was the first ever WWE title change outside of North America. And I can't believe I was there for it!!

I was pretty hyped after the Styles win so I was brought back down to reality by the appearance of Enzo Amore at the start of 205Live to run down the UK division. It ends with Tyler Bate knocking him out to set up the main event. Kalisto came out next for a match with Gentleman Jack Gallagher. Gallagher is in his hometown but he's a heel so in typical fashion he runs down the city. Boo that man! Kalisto gets the win with the Selina Del Sol building up for his title match at Survivor Series. Really fun tag match next between Cedric Alexander/Mark Andrews & James Drake/Joseph Conners. Big fan of the 3 UK guys and was cool to see how good Cedric is live. I just wish he would get better entrance music! Andrews gets the win with a gorgeous looking Shooting Star Press. MAIN EVENT TIME!! Tyler Bate takes on Enzo Amore. The match wasn't great as the crowd was the real highlight of the match singing for Tyler. Enzo got the win to no-ones appreciation but I guess he couldn't lose two nights in a row!

NXT kicks off this week with match between Heavy Machinery & Chris Payne/Sean Maluta. Entertaining dominant match with Heavy Machinery getting the win with The Compactor. Kari Sane took on Billie Kay next with Peyton Royce at ringside. Decent match with Kari getting the win off her sweet looking elbow drop continuing her momentum heading towards Takeover. Backstage in William Regal's office Kassius Ohno walks in asking for a match with Lars Sullivan which is made for Takeover. The Velveteen Dream has a match with Cezar Bononi that ends with TVD getting the win with the cool looking cartwheel Death Valley Driver. TVD post match said he now has Alesieter Blacks attention and will make him say his name. MAIN EVENT TIME! A Ring of Honor throwback match with Adam Cole facing Roderick Strong. Good match from two guys who obviously know each other well. The match ends when Strong tries to get the win but is stopped by Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reily. Then we get the Authors of Pain & Sanity out for a huge brawl to continue the build toward the much anticipated War Games match at Takeover. NOICE!

And that was this week in the WWE universe! What did you guys think? Let me know what you guys think on twitter @chris_dons or in the comments. Thank you all for reading!