This Week in The Universe 2018 #8

A very action heavy Raw this week with an incredible opening match. The first half the show was dedicated to a Gauntlet match featuring the 7 competitors in the Men's Elimination Chamber. This match would go on to make history as the longest WWE match in 54 years at over 90 minutes. The first hour was a real powerhouse performance from Seth Rollins were he defeated both Roman Reigns & John Cena in two gruelling contests worthy of main eventing any show. He would eventually be eliminated by Elias and received a standing ovation on his way out. Finn Balor would go for about 30 minutes himself first eliminating Elias before The Miz with the help of The Miztourage eliminated him. The final man in the Gauntlet was Braun Strowman who would demolish The Miz and The Miztourage to win the match. Greatest Gauntlet match of all time? Quite Possibly! In other action Titus Worldwide notched another non-title victory over the Tag champions The Bar which has managed to earn them a title match at the Chamber PPV. Apollo (who is now just Apollo!) continued his recent impressive run as they seem to be letting him off the shackle more and more. The final match of the night was a 6-Woman tag match featuring the 6 Women's in the first ever Women's Chamber Match. There was some really good stories being told in this match particularly the burgeoning reuniting of Alexa Bliss & Mickie James who were on opposite teams. The result saw Sasha Banks get the win making Bliss tap out but after the match Absolution attacked Banks & Bayley. They zero'd in on Bliss but Mickie made the save and they teamed up to take down Absolution. Should be interesting to see how these teams/alliances play out in the chamber!

The focus of this weeks Smackdown Live was around the upcoming Fastlane PPV and the fallout from last weeks Smackdown. Dolph Ziggler continued his recent comeback of decent performances with a good match against Kevin Owens. Despite their recent tensions Sami Zayn came out to provide a distraction allowing Owens to hit a savage superkick to the side of Dolph's head for the win. Baron Corbin took on WWE Champion AJ Styles in a really fun match. Corbin made the point that he beat Styles the last couple of times they faced each other so it made sense for AJ to get a win back. After the match Owens/Zayn came out to attack Styles and for the efforts both ate End of Days from Corbin. Much like Raw we got a 6-Woman's match between Smackdown Champion Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch & Naomi Vs The Riott Squad. Again the stories being told in this match were really good as Charlotte in previous weeks had been beating members of the Riott Squad and only had Ruby left. Riott in the end got the win on Becky Lynch and she turned around Charlotte's story by saying 'One Down, Two to go.' Later on in the night she challenged Naomi to a match next week and a title match with Charlotte at Fastlane which was made official. I expect Ruby to beat Naomi next week and the match with Charlotte at Fastlane should be really good! The New Day defeated Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin in a match to determine who faces The Usos for the titles at Fastlane. There was another screwy finish much like last week so Gable & Benjamin could find a way to get into the title match. And then there's The Bludgeon Brothers who continue to destroy enhancement talent and ignored The New Day on their way out. Jinder Mahal cut a promo once more trying to stir the pot between US Champion Bobby Roode & Randy Orton which ended with Roode hitting a Glorious DDT on Orton but then just as he was celebrating he received a Khallas from Mahal. Shane McMahon & Daniel Bryan argued over who should face Roode for the title and Shane overruled Bryan and said it would be Orton. TENSIONS!!

The final two first round matches in the Cruiserweight title tournament took place on 205Live this week and no surprise they were very good. Buddy Murphy had his 205Live debut against Ariya Daivari with Murphy showing us just a little of what he can do. Murphy kicking out of Daivari's finisher was a cool moment because no one had done that before. The finish saw Murphy hit his sweet finisher, I believe its called The Thunder from Down Underm for the win and move on to the Quarter Finals. Before the final first round match we got a tag team exhibtion from Lunch House Party members Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado against some jobbers. They are always fun to watch and would happily see tag matches from them on a regular basis. The final first round match saw Jack Gallagher & Mustafa Ali in a hard hitting match. Jack was pulling out some mean looking moves and Ali was doing a fantastic sell job. The spot where Jack pushed Ali off the top rope and he went crashing through the barricade looked GNARLY! Ali got the win with the stunning looking 054 and he will go on to face Murphy in the Quarter Finals. Next week we get Kalisto Vs Roderick Strong and Cedric Alexander Vs TJP which should be brilliant!

This weeks NXT was built around the rematch from Takeover: Philly with Johnny Gargano putting his NXT Career on the line to win the NXT Championship from Andrade 'Cien' Almas. This was never going to be as good as the match from Takeover but this was still a very good match. Zelina Vega was trying to do her usual distracting antics but was countered by a suicide dive from out of nowhere from Candice LeRae. The match went back and forth with both guys getting some great near falls. The end came about when Gargano had Almas in the Gargano Escape while the ref was down which gave the opportunity for that pesky Tomasso Ciampa to come out and once again destroy a crutch over Gargano. The ref came to just in time to see Almas hit a Hammerlock DDT for the win. Emotional scenes at the end as Gargano leaves with LeRae and the crowd chanting his name with Ciampa looking on. The night kicked off with a fun match as Velveteen Dream defeated No Way Jose who I completely forgot was still in NXT! We also got the always wonderful to see Nikki Cross defeat Vanessa Bourne and I am just counting the days til she and the rest of Sanity go to the main roster. We found out that The Dusty Rhodes classic would be returning with the winner facing Undisputed Era at Takeover: New Orleans. I haven't seen any spoilers but my pick is TM-61. Also we found out Kari Sane will face Shayna Bazler next week in a rematch of the Mae Young Classic Final which should be very good.

That is it for this week in the WWE Universe. Thank you all for reading, and til next time cheerio!