The Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week 1/15: WWE Champion Drew McIntyre Dealing with Covid-19, Good Brothers Wrestle in AEW, More

Welcome back TJR readers! Did you spend all day Friday researching different social media platforms and missed Smackdown. Perhaps you spent all day Monday hiring an Impeachment lawyer, and missed Raw. Worry not, for I have returned with another edition of The Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week to catch you up.

10. AEW Dynamite Awards to be Held on January 27th

When something reaches the height of popularity like The Johnny Awards have, there are bound to be imitators. AEW has decided that they will have their own yearly wrestling awards show on January 27th At 7 PM ET. The show will be called The AEW Dynamite Awards and will be shown exclusively on the Bleacher Report App. A number of awards including Best Twitter Follower and Hardest to Clean up After, will be given out. Strangely, however, there is no Wrestler of the Year or Match of the Year categories. Perhaps they chose not to do a Match of the Year because they couldn’t choose between the 48 matches that Dave Meltzer gave all five stars. (TJRWrestling)

9. MSK Debuts in NXT

The 2021 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic kicked off this week with a brand new team. MSK, who were formally known as The Rascalz in Impact Wrestling, defeated Isaiah “Swerve” Scott and Jake Atlas in the first round of the tournament. The MSK team is made up of Wes Lee and Nash Carter. Lee is the former Dezmond Xavier, and Carter is the former Zachary Wentz. It is unknown what, if anything, MSK stands for, but personally I am hoping it stands for Moe Szyslak’s Krew. (TJRWrestling)

8. Ric Flair Turns on Charlotte

If you were hoping that the Ric Flair and Lacey Evans relationship was a one week thing, I am afraid that I have some bad news. Evans and Charlotte once again had a match this week on Raw. During the match Ric Flair decided to once again come down to ringside, angering his daughter Charlotte. Flair then proceeded to get involved in the match, placing Evans’s foot on the rope to stop a pin. Flair then helped Evans win by grabbing Charlotte’s leg so Lacey could fall on top of her for the victory. Flair and Evans were then shown walking backstage together, with Evans stating that she was going to go “change at the hotel.” With this storyline, Lacey Evans has now officially become the “Saudi Arabia” of women’s wrestling. (TJRWrestling)

7. Impact Wrestling’s Hard to Kill to Take Place This Saturday

Impact Wrestling’s most anticipated PPV in years, Hard to Kill, will take place this Saturday night at 8 PM ET on FITE TV. The show will be headlined by AEW Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega teaming up with IMPACT Tag Team Champions, The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson), to face the reigning IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann and the Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley). Impact also announced that Josh Mathews has been promoted to Senior Producer, and will no longer be doing commentary. The new commentary team will be Matt Striker and D’LO Brown. At a price of $39.99, Impact is hoping they make more than the $79.98 that they made at their last PPV. (TJRWrestling)

6. Kofi Kingston Out With a Jaw Injury

Xavier Woods will be without his New Day tag team partner for a little while. This week on Raw it was announced that Kofi Kingston was out of action due to a broken jaw. It is unknown at this time the severity of the injury, or how long Kingston will be out of action. Hopefully, this injury won’t be a long-term issue, as it would be a shame if Kingston couldn’t smile while losing World Titles anymore. (TJRWrestling)

5. The Good Brothers Debut on AEW Dynamite

The partnership between AEW and Impact Wrestling continued this week. Kenny Omega was originally planned to team with The Young Bucks to face off against The Varsity Blondes and Danny Limelight. Don Callis was supposed to introduce the Bucks for the match, but ended up introducing The Good Brothers instead. The Good Brothers then took The Bucks’s place in the match, getting the victory with Omega. This seemingly upset The Bucks, who were shown looking displeased while watching on the monitor in the back. We will have to wait and see if The Bucks end up doing Chris Jericho’s Podcast, so they can complain about not being used. (TJRWrestling)

4. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode Win the Smackdown Tag Team Champions

This past Friday’s Smackdown saw The Street Profits defend the Smackdown Tag Team Championship against The Dirty Dawgs made up of Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler. Montez Ford of the Street Profits spent the match selling a knee injury, due to Ziggler and Roode attacking him the week before. This ended up being the downfall of the Street Profits, when Ziggler hit the Zig Zag on Ford to win the titles. The Street Profits had held the Smackdown Tag Team Titles since October, when they traded the Raw Tag Titles with The New Day. Ziggler and Roode will now either defend the titles or try to trade them as well for some career potential and Beer Money. (TJRWrestling)

3. Triple H Wrestles on Raw

When Drew McIntyre was unable to compete against Randy Orton in the Main Event of Raw this week, WWE needed to find a replacement opponent for Orton. Triple H ended up being that replacement, wrestling his first match in over a year on Raw. Orton and Triple H’s match ended in a no-contest, when the lights went out and Hunter’s sledgehammer suddenly caught fire. When the lights came back on, it was Alexa Bliss and not Hunter that was in the ring with Orton. Bliss then suddenly shot a giant fireball into Orton’s face to end Raw. This will likely be one of the last Triple H matches because no one wants to see a guy in his 50s wrestling for titles. (TJRWrestling)

2. Adam Pearce Becomes the Number One Contender for The Universal Championship

Roman Reigns will have a surprise challenger at The Royal Rumble on Sunday, January 31st. A five-person Gauntlet Match between Shinsuke Nakamura, Daniel Bryan, Sami Zayn, King Baron Corbin, and Rey Mysterio was scheduled this week on Smackdown. During Smackdown, Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman “pulled some strings” and were able to get WWE Official Adam Pearce added to the match. The Gauntlet match ended up coming down to Nakamura, who had a great run in the match, and Pearce. Before Pearce and Nakamura could compete, however, Roman Reigns and Jey Uso attacked Nakamura. Reigns then rolled Pearce into the ring, where he was quickly super kicked by Uso. Uso then placed Pearce on top of Nakamura for the three count. Pearce will now face Reigns for the Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble. The 42-year old Pearce has not wrestled a match since 2014, making him the second most undeserving challenger at this year’s Rumble. (TJRWrestling)

1. Drew McIntyre Diagnosed With Covid-19, Planning to Wrestle Goldberg at Royal Rumble

If I never write Covid-19 again, it will be too soon. Unfortunately, however, Covid-19 has affected the wrestling world once again. WWE announced this week that WWE Champion Drew McIntyre tested positive for the virus. McIntyre appeared remotely on Raw this week, saying that he is has no symptoms and encouraging everyone to wear a mask and practice social distancing. McIntyre is expected to be back for his WWE Heavyweight Championship match at the Royal Rumble against Goldberg, making this situation all the more frustrating and tragic. In all seriousness, best wishes to Drew and everybody else dealing with it. (TJRWrestling)

That will conclude another edition of The Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week. As always, if you like what I do, please follow me on Facebook and Twitter @BackseatBookers and listen to my podcast The BackseatBookers. (Please be aware that it is explicit, as my dirty mouth has been Impeached more then once as well.)