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Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week 10/24: Cain Saves Rey, Woods Injured, Owens Assists the Street Profits, More

By Matthew Fowler • Published 24th October 2019
TJR Wrestling

Welcome fellow TJR readers! Were you one of over 400,000 people who decided to skip Smackdown this week? Maybe your illegal stream of RAW was shut down before you could see the finish? Well fear not, as I am here to save the day once again, with another rendition of the Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week.

10. Diamond Dallas Page Returns on AEW: Dynamite

It was another outstanding episode of AEW: Dynamite which saw both the Lucha Bros and SCU advance to the finals of the AEW tag team tournament. The tournament will take place this Wednesday night. Also on this show, Diamond Dallas Page came out to assist Cody and Dustin Rhodes and MJF against the Inner Circle. It is unclear if Page, who is still in incredible shape mostly to his DDP Yoga program, will return to the ring. If Page does decide to join the Rhodes brothers and MJF, maybe this 63-year-old can teach them some yoga positions that really help them hit the inner circle. (TJRWrestling)

9. WWE2K20 is Released with Major Glitches in Game Play

The new WWE video game WWE2K20 was released this week and the reviews have been disastrous. The game’s normal developer, Yukes, quit developing the game half way through production. This caused 2K and the WWE to rush and get the game out on time. The result was a game that reportedly has bad graphics and multiple glitches that made it almost unplayable. The hashtag #FixWWE2K20 was trending for several days and Sony has actually been issuing refunds for the game. Usually I would try to end this with something funny and clever, but honestly I cannot come up with anything more hilarious than the clip below. (TJRWrestling)

https://twitter.com/masonsteelwwe/status/1186116114541006848?s=21

8. Ratings on FOX’s Friday Night Smackdown Continue to Drop

Smackdown’s viewership continued to fall this week losing over 400,000 viewers. If you read my column from last week (if you haven’t, go do it now, I’ll wait…Click Here), then you know how I feel about tv ratings. However, FOX does care deeply about these numbers as they paid over 200 million dollars a year for the next five years to hopefully have the most viewers of the four major networks on Friday nights. Instead, this past Friday FOX finished dead last in viewership for the night. WWE is playing a dangerous game of limbo to see how low they can go before FOX pulls the plug. This week Smackdown will be moved to FS1 due to the World Series being on FOX this Friday, so hopefully some procrastinating guy still remembers to write them in a little blue book (if you read last weeks article you would be laughing right now.) (TJRWrestling)

7. Roman Reigns Replaces Seth Rollins as Team Captain of Hulk Hogan’s Crown Jewel Team

Hulk Hogan replaced one former Shield member with another this past Friday on Smackdown. Roman Reigns was announced as the new team captain of Team Hogan, after Seth Rollins was forced to drop out of the match due to him now facing The “Fiend” Bray Wyatt on the same show. Reigns will captain a team of Shorty G, Ali, Rusev and Ricochet against Team Flair, which consists of captain Randy Orton, King Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, Shinsuke Nakamura and Drew McIntyre. If you were wondering who the heck Shorty G is, it is actually Chad Gable. Gable gave an inspirational speech about embracing who you are this past Friday on Smackdown. Gable then embraced that he is short in stature, and possibly a wannabe white rapper, by officially changing his name to Shorty G. It is unclear at this time if the “G” has been “certified”, or where one would even go to get taught such certification. (TJRWrestling)

6. Xavier Woods Suffers Injury to Achilles Tendon

Tough break for the New Day and especially Xavier Woods, as he suffered an Achilles Tendon injury that will potentially put him out of action for a significant amount of time. Hopefully Xavier Woods can recover quickly and come back as strong as ever. As for the rest of the New Day, this can be an opportunity for Big E to break out as a potential singles star. As for Kofi Kingston, he can do what he always does when he loses something that is supposedly very important to him; dance and throw around some pancakes. (TJRWrestling)

5. Rusev gets Arrested After Attacking Bobby Lashley in a Restaurant on RAW

Lana continued her adulterous ways this past Monday on RAW. While Rusev was discussing the affair in the ring, Lana and Bobby Lashley appeared on the Titantron, flirting heavily at a local restaurant. Rusev, in a fit of rage, drove to the restaurant and attacked Lashley, getting arrested in the process. Lana was actually the only female roster member shown on RAW this week. With women not being allowed to wrestle in Saudi Arabia, and the WWE not doing a Women’s Evolution PPV this year, I for one am glad that Lana is getting to be such a positive role model for all the young girls in the audience. (TJRWrestling)

4. Braun Strowman Attacks Tyson Fury at WWE Performance Center

Strowman and Fury continued building towards their match at WWE Crown Jewel this week. While Fury was practicing giving shoulder tackles at the WWE Center, Strowman showed up and gave Fury a tackle of his own. Fury immediately went down and sold an ankle injury. Fury versus Strowman was never going to be a five star match, but Fury is going to have to do more than a shoulder tackle to put on a passable match. Hopefully Fury is studying classic Saudi matches of the past such as Undertaker versus Goldberg to see what a real main event match should look like.(TJRWrestling)

3. Finn Balor Turns Heel on NXT

Finn Balor came out at the end of NXT this week to seemingly help DIY, who is made up of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, who were facing off with the Undisputed Era. Shockingly, however, Balor turned on DIY and helped the Undisputed Era with the attack. It is still unclear at this time why Balor had such a sudden turn in attitude. Maybe he was just working out some frustration after trying to follow the Do It Yourself directions on a piece of IKEA furniture. (TJRWrestling)

2. Kevin Owens Comes to the Rescue of the Street Profits on RAW

WWE pulled off a classic Bait and Switch this past Monday on RAW. For the entire weekend building up to RAW, WWE advertised a six-man match of the OC versus the Street Profits and a mystery partner. When RAW actually aired though the match was changed to just the Street Profits versus Gallows and Anderson without explanation. Could you imagine if Scooby Doo did this? “Let’s see who this ghost bear really is ”…. then nothing. Even more inexplicably Kevin Owens ended up coming out and helping the Street Profits win the match. Why wasn’t Owens just the mystery partner all along? I have no clue, but Vince probably would have gotten away with this nonsense if it wasn’t for us meddling fans. (TJRWrestling)


1. Cain Velasquez Saves Rey Mysterio on RAW

Cain Velasquez came to the aid of Rey Mysterio once again on RAW. Mysterio was giving a heartfelt promo inside the ring, when Shelton Benjamin came down to confront him. Benjamin questioned what Velasquez had done to earn a title shot, and wondered if he beat up Mysterio if he would receive one as well. Before Benjamin could physically assault Mysterio however, Velasquez came down to the ring and quickly disposed of Benjamin. Someone should inform Benjamin that beating up Mysterio is not how you get a title shot these days. Benjamin has to go about it like everybody else, either defeat Lesnar in another sport entirely (maybe challenge him to a game of badminton) or find a nice Prince who will pay the WWE a lot of money to have him fight for the title. (TJRWrestling)

That will wrap up this week’s edition of the Top Ten Wrestling Stories of the Week. Thanks for reading and if you enjoy what I do then please follow me on Twitter @BackseatBookers and listen to my podcast the BackseatBookers (please be aware that it is explicit, as sailors sometimes are shocked by my language.)