Reviews

The John Report: WWE Mixed Match Challenge Review 10/30/18 for Season 2, Episode 7

By John Canton • Published 1st November 2018
TJR Wrestling

Welcome to my review of week seven of season two of the WWE Mixed Match Challenge. The show took place on Tuesday, October 30 after Smackdown in Atlanta, Georgia.

As a reminder, the show airs on Facebook Watch in the US on the Mixed Match Challenge page and some other countries, but not in my country of Canada. It is added to WWE Network on Thursdays, and most weeks I use WatchWrestling for it.

The announce team for the show is Michael Cole, Renee Young and Vic Joseph, who were at ringside. As a reminder, the top Raw team will face the top Smackdown team at the December PPV called TLC. All Raw and Smackdown teams face eachother once, so there are at least four matches for every team.

The team of Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox made their entrance. They are called Mahalicia. Jinder has the Singh Brothers duo of Samir and Sunil with him.

Braun Strowman and Ember Moon were up next to a good ovation. They are called Monster Eclipse.

Monster Eclipse (Braun Strowman and Ember Moon) vs. Mahalicia (Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox) w/Samir and Sunil Singh

Monster Eclipse is 2-0 and Mahalicia is 0-2.

Mahal tried to calm down Strowman with his “Shanti” routine, but it wasn’t very effective as Strowman shoved Mahal down. Strowman with a shoulder tackle that took down Mahal. Fox tagged in, so that meant Moon had to enter the match. Fox with a running shoulder tackle. Fox did a routine where she kept running the ropes while Moon stopped doing anything and after running the ropes about ten times, Fox drank some water. Moon took out Fox with a running kick leading to Fox leaving the ring, so Moon hit a baseball slide dropkick on Fox. Moon was distracted by the Singhs leading to a neckbreaker from Fox. The team of Rusev and Lana were shown warming up backstage. Fox with a chinlock for about one minute, Moon back up and Fox hit a boot to the face to knock Moon down. Another chinlock by Fox on Moon with Renee trying to say that this damage on Moon is “huge.” No, it’s just a chinlock. Moon with a headscissors takedown on Fox and then Moon sent Fox out of the ring. Moon kicked Mahal leading to Strowman getting the tag. Strowman with two shoulder tackles on Mahal, a corner splash and a punch to the chest by Strowman. The Singhs pulled Mahal out of the ring, so Strowman charged at them and Moon took out both Singhs with a cross body block. Strowman ran around the ring leading to a shoulder tackle to Mahal. Fox trash talked Strowman, did a chest bump to him, she put on her captain’s hat and Strowman put the hat on. Moon with an Eclipse off the top on Fox. Strowman picked up Mahal and hit a Running Powerslam for the pinfall win after about nine minutes.

Winners by pinfall: Monster Eclipse (Braun Strowman and Ember Moon)

Analysis: *3/4 Easy win for Strowman and Moon like every match they have had so far in this tournament. The parts with the women were boring, especially with Fox on offense grabbing the chinlocks, but when Strowman tagged in the crowd got into it more. The finish wasn’t booked that well.

Here are the standings on the Raw side:

Analysis: It’s building to a showdown between Monster Eclipse and Country Dominance since that’s the only team Monster Eclipse has yet to face. We still don’t know if the two teams with the best records meet in the finals on the Raw side or if it’s just the team with the best record. I assume it’s just best record. If Country Dominance losing to B’N’B next week then they’d both be at 2-1, so that would make things a little more interesting.

Here are post match comments:

Next week from Raw: Country Dominance (Bobby Lashley and Mickie James) vs. Team B’N’B (Finn Balor and Bayley).

The team of AJ Styles and Charlotte Flair entered first to a big ovation. Styles is the WWE Champion. They got a big ovation from the crowd. Flair was wrestling in a t-shirt over her gear, which is typical for this show.

The husband and wife duo of Rusev and Lana made their entrance. Rusev grabbed a fan sign that said “Lana is the Best, Lana #1” on it. That led to Charlotte getting the “Fenomenal Flair” sign from the crowd, so Styles and Rusev held their signs up to the crowd.

Fenomenal Flair (AJ Styles and Charlotte Flair) vs. Ravishing Rusev Day (Rusev and Lana)

Fenomenal Flair are 2-0 and Ravishing Rusev Day are 0-2.

They started with a chop off as Lana hit Flair with a hard chop, but Flair came back with a harder chop for her. Rusev and Styles exchanged chops. Lana hit Flair with about four chops in a row. Flair to Lana: “Give me your chest.” Don’t take that out of context, folks. Flair hit Lana with a hard chop with Lana selling it like it hurt. More chops from Rusev and Styles in the chop off. R-Truth and Carmella were backstage commenting on the match, but Truth was ordering the pizza. Lana with several more chops on Flair. Flair with another hard chop leading to Lana bumping to the mat. Rusev with a hard chop to Styles leading to a bump for Styles and some “Rusev Day” chants. Rusev shook Flair’s hand and Flair hit him with a hard chop, which led to yelling from Rusev and more chops from Flair. Cole said this was one of the greatest matches he’s ever called. That was funny. Lana knocked down Flair with an attack from behind, so Flair did a worm to show her how to dance. Flair whipped Lana into the turnbuckle, but Lana came back with an awkward looking bulldog. Lana hit a sitout facebuster on Flair for a two count. Flair came back with a belly to back suplex. Rusev and Styles were tagged in with Styles hitting a clothesline, corner clothesline and a fireman’s carry into a neckbreaker for two. Rusev backed out of a Styles Clash attempt followed by Styles hitting a kick to the head. Rusev shoved Styles into the turnbuckle, Flair tagged in, Styles kicked Rusev and Lana hit a Russian legsweep on Styles. That was impressive by her. Flair back into the ring with a boot to the face for two. Flair went up top for a moonsault, Rusev sacrificed himself and took the bump off the moonsault leading to a Lana rollup for two. Flair slapped on the Figure Eight submission on Lana and Lana tapped out quickly to give the win to Fenomenal Flair after about nine minutes.

Winners by pinfall: Awe-ska (The Miz and Asuka)

Analysis: *1/2 This was disappointing as a match, but I laughed for the comedy bits and the chop off was mildly entertaining. The action was good when Styles was in there with Rusev although it was only a brief encounter for them.

Here are the standings from the Smackdown side:

Analysis: It’s the same situation as on Raw with the 3-0 teams set to face off to see who is in first place. That’s not next week, though, so we have to wait for it for another week.

Here are post match comments from both teams:

Next week from Smackdown: Day One Glow (Jimmy Uso and Naomi) vs. Fabulous Truth (R-Truth and Carmella)

The Fenomenal Flair team celebrated their win as the show ended right there.

That’s all for Mixed Match Challenge for this week after 33 minutes.

As a reminder of the matches for next week, here you go:

Final Thoughts

This was probably the worst episode of this season of Mixed Match Challenge in terms of match quality. It was just not enough interesting action. I get that they want to do comedy, but it hurt the matches too much this week.

Thanks for reading. My contact info is below. Go Los Angeles Rams.

John Canton

Email mrjohncanton@gmail.com

Twitter @johnreport

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