The King of USA Network - WWE TV (9-16-9/18)

WWE Raw
Thompson-Boiling Arena - Knoxville, TN
Live on USA Network - September 16, 2019
Rating: 0.72 (18-49), 2.272M viewers

Seth Rollins opened the show with a promo, talking about his matches at the PPV on Sunday, putting over Braun Strowman as a tough challenger (but not winning because that would be too easy), and how he still walked out with the Universal Championship, even after The Fiend came out to lay him out on the stage. Then we got a pop-in segment of Firefly Fun House with everyone's favorite buddy Bray Wyatt talking about how friends forgive, "but 'he' never forgets," and that there may be more to come later tonight from The Fiend. Not a bad way to start the show, with the build to Hell in a Cell kicking off immediately.

Meanwhile, in the Upside Down... pic.twitter.com/0qbLil6WgX

— TDE Wrestling (@tde_wrestling) September 17, 2019

Next came out the new Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Champions, Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode and The Revival, for a "tag team summit," which was just a few moments to brag and get heat before Braun Strowman came out to lay waste to them. So... what got accomplished here?

AJ Styles & Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Cedric Alexander & The War Viking Raider Experience - Cedric got pinned. AGAIN. And got beat down to make sure Styles keeps his heat. AGAIN. And depending on who you ask, Cedric is in the midst of being BURIED by Vince. That is all.

Time for some more 24/7 shenanigans with R-Truth and Carmella, as they're taking a tour of the sights and sounds of Knoxville with none other than... Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs. Who is totally not ANYONE ELSE, wink wink.

King of the Ring Final: Baron Corbin vs. Chad Gable - Of course Big Breakfast Baron would win. Did you expect ANY other outcome? That being said, it was a very good match that had a lot of time to it, around 18 or 19 minutes, and both men came out of it looking very strong, Gable as the chipper underdog and Corbin as the smarmy heel.

Backstage, the Street Prophets are holding a gender reveal party for Maria Kanellis - don't ask why. Anyway, it's a boy, and Maria says to her husband that the father of her baby isn't him, but is actually... RICOCHET. Which, obviously, it's not, but this is their gimmick. Thus, we have a match.

Mike Kanellis vs. Ricochet - very quick win for Ricochet, TCB.

Maria comes back out to berate her husband, and then introduces the real father of her baby... RUSEV? Um... huh?

Mike Kanellis vs. Rusev - It was a squash. And just for good measure, Corey Graves actually called Mike a "beta cuck." Because why not. Sure hope the contract is worth it.

More 24/7 shenanigans, with MAYOR KANE winning the 24/7 title! Always fun.

Rey Mysterio vs. Cesaro - An impressive match that ended with Rey winning with a Not-Quite-Canadian Destroyer. Well done.

We get a brief promo for the upcoming draft in October, and NO MORE WILD CARD RULE THANK GOD.

Authors of Pain (THAT'S THEIR NAME DAMN IT) have a pretape promo where they're totally serious... if only their prior booking didn't suck.

Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley - Alexa being taken out with a knee injury made this a 2-on-1, and while Nikki held on toward the end, it wasn't enough. Solid enough but the crowd is SILENT. Post-match, Becky Lynch comes out and we have a good old fashioned steel chair duel... then Charlotte comes out. The feuds must continue.

Backstage promo, Sasha challenges Becky to a rematch at the next PPV.

Even more 24/7 shenanigans afoot, as Truth wins the title back for the 16th time, and convinces Mayor Kane-er, Mayor Jacobs, to not lose it and instead enjoy Raw inside.

Becky responds to Sasha backstage, accepts the challenge, and sets it INSIDE Hell in a Cell. There are your two top-billed matches for the event, Seth and Bray as well as Sasha and Becky.

... Lacey Evans vs. Natalya - .......please go away. The crowd was dead for this and so was I.

Seth Rollins vs. Robert Roode (w/ Dolph Ziggler) - If you expected a clean finish, you weren't paying attention. Styles and co. come out to join the beatdown, only for MAYOR KANE to arrive... and yep, you guessed it, it's FIEND TIME. Kane gets laid out, and then crawls to Rollins for some MIND GAMES... then we get a good 75 seconds of the Firefly Fun House music playing with a whole bunch of distorted effects to end the show.

Verdict: not a great Raw, only worthwhile for the bookended segments, Cesaro and Rey, and the KOTR final. Everything else? Not super great.


WWE SmackDown
State Farm Arena - Atlanta, GA
Live on USA Network - September 17, 2019
Rating: 0.63 (18-49), 2.064M viewers

The New Day vs. The Revival & Randy Orton - no promo to start the show, it's immediately to the announced six-man tag because, yes, the feud MUST continue. At least, for now. This match had a good bit of time to it, lasting the first 20 minutes of the show and going through two ad breaks. Kofi got the win after hitting Trouble In Paradise on Dawson, with--WAIT BROCK ON SMACKDOWN??? Looks like the rumors of Lesnar vs. Kofi happening when SmackDown moves to Fox may be true. And the challenge has been issued for the first SmackDown on Fox, which apparently USA was totally okay with being mentioned. Challenge accepted, we have our first main event on FOX, two weeks from Friday. With an F-5 to Kofi for good measure.

Backstage, Michael Cole (yes, really) interviews Erick Rowan, wearing a Cannibal Corpse shirt (which isn't PG by any means), which boils down to "I did what I did because nobody knows I'm here." He's got a thing for shorter names, calling Cole as "Mike" and calling Daniel Bryan as "Dan," but the whole interview is pretty boilerplate. Lasted just a few minutes, far too short.

Mustafa Ali vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (w/ Sami Zayn) - and the match never took place as it was all just a beatdown angle to get heat on Shinsuke and Zayn. And hey, Kevin Owens is in the crowd, looks like he bought a ticket to enjoy the show with the rest of the Atlanta crowd.

Backstage, Shane McMahon has been served with... well, what else? Because THIS FEUD MUST CONTINUE AS WELL. GREAT.

Back from commercial, Shane comes out with security to talk about being served with papers, and invites KO to the ring. Turns out, it's a $25 million wrongful termination lawsuit, which is comedically fake in so many ways. So yeah, the feud continues on because we must have HEAT.

...why the fuck is Offset in the ring? Well, it's to introduce Charlotte to the ring. Because Atlanta. And it's here that I realize that we've gone nearly 50 minutes without an actual match.

Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks - So I guess Charlotte is a babyface-by-proxy now. Whatever. Her moonsault still looks like a backflip, and the match ended with Bayley interfering, and then Carmella comes out to even the odds against the heels. So... a tag team match, playa? Maybe next week.

Because the match happening on Raw wasn't enough, we now have the "King of the Ring coronation" in the ring. How quaint and jovial for us all. Corbin calls Chad Gable out to the ring and cracks a bunch of short and small jokes. Cue the beatdown and the destruction of the cheap props.

The B Team vs. Heavy Machinery - behold, your in-ring main event for this week. It went as well as you would guess, with the big guys coming out with the win.

Already showing off those new SmackDown graphics and new music to hype the debut of SmackDown on FOX, as we come back from commercial.

Daniel Bryan comes out to talk in the ring, about Erick Rowan, before Rowan comes out to get a few words in of his own. Bryan says, "you feel disrespected? Do something about it!" which Rowan does... by having Luke Harper show up and blindside him. Then out comes BIG DOG to even the odds a bit. Alas, both Harper and Rowan have the upper hand and lay both men out, by starting a teardown of ringside and exposing the concrete, beating up the security geeks, and slamming said geeks on the concrete floor. It continues with Rowan using part of the barricade on BIG DOG and even taking out Tom Phillips. Close it out with a double choke slam to Bryan, through the table, and the show heads off the air. Enjoy cleaning all of that up, 205 Live.

Verdict: once again bookended with the strongest highlights, but not a great post-PPV SmackDown by any means. And I think that'll be the way things go for next week's show, as well, with the move to Fox happening in two weeks.


WWE NXT
Full Sail Live - Winter Park, FL
Live on USA Network (8-9pm), WWE Network (9-10pm) - September 18, 2019
Rating: 0.43 (18-49), 1.179M viewers (USA Network)

The show kicks off with a "pre-tape" promo with Triple H and clips of the brand so far, and then we transition to a live shot inside Full Sail with a nice video effect. Also has a quiet launch of new graphics and they look pretty nice.

Io Shirai vs. Bianca Belair vs. Mia Yim vs. Candace LeRae, #1 Contender's Fatal 4-Way Match - A high octane profile match to kick off the show, with everyone looking to take everyone out, and it leads to the first break with Yim hitting a tope suicida and Shirai landing a perfect moonsault - take note, Charlotte. And a tower of doom spot to come back from commercial, that's one big way to return to the action. Hot finish leading to Candace hitting her standing reverse hurricanrana and a "Bret's rope" moonsault on Yim to get the win and secure her status as #1 contender.

Our first match promoted for next week, Dominik Dijakovic vs. Keith Lee, and a promo for tonight's match in the second hour, Killian Dain vs. Matt Riddle, airs, and it's going to be a STREET FIGHT.

Sean Maluta vs. Cameron Grimes - time for a showcase of up-and-comers, and by that, I mean the former Trevor Lee needs a body to beat. And it took less than 5 seconds after a hard stomp. That's one way to build an up-and-comer, I guess.

Roderick Strong vs. Velveteen Dream (c), NXT North American Championship - the first bit of the match starts out a bit slow, a lot of chain and grappling to lead into the first ad break of the match. Things pick up once the match returns, with Strong taking a bit more of the offense before Dream gets a few counters in, headed to the second ad break of the match. Chops to bring things back in to lead to the final few minutes of the match, with Dream gaining more momentum before being smashed hard with a kick in the head, right between the ropes. Forearms against Dream lead to a backbreaker and dragon bomb, but it's just a 2 count, only for that to lead into the Stronghold; after a few moments of struggle, he makes it to the rope, but out comes the rest of TUE to surround the ring. Ref bump when Strong pulls Dream right into him, but while Dream tries to fight the outside forces off, but Strong hits End of Heartache, securing the match-NO! ONLY A 2 COUNT! Dream hits the Dream Valley Driver, but Cole lands a superkick on Dream on the top rope with the ref distracted, and after another End of Heartache, Roderick Strong gets the 3 and wins the title - all of the gold is now Undisputed... BAYBAY.

Second hour starts with a recap of what happened on USA, and the announcement that, yes, Shayna Bazler vs. Candace LeRae will happen on the October 2nd show.

Pete Dunne vs. Arturo Ruas - This match was less one-sided than I'm sure anyone thought it would be, from the start. But dueling armbars mean nothing when Dunne will try to break your fingers. But wait, Ruas will try to do the same thing, it seems. I'm rather impressed, this match was really evenly contested, but of course Dunne won by trying to break Ruas' fingers and making him tap out. Like there was any other outcome.

Looks like the rumors of 205 Live being implemented into NXT are true, as we have another #1 contender's match set for tonight, Oney Lorcan versus Lio Rush (yes, he's still employed) with the winner getting a shot at the Cruiserweight title. And in more good news, Dakota Kai returns to NXT next week.

Xia Li vs. Aliyah (w/ Vanessa Borne) - Time for another showcase match, this time to get Xia over, and despite a bit of a botch, she came out strong after the finish. Great foot work, all around.

Denzel Dejournette comes out for his match, scheduled to face Kushida, but wait - IMPERIUM IS HERE. Direct from the UK, it's an ambush on the Performance Center talent, then out comes... WALTER. Said UK Champion speaks to the crowd before Kushida comes out, looking for a fight, and it looks like a match between Kushida and WALTER may be coming sometime soon.

Oney Lorcan vs. Lio Rush, #1 Contender's Match - Lorcan is out like a house of fire, trying to make quick work, but only gets a 2 on the first pin attempt. Now it's Lio's turn to get some major momentum in his NXT return, but it doesn't take long for Oney to go insane on his opponent. A great near fall came when Lio was thrown to the ropes, only to springboard and hit a great cutter on Oney, only for a 2. Still able to fight out of a powerbomb/single leg crab combo, Lio can only get caught in another hold, caught in the middle of the ring in a modified STF, but manages to crawl to get his foot on the bottom rope, great resolve from Lio Rush in this match. And after Oney gets even more insane, he goes hard to Lio, only to run into a standing Spanish Fly (WOW HOLY CRAP) and takes a top rope frog splash, giving Lio the win. Quite impressive, a damn fine match.

Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain, Street Fight - Only took a few minutes for things to break into the crowd and head backstage, and even head outside. And wouldn't you know it, WALTER and Imperium would get involved, as would the Street Prophets, and the Forgotten Sons, it's total carnage. Everything is unloading and it's beautiful. But back into the ring we go, and so does everyone else, it's a total locker room brawl... and now security is coming out to separate Riddle and Dain? Uh..... well so much for that, the brawl is now in the ring with everyone getting their blows in. And we end things off with Dain hitting a tope to the sea of bodies outside, the crowd chanting "HOLY SHIT!," and that's a wrap.

Post-show, William Regal announces that this match will happen again, next week, with the winner getting a shot at Adam Cole and the NXT Championship. Quite a hook, I must say.

Verdict: handily the best of the three shows this week, both by default and by show quality. A new era of NXT is here, and it's live every week, and right out of the gate, things are getting heated.