Welcome back to the 5-Count, Oh, Wrestling’s premiere internet list. Here are the five coolest things I could think of from the last week of professional wrestling. There is never a dull moment for fans, is there? We cover Timeless Toni Storm, new WWE Tag Champs, NXT Vs AEW and more!
Jey and Cody win the WWE Unified Tag Team Titles at Fastlane.
The Judgement Day isn’t as dominant as we thought them to be. The makeshift tag team of WWE Raw’s top babyfaces, Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso, waltzed right into the race car bed-themed PLE Fastlane and took the titles. I don’t know how this helps the Tag Team titles stay important when an established team can’t beat two fellas with no prior chemistry. The Tag Team titles have not felt important since the Uso’s dropped the belts and Wrestlemania 39, primarily due to random title defenses with no build or hierarchy for the competing teams. I don’t know where this is going or what dropping the titles serves, but I hope it leads somewhere interesting.
NXT vs AEW
This week, NXT goes head-to-head with AEW on Tuesday night. From the promos, WWE seems to take this pretty seriously. The star power going into the October 10th episode of NXT is staggering. They called in the freaking Undertaker to show his face! That iconic gong will forever be a siren song for wrestling fans. I bet a giant red button in the production truck says “Revenue.” Smack it, and the Undertaker’s music plays. Then you make all the money. Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes, John Cena, the aforementioned Undertaker, and who-the-hell-else knows will be on NXT to help steal wrestling fan’s attention. Let’s see how AEW responds.
Timeless Toni Storm is peak pro wrestling.
There are no better characters in wrestling than those who understand and live their gimmick. Toni Storm is currently killing it on AEW television as a broken-down starlet trying to recapture glory. Everything from simple yet elegant ring gear to captivating promos (who throws a shoe, honestly), hairstyles, and facial expressions work to sell her as an actress-out-of-time. She’s even sharing “scripts” of her matches as if they were big Hollywood productions. Absolute gold. These are the little “big” things wrestlers should do to get steam behind their character. Timeless Toni is peak pro wrestling
So many factions, so little time to build.
We talked about the era of wrestling factions and how WWE is throwing tons of stars together. All in preparation for Survivor Series, I assume. One of these new factions consists of Bobby Lashley and the Street Profits. So far, we haven’t really seen the fruits of this pairing outside of the Profits kind of being heels but also losing, and Bobby sort of being their version of MVP, but also being vague as hell. Coming off their loss at Fastlane, I can’t help but wonder what the point of their story is. There were elements that never paned out, like Carmello Haynes and Trick Williams being Bobby’s mentees. This could be an interesting angle, where Bobby is fed up with the Street Profits and brings Carmello and Trick to the main roster as their replacements. Outside of that, the unnamed, unmotivated trio continue to flounder. With all the talent in the back, you would think a lot of these factions would be booked better. Grab some amazing, unused wrestler and let them work a match with Montez, Dawkins, Cruz Del Toro or Joaquin Wilde of the LWO to get these factions some momentum. So far it seems like a lot of the groups have massive amounts of dead weight and that’s no good going into a PLE designed for 6v6 matches.
Call her Mami
Rhea Ripley continues her dominance of the Raw and Smackdown brands. She is the best thing WWE has going while Roman remains super part time. Mami has risen to a marquee player on both brands, attracting (no pun, but still) the exact demographic WWE is constantly chasing, young men 18-25. On the mic, Rhea is incredibly captivating, in the ring, she stands head-and-shoulders above her competition. She sells like 20 year vet and looks unstoppable when she wins. The same philosophy applied to Roman is now attached to Rhea. Let her hold that title forever and make the division rise to her standard. And call her mami, while you are at it.
That’s all for this week. Make sure to check out our podcast and subscribe on YouTube!
