WWE Worlds Collide (January 2020)

 

Original Airdate: January 25, 2020

From Houston, Texas; Your Hosts are Tom Phillips and Nigel McGuinness

Opening Match: Finn Balor v Ilja Dragunov: Feeling out process to start, which quickly devolves into proper violence when Dragunov gets arrogant. Balor dumps him to the outside for a baseball slide, and it's back in for chops in the corner, but Dragunov fires back, and adds a senton splash for two. Dragunov grabs an armbar from there, but Balor starts to fly around, so Dragunov dumps him to the outside. Dragunov dives with a bodypress off of the apron, then goes to the top with a flying elbowsmash, but Finn sidesteps him. Back in, Balor hits a seated dropkick to the back of the head for two, and he grounds Dragunov in a chinlock. Bodyslam and an elbowdrop get two, so Balor starts going nuts with some very brutal looking stomps, followed by chops for two. Vertical suplex, but Dragunov reverses. Dragunov makes a comeback with a high knee in the corner, followed by a clothesline. Dragunov with a 2^nd rope kneedrop for two, so he starts unloading in Austin Powers fashion for two, but Balor blocks a death valley driver, and hits a quick double stomp. That leads to a slugfest, but neither guy wants to go down, leading to a reversal sequence won by Balor. Finn with a sling blade to set up a running dropkick, but Dragunov blocks, and suplexes him into a bridge for two. He dumps Finn to the outside to hit the flying elbowsmash that missed earlier, and a coast to coast flying dropkick gets two. Dragunov goes back up with a flying senton splash, but Balor lifts his knees to block, and manages the running dropkick. Coup de Grace hits, but Balor doesn't even cover, instead immediately picking him up for the 1916 at 13:52. This would have been disappointing as a top match, but made for a good opener. ** ½

NXT Cruiserweight Title Fatal Four-Way Match: Angel Garza v Jordan Devlin v Travis Banks v Isaiah Swerve Scott: First fall wins it. Garza pounds on everyone to start, but gets quickly overwhelmed, and clobbered by all three challengers. They then start trading off on each other, until Scott gets a chance to shine by dominating the field. Devlin dumps him to the outside and tries a moonsault press off of the apron, but Scott catches him with a death valley driver on the floor. Garza then dives onto Scott out there, but Banks is quick to dive with a dropkick from the apron before Garza can even celebrate. Banks passes out beatings to the others before taking Scott in to isolate, hitting him with a snap German suplex. Garza comes in to break up the party, so Banks stacks them up in the corner, and then dives at a recovering Devlin with a tope. Back in, he cannonballs Garza and Scott in the corner, then suplexes Devlin onto both of them to be a proper dick. Devlin recovers with a Spanish fly on Garza for two, so Banks dives at him to prevent a follow-up, and everyone staggers into slugfests. The action is really fast and hard to follow here, but in a good way. Garza and Scott trade chops, ending in Scott hitting a pop-up kneesmash, but Devlin dropkicks him before he can add anything. Unfortunately for Jordan, here's Banks with a wild looking Canadian destroyer, and poor Devlin is folded up like an old accordion. Or a new accordion. Same thing, I guess. Banks goes up, but Garza shoves him off the top to the floor to prevent him from finishing Devlin. Garza goes up, but now Scott is on HIS ass, and we have a slugfest at the top. That ends in Devlin going up for a double Spanish fly, but Banks sneaks in with a michinoku driver on Devlin for two before Jordan can cover either man. Scott scoops Banks up for an electric chair, but Garza dives off the top with a middle dropkick - the momentum allowing Banks to give Scott an inverted rana on the way down! Wild! Garza goes for the pin on Scott, but Devlin pulls him off, and hit a dazed Scott with a quick suplex for the title at 12:04. This was pretty fun in a car crash, stunt show sorta way. It didn't really give me what I like out of a wrestling match, but I still enjoyed it for what it was, and I genuinely appreciated how creative they got with the spots. I mean, not even one tower-of-doom-superplex spot! And there were a bunch of multi-man things here that I haven't really seen before. ***

DIY v Moustache Mountain: Johnny Gargano stars with Tyler Bate, and it's on like that video game with the monkey that's named after a donkey. You know the one. King Donky. And, actually, it's not 'on' that hard at all, as they just feel each other out. Things pick up as they criss cross into a reversal sequence, and it actually looks way too choreographed, and not especially good. It ends in a stalemate and a handshake, regardless. Tags all around, giving us Tommaso Ciampa and Trent Seven. Seven is looking more like Rikishi every day now. They also feel each other out, and Seven tries to force Ciampa into the corner for a cheap shot from Bate, but Ciampa is too sly. Bate comes in for a test-of-strength, but neither guy can get the upper hand, and so they start doing bridges for a stalemate. Ciampa responds by just straight up punching him in the face instead, which gets Seven all riled up, but here's Gargano to kick him in the head before he can do anything about it. DIY toss both guys behind the announce tables to show them who's boss, and Ciampa takes Bate back in to work over. DIY cut the ring in half on Tyler, but he manages to block a side suplex from Ciampa, and there's the tag to Seven. Gargano comes in to try and prevent him from running wild, but Trent is ready with a DDT, and he powerbombs Ciampa for two. Clothesline gets two, but Ciampa blocks a short-lariat with a knee, and both guys tag out. Bate comes in fast, but Gargano suckers him with a slingshot dropkick, and then adds a DDT. Chops in the corner, so Bate tries backdropping him over the top, but Johnny lands on the apron, and rebounds with a slingshot shoulderblock for two. Bate bails, so Gargano dives after him with a tope, and uses a slingshot DDT for two on the way back in. Ciampa grabs him for the Project, but Bate escapes, and comes at him with a clothesline. Tyler Driver gets two, but Ciampa reverses the cradle for two, and both guys are left looking up at the lights. Ciampa manages a tag to Gargano, but Bate is ready with a rollup for two, and an overhead suplex follows. Airplane spin time, but Johnny turns it into the Gargano Escape. Here's Seven to save, but Ciampa cuts him off, and both Moustache guys are trapped in submissions! They both manage to muscle to a vertical base for stereo airplane spins, and then isolate Gargano with a combo for two. Burning hammer/flying knee combo on Ciampa gets two. Tandem burning hammer on Ciampa sets up a flying somersault senton splash from Bate, but Ciampa pulls Seven into harms way for two. All four guys get into a slugfest from there, and DIY manage to get rid of Bate. That allows them to meet in the middle on Seven, and Trent's done at 22:57. Well, that was rather disappointing. Both great teams, and I can honestly say that Gargano and Bate are my two favorite wrestlers in the world to watch right now, but this just didn't click. That's not to say that it was bad (it wasn't), but it also felt like it took a really long time to get off the ground, and then felt largely uninspired once it did. ** ½

NXT Women's Title Match: Rhea Ripley v Toni Storm: Bit of a feeling out process to start, dominated by Toni. That turns into a slugfest pretty quickly, and Ripley blasts her with a two-alarm no-release short-clothesline, then into the corner for some abuse. Storm fires back with a German suplex into the turnbuckles, so Ripley bails to the outside, but Storm forces her back in to avoid a countout. Toni with a vertical suplex for two, and she takes Rhea to the mat with an STF, but the champ makes the ropes. Storm tries a DDT for two, and she works a chinlock. Ripley escapes for another slugfest, and dominates this one with a snapmare into a seated dropkick. She slams Storm, as the announcers talk about watching Toni's chest rising and falling. That's the most interesting way I've ever seen anyone say 'check out them boobs.' Ripley goes for the Riptide, but Storm fights her off. Storm Zero, but Ripley fights her off. Toni recovers with a bridging German suplex for two, but Ripley fires back with a dropkick. Toni pops off a headbutt to buy time, but Ripley dodges a flying frogsplash, and the Riptide retains at 10:07. I'm glad they let a finisher finish, instead of doing the 'dramatic' kickouts. The match wasn't very good though, as it felt listless. * ½

Main Event: Eight-Man Tag Team Match: Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, Bobby Fish, and Roderick Strong v WALTER, Alexander Wolfe, Fabian Aichner, and Marcel Barthel: Kyle and Fabian start, and it doesn't take long for them to start slugging it out. Fabian gets the better of the exchange with a powerslam, and it's over to Marcel for a tandem move on Kyle. Marcel tries a solo follow-up, but Kyle fights him off, and tags in Strong for their own combo. He also fucks up his solo effort, however, and Wolfe gets the tag for a combo with Marcel. Lather, rinse, repeat with Fish. But this time shit goes wrong, and Wolfe ends up getting knocked silly, and removed from the match. They're selling it as legit, and I'm buying it as such unless he shows up again for the finish. Dust settles on Cole and WALTER, and Cole manages to get him into the Undisputed Era corner to work over, but Strong can't keep control of the big man once the referee restores order. Strong ends up in the Imperium corner to get his fair share of abuse, and then the Era do the same to Marcel. I'm really not digging this whole lather, rinse, repeat format here. It's repetitive and boring. That keeps going on for a while as a zone out, and then it settles into the other cliché of these modern times: the extended Roseanne Barr the door sequence. Which sometimes is still really awesome, but it's become so prevalent now that, much like all the finisher trading, it hurts more than it helps. Okay, so that goes on for a while as I continue to zone out, until WALTER starts running wild to get my attention again. Powerbomb on Strong sets up a flying splash, but Cole dives in to prevent the cover. That leads to all seven guys engaging in a big slugfest, and we get a neat spot where WALTER has Fish in a sleeper while Kyle has WALTER in a sleeper. A bunch of guys end up on the outside for Strong to dive on in a dog pile (cliché alert), and then Fabian does his own dive into the pile. He got way overzealous with that one, and nearly overshot the group. Inside, Fish tries a flying moonsault to put WALTER away, but he misses, and WALTER powerbombs his ass at 29:42. Yeah, this in no way needed to be a half hour long. This was long, repetitive, boring, and I didn't get into it at all. To me that's a dud, but I can respect that they kept a good pace for a full half hour, that the guys were working hard, and that the execution was largely flawless. So, *

BUExperience: Generally a fairly solid show, but I really wasn’t feeling that main event, the tag match on the undercard was hugely disappointing, and Ripley/Storm have had better matches elsewhere. Not really worth bothering with, but not a bad show.

**