The SmarK Rant for WWE Bad Blood – 10.05.24

The SmarK Rant for WWE Bad Blood 2024 – 10.05.24

I really do want to catch up on 2024, so I’m gonna go backwards and ignore stuff that I really don’t care about. So basically this show and Elimination Chamber should cover it.

Live from Atlanta, GA

Your hosts are Michael Cole & Corey Graves

Hell in a Cell: Drew McInytre v. CM Punk

Well that’s quite the way to kick off the show, not counting all the commercials and video packages we had first. They slug it out and Drew wins that battle easily, then tosses Punk to the floor and into the cage. Punk whips him into the cage and gets his own shots in. Weapons time, as Cole promises this won’t be a five star wrestling classic. Hey, SPOILERS, jerk. Drew stomps Punk on the stairs and finds the magic toolbox under the ring. Oh! Oh! Use the painter’s tape! Sadly he uses the wrench instead and Punk steals that and jams it into his face. Back in the ring, Drew puts the boots to him and then tears the legs off a table, but Punk drops him on the edge of said table with a drop toehold and beats on him with the metal table legs. Punk slams him on the flat table and then tries to put his eye out on the table leg. I feel like I’m gonna need some blood here right away. They fight to the floor again and Drew hits him with a Claymore on the floor and then runs him into the cage facefirst as we learn that the replays are sponsored by an injury law firm. Fair.

So indeed, Punk is bleeding and Drew smashes him in the face with the stairs. OK, you already got me, you don’t have to keep selling me on it! Back in the ring, it’s back to the wrench, as Drew jams that into Punk’s open wound and retrieves a fresh table from under the ring. Punk fights back with the knee in the corner as we learn that Drew is wearing a black armband out of respect for Punk because this match will be his funeral. Like seriously, no one in AEW could get their shit together enough to work with Punk and have a match like this? Punk gets the wrench, but lands on Drew and gets suplexed onto the table for his troubles. Apparently Drew CAN dodge a wrench! Punk runs away from the Claymore like it’s Jack Perry and uses the toolbox on Drew to bust HIM open just in case we weren’t sure that WWE was doing blood again. And Corey references the Muta Scale! HEY, THAT’S MY THING, JERK! Punk comes back with knees and the bulldog, but Drew escapes the GTS and Punk has to hit on a second try. Drew bails to the floor, but suckers Punk into a Claymore, and that gets two. OK, I cackled at that the amazing timing of that. Drew sets up again but misses, and Punk does a Sharpshooter that’s like 0.8 on the Rock Sharpshooter scale of terrible Sharpshooters, but Drew decides to use the wrench on him to escape anyway. The ref wipes the blood out of their eyes and the crowd BOOS, which I think is worth an extra star.

They slug it out again and fight for the finishers until Punk puts him down with a high kick, but Drew heads to the apron and suplexes Punk off the apron and through the table on the floor that we had forgotten about. Corey references the Last Battle of Atlanta, which makes me sad about the fate of the WWE Network all over again. Drew tries to throw the stairs into the ring but his back is injured and he has to gently place them there instead. We’ve all been there. Back in the ring, Punk hits a surprise GTS, which gets two. So Drew powers up and hits Punk with an Air Raid Crash on the stairs, and that gets two. Drew tries a spinning slam, but Punk counters him into the Anaconda Vice. Drew tries to grab a wrench to escape again, but Punk steals it and hits Drew a bunch of times. Feels like a missed opportunity for a pun about really wrenching the move in, but I’m not on commentary, sadly. So Drew hits Punk in the nuts because Punk is taking too long with the wrench, and now he’s got a bag of friendship bracelet beads that get dumped in the ring. But then Drew misses another Claymore and lands on the stairs with his spine. That’s gotta suck. And then finally Punk wraps a chain around his knee and shoves the beads Drew’s mouth, and the GTS on the chain finishes at 31:21. Gonna have a hard time topping that one tonight. Great old school version of the Cell here to end a blood feud instead of just being a gimmick match at the scheduled time of year. *****

WWE Women’s title: Nia Jax v. Bayley

“Why is Nia Jax better than ever at this point in her career?” wonders Michael Cole. Because she was completely terrible for years and it’s not a high bar to clear, Michael. Nia overpowers Bayley and clotheslines her for two, and then goes to a chinlock and corner splash. Nia with a bearhug and Bayley reverses to a sunset flip for two, but Nia goes to the leg and Bayley has to make the ropes. Bayley sends her to the floor and follows with a baseball slide and back in for two. Nia bails to the floor and Bayley tries a tope suicida and gets nowhere with it, just kind of bouncing off Nia and landing on the floor awkwardly. Back in the ring, Nia dumps her in the corner and adds a splash, but Nia goes up and Bayley brings her down with a powerbomb. That goes really badly and the announcers try to cover up by saying Nia reversed into a rana, but they plow ahead and Nia gets a belly to belly for two. Bayley makes a comeback with a sunset flip into the corner, but Nia lands on her, so Bayley goes up with a flying elbow for two. They head to the floor again and Bayley drops an elbow on her out there, but Nia puts her down again. Back in, Nia with a samoan drop that somehow goes wrong and even the announcers are like “What happened there?” but Bayley comes back with her own samoan drop for two. Ref gets bumped by Nia and Bayley hits the Rose Plant for a visual pinfall, which is interesting because you don’t see a lot of ref bumps from the females. Apparently it’s TIFFY TIME now, but she takes too long reviving the ref and gets caught by Nia. Bayley with a rollup for two and she goes up, but gets distracted by Tiffany and Nia is able to finish with the samoan drop and buttdrop at 14:10. Kinda botchtastic as Bayley really seems like she’s struggling after the last injury, but the David v. Goliath plot was fine. **

Finn Balor v. Damian Priest

Michael Cole introducing all his favorite Atlanta rappers at ringside is great stuff. There’s seriously a southern rapper named “Lil Baby”? That’s why I prefer to stick with my old man music playlist on Spotify. Priest beats on Balor in the corner and whips him around the ring, but Finn chokes him out on the ropes and they head to the floor for a brawl out there. Balor with a sling blade on the floor and he puts the boots to Priest in the ring and goes to a chinlock. Priest slugs him down, but Balor gets a legsweep for one and goes to work on the back. Priest slugs back and puts Finn down, and the falcon arrow gets two. Balor counters a lariat into the sling blade, but Priest gets his lariat on the second try and that gets two. They slug it out and Balor hits him with a kick on the way down for the double down. Finn recovers first with a pair of double stomps, but Priest hurks him up into a Razor’s Edge for two. Finn bails to escape, so Priest runs him into the announce table and gives him an Edge onto the apron, THE HARDEST PART OF THE RING. That’s actually less impressive than the table because the fall was so short for Balor. The Judgment Day runs in and allows Balor to hit a shotgun dropkick and Coup De Grace for two. More heel distraction and a chair gets involved, but Priest takes care of them and that allows Balor to reverse a chokeslam for two and then hit another Coup De Grace to the back this time. He goes up again, but Priest chokeslams him on the chair, and that finishes at 12:48. Not a big fan of all the interference but they’ve had tons of matches and know how to work a good match together. ***1/4

Uncle Paul joins us to give the stats all wrestling fans want to hear: THE GATE! Also he announces the biggest news of the year, the CROWN JEWEL CHAMPIONSHIP. Well that one certainly fell flat. This brings out Gunther to throw his hat into the ring for the, ahem, prestigious title, but he gets into a yelling match with Goldberg to set up a comeback match that I don’t think many people want to see. This whole thing was NO BUYS from me and just led to Gunther doing a job in Saudi Arabia that he didn’t need to do anyway. Shoulda just done a four-way match with the IC and US champions involved and had one of them get pinned.

Women’s World title: Liv Morgan v. Rhea Ripley

Dominick is back in a cell again, a shark cage in this case, and Rhea tosses Liv around the ring to start and slugs her down. Liv bails to the floor and Rhea continues beating on her out there, but Liv goes after the knee while Corey makes a cheeky reference to Buddy Matthews. Back in the ring, Liv dropkicks the knee and rolls into a half crab, but Rhea slams out of that and gets a northern lights suplex for two. Liv goes back to the leg while Dom has prison flashbacks, although as Corey notes, at least in prison he got “three hots and a cot”. Liv works Rhea over on the floor as they struggle to get out of the gates here, and takes Rhea into the railing with a sunset flip. Back in with a codebreaker from the middle rope, which gets two. Rhea counters out of the Oblivion and makes the comeback, but Liv escapes the Riptide with a crucifix for two. Liv with the Three Amigos, but Rhea powers her into a Razor’s Edge while Dom miraculously remembers his lock-picking skills from the clink and escapes. Rhea with a frog splash for two and she goes to the Scorpion lock, but Liv makes the ropes and bails to the floor. So Rhea destroys her out there while Dom watches helplessly and gets so upset that he falls out of the cage and dangles from a chain. “Get me the fuck down!” he notes as the match has kind of ground to a halt while Dom hangs upside-down and Rhea uses him as a pinata. But then Raquel Rodriguez makes her return and takes out Rhea for the DQ at 14:29. Yeah this was pretty bad, as the match itself didn’t go anywhere, and they couldn’t actually figure out where to go with the cage gimmick or a finish. *

Jacob Fatu & Solo Sikoa v. Cody Rhodes & Roman Reigns

Brought to you by Wendy’s! Cody goes to the knee on Fatu and follows with a disaster kick, but Jacob no-sells it and we get a showdown as the crowd are big supports of over the counter medication. Solo comes in and Cody gives us the dramatic tag to Roman for that showdown and they slug it out. Roman beats on him in the corner as I’m distracted by the LED boards in the background shilling “Saucy Nuggs”, which sounds like a really unpleasant OnlyFans. Roman gets outsmarted and double-teamed in the corner, and you know Solo is smart because he points to his head to indicate intelligence, and he works on Roman in the corner and adds a hip attack. Jacob adds his own, but misses a charge and runs into the post before bumping to the floor. Back to Cody and he powerslams Jacob and puts him down with the Flip Flop and Fly. Cody Cutter sets up Crossroads, but Solo distracts him and Jacob gets the samoan drop to take over. Solo slams Cody on the apron and comes in with a back elbow as they cut off the ring. They work Cody over in the Bloodline corner and Fatu stops to acknowledge Solo before going back to work on Cody again. Cody fights out of a nerve pinch, but Solo cuts off the ring again and they hit Cody with a pair of butt splashes in the corner for two. We get the SLOOOOOOOOOOW pace from the heels in the corner as they double-team Cody and take out Roman, thus preventing a tag. But Roman does indeed will Cody to give him the HOT HAND and he runs wild on the heels and counters a samoan spike into a crucifix for two. Superman punch gets two. Roman is fired up and ready to hit them with his Saucy Nuggs, but Fatu cuts him off with a superkick and Solo splashes him for two. They all fight on the floor and Fatu smashes himself through the railing, so Cody hits him with a Crossroads out there but can’t keep him down. So he goes with a flying splash off the post and through the table, which seems to do the trick. Roman and Solo slug it out and Roman puts him down with a superman punch, but then the Tongans run in and Solo spears Roman for two. But then a mystery man in a hoodie takes out Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa, revealing a returning Jimothy Uso, and Roman spears Solo for the pin at 25:52. Usual Bloodline formula where they do the slow build and heavy selling and take forever to get to the action, at which point it takes off and the crowd goes crazy. ***1/2.

Afterwards, Cody Rhodes takes a beating from the Bloodline, but Roman finally puts his bitterness aside and saves, only for The Rock to interrupt their moment and we get more meaningful glances than a Survivor Series match and wrap it up.

The Hell in a Cell match is of course the reason to watch this one, but I didn’t find much else of note after that. It wasn’t a bad show but didn’t feel like their usual easy thumbs up show either. I’m somewhere around thumbs in the middle on it. Didn’t regret the three hours but wouldn’t bother again.