There is an awful lot of News in wrestling. Some of it is useful, a lot of it boils down to noise. Clickbait headlines or unsourced rumours are sadly all too common. Hopefully, this simple round-up of the week’s happenings can help cut through that. This column isn’t infallible obviously but every effort will be made to capture and cover everything, things will be missed but nobody’s perfect! Welcome to the week of 14th / 21st February 2022.
14th / 21st February 2022 | WWE
Raw was dominated by a gauntlet match to determine the entrance order into the Women’s elimination chamber match. Rhea Ripley put in a brilliant performance to last over 40 minutes, eliminating three of her opponents before losing to Bianca Belair, who will now take advantage in the chamber match. Other matches included a short win for Omos against Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin in a handicap match, a Street Profits win over the Dirty Dawgs that went under 3 minutes and a very short US title defence for Damian Priest against AJ Styles. Seth Rollins picked up a win over Randy Orton in a decent main event as those two continue to show the chemistry they had back in their feud in 2015.
NXT 2.0 held the Vengeance Day event, essentially a miniature version of the now-abandoned TakeOver shows. As such every match had something on the line and generally the quality reflected that. Pete Dunne defeated Tony D’Angelo in a steel cage to presumably end their rivalry, Toxic Attraction retained the NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles in probably the weakest match of the night before Carmelo Hayes retained the North American Title over Cameron Grimes after their recent issues. The Creed Brothers won the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic after defeating defending champions MSK. And finally, Bron Breakker defeated Santos Escobar to retain the NXT Title. A step in the right direction for this ‘new’ NXT.
205 live officially ended, to be replaced by NXT Level Up, essentially a developmental show for NXT itself. The most notable event was newcomer Edris Enofe picking up the win over KUSHIDA in a huge upset that shows how much the Japanese star has drifted since losing the Cruiserweight title last year.
Smackdown ended the build to Elimination Chamber with a pre-taped show that featured only one real notable moment. After barely defending the belt, Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura put it on the line against old rival Sami Zayn, who promptly won for his third reign with the belt. Hopefully, Zayn will be allowed to defend the title more regularly and stop the rot for this once prestigious title.
Elimination Chamber saw the company return to their morally dubious, but financially lucrative, relationship with Saudi Arabia for a show that featured more consequential happenings than usual, but most of the same stale booking we’ve grown used to with WWE. The two elimination chamber matches were the two shortest in the format’s history, as Bianca Belair punched her ticket to WrestleMania and Brock Lesnar reclaimed the WWE Title in a dominant performance marred by Bobby Lashley having to be taken out of the match with a legitimate shoulder injury he suffered back at the Royal Rumble. In other matches Roman Reigns defeated Goldberg in just over 5 minutes, Becky Lynch beat a surprisingly strong looking Lita in Lita’s first true singles match since 2006 and Madcap Moss survived a nasty looking landing on his head to lose to Drew McIntyre.
14th / 21st February 2022 | AEW
Dynamite continued the road towards the company’s next PPV with another strong showing. A great show opening promo segment featuring CM Punk led to the announcement that he and MJF will face off in a dog collar match at Revolution in what will surely be a fitting end to the blood feud. Bryan Danielson continued his immense run of putting on clinics with a wide variety of opponents by defeating Lee Moriarty in a showcase of how good Moriarty himself is. After that match, Danielson was confronted by Moxley, who declined to give Danielson an answer on his offer of teaming up and instead challenged Danielson to a match. Wardlow qualified for the Face of the Revolution ladder match in what is fast looking like the most hoss packed ladder match in history, Ortiz and Santana defeated Chris Jericho and Jake Hager but remain members of the Inner Circle and Thunder Rosa continued her path to Britt Baker by defeated Mercedes Martinez. The main event saw Sammy Guevara defeat Darby Allin to retain the TNT Title in another chapter in their long history of matches.
Rampage was another strong showing as Adam Cole solidified his place as Adam Page’s next contender by defeating the spirited Ten of the Dark Order. Powerhouse Hobbs added yet more size to the upcoming Face of the Revolution Ladder match by defeating Dante Martin and Serena Deeb took a little over two minutes to defeat her latest rookie, Angelica Risk, in her ongoing challenge segment. The main event saw Jay White make his in-ring debut for the company as he clashed with Trent Beretta of the Best Friends (and CHAOS). White won but his allegiances are still not clear with regards to the Elite.
In other news, arguably the biggest news of all this week, Cody and Brandi Rhodes officially left AEW. Cody had been working on a handshake deal since his contract ran out at the end of 2021 and talks on renewing said deal broke down. As usual when a story like this happens lots of commentators jumped immediately to the idea that Rhodes had fallen out with the other EVPs or Tony Khan and rushed to judgement. It seems more likely that they simply couldn’t agree on terms and Rhodes chose to prioritise his young family over any uncertainty about his job. There are continued rumours he will return to WWE shortly but as always, until it happens, we’ll have to wait and see.
14th / 21st February 2022 | American Indys
NJPW STRONG held their Rivals event, a culmination of their increased focus on the US since the pandemic forced them to split their roster. The show featured a strong cross-section of the companies US-based wrestlers, and a variety of freelancers and AEW workers. The newest iteration of Black Tiger had his first singles match, defeating Rocky Romero, Buddy Matthews (FKA Buddy Murphy) defeated Ren Narita on his New Japan debut and Jay White defeated Shane Strickland in Strickland’s first match since leaving WWE.
14th / 21st February 2022 | BritWres
PROGRESS Chapter 129 returned to the Electric Ballroom with a continuation of their strong start to a new era. Jonathan Gresham again defended his ROH World Title on a PROGRESS show, this time against Dean Allmark in a technical exhibition. Former women’s champion Kanji returned to the ring to win a 7 woman ‘Thunderbastard’ match to claim her shot at the current Champion Gisele Shaw, looking to regain the title she never lost in the ring. In the main event, Shane Strickland returned to the UK for the first time in three years as he restarts his career on the indies, in a losing effort to Cara Noir for the PROGRESS title. After that match, Gresham returned and it looks like we could be seeing a clash between him and Noir shortly.
Tidal: Wipe Out continued a strong run for this often-overlooked promotion with a great show at the Parish in Huddersfield. Franco Varga ended his tour of the UK with a clash against Nsereko, whose former tag team partner Sebb Strife ended his rivalry with Big T after an immensely physical match. Sinergy vs Reece & Rogan proved that smash-mouth battles are always compelling, four athletic big men going for it. The main event of this show is a much watch, Will Kroos against Brady Phillips for the TCW World Championship was a true spectacle. Kroos has been a great champion, but Phillips put everything on the line and took the title for arguably the biggest title win of his career so far.