The War Report - March 03, 2021: SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
NXT vs. AEW: Dynamite - which was the better show this week?
Promo Performance
In true WWE fashion, NXT opened up with some mic time as Roddy Strong and Finn aired their grievances. Strong isn’t exactly great on the mic, and Finn has been a bit of a knob in recent weeks, but they got their points across.
Ciampa and Thatch had a quick word after their loss to the tag champs, with Tomasso saying Thatch’s past with Imperium is just that - the past. Give me these two teams murdering each other in a ring soon. I beg you.
Swerve Scott was in a recording studio saying he has had to claw for very opportunity whilst Leon Ruff keeps landing on his feet, and Kayden Carter is fuming that Xia Li injured Kacy Catanzaro. They’ll face off next week.
Cameron Grimes was on top form again, cursing Ted DiBiase when he couldn’t buy his way out of a match with Bronson Reed, and LA Knight came to the ring and said he was really really good, even better than Tom Brady.
The spine of the show though saw The Way in therapy and it was pure gold. Indi Hartwell says she wants to be Dexter Lumis’ friend with benefits, and Johnny ‘my middle name is calm’ Gargano was apoplectic when Austin Theory tried to defend Dexter. In the end it was all a set-up by Johnny who had paid the therapist to tell Austin that Lumis can’t stand him, and The Way went for pizza and arcade fun at Chuck E. Cheese.
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AEW were in full-sell mode for Revolution, and let the matches do most of the talking.
We did hear from Chris Jericho and MJF who delivered a press conference, fielding questions from Barstool Sports, hey hey it’s Conrad Thompson, and Eazy E himself Eric Bischoff. Bisch said Jericho was stupid for attacking Papa Buck and riling up the Young Bucks. He does have a point. The Bucks then came out, cut a whitemeat promo about being decent lads thanks to their dad, then said if it weren’t for their dad AEW probably wouldn’t exist, and Jericho would be curtain jerking at the Performance Centre. Ouch.
Miro was backstage without a shirt on, yelling in Bulgarian and vowing that he would not be in chill gamer mode at Revolution, and Sting had his weekly contractually obliged chat with Tony Schiavone. Stinger said the big powerbomb from the other week woke him up, Team Taz’s Ricky Starks says he respects that but still slapped him, then Darby Allin showed up as all parties had a big fight.
Paul Wight debuted and promised that a big ‘Hall of Fame worthy singing’ will join at Revolution. And Atsushi f*****g Onita appeared via video to hype up the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch.
Winner: NXT. I’m loving The Way being a bunch of utter morons, and seeing Indi get her chance to shine is a welcome addition to proceedings. Jericho and MJF’s press conference was good, and Paul Wight’s revelation is titillating. He did say the signing is ‘not who we think it is’ so therefore I’m putting my money on Sid Vicious. It’s obvious…
