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Botched!: The Punch That Ruined Survivor Series, Hart Attack, More

November 16, 2018 | Posted by Steve Cook
Becky Lynch WWE Smackdown Image Credit: WWE

Hi, hello & welcome to Botched! It’s been a wild & crazy week in the world of wrestling, with one botch that ended up changing the tenor of this weekend’s Survivor Series event. Let’s dive right into that, and then we can see if there’s anything else worth talking about.

1. Nia Breaks Becky’s Face: We had a pretty fun segment to close Raw this week. Becky Lynch kicked Ronda Rousey’s ass backstage, then went out to the ring & led the SmackDown women’s roster in a beatdown of Raw’s Survivor Series team. Whilst in the process of doing this, Becky was introduced to Nia Jax’s fist at full speed.

The blood as a result from the blow added quite a bit to the display and gave The Man the type of maniacal look that becomes famous in wrestling history. The only problem was that Becky Lynch got a concussion & will miss Survivor Series, forcing a number of changes to the card in response. Nia has a history of these things that can’t be ignored. A lot of the criticism thrown her way for this has been unfair, but it’s fair to say that she needs to tone it down a bit. One time is an accident. Two, three, four times…not so much. That’s a problem.

It’ll be interesting to see which direction Nia’s career goes. Sometimes workers get punished for these sorts of things. Sometimes they get a championship.

2. On the other end of the spectrum…: The same segment also got some attention for punches being thrown that were completely the opposite of Nia stiffing Becky.

This was explained later on by Lana.

Which is fine. Unfortunately, Kevin Dunn chose that moment of the angle to zoom in on Lana & Dana Brooke, who, with all due respect, aren’t anywhere near the most important people involved. You just never know out there though, so you have to look like you’re doing something.

3. Ruby’s clothesline not quite on Bret’s level

This whole storyline might be a botch, to be honest. Ruby Riott ripping Jim Neidhardt’s sunglasses last week was another case of WWE trying to use dead wrestlers to get heat but not putting enough effort into it. Natalya had those sunglasses out for one week for no apparent reason other than for somebody to rip them. If she wore them for a couple of months or longer & it became a recognizable thing then maybe you could have gotten something out of it. Instead it was cheap heat for the sake of cheap heat.

The next installment of Cheap Heat Theater: Ruby & Sarah Logan doing the old Hart Foundation finisher on Natalya!

It’s at the 3:20 mark, and it’s the lightest looking Hart Attack I can remember seeing. I guess it’s the perfect medium between Lana & Nia’s punches though.

4. What a finish!

Kaligua had things well in hand on Tuesday’s show in Arena Mexico, executing his finisher on Stukita. It didn’t end well.

The old knees to the gut on the moonsault move usually works pretty well. The ankles to the gut…eh, not so much.

5. Waiting Awhile

AAA has all kinds of shows available on Twitch if you’re into that kind of thing. Last Saturday’s Twitch telecast included this hilarious moment with Joe Lider holding Miedo Extremo for a Pagano bulldog. Apparently Pagano forgot where he was supposed to be, or didn’t care or something, so we got this:

I mean, he did hit the move eventually, so good on him?

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. Have a good weekend!

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