We had a historically wild week in professional wrestling, so what better time to make my triumphant return to “Pluggo’s Top 5 of The Week”? Cena’s last time in Boston and the PWI Women’s 250 dropped on Tuesday, which is one of my favorite reads. Heck, even TNA returned this week after being dark since Bound Flory Glory. As true to the title of the article let’s keep it to 5, and without further ado, here’s the list:
Effy’s Triple Defense Weekend
Last Weekend your GCW World Champion defended his championship Friday through Sunday as Game Changer Wrestling took over the Northeast with shows in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine.
Effy successfully retained against Shotzi Blackhart, Ricky Morton and The Very Nice Very Evil Danhausen. For all Effy’s success and notoriety throughout the wrestling community, we don’t talk enough about the workhorse Effy is, and the style in which he wrestles makes going back to back to back that more impressive. Look over the landscape of wrestling and name another world champion that does that. It’s hard to find, I promise you, especially last weekend.
John Cena Becomes a Grand Slam Champion
On Monday Night RAW we saw John Cena make his final Boston appearance on his retirement tour. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest John Cena guy as I grew up routinely rooting against the 17-time world champion. All that to say, I ate every second of this segment up. You could tell he was in the zone, firing on all cylinders. Then Dominik Mysterio comes out and does Dirty Dom type things, which all leads to an Intercontinental Championship match between them. I was team Cena all the way here, and when the 3 count hit the roof blew off TD Garden and Cena completed his Grand Slam!
Shoutout to Dom for playing this segment and match perfectly. Sure he lost, but in the loss it shows just how highly the WWE views the son of that Deadbeat Rey Mysterio. The future is bright for Dirty Dom.
Blake Monroe Interviews Herself
NXT on Tuesday promoted an exclusive Blake Monroe interview and it was not something I expected. The WWE has a plethora of fantastic backstage interviewers. None of them, however, are good enough for Blake Monroe, as she goes full Eminem on us. Monroe interviewed herself, playing up the good vs evil sides to her personality. She has a North American Championship defense upcoming against Sol Ruca and she struggles with whether she has it in her to do whatever it takes to win.
Blake Monroe, for my money, has had the most seamless transition from AEW to WWE, not named Cody Rhodes. Blake has been crushing it since she walked through those Performance Center doors.
Women’s Historical Blood & Guts Match
Wednesday night, the 1st ever Women’s Blood and Guts Match took place and it did not disappoint. It was The Triangle of Madness, Megan Bayne, Marina Shafir and Mercedes Moné taking on Mina Shirakawa, Kris Statlander, Willow Nightengale, Harley Cameron and Toni Storm.
You could tell the ladies understood the assignment and wanted to make the first B&G a memorable one. Skye Blue was busted open almost immediately and it didn’t slow down from there. We saw everything from broken glass, puppets, beds of nails and much more.
The heels played it perfectly and played off of Toni Storm’s love for Mina Shirakawa as they tortured Shirakawa while forcing Storm to watch, ultimately surrendering.
I hope the women’s match becomes a yearly event. This will only become better and bigger as they do more of these.
WOO WOO WOO He’s Home
Who says you can’t come home? Even if you are just visiting for the night. Matt Cardona was a surprise entry into the Last Time is Now Tournament and faced LA Knight for a shot at John Cena in his final match. Given the history between Ryder and Cena, this was a sweet little callback as we count down to Cena’s final days as an in-ring performer. Woo Woo Woo! You know you’ll be sad when the never-seen 17-timer hangs it up. As for Ryder, is this a full-blown return? That remains to be seen, as he’s killing it on the indie scene and in TNA as Always Ready Matt Cardona. Maybe one day Long Island Iced Z will come home for good, but for now it was cool to see him stop by the main roster.
There you have it – we have another Top 5 in the books! We are ramping it up over the next few weeks as Full Gear and Survivor Series are around the corner, so keep it here for more of my favorite things in wrestling. As always, keep it here for more content from your favorite Love Wrestling personalities. See ya next time!
