WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Sasha Banks surprised students at a Brooklyn middle school by appearing in their classroom on Friday.
Students at Brooklyn, New York’s KIPP AMP Middle School formed a wrestling club where they watch matches. In March, a teacher at the school tweeted Banks a video of students watching her Hell in a Cell 2020 bout against Bayley.
Today’s wrestling club features the best to ever do it. The kids loved this match. They were invested in the storyline of @SashaBanksWWE and @itsBayleyWWE. 🐐⭐️
One of them told me “I don’t want to watch this…they don’t want to hurt each other they’re friends.” 😭 pic.twitter.com/7HH90sycaf
— Victor Taylor Perry (@wallflowerperry) March 9, 2022
Banks visited the school today before Friday night’s SmackDown event in Long Island. The same teacher posted a video of Banks surprising the students as they watched her 2015 NXT TakeOver: Respect Iron Man match against Bayley.
Thank you @SashaBanksWWE and @WWE for coming to see The Wrestling Club. These kids will remember this day for the rest of their lives. 💙 💚 pic.twitter.com/3dt5CUZg3X
— Victor Taylor Perry (@wallflowerperry) May 6, 2022
“I can feel their passion, feel their love for me, and I just wanted to give that right back,” Banks said in a WWE video about the visit.
“They asked the best questions. And for such young, inspiring people to come with these questions? Man. They’re so prepared for the future, they’re so prepared for the now,” Banks said.
School was in session with The Boss at KIPP AMP Middle School in Brooklyn ahead of #SmackDown!
UFC announced Thursday that the January 21st PPV originally scheduled at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA, is being moved to August 5th instead.
Their February 11th show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, will now become UFC 208 instead of 209.
Originally, there was going to be a head-to-head battle that night both on TV and regionally as Bellator is running a Spike TV show in Los Angeles at the Forum headlined by Chael Sonnen vs. Tito Ortiz.
The January date was going to be difficult for UFC because there were no obvious main events for the show given almost every major star and/or champion either fought in November or is booked for one of UFC’s five December shows, or was injured or unavailable.
The promotion still has two January dates: an FS1 show headlined by BJ Penn vs. Yair Rodriguez in Phoenix and a Fox show in Denver that is still without a main event or main card.
The rescheduled Anaheim date will still be a PPV and likely the first one UFC runs after their annual major July show for International Fight Week.
Jose led a conga line of fans around the ring before the match. Ironically the very first person in line was wearing an Austin Aries t-shirt.
Aries won with the Last Chancery after a sunset flip power bomb out of the corner. The story of this match was Aries used his experience and knowledge to counteract the youthful exuberance of Jose. This was a fun match that the fans were into, cheering for both men at different times. Aries’ fans were louder, but Jose’s fans were consistently into the match. Jose used a Falcon Arrow and got out of the Last Chancery once before the finish.
A really good match to start the show.
After the match Aries attacked Jose and put him back in the Last Chancery, but Hideo Itami came down the ramp, which caused Aries to let go of Jose. Itami got in the ring and Aries attacked him, but Itami got the better of it. After two years of teasing it on TV (he did it once at the WrestleMania 31 house show), Itami laid out Aries with the Go To Sleep which made the fans go crazy.
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Ric Flair and his fiance Wendy were shown at ringside.
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Ember Moon defeated Billie Kay
Moon won her debut by jumping off the top rope, turning in mid-air and using a Stone Cold Stunner in what was otherwise a weak match. Ember gives off that look of being scary better than almost anyone. The fans did not care about Billie Kay for the most part, chanting “Let’s Go Ember” and mostly remaining silent for Kay’s offense. Kay used Gail Kim’s Eat Defeat, but then almost dropped Moon on a power bomb attempt. Moon used a cartwheel splash to set up the finish. Kay needs to work on her selling as Moon punched her in the face near the finish and Kay didn’t even sell it.
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Bobby Roode defeated Andrade “Cien” Almas
Roode picked up the win with a Pump Handle Slam called The Glorious Bomb.
Roode got a superstar reaction, with the fans singing his theme song and Roode himself was lowered from a platform above the video screen. When the theme song turned off they went back and forth chanting “Bobby Roode” and just “Roode” before chanting “This is glorious”.
These two worked very well together and this was the best TV match Almas has had since debuting. Almas worked so well that the fans began cheering for Almas after cheering exclusively for Roode. Almas used a middle rope springboard corkscrew plancha to the outside, which looked beautiful. Before the finish Almas got near falls with both a Straight Jacket German suplex and a small package out of a Fisherman Buster.
The only nitpick was when Tom Phillips said Bobby Roode took a helicopter from Manhattan to Brooklyn for this match only minutes after we saw Roode arrive in a limo.
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A video of rioting footage aired before showing the word “SANITY”
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Earlier today they showed the trophy for the winner of the Cruiserweight Classic, which was created by the guys at Orange County Choppers. Triple H thanked them for it and plugged the finals of the CWC on September 14.
Kota Ibushi, Cedric Alexander, Brian Kendrick and Noam Dar were shown ringside.
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NXT Tag Team Champions The Revival defeated Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano to retain their titles
Easily the best match on the show so far and also the best Revival match so far. Revival retained with a reverse figure four on Gargano. They did a false finish where Gargano & Ciampa won the belts with the running double kick, but Dash put Dawson’s foot on the ropes just as the referee counted three.
Gargano was the second most over wrestler on the show so far, with most of the crowd chanting “Johnny Wrestling”. If the Revival are one day remembered as a great team and not just the “NXT Tag Team Of The Year”, this will be their coming out match. These guys never have a bad match and they do the best job of any WWE team of being that old school 80’s heel team. Revival debuted a move that started off like the Snapshot, but turned into an Assisted Gordbuster.
Gargano nearly had Dawson pinned with his Spear through the ropes and Gargano kicked out of Dawson’s “Arn Anderson DDT” before the finish.
The fans gave Gargano & Ciampa a standing ovation after the match.
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Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Charlotte were at ringside. I was going to mention during the last match that there were two people with incredibly bright red hair off to the side and it turned out to be Sasha and Becky.
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NXT Women’s Champion Asuka defeated Bayley to retain her title
Remember when I said Gargano, Aries and Roode got great reactions? Well Bayley outdid them all.
Asuka got the pin with a spin kick to the head after an excellent series of strikes by both ladies. There will be debate over whether this match was at the same level as last year’s Brooklyn match. In some ways it was superior and in other ways it came short.
The story of this match was Bayley was constantly trying to get sudden victories, while Asuka was content to let the beating last a while. Bayley caught a knee to her nose in the first two minutes, which shockingly didn’t lead to a busted nose, but was a very real looking strike.
These two women used their bodies as weapons in a match that is closer to a real fight than anything you’ll normally see. This was a different Asuka in that she was completely over confident since everything had come so easy for her all year. On top of that this was a different Bayley in that she was forced to be much more aggressive than usual. Bayley got out of the Asuka Lock, but was visibly frustrated when Asuka kicked out of the Bayley to Belly.
After the match Asuka dragged Bayley to her feet for a big hug with Bayley openly crying and Asuka on the verge of it. After Asuka left the entire crowd chanted “Thank You Bayley” as she went around and hugged Sasha, Becky, Charlotte, her Mom and Izzy (the 8-year old girl who goes to all the Full Sail shows).
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They announced the Australia and New Zealand tours in December.
Mick & Noelle Foley and Finn Balor were shown at ringside for this one.
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Shinsuke Nakamura defeated NXT Samoa Joe to win the NXT Championship
A violinist played Nakamura’s theme song as a prelude to Nakamura’s entrance.
Nakamura kicked out of a Muscle Buster and won the championship after two Kinshasa’s. Nakamura becomes the 9th NXT Champion, following Seth Rollins, Big E. Langston, Bo Dallas, Adrian Neville, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe. Not too bad of a lineage, eh?
A very different match than the women’s match, but one every bit as good. Instead of relying predominately on striking, this match showed off Joe’s chain wrestling skill and the seamlessness that he can go from move to move and hold to hold while maintaining the guise of a competitive match.
Despite his blinding hatred during the build, Samoa Joe didn’t explode from the start, choosing instead to calmly wrestle Nakamura to the mat. Nakamura hurt his knee when going for a knee drop on the apron, Joe moved and allowed the challenger to crash on the mats.
Both men traded submission hold attempts, with Nakamura going for a rolling armbar to combat the choke.
Joe may have been injured as after the match the referee sent up the dreaded X with Joe pointing at his jaw. Joe had been selling his jaw quite a bit after the first Kinshasa.
The king is dead, long live the new King! Oh and good luck to SummerSlam trying to follow this show!
