After the match, Killian Dain stepped into the ring and hit a Senton Splash on Tyler Bate. Dain hits a Cannonball to Bate as he is seated next to the steel steps on the outside. Dain says, “You tell your friend, Pete Dunne, we have unfinished business!”
Main Event: “Limitless” Keith Lee & “The Original Bro” Matt Riddle vs The Undisputed Era
Keith Lee gets double teamed by The Undisputed Era early on, which is very smart. Lee overpowers The Undisputed Era, sending Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish into one another, then leapfrogs both of The Undisputed Era at the same time, and follows with a Crossbody that takes out the team. Matt Riddle is tagged in and The Undisputed Era receives chops from him and Lee. Riddle connects with a Spear on O’Reilly and a Jackhammer on Fish for a two count.
Kyle O’Reilly tags in Bobby Fish, but Matt Riddle answers with mid-kicks on The Undisputed Era. Riddle hits a simultaneous Final Flash on The Undisputed Era, but The Undisputed Era answers back with Chasing The Dragon for a two count. Keith Lee is tagged in, runs straight through two mid-kicks from The Undisputed Era, and takes out the team with a Double Running Clothesline. Lee had Bobby Fish up in a Powerbomb position, but Kyle O’Reilly swept the legs of Lee. O’Reilly is the legal man and Fish hits a Samoan Drop on Lee.
Adam Cole and Roderick Strong run down to the ring apron, but Matt Riddle fights them off. Riddle does a Springboard Moonsault on all of The Undisputed Era, then enters back into the ring and hits a Ripchord Final Flash on Bobby Fish. Keith Lee hits The Pounce on Cole, shooting him into Strong. The Undisputed Era hit the High Low Combination on Riddle for the pinfall. Fish gets credit for pinning Riddle.
Winners: The Undisputed Era
After the match, The Undisputed Era celebrates briefly in the ring before attacking Keith Lee. Here comes Tommaso Ciampa running to the ring with his crutch in hand. Adam Cole is the only one in the ring when Ciampa gets in, but leaves and Kyle O’Reilly tries to sneak up on Ciampa. Ciampa throws his crutch at O’Reilly who catches it and a Pump Kick to the chest. Ciampa is returning the attack to O’Reilly.
Tommaso Ciampa throws Kyle O’Reilly towards Matt Riddle, who hits a Final Flash. Keith Lee gets O’Reilly in a Gorilla Press position and hurls him over the top rope and out of the ring into the bodies of his fellow Undisputed Era comrades. Ciampa grabs a microphone and looks at the NXT Championship. He says, “Goldie, you’re going to have to wait. Daddy’s going to war.” NXT then goes off the air.
Verdict
This is the fifth installment of the Wednesday Night Wars and the fifth time that All Elite Wrestling has officially won the rating war. Both shows had to battle with the final game of the World Series between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals, so there was a drop in viewership. AEW had 759,000 viewers and NXT had 580,000 viewers. That charts out to be a .33 rating for AEW and .18 for NXT. That puts AEW at 5-0 in the rating war.
So far, it is 2-2 when it comes down to my verdict between AEW and NXT. I loved NXT for what they did with their women’s wrestling, creating the first-ever women’s War Games at the next NXT Takeover special. Team Rhea Ripley versus Team Shayna Baszler creates an opportunity for the next person that Baszler defends the title against to be the one who scores the pinfall for team Ripley. The WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship being defended on NXT television against Team Kick was great for the NXT brand. I think more title matches should be crossed over.
I may be the only person that enjoyed the “Rick and Morty” cross over on AEW with The Best Friends. I did dress up as Orange Cassidy for Halloween, so I’ll approve my guilty pleasure in this episode. Shanna’s match against Hikaru Shida was a pleasure to watch, especially since I knew nothing about Shanna before the match. The seeds were planted from the very beginning about the AEW Tag Team Championship tournament finals, where SoCal Uncensored won. I also enjoyed the story unraveling between The Inner Circle and Chris Jericho as he gets ready to defend the AEW World Championship against Cody.
I think all of this ends up boiling down to one segment for each show as I felt both were even-strength so far. While a lot of people may be eating up Finn Balor’s promo on NXT, it didn’t sit right with me that it came at the expense of the hottest talent on the WWE main roster, The Fiend. Had that been rephrased, I thought Balor’s promo would have been just as effective. With Jon Moxley, he provided a different reason as to why he doesn’t like being kept “in a box” as an “unsanctionable” wrestler. Moxley’s promo showed more layers to his character.
I’m giving my verdict this week to AEW Dynamite, but it was very close. They’ll leave the fifth week of the Wednesday Night Wars at 3-2 when it comes to my verdict, but with an undefeated mark of 5-0 in the rating wars. Thank you for reading. Give a follow on Twitter at EricReesePSN. I will be back next week with another rundown of the AEW versus WWE NXT Wednesday Night Wars!
