The Week In Wrestling (1/25/24): 3 Promos That Rocked & 3 That Fell Flat

It's time once again for Wrestling Inc.'s weekly look at the promos that knocked our socks off, and the ones that came up short. This week's column covers the period from Friday, January 26 to Thursday, February 1, moving forward in chronological order. Join the WINC writing and editorial staff as we consider one of the most important parts of pro graps — the talking — and scour the last week of wrestling for the best and worst examples of it. Just because there wasn't a ton of talking at WWE Royal Rumble doesn't mean there aren't plenty of promo segments to consider!

With that said, let's take an in-depth look at the week in wrestling promos (or at least the ones that stood out the most to us).

If you looked up the word "unexpected" in the dictionary, you would find a clip of Drew McIntyre absolutely overshadowing CM Punk, known chatterbox and notorious pipebomb promo maker, in a verbal exchange. See also: awesome.

McIntyre has been making great strides to improve his mic skills, and it showed on Monday night. McIntyre interrupted Punk's injury announcement and relished in his opponent's pain. It's classic heel behavior to kick an opponent while they're down, but it's even more despicable to strike at an opponent as vulnerable and emotional as Punk was in that moment. McIntyre's timing was good, but what made this promo extraordinary was just how evilly charismatic McIntyre was.

It would have been easy for McIntyre to claim that he was happy in Punk's loss, and move on. Instead, McIntyre employed a sort of call-and-response in his promo. He spoke at length about how his life post-Rumble elimination was full of nothing but strife and sleepless nights. Then, he peered at Punk like a scheming hyena, and told the world that as soon as Punk's injury hit news cycles, he "slept like a baby". He claimed he was never an overly spiritual person, but his enemy's torn tricep was the answer to all of his prayers. Putting in these short before-and-after comparisons is, in the most literal sense, an act of storytelling. McIntyre took the audience along for these anecdotes, and made us feel what he was saying. If the goal is to tell stories in the ring, this is it.

Throughout all the narrative techniques was an underlying stench of vitriol. Even as McIntyre offered his sympathy, there was not one moment where his tone communicated anything but hatred, in its purest form. This unadulterated emotion commanded everybody's attention — all of a sudden, people were not focused about how Punk's injury will cause him to miss WrestleMania, but how Punk's injury was the manifestation of all of McIntyre's wishes. McIntyre made Punk's torn about himself. He didn't just shift the power dynamic between him and Punk; he wholly stole whatever power Punk had in his own narrative. It was emasculating, it was dehumanizing, and it was something that was needed to boost the heelish character that McIntyre has been slowly becoming more and more confident in.

It is saying something when McIntyre's words were more compelling than Punk's. Punk is infamous for his pipebomb promo, and to people unfamiliar with his initial WWE run, he may be better known for his inflammatory statements and genuine talking style instead of any of his actual matches. So, when McIntyre is able to verbally supersede one the industry's best talkers in a segment literally revolving around Punk, that is a serious accomplishment. Even though the crowd was chanting "CM Punk", McIntyre stole the show, and it was just one more humiliation for the guy opposite of him.

This segment provided a great springboard (pun fully intended) for multiple storylines. Obviously, as Sami Zayn came in to defend Punk after a surprise attack courtesy of McIntyre, more kindling was added to the Zayn-McIntyre fire that had been burning since December. McIntyre also put himself in the prime position to legitimately take Punk's almost-guaranteed WrestleMania spot. There are so many opportunities for McIntyre, who before this, had just been a bad guy without much of a purpose. A fire has been lit within the Scot, and we are all the forest around him waiting to be burned down.

Written Angeline Phu

Considering that this was Andrade's first appearance on "Raw" this past Monday since making his return to WWE at the Royal Rumble, this was a total let down.

In the office of Adam Pearce, Andrade was seen signing an exclusive contract to be a member of the "Raw" roster when Nick Aldis confronted the two and expressed his disappointment with being unable to sign Andrade to "SmackDown". While it was great to see him assigned to a brand, the segment didn't really feel like it was about him when it shouldn't have been. As soon as he put pen to paper, he walked off, leaving Pearce and Aldis to do their usual one-up act with each other.

Although WWE is clearly heading somewhere with the ever-growing tension between the two General Managers, it wasn't the time to continue the build for the storyline. When you look at other segments WWE has done when it comes to selecting a brand for a returning superstar such as CM Punk and how much attention has been given to them, it just felt much more disappointing in comparison.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Simplicity can be an effective tool in storytelling, and Becky Lynch's backstage promo on "WWE RAW" serves as a prime example of this.

Coming off her loss in the 2024 Women's Royal Rumble match, Becky Lynch was understandably disappointed. Rather than letting it deter her though, Lynch laid out an alternative plan that she hopes will guide her toward securing a spot on the card of WrestleMania 40. "I let a lot of people down on Saturday and I let myself down, but I suppose the only way I stay down is if I give up and well, that just ain't in my nature," Lynch said. "So I guess plan B is I train a little harder, I think a little smarter, I fight a little dirtier. But above all, I do not stop until I am back at the top and until I take that title back into the main event like it deserves."

As Lynch alluded to, recent years have seen her defending or challenging for a championship at WrestleMania, including 2019's historic headling triple threat title match between herself, Charlotte Flair, and Ronda Rousey. However, over the last year, Lynch's main roster work has largely revolved around the women's tag team division and various non-title programs. With that in mind, it seems that "The Man" is finally ready to put herself back in contention for singles gold on WWE's main roster, with her target being WWE Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley. Given her notion of fighting dirtier, it also appears that Lynch will be cranking up the intensity (or perhaps using some strategic maneuvering) along this pursuit — an attribute that led Lynch to many of her previous title wins.

With the 2024 Elimination Chamber event fastly approaching, it may only be a matter of time before Lynch's plan B is officially up into motion, and she is perhaps in the main event of WrestleMania once again.

Written by Ella Jay

I normally love everything that Chase U does, but something about this just didn't work for me.

Andre Chase and Duke Hudson said their emotional goodbyes to Chase U in the ring on Tuesday's edition of "NXT" and reflected on their days spent at the school as Riley Osborne showed his support for them in the ring. While the two admittedly did a good job at inciting emotion, it seemed glaringly obvious that the school wouldn't be closing down with Jacy Jayne and Thea Hail sneaking around working on a secret project. It took away from the segment, making it feel pointless and simply just a way to fill up time on the air.

Jayne and Thea Hail then joined Chase, Hudson, and Osborne to reveal that their special project was a calendar featuring several of the ladies they intended to sell to generate enough profits to save the school. While it's an interesting idea to ponder and something bound to make money on the WWE Shop, it changed the mood of the segment quickly from somber to upbeat in a way that was rather jolting and abrupt.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Look, I admit that this whole thing with Chase U being shut down isn't the best story the faction has ever told. There are still several elements of it that confuse me to this day. But I still really loved this promo segment, specifically because of Jacy Jayne, who has fit into the Chase U weirdness better than I ever expected her to. The entire gimmick has strangely benefitted from the presence of a straightwoman, someone who lives a little bit closer to reality, who's able to recognize how odd Chase U is but is finds herself almost reluctantly charmed by them. It's another version of the same dynamic that got Duke Hudson into the group — he was never originally planning to earnestly become a part of Chase U, but their enthusiasm was so infectious that it changed him for the better. Jayne, like Hudson, does earnest well — though in her case, I have some suspicions about how trustworthy she actually is.

"Say what you want about me, but one thing's for sure," Jayne said during the promo. "I am fiercely loyal to the things and the people that matter the most to me." This got my alarm bells ringing. It was a reminder that Jayne was a heel prior to her time with Chase U, and specifically a heel who had just turned on her best friend, Gigi Dolin. Now, it's always possible that Jayne — who was named an official member of Chase U at the end of the promo despite Andre Chase admitting he'd had reservations about her — is just the latest heel to be charmed into a face turn by "NXT's" most lovable student body. But the hints in this promo suggest to me that Jayne is going to reveal her true colors soon, possibly as early as Vengeance Day, setting up a Stand & Deliver program with Thea Hail.

Whether Jayne reverts to her old ways or has turned over a new leaf, Hudson-style, this was a really fun performance from her to set up whatever comes next.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

I cannot properly express how terrible of an idea the Bang Bang Scissor Gang is. What an absolutely insane creative choice. Not only is AEW wasting all the momentum Jay White had as a top-tier wrestler coming out of the Continental Classic, they've turned Bullet Club Gold babyface on a roster that's absolutely desperate for legitimate heels. They've explicitly done this as a reaction to the formation of the Undisputed Kingdom, which means they now outnumber the Undisputed Kingdom (not the best dynamic, babyfaces outnumbering heels) but they're not actually feuding with or having matches against the Undisputed Kingdom, whose focus is entirely elsewhere. They're not really feuding with anyone, they're not in any kind of storyline — it's been two weeks since they officially formed the group on the January 20 episode of "Collision," and the only match any of them has had on AEW TV is an Acclaimed trios title defense against the Mogul Embassy, which is the team Bullet Club Gold took the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championship from. But the Bang Bang Scissor Gang isn't feuding with Mogul Embassy (certainly not with Swerve Strickland, who is busy doing things that actually matter); they're just occasionally wrestling the only other people who give a single f*** about either of these titles.

Anyway, all that leads to promo segments like the one on "Dynamite" this week, which went nowhere and accomplished nothing. They basically just came to the ring, said catchphrases for a few minutes, and left. The only thing that did happen is that AEW continued destroying the idea that we should be invested in any of these wrestlers or their relationships to one another. The Acclaimed and the Gunns had a deeply personal feud with one another, not even a full year ago, that saw the Gunns' father literally abandon them for his "adopted" sons, but hey, they got over all that and now Billy and the boys are joking around about the "If you're not down with that" catchphrase. It's good to know I should never actually care about how AEW characters relate to each other because it can change at the drop of a hat, for no good reason.

I don't know, man. If you're gonna do stuff like this, can you at least do it as a dark segment for the live crowd? This was a massive waste of valuable TV time, a segment so bland and pointless that it may as well have never happened at all. I'm not down with that.

Written by Miles Schneiderman