WWE Evolution 10/28/18

ER: Nita Strauss and Lizzy Hale start us off with some shredding, which is a cool touch, but I am already a bit worried that every single woman who is on this show is going to be called a trailblazer and a groundbreaker. Which is fine. But it feels like they say this about everyone, which makes them come off more like them talking about how inspirational it was for someone in a wheelchair getting pushed over the finish line of a marathon.

Trish Stratus/Lita vs. Mickie James/Alicia Fox

ER: Lita and Trish are Team MOB here, Mesh OverBoard. I know a little about fashion, and it's weird for Lita to want her outfit to have an intentional whale tail. Bliss/Fox/James definitely smoke them with their Queen of Hearts attire. And a lot of this is really James and Fox doing an excellent job at setting up offense for two non-active wrestlers. They're both really great at stooging; Fox has been the women's division bumping MVP for a couple years now at least, and James has had one of her absolute strongest wrestling years ever, and I think her contribution in getting Ronda over has been really undersold. Here James handled a 2 count kickout as well as some of these great Meiko kickouts we've seen in the MYC. I really thought they were giving Trish and Lita a quick feel good win do go a different way after Bliss was no longer involved. After a fairly one-sided run of offense, Lita misses the ALMOST GED STUDENT OF THE SKY moonsault to allow our favorites to finally control. I wish James and Fox got more control though, as it was good but still made them feel way inferior to two women who aren't going to be around much. Lita and Trish wrapped things up way too neatly, the end stretch could have used a couple more momentum shifts, and with Bliss on the floor there was no need to have Trish and Lita be so dominant, overcoming essentially three women with very little trouble. Fans were into seeing Trish and Lita, so if the point of the match was to give them a strong showing leading to a double comeback, then it was a huge success. I'm pretty sure they aren't planning on that though.

ER: Just noticed Beth's Bull Nakano shirt and I want it.

Battle Royal

ER: Big battle royal with practically every single WWE women's wrestler returning. We get Molly Holly, but throw in Layla and Bull Nakano and this PPV gets 10 stars for me. Molly still looks exactly the same. And I loved Iiconics telling the old timers that they were going to throw them over the top rope and back into obscurity. It's also funny how Tamina is lumped in with the present since she's just been around for almost a decade, and was in WWE longer than most of the women in "the past". Who actually would want Tamina on their side, though, is the predicament. Carmella is dressed up as an all time great GLOW worker, love the gear. Torrie Wilson takes an unexpectedly big bump off the apron from a Mandy Rose knee, and Rose eliminates Deville too. If Rose gets the win here this will be the best. They are really desperately trying to Make Tamina a Thing. She won't ever be a thing. There is literally nothing they can do that will make people interested in seeing Tamina. She is 40 years old and she has been doing this for a decade. I totally forgot about Zelina and liked the stuff with her at the finish, LOVED Nia's huge press slam to eliminate her, chucking her far into Tamina on the floor. They were giving Moon some big moments and when she eliminated Asuka I really thought she'd be winning, but am excited to see Nia back in the title scene.

Toni Storm vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was about the level of match I was expecting from these two, and just makes me more annoyed that we didn't get Meiko/Ripley. This was fine enough, and you could tell both busted ass and wanted to have a really good final, and they were able to pull out some tricks that nobody got to use in the regular tournament. Shirai hit a moonsault to the floor, and Storm gave her a German suplex on the apron, don't think we got a top rope to floor or apron spot in the 8 MYC episodes. So if so I liked that they mapped things out to be that way. They didn't do anything wrong here, really, only it was a structure that I'm really bored with, as it was basically the structure of a lot of 2018 wrestling: we're in a war, a finisher gets kicked out of to a shocked face reaction, both have moments where they can barely get to their feet but are up on offense a moment later, there's a strike exchange in the middle (and Shirai just doesn't have very good strikes. Dawn Marie had better strikes. Shirai's might be closing in on heel Torrie Wilson. She's probably above face Torrie Wilson), a big move hits knees; it all looked pretty good, it all just felt way too familiar. I do agree with them that Storm has potential to be a big star, so I fully get why she was season 2 champ.

The Riott Squad vs. Natalya/Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: While watching this Rachel shows off her gamer dork knowledge and says that Liv Morgan should go as (Liv) Morgana from Super Puzzle Fighter II, saying she already has the pink hair and just needs a black bodysuit. She says this will solidify the 30-and-Up nerd fan category, which I told her is the last category of fan these girls would want obsessing over them. Those are the guys who would show up to her house with a knife concealed inside a teddy bear. This match was also decent enough, and was getting great reactions from the crowd, but just felt like a longer than normal Raw match, and there were some pretty rough spots like Sasha barely tumbling to the floor with a flip dive, or a really dumb spot where Natalya puts the Sharpshooter on Morgan and Logan at the same time, even though Logan alone is larger than Natalya. Plus this show feels a little too intentionally feel good, 4 straight face victories and everyone having this weepy overly smiley ugly cry finishes for all of them, every face acting like they simultaneously won the Hunger Games and also were retiring from wrestling after the match. It's all a bit thick. However, Rachel thinks that a lot of the emotion the girls are showing post-match is genuine. She makes a lot of sense in her defense of why, and it genuinely feels like she's gee, Riott Squad really feel like a team they should run with, Riott has been impossible to ignore the last 6 months, they're just wasting so much time keeping Natalya inexpicably strong. Everyone knows she's the biggest heel on Total Divas, because she is awful but thinks she's the nice one. The Squad could be a way bigger deal than they are. Natalya  cannot. I liked the Squad launching Sasha into the barricade, liked Bayley's fast tope con hilo at the finish, but I wanted something very different from this.

Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane

ER: This was a nice tough fight that went longer than I thought it would, but also made really good use of its time. It does require you to think that Sane could stand and strike with Baszler in an exchange, which is a bit much, but I think that while small Sane is still really good when she's using her body as a weapon, so it makes up for the overall size difference. Shayna dominated for much of this, but Sane never really felt out of it. Sane was valiantly getting beaten down, while getting in some stuff, but it felt like Baszler was always dominant. Baszler ran her into the steps, then we get several different nasty Baszler knee strikes, a cool as hell gutwrench slam, starts working over Sane's arm including a nasty stomp. Shayna handled the Sane strike exchange portion well, threw a kick at the arm to end an exchange, but ate a nice spinning backfist from Sane. I do really like Sane as cannonball, and she's convincing on a suplex, and we go into some bigger spots. Shayna drops her arm first over the top rope to the floor, Sane winds up hitting a hard crossbody to the floor, really smashing into Shayna, Sane takes a big bump into the crowd right into Shayna's squad. We get a big interference portion that I think they make work, timing it well enough and making it fit in. We get a really tight nearfall that fooled me, with Shayna locking in a tight rear naked choke and Sane rolling through like the Bret Hart/Austin finish. I could buy Shayna losing with that and it wouldn't make me upset. But Jessamyn Duke sneaks in a shot just behind the ref's back and immediately allows Baszler to lock in the clutch again. Both rear naked sequences were handled really well, by both parties. Baszler made it look like something that should finish a match, and Sane looking like a person getting choked out. I really liked this one.

PAS: Really great performance by Baszler. I don't think Sane is particularly good,  she is a stylistic daughter of Manami Toyota without Toyota's otherworldly athleticism. She can take a good beating though, and Baszler delivers one. That arm work was so vicious, that Sane should almost be out six months with surgery, rather then delivering offensive moves (the selling issues were what damaged their last NXT match, it wasn't as bad here, but still present). I just loved the way Shayna would manipulate the arm, the set up for the stomp on the elbow looked almost as painful as the stomp itself. The move where she hung her over the top rope by the arm was so violent looking, and I loved the mock salute afterwards. Some of Sane's offense looked ok, the plancha was nice, and I love a good backfist (and like an OK one, and this was OK). Finish angle sets up some cool stuff, although both Shafir and Duke have the same horse girl straightened long hair and thus are hard to tell apart, one should get a different haircut unless they are going to do Killer Bees tag spots. Still I am excited for a distaff Makai Club running shit.

Last Man Standing: Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: You know, I've never been a major fan of either, although Lynch has really won me over since the turn, and I really like how both of them are playing their face/heel dynamics. Charlotte is playing it up perfectly smug, cold bitch straight-facing those boos, snottily bouncing off the ropes to steal a little thunder from Lynch's name being announced. Lynch, the champ, holding up that belt knowing she's going to get cheered? I'm into it, and they have immediately got me into this match without locking up. They know exactly what they're doing. And this sauce has some heat to it. Both of them look downright pissed when the other comes out ahead and it is simmering fire.

But overall I thought the match was pretty so so. I thought it was overly sloppy, had an abundance of time stand still moments (and not just during prop set up moments), had some glaringly bad ref involvement, had weapon shots that looked piddly, and jacked a big moment from literally the last Last Man Standing match in WWE (and didn't do it anywhere close to as effectively). However, the reactions they got for nearly everything was tremendous. The crowd was extremely invested in this from beginning to end. There were some pretty nasty spills and the intensity was a plus at times, but for every intentional nasty spill (like Becky taking a back suplex into a big pile of chairs) there was something that looked bad, like Charlotte overshooting a moonsault and knocking over a table leading to Lynch landing right on top of her, and then both selling because neither knew what to do. We got a too long segment of Lynch lying perfectly still while Charlotte could do a convoluted figure 4 set up with Lynch's leg for a stretch of leg work that doesn't really go anywhere interesting. We got Lynch absolutely burying Charlotte through a table with a huge legdrop, but then we get a total repeat of Ciampa burying Gargano in anything he can do keep him from getting up, except Becky gently lays down several things on top of Charlotte and we get an odd ref count as Charlotte inevitably gets up before 10. I remember Ciampa wasting Gargano with these weapons as he buried him in them, and  this was just Becky tipping over a chair onto Charlotte and then placing things on her the way someone might see how many flip flops they could put on their sleeping cat to get the best Instagram picture. We get the cliché reaction of Becky being terrified when Charlotte feebly stands up from the rubble, and Becky eats a spear really nicely, but Charlotte fights back with a bunch of weak looking cane shots and middling chops (I've said before that it's a shame she's forced to cosplay her dad as she's really clunky with a lot of her Flair cosplay offense). The fans were still fully along, and I'll give them credit for that, and I was happy Lynch kept that title and Charlotte really flew through that table to the floor...but this whole thing I thought was decent enough, but underwhelming in a lot of ways. It's possible I missed some nuance, but I was pretty stunned to see some of the hype that was being thrown on this, as I thought there was just too much awkwardness to ignore.

Nikki Bella vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: Now this totally owned. I thought the layout was super smart, the use of Brie was smart, and Ronda's selling was awesome. Match starts with Ronda completely toying Nikki, showing her several ways that she can toss her ass over elbow and break her arm, repeatedly letting her get up after having her likely beat. And as you're wondering if this is just going to be a total Ronda mauling, Ronda eats two of the best shots to the ringpost you've seen, I mean full Lawler, just fantastic looking post shots on the floor (and another great one inside the ring) and the spends the rest of the match shaking off the cobwebs. Ronda made those post shots so important, not just by making them look as great as they did, but really treating them as a big deal throughout the match. I had just watched a match with several potential big moments that could have been treated this way, that were moved on from pretty easily. Seeing Ronda taking the postings so seriously, and really turning in an impressively evolving sell throughout the rest of the match, was a real treat to watch. Nikki takes over and Ronda feels like she's in it but also struggling to stay focused, working like she got her bell totally rung and went spaghetti legged and was now fighting from behind. The Bellas throw her around ringside, into the barricade, Nikki hits her big kick off the buckles and locks in an abdominal stretch, Ronda misses a huge crossbody when it looks like she was possibly turning it around, all of it was handled really well and turned what could have feasibly been a 3 minute match into an exciting 15 minute match, great turns and build. Brie finally gets hers when Ronda rolls through an ankle pick into a fireman's carry (and I LOVED how she did it, playing up her dizziness and looking fully unsure if it would work, relying on muscle memory, awesome spot), and when Brie has to reach too far over the ropes to stop it, Ronda uses that leverage to her advantage and also drags Brie in to dispose of them both. Brie gets tossed over the announce table and we get an awesome nearfall as Ronda takes a nasty Alabama Slam and the Rack Attack; easily could have seen the match ending there. But Nikki goes up and Ronda rolls through shakily (which, seeing as how she was selling during that rolling fireman's carry, easily could have been more of the same selling paying off those postings) and yanks that arm. I thought this was completely awesome, a really terrifically laid out match, and a killer main event. I cannot imagine this match being better than what they gave us.

ER: A fun, fresh PVV, if a little overrated. But I liked the concept and it was nice not having to write up a Rollins or Ziggler match. Nikki/Ronda was white hot fire, far exceeded my already high expectations, and we dug Baszler/Sane as well. Both land on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List.