The 2002 WWF Royal Rumble Match: A Great Royal Rumble Match

ER: I had not watched this Rumble since it originally aired, and I was surprised at just how many specific things I remembered. I have real goldfish brain these days and yet I somehow remembered more about this Rumble than almost any of the 20+ that have happened since. I watched this one specifically for the 2002 Boss Man content. Boss Man was good enough in 2002 that it's worth checking out a 70 minute match for what is no more than a few minutes of Boss Man action. This was his final PPV match appearance before spending the next few months working compelling matches on Heat. Going out like a legend. But this match had a lot more value than just a few minutes of Boss Man. This is one of my favorite Rumbles, one with nothing but great punches and ass kicking. Goldust/Rikishi was a great starting two for this Rumble. Honestly, Goldust making his WWE return and looking this damn good is something that should be brought up every time you talk about Dustin career highlights. He and Rikishi were pacesetters for this, focusing snug punches, fast near eliminations and hard bumps, and at least 15 guys in this Rumble focus on the same. Boss Man is actually the third guy in this whole thing, and in a Rumble where half the men involved made a case for having the best punches in WWF, Big Boss Man made the best case for #1. 

Based on this Rumble alone, the 10 best punchers of 2002 WWF were:

1. Big Boss Man

2. Matt Hardy

3. Val Venis

4. Goldust

5. Perry Saturn

6. Mr. Perfect

7. Chuck Palumbo

8. Christian

9. Scotty 2 Hotty

10. Steve Austin

Goldust/Rikishi/Boss Man makes for a really great fast paced three way, with all taking big bumps and throwing stiff strikes. Goldust gets crotched up top, Boss Man gets whipped into Goldust's groin, and Boss Man slips Rikishi ass over elbow with a running forearm shiver. During his few minutes in the Rumble Match, Boss Man threw upwards of 16 different precise punches to Rikishi's and Goldust's body and face. 

He made the most of his too brief time, then took a real tough elimination: He was the matches' lone Stink Face victim, and it was a particularly aggressive and lengthy, just buried. What were they doing out there. How were we a baby step away from a wrestler being allowed to put his balls in his opponent's mouth or something. Boss Man staggered into a big bump elimination, Rikishi blasting him with a fully extended superkick and a freight train clothesline over the top. I still can't believe how great Boss Man was in 2002. 

Goldust has some of the best in-ring timing of any wrestler of the last 20 years, but we get blessed with an unintentionally hilarious Rumble moment where Goldust starts a corner 10 count punch sequence on Bradshaw at almost the exact same time the countdown clock begins, so you have 13,000 people colliding on numbers with everyone going in different directions. 

Undertaker clearing the ring, laying waste to everyone - Goldust claiming best elimination with his chokeslam bump elimination - was really well done. Undertaker felt like a real force and everyone in 2002 moved like they were somehow injected with extra testosterone. But the best past of Undertaker eating waste was Matt Hardy and Lita beating the shit out of him, and it only got better when Jeff Hardy came in because then all three of them kicked the shit out of him. I wish we got more of that before Taker made his comeback, but I just love the Hardys. The Last Ride on Matt was huge, and Jeff got to distract Taker enough for Maven to make him look like a bug eyed idiot. But they got a lot of good mileage out of the Undertaker/Maven brawl, with Undertaker beating the shit out of the never-eliminated Maven and then walking down the aisle to punch Scott 2 Hotty in the face before just walking back to continue the beating. Maven bleeds and gets dragged into the concourse area, security guards having to actively shove fans out of the way as they crowd in. 

There's a lot of star power, and the guys who get less of a reaction all do stuff to make the crowd pay attention. Christian, DDP, Scotty, Chuck Palumbo, Godfather, Albert, all worked hard for their 1-10 minutes, everyone of them throwing hands and bumping big. DDP had this great tumbling backwards bumps through the ropes after a Scotty superkick; Christian, Palumbo, and Perry Saturn all have a face punching challenge and we are all winners, with Saturn and Chuck especially teeing off on each other. 

The match can be divided up 65/35 between the build to Austin charming the big crowd by running the ring, and the comedown when Austin has to share the ring with HHH. Even though the entire Rumble has good parts, it is top loaded and I like how everyone filled time before HHH was in there. Austin is a great battle royal worker. That's no secret. I love watching him fill time and I loved the gag of him eliminating everyone too quickly, so needing to punch everyone back into the ring to eliminate them again. Austin runs through several guys and it's a weird call to have Val Venis show up for the first time in 8 months and be the first guy in the match to ice down Austin. Turns out, it was a good call. I liked the Austin/Venis stretch so much that I immediately checked for any singles matches they had, and now I'm definitely going to watch their 1999 Smackdown match. I don't think HHH is bad in this Rumble per se, but he's so fucking serious and it kind of spoils all the fun. He's a scowling frowning buzzkill who glowers and sucks the fun out of exchanges, and spends a lot of time lying down and catching his breath. The first 70% of the match is kids having a blast at a sleepover, and the last 30% is like kids still having fun, but it's on a field trip while a teacher keeps telling them to be quiet. 

I really loved this match as Mr. Perfect's last big moment. Making the final three, swatting his gum into the crowd while Austin and HHH try to eliminate. What a guy. Does anyone else swat their gum like they're Mr. Perfect? I think I'd be too afraid of it getting stuck to my hand or whiffing. It takes high levels of confidence to pull Curt Hennig's gum swat success rate. Do you remember the little buzz after Perfect came back after almost a decade? I was on those message boards. I was talking about how great the Perfect/Tommy Dreamer match was on Heat. I didn't know he wouldn't even work 20 matches after that one. Is the Curt Hennig Puerto Rico any good? What about the XWF that he recorded right before returning to WWF? It probably is, and I'll probably watch that along with the Austin/Venis match. This Rumble has a lot of fallout. The push to the finish of the match was exciting enough. Big Show looked really good in the double strap Bundy singlet. Kane lifting, walking, and tossing Big Show over the ropes to eliminate him was legitimately impressive, Kurt Angle had a lot of enthusiasm, the Austin elimination was fairly shocking, and you're left with a 70 minutes match that did not at all feel 70 minutes long. I think that counts as high praise. 

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WWF 305 Live: BROCK! Big Show! Undertaker! Kane!

Undertaker vs. Kane WWF Survivor Series 11/15/98 - FUN

ER: I'll be writing up a bunch of matches between these two, and I'm curious if any will stand out as legitimate gems. Am I the only one with that curiosity? These two paired off a LOT in singles matches. Without checking, Kane would be my pick as the guy Taker faced the most in his career. They were both around for so long, at the same time, constantly in each other's business...but was any of it any good? Well, this was pretty good! Taker did some unique things, like work over Kane's knee. People in the crowd didn't seem to want any of it. Part of this was probably that technically Taker was the heel here, and Kane was the face, none of which made any sense to anyone, so you got left with a quiet crowd. Taker clotheslines Kane right in the back of the knee and then locks in a kneebar, and I'm sorry but that's cool as hell. But he abandons that and works a kind of sluggish punch exchange. Kane looked better than Taker on all strike exchanges, but there's something about seeing two giant guys slug it out, two "7 footers" as JR kept saying. There were a couple hard landings, big clothesline to the floor, the odd visual of Paul Bearer helping Taker cheat to win, overall not bad.

Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show WWE Royal Rumble 1/19/03 - EPIC

ER: I loved this, a massive collision and the crowd was losing it seeing Big Show get tossed around. Babyface Brock is a real machine, and I don't think he's ever gotten enough credit for being such a great babyface. It wasn't a long enough run, but he connected, he knew how to bump as a sympathetic face (different than his big match heel bumping), made heel offense look great, and there was not one wrestler who can compete with Lesnar's babyface comebacks. He's so tenacious, starting the match charging in for a takedown, getting headbutted off and coming back, and we get a lot of Lesnar powering over Big Show with cool belly to bellys. Big Show is one of those guys who had a great career, but also a disappointing career? Even at his best, there was always one thing off. This giant of a man had so many goober looks, with silly mustaches and various stages of balding, always with an uncanny ability to look like the world's largest IT guy. Here's he wearing Old Navy carpenter jeans and has a too thin handlebar mustache, he looks like a 7' tall Diedrich Bader character. But he looks heavy as hell to throw around, and it looks amazing every time Lesnar gets him off his feet. Brock takes a huge bump to the floor, basically getting chokeslammed off the edge of the apron, and he gets huge height on a perfect nearfall chokeslam. Brock is one of the greatest in ring actors, and his last second kickout on the chokeslam was a thing of beauty. Big Show does Shock Face a couple decades before it was the house style, and it was justified. Heyman gets involved and takes a hard bump when Brock drags him in the ring, and I thought the interference was done well. Lesnar came out looking like the Incredible Hulk, and the match finishing F5 on Big Show is one of the great wrestling feats of strength spots. What a way to open a PPV.  

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WWE 305: Moondog Spot!! Cousin Junior!! Big Show!

Moondog Spot vs. Cousin Junior WWF 11/10/85 - EPIC

ER: This kicked so much ass. I loved this match. They built to big spots well and Moondog had a real great carry job, working a match around Cousin Junior's surprising bursts of speed, his good bumping, and his 2 or 3 cool highspots. Moondog would fill in the downtime with great cutoffs, and I'm not just talking about his jeans. Gorilla and Jesse turned in an excellent commentary performance, going on some genuinely laugh out loud tangents, like Gorilla laughing about Pigeon Forge, TN while Jesse is telling him that Gorilla's career isn't as impressive as he thought it was, since Gorilla had never main evented a show in Pigeon Forge. Later they go on about what cut of meat Moondog's bone came from, with Gorilla detailing just how long it's taken Spot to get the bone as clean as it is, picking off all the meat scraps. It's genuinely great material. 

Moondog was really great at letting all of Junior's spots shine, like his cool mule kick or heavy crossbody, and they kept working fast impressive rope running with nice dropdowns and leapfrogs. Moondog cuts off a bunch of Junior's charges with knees to the gut or great punches. Spot throws a headlock punch with a fist shakeout afterward that made me want to write up every Larry Latham match I have access to. He hits two cool as hell fistdrops off the middle rope and throws Junior into a hard bump on the entrance ramp (where a Maple Leaf Gardens security guard literally tickles Junior's feet???). The match also has an unexpectedly cool finish, with Moondog catching Junior and about to hit a big powerslam, but Junior rolls through the slam with a really nice cradle! Everything about this was a real gem: Great Moondog performance, super spirited Cousin Junior performance, and some classic Ventura/Monsoon commentary. 

Big Show vs. Mark Henry WWE Raw 6/29/15 - SKIPPABLE

ER: This must have been during a period where they needed to make Big Show look strong again, so they did that thing where he beats someone really big really quick. Like, we need to make Big Show a main event title threat again, have him beat Mark Henry in under 90 seconds! And it was kind of like Henry was being directed to not go as hard on Show as Show went on Henry, so that Show looked more dominant. Henry held up a bit on his standing splash and wasn't throwing his punches as snug as Show was throwing his. If I was there live for this match, I would have been losing my shit knowing I was getting a Show/Henry singles match. And then I would have been livid seeing Henry downed by a KO punch in under 90 seconds. In 2009 I went to a Raw taping in Oakland that was supposed to have Mark Henry vs. Shawn Michaels. I was not a fan of Michaels by 2009, but Henry/Michaels is a singles match that only happened once before, and I think a 2009 singles match between them would have been really good. The match ended by DQ 1 minute in and I drove home pissed (the rest of the show was not great either).

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WWF 305 Live: Crush! Booger! Viscera! Kane! Big Show! Undertaker!

Crush vs. Bastion Booger WWF Raw 6/28/93 - GREAT

ER: This is great for what it is supposed to be great at. They're a week out from the Stars and Stripes Challenge, and Crush is being lightly built up as someone who could potentially be the one to slam Yokozuna. On the way to the ring Heenan is the one to point out that if ANYone in the WWF had a chance of getting Yokozuna on his tiptoes, it would be Crush. Vince and Savage weren't talking about it, so Heenan bringing it up unprovoked about a good guy felt like something kids would have noticed. And the match story is simple but effective, with early hard shoulderblocks neutralizing each other, and Crush twice unable to lift Booger into a fireman's carry. Doubt was cast on Crush's lifting ability, and there's a great moment where Booger crushes him on the floor with a killer avalanche into the ringpost. Booger works a long gross bearhug that Crush fights out of by jamming his arms down into Booger's prominent titties, while Vince and Savage go on and on about how bad Booger smells and how disgusting his hump is. The man's hump is admittedly off putting, it's a really stupidly effective dumb gimmick. We get some great moments of Booger being a large heavy man, and I genuinely can't tell if he was sandbagging intentionally or not. He barely gets over on a backdrop, kind of rolling and flopping off Crush's back, and then Crush actually goes for a vertical suplex but doesn't get him quite vertical and ends up in sort of a half bodyslam. Intentional or not, it's effective at putting over the denseness of Booger, and Crush is strong enough at selling that he comes off strong for just shifting him. The finish is really great as Crush gets fired up and hits three straight bodyslams on Booger for the win, with Vince flipping out the whole time that Booger is 450 pounds, only 100 pounds less than Yokozuna. The fans recognized that too and it made Crush come off like a genuine babyface threat. 

Undertaker vs. The Big Show WWF Raw 5/3/99 - FUN

ER: Pretty stunning that the first ever meeting between Undertaker and Big Show happened on a random episode of Raw, and wasn't even announced ahead of the episode. That's crazy. They really had no idea what to do with Big Show, judging by his character arcs over his first few months. This is a short match with a quick finish, as Undertaker punches Show into the corner and climbs the turnbuckles, only for Show to drag him down with a nice bearhug. Undertaker rolls to the floor and Paul Bearer hands him ether to dump on his elbow pad. I always love when ether or chloroform gets involved, mainly because the commentary has to say things like "You smell that? It smells like ether!" and I suppose if you're around pro wrestlers long enough on the road you may eventually learn how to identify the smells of chloroform or ether. Taker locks on a sleeper and hooks the ethered pad around Show's face, which is a cool spot to bring down a giant. Oh but this is the middle of 1999 so Undertaker just gets a baseball bat and fucking breaks it over Big Show's face. Why not just jump him before the match and bash him with the bat, why wait the 2 minutes? The bat spot is totally preposterous, as the bat just explodes over Show's head, cutting Undertaker around the jaw and busting open Big Show's forehead, swelling his eye. There was a lot of ridiculous weapons stuff during this era, but Russo realllly loved the implausibility of full force baseball bat shots to the head.

Viscera vs. Kane WWE Backlash 5/1/05 - VERY GOOD

ER: Outside of the weird racist/misogynist Trish/Viscera angle (Viscera slaps her ass and is promised sex upon Kane's demise, Trish calls him - among other things - a "chicken eater" when he fails), this match was a blast. Kane is outweighed by almost 200 pounds so works more as the fast undersized guy. They run into each other nice and heavy, Kane drops fast cruiser elbows like he's Waltman or something, and even hits a nice legdrop with good height. The standing exchanges look good, and even though Kane usually hits light on flying offense, he dialed up the crazy and hit a flying shoulder tackle off the top to the floor. Viscera bumped big, ring shaking back bumps, nice job running into the ringpost, all of it felt very King of the Monsters. We even got a fun spot where Trish ran after Kane with a chair but got blindsided by a Lita cane shot, sending Trish and the chair flying. These two have matched up several times, and this match made it clear that there could be a really good match in there somewhere. I could also see this being their peak, but this was real good.

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New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.

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WWF 305 Live: Festus! Dusty! Akeem! Big Show!

Akeem vs. Dusty Rhodes WWF Wrestling Challenge 11/19/89 - EPIC

ER: Damn. A truly legendary showdown, a literal DREAM match! How often have we ever had the reigning American Dream vs. the reigning African Dream? Showdowns between Dreams are a rarity. This match here was everything. It was every single thing. Who among us knew when I started this project that it would already yield fat boy perfection a mere 3 posts into the project's existence? We are truly blessed. Dusty had the best theme music in wrestling, and there was nobody in wrestling who could move like Dusty to his music. That alone makes this era Dusty extremely worthwhile. Akeem was such a big giant goon, Richard Moll who got fat, and such an awesome wrestler. Dusty and Akeem have a dance off and it's exactly what I wanted out of my pro wrestling at that precise moment. Dusty had the best moves, and if this wasn't even a match at all and instead just Dusty shaking his ass while Akeem sways his hips and swims through air, this was going to be the greatest. Is Dusty the greatest dancing babyface of all time? Watch him here and you might think so. The best part is, outside of the dancing, is we get two huge dudes clonking each other in the head! Akeem bumps around for Dusty, throws some great shots of his own, yells at the not-yet-named Sapphire, attacks Dusty after getting counted out and bumps big to the floor again. This was all about movement, big guys moving with rhythm, Dusty an absolute legend.

The Big Show vs. Festus WWE Smackdown 1/30/09 - GREAT

ER: We as a people have collectively forgot about how great the brief Festus singles run was, and this will maybe remind you. This was not even 3 minutes, but this was everything that anyone could have wanted. This was a condensed sprint that opens with Festus trying to pick up show for a big double leg, getting him off the mat, and then getting absolutely SPIKED into the mat on a DDT. I mean Festus' head was tucked and he landed bad. He sold it like my parent's cat when it ran straight into the freshly cleaned sliding glass door. Both guys threw big shots here, like Big Show's cool punches buried into Festus' gut, or Festus getting caught off the ropes with an overhand chop right to the throat. The best strikes in the match were Festus unloading two rights and a left out of the corner, really cracking Show with nice shots, before...well, they attempted a tornado DDT, and this is arguably the most combined weight we've ever seen doing a tornado DDT spot. Show breaks out his awesome alley oop facebuster, and Festus really whips his melon into the mat. Big Show's Big Punch sends us home just shy of 3 awesome minutes. Festus, baby!!


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE!

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WWE Fastlane 2017 Live Enough Blog

1. Rich Swann/Akira Tozawa vs. Brian Kendrick/Noam Dar

ER: I'm a couple months behind on 205 Live but I do plan to skim through it to catch up. Crowd does not care about this, though over the course of the match the crowd gets into Swann as FIP. Kendrick is great throughout at trying to only be in the match when he's got the advantage. It doesn't always work, which leads to him eating a high backdrop while Swann is about to powerbomb Dar, and then another to the floor before eating a dive. Dar is kind of disjointed the whole match, though I like the way he takes Swann's kicks. This match just didn't have enough going for it. Kendrick was fun but the whole thing was rushed. Tozawa didn't get to do much as the whole match was built around Swann. Swann had nice kicks but his flip dive looked soft, and he came up short on his phoenix splash. Everybody seemed like they were trying, but there's this inescapable desperation that comes through during these cruiser matches. It's like the all know the whole thing is going to die soon. Also, I hate Michael Cole saying "Vintage Rich Swann!" Vintage compared to what?

2. Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe

ER: I'm into Joe punching Zayn around the ring, with Zayn picking his moments. Zayn does a great Kawada-like crumble sell after eating a right jab. The bow and arrow took too long to set up, but the legsweep to Zayn's shins was sick as hell. Sami aims to dislocate his shoulder by throwing a mean falling clothesline, and I smile huge when he hits the blue thunder bomb. You can see Zayn's power meter falling but he still tries and still looks for openings, and Zayn is good about setting up trademark Joe offense. Joe just keeps coming forward and it's all about survival for Zayn. I liked the drama around the top rope sunset flip, and Zayn's selling during the kokina clutch. The match was basically an extended Joe beating, which is a good way to debut him on PPV. Zayn was in there to sell and put over Joe's kicks and slams, and mission accomplished. They have a better match in them, but they needed Joe to look strong.

3. Enzo & Cass vs. The Club

ER: Enzo & Cass: The reason why I start these blogs late. I can't risk getting to their segment and having to sit through it in real time. I do have a weird soft spot for wrestlers with no offense, so sometimes I want to like Enzo. And playing FIP in tags is by far his best use. He takes stupid, untrained looking bumps, but it somehow works to make him more sympathetic. I like how Enzo flops while in a side headlock, and like all of Anderson's kneedrops to Enzo's throat. Enzo and Anderson work a really fun grounded side headlock sequence, with Enzo trying to roll to Cass and Anderson rolling through to get him back to the center of the ring. Gallows takes a mean post shot and they do one of those fun spots where Enzo gets knocked out of the sky while attempting a tag. They work kind of an absurd number of fun spots around guys leaping at Enzo and missing. He's essentially Pacman Jones, TNA tag team champ. Cass does a nice hot tag, and they do a great false finish with Gallows yanking Enzo out of the ring just in time. Really fun tag that totally overdelivered.

4. Nia Jax vs. Sasha Banks

ER: First few minutes of this are just Nia tossing Sasha around the ring, nasty backbreaker, huge hiptoss, even a kind of curbstomp. Ladies make certain moves look better with their flexibility, and I really dug Nia's torture rack. Sasha maneuvers into a guillotine and then we get some cool moments of Nia trying to shake her, and Sasha hanging on: gets shaken out of a guillotine, grabs a backpack sleeper, gets ditched on the turnbuckles, leaps back into that sleeper. I thought the Banks statement looked great, and Nia just plants her with a chokeslam. Also liked the bridge at the finish, looked genuinely tough to kick out of. Still I'm not really sure what they're doing with Nia, as she seems to lose an awful lot for a monster. But, I like Sasha a lot so I'm cool.

5. Jinder Mahal vs. Cesaro

ER: What the hell has happened to Jinder Mahal and why has the wellness exam not figured it out? I saw this guy several months ago in Liga Elite and he looked softer than ever, now he's getting all lean and veiny. Maybe the dude just knows this is his last shot and is busting ass. But the match is good and both guys work it with immediacy, especially Mahal. Mahal looks and works like a heel, throwing clubbing shots and back elbows, choking Cesaro in the ropes, raking at his face, and looking good doing it. I'm surprised this is so Mahal-heavy, with Cesaro making a couple brief comebacks with his impressive throws, but most of the early match is Mahal. But, once Cesaro DOES go on offense, the match doesn't really work as well. Cesaro's 619 is ugly and doesn't fit with his moveset, and there's just no denying the match was better with Mahal controlling things. That's something I wasn't expecting to type. Ending couldn't have been flatter. This had potential, and was fulfilling it, and they lost it.

6. Rusev vs. Big Show

ER: Wasn't really expecting this one, just Big Show kicking Rusev around the ring and Rusev suddenly a babyface. How do they somehow always make Rusev look like a babyface? Big Show's dominance didn't interest me too much, but I loved Rusev clipping the knee and Show's bump for it. But Rusev's comeback is short lived as I guess we need to keep Big Show super strong? He pretty much steamrolls Rusev and it takes way too long. I love Show's leaner physique and big beard look, but man he did not need this dominant of a win.

7. Gentleman Jack Gallagher vs. Neville

ER: Awesome stuff, which felt like the match the Cruiserweight division needed. Gallagher is just a total nutter, and these two really delivered on PPV. They both do great at fast exchanges, and Gallagher takes some brutal bumps, starting with him getting his head whipped into the mat off a double leg. We build to an awesome Gallagher dive, with him just flinging his body sideways and hitting Neville flush, and back in the ring Gallagher goes for a prawn hold and Neville reverses into an INSANE german suplex. Gallagher's landing was like an accidental Great Sasuke bump, just landing right on the side of his head and shoulder. Good lord. Neville's flying is tight and his big moves land with actual force, Gallagher still gets some hope with his glorious headbutt, and this just felt like the match that needed to happen. Both came off looking good.

8. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Well Roman looks like a doof in white soled basketball shoes. Now we know. I'm sure one person, somewhere, was wondering, and now that person knows. And it doesn't matter because this was awesome. Braun throws himself into everything, so the hits and misses are huge. He breaks out a big splash, but misses a charge into the ring post, nails a crazy powerslam through an announce table, takes a huge bump to the floor off a missed big boot. Braun came off like a shark, always moving forward, and Reigns was scrambling from go. Roman is really good at surviving damage and making space for comeback shots, dodging Braun and sending him into the steps, hitting a Samoan drop after Braun hits the post, and these two are really going at it. I'm sure plenty of people will be pissed that Roman went over, but he stood up to a couple superman punches, a spear, and then did an insane big splash off the top before taking a final spear. I'm sure when people think about this match the visual of Braun standing tall on the top rope will seem like a bigger deal than the fact that he got pinned. He'll get his.

9. Charlotte vs. Bayley

ER: I wasn't really feeling the first few minutes of this. I know Bayley is a strong FIP, but I thought Charlotte was hitting the "you're just a fan" stuff a little too hard and the pace was too slow. I did appreciate how after overshooting a moonsault, she followed up with a somersault senton. I'm not sure if that senton was planned, but it felt like she called an audible before going for the pin. But this whole match feels longer than I think it actually is. A lot of this felt pretty sloppy, and I thought the finish run was a mess. Not the match that I wanted. And what's worse is right after Bayley wins, Cole just casually brings up "Hey you know, this is the first time Charlotte has been pinned on PPV!" It's like feast or famine with these assholes. You have the feeling JBL would have been bringing that up every 30 seconds during the match, and here it's just "oh hey btw". Why did they bother having her go undefeated on so many PPVs, even when her winning sometimes didn't make the most sense for the storyline at the time. They had to do so many damn title changes to keep that streak going, and now it's just "oh, hey, that's over!"

10. Goldberg vs. Kevin Owens

ER: This went as expected, but I'm reallllllly wondering when they're actually going to have Goldberg work a full match. They can't have him squash Brock again, and they're running out of time to figure out what they want out of him. Truthfully, *I* don't know what I want from Goldberg at this point, yet I weirdly enjoy seeing him.

ER: Not really much of a PPV. Roman/Braun was top notch, and Gallagher is a loon, and I liked the Club/Enzo/Cass tag WAY more than I expected, but then there was a lotttttt of shrug.

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WWE Fastlane 2016 Live-ish Blog

1. 2/3 Falls: Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto

ER: Wow, the U.S. Title match is on the pre-show?? The main card is filled with such important stuff that the 2/3 falls match just can't squeeze in. That must mean the main card is stacked, right? I really haven't loved how these two have matched up in their previous 19 matches over the last month, but it's possible they'll turn it on when the lights are at their brightest (which is the pre-show of the PPV wedged in between their two important PPVs). But guess what, this completely rules. ADR went after the arm at the bell, Kalisto countered with leg kicks and tried to game him with fast roll-ups, and then ADR awesomely ended the 1st fall by braining Kalisto with a chair after taking a rana into the timekeeper's stall. I loved the psych, like Rude/Steamboat iron man of taking a step back to take a few forward. Right after getting DQ'd ADR just pounced on him and starting tossing him into every barrier, really punishing him before getting the inevitable 2nd fall. ADR hits his double stomp off the barrier into the ground and it looked really good, just stomping right through Kalisto. But Kalisto's little hope spots and headscissors were nice, loved ADR flinging himself into the mat on the short rana, loved him getting spiked on a tornado DDT, loved the snap on ADR's spinning backbreaker, loved little things like Kalisto able to roll to the floor to avoid potential pinfalls, just really thought they clicked in a way that I think has been missing from all of their many prior matches. Finish was cool with ADR setting up Kalisto for the stomp and Kalisto fighting back while on the buckles. It would have looked too ADR just lifting himself into the move) so I loved the direction they took, with him doing a lucha head drag to toss ADR into the buckles and then getting that flash pin he had been trying for early. Really fun stuff here.

2. Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch vs. Naomi & Tamina

ER: Wow Tamina is still really bad. How long has she been on the roster? 5 years? Stunned her last name has allowed her to last this long while still looking this terrible. Watch her whiff on a lariat, then admire her limp chinlock, then admire her awkwardly dragging Lynch away from the ropes to pin her even though Lynch wasn't near the ropes. You also are not shocked that she punches worse than Michael Shane. Everybody else looked really good though, but damn Tamina was in so much of this. Lynch takes a wild bump to the floor, really launching herself off a Tamina throw. I loved how they filmed Lynch trying to tag in Sasha, as at first it looked like Sasha jumped out of the way of the tag, before they revealed that Naomi had yanked her down. Loved the Sasha/Naomi segment as Naomi was great feeding Sasha, and they set up the Rear View perfectly with Sasha chasing Tamina around and back into the ring while Naomi laid in wait. Tamina for her part even hit a nice superkick down the stretch, so even she wasn't an entire waste. I really liked this, thought the ladies who normally looked good, looked good.

3. Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: Ziggler's hair immediately makes me want to watch him take a stomping. Man what an asshole. Half-mast cornrows. Wow. Either go all the way and have tons of beads, or just turn heel already. This haircut would be majestic on a heel. Imagine Rush showing up at Arena Mexico with this haircut. It would be amazing. But a guy I'm supposed to be backing? Ehhhhhh. Owens does politely grant me my wish right out of the gate, by ambushing Ziggler with a thrust headbutt and commencing the beating. I dig all of Owens' sentons, with that one to a on-all-fours Ziggler being especially mean. Both guys see who can take a bump into the buckles better, and it's a tough call between Ziggler violently running shoulder first into it (looked so painful in slo-mo) or Owens flying into the post and crashing to the floor. Ziggler's comeback is hot and his jumping elbows looked so good. We eventually break down into big moves nearfall territory, but I actually kept digging it the whole way through. Ziggler's HBK tribute act is confusing and strange. But all their shit looked good, and even though Owens seems to have taken some shit online lately I thought he was good here. Crazy that his twisting superplex is not a finisher, but I loved him scrambling behind the ref to dodge the superkick,  dug the rana into the ring steps, loved Owens mocking a fan's "Ohio Hearts Ziggler" sign and ripping it out of his hands postmatch. Yeah this mostly devolved into overkill, but it never really bugged me. Sometimes overkill immediately makes me zone out, and other times it doesn't. I am an inconsistent, infuriating human being. But I liked this. 

4. The Wyatt Family vs. Big Show, Ryback & Kane

ER: If Kane has to be around, I'd rather have him lumped in a 6 man. And Ryback with a nice missile dropkick. That looked really cool. I liked Harper/Ryback (those Harper palm strikes!!!), actually liked Ryback/Braun as Braun looks dangerous in a slightly untrained way, but still threw some really nice kicks to the stomach....but then Kane/Rowan look several miles off during their exchanges. And I just noticed Saxton is just standing there behind the announce desk. What a shithead. There are no other chairs we can get this guy? Is this one of those jackoff punishments because Saxton took the large piece of chicken breast from catering? Ryback's "Big Guy" tights are really embarrassing. That's like something you'd see on a dog sweater, or a newborn baby onesie, or something you'd wear to leather night at the White Swallow. Rowan has the pinfall break-up of the night with a massive splash out of nowhere to crush Ryback, and Big Show does a killer press slam on Harper to the floor. Love press slams and that one was huge. Love Show's running shoulder tackle on Braun too. Even Kane looked good booting Bray, who went down like a shot. Holy shit this got good right before it ended. This is a really fun night of wrestling so far.

ER: What in the hell is this Vince MacMahon Legacy Award for Ultimate Big Dick Excellence nonsense? This can't be legit, right? Is it just something for HHH and Steph to trade wins on every year? I can picture JBL now "Mahgul you're looking at the 7 time Vince MacMahon Excellence of the Universe Award winner, the Game!!"

ER: Wow the WWE Photoshop department deserves HUGE credit for making Ric Flair look like a human being in the Charlotte/Brie pre-match graphic. I mean holy shit they made him look like a god! This is beyond blending in Shawn Michaels' hair tuft, they straight gave Flair an actual person face. You see him in the hype video and his face is a bloated, stretched, toothy plastic surgery mess. But in that graphic he's got warm steely eyes, a strong jaw, actual facial definition, lush and short fashionable haircut instead of that patchy constantly wet and slick mess he's been working with for many years. Good work team, all around.

5. Brie Bella vs. Charlotte

ER: Really getting sick of Ric at ringside for every Charlotte match. It's not doing her any favors at this point. Match was better than I expected it to be. Slow pace is probably the best to avoid anything blown, though even then both of them had some sketchy moments. I liked the Alabama Slam spot with Brie hanging on through a couple attempts, and the end run got good with that nice Brie dropkick to Charlotte on the apron. Dug the Yes Lock rolled into a really sick single leg crab. Submissions in Divas matches always look so killer because they're so bendy, but I thought they made it look good. I have a feeling Charlotte will be champion for fucking ever and I'm in for a lifetime of "RESPECT HER CHAMPION BLOOD" JBL horseshit.

6. Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles

ER: Man Byron Saxton is the worst, and that's with Michael Cole and JBL plopped around you. Oh yeah, Styles grew up admiring Jericho's Japan work? What Japan stuff is that Byron? I do like that they're pushing Styles as a teenager who tape traded for WAR tapes. If at any point your booking of any wrestler is to make them sound like teenage me, it means you fucked up. "Styles used to love tape trading and practicing the trombone and going over baseball stats on his bedroom floor!" And I'm not really sure how I feel about this match. Half of it felt like AJ slowing down his shit so Jericho could keep up. But sometimes Jericho's rustiness clicked with what Styles was doing. I loved Jericho's super quick bump over the turnbuckles to the floor, and then him catching Styles with a dropkick off a plancha right after was good enough to hold up in slo-mo. But then there was flat out painful stuff like Styles setting up the springboard spot for endless seconds as Jericho got in position, or Jericho kinda just falling off the ropes to do the Walls counter. We hilariously have the Styles Clash kicked out of, in what is like Styles third match in the company. If he kicked out of it, at least the match ended right after with the calf crusher, as I can buy using the last of your strength to kick out and having nothing left to defend the sub. Jericho on TV just doesn't work for me though. I really like old man workers, as there's this extra level of sympathy with them just being older and slower and more frail, and extra excitement when they make their comebacks. They're just easier to get behind. But Jericho doesn't work as sympathetic old man, he still works like move for move workrate star, except he's slow and sloppy. His whole thing just doesn't work for me.

ER: I saw an ad for the Edge/Christian show earlier in the program and in 20 seconds they managed to make me cringe twice with Edge comedy, so this New Day/E&C segment gets a no brainer fast forward from me. I think Christian has some comedy chops, but Edge is about as broad of a hack as you can get.

7. R-Truth vs. Curtis Axel

ER: Wow. This is on a PPV. 2/3 Falls match for the US Title? Oh that's on the pre-show. I mean, there's no real difference anymore between pre-show and PPV, except I'm still far more people still watch the PPV's and skip over the pre-shows. Maybe they're trying to get people to watch pre-shows, so they're putting title matches on there now? I don't know. Gotta advance those dead hour Raw angles I guess.

8. Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well hot damn this was all hot damn. Wow. No bullshit, all mammoth spots and ass beating, really well laid out, just a great match. Brock is just the best. I could watch him murder dudes all damn day. Like just start up a Suplex City channel on the Network and post everything Brock has ever done, and I'm there. But the crazy thing about Brock just throwing dudes, is that Brock TAKING moves is maybe even better! I love how naturally he takes offense, how it's not just rapid fire flat back bumps, it's like a level of Kawada selling. When he gets blasted with the superman punch he just staggers back fast, drops quick spaghetti legged to a knee, rolls down to the floor. It's so much more layered than most selling, really shows how he fully understands who he is relative to his opponents. Watch him get speared by Reigns whole holding Ambrose and be impressed by him having the presence of mind to get speared, while tossing Ambrose's body PAST Reigns, instead of dangerous dropping him on Reigns' back and legs. Looked great AND was deceptively safe. The "Brock gets taken out" moments of his big matches are always big time, and I loved him getting plastered through a table and covered in the wreckage. It's a shame we usually don't get the visual of the monster emerging and roaring out of the collapsed building, but I like the surprise emergence of Brock no matter how it's shown. I liked the immediacy of Ambrose and Reigns once they had the monster buried, and I love how into Ambrose the crowd was. Ambrose going big time on everybody with a chair was great, and some of those chairshots looked gnarly. I was really hoping that Ambrose was just going to continue crushing everybody with chairshots until nobody had a chance of kicking out, but the finish still worked even if it created a match I have zero interest in seeing. But damn was this match every single thing I was hoping it would be. So damn good.


ER: Really fun show overall. I don't think I've enjoyed a WWE PPV more than this since we started doing live blogs for them. They always seem to end with BS finishes or just be plagued with bad matches, but I enjoyed almost all of the matches on this one, and fast forwarded through what I'm sure was a terrible comedy segment, and I was left overall feeling super glad I watched it. Really good show.

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WWE Money in the Bank 2015 Live Blog

We've done most of these, and I got some time before watching the Silicon Valley/Veep season finales, so let's do this until I get bored.

1. Wade Barrett vs. R-Truth

ER: Seems like almost anybody who ends up winning KOTR, and then starts dressing like a king, always ends up just completely dead as a character in mere weeks. I think King Regal was the only one I actually enjoyed. I think he's the only one who played it with the proper gravitas. I mean just look at how far this crown has gotten him! He has the honor of appearing on the kickoff show of arguably the 8th most important WWE PPV of the year! Feuding over a crown feels not quite as important as feuding over a really nice parking space, or an upgrade to a first class plane ticket. Those feel like things that the crowd would get more invested in. I can't imagine people caring about a fake crown, but I can see people thinking "Man, more leg room would probably be sweet on a long flight".  That's already getting me interested. But this match felt exactly like a match that took place on a kickoff show. Short match with a commercial break in the middle, literally nothing of note happens. I mean I *just* watched this thing, and remember nothing about it. Great start to the night!

2. Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Randy Orton vs. Neville vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I wish they had Cena and Owens in this match. Seems like that would have more interesting story potential than just immediately rematching them 2 weeks later. This whole briefcase gimmick does nothing for me anymore. It's silly to put it on a face as it makes them look like opportunistic weenies if they cash it in while a guy is weak, but makes them look stupid if they don't. And it's beyond played out to use it as a device to get over a heel. Early on and they might have set the record for "earliest time 5 guys all lie around outside the ring selling death so 2 guys can fight easily inside the ring". Seems like we hit that around the 3 minute mark, just everybody lying around the ring as if they had been through a war. Some people had hardly even taken a bump at that point! This whole thing is one giant mess of 5 people death selling and two people slow climbing. Kofi at one point was selling on the floor for 7 minutes! Cool he put over a nasty powerbomb, but jesus get the doctors after minute #2! Just not enough logical ways to put a guy out of commission for that long. Michael Cole screaming "WILL THIS BE THE BEGINNING OF THE NEVILLE ERA!?!?" made me laugh. "The Neville Era". That sounds so fucking stupid. Eventually Sheamus shows that HE is the greatest climber of them all!! Man this was bad. A couple of good spots, liked Orton pulling Neville off the ladder into an RKO, Kofi getting tossed onto the group looked good, but the amount of selling on the floor was absurd when you think of what moves each individual actually took in the match. Cole is BAFFLED after the match, cannot think of ANY reason why Bray Wyatt would attack Roman Reigns. Yeah, it's a total mystery. These guys have worked together for so long, after all.

3. Nikki Bella vs. Paige

ER: This is pretty easily the best match of the night so far. Paige appears to be working over Nikki's tits as I've seen more than one back elbow straight to a boob. Also dug Paige's weird over the shoulder single leg takedown out of the corner. Nikki has fun offense which she's actually good at executing, and I liked some of the knees and stomps in this. Brie tossing out her boob padding was amusing, and Nikki's KO blow on Paige looked great. Clearly a much more interesting and better laid out match than the MITB match. Who the hell is even laying out their gimmick matches now? Between that ladder match and all the horrible Chamber matches, somebody is badly fucking up.

4. Big Show vs. Ryback

ER: Fairly fun match until that completely bankrupt finish. Miz is one of the most fast forwardable guys in wrestling. I'm surprised he's still wrestling after those concussion years ago, as ever since he came back from those he has never been able to take offense, especially strikes. He holds his arms out extended almost completely whenever taking anything to the head or face.

5. Kevin Owens vs. John Cena

ER: After Elimination Chamber, Phil talked about how Cena may have become the best indy dream match worker, and after this match I'm with him. It's too much fun seeing Cena pull out all sorts of new offense in his late 30s, and work reversal heavy indy matches. It's also kind of crazy just how much offense they're letting Owens do. I mean they have made every single wrestler reel in their arsenal, and Owens is wrestling almost exactly the same as he would in PWG. I can't totally wrap my brain around it. Has their been any worker of the last decade who they have changed LESS? This rematch is a little overly long, but if you're working a PWG tribute match than obviously you HAVE to go too long. That is of utmost importance. It did get a bit move-tradey which isn't my favorite, but it was balanced out by seeing Cena break out a Code Red and a nice rana and take shit like rotating superplexes and a powerbomb into the apron. Steen stealing all of Cena's offense and doing it better was a nice touch; loved his fist drop. Steen also did a good job covering for the potential Code Red blunder, acting like he was attempting to reverse it and do EZ Money's old Money Bag finisher. This was all super fun but I will repeat that I wish these two would have been in the MITB match instead, so we wouldn't have Cena getting his win back just two weeks later.  At least Steen got to be a total shithead postmatch, people will remember him killing Cena after more than they'll remember his loss.

6. Xavier Woods & Big E vs. Prime Time Players

ER: Good tag and nice to see PTP get the belts. Hopefully they get to hang onto them for awhile. Young played FIP most of the match and Titus is a great hot tag guy. Great clothesline over the top, great backbreaker followed by tossing Woods aside, nice Pounce. This guy has major star potential and it seems like they may be realizing that. Big E takes a nice missed shoulder into the post, and then breaks out a CRAZY suicide dive/spear while Young was on the apron. Also loved Big E locking on an abdominal stretch while slapping the New Day Rocks chant on Young's ribs. Nice little touch. Nice tag match.

7. Ladder Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Man I really dug this, my favorite singles match between these two. I mean jeez I'm not sure any match needs 35 minutes. I wonder what was the last WWE singles match that went 35. Still this was plenty brutal and there were some just lunatic spots, the kind of things you expect to see when you go to an indy show that takes place behind a bar with untrained workers. I loved how most of this wasn't a climbing contest like that shitfest of a MITB match. Instead it was more of a fight that used ladders as weapons, and only for climbing when necessary. Focusing on the asskicking instead of the climbing is a simple but HUGE difference. Ambrose was great at getting his knee worked over. I don't recall the last time I bought into a figure four that much, I bought into the pain, and Rollins was killer with his "How ya gonna climb the ladder, Dean!? How ya gonna climb!?" The knee couldn't be sold the WHOLE time but I thought he was good at going back to it. Rollins took some manly shots, getting annihilated with a clothesline off the top rope, getting knocked ass over elbow off the rebound lariat (which was nicely countered a couple times). All of the nasty bumps onto ladders, over announce tables, into the barricades, it was nutty fucking stuff. The big stuff looked great, the small stuff like Ambrose's shots to the ribs and Rollin's shit talk all worked, and I actually enjoyed the shitty finish. Not sure where this leaves Ambrose though.

Overall a good show. The actual gimmick match the PPV is named for was atrocious, but everything else was inoffensive at worst, all the way up to really good. So that's not a horrible night of wrestling right there.

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WWE Fastlane Live Blog

1. Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan & Ryback vs. Seth Rollins, Big Show & Kane

PAS: Pretty fun poor man's Shield trios match. They should just open every PPV with a six man, and give it some time. It is a good way to hide limited guys, they can just come in and hit their stuff. Thought Rowan looked really good, the bump to hurt his knee was cool, and his selling was good. Finish run wasn't as great as your Shield end runs, but I loved the running KO punch finisher. Not the most unique way to reintroduce Orton, but it was a good idea to have him go away for a bit.

ER: A six man is pretty tough to do poorly if you give it time, and this was a perfectly good six man. I read they had plans to make Rollins look strong on this show going into WM, and Rollins arguably looked like the weakest guy in the match. Rowan owned this match, if they wanted to push it as such it could be a real nice way to advance him. He looked strong in all his early stuff, big elbow and leg drop, and was going toe to toe with the big guys, until the brutal spin kick into the post (which looked good). Then he was a good FIP (even putting over Show doing goofy-but-amusing Indian deathlocks) all building to him using his dead leg to spin kick Rollins. Ryback was over and came in and hit some cool stuff, loved his powerbomb that just launched Rollins. Finish was a little lackluster and Kane really needs to stop getting PPV wins, and I was really enjoying my Orton vacation, but again the six man is tough to mess up and this worked  in a vacuum. As far as booking going forward? Rollins was an afterthought throughout, Ziggler refuses to not get any sort of chance, and I doubt Rowan gets a strong singles push.

2. Goldust vs. Stardust

ER: I thought they did about as much as possible with the full non build they received. A rushed break up one week before the show, thrown out on PPV with not much story or reason. I'll never understand their obsession with breaking up teams who nobody actually thinks will be better off solo. They've tried Cody solo, he's always far more successful in team. Goldust is obviously a great singles worker but they're not actually going to push him as a singles star. So I thought the match was fine even though Cody works much better as a tag guy. Goldust tried his damnedest to get the crowd into it and I liked his selling of the body vice, even holding his side convincingly all through the post match. Goldust dished some nasty back elbows while in the vice, and even though that finisher came out of nowhere I thought Goldust setting it up was super impressive. The guy is 45 and moved through all those reversal sequences like butter. Cody only really looked good in the backstage post match stuff, lacing into Goldust with stiff rights and nailing a low superkick. Still not sure about the need to break them up, or where the hell they take things from here.

3. Usos vs. Cesaro/Tyson Kidd

ER: Cesaro is wearing knee pads and after years of being conditioned the other way this now looks weird (even though it took a long time to get over guys like Casas who go in there with just boots and undies). And damn I really dug this. Cesaro/Kidd worked really great as a team. Usos have been dry as dirt the last few months so I liked Cesaro/Kidd working over the leg in the first part. The knee stuff was cool with Cesaro hitting the wild double stomp. This is the best Kidd performance I've seen in some time, he looked really on point and his timing was spot on. Loved the stuff on the apron with him booting an Uso in the face, going for another and getting rocked with a Samoa drop into the guard rail. That was a great spot. Cesaro gets to break out his epic superplex lifting the guy from the apron, and I'm glad they put the titles on them. Usos had a good run and I think they need to go back to fighting from under. Finish was abrupt but I liked the call back to the leg as Kidd blasting him in the knee was enough to allow him to hit his rolling fisherman suplex to win it. Nice tag. Still kinda crazy to think that we were getting a couple tags better than this every week on TV one year ago.

ER: I have zero interest in seeing a HHH/Sting confrontation. It will lead to HHH vs. Sting, which sounds horrible. I switch over to the Oscars during this. I saw most of the Best Picture noms this year. Boyhood and Whiplash were really great. Imitation Game was brutally bad. I liked what Birdman went for but felt more like a good idea than a good movie to me. Not a shock I loved Grand Budapest as well. American Sniper sounds like the name of a Toby Keith album.

4. Paige vs. Nikki Bella

ER: Boy another abrupt finish. Paige looked somewhat clunky, as her roll up into a turnbuckle was really weird. Dug the kick to a charging Nikki's arm, liked Nikki's selling of it, loved her big powerbomb. But I've seen better Nikki performances.

5. Dean Ambrose vs. Bad News Barrett

ER: Crowd is ice cold for this whole show and I think it's making things come off way worse than they actually are. Some guys have gotten chants but for a full looking house (all the cheap seats look full on cutaways) there have been a lot of silent moments. There's a black dude dressed up as Sting in the crowd but with his beanie it's reading more like Dead Presidents.

Oh god and we a DQ finish for not breaking a hold? Are we back to that thing where refs are supposed to call matches as if they were a shoot? That was about as limp a way to end a PPV match as possible. And hilariously it happens one minute after the crowd was actually threatening to get into the match. Both guys leaned way into each other's shots with Dean making all of BNB's big boots look great, and Wade really taking Dean's running dropkick and two rebound lariats nicely. Loved Dean's rebound lariat on the floor when BNB tried to throw him into the ring, and the rebound in the ring was the most the fans reacted to anything all night it seemed. And then. that. finish. Good gracious.

ER: Pretty sure the only people in the arena who thought Undertaker was in that casket was Cole and JBL. Although it is amusing to think about Bray Wyatt going through the process of hiring druids for this bit. Also liked them putting over how silent the crowd was out of reverence to the Undertaker. Looks like they've been paying that reverence for almost 2 hours now.

ER: I was just reminded that we didn't get Elimination Chamber this year because we got this show. Blecch. The Chamber was my favorite WWE gimmick match, always a fun way to use 6 guys. But hey. We got Fastlane.

6. John Cena vs. Rusev

ER: Really excited for this one as Cena vs. Monster matches are usually almost as dependable as Lawler vs. Monster matches. And the match ended up being good. Not the epic I was hoping for, but hopefully setting up an epic. I'm glad Rusev went over (although with their booking that usually means he will be going down at Mania), and I like him blasting Cena in the nards and locking on The Accolade. Cena's biggest strength has always been his bumping so he's always really effective in these kind of matches. Rusev still sometimes comes off as a guy with fake "real strength" but Cena is good at working with those types too, making throws seem more devastating. Cena also totally plants himself on a DDT that was a great spot. Loved the reversal into a Crossface by Cena, and enjoyed the match as a whole.

7. Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

PAS: Man you forget how good Daniel Bryan is at wrestling. This was really excellent. Reigns is a guy with some impressive spots, and Bryan built a really cool match around those spots. The liver kick was an awesome looking counter and working around him being stunner, makes Bryan smacking around a bigger guy much more credible. I loved Reigns as Rampage Jackson beating his way out of submissions with nasty forearms. I would hope that we get a rematch if Reigns wins the title. The Memphis crowd acting like this was Bill Dundee v. Big Red Reese hurt this a bit, but I still think this was WWE Match of the Year.

ER: Yeah this was really good, although I didn't love the finish of Roman taking tons of abuse and hitting a flash Spear. Not really loving the idea of The Spear as a death move, and didn't love how Reigns not only got to kick out of the knee but acted like he was pretty okay afterwards. Those are my complaints, the rest of the match was awesome, easily the best singles match Reigns has been a part of, and an awesome return to form for Bryan. This had some great moments and an epic build. I loved Reigns getting caught in an armbar, and then it looked like Bryan lost it but it worked great kayfabe as it allowed him to maneuver naturally to the center of the ring and lock in a particularly nasty YES lock. Bryan really laced in with those kicks, and the sequence of Roman catching that last kick (and you knew Bryan was taking just a biiiit too long to throw it), leading to them throwing slaps was awesome. Also loved Reigns catching the second dive was great, as after the first dive I thought "That didn't have the same impact his dives normally do" so it was already in my head that it was blockable, and then bam, caught, nasty throw. Jeez then we had the one spear attempt countered into the small package. Great match.

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Survivor Series Live Blog

ER: I'm doing even more internet wrestling writer self-flagellation than Phil as I'm skimming through the pre-show to see if there's anything hidden in there. It said on the screen "Exclusive match" so we'll see if that means an actual exclusive match, or just Booker T HOT TAKES. Every one of Booker T's hot takes boils down to "Me and my brother used to fight all the time, but we had each other's backs". I swear no matter what feud he's talking about, he immediately brings it to that.

We get a Bad News Barrett promo where he basically throws his hat in the ring as the new authority figure depending on how tonight shakes out. AJ also does a promo rolling her eyes at all the sister drama. This stuff feels like stuff that should be relegated to a pre-show. Cesaro in-ring promo is interrupted by Zeb, and Rachel hilariously points out that the moment Zeb comes out there was a prompt on the bottom of the screen saying that the broadcast is available in Spanish. Intentional or not that made me laugh.

1. Cesaro vs. Jack Swagger

ER: This is a nice little pre-show match. Can't complain about this. I was expecting something with some lesser guys like Fandango or Heath Slater. This was their Worldwide match, as it gets about 5 minutes and isn't great, but it's good enough. Cesaro gets a few nifty throws in including a nice overhead belly to belly. He sells an early ankle injury adequately, although it seems like a bit TOO much as he's selling it after being in the patriot lock for a few seconds which would be already selling the patriot lock more than it's ever been sold. There was a cool moment where Cesaro limps towards the corner, but uses it to decoy Swagger into a missed charge (which he runs nicely into the turnbuckles). Surprised to see Cesaro go down so easy and clean to the lock. I haven't been following the TV much lately, so it would appear like Cesaro's stock is plummeting like I assume WWE's is doing ever since launching the Network.

PAS: Opening up with a long Helmsley promo is a rough way to start a PPV, man I can't even fast forward through this like I can on RAW. I hope you fucks appreciate this. They are hitting the Cena heel turn so much here, that it feels like a rib on the Opinions for You bloggers. I can already see the long terrible Masked Man Grantland article I won't be reading on Monday.

ER: Opening MacMahons promo really felt like "hey none of you have been watching TV for the past month so here's a point by point rundown for you." I loved how apparently Stephanie didn't understand the match stipulations until she was literally standing in the ring at the PPV.

2. Mizdow vs. Usos vs. Dust Brothers vs. Matadores

PAS: The last three minutes of this were kind of fun, I liked the dive train and the crazy superplex was kind of neat. Didn't care for much else, I didn't hate Mizdow last week but it has moved over into Chikara territory for me now. Unfortunately I think this means the end of good PPV tag matches for a while.

MattD: I'd really wanted this to be Gold/Star vs Matadors since I want another month or two of featured Dustin matches and I didn't think they'd put the belts on the Matadors, but Miz/Mizdow is pretty much primed for that sort of focus as they build to a split.

I kind of love how after last year when the tag titles were used as sort of a big middle of the card match, now they're used to start off almost every PPV with a high speed, high action sort of match. They're the new cruiserweight title.

The best part of this match was the Gold/Star heeling in keeping Mizdow out: Stardust teasing it and then refusing, Dustin blind tagging him when he finally got in, just ramping up the anticipation for when he finally made it in at the end. Goldust working brunt of this match was the best way to run it. The double team with the sunset flip and the German was ridiculous but fun. I loved Stardust pushing a Matador into the post which set up the Usos getting tagged in later, and the hot tag set up with the tombstone fight into the spinning DDT was pretty great too. And I liked how they teased the Usos dive before they actually gave it to the crowd with the crazy dive sequence.

Finish was pretty much what I was expecting (well, not the goofy trainwreck belly to back suplex spot). It's Sandow's first actual title which is kind of amazing in this day and age. Hopefully Dustin can keep enough q-rating to make it to a Mania match vs Cody.

ER: Pre-match JBL hilariously and accurately rips apart the psychology of the match, saying "Why the hell would you ever tag yourself out!?" Yep, that's kind of why these matches are usually pretty stupid once you think about them for two seconds. Way to connect the dots for the blissfully ignorant. Cole desperately tries to explain why it might be good to tag out but since it is always a horrible idea, his explanation was really just stammering. I really dig Cody's gear, that red/gold/black combo looks really cool. Also really shocked at how over Damien Mizdow is. Was not expecting to hear a "We want Mizdow" chant. Good for him. Also love Goldust immediately tagging Mizdow out when he finally gets in.

Pretty sure none of the commentary crew can tell Los Matadores apart. Goldust was the easy highlight of this as he was able to make everybody look good, leaned way into the Usos hip strikes (I had written "leaned way into the Usos asses" but decided to change that a bit) and his offense looked consistently better than everybody else's. Miz still takes strikes like a guy who's suffered tons of concussions and is scared to get another one, as he actively leans out of all strikes while holding his hands out in front of his face. He made an Uso superkick land two feet in front of his face by jumping away from it so quickly. He's taken offense like this for the last 4 years. I dug Stardust's "Falling Star" tope en reverse. Kudos to Goldust for saving Torito from being on the bottom of a dive train dog pile. You can see Goldust lift him out of the way at the last second. Match was a pretty big mess and would have been much better with any of the team combos in just a normal tag match.

3. Divas Survivor Series Match

PAS: Wow this was given a bunch of time. Weird booking to have all of the heel eliminated and then have the heel champion fighting the odds. Man I don't watch most Diva matches, but they have some really nasty dangerous moves. What the hell was that released suplex Natayla did? JBL seemed like he was on the verge of burying this match like Mike Awesome v. Masato Tanaka.

MattD: Nattie looked like something out of the live action Masters of the Universe coming down. I saw Paige's great forearm and then had to deal with my wife freaking out about the winter storm we're getting on the I-95 corridor and explain to my Paige-pale 12 year old (as he played Minecraft) that no, he can't pull off calling people "sucka." He then explained to me that "Brotha' from another motha'" has become a very popular phrase. I'm sure somewhere Joel Gertner is proud. My feed froze during Summer being absolutely terrified at Naomi skidding across the ring towards her. I kind of wish I hadn't refreshed it after that.

The best part of this match was Paige repeatedly telling Summer she was an idiot, then trying to walk out in disgust. There were some decent enough exchanges in this but it was interminable. How did they give this thing so much time?

ER: I can safely say that I watch more Divas matches than any of the other Segunda Caiders. And I feel pretty safe saying that this is the best the division has ever been. I don't know this for sure but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Finlay was working with them again. JBL namedropping Aja Kong as having the most dominating "diva" Survivor Series moment is pretty great. Even pronounces her name "Ah-zhya" and everything. Boy I was really surprised this got 15 minutes. I thought a lot of the divas looked good. I'm a big Naomi fan, her stuff always has a nice snap and she gets crazy height for her "Rear View" from a standing position. Loved her headscissors to a kneeling Paige, and loved how Paige whipped her head right into it. Smart move getting Cameron out of their early, and dug some of Summer Rae's front kicks and her splashes to Naomi's arm. Alicia Fox is one of the best divas singles match workers, even tag matches, but she seems to be not good in multi man matches for whatever reason. I'm not sure why. This match would make a really good clipped highlight video. There were tons of great individual moments. They did not add up to 15 minutes worth of good match.

4. Bray Wyatt vs. Dean Ambrose

MattD: In watching old PPVs on the network, I've come to appreciate these video recap segments before the matches so that you get some sense of the feud, but they're a pain in the neck to watch on a PPV you already "bought."

They started this exactly as they should, charging at each other. Ambrose's little rotation preventing himself from getting tossed back into the ring was great. I'm sure he's done that before but I don't remember it. Ambrose chasing Bray across the ring after his Raven pose was a great spot too, and they followed it up with the counter off the dive. Nice little tease before Wyatt really took over. The Vader Attack cutoff followed by how much impact they put into the double clothesline on the floor was all good stuff.

Good last third WWE match stretch, with both Ambrose and Wyatt throwing bombs, countering each other's token moves, and both of them paying for going up top. The standing elbow drop was something out of a badly programmed NES wrestling game but in the best way. The ending worked well enough. You knew we weren't going to get something clean since it was a start of a feud and this set up TLC nicely, and really, was just what Dean needed on this PPV by showing the crowd how he's NOT Cena.

PAS: I really liked this, just a nasty fight with both guys beating the shit out of each other. I loved all of the car crash spots as both guys were just colliding into each other with abandon. Dean's crazy dive off the apron was and although the Bray on the microphone was a bit hokey, it kind of worked for me. Finish wasn't the craziest bit of table work we have seen but the character stuff by Dean really made it. These guys could have a great TLC match I am really looking forward to it.

ER: So much good stuff in this. I was expecting a good match and they more than delivered. I think "unorthodox" might be the most overused term by WWE announcers. I think at this point they've called every worker unorthodox. I'm not sure who they think is orthodox. And while technically inaccurate, it's a shame Goldberg wasn't here during this period. Ambrose has been my absolute favorite wrestler this year and he really is the greatest possible version of Roddy Piper in They Live. They were just constantly slamming into each other during this and I expect they had a bet going to see who could dislocate both shoulders first. Every single exchange was just super violent and I have no clue how Ambrose has been relatively healthy his whole career. Seems like I always want to write the word "fling" when talking about Ambrose. It's really the only time I use it. I no longer have "flings" so the word is useless to me in that sense. But every Ambrose match I always end up talking about he just "flings" his whole damn body at his opponent. He really does, and it looks fabulous. I think we can definitively say that their double clothesline spot was the greatest iteration of that spot in wrestling history. Normally it's a spot that predictably defies physics, but here Bray charges at fairly full speed and both appear to try and clothesline each other as damn hard as possible. I'm surprised neither guy got their arm ripped off, like two drag racers getting too close and knocking each others mirrors off. I like how the rebound elbow really only works for Ambrose 2/3 of the time, it's fun in an "opponent scouted it" kind of way. Every shot in this match landed with a nice thud, all of the nasty clotheslines, all the elbows, Bray going forehead first into a chair on that DDT. Their strike exchanges look truly unique, not like two guys who mapped them out, but like two off balance guys trying to sneak shots in. Ending was flat but it kind of should have been since no man should get a leg up on the other yet. I loved all of this.

5. Adam Rose/Bunny vs. Heath Slater/Gator

PAS: I was really disappointed that Sting wasn't revealed as the Bunny

ER: Adam Rose does nothing for me. He comes off as a really embarrassing old guy trying to be cool, but it's some weird version of what WWE thinks is cool. I guess "cool" is pretty subjective, but whatever Rose is supposed to be doesn't strike me as cool, interesting, fun-loving, entertaining, whatever. I'm sure some people think eye liner and greying goatees are cool though. Bunny had a nice missile dropkick.

ER: Backstage HHH addresses his team and says that there are no other 5 guys that he would have on his team. Normally those kind of statements can pretty easily be shot full of holes, but in a kayfabe sense when you think of guys he had at his disposal, that statement seems pretty accurate.

6. AJ Lee vs. Niki Bella

PAS: I couldn't have taken another Diva's match so no beef with that.

ER: I thought this was an okay way to move the title off AJ. She doesn't lose too much luster as she basically got tricked, but at the same time Nikki comes off like she outsmarted using a weird tactic that AJ wouldn't have thought of. Nikki is a shockingly better wrestler than people give her credit for so I was actually looking forward to the match, but I got other shit to do tonight so I'm not complaining about this.

7. Team Cena v. Team Authority

PAS: Liked parts of this a lot. Was pretty amazed at how irrelevant Cena felt in this match. Obviously Ziggler was the focus of this match, but honestly Erik Rowen got more showcase moments then Cena. I have never been a big Ziggler fan, but this was a pretty great performance, big time main event matches make his kind of bumping and selling appropriate, in a way it always seemed silly in four minute Smackdown matches. I was a little bummed to see Henry go out so quickly, no problem with the quick KO f but Kane is right there to be out in 20 seconds. Also didn't they just do remorseful Big Show making a decision for his family a year ago? Mainly that whole sport entertainment finish with Sting took forever and felt like the early days of weekly TNA PPVs where they would do a surprise debut every show (It's Vader! It's Sandman! It's Fat Tony Schivonie in a T-Shirt.) Still this kind of match is a fun showcase for a lot of guys, and a good way to hide limited guys who can do a couple of things.

MattD: So, I was putting the toddler down during the last two matches and the tablet can't run the Network well; it can run YouTube though and I watched Funk vs Hansen from 1982 instead and I think it's safe to say it was a better use of my time.

It bugs me that Noble and Mercury's ties don't match. I spent the entire babyface entrance annoyed that Kane and Rusev weren't switched in place so it could be Rollins in the middle, the giants on the end, and the champs in the middle. I was disappointed when Steph and Triple H left the apron since I really hoped that they did the "someone tries to tag Steph" spot. I like Kane a whole 14% more than the next guy, but couldn't he have been the one to eat the KO punch instead of Henry? I for one am glad that Ryback's gear says "Then" and not "Than." like it did last week. They really couldn't find a better way to protect him?

The Show-in-Peril segment was really good, with the heels making quick tags well. I didn't like the one on Dolph as well; it seemed to drag to me, though the hope spot cut offs were all pretty enjoyable. Cena is a really poor man's Mizdow on the apron. i wonder if Mercury and Noble can hear the Vince-Yelling-At-The-Announcers feed through those gimmick earpieces. It all ended with Rusev power bombing Dolph onto everyone and I swear I thought he was about to follow it up with a dive. Instead he missed the splash on the table and Dolph KOing himself on the stairs was probably the most ridiculous thing on a night of ridiculous things.

I like how they teased Rowan vs Haper before letting it happen. Rowan against giants is great, both the dropkick he did to Show and the hanging sleeper he tried on Rowan. The single best thing Rollins does is come flying in off the side of the screen. He'd be a good mid-card trios match tecnico in Mexico.

And that's what they went with with Cena? Really? I guess that really running Dolph vs the World could make Dolph. They do it too, with it all culminating in the domino spot and Triple H really noticing Ziggler for the first time in years. It's obvious that the Armstrong Curse is what summoned Sting. And say what you will about over the hill Sting but that felt like only the third or fourth special moment WWE's had all year and I think it lived up to whatever possible hype they could have had for Sting. Rollins and Dolph are the real winners of the injury bug this year. Survivor Series matches have low ceilings and they're really about something other than star ratings and in that regard this delivered in the way they needed it to with the eyes on it.

ER: Analytically I like the Henry elimination, but as a guy actually watching the match I was hoping to see a LOT of Henry in this as I like him opposite all the members of Team Cena. Fun little Ryback run with Rollins taking a massive Eddie style backdrop into the ropes and Ryback doing an awesome delayed vertical suplex on Harper. It's pretty impressive how quickly Rusev has improved since being up on the main roster. I thought he looked pretty bad earlier in the year in the NXT I watched, and now he's a guy with tons of cool unique offense (love his axe kicks and knee lift varieties) who knows how to play to his strengths. The table spot was really fun and he really just dove into an empty pool on it.

I really liked Ziggler in this, and I really LOVED the final few minutes with Rollins/Ziggler. I can't always get into "athletic men wrestling athletically with athleticism" but that was a cool hot stretch. I love that Rowan got a great fired up run, sprinting all over and KOing dudes off the apron, big spin kick on Harper. Harper also came off like a star in this and it's cool to see a guy like him treated like a big deal. His dive always makes me flip out.

So that ending. I was into it. Loved the Ziggler/Rollins stuff, loved the falling dominoes Steph spot...and then Sting came out, and we had some silent staring, and the fans were way more into it than I would have guessed, and then eventually Ziggler gets the win. So....Ziggler and Rollins were just knocked unconscious for like 7 minutes!? Both of them were just lying there not moving, and then Sting put Ziggler's limp lifeless body on the also lifeless Rollins for the win. I must say that after 7 minutes without resuscitation it's quite possible that Rollins and Ziggler now will have pretty nasty brain damage to deal with. Pretty selfish, Sting. Your long entrance may have caused mild retardation in two of the most popular guys in WWE.

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WWE Hell in a Cell 2014 Live Blog

We are giving this another shot. Phil will be in for sure. Eric is a maybe

Dolph Ziggler v. Cesaro

One of the better Ziggler matches I have seen, Cesaro clearly is the PPV show stealer at this point. It got a little counter movey for me, but there was a bunch of pretty great counters. I liked all of the early matwork and all of the work out of the choke which ended up with Cesaro lifting Ziggler into the superplex was great. Cesaro seems to work in a new cool strength spot in every match. I do like them mixing it up with Ziggler winning 2 straight falls, although I think Cesaro needs to win one of these matches one of these days.

Nikki Bella v. Brie Bella

Not exactly professional looking stuff, but I have to give it to them, if it is going to look awkward you might as well make it violent. There was a knee which looked like it broke a Bella nose and another running knee which looked gross. Kept it moving and didn't drag. Gets the full worldwide point.

Stardust/Goldust v. Usos

Have to love we are getting a long Dustin Rhodes PPV match every month in 2014. I loved Dustin in this, he is really nasty when he is on offense, and a great heel in peril. Loved his spinebuster and that crazy face first over the top bump, also liked the finish, felt like a nifty way to steal a victory, with the kick to the knee.

John Cena v. Randy Orton

I have to give these guys some credit, I had no interest in this match up, but ended up enjoying it OK. I really liked both Orton RKO counters, the one out of the shoulder block was a cool way of mixing up a stale set of spots. We knew this was going to have a ton of kick outs, but they at least tried some different stuff. I really think they need to mix up the standard WWE brawling staples of chairs and tables, I hope Ambrose and Rollins bring some different stuff.

Miz v. Sheamus

I think I am in a good mood, as I enjoyed this too. The Mizdow stuff is fun comedy, while still existing within the world of wrestling rules. Has Miz always worked this stiff, his kicks were pretty nasty looking and the elbows in the corner after the clothesline was actually violent looking. Everything on this show so far has been pretty good.

Big Show v. Rusev

I liked this a bunch too. Rusev had some cool spots, the suplex was really impressive looking. I also really liked the finish with Rusev chopping down the Big Show with superkicks like an axe felling an oak. Big Show is awesome, I prefer heel Andre to heel Big Show, but face Big Show is the best babyface giant ever. Also happy they didn't do a hack Mark Henry turn.

AJ Lee v. Paige

That bump on the barricade was pretty nasty, but the rest of this match looked pretty awkward. This was the first bad thing on the show

Seth Rollins v. Dean Ambrose

Man that is two PPV's in a row with really dogshit endings to otherwise good matches. I liked Rollins and Ambrose as sort of a bloodless CZW Cage of Death. Rollins took a huge beating, and the double cage falls kind of built this up as a big deal, but man what a deflating way to end this feud. I really hate when they try to set up the next show by taking all of the steam out of the show you are watching. I imagine Ambrose v. Wyatt family will be fine, but just run the angle after the match is over.

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