WWE Hell in a Cell 6/20/21

Mandy Rose vs. Natalya

ER: I really liked this, living up to the usually strong level of 8 minute match that happen on the pre-show. Natalya is so boring, and so confoundingly mad, because she has a good performance like this once every six months. Occasionally she'll bring actual shooter personality into a match, and Mandy has no problem doing that either. You can tell when a match is a little more chippy than expected, and this actually made their little confrontation building this match more interesting. They treated it seriously, had a match with some really good moments and a great pace. This felt like an interesting fight atmosphere that had a ton of one-upping, so many matches can feel totally disconnected from the reason the match is happening in the first place. They had an abdominal stretch reversal sequence that I really loved, with Mandy wrenching one in and slapping Natalya in the face, to have Natalya reverse it by grinding her elbow into Mandy's knee, and then they were both grinding elbows between ribs and over kneecaps, a really great sequence. They kept things snug the whole match, working tight headlocks and convincing submissions, and it's just really annoying that Natalya can do this twice a year. The broken clock of wrestling. This was Natalya's best match this year; Rose has been a consistently strong TV worker all year, but this was her best work in 2021. Two people coming together to have their best match in at least 6 months is always going to be a great thing. 

Bianca Belair vs. Bayley

ER: I liked this a lot though I do think it lost steam at the end. I don't think this match really needed the Cell and once they finally built to using it I think it shifted focus. Up until then I was into it all, thought Bayley was great at running hard into everything, and I loved the focus on Bayley distracting Bianca by going after her hair. Bianca whipping her hair into a chair is a funny spot, but Bayley tying her braid to ropes or a chair or standing on it was awesome.  Bianca was great at fighting out of it and Bayley's heel ringwork was good. The use of the ring steps and a chair was good, less interested in seeing the kendo sticks and have kendo stick prop set up time for a spot that would have been nastier as just a suplex on the floor. Bayley's strong presence playing off Bianca gave it a high floor, but I don't think this was as good as Mandy/Natalya. HIAC gimmick makes them think they have to go long, but it's fine to have a hot 12 minute HIAC rather than a 20 minute one that drags in spots. They have been trapped into associating this match with "long main event" regardless of feud or card placement. 

Cesaro vs. Seth Rollins

ER: There aren't many things that excite me less than the promise of a Seth Rollins match, but I think I like these non-main event Rollins matches so much more that my opinions have to course correct a bit. He's been on a nice in-ring run since Mania, and this was a good match that felt fresh, even though these guys have been having matches on WWE TV for many years now. Rollins was going after Cesaro's eye and I thought his punches at the eye looked great, and thought their chemistry was strong the whole match. I bit at all of the nearfalls, especially loved Rollins' small package roll up as Cesaro grabbed the legs for the big swing. Rollins gets good height on Cesaro's big stuff, it's a good match-up for this part of the card. 

Shayna Baszler vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: It's a shame because I think Bliss's work during non-horseshit parts of this match were great, every one of her cutoff elbows made for a great moment, I just will not ever enjoy this mind control "Shayna is scared to make eye contact with Bliss" nonsense. Even when they do it "well" like with Nia being forced to slap Reginald, it's the thing I'd rather not ever see in wrestling. Call me a crank, I'm fine with that being a line for me. The actual wrestling in the match made me just want to see a straight match between them. Bliss is good at elbowing Shayna in the mouth and actually finding ways to be the smaller aggressor, and I don't think I've ever seen them wrestle before. But it was always going to come down to boogeyman stuff and I can at least thank Shayna for spiking herself on a DDT and Abigail even though she had to make a lot of derpy hypnotized faces. 

Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens

ER: This was their match, and they have managed to have their match in various interesting ways for longer than maybe anyone else in WWE. They always know how to add a little extra edge and Zayn especially is on a fine role. His conspiracy theorist asshole character works great with his ring style (or vice versa?) and he's been putting in some of my favorite work of his decade. Zayn gets his mouth busted open and both guys throw strikes that count, and both always seem to have a special desire to bounce on their shoulders and heads for offense. The always have lightly different ways to have the same good match, and this was no different. 

Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair

ER: Didn't care for this. I swear I looked at the clock during this and the number went down. 

Bobby Lashley vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: Didn't care for all of this either, and it was mainly due to the 25 minutes. We've seen these two match up several times since Mania and this felt like the least necessary of the bunch. There was a lot of good damage in the match, but ending a long HIAC match with a distraction roll up feels like a tough finish to pull off in 2021. Both landings through tables looked gross (Drew's death drop to the floor looked great) but the vibe just wasn't there for me here like it's been with the Mania, Backlash, and Raw matches. 

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WrestleMania 37 Night One 4/10/21

I couldn't watch the promos guys, couldn't do it. Not with the frequent audio glitches. This is going to be too much wrestling over a couple of days, and I gotta preserve myself as much as humanly possible, gotta save my wind a little. It's bad enough that I came back into it during a dreadful Hogan/Titus segment that nobody trustworthy could have possibly wanted. 

Drew McIntyre vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: I'm into the idea of a big heavyweight title match starting off the show, especially two heavyweights who actually work like heavyweights. And I thought this was a banger. They lost the crowd a little bit after Drew's kimura, but this felt like a big scale heavyweight match. They worked tentatively for the first bit (possibly working around a damp ringside area), but it picked up when Drew started throwing suplexes. McIntyre's throws all looked strong, didn't look like Lashley was leaping into them. Several belly to bellys, and a a great northern lights, and a big Saito suplex from Lashley. But the best part of the suplexes was that in between them they just hit each other with fists and elbows, there was never any laying around for suplexes. The three straight future shock DDTs Lashley took were real nasty, tucked head and not rolling through them. I thought both submissions came off well, with Drew really looking like he could have gotten the tap with his kimura. Again, they lost the crowd a bit after the kimura, and the MVP interference could have come off more smooth. I actually really like that they didn't do a Big Moment Title Change to lead off the show, because you know they love that. 

Women's Tag Gauntlet

ER: I am personally ecstatic that they got Lana out of the way fairly quick, as I thought there was a non-zero chance we'd get a "Could Lana DO THIS!?" story throughout this whole thing and I didn't want it. Billie Kay is still not there in ring, but I have gotten a real kick out of her the last few months so I'm just happy she's on the show. I really want this big win for the Riott Squad though. This would be a great time to get Riott back up ladder and finally give Liv something substantial. They've been waiting long enough for some elevation, and deserve it. My girl Mandy Rose slipped on her butt and is such a collected badass that she knew she had to get right in the ring and knee Riott in the side of the head to move past it. Rose works stiff during every part of her match, and they isolate Liv Morgan which leads to some nice stuff (Liv really stuffed Mandy running into her boot in the corner). Riott's hot tag felt a bit off, wasn't quite as hot as I wanted, and the blown win call didn't help and otherwise good Morgan small package. Now, the thing I didn't ever expect, is me actually happy that Tamina is motivated and getting instantly rewarded. I would rather watch practically anyone other than Natalya get a more featured role (we've had to get through so many Natalya's Dream moments), but Tamina finally has actually proper gear and and actual proper pro wrestler look a decade in, and she looks motivated. Her Nia Jax match on Smackdown was a great fight, and her superkick in this match was an awesome cut off spot. That Superfly Splash hit with real heft, so I'm all in on seeing her and Nia go at it again so soon after their singles match. Natalya is about the worst baggage a person can bring into a situation, and I wanted this to be Riott Squad's moment, but I'm unexpectedly rooting for Tamina right now and that's cool. 

Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro

ER: The Cesaro hit piece is really funny, the best thing Rollins has been involved with since who knows when, and I'm excited for Cesaro's first WrestleMania singles match. I still think Rollins can work like a real putz in ring, and you know you're going to get some floaty looking sling blades and dumb serious indy era spots like a superplex > falcon arrow. That stuff sucks, but he's a fun guy to hit hard. Cesaro hits so many uppercuts that it leads to an arm injury (hitting the turnbuckle when Rollins moves), and so you get Cesaro working stiff uppercuts with a hurt arm, and they build a huge portion of the match around Rollins not wanting to take the giant swing. I always love a match that's built around one guy not wanting the humiliation of being hit with a specific move, almost more than he's trying to avoid being beat, so that gives this whole thing a high floor. The fans clearly want a big Cesaro win, and it is great to gear a crowd react excitedly to these guys who have been working in a vacuum for over a year. A few of them will probably die, but this would be a pretty cool Cesaro win to see in your final months. Again, you build a match in 2021 around somebody trying to avoid a bearhug or giant swing or a stomach claw, and Cesaro hitting this triumphant no hands airplane spin looked like Superman throwing General Zod into a skyscraper. I don't think we could have expected a better Big WrestleMania Match from Cesaro, and I'm happy for the guy. 

Kofi Kingston/Xavier Woods vs. AJ Styles/Omos

ER: I have been so excited for the debut of Omos. There are few things I love more in wrestling than a debuting giant who hardly any people have seen wrestle. His gear isn't as cool as it should have been. I think him wrestling as 7' tall Mr. Hughes would be my favorite wrestling look of the year. His black sleeveless button down looks to Giant Chippendale. World's Tallest Stripper having to duck under hanging lights isn't as cool as 7' tall Mr. Hughes. Gear disappointment aside, I seriously loved this debut for Omos. Woods and Kingston have been having a good year, adding to shows more often than not, and they played a tough role here really well. It's a tough role to be a super popular babyface tag team, while also keeping a crowd excited to see them get tossed around by a giant debuting heel. They have to be a babyface team who is more focused on making a huge heel have a memorable in screen debut, than getting sympathy for themselves. Everybody had a tough role in this match, and everyone crushed it. AJ had to bump around getting his ass kicked so New Day can get at least some big offense before getting their limbs torn off by Omos. Styles built really well to the big Omos entrance, and Woods showed the right amount of fear and awe. Omos worked like a great classic giant, and nothing would make me happier than a 7'3" giant who has never seen any wrestling past 1991. Omos had big overhand chops, a powerful running hip attack, and his high slam backbreakers looked like a proper 1985 finisher. He added a brutal full face claw to Woods while holding a backbreaker, and this made me even more excited about Omos' potential. Styles got this awesome kamikaze flying elbow, vaulting off Omos' shoulders, and I love that they didn't have New Day get anything on him. I want a dominant giant pushed to the top and this is now my favorite wrestling. This kind of debut is the kind of thing that needs to happen in front of a live crowd, potential superstar debut. I am An Omos Guy. 

PAS: Considering how badly the WWE has fucked up giants since Andre, it was pretty cool to see them hit every beat here damn near perfectly. Kind of strange to work the match around heel in peril, but it really worked. AJ is great at being a pinball, and has really developed a scumbag youth pastor vibe which makes you want to see him beaten up. I loved the smirk on his face when he realized he had gotten enough distance to tag in Omos, and Omos came in and wrecked shop. He didn't show off his ability to do a cartwheel or some shit, he just ran through the New Day, killing them with backbreakers and a killer spinebuster throw. I really think if they keep doing this, it will be a huge deal the first time he takes a bump, and totally make a star if someone is able to beat him.

Shane McMahon vs. Braun Strowman

ER: This is my least anticipated match of Night One, but it still has a chance at being a real spectacle. Both guys get purple real easily and that adds to the freakshow element of wrestling that WWE needs to bring back. This show has some real quality vibes. The real danger to a match like is the length, and they hit the runtime mark well. This could have been way overblown, but it was exactly what it should have been. Shane looks a step away from a heart attack immediately, takes several bumps he shouldn't be taking including getting launched into a swan dive off the top of the very tall cage. Elias and Jaxson Ryker have been a really underrated duo. I don't think Ryker sounds like the kind of human I'd want to hang out with, but he is a very good worker with some of the strongest basics on the roster. They added to the match with a couple of big bumps off the cage side. Braun ripping a cage panel off it's clasps was the kind of spot that would play as an all time great moment on a show closing video set to the WrestleMania theme, so that means it's a great spot. This could have been a 20 minute drag, and instead they kept it tight, with the right amount of bullshit. 

Damien Priest/Bad Bunny vs. The Miz/John Morrison 

ER: This show has a debuting giant and a debuting pop star. This is really a night of wrestling booked directly at me. I get excited every time any celebrity actually wrestles. It's great. I love seeing the ones that really get it, love seeing pro wrestlers show off their chops by integrating a non-wrestler into a match, and Bad Bunny is a genuinely big modern star. I don't get how anyone couldn't be excited seeing a big star show how well he can wrestle at the biggest wrestling show of the year. That's exciting!! How great would it be to see Taylor Swift against Carmella and see Swift hit a decent la magistral? Miz is a good opponent for Bad Bunny, and I loved seeing Bunny pull off semi-complicated armdrags that he couldn't quite pull off, and the way his bumps looked slightly more dangerous than they should have been. I love slightly untrained bumps. They feel way more like me missing a step and falling on my butt. Bunny's offense keeps getting better the longer he's in the ring, and his multi-rotation headscissors is better than 80% of that same spot I've ever seen in Chikara. He throws a great goddamn headbutt and sells it with an eyes-crossed wobble, his sunset flip is very good, and he throws genuinely good punches from a far enough distance that's harder to make look good. He went with an ambitious worked punch style and he does it shockingly well. Bunny's selling is strong, watch how well he sells a great Miz low left hand to the spleen. By the time Bunny was hitting a falcon arrow, I was convinced this man has to have a backyarder video from 2007 on YouTube. Priest's hot tag plays a decent enough 2nd fiddle to Bad Bunny, and Bad Bunny hitting a Puerto Rican Destroyer on the floor and two fantastic crossbodies (one his now trademark plancha) is fucking GREAT pro wrestling. Miz was excellent and fed into every single Bunny spot perfectly. This was his best in ring performance since his match with Shane at WrestleMania 35. I love celebrity pro wrestling matches, and this belongs with the good ones. 

Bianca Belair vs. Sasha Banks

ER: This show has been excellent so far, and this is the match I am most excited to see. It has some pretty big shoes to fill, as this show really has been a top to bottom fun watch. This knocking it out could put this into easy Show of the Year status. Not sure how to feel about Sasha's look, but my instinct is she's going Strange Days club scene so I want to say I'm for it? The build for this match has felt really off, but the early parts of this really felt like the popular slugger who slumps the last month of the season but then rakes in the playoffs. I was always going to be excited for the in ring of this match, but the build left a lot to be desired. But they work this great and Sasha more than almost anyone feels like someone who knows how to turn it up on the big important shows. She deserves the Jeter rep. Bianca's chicken wing slams looked appropriately nasty, and she has a couple of big powerbombs too. Sasha kept getting her knees into Bianca's rib, grabbing Bianca by the braid and kicking her a bunch in the ribs and shoulder, getting her knees up on a great 450, Sasha really just excels in big main event singles matches. She really comes off like a great modern take on the reckless 90s AJW babyface. I love the way she throws her self hardest into her own misses, like jamming her knees into the barricade or into the bottom buckle. The home stretch to this was really good, with Sasha finding several ways to use Bianca's braid against her in the match finally paying off with the return of Belair's hair whip offense. For some reason the wrestler with the among the top 5 hairdos in wrestling history came in with her hair as her gimmick, and now they've spent the last couple years pretending she doesn't have this amazing head turning hair. So we finally go back to a great heel who keeps yanking on it while kicking Bianca in the face, and it pays off with one a hair whip to Sasha's stomach that is louder than anything on the show. Banks had a huge welt from it, legendary spot. This was an perfect way to close out a great night of wrestling. 

PAS: Really excellent match, in the top tier of Wrestlemania main events and something which felt legitimately meaningful and emotional. So much of WWE emotion feels forced and spoon fed, but the moment at the beginning of the match where Sasha and Bianca took a moment to absorb that they were two black women main eventing Wrestlemania actually got me in my feelings a bit. It is a lot of pressure to trailblaze, and they both delivered. I am a huge fan of strength based highspots, and Bianca had some corkers here. The roll through of the plancha into a press slam, where she walks her up the steps was a spot of the year contender, and I liked her repeater powerbombs a bunch too. That is a spot which can feel cooperative, but Bianca hoisted her with ease. I dug how down and dirty Sasha got, basically turning this match into a impromptu bullrope or chain match with Bianca's braid, super creative and nasty. I bet Bianca's scalp was burning after this match. All of that cheapshot work was paid off with that huge hair whip shot near the end. I don't watch the WWE regularly at all, but if they downplayed Bianca's hair whip on the main roster, it was worth it for the impact of that one shot. My one complaint was the overuse of WWE face near the end of the match, but I guess that is just the style now. Otherwise this hit every beat. Tremendous achievement by both wrestlers. 

This show was a total knockout, nothing worth skipping on this show. It had some real high points with the great debut of Omos, the great debut of Bad Bunny, and a tremendous main event, and the low points were non-existent. Great show top to bottom, with everybody wanting to bring it in the ring. The Omos debut is going on our Ongoing 2021 MOTY List, and Sasha/Bianca is our new #1. A great night of wrestling. 

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WWE Royal Rumble 2021 Live Blog

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

ER: I thought Charlotte and Nia looked like a real mess throughout their whole Raw match earlier in the week, and they seem to have less chemistry a week later at the Rumble. I think it's pretty shocking how much Charlotte especially has regressed in the past couple years, and I wish they would hurry up and get Asuka away from her. I've mostly been a high voter on Jax but she's been noticeably slow and lazier in exchanges since coming back (ACL tears in both knees will do that to you). Things get clunky whenever Charlotte is in this one, and part of that is Baszler and Jax not being great at getting into position for Charlotte's offense, but a bigger part is Charlotte requiring people to too often be in specific position for offense that doesn't look great. She made a great diving save to break up a pin, but every one of her stomach kicks looked like she forgot what move she was supposed to be replicating. I'm also well beyond the point of needing to see Ric Flair on TV more than once or twice a year, and do not care about this angle with him and Lacey. I don't think this match ever came together as anything resembling a satisfying tag, the Asuka/Charlotte pairing does nothing for me, and the Baszler/Jax pairing has been very underwhelming. They need to separate all four of them and see if that helps freshen any of them. 

Goldberg vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: I am here for MMA shorts Goldberg. Really, I am here for Goldberg, so. This didn't really have the same kind of impact or sustained heat of the other Goldberg comeback matches, and ended really flat. It had a lot of promising steps throughout, like the spear nearfall to start, or the spear through the barricade, and I fully bit on the jackhammer kickout. Once Goldberg hit it I actually thought they were giving us another Goldberg run. And while I liked Goldberg's missed spear chest first corner bump, McIntyre needs to find something a little more interesting to do than making dumb Edge faces in the corner for FAR too long while Goldberg sells damage. I know part of the modern WWF dogshit style is to make dumbshit faces in the corner for too long before hitting your finisher, but this felt way too long, and ended this on an unfortunate note. 

Carmella vs. Sasha Banks

ER: A lot of this match really was not hitting for me, until things picked up with the Reginald involvement. It felt like they kept skipping steps within the match, like there weren't any kind of transitions between offense, they just went right to moves. Except Carmella was doing the moves deliberately slow, because heel I guess, and then when Sasha took over she was already doing "frustrated by only a 2 count" faces. It all felt really underbaked. The Reginald involvement added something unique to the match, loved him catching Sasha and eating a headscissors, this guy rules. But he's quickly sent to the back and Carmella does a dive that lands her right on her face. It used to be Sasha's job to almost break her face on dives, so Carmella is trying to do the equivalent of stealing her rival's finisher. Ending felt abrupt and not set up super well, with Carmella getting a couple nice reversals of big Banks spots, but then just getting tapped anyway. This was not a strong title match, and there aren't any weaker Banks title matches coming to mind. Major disappointment. 

Women's Rumble Match

ER: Bayley/Naomi is a good way to start the Rumble, but MAN has Naomi been a complete afterthought for seemingly 2 years. Her whole career has felt like her having a big showing on one of the big WWF PPVs, then them mostly not doing anything with that. She really could have been a major star a few years ago and they just repeatedly stall out on her. This is the first time she's been in any kind of match for 5 months, but I'm not sure if there were injuries or just a lack of interest. This really should be Bianca Belair's match. It has to be. If they just pull the trigger on her, come on baby! How awesome is Belair, skipping to the ring and removing her earrings for a fight? I've really been enjoying Billie Kay's solo run. I thought she was sunk for sure, but she's done far more interesting things than Royce since the split. Still would like it more with them together again, but oh well. I don't love Shotzi coming in and just doing all of her offense, the way she would entering a tag match. Everyone running at her, one at a time, the way you would in a hot tag or in a ninja movie is just dumb. It's one of the main reasons there aren't many good battle royals anymore, because "working a battle royal" is not the way most wrestlers work battle royals now. I don't like regular match in my battle royal, I get that in regular matches, which are plentiful. Watch a Rumble match like '89 or '90, and it's all those guys just filling the time with fighting. It's all punches and clotheslines and choking with boots. Now it's offense and I don't think it's better. 

Jillian Hall seems to be doing a Judy Tenuta thing now, and I think it works? Maybe it's an indication how well Peyton Royce is doing post Iiconics that I had no idea who her entrance music was for, and the Titan Tron video took forever to say it was Royce. Ohhhhhhhh shit I've been typing about it this entire time and I just realized they might get the Iiconics back together for this and I fucking want that so bad. It's a good way for them to get back together. Let them eliminate a couple people together and it's a great way to organically show that they're better when they're together! It would actually be a smart way to freshen up the roster, get an interesting team into the lifeless Asuka/Charlotte and Jax/Baszler stuff. But, of course, they don't do any of that. Royce almost immediately blends into the background of the match, and Kay is eliminated a few minutes later. A fruitful storyline abandoned without mention. 

Not a fan of the early and tossed off Toni Storm elimination. I've kind of unexpectedly become a big Toni fan over the past year. I am not interested in this becoming The Charlotte Match. But it really feels like a dumb thing WWF would do. "Ric had what we've defined as the Greatest Rumble Performance so now we need to give Charlotte her Greatest Rumble Performance." Please don't give us that. Too many people have been entering with missile dropkicks. It is stupid that so many have entered the match by immediately climbing to the top rope, and nobody has been punished for climbing to the top rope in the Royal Rumble. The ring is FILLED with people, someone should knock this person off the top rope while they are voluntarily standing there! This is another reason why people cannot work battle royals. The handstand set up for it was dumb, but I did like Dana Brooke hanging off Ripley's neck in a headscissors while Ripley tried to shake her off from the apron. Brooke was memorable in elimination. The layout of this has been weak for long stretches, like a couple instances of someone getting eliminated right before a new entrant, losing any impact of the elimination. BAYLEY'S elimination happened DURING Mickie James's entrance!! Who fucked that up!! Bayley was clearly one of the favorites to win this match, and they moved on within three seconds!! They showed her elimination as a replay, because the cameras were on James and not the arguable biggest name in the match being eliminated. That's really really bad layout for a Rumble. 

WWF could use Alicia Fox back. She would be a fun NXT act at minimum. Give me a Foxy/Aliyah pairing, that would be great. Strong inside cradle on R-Truth to get the 24/7 title back from Fox, good weight on the back of the thighs. I love Dakota Kai, and goddamn did she get eliminated. Ripley just dumped her face first on the apron. Not happy seeing Mandy and Kai eliminated back to back. I'm jinxing the hell out of my personal favorites. They do ANOTHER elimination RIGHT BEFORE a new entrance!! It has to be intentional at this point, and that is so stupid! Nikki Cross gets eliminated one second before TAMINA comes out. Eliminations with zero fanfare are a battle royal curse. There is a way to make eliminations sink in and at least let the announcers talk about the implications a bit, no need to be doing all of these at the exact same time as a thing that everyone is more interested in. The Naomi/Bianca stuff was good, they need to focus more on how long both have been in and they've been a little background, but I like how they're getting more screen time the longer they're in. 

They're going to do dumb Alexa Bliss stuff, aren't they. Yep. But THAT is a good elimination by Ripley! Thank god they had at least some Rumble decency, to have a dozen people in the ring just watching someone go through a long "transformation" without doing anything about it. I am so happy we didn't have to spend more than a minute on that. Ember Moon is yet another person coming in and doing all of their offense like a a normal match, but she dropkicks Naomi right in the face in a way that didn't seem intentional. Ember Moon looked really bad on her elimination, with that slow motion "setting up a spot" run she did to get backdropped by Shayna. Loved Nia's "I can't, she's family" excuse to not go after Tamina, but her hockey fighting with Shayna after Tamina's elimination looked bad. I'm not into the Nia/Shayna thing, just doesn't feel like it's going anywhere and the journey to get there isn't interesting. Do I hate Natalya's new gear? My instinct says yes, but is there an element of it I'm underappreciating? Perhaps. I'll level with you, I did not know there was important emotional history with Natalya and Lana. Was that elimination effective? I could not tell you. I have not been closely following the Natalya/Lana relationship. Charlotte has felt like a complete non-factor the entire time she's been in the Rumble. She was not working to stand out at all, so I am fully not interested in her valiantly battling against two foes, and I also don't understand her treating her elimination like a drunk sorority girl getting thrown out of a bar that overserved. 

I'm a big fan of Bianca going to WrestleMania, it's a great choice and the most interesting direction to go. But I wished I enjoyed her and Ripley's final two. I thought a lot of it looked real bad, like them doing really slow reversal sequences and slow thrown missed strikes. Ripley was hanging on the ropes dangling, and Belair just stood there waiting instead of kicking at her hands, literally standing there waiting to do the spot that came next. Working battle royals as a normal match suuuuucks. So I thought their final two stretch was not good, but the end result was great, and they did a genuinely great job of making it look like either Belair OR Ripley had a chance. That's important. Bianca's winner's speech was the kind of thing that would have been nice to see in front of a live crowd. 

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This didn't hook me until they started fighting up into the "crowd", and I liked some of the stuff up there. Owens had all these nasty chairshots to Roman's knees. He was jabbing the edge of a chair into Roman's patella, then just bashing them from the side, all really nasty stuff that should be sold throughout a match. They looked really hobbling but Reigns didn't treat them as such a moment later, which is disappointing. Owens had a nice bump off the riser and a good moment of him beating the 10 count. But once they went backstage it just felt like the same kind of slow Shane McMahon prop show that they've been doing into the ground. This whole thing is going too long, and I am so tired of these slow epic brawls that always make 20 minutes feel like 30 and 30 minutes feel like 45. These matches are more "ideas" matches than interesting fights, but none of the ideas are as good as any of the homebrew shit cooked up in the Last Battle of Burke. Sitting through an endless 25 minutes with a handcuff spot at the end taking up over 10% of the match is such a punishing waste of time. Michael Cole was right when he described this thing as brutal. I thought it would never stop. 

 

Men's Rumble Match

ER: I have not been following the storyline here, and that is just cruel to start this thing with Edge/Orton. This feels like they're fucking with me. Edge is at least a more compelling character now that his gimmick is that his body could break at any minute. Sami Zayn is looking, dressing, and wrestling more and more like Buck Robley, and I think it could make him one of my favorites. Has Mustafa Ali had his first name back since joining Retribution? Is Retribution a stable where getting back your own name is important, and that's why most of them have names like their parents were "child can choose their own name" parents? Edge has a better spear now than he did 10 years ago. When I'm not too into a match, I usually don't find myself saying "You know I bet this thing could get better if Dolph Ziggler got involved." I want to see a run from super gassed Carlito!! He looked like peak 80s gas Jimmy Snuka with cool Dick Anthony Williams facial hair. 

These things kind of stink now that the moments are all planned in the exact same way. Guy comes in, does his signature offense while people run at him one by one, do pose to hard cam, storyline for next elimination starts once new entrant is done with his offense, elimination culminates with 10 seconds until next entrant. They have gone to that exact same pattern in this and the women's rumble, and it sucks. 

Kane comes out looking more like the local guy playing Kane on an Australian knock off indy. That other guy might look better in ring at this point though. I wish Otis would have been in the match longer, thought his discus clothesline and capture suplex looked really great, but at least his elimination bump was the nastiest of the men's rumble so far. Dominik got big height, and Hurricane would be a nice guy to have back somewhere, but this rumble is not great. There are no compelling stories here, and it's felt like it's been full of restarts. Christian return is cool, and here's a thing I cannot believe: When Christian, Riddle, Big E, and Bryan all teamed up to force Lashley over, that was literally the first time in EITHER rumble that a group decided to go after one person. It's been all these stupid paired of "stories" that aren't really interesting, instead of people actually thinking like someone IN a rumble. That moment actually felt like a rumble, like a few people suddenly remembered a rumble strategy. What I said earlier about Edge having a way better spear in 2021 than he did in 2010? Still holds, as his spear on Styles looked great. Victoria Beer, seen in the background of every lucha match I've been watching lately, is now sponsoring Royal Rumble entrants? Nobody else got sponsored? Kane and AJ Styles were in there, StopTheSteal didn't want to sponsor them? Christian and Sheamus always had great chemistry. I'd love to see a 2021 Christian/Sheamus match. 

Cesaro lifting and throwing Strowman over the top would have been far more interesting than Strowman eliminating Cesaro, and Sheamus deserved better. Bryan and Riddle really laced into each other during their portion, and Bryan would be my easy pick if asked "Who would you like to win this rumble?" This is the first time these two have had an exchange of any kind, and it all looked really great. What looks riduculous is every person still left in the match lying around the ring while Bryan and Riddle can just have a 4 minute match. Nobody should be lying on the mat for that long, let alone four people at the same time. I thought the finishing run was pretty bad, thought the Bryan elimination was a pretty big nail in the coffin. The Edge story is not something I can get too interested in, but all of his spears looked great in this match, and I could actually see him being a part of a good match now. I'm not expecting it, but he is slightly more interesting now than a decade ago. 

ER: Disappointing show top to bottom. Both Rumbles were really uninspired and badly laid out, the Last Man Standing match felt endless, the tag title match was bad, and the Sasha match was below her level. That's a bummer of a show right there. 

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WWE Summerslam 8/23/20 Taking My Sweet Time Blog

I am not expecting a whole lot from this show, and those shows can sneak up and surprise me. It feels like I've been saying that about every show the last year +, and that's probably because I have not been excited by many on paper lineups they've been throwing out there. But good matches are always a possibility. Sadly, this card doesn't feature Pat McAfee, so good matches on this show aren't as likely. Also, sad to see Renee Young leaving, but obviously she is talented enough to just not be in wrestling. Her commentary with Regal during 2014 NXT is some of my favorite WWE commentary of the decade, and she was never properly utilized after that on any important program. Honestly, she stuck it out longer in WWE than made sense, and I'm sure she's going to crush wherever she winds up.


Apollo Crews vs. MVP

ER: Pre show matches deliver more often than not, and this one added to the "delivered" bucket. MVP working as an opportunist is a fun undercard thing to see, loved him shooting for a kneebar to start the match, then just blindsiding Crews while the ref separated them. His superplex was sloppy, but in a way that kind of added to it and made it feel impactful. MVP also throws his strikes with more immediacy, which is one of Crews' shortcomings. In fact the weakest part of this match was Crews seemingly holding way back on a lot of his offense. He was treating MVP like he was mid 90s Giant Baba, barely touching him with his forearm strikes, and hitting these weird weak avalanches. That was mainly a problem earlier in the match, as once he hit his nice flip dive he felt a little more normal in the ring. The match finishing dead lift blue thunder bomb ruled, and Crews needs to do more cool stuff life that.

Asuka vs. Bayley

ER: I really liked this, but felt like it lost a lot of steam in the final minute or two. They kept up a hot pace, with Asuka coming off nicely chaotic and Bayley scrambling on her heels. Asuka hits the flying hip attack to knock Bayley to the floor, and Bayley manages to take Asuka's flatliner type move off the ring steps and distracted from the fact that Asuka was splatting with a hard back bump. Bayley's scream and sell of that move was so effective in making that spot work. I liked Asuka going after Bayley's arm (even though it really didn't lead to much), and liked a couple of the spots where Bayley went after Asuka's leg. Even though Bayley's actual heel hook looked really awful, the moment where she turned an Asuka missile dropkick into the heel hook was awesome. After that there were a couple hinky moments, like Asuka waiting bent at the waist waaaay too long to take a sunset flip bomb in the corner. The finish was good and a nice call back to the beginning, and I thought the execution was great: Asuka hits the hip attack to knock Sasha off the apron, and Bayley grabs her with a small package off the ropes. Looked great. I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether Asuka should have won or lost, as I'm a fan of both acts, dig what Sasha/Bayley have been doing and have no problem with them dominating the belts.

Andrade/Angel Garza vs. Street Profits

ER: I think this might have been helped by a live audience. That sounds like an obvious statement, but I think these kinds of matches are really hurt by no crowd. The kind of match that plays like a cold tag or a fun Smackdown match depending on the crowd sounds, like a AAAA center fielder. It's mostly the Andrade show, with Garza practically playing this like a handicap match past a certain point. They worked over Ford and I love how they cut him off by catching the top con hilo and powerbombing him on the floor. That spot could have looked overly planned, but it came off smooth and then mean. They set up the Dawkins hot tag well, and I like his big man leaping back elbow. That move was used by a lot of mid 80s WWF guys, one that I associate with that era, and even though I'm sure he's not consciously doing it because of that, I still like seeing it. Andrade's fake out pump kick into the back elbow always looks great, and I love how hard Dawkins bit on dodging that kick and eating that elbow. Somebody's wrist tape even flies out when the elbow lands, and gear getting knocked off someone after a big impact move is never not awesome. The Street Profits as an act don't do a lot for me overall, and Vega's team actually needs to win occasionally but instead they always seem to go down clean as a sheet. Ah well.

Sonya Deville vs. Mandy Rose

ER: I wish this was worked under different circumstances, as it really shouldn't have taken this long to give these two some kind of PPV showcase singles match. The incident that happened to Deville is genuinely terrifying and it was pretty incredible she went out there and made the best of it. Oh god she wasn't forced to go out there and do this was she? Anyway, I wish this match was better, because they went out there and tried to do the right match. The stip got changed and the feud got cut short and it sucks that things turned out this way. They went out and had the No DQ fight they should have had, it just didn't look great. Rose is someone who has killed it in every house show match I've seen her in, and for whatever reason it does not come off on TV. Whatever crowd connection that I've witnessed firsthand several times is mostly gone on TV. She comes off flat and kind of dead eyed, and I think people think I'm lying about her house show work. It's No DQ, they try to throw a lot of strikes, and a lot of the strikes don't look good. Mandy does this weird thing where she just doesn't sell a lot of Sonya's elbows, just kind of holds still while Deville is throwing blows. They wanted to have a tough fight, and their heart was in the right place.

Even though a lot of it didn't look great, the bar has been lowered a lot this year and even just a match that at minimum aims to work within the story instead of having a "great match" is going to win me over. I liked Mandy trying to slide chairs off a table into Sonya's face, feels like a reckless spot where a camera guy can take a shot in the balls or something. Sonya is also someone who hasn't translated as well as it feels like she should. It didn't help when WWE brought in a bunch of actual MMA women right after she got on TV, but she's also dropped a lot of the MMA stuff that she actually did quite well. I'm sure she could have been told "hey don't work like all of these actual MMA women we brought in", but I also like the fact that she's someone who throws sidekicks without kickpads. Mandy threw some hard knees to make up for her weird strike selling, and there were a couple of nasty spills on hard surfaces. Again, it was the match they should have had and that counts for a lot, and I'm glad it happened. And it's honestly hard to care as much about a match like this when it's so closely related to an actual Manhunter fucking Tooth Fairy incident (incel-dent?), but there were small amounts of carny "on with the show" joy here.

Seth Rollins vs. Dominic Mysterio

ER: No matter how this match goes, Dominic took one of the best on screen beatdowns of the past 5 years, and that can't be taken away from him. The cane beating would have gotten over with a mid 90s ECW Arena crowd, and that's more cool carny wrestling bullshit to find sicko joy in. We are truly blessed getting a Pat McAfee match one night and Dominik Mysterio's debut a night later. Wrestling debuts (yeah yeah I know Pat worked a match a decade ago, it's fair to call this a debut) are always exciting for me. I love seeing how much someone "gets" and what nuanced (if any) part of wrestling they understand from match one. Now, even with that beatdown angle, I haven't been able to get into this feud at all. Rollins is so dull to me, and Dominik really isn't a great actor, in ring or out. I was more excited for the McAfee debut, and that was in a match with ADAM COLE! McAfee/Cole felt like a perfect amount of time to deliver the story they needed to. Yes, it should have ended after McAfee's punt to the chest, and we didn't need Adam Cole's home stretch acting chops, but it was laid out fantastically. This match went too long, and the smoke and mirrors weren't anywhere near as satisfying. Rey and his wife did what they could, and I dug their Louis Vuitton gear. And Dominik did really well for a first match! He hit some fairly complicated stuff, missed a real nasty splash into Rollins' knees, and looked like he belonged. If you saw him at your local indy and this was his first match in, you'd be leaving the gymnasium and at least bring him up positively on the ride home. There was a good match in here, even if this wasn't it. I'm more interested in what Dominik does next.

Sasha Banks vs. Asuka

ER: This was the match I was most excited for. Sasha is probably the wrestler who I like the most, without ever thinking to answer "Sasha Banks" when thinking about wrestler I like the most. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I *always* get excited for big Sasha singles matches. I think she has easily been the women's MVP over the past 5 years, and I think she's easily the most consistent and delivers more often in big matches than the rest of the 4 horsewomen, and she has by far the most natural charisma of the 4. This was the match I was most excited for, and it delivered. These two both took some shots, it felt like it peaked perfectly and ended right where it should have, and the way they laid into each other made it feel important. Sasha went after Asuka's leg and it backfired, as Asuka just started throwing kicks, and I love Sasha when she realize a plan isn't working. The match is tough right from go, loved Asuka yanking Sasha off the apron into a kneebar, felt like a cool dickhead babyface thing to do. Asuka hits ringpost on a kick and winds up eating a nasty powerbomb off the apron to the floor, big THUD sound. Both flew gleefully into moves that targeted their heads, Asuka taking that powerbomb and then immediately eating a head kick, Asuka later landing a DDT off the middle rope that Sasha takes on her face. Sasha is great at taking Asuka's offense, they're an awesome super complementary pairing. Sasha takes the missile dropkick better than any other heel, her bumps less athletic but more ragdoll and interesting. I love their dueling arm and leg work, the battle over the Asuka Lock and Banks Statement is a strong finishing stretch. The double callback hip attack finish was handled well, and the tap for the Asuka Lock felt nicely triumphant. Sasha Banks really deserves a lot of praise for the character work and personality she's brought to the empty arena era. And this was her strongest match of the year.

Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: Very low expectations for this one, which may be to the benefit of the match. Orton starts with a lot of smug stalling, which is the closest we get to Jacques Rougeau style buffoonish smug stalling. It's not anywhere near as good, but I like the tradition. This is a slow paced match, but it felt more natural in its pace than the other purposely slow "dramatic" matches from this weekend. This felt hard fought in its slow pace, and that makes this kind of thing work. Orton is someone I have to be in the right mindset for these days, but he can still work within that window of interest. I liked him spamming RKO attempts early after weaseling out of contact, then ramping things up to meaner stuff like two back suplexes on the unbreaking announce table. McIntyre's spinebuster to comeback looked good and the overhead belly to belly landed heavy. I liked it a bit less once we went into the longish feeling second half, where it felt like it was based entirely on attempts at Signature Offense. The stuff where Orton was just stomping on him and dropping him from a high place where stronger. Still, for a modern WWE title match epic, this felt above average. I wish we could have just had Drew pin Orton with the Claymore kick. Randy Orton is fucking 40, guys. Let a dude in his mid 30s win with his finisher. Let a 6'5 265 lb. guy win a match differently than a Terry Taylor finish.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: It's sad when a match between two heavy dudes doesn't inspire me. They keep it short and to the point, and for that I am thankful. But this should be more exciting. The chokeslam into the announce table looked hard and the spear through the barricade was a nice crash. But this felt kind of stale on arrival. This should feel bigger and be cooler, and it shouldn't be that hard. It wasn't terrible by any means. The Braun powerslams where impressive and Wyatt's tool box attack had a stupid 1999 quality to them. Both a pretty uninteresting to me at this point (think of the sadness in that. Braun is 375 and he's not an automatic What Worked for me), so who won or lost didn't interest me. Therefore, the uranage and double Sister Abigail on the exposed ring boards was a cool enough finish to make me come around a bit on it.

BUT of course this match was just a mere slow set up for the real main event, which was Roman Reigns returning after 6 months to kick the shit out of both of them. Reigns looked like an absolute superstar destroying both men, and it's cool as hell seeing him in pure destruction mode. His spears on Wyatt were among the best of his career, and the visual of him wrecking Braun with chairshots was strong. This was the best way to bring Roman back, having him Walking Tall as we fade out. Roman really saved this segment and made it immediately feel more electric. Roman had Braun's best matches and some of Bray's best as well, and it immediately felt like that.

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WWE Royal Rumble 2020 Actually Kind of Live Blog

ER: These PPVs start HOW early and go HOW long!? This thing had already started by the time I got back from freaking brunch and will end hours into darkness. But I think the card looks good on paper, and the Rumble has traditionally been a favorite gimmick of mine. Admittedly, I do not get as excited for the Rumbles as I used to. Even when I end up liking them (I remember really liking the 2018 Men's Rumble, for example), they have still felt very same-y the past decade. I'm not sure what it will take to freshen it up a bit, whether the answer is to move the concept forward or backward, but I'm here for it.


Sheamus vs. Chad Gable

ER: Damn this feels like a pretty big match for the pre-show. Maybe it's just because I'm very excited for the on-paper potential of this match. I've been a high voter on Sheamus and I think higher than average on Gable, and the pairing seems natural. This is Sheamus' first TV match in over 9 months, and it's a tough spot to be in for your comeback match: 75 minutes before the actual PPV starts, while people are filing into a large baseball stadium. And Sheamus *does* look rusty for the first couple minutes of this, mainly in the way he perfunctorily went through standing exchanges; Sheamus is a good wrestler, he's not someone who sleepwalks through missed clotheslines and rope running, but he was clearly a guy finding his steps, looking a little careful. They even start talking about ring rust on commentary (and after the match) which sounded like they were smartly covering by just admitting. But Sheamus knocks Gable hard to the floor in a fun violent way and the tone shifted to more stiff and confident from there. Sheamus worked like a more WWE-style Timothy Thatcher, bending Gable by the hand and wrist, kneeling on his head, pushing on his face while stretching a limb, even busting open one of Gable's ears. He also aims to cave in Gable's chest with 20 or so clubbing forearms, really getting that filing in crowd going the more the match went on. Gable fought back in cool ways, tons of foot stomps and hard elbows, and ever harder overhand chops. He threw a couple different overhand chops that landed loud and left Sheamus in an almost stunned laughter, and then he would go right back to nasty stomps to the feet. Gable hit a nice dropkick to take out Sheamus' knee, and Sheamus is a compelling limb seller who works in some nice knee moments. I really liked him catching Gable off the top rope and buckling his knee, leading to Gable spiking him with a nice DDT. The nearfalls were exciting, Gable broke out a cool Chaos Theory and it looked plausible that Gable could actually beat Sheamus in the latter's big return match. I thought this played honestly and was a real nice return match delivery. This was a real good "first match" from these two, plenty of cool ideas I wasn't expecting, and a nice reminder of what Sheamus can bring.


Humberto Carrillo vs. Andrade

ER: This had a lot of ideas I liked and what I thought was a great Andrade performance, but also thought it was one of those matches where Carrillo oversteps. Carrillo has a lot of fun ideas with sometimes iffy execution, and his best matches tend to be when his dance flourishes get reigned in. He was pretty free to try things here and Andrade is a generous base, and I do think we got a few too many dance sequences muddying up things (for a guy who likes dance-y missed kick reversal sequences, Carrillo isn't always great at them). But there was a ton of match that wasn't those kind of things, and Andrade put fun twists on a couple familiar Carrillo spots. I liked the fight over a crucifix pin, like the way Andrade can insert some struggle into moves that could come off too smooth. Andrade has great small stuff, which adds to matches like these: hard stiff leg kick to the stomach, heavy back elbows, sharp forearms to the jaw (he had one early that really snapped Carrillo's head back). There were also good believable nearfalls in this one (a nice theme for the show) and the pairing is really good when Andrade is running the show. The match ending springboard rana reversal was cool and there probably aren't many guys in the fed (maybe Cesaro?) who could have taken it better. This match also benefitted from Zelina Vega's fun ringside presence, a loud, active manager with always amusing reaction shots.


Falls Count Anywhere: Roman Reigns vs. Baron Corbin

ER: This was one of those matches where I started the match into it all, and got less interested every passing minute. Before the match, Corbin was carried out to the ring in his meh throne, and Roman jumped him during the entrance and threw around the guys carrying him. I was into it. Turns out, that would be my peak moment of interest. The match didn't really land for me. Sometimes it literally didn't land, as early on Corbin seemed to be leaning way out of strikes. The brawling through the crowd felt sluggish, the concept of brawling around an entire baseball stadium was hurt by keeping most of the camera shots too close. They may as well have been brawling around a civic auditorium for over half of the brawl. By the time we got to the interference from Ziggler, Roode, and The Usos, my interest was waning. By the time we get a porta potty spot I was more than ready to get to the next match. You go to the extremely stupid lengths to set up a fake row of porta pottys, you need to go the lengths of making the spot as stupid or as dangerous as possible. Either Corbin comes out of that thing covered head to toe in fake shit, or he needs to take a stupid bump through a row of toilets. They did neither. The match goes 22 minutes which was so much more time than it needed, and the few big moments (and Uso dive off a high stack of equipment, some impressive bumps through tables) didn't sustain the match. "These two have been through hell and back," Michael Cole says unconvincingly. Nope.


Women's Rumble Match

ER: Alexa and Bianca is an opening combo I can get behind. Stadium entrances make Rumbles infinitely cool, and when Bianca's music hit I said "Man I hope Bianca skips all the way down the long damn entrance," and she did, and it was great. Great Big PPV Gear from Bianca, killer black/gold combo with 10/10 gold glitter boots. Alexa's faces as Bianca danced were also great, so I am firmly on the side of this match. And a Molly Holly appearance is clearly only ever going to be a plus. Let's do a Backlund moment and keep Molly in there for the match. Lana is genuinely terrible on the mic, has no originality, stumbles over words, and isn't quick on her toes...but she clearly puts energy into it and seems to enjoy the role, and she plays a good dummy who isn't as smart as she thinks. And that kind of saves the act. Mercedes Martinez is a nice surprise. The Lana/Liv pull apart brawl felt better than it should have been. Mandy looked good in her first two minutes, getting into it with Nikki Cross and stopping her with a shoulderblock, nice running knee, and a slap that echoed hard in the stadium.

And goddamn I am into the comical Mandy fake elimination. She gets casually tossed by Alexa in what seemed like an incredibly underwhelming elimination, almost a punishment to Rose. She was thrown to the far side of ring from camera, meaning we didn't see her hit the floor. And when when the camera shifts to her side we see she landed perfectly onto Otis, who was weirdly laying flat on the floor for some reason. Otis plays it like a fetish, coming off like the world's largest Jimmy Valiant under a glass table. The fans reacted bigger than I expected to it, made a really odd spot come off great. The involvement of Otis on both Mandy and Sonya's elimination was amusing, but Otis had just started being fun yelling ringside encouragement to Mandy, and I wanted the bit to continue longer.

We hit a boring little stretch where Dana Brooke and Mia Yim and Tamina do that annoying modern Rumble trend of coming in and just running through your offense on several people, just a stupid string of ninjas attacking once at a time for trademark spots. Older Rumbles felt like they had more small moments where a guy enters and quietly finds a the most advantageous dude to go after. Tamina has the worst ring gear in WWE women's history, a terrible look, a terrible run of offense, just a clumsy bull in a Houston china shop. Her elimination is thankfully quick, with her taking a stumbling bump to the floor like someone falling for the first time. Once Tamina was gone, things picked up. I liked the Bianca/Alexa hair tug of war on the apron, and Naomi came back after 6 months away and had her greatest look ever, an immediate contender for greatest wrestling hair of the decade, obviously Naomi paying respects to Mr. Niebla in a totally iconic look. And she gets a gimmick moment we've seen before, getting knocked from the apron but leaping to the side of the barricade like spider-man. But whether Intentionally or not, she lands VERY low on the wall. Her feet were just a few inches off the floor, giving her almost no wiggle room. It looked several times like she might just give up and let them hit the floor. Her crawling up to the top felt like a genuine dramatic moment, and I don't care how stupid that sounds. Beth Phoenix apparently suffers a massive head wound at some point, as suddenly there is a huge spreading dark red spot on the back of her head, and it somehow isn't getting nearly the attention it deserves from commentary. Super excited to see Shotzi in the Rumble. We were wondering if it would happen as I know they like to debut fairly new workers like that, and when her name came up I popped. Santina stuff felt dumb and more than a little out of place but they didn't linger on it, which has been a strength of the match. Shayna's entrance run is great, but let me tell you: Not interested in how easily Charlotte dispatched Shayna. That's just dumb. Charlotte was in this match as long as anyone, and made absolutely no impression. Overall I thought this was a good Rumble match, veering into great at times. Finish disappointed me though, and I'm bored watching Charlotte point at the Mania sign. Belair's elimination was disappointing and didn't come off like a big enough deal, and Naomi's long journey back to the ring felt was undercut by her getting eliminated immediately once back. A Naomi Rumble return leading to a big Mania match would work, disappointing they went with such a bland choice.


Bayley vs. Lacey Evans

ER: Not a match-up that's super intriguing to me, and I think most of that is I have not been into heel Bayley one bit. And I don't think I'm alone, as the match played real cold to the crowd. The crowd still seemed to like the Roman match that I didn't, but this match was quiet. This was a better match than Reigns/Corbin, but it did not connect. Stuff looked good, but it needed Sasha making noise at ringside or some other element than them just going out and having a match. This was worked without history and wouldn't feel out of place on an episode of Main Event, and played like a match that would be considered a good match for Main Event. But it felt light and unimportant here.


Strap Match: Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend

ER: This was slow paced, and the crowd was quiet, and I have very very little interest in the Fiend gimmick or the Funhouse stuff, and there are dozens of guys on the roster that I would so much rather see Bryan face on a big PPV. But I was into this. Bryan comes hard with punches to the head, but before long we get long sets of Fiend slowly whipping Bryan over the back and chest, and Bryan getting a bunch of ugly welts. I thought they made a very compelling match based almost entirely around whipping each other. Both guys knew how to throw nice strap shots, and Bryan added big bumps at key moments. Getting eaten alive by a lariat on the floor and running into the Sister Abigail nearfall are things Bryan does better than most. But they lost me maybe 3/4 of the way through, started overstaying its welcome, and then hit us with some lame character aspects of the Fiend. Bryan really got made to look like a chump, and the Fiend's revolutionary gimmick of just walking through shots and clowning people, has absolutely zero legs. Bryan tried to get people into it postmatch, tried to pull those strings, clearly doing as much as possible to put some sort of dignity to this ending. But man I'm pretty positive the Fiend sucks.


Asuka vs. Becky Lynch

ER: This one felt like a big deal going into the match, but Lynch has a way of turning feuds with potential into kind of boring matches. I don't know why she doesn't seem to connect, but her run of matches during her long feeling title reign have consistently underwhelmed. This didn't get the crowd response it could have and should have been better. But it was not bad, and I thought Asuka brought a lot of color to it. She had my favorite moment of the match, when she splatted with a nasty belly flop bump to the floor off a front suplex from the apron. She threw nice thrust kicks into Becky's face and threw herself enthusiastically into her offense. It had a good finish too, with Becky landing a kick to Asuka's stomach right as Asuka was going to mist her, making cartoonishly mist herself. It's a spot I can see working all through the territories and I liked it here.


Men's Rumble Match

ER: I'm into the idea of a full match Brock run. I don't care. People are tired of Brock, but he's a total freak and I'd love to see him wreck dudes for 45 minutes. And I think he has the selling ability to actually provide some dramatic openings along the run. Right out of the gate, doesn't feel like a necessary move to throw Rowan to the wolves so quickly. At least give his comeback some kind of chance of success, this felt undercutting. But it also kind of makes sense, because Brock *should* run through these dudes. Elias, Roode, yeah, Brock should crush them. Roode shouldn't be hitting a spinebuster on Brock, so hell yeah, toss these men! I am into this idea and into the execution so for. I'm already excited for who will be the first entrant to last until the next entrant, who will finally last long enough to have someone else distract Brock for a bit, and who might be the first guy who Brock actually *isn't* excited to see? This is a different way to book the Rumble, and I am into it. The answer comes quick, as Rey enters while Kofi is still in the ring, and the star power feels bigger and it feels like a bigger moment to see Brock manhandling these two. And when we build to Big E, Kofi, and Rey all swarming Brock, it's a full great sequence of early Brock vulnerability. Trouble in Paradise, Big Ending, 619, Spear, and Brock is just so great at taking finishers. And with a finger snap he tosses Rey, jumps off Big E to hit a superman lariat through Kofi, lariats E to the floor, and disposes of Kofi. Brock as the Royal Rumble Ken Jennings is great pro wrestling for me. The pairings are well thought out: The Shelton Benjamin stuff was amusing, Nakamura hit a cool sneaky spin kick before getting tossed (would have liked a longer pairing here, as that's a 15 year old match I'd actually love to see re-run), MVP is a decent enough nostalgia return and takes super huge bump off the F5 for a guy pushing 50, and Brock keeps making things better with his reactions to Keith Lee at 13.

Keith Lee vs. Brock is a great dream match, and Brock is so good at getting run over by Lee. Lee doesn't hold back, both guys crash into each other like an airshow disaster, and I lost it when Braun was 14. Those 3 are a 305 Live dream, and all the interactions came off like a sequel to Rampage. The only problem is I wish we got way more. Let the three of them throw out the next 6 guys and have them absolutely ruin a city's infrastructure in between. And I was really into the idea of Brock going to the final 4 at least, but how pro was McIntyre's elimination of him? Brock leaned cheek first into that claymore kick, and Brock's big bump to the floor while Heyman flips out was classic. But Drew isn't done many favors as they kind of just have him do exactly what Bock had spent half the match doing. It's a big spot for Drew, but it almost did him no favors to have him be dominant. Plus he gets the bum luck of a few dud entrances, Ziggler and Karl Anderson, people aren't gonna be into that. The Edge return is obviously a gigantic moment for many in the crowd, and while there are few returns that could have been less exciting to me personally, he's a guy the fans filling out a Texas stadium clearly want to see. Edge felt like a major deal, people were flipping out like they were on an Oprah's Favorite Things. But we've fallen into a rut of people I'm not interested in (Gallows, Orton, ugh these are the Raw matches I skim through) and they eliminate Riddle in a minute. That pissed me off. I do NOT have interest in Randy Orton & Edge dancing their age old dance, and this thing is screeching to a halt for me. Is it the show that's too damn long? Or the participants that got less interesting? By the time Seth Rollins hits the ring, the ring is nearly entirely filled with men I do not want to see in a long WrestleMania title match. The final 8 really dragged for me, though it got a little better with the final 4. Edge hitting a spear on Roman came off big, and Drew really killer Roman with the claymore. If this is the big McIntyre push, I'm curious what a Brock match looks like. I could see fans getting into Drew with some momentum behind him, so let's see where this goes.


ER: The show had strengths but a big weakness in just being too long. A lot of the wrestling was good while rarely rising to great. The very first match of the night was my favorite, and that wasn't a match that is going to wind up super high on a MOTY list at the end of 2020. I liked both Rumbles, preferring the women's one overall due to less drag and down moments, but the first half of the men's match showed it could have hit greatness. We had a lot of good individual performances (Bryan, Andrade, Asuka) in so-so matches, which kept the floor of the show high but the ceiling low.

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I Forgot WWE Money in the Bank Was Today Blog! 5/19/19

Got it in my head that this thing was happening next weekend, went on a nice jog during the breaks in the rain, hot shower, cozy pants, sitting down with coffee and Phil texts me if I'm gonna write up the PPV. Crap. I had been planning on watching a Death Wish sequel, a couple Beyond matches, and the Schitt's Creek finale I've been saving...but let's dive in blindly to Money in the Bank!

Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan vs. The Usos

ER: Pretty genuinely surprised that this wound up on the pre-show. Now, I don't actually know what the rest of this card is (been only skimming through TV the past several weeks, and now that I'm watching it's more fun to just see what happens), so maybe it will knock my socks off! And this whole thing delivered the usually fun pre-show match quality, but with these guys it should have been way better than that. It was good, it was fun, but it really wasn't that much more fun than if we had gotten a Mojo Rawley/No Way Jose 8 minute match. The timing looked just slightly off throughout, things like one of the Usos leaping far out of the way to set up Bryan catching him in an armbar, or Bryan arriving at the edge of the ropes and having to wait a split second to be hit by the double superkick, Usos double splash finish looking ugly with both guys landing more on their feet than landing the splash, just felt like a lot of this was worked at 75%. There were cool moments - hard not to be with these guys - and Bryan pretty clearly looks like the best wrestler in the company right now. I liked Rowan catching both of the Usos on dives, thought each Uso took a nice big bump, but this underdelivered expectations from these four.

Naomi vs. Carmella vs. Nikki Cross vs. Mandy Rose vs. Ember Moon vs. Dana Brooke vs. Natalya vs. Bayley

ER: Everybody has new gear which is cool as I don't even remember people having notably cool new gear at Mania. Was their seamstress running behind? Naomi in the afro puffs and bumblebee look is fantastic, she pulls it off so well. I really, really love that gear and look on her. And Carmella is finally out of the Baywatch swimsuit and into a money two piece. This whole match is somewhat sloppy, a little disjointed, but they went for a ton of shit, tried out some cool new shit, and tried to be a little unique with the concept. Not all of the spots worked, some of them felt way too choreographed (stuff like Carmella holding the ladder too long waiting for Mandy to kick her knee out (and the extremely awkward aftermath of that spot, with Carmella weirdly shoving her away with one arm and saying "get away from meeeee" like they were two kids play fighting and one actually got hurt), or Dana Brooke reaching right over the briefcase to grab the rope because the spot was for her to swing from it, that stuff never looks good and I hate when we see the end of the sequence telegraphed by the process. But the painful stuff was painful and the cool stuff was cool. Mandy Rose took a couple big nasty bumps, one over the top to the apron to the floor, the other getting kicked off a ladder; Sonya Deville came in to fireman's carry Mandy up the ladder, and that looked awesome; Ember hit the Eclipse off a ladder into the ring, Nikki does a nice version of Finlay's ring skirt trap beatdown, Naomi took a painful as hell atomic drop bump on a ladder, Mandy ran up a set up ladder to hit a knee in the end, tons of cool stuff. Overall I thought it was too mapped out and a little messy, but it was an appropriate length, and fun! And Bayley could make for a fun title chaser.

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: Man are we ever gonna actually get a total badass match between these two? This is a genuine dream match and we've gotten a pointless Mania match, a rushed Raw match, and now an even more rushed PPV match. This was more angle than match, with Joe getting legit busted open by a shot and then getting pinned fairly quickly while his shoulder was nowhere close to the match. It's pretty lame to have them both wildly celebrating a late career Mysterio title win, while also getting thoughtful Michael Cole voice saying "You now Samoa Joe has a legitimate beef about that pin." This match needed Dominick to take a real shit kicking. Instead we got Cole saying weird things like "He's making Rey's teenage son watch his father get beat!" First, Mysterio's large ass adult son has to be in his 20s by now, old enough to foolishly run in to help his dad. We've had Miz's dad eat a beating, Dominick needs to get busted open. If you don't want to have Dominick eating a beating on the same show where that happened in a different feud, then what is the point of even debuting Dominick at this point? What we got of a match was fine, these two are nice dance partners, but we just didn't have the time to make it very interesting.

Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

ER: I really enjoyed their Mania match, thought the stunt spots were genuinely nutty and built too nicely. Having them fight in a cage kind of contains the stunt aspect more than I'd like, but they bring good energy to this. Shane is a fun stuntman, but here he shows that he's a fun cornered animal. I was fully expecting him to work a fully equal match, because for whatever reason Shane is always treated like an equal. But here he comes in playing desperate strategy, scrambling for escape any way he can. I do like the moments where he can't help himself but always pays for it, even if Miz catching him on the coast to coast was kind of awkward. Miz unleashing actual punishment was really good, with Cole calling him a sadist (which is a weird thing to have your announcer saying about your babyface who isn't doing a heel turn) as he beats Shane with a chair. I was hoping they'd end it like this, with Miz getting some revenge and dropping him face first on a chair. But they opted to go a pretty stupid route instead, as they apparently think the hot way to draw fans into this PPV is some refs making mistakes! The ref stops the match when Shane gets his foot on the ropes, even though it's a No DQ cage match. Two matches in a row where a ref mistake changes the outcome of a match is just stupid, uninteresting, and lazy. That Shane eventually wins the match by dropping to the floor, ensuring the feud continues, was not what I wanted. This started very promising but didn't go in a direction anybody could have wanted.

Tony Nese vs. Ariya Daivari

ER: Damn this feels like a couple deep cut guys on the roster to be getting PPV time. I don't really have the time to watch 205 Live, but damn what is the state of that program? Tony Nese really stinks. This whole thing is ice cold (possibly by design) and Nese doesn't help any one soul in the building get warm. His prepared combos are so sloppy and shitty looking, he runs through this awful high kick/kneelift, leg sweep, leg drop combo that is so slow, and manages to look shittier literally each step of the way through the combo. Daivari has a couple more interesting things than I remembered. I liked his jab and a couple of his cheapshots, but he doesn't have anything interesting enough to make the crowd care about Tony Nese. We do eventually get a Boring chant, and it's stupid but not undeserved. Nese doesn't deserve cheers for his shitty elbow exchanges and slow kicks, all delivered with absolutely zero personality. Nese is such a zilch. Fans at least make a little noise for his flip dive and 450, but I actually laughed when it got a kickout. These guys are going for This Is Awesome Please Don't Stop epic without earning one damn ounce of it. I hate it but I kind of love it. The finishing stretch was nonsensical and cut short right when they decided to do some silly kickouts. Really this whole thing showed that neither of these guys are anywhere close to deserving PPV time. This was outright bad.

Lacey Evans vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I really have not been into any of the Lacey Evans stuff we've gotten so far, so this is a decent chance for her to win me over. I think I'm still upset that we never got the culmination of this exact same run for Eva Marie. I wasn't expecting any good matches from that, but I got a genuine kick out of the Eva Maria stuff. And Lacey looks if not great, interesting. Her arm work was nice, whipping Becky's arm into the match, wrapping it around a post, stomping on the wrist, kneeing the elbow, all of those are cool things. She threw a hard elbowdrop to the stomach, overall a nice attack. The crowd doesn't really seem to buy into her game though, and it makes for some pretty quiet control segments. Perhaps worse, is that Lacey doesn't eat a babyface beating very well. She is really stiff - not in a cool strikes kind of way, stiff as in "kind of a lug" - who doesn't bump excitedly for explosive offense, kinda just clunks her way over on big dropkicks, and always seems just slightly out of position. The finishing sequence building to the Disarm-her was messy and unconvincing, with another bizarrely out of place ref leading to the sequence looking even uglier than it should have. Was this a case of "refs call it like a shoot and the shoulder wasn't down" or have they not been instructing the refs to act like it's a shoot for a decade? This whole PPV has felt both cursed and like a curse over the past hour.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

ER: This could be a nice way to turn our misfortune around. This overall feud has had some unfortunate detours and misdirections, and has been a disappointment, but it still has high ceiling potential and it's always a possibility one of the matches could reach that ceiling. It doesn't really get to that ceiling, and is also kind of a dull mess. There were also several moments where one of them intentionally or unintentionally flinched out of the way of important strikes, so you got a few moments of sold strikes that ate a ton of air, including the kick that literally ended the match. That stuff is ugly as hell and the wrestlers need to be given the confidence to call audibles more often. The match didn't work to any interesting peak moments, was not memorable, and then it ALSO turns out it's even more of an angle than a match, as we get the full fan requested Bayley run in complete with her cashing in the briefcase.

Charlotte vs. Bayley

ER: This was at least memorable for the fans' legit large pop for the quick Bayley win. It would be a real kick if Bayley suddenly got a groundswell of support the way fans suddenly took to Kofi. I would love if the end result of all of this fairly botched Becky/Charlotte feud is Bayley becoming as popular as Becky was a year ago. Bayley running through the crowd was a genuinely fun moment.

Elias vs. Roman Reigns

ER: You guys I really don't like this PPV and I definitely would rather be listening to the angular guitar synth sounds of Jimmy Page while Paul Kersey takes down a sect of LA new wave gutter punks. I am starting to resent the PPV a little at this point. "Big Dog" Commentary Count: 3

AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins

ER: This was not the match I was hoping for, when I was hoping for my luck to turn around. AJ has been a noticeable step down over the past year, and Rollins is arguably my least favorite guy on the roster. This just wasn't the match I wanted. It's a match that I'm very tired of. We haven't really seen these two in a match, but that's not what I'm mean, I mean that I'm tired of these Seth Rollins style fitness routine epics. This stuff is such soulless junk, I always wind up totally zoned out 5 minutes in. There were things that looked cool: AJ sets up a nutso piledriver off the apron and Rollins drops hard to his escape, Rollins hits his dive a little more recklessly (not as daintily) as he can, stuff like that. We get an actually AWESOME reverse suplex off the top, with Rollins whipping Styles with a low arc, making it look like AJ bounced right off his face. It was great and infinitely cooler than any other piece of Rollins' offense. So naturally it was used as a mid-match nearfall surprise. The missed and hit superkick tradeoffs look as silly and overdone as they usually look, and "The Beast Slayer! Looking to burn it down!" is so cringe that I don't even know if Manowar could make that sound cool. It certainly doesn't sound cool when describing Seth Rollins. This may have been a good version of "this match". It didn't go anywhere deep into overkill, even if I thought the layout was boring and predictable. That makes it at least an above average version of this match, but I'm tired of this song.

Lucha House Party vs. Lars Sullivan

ER: Pretty sure this match was booked as a Vince dogwhistle to trump showing he fully supports the burgeoning market of white guys with questionable tweets pushed too far and taking the matter of getting rid of brown people into his own hands.

Kevin Owens vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: I'm not expecting to really enjoy the "not against Daniel Bryan" portions of Kofi's title run, but we'll see. I don't have much skin in either of these guys, so it's tough for me to get into this, but they do well with the time they're given. Owens superkicking Kofi out of the sky on a big plancha to the floor looked cool, Owens took a big double stomp on the apron, Owens takes a big upside down bump in the corner and drops on his his, and more. This does continue the unfortunate trend of the night of every single match having an absolute dogshit do si do reversal sequence that looks like slow mo play fighting. Those sequences are really bugging me tonight, so things weren't perfect here. But it's probably the best match on the show since the MITB women's match, and that wasn't a particularly high bar.

Baron Corbin vs. Finn Balor vs. Ricochet vs. Andrade vs. Ali vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton

ER: Within the first two minutes of this, Andrade takes a gorgeous Jerry bump, Ali gets backdropped on a table, Balor gets backdropped on a table, Ricochet hits a springboard 450 to the floor, and Ricochet gets backdropped on a table. This match feels like it knows it can definitively be the best of the night. They do a lot of big things here, and it consistently looks good and painful. Ali and Ricochet both eat backdrops onto ladders, and Andrade spectacularly springboard dropkicks Orton off a ladder. This has been a night where agents have laid out some real clunkers, so guys stepping in and having one of those fun WWE Heavyweight X Division matches is going to come off even better. WWE has a decent history of being able to do a "many guys chaining together offense" multiman, and this played like one of the good ones. Andrade hitting a sunset flip powerbomb on Finn off a ladder through another ladder - Andrade landing on his feet and Finn recoiling like a skinny kid getting bounced off a trampoline by two fat kids - was one of the most spectacular WWE spots of the last decade. That was WWE stealing the brilliant insanity from the Crazy Crusher vs. Hell Storm Canadian backyard ladder match. Ali, Balor, and Ricochet really sacrificed their backs for some cool moments tonight, all of them taking multiple back bumps onto ladders, onto the floor, and onto unbudging tables. Ricochet taking a mammoth hip toss from McIntyre, from the ring through a ladder set up at ringside really made this feel like we were getting an ECW match with 3 Spike Dudleys. Corbin is pretty good as modern Justin Credible, pushed cartoon rat faced heel who has been shaving his head for hairline reasons since late 20s getting a ton of go away heat. I would have preferred an actual finish with the guys involved, since really everybody here absolutely busted their ass and someone deserved some credit for that. But I also love Brock more than most people so I can't deny that I think he's a fun guy to be running around threatening to cash in briefcase. What an absolutely scary monster in the closet, knowing that Lesnar could run out at any time to potentially concuss someone! This match played a lot more like something you'd see on a dirty indy show, everyone taking some impressive risks and the fans really getting into it. This show desperately needed to go out on an exciting note, and this match delivered that.

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WWE Fastlane 3/10/19 Adjacent-to-Live Blog

Shinsuke Nakamura/Rusev vs. New Day

ER: Lana's got a cool new shoulder length 'do, though it's styled a bit too triangularly. This is kicking off the pre-show, and was treated as such when it got the smaller square of screen during a Roman Reigns promo vid, and the smaller screen on a cutaway to Miz talking with his dad and Shane. Rusev and Nak cut off Wood's tag to Big E well enough, but nothing flashy or very interesting. This feels like a house show match, without the charm of a house show match. Rusev and Nak are complementary partners, but they don't do a ton more than stop action here and Nak just always seems lethargic. I liked Woods' missile dropkick off the top, and Big E has the greatest standing splash in pro wrestling history, with no close contenders coming to mind. Finishing stretch gets betters when some interference from Lana adds intrigue to a nearfall, and both Rusev and Nak bump to the floor to set up Woods hitting a flip dive, which they catch and powerbomb him on the floor. But as a heel team both of these guys seem completely uninterested in making things interested, and it's rare that the crowd is this quiet for the very first wrestling action they're seeing, but there it is. This match got plenty of time to do something, but this wasn't it. Pre-show matches don't typically feel this low energy.

Shane McMahon/The Miz vs. The Usos

ER: Shane is actually plenty good at doing things like armdrags and has a nice Russian leg sweep, because he throws his body entirely into the move, guy is pretty fearless with landings. His stuff only really falls apart whenever he thinks his strikes look good. The second he starts throwing strikes in matches it looks like a bad White Collar Brawlers bumper. I'm not sure who decided to start the evening's action with these two tags back to back, but it feels like someone is specifically trying to highlight how poor Rusev and Nakamura are in their current roles, as the Usos immediately step into a cut off the ring situation and work a far more interesting match with the same formula. Shane is a really fun FIP for them and there's a great moment where the Usos shoot him into a rope running sequence with one of them forcing Shane's movement with a dropdown, leading to him eating a lariat the way someone would eat a good spear. Miz has a spirited hot tag that the crowd is hyped for, even coming in with a springboard axe handle, and ends it with him doing a big plancha off the top onto both Usos. I'm not sure I've seen Miz do either of those things, and he's clearly playing to the hometown crowd and they love it. We go into the run that feels like the finish, and Usos are really good at bringing the match back from those moments to get more heat. The whole match builds to a ridiculous spot where Miz is on the mat and an Uso is slumped in the corner, with Shane and the other Uso on opposite buckles. Uso and Shane jumped at the same time and I guess it was supposed to look like Shane intercepting him out of mid air? It looked like two guys trying to avoid each other at the last minute, and then not sure what either was supposed to be selling upon landing. They both kind of held their balls and kicked their legs. It might have seemed spectacular on paper, but it came off confusing and overly thought out in execution, took away from the finish for me. I don't care about, nor do I understand the Shane turn, so I FF my way through. From what I did see, I'm amused that Shane appeared to tighten up his strikes for the first time since his comeback. He threw a couple of closed fist body shots to Miz that were better than any strikes he's thrown in an actual match the past year.

Mandy Rose vs. Asuka

ER: Really excited about this one even though I'm not sure it can deliver to my expectations. I've seen them both (especially Mandy) have such strong house show work, and that doesn't seem to come through nearly as often on TV. I know there's a good match to be had here though. But I fully dig how they start this, doing some quick mat reversals and some nice stuff around a waistlock, ending with Mandy locking in a nice octopus hold that Asuka reverses into an even better octopus. They don't bring many strikes into it until 4 minutes in, thought that was cool. Though once they do get to strikes Asuka comes up too short on what's supposed to be a big knockdown high kick, so that was awkward. Mandy has a couple really nice knee strikes, a great high knee early in the match, and a nice moment with Asuka missing her hip attack and getting hung in the ropes before eating a knee. Finish was a little sudden but had a nice set-up that felt like a Finlay agented spot: Sonya had lifted up the ring skirt at ringside to get a kendo stick from under the ring, and Mandy got reversed into the ropes, slipped on the ring skirt that had been gathered into the ring, and then got to her feet just in time to eat Asuka's heel across the right side of her face. The finish didn't really feel built to, and the match was a bit underwhelming, but the finish was great. They even do a slo-mo replay at the end that felt like the first time you saw Misawa rearrange Kawada's face in slo-mo with an elbow, seeing Asuka's boot turn Mandy's face into a rubbery Jim Carrey expression.

Kofi Kingston vs. Cesaro/Sheamus

ER: This was an angle, not really a match, and the fans hated it but in the way that will make them cheer louder for Kofi when he actually gets his big singles match. So it wasn't very exciting for me to see a 2 on 1 beatdown, and the fans didn't want to see it, but it felt like something that would at least advance the angle. I did like when the crowd was chanting This Is Boring, Cesaro said, "No, this is OVER!" before going for a pin.

Ricochet/Aleister Black vs. Chad Gable/Bobby Roode vs. The Revival

ER: I've been so hyped for Revival this past year, Dawson especially might be my favorite WWE male to watch right now. I like how this turns into both Revival and Roode/Gable working over Ricochet, really wish that would go on for the duration, it's a fun layout you don't often see from a triple threat tag (which is a clunky concept). Ricochet snaps off a nice headscissors and after that it's all him getting worked over. Dawson has a great back suplex, does nasty things like tear at his nose, Gable comes in and snaps Ricochet's arm around by trapping it in his ankles and dropping a knee on it. Gable bumps big for an Aleister front kick, though I think Roode might have been the weakest choice for guy to take all of Black's hot tag offense. I dug the sequence of Gable rolling through the chaos theory German before Wilder hit a top rope splash onto Gable; Black totally made the sequence by flailing all four of his limbs wildly as he was going over for the suplex. WWE guys are almost always really great at setting up those runs of chain smoking offense, where one guy hits a move only to get up and get hit by someone else's move. They aren't easy to naturally layout but someone there must be great at doing so. However, I don't think they're good at all at setting up big spots involving EVERY member of the match. I hate when a match like this devolves into the moment everyone is waiting around for, grinds things to a halt too much and the spot always looks too prepared. Ricochet hits a wild as hell dive over the ringpost, but I think that 6 person spot (Dawson getting rana'd to the floor onto everyone) peaked the match awkwardly and made the finish coming shortly after come off flat.

R-Truth vs. Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: What a bunch of dirty dogs, telling me I was getting more Mysterio/Andrade and instead getting another multiman. I actually got the push notification from WWE telling me "Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio kicks off the pre-show!" so I am not sure what kind of last minute call got made or what angle I blew past. The whole things starts off as a pretty great Joe showcase. He was really turning it on, loved his tope onto everyone, his corner chops looked brutal, and his headbutts looked great. Joe appears to be working at 2006 stiffness levels and I know it won't last, but it looks great while we're getting it. Rey is getting as high on offense as ever, and it makes no sense. His hang time always looks so damn elegant, and he makes implausible stuff look effortless, like giving a leaping rana to Andrade and Truth at the same time. My mind blows wide open when I suddenly realize that we've never seen Mysterio or Joe oppose one another until the past couple months. I'm watching them work, watch Joe take a great tornado DDT off the side of his head, and just thinking about what natural dance partners they make...and realize we've only ever even seen them dance together three times, all from the past couple months. Some nice moments down the stretch, Andrade had a gorgeous tornillo to the floor, Vega got involved and you know it was good because she lost an earring, and a lot of the ringwork looked good, but I again thought it could have used more build, and could have gone through a ton more nearfalls.

Sasha Banks/Bayley vs. Nia Jax/Tamina

ER: Boss Hugg would have been such a great name for the tag team, they were this close but they went and fell on their face with their actual name. And this starts off plenty good. Tamina is less offensive than normal, and every quick tag in to Nia is Fia. Tamina would handily carry the brunt of working over Bayley, then Nia would come in and plant her with a powerbomb, and get right back out. I would have liked them building more to Sasha coming in, think they should have had Bayley miss a couple tags first. Tamina is so damn lumbering while taking offense, she moves like she's wearing a suit of armor. Then they go for a spot where Tamina backdrops Sasha into a Nia Samoan drop, but Tamina whips Sasha WAY too fast into Nia and the spot gets wrecked but Nia saves Sasha from a vertical landing, so that counts for something. I did like Tamina's missed charge into the ringpost, so that's something, and Bayley hitting a tope onto everyone looked great, even though it crossed my mind that was the 4th time that near exact thing had happened, and the 3rd match in a row. That's not helping the freshness feel of this show, which has very much underwhelmed so far. I would mess with a Nia/Beth Phoenix feud though. Aw shit, Natalya is involved in it. My sails appear to no longer have wind in them.

Kevin Owens vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: Fans are naturally acting like puds because they aren't getting Kofi/Bryan on this specific show, but they're clearly building to that, so it's annoying when they try to tank a different match when they will eventually get what they want anyway. It's like they're turning on Ali even though they were all in Ali's ass like 3 weeks ago. It's this obnoxious thing where the loudest fans in these situations are the ones who think WWE is somehow screwing them and not pushing their favorites, but Kofi is a guy they've been officially flipping out for now for...like a month. People clearly dug Kofi before, but none of these people were clamoring for Kofi to get a long singles run with 8 star matches against Bryan before that. They were shown Kofi was worth getting behind, and then started acting like they somehow weren't getting what they wanted, while thinking they're making a demand against authority, who actually agrees with what they think they're rebelling against. It makes no sense. Anywho...

Bryan's demeanor in these scraps really is incredible, guy leers around the ring and looks like someone with no time for bullshit. Ali is doing his best in a dumb situation and takes an insane bump off the top, looking like he falls forever before hitting the floor. Crowd appears to be less shitty after that. This match obviously would have been much more interesting if it was a singles match between any two of these guys. We've had one singles match on this show and it feels like one of those indy shows that are nothing but 6 man scrambles, and 3 way tag matches. The pacing is totally screwed because every match feels like a variation on the same match. There's plenty of actual great looking stuff in this - Ali hitting a 450 to the freaking apron, Owens almost damn dying flipping too fast on a tope con hilo (and almost smashing his face into the announce desk), Ali bumping his way into shutting the fans up and hitting a big ass high arc Spanish Fly - but the triple threat stip kept taking me out of the match. There's a wild sequence down the stretch where Ali gets shoved off the top and basically does a moonsault landing on his feet to the floor (my poor ankles would be at 90 degree ankles best case scenario), then Bryan misses a leaping knee off the apron, and Ali hits a wicked tornado DDT on him, Bryan whipping super fast into it. But it felt like the actual finish came too quickly after that, felt like Bryan was back in the ring too quick after what felt like a big moment. Him kneeing Ali out of the sky looked like something that should definitely end a match though, so no complaints about what finished, but plenty of complaints about how we got to there.

Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Charlotte's boots are sick as hell, probably my favorite thing on the show so far. The maroon and gold scheme doesn't go with her magenta gear, which means Charlotte just needs to get herself some damn maroon and gold gear! Maroon is an underutilized gear color (he says, without taking even one second to think about it). And this match was great. Lynch comes out limping and Charlotte mocks her and spends the whole time going after Becky's leg, and it's the best stuff. There are a bunch of nasty short spills that Becky is forced to take, and they do some shots that look like they came straight out of BattlArts, no joke. Little things like Becky kicking at the side of Charlotte's knee from her back, or Charlotte kicking at Becky's knee while standing over her. Honestly it felt like Ikeda vs. Ishikawa in parts, and I realize how stupid I can come off saying that. Charlotte practically dumps Becky onto her head hitting a sliding tackle into her knee, and I'm all in on it. Becky fights in with little cornered animal attacks, Charlotte takes a big bump off the top, and the thought of a figure 8 seems even more exhilarating since Lynch's has had her knee smacked around for a week. Naturally we get a Ronda run in, giving Becky a nasty as hell punch while about to maybe get tapped, giving Becky the win and the Mania appearance. I'm thankful as all hell I remain purposely oblivious to Ronda Rousey Online Activity, so I'm going to also assume that she hasn't done anything stupid this week on the internet. So saying that, I absolutely love her shitty smirk and bad eye makeup as she stands in the corner, and I could see this match being the best match at Mania.

Baron Corbin/Bobby Lashley/Drew McIntyre vs. The Shield

ER: I'm just not caring about this one too much, and that's too bad because Shield trios were my absolute joint in a not too distant past. I don't care about the Shield anymore. It's over. The McIntyre/Roman moments felt like they should have been better, and the crowd is really quiet the whole time. This has been a pretty suck crowd almost the whole night, honestly. It gets better when Dean hits a really nice elbow off the top to the floor, there's a big powerbomb, and they work some decent crowd brawling stuff which was at minimum a welcome change of pace to the cold ring work. Fans do eventually get really into this and there are big spots, a great Roman spear on the floor, McIntyre going through an announce table, and the crowd really loves getting to see all three Shield guys get Corbin alone in the ring. The match eventually came off like a success but it never grabbed me. Maybe my mood was down because I think the PPV almost entirely underdelivered compared to my (reasonable) expectations. This certainly wasn't a bad match, but it felt like it should have been better.

ER: This was a kind of disappointing PPV. That seems kind of harsh, because I don't think there was anything bad on the card. But there wasn't a lot that moved the needle for me. I really got into Becky/Charlotte, even the Ronda finish (even though I still wished there was more match before Ronda), but the rest felt like it had a good amount of nice moments, but not great matches. Felt like a high potential card going into the night, but I don't think this was my fault.

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