Colette Arrand

Tag: Wrestling Reviews

Reviews and recaps of wrestling shows. The current rotation includes WWE’s Raw and Pay-Per-Views, Lucha Underground, and independent shows of note.

  • Wrestling Review: WWE NXT (5/27/15)

    Wrestling Review: WWE NXT (5/27/15)

    Emma vs bayley

    Last week, NXT aired another live Takeover special, which means that this week was used to hit pause and take a deep breath before soldering on to the next two-hour event that convinces the bored, jaded folks constantly threatening to cancel their subscription to the WWE Network to keep hanging in there for more of that good stuff. Considering that two out of five of Triple H’s prized NXT stars—Sami Zayn and Hideo Itami—are out of action with injuries for awhile, that pause is warranted. But if anybody tuning into a regular episode of NXT for the first time after Takeover was expecting the same kind of breakneck-paced action of that show, then this week’s show is a lesson in tempered expectations. It’s not so much that anything about NXT this week was bad. It’s always a solid hour of wrestling, able to tell its stories in clear, concise, and (mostly) compelling fashion, featuring at least one match that’s worth remembering, but when NXT pumps the breaks, it really pumps the breaks.

    Kevin Owens is, of course, preparing for his first match on the main roster, which is, as you may or may not have heard, against John Cena. After putting Sami Zayn out of action last week and crushing John Cena with another pop-up powerbomb, he’s got a lot of momentum on his side and he knows it. He hits the ring to begin the show, entering to Zayn’s music, which he says will never be played again. I don’t envy Owens in this spot at all, as he has to address a lot of moving parts in this promo: Zayn, John Cena, Samoa Joe—and that’s before NXT General Manager William Regal comes to the ring to make clear that he doesn’t appreciate what Owens has done as champion. Their brief exchange is great—I love Owens’ character, a bad man who really believes that his actions are good, and Regal is one of my favorite wrestlers and personalities ever. The NXT General Manager is a thankless role, one that doesn’t get a lot of airtime (which means that it’s honestly a waste of Regal), but this week William Regal makes it count. He’s tired of watching Owens beat his roster up to the point that they have to take a stretcher out of the arena. Last week they teased Regal vs. Owens and brought out Samoa Joe. This week their disagreement brings out Solomon Crowe. Crowe is still newish to NXT but is no stranger to Owens, the two having met in the indies, but their rivalry is considerably less storied than the one between Owens and Zayn, so Owens plays Crowe like a nobody. Crowe’s gimmick is that he’s a computer hacker, but in the ring with Owens he is all nebbish babyface, mad about what Owens did to Zayn. He questions Owens’ moral turpitude and “earns” a main event match against the champion. Owens vows that, just like his other rivals, Crowe will leave the NXT Arena on a stretcher.

    With Kevin Owens being pulled in so many directions, NXT has also been focusing on its strong women’s division in a way that no other wrestling promotion on television has proven themselves capable of. After a match of the year candidate against Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch was the subject of NXT‘s best video package, spotlighting her journey from a young woman with a dream to her show-stealing match last week. Alexa Bliss’ sudden allegiance with NXT Tag Team Champions Blake and Murphy means that Carmella will be physically involved in the issue surrounding those titles, and Bliss has an edge to her character beyond the default girl-next-door bubbliness she debuted with. It’s a vaguely defined edge, though, as Blake and Murphy, despite being an able team, don’t really have characters themselves beyond being kind of dirty and maybe into dubstep. That’s been one of NXT’s major failings for me, is how beyond former indie darlings and high concept characters like Tyler Breeze, most of the roster is interchangeable. The point, I suppose, is whether or not they can go in the ring, but it’s nice when NXT provides a template for the lazy, downtrodden Raw and SmackDown! writers so that a call-up isn’t forced to stand around pumping their fists in silence like the Lucha Dragons.

    The strongest work this week was put in by Emma, who has taken NXT’s other female cliché (a “change in attitude”) and run with it much farther than I would have expected given her goofy, dance-centered character. That she flopped so hard on Raw and was at the center of a weird shoplifting saga that resulted in her being fired and rehired in short order, so it’s within the realm of believability that her change of attitude is motivated by something real. She’s been saddled with Dana Brooke, who is super green. I wasn’t particularly impressed with her at Unstoppable, and, standing ringside, all she really has to do is flex her rather impressive muscles. Her role, like most roles women play on WWE program, is not unfamiliar to anybody watching Raw or SmackDown!, as Tamina Snuka has been playing it since her debut, for the Usos, A.J. Lee, and now Naomi. While it’s a good idea, a sneaky, bitter heel looking for help in their crusade against another woman, the lady version of the Shawn Michaels/Diesel relationship has yet to really play itself out. There’s no denying that NXT is a much more satisfying experience when it comes to women’s wrestling, but a sketch of an idea is still a sketch of an idea. Why does Dana Brooke do the things Dana Brooke does? Who is she? For that matter, who is Alexa Bliss and why is she hanging with a pair of mean dudes after spending so much time as a bubbly cheerleader who called her moves things like “the sparkle splash?” I appreciate how much NXT focuses on women, but beyond those who’ve had careers outside of NXT or who came to it attached to their father’s legacy, that “focus” often means just being on screen while something else happens.

    Samoa Joe Kevin Owens

    Actually, that’s become something of a noticeable problem on NXT as time passes and certain stars get called up to the main show: Beyond Triple H’s acclaimed, no-brainer “leaders of the new school” signings and those who had a character before their arrival, the show is almost shockingly bereft of depth. So many of the WWE-bred NXT regulars, like poor Tye Dillenger, look and wrestle in this beyond flavorless manner that suggests there’s little more to them than being dropkick fodder for Finn Bálor. Solomon Crowe represents something of an experiment, a hybrid of WWE’s predilection towards hiring buzzed about indie wrestlers who wouldn’t have stood a chance of signing even two years ago and their penchant for goofy gimmicks. Looking at Crowe, it’s more than a little hard to buy him as some cyberpunk hacker on the fringes of society, and that character did not mesh well with the ancient babyface fire he was meant to channel in the opening segment of the night. As Sami Callihan, he wrestled main events on the indies against Kevin Owens (née Steen), so tonight’s NXT main event is another that’s happened before, but not under the WWE’s bright lights, and not in the WWE’s gadget-heavy ring.

    In one sense, it was actually kind of refreshing to see a formerly big match-up turned into a tune-up for Owens as he heads into the biggest match of his life at Elimination Chamber. 1.3 million or so people subscribe to the WWE Network, and Owens/Cena is an exclusive to that platform, but over the past two weeks he has brought his unlikely presence to the largest possible audience for wrestling in 2015, and is, in fact, being billed as the next big thing for it. And it’s not just Owens’ career that’s in the balance here, but the perception of NXT as a brand. WWE has tried and failed to market outsider offshoots of itself for a long time now—Shotgun Saturday Night, the revival of the ECW brand, and the original concept for NXT were failures because, despite branding, they felt a lot like WWE, just with the lights dimmed down a bit. NXT as it is now does not have that problem, as WWE has succeeded in building a bubble universe, an arena full of people whose fervor for what they’re seeing would rival the crowds at an ROH, PWG, AIW, Chikara, or Beyond Wrestling show if there wasn’t such an overbearing sense of mandatory fun at the NXT Arena. Moments like the confrontation between Owens and Samoa Joe are cool, but I think it’s time to recognize that they’re not cool because of anything the WWE is doing, unless we want to say (to admit?) that what WWE is doing is piling money onto a product whose presentation has been mastered by other promotions for a decade plus, and at an operating budget that would make Triple H laugh. It’s not enough to put Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens in the same ring together—the rest of the show, for it really be that much better than the main roster, needs to be clicking at the same level as its indie stars. If that seems like an unrealistic expectation, well, that kind of comes with the territory of booking an indie promotion on a million dollar budget.

    WWE NXT: 5/27/15, Tampa, Florida

    1. Emma (w/Dana Brooke) def. Bayley via submission. GRADE: B-

    2. Blake and Murphy (w/Alexa Bliss) def. Elias Samson & Mike Rollins via pinfall. GRADE: C+

    3. Finn Balor def. Tye Dillenger via pinfall. GRADE: C

    4. Kevin Owens def. Solomon Crowe via pinfall. GRADE: B-

  • Wrestling Review: WWE Raw 5/25/15

    Wrestling Review: WWE Raw 5/25/15

    Dean Ambrose is a cop you idiot

    I know, I know. I haven’t reviewed an episode of Raw since February. In truth, I just haven’t watched that much wrestling since the build into and great release of WrestleMania. I can’t afford the indies like I used to, and beyond NXT and Lucha Underground, everything I watch (even New Japan Pro-Wrestling) seems content to remain in a post-big show holding pattern that isn’t going to cure me of the fact that, for whatever reason, I’m just flat burnt out on the stuff. World Wrestling Entertainment’s main programming has been stuck in this holding pattern since Survivor Series, for whatever that’s worth, and, heading into this Sunday’s surprise Elimination Chamber special, the company is only capable of manufacturing one or two moments or matches that pique my interest. This Sunday, that match is Kevin Owens vs. John Cena, a dude I stumped hard for when he was on the independents against a guy who I think ranks among the all-time greatest. So, wearily, I turned on Raw to see how that program would build, and was greeted by the WWE roster reciting a speech by Ronald Reagan, who is this (and every) year’s hot president for Vince McMahon, beacon not only of that shining city on a hill, but for the last time McMahon’s now incredibly dated concept of narrative storytelling worked without anybody wondering why nobody on his staff had the guts to tell him “no.”

    In a month, it’ll have been four years since C.M. Punk dropped his famous “pipe bomb” promo, the worked shoot where he went off on John Cena and Vince McMahon and Triple H and anybody else he perceived as having held him back despite being the best in the ring, on the microphone, and so on. This ushered in what Grantland‘s The Masked Man dubbed “The Reality Era,” but that’s never really panned out. If anything, what Punk’s sudden ascent marked was the beginning of WWE’s Indie Era, which, like the much maligned WWF New Generation era that launched with the departure of Hulk Hogan in 1993, has had its share of ups and downs. At no other point in wrestling history was it possible for someone like CM Punk to become a star on mainstream television, or Daniel Bryan, or Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, or, if the Internet has its way, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. All of these wrestlers had careers, great careers, before they came to World Wrestling Entertainment, but the fact that they don’t exactly build wrestlers like Hulk Hogan anymore means that it’s possible for somebody who used to toil in an Indiana barn for a bunch of hillbillies who paid $10 to see some blood to rub elbows with Jon Stewart or main event a WrestleMania despite the clear wishes of those writing the show. Punk has, obviously, since left wrestling, disgruntled to the point that he’d rather get wrecked in the UFC and write comic books. Daniel Bryan, who will go down as the biggest success story of the Indie Era, has injured his neck to the extent that he probably shouldn’t wrestle again. NXT is currently a warehouse for former indie darlings to keep wrestling while waiting for a call-up to the main roster, a WWE-built alternative to WWE that, giving credit where credit is due, has largely convinced folks that the WWE, finally, is on the road to something that looks like real, substantive change. That, or everybody is so pleased with NXT that they actively hope that their favorites won’t get the call, because the main roster might take a good thing like Kevin Owens and ruin him.

    Kevin Owens John Cena

    Those fears are perhaps unfounded, as Owens is showing up on Raw in basketball shorts destroying Cena with his wicked pop-up powerbomb like he’s not a 15-time WWE Champion, but, then again, looking at Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose as they head into a WWE Championship match at Elimination Chamber, perhaps not. This Raw was booked around that match, made unofficial last week when Ambrose threatened to crush Rollins’ head on a pile of cinderblocks—a nice callback to last year’s goofy angle that took the beyond-hot Ambrose out of action for a few months so he could film a movie nobody is going to see. The Authority, which, by now, is Rollins and a bunch of old dudes in suits, opened the show by giving Ambrose the evening to put his name on a contract to make the match official, first inviting him to an obvious ambush (spoiled by Ambrose’s running buddy Roman Reigns), then conspiring to have him arrested for accidentally assaulting a camera man. With Ambrose in jail, all Raw had to do was kill time until the end of the night, when he would obviously be freed and sign the contract. Saved at the last minute by a WWE staff member uploading a video to YouTube (reality!), Ambrose either stole or was allowed to borrow an NYPD van and officer’s uniform, whereupon he returned triumphant to the Nassau Colosseum to rescue Reigns and ink his name on the contract. It was an angle straight out of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin commandeering a zamboni or a beer truck or his own skull-festooned pick-up to ruin Vince McMahon’s night, but the Austin character (and the McMahon one, for that matter) was able to command “reality” in a way the Ambrose one isn’t, or isn’t allowed to. Of all the ex-Shield members, Dean Ambrose has unquestionably been the worst-written since that unit’s dissolution last year, but he’s the one that fans have most latched on to. He’s teflon-coated, whether he’s rolling a hot dog cart to the ring or threatening to make J&J Security work barefooted, like Hobbits. His continued popularity is a testament to the sort of connection that WWE’s indie-bred stars are able to foster with an audience that likely isn’t aware that indie wrestling exists, but it’s a complete mystery to me after a year of goofy, go-nowhere promos that are way too light on the fact that his ex-friend Seth Rollins tried to end his career once.

    That said, assuming the goofy garbage of a marquee Dean Ambrose match is left to the side, the in-ring quality of this Sunday’s match will be hard for anything else on the card to live up to. In Raw‘s opening contest, a tag match that saw Ambrose joined by Reigns and Rollins by Kane, the two brought a lot of flash to the now beyond-tired Roman Reigns vs. Kane formula, going so far as to exchange the signature moves of Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, two of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s ace performers who are also, more often than not, rivals. And that Ambrose won the match with a backslide and not his finishing maneuver or through disqualification suggests that his match against Rollins, however uninspired Raw‘s storyline was, won’t just be a throwaway title defense on a show otherwise devoted to Cena vs. Owens and the titular Elimination Chamber match.

    Given the decidedly low-stakes of both Chamber matches, that’s good. I’m generally not a fan of WWE booking pay-per-views around specific match genres beyond the Royal Rumble—in a medium that requires the occasional bit of surprise spectacle, calling an event Hell in a Cell and giving us three Hell in a Cell matches on it robs us of both—and the return of the Elimination Chamber for a Tag Team Title match and to decide the once-again vacant Intercontinental Championship only reveals how weak the tag team division is beyond the champions and their primary challengers, and how low the current writer’s rooms energies are ebbing. The Intercontinental Championship was just decided in a multi-man ladder match at WrestleMania, and, with June’s Money in the Bank approaching, yet another multi-man ladder match, likely involving a fair number of the men featured in the Elimination Chamber, will take center stage. Thus the build for the Chamber isn’t on the danger of the match itself or the struggle to get into the match, but on the fallout of the John Cena vs. Rusev I Quit match from this month’s Payback, which saw Lana throw in the towel for her man when she heard him say “I quit” in his mother tongue. Their promo on Raw was half-amazing, half-train-wreck, a pile-up of cold war and sitcom marriage cliches largely sold by the fact that Rusev is one of wrestling’s more engaging characters on the microphone, and Lana a rare great managerial presence whose character, sadly, will not work with anybody but her now former charge. Once Rusev convinces Lana to come to the ring, he starts plying her with rhetoric so pig-headed that even the crowd knows they’re watching something sexist, saying that Lana clearly just wants Rusev’s attention, and that he is ready to give it to her. In what is unquestionably the best thing said on WWE TV since Nikki Bella said she wished her sister died in the womb, Rusev tells Lana “I know you want to crush America and the American spirit just as bad as I,” and he means it. The two embrace, and, just as I’m starting to get misty-eyed for this pair of crazy kids, Rusev asks Lana to admit that she was wrong. This, obviously, she does not do. Rusev goes off, saying that he’s done being nice and that, well, he owns Lana. Lana has none of this, says “I am no longer your victim,” and leaves. Here’s the thing. World Wrestling Entertainment has set the bar so low for female characters that this isn’t just a step in the right direction, it’s Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. But then Lana leaves the ring and makes out with Dolph Ziggler to “get back” at Rusev, and that fantasy is over right quick because it’s 2015 and women on Raw can only be defined by how much they hate other women (see every Diva’s Championship feud, including the current issue between Paige, Naomi, and the Bella Twins), or their relationship with a man. The small blessing here is that Rusev would later return fire by beating Ziggler up in front of Lana, putting him in the Accolade while screaming “KISS HIM NOW!” That ruled.

    Raw didn’t cure what ails me when it comes to professional wrestling, and, in truth, I’m not sure Elimination Chamber will, either. I know that NXT is out there tearing it up (and yes, Unstoppable was another impressive live special from that crew), and my beloved indies soldier on though I am currently unable to pay for them. WWE thrives because it is the easiest wrestling program to access, and ease-of-access breeds complacency. For too long now, it feels like there’s been talk of “grabbing the brass ring” and little actual follow-through. Owens changes that, maybe, but then again, maybe not. His fellow NXT alum Neville is currently wrestling good-to-great matches on the main roster in near-silence because some idiot decided to call him “The New Sensation” instead of just letting him grow organically. Too much of Raw feels perfunctory, there in hopes that a familiar face or move will get the live crowd to pop, and, as such, it feels like I’m watching the most talented wrestlers in the world do battle in a pool of molasses. It’s gotten to the point that John Cena’s usual pandering to the WWE Universe now includes a caveat that it may, in fact, be time for something new. He was talking about the “LET’S GO CENA/CENA SUCKS” chant finally giving way to a name his detractors could believe in, but I’m not sure the solution is as drastic as having Kevin Owens come in and destroy an already barren planet. Nah. If the roster were doing half as much as Zack Ryder did in his match against John Cena, pushing his envelope way beyond what any reasonable person expected of him because he was wrestling his last match in the arena where he learned to love wrestling, we’d be doing just fine. Sure, Ryder ate shit on his 450 splash, but I’d rather watch a beautiful failure than a wrestling promotion in cruise control.

    from Wrestling Giffer
    from Wrestling Giffer 

     

    WWE RAW 5/25/15 – Long Island, New York

    1. Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns def. Seth Rollins & Kane via pinfall. GRADE: B

    2. Rusev def. R-Truth via submssion. GRADE: N/A

    3. Ryback def. Wade Barrett via pinfall. GRADE: B-

    4. Neville def. Stardust via pinfall. GRADE: C

    5. Dolph Ziggler def. Sheamus via pinfall. GRADE: C+

    6. UNITED STATES CHAMPIONSHIP: John Cena (champion) def. Zack Ryder via pinfall. GRADE: B

    7. Tamina def. Paige via pinfall. GRADE: D

    8. 10 VS. 3 HANDICAP MATCH: The New Day def. Tyson Kidd & Cesaro, The Ascension, Los Matadores, The Prime Time Players, and the Lucha Dragons via disqualification. GRADE: N/A

  • Wrestling Review: Lucha Underground (2/25/15)

    Wrestling Review: Lucha Underground (2/25/15)

    Lucha Underground Prince Puma vs Cage

    Like an episode of NXT, Lucha Underground has to accomplish a lot within a very short window of time. Unlike NXT, they do not have the benefit of airing on a subscription-based network that can go without advertisements should it so choose. That Lucha Underground frequently outpaces NXT is impressive given that they lose about 10 minutes an episode to the WWE’s much-hyped product, and is due in large part to the rather effective way that they’ve built the pocket universe of The Temple. This episode begins quickly with a live musical performance by Mariachi El Bronx and Vampiro and Matt Striker setting up the most important match of the night. Quick, fast, painless, and, with a cut from the commentary position to the ring, we’re ready for the first match. That happens to be a rematch between Aerostar and Drago. Matt Striker, when he’s not trying to be a fan, is actually a decent announcer, and is quite effective in setting up this technico vs. technico match. He says that when two wrestlers share a mutual respect the action between them will be move-for-move, hold-for-hold. And that’s true, as the two start by shaking hands. It doesn’t take long for things to get out of hand though, as Aerostar takes Drago out of the ring with a headscissors, then follows through with a step-up springboard plancha that would have 99% of wrestlers crazy enough to try it eating floor.

    Aerostar comes up a little gimpy after that, which lets Drago take over. There’s some sloppy exchanges between the two as both men try to fit a crazy amount of action into a six minute contest. The big spots are impressive, but when Aerostar tries to flip over Drago in the corner, kicking his man in the head accidentally, and nothing happens? It’s noticeable. But the match is as even as Matt Striker claimed it would be, as Aerostar and Drago reel off big move after big move until Aerostar hits the biggest of the contest, a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor. Knowing he has the advantage, he rolls Drago into the ring, follows through with a springboard splash, and gets a clean win. As the two shake hands, Dario Cueto steps out of the office to say that he enjoyed their matches thus far, but that he wants to see more. Since the two are tied and so evenly matched, they’ll wrestle in a best of five situation with a “unique opportunity” on the line. Drago and Aerostar look pretty excited by that idea, and, over the course of three more matches, the intensity between them should pick up.

    Tonight’s main event is Johnny Mundo vs. King Cuerno in a first time ever encounter. They put the match over by running a video of Cuerno running in slow motion from rope to rope, before launching himself into his suicide dive. These video packages are short, but they always do an effective job of showing the athleticism of the Lucha Underground stars. Running the ropes is so basic that nobody stops to think about it, but watching Cuerno’s flesh ripple on contact, the message here is that every action in wrestling, no matter how small, has its consequence.

    After another short burst of music from Mariachi El Bronx, it’s time for Cage vs. Prince Puma. The production music for Lucha Underground is pretty noticeably bad compared to the live band, who, at times, have a camera on them that shows their reaction to big moves. Why not just have the band play the luchadores to the ring? Cage, if you’re new to Lucha Underground and are unfamiliar with the California scene, is an absolutely jacked monster of a man. As a cocky gringo, he stole Puma’s championship and ripped it apart, injuring both the champion and his manager in the process. Puma is making his return from that injury here and charges down the Temple steps and into the ring, where he’s almost immediately thrown around like a bag of rice. This is a classic speed vs. power match, and, as such, Cage has the advantage. Vampiro speculates that Prince Puma is a little lost without Konnan in his corner, and that’s how things play out at the beginning. Every time he tries to press his speed advantage, be it with a kick or a springboard maneuver, Cage is able to counter it with raw strength. One springboard move leads to a terrible transition, but it’s one small misstep in an otherwise very crisp match. A second springboard gets Puma caught, curled, and thrown overhead. The most impressive sequence early is all Cage’s athleticism, as he catches Puma with a powerslam, rolls through, and misses with a moonsault. But Puma quickly does Cage one better, as the missed moonsault leads to a step-up springboard shooting star press to the floor.


    Puma throws Cage back into the ring and hits him with a springboard 450 splash, but Cage is able to kick out at two. He finds Cage too heavy to lift, which lets Cage run at him for a clothesline. Puma ducks and uses the momentum to lift Cage up, but Cage blocks the kick Puma tries to throw at him from the fireman’s carry and gets picked up into a gutwrench powerbomb… which he reverses into a hurricanrana for two! These guys are just effortlessly putting together a series of impressive, high-impact moves, and it’s not even a championship match. Puma, yet the untested champion, feels he has something to prove, and Cage must win this match in order to receive a real title shot. The belt isn’t there since Cage ripped it up, but it manages to feel important nevertheless, especially as Puma kicks out of a series of increasingly brutal deathblows. After a pumphandle facebuster, Cage decides to utilize a stretch muffler to go for a submission. Puma looks like he is going to tap out, but Konnan reappears, willing his charge to the ropes. The appearance of the legendary luchador only raises Cage’s ire though, as he powerbombs the champion twice and follows through with his crazy Weapon X finisher.

    That’s not enough for Cage, though, as instead of going for the cover he mounts Puma and starts to level the defenseless champion with a series of forearm shots. Wanting to protect his charge, Konnan grabs a towel off of a ringside attendant and throws it in, signalling Puma’s surrender. Cage celebrates his win, draping the towel over Puma’s face like a flag. Backstage, Konnan tells an agitated Puma to follow the art of war. Cage thinks he knows how to beat Puma, but he didn’t pin the champion or make him submit. Puma needs to realize that this gives them a mental edge over Cage. They’re playing a game of deception. Whether or not that’s true, Puma looks like he wanted to keep going. Vampiro called Konnan’s play part of his agenda, which is something he’s been hinting at since the first episode of Lucha Underground. Konnan’s the manager of an exciting prizefighter, so I’d say his agenda is keeping his charge healthy enough for another fight. If there’s something sinister going on, it is unclear what, exactly, that is.

    Dario Cueto takes a meeting with Sexy Star in his office. She, like everybody else watching Lucha Underground, is tired of men running in at the end of her matches. She feels like, despite what The Crew did to her friends last week, she had that match in hand. Cueto, who wanted to use The Crew to eliminate Star, Mascarita Sagrada, and Pimpinella Escarlata, twists Stars words around, insinuating that she has a problem with Big Ryck. She says that’s not the case, and that her issue is with The Crew. Cueto offers her a match with Big Ryck, which she takes to mean a tag team match with Ryck as her partner, but that’s not the case. Cueto wants Sexy Star to wrestle Ryck, promising that no men will come to rescue her, and that the winner will get to settle their issue with The Crew first. This makes Star happy. I think it’s good that Lucha Underground is addressing one of the chief criticisms of how they present intergender wrestling as part of its product. As for how it’ll play out, we’ll have to wait and see. Pentagon, Jr. wrestles a quick match against a California wrestler named Vinny Massaro, who is rather schlubby-looking for a televised product, but since he’s there to take a beating it doesn’t really matter. Pentagon lets the world know that this match is dedicated to his yet-unseen master, then takes apart Massaro in short order. His chops are brutal. His superkick is on the button. He wrecks Massaro with the pumphandle driver and picks up the win. Just as Vampiro speculates that Pentagon, Jr. may have calmed down, he goes under the ring and pulls out a table. He powerbombs Massaro through it, applies his armbreaker to the thoroughly beaten Italian, and breaks the arm as he has done to his last few opponents. He kisses the mat and pays tribute to his master, who I’m looking forward to seeing. Pentagon, Jr. flat out rules.

    King Cuerno has been hunting Johnny Mundo for some time now, targeting the former WWE Superstar’s knee, which is the secret to his parkour. Cuerno has one of the coolest looks in all of wrestling, which, considering the incredible variety of luchadores in Lucha Underground, is saying a lot. Johnny Mundo isn’t messing around, either. He skips his usual entrance and gets right down to business. His temper lets Cuerno outsmart him for a bit, but Mundo quickly takes Cuerno down and knees him in the face. Cuerno goes after Mundo’s knee right after the nearfall and looks to hit a slingshot move, but Mundo hits a superkick and follows Cuerno to the floor with a huge barrel roll!


    Shortly thereafter, Mundo gets Cuerno back in the ring and starts working his rival over with a series of clotheslines. Striking has never particularly been Johnny Mundo’s game, but he has a pretty decent spear. Mundo tries to hit the Moonlight Drive, but it’s too early. Cuerno goes for his finisher, the Thrill of the Hunt, but the same goes for him. Though this is a first time meeting between two guys who wouldn’t have had much reason to be interested in one another before Cuerno thought of Mundo as a good trophy, the two wrestle one another like they’ve studied each other’s game. Like the opening contest between Aerostar and Drago, that means that they go move-for-move, each one hoping their next blow will be the one that tilts the advantage in their favor. That seems to go to Mundo, as he hits Moonlight Drive and looks for his End of the World finish, but his knee gives him some pause and Cuerno kicks him from the top turnbuckle to the floor. That lets Cuerno hit a tope suicida, which runs Mundo into a guardrail. Mundo tries to put some space between them, perhaps looking for some of his parkour-based nonsense, but Cuerno beats him to the punch with another tope suicida, this one sending Mundo into the commentary table. Curneo gets a third tope suicida, and Mundo is really out of it. His knee was banged up before the match, his back is banged up now, and though he’s usually the master of working a wrestling match on the floor, Cuerno has him. The referee starts a 10 count and Cuerno is up well before it, but he just looks at Mundo and lets the referee finish to end the match in a draw. Huh. The two do a double clothesline spot, but if that was the finish of the match, there was some miscommunication. Soon they’re up and fighting again, ignoring the referee as they brawl through The Temple, all the way up the stairs. Things get so heated that Cuerno decks the referee, right before Mundo powerslams him through a chain link fence. It’s a nice, spirited brawl that will lead to another match down the line, but things were really starting to pick up and get interesting before the strange 10 count. Given Mundo’s love of a no longer cool form of free running and Cuerno’s hunter gimmick, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two settle it in a falls count anywhere match. Maybe we’ll even see what’s out there beyond the walls of The Temple. Still, when members of the audience are gathering around the announcer’s table to watch what’s going on from a tiny monitor, you’re doing something good.

    Results

    1. Aerostar def. Drago via pinfall. GRADE: B-

    2. Cage def. Prince Puma via forfeit when Konnan threw in a towel as Cage pummeled his helpless charge. GRADE: B+

    3. Pentagon, Jr. def. Vinny Massaro via pinfall. GRADE: C+

    4. King Cuerno and Johnny Mundo went to a double count out. GRADE: B

  • Wrestling Review: WWE NXT (2/25/15)

    Wrestling Review: WWE NXT (2/25/15)

    Watching NXT this week, I was reminded of classic World Wrestling Federation style storytelling from the late 80s and early 90s, the Saturday to Monday cycle of somewhat competitive squash matches that exist to promote live shows, both on pay-per-view and in the Civic Centers and National Guard Armories of small town America. NXT is leaving Full Sail University for a series of untaped live shows in the midwest, and these hour-long episodes do build to live specials meant to be seen by the WWE Network’s one-million subscribers. The difference between NXT’s storytelling cycle and the old WWF’s is a matter of time and talent; NXT has less of the former and more of the latter.

    As a compromise (a blessed, wonderful compromise), NXT begins with the announce team welcoming us to the show and entrances for the first match. This is a great formula. The wonderful miracle of NXT, even when the matches on the show aren’t in the indie dream match format of the Takeover specials, is that so much of its character work is done in the ring. The first match, Hideo Itami vs. Bull Dempsey, doesn’t have much of that, though it does reestablish a diminished Bull as a physical threat. Itami, still adjusting to the WWE style, is coming along quite nicely. Beyond his match against Tyler Breeze, this is my favorite effort of his under the WWE banner. Dempsey, when he’s not being asked to feed into Baron Corbin’s horrible-looking big dude offense, is convincingly tough, and he spends the whole match beating up the man formerly known as KENTA. Itami, long used to the sort of punishing big dude offense that is quite popular in Japan, makes Dempsey look like a monster at times, particularly when the two collide head-on. Itami only needs a tiny opening to get his kicks in, though, so all of Dempsey’s bullying is for nothing. Itami’s dropkick variations are enough to win him the match. Celebrating on the ramp, though, Itami is ambushed by Tyler Breeze. Not happy with his loss to Itami at Takeover, Breeze tries to embarrass the Japanese superstar by taking a selfie of himself with Itami’s prone body in the background. But he can’t get the angle right, even with the aid of his selfie stick, and Itami comes right back on him. Breeze is able to escape Itami’s wrath before taking too many kicks, and it looks like we’ve got a real issue between the two. In my fantasy booking scenario, Breeze recruits Dempsey in his effort to derail Itami’s career, promising him a makeover in return for his protection. That’s what I want—a queer HBK/chubby Diesel team-up scenario. Chop chop, NXT.

    WWE NXT Hideo Itami Tyler Breeze

    There’s a promo video for The Brian Kendrick, who is this week’s special return. It’d be great if, instead of spoiling the fact that Kendrick is tonight’s return (something they did because, when taping four weeks of television at once, a big return like this will be spoiled online), they had him meet backstage with NXT General Manager William Regal, perhaps set up a reason why Kendrick is immediately wrestling the #1 Contender to the NXT Championship. The one thing I don’t quite understand about NXT is its aversion to promos that last longer than thirty seconds. Not that the show isn’t good without them, but as a developmental space it seems worthwhile to see how well these characters do in longer skits and angles. Also, I want more William Regal, especially if he’s no longer part of the announce team. As tired as I am of the General Manager gimmick, Regal is a big exception.

    The Lucha Dragons, looking to regain their Tag Team Championship form, wrestle against the blue-chip team of Tye Dillenger and Jason Jordan. Before the bell rings, however, the WWE Network feed is hacked by Solomon Crowe. He does every former indie darling’s debut NXT promo, which is to say that he’s all about that NXT Championship. He mashes one of his hot dog colored fingers to the screen of his tablet computer and we’re back to the ring. That’s not a good advertisement for the security of the Network, but I’ll flip if he threatens to release the credit card information of everybody who subscribes if Regal doesn’t give him a title shot. In the ring, Jason Jordan is able to handle the speed and agility of Kalisto and Sin Cara quite handily. He’s pretty clearly the breakout member of this tag team that nobody cares about. He tags to his partner, who is pretty sure he’s got things even though the Dragons are able to quickly overwhelm him. Jordan calls for a tag, but Dillenger tells him to relax. When Dillenger finally goes for a tag, Jordan is done with him. He drops from the ring apron and bails, leaving Dillenger to fend for himself. He very quickly loses. After a commercial break, Tye Dillenger is still in the ring. He is really, really mad at Jason Jordan and demands he come to the ring so they can settle this 45-second long rivalry. Instead, he gets Baron Corbin. The two have a match. It’s a Baron Corbin match, though, and Dillenger just got beat up by two dudes, so he eats Corbin’s finish and goes home. Later, in a 10 second promo, Jason Jordan says that he did what he did because he did what he did, and he’ll explain himself when he’s ready. It’s really weird how this tag team break-up angle is happening with a team that has never mattered to the overall fabric of the show.

    In other promos, Charlotte, despite taking the loss at NXT Takeover: Rival, is confident going into her rematch with Sasha Banks, since Sasha has never beaten her one-on-one. Finn Bálor is ready for Kevin Owens, but can’t afford to look past The Brian Kendrick. Rhyno is backstage, looking like a tough old bastard over-burdened by his muscle and desire to cut people in half. He explains that he’s back because NXT inspired him to find the fire and drive he once had, and because he likes crushing fools with the Gore. Again, and particularly for the likes of Charlotte and Finn Bálor, it’d be great to see these run a little longer than one question and a 30-second reply. To return to the NXT/World Wrestling Federation comparison, feuds were frequently continued via backstage interviews that functioned like a conversation, and the interviewers themselves had identifiable personalities and ongoing relationships with the talent. “Let me tell you something, Mean Gene” is as much a part of the wrestling lexicon as Hulk Hogan’s three demandments, and the old WWF presentation style filtered over onto ESPN, where SportsCenter anchors had their own tics and catchphrases. It’s something that’s coming back into the main product through figures like Renee Young, but slowly. Similarly, I wouldn’t be averse to a full-time return of picture-in-picture promos during the early parts of matches. I like a lot of the characters on NXT, and any way I can see and hear them is good, both for me as a fan and them as a performer.

    WWE NXT Bayley Becky Lynch

    Despite any assertion to the contrary, the NXT women’s division is not booked as a response to what’s happening on Raw or SmackDown!, but the work being done in developmental does hint at some hope for the future. Bayley’s character wouldn’t be given the time of day on Raw, but here she’s been subtly progressing as an in-ring character for some time now, from her beginning as a hug-loving comedy character who made her way into the hearts of the NXT Universe to her current place as a skilled wrestler trying to achieve her dream of championship glory. Lynch, too, has adapted to her aggressive, grungy gimmick rather well, despite whatever misgivings Corey Graves has about the kind of music she listens to. I really like Bayley here, using old-school sledgehammer blows and keeping constant pressure on her opponent without looking to the crowd for approval. She goes for a belly-to-belly suplex off the turnbuckles but is shoved off and snaps her arm on the rope. She keeps fighting, but her weakened arm leaves her vulnerable. Lynch counters out of another belly-to-belly and catches Bayley in an armbar, which she transitions into a nastier-looking armbar for the win. This has been an interesting pattern in the women’s division of NXT, the use of submissions that become a more effective variant of the submission, and I really like it. It’s like when Kurt Angle started adding a leg grapevine to his ankle lock to trap his opponent, only here its not part of the wrestler’s normal routine. It’s an added bit of drama that makes Bayley look better for not tapping out to the initial permutation of the move, and makes Lynch look more sadistic for finding the next variant.

    Though a significant amount of time on the show and online was spent building to The Bryan Kendrick’s re-debut, the opening half of his match against Finn Bálor is mostly about the unsettling presence of Kevin Owens, who provides guest commentary. The vibe of NXT when Owens is around is much different from when he’s not. While nobody on the commentary team doubts him when he says that he wrestles for his family, it’s his sadism that everybody is upset with, especially considering his friendship with Sami Zayn. Owens is actually pretty phenomenal in this role, adding a lot to a match that is worked slowly to accommodate the storyline at the commentary table. Kendrick tries to get back into the ring at one point by flipping up and over Bálor and tweaks his knee. When Bálor gives Kendrick some spact to recover, Owens tears into him. “That was a gift,” he says, which is true. “That’s why Finn Bálor won’t beat me.” It’s really good, both in establishing Bálor as a face and Owens as a bully, family or not. From there, Alex Riley, a man formerly known as the “Varsity Villain,” questions Owens’ methods and says that, as a man, he wouldn’t have done what Owens did to Sami Zayn. Owens decides to leave commentary. Just the way everybody at the table is blocked, shoulders slightly turned from Owens, does a great job of putting over how little the champion is liked by those covering his career. It takes away from what’s happening in the ring, as the camera stays with commentary during several audibly loud bumps.

    WWE NXT Finn Balor Brian Kendrick

    That disconnect between in-ring action and Owens’ storyline aside, Kendrick and Bálor have a pretty good TV main event. Unlike Rhyno’s re-debut last week, which was all about the image of Rhyno as a returning monster, Kendrick is decidedly a guy on Finn Bálor’s level—if NXT existed in 2009, he would have been its unquestioned ruler. That Bálor didn’t take advantage of Kendrick’s knee comes back to haunt him for a bit, as Kendrick is able to work a slick tornado DDT and nasty-looking tiger suplex in around Bálor’s dropkick-heavy offense. He’s unable to hit his finisher (Sliced Bread or The Kendrick, depending on your level of familiarity with the guy), but turns around and takes a huge lariat from Bálor. That lets him hit his big dropkick into the corner and his double stomp, and Bálor is your winner. Kevin Owens is back out on the ramp, watching Bálor celebrate. Bálor wants the champion to get into the ring, but Owens has other ideas. He keeps eyeing Alex Riley, who can see doom approaching on his monitor. Owens grabs Riley by the lapels of his suit jacket and hurls him over the commentary table. It’s a good-looking bump Riley takes, perhaps the most impressive of his career, and it adds another layer to Owens’ status as a widely unliked champion. Bálor looks on as Owens makes his way to the back, content that his attack on the ex-wrestler sent a message to his next challenger.

     

    Results

    1. Hideo Itami def. Bull Dempsey via pinfall. GRADE: C+

    2. The Lucha Dragons (Sin Cara & Kalisto) def. Tye Dillenger & Jason Jordan via pinfall. GRADE: C+

    3. Baron Corbin def. Tye Dillenger via pinfall. GRADE: N/A

    4. Becky Lynch def. Bayley via submission. GRADE: B

    5. Finn Bálor def. The Brian Kendrick via pinfall. GRADE: B

  • Wrestling Review: WWE Raw (2/23/15)

    Wrestling Review: WWE Raw (2/23/15)

    WWE Raw Randy Orton RKO

    This week, Raw was a mix of everything wonderful, weird, and awful about World Wrestling Entertainment. After an underwhelming pay-per-view redeemed by a fantastic main event that still left people wanting the other guy in the WrestleMania main event, Raw finally started moving towards its usual killer January-March pace. The show was bookended by two very good wrestling matches. There is some intrigue at the top of the card, depending on how one reads the post-Fastlane interaction between Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns. Despite that, and despite some offbeat, enjoyable stuff from unexpected contributors, Raw is still a two-hour show trying and failing desperately to fill a third hour. Writing that third hour, according to Triple H, is the hardest job anybody in the WWE has. It’s also one they routinely, consistently fail to achieve. I’m hardly one of those “It says wrestling on the marquee!” kinda guys (though I do cringe whenever they refer to me and my ilk as “sports-entertainment” fans), but when certain members of the roster are in the ring watching a music video that has nothing to do with them longer than they’re in the ring wrestling, then there are big, big problems with pacing that not even the most cheerful advertisement for one’s place in the zeitgeist can patch up.

    The opening promo, at least, felt fresh, if only because Randy Orton hadn’t been in it for about four months. At Fastlane, Orton returned to exact his revenge upon Seth Rollins, who purposefully injured Orton because he, as the “face of the WWE,” felt that The Authority were trying to push him out of the picture. Orton says that he’s not the type of dude to talk for twenty minutes (not true) and gets right to the point: He wants Seth Rollins’ ass. Out comes The Authority—Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, Kane, and Big Show—without Seth Rollins. Triple H is all sad, besuited muscle, his tuff guy leather jacket having led him to an ass kicking at the hands of the old man called Sting. He doesn’t say anything during the segment, which is actually pretty great. Stephanie McMahon thus takes charge of the situation. She, for one, is really excited to see Randy again, and in the killer mode The Authority was begging for last year and didn’t get. She’d be glad to welcome Randy back into The Authority, provided he can find forgiveness in his heart for Seth Rollins. But this is Randy Orton, and he has no heart. All he wants is to bash Seth Rollins’ brains in. But Stephanie, she thinks things can still be smoothed out. Big Show tells Randy that joining The Authority again is the right move, the best one he ever made, and that was after a year of Stephanie and Triple H making him cry and threaten to foreclose on their house. Besides, Stephanie says, it’s not like Randy Orton is a nice guy. As a matter of fact, he once physically assaulted Stephanie in order to get to Triple H. But she can forgive him for all of that, because this is business. Stephanie McMahon is such a great heel. Everything she says is logical and true, and is thus absolutely heinous. And that’s why, when she offers Randy a business meeting with Seth Rollins, he takes it. The crowd, obviously, would have loved for Orton to RKO the hell out of everybody in that ring, but we’re all about delayed gratification for the moment, even when it doesn’t make much sense for Orton to reconsider joining a group that’s been largely useless without him.

    Because the opening promo didn’t go twenty minutes, we head straight into a non-title match between Intercontinental Champion Wade Barrett and Dolph Ziggler. Barrett is without his title because Dean Ambrose stole it after being disqualified at Fastlane. Dolph Ziggler is without a feud after losing cleanly to The Authority in that show’s opening match. Oh, and R-Truth is out there doing guest commentary because he beat Barrett in a non-title match on SmackDown! and he wants a shot at the championship. This is the most significant microphone time he’s had since 2011. And you know what? He’s pretty good when he’s not being asked to play a heartless stereotype. He tries and succeeds in getting the hashtag #GiveTruthAChance trending, which will become important later in the evening, too. Meanwhile, Ziggler and Barrett have a good match, which is only something of a surprise since Barrett has largely struggled to find himself since his return. At this point, Dolph Ziggler can be trusted to have a good match with just about anybody. This, and his undeniable charisma, are why the crowd react to him as though he’s being booked much better than he is. There is no good outcome here: Either Ziggler continues losing or Barrett continues losing, and both, honestly, deserve better. Ziggler continues to be one of the best on the roster at picking up a match’s pace towards the end. After taking a hideous looking powerbomb, he avoids Barrett’s finishing elbow and nearly scores the win with a roll-up. He misses a fameasser, ducks Barrett’s boot, then gets taken out with a huge slam. Ziggler gets the Zig Zag after moving out of the way of a charging Barrett, and gets the win. Now, it seems, there are three contenders for the Intercontinental Championship. And hey, here’s Dean Ambrose with the title. He just shows up, taking Ziggler’s spotlight, and seethes in Barrett’s general direction. Barrett continues to do his whiney big man routine, deadpanning “That’s my title!” from the corner. Ziggler checks the title out, and Ambrose mean mugs him before leaving. R-Truth doesn’t get involved at all, so he’ll probably lose to Barrett on SmackDown! and shuffle off to the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal by the time WrestleMania comes around.

    Backstage, we’re privy to The Authority’s business meeting with Randy Orton. This, if you’ve never been in a business meeting before, is what they look like:

    WWE Randy Orton Business Meeting

    Everybody gathers in the corner of a tableless, chairless room, squeezed together and standing at a three-quarter turn to the camera that must, of course, be there to document the business. A good negotiating tactic is to show up to these things in a t-shirt and a pair of briefs. Try it at your next job interview. Seth Rollins is thrown off by Orton’s gambit, interrupting Stephanie to say that he doesn’t want him back. Stephanie goes on a tear once Rollins interrupts him—what he wants is not the issue. The Future and the Face of the WWE can and should coexist. Kane isn’t too convinced, but Stephanie doesn’t care what Business Kane thinks. She wants Randy and Seth to bury the hatchet. She throws Rollins under the bus while Triple H pouts about his fateful meeting with Sting, who is pretty much the templar from the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Orton doesn’t think too long about rejoining  The Authority. It’s a good business move, this is a business meeting, and it’s all business. He shakes Rollins’ hand. Stephanie is so hyped up about this that she books the reunited Authority against Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan for the main event. Orton isn’t exactly a character actor, but man is he good tonight, smugly lording it over Rollins while making it pretty clear that he’s going to drop him and The Authority the first chance he gets.

    The Prime Time Players reunited last week on Raw, the formerly promising tag team coming back together because The Ascension needs more mid-card tag teams to make them look worthwhile. Michael Cole says that there’s a reason the two are back together, but never gets to say it. Oh well. The reason why they broke up wasn’t that good, either. Meanwhile, The Ascension heard that The Bushwhackers got inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and they’re pretty sure they could destroy those guys. They’re totally right, but oh man is it hilarious to see two painted-up weirdos in terrible leather gear cut a straight 1980s promo on a couple of goofballs who wandered around the ring during their matches to like people’s heads. “HALL OF FAME?” one of them yells, setting up the other for “MORE LIKE HALL OF SHAME!” They should do this on every old tag team, every week. This match is nothing, really. The Ascension beat up Darren Young, who has gotten beaten up exclusively since making his return from an injury. Titus O’Neil gets involved for a little, which lets his partner score a roll-up win. This is The Ascension’s first loss, but that’s not exactly impressive since they got their asses kicked by JBL a month ago.

    Roman Reigns’ victory over Daniel Bryan was the expected outcome at Fastlane. It was also a very good match, showing a side of Reigns that I honestly didn’t know existed, which is that he could remain interesting and look good for the duration of an entire match, not just when he punches and spears his opponent for the win. The bigger problem with Reigns, though, is that he can’t speak. He just can’t do it. And the only thing that’s made him seem interesting in the space beyond his matches was The Shield, which he already leans on so heavily that it’s like the group ended for him. All Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had for his cousin was “Roman I make it Reigns in this bitch” and the look of a man who would rather be anywhere but next to the albatross of a forced WrestleMania main event push.

    The Rock Roman Reigns

    But Reigns is going to have to learn how to speak for himself to really make it as a top-tier draw, so here he is with a hot mic in front of a live crow. And you know what? He does pretty well. After a month of being booed in favor of Daniel Bryan, he has a nice, organic talking point to go through, and before he can go on for too long, Daniel Bryan comes out to address his loss. Obviously, he’s there to put Reigns over, which is not what the crowd wants. Until that point, he really tears into Reigns’ shortcomings as a title contender, in this vicious, mean way that reminds one of how great Bryan was as a heel and would be again if he wasn’t so universally beloved. But that match at Fastlane made Daniel Bryan a believer in Reigns, regardless of what he felt beforehand. Honestly, it’s pretty depressing watching Daniel Bryan just roll over and die for Roman Reigns, but maybe it’s going somewhere unexpected. Bryan, after all, is still without an obvious match at WrestleMania, and maybe knowing that he gave it his all and came up short will make him desperate enough to interject himself in the main event in some fashion. Bryan’s effort to put over Roman Reigns isn’t enough, so Paul Heyman hits the ring and really goes over the top. In a match, he would have picked Reigns over Bruno Sammartino. He would have picked him over Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. He would have picked Roman Reigns over Steve Austin or The Rock, John Cena or Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan or his brothers in The Shield. Heyman lays all of this on so thick that he has legitimate heat with even the smart fans in the crowd. His point isn’t so much that Roman Reigns is a smart bet, but that all of those men were just that… men. Brock Lesnar, his client, the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, isn’t a man. He’s a beast. It’s the same promo Heyman has been cutting since Brock Lesnar defeated The Undertaker at last year’s WrestleMania, but it’s a really good promo and continues to be, even with Roman Reigns at its center. Reigns tries to get sassy with Heyman, but after a heartfelt promo by Bryan and the cold, harsh light of Paul E. Dangerously’s truth, all he’s got is his catchphrase. Whatever. I am in for whatever physicality there will be between Lesnar and Reigns, especially given Lesnar’s ability to flip the switch between merciless destruction and awe-inspiring superhuman selling within the same match. Still, if Reigns’ victory at WrestleMania is etched in stone (and I’m not convinced that’s the case), he’s going to need to figure out how to look good even when he’s being outshined on the microphone.

    Every WWE championship has, buried within the unseen contract the champions sign upon clinching the title, a rematch clause. It’s a bit of lazy storytelling that allows an ongoing championship feud continue without having to stop and think of what a title change really means, the faux-strategy often being that cashing in on that clause early will give the former champions a mental advantage over their rivals. That’s why The Usos used their clause on Raw, one presumes, and hey, the story plays out that they really do have an advantage early, befuddling Kidd and Cesaro with their high impact, tag team offense. It’s immediately a better effort than at Fastlane the night before, as the chaos that let the match down at the pay-per-view actually comes to define this contest, both teams throwing caution to the wind because they really want that pair of big pennies. There’s a lot of good double-team stuff here, even if what’s happening isn’t tag team wrestling in its classical sense. And, as Naomi and Natalya finally got physically involved, there’s a chance that this issue may evolve into a showcase for them, as well. Natalya shoved Naomi to the ground for stopping Tyson Kidd from cheating, then got her team disqualified by getting involved in the match. The post-match altercation between the two women, while brief, got a good reaction from the crowd. If this becomes a six-person tag team situation in time for WrestleMania, and if Natalya and Naomi aren’t kept to their own corner of the ring, this might yet become the interesting Tag Team Championship feud the division has been sorely lacking.

    The tag team match is a spike in a show that begins to drag pretty severely. The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal from last year’s WrestleMania has not been forgotten, so The Miz and Damien Mizdow’s ongoing will-they-or-won’t-they over their odd partnership is part of that match, now. Stardust and Goldust appear to be moving towards another singles match, but now they’re in the mid-card singles feud holding pattern where the way to continue things is to distract somebody with your music. Curtis Axel still hasn’t been eliminated from the Royal Rumble some twenty-nine days and counting, which rules. He is going to put his experience in not losing battle royals (and not entering them, either) to good use in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. His old buddy Ryback comes out and says that he and the AX-MAN were one of the greatest tag teams of all time, which is legitimately hilarious. RyBaxel explodes…in a thirty-second squash match. Ryback is a good pick for that battle royal. If you put Roman Reigns against Ryback, my money is on Ryback.

    Raw has to deal with a lot of Fastlane fall out. Bray Wyatt fooled the crowd in Memphis when he came out with The Undertaker’s druids and music. I can’t say that his promo that night or any of his pre-tapes about vaguely defined dark forces were anything that much better than Wyatt’s usual schtick, but with his intentions finally public, he cuts a scorching promo about how the evil that once possessed The Undertaker was now calling on Bray Wyatt to put him down. I wish there was more faith in Wyatt to deliver without the use of spooooOOOOOoooOOooooky props (tonight: a smoking funeral arrangement—oooooOOOOOoooooOOOoooo), but it’s not like Bray Wyatt is the only guy being given unnecessary props. His opponent at last year’s WrestleMania, John Cena, is now ALL ABOUT AMERICA, JACK after his loss to Rusev. Though he hit all of the expected John Cena beats, he actually did a tremendous job playing the role the announcers discussed during the actual match during Fastlane, an aging master of wrestling coming to terms with the fact that he really can’t win them all anymore. He was cheated, but he failed. Rusev, though, has nothing to be proud about, winning after a low blow, and if he’s the kind of person Russia props up as a hero (he isn’t), then, well, everybody there should be ashamed. This brings out Rusev and Lana, the best full-time act in wrestling. After his victory, what he wants from John Cena is an admission that America is inferior to Russia. That really gets Cena’s dander up. “Watch your ass when you run down the United States of America,” warns the star of The Marine, before praising the men who took Iwo Jima as heroes to Rusev’s garbage. That… that’s a fair point, maybe, but Russia also did stuff in World War II. Like, they exhausted Nazi forces on the eastern front and eventually took Berlin. Compared to that, John Cena is garbage, too. He challenges Rusev to a WrestleMania rematch, but the burly Bulgarian says no. Then he drops his flag from the ceiling and leaves John Cena standing there like he just found out he was grown in a lab and his memories are a lie. That’s what you get for shameless patriotism, John. Oh, and the Rollins/Orton thing continues to play out, with the two having a meeting where they hash things out. Orton hasn’t put anything behind him, but he’s willing to give Rollins a chance, if only to show that Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan were lucky he wasn’t in the Royal Rumble. They’re going to have to compress this a lot with their destined singles match just over the horizon, but an Orton/Rollins team could be quite compelling over a long stretch. It seems like Orton is playing his rejoining The Authority much straighter in this segment, which is a confusing narrative decision, but all roads lead to him finally landing an RKO on Rollins.

    Because Triple H vs. Sting is happening at WrestleMania, and because many of WWE’s most passionate fans weren’t alive when WCW folded, they play a Sting highlight package. It is quite good, as most WWE highlight packages are, but man, it is not encouraging. The last great Sting match happened in maybe 1994, and his biggest year, 1997, was him not talking and not wrestling. A lot of people you’ve heard of do their best to put over how great Sting is and was, and it’ll be really great when they play this again in the context of inducting Sting into the WWE Hall of Fame. Maybe by then we’ll be past the new World order being the primary narrative engine of professional wrestling and we can look back on the year Sting laid everybody out with the Scorpion Death Drop more fondly than we do now. Maybe the hero, whoever that is, will be allowed his triumph over The Authority, which will then fade away and never return

    The problem with the Sting video, the Bushwhackers Hall of Fame Video, and the newest version of the Seth Rollins/John Stewart video is that they exist on live television in an era where a YouTube video (or a 24/7 online streaming network/on-demand service) could present this information at any time. TMZ did WWE’s job of playing that John Stewart video. Some website in New Zealand announced The Bushwhackers. Meanwhile, the sequence of events on the live show is this: Paige’s music hits, and she does her entrance. Sting video. Emma is suddenly in the ring with Paige. The Bella Twins enter. The bell rings after Emma keeps Paige from attacking Brie. Nikki knocks Paige from the apron, kicks Emma in the gut, delivers a facebuster, and wins. Paige and Emma spent more time in the ring watching a video about Sting than they did wrestling from bell to bell, or continuing to develop the Paige vs. Bella Twins storyline. This did nothing for nobody, and, at the risk of sounding like I’m overreacting, reflects rather poorly on a company that is supposedly in the business of promoting strong women. This did not go unnoticed on social media, where R-Truth’s hashtag became #GiveDivasAChance and trended, of course, without mention. The fact that I gave the match an F isn’t a reflection upon the performers involved, but on the way the situation was presented. It suggests either a belief that what the women are doing isn’t valuable, or that they don’t have faith in their ability to perform up to a television standard. I’d suggest that both are wrong and misguided and, if the fault lies anywhere for the lack of a reaction the Diva’s division is getting this early in 2015, then it’s on whoever decided to shutter the program between Nikki and Brie from last year, re-teaming them without explanation, and moving them into yet another storyline that’s a mashup of the Bellas’ usual we-look-better-than-you angle, the challenger’s usual I-don’t-look-like-your-typical-Diva angle, and liberal doses of both the Crazy Chick gimmick and a character’s insistence that her rival(s) can’t wrestle. Last year, Brie Bella and Stephanie McMahon had a match that was practically one of the main events of SummerSlam. It was good, it told a story, and, when it ended, the earth upon which the loser stood was not salted. Live audiences popped huge for that angle, were engaged with AJ Lee and Paige, and so on. But you don’t even have to look that far back in history (or to the alternate universe that is NXT) for an example of a women’s match on the main roster that was good: On the 1/6 edition of Main Event, Nikki and Paige had a very good match that should be used as the measuring stick for the division. Instead, it’s an exception, a thing that’ll happen once every few months for a couple dozen people who look for that kind of thing. #GiveDivasAChance is a warzone (predictably), as trending on Twitter doesn’t equate to unanimous support. But the main arguments against the division, at least when I dipped into the feed, is that the workers aren’t good and the product won’t draw. Well, you can’t prove either with a kick and a facebuster, and you can’t improve on it, either. Regardless of their function as Vince McMahon sees it—eye candy, a rest between big matches and angles, or a trojan horse for a lucrative reality television show—the potential is there for so much more. It’s not about women being given a chance. It’s about giving them a platform.

    That being said, the main event was great, full of character development and worked at a similar level as Fastlane‘s main event. Seth Rollins is out first with Kane, Big Show, and J&J Security, and he gives Randy Orton a custom ring introduction befitting a prodigal son. The Authority hang around outside the ring, clapping and cheering Orton, giving his fragile, permanently bruised ego as much of a lift as they can. Meanwhile, Bryan and Reigns continue their own fragile partnership, something that’s a staple of WrestleMania season though not at all stale since this partnership is entirely new. They’ve got some good ideas as for how to work together as a unit, too. Daniel Bryan starts by putting Rollins in a surfboard, then tags in Reigns, who throws his former Shield ally to the mat from that position. The announcers seem to mostly forget that Reigns was in the middle of a program with Rollins when he was lost to a sports hernia, and Reigns wrestles Rollins like nothing too bad happened between them, but Rollins is a smart heel and tags out to Orton as soon as he can. When Reigns tries to outpower Orton, Orton responds to his veteran savvy. He takes a shoulder tackle and responds with a dropkick. During a commercial break, The Authority take over, running a distraction on Roman Reigns that allows Rollins to sneak in a few cheap shots. They work in a rolling series of hot tags and outside interference spots from The Authority that keep the crowd engaged. Though they’ve both been back for a few months, Bryan and Reigns seem much fresher than before, and Orton, in this weird, in-between space where the fans want him to crush The Authority but he’s still just thinking about it, feels like a wrestler worth watching for the first time since he and Evolution feuded with The Shield. Rollins, feeling pretty good about himself because he has a tag team partner who moves a bit quicker than the glacial titans The Authority usually sticks him with, makes a blind tag on Orton while he’s in the middle of a DDT. Orton bails and complains to Kane and Big Show, sitting the rest of the match out. Rollins takes too long to hit the Curbstomp and gets a Superman punch from Reigns. Bryan tags in while Reigns is setting up the spear, and, for the first time in the history of blind tags, Reigns laughs it off and lets Bryan take the victory with the running knee. When Orton gets back into the ring to confront Rollins, J&J Security try to get between the pair. Jamie Noble takes an RKO, and then nothing happens. Seriously. The announce team recaps what just happened, complete with replays, and that’s it. Good thing they only gave the women two moves, because that post-match angle was hot.

     

    Results

    1. Dolph Ziggler def. Wade Barrett via pinfall. GRADE: B

    2. The Prime Time Players (Darren Young & Titus O’Neil) def. The Ascension (Konnor & Viktor) via pinfall. GRADE: C

    3. WWE Tag Team Championships: The Usos (Jimmy & Jey, w/Naomi) def. Tyson Kidd & Cesaro (champions, w/Natalya) via disqualification. GRADE: B

    4. Jack Swagger def. Stardust vis submission. GRADE: C

    5. The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie) def. Paige and Emma via pinfall. GRADE: F

    6. Ryback def. Curtis Axel via pinfall. GRADE: C

    7. Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns def. Randy Orton & Seth Rollins (w/The Authority) via pinfall. GRADE: B+

  • Wrestling Review: WWE Fastlane (2/22/15)

    Wrestling Review: WWE Fastlane (2/22/15)

    WWE Fastlane Daniel Bryan Roman Reigns

    World Wrestling Entertainment decided to re-brand their February pay-per-view event Fastlane to play off the fact that they call the long stretch between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania the Road to WrestleMania. In every documentary I’ve seen about the event, the 31st edition of which takes place on March 29, a member of creative or a wrestler, perhaps Triple H or Vince McMahon, even, will claim that the Road to WrestleMania starts the day after the show, when the exhausted crew gathers in the basketball arena adjacent to the stadium they’d just occupied and begins plotting out the next episode of Raw. This was true once, perhaps, before World Wrestling Entertainment was the only game in town, before it had to fill five hours of broadcast television and yet more for their online outlet, but the days of WrestleMania being plotted out a year in advance have been over for some time. If anything, it’s called The Road to WrestleMania because that’s when the pieces for the show really start to fall into place. The fallout from the big show may string things along until SummerSlam, but everything from that August show until about the Royal Rumble is about the promise that WrestleMania will be worthwhile.

    This year, unable to promote an Elimination Chamber event because the titular construction is expensive to set up in arenas that can’t easily accommodate it, Fastlane held the promise, due to its punning title, of accelerating the company’s storylines heading into WrestleMania. One problem (the problem) is that the WWE hasn’t had much in the way of success with many of its storylines of late. Really, they’ve been treading water since Daniel Bryan, fresh off his triumphant double header at WrestleMania XXX, suffered an injury that took him out of the picture for nearly a year. There were glimmers of hope, here and there. Brock Lesnar destroying John Cena at SummerSlam. The finish to Team Cena vs. Team Authority at Survivor Series. Daniel Bryan’s emotional return to Raw and his declaration that he would not have to retire. But 2014 was something of a lost year for World Wrestling Entertainment, and the Road to WrestleMania has been a hard one thus far. Last year, Raw was must-see television. This year, one had to pin one’s hopes to this new, generically-titled pay-per-view to kickstart the build necessary of a show that’ll be held at Levi’s Stadium, that glittering beacon of publicly subsidized, corporately overseen athletic carnage. And, on paper, Fastlane looked like a great card, the sort of show that would get lost because it was between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, but that would be discovered again and again by those curious enough to put in the time on the WWE Network. To be blunt, that’s exactly what this show was not.

    The crowd at the FedEx Forum were pumped for Fastlane for about the first three seconds of Dolph Ziggler’s theme song, then dead from the minute Erick Rowan’s theme hit to the closing stretch of the main event. I can get over a bad crowd (the way WWE has paced their shows over the last year, one has to get over a bad crowd), so I settled in for the expected sleeper classic. And the opening six-man tag team match, with a muddled storyline dating back to November, had me hopeful. Ziggler/Ryback/Rowan vs. Big Show/Kane/Rollins looked like it had no reason to be on this (or any) card, despite how much I dig Ziggler, Ryback, and Rollins. After Ziggler’s win at Survivor Series over the Rollins-led Team Authority went nowhere, another meeting between these two teams in any configuration was the last thing I wanted. Ryback, a physical freak who won me over by being a physical freak, may be the most improved wrestler of the calendar year. Erick Rowan, himself a huge man, may prove to be the most surprising. The story of any match involving The Authority is that they always have the numbers advantage and have more of a reason to stay a cohesive unit. Seth Rollins is on another level when it comes to his ability to put together creative, amazing sequences. Early, he rolls out of the way of a Ryback splash and has his curbstomp countered into a big powerbomb. Later, he looks to hit Ryback with a blockbuster, but is caught in the Shellshock. These are big, impressive spots to be landing in what’s essentially a throwaway match to end (hopefully) a long stagnant feud, but Rollins is so good that he’s able to elevate whatever material he’s given. In the end, though, it’s a nice bit of double teaming from Kane and The Big Show that gives The Authority a somewhat surprising win. After the match, a five-on-three assault (J&J Security are involved, of course) is too much for Ziggler, Rowan, and Ryback. Just when things seem hopeless, Randy Orton finally returns, dispatching the majority of The Authority with his RKO. Waaaaaay back in November, Triple H officially chose to back Seth Rollins over Orton, leading The Authority to injure his former Evolution running buddy. This is his revenge, though it’s hardly complete. Rollins was pulled from the ring by Big Show, and he ran at top speed to the parking garage. Orton vs. Rollins seems like a lock for WrestleMania, and it should be a good one. Where it leaves Ziggler, Ryback, Rowan, Kane, and Big Show is a mystery that’ll either be solved over the next five weeks, or during the catch-all battle royal that exists to eat 20-minutes of time at the show.

    Backstage, Dusty Rhodes is with his son Dustin, garbed, as he customarily is, as Goldust. It’s been hard times for the Rhodes family of late, what with Cody going crazy and figuring that he really is the cosmic entity known as Stardust, but Dusty doesn’t want Dustin beating up his youngest son too badly. Love, Dusty Rhodes believes, is what will heal this freshly developed rift. Goldust, however, doesn’t think so. To bring Cody Rhodes back, he’s going to have to beat Stardust out of him. This match, Dustin Rhodes vs. Cody Rhodes or Goldust vs. Stardust, is what I’ve been waiting for since Goldust came back for yet another WWE run, and in the best in-ring shape of his career. It seems to be the one Dustin wants to retire on, too. This match, then, was crushed somewhat by the weight of expectation, as well as by a serious error on the part of referee Rudy Charles. Everything is good, at least in the early going. Stardust’s new gear, essentially his Goldust tribute gear without a top, was a nice, weird twist on his brother’s most famous look, and the psychological aspect of the contest—Stardust getting distracted by “CODY!” chants, Goldust using his experience to outsmart his brother, Stardust taking advantage of Goldust’s reluctance to cause any serious damage to take control—was quite excellent, especially as a first chapter. The WWE’s dead crowd problem plagued it, though, as did the finish, which saw Goldust roll Stardust up and the referee make a two count before calling for the bell. Usually, mistakes that happen during the course of a match can be worked through. The referee forgetting how to count to three, however, is egregious. That’s the function of a referee. The look of confusion on Goldust, Stardust, and even Dusty Rhodes’ face at the end of the match was not good. Stardust was able to redeem things a bit afterwards with another killer promo on his family and how Cody Rhodes died when Dusty sent Goldust to fight Cody’s battle against The Authority. His beatdown of Goldust, complete with one last no-look kick after the promo, saved their night.

    The WWE Tag Team Championship, like everything that isn’t the World Heavyweight Championship, are albatrosses, title belts that are spoken highly of on commentary but which doom their owners to the relative obscurity of four or five minute matches on Raw and SmackDown!. The “art” of tag team wrestling has largely been lost (Vince McMahon reportedly isn’t a fan, and most teams don’t stay together long enough to build anything like real chemistry), but The Usos are a solid enough foundation for a division that always seems to be in the midst of a rebuild. Cesaro and Tyson Kidd are “the best new tag team we’ve seen in awhile,” meaning “the tag team we are focusing on this month.” This match stems from the scripted marital drama of Total Divas, where Natalya is seemingly always on the verge of ending things with her husband Tyson Kidd, and Naomi is enjoying her new marriage to Jimmy Uso. Natalya thought it would be fun to have a double date with Jimmy and Naomi, but Tyson Kidd invited Cesaro along (their relationship being an interesting one, too), and the ensuing altercation at a “restaurant” gave us this match. Kidd and Cesaro are still a new team, but they seem to be meshing well. Cesaro’s power and Kidd’s speed are impressive when combined, particularly on moves like Cesaro’s deadlift superplex and Kidd’s slingshot elbow drop. They spend most of the match working on Jimmy’s leg. Cesaro even alters his swing so that he whips Jimmy Uso around by the damaged leg before sinking in a single-leg crab. It’s good stuff, then it falls apart when The Usos go into their comeback. It’s hard to explain why, but it just does. The flying Uso stuff leads to some convoluted action at ringside highlighted by a Samoan drop into the crowd barricade, and then Kidd manages to win once the match moves back inside the ring with a fisherman’s neckbreaker. The Kidd/Cesaro/Natalya character work continues when Cesaro pulls his partner away from a celebratory kiss with Nattie, but it’s tough to say where any of it is going. Tyson and Natalya have been playing a will-they-or-won’t-they game since Kidd re-debuted on Raw last year, and the Cesaro stuff gives the angle the appearance of a love triangle with Kidd being pulled between the affections of his wife and his tag team partner. That can’t be where they’re going with it, though, so we just have this weird angle where one member of a tag team was trying to respect dinner and the other brought his angry, well-dressed friend as a third. Now we enter the period of title feuds where the former champion talks about automatic rematch clauses. How exciting.

    The face-to-face meeting between Triple H and Sting existed as a means of setting up their match at WrestleMania. Really, the whole “confrontation” was had on Monday, when Triple H shoved his sad, old mentor Ric Flair to the ground after Flair insinuated that Triple H was perhaps taking Sting too lightly. We got the gist of Triple H’s issue right there: Sting’s a WCW guy. WCW has been dead since the year 2001. But in 2014, Sting finally showed up to a WWE event, temporarily causing Triple H to lose control of a company that he sees as his and his family’s legacy. So he came out to Fastlane not in his suit and tie, but in his tough guy leather jacket, with his hands taped so heavily he could hardly make a fist. He went through those talking points again, which brought out Sting. Without his WCW music and with 18 years between him and his 1997 peak, all silent, “Crow” Sting accomplishes at this point is to give us a match between Sting and Triple H without being given a reason for the guy’s reemergence. WWE is calling him “The Vigilante” because Batman, but really? The injustice Sting chose to fight was the off chance that some big dude in a sheep mask might be fired for losing a wrestling match? Triple H tries to catch Sting off guard, but his play to grab his customary sledgehammer allows Sting to grab his trademark baseball bat, which he backs Triple H up with by sticking it to his throat. Sting says that he wants a match at WrestleMania, which he gets. Triple H’s second attempt at attacking Sting ends with him getting hit in the gut with the bat and dropped with the Scorpion Death Drop. This segment existed to give Sting a reason to point at the great WrestleMania logo in the sky with his baseball bat. Even today, it seems the general consensus is that Sting vs. The Undertaker is the preferred match-up, but this overlooks two crucial facts: Sting’s last great match probably happened in 1994, and The Undertaker wasn’t having great matches until around 1996. Of any “marquee” guy who can still have the occasional match, Triple H, garbed as Ric Flair’s protegé, is the one most able to do something with a 55-year-old man whose shine and mystique were largely wasted through a decade spent in TNA. Of all the “realities” wrestling has to face now, the biggest one is that a name like Sting’s “disappearance” can be explained by Wikipedia. Sting’s “legacy” has long been tarnished, and a match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania, even without The Streak on the line, is not how one rebuilds a legacy. I don’t have much faith that a Sting/Triple H match will be any good, let alone coax Sting into wrestling without wearing his goddamn t-shirt, but Triple H is smart enough and driven enough as he ages and starts to write his own legacy that he’ll get out of Steve Borden whatever he has left.

    Sting and Triple H were going to be a hard act to follow even if the crowd was feeling it, but after a revisionist history of WCW lecture and a 30-second brawl that left two middle-aged men winded, the FexEx Forum was practically somnambulist for both the WWE Diva’s and Intercontinental Championship matches. To be fair, it’s not like they were given much reason to care about either, beyond the cult charisma of Paige, Bad News Barrett, and Dean Ambrose. While I am bone tired of women’s storylines centered around one woman or another not looking like a supermodel, the Bella Twins are rather natural heels, so it makes sense that they’d try to embarrass the pale “Anti Diva” by spray tanning her, stealing her mall punk gear, and so on. Tiresome but sensible is not high praise. The two had a great match on Main Event last year, and Nikki is nose-to-nose with Ryback for most improved wrestler, but nothing clicked here. Just a pile-up of moves until the Raw women’s match finish of a surprise roll-up. They tried to use a GoPro camera to show that Nikki had Paige’s belt, but a) if she cheated, she barely cheated, and b) if you’re going to wear stupid stuff in the ring, expect to have it used against you. Really, 90% of any Paige/Nikki Bella match should be Nikki trying to rip out Paige’s body piercings. Over on the men’s side of inadequate championship matches, Dean Ambrose wanted him some of Bad News Barrett because he thinks that the Intercontinental Championship should be worth something, and Bad News Barrett, on his fifth reign, hasn’t done much to raise that title’s prestige. That’s a fair enough critique, I suppose, though it really doesn’t help the previous few years of booking to point out how poorly the Intercontinental Championship has fared. Barrett’s a talented dude and Ambrose remains one of the more fascinating guys on the roster, but this match had nothing going for it. Nothing. Dean Ambrose is an UNHINGED LOOSE CANNON, but his spots are so routine you could compile a supercut of John Bradshaw Layfield saying that dropping an elbow on a standing opponent is crazy. Rudy Charles, already the goat for his performance during the Goldust/Stardust match, looks pretty bad again when he disqualifies Ambrose for beating Barrett up too much in the corner, ignoring the count which skips from three to five without much drama. That finish, I swear, is the worst thing the WWE has come up with over the past 10 years. What does it accomplish? Ambrose looks about as confused about the disqualification as Goldust was by his victory. He continues to stomp at Barrett, hits him with Dirty Deeds, then leaves with the title. Did he steal it, or did he give it back to Barrett backstage? I guess we’ll find out on Raw. Speaking of which, Bray Wyatt cut a live version of his pre-taped Raw promos on The Undertaker, this time employing the Deadman’s entrance music, druids, and casket motif. I really like Wyatt in the ring, but after a few years of hearing him speak I’m past the gimmick, which is pretty much listening to a sophomore in a dumb hat talk about Nietzsche. That’s not exactly Wyatt’s fault and he does it well, but he’s in a situation where they really need to pull the trigger on his winning a big, meaningful match or two, something to build on the following he’s managed to build and sustain despite every obstacle. A classic against The Undertaker at WrestleMania would help. Whether or not The Undertaker is capable of one at this late stage will remain unknown until March 29.

    This was a wasted show until the United States Championship match. I say that as if the title matters, but really, it’s just the garnish to John Cena vs. Rusev, WWE’s spin on Rocky IV where Cena, fifteen time champion of the world, must play Apollo Creed first before he can become Rocky Balboa. John Cena has been the end game for Rusev since the Bulgarian debuted on the main roster during the Royal Rumble, and his rise serves both as a crucial ray of light in an otherwise dark period of WWE storytelling, and as proof that wrestling’s oldest formula’s still work. Cena, throughout this contest, is treated as an aging fighter whose best years may be behind him, as if he roundly crushed every wandering monster who passed his way. That’s not necessarily true, but the thought of Cena as a less than sure bet because he’s an old-model heavyweight against a guy like Rusev is appealing and works very well. Rusev and Cena hurl themselves at each other for nearly twenty minutes—even Rusev’s rest holds look snug enough to cause some damage. Where plenty of Cena matches lately have made his Attitude Adjustment finish look like an automatic two count until the twenty minute mark, Rusev’s strategy is to effectively avoid the move altogether, to counter out and hit Cena with one of his big, bruising strikes. Cena, meanwhile, needs to avoid Rusev’s Accolade. That a camel clutch works as a finish in 2015 is nigh miraculous, but Rusev and his opponents are able to make it look like a struggle. Mark Henry managed to shed a single tear for America before tapping out to it, and here John Cena pays a tremendous amount of respect to the big stomp Rusev uses to set the move up, rolling away or countering it into his own submission, the STF. John Cena’s character is never going to pull an about face and the boos he gets are never going to be the WWE’s intent, but its interesting to see him grow as a character in other ways. Getting older, for example, or the way he’ll add a new move to his arsenal because he knows everybody expects two shoulder tackles, a power bomb, a five knuckle shuffle, and an Attitude Adjustment. Here, it’s a tornado DDT that catches Rusev off guard, not to mention the rarely seen Crippler Crossface. Rusev is able to break that with his bare hands. He’s actually able to effectively counter or kick out of most of Cena’s bombs. When Cena finally lands the AA late in the match, it’s a triumph. When Rusev kicks out, it’s a surprise. The Accolade that finishes the match is great, due largely to Cena’s positioning and facial expressions. When Cena digs down deep and manages to stand with Rusev on his back, gets into the ring, United States Championship in hand, and argues with the referee. This gives Rusev an opening to kick Cena between the legs, kick him again in the face, and reapply the Accolade. Thus compromised, Cena is unable to fight back, and the referee has to call for the bell. This is a great match, one that leaves a little left in the tank for WrestleMania. I see criticisms of Rusev’s storylines all the time online, usually with the hashtag #RusevIsAFace, that say Rusev is either a bad heel or the folks who book his routine are stupid because he’s a proud immigrant with a smart woman by his side who wins most of his matches cleanly, and so on. That’s a fine argument for a smart fan to make, and there may be some merit to it, but most of the folks packed into a 15,000 seat arena aren’t “smart,” or, if they are, then its in the sense that they know this proud immigrant is a super athlete whose every action is meant to glorify the regime of a political figurehead who has committed a good number of human rights violations. Against John Cena, Rusev has moved beyond the tenants of Cold War wrestling storytelling by attacking the institution of John Cena. He’s a heel all the way, from the lack of respect he shows John Cena at the start of the match to the way he kicks him in the dick at the end. Cena’s Rocky moment is coming, and I can’t wait.

    For most, however, the prospect of a good WrestleMania began with and was ended by Fastlane‘s main event, Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns with a shot at Brock Lesnar and his WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the line. During the pre-show, Paul Heyman, interviewed by The Miz, said that his client didn’t care who won the main event. Daniel Bryan has the adulation of the crowd and Roman Reigns has the family pedigree, but Brock Lesnar has an inhuman desire to destroy every human he sees in a wrestling ring. Paul Heyman’s suggestion that the entire WWE roster line up to fight Brock Lesnar for the title was no joke: Lesnar is an otherworldly presence, and he is here to destroy the WWE Universe. It’s been obvious from the start that Roman Reigns would be the one to challenge Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, but Bryan was thrown in there to complicate things a bit by insinuating that he deserved a championship rematch, which, considering the circumstances under which he was stripped of the title last year, he certainly does. In my opinion, Daniel Bryan hasn’t been written too well since his return. He was booked poorly during a very bad Royal Rumble match, then came out on Raw as a man who felt so entitled to a championship match that he’d play The Authority’s game just for a shot. Reigns hasn’t been done any favors either, but he needed something to further validate him in the eyes of a die hard audience of Daniel Bryan fans who are never going to cotton to him and will go into WrestleMania chanting “YES!” until they’re blue in the face. So we’re given this match, its outcome dreaded and certain. What happens?

    Well, first off, Daniel Bryan returns to the throne he abdicated to Seth Rollins as the best overall wrestler in WWE. Seriously. This is his first match of true consequence since returning, and he kills it, leading Reigns to what will likely stand as one of his best matches at the end of his career, but that probably isn’t even top 20 for Bryan. Too many times in “wrestling” matches, the competitors go through the motions of chain wrestling, working through wristlocks and hammerlocks and headlocks until some dude in the crowd yells “WRESTLING!” to get the crowd clapping politely. From the start, this is a fight. Daniel Bryan is the wrestler. Roman Reigns is the brawler. Bryan can and does outwrestle Reigns, but the Royal Rumble winner makes the former champion fight for everything. Daniel Bryan claims to have mastered over 100 submission moves. Focusing on Reigns’ legs, he breaks out more than a few, but those often bring him close enough to Reigns that one or two stiff shots are enough to cause a break. Reigns can live with Bryan that close, but needs space so that he can land his big moves, the spear and the Superman punch. The first time he goes for the punch, Bryan is able to sidestep Reigns and kick him in the stomach. This staggers Reigns for the rest of the match, as Bryan’s more pronounced mean streak comes out and his kicks move from trying to charlie-horse a leg to trying to make a man vomit. Reigns stays on his power game, though, powerbombing Bryan after blocking an attempted top rope rana and stopping a suicide dive with a belly-to-belly suplex. Despite that, Bryan is always a step ahead, always the veteran wrestler. He moves just in time to avoid a spear, sending Reigns into the ring steps. He counters a spear with a small package after being knocked for a loop by the Superman punch. Bryan seems to clinch the match with the running knee, but Reigns is the first to kick out of it. From there, the two take it into another gear. Daniel Bryan kicks Reigns in the face until Reigns catches the foot and dares Bryan to do something. Bryan responds with a number of slaps, but Reigns is having none of it until Bryan goes for a cross armbreaker. When that doesn’t work, Bryan transitions into the YES! Lock, which Reigns manages to slip before laying Bryan out with some nasty forearms. The sequence gets even better from there, with Reigns over a seemingly prone Bryan, as the wrestler manages to surprise the brawler with a triangle choke attempt. Reigns uses his overwhelming power advantage to pick Bryan up off the canvas with a sit-out powerbomb. After an eight count, they exchange punches and kicks from the ground until Bryan gets the advantage and hits his big kick to Reigns’ temple. This is the set-up for a second attempt at the running knee, but Reigns recovers while Bryan is mid-sprint and manages a spear, which sends him to WrestleMania. Nobody is happy about this finish, but that does nothing to diminish what is a great effort on the part of two men. One found his footing again and is in good position for another chase at the championship depending on what his WrestleMania program is. The other pulled his weight, too, so much that any doubt about his ability to perform at a high level on a big stage should be assuaged. Should be, but who knows. Reigns is still wrestling with the crutch of The Shield supporting him. He’s still got their music, their entrance, and their gear. What he doesn’t have, even at the end of the night, is the crowd’s support as a WrestleMania main eventer. The WWE has five weeks to make that happen. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you see it), every move the WWE has made since WrestleMania XXX goes to show that, in wrestling, even just one week can feel like an eternity.

     

    Results

    1. Seth Rollins, Kane, and Big Show def. Dolph Ziggler, Ryback, and Erick Rowan via pinfall. GRADE: B-

    2. Goldust def. Stardust via pinfall. GRADE: C

    3. WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Tyson Kidd and Cesaro (w/Natalya) def. The Usos (Jimmy and Jey, w/Naomi, Champions) via pinfall to win the titles. GRADE: C+

    4. WWE Diva’s Championship: Nikki Bella (w/Brie Bella, Champion) def. Paige via pinfall. GRADE: C-

    5. WWE Intercontinental Championship: Bad News Barrett (Champion) def. Dean Ambrose via disqualification. GRADE: C-

    6. WWE United States Championship: Rusev (w/Lana, Champion) def. John Cena via referee stoppage. GRADE: A-

    7. Roman Reigns def. Daniel Bryan via pinfall. GRADE: A