GO AWAY BROCK LESNAR
The Kickoff Show was, unsurprisingly, a Kickoff Show. Sonya Deville and Zelina Vega’s spat got pretty heated. That was fun.
0. The Usos vs. Daniel Bryan & Rowan
Popped for the “I Love GMOs” and “Increase Carbons Footprint” signs. This was very good. Bryan running at Jey with the two corner dropkicks then running at him with all the confidence of someone who just hit two corner dropkicks only to be caught with a Samoan drop was an awesome hot tag setup. And while Bryan and Usos brought the hot closing stretch, Rowan was the steadiest ingredient of this match – there for everything, and adding a dynamic that wouldn’t have existed with another guy that could fully keep up with the madness. The finish setup was brilliant – Rowan catches a Jimmy tope AND a Jey tope but Jimmy superkicks him and Jey superkicks him and then they double superkick him and do a double tope to FINALLY take him down, before Bryan runs into a double superkick himself and takes the double splash for 3. Good wrestling. ***1/2
1. Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Bayley vs. Natalya vs. Naomi vs. Ember Moon vs. Dana Brooke vs. Carmella vs. Mandy Rose w/ Sonya Deville vs. Nikki Cross
Not a stand-out in what must be a million Money in the Bank’s at this point, but there were some fun performances and I thought they did a good job of keeping up the chaos and building to everybody eventually toppling off the ladder, which was a great punchline. However, when Dana Brooke possibly getting a run and a Carmella injury return angle are your most compelling stories there are some inherent issues holding you back. Nikki Cross wrecking everybody early was fun, Naomi doing her shtick was fun, and Ember again had another great big match performance highlighted by the Eclipse from the ladder that had an awful camera shot. Bayley is the feel-good win you didn’t think they’d actually run with. ***1/4
2. WWE U.S. Title: Samoa Joe [c] vs. Rey Mysterio
Samoa Joe opening a match kicking Rey’s knees out from under him is how a match should be started, yes. And Joe threw an amazing chop. And Joe taking rana’s from Rey is always fascinating, like watching a high-wire act in that it’s spectacular but you’re concerned. And then this thing ended a minute in again, even though Joe’s shoulder was blatantly up. I think they might have an OK longer match in them!! N/A
3. Steel Cage Match: The Miz vs. Shane McMahon
Miz and Shane doing an intense Steel Cage brawl, c’mon man. Not exactly Tully vs. Magnum. Or even Austin Aries vs. Colt Cabana. It was under 15 minutes but somehow felt like it went way too long, like the longer it dragged on the more offensive it got. The Coast-to-Coast countered with a FIGURE-FOUR was silly, and the awkwardness of Shane escaping a pin with his foot on the ropes in a CAGE MATCH one match removed from Joe clearly having his shoulder up was a bad day at the office for WWE officials. I liked these guys doing a campy brawl at Mania, but this was more boring than campy. Shane taking the bump from the top of the cage was wild, but why? I don’t need this wheezing middle-aged man doing this anymore. And I’m scared that the Best in the World gimmick is going to somehow lead to Shane doing fake MMA with Punk at a Mania one day or something. The superplex off the cage tease leading to Shane escaping with the win by falling out of his t-shirt was just the stupid finish this match needed. *1/2
4. WWE Cruiserweight Title: Tony Nese [c] vs. Ariya Daivari
Ariya Daivari with a Mercedes for his entrance gets somebody an A for effort. Otherwise, what a dogshit tone deaf match that was exactly as generic and boring as all the jokes said it would be when it was announced in the first place. A dark timeline version of 205 Live that’s right here in front of us. *1/2
5. RAW Women’s Title: Becky Lynch [c] vs. Lacey Evans
Gun holsters for guns that shot out cash (!) aside, Lacey Evans’ hat was PHENOMENAL – she is a modern day Jesse “The Body” Ventura whose weekly fashion should be tracked and preserved. Otherwise, this was solid, but more a good TV match than PPV title match. Lacey’s beating and Becky’s comeback were both teetering on solid, outside of a couple awkward moments with the Stratsufaction RKO and the weird rollup thing to setup the Disarmer. Not a bad first go for Lacey. **1/2
6. SmackDown Women’s Title: Becky Lynch [c] vs. Charlotte Flair
I’m a mark for the 2 belts 2 matches gimmick, and Charlotte showing up right away to take advantage of it was very nice. At under 10 minutes this was more an angle of a match, and at this point I assume it’ll be a while before we get another proper Becky/Charlotte match, as I imagine they’ve used up all their good stuff for now, and it could really use a rest. So there was this, a match that used the built-in Becky-in-peril gimmick pretty well, before Lacey Evans ran out and hey Charlotte’s champ again. **1/2
Or is she? Because Bayley cashed in the Money in the Bank, and it was a very cool moment. My only hesitation on Bayley winning MITB was I couldn’t imagine her week-to-week with a briefcase, so this is good. Real good.
7. Roman Reigns vs. Elias
Welp. Going 10 seconds wasn’t their worst match. Roman in a rear chinlock wasn’t going to help this show.
8. WWE Universal Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. AJ Styles
What to say, what to say. I enjoyed this. It was an excellent match for whatever wrestling is now. It got to the second gear that a lot of big AJ Styles matches have been missing over the last couple years. But here’s where I’m at: the reason this is a Dream Match is because these are two fairly prototypical “epic” wrestler types, who made a name doing crazy shit in main events across the world and on the independent scene. And that’s cool. And that type of epic wrestler brought a lot of great wrestling, with all kinds of good stuff from all over the world influencing other good stuff from all over the world, and eventually bringing that cool stuff to WWE.
But it’s also brought a lot of “great” wrestling, and by that I mean stuff that is executed well and is generally impressive but is missing a complexity or other dynamic that brings the match up another level. That might be a result too of that epic type of wrestler coming to WWE and becoming a WWE main event wrestler, which is a whole different bag of tricks. And so everything melds you have the “great” wrestling match combined with WWE Main Event cliches and this match kind of felt like the result of all that. It was good, very good, and god damn were that reverse superplex into a falcon arrow and the Styles Clash counter of the curb stomp something else, but it wasn’t completely engaging bell-to-bell and felt a little safe. I liked it, I’m just going to talk shit when WWE tries to push it as Match of the Year. ****
Hey Lars Sullivan beat up Lucha House Party again. Bloody Lars was a good visual. A good lesson in empathy for him to momentarily be colored. Sorry.
9. WWE Title: Kofi Kingston [c] vs. Kevin Owens
“That was 3.” “That was 1, Kevin.” The double foot stomp on the apron and the plancha into the superkick were swell spots, but this was mid-grade IC Title stuff let alone WWE Title stuff. It wasn’t the easiest card spot either, what with the crowd just missing out on an exciting Lucha House Party 6-man (oh and that AJ/Rollins match they seemed to like). These guys had some cool stuff planned for the finish but first half was just… fine. Not sure why Owens thought a recurring Walls of Jericho was going to get over either. Still though, gotta give it up for that camera shot of the guy doing the fist pump at the finish. What the hell do I know about wrestling? **3/4
10. Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Finn Balor vs. Ricochet vs. Ali vs. Randy Orton vs. Andrade vs. Baron Corbin vs. Drew McIntyre
These are starting to get a little redundant, no? Ali and Ricochet tried to get some extra residuals with a few nasty bumps they took and the little sequence where they tried to escape each other up the ladder was fun, but neither had the breakout performance I was hoping for. Balor of all people seemed determined to cripple himself, or at least feels really really safe with the ladder as a landing device. The sunset flip powerbomb off a ladder through another ladder is one thing, but Balor’s bounce was a mind-melting thing. Ricochet’s tope caught with the End of Days was incredible, unfortunately it was followed up by McIntyre whiffing with a Claymore. Andrade, when he did do something, looked alright. Orton’s repeated backdrops on the commentary table were a neat inside joke.
But I don’t know. It was another fun but slightly empty Money in the Bank with a few fresh faces doing some cool stuff around Corbin and McIntyre’s double-teaming. And then Brock Lesnar ran-in and won the match and look, they’re basically telling you to your face – if you’re going to look at wrestling through a prism of “good” and “bad” then don’t even bother watching this circus for the next month. Or two months. Because Saudi Arabia is here and Cedric Alexander just isn’t going to be a priority over Paul Heyman cutting endless generic promos about Mr. Beast in the Bank and The Undertaker vs. Goldberg, OK? OK? Do you hear me?? ***1/2
A weak build resulted in a weak show. The Bayley cash-in was great, Rollins vs. Styles was good, and the Money in the Bank matches remain silly fun, but overall this was crap. Usually in these down periods there’s more good wrestling to cover for there being no good story, but that wasn’t the case here, and it was especially glaring with the buzzkill of all buzzkills to end the show. 3/10
