Some say it’s the most important RAW of the year. Like the beginning of a season, where the fallout from the biggest show of the year, WrestleMania, meets new storylines and often new main roster superstars. RAW, as we know from week to week, can be rather tedious. A three-hour block of often poor matches and storylines that lead nowhere leaving our entertainment need far less than fulfilled. This is the one time a year we can sit back and with confidence, turn on WWE’s flagship show and know that we will get something from it. Tonight we find out what comes next after a lackluster WrestleMania 32 and what paths will be laid for our wrestling viewing future. Welcome to the RAW after ‘Mania, let’s find out what await us. We are live in Dallas, Texas with Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton on commentary.
Promo Time: Vince McMahon After a WrestleMania music video recap, RAW begins with the commentary team discussing how passionate the WWE Universe is, and they will chant what they want for who they want. This is rather odd; something is up already. Vince Mcmahon’s music hits to which the crowd sings loudly “no chance in hell.” On the stage, he talks about Shane losing at WrestleMania and that he has already taken care of whatever was in the “lockbox.” He says seeing Shane on top of the cell made him realize how much winning the match meant to Shane. Vince tells the crowd to enjoy RAW and that it is one they will never forget. He begins to leave, but Shane comes out limping and visibly beaten from last night. As Shane is getting “thank you” and “you still got it” chants from the crowd, he tells them he has two things to say. The first is to shake his father's hand and tell him “you won.” The second is to tell the fans thank you and goodbye. Shane begins to leave, but Vince stops him saying “nobody upstages me!” Vince says how ridiculous it would be if Shane were running RAW and the fans begin to chant “let him run it.” This crowd is loud and on fire already. Vince says “okay, let’s see what you got” and leaves. Shane is officially running RAW for the night. Best of both worlds from the match at WrestleMania; Undertaker gets his win, and Shane still gets to run RAW, for tonight anyways. WWE Tag Team Championship The New Day (c) vs. The League of Nations (King Barrett & Sheamus) The New Day start this one off on the mic discussing how things didn’t go to plan for them at Wrestlemania. They have what they are calling “the last piece WrestleMania booty ‘o cereal” or “the booty of life.” The match starts out with high impact back and forth by both teams that spill to the outside. The New Day are eventually cut off, and the League takes over working on Kofi. Throughout the early stages of this match, the hot crowd in Dallas is doing the wave, and Sheamus makes sure to mock them for it. Kofi gets the hot tag to Big E, and he runs wild clearing the ring. Big E ends up throwing King Barrett into Sheamus on the apron followed up by the Midnight Hour double team finisher for the victory. Decent match that hopefully brings this faction feud to an end. Final Rating: **1/2 Sheamus grabs the mic post-match talking about how the League of Nations should be destroying everybody, but there is something wrong. He says “you are only as strong as your weakest link.” As you can guess, this spelled the end for King Barrett. Rusev and Del Rio grab Barrett's arms, and Seamus gives him the Brogue Kick. As they are beating on Barrett, the light go out. When they come back on, The Wyatt family is in the ring and began to tear apart The League. Bray gives Sheamus Sister Abigail as the crowd chants “Thank you Wyatts” and we head to commercial. Backstage Renee Young catches up with Mr. McMahon as he is leaving. He says he is leaving because he doesn’t want to “witness the ship go down” and then takes off in his limo. Sasha Banks vs. Summer Rae This starts with Sasha reminding Summer she is the boss and giving her a slap in the face. Sasha is hands down the best women’s wrestler they have on the roster, and I cannot wait to see her chase for the championship.This match does not last long. After some brief offense by Summer, Sasha flubs but still locked on the Bank Statement for the win. Maybe last a little over a minute. Not a match I would expect out of Sasha, but one I would expect from Summer Rae. Final Rating: * Tyler Breeze vs. Apollo Crews This is the RAW debut for Apollo Crews, and he is matched up with his former NXT rival, Tyler Breeze. RAW debuts are often one-sided contests to show off the new up and coming superstar, and this instance is no different. Crews shows off his athleticism early with backflips and power slams. Breeze gets some brief offense slowing down the pace of the match, but it doesn’t last long. Crews gets a kick to Breeze’s head followed by a gorilla press slam. After hitting a standing moonsault and the sit-out powerbomb, Apollo Crew’s first main roster appearance is a victory over “Prince Pretty.” Final Rating: *3/4 Promo Time: Roman Reigns Roman comes out a begins his promo to deafening boos in the arena. He says he’s not a bad guy or a good guy; he’s the guy. He gets to the point saying if anyone wants his championship then to get their ass out there now and throws the mic. Jericho comes out in what I am loosely calling “street clothes” and begins immediately to berate the crowd. You can tell Jericho is doing everything he can with the clothes and verbiage to be a bigger heel to this crowd than Roman. Jericho says that Roman and the “internet favorite, AJ Styles, can’t compare to him, and he demands a title match. Styles music hits, and he heads to the ring immediately followed by a battered and bruised Kevin Owens. Owens is so great still selling from his ladder match the night before. Sami Zayn is out right behind them, and they all surround Roman in the ring. They all begin to brawl ending with Roman spearing Jericho to which the crowd made their disapproval loud and clear.. As Roman’s music hits and he holds up his championship, the boo's are insanely loud. Roman runs into Shane backstage. Shane tells him the main event tonight is a fatal four-way number one contender's match for his WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This main event excites me more than any RAW main event in recent memory. Baron Corbin is ringside beside his new Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal trophy and cuts a promo that is less than flattering for his RAW debut. The climax of the promo is him saying “my arrival means the end of days to anyone that stands in my way.” Ugh...lame. I hope the writers can fix this area up a bit. Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin For Corbin’s RAW debut, I could think of worse people to match him up with than Ziggler. Ziggler gets the upper hand early with fast paced action, but Corbin cuts him off sending him to the outside before the break. After the break, it is mainly back and forth with Ziggler selling his leg as he seems to do in every match now. Dolph gets the Fameasser sending both men to the mat, but Corbin recovers and hits the Deep Six on Ziggler for a near fall. They end up on the outside, and Corbin gives Dolph a boot to the face sending him over the barricade. Corbin goes after him and soon the ref calls for the bell and rules it a double count out. Corbin is not happy about this telling the ref over and over that it’s his fault before giving Ziggler the End of Days on the floor. Not an awful match and a least showed Corbin as someone not to screw around with. Final Rating: ** Promo Time: Zack Ryder Ryder is out talking about how last night was the greatest night of his life and the fans are chanting “you deserve it.” I do like the photos he shows of him holding Razor Ramon’s Intercontinental Championship when he was a kid and then vice versa backstage at WrestleMania. He also begins to thank his dad who is at ringside, but out comes The Miz to interrupt. The Miz says Ryder ruined his WrestleMania moment to which Ryder responds “sucks to be you, bro.” The Miz wants a title shot and after some back and forth arguing, Ryder agrees. Ryder is very much over with the fans tonight. WWE Intercontinental Championship Zack Ryder (c) vs. The Miz Ryder starts this match off like it is his last shot with some huge dropkicks and a hurricanrana off the top, but the crowd dies down on it quick. After the break, it is mainly Miz on offense with shades of a comeback by Ryder. The match spills to the outside, and Miz drops Zach across the barricade in front of his dad. Miz and Ryder’s dad get into an argument long enough for Ryder to recover and throw his opponent back in the ring. Suddenly Miz’s wife and former WWE Diva Maryse comes out of the crowd and slaps Ryder’s dad. This distracts Zack in the ring long enough for Miz to come from behind and hit the Skull Crushing Finale for the win. As much as I hate to say it, The Miz is your new Intercontinental Champion, and it looks like Maryse is back to be at his side. At least, that will give us a reason to want to see the Miz in action. Final Rating: **1/4 Kevin Owens is interviewed backstage by Renee Young. He briefly talks about the ladder match the night before but says he is on to bigger and better things. He goes on to say that Shane knows how good he is and that why he is in the main event tonight. “The road to KO ‘Mania 2 begins tonight.” Promo Time: Women’s Championship Presentation Lita is in the ring with the Women’s locker room and the new WWE Women’s Championship on display. Lita introduces Charlotte, and everyone into the ring claps for her except Sasha and Becky. Charlotte has the mic, but the segment is being completely hijacked by the crowd. The loudest chant we get is “hey, we want some Bayley.” The crowd doesn’t respond to anything she is saying until she holds up her championship and say “this is the future” to which the crowd cheers. Charlotte then goes into heel mode talking herself up and thanking her father. Sasha and Becky chants fill the arena. The rest of the woman show they are done listening to Charlotte leaving one by one. Natalya is the last one left. She grabs the mic and talks about Charlotte not respecting her and that she has the heart of a champion. Charlotte responds telling her that the belt means her family will always be better than Natalya’s family. Natalya immediately scoops her up by the legs and locks on the Sharpshooter. Ric quickly saves Charlotte pulling her out of the ring. Renee is backstage with AJ Styles. Styles talks about change and says that he came to WWE to be the World Heavyweight Champion. He says tonight starts a new era and that era is phenomenal. A teaser promo is played after the break with Primo and Epico Colon on a beach and the phrase “Come to Puerto Rico, the Shining Star of the Caribbean.” I’ve been waiting for these guys to be repackaged since the first time I saw Los Matadores. As long as they are not bull fighters, I don’t care what this gimmick is. Tables Match The Dudley Boyz vs. The Usos All four men began brawling with Jimmy and D-Von headed to the outside quickly. From here on, absolutely nothing of note happens in the match. I hope this feud ends tonight. There is one interesting note on this match, and it happens to be a botch. The Usos set up two tables, put the Dudley’s on them and head up top. When they jump off, they Dudley's move, The Usos go through the tables, and the bell rings. Bubba begins yelling at the timekeeper “what's wrong with you!” In a tables match, the known rules are the competitor has to be put through the table by their opponent. Bubba picks up one of the Usos and tosses him into a table breaking it and then again yells at the timekeeper “now you can ring the bell, what's wrong with you!” This match sucked, but Bubba yelling at the timekeeper was rather entertaining. Final Rating: * Renee is backstage with Sami Zayn interviewing the final of the four main event competitors. Sami says he has been the “underdog from the underground” for 14 years and tonight he will prove he belongs at the top being World Heavyweight Champion. Kevin Owens suddenly attacks Zayn and powerbombs him through a table. Promo Time: Enzo & Cass As the Dudley Boyz are heading back up the ramp, Enzo and Cass’s music hits and they head down to the ring. No Carmella with them tonight which is sad. Must not have received the call up with the boys. A “how you doin’” chant breaks out and they deliver”can’t teach that” schtick. Enzo begins to provoke the Dudley’s at one point telling D-Von that he will put his lazy eye back to work. Cass challenges the Dudley’s to come down to the ring, and they start to but pull back last second. They call the Dudleys “sawft” apparently setting up a match for the two teams. Sami Zayn is announced as out of the main event after the Owens attack. A mystery fourth man will be added. Fatal Four-Way WWE World Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender's Match AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho vs. Cesaro I can’t tell you how excited I am to see this as the main event on RAW. I’m not sure if something like this will continue week after week, but I am going to take it all in while I can. For WWE to move into the future with momentum, these are the kind of superstars they need headlining shows. All four men break out into a brawl to start the match, and then they all switch in and out to get all their spots in. At one point they pull off a multi-man super plex/powerbomb from the top which made the crowd pop. The crowd also gave the “this is wrestling” chant a couple of times throughout the match, and I could not agree more. Lots of near falls and finishers late in the match. Cesaro reverses the Walls of Jericho into a sharpshooter, is hit by AJ with the Phenomenal forearm, AJ nails Owens with the pele kick and Jericho hits AJ with the Codebreaker for a near fall. This is the kind of action that keeps people watching. Eventually, it ends up with just Jericho and Styles and Styles hits the Styles Clash for the victory. Yes, AJ Styles is the new number one contender for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, and RAW goes off the air with his victory celebration. Great match and finish that I honestly never saw coming, but I’m so glad it did. Final Rating: ***3/4 THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: The live crowd making their voices heard. Least Entertaining: Roman Reigns - Still not a fan of him on the mic. Match of the Night: Fatal Four-Way - AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho vs. Cesaro Summary: Sadly after all the hype I started with, this RAW after ‘Maina was rather disappointing just as was WrestleMania the night before. Aside from the NXT call ups and the first RAW main event I’ve been excited about in a while, this was just like every other Monday night in the WWE universe. I always expect to be filled with excitement over new storylines and angles, but now it is just a feeling of the same old thing we see week after week. We do have one glimmer of hope with that fact that Styles, Owens, Zayn, and Cesaro look to be in the main event picture, but if that lasts long is still to be seen. In the weeks to come, we will find out more, but as of now the WWE calendar year is starting the same way it ended; dismal. Verdict: 45
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The go home show before WrestleMania, the biggest event in WWE’s calendar, yet possibly the most underwhelming ‘Mania season on record. I have complete and total apathy toward it this year. Let’s see if RAW can change my outlook.
Promo Time: The Undertaker The show starts with a bong! Truth be told, I once vowed never to watch WWE again if ‘Taker lost at WrestleMania. I went back on my word for the following reasons: a) I feel that he should’ve rode off into the sunset along with Triple H after going 20-0; b) when he chose not to do the above, he should’ve put CM Punk over the following year; c) his match in which he lost the streak to Brock Lesnar was so bad that it wasn’t worth sticking to my original principles for. Add to this the burial of Bray Wyatt last year and I no longer care about ‘Taker’sWrestleMania legacy. The Dead (Old) Man talks about it not being his last WrestleMania, though maybe it should be, and then says that though Shane’s blood is on Vince’s hands, Vince’s blood may very well be on his. Nice line. He is of course interrupted by Shane, who points out that ‘Taker’s legacy died out two years ago (true, though arguably three). Shane goads ‘Taker into giving him a pasting but manages to escape a Last Ride though the announce table. After knocking ‘Taker silly with a TV camera, Shane hits his big elbow through said announce table. The “you’ve still got it” chants might be premature; Shane is sweating profusely. ‘Taker even pops out a zombie sit up. It’s on! A good segment, to be fair, but my interest levels are still pretty low. Zack Ryder vs. Chris Jericho Given that I have been given no reason to invest in Ryder for around four years, I couldn’t care a jot about his involvement in the Intercontinental Championship ladder match on Sunday. Same goes for everyone else but Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Ryder’s entrance isn’t even televised, showing where he truly stands in the grand scheme of things. Jericho treats him like a jobber, too, and he even gets slapped around with JBL’s hat. He does, of course, win via the patented distraction roll up after AJ Styles shows up and chants, “Y2 jackass.” It doesn’t have the same creepy inflection as the one Jericho’s been doing these past few weeks. Jericho, who initially refused a match with Styles, opting instead to sit this‘Mania out, has now been goaded into accepting the match. It didn’t take much to change his mind. Jericho is very old and tubby in 2016. Final Rating: ¾* Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Sasha is on guest commentary, and there’s no chance of us forgetting that she’s there, as the camera cuts to her every few seconds. It really detracts from the actual match, though it’s not that long anyway. As JBL waffles on and on like the pompous blowhard that he is, Ric Flair distracts Becky long enough for her to job to Natural Selection. Final Rating: * Backstage, Renee Young gets a word with Vince McMahon. Vinnie Mac points out that Shane is willing to do whatever it takes to win, but it ultimately won’t make a difference. Shane turns up to call his dad out over his God complex. I once heard that God had a Mr. McMahon complex. This Sunday, Shane says, he will let lose over forty years of hostility and take the company from his old man. Kane & Big Show vs. The Social Outcasts (Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel) Kane and Show have been presented as the only two viable winners of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which guarantees zero interest in it from me. It seemed like a big thing in its inaugural year when Cesaro went over. All four outcasts get involved virtually straight away, so the match is instantly thrown out. A selection of other jobbers apparently in the match on Sunday run in for the customary symbolic elimination, leaving Kane and Show standing tall. Final Rating: N/R Promo Time: The Authority Or in other words, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Triple H lies about how everybody will be tuning in for the championship match on Sunday (when the truth is that nobody cares) and how the title is the most important thing in the company’s history (it should be, but WWE has regularly devalued it for well over a decade). Triple H puts Roman Reigns over as a credible opponent, but says that he lacks the same “obsession” as does the current champ (read: booking stroke / ego). Steph chips in by belittling the rest of the ‘Mania card until she is interrupted by Reigns. He gets a few digs in on Triple H, forcing him to retreat. His reward is to be mercilessly booed by the crowd. This match will tank on Sunday. Kofi Kingston vs. Alberto Del Rio Pre-match, The New Day announce that Booty-O’s are the official cereal of WrestleMania before wondering what cereal the League of Nations might endorse. Rusev’s Bulgaria Brute Flakes don’t sound quite so appetizing or nutritious. “They’re grrrrrross!” Xavier playing ‘La Cucaracha’ on Francesca II is a thing of beauty. The match is mostly in Del Rio’s favour, but Kofi looks good when given chance to shine. It should be an interesting bout on Sunday, what with the four vs. three rule, though I’m still not convinced that the L.O.N. are the right fit for New Day. Del Rio goes for the cross arm breaker but gets caught out for a three count with a roll up. Does this mean that the League are going over for the titles on Sunday? After the match, Jonathan ‘Coach’ Coachman makes a surprise appearance (to absolutely no reaction) to get down with The New Day. He throws shapes like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding. Final Rating: **1/2 Renee is on hand backstage again, this time for a word with Roman Reigns. He is immediately approached by The Dudley Boyz, who act as a decoy so that Triple H can attack him from behind. He takes a three on one beating, with no sign of his cousins and Dudley enemies, The Usos. Kalisto vs. Konnor Konnor’s offence consists of a side headlock before he jobs to the Salida Del Sol. That’s it. The ‘match’ exists as a way to prove that Kalisto can hang with bigger guys. Ryback heads to the ring because nobody can wait until Sunday. He bellows “feed me more” at his diminutive opponent. Final Rating: N/R Backstage, Paul Heyman calls upon Brock Lesnar. “My beast, your public awaits.” Promo Time: Brock Lesnar Heymans sells his beast as a once in a lifetime athlete who is at his peak. Dean Ambrose, offers Heyman by way of contrast, is the “one banana,” the “one lunatic” who thinks that he can take down said beast. Ambrose is given credit for being smarter than he looks; for example, coaxing Lesnar into agreeing to a match outside of his usual comfort zone. Apparently, the word weapon is politically incorrect, so Heyman makes a point of saying it. Good old controversial Paul. He states bluntly that Lesnar will take so-called politically incorrect weapons and perform an in-ring colonoscopy on his opponent. Then the real magic happens. Ambrose’s music hits, but instead of heading out for a confrontation with his ‘Mania opponent, he wheels a shopping cart down the aisle so that he can select himself a small arsenal from under the ring. Then he leaves. He even takes the ring steps. All the while his music still plays and he makes no eye contact with the bemused looking beast and advocate in the ring. I don’t know if it was meant to be this funny, but it had me creased up. Paige vs. Emma Paige is accompanied by Natalya, Nikki Bella, and Alicia Fox, a.k.a. Team Total Diva. Emma has Summer Rae, Lana, Naomi, and Tamina, a.k.a. Team Bad and Blonde. This is now a WrestleMania match. For those counting or caring, Paige’s team is a person light. Their mystery partner will be announced soon. If it’s Asuka or Bayley, my interest might be piqued. It’s not, it’s Eva Marie. The worse possible option. It goes down like the proverbial fart in church. The Bella looks at her with utter contempt, and she’s on the same side. The match was nothing. Lana distracted Paige and Emma won. Final Rating: DUD Backstage, the Goldust – R-Truth saga rumbles on. Truth lets it be known that they won’t be partners in the battle royal come Sunday. Goldust, like me, doesn’t care. The latest inductee to the Hall of Fame Celebrity Wing is announced. It’s Snoop Dogg. Words are beginning to fail me. The Miz, Stardust & Kevin Owens vs. Sin Cara, Sami Zayn & Dolph Ziggler The Intercontinental Championship picture minus Ryder. The money match is clearly Owens vs. Zayn; however, WWE seem intent on persisting with a multiple person match despite the roster being so thin that they can only just about muster up five more perennial losers to make up the numbers. Had the bout included the likes of Cesaro, Neville, and Luke Harper (sadly all injured) or AJ Styles and Chris Jericho (preferable to another match between the two), then I might be more invested in the outcome. As it goes it must surely be a case of Owens retaining or Zayn capturing. Any other booking seems frankly ludicrous. The match is structured around Owens not wanting to tag in, especially if it means him having to lock horns with his nemesis, Zayn. It’s smart heel work from Owens, even if it means not getting the only combination that anyone cares about. Save it for the big time! Owens also has history of walking out on his tag partners, a theme which comes back to bite him on the ass, as Miz and Stardust leave him hanging later on when he does get in on the action. Right up until that point, the match is an absolute drag. It seems to go on for ages, but then they do have three hours to fill and not enough talent to fill it. The Brooklyn crowd agree and chant for Punk throughout. The Helluva kick puts the champ away after Zayn evades the pop-up powerbomb. Final Rating: * Promo Time: The Authority I have the worst feeling of déjà vu. No, it really is a second Authority promo. The excuse is that they want to finish their earlier promo uninterrupted now that Reigns has been taken out of the equation. Steph really captures the mood when she observes that “all of you look at us with hatred and loathing in your eyes.” How astute of you to notice, Steph. They bleat on about success and longevity, but I couldn’t give a crap. Two Authority promos, with one being the main event, is an utter insult to WWE fans. I have good mind to put my foot through the screen and send Triple H the bill. Also, they haven’t even managed to keep Reigns out of the picture, as he shows up AGAIN to scrap with Hunter AGAIN. Various superstars from both locker rooms interject to set up an incredibly contrived Reigns dive on Hunter and the heels. Worthless filler and utter garbage. THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: Dean Ambrose Least Entertaining: Eva Marie, Stephanie McMahon, Konnor Quote of the Night: “Vince’s blood may well be on mine.” A chilling message from The Undertaker. Match of the Night: Del Rio vs. Kingston Summary: WWE will definitely be putting on a top quality wrestling show this weekend. Its name is NXT Takeover: Dallas. Nothing on this episode of RAW makes me want to watch WrestleMania on Sunday. Looking at it objectively, the proposed ‘Mania card has been panned beforehand for the previous two years, but on both occasions it turned out alright on the night. Well, they’ve got their hands full to make this the case for a third year on the bounce. I’ve absolutely no doubt that Vince and co.’s judgement has become clouded by their own hubris and delusion. It seems as if they’ve opted for throwing any old shit and hoping it comes out smelling of roses just because it’s WrestleMania. Ambrose’s comedy gold aside, this RAW was an unpolishable turd. Verdict: 33 April 11 2016
Last week Shane McMahon was given the opportunity to run RAW, contrary to the stipulation of the match that he lost at WrestleMania. RAW was mostly the same drawn out bore it normally is but with a few NXT call ups (Baron Corbin, Apollo Crews, Enzo & Cass) and a terrific four-way main event that AJ Styles win a shot at Roman Reigns. Despite Shane having almost nothing to do with any of that the WWE universe felt so passionately about his performance, which we saw nothing of, they’ve come out in force to support Shane (allegedly) so he’s back in charge this week too because, damn it, WWE listen to their fans. Honestly, they do. That booing you hear when Roman Reigns appears must be an audio fault, or those wacky post-WrestleMania RAW crowds cheering heels and booing faces. Those guys! Don’t worry, this week we’re in Los Angeles, California. So Roman will be cheered like a conquering hero and if he isn’t it’s because of those wacky Californians. Hosts are Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton. This show is in memory of Robert Windham, aka Blackjack Mulligan, WWE Hall of Famer who passed away this week. RIP. Sadly a day later Balls Mahoney also passed away. He was only 44 years old. That’s no age to die. Promo Time: Shane McMahon He thanks the fans and gets into booking the show; Natalya gets a women’s title shot, the tag team tournament for a title shot gets underway, Sami Zayn vs. AJ Styles with Sami getting a chance to get into a triple threat for the title if he wins. This naturally pisses off Kevin Owens. Shane goes on to deny Owens his contractually obliged re-match for the IC title. Shane promptly books Owens against Cesaro for an IC title shot. Shane is certainly going for crowd pleasing booking but Owens not getting what he’s due is interesting. If it turns Owens into a new age Austin, going after Shane like Austin did with Vince, I’d be totally onboard for it. Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro Cesaro is the master of making everything entertaining. He even makes a headlock look awesome. Owens bails, angrily punching the announce table and knocking JBL’s hat on the floor. Like a gentlemen he picks it up. “Sorry John, I got carried away”. The commentators unfortunately drift into bickering about the Authority, which reminds me of WCW and the commentators talking over cruiserweight matches about the nWo. Owens focuses his attentions on Cesaro’s taped shoulder, a remnant of his recent surgery. It’s a solid back and forth between two excellent workers. Owens switches his offence up a little, to focus on the arm, and Cesaro does good work selling the arm on the Giant Swing. The finishing sequence sees counters to counters and Cesaro picks Owens off with the Neutraliser. Not sure Owens should be losing to anyone right now, seeing as he’s the closest guy they have to breaking the glass ceiling, but at least it was to Cesaro who should be a world title contender at the very least. Good opener though. Final Rating: ***1/2 Video Control takes us backstage where Dr Phil meets with the Flair’s. He accuses Ric Flair of holding Charlotte back and corrupting her. Charlotte isn’t best impressed and walks off. Elsewhere Kevin Owens threatens Shane McMahon so Shane has him escorted from the building. Oh my lord, common sense? Where have you been? I am legitimately flabbergasted. Promo Time: The New Day Xavier addresses the sudden improvements in the tag division suggesting “like a game of NBA Jam” it’s “on fire”. Booty-O’s present the bracket for the tag contendership: Usos vs. Slater & Axel Golden Truth vs. Vaudevillians Enzo & Cass vs. Ascension Lucha Dragons vs. Dudley Boyz Lo and behold, WWE does actually have nine tag teams. Even if Slater & Axel are a thrown together duo from the Social Outcasts group. The Lucha Dragons vs. The Dudley Boyz An ad break immediately misses Kalisto taking a filthy clothesline on the floor from D-Von. The Dudleys get even filthier heat by taking the anti-Mexico approach and aggravating all the Hispanic Angelinos. It makes no difference as Kalisto never gets back in and Sin Cara eats the 3D. Ball game! Final Rating: ½* Post Match: Enzo & Big Cass make an appearance. They’re already one of the hottest acts in the company after two weeks. Which goes to show catchphrases and a guy who can run his mouth can take you a long way in sportz entertainment. Enzo’s “how you doin’” punctuation tick is beautiful. “S-A-W-F-T” has gotten over in a hurry too. Promo Time: Roman Reigns Naturally he gets heavily booed, like he is everywhere because the fans are sick of him being forced down their throats. “I’m not a good guy, I’m not a bad guy, I’m the guy” is an attempt to do the Diesel late 1995 gimmick. The difference here being that fewer people are cheering. Diesel went full blown heel after a few months. Just saying. Reigns is interrupted by the League of Nations, who are not involved in this storyline in any way. Sheamus moans about being left out of the number one contender’s match and yet that happened because random people walked out when Roman issued an open challenge. If they wanted into that match, they should have left the locker room. The lads come down in numbers to assault the champ but he’s saved by the Wyatt Family. Didn’t Bray Wyatt want to destroy Roman last year? Now he wants to be buddies? Shane pops out to book a mismatched tag team contest for later on. At least he’s appearing to do stuff this week. Video Control gives us the repackaged Los Matadores, as Puerto Rican nationals. It’s a little like Kofi Kingston’s earliest Jamaican gimmick or Carlito Caribbean Cool when he debuted. WWE Women’s Championship Charlotte (c) vs. Natalya Natalya is a fine example of a women’s wrestler who’s been stuck as a diva for years. The arrival of women’s wrestling allows her to shine and she’s got nothing to lose in getting beaten by the champ. It’s a handy feud they can slip back into without hurting Becky and Sasha with more losses. They do some good mat countering, which makes Charlotte look like a stronger champion for busting out the Figure Four from an unusual position. The only downside to a solid contest is Natalya’s insistence at yelling “come on, you guys” at the crowd like Chunk out of the Goonies. Maybe I just hate babyfaces but pandering to the crowd irritates me. It is a really good match though and Charlotte even taps out to the Sharpshooter but Ric pulls the ref out to cause a DQ just beforehand. Final Rating: ***1/4 Video Control takes us to Sami Zayn being interviewed about his chances at the WWE title. It’s getting hard to process stuff like that. It’s also a little weird to me that some NXT call ups get treated really well, like Sami, and others, like Tyler Breeze, get treated like crap. Does Hunter have a limited number of guys he’s allowed to get over on the main roster? The Usos vs. The Social Outcasts (Heath Slater & Curtis Axel) We pretend for a while that Slater and Axel really are a tag team before the inevitable babyface comeback. I’m fairly staggered that the commentators find anything to talk about and there is far less chatter than usual. JBL should have saved his Leicester City references for here. The Usos take heat until the Bo Train allows a tag behind idiotic ginger Slater’s head. Usos win with a cheeky roll up. But the real deal is Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows making their WWE debuts afterwards to destroy the Usos with the Magic Killer. That tag division is heating up. If they’d debuted last week they might have gotten in on the tournament. Final Rating: ½* Video Control takes us backstage where Maryse bitches out a PA for giving The Miz blue M&M’s and domestic water, because they’re prima donnas. Miz sitting there with cucumber slices over his eyes is supreme douchebaggery. His inability to realise he’s no longer relevant is sensational. Second best heel WWE has behind Owens right now. Cesaro pops in to promise the red carpet version of his uppercuts at Payback. A.J. Styles vs. Sami Zayn If Sami wins he gets booked into the title match at Payback. At the moment it’s Styles vs. Reigns. It’s a good excuse as any other to pitch two of wrestling’s best workers together onRAW. Crowd is immediately into them both as they run stalemate feeling out processes. This is the kind of excellent match that you’d hope to get from throwing guys like this ontoRAW and giving them time. There’s room on RAW to do this every week. Why does it so rarely happen? Last week I really enjoyed the fatal four-way main event. Having this a week later means Shane is 2/2 in booking something worthwhile on RAW. Zayn and Styles give it 95% with the occasional rest hold but generally pepper the match with snug striking and high flying. It’s funny that Styles, having broken away from the mediocrity of Jericho, suddenly looks like a big star. Maybe they didn’t want him to shine too much before WrestleMania, instead breaking out afterwards. It’s WWE logic. Any way you slice it both these guys are going to be super workers on the main card for some time. Sami shines particularly strongly in this one, as he’s the new guy, and showcases his terrific moveset of high impact and high risk. He’s a thrilling worker. The flip over escape from the sunset bomb is truly majestic. Styles ends up planting Sami with the Phenomenal Forearm to retain his one-on-one match with Roman at the PPV. They busted out some next level NXT business in this match. The main roster guys are going to have to step it up if the new guys are doing this kind of business week-in, week-out. I love underdog Sami. He gets better with every loss. He’s the one new guy they can book to lose because it’ll make his eventual win all the sweeter. Final Rating: **** Tangent: This is the first RAW I can remember in a long, long time where three matches went over ***. That Shane McMahon is friggin’ genius. Video Control sees Styles and Zayn chatting afterwards and Shane runs in to put them over. How hard was that? Two guys have a great match, get along fine afterwards and we move on to next week where the same can happen again. You don’t need every match to lead to a heel turn or be a continuing match in an eighteen match series. The fact they did this suggests WWE realise they’re guilty of lazy booking and are capable of changing it. Good! Highlight Reel “I just love the Highlight Reel” pipes up Byron. Yeah, I bet you do. Chris Jericho’s guest tonight is himself, who he bigs up, naturally. Did you know he beat the Rock and Steve Austinin the same night? He’s still banging on about that, fifteen years later. Jericho interviewing himself is pretty irritating until Dean Ambrose interrupts. “Thank goodness” pipes up Bryon’s alter ego who seemingly doesn’t enjoy the Highlight Reel. Make your mind up, robot. It’s strange to me that WWE booked so heavily around Ambrose before WrestleMania only to seemingly forget about him afterwards. Ambrose strolling in and casually taking over the chat show, “this is my show now”, is perfectly ridiculous. Ambrose may keep getting crushed by WWE’s machine but his delivery never wavers, God bless him. Jericho plays up so Ambrose downs him with Dirty Deeds. “I like the Ambrose Asylum” chirps Byron. You can hear the main roster breaking the poor man one segment at a time. He’s slowly turning into Jerry Lawler. Video Control takes us backstage where Goldust yells at R-Truth for entering them into the tag tournament. Why is Goldust upset? He’s been trying to get Truth to team with him for months. I just don’t get any of this. Apollo Crews vs. Adam Rose They seem intent on getting Crews over as a guy who squashes people, which isn’t the worst idea. I’m still shocked they called him up so quickly when he was blatantly struggling to find his character in promos. His in-ring is brilliant but he’s too happy to be a monster so he needs to find a voice. If he does find a voice he’s easily world champion material. There are plenty of people he can work with on this roster in the meantime though. Rose gets way too much offence in this one, seeing as he’s a member of a team of jobbers and Apollo is the hot new babyface. Apollo finishes with the toss powerbomb. Final Rating: * Bray Wyatt & Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus & Alberto Del Rio Despite the changes under the ‘Shane regime’ it’s interesting to note that the main events still feature the same tedious jabronies that everyone has been booing for the past year. No offence to Rusev. None of these guys are particularly exciting in the ring and almost all of them are here because at some point they’ve impressed Vince McMahon. These four men are not the future of this company. Unless you’re Vince McMahon. Unfortunately the decision is ultimately his. The idea of Roman and Bray being reluctant allies who somehow get along is actually the most interesting thing either have done in some considerable time. It doesn’t stop the crowd raining hate upon the Roman Empire. I’m aware that success breeds contempt but in this case contempt, of the McMahon’s to the fans, has bred contempt. The fans cheer away as Roman takes a beating from the listless Del Rio and hearing actual reactions motivates Alberto to suck less. Roman compounds the misery by lifting Drew Galloway spots and not being able to hit them because Galloway is such a superior wrestler. The oddness of this match continues with Bray getting a genuine hot tag. Del Rio eats Sister Abigail and Roman times his spear on Sheamus to coincide with the pinfall, thus making it sound like people were actually cheering him. This improved after a failed attempt at getting heat on Reigns. Final Rating: **1/4 THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: This was exceptionally hard but for once it was because of the standard of entertainment on show. It’s a tough pick but I’ll go with A.J. Styles and Sami Zayn for having the match of the night. Least Entertaining: Bryon Saxton. He rubbed me up the wrong way a few times and with everyone in the ring performing this week, the ignominy of least entertaining could only go to one of the announcers. Quote of the Night: “I think you may have knocked a few screws loose when you jumped off that cell” – Kevin Owens of Shane McMahon. Match of the Night: A.J. Styles vs. Sami Zayn Summary: Best RAW of the year so far. The focus was firmly on the in-ring and largely on new talent. If they continue to book shows around talented in-ring workers, WWE could have a great second half of this year. One that might make me forget the horrors of WrestleMania. Roman can succeed as champion if he’s given the kind of support that Styles, Zayn, Owens and Cesaro can provide. Much like John Cena’s first big run was backed up by the likes of Christian, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. If the challengers are great workers, the champion ends up looking good regardless of the public’s opinion of him. I’m glad they’ve decided to push new talent post-Mania and freshen up a show that’s been relatively dire for years. Can they keep this up? Now, there’s the question. Verdict: 75 April 3, 2016
We’re in Dallas, Texas. The attendance for this show is an alleged 101,000 people, which is a quite extraordinary number. What they witnessed is perhaps the most bizarrely booked WrestleMania of all time. The pre-show was hosted by Mauro Ranallo, Jerry Lawler andByron Saxton, which means six hours of Byron tonight. SaxtonMania! When watching NXT I’ve been putting over the tandem of Tom Philips and Corey Graves but Mauro is easily the best commentator WWE have. By a country mile. His voice is so easy to listen to, the sheer number factoids and information he fires into commentary enhances everything you watch. Then there’s Jerry Lawler telling bad jokes and constantly telling Ranallo that nothing he’s talking about matters. The King is a throwback to the territory days and I have no idea how he’s still a commentator for the biggest promotion in the world. It’s extremely odd to me. WWE United States Championship Kalisto (c) vs. Ryback When they picked this as a singles match for ‘Mania I was confused but here all became clear. They had Ryback work the match as a slightly worked up heel version of his character. He played it quite well, although there’s still no sense to his gear change and personality switch. It took him from being a solid babyface midcard guy to a fairly worthless Goldberg clone. Something he’d spent years getting away from. Having realised this error WWE went with Kalisto full bore on the pre-show. He took some great bumps and is starting to look like a legitimate singles wrestler. Having Kalisto win the Del Rio feud and then upset The Ryback at WrestleMania is good for him. The downside was the ticket checking issues that WWE suffered. So when ‘Mania’s pre-show kicked off it was in front of less than half the house. Which is a bummer for Kalisto and Ryback. Everyone else got to work in front of 100,000 people, they had maybe 40,000, tops, for this match. WWE insisted at slipping adverts into the match too, which is so grindingly annoying. We’re already watching the product. Advertise in between matches, for crying out loud. They do this on NXT too and it never ceases to irritate me. Kalisto wins with a tidy exposed turnbuckle spot and the Salida del Sol. Good enough start. Final Rating: **1/2 Brie Bella, Paige, Natalya, Alicia Fox & Eva Marie vs. Lana, Naomi, Emma, Tamina & Summer Rae Expectations were low for this, and rightly so. The addition of Eva Marie was a bit of a joke as she’s universally hated by the audience in NXT and she’s on the babyface team here. Eva’s normal issues disappear in a multi-superstar match up. She’s able to tag in, hit a few spots and tag out. She looks good doing so because she’s got the look down and a few suplexes are easy enough. She attempts no strikes and I’m happy with her work. Considering the talent involved, Paige, Natalya, Naomi and Emma covering the workrate, it was a solid ten diva tag. The Ravishing Russian Lana came across well considering her lack of experience and nobody made any horrible glaring errors. Putting this on the pre-show allowed them ten minutes to get everything done and the pacing was solid. Whoever was the agent for this match did superb work at putting it together. Given her forthcoming retirement it was the Brie Bella show and she got in a canny counter on Naomi to finish with the Yes! Lock. Nikki Bella, in a neck brace, came down to celebrate with her sister and like Nikki, it looks like Brie got good at wrestling only to up and leave. This was way better than expected. Final Rating: **3/4 Promo Time: Lita This was a special moment. They sent Lita down to the ring to unveil the new WWE Women’s Championship belt. Which means that garbage butterfly shaped thing is going into the trash where it belongs. More importantly Lita said that women’s wrestlers weren’t divas, they were superstars too. This rebranding is hugely important as WWE are finally doing something meaningful with their women. Calling them “divas” was an insult and now I can say it’s an insult from bygone times. Kudos to WWE for this. The Usos vs. The Dudley Boyz Up to this point the show had been a surprising success but then expectations for ‘Mania last year were low and the show delivered huge. I was lulled into a false sense of security. Then this weird match popped up, with the Usos hitting a million superkicks, like they’re the Young Bucks. It felt like they flat out stole the Bucks gimmick only without being entertaining. The crowd hated the Usos and when they successfully put both Dudley Boyz through table after the match there were loud boos. If you used to play EWR (Extreme Warfare Revenge), a wrestling promoter simulator, there was a way to totally bury talent. You’d have them lose clean and then get beat down after the match. That’s what happened here. Total burial for the Dudley Boyz. Personally I can only hope this leads to a Bubba singles run as he’s been chomping at the bit for one. His run in TNA was genuinely great and got people excited until he came back to WWE and got rebranded back to Bubba 2000. This was skippable, unless you’re really into superkicks. In which case I have a tag team for you! Final Rating: *3/4 Moving on from there we went into the actual show and by now the massive queues inside the stadium had subsided and the full crowd were in. Hosts at this point changed to Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton. I really wish they’d let Mauro call ‘Mania. I know he’s stuck away on the pointless B-ShowSmackdown but Cole grates at me. Ladder Match WWE Intercontinental Championship Kevin Owens (c) vs. Sami Zayn vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz vs. Stardust vs. Sin Cara vs. Zack Ryder I went looking at the bookies for odds prior to the show starting and saw Ryder was suddenly a huge odds-on favourite, as if some news had leaked out of backstage and those in the know were making a killing on a rank outsider. More on that bizarre story at the end of the match. The booking leading into ‘Mania has been confusing. They’ve taken the red hot Sami Zayn and just debuted him opposite Owens assuming we all know the backstory and while the hardcore fans do, and thus pop the hell out of everything Sami does in this match, the casuals don’t. They don’t know the history because nothing has ever been shown on RAW about the relationship between the two and even the NXT history from last year. So Sami’s RAWappearances have been flat. It really makes no sense. Sami is the star in this match, without a shadow of a doubt. He attempts the hardest spots including a streak to set up what should have been him winning. A ridiculous tope through a ladder followed by the through the corner tornado DDT on old rival Owens. Speaking of Owens, he took an absolutely devastating bump near the finish, the half and half suplex onto a ladder. Just a brutal, sickening bump. The core of the match was Owens vs. Zayn and it all worked. However there were five other guys out there. There were bumps lined up for each and various spots for them to impress. Which worked to varying degrees. Stardust, wearing polka dots to honour his father Dusty Rhodes, did the spinning ladder bit with his own personalised polka dot ladder. Sin Cara toppled off the ladder before bouncing off the ropes and diving to the floor. Sin Cara did ok work in this match, although he’s now in Kalisto’s shadow. I’m pleased that despite Kalisto’s success they’re continuing to team. No need to split them up just before one guy has a title. Ziggler did ok in there. This wasn’t his match to steal and the Miz took it relatively easy, holding the match together. The finish saw Long Island Iced Z, the Broski, Zack Ryder climb the ladder and pull the belt down, thus proving the bookies correct. Honestly, I’m pleased for Zack because WWE have been booking him horribly for years but where did this come from? Logically only Owens or Zayn should have won here because that’s the money feud. How long Ryder is champion for will reflect how competent this decision was but if they were randomly picking a guy that wasn’t Owens or Zayn to win, to give them a WrestleMania moment, then Ryder was the most deserving. Here’s a factoid for you, before Ryder’s recent RAW win over Chris Jericho, when did he last win a match on RAW,Smackdown or PPV? It was July 21 2014. He beat Fandango. So a guy who’s not won a singles match on mainstream TV in nearly two years just won the IC title. I don’t begrudge Zack his moment but why? Why was he even considered a contender? It makes no sense. They’ll probably book the win like it was a fluke and he’ll lose the belt tomorrow or next week or maybe next month. This was a nice moment but it’ll have no long term significance. Good spot fest though. Lots of interesting ideas coming into play and Zayn was the MVP. Final Rating: **** Chris Jericho vs. A.J. Styles This feud has been poorly booked. It has centred around Jericho, which is not how you want to debut a hot new singles star. The booking has been so counter productive that A.J., in January the hottest thing in the company, has cooled off into the second match on this card wrestling Jericho in a fourth contest between the two already. It’s not like the first three matches were that great. This one is perhaps the most bizarre of all of their matches. Jericho gets to kick out of the Styles Clash, which is a move so devastating that it should mean absolute death. Styles hit the Bloody Sunday and the production crew missed it, instead replaying another spot. Jericho seems to have gained an overconfidence in his ability to plan matches and execute thrilling epics on PPV. This was another example of how he’s not that good at doing so anymore. In fact the longer Styles is stuck with Jericho, the less he’s worth. His value has already plummeted in just two months. The murder continues here. This should have been an absolute shoe-in for Styles to win. Nothing else makes any sense. Jericho doesn’t need a win, unless the feud continues and yet another match between the two takes place on the next PPV. If they’re not careful A.J. will be dead in the water by then, which is extraordinary failure considering the heat he had. IfVince McMahon claims to listen to the crowd then why he is not listening to the crowd? Besides, this is WrestleMania and in putting Jericho over they turn the mood in the stadium from ecstatic to wary. It was certainly a good match but the wrong guy won and this feud is a grind. It’s bizarre because when Jericho needed a big win on a big show they never gave it him and now he doesn’t need one, because he’s 45 years old, he goes over. Never underestimate this companies ability to totally misread their audience or screw over ‘outsiders’. I expect Styles will get his big ‘WrestleMania moment’ in about three years when they finally realise how talented he is. By which point it’ll be too late. Final Rating: ***1/2 The New Day vs. The League of Nations (Sheamus, Rusev & Alberto Del Rio) Apparently King Barrett isn’t welcome in the match, as he’s announced he’s leaving so deserves nothing from the company anymore (a contrast to Brie getting a heroes departure on the pre-show). I hope Wade saved his money and I wish him all the best. He’s been booked like dirt for years and although I’m not a big fan he deserved better. He’ll almost certainly get it wherever he goes next. As with all League of Nations matches this was a chore to sit though. Big E tried to kill himself for our amusement, hitting a murderous spear on all the Lads and landing on his head in the process. Of everything on the undercard this was an absolute no brainer. Just put the babyfaces over, same as the last match. The heels have nothing to offer and the group has no long term future. Just put your super-hot New Day trio over and let them do some kind of celebration. Instead Xavier gets hit with the illegal Bull Hammer and the Brogue Kick finishes him off. Final Rating: *1/2 Post Match: We get into the fun part. The League grab the microphone to claim superiority over “any three men” backstage. Out comes Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley and Steve Austin. So in exchange for New Day taking a job at the biggest show of the year we get three retired guys coming out to beat down the boring heels who just beat New Day. I can see why Vince thought this was a good idea but it didn’t work for me. Shawn looks in terrific condition and I almost wish he’d go back on his retirement and wrestle some special attraction matches. The best part of this was the New Day teaching HBK, Cactus and Stonecold how to dance. Even Austin, thirsty as ever, goes along with it for a while. Again, this was a WrestleMania moment rather than a good match. A worrying theme. Street Fight Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose Dean has gotten tremendous momentum recently and you could argue the case for the main event being a spot he should have been in this year. Roman had his chance. So they stick Dean in this match where there’s no way he can win. They could have made Ambrose here. Had him pull out all the stops and actually beat Lesnar or at least look credible in the process. Instead he gets the same treatment that everyone gets from the Beast; a tonne of suplexes. While I do love watching Brock hit people with suplexes it does nothing for Ambrose at all. At least Reigns got a lot of sympathy wrestling Lesnar at ‘Mania last year. Sympathy he won’t get tonight. I’m still confused as to why Lesnar would agree to a street fight? Surely in a straight up match Lesnar beats everyone on the card and it’s only stipulations that count against him. Not that Dean was able to utilise the stipulations and his chainsaw didn’t work. I guessFinn Balor used up all the juice on Friday! Having teased the chainsaw and not used it they broke out the barbwire bat and didn’t use it. Lesnar then won clean with the F5 onto a pile of chairs. As a match it was fun enough and I almost get why they didn’t want them to steal the show by doing crazier stuff than Shane will but the result was quite flat. The downside is enormous. This marks the third straight ‘heel’ win. I know Lesnar is technically a babyface but Ambrose is probably the most popular guy on the roster. Having him lose clean at WrestleMania doesn’t help him one bit. The same as Styles. The same as New Day. It’s almost as if they don’t want people to get over? Glass ceiling, bitches. Final Rating: *** WWE Women’s Championship Charlotte (c) vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch First off, it’s great to type “Women’s Championship” and hearing Cole refer to these ladies as “superstars” is a big step in the right direction. Altering perception of women’s wrestling is a massive plus for the company and the single greatest achievement of WWE on this show. In creating female stars on a par with the male stars they can improve their cards massively with minimal effort. It helps that they’ve got these three talented women, all former NXT stars, to showcase on this card. Rather predictably they proceed to steal the show. Not like the IC Ladder match, which was always going to be spotty carnage, but in terms of actual wrestling and match structure. This is match of the night, easily. There are hints of nerves in the early going, certainly, and not everything they attempt works. Especially on the floor where a few dive spots didn’t quite click but then Charlotte hit a ridiculous moonsault onto Becky and Sasha and from there the match was golden. The match got me thinking about the best women’s matches on WrestleMania in the past and the only one that jumps out at me is Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James at WrestleMania 22. Perhaps the short but sweet Trish vs. Jazz vs. Victoria at the excellentWrestleMania 19. That match went 7 minutes for comparison, this year the women got 16 minutes. A huge contrast and the biggest winner of WrestleMania being five hours long. Having watched these three come through NXT and having watched WWE struggle to understand the concept of talented women wrestlers, it was a huge relief to see this not only come off at the biggest show of the year but to come off so incredibly well. The only problem the match had was the bizarre booking of Charlotte to retain. Surely at ‘Mania you want your big babyface victories to mean something. Instead the hopes and dreams of both Becky and Sasha were crushed in front of 101,000 people and Ric Flair got involved in the finish. Which is perhaps the last thing everyone wanted to see. A shame as the match itself, until the left field booking, was killer and the best of the night. Final Rating: ****1/4 Hell in a Cell The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon The stipulations here were that if Shane won he’d take overRAW but if Taker lost he’d never compete at WrestleMania again. The whole set up for this has been completely bizarre and confusing (two words I’ve used throughout this review). Why would you want to book two completely incompatible wrestlers into a match like this? Why would you put stipulations onto the match where the crowd will want to root for Shane, because he represents the need for change, but won’t because he’s wrestling Taker? The Hell in a Cell merely exists so Shane can fall off it. Which is a stupid idea but an even dumber idea is having them wrestle, hold for hold, for twenty-five minutes before that spot. In what world can Shane McMahon, a 46 year old non-wrestler (regardless of recent training montages), go hold for hold with the Undertaker? Even if you look at Taker as old and washed up, they had him grapple with Brock Lesnar last year in main event match ups. From that logic could Shane McMahon exchange holds with Lesnar on the mat? Of course he couldn’t. It’s absolute nonsense. The match should never have featured hold and counter hold wrestling because it makes no sense at all. Shane cannot be booked that way. I can just about understand him surviving moves and desperately kicking out of stuff but the mat wrestling in this match was just awful. And that’s twenty-five of the ridiculous thirty minute run time. The last five minutes was all about Shane falling off the Hell in a Cell, which was a startling visual and a huge WrestleMania moment. Did it magically turn this into a good wrestling match? No. Then Taker beat Shane clean anyway. Thus rendering the entire storyline pointless. Why even bring Shane back as an agent of change to put him in a position where change will never happen and job him clean? None of this makes one iota of sense. Not from the moment that Shane walked back in, to Undertaker’s lack of reluctance to simply do Vince’s bidding before they retconned a ‘last ‘Mania’ stipulation in there right through to the entire structure of the match and it’s conclusion. This entire storyline has been a farce. Final Rating: * Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal A bunch of jobbers, as per usual, are represented plus NXT’sBaron Corbin, Kane, Big Show and surprise entrants Diamond Dallas Page, Tatanka and Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq brought out last to get the ‘big pop’ treatment, which is fine if you watch basketball or you’re really into the movie Steel but this is a pop culture reference that’s twenty years late. Plus Shaq, who’s 7’ 1” totally exposes WWE’s worked heights by towering over Show. Shaq and Show get dumped early, thus creating some actual intrigue until I started to scan around the ring for someone I actually wanted to win. Last year’s potential winner, Damien Sandow, went out second. I feel so bad for him. WWE don’t care about him in the slightest. Tyler Breeze was an afterthought. I feel even worse for him. He’s genuinely talented and is now doomed to rot on Superstars. However this is the one match where they actually made someone, they actually went and pulled the trigger on a push. It was literally the only time they did it all night. This is a show where they could have made a bunch of guys by having them impress in front of a massive crowd and the guy they actually push is Baron Corbin, which is completely bizarre to me as he’s a mediocre guy in NXT who has barely learned anything in the time he’s been there. He has improved, a lot, in the past six months but not to this level. Plus nobody in the audience care about him because they’ve been given no reason to. Obviously the match wasn’t up to much because it’s a battle royal and essentially there as a piss break for anyone that was bursting before Uncle Paul’s super long main event. Final Rating: * Promo Time: The Rock Before we hit the main event The Rock comes out here to talk for a bit. Although the Rock’s recent appearances have been funny, some of the backstage stuff borderline hilarious, here it’s flat. He announces the attendance; 101,763, beating the oldWrestleMania III record. Perhaps just to shut up everyone who keeps harping on about Summerslam ’92 having a bigger crowd. Rock seems apprehensive and keeps repeating himself. For one of the most confident men on the planet it’s an odd performance. He’s interrupted by Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman and Erick Rowan. Bray’s entrance is great but this is another man WWE have completely dropped the ball with. Since his ‘Mania match with John Cena his momentum has stuttered, stumbled and his group have been booked as losers. Rock makes fun of him, which elicits a few chuckles as he calls Rowan inbred. We get an impromptu match. The Rock vs. Erick Rowan Rowan is literally the biggest jobber in the company. People his size are usually treated better by Vince. Remember when they tried to turn him into a babyface with Ziggler and Ryback? Rock beats him in six seconds, which is a new record. The previous holder being Kane vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. at WrestleMania 24. Erick Rowan, ladies and gentlemen, record breaker! The Wyatt’s continued to attack so out came John Cena for the save. Bray and his goons have been dead for months so this wasn’t a disaster for them but rather confirms WWE have no idea what to do with Bray. Segment was overlong and tiresome to boot. Final Rating: N/R WWE World Heavyweight Championship Triple H (c) vs. Roman Reigns The show has been killed at this point and the crowd despise Roman so there’s no coming back. Everything since the women’s match has been awful. Triple H has a very defined, very deliberate sense of what he believes a wrestling match should be and it was fine in the territories in the 1970s but nowadays he desperately needs someone to play off. With Roman only having four spots (Superman Punch, Spear, Drive By, Samoan Drop) it creates this impossible scenario for the match. It could not live up to being in this position on the card and it was always going to be a disaster. Not only was it a bad match but it’s a really, really boring one. A twenty-seven minute grind of a contest. The highlight for me was the work of Stephanie McMahon. She did terrific work in introducing Hunter, had the best slutty costume I’ve ever seen her wear and her presence at ringside was far superior to Hunter and Roman’s presence in the ring. She played into the biggest spot in the match too, getting accidentally speared by Reigns after barging into the ring because she’s a McMahon, damn it. You put yourself in the line of fire and you have to expect to take a bullet. The crowd’s shocked reaction to the bump was the best part of the entire match by some distance. The rest of the match the crowd chanted for people they’d rather see in this spot, which included Shinsuke Nakamura and Bayley. Nice for them to get that reception but it speaks volumes about a dull main event. Hunter has this obsession with working long main events and shooting for epic but Reigns needed a quick, decisive win. Hunter getting squashed would have meant far more. Regardless of the previous 27 minutes the finish saw Roman booed out of the building and WWE’s record attendance go home unhappy. Final Rating: *3/4 Summary: Oh good lord, where do I even start? The booking on this show was so counterproductive, so utterly helpless that it felt like Vince telling the fans “I’m always right, damn it” and booking what he thought was right. The result is a show with one feel-good moment, a totally unexpected Zack Ryder IC title win that will mean nothing in the long term, and two good matches. What did WWE achieve with this show? They killed the Shane McMahon angle. They killed the Sasha Banks angle. They continued the Roman Reigns push regardless of what the actual fans want. They killed Ambrose. They killed Styles. The nostalgia push guys didn’t make any sense. From a booking point of view this show couldn’t have been any worse. A monkey could have randomly booked finishes and come up with a better WrestleMania. Last year WrestleMania 31 was bad on paper but it delivered on the night because it was entertaining. This show was the opposite of that. Just because a few matches delivered doesn’t give WWE any right to book some of the crap that followed it. I know some people will think I’m being hypercritical but NXT on Friday was by far the better show. That brand knows how to build matches, knows how to build stars and knows how to book finishes. WWE’s main roster can’t hype matches (nothing on this show had a good build), can’t make stars even when the talent is handed to them on a platter and cannot book finishes to save their life. This show was a big chance to wow a lot of people and make worthwhile changes and the status quo was maintained throughout (women’s championship name change aside). Vince is sat in the back with earplugs in shouting “everything is fine”. He’s the captain of the Titanic who smashes into the iceberg and keeps on sailing. TV ratings pouring out of the boat from below the wrestling waterline, drifting to other entertainment mediums or seeking solace in the independent scene, which is producing an unreal amount of talent at the moment and putting on shows a lot better than this. On the bright side, this was probably a better show than CZW or Kaiju Big Battel so at least WrestleMania 32didn’t have the ignominy of being the worst show on WrestleMania weekend. That would have been odd. Verdict: 67 March 12, 2016
Formally entitled “March to WrestleMania” this Network special sits in between Fastlane and ‘Mania itself. Perhaps intended to create a bit of mischief by putting Triple H’s WWE Championship on the line, after general fan apathy toward the intended WrestleMania headline bout this year (Hunter vs.Roman Reigns). We’re in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hosts are Michael Cole, JBLand Byron Saxton. The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) (c) vs. The League of Nations (Sheamus & King Barrett) The New Day’s entrance is starting to get the sing-a-long treatment. It might have taken a while but they’re heading toward New Age Outlaws levels of popularity. New Day run some hilarious in-ring stuff, including unveiling a real genuine box of “BootyO’s” cereal (available from WWE’s online shop) and Big E pretending, convincingly, to be a child. It’s all so ridiculous but it doesn’t matter. Even the match doesn’t get in the way of it all with Xavier Woods shilling the cereal while a unicorn stampede crushes Barrett. Sheamus seems less angry than he should be with Kofi, considering Kingston has been openly mocking him in a series of video skits produced by the New Day to amuse themselves of late. Xavier turns this into a numbers game situation, which is the League’s fault for not bringing their other two guys and Big E finishes Wade with the Big Ending. Poor Wade Barrett is looking more and more like a jobber as every loss mounts up. I honestly don’t remember him winning since King of the Ring. I checked and his last televised singles win was in October on SmackDown. Five months ago. Final Rating: *** Video Control takes us backstage where Paul Heyman re-names Toronto as “Suplex City”. Heyman’s summation of how the match will go; “suplexed, F-5ed, conquered” is exactly how it should be booked. We go from there to Chris Jericho’s creepy t-shirt burning promo from SmackDown. A tremendous visual of Jericho murmuring “AJ Styles” through the flames is better than anything this feud/team has done so far. Chris Jericho vs. Jack Swagger Jericho cuts a bizarre anti-Canada promo pre-match, in an attempt to ensure he’s not cheered. “I am the greatest icon in the history of this country” says Jericho. “We want Bret” responds the crowd. “Canada stinks and Toronto is the anus” continues Jericho. Cole even references a match from 2010 when Swagger won the world title from Jericho. Are they not being produced tonight? Six years and a match that wasn’t “iconic” doesn’t get referenced. It was the biggest moment of Swagger’s career and he does tend to try hard when given chances. That “we, the people” shtick is still over. Probably because of Cesaro. Cole starts reeling off Jericho’s career history, going back to Smoky Mountain and they’re definitely not being produced. The match is ok but it feels like a TV match. A throwaway contest from SmackDown perhaps. The crowd eventually forgets Jericho’s promo and starts to cheer for him, seeing as they’ve got no investment in Swagger who’s barely been on TV for the past year (short feud with Alberto Del Rio in December aside). Jericho survives the Patriot Lock and wins with the Walls of Jericho. The teases for Swagger winning were almost getting me hooked but Jericho winning was no surprise. What was surprising was JBL’s insistence at chanting, by himself, “you’ve still got it” for a painfully long time after the match. Final Rating: **1/2 NXT Tag Team Championship The Revival (c) vs. Enzo Amore & Colin Cassady Interesting to see this make it onto a network special but if rumours are to be believed Enzo and Cass will soon be plying their trade on the main roster. This could be a test of how over they are with a larger crowd. It doesn’t quite have the same impact as in Florida where every single person knows the spiel and does it along with Enzo but it’s a big reaction and crowd chant “NXT”. The crowd do manage to sing-a-long with S-A-W-F-T, which is pleasing and chances are Enzo and Cass will be getting the call soon. Cass is definitely a Vince McMahon kinda guy. He’s seven feet tall and you can’t teach that. The crowd sleeps on the match a bit but chances are Enzo and Cass won’t get long matches to begin with in the bigs. The tagging stuff gets over, especially Cass launching Amore over the top. The champs take over with the kind of generic heat they’re good at. Dash & Dawson’s ‘wrestlers’ gimmick feels like it dropped out of the 1980s, which is probably bad news for them in this company but they’re a solid throwback. The champs take out Cass with a 3-D on the floor and the crowd start to really get into the match. Enzo gets a few near falls before getting planted with the Shatter Machine. This was an excellent tag match with the Revival avoiding formula for a good chunk of the contest and the challengers doing outstanding work as hot faces. Match of the night. Final Rating: ***3/4 WWE Divas Championship Charlotte (c) vs. Natalya Nattie baited Charlotte into putting the belt on the line by saying that her uncle, Bret Hart, called the Flair’s cowards. Natalya dedicates the match to Bret and is wearing a Bret and Owen t-shirt, just to totally suck up to the crowd. When Charlotte won her NXT women’s title she beat Natalya*. It’s a match that Natalya is still talking about (check out her and Charlotte on Table for 3 with Tamina). They do some keen chaining on the mat, switching from one submission to the next. It’s a strong technical match that’s easy on the eyes. What isn’t easy on the eyes is Ric Flair at ringside, occasionally breaking into weird ticks like he’s being controlled by an 8-year old hitting the taunt button on a video game. The work isn’t as crisp as it could be but the mat game is solid. They have a decent little striking contest too, which shows Charlotte’s all-round game has improved since she hit the title scene. The match even gets into exciting territory when Nattie kicks out of Natural Selection, the move that beat her when Charlotte won the NXT women’s title. The crowd lose their minds as Natalya gets some near falls. Especially the Sharpshooter. That genuinely feels like a finish. Natalya gets distracted by Flair though and rolled up. Charlotte getting her feet on the ropes like a good heel. Charlotte may not have been ready for this spot but she’s grown into it rapidly. Building the women’s division around her has been a smart move. Final Rating: ***1/4 *from NXT’s first Takeover show in May 2014. Second top on a solid card, where the dark match was Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, they went all out for nearly 17 minutes and had a **** match. Bray Wyatt vs. Brock Lesnar There was a time when WWE were leaning toward this being one of their big matches at WrestleMania. Unfortunately they’ve pretty much killed Bray’s gimmick by having him lose all his big matches for far too long and his group, the Wyatt Family, have been beaten too many times also. Wyatt brings Luke Harperwith him while Lesnar brings Paul Heyman. Lesnar doesn’t care if it’s two on one because that’s just another victim for Suplex City. The match ends up as Lesnar vs. Harper, which is better than Lesnar vs. Wyatt would have been. Harper gets an extended spell of offence before Brock shrugs him off and heads to Suplex City. F-5 ends it and Harper is pinned. Wyatt never even got into the ring. At least Bray got minor protection here but came across as a coward for not wanting to fight Brock himself. Final Rating: ** Sami Zayn vs. Stardust Nice to see Sami on the main roster as he’s over huge here, although that could be because we’re in his native Canada. Quite why he’s stuck in with Stardust is anyone’s guess. Maybe one of Vince’s challenges; try having a good match with this barm-pot. Sami doesn’t take long to completely outshine Stardust. Cole continues his unproduced rampage by referencing El Generico. He doesn’t say it but an El Generico reference is interesting in of itself. Now I have this visual of Cole sitting at home watching PWG tapes like a smart mark. Wishing he could be as funny as Excalibur and Chuck Taylor. Stardust is awful here, hooking a waistlock and having a chat about the rest of the match. The Stardust character has jumped the shark and shouldn’t be in there with useful talent like Sami. When Zayn is able to get a sequence of moves together the match is far better. Sami wins with the Helluva Kick. This was nothing much, other than a Sami Zayn showcase and it didn’t do a great job of that despite getting over 12 minutes. Stardust is played out. Filler. Final Rating: *3/4 WWE World Heavyweight Championship Triple H (c) vs. Dean Ambrose The storyline here is that Ambrose wants to destroy the existing WrestleMania card just because it’d be fun. Chaos, anarchy, good times. JBL references Terry Funk and the NWA title. It’s been an intriguing night for commentators asides. Cole points out this is Hunter’s first singles match since WrestleMania XXXIwhen he faced Sting. These two don’t click very well with Dean’s unorthodox nature meaning he works over the nose. It is one of Triple H’s most prominent features. As the match progresses it gets steadily worse as the lack of chemistry becomes ever more apparent. Hunter is more than a little rusty and Ambrose is not technically gifted enough to cover for that. One thing is clear, this should definitely be Hunter’s last world title. He simply cannot operate at this level now. Dean gets a decent run going once they’ve settled down and his high-octane strike sequences pay off. Ambrose even brings the grappling smarts and works the knee, specifically aiming for the Figure Four and then Sharpshooter submission victory. Dirty Deeds is a definite three count pin and the referee changes his mind because Ambrose’s leg is under the rope. Very awkward set up for that spot. The stunned reaction of the crowd when Ambrose got the pinfall was amazing. A pity it was immediately waved off. They do some antics with the announce table before Hunter wins clean with the Pedigree. The one moment where this match shone was when they had Dean win the match clean and then wave it off. The first half of this match was really clunky. Final Rating: *** Summary: The Network exclusive shows are proving to be a mixed bag. The main roster guys don’t seem to take them all that seriously but when NXT talent is called upon to flesh out the cards they’re producing the best work on the shows. I didn’t enjoy the main event as much as a lot of other reviewers but then I thought Triple H’s match with Sting was horrible too and people seemed to enjoy that. Ambrose brought some nice ideas to his big title match but ultimately the two main eventers simply didn’t gel together. Match of the night goes to Revival vs. Enzo & Cass, followed by the women’s match. Those are both worth your time. Verdict: 71 February 21, 2016
Last year’s Fastlane was a filler PPV in between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania with the sole purpose of forcing Roman Reigns down the throat of the WWE Universe. Let’s see how much Vince McMahon has learned in the past twelve months shall we? I’ll give you a clue; the answer is zero. We’re in Cleveland, Ohio. Hosts are Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton. The best part of the marketing for Fastlane (aka Brmm, Brmm Racing Cars the PPV) is they’ve finally found something Eva Marie can do. Which is wave flags around while looking hot. One interesting thing of note regarding the announce teams; they’ve got a German team out there including the evergreen Carsten Schaeffer. He’s worked for WWE for a very long time. Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch vs. Naomi & Tamina Good idea: kicking the PPV off with a hot act like Sasha. Bad idea: having her feud with former Team BAD members Naomi and Tamina. I don’t understand why Team BAD couldn’t simply stay as chums with Sasha chasing the title. Instead they’ve just abandoned the whole thing to go with old NXT booking. I don’t dislike seeing aspects of NXT getting recycled on the main roster because more often than not NXT booking worked but it enforces the concept that WWE’s writers don’t have any worthwhile ideas. Naomi is the most interesting talent out there, trying new things and attempting to out-shine the Horsewomen. At one point she lifts Mike Bailey’s kick rush. The heels work heat on Becky, which she can take capably. Sasha’s hot tag would lead to a submission on Naomi only for Tamina to save. The suggestion being that Team BAD are on the same page, whereas Sasha only has a partner because she can’t beat both heels by herself. Sasha debuts a sensational satellite set up for the Banks Statement and gets the tap out from Tamina. Interesting to note Becky saving the pin by hooking the Disarmer on Naomi. The faces had to win here to set up their probable double title shot at Charlotte at WrestleMania. Final Rating: **3/4 WWE Intercontinental Championship Kevin Owens (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler They’ve probably overdone this match already but it’s always good so here we are again. It is only a filler PPV. It’ll be interesting to see where the IC title goes regarding WrestleMania. Last year it found itself in a multi-man ladder match. That wouldn’t be a terrible idea to repeat. The trouble is, we don’t really know anything about the ‘Mania card. It feels fairly unplanned at this point. Have they even nailed down who Undertaker is facing? Owens is getting a lot of heat. More so than local hero Ziggler. “Your home town likes me more than you” yells Owens at Dolph. Getting massive reactions might be the one thing to persuade the McMahon Family than Owens can be a main event for WWE. He can certainly talk. That’s the usual issue when they sign Indie darlings. This is a solid pairing because Owens is great at dishing out a beating and Ziggler is great at taking one. Everything is fine until Ziggler mounts a comeback and his comebacks have started to get incredibly dumb. The air guitar strumming elbow drop is awful. It’s getting hard to shake the feeling that Ziggler has jumped the shark and probably should have left the company last year when there were murmurs of him doing so when his contract was expiring. After both men land superkicks JBL points out we’ve got a “superkick party” referencing the Young Bucks, a team who will likely never work for WWE due to their lack of fucks given. They certainly shoot for epic here, which makes me forget how dreadful Ziggler has been at times and Owens finishes with the Pop Up Powerbomb to retain. They took a routine defence here and spruced it up a bit. Another fine showing from Owens and Ziggler didn’t grate at the nerves all the way through. I like that Owens learned from Ziggler’s first counter of the Pop Up Powerbomb and didn’t whip Dolph into the ropes on the finisher. Final Rating: ***1/2 The Wyatt Family (Luke Harper, Braun Strowman & Erik Rowan) vs. The Big Show, Kane & Ryback Show looks optimistically around for a decent pop after his excellent podcast interview with Steve Austin on WWE Network last week. I must admit I like him a lot more for his brutal honesty during that interview. The Wyatt Family have suffered from booking and talent issues. There’s no doubt they were saddled with Strowman before he was ready to be here. Rowan has had no luck whatsoever in his WWE run but he’s not done anything to prove he’s anything more than a lackey. Which makes it all the more puzzling that the Wyatt Family got split up in the first place. Luke Harper is the one guy who deserves better but when he got a singles run he couldn’t get anywhere. Not even Bray, the star of the team, can seem to get anywhere on his own. Not since last year where his interviews all started to blend together. This match is a snoozer, as you might expect. The match peaks with Ryback vs. Harper as they’re the only two guys who can actually go. “Taking out walkers like Ric Grimes would” quips JBL bringing his weekly pop culture reference from the Walking Dead and comparing the Wyatt Family to zombies. Which is about true when Ryback pins Harper clean with the Shellshock. It had to be Harper didn’t it? Well, the Wyatt’s are dead. They’ve jobbed to everyone now and if a gang can’t beat anyone there’s no point to them. It’s not like they’re entertaining anyway. Final Rating: *1/4 Video Control gives us a brief opportunity to see how well received Roman Reigns will be this evening. Here’s a clue…BOOOO! Dean Ambrose arrives to a much better reception and makes the funnies about having already booked his ticket to WrestleMania. “I got a great deal on Priceline”. The one thing the Shield “brothers” can agree on is that Brock Lesnar isn’t main eventing ‘Mania this year. The idea of Lesnar vs. Triple H again upsets me so I would probably agree with that. WWE Divas Championship Charlotte (c) vs. Brie Bella WWE are milking Daniel Bryan’s retirement for all its worth, which is a Brie title shot, which she’s not winning. Charlotte’s “goat-faced vegan babies” line is the kind of killer heel mic work she’s been lacking. I’m glad she’s discovered her inner heel. Brie has her husband’s kick pads on from WrestleMania XXX, which is a nice touch but they don’t really fit in with her gear. Also she doesn’t wrestle anything like Daniel Bryan. The only real highlight of the match is Byron Saxton taking JBL to school for trampling all over his analogy about family life. Also Charlotte’s face when Brie does the Flair strut (badly). She looks so annoyed. She looks even more annoyed when Brie busts her open hardway on the bridge of the nose. Otherwise the match is a grind with occasional nods of the head to Nikki Bella and Daniel Bryan because Brie doesn’t have a move set of her own. The match has too many hesitations and awkward pauses where they can’t get on the same page. Charlotte vs. Nikki was a much better match as Nikki was keen to demonstrate her superiority and bossed the contest. Brie’s submissions are surprisingly great though including hooking a half crab to go with an armlock (Konnan’s old Tequila Sunrise finish). Charlotte powers out and hooks the Figure Eight for the submission. This was clunky but the mat countering was better than expected. Final Rating: ** AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho It still feels weird that AJ is in WWE. I’m a little surprised they had Jericho get a equalising win over Styles to turn this into a rubber match, even if it was hidden away on SmackDown but at least it gives this match a little extra something. The RAW match was really good, although I may have overrated it slightly due to marking out for AJ being in a WWE ring. This match is very technically strong, especially using the last match as a contrast. Jericho doesn’t quite have the pace to push AJ and you’ll certainly see more from Styles when he gets to wrestle someone who can push him when it comes to speed. It’s almost as if the Jericho feud has been a way to gently break AJ into WWE in-ring style. The commentary is pretty amazing during this as JBL references everyone from Giant Baba to Toshiaki Kawada in putting over Styles’ importance to a Japanese promotion and Byron even references Jericho’s debut in 1999 having parallels with AJ’s at the Rumble. AJ decides this would be a good time to debut the quebrada inverted DDT and naturally it’s botched but the resultant improvised neckbreaker manages to pop the announcers so it’s not a total loss. They have some interesting ideas, playing off the moves used in the first two matches. Like Styles doing the springboard elbow and Jericho springboarding to dropkick him off the top (albeit with the set up being super safe to the point of telegraphing it). They screw up another spot off the top with Jericho falling and managing to land a perfectly serviceable powerbomb before switching to the Walls of Jericho, which is what he’d intended to do. Sometimes pre-planning is your worst enemy. The weird part is that AJ Styles is supposed to be all nervous and it’s Jericho, the cagey veteran, who’s making the silly mistakes. His trash talk is awful too. “You’re stupid. A stupid man. You know that?” AJ plants him with the Styles Clash and Jericho kicks out? What? I don’t get that at all. Calf Killer finishes immediately afterwards so there was no point in having anyone kick out of the Styles Clash at this point. Bizarre. The RAW match was marginally better as Jericho made less mistakes in that. Good match though, especially from Styles. Now he needs an opponent he can genuinely show off with. Neville would be good. Final Rating: ***1/4 Video Control shows us clips from Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto, which got bumped to the pre-show. Del Rio got disqualified for fall one. Then pinned Kalisto to level it up but got pinned by a cheeky Kalisto roll up for the loss. Kalisto is now definitely the US champion, having seen off Del Rio twice. Cutting Edge Peep Show Edge and Christian are in town to sell their Network show, which debuts after the PPV; The Edge and Christian Show That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness. “If I can be serious for a minute” says Edge, mimicking Lance Storm, who he then references. Their guests this evening are The New Day. They make some comically disrespectful references to age so Edge brings up history and talks about The New Day’s early months where they were not impressive. “I’ve never seen so much chocolate act so vanilla”. Christian then brings up Kofi Kingston’s fake Jamaican accent and Edge claims they are E&C copycats. “If we had a threesome with Beyonce, you’d be our love child”. The interplay here is wonderful as everyone is so good at their characters. E&C provoke New Day into talking trash about the League of Nations, which results in the arrival of Sheamus and company. The heels take over the ring so New Day and E&C take the party up the ramp where Edge starts throwing dollar bills at a dancing Kofi and much fun is had by all. I laughed a lot during this. I’m actually looking forward to the Edge & Christian show. They’re funny guys. Having scoped opinion on the show after writing this it seems I’m alone in my appreciation for this, which is weird because normally I hate drop-in promo segments and prefer grappling on PPV’s. “You changed, man” screams a voice in the back of my head. It’s Eddie Murphy in the strip club in Beverly HillsCop. I love that movie. R-Truth vs. Curtis Axel The Social Outcasts talk about the Road to WrestleMania and debate what kind of car they would be. Bo wants to be a Volvo due to their safety ratings. This match just screams filler and reminds me how weak this PPV line up was on paper. They couldn’t find four guys to work against the ‘Casts? Goldust shows up to help Truth and demonstrate just how worthless the Social Outcasts really are. Axel uses the distraction to roll up Truth for the pin. I’m not sure what this was supposed to achieve but I know that I ain’t gonna fall for no banana in my tail-pipe. Final Rating: ½* WWE Championship #1 Contenders Match Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns As Roman makes his way to the ring through the crowd my mind starts racing. I wonder how many people Roman has fist bumped? It must be well into the thousands. He could be on for a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Brock starts taking bitches to Suplex City from the opening bell. Dean looks particularly out of his element and everything Ambrose attempts results in him being suplexed. The crowd doesn’t much care for Roman but they express this more through support for Lesnar. Brock pretty much has Reigns beaten clean with the F5 inside five minutes, which is slightly longer than ‘Mania last year. The crowd get to play count-along with Brock as he throws Ambrose all over the ring (I love that when he hits his tenth suplex everyone is doing the Tye Dillenger gimmick. He’ll go far). Lesnar has Dean beaten until Roman hits a Spear to prevent the F5. This is the point where the fans really turn on Reigns, hating his comebacks. The Shield boys team up to table Lesnar, thus effectively eliminating the Beast. It’s Dean who turns on Roman first, spending a while gazing up at the WrestleMania sign afterwards to demonstrate why. Neither man can get a pin so they’re forced to team up again when Lesnar recovers. This sees Lesnar powerbombed through another announce table and then buried under the remains of it. This time Roman turns on Dean, remembering what happened last time. Dirty Deeds gets a near fall but Lesnar returns again and this time the ‘brothers’ don’t see it coming and he stackerplexes them. It’s really weird because I immediately stop rooting for Lesnar when he hooks a kimura because I don’t want to see Lesnar vs. Triple H again. Ambrose suddenly has this moment of clarity where he realises he can use a chair, wears out Lesnar and Roman hits him with a Spear to win. Of course he does. One year on and Vince has learned nothing whatsoever. ‘You’ll like who I tell you to like’ is such a dated mentality but that’s Vince. He won’t be told he’s wrong. Final Rating: ***1/4 Post Match: WWE World Heavyweight Champion Triple H strolls down to get a look at the man he’s facing at WrestleMania. I still have no idea why the Authority, who hate Roman, would even bother allowing him the chance to get into the WrestleMania main event. It doesn’t make any sense. At least have something like a re-match clause for losing the belt in the Rumble or something. Summary: The show was okay. A few of the matches worked fine but it felt like the same old, same old with the exception of AJ Styles and even he managed to get booked into a match he’s already had twice since joining the company. WWE Japan’s Twitter actually blew up my feed more than Fastlane as they released video footage of Shinsuke Nakamura visiting the Performance Center for the first time. I found myself marking out like crazy. It’s really happening. This PPV? It really wasn’t happening. I fear for the state of this years WrestleMania to the point where I’m glad I didn’t follow through on my origin plan to get tickets. Verdict: 60 April 1 2016
We’re in Dallas, Texas for the first of a multitude of WrestleMania weekend goodness. Not only are WWE running WrestleMania, the Hall of Fame, Axxess and this NXT show but EVOLVE are running two shows, ROH are running two shows, there are two supershows, CZW, SHIMMER, Queens of Combat and several other shows on top of that. If you’re in Dallas you have a metric tonne of wrestling to watch this weekend. Hosts are Tom Philips and Corey Graves. NXT Tag Team Championship The Revival (c) vs. American Alpha American Alpha have been on a tear, beating just about everyone in NXT. Revival just got t-shirts. “No Flips, Just Fists”. These two teams are potentially the future of tag teaming, in the same way that Charlotte, Sasha and Becky were the future of the women’s division last year. Look where they are now. The crowd erupt for American Alpha and both of them look like huge stars. People are definitely getting Revival too but they’re working heels and mostly getting heat, which is good for them. It’s not easy to draw heat. American Alpha work around the normal straightforward formula instead opting to find counters to everything and pop off suplexes. Until Gable takes heat because Gable always takes heat. Formula is there for a reason and both teams are good at it. Gable’s hope spots are both retro and innovative. Unfortunately the match is a wee bit sloppy, with the champs botching a double team. Sloppiness aside the match is the definition of a hot opener. Jordan’s ‘cleaning house’ spots are on fire. The timing of the challengers is near perfect. The near falls in this match all get me jumping. Every single one feels like the finish because everything is a struggle. Nothing is nonchalant. American Alpha hit the blind tag for the double team finish and win the straps. They deserve them. Wonderful match. Sensational heat, amazing timing and only one major botch stopped it being top level tag teaming. Final Rating: **** Ringside: Jim Ross. Kota Ibushi. Kota was in Dallas for WWN Live’s supershow on Sunday but showing him on camera means he’s in the Global Cruiserweight Series people. Massive news. They showed Kana and she was signed right afterwards. Ibushi is there with WWE’s go-to Japanese guy Sho Funaki so you know it’s legit. Baron Corbin vs. Austin Aries This is Aries’ first match in NXT so Tom Philips has to reference ROH, although not by name, talking about Aries beating Samoa Joe. Corbin spends this match channelling his Indie heel nature by arguing with the fans. You’re in the big leagues now Baron, keep it professional! The match plods along until a suicide dive from Aries and Deep Six on the floor as a counter jolts it back into life. Aries flips out of End of Days though and pins a shocked Corbin out of nowhere. Ok showing from Aries on his debut, good counter at the finish. This was in trouble because it had to follow that insane opener. Final Rating: **1/4 Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Nakamura gets new music, which is a bit underwhelming, but Nakamura himself is greeted with loud chants. Nakamura is the biggest acquisition from Japan in WWE’s history. He’s already massively over and he’s not done anything yet. I’m thrilled WWE realise the name means something and have let him keep it. Seeing his mannerisms and weird ticks in an NXT ring is just bizarre. Sami copes with the atmosphere, which could overwhelm many, and mimics Nakamura’s taunts, matching him for speed and technical skill. Nakamura’s structuring is that of an experienced grappler and everything that worked in Japan works for the big ‘Mania weekend crowd. I almost feel bad for Sami because the crowd go cold for his offence because they’re too excited for Nakamura that they can’t temper that for anyone else. Meanwhile Nakamura just drops into NXT like he’s wrestled there his entire life, which is how he’s adapted to everywhere he’s been. He’s just a natural. The match exists as an event with the crowd rolling on the Nakamura Hype Train. Every Nakamura knee gets a reaction, which is perhaps what he needed for his career. The knees had lost their effect somewhat in New Japan. He hit so many. Nakamura gets his nose busted on a series of elbow strikes as they throw lumber and the crowd chants “YES”. Strongstyle has arrived in WWE! Nakamura gets a receipt with kicks to the face and head. “King of Strongstyle” chant from the Dallas crowd! Nakamura busts out the amazing flying armbar that he used on Kazuchika Okada. He’s showing off all his tricks right off the bat. Sami will not lie down and keeps coming back. It’s so brutally stiff at times. Maybe the stiffest match you’ll ever see in a WWE ring. “Fight Forever” chants the crowd. The spots they work toward are incredible. Sami goes for the through the ropes corner DDT and Nakamura flat out kicks him in the head. Nakamura hits Boma Ye twice, renamed Kinshasa (after the location of the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle where the Boma Ye chants originated), for the pin. Good grief this match was incredible. Nakamura doesn’t do little offbeat matches. He does big event matches. The hot crowd helped matters but the work was tight. Match of the Year, so far. Nakamura’s arrival was as stunning as hoped for. Final Rating: ***** NXT Women’s Championship Bayley (c) vs. Asuka Asuka debuts a ridiculously creepy new mask with green tears. This should have been a death spot, following that last match, but the crowd are hyped for it because these two have been tearing it up in NXT. It is a legitimate dream match. The trouble they have is that Asuka’s offence is brutal and I don’t want Bayley to get beaten up because I love her. She’s too good as a babyface to the point where I don’t want her to get hurt at all. The last person I felt that way about was Eddie Guerrero. They establish Bayley as the aggressor, which is an interesting tactic, and have her chase moves that beat other people like the choke she put Nia Jax away with. But Asuka is too good to get caught by that and counters out. Asuka has been able to blow by everyone else in the women’s division but Bayley is her first real challenge. They sell how close the two are in terms of ability extremely well. Asuka looks to step it up with jabs only for Bayley to have a sick leglock lined up as a counter. It’s Bayley’s plan; take out the legs, take out the kicks. The competition of Bayley’s planning and fast countering against Asuka’s striking and submissions is the core of the match. While Bayley seems to have the better plan, Asuka is the stronger competitor and Bayley is fighting from the bottom. Which is perfect for her because she’s a great underdog. Bayley gets trapped in the Asukalock, cannot escape and Asuka wins via referee stoppage. I’m glad Bayley didn’t tap because her personality as a role model is all about positivity. She can walk away from this with head held high. Both these wrestlers did great work. It never quite had the feeling of Bayley vs. Sasha but it was still awesome. This had it tough following Nakamura. They probably should have switched those two around. Final Rating: **** Ringside: Bobby Roode! Jesus. So he’s left TNA then! NXT Championship Finn Balor (c) vs. Samoa Joe Balor comes out with a chainsaw, for some reason. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” suggests @JoseLothario on Twitter. Bit of a tenuous link (although certainly what they were going for), especially with the Dean Ambrose/Terry Funk chainsaw angle from RAW a few weeks ago. Balor knows he needs to start fast and hard and busts Joe hardway under the eye in the opening sequence. This leads to Samoan Violence, including Balor getting thrown over the rail in careless fashion. It’s the brutal monster Joe that hasn’t really been evident in NXT so far. But here he ramps that up to eleven, blood everywhere, flying elbow first dives. Unfortunately doctors come out to check Joe’s eye because there’s so much blood. It’s wrestling! Shit happens. Joe’s intensity on seeing his own blood and letting that aggression out on Balor is seriously great. The referee continually stopping Joe to get the cut checked kills the momentum of the match unfortunately. A cut is not a big issue, compared to other head injuries. It looks worse than it is. The doctors get unreal heat from the bloodthirsty hardcore crowd. “Let Joe bleed” is an actual chant. Obviously the blood becomes somewhat overwhelming and if they let it go it could create a great storyline but instead they almost force Joe to work around it. This is a company that is obsessed with micromanaging. Just let those happy accidents make magic happen. They still have a strong match and Balor kicking out of the Musclebuster feels like an actual shocking occurrence. Coup de Grace sets up Bloody Sunday but Joe counters into the Coquina Clutch. Balor pulls out the old Bret Hart-Roddy Piper WrestleMania VIII finish by kicking off the buckles for the pin. Joe stubbornly refusing to let go. This could have stolen the show if they’d not kept stopping to check Joe. Joe’s offence in the early going was supremely fiery. Still a legitimately great match, the fourth of five matches on the card. Final Rating: ****1/4 Summary: One of the best wrestling shows of the year, easily. One of the best wrestling shows of all time, perhaps. NXT never disappoints but this was an incredible show. Four of the five matches were blow-away good. Mania weekend has started with an absolute bang. Verdict: 100 We’re in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Traditionally a hot crowd. Although not one that’ll do as it’s told. Not that any WWE TV crowd seems to want to behave anymore. It’s only the house shows, where naïve children make up the majority not the minority in attendance, where babyfaces are correctly cheered and nefarious evil-doers jeered. Hosts are Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton.
Promo Time: Stephanie McMahon Nothing says kicking off a hot RAW in WrestleMania season than yet another promo from a McMahon and Steph has kept the terrible half-dance in her entrance. She drones on for a bit until Roman Reigns interrupts her. I personally wouldn’t have put Roman in front of Philly because you know he’s going to get booed. The Emasculator goes to cut Roman down but gets nowhere and Reigns even blocks her slap. That’s how you know Roman is getting the world’s biggest push. He gets to stand up to Stephanie. What a sad indictment of WWE booking that is. A.J. Styles vs. Kevin Owens This is a rematch from SmackDown where Chris Jericho distracted Styles to allow Owens to win. Jericho’s creepy “A.J. Styles” chant is the best thing about that piece of business. Both guys get good reactions, as you’d expect from the fighting city of Philadelphia. These two have been working the house circuit and getting a decent match together. It’s emphasised in certain spots like Owens backdropping Styles into the rail or Owens swatting the Pele Kick aside. They’ve had ideas and they’re putting them together. Styles hits the Ushikoroshi and it seems Michael Cole is far less familiar with that move than Mauro Ranallo, who flat out called the move, and referenced Hirooki Goto, on SmackDown. Mauro did watch New Japan on AXS when he commentated on it but I guess Cole doesn’t watch SmackDown or he’d know what he was watching. Or perhaps he’s just scared to attempt the word and get it wrong. English is hard. The match is impressive as both men seem to avoid their usual move set in favour of switching things up. When they start striking it out, it’s like watching something from New Japan and it pops the hell out of the announce team. Gee, do you think maybe there are better wrestlers outside of WWE than the ones they currently have? I’m not saying that from my basement by the way Baron Corbin. The match is a real hum-dinger. Two guys keen to prove they belong on this roster, and then some. Like on SmackDown Jericho comes out here and distracts Styles to allow Owens to win with a roll up. The same finish as SmackDown? That’s just lazy. Match was great, booking was awful. Typical WWE nonsense. The quality in the wrestling makes me wish one of, or preferably both of, these two were main eventing ‘Mania. Final Rating: ***3/4 Post Match: Owens shills #KOMania, his cute little version of WrestleMania. He wonders out loud who he might face at the big show and is interrupted by Dolph Ziggler, who pops me by referencing “Botchamania”. Maffew will be pleased. “Is that one of your crappy jokes from your stand up?” ponders Kevin, again popping me. They’re interrupted by The Miz who points out that Ziggler has done nothing. Miz’s claim to get a shot is based on his ‘Mania main event years ago (it was 2011, WrestleMania XXVII). They’re joined by Sami Zayn. Owens looking suitably enraged at his arrival. That’s the money singles match so Owens suggests they should have a triple threat match to face KO at ‘Mania. If that means they’ve abandoned the idea of a four/five-way match that’s fine. I think the injury to Neville may have altered plans for a big multi-man match. Video Control takes us to Dean Ambrose who’s chatting about crazy with Terry Funk. “Crazy as a fox in a hen house with a chicken feather sticking out of his ass”. Terry puts Ambrose over and gives him the Chainsaw Charlie chainsaw so he can use it at WrestleMania. The way they’re building Ambrose up for ‘Mania is actually pretty cool. He’ll be carrying some baggage by bringing the trademarks of Mick Foley and Terry Funk but in a good way. Promo Time: League of Nations Sheamus is unimpressed with the New Day and shows clips of the Lads giving the tag champs a thrashing last week. Thankfully this dour promo is interrupted by the New Day. Somehow the drabness of the League of Nations drags the New Day down. The League is just a massive lead weight on every segment they appear in. Kofi’s burn on Alberto Del Rio, reminding him of his previous successes before pointing out he’s now stuck in the League of Nations, is pretty funny. They end up brawling and because of the League’s terminal uselessness even that fizzles out. Big E. vs. Rusev I feel really bad for Rusev because he’s stuck in the League of Nations, which is a dead end. Everyone else in there deserves it but Rusev is just being punished for some unwritten indiscretion Lana has committed and for making fun of that fact on Twitter. While Big E can be made more entertaining by New Day being at ringside, Xavier’s trombone in particular, the League of Nations are a positive detriment. Rusev is far worse for being in their group. Xavier’s nutty ringside stuff includes hitting Del Rio with the Shining Wizard, which made me laugh. The match is an unbearable drag though. It lasts for way too long, achieves nothing and goes nowhere. Big E wipes out Sheamus and clean pins Rusev with the Big Ending. The League of Nations ship is sinking fast. It’s an unmitigated disaster. Final Rating: ¾* Promo Time: The Big Show He’s out here to shill the Andre the Giant Memorial battle royal. At some point Show flipped babyface without me even noticing. But then Show turns more often than I eat hot meals. Show puts over Andre and puts his hat into the ring for winning another Memorial battle royal this year. He’s interrupted, because everyone is interrupted in this company, by the Social Outcasts. Show just laughs at them but at least they’re entertaining, which puts them higher up the totem pole than the League of Nations in my book. Show calls them “hashtagging trolls” and then fends all four of them off with minimal effort. When the numbers game takes over Kane joins in. Bo makes me laugh by apologising after the rest of the ‘Casts are beaten down. Show is equally amusing by giving Kane a big hug. “Kane’s the man” he yells before eating a chokeslam. Oh good lord, I hope it doesn’t come down to another Show vs. Kane feud. Video Control gives us the latest Hall of Fame inductee Stan Hansen! What are the chances of him accidentally punching someone’s eye out at the ceremony? Don’t bet against it! That’s a solid entry. Very happy for Stan. He deserves it. Fandango vs. Chris Jericho Fandango still works here? I honestly thought he’d left. Fandango famously beat Jericho in his first WWE match at WrestleMania 29. “He never beat me at WrestleMania” screams Jericho. “You are a stupid man, you idiot” continues Jericho. At what point did Jericho become this ridiculous parody of himself? The crowd is dead unfortunately. Nobody cares about Fandango because WWE have booked him as a nobody for years on Main Event and Superstars. Jericho should win clean with the Walls of Jericho only for Styles to distract. Fandango is such a jobber he still can’t win, walking into the Codebreaker instead. Jericho then hides behind a cable basher, dragging the poor bastard onto camera where he clearly doesn’t belong. A.J. challenges Jericho to a match at WrestleMania. Final Rating: ¼* Video Control gives us clips of Shane McMahon in training for his ‘Mania match. He looks great but everything he’s doing won’t work against a bigger man like the Undertaker. Lots of talking heads talk about how great Shane is. Corporate shill Chris Jericho suggests it could be “the biggest main event in the history of the company”. Some people will say anything if you pay them enough. This is why I could never work there. If they had me as a talking head I wouldn’t be able to muster any enthusiasm for this match. I’m more interested in what will happen with the Shane storyline afterwards. I want to fast forward to that. Intercontinental Championship #1 Contender’s Match Stardust vs. Sin Cara vs. Zack Ryder Owens does a sensational job of making each man sound like Miz, Zayn and Ziggler. The latter being “a man who dresses and acts like he’s teenager when he’s at least thirty”. Woo, woo, woo! Unfortunately the downside to Owens’ comedy is this likely leads to another multi-man hodgepodge for the IC belt. Owens on commentary tries to replicate John Cena’s ‘giving opportunity’ US title run mentality from last year. “Praise me, praise me” he ends up pleading with Byron. Naturally the match is a joke, despite all three guys trying really hard. Miz, Zayn and Ziggler turn up to argue the point of all this and the ref throws it out. The result is not just a four-way schmoz but a seven-way schmoz. Final Rating: ½* Video Control gives us clips from the opening segment because why use a three hour show to build up your roster when you can just build up one guy who everyone hates. The last match was indicative of WWE’s booking of these endless shows. We’ve never been given a reason to care one jot about Sin Cara. Who is he? He’s just a dude in a mask. As for Ryder, he’s been buried for years. Why don’t these guys ever get the chance to elevate themselves? Promos, skits, matches with established talent, sit down interviews, video features. Lord knows RAW is long enough to fit all that in. Kevin Owens heads over to Steph to complain about the last segment. “Your husband thinks very highly of me”. Owens is just killing it tonight. Steph, returning to her Emasculator ways, books Kevin in a seven-way ladder match at ‘Mania that will be a car crash. I was hoping for that Owens-Zayn match but Sami does have Shinsuke Nakamura ‘Mania weekend already. Steph goes to leave and as Triple H picks her up Roman appears from the other side of a roller shutter in a cool visual. Crowd boos him relentlessly. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Natalya vs. Charlotte This is non-title and we’ve got both Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks at ringside to watch. The more I think about that triple threat match at ‘Mania, the more I think it could be a showstealer. Although it may struggle to outshine NXT’s women’s title match pitting Asuka against champion Bayley. Unlike the previous two big Natalya vs. Charlotte matches (one in NXT, one on PPV), this one doesn’t mean anything. Charlotte struggles so much against Natalya that I worry they’re planning on shoe-horning Nattie into ‘Mania. You can tell this match isn’t an important one though as Charlotte puts Natalya away with Natural Selection, her secondary finisher. Final Rating: ** Bubba Ray Dudley vs. R-Truth The Bubba singles matches give me hope that WWE realise Bubba is a good singles heel wrestler, and a former TNA world champion. Bubba squashes Truth, shouting “that’s what’s up” before the pin. The Dudley Boyz continue the beating. Goldust saves but gets beaten down so the Usos make the real save. They’re facing the Dudley Boyz at WrestleMania. Final Rating: SQUASH (N/R) Promo Time: Vince McMahon He’s out here to hype Taker vs. Shane and declares that if Shane wins “you’ve probably seen the last of me”. The crowd responds with a resounding “Yes” chant. Vince adds another wrinkle into the ‘Mania match calling Undertaker “my bitch” and putting Taker’s career on the line in his match with Shane. This was to the point. If all McMahon promos were this brisk I’d have no issue with them. Dean Ambrose vs. Braun Strowman They’ve been protecting Braun by not having him wrestle. Especially in singles where he’ll be completely exposed so this is a strange choice of main event. Braun looks every bit the lumbering rookie they’ve been trying to protect. His timing is not good. He’s not dangerous because he’s not attempting anything difficult but he’s just too green. WWE opt for the distraction tactic, with the TV audience, by putting Paul Heyman on commentary. Braun keeps using a nerve hold and the crowd chant “this is boring”. There’s a great shot of Heyman listening to the abuse. It’s not Strowman’s fault, he’s not ready for this spot and WWE should know that. Dean ends up getting disqualified for using a chair but drops Braun with Dirty Deeds because of it. Therefore telling us a story of how ‘Mania could go down. This sucked but then Braun Strowman was in it. Final Rating: ¼* THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: Kevin Owens. Great match, entertaining ring introductions and fantastic commentary. Least Entertaining: The League of Nations Match of the Night: Kevin Owens vs. A.J. Styles Quote of the Night: “It’s not Kevin Owens fault that AJ Styles has the attention span of a gnat and turns around when someone walks into an arena” – JBL sums up the way all WWE babyfaces are booked. Summary: Any show where the crowd mercilessly chant “this is boring” at the main event can’t really be considered a success. WrestleMania season has been a bust this year with very little to look forward to at the big show. I’ve probably said this before but my hopes for ‘Mania weekend rest on another show from Dallas that weekend. A little soiree thrown by NXT. Their specials routinely out-do the main roster and their line up for Takeover Dallas is immaculate. You’ll forgive me for being more hyped up for that show over the seven hours of WrestleMania coverage come April 3. Verdict: 33 We’re in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hosts are Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton. WrestleMania is rapidly approaching and with the company having made it over the speed-bump that was the Roadblock Network Special the ‘Mania card is coming together. Here’s how it looks so far:
Triple H vs. Roman Reigns Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks IC title defence Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal Not the most enticing of line-ups but then last years ‘Mania looked pretty awful on paper and still delivered. The biggest issue they face is there’s no major singles match where I actively care who wins. Perhaps I’m pulling for Shane to win his match, just so RAW can get an overhaul. Although the lead-in to ‘Mania is usually quite exciting as it becomes a little more unpredictable. We’ll see if that holds true tonight. WWE Tag Team Championship The New Day (c) vs. The League of Nations (Alberto Del Rio & Rusev) The New Day have been roasting the League of Nations on Twitter with stuff that’s more entertaining than anything on TV of late. New Day had a numbers advantage at Roadblock because WWE ran a house show the same night and both Del Rio and Rusev were on it. Main event for that show? Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles. I’ve seen that match, it was solid. Seeing as the Freebirds are going into the Hall of Fame, Cole is actually allowed to reference the Freebirds Rule. WWE makes itself sound odd for not referencing stuff like this all the time. Only when it suits them. Xavier Woods actually wrestles here, which leaves Kofi standing at ringside holding Francesca II. It’s perhaps not the best use of Xavier. Or Kofi. After all Xavier drops into the heat segment like Kingston would but now there’s no one to blow the trombone. Does Kofi play a musical instrument? Drums or a banjo or something? Del Rio does some impressive work in getting Big E out of the way, blocking the spear through the ropes and dropping double knees on the apron. Meanwhile Kofi sees off both Sheamus and King Barrett on the floor, thus rendering the numbers game useless, before distracting Rusev so Xavier can roll him up. The League gets a four on three beatdown after the match but they’ve already lost to New Day twice. Perhaps some seven-man shenanigans at WrestleMania are in order. The beating goes on for ages, uncomfortably so, but at least it shows the League are pissed off about all the mockery they’ve faced in recent weeks. Final Rating: **3/4 Promo Time: Dean Ambrose The pop this man gets is shockingly loud. The announce team replay the controversial finish and, despite the set up for it being really clunky, Dean did indeed have his foot under the bottom rope on the pin. They seem really pleased that it worked. Ambrose can barely get a promo started before Brock Lesnar shows up. The logic of Paul Heyman here is that he won’t let Lesnar kill Ambrose tonight because it might effect buyrates for WrestleMania. However Brock wants a scrap and Dean came prepared. He’s got a crowbar. The ‘Mania match is a street fight. I don’t know why Lesnar, who is unbeatable in a regular match, would even want to have a no holds barred match. Or why Heyman would allow Dean this window of opportunity. Ryback vs. Sin Cara Sin Cara has badass new gear. It’s all black. Unlike Ryback switching gear, it’s a refreshing new look. Although it doesn’t really fit in with the Lucha Dragons smiley, happy outlook. Ryback in this new heel role is only entertaining if he’s squashing people. This is an extended squash. It’s tedious. They shouldn’t give the match as long as they do, nor should Sin Cara get any offence, which he does. Ryback hits a couple of Shellshocks while staring at Kalisto. He’s clearly wanting that US title that’s over Kalisto’s shoulder. That’s shaping up to be a singles match but there’s no way that should make the ‘Mania card, which is what Ryback asks for. Final Rating: ½* Promo Time: Stephanie McMahon I thought we’d dodged this bullet when the show opened with a match but here comes the long-winded McMahon family promo. Steph can’t even walk to the ring without irritating me. She tries to do a little dance to her music and it’s so half-hearted it makes no sense to even attempt it. As it happens she’s only out here to introduce… Promo Time: Triple H “Hope is not a strategy” says the champ trying to compare the people to Ambrose, which works, and Roman Reigns, which draws boos. Hunter draws some genuine heat by explaining how life works and why everyone in the crowd is a complete failure at life. It’s unerringly accurate, which makes it quite painful to listen to. When faced with the comparison, Hunter has definitely done life better than me. He looks better, he’s achieved more and the son of a bitch is even perfectly happy in his private life. “The Authority always wins” says Hunter and that brings out Dolph Ziggler. “Speaking of failures” Steph says as he hits the ring, cutting his nuts off immediately. Dolph thinks he’s got nothing left to lose. But he’s talking to his employer. There’s his job, his livelihood. Does he not see that? Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Steph books Ziggler in a match tonight, which if he wins he’ll get any spot he wants at WrestleMania. The match is with Triple H. Steph can’t of asked her husband if he was cool with that beforehand. The worst part of this segment was Steph lifting the Daniel Bryan “yes” taunt. That’s not yours. This was going fine until Ziggler hit the ring. The Hunter stuff about hope was very strong. Nobody cares about Ziggler. If you wanted to push Ziggler you should have done it two years ago when he was hot. Sami Zayn vs. The Miz Has Sami been snuck onto the main roster? He keeps appearing on main roster shows. Kevin Owens joins commentary to point out “Sami Zayn doesn’t belong in the same ring as me”. Sami is eager to thrill and inserts a moonsault off the rail. I feel bad for Miz. He seems to be positioned as the guy who takes spots off new guys who are trying to get themselves over. Owens is terrific on commentary, shutting down Byron for reminding Kevin of Sami eliminating him from the Rumble match. “Do you want to be eliminated from this commentary table?” The finish of this is seriously clunky with Owens getting into it with Miz, over Owens abandoning Miz on SmackDown in a tag, and Zayn wins with the Helluva Kick. Final Rating: *3/4 Video Control takes us backstage where the League of Nations offer the New Day a match at WrestleMania four on three. Brie Bella & Alicia Fox vs. Team BAD Before we get underway Lana appears. Are they angling for Brie vs. Lana at WrestleMania? It feels like they’re trying to get something out of Brie before she leaves. Lana’s distraction allows Team BAD to get the double team and pin Brie. The only good thing about this match was Lana’s skirt, which was on point. Final Rating: ¼* Video Control takes us backstage where Paige, the forgotten woman, gets interview time. Lana comes in for a bit of fiery European arguing. They’d be better off as a team but another team, Team BAD, show up to have Lana’s back. Elsewhere Charlotte chats about ‘Mania. She points out Sasha puked before her first NXT match. “She’s a scared little girl”. Ric Flair puts over Sasha and Becky but that Charlotte is better. They don’t need to build that triple threat up more than showing clips from the NXT matches. I don’t see why they can’t use that background to sell it. The Usos vs. The Social Outcasts (Adam Rose & Bo Dallas) To add to the confusion The Dudley Boyz are out here to do commentary. It’s a really short match where the ‘Casts get superkicked a lot. It’s a Superkick Party! Superfly Splash finishes for the Samoan brothers. Final Rating: N/R Video Control takes us backstage where Mick Foley shows up to give Dean Ambrose some advice regarding street fights. Foley has a gift for the street fight, a passing of the torch. Ambrose has himself a barbwire bat for ‘Mania. While I don’t really see Ambrose as the logical replacement for Foley, he’s more like an unhinged Austin, it’s nice to have a logical reason for that bat to make a ‘Mania appearance. Triple H vs. Dolph Ziggler There’s no consequence for Dolph if he loses this match but if he wins he gets to pick his spot at WrestleMania. WWE Championship match aside, naturally. Ziggler has become so worthless since his hot streak ended in early 2015 that they might as well have turned him heel tonight and had him join the Authority. It’s not like they have a dog in the fight right now, apart from Hunter himself and he’s only got a finite number of matches left. As was evidenced by the clunker with Ambrose at Roadblock and the pacing of this contest. To call it methodical would be polite. Hunter has this obsession with length. Longer is better. It’s more worthwhile if it’s longer. So he can’t have an entertaining ten minute match with Ziggler. It has to be longer. Dolph can’t structure a long match either, relying heavily on taking heat in every single match. So while it makes sense here, against the champion and a larger opponent, he does it in every match. Hunter shows a suitable amount of ass, giving Dolph big near falls where his desperation last gasp kick outs pop the crowd. It makes you wonder why the company couldn’t do anything with Ziggler over the past year and a half. Eventually Dolph loses because that’s the least interesting of the two options available to them. A third option would have been Ziggler selling his soul. But no, Ziggler looks good and loses, which is a story they’ve been telling for a very, very long time. Good match eventually though. Final Rating: *** Post-Match: Roman Reigns shows up, on the entrance ramp, instead of through the crowd. The reaction is decidedly mixed with definite boos ringing out whenever Roman stops off to breathe in his violent successes. Roman continues the beating into the backstage area where Hunter bleeds from the back of his head. Some babyfaces eventually pull Roman aside to stop the beating. This segment didn’t work. Video Control gives us the latest inductee into the Hall of Fame; Jacqueline Moore. Another Texan as they’re trying to pile in the Texas based competitors for a Texas based show. Elsewhere Goldust and R-Truth talk about penguins and stuff. They’ve flipped this story around and turned Truth into the weirdo. Why can’t they get their heads around the concept that they’re both odd and shouldn’t be teaming at all? Chris Jericho vs. Neville Jericho cuts an inferior version of Hunter’s promo from earlier. Cole reminds us that Neville and Jericho worked a match on the Beast in the East show. It was really solid, the best Jericho match in a long time. This one is a lot shorter with Neville getting injured and Jericho getting disqualified for shoving the ref. Jericho runs his mouth some more so AJ Styles comes out here to shut him up with the Phenomenal Forearm, which is what they’re calling AJ’s springboard elbow smash. Final Rating: N/R Promo Time: Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon and the Undertaker Seeing as we opened with a match our main event is a promo. Vince once again says something odd by claiming that Shane will be “impotent” after ‘Mania. At least no one will be raped…of their dignity. Vince grovels to Undertaker to prevent getting choked again. The question here is why would Undertaker do as he was told in this situation. Shane shows up and botches his promo. “You’re going to go to hit me and I’m going to miss….you’re going to miss”. Crowd laughs. Shane was never that great on the microphone in the first place but he’s clearly out of practice in front of a live crowd. Shane addresses Taker’s motivation for the match, claiming he’s Vince’s bitch. That gets him a beating but no questions are answered. Shane’s comeback on Taker is embarrassing. This segment achieved absolutely nothing. They’re not doing a good job of selling this match up. THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: Kevin Owens Least Entertaining: Shane McMahon. Welcome back, Shane-O! Quote of the Night: “Go ahead Paul E, let the beast off his leash, I dare you” – Dean Ambrose. “I’m looking at Brock, he’s doing his bouncy thing. He’s all bouncy and ready”. Match of the Night: Triple H vs. Dolph Ziggler Summary: An okay show, unless you were trying to assemble a WrestleMania card. At the moment the PPV of PPV’s is looking like a car crash. The card has very little quality about it and the big matches are bouts people aren’t invested in. I don’t want to see the Undertaker wrestler Shane McMahon, ever. Maybe something like Ambrose vs. Lesnar could be a sleeper hit and the women’s three-way should be good but the builds on those are falling into the shadow of the top two matches, which are horribly built up so far. This probably doesn’t end well. Verdict: 44 Tonight’s RAW comes live from Chicago, Illinois, one of the better towns/cities for wrestling crowds, along with New York and Philadelphia. Expect lots of “CM Punk” chanting to express distaste with the product. With Roman Reigns being kept off TV until after Roadblock and Brock Lesnar not scheduled to appear, the main focus of the show will mostly center round Dean Ambrose vs. Triple H and the latest McMahon family saga. Hosts are Michael Cole, Byron Saxton, and JBL.
Promo Time: Shane McMahon I’ll let you in on a little secret: unlike most of my HoW colleagues, I actually used to get a kick out of Shane O’Mac matches. He’s definitely one of my biggest guilty pleasures of the attitude era. His return a couple of weeks back was also one of few genuine surprise returns in wrestling since the internet became a thing. I still don’t think that he’s the ideal opponent for The Undertaker, especially as it is rumoured to be his final WrestleMania appearance. I’d have thought Sting (if fit), John Cena (if fit), Seth Rollins (if fit), Bray Wyatt (if not jobbed out to him last year), or even Kevin Owens would have made more suitable potential final challengers for the dead man, while Shane’s return should surely suggest a match against Triple H. In fact, I still genuinely do not believe that Shane vs. ‘Taker will go ahead as booked, and will only do so once the bell has rung and somebody throws a punch. Shane’s here to address his father’s speech from last week. He declares Vince to be out of touch with just about everyone, which is true, and promises to put an end to all the backstage BS and counterproductive booking. He sounds like the voice of the internet. The highlight is him calling his dad an “egomaniacal, miserable, old bastard.” Taker’s gong hits, which gets a mini pop, but it’s just Vinnie Mac, which draws an “asshole” and the first “CM Punk” chants of the night. Vince smashes an old photo of him and Shane to fully symbolise the severance of their familial bonds, then sets four of the worst looking ‘security’ guards to physically remove Shane from the ring. I’m begging for the Mean Street Posse to show up. Shane doesn’t need them, though, and sees off all four guards with consummate ease, which begs the question, what type of security firms are WWE employing? They got their asses handed to them by a forty-six-year-old businessman. Kevin Owens vs. Neville I’m expecting Owens to lose tonight for two reasons: one, he’s the Intercontinental Champion, and that’s what they do nowadays; two, he needs an opponent for Roadblock and/or ‘Mania. A third reason to suspect a loss for the champ is that he’s dominant throughout, bringing the aggression right from the bell and managing to avoid the aerial assault before launching the jumping Geordie into the steps conveniently in time for the commercial. Owens seems to have counters for all of Neville’s moves up until he gets clocked with an enziguri and a shooting star press from the top rope to the floor, the latter prompting Chi-town to chant, “holy shit.” Owens misses a moonsault of his own, then just barely kicks out of a second-rope Red Arrow. Contrary to all my predictions, the champ does actually win a television match with a tights-assisted roll up. He continues the beating after the bell, but Sami Zayn comes out for the save. I didn’t expect to see him until the night after WrestleMania, though I’m now sure that he’ll be involved in the Intercontinental Championship picture, perhaps in another multi-man format. It’s all good. Final Rating: ***1/4 Backstage, Dolph Ziggler is getting ticked off by Steph over some tweet he allegedly sent out about the Authority earlier and subsequently deleted. Apparently, he referenced his Survivor Series win over Team Authority in 2014. That’s two years ago, mate. You’re a glorified jobber now. Steph will recreate those conditions for him later when he takes on three members of the League of Nations in an elimination match. Brie Bella vs. Summer Rae Some awful clip airs from the recent episode of Total Divas, where Brie has bought a scooter or something and her sister disapproves. I prefer the one where John Cena unhooks the wrong chandelier and it smashes. That might be an episode of Only Fools and Horses now that I think about it. Lana provides the distraction for the Summer Rae roll up victory. Dressed in a denim ensemble with leather jacket makes her look more like Dolph Ziggler’s girlfriend again. After the match, Lana plants Brie with an X-Factor. Apparently, it’s Brie’s finisher, too. That’s news to me. Final Rating: ¼* Promo Time: Dean Ambrose Ambrose essentially runs through his latest SmackDown! promo again, only this time presumably to a wider audience. The general gist is that he’s going to screw up the WrestleMania booking by defeating Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship. “I’m hijacking the WWE Championship and I’m hijacking WrestleMania whether anyone likes it or not,” he claims. I really hope that prophecy is fulfilled. He digresses by pondering over future promotional appearances at baseball games and charity events before being interrupted by Triple H, who intends to bring him back to reality. Hunter points out that Roadblock is just a marketing slogan, whereas Ambrose is really a speed bump or a pot hole. All roads lead back to Roman, here, so I guess that the ‘Mania booking will remain the same after Saturday. Dean tries to goad the champ into the ring, so Hunter books him in a match with Bray Wyatt in the main event. 3 vs. 1 Elimination Match Dolph Ziggler vs. League of Nations (Sheamus, Rusev & King Barrett) When I heard the three-on-one stipulation earlier, I naturally assumed that Barrett would be the one missing out. However, he’s in there to job first, which is exactly what happens via a superkick after Dolph takes his customary beating for a while. Rusev has to make the save to prevent Sheamus from suffering the same fate second later. Michael Cole shows new levels of ineptitude when calling the wrong superstar’s name, which he does a lot, stating, “Ziggler knocked down by Ziggler.” What a first-class buffoon. Ziggler falls to the Brogue Kick because Sheamus always seems to win. I thought that Ziggler would at least have put Rusev out first, but no, it seems pinning Barrett is the best that he’s getting tonight. Expect him to be competing in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the WrestleMania pre-show. And not winning. Final Rating: ** Video Control gives us an in-depth look at Shane McMahon’s wrestling “career.” It revolves around the myriad stunts he pulled off during the Attitude Era, which is why I think I always enjoyed watching him. He wasn’t very good at “wrestling,” for sure, but it always fascinated me how he was willing to risk his health for the sake of a match that he didn’t really need to compete in in the first place. The video is backed up by a selection of talking heads, namely Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, JBL, and Big Show. I quite enjoyed the video, but unfortunately it just serves to remind everyone how much Shane has physically aged since he went away. Becky Lynch & Sasha Banks vs. Naomi & Tamina A rematch from Fastlane, though only one of these teams will feature on the main card of the next pay per view. The crowd are hot for Sasha, and just how good she is becomes evident when she’s in there against Tamina, who still seems to be struggling with the fundamentals. The Bank Statement finishes Naomi off in short order. Charlotte, at ringside with her dad (where else and with who else?) attacks Becky and Sasha after the bell. I can’t see her retaining the Diva’s Championship at ‘Mania. Personally, I’d like Becky to get a run with it before putting Sasha over. Final Rating: *1/2 Backstage, R Truth brings a peace offering for Goldust in the shape of a pizza. A crusty Goldust claims to be lactose intolerant, which is just a set up so they can use the phrase “exploding butt” a few times in a misguided attempt at comedy. Mark Henry pounces on the unguarded deep pan. He’s never moved that fast in all of his twenty years with the company. WWE Tag Team Championship The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Big E) vs. Y2AJ In the pre-match promo, Big E brings up New Day’s matching ass-cheek tattoos of a pink and blue unicorn, only it seems that Xavier and Kofi didn’t get one after all. Chris Jericho and AJ Styles are sporting matching Y2AJ tees. Styles and Jericho have the going of this early on, with AJ’s offence looking sharper than just about anyone on the entire roster. WWE really need to move him away from the ageing Jericho soon and utilize him to the fullest effect. His 450o springboard splash is as smooth as it gets and would have the titles in the bag but for Big E pulling Kofi out of the ring. Jericho jobs clean to the Big Ending to round off a great TV match, though I suspect that New Day will eventually complete their ill-advised face turn and defend their titles against the League of Nations at ‘Mania. After the match, Jericho attacks AJ for no good reason, which goes contrary to everything WWE need to be doing with him. So much for those t-shirts. He’s had his matches with and against Jericho now. Can he face Kevin Owens next, please? Final Rating: ***1/4 Renee Young gets a quick word with Jericho backstage. Jealousy, it seems, was the reason for his post-match assault. Kalisto vs Tyler Breeze Tyler is sporting some designer stubble and his hair is less kempt that usual. It’s also unusual for him to have such a size advantage over an opponent. These two seem to have good chemistry with each other and put on the beginnings of a match that is like a throwback to the old SmackDown! cruiserweight heydays. Sadly, instead of getting an unexpected undercard classic, Breeze jobs to the Salida Del Sol inside of a couple of minutes. There was potential for so much more with this one. Final Rating: *1/2 Video Control run a highlights package for the latest Hall of Fame inductee, The Big Boss Man. Boss Man was a decent big guy and quite popular in his initial run with the company during the Rock N’ Wrestling era. He also had a great entrance song. Backstage, JoJo tries to get a word with Kalisto, but they are interrupted by Ryback, who is rumoured to be in line for a United States Championship opportunity in the near future. Though obvious to most, the Big Guy wonders why he isn’t in the WrestleMania main event or even booked on the card yet. He tells the little lucha that he is best off looking out for himself and not carrying on with The Lucha Dragons. Expect Sin Cara to be jobbing to Ryback within one week. Ryback vs. Curtis Axel Before the match, Axel and his Social Outcast cohorts cut a really irritating promo that finishes with them doing some sort of Tatanka-esque chanting ritual. Axel is a jobber, so he obviously loses, but there is far too much clubberin’ and generic scrapping before the match reaches its inevitable conclusion. Final Rating: ½* Backstage, Steph confronts Vince and is clearly concerned that Shane might, just might, beat ‘Taker at WrestleMania. Vince tells her that it is all in hand, but it’s clear that he is also concerned. Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt This feud got played out last year, and to be honest they never really gelled together. I suppose Bray needs something to do in the absence of Brock Lesnar tonight, though a nonsensical promo usually suffices. Somebody like Wyatt, in storyline terms, is actually an ideal opponent for Ambrose ahead of Roadblock, as it provides more opportunity for the Lunatic Fringe to take another beating, though the rest of the Wyatts, who usually intercede at every chance, are conspicuous by their absence tonight. Without his droogies, Bray has to put the effort into a one-on-one match and it is to the benefit of the contest, though he still retains some of the usual shtick that comes with his character. They actually have a decent match, easily bordering on their best to date, and that’s without all the electrocutions, ambulances, and broken rocking chairs. What I also like is that though they are not currently feuding, they clearly still have residual hatred for each other, which is how it should be. Too many times, wrestlers engage in bitter blood feuds spanning months, only to end up on-screen mates months later when it suits the booking. In the end, the other Wyatts do show up, ruining what was turning out to be a decent main event. Triple H makes his way to ringside to nod his approval for the Wyatts, though there is a temporary stare down between the champion and the Wyatt patriarch, which the crowd bite for. Wyatt gives the title belt a little touch before leaving the ring (a bit like in the Bayley-Asuka booking on NXT – does Bray want a shot, too?). Triple H clears the announce desk in preparation to finish what he started last week, but he ends up the recipient of Dirty Deeds, which almost certainly means that Ambrose will not win the title at Roadblock now. Final Rating: **1/2 THE RAW RECAP: Most Entertaining: Dean Ambrose Least Entertaining: Most of them. Quote of the Night: “My greatest creation will put to rest my greatest failure,” Vince to Shane Match of the Night: The Tag Team Championship match just edges Owens vs. Neville. Verdict: There’s no doubt about it, there were some good matches on tonight’s RAW. Two matches clocked just over three stars and Ambrose vs. Wyatt was likely heading the same way before the inevitable DQ finish. However, the gaping hole in roster depth is evident in abundance tonight, and it certainly is affecting the WrestleMania booking (though WWE have hardly helped themselves in that department). With many big names missing off tonight’s show, focus was primarily on Triple H vs. Dean Ambrose, one of whom did not wrestle, and Shane McMahon vs. Undertaker, neither wrestled and one wasn’t even on the show. Roadblock should clear up the championship picture, but if WWE manage to screw it up, they can always throw out another Network special: Caution: Last Minute Booking Changes at Work. Verdict: 47 |
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May 2016
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