duskjome So… ‘mania was good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. So much that I’ll have to rescind some earlier comments I made, but we’ll get to those. Let’s see how the matches turned out:
Kalisto v. Ryback (United States Championship on the line)
Ryback squashes Kalisto and Kalisto pulls one out all the same. Whoo, I’m 1 for 1, 100%, let’s keep this going.
The Usos v. The Dudley Boys
I’m starting to think I’m pretty smart. Usos win and, to be fair, I called a DQ, but I got my double table spot, so I’m calling it a wash.
The Total Divas v. B.A.D and Blonde
No one really stood out here but I was once again reminded of the excellence that the women’s division has become. You’ll notice I called it the “women’s” division and not a certain other word that I’m super happy I’ll probably never have to use in relation to competitive sports. We’ll get to that later. Also, the team that isn’t B.A.D and Blone wins.
Andre the Giant Battle Royal
This one came right out of left field. First of all, let’s take a moment to remember the surprise entrant that really blew everyone’s minds. That’s right, I’m talking about… Tatanka
But seriously, I was super happy to see a relic of my childhood but also DDP was there, looking as spry and fit as any 59 year old man has any right to look. Interesting, in a card that had no fewer than ten people over 40, DDP was in fact the oldest man in active competition tonight (although the Nature Elderly Gentleman took a nice bump at the ripe age of 67). And, again seriously, Shaquille O-freakin’-Neal showed up to contest Big Show continuing to refer to himself as the largest athlete in Sports and Entertainment. So it was a darn fine time and I was happy to be very wrong when Baron Corbin of all people eliminated Kane to get his name on the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal trophy. Shaq and Show were eliminated by essentially the entire ring, in case you were curious.
The New Day v. The League of Nations
After The New Day became the best cereal box prize ever and came out in their Saiyin Armor (totally not mocking the Lucha Dragons’ outfits, I’m sure) it was bound to be all downhill. The League of Nations came out on top in this one, which was a shame, because I don’t take them very seriously as heels, and I guess they knew that and proceeded to insist that no three people could ever beat them.
Now, three sounded like an odd number to me (teehee, puns) but I let them have it. You know who didn’t let them have that but proceeded to let them have the proverbial “it”? Shawn Micheals, Cactus Jack and Stone Cold. They hit the ring and turned the old League inside out with some stored finishers (sorry, been playing a lot of WWE 13 lately). The New Day then joined them and fulfilled a dream I didn’t know I had and shook some booty with the Heartbreak Old Man. They tried to engage Cactus but he’s no Dude Love so we got a little hip shaking that was only slightly more than the usual Cactus limp. And then, continuing to make poor but inspired decisions, they tried to engage Mr. Austin. We got a bit of a shuffle from ole Stone Cold before he said “enh enh” and stunned Xavier (or maybe Kofi, I was too excited to write it down). The takeaway message, I was very wrong about the finish but it was still awesome. That’s going to be a theme.
AJ Styles v. Chris Jericho
Hmm, good but not great. I didn’t see a clean Jericho win coming either. Might be interesting shades of things to come but I don’t think they could have outshone some of the excellence on display and, let’s face it, Y2J and Styles aren’t spring chickens anymore either.
The entire midcard (Intercontinental Title on the line)
Great as expected. I’m more interested to find out who is seriously hurt than how the finish will effect Raw. Sami Sayn dove through a standing ladder, something I’ve never actually seen before, and without slowing down ran the side of the ring and dove from the floor, through the middle ropes and into KO. It was a sight to behold. There were naturally a lot of impressive ladder spots, I was especially fond of Stardust’s polka dot ladder (matching his polka dot tights). Stardust may be legit broken in half, he took a bump through a ladder and didn’t move after it and KO might be dead. He took a fairly tight neckbreaker onto a ladder as (woo, woo, woo) of all people Zack Ryder left with the IC title.
Charlotte v. Becky Lynch v. Sasha Banks (Diva’s Championship on the line)
Oh god, you guys, you have no idea how excited this made me. Check it out
I was even willing to ignore Lita saying “the first ever ‘women’s champion'” when she knows full well there were “women’s champions” before. Hell, she was one and they inducted another into the Hall of Fame the night before. But yes, that little beauty is replacing the “Diva’s (gag) Championship” with it’s godsforsaken purple butterfly motif. And that’s just great.
In any event, I’m not sure what this means for Sasha’s run since I still believe it can’t survive a loss like this, but she did lose and sadly not to Becky (journalistic integrity be damned). It was a Charlotte win with an unseen assist from her dad. Will this still result in a split between the Flairs so Charlotte can make a name for herself out of the lofty shadow of her legendary father? I sure hope so, because I got everything else wrong.
Shane McMahon v. The Undertaker (Hell in a Cell)
I want to say I was disappointed. I want to say I’m going to abide by my words earlier this week and stop watching wrestling because of this finish. But I just watched Shane McMahon risk his damn life by jumping off what I can only assume was a 25 foot cage onto an unoccupied table and I can’t really not respect that and be upset about an unexpected finish. I legitimately thing this shot will replace Foley for the go to image for “isn’t the Hell in a Cell brutal?” If you watch it at regular speed you can see him speed up as he drops. It seems like he’s falling for a good few seconds, long enough for him to wonder, “why am I taking this hit for a company that I don’t even work for anymore?” In any event, here’s hoping ‘Taker takes some revenge on Monday for Vince making him do that to such a trooper.
Dean Ambrose v. Brock Lesnar (Hardcore, falls count anywhere, no hold’s barred, barbed wire board, extreme rules street fight)
In the immortal words of Annie Potts, altered somewhat, “I got one!” in a set of fifty fifty chances I guess I’m bound to guess right occasionally. Yes, Brock won, of course he did. I didn’t get to learn how to work a chainsaw, though. It was revved up a bit and then dropped as Lesnar proceeded to toss Dean across the venue for like the dozenth time. Oh, cool, dozenth is a word. Now I want to go back to the ladder match and talk about the “dozenth” super kick. Anyways, Brock v. Dean was good, I would have liked a stronger finish than “another suplex but this time onto stacked up chairs” but it was still good.
Unrelated to booked matches, Rock came out with a flamethrower because Wrestlemania, and did his thing, revving up the fans, although I’m sure there were no more matches, so didn’t know what he was doing. Then the Wyatts came out and they did a solid promo against one another and, considering the types of characters, I think both characters came out strong. Some people might say Rock hit Wyatt’s character too hard but if their credibility can’t withstand a Rock promo then it should have been destroyed ages ago by another Samoan. If he could deliver a promo, that is. In any event, Rock, being the crazy sonuvagun he is, wanted a match against any Wyatt that would take him. He got Rowan and beat him in six seconds. And no, that’s not an exaggeration. He actually beat him in three seconds but the ref needed to count to three to determine the match was over. So that was a little excessive.
As expected the Wyatts then hit the apron to give the three man beat-down (Luke is missing, presumed hiding under the ring until a later date). And I’m like, who saves the Rock? Three legends were here earlier but they’re probably drunk by now since one of them was Stone Cold. All the faces lost and if Roman comes out we’ll just get a chorus of Boos for out trouble. But the injured reserve is all not well enough to make a ‘mania appearance so I’m out of ideas. And then the internet’s favorite four notes hit and the proverbial champ was there. As it turns out Cena can deliver hits but not take them. So that was cool and it might save the results of this next match.
Triple H v. Roman Reigns (WWE championship on the line)
Damnit, right, there is another match. And with no Shane controlled Raw on Monday to look forward to I have no idea how to wrap this one up. Naturally it starts super strong. There was a quick video with all the faceless people with mouths sealed shut that the Authority leaves in it’s wake that was super eerie and appropriate and Steph opted to wear the skull mask instead of the Game this year. She delivered an excellent speech (with some sound difficulties that I’m sure someone is getting fired for as we speak) to try to get people to hate Triple H more than they are ambivalent towards Roman Reigns and I thought she did a fine job. The fans didn’t agree with me and proceeded to boo Reigns the entire match. Whether he was throwing spears or superman punches or destroying security barriers the reaction did not change. There was a brief moment when he accidentally speared Steph that they were excited for the good guy doing something but apparently that is only when his offence hits someone other than his opponent. And, after all that, we get a clean victory over Triple H for Roman Reigns. Because, I guess, that’s what’s best for business? I don’t know, I’m hoping for a heel turn for Roman on Monday night so he can run a program against Cena. Something in the vein of “You people didn’t support me last night and I didn’t need you.” Maybe have him turn on Dean Ambrose when Dean tries to congratulate him. Anything except insisting that the fans do something that they are ill inclined to do.
But what do I know, I was wrong about just about every finish of the night and I’m still looking forward to Monday’s Raw so someone on the booking committee is doing something right. Maybe being a good heel can mean being booked as a face despite all reactions to the contrary. It’s certainly working for Roman. Because gosh darn it if I don’t want to see someone, I don’t care if it’s Cena or Brock or Dean or Triple H or friggin’ Big E, just beat him up real bad on Monday.
