I’m going to resist the urge to tweet about this show and use this here text file instead. Let’s see what I end up with.
Why was the Cruiserweight title match on the preshow instead of the Mixed Match Challenge finals? I know the MMC match technically has Royal Rumble implications, but let’s be serious. No disrespect intended, but none of these geeks has to worry about winning anything. I am looking forward to watching Truth and Carmella’s vacation to WWE headquarters though, because Truth is usually amusing.
Speaking of the preshow, I like Elias and I like Lashley, but if I’ve seen a more boring ladder match in my life I’ve forgotten it.
Pleasantly surprised to see the Bar keep the tag titles. I had the Usos taking it. At least we didn’t go down the New Day road again. New Day is great and all, but we’ve been there and done that. There’s still some mileage left in the Bar, all they need are some fresh teams to work with.
Maybe it’s just me getting old, but why does the Braun Strowman character have Twitter? His job is to destroy dudes and smash things. I want my monsters to be monsters, not dorks on a phone.
Credit to WWE for making something logical out of the TLC match. All those guys getting revenge on Corbin makes sense, and it was nice to see babyfaces outsmarting heels and getting the upper hand for once. I’m still a little worried though. I didn’t hear a bell ring to start the match, only one to end it. I fear this might be the time WWE actually pays attention to small details so the result doesn’t stand. God, please don’t do that.
Now that Corbin is out of the General Manager job, what happens to it? They say Vince McMahon is coming to Raw to “shake things up,” so I’m sure that’s where it gets figured out. This would be a perfect time to move on from the whole concept of GMs and commissioners and presidents since we’ve been doing the same thing with that story for a good 20 years, but I doubt that’s going to happen.
Really not feeling the Ruby/Nattie/dead Jim the Anvil storyline. Not because it’s offensive, but because I just can’t emotionally invest in it. It doesn’t feel real, much like the Samoa Joe harassing A.J. Styles’ family thing didn’t feel real. At least that one gave us Joe’s bedtime story so it wasn’t a total loss, but this one, while the death part is as real as it gets, just…meh.
Watching the match I was worried a couple of times that Nattie was going through the table, but thankfully Ruby Riott isn’t Triple H, so I guess there wasn’t the need to bury someone for an entire feud and then have that person lose in the end.
Can we please stop having chairs matches? They’re dumb. I get a ladder match. You’re fighting to climb up and retrieve something important. I get a tables match. You win by putting someone through a table. I even get a TLC match. It’s either a ladder match with more stuff or a no DQ match with the potential for more default carnage. But what is a chairs match? It’s like every other show where somebody gets hit with a chair, there are just more of them. Whoopty shit. But if just once somebody gets disqualified for using a ladder or a table, I would at least have a reason to remember one for something positive.
Randy Orton is incredible. It’s not just anyone who can have a boring match with Rey Mysterio. I’d blame the chairs, but he’s got a long history of having boring ass matches. He’s like the Ric Flair of carrying guys to boring ass matches. He falls into the category of good wrestlers that I usually don’t enjoy watching.
And then there’s Ronda Rousey. She’s something else. People go entire careers without getting as good as she’s gotten in a year or less. She has a presence that makes you pay attention because if you look away for too long, shit’s going to go down and you’re going to miss it.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but A.J. Styles and Daniel Bryan had a very enjoyable wrestling match.
By the way, Daniel Bryan has to be in a pretty good spot on the list of best ever. He was one of the best pure wrestlers in the world years before he got to WWE. When he finally got there, everybody was concerned about how he would adjust to the way WWE does things, particularly all the damn talking. But he became arguably the best in the company at that too. He’s not perfect because nobody can be perfect when forced to recite some of that god awful WWE dialogue, but he’s one of the few who has usually been able to seem more honest than not. If you want to argue for someone else that’s fine, but Bryan is so good that in spite of being so beloved and in spite of his real life struggle to get back in the ring when nobody thought he ever would, he’s actually gotten people to boo him again. And what’s more, it only took him a couple of weeks.
Who put this Rollins Ambrose match together, Randy Orton? Holy hell. Whoever it was, has he ever seen what two people who are angry at each other looks like?
Lol, the fans seem to agree with me. I just heard a “this is boring” chant. No small feat considering how into both these guys the fans usually are.
Seriously, is one of them hurt? Why else would they purposely be having a match this dull?
Well, at least we got a clean finish. When they went outside near the end I was waiting for a double count out. That would have been such a WWE thing to do.
The right man won, even if it means we get to sit through a rematch. Hopefully everyone has learned a lesson and the next one will be better.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe David Otunga might be a slightly better third wheel announcer than Byron Saxton. Low bar, I know. Maybe it’s just that he’s been spending most of his time staying out of the way.
Enjoyed the hell out of the main event, interference and all. I had Becky pegged to win since she’s been so mega popular and twice as awesome the last few months plus I’m not a fan of frequent title changes, but looking back it should have been obvious that wouldn’t happen. The direction is clearly something involving Ronda, Charlotte and Becky, and that story doesn’t need belts to work. Asuka is the one who can benefit most from a run right now, so hopefully she gets to go on a good one.