Author: thestrongstylesmarks

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Predictions & Analysis

I think it’s safe to say that this has been the longest 3 weeks in wrestling history. Seriously, Clash of Champions feels like it was months ago by this point, with NXT’s move to the USA Network, Smackdown’s move to FOX and AEW Dynamite’s debut on TNT so much has happened in the world of wrestling in such a tiny space of time that this show seems like the biggest afterthought of the lot.

I mean seriously, we only have four matches announced for the show, meanwhile, WWE have decided to focus on booking matches for the inevitable trainwreck that will be Crown Jewel at the end of the month. What blow my mind is that the two biggest matches on this card seem like really big deals in the world of WWE and yet management are treating it like it barely matters.

Still, let’s go through what matches have been announced (as I expect a handful to be added last minute) and see if we can’t predict the winners.

Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan

There were lots of potential outcomes when this weird story of Roman Reigns being attacked by a mystery assailant began a couple of months ago, but I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted that “a big push for Erick Rowan” would be what we ended up with, and I’m including WWE’s writers in that statement. As I mentioned in my Clash of Champions review, I’m happy to see Harper back on TV, but I hate that he’s been paired up with Rowan for the hundredth time and I can’t help but feel like this isn’t going to last very long at all.

That said, I actually think this match will be a fun one to watch. Roman Reigns carried a tag match featuring Shane McMahon and an ageing Undertaker to a good quality, so I can only imagine what we’ll get when Reigns is in there with the best wrestler in the world, the most underrated wrestler in WWE and Erick Rowan. This should be quite the chaotic match which, as I constantly say, is the perfect pace for a tag team match.

As for a winner, there are a lot of aspects at play here that make it quite difficult to pick with any sort of confidence. First off, you’ve got the fact that Luke Harper’s just returned, which typically means he needs a win here to look strong, but we know all too well that Vince despises him for basically no reason whatsoever, so that could very well be off the table. It would be nice to see Rowan carry on the momentum he got from beating Reigns but I just don’t think it’s going to happen, not to mention the fact that this feud had been going on for months with almost nothing in the way of face victories, so I’m going with Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns.

Bayley(c) vs Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’m happy about the way Bayley’s been handled in the past couple of months. She’s been getting storylines that are actually about her for once and her character’s been given a new lease of life with this heel turn, but at the same time, she seems to be unable to do anything without Sasha being around to lend a hand. She outfoxed Charlotte last month but that mostly felt like it was because we needed to stall for a month until Sasha got her hands on the title.

Hopefully this match will get more time than it did at Clash of Champions (it bloody well better given the lack of content for the show right now), I just hope creative can pull something cleverer than another dirty finish out of their back pocket because I don’t think I can be bothered with two in a row. Still, if it gets the time and a bit of freedom, I think this will be a fun one to watch.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have much of a rationale for picking Bayley to win here. It also certainly won’t be clean if she does, but I can’t see WWE letting Charlotte take a clean loss to this version of Bayley. I think having Bayley lose the title just as Sasha wins hers would sweep the rug out from under the both of them in a major way and could really stifle Bayley. Once we’ve had the draft and the brands become more sperate I think it will be ok but for now, I say Bayley needs to hold on to the gold.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’ll be honest, I was very worried that this storyline would start to derail after the wonky finish last month but creative have done a great job of making sure that the heat to this feud only builds and I can safely say that I’m just as hyped for this rematch as I was for their first encounter last month.

I think the match will be just as good too, both of these women have put on high-quality weapons matches in the past – Sasha in the Cell against Charlotte and Becky in Last Woman Standing, also against Charlotte – so I’m not approaching this with my usual sense of dread, the pace should stay reasonably fast and the spots will be a spectacle to watch.

The key thing here is not to do another wonky finish and definitely don’t have Bayley help Sasha win. This whole feud has made Sasha look like an ass-kicker, but I’m worried that Bayley’s going to sneak her way into the Cell somehow in order to give Sasha the win, but I think that would hinder Sasha in the long run. Regardless, I think Sasha Banks is coming out with the win and hopefully, it will be clean. It’s unclear what format Survivor Series is going to take this year, but I could see them using it as a stop-gap before having a finale match to close out the year.

Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’m really not sure what to make of this one.

On the one hand, Bray Wyatt is without a doubt the most popular thing in WWE right now, it’s a cool and original concept the likes of which we haven’t seen arguably since The Undertaker debuted so capitalising on it with a world title victory – especially as WWE positions themselves to move into a new era – seems like a great way to go about things. On the other hand, it seems way too soon for any of this to actually happen.

I’m optimistic for the match quality here, The Fiend has already shown that the style in which they wrestle is different and oddly compelling to watch and the addition of Hell in a Cell and all of the weapons there-in looks to only benefit the performance. I just really don’t know if I can see them winning the Universal Title this soon.

Seth Rollins still isn’t that far out from slaying the Beast and winning back the Universal Championship, while The Fiend has only had one televised match before this one. On top of that, I’m not entirely sure how The Fiend as Universal Champion would even work on week-to-week TV. Bray can, of course, do all his talking through the Firefly Funhouse but the fact is we only see The Fiend once per show when he cuts the lights and attacks, someone. It’d create this spectre of an immortal monster residing over RAW and the more I think about it the more I want to see it.

After thinking it through, I’m picking “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt to win the match, because now Finn Balor’s announced a return to NXT, I can’t see any way they could book themselves out of this where Seth keeps the title, but doesn’t actually beat The Fiend, thus, The Fiend has to win.

And that’s it! Sorry for this post being shorter than usual, but there’s not a lot I can do with only four matches to talk about. Still, thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know what you think is going to happen in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back on Monday for my review of the show!

Games I’m Looking Forward to In Q4 of 2019

As we move into the 4th quarter of the year, the season comes around where we get all of the big releases in the space of about a week, which is either very exciting or very inconvenient depending on your perspective. Unfortunately, this year’s line up seems a little more underwhelming, with many of the big AAA releases like Watchdogs Legion and Cyberpunk 2077 opting to go with a spring 2020 release date instead.

That said, there a still a bunch of potentially great games still to come as we look to end of 2019 and I thought it’d be a nice idea to highlight the host of games that are set to release before the year is out, to help remind people to not look ahead to next spring too soon.

8th October – Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: Modus Games
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Linux

I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about the Trine series in this blog yet, but it’s one of the few series I think could be fairly described as ‘underrated’ in the eyes of the general gaming populous.

If I had to describe the Trine games in a single word, that word would be “vibrant”. The fairytale-style seeps into every pour of the game, making it ooze this charm that I just can’t look away from. The colour pallet is absolutely beautiful, with vibrant blues, greens and purples creating this incredibly serene atmosphere, although it’s not afraid to effectively use reds, oranges and even browns effectively when it wants to change that atmosphere.

The puzzle-platforming mechanics are a little basic, but that’s overshadowed by the surprisingly fun nature of the combat. It’s not a million miles a minute like much 2D sidescrolling combat, but instead, everything in the world interacts with each other in unexpected ways to create some hilarious outcomes when you spawn a box in a space where it looks like you shouldn’t be able to.

Trine 3 took the series into the realm of 3D and while it wasn’t as fun as the first two games in the franchise, it still captured that sense of charm that drew me into the series in the first place. Form what we’ve seen so far Trine 4 seems to have mostly gone back to the 2D style of game and it’s looked to have expanded its puzzle-platforming mechanics to open up a load of new opportunities for fun to be had, so if you’re a fan of the genre, or even just uniquely pretty games, this will be one for you.

11th October – Tracks: The Train Set Game

Developer: Whoop Group
Publisher: Excalibur Publishing
Platforms: Windows

So here’s a game specifically made for me and people like me.

The concept of the game is very simple: You remember the wooden Brio train sets that you’d have loads of as a kid if you liked trains? And you remember how you always wanted to build massive crazy tracks but never could? Well, this game lets you do exactly that to your heart’s content.

I played this in Early Access early last year and it’s amazing. This game will let you build any track you could possibly imagine with all the different types of pieces that used to be available (and a couple that weren’t). You can build these track on a blank canvas, or you can use a living room or bedroom to weave your tracks through.

I haven’t played it in a while as I want to be surprised by the new stuff that’s been added at launch, but when I last played there was a whole host of scenery that you could add all around the tracks, so you could build a little town for your train to go around. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The pièce de résistance is the fact that you can actually get in the train and drive your train around the tracks you’ve made…I KNOW RIGHT?!

I’m well aware many of you are reading this thinking I’m weird, but the three people who had the same childhood I did are over the moon right now.

22nd October – WWE 2K20

Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

For many years I was the kind of person that never understood why people bought a new sports game every year when they all seemed exactly the same from the perspective of an outside observer. However, having been a WWE fan for a good number of years now and buying the new game every single year, I totally understand the appeal.

Of course, I didn’t see the point in buying a new FIFA every year, I don’t like football. I do however like wrestling and as someone who plays the WWE games for at least 150 hours every year (usually more), the value is absolutely there for me to put down $60 every time a new one comes out.

That said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about this year’s game.

For those who are unaware, for the 6 WWE games released under the 2K umbrella so far, Yukes has been a part of the development team and this year they weren’t, leaving Visual Concepts to develop the game on their own and that fact combined with how marketing has been behaving in the build-up to launch has me concerned. By this time last year, we had a full roster reveal and multiple press events where tonnes of gameplay was shown, but right now we’ve got absolutely none of that.

Don’t get me wrong as long as the game isn’t totally broken I’ll still buy it because I’m a sucker for the series and I don’t care who knows it, but I’m definitely going to wait for reviews to be sure until I put my money down on it.

25th October – The Outer Worlds

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Private Division
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

So far the games I’ve talked about are ones that I’m confident that I’m going to enjoy, either because they’re part of a franchise I love, or I’ve already played some of it prior to launch. The Outer Worlds, however, is slightly different because I really want to play it, but I’m not yet sure if I’ll enjoy it.

While I’m sure I’ll get lectures from people about this statement, but the game looks to be fairly similar to Fallout in terms of its main mechanics. This is to be expected as Obsidian’s biggest release before now was Fallout: New Vegas, so stick with what you know, so it’s a game I really want to try, but it’s not guaranteed to be a hit with me. I feel this way because of my relationship with Fallout 4 (the only one in the franchise I’ve played (I KNOW, shut up)) because when I played it at launch I didn’t enjoy it at all and over a number of years I would try over and over again to get into this and it wasn’t until early this summer that I finally cracked it and started enjoying it.

My hopes with this one is that it’s like Fallout, but not TOO much like Fallout, the gameplay that’s been shown up until now looks solid, but I always find it hard to gauge whether the feel of a game fits me by watching someone else playing it, so I’ll be very interested to see what I think of this one when it releases.

5th November – Planet Zoo

Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Platforms: Windows

A few years ago Frontier Developments did something magical, they went to the farthest corners the Earth, searched through miles and miles of terrain until they found the withered and dying body of the theme park building genre and somehow breathed more life into it than it had ever had before. Planet Coaster is quite simply the best theme park building game ever made (no, that isn’t up for debate) and Planet Zoo looks to do exactly the same thing to the Zoo Tycoon genre that Planet Coaster was to theme park builders.

Of course, the focus is in a slightly different place with Planet Zoo as it’s all well and good making a zoo look pretty (which I absolutely will), but none of it matters if all of your animals are underfed. This game promises to put the focus in the caring and welfare of the animals you hold in your zoo, with some in depth-looking systems that mean you’ll have to adhere to all of the top-level standards that real zoos have to. Not that it’s going to stop me from throwing two of every animal into one pen and seeing who survives but that’s on me, not the game.

If the recent beta release that people have been able to get their hands on is any indication, Planet Zoo will live up to the hype that stands before it and I believe it will be a game that is just as beloved as Planet Coaster.

8th November – Death Stranding

Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: Playstation 4

I just want to know what it actually is.

I think I got the rough gist of what the “basic” premise is from the explanation we received at Gamescom earlier this year, but I’m still not entirely clear. It’s also really not obvious what the gameplay is like since so far we’ve seen our protagonist have several conversations, fall off a cliff and…mark his territory.

As such, I honestly can’t speculate on whether or not I think I’ll enjoy this. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say I’ll think it’s fairly mediocre, but what do I know? This could be the greatest game ever made, it could be utter trash, I don’t think anyone anywhere in the world has any idea, including Hideo Kojima.

I’m anticipating this release more to see what the reaction is from the general gaming populous when it finally comes out, not so much to play it myself. It’s definitely a game I’m keeping an eye on, but I’m going to be waiting for the reviews to come out before I consider buying it for myself.

15th November: Pokemon Sword/Shield

Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo & The Pokemon Company
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

If I need to explain this one to you then you’re obviously not paying enough attention.

In short: I like Pokemon…a lot.

I tend to judge Pokemon games on their own scale where I compare them to each other because for me they exist above other franchises. A Pokemon game can be full of obvious flaws an annoyances, but I’ll still enjoy it because it’s Pokemon and honestly, I like it that way, I like being happy.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to tell where each game will fit on that scale before playing it. Case in point: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy those games all that much, it didn’t look to me like they added much to the Alola region and they’d be quickly forgotten, but boy was I wrong about that and they are easily among my favourites in the franchise.

So far out of everything I’ve seen, I like most of it. I know the fact that the national dex won’t be in the game is a sticking point for many people, but I personally don’t mind too much as long as the game we get is good fun. The whole camping set up looks like it’ll have a lot more depth than Amie and Refresh did before it and I’m gonna dedicate my life to finding all the curry recipes if it kills me.

Out of the new Pokemon that have been revealed so far, I like the look of all but one and I’m overjoyed that we’re not only getting more regional variant but brand new evolutions for old Pokemon too; any game that gives Farfetch’d an evolution is good by me.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please let me know what games you’re looking forward to the most either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday as my coverage for WWE’s Hell in a Cell begins!

10 Best WWE Pre-Match Video Packages

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that wrestling is as much about the story as it is about the wrestling and perhaps nothing is better at encapsulating exactly what a story is all about than a classic video package.

Usually airing before a match takes place on a Pay-Per-View to fill viewers in on the story leading up to the match, they normally serve the purpose of providing a match with the context it needs to be able to continue that story in the match itself. While many of these video packages go by without anyone batting an eyelid, sometimes they come together to form something truly special.

When the story, the song choice and the editing are just right, these video packages can weave a story that is far more than the sum of its parts and in many circumstances can even be more memorable than the story or match it was designed to hype. I’ve decided that today I’m going to highlight the best of the best and feature my favourite of these video packages.

I know it seems obvious, but I should highlight the fact that I’m purely judging the video packages themselves in this list. Not the stories they’re building or the matches they’re hyping.

10 – The Undertaker vs Edge – One Night Stand 2008

“Get used to that Undertaker, because, after this Sunday, your career is dead!”

Straight away we have a prime example of a video package being more memorable than the match itself. Nothing was wrong with the TLC match between Edge and The Undertaker, of course, in fact, it’s one of the better one on one TLC Matches out there, however, given just how much Edge and Undertaker wrestled during this period, it’s hard for anyone match to stand out.

As such, this video package doesn’t tell some epic tale, it does its job of outlining why these two men are fighting, throws in some clips of brawls and voice lines to give it some heat and gets out, but it’s an instant of things coming together in just the right way to make something really fun to watch.

The package has just the right mix of chatting to outline the story and shots of action and brawls to keep the pace of the video going the whole way through, but what really brings this one together is the choice of song. Rev Theory’s Hell Yeah is just the right kind of chaotic for both a TLC match and the style Edge & Undertaker often wrestled against each other. The way the chorus of the song ramps up as the brawls begin and the editing becomes more chaotic makes this a package that is really fun to watch, to the point where the match is almost secondary.

9 – Bret Hart vs Stone Cold Steve Austin – Wrestlemania 13

“You scratch my back and I’ll stab yours”

This package is pretty different from the rest of the ones on this list. There are no frills, no over the top music, and no dramatic speeches from the wrestlers. It’s simply a narrator explaining beat for beat exactly what’s happened between these two men up until this point and exactly how much they hate each other, with the occasional voice line from the wrestlers to frame the whole thing. It sounds boring, but in this instance, it works really well.

The wording of the voice over is pitch-perfect for the attitude this story was trying to convey, getting inside the mind of Bret Hart and explaining in meticulous detail exactly why he despises Stone Cold. Asking the audience to imagine all of the situations Bret Hart found himself in over the months building up to this match was a stroke of genius since it not only underlined the intensity between the two men but also, in hindsight, went a little ways to foreshadowing the historic double turn that would come at the end of this match.

8 – Kofi Kingston vs Daniel Bryan – Wrestlemania 35

“Tell me what I need to do!”

Everyone loves an underdog story and no-one tells them better than WWE.

This package had a very simple task, it had to layout Kofi’s journey over 11 years until finally getting his chance at the WWE Championship and it did that to perfection. Showing the progression of Kofi’s career over the years while he talked about wanting an opportunity was such a great way to capture the emotion of the chase Kofi had gone through since February of 2019.

As always, Daniel Bryan was there to play the perfect foil to Kingston and this package encapsulated that as well as it could, with choice lines of Bryan being used to show the parallels between Bryan’s journey from 2014 and Kofi’s over his career, while also showing the disparity between the characters in the current day. Going into Wrestlemania 35 absolutely everyone was behind Kofi and this video package did a brilliant job of encapsulating that feeling going into the match.

7 – John Cena vs Bray Wyatt – Wrestlemania 30

“YOU ARE A LIAR JOHN CENA!”

This match was arguable, the biggest of Bray Wyatt’s career to date (including defending the WWE title at Wrestlemania) and this video package certainly did it justice. Back in 2014 it still seemed like Wyatt’s character had plenty of legs and there was still a sense of direction what the character’s motivations were and this package did a great job of capturing that essence.

This is definitely an instance of the chosen song for the video package greatly benefited the impact of the package as a whole. Eminem’s Legacy hits the nail on the head as it both captures the essence of the feud and what it was all about in its lyrics and the softened volume and slow pace of the song makes the whole thing feel incredibly creepy when paired with images of Wyatt’s twisted promo style. The way the slow piano creeps through the whole video package as Wyatt proclaims Cena to be a liar and weaves a tapestry with his words in a way that only he can, creates a real sense of chills, to the point where it almost feels like Cena’s career may actually be under threat with Wyatt lurking near.

This is one of simpler video packages on this list, but it does a brilliant job of capturing the core ideas of the feud along with building both men up as credible threats for each other, which is important considering Wyatt was technically still a rookie on main roster at this point.

6 – John Cena vs CM Punk – Money in the Bank 2011

“Do I have everybody’s attention now?”

Video packages have always been great at taking an ok-bad story and making it feel like a carefully crafted and well-executed tale when that usually isn’t the case. However, when you get a story as well written as this one was, the video package can instead serve to turn it into a story that looks worthy of a Hollywood action film, such is the case with this match.

This package does such a good job of framing the whole thing as a tragedy playing out in real-time and in kayfabe that’s exactly what it was. There was the potential to lose both of the WWE’s top stars and the WWE Championship in a single night. This entire package is almost entirely CM Punk on a monologue and that is absolute to its benefit, Punk is easily one of the best talkers of the last decade and the editing nailed the perfecting moments to cut between the main promo that was narrating the whole way through and the snippets of what went down in other weeks.

It also doesn’t something really great, in that it doesn’t necessarily present either Punk or Cena as the bad guy. I know that in terms of the actual story Punk was very much the bad guy, but the thing is, almost all of the fans were behind him. There are none of the classic changes in colour pallet or music between the heel and face’s promos, everything’s this murky shade of grey and it does a great job of letting you infer whichever way you want about who’s the bad guy. Using that package I could make a case for CM Punk being an underdog who has been held down his entire life and is making the most of finally getting an opportunity, but I could make just as strong a case for him being an egomaniac who stole himself the opportunity of a lifetime and is rubbing it in everyone’s face.

This was without a doubt one of the best stories in WWE for the last decade and this video package did a brilliant job of amplifying its impact tenfold.

5 – Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns – Battleground 2016

“I am the best member of The Shield”

Many people have expressed disappointment over the years for how underwhelming the fabled “Shield Triple Threat” ended up being and although I did enjoy the match itself, I didn’t like how it essentially played second fiddle to the revived brand split and the story wasn’t nearly as strong as it could’ve been thanks to Roman Reigns’ absence for the majority of it. If you were to watch the video package though, you certainly wouldn’t get that impression.

This video package was able to capture all the weight and emotion behind this match that the story in the week building up it wasn’t able to. Clearly outlining the backstory of just how big an impact The Shield has made on the WWE up until Battleground 2016, as a group and on their own. Throwing in the clips of Triple H, Paul Heyman and John Cena talking about how huge The Shield was as a group was a brilliant touch to add as much impact as possible to when the package stopped talking about the backstory and got onto what they were all fighting over now.

Once again the choice of song was excellent, it wasn’t loud and bombastic, instead, it was lowkey with some impactful lyrics instead. What that did is instead of focusing on all the violence that has been exchanged between the three of these men over the years, it focused in on the emotion of all of it and the pure drive that all three of these men have to prove that they are the best member of The Shield.

4 – CM Punk vs The Rock – Royal Rumble 2013

“You know, they know, time’s up”

During this feud against The Rock at the start of 2013, CM Punk was absolutely on fire when it came to his promos. He was always a fantastic talker of course, but being in the full swing of his heel turn and having one of the greatest talkers ever in The Rock to bounce off of created some absolute magic when it came to what Punk could come out with, as such, this made some great material for this package.

The right voice lines and the perfect choice in song came together perfectly to create a video package that felt like it was out of a big fight film, fuelled entirely on the balls to the walls action of the words that came between these two men. The timing of the voice lines as Punk would lord himself over as the 434-day reigning champion, with The Rock getting in fewer lines, but just the right ones to build the tension of the package the whole way through.

It builds everything up in such a great way so that when all of the chaos comes out in the brawl at the end it feels like a proper climax to the story that the package is trying to tell. It took a fight that was already huge from the names alone and made it feel like the biggest clash in history.

3 – The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels – Wrestlemania 26

“You don’t get it, if I can’t beat you at Wrestlemania I have no career”

The story leading up to Shawn Michaels’ retirement match in 2010 was easily one of the best-told stories of this decade and this video package did such a good job of distilling its essence into a mere 5-minute recap.

Placebo’s version of “Running Up That Hill” was such a brilliant song choice, it created this melancholic feeling to the whole thing and perfectly captured the emotions of Shawn Michaels’ descent into madness as his desire for a rematch with The Undertaker became an obsession. I always feel the sense of heartbreak as the package shows Shawns many attempts to get his rematch, almost all of which ended in failure.

As Shawn’s mental state deteriorated, the editing would reflect that, the images became less coloured and more out of focus, on top of the editing becoming more erratic. All of this gave us a look inside the mind of Shawn Michaels in this feud, to the point where we can’t blame him when he cost The Undertaker the World Heavyweight Championship, because we understand what he’s going through.

Things ended on a simple conversation between the two men, which added in a big compilation of Shawn Michaels’ career highlights giving us that one last dose of high emotion before sending us to the match. This package was able to instil such raw emotion and sympathy of Michaels the whole way through, even when he was doing heelish things and that made it very memorable indeed.

2 – Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock – Wrestlemania X-7

“The fact is, you have that WWF Championship and I want it”

So how do you make a video package for the biggest match, between the two biggest stars, on the biggest show in the WWF’s biggest boom period? Well as it turns out, someone in the WWF in 2001 must’ve known because this video package is the answer.

The package starts off so calm and simple, showing us how each man got into this match as the package is intercut with the sit-down between The Rock and Stone Cold to give everything context and ramp the tension up to an all-time high. There’s a bunch of violence shown as the story surrounding Debra but it all feels relatively tame thanks to the slower music for this portion.

This all changes however as the infamous “My Way” by Limp Bizkit kicks in and the video package once again spikes the tension to an all-time high with the sequence of Rock and Stone Cold smashing the beers back and forth in time with the music before it all absolutely explodes with the chorus. It’s a masterclass in controlling the tension in the scene and making sure the audience will be feeling exactly what you want them to feel and it makes for a blood-pumping climax to this video package.

It’s easily the most exciting video package of all time and did justice to one of the biggest matches in Wrestlemania history.

1 – Daniel Bryan vs Triple H – Wrestlemania 30

“Here I stand, unbroken, with these people behind me!”

Aka Daniel Bryan’s “Monster” video package.

Whether WWE planned for this story to turn out like this or not (they didn’t), the fact can’t be denied that it’s easily one of the most emotional stories of all time, there have been very few times in WWE history where the entire fanbase was so fully behind a single superstar that they were able to quite literally change the main event of Wrestlemania to fit in the guy they wanted to see at the top.

This video package takes all of those emotions that built steadily over the course of Daniel Bryan’s whole career and tells us everything we need to know about why it happened and what’s become of it. I’ve seen a bunch of reaction videos out there from people who aren’t even wrestling fans that come out the other side of watching this video entirely behind Daniel Bryan in his plight because it’s just that powerful.

Imagine Dragon’s “Monster” was a surprisingly great choice of song as it had a nice combination of tragic lyrics but an uplifting melody that made the whole thing feel inspirational, which is exactly the kind of spirit that got everyone behind Daniel Bryan in the WWE. Nothing quite like this had ever happened in WWE and certainly not on this big a scale, but this video package was able to capture every ounce of emotion that fans felt throughout Bryan’s whole career. The Tragedy of being told he’s not good enough, combined with the real-life tragedy of the company refusing to get behind him only for the wonderous comeback and sheer elation as it became clear we were finally going to get to see Bryan complete his journey at Wrestlemania 30.

It’s impossible not to come out of this video package ready to see Bryan kick Triple H’s ass up and down the arena. It ensured that when the match started emotions would be running at an all-time high and in my opinion it took an already brilliant match and made it legendary, which is what makes a video package the best of all time.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, feel free to let me know what some of your favourite video packages are in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back next Friday, as my coverage of WWE Hell in a Cell begins!

More of My Favourite Music From Video Games

Last year I talked about some of the pieces of music in video games that I enjoyed the most for one reason or another. The problem with doing something like that is I spent the next year coming up with music I forgot or wished I could’ve put on that list, it took all my brainpower but eventually, I came up with an ingenious solution. Write a second list.

Last time I didn’t include any tracks that featured a singer because it could often lead to confusion between the Soundtrack and the Score of the game which are two different things. This time I’m disregarding that rule and songs with lyrics are allowed, the only condition is that the song has to have been produced specifically for the game it was featured in, otherwise any song EA used for a game in the mid-2000s would be on the list.

Apart from that, the same rule as last time applies, which is just one track per franchise for obvious reasons and this isn’t really a ranked list because what I prefer in music shifts depending on my mood and such like. Also, there’ll be no tracks from Octopath Traveler on this list as I did a whole separate list on just that topic. So now all that’s out of the way, let’s listen to some tunes.

The Moonlighter – Moonlighter

Listen Here

Moonlighter is very much a game of two sides, which is exactly what makes it so compelling. You can have plenty of fun diving into the dungeons and collecting all of the loot you could ever want, but you can have just as much fun with your day job selling all of that precious loot in your shop.

Similarly, there are two distinct layers to this track that plays as you tend to your shop and serve your customers all day. There are the quiet and peaceful tones of the Marimba that comes in and out of the track nailing the peace of running a shop in a small town, it puts me in such a good mood as I wander around my shop, watching how people are reacting to my prices and serving customers.

Then there’s the guitar that comes in which further conveys this sense of happiness, but also brings in a small sense of excitement that comes from the nature of obtaining all of these valuable items that everyone buys for…well I’m not entirely sure what they’re used for, but the point still stands.

This is the track that best encapsulates the feeling I get from playing Moonlighter, that sense of adventure and contentedness in both sides of the game.

Tetris Theme – Tetris

Listen Here

No explanation required. You know you like this one. Even if you don’t like it, you still like it a bit.

Jump Up, Super Star! – Super Mario Odyssey

Listen Here

There are very few games that can bring the same sense of joy out of me that I get from playing Super Mario Odyssey and this song is the perfect representation of that feeling. It’s loud and proud and absolutely brimming with personality and charm, which is exactly what Odyssey is all about.

The festival sequence in which this plays is easily one of the most fun parts of the game and once I had the option I found myself playing it frequently during several other sections of the game too. In SMO there is nearly a thousand unique challenges to complete and every single one of them was an absolute blast to collect thanks to the sheer joy that this song is absolutely brimming with.

Not only that, but it brings a sense of adventure to the world as well, not so much in the melody but in the lyrics. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the lyrical style of swingin’ jazz songs, but it worked for me here because of exactly the emotions that the game and the melody of the song bring to me. Nintendo has always been great at understanding the fact that games should be fun above all else and this song clearly communicates that philosophy in every beat.

Honor For All – Dishonored

Listen Here

From a song that’s all about having a great time, to very much the opposite.

The world of Dishonored is a horrible place, it’s worn down, grey, corrupted and riddled with disease, arguably the game’s biggest strength is showing you every nasty corner of Dunwall as you seek to destroy at least part of what makes it so horrible. I honestly didn’t think it would be possible to distil that feeling into a song and have it be pleasant to listen to, but I just can’t help but adore this credits song for Dishonoured.

The way the bass and the drums come together with the violin create a simple but incredibly powerful tune that fits in fantastically with the rest of the soundtrack, capturing what has over the course of the game become the sound of Dunwall. It sinks to such grimey depths in places but still keeps the melody sounding smooth only to rise up into some really beautiful sounding peaks, showing the progression of how you can affect the city depending on your choices throughout the game.

What I think takes this from a good song to a brilliant one though is the lyrics. I don’t know much about the production of the song, but it feels to me like Jon & Daniel Licht had a perfect understanding of how the game’s story worked and exactly what points it was trying to get at because they come out so powerfully in these lyrics. Lines like “We live for today, but we die for the next” and “The darkness, it rises, as the sun glows” captures the feeling of the world so brilliantly and it shows an unmatched understanding of Dishonored was all about.

The Amaranth – Towerfall Ascension

Listen Here

When talking about SMO I talked about the music amplifying the game’s sense of fun, well for my money, they don’t come any more fun than Towerfall Ascension.

This track is loud, bombastic and doesn’t slow down for anyone or anything and it only adds to the experience of the game. When playing on this map in the multiplayer versus, it created such an epic sense of scale to the battle, that kept the match moving at all times. I found matches on that particular map to move a lot faster and be a lot more fun because of that music adding so much to the experience.

Even in the singleplayer, it adds so much, these are your first steps into the Dark World and immediately upon hearing this music begin you know that this place isn’t going to mess around. Its melody reminds me subtly of the Pirates of the Carribean theme in some ways, which appropriate for the ghost ship setting, the way the pace speeds up and slows down at a moments notice very much mimics the idea of a stormy sea as you do battle.

Towerfall Ascension is an incredibly fun game as it is and a track like this serves only to enhance that feeling.

Still Alive – Mirror’s Edge

Listen Here

No, it’s not that other video game song called “Still Alive”, it’s the one that’s actually good.

Baiting Portal fanboys aside this song is absolutely beautiful. What you see in Mirror’s Edge as you run around the city is a pristine city with with the sun shining brightly down on it at all times and this song does a brilliant job of capturing the feeling of standing in that city with its melody, while capturing the strong contrast of the corruption and tyranny weaved into the city’s culture with its lyrics.

Talking about how the city’s changed along with Faith herself, lamenting how everyone’s being silenced, as the city remains almost lifeless; the place is for intents and purposes, a veritable utopia, but the people pay a heavy price for that life which most probably don’t even know about. She’s fought against everything the city stands for, for so long; pretty much all her life as we later learn in the sequel. Yet, after all, she’s been through and everything she’s lost, all she has to say to this city, is that she’s still alive.

Even without all this meaning, the melody would still make it a joy to listen to, but the lyrics are what gives this song so much power and emotion.

Confronting Myself – Celeste

Listen Here

I really struggled to decide which track to pick from Celeste and let me tell you “Reach for the Summit” was a very close second here, but in the end, this felt like the right choice.

Celeste isn’t a very story-heavy game, but what little there is goes quite deep and if you ask me the emotional peak of the story was in Chapter 6 – Reflection, during the “fight” with Badaline, which is where this song plays. This is the closest Celeste comes to a boss fight and that’s very important. You meet plenty of characters along your journey, some of which Madaline is at odds with, but the only person she ever actively has to fight is that part of herself.

I could ramble on for hours about how good Celeste is at capturing that sense of living with anxiety and how brilliant of a personification Badaline was for that, but we’re here to talk about the music.

Everything about this track screams with inner conflict to me. There’s chaos in the background of the track at all times, with the percussion and lower-pitched synth melody, it doesn’t let up at all. This whole sequence in the game is about Madaline trying to reach this part of herself, to make them whole again while Badaline is desperately trying to push her away and reject it and that feeling comes across so well in the main melody of the track.

The main synth is so similar to the sound effects used for Madaline’s voice throughout the game, to the point where it sounds to me like it’s Madaline herself who’s singing over the chaos in this track, almost screaming at certain points trying to get through to Badaline that they need to become whole again.

The end of Chapter 6 is where everything comes together for Madaline before she makes her final ascent, but before she can get to that point she has to go through this existential struggle with this living part of her psyche and this track is so perfect for bringing all the emotions Madaline would be feeling in that moment right to the forefront, creating one hell of an emotional climax for the game.

Pursuit ~ Cornered – Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Listen Here

While the Ace Attorney games do have a level of depth that most in the genre don’t, they are still at their core, graphic novels. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love investigating the crime scene and finding the contradictions in court and it’s what makes the game so special, but the crux of the game is its story, which generally advances regardless of the player. What this means is that you have to create a very specific atmosphere to make the constant stream of twists and turns that feature in an Ace Attorney case feel special, that’s where the music comes in.

The music in the Ace Attorney games is fantastic at setting the mood for any given scene and the designer’s knowledge of exactly what is the right time to change tracks, cut to silence or bring the music back in is what brings such strong emotion to every line in these games and this track, in particular, is one of the most powerful. Often in the Ace Attorney games a court session can become an exhausting uphill battle, it almost always feels like you’re on the back foot and the whole world’s against you when it comes to proving your client innocent and it’s all that build-up of emotion that makes the moment when this music hits so powerful.

This music hits when it comes down to the last-ditch attempt, it’s do or die and by God, you’ve done. This is the indication that after all your arguing and desperate attempts to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat, you’ve finally turned the tide. After all, you went through to get to a point where you have the advantage this music makes it so satisfying to lay your claims and watch as the prosecution falls to pieces as you effortlessly brush aside all of their baseless accusations.

In those moments nothing makes it sweeter than the feeling of pure vindication as you state you irrefutable claims while this intense and triumphant track plays at your back the entire time.

Weight of the World – NieR: Automata

Listen Here (English Version)
Listen Here (Japanese Version)

As I’ve said previously, NieR: Automata is a game that continues to weigh heavily on my mind, even this far out from finishing it and over time all of those feelings of uncertainty and introspection that the game instilled in me, is exactly what this song has become representative of to me.

The entire track has such a sense of melancholy to the whole thing and yet the lyrics have such a weird way fo being simultaneously depressive and triumphant. Thay idea of standing up and fighting for what you believe in, no matter how impossible victory comes through so powerfully and creates that mix of feelings because, at the end of the day, it’s what I came away from NieR: Automata feeling.

As far as I’m concerned, NieR: Automata’s story is unmatched and this song is the perfect encapsulation of all the emotions that I feel across the game. I’m not even sure how to describe the emotions that NieR: Automata instilled in me, but somehow this song captures them beautifully. This is also a case where I would recommend listening to both the English & Japanese versions as they both bring such different emotions, especially in the final chorus.

In the English version, the singer gives it all her power, bellowing the lyrics to the point where I can imagine her standing on top of a rooftop in the ruined city, singing out at loud as she can to the world, regardless if anyone’s listening. Then on the Japanese version, it’s much the opposite, the singer audibly brakes down and is singing the final chorus through tears which makes it just as powerful in a different way. In a way, they’re the representations of that depressive and triumphant nature of the song I referenced.

NieR: Automata has an almost infinite number of layers to its story and the meanings behind it and very similarly this song has just as many layers to its lyrics and melodies that it’s something I truly never get tired of hearing.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, I’d love to hear which tracks from games means so much to you either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure you come back here this time next week for a rundown of my favourite video packages in WWE history!

WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Every Match Ranked

Well, the champions have clashed and we’re sat on the other side of it thinking…it was a decent show. There were a handful of matches that underwhelmed in different ways, but there were just as many matches that lived up to expectations and overall I came away from the show feeling like I had a nice time.

So let’s waste no time and get right into ranking every match from Clash of Champions 2019

11 – Bayley(c) def. Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Bayley’s still champion, but was a bit of an odd way to go about it.

The finish itself is something I’m fine with. It could’ve been given a bit more build to it and it would’ve been nice if the commentators actually noticed it before 2 minutes after the fact, but this was a good way for Bayley to retain the title without throwing the match out completely, especially considering what would happen with the Raw Women’s Championship later on in the show.

My main problem with this match – and the reason I’ve placed it last – is that there was barely any kind of a match before the finish. We know Charlotte and Bayley can put on a great match, we’ve seen it several times before, but instead was just got 3 minutes of Charlotte dominating Bayley before Bayley used the exposed turnbuckle and win. I usually don’t have a problem with an exposed turnbuckle being an instant KO, because it’s normally used at the end of a full-length match, but right at the beginning like this just makes Charlotte feel a bit weak.

Like I said, I’m happy with the result and I can’t even complain too much about the finish, but I was really looking forward to a decent length match between these two and I didn’t get it.

10 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

You know that one match Randy Orton’s wrestled over and over for the past 12 years? This was that.

It was the absolute embodiment of what you think of when someone says “Typical Randy Orton match”, he spent far too long on “wearing his opponent down”, which, as I’ve before, is an effective tool in the toolbox, but not when you’re Randy Orton who doesn’t seem to own any other tools and tried to use the one he has for everything. That metaphor got away from me there, but the point still stands.

That’s not to say there weren’t some pockets of good stuff, Kofi’s offence was a lot sharper than it was during their Summerslam encounter and the whole thing felt a lot more concise, which is probably thanks to there being an actual clean finish. This match was better than the match they had at Summerslam, but that was a pretty low bar to clear and I think I’m ready for Kofi to move on to someone new, which – if the clean finish to this match is any indication – is hopefully what we’re getting.

9 – Erick Rowan def. Roman Reigns
(No Disqualification)

I know I’m ranking this match third from bottom, but there’s a small part of me that kinda liked it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to hate here and I’ll dig into that in a moment, but there were a couple of sections in the middle of this match where I was vaguely enjoying myself. I’m well known for hating weapons matches by this point (looking forward to Hell in a Cell next month…) but there were some sequences in this match where I was enjoying watching these guys try to destroy each other.

I don’t think this was the best of showcases for Rowan however, he’s never excelled in long singles matches but I think Roman did a decent job of picking up the slack. That said, this match could only ever reach a certain level of quality and that wasn’t exceedingly high. Then there was the finish, which saw the return of Harper, who we’re still unsure on whether he’s got his first name back or not.

After all the shit he’s supposedly gone through with WWE management and Vince seemingly having a hate boner for the guy, I’m happy he’s finally back on TV, however, I’m not happy that he’s being paired up with Rowan for the 50th time. This pairing is so odd because they’ve never really done much as a team and yet it feels like they’ve already done everything there is for them to do. I don’t think it’s the right move for either of them to keep them joined at the hip like this, but that’s what we’ve got.

8 – Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c) def. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Now we get into that stage of the rankings where the matches were perfectly fine, but nothing noteworthy.

I actually thought these two teams worked quite well together, the crowd were really behind Nikki Cross which is great to see and Alexa continues to surprise me by being a pretty effective face wrestler. Mandy’s always great at pulling heat from thin air, although I often find myself rooting for her by association because I love Sonya Deville as a wrestler.

This match was very much split into two halves, with the 24/7 skit serving as the separation point. The first half of this match was great fun to watch, they went through this lengthy feeling out process where every combination of competitors in the match was explored and I thought it was really effective, then the 24/7 title stuff happened and I quite liked it, it broke up the match (which was starting to slow down a bit) and we got a nice little thrill as Alexa attempted to roll up R-Truth.

The main problem is that after the skit, it never felt like the match quite recovered to the point it was at beforehand. Things remained pretty slow pretty much right up until the finish and it ended things on a bit of a duff note. Ultimately I can honestly say that I enjoyed the match, but it was a bit flawed in places.

7 – Shinsuke Nakamura(c) def. The Miz
(Intercontinental Championship)

I said in my predictions article that this would almost certainly be a fun, ten-minute match and unlike most things I say in my predictions, what I said is exactly what happened.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one really, it was a good, but not great, match where both guys wrestled the kind of match we’d expect them to wrestle and then the champion retained. Sami’s stuff on the mic was good fun, mostly because it shut Corey Graves up for 5 seconds (more on that later) and I think this pairing of Sami & Shinsuke might actually work out quite well for the both of them.

My main worry is what’s going to happen with The Miz going forward because he’s been absolutely shafted since becoming a face. All I can hope for is that the draft puts Miz in a much better position going forward, hopefully in the form of a heel turn, because this face run has been a total failure.

6 – Seth Rollins(c) def. Braun Strowman
(Universal Championship)

So this was a weird one…

This ended up being one of the shorter matches of the evening at 11 minutes and I honestly think that was to its benefit. It played off the sense of urgency that was inherently woven into the match thanks to both Seth and Braun having already wrestled a match that night, although it didn’t make Seth look especially strong if you ask me.

The majority of the match was Braun throwing Seth all over the place and even when Seth did start to make his comeback, Braun was extremely resilient, kicking out of three Curb Stomps. This is all great for Braun, but it doesn’t exactly help Seth in any way. You could easily argue that Braun kicking out of three Curb Stomps makes him look great in defeat, but that’s all dependant on what happens with him after this and if it goes similarly to how he’s been booked this past year, it’s going to have the opposite effect. To me, it’s instead made the Curb Stomp – one of the most brutal-looking finishers in all of WWE – look piss-weak, especially when you consider that in the past, Braun as lost to a single F-5 or a single Spear.

That said, I thought the second half of the match where Seth was making his comeback was exciting to watch and much like many of these matches, I came away from it satisfied with what I saw, although I think it would’ve benefitted from another five minutes (although given both men had to wrestle twice, the shortness isn’t a dealbreaker.)

5 – AJ Styles(c) def. Cedric Alexander
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way, this made Cedric look like a grade-A chump. There’s no way that anyone watching this match could see Cedric get absolutely dominated AND attacked after the match and get the impression that he was someone to rally behind, so if the intention was to get Alexander more over then it was a total failure.

That said, when it comes to the match itself alone, I really enjoyed watching it. I would’ve liked to see it last longer than 5 minutes, but the way these two wrestled this match gave it such a sense of urgency that I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. The action was fast & fun and honestly, that’s what I like best from wrestling, I just wish it could’ve been a bit longer.

At the end of the day, I hope this isn’t the end of Cedric’s push because he could do so much more without even needing to be that high up the card, but in a bubble, I had fun watching this one.

4  – Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode(c) def. Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Seth Rollins is just great at tag matches.

This had a healthy dose of everything I love to see from tag team wrestling. There was good psychology with the heels working effectively against the faces, which helped to give the idea that Ziggler & Roode have actually been training together as a tag team prior to them being thrown together on Raw. Then, as Seth always does, he did a great job of slowly building up to make a comeback and Braun is the kind of guy that’s always great for a hot-tag.

As for Ziggler & Roode winning the titles, I can’t say that I’m thrilled about it and I expect them to have a reign similar to that of Gable & Roode where they do precisely nothing with the titles, however I admit the titles will probably do better around their waists than Seth & Braun’s, since they’d likely just end up being treated as second fiddle to the Universal title, like they have all of this past month.

3 – The Revival def. The New Day(c)
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

This match was great and I’ll talk about it in a moment, but we need to take a moment to talk about commentary last night, especially Corey Graves because it was freaking awful. I don’t know what got into Corey last night, but for some reason, he was determined to turn every single conversation on the desk into a shouting match and it was so irritating to listen to, actively detracting from my enjoyment of the match at certain points. Graves can be a great heel commentator, but for whatever reason, last night was one of the worst commentary performances I’ve heard in WWE in a long time; so much so that I watched the majority of this match on mute.

That aside, this match was great.

It wasn’t anywhere near the all-time great Revival vs New Day match we all know is possible, but it was a good start. It’s not often that Big E is the one to be beaten down and desperate, but seeing it in situations like this is so incredibly effective for the story being told. It was able to create this great sense of desperation as Woods came in on a nearly broken leg to try and get them back in the fight.

Ultimately, it was to no avail and The Revival won the titles, which is hopefully a good thing. With any luck, this will be the start of a feud akin to New Day vs The Usos in 2017 where they put on amazing tag team matches on every PPV for about 6 months straight and everyone is very happy about it. Regardless of if that actually happens or not, I’m never going to complain about The Revival winning tag team championships.

2 – Drew Gulak(c) def. Humberto Carrillo & Lince Dorado
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Once again, the cruiserweights care not for your petty “pre-shows”, they’ll steal the show regardless of when their match is.

This match was more or less how I described it would be in my predictions. Carrillo and Dorado put in some great fast-paced offence and the sequences when they were going at each other was really fun to watch, then Drew Gulak was there to quite literally ground everything and slow the match down, but in an effective, in-ring psychology way, not a boring, Randy Orton way.

This whole match was full to the brim with memorable moments, like Dorado and Carrillo taking Drew out early on in spectacular fashion, to the segment towards the end where the three men traded blows and Drew flattened Humberto with a clothesline. As I said before, Drew retaining was definitely the right choice for now, especially with 205 Live likely being folded into NXT very soon, he’s an all-round solid performer who can make that title feel like a big deal on the new NXT if that’s what happens to it.

1 – Sasha Banks def. Becky Lynch(c) via Disqualification
(Raw Women’s Championship)

A great performance with a botched landing.

The first 15ish minutes of this match was exactly the kind of match you’d expect from two great wrestlers who know each other as well as these two. The action was smooth and fun to watch, with a great amount of back and forth with some genuinely innovative spots, namely, when each woman was able to slip on their signature submission hold seemingly out of nowhere. It was crisp and fantastic stuff that’s hopefully just a taste of what’s to come.

I’m of two minds with the finish, I like the idea of it and ultimately I think it was successful in portraying what it was intended to, however, the execution was a bit odd. Sasha pulled off some great heel-work with the chair shots and I loved the brawl around the arena, even if I just couldn’t take my eyes off of the mustard stain on Sasha’s back. What I found odd, was the way they went about the DQ. I’m fine with Becky accidentally striking the referee with a chair, but there was no bell ring or announcement to say Becky was disqualified until they’d gone around the whole arena and Michael Cole just randomly mentioned it on commentary; only when Becky decided she had enough of beating Sasha down did the ring announcer explain that Becky had been DQ’ed.

It left me with a  bit of a sour taste in my mouth because I was under the impression that the match was continuing because, you know, an unconscious referee can’t DQ anyone. That said, the whole situation did exactly what it was meant to and built up the intensity of this feud and I can’t wait for their inevitable Hell in a Cell match in a few weeks time.

Much like the show as a whole, this was a match that gave me some complaints but ultimately left me feeling satisfied and happy about what I’d just watched, which I consider a win.

So there are my thoughts! Thank you very much for taking the time to read my review and please let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back this weekend where I’ll be talking about more of my favourite music from video games!