Author: thestrongstylesmarks

Every 2D Platforming Sonic the Hedgehog Game Ranked

As you may know by now, I really like the Sonic franchise, and I’ve played a hell of a lot of it. There something about the fast-paced platforming that hits me in a way that nothing else in the 2D platforming genre.

That said, Sonic is also known for some of the most horrific fuck ups and awful games known to man, thanks to Sonic games having two very different styles of design. With the 3D games generally being the ones to drag the series down into the depths of…well…you’ve seen Sonic ’06. While the 2D games aren’t without sin, they’re certainly much more consistent in terms of quality and what is ultimately responsible for the blue blurs widespread success.

So what better way to show the best and the worst of the 2D Platforming Sonic game than ranking them all in a completely subjective list? Obviously, there is no better way, so let’s do this.

NOTE: I’m not counting the Nintendo DS/3DS versions of Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations and Sonic Boom because they were afterthoughts compared to the full 3D versions released on other consoles. I’ll also be compressing any handheld series with multiple games into a single entry since the list would be much too long otherwise.

9 – Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episodes I & II

Wow, I didn’t think a 2D Sonic game could go this badly.

For starters, look at that screenshot, this was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and that’s the best Sega could do? The screen feels so claustrophobic because despite having access to full HD screens with 16:9 resolution, for some reason they decided to keep the camera zoomed in way too close with an offensively ugly art style for level design and backgrounds.

I could look past that though if the gameplay was actually fun, and well, it’s at the bottom of the list so what do you think? It’s this weird hybrid of modern and classic modern Sonic mechanics that just don’t mesh well at all, mostly thanks to the inclusion of modern Sonic’s homing attack. It’s an attack that works well enough the 2D sections of other modern Sonic games, but for some reason here it’s just absolutely awful. You have no way of predicting how close you have to be to something for it to lock onto something and there were countless times where I flung myself in completely the wrong direction because the homing attack refused to work like it does in every other Sonic game it’s been in.

Even when it does work as expected though, all it serves to do is completely kill all of Sonic’s momentum and speed, you know, the two things this entire franchise is supposed to be about. There are very few opportunities in Sonic 4 for you to ever build up any real momentum or speed, and the times where you do are usually extremely brief or set pieces where you have very little control.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was an attempt to bring Sonic back to its 2D platforming roots, but in doing so managed to completely miss what made the originals so much fun in the first place. No wonder the trailers for Sonic Mania completely ignored its existence.

8 – Sonic Rivals Series

This one is more of a disappointment than anything else.

I really think this idea could’ve worked, some of the rival battles in other Sonic games were really fun, and making a whole game based around them seemed like a pretty interesting idea and certainly a way to freshen up the classic Sonic gameplay.

What it actually turned out to be though, were fairly samey levels over and over again and you’d occasionally switch which character you were battling against, although it wouldn’t make a great deal of difference. One of the main flaws of this game was that none of the characters really felt unique to fight against other than each one having slightly better AI than the last. There was variety in playing each of them, but not playing against them, which was the whole point of the game.

The platforming was much more fun than in Sonic 4 in this game, with the designers having pretty much nailed down how to design its visuals and mechanics for handheld consoles by this point, however, the level design let it down a bit. While it was fun at first to blast through the stages, they became a bit samey after a little while, with boss battles dragging on a little longer than they should and the platforming stages just not having enough variety to them to keep me entertained all that long.

I would by no means describe the Sonic Rivals games as bad, but when it comes to handheld Sonic titles, it’s certainly at the bottom of the barrel.

7 – Sonic CD

Ok, this is a weird one.

This was a Sonic game released during the golden era of Sonic, developed at the same time as Sonic 2, for a console that was doing fairly well at the time in the SEGA CD, and yet it just feels so….wrong. Everything from the visual and level design to the soundscape and mechanics felt so disconnected from everything the original Sonic the Hedgehog was.

It’s worth mentioning the situation of the development of this game, since Sonic Team would split for the first of many times not long before development on Sonic CD started, with many of the core Sonic Team members relocating to the US where they would produce Sonic 2 (which we’ll get to later), so while the team developing this game were by no means underskilled, many of the people responsible for Sonic 1 were no longer with them, which may go some way to explaining why this game feels so strange compared to the others in the franchise at the time.

Many of the quality of life tweaks we’d see from Sonic 1 to Sonic 2 were implemented in here, such as the Spin Dash, but they didn’t feel fully fleshed out or developed. Using the Spin Dash as an example, the animation for it was simply Sonic in ball form spinning on the spot, you didn’t get that satisfying animation from Sonic 2 onwards where he’d kick up smoke from the friction with the ground before bolting off at speed.

While the level design was a bit weird, it was still quite varied and fun, and the time travelling mechanic was one that was implemented in quite a fun way. Giving you 4 versions of every level (Past, Present, Bad Future and Good Future) encouraged you to explore every nook and cranny of every level to not only complete the level but complete the secondary objective of destroying Robotnik’s machine and creating a “good future” in every stage.

Sonic CD was a game that had the core of what 2D Sonic platforming should be, but it lacked the polish that the rest of the franchise had at the time of its release, which makes it feel more like the weird cousin of the Sonic golden era. It did give us Metal Sonic though, so it gets bonus points for that one.

6 – Sonic Advance

I wondered about this one’s position for quite a while.

Sonic Advance is a strange one because its flaws are weirdly comparable to Sonic 1. It was the first full Sonic game on a handheld console (unless you count Pocket Adventure, which I don’t because let’s face it who owned a Neo Geo Pocket when you could but a Game Boy instead?) which meant a couple of things: Less cartridge space, which in fairness they got around fairly elegantly, with the game having a bigger scope than both Sonic 1 and 2 did at the time of their release; and more importantly, Less screen space.

Screen space is one of my big criticisms for Sonic 1 and it holds true here. Although the team had got better at making the unavoidable obstacles a lot less unfair, it still fell prey to a few of the same pitfalls that Sonic 1 did, mostly in the placement of well…it’s pitfalls. Admittedly this could be negated by playing as Knuckles, but this is a Sonic game, so I’m gonna play as the Blue Blur whenever possible.

Speaking of this, playing as multiple characters was nothing new to the franchise by now, and Sonic Advance would add to this by making both Amy Rose and Cream the Rabbit (with Cheese the Chao) but they really weren’t inventive with their abilities. Cream could fly, which was a role already filled by Tails so who cares? And Amy could run slower than everyone else, couldn’t go into ball form and instead had to hit enemies with her hammer which is way more tedious than just jumping on them like everyone else.

That’s the thing that gets me about the Sonic Advance series, all of the core mechanics and ideas that were already established in the Sonic franchise are done really well – the level, art and sound design are all fantastic – but when it tried to add something new it felt either pointless or just plain crap. It’s still a very solid entry into the franchise, but it’s not surprising that none of the new features it added never caught on.

5 – Sonic the Hedgehog

The original, but not necessarily the best.

Don’t get me wrong, the historical importance and overall quality of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game can’t be denied, but like with most first games in a franchise, most of the subsequent entries would refine what this one did to a point to make it an overall more enjoyable experience.

Sonic was born out of corporate suits at SEGA trying their damndest to work with their marketing teams to create a hit, and while in this era of gaming that will almost always lead to generic trash, in the 1980s and 1990’s it would often bring the best out of the design teams. While it’s laughable today, designing Sonic as a cool and edgier alternative to Mario was a golden idea at the time, and when it launched in 1991 it was pretty much the only game that looked like it would get even close to knocking Mario off his perch.

Focusing on speed came with some pretty obvious flaws thanks to the technology of the time. For example, a 4:3 resolution screen with a fairly zoomed in character meant you often wouldn’t have time to react to obstacles if you were going full screen since you had only a second or so of them being on screen for you to react. Sometimes these were just momentum killers, but in later levels, they would often be things that deal damage or pits of instant death, which fell quite unfair when you go back and play them today.

That said, many of these moments were few and far between because huge sections of every level were designed for you to feel the joy of going fast, in a style of gameplay that appealed to me in a way that the Mario games never could. This game established the variety in design and satisfaction in momentum based gameplay that would be the core of what makes a good Sonic game right up to the modern day.

Sonic the Hedgehog is rough around the edges and lacks some of the quality of life elements that we’d see later in the franchise (the Spin Dash is a notable element missing from this game). However, it was able to lay the groundwork for what would become some of the best games ever made while still being an enjoyable – and most importantly successful – experience in its own right.

4 – Sonic the Hedgehog 2

That’s more like it.

While Sonic 1 laid the groundwork, Sonic 2 is where the franchise really proved to me that it had the potential to go down as one of the best of all time.

At face value, it doesn’t look like there’s a huge amount of differences between 1 and 2, and if I’m being entirely honest, most of the changes are minor quality of life changes, but these all add up to a much better game than what came before it. We were introduced to the Spin Dash, a move that has been in every main series game since it’s inclusion, to the point where a Sonic game without it feels really lacking.

That wasn’t the only thing that made life better in the Sonic franchise, with one of the biggest issues from Sonic 1 – the fact that you’re moving to fast to react to things that fly in from off-screen when you’re at full speed – being, not necessarily fixed, but certainly improved upon, since now these obstacles that were impossible to react to are no longer damage dealing enemies or pits of instant death, but instead quick momentum killers, or something that forces you to switch to a slower lane. Granted, it doesn’t entirely fix the problem as a lot of the obstacles are still pretty hard to dodge unless you already know they’re there, however it no longer felt like the game was out to get you by taking all your rings or killing you unfairly.

The level design (which was already top notch in Sonic 1) saw a noticeable improvement, with stages designed to pose a solid challenge to platformers of all skill levels, while still leaving plenty of space to enjoy rushing past the scenery at the speed of sound. This lead to several of the most iconic stages in the franchise, with Chemical Plant and Casino Night Zones still ever popular to this day, to the point where almost every Sonic game since has had some sort of copycat version of them.

Sonic 2 did pretty much everything a good sequel should. It took what the first game did and improved upon it in nearly every aspect, without sacrificing the core of what made the original so good, to begin with and provided us with pretty much everything that was expected from a second Sonic the Hedgehog game.

3 – Sonic Rush Series

I will never get the main menu theme to Sonic Rush Adventure out of my head.

The Sonic Rush games are as good as the handheld Sonic games ever got as far as I’m concerned, and it’s disappointing that there’s only ever been two of them because I really think they struck gold with this style of gameplay.

By this point, the developers had long since gotten over the limits of the hardware they were working with, and they were able to spend a lot more of development time putting the shine on things instead and that really shows with these games. I’m not the biggest fan of modern Sonic’s “push one button to instantly hit max speed” style of platforming, but I think these games did a really good job of designing levels in such a way to make the boost mechanic a lot of fun to blast through levels with.

The extra mini-games that were added in Sonic Rush Adventure were also nice and generally more context was given as to why and how the characters were getting between these wildly different zones. The plot was nothing special, but it did give a lot more context to what was going on than many other Sonic games up until that point, and while that isn’t always a good thing, I think it works for what it is here. Plus they introduced Blaze the Cat, who’s basically just Sonic but purple and way cooler.

One of this game’s stand out features were it’s boss fights, with them doing their best to involve you in the fight more than ever. While some of them did still follow the standard formula, most of the bosses were more than just waiting around until the moment to strike appears, and it forces you to be much more proactive when it came to taking down these massive machines, to the point where fights like Whiskers & Johnny are among my favourites in the whole franchise.

The Sonic Rush games were a window into what the Sonic franchise could’ve become if SEGA had dedicated themselves more to merging the two styles of Sonic gameplay instead of sticking rigidly to one or the other, with a constant need to rebrand themselves every other game. It’s a shame we’ll likely never see this style of Sonic game again, so these are definitely ones you should check out.

2 – Sonic 3 & Knuckles

I know Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are technically separate games, but nowadays they’re pretty much only played as one big game instead.

I’d love to have something fresh and profound to say about this, but it’s more or less ditto what I said about Sonic 2. They took what was an already brilliant game, added quality of life changes, made it bigger and better and shipped it out. Ok, so that’s not entirely fair, there were some more major additions this time around.

For one thing, there was a hell of a lot more levels to it, so much so that it couldn’t all fit on one cartridge, so it had to be split into two. We had the elemental shields, which are a really underappreciated feature if you ask me, along with the variety of special stages (which aren’t). We also had the ability to save for the first time in the series, which is just as well considering the length and the biggest addition which was that of a brand new character in Knuckles, who was new and cool in just the right way unlike Shadow, a character that’s trying a bit too hard to be “alternate”.

Outside of the new features, once again every other aspect of the game’s design got tighter and more polished. Levels felt more expansive than ever without feeling obtuse and confusing (except maybe Marble Garden Zone, but you can’t have everything); the difficulty had the right balance of challenge and forgiveness to make sure I kept wanting to push forwards; and thanks to a partial collaboration with Michael Jackson, we had some of the best music in the entire franchise with tracks like Flying Battery, Lava Reef and Ice Cap zones all being among my favourite gaming tracks.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles was a culmination of everything that had gone into the franchise up until that point, having thrown out the trash and kept everything that was great until we had a phenomenal 2D platforming experience. Every time a horrible and broken Sonic game released over the years, I would always come back to this game to remind myself exactly why I loved this franchise to begin with, as by my reckoning this was the best game in the franchise for almost 23 long years until…

1 – Sonic Mania

Could it really have been anything else?

As I just mentioned, come August 2017 it had been very nearly 23 years since a Sonic game on the level of the originals had released. We had the odd glimmers of hope to hold onto, with games like Adventure 2, Colors and Generations proving that the great revival we were all hoping for was just around the corner, but like many fans, once the catastrophic Sonic Boom released I had all but given up hope that the days of the golden age of Sonic would ever return.

So holy shit was I blown away when this game came out.

Thanks to a combination of a development team that were craving a return to form as much as the fans were, and SEGA having the nerve to take a chance with the Sonic franchise for once, we were treated to this absolute perfect tribute to the fastest thing alive.

Sonic Mania took the original games and boiled them down to their purest essence, the development team on Mania seemed to truly understand what was fun about Sonic – the fast-paced, momentum-based gameplay – and designed absolutely everything in the game to feed back into that. The levels are clearly designed more for fast-paced platforming more than ever, and it has this genius way of being so complex while not moving too fast so that you can’t react to anything coming your way (the camera finally being zoomed out a bit more helps).

However, Mania didn’t just take what the originals did and refine it, the Sonic Mania team also included so much new stuff into the game as well. The new additions to old stages – such as the coloured jellies in Chemical Plant – were brilliant ways to spice up familiar territory and the brand new stages like Studiopolis and Press Garden are some of the best in the whole game. The new and the old blended so well in this game that unless you already know, then I doubt you’d be able to tell them apart, it proves that Sonic the Hedgehog wasn’t only good in its time, with the right vision and quality of design it can easily still hold up today.

I sincerely hope that this wasn’t a one-off and that there’s more Sonic games from this team in the future because I really don’t think there is a 2D platforming experience out there anywhere near as good as this one. Sonic Mania doesn’t only mark the return to form of a gaming icon, but it could potentially mark the start of a new Sonic golden age; it really is that special.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for reading, if you enjoyed then please share it around on social media and let me know what you think of the 2D Sonic games on Twitter @10ryawoo. Make sure to come back here at the same time next week, where I’ll be ranking WWE world champions since the 2016 brand split!

Every WWE World Champion Since the 2016 Brand Split Ranked

In 2016, WWE realised that their roster was far too big for only one set of champions all of a sudden, thanks to NXT signing every free agent they possibly could, also the Smackdown ratings were tanking but I’m sure that’s not important. Their solution was to do what they did from 2002 to 2013 and make Raw and Smackdown separate brands with their own world champions.

We can argue the merits of this decision until the cows come home but that’s not what I’m here to do. Instead, just three years later in 2019, we’re facing a situation where the brand split could very well be ending in October thanks to the new Fox deal coming into effect. The future on this is still unclear, however in the event, we are about to see it all end, now would be a good time to start looking back.

Since the brand split started, we’ve seen 16 different world championship reigns between 14 different men across both brands, and not all of them are up to the prestige level that you’d expect from the grandest prize in all of pro-wrestling. With that in mind, I’m going to dive in and analyse all of these title reigns and comprehensively ranking them.

These rankings are going to based on a combination of the pure numbers, the quality of their matches and the overall impact that they left on their respective titles. NOTE: I’m not going to be including current champions, Seth Rollins and Kofi Kingston in these rankings since, as of the time of writing they have each only been champion for 3 weeks and it would be unfair to assess an incomplete title reign.

12 – Finn Balor – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Seth Rollins at Summerslam 2016
Lost to: Vacated on Raw 8/22/16 due to injury
Days as champion: 23 Hours
Best match as champion: vs Seth Rollins at Summerslam 2016

I know, I’d like things to be different as well.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment on the list (although there’s a bit of competition for that dishonour), we all thought the chosen one had ascended with WWE finally fully embracing our NXT beloved when the recently debuted Finn Balor became the first ever Universal Champion at Summerslam. Even if the fans stupidly weren’t paying attention to the match because they were so fixated on how awful the brand new Universal Championship looked, people were over the moon at the former Prince Devitt’s rise to the top of the company.

Sadly, the celebrations would be fairly short-lived, as the next day the news came out that during the match with Seth Rollins where Balor had won the belt, he suffered a Labrum tear during a powerbomb to the ringside barricade during the match. This injury would require Balor to have surgery with an estimated recovery time of 6-8 months, meaning he wouldn’t be able to compete as champion and was forced to vacate the championship that he had only just won.

It’s always going to be one of the big “What if?” questions in WWE history. How long would his reign have been? Who would he have eventually lost the title to? How many amazing matches would he have had? and so on, and so on. Unfortunately what we’ve got was a 23-hour reign where he didn’t even lose the title in a match, so it, unfortunately, can’t be placed anywhere other than the bottom of the list.

11 – Roman Reigns – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Brock Lesnar at Summerslam 2018
Lost to: Vacated on Raw 10/22/18 due to Leukaemia
Days as Champion: 63
Best match as champion: vs Finn Balor on Raw 8/20/18

What is it with the Universal title at Summerslam?

Roman Reigns winning the Universal Championship was a complete and total inevitability going into 2018, with most excepting it to happen at Wrestlemania 34. Instead shockingly – and pretty stupidly – Brock Lesnar retained the championship at Mania in order to convince The Beast to extend his contract for another year, this meant the title change was pushed back to that year’s Summerslam instead.

As much as the match itself was crap, when Roman held the title high it felt like a breath of fresh air washing over Monday Night Raw since Lesnar’s reign as an absentee champion was long past its sell-by date at this point. Having a fighting champion on the show every week was invaluable to the red brand since now it didn’t feel like everyone was just spinning their wheels every week until Brock came down from his mountain top to defend the title once or twice a year.

That said, in the brief time Reigns was holding the title, there wasn’t a great deal to love about it. It was refreshing to see the title every week for once, but Roman was busy in 6 man tag matches for a lot of his reign thanks to The Shield reuniting for the 147th time since they originally broke up. His only actual title defences were against Finn Balor the night after he won it, which was a good match; against Baron Corbin in September for no discernable reason and against Braun Strowman inside Hell in a Cell, a match which mostly consisted of people who weren’t in the match fighting on the outside before Brock Lesnar broke into the cell and caused the match to end in a No Contest which was ridiculous.

The title reign wasn’t off to the greatest of starts come October, however, it was likely to run for many more months, so there was still time to turn things around.

Tragically, it wasn’t to be, as on the October 22nd edition of Raw, Roman Reigns announced his Leukaemia that had gone into remission 11 years ago had returned and he would be taking an undefined amount of time off until he recovered. Thankfully, the Leukaemia went into remission again earlier this year and Roman has now returned to action, however, it meant that his Universal Championship reign had to end prematurely with him vacating the belt just before he was due to defend it against Strowman and Lesnar at Crown Jewel.

This reign stands above Finn Balor’s due to the fact that Reigns actually had 64 days to do something with the title before vacating it, even if that something wasn’t very good. That said, a short reign with a vacated title at the end still can’t rise any higher than this.

10 – Goldberg – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Kevin Owens at Fastlane 2017
Lost to: Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 33
Days as champion: 27
Best match as champion: vs Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 33

Goldberg. Champion. In 2017. I honestly still can’t believe it.

Goldberg created one of the most shocking moments in recent memory at Survivor Series 2016, where he pinned the hyper-protected Brock Lesnar in under five minutes. When this happened it was clear that a Wrestlemania rematch was in the works for the two, and it also became clear that WWE wanted the Universal Championship to be at stake in that match as well. Naturally, the sensible thing to do would’ve been to put the title on Brock Lesnar for that match, since it would be ridiculous if the 50-year-old Goldberg won a world championship after not wrestling for over a decade…

What’s that? They did it anyway? Oh.

Goldberg walked into Fastlane to face Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship, and 22 seconds (and a distraction from Chris Jericho) later, Goldberg was your new Universal Champion. Madness. Goldberg wouldn’t wrestle another televised match until Wrestlemania, meaning there’s very little to analyse here. Everyone knew that Goldberg would be losing the title to Brock at Mania, so we were never going to get any kind of extended reign from Goldberg, which is probably for the best.

After 27 days of doing precisely nothing with Raw’s top prize, he walked into Wrestlemania, had a short but fun match with Brock, and then did the favours for Brock Lesnar, kicking off his first of two reigns with the title. The following night on Raw, Goldberg addressed the fans, thanked them and we haven’t seen him in the ring since.

Goldberg was the very definition of a transitional champion. He won the Universal Championship for the purpose of a single match, and once that match was done it was all over. If it wasn’t for the two reigns where the title was vacated, then this would most certainly be dead last.

9 – Randy Orton – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33
Lost to: Jinder Mahal at Backlash 2017
Days as champion: 49
Best match as champion: vs Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33

It says a lot about the Universal Championship, that this is the first entry on the list that actually feels like a proper title reign. It wasn’t the longest reign in the world, but Randy actually acted like a champion during this time, including wrestling more than two matches for his entire reign.

As much as it did enough to be classed as a proper title reign, it was arguably one of the worst title reigns in recent memory for a couple of reasons. For one thing, he won it at Wrestlemania in what was probably the most disappointing and boring match on the whole show, and it doesn’t bode well that it can also be classified as his best match during this rather short reign.

Following this, we had a rematch in the one and only “House of Horrors” match, featuring some of the most spooky imagery imaginable! Such as lots of baby dolls badly taped to the ceiling, a hand popping out of an obviously fake wall and….erm…a tower of sticks? It was that level of bad that goes past being so bad it’s funny into just plain awful, what’s more, is it wasn’t even for the title. This was mostly because they wanted to give Bray the win without giving him the title, but it was justified in kayfabe by the fact that Jinder Mahal stole the title the Smackdown before the match.

This brings us to the sad an awkward fact that Randy Orton would end up losing this WWE title to…Jinder Mahal, a man who up until a month prior to this, had lost more matches than Curt Hawkins, and that’s Hawkins’ whole gimmick. It was an extremely boring match as well, with the only thing even remotely exciting is when Randy almost accidentally killed one of the Singh brothers by dropping him neck first on the announce table.

Even compared to Orton’s 12 other world championship reigns this is among the worst of them. When you’re only notable matches as champion are the two that you lost, you know it can’t be any good.

8 – Jinder Mahal – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Randy Orton at Backlash 2017
Lost to: AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/7/17
Days as champion: 170
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/7/17

I’m as surprised as you are that it landed this high up.

When Jinder Mahal pinned Randy Orton at Backlash 2017, the entire wrestling community went through various stages of grief all at once. There were those that reacted with unbridled anger that WWE would sully the most prestigious prize in the business like this; others gave an extended sigh and prepared themselves for the dark times to come, and there were a few who laughed maniacally in twisted delight at the sheer ridiculousness of what just happened.

These would very much be the three camps that stuck around for the entirety of Jinder’s 5 and a half month WWE title reign, even though it felt like it lasted a couple of years. No-one was quite sure what to make of it at the time, with a whole range of opinions flooding the internet following every one of Jinder’s awful title matches.

Jinder spent the next three months putting on some of the worst matches of the year with Randy Orton, including a Punjabi Prison match where The Great Khali helped Jinder to victory only to never have his appearance explained and Khali hasn’t been seen since. He then moved on to fight the new golden boy of Smackdown live in Shinsuke Nakamura, a feud which is remembered only for the racism involved when Jinder claimed that Shinsuke’s facial expressions always “rook” the same in front of an audience who just seemed to be made uncomfortable by the whole thing.

Things were looking to hit their worst point yet going into Survivor Series, when a match with Universal Champion Brock Lesnar on the horizon, only for AJ Styles to mercifully take the title away from the Modern Day Maharaja 2 weeks before the event.

Though opinion may have been divided at the time, it’s pretty clear looking back that Jinder’s reign as champion was pretty damn bad. All of his PPV title defences sucked and the only match of his reign that could really be considered good is the one in which he lost it to AJ. Not only that, but AJ’s mammoth reign that would follow it meant that Jinder’s reign was almost immediately forgotten and Jinder every quickly fell back down the card into the same position he was before his title win. Granted not all of that can be placed on his shoulders, but when you spend over 5 months as world champion it doesn’t elevate your standing in the pecking order at all when you finally lose it, then you were clearly never up for the world title in the first place.

7 – Bray Wyatt – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: John Cena at Elimination Chamber 2017
Lost to: Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 33
Days as champion: 49
Best match as champion: vs John Cena vs AJ Styles on Smackdown 14/2/17

Bray’s and Randy’s are very easily comparable, since their titles reigns came consecutively, and they spent the same number of days as champion, which means you can really boil the argument down to who did more with the title?

Admittedly that’s a pretty easy argument because even though Bray’s reign was a lot shorter than most of us wanted it to be, and the build to his Wrestlemania match with Orton was absolutely bizarre, Bray actually had some really enjoyable matches for the title. The Elimination Chamber in which he won it, is perhaps the best Chamber match in history, and his triple threat against former champions Cena and Styles two nights later on Smackdown was fast-paced and tense action from bell to bell.

His time as champion brought the best out of him as a performer, with him having a couple of the best matches of his career during this very short run. Even on Smackdown, Bray was front and centre every week, regardless of whether or not he’s wrestling, which is something that can’t be said for several of the champions on this list.

Given there was all this great stuff involved with the title reign, why isn’t it higher? Well, for one thing, the length brings it down, as much as you don’t need months and months as champion to make an impact, Wyatt’s reign really felt like it could’ve done more time to really give Bray back the credibility he’d lost over the years, losing matches to basically everyone. Also, the match where he lost the title at Wrestlemania 33 was boring, as I previously mentioned, and unfortunately the manner in which someone loses a title can have a big impact on the opinion of their reign.

In the annals of WWE history, Bray Wyatt’s brief time at the top probably won’t be remembered fondly by many, but when you break it down you can see exactly what Bray Wyatt at his best can be if he was ever given a real chance to shine.

6 – John Cena – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2017
Lost to: Bray Wyatt at Elimination Chamber 2017
Days as champion: 14
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2017

It’s really weird to think that John Cena’s record tieing 16th world title reign only lasted two weeks. Then again, about 12 of Cena’s title reigns were all transitional really.

Given that I dropped Randy so low for a reign over three times as long as this one, this may seem like an odd choice, but as short as Cena’s reign was, there were great matches during it.

The match where we won the title was Styles was arguably the best main roster match of 2017 and capped off an absolutely brilliant feud from 2016 to boot. Then he had a surprisingly good match against Randy Orton on Smackdown where a shorter match length allowed for a more exciting match than most of their other encounters. Then his reign was topped off with arguably the best Elimination Chamber match in history where he would lose the title to Bray Wyatt.

Cena’s reign was incredibly brief, but he managed to do more with the title in that time than everyone else I’ve already talked about so far, putting on many great matches and leaving a reign that is still remembered and talked about fondly to this day. Moreso than that, it proves just how good John Cena can be for a world championship when it’s done properly. If Cena ever gets his historic 17th world title, I certainly wouldn’t mind if it was anything like this one.

5 – Dean Ambrose – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Seth Rollins at Money in the Bank 2016
Lost to: AJ Styles at Backlash 2016
Days as champion: 84
Best match as champion: vs Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins at Battleground 2016

Ambrose’s reign is a little weird in the context of this list because although it started before the brand split began, the majority of this reign took place inside it.

It started with one of the most exciting WWE moments in recent memory, where Seth Rollins would shockingly beat Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship pretty much as clean as possible, only for Dean Ambrose to cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase he won earlier in the night and walk about of Las Vegas as WWE Champion at long last.

Ambrose’s title reign was something most people had wanted ever since The Shield broke up in 2014, and finally seeing him hoist the title high was a brilliant moment for fans (even if I think he was the worst wrestler of The Shield, but that’s neither here nor there). Also, since it was a long time coming, they had to do something memorable with the reign itself, which I think they achieved for the most part.

After a great match with Rollins that ended in a double pin, and a follow up on the night the brand split began where Ambrose would come out victorious, we got the match fans have been begging for for years, when Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns would face off against one another in a triple threat match for the title. While that match didn’t live up to many people’s expectations, it was still a fantastic contest, that would eventually end with Ambrose walking out still with the title, bringing it to the blue brand for the foreseeable future.

It had been going well up until this point, but it was soon to come crashing down, as Ambrose would then put on a 15-minute snoozefest against Dolph Ziggler for the title at Summerslam, and it was becoming clear that Ambrose’s title reign was fun, it needed to end pretty soon. One kick in the plumbs from AJ Styles later and Ambrose would find his title reign over at Backlash 2016.

Ultimately, Ambrose’s title run did have some crap stuff in it, but it will generally be remembered for the good stuff a lot more than it is the bad, and with Ambrose having left WWE just a couple weeks ago, I don’t think this was a bad legacy to leave behind.

4 – Kevin Owens – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Big Cass on Raw 8/19/16
Lost to: Goldberg at Fastlane 2017
Days as champion: 188
Best match as champion: vs Sami Zayn Raw 9/5/16

Kevin Owens’ reign was filled with a whole host of ups and downs, it reign that by many standards would be considered mediocre at best, so it says a lot about the state of the WWE world title scene that it’s landed this high…

Owens’ reign started off to a very good start as far as I’m concerned. Following Finn Balor’s tragic Labrum tear after winning the title. WWE quickly set upon crowning their next Universal Champion who would actually be able to carry the title over the coming months. So a Fatal 4 Way formed between Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Big Cass.

Most expected either Rollins or Reigns to walk away with the title here, since, up until now, Owens hadn’t been treated like he was on the world title level for the longest time. Fate would strike again, however, as after laying out Roman Reigns, Triple H looked to hand Seth Rollins the victory only to suddenly turn on the architect and hand the title to Kevin Owens. With Raw ending with Triple H holding Owens’ hand aloft in a brilliant moment.

Owens title reign will likely be remembered mostly for his excellent partnership with Chris Jericho as an extremely entertaining duo who bounced off of each other perfectly. This would also mean that very nearly all of Owens’ major title defences would end in some form of dirty finish, with Jericho and occasionally Strowman getting involved to save Owens’ skin. His title run also ended in disappointing fashion with a 22 second lost to Goldberg thanks to another interference from Jericho.

If you look at Owens’ title run in terms of his matches and PPV defences then it seems like one of the worst, but when you consider how entertaining he was week to week on Raw with Chris Jericho, including the absolutely perfectly done “Festival of Friendship” segment, then it’s one that will always be looked back on fairly fondly.

3 – Brock Lesnar – 2 Reigns
(Universal Championship)

1st Reign:
Won from: Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33
Lost to: Roman Reigns at Summerslam 2018
Days as champion: 503
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles at Survivor Series 2017

2nd Reign:
Won from: Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel 2018
Lost to: Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania 35
Days as champion: 156
Best match as champion: vs Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series 2018

Groan all you want, but the numbers don’t lie.

In a bubble, Brock Lesnar’s two reigns with the Universal Title seem amazing. With over 600 combined days with the title, and nothing but clean wins in every single defence, Lesnar’s world title reigns seem like the template for what a perfect one looks like. Unfortunately, this title reign didn’t happen in a bubble and anyone who watched through Lesnar’s time at the top knows all too well why it’s not higher up.

While Lesnar did almost always retain his title cleanly, and most of his title defences were Ok-Great matches, the problem was to do with his schedule. During his first run as champion which, bare in mind, lasted 503 days, Brock Lesnar wrestled a total of 12 matches, and that’s including non-televised matches. Compare that for a second to Randy Orton, who wrestled 21 matches – almost double – in just 49 days as champion.

That said, it did have some upsides. For one thing, a Brock Lesnar title defence felt like a big deal, and there was always a lot of speculation made around who his challenger was going to be. Also, with the exception of the Roman Reigns matches, the stories building up to the match were generally very compelling. Samoa Joe’s feud with Lesnar felt intense and finally gave Joe that killer instinct he’d been lacking before that point, Finn Balor got to show that he can hang with the biggest and the best and Braun Strowman was elevated from mid-card monster to main event murderer.

I think that’s the thing with Brock Lesnar as champion, with the exception of Kane, and in his later matches, Strowman, everyone who fought Lesnar for the title came out of the feud looking better than when they went in. It didn’t matter if they lost, because guys like Joe and Balor got to show their in-ring intelligence when trying to take down an indestructible foe, and in a strange way, it would bring the best out of whoever he was competing against.

I’ll admit, if Brock Lesnar never wins another world title again, then I’ll be very happy with that since I really feel like WWE overplayed their hand in 2018 with Lesnar, but it did serve a purpose and several other wrestlers benefitted from his presence at the top.

2 – AJ Styles – 2 Reigns
(WWE Championship)

1st Reign:
Won From: Dean Ambrose at Backlash 2016
Lost to: John Cena at Royal Rumble 2017
Days as champion: 140
Best match as champion: vs John Cena at Royal Rumble 2017

2nd Reign:
Won from: Jinder Mahal on Smackdown 11/7/17
Lost to: Daniel Bryan on Smackdown 11/13/18
Days as champion: 371
Best match as champion: vs Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series 2017

A man who many thought would never even wrestle in the WWE, let alone reign as champion for over 500 days, AJ Styles has done much better for himself in WWE than I think most of us thought he ever would.

AJ’s first reign as champion was shorter but arguably more effective than the second. Being a heel allowed for much greater opportunities for his character to be entertaining, not to mention I just generally think AJ’s always been better at being a heel, especially in WWE. Beating Dean Ambrose with a swift kick to the balls only added to the shock of a man who was then still considered Mr TNA winning the WWE Championship and it carried on great from there.

He had a great triple threat against Cena and Ambrose at No Mercy before going on to get entangled with James bloody Ellsworth for far too long, even going as far as having Ellsworth being directly responsible for AJ retaining after an excellent TLC match between Styles and Ambrose at the PPV of the same name. Then there was the match at the Royal Rumble with John Cena, which as I’ve already mentioned is perhaps the best WWE world title match in recent memory.

His second one wasn’t really as good if you ask me, and this second reign is the main reason I’ve dropped him to second place. It started off very well, with him finally getting a good match out of Jinder Mahal and ending the reign that felt like it was going to last forever. He then went on to have a fantastic match with Brock Lesnar, and it seemed like things were going to be great. He had his formality of a rematch with Jinder the next month, then had a couple of OK matches at the Royal Rumble and Fastlane before finally looking towards Wrestlemania 34.

His match with Shinsuke Nakamura was very good indeed, however it was marred by a couple of things. The first was that Shinsuke didn’t win when it felt like he should have, although that wasn’t too big of a deal since Nakamura turning heel after the match meant the story still had legs. However, it also has to be mentioned that many fans (myself included) didn’t really feel like it met expectations. Admittedly this is down to what you could argue were unreasonably high standards we got from seeing AJ vs Nakamura wrestle a year earlier in New Japan Pro Wrestling, but it still felt like it ended quite suddenly, and about 2 minutes too soon.

This would’ve been fine if the rest of the feud had delivered, but it really didn’t. What we got was a match the Greatest Royal Rumble event, where it ended in a double countout; another one at Backlash which ended in a double KO because both men simultaneously kicked each other in the balls and a pretty good Last Man Standing match at Money in the Bank, but the magic was long gone by that point and left fans disappointed once again after Shinsuke Nakamura failed to win the title.

Following this was a short, but entertaining feud with Rusev before we were launched into the destroyer of families known as Samoa Joe. Once again this feud started off rather well, with a very good match at Summerslam that showcased a rare example of a DQ finish that enhanced the story. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the only highlight of the feud as a dirty finish at Hell in a Cell led to two more mediocre title matches that the fans at large really couldn’t have cared less about by this point.

The dying breaths of this title reign would go some short way to redeeming it a little as the match in which he lost the title to Daniel Bryan was great but suffered slightly from not being on a PPV.

Ultimately, AJ’s title reigns were good, the first one especially was great, and the length of them allowed AJ to establish himself as an all-time legend in WWE in just 3 short years. However, whenever I think back to these title reigns, I’m always going to be reminded of the mediocrity that came with a large portion of the second one, so I can’t honestly give it number one.

1 – Daniel Bryan – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/13/18
Lost to: Kofi Kingston at Wrestlemania 35
Days as champion: 144
Best match as champion: vs Kofi Kingston at Wrestlemania 35

You can have your Kenny Omegas and your Kazuchika Okadas any day, but Daniel Bryan is the best wrestler in the world.

When Daniel Bryan made his miraculous return from injury in March 2018, it only seemed like a matter of time before he held world championship gold once again. Bryan was the biggest babyface in recent memory, so having him standing victorious with the WWE Championship in his hands would be the perfect way to cap off his return year.

How foolish we all were…

Once again we found ourselves building to Survivor Series, where AJ Styles was set to have a rematch with Brock Lesnar from the previous year’s event, he just had to get past Daniel Bryan one night on Smackdown. We would then be hit with a double whammy of shockers on that night, with not only Daniel Bryan taking the title from AJ Styles, but cheating to do it, officially turning heel.

After putting on one of Brock Lesnar’s best ever matches at Survivor Series, Bryan came out week after week on Smackdown with a brand new personality, calling the fans fickle and reminding us all that our planet is dying and it’s our fault. It’s the kind of gimmick that on anyone else would seem stupid to be a heel, since the majority of wrestling fans seem to agree with that line of thinking, but Bryan was so good at saying it in a way that just pulled the boos out of you, even if you agreed with his message.

Bryan would have a match with Styles at TLC where Bryan would adapt his wrestling style to his new persona, focusing on old-school holds, strikes and technical wrestling instead of his more explosive babyface offence which resulted in a brilliant match; which ended in the master of the small package reclaiming his throne. The pair would then have a not quite as good match at Royal Rumble, hindered heavily by the fact that it had to follow Becky Lynch winning the women’s rumble and the finish involved interference from Erick Rowan of all people.

Past that match Rowan’s presence would only help Bryan as a character, giving him not only a big dude to have his back, but someone who agreed with his message, which only added to his preachy persona. Following the Royal Rumble, Bryan was set to defend his title in an Elimination Chamber match, when the cruel hand of fate would cause Mustafa Ali to go down with an injury and pull out of the match, leaving a spot open. Enter Kofi Kingston.

In one of the most unexpected, yet wonderful stories in recent memory, Kofi Kingston would take Ali’s place in the match, and remind us all that he’s one of the best, and deserves to be recognised as such. This became the main story of Bryan’s title reign going into Wrestlemania 35, and it couldn’t have been any better. Bryan and Kingston went 25 minutes at the start of a gauntlet match on Smackdown, in which Bryan showed exactly why he’s the best wrestler in the world because he can go to absolutely any length to make his opponent look like the best wrestler to ever do it, without making himself look totally inept.

It was in large part thanks to Bryan’s performance in this match and the ending of the Elimination Chamber that we all got behind Kofi Kingston as much as we did. It all culminated in the best match of the Wrestlemania 35 card, where Kofi would finally overcome and take the title from Bryan.

Daniel Bryan may not have had that long of a reign with the WWE Championship in comparison to other champions on this list, but Bryan got more out of his 144 days as champion than someone like Styles did in over 500. While Bryan was champion he was able to elevate himself, and anyone he ever got in the ring with to stratospheric heights, and that is the mark of a champion that is truly one of the greatest to ever do it.

And those are my rankings! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and a share would be greatly appreciated if you enjoyed. If you disagree with this list then let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back next week, where we’ll be diving back into the mines of Doctor Who opinions.

WWE Wrestlemania 35: Every Match Ranked

Well! That sure was something. It did get exhausting at points, but I really enjoyed this Wrestlemania, it didn’t have any of those deflating losses that draw down a lot of other Manias of late and I think it was structured in just the right way to make it very hard to get bored.

Not everything was great of course, but coming away from the show I feel that the bad was heavily outweighed by the good, and this was certainly the best Wrestlemania we’ve had since 31 as far as I’m concerned.

“But Ryan”, I hear you ask, “Where can we find an arbitrary and subjective ranking of all sixteen matches on the card?” What an oddly specific question, however, you’re in luck, as that’s exactly what I have for you right here, let’s get into it, shall we?

16 – Triple H def. Batista
(No Holds Barred)

I don’t think this is going to surprise anyone, is it?

I’ve said it so many times before, so I’m not going into detail on it again, but a slow-paced weapons based match with nothing but high spot after high spot is my least favourite kind of match, and that’s exactly what this match was.

There were a couple of cool looking spots, like Triple H pulling out Batista’s nose ring with some tweezers and a good old fashioned table break, but there was a whole lot of nothing between all of it. Batista ended up getting in very little offence, and the one time he did get close to win, there was absolutely no drama in it because there was no chance Triple H was losing this one.

I don’t think anyone was expecting anything that great from this match, which is good because we didn’t get it, (aside from a ridiculously over the top Triple H entrance of course). By the same token though, nothing stupid or nonsensical happened during the match, so I guess that’s a good thing that this is a bad as it got.

15 – Baron Corbin def. Kurt Angle
(Kurt Angle’s Final Match)

I told you so.

This match was fairly similar to Triple H vs Batista in that it was fairly slow and boring, except I enjoyed this just a little bit more, since there was actually some decent back and forth between the two men, and they aren’t just ambling about trying to set up a spot that ends up not looking all that impressive.

I know people are going to be pissed off about it, but like I said in my predictions I think Corbin winning was the right choice. No-one would’ve benefitted in any way from Angle winning, and while I doubt anything big is on the horizon for Corbin, at least he’s going to be on Raw every Monday for the next while and stands a chance of getting something out of winning.

Not to mention, it’s not like this has sullied Angle’s legacy. For one thing, if anything had done that is was the awful matches he’s been having on Raw and Smackdown for the past month, and for another, when people think back on Angle’s career, they’re not going to be thinking about this match. They’ll be thinking about all the awesome stuff he did from ’99 through ’06, and losing to a dude in a dress shirt isn’t going to spoil that.

…much.

14 – Braun Strowman wins the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal
(Kickoff Show)

Thank God for that.

While I’m happy about the result, this may have been the most boring ARMBAR to date, and that includes the one where the final two were Jinder and Mojo. Several people were eliminated within seconds of the bell ringing, no-one really got much of a chance to show off their stuff aside from Braun and the comedy stuff wasn’t all that funny.

Andrade eliminating himself has got to be one of the worst eliminations in the history of the ARMBAR and doesn’t protect him, it makes him look like a total idiot. I’ll admit I laughed when one of the SNL guys (don’t know his name, don’t care enough to look it up) brought out his “therapist”, but everything after that was super predictable, and I never really found myself actually enjoying what I was watching.

13 – Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins def. The Revival(c)
(Raw Tag Team Championships)
(Kickoff Show)

Oh for fu-

I’m trying not to hold the result against this match too hard, but seriously? If WWE are still trying to convince The Revival to stay they’re doing an awful job of it, having them lose to a guy who’s the whole gimmick is that he always loses is the kind of pit I never thought I’d see The Revival in, but here we are. Even if they win the titles back on Raw, it doesn’t matter, the damage is done.

The match was fine but didn’t really have much excitement to it, The Revival very much wrestled like they knew they were going to lose and decided they didn’t give a shit anymore. It was still solid but lacked the polish that we’ve come to expect from The Revival, and even Ryder seemed like he was phoning it in a little bit.

The finish was fine (and honestly, the only finish this match ever could’ve had), but it didn’t really surprise me, it just caused me to sigh. It wasn’t anything awful but was exactly the kind of match you think of when you think “pre-show tag match”, so it wasn’t anything great either.

12 – Samoa Joe(c) def. Rey Mysterio
(United States Championship)

Finally.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the result of this match, but given that it went under a minute, it’s hard to put it any higher up.

Samoa Joe winning was absolutely the right result, the United States Championship needs a dominant champion like Joe to pull it out of the ditch it’s been in for the past year, and this was the perfect start. If you ask me, have him squash guys while defending the title week in and week out on Smackdown, while having slightly longer matches on PPVs, and that US title will have it’s prestige back in no time.

As for the match itself, it’s understandable that it went this short, since the number of matches required at least one or two to be squashes, and Rey’s recent injury may have made it a necessity, but I hope we get a full-length match later down the line, because I think it could be really good.

11 – Roman Reigns def. Drew Mcintyre

WWE just doesn’t seem to understand Drew’s strengths.

Drew is the kind of guy that is best when he’s running around murdering dudes and a breakneck pace, this match should’ve been somewhat in the style of Lesnar vs Goldberg from a couple of years ago, where it’s about 10 minutes of them going back and forth hitting each other with big hard-hitting moves until one of them couldn’t stand anymore.

Instead, we had Drew holding Reigns to the mat and “wearing him down” for the whole thing until it was time for Reigns to make his comeback. It had just enough to keep me somewhat engaged, with some tense spots on the ropes and some well-timed kick outs which Reigns is great at, but I feel it could’ve been so much more.

I was somewhat surprised that Reigns got a pretty mixed reaction on his entrance after how he’s been in recent months. Maybe it was just casual fans who don’t know what’s been going on and still think booing Reigns is the default, but really I think it’s time that we just cheer the guy. I get you’d rather see other guys get the spots he does, but he’s a pretty good wrestler these days and by all accounts, he’s an amazing person in real life, so let’s just stop relentlessly booing him for no reason now, yeah?

I’m sure my words have fallen on deaf ears, but I tried.

10 – The IIconics def. Sasha Banks & Bayley(c), Nia Jax & Tamina, Natalya & Beth Phoenix
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

IIIIIIIIIIIIIICONIC!

Have your Kofimanias and Becky chants all you want, this is the win that made me the happiest all night.  The IIconics are just so entertaining at what they do and are up there with the best in terms of wrestling ability so I’m over the moon to see them get these spots, hopefully, this reign lasts more than 2 days.

That said, the match itself was fairly underwhelming, maybe it was because we’d already had a very good 4 way tag match on the show, or maybe it’s hard to make an exciting match when 75% of the participants aren’t known for high spots or taking risks, but something about this just didn’t click for me. It thought everything was fairly standard and vanilla, with the match moving at a fairly predictable pace, and attempts at bigger spots leading more to confusion than anything else.

The only thing I really enjoyed about it was the way in which The IIconics one, taking advantage of being the right place at the right time and nothing more. Granted, 4 ways tend to have a base level of excitement that they will always be (hence why this match is as high as it is), but it really didn’t do much to go beyond it.

The IIconics won though, so who cares how good the match was?

9 – Finn Balor def. Bobby Lashley(c)
(Intercontinental Championship)

Demon Finn needs more Wrestlemania entrances because that looked cool as fuck.

This match was just a glorified squash, so I can’t put it too high, but I think it was much more entertaining than the US title squash earlier in the night. This had a small about of back and forth to keep the momentum of the match going for the full 4 minutes, and it also had some pretty impressive spots to boot.

Lashley’s apron spear looked brutal, and I wish more of his offence was in that style because he could be a really entertaining wrestler if he did that more often. On the flip side, we saw a rare display of power from Finn Balor because that Powerbomb to Lashley was such a good feat of strength. Things like that are what you need to give The Demon more mystique because that really made it feel like Finn is stronger when he’s the Demon.

Once again though, I really don’t want to see this match anymore. This is clearly as good as it’s ever going to get, now it’s time to let Finn run and have great matches with everyone on whichever show he lands on post-shakeup.

8 – Tony Nese def. Buddy Murphey(c)
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

So not only are they forced onto the kickoff show, they’re forced to open the kickoff show when there’s all of about 26 in the arena, great.

Ultimately, I think the middle of the list is the best place for this match, because while it didn’t have anything amazing in it, it was an extremely solid match, with several enjoyable moments throughout. Nese’s baseball slide to the outside, where he took Murphey’s legs out from under him at the same time was a very satisfying thing to watch, and generally the chemistry the two of them had made for a match that I had no problems sitting through.

Nese winning was actually quite the surprise to me, mostly it’s my own fault for not knowing what Nese’s finisher looked like, but also I didn’t really expect him to win, I always got the feeling that WWE loves Buddy Murphy (because he’s great) and that this thing was gonna last a little while longer, however I can’t argue with the decision and I do now wanna watch 205 Live this week to see where this all goes next; so it’s mission accomplished really.

7 – Carmella won the Women’s Wrestlemania Battle Royal

Well, this was a surprise.

Not so much the result, but the fact that the match was actually pretty damn enjoyable, it really seemed like everything was working against it. It has Asuka being dumped in it after losing her title, Lacey Evans not even being in the thing, and all of 16 competitors it really seemed like this thing was doomed to suck.

It wasn’t anything special to start off with, but once the field cleared a bit and we were down to a few competitors, things got pretty fun. There were many of the battle royal spots we’ve come to expect, and I really liked that they gave both Sonya Deville and Sarah Logan some time to shine because I think they’re both wonderful people, and damn good wrestlers to boot.

Surprisingly, because of the way it went down, I don’t actually have a problem with Asuka not winning. I’d rather it was Sarah Logan than Carmella sure and it seemed they’d already forgotten about that win by the time she showed up later on in the night, but the match itself was a nice little bit of fun on the pre-show, which is really what the pre-show matches should be for.

6 – AJ Styles def. Randy Orton

Well, that was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be.

I don’t have any complaints about this match, it wasn’t anything super exciting, but everything was perfectly solid the whole way through. It was slow enough to cool down the crowd after the excitement of the opening, but not so slow as to be boring, and it was just a really well-rounded match with 15 minutes of perfectly enjoyable wrestling. We even got an RKO kick out, which hasn’t happened in what feels like years.

I think its place on the card has got a lot to do with it. If this match had happened in 6th or 7th hour, then I imagine I would’ve crapped all over it for being boring but as it is, it got a really good spot on the card and made the most of it, so I really don’t have anything to complain about.

I think AJ was the right choice in winner too, granted I don’t think either man is going to be doing anything major right after Mania – they’ll probably both be in Money in the Bank but I doubt either of them will win it –  but AJ has been losing a lot since losing the WWE Championship to Daniel Bryan, so this was the best way I can think of for AJ to re-establish himself to hopefully have a solid mini-feud with whoever gets called up on Tuesday evening, which should be fun.

5 – Shane Mcmahon def. The Miz
(Falls Count Anywhere)

How does Shane keep doing this?

Seriously, I don’t understand it, by all rights a singles match involving a 49-year-old Shane Mcmahon at Wrestlemania should be awful, but with the exception of his Undertaker match, they’ve all been rather good year in and year out. This year’s match relied a little more on spectacle than the past couple, but I think that was more to the matches benefit than anything else. It started out a bit plodding, but once business started to pick up, I found myself enjoying it quite a lot.

George Mizanin will forever be a meme that will go down in wrestling history, alongside that little girl who hates The Miz and anytime Brock Lesnar pulls a roided out face. Once that was out of the way though, I actually quite liked the slower, more hard-hitting pace that this match had; it had the same style as Triple H vs Batista, but it felt to me like everything flowed better and the match was never at a standstill while we were waiting for a spot to be set up. On top of that, the actual spots themselves looked much more impressive, the finish is the obvious one, but the spot where Miz smashed Shane in the face and he went sailing over the railing onto the floor below looked so painful and was really satisfying to watch.

Normally I’d be furious that Shane won, but the way the finish played out in this match meant it made total sense. Total, random luck is the only way Shane should ever win a match where he’s not being helped and the fact that Miz did what he did instead of playing it safe is both a brilliant illustration of how this face turn has changed his character (as heel Miz would often tout the merits of how safe his wrestling style was) and added an extra layer of intensity to the feud, since it really felt like Miz was putting hurting Shane in front of winning the match.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but after watching this match, I really hope this feud isn’t over, I want to see more out of this.

4 – The Usos(c) def. Aleister Black & Ricochet, The Bar, Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

The flipside of the 4 way tag matches on this show,  we got a much better one when the men went at it.

Generally, I think this match was structured a lot better than the women’s one, with a feeling out process at the start before we jumped it all descended into total chaos, it gave the match a natural progression, instead of immediately becoming a clusterfuck.

Once things did start to breakdown though, the action was generally just much more entertaining to watch, with everyone getting a chance to shine as chaos reigned. The Bar continues to be one of the best tag teams out there, as they went absolutely mental spinning Ricochet exactly 42 trillion times and Sheamus turning Black’s ribcage to dust. Black & Ricochet got a whole bunch of stuff scattered through the whole match, as one of them was the legal man for very nearly the whole thing, and when everyone was hitting their finishers at the end I was having an absolute blast.

I wouldn’t have chosen The Usos to retain if I were making the decisions, but it’s definitely not a bad choice, The Usos have lowkey been the best tag team in the world for a couple of years now, and letting them have brilliant matches for the titles month after month will be a great way to showcase that fact, so bring it on I say.

3 – Seth Rollins def. Brock Lesnar(c)
(Universal Championship)

You have no idea how happy I am that I get to type that header because I was so worried.

Despite making Seth my prediction, the closer and closer it got to the show the more convinced I was that Brock was going to retain, so when Heyman came out and declared that Seth vs Brock would be opening show, it was music to my ears.

It was exactly what it needed to be too, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure an extended match would’ve been great, but this got me twice as excited in a quarter the time and I loved it. Everything from the post-match beatdown to the low blow, to the triple Curb Stomp, was booked to absolute perfection, and the only reason it’s not number 1 is because it only lasted 2 minutes.

I would’ve been annoyed that Seth won because of a low blow, but A) It’s Brock Lesnar, he’s taken a low blow in almost every match for the past few years and won anyway, and B) Brock took the first cheap shot by attacking Seth before the bell, so the low blow felt more like karmic justice than Seth cheating.

Hopefully, Brock shows up on Raw, F-5’s everything that moves and then disappears off to get destroyed by Daniel Cormier while Seth puts on match of the year candidates with absolutely everyone while defending that title.

I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to open the show if I tried, and Seth Rollins once again manages to create one my all-time favourite wrestling moments, A freaking plus.

2 – Becky Lynch def. Ronda Rousey(c), Charlotte Flair(c)
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Well, that sure was eventful.

People around the internet seem to be having pretty mixed reactions to this match, some say it was a massive disappointment that is the result of awful booking, while others say that it was an enjoyable match that was dragged down by everyone watching being exhausted and a slightly botched finish. I fall into the second camp.

Sure, this match wasn’t quite what it was hyped up to be, but it was still a great match that I had plenty of fun watching. It is worth mentioning the length of the show though, as much as it doesn’t bother me I am admittedly in the minority there as it was clear that the crowd were just too exhausted by hour 7 that there was no way they were ever going to be able to give this the reaction it deserved.

That said, WWE didn’t exactly help them to get excited. If the match had gotten an extra five minutes or so, they could’ve spent some time building up to a big climactic finish, and the crowd would’ve sensed that and reacted to it. Instead, we got a sudden roll-up win that was ever so slightly botched by Rousey making it look like it wasn’t the planned finished (the current report from Meltzer is that it was the planned finish, but Rousey lifted her shoulders when she wasn’t supposed to).

However, focusing on the positives, there was a lot to like in this match. For one thing, it really did have that big fight feel and spectacle that you’d expect from the main event of Wrestlemania, and when they were staring each other down at the start I really could feel the excitement in the air. There was also plenty of great psychology throughout the whole thing, with Becky and Ronda constantly going for the arms of their opponents while Charlotte spent an extended period of time working over Ronda’s leg which was great.

The table spot looked quite brutal if you ask me, and was in fact enhanced by the fact that the table didn’t break as it gave it what felt like a harder impact. Becky and Ronda staring down before the final exchange was a great moment too, and it did genuinely feel like the climax to this almost year-long story.

Would’ve I have liked it to be a bit different? Absolutely, that’s mainly why I’ve dropped it to second, but am I upset by what we got? Not in the slightest, I thought that this was a really good end to one of the better Wrestlemanias of the modern era, that said, it wasn’t the pinnacle of the night…

1 – Kofi Kingston def. Daniel Bryan(c)
(WWE Championship)

Come on, was it ever going to be anything else?

You take a competitor as hungry for success as Kofi, a story that was built organically by the fan’s love for Kofi, a heel champion as hated as Daniel Bryan, and a WWE Champion that does everything he can in the ring to make his opponent look amazing and also happens to be one of the best wrestlers in the world, and this match is exactly what you’d expect the result to look like.

This match took the fundamentals of a WWE world championship match and performed them to perfection. There was a constant back and forth between the two men, and they were constantly speeding up and slowing down the pace of the match as it was necessary for that moment in the story, because the story is exactly what this match was all about.

The idea of Kofi’s struggle was central to this entire performance, with Bryan constantly there to beat Kofi down time and time again just like he had been week after week since Elimination Chamber. That moment when Bryan was stomping on Kofi’s face only for Kofi to do the same thing to Bryan minutes later is perhaps the best way to illustrate this. Every single move in the match seemed to feed back into the story, building the emotional weight constantly until it was all able to come out at the finish.

Speaking of the finish, man what an emotional moment, after watching Kofi overcome every struggle that was thrown his way for his whole life in order to finally reach the pinnacle of his career and watching Big E and Woods be able to celebrate with him was just magical. I’m stealing this quote from many many people online, but this is why we put up with all the shit in WWE because when a story like this comes together in just the right way, it’s something truly unrivalled in terms of emotion and entertainment.

Even if Kofi loses the title on Tuesday it wouldn’t matter, because this is a moment that will forever stand in the history of Wrestlemania, and that’s something very few people will ever achieve.

So that was Wrestlemania 35! Overall I think it was a really enjoyable show, probably my favourite since 31, so I’m feeling very satisfied with all the wrestling over this past weekend indeed. As always thank you very much for taking the time to read an article as long as this one and please share it around on social media if you enjoyed. Follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for live thoughts of wrestling and check back here every week for new opinions on both gaming and wrestling. I’ll see you soon.

NXT Takeover New York: Every Match Ranked

NXT is the best thing in wrestling right now and no-one can convince me otherwise.

Without a doubt, that was far and away my favourite NXT Takeover show I’ve ever seen, and arguably up there with my favourite wrestling show, I’ve ever watched. Every single match was absolutely fantastic and such a brilliant showcase of why I love NXT so much, it had something for everyone and most certainly got Wrestlemania weekend off to a rip-roaring start.

However, despite the consistently high quality of the entire show, some matches were better than others, so I’m gonna rank ’em.

5 – Shayna Baszler(c) def. Bianca Belair, Kairi Sane, Io Shirai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

The women’s division in NXT has been the best it’s ever been these past 6 months or so.

I know, that’s a big statement to make, we’ve had Asuka, Ember Moon and the Four Horsewomen in the past, but I genuinely believe that the crop of women in NXT right now is the best in the brand history, and here’s why.

Every single character in the NXT women’s division is a distinct and unique character, not just on a gimmick level but on a deeper level of attitude, ability and character motivations. This match illustrates that excellently, all four women in that ring are so completely different in terms of character and style, even Kairi and Io who are so closely linked feel completely different when you watch them competing.

Of course, this means that when you take these four unique characters together and throw them together in a match, it makes for magic. Baszler & Sane are so diametrically opposed that every time they’re even in the vicinity of each other it tells a great story, with even better wrestling. Then you throw in Bianca Belair who is so desperate to prove she belongs that she’s constantly hiding behind her fake ego, and Io Shirai who is Kairi’s friend, but won’t hesitate to go through her if she’s in her way and you’ve got yourself an action packed fifteen minutes.

Why is it at the bottom? Well, mostly because it had the least new stuff to offer. Don’t get me wrong, this match was absolutely brilliant from start to finish, and would top almost any other show, but ultimately there was nothing shocking or new to be seen here, it was all just brilliant versions of stuff we’ve already seen.

4 – War Raiders(c) def. Aleister Black & Ricochet
(NXT Tag Team Championships)

Honestly, when I finished this match, I thought it would land in the top two, that’s such a testament to how good this show really was.

When I talk about how my favourite type of wrestling is tag team wrestling, people are often a little confused about it and wonder why. This match. This match is why. The urgency and quickness of a match with two competitors on each side can’t be matched by that of one on one, since in a one on one matches you need breaks where both competitors have to sell and catch their breath, but in a tag team match, the moment that happens on one guy, the other can come in and keep things rolling.

I was worried this wouldn’t be a great way to send off Black & Ricochet from NXT, but I was very quickly corrected in that thought because once this match got going, it refused to stop. I keep forgetting just how incredibly Hanson and Rowe can move in the ring, to the point where the 300 pound Hanson could actually keep pace with the king of the flippy shit in Ricochet, and holy crap, every time Black and Rowe faced off it was magical, this match could’ve been 90% those two and it would’ve been absolutely amazing.

The match even managed to cast doubt on the result once or twice, and after the Black Mass into Shooting Star, I honestly bought that it was the finish. War Raiders eventually winning was the best choice of course, and the post-match stuff was lovely too since this is likely the last time we’ll ever see Black & Ricochet in NXT, it was an absolutely wonderful send-off.

That’s the thing with positioning this match too because I honestly don’t have a single bad thing to say about it, just the other matches on the show somehow managed to outdo it.

3 – Velveteen Dream(c) def. Matt Riddle
(North American Championship)

Velveteen Dream just…wow, what a wrestler.

I showed concern in my predictions that I wasn’t sure the styles of these two wrestlers would mesh very well in the ring, but I very quickly learnt that I was completely and totally wrong to ever think that because something between these two just clicked. The characters helped a lot with this I think, after all, it’s hard to have a man carried to the ring on a throne while dressed as the Statue of Liberty and not be blown away by the spectacle of it.

It was the kind of match where it didn’t need any form of story overcomplications or big twists, because you already had two perfect characters ready-made for you, with the very simple motivation of “I want to be champion” and then you could just put them in a ring and rely on the characters to act like the characters, which always makes for the best stories.

The match was paced to perfection too, with it starting off low-key and every single moment built on the ones that came before it. It wasn’t that fast, which is normally what I like, but it was exactly what it needed to be and there wasn’t a single moment of wasted motion.

The finish was also pitch perfect because quite frankly, a sudden roll-up is the only way Velveteen Dream should win any big match. It created a shocking moment since I think most of us thought Riddle was going to win this one and it left the door open for a rematch later down the line which will likely play off of everything that happened in this match, which is the mark of a simple story, well told.

2 – Johnny Gargano def. Adam Cole
(NXT Championship)
(2 out of 3 Falls)

I had so much trouble which should be number 1 and which should be number 2, but in the end, I think this was the right way round to do it.

In terms of storytelling and all-out excitement, this match had no equal. When it came down to that final fall I was encapsulated, to the point where I was literally on my feet for the last couple of minutes. I so desperately wanted to see Adam Cole win this one going in, but the story that was told in the match made me root for Gargano just as hard.

I wasn’t a big fan of how quick the first fall went by, it seemed a bit jarring, but I understand why it happened given the time constraints and overall it made sense. That minor gripe was completely irrelevant by the time the final fall got underway, however, because once the action got going, it slowed for nothing. Not only was this match was able to craft a story that allowed you to have the same emotional weight that the Gargano/Ciampa match could’ve had, but it did the rarest of things, it used interference and a referee bump to enhance the story, instead of ruin it. It shows how much impact these tools can have when you use them sparingly and effectively, instead of braking them out at every opportunity like on the main roster.

The last fall had me at almost every second as well, and when Adam Cole hit the final Last Shot, I honest to God believed he’d won, and it was genuinely shocking to me when Gargano kicked out in the best way possible. Following that, it didn’t outstay it’s welcome and Adam Cole was tapping to the GargaNo Escape about a minute later, and despite rooting for Cole, I was over the moon at his victory.

Ciampa coming out to hug Gargano and Candice at the end and shocking didn’t turn on him, was a brilliant cherry on the cake of emotions too, and the best possible way to end off the show.

It was effective storytelling combined with great wrestling, it certainly a match of the year contender and it was so close to being number 1.

1 – WALTER def. Pete Dunne(c)
(United Kingdom Championship)

I don’t often get patriotic, but man…this match.

I never really got the thrill behind the old-school style of wrestling, I didn’t really understand how a mat-based, methodically paced match could be as exciting as one with fast and constant action, but this match turned me around on that line of thinking completely.

While it wasn’t as high octane or thrilling as Cole vs Gargano, it was perhaps one of the best pure wrestling matches I’ve seen in a long time, and I realised that this is exactly what makes the British wrestling style so special. This match didn’t try to do anything too flashy very often, it instead took the basics, twisted them a little and executed them to total perfection.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a match build so slowly like that one and have it be so effective in encapsulating me in the action because it really had all the stuff you’d expect. Big guy beatdown leading the small guy coming back, limb targetting and constant lockups with endless back-and-forthing in the later stages. None of this stuff is anything special, but Dunne and WALTER took all of these tropes and did them in the best way possible, it led to moments where the audience legitimately gasped when Dunne started to make his comeback for the first time in the match, and they were hanging on every single move, much like I was at home.

Once again, there wasn’t a single meaningless movement in this match and it felt like every single move had impact. What’s most amazing though, is that the constant slow, mat-based style meant that when they finally did go for high spots, it felt HUGE. The crowd’s reaction when WALTER went up top for the first time was brilliant, and the powerbomb from the top rope was the single best spot of the entire night as far as I’m concerned.

Not only was this match brilliant from start to finish, but it opened my eyes to exactly what the British Style of wrestling could be at it’s best, and as far as I’m concerned it’s just as good as anything North America or even Japan can put out.

I honestly believe that Pete Dunne is the future of WWE, and the fact that this title loss felt like a huge deal (even if we all knew it was coming) is a testament to just how far he can go in his career, especially if he keeps putting on matches like this one.

So there you have it, that’s what I thought of every match that took place on NXT Takeover New York. If you enjoyed then a share would be a huge help, follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo if you want live tweets about the shows as they’re going down, and stay tuned early next week for my review of Wrestlemania itself!

WWE Wrestlemania 35 Predictions & Analysis

It’s finally time, the road this year seems to have felt longer than ever, but we’re just 48 short hours away from Wrestlemania 35. Much like last year, this card, on paper, has the potential to be one of the best Wrestlemanias of all time, although we all know how that turned out last year…

Almost every single match has the potential to be fun and memorable, and there will almost certainly be moments on this show that get played in the highlight packages for years to come.

However, tradition must still hold, and it is that time once again, to break down all 16 (SIXTEEN!) matches that are scheduled to take place on Sunday, and predict a winner for each one. So here goes, starting with…

Women’s Wrestlemania Battle Royal

I’m sure this one will be well thought out and planned considering it was announced a whopping 9 days before the show and on Twitter, not TV.

WWE seemed to skip the idea that this battle royal would actually mean something last year, handing the win to Naomi and proceeding to do precisely nothing with her for the whole year, so I’m sure we can expect just as important things from this winner’s.

If you’re trying to pick a winner, I think just picking a woman based off of a random number generator might be more effective than trying to break down and analyse it. The most obvious pick seems to be Asuka since, until Tuesday morning, she was meant to be defending her Smackdown Women’s championship on the show. That being said, I could quite easily see them bringing someone up from NXT and use this as a platform for them, Shayna Baszler, Kairi Sane or even Bianca Belair could be good candidates for that.

It’s hard to pick any of the NXT women though since we won’t know if they’re even participating in the match until it starts, so I’m going to go with the safe pick here and say Asuka will win.

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Oh, who cares?

I know the ARMBAR hasn’t exactly been the most prestigious match over the past few years, but this year it seems especially pointless. Partly because until the go-home Raw, Braun and the SNL hosts are the only men who have declared their entry, but also because it means that literally only one of those two can possibly win.

If anything someone completely out of left field winning here would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, because it means you’ve sacrificed your only story of consequence in the match for, I dunno, Shelton Benjamin or someone.

I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone by picking Braun Strowman here, hopefully, he’ll just toss all 30 men out at once and we can not waste too much time with this crap.

Buddy Murphy(c) vs Tony Nese
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Match)

Please put this on the main show.

Bump the IC title to the pre-show for all I care, I don’t really give a crap about that match, just find a way to get this match onto your 6+ hour main show, please. Buddy Murphy is one of the best damn wrestlers in the company, and whenever he’s been given the chance to shine on a big stage (such as Super Show Down or Survivor Series) he’s blown it away.

While admittedly Nese isn’t on the level of Ali for Murphy’s opponent, the story is definitely there, and he’s certainly a top-level performer on 205 Live. That said, I don’t think he’s going to win the championship. Murphy’s one of those champions where he’s at the point now where I always feel like he’s going to retain, whether the story needs it or not, I can see him holding that Cruiserweight title for a long time, and a big win in a great match here will arguably solidify him as the best cruiserweight champion to date.

This is another one where I’m not particularly confident because I can kinda feel the face win here, but I’m sticking to my guns and picking Buddy Murphy to walk out victorious in this one.

The Revival(c) vs Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

No. Please WWE. Don’t do it.

The Revival have been putting on some of their best matches since coming to main roster since winning those tag titles (even if they are a mere shadow of their NXT performances) and I swear to the lord on high, if you have them lose Curt Hawkins, whose whole gimmick is that he’s literally never won a match, I will…write a very angry paragraph in my review…ok maybe that’s not the best threat in the world, but the point still stands.

This match is either going to be used as fodder for the pre-show or something for the piss-break in between the two main events, either way, it’s probably going to be short and underwhelming. WWE seems pretty keen on making sure The Revival stick around long enough to sign a new contract, so I imagine they’re going to be keeping the belts until a little bit after that, so I’m expecting them to retain in this one in pretty short order.

The Usos(c) vs Aleister Black & Ricochet vs The Bar vs Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

It’s annoying how the last-minute matches are always the hardest to predict.

After spending a couple of weeks teasing an Usos vs Hardys match, the Smackdown Tag Title scene went quiet for a few weeks and I’d honestly assumed it had just been cut for time, but all of a sudden on Smackdown we just get this clusterfuck of a match announced.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this got bumped to the pre-show at some point before the show starts since we’ve already got a bigger 4 Way Tag match on the card later on, which puts predicting this match in quite an odd position. The story for weeks now has been that Vince has brought Black & Ricochet up in an attempt to make new stars, so surely having them lose here after losing to War Raiders on Friday (presumably) would be awful for them. Then, at the same time, The Usos retaining here just feels like a really easy pick to make.

No idea why The Bar and Rusev & Nakamura have been let into this match either seeing as both teams have done nothing but lose since January, but hey-ho. I think I’m gonna go with the more risky pick here and say Aleister Black & Ricochet will pick up the titles, because quite frankly if they can’t win any titles after five attempts, then why should anyone care about them ever again?

Bobby Lashley(c) vs Finn Balor
(Intercontinental Championship)

This has been such a weird way of executing this story.

I get that you wanted to tell a story where Lashley loses the title due to circumstances of his own making, but having him almost instantly win the title back, and then have him lose again in a 2 on 1 handicap match to get Balor in here seems like such a weird choice to me. It doesn’t really do Balor many favours, since Balor’s lost to Lashley one on one several times now over the past 6 months or so, and even if he wins here I’m not sure it’s going to do Finn many favours.

That said, what would do Finn a big favour is having a run with the IC title similar to Rollins’ run with the belt last year. Granted, they might not want things to seem repetitive and I doubt the reign will last as long as Seth’s did, but it would certainly help him out a lot more than anything in this feud has done so far.

I wasn’t entirely sure about this one for most of the build, I had a hunch Balor was going to win, but once it got confirmed that Finn would be appearing as The Demon at Wrestlemania (finally), that’s pretty much confirmed that Finn Balor is getting the IC title back on Sunday.

Samoa Joe(c) vs Rey Mysterio
(United States Championship)

And now we’re at the point where I’m more excited for the US title match than I am for the IC title, what a big difference a month can make.

I don’t know how much time this is realistically going to get, but I think it’s going to be pretty great either way. Mysterio’s spent his whole career wrestling giants, and Joe can do so many things that guys like Khali and Big Show could never even dream of. I really think this is going to be a fast-paced and brutal fight, which will be a tonne of fun to watch.

This could also be the opportunity the US title has been waiting for to regain some of the prestige that has been absolutely shattered since Jeff Hardy lost the title last summer and it just stopped appearing on shows. In order for that prestige to be rebuilt though, two things need to happen.

First, it needs to be on the main card. This shouldn’t be too much of a worry as I doubt WWE would dare to put Rey Mysterio on the pre-show, so I think we’re good. Secondly, Joe needs to retain, clean. One of the main reasons the US title has gone so far south in recent months (aside from never being on TV) is that it’s being tossed about like a hot potato so much. If you want the US title to start meaning something then you need a champion worth a damn who can hold onto it for more than a week, and Samoa Joe is the perfect candidate to hold it for at least a couple more months.

Sasha Banks & Bayley(c) vs Beth Phoenix & Natalya vs The IIconics vs Nia Jax & Tamina
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

I would forgive every other mistake this show makes if The IIconics won this match.

As much as it’s awful that the Smackdown Live women’s division has been completely shafted since Charlotte won the women’s title, I’m very happy that The IIconics are getting their Wrestlemania moment, even if they don’t get to win. I’m also very happy for Beth Pheonix, she was one of those women just was just 4-5 years too early to really get the chance to shine, and even if she can’t go like she used to, I’m glad she gets to participate in a match that she would’ve dreamed to have when she was an active competitor.

Picking a winner is a pretty straightforward affair though, Nia & Tamina aren’t getting anywhere near those belts, and I doubt Beth is going to wrestle full-time past Wrestlemania, so they’re out, and while I would be over the moon if The IIconics picked up the title, this really has to be Sasha Banks & Bayley‘s moment. Whether you think that Mania will end with the horsewomen standing tall or not (I’ll get into my thoughts later), it makes the most sense for them to retain here, and hold those titles for at least one more month.

AJ Styles vs Randy Orton

Now we enter the “for shits and giggles” portion of the show.

I understand that this is a big match that we haven’t seen outside of a short Smackdown match a couple of years ago, and if Orton’s motivated it should be pretty good, but I still can’t help but ask why? Orton felt like he’d long since given up on his mission to tear down our heroes, and the general impression I’ve gotten for why these two hate each other so much is “cos indies”, which doesn’t exactly seem like a Wrestlemania feud to me.

It also seems pretty predictable, as much as AJ has lost matches like this before (remember Chris Jericho?), AJ’s been taken down quite a lot since losing his WWE title to Daniel Bryan, and a big win over Orton would be a pretty good way to build him up, and hopefully send him over to Raw where he can do something new.

I remain optimistic about this match, but I know that it could end up getting way too much time and stinking out the joint, but as I said I will hold onto my hope, and say that AJ Styles will beat Orton.

Roman Reigns vs Drew Mcintyre

Now, this is an interesting one.

Both men have been really good on the mic in the build-up to this match and they seem to have gone to great lengths this past month to build him up as an absolute destroyer (not having lose to both Ziggler & Balor a couple months back might’ve helped, but oh well.) and I’m hopeful that this match will rock.

I’m having quite the pickle choosing the winner though because on the one hand, it’s Roman pissing Reigns, who’s just returned from kicking cancer’s ass and this is first big singles feud. On the other hand, Drew would be quite heavily damaged by a loss here, and a win would absolutely catapult him into stardom.

Ultimately, I think I find myself leaning on the side of Roman Reigns winning, partly because it feels like the safe bet, but also because I really think this will be a big feel-good moment to kick off the show with and get the show off to a great start, but even if it doesn’t go on first, I just can’t really see Drew winning this one.

Kurt Angle vs Baron Corbin

This is probably the match I’m looking forward to the least.

I understand the choice in opponent since, given WWE storylines since Angle’s return, it does make sense, and honestly, I’m OK with it. Would I have preferred someone better? Absolutely, Cena, Bryan, hell even someone like Elias would’ve been a better choice, but am I furious that this is what we got? No, not really.

As much as I hate to say it, Angle’s farewell tour has just proved that he really can’t go like he used to. He can still wrestle circles around a guy like Corbin of course, but I get the same feeling watching Angle wrestle now that I do when The Undertaker wrestles. I love him with all my heart as a performer, but I really just want him to stop and leave the memories alone at this point.

I also don’t think this is a bait and switch, I think Angle vs Corbin will be the match we get, it will probably only be about 10 minutes, but here’s the thing…I want Corbin to win. If we’re going down this road, let’s do it properly. I don’t consider myself to have an old-school mentally by any stretch of the imagination (hell, I’ve only been a fan since 2013), but I really do agree with the ethos that wrestlers, however legendary, should go out on their backs.

Will Corbin ever be the star WWE probably want him to? I doubt it, but lets at least give it one last try, so I’m doing it, I’m predicting that Baron Corbin will win this match, and more so than that, I think he should.

The Miz vs Shane Mcmahon
(Falls Count Anywhere)

Why is there even a conversation here, it’s the Best-Wrestler-In-The-World™ versus The Miz. I mean, come on guys.

Jokes aside, I really don’t know what to make of this match. On the one hand, I’ve been wishing Shane would be a heel for ages and so far face Miz has been on fire, but I’m not sure it’s going to make for all too compelling a match.

Miz is definitely a top-level wrestler now, that much is true, but I’m not sure he’s a guy like AJ Styles that can carry Shane to a 4-star match. Hopefully the Falls Count Anywhere stipulation will do something to remedy this, making the match more about brutality than technicality, but I’m still worried that this could be quite the slog, especially if it’s placed late on the card.

I have been umming and erring a little bit about who I think will win here, but when I picture it in my head, I just can’t reasonably see Shane standing tall, it doesn’t make any sense to me at all and it would kill The Miz’s face turn dead immediately and then you risk him sinking back into the territory he was in throughout late 2013/early 2014 where no-one cared about him in the slightest, so I say The Miz has to win this one.

Triple H vs Batista
(No Holds Barred)

Wow, the Ruthless Aggression Era just doesn’t ever want to end doesn’t it?

This is another match that I think is an interesting one to break down because there are two conflicting ideas going on here. On the one hand, Batista is a big Hollywood star now, and if there’s one thing WWE love it’s pushing their multi-media stars for the whole world to see (just look at who’s in the main event this year).

Then you look at Triple H’s Wrestlemania record since Mania 29 and it shows quite the obvious trend. Triple H loses to all the young guys (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Ronda Rousey), but beats the older ones (Brock Lesnar & Sting) so logic would dictate Triple H beats Batista here right? Not only that but this storyline kicked off with Batista attempting to murder Ric Flair, so Triple H is the big babyface defending one of his friend’s honour, so that should make it a lock.

So I was going back and forth on this one for a while until they went and added the stipulation that if Triple H loses, he must retire. Admittedly, Triple H does only wrestle one or two matches a year, and if he’s going to be running the company in the coming years he may want to stop wrestling, but I highly doubt it would happen with this little build and hype behind it.

Until that stipulation was added I was seriously considering picking Batista, but now I’d be an idiot to not say that Triple H is going to win.

Daniel Bryan(c) vs Kofi Kingston
(WWE Championship)

Interestingly, I think a lot of people’s opinions on the show will hinge on this match.

Much like last year, where AJ vs Nakamura disappointed most, one match seemed to cause everyone to have an overall negative opinion of the show. I know Brock vs Reigns helped too, but I think if the WWE title match had been amazing, then people wouldn’t have been anywhere near as harsh on it as they were, and this match is in the exact same position this year.

This match has all the potential in the world to be amazing, it’s between two of the best pure wrestlers in the company, and the story is arguably the most well written on the entire card (something AJ vs Nakamura didn’t have last year). If this match gets about 20 minutes and the two are allowed to go with minimal shenanigans, this could be the match of the night, even if Daniel Bryan ends up retaining.

Which brings me to who I think is going to win, I’ll get into the debate over whether all three faces can get their big wins towards the end of the article, but this is the match which I currently feel the most confident in the result of. There is still this niggling little doubt in my mind, but I believe that we’re going to get a big moment here and Kofi Kingston will pick up his first ever world championship in WWE. I don’t think the reign will be all that long, but I don’t think that matters because his Wrestlemania victory will secure his legacy for the rest of his life.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Seth Rollins
(Universal Championship)

Boy, this one is more difficult than it should be.

Every semblance of wrestling logic I’ve ever learnt is screaming that Seth Rollins finally slays the beast and goes on to have a long reign with the Universal Championship. He was the best wrestler in the WWE throughout 2018, he had his big climactic Royal Rumble win in January, and Lesnar only has the belt again because of Roman’s illness.

The flip side of the coin is pretty much the sentence “but Brock Lesnar”, which is a surprisingly hard argument to counter. Last year we were all 100% without a shadow of a doubt certain Roman Reigns would beat Lesnar for the title, and look what happened then. If there’s anyone who will inexplicably win when it makes absolutely no sense for them to, it’s Brock Lesnar.

All that said, I really am getting the feeling now that the “Brock as the champion who doesn’t exist” era is ending, given that WWE tried to end it at Summerslam last year. So I’m going with what I desperately want to happen, and saying Seth Rollins will win this match.

Ronda Rousey(c) vs Charlotte Flair(c) vs Becky Lynch
(Raw Women’s Championship & Smackdown Women’s Championship)

What a wild ride this has been.

This storyline as a whole has certainly had it’s ups and downs as we’ve followed it since Summerslam last year, and if I were to traipse through all of it, it would take all day, so let’s review the highlights.

– Becky’s heel turn turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Her feud with Rousey on Twitter turned out to be the new best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Then Becky won the Royal Rumble, which once again turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Following that, things got a bit convoluted with suspensions, Charlotte, and the Smackdown Women’s Championship getting involved.
– Finally, The go-home Raw had the most over the top, yet brilliant, segment of the whole feud.

I know some people thought it was hokey and crap, but I thought it was a great way to cap things off before Mania, since it took all these complicated plot strands that have been going on since the Royal Rumble and boiled it down to three women who just hate each other so much and desperately want to win the biggest match of any of their lives.

I don’t think there’s any question about the quality of the match, it’s going to be awesome, and will hopefully go down as one of the greatest main events in Wrestlemania history, the real question is who’s going to win.

Up until Charlotte won the Smackdown Women’s title, I was the least confident about this one, I could quite easily see Ronda Rousey walking out of this one with both the belts. However, once Charlotte got herself a title, things changed in my mind, because now it feels like Becky Lynch has to win.

I know, I’ve picked all three faces to get their big win, and the prevailing opinion is that only 2 out of 3 will, but I’m not so sure. This is going to be such a long show that if it’s structured right, then you can avoid the crowd running out of energy and give all three faces their time in the sun. I’m not entirely confident that it will happen, and in all honesty, I’m expecting at least one of them to lose, but I just can’t put my finger on which one. If you pushed me for an answer I think I’d say Seth is most likely to lose, but I still think it’s at least a 50/50 chance.

All I know for certain is, it’s made things very exciting indeed.

So there you have it, those were my official predictions for every match that is announced to be taking place on Sunday (as of time of posting). If you enjoyed then sharing it on social media would be a big help, and make sure you come back early next week for my reviews, of both NXT Takeover and Wrestlemania. I will also be live tweeting both shows @10ryawoo on Twitter if you want thoughts as they happen!

I’ll be seeing you very soon.