Category: Review

WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2019: Every Match Ranked

And with that, the last WWE Pay-Per-View is in the books and…meh.

I just felt a bit deflated watching this show, there were some highlights and I’ll get to those, but at least 75% of this show was just a bit dull. I’ll elaborate as I break down each of the matches, but this is absolutely going to be a show that is well and truly forgotten by the time the new year rolls around.

Let’s take a look at the match then, shall we?

8 – King Corbin def. Roman Reigns
(Tables, Ladders & Chairs)

BORED.

I honestly have nothing to say about this match. It wasn’t even bad in some weird or interesting way, it was just a completely and boringly average match from start to finish. The action was predictable WWE affair and as I mentioned in my predictions, Corbin is not the kind of wrestler that Reigns gels well with.

On top of that, there’s the fact that The Revival have gone back to being Corbin’s lackeys which is fine I guess but given the number of times we’ve seen it this year, I can’t help but not care. Looking back at how Roman Reigns has been booked since his return, it makes me wonder if WWE think that if they have Roman lose basically every feud he’s in all year, we won’t all be mad when he wins the Royal Rumble, because that’s pretty much the only explanation I can come up with to justify Corbin winning this close to Wrestlemania season.

7 – Bobby Lashley def. Rusev
(Tables Match)

BOOOOOREEEED.

Once again, it’s another bog-standard and extremely boring WWE weapons match, that was arguably even further hampered by having to force a bunch of “almost” table spots every 2 minutes. The reason I’m ranking it above Roman & Corbin is that I thought that in the opening few minutes before the weapons came out, these two actually had some pretty good chemistry as two hosses that were trying to destroy each other. Unfortunately it mostly just made me wish we could’ve had a normal match instead of these tacked on gimmicks.

I highly doubt this is the end of the feud though and I think that might be to its benefit since I’d actually quite like to see a regular match between these two as it’s clear they’ve got some heat behind this story. WWE do have a New Year’s episode to stack after all.

6 – The Kabuki Warriors(c) def. Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)
(Tables, Ladders & Chairs)

I REALLY wanted to like this match, I even watched it back this morning to make sure it wasn’t my tiredness that was ruining it for me, but it just wasn’t good.

It opened really strong, there were some quick spots with the weapons and a nice amount of actions that gave the match a big-fight feel. I especially liked the large amounts of tandem offence on both teams, it made a big deal out of Becky & Charlotte teaming together, which I don’t think had been done nearly enough on TV in the build to this match.

Unfortunately, around-about the half-way point of the match, it just STOPPED. The competitors would take over a minute to set up almost every spot and the resulting spot was never worth it, they stopped literally everything at one point so Asuka & Kairi could have a whole conversation and then fumble around with a ladder for what felt like an eternity. That whole segment completely lost me and the match did nothing to win me back from that point onwards which is such a disappointment, especially when you consider how good the triple threat TLC between Asuka, Becky & Charlotte was last year.

I’m overjoyed that Asuka & Kairi got a clean win and the performance made Kairi feel like a big deal for the first time since coming to Raw & Smackdown, but I didn’t have fun watching this match at all, so it’s got to get a low ranking.

5 – The Viking Raiders(c) vs The OC ended in a double countout
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Oh. They went for the extremely obvious yet extremely underwhelming options then…FIINE.

Admittedly predicting The Usos to show up here was a bit of wishful thinking, but given what match we ended up getting I feel justified in wanting it. As I’ve gotten used to in recent years with WWE, this match was just fine. I don’t have any problems with it, but I also don’t have even the slightest shred of interest in it.

…At least that’s what I thought until the match ended in a double countout, meaning we’re going to be getting this on the Royal Rumble pre-show next month. So I guess I’ll see you next month when I cover this match again!

4 – Bray Wyatt def. The Miz

So here we have an absolutely fantastic bout of story-telling that we very rarely see from WWE and a match that didn’t quite click for me.

I liked the idea of Bray just letting Miz beat the life out of him, but I don’t think they went about it in quite the right way. The way Bray kept trying to break through but got countered made it seem like Bray was actually trying to get offence in, but Miz was outmanoeuvring him, I would’ve instead preferred it if Bray was voluntarily offering himself up to be beaten up by The Miz. That said, the main story beats still landed as intended and I’d love to see Bray wrestle as the funhouse character more often just to see more of this.

What happened after the match was great too, we finally got the idea that The Fiend really is a separate entity to Bray and things got genuinely creepy when Bray looked up at The Fiend and laughed “Ok, I’ll do it”. I’m not entirely sure why Michael Cole was so shocked by the mallet when it was at least the third time he’s seen it, but that’s beside the point. The return of Daniel Bryan is something I’ll always be in favour of and this feud now feels like it’s got some real heat behind it, so I’m looking forward to the coming month of TV between these two.

Like I said, the match itself was nothing special, but the story was definitely the main focus and that absolutely worked.

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

Oh…to be honest, this was one of the few matches I was optimistic about going into the show.

I have no idea why, but this match just didn’t click with me. It ended up similarly to the main event in that it started out well, (very well, in fact, that’s why I’ve ranked it so much higher) but around the mid-point, it just totally lost me. Things started to slow down and I was ok with it, but then there were a solid 2 minutes of Big E wandering around the ring doing pretty much nothing and the whole match just fell apart from that point onwards.

There were flickers of excitement, almost all of which were thanks to Kofi but the finish felt extremely awkward, with Scott Dawson just kind of standing there on the ladder, he wasn’t being hit by anyone and he wasn’t selling, he could’ve easily just climbed the ladder, but instead, he was just stood there doing absolutely nothing. All of this wasn’t helped by the fact that Kofi had to awkwardly manoeuvre himself out of the position he was stuck in on the ladder before he could grab the titles.

This was a match that started off as good as you’d expect between these two teams but the longer it went on the more it dragged to the point where I came away from it feeling glad it was over.

2 – Humberto Carrillo def. Andrade
(Kickoff Show)

How come the cruiserweight title could never get this much time on the pre-show?

With how last-minute and throwaway this match seemed I was not expecting much from it at all, I was expecting about 7 minutes of good, but not great action that served pretty much no purpose whatsoever. What we instead got was a 13-minute match between two guys with great chemistry who made the most of the opportunity that was before them by putting on a really fun match.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing that’s going to set the world on fire, but in a show like this with so much dull crap, I was overjoyed that a match I initially thought nothing of turned into something very enjoyable. I’m not sure what kind of story they’re looking to tell with Andrade & Vega, but I imagine it’ll amount to nothing, much like this mini push they’ve decided to give Humberto, maybe he’ll get to do something cool in the Rumble match.

Still, whether this is the start of something great for Humberto or just a flash in the pan, I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

1 – Aleister Black def. Buddy Murphey

So it turns out when you take two really good wrestlers and just let them wrestle instead of forcing pointless gimmicks upon them, it’s actually really good, who knew?

As I think most of us expected, these two gelled really well in the ring. Black’s style of offence has always been very strike-based which was something Murphey was able to bounce off of very well. This match had a bit of everything, from fast-paced action that looked incredibly impressive, to slow and hard-hitting strikes that genuinely caused me to exclaim at a couple of points.

There is the issue that this match had no build to it at all, especially since we hadn’t seen Black wrestle in any noteworthy spot since June, however, I’d be ok with him having a bunch of matches like this if there was any kind of consistency to it. Every time we get a little taste of Aleister Black like this it reminds me how much I love him as a wrestler and I want to see so much more of him; the same goes for Buddy Murphey too if I’m being honest.

So in short, great match, but give me MORE!

And there you have it! Those were my thoughts on WWE TLC 2019, thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, please let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday, where I’ll be running down the best “old” games that I played for the first time in 2019!

WWE Survivor Series 2019: Every Match Ranked

I’ve mentioned before how I think that Survivor Series has been the most consistently great Pay-Per-View of the last few years and that streak certainly continued tonights. I have my gripes, as I always do, but looking through the whole show I can honestly say there wasn’t a single match I didn’t like. I was worried that having WarGames so close would potentially hamper the NXT contingent of this show, but the whole thing seemingly went off without a hitch, which is a very pleasant surprise indeed.

Still, we’ve got 10 matches to get through here and I’ve got a lot to say about some of them, so let’s get on with it.

10 – Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler won the Tag Team Battle Royal
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)
(Kickoff Show)

Like a lot of the battle royals we’ve seen this year (because come to think of it, we’ve seen A LOT of battle royals this year) this one had no faults, but there’s also nothing in particular worth praising about it. It was a pretty standard formula, the eliminations came thick and fast in the early stages before things slowed down a bit and there was more wrestling when there we just a few teams left.

I would’ve preferred if someone other than Ziggler & Roode won, but given that this was just here as a way to pad-out the scorecard for Smackdown, then I can’t really find it in me to condemn it for being a bad decision, it’s not like anyone’s going to remember this match come Friday.

9 – Brock Lesnar(c) def. Rey Mysterio
(WWE Championship)
(No Holds Barred)

I do love a good family outing.

The layout of this match and the general pacing of it felt incredibly similar to Lesnar vs Bryan from last year’s show and, to a certain extent, it gave me the same sort of feelings, however, this was all crammed into 7 minutes instead of being given 20.

The opening 4-5 minutes were what you’d expect from a Brock Lesnar match, he was throwing Rey around and generally looking like a monster, however, that all turned around and the match got exciting once Rey’s son Dominic – of all people – showed up and turned the tides. It may have been a tad cheesy, but I enjoyed Dominic’s involvement in the match, everyone seems to be fully aware of Lesnar’s glowing weak spot that is his balls at this point and they make no bones about exploiting it. Then there was the double 619 which, once again, cheesy but fun.

I wish the match had gone a bit longer and Rey’s comeback had been given a little more time to breathe, but I still came away from this match feeling satisfied with what I watched and looking forward to this potentially going somewhere new in the near future.

8 – Team Smackdown def. Team Raw & Team NXT
(5 on 5 on 5 Men’s Elimination Tag)

The two elimination tag matches of the show are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what can be done with these kinds of matches and unfortunately, this was towards the low end. It had some redeeming features, which I’ll get to in a moment but it most certainly had its problems too.

First off, there were WAY too many quick eliminations, nevermind whether or not it’s someone I like, you had Riddle, Preist, WALTER, Orton, Gable and Owens all eliminated within 5 minutes of each other, which is ridiculous. I get that you’ve gotta have 14 pinfalls in a match, but there was a much better way to pace them than this, which the other elimination tag match on the show proved. My biggest gripe was the straight-up inconsistency in the rules, because in this match there were no countouts…except for when Braun Strowman got eliminated by countout; after that elimination, Ciampa, Rollins & Reigns all spent a lot of time outside of the ring while still being the legal man towards the end of the match and suddenly there was no count, which really irked me.

However, I still came away from this match feeling like I enjoyed the experience and that is because the closing 10 minutes of the match were great. When it was down to Rollins, Reigns, Ciampa & Lee the match really picked up in quality, the focus went away from spamming finishers and quick pins, to proper, fast-paced wrestling and it was very enjoyable. Not to mention that we got to see a star-making performance from Keith Lee, the final few minutes with him and Reigns going back and forth were something else and I’d very much like to see a full match of that in the future. Even though Lee didn’t win, he came out of this match with his stock undeniably raised which is brilliant.

As much as I loved that final segment, it was only about a third of the match and the preceding two-thirds weren’t great and, on a show with so many good-to-great matches, that unfortunately lands it down in 8th place.

7 – Lio Rush(c) def. Kalisto & Akira Tozowa
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)
(Kickoff Show)

I think from now on, the Cruiserweight Championship should be exclusively defended in Triple Threat matches because these are always great.

Lio Rush is such a human highlight reel at this point, the stuff he is able to do when he’s let off the leash is so much fun to watch. When the pace of the match looked to be slowing slightly, Rush was ready to jump right back in and accelerate it all back up to fever pitch and keep it there pretty much the whole way.

Tozowa & Kalisto put in great performances to and I’m very pleased because it’s been so long since I’ve been able to say that about Kalisto. Kalisto specifically seemed to have really good chemistry with Rush, then I noticed that he was able to keep pace with Rush slightly better than Tozowa was and watching the pair of them go back and forth was an absolute joy.

Now 205 Live is moving to Full Sail, I’m most certainly going to get back into watching it because if we’re going to be getting stuff like this every week, it’s going to be the most must-watch show in the business.

6 – Shayna Baszler def. Becky Lynch & Bayley
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

This was inarguably a good match, but I can’t help but feel a tad disappointed.

The pace for this one was slightly slower and I thought that was mostly to its benefit. Every move felt very deliberate and it gave the impression that each woman had really done their homework on their opponents. It was also a pace that let Baszler absolutely shine, she was effortlessly taking control of the match the whole way through and it made things all the more exciting when Becky or Bayley suddenly got a burst of offence.

The disappointment I was referring to comes from the finish because I feel like the match ended a few minutes too soon. When Shayna locked in that Kirifuda Clutch on Bayley it felt to me like the final act of the match was just getting going, I didn’t think that the fairly naff looking table spot would’ve been enough to keep Becky down and we’d get a final burst of back and forth between the three women before the match ended. Instead, Bayley just tapped out and that was that. Then there was what happened after the bell where Becky put Shayna through a table, which achieved nothing. It didn’t send the crowd home happy because the Chicago crowd were VERY happy about Baszler’s win, it didn’t help Becky because she just looked like a sore loser and it definitely didn’t help Shayna because she got her victory undercut and that was how the show ended, it was a tad deflating.

However, I’m not going to let a relatively minor complaint takeaway too much from the fact that this was a really good match overall. The pacing was spot on, every woman got a chance to shine and ultimately, I’d say the right woman came out the victor.

5 – Roderick Strong(c) def. Shinsuke Nakamura & AJ Styles
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

This is the point in the list where we get to the matches that I have little-to-none in terms of complaints and how I rank them comes down purely to personal preference.

I don’t think there was any ever doubt about how good this match was going to be, you’ve got three pure wrestlers who are very good at what they do and they used the triple threat formula to great advantage in this instance. To say that everyone got a chance to shine is somewhat of an understatement, whether it was intentional or not, all three of these men looked like staunch equals the whole way through the match and a lot of that was thanks to the balance that was struck between each of their times on offence.

All three men had great chemistry when the match broke down into one on one fights and it made the occasional periods where all three of them were in the ring at once feel all the more hectic and fun. I wasn’t expecting Roddy to win at all but I thought how this went down worked for both Strong’s character and the running theme throughout the night of NXT winning their matches by being intelligent and tactical.

Nothing more to say really, this was just a really great triple threat match.

4 – The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c) def. Daniel Bryan
(WWE Championship)

Ok, the red lighting worked for Hell in a Cell, but it’s gotten pretty old now.

This match wasn’t the wrestling clinic that we got between these two in 2014, but that’s because it’s not what this match was meant to be. The more I think about it, the weirder it would be for The Fiend to put on a tense, back and forth 20 minute clinic, instead The Fiend just needs to go in and execute his unique style and it’s how the opponent responds and adapts to it that makes for both an interesting match and an interesting story. Enter Daniel Bryan.

I know the story beats in the lead up to this match were minimal at best, but Bryan did everything in his power to make them feel like a big deal in this match and at least somewhat succeeded. Bryan did a fantastic job of selling the beating he was taking from The Fiend and things got even better when he started to mount his comeback, seeing Bryan go back to wrestling a full face style after so long was a joy to watch, including the biggest Yes! chant we’ve seen since Bryan’s return last year.

It would’ve been nice if this match had got a bit more time, but I’m not entirely sure it needed it. I think it got in, told its story very efficiently and hit all the right beats to be exciting and got out before it started to drag on.

3 – Team NXT def. Team Raw & Team Smackdown
(5 on 5 on 5 Women’s Elimination Tag)

This match was the polar opposite of the men’s elimination tag match. While the men’s match had way too many quick eliminations and basically no wrestling until the final segment, this match paced all of its eliminations really well, leveraging the story points it had to great effect, and built to a great climax.

What I loved about this match is that, even though there were 15 competitors, everyone got a chance to look good and have some sort of spot in the match. Be it, Sarah Logan, looking like a legit beast for the first time ever, Io Shirai & Kairi Sane having a face-off that makes me to incredibly sad we never got that match in NXT like we were supposed to, or even Carmella leaping around trying to get attention; everyone got a chance to stand out.

The eliminations felt earned instead of being quick and cheap, it avoided annoying everyone because they weren’t “out of nowhere”. It also meant that a match-long story was able to build itself up, with NXT going two down early on and being forced to pick their spots until by the end they had the numbers advantage. I liked Asuka’s role in the match, going absolutely ape-shit after Kairi got eliminated, culminating in causing Charlotte to get eliminated with the mist.

If we’re talking about individual performances though, we’ve got to talk about Rhea Ripley. If we look at Smackdown on Friday, WarGames on Saturday and now the match last night, Ripley has gone from “sort of popular babyface, but it’s probably just a flash in the pan” to “This woman is a made star”. The pop when she first got tagged into the match and eventually won was huge and when it comes to having their stock elevated, no-one has done better for themselves this weekend than Rhea Ripley, I cannot wait to see her and Baszler go at it for the title.

2 – The Viking Raiders def. The New Day & The Undisputed Era
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)
(Kickoff Show)

To sum up my thoughts on this match in a single character: !

Viking Raiders & Undisputed Era have always had great chemistry from their time together in NXT, so this match takes those two teams and throw in The New Day a team who can have a top-quality tag team match with damn-near anyone, this thing was an absolute blast from start to finish.

The Viking Raiders were seemingly always in the mix during the match and quite frankly this match has done more favour for them than all of their previous RAW matches combined. Watching Erik(or Ivar, I honestly have no idea) facing down Big E was an absolute joy, only heightened with how sneaky and opportunistic Undisputed Era played it. The psychology was there too, with UE spending the whole match targeting all their opponent’s leg.

A little upset that Kofi Kingston has gone from 180 days as WWE Champion to the least important man in this 6 man tag on the pre-show, but that fact doesn’t take away from how great this thing was.

The pacing was spot-on the whole way through this thing too, it started off quite fast and tense, before slowing it down around the middle with UE and Viking Raiders having an extended sequence together, it lengthened out the build to the inevitable breakdown towards the end, making it all the most exciting when it finally hit. The whole finishing sequence was great fun, I loved UE going hell-for-leather taking out The New Day only to have to suddenly stop in order to not get flatted by The Viking Raiders, even if they ended up being unsuccessful.

This is how good tag team wrestling can be in WWE, I would very much like more of it.

1 – Adam Cole(c) def. Pete Dunne
(NXT Championship)

No points for guessing this match would top the list.

Despite both of these men (especially Cole) going through long and gruelling matches last night, this match didn’t feel like it suffered from that one bit. Cole has undeniably been the MVP of this whole “NXT Invasion” angle and this match only solidified that statement as, not only did he make sure that WarGames the previous night didn’t drag him down, he worked it to his advantage and made it add something to the match.

These two guys were always going to have fantastic chemistry in this match and they did not disappoint in the slightest, both men made sure to show the effects the WarGames match had on their bodies and it made for a match where every move felt very hard-hitting and the way both would sell every little injury like a big deal did so much to elevate this match to the fantastic bout it was.

It wasn’t fast and furious because it didn’t need to be, instead it focused on moves that gave the highest impact possible, including a God-damned Panama Sunrise on the God-damned ring apron, that looked brutal. The whole finishing sequence damn near blew my mind with how it turned out, I’ve watched it over ten times now and I still can’t work out how the two of them managed to pull off the Bitter End into Panama Sunrise spot, it was certainly something too behold and was a fantastically exciting way to end the match.

So there you have it! Those are my thoughts on Survivor Series! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, please let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday where I’ll be running down my favourite new Pokemon from Sword & Shield!

The Circle 2019 Review

Most people in my life wouldn’t see me as the type of person to watch reality TV and for the most part, they’d be right; but there’s one exception. Last year, a friend of mine introduced me to a new reality show on Channel 4 in the UK called The Circle where the basic concept is this: It takes the Big Brother format of throwing personalities in a house to see what happens, but the twist is that the people never actually meet. Instead, they can only communicate through a messaging system known as “The Circle”, this means that people can literally be whoever they want and no-one will ever know and I think it’s brilliant.

They always get a nice mix of genuine people and catfish for the show and watching them all interact and slowly all grow suspicious of each other is extremely compelling TV, amplified by the fact that eliminations aren’t down to public vote, instead the participants rank each other from their most to least favourite person and then the most popular people decide who to eliminate (or “block”).

I loved watching the show last year and the now the second season has recently come to an end, I can say the show is going from strength to strength, there were a couple of tweaks to the format this year, most of which I think were positive, and the personalities on the show have become a lot more pronounced and varied than the original season. Probably due to the success of the first season giving the producers a much larger number of applicants.

The first change is how the ratings are done. For those unaware, in the 2018 season players rated each other out of 5 stars, everyone’s star ratings would then be averaged out to create the rankings. While this system was fine for the most part, it meant that the finals were entirely decided by 3 of the participants rating everyone tactically low and 1 person rating honestly, essentially handing the win to their favourite player. The change to a ranking system completely avoids that problem, since now everyone has to give top marks to someone else, but it doesn’t kill the tactical element of putting people higher up that you think are on your side.

There was also the weekly votes, which gave the general public a chance to influence the game by deciding things like, who should be the next new player? or who should get the power to block anyone they want? I thought they were a nice way to bring in a level of audience interaction without unfairly affecting the game too much. Speaking of the weekly live shows, they were a bit hit and miss, the first one was awful as the live segments ate up so much time on the show that it barely felt like anything happened with the players, however in later weeks they adjusted the format, got rid of the celebrity interviews and instead focused on talking to blocked players & hyping the votes which was much more entertaining.

Of course, what really makes a show like this entertaining to watch, is the people so I’m going to run down what I thought of each of the players in the order they were blocked. I’m not going to judge them as people, because that just seems rather mean, I’m instead going to talk about how they played the game and how they affected my enjoyment of the show.

Emelle, Age 31: Playing herself, but straight and age 24 – Given that Emelle was only around for two episodes of the show, it’s honestly hard to say much about her. I think she had exactly the right kind of personality for the show and I think that had she made it past this first blocking, she would’ve become quite a popular person amongst the group. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be as Sammie correctly identified her as a threat early on and made sure to kick her out as fast as possible, which from a tactical standpoint, was absolutely the right move given the powerhouse she could’ve become.

Sy, Age 35: Playing himself – He’s a farmer, that’s just about all we ever found out about him. Sy was one of those people that I didn’t have any kind of dislike for, but he also never stood out amongst the other players. Ultimately his one-note presentation of himself was what got him blocked and I can’t say I expected him to go much further. In those early stages of the competition, he felt like such an afterthought compared to the other players, who all had extremely strong personalities, ultimately I just think he was never going to last very long regardless.

Richard Madeley, Age 63: Playing “Judy”, a 27-year-old woman – Yes, THAT Richard Madeley. I was a bit apprehensive about a celebrity being inserted into The Circle this year, I was worried the producers would focus too heavily on them and it would drown out the other players, but this was handled really well.

For one thing, Richard was a great choice of person to bring in, he’s got a very down-to-earth personality and being a presenter he found it very easy to connect with people and come across like a proper player of the game, not a gimmick. On top of that, his role in the game was handled very well, allowing him to become a member of the group before hitting him with the secret mission to get himself blocked. It meant he was able to get in the best of his personality and really add to the game, then removing him from the game before it became a tired act. Funnily enough, though, I actually think he could’ve gotten quite far if he was allowed to keep playing nice.

Katie, Age 43: Playing “Jay”, her 25-year-old son – I’m of two minds with Katie, because for the longest time, she did quite a good job of fitting in as “one of the lads”. There was plenty of cringes to go around, but for quite a while there weren’t many people holding suspicions of her, she made a lot of allies in there, only amplified that she still managed to land 4th in the ratings where she got blocked. Ultimately her stumbling block was going into too much detail and not quite preparing properly for the wave of questions thrown back at her and once people started asking her specific questions about being a builder, the game was over for her. She wasn’t necessarily one of the strongest personalities, but I think she added something to the game in the time she was there.

Brooke, Age 24/25: Playing herself – At the start, I honestly thought Brooke would be a contender to win, she got right in there early on, made friends with everyone and made sure to get her personality across as much as possible, unfortunately after the first week or so, she faded into the background completely and never recovered. She became somewhat of a supporting player to the people who had started leading the charges in games & group chats and ultimately became a bit boring to watch. She stopped being featured as heavily with her private chats (which isn’t entirely her fault but they obviously weren’t interesting enough to make TV) and with almost every group chat her contributions were pretty inconsequential so I’m not surprised that the other players got bored with her. Maybe she’d have gotten much further if she’d kept that energy she brought early on, but for whatever reason, it didn’t happen.

Jack & Beth, Age 29: Playing “Joyce”, a 62-year-old woman – So let’s get this out of the way first, as solo players in the game, they were boring and I’m not surprised they got blocked as quickly as they did. However, when they got the opportunity to come back as a duo and play Joyce they became extremely entertaining to watch.

Putting the extreme amounts sexual tension between them aside, it was very interesting to watch them going through the feeling out process of working as a team and creating Joyce’s personality (as they had no time to prepare, unlike the other catfish). Unfortunately for them, this led to some pretty major stumbles early on and once the seed of doubt was in people’s minds it was impossible to remove, even if they did become quite good at playing the character towards the end. While I wouldn’t want it to become more common in later seasons, I enjoyed watching these two work as a pair, the way they were able to bounce off each other made them feel like much stronger personalities than when they were on their own and I’d even go as far as to say that they might’ve been quite successful if they had more than an hour to prepare Joyce’s character.

Busayo, Age 24: Playing “Josh”, a 24-year-old man – Did anyone tell Busayo this was a game about being popular? Because I honestly don’t think she knew based on how she played the game. She wasn’t as bad as someone like Precious from the first season, who was extremely confrontational, but it seemed like she didn’t have any idea how to deal with shade being thrown her way.

She’s someone who I genuinely think would’ve done much better on the show as herself, because the way she played Josh meant that there was no personality injected into the character whatsoever and she couldn’t make any real connections with people, so no-one wanted to save her. There were several times where she put her foot in it and made it very obvious she was a catfish, including confronting the whole group about it at one point which was honestly the stupidest move possible and is what sealed her fate.

I also can’t get over how fed up she looked at the finals.

Jan, Age 58: Playing herself – I don’t really know what to say about Jan, because we found out so little about her. Entering as late as she did (a week before the final) seems like such a curse, the blockings come thick and fast in that final week as the players are whittled down from 9 to 4 and it means Jan had absolutely no time to create any connections that were anywhere near as deep as the ones everyone else had built with each other over a longer period of time. I honestly can’t say whether I think she would’ve done well or not given more time because this brief glimpse we got of her didn’t show us much of anything about her, she’s a victim of circumstance and it’s a shame it had to happen like it did.

Ella, Age 24: Playing herself – SHE WAS JUST SO NICE.

Seriously, I don’t think I need to say anything more about her, she was on a mission in The Circle to spread positivity everywhere she went. I won’t lie, I initially wasn’t a fan, she came across as a bit much to me and it felt like she was trying too hard, but once I got used to her and she got more comfortable in the environment I couldn’t help but adore this unabashedly kind and genuine person.

She was a victim of the game as it happened, you can be nice to everyone all you like, but in a game like The Circle where the whole point is to be as popular as possible, that kind of attitude is going to make other players think you’re being tactical. I wish I could’ve been there to see exactly what the deciding factor was when Georgina & Tim made their decision to block her and that shot of her face as she saw Georgina walk into her room and knowing she was blocked is perhaps the most heartbreaking image of the whole series.

I wish she could’ve made it into the finals and even though she got taken down by people who thought she was something she wasn’t, it doesn’t take away from the fact that she was an absolute joy to watch and gave the whole show a much more positive atmosphere whenever she was on screen.

Woody, Age 18: Playing himself – Could pretty much copy/paste what I said about Ella and it’d cover my exact sentiment on Woody, it’s no wonder they were such good friends.

Woody had this combination of youthful optimism and down to Earth vibe that made watching him interact with everyone a really pleasant experience. It’s not quite like with Ella where I was constantly awwing and how nice he was being, watching him talk was just such a calming and positive experience in so many ways. Not only did he honestly and seriously try to be as friendly as possible to absolutely everyone, but he also didn’t have a shred of naivete about him, he was constantly on the ball when it came to sniffing out the bullshit and still did his damndest to turn all of it into a positive.

When the last few days of the series came down and the intensity was ramping up thanks to things that we’ll get into in just a moment, Woody remained a breath of fresh air and ultimately seem unburdened by it all. He’s got the kind of attitude towards everyone else around him that I would love to have, but in reality, I think I’d be a lot more like…

James, Age 26: Playing “Sammie”, a single mother – I don’t think this series would’ve been half as interesting as it was without this man. He was able to put us through the full run of emotions, being manipulative and tactical, riling us all up in one moment, before having some really heartfelt moments and bringing on the emotion hard.

I prefer this version of catfishing to Alex’s – who played as “Kate” in series one – because Alex deliberately made Kate a person with a less distinguished personality, there were plenty of jokes about Kate being a “fence-sitter” and it was entirely by design. James playing Sammie, on the other hand, went fully into this character he had created and did a damn good job of it too. Watching James chat with other people was always fascinating to watch because it always came across like he had full confidence in what he was doing, it was the complete opposite of Katie playing Jay, he never had any hesitation or doubts in what he was going to say to people and it made things all the more interesting when he decided to turn the heat up.

Yes, it was cheesy. Yes, the spark that caused it was incredibly petty but by God, if I wasn’t enthralled by the goings-on with “The Circle Revolution”. Perhaps my favourite segment of the whole series was James and Tim going head to head in that penultimate blocking. It was so unbelievably tense as these two incredibly dominant personalities pushed up against each other extremely hard to try and topple the other.

Like him if you can; Hate him if you must; But don’t for a second try to tell me he wasn’t entertaining.

Georgina, Age 21/22: Playing herself – My opinion on Georgina went back and forth so much over the course of the series and I’m honestly still not sure if I liked her or not.

Early on she was wonderful, she was never timid and always made sure that her voice stood out amongst everyone else’s and the connections she made with people like Brooke and Tim meant she’d always be able to bring the most amount of fun from everyone around her at all times. Then Brooke got blocked. Naturally, she was quite ticked-off by this as they were extremely close and I think from that point onwards, she became notably less cheery. It felt for a little while like she was just floating around aimlessly, putting negative spins on everything everyone said until the Circle of Trust came about and seemingly filled her with a whole new burst of energy.

Going into the finals, I was just about expecting her to win over everyone else and when push comes to shove, I don’t think the game would’ve been the same without her. She didn’t have a gimmick, she wasn’t “quirky”, she was just a regular woman and in a Circle full of somewhat over the top personalities, it meant she added a lot to the viewing experience.

Viewers’ Champion – Tim, Age 58: Playing Himself

Tim’s the kind of person that we think all old men are like when we’re young. He’s got a big beard, a warm smile, a thick Southern-English accent and the most eccentric attitude it’s possible for a person to have. Every word that comes out of that man’s mouth puts such a smile on my face thanks to the sheer joy that he pours into every sentence.

Not only that, but he was easily the sharpest mind in terms of working out what’s going on with everyone else in The Circle. Nothing ever slipped past him and the moment he had a string, he’d tug on it hard to see if anything came tumbling down with it. Watching his mind whir as he interrogated so many of the people he suspected to be catfish was so interesting as he always knew the right way to come at them, like exposing Katie by asking for building advice (since “Jay” was supposed to be a builder) or constantly pushing James to talk about Sammie’s fiction son Charlie, especially as James was trying to distance himself from that side of the character.

He filled a role in The Circle that I don’t think anyone else ever could, the energy he had was truly one of a kind and although I didn’t vote for him (I voted for Woody), he is incredibly deserving of being crowned the Viewers’ Champion.

Winner – Paddy, Age 31: Playing Himself

Going into the finals, I didn’t think Paddy was going to win and I didn’t really want Paddy to win, but now he has won and I’ve seen the breakdown of the final rankings, I think he’s a very deserving winner.

Paddy always had a touch of everything to him throughout the whole show. He could bring the happiness just as hard as anyone else in there (especially when he was lusting after Jack), then he’d be able to bring the emotion, having some really sweet conversations with Georgina, Sammie and the whole group at one point. My favourite side to Paddy though is when he decides he wants to throw a punch because boy does he go all in. When he fired that shot at Josh, heavily implying they were a catfish while not even in anonymous mode I almost whooped right out of my seat. Not only that, but when Sammie presented the idea of the “The Revolution” to him, there wasn’t even a hint of hesitation before he decided he wanted in.

I get why people might not be happy with Paddy winning given that he only joined halfway through the series, but the fact of the matter is, he got in there, made friends with the right people, wasn’t afraid to show his true colours (mostly pink) and made real bonds with everyone left in there. You don’t get rated 1st,1st,2nd & 2nd “by accident” as Twitter seems to be saying.

Paddy had a personality just as strong as anyone else in The Circle and made sure to let it shine through at every opportunity, his presence had a great effect on the other players and he added a lot to the show because of that, I couldn’t think of a more perfect description of a deserving winner.

And that’s my thoughts on The Circle 2019! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and let me know what you thought of this year’s show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Make sure you come back this weekend where I’ll be running down my favourite championship designs in WWE!

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Every Match Ranked

Going into this show, I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming out of it Monday morning and now I’m sitting here beginning to type up this review, I honestly still don’t know how I feel. This show was filled with a lot of nothing, which I suppose is to be expected when you shovel 5 matches onto the show mere hours before it’s set to begin (and in one case, less than an hour).

That said, the matches that were noteworthy had quite a lot to them, which admittedly just be because we have the last-minute matches to compare them to but still. Then, of course, there’s how the show ended and the outrage it’s caused (don’t worry, I’ll get to it). I guess it’s time to take a dive in and rank every match from Hell in a Cell 2019.

9 – Natalya def. Lacey Evans
(Kickoff Show)

No points for guessing where this one would land…

I honestly don’t know what to tell you about this match, it’s my least favourite wrestler in WWE right now wrestling someone who doesn’t seem to be improving at all despite being given all the opportunities in the world. The match was slow, sloppy and boring, the commentators keep talking about how heated a rivalry this is, but I honestly couldn’t even tell you why it is they’re fighting and that’s after going back and looking for reasons from Raw.

Still, apparently, it’s heated enough to warrant a Last Woman Standing match tonight, can’t wait to see if Natalya can beat Lacey after watching Natalya beat Lacey

8 – The Viking Raiders & Braun Strowman def.     The OC via Disqualification

Someone did tell Vince McMahon this wasn’t an episode of Raw right?

As I sat down to write this article, I realised that not only had I forgot who won this match, but that it even happened full stop. For the most part, it was perfectly fine, but this is the exact kind of match we’ve come to expect from Raw main events that mean literally nothing, even while they’re happening. The match was at least fairly fun to watch and it probably would have landed a place or two higher if it wasn’t for the god-awful finish.

Not only was it a pointless DQ finish, but it was also the worst kind of DQ finish, where the ref just decided “No! You’re wrestling TOO MUCH!” and calls for the bell, it’s never made sense to me and it didn’t help anyone here. Utterly pointless.

7 – Chad Gable def. King Corbin

Do you get the joke? It’s because Chad Gable’s not as tall as Baron Corbin, which makes him somehow inferior. High-brow stuff I know, I didn’t get it until the 47th time they repeated it.

Extremely tired short jokes aside, this was an ok match. It got more time than I was expecting it to and both men put in a good effort to justify this spot, the only problem is I just don’t have the capacity to care because I’ve seen this match twice a week for the past three weeks now and if the backstage segment after the match is any indication, we’ll be seeing it again tonight.

It feels unfair because it’s not the fault of either man in the ring that no forethought went into any part of this show, but it’s the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.

6 – Randy Orton def. Ali

I’ve been pretty snarky about these last-minute matches so far, but this is the first one that I can honestly say I enjoyed.

I can’t say I was (or ever am) expecting much from the show’s Randy Orton match, but god-damn if Ali didn’t work his ass off trying to make it entertaining. Ali’s style of offence worked surprisingly well with Orton, who didn’t spend much of the match on offence in hindsight, Ali made sure to keep the pace fairly fast outside of one part where Orton decided to work a chin lock for about 3 minutes.

Then, there was one of the coolest looking RKO counters I’ve seen in a long time, with Ali going along with the move only to pull off a handstand at the last minute. However, it was all for nothing when Orton hit the RKO and won the match anyway, but it was a cool moment. Contrary to what I’ve been saying so far in this article, I wouldn’t mind seeing this one again with a longer runtime.

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

This is one of those situations where I enjoyed this match, but at the same time I know these two can do better, so I’m a bit disappointed.

It might be due to the fact that this match got less time than both Orton/Ali & Gable/Corbin, but I couldn’t help coming away from this match a tad underwhelmed. There was still a fair amount to like though, including Bayley’s dominance for a large portion of the match, which is the first time she’s actually looked like a competent wrestler against Charlotte in ages, and to my surprise Charlotte did a pretty good job of wrestling as the face in this match, it’s become so easy to see her as a heel in every situation that I was honestly taken aback when I saw how she was wrestling.

I also don’t mind Charlotte winning, if the other women’s title match had gone the other way then I might’ve complained, but given where I think this storyline is going to go in the coming months (I’ll talk about that when I talk about Sasha vs Becky) I don’t have a problem with it for now. It’s just a bit of a shame that Bayley’s title reign was rather an unremarkable one outside of the moment she won it.

4 – The Kabuki Warriors def. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c)
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Say what you want about this show, Kairi Sane won her first championship on the main roster and I’m never going to be unhappy about that.

If it wasn’t for the finish, then this match probably would’ve been a few places lower, because while I enjoyed the action of the match, it wasn’t anything special for the most part. I liked Nikki’s seeming omnipresence in the match, as she seemed to be involved in just about everything that happened in the match, which could lead to a good storyline now her and Alexa have lost the titles.

The finish is where the main attraction of the match is though, with Asuka unloading a green mist in Nikki’s face to win the titles. With any luck, this means we get a more heelish Asuka, perhaps even pitting her at odds with Kairi, who didn’t seem aware of what Asuka did to win the titles. With any women’s tag title win though, I have to ponder whether any of this will matter when they inevitably don’t get featured on TV for a month.

3 – Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt ended in a No Contest
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Ok…here goes.

Imagine, if you will, the most amazing gymnastics routine you could possibly think of, incredible flips and spins, the likes of which you never even thought were possible. Now imagine the gymnast landing sideways on their ankle, breaking their arms as they attempt to cushion their fall and cracking their skull open on the mat. That’s roughly the story of this main event.

I really struggled to find a place for this match and in the end, this felt right. Everyone’s going to focus on the finish – and I’ll talk about that in just a moment – but the thing is, everything leading up to it was BRILLIANT. Honestly, the only thing I’d change about that match is the referee throwing it out, I would absolutely keep everything else from before and after the match, exactly the same. The red lighting was a bit gaudy, but I think it worked in this instance, the atmosphere of the whole match was this tense and terrifying feeling that was absolutely fantastic, a feeling that was helped out by the slower pace.

Admittedly, making the Curb Stomp look like the most ineffective finisher in the world might’ve been a silly thing to do, but it made The Fiend look amazing when he kicked out at one after taking about 8 of them. Even the stuff after the match where he popped up to take out Rollins looked brilliant as all of the referees scattered from the ring. The Fiend is still something amazing and unique…but that finish WAS NOT the right way to handle this.

I think the level of outrage we’re currently seeing online over this is a bit much, especially considering this almost definitely is just the first chapter of the story, however, I sympathise with the frustration and I feel it myself. Two years in a row now, we’ve had a Hell in a Cell match end in a no contest, going completely against the whole point of the stipulation and it’s getting ridiculous, but it’s especially bad in this instance considering that after the referee threw the match out, it became clear that the sledgehammer to the head didn’t hurt The Fiend at all. I love the idea of telling the story that The Fiend is driving Rollins to an extremely dark place, but throwing out the match was a bad way to go about it.

Unlike most of Twitter though, I think this can still be saved and I’m confident that we’re nowhere near done with this story and I honestly think writing it off a disaster this soon does everyone involved a disservice.

2 – Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan def. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper
(Tornado Tag Team Match)

In amongst all the terrible last-minute additions to this show, the stipulation of a tornado tag match here turned out to be a stroke of brilliance.

This match didn’t quite blow me away but I still had a lot of fun watching it. Roman Reigns is always at his best in matches where he can be the exclamation point, not being in action the whole time gives his high-impact offence a lot more weight and it great fun to watch. On top of that, it was refreshing to see Daniel Bryan wrestle a face style for the first time in quite a while. I particularly liked the sequence towards the middle of the match where he was alone again both Harper & Rowan, kicking wildly as they bore down on him trying to break free.

I also enjoyed the big spots of the match since none of them took ages to set up and the payoff is always great; sure, we could all see Roman’s Spear through the table coming a mile away, but it doesn’t make it look any less cool.

I’m not sure Roman & Bryan were the right choices to win, but ultimately I’m not all that fussed about it. Erick Rowan has shown he can stand on his own as a mid-card wrestler if you ask me and I don’t think any of us were ever in doubt of Harper’s abilities. I might’ve been good for Harper & Rowan if they’d won, but ultimately, if this is what it takes to end this feud, I’m not going to complain.

1 – Becky Lynch(c) def. Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Well, it’s nice to have something on the show that I don’t have to complain about.

I’m always trepidatious when Hell in a Cell rolls around, weapons-based wrestling is generally my least favourite form of the sport and I generally believe most competitors can put on higher quality matches without it, but I’m happy to say that this was really good, and I enjoyed it more than their encounter from Clash of Champions.

This match managed to avoid almost all of the pitfalls weapons matches can fall into, I though all of the spots looked impressive and impactful, while only one of them looked overly contrived – the chair on the kendo sticks – but I can forgive that because the result looked great and it was a rare example of a brand new spot in a Hell in a Cell match.

Although it’s not what I would’ve done, I don’t have a problem with Becky Lynch retaining, partly because I’ve loved Becky’s title reign and I’m happy to see it continue, but also because I have a hunch Sasha Banks is going to be making her way to Smackdown in this week’s draft after this loss and there’s some good story potential over there with Bayley. Although honestly, after all the mediocre-crap stuff on this show, I’m just happy there’s something I can say was genuinely very enjoyable.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back this Saturday where I’ll be talking about Celeste!

WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Every Match Ranked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So this was a weird one…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seth Rollins is just great at tag matches.

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

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

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

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

That aside, this match was great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A great performance with a botched landing.

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

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

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

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

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