Category: Review

Every Episode of Doctor Who Series 2 (2006) Ranked

Series 2 is an interesting one because it’s got episodes from all ends of the spectrum. While Series 1 didn’t have any episodes I hated, series 2 has a whole bunch of them, but it isn’t short of the usual brilliance either.

David Tennant naturally had a very different feeling to Ecclestone as The Doctor, and while I personally preferred Ecclestone, it’s undeniable that Tennant’s performance in this season drew a lot of new eyes to the show and is remembered very fondly by the audience at large because of this season.

Make sure you check out my rankings of series 1 first, but for the rest of you let’s take a look at my rankings of Series 2.

11 – Love & Monsters (Episode 10)

No prizes for guessing this one would be last.

When I was rewatching this I tried to go into it open-minded and to look through it and draw out all of the good in amongst the piles of awful, but there wasn’t really much to be found.

I’m gonna go through what I liked first, which is pretty much just the story with Jackie. Doctor Who has often tried to touch on what happens to those that get left behind, but it never normally gets enough time to breathe in order to be worthwhile. This episode lets us see that though, we were able to see Jackie without interference from The Doctor or Rose for once.

That loneliness is clear and the idea that she’s desperate just for someone to talk to is apparent, but we also get to see Jackie stand up for herself for pretty much the only time, and were able to see exactly what it is Jackie goes through day-to-day and that’s important to ground the character when she’s part of the adventure later on in the series.

Now to the crap…

There’s a lot to go through so I’m not going into too much detail; first the Absorbaloff. To quickly address the elephant in the room, I know that it was designed by a child in a contest, but that doesn’t make it any less bad. I don’t hate the idea of a monster that absorbs people, it could be quite scary if it’s done right, but this was not done right at all. The design is so unintimidating to the point where it’s comical, which didn’t help when they cast Peter Kay to play him, which isn’t an inherently bad decision, but he wasn’t helped by his supporting cast.

Which brings us to all of the humans in LINDA, who are all one note, boring and not particularly well acted. I found the man who played Elton to be extremely annoying, which I get was the point in some places, but it persisted even when the episode was trying to be serious. All I could think of whenever he was talking was how much I wanted to punch him in the face, and this guy is supposed to be your hero. It didn’t help that they were all idiots as well, who couldn’t seem to see what was right in front of their faces the entire time.

More importantly, with Elton, he doesn’t do ANYTHING. He just happens to be there while the world goes on around him. He stumbled upon The Doctor twice and doesn’t do anything either time, he only got in with Jackie because she engaged him, and The Doctor only showed up at the end to save him because of Jackie. I don’t have any reason to root for the guy because he’s done absolutely nothing of his own, he’s completely inconsequential to his own story.

There’s a whole bunch of more minor things that annoy me about this episode, like the vlog style of storytelling and that joke at the end of the episode, but I’ve gone on about this episode long enough, and I want to get to something better.

10 – Fear Her (Episode 11)

Fear Her is bad in a different way to Love & Monsters, because Love & Monsters was doomed from the premise alone, I can’t really see a way that any of the themes could’ve worked with different writing, however Fear Her touches on some really good ideas and has some themes that could make for an interesting story on their own, but they all seemed to get drowned out and forced to take a back foot to a lot of less good ideas the whole way through.

First off there’s Chloe and I’m not going to spend ages ragging on a child actress, but I really didn’t like the performance of Chloe in this episode and it really took away a lot of the emotional weight of the episode for me. The character is more interesting, because the episode touches on the fact that she used to have an abusive father in the house, which is quite a delicate topic and this episode really doesn’t treat it with the care it deserves (which is weird considering this was the second time in series 2 they’d tried this. they bungled it the first time too, but we’ll get to that.)

Granted the character is possessed for a large chunk of the episode, she doesn’t seem to act like a child in that situation would act. Maybe it was in the writing and just didn’t come across in the performance, but for the most part she just seemed to act like any other child would, she just seemed a bit angry was all.

Looking at the monster, I think the idea of people being trapped in drawings, and drawings coming to life is something that can be a pretty scary threat, but like with Love & Monsters, the execution didn’t really work. I liked the motivations of the monster, that it was just a child who was lost and lovely, and I even liked removing The Doctor from the picture about halfway through, but it didn’t do enough with any of these ideas.

9 – The Idiot’s Lantern (Episode 7)

The Idiot’s Lantern is an interesting one because while I don’t explicitly hate it, it does falter at multiple points.

The first and most notable of which is The Wire. The idea of a monster that lives in the TV and slowly eats your brain is something that I was never that keen on, and while the imagery of a person without a face is shocking the first couple of times you see it, it’s certainly nothing terrifying. Using the style of an old continuity announcer was a good way to present it, with a kind and smiling face that suddenly goes evil is pretty good, unfortunately, the actress they got to play The Wire could not do the evil side very well at all.

When she’s in continuity announcer mode, she’s very good in her role, and can even pull off the subtly sinister tone she sometimes spoke in very well. However, once the illusion broke and she had to start talking like a villain it completely fell apart for me. She would just constantly yell the most obnoxiously awful manner, and every time I heard her yell “huuuungrryyyyy” or “feeeeed meeee”, I just wanted to plug my ears because it was so annoying to listen to.

Outside of that, we have a secondary antagonist in the form of the controlling and manipulative father, who is perhaps one of the worst written characters ever in modern Doctor Who. For a start, he’s so over the top when it comes to his performance, to the point where it comes off more as comical than serious, and while the moment that the wife decides to kick him out is satisfying, it’s undercut not too long later by the interaction with the son.

The idea that the son has to go and help out his abusive and toxic father because “he’s your father” is something I really don’t like the message of. I understand that Doctor Who often tries to send out the message that everyone’s redeemable, and Rose grew up fatherless, but when a family member is as abusive and controlling as that father was presented to be, then you should be allowed to cut them the fuck out of your life. It pushes the idea that you have to always stick with your family no matter how horrible they are to you, which is something I fundamentally disagree with.

Ignoring the politics of it all though, what you’ve got is a fairly basic story where the mystery reveals itself way too soon, the monster is awful and none of the secondary characters have anything interesting about them. Not very interesting.

8 – New Earth (Episode 1)

New Earth was something fairly unique for the series, since we’d already got the new Doctor stuff out of the way in the Xmas special, and we didn’t have any new companions to worry about, Episode 1 of Series 2 didn’t need to focus on establishing any new characters and instead was able to give us a regular Doctor Who adventure.

In terms of the adventure itself it was fairly good, we had a whole bunch of mystery and weirdness that only Doctor Who can pull off in the right way, so there was plenty of fun to be had the whole way through. We even got a returning villain in the form of Cassandra, so people tuning back into the series after series 1 had plenty to enjoy.

The main thing that pulls me out of the episode though, is sadly David Tennant’s performance. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great, but he clearly hadn’t quite found his voice as The Doctor yet and it still felt like he was settling into the role. Thankfully this is the only episode in the series where I feel like this, but that doesn’t help New Earth since it arguably stands out more for that fact.

The Cassandra story also felt very secondary to everything else that was going on, and during the middle act of the episode, it felt entirely filler. I can understand why you’d want some form of recurring villain from Series 1 to tide over viewers, but for one thing, there were plenty better than Cassandra to chose from and for another, it really should’ve been the main focus of the episode instead of a side plot that admittedly pays off nicely at the end, but it could’ve been a lot more.

And that’s really all I have to say about New Earth, it’s fine, but doesn’t hold up compared to most other episodes of the series.

7 – The Christmas Invasion (2005 Xmas Special)

This is why I find Tennant’s performance in New Earth weird because although he didn’t do a whole lot in this episode, he seems to fit the role just as well as he would in his best episodes. Maybe he was more motivated by it being his first outing, but whatever, on to the episode.

The Christmas Invasion had a pretty big job, since, for those who had never watched the show before, the idea of a regeneration is brand new to them, so this episode had to convince an audience who had just spent a year falling in love with Christopher Ecclestone, that this new guy was just as good. It did a pretty good job if you ask me.

As with most of early revived Who, the show does a great job of taking the audience through it by presenting the process entirely through Rose’s eyes. We see her have to come to terms with the idea that this brand new man is still the same person she’d been falling in love with all this time. Not only that, but taking him out of action for most of the episode was also a brilliant idea, because it meant that we spent the whole episode longing for The Doctor to leap into action, so it meant that when he finally did we were extremely excited to see him, even if he was a brand new man.

Once again, this alien threat is very solidly OK in this episode. Davies’ Xmas specials were always written to be pretty simple light-hearted adventures for the stuffed British public of a Christmas evening. I actually quite liked the visual design of the Sycorax and it’s one of those villains that I wish we got to see again some time after this episode, but oh well.

Regardless of that, The Christmas Invasion does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and shows us that this brand new Doctor is still the fun-loving, intelligent hero that he was before, and got us ready for the new series.

6 – Tooth and Claw (Episode 2)

Now here’s the 10th Doctor we all know and love!

In the same way that New Earth was only as low as it was for Tennant’s lacklustre performance, Tooth and Claw is as high as it is because Tennant is just wonderful the whole way through.

Tennant’s trademark energy of The Doctor is one full display in this episode, to the point where he almost overshadows everything else in the thing. Watching him prance about the screen, yelling, whispering and generally being a joy to watch captures pretty much everything I loved about Tennant’s Doctor. He had this ability to take a mediocre script and make it an absolute joy to watch, and Tooth and Claw is perhaps the best example of this.

Queen Victoria was an interesting choice for the historical figure in this one. It made sense for the setting and gave an easy motivation to why the villains are doing their thing, but there’s nothing really unique here to distinguish why it HAD to be Queen Victoria. You could take out Victoria entirely and replace her with pretty much any women of high status from the time period and it would’ve been pretty much the same episode.

Usually, the main charm of the historical figure episodes is that the entire story is tailored around them. If you look at The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn & The Wasp or Vincent and The Doctor, the stories of their respective episodes would only ever work with that historical figure in particular. I just don’t get that feeling with this episode.

The Werewolf is actually a pretty threatening villain, and while it doesn’t exactly make your spine tingle, it does have moments where it blows you away with its pure power or viciousness.

Ultimately, while this episode does have some weak points, Tennant’s performance and the Werewolf itself combine to make what I think is a pretty fun adventure to watch.

5 – Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel
(Episodes 5 & 6)

I’m honestly surprised that this story landed as high as it did on the list because watching it at the time (and especially in the first part) it felt like a bit of a big spray of ideas, where a bit of everything got thrown at the wall all at once. That said, once the episode reels in its focus, it was very good at running with the ideas that stuck.

A parallel universe is something that is always a great premise for a sci-fi show because it lets the writers take a lot of liberties with the world we know, and opens everything up to a load of “what if” scenarios. I don’t think it was used to its full potential here, but it wasn’t necessarily the point of the episode when you take a look at the big picture.

It did, however, achieve some pretty important things: 1) Rose’s dad being alive, 2) It let us mess with London in a way that didn’t affect the real thing and most importantly 3) It gave Mickey the exact kind of character development he’d needed for so long.

Mickey had been a character that I’d always liked but was nothing special up until this point. He’d had his moments of course, but for the most part, he just came across as the jealous ex-boyfriend who was mostly comic relief. This episode gave him so much more character than we’d ever seen in him up to this point. We learn about his life, and exactly what it is he stands for, we get to watch everything click into place for him and work out what he wants to actually do with his life, it makes the moment at the end where he decides to stay quite heartbreaking, but also slightly triumphant since it was a character we have grown to know and love finally reaching his full potential.

This was also a very good reintroduction for the Cybermen, particularly the end of Rise of the Cybermen where they just wandered around killing everyone was great, and I remember being absolutely terrified by it as a kid. The second part could’ve done a bit more with that threat, and it never really felt like any of the characters were in any immediate danger except for when they got killed out of nowhere, but ultimately I think it worked for the story it was telling.

Funnily enough, I don’t think the Cybermen have been done anywhere near as well since this episode, it was an episode purely about showcasing what the Cybermen were about, and from that angle, I think it worked.

4 – The Army of Ghosts/Doomsday
(Episodes 12 & 13)

This is one of those rare instances in Doctor Who, where I very much prefer the first part to the second because I think The Army of Ghosts has a very good structure that Doomsday doesn’t capitalize on as well as it could have.

The Army of Ghosts is entirely about the mystery, while the episode is constantly presenting questions to the audience: Why are there ghosts? What are they really? What’s in the Sphere? Where can I watch the full Eastenders episode with the ghost in it? And while it gives you little bits throughout, it holds back on answering most of these questions for as long as it possibly can to maximize the impact it has at the end when all of these questions get their answers at once.

That final ten minutes when everything goes down is such a thrill ride, where you keep finding out shocking thing after shocking thing (it would’ve been a bit better if they didn’t show you a Cyberman earlier on in the episode, but oh well), and not only that but uses each shocking reveal to make the next one even more shocking. An army of Cybermen come through and invade Earth, so when the Sphere starts to go mental at the same time, you naturally assume some sort of Cyberking or something will be coming out of it, only for the camera to pan up and reveal the Daleks in what is such a brilliant cliffhanger.

My main problem with Doomsday is that, until the climax, it moves quite slowly. It takes it’s time presenting more mystery and questions, when really, once we’ve had our shocking reveals at the end of Army of Ghosts, the only real questions left should be: What do they want? and How do we stop them?, but instead so much time was dedicated to sitting around chatting, I just feel it should’ve been a lot more action-packed than it was.

That said, when it did pick up, it was very fun to watch indeed. The Daleks and the Cybermen going back on forth was pretty cool to see, even if it was a bit cheesy, but watching The Doctor caught in the middle of it all trying to make sense of what is going on and how to stop them.

Then we get Rose’s farewell, and while I’m not the biggest fan of Rose, I still find that the entire final sequence to be so emotionally charged and truly heartbreaking. In a way, the fact that Rose didn’t die kind of made it more heartbreaking because she was totally fine, living her life on a parallel world, but completely trapped and unable to ever see the love of her life again. I also want to give a special mention to the music here because “Doomsday” is perhaps my favourite track ever from Doctor Who and it adds so much to the scene.

It’s a finale where The Doctor takes the back foot for the most of it, but I think that somewhat adds to it, because it makes everything feel very chaotic, building to a big climax before crashing down into an upsetting goodbye.

3 – School Reunion (Episode 3)

Bringing back a classic companion was always going to be a difficult thing to achieve, the change in the style of writing from classic and new who risked potentially betraying the character in this new incarnation. I haven’t seen the largest amount of classic Sarah Jane, but I’ve seen enough to know what kind of a character she was.

So School Reunion comes along, and not only keeps the character consistent but adds much more to their story. We see through Sarah Jane what happens when The Doctor leaves his companions, which was something the ended up being pretty important for the new series since, at the time this episode was broadcast, we were yet to say goodbye to any long term companions.

It shows us the kind of life she led because of what The Doctor gave her, he changed the view of the world and now she’s investigating possible alien incursions all over the place, so naturally, she was going to run into The Doctor again eventually. It touched on the “Curse of the Time Lord” a point that would eventually come full circle in series 4, about how hard it is for The Doctor to spend his whole life losing people.

Not only this but when we look towards the villain of the episode, we have the brilliant actor Antony Head. The scene in the pool is such a tense scene watching these two wonderful actors just talking to each other, we still didn’t have the most fully formed idea of Tennant’s character just yet, and this was a great way to show how well he could play a serious Doctor.

Overall it led to an episode that managed to hit pretty much all the right notes at the right time as it progressed, and it allowed Sarah Jane to exists in the Doctor Who universe for a great spin-off show.

2 – The  Girl in the Fireplace – (Episode 4)

The idea of The Doctor popping in and out of someone’s life, while someone else is forced to take the “slow road”, is something that Moffat would explore with companions at various points in later seasons, but this episode is unique in that aspect, as it tells the story entirely focused around a single person which we’re introduced to for the first time in this episode.

I find myself connecting with Renette a lot more than I do with most one-off characters because the episode doesn’t need to take time out to explain the character’s backstory to us, instead it shows us exactly who she is, how she thinks and what she wants. Not only that, but it doesn’t need to rely on flashbacks or dream sequences because it cleverly weaves her entire life into the story because realistically, she IS the story in this episode.

Focussing your entire episode around one character that we’ll only ever meet this once can be quite the risk because it means the entire episode hinges on how good the character is, but luckily it pays off here because Renette is brilliant. She saw everything to with this story (clockwork monsters and The Doctor) when she was a child and while she stored it in the back of her mind, she never let herself get obsessed by it, we can clearly see that she’s mentally strong enough to move on with her life, while accepting that every now and then The Doctor and monsters will appear in her life, and disappear just as fast.

Not only that, but when she’s confronted with the world that The Doctor lives in, she flat out rejects it, she’s strong enough to understand what’s being going on in her world, but she has her limits, and that little detail makes her feel so much more like a real person.

Then there’s the tragedy of the episode, where The Doctor constantly taking the fast road leads to him missing out and losing Renette to time. That moment when The Doctor realises he can go back, The Doctor asks for Renette to “wish him luck” and the absolute misery in her voice when she says “no” is so damn good because you just know that it’s the last time he’ll see her. It furthers the point that School Reunion made, but is able to show us instead of the tragedy of The Doctor’s life and how often he ends up losing people.

The mystery of the episode is also rather good, since it gives you just enough information to get you most of the way to understanding, but refuses to give you the final piece of the puzzle until the last second. For example, it’s clear pretty early on that what the monsters want from Renette clearly has something to do with her age, with the constant references to her “not being ready”, but it doesn’t let you know exactly why until we’re ready for the climax.

That side of the episode isn’t really what’s important – though it’s a nice bonus – because this episode is so focused on Renette as a character and absolutely nails it and is able to tell a story that I don’t think Doctor Who has done quite like this before or since.

1 – The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
(Episodes 8 & 9)

Tension is something that I often think a lot of Doctor Who episodes lack. Sometimes that’s fine, in an episode that’s supposed to be about running all over the place trying to avoid monsters then it’s fine to have the focus be on the action, but every now and then an episode will take the idea of tension and use it to absolute perfection.

There are a lot of strings in this story that at first feel like they’re pulling episode in all sorts of different directions. There’s a planet circling a black hole but miraculously isn’t falling in; a slave race called the Ood who have one of the strangest introductions I’ve ever seen for a Doctor Who alien; the mystery of the crew drilling into the planet and what they’ll find there and an ancient language which seems to be possessing a guy. When you watch these episodes for the first time, it doesn’t really feel like any of these elements fit together very well, but this story is brilliant at slowly connecting the dots, at drawing these strings together in a way that makes sense, but isn’t predictable.

The story also goes to great lengths to make full use of the two episodes that it was given, there’s not a single scene in either of these two parts that is wasted, even in some of my favourite episodes there are scenes I’d quite happily cut, but everything is important in this two-parter. Not only that but each part has a very different feel. The Impossible Planet is slow and creeping, the mystery builds itself one scene at a time and doesn’t rush to give you any of the information, it’s a master of the tension I was referring to at the beginning, because the whole time it feels like things should be going wrong, but aside from one moment in the middle and right at the end, they never really do.

All that means is that when shit finally hits the fan, it feels huge and that’s what most of The Satan Pit is all about and yet it doesn’t lose that tension that the first episode built up. Most of the scenes are now action and chase scenes, but the way they designed the Ood as monsters means that the tension still runs high the whole time and it makes for such adrenaline fuelled viewing. Even watching it now, when I know what’s going to happen I still get caught up in the action of the moment as the group are crawling through vents to get away from the Ood, or as Danny stands there are stares down the Ood locked outside the control room, or best of all in that beautiful moment when The Doctor decides to unclip from his harness and blindly drop into the pit.

What gets me most about this story, is that once it’s all said and done, with the monster defeated and as many people saved as possible, The Doctor still doesn’t know what this creature is. He stood before it, spoke with it and even destroyed its mind before casting it into a black hole, but when Rose asks him what it was, he still doesn’t know, and just has to comfort himself with the fact that, whatever it was, they beat it. It’s a mystery that never gets solved, and honestly, it’s something I never want to be solved, because that total lack of knowledge of what this creature was is a huge part of what makes it so terrifying.

So there you have it! Those are my thoughts on every episode in Doctor Who series 2! Let me know what you think in the comments below, or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Come back next month for my rankings for the episodes of series 3, and check this space next week for my coverage of WWE Stomping Grounds!

WWE Super Showdown 2019: Every Match Ranked

Super Showdown is now in the books and well…yeah that was about what I was expecting it to be.

I normally like to put a positive spin on these intros, but I just can’t do it with this show. It started out decent enough but once it slowed down it just ground to a halt and caused a 7 car pile up. If I’m being honest I could just have the sentence “This was boring” for almost every entry and kick back with a job well done, but I’ll try to get more out of it than that.

Let’s rank ’em then, here’s what I thought of every match from WWE Super Showdown 2019.

10 – Randy Orton def. Triple H

Honestly, it’s impressive that this match – a match I had the lowest of expectations for – still managed to underwhelm me.

This was the longest match of the show at just over 25 minutes (more than 15 minutes longer than any other match on the show) and quite frankly it only needed to be about 5. All anyone wants to see from these big nostalgia matches is for the two guys to hit all their signature moves on one another, and one to get pinned, that’s literally all we care about. Instead, whoever’s producing these matches (probably Triple H himself) decides we need almost half an hour of two guys well past their prime doing basically nothing until right at the end they hit their big moves and one gets pinned.

I actually timed it, and from the moment the bell rings it takes a whole minute for them to even touch for the first time, then it’s another minute before anyone actually does a wrestling move, and that was pretty much the pattern for the whole match. Honestly, the moment the match was over, I could not tell you a single thing that happened during it other than the opening and the finish, which by the way was telegraphed so hard, I saw it coming about a minute before it actually happened.

It’s very rare that a wrestling match makes me this bored. Even during Triple H vs Batista this year (which I hated), I was never so bored that I actively wanted to stop paying attention and watch something else. I don’t want to sound like some whiney punk, but Triple H needs to get over himself and realise all we want to see him do is the cool signature moves…and I’ll admit I have a soft spot for the over the top entrances.

9 – Lars Sullivan def. The Lucha House Party via Disqualification
(3 on 1 Handicap)

Honestly, this match should thank every God anyone’s ever believed in its not last place.

Pretty much what makes me like this match more than HHH vs Orton is that A) It’s shorter and B) It didn’t move at the pace of a snail with arthritis. Once again, I went in with low expectations and was underwhelmed, the LHP guys put in the most meagre of offences against Lars, and quite honestly Lars barely did anything in return either other than standing there and looking cross.

While the finish made the whole thing seem like a huge waste of time, it was admittedly the smart thing for LHP to do, if they then didn’t undercut it by going back into the fray after making their quick exit. I hope this is the end of this (although I have a feeling it’s not) because both sides deserve something better.

8 – Braun Strowman def. Bobby Lashley

I’m not saying this match was predictable, but I was sitting there telling my friend what was going to happen before it happened.

A match like this between two big guys desperately needs to be more than stalemates and rest holds. It needs to be explosive, take Undertaker vs Batista from Wrestlemania 23 as an example, that’s what these guys need to do, just on a smaller scale. Instead, we got Strowman running around the ring like an idiot – because turning a 90-degree corner kills all your momentum, thus making you slower – and Lashley responded with offence that felt like it had no power behind it.

I really don’t have anything else to say here other than I never want to see this match again.

7 – Shane McMahon def. Roman Reigns

Oh for fu-

WWE, it’s ok, Shane Mcmahon can lose a match once in a while, just stop, please. I just don’t understand what kind of shit anyone was smoking when this match was booked because it doesn’t help anyone. If Reigns beats Drew, loses to Shane and then beats Drew in order to get revenge then all that does is make both Reigns and Drew look weak. Reigns looks weak because he couldn’t beat Shane and had to fight a guy he’s already beat instead, and Drew looks weak because Reigns beat him twice.

Outside of that, the match was boring too. Once again most of the spots were predictable and the ones that weren’t were mostly just rest holds. Like I said in my predictions, I had a secret thought that this match could rock, but that’ll teach me to have hope.

6 – The Undertaker def. Goldberg

Well, this was just depressing.

I’ll be honest, during the first half of this match, I was actually entertained. While the transitional stuff was pretty boring, I thought they were hitting all the right notes, just going for the big moves and hitting each other very hard in the middle, then the rest of it happened…

So first Undertaker hit a Tombstone and looked like he was about to drop Goldberg at any moment (luckily he didn’t), but things got worse from there as Goldberg got busted open from…something, and after a pretty good looking spear he went for a Jackhammer and oh boy. I don’t know if Undertaker was too heavy, or he hadn’t adjusted his weight right, but Goldberg couldn’t hold Taker up and almost dropped him directly on his head on the way down. Then it came to the finish, and the pair were going for the classic, “Tombstone gets countered into the other person’s Tombstone” spot and just as they were about to complete the rotation, Undertaker just drops Goldberg, Taker then didn’t even bother trying to do another one and instead just hit a crappy looking Chokeslam for the win.

I don’t blame them for the things went wrong in this match, and watching it makes me more worried for both of the guys in the ring than annoyed that the match was bad, but I’d be lying if I said it was any good.

5 – Mansoor wins the 50 Man Battle Royal

As much as it’s not what I would’ve done, I can’t really argue with this booking decision. For one thing, it popped the crowd something fierce, I wasn’t entirely sure if they’d know who he was but thankfully they definitely knew and he got the loudest reaction of the night when he won, but there’s just one thing that would ruin this win: If he wasn’t on TV regularly from now on. Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live or NXT, Mansoor needs to actually become a regular fixture of one of these shows now or this win will do nothing for him.

The rest of the battle royal was about as entertaining as you’d expect a pointless battle royal in an overcrowded ring to be. There were a couple of fun spots, and the action picked up a little once we got down to the last few men, but it was still nothing to write home about. At least someone will likely benefit from this, which is more than can be said about the ARMBAR.

4 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Dolph Ziggler
(WWE Championship)

As much as I wasn’t too excited about this one in my predictions, I quietly hoped this one would be good, and it was, at least by this show’s standards.

This match wasn’t anything special, not by a long shot, and in fact, if it were on a regular episode of Smackdown it would probably still be characterised as mediocre, but thanks to the absolute sea of utter shite that came before it, I actually got a bit of enjoyment out of this one. Not much mind, but in the spots where the pace picked up I thought there was some good back and forth, unfortunately, there was a lot of Ziggler “wearing Kofi down” which is always extraordinarily dull.

The finish was also a tad confusing, I get Xavier was just getting revenge for what Ziggler did to him earlier on and I imagine that’s how they’ll justify it as a face move come Tuesday, but what really was the point in it? Was it just to set up Kofi vs Ziggler for Stomping Grounds? Because that seems hilariously redundant. What’s worse is a small thing like that opens up amazing opportunities for storylines between Xavier and Kofi, for example, Xavier could be so desperate to keep the train rolling that he’ll cheat in order to allow Kofi to retain, even against Kofi’s own wishes. WWE do this all the time, where they tease us with the possibility of something interesting, only to throw it away for something boring, so onto Stomping Grounds I guess.

3 – Finn Balor(c) def. Andrade
(Intercontinental Championship)

You know, if Triple H didn’t insist on needing 25 minutes for his matches, maybe this one could’ve been long enough to actually be awesome.

Of course, this match was at least somewhat enjoyable, these two could put on a good match in their sleep, but I really felt like this thing was hindered by a lack of time and a lack of urgency. The time thing is totally out of their hands of course, but a match like this really needed an extra 5 minutes or so of back and forth around the middle to really build to the kind of climax it was going for because the one we got fell flat a little.

I also didn’t help that the crowd seemed really uninterested in this one for some reason, despite it only being the 3rd match of the night, when Finn kicked out of Andrade’s finisher, I couldn’t believe how little reaction there was to it. It might be because this match was weirdly slow paced given the two guys involved, it just never really felt like it properly got going, even though most of the action was very solid. I guess maybe it’s the heat? Since commentary wouldn’t stop telling us how hot it was for some reason.

2 – The Usos def. The Revival
(Kickoff Show)

These kickoff show matches just keep getting better and better.

In an ironic twist, being on the kickoff show means that this match didn’t get saddled by being stupidly overbooked, and was allowed to just go out there and entertain the crowd with some simple wrestling; which on this show is a God-send. Unfortunately, it’s also the match I have the least to say about, because it was just a good wrestling match, plenty of back and forth action, a couple of exciting tags and reversals with a definitive finish, that’s really all there is to it.

1 – Seth Rollins(c) def. Baron Corbin
(Universal Championship)

And now, we pair something we always see (Seth Rollins in the best singles match of the night), with something I never thought we’d see (Baron Corbin in the best singles match of the night).

Admittedly, this is pretty much just the best match by default, but it’s still surprising to be talking about a Baron Corbin match in the number one slot. Maybe it’s because it was at the start of the show, but I really did find myself enjoying this one a decent amount. The pace was pretty quick and the tone seemed to be pretty light throughout and it told a decent, self-contained story in the match, that being the fact that Baron Corbin is too much of a prick for his own good.

Much like Corey said on commentary, Corbin has no-one to blame but himself for that loss, and it fits in so perfectly with his character that it was him trying to lord himself over officials and make himself seem more important than he is, is what caused him to lose that match; it allows him to whine and heelishly cry foul play without making Seth look weak.

Then there was the stuff that happened after the match (which doesn’t affect the rankings, but this is the only place I can talk about it) which wasn’t really what I was hoping for, but did wonders to keep Seth looking strong and keep the briefcase on Brock. I don’t know if this means we’re going to have a vengeful beast anytime soon, but it should make the eventual rematch between these two extremely heated.

So that’s it! That’s what I thought of every match from WWE Super Showdown and, in a sentence, it was crap, let’s hope Stomping Grounds can pick up where Money in the Bank left off later in the month. Until then let me know what you thought of the show on Twitter @10ryawoo and make sure you come back this time next week for my rankings of every episode in Doctor Who Series 2!

NXT Takeover XXV: Every Match Ranked

For the third week in a row now the Gods of wrestling have smiled upon us and delivered us a show that was and absolute joy to watch, and even if they are about to spit on us this Friday for Super Showdown, we must praise them while we can, because as always Takeover was an awesome show. Granted, it wasn’t quite on the level of Takeover: New York (although to be fair, very few shows are), but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that this show was great from top to bottom.

There’s a lot to break down in all of these matches, so let’s not waste any more time and rank the matches.

5 – Street Profits def. The Forgotten Sons, Undisputed Era, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch
(NXT Tag Team Championships)
(Ladder Match)

Peaks and Troughs, this match had a lot of them.

NXT Ladder matches always tend to have a sense of urgency to them that we don’t often see from main roster ladder matches, which gives me a few reservations about a couple of moments in this match.

I don’t want to rag on this match too much because it was great, but there’s a couple gripes I had. The first was Jaxson Ryker, it totally makes sense for him to get involved, The Forgotten Sons are a three-man faction after all, but he showed up, threw some dudes around and then just…stood there? He sorta picked up a ladder but didn’t do anything with it and he didn’t even try to pull Blake or Cutler into the ring to grab the titles then he was quickly disposed of by everyone else in the match.

The other thing was that following that moment, it felt like the match went on for way too long. Once Jaxson Ryker was disposed of, it felt like the crowd were at their peak excitement and we were ready to head into the climax, but instead the match just kept going for another 5 minutes and lost a lot of excitement that had been built up until to that point, it annoys me even more when there was a match later on the card which I personally thought needed that 5 minutes a lot more.

Now, the good stuff, because there was a lot of that too. For one thing, Kyle O’Reily getting shitcanned at almost every opportunity, along with The Undisputed Era realising something that no-one other teams in ladder matches do: It only takes one of you to grab the titles, so the other one can stand at the bottom and play defence. Every team played a different role in this match and it led to a great dynamic, with Undisputed Era playing the scheming heels, the Forgotten Sons picking their spots and keeping out of harm’s way as much as possible, Lorcan & Burch standing their ground to the aforementioned heels and Street Profits flinging themselves all over the place because they want those titles more than anyone else.

The finish was great too, I honestly though The Forgotten Sons had it after disappearing for about 10 minutes before the finish, but Dawkins running in to get rid of Blake, allowing Ford to springboard onto the ladder (which will never stop being impressive) and take Culter out with a single punch to win the match was a brilliant way to end the match, and if you ask me, the right team won.

4 – Shayna Baszler(c) def. Io Shirai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

Thankfully, it looks like this is just the beginning.

This match wasn’t quite the epic we were all hoping for between these two, but that’s because it served a different purpose, which was getting the characters in the right place emotionally for the epic match to happen.

The main thread of this feud so far has been the fact that Io is just tired of Shayna’s bullshit. She throws her weight around and beats up everyone in sight, and then has a need to rub it in all the time as well and that drives Io crazy, so now she finally has a chance to put her in her place, and she relishes it.

Baszler takes her to the woodshed for a good portion of the match, but whenever Io’s on top you can just see how much she enjoys the opportunity to take it to Baszler, she wants to humiliate her, and treat her how she’s been treating the whole women’s division for the past year. That’s not an attitude that gets you very far in title matches, however, and eventually it costs her, Baszler is once again able to out-think an opponent that could potentially have her number by just taking a beating and laying in wait; she knows Io’s going to make a mistake eventually, all Baszler has to do is be ready when she does.

Sure enough, that mistake comes in paying too much attention to Candice laying out Duke & Shafir, and after lasting in the Baszler’s Clutch a lot longer than anyone else ever has, Shirai has to relent. That’s an important piece of the story too, she doesn’t pass out, she taps, instead of going until her body wouldn’t let her, she chose to give up, which all feeds into what happens next.

Now we get to the point which was necessary to set up their rematch, which will likely be the epic that we’re all hoping for because when Io comes back and starts to wail of Shayna, there’s a very mixed reaction from just about everyone. The crowd, the commentators and even Candice La Rae isn’t quite sure whether Shirai taking a cheap shot and being a sore loser is a thing we should be cheering or not. Looking at Shirai’s face it’s clear that’s it’s all down to frustration. Frustration at Shayna, Duke, Shafir and even herself for letting her emotions get the best of her, then she goes away and we’re left with a lingering shot of Baszler broken and beaten and what do the crowd chant at this woman who was attacked after the bell by a woman she beat fair and square? You deserve it, and you know what? They’re goddamn right.

That moment is everything that Shayna’s character has been building to since she won the NXT Women’s Title. She’s the biggest bastard on the planet who beats everyone down and keeps kicking them until they can’t get up then goes and rubs their noses in it once they’re gone, she only ever gets comeuppance in brief, flukey ways and now someone’s finally shown her she’s not invincible, and it’s glorious. Moving forward, Io’s going to continue to gun for Shayna, only now having learnt from her mistakes and Shayna’s going to be out for vengeance and more vicious than ever. There’s one hell of a storm brewing, and I can’t wait until it hits.

3 – Matt Riddle def. Roderick Strong

These two worked together just as well as I thought they would.

On a show like this with so much deep character work, it’s nice to be able to go back to basics. This story is pretty simple, Strong wronged Riddle and Riddle wants a match to get his revenge, and for a non-title match like this, that’s really all you need. I also like that we’re back to seeing Roderick Strong fight in big matches as a singles guy because as much as he’s perfect with the Undisputed Era, he’s an awesome singles wrestler too.

I wasn’t sure on this match for the first half of it, I didn’t feel like it was moving with the flow I expected, but it made sense when the second half came around. In the second half of the match, I really started to get the feeling that these two fully understood how the other one wrestles and had developed ways to work around it and get on top; which retroactively makes the first half a lot smarter because they were getting a feel for each other and learning how their styles mesh.

This was encapsulated by the finish, which involved them slipping out of each other’s submission holds over and over again, until Riddle eventually had to bust out something new in order to catch Strong off guard and finally put him away. There’s not much else to say about this match, it was pretty simple but really good and honestly if every WWE match was like that, I’d have a lot less to complain about.

2 – Velveteen Dream(c) def. Tyler Breeze
(North American Championship)

A masterclass in in-ring storytelling.

When these two characters met in a Takeover match it was always going to be something special. Both of them seemed fairly niche and a bit rubbish when they were first revealed, but eventually won us all over by being amazing on the mic and really good in the ring as well. So what happens when you throw them together? Magic, that’s what.

The first three-quarters of the match were telling a very clear story, Dream is taking every opportunity to outshine Breeze as a personality, but Breeze can absolutely school Dream in the ring. Everything Dream threw Breeze’s way would get countered, and the only time Dream ever got any offense was when he was able to catch Breeze off guard, and when he did, he’d immediately go to flaunting his personality.

The moment where Dream is busy taking a mocking selfie only to suddenly turn around and realise Breeze has recovered and waiting to kick him in the face was absolute genius from whoever came up with it. The last quarter of the match shifted the story a bit to showing how dynamic and intelligent Dream is in the ring. Dream doesn’t run on instinct, he runs on planning so he works out that Breeze can wrestle circles around him, so he tries to outsmart him instead.

First, Dream deals with the constant counters, running up to the top rope for a move that Breeze will easily counter, makes it look like he’s about to jump, so Breeze leaps up ready for the dropkick, only to fake him out, leaving Breeze to crash and burn so Dream can pick him up and his the Death Valley Driver. Then there’s the finish, where Dream is able to plan three steps ahead of Breeze, knowing Breeze won’t allow the countout, Dream goes for a shot with the title that Breeze once again will easily counter, then while Breeze is “doing the right thing” and throwing the title out of the way, Dream swoops in and takes him out.

Dream wins the match not by being the better wrestler, but by being smarter, which in turn makes his personality come across stronger, which exactly what the Dream is all about.

1 – Adam Cole def. Johnny Gargano(c)
(NXT Championship)

I love it when a plan comes together.

While I loved the match these two put on in New York, I wasn’t as in love with it as everyone else was, THIS match however…holy shit.

For one thing, it lasted over 30 minutes, and it didn’t feel at all like it was too long, every part of the match felt necessary to the story and to the result. If I broke down everything then we’d be here all day, so here are some of the highlights.

Adam Cole is definitely in Gargano’s head because he was able to play him like a fiddle in this match. Cole worked the knee at every opportunity, knowing it would pay dividends later on in the match, and seemed to continuously bait Gargano into sequences were Cole could take advantage of him, the sequence of back and forth superkicks both early and late on in the match for example. The best example of this though was when Cole very obviously gave a signal for The Undisputed Era to come out, knowing Gargano would take his focus off of Cole expecting Fish, O’Reily and Strong to attack him. Cole is smart enough to know exactly what Gargano thinks he’s like and instead of trying to prove him wrong, leans into it in order to make him vulnerable.

At the end of the way though, we see exactly who Cole is, a man of his word. He said he was going to do this on his own, and he did. Yes, he’s a jerk and will use his numbers advantage when he can, but when he has something to prove, he’ll do it himself if it kills him. That’s why Cole was getting cheered over mega-babyface Gargano in this match because he’s got that cool anti-hero swagger, but he can back up every word he says because when he has confidence in his own abilities, he can both out-think and out-wrestle his opponent, even if they’re someone who could get hit by a bus and still kick out.

That’s not to take away from Gargano’s role in this match of course, because he was just as good as he always was. Gargano is a master of the little touches that take a great spot to incredible heights, like using a wristlock as leverage to turn over the Figure 4, or moving his injured knee so it was out of Cole’s reach during the GargaNo Escape. He also did a great job of getting played and falling for Cole’s tricks without looking like a total moron. Yes he fell for the bluff of Cole’s obvious gesture, but he did realise he was being fooled, it just took long enough for Cole to recover.

As much as Cole comes away from this match the champion (which I’m over the moon about by the way), you really get the feeling that these two men are equals in the ring and Cole just got the edge on Gargano this time around. There has to be one more match left in this feud, there’s just so much more story to be told.

So there you have it! Those are my thoughts on every match that happened last night! As always, please share this around on all your favourite social media sites and make sure to let me know your thoughts on the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Please join me later in the week to suffer through the hell that will be Super Showdown and then I’ve got some Doctor Who stuff on the way!

WWE Money in the Bank 2019: Every Match Ranked

Hmm, alright then.

This was definitely the most mixed WWE PPV of the year so far. It had some really good point, but it also had a fair share of it’s weird/bad moments too, so I’d understand if you came away with a negative overall view of the show, but personally, I still thought it was a pretty good overall product. Granted, it didn’t seem like it for the first hour and a half or so, but once the show picked up I think it kept a pretty consistent quality.

Every match has its place, however, so let’s take a look at where those places are, as I rank every match from WWE Money in the Bank 2019.

11 – Roman Reigns def. Elias

I would’ve never criticised WWE ever again if Reigns had just turned around and smacked Elias in the mouth right then.

As was to be expected with a 10 match card, we got a couple of really short matches last night and I generally find it pretty hard to put super short matches any higher than last unless they served a real purpose (like Seth vs Brock from Wrestlemania).

So why did I rank this one lower than the other one? Because it was shorter is pretty much the only reason. Elias’ cartoonish sneak attack on Reigns made it pretty obvious this was going to be a squash too, especially when Elias came down to the ring anyway and busted out his electric guitar. As could be predicted, Reigns’ music hit just as Elias was walking up the ramp, Reigns got some payback, then he rolled Elias in the ring and 7 seconds later Reigns had won. Pretty much right on the hour for when Game of Thrones started, which I’m sure was just a coincidence but I’m going to pretend it wasn’t for comedic purposes.

It’s not entirely clear what Reigns is going to be doing over this summer so it wouldn’t surprise me if this feud kept going for another match at Super Showdown, although they’ve got to fill out the numbers in that 50 man battle royal somehow.

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

Apparently, all the referees were just completely blind tonight.

So, the current story is that this match was cut short once Joe started bleeding quite heavily thanks to a broken nose, which I’m fine with, the wrestlers’ safety should always come first after all, but I’m not a huge fan of the way they did it.

Sometimes, when they have a “botched” finish like this, where the referee doesn’t see something and ends up declaring the wrong winner, it makes sense. The situation of where the competitor was compared to the referee means you can believe that the ref might not have been able to see the ropes or a shoulder off the mat, but there was really no excuse on this one. Not only was the referee looking almost directly at it, but Joe’s shoulder could not have been higher off of the mat by the time the three hit.

Not only that, but it’s been established in recent years that in a situation like this, they will show the replay on the arena screens, or a second referee will run down and correct the mistake of the original referee, which only makes things all the more confusing in situations like this where that doesn’t happen. The commentators can clearly see it right in front of them, and they’re literally 10 feet away, can the referee not just check the video? It seems so non-sensical.

Either way, I liked the post-match beatdown, and I really hope it’s building to Dominick getting involved physically sometime soon because it’s really weird just having him stand there and watch his father get destroyed and not even try to stop Joe.

9 – Becky Lynch(c) def. Lacey Evans
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Well that was exactly what I was expecting it to be.

This is one of those matches, where I don’t really have much bad to say about it, but I also don’t have a great deal of praise to dole out either. If this had taken place on an episode of Raw, it would’ve been classed as really good, but on a PPV? It’s fine, but nothing special.

I understand, of course, Becky had to wrestle two matches, so she didn’t wanna go crazy in this one, and as much as Lacey is better than we give her credit for, she’s still got a ways to go before she cracks that upper tier of brilliant matches. As I’ve said, this match was perfectly serviceable, but there really wasn’t any moment that stuck out to me as being particularly great or awful. I do think it was a bit short though, I know Becky’s got to wrestle two matches, but you couldn’t have let this one go just a little bit longer? The finish felt way too sudden.

Hopefully, Lacey Evans fades to the back of the line for a little bit, partly because I want to see Becky face a variety of opponents on Raw, but also as much as she lost pretty decisively here, her stock has been raised by competing in a high profile feud with Becky like this; a lot more than walking up and down the ramp every week did at least. That raising of stock for Lacey would almost certainly be undone if she had to take another loss from Becky-Not-Actually-2-Belts-Anymore-Hope-You-Didn’t-Buy-That-Shirt.

8 – Bayley wins the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

With the exception of the finish, there really wasn’t much to be excited about in this one.

For one thing, it went really short for a Money in the Bank ladder match going a mere thirteen minutes, which was shorter than both World title matches and the same length as Shane vs Miz, which takes away from a lot of the drama and excitement you can get out of the match. Secondly, there was a real lack of big and impactful spots throughout the match. Naomi’s stuff was fun, and the matrix dodging of ladders was something we haven’t really seen before, but none of the ladder spots we saw here were anything worth shouting about.

Carmella’s “injury” also didn’t really seem like the best touch, partly because it was pretty obvious it wasn’t real and also because they drew almost no attention to it barring a couple of quick cuts when there was a split-second break in the action. I also don’t really feel like anyone outside of the winner got a chance to really shine during the match, Ember Moon’s eclipse from a ladder was awesome but when you take a look at the rest of the match she’s basically a complete non-factor for most of it.

All that said, I really liked the finish. Sonya literally carrying Mandy to the top of the ladder looked great, and it was only made better when Bayley sprinted up the ladder and stared at Mandy will all of hell’s fury behind her eyes. It felt like such a cathartic character moment for Bayley, like after all the crap she’s been through for the past two years she’s finally had enough and won’t let anyone take her opportunity from her. Honestly, that finish alone pulled this match up a whole place.

7 – Tony Nese(c) def. Ariya Daivari
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Well, wouldn’t you fancy that? When you give the cruiserweights a chance to shine, they actually shine.

It’s at this point that I realise I actually like this show a lot more than I thought I did, because from here on out I pretty much only have good things to say about the matches. Once again, the cruiserweights got their once in a blue moon to put on a killer match on the main show of a WWE PPV, and while it wasn’t as good as Murphey vs Ali from Survivor Series last year, it was certainly still a great match to watch.

Daivari played a great heel, but not one that looked weak and had to cheat every 5 seconds despite what his character seems like. The action kept up a pretty fast pace throughout and there were almost no wasted motions between the pair. It never quite reached that higher gear of amazing spots and intense back and forth, but it certainly outperformed your average WWE PPV match, and proved that Tony Nese is a legitimate champion.

I’m not entirely sure what’s next for Nese, but there’s no shortage of opponents for him on 205 Live. If Nese carries on having these great one-and-done feuds with the whole 205 roster, he’ll be a very good champion indeed.

6 – Shane McMahon def. The Miz
(Steel Cage)

I know, I’m as surprised as you are this was good.

I honestly don’t understand how this happened, it’s one of the most boring stipulations in WWE, with a non-wrestler and a wrestler who doesn’t do well in hardcore matches, and somehow it was great. My world has been torn asunder.

Shane plays such a good heel in matches like this that it’s a wonder he was ever a face, to begin with. The way he sprints up the cage wall at every available opportunity adds this sense of urgency to the whole match and creates a great dynamic where The Miz is desperately trying to ground Shane and keep him down at every opportunity because Shane won’t hesitate to make a break for it if he has the chance.

There was so much back and forth between these two and the chemistry between them seems to be so tight at this point I honestly don’t think they could put on a bad match. We had plenty of exciting spots, like Miz catching Shane off of the coast-to-coast, Shane falling from almost the top of the cage flat onto his back, the figure 4 where Shane almost escaped, and the Skull Crushing Finale onto the chair where Shane got his foot on the ropes despite the fact that there’s no rope break in a cage match. Well ok, maybe not that last one.

I’m also ok with the finish because it makes Shane seem lucky without making Miz seem stupid, and I imagine we’ll probably see one more match between the two at some point over the next month to wrap things up. I hope so anyway because this feud has been surprisingly good the entire time.

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

I’ve lumped these two together since there’s not enough to write about them both individually, and they run into each other pretty heavily.

I honestly didn’t think they were going to do the matches back to back like this, but the way everything turned out really made the best of that situation. Charlotte looking super pleased with herself was a great touch as she came out, and it was clear she didn’t want to give Becky a moment to recover after the first match.

So this match was only about five minutes long, but it worked for the story that they were trying to tell, it lasted long enough that you thought Becky was going to be able to pull a fast one on Charlotte, only for Lacey Evans, who we all forgot about, to give Charlotte the advantage and hit a big boot (which completely missed, but let’s ignore that) to win the match.

Charlotte winning the title here made it so that I think we all instantly knew how this was going to end. A quick beatdown on Becky followed by Bayley’s music hitting and the crowd full on exploded at that moment. Considering it feels like only a few months ago she was being booed out of arenas for being scared of a stick, I’m so glad this move to Smackdown has done her well and hopefully, this reign lasts longer than 48 hours and she gets a chance to put on great matches defending the title all summer.

4 – The Usos def. Daniel Bryan & Rowan
(Kickoff Show)

The words “kickoff show” have no meaning to Daniel Bryan.

I thought this match would still be awesome despite being on the pre-show, but man, these guys really put their working shoes on. Sure, the match had no steaks and really had no reason to exist in the first place, but that doesn’t stop it from being full of exciting moments and fast-paced action from some of the best wrestlers in the world.

All four men put on some great work here, Bryan & Rowan’s teamwork continues to develop in every match they have, and honestly, it looked at points like Rowan could’ve taken both Usos on his own. Bryan, of course, did the great work he always does, grounding the Usos at every opportunity and continues to make every single opponent he wrestles look like a million bucks.

The Usos were no slouches either, they wouldn’t stop flying all over the place and doling out superkicks like there’s no tomorrow. They aren’t the team I’d have picked to win this match, but given how much fun this match was to watch, I don’t really mind. Not to mention, Daniel Bryan’s post-match promo on WWE.com could lead to a great story, so right now, I’ve got nothing but positives about this one.

3 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Kevin Owens
(WWE Championship)

More of this, please.

I know the crowd weren’t as into this as they could’ve been thanks to the Universal title match that came before it, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this match rocked.

It was a little slow to start, with Owens mostly playing the heel role of wearing Kofi down for a while, but once this thing got going, it told such a brilliant story. This whole year with Kofi has pretty much been a story of him absolutely refusing to say die, no matter what is thrown his way and no matter how much of a beating he takes he just won’t stay down, and that was all this match needed to run with, and Owens showed the effects of it all over his face.

Once Kofi started to come back and we got into a more back and forth pace, Owens’ performance was absolutely pitch perfect for the story of the match. Every single time Kofi kicked out or got back up he would slowly begin to lose his shit more and more, lashing out at the crowd, at the commentators and at Kofi every single time Kofi got back up. It created this brilliant sense of urgency towards the end of the match where Owens was becoming more and more vicious and trying absolutely everything he could think of to keep Kofi down, and Kofi just bided his time and waited for the opportunity to strike.

I don’t know if this is the end of the feud considering it was a clean finish, but I really hope there’s more of this to come, I think there’s so much great storyline opportunities to be had with Owens getting so unbelievably frustrated at how he can’t put Kofi away that he has to resort to some sort of drastic action, and I have the faith in the Smackdown creative team to pull it off.

2 – Brock Lesnar win the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Oh…ok.

We’ll talk about…that in a moment, but before we get bogged down, let’s take a look at the rest of the match because it was awesome.

First off, we need to give the man of the match award, and a giant ice pack to Finn Balor because holy crap he damn near killed himself in this match for our entertainment last night. Not only did he take that incredible sunset flip from the top of a ladder, onto another ladder which bounced making him land on it a second time which might be the greatest ladder spot I’ve ever seen, he also was dropped multiple times onto other ladders around the ring by Drew Mcintyre which were probably even more painful with the force he landed on some of them.

On top of that, we had Ricochet and Ali flipping around each other the whole time which was so much fun to watch, even when Ricochet was just lobbed straight through a ladder by Drew. Drew and Corbin’s partnership was a nice touch, it gave the match a back and forth and proper structure in amongst all of the chaos that was going on around the place, and even better when it inevitably imploded.

Then of course…there was the finish. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it if I’m honest. For one thing, it made Ali look like an idiot because he could’ve unhooked the briefcase and been out of the ring by the time Brock got to him, but that’s a minor detail, the most important thing is that Brock Lesnar is the Money in the Bank briefcase holder. I’m not pissed off by this decision, and I’m not all that upset that Brock has the briefcase, however, I would’ve prefered anyone else in that match (except Orton) to win instead of Brock.

I think this mostly because it seems really obvious what’s going to happen. I absolutely love the idea of a guy like Brock with Money in the Bank, a dude who can run you through in seconds when you’re at 100% having the opportunity to pounce on you when you’re at the weakest is a brilliant threat, and watching whoever is champion at the time absolutely shit themselves whenever his music hits would be great; but that’s not what’s going to happen.

All that’s going to happen is Heyman will announce the cash-in for an upcoming PPV, be it Super Showdown or Summerslam, that’s all it will be and quite frankly did Brock really need Money in the Bank to do that? All Brock needs to do to get his rematch with Seth is show up, throw a few dudes about and demand it, meanwhile, you could’ve given the briefcase to someone like Drew ready for later in the year.

At the end of the day, I don’t think Brock winning Money in the Bank is a bad thing, but it was certainly the worst of the present options; the match was still awesome though, so second place it stays.

1 – Seth Rollins(c) def. AJ Styles
(Universal Championship)

Oh, thank God it was good, really really good.

You have no idea how paranoid I’ve been this past month that this match was going to underwhelm and disappoint compared to its expectations, AJ Styles matches have a history of that in WWE after all, but my paranoia was baseless because this match was a sight to behold.

It was paced to absolute perfection to start with, the feeling out process lasted just long enough to get your mouth watering for them to pick up the pace and that’s exactly when they did. Watching these two go back and forth was so much fun, and seeing AJ being able to outwrestle Seth for a large part of the first half was an interesting way to tell the story of the match because it meant Rollins had to rely on his killer instinct to make a comeback.

The final 5 minutes were fever pitch and an absolute blast to watch, that Curb Stomp into Styles Clash counter was a thing of beauty, I’ve watched it so many times now and I’m still not entirely sure how they managed it so seamlessly. It was able to suspend the disbelief of the result as well because there was no way Seth was ever going to lose this match, but goddamn if I didn’t doubt that fact during a couple of the near falls.

This is everything I had hoped for both from a Seth vs AJ match and Seth Rollins as Universal Champion, if all his matches are going to be like this, we might need a separate list at the end of the year just for Seth Rollins matches because right now, this is tied with Kofi vs Bryan for my favourite main roster match of the year. Please, sir, I want some more.

So there you have it! That’s what I thought of every match that took place at Money in the Bank 2019! Having written the review now, it was actually a lot better of a show than I gave it credit for at the start, there were some weird moments, but ultimately almost every match was good to great from top to bottom.

Still, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. I’m away next week so there won’t be any posts, but the following Friday you can expect my rankings of Doctor Who Series 2!

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.