Tag: Aj Styles

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 Money in the Bank 2019: Predictions & Analysis

Let’s not sugar coat this, WWE TV this past month has been awful.

Raw is currently the worst it’s been in a long time, thanks to the superstar shakeup being rather underwhelming and taking 3 weeks for everyone to get in the right places. Then one week later we’re told that actually, it didn’t matter because the “Wildcard Rule” means people could just come and go from either show as they please. Smackdown’s been better, with at least a couple of fun and entertaining segments a week, but it’s still not as high a quality show week to week as it used to be.

That said, WWE are yet to produce a bad PPV so far this year, and Money in the Bank is one of those gimmicks that has a fairly high base quality. Rumour is that WWE are actually planning to make a star of the Money in the Bank winner this year, rather than burying them 6 feet under like they have done for the past couple of years. The rest of the card looks hopeful too, with what will hopefully be done dream matches.

Not all of them though, so let’s take a look at them all, break down the storeys and pick a winner.

Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs The Usos
(Kickoff Show)

The article on WWE.com doesn’t make it clear if this is a title match or not, but given it’s on the pre-show, I’m going to assume it isn’t.

I could sit here and complain that the best tag team in WWE, the best wrestler in the world and his friend who’s improved a surprising amount of the past few months are slumming it on the pre-show, but honestly, I’m just thankful Daniel Bryan can still wrestle after his injury scare following Wrestlemania.

Plus, this match is still going to be great even if it doesn’t get tonnes of time. Bryan & Rowan have formed a lot of chemistry together since they began their partnership in January, and I think they were the perfect team to have carry the titles once Jeff Hardy suffered his leg injury. It’s entirely possible that The Revival use this match as an opportunity to get some petty revenge on The Usos for filming them shaving each other’s backs and making their balls itch…yeah, wrestling’s shit sometimes…

Given that The Usos are on Raw, Daniel Bryan & Rowan are definitely winning this match, whether it’s for the titles or not. If it is for the titles then they won’t lose the belts this quick to someone on the wrong show, and if it isn’t for the titles then I can’t see the newly crowned champions losing a match on PPV so soon after winning the titles.

Tony Nese(c) vs Ariya Daivari
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Guess who’s actually been watching 205 Live this past month and a half.

I decided to commit to watching 205 Live on a regular basis following Wrestlemania, and honestly, I’m glad I did it, there’s a lot of good matches on there every week and some pretty interesting minor storylines, unfortunately, I wouldn’t really describe this as one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, both these guys are great wrestlers and I’m sure the match will be just as good as the Cruiserweight Championship matches always are, but this build has been super generic in its premise. Ariya Daivari has been on a winning streak as of late, this has been rewarded with a title match and now Nese and Daivari have been passive-aggressively watching each other’s matches and staring down after every single one.

I like a simpler build from time to time, but this is just a bit too basic for my taste, especially if this is going to be what all of Nese’s title feuds are going to be like until someone like Oney Lorcan comes along and spices things up. Regardless, I’d say Tony Nese is a pretty safe bet here, he looked really good in victory over Buddy Murphey at Wrestlemania and it would be a really bad decision to have him lose the title this quick so this will be a solid defence for the new champion.

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

A United States title match? On a Pay-Per-View? Well I never…

After the absolute destruction of the US Title that came at the start of the year, Samoa Joe has done a pretty good job so far of showing bringing some level of prestige back to the belt. A solid defence of the title at Fastlane followed by beating Mysterio in under a minute at Wrestlemania has been great for both Joe and the title, and hopefully, that momentum will keep on rolling through Money in the Bank.

Admittedly the justification for the rematch was a little lazy, given that Rey pinned Joe in a non-title match on Raw, which we’ve all seen hundreds of times. That said, since then we’ve seen a pretty decent build, getting Rey’s son Dominick involved didn’t seem like it’d be a great idea at the time, but Joe’s promo ability and confrontations with both Rey and Dominick have done a good job of adding some animosity to the build so hopefully this one will get a bit more time than it did at Mania and we’ll get a good match.

I’m going back and forth on the winner though, because as much as I think Joe should win, Mysterio is one of those guys like Jeff Hardy, who could realistically win a secondary title at any point. The thing is, there are a lot of face champions on Raw and Smackdown right now, in fact, the US, Women’s Tag and Smackdown Tag titles are the only ones currently being held by heels so I don’t see Samoa Joe losing his title until that changes.

Roman Reigns vs Elias

Roman Reigns’ move to Smackdown is a great one as far as I’m concerned, with Seth as the Universal Champion there wasn’t going to be any room for him in that title picture for quite a while, and even though he probably won’t be challenging for the WWE Championship for a good few months yet, the mid-card on Smackdown are generally much better wrestlers who can put on great PPV matches with Reigns, and not be hurt too much by losing.

As for this feud in particular, it’s been a bit up and down up until this point. The introduction on the night of the superstar shakeup was great, seeing Vince McMahon get punched in the face will never stop being fun and using Elias and Shane as a proxy has made for some pretty entertaining promos. On the flip side, it has also brought out the worst in Reigns’ character, with him beating the B-Team two on one, despite the fact Elias was there as an extremely biased referee.

This match should be ok, Reigns is a perfectly solid wrestler and Elias is always surprisingly good on the rare occasion he actually wrestles, so as long as this doesn’t fall into the trap of spending 10 minutes of the two men “wearing each other down” using rest holds it should be pretty entertaining. Roman Reigns is definitely winning though.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Lacey Evans
(Raw Women’s Championship)

The first of two title defences Becky will be taking part in on Sunday, this is the one where I really don’t think the result is in question.

Evans is still pretty untested when it comes to big matches in WWE. In the matches she had on NXT, she was fine, but she never had a big singles match at a Takeover and she hasn’t competed nearly enough since coming to main for us to really have an idea of what she’s like. I think she’s good enough for Becky to carry her to an entertaining match though, partly because Becky’s great, but also anyone who can have a halfway decent match with Natalya has got to have some talent behind them.

Like I said at the start though, I have no doubt about who’s walking away from this match victorious. Becky Lynch is not losing that Raw Women’s Title anytime soon, for two reasons. Firstly, there’s a good chance she could lose the Smackdown Women’s Title sometime soon, and secondly, the women’s division on Raw is pretty weak right now, and Becky needs to be at the top to anchor it until a certain Queen of Spades shows up.

Shane McMahon vs The Miz
(Steel Cage)

Who would’ve thought that this would end up being the best-built feud coming out of Wrestlemania?

I honestly don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this has been the most interesting storyline on TV week to week the past month or so. We all know The Miz is one of the best promo guys around, and when he gets fired up as a face he can do some incredible work, and I think we all knew Shane would be great once he finally turned heel, given how hateable he was as a face. The two of them colliding each and every week has been great fun to watch.

That said, I’m sure how great of a match this is going to lead too. Steel Cage is generally one of my least favourite stipulations, and neither Shane nor Miz are wrestlers who can really benefit from this environment. This leads me to think it’s going to be full of interference from all corners of the roster, it wouldn’t surprise me if Reigns and Elias both got involved, maybe even Bobby Lashley will show up to try and screw Miz in the process. If that happens then it might be a fun watch, in a chaotic sense, because if it’s just a straight match the whole time, I don’t think it’s going to be anything to write home about.

I feel pretty confident in saying that The Miz is going to win here though, since I don’t really see any benefit to Shane winning again, even by accident. It seems to me like Shane is going to fade back into being less of a wrestler and more of an authority figure over the summer, and Miz will probably Samoa Joe’s next challenger, so Miz needs the win a lot more than Shane does here.

Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

This lineup is quite a hit and miss one, on the one hand, there’s Bayley and Ember Moon, on the other hand, there’s Natalya. It makes it a little easier to predict (I hope), but I’m not sure if it’s going to lead to an entertaining match. There’s probably going to be some sort of crazy spot from someone, probably Ember, but a Money in the Bank ladder match needs to be more than that. Either way, let’s look at each of the competitor’s chances, shall we?

Natalya – This past couple of years I’ve gone right off Natalya as a wrestler. She used to be able to hold her own and even stand out as a competitor, but in this era of women’s wrestling where WWE has some of the best female competitors on the planet, she just can’t keep up. It’s entirely possible that Natalya will hold championship gold again before she retires, but something like Money in the Bank wouldn’t rest well on her shoulders.

Carmella – Since losing her Smackdown Women’s Championship last year, Carmella has come on leaps and bounds as a wrestler. Her character turned out to be much better suited to being a face than a heel and this turn has also allowed her to loosen up her wrestling style a lot more, without having to rely on crap like James Ellsworth to get victories; not the mention the Code of Silence is a great looking finisher. I think she’s destined to hold a championship again in her career, but given the landscape of the women’s division now I don’t think it’s going to be for a while, so she’s not picking up the briefcase here.

Dana Brooke – No.

Naomi – Naomi is someone who has all the makings of someone who could potentially carry one of the women’s divisions in WWE at some point in her career. I know she’s already been champion before, but I never felt like the creative team were fully behind her, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years we saw something akin to Kofi’s ascent earlier this year. Like I say though, in a few years, with Becky Lynch sitting pretty holding both women’s championships there’s just no room for her to be skulking around that scene right now.

Mandy Rose – If Asuka was still Smackdown Women’s Champion, I’d say she had a pretty good chance, but that’s not the case, so there’s not a lot for me to say. I can’t help but feel like WWE have backed the wrong horse out of Fire and Desire, don’t get me wrong I like Mandy Rose, even if she is still a little bit green, but I think Sonya Deville really has the makings of an all-time great female wrestler if they’d just give her a shot. Regardless, Mandy isn’t winning this match, because I don’t really see her being a champion anytime soon.

Nikki Cross – As announced on Thursday via WWE’s social media pages, Alexa Bliss wasn’t medically cleared to compete, and Nikki Cross is here replacement because…she sorta helped Alexa out on Monday? As far as reintroductions go, a Money in the Bank ladder match could be really good for Nikki if she’s given some time to stand out in it. Perhaps having her as the last person to be thrown off of the ladder before the actual winner climbs would be a good spot for her, and hopefully some form of story with Alexa Bliss will keep her on TV for the next few months. There’s no way she’s going to be winning this match though.

Ember Moon – Out of everyone in this match, I think this is who I want to win the most. Since coming over to Smackdown she’s been positioned perfectly for a meteoric rise in the coming months, but I’m really sceptical about WWE actually pulling the trigger on it. However, for that rise to happen, I really don’t think she needs to win Money in the Bank, it would help of course, but I think a more organic rise, similar to the one Becky Lynch saw last year would leave her better off in the long run. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ember won it, but it’s not what I think is going to happen.

Bayley – Time for a totally mad theory.

As much as I’ve loved (almost) every Charlotte vs Becky match, I’m at the point where I’d rather see someone else challenge Becky for once, which WWE illuded to a number of weeks ago when Becky proclaimed she also wants to face new people. In addition to this, Bayley has been made to look a million bucks since coming over to Smackdown last month, taking it to everyone she’s come accross.

So let’s put two and two together here, WWE seem to have loved pulling the “same night cash in” trick on a number of occasions, so why not do it again? Except this time, instead of making it a cheap sneak attack, have this match go on early, and once Bayley has unhooked the briefcase, she grabs a mics and inserts herself into Becky vs Charlotte, making it a triple threat. I’ll get into what happens in that match in a moment, but I personally think that would be a great way for things to play out.

Even if that doesn’t come to pass, I still think Bayley’s the one to go with here. She’ll likely announce her cash-in in advance because that’s what faces with the briefcase do, but I think it will be a good way to keep her in everyone’s minds while Becky goes off to face anyone and everyone on the Smackdown roster.

Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Orton aside, I’d be perfectly happy with any of these men winning the coveted briefcase. There’s a great mix of big guys and high flyers in this match, and as previous years have shown us, that usually makes for the most entertaining of ladder matches. Ricochet and Ali are gonna try and out crazy each other which Balor & Andrade go at it, Drew & Braun try to murder each other, Orton doles out RKOs left right and centre and Corbin is also there.

Ricochet – I love Ricochet as much as the next guy, but let’s face it, he’s only in here to do some cool ladder spots. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ll be raving about whatever it is he did come Monday, but he doesn’t have any real chance of actually winning the thing. It’s hard to tell where Ricochet’s going right now, which makes me worry that it’s nowhere, hopefully, a good showing here will stop that from happening.

Randy Orton – Much like Bliss in the women’s match, he almost certainly won’t win, but there’s a tiny chance he might because it’s Randy Orton. Orton is another guy who feels pretty directionless right now, he hasn’t done a great deal of anything since Wrestlemania, thanks to AJ jumping ship, so he’s just been doing what he always does between storylines which is RKOing people with no rhyme or reason until one of them gets pissy about it. He doesn’t need the briefcase to do that though, so let’s move on.

Baron Corbin – This seems very much like another opportunity for everyone and their grandmothers to mug off Baron Corbin with ladders right at the start of the match. I can’t say I’d be pissed off if Corbin won, but I certainly wouldn’t be that pleased about it. I’m sure Corbin will win a world title at some point over the next couple years – no matter how much we don’t want him to – but the Universal Title scene really doesn’t feel fit for him to drop in right now. It could look very different come November-January time, but somehow I doubt it.

Ali – I really hope Ali has a good showing here, he kicked ass in the WWE title match at Fastlane and he’s disappointingly faded back down the card a bit since then. With Buddy Murphey on the way to Smackdown as well, it’s getting a little worrying for Ali, as it’ll be really easy for him to get lost in the shuffle and have a really mediocre year, like that of Andrade in 2018. He’s not picking up the win here, but I imagine him and Ricochet will try and outdo each other and Ali will really show off his stuff.

Sami Zayn – I don’t really know what to make of Sami being put in this match in place of Braun. The way they did it was fine, Corbin and Mcintyre getting in there to take Strowman out of the picture made sense for both of those characters, and heel Sami Zayn is exactly the type of character to take advantage of it. That said, I don’t think Sami has any chance of actually winning the thing, I’m glad he’s getting a spot in a major match like this of course, but I can’t see him doing a great deal of note other than getting killed by Braun Strowman, that is if Strowman doesn’t take Zayn out before the match and reclaim his spot anyway.

Finn Balor – Balor seems like the prime candidate in this match for a whole host of “almost” moments. I imagine he’ll be much like face Dolph Ziggler was, where several times in the match, he’ll be fingertips away from unhooking the briefcase only for someone to snatch it away from him. I also think he can afford to not do a great deal of consequence in this match and still come out of it looking great. There are plenty of people lined up for Balor to face for the IC in the coming months and here would be a really good place to sow the seeds by having someone like Ali or Andrade stop him from doing it. At the end of the day though, he’s the Intercontinental Champion, so he really doesn’t need the Money in the Bank briefcase

Drew Mcintyre – If I were a betting man, this is probably who I would put my money on. As I mentioned in the intro, apparently the plan is to properly try and make a star out of this year’s Money in the Bank winner, and we’ve all known it was only a matter of time until Drew was a world champion when he resigned with NXT a few years ago. Drew really does seem like the easy pick to win this briefcase, but I’m not sure he actually needs the briefcase in order to get to the Universal Championship. All it takes is multiple months of Drew absolutely murdering dudes left, right and centre. Ultimately, I will not be surprised in the least if Drew walks out with the briefcase, but he’s not the horse I’m backing in this race, because…

Andrade – 2019 might be a “now or never” year for Andrade, not just because there are multiple reports of him being disgruntled, but also because of how he was treated throughout most of last year. He had great matches with top stars yes, but with the exception of Rey Mysterio, he lost all of them. Those matches did a great job to raise his stock and Vince is reportedly really high on the guy, but if he spends another year doing the exact same thing there might not be any way for him to recover.

If Andrade was still on Raw I’d say he didn’t have a chance, but now he’s back on Smackdown all bets are off, and Andrade could be the perfect person to hold the briefcase and eventually become champion. Andrade is a Wrestlemania main event level guy, and all it will take is management to get behind him and he’ll soar. He’s like Alberto Del Rio but not a massive douche, and about 60 times better at wrestling.

Kofi Kingston(c) vs Kevin Owens
(WWE Championship)

This is going to be the next few months, isn’t it? Us all being terrified that Kofi is going to lose the title way too soon every time he defends it.

As much as I’d wish they’d saved this feud for the summer, I can understand why they put the rush on it given Daniel Bryan’s uncertain health at the time. As it turns out, what we’ve got so far has been pretty good, I personally would’ve kept the whole “Kevin Owens as part of the New Day” thing going a bit longer, but the turn was still shocking enough to create a memorable moment and the promos in subsequent weeks have put some real fire behind this feud.

As for the match itself, these two seem like their styles will mesh really well in a high profile match like this. Kofi has proved to be the ultimate underdog wrestler this year and Owens is always at his best when he gets to dominate someone and really enjoy rubbing it in their faces. It does have a slight problem in that this feud definitely isn’t going to be a one-and-done so we could get some kind of wonky finish that really takes the wind out of the sails of the great match that preceded it, Styles vs Owens is a pretty good example of this.

While it’s entirely possible they hot shot the title a couple of times in this feud, I’m going to stick with my guns and say Kofi Kingston is going to retain for now. The moment at Wrestlemania will live on forever in the history books, but I feel like losing the title in his first PPV defence like this would undercut it a bit too much.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Please be the last one.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked almost all of the matches these two have had together, and I’m sure this will be no exception, but I’m pretty tired of seeing it for a good while. The story’s been pretty solid, and while these two are both great on the mic they’re kind of out of insult to throw at each other by this point. We know that Becky thinks Charlotte was handed everything, and we know that Charlotte thinks Becky is just a flash in the pan still, we’ve heard all these points over and over again for almost a year now, which is why I think this match needs something to spice it up.

So that’s why I’m proposing the scenario where Bayley wins the Money in the Bank and uses it to insert herself into this match. It makes sense from a character perspective because not only would face Bayley not want to sneak attack with the briefcase but since Bayley’s come over to Smackdown, she’s had a massive chip on her shoulder and desperate to prove she can still do it on her own, so what better way to prove that to everyone than taking out both Becky and Charlotte on the same night?

If that scenario comes to pass, I think Bayley will walk away the winner because they just can’t have another Money in the Bank winner lose their title match, plus it opens up new and fresh opportunities for both a Becky vs Bayley and Charlotte vs Bayley feud for over the summer. If my scenario doesn’t happen though, Becky Lynch is pretty much a lock to retain, they can’t undermine Becky’s Wrestlemania win by having her drop one of the titles back to Charlotte at the first opportunity.

Seth Rollins(c) vs AJ Styles
(Universal Championship)

I think I may be dreaming.

Before you say it, I know. Getting this excited for this match is only setting me up for a disappointing non-finish, but just let me have this one. I don’t care if almost every match AJ had as champion last year ended up performing below expectations when Seth was IC champion last year almost every one of his matches far surpassed expectations. Rollins vs Styles has been the one dream match I’ve been begging for ever since Styles came to WWE, so until it’s proved otherwise, I’m going to be optimistic about it.

The feud itself has been alright I guess, although nothing special. Touching on the two’s past was a nice little touch, but nothing they’ve said on the mic has caught my imagination a great deal. Not to mention there wasn’t really any build for the match on Monday outside of a video package, it would’ve been much more beneficial for the contract signing to have taken place this past Monday instead of 3 weeks ago, but oh well.

There is a chance that this will end in some kind of DQ, dirty finish if WWE wants to keep the feud going for another few months, but regardless of what actually goes down, Seth Rollins is walking away with the title, and he’s holding onto it for quite a long time.

So, those are my predictions for Money in the Bank 2019! What do you think is going to happen on Sunday? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and make sure you come back early next week for my review of the show!

WWE Elimination Chamber 2019 Predictions

I’ve never really liked having a PPV between the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania. Sure, in the attitude era it would actually wrap up long-running storylines and set things up for Wrestlemania that actually felt important; but nowadays it just forces some half-assed storylines where everyone knows the outcome before they’ve even begun. So this year we’ve got two of them…Ok then.

That said, even when an Elimination Chamber is predictable it’s usually quite fun, so having two of them on the show (one of which for a brand new championship) gives at least some part of the show exciting stakes; not sure that can be said for the rest of the card, however.

Let’s take a look at it then shall we? I think we shall, here are my predictions for WWE Elimination Chamber 2019.

Braun Strowman vs Baron Corbin
(No Disqualification)

How quickly we revert to old habits.

When WWE came out and spouted out about it being a new era with new matches and new faces, I was one of the voices saying “give it time”. I felt they needed a month or so to end all the current storylines and tie up loose ends before moving on. Yet here we are in February, and Corbin, Drew & Lashley vs Braun “and friends” is still a thing we apparently need to deal with.

Quite frankly, this match shouldn’t be longer than a minute, as I don’t really think anyone wants to see it go much longer, matches like the Cruiserweight Championship shouldn’t be bumped to the pre-show in order to make room for this bollocks.

Oh yeah, Braun Strowman will win here, because he needs some sort of win after he got the wind taken out of his sails before the Royal Rumble before both mean likely end up in the battle royal at Wrestlemania.

Bobby Lashley(c) & Lio Rush vs Finn Balor
(2 on 1 Handicap)
(Intercontinental Championship)

How the mighty fall…

Remember as little as two months ago where the IC title was the most hotly contested title in the company? Fun times. As it stands now though, the prestigious title sits upon the shoulders of arguably the most boring wrestler in the entire company. That being said, Balor is talented enough to get at least a decent match out of Lashley, and with Lio Rush being in the mix as well, it’ll be a great opportunity for him to show off the awesome stuff he can do on a big stage.

As for whether the title will change hands, it’s a bit of a coin flip but I doubt it. Balor’s got to pick up that title, either before or at Wrestlemania, but we’ve already had some quick title changes and WWE don’t generally like letting babyfaces win the title on their first shot. So I’m going with what I feel is the safe option and pick Bobby Lashley & Lio Rush to win here.

Buddy Murphey(c) vs Akira Tozowa
(Cruiserweight Championship)

I’ll be honest, out of all the people in that Fatal 4 Way from the Rumble, Tozowa was not the one I was expecting to get a singles feud.the one hand, I want to say that they’re just spinning their wheels until Wrestlemania, but at the same time, I have absolutely no idea what the plans for Wrestlemania could possibly be. I don’t really see anyone on 205 Live that could be that a big a deal for a Wrestlemania match.

I’m sure this match will be pretty good, but I’m not expecting anything that special, especially since it will probably be bumped to the pre-show yet again. As for a winner, Buddy Murphey to retain seems like a pretty solid pick, Tozowa’s time has been and gone, it’d take a lot to build him up again in my eyes.

Shane Mcmahon & The Miz(c) vs The Usos
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Ok, this has gone too far.

I wasn’t happy about Miz and Shane beating The Bar, but once it happened I could live with it, but if Miz and Shane beat The Usos, I may actually blow my lid.

I decided that once they won the title, I’d give the story a chance to breathe and show what it’s really all about, but over the past month, there hasn’t been a hint of anything interesting with the two of them. This was something I didn’t want to see in the first place, and I really don’t want to see any more of it.

Having said all of that though, I really don’t see them losing the titles here. The Usos have been in the Smackdown Tag Title scene for such an extended amount of time, with very small breaks and I really can’t see them going back to that well just yet. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Shane Mcmahon & The Miz retain their titles, via some form of dirty finish, just to give this story some form of intrigue.

Ronda Rousey(c) def. Ruby Riott
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Ronda Rousey, next question.

Seriously though, two years in a row now, Ruby Riott has got a title match in a situation where there is absolutely zero chance she wins. WWE is already going so hard building the Ronda, Becky, Charlotte storyline that there is absolutely no way that Ronda is losing that belt anytime before Wrestlemania.

The match will hopefully be pretty good, but I am fully confident in saying that Ronda Rousey will win.

Nia Jax & Tamina vs Naomi & Carmella vs Absolution vs The Riott Squad vs The IIconics vs Sasha Banks & Bayley
(Elimination Chamber)
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

This is such a weird one to predict because honestly, you could make a good case for any of these teams to win. So let’s go through them all and analyse their chances, shall we?

Naomi & Carmella – This is pretty much the only team I can’t make a solid case for. It feels like a really thrown together team that exists for sole purpose of filling a spot in the chamber. I’m sure we’ll get a dance break or something fun like that, but I don’t imagine they’ll last very long and I certainly don’t expect them to win.

The IIconics – In my heart, this is the team I want to win, and while it’s possible, I seriously doubt it. These two will probably be the heels that dominate the early sections before getting eliminated in a big “shock”.

The Riott Squad – Part of me wants to say that these guys have a chance because of Ruby getting murdered by Ronda earlier on in the show (plus Sarah Logan is an awesome person), but I seriously doubt that’s the case. The whole Riott Squad have been getting the shaft since the moment they showed up on the main roster, which is tragic, but it’s the way it is so I don’t think they stand much of a chance.

Absolution – Weirdly, I do feel that these guys stand a small chance in this match. I don’t quite know why, but Mandy Rose has been such a central focus Smackdown this past month that I feel like it’s got be leading somewhere right? Then, I gave it a second thought and realised it’s probably just going to lead to Naomi pinning Mandy Rose and being the first ones eliminated.

Sasha Banks & Bayley – I refuse to call them “The Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection” because that’s an awful name. They’re one of the two that I keep going back and forth on to win this match, and I think their night will go one of two ways. Either they’ll fight through the whole match and pick up an unlikely but feel good win to pay off all the struggle both women have gone through over the past year, OR, they’ll fight all the way through to the final two only to have their dreams shattered at the last second and maybe one will turn on the other.

I’m leaning towards the latter, unfortunately, although I doubt we’ll see a heel turn from either woman just yet.

Nia Jax & Tamina – Yeah, these two winning just feels right doesn’t it? I’m not really a fan of either woman as a wrestler, but I’ve kind of liked what Nia Jax has been doing character wise recently. Generally, it seems like a decent idea for these two to win here, only to be conquered by some heroic babyfaces (probably Banks & Bayley) at Wrestlemania.

I’ve gone back and forth while writing this section a lot, but in the end, I think Nia Jax & Tamina is the right choice.

Daniel Bryan(c) vs AJ Styles vs Samoa Joe vs Kofi Kingston vs Jeff Hardy vs Randy Orton
(Elimination Chamber)
(WWE Championship)

I was quite surprised that we were getting a WWE title match at this show since traditionally the Elimination Chamber has been used to determine the Wrestlemania opponent for the opposite title to the Royal Rumble winner, but I guess they want to do that at Fastlane instead.

Either way, let’s go through and look at the chances of each competitor here.

Jeff Hardy – I think it says a lot about how badly things have gone for Jeff Hardy recently, that I completely forgot he was in this match and had to look it up, even though I’m writing this on Wednesday, about 4 hours after I watched the go-home Smackdown. I’m sure he’ll do a Swanton off the top of a pod, but I imagine he’ll be eliminated pretty soon after that moment.

Samoa Joe – It feels just a little too late for Joe, unfortunately. I’m sure Samoa Joe will win a world title eventually, but I don’t see it coming any time in the first half of the year. he was quite heavily damaged by the AJ Styles feud that went on far too long, and he needs a series of CLEAN wins over high calibre opponents to build him back up. Regardless, Sunday isn’t going to be his night.

Kofi Kingston – When I heard that Kogi would be replacing Ali in the match, I didn’t really care, but then I watched the Gauntlet match on Smackdown and holy crap I want Kofi to win so badly now. He’s been in a tag team for so damn long, that I think we all forgot that Kofi is an amazing singles wrestler too, and he I hope he gets more of a chance to show his stuff here. That said, he’s not going to win, as much as I’d love for the New Day to have a world title, now’s really not the time for it to happen.

Randy Orton – Every part of my brain is telling me he has zero chance, but it’s Randy Orton, and I live in constant fear that he’s going to win the WWE Championship again at any moment. That said, they made such a big deal of Orton being the last man to enter, and I can see them arguing about it for roughly 30 minutes on the pre-show panel, that there’s no way he can possibly win.

AJ Styles – This is the only man that I could potentially see winning the title here, and weirdly, it’s the only man I don’t really want to win the title here. I’ve said this before, but I’m pretty done with WWE Champion AJ Styles, it got really stale towards the end of the run and I really don’t think there’s anyone I’d like to see him face come Wrestlemania, so he’s to hoping it doesn’t happen.

Daniel Bryan – Yeah, there’s no way that titles changing hands. I just can’t see any scenario for Wrestlemania where Daniel Bryan isn’t WWE Champion going into it. He’s the best character on Smackdown live right now (if we count Becky Lynch as being above brand right now), and he’s just got a new lacky in the form of Rowan so I don’t see that title going anywhere for quite a while.

I’m sure this match will be great, as I usually quite enjoy Elimination Chamber matches, but the result is pretty inevitable and Daniel Bryan is walking out of there with that beautiful championship over his shoulder.

So there are my predictions! Thank you very much for taking the time out to read this and sharing it around on social media would be very much appreciated. Follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for live tweets of the event, and make sure to come back early next week for my review!

 

WWE Royal Rumble 2019 Predictions

The new year may bring some the depressing realisation of being yet another year closer to the grave, however to wrestling fans it means the excitement, anger and general confusion that comes with the Royal Rumble event.

How predictable a Rumble is, generally varies widely. Either it’s ludicrously obvious like in 2013, or completely unpredictable like in 2017, and this year we seem to have one of each. As usual the undercard seems pretty easy to call, however, the matches themselves look to be fantastic.

Rusev(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
(United States Championship)

Oh, this is still happening?

It’s not been officially confirmed as of the time of writing, but I imagine this will end up on the pre-show, and while these are both guys I like very much, I can’t say it deserves any better.

Rusev winning the US title on Christmas Day (which was also his birthday (which was also Rusev Day)) was a great point on that feud which felt like it had been going on forever. Instead, they decided to artificially extend the feud by having Lana take the world’s weakest bump and having it take her out of action for over a week (despite being an active wrestler herself).

The US title really needs something to save it soon because right now no-one has any reason to care about it. With any luck, someone like Almas will win it soon and make it matter again, as for now, I’m going to pick Rusev to retain here, mostly because I don’t see a reason for Nakamura to win it back any time soon.

Buddy Murphy(c) vs Kalisto vs Akira Tozowa vs Hideo Itami
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Oh hey, I remember when these guys used to have any sort of on-screen presence in WWE.

Believe it or not, I have actually been watching the occasional episode of 205 Live this month so I’m not just blindly guessing at what’s going on for once. Personally, I’ve been really enjoying Murphy’s title reign, putting on great match after great match, and I don’t really want to see it end anytime soon.

That said, I also really love Hideo Itami and all the stuff he did pre-WWE and in NXT, so finally giving him a platform where he gets to wrestle in front of an audience that actually cares about his existence. Kalisto is long past being worth anything in the cruiserweight division, and while I like Tozowa, his opportunity had come and gone if you ask me.

It boils down to a choice between my heart and my head, and realistically it doesn’t make sense for heel Itami to take the title off of heel Murphy, so I’m going to pick Buddy Murphey to retain.

The Bar(c) vs Shane Mcmahon & The Miz
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

I don’t very often define a creative decision in WWE as “wrong”, because any creative decision tends to have some pretty sound ideas behind it and could end up leading to something great. However, Shane and Miz winning the titles here would very much be the wrong decision for this match.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad The Miz isn’t just floundering about doing shit-all until Daniel Bryan is ready to fight him again, but using Shane Mcmahon to do it really doesn’t feel like the right way to go. Miz obviously still has some beef with Shane from the World-Cup-To-Determine-The-Best-In-The-World™, and he’s obviously going to turn on him eventually, I just really hope they don’t win the titles before then.

The Bar has been looking really strong in this title reign, taking out The New Day, The Usos and AOP with relative ease and to have it end with them losing to Miz and Shane would be a disaster.

Unsurprisingly I’m picking The Bar to retain because I don’t want to imagine the alternative.

Asuka(c) vs Becky Lynch
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Yes please.

This is the match that I’m planting my flag in for the match of the night. The Smackdown women’s division has been absolutely brilliant ever since Summerslam and this is the perfect way to keep the ball rolling. Taking the most popular wrestler and making them fight your second most popular wrestler, it’s booking at it’s simplest, yet most effective.

As for who should win, I think it’s pretty simple, but picking who will win is slightly more difficult. Personally, I think Asuka has to retain otherwise she may as well have never won the thing in the first place. The problem is, given that a Triple Threat between Ronda, Charlotte and Becky is what’s currently on the cards for WrestleMania, I think there’s a chance WWE will want both titles to be on the line, so Becky could win it back any day now.

Ultimately, I’m going with Asuka since I just can’t see why they’d have her win the title if they were going to take it off her before Wrestlemania, especially as soon as this.

Ronda Rousey(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Remember the days when Sasha was treated as a megastar in the women’s division? Good times.

That said, Sasha has been made to look pretty damn good in the build to this match, which is quite impressive considering how much of a chump she’s looked al lthroughout 2018. With any luck, Sasha will be able to carry this momentum into the Elimination Chamber next months where she’ll probably be fighting for the women’s tag titles. Who knows, maybe she’ll even stay this level of a star for the rest of the year.

This is one of those matches that doesn’t immediately spring to mind when you think of dream matches for Ronda Rousey, but now it’s being presented to me, I’m very happy to see it indeed. I spent all of 2018 singing the praises of Ronda Rousey as an in-ring competitor and I stand by that, so I’m expecting a fantastic match here, provided no shenanigans occur.

It’s not exactly hard to pick a winner though, Ronda Rousey is going to retain for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who knows who these women are.

Daniel Bryan(c) vs AJ Styles
(WWE Championship)

While I’m sure this will be a great match and I’m happy to see it, I can’t help but be a little bit disappointed this isn’t Bryan vs Ali.

I still love Styles as much as I did when he first joined WWE, but I think I’m done seeing him in the world title picture for quite a while now. His reign was long and filled with a lot of great matches with awful finishes, so once this is done I hope to see him try something new and interesting for a little while before sniffing around a world title again.

Bryan, on the other hand, should carry that title forever. His character since turning heel has been a brilliant heat magnet that crowds seem to love so much that they want to boo him. A heel that actually gets boos for doing heelish things, crazy I know.

I’m going with what I think should happen here and pick Daniel Bryan to retain and carry that thing into Wrestlemania to have a brilliant match with literally anyone on the Smackdown roster.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Finn Balor
(Universal Championship)

I have but one simple request, which is for Finn Balor not to die please.

There’s a lot of fear out there regarding this match right now, that all of Balor’s momentum from winning two matches in one night and pinning John effing Cena will be wasted when Brock beats him easily in about 8 minutes. I was fearful of this too until I heard the news that apparently Brock requested Finn as Braun’s replacements since he likes to wrestle the “David vs Goliath” style of match.

Hearing things like this and looking back at matches such as Brock vs AJ and Brock vs Bryan have restored my hopes that this will actually be a pretty good match.

You don’t need me to tell you who’s going to win though. You can root for Finn all you like, but Brock Lesnar is winning.

Women’s Royal Rumble Match

I thought this one would be pretty hard for me to call until I read the list of participants.

For those who are unaware, the current match that is planned for Wrestlemania is Ronda vs Charlotte vs Becky. Now obviously plans can change at a moments notice in WWE, but I know many fans (myself included) will be a little disappointed we aren’t going to get Ronda vs Becky one on one.

As for the Rumble match itself, I’m looking forward to it. I was rather underwhelmed by the inaugural women’s Rumble last year, as I thought it relied too heavily on women from the past and didn’t focus on the current stars. However there are significantly more women on the main roster this year, so we should get some effective storytelling involving modern-day stars instead of the past this year.

Normally for a Rumble, I’d got through all the people who had a chance of winning but this time around there really seems to be only one choice for me. There is still a tiny part of me that is holding out hope that Becky will make a surprise entrance and win the thing, but I’ve got to go with my head here and pick Charlotte Flair to win this.

Men’s Royal Rumble Match

I’m really excited about this one.

I feel like last year’s euphoric win for Nakamura has restored my faith in the Royal Rumble match, even if what happened after wasn’t amazing. Even bad Rumble matches are fun to watch for the most part and I’m feeling pretty confident that this years will be a good one too.

While I think Drew Mcintyre does have an outside chance here, realistically this match is between two men for me:

John Cena – It’s generally never a good idea to count Cena out of any match like this, but this year, in particular, I think he’s one to watch. There isn’t really any of note on Smackdown right now that Bryan could face at Wrestlemania, and personally, I’d really like to see him fight Cena.

Cena is the antithesis to everything Daniel Bryan has been preaching these past few months, add onto that Cena’s 17th world title reign, their previous match at Summerslam 2013 and whatever drama is going on over on Total Bella’s and you’ve got yourself one hell of a story right there.

I’m fairly certain Cena vs Bryan will be the match at Wrestlemania, but I don’t think Cena’s going to go through the Rumble to get there.

Seth Rollins – You have no idea how badly I want this to happen. Seth Rollins has had arguably the best year of his career this year, putting on the best match of almost every major show he’s been on this year (TLC excluded). In process of making the Intercontinental Championship the most hotly contested title in WWE last year, he also built himself up to be the only man who could really take down Brock Lesnar in Roman Reigns’ absence.

Getting a Rumble win under his belt would be a fantastic way to go full steam ahead into Brock Lesnar and have a brilliant run with the Universal Championship, taking on all comers until the summer at least. It seems the most logical choice to me, and I really want to see it happen, so Rollins is the man I’m picking to win this year.

That’s all folks! Thank you very much for reading these predictions, follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for live reactions to the Rumble on Sunday and NXT: Takeover on Saturday, and stay tuned for my review of the Rumble early next week!

WWE TLC Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2018: Every Match Ranked

The final WWE Pay-Per-View for 2018 is finally in the bag, and we’ve had this crazy year topped off with a show that was really…..ok.

While there wasn’t a match on this show that I can say I hated, but I didn’t feel the show was as good as I thought it would be when I read the card. The amount of matches really made the show drag a little, especially towards the end. However the focus of the show seemed to be in the right place, so it made for a decent night.

Now let’s talk about the matches themselves, as I rank them from worst to best.

12 – Carmella & R-Truth def. Jinder Mahal &      Alicia Fox
(Mixed Match Challenge Season 2 Final)

Not a whole lot to say about this one really…

I haven’t watched any of the Mixed Match Challenge this year, so I don’t really have any investment in what happened here. I prefer Truth and Carmella to Jinder and Alicia, but that’s mostly just by default. More to the point, there wasn’t anything noteworthy about the match either.

There were a couple of minor slip ups, but aside from that it was a pretty standard match that wouldn’t feel out of place on Raw or Smackdown. I know most people are digging the “Dance Break” thing, but I hate it with all my being, and of course the Singh Brothers were around so they had to go ahead and make it even stupider.

I’m glad Mella & Truth won, but I’m not looking forward to Truth being #30 in the Royal Rumble, or the “comedy” sketch on Tuesday about their trip to WWE’s head offices.

11 – Elias def. Bobby Lashley
(Ladder Match)

Gimmick matches on the pre-show now? A bit weird, but alright.

I’m not sure that the guitar thing was really necessary for this match, it could’ve quite easily have just ended in a pinfall and I don’t think it would’ve made much difference. I know it was unlikely Elias was ever going to pin Bobby, but if you were just going to have Bobby lay Elias out immediately after the match anyway then what’s the point in even having Elias win?

It’s not like either of these men are about to compete for a title, and they’re certainly not in the running for Royal Rumble winner, so this whole thing was ultimately pointless. The match was at least somewhat entertaining, with some nice versions of spots we’ve seen in every other ladder match since the dawn of time.

These two men don’t really have the greatest about of chemistry together, so I really hope this feud doesn’t continue any longer.

10 – Natalya def. Ruby Riott
(Tables Match)

Who knew “tables with pictures on them” would be one of the major stories on this show.

I feel bad putting this match this low, because there was actually some stuff to like about it, but the overall story didn’t really draw me in at all. I liked all the stuff with the Riott Squad taking the bullet for Ruby in a couple of spots to make sure she didn’t lose, it was a nice way to make their present felt without having them directly hinder Natalya.

The main problem I had here was how slowly these two would set up every single spot. It wasn’t just the table spots either, even Natalya locking in the Sharpshooter felt like it took forever. It was a little bit annoying that the tables were so obviously pre-cut, but I guess you didn’t want a situation like Hell in a Cell 2016, where the women are too light to break the table when they fall on it.

It was a perfectly serviceable match, with nothing amazing to draw me in, and buckle up, because I’m going to be saying words to that effect a lot in this review.

9 – Rey Mysterio def. Randy Orton
(Chairs Match)

Please, no more chair matches.

I think that this was the only match on the show that was actively hindered by the stipulation, chairs matches just don’t really seem to work as a concept. For one, all it really is, is a no DQ match where the ring is surrounded by chairs, but more importantly it means that every single major spot has to involve chairs in some way.

There’s only so much you can do with a steel chair and while they’re good in small doses, basing a whole match around them gets old fast. While there were a couple of fun spots, including a rather nasty looking one where Rey went arse first into a chair, but nothing particularly outstanding, and although I didn’t hate this match, I can’t help but feel it would’ve been better without this stipulation.

8 – Dean Ambrose def. Seth Rollins(c)
(Intercontinetal Championship)

Oh….well ok then.

I really don’t understand what it was about this match, but it just didn’t click. The placement on the show probably didn’t help, being the second to last match on a show this long pretty much guarantees a worn out crowd, and they were almost dead silent the whole time.

The match also didn’t really feel like it was a fight between two men with the history that these two have. Dean needed to be a lot more vicious, and Seth needed to have a lot more energy and fire underneath him for it to really click like it should’ve. At the end of the day, you could replace Dean and Seth with pretty much any other heel and face on the roster and the match wouldn’t have felt any different, which really isn’t a good thing.

While they did touch on the story in the closing minutes, given how badly the story’s been built over the past month and how underwhelming the match had been up until that point, it didn’t really feel earned. Part of me wants to see them try this again, but another part of me really just want them both to move on.

It sucks that, in a year where Seth Rollins put on the match of the night on almost every show, he’s down this low on the final show of the year. Let’s just hope he moves on to blow the roof of Wrestlemania against Lesnar next year and we can all forget this ever happened.

7 – Braun Strowman def. Baron Corbin
(TLC Match)

How heroic of these good guys to all team up and beat the ever-loving piss out of their boss.

When I think about how all of this went down, I feel like I should hate it, but I just can’t for some reason. Sure, Strowman probably could’ve still beaten Baron with a broken arm, but this solution make Braun seem quite smart too. It was also a pretty clever way to get them out of this spot they ended up in, where Baron needed to be out of power, but Braun was injured.

Given how crap Raw has been these past few weeks, it was kind of cathartic to see one of the main culprits put to rest, although I’m not all in on WWE using him as a scapegoat for the whole mess. Corbin’s probably going to end up fading into the background a bit more now, and Braun can move on to lose to Brock Lesnar again at the Royal Rumble, but let’s just enjoy this while it lasts.

6 – Finn Balor def. Drew Mcintyre

I never thought WWE could make me feel simultaneously disappointed and pleasantly surprised, but here we are.

I really don’t understand the rationale behind Balor winning here. As much as I’m glad to see that WWE aren’t continuing to hand him loss after loss, I really felt like this was a match Drew needed to win, especially as it seemed like they were trying to build him up. You could argue it was a protected loss since Dolph Ziggler got involved, but this is the same Drew Mcintyre who damn near killed Kurt Angle, two small dudes attacking him shouldn’t really be a problem.

The match itself did feel more like an above average Raw match than a decent PPV match, but everything in it was solid, and Dolph’s interference does at least make sense from the character’s perspective. I really feel like Drew needs to be a much more vicious heel however, he shouldn’t be using rest holds and shouting at his opponent, he needs to be trying throwing them around the ring like they’re nothing.

I really hope this isn’t the start of a decline for Drew, because it seemed like things were going so well for him up until now.

5 – Buddy Murphy(c) def. Cedric Alexander
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Well that was fun while it lasted.

It’s a real shame that the cruiserweights got bumped to the pre-show once again, after putting on two fantastic main card performances in a row, but there was a lot of matches on this show, and I can’t really say that anything else could’ve been bumped to make room for this one.

Regardless, these guys don’t care what part of the show they’re on, they’ll still put on a great match if they can. While it did feel like they toned things down a bit due to being on the pre-show, it was still an entertaining match, with lots of fun action.

One thing the cruiserweights seem to be really good at, is winning over a crowd that usually doesn’t seem to care. The crowd started out dead silent at the start of this match, and by the end they were loving it. It goes to show that even if a good portion of that crowd probably have no idea who these guys are, they’ll still invest in a match if they like what they see. If only they’d go home and watch 205 Live afterwards.

4 – Ronda Rousey(c) def. NIa Jax
(Raw Women’s Championship)

I know I’ve said this pretty much every time she’s wrestled this year, but Ronda Rousey is really good at wrestling.

Clearly Natalya trained her well or something like that, because she just seems to get it, case in point: this match right here. There really aren’t very many people on the roster who could have a match that good with Nia Jax, maybe Becky & Charlotte, but there isn’t anyone else that good.

This match really was all Ronda, pretty much the whole time, Nia seemed somehow more immobile than usual, but Ronda was still able to make it work. She sold her ass of on basically every move to make sure it felt like it had impact, and was flying all about the place when she was on offence to really get the best out of Nia.

This is probably the last time Nia will have a major role on Raw for a very long time, considering Ronda didn’t seem to struggle too much in putting her away, and then Becky laid her the fuck out after the match.

3 – The Bar(c) def. The New Day & The Usos
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Please, never move these teams to Raw, never.

While this was a very good match, it did feel a bit like it was one of the victims of the over stuffed show, but, these teams could pull a great match out even if they only had 30 seconds to work it. Everyone got plenty of time to shine in this match. I’m not sure I like the whole “only two teams in the ring at once” stipulation to Triple Threat tag matches, but they generally still seem to work and I’m ok with that.

My only real worry is where on Earth do these tag titles go next? This is the problem with only focusing on these three (admittedly brilliant) tag teams, is now you need The Bar to fight someone else and there really isn’t anyone build up enough. The Club have lost so many tag title opportunities, they’re basically a joke, and Sanity kept losing their matches and have been absent for months, with the exception of one underwhelming appearance at Survivor Series. Maybe we’ll get a NXT call up, but it’s not like Heavy Machinery ever stand a chance of taking out The Bar.

I have a lot more faith in the Smackdown writers than I do the Raw writers though, so maybe we’ll get something great in time for the Rumble. Maybe.

2 – Daniel Bryan(c) def. AJ Styles
(WWE Championship)

Who knew this one would be good?…..What? Everyone?! Oh alright.

I had to rewatch this one before I wrote about it, because I didn’t really enjoy it that much watching it live. Maybe it was down to how tired it was, but I just didn’t really get it the first time around, however everyone on Twitter really liked it, so I watched it a second time the next day, and it turns out that past me was very wrong about not liking this one, because this match was great.

Sure, it wasn’t anywhere close to the Styles/Bryan match I had in my head, but this was the match we needed, not the one we wanted. For one, Bryan showing up as The American Dragon was unexpected, and I didn’t even realise it at first, but this dude really is something else. After his return I was starting to doubt if he really was as good as we all remembered him being, but this match reminded me exactly why Daniel Bryan is the best wrestler in the world.

He’s able to blend his fast paced crowd popping babyface style so well with his slow and methodic heel pace that he can wrestle just about any style he wants and it still feels true to his character. More importantly he’s clearly done his homework on AJ Styles, with an answer to pretty much everything he’s got, and when he does get caught, it’s not long before he gets back on top.

The perfect example of this is the finish, winning with a small package after a match like that is brilliant, it feels heelish and cheap, but really he just straight up out thought AJ Styles and won because he was the better wrestler. We’ve got so used to heel champions cheating to win, that it’s really refreshing to see a heel win, because he’s just the better wrestler and that’s all there is to it.

I’d love to see just one more match between these two to really kick things into that final gear and get that truly awesome match we all know they can put on.

1 – Asuka def. Becky Lynch(c) & Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)
(TLC Match)

Hey! Smackdown finally main-evented a cross-brand PPV! Only took 8 sodding months.

What a match this was, everything about it was just great. It started just how it needed to, they didn’t rush to get to all of the weapons spots, they started out just wrestling each other like normal and built to all of the crazy weapon spots, it allows the crowd to get a feel for the match, instead of getting worn out with all the high spots early on.

Every single spot felt like it built on the last, and they were able to set them up without slowing the pace of the match down, in many instances they made the setting up of a spot a key part of the match, so it all flowed perfectly. It’s hard to talk about the rest of this match without just listing all of the awesome stuff that happened during it, so here goes:

  • Asuka flipping Becky back first onto a ladder looked so damn brutal and rebuilt Asuka to her former glory in about 5 seconds.
  • Becky’s ladder dive was great, even if she did almost crush Charlotte’s ribcage.
  • There was a really nice catharsis in watching the women wail on each other with chairs and it made the whole thing feel so much more intense.
  • Charlotte spearing Asuka into the time keeper’s area looked amazing, and the fact that the barrier didn’t break properly actually made it seem even more brutal.
  • Then there’s the finish…

First of all, these women did a really good job of making it look like they were about to win when they weren’t. Usually in a ladder match it’s pretty obvious when someone’s not about to win, but there were a couple of moments in the last 5 minutes where I thought Charlotte had it in the bag.

However, the main article here is Ronda Rousey, who came out, pushed both Charlotte and Becky off the ladder, leaving Asuka to climb the ladder and win. Before I talk about the interference, I just want to mention how awesome a moment it was when the crowd realised Asuka was about to win, they exploded in cheers and it was beautiful to see Asuka finally get what many thought she should’ve got in April.

Does Ronda’s interference cheapen Asuka’s win? Well yes, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t. Does this make me mad? Not really. I know a lot of people are quite upset about the finish to this match, and I feel like I should be too, but I’m just not. The match itself was so good that I don’t really mind and Ronda’s actions make perfect sense in the context of what’s been happening over the past month or so.

I’m not quite sure where all this is leading, personally I still hope it’s Becky vs Ronda and Charlotte vs Asuka II, either way it’s going to be an interesting time in the women’s division moving forward.

So there you have it! That was TLC 2018, overall it was a fairly average show, full of ok wrestling and a fantastic main event, not the greatest thing to end the year on, but certainly not the worst either.

Make sure to share this post around on social media, and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for more opinions on wrestling and the like. Stick around for the next few weeks as I will be starting to cover my end of year awards for both wrestling and gaming!