Tag: Baron Corbin

WWE Stomping Grounds 2019: Every Match Ranked

Well, that was yet another lesson in never getting my hopes up when WWE is involved.

So Stomping Grounds is in the bag and honestly, as a whole, it wasn’t too bad of a show, the first two hours were filled with ok-good matches and there weren’t any crappy finishes to drag things down. That said, once the third hour started the show just drove off of a cliff and never recovered because if it wasn’t for Super Showdown, it’d be the worst hour and a half of wrestling I’ve seen all year. It wasn’t all bad of course, but given that the major three matches failed to deliver, it’s not left the best of tastes in everyone’s mouths.

So, here’s every match from Stomping Grounds 2019 ranked.

9 – Seth Rollins(c) def. Baron Corbin
(Universal Championship)
(Special Guest Referee: Lacey Evans)

I’m of two minds when it comes to Lacey as the referee. On one hand, it’s a clever way for Corbin to get around the problem of Seth trying to murder all of his referees and is someone I genuinely wasn’t expecting to see. On the other hand, the moment it was revealed that it was Lacey, everyone knew how Seth was going to get out of the problem, the crowd were chanting for Becky before the match even started and commentary had been playing up the relationship between Becky & Seth for weeks.

That predictability also made for an extremely boring match leading up until that point and it didn’t help that WWE really overplayed their hand here. This whole thing did not need to be 18 minutes long, it could’ve been done in half of that and not lost anything. In a match like this where everyone knows how it’s going to end, you just need to hit the key points of Lacey screwing Seth over in a few ways and then hit the big finish, instead of doing what they did which was draw it out until we’d all had enough of it, and then draw it out some more.

Please, just no more Seth vs Corbin matches, and please be more creative about it than a mixed tag match too, this really doesn’t have the legs to go any further.

8 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Dolph Ziggler
(WWE Championship)
(Steel Cage)

Well, that just proved my theory that the Steel Cage match between The Miz and Shane McMahon last month was the exception, not the rule.

When Kofi & Ziggler had an underwhelming match at Super Showdown, I gave them the benefit of the doubt because of the situation surrounding the Saudi Arabia shows, but somehow they managed to make this match worse. It started off ok, with a bunch of back and forth as each man would try to get a quick escape from a cage, but that didn’t seem to last very long, because about halfway through, the whole thing just because 10 minutes of rest holds.

Ziggler was “working Kofi’s leg” for so damn long that I totally switched off and started paying attention to other things, and when that spot finally ended, they had a very short sequence of fun moves and went right back to it. Following that, we got several minutes of the guys laying by the door knowing they clearly weren’t going to escape, before and admittedly brilliant finish, where Kofi just launched himself out of the cage.

I just don’t understand why anyone involved in this match thought this would be entertaining to watch. I can see how a more old-school fan might get something out of it, but even then it doesn’t really seem like anything great. You can’t just have the match stop for 10 minutes right before the finish and expect everyone to love it.

7 – Roman Reigns def. Drew Mcintyre

I mean, this wasn’t great, but at least there was something to it.

WWE really need to just let Drew be a monster because this slow, rest-hold style of matches really aren’t doing him any favours at all. Drew is brilliant when he destroys people with high impact offence and refuses to let up, the same with Roman, but for some reason he’s forced to work this boring as fuck style that simply serves as a set up to pop the crowd when his opponent makes a comeback, which isn’t any fun to watch.

Unfortunately, that’s what most of this match was. It had a few entertaining moments scattered throughout it though, like whenever Shane got involved, and towards the finish when Drew and Roman were trading big hits. There wasn’t enough to this match for me to really sink my teeth into it though, there were hints of the awesome Roman vs Drew match we all want in there, but it’s marred by a sea of rest holds and boring wrestling.

Hopefully, the handicap match on Raw is the end of it, because I really don’t want to sit through another month of this crap, just let Roman wrestle someone else for a change like…I dunno, The Shining Stars, it’ll probably be more entertaining than this.

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

Let’s play a fun game, it’s called: How many times does Lacey Evans have to show the world she’s absolutely not ready before WWE stop giving her big PPV matches?

This was very much a match of two halves, with the first being pretty bad and the second being pretty good. The first half of this match really couldn’t find it’s footing all that well, they were going back and forth kind fo awkwardly with wrestling that was fine, but didn’t really grab my attention in any major way, then a few minutes in Lacey made that very obvious botch where she failed to get into position for Becky’s backward kick off of the turnbuckle, forcing Becky to have to do it a second time. Once that happened, the crowd jumped on her with “Lacey sucks” and “You can’t wrestle” chants filling the arena, which seemed to throw her off her game for a little while.

She did eventually recover though and I quite enjoyed the second half of the match, even if it was a little bit hard to ignore Becky calling spots directly down the microphone. The action in the second half of the match picked up in a major way and I thought the two developed some pretty good chemistry as the finish rolled around, it’s time for Becky to move onto something else though because Lacey just isn’t ready to consistently be in this spot.

5 – Daniel Bryan & Rowan(c) def. Heavy Machinery
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

It certainly didn’t take a genius to guess whose home town we were in.

Honestly, though, I felt the crowd really added a lot to this match, I just wish they’d let the wrestlers play to it a bit more. The crowd here were treating Heavy Machinery how I personally treat all of Daniel Bryan’s opponents by desperately not wanting them to win at all and Bryan tried to play to it a bit, but still stuck to the heel tendencies.

The match itself was a fun watch, but it did show off everything I hate about Heavy Machinery, like when Bryan was doing the Yes! Kicks and Otis was thrusting his hips and having a spasm on his feet, it’s not the 80’s anymore, that stuff just looks stupid now. That said, this match did a lot to make Heavy Machinery look good in defeat since realistically you could argue that they only lost thanks to Bryan’s experience and veteran instincts, having the wear with all to make the small package.

If anything is going to revive the tag division in WWE, it’s Bryan & Rowan going on an absolute tear with these titles, having great matches with every tag team on Smackdown and this was certainly a good start.

4 – Bayley(c) def. Alexa Bliss
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

This match was one that very much had the potential to go either way and thankfully it landed on the side of good. There aren’t many complaints I have about this match, I think for the most part the wrestling was very solid, and these two clearly work well together in the ring. I didn’t really reach that upper level of being a great match, but it was certainly more than I was expecting going in.

Alexa seemed to wrestle a lot less heelish in this match, there was still an element of her “full of herself” persona, but there was a lot less taunting, outside of screaming at the ref whenever he tried to remind her of the rules, but for the most part, she wrestled clean. Bayley’s always been great as the beaten down babyface, and it’s always so much fun to watch her rally and make the comeback and this match was no exception.

I’m a little confused about the finish though, commentary tried to claim that Alexa pulled Nikki in the way of Bayley’s dive but to me, it looked more like Nikki didn’t move and pushed Alexa out of the way. I’m even more confused by what happened next because Nikki got in the ring like she was about to attack Bayley because she’s so crazy and just couldn’t control herself, but then 30 seconds later when Bayley’s about to win the match, Nikki suddenly can control herself?

I guess I’m just being a bit overly nitpicky about it, but it struck me as odd when it went down, I also thought Bayley shoving Nikki after the match was a nice touch and I love where Bayley’s character is going. That said, I don’t really want to see this match again, not because it was bad, but because there’s just so much talent in the Smackdown Women’s division right now, that I want to see what Bayley can do with all of them as champion.

3 – Ricochet def. Samoa Joe(c)
(United States Championship)

And here we have a match that’s thankfully what we all hoped it would be.

I said in my predictions that I thought this match would focus on both men trying to force the other to wrestle their style and that’s more or less what we got. The opening sequence was full of Ricochet wrestling circles around Joe before Joe finally caught him and was able to slow him down. Once Joe was on top the pace of the match changed drastically to be a lot more methodical, with Joe trying to wear down Ricochet for a portion of the match.

It threatened to go on for too long and become a bit boring, but these two men were able to pace it very nicely so that the comebacks and high spots were in the right places to frame the slower moments nicely. I particularly liked when Joe denied Ricochet’s kick, Ricochet did a standing backflip in order to sell it and the crowd just didn’t give a shit. The final few minutes of the match focused around Ricochet trying to pull off the 630 Splash, rolling through on it once before getting Joe down long enough to land the second and become the new United States champion.

I wasn’t expecting this, but I’m most certainly in on it, and if his first feud is going to be AJ Styles, then I’m in all the way. Hopefully, Joe can move up the card a bit off of the back of this, maybe going after Strowman after that was teased during the Superstar shakeup and never followed up on.

2 – Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn def. The New Day

Clearly, no-one told these guys this was an inconsequential tag match.

This match was very entertaining from start to finish. It opened up with something we don’t see very often, where Owens immediately took Big E out of the equation while he and Zayn frequently tagged in and out hitting their big moves in order to try and put Xavier away quickly but he was able to stay alive throughout.

The match then transitioned into Zayn and Owens putting a beating on Xavier Woods and Woods desperately trying to make the tag. Once again, this was paced really well, the beatdown on Xavier didn’t last so long as to be boring, but lasted long enough to really get the crowd invested in the hot tag when it eventually came. Big E was like a house on fire in this match, and clearly didn’t miss a step during the couple of months he was away.

Once the hot tag was made and the match devolved a bit, the chaos was so much fun to watch. The near falls and false finishes were done to great effect and I really felt like it could’ve gone either way when it came down to the final moments. Eventually, Owens would hit a stunner on Woods (which Woods would sell the shit out of) for the win in a very satisfying and fun match.

1 – Drew Gulak def. Tony Nese(c) & Akira Tozowa
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Well, this was bound to happen one day. If you keep putting the cruiserweights on the pre-show, expect them to show up and blow everything else out of the water because this match was fantastic.

I’ve loved watching Tozowa & Gulak on 205 Live in recent months, and Tony Nese is no slouch either, so putting the three of them together in this match was always going to make for something great. Interestingly, unlike a lot of other triple threat matches, there weren’t any extended periods of time where one person was selling outside the ring while the other two fought. The action and interruptions of the action were constant the whole way through and it made for such an unpredictable bout, where you never knew what was coming next.

Some of my personal favourite spots were Tozowa dropping out of the sky onto Nese, who was trapped in Gulak’s submission hold, and Nese swooping in as Tozowa was trying to take Drew out and throwing Tozowa at Gulak. There were some great near falls too (admittedly only because Drew missed his cue) and as we got into the final two minutes, there were points where I honestly believed each man had it in the bag.

Eventually, Drew Gulak came out on top in what I think is the right move for 205 Live. Nese was a great champion, but I feel he was much better in the chase than once he actually won the title, and Drew has been putting on great matches with the whole 205 Live and NXT rosters for well over a year now, so I’m very much looking forward to what’s to come.

That’s all folks! There’s what I thought of every match that took place at Stomping Grounds 2019! Thank you very much for reading, a share on social media would be very much appreciated, and make sure to let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Make sure you come back this weekend, where we go back to the land of video games, for something a little different.

WWE Stomping Grounds 2019 Predictions & Analysis

There’s always one PPV between Wrestlemania and Summerslam that feels a bit…pointless, last year it was Extreme Rules and this year it’s Stomping Grounds. Almost every match on this show is either retreading old ground or clearly just a placeholder feud until we can get the big matches we all want at the biggest party of the summer.

Admittedly, compared to Super Showdown, this show will probably be amazing and just because we’ve seen a match before doesn’t mean it’ll be bad, but there isn’t a lot of intrigue to any of the matches and that often to leads to  a whole bunch of ok, but not great, wrestling matches; or bullshit finishes.

It also seems to make the results pretty predictable, so let’s predict so that we can all point and laugh at me when I turn out to be hilariously wrong.

Tony Nese(c) vs Akira Tozowa vs Drew Gulak
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Well here’s an interesting one.

For the first time in a long time, I’m actually quite excited by the build for this match. Nese has been saying he wants to fight Tozowa for ages, and Tozowa has really been killing it week to week on 205 Live, meanwhile Drew has completely revamped his character, becoming a much more broken and vicious man, finally getting rid of all the goofy campaigning stuff.

I find Triple Threat Matches are more consistently entertaining than Fatal 4 Ways. I think the fact that there are fewer people means you can focus in more on each of the individuals and tell a more coherent story, while still keeping in the lightning pace and out of nowhere excitement aspects of multi-man matches.

When Tony Nese won the title, I thought we’d be in for quite a long reign, as that’s generally what the Cruiserweight Championship is good at, but I honestly think his reigns already coming to an end. It’s a shame because I think there was a lot more for him to do with the title, but going into this match it really feels like this might finally be Drew Gulak‘s time. This new character he’s brought has some real intrigue to it, and there are enough faces on 205 Live now to sustain another heel reign without it feeling repetitious.

Daniel Bryan & Rowan(c) vs Heavy Machinery
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Hopefully, Daniel Bryan can make something good of this.

I’ve never been the biggest Heavy Machinery fan, even in NXT I really didn’t think there was much entertaining behind them, the characters are quirky but in just the wrong way that I find them annoying and a lot of their powerful and good looking offence is hidden behind hokey crap; which come to think of it, is exactly what Daniel Bryan was saying about them on Smackdown this week.

With all that said, if any wrestler can work a match so good with them that it turns my opinion around, it’s Daniel Bryan, so I’m going to be quietly optimistic that this A) Doesn’t get bumped to the pre-show and B) Is actually fairly entertaining. I don’t think this is too hard of a match to pick a winner in though, Daniel Bryan & Rowan shouldn’t lose those titles anytime soon and it still feels too early for Heavy Machinery, thought this will hopefully help elevate them significantly.

The New Day vs Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn

A lot of these matches seem pointless, but this is here as pure filler.

It seems to me like, Owens’ refusal to go to Saudi Arabia and subsequent Dolph Ziggler replacement has messed up the pacing of the Owens vs Kofi stuff a bit. For the past month, it’s felt a lot like WWE are trying to build to another Owens vs Kofi match, but they’ve still got the Dolph Ziggler feud to get out of the way first, so this match was brought in as a bit of a proxy for this month.

That said, just because it’s filler doesn’t mean it won’t be good. New Day are still one of the best tag teams out there right now and Owens & Zayn are great competitors, I think the only problem this match will have is garnering crowd interest because there really isn’t a lot interesting behind this match.

Picking a winner in a match like this always feels a bit arbitrary, because ultimately no-one’s going to remember come next month, but if my theory is true that they’re building to another Kofi vs Owens match, then Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn have got to pick up some sort of cheap win here.

Samoa Joe(c) vs Ricochet
(United States Championship)

As far as replacements for Rey Mysterio go, I’d say they hit the nail on the head.

There’s not really a great deal of story to this match considering Ricochet only won the number 1 contendership on Monday, but this is the kind of match that doesn’t necessarily need a great deal of story to work. That said, I did find the fallout from what happened at Money in the Bank a bit weird. I get that Mysterio had to vacate the title due to injury, but I can’t remember a time when someone vacated a belt and just straight up handed it to somebody else, especially one of their rivals.

Either way, this match should be great. Joe’s great at working smaller guys and Ricochet seems to shine when wrestling the bigger guys too. As long as this match gets the time it deserves, I can see some great back and forth to this match, with both men trying to force the other to wrestle their pace to get the upper hand; I have high hopes for this one.

Interestingly, I could see this one going either way too. On the one hand it makes sense for Joe to retain, since this is a match with no build and he’s only just got the title back in the first place, but given that they had planned to take the title off of Joe at Money in the Bank and he only got it back into injury, maybe they’ll put it on Ricochet; like I said at the beginning, there really isn’t any better replacement for Mysterio. The main sticking point with me is that Joe is still the only heel singles champion in WWE right now, pair that with the fact that I think this card is going to have a lot of face wins in the big matches, I’m going to pick Samoa Joe here to even it out.

Roman Reigns vs Drew Mcintyre

I mentioned this in my review of Super Showdown, but the progression of this story makes no sense whatsoever.

Roman Reigns returned after his leukaemia scare, beat Drew Mcintyre & friends with The Shield, then beat Drew in a singles match at Wrestlemania. Roman then goes over to Smackdown – away from Drew – and ends up getting involved with Shane McMahon, and beats his toadie Elias, then thanks to the stupid Wild Card rule, Drew becomes another one of Shane’s toadies (which is also stupid, but if I picked apart every detail of this thing we’d be here all day), cost Roman his match against Shane, giving Shane McfuckingMahon a win over Roman Reigns and now in order to get revenge, Roman’s going to fight a guy he’s already beat.

It just doesn’t make any sense. For one thing, Drew shouldn’t be anyone’s toadie at this point, the dude’s got future world champion written all over him (it wouldn’t surprise me if this came before the end of the year) and this is honestly a waste of his time. Not to mention it’s a waste of time for Roman too and makes him look kinda weak since he’s not looking to get his win back from Shane.

If any match on this card is going to have some sort of non-finish it’ll be this one. Shane has been front and centre on both Raw and Smackdown for the past month and it wouldn’t surprise me if this match ended in a no contest so the segment can end with Shane standing tall, perhaps to set up a Roman vs Shane rematch. Failing that, Roman Reigns will hopefully win and both men can go away and do more interesting things.

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

Kind of ironic that the background for these matches is a desolate wasteland.

I just don’t understand why, coming out of all the excitement that happened at Money in the Bank, THIS is the match they want to go with for Becky. I get there’s some justification for it since Lacey cost Becky the Smackdown title, but A) Shouldn’t Becky want the Smackdown title more than petty revenge, and B) Becky already beat Lacey clean as a whistle at Money in the Bank, Lacey shouldn’t have any ground when it comes to demanding a rematch.

Nevertheless here we are and I’m really not sure how good this one can be. Their match at Money in the Bank was fine, but Lacey’s lack of experience was on full display and I’m not sure if there’s any new direction this match could go in. As long as there are no shenanigans I’m sure it’ll be perfectly fine, and hopefully, these two have a bit better chemistry in the ring now, but I can’t see it being anything special.

I don’t think the result of this one is up for debate, Becky Lynch needs to retain so she can go and fulfil all of the other – more interesting – possibilities that were laid forth after Money in the Bank.

Bayley(c) vs Alexa Bliss
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

All it has to be is better than their first feud, which is a low bar if I ever saw one.

I’m not entirely sure what possessed WWE creative to relive one of the worst feuds in recent memory, but the character dynamics have shifted a bit since then, so hopefully, this will be better this time around. That said, the week to week stuff hasn’t been all that amazing, Bayley’s got a new mean streak which is great for her character, but Alexa’s mostly still the same spoiled brat she always was, and as much as I like Alexa, it’s starting to get stale.

In terms of in-ring quality, this could be one of the better matches of the night. Alexa is good enough to put on great matches with the right opponent, and hopefully, Bayley is more reinvigorated than ever when it comes to competing thanks to this new lease of life she’s been given. It could very well end up being boring, but I’m choosing to remain optimistic about this one because I don’t have much else on this show to be hopeful about.

Alexa’s one of those competitors that WWE might decide they want to put the title on at random a lot of the time, which makes me a little bit nervous about this one, but I think there are a couple of factors going against her. Firstly, there’s the fact that her medical condition is currently in a lot of question, it seems like she’s fine for the most part, but given she was pulled out of Money in the Bank last month, I’m not sure management would be comfortable with the title on someone who might have to drop out at any moment. The other is the fact that it’s Bayley’s first major title defence and a loss here would undo all of the goodwill that’s been built up around her, so I’m going with Bayley on this one.

Kofi Kingston(c) vs Dolph Ziggler
(WWE Championship)
(Steel Cage)

Why have Dolph Ziggler fight for the title if you’re going to make him seem like the world’s biggest afterthought?

Seriously, WWE are even treating Ziggler like he hasn’t even got a whelps chance in a supernova of winning this match on Sunday, they’re already looking past him to a rematch with Owens and outside of a couple of pointless wins over Xavier Woods and in tag team matches, it doesn’t seem like he’s got any sort of momentum whatsoever. As I imagined, all of the potentially interesting storyline scenarios I proposed coming out of Super Showdown didn’t come to pass, instead, they’ve just gone with the idea that Ziggler’s a sore loser, even though he totally is justified in feeling screwed.

I don’t know how good this match could be, their contest at Super Showdown wasn’t anything all that great, but the Saudi Arabia matches always tend to be worse, maybe because of jetlag, or maybe because of low morale so I think there’s still a chance this one could be good. I’m also not usually big on Steel Cage matches, but the one between Shane and Miz at Money in the Bank was surprisingly entertaining so I’m going to keep my hopes up for this one.

Like I said in my opening paragraph, there’s no way Ziggler’s winning this. I’m sure there will be some shenanigans on the outside of the cage between New Day and Zayn & Owens, but at the end of the day, Kofi Kingston is going to come away with the win on this one.

Seth Rollins(c) vs Baron Corbin
(Universal Championship)
(Special Guest Referee TBA)

We go from a heel who is completely justified in wanting a rematch, to one who really doesn’t deserve one in the slightest.

There’s no real way to slice it when you look at what happened, Corbin has no justification in getting this rematch, Rollins would’ve got that rollup if the ref had a go at him or not, he was still looking away from Seth, and we all know Corbin’s #1 weakness is rollups. Moreso than that, he’s been given the opportunity to pick his own referee, for some very vaguely defined reason, so we’ve got to deal with all this bullshit as well.

The match between these two at Super Showdown was certainly the best of the night, but that was mostly by default and while it was fun, it wasn’t on the level of what we’ve come to expect from Seth Rollins’ title matches in recent years. Not to mention, any hope I really had for this being a good match has been dashed with the promise of a special guest referee, which will no doubt lead to endless shenanigans and some sort of dirty finish. I’m really not sure who it’s going to be, but the current rumour is Brock Lesnar, which I guess would make sense and was subtly teased in the final moments of Tuesday’s Smackdown.

If that’s the case, and Lesnar is the referee, then I entirely expect this match to end in a No Contest, Brock will let them go until he gets bored, at which point he will lay both guys out and either leave or cash in his Money in the Bank contract to grab the title from Seth. That said, if it’s not Lesnar then Seth Rollins will win, probably because Corbin will end up arguing with whoever he picks and that will yet again cost him the match.

So that’s it! Those are my predictions for Stomping Grounds 2019, let me know what you think in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and check back here early next week for my review of the show!

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.