Tag: Jeff Hardy

WWE Hell in a Cell 2020: Predictions & Analysis

It’s October, so you know what that means…It means it’s time for everyone to get hardcore for no apparent reason, to varying degrees of success.

This is WWE’s one show a year where they either don’t bother or forget to announce more than a few matches, and we’re all left wondering what the hell’s going on. Currently, we’ve only got 5 matches announced, and I can only assume that they’ll hastily add 3 more Sunday morning.

Let’s do some predicting, shall we?

Jeff Hardy vs Elias

On the surface, this seems like a logical feud given past events, but when you take the time to think about it, you realise the whole thing’s bollocks.

I can see the logic behind Elias wanting to get revenge on Hardy for hitting him with a car…except for the fact that everyone knows it wasn’t Hardy who did it. There’s even footage of Sheamus admitting it and saying he framed Hardy. This means either Elias didn’t watch any WWE programming while he was out injured or he’s just a moron; your pick. On top of that, if Hardy’s trying to prove he didn’t hit Elias, ambushing him from behind isn’t exactly the best way to go about that, is it? Even if Elias is mistaken, he’s still technically just trying to get revenge on someone who wronged him, and Jeff’s being a bit of a prick about it.

I really don’t know if this match will be any good. Both men are definitely capable of putting on a great match, it’s just a matter of whether their styles will mesh adequately, and whether they’ll get a decent amount of time. I’m not sure who will win either. WWE hasn’t ever shown a great deal of interest in building Elias up, combine that with the fact that this just feels like a short feud to tie up some loose ends and I think Jeff Hardy is going to come out of this one with a quick and easy win.

Otis vs The Miz
(Otis’ Money in the Bank Briefcase is on the line)

When Otis won the Money in the Bank briefcase, I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t believe he was ever going to actually win a world title, but the potential was there for him to do something fun/memorable. Then he disappeared from TV for ages. Since he’s come back, he’s been far less interesting than before he left and it made me realise that maybe it was actually just the Mandy Rose storyline that was making me like him. He’s still had sparks of good comedy here and there, but for the most part, I’ve not been interested in the man’s work at all.

If I’m being honest here, I feel the same way about The Miz too. A couple of years ago I was begging for Miz to be given another shot with a world title, but now I don’t really care. Rejoining with John Morrison was a highlight at first, but they lost their steam almost immediately, and now this vague bullying angle he’s taken with Otis isn’t holding my interest. On top of that, these are two men who’s styles don’t mesh well at all. I can’t see this match being any kind of great, the whole thing just doesn’t feel like it works.

Now, on the face of it, it seems like moving the briefcase from Otis to Miz would be a good idea, but the problem is, if Miz wins, what on Earth is he going to do with it? Roman Reigns isn’t losing that title until at least Wrestlemania, and it’s damn sure not going to be to The Miz of all people. I guess there’s a possibility that he could cash-in on whoever beats Reigns (fingers crossed that’s Big E), but that’s a very small window, and I doubt he’ll win. Even if Miz isn’t a great candidate, I don’t think anyone on the decision-making level of WWE care, they’ve just decided they don’t want it on Otis anymore and are taking it off of him. So The Miz is going to win, and probably spectacularly lose his cash-in whenever it happens.

Drew McIntyre(c) vs Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

After Clash of Champions, I really thought we were done with this. Not only has Drew beaten Randy twice now, but the Clash of Champions match pulled in all the elements of Randy’s story over 2020 and tied them all up in a neat little bow. I even said at the time that it felt like the finale in this series. Yet, here we are a month later, and the match is happening again.

I’m still enjoying the story, although it’s become a little bit stale by this point. Drew & Randy are still great at going at each other on the mic, and both men continue to feel like massive stars. While none of their matches blew me away, I’ve still enjoyed all of them, and I wouldn’t mind seeing what they make of a more brutal match like Hell in a Cell. There’s some potential for some suitably nasty stuff to go down, and it might be a nice way to end things.

However, I still have to pick a winner. For both their Summerslam and Clash of Champions match, I picked Drew despite my gut telling me Randy was going to win, and both times I was right. However, this time around, from pretty much the second the match was announced, I’ve been sure Randy’s winning. It’s the only possible reason I can think of as to why they’re still continuing this feud. Maybe they were initially hoping Drew could keep the title until crowds were back in arenas, but it’s become painfully clear that day isn’t even in sight yet. Plus, if the rumours true that WWE still want Randy vs Edge as the Wrestlemania main event next year, I can’t see any other outcome.

As much as I would prefer to see Drew keep the title, he’s definitely had a remarkable reign, and he’ll still be able to say he beat Randy twice, which isn’t nothing. I hate to do it, but I’m going against my heart here and picking Randy Orton to finally hold the title once more.

Roman Reigns(c) vs Jey Uso
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)
(I Quit)

If all of the dirt sheets are to be believed, there were never plans for a rematch between these two, but I’m delighted we’re getting one. I adored the Clash of Champions match, and it definitely left room for the story to continue, and continue it has. The weekly TV for this feud hasn’t been as strong as it was last month, but I’ve still really enjoyed it. Now Uso feels a little more desperate to prove himself after getting his arse kicked at Clash, and the tensions between Uso & Roman are far closer to the surface than they were before.

The choice of an I Quit match is a brilliant one that plays perfectly of off the finish to their previous match, putting the decision to quit in Jey’s hands, not his brother’s. The addition of the Hell in a Cell is fine, I guess. It’s perhaps the most transparent case on the show of the cell being added purely because it’s the gimmick of the PPV, not because the feud actually needs it. That said, it definitely doesn’t detract from the match, so I can’t complain too much.

Once again, though, Roman Reigns is retaining, there’s no question. Nevermind how there’s no way Jey Uso could possibly win a world title right now, but there’s just no chance in hell that this new badass version of Roman Reigns could possibly say “I Quit”. It’s a case where the predictability of the outcome doesn’t really matter, though, because the match and story told within it is what makes this match an exciting prospect.

Bayley(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Finally!

It took a hell of a long time to get here, but Bayley vs Sasha is finally happening on the main roster, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve sung the praises of both women’s work over this past year, and that hasn’t changed now they’re fighting each other. The heat, the intensity and the excitement are all still there in spades, and I’m more than ready for the first landmark match in their feud.

I don’t think this will quite live up to their NXT matches, but that’s only because those matches are so untouchably amazing. In my opinion, Bayley vs Sasha from Takeover: Brooklyn is the single best women’s match of all time, and maybe even the best NXT Takeover match of all time, which is perhaps the highest bar there is to clear. Either way, I still think we’re in for a match of the year contender, these women have incredible chemistry in the ring, and the story is so hot that I’ll pop for just about anything.

There’s this little matter of picking the winner though, which is a tricky task. This feud is going to end with Sasha holding the title, that’s the only possible outcome of this whole endeavour, but I really don’t think they’d pull the trigger on it this quickly. Unless they’re planning on replicating the Sasha vs Charlotte feud from 2016, where they trade the belt about 8 times, it just doesn’t make sense for Sasha to get the big win so soon. It’ll probably be by dirty means (although, that might be a bit difficult given the stipulation) but I think Bayley is going to walk out with the title.

So there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what you think is going to happen on Sunday, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here on Monday where I’ll be reviewing the show, and this time on Saturday where I’ll be running down the best Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes!

WWE Backlash 2020: Every Match Ranked

In the annals of history, when we look back on the year that was 2020, Backlash will undoubtedly be proclaimed to be…a show, that happened.

I don’t know what else to say during this bit, I didn’t enjoy this show. There wasn’t any match that I particularly hated, but I only truly enjoyed one of them, and even that match I’ve got a healthy dose of complaints about. I don’t think it helps that we’ve had three major shows in less than a month, so I’m just quite fatigued when it comes to wrestling. Maybe I would’ve liked this show more if I’d seen it with greater distance from AEW & NXT’s shows, but as it stands, I’m just not interested in main-roster WWE right now.

Still, I watched the show, so I must review it, here are my rankings of the matches.

UNRANKED – The Street Profits & The Viking Raiders go on an adventure

I don’t usually cover this kind of stuff since it wasn’t actually a match. However, given that it was far and away, the best thing on the show…and was MAD…I feel like I have to.

Much like many of WWE’s other pre-taped ‘cinematic’ segments that have aired in recent months, there was far too much going on here to cover it all, but I thought it was a lot of fun. For context, I’ve hated the Raiders/Profits segments on Raw up until this point. I thought they fell onto the wrong side of goofy, made the Raw tag titles look like a joke and wasted some of the best talents currently on Raw. The thing is when you look at this segment, that is all still true, however, looking at it in a bubble, it was a well-written comedy segment that I enjoyed.

The weird flashbacks Ivar kept having, the bowling ball in the nuts, the telekinetic turkey leg…it was so stupid I couldn’t help but laugh and enjoy myself. It even told it’s own little story, where the violence between the two teams just kept escalating to the point where they realised there wasn’t even any point in them fighting anymore. Then they had one of their Japanese wrestlers show up with a bunch of ninjas…which I’ll admit, is a bit problematic, but they overplayed the stereotype so hard that it just about came across as satire.

Personally, I hope the payoff to all this is that they realise they all just really enjoy hanging out and playing games against each other. They never have a tag title match and just become friends who hang out and do stupid stuff.

7 – Asuka(c) vs Nia Jax ended in a Double Countout
(Raw Women’s Championship)

This means we get to see this match again…oh joy…

There was nothing to enjoy here. Asuka getting all over Nia as soon as the bell rung was a nice way to open things, but it quickly lost all momentum once Nia got on offence. I wish I could like Nia as a wrestler, I really do, but nothing she does excites me at all. It’s like someone took the worst parts of Big Show & Kane’s styles and rolled them into a single wrestler.

Unfortunately, Asuka didn’t play well off of Nia either. There was potential in the way that Asuka was constantly locking Nia into holds to try and find some chinks in the armour, but it didn’t last long enough or make enough of an impact to be compelling. As for the finish, I’d love to sit here and be outraged about it, but it’s not the first time WWE has done a finish like this, and it absolutely won’t be the last. All it really does is make me think of the other promotions and how they would handle a situation like this a lot better than WWE always seem to.

6 – Braun Strowman(c) def. The Miz & John Morrison
(Universal Championship)
(2 on 1 Handicap Match)

So, have you ever seen a handicap match before? Because if you have, then you’ve seen this match.

I really don’t have much to add to this, because it really was the most bog-standard, paint-by-numbers handicap match you’ve ever seen. Strowman started out looking strong and shrugging off both guys, then the heels used their numbers advantage to wear Strowman down for a bit. Then Strowman made a comeback and murdered them both, winning the match while barely breaking a sweat.

This whole feud has been so incredibly pointless. It’s horrible that this is the best the writers could come up with for Strowman’s first world title run. It’s not over yet, though, so I hope we can get something more interesting in the coming months.

5 – Apollo Crews(c) def. Andrade
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Again, what is there to say? This was a pre-show match that was exactly how you’d expect a pre-show match to go.

It was ok, there was nothing terrible about it, but there wasn’t anything interesting either. On any other show, I’d have ranked this dead-last, but welcome to Backlash.

Owen’s involvement was a bit weird. I find it quite upsetting that Seth Rollins – who lost at Wrestlemania – got a world title shot, while Kevin Owens – who won at Wrestlemania – gets to be the least important person in a US title feud between Andrade & Apollo Crews. It incredibly strange booking, but if the end result is getting that title onto Owens so it can actually be treated like a big deal again, then I’m ok with it.

4 – Sheamus def. Jeff Hardy

Given that the Extreme Rules logo this year is in Jeff Hardy’s colours, I don’t this feud is over.

This was a decent match. It didn’t surpass my expectations, but I still came away from it feeling relatively satisfied by what I saw. I think the way they played the roles in the match was the right way to go about it, with Sheamus controlling the pace, for the most part, forcing Hardy having to play a more reactionary role. It suffered a bit purely because I’m not very interested in the story. Each to their own tastes, but watching a man throw his own pee in another man’s face isn’t exactly the kind of thing I find compelling.

I’m not surprised that Sheamus won; however, I am surprised that he won clean. I don’t know if they’re going to try to use this to make a point about Hardy’s condition, but if the feud is going to continue (which it really looks like it is), then I’m not sure Sheamus winning clean was the best way to serve that. The problem now is that, if Hardy continues to go after Sheamus, then it just looks like he’s a sore loser, while if Sheamus keeps ragging on Hardy, then it feels hollow because he’s already beaten him, there’s nothing left to prove.

We’ll just have to wait and see, but it was a bit of confusion decision.

3 – Bayley & Sasha Banks(c) def. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross & The IIconics
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

A fun match that ended way too soon.

Why is Kayla so determined to drive a wedge between Bayley & Sasha? Every time the two of them have a match, Kayla comes up to them and asks “Are you two gonna fight yet, or what?” Given that all the other teases that tensions between them have been so subtle, this one is a really odd thing to keep shoving in the audience’s face.

WWE finally decided they’re actually going to do a proper triple threat tag match this time, with one person from each team legal at once; none of this ‘only two legal competitors allowed’ nonsense they’ve been pushing for years. Low and behold, it made for a much better match. It never felt like this match was just ‘going through the motions’, there was always a point every action, and the pace remained consistently exciting throughout.

The only problem, as I mentioned in the opening sentence, it was way too short. Just as I felt like it was about to kick into that higher gear and get really fun, Sasha swooped in and got the win and, just like that, it was over. While I did enjoy what I’d seen up until that point, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get more.

2 – Drew McIntyre(c) def. Bobby Lashley
(WWE Championship)

Well, I’ll be damned, a match that surpassed my expectations. Admittedly, my expectations didn’t start very high, but they were still surpassed.

This was a good culmination of the new brutal attitude that Lashley has gained over the past month and actually did a damn-good job of making both guys look pretty strong. Lashley displayed his new killer-instinct by jumping Drew with the Full-Nelson before the bell, which started the whole thing off with a head full of steam. It did slow down a bit as the match progressed, but there was a decent little story being told of Drew fighting up from underneath and coming out of it looking fantastic.

What drags this match down is the dumb finish. I get that you might want to protect Lashley somewhat after this fresh heel-turn, but the last thing we needed to see here was Lana. She came out and started telling the referee that he cheated…which isn’t how ANYTHING works. Does Lana think the referee is a part of the match? Is that the story they’re trying to tell here? That Lana just doesn’t understand how wrestling works at all?

Hopefully Drew will move on to a new opponent now and he can be separated for the absolute clusterfuck that’s about to go down between Lashley, Lana & MVP.

1 – Randy Orton def. Edge

So…the general consensus online is that this was a fantastic match and has ‘match of the year’ potential and I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. I’ve watched this match twice now to see if there was something I missed the first time. Admittedly, I did like it better the second time, but I still don’t think it was anything special.

I have ranked it as the second-best match on the show, but honestly, that’s more of a statement on how lacklustre Backlash was than anything else. I liked parts of this match, but I have so many problems with it too.

The best bit was easily the opening 15-minutes or so (while we’re on the topic, 45 minutes was too damn long for this thing). There was a semblance of a story being told with Edge having a crisis of confidence and Randy wrestling circles around Edge. It even felt like it was building really nicely to something with how Edge started to make a bit of comeback and was finding his groove.

Then, around the middle of the match, the pace totally died. The two men moved into a bunch of holds that weren’t quite rest-holds but also weren’t overly impressive. I get what they were going for as they were vying for position and trying to get one over on each other, at first I even bought into it and was feeling the rhythm of it. Then it just went on…and on…and on, and by the time they finally started doing moves again, I’d lost interest.

Speaking of moves. Spamming a bunch of finishers isn’t entertaining wrestling, and that’s what the final 10 minutes of this match were (save for the roll-up spot). I know that in places like NJPW and AEW, there is a lot of finishers and a lot of kickouts, but there’s a distinct difference in the way that they do them. Compare the endless finisher kickouts in a match like this, to those in Okada vs Omega (any of them), and you’ll see what I mean. In NJPW, each finisher holds weight and substance, each one has had a mini-build to it within the match, there is a whole bunch of other exciting and impactful moves in between each one. It makes each kickout feel exciting. Then, look at Orton vs Edge, where they would do a big move, kickout of it, lay around selling for a minute and then they moved right on to the next big move.

One of those styles tells a compelling story that keeps the pace of the match ticking over. The other style is boring as piss, kills the pace of a match dead and does nothing to tell a story. Again, I understand what they were going for with them digging into their own personal history and pull out a bunch of those moves…but it wasn’t well-executed.

I understand that I’m alone in having a negative view of this match and I really tried to appreciate this match for what it was, but this just wasn’t me. It was a style of wrestling that I’ve never liked, and I wasn’t invested enough in the story going in to overlook it and enjoy it for what it was.

…and that was the best match that happened at Backlash.

So there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, feel free to tell me all about my wrong opinions, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back here next week, where I’ll be running down some of the best ever competitive Pokemon!