Tag: Lana

WWE Survivor Series 2020: Every Match Ranked

Survivor Series doesn’t really feel like a big 4 anymore, does it?

The show last night was fine, and there were a handful of enjoyable matches, but the whole thing is going to be forgotten about by the end of the week. They didn’t even bother keeping track of which show won this year, which shows you how much of a shit WWE seem to give about the main gimmick of the Pay-Per-View.

Before I start talking about the matches though, I do want to touch on The Undertaker’s final farewell, because I really liked it. I know it wasn’t much when you think about it, but it’s all a character like The Undertaker really needs. Admittedly, I’m not entirely sure why we had to sit through 10 minutes of other legend’s entrances only for them to immediately vanish and never be seen again, but this felt like the ‘series wrap’ on The Undertaker we needed.

After Wrestlemania 36, there was no indication that it was Taker’s last match until the Last Ride documentary came out in the summer, so I liked that we had this. We got that final chance to say goodbye to The Undertaker, and perhaps more importantly, for The Undertaker to say goodbye to The Undertaker. You can criticise the last few years of his career, as the man himself has, but the fact remains that The Undertaker is my favourite wrestler of all time, and is arguably the reason I’m a wrestling fan in the first place. Maybe I’ll do a longer piece about it one day, but for now, I’m glad I got the chance to say goodbye.

Anyway, onto bitching about bad booking!

7 – Team Raw (Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Lacey Evans, Peyton Royce, Lana) def. Team Smackdown (Bianca Belair, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Natalya, Bayley)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

I just don’t understand what the goal was here, no-one benefitted from the way this was booked.

The opening section of the match – before any eliminations happened – was pretty enjoyable wrestling if a little basic. It threw off the trope of one or two competitors getting eliminated early and allowed everyone at least a little bit of time in the ring. However, once the eliminations started coming, things fell apart. I don’t mind Bayley being eliminated first, because quite frankly, she took one hell of a beating leading up that point, however, then Natalya tapped out Peyton Royce with a Sharpshooter so bad that even The Rock would think it laughable. From there, the dominos kept falling as Natalya & Lacey Evans were dropped with just one or two moves each.

Then, we got inarguably the best section of the match, as Team Smackdown did everything in their power to topple Nia. Admittedly, I don’t really like how Nia was booked as a Strowman-level monster here, but it worked for this specific part of the story. Morgan & Riott trying to take her down was very compelling, and a bit heartbreaking when they eventually failed. Then, Bianca went on an absolute tear and I was properly enjoying the match again. Bianca looked like a superhero as she fought off both Baszler & Nia, and Baszler’s elimination was perfect.

But then…BUT THEN…

The finish happened, and now we have to talk about Lana because I genuinely don’t understand what the intention of this booking was. Was it supposed to make us cheer Lana? Because if it was, it utterly failed. I don’t care who’s talking down to her, having her spend the whole match stood on the stairs pouting like a pissy schoolgirl who’s just been told to tuck in their shirt doesn’t endear me to her. On top of that, her winning by accident doesn’t make me like her either. If she had just done something in that final section where she actually caused the double-countout, then it might’ve worked, but the fact is she did literally nothing and then celebrated like she carried the whole team. That’s not someone I want to cheer, and based on the story that was told up until this point, I think cheering her was what WWE wanted.

6 – Bobby Lashley def. Sami Zayn
(United States Champion vs Intercontinental Champion)

Well, this match wasn’t necessarily bad…it just wasn’t very interesting.

The heel vs heel dynamic didn’t work in this match, and I think the reasons are twofold. One was that commentary did not give us a clear narrative. They kept going back and forth on who they were presenting as the marginalized underdog, and who they were presenting as a dishonourable cheat. For the first half of the match, the face commentators were condemning The Hurt Business being around and oppressing Zayn, but as the match progressed, they changed their mind and decided that Sami deserves it because he’s a bit of a jerk.

Two was the fact that both teams tried to heel it up in different ways. Sami was being braggadocious and cowardly, while The Hurt Business was being oppressive and threatening. It meant that I didn’t like either guy and didn’t want them to win. The action in the ring was largely fine, but the match highlights the flaw with crowbarring in a gimmick PPV like this. It would’ve been so easy to avoid this problem, but because WWE already has plans in place for December, they booked themselves in a corner here and it led to a mess of a story.

5 – The Miz won the Dual-Brand Battle Royal
(Kickoff Show)

This may have been a meaningless battle royal, but it was a pretty fun meaningless battle royal.

As always with these kinds of matches, the early stages were full of short exchanges and quick eliminations, then once we started to boil down the competitors, things got more action-packed. Amazingly, almost everyone in the match got a chance to shine, Murphy went on a tear and I liked his small battle with Ziggler & Roode; Nakamura was fairly consistent throughout, making an impact when he was needed; Hardy & Elias touched on their feud again with a small exchange; Chad Gable reminded us that he’s really good at suplexes, and Dominic Mysterio was the MVP of the whole thing.

The way in which The Miz won was pretty easy to see coming, but it was still a good way to do it. Personally, I would’ve preferred to see Dominic get the win, but I certainly can’t argue with keeping Mr Money in the Bank looking strong.

4 – Team Raw (AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Keith Lee, Sheamus, Riddle) def. Team Smackdown (Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, King Corbin, Otis)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

Well, I knew Team Raw would finally pull it together in this match, but I certainly didn’t expect to see a sweep. It’s the kind of move that I thought I’d be annoyed about, but in reality, who does it hurt? The fact is, the Smackdown team really don’t suffer much from this loss. Seth took the pin voluntarily, and he’s about to take some time off anyway; Corbin can get his ass kicked time and time again, but still come back from it fine; Otis was easily the MVP for his team and only lost because it was 5 on 2, and Jey has this loss play into his story with Roman. The only person you could argue will suffer from it is Owens, but he wasn’t doing anything noteworthy anyway, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Once again, the action was fairly basic, but it was still good. There was a consistent pace and it allowed everyone to get a chance to shine. Splitting the eliminations between everyone meant that all of Team Raw looked to be on the same level, and while Keith Lee didn’t get to be the sole survivor, getting the final pin is definitely a good way to go about it. Weirdly, I found myself enjoying Otis’ performance the most in the match, especially when it was down to 5-on-2. However, Jey Uso also did a brilliant job as the final man.

I can’t wait to see them all start beating the crap out of each other on Raw tonight.

3 – The Street Profits def. The New Day
(Raw Tag Team Champions vs Smackdown Tag Team Champions)

Here we have ourselves an uncomplicated, high-quality tag team match.

As opposed to the mid-card titles, where the heel vs heel dynamic ruined the match, this one definitely benefitted from face vs face, as it allowed both teams to mix up their styles a bit. New Day definitely took a more heelish role in the match and I’d honestly forgotten just how good they are at it. Xavier started putting a little extra impact on his moves to make them more hard-hitting, and Kofi’s taunting from ringside was fantastic stuff.

Street Profits knew just the right way to respond to all of it though, and they turned all of New Day’s shots into comebacks for them. They spent a large part of the match getting down, but by the end, the Profits felt like a team of equal quality who completely deserved their win. As always with these kinds of matches, when it broke down towards the later stages in when the match reached its peak. The working of Ford’s rib kept the result constantly in doubt, especially when he couldn’t cover after the splash.

Having Street Profits use a different finisher worked wonders for them too, as it showed their ability to adapt when their opponents throw their plans to the dogs. After spending half the year feuding with the same teams, this was a breath of fresh air that reminded me just how amazing Street Profits are when they’re at their peak.

2 – Sasha Banks def. Asuka
(Raw Women’s Champion vs Smackdown Women’s Champion)

In my predictions, I made no secret of the fact that I wasn’t looking forward to this match due to having seen it a bunch over the summer. However, these two put a lot of work in, and it paid off because this match felt very different to the ones from earlier in the year. Part of this is thanks to the fact that Bayley wasn’t lurking to cost Asuka the match at every opportunity, but also the style they wrestled was very different.

I often struggle to get invested in technical, mat-based affairs, but putting it right at the start of the match pulled me in because of how different it felt. What’s more, is they were able to move through this phase pretty quickly without it feeling rushed. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wish more wrestlers had submission finishers, so we could get stuff like this. The match lulled a bit around the middle, but I don’t mind because things picked up again by the end. The final 5 minutes were very enjoyable and showed a big chunk of what each woman has to offer, which in Asuka’s case is very refreshing given her recent history.

As for the finish, it’s not what I wanted to see, but I don’t think it was the worst. I definitely didn’t want to see either woman tap, especially Asuka, so this seemed like the decent middle ground that didn’t harm the loser too much. It’s the product of the PPV booking WWE into a corner again, and the performers made the best of what they had.

1 – Roman Reigns def. Drew McIntyre
(WWE Champion vs Universal Champion)

In this era of smaller guys working technical, faster-paced matches, it’s easy to forget how fun it can be to watch two jacked dudes beat the piss out of each other for 20 minutes.

The match started out VERY slow, but it was slow with a purpose. The pacing and staring they did with each other created a very tense atmosphere that carried large chunks of the match. I spent the whole opening segments just waiting for the first massive strike to land, but they kept me on the hook with it for a while. The early exchanges were able to hold and build the tension into the explosion we saw later in the match. My interest did fade a bit around the middle with all of the rest-holds, but once things started to build up again, I was sucked right back in.

Once those big strikes started to land, business really picked up. Drew was absolute fire when he started his comeback, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen the man move so fast and they did a perfect job of teasing the Claymore for about 15 minutes of the match. Despite Roman overbearing on huge chunks of the match, it always felt like a matter of time before Drew turned it around on him, and as things reached the climax, they knew exactly how to play with those ideas.

The finish seemed entirely designed to make Drew look incredible in defeat. Roman put him through a table and Speared him through the barricade and Drew still kicked out. Then Roman hit another Spear, at which point I was sure it over, only for Drew to kick out again. On top of that, they made sure to protect the Claymore like nothing else, the only time Drew hit it was when the referee got knocked from the ring, which meant Roman never had to kick out of it, which was brilliant. Jey’s interference was definitely the right choice, given the number of people that could’ve shown up, it brought a resolution to the story set up earlier in the night and gave Drew all the sympathy in the world when he eventually took the pin.

It’s the classic WWE trope of booking themselves into a corner, but then escaping it far better than anyone thought possible. Roman looks like a strong champion and Drew still looks like a near-unbeatable champion despite taking the loss.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time on Friday, where I’ll be running down the best multiplayer modes in video games!

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!