Tag: The Miz

WWE Elimination Chamber 2020: Every Match Ranked

The final PPV before Wrestlemania (I fucking hope) is finally in the books and…yeah, it was alright, I guess. It pretty much exactly met my expectations, most of the matches that I thought would be good were good and the ones that I thought would be boring were boring and in the end, I think the show came out at about 50/50 in terms of quality and ultimately, I don’t think it was a necessary stop on the way to Wrestlemania.

Let’s look at the matches then.

8 – The Viking Raiders def. Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins
(Kickoff Show)

Remember every pre-show tag team match from the past two years? Yeah, this was one of those only slightly shorter.

It honestly blows my mind who in WWE took a look at the Viking Raiders and thought “yeah, let’s have Hawkins & Ryder get in loads of offence against them”, so what if they’re former Raw Tag Champions? I bet most people didn’t even remember that was a thing until I just said it right then. I don’t want to be that guy who sits around and moans about how Raw & Smackdown “bury” NXT talent, but I think the sheer lack of interest whoever’s running Raw is showing the Viking Raiders is an absolutely huge waste.

Yes, I know, they won the match, but this should’ve been a 2-minute squash at best, but whatever, not like anyone’s going to remember or care about it by the time Raw airs.

7 – Sami Zayn & Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro def. Braun Strowman(c)
(Intercontinental Championship)
(3 on 1 Handicap)

Oh…well ok then.

I don’t quite know how to feel about this if I’m honest. I mean, the match was an absolute bore, hence why it’s placed this low but in terms of the result, I can see both sides. On the one hand, it’s a disaster for Strowman, not just the result, but how he looked throughout the match too. This is a man we’ve seen get up from just about anything, he spent months getting beaten down by Roman Reigns and continuously getting back up, for God’s sake, this is the guy who was in the back of an ambulance as it crashed, at speed, into a wall and WALKED AWAY, but apparently, Nakamura stomping him in the corner 2 minutes into the match is enough to keep him down.

I mentioned in my predictions that any result other than Strowman winning would be a massive anti-climax and to a certain extent, I stand by that. The whole match felt so desperately like it was building to Strowman coming back and wiping the floor with all three of them, but that never came to pass. Instead, they did that weird-ass looking suplex/kick to the head that honestly looks so weak and Sami Zayn won the Intercontinental Championship.

Now…

Sami Zayn winning the Intercontinental Championship is a good thing, of course it is. Zayn’s been so undervalued for so long and to see him finally win a title is brilliant. However. I think Strowman retaining would’ve been a better option, especially if the result of this is just going to be Strowman squashing Zayn at Mania, which it probably will be. Maybe I’m wrong and if this turns into a really entertaining heel reign as champion then I’ll hold my hands up and admit it, but I’m not optimistic.

6 – Aleister Black def. AJ Styles
(No Disqualification)

It pains me to do this, it really does, but this match sucked.

While I understand the no DQ stipulation was necessary to tell the story they wanted to tell, but it totally screwed the match in terms of quality. I know that these two could put on a fever-pitched classic if they were given the opportunity, but instead, this started slow and got slower as it went on. It wasn’t all boring, I did enjoy the focus on the leg because it makes perfect sense when fighting a guy like Black and it led to a rather tense spot as Styles locked in the Calf Crusher.

This match certainly wasn’t helped by a completely dead crowd. I understand why though. They’d just watched a rather tiring Chamber match and they were waiting for The Undertaker to show up, but it definitely detracted from my enjoyment of the match and likely contributed to the slow pace. Speaking of The Undertaker, although his appearance was predictable, it was still exciting and was absolutely the right move for both the story and the general context of both guy’s strength on the current roster.

While I would’ve liked Black to win without any assists, it wasn’t feasible when Styles had to be kept strong for The Undertaker. I’d rather they hadn’t booked this match at all, but since they did, I think this was the best way to get out of it. Doesn’t make it interesting to watch though.

5 – The Steet Profits(c) def. Seth Rollins & Murphy
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

I’ll be honest, I was quite disappointed with how this one turned out.

After their entertaining showing at Super ShowDown, I was expecting this match to build off of that and put on a really fun tag match, but instead, I don’t think it ever quite got going. Things were nice and fast out of the gate and I thought that everyone involved here had a strong sense of character and it made all of the story beats – including Viking Raiders showing up to deal with AOP – quite entertaining and I continue to become more and more involved in this story as a whole.

After Rollins & Murphy took control towards the middle, I thought we were building to somewhat of an explosive final 5 minutes once Ford got the hot-tag, but it just didn’t happen. There were hints of it in there, but I didn’t find any of the action all the engaging and then Kevin Owens showed up (with some top-notch acting to be fair) and the whole match just sort of stopped to focus on that instead. The finish that came immediately after it felt quite sudden too and I was left feeling quite deflated by the end of it all.

4 – Shayna Baszler def. Sarah Logan & Ruby Riott & Natalya & Liv Morgan & Asuka
(Winner faces Becky Lynch at Wrestlemania)

Ok, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, they didn’t fuck it up.

Probably the only thing on this show to actually matter, this match did everything we wanted it to do for Shayna Baszler. She wiped the floor with absolutely everyone and looked like a monster in the process, a lot of the offence she got in looked absolutely brutal and I’m not entirely sure Liv Morgan is ever going to be able to walk again after Baszler damn near caved her head in at certain points.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most entertaining match to watch. Riott & Natalya started off well enough, but everything they were doing is stuff we’ve seen in Elimination Chamber matches seemingly hundreds of times before and I can’t say I was all that engaged by it. Then, once Baszler got in and had dispatched of everyone, we just had to watch her shouting at the people in the pod for what felt like forever and I just lost interest. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve gotta have a bit of that to help Baszler look great, but it dragged on for way too long and it’s not like anyone would care if the clock ran down a little faster. I was hoping we’d get a little bit more between Baszler & Asuka at the end, but I’m ok with it going shorter than it could’ve because you don’t want to give that away right now when it could be a big match later down the line.

Although I have my complaints, I’m happy with how this all turned out. It’s a rare case with WWE, where I’m fine with forgiving something not quite as good right now because I’m confident it’s going to lead to something really great in a month or so.

3 – Andrade(c) def. Humberto Carrillo
(United States Championship)

You know, it’s only just dawned on me exactly how long this feud has been going on. No wonder they’re putting on matches like this after so much time together.

After many months of not quite understanding who Carrillo is, the stuff with Garza has helped Carrillo grow a bit of an edge to him as a character and I think it’s helped his in-ring style too. He felt a lot more hard-hitting here and I’m finally getting behind him more as a character than I have been in previous encounters.

This lead to what I thought was quite an entertaining match. It started out fast and furious and it really got the crowd involved for the length of the match. Things slowed in the middle but I think it kept the action fresh for when things eventually began to accelerate again. The finish was a little weird, but I do have a soft spot for spots with constant roll-ups and it’s a rare treat that one of them actually gets the win. I perhaps would’ve preferred a clean finish, but this gives Carrillo a decent enough excuse to get himself in on whatever multi-man affair happens around Mania, so I think it’s fair enough.

2 – The Miz & John Morrison(c) def. Lucha House Party & Heavy Machinery & Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode & The New Day & The Usos
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)
(Elimination Chamber)

Once again, this was about as good as I was expecting it to be, which is pretty nice.

Usos vs New Day was easily the best choice to start things out and it kept the action going for long enough until the ring started to fill up. Each subsequent team that entered each added something new to the action, I was surprised that Lucha House Party looked as good as they did and once Miz & Morrison got involved, it added a lot of great heel work into the action. Heavy Machinery are also on an absolute tear right now. I’m still not entirely behind them as characters, but as wrestlers, I totally get it now.

There were downsides though. For one thing, I don’t think there was enough good use of the time between entrants. There seemed to be a big spot when a team first enters and just before the next team enters, but a lot of the time in between was spent milling around or with some rather boring action, it would’ve been nice to see some actual interesting wrestling while waiting for more entrants.

When I say “interesting wrestling” I don’t mean more dives off the top of the pod because, by my count, there were five of these in this match (six if you count Ziggler being thrown off by Tucker) and it’s just not an impactful spot anymore. Speaking of, Dorado’s Moonsault from the top of the chamber looked cool, although the setup was a bit weird as all of the wrestlers were watching him climb around and we all just had to pretend not to notice until he was in position.

Once things got down to the final three business really picked up and I had a lot of fun watching the action. Miz & Morrison did exactly what they needed to do, picking their spots to get the eliminations at the perfect moments and the final battle between them and The Usos was a magnificent little sequence that whetted my appetite for more of it in the weeks and months to come.

Overall, it won’t go down as one of the best chamber matches ever, but for what it was I really enjoyed it, especially towards the end when the pace accelerated exponentially until the finish.

1 – Daniel Bryan def. Drew Gualk

Oh, so we’re treating Gulak like a real wrestler now? Took you long enough.

This was such an interesting match to watch because it’s not the kind of style we see very often in WWE anymore. This mat-based style of wrestling walks such a fine line between being tense & interesting and slow & boring, luckily, this landed on the better side of that line. It was never a match that was never going to pop a modern American crowd, but I still think it did wonders for Gulak’s credibility.

I really got into the story being told here and I just loved how Gulak seemed to have just about everything in Bryan’s arsenal scouted. It gives the impression of him being the thinking man’s heel, winning matches through actually being smart, rather than cheating. Bryan filled his role here perfectly too, being surprised by Gulak’s competence early on but slowly feeling him out and adapting to his style, eventually getting to the point where Bryan could also counter whatever Gulak was throwing his way.

The finish was brilliant too because it didn’t make Gulak look weak, despite the fact he tapped. The way Bryan so smoothly slipped into the LeBelle lock gives me in the impression that Bryan learnt Gulak’s game and adapted, while Gulak stuck to his gameplan and couldn’t quite out-think Bryan once he started innovating. I’m not sure where this will lead, but I just hope it’s somewhere, I think WWE have stumbled upon a really interesting story here and they shouldn’t let it slip through their fingers.

And there you have it! Those are my thoughts on Elimination Chamber 2020. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and 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 this time on Saturday where I’ll be running down my favourite Virtual Reality games!

WWE Elimination Chamber 2020: Predictions & Analysis

No rest for the wicked and this is WWE so…

Once again, the Saudi Arabia shows have a weird knock-on effect, because despite the fact that this happens EVERY TIME and we end up building to two PPVs right next to one another, WWE never learn their lesson and schedule their shows just a little bit further apart for once, do they?

As it stands, this is looking up to be a pretty inconsequential show. The only match that promises to have a direct effect on the Wrestlemania card is arguably the easiest to predict on the whole show and everything else is just wheel spinning. At the very least, I’m confident that at least a few of the matches will be good ones to watch, so at least it might not be a total waste of time.

Daniel Bryan vs Drew Gualk

Well, if it gets Gulak on Pay-Per-View, I suppose I can’t argue.

I’m not entirely certain what the point of this story is. Are we finally trying to get Gulak over as a serious competitor, or are we just reminding everyone that Daniel Bryan exists ahead of Wrestlemania? I know Bryan has reportedly been pushing for some of the guys lower down the totem pole to get some feature matches, so is this a part of that?

Regardless of the motivation behind it, the match should be brilliant, even if it only lasts 10 minutes or so. I stand firm in the belief that Gulak is the best technical wrestler WWE’s revived Cruiserweight division ever saw and I’ve made my feelings about Daniel Bryan very clear of the years, so these two technical masters meeting in the ring should be a real treat.

Given that it’s a fresh storyline, there’s a chance that some shenanigans will happen here in order to set something up for Wrestlemania, but I’m leaning more towards this being a stop-gap for something bigger that WWE has in store for Bryan, maybe an Intercontinental title match? Please? Either way, I’m pretty confident that Daniel Bryan is going to come away with the win on this one.

Aleister Black vs AJ Styles
(No Disqualification)

This is a bad idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore both of these wrestlers and I’m sure that given the chance they could put on a match of the year contender, but this is just such a bad time to have them clash like this and I really don’t see a positive outcome here. Styles has a match with The Undertaker on the horizon and needs to look good, but Black has barely had room to breathe on Raw and a loss here could totally destroy his credibility and start a long descent into Cedric Alexander territory.

I’m not even sure they’ll be given all that much of an opportunity to show their stuff in this match either. The no DQ stipulation likely means Black will be fighting off Gallows & Anderson the whole time and the match will be generally much slower than it needs to be in order to play to the strengths of these two.

For a winner, I’m picking Aleister Black, but it’s not going to be clean. I think the most likely scenario is that The Undertaker gets involved somehow, maybe physically, but it’s more likely that towards the end of the match, a gong will go off, which will distract Styles and let Black get the win. This whole thing isn’t an ideal scenario, but I think that’s the circumstance that lets both men get away with as little damage to their credibility as possible.

Andrade(c) vs Humberto Carrillo
(United States Championship)

Want a United States title opportunity? It’s easy! Just lose a match on Pay-Per-View and it’s yours!

I like Humberto Carrillo, I honestly do, but I really think it’d be a mistake to have him win the title here. Not only has Carrillo already lost to Andrade at Royal Rumble, but he also lost just over a week ago to Angel Garza, a wrestler who is much more deserving of this opportunity at the present time.

Hopefully, the match will be pretty good as long as it doesn’t get dumped on the pre-show. These two have proved before that they can work extremely well together and I have every faith in them that they’ll make the most of whatever time they get to put on a compelling contest. I’m not too sure on the winner, but Andrade retaining feels right to me, especially going into Wrestlemania, where I think it’s likely we’ll have some sort of multi-man affair, hopefully in ladder form.

The Street Profits(c) vs Seth Rollins & Murphy
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Oh…I’ll be honest, I thought the Rollins & Murphy thing was going somewhere.

WWE have really done their job of compressing this feud into basically no time at all. I thought it was likely that we’d see this match again on this show, but I certainly didn’t expect The Street Profits to be walking in as champions. It’s nice that they’ve won the titles, but I’m not entirely sure it was the right move for the story, especially if they’re just going to drop the titles right back again.

As much as I think The Street Profits are great, the story and the momentum is with Rollins & Murphy right now. I know that he’s likely going to finally get his big singles match with Owens going into Wrestlemania, but I thought it would’ve been cool with Rollins & Murphy still had the titles during that time.

If Rollins weren’t about to be fighting Owens, then I’d pick him & Murphy to win, however, I think The Street Profits are going to slip away with the titles in this one. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the belts and I have a horrible feeling that the titles are going to return to their status as the least important belts in the entire company, but at least this match will probably be a good one.

Braun Strowman(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura & Sami Zayn & Cesaro
(Intercontinental Championship)
(3 on 1 Handicap)

Oh boy, time to make three of the best wrestlers on the planet look totally worthless.

From a story standpoint, I’ve mostly enjoyed this stuff with Nakamura & Zayn. It’s a bit weird how Cesaro had been thrown in with little explanation, but Zayn is easily one of the best managers we’ve seen in WWE for a long time and as for Nakamura, it’s just nice to see him on TV regularly for a change.

In terms of quality, I’m not sure which way this match will go. If it’s a bit of a clusterfuck with Cesaro, Zayn & Nakamura constantly moving in for the kill while Strowman desperately tries to fend them off from all angles, it could actually be a lot of fun and something we don’t see very often. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be that interesting. I think what’s more likely is the trio use the numbers advantage to pummel Strowman for a while until he makes a comeback, destroys all three of them before probably pinning them all at once.

Speaking of, Braun Strowman is absolutely retaining his title here, not only has he not had any chance to do anything with the title yet, but it’s one of those situations where the odds have been stacked SO heavily against him if he didn’t win it’d seem like a gigantic anti-climax. While I’m not happy about having Nakamura, Zayn & Cesaro treated like chumps, if this is what we have to go through in order to get Strowman into a credible position for a great Wrestlemania match (hopefully against Daniel Bryan), then I think I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

The Miz & John Morrison(c) vs The New Day vs The Usos vs Heavy Machinery vs Dolph Ziggler & Bobby Roode vs Lucha House Party
(Smackdown Tag Tema Championships)
(Elimination Chamber)

I always think these tag team chamber matches are going to be confusing messes, but then they never are.

I’m actually quite excited to see how this one plays out, New Day, Usos and Niz & Morrison are all great in-ring tag teams and the other three teams are certainly nothing to turn your nose up at either. There are a nice few interlinking stories going into this one too. The Usos have been trying to get up in The New Day’s grill the past couple of weeks, while New Day seek revenge for Miz & Morrison stealing their titles. Add on top of that the surprisingly compelling stuff between Otis & Ziggler and we’ve got a recipe for a very entertaining match ahead of us. Oh, and Lucha House Party are also there I guess.

As entertaining as this should be, I don’t think there’s much argument to be made about the winner. The Miz & John Morrison only won the titles 9 days ago and they’ve still got so much that they can do with the belts going into Wrestlemania. It would make no sense if they lost the titles this soon, so I think they’re going to find a way to sneak of the chamber still champions.

Asuka vs Shayna Baszler vs Liv Morgan vs Ruby Riott vs Natalya vs Sarah Logan
(Winner faces Becky Lynch at Wrestlemania)
(Elimination Chamber)

Look, I know it was always going to be obvious, but it would’ve been nice if WWE had at least pretended someone other than Shayna stands a chance of winning this.

I don’t think many people will disagree with me when I say that this match’s only purpose is to show off how much of a beast Shayna Baszler is ahead of her Wrestlemania match with Becky. Hopefully, we’ll get a little bit of action between the three former Riott Squad members, but the spotlight here should be firmly on Shayna as she rips everyone apart.

In case you hadn’t already worked it out I think Shayna Baszler is going to win this one. As much as I love them, Riott, Morgan & logan just haven’t been built even nearly enough to have a featured Wrestlemania spot against WWE’s most popular star. Natalya & Asuka would both be legitimate contenders, however, they’ve already had big matches with Becky over the past year, so they’re out. Baszler is white-hot, has already started talking to Becky like she’s got the match and still had outstanding beef with Becky from Survivor Series, everything points to her and nothing will convince me otherwise.

So there you have! Thank you very much for taking the time to read these predictions, 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 on Monday, where I’ll be recapping the show!

WWE Super ShowDown 2020: Every Match Ranked

Another Saudi Arabia show is in the bag and…do you know what? I actually thought it was ok. Not great, not by a long way, but I don’t think there was anything particularly bad on the show and overall it was certainly no worse than any other B-show WWE PPV these days. The matches were still plagued with the standard problems that come with having to fly for 14 hours, spend two days running the media circuit and then wrestle in 100 degrees Farenhieght.

Let’s get to breaking down the matches.

9 – Goldberg def. The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c)
(Universal Championship)

Fine, whatever.

8 – Brock Lesnar(c) def. Ricochet
(WWE Championship)

Yup, thought so.

7 – Roman Reigns def. King Corbin
(Steel Cage)

It’s over! It’s finally over! Assuming Michael Cole didn’t lie to us about that…alright so maybe it’s not over.

Probably unsurprisingly, this match didn’t have anything interesting going on with it. What little in-ring chemistry Reigns & Corbin had has since been played out beyond the point of it being entertaining and the addition of the Steel Cage into the mix didn’t help the match quality at all. All it did was mean that every minute or so the action had to stop so one man could very slowly climb the cage only to be thwarted by the other.

Even though these two will technically be facing each other in the Elimination Chamber next Sunday, I’m just glad that we’re finally at a point where we can say we’re done with this feud. If Reigns vs Goldberg really is the plan then I actually think there could be some good stuff there, even if I would’ve preferred Reigns vs The Fiend and quite honestly, I couldn’t give less of a shit about who Corbin fights next.

6 – Mansoor def. Dolph Ziggler

Now we enter the “just fine” portion of the show, where the matches are enjoyable, but nothing noteworthy.

As far as opponents for Mansoor goes, I think Ziggler was a pretty good choice, admittedly, Dolph Ziggler as a heel seems to think that “slow the pace down and only do headlocks for offence” is the only possible way he can do it, which isn’t ideal, but Mansoor spent a pretty good portion of the match on offence and the match didn’t feel too slow.

In terms of Mansoor winning, that’s great, but like I say every time he does one of these shows, there’s no point in doing any of this or giving him these wins if you’re not going to feature him on other shows and try to build him into an actual star. I know that with this show WWE proved to us all that they just don’t want any new stars and would rather have the ones from yesteryear, but if you’re going to treat Mansoor like this big heroic wrestler, then us see him wrestle more than twice a year.

5 – Angel Garza def. Humberto Carrillo

Another match that was just fine.

I thought this match was enjoyable, it held my attention the entire way through and showed off a lot of what these guys have to offer, however, they’ve had better matches together before and they will almost certainly have better matches together in the coming weeks too.

My main problem with this whole feud comes with it’s proximity to Wrestlemania because unfortunately, it’s not a big enough match to get a one-on-one blowoff on that show, so it’ll probably end with one of them eliminating the other in the ARMBAR. I like both Garza & Carrillo, but there’s only a limited amount I feel ok with investing in both of these guys because time and time again, WWE will spend a couple of months building guys like this up, only to suddenly drop them with no explanation. I hope that doesn’t happen here, but I’m remaining cautious.

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

Wow, Naomi’s entrance looks like crap when she’s not allowed to wear any of the glowing stuff.

Much like many other matches on this list, it was better than I was expecting in the circumstances. I’m sure the two of them could put on a much better match if they weren’t so restricted, but I think they did a good job with the hand they were dealt. The action the match followed was still a fair basic formula, but I thought it was an enjoyable incarnation of that formula, Bayley is really finding what heel style works best for her and she was able to ground and slow the action without resulting to five minutes of boring rest-holds.

Naomi’s comebacks were kind of exciting but again, she didn’t seem to be able to do a lot of her more crowd popping moves (speaking of the crowd, they were dead silent for this one). Even though Bayley won clean, there is the element of a dirty finish in there with Bayley using Naomi’s government-mandated shirt to trap her legs, so there’s room for Naomi to claim a rematch if that’s the route they want to go down, which at this point, I think it probably is.

3 – The Undertaker won the Turwaiq Trophy Gauntlet Match

Well, the in-ring action wasn’t anything interesting, but the storytelling was pretty compelling.

To be entirely honest, when I saw R-Truth starting off against Bobby Lashley, I thought we were in for 3 or 4 matches of Lashley running through people until Mysterio came out, but the way they turned it around and had R-Truth picking up a bunch of surprising victories over some fairly imposing heels was a lot of fun. Going through the 24/7 Championship stuff over the past year has led us all the slightly forget that Truth is actually a very capable wrestler when he wants to be and I found myself rooting for him with each victory in this match.

Then there’s the stuff with The Undertaker, which to be entirely honest with you, I thought was goofy and cheesy, but absolutely brilliant. The way the scene was set up with The OC beating down on Rey Mysterio only for that to suddenly be turned around to the OC getting beaten up. I particularly loved the way those black boots & coat stepped into frame, it was a nice variation on revealing The Undertaker outside of the usual gong hitting. It built this hype towards the entrance because we all knew it was The Undertaker, but first, they wanted to make us really want to see The Undertaker.

I doubt we’ll ever see the trophy again and it’s certainly not going to be mentioned in The Undertaker’s eventual Hall of Fame induction, but the story told throughout the phases of this match was well-done and quite enjoyable.

2 – The Miz & John Morrison def. The New Day(c)
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Don’t worry everyone, the tag teams will save the day with good matches!

This is the first time since his return that I’ve actually been glad that he’s back. The stuff he’s been doing in the build to this has been fun and all, but this is the first time that I’ve been able to see the value in him returning as an active competitor in the company. It’s no secret that for the majority of 2018, The Miz was floundering as a face and once his short feud with Bray Wyatt was over, it was entirely possible that he was going to go right back to that formula, happily, his reuniting with Morrison has made The Miz as a face and interesting character again and I’m very glad they’ve won the titles.

Once again, this match was slightly slower than it probably would’ve been under normal circumstances, but I still thought it was a very enjoyable watch. Big E felt like the MVP of the match to me as he seemed to be able to keep the pace going just enough throughout the moments where it seemed like the action was dropping. Although the chair shot was a little “blink and you miss it” it’s entirely in-keeping with Miz & Morrison as characters and gives The New Day plenty of reason to get back on their feet and keep this feud rolling into Wrestlemania, where hopefully, they’ll get a chance to tear the house down.

1 – Seth Rollins & Murphy(c) def. The Street Profits
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

I really don’t understand why people seem to be down on Rollins & Murphy as tag champs, it seems to me like they’re exactly what the Raw tag division needed to become interesting again.

As I mentioned in my predictions, Rollins has slid so naturally back into a heel role and this new Farcry 5 esque spin on his heel persona has been such great fun to watch in recent weeks. Thankfully, this also extends to the matches, where I think all four guys involved got a chance to feature themselves and keep the fun rolling the whole way through the match. Rollins seems to be learning his lessons from his last heel run and is able to make himself look beatable in the ring, without looking like a total chump. This extends to Murphy too, who I’m very glad is still being treated like a competent wrestler, rather than a bumbling sidekick.

Given how little build The Street Profits had for this match, I’m very glad they weren’t just cast aside like they were no threat to the champions at all and that Rollins & Murphy had to resort to slightly underhanded tactics to win the match. I’m not entirely confident that any of the credibility gained in this match will carry over for very long into the coming weeks and months, but for this moment at least, I think this match was nothing but beneficial to everyone involved AND it was a lot of fun to watch.

So there you have it! Those are my thoughts on WWE Super ShowDown, thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what your thoughts on the show are, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back this way next Saturday as WWE give us little time to breathe, and I’ll be covering Elimination Chamber!

Best Talkers in WWE Today

As anyone who knows anything about pro-wrestling will likely tell you, knowing how to do wrestling moves is only half of what makes a great wrestler. The other half, of course, is your talking ability. It’s all well and good being able to wow crowds with the moves you can perform, but it’s your words that will put the crowd in the arena to begin with.

It’s hard to deny that almost every wrestler in WWE right now has a decent level of promo ability, you don’t get to work for the biggest wrestling promotion in the world without being good at what you do after all. However, there are a select few among the current crop of WWE wrestlers who are able to go above and beyond when it comes to the stories they weave outside of the ring. Be it hype and excitement or a deep level of intensity, there’s something about the way these wrestlers talk their way through situations that instil a much higher level of investment in their audience.

Quick note, I’m only counting wrestlers that currently active in WWE, so that means no managers and no part-timers.

9 – The Usos

The Usos are a very interesting case study in WWE because they’ve been in the WWE for almost ten years now and if you look through their career, it’s extremely obvious that they’ve grown a huge amount as performers. People first got behind them around 2014, but as pure babyfaces, their popularity didn’t last long and they quickly grew stale.

After floating around not doing much of note for about a year, they came back in full force with this brand new energy that got behind everything they did, most of all their promos. Their run as heels was a brilliant move for them because they got to take that over-hyped style of their promos and add an edge to them that made them seem intense instead of cheesy. Now their constant trading lines and random yelling instead added to the fact that these guys were always ready to throw down with anyone and could usually back up their words with actions.

Naturally, the crowd got behind them again after this and it wasn’t long before they were forced to return to their role as faces, but instead of going back to the cheesy, super happy style of promos, they kept their edge but added an extra dash of hype which meant that they were actually successful at getting the crowd behind them in whatever fight they were going for. The Usos would be classified as great talkers regardless of their history, but seeing them develop so much over the years really adds to the effect of what they’re able to do with their words now.

8 – Alexa Bliss

When Alexa Bliss first made her way to the main roster from NXT, I wasn’t sure if she was going to make much of splash. As much as I personally thought she was great, I could easily see her sliding down the path that someone like Mandy Rose has, where she’s always around, but very rarely the focus. Sitting here in 2019 it’s very obvious that those fears weren’t realistic in the least because she’s arguably second only to Charlotte Flair in terms of her longevity at the forefront of WWE’s women’s division and the biggest factor in that rise is inarguably her promo skills.

Bliss is able to inject this unrivalled level of bitchy attitude in absolutely everything she says that makes her so much fun to hate. Whether she’s being passive-aggressive or straight-up insulting she’s able to produce the exact right inflictions and attitudes in her voice that bring that level of pure hate out of you. To a certain extent, it doesn’t even matter what it is she’s actually saying because the way she said it is perfect for making you want to see someone kick the crap out of her.

Over the past 6 months or so, she’s been doing surprisingly well adjusting that attitude to a more face style of promo by virtue of her association with Nikki Cross. Although she’s not the best at getting the crowd behind her, what she is great at is using her attitude in defence of herself and Nikki to create some really good insults when she gets a chance to fire back at someone. I wouldn’t have expected her style of promo to adapt to a babyface as well as it has in all honesty, but that should speak to Alexa’s skill as a talker.

7 – Samoa Joe

Joe is one of those guys that’s seemingly able to flip a switch when he’s talking and instantly transition from calm and threatening to unbridled wrath and back again in such a seamless manner you barely notice what he’s done, all you know is that you’re terrified by whatever he just said.

His physique as always given him this intimidating presence and he can warp his face to be extremely threatening when he wants to, but it’s his words that make you feel like he’s slowly sliding a knife into your chest. There’s something about the way he’ll calmly explain exactly what it is he’s going to do to his opponents that makes him so terrifying to listen to because you honestly believe that he’s going to do whatever it is he says he will, one of my favourite promos of his was one he cut on Paul Heyman in the build to his match against Brock Lesnar, when he just cornered Heyman and spoke in that “nice, but actually threatening” way as he explained what he was about to do to Heyman.

Then there’s the other side of his promos where he’ll suddenly flip that switch and go ballistic. The eerie calmness serves to make the moments where he totally loses it and bellows his lines right in his opponent’s face all the more shocking and intense. Everything Samoa Joe says serves to make him feel like an absolute unstoppable monster, now if only we could get his booking to match…

6 – Elias

Elias undeniably has the most unique style on this list and it puts it to extremely effective use.

The singing thing seemed like it would get old fast when I first encountered it, but I didn’t count on Elias’ creativity when it came to making the gimmick last. He has the standard catchphrases that we all love, but every time he comes out to the ring to sing a song, there’s always going to be something new to it. He takes the classic heel trope of running down the town they’re doing the show in and turns it into an art form with the way he crafts the lyrics and picks some genuinely funny insults.

It never fails to get a reaction out of the crowd and it’s always a loud reaction too, I’ll never forget late 2018 when he and Kevin Owens got booed for literally 5 minutes solid after taking a dig at…well some American sports thing, as a Brit I didn’t really know what it meant, but the people in attendance that night certainly did. Even though this style is undoubtedly more suited towards a heel, he was still able to get some good mileage out of it as a face too, picking some particularly funny insults to sing at whatever heel he happened to be against that night.

The key thing about Elias is that no promo of his is ever boring, which is something that can’t be said for almost anyone else on this list. He has such a deep understanding of the attitude and demeanour he needs to convey at all times in order to make his songs and performances stick in the memory long after the show has ended.

5 – Kevin Owens

Kevin Owens’ promo style isn’t polished, it isn’t revolutionary and it lacks a lot of what we as fans would traditionally label as traits required for good promos. However, what Kevin Owens’ promos do have, are heaps of authenticity.

The slightly broken flow with which he speaks gives this feeling of someone who genuinely is coming up with his words on the spot (which he may very well be, for all I know) and the way he is able to control the intensity of his voice and turn it up and down almost by the word fills everything he says with emotion and meaning.

He’s always done great as an entitled, whiney heel with this style, but it wasn’t until he started cutting promos as a face that I realised what really made the way in which he talks so encapsulating. The way in which he rallied against Shane McMahon’s tyrannical reign or the way he’s currently leading the charge against Seth Rollins & AOP all give me this impression of a natural-born leader who fights for what he thinks is right and doesn’t give a damn who hates him for it. People aren’t just comparing him to Stone Cold because he started using the Stunner you know.

4 – The New Day

I’ve put The New Day in here as a group because although they are all brilliant talkers in their own right, it’s the way they talk as a group that makes them one of the best.

When The New Day first formed in WWE, no-one cared and no-one thought they were going to be anything more than another throwaway tag team that would be broken up by the end of the year. So what changed? What was it that made them one of the most popular WWE acts of the decade? While they’re wrestling ability undoubtedly had something to do with it, it was the way they talked that really turned heads.

It’s almost impossible to imagine The New Day as heels now but it was the absolutely hilarious way in which they would run down anyone and everyone around them that got them to a position where people just couldn’t boo them anymore. They are masters of playing off of the crowd. Be it to draw heat or garner support, The New Day have the kind of chemistry that can only come naturally in a team, allowing each of them to run with what the others are saying to the effect of both comedy and drama, making them arguably the best all-round tag team ever to form in WWE.

3 – The Miz

Given that The Miz’s first TV appearance for WWE featured him horrifically butchering a promo, it probably came as a surprise that he turned into one of the best talkers in the business today.

The Miz’s words are sharp and forceful in the way they’re delivered, he always knows exactly the right amount to labour a point and never trails off onto tangents about whatever the writer happened to be thinking about at the time. When he’s a heel (which is inarguably when he’s at his best) he has this amazing ability to layout an extremely well-structured and meaningful argument, but he says it in such a dickish way that you automatically find yourself disagreeing and booing out of hand.

We can’t talk about The Miz’s talking ability without bringing up his now, infamous promo on Talking Smack, where he ran down a then-retired Daniel Bryan and let so much genuine emotion bubble to the surface as he absolutely tore his detractors to shreds. That may have been the moment that The Miz started to turn heads with his promos, but the fact is, he’d been great years before that too. When he was partnered with John Morrison, he was able to bounce off of his partner and create some really funny, yet heelish stuff and as WWE Champion he garnered some real heat, which wasn’t as much “go away heat” as everyone says it was.

Although he was quite good in his recent feud with Bray Wyatt, for the most part, Miz has never been all that great as a face. Everything about his character screams “I deserve to be punched” and he knows exactly how to play up to it with extremely harsh words.

2 – Daniel Bryan

The guy more-or-less talked himself into the main event of Wrestlemania, I think that justifies this place on the list.

No-one in WWE for over a decade has been more popular with the fans than Daniel Bryan and although it would be dismissive of me to say it was entirely due to his abilities on the mic, it is certainly one of the most important factors. The way in which Daniel Bryan carefully creates these long and enthralling promos is absolutely inspirational to watch. No matter what it is he’s trying to say, he can find a way to get the crowd behind him on it and I honestly don’t think there’s anyone in WWE right now that can get a crowd so worked up with words alone.

Then 2018 rolled around and he turned heel, proving that not only could he get any crowd to cheer anything he said, he could also get all of them to boo just as hard. The vitriol with which he ran down every fan in existence was an absolute joy to watch, he was able to let his anger consume his entire building as he stared down the camera and called up all fickle. He was able to get crowds around the US to cheer about being wasteful and boo being ecologically friendly just because it was the opposite of what Bryan was preaching. That was what made it truly amazing is that he took an idea that the majority of fans agree with – recycling and protecting the planet – and presented it in such a way that we couldn’t help but boo and disagree with everything he said.

I’ve long said that Daniel Bryan is the best all-round wrestler in the world today and taking a critical look at his talking ability only furthers that claim. On any given day he can go out in front of any given crowd and get exactly the reaction he wants while being so immensely entertaining to watch, a skill that is arguably unmatched in the entire industry right now.

1 – Bray Wyatt

When it comes to sheer creativity, Wyatt is unmatched in this era and maybe all eras.

When Bray Wyatt first turned up in WWE it was like a breath of fresh air. WWE had tried plenty of “Undertaker-esque” gimmicks over the years, but they all fell flat on their face until Bray Wyatt came along. For one thing, the character didn’t just feel like an Undertaker rip-off, but something new, however, most importantly was Bray Wyatts ability to talk for ages about absolutely nothing while keeping his audience enthralled in his words.

Even when Wyatt’s shine had faded thanks to horrible booking, I still enjoyed listening to him craft his tales because the mannerisms and quirks in the speech patterns made it impossible to ignore. By all rights, the Bray Wyatt character should’ve been dead and buried after it’s treatment throughout 2017 and yet Wyatt turned it all around. He took those speech patterns and mannerisms and turned them into something genuinely unique, – which is such a rarity in modern WWE – in the form of the Firefly Fun House.

He can pull off the “jolly kids presenter” vibe so amazingly well with his over the top expressions, while still managing to throw in the hints of something being slightly…wrong. This makes it all the more terrifying when the facade fades away, as his face drops to a look of anger and his voice gets low and gravelly, even though I know it’s coming, it still gives me chills.

Even when all seemed lost for Bray Wyatt, he turned it around and used his sheer creative talent, alongside acting abilities that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood, to create a whole world that brought him back up to the very top of the mountain in WWE.

And that’s the list! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please let me know who you think are the best talkers in WWE right now, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back the same time next week where I’ll be ranking every student from Fire Emblem: Three Houses!

WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs: Predictions & Analysis

Wow, I’m glad Survivor Series had lots of longterm consequences that weren’t forgotten after a week of programming.

I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the end of the year and I’m tired, or if WWE programming has really just been this bad over the past month, but I’m not looking forward to TLC at all. Looking through the card, there are a few matches that I’m hopeful would be good, but when looking at the storylines building up to them, I can’t help but feel apathetic towards all of them, none of the stories have been interesting and I just don’t care about the outcome for most of these matches.

Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions on them, so let’s get predicting.

The Viking Raiders(c) vs TBD
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

So let me get this straight, WWE decided to do a segment on Raw where The Viking Raiders issued an open challenge…in order to build to segment on Sunday where The Viking Raiders issue an open challenge. *sigh* fine.

There’s a couple of possibilities here, firstly is that this lands on the pre-show, in which case it’ll probably The Street Profits again and they’ll lose again in a slightly more competitive match than we saw on Monday. If it’s not on the pre-show, then I think it’ll be one of two teams. Either it’ll be the boring option in The OC, since The OC beat The Viking Raiders at Crown Jewel, in a decision that has only become more baffling given how The Viking Raiders have been treated since then.

The much more exciting option is that we see a return for The Usos, which is something I’ve been wanting for a while now because they’re just what the Raw Tag Division needs to spice things up because Viking Raiders have been spinning their wheels for a while now. If it’s The OC, then I’m expecting The Viking Raiders to retain, however, my official prediction is that it will be The Usos to answer the call and they’ll win the titles to boot.

Aleister Black vs Buddy Murphey

So are they actually planning to do something with Aleister Black now? Or is this just like it was in June when he had a pointless match so we didn’t all forget he existed?

I love both of these competitors and Black especially, but given how much build Black has had behind him this year, I can’t help but feel like a match like this with no build behind it is an absolute waste. If you want people to react to the guy, then I’d say keeping him off of TV until there’s something meaningful for him to do is the best idea. The audience aren’t idiots, we’re not going to suddenly forget who he is, he had a Wrestlemania match this year for Christ’s sake. If he was just saved until they were ready to put him in a program with someone like Orton or Styles then the reaction to him finally showing up and kicking ass would be huge.

That aside, this match will be great. Both Black and Murphey can go a mile-a-minute when they want to and I’m sure that both of them will be eager to get a big reaction here. I’m pretty confident Aleister Black is going to get the win though, because quite frankly if he doesn’t, they may as well just release the guy now and stop wasting everyone’s time.

The New Day(c) vs The Revival
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)
(Ladder)

I think it says a lot that this match, a match between two of the best tag teams in the world, is one that I just don’t care about.

Putting aside the fact that we’ve already seen it a bunch of times this quarter, this whole thing has had basically no build and The Revival, along with WWE’s Tag Division as a whole, has been treated like a joke and an afterthought for so long, that I just don’t have any reason to care. Even with The New Day, although I absolutely love them and think they’re amazing wrestlers, they’ve been the “default” setting for the Smackdown Tag Team Championships for so long now that I don’t think there’s anything more they can do in the division that isn’t retreading old ground. So I’m left in a situation where either The Revival win and the tag titles go back to being treated like they’re nothing, or The New Day win and the boring status quo remains.

Like I said, as far as tag team wrestlers go, there are few that can equal these two teams, so I’m sure the match will be a great watch provided they get enough time and who knows, maybe this will be where tag team wrestling in WWE starts to turn around and I’ll be proven wrong, I doubt it though.

Oh, and The New Day are going to win.

Rusev vs Bobby Lashley
(Tables)

Well…this storyline has been a bit all over the place.

First of all, this feels a lot like McMahon is trying his damndest to get revenge for 2015 when they originally tried to do a storyline where Rusev & Lana broke up, but they ruined it by having the audacity to get married in real life.

As a whole, this storyline hasn’t been great. There were a couple of weeks in the middle where things were ok, as the focal point was on the physicality between Rusev & Lashley, but pretty much any segment that relied on Lana’s talking ability was just plain awful and, for a married couple, she has surprisingly little acting chemistry with Rusev. In addition to this, Lashley has felt entirely unimportant to the story outside of giving Rusev someone to beat up, because he can’t beat up Lana.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this storyline is over just yet, Tables matches are prime contenders for screwy finishes and I’m fully expecting Lana to get involved and somehow contribute to sending Rusev through a table, handing Bobby Lashley the win and we can keep this whole stupid thing going into the Royal Rumble next month.

Roman Reigns vs King Corbin
(Tables, Ladders & Chairs)

So there have undoubtedly been a lot of bad storylines this month, but I’ve got to say that this is the worst of the lot.

For one thing, it involves a King gimmick, which have been done to death and quite frankly it’s just a half-assed excuse to give Corbin an extra shread of credibility. The thing with Corbin is that he’s been doing the same stuff for so long that I honestly just don’t care about anything he has to say or do, I don’t hate him, the stuff he says doesn’t generate any heat with me, it’s just pure apathy.

On top of this, Corbin’s style is one that Reigns doesn’t typically mesh well with as it generally makes for a pretty generic affair where Corbin “wears him down” with 10 solid minutes of rest-holds until Reigns suddenly comes flying out with a burst of exciting offence for a win. Unfortunately, this match was the one that got the TLC stipulation, so it’s going to be way too long, very slow and probably quite boring outside of one or two big spots.

If this were any other time of year, I’d be tempted to say that WWE were going to hand Corbin the win for shits and giggles, but we’re coming up to the Royal Rumble and in my mind, Roman Reigns is the main contender to win it right now, so he needs a solid and decisive win here.

Bray Wyatt vs The Miz

After Bryan lost clean to Wyatt at Survivor Series I was interested to see how they’d justify continuing the whole story, but I’ve got to say, this whole build has been great.

Removing Daniel Bryan in the way they did made the whole thing feel incredibly creepy and the way Miz has stepped in to stand up to Bray has finally helped legitimize The Miz as a face. I don’t think it’s any measure of a surprise when you consider how great these two guys are on the mic, but I’ve found each of their segments on Smackdown throughout this month to be really compelling, with the segment on last night’s episode, in particular, being fantastic.

I think having regular Bray Wyatt facing off against The Miz is an interesting twist and it opens up a world of possibilities for things that could happen, both in this match and with The Fiend in general going forward. I think it could be interesting if Daniel Bryan showed up in some capacity during this match, maybe The Fiend could appear on the screen, torturing Bryan backstage, causing The Miz to abandon the match and get beat-up.

I’m really interested to see what’s going to happen with this one, but I don’t have any doubt that Bray Wyatt is going to be the winner, he’s the Universal Champion after all, even if this isn’t a title match.

The Kabuki Warriors(c) vs Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)
(Tables, Ladders & Chairs)

Apparently, TLC is the one time of year when Asuka gets treated like a real wrestler.

This is one match that I have no doubt will be great to watch, as it’s essentially just the match we had between Becky, Charlotte & Asuka last year, only with Kairi Sane involved, thus making it ten times better. I’m sure the tag team format will allow for a huge variety of spots and action to take place and hopefully, there’ll be a nice bit of drama to spice things up too.

The interesting part comes from the fact that this whole thing feels like it’s leading to some sort of twist. I don’t know what that twist could possibly be, but I’ve just got this gut feeling that there’s no way this can just be a straight forward match for the titles. In terms of what I want it to be, I want it to be Shayna Baszler, although I’m not sure how likely that is given that her title match with Rhea Ripley is less than a week away. Maybe it will be as simple as Charlotte turning on Becky, hell, maybe Becky will turn on Charlotte, although that will probably lead to a repeat of Summerslam 2018.

Either way, I highly doubt Becky & Charlotte are walking away with the tag titles. Mostly because it would just make the titles worthless props in a more important singles feud, much like the Raw tag titles were with Seth & Braun earlier in the year. I don’t know what kind of shenanigans are going to happen in this match, but the result is going to be The Kabuki Warriors walking away with their championships in tow.

And those are my predictions! Thank you very much fort aking the time to read this post, let me know what you think is going to happen, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you check back here on Monday for my review of the show!