Tag: WWE

Every Current Championship in WWE Ranked

A debate that never seems to end on the internet is just how important wrestling championship title belts actually are. Some insist that they’re little more than props and storytelling devices, while others claim they embody the company they represent and are dripping with all the heritage of everyone who has held it. Personally, I think there’s a case to be made that putting too much weight in a championship can be a bad thing, but at the same time, I like shiny things and wrestling titles are among the shiniest.

WWE is currently awash in championships, with no less than 5 different brands all with at least one championship (often more) to their name, so as someone who has spent far too much money on replica title belts, I thought it’d be a fun idea to rank all of the titles currently in WWE from worst to best. The only rule here is that title belts that are just pallet swaps of each other (for example, the Raw Tag Titles and the Smackdown Tag Titles) will be grouped into a single entry.

I’d also like to make it clear that I’m ranking these titles on DESIGN ALONE, I’m not taking into account things like heritage, prestige or the current champions. With that out of the way, let’s get right into it.

13 – 24/7 Championship

There’s no denying that all of the 24/7 title skits have been on WWE shows this year have been great. The title has provided us with a whole host of genuinely entertaining and funny moments as a hoard of wrestlers chase each other around the arena trying to hold the title for just 5 minutes if they can. It’s provided a nice beam of light to break up gruelling 3-hour shows and doesn’t seem to be losing steam anytime soon.

However, the title itself looks like a child’s toy.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter that this title looks crap because it’s designed to be tossed around all the time and change hands at least 3 times on any given night. It’s a title that isn’t really supposed to mean anything in the grand scheme of things so not a lot of effort went into designing it and it shows. I quite like the dark green & gold colour combo, but all three of the plates on it look like they’re badly glued on and have absolutely no detail to speak of.

Like I’ve said, it’s not a title that needs to look good in any way, but that doesn’t excuse it from the fact that it looks like a 4th-grade arts and craft project.

12 – Raw/Smackdown Tag Team Championships

These titles are an interesting case because although I don’t like these designs, I did quite like the look of the previous designs that existed before the brand split, which consisted of bronze plates and a black strap. Unfortunately, I’m here to judge the current designs, not the previous one and these really don’t tickle my fancy in the slightest.

The problem here is entirely down to the colour because the Red & Silver and Blue & Silver combo just don’t come together for these titles. I understand that you need Red and Blue to represent Raw and Smackdown, but both of these colours only serve to make the silver of the main plates look cheap as hell. The thing is, I don’t think that bronze or gold plates would look any better with the blue or red either, perhaps even worse.

I quite like the actual designs on the plates themselves and they’re very easily identifiable as tag team championships, but you’d need a complete redesign on the colour scheme to make them work.

11 – Cruiserweight Championship

Ok, so I need to make it clear that from this point onwards in the list, I like all of these title designs. A lot of them aren’t anything to set the world on fire of course, but I wouldn’t classify any of these titles from this point onwards in the list as “bad”.

I feel like I should like the Cruiserweight championship design a lot more than I do because it’s got just about everything I like when it comes to title designs. The main plate is an unconventional shape with a lot of detail all around, the side plates frame the belt perfectly and the strap is purple, which is my favourite colour and yet when I compare it to all the other titles on this list it ends up falling down to 3rd from bottom.

In a horrific twist, I think it’s the purple on the strap that’s ruining the design. If it were darker then maybe it would work, but as it stands, the purple is quite a bright shade and it makes the whole thing feel a bit cheap. It means that when I look at the main plates, I see tin, not silver and it brings the whole thing down as a result. Not to mention there was that one-time Kalisto brought out a version of the championship with a black strap instead and it looks gorgeous, but we never saw that version of the title again.

10 – Raw/Smackdown Women’s Championship

There’s an argument to be made here that these are just pallet swaps of the WWE Championship, which is absolutely true, but I think there are enough differences to warrant a separate entry in the list.

These titles are ones that I’ve actually slowly grown less and less fond of overtime. When the new women’s championship (now Raw women’s championship) was unveiled, I thought it was a thing of beauty, I’m a sucker for a white strap and the coloured background made it stand out bright and bold, but as the years have gone by, I’ve soured on them.

I still like the white strap, but now it’s the coloured background that rubs me the wrong way instead. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not the biggest fan of the “Red for Raw, Blue for Smackdown” mentality WWE has taken to title designs in recent years and now I think that – like with the cruiserweight title -the bright colours serve to cheapen the look of the title as a whole and I can’t help but feel I would prefer something a lot more regal looking for the women of WWE, perhaps more reminiscent of AEW’s Women’s Championship.

9 – United Kingdom Tag Team Championships

These titles are somehow simultaneously over-designed AND under-designed.

At a glance, these titles actually look quite nice, but when you take the time to look at them for an extended period of time, a few problems surface pretty quickly. The first, and biggest, one is the fact the main plates have way too much on them. There’s the reef design to border it, the UK Lion & Unicorn either side of the main plates, in the same colour as the reef and then both sides of the globe AND the NXT logo in the middle, it’s far too much. If either the reef or the stuff in the middle was coloured silver instead of gold then I think it might work, but as it stands the whole thing is one colour and it just looks overdesigned to all hell.

Then you look outside the main plate and realise that there’s nothing else of interest on the entire belt. For one thing, the main plate looks a bit too small on the strap anyway but side plates are the standard WWE Logo in a circle which is so boring, especially compared to the main plate right next to it. Also, I don’t think the strip of metal between the main and side plates is necessary, it seems to space the plates out too far.

Of course, I have still ranked this higher than a couple of belts I’ve seemed more positive about, but the fact is I’d rather have an overdesigned championship like this one, than a really basic one like the Raw & SD tag titles.

8 – WWE/Universal Championship

Ok, let’s make this clear, if I had ranked the Universal title separately then it would’ve only been just about the 24/7 title because the red is horrible, but I quite like the black strapped WWE title design so I’m mainly focusing on that here.

There is an argument to be made here that this base design is quite boring and while I don’t necessarily disagree with that, I think it’s relative plainness works in its favour. It’s quite a simple design, with a jewel-encrusted WWE logo, bordered by more jewels and a small plate with “World Heavyweight Champion” at the bottom directly on the leather.

For some people, this design is way too little, but I really like the look of it. It’s clean and clear in what’s it’s communicating, with many other belts you often have to focus for a couple of seconds to notice the logo in amongst all the gold and silver patterns (*cough*AEW*cough*) but when you look at this, there is instantly no mistaking what championship this is and who it belongs to. I also love the personalised side-plates, it adds so much more character to a title than the simple nameplate and although that feature has made it’s way to several other titles in WWE now, this one did it first.

7 – United Stated Championship

If you had asked me to draw what I think an unapologetic American wrestling company would have as the design for their United States Championship, what I draw wouldn’t look very dissimilar from this title. There is no way you could ever wonder what this title is for, it’s loud and proud, plastered with enough red, white and blue to make an army general think they have to salute it and I love it.

I’m speaking as a non-American here, but I get a kick out of how in-your-face this title is, so much so that I look at the old WCW and laugh at how pitiful it looks in comparison. Aside from the bold colours, the WWE logo, nameplate and central text are positioned in the right places to ground the title a bit and stop it from being WAY too much. It’s undeniably gaudy, but that’s arguably the point and it makes it a lot of fun to look at.

6 – Women’s Tag Team Championships

These belts take some of the best elements of both the tag titles and the women’s titles to make an incredibly elegant looking title belt.

First off, the unorthodox shape is a great place to start, I honestly think the four prongs along make this championship look so much better than it would do as just a flat circle. Then there are the colours which are spot on, the gold is noticeably lighter than on most of the other titles but I think that adds to the effect and goes really well with the silver on the plate and the white on the strap.

Using the gold as a framing for the silver was a nice touch too, but the arrangement of them is what brings this design to its true form. The rings of gold and silver specifically serve to draw your eyes right into the centre of the title, where the words “TAG TEAM” stand loud and proud. The reef that goes around the silver ring is a nice touch to stop it from looking too plain and creates that nice sense of elegance I mentioned. It’s just a shame we don’t get to see these titles on TV all that often…

5 – NXT Tag Team Championships

This title is an interesting one, because there’s a lot to it at first glance, to the point where I wouldn’t blame you if you saw it as over-designed, but there’s a big difference between these and the UK tag titles.

The main plate has a lot going on with it (a feature of most NXT titles) but here everything comes together in a much better way than on the UK tag titles for two major reasons. The first is shape, not the shape of the plate necessarily (although I do like that) but the shapes on the design itself, most of it is very rigid and pointy, there are clear lines and bordered between each segment, which allows the only circle on there to stand out and highlight the NXT logo in the centre.

The other reason is the colour. The gold is all over the title, but it actually only serves as a frame for the centrepiece of the title, it’s there to keep the aesthetic of NXT clear with the black and gold, everything important in the centre of the title is actually in silver, which makes it stand out so much better. Not to mention that gold, silver and black are colours that go well together. It all comes together to create a design that’s got a lot going on with it, but not so much going on that you feel overwhelmed.

4 – Men’s/Women’s United Kingdom Championship

It would’ve been really easy when designing this championship to just pallette-swap the US title with a Union Flag and call it a day, but I’m very glad they took a different route because I love this title.

To get my only major complaint out of the way first, I’m not a big fan of the shape being identical to that of the WWE Championship, I think that is a shape that only works for that particular championship and I wish something a bit more creative could’ve been done with it. Outside of that issue though, this ticks all my boxes.

I’m usually not a fan of one plain colour (in this case, gold) but I think it works in this instance. The whole aesthetic WWE set forth for NXT UK was focusing on the regalness and typical colours therein, so keeping most of the main plate gold and black doesn’t bother me, plus the red of the shield in the centre breaks it up enough so that it doesn’t become plain. Then there’s the actual design, which follows that of the UK coat of arms. I think that design looks great at the best of time, but seeing it on this title made me love it all the more, it’s framed so perfectly that it makes the shape of the belt itself not seem as bad and the banners reading “United Kingdom Championship” at the top and bottom fill in what would’ve been empty space very nicely.

While I wish the shape was something more interesting, I think the design of this title is the perfect fit for NXT UK and just looking at it creates an air of prestige for the division.

3 – North American Championship

Whoever came to the realisation that a burgundy strap was the way to go, I hope you got a raise for the idea.

For the most part, I’d agree that any colour strap other than black or white is a bad idea, I’ve talked about it already with the men’s tag and cruiserweight titles, but this is one of those rare instances where a different colour adds so much to the effect of the title. The burgundy colour invokes this old school feel – as many championships from the ’60s and ’70s had similarly coloured straps – and given that the main appeal of NXT is the insanely high match quality, a more old-school looking championship is a perfect choice.

The main plate had quite a simplistic design, but I think that adds to the overall feel of the championship, if it had been much more than what it is, it would’ve felt overdesigned and at odds with the rest of the belt. The colours are a perfect choice, there’s a more yellowish-gold than we’re used to seeing on titles, but it goes perfectly with the burgundy of the strap and the black and silver being the main colours of the centre plate keep the design simplistic without looking plain.

This title was able to stand out amongst the very high-quality crop of NXT Championships, creating a division that feels surprisingly different from the main event scene in the best way.

2 – Intercontinental Championship

The Intercontinental Championship has gone through several designs over the years, but I’m very glad they eventually went back to this classic design because the 2000s version of the title looked awful.

First off, it’s got a white strap, which instantly gets bonus points because white straps look brilliant on championships, especially ones like this that are almost entirely gold in colour. The shape is also a brilliant choice, it doesn’t quite conform to the standard shape of most other wrestling championships (especially not in WWE) and I really love the slimmer look on the main plate, it sits really well across the lower torso when it’s worn.

As for the plate itself, there’s just the right amount of detail. The banners displaying the name of the title are in the perfect places, sitting at the exact right size to draw all the attention to the globe in the middle, where the blue of the ocean break up all the gold and add an extra dash of the character to the whole thing. Then when you look around the plate, there are only a couple more things to look at, mostly just the stars which help to frame the globe in the centre a bit better and are just generally some nice details.

Finally, there’s a brilliant touch on the side plates where, instead of just having WWE logos, there are little pictures of some traditional wrestling holds which is a good shout back to when the IC championship was seen as “the workhorse belt”. I honestly can’t find any major flaws with this design and I hope the prestige of the title sees a nice increase over the next year or so to match that.

1 – NXT Men’s/Women’s Championship

The NXT title is a work of art as far I’m concerned, it manages to blend a traditional feeling championship with modern title design and it’s unmatched in the WWE right now.

The shape of the title invokes those traditional vibes for me, having a somewhat similar shape to WCW’s “Big Gold Belt”, only with pointier edges. The irregular octagon on its own wouldn’t be the more interesting design, bu the prominence of the “X” in the middle that breaks out of the main plate means that it’s much more interesting to look at. When you look at the inside of the plate things get even better, the “X” remains the focal point of the plate and way it’s outlined with thick black lines and filled in with gold looks brilliant, not only that but the grooves it has all the way through add a layer of depth when you’re looking at the title and stops the centre of the main plate from being filled with nothing.

The side plates only add to this effect, it allows the idea of the WWE championship to be kept with the customisable side-plates but makes sure they’re not just circles like every other title with them. Instead, they keep with the NXT aesthetic of sharp shapes and clear cut designs, bringing in a square that points out on the far edges to better frame the main plate and makes the whole thing feel like one big shape that’s been broken up a bit.

This title has a sense of controlled chaos to its design, it keeps in line with the feel of all the other NXT Titles while making sure it stands out on its own merit, knowing exactly where to place the colours and make sure that every little detail on all of the plates are exactly right and that’s why it’s my favourite championship in WWE today.

 

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Every Match Ranked

Going into this show, I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming out of it Monday morning and now I’m sitting here beginning to type up this review, I honestly still don’t know how I feel. This show was filled with a lot of nothing, which I suppose is to be expected when you shovel 5 matches onto the show mere hours before it’s set to begin (and in one case, less than an hour).

That said, the matches that were noteworthy had quite a lot to them, which admittedly just be because we have the last-minute matches to compare them to but still. Then, of course, there’s how the show ended and the outrage it’s caused (don’t worry, I’ll get to it). I guess it’s time to take a dive in and rank every match from Hell in a Cell 2019.

9 – Natalya def. Lacey Evans
(Kickoff Show)

No points for guessing where this one would land…

I honestly don’t know what to tell you about this match, it’s my least favourite wrestler in WWE right now wrestling someone who doesn’t seem to be improving at all despite being given all the opportunities in the world. The match was slow, sloppy and boring, the commentators keep talking about how heated a rivalry this is, but I honestly couldn’t even tell you why it is they’re fighting and that’s after going back and looking for reasons from Raw.

Still, apparently, it’s heated enough to warrant a Last Woman Standing match tonight, can’t wait to see if Natalya can beat Lacey after watching Natalya beat Lacey

8 – The Viking Raiders & Braun Strowman def.     The OC via Disqualification

Someone did tell Vince McMahon this wasn’t an episode of Raw right?

As I sat down to write this article, I realised that not only had I forgot who won this match, but that it even happened full stop. For the most part, it was perfectly fine, but this is the exact kind of match we’ve come to expect from Raw main events that mean literally nothing, even while they’re happening. The match was at least fairly fun to watch and it probably would have landed a place or two higher if it wasn’t for the god-awful finish.

Not only was it a pointless DQ finish, but it was also the worst kind of DQ finish, where the ref just decided “No! You’re wrestling TOO MUCH!” and calls for the bell, it’s never made sense to me and it didn’t help anyone here. Utterly pointless.

7 – Chad Gable def. King Corbin

Do you get the joke? It’s because Chad Gable’s not as tall as Baron Corbin, which makes him somehow inferior. High-brow stuff I know, I didn’t get it until the 47th time they repeated it.

Extremely tired short jokes aside, this was an ok match. It got more time than I was expecting it to and both men put in a good effort to justify this spot, the only problem is I just don’t have the capacity to care because I’ve seen this match twice a week for the past three weeks now and if the backstage segment after the match is any indication, we’ll be seeing it again tonight.

It feels unfair because it’s not the fault of either man in the ring that no forethought went into any part of this show, but it’s the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.

6 – Randy Orton def. Ali

I’ve been pretty snarky about these last-minute matches so far, but this is the first one that I can honestly say I enjoyed.

I can’t say I was (or ever am) expecting much from the show’s Randy Orton match, but god-damn if Ali didn’t work his ass off trying to make it entertaining. Ali’s style of offence worked surprisingly well with Orton, who didn’t spend much of the match on offence in hindsight, Ali made sure to keep the pace fairly fast outside of one part where Orton decided to work a chin lock for about 3 minutes.

Then, there was one of the coolest looking RKO counters I’ve seen in a long time, with Ali going along with the move only to pull off a handstand at the last minute. However, it was all for nothing when Orton hit the RKO and won the match anyway, but it was a cool moment. Contrary to what I’ve been saying so far in this article, I wouldn’t mind seeing this one again with a longer runtime.

5 – Charlotte Flair def. Bayley(c)
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

This is one of those situations where I enjoyed this match, but at the same time I know these two can do better, so I’m a bit disappointed.

It might be due to the fact that this match got less time than both Orton/Ali & Gable/Corbin, but I couldn’t help coming away from this match a tad underwhelmed. There was still a fair amount to like though, including Bayley’s dominance for a large portion of the match, which is the first time she’s actually looked like a competent wrestler against Charlotte in ages, and to my surprise Charlotte did a pretty good job of wrestling as the face in this match, it’s become so easy to see her as a heel in every situation that I was honestly taken aback when I saw how she was wrestling.

I also don’t mind Charlotte winning, if the other women’s title match had gone the other way then I might’ve complained, but given where I think this storyline is going to go in the coming months (I’ll talk about that when I talk about Sasha vs Becky) I don’t have a problem with it for now. It’s just a bit of a shame that Bayley’s title reign was rather an unremarkable one outside of the moment she won it.

4 – The Kabuki Warriors def. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c)
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Say what you want about this show, Kairi Sane won her first championship on the main roster and I’m never going to be unhappy about that.

If it wasn’t for the finish, then this match probably would’ve been a few places lower, because while I enjoyed the action of the match, it wasn’t anything special for the most part. I liked Nikki’s seeming omnipresence in the match, as she seemed to be involved in just about everything that happened in the match, which could lead to a good storyline now her and Alexa have lost the titles.

The finish is where the main attraction of the match is though, with Asuka unloading a green mist in Nikki’s face to win the titles. With any luck, this means we get a more heelish Asuka, perhaps even pitting her at odds with Kairi, who didn’t seem aware of what Asuka did to win the titles. With any women’s tag title win though, I have to ponder whether any of this will matter when they inevitably don’t get featured on TV for a month.

3 – Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt ended in a No Contest
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Ok…here goes.

Imagine, if you will, the most amazing gymnastics routine you could possibly think of, incredible flips and spins, the likes of which you never even thought were possible. Now imagine the gymnast landing sideways on their ankle, breaking their arms as they attempt to cushion their fall and cracking their skull open on the mat. That’s roughly the story of this main event.

I really struggled to find a place for this match and in the end, this felt right. Everyone’s going to focus on the finish – and I’ll talk about that in just a moment – but the thing is, everything leading up to it was BRILLIANT. Honestly, the only thing I’d change about that match is the referee throwing it out, I would absolutely keep everything else from before and after the match, exactly the same. The red lighting was a bit gaudy, but I think it worked in this instance, the atmosphere of the whole match was this tense and terrifying feeling that was absolutely fantastic, a feeling that was helped out by the slower pace.

Admittedly, making the Curb Stomp look like the most ineffective finisher in the world might’ve been a silly thing to do, but it made The Fiend look amazing when he kicked out at one after taking about 8 of them. Even the stuff after the match where he popped up to take out Rollins looked brilliant as all of the referees scattered from the ring. The Fiend is still something amazing and unique…but that finish WAS NOT the right way to handle this.

I think the level of outrage we’re currently seeing online over this is a bit much, especially considering this almost definitely is just the first chapter of the story, however, I sympathise with the frustration and I feel it myself. Two years in a row now, we’ve had a Hell in a Cell match end in a no contest, going completely against the whole point of the stipulation and it’s getting ridiculous, but it’s especially bad in this instance considering that after the referee threw the match out, it became clear that the sledgehammer to the head didn’t hurt The Fiend at all. I love the idea of telling the story that The Fiend is driving Rollins to an extremely dark place, but throwing out the match was a bad way to go about it.

Unlike most of Twitter though, I think this can still be saved and I’m confident that we’re nowhere near done with this story and I honestly think writing it off a disaster this soon does everyone involved a disservice.

2 – Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan def. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper
(Tornado Tag Team Match)

In amongst all the terrible last-minute additions to this show, the stipulation of a tornado tag match here turned out to be a stroke of brilliance.

This match didn’t quite blow me away but I still had a lot of fun watching it. Roman Reigns is always at his best in matches where he can be the exclamation point, not being in action the whole time gives his high-impact offence a lot more weight and it great fun to watch. On top of that, it was refreshing to see Daniel Bryan wrestle a face style for the first time in quite a while. I particularly liked the sequence towards the middle of the match where he was alone again both Harper & Rowan, kicking wildly as they bore down on him trying to break free.

I also enjoyed the big spots of the match since none of them took ages to set up and the payoff is always great; sure, we could all see Roman’s Spear through the table coming a mile away, but it doesn’t make it look any less cool.

I’m not sure Roman & Bryan were the right choices to win, but ultimately I’m not all that fussed about it. Erick Rowan has shown he can stand on his own as a mid-card wrestler if you ask me and I don’t think any of us were ever in doubt of Harper’s abilities. I might’ve been good for Harper & Rowan if they’d won, but ultimately, if this is what it takes to end this feud, I’m not going to complain.

1 – Becky Lynch(c) def. Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Well, it’s nice to have something on the show that I don’t have to complain about.

I’m always trepidatious when Hell in a Cell rolls around, weapons-based wrestling is generally my least favourite form of the sport and I generally believe most competitors can put on higher quality matches without it, but I’m happy to say that this was really good, and I enjoyed it more than their encounter from Clash of Champions.

This match managed to avoid almost all of the pitfalls weapons matches can fall into, I though all of the spots looked impressive and impactful, while only one of them looked overly contrived – the chair on the kendo sticks – but I can forgive that because the result looked great and it was a rare example of a brand new spot in a Hell in a Cell match.

Although it’s not what I would’ve done, I don’t have a problem with Becky Lynch retaining, partly because I’ve loved Becky’s title reign and I’m happy to see it continue, but also because I have a hunch Sasha Banks is going to be making her way to Smackdown in this week’s draft after this loss and there’s some good story potential over there with Bayley. Although honestly, after all the mediocre-crap stuff on this show, I’m just happy there’s something I can say was genuinely very enjoyable.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, 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 Saturday where I’ll be talking about Celeste!

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Predictions & Analysis

I think it’s safe to say that this has been the longest 3 weeks in wrestling history. Seriously, Clash of Champions feels like it was months ago by this point, with NXT’s move to the USA Network, Smackdown’s move to FOX and AEW Dynamite’s debut on TNT so much has happened in the world of wrestling in such a tiny space of time that this show seems like the biggest afterthought of the lot.

I mean seriously, we only have four matches announced for the show, meanwhile, WWE have decided to focus on booking matches for the inevitable trainwreck that will be Crown Jewel at the end of the month. What blow my mind is that the two biggest matches on this card seem like really big deals in the world of WWE and yet management are treating it like it barely matters.

Still, let’s go through what matches have been announced (as I expect a handful to be added last minute) and see if we can’t predict the winners.

Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan

There were lots of potential outcomes when this weird story of Roman Reigns being attacked by a mystery assailant began a couple of months ago, but I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted that “a big push for Erick Rowan” would be what we ended up with, and I’m including WWE’s writers in that statement. As I mentioned in my Clash of Champions review, I’m happy to see Harper back on TV, but I hate that he’s been paired up with Rowan for the hundredth time and I can’t help but feel like this isn’t going to last very long at all.

That said, I actually think this match will be a fun one to watch. Roman Reigns carried a tag match featuring Shane McMahon and an ageing Undertaker to a good quality, so I can only imagine what we’ll get when Reigns is in there with the best wrestler in the world, the most underrated wrestler in WWE and Erick Rowan. This should be quite the chaotic match which, as I constantly say, is the perfect pace for a tag team match.

As for a winner, there are a lot of aspects at play here that make it quite difficult to pick with any sort of confidence. First off, you’ve got the fact that Luke Harper’s just returned, which typically means he needs a win here to look strong, but we know all too well that Vince despises him for basically no reason whatsoever, so that could very well be off the table. It would be nice to see Rowan carry on the momentum he got from beating Reigns but I just don’t think it’s going to happen, not to mention the fact that this feud had been going on for months with almost nothing in the way of face victories, so I’m going with Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns.

Bayley(c) vs Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’m happy about the way Bayley’s been handled in the past couple of months. She’s been getting storylines that are actually about her for once and her character’s been given a new lease of life with this heel turn, but at the same time, she seems to be unable to do anything without Sasha being around to lend a hand. She outfoxed Charlotte last month but that mostly felt like it was because we needed to stall for a month until Sasha got her hands on the title.

Hopefully this match will get more time than it did at Clash of Champions (it bloody well better given the lack of content for the show right now), I just hope creative can pull something cleverer than another dirty finish out of their back pocket because I don’t think I can be bothered with two in a row. Still, if it gets the time and a bit of freedom, I think this will be a fun one to watch.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have much of a rationale for picking Bayley to win here. It also certainly won’t be clean if she does, but I can’t see WWE letting Charlotte take a clean loss to this version of Bayley. I think having Bayley lose the title just as Sasha wins hers would sweep the rug out from under the both of them in a major way and could really stifle Bayley. Once we’ve had the draft and the brands become more sperate I think it will be ok but for now, I say Bayley needs to hold on to the gold.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’ll be honest, I was very worried that this storyline would start to derail after the wonky finish last month but creative have done a great job of making sure that the heat to this feud only builds and I can safely say that I’m just as hyped for this rematch as I was for their first encounter last month.

I think the match will be just as good too, both of these women have put on high-quality weapons matches in the past – Sasha in the Cell against Charlotte and Becky in Last Woman Standing, also against Charlotte – so I’m not approaching this with my usual sense of dread, the pace should stay reasonably fast and the spots will be a spectacle to watch.

The key thing here is not to do another wonky finish and definitely don’t have Bayley help Sasha win. This whole feud has made Sasha look like an ass-kicker, but I’m worried that Bayley’s going to sneak her way into the Cell somehow in order to give Sasha the win, but I think that would hinder Sasha in the long run. Regardless, I think Sasha Banks is coming out with the win and hopefully, it will be clean. It’s unclear what format Survivor Series is going to take this year, but I could see them using it as a stop-gap before having a finale match to close out the year.

Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’m really not sure what to make of this one.

On the one hand, Bray Wyatt is without a doubt the most popular thing in WWE right now, it’s a cool and original concept the likes of which we haven’t seen arguably since The Undertaker debuted so capitalising on it with a world title victory – especially as WWE positions themselves to move into a new era – seems like a great way to go about things. On the other hand, it seems way too soon for any of this to actually happen.

I’m optimistic for the match quality here, The Fiend has already shown that the style in which they wrestle is different and oddly compelling to watch and the addition of Hell in a Cell and all of the weapons there-in looks to only benefit the performance. I just really don’t know if I can see them winning the Universal Title this soon.

Seth Rollins still isn’t that far out from slaying the Beast and winning back the Universal Championship, while The Fiend has only had one televised match before this one. On top of that, I’m not entirely sure how The Fiend as Universal Champion would even work on week-to-week TV. Bray can, of course, do all his talking through the Firefly Funhouse but the fact is we only see The Fiend once per show when he cuts the lights and attacks, someone. It’d create this spectre of an immortal monster residing over RAW and the more I think about it the more I want to see it.

After thinking it through, I’m picking “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt to win the match, because now Finn Balor’s announced a return to NXT, I can’t see any way they could book themselves out of this where Seth keeps the title, but doesn’t actually beat The Fiend, thus, The Fiend has to win.

And that’s it! Sorry for this post being shorter than usual, but there’s not a lot I can do with only four matches to talk about. Still, thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know what you think is going to happen in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back on Monday for my review of the show!

Games I’m Looking Forward to In Q4 of 2019

As we move into the 4th quarter of the year, the season comes around where we get all of the big releases in the space of about a week, which is either very exciting or very inconvenient depending on your perspective. Unfortunately, this year’s line up seems a little more underwhelming, with many of the big AAA releases like Watchdogs Legion and Cyberpunk 2077 opting to go with a spring 2020 release date instead.

That said, there a still a bunch of potentially great games still to come as we look to end of 2019 and I thought it’d be a nice idea to highlight the host of games that are set to release before the year is out, to help remind people to not look ahead to next spring too soon.

8th October – Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: Modus Games
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Linux

I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about the Trine series in this blog yet, but it’s one of the few series I think could be fairly described as ‘underrated’ in the eyes of the general gaming populous.

If I had to describe the Trine games in a single word, that word would be “vibrant”. The fairytale-style seeps into every pour of the game, making it ooze this charm that I just can’t look away from. The colour pallet is absolutely beautiful, with vibrant blues, greens and purples creating this incredibly serene atmosphere, although it’s not afraid to effectively use reds, oranges and even browns effectively when it wants to change that atmosphere.

The puzzle-platforming mechanics are a little basic, but that’s overshadowed by the surprisingly fun nature of the combat. It’s not a million miles a minute like much 2D sidescrolling combat, but instead, everything in the world interacts with each other in unexpected ways to create some hilarious outcomes when you spawn a box in a space where it looks like you shouldn’t be able to.

Trine 3 took the series into the realm of 3D and while it wasn’t as fun as the first two games in the franchise, it still captured that sense of charm that drew me into the series in the first place. Form what we’ve seen so far Trine 4 seems to have mostly gone back to the 2D style of game and it’s looked to have expanded its puzzle-platforming mechanics to open up a load of new opportunities for fun to be had, so if you’re a fan of the genre, or even just uniquely pretty games, this will be one for you.

11th October – Tracks: The Train Set Game

Developer: Whoop Group
Publisher: Excalibur Publishing
Platforms: Windows

So here’s a game specifically made for me and people like me.

The concept of the game is very simple: You remember the wooden Brio train sets that you’d have loads of as a kid if you liked trains? And you remember how you always wanted to build massive crazy tracks but never could? Well, this game lets you do exactly that to your heart’s content.

I played this in Early Access early last year and it’s amazing. This game will let you build any track you could possibly imagine with all the different types of pieces that used to be available (and a couple that weren’t). You can build these track on a blank canvas, or you can use a living room or bedroom to weave your tracks through.

I haven’t played it in a while as I want to be surprised by the new stuff that’s been added at launch, but when I last played there was a whole host of scenery that you could add all around the tracks, so you could build a little town for your train to go around. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The pièce de résistance is the fact that you can actually get in the train and drive your train around the tracks you’ve made…I KNOW RIGHT?!

I’m well aware many of you are reading this thinking I’m weird, but the three people who had the same childhood I did are over the moon right now.

22nd October – WWE 2K20

Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

For many years I was the kind of person that never understood why people bought a new sports game every year when they all seemed exactly the same from the perspective of an outside observer. However, having been a WWE fan for a good number of years now and buying the new game every single year, I totally understand the appeal.

Of course, I didn’t see the point in buying a new FIFA every year, I don’t like football. I do however like wrestling and as someone who plays the WWE games for at least 150 hours every year (usually more), the value is absolutely there for me to put down $60 every time a new one comes out.

That said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about this year’s game.

For those who are unaware, for the 6 WWE games released under the 2K umbrella so far, Yukes has been a part of the development team and this year they weren’t, leaving Visual Concepts to develop the game on their own and that fact combined with how marketing has been behaving in the build-up to launch has me concerned. By this time last year, we had a full roster reveal and multiple press events where tonnes of gameplay was shown, but right now we’ve got absolutely none of that.

Don’t get me wrong as long as the game isn’t totally broken I’ll still buy it because I’m a sucker for the series and I don’t care who knows it, but I’m definitely going to wait for reviews to be sure until I put my money down on it.

25th October – The Outer Worlds

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Private Division
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

So far the games I’ve talked about are ones that I’m confident that I’m going to enjoy, either because they’re part of a franchise I love, or I’ve already played some of it prior to launch. The Outer Worlds, however, is slightly different because I really want to play it, but I’m not yet sure if I’ll enjoy it.

While I’m sure I’ll get lectures from people about this statement, but the game looks to be fairly similar to Fallout in terms of its main mechanics. This is to be expected as Obsidian’s biggest release before now was Fallout: New Vegas, so stick with what you know, so it’s a game I really want to try, but it’s not guaranteed to be a hit with me. I feel this way because of my relationship with Fallout 4 (the only one in the franchise I’ve played (I KNOW, shut up)) because when I played it at launch I didn’t enjoy it at all and over a number of years I would try over and over again to get into this and it wasn’t until early this summer that I finally cracked it and started enjoying it.

My hopes with this one is that it’s like Fallout, but not TOO much like Fallout, the gameplay that’s been shown up until now looks solid, but I always find it hard to gauge whether the feel of a game fits me by watching someone else playing it, so I’ll be very interested to see what I think of this one when it releases.

5th November – Planet Zoo

Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Platforms: Windows

A few years ago Frontier Developments did something magical, they went to the farthest corners the Earth, searched through miles and miles of terrain until they found the withered and dying body of the theme park building genre and somehow breathed more life into it than it had ever had before. Planet Coaster is quite simply the best theme park building game ever made (no, that isn’t up for debate) and Planet Zoo looks to do exactly the same thing to the Zoo Tycoon genre that Planet Coaster was to theme park builders.

Of course, the focus is in a slightly different place with Planet Zoo as it’s all well and good making a zoo look pretty (which I absolutely will), but none of it matters if all of your animals are underfed. This game promises to put the focus in the caring and welfare of the animals you hold in your zoo, with some in depth-looking systems that mean you’ll have to adhere to all of the top-level standards that real zoos have to. Not that it’s going to stop me from throwing two of every animal into one pen and seeing who survives but that’s on me, not the game.

If the recent beta release that people have been able to get their hands on is any indication, Planet Zoo will live up to the hype that stands before it and I believe it will be a game that is just as beloved as Planet Coaster.

8th November – Death Stranding

Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: Playstation 4

I just want to know what it actually is.

I think I got the rough gist of what the “basic” premise is from the explanation we received at Gamescom earlier this year, but I’m still not entirely clear. It’s also really not obvious what the gameplay is like since so far we’ve seen our protagonist have several conversations, fall off a cliff and…mark his territory.

As such, I honestly can’t speculate on whether or not I think I’ll enjoy this. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say I’ll think it’s fairly mediocre, but what do I know? This could be the greatest game ever made, it could be utter trash, I don’t think anyone anywhere in the world has any idea, including Hideo Kojima.

I’m anticipating this release more to see what the reaction is from the general gaming populous when it finally comes out, not so much to play it myself. It’s definitely a game I’m keeping an eye on, but I’m going to be waiting for the reviews to come out before I consider buying it for myself.

15th November: Pokemon Sword/Shield

Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo & The Pokemon Company
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

If I need to explain this one to you then you’re obviously not paying enough attention.

In short: I like Pokemon…a lot.

I tend to judge Pokemon games on their own scale where I compare them to each other because for me they exist above other franchises. A Pokemon game can be full of obvious flaws an annoyances, but I’ll still enjoy it because it’s Pokemon and honestly, I like it that way, I like being happy.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to tell where each game will fit on that scale before playing it. Case in point: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy those games all that much, it didn’t look to me like they added much to the Alola region and they’d be quickly forgotten, but boy was I wrong about that and they are easily among my favourites in the franchise.

So far out of everything I’ve seen, I like most of it. I know the fact that the national dex won’t be in the game is a sticking point for many people, but I personally don’t mind too much as long as the game we get is good fun. The whole camping set up looks like it’ll have a lot more depth than Amie and Refresh did before it and I’m gonna dedicate my life to finding all the curry recipes if it kills me.

Out of the new Pokemon that have been revealed so far, I like the look of all but one and I’m overjoyed that we’re not only getting more regional variant but brand new evolutions for old Pokemon too; any game that gives Farfetch’d an evolution is good by me.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please let me know what games you’re looking forward to the most either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday as my coverage for WWE’s Hell in a Cell begins!

WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Every Match Ranked

Well, the champions have clashed and we’re sat on the other side of it thinking…it was a decent show. There were a handful of matches that underwhelmed in different ways, but there were just as many matches that lived up to expectations and overall I came away from the show feeling like I had a nice time.

So let’s waste no time and get right into ranking every match from Clash of Champions 2019

11 – Bayley(c) def. Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Bayley’s still champion, but was a bit of an odd way to go about it.

The finish itself is something I’m fine with. It could’ve been given a bit more build to it and it would’ve been nice if the commentators actually noticed it before 2 minutes after the fact, but this was a good way for Bayley to retain the title without throwing the match out completely, especially considering what would happen with the Raw Women’s Championship later on in the show.

My main problem with this match – and the reason I’ve placed it last – is that there was barely any kind of a match before the finish. We know Charlotte and Bayley can put on a great match, we’ve seen it several times before, but instead was just got 3 minutes of Charlotte dominating Bayley before Bayley used the exposed turnbuckle and win. I usually don’t have a problem with an exposed turnbuckle being an instant KO, because it’s normally used at the end of a full-length match, but right at the beginning like this just makes Charlotte feel a bit weak.

Like I said, I’m happy with the result and I can’t even complain too much about the finish, but I was really looking forward to a decent length match between these two and I didn’t get it.

10 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

You know that one match Randy Orton’s wrestled over and over for the past 12 years? This was that.

It was the absolute embodiment of what you think of when someone says “Typical Randy Orton match”, he spent far too long on “wearing his opponent down”, which, as I’ve before, is an effective tool in the toolbox, but not when you’re Randy Orton who doesn’t seem to own any other tools and tried to use the one he has for everything. That metaphor got away from me there, but the point still stands.

That’s not to say there weren’t some pockets of good stuff, Kofi’s offence was a lot sharper than it was during their Summerslam encounter and the whole thing felt a lot more concise, which is probably thanks to there being an actual clean finish. This match was better than the match they had at Summerslam, but that was a pretty low bar to clear and I think I’m ready for Kofi to move on to someone new, which – if the clean finish to this match is any indication – is hopefully what we’re getting.

9 – Erick Rowan def. Roman Reigns
(No Disqualification)

I know I’m ranking this match third from bottom, but there’s a small part of me that kinda liked it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to hate here and I’ll dig into that in a moment, but there were a couple of sections in the middle of this match where I was vaguely enjoying myself. I’m well known for hating weapons matches by this point (looking forward to Hell in a Cell next month…) but there were some sequences in this match where I was enjoying watching these guys try to destroy each other.

I don’t think this was the best of showcases for Rowan however, he’s never excelled in long singles matches but I think Roman did a decent job of picking up the slack. That said, this match could only ever reach a certain level of quality and that wasn’t exceedingly high. Then there was the finish, which saw the return of Harper, who we’re still unsure on whether he’s got his first name back or not.

After all the shit he’s supposedly gone through with WWE management and Vince seemingly having a hate boner for the guy, I’m happy he’s finally back on TV, however, I’m not happy that he’s being paired up with Rowan for the 50th time. This pairing is so odd because they’ve never really done much as a team and yet it feels like they’ve already done everything there is for them to do. I don’t think it’s the right move for either of them to keep them joined at the hip like this, but that’s what we’ve got.

8 – Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c) def. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Now we get into that stage of the rankings where the matches were perfectly fine, but nothing noteworthy.

I actually thought these two teams worked quite well together, the crowd were really behind Nikki Cross which is great to see and Alexa continues to surprise me by being a pretty effective face wrestler. Mandy’s always great at pulling heat from thin air, although I often find myself rooting for her by association because I love Sonya Deville as a wrestler.

This match was very much split into two halves, with the 24/7 skit serving as the separation point. The first half of this match was great fun to watch, they went through this lengthy feeling out process where every combination of competitors in the match was explored and I thought it was really effective, then the 24/7 title stuff happened and I quite liked it, it broke up the match (which was starting to slow down a bit) and we got a nice little thrill as Alexa attempted to roll up R-Truth.

The main problem is that after the skit, it never felt like the match quite recovered to the point it was at beforehand. Things remained pretty slow pretty much right up until the finish and it ended things on a bit of a duff note. Ultimately I can honestly say that I enjoyed the match, but it was a bit flawed in places.

7 – Shinsuke Nakamura(c) def. The Miz
(Intercontinental Championship)

I said in my predictions article that this would almost certainly be a fun, ten-minute match and unlike most things I say in my predictions, what I said is exactly what happened.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one really, it was a good, but not great, match where both guys wrestled the kind of match we’d expect them to wrestle and then the champion retained. Sami’s stuff on the mic was good fun, mostly because it shut Corey Graves up for 5 seconds (more on that later) and I think this pairing of Sami & Shinsuke might actually work out quite well for the both of them.

My main worry is what’s going to happen with The Miz going forward because he’s been absolutely shafted since becoming a face. All I can hope for is that the draft puts Miz in a much better position going forward, hopefully in the form of a heel turn, because this face run has been a total failure.

6 – Seth Rollins(c) def. Braun Strowman
(Universal Championship)

So this was a weird one…

This ended up being one of the shorter matches of the evening at 11 minutes and I honestly think that was to its benefit. It played off the sense of urgency that was inherently woven into the match thanks to both Seth and Braun having already wrestled a match that night, although it didn’t make Seth look especially strong if you ask me.

The majority of the match was Braun throwing Seth all over the place and even when Seth did start to make his comeback, Braun was extremely resilient, kicking out of three Curb Stomps. This is all great for Braun, but it doesn’t exactly help Seth in any way. You could easily argue that Braun kicking out of three Curb Stomps makes him look great in defeat, but that’s all dependant on what happens with him after this and if it goes similarly to how he’s been booked this past year, it’s going to have the opposite effect. To me, it’s instead made the Curb Stomp – one of the most brutal-looking finishers in all of WWE – look piss-weak, especially when you consider that in the past, Braun as lost to a single F-5 or a single Spear.

That said, I thought the second half of the match where Seth was making his comeback was exciting to watch and much like many of these matches, I came away from it satisfied with what I saw, although I think it would’ve benefitted from another five minutes (although given both men had to wrestle twice, the shortness isn’t a dealbreaker.)

5 – AJ Styles(c) def. Cedric Alexander
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way, this made Cedric look like a grade-A chump. There’s no way that anyone watching this match could see Cedric get absolutely dominated AND attacked after the match and get the impression that he was someone to rally behind, so if the intention was to get Alexander more over then it was a total failure.

That said, when it comes to the match itself alone, I really enjoyed watching it. I would’ve liked to see it last longer than 5 minutes, but the way these two wrestled this match gave it such a sense of urgency that I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. The action was fast & fun and honestly, that’s what I like best from wrestling, I just wish it could’ve been a bit longer.

At the end of the day, I hope this isn’t the end of Cedric’s push because he could do so much more without even needing to be that high up the card, but in a bubble, I had fun watching this one.

4  – Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode(c) def. Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Seth Rollins is just great at tag matches.

This had a healthy dose of everything I love to see from tag team wrestling. There was good psychology with the heels working effectively against the faces, which helped to give the idea that Ziggler & Roode have actually been training together as a tag team prior to them being thrown together on Raw. Then, as Seth always does, he did a great job of slowly building up to make a comeback and Braun is the kind of guy that’s always great for a hot-tag.

As for Ziggler & Roode winning the titles, I can’t say that I’m thrilled about it and I expect them to have a reign similar to that of Gable & Roode where they do precisely nothing with the titles, however I admit the titles will probably do better around their waists than Seth & Braun’s, since they’d likely just end up being treated as second fiddle to the Universal title, like they have all of this past month.

3 – The Revival def. The New Day(c)
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

This match was great and I’ll talk about it in a moment, but we need to take a moment to talk about commentary last night, especially Corey Graves because it was freaking awful. I don’t know what got into Corey last night, but for some reason, he was determined to turn every single conversation on the desk into a shouting match and it was so irritating to listen to, actively detracting from my enjoyment of the match at certain points. Graves can be a great heel commentator, but for whatever reason, last night was one of the worst commentary performances I’ve heard in WWE in a long time; so much so that I watched the majority of this match on mute.

That aside, this match was great.

It wasn’t anywhere near the all-time great Revival vs New Day match we all know is possible, but it was a good start. It’s not often that Big E is the one to be beaten down and desperate, but seeing it in situations like this is so incredibly effective for the story being told. It was able to create this great sense of desperation as Woods came in on a nearly broken leg to try and get them back in the fight.

Ultimately, it was to no avail and The Revival won the titles, which is hopefully a good thing. With any luck, this will be the start of a feud akin to New Day vs The Usos in 2017 where they put on amazing tag team matches on every PPV for about 6 months straight and everyone is very happy about it. Regardless of if that actually happens or not, I’m never going to complain about The Revival winning tag team championships.

2 – Drew Gulak(c) def. Humberto Carrillo & Lince Dorado
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Once again, the cruiserweights care not for your petty “pre-shows”, they’ll steal the show regardless of when their match is.

This match was more or less how I described it would be in my predictions. Carrillo and Dorado put in some great fast-paced offence and the sequences when they were going at each other was really fun to watch, then Drew Gulak was there to quite literally ground everything and slow the match down, but in an effective, in-ring psychology way, not a boring, Randy Orton way.

This whole match was full to the brim with memorable moments, like Dorado and Carrillo taking Drew out early on in spectacular fashion, to the segment towards the end where the three men traded blows and Drew flattened Humberto with a clothesline. As I said before, Drew retaining was definitely the right choice for now, especially with 205 Live likely being folded into NXT very soon, he’s an all-round solid performer who can make that title feel like a big deal on the new NXT if that’s what happens to it.

1 – Sasha Banks def. Becky Lynch(c) via Disqualification
(Raw Women’s Championship)

A great performance with a botched landing.

The first 15ish minutes of this match was exactly the kind of match you’d expect from two great wrestlers who know each other as well as these two. The action was smooth and fun to watch, with a great amount of back and forth with some genuinely innovative spots, namely, when each woman was able to slip on their signature submission hold seemingly out of nowhere. It was crisp and fantastic stuff that’s hopefully just a taste of what’s to come.

I’m of two minds with the finish, I like the idea of it and ultimately I think it was successful in portraying what it was intended to, however, the execution was a bit odd. Sasha pulled off some great heel-work with the chair shots and I loved the brawl around the arena, even if I just couldn’t take my eyes off of the mustard stain on Sasha’s back. What I found odd, was the way they went about the DQ. I’m fine with Becky accidentally striking the referee with a chair, but there was no bell ring or announcement to say Becky was disqualified until they’d gone around the whole arena and Michael Cole just randomly mentioned it on commentary; only when Becky decided she had enough of beating Sasha down did the ring announcer explain that Becky had been DQ’ed.

It left me with a  bit of a sour taste in my mouth because I was under the impression that the match was continuing because, you know, an unconscious referee can’t DQ anyone. That said, the whole situation did exactly what it was meant to and built up the intensity of this feud and I can’t wait for their inevitable Hell in a Cell match in a few weeks time.

Much like the show as a whole, this was a match that gave me some complaints but ultimately left me feeling satisfied and happy about what I’d just watched, which I consider a win.

So there are my thoughts! Thank you very much for taking the time to read my review 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 weekend where I’ll be talking about more of my favourite music from video games!