Tag: WWE

WWE Super Showdown 2019 Predictions & Analysis

So I’ve said a few times now so far this year that main roster WWE is yet to put on a bad Pay-Per-View…time for that to change.

I usually try to be as optimistic as possible when going into these predictions because at the end of the day, I never want any of these shows to be bad, but sometimes it’s an unavoidable truth that it will be. I don’t know this for certain of course, but Crown Jewel shattered any and all remaining faith I had that these Saudi Arabia shows could be anything fun to watch.

Once again, I’m not going to make any comments about the political controversy surrounding the Saudi Arabia & WWE deal because I don’t have the desire or the knowledge to get involved in that discussion, there’s just wrestling going on, on Friday and I’m here to predict the winners; so let’s do that.

The Usos vs The Revival
(Kickoff Show)

So this feud has had two phases throughout its time on our screens, there’s the “stupid shit Vince thinks is funny” phase and the “not on TV” phase, and it seems weird to have this blow off match amidst the latter. Either way, this could be a decent match if these two teams are given a little bit of freedom, and aren’t made to pretend their crotches are on fire or whatever bollocks Vince comes up with.

I also think it’s a pretty easy one to pick, The Revival beat The Usos on Raw a few weeks ago, so it only makes sense that The Usos pick up the win here. Not to mention, The Usos need to move up the card and win those titles ASAP, because the fact that the Raw Tag Titles have barely been on Main Event since Wrestlemania is an absolute disgrace.

The Lucha House Party vs Lars Sullivan
(3 on 1 Handicap)

We are gathered here today, to mourn the passing of The Lucha House Party.

Seriously, there’s no other way this goes down, Lars Sullivan is going to destroy these guys. LHP will probably get in a good few licks along the way, but it won’t take long for Sullivan to take out all three of them, probably simultaneously. I really don’t know what the future holds for Lars, it feels like we’ll likely get a Braun Strowman Lite rise, but I doubt it’ll have much staying-power while Strowman is still around. Not to mention how the fanbase at large despise Sullivan for many of his past online comments.

What I do know, however, is that Sullivan is walking out of this match with barely a scratch.

Braun Strowman vs Bobby Lashley

Welcome to the directionless section of the Pay-Per-View.

Has there been any reason for these two to fight? I know they’ve been interacting a bit since the match was announced, but were there any hints of animosity building between these two before it was randomly announced? I don’t see what any of the plans are for either of these men this summer apart from maybe fighting with each other over and over again until we all go and do something more fun, like jamming forks into our eyes.

This match might have one or two cool looking spots, especially if the match is given a more vicious tone of two big dudes who want to flatten each other, but other than that I’m really not expecting much at all from this one. Realistically it could go either way, but I think Braun Strowman is the more likely winner because everyone still loves watching Strowman flatten people and he hasn’t got any notable wins in a little while now.

Roman Reigns vs Shane McMahon

Do you think the whole Crown Jewel thing was just a long plot so Roman can say he beat the best wrestler in the world?

Once again, if you’re having trouble picking a winner to this one, you must be new to wrestling, because there’s really only one way this could go. I know Elias and Drew could get involved and I wouldn’t be overly surprised if we got some kind of boring DQ finish were Roman gets beaten down only to trash everyone, but Shane is in desperate need of some comeuppance right now.

This is one of those matches where I’m not really expecting a great deal from it but could surprise me with how intense it ends up being; which describes almost all of Shane’s major matches to be perfectly honest. I feel pretty confident in saying Roman Reigns is going to win though and hopefully this will be a one and done.

50 Man Battle Royal

Anyone got a 50 sided coin I can flip?

I really don’t know what to say about this one, there’s been basically no build other than us being told it’s happening, it doesn’t even have a section on the WWE.com page for the show so clearly management doesn’t give a shit about it either.

50 men in one ring also seems like it’s going to be a pretty big clusterfuck. At least with a 50 Man Royal Rumble there are pacing and storytelling opportunities over the length of it, but with all 50 guys starting in the ring all at once? There’s barely going to be any room to move, let alone tell a story. It’ll probably get exciting once we get down to the last 6-8 guys, battle royals always do, but I’m not expecting a great deal of anything from this match.

Also basically anyone could win it, sure the Greatest Royal Rumble last year was won by a top guy in Strowman, but WWE could easily flip it to be a joke thing or even worse a lower mid-card thing that will never amount to anything, like the ARMBAR at Wrestlemania. So I’ve decided I’m breaking all the rules and going with what the betting odds are saying because I honestly don’t care about this match. Surprisingly they have Ali to win with 1/1 odds, so I guess that’s my pick.

Finn Balor(c) vs Andrade
(Intercontinental Championship)

Oh wow, a match that probably won’t suck!

Once again it falls to the Intercontinental Championship to give us a small ray of hope in an ocean of shit, I’m hoping for great things out of this match. Balor & Almas have a handful of great matches on Raw & Smackdown since Wrestlemania and it seemed in those like they were really getting to grips with the chemistry they had, so with any luck that will be on full display here and make for a refreshingly good match in the middle of what promises to be a boring ass show.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Andrade picking up the title here, as much as I want him too. Balor hasn’t had that long of a reign with the title yet and there are still tonnes of great opponents for him to fight for the title with on Smackdown and regardless of any of that, Finn’s going to be The Demon, so there’s no way he’s losing, Finn Balor is retaining.

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

Oh great, another boring heel Dolph Ziggler return this is gonna su- Wait, what do you mean he’s been cutting good promos and has been entertaining to watch? That can’t be right…*checks notes*…well I’ll be.

A month ago I would’ve groaned and rolled my eyes at the thought of this feud, but now I’ve watched it play out in front of me, I’m actually feeling alright about this match. The promos Ziggler has been cutting this month has been great stuff, probably because it’s based in some small level of genuine frustration he’s had at some point in his career and when you think about it, it’s entirely possible that Ziggler could’ve done the exact same thing as Kofi had things turned out differently.

I’m quietly hopeful that this match will be good but you can never quite tell when it comes to Dolph Ziggler, for every great Miz vs Ziggler match there’s a boring as hell Ambrose vs Ziggler match, so this could go either way. Plus there’s the possibility that we get some sort of non-finish to tide the feud over, which will put a huge black mark on the match no matter how good it is.

When Kofi won the WWE Title I was expecting to be constantly worried he was going to lose it in every defence. Like last month at Money in the Bank, I picked Kofi to win, but I wasn’t confident, however here I am pretty confident that Kofi Kingston is going to retain this time, because if there’s one person less likely to get the WWE Championship in 2019 than Kofi Kingston, it’s a heel Dolph Ziggler.

Seth Rollins(c) vs Baron Corbin
(Universal Championship)

Nothing fills 60,000 seats like a Baron Corbin world title match.

I suppose this was a match we were always going to end up getting at some point, so we may as well get it out of the way as early as possible. I don’t Baron Corbin like I do many other wrestlers like Bobby Lashley or Lars Sullivan, I think Corbin fills a necessary role on Raw and a lot of his promo work is actually quite good; his in-ring work however…leaves a lot to be desired.

As long as he doesn’t spend too much time on offence doing the standing still method of wrestling and “wearing him down” with weak ass rest holds for 5 minutes, there could be a pretty fun match in this; it is Seth Rollins we’re talking about after all, who can get 4 star matches out of damn near anyone.

I think if any match is likely to have a non-finish or DQ ending, it’ll be this one. Corbin is anything but a fair fighter and I would not be surprised at all if he got pissed off with not being able to win and did something dirty to end the fight prematurely. That said, there’s no way he’s picking up the title and be it by pinfall or DQ, Seth Rollins is winning this match.

Triple H vs Randy Orton

You know what I really wanted from this PPV? A repeat of one of the most boring Wrestlemania main events of the last 10 years, thankfully WWE has me covered with this match.

There really isn’t a great deal to say about this match, it’s not like it’s going to have any bearing on future events in WWE unless Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase Jr are planning on returning any time soon. This match could be a fun watch if they just decide to go out there and have a fun match, but I’m not overly confident that’s going to happen. It’ll likely be that exact boring Triple H vs Randy Orton match you’re thinking of right now and no-one will be talking about it come Saturday.

As for a winner, I guess it could go either way. Triple H has been winning all of these recent nostalgia matches against Undertaker, Brothers of Destruction and Batista so I guess it makes sense for him to win here, but Randy Orton is still a semi-active competitor in WWE, so surely he should win instead? My gut says Triple H, but I’m going to ignore it just this once and say Randy Orton is winning.

The Undertaker vs Goldberg

Take the match that everyone’s wanted to see since Goldberg became a big star, add 20 years and a hip replacement to each man and here you have it.

If this match goes under 2 minutes it’ll be awesome, if it goes over it’ll suck. All this really needs is for these two guys to hit all their big moves on each other, and one of them to pin the other because let’s face it, that’s all anyone wants to see, even the people who are really excited for this match. However, if this gets dragged out to 15 minutes it’s going to be awful, Goldberg can’t do long matches at the best of times, but add age and a battered Undertaker and you’ll end up with a match similar to the main event of Crown Jewel.

Does it really matter who wins? It’s not like either man is going to wrestle outside of these bi-annual Saudi Arabia shows – or occasionally a Wrestlemania – anymore, so does it actually matter for either man? Once again, I can make a case for both men, on the one hand, Goldberg is still somewhat fit and can likely go for a few more years than Taker can at this point, so he should win. On the flip side, it’s The Undertaker, so he should win, not to mention that this is technically another WWE vs WCW match, and the WCW guys can never win those, plus Undertaker hasn’t won a match in over a year, so I’m going with The Undertaker in this one.

Those are my predictions for WWE Super Showdown! Thank you so much for reading, a share would very much be appreciated, and let me know what you think is going to happen in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and make sure you come back this weekend for my review of the show!

NXT Takeover XXV: Every Match Ranked

For the third week in a row now the Gods of wrestling have smiled upon us and delivered us a show that was and absolute joy to watch, and even if they are about to spit on us this Friday for Super Showdown, we must praise them while we can, because as always Takeover was an awesome show. Granted, it wasn’t quite on the level of Takeover: New York (although to be fair, very few shows are), but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that this show was great from top to bottom.

There’s a lot to break down in all of these matches, so let’s not waste any more time and rank the matches.

5 – Street Profits def. The Forgotten Sons, Undisputed Era, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch
(NXT Tag Team Championships)
(Ladder Match)

Peaks and Troughs, this match had a lot of them.

NXT Ladder matches always tend to have a sense of urgency to them that we don’t often see from main roster ladder matches, which gives me a few reservations about a couple of moments in this match.

I don’t want to rag on this match too much because it was great, but there’s a couple gripes I had. The first was Jaxson Ryker, it totally makes sense for him to get involved, The Forgotten Sons are a three-man faction after all, but he showed up, threw some dudes around and then just…stood there? He sorta picked up a ladder but didn’t do anything with it and he didn’t even try to pull Blake or Cutler into the ring to grab the titles then he was quickly disposed of by everyone else in the match.

The other thing was that following that moment, it felt like the match went on for way too long. Once Jaxson Ryker was disposed of, it felt like the crowd were at their peak excitement and we were ready to head into the climax, but instead the match just kept going for another 5 minutes and lost a lot of excitement that had been built up until to that point, it annoys me even more when there was a match later on the card which I personally thought needed that 5 minutes a lot more.

Now, the good stuff, because there was a lot of that too. For one thing, Kyle O’Reily getting shitcanned at almost every opportunity, along with The Undisputed Era realising something that no-one other teams in ladder matches do: It only takes one of you to grab the titles, so the other one can stand at the bottom and play defence. Every team played a different role in this match and it led to a great dynamic, with Undisputed Era playing the scheming heels, the Forgotten Sons picking their spots and keeping out of harm’s way as much as possible, Lorcan & Burch standing their ground to the aforementioned heels and Street Profits flinging themselves all over the place because they want those titles more than anyone else.

The finish was great too, I honestly though The Forgotten Sons had it after disappearing for about 10 minutes before the finish, but Dawkins running in to get rid of Blake, allowing Ford to springboard onto the ladder (which will never stop being impressive) and take Culter out with a single punch to win the match was a brilliant way to end the match, and if you ask me, the right team won.

4 – Shayna Baszler(c) def. Io Shirai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

Thankfully, it looks like this is just the beginning.

This match wasn’t quite the epic we were all hoping for between these two, but that’s because it served a different purpose, which was getting the characters in the right place emotionally for the epic match to happen.

The main thread of this feud so far has been the fact that Io is just tired of Shayna’s bullshit. She throws her weight around and beats up everyone in sight, and then has a need to rub it in all the time as well and that drives Io crazy, so now she finally has a chance to put her in her place, and she relishes it.

Baszler takes her to the woodshed for a good portion of the match, but whenever Io’s on top you can just see how much she enjoys the opportunity to take it to Baszler, she wants to humiliate her, and treat her how she’s been treating the whole women’s division for the past year. That’s not an attitude that gets you very far in title matches, however, and eventually it costs her, Baszler is once again able to out-think an opponent that could potentially have her number by just taking a beating and laying in wait; she knows Io’s going to make a mistake eventually, all Baszler has to do is be ready when she does.

Sure enough, that mistake comes in paying too much attention to Candice laying out Duke & Shafir, and after lasting in the Baszler’s Clutch a lot longer than anyone else ever has, Shirai has to relent. That’s an important piece of the story too, she doesn’t pass out, she taps, instead of going until her body wouldn’t let her, she chose to give up, which all feeds into what happens next.

Now we get to the point which was necessary to set up their rematch, which will likely be the epic that we’re all hoping for because when Io comes back and starts to wail of Shayna, there’s a very mixed reaction from just about everyone. The crowd, the commentators and even Candice La Rae isn’t quite sure whether Shirai taking a cheap shot and being a sore loser is a thing we should be cheering or not. Looking at Shirai’s face it’s clear that’s it’s all down to frustration. Frustration at Shayna, Duke, Shafir and even herself for letting her emotions get the best of her, then she goes away and we’re left with a lingering shot of Baszler broken and beaten and what do the crowd chant at this woman who was attacked after the bell by a woman she beat fair and square? You deserve it, and you know what? They’re goddamn right.

That moment is everything that Shayna’s character has been building to since she won the NXT Women’s Title. She’s the biggest bastard on the planet who beats everyone down and keeps kicking them until they can’t get up then goes and rubs their noses in it once they’re gone, she only ever gets comeuppance in brief, flukey ways and now someone’s finally shown her she’s not invincible, and it’s glorious. Moving forward, Io’s going to continue to gun for Shayna, only now having learnt from her mistakes and Shayna’s going to be out for vengeance and more vicious than ever. There’s one hell of a storm brewing, and I can’t wait until it hits.

3 – Matt Riddle def. Roderick Strong

These two worked together just as well as I thought they would.

On a show like this with so much deep character work, it’s nice to be able to go back to basics. This story is pretty simple, Strong wronged Riddle and Riddle wants a match to get his revenge, and for a non-title match like this, that’s really all you need. I also like that we’re back to seeing Roderick Strong fight in big matches as a singles guy because as much as he’s perfect with the Undisputed Era, he’s an awesome singles wrestler too.

I wasn’t sure on this match for the first half of it, I didn’t feel like it was moving with the flow I expected, but it made sense when the second half came around. In the second half of the match, I really started to get the feeling that these two fully understood how the other one wrestles and had developed ways to work around it and get on top; which retroactively makes the first half a lot smarter because they were getting a feel for each other and learning how their styles mesh.

This was encapsulated by the finish, which involved them slipping out of each other’s submission holds over and over again, until Riddle eventually had to bust out something new in order to catch Strong off guard and finally put him away. There’s not much else to say about this match, it was pretty simple but really good and honestly if every WWE match was like that, I’d have a lot less to complain about.

2 – Velveteen Dream(c) def. Tyler Breeze
(North American Championship)

A masterclass in in-ring storytelling.

When these two characters met in a Takeover match it was always going to be something special. Both of them seemed fairly niche and a bit rubbish when they were first revealed, but eventually won us all over by being amazing on the mic and really good in the ring as well. So what happens when you throw them together? Magic, that’s what.

The first three-quarters of the match were telling a very clear story, Dream is taking every opportunity to outshine Breeze as a personality, but Breeze can absolutely school Dream in the ring. Everything Dream threw Breeze’s way would get countered, and the only time Dream ever got any offense was when he was able to catch Breeze off guard, and when he did, he’d immediately go to flaunting his personality.

The moment where Dream is busy taking a mocking selfie only to suddenly turn around and realise Breeze has recovered and waiting to kick him in the face was absolute genius from whoever came up with it. The last quarter of the match shifted the story a bit to showing how dynamic and intelligent Dream is in the ring. Dream doesn’t run on instinct, he runs on planning so he works out that Breeze can wrestle circles around him, so he tries to outsmart him instead.

First, Dream deals with the constant counters, running up to the top rope for a move that Breeze will easily counter, makes it look like he’s about to jump, so Breeze leaps up ready for the dropkick, only to fake him out, leaving Breeze to crash and burn so Dream can pick him up and his the Death Valley Driver. Then there’s the finish, where Dream is able to plan three steps ahead of Breeze, knowing Breeze won’t allow the countout, Dream goes for a shot with the title that Breeze once again will easily counter, then while Breeze is “doing the right thing” and throwing the title out of the way, Dream swoops in and takes him out.

Dream wins the match not by being the better wrestler, but by being smarter, which in turn makes his personality come across stronger, which exactly what the Dream is all about.

1 – Adam Cole def. Johnny Gargano(c)
(NXT Championship)

I love it when a plan comes together.

While I loved the match these two put on in New York, I wasn’t as in love with it as everyone else was, THIS match however…holy shit.

For one thing, it lasted over 30 minutes, and it didn’t feel at all like it was too long, every part of the match felt necessary to the story and to the result. If I broke down everything then we’d be here all day, so here are some of the highlights.

Adam Cole is definitely in Gargano’s head because he was able to play him like a fiddle in this match. Cole worked the knee at every opportunity, knowing it would pay dividends later on in the match, and seemed to continuously bait Gargano into sequences were Cole could take advantage of him, the sequence of back and forth superkicks both early and late on in the match for example. The best example of this though was when Cole very obviously gave a signal for The Undisputed Era to come out, knowing Gargano would take his focus off of Cole expecting Fish, O’Reily and Strong to attack him. Cole is smart enough to know exactly what Gargano thinks he’s like and instead of trying to prove him wrong, leans into it in order to make him vulnerable.

At the end of the way though, we see exactly who Cole is, a man of his word. He said he was going to do this on his own, and he did. Yes, he’s a jerk and will use his numbers advantage when he can, but when he has something to prove, he’ll do it himself if it kills him. That’s why Cole was getting cheered over mega-babyface Gargano in this match because he’s got that cool anti-hero swagger, but he can back up every word he says because when he has confidence in his own abilities, he can both out-think and out-wrestle his opponent, even if they’re someone who could get hit by a bus and still kick out.

That’s not to take away from Gargano’s role in this match of course, because he was just as good as he always was. Gargano is a master of the little touches that take a great spot to incredible heights, like using a wristlock as leverage to turn over the Figure 4, or moving his injured knee so it was out of Cole’s reach during the GargaNo Escape. He also did a great job of getting played and falling for Cole’s tricks without looking like a total moron. Yes he fell for the bluff of Cole’s obvious gesture, but he did realise he was being fooled, it just took long enough for Cole to recover.

As much as Cole comes away from this match the champion (which I’m over the moon about by the way), you really get the feeling that these two men are equals in the ring and Cole just got the edge on Gargano this time around. There has to be one more match left in this feud, there’s just so much more story to be told.

So there you have it! Those are my thoughts on every match that happened last night! As always, please share this around on all your favourite social media sites and make sure to let me know your thoughts on the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Please join me later in the week to suffer through the hell that will be Super Showdown and then I’ve got some Doctor Who stuff on the way!

WWE Money in the Bank 2019: Every Match Ranked

Hmm, alright then.

This was definitely the most mixed WWE PPV of the year so far. It had some really good point, but it also had a fair share of it’s weird/bad moments too, so I’d understand if you came away with a negative overall view of the show, but personally, I still thought it was a pretty good overall product. Granted, it didn’t seem like it for the first hour and a half or so, but once the show picked up I think it kept a pretty consistent quality.

Every match has its place, however, so let’s take a look at where those places are, as I rank every match from WWE Money in the Bank 2019.

11 – Roman Reigns def. Elias

I would’ve never criticised WWE ever again if Reigns had just turned around and smacked Elias in the mouth right then.

As was to be expected with a 10 match card, we got a couple of really short matches last night and I generally find it pretty hard to put super short matches any higher than last unless they served a real purpose (like Seth vs Brock from Wrestlemania).

So why did I rank this one lower than the other one? Because it was shorter is pretty much the only reason. Elias’ cartoonish sneak attack on Reigns made it pretty obvious this was going to be a squash too, especially when Elias came down to the ring anyway and busted out his electric guitar. As could be predicted, Reigns’ music hit just as Elias was walking up the ramp, Reigns got some payback, then he rolled Elias in the ring and 7 seconds later Reigns had won. Pretty much right on the hour for when Game of Thrones started, which I’m sure was just a coincidence but I’m going to pretend it wasn’t for comedic purposes.

It’s not entirely clear what Reigns is going to be doing over this summer so it wouldn’t surprise me if this feud kept going for another match at Super Showdown, although they’ve got to fill out the numbers in that 50 man battle royal somehow.

10 – Rey Mysterio def. Samoa Joe(c)
(United States Championship)

Apparently, all the referees were just completely blind tonight.

So, the current story is that this match was cut short once Joe started bleeding quite heavily thanks to a broken nose, which I’m fine with, the wrestlers’ safety should always come first after all, but I’m not a huge fan of the way they did it.

Sometimes, when they have a “botched” finish like this, where the referee doesn’t see something and ends up declaring the wrong winner, it makes sense. The situation of where the competitor was compared to the referee means you can believe that the ref might not have been able to see the ropes or a shoulder off the mat, but there was really no excuse on this one. Not only was the referee looking almost directly at it, but Joe’s shoulder could not have been higher off of the mat by the time the three hit.

Not only that, but it’s been established in recent years that in a situation like this, they will show the replay on the arena screens, or a second referee will run down and correct the mistake of the original referee, which only makes things all the more confusing in situations like this where that doesn’t happen. The commentators can clearly see it right in front of them, and they’re literally 10 feet away, can the referee not just check the video? It seems so non-sensical.

Either way, I liked the post-match beatdown, and I really hope it’s building to Dominick getting involved physically sometime soon because it’s really weird just having him stand there and watch his father get destroyed and not even try to stop Joe.

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

Well that was exactly what I was expecting it to be.

This is one of those matches, where I don’t really have much bad to say about it, but I also don’t have a great deal of praise to dole out either. If this had taken place on an episode of Raw, it would’ve been classed as really good, but on a PPV? It’s fine, but nothing special.

I understand, of course, Becky had to wrestle two matches, so she didn’t wanna go crazy in this one, and as much as Lacey is better than we give her credit for, she’s still got a ways to go before she cracks that upper tier of brilliant matches. As I’ve said, this match was perfectly serviceable, but there really wasn’t any moment that stuck out to me as being particularly great or awful. I do think it was a bit short though, I know Becky’s got to wrestle two matches, but you couldn’t have let this one go just a little bit longer? The finish felt way too sudden.

Hopefully, Lacey Evans fades to the back of the line for a little bit, partly because I want to see Becky face a variety of opponents on Raw, but also as much as she lost pretty decisively here, her stock has been raised by competing in a high profile feud with Becky like this; a lot more than walking up and down the ramp every week did at least. That raising of stock for Lacey would almost certainly be undone if she had to take another loss from Becky-Not-Actually-2-Belts-Anymore-Hope-You-Didn’t-Buy-That-Shirt.

8 – Bayley wins the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

With the exception of the finish, there really wasn’t much to be excited about in this one.

For one thing, it went really short for a Money in the Bank ladder match going a mere thirteen minutes, which was shorter than both World title matches and the same length as Shane vs Miz, which takes away from a lot of the drama and excitement you can get out of the match. Secondly, there was a real lack of big and impactful spots throughout the match. Naomi’s stuff was fun, and the matrix dodging of ladders was something we haven’t really seen before, but none of the ladder spots we saw here were anything worth shouting about.

Carmella’s “injury” also didn’t really seem like the best touch, partly because it was pretty obvious it wasn’t real and also because they drew almost no attention to it barring a couple of quick cuts when there was a split-second break in the action. I also don’t really feel like anyone outside of the winner got a chance to really shine during the match, Ember Moon’s eclipse from a ladder was awesome but when you take a look at the rest of the match she’s basically a complete non-factor for most of it.

All that said, I really liked the finish. Sonya literally carrying Mandy to the top of the ladder looked great, and it was only made better when Bayley sprinted up the ladder and stared at Mandy will all of hell’s fury behind her eyes. It felt like such a cathartic character moment for Bayley, like after all the crap she’s been through for the past two years she’s finally had enough and won’t let anyone take her opportunity from her. Honestly, that finish alone pulled this match up a whole place.

7 – Tony Nese(c) def. Ariya Daivari
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Well, wouldn’t you fancy that? When you give the cruiserweights a chance to shine, they actually shine.

It’s at this point that I realise I actually like this show a lot more than I thought I did, because from here on out I pretty much only have good things to say about the matches. Once again, the cruiserweights got their once in a blue moon to put on a killer match on the main show of a WWE PPV, and while it wasn’t as good as Murphey vs Ali from Survivor Series last year, it was certainly still a great match to watch.

Daivari played a great heel, but not one that looked weak and had to cheat every 5 seconds despite what his character seems like. The action kept up a pretty fast pace throughout and there were almost no wasted motions between the pair. It never quite reached that higher gear of amazing spots and intense back and forth, but it certainly outperformed your average WWE PPV match, and proved that Tony Nese is a legitimate champion.

I’m not entirely sure what’s next for Nese, but there’s no shortage of opponents for him on 205 Live. If Nese carries on having these great one-and-done feuds with the whole 205 roster, he’ll be a very good champion indeed.

6 – Shane McMahon def. The Miz
(Steel Cage)

I know, I’m as surprised as you are this was good.

I honestly don’t understand how this happened, it’s one of the most boring stipulations in WWE, with a non-wrestler and a wrestler who doesn’t do well in hardcore matches, and somehow it was great. My world has been torn asunder.

Shane plays such a good heel in matches like this that it’s a wonder he was ever a face, to begin with. The way he sprints up the cage wall at every available opportunity adds this sense of urgency to the whole match and creates a great dynamic where The Miz is desperately trying to ground Shane and keep him down at every opportunity because Shane won’t hesitate to make a break for it if he has the chance.

There was so much back and forth between these two and the chemistry between them seems to be so tight at this point I honestly don’t think they could put on a bad match. We had plenty of exciting spots, like Miz catching Shane off of the coast-to-coast, Shane falling from almost the top of the cage flat onto his back, the figure 4 where Shane almost escaped, and the Skull Crushing Finale onto the chair where Shane got his foot on the ropes despite the fact that there’s no rope break in a cage match. Well ok, maybe not that last one.

I’m also ok with the finish because it makes Shane seem lucky without making Miz seem stupid, and I imagine we’ll probably see one more match between the two at some point over the next month to wrap things up. I hope so anyway because this feud has been surprisingly good the entire time.

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

I’ve lumped these two together since there’s not enough to write about them both individually, and they run into each other pretty heavily.

I honestly didn’t think they were going to do the matches back to back like this, but the way everything turned out really made the best of that situation. Charlotte looking super pleased with herself was a great touch as she came out, and it was clear she didn’t want to give Becky a moment to recover after the first match.

So this match was only about five minutes long, but it worked for the story that they were trying to tell, it lasted long enough that you thought Becky was going to be able to pull a fast one on Charlotte, only for Lacey Evans, who we all forgot about, to give Charlotte the advantage and hit a big boot (which completely missed, but let’s ignore that) to win the match.

Charlotte winning the title here made it so that I think we all instantly knew how this was going to end. A quick beatdown on Becky followed by Bayley’s music hitting and the crowd full on exploded at that moment. Considering it feels like only a few months ago she was being booed out of arenas for being scared of a stick, I’m so glad this move to Smackdown has done her well and hopefully, this reign lasts longer than 48 hours and she gets a chance to put on great matches defending the title all summer.

4 – The Usos def. Daniel Bryan & Rowan
(Kickoff Show)

The words “kickoff show” have no meaning to Daniel Bryan.

I thought this match would still be awesome despite being on the pre-show, but man, these guys really put their working shoes on. Sure, the match had no steaks and really had no reason to exist in the first place, but that doesn’t stop it from being full of exciting moments and fast-paced action from some of the best wrestlers in the world.

All four men put on some great work here, Bryan & Rowan’s teamwork continues to develop in every match they have, and honestly, it looked at points like Rowan could’ve taken both Usos on his own. Bryan, of course, did the great work he always does, grounding the Usos at every opportunity and continues to make every single opponent he wrestles look like a million bucks.

The Usos were no slouches either, they wouldn’t stop flying all over the place and doling out superkicks like there’s no tomorrow. They aren’t the team I’d have picked to win this match, but given how much fun this match was to watch, I don’t really mind. Not to mention, Daniel Bryan’s post-match promo on WWE.com could lead to a great story, so right now, I’ve got nothing but positives about this one.

3 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Kevin Owens
(WWE Championship)

More of this, please.

I know the crowd weren’t as into this as they could’ve been thanks to the Universal title match that came before it, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this match rocked.

It was a little slow to start, with Owens mostly playing the heel role of wearing Kofi down for a while, but once this thing got going, it told such a brilliant story. This whole year with Kofi has pretty much been a story of him absolutely refusing to say die, no matter what is thrown his way and no matter how much of a beating he takes he just won’t stay down, and that was all this match needed to run with, and Owens showed the effects of it all over his face.

Once Kofi started to come back and we got into a more back and forth pace, Owens’ performance was absolutely pitch perfect for the story of the match. Every single time Kofi kicked out or got back up he would slowly begin to lose his shit more and more, lashing out at the crowd, at the commentators and at Kofi every single time Kofi got back up. It created this brilliant sense of urgency towards the end of the match where Owens was becoming more and more vicious and trying absolutely everything he could think of to keep Kofi down, and Kofi just bided his time and waited for the opportunity to strike.

I don’t know if this is the end of the feud considering it was a clean finish, but I really hope there’s more of this to come, I think there’s so much great storyline opportunities to be had with Owens getting so unbelievably frustrated at how he can’t put Kofi away that he has to resort to some sort of drastic action, and I have the faith in the Smackdown creative team to pull it off.

2 – Brock Lesnar win the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Oh…ok.

We’ll talk about…that in a moment, but before we get bogged down, let’s take a look at the rest of the match because it was awesome.

First off, we need to give the man of the match award, and a giant ice pack to Finn Balor because holy crap he damn near killed himself in this match for our entertainment last night. Not only did he take that incredible sunset flip from the top of a ladder, onto another ladder which bounced making him land on it a second time which might be the greatest ladder spot I’ve ever seen, he also was dropped multiple times onto other ladders around the ring by Drew Mcintyre which were probably even more painful with the force he landed on some of them.

On top of that, we had Ricochet and Ali flipping around each other the whole time which was so much fun to watch, even when Ricochet was just lobbed straight through a ladder by Drew. Drew and Corbin’s partnership was a nice touch, it gave the match a back and forth and proper structure in amongst all of the chaos that was going on around the place, and even better when it inevitably imploded.

Then of course…there was the finish. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it if I’m honest. For one thing, it made Ali look like an idiot because he could’ve unhooked the briefcase and been out of the ring by the time Brock got to him, but that’s a minor detail, the most important thing is that Brock Lesnar is the Money in the Bank briefcase holder. I’m not pissed off by this decision, and I’m not all that upset that Brock has the briefcase, however, I would’ve prefered anyone else in that match (except Orton) to win instead of Brock.

I think this mostly because it seems really obvious what’s going to happen. I absolutely love the idea of a guy like Brock with Money in the Bank, a dude who can run you through in seconds when you’re at 100% having the opportunity to pounce on you when you’re at the weakest is a brilliant threat, and watching whoever is champion at the time absolutely shit themselves whenever his music hits would be great; but that’s not what’s going to happen.

All that’s going to happen is Heyman will announce the cash-in for an upcoming PPV, be it Super Showdown or Summerslam, that’s all it will be and quite frankly did Brock really need Money in the Bank to do that? All Brock needs to do to get his rematch with Seth is show up, throw a few dudes about and demand it, meanwhile, you could’ve given the briefcase to someone like Drew ready for later in the year.

At the end of the day, I don’t think Brock winning Money in the Bank is a bad thing, but it was certainly the worst of the present options; the match was still awesome though, so second place it stays.

1 – Seth Rollins(c) def. AJ Styles
(Universal Championship)

Oh, thank God it was good, really really good.

You have no idea how paranoid I’ve been this past month that this match was going to underwhelm and disappoint compared to its expectations, AJ Styles matches have a history of that in WWE after all, but my paranoia was baseless because this match was a sight to behold.

It was paced to absolute perfection to start with, the feeling out process lasted just long enough to get your mouth watering for them to pick up the pace and that’s exactly when they did. Watching these two go back and forth was so much fun, and seeing AJ being able to outwrestle Seth for a large part of the first half was an interesting way to tell the story of the match because it meant Rollins had to rely on his killer instinct to make a comeback.

The final 5 minutes were fever pitch and an absolute blast to watch, that Curb Stomp into Styles Clash counter was a thing of beauty, I’ve watched it so many times now and I’m still not entirely sure how they managed it so seamlessly. It was able to suspend the disbelief of the result as well because there was no way Seth was ever going to lose this match, but goddamn if I didn’t doubt that fact during a couple of the near falls.

This is everything I had hoped for both from a Seth vs AJ match and Seth Rollins as Universal Champion, if all his matches are going to be like this, we might need a separate list at the end of the year just for Seth Rollins matches because right now, this is tied with Kofi vs Bryan for my favourite main roster match of the year. Please, sir, I want some more.

So there you have it! That’s what I thought of every match that took place at Money in the Bank 2019! Having written the review now, it was actually a lot better of a show than I gave it credit for at the start, there were some weird moments, but ultimately almost every match was good to great from top to bottom.

Still, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. I’m away next week so there won’t be any posts, but the following Friday you can expect my rankings of Doctor Who Series 2!

WWE Money in the Bank 2019: Predictions & Analysis

Let’s not sugar coat this, WWE TV this past month has been awful.

Raw is currently the worst it’s been in a long time, thanks to the superstar shakeup being rather underwhelming and taking 3 weeks for everyone to get in the right places. Then one week later we’re told that actually, it didn’t matter because the “Wildcard Rule” means people could just come and go from either show as they please. Smackdown’s been better, with at least a couple of fun and entertaining segments a week, but it’s still not as high a quality show week to week as it used to be.

That said, WWE are yet to produce a bad PPV so far this year, and Money in the Bank is one of those gimmicks that has a fairly high base quality. Rumour is that WWE are actually planning to make a star of the Money in the Bank winner this year, rather than burying them 6 feet under like they have done for the past couple of years. The rest of the card looks hopeful too, with what will hopefully be done dream matches.

Not all of them though, so let’s take a look at them all, break down the storeys and pick a winner.

Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs The Usos
(Kickoff Show)

The article on WWE.com doesn’t make it clear if this is a title match or not, but given it’s on the pre-show, I’m going to assume it isn’t.

I could sit here and complain that the best tag team in WWE, the best wrestler in the world and his friend who’s improved a surprising amount of the past few months are slumming it on the pre-show, but honestly, I’m just thankful Daniel Bryan can still wrestle after his injury scare following Wrestlemania.

Plus, this match is still going to be great even if it doesn’t get tonnes of time. Bryan & Rowan have formed a lot of chemistry together since they began their partnership in January, and I think they were the perfect team to have carry the titles once Jeff Hardy suffered his leg injury. It’s entirely possible that The Revival use this match as an opportunity to get some petty revenge on The Usos for filming them shaving each other’s backs and making their balls itch…yeah, wrestling’s shit sometimes…

Given that The Usos are on Raw, Daniel Bryan & Rowan are definitely winning this match, whether it’s for the titles or not. If it is for the titles then they won’t lose the belts this quick to someone on the wrong show, and if it isn’t for the titles then I can’t see the newly crowned champions losing a match on PPV so soon after winning the titles.

Tony Nese(c) vs Ariya Daivari
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Guess who’s actually been watching 205 Live this past month and a half.

I decided to commit to watching 205 Live on a regular basis following Wrestlemania, and honestly, I’m glad I did it, there’s a lot of good matches on there every week and some pretty interesting minor storylines, unfortunately, I wouldn’t really describe this as one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, both these guys are great wrestlers and I’m sure the match will be just as good as the Cruiserweight Championship matches always are, but this build has been super generic in its premise. Ariya Daivari has been on a winning streak as of late, this has been rewarded with a title match and now Nese and Daivari have been passive-aggressively watching each other’s matches and staring down after every single one.

I like a simpler build from time to time, but this is just a bit too basic for my taste, especially if this is going to be what all of Nese’s title feuds are going to be like until someone like Oney Lorcan comes along and spices things up. Regardless, I’d say Tony Nese is a pretty safe bet here, he looked really good in victory over Buddy Murphey at Wrestlemania and it would be a really bad decision to have him lose the title this quick so this will be a solid defence for the new champion.

Samoa Joe(c) vs Rey Mysterio
(United States Championship)

A United States title match? On a Pay-Per-View? Well I never…

After the absolute destruction of the US Title that came at the start of the year, Samoa Joe has done a pretty good job so far of showing bringing some level of prestige back to the belt. A solid defence of the title at Fastlane followed by beating Mysterio in under a minute at Wrestlemania has been great for both Joe and the title, and hopefully, that momentum will keep on rolling through Money in the Bank.

Admittedly the justification for the rematch was a little lazy, given that Rey pinned Joe in a non-title match on Raw, which we’ve all seen hundreds of times. That said, since then we’ve seen a pretty decent build, getting Rey’s son Dominick involved didn’t seem like it’d be a great idea at the time, but Joe’s promo ability and confrontations with both Rey and Dominick have done a good job of adding some animosity to the build so hopefully this one will get a bit more time than it did at Mania and we’ll get a good match.

I’m going back and forth on the winner though, because as much as I think Joe should win, Mysterio is one of those guys like Jeff Hardy, who could realistically win a secondary title at any point. The thing is, there are a lot of face champions on Raw and Smackdown right now, in fact, the US, Women’s Tag and Smackdown Tag titles are the only ones currently being held by heels so I don’t see Samoa Joe losing his title until that changes.

Roman Reigns vs Elias

Roman Reigns’ move to Smackdown is a great one as far as I’m concerned, with Seth as the Universal Champion there wasn’t going to be any room for him in that title picture for quite a while, and even though he probably won’t be challenging for the WWE Championship for a good few months yet, the mid-card on Smackdown are generally much better wrestlers who can put on great PPV matches with Reigns, and not be hurt too much by losing.

As for this feud in particular, it’s been a bit up and down up until this point. The introduction on the night of the superstar shakeup was great, seeing Vince McMahon get punched in the face will never stop being fun and using Elias and Shane as a proxy has made for some pretty entertaining promos. On the flip side, it has also brought out the worst in Reigns’ character, with him beating the B-Team two on one, despite the fact Elias was there as an extremely biased referee.

This match should be ok, Reigns is a perfectly solid wrestler and Elias is always surprisingly good on the rare occasion he actually wrestles, so as long as this doesn’t fall into the trap of spending 10 minutes of the two men “wearing each other down” using rest holds it should be pretty entertaining. Roman Reigns is definitely winning though.

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

The first of two title defences Becky will be taking part in on Sunday, this is the one where I really don’t think the result is in question.

Evans is still pretty untested when it comes to big matches in WWE. In the matches she had on NXT, she was fine, but she never had a big singles match at a Takeover and she hasn’t competed nearly enough since coming to main for us to really have an idea of what she’s like. I think she’s good enough for Becky to carry her to an entertaining match though, partly because Becky’s great, but also anyone who can have a halfway decent match with Natalya has got to have some talent behind them.

Like I said at the start though, I have no doubt about who’s walking away from this match victorious. Becky Lynch is not losing that Raw Women’s Title anytime soon, for two reasons. Firstly, there’s a good chance she could lose the Smackdown Women’s Title sometime soon, and secondly, the women’s division on Raw is pretty weak right now, and Becky needs to be at the top to anchor it until a certain Queen of Spades shows up.

Shane McMahon vs The Miz
(Steel Cage)

Who would’ve thought that this would end up being the best-built feud coming out of Wrestlemania?

I honestly don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this has been the most interesting storyline on TV week to week the past month or so. We all know The Miz is one of the best promo guys around, and when he gets fired up as a face he can do some incredible work, and I think we all knew Shane would be great once he finally turned heel, given how hateable he was as a face. The two of them colliding each and every week has been great fun to watch.

That said, I’m sure how great of a match this is going to lead too. Steel Cage is generally one of my least favourite stipulations, and neither Shane nor Miz are wrestlers who can really benefit from this environment. This leads me to think it’s going to be full of interference from all corners of the roster, it wouldn’t surprise me if Reigns and Elias both got involved, maybe even Bobby Lashley will show up to try and screw Miz in the process. If that happens then it might be a fun watch, in a chaotic sense, because if it’s just a straight match the whole time, I don’t think it’s going to be anything to write home about.

I feel pretty confident in saying that The Miz is going to win here though, since I don’t really see any benefit to Shane winning again, even by accident. It seems to me like Shane is going to fade back into being less of a wrestler and more of an authority figure over the summer, and Miz will probably Samoa Joe’s next challenger, so Miz needs the win a lot more than Shane does here.

Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

This lineup is quite a hit and miss one, on the one hand, there’s Bayley and Ember Moon, on the other hand, there’s Natalya. It makes it a little easier to predict (I hope), but I’m not sure if it’s going to lead to an entertaining match. There’s probably going to be some sort of crazy spot from someone, probably Ember, but a Money in the Bank ladder match needs to be more than that. Either way, let’s look at each of the competitor’s chances, shall we?

Natalya – This past couple of years I’ve gone right off Natalya as a wrestler. She used to be able to hold her own and even stand out as a competitor, but in this era of women’s wrestling where WWE has some of the best female competitors on the planet, she just can’t keep up. It’s entirely possible that Natalya will hold championship gold again before she retires, but something like Money in the Bank wouldn’t rest well on her shoulders.

Carmella – Since losing her Smackdown Women’s Championship last year, Carmella has come on leaps and bounds as a wrestler. Her character turned out to be much better suited to being a face than a heel and this turn has also allowed her to loosen up her wrestling style a lot more, without having to rely on crap like James Ellsworth to get victories; not the mention the Code of Silence is a great looking finisher. I think she’s destined to hold a championship again in her career, but given the landscape of the women’s division now I don’t think it’s going to be for a while, so she’s not picking up the briefcase here.

Dana Brooke – No.

Naomi – Naomi is someone who has all the makings of someone who could potentially carry one of the women’s divisions in WWE at some point in her career. I know she’s already been champion before, but I never felt like the creative team were fully behind her, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years we saw something akin to Kofi’s ascent earlier this year. Like I say though, in a few years, with Becky Lynch sitting pretty holding both women’s championships there’s just no room for her to be skulking around that scene right now.

Mandy Rose – If Asuka was still Smackdown Women’s Champion, I’d say she had a pretty good chance, but that’s not the case, so there’s not a lot for me to say. I can’t help but feel like WWE have backed the wrong horse out of Fire and Desire, don’t get me wrong I like Mandy Rose, even if she is still a little bit green, but I think Sonya Deville really has the makings of an all-time great female wrestler if they’d just give her a shot. Regardless, Mandy isn’t winning this match, because I don’t really see her being a champion anytime soon.

Nikki Cross – As announced on Thursday via WWE’s social media pages, Alexa Bliss wasn’t medically cleared to compete, and Nikki Cross is here replacement because…she sorta helped Alexa out on Monday? As far as reintroductions go, a Money in the Bank ladder match could be really good for Nikki if she’s given some time to stand out in it. Perhaps having her as the last person to be thrown off of the ladder before the actual winner climbs would be a good spot for her, and hopefully some form of story with Alexa Bliss will keep her on TV for the next few months. There’s no way she’s going to be winning this match though.

Ember Moon – Out of everyone in this match, I think this is who I want to win the most. Since coming over to Smackdown she’s been positioned perfectly for a meteoric rise in the coming months, but I’m really sceptical about WWE actually pulling the trigger on it. However, for that rise to happen, I really don’t think she needs to win Money in the Bank, it would help of course, but I think a more organic rise, similar to the one Becky Lynch saw last year would leave her better off in the long run. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ember won it, but it’s not what I think is going to happen.

Bayley – Time for a totally mad theory.

As much as I’ve loved (almost) every Charlotte vs Becky match, I’m at the point where I’d rather see someone else challenge Becky for once, which WWE illuded to a number of weeks ago when Becky proclaimed she also wants to face new people. In addition to this, Bayley has been made to look a million bucks since coming over to Smackdown last month, taking it to everyone she’s come accross.

So let’s put two and two together here, WWE seem to have loved pulling the “same night cash in” trick on a number of occasions, so why not do it again? Except this time, instead of making it a cheap sneak attack, have this match go on early, and once Bayley has unhooked the briefcase, she grabs a mics and inserts herself into Becky vs Charlotte, making it a triple threat. I’ll get into what happens in that match in a moment, but I personally think that would be a great way for things to play out.

Even if that doesn’t come to pass, I still think Bayley’s the one to go with here. She’ll likely announce her cash-in in advance because that’s what faces with the briefcase do, but I think it will be a good way to keep her in everyone’s minds while Becky goes off to face anyone and everyone on the Smackdown roster.

Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Orton aside, I’d be perfectly happy with any of these men winning the coveted briefcase. There’s a great mix of big guys and high flyers in this match, and as previous years have shown us, that usually makes for the most entertaining of ladder matches. Ricochet and Ali are gonna try and out crazy each other which Balor & Andrade go at it, Drew & Braun try to murder each other, Orton doles out RKOs left right and centre and Corbin is also there.

Ricochet – I love Ricochet as much as the next guy, but let’s face it, he’s only in here to do some cool ladder spots. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ll be raving about whatever it is he did come Monday, but he doesn’t have any real chance of actually winning the thing. It’s hard to tell where Ricochet’s going right now, which makes me worry that it’s nowhere, hopefully, a good showing here will stop that from happening.

Randy Orton – Much like Bliss in the women’s match, he almost certainly won’t win, but there’s a tiny chance he might because it’s Randy Orton. Orton is another guy who feels pretty directionless right now, he hasn’t done a great deal of anything since Wrestlemania, thanks to AJ jumping ship, so he’s just been doing what he always does between storylines which is RKOing people with no rhyme or reason until one of them gets pissy about it. He doesn’t need the briefcase to do that though, so let’s move on.

Baron Corbin – This seems very much like another opportunity for everyone and their grandmothers to mug off Baron Corbin with ladders right at the start of the match. I can’t say I’d be pissed off if Corbin won, but I certainly wouldn’t be that pleased about it. I’m sure Corbin will win a world title at some point over the next couple years – no matter how much we don’t want him to – but the Universal Title scene really doesn’t feel fit for him to drop in right now. It could look very different come November-January time, but somehow I doubt it.

Ali – I really hope Ali has a good showing here, he kicked ass in the WWE title match at Fastlane and he’s disappointingly faded back down the card a bit since then. With Buddy Murphey on the way to Smackdown as well, it’s getting a little worrying for Ali, as it’ll be really easy for him to get lost in the shuffle and have a really mediocre year, like that of Andrade in 2018. He’s not picking up the win here, but I imagine him and Ricochet will try and outdo each other and Ali will really show off his stuff.

Sami Zayn – I don’t really know what to make of Sami being put in this match in place of Braun. The way they did it was fine, Corbin and Mcintyre getting in there to take Strowman out of the picture made sense for both of those characters, and heel Sami Zayn is exactly the type of character to take advantage of it. That said, I don’t think Sami has any chance of actually winning the thing, I’m glad he’s getting a spot in a major match like this of course, but I can’t see him doing a great deal of note other than getting killed by Braun Strowman, that is if Strowman doesn’t take Zayn out before the match and reclaim his spot anyway.

Finn Balor – Balor seems like the prime candidate in this match for a whole host of “almost” moments. I imagine he’ll be much like face Dolph Ziggler was, where several times in the match, he’ll be fingertips away from unhooking the briefcase only for someone to snatch it away from him. I also think he can afford to not do a great deal of consequence in this match and still come out of it looking great. There are plenty of people lined up for Balor to face for the IC in the coming months and here would be a really good place to sow the seeds by having someone like Ali or Andrade stop him from doing it. At the end of the day though, he’s the Intercontinental Champion, so he really doesn’t need the Money in the Bank briefcase

Drew Mcintyre – If I were a betting man, this is probably who I would put my money on. As I mentioned in the intro, apparently the plan is to properly try and make a star out of this year’s Money in the Bank winner, and we’ve all known it was only a matter of time until Drew was a world champion when he resigned with NXT a few years ago. Drew really does seem like the easy pick to win this briefcase, but I’m not sure he actually needs the briefcase in order to get to the Universal Championship. All it takes is multiple months of Drew absolutely murdering dudes left, right and centre. Ultimately, I will not be surprised in the least if Drew walks out with the briefcase, but he’s not the horse I’m backing in this race, because…

Andrade – 2019 might be a “now or never” year for Andrade, not just because there are multiple reports of him being disgruntled, but also because of how he was treated throughout most of last year. He had great matches with top stars yes, but with the exception of Rey Mysterio, he lost all of them. Those matches did a great job to raise his stock and Vince is reportedly really high on the guy, but if he spends another year doing the exact same thing there might not be any way for him to recover.

If Andrade was still on Raw I’d say he didn’t have a chance, but now he’s back on Smackdown all bets are off, and Andrade could be the perfect person to hold the briefcase and eventually become champion. Andrade is a Wrestlemania main event level guy, and all it will take is management to get behind him and he’ll soar. He’s like Alberto Del Rio but not a massive douche, and about 60 times better at wrestling.

Kofi Kingston(c) vs Kevin Owens
(WWE Championship)

This is going to be the next few months, isn’t it? Us all being terrified that Kofi is going to lose the title way too soon every time he defends it.

As much as I’d wish they’d saved this feud for the summer, I can understand why they put the rush on it given Daniel Bryan’s uncertain health at the time. As it turns out, what we’ve got so far has been pretty good, I personally would’ve kept the whole “Kevin Owens as part of the New Day” thing going a bit longer, but the turn was still shocking enough to create a memorable moment and the promos in subsequent weeks have put some real fire behind this feud.

As for the match itself, these two seem like their styles will mesh really well in a high profile match like this. Kofi has proved to be the ultimate underdog wrestler this year and Owens is always at his best when he gets to dominate someone and really enjoy rubbing it in their faces. It does have a slight problem in that this feud definitely isn’t going to be a one-and-done so we could get some kind of wonky finish that really takes the wind out of the sails of the great match that preceded it, Styles vs Owens is a pretty good example of this.

While it’s entirely possible they hot shot the title a couple of times in this feud, I’m going to stick with my guns and say Kofi Kingston is going to retain for now. The moment at Wrestlemania will live on forever in the history books, but I feel like losing the title in his first PPV defence like this would undercut it a bit too much.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Please be the last one.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked almost all of the matches these two have had together, and I’m sure this will be no exception, but I’m pretty tired of seeing it for a good while. The story’s been pretty solid, and while these two are both great on the mic they’re kind of out of insult to throw at each other by this point. We know that Becky thinks Charlotte was handed everything, and we know that Charlotte thinks Becky is just a flash in the pan still, we’ve heard all these points over and over again for almost a year now, which is why I think this match needs something to spice it up.

So that’s why I’m proposing the scenario where Bayley wins the Money in the Bank and uses it to insert herself into this match. It makes sense from a character perspective because not only would face Bayley not want to sneak attack with the briefcase but since Bayley’s come over to Smackdown, she’s had a massive chip on her shoulder and desperate to prove she can still do it on her own, so what better way to prove that to everyone than taking out both Becky and Charlotte on the same night?

If that scenario comes to pass, I think Bayley will walk away the winner because they just can’t have another Money in the Bank winner lose their title match, plus it opens up new and fresh opportunities for both a Becky vs Bayley and Charlotte vs Bayley feud for over the summer. If my scenario doesn’t happen though, Becky Lynch is pretty much a lock to retain, they can’t undermine Becky’s Wrestlemania win by having her drop one of the titles back to Charlotte at the first opportunity.

Seth Rollins(c) vs AJ Styles
(Universal Championship)

I think I may be dreaming.

Before you say it, I know. Getting this excited for this match is only setting me up for a disappointing non-finish, but just let me have this one. I don’t care if almost every match AJ had as champion last year ended up performing below expectations when Seth was IC champion last year almost every one of his matches far surpassed expectations. Rollins vs Styles has been the one dream match I’ve been begging for ever since Styles came to WWE, so until it’s proved otherwise, I’m going to be optimistic about it.

The feud itself has been alright I guess, although nothing special. Touching on the two’s past was a nice little touch, but nothing they’ve said on the mic has caught my imagination a great deal. Not to mention there wasn’t really any build for the match on Monday outside of a video package, it would’ve been much more beneficial for the contract signing to have taken place this past Monday instead of 3 weeks ago, but oh well.

There is a chance that this will end in some kind of DQ, dirty finish if WWE wants to keep the feud going for another few months, but regardless of what actually goes down, Seth Rollins is walking away with the title, and he’s holding onto it for quite a long time.

So, those are my predictions for Money in the Bank 2019! What do you think is going to happen on Sunday? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and make sure you come back early next week for my review of the show!

Every WWE World Champion Since the 2016 Brand Split Ranked

In 2016, WWE realised that their roster was far too big for only one set of champions all of a sudden, thanks to NXT signing every free agent they possibly could, also the Smackdown ratings were tanking but I’m sure that’s not important. Their solution was to do what they did from 2002 to 2013 and make Raw and Smackdown separate brands with their own world champions.

We can argue the merits of this decision until the cows come home but that’s not what I’m here to do. Instead, just three years later in 2019, we’re facing a situation where the brand split could very well be ending in October thanks to the new Fox deal coming into effect. The future on this is still unclear, however in the event, we are about to see it all end, now would be a good time to start looking back.

Since the brand split started, we’ve seen 16 different world championship reigns between 14 different men across both brands, and not all of them are up to the prestige level that you’d expect from the grandest prize in all of pro-wrestling. With that in mind, I’m going to dive in and analyse all of these title reigns and comprehensively ranking them.

These rankings are going to based on a combination of the pure numbers, the quality of their matches and the overall impact that they left on their respective titles. NOTE: I’m not going to be including current champions, Seth Rollins and Kofi Kingston in these rankings since, as of the time of writing they have each only been champion for 3 weeks and it would be unfair to assess an incomplete title reign.

12 – Finn Balor – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Seth Rollins at Summerslam 2016
Lost to: Vacated on Raw 8/22/16 due to injury
Days as champion: 23 Hours
Best match as champion: vs Seth Rollins at Summerslam 2016

I know, I’d like things to be different as well.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment on the list (although there’s a bit of competition for that dishonour), we all thought the chosen one had ascended with WWE finally fully embracing our NXT beloved when the recently debuted Finn Balor became the first ever Universal Champion at Summerslam. Even if the fans stupidly weren’t paying attention to the match because they were so fixated on how awful the brand new Universal Championship looked, people were over the moon at the former Prince Devitt’s rise to the top of the company.

Sadly, the celebrations would be fairly short-lived, as the next day the news came out that during the match with Seth Rollins where Balor had won the belt, he suffered a Labrum tear during a powerbomb to the ringside barricade during the match. This injury would require Balor to have surgery with an estimated recovery time of 6-8 months, meaning he wouldn’t be able to compete as champion and was forced to vacate the championship that he had only just won.

It’s always going to be one of the big “What if?” questions in WWE history. How long would his reign have been? Who would he have eventually lost the title to? How many amazing matches would he have had? and so on, and so on. Unfortunately what we’ve got was a 23-hour reign where he didn’t even lose the title in a match, so it, unfortunately, can’t be placed anywhere other than the bottom of the list.

11 – Roman Reigns – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Brock Lesnar at Summerslam 2018
Lost to: Vacated on Raw 10/22/18 due to Leukaemia
Days as Champion: 63
Best match as champion: vs Finn Balor on Raw 8/20/18

What is it with the Universal title at Summerslam?

Roman Reigns winning the Universal Championship was a complete and total inevitability going into 2018, with most excepting it to happen at Wrestlemania 34. Instead shockingly – and pretty stupidly – Brock Lesnar retained the championship at Mania in order to convince The Beast to extend his contract for another year, this meant the title change was pushed back to that year’s Summerslam instead.

As much as the match itself was crap, when Roman held the title high it felt like a breath of fresh air washing over Monday Night Raw since Lesnar’s reign as an absentee champion was long past its sell-by date at this point. Having a fighting champion on the show every week was invaluable to the red brand since now it didn’t feel like everyone was just spinning their wheels every week until Brock came down from his mountain top to defend the title once or twice a year.

That said, in the brief time Reigns was holding the title, there wasn’t a great deal to love about it. It was refreshing to see the title every week for once, but Roman was busy in 6 man tag matches for a lot of his reign thanks to The Shield reuniting for the 147th time since they originally broke up. His only actual title defences were against Finn Balor the night after he won it, which was a good match; against Baron Corbin in September for no discernable reason and against Braun Strowman inside Hell in a Cell, a match which mostly consisted of people who weren’t in the match fighting on the outside before Brock Lesnar broke into the cell and caused the match to end in a No Contest which was ridiculous.

The title reign wasn’t off to the greatest of starts come October, however, it was likely to run for many more months, so there was still time to turn things around.

Tragically, it wasn’t to be, as on the October 22nd edition of Raw, Roman Reigns announced his Leukaemia that had gone into remission 11 years ago had returned and he would be taking an undefined amount of time off until he recovered. Thankfully, the Leukaemia went into remission again earlier this year and Roman has now returned to action, however, it meant that his Universal Championship reign had to end prematurely with him vacating the belt just before he was due to defend it against Strowman and Lesnar at Crown Jewel.

This reign stands above Finn Balor’s due to the fact that Reigns actually had 64 days to do something with the title before vacating it, even if that something wasn’t very good. That said, a short reign with a vacated title at the end still can’t rise any higher than this.

10 – Goldberg – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Kevin Owens at Fastlane 2017
Lost to: Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 33
Days as champion: 27
Best match as champion: vs Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 33

Goldberg. Champion. In 2017. I honestly still can’t believe it.

Goldberg created one of the most shocking moments in recent memory at Survivor Series 2016, where he pinned the hyper-protected Brock Lesnar in under five minutes. When this happened it was clear that a Wrestlemania rematch was in the works for the two, and it also became clear that WWE wanted the Universal Championship to be at stake in that match as well. Naturally, the sensible thing to do would’ve been to put the title on Brock Lesnar for that match, since it would be ridiculous if the 50-year-old Goldberg won a world championship after not wrestling for over a decade…

What’s that? They did it anyway? Oh.

Goldberg walked into Fastlane to face Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship, and 22 seconds (and a distraction from Chris Jericho) later, Goldberg was your new Universal Champion. Madness. Goldberg wouldn’t wrestle another televised match until Wrestlemania, meaning there’s very little to analyse here. Everyone knew that Goldberg would be losing the title to Brock at Mania, so we were never going to get any kind of extended reign from Goldberg, which is probably for the best.

After 27 days of doing precisely nothing with Raw’s top prize, he walked into Wrestlemania, had a short but fun match with Brock, and then did the favours for Brock Lesnar, kicking off his first of two reigns with the title. The following night on Raw, Goldberg addressed the fans, thanked them and we haven’t seen him in the ring since.

Goldberg was the very definition of a transitional champion. He won the Universal Championship for the purpose of a single match, and once that match was done it was all over. If it wasn’t for the two reigns where the title was vacated, then this would most certainly be dead last.

9 – Randy Orton – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33
Lost to: Jinder Mahal at Backlash 2017
Days as champion: 49
Best match as champion: vs Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33

It says a lot about the Universal Championship, that this is the first entry on the list that actually feels like a proper title reign. It wasn’t the longest reign in the world, but Randy actually acted like a champion during this time, including wrestling more than two matches for his entire reign.

As much as it did enough to be classed as a proper title reign, it was arguably one of the worst title reigns in recent memory for a couple of reasons. For one thing, he won it at Wrestlemania in what was probably the most disappointing and boring match on the whole show, and it doesn’t bode well that it can also be classified as his best match during this rather short reign.

Following this, we had a rematch in the one and only “House of Horrors” match, featuring some of the most spooky imagery imaginable! Such as lots of baby dolls badly taped to the ceiling, a hand popping out of an obviously fake wall and….erm…a tower of sticks? It was that level of bad that goes past being so bad it’s funny into just plain awful, what’s more, is it wasn’t even for the title. This was mostly because they wanted to give Bray the win without giving him the title, but it was justified in kayfabe by the fact that Jinder Mahal stole the title the Smackdown before the match.

This brings us to the sad an awkward fact that Randy Orton would end up losing this WWE title to…Jinder Mahal, a man who up until a month prior to this, had lost more matches than Curt Hawkins, and that’s Hawkins’ whole gimmick. It was an extremely boring match as well, with the only thing even remotely exciting is when Randy almost accidentally killed one of the Singh brothers by dropping him neck first on the announce table.

Even compared to Orton’s 12 other world championship reigns this is among the worst of them. When you’re only notable matches as champion are the two that you lost, you know it can’t be any good.

8 – Jinder Mahal – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Randy Orton at Backlash 2017
Lost to: AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/7/17
Days as champion: 170
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/7/17

I’m as surprised as you are that it landed this high up.

When Jinder Mahal pinned Randy Orton at Backlash 2017, the entire wrestling community went through various stages of grief all at once. There were those that reacted with unbridled anger that WWE would sully the most prestigious prize in the business like this; others gave an extended sigh and prepared themselves for the dark times to come, and there were a few who laughed maniacally in twisted delight at the sheer ridiculousness of what just happened.

These would very much be the three camps that stuck around for the entirety of Jinder’s 5 and a half month WWE title reign, even though it felt like it lasted a couple of years. No-one was quite sure what to make of it at the time, with a whole range of opinions flooding the internet following every one of Jinder’s awful title matches.

Jinder spent the next three months putting on some of the worst matches of the year with Randy Orton, including a Punjabi Prison match where The Great Khali helped Jinder to victory only to never have his appearance explained and Khali hasn’t been seen since. He then moved on to fight the new golden boy of Smackdown live in Shinsuke Nakamura, a feud which is remembered only for the racism involved when Jinder claimed that Shinsuke’s facial expressions always “rook” the same in front of an audience who just seemed to be made uncomfortable by the whole thing.

Things were looking to hit their worst point yet going into Survivor Series, when a match with Universal Champion Brock Lesnar on the horizon, only for AJ Styles to mercifully take the title away from the Modern Day Maharaja 2 weeks before the event.

Though opinion may have been divided at the time, it’s pretty clear looking back that Jinder’s reign as champion was pretty damn bad. All of his PPV title defences sucked and the only match of his reign that could really be considered good is the one in which he lost it to AJ. Not only that, but AJ’s mammoth reign that would follow it meant that Jinder’s reign was almost immediately forgotten and Jinder every quickly fell back down the card into the same position he was before his title win. Granted not all of that can be placed on his shoulders, but when you spend over 5 months as world champion it doesn’t elevate your standing in the pecking order at all when you finally lose it, then you were clearly never up for the world title in the first place.

7 – Bray Wyatt – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: John Cena at Elimination Chamber 2017
Lost to: Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 33
Days as champion: 49
Best match as champion: vs John Cena vs AJ Styles on Smackdown 14/2/17

Bray’s and Randy’s are very easily comparable, since their titles reigns came consecutively, and they spent the same number of days as champion, which means you can really boil the argument down to who did more with the title?

Admittedly that’s a pretty easy argument because even though Bray’s reign was a lot shorter than most of us wanted it to be, and the build to his Wrestlemania match with Orton was absolutely bizarre, Bray actually had some really enjoyable matches for the title. The Elimination Chamber in which he won it, is perhaps the best Chamber match in history, and his triple threat against former champions Cena and Styles two nights later on Smackdown was fast-paced and tense action from bell to bell.

His time as champion brought the best out of him as a performer, with him having a couple of the best matches of his career during this very short run. Even on Smackdown, Bray was front and centre every week, regardless of whether or not he’s wrestling, which is something that can’t be said for several of the champions on this list.

Given there was all this great stuff involved with the title reign, why isn’t it higher? Well, for one thing, the length brings it down, as much as you don’t need months and months as champion to make an impact, Wyatt’s reign really felt like it could’ve done more time to really give Bray back the credibility he’d lost over the years, losing matches to basically everyone. Also, the match where he lost the title at Wrestlemania 33 was boring, as I previously mentioned, and unfortunately the manner in which someone loses a title can have a big impact on the opinion of their reign.

In the annals of WWE history, Bray Wyatt’s brief time at the top probably won’t be remembered fondly by many, but when you break it down you can see exactly what Bray Wyatt at his best can be if he was ever given a real chance to shine.

6 – John Cena – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2017
Lost to: Bray Wyatt at Elimination Chamber 2017
Days as champion: 14
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2017

It’s really weird to think that John Cena’s record tieing 16th world title reign only lasted two weeks. Then again, about 12 of Cena’s title reigns were all transitional really.

Given that I dropped Randy so low for a reign over three times as long as this one, this may seem like an odd choice, but as short as Cena’s reign was, there were great matches during it.

The match where we won the title was Styles was arguably the best main roster match of 2017 and capped off an absolutely brilliant feud from 2016 to boot. Then he had a surprisingly good match against Randy Orton on Smackdown where a shorter match length allowed for a more exciting match than most of their other encounters. Then his reign was topped off with arguably the best Elimination Chamber match in history where he would lose the title to Bray Wyatt.

Cena’s reign was incredibly brief, but he managed to do more with the title in that time than everyone else I’ve already talked about so far, putting on many great matches and leaving a reign that is still remembered and talked about fondly to this day. Moreso than that, it proves just how good John Cena can be for a world championship when it’s done properly. If Cena ever gets his historic 17th world title, I certainly wouldn’t mind if it was anything like this one.

5 – Dean Ambrose – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: Seth Rollins at Money in the Bank 2016
Lost to: AJ Styles at Backlash 2016
Days as champion: 84
Best match as champion: vs Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins at Battleground 2016

Ambrose’s reign is a little weird in the context of this list because although it started before the brand split began, the majority of this reign took place inside it.

It started with one of the most exciting WWE moments in recent memory, where Seth Rollins would shockingly beat Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship pretty much as clean as possible, only for Dean Ambrose to cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase he won earlier in the night and walk about of Las Vegas as WWE Champion at long last.

Ambrose’s title reign was something most people had wanted ever since The Shield broke up in 2014, and finally seeing him hoist the title high was a brilliant moment for fans (even if I think he was the worst wrestler of The Shield, but that’s neither here nor there). Also, since it was a long time coming, they had to do something memorable with the reign itself, which I think they achieved for the most part.

After a great match with Rollins that ended in a double pin, and a follow up on the night the brand split began where Ambrose would come out victorious, we got the match fans have been begging for for years, when Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns would face off against one another in a triple threat match for the title. While that match didn’t live up to many people’s expectations, it was still a fantastic contest, that would eventually end with Ambrose walking out still with the title, bringing it to the blue brand for the foreseeable future.

It had been going well up until this point, but it was soon to come crashing down, as Ambrose would then put on a 15-minute snoozefest against Dolph Ziggler for the title at Summerslam, and it was becoming clear that Ambrose’s title reign was fun, it needed to end pretty soon. One kick in the plumbs from AJ Styles later and Ambrose would find his title reign over at Backlash 2016.

Ultimately, Ambrose’s title run did have some crap stuff in it, but it will generally be remembered for the good stuff a lot more than it is the bad, and with Ambrose having left WWE just a couple weeks ago, I don’t think this was a bad legacy to leave behind.

4 – Kevin Owens – 1 Reign
(Universal Championship)

Won from: Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Big Cass on Raw 8/19/16
Lost to: Goldberg at Fastlane 2017
Days as champion: 188
Best match as champion: vs Sami Zayn Raw 9/5/16

Kevin Owens’ reign was filled with a whole host of ups and downs, it reign that by many standards would be considered mediocre at best, so it says a lot about the state of the WWE world title scene that it’s landed this high…

Owens’ reign started off to a very good start as far as I’m concerned. Following Finn Balor’s tragic Labrum tear after winning the title. WWE quickly set upon crowning their next Universal Champion who would actually be able to carry the title over the coming months. So a Fatal 4 Way formed between Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Big Cass.

Most expected either Rollins or Reigns to walk away with the title here, since, up until now, Owens hadn’t been treated like he was on the world title level for the longest time. Fate would strike again, however, as after laying out Roman Reigns, Triple H looked to hand Seth Rollins the victory only to suddenly turn on the architect and hand the title to Kevin Owens. With Raw ending with Triple H holding Owens’ hand aloft in a brilliant moment.

Owens title reign will likely be remembered mostly for his excellent partnership with Chris Jericho as an extremely entertaining duo who bounced off of each other perfectly. This would also mean that very nearly all of Owens’ major title defences would end in some form of dirty finish, with Jericho and occasionally Strowman getting involved to save Owens’ skin. His title run also ended in disappointing fashion with a 22 second lost to Goldberg thanks to another interference from Jericho.

If you look at Owens’ title run in terms of his matches and PPV defences then it seems like one of the worst, but when you consider how entertaining he was week to week on Raw with Chris Jericho, including the absolutely perfectly done “Festival of Friendship” segment, then it’s one that will always be looked back on fairly fondly.

3 – Brock Lesnar – 2 Reigns
(Universal Championship)

1st Reign:
Won from: Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33
Lost to: Roman Reigns at Summerslam 2018
Days as champion: 503
Best match as champion: vs AJ Styles at Survivor Series 2017

2nd Reign:
Won from: Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel 2018
Lost to: Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania 35
Days as champion: 156
Best match as champion: vs Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series 2018

Groan all you want, but the numbers don’t lie.

In a bubble, Brock Lesnar’s two reigns with the Universal Title seem amazing. With over 600 combined days with the title, and nothing but clean wins in every single defence, Lesnar’s world title reigns seem like the template for what a perfect one looks like. Unfortunately, this title reign didn’t happen in a bubble and anyone who watched through Lesnar’s time at the top knows all too well why it’s not higher up.

While Lesnar did almost always retain his title cleanly, and most of his title defences were Ok-Great matches, the problem was to do with his schedule. During his first run as champion which, bare in mind, lasted 503 days, Brock Lesnar wrestled a total of 12 matches, and that’s including non-televised matches. Compare that for a second to Randy Orton, who wrestled 21 matches – almost double – in just 49 days as champion.

That said, it did have some upsides. For one thing, a Brock Lesnar title defence felt like a big deal, and there was always a lot of speculation made around who his challenger was going to be. Also, with the exception of the Roman Reigns matches, the stories building up to the match were generally very compelling. Samoa Joe’s feud with Lesnar felt intense and finally gave Joe that killer instinct he’d been lacking before that point, Finn Balor got to show that he can hang with the biggest and the best and Braun Strowman was elevated from mid-card monster to main event murderer.

I think that’s the thing with Brock Lesnar as champion, with the exception of Kane, and in his later matches, Strowman, everyone who fought Lesnar for the title came out of the feud looking better than when they went in. It didn’t matter if they lost, because guys like Joe and Balor got to show their in-ring intelligence when trying to take down an indestructible foe, and in a strange way, it would bring the best out of whoever he was competing against.

I’ll admit, if Brock Lesnar never wins another world title again, then I’ll be very happy with that since I really feel like WWE overplayed their hand in 2018 with Lesnar, but it did serve a purpose and several other wrestlers benefitted from his presence at the top.

2 – AJ Styles – 2 Reigns
(WWE Championship)

1st Reign:
Won From: Dean Ambrose at Backlash 2016
Lost to: John Cena at Royal Rumble 2017
Days as champion: 140
Best match as champion: vs John Cena at Royal Rumble 2017

2nd Reign:
Won from: Jinder Mahal on Smackdown 11/7/17
Lost to: Daniel Bryan on Smackdown 11/13/18
Days as champion: 371
Best match as champion: vs Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series 2017

A man who many thought would never even wrestle in the WWE, let alone reign as champion for over 500 days, AJ Styles has done much better for himself in WWE than I think most of us thought he ever would.

AJ’s first reign as champion was shorter but arguably more effective than the second. Being a heel allowed for much greater opportunities for his character to be entertaining, not to mention I just generally think AJ’s always been better at being a heel, especially in WWE. Beating Dean Ambrose with a swift kick to the balls only added to the shock of a man who was then still considered Mr TNA winning the WWE Championship and it carried on great from there.

He had a great triple threat against Cena and Ambrose at No Mercy before going on to get entangled with James bloody Ellsworth for far too long, even going as far as having Ellsworth being directly responsible for AJ retaining after an excellent TLC match between Styles and Ambrose at the PPV of the same name. Then there was the match at the Royal Rumble with John Cena, which as I’ve already mentioned is perhaps the best WWE world title match in recent memory.

His second one wasn’t really as good if you ask me, and this second reign is the main reason I’ve dropped him to second place. It started off very well, with him finally getting a good match out of Jinder Mahal and ending the reign that felt like it was going to last forever. He then went on to have a fantastic match with Brock Lesnar, and it seemed like things were going to be great. He had his formality of a rematch with Jinder the next month, then had a couple of OK matches at the Royal Rumble and Fastlane before finally looking towards Wrestlemania 34.

His match with Shinsuke Nakamura was very good indeed, however it was marred by a couple of things. The first was that Shinsuke didn’t win when it felt like he should have, although that wasn’t too big of a deal since Nakamura turning heel after the match meant the story still had legs. However, it also has to be mentioned that many fans (myself included) didn’t really feel like it met expectations. Admittedly this is down to what you could argue were unreasonably high standards we got from seeing AJ vs Nakamura wrestle a year earlier in New Japan Pro Wrestling, but it still felt like it ended quite suddenly, and about 2 minutes too soon.

This would’ve been fine if the rest of the feud had delivered, but it really didn’t. What we got was a match the Greatest Royal Rumble event, where it ended in a double countout; another one at Backlash which ended in a double KO because both men simultaneously kicked each other in the balls and a pretty good Last Man Standing match at Money in the Bank, but the magic was long gone by that point and left fans disappointed once again after Shinsuke Nakamura failed to win the title.

Following this was a short, but entertaining feud with Rusev before we were launched into the destroyer of families known as Samoa Joe. Once again this feud started off rather well, with a very good match at Summerslam that showcased a rare example of a DQ finish that enhanced the story. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the only highlight of the feud as a dirty finish at Hell in a Cell led to two more mediocre title matches that the fans at large really couldn’t have cared less about by this point.

The dying breaths of this title reign would go some short way to redeeming it a little as the match in which he lost the title to Daniel Bryan was great but suffered slightly from not being on a PPV.

Ultimately, AJ’s title reigns were good, the first one especially was great, and the length of them allowed AJ to establish himself as an all-time legend in WWE in just 3 short years. However, whenever I think back to these title reigns, I’m always going to be reminded of the mediocrity that came with a large portion of the second one, so I can’t honestly give it number one.

1 – Daniel Bryan – 1 Reign
(WWE Championship)

Won from: AJ Styles on Smackdown 11/13/18
Lost to: Kofi Kingston at Wrestlemania 35
Days as champion: 144
Best match as champion: vs Kofi Kingston at Wrestlemania 35

You can have your Kenny Omegas and your Kazuchika Okadas any day, but Daniel Bryan is the best wrestler in the world.

When Daniel Bryan made his miraculous return from injury in March 2018, it only seemed like a matter of time before he held world championship gold once again. Bryan was the biggest babyface in recent memory, so having him standing victorious with the WWE Championship in his hands would be the perfect way to cap off his return year.

How foolish we all were…

Once again we found ourselves building to Survivor Series, where AJ Styles was set to have a rematch with Brock Lesnar from the previous year’s event, he just had to get past Daniel Bryan one night on Smackdown. We would then be hit with a double whammy of shockers on that night, with not only Daniel Bryan taking the title from AJ Styles, but cheating to do it, officially turning heel.

After putting on one of Brock Lesnar’s best ever matches at Survivor Series, Bryan came out week after week on Smackdown with a brand new personality, calling the fans fickle and reminding us all that our planet is dying and it’s our fault. It’s the kind of gimmick that on anyone else would seem stupid to be a heel, since the majority of wrestling fans seem to agree with that line of thinking, but Bryan was so good at saying it in a way that just pulled the boos out of you, even if you agreed with his message.

Bryan would have a match with Styles at TLC where Bryan would adapt his wrestling style to his new persona, focusing on old-school holds, strikes and technical wrestling instead of his more explosive babyface offence which resulted in a brilliant match; which ended in the master of the small package reclaiming his throne. The pair would then have a not quite as good match at Royal Rumble, hindered heavily by the fact that it had to follow Becky Lynch winning the women’s rumble and the finish involved interference from Erick Rowan of all people.

Past that match Rowan’s presence would only help Bryan as a character, giving him not only a big dude to have his back, but someone who agreed with his message, which only added to his preachy persona. Following the Royal Rumble, Bryan was set to defend his title in an Elimination Chamber match, when the cruel hand of fate would cause Mustafa Ali to go down with an injury and pull out of the match, leaving a spot open. Enter Kofi Kingston.

In one of the most unexpected, yet wonderful stories in recent memory, Kofi Kingston would take Ali’s place in the match, and remind us all that he’s one of the best, and deserves to be recognised as such. This became the main story of Bryan’s title reign going into Wrestlemania 35, and it couldn’t have been any better. Bryan and Kingston went 25 minutes at the start of a gauntlet match on Smackdown, in which Bryan showed exactly why he’s the best wrestler in the world because he can go to absolutely any length to make his opponent look like the best wrestler to ever do it, without making himself look totally inept.

It was in large part thanks to Bryan’s performance in this match and the ending of the Elimination Chamber that we all got behind Kofi Kingston as much as we did. It all culminated in the best match of the Wrestlemania 35 card, where Kofi would finally overcome and take the title from Bryan.

Daniel Bryan may not have had that long of a reign with the WWE Championship in comparison to other champions on this list, but Bryan got more out of his 144 days as champion than someone like Styles did in over 500. While Bryan was champion he was able to elevate himself, and anyone he ever got in the ring with to stratospheric heights, and that is the mark of a champion that is truly one of the greatest to ever do it.

And those are my rankings! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and a share would be greatly appreciated if you enjoyed. If you disagree with this list then let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back next week, where we’ll be diving back into the mines of Doctor Who opinions.