Roman came out to interrupt Steph and cut a promo… he finally managed to actually block her slap. Nice to see that Roman is learning. Unfortunately, he still came off like a smug douchebag, but Steph brought her heel A game (well… more like her heel A-/B+ game, but it was still enough) so this felt like jerk vs. heel rather than feeling completely backwards.
AJ STYLES vs. KEVIN OWENS- 7.75/10 (almost an 8)
AJ lost on Smackdown, so I assume this is 50/50 time (or, if you prefer, “bury the IC Champ” time).
Huh. I guess I was wrong… in the most frustrating way possible. Due to my above assumption, I thought we were at least going to get a clean match here and the match was so great and seemed destined for so much more that I almost cried in despair when Jericho came to ruin things. So instead of undoing the events of Smackdown, they just decided to repeat them.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AJ chases Jericho to the back. Owens then grabs a mic and starts to cut a promo about who will face him at Mania. Dolph Ziggler comes out and interrupts him. Owens buries Dolph’s stand-up, but then they are interrupted by The Miz. Miz and Dolph establish that they have each beaten each other, making neither of them look particularly worthy. Then Sami Zayn showed up and people actually start to give a sh*t. Owens says he will talk to the Authority and see if we can get a #1 contendership match booked tonight. Wow. That made a lot more sense than I thought it would.
DEAN AMBROSE CUTS A PROMO FROM A BAR- so basically just like Smackdown, except that instead of being in his home town, it’s just a random bar in Philly.
Okay… maybe not so random. This particular bar happens to contain one former NWA World Heavyweight Champion by the name of Terry Funk (who is wearing his own t-shirt in case people don’t know who is). Terry got a huge pop. WWE wouldn’t even let him say the word “ass.” He gave Dean a chainsaw. Really.
Once again, these two major celebrities are in a bar (one of them with a F*CKING CHAINSAW!) and no one is paying attention!
Okay… Dean just turned the chainsaw on. That got their attention. Then he started to cut through a table. What a jerk!
STEPH & OWENS BACKSTAGE- the match is made official.
SHANE/TAKER VIDEO PACKAGE- boring.
WE’RE GETTING DEAN VS. STROWMAN LATER- They’re not going to beat Dean anymore going into the Lesnar match, and they’re not going to beat Strowman, so I assume we are getting a completely pointless DQ here in this match which never should have been booked in the first place.
THE NEW DAY MAKE MALE CREWMEMBERS TWERK IN A HALLWAY- crap. This means New Day is about to come out, doesn’t it?
NEW DAY/LEAGUE OF NATIONS SEGMENT- SOOOOOOOOO boring.
The League of Nations cut a meh promo. Then New Day came out and for some reason, the League didn’t just beat the sh*t out of them. New Day spent almost four straight minutes insulting the League of Nations, who just stood there laughing their asses off at these pathetic dorks.
A brawl happened, which then led to our regularly scheduled match, which was…
RUSEV (w/the League of Nations) vs. Big E. (w/the New Day)- 6.75/10
Big E. wins because who needs heat? The match on Smackdown was never mentioned once. I think Smackdown is going to go back on the “watch it only if the matches look REALLY good” list.
WYATT FAMILY PROMO- pointless. Braun Strowman was good, though.
SEGMENT TO HYPE UP THE ANDRE THE GIANT MEMORIAL BATTLE ROYALE- yeah… this thing is so worthless that I’m just going to fast forward through this. (Also, hopefully this will save me from the Social Ass-Hats).
Well… I didn’t fast forward through the whole thing. I decided to stop to watch Big Show beat up Suckzuki-Gun. Then, to my abject horror, they started to beat Big Show up… BUT THEN KANE SHOWED UP! Kane beating up the Ministry of Dorkness combines my two favorite things ever: Kane destroying people and Social Outcasts getting destroyed.
Also, Kane chokeslammed Big Show. This was the moment that I realized that I don’t think we’ve seen either of these guys on TV in quite a while.
Speaking of people we haven’t seen on TV in forever, WWE has apparently decided that it is finally time for Jericho to get his win back from Fandango.
CHRIS JERICHO vs. FANDANGO- 1.5/10
No televised entrance for Fandango to cover for the fact that they have pointlessly broken him up with every dance partner he has ever had.
AJ distracts Jericho the same way Jericho has distracted AJ on the past two shows, but Jericho gets to win despite the distraction, which doesn’t seem to do anywhere near as good a job at building this match up as it would to have Jericho become infuriated by being forced to relive his greatest defeat.
After the match, AJ challenges Jericho to a match at WrestleMania. I had totally forgotten that this match wasn’t already official.
WINNER GETS AN INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE SHOT AT WRESTLEMANIA: Stardust vs. Sin Cara vs. Zack Ryder-
Owens was the guest ring announcer and apparently he pulled a bait-and-switch on everyone. His introductions were amusing. He then did commentary and was great.
Miz, Zayn, and Dolph all showed up to yell at Owens. Owens threw Ryder into Miz, causing a brawl (and a DQ). All six other guys were angry at Owens.
STEPH & OWENS BACKSTAGE PART TWO- Steph is talking to presumably Hunter on the phone. Owens angered Steph (because G-d forbird she consistently act like a heel), so she makes him defend the title against all six guys, because who needs to put effort into their booking when you can just throw a bunch of guys into a random multi-person spotfest? You know where that gets you? Promoting monthly shows in front of 400 people in a gym in Reseda, CA (BURN!)
Oh. Sorry. 395 people. I assume that Konnan and the Horsewomen get in for free. At least Marina Shafir probably does because at this point she double-counts as both a celebrity and a rat (DOUBLE BURN!)
And just a fun fact here: One of the new #1 contenders for the IC Title, Zack Ryder? Anyone want to guess when he got his last victory on Monday Night Raw?
Hidden text.
Yes, really. And now he is getting a shot at title.And before anyone tries to argue that this is the McMahons being nice and booking these guys on WrestleMania so they can get their big WrestleMania payoff, THAT’S WHAT THE ANDRE THE GIANT MEMORIAL BATTLE ROYALE IS FOR.
Oh. And now it’s a ladder match because after Roman blocked her earlier slap, Steph is now insecure about her masculinity so she must write the show in such a way to prove to everything that she is strong and powerful and in charge.
HUNTER & STEPH GET INTO A STRETCH HUMMER- Roman Reigns shows up and pulls Hunter out of hit and assaults him like a total heel. Is Mr. “My Plan is to Punch You in the Mouth” really so upset that Hunter busted his nose that he has to assault him two weeks in a row? What a hypocrite! And let’s not forget that Roman started all of this with his 100% unprovoked attack on Hunter at TLC.
NATALYA vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Ric Flair)- 5.75/10
Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch are on commentary so they can build up this match by bickering on commentary while everyone ignores the match going on in the ring (seriously, can we please stop cutting back to the announcers’ desk every few seconds. We’ve already seen them and we can hear their voices! You don’t need to keep showing us that they are there!). Here’s a f*cking novel idea: How about we build up the match at WrestleMania by HAVING ALL THREE WOMEN WRESTLE AN WIN A MATCH?!
R-TRUTH vs. BUBBA RAY DUDLEY (w/Devon Dudley)- 2/10
The match was short, but fine for the time it got. Bubba won, then they beat Truth down after the match. Goldust came out to make the save but ate a 3D. Then The Usos came out to make the real save. Bubba just managed to save Devon from getting put through a table.
VINCE MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT HELL IN A CELL- If Taker loses, he will never be allowed to wrestle at WrestleMania again. You know… just because.
This is the sort of thing that would make sense if Taker’s motivation (or rather his lack thereof) had been explored and Vince had reason to think that he might not be so motivated to win… but because that would take actual effort on the part of creative, we just get a bunch of random consequences for this match in a desperate effort to make people care about it.
DEAN AMBROSE vs. BRAUN STROWMAN (w/the Wyatt Family)-
Paul Heyman is on commentary. I can’t even get excited for that because, quite honestly, this show is wearing very thin on me at this point. It was also for that reason that this here main event DQ went over even worse with me than such a thing normally would (Dean got himself DQed by beating Strowman up with a chair, eventually getting him to bump via Dirty Deeds on a steel chair).
A frustrating show from WWE. It started off great, but once Jericho showed up to distract AJ, it started going downhill and just kept going downhill for the next two and a half hours.
WrestleMania is thirteen days away… and I just don’t give a sh*t. It doesn’t feel any more important than any other PPV, and honestly feels less important than Royal Rumble, Summer Slam, or even Survivor Series did. I know Brock vs. Ambrose will be awesome. I know that AJ vs. Jericho and the Divas Title match will be awesome if they give them the time to be so. I’m sure Hunter will pull something great out of Roman and I’m sure the IC Title match will at least be fun… but I just don’t give a sh*t about the results of almost any of those matches, and for most of them that I do care about, it is for reasons like “I think it would be a big business mistake to take the belt off of Owens” rather than for reasons like “I really want to see Becky win the title.” Anyone else feel this way?
