I know it’s a bit of an embarrassing thing to watch these days, but as a long time pro wrestling fan I’m not going to completely abandon my childish fandom for the frankly ridiculous pantomime that is pro wrestling, no matter how bad it gets. In 2014 the WWE is pretty bad. The story lines are lazy, badly structured and make no sense, and the characters are 2D, inconsistent and just badly written. But the matches are still entertaining to watch, and as a PPV is all about the matches I’m still going to get a lot of enjoyment out of watching them. The WWE has an Internet network thing now where you can watch all of their PPV’s for about £10 per month. That’s pretty cheap, and you get all of their old stuff on there as well. At the moment the network is not available in the UK, so until it’s available over here I do what all UK wrestling fans do. I go on the Internet and watch it at a price that I feel comfortable with, cough, cough. Anyway, here’s my review of their latest PPV.
1- Pre-show match: Hornswoggle V El Torito
This was a lot of fun and really helped the fans to ease into the show and stop their silly ‘CM Punk’ chants. Were the fans expecting him to show up because it was being held in Chicago, Punk’s hometown? Probably, and you couldn’t blame them really. This match however got Punk off their minds and allowed them to enjoy some silliness with a bull fighting a midget, loads of cool high spots and a head shaving at the end. Rating: A lot of fun **Half
2- First match: Sheamus V Cesaro
After an opening show video that pushed the leading feud (Shield versus Evolution) Paul Heyman came out to give the crowd the bad news that CM Punk won’t be turning up tonight, before introducing his man, Cesaro. They had to address the CM Punk thing early, but will this stop the chants throughout the evening? Well see. As for the actual match, it was the perfect opener. Although it wasn’t exactly Japanese strong style, this was about as physical as you’ll get in the WWE. There were load of counters and near falls that built it nicely and the end when it came was a bait and switch where the crowd was one moment on it’s feet cheering for the giant swing, and then surprised when Sheamus performed a quick roll-up for the 123. A great start and the CM Punk chants have already dried up. Rating: ***half.
3- Dust Brothers V Rybaxyl
I’ve made up the Dust brother’s name, as it’s far better than the Rhodes brothers, don’t you think? Anyway, we’ve been waiting for the dust brothers to argue and split for a long, long time now, so will it happen here? We’ll see. The match starts slowly, with the only notable thing happening being the crowd chanting ‘Gold-berg’ at Ryback. I can’t believe they’re still doing that. The characters are completely different now, and it doesn’t make any sense now that Ryback is a heel who keeps losing. Seriously, that chant is stupid. It appears the CM Punk chant has completely gone now though, and that’s all down to Heyman in the last match, so well done to that man. The match continues, and ends up pretty formulaic with the Dust brothers losing clean, after Cody does the job. Then Cody gets the mic and states (to Goldust) ‘Brother to brother, you need a better tag-team partner than me.’ I was pretty shocked by this, and interested. I’ll be watching Raw with keen interest to see where it goes next. I really thought that Goldust was going to turn heel on his brother, but this is far more interesting. Rating: **
4- Rusev V Big E
You have to laugh at Rusev waving his flag as his sexy Russian manager mocks the crowds by going on and on about Vladimir Putin. This is old school xenophobia heat generating stuff, and even though it’s played largely with a wink these days, it’s still pretty effective in the world of pro wrestling. The match starts with some big man stuff, the crowd starts to get impatient, but then it’s rescued when Big E spears Rusev through the middle rope to the floor. Impressive stuff, from both guys. Rusev had to work on his intensity, and he does a lot better job in this match, getting all angry and intense as his sexy manager shouts, ‘Rusev, crush,’ before applying the match ending camel clutch. Short match, one good spot, not bad. Rating: **
5- Kofi Kingston V Bo Dallas
Before the next match we got a brief backstage shot of Daniel Bryan talking to his wife. Do WWE realise that his Bella twin wife is extremely unlikeable, and that by showing Bryan with her it diminishes him in the eyes of fans? He’s supposed to be the companies top babyface, so why keep showing him with a woman who comes across as shallow, self centred, stupid and vain? I know they are married in real life, but why bring it up? They can’t go back in time, but they really need to stop associating him with her before any more damage is done to Bryan’s babyface aura.
The Kofi/Bo match didn’t actually happen, and turned into the sort of angle you normally see on Raw, with Kane coming out, destroying Kofi, and Bo getting some heel heat out of it. The good news though was that the Bo Dallas character of being deeply insincere, and probably even falling for his own lies, is actually working and appears to be getting over with the crowd who ended the segment chanting, ‘We Bo-believe.’ Good stuff. I love it when new guys get over, and the Bo Dallas character is something new and different and I’m really enjoying it at the moment.
5- Rob Van Fat V Bad News Barrett
I’m getting really depressed watching Van Dam these days. I used to be a big fan of his in the days of extreme, but these days he’s just a shadow of what he once was. Fat, going through the motions (slowly) and looking like yesterday’s news. It’s about time Van Dam did something else and leave us with memories of him in his prime. I wasn’t expecting anything out of this match other than clumsiness and bodges from Rob, and all I could hope for really was that Barrett would leave it intact, and injury free from the careless, out of control, out of shape and out of time Van Flab. The commentary really started to drag in this match, with King and JBL going through their tired, old ‘Educated feet,’ shtick. It was going to take something special from Barrett to make this interesting, as old Rob just isn’t up to it anymore. Barrett unfortunately couldn’t save it. This was the first match that really bored me. Barrett won, Van Dam needs to retire. Rating: half star
6- Stephanie McMahon power-tripping segment on Daniel (smile at everything) Bryan
Oh God, the bloody horrible Bela wife is in this segment, making herself the most unlikeable women in a ring that also includes Stephanie McMahon, not good. Steph talks and the crowd ‘What,’ it up. Here we go, Bryan on the mic, and he’s got that stupid grin on his face again. Is he giving up his title or waiting in line for an ice cream? It’s difficult to tell really. This segment is so bad that the ‘CM Punk’ chants are back. I know, use a curse word, that will get them back. I hated this stupid segment. Steph is cartoon evil, but Bryan is pretty useless on the mic, and his facials are the worst. He looks happy to be there, all of the time, even when horrible things are happening to him. A lot of people like Bryan, but his inappropriately smiley facials are the worst in wrestling since the blank stares of David Flair. At least this segment concluded as it should have done, with the wife quitting, and slapping the boss and essentially sacrificing herself for her smiley husband. Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of her.
7- John Cena V Bray Wyatt
Wyatt is one of those WWE villains who says a lot, but doesn’t actually say anything at all. You think he might, but then he doesn’t. He’s all appearance and posturing over substance, and when you break it down all he really wants is to beat John Cena. He’s a bad guy who gets cheered because he’s not bland. That’s all he is. Oh, and he’s a bit southern, and has a beard, so that’s enough for the WWE writers to portray him as a villain. Yeah, stupid, simplistic and anachronistically plugged into the mainstream media matrix, but that’s WWE for you. I don’t hate Cena, I just find him to be a corporate clone who represents nothing but conformity and compliance to the mainstream status quo. That’s not admirable to me, but I don’t hate him. He’s too stupid to hate, and his kind of ignorance and enslavement to a lifetime of materialism and following corporate orders is something to be pitied more than anything else. This was a last man standing match, and I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but I was at least a smidgen curious as to whether or nor Wyatt would go over, so I sat down and tried to endure the usual Cena routine. The crowd didn’t sound as Internet smarky as usual, and that was quite nice to hear. I get really fed up with the crowd trying to hijack matches these days, and this match was more like the old days when the crowds obey WWE storylines and cheer and boo for the people they are '‘programmed'’ to by their televisions. If all of your fans are Internet smarks then business is not doing very well at all, but when you have families and children who believe in the stories you know you are making money. I might not like it personally, but it’s not about what I like, and that’s why John Cena exists. The match started off slow and formulaic, but the crowd was into it from the beginning. There was loads of interference that got rid of the Wyatt family members and Uso’s and then the match turned into a pretty decent one on one brawl, with tables, chairs and ring steps. It eventually ended with lots of shenanigans, a huge table spot with Harper and one of the Uso’s, and then back to Cena and Wyatt who concluded a wild brawl with Wyatt taking a dive through a speaker and being trapped under it for the loss. So, another win for Cena and back to the mid-card for Bray Wyatt. Good match, but a lot of people will be upset that Cena won. Rating: ****
8- Alicia Fox V Paige
This was the buffer match before the main event. The match they put in to give the crowd a chance to chill out, take a piss break and get a snack of diet aspartame and GMO hotdogs, oh and buy a T-shirt of course. It’s not supposed to be any good, so I won’t be too harsh on it. Paige took a hard bump to the ring-mats, but the fans (and commentators) didn’t care. Fox is doing a cry baby gimmick, so that was fun. The commentators were messing around with each other again, much like the pre-show match, so perhaps they were taking a break during this match as well? As the match progressed the crowd went very quiet and I lost all interest in it. Is it over yet? Are they all back from the bog? Yep, end it then. And so it ended with Paige winning and screaming like Daffney in WCW/TNA. Rating: *
9- Evolution V The Shield
I’m not even going to think about the nonsensical story in this one. It has more holes in it than a mainstream media 'news' story, so lets forget it. And as for who the Shield and Evolution are and what they represent. Errrrrr, Old thugs and new thugs I guess. That’s all I can get out of it. Two groups of unpleasant people who think that humanity is a Darwinian battle for survival by beating on anybody who gets in your way. It’s no surprise that most of the WWE wrestlers have names based on animals, as that is what they think humanity is all about. Dumb animals fighting dumb animals. How wrong they are, and when you think about it you have to conclude that the dangerous mindset pushed here only leads to perpetual war and conflict, forever and ever, and ever. I guess that’s why it’s on television. Pushing the idea that is so beloved by the elite’s, keeping the people fighting amongst themselves for the scant scraps that fall from their private banking, fractional reserve table.
The match itself started with a disinterested crowd. Perhaps they were not yet back from the T-shirt stands, but this was a huge contrast to the Cena match, which started red hot from the opening bell. They then went into the crowd early, which was weird because that had already happened in the Cena match. Aren’t you only supposed to do the crowd brawl once per evening? Batista looked odd in blue pants and armbands, and the crowd was not into the match at all, which was surprising to me. Perhaps the Cena match had burned them out? When a crowd doesn’t care about a match it tells you that the wrestling bookers have got something wrong. What did they get wrong here? A lack of compelling story probably combined with the Cena match being too long and draining all of the crowd energy, leaving nothing for the main event. You’d think the WWE would know better, but evidentially not. The commentators also noticed the odd outfit that Batista was wearing, mentioning that ‘Bluetista’ was now trending on twitter. That was fun, but the middle of the match, not so much. It was so quiet that you could hear the wrestlers talking to each other, and remember, this was the main event. Even a power bomb spot through a table couldn’t awaken the crowd. It got worse when the old men of evolution started to whip the new fan favourite Roman Reigns with kendo sticks, demystifying and emasculating him in front of a silent crowd. This was bad. Shield matches are usually good, but this was as boring as they’ve been in months. I don’t blame them though. I blame the booking. The finish was Reigns beating HHH, but the damage had already been done. This guy was supposed to be the next big thing, but he was booked very badly here. The show ended with the commentators talking about ‘The extinction of evolution’ which is pretty stupid, but not as stupid as the booking on this main event that made Roman Reigns look very weak, and failed to turn him into the big star that the WWE desperately needs. As the PPV ended the commentators were running out of things to say, and the crowd was dead silent in apathetic bewilderment caused by the poor booking of the main event. Rating **
Overall Conclusions on the show
This was a card that had a number of matches that I really enjoyed. The Cena match was a lot of fun, but it probably did too much and took away a lot of the crowd heat for the main event. That main event was badly booked, and left the Shield, and Roman Reigns in particular, looking very weak. The Cena match should obviously have been the main event, as that was the match that the crowd mostly cared about. Bad writing, and booking is hurting the Shield, and I just hope that the WWE do something to stop one of their hottest acts in the past year from losing the momentum that they have built up over the past year.
Best Match: Cena V Wyatt.
Worst Match: Shield V Evolution (for the reasons stated above).
MVP of the card: John Cena.
Clown of the card: Bluetista.
Rating 6/10.
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