Welp, it’s 5 PM Eastern time on Sunday. I have the house to myself. The pre-show starts in an hour, and, because my wife is the owner of access to HBO, I’m not watching the Game of Thrones finale until tomorrow anyway. (Spoiler alert: It almost certainly sucked). So here I am, I guess.
Historically, I’ve written my wrestling reviews a day or two after watching the show in question, but in the spirit of experimentation (and also because I want to minimize the time I spend writing things that aren’t the alignment series) I’m going to write this view live as it happens, and then post it in the morning, regardless of how much it sucks. I will not be sober for any of this, so if my writing strikes you as even more sloppy, radically subjective, and incoherent than normal, that’s why. Also, expect frequent off-topic ramblings.
Here we go…
Pre Show
I ask you, what segment of the wrestling fandom is demanding kayfabed talk shows? What fresh hell is this? Is there anyone out there at all who cares about these dumbass panel discussions, or is the entire preshow viewership suckers like me who are terrified of missing the cruiserweight match? Please tell me it’s all suckers like me.
Whatever, this bullshit can be background chatter for making tomato sauce. So I fucked up when I wrote this recipe, because I forgot a pointers to avoid making the sauce too thick. As written, the resulting sauce is too thick, so if you try to make it yourself, make sure to fill the can of whole tomatoes with water after the tomatoes are in the pot, then add that water to the sauce. Alternatively, you can leave the sauce partially-to-mostly covered, so that it thickens a bit but it doesn’t lose too much liquid. You can also do both.
The Usos vs. Daniel Bryan & Erick Rowan(c) – Smackdown Tag Titles
Whoops, still very much in the active cooking phase of tomato sauce.
I mostly missed this. It seemed fine? **1/2
Women’s Money in the Bank Match
Naomi enters before the show starts, as a reminder that this company sucks. The crowd sounds super dead, which is always a bummer. Highlights include: Nikki Cross swinging a ladder around her neck and taking a bunch of people out; Naomi catching herself on a ladder and springing off with an enziguiri; Naomi walking across two ladders; sidebar – I can’t tell of Carmella is legit hurt or not, because it seems like the announcers and camera crew are kind of focusing on it, which I wouldn’t expect for a real injury; Naomi (again!) doing a split-legged moonsault onto Bayley, who was on a ladder; Dana Brooke hanging from the briefcase; relatively big pop for Nikki Cross almost getting the briefcase; Eclipse off of a ladder that was rather dope; Mandy Rose slamming Ember Moon on a ladder; wouldn’t you know it, Carmella heroically emerges from the back; Sonya DeVille interferes to help Mandy Rose up the ladder; Bayley comes from outta nowhere and grabs briefcase. Match was anticlimactic but decent and had cool bumps. ***1/4
Sasha Banks mentioned on air, like, prominently, which is weird if she’s not coming back soon.
Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe
So we’re in agreement that Dominic is turning heel, right? Mysterio gets flash pin, new U.S Champion. That was like 4 minutes, possibly less. Super lame and disappointing; this is the match you decide to shaft on time? They show Joe’s shoulder up and make it a plot point though, so the feud must continue or whatever *
Miz vs. Shane McMahon – Cage Match
Why the fuck is this happening. Meltzer take the wheel
I attempt to summarize, but nothing happens. Shane is punching the Miz. My mind wanders back to the sauce, which may have cooked down too much
This match is deathless
Shane wins, I guess
*
Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese(c)
This is the same style as every other main roster match with a few extra flips but is a fine in the same way that dinner at the finer chain restaurants is. ***
Lacey Evans vs. Becky Lynch
Man, Lacey got rushed the fuck up, huh. Like she was the 6th best woman on the roster in NXT and yet, here we are. Maybe she’s better than that, but she only did squashes in NXT so who knows. Becky is getting the most reaction from the crowd of anyone so far, at least that I’ve seen but I’ve also been making spaghetti and meat sauce for most of this so far so the fuck do I know. Another acceptable match, although the finish look botched. **1/3
Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch
This match started immediately after, the implication being that Charlotte was taking advantage of Becky not being fresh. Better than the previous match, because of course it is. Lacey Evans interferes and Charlotte wins. This was like 7 minutes and ended before it got going. This is so fucking stupid and I can’t even **7/12
Bayley runs in to save Becky from a heel beatdown and they very heavily tease the cash-in after beating up Charlotte, and Bayley does so. Bayley wins. Crowd is relatively into this turn of events. Actually kind of a neat twist
Roman Reigns gets booed while power-waliking backstage) in no particular direction. Elias attacks him with a guitar and heads to the ring.
Elias Promo and Inevitable Attendant Shenanigans
So the show is in Hartford, so Eiias’ big dig was on the Whalers moving, because that’s topical. He finishes his song and starts leaving up the ramp just in time for Roman to miraculously recover and win in a squash.
I will confess that I came into this show with low expectations, and also predisposed to dislike it, but for real this has sucked so far. Aaaaand now my stream crashed. Glorious
AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins
Oh man spaghetti coma. Must..follow…match…must…have…shit to say about it
Seriously though this match was good but, as always, not as good as it could be. Maybe that’s fine because in a vacuum the theoretical ceiling for this match is impossibly good, but also it seems like it’s moving at half speed. Like, I expected that when it was AJ vs. Orton but Rollins is way better than Randy Orton so you know. It’s disappointing, but I don’t know what I expected is my point. Third act picks things up a bit, not a lot. Rollins wins.
So the thing about this show is every match can be summarized by the last verse of the They Might Be Giants song Particle Man. They have a fight, triangle wins
Triangle man
***1/2
Lucha House Party appears for the sole purpose of having actual racist Lars Sullivan beat up all three of them. Guh.
Kevin Owens vs. Kofi Kingston
Slightly better than the Styles vs. Rollins match; the pace is about the same, but having a clear heel/face dynamic is helping, at least in the initial stages, but then once it got going a bit more it wasn’t as going, y’know? Kofi wins clean, which is good. Crowd was mostly dead for this whole thing, which is bad. ***
They do an ad for Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia followed by an announcer plug, also for the Saudi Arabia show and I get depressed
Men’s Money in the Bank Show
Cool, we’re almost done.
Yeah I’m too faded to do the thing where I track all the highlights and type them all out. Crowd seems to like Randy Orton in this, for some reason. As with everything else about the main roster, Randy Orton’s work is fine but undistinguished, and he’s like the 5th coolest guy in this thing. For a very, very long time now, there’s been a weird Rollerball vibe to the main roster, where nobody is allowed to excel or stand out too much. When I say a long time I mean it, too; like, well over a decade and arguably ever since Brock Lesnar ditched them in 2004. Andrade did a sunset flip powerbomb on Finn Balor that was legit pretty sick; Ali does a Spanish Fly with Andrade off the ladder; otherwise, not a ton of cool high spots.
Oh ok, Drew McIntyre threw Ricochet through a gimmicked ladder, not bad.
Brock Lesnar runs out and wins as the surprise eighth entrant. Ok then! ***1/4
I’ve seen worse wrestling shows, but this wasn’t great by any stretch. And to think I could’ve been reading…
Rob Writes About Whatever 