Seriously...
Neville vs. Barrett was a good showcase to put over the new high-flying highlight reel.
Ambrose vs. Harper was funny and hardcore throughout the night. (Also the two have just plain amazing chemistry)
Ziggler vs. Sheamus was a very well-worked match, with lots of stiff and technical wrestling. Chemistry was always great and I've wanted a match between these two for a while. The ending was a bit of a cop-out but it honestly was sensible writing for once, that Sheamus would be like "lol I'm not gonna go through with it. I'm heel"
The Tag Team Title Match....oh man, match of the night and it was just oh so beautiful. Workhorsemania all throughout the match. All four men in the match were just talent. Plain, talent. It had the biggest pops of the entire show and with of course Cesaro and Kidd being amazing workers, crap on New Day all you want but Big E and Kofi CAN hold their own. :banderas
The Cena vs. Rusev match was typical lol Cena wins, but it was passable. Workrate wasn't the problem really, although the feud may be starting to run its course.
The Divas match wasn't all that great, but (and I love the divas division by the way more than the average smark ) considering the poor booking going in, they worked as good as they could have (with as little chemistry as they do) with the situation at hand of poor babyface and heel management. Naomi is always athletic and Nikki actually attempted technical prowess without Paige holding her hand. Tense because a title change almost happened.
Roman Reigns vs. Big Show, the match that everyone said was going to suck, delivered...actually pretty well. I mean they pulled out a lot of great spots (sans the slightly dumb ending where Big Show kneels back down to be buried by a table) and put on...well something that actually could have main evented Fast Lane (like it was originally going to). The crowd behaved and gave appropriate face/heel reactions. It actually made me regret that this match isn't the title picture over the main event (not that the feud is great, don't get me wrong here, it's not a good feud but we'll get to the main event in a second to compare..) Any match that has people chanting "holy shit" and popping over and over again HAS to be doing something right.
So with all of that decent work ethic and stringing together a night full of entertaining, stiff, workhorsing, spotmania matches, you get to top it off with an amazing, well-deserved....
filler cage match that could main event the 2nd Raw of the a month....at best. The match was just not PPV-worthy. It doesn't even feel like it belongs in the Reality Era it felt like a match from the Universe Era. The point of the Reality Era is to take the status quo and prove all of the whining and crying smarks wrong by seeming like you're going the status quo route and then delivering in spades at the pay per view. Why, WHY on earth did this match have to tank the rest of the card? Why? I mean, I didn't lose faith in the booking as a whole for the card, but it just feels like it doesn't belong here. It felt like WWE went backwards by five years (then again, wasn't Orton main eventing wwe ppvs as a babyface in 2010 to begin with which was part of the reason why the company was a big NO NO NO back then?) with going through motions workrate. It's a generically built match, where the wrestlers went through the motions of your typical cage match and it's a cocktease that Rollins is playing a cowardly heel who won't do that oh-so wanted 450 splash off the top of the cage we all wish to see. Orton's legacy also isn't taken seriously as a face. The Kane interference didn't do much for me. I didn't care about Orton vs. Seth as the main event of a ppv from the start (and I can easily be swayed by a well worked match which is what the reigns vs. show match did for me as did the Divas match with a not so bad match) but when you give me exactly what I expect and give me no incline in emotion, it's boring.
And by the way just for the record, my feelings on the match while watching, my feelings didn't increase, decrease, or anything, nothing made me bat an eye. My heartrate stayed flatlined and that's pretty bad considering how much I don't want Orton to be champion over Rollins (which is the problem of having Orton being a face when he's picking a fight with a ROH internet darling?), so it's pretty bad that it didn't even elict me to smark out at all. It put a well-behaving but loud crowd to sleep to your typical "no reaction to Randy Orton" sound effect.
Why did the main event have to be such a generic filler match. Why? I just feel bad for the rest of the workers who busted their ass tonight who may not get credit for it because of the lousy output. Bless their hearts. Shame on the generic main event.
Neville vs. Barrett was a good showcase to put over the new high-flying highlight reel.
Ambrose vs. Harper was funny and hardcore throughout the night. (Also the two have just plain amazing chemistry)
Ziggler vs. Sheamus was a very well-worked match, with lots of stiff and technical wrestling. Chemistry was always great and I've wanted a match between these two for a while. The ending was a bit of a cop-out but it honestly was sensible writing for once, that Sheamus would be like "lol I'm not gonna go through with it. I'm heel"
The Tag Team Title Match....oh man, match of the night and it was just oh so beautiful. Workhorsemania all throughout the match. All four men in the match were just talent. Plain, talent. It had the biggest pops of the entire show and with of course Cesaro and Kidd being amazing workers, crap on New Day all you want but Big E and Kofi CAN hold their own. :banderas
The Cena vs. Rusev match was typical lol Cena wins, but it was passable. Workrate wasn't the problem really, although the feud may be starting to run its course.
The Divas match wasn't all that great, but (and I love the divas division by the way more than the average smark ) considering the poor booking going in, they worked as good as they could have (with as little chemistry as they do) with the situation at hand of poor babyface and heel management. Naomi is always athletic and Nikki actually attempted technical prowess without Paige holding her hand. Tense because a title change almost happened.
Roman Reigns vs. Big Show, the match that everyone said was going to suck, delivered...actually pretty well. I mean they pulled out a lot of great spots (sans the slightly dumb ending where Big Show kneels back down to be buried by a table) and put on...well something that actually could have main evented Fast Lane (like it was originally going to). The crowd behaved and gave appropriate face/heel reactions. It actually made me regret that this match isn't the title picture over the main event (not that the feud is great, don't get me wrong here, it's not a good feud but we'll get to the main event in a second to compare..) Any match that has people chanting "holy shit" and popping over and over again HAS to be doing something right.
So with all of that decent work ethic and stringing together a night full of entertaining, stiff, workhorsing, spotmania matches, you get to top it off with an amazing, well-deserved....
filler cage match that could main event the 2nd Raw of the a month....at best. The match was just not PPV-worthy. It doesn't even feel like it belongs in the Reality Era it felt like a match from the Universe Era. The point of the Reality Era is to take the status quo and prove all of the whining and crying smarks wrong by seeming like you're going the status quo route and then delivering in spades at the pay per view. Why, WHY on earth did this match have to tank the rest of the card? Why? I mean, I didn't lose faith in the booking as a whole for the card, but it just feels like it doesn't belong here. It felt like WWE went backwards by five years (then again, wasn't Orton main eventing wwe ppvs as a babyface in 2010 to begin with which was part of the reason why the company was a big NO NO NO back then?) with going through motions workrate. It's a generically built match, where the wrestlers went through the motions of your typical cage match and it's a cocktease that Rollins is playing a cowardly heel who won't do that oh-so wanted 450 splash off the top of the cage we all wish to see. Orton's legacy also isn't taken seriously as a face. The Kane interference didn't do much for me. I didn't care about Orton vs. Seth as the main event of a ppv from the start (and I can easily be swayed by a well worked match which is what the reigns vs. show match did for me as did the Divas match with a not so bad match) but when you give me exactly what I expect and give me no incline in emotion, it's boring.
And by the way just for the record, my feelings on the match while watching, my feelings didn't increase, decrease, or anything, nothing made me bat an eye. My heartrate stayed flatlined and that's pretty bad considering how much I don't want Orton to be champion over Rollins (which is the problem of having Orton being a face when he's picking a fight with a ROH internet darling?), so it's pretty bad that it didn't even elict me to smark out at all. It put a well-behaving but loud crowd to sleep to your typical "no reaction to Randy Orton" sound effect.
Why did the main event have to be such a generic filler match. Why? I just feel bad for the rest of the workers who busted their ass tonight who may not get credit for it because of the lousy output. Bless their hearts. Shame on the generic main event.