WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2025 Preview & Predictions

This Saturday marks the 39th annual WWE Survivor Series, a show that once featured super fun 5-on-5 elimination matches and has since 2022 been repurposed as WWE WarGames, where the company trots out the exact same sterilized, trash can/kendo stick double cage matches every year.

Man, these WarGames matches are damn near indistinguishable from each other.  I say it every year but the old elimination format would make for exponentially more combinations and outcomes.  WarGames is inherently a repetitious gimmick match thanks to its convoluted rules.  Even AEW's version Blood and Guts (though infinitely superior to this PG-rated shite) has reached a point where it doesn't need to be an annual event.  The match layout is simply too limiting.  I dunno why WWE even keeps the Survivor Series name; it's got literally nothing to do with what this event has become.

Anyway, this lineup looks like another pretty skippable one (which is good since I ain't paying thirty bucks to see it), with the men's babyface WarGames team being exactly the same as last year except for Cody replacing Sami Zayn.  Boy, that OG Bloodline reunion last year did nothing for Sami, did it?  The heel team has some new blood at least, though you know Brock Lesnar's gonna be the last man in so he doesn't have to work more than ten minutes.  On the women's side they're once again going with Nia Jax for some reason; is she gonna work the whole match again?  Elsewhere on the card we have two singles title matches, one of which involves John Cena in his final PPV bout, the other involves Nikki Bella because WWE inexplicably thinks its audience is nostalgic for the early 2010s.  I'm really interested to see what WWE's ticket sales look like when John's no longer there.....

Let's take a closer look....

Women's World Championship: Stephanie Vaquer vs. Nikki Bella

Seriously guys, 2013 wasn't a good creative period for WWE, why are we bringing back names and matches from that era instead of looking forward?  Stephanie is great, Nikki has never been great, so this match should be.....fine?  Steph ain't losing the title yet.

Pick: Stephanie retains

WWE SummerSlam 2025 Review: Night 2 was Good Anyway....

Well we've now entered the era of two-night shows for all of WWE's Big Four PPVs.  SummerSlam 2025, probably Royal Rumble and Survivor Series 2026, and maybe even Money in the Bank will now be spread over two shows.  Thus WrestleMania is no longer all that special.

SummerSlam 2025 was another mixed bag of an extravaganza.  The first night was a bad overall show, the second night was pretty good up until the appallingly tone deaf ending.  This company has no line it will not cross, no scandal it will not gladly sweep under the rug if it gets in the way of their bottom line.  Between sex trafficking accessory Brock Lesnar being back on television and WWE just openly aligning itself with MAGA, I'm honestly not sure how much more WWE content I'll even watch going forward.

Night 1 as I said was a pretty bad show, with a whole bunch of mostly nothing matches and a dull as fuck main event that for some reason WWE's faithful have convinced themselves was some kind of Bret Hart-esque masterpiece.  I don't seem to recall Bret ever needing to stall after every move to let his gassed opponent recover for a while.  Certainly not in his good matches anyhow.

The show opened, 22 minutes in (that's TWENTY-TWO) with a solid tag match as Roman Reigns and Jey Uso took on Seth Rollins' buddies Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed.  Things started out not so promisingly as after a few moments of action Jey called for his entrance music again just to get a stupid Yeet chant going.  This company is a parody of pro wrestling.  From there they had a pretty good match and Breakker looked really good as usual.  Side note: Wade Barrett, who I find pretty insufferable on commentary, keeps claiming Bron can run up to 23 miles per hour.  I'd buy that for a dollar.  They of course had to squeeze in yet another Roman spear through the barricade (which now isn't even attached at one side so this spot looks even dumber now).  The Brons did a Steiner doomsday bulldog spot which was cool.  At the end of the match Roman shoved Jey out of the way of a Breakker spear, and Jey hit his big splash on Reed to win the match.  This show would never get this good again.  ***1/2

WWE WrestleMania 41 Review: A Story of Highs and Lows

Well I'm a few days late, but here's my review of WWE WrestleMania 41.  

The sixth two-night edition of the Showcase of the Immortals was a very mixed bag, with a couple strong standouts, some really disappointing outings, and a whole lot of middling filler.  As usual the actual wrestling content took up less than half of each show's running time and the gaps in between each match were longer than the respective match that followed.  I really don't understand why WWE fans are okay with this; do you need a 15-20 minute piss break in between every bout?

A few words about the venue - Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas is a great place to host a WrestleMania show.  The translucent roof harkens back to the unique presentation of WrestleMania III.  I always like when these shows start out during daylight and end at night.  Creates a special atmosphere.

Anyway, night 1 started off with a match by which I was pleasantly surprised.  Gunther and Jey Uso delivered a solid opener (It's still hilarious to me that we're back to the Royal Rumble winner OPENING WrestleMania instead of headlining it) that proved if nothing else that Jey is capable of good singles in-ring work with the right opponent.  Jey's hit-and-move strategy frustrated the Austrian grappler and after some finisher kickouts, Jey hit three top-rope splashes and put Gunther away with his own choke, to which the champion tapped almost immediately.  The decisiveness of that finish certainly surprised me.  Good start to the show.  ***3/4

WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's February, er, March and that means it's time once again for WWE Elimination Chamber, the annual event where the world championship NOT being defended against the Royal Rumble winner gets a top contender for WrestleMania.  

Like Hell in a Cell, the Chamber was once one of WWE's most brutal gimmick matches, and like the Cell it was rather defanged during the PG era.  It almost seems redundant to have this match on the same PPV calendar as WarGames given how influenced by the latter was its inception, but whatever.  There have been some great Chamber matches over the years and some not-so-great ones (2002 I'm looking in your general direction), but it's usually a moderately enjoyable 35 minutes.  Having two on one show is taxing though, just like WarGames and the Rumble.

This year's lineup is only four bouts and on paper it's a decent enough slate.  Let's take a look.

Tiffany Stratton & Trish Stratus vs. Nia Jax & Candice LaRae

Okay I'm not sure why this is on here as it smacks of "free TV match," but here we are.  I'll keep saying it every time she's featured on a PPV, but if Triple H's decisions around who gets included on PPVs is all about talent regardless of ethnicity, then what in the blue fuck is Nia Jax doing on this show?  She stinks, period.  I don't imagine they brought Trish back to team with Tiffany just for them to lose, so they're my pick.

Pick: Trishany Strattonus

WWE Royal Rumble 2025 Review: Jey Uso Yeets the Odds

The 38th WWE Royal Rumble is in the books, and it was a solid show, better than it's been in a handful of years anyway.  There wasn't anything great on the show I didn't think, but nothing bad either.  Picking a best match and worst match is tough because everything was in the 3.5 to 4 star range.  I had some gripes about some things but we'll get to that.  It was definitely too long a show, that's for sure.  Four hours and eighteen minutes is a long time for any PPV.

The show kicked off with the women's Rumble, and I think this was the most fun match for me.  Despite less star power than the men's, this match had a lot of exciting young talent, many of them from NXT, and the match cut a good pace that kept everything moving.  Iyo Sky, Ivy Nile, Lash Legend, Jordynne Grace, and Stephanie Vaquer all looked very good.  Nia Jax got to be the Kane of this match and eliminate 9 women.  I was surprised Becky Lynch didn't return, but instead we got Alexa Bliss.  As expected Charlotte Flair ended up winning, last eliminating Roxanne Perez of all people.  Also Iyo, Roxanne and Liv Morgan all beat Bayley's record from last year, which as I said in my preview has gotten out of hand.  If you keep breaking the longevity record it becomes pretty meaningless.  They certainly didn't need to do it three times in this one match.  Both Rumbles went excessively long, this one at 70 minutes.  But it looks like Tiffany vs. Charlotte for Mania most likely, unless the plan is a rubber match with Rhea Ripley.  ***3/4

AEW Grand Slam 2024 Dynamite & Collision Preview & Predictions

It's September and you know what that means, it's time for AEW Grand Slam!

The fourth annual free TV PPV-caliber event once again emanates from Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, NY, and judging by the diminishing box office returns I think next year they should move it somewhere else.  Holding any wrestling event in the same venue every year is a challenge at best, and it seems like this one has run its course at Arthur Ashe for a while.  But as always the Dynamite lineup should be pretty spectacular, and even the Collision card this year looks very good.  Let's take a gander.....

Dynamite

FTW Championship: Hook vs. Roderick Strong

I still think it's time to lose this fake belt, as it's not officially sanctioned by AEW and it was only ever a prop that got defended once in a while.  Now it's become a full gimmick for Hook, who defends it frequently.  Let's get a real title on this guy instead, huh?  Anyway, this should be a very fun mix of grappling and no-DQ bells and whistles.  Hook just won this back from Jericho so he isn't losing it here.

Pick: Hook retains

WWE Bash in Berlin Review: Well It Was Better Than SummerSlam

It's a few days late, but here's my review of WWE Bash in Berlin.  This was a much better show than SummerSlam and the crowd was white-hot like at Backlash France but unlike that crowd they weren't just there to chant shit the whole time, they actually responded to the action in the ring.  Except during the main event when they broke into the wave for some reason.  The company though decided to make it cringe by showing a decibel counter every so often.  Didn't WCW do that in the early 90s?  Can WWE for once NOT make something lame?  Nothing on this show was bad, though nothing came close to MJF-Ospreay or Swerve-Danielson from six days earlier.  For the record I went 5 for 5 on my predictions, which I only posted to Twitter.  You can go look if you don't believe me....

Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens opened the show and was a very good championship match that built throughout.  It was undermined a bit by the need to cram in "cinema," where Cody went for a springboard cutter (I think) but his injured knee buckled and Owens refused to capitalize on the injury because as Michael Cole put it he didn't want a "tainted victory."  Uhh that's not tainted guys.  Tainted would be if Owens had cheated to inflict such an injury.  This was just a pre-existing condition.  If Owens had worked over Cody's leg during the match and injured it, he'd capitalize on it, right?  How's this different?  Anyway they traded all their big moves, Cody hit a pair of CrossRhodeses and went for a third but Owens countered into a stunner for a nearfall.  Owens went for a swanton but Cody got the knees up and hit a third CrossRhodes for the win.  A very fine match but Cody as champion still feels like Goldberg 1998, where the company cares way more about the top heel stable and their drama than finding something meaningful for its babyface champion to do.  Cody's just fighting guys for the belt without a dramatic feud to hold it together.  Hey if WWE wants to be known as The Land of Storytelling, I'm gonna judge them on that basis.  Tough titty.  ****1/4

WWE Backlash 2024 Review: The Crowd Chants in Lyon, France

WWE's followup to WrestleMania, Backlash France, has come and gone.  And it was a very strong, streamlined, three-hour show with five matches, minimal nonsense between bouts, and a molten crowd clearly starving for live wrestling.

A note about that crowd: the atmosphere was insane throughout this show and somehow this crowd never got tired.  There were chants, songs, lots of jumping up and down; no doubt these folks were having a helluva time.  Farbeit for me to disabuse anyone of having fun at a wrestling show, but my only complaint is that unlike a crowd that's white-hot for a specific match or for every specific match, this crowd was white-hot just for being in the building.  They weren't really responding that much to the action itself, which as a viewer left me distracted from the matches rather than enhancing them.  A lot of the major beats of each match didn't get the big pops that add juice to a great wrestling match; the crowd was just excited to see wrestling in front of them.  I'll certainly take this over a dead crowd, but for me it wasn't the same as say, the WrestleMania crowd or the Revolution crowd, where their attention was fixated on the matches and their energy took specific spots and moments to the next level.

Another note about Triple H's media scrum comments: Knock that shit off.  You sound like Trump crying "fake news" every time something negative is (accurately) reported.  If you missed this story, a journalist at the end of the scrum asked Hunter about the reports from Fightful and PWInsider saying Drew Gulak was let go by the company due to Ronda Rousey's accusation of his inappropriate behavior toward her (which of course Drew denied, saying "I went to shake her hand and it accidentally brushed the string of her sweatpants." Yeah, sure thing bud.).  Rather than saying something that would've been GOOD for optics, like "We take these accusations very seriously and we decided not to renew Drew's contract," Hunter said "First of all, if you're going to cite news sources cite some good ones," and followed it up with "We didn't release Drew, his contract ran out and we opted not to renew it," as though this had zero to do with Ronda's accusations.  Tone-deaf as fucking always.  WWE and Hunter both privately apologized to Fightful and PWInsider after publicly slamming them.  Didn't some guy now in WWE once say "The apology better be as loud as the disrespect?"  I guess Levesque doesn't agree with that sentiment.  Fuck that guy.

WWE WrestleMania XL Review: Cody Finishes The Story

WWE WrestleMania XL (yay for the return of enumerations) is in the books and was overall a pretty unequivocal success.  In many ways it felt like the usual bloated WWE production but they also included indications that the company is actually evolving.  The biggest story coming out of it was of course The Story, Cody Rhodes' seemingly neverending quest for the title.  And while I still feel they should've pulled the trigger on his win last year, Cody was presented as a massive star poised to lead WWE into this new era.  

Amazingly Night 2 was the better night, for the first time since WWE expanded the show.  Night 1 was a solid piece of work, with a pair of ****+ matches and a main event that, while it went about twice as long as it should have, featured memorable moments and storytelling.  Both nights could've been trimmed down time-wise but the time management wasn't as bad as it had been under Vince at least.  Night 2 especially felt pretty concise and I was pleasantly surprised there was only a 25-minute gap between the end of the semi-main and the opening bell of the main event.  That's still way too much time but we're moving in the right direction at least.  

Night 1 kicked off with Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch, which was a very back-and-forth bout and got a lot of time to breathe.  This was action-packed and the two were presented as very evenly matched.  Becky worked over Ripley's arm to weaken her for the armbar submission, but Ripley's power was on full display.  They had a memorable spot where Ripley had Becky up for an electric chair but Becky held on and pulled them both over the ropes.  Ripley landed on her feet though and dropped Becky to the floor.  They traded signature moves for nearfalls and ended up fighting on the turnbuckles, where Becky went for a Manhandle Slam but Ripley countered into a Riptide into the buckle, and then hit one in the ring for the win.  Very good opener.  ****

WWE Payback 2023: A Third of It was Good

Busy weekend for wrasslin', got two PPVs to cover.  One was an absolutely spectacular show, the other was WWE Payback.

Yeah so, Payback looked on paper to be a solidly B-tier PPV, and that's exactly what we got.  Aside from a couple standout matches (both of which were overbooked), this show was barely free TV material.  A pair of very promising title matches both turned out very flat, overlong and disappointing, and the live crowd responded as such.  But hey, that's ok because "ratings," right?

The show started out on a high (one it never reached again), with an unexpectedly pretty great steel cage match between Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus.  This went twenty minutes and both women worked really hard.  Early in the match Becky rammed Trish's head into the cage repeatedly, creating an ugly welt in the middle of her forehead.  But blading is too barbaric, right?  Anyway this ranged all over the ring and the steel, and there were a few scary moments when Trish would attempt to climb over the top only for Becky to stop her, and Trish's legs got caught in the truss atop the cage.  They did the crazy Hogan-Bossman superplex off the top of the cage spot, which looked brutal.  Late in the match Zoey Starks ran in while the door was open, and they made it look like her interference would cost Becky the match (run-ins in cage matches are way too common considering the whole point of a steel cage is to keep people out), but Becky overcame the odds and finished Trish with a Manhandle Slam off the top rope.  Post-match Trish berated and slapped Zoey, who then laid Trish out with her finisher.  Really good match and the best thing on the show.  ****

WWE WrestleMania 39 Review: Cody Rhodes = Lex Luger

Welp, WWE did it again.  And by that I mean two things.  The first "it" is, they presented one of the best WrestleMania shows of all time on Saturday, a lean seven-match lineup capped off by two stellar title bouts.  The second "it" is, they snatched a stupid and unnecessary defeat from the jaws of total victory by porking the ending of the Sunday night show.  And then at the post-show press conference they tried to rationalize it with a bunch of word salad.

It's really a shame this company can't be counted on to just deliver a layup, like ever.  They were handed an all-time great main event story that by all rights should've culminated in a triumphant title win for the returning hero.  Ya know, like they did in 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2014, and 2019?  There's a reason this story gets told a lot - it works.  Basically every single time.  Wrestling has always been about telling logical and usually predictable stories that build to a satisfying payoff.  Know what doesn't work?  Having the hero come up short and look like a cuckhold on the biggest stage of them all.  Who wants to cheer for a guy who can't deliver in the clutch?  Cody Rhodes had a chance to become the next John Cena and instead he left SoFi Stadium looking like the next Lex Luger.  

Triple H proceeded to twist himself into logic pretzels at the media scrum, saying stuff like "This is just a chapter, there's more to the story."  Where?  What more?  WrestleMania is never supposed to be "just a chapter," WrestleMania is supposed to be the climax.  Even if Cody gets another shot, which I'm sure he will, he's already failed once.  The luster's already gone.  Winning the title at SummerSlam or some other secondary PPV doesn't have the same impact as winning it at WrestleMania.  I think Hunter of all people knows this.  Hey, remember that time in 2002 when a top babyface returned from an injury seven months earlier, won the Royal Rumble, and beat the Undisputed Champion at WrestleMania to complete his hero's journey?  Yeah, his name was Triple H.  "RAW the next night continues the story."  You don't expect us to believe you consider having Cody show up on RAW cutting a tearful, mopey "I failed" promo more compelling than his showing up with the belts on his shoulders, giving an impassioned victory speech before a new challenger emerges.  I refuse to believe you believe that.  I also refuse to believe you had a compelling "next chapter" already in the works going into this weekend.  This is just another case of them punting the ball until they come up with something else.  WWE had a golden opportunity to have a new made man, and they once again ignored it, in the most unimaginative way possible.

WWE WrestleMania 39 Preview & Predictions

It's that time again, folks.  It's the biggest wrestling show of the whole year, one that's been so watered down in recent years I've had a very tough time getting much excitement out of it.  But this year is different.

Yes, this weekend is the 39th edition of WrestleMania, the PPV WWE's entire calendar year used to build to.  And for the first time in a loooong time the build for this show and its on-paper lineup feel like something special.  I still haven't been watching the weekly programming (there are only so many hours in a day), but I've been keeping up with how most of these matches were put together, and it's been refreshing to see things done in a simple, logical, straightforward manner where the result in most cases will be a good in-ring payoff.  The main event is the culmination of a year-long journey for the WWE Title challenger.  Both women's title matches involve a decorated veteran facing a younger upstart, though in one case the veteran is the champ and in the other she's the challenger.  We have a rare celebrity match that could actually steal the show.  We have a massive Tag Team Title match pitting the dominant, long-reigning champs against two of the company's hottest babyfaces.  We have a Hell in a Cell match that was built up in the traditional fashion instead of just shoehorned in to fit a gimmick PPV.  We have a probable stinker between a finish-spammer and an immobile giant - hey, they can't all be good, it is still WWE after all...

But the point is, this is the most promising lineup for a WrestleMania show in I dunno how long, and it'll be the biggest test of Triple H's still-young tenure as head of main roster Creative.  If he knocks this one out of the park (and financially that's already been the case), regardless who buys WWE, there's little business reason for Vince to try and take back the reins.  But we'll see.  As someone who's been a jaded-at-best WWE fan for most of the last twenty years it feels good to actually care about WrestleMania again.

Let's look at the lineup....

US Championship: Austin Theory vs. John Cena

This old vs. young dream match of sorts is slotted to open Night 1.  Theory has long been touted as having the potential to be the next John Cena, and while I personally don't see it, let's not forget how not-promising Cena was at that age.  Anyway, this should be entertaining, as Theory does have natural charisma and Cena at this point is fun to watch at worst.  Generally speaking it doesn't make sense for the old guy to beat the current guy for whom you have high hopes, and I think Hunter would tend to agree.  Theory should retain unless the plan is for Cena to stick around for a month or more, which I don't think it is.

Pick: Theory retains

Becky Lynch, Lita & Trish Stratus vs. Damage CTRL

Another match featuring stars of old, there's oodles of in-ring ability and charisma in this one.  Unlike the previous bout though, there's no harm here in having the veteran team win, especially since Becky will likely be the one scoring the pinfall.  Should be a short but fun bout.

Pick: Team Becky

WWE Extreme Rules 2022 Preview & Predictions

This Saturday night, WWE once again goes EXTREME!  Or at least as extreme as they can within the parameters of TV-PG viewing.  Generally speaking I consider this one of WWE's gimmick PPVs that should probably be done away with, alongside Hell in a Cell and Elimination Chamber.  Bloodless "extreme" matches up and down the card are kind of a contradiction.

Anyway, this is another six-match lineup so the show will likely be another fairly lean one in the three-hour neighborhood.  Man, if this company would just can all the stupid video packages their PPV events would be a breeze to sit through.  No Roman on this show, gotta save him for Blood Money-- er, Crown Jewel.  But this lineup looks pretty good.  Let's take a dive....

Good Old Fashioned Donnybrook: The Brawling Brutes vs. Imperium

Sheamus and Gunther absolutely stole the show back in Cardiff (some would say they even stole the weekend), so this should be a fun six-man.  What this gimmick means I'm sure I dunno, I guess probably just Tornado Tag rules and no disqualification?  Sheamus and Gunther have an Intercontinental Title rematch the night before, which seems kinda backwards.  I'm guessing Sheamus wins the rematch?  If that's the case I expect Imperium to win here, 50-50 booking and all that.  

Pick: Imperium

Strap Match: Drew McIntyre vs. Karrion Kross

Guys, I've said this before, but I really don't see what the big deal is with Karrion Kross.  To me he reeks of "generic sorta-big dude" and there's nothing at all special about him.  When he got the big NXT push a couple years ago I didn't see it, when he got called up and was promptly and absolutely sabotaged I said "Eh, no big loss anyway."  Maybe someone can help me understand it.  That said, this should be fine, as Drew is a helluva worker.  Sadly Drew is also probably gonna take a loss here.  Remember when Drew was booked as an unstoppable monster babyface?  Guy loses all the time on PPV now.  Incidentally I'm not big on strap matches when they do the four corners rule.

Pick: Kross

WWE Clash at the Castle Review: That Ending Stunk

AEW wasn't the only wrestling company to hold a major show over Labor Day weekend, as WWE traveled to Cardiff, Wales for Clash at the Castle.  How very 1980s Vince of them, horning in on the other company's established big weekend.  Tony Khan's gonna need to schedule a Battle of the Belts on TBS opposite 'Mania.

Anyway, Clash was the first main roster PPV one could say was fully produced under the Triple H regime, as SummerSlam was pretty much already set by the time Hunter took over the creative reins.  SummerSlam still felt like a typical Vince PPV, but Clash felt to me like the ship beginning to steer in the right direction.  Two changes I noticed were the WAAAAAY more sparsely used snap-zooms for big bumps, and the near-absence of rapid-fire cuts during striking exchanges.  Thank Christ, I can finally watch a WWE show again without having a seizure.  True to WWE form though, there were some frankly baffling booking decisions that kept this show from truly reaching greatness.  

Things kicked off with a fairly energetic six-woman tag, as Bayley's new stable Damage Control faced RAW Women's Champ Bianca Belair, Asuka and Alexa Bliss.  Wait, Asuka, Bianca Belair and Alexa?  Their team name should be ABBA, am I wrong?  This proved to be a pretty strong opener, though it perhaps went a bit longer than was ideal.  At nineteen minutes I felt like the crowd wasn't as hot as they could've been.  There was plenty of back-and-forth action though, and everyone got a good amount of time.  The finish came when Bayley tied Bianca to the turnbuckles with her own braid, allowing each of the heels to hit their finishes.  Iyo Sky finished Bianca with a moonsault and Bayley covered her for the win, thus positioning Bayley as the new top contender.  Not too shabby at all.  ***1/2

WWE Hell in a Cell 2022 Preview & Predictions

It's June and for WWE that means a half-assed attempt at a Hell in a Cell PPV!

Seriously, they've announced six matches for this show, all of them from the RAW side of things.  Refreshingly though, only one is a HIAC match and it's the blowoff to a two-month feud.  Also on the bright side, Finn Balor and Mustafa Ali actually get to be on a PPV.  Throw in Nakamura and Ricochet and you'd have something.  To be fair, this lineup is pretty solid.  Once again it's about two-thirds of a good show on paper.  Let's take a look....

Kevin Owens vs. Ezekiel

What a fucking pointless feud this is.  Imagine taking a guy who main evented Night 1 of WrestleMania against a returning megastar like Steve Austin, and following that up by feuding him with Elias pretending to be Elias's brother.  Jesus H. Christ.  And stupidly, Owens likely has to job to this toolbag.  Elias was never very good in the ring so I don't see this match being much at all.  It's a shame, because they could book the match to last exactly 25 minutes and 17 seconds.  Ya know, Ezekiel 25:17?  Anyone?

Pick: Ezekiel

Bobby Lashley vs. Omos & MVP

I cannot believe this feud has gotten three goddamn PPV matches.  Stop trying to make fetch happen with Omos.  Just stop.  Mercifully this should be the end of the feud and Lashley should win, but Jesus, what a nothing feud.

Pick: Lashley

WWE Royal Rumble 2022 Review: Junk Food for the Brain

Ah WWE circa 2022, a company without highs or lows, where every PPV (ahem, premium live event, a phrase no real human being will ever use in actual conversation) is steeped in mediocrity and there's no reason to get invested in anything because the company will just screw it up anyway.

The 2022 Royal Rumble fits the above description to a tee.  A bunch of just-okay matches, in one ear, out the other, the details of which will all be forgotten by WrestleMania.  No one gets over except the one or two established stars the company wants to push, thus both Rumbles felt like everyone involved was just killing time.  Was it a reasonably entertaining way to spend four hours?  Sure.  Was anything here even close to being a great match or having any historical significance?  Nope.  Even the first-time WWE Title match with a big-fight feel was more of the same ol' shit with repetitious action and a bad finish.  WWE could fuck up a can of Pringles.

Speaking of bad finishes, the show started with Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, in a very well-worked Universal Title bout where Seth, dressed in his old Shield gear and entering through the crowd to the group's classic theme, resided fully in Roman's head.  No matter how badly Roman beat him down, Seth kept smiling and asking for a fist bump.  Roman couldn't stay on his game and Seth dominated much of the bout.  They did the old spot from 2016 where Roman went for a spear and Seth countered into a Pedigree for a near fall.  This was a very good match.  And then the finish happened.  Roman locked in a guillotine choke, Seth struggled to get to the ropes but fell short and went limp.  The referee lifted Seth's arm for one, two, and on the third drop, Seth's hand fell on the bottom rope.  Yes, the referee inadvertently put Seth's hand on the rope, and then demanded Roman break the hold.  Ummm, what?  How can that be a rope break if the referee is the one who put his hand there?  Roman, the heel, rightly refused to break the choke and was disqualified.  Oh super.  So Seth got legitimatelybeaten and Roman did something stupid to cost himself a sure victory.  Who was this designed to get over?  This was yet another very good WWE match ruined by stupid WWE booking.  And sadly it was the best thing on the show.  ***1/2

WWE Survivor Series 2021: It Was Fine

Well that was a show.  A pretty good show.  Certainly a pretty good show by 2021 WWE's standards.  Of course it was not without moments that make rational viewers go "Huh???"  Jesus there's a lot wrong with this product right now.  But Survivor Series 2021 was a perfectly decent watch overall.

Of note before I get into this, it's a mistake to watch an AEW PPV one weekend and then a WWE PPV the next.  Wrestling quality aside, WWE's live crowds are lifeless compared to AEW's.  I don't care what side of the wrestling fence you're on, there's simply no getting around this fact.  AEW fans are so much more excited to be there than WWE's, and it's not even close.  Just about every match at Full Gear got enormous crowd reactions throughout, while almost nothing on this show made these fans give a tupenny fuck.  Everything at Survivor Series lost up to a full star off its rating, just because the crowd was dead.  I've said it before, but how does Vince not think this is a red-alert-level problem?  If your audience doesn't react to anything, you're clearly not engaging them.  If you're not engaging them, they aren't going to watch your show.

Oh also?  Pat McAfee is annoying as shit.  Guy doesn't shut up and half the time says things that make no sense.  It's good that unlike every other WWE announcer he has a personality, but someone's gotta reign him in a little.  

I was pretty pissed to see Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damien Priest get bumped to the pre-show, particularly considering just how much time was wasted on video packages, commercials, entrances, etc.  There is no excuse whatsoever for a match of any importance being relegated to the Kickoff while the company pisses away airtime on a video package for Drew McIntyre or Bobby Lashley.  What the fuck were those all about?  Yeah, we know who both those guys are, why are you showing us documentary-style videos with no objective?  Or how about Vince McMahon and the stupid gold egg?  Are we seriously building an entire episode of RAW around "Rich Old Guy's Expensive Trinket Missing?"  Imagine thinking your wrestling audience wants to see your obscenely wealthy 76-year-old ass whining about how someone stole your new toy.  Anyway, Nak vs. Priest was pretty good while it lasted, with lots of nearfalls and counterwrestling.  Until Priest let go of a submission hold because Nakamura's guitar player friend distracted him with his guitar playing.  What the actual fuck is with this gimmick?  Welcome to WWE, where a legit badass with MMA experience gets turned into a comedy character.  Priest went after Rick Boogs, took his guitar away, broke it over his knee, and bludgeoned both Boogs and Nakamura with it, drawing a disqualification.  So Damien Priest, who had been undefeated for months since debuting on RAW, loses by DQ on a Kickoff show.  Makes sense....  Like I said, this was good until the finish.  **1/4

The proper PPV opener easily stole the show, as Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair had a very intense, aggressive fight.  To WWE's credit they resisted the temptation to make it look like a shoot or have some wacky Montreal-esque ending.  Becky and Charlotte worked stiffly and urgently, using their real-life tension to fuel the bout.  There were a ton of nearfalls, both women used each other's finishers (Becky didn't quite lock in the Figure Four properly and had to kinda turn it into a heel hook), and it built to Flair attempting to steal a win with a rope-assisted roll-up, only for Lynch to reverse it and use the ropes more surreptitiously so the ref didn't see it.  Lynch got the pin and gloated over her archenemy.  This was a very good match with a few sloppy moments, like Charlotte's top rope moonsault that more or less missed Becky.  Still this was unquestionably the best thing on the show.  ****

WWE SummerSlam 2021: Becky Returns and Then Pisses People Off

Well, as expected WWE's SummerSlam 2021 was yet another mixed bag of a show.  A few of the matches were very good, a few of the matches were utterly pointless, and God forbid we have a WWE PPV without a moment that flat-out pisses people off.  SummerSlam had all of these things.  Vince McMahon once again proved he could fuck up a bag of Doritos.

The PPV kicked off with the RAW Tag Championship, as AJ Styles and Omos defended against RKBro in a short but energetic bout that brought to mind old school PPVs where the opening match was just an easily digestible warmup.  AJ did almost all the work for his team and meshed well with both opponents, there were some fun spots later in the match as Matt Riddle took an Omos apron slam and an AJ moonsault DDT on the floor, perfectly executed.  It boiled down to AJ and Orton, who missed his first RKO attempt but scored on the second, pinning AJ to win the straps.  The crowd loved this title change and Riddle was ecstatic, and even Orton looked happy.  Decent little opener.  ***

Immediately the streak of good matches ended as Alexa Bliss faced Eva Marie in a useless regular match that didn't belong anywhere near a PPV.  There was no supernatural bullshit, which was good, but we were subjected to an Eva Marie match, which was bad.  Bliss hit Twisted Bliss off the top, followed by a DDT for the win.  I can guarantee this match did not garner a single ticket purchase or Peacock subscription.  Why was this on this show?  *

WWE SummerSlam 2019 Preview & Predictions

I hope you've enjoyed our look back at SummerSlam's 30+ year history, because now it's time to predict this year's edition.  And it looks......kinda boring.  

Thanks to Vince McMahon's gnat-like attention span, this year's lineup comes off as one of the most disorganized in recent memory, if not ever.  There are some good on-paper matchups, but most of the rumored bouts I was excited for either got tossed off on free television the past two weeks, or in the case of Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan, Vince couldn't figure out how to get from Point A to B to C, in time for the third-biggest show of the year.  I'd like to repeat that.  Vince McMahon, who's been doing this job since 1983, couldn't move a feud between two of the company's biggest stars along fast enough to get the resulting match on his third-biggest PPV.  For one thing, this "career-altering announcement" Daniel Bryan teased three weeks ago simply got thrown out.  No payoff at all.  Because apparently no one watches these stupid shows week to week.  Attention religious WWE viewers: Vince McMahon thinks you're stupid.  Always has.  So Vince decided to nix that whole angle and instead positioned Bryan as the guy who's been mysteriously attacking Roman backstage, but waited so long that he only had 12 days to put the match together in time.  Still this could've happened, had he written the reveal to be on this week's RAW.  But no, he instead saved the Erick Rowan reveal for the last five minutes of the go-home Smackdown, so Bryan still hasn't even been established as the guy behind it all.  Fuck's sake.

Aside from Roman-Bryan, we're also not getting Nakamura-Ali (they booked Ali to beat Nak in a non-title match and then had him lose to someone else a week later, so the I-C Champ now has no feud), Aleister Black vs. Sami Zayn (given away for free), the RAW Tag Title match (Anderson & Gallows won it on RAW), the Women's Tag Title match (gave it away on RAW and had the wrong fucking team win - Asuka and Kairi need to get out of WWE, pronto).

But don't worry, this lineup is chock full of part-timers and old-timers.  Brock, Orton, Shane, Trish, and for fuck's sake, Goldberg, the guy whose match with the Undertaker is sure to win Worst Match of the Year honors.  No wonder young people don't watch this shit anymore, the two big title matches involve OVW Class of 2002 stars, Shane and Goldberg are 50, and Trish, god love her, hasn't been relevant since the Dubya administration.  You couldn't find room for Reigns, Bryan, Nakamura, Joe, Rey, Andrade, Black or Zayn on a SummerSlam card??  This is like the SummerSlams from 10-12 years ago where they just left off half the big stars for no reason.

Fuck it, let's get this over with....

Cruiserweight Championship: Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan

Oh good, they found room on the show for 205 Live.  Look, I'm not pickin' on the cruiserweights, they're all very talented and their matches are basically always good.  But 205's viewership is simply not strong enough to justify this title getting represented on every PPV (or pre-show) when the Intercontinental and every set of Tag belts can't even make it on.  Seriously, why did they bother creating a Women's Tag Title and then do absolutely nothing with it?  Fuck.  Anyway, this'll be fine and will probably happen on the pre-show.  Gulak just won the belt last month, so he'll keep it.

Pick: Drew Gulak

WWE WrestleMania Backlash: Zombies. Really? REALLY?!

WWE WrestleMania Backlash.  Pretty good show.  Whole lotta good wrestling on this show.  Strong work from everyone involved.  Oh, and zombies.  Wait, what?  Yeah.  Fucking zombies dude.....

Ya know that saying in wrestling that the audience really only remembers the ending of a show?  Apparently that's not true.  Apparently equally as compelling a stick in an audience member's craw is something unfathomably stupid that happens in the middle of a show, overshadowing all the good stuff that happened before and after.  Because for me the first thing I'll remember about WrestleMania Backlash for years to come is the fact that WWE actually put on a lumberjack match, where the lumberjacks surrounding the ring were goddamn fucking zombies.  Zombies that somehow obeyed the rules of a lumberjack match and thus didn't run into the ring during the bout's seven official minutes.  Zombies that went after the announcers, forcing them to "relocate to a secure location" to call the rest of the match.  Zombies that ate The Miz and John Morrison alive at the end.  Morrison miraculously survived the attack, but since The Miz is legit injured, WWE is going to let itself off the hook in explaining why he isn't a pink pile of goo now, and by the time he returns in 3-4 months they'll pretend this fiasco never took place.  Fuck this company.  Even removing the zombies from the Miz-Damian Priest match, it wasn't any good.  Imagine seriously getting behind a new guy finally and having this be his coming out match.  A match where zombies attacked and murdered his opponent after the closing bell.  I don't wanna hear another peep out of the AEW critics ever again, no matter how many botched explosions or soft-looking stunts they show on their programming.  At least AEW doesn't have its wrestlers get EATEN A-FUCKING-LIVE.  This match was embarrassingly terrible and I feel bad for everyone who had to pretend it was real.  DUD

 

Ok that bullshit is out of the way, now we can talk about the rest of the show, which was very good.  The opening triple threat between Rhea Ripley, Asuka and Charlotte Flair was a fast-paced, energetic match with almost non-stop movement.  It won't rank high in the pure storytelling category, but these three worked very hard and the pace just kept picking up throughout the bout.  The last few minutes in particular were quite invigorating, as each woman took turns hitting each other with big moves and nearfalls.  Finally Charlotte blocked an Asuka charge with a big boot from the apron, but was knocked to the floor as Rhea hit Asuka with Riptide to retain the belt.  I assume we'll now get Rhea vs. Charlotte at Hell in a Cell (now in June for some reason), and hopefully that means Rhea gets to avenge her nonsensical WrestleMania 36 loss.  This was a very fine opener.  ***3/4