They were the exact words uttered from the mouth of my 50 year old father as Battleground went off the air. The thing about Battleground last night, it was easily missable. You could have missed last nights PPV, tuned into Raw, and you could see that the PPV was pretty uneventful.
However, I will give praise where it is due, The Uso’s and The Wyatts (Rowan and Harper) put on the match of the night to start the show. I was really into this match, they gave false finish after false finish, and it sounded like the crowd wanted The Wyatts to win. I also wanted them to win, because let’s face it, they are a tag team hungry for success and the fans respect all the work they have put in. They deserve the tag team titles at this point. I wasn’t too upset that the Uso’s won, only the way they did it, with that very awkward looking double splash from the same turnbuckle. The Uso’s need the titles to remain relevant, and they are constantly improving, however I feel the audience is looking for a change already.
I also want to note, the Tag Team Championship bout was the longest match of the night. It was even longer than the main event! What does that tell you?
The first match was probably the main reason to watch the PPV, and if there was any other match to tune in for, it was the WWE Divas Championship match between AJ Lee and Paige. I have no idea who is meant to be the babyface and the heel in this feud, but I don’t really care, because these two divas have made the title relevant again. It has been a long time since we had such intrigue for a feud between two divas who have many years ahead of them. AJ Lee and Paige are young, we could see these two battle over the Divas Championship for many years to come. It needs to continue, because no one else is ready.
Aside from the Dean Ambrose “forfeit”, this was the shortest match of the night, and the girls made it work.
Following this match some fans would become upset, and consider controversy, as Lana continued to plug Mother Russia. She mentioned the fact that something was going down (some may think this was a reference to the latest plane catastrophe, but it was probably in reference to the tensions between Ukraine and Russia) and once again, plugging Vladimir Putin on the titantron. This garnered more heat than usual, and it worked superbly, because Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter were major babyfaces throughout the match. I honestly cannot remember the last time Swagger had a reaction like that, and it can be all credited to the amazing anti-American stance shown by Lana and Rusev.
It ended in a count-out, which is fair enough. Rusev was in real trouble for the first time, and winning via count-out helps the heel heat for sure. The PPV was above average for me at this point, it all went downhill from here.
Is Seth Rollins injured? I don’t understand why they had Ambrose attack Rollins when they were scheduled to fight anyway, only to have Ambrose ejected from the building .. only for Ambrose to find his way back into the building to attack Rollins. Even Triple H had to come down to help all the referees and security to stop Ambrose and Rollins fighting. It makes no sense, Ambrose and Rollins ain’t THAT big and strong that they can break free from all those refs/security guards. I didn’t understand this whatsoever, this is something you would put on the Raw before the PPV, not during the PPV itself. Fans paid to see this match, and they didn’t get it..
If this match had taken place, the PPV would have continued its “above average” rating, but I was left bitterly disappointed . Even the attack on Rollins outside the arena (which was very obvious as soon as Rollins told the security guards to leave) didn’t quench my thirst for this match. Maybe there was some logical reasoning behind it, but from where I’m sitting, it wasn’t worth the time on the PPV.
Chris Jericho vs Bray Wyatt was a dream match I had looked forward to since the moment The Wyatt Family ambushed Y2J on his return. Sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectation. They worked the match … but it was missing a lot of passion from both sides. You could watch this match, and believe these two were not feuding, that’s how little passion there was. Where’s the hatred? I expected Jericho to be so pumped up wanting revenge, only for Bray Wyatt to stop him from doing so.
I don’t understand the result either. Bray Wyatt has constantly lost one-on-one matches on PPV in recent times, and there was only one way forward for this feud, and it was for Bray Wyatt to defeat Chris Jericho and make him feel small. Jericho would have been defeated, leaving Y2J to doubt his own return to the ring, and whether he could ever defeat Bray Wyatt. This would have set up the feud going forward, with Y2J coming over as anxious and frustrated, while Bray Wyatt continuing to play mind games and make him feel even worse. It would have ended with Y2J beating Wyatt in a stipulation match (cage, last man standing etc.) where he would finally break the mind games, and we would see fear in the eyes of Bray Wyatt as he finally loses to the real Y2J.
It’s a simple concept, but one I think would have worked a lot better than Chris Jericho winning in their first match. Where does it go from here? Bray Wyatt will continue to perform his creepy promos, while Y2J laughs at him and says “I already beat you”. There is no continuation there. In a feud such as this, Bray Wyatt had to be put over in a strong fashion to give Y2J something to fight against. Without Harper and Rowan, WWE has made Wyatt out to be a weakling who hides behind his minions. When you have a heel who can only ever win with supreme intervention, you tend to not take notice of them as much, because you always know they will either win with interference, or lose because there is no chance of interference
Why couldn’t Bray Wyatt beat Y2J clean on his own? What would have been so wrong about that?
Moving on, I want to say that standouts in the Battle Royal included Cesaro, Sheamus, Ziggler, Kingston, and even Bo Dallas. They had a great back and forth between Cesaro and Kingston at one point. It wasn’t the greatest battle royal ever, but my intrigue was peaked as Sheamus and Ziggler remained as the final two. I thought .. oh ok, they will unify the titles, or they will give Ziggler a much needed boost. Either of those outcomes would have meant something going forward, but it didn’t.
I really don’t know who The Miz has been sucking up to in the back to deserve any of the championships he has won, but whoever it is, he is doing an excellent job at playing those politics. Sorry Miz fans, I have no feelings for The Miz. Whether he is a babyface, whether he is a full blown heel, I have zero reaction for him. He is supremely overrated, supremely fake, and supremely boring. He is so boring that I will turn my head away from any WWE program he is wrestling on, because he leaves no mark on me whatsoever.
They tried their utmost hardest to get The Miz over with heel heat by having him jump Ziggler from behind to win the battle royal, but it didn’t make me want to boo The Miz. It made me want to slap Vince McMahon for plugging this man to us over and over and over. I will not be looking forward to any Intercontinental title matches going forward, at least until Bad News Barrett comes back. My father concurred with me, despite the IC title changing hands, it didn’t feel like the title changed hands because it went to someone we don’t care about in the slightest. In our eyes, Bad News Barrett is still the Intercontinental Champion.
The night ended with the most predictable main event in the history of main events. When I saw the fatal four-way, my reaction was .. “Cena Wins lol”. There was never any doubt in my mind that anyone else would win this match. Orton and Kane were going to trip over each other, Reigns would perform really well, but ultimately, in typical John Cena fashion, he finds a cheesy way to overcome the odds. Just as I was getting into the main event, Cena gave Orton the AA onto Kane, pinned Kane, and that was the end of that.
Lame, boring, predictable. I looked on the WWE Facebook page and they asked whether the fans enjoyed the show. Over twice as many fans voted thumbs down to thumbs up. I am not surprised, once again, Battleground was a throwaway PPV which was easily missable. It had its highlights, but it was nothing we hadn’t seen before on Raw or Smackdown. The first three matches of the show stopped the PPV from completely tanking into “terrible” status.
