So I just came in from my vacation in Pennsylvania. Lots of spiders there. Lots of them. Anyways, I leave for one week and a half, Undertaker’s supposedly a heel and Hogan’s supposedly a racist? I need to stay home more often. With that said, I was able to watch through the entire Battleground show online. Let’s just get right into it, shall we?
Randy Orton def. Sheamus
Sheamus uses a chair to disqualify himself one week against Randy Orton. Orton follows suit the next week. Sheamus costs Orton a match against Kane, and that’s how we get this match. There’s your booking team for 2015. As for this match, I suppose it was inoffensive, but it was really the same dull stuff I’ve been seeing on TV. Orton especially just looks visibly out of it and doesn’t seem motivated to do more. We all know when Randy Orton is energetic, he can make for some entertaining matches. I never thought Sheamus and Orton had any great chemistry to begin with, and Orton’s hometown crowd saved it to an extent, but it’s nothing I would bother watching again. But to continue this insipid feud, Sheamus attacked Orton in his match against Kevin Owens. There needs to be some incentive with the MITB briefcase involved to save this. ***
Darren Young (C) and Titus O’neil (C) def. Big E and Kofi Kingston – WWE Tag Team Championship
I was willing to forgive WWE if they had The New Day regain the titles on RAW, but since they didn’t, they are getting no mercy from me. Keeping the titles on the Prime Time Players accomplishes nothing, but WWE dug their own graves by taking the titles off of them inexplicably in the first place. The New Day is far more entertaining and charismatic than the Prime Time Players. It’s baffling how WWE thinks PTP holding the titles for an extended period is a good idea. Match was once again your basic RAW formula with nothing particularly interesting until the finishing sequence. Even that was lacking a bit. **1/4
Charlotte def. Brie Bella and Sasha Banks – Triple Threat
For once my bladder held up through a Divas match, and I’m fortunate that I didn’t go. While this match wasn’t the supernova match some may have ben expecting, this certainly was a changing of the guard as this was probably your best Divas match from WWE in, well, this year. You had tons of great action, and you can tell that the NXT Divas are really going to change the complexity of the matches going forward. Much more technical moves, more precision, and more importantly, more time to tell their story, and did they ever. I really hope these Divas find the time to gel in the future, because this was the start of something special if you ask me. **3/4
John Cena def (Sub). Kevin Owens – United States Championship
I can probably imagine that not a lot of people were a fan of the tap out finish, and I am one of them. First, however, let’s talk about the match. It was very good as usual, but I can’t call it as great as their previous two bouts. Their match at Elimination Chamber was great because we didn’t know what they were capable of in the ring together at the same time. At Money In The Bank, they were able to do the same things with their previous match but added some innovation in between and made the match even better. This was sort of the same recycling of moves, but it’s like they kind of ran out of ideas to make the match different, so they just ran with it. The end result was far from bad, but just not as great as what they are capable of. At least in my eyes. As for Cena winning by submission cleanly, this can only tell me it’s making him look strong (Crazy, I know.) for his next feud, and my suspicions were confirmed with a clean submission victory this past monday on RAW against Seth Rollins. Cena hasn’t held the WWE Title for a year, and that’s a very good thing, but I have this uneasy feeling in my stomach that they are going to put the title back on him. It’s like they are running out of opponents with Seth and it stops at Cena. Brace yourselves. As for Kevin Owens, reports from WWE’s perceptions of him is that he isn’t on the level of John Cena or a Randy Orton (really?). If that’s the case, it looks like he will be in mid card purgatory. Oh boy. Despite that, as for this match, a very good bout to end the trilogy. ****
Bray Wyatt def. Roman Reigns
Dave Meltzer rated this match ***3/4. I don’t agree. The match started off almost unbearably slow to begin with, which was my fear going into this match because Reigns is a powerhouse and Bray isn’t exactly Road Runner. As the match progressed it got more and more brutal and didn’t get good until the ending sequence, which saw the return of The Wyatt Family’s prodigal sweaty tanktop wearing psychopath Luke Harper interfere on Bray’s behalf. I liked the action down the line, but I thought the action leading up to the finishing sequence was too methodical. I’m glad Bray went over here though. He’s been wandering around aimlessly since his feud with The Undertaker and pinning who appears to be WWE’s next Golden Boy will carry huge for him. The loss really won’t affect Roman in the long run, but I can’t help but feel that WWE can’t make up its mind on Roman as they continue to push him further and further from the WWE title. Not that it’s a bad thing. ***1/4
Seth Rollins (C) vs. Brock Lesnar – WWE World Heavyeight Championship (No Contest)
Well that sucked. I don’t think this should even deserve a rating as it was basically one huge angle as opposed to an actual match. It was basically Lesnar suplexing Rollins into oblivion before the Undertaker run-in and Rollins and the referee magically vanishing. This was a huge disappointment for me. Rollins and Lesnar could have easily had the match of the year had they gotten the time they needed to what they needed to do. If the triple threat at the Royal Rumble was any indication, they are capable of doing special things in the ring together. However, Rollins could not have looked any more like a weakling here. He got maybe a combined one and a half minutes of offense, and even that proved to be ineffective. Seth Rollins is a heel and heels generally do not win clean. I can sympathize with that. However, never before have I seen a champion look so helpless on his own. The impression WWE gave us was that the match would have been over in about 10 minutes had Undertaker not shown up. Yes, Lesnar dominated Cena last year at Summerslam, but Cena has proven he can beat Lesnar. WWE could have done the run-in while still making the match a bit longer. If CM Punk can get over 15-20 minutes in the ring with Lesnar, Rollins can too. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly excited we are getting another Undertaker/Lesnar feud, because this really shows Undertaker is just salty about losing. Oh well. As for Rollins, WWE needs to inject some testosterone into him, because right now, as it stands, anyone on the roster can beat him. **
Conclusion:
Well this show was basically a big pre-lude to Summerslam, and if I’m rating this show on that basis, I’d say it was an average show. There wasn’t enough bad on the show to make me give it a thumbs down, but there wasn’t enough good on the show to make you regret it if you missed it live. Shockingly, Rollins/Lesnar ended up being the worst portion of the show, so I suppose I’m showing some restraint here. I’d say try to get your hands on the Cena/Owens match and the Undertaker run-in, but other than that, you’re not missing much. Until next time.
