Sooo, I wasn’t gonna wake up at 6 in the morning to watch a four-hour show, and plus I had school. But now, that’s done with for now. Let’s get down under.
The New Day (C) def. Cesaro and Sheamus – Smackdown Tag Team Championships
This match was about everything I thought it would be. It wasn’t over the top, but it wasn’t just filler either. It was a very good, competitive, back and forth affair between two of the best tag teams WWE has to offer. I was interested in the dynamic of Kofi and Xavier without Big E in there to combat the strength of Sheamus and Cesar. Again, I knew that New Day wasn’t losing here, but the teamwork of Cesaro and Sheamus made me start to tinker with my prediction a bit. If there’s anyone who makes a great face in peril, it’s Kofi Kingston. Predictable match to start the night, but it was well worked, had a great energy to it, and made the SD Tag Titles feel important. Solid start. ***1/4
Charlotte def. Becky Lynch (C) by DQ – Smackdown Women’s Championship
Well, I suppose if there was any match that was going to end in DQ for the purpose of continuing a feud, it would be this one. And you know what? I’m not mad at it. I suspect they are going to finish this at Evolution. Getting into the actual match, it was extremely well worked if you ask me. Becky and Charlotte have a great, natural chemistry with each other dating back to their NXT days. All of the submission reversals and the and the pacing of the match was what kept me in it. I would have liked to have seen more continuity throughout the match, such as Becky targeting Charlotte’s arm or Charlotte targeting Becky’s legs just for consistency or for the finish of the match to make sense. Instead, they made it seem like Charlotte was straight up the better woman and Becky had to cheat in order to save her title. The finish makes sense, and I did suspect that there wouldn’t be any finality here. All in all, another fabulous match between these two. ***1/2
John Cena and Bobby Lashley def. Elias and Kevin Owens
I’ll be honest. I fell asleep during this match because I knew what it was going to be. But I can’t imagine I missed anything special. It was just going to be a little house level show match for Cena’ return. The formula was pretty simple. Isolate Lashley for most of the match, have Cena do as little as possible, introduce his new Move of Doom and not BS around. I just hate the fact that Cena’s age is really starting to show because it makes me feel old. I mean look at that freaking hair. He looks like Mark Wahlberg didn’t get enough sleep. And that bald spot. Goodness, gracious. Anyway, this what was it was and it indeed did what it was intended to do. **
The IIconics def. Asuka and Naomi
It’s quite clear that we are in the cool-down portion of the evening before the more important matches take place. I just want to say that I want to love the IIconics so badly. But I just don’t have any reason to. I mean, what’s so unique about them? Are they not just the Australian version of the Bella Twins? Anyways, this is what you’d expect from these two tag teams. It was kind of just there, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing since half the match featured two Australians. But again, it was just sort of present and nothing much afterward. The crowd also didn’t seem to be that into the match from what I heard and basically waited until the match was over. Don’t really have much to say here except that I don’t know how many of you follow rap, but Asuka went full 69 here. *1/2
AJ Styles (C) def. Samoa Joe – WWE Championship (No DQ, No Countout)
It’s weird. I loved this match and hated it at the same time. Let’s break it down from the top. This was a well-worked match. It’s AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. You could tie them up together to a pole and blindfold them and they could make a story out of that. So the concern isn’t whether or not this was a good match. The real question is whether or not this was the match they should have worked. I’ll simply say it like this. I loved when AJ and Joe cut the BS and just got straight into the kicking each other’s asses part. The problem is that for around 15 minutes they forgot they could do that. If you’re AJ Styles, you are looking at a man who’s been coming at your wife and kids for the past couple of months. Why are you concerned about wrestling a normal match? Why not just bust out the kendo sticks and chairs early to cut the monotony?
I’ve noticed that to be a problem in some of AJ’s matches, and it’s the fact that there is a lot of fat that doesn’t get trimmed in the match. It’s just there to occupy the time and doesn’t advance the plot or the match. It’s just a formality. Of course, the wrestling wasn’t bad, but if they cut out half of the beginning portion, it would have been just as good. I loved AJ going to a dark place and having no remorse on Joe’s knee. I did also love the consistency in that it played out in the finish. My problem is that it just took us so long to get that point, but once we did, it was awesome.
I suspected AJ would retain the title, but I’m quickly becoming concerned that Joe is becoming a guy that’s all talk and no action. He said he was going to win the Universal Title from Lesnar and he lost in an 8-minute match. He said he was going to defeat Roman Reigns at Backlash and he didn’t. He said he was going to win the WWE Title from AJ and didn’t do it despite three opportunities. How can a guy who looks, talks and acts like Joe be a guy that consistently chokes on the big stage? I’m not mad that Joe isn’t champion. I completely get why he isn’t, and I’m about as big an AJ stan as the nest guy. But it’s not like Joe lost by another fluke. He tapped out to the better man, conceding that AJ was better. I don’t know, man. It’s kind of a bittersweet pill. Overall, the match was very good when it got going, but I thought it was a bit long for my taste. ***3/4
Ronda Rousey and The Bella Twins def. The Riot Squad
Can we address the elephant in the room of how ridiculously overpowered Ronda is? She has an MMA background, so I completely get it, but was making two members of the Riot Squad tap out at the same time necessary? Doesn’t that make their entire trio look like a complete joke? I believe most of us were expecting The Bella Twins to turn on Ronda to build to some sort of match for WWE Evolution, but I guess they wanted to save it for now. This was a tag match featuring the Bella Twins, so there’s a very low ceiling attached to this match, and it was just another tag match that just existed. Thankfully, I didn’t hate it, Ronda looked good and Brie didn’t knock someone out. **
Buddy Murphy def. Cedric Alexander (C) – Cruiserweight Championship
This is exactly the kind of energy this match needed to have, and I’m happy that Cedric and Buddy had the endurance to just keep going. Both men kept a fever pitch, and this was one match that I really wish got a little bit more time, especially since Buddy got a very good home country pop. Both men have been working their asses off to make the Cruiserweight division look credible this year, and I believe they showed why in this match. While it obviously couldn’t go to another level because of the limited time it got, this still accomplished its purpose and Buddy finally got what was coming for him for a long time coming now. This absolutely balls to the wall fantastic for a 10-minute sprint, and if I knew this was what they were going to do, I wouldn’t have minded giving this 15 or even 20 minutes. Kudos to both men for the best match of the night. ****1/4
The Shield def. Braun Strowman, Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler
We all know that the focus behind this match was the teases with Dean Ambrose and where his allegiance lies, but they all did what we were expecting and he stood by them……for now anyway. I could have done without Seth Rollins being a face in peril for what felt like forever, but overall it was a well-worked match, if not, once again, long. Just because your match goes 20 minutes doesn’t mean that it will be the best of the night. Cedric and Buddy tore it down in half the amount of time.
And again, it seems ridiculous that Braun is in these situations now, especially since he was destroying multiple guys at once on his own, and now he can’t even win with the RAW Tag Team champions. I honestly think this could have been settled on RAW and didn’t need a PPV, but whatever. It was a good match, but too long for me to fully get into. ***1/4
Daniel Bryan def. The Miz – WWE Title #1 Contendership Match
Whatever. I get what they were going for here, and I thought they were going to have Miz win to take the title off AJ and build a WWE Title feud between him and Daniel after that, but for the sake of the story, I guess flash pinning Miz because you’re a far superior in-ring wrestler works as well. Maybe people might have an issue for not getting a full length, but we’re already well over three hours into this show. I could do without another 20-minute slugfest. Obviously, a five-minute match won’t get a rating, but if this leads to AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan over the WWE Championship, I’m not complaining. That awkward silence after the finish was funny, though.
Triple H (w/Shawn Michaels) def. Undertaker (w/Kane)
Ugh, it pains me that I even have to do this, but I’m not gonna hold back here. This was truly awful and one of the most depressing sights I’ve ever seen as a wrestling fan. This match was summarized by Undertaker attempting a back body drop in the crowd and ending with Taker sort of just shoving him aside. The biggest issue, aside from the permeating issue that spread throughout the night, which is a match that goes far longer than it has any right to, is them wrestling like this is still 2012. I’ll detail the bigger issue in a future article, but WWE’s biggest problem is that they cannot let go of the past, and because they can’t let go, they force themselves into these situations where they have to go to the well with old legends who cannot wrestle these long WrestleMania main event style matches until it runs dry. As long as Undertaker can walk reasonably on his own power, WWE is going to continue to use him. But as much as it pains me to admit this, Undertaker cannot do this anymore. He just can’t.
Triple H is still a reasonably good worker for someone knocking on 49, but Undertaker’s match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania last year just showed what I already know, and that’s that Undertaker is only good for periodic appearances, and if he’s wrestling, it should be nothing short of what he did to John Cena at WrestleMania. Does it hurt that Undertaker can’t wrestle matches as he did against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 25? You’re damn right. But you want to know what hurts even more? It’s seeing him go out there trying to show us that he can do this when we all know he can’t. Triple H? He’s still in a reasonable enough shape and is conditioned well to still do this for a number of years to come a couple times a year. Undertaker? Nope.
Getting into the structure of the actual match, it just made no sense. We all knew Kane and Shawn Michaels were going to get involved, with or without the last minute, conveniently added No-DQ stipulation. If you were going to interfere at the end of the match anyway, why not just interfere from the start? Why just stay there? Attacking and helping your guy out is legal. It was basically a tornado tag team match after the last 10 minutes anyway. It was just two old men past their primes hitting each other a lot, and it’s basically a mirror image of what a retirement home fight over the last bowl of oatmeal would look like.
I can respect the effort, but 27 minutes is FAR too long to give to a match between two men whose combined age clocks over 100. And now, Triple H vs. Undertaker for the last time ever is going to lead to DX teaming up….for the last time ever. No part of this was good to me, and while you’ve probably seen worse matches, and yes, while this was just a glorified house show, Triple H and Undertaker have no business wrestling for half an hour in 2018. Hell, I never liked them going for 30 minutes in their prime. *
Conclusion:
Was this show a BAD show? I wouldn’t say that. Backlash? Yeah, that was bad. Greatest Royal Rumble? Yeah, it was kind of lousy for the most part. Super Show Down? There’s definitely quality to be found here. The problem is that you’re going to have to go through four hours of content to look for it. Again, this was a house show, but since there was complications that affect week-to-week WWE storylines, we had to watch to see if there was anything that advanced any plots or future storylines. The Cruiserweight Championship match? Fun as hell. Last 10 or so minutes of AJ/Joe? Intense.
There are good matches here, but there are also very needlessly long matches on here as well as matches that just plain stunk or was boring. Can you imagine if I decided to wake up early in the morning to watch this show? I’d probably have to re-watch half of it. Austrailia probably had a good time, as we inexplicably heard “This is Awesome” chants during the HHH/Undertaker match, but I wouldn’t bother watching this show in its entirety again. But do catch Cedric and Buddy tear it up for 10 minutes. Thumbs in the middle for Super Show Down.
