Minor PPVs that don't deserve a thread *Spoilers*

[WeeAl]

I don't get the lot of them. The Neville heel turn should help, and maybe he can team up with Aries or something when he returns which could be interesting.

[Ambulance Chaser]

Rich Swann is a right pain in the arse, beyond irritating. He smiles at the most odd times, like perkins or kendrick will be dressing him down telling him how they are going to beat him and he is stood there grinning at them like he's watching lee evans. It's so fucked up and weird, just stop booking weirdly and let wrestlers act how humans would act in real situations. He dances and smiles and does sod all else. Don't get me started on Perkins, was it somebody on here that said the fact it's so drawn out before the CW match starts, changing the ropes etc and it may impact on the crowd.

[Jazzy G]

Hopefully the Neville heel turn helps the cruiserweight division, and doesn't come off as "Neville can't cut it on the main roster so has to settle for the cruiserweight division". Sheamus & Cesaro are tag team champions. How long do we count down until they're feuding again now?

[gadge]

The finish to the show was atrocious. When they showed Owens talking to a locked door backstage between matches, it was like being hit in the head with a hammer. When the DQ and "shocking reveal" came I wished the hammer had been real.

 

In the PPV era, people would've been raging at paying £15 for that crap. It's still inexcusable now.

 

On a better note, the finish to the tag title match was extremely clever. I wasn't surprised by the titles changing hands though, as again they had telegraphed it coming as soon as the record was broken. At least the right team won, and the action was good. The celebration afterwards let it sink in nicely that it was a big deal.

 

I really liked the work in the Iron Man match too. Charlotte had a great game plan for the first fall and controlled the first 20 minutes brilliantly. Sasha using her skill to level the scores and Charlotte then going into a panic and having to tap away a second fall was great storytelling. Sasha ending up having to tap out 2 seconds before the end wasn't so good. Still, I can't fault them for effort.

 

The rest of the show was just there. Rollins vs Jericho was too long and bland throughout. Zayn vs Strowman was as good as it could be but the stipulation killed the heat until 3 minutes to go. Strowman, like Baron Corbin on SDLive, is getting there but it's taking time.

 

Not looking forward to Raw tonight.

Edited December 19, 2016 by gadge

[Onyx2]

Cesaro worked his little Swiss butt off. Some jaw dropping sequences there. Good work on the back end by both teams too with New Day reluctant to hand them back and Sheamus having none of it.

 

Sasha v Charlotte was excellently worked by both women, but booked Sasha into oblivion. I'm a huge Sasha mark, she's the best thing since sliced Beth. But she looked like a fucking chump tapping with 1 second to go. You either have her do that earlier on or get the heel to tap so late. Instead of showing grit your face looks like a quitter. So annoying.

 

But it should all bode well for a monster Bayley run. Not quite sure what the women's division will do until WrestleMania, you have to keep the Bayley / Charlotte big one for then.

 

Here's praying tonight's Raw is one of their very entertaining silly Christmas Raws, and not one that tries to bimble along after that show.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Onyx2

[simonworden]

 

 

 

 

Without looking I thought Vince took the fall? Don't forget the Backlash 2001 HHH Austin vs Taker Kane match. That one had predated Kane would take the IC Undertaker WWE if they won. They predictably didn't

This isn't correct. If HHH or Austin were pinned, they would lose their respective title to whoever pinned them. So if Kane pinned Austin, Kane would've won the WWF Championship and Taker would've left with just his own Tag Team Championship.

Did you rewatched recently Neil as I really don't remember it being that way at all. Long time ago so I'll give it a look again as I remember the PPV being ok.

I haven't watched recently but it turns out I was slightly wrong too, according to the Wiki page:

 

Since Linda was still the (on-screen) CEO of the company, this gave her power to veto her husband's decisions and force compromises. As such, McMahon informed Austin and Triple H that he had to make a compromise with his estranged wife. They agreed that the two champions would be able to compete at Backlash for the tag titles. However, McMahon was forced to agree that in order for the titles to be at stake, both the Intercontinental and WWF Championships would also have to be defended in the match; therefore, if either Austin or Triple H took the loss in the match, the team would lose both titles. If Austin would lose, whichever Brother of Destruction defeated him would receive the WWF Championship while Triple H would forfeit his Intercontinental Championship to the other. The reverse applied if Triple H was to lose.

 

That's pretty crazy when you think about it. Undertaker could've pinned Triple H to become Intercontinental Champion and in doing so, Kane would've become WWF Champion without himself or Stone Cold even being involved in the decision.

Yeah it seems crazy now don't remember thinking about it at the time. Tried to read wiki too yesterday but was too jet lagged. Definitely going to give it a rewatched soon. Might even be sitting under the original c4 vhs recording I did at 14 years old

[Briefcase]

Average show. Predictable as well. I suppose it is a filler PPV before the Rumble and much like these PPVs its safe to either build to a bigger PPV (part 2 of a 3 part feud) or just matches made to get by as a one off.  This was probably somewhere inbetween.

 

Tag match was a decent opener with a clever ending. Be interested to see what happens with The New Day now, wouldn't surprise me if they get moved to Smackdown soon.

 

Zayn/Strowman was terrible, thought the concept would work better than it did but just hated this match, ending was shit as well.

 

Crusierweight was what it is, but Neville will at least spice it up hopefully.

 

Charlotte/Sasha was fairly decent.

 

Everything else was awful, main event was a waste of time, imagine going to that live event and having that ending, its times like this I wish Jericho had the MITB briefcase, at least there would be a tease with this whole friendship thing, of course in hindsight they wasn't to know Balor would get injured.

[UK Kat Von D]

The main event had a finish acceptable for Raw, but was a bit cheeky using it on a B Show. As long as there is a story development from it then I can deal with it though (which I imagine there will be.)

 

The tag match was loads of fun and a cracking finish. Sasha came out looking weak, which is annoying because I think she is lovely

 

Strowman didn't really do enough damage to Sami to warrant Foley coming out with the towel. It makes no sense that the guy who carried on after being thrown off Hell In A Cell would think the match needed to be stopped after several minutes of tame working over. They needed loads of big spots to make that finish believable, but didn't start pulling those out till after. Smash both announce tables, trash the barricade, spot on the steel steps and several whips into the ring post and I would have bought it no problem.

[Guest]

I saw something in the women's match that I thought was very clever. Don't know if it's a common thing but I've never noticed it before.

 

You know when someone's laying on the mat while their opponent scales the ropes for, say, a moonsault, and the supposedly dazed and "helpless" victim is already visibly bracing to receive the move before their opponent's even jumped?

 

Well, Sasha did that - knowing that she was about to roll out of the way and avoid Charlotte's attack.

 

She did something that normally makes a spot look fake and telegraphed, just to lull the audience into the surprise of her last-second dodge. As if to say "Gotcha! Not so predictable after all, is it?"

[Guest]

I would argue that Rollins is in fact great, BUT he personally think's he's better than everybody else, so doesn't try as hard....because he just presumes by doing what he does, he's instantly the best.

 

I only get this from some of the promo stuff that showed up from the Shield doc, where he mentions about practically arguing his was into a WWE contract (calling Jon Laurenitis out about signing him) and then acting like a massive arse in development.

I think a big part of Rollins being in this shit spell is not only how they muddled his face-turn is that AJ Styles, a quite similar wrestler in terms of in-ring style, has come in and outclassed him in the ring and on the mic. In fact, that's more or less the only Rollins match I'd still care to see that we haven't already had in WWE

[MungoChutney]

So aye, everyone seems to be really excited for Elimination Chamber tonight. I'll probably watch the Chamber match in the morning before work but not bothered about much else on the card.

[tiger_rick]

Same here. Asmuchas I enjoy Smackdown each week, I'm not into anything else beyond the Chamber. Any PPV with three women's matches on it screams lack of depth.

 

Orton/Harper should be good. If it felt conseqquential, I'd be looking forward to that.

[Guest]

Natalya and Nikki could really do with being no DQ, given the build and the 2 other women's matches.

Edited February 12, 2017 by sj5522

[Philjax]

There's a new Chamber isn't there? It was mentioned on SD a few weeks back.

[WeeAl]

I'm actually looking forward to it for the fact it won't take up a huge chunk of my life. It can run for 4 hours all it wants, but the only things of any interest to me on the card are the Chamber match and the Orton/Harper match. However I expect both of those to be very good. I'll get up at 5am and I should see all I need to see before starting work at 7.00.