WWE Clash Adjecent To The Castle. Drew McIntyre (almost) comes home

[Butch2000]

They should have brought out North Wales’ own Wade Barrett out to have kicked reigns in the pills.

[Supremo]

It was a good show that probably felt like a great show if you were there live. You can't knock the talent themselves. Everyone had their working shoes on. Sheamus vs. Gunther, Rollins vs. Riddle and Drew vs. Roman were all great matches.

They dropped a massive bollock with that main event finish though. You could feel it the moment they made their entrances and it only got more obvious from there. This was the night to pull the trigger. Tyson Fury knock's Austin Theory's head off, Drew hits the kick and wins the belt clean. Sixty thousand people go fucking mental, photos of Drew celebrating makes all the papers and we're properly into the new era. An era where WWE actually send fans home happy. Where they actually put smiles on their faces.

But no. At its core, it's still WWE. They've re-badged it, you fool. They've made the baby steps in the right direction, which has been great to see, but the biggest problems remain. Loser babyfaces who always get out smartened and have no friends. Endless heat that never pays off. Misery booking. Screwy finishes to get out of the corner you've booked yourself into. Sticking to THE PLAN no matter what. This whole show was one massive cock tease and then that main event finish was your mum walking in. Fuck's sake.

Drew should've knocked Tyson Fury out for patronising him like that. You lost the biggest match you'll ever have but wasn't it nice hearing the people chant your name, eh? Fancy a singalong? Fucking hell. Watching Drew no-sell the loss and turn into one of those, "THEY LIKE TO HAVE FUN" knobheads was absolutely tragic. Right out of the Vince McMahon playbook. Might as well have just gimmicked the top rope to snap or had Bray Wyatt's holographic ghost interfere for what little difference it would have made. Should've been the conquering hero, ended up looking a twat. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Riddle's entrance was another example of it. All this amazing stuff in the vignette before the match but then he's immediately out there HITTING HIS MARKS during his entrance. Following footage of him screaming, "I'm going to fuck you up!" with him riding on his shitty scooter and posing with his CGI birds was genuinely hilarious. It's clear as day that for as much as they've successfully ironed out Vince's weird quirks, Hunter's got a bunch of them himself. "He took the piss out of my family leaving me, maybe I should storm to the ring angrily?" "No, do your entrance as you've rehearsed it every single time. This is the way."

Spare a thought for Dominik Mysterio, too. The heel turn is probably the beginning of the end for him. What else can he do? Does anyone have any real faith in him on his own for any significant amount of time? He sucks.

Look at how much moaning I've ended up doing for a show I thought was good! That's the power of one of those classic endings of a WWE PPV where your soul falls out your arse. I'd have likely given this show a glowing review if Drew had just won the belt clean.

Let's end on a happy note. It was absolutely delightful seeing Bret get such a great reaction. Us Brits have taste! Always nice to see Bret happy, looking great for his age, whilst Shawn Michaels ages like a moldy pear. Karma. Shawn's never been on Simpsons, either!

Edited September 4, 2022 by Supremo

[Nick James]

Thank fuck for this place where you can have a decent discussion on shows, whether you enjoyed them or not. If not for this place, I think I'd fall off with the wrestling as one of the most enjoyable parts of it all, is the discussion. 

It shows how there is a lack of it throughout social media after a big wrestling show no matter the company. You get very little proper discussion outside of the tribalism and one upmanship. You go on twitter and all you get is 'how are we meant to know who Solo Sikoa is without a video package', or the opposite end of doubling down on how fantastic everything is now with WWE, rainbows and all.

I'd like to think I'm at a point now where I enjoy both WWE and AEW in equal measure, coming from a point of barely watching anything a few months ago outside of social media clips. There is now genuine interest in shows. Tribalism ruins wrestling. Having to pin your flag to one company and one company only must be terribly draining and joyless. I know most of it is for social media clicks and interactions, but the way some folk get genuinely angry about fake fighting by people in pants is hilarious.

Enjoy it for what it is, switch off your brain and be entertained. I've been guilty of being overly critical, but since i've tried to just enjoy shows without nitpicking, I find I'm back to watching regularly, and that's the goal at the end of the day.

[d-d-d-dAz]

I don’t know that I buy the idea you have to send fans home happy with main events or that by not doing so they’ve become typical WWE again.

Would it have been a nice moment for Drew to win the titles? Sure… but is he the best choice to dethrone Roman after two years? I don’t think so.

The post match goofiness isn’t new for him, he’s corny and goofy and has no natural next step as universal champion. It’d have been a nice moment and nothing else.

That one happy crowd would have just meant a future MSG crowd wouldn’t be happy watching Cody be the one to finally do it, or an LA crowd when Rock does it or whatever.

I think booking for the moment is a difficult thing to do, as you end up just chasing short term hits. And, crucially, I bet this show did absolutely garbage outside the UK. It had real Insurrection, souped up house show vibes by the time it came to it.

We all thought it was amazing getting a stadium show - and in many ways it was - but nothing happened, nothing fundamentally changed by the end of it besides a Dominik heel turn really.

Nothing about the show felt like it was big enough to be the end of Roman’s title reign, I don’t think.

[LaGoosh]

4 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

I don’t know that I buy the idea you have to send fans home happy with main events

I don't think they need to be happy necessarily but they definitely need to be satisfied. If the heel wins fans can still leave a show content and happy if it was done correctly. 

[Supremo]

You don't have to send fans home happy every time. Far from it. There's a definite art to making people still feel satisfied and want to come back to see the bad guy get his comeuppance. I just don't think this was the time or the place for another screwy finish that makes another top babyface look like an idiot, in turn making us feel like idiots for believing in him. We've had years of this type of misery booking, seemingly designed to troll the audience. Think you're finally going to get some catharsis, do you? Fucking mugs! We've known forever that despite thinking he was making movies Vince had never actually seen one, believing that every film lasted nine hours and just consisted of the antagonist destroying everyone over and over until people turned it off. Seeing the finish to this show, I'm wondering if Triple H's DVD collection is much better.

They're on a bit of a hot streak now as people flock back in the hope things have improved now Vince has gone. All I'm saying is that it probably wasn't the best time to repeat one of Vince's worst tropes. You can argue this felt more like a house show but that sense of disappointment, as a stadium full of thousands suddenly had the air sucked out of them, going off the air on a weird, sour note? That could have been one of about six Wrestlemanias over the past decade or so. It was Vince 101.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Supremo

[s279]

Agree with the above that outside of the heel turn, there was nothing there that really mattered to cement the show in canon. You could take the DVD out of the 2022 box set and you wouldn't miss anything.

They've got enough belts that they could have had at least one change. With a bit of reshuffling the women's tag final could have been saved for this. I'd even have taken a 24/7 switch or three.

Fantasy booking with hindsight, Sheamus should have won the IC title leading to a face turn with that crowd. Then Solo could have gone after him for a couple of months to bring all of the gold to the bloodline and you're nicely set up for Drew/Brawling brutes v Bloodline in an actually meaningful Survivor Series 4v4 match rather than the usual Raw v Smackdown silly bollocks that nobody cares about.

Edited September 4, 2022 by s279
Typo

[d-d-d-dAz]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

You don't have to send fans home happy every time. Far from it. There's a definite art to making people still feel satisfied and want to come back to see the bad guy get his comeuppance. I just don't think this was the time or the place for another screwy finish that makes another top babyface look like an idiot, in turn making us feel like idiots for believing in him. We've had years of this type of misery booking, seemingly designed to troll the audience. Think you're finally going to get some catharsis, do you? Fucking mugs! We've known forever that despite thinking he was making movies Vince had never actually seen one, believing that every film lasted nine hours and just consisted of the antagonist destroying everyone over and over until people turned it off. Seeing the finish to this show, I'm wondering if Triple H's DVD collection is much better.

They're on a bit of a hot streak now as people flock back in the hope things have improved now Vince has gone. All I'm saying is that it probably wasn't the best time to repeat one of Vince's worst tropes. You can argue this felt more like a house show but that sense of disappointment, as a stadium full of thousands suddenly had the air sucked out of them, going off the air on a weird, sour note? That could have been one of about six Wrestlemanias over the past decade or so. It was Vince 101.

But, if Drew wasn’t going over, how do you do it better than what they did?

Because going back to my original point last night, I thought they’d booked themselves into a hole with this main event and I’m still of the opinion that - short of Drew winning - they did the absolute best thing they could do.

They teed up Fury/Kross. It stunk of it ending up with a brawl, with no finish in the match and Drew/Fury fighting off Roman/Kross to ‘send the fans home happy’. When the ref bump happened, I’m not sure anyone expected Austin Theory so that was a nice diversion, and ultimately it all being a decoy for a new member of The Bloodline - for me - was very well executed.

I think in a previous life, that main head event had either no finish or ‘we’re going to have a tag match, playa’ written all over it. The fact they navigated around that and provided genuine peaks and troughs was great.

Had they cut the cameras with Roman and his mate leaving, I think I’d have been genuinely interested as to what happened with Drew next. As it is, fuck that guy and fuck Fury too 😂

I dunno, I maintain it was brilliant booking in that it booked themselves out of a corner without doing the obvious. If Roman was winning, I think they did as good a job as they could.

That said, I’d love to hear alternatives.

Edited September 4, 2022 by d-d-d-dAz

[air_raid]

Before the show I thought Drew was a logical choice to win the belt. That it was daft to wait that long for Cody and a waste to consider Rock actually taking the belt from him. They’ve Lugered him with the daft post match shit but with the benefit of hindsight it was a “lightning in a bottle” moment where timing/whatever the plan is have conspired against what seemed a great chance to win the belt. So Drew simultaneously is Luger AND Ryback today.

[TheDude]

Drew is never winning the belt again. That was the perfect moment. It's worse than luger. They gave him everything. Big entrance, the crowd, his old theme! Ah well. Back to midcard. 

[LEGIT]

I made a prediction during the Seamus match that I would've loved but really would've been to good to be true. Seamus wins his match, then Drew wins his with the same pinning combination that Bulldog beat Bret with. Cue Seamus and Drew having a Guerrero/ Benoit embrace, UK boys have their big moment in the UK,  happy and wholesome show for everyone.

[Nick James]

As much as it would have been a big moment having Dingleberries win last night, for me, there would be no desire to see a long Drew run. A heel run, maybe, but he's far too cheesy as a face to be taken seriously. I think, had his title run happened outside of the pandemic era, the fans would have turned on him quick sharp. 

He's a solid hand in that 'can jump to the main event if needed' bracket. He certainly shouldn't be ending a near 3 year unbeaten streak. 

[Supremo]

21 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

But, if Drew wasn’t going over, how do you do it better than what they did?

If Drew has to lose? Then Sheamus wins the Intercontinental Title earlier in the night and Drew does a carbon copy of what Sheamus did on this show, fighting his bollocks off, losing clean in a manner that makes you respect and root for him even more. It wasn’t your night, but fuck me if you didn’t fight your heart out. Drew sells the loss and we feel the disappointment with him. Standing ovation. Nobody sings Oasis.

Crazy that you don’t think there were alternatives to what they did when they presented one literally hours earlier!

It’s another blind spot Triple H has inherited from Vince. This belief that top babyfaces can’t lose clean and there always has to be some bullshit to allow them to, “save face.” The top rope needs to snap. The monitor needs to explode in their face. There has to be a masked run in. They need to be DQ’d for kicking too much arse. It never works and always does more harm than good. It’s 2022. We live in a post-UFC, post-AEW world. Guys can lose. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, guys losing clean - as we saw with Sheamus on this very show - can be infinitely more satisfying than some screwy, Russo nonsense. I’d genuinely consider headlining Extreme Rules with Roman vs. Sheamus based on last night. Drew would be lucky to be on the pre-show. Stupid, billy no mates.

Just to make it clear one more time though - Drew should have won. It was absolutely the right time and the right place. I don’t care what they have planned. Change your plans. This was it. When Tyson Fury punched Austin Theory’s head off and Drew hit the kick it was genuine shades of Backlash 2000. All the dominoes have fallen into place! The bad guys have ran out of tricks! The hero finally wins!

Nope. More heat.

[Nick James]

1 minute ago, Supremo said:

If Drew has to lose? Then Sheamus wins the Intercontinental Title earlier in the night and Drew does a carbon copy of what Sheamus did on this show, fighting his bollocks off, losing clean in a manner that makes you respect and root for him even more. It wasn’t your night, but fuck me if you didn’t fight your heart out. Drew sells the loss and we feel the disappointment with him. Standing ovation. Nobody sings Oasis.

100% agree with this. Sheamus should have won, the crowd were fully behind him and a big celebration with the Brutes would have been a cracking moment. Gunther would have lost absolutely nothing from the loss either (other than the IC) and he could have won it back on Smackdown / next PPV. 

[The Gaffer]

2 hours ago, Nick James said:

Enjoy it for what it is, switch off your brain and be entertained. I've been guilty of being overly critical, but since i've tried to just enjoy shows without nitpicking, I find I'm back to watching regularly, and that's the goal at the end of the day.

That's pretty much my review of the show. Not questioning the merits of having a great discussion on it at all of course. They could have made better desicions in places, but if they're taking baby steps then I feel like as jaded consumers we should ideally put the Observer brain on pause and take the moments on good faith.

And considering the dross most post SummerSlam stuff is, that was a really good Rebellion 2022.