I may be beating a dead horse here because I’m sure many of
you out there have made similar gripes to what I’m going to outline in this
article but here goes.
Last night WWE produced their latest PPV/Special Event – 'Battleground'.
The card on paper looked a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde affair.
The undercard looked bland and uneventful but the top two
matches seemed a lock to deliver.
The undercard actually performed a little better than I
expected. I got nothing personally out of the Sheamus vs. Orton contest but the
Tag Team Championship match was better than I’d hoped and even Wyatt vs. Reigns
was not as bad as I’d feared.
It also taught me that Bray Wyatt has one of the most brutal
looking lariats in North America at the minute – a true thing of beauty.
We also got a nice little bonus in the fact that we got a
follow up to Monday’s debut of Becky Lynch, Charlotte and Sasha Banks as we got
to see Charlotte vs. Sasha vs. Brie Bella in a three-way dance.
The match was probably the best diva’s match on a main
roster PPV since AJ Lee and Kaitlyn at ‘Payback’
in 2013.
It wasn’t quite up to the level of the NXT matches we’ve
seen but it was very, very good and told a good storyline.
I’m really looking forward to seeing where they take this in
the future.
Next we get into the meat of last night’s problems with the
double main event.
First off we had John Cena and Kevin Owens lining up the
third match in their budding rivalry and I was expecting very good things.
Their first match was excellent and the United States Open
Challenge has led to some great moments.
This looked like it could be a culmination of all that
coming together.
I, admittedly, didn’t care for their second match too much
because I felt it was just a re-hash of their first match merely in a different
sequence and with a different winner.
But that didn’t put too much of a dampener on my hopes for
this outing.
After all, they weren’t likely to have the same match three
times and the storyline had built to a perfect conclusion.
There are some times in wrestling where I get an
indescribable feeling about how something needs to play out.
Sometimes it is just the absolutely right time to pull the
trigger on a performer.
The examples I have been using that recently gave me this
feeling was I felt TNA needed to pull the trigger on EC3, which to the surprise
of many – me included, they actually managed to pull off – and at Ring of Honor’s
June PPV ‘Best in the World’ they
needed to pull the trigger on Jay Lethal which they did.
I actually wrote an article in this series a couple of
months back where I referred to the need to pull the trigger on Lethal and ROH
did just that.
Last night was WWE’s moment.
The storyline, the performers, the stage, the moment –
everything was perfect to pull the trigger on Kevin Owens by having him beat
John Cena and win the United States Championship.
I had justified the result so much in my head not just from
the point of view of what it would do for Owens and how big of a star it could
and would make him but also how it would help the rest of the card.
I had already heard about the impending arrival of The
Undertaker (a scenario we’ll get to in a little bit) and his apparent feud with
Brock Lesnar into ‘Summerslam’.
This fact would leave Seth Rollins with very little to do at
the third biggest show of the year – something your WWE World Heavyweight
Champion should not be doing.
But by having Kevin Owens beat John Cena you had the perfect
opportunity to give Rollins a big match.
Love him or hate him a match against Cena for the top prize
in the industry is a big deal and it would have been great for Rollins.
The match-up is relatively fresh, the matches would be good
and it would feel like Rollins was a big deal because he was getting in the
ring and beating John Cena for the title.
So I had already made my mind up that this all made too much
sense for them to do anything else other than have Owens beat Cena for the US
Title.
Then they didn’t.
Owens tapped out to the STF.
I was stunned.
I thought at the time and still think now, no longer sleep
deprived at 3:15 in the morning, that it was a bad call.
It was the perfect time to pull the trigger on Owens and the
creative team fluffed their lines.
It wasn’t just that – the match itself wasn’t any great shakes
either.
They didn’t exactly have the same match for a third time but
it was very similar and it was the type of match that, had it taken place on
the independent’s, people would have crucified for the blatant abuse of
finishing move’s and late kick-out’s.
They tried so hard to manufacture drama that there was none
and it left the match with a somewhat empty feeling.
The ending and result was merely the cherry on top.
It was okay though, there was still time to save this show –
the main event was coming and it was sure to be great.
Yeah I knew, having been exposed to The Undertaker spoiler
earlier, that it wasn’t going to end cleanly but I knew the match would be good
and I hoped Rollins would come out looking relatively strong.
I must say, the reason I was so excited for Brock vs. Seth
is it has kind of been a dream match of mine since Seth threatened to cash in
his Money in the Bank briefcase on Lesnar at last year’s ‘Night of Champions’ event.
Right then I realised how great a match between those two
had the potential to be.
Then I saw the triple threat at the ‘Royal Rumble’ earlier this year between them and John Cena.
That only cemented the idea in my head that this would be
something special.
So, despite knowing very little of the build towards this
PPV due to my nigh on non-existent following of ‘Monday Night RAW’ over recent months, I was excited.
It came and I started the way I knew it would with Brock
dominating and Seth getting the odd shot in.
This wasn’t a problem because Brock has been booked on an
almost God-like tier in the past couple of years and I was sure that Seth would
use his wits to get in a bit more offense later on.
But he didn’t.
Brock basically squashed the, kayfabe, top guy in the entire
wrestling world for nine minutes and then had him beat after thirteen German
Suplexes and an F-5 until a gong hit.
The Undertaker appeared and everything went from bad to
worse.
Not only had WWE just made their WWE World Heavyweight
Champion look like a complete chump but they had done it so that they could
protect and build two guys who between them might work four different PPV’s in any
given year.
That in itself is mind blowing and indicative of a larger
problem the company is currently suffering from.
Not to mention Undertaker’s attack on Lesnar was nonsensical
on two other fronts.
From a non-kayfabe point of view The Undertaker is an
undisputed legend in the WWE and trying to turn him heel left me with a similar
feeling that the ending to ‘WrestleMania
X-7’ did.
You could see it in Undertaker’s face too; he knew that the
heel turn had already failed.
Secondly, from a kayfabe point of view – why is Undertaker
attacking Brock now of all-times?
Yes, Brock beat him at ‘WrestleMania
XXX’ but that was almost sixteen months ago.
‘Taker has actually come back and feuded with a different
guy since then. Why all of a sudden has he decided to exact his revenge on
Brock’s breaking of his streak, now?
So we left ‘Battleground’
in 2015 the same way we did in both 2014 AND 2013.
With tangible disappointment, negativity and a complete bait
and switch in the match that the people were most excited for.
Maybe ‘Battleground’
is cursed.
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