WWE BATTLEGROUND

Sunday, July 20th, 2014
Tampa, FL

Crazy that it's July 20th already. Right? Summer flying by. Didn't help that the WWE's annual great ppv, Money in the Bank, was pushed earlier to June. & this, Battleground, is an odd duck. CM Punk quit, Daniel Bryan is hurt, no Brock Lesnar on this B-show...and Battleground is between MITB and Summerslam. So...yeah. The opener and main event were good. The rest was bad. So it goes.

THE USO'S vs. LUKE HARPER & ERIK ROWAN "2 OUT OF 3 FALLS": Great match. The first two falls were so-so but the 3rd fall was epic and awesome. These two teams really click, which is good. ***

SETH ROLLINS vs. DEAN AMBROSE: Never happened. Ambrose beat up Rollins backstage so HHH barred him from the building and canceled the match. This didn't prevent Ambrose from attacking Rollins in the ring later and then in the parking lot later on. Not sure why they didn't have a match. I guess to build up their match at Summerslam.

AJ LEE vs. PAIGE: Man...Paige botched a ton of spots. Probably because Vince McMahon doesn't like her and she knows it and her dreams of being a WWE star are perhaps over. -No Stars-

RUSEV vs. JACK SWAGGER: So Rusev, who's Bulgarian, has a Russian spokeswoman that comes to ring with him and praises Vladimir Putin and puts down the U.S. This is all well and good, but she mentioned something in the news and American propaganda. On Thursday, pro-Russian rebels in the Ukraine shot down a plane that killed 298 people. So of course the news had a field day with this saying the WWE made fun of a plane crash or something stupid. That was realistically the only interesting thing about this match and it not only happened a day later but involved pre-match talk. Sigh. 1/2*

CHRIS JERICHO vs. BRAY WYATT: Jericho is back. & he won! These two just didn't mesh at all. *

BATTLE ROYAL (THE MIZ): The winner won the IC title. Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler battled last and Ziggler won! But no...The Miz had gone under the ropes and waited. He came in and tossed Ziggler over the ropes and won. Nobody likes The Miz. So why is he here? *1/2

JOHN CENA vs. ROMAN REIGNS vs. KANE vs. RANDY ORTON: A good match. The end had a lot of big moves and near-falls and it was exciting. Not as good as a Daniel Bryan vs. ? title match would've been but this is what we're stuck with. **1/2

WWE MONEY IN THE BANK

Sunday, June 29th, 2014
Boston

THE USOS vs. HARPER & ROWAN: Good opener. Fast-paced, brutal, the early, non-asleep/tired crowd was alive. The tag team division is actually decent lately, perhaps cuz they have to fill 3 hours every Monday. **1/2

PAIGE vs. NAOMI: Paige is hot. Paige is not an entertaining in-ring performer. Even Vince doesn't think so as AJ beat her for the title on Monday's RAW. 1/2*

ADAM ROSE vs. DAMIAN SANDOW: A year ago, Sandow was winning the MITB match. Now he's dressed as Paul Revere losing to the terribly dry Rose. What happened, kid? *

SETH ROLLINS vs. DEAN AMBROSE vs. RVD vs. KOFI KINGSTON vs. JACK SWAGGER vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER "MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH": The greatest match I've ever seen...until Kane's ring-post fireworks erupted and he came out to help Rollins win. So why was this a great match? Easy. Ambrose. See...Ambrose apparently separated his shoulder and was forced to the back. Later he ran out, the crowd went ape-shit and he ascended the ladder and was going to win and the pop would have been Daniel Bryan-loud and...yeah, Kane came out. These six guys took sick, sadistic bumps. A wild, full-on assult of a ladder match. Ambrose took a wicked suplex off the top rope. Rollins took a flip off the top of the ladder, landed on a ladder bridge which collapsed and he fell to the mat while hitting his head on the standing ladder. This was sick, awesome, one for the ages. The late, "corporate" interference ruined it all. Thanks. Still awesome for the majority, though. ***1/2

STARDUST & GOLDUST vs. RYBACK & CURTIS AXEL:

BIG E vs. RUSEV: Not bad. Not good. Big E did his through-the-ropes dive and took Rusev off the apron to the floor. It was typical I guess. *1/2

LAYLA vs. SUMMER RAE: Fandango was the special ref. Yep, this show had two women's matches. 1/2*

BRAY WYATT vs. KANE vs. SHEAMUS vs. CESARO vs. ROMAN REIGNS vs. RANDY ORTON vs. JOHN CENA vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO "LADDER MATCH":  So to return to the first ladder match's story, Cena prevented Kane from again helping the evil ones and Orton from winning. But man was this a bad ladder match, especially compared to the awesomeness of the first one. These eight lumbering bores took no chances, did no big spots. And Cena, the 15 time champ now, won the title. It wasn't horrible just not very good. **