Jedda, Saudi Arabia
REY MYSTERIO vs. THE MIZ (9:15): Why is The Miz still a thing? I admit that he's a pretty good talker...it's just that in-ring he's a bore. He'd be a great manager. This was a pretty forgettable opener on the pre-show. Because this show was in Saudi Arabia, that meant that a bunch of "legends" would be wrestling. This means I ended up googling people's ages a bunch of times. Mysterio is 47. Funny, I thought he'd be older. The one thing I'm curious about is whether or not the Saudi Arabia higher ups complained about the earlier WWE shows being awful...because the in-ring work at these Saudi Arabia shows have gotten substantially better. I didn't even bother reviewing the last one because usually these shows are terrible but the Seth Rollins vs. Edge "Hell in a Cell" match was great. Sadly, nothing was great on this show. Unlike the previous Saudi shows in giant soccer stadiums...this one was inside in a Dome with a supposed 33,000 person attendance. Early on there were scores of empty seats. Considering the cameras never gave a wide shot of the arena, I'm not sure if those empty seats were ever filled. **
ROMAN REIGNS vs. GOLDBERG (6:00): Goldberg speared Reigns twice. Reigns delivered an awkward looking Superman punch. Reigns won with a sleeper submission. At least it was better than that Saudi Arabia Undertaker vs. Goldberg match from a few years ago. *1/2
BIANCA BELAIR vs. ALEXA BLISS vs. DOUDROP vs. LIV MORGAN vs. NIKKI A.S.H. vs. RHEA RIPLEY "ELIMINATION CHAMBER MATCH" (15:45): Because Saudi Arabia is a horrible, backwards country with too much religion and zero empathy, the women all had to wrestle with everything but their faces covered up (except for Rousey, who got to wrestle barefoot). Before this looked horrible, as if vaguely remember Becky Lynch wrestling in a WWE black t-shirt. Well now all of the wrestlers have custom made body suits. Liv Morgan wore a Nakamura-esque, liquid red latex suit. Ripley had a Catwoman black latex suit. So that all looked pretty cool. Made us forget about how women are prisoners in this country. Belair won. Both of these Chamber matches were pretty short. Both Chamber matches on last year's show went over 30 minutes. Maybe someone complained about the length of these Saudi shows, because previously they were epics and this one was 2:47 plus a 1 hour pre-show. Why does the WWE love having one of their wrestlers scared by another wrestler? They did it in this match with Nikki trying to run away when Ripley's pod opened. They did that again with Austin Theory running away when Brock entered the match. The WWE is great at destroying their wrestlers and stifling their growth. Weird then that Cody Rhodes left AEW to sign with the WWE. Also Steve Austin is wrestling Kevin Owens at 'Mania. Maybe I should have started with those 2 gigantic announcements? **1/2
RONDA ROUSEY & NAOMI vs. SONYA DEVILLE & CHARLOTTE FLAIR (9:15): Sonya is one of the general managers of RAW. Now she's also a heel, harking back to the Vince/Austin boss/worker feud from...1999. Jesus Christ, idiots, that's 23 years ago. They can't come up with a fresh idea? This fucking company. Why did Cody sign with them again? I mean...he did get that stupid tattoo so he's obviously not that smart. So the big story in this match was that Rousey had to wrestle with one hand tied behind her back. This was something that they also did in a Vince vs. Austin match. This fucking company. The reason was because Sonya had a broken arm and thus it would be fair. But then Sonya was lying! She took off her cast and was fine! I'm not sure why, then, Rousey didn't just untie her hand. So they did a match. Charlotte didn't do much. Rousey submitted Sonya. I think Ronda/Charlotte was supposed to be 'Mania Night 1's main event but, really, it should probably be Austin vs. Owens, right? *
DREW McINTYRE vs. MADCAP MOSS (9:00): McIntyre did a Sidewalk Slam on Moss and Moss landed right on his head. Dude, he broke his neck. They said he wasn't injured but...dude...he fucking broke his neck. I would be shocked if this wasn't true. Oh, yeah, there was also a match. 1/2*
BECKY LYNCH vs. LITA (12:15): This was obviously sloppy. Lynch was telling Lita what to do for half of the match and it was all caught on camera. Lita previously had publicly called going to Saudi Arabia wrong. Money talks! People really love money, don't they? It's nuts. Supposedly Jeff Hardy is going to AEW. Considering Matt Hardy's there, too, I wonder why Lita didn't go there instead of doing this? The big problem with this match, like Golderg's match, was that we knew there wasn't going to be a title change. *1/2
THE USO'S vs. THE VIKING RAIDERS: The Uso's attacked the Viking Raiders before the bell and so the match didn't happen. I'm not sure what the point of this was, but I do remember the Viking Raiders being War Machine in New Japan and Ring of Honor and being awesome. Goddammit! Ricochet wasn't on this show, either. Is he banned from this country like Sami Zayn is?
BROCK LESNAR vs. BOBBY LASHLEY vs. AJ STYLES vs. AUSTIN THEORY vs. RIDDLE vs. SETH ROLLINS "ELIMINATION CHAMBER MATCH" (14:55): I kind of figured Brock would win the title in this match because the WWE loves Brock and pushes Brock and doesn't care if it ends up burying their entire roster. He definitely got the biggest pop from the Saudi crowd all night...so there's the method to their madness. The caveat was that the champion, Bobby Lashley, was injured when Seth tossed Theory into Bobby's pod and Bobby sustained a concussion when the plastic door hit him (dumb). So Lashley left the match and thus lost the title without being pinned. Lesnar came in at the end and quickly pinned Rollins, Styles, and Riddle. Jesus, fucking Christ. Way to promote and boost the wrestlers that are actually on the TV shows weekly! Austin Theory got the most time against Lesnar. Why Vince is pushing Theory instead of Johnny Gargano is fucking baffling. They were both in a group on NXT and Vince chose Theory over one of the world's best wrestlers. It doesn't matter now, as Gargano is headed to AEW. Theory hit Lesnar with a lowblow which led to him doing a few moves on Lesnar and getting a near fall when neither Riddle, AJ, or Seth got any offense on Lesnar. It's so weird that Vince would push Austin Theory out of all these great wrestlers on NXT like Keith Lee, Ricochet, Gargano, Adam Cole, Samoa Joe, Kyle O'Reilly, Walter. I can't even begin to understand this malfeasance. The other problem is now you don't have 2 men's title matches for 2 nights of Wrestlemania. No, they'd rather have a title vs. title match which is idiotic because you're going to need two championships eventually. This fucking company. Hope you love it, Cody! **
