Cardiff, Wales
MADCAP MOSS & THE STREET PROFITS vs. AUSTIN THEORY & ALPHA ACADEMY (6:29): This is supposedly the first WWE PPV in the UK in thirty plus years. They've been doing PPV's in Saudi Arabia for the last few years, though, so it's not like they've been against doing overseas PPV's. Money talks, though. Apparently they had the show in Cardiff, Wales instead of, say, London, because Cardiff paid them to have the show there. They filled the 60,000 seat stadium, too, which just proves how hot the WWE is lately. Even RAW ratings have been up. It's all kind of strange considering the product hasn't gotten much better. Vince is gone, and slowly we're seeing some changes. Matt Riddle and Austin Theory got their first names back. Johnny Gargano was signed and is on the main roster. HHH also re-hired Scarlett and Karrion Kross, who Vince had fired. After this show, though, you'd think ratings would plummet. The sour taste in your mouth after the end of this show has to linger for awhile, right? This show was kind of a "fuck you" to the UK fans because both of their boys, Sheamus and Drew McIntyre lost. The end of this show reminded me a lot of when Roman Reigns won the Royal Rumble in Philly and the fans all booed even though Roman was a babyface at the time. Hopefully HHH learns from this mistake, as this show might just be a fatal one for some fans. This match was on the kickoff show. This was short, exciting, fun. The crowd was great for most of the show tonight, which was a plus. Visually, though, it wasn't too spectacular because the stadium has a roof on it. Summerslam, in the outside football stadium, looked more impressive. **1/2
DAMAGE CONTROL (BAYLEY, DAKOTA KAI & IYO SKY) vs. BIANCA BELAIR, ALEXA BLISS & ASUKA (18:44): For a big show, there were mysteriously a lot of wrestlers not on it. Ronda Rousey, Brock Lesnar, Sami Zayn, The Uso's, Kevin Owens, Ricochet, Baron Corbin, The Miz, Bobby Lashley. Ricochet is wrestling Sunday on the NXT PPV, so there's that. I bet if this show was in Saudi Arabia, Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar would've been there. This match was boring, as a lot of this show was. They probably should have had Bianca have a singles match for her title, as she's a crowd favorite and fairly exciting. This was just pedestrian and dull. *
GUNTHER vs. SHEMAUS (19:33): This was probably the best WWE match of the year. Everyone has been noting that Walter looks lame now because he's just a skinny, random looking dude instead of the big monster. But even skinny he can still pull off a hell of a match. These two beat the hell out of each other. This went beyond a typical Ishii or Suzuki match, though, into the realm of brutal Go Shiozaki or Nakajima NOAH matches where the chops become unbearable to watch and it's as if you're viewing a snuff film. While this was fantastically brutal, it did go on a bit too long. The other problem was the crowd was the greatest crowd of all time behind Sheamus...and then Sheamus lost. Dude, call a fucking audible and have the crowd favorite win, you idiots! When Sheamus lost I figured that, well, McIntyre, the other UK dude, was probably winning and they wanted to save the victory celebration for that. Nope! Both UK crowd favorites lost. Really? I feel so bad for those fans to be denied two cathartic, loud, boisterous, rapturous victories. Sad. Great match, though. ***1/2
LIV MORGAN vs. SHAYNA BASZLER (11:02): This was awful. I didn't even think Shayna was still in WWE. -No Stars-
EDGE & REY MYSTERIO vs. THE JUDGMENT DAY (FINN BALOR & DAMIAN PRIEST) (12:35): This match wasn't bad or anything, but it was just a typical, forgettable RAW type of match. The big Dominic turning heel storyline happened after the match when he kicked Edge in the balls then hit his father. Does anyone really want to see Dominic go solo as a heel? No. **
SETH ROLLINS vs. MATT RIDDLE (17:22): This was a pretty good match. Considering this was a huge, stadium show, would it have killed them to put a ladder or cage match or something on the show? They didn't even break the announce table. I'm not sure why so many heels won on this show. Do they hate their fans? **1/2
ROMAN REIGNS vs. DREW McINTYRE (30:47): I remember Roman Reigns wrestled Cesaro in a 30 minute main event title match last year and it was excellent. This, sadly, was not excellent. Drew is of course not as good a wrestler as Cesaro, so there's that. They also over-booked this thing, which was bad. They also had the hero, the babyface, the UK, homegrown guy that everyone was cheering lose, which was disappointing. That made everyone go home sad, which you kind of don't want to do, right? They did a ref bump. Austin Theory came out to cash in his MITB contract but Tyson Fury, sitting at ringside, punched him to stop it. A new Uso brother showed up to pull the ref out of the ring when Drew was about to win. This led to Roman retaining the title. After this, Tyson Fury came into the ring and sang the "Bye, Bye, Ms. American Pie" song which was probably supposed to be a fun, joyful thing but the angry crowd mostly just booed this and it was awkward. Putting a show in the UK, then setting up a UK guy for a title shot, then having him lose, is not the smartest decision in the world. I bet they lost a lot of fans today. I'm guessing they thought, well, hey, we're an American company, we're not going to have a title change in the UK, fuck those idiots. All of these rising ratings, optimism at Vince gone, WWE being "hot" was seemingly gone in an instant. What a horrible way to end this show. Jesus. The WWE just never learns. This might just go down in history as one of the dumbest decisions the wrestling business has ever done. Can you imagine the victory celebration this awesome crowd would have delivered? It would've been legendary. **
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