Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
SETH ROLLINS vs. AJ STYLES (20:40): This show was just okay, although the super hot and boisterous crowd certainly was a big plus. AEW's Double or Nothing crowd was a little tepid, and they only sold half of the seats in the T-Mobile Arena in Vegas. That show was better than this, but the WWE is hot these days for whatever reason. I guess The Bloodline storyline has resonated. That seems to be the reason everyone says that the WWE is hot. The big problem with the WWE is that everything feels sterile whereas AEW feels kinetic, wild, and alive. Oh, well. This first match was for the new World Heavyweight championship. If you remember, they unified the two titles at last year's Wrestlemania and now they've un-unified them. It lasted a little more than a year, so that's longer than I would have figured. I both like and don't like having two main titles. On one hand, you get more championship matches on the PPV's so that's usually a plus. On the other hand, it kind of dilutes both champions. Seth was the obvious favorite and won. If this match had occurred five or so years ago it probably would have been better. AJ is obviously not as great as he once was, so I'm not sure why he was even in this match (they did a tournament on RAW and Smackdown and this was the final). I thought this would be better. **
TRISH STRATUS vs. BECKY LYNCH (14:50): How old is Trish Stratus? And what has she been doing since she left the WWE? Did she make enough money back in the day or did she have to get a real job since then? Who knows? Okay, she's 47. It's weird that they had so many women's matches on this show considering Saudi Arabia treats women like cattle. The women all have to wrestle in full body suits because they can't show skin except for their heads and hands. It's just sad. None of the women's matches were any good. And considering Trish is 47 and hasn't wrestled in years, why did they make this a 15 minute match? Jesus! Too long. I suppose this feud will continue since Trish won thanks to interference by Tony Stark. Is that her name? Who is Tony Stark? I give up. 1/2*
ASUKA vs. BIANCA BELAIR (15:00): Last month, in Puerto Rico, the fans booed Bianca out of the building for unknown reasons but she still beat Asuka and retained her title. They probably should have done the title switch then, but I believe they wanted Bianca to get to some dumb, days-as-champ milestone. Asuka won the title here. This match was not good at all. I kind of thought Bianca and Asuka were, like, good wrestlers. This was a bore. 1/2*
RHEA RIPLEY vs. NATALYA (1:10): I feel bad for Natalya. She had to fly all the way to Saudi Arabia just to lose in a 1 minute squash. What was the point of this? I'm baffled. -No Stars-
BROCK LESNAR vs. CODY RHODES (9:40): I was suprised Cody lost here. I guess they didn't want to have Brock lose to Cody twice in a row. That, and they'll probably do another match soon. I think this is only the second time Cody lost since coming back to the WWE. I'd say they were pushing him but he lost at Wrestlemania and now here so who the fuck knows? The story was that Brock beat up Cody on RAW last week and injured his arm. So Cody had a cast on his arm and played up like he was some sort of superhero impervious to pain. This was akin to his match last year against Seth Rollins when Cody had a torn bicep. Cody won that match, though. This match was pretty good because Cody got a lot of offense in. I don't know...I'm kind of tired of Brock Lesnar. **1/2
SAMI ZAYN & KEVIN OWENS vs. ROMAN REIGNS & SOLO SIKOA (26:25): This match wasn't that great or anything but the crowd was going ape shit for Sami. Sami was banned from Saudi Arabia for every previous show there because he's part Syrian and Saudi Arabia used to hate Syria. Now they don't so Sami is back. Sami posted pictures online where he visited Mecca this week. Is he a Muslim? I didn't know that. He spoke Arabic to the crowd before the match. Does he speak Arabic or did he memorize that? It sounded like he can speak Arabic. I know he speaks French. Does he really speak three languages? Oh, there was also a match. It was for the tag team titles. The big story was that the ref got knocked out and The Uso's came in. They inadvertantly super kicked Solo and Reigns got mad. Then Jimmy Uso super kicked Reigns twice. The Bloodline storyline keeps going and going and going and going. Jesus Christ. They're really milking this fucking thing, aren't they? I'd heard that eventually they're doing Solo vs. Roman. Does that mean we'll get a Solo turn in six months and this storyline is like The Never Ending Story? What was that giant, flying white dog's name? The crowd during this match was epic but the match itself was just a typical TV match. Just imagine if Sami was champ and had a title match here. But they didn't want to pull the trigger and have Sami win the title. Those fucking idiots. **1/2
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