WWE MONEY IN THE BANK: Bankrupt

HOW TO STAGNATE: THE FEUD

Well it has been two weeks and for my two followers I apologise for the wait as well as the missed episodes of Raw and NXT... among whatever else. But I watched MITB and, well, it was fucking awful.

Unlike my other REVIEWS, I feel inclined to actually state my thoughts on the entire show as a whole and not just every match and segment. So I'll do that. Coming up next!

Overall, considering every wrestler and every past feud/match they've all beein in, in the last couple of months, the show was complete fucking nonsense. If you somehow don't realise this allow me to explain...

The MITB winner can't win the Intercontinental Championship Chamber match, but wins the MITB, and easily just rips at Neville's hair to throw him off.

Oh and New Day can't count, apparently.

The divas match was awfully booked as always. None of it made any sense and giving divas longer matches but with equally shitty endings doesn't help at all.

Show/Ryback was skipped, but the ending just has Miz force a double disqualification. What was the fucking point?

Cena gets his win back, again. People mark at him using "new moves" despite botching every fucking one of them.

The Primetime Players win against the New Day after zero build on Raw at all. Despite deserving the title run they had no reason to be thrown into the match and win.

And the main event was boring as hell, WWE ruined a real money feud by having it play out so much, it didn't even live up to the lack of hype, and it went way too goddamn long.

MITB overall just showed how bad WWE really is right now. What's funny though is you always get people complaining about how bad it is when it's not even that bad. When it's passable, people whine about half the show being so bad that everything is unwatchable. When it's actually bad, people will find one thing (ironically probably Cena/Owens which was pretty shit) that validates their thoughts on the show being "good", or again, at least passable.

I figure I'll elaborate more on these matches and why they made no sense.

R-TRUTH vs. KING BARRETT

For no reason whatsoever

'didn't even watch it'

THE KING OF THE RING IS ON THE PRE-SHOW AND LOSING TO A JOBBER. That's it.

SHEAMUS vs. NEVILLE vs. ROMAN REIGNS vs. KANE

vs. KOFI KINGSTON vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. RANDY ORTON

MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONTRACT@

'passable'

The match wasn't bad in any way but it wasn't exactly good either. The whole formula of taking a number of guys out of the match so two guys can swap spots around is so tired and lame now. Why can't these multi-man matches have more than just one thing happening at once? The camera can view the whole fucking ring, it's not that hard.

Okay spots. Nothing special. Wow Roman Reigns gets the big strong spots! Orton hits RKOs outta nowhere! Kofi takes the brunt of the big spots! Neville hits the Red Arrow! And that was it.

Everything was expected except Sheamus winning, which in hindsight might not be so surprising seeing as WWE enjoy booking the briefcase holder pretty shitty.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

Sheamus can't even win singles matches against most of the people he faced, at least, on Raw (currently the only show that really matters anyway), and he lost at Elimination Chamber cleanly to Ryback, but then pulls out a pretty strong looking win out of his arse at MITB. And I expect his "push" to be no different than he has been from his return.

Bray Wyatt "saving" the match was surprising and yet still for negative reasons. Why the fuck this guy just constantly interrupts matches as ways to start feuds is unknown to me, and why people think it's acceptable I'll never know. All he does is get left off a card, attack a guy in a match and have a shitty feud with the same kinds of promos every time. Fuck it, do something different already, he debuted almost two years ago.

PAIGE vs. NIKKI BELLA (c)

For the WWE Divas Championship

'bad'

I think in a way it's kind of unfair to blame the divas themselves for these matches. I mean, increasing match time doesn't automatically equal better matches nor does it mean the wrestlers in those matches are automatically good at these long matches.

Nikki being almost entirely unable to make a near-fall look like it's a legitimate near-fall is obviously one thing that you can't always just blame her for. She has improved very well in the ring but she always gets her shoulder up on a near fall way, way closer to two than three. That's not entirely her fault though, like I said, you can't expect someone to know how to make a long match good when they haven't had many or proper training in them.

That's the entire reason these main roster divas matches are still average at best, all of them outside of the few that have wrestled lengthy matches (mostly in NXT) have no idea how to execute matches longer than what they're used to, and it's more on booking and the lack of training than on them, as Nikki for example, has improved dramatically since her return and skyrocketing to champion.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

Apart from the fact the twin magic thing is stupid as fuck right now considering how different they look, and the fact everyone knows that, they can't even do it properly. They put the effort into the fake tits and then Brie even shows off her tattoo, but she has her hair up in a ponytail the whole time and doesn't think to even take it down? Far out.

And as far as I know, executing any kind of offensive manoeuvre - like a punch or a SMALL PACKAGE PIN - results in a disqualification. Ultimately the champion would've still been the champion, but the outcome should've been different with Nikki being DQed.

Oh and the quick changes of face-to-heel in this division is the worst.

BIG SHOW vs. RYBACK (c)

For the WWE Intercontinental Championship

'I ate dinner'

I was having curry and didn't want to waste my time with this match, so I just made it while it was on. Saw Miz force the double disqualification though which was stupid, but yea, no idea what happened nor do I feel the need to know.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

The Intercontinental Champion who defeated two guys who were in the MITB match wasn't in it himself, but the guy who lost to him cleanly for the IC Championship won it. Good job WWE.

JOHN CENA vs. KEVIN OWENS
Because who needs an established guy that Cena just can't beat?

'Overdone as fuck'

If this match ended about fifteen or so minutes in and didn't go for near twenty minutes, I would say it was decent. Not great, not good, but decent. But I seriously consider this barely better than average for so many reasons. I have no idea how anyone can seriously say they enjoyed the match overall at all. There are so many transparent attempts at liking Cena or attempting to look 'cool' by liking his wrestling ability because he has long matches on the forum these days.

Let me preface the review with: John Cena is a decent wrestler already. Adding moves into his repertoire that he can't fucking perform without botching doesn't make him any better, it makes him worse if anything different.

Cena can't dropkick but he does it. The springboard stunner makes no sense, it looks like shit and he even botched it this match. And when trying the Yoshi Tonic he almost fucked it up so badly that even Owens looked bad for letting him continue.

His dropkick is bad, don't give him props for being shit at it, he has wrestled for over a decade.

His springboard stunner is a piece of shit move that is literally one of the worst on the fucking show.

That attempt at the Yoshi Tonic doesn't deserve a single positive mention because he could barely do it against Kevin fucking Owens and made them look bad. Also, don't act like it's incredible, 44-45 year old Goldust who is much taller than Cena pulled it off perfectly all the time but got nothing for it.

The match itself was okay, seriously nothing special and definitely not living up to the hype just like the last one barely did. Owens outdone Cena in every aspect, stealing his signatures was a great touch and I think a lot of heels should do that more often.

Cena botching made it suck at parts, and Cena winning made it suck even more.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

Owens didn't win. That's the only reason it sucked and the only reason it needs. Instead of letting undoubtedly one of the best new faces in WWE defeat Cena two times in a row and possibly being the only guy Cena has never defeated is apparently too difficult for WWE to do, or, maybe they just think without Cena, people won't watch, or something. He's fucking important but he's not so goddamn important he can't lose and never beat just one guy.

THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. THE NEW DAY (c)

For the WWE Tag Team Championships

'did what it did'

So either team winning would've been great, although personally I would've preferred the NEW DAAAY to be victorious and keep up their freebird run with the titles because that always makes things interesting. PTPs deserved a good run with the titles ages ago, and now that Darren Young doesn't sport a retarded afro, they deserve it just as much, but booking didn't reflect that and therefore I really couldn't get behind the win altogether.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

There wasn't really any bad booking of the match but the lack of a lengthy match really sucked. Take off like 10 mins from the main event and give it to the tag division, wow, is it that difficult?

DEAN AMBROSE vs. SETH ROLLINS (c)

For the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

...and to add a final nail in the coffin of what once looked like a promising feud

'passable'

There's no way I am dissecting thirty five minutes of boredom.

Give us a ladder match, make it as if it's a submission match. Technically and entertainment-ally(???) sound, sensible in every way, but fuck me thirty five minutes of a match that was inevitably going to be Rollins winning makes it all pointless. There's no point in making a match go for so long, or have such intricate limb-picking, if the winner is obvious, or there's no real pay off.

It felt like they were trying to recreate Austin v Hart at WM13 for some reason, and not just because of the figure-four on the pole, but because it felt somewhat similar, except the problem was that there was no goddamn pay off. Ambrose was already a good guy. Rollins was already a bad guy.

Sympathy isn't something that WWE should be going for for Ambrose either. He sells great, obviously, but you don't need the face to have some kind of sympathy going for him. Ambrose can easily sell his opponents offense but still be booked strong and "bad-ass"-ish, not sympathetic.

BAD BOOKING EXPLANATION:

Way too long.

No payoff.

Why kill this feud so quickly???

I really have no idea how this event could be considered decent. The only surprising outcomes made no fucking sense (see: Sheamus, Cena) one way or another, and nothing stood out at all. It would've been average if things made sense. Without making sense I can't see how that'd make it better than average...

Regarding: Roman Reigns

REIGNS: PROVEN HIMSELF

Obviously as a part of the Shield, Roman Reigns had a simple niche and did it very well, and was a relatively strong part - honestly maybe the most impressive part - of the Shield for quite a while.

Maybe it was booking that made him look like a star when compared to Rollins and Ambrose, considering he was always put ahead of Rollins in their tag matches and Ambrose was floundering in solos competition, but nonetheless, he looked great.

When the Shield split hit and everything hit the fan, people who loved the Shield or even people who hated the Shield felt like they [i]had[/i] to take sides. And it honestly looked like Reigns got the short end of the stick, and Rollins' fanbase was very comparable to the size of Ambrose'.

So because of this dissension between fans, and the apparent need to choose a side, Reigns was probably already fucked. Fans knowing - or thinking - that the weakest member in the ring was Reigns, and when Rollins was obviously the stellar ring worker of the three and Ambrose was clearly the stellar promo cutter, Reigns was stuck behind them in most fans' approval lists.

Despite having a fairly decent showing in singles competition after the split, especially against Randy Orton, the hate was incredible, and honestly at the time it was very warranted, as the match with Orton was only "good" at best, and it still showed Reigns as a flawed performer.

The Rumble came along and Reigns hadn't managed to convince many people of his ability, likely because of the hernia he had taking him out of action, but nevertheless, without proof, even if there's an excuse, wrestling fans will be mad, and still somewhat rightfully so.

Reigns was a [i]victim[/i] of the horrendous booking of the Royal Rumble match. Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose were not the only ones who were effected negatively - in-fact I'd go as far as to say Reigns was effected the most negatively of all - as not even the planned Rock interference to "save" his relative from what has screwed over many a people without anyone thinking about getting involved (in kayfabe of course), could save him from the verbal beatdown from the masses.

However upon entering what may have been an on-the-fly feud with Bryan we got to see Reigns actually perform to a particularly high standard in the ring. Personally, I rated their Fastlane match slightly better than the Royal Rumble triple threat, and I rate it second (so far) to the WrestleMania 31 match of all WWE (not including NXT) matches this year, though I've only watched PPVs and some Raw matches.

The fact is though, in that Fastlane match, Reigns managed to actually put on a great performance as a strong brawler, which is exactly what his character is (and for the record there's absolutely nothing wrong with a power-based brawler wrestler, Stone Cold was a brawler), which fantastically mirrored Daniel Bryan's technical wrestling in the match.

A story was told; a broken and beaten wrestler only recently returned from a very bad injury couldn't manage to defeat the younger, healthier, stronger, albeit less technical brawler. Reigns showed brutality that is pretty heavy for WWE today, utilising a heavy brawler moveset at very good times. I remember a spot where Bryan had Reigns in a leg submission and the only way Reigns escaped was beating the holy hell out of Bryan's face and head with his fists until the hold was broken. Things like this go over a lot of fans' heads, and it was a perfect spot to display the characters and wrestling styles in the match.

However, many fans were more annoyed and displayed that than they did acceptance of Reigns, because he just defeated a recently returned Bryan who fans believed not only should have won the Rumble - which Reigns won - but also won that match in particular. Had fans not let this match cloud their judgement they would've realised Reigns had a very good showing at Fastlane and with the heavy assistance of Bryan, made it a "Match of the Year Contender", personally being THE WWE Match of the Year at the time for me. And also another for the record note, this is not saying Bryan carried Reigns, it's saying that the clash of characters and styles accentuated both in the ring.

[I almost forgot to mention the well-received gauntlet match Reigns and Bryan had before Fastlane, which I never personally watched but heard it was very, very good and did similar to what the Fastlane match did.]

WrestleMania was only just around the corner and people still questioned Reigns - myself included.

Was he ready for a WrestleMania main event match was my biggest question. I knew he was a lot better in the ring than the general consensus of wrestlingforum.com believed, but I wondered if he was good enough to stand toe-to-toe with Lesnar, and put on a decent match.

Remember, Reigns looked very strong in the match against Bryan, but Bryan being injured beforehand and only just returning was also a good excuse for Bryan losing and Reigns looking stronger than he really is.

I always had my doubts, but that WrestleMania match was fantastic. Reigns put on a performance better than Cena did at SummerSlam. The match was very good and very brutal. Far from perfect, but much closer to that than average. Reigns was booked as such a strong guy, having a very impressive track record between the Shield split and the WM31 match against Lesnar, but he couldn't get it done - but he wouldn't give up. It wasn't Cena-esque "Never Give Up!" nonsense, but it was genuinely interesting to see the Reigns character take a slight, subtle, but still relevant change into something a little bit different, and allow him to evolve his character a bit further than what it was already.

Unfortunately for Reigns, since that night, he has regressed again somewhat. Not being given the opportunity for decent matches again might have part to do with that, and being pitted against boring wrestlers recently also might have something to do with it.

But the change in his attitude is likely the main issue. Instead of being a bad-ass, he's coming off as a terribly arrogant, cocky and honestly somewhat obnoxious kid who thinks he deserves everything. The laughing is getting out of hand.

Reigns fans always applauded the concept of him being mostly silent and only using a few words to get his point across, and being a justifiably vindictive force, while keeping the same expression throughout. Some people consider that boring but if it was treated properly it could be a lot better than they think, and it'd always be a lot better than the angsty, cocky, self-righteous version we have now.


So really, there's no reason to even bother attempting to disregard Reigns' wrestling ability, as doing so just makes you look like a blind hater, or just a regular guy without any understanding of how characters and wrestling styles work in the middle of the squared circle. You can happily trash his out-of-ring persona and attitude, however, as that is even a deviation of what his fans around the time of the Shield break-up believed was his best.

Elimination Chamber 2015: RIP Rusev, in our hearts for 6-10 weeks

DIS-AP-POINTED

Despite the fact I should probably NOT CARE AT ALL ABOUT THIS ENTIRE EVENT BECAUSE OF RUSEV'S FUCKING INJURY, I still did, and looked forward to both chamber matches as well as Owens vs. Cena.

I won't say I was let down but my expectations weren't met at all in any capacity. Though, that's more of me having such expectations. The event was pretty average overall. And it seems like it was thrown together relatively quickly, and the Intercontinental Championship chamber was at a loss because of Rusev's very recent injury.

LUCHA DRAGONS vs. THE ASScension vs. TYSON KIDD & CESARO

vs. LOS MATADORES vs. PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. THE NEW DAY (c)

Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Tag Team Championship

'bretty gud'

I've always wanted to see a tag team match in the elimination chamber, but I never thought they'd go all out and put six tag teams in. I always thought it would be four tag teams, with one guy from each team starting the match off and the other guy in each of the other pods. Instead of that, we get six tag teams crowding up the place.

For what it was, it was pretty good though. When I saw that The ASScension and Los Matadores were in the match my expectations went from good to average, so if the match was good with them in it I guess it exceeded my expectations.

There's no doubt the match could have been so much better if they didn't completely gimp Kalisto in the entire match. Keeping him grounded on the pod roof for like three minutes was probably the worst thing not to do with Konnor or Los Matadores in the whole match, even though I really do think Konnor was meant to take a Swanton from Kalisto mid-match but was too close to the corner for him to safely do it.

Unfortunately there weren't many spots in this match at all, but Titus did get his big goofy head in the chains which has been done umpteen times before, but because it was Titus' first time it was pretty awesome.

The right guys WON, at least. New Day are crazy over and I really hope their reign goes for a while longer.

PAIGE vs. NAOMI vs. NIKKI BELLA (c)

Triple Threat match for the WWE Divas Championship

'literally SKIPPED'

KEVIN OWENS vs. JOHN CENA

Champion vs. Champion match

'bretty gud'

Maybe it takes me a while to get used to the dramatic things that happen when Owens is involved - I mean it took me a pretty long time to actually like the guy and now I rate him among my top three favourite guys right now - but I really think this match was kinda silly.

A solid debut for Owens, but I don't think this was even a debut. What is he doing exactly? He's the NXT Champion and he wins against a former fifteen time World Champion, but past that, he's still technically not even on the main roster? It's confusing that they'd let Owens be victorious over Cena in such a match when guys like Neville or Zayn can't be. I like Owens, I like the other two as well, but I don't understand the logic behind letting a guy currently in the apparent/supposed developmental system beat the ten year face of the company in a big match, when a guy who WAS in the apparent/supposed developmental system can't beat him, and neither can a guy who HAS BEEN in the apparent/supposed developmental system for way too long can't either.

The ending was bittersweet, no doubt. I'm glad he won, but I don't understand it.

During the match though, I did mark heavy for Owens pulling out the big guns. That moonsault was fucking insane, probably the spot of the night regardless of the match. Even if he has done more crazy shit in the past, that was incredible for a WWE standard. I used to think Zayn jumping from the second to top rope for the crossbody was awesome, but that's tame AND lame in comparison. Owens wins by a mile yet again.

MITB rematch is blurgh though. Cena probably going to get his win back like he did Wyatt and Rusev.

... Fat guy curse?

NEVILLE vs. BO DALLAS

to continue the NXT push of talents

'passable'

It'd be silly to expect a good match out of Bo Dallas at any point of his career, let alone a great one, but this is probably one of his better matches on the main roster, despite the fact I remember almost nothing about it.

The pre-match promo from Bo seemed a bit unusually dark, I hope he doesn't change into a more 'serious' character because he definitely can't pull it off as well as he's pulling off the current character of 'comedy jobber', which by itself could have a good US or IC Championship run.

As for Neville, having matches like these are a waste of his time. In fact, I'd consider these short, pointless matches in which he'd obviously win to be a hindrance if anything. Over-exposing a guy who relies on moves like Neville's to get over with the fans is probably one of the silliest things they could do. Why waste his Red Arrow, which eventually will be boring to the masses, on a match with Bo?

KING BARRETT vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. R-TRUTH

vs. MARK HENRY vs. RYBACK vs. SHEAMUS

Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship

'weak'

Yes I was and still am incredibly disappointed that Rusev was injured prior to this match and we had to go without seeing the BULGARIAN BRUTE ravage his way through people in the chamber and possibly even win. That's a given.

But I'm also disappointed the match was obviously in shambles because of the extremely recent injury. Mark Henry taking the place was better than some alternatives but ultimately everything in the match looked like it was lost due to one person's injury, excluding Sheamus' not-entering-the-match spot.

I don't understand how a match like that gets so slow and the wrestlers involved seem so confused because one person is out of the match. It can't be that hard to speed up the pace instead of lumbering around for a long time, can it?

The beginning was fine, clearly either because Barrett and Ziggler have good chemistry and Barrett's elimination was likely booked - and everything after that, with Henry coming out, was booked with Rusev in mind - but I really can't fathom how former World Champions in Sheamus, Ziggler and Henry, as well as longstanding wrestlers in Ryback and Truth can be so confused in the middle of a match.

DEAN AMBROSE vs. SETH ROLLINS (c)

for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

'passable'

WWE have overdone this feud already, which is very, very disappointing given the fact these guys could have had such a lengthy rivalry that didn't feel as if it ran dry within the first month or two.

And the screw-about finish was so obvious that it made the match so pointless to even watch. At least for once Rollins didn't get DQed because of his Authority pals jumping in and helping, and did it himself.

Honestly nothing to even say about the match, it went through the motions, nothing was special, nothing was great, it was a let-down yet again.