Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe, WWE SummerSlam (8/20/2017)

This was for Lesnar’s WWE Universal Title.

In the process of covering 2017 on this blog, I had referred to two major Brock Lesnar title matches as being more akin to kaiju battles or kaiju movies than professional wrestling matches. Big gigantic monster fights, over in five to seven minutes, all feeling like these titanic struggles in which the King of the Monsters reasserted his dominion after getting his ass kicked by a rival monster of some notoriety, while occasionally destroying everything in sight. Ought to come in capitalized letters, with the Toho Studios bug at the start, SAMOA JOE VS. BROCK LESNAR (2017, Ishiro Honda), and the like.

Such is not entirely the case here.

That’s not an insult to this match, by any means.

No, the real reason for that is that, despite the insanity of a thousand monster brawl seen in a perfect film like GODZILLA: FINAL WARS (2004), they never quite had the foresight to create something like this.

Even going back to the Universal monsters, your movie monster fights are usually one on one, or eventually form into teams  (Godzilla and pals against some combination of Ghidorah, Gigan, and/or Mecha Godzilla), and at best, your have your non-freak normal humans there on the side somewhere. Villagers hoping Frankenstein’s monster and The Wolf Man destroy each other, or the people in G-FORCE, Monarch, or the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center. There have never been four sides in one of the movies that matches like this more often resemble than anything in the professional wrestling sphere.

In this match though, we get a taste of just what that might look like.

That’s not to say this match is some novel construct, or that it reinvents what a four way match is. There have been matches like this for two decades, more or less, by this point, and your big bumps, finisher trading, saves and nearfalls, etc. that this match has to offer generally fit in with what you’d expect out of one of those matches.

It’s just that it’s hard to remember one that packed in quite as much destructive force, grandiose feeling, and pure concussive power as this did.

Construction wise, it is maybe the most impressive WWE achievement of the year.

Braun Strowman — both individually and as a later one on one challenge to Brock Lesnar — is the focus of this match, and once again in 2017, it goes off perfectly. He dominates Lesnar initially, first taking him out of the match with two powerslams through two announce tables, before tipping a third over on him. When Lesnar returns to the match, he’s never really able to handle Strowman. He never hoists him up for a German Suplex, he never gets the F5 off even when he lifts Braun up for it, and even the Kimura is a non-factor. Secretly, this is one of the greatest build-up matches of all time, asking the sorts of questions and putting the sorts of doubts into place that, as funny as it might seem in retrospect given how the match went and how their future altercations went, made the eventual Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman feel like a must-see event going into it, achieving a kind of Big Fight Feel beforehand that so few matches even come close to.

Both the Samoan Joes are essentially spare pieces here, but neither wrestles or acts like that. As much as this match leans on Braun Strowman theatrics and, later on, Brock Lesnar’s unbelievably babyface performance, it’s Reigns and Joe that hold the thing together. They’re the glue in the sections that don’t benefit from gigantic setpieces, again delivering together as they always did in shorter bursts. Even independent of the fact that they have tremendous utility in largely keeping the two most destructive forces apart for most of the match, this match also benefits so much from the crispness of their offense, the energy and secret bump freak psychosis of Reigns, the raw feeling Samoa Joe puts into every match of note in his 2010s WWE run, and the selling too.

This is far from a match about that, but in the moments when Lesnar is being put on a stretcher and Braun takes a step back to sell exhaustion at the thing he’s just done (and in another great touch, sort of like he’s making sure Brock is actually out of the match before he turns his back on him), there could easily be a gigantic logical gap of where Joe and Roman are even after Braun’s just thrown an office chair at them, but when the camera does focus on them, they’re both so good at selling cumulative damage and the effects of those shots that it isn’t a weakness at all.

Lesnar, of course, is the other major factor here, and as great as the Joes are as glue guys and as incredible as the booking of Braun Strowman is and as well as he lives up to it, this match lives and dies on Brock Lesnar’s performance in a less common role. As the beset upon babyface, a monster encountering not only more challenges than ever before, but one larger one in particular, it is a shockingly sympathetic and mechanically perfect performance from Brock Lesnar that ensures this match’s greatness. The initial surprise and shock at Strowman’s attack is one thing, but the way Lesnar’s comeback goes from pure lizard brained adrenaline to suffering even worse once that goes away is what really makes him one of the all-time greats.

He isn’t just moving slower, but he’s breathing heavier too. Lesnar drops down after just about everything that happens and struggling to even exist in the match near the very end, reacting to other people more than going out and getting his own shot like he usually does. It not only stands as this phenomenal show of selling, but as a perfect babyface performance. It isn’t just a sympathetic show of damage taken, but an ultra likeable show of guts and courage in response to that, carried off individually by Lesnar in a way that feels real and genuine, rather than phony, as something similar to this involving one of the other wrestlers in this match once did about a year and a half prior.

The composition is not entirely perfect, but I mean that less in terms of construction and more in terms of pure timing. Brock Lesnar’s return to the match whips so much ass, and by the time the match ends, a little too much time has passed, allowing the match to return from that feeling of complete frenzy and chaos back into something normal, a regular professional wrestling match. With heavy hitters like these and quality construction even in these moments, it still results in one of the year’s best matches, but it is not the one hundred percent most airproof version of the thing that it could be.

It simply, tragically, has to settle instead for being one of the best matches of the year.

Lesnar finally reels off the F5 on Roman Reigns, and rather than Samoa Joe (a force already defeated recently) or Braun Strowman (a force who there is clear money in seeing Lesnar fight individually, no matter the quality of the eventual match), Reigns is the one who loses to Lesnar. Even this winds up working better long term than one might immediately imagine, a clear show of that, while Reigns is a better wrestler than Strowman and in his physical prime, unlike Samoa Joe, what he lacks at this point in his career is down to pure will and raw killer instinct, and until that develops, he belongs to Brock Lesnar.

The ultimate proof of that lies in the fact that, even though it is technically the first time Reigns has ever lost to Lesnar — avoiding that result in their WrestleMania 31 and Fastlane 2016 meetings — it feels like another of many.

What we have is a match that not only makes anything you invested in it worthwhile, one that delivers roughly a year’s worth of thrills, and also one that sells a future match up on top of everything else. It’s a match that is almost as versatile as it is powerful, the ultimate monster fight in a year on the WWE main roster that is largely defined by these sorts of matches. Everything that happens kicks ass, a new monster emerges and asks a few real hard questions about the reigning monarch that aren’t answered just yet, but in the end, the King of the Monsters rises to the challenge once again, even if it is the narrowest victory he’s had in a fight since probably 2010.

The year’s greatest chunk of WWE bullshit.

***1/2

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, WWE Raw (8/7/2017)

This was a Last Man Standing match.

Of their four matches in 2017, it is easily the least of them in retrospect.

Part of that is just by the nature of what this is, being the only one of the four that is on television and not a major event. It’s not a match that I’d accuse either man of dogging, Roman Reigns’ selling in this is especially great, but it is less big than those other matches. They have less allowances than you’d expect given the gimmick they work with, and with a bullshit finish to build up a PPV match in Samoa Joe choking Reigns out to let Strowman win, it not only means the match ends in a less satisfying way than their final match of this series ought to, but means we’re denied Roman actually beating Strowman to end the program.

Ideally, this could have waited a few weeks or months, and been the end of the feud in a way that meant more, rather than the build up to both men and their phenomenal six month feud essentially just being fed to the one wrestler in WWE who didn’t need it. This has been one of the highlights of the year, and it’s just kind of a bummer to see it only end in a television match before moving on to something else. It’s the WWE, you never ought to expect anything, and even one of the best match ups of the entire decade only ever ended on TV. Buy the ticket, take the ride, all of that. But when you can’t even get the most out of a classic pro wrestling ass pro wrestling match up like this, it’s hard to not see real problems with that ride, even beyond the ones that have been there for the last decade.

The other problems that began to rear their head in the last match these two had close to a month before are still here too, which is to say this is less good when it’s a more even fight, as opposed to Our Hero the Big Dog fighting the impossible odds against a horrifying monster. Frustratingly, there’s lip service paid, but again, Braun’s the one who does the coolest stuff (hurling a chair into Roman’s face in maybe the spot of the year) and who survives the most. Combine it with Roman being vociferously booed when compared to the hot new thing who is booked to be cooler than Reigns as well, despite the match never shifting to TRULY accommodate these reactions (booking the match as 50/50 is a half measure), and it’s just sort of odd, the result of a company too lazy to do anything but chase the latest hot hand, and somehow forgetting the easy math that had previously been its bread and butter for the last half century plus.

Despite of all of that, this rocks again.

Absolutely whips ass.

There is simply a chemistry here with these two in these big bomb throwing matches in 2017 that, independent of weird reactions or oddball booking decisions, cannot be entirely undercut.

Roman’s selling of his arm throughout the entire match following an early steel steps spot is the highlight on a mechanical level, of course. He not only manages to always keep it present so that he feels tougher and cooler for fighting through something, but he incorporates it into everything he does, including a Cena-esque struggle over lifting the steps. Cena would do it to sell how heavy they were as a way to make the coming spot more impressive, while Reigns does it to show the pain he’s in, but the principle is the same yet again, creating a sense of drama and struggle out of every possible moment. Braun Strowman is also great here, showing off a few great smaller scale brick wall wobbles and sells backwards to build up eventual bumps, I don’t want to suggest that this is a one man show, but Roman Reigns is unbelievably great here.

In terms of the big things they do and how the match itself is laid out, despite the sparseness of what they do relative to other matches in the series or other Last Man Standing matches involving Roman Reigns, it still rocks. They take great pains to show Roman pushing the boulder up the hill, failing to do things early before hitting them later on, and hitting them in newer and less familiar ways, like the sliding dropkick using the stage or paying off the inability to lift Strowman with the big table spot. The moment right before the finish is also a real spectacular little thing that could have been a pretty decent finish in and of itself, seeing Braun back up after cutting a Spear off, only to not factor in Roman sprinting back down anyways and hitting it with a full ramp running start down to ringside. It’s your classic sort of display of babyface hard work and guts that would have made for the ideal end of the feud between these two, had some brain genius not instead decided to let the main roster feud of the year dwindle away into nothing instead.

The shame of the ending is what it is, it’s a bummer that we never got to see the Roman/Braun match that, in another era, likely would have been an absolute slam dunk classic. You work with the tools you have and not the tools that you want, we still got four great matches this year out of these two, and four matches at a level that Strowman would never reach again in one on one environments. It’s hard to be too distraught, both on the basis that this is the WWE and it’s a personal failure at this point to expect things from them, but also in the sense that these are more great matches than previously existed in the world beforehand. I just wish that there were even more of them, or that they were even greater in ways that seem so plainly obvious.

Flawed in concept and execution, absolutely, and as is often the case with these big Roman Reigns singles matches (or at least the ones not quite so obviously undercut in a way that inspires conspiracy theory), still unbelievably great.

***1/4

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, WWE Great Balls of Fire (7/9/2017)

This was an AMBULANCE MATCH.

Once again, it’s great.

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman continues to be the best match up that the WWE — main roster or otherwise — has to offer, but this is a little bit different than their previous two matches.

Part of that is down to the stipulation, of course. The drama of their first two matches, by definition, cannot be here. Both in the sense that we’ve now seen each man beaten by the other and seen Braun taken down by injury, but also in the more pragmatic sense that, as an Ambulance Match, there’s no nearfall or big kickout drama to be mined. Instead, the quality of this comes from the struggle over the ambulance en lieu of that, with the other sections of the match filled up with the same big swings and lizard brain activating setpieces and power spot as always. It’s still a really great match, just in a different sort of a way.

In fact, the biggest difference is down not to stipulation, but in what the match sets out to accomplish.

During the first two Reigns/Strowman matches — first with both healthy and then with Reigns fighting hurt, in a career level performance — the story was about Roman Reigns as the hero fighting against a monster heel. That’s very much not the case here. That’s not to say Braun shows up here here as 2018-2020 Braun, all smiles and the sort of bullshit that made him far less interesting, but this is presented more as a clash between two different sorts of heroic figures. Braun still has one foot on the other side of the fence, but of the two, he’s the one overcoming things and by the end of the match, it’s clear that this is a match about Braun Strowman more than one about Roman Reigns.

Specifically, this match is the least of the three so far to me because of this, casting Reigns in a role that he’s far less great at than the one he played in those first two matches, and telling a story that simply does not have the juice that a pure old style hero vs. monster story had.

This is countered, I think, by this being maybe the best Braun Strowman performance in any of these matches so far. Part of that is the selling he’s asked to do more of now, showing a little more vulnerability and bumping around more. There are these great moments for Strowman that do more for him than, I think, even the big setpieces everyone remembers. When they first get onto the stage and he throws Roman into the video wall, there’s this split second where you see wheels turning and then he rampages over across the stage to commentary, and they all immediately flee. It’s this small little split-second thing, but it’s so well performed by Strowman and by all three announcers, and it explains why this 2016-2017 Braun Strowman singles push worked as well as it did just a much as any one great match or big destructive setpiece. It’s not just someone being cast as a monster and doing monster spots, it’s little movements and reactions in the match that make him feel so much more genuine as that than anyone in this monster heel role since maybe Umaga. The shame of it is that he’s clearly going to turn face because WWE is too lazy to do anything more than run with a hot act, and will lose everything that made this work so well by the end of the year, but in this role and in matches like this within this role, he’s just so great.

Strowman’s big selling moments late in the match are also tremendous. Not just the slightly hurt arm still, but the way he’s huffing and puffing through everything. There’s no one incredible sell here to speak of, but it’s such an impressive feeling and balancing act that this match pulls off, in which Strowman takes these gigantic spills and shots, and always feels like he’s on the verge of something. I think the match still loses something because he’s not as good as Reigns was in this role in the first two matches, but it’s a testament to the work done with the Strowman character and Braun’s performance in these matches that this still works out as well as it does.

Reigns goes for a classical big swing and a miss with a Spear into the ambulance, only for Strowman to swat him aside and send the Big Dog flying out of frame and into the ambulance, allowing Braun to simply close the doors and win (before Roman Reigns tries to commit murder after the match).

Braun Strowman wins this time not through power, ruthlessness, or a kind of raw destructive force, but simply by outsmarting Reigns when it counts the most, despite being more injured. In retrospect, it’s clearly the moment at which he first becomes a hero. There might be moments later in the year when the pull it back so he can have a big turn moment, but relative to the way WWE books its heroes, this is it. A big strong guy fighting back from an injury, relying on pure guts and muscle, and overcoming a guy the audience absolutely hates.

It’s a match that goes away more from what worked perfectly in the past, but unlike other times where Roman Reigns suffered because of booking decisions made by the company, this one doesn’t feel like the result of some malicious intent from on high so much as the correct choice to play a hot hand and see what happens with a newer approach to the match itself.

There’s still probably a better one in them, I’m not sure if these two ever quite hit the absolute classic of this style that it felt/feels like they’re capable of, but a third and different feeling really great pay-per-view match in five months isn’t nothing either.

***1/4

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, WWE Payback (4/30/2017)

In the case you were not aware, Braun Strowman was not finished with Roman Reigns.

When writing about their first match nearly two months prior, I had written that it was the most like John Cena that Roman Reigns had ever felt. Not just in that he was booked against this God killer monster heel and only barely got past him, but that there was a real humanity to his performance that you rarely got with the Roman babyface stuff. A vulnerability and a consistent struggle to the performance which I mostly associate with Cena in this role, particularly in matches like this.

Having said that, this is perhaps the single best John Cena match of Roman Reigns’ singles career.

Coming in with a taped up left shoulder, chest, and (so we’re told) ribs as well, Roman is essentially fighting from a hopeless position. He does not possess Cena’s natural charm and likeability in terms of fighting a losing battle while also coming to terms with that fact, Cena’s version of that is one of the best and most memorable matches of the decade, if not ever, but Roman’s ain’t half bad either. He isn’t quite able to convey, facially, the transition from belief to a kind of desperate hope that makes the thing so dramatic and moving, but he is able to portray a desperation and a sort of frantic energy at all times that still does so much.

In terms of the construction of the thing, the raw plumbing of it all, the match is a marvel.

There is such an economy of movement to this thing. Nothing happens here that isn’t either incredibly cool or that doesn’t matter. Not everything Braun does is as awesome as a chokeslam on the announce table or a cut off of the Yoshino style apron dropkick and hurl into the barricade, but it all feels vital. Strowman in particular has such a remarkable economy of movement in this particular match. There’s always the old story about OVW students being made to watch the Chris Benoit vs. William Regal match from the 2000 Brian Pillman Memorial Show as a model of efficiency (don’t fucking yell at me, I’m not saying they’re on the same level, calm down imaginary voice in my head of people arguing with minor points in my reviews), but Strowman in this match feels like the sort of thing other WWE system big guys should have to see. Roman’s selling is really great too, constantly expressing a sort of general ache and torment that feels commensurate with what Strowman actually does to him. Everything he does, especially in the second half when he tries to come back, feels so labored on top of the previously mentioned desperation. Reigns never quite portrays the sense of hopelessness that Cena did in a similar spot, let alone the heroics of fighting back anyways, but the match and his performance and his opponent’s performance is such that the match achieves a feeling along those lines anyways.

It is not a battle that can be won. Not in his condition and not against Strowman on this night, maybe no matter how healthy he might be otherwise. Roman Reigns never accepts this, it is one of the great babyface performance of his career as a result, but at some point, it does not matter how he feels or what he accepts. The facts on the ground are what they are, and for once, they are not on his side.

Roman again hurls out a Spear as a Hail Mary like he did in March for a kickout, but this time, the next one never comes. Braun catches him in an Arm Triangle on the hurt shoulder and chest, and Roman never has a lick of offense again.

The monster comes into his own in real time.

Braun yanks Roman up by the chest protector after the first Powerslam kickout, and this time, there is no miracle to be found and nothing for Roman Reigns to capitalize upon to pull victory out of thin air for a second time. Strowman makes no mistakes now, learning from his error the first time around, and a second running powerslam does the trick.

After the match, Strowman makes sure to make his impression, and throws the steps down onto Roman’s already damaged ribs, ensuring both a return and a rubber match between the two.

The only real flaw with this is that the people in San Jose, California do not react like you’d want for such a destruction. I don’t blame the Bay Area, as they have grown accustomed to cheering for cool and unkillable monsters (even still, there is a phenomenal brief crowd shot of a child in a Cavs hat after Roman’s spear fails to garner the victory, clearly expecting some big emotion, only for the child to also barely react), and too much damage had been done to Reigns at this point. Had this happened in 2014 or maybe even in 2015, it would have been the thing Reigns really needed, but too much damage had probably been done for a prolonged face thing to ever work.

However, I am not one of these fans, and so I don’t actually give a shit.

This rocks. Roman Reigns rocks. Braun Strowman, in this feud at least, is pitch perfect. This feud rules, every match they have in 2017 is awesome, and I think this might be their best. I’m not one hundred percent sure of that, given that I liked the first match more than I remembered, but it is certainly the match that I am the most impressed with, given its status in the middle of the story and given that it was allowed almost no shortcuts, only to attain the same level of greatness as the previous match between these two.

Tremendous professional wrestling.

***1/4

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, WWE Fastlane (3/5/2017)

Ideologically speaking, the best John Cena match of 2017 so far.

This is pure WWE ideology and formula, and for once, I mean that as a complete and total compliment.

So often I’ll find myself praising something from the WWE and writing something like “the machine working at full capacity” or “the machine working like it’s supposed to”, given how often said machine fails to operate like it’s supposed to. I mean to refer to the idea in those cases that a promotion should strive to make everything as good as possible and to set its wrestlers up to succeed, stories and talent operating hand in hand to create pristine professional wrestling, each elevating the other in turn.

Really though, while it’s not to say the machine didn’t work perfectly in a few cases in the previous few years, this is the sort of a thing that the machine was expressly built for.

A gigantic unstoppable monster and an athletic superman trying to take him down.

That’s it.

That’s the entire thing, it is some classic old WWF shit, some classic territory shit, and this match (and later their entire series together) makes an absolutely stellar case for not only way something like this is worth trying and building to, but why it is such an enduring basic tenant of pro wrestling. Because for every frustration about anything else on the show, hamfisted pushes, maybe the booking of the match itself, it fucking rocks.

Roman and Braun, at least in their 2017 forms, are perfect for each other.

First off, just in a story sense, it is the easiest thing in the world. Unstoppable force and immovable object, things of that nature, and it’s the first one of these that feels like it’s been built up specifically for Roman Reigns to fight in a match like this, rather than someone thrown at him to occupy some time. Strowman’s a hulking enough guy and well built enough to give Roman something real to fight up against. You can call someone the underdog a million times, it’s the other kind of classic WWE bullshit, but he’s never quite felt it like this before. Even before getting hurled around the ring and ringside area, there is such an immediate and obvious difference between being told and seeing. The latter is believing and against a taller, wider, and ticker guy who hasn’t been undercut by years of being beaten like a drum, it is so much easier to feel that jeopardy, and so the entire production comes off as so much more genuine.

Speaking of the match mechanically and looking under the hood, it is an even more perfect marriage.

First, we have to talk about Braun Strowman.

So much of the praise for this match’s success rightfully lies at Roman Reigns’ feet, but it is not solely a one man show. Strowman is limited, but he is far from useless. He’s standing on an x on the stage and getting to his bits, essentially, but he’s super believable in the role in a way that few others at the time are. Beyond that, when he does have to bump (or tease bumping) and well, he is genuinely great at it, so far as super heavyweight bumping goes. There’s a build and an escalation to going down that benefits the match so much, turning bumps themselves into these little victories. He’s also spectacular at creating a leg injury in the last moments of the match after a spill over the top, hobbling and holding it in these small moments in between things. It’s brief, it’s not something commentary catches too much, but it’s this great and super believable explanation of why he can’t quite close, a minor gripe that doesn’t necessarily absolve him of the loss, but allows that Maybe to creep in and allow all of those wonderful rematches.

As for the other guy, I wasn’t totally joking at the start. This is the exact sort of match that I absolutely loved seeing out of John Cena for years and that it feels had just been absent from the company since he shifted into PWG Jawn.

Roman Reigns is not John Cena, but it very much feels like the same sort of ethos on display here. Huge bumping for a monster, but in a way that feels incredibly naturalistic. There’s a process that Reigns works with here, a trial and error against a challenge he doesn’t immediately know how to handle when he can’t just run at it and tackle or throw it into oblivion, and the slow payoff after what feels like a thousand errors does more for Roman as a babyface than anything in the last two years has (outside of the AJ Styles feud). Roman’s facials when they begin throwing big shots out are also phenomenal, notably this face when he fires off the Spear in desperation with no set up as a way to stop Braun, only for the kickout. Roman’s face isn’t some NXT bullshit, it’s just this simple acknowledgement that a shot in the dark was like the one hundredth thing in the match

It’s not just the big bombs though either. Those are great, but it’s stuff like Roman’s bewildered look when getting hurled out of the ring two or three times or cut off early on or the way he tries to push up out of every hold Braun has in a bunch of different ways (maybe the most Cenaesque thing he does) that really work for me, and make the big bombs work so much better.

There’s a real struggle to Roman’s work in this match that has rarely been there before, and certainly not to this level. It’s the stuff that ties the entire enterprise together, and is the first time in this entire project that he’s felt like anything even close to being The Guy, even if that’s undercut by a million other bad booking decisions in the future.

One of those decisions, real arguably, comes at the end of this match.

The conclusion is assembled fairly well on its own, in a bell to bell sense. Braun kicks out of the Spear in a rarity, and Roman avoids the big powerslam ever being hit, to avoid such a thing in their first match. He dodges a splash off the top, aided a little by the big guy’s hurt leg, and fires off another Spear for the win. It’s not the end of the world, but as a thing that’s going to continue for much of the year (essentially put on pause to do the Roman/Undertaker thing, then resumed), it’s not the best start to the feud. It’s a match kind of in a rough spot, coming before Roman’s big match, but that’s another corner nobody put the company in but themselves. In retrospect, I’d have preferred something a little more inconclusive to go into the rest of the series, rather than Roman solving the problem in match number one, something closer to the first match in a series that this match reminded me a lot of. Braun got his heat back after WrestleMania with an absolute all-time motherfucker of an assault angle, so all’s well that ends well, but the finish doesn’t seem quite right for the match that preceded it.

Outside of that though, it is a nearly flawless first match in the program, and the start of one of the great things wrestling had to offer in 2017.

Some may say the start of 2017’s best in-ring rivalry.

Given the limitations of at least one man in this match and the relative lack of shortcuts to make up for that, one of the year’s great overachievements, even if it’s the least of all their matches together this year. Roman’s career achievement, relative to what he’s given to work with, up until this point.

***1/4

The Wyatt Family vs. The Dudley Boyz/Rhino/Tommy Dreamer, WWE Raw (12/14/2015)

This was an Extreme Rules match.

It’s one of the surprises of the year out of WWE, as they get the full clearance to do everything WWE ever lets people do anymore, and it’s honestly kind of a hoot.vAfter a disappointing tables match (as most tables matches are) the night before, this is way more like it, and the match they needed to have for this to work, and to give the Wyatts not only a solid win, but a solid win in a match that’s even halfway memorable.

This being the best possible match for them isn’t just about the stipulation or it now being on TV, but the way that it’s allowed to break down and get chaotic. Spreading the thing out is as crucial as anything out. With the match spreading to all corners of the environment, the camera is able to jump over to whichever section is interesting at the moment, removing any real dead space or footage of people lying around for too long or clearly half assing it and waiting for a spot. This is also the only match on the show that gets to be as out of control and use the shortcuts that this match does, so they have full clearance to get as wild as possible, without the audience reaction being dulled by already having seen chairs and tables used already on the show. They get all of it. Moves off the stage through tables, the Braun Strowman barricade spot, chairs and trash cans whipped around at each other, all of it. It’s wild enough to just get past that overly sanitized feeling that’s permeated so much of WWE television while also carefully put and held together by a talent like Harper and experienced guys in a match like this like the old men, and allows the match to stand out.

Beyond just being fun as hell, it’s also put together in a way that makes as much sense as possible. The ECW guys (EV2.0 if this was TNA) eventually get picked off one by one, because they can’t really hang anymore. Strowman stampedes through Dreamer and the railing. The Dudleys get separated and fairly easily shut down. The one left who still has something is Rhino, and he delivers a charming little offensive attempt before getting surrounded and stopped.

After the Sister Abby, the focus goes instead to Rowan surprisingly. He splashes Rhino off the top through a table to win, which I guess is an attempt to try and build him back up for The Rock’s retirement match.

Genuinely really really fun, one of the major miracles of the year.

***

Braun Strowman vs. Shane McMahon, WWE WrestleMania 37 Night One (4/10/2021)

fuck off

there’s a lot wrong with this on an intellectual level (why’s there sheet metal on top of the cage now? what’s up with the bags? why did a third of this have knee work? why was this happening?) but ultimately none of this is worth angrily typing hundreds of words about. genuinely, i cannot imagine the sort of person who gives a fuck about this at all. this is not for people who actually exist.

nobody ever needs to think about this again

for the record though, most bullying is correct and okay

Goldberg vs. Braun Strowman, WWE WrestleMania 36 Day One (4/4/2020)

This was for Goldberg’s WWE Universal Title.

Goldberg hit four spears.

Braun then hit four powerslams.

On the fourth, he became the new holder of the blue title.

this match at least respected my time, even if it was absolute garbage. not much sums up the WWE more than putting the title on a ‘rona denier/downplayer on this show.