Edge & Christian vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz, WWF SummerSlam (8/27/2000)

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This was the first ever TLC match for Edge and Christian’s WWF Tag Team Titles.

It’s a mother fucker of a thing.

Certainly, yes, I recognize bias. You have to. Anyone does, trying to talk about anything like this in a fair way. I cannot imagine someone who began watching wrestling in like 2014 holding this in the same esteem as someone, in my case, who began watching wrestling in 1998. Not only in the sense that it is probably nearly impossible to look upon this with even a shadow of awe in a time not only past this, but past things that have followed this like Shelton in MITB matches in the 2000s or Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico, or in their own way, Ultimate X matches, but also in the sense that there is no nostalgia attached either to these matches or these people. I cannot make someone have their first memories of the Hardys being as psychotic underdogs and all-world babyfaces, in the same way that I also cannot make a younger person’s first Dudleys thought be the deeply deeply deeply deeply canceled and, frankly, embarrassingly entertaining Heatwave ’99 promo. My feelings on this match are — if not locked into place by — at least heavily influenced by even just faint shadows of the feeling it gave me the first time I saw it.

Having said all of that, I think it also just objectively rocks.

So often with matches like this now, it feels as if there is a pretense to it on the front end, that [x] amount of time and/or things have to happen before they get into the heavy stuff, but this match is up there with the most confidence per minute metric in the history of matches like this. They get right into it, never pause, and never ever look back. On top of the confidence of it, it also all feel correct. Beyond how little filler there is, almost every single thing seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger, resulting in a near constant state of hearts in throats in the last half. On top of that, it’s also assembled in a way in which the really huge off the ladder out through table stuff is spaced out, so that each instance feels big.

On top of the efficiency and how it’s a genuine marvel of construction, it’s also pure lunacy for eighteen minutes.

With the exception of bump coward protected ass golden boy Edge, there’s nobody here who doesn’t take at least one genuinely psychotic bump or shot. Gross hits with ladders, huge moves off of them, big falls through tables, it’s a match with so many thrills to it. The ultimate compliment is that if one were to make a highlight reel of what happened in the match, they would have to include just about everything, but that’s just as much about the near total lack of cowardice on display as it is about the planning and construction.

That’s not to say the latter doesn’t also rule.

Narratively speaking, the match is imperfect (more later) but also hits a certain sweet spot. Everything in the match comes down to either the Dudleys being too insane and aggressive, the Hardys — especially Jeff — going way too far with any minor opening of a window to go insane, or the champions hitting a perfect antagonistic blend somewhere in between cowardice, opportunism, and pure luck.

Jeff Hardy and D-Von Dudley get stuck up there with no ladder beneath them at the end, and Edge and Christian take advantage. D-Von drops on his own and the champions throw a ladder into Jeff to knock him down before climbing up to get the win.

Despite the reputation, it is not all it can be.

Partially, that just means in terms of how wild it can get. This match feels like — although having an urgency and efficiency that the WrestleMania 2000 version of this did not quite have almost six months prior — it is still just beginning to scratch a little under the surface, and not just because it is almost a quarter century old. Every inch of it is used well, but there’s something about it (and almost definitely this is the result of a direct rematch that goes even crazier but also branches off with each combo also doing the same) that leaves this feeling like the middle part of something too, even if it is an absolute mother fucker of a middle part.

As a result of the booking as well, it denies itself the greatest possible triumph in acting as a narrative stopgap before a far greater emotional payoff the next month.

The WWF being the WWF, these big attention grabbing showcase matches were all won by the team with the clear project guy on them (do not lie to yourself, Edge was as much of a protected ass golden boy as anyone save for a Cena/Orton/Batista/Reigns figure), and so in a match devoted to these gut reaction high spots and pure visceral thrills, it also handicaps itself at least a little by denying the Hardys the feel good hometown win in classic WWF fashion and having the coward champions luck out intead, stringing it along until Unforgiven a month later in one of the great forgotten matches of this golden era. It doesn’t necessarily make this specific match worse or anything, it is a special thing on its own merits, but given the raw material, one cannot help but imagine something even better.

Still, given all that comes — both in the next month and also in the next year — it is hard to be all that annoyed at a match that opts to simply be one of the great displays of raw artillery and creativity of the time. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t allowed to be, but even in the midst of probably the best year in company history, it’s still so impressive when something this great, especially like this, break loose.

One of the all-time stunt show fireworks ass pieces of bullshit, whose only true flaw in that department is that it is probably not even be the best one these teams had against each other in the same twelve month span.

***3/4

The Hardy Boyz vs. Edge & Christian, WWF No Mercy (10/17/1999)

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This was the fifth match in the Terri Invitational Tournament (GET IT???), for $100,000 and the managerial services of Terri Runnels, and was also a ladder match.

Obviously, yes, this is not in 2024 (and beyond) what it was in 1999.

Speaking as someone who was a nine year old when this match happened — and thus uniquely situated to be both in awe of everything wrestling had to offer at the time and thus blinded by nostalgia in many respect as well as being able to speak to this in terms of what other ladder matches and/or other stunt shows wee offering up — it has been topped many times over. Not just by what these teams would do five more times together (four with the Dudleys, and once just in a better ladder match eleven months later), but by what other wrestlers and teams have spent the following quarter century and counting doing in the wake of this match.

If one is interested in such things, this match is a genuine historical artifact.

Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels happened five and a half years before this, but it feels like it happened a decade before this. To isolate it even more so, there’s a Rock vs. Triple H ladder match thirteen and a half months before this that the company makes a big deal out of because of who those two became and that I do genuinely think is very good, and that feels just as much like it happened a decade in the past compared to this. It is the genesis of the modern ladder match, in terms of utilizing multiple ladders, and the sorts of things to be done with them.

All of that has very little to do with why this is great though.

For as much fun as it can be and for as rewarding as it can be to look at a match again for the first time in a while and find new layers, that is not the case here. There is not a narrative depth to be found here. These teams and wrestlers eventually all become very skilled at injecting those sorts of things into these major gimmick matches, but this first time out, it is a pure fireworks show. The loudest sounds and the brightest lights that these four can conjure up, that is what this match has to offer.

This match whips ass because it whips ass.

A difference between a match like this — an old ass fireworks display that holds up — and the many that don’t though comes where it always does, in the slightly more thoughtful construction of the thing.

While the match is full of spectacular concepts and horrifying landings, very little happens in this that doesn’t at least make some sort of sense. Not everything is absolutely about getting up the ladder to win, but the big prop spots that happen are all very well plotted and metered out. There’s a very very very fine line to walk in matches like these, where you accept that some bits are guy trying to do greater damage so they can climb unimpeded but also where you know, on an individual gut level if something slips too far into just doing cool stuff, and it’s a little different for everyone, but this is a match that feels like it has it right enough not to hold against four hyper ambitious young wrestlers. Everything always moves forward, and that movement always seems geared towards trying to win in a very appealing sort of way.

Following multiple ladders toppling over, Jeff Hardy knocks Edge off the last one left, and yanks the sack of money down with such force that he takes arguably the biggest bump of the match simply yanking it down, creating his star in a moment that feels so on the nose that it loop back around to being totally and completely perfect.

A better poster might say some shit like, “the second best match of the show next to Jeff Jarrett vs. Chyna”, but while I do love that match, it’s just a little too hard to deny a fireworks show this good with the staying power that this has.

***1/6

Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge, WWE Smackdown (9/26/2002)

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This was a No Disqualification Match (no, it wasn’t a Ladder Match, stop that), as the end of their feud.

Like another match in this drop, it’s something of a famous feud ending match between two of the more celebrated wrestlers of a time and place, focusing more on the back and forth and the huge displays of physical pyrotechnics, a match that I think is very much not their best work together, and one that also just kind of rules.

It is far from perfect.

What stands out as obvious problems in the match are here, of course. The way another WWE gimmick match really only become that way once a switch arbitrarily seems to flip, and not even in an older school way where the non-weapons/smoke and mirrors parts are at least aggressive in a way they might not be in a normal match, is always going to be frustrating. Performance wise, while Edge is perfectly okay here, he is again just nowhere near Eddie Guerrero, in a way that can occasionally border on distracting. The match doesn’t necessarily feel rushed or anything, they have over fifteen minutes of airtime to work with (and with how taped SDs used to be edited, you really only lose like 30-60 seconds during a break rather than the implied 3-4 minutes), but things feel kind of crunched together in a way that’s hard to entirely put a finger on or get my hands entirely around. There’s something about it that feels just a little off or just slightly unfinished or undercooked.

There’s also a less obvious problem though, and more a choice made, which is that this is a weirdly back and forth match for a time at which WWE had long since settled into a certain way of doing things. That’s not to say this is ever mindless, they (mostly) set things up with care and there’s some light call-back work in the back half, but to hit that comparison again, it’s an easy kind of pure heel/face feud ender with chances for these clear moments of revenge (Eddie had busted Edge open the previous week on TV with an attack to the head, then beat him on pay-per-view over the weekend by attacking those injuries), which get pushed aside in pursuit of the Best Match Possible.

It’s all so very unsatisfying.

Guerrero and Edge (in the same way a craftsman might also credit his tools I suppose)  still just get so much right though, and not just in terms of the sensationally loud noises and bright flashes that they have up their sleeves.

Structure-wise, it’s strange, but they do so many cool things with that, both in terms of offense and in terms of how they approach a match like this. The momentum swings feel sudden and make it feel like a real struggle to ever get anything moving. Again, unlike usual WWE stuff, they’re not at all hesitant about throwing huge things out there at all times, even in the first half of the match. They also find some great ways to tie in previous events, even if the match isn’t nearly as focused on that as I would prefer. Having beaten Edge the past weekend on pay-per-view by slamming his head into an exposed steel buckle before winning with a sunset flip powerbomb, doing it now off a ladder, only for Edge to survive it this time feels like a not insignificant deal. The finish itself then also has a way of working not only as a revenge spot for the pay-per-view, but in probably a better thing to appeal to a WWE audience, the spot earlier in the match as well.

Performance wise, it’s also one of my favorite Eddie Guerrero showings, outside of your big obvious ones (HH97, vs. Lesnar, JBL bloodbath, Rey 05, etc., all great commission options). What’s always there at his best is there. The snap both on offense and when on the other end of offense, the meanness, the general precision on everything, but it all feels like so much more. This is hardly the all time bastard mother fucker showing of Eddie’s career, but there’s an urgency and intensity to everything that has a way of turning regular ass wrestling offense into these moments that feel like particularly pointed insults. As much as little bits of continuity thrown into a montage of car chases and explosions helps this still feel like something of a feud ender in spite of the problems, Eddie’s performance, both casual and cruel, as a villain worth shutting up and who it feels impressive to finally get past probably does just as much work.

In the end, Edge gets at least a little revenge, slamming Eddie’s face into the top of the ladder a few times, before an Edgacution off the ladder gets him the win.

Their pay-per-view efforts might be better matches, but with the fireworks this provides especially in the final moments, it’s not at all hard to see why this had (and maybe still has) a certain staying power with other people of my generation that those pay-per-view matches lacked. For what it lacks, it still gets the major stuff really really right, and again proves shows that it’s sometimes not the end of the world to skip the preamble and go right to the fireworks factory, because when you pick the right ones, get your hands on Krazy Kaplan’s finest, it is still a whole lot of fun.

A great match, and as a testament to the quality of the show at the time, pretty easily still only the second best match of the night behind an Angle/Mysterio/Benoit three way that I like even more.

***+

Triple H vs. Randy Orton vs. Batista vs. Chris Benoit vs. Edge vs. Chris Jericho, WWE New Year’s Revolution 2005 (1/9/2005)

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This was an Elimination Chamber match for the vacant World Heavyweight Title, with Shawn Michaels as a special guest referee.

I have gone on record, not only when talking about it originally but in year and decade wrap-up lists, saying that the 2014 Elimination Chamber (Cena vs. Bryan vs. Orton vs. Cesaro vs. Sheamus vs. Christian) is the best of its kind, but it is not the only really great one. I’m also a really big fan of the 2003 (the one where Goldberg nukes everyone) and 2009 (the one with the big Edge swerve, but also the insane Rey Mysterio performance) as all-time level Chambers.

Below that level, there’s the level this match is on, along with something like the 2011 (Punk/Cena final, a few months before that would have been huge), 2017 (the Bray Wyatt one), or the 2019 (Bryan/Kofi final) ones. Not the greatest, certainly ones that suffer from less than perfect line-ups despite the talent and strength of the booking, but that I simply cannot deny. Like those matches, while I have some issues with it, it just kind of works for me, one of those classic WWE productions that makes me go, “yes, this is how the system is supposed to work”.

(Less so in that it ought to be Triple H winning, but in terms of all it advances, what it does for Batista, the use it puts a still all-world Benoit to, etc.)

In short, the correct amount of bullshit.

Benoit and Jericho begin the match before Triple H is third (doesn’t fit in anywhere else here, but great political maneuvering to have HHH last longer than actual babyface challenger Orton and survive more, while also having Benoit and Jericho before him to mask it a little bit), and to the credit of both men, they are once again has never been on behavior as good as he is on when Chris Benoit is in a match. As early WAR or WCW Benoit/Jericho stuff showed, that was never exactly a guarantee, but at this point, it at least guarantees a half-decent effort. Like Triple H often did against Benoit, as also seen in this match, or later like Hunter and Orton against Bryan, there is an implicit pressure that comes from being an established Great Wrestler in the WWE, and again, Jericho is on best behavior, being more aggressive and harder hitting than usual.

After that, as everyone pours in, it is the ideal mix of things.

There is only one GREAT wrestler here, but everyone else is on their very best behavior.

Batista is obviously very good as your psuedo-hot tag power babyface, but Randy Orton in this is much better than I remembered as a mechanical babyface. The microphone work still might not be him at his most comfortable, but in terms of throwing hands and showing some energy, he is genuinely really really good in this, already being the second smoothest/most natural feeling wrestler in the match behind Benoit. Edge, Jericho, and Hunter are all limited, but primarily do things they’re best at. For Edge, that means basically nothing until the special referee gets him out first. For Jericho, it mean mostly being beaten into greater effort than usual. For Hunter, it means power moves against great bumpers and benefitting from the bells and whistles of a more violent environment, just like in his prime. Nobody is asked to do more than they can, at least not obviously so, and as a result, the match benefits in the way big gimmick matches with limited wrestlers ought to, both because of the visual bells and whistles, but also because of a larger vision that brings it all together into a larger package.

Really, what stands out the most about this match, so many years later, is how much it benefits from some blood spilled.

Everyone but Edge (coward, not in this too long) and Batista (correct call not to bleed, time isn’t right yet as a character) gets to run the blade at least a little here, and the two real pros at it in Benoit and Hunter get some real beautiful color. The match benefits from this in all of the ways wrestling often does. With blood on on the canvas, and the wounds of war on nearly everyone in the ring for large chunks of this thing, the match gains a certain feeling. We’re not talking Joe and Necro here, it is probably not a top 25 bloodletting of 2005, but on top of the selling and the certain auditory quality of almost everyone banging off the steel floor, the simple visuals make this feel like a genuine ordeal, and so later attempts at exhaustion selling and announce hyperbole from JR (another great performance in this, walking every imaginable tightrope with zero wavering) feel less like bullshit, a little more warranted, and the entire production goes down so much smoother when you have these clear visible signals that this has been a fight with actual consequences.

The other benefit is the layout and the effective narrative work.

Just about everyone reading this knows that this is all build to Hunter vs. Batista at WrestleMania, and it is incredibly effective at that. Benoit, Jericho, and Orton all absolutely die for Big Dave, with him getting rid of those first two on his own, and theoretical babyface Orton also having to cheat to get rid of him. Triple H, despite the maneuvering of suffering more and lasting longer than Orton, comes out feeling more lucky than like any kind of real winner, being beaten up by everyone but Batista, avoiding saving him from elimination, and then taking advantage of all he does.

Something feels a little strange to me about really liking a match that is, essentially, a great larger product ass WWE production than a display of any one great performance or thing to really point to, but when it comes together right, it comes together right. The match is the beneficiary of a few really good smaller performances, and although not as much of a rarity at the time as I think Ruthless Aggression WWE still had something of the magic touch when they really wanted it, also the beneficiary of exactly the right amount of larger picture work and narrative movement.

Great pro wrestling nonsense.

It doesn’t seem all that exceptional, but truly, a stellar of just how easy this all really can be when kept simple, and when given the best crutch a wrestling match can have (two-thirds of the match bleeding a lot).

***1/2

 

John Cena/Edge/Chris Jericho/Daniel Bryan/Bret Hart/John Morrison/R-Truth vs. The Nexus, WWE SummerSlam (8/15/2010)

This was an elimination match.

It actually rules.

There’s no reason it should.

I don’t just mean it in the usual way, which is to say that the Nexus (post-Bryan of course) was made up of mid-level talents at best, although they were. I mean that it is 2010 and the Team WWE side is not great either. Jericho is about a year past the point where I would call him more than average, and the same goes for Edge, as their bad series earlier in the year showed. R-Truth is out of his element in a match this high profile, and Bret Hart is a retired old man who has not wrestled in a decade because of a gigantic stroke. John Morrison, despite having his talents, should not be the third best guy in a fourteen man match put on by the biggest company in the world, but he is, and that’s what the match has to deal with.

Despite all of that, this rocks.

Above all, the match is a victory for strict planning.

To whatever extent this match achieves, it does so because of the regimented approach to it. These are not great talents, but almost nobody is ever in the ring for long enough for that to become SUPER obvious, save Wade and Gabriel in the last five minutes or so. People either do a few things they’re good at (Ryback, Tarver), hit the highlights that they still can (Jericho, Edge, Bret), and get out. Some of the longer tenured Nexus guys get exposed by the end, or with a total dud like Otunga, you see it immediately, but the match continually moves along to the next thing before it can drag the match down too much.

Being an elimination match also helps out a lot, as they’re able to use the elimination to not only get rid of guys but create a larger sense of drama through things like Skip Sheffield’s monster elims at the start making his eventual defeat more impressive, or the way the WWE team clearly has it before egomaniacs Edge and Jericho cost their team when both are eliminated because of minor spats with other teammates about trivial bullshit.

When the match comes down solely to John Cena and Daniel Bryan against the three left of Wade, Gabriel, and Slater, the match really shines, both through the performance of Cena as the sympathetic face-in-peril selling his ass off and making the basic attacks of the FCW kids far more interesting and dramatic than they would be against anyone else on the roster and then also of Bryan as this ball of energy ass beating hot tag.

Everyone knows, I think, what happens at the end.

Daniel Bryan gets it to two on two before The Miz run out to cost him to continue their feud, and Cena is all alone. He suffers a DDT on the exposed concrete floor, only to no-sell it and eliminate both Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett on his own, super triumphantly, to save the day. It’s been criticized ever since, called out as selfish and dumb and this all-time bad example of a no-sell, all of that.

The thing is that that isn’t actually what happens.

Go watch the last two or three minutes of this match again.

John Cena’s selling is good.

I’m not saying it’s perfect. I wish there was a little more put into it, maybe a count out tease before they want to actually pin him and drag him in, maybe some more taunting, maybe a pause by Barrett when it comes down to one on one and John is still nearly motionless. There are a bunch of little ways where it could have been better, but it is so so so so so so far away from being bad, and even farther away from being what it’s been criticized as ever since it happened.

Cena doesn’t move without being dragged up, shoved in, and pulled into position for a minute or two. When he beats Gabriel, it’s a last ditch roll away from the 450 Splash and diving slightly into a cover. When he beats Wade, all he does is take him down to the mat (without ever getting to his own feet) after Wade taunts him, going into the STF all while yelling out in a more intense way than usual in a clear show of pure adrenaline, before then immediately collapsing again as soon as the match is won.

I don’t often come on here and find myself defending often criticized selling performances, it is far more frequently the opposite, but Cena rules here, and I want to talk for a moment specifically to everyone who was mad at this at the time, has been mad at this since, and especially anyone who (and I wouldn’t think these people still existed if not for a recent Twitter interaction with one of them) is somehow still upset about John Cena at the end of this match.

You are all babies with absolutely zero sense of consistency, there have been a thousand worse selling performances on shows of this magnitude or around it in the years since, and you have been babies for this long because what you’re actually mad about is the finish, which you are also wrong about.

It was and still is the right call.

The Nexus was a great angle for a few months. Their weaknesses — all of them being fairly middling guys, representative of the failure of WWE developmental at the time — were hidden in rare squashes and mostly working angles. However, as everything after this showed, not one of them really had it. Wade and Ryback came close at times, but years off, and not on a level where you can make any rational argument that they should have won. Wade had his chances and hw was what he was. Ryback maybe got hurt by getting hot in the middle of Punk/Cena/Rock up top, but failed to show much for years after that. It’s fun to complain, but this has always struck me as something not worth complaining about. Nothing was lost by them not winning, they likely would have fallen apart even had they won, with a loss to this team of eventual also-rans only hurting the Ace and friends in the process. What we have instead of doomed-to-fail wishcasting is just a proper ending to what, up to this point, was a good and different sort of a feud.

That’s why I like the match a lot.

It’s where the angle should have ended.

Nexus was never the NWO. It was never the WWE’s Generation Next. It wasn’t even the Impact Players. You were in a desert watching the WWE in 2010 and you thought you saw water, but thirteen plus years later, I hope everyone has grown enough to admit what it was (and that I was always right about this). 

Seven developmental ass developmental guy got as far as they could with the element of surprise and total cohesion and unity, taking advantage of a weaker roster, but when it came time to actually do it against the top stars and slowly robbed of their numbers advantaged, they were revealed as what they always were. Good and promising talents, but either not yet or not ever good enough and tough enough to achieve when everything was fair.

The match succeeds as much because of its craft as it does because of its honesty, and because if nothing else, it knows enough to center the match around two of the greatest of all time, and to trust in how great it will feel when John Cena dispatches with yet another would-be replacement and absolute fraud.

Unlike the Nexus, so much much stronger than the sum of its parts.

***1/3

Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Edge, WWE WrestleMania 37 Night Two (4/11/2021)

This was for Roman’s WWE Universal Title.

You want me to yell and scream about Bryan, throw in a “buy the ticket, take the ride” at the end. Want doesn’t get. Prayer circle for the GOAT and all that, this was always half a “thank you” to Bryan and half a way to guarantee that this was a good to great match, because you sure can’t trust Roman Reigns vs. Edge on itself, no gimmicks, to be that. Would I have liked him to win? Sure. He’s the best ever. He should win everything forever. But this match made it very clear early on that I should probably adjust my expectations, and that’s fine. He’s aging out, he vocally wants to scale back, it all makes sense. Disappointed isn’t angry, you’re gonna have to wait until the 2015 reviews if you want me to get hot over some Reigns/Bryan shit.

As for the match itself?

It was a WWE three way match. It’s not really my thing. Some people get a lot out of these matches every time that they happen. I don’t really know why, but I’m also far from immune to them when they’re done right. I think these need either more than one elite level bell to bell talent or an outpouring of emotion to be done right though, and this had neither.

There’s some good stuff to it and some bad stuff to it. The double submission spot was genuinely cool as hell. The sequence with the table powerbomb and then the Spear off the steps was also neat. The performances themselves were generally alright. Daniel Bryan is the best of all time, but this rarely asked him to show many of the skills that I’d say make him that, outside of a moment or two when he got aggressive back at Edge. Roman Reigns as a heel still isn’t really doing it for me bell to bell, but he was fine in what this asked of him. Same with Edge, except that he’s usually a much much much  much much much worse wrestler than Roman Reigns. So for him, a real overachievement, outside of whatever was going on with his hair. No actual great performances, but yeah, whatever. They hit their marks. Well executed stock formula. but really nothing all that interesting outside of the result, which at least showed some courage. Anyone reading this probably knows I’m bought and paid for in one direction here, but at least it wasn’t an Edge win, which would have been both bad and incredibly boring. Credit to the WWE for once for having the courage to do at least one of the right things, although it says a lot that it’s a genuine surprise that they opted to simply push a current star. Congratulations for doing a correct thing and doing it in a correct way, without any caveat to the win like Hunter sandbagging it or it being a fake Undertaker retirement. Just a standard thing executed correctly.

Absolutely not a top ten WrestleMania main event though. I mean, Jesus Christ.

Competency isn’t worthy of praise, it’s just competency.

That’s what this was. It was fine. It was good. As a match, I doubt I’ll ever think of it again once a few weeks pass.

Please everybody calm down and stop just declaring the latest thing to have happened to also be the best thing to have happened.

Edge vs. Randy Orton, WWE WrestleMania 36 Day Two (4/5/2020)

This was a Last Man Standing match.

Awful awful stuff. Old man WWE setpiece brawl except that all they had was the Performance Center gym. Highlight was Randy and Edge calling back to one of the only wrestlers ever to get great matches out of both of them when Orton tried to hang Edge with a Bowflex. This is the sort of thing that happens when you push two Project Guys super hard for their entire careers and get tricked into thinking they’re actually good. They went on a 400 hour long tour of the building, in which they ostensibly were trying to hurt each other but also trying very hard not to harm anything in the WWE owned facility. They fought on top of a semi truck for like ten minutes and nobody took the bump. Edge hit a Conchairto on top of the truck for the win.

One of the worst matches in the history of WrestleMania. I owe every other match on these two nights so far an apology.

I owe most matches in wrestling history an apology.

We’re only three months and five days in, but this is almost definitely the worst match of the decade. Overwhelmingly bad match that you don’t come across that frequently. I can only assume this was some sort of attempt at high art, to stimulate what having the coronavirus feels like.

Fuck me. 

rating: falling down the stairs forever, your favorite song no longer existing, the absence of anything good, a boot stomping on a human face forever, the concept of unending and universal suffering summed up inside of a professional wrestling match. the worst thing that ever happened to you, but it’s always happening on repeat while your significant other starts cheering for the New England Patriots.