This was an Extreme Rules match for the WWE World Heavyweight Title.
Like their last meeting, I absolutely love this match.
I’m not exactly sure what diehard WWE fans think about this match (or what they think in general, some mysteries are left unexplored), but it’s one of my favorite WWE matches of the back half of the decade, and a top five or ten Roman Reigns match ever. I don’t rewatch a lot of matches in a casual kind of a way, but this is one I’ve seen four or five times now outside of initial viewing and writing. Expect it fairly high up on the Match of the Year list in 2016 on this blog in the coming months. If someone told me they thought it was the 2016 Match of the Year, I wouldn’t argue it at all. It’s that great.
There are a few problems though. It’s not perfect.
One that I think you can point to in comparison to that first match is that, prior to the McMahon-centric reset spots, that flowed a little better. It felt as though they had more time to build something at the start. That’s likely a product of that match being the first time meeting, and this coming after three more weeks of hostility, which is why it’s not the end of the world or any sort of dealbreaker in comparison. But it is a strength of that match, and relatively, a weakness of this one.
The interference also really sucks.
I have no excuse or “well, ACTUALLY” to offer up here. It’s boring and adds very little.
Forget like writing for money or even on a totally professional level, I think anyone who’s written papers in college could probably tell you about having an otherwise coherent piece and then tacking something in around the middle of it. A bullet point you forgot to address that’s part of the syllabus. That’s what the interference feels like here. An otherwise next to perfect stunt show, perfect WWE nonsense, with this thing tacked on. Quick and very uncreative, but it’s there. I imagine the goal was to give AJ Styles a gripe in his loss, but there are other ways to do that. A phantom pin off of a ref bump would have given him an even stronger out. The other defense is that it helps further along the heel turn AJ Styles will take in a few weeks, him not taking full advantage of Gallows and Anderson, and losing as a result. What would tell that story even more effectively is a device used to good effect elsewhere in wrestling and other WWE history, being him simply telling them not to show up, losing arguably because of it, and then going with them when turning.
I don’t have a problem with interference. Like anything else, the execution is what really matters, and this is bad. Adds nothing, poorly placed, just an interference spot that has no real value and thus brings down a great match.
That’s why this is only one of the best matches of 2016, and not a match that I could confidently say, even in May, was an absolute lock for #1.
Because otherwise, this is unbelievable. I believe Roman Reigns and AJ Styles can have one of the best matches of all time, instead of just these two all-decade level matches that they had in 2016.
In their match three weeks earlier, before the tacked-on spots that brought THAT match down (I think this is a little more bearable if only because the match isn’t brought to a literal actual halt by the interference spots), they had this sort of WCW ass main event. Big momentum swings, very little time wasted, a match that exclusively moved forward. It’s the sort of a match that always made me think of a best possible synthesis between pro wrestling and something like a real fight, if not stylistically, then in rhythm. Early big swings to establish presence, a constant attempt to reach a conclusion, counters that feel like huge deals instead of routine. It was a great version of one of my favorite sorts of things that a wrestling match can be.
This has a little more WWE to it.
Maybe that should read WWF, because for once, I mean that as a compliment.
That rhythm is still there. They begin hot, they waste very little time save for the one thing outside of their control, and virtually everything that happens between Reigns and Styles feels like either an attempt to immediately end the struggle, or something that’s only a step or two removed from that point. It’s another synthesis, but this time of that and a classic kind of Federation brawl. Retaining that general feeling and energy, but bigger and more grandiose. Throw in some blood and chairs to the face, work the interference a little more dramatically, and this is some real Attitude Era shit.
Both men are incredible here too, in wildly different ways, it’s not just great because of all the cool stuff.
AJ Styles is out of this world great. The things people remember about this, I think, are the big AJ spots. His absolute God Damner of a back drop bump through the announce table. His Phenomenal Forearm off of the pre-show set when they fight into the crowd. Maybe even the grotesque powerbomb he takes onto the English announce table, fortunately allowing him a bounce before the table breaks, adding a brutality to the spot as well. There’s more than just that though. There’s the anger he brings whenever he gets to lay into Roman, of course, but years of TNA brawls have made him uniquely qualified to bridge this gap in a way that I don’t know that anybody else in wrestling could have. The walk-and-brawl is a bit that a hundred other wrestler would have done worse than AJ or gotten wrong in some way, giving up the plot and exposing the seams. AJ is so great at it though that it all feels fairly genuine, an extension of the fight they were having.
Roman Reigns is not as flashy as Styles in this match, but he’s just as great.
Around the middle of the match, AJ cuts off a Superman Punch with a front chop block in the air. He never really goes to the leg again, using it just in that moment. However, Roman Reigns spends the rest of the match hobbling on the leg whenever possible. Beyond that, he does great little things like having trouble getting up after landing on his arm outside, having to push up using the other one instead. You don’t think of a match this packed with Stuff as being any kind of a selling showcase, but outside of the later Daniel Bryan matches or maybe the first Lesnar match, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a better Roman Reigns selling performance.
The match is definitely packed full of incredibly cool spots though, it’s not just about wild and ultra-loud AJ bumps or great but quieter Roman sells. You can watch a music video recap on Youtube or watch the match for yourself, there are too many to go into, but it’s so cool. Once they go outside for the first time, pretty much everything that happens in this match absolutely rocks. Either something visually impressive happens such as the aforementioned set forearm or Roman’s Spear on the outside where he leaps over the steps to catch AJ, or something brutal happens, like Joe adapting the Samoa Joe swing spot. The absolute best stuff here, such as the announce table spots, or the mid-air Spear finish, manages to combine the two, once again garnering that perfect combination.
In the end, Roman gets that Spear out of the air and wins. A result nobody really doubted, but like the month before, it’s done in a match that once again does a whole lot for everybody involved, on top of the incredible match. AJ Styles joins a real small group of guys like Bryan and Lesnar to realize what Roman’s gifts are and to craft a match around them that allows Roman to get the most out of his selling and his explosivity, not harming themselves in any way, and benefitting the guy more in one twenty-ish minute stretch than other big names could with years and years allegedly spent with the same goal in mind.
Masterful stuff, even with yet another unnecessary interruption.
Another real special match between these two, with the kicker being that in spite of having two of the best matches of 2016 (and then never wrestling again), you can tell there’s an even better match existing between them than we ever got to see.
HANDWERK 