American Alpha vs. Randy Orton/Bray Wyatt, WWE Smackdown Live (1/10/2017)

This was for Gable and Jordan’s Smackdown Tag Team Titles.

Following American Alpha’s title victory to end 2016 over the Orton/Harper team, Bray Wyatt subs himself back in. It’s a good little detail both in that this is what he imagines the A Team of the group to be, but also in that of their two encounters with the kids to date, it was this pairing that beat them at the end of November.

Everything I wrote about this pairing in those two pieces still holds true in this match.

Despite never getting to really have the match that this trilogy suggested that they could have had together, this match is the best example yet of the kind of classical tag team wrestling this series stood as an example of, and the best example of all of the ways in which this pairing simply worked. For Bray Wyatt, the tag team structure once again was where he did his best work (outside of a PPV length singles match against the greatest wrestler of all time, that’s cheating), allowing him to drift in and out with big high impact power spots and utilizing his strengths without asking him to do more than that. For Randy Orton, he gets to do simple classical wrestling against athletic and exciting young babyfaces, which has been his sweet spot all decade for the most part. For Gable and Jordan, it’s a classic formula tag that matters, getting the rare time on TV to deliver a match like this again and throwing themselves into everything this match asks of them with such great aplomb.

This match succeeds in all the ways you’d expect it to, only constantly changing around the order and the amount of steps required to get to the obvious places, in a way I really appreciate. There’s a skill to it, take too many steps to get somewhere and it can become a little much, as seen in some of the later Revival/Alpha tags, but you always want a little bit to both keep it interesting and also to show that these things do require some work and effort. Gable’s initial run of offense leading into the cut off here does an especially great job of implementing that, giving him three or four or five different evasions or counters of the thing everyone expects, making him seem faster and better than expected, before Wyatt has to break out his brick wall flying body block to finally do it. It’s a small thing, but it’s a show of the care and attention in this series that makes it so interesting, on top of everything else.

Every other part of this match succeeds for the same reasons, constantly changing things around in a way that’s so rewarding. Be it small little counters to pieces of offense from earlier in the match to things that have evolved from match to match here, like stuffing Jordan’s hot tag to make it a double heat segment match, it’s all really fun. A match succeeding on multiple levels, telling a simple story bell to bell as much as telling ones about an evolving series, and also Orton undermining Harper whenever possible but still being enough of a psycho that he won’t actually try and lose a title belt.

To be expected, the match doesn’t quite get to reach the climax it feels like it’s working towards. All the same, it’s another real fun finish out of this feud, and befitting with the rest of the match, a slight modification to an old classic that makes it just a little bit more interesting. Gable gets his hot tag after a smaller control segment on Jordan, and he and Orton have maybe the best run of the match against each other. Orton specifically swings Gable over the middle rope for the draping DDT on the side Luke Harper is on to distract the referee, so that Gable hits him there. Harp gets back on the apron, now allowing Gable to roll up Randy to win. It’s not the super strong win that their title victory was two weeks prior, but it’s a finish in the same vein, and one that at least lets the champions retain some dignity.

Clearly, this is not a match about American Alpha, but relative to just about everything else they do on the main roster outside of this rivalry, there’s at least a respect there in a match like this. As much a show of what this four or five month Peak SDL run offered up as any of the AJ Styles and John Cena stuff the run is primarily known for.

A stellar conclusion to one of the period’s forgotten great series.

***

Randy Orton/Luke Harper vs. American Alpha vs. The Usos vs. Heath Slater/Rhino, WWE Smackdown Live (12/27/2016)

This was an elimination match for the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Titles.

On paper, this is a four way.

Certainly, the sections with three and four teams contribute in some regard. Heath Slater cleans house in an entertaining fashion before he’s eliminated. The brief Usos vs. American Alpha segment is once again delightful, showing how they should have been capable of so so so so so much more together, delivering on a natural chemistry and continuing their story without giving too much away yet. It’s the sort of thing we’d call masterful booking if that booking ever led anywhere further than a borderline great ten minute television match or two in the first quarter of 2017.

So the first half of this match is not without its charms.

However, really, this is the second part of the Wyatts vs. American Alpha series, and more than a fitting follow up to their previous meeting a month prior.

The major shift this time is simply trading out a wrestler who possesses the ability to be good in the right settings in Bray Wyatt with a generationally gifted powerhouse in Luke Harper. Predictably, the match is a little better, if only for those more vague Force Of Talent kinds of reasons. Fill up more of the match with all-time level talents, and the match winds up being better as a result. The shit is not rocket science, you know?

What remains from the first match — Randy Orton vs. Jordan and Gable — works as well as it did then, only with an even greater ease that comes with practice. Classic pro wrestling once more, big bumping heels and energetic babyfaces, overcoming not only size and experience advantages but taking out Crustpunk Bray Wyatt on the outside too, en route to overcoming what was established in the previous meeting. Once more, great basic storytelling, following up a first meeting that was all about setting the table as to whom everyone was by now having Our Heroes find a way past when the tenuous swamp zombie alliance first begins to break down, winning the titles in the process.

A tremendous middle part in the trilogy.

***+

Randy Orton/Bray Wyatt vs. American Alpha, WWE Smackdown Live (11/29/2016)

This was a #1 Contender’s Match.

It genuinely two thousand percent absolutely rocks.

Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton both find themselves in a more interesting spot than they’ve been in years and seemingly far more motivated by it than either man has been since mid 2014.

For Bray, it’s largely just a matter of having something interesting to do again and having momentum with the Randy Orton story. He’s not a superworker, he’s a character guy, and it’s the most alive that character has felt since the John Cena feud ended. Mechanically speaking, he’s back in his element, the role that’s resulted in ninety something percent of his great matches historically, in a tag team match against a great babyface team and with an all-time great as his partner. Bray works in spurts, especially when there’s a real urgency and energy to his movements again, the power offense is as good as always under those conditions, but he’s not asked to do anymore than he’s capable of. It seems obvious, but given that it’s the first time in years he’s been in that situation and given how short of a run this great little tag run actually got to have, it’s anything bit.

In the case of Randy Orton, it is so obvious.

Randy and American Alpha were born to wrestle each other.

They should have had one hundred more matches, with Randy and a bunch of other partners, and in these roles specifically. Gable and Jordan are the ideal sort of white meat suplexes and dropkicks throwback babyfaces, and Randy Orton is in his element against people with these sensibilities in the same way that he always was with Shelton Benjamin early in his career. Randy’s a rotten mother fucker, and a match up like this not only allows his worse qualities to shine through when he’s controlling and abusing these kids, but it brings something out of him in a mechanical sense that hasn’t been there in a while.

It’s pure formula through and through, but these guys are so good at utilizing that formula.

While we sadly don’t get to go back to this well for years and years, we do at least get a little series here in late 2016 and early 2017. As such, this is only the first, and its very much the first in a series, and it’s not concerned with delivering the BEST possible match here, so much as simply delivering a great one while accomplishing those goals. Establishing themes, propping up the barriers for Our Heroes to try and topple and get past in the future, and in general, setting the table.

They’re not allowed to set it for an especially robust meal, but all the same, it is as well done an example of that as you’ll find.

Classic chunk of wrestling TV right here.

***

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.

***

The Usos vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Battleground 2014 (7/20/2014)

This was a two out of three falls match for the Usos’ WWE Tag Team Titles.

It’s a really great match and like the match the month before and the best of the Shield tags, it’s kind of this how to on what a workrate WWE formula tag can look like.

There are minor differences, beyond just the stipulation. The story the first match had of getting rid of Luke Harper so that Rowan had nobody directing him was a really cool idea. It was the sort of minor logical touch that you don’t get from a lot of WWE stuff at this point. However, beating Harper at the end this time is a much more emphatic close. If the goal of this all is to just get The Usos over (and clearly, it is, as the WWE whiffed on the best big man of a generation for a solid eight years), this is the most impressive ending. The order of things is different, employing Harper’s dive later in the match and going just a little bit bigger in the last third or so.

Otherwise, it works for all the same reasons. Harper’s the best wrestler in the company at this point, if not in overall talent (Cesaro or Zayn may still have him beat), then in terms of being allowed to deliver like this. All his stuff is perfect and the other three in the match once again manage to not let down all the work he’s doing. The first two falls get repeated and paid off with nearfalls, and the Usos have to do more than ever to chop down Harper at the end. He takes multiple superkicks, the double superkick, and then the ultra rare double flying splash (both at the same time) and it’s enough to end the match and the feud and, for the time being, this tag team.

There are minor differences, beyond just the stipulation. The story the first match had of getting rid of Luke Harper so that Rowan had nobody directing him was a really cool idea. It was the sort of minor logical touch that you don’t get from a lot of WWE stuff at this point. However, beating Harper at the end this time is a much more emphatic close. If the goal of this all is to just get The Usos over (and clearly, it is, as the WWE whiffed on the best big man of a generation for a solid eight years), this is the most impressive ending. The order of things is different, employing Harper’s dive later in the match and going just a little bit bigger in the last third or so.

Otherwise, it works for all the same reasons. Harper’s the best wrestler in the company at this point, if not in overall talent (Cesaro or Zayn may still have him beat), then in terms of being allowed to deliver like this. All his stuff is perfect and the other three in the match once again manage to not let down all the work he’s doing. The first two falls get repeated and paid off with nearfalls, and the Usos have to do more than ever to chop down Harper at the end. He takes multiple superkicks, the double superkick, and then the ultra rare double flying splash (both at the same time) and it’s enough to end the match and the feud and, for the time being, this tag team.

I used to have a very strong opinion that this wasn’t as good as the match three weeks before at the MITB pay per view. I’m not sure why I felt so strongly about that. It was a very weird hill to choose to die on (as opposed to a lovely hill you boys chose to die on), and I’m not sure why I did. Watching them more closely together, they’re a lot closer than I remember. They have all the same strengths, Luke Harper is still far and away the best wrestler in the match, and they finish in largely the same sort of a way.

It still is probably a hair behind.

The most significant difference is that there’s really no reason for this to be a three fall match. I don’t just mean in storyline, but in terms of the match itself. The first fall ends on this gorgeous boot from Harper and the second is an Uso roll up. They’re not horrible finishes. The match doesn’t have the problem some lucha matches do where I see a fall and think that, no, absolutely that is not a real finish. Within the confines of WWE and the way the WWE often treats the division, these falls make sense. The real issue is that this feels less like a three fall match than it does like a normal match shoved into a three fall format. The first fall is a transition, the second is a hope spot. A lot of lucha matches take this approach, but because of how much of lucha is done under three fall rules, it feels much more natural than this did. This is the sort of three fall match that feels like a movie that suffers from re-shoots, like someone decided to make this a three fall affair after it was done, so they went in and two of the nearfalls simply become three counts. They don’t take the chance provided by the match to go bigger or longer or anything like that. It’s this normal style great match that is then also this other thing, because the only changes that the WWE has any skill with employing are entirely surface level and purely cosmetic.

Stylistically, it’s not a three fall match so much as it is an already great match that was then retrofitted to also be a three fall match.

Bullshit aside, this rules. It’s among the best work of the year anywhere, it’s one of the best tag team matches of the decade, and even with the ceilings and walls put on them, an example of how great things can be when you cut even one (1) generationally great talent loose. There’s a director’s cut or a producer’s cut of this that’s even better, but even as a theatrical cut with a weird editing choice or two, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.

***1/2

The Usos vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Money in the Bank 2014 (6/29/2014)

This was for the Usos’ WWE World Tag Team Titles.

It’s an absolute god damner. One of the most underrated matches of the year for the biggest company in the world, both because of a totally understandable malaise many people had because of how things collapsed after Mania 30 (WeeLC not withstanding) but also because the two-of-three-falls stipulation on the rematch grabbed more headlines and attention. However, this is a blast too and if memory serves, actually the better match. It’s both a perfect pay per view opener and also pitch perfect tag team formula work.

The two pay per view run between these teams (and the extended Wyatts vs. Usos/partner series on television for months beforehand) was the last real gasp of great formula tag work in the WWE for some time, in any sort of extended way. The logical leap to take is that it’s simply that Luke Harper is so great in this match, but this is laid out with the same creativity that so much of the best Shield matches were too. It’s never the thing you immediately expect, there’s always some great twist or turn right around the corner that you never immediately see coming.

The logical leap is hardly wrong though. Luke Harper is SO GREAT in this.

Every piece of offense is mean and crisp and unbelievably cool. He’s the best big man of his generation not just because he was imposing or because he did cool things, but because he could do both at once. These very different things held in each hand and perfectly balanced. So often, me and people with opinions like mine will get on big guys for doing too much or for prostituting their size for easy pops, but Harper is always just on the right side. He has his big dive, but his cool stuff never betrays his size or makes him less imposing. The dive itself is brutal and feels like this desperate sort of a thing, the big weapon that he has when a situation gets out of hand. This isn’t a great match because of Harper. Rowan holds his own and The Usos have turned into genuinely a very very good tag team, bordering on great, but this is a much less great match with someone else in Harper’s position.

Mostly, it’s another one of these matches where everything just goes correctly. It’s lean enough that none of the three non-best in the world level guys are exposed. The crowd is hot enough to elevate the proceedings. Everyone involved, save one bit early on from a Uso, is on their very best behavior, It’s the crispness on offense, good selling on defense, but then also this real energy that the great matches in this style demand.

There’s also a nice little story they tell. Luke Harper is the general and always pulls out these great counters and cut offs. Rowan follows the game plan and they seem unbeatable, until Harper gets taken out for a minute or two at the end. Rowan’s lost without Harper showing him plays or without Bray Wyatt barking in his ear, and he fucks it all up. He tries to up top for some reason, and he gets caught. The Usos break out a rare double superplex, and a rarer version of the splash finish, where each man hits a splash in succession instead of two at once, and it’s enough. Rowan looks great, he’s a hard guy to keep down, but his weakness is that he’s an idiot. It’s the perfect sort of underdog win, exploiting this minute defense in heroic fashion. The Usos come out smarter and tougher, they make Harper look smarter than he did coming in, and Rowan comes out looking just a hair tougher too.

A rare best-of-the-year level gem from the WWE following WrestleMania 30, and among the best work in the career of everyone involved. There was more to this rivalry than just the more famous two of three falls match the next month.

***1/2

John Cena/The Usos vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Raw (5/12/2014)

More of that really good formula.

Again, that’s almost entirely down to the efforts of Luke Harper. He’s great in a newer pairing against the Usos, he’s especially great against John Cena even if they never totally get to have the match they always could have had. Bray and Rowan are once more in this match and memorize their lines and stage directions in a satisfactory sort of way. Neither adds anything to this, but neither manages to detract either, continuing the best run either of them will ever have.

John Cena isn’t the hot tag that Bryan or any Shield guy is, but he’s still John Cena, and the job gets done alright in the end. The Usos handle the guys real easy to make it fair for Cena, and he beats Rowan clean as a whistle with the FU. It’s the most dominant Cena’s looked in close to a year, but with Bryan hurt and everything, there’s a reason for that.

Another of these WWE television matches that just feels like math, but you learn to value math a little more when people just stop doing it.

***

The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Raw (5/5/2014)

It’s the last time this ever happens.

I’d call it diminishing returns, but there was actually a match these teams had on Main Event on April 8th that wasn’t really even good at all. It’s a shame because it’s the only one of these four matches the good guys win and you’d think with the way The Shield’s operated this entire first run, there would be something cool in the match to explain what it is that worked suddenly, but there wasn’t really any reason why, outside of that someone wrote it on a sheet of paper somewhere. It’s one of the only Shield matches that I’ve ever thought was lazy and tired, some real house show level stuff on a wholly meaningless show. Respect to them and the Wyatts for not being brainwashed by the WWE briefly pretending to care about Main Event again for a few wees to try and drive up live watch numbers on the in-its-infancy Network, but it meant it wasn’t really even worth writing about.

This is though!

Repetition has robbed the match of its novelty, but all the parts still run really well. The paint isn’t as shiny, but the machine still works as good as anything else. The best big man of a generation, Ambrose revealing a gift for spirited babyface work so long as it’s something worth sinking his teeth into, and Rollins continues to somehow have VERY briefly found his calling as a hot tag babyface (a calling he’ll lose later on when they try to return to the formula, once injuries and bulking up to be a Top Guy have robbed him of his speed and athleticism). Reigns isn’t as good in the role yet, but he’s also doing totally different things, so it doesn’t matter. Bray and Rowan are then perfectly acceptable. They don’t fuck up the choreography, they’re perfectly fine at standing on the taped X on the stage and letting the show happen around them.

There’s nothing new to it, but there’s still enough right that with Bryan wrestling his last match in 2014 on this show, it’s the last thing in the company that still runs at the level that almost half the shows did from April 2013 to April 2014.

Evolution comes out at the end. Ambrose and Rollins manage to dive both onto them and the two heaters, but Roman is still simple enough to get caught by Bray, and the Wyatts win once again.

It’s pure formula, but we’re back to a WWE where execution of pure formula by great wrestlers (and also four others) is about all you’re ever liable to get from a random episode of television. As far as that goes, it’s great stuff. It’s a bummer that it’s gone from one of the most anticipated and exciting matches of the year to a borderline three boy television main event, but it’s the WWE. So little works that when they find something that works as well as this match has, this is what happens, an inevitability. Good things eventually get spoiled, because they come about entirely by accident, one of the many small and depressing things about the company no longer really kept at bay after a year of that. Which, of course, came about entirely by accident.

It isn’t what it was, but it’s still better than almost everything else on television that’s going to follow.

***

The Wyatt Family vs. John Cena/Sheamus/Big E, WWE Raw (4/7/2014)

The wave hit the high point and it’s coming down now.

However, formula still works so long as the talent and effort is there. Here, you have an exciting powerhouse team of good guys and then also the best big man of the generation. Easy fun, especially when loaded up with the hot post-WrestleMania Raw crowd behind it. It’s all plug and play sort of stuff, you could probably guess how this goes in your head, and you wouldn’t be wrong. When that leads to these prolonged stretches where Luke Harper controls John Cena, or where Luke Harper and Sheamus clobber the shit out of each other, or where Big E gets to do a hot tag against other heavyweights, that doesn’t matter so much. I know what happens and what’s going to happen next every time I see, like, PREDATOR, on the television, but I’m still going to stop and watch for a little bit. It’s PREDATOR, you know?

As it goes, the Wyatts run them down one by one. Cena’s superteam has superior one on one firepower, but they have no ability to work together and line things up like the swamp creatures do. They run it down to the least experienced guy, and Big E falls for more traps than the others do. Wyatt beats him with Sister Abby, and the crowd gets to stay extraordinarily happy. One of the last times Bray Wyatt felt like a gigantic deal, if not the last. It’s not worth mourning exactly, but it feels worth noting.

The golden age is all but done. However, with a roster this great, you’re still just going to luck into great television matches every so often as long as great wrestlers get put in positions to succeed and still think that it’s worth their time to put in the regular effort. Only when that stops happening do the wheels entirely fall off, but we’re not there yet, and you can still get a real fun match like this.

***

The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Raw (3/3/2014)

It’s the first time the WWE puts on a show in Chicago since CM Punk left, and this is one of the centerpieces of a surprising effort from WWE to actually give people things they want. It’s a stunning concept all these years later, I know.

Generally, it’s a fascinating show in retrospect. It feels like a make-good effort, or at least an attempt by the WWE at placating a hostile audience. Either way, it’s the sort of effort you don’t really see much of after mid-2014. There was an all-time great Paul Heyman promo redirecting the expected “CM PUNK” chants into heat on the otherwise fairly cold Taker/Lesnar WrestleMania program, the Tag Titles got removed from the New Age Outlaws to give The Usos their overdue title win (yes, they dethroned the Rhodes Brothers who are now doing a losing streak angle. Nothing gold(ust) can stay. Buy the ticket, etc.), the card was packed with good matches elsewhere like Sheamus vs. Christian and another Ziggler vs. Del Rio fight, and the show otherwise revolved around the Daniel Bryan WrestleMania build. It’s a stunning amount of effort for a normal television show, more effort than they’ve put into most pay per views since 2016 or so. Save for a few episodes of 2016 Smackdown Live, it’s one of the last times ever that anyone in this horrible company gets serious and decides that this episode of television simply cannot fail.

The kicker is this match though, as WWE placates people by hurling this smash hit back out there, now on free television.

Fortunately, we’re still somehow in this accidental golden age, and it’s not simply a blatant retread but an exciting continuation of the previous encounter.

It’s a lot like the match on Smackdown some nine months prior in which The Shield lost for the first time. This doesn’t quite have the same well built up payoff and punch to it, I doubt it’s going to make a MOTY list at the end of 2014, but it has many of the same qualities. It’s only eleven minutes on television but they pack a lot of great action into that, and work in some exceptional story beats to anchor it to the Earth and add in some gravity outside of all the major high points.

Following all the ways things went wrong eight days earlier, Ambrose returned to the fold with more craziness and aggression than ever before. Roman accepted him back, but Rollins is a little more tense with everything. He’s the one to explode initially, and basically runs the table on his own for the first few minutes. More genuinely remarkable stuff. Some of the best of his career. There’s a great little bit thrown in early on when Harper tries to cut off the hot start with the Tope he used to shut Seth down eight days earlier, only for him to block it now. There’s another when Roman has this huge smile on his face while he’s watching Seth run wild. It’s the sort of thing that made this 2014 face turn so natural, both that they’re doing it to people way less likeable than them, but also that it’s just good as hell to watch people have fun while doing remarkable things, and it’s naturally way easier to support a group that seems as genuinely close and real as The Shield starts to at this point. Less and less, it feels like a manufactured young boy band factory style superteam like it did in late 2012, and feels more like just a group of guys who all have these distinct personalities, but gel perfectly as a team.

It’s only when Wyatt draws Ambrose in, so he can throw him to the ropes to knock Seth off the top rope, that the match turns in the favor of The Shield. Ambrose gets distracted from a tag once when he and Roman get drawn off the apron to fight, but he makes it a third time, only to get cut off. Constantly, The Shield feels like a team that’s been totally figured out now. Not in the way Daniel Bryan did where he caught onto that you take Roman out and you can close out one of the other two easier if you’re talented enough, but in a way where it seems like their playbook has been figured out. They’re never in the right place at the right time. More importantly, Bray’s figured out how to throw Ambrose off, and Harper’s figured out the physical part against all three. The work in control itself is mostly Like Harper once again, so it works. Even then, Rowan’s weird head crusher hold totally whips ass, so it’s not this one man show.

The final third is then where the wheels come entirely off of The Shield. Rollins gets frustrated and walks away from a tag out from Ambrose, and shouts at Roman about always being the glue. Dean and Roman try to do it themselves. It’s cool to already see the fault lines here. Seth overstating his role and being petulant, but Dean and Roman actually having a closer bond than Seth is capable of having with either of them or probably any other human being ever. The action itself rules. To the match’s benefit, it’s not especially well organized at this point, it’s the two guys left hurling themselves around until the numbers catch up. Harper’s cut off works on Roman this time, and Dean makes up for the disappearing act at the pay per view by fighting all on his own now at the end. It fails, because that’s always going to fail. Bray hits the Sister Abby again for the win while the traitor watches from the aisle.

The shame of this match is less that it was short and more that there isn’t REALLY a payoff to it. They have two more matches, but not to the level of these first two. John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt is cool or whatever and eventually leads to one of the best spots of the year a few months later, but also, fuck them. With the benefit of hindsight, the WrestleMania match should have been Shield/Wyatts III with The Shield finally going over to cement the big face turn. It’s the thing that seems like it has to come after this, but it’s the WWE and outright expecting more than you’re getting moment to moment is how you go insane.

What we do get is one of the best and most organic slow face turns in WWE over the last ten or twenty years or something. Namely, we get this wonderful segment over the next week of television where The Shield hashes all their problems out and…and that’s it. Nobody turns on anyone (yet), they just air their grievances and stay friends like normal people do, entering a wonderful and tragically short third period where now Rollins is sort of presented like the leader, but more accurately where it finally does feel like a totally equal partnership instead of anyone lagging behind. It’s the babyface run in 2014 (including this feud) that really takes them from just being this thing that clicked perfectly for 6-12 months into being one of the best things WWE’s ever done.

Bel to bell, this is a spectacular match from one of the last genuinely great episodes of wrestling television (main roster) to come out of this company. I recommend the entire thing, because it’s such a rare and wonderful thing to see a company this big and monolithic and seemingly bulletproof being forced not only to do the one thing, but being forced to actually put forth their best foot forward. I won’t say it doesn’t matter why, because it does. The why of it is why it doesn’t last, and why it’s never really been this good again for any significant length of time. It’s done out of panic and a little fear rather than any sort of altruistic or long lasting ideology, so it won’t last once that panic is gone, but what an incredibly fun ride they managed to assemble.

Much like the big two on the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, this episode is what it looks like when everything’s working like it always should.

***1/2