This was a No Disqualification match for The Shield’s WWE Tag Team Titles, the stipulation being announced close to last minute.
I like this one more than the famous pay per view match!
It certainly doesn’t have the all time great family reunion sort of moments to it, but it’s a much tighter match on a mechanical level and it gets to be more as an outright bell to bell production than that match. On pay per view, they had a great match but largely used it as a backdrop for this feel-good heartwarming production. Here, they had a great match and let it breathe, now using a big booking moment at the end to enhance the match in addition to being its own big thing. There’s a difference and while I prefer the visual of the three Rhodeses finally all being together and making the WWE (or the character of it, rather) eat shit, I definitely prefer this match.
For once, I’m not sure there’s a more impressive Cody Rhodes performance ever. I don’t know if I mean this is his best performance ever, but it’s up there. He’s been good to great as a Big Match Guy in recent years, certainly bringing a lot against guys like Eddie Kingston and Darby Allin, but here, not in control of what he’s doing at all, he’s so impressive as the young partner trying to make good again. If not his best performance ever, it certainly feels like his best WWE performance ever. He’s asked to pull off the big hot tag to transition to the last third of this, and it’s a risk, but he mostly pulls it off. He’s always had some trouble stringing things together in a totally cohesive order, but he nails it here. Everything looks good, makes sense in the order he puts it in, and he’s got enough fire behind the little stuff to not leave any real gaps in between the major bits of his part of the match.
But of course, this is the Goldust show.
In the first match, Goldust got to do just enough to remind everyone that oh yeah, shit, this dude is at worst a top five all time tag team wrestler. In this match, everyone seems to have absorbed that and they give him enough time to really let that all sink in. He gets a great run at the start, he gets to be the face in peril, and he even gets a little mini hot tag run in near the end despite the absence of any real tag. He’s great at every single bit of it. He gets more out of Rollins in control than anyone else has all year, and I include the literal best wrestler of all time in that statement. Goldust vs. Roman is some dream match stuff, they’re a perfect fit for each other in every way. Goldust not only is individually amazing at every different thing this match asks him to do, but he brings the best out of two younger and/or more limited opponents too.
Most of all though, this is yet another great match that’s brought up a level by booking and the smart application of bullshit.
Yes, it can work like that!
The No Disqualification element here and in most modern WWE TV matches is often just an excuse to do something at the end of the match without breaking the rules. It’s typically very lazy and telegraphs the bullshit a mile away. However, this happens to follow the previous week’s main event, where a No DQ stipulation was added at the last minute, allowing The Shield interference to bail them out. It’s a precedent set that gives this just a little bit more meaning. They also do just enough to work to it to make you think that well damn, maybe the match is just the match. Dean Ambrose is there to constantly interfere and the ref is just lenient enough with the rules to always remind you that this is a freer environment than usual, in a very old school sort of a way. When all hell does finally break loose, the foundation has been set enough that’s not some major tonal shift.
The big hot tag is cut off by Dean Ambrose getting in there right when it looks like something good might happen. They do this genius little thing where the three on two gets stopped once, when Goldust brings a chair in and cleans house. It means when the bullshit happens later, it doesn’t immediately feel like the Rhodes boys needed the help, because they already had it won once. It’s the universe righting itself, instead of this win they got handed. The big Goldust and Cody comeback second run gets cut off, and it’s so great. Goldust is there on his own, and his experience helps them block things out so well. A little thing like he and Dean brawling, leading to Goldust being knocked back by Ambrose in the exact right place organically for Roman to tackle him through the timekeeper’s barricade. A lot of times, it’s a very obviously set up spot, but Goldust isn’t standing there more than a second before Roman gets him. Absolutely perfect.
The Big Show makes his way through the crowd despite being fired, and he cleans house with the rights to finally even things up after the three on two has cut the Rhodes boys off from a fair win twice now. Wonderful wonderful finish where Roman ducks the distraction springboard kick from Cody, only for Big Show to catch him with the big right while he’s ducking his head down by the ropes. Less than ideal is that being the move that ends it, but Cody gets the pin anyways to win the titles. When you do a thing this well, the one percent of it that doesn’t totally work is hardly the end of the world.
For the first time in two months — an eternity in the WWE, even if they’ve been on good behavior for six months — something has finally been taken away from The Authority in a way that they can’t just immediately take back or wipe from history.
Finally, one for the good guys.
Great television wrestling. Advancement and a payoff, using clever booking and writing to get the most out of some guys who aren’t exactly perfect, and a clever application of outside nonsense that winds up enhancing and improving the match instead of working to its detriment.
Another world.
***1/2
HANDWERK 