I wasn’t sure whether I should spend time on another review but there were a few things I did want to comment on for this show. As this show occurred earlier in the day for me (since it was international), I was able to consume it during my weird lunch/dinner hour rather than waiting until the later evening to check it out. I will say that in a way I prefer these international shows (with this one being in Bologna, Italy) because of the timing aspect but in other ways these shows feel like they barely progress anything.
Randy Orton in Ring Promo
Orton took a while to do his intro but didn’t even get a word in edgewise as Kevin Owens immediately interrupted. I’m beyond sick of the interruptions at this stage and pretty much expect them. Kevin Owens tried to suggest that he was wrong and wanted to team with Orton for the tag team titles at WM but Orton quickly dismissed this idea which predictably set up their WM match. The WWE must be brilliant for doing these international shows before Wrestlemania because I’d be pissed paying for a show where barely anything happens at today’s ticket prices in America. But as I mentioned before, the TV shows are nothing more than their own form of advertising for their PPVs these days.
Damian Priest and Jimmy Uso vs Drew McIntyre and Shinsuke Nakamura
This seemed like a follow up match from last week. Damian got the pin on Shinsuke, who doesn’t really do much these days except exist and occasionally job while Drew came in to beat up Damian post match. What happened to Jimmy in all of this? I sort of thought the little glimpse from Drew would’ve lead to more with him and Shinsuke but this was just a throw away match to further Drew vs Priest which probably will end up having some stupid stipulation match at WM. That said, there was a funny spot early in the match where Drew seemed to have messed up being shot into the turnbuckle. I think the previous or two I saw a move where he did some sort of top rope thing and landed on his leg. They way he landed made me think he jammed his leg. I read that he had his leg drained too so not sure if all of this has been exacerbated.
LA Knight and Braun Strowman Backstage Segment
LA Knight talks about the odds with the remnants of the new Bloodline since Braun has a match against Jacob later. However, the catch is that if Braun wins he’ll have a US title match against LA Knight. Oh god why.
Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair Interview
Okay, here’s the first thing that really caught my attention on this show. I watched a small clip on reddit but started to get annoyed once Tiffany began talking so I canceled out of the clip. Afterwards, I saw that Nia favorited a tweet by someone else about how Charlotte effectively buried Tiffany here, which made me want to see the whole segment. For this “interview,” they did a split screen deal to keep the two apart. For the most part, anytime Tiffany attempted to talk, Charlotte would interrupt and cut her down. I could see how perhaps Charlotte’s typically obnoxious behavior might be considered a burial of Tiffany here. However, I’ve stated that Tiffany isn’t a good interviewer especially as a babyface. The way I looked at Charlotte (outside of being a blonde version of Cher) is that she was trying to goad Tiffany into getting more personal with Charlotte and stepping up her interview game.
The one line that Tiffany got in that was slightly memorable was how Charlotte would find the most red hot thing then throw water on it. So this line wasn’t a bad line but Tiffany repeated it twice, which to me meant she committed that line to memory but could not come up with a sufficient retort on her own. She ended the interview with her Tiffy Time slogan while Charlotte looked bored. Sadly, I don’t find fault with what Charlotte was saying at all. If I cared more about these people, I might be angry but I didn’t think what she was saying was false. She had one brutal line against Tiffany which was, “You’ll be lucky if you still have a job by my age.” That seemed low cut but at the same time considering Tiffany is almost exclusively this dangerous high risk type, I can’t say that Charlotte is incorrect here.
The thing is that I still think Tiffany can’t pull off a good promo. There’s no conviction in her voice, no passion, no anger. This whole thing felt like a try out rather than someone who wanted to repudiate the veteran. If the WWE ends up giving Charlotte the title back, I can’t honestly say I’d find any fault with their decision if it forces Tiffany to work more on her promo and style. She can execute the gymnastics aspect well (just as Charlotte mentioned) but she’s not a complete wrestler compared to Rhea Ripley or the very few other women in the WWE for that spot. Tiffany’s main attribute is that she’s willing to take high risk spots but those won’t prolong her career and she needs to develop more as a wrestler. The other advantage for Tiffany is that she’s young and hasn’t been horribly injured where she’s broken down and slow like other people there. But in a few years at her rate, I doubt she’ll be able to be at that level anymore without adjusting her style and persona.
Jacob Fatu vs Braun Strowman
Here we go again. Another repetitive match up. Fortunately, it’s Jacob Fatu so it’s always interesting watching him. But Braun is brutal to watch and not in a good way. I think the problem is that Braun wants to keep up with the smaller guys but he moves in an awkward manner because of how huge he is. Like his running is kinda weird if you examine him. A guy like him back in the 80s and early 90s would’ve been more plodding to conserve his energy and land slower but harder clubbing type of blows. As for why Jacob and Braun keep getting matched up, maybe it’s a way for the WWE to partly test if Jacob can carry bad workers kinda like watching Gunther wrestle a bunch of jobbers. At least for Braun, in going against Jacob his matches are more watchable.
In the end, Solo and Tama interfere to cost Jacob his match. Jacob gets pissed of course but the DQ win for Braun allows Braun to challenge LA Knight for the US title. LA Knight did make a save and the two got a stare down to sell their match down the road. Le sigh.
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez Backstage Interview
Main thing is that they at least gave an explanation for Liv not liking Jade which was that Jade had opportunities to post on her social media the attacker. That little detail really made me a fan of Liv for once and I’m starting to really come around on her.
Piper Niven vs Zelina Vega
Admittedly, I missed this whole thing.
Liv Morgan vs Jade Cargill
This was the other thing worth watching to me. Since it’s been reported that Jade has been hard in training, I wanted to see if she improved. Similarly, I was curious how Liv would do here. I honestly really liked most of this match. They did one particular sequence where Jade actually got right (meaning it looked good). However, Jade has problems getting tossed into the turnbuckle. She just doesn’t spin and hit the thing with enough velocity. Also, her selling that spot was poor where she bobbed her head around which looked bad and her expressions were bland. So I started to doubt her a little. There also was a weird spot where Jade got Liv on her shoulders and dropped her with Jade’s knees raised. I couldn’t tell what they were trying to do so I had to watch that spot a few times. I want to say that Jade was going to set Liv up for a move that Liv would land on Jade’s knees with her stomach. Instead, Liv face planted herself and I was confused who was meant to actually take the blow the first time I saw the result.
It was interesting seeing Jade next to Raquel though. Raquel is super tall. I thought that Jade was the tallest woman on that roster and Raquel might have an inch or two on Jade. That honestly isn’t a match I want to see at this point, although I don’t doubt they’ll have it sooner than later given their interactions tonight. That said, I much prefer Jade vs Liv. They have a really good dynamic that works well. And I can buy Liv beating Jade because of both Raquel and Naomi’s interference. The other thing I enjoyed from Jade was more crowd interaction. It wasn’t just her posing but reacting with the crowd and trying to get them involved in the match. I’m noticing this more from the WWE matches but I prefer that rather than the wrestlers completely ignoring the crowd and exchanging spots. At least for Jade, it works really well for her because she has a natural physical charisma that makes you want to be on her side similar to Sid Vicious.
As I mentioned, Naomi did interfere for Liv to hit her finisher. That left Jade stunned and vulnerable to Naomi who got some measure of revenge. I stated before that I really dread seeing the upcoming Jade vs Naomi’s match because I feel Naomi is awful when it comes to in the ring. The beat down from Naomi was bad. None of her punches looked like they connected. I hope that with this “new” Naomi that she alters her style too because whatever she had done until has been awful. I think she should be more plodding and deliberate moving forward so that she can work on the execution of a new move set that looks better.
I skipped the tag team stuff because I’m utterly bored numb with the WWE’s tag team division. At this rate, I know we’ll get some stupid multi man, multi way tag team match at WM that I’m going to fast forward. But no one involved interests me at all.
Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, Seth Rollins and CM Punk Segment
Can this show get anymore sluggish? These entrances are just brutally long. The only one I like is CM Punk’s because I like Living Colour and the Cult of Personality song. The rest take forever and waste an exorbitant amount of time. This was another say nothing segments where the not-so-big reveal was that Heyman delivered Roman to Punk on a silver platter where Roman looked at Heyman with a “what did you do?” type of expressions. Naturally, a silly brawl breaks out where Heyman peaces out and each guy takes turns walloping on each other. I’m utterly sick of the constant poses with people pointing to the Wrestlemania sign. Fucking hell, we get it. This is worse than being bludgeoned over the head with that stupid baseball bat covered in nails that Moxley stupidly fucked himself with on Dynamite. In the end, Roman Reigns knocked Seth and Punk silly with the stairs so he could stand tall with the WM sign in the background.
Final Thoughts
I have to be honest. I’ve never been less interested in a Wrestlemania that I partly have kept up with in a long time. I knew that the Punk vs Seth vs Reigns match was coming up but I had been hoping that the rumors were false and something else would happen. We still don’t know what the alternate night main event will be but my guess is that the favor Punk is going to ask Heyman to pull off is to make this three way the main event for night one because Gunther vs Jey just isn’t it. I like Gunther and I don’t hate Jey but Jey isn’t a main eventer.
I can’t say I feel bad for Tiffany in getting blistered by Charlotte. I feel that they’re sending up a bunch of scrubs way too fast from NXT. Like the only person I would be excited to see on the main roster from NXT right now is Ricky Starks….excuse me Ricky Saints. I doubt he’ll be done there for more than a year or two at the most. But Tiffany is getting a massive push that feels is over her head. Like based on what I’ve seen, Roxanne Perez feels like a better candidate to come up than Tiffany in comparison. A shame that Roxanne isn’t taller just because she isn’t intimidating to look at.
I do want to see more of Jade. I think she has improved a bit but she needs more matches. Honestly, I’d prefer to see her and Liv fight than Naomi and Jade. Likewise, I’m sure Jade will encounter Bianca at some point but I’d rather them stay far from each other and have the fans forget they were a team so each person could go on their own path for now especially if Jade can get opponents like Liv.
I’ve been reading about LA Knight potentially dropping the belt to Jacob Fatu. I doubt anyone is buying Braun beating LA Knight for the title. But Jacob Fatu vs LA Knight at WM would be good. It’s just that if they decide to pull that trigger, why promote that match this late in the game? If anything, I’m sure the bigger thing is Jacob turning babyface at WM since I think Solo will interfere in his match and really piss Jacob off. Also, let’s be real when talking about the “new” Bloodline in that it’s dead at this point. Roman is going to do his own thing while Jey might end up beating Gunther, which leaves him out as a key player in the whole Bloodline story. Jimmy is a non-entity and Sammy will probably show up at WM to interfere in Kevin Owens vs Randy Orton which means all the important people to that story are dispersed.
With that said, I mentioned that without the focal point of the Bloodline, the WWE is again struggling to find a good story. I’m not a fan of the Cena/Cody/Rock/soul story because I think it’s stupid based on the logic given. And no one else really is clicking for me. Worse yet it feels the WWE is coasting right now because they’ve gone back to the marketing model which killed my interest in wrestling back in ’95 for the WWF. I don’t know what they will do after WM but nothing really feels big at this time.