Some good, some really bad stuff. On to the matches
Match 1 Tag Team Battle Royal.
Good as can be expected. Won by Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler. Decent action, nothing special. 2.5 stars
Match 2 Lio Rush vs Kalisto vs Akira Tozawa.
Good action all around. They didn’t try to do too much, pretty solid overall. Lio Rush retains. 3 stars
Match 3 New Day vs Viking Raiders vs Undisputed Era.
Great tag team match, for a 3-way with 6 guys anyway. They worked to each others strengths. Did some good stuff. I don’t remember it degenerating into some nonsense with all 6 guys in the ring. Some spots to the outside, not too many. Decent match, certainly worth watching again. Viking Raiders win. 4 stars
And so ends the “pre-show” and on we go to the real show.
Match 4 Women’s 5x5x5 elimination match.
Terrible. By the time it ended, I just didn’t care one way or another. About 2 minutes into the match, we see every woman come into the ring one after another and everyone hits finishing moves, rolling to the outside. Then two of the NXT women are “hurt” and they have to go to the back, retired from the match. At one point, one of the Raw women got pinned within arm’s reach of Charlotte who was on her team. Charlotte offered no assistance, so obviously there is no team work here. A bunch more of everyone flying and running all over the place with very little purpose to the whole affair. One of the NXT women ended up in a submission from Nattie and Sasha, neither of her two teammates offered assistance even though they were plainly in view and standing on the apron. There was nothing logical about this match. Rhea Ripley, with the returning two from the lockerroom, won for NXT. No rating
Match 5 Roderick Strong vs AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura.
After the previous match, this match has to be better. It was. Roddy won after AJ hit the elbow off the top rope onto Shinsuke and then Roddy throws AJ out of the ring. Good match, for AJ vs Roddy or AJ vs Shinsuke or Roddy vs Shinsuke would probably all have been better. 3.5 stars
Match 6 Adam Cole vs Pete Dunne.
Really athletic, but not really memorable. If you like a lot of moves, check it out. Cole retains. 4 stars
Match 7 Fiend vs Daniel Bryan.
The red lights were on. That automatically destroys anything they could possibly do. Fortunately it was shorter than the last match with red lights. Whatever, with the red lights it wouldn’t have mattered if they recreated one of the Flair vs Steamboat trilogy. No rating
Match 8 Men’s 5x5x5 elimination match.
As with most elimination matches, it just buries every other match they do. Guys take flat back pins for moves that they’d kick out from normally. Match not given enough time to really play out. Finish was meh. Roman didn’t need to win, Gable or Ali would have benefited from it more. NXT looked strong. Maybe a little better than the women’s match but still just a bunch of people flying all over the place with little to no purpose. No rating
Match 9 Brock vs Rey Mysterio.
Brock wins in a squash. Rey got no offense, except when he walked the dog on Brock with the pipe. Rey’s son Dominic came to ringside, Rey hit Brock with a low blow, Dominic hit Brock with a low blow. Dom hit Brock with a chair, double 619, two frog splashes, barely a 2 count on Brock. Brock hits Rey with a single F5, match over. I think it took me longer to type this than the match lasted. 0 stars
Match 10 Bayley vs Shayna Baszler vs Becky Lynch.
Surprised they went with the women in the main event. I’d figured it would be Brock or the 5x5x5. Becky whiffed a kick outside the ring. Bayley is good as a weasel heel. Standard problem with 3 way matches, one person ends up laying around while the other two fight. Becky hit a double move, I believe a DDT on Baszler and a Scorpion Death Drop on Bayley. Crowd is dead, go figure, the show has been going since 5pm and it’s now 10:15. Baszler gets Bayley in a Samoan drop position, and walks closer to the corner so Becky can come off the top rope; nice cooperation. Baszler is stellar, better than Lynch and Bayley by far; could be a Ronda Rousey level star in WWE. Becky immobilized outside the ring, Shayna taps out Bayley. Match of the night. 4.5 stars.
Lynch gets up after the match and does a leg drop on Baszler on the announce table after the match.
The women’s 5xx5x5 match is one of the worst matches I’ve seen on a major PPV and it wasn’t even the worst match of the night. The red lights for Bray Wyatt are terrible and make the match completely unwatchable. I’m surprised they didn’t set something up with the two sets of Horsewomen. Surely they have to do that, right? They have all 8 under contract.
Not sure how to rate the show overall. The main event was one of the best women’s matches I’ve ever seen.
Overall grade….C
Wrestling 4 All 