This PLE, for all intents and purposes from what I read, was intended to compete against AEW’s All-In PPV. In fact, apparently, AEW moved their PPV down or so but I haven’t been paying close attention outside of just listening to JC blister them for being ridiculous. However, the Wrestlepalooza, at least on paper, had a few matches that were pretty big. Only one match was guaranteed to have a title change. And there was one match I really wanted to see.
Brock Lesnar vs John Cena
The John Cena retirement tour for the most part has been a disaster outside of the initial turn on Cody Rhodes. While the fans forgave him, I pretty much lost interest early on just because the whole thing should’ve been bigger than it was and a lot of it ended up falling really flat since his schedule has been spotty to really promote the angles and tour. Also, he barely has done much on this run as he’s heading towards the finish line. Maybe two or three matches were decent (such as the surprising Logan Paul match) but I just haven’t been feeling it.
As far as Brock’s return here, this match was almost a pure squash match. I get that they want to portray Brock as THE monster especially since he’s rejoining Heyman apparently. But this match was an embarrassment for Cena. There was almost no build and the only worthy thing of note was Brock apparently ripping his pants and laughing on TV. I figured this was just Cena having fun with his friends on the way out but given this was one of the last matches for Cena on a major PLE/PPV setting, you’d think he would’ve been given more. Some people believe that they’re going to setup Survivor Series for Team Vision + Brock + possibly LA Knight vs Cody, Seth, Punk, Reigns and Cena or something like that. Maybe but the real problem is that the connections for the stories are so half assed in the WWE right now that it’s lukewarm at best and there’s not a lot of good stuff going on.
The Usos vs Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed
Paul Heyman came out with his team while LA Knight was announced as a special guest referee to give him a PLE payday. The Bron(s) team (maybe they should call them the Bronz Team) are excellent. I keep saying that they should go and destroy the entire WWE tag team division right now. Just squash them flat out and have a long reign as tag team champions (at least a year) There just isn’t anyone on their level right now especially any team that is even remotely interesting. The Usos were teamed here as a special one night thing to put over the Brons since the Usos were the last truly meaningful tag team with the belts. And LA Knight is in this weird position where you don’t know if he’s going to go heel or Jey. But he did count a three on Jey so that should continue them feuding in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, Jimmy is the odd man out here but at least he didn’t get pinned.
Iyo Sky vs Stephanie Vaquer
I have to be honest. I got bored really quick with this match and just sped to the next match. I want to like Stephanie Vaquer but she’s got no personality and they practically just gave her the belt here. I can’t get into Iyo Sky no matter what and the crowd just died down at one point because they went into a spot fest and there’s no heat. At least when Naomi held the belt, she got my attention because her character started to resonate with me (despite how I don’t care for her in ring work). Here, it’s just the opposite. But I’d prefer more personality and something I care about rather than workrate matches these days.
CM Punk and AJ Lee vs Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch
This is the match I really wanted to see. I never had a chance to see AJ Lee work prior to this match and only knew her from clips. But the stuff that really got me invested in this match has been the interactions between CM Punk and Becky Lynch. There isn’t any question in my mind that Becky Lynch is by far the best performer in the WWE at this time. She is the best female promo person bar none and having CM Punk be the real foil to her gave both wrestlers new life. Becky Lynch has that Sensational Sherri energy to me where she’s outrageous but within her character. She’s been looking to become a mega heel and finally she’s been able to get real heat because of CM Punk. Luckily, the crowd has really wanted AJ Lee in all of this which has made Becky’s heel work even better.
The main story in this match, as I had written elsewhere, was CM Punk getting the hot tag. They had intergender rules which meant that only the men could fight men and women could only fight the women. So if Punk and Seth were in the ring and Punk tagged out to AJ, Seth would have to tag to Becky. As a result, it was in the heels’ best interest to keep Punk in their corner and prevent the hot tag since Becky hasn’t really had an answer to AJ Lee just yet.
What I loved about this match was classic tag team wrestling. The heels wore out Punk and would distract the referee or get AJ hot to force the referee to force her back in the corner, which allowed the heels to double team Punk. They set up a very long heat spot (maybe my only complaint about this match) but at one point it was up to Becky to hold Punk back from getting the hot tag. However, unlike normal tag team matches, Punk is a pretty big guy compared to Becky so when she was trying to hold him back, Punk just looked down, smiled, blew a kiss at Becky and reached out to tag his wife. AJ got a great reaction but it honestly was Becky’s facials that sold everything because she sold fear and AJ got the pounce on Becky for a bit.
The match continued with various interesting spots like Punk paying homage to Bret Hart with the sharpshooter while AJ had Becky in the Black Widow. Or Seth and Becky doing the double Pedigree to Punk and AJ. But the big moment was when Seth and Becky had Punk and AJ on the announcers’ desks. Becky tossed AJ at Punk where she redirected herself into a clothesline that caused the table to collapse and take out Punk and Seth for the remainder of the match. Sensing impending victory, Becky grabbed the down AJ to toss her back into the ring. As Becky was going to deliver her finisher, AJ turned it around to the Black Widow in the middle of the ring which got Becky to tap out.
Man, this was a really fun match. The reason it was so good was that they got to tell a good story and everyone had a role to play. AJ needed to be the hero and win the match here on her return while Becky would lose to the Black Widow to show that AJ is still dangerous and could not anticipate the submission. The fact that Becky tapped quickly to get out rather than going into a hundred different finishers made me happy because it immediately signaled that AJ’s submission is dangerous if it could get The Man to tap.
I doubt this is going to be the last of this feud but it was a great start. Honestly, they’ve got something extremely special here and I hope the WWE realize just how good this thing is right now. I don’t want Becky and AJ to just go back to the women’s division because AJ isn’t as good as CM Punk on the mic when it comes to counter promos to Becky. They need to keep this mini couples feud going at least for another month or two because this really has freshened up everyone here. They don’t need to have matches every week against each other but I’d love to see Becky egging Seth on to have him harm AJ with a Curb Stomp and have him go ballistic and scream at Punk where, “You made me do this! You made me get to your level!”
Beyond any of that, I hope the WWE recognizes that story driven matches are far superior to spot matches. I know not every match can be a story driven match but they really need more like this. This is the kind of wrestling I enjoy the most.
Cody Rhodes vs Drew McIntyre
This is a match I wanted after Drew finished up his feud with Punk. Unfortunately, he got side tracked with Priest while Cody dealt with Cena. Neither situation helped anyone on either side. I still like Drew but Cody hasn’t been interesting since winning the title and “finishing his story.” Literally, he finished his story and is just lingering at this stage. Someone on Reddit commented that Drew should win the title just to make things interesting. I really wish he did win the title here because he’s one of the best heels in the WWE right now but he feels muted at this moment. And Cody is better just like his dad when he’s chasing a title and fighting from underneath. At least if Drew won here, they could’ve kept a mini feud alive for a few months. So with Drew defeated on a PLE, I feel his situation is flat. This is one case where I’d argue changing the title would’ve been better just to stir things up a little.
That said, I didn’t really pay attention to this match either. I’m not a fan of Cody, although I am a fan of Drew’s. There was no post match afterbirth so outside of the Vaquer win and AJ’s return, this whole PLE felt bland.
Final Thoughts
Most of the stuff here looked better on paper than it was executed. I know the women’s title match got high praise but I didn’t really care for it. The return of AJ Lee was okay but the match did feel long. The story idea was right but at some point the crowd did die so they probably could’ve cut it down by 5-10 minutes. The Cody match was another bland Cody match. He represents the current WWE right now more than anything: bland, almost no personality, let’s be competitive, do whatever they tell me, etc. That match did not feel like a main event.
But I’m guessing that they’ll eventually build to Brock vs Cody. There’s not a lot of people Cody can face right now that mean much. Brock is the only obvious person since he demolished Cena and Cena effectively passed the Corporate Champion torch to Cody. And Cody mostly fares better when he’s fighting from underneath as I mentioned. But even if Cody beats Brock, so what? Quite honestly, Brock should squash Cody so Cody can chase Brock. Then at least they’d have a meaningful feud while Heyman can be the main person managing the interview segments.
Either way, I honestly only am interested in seeing more Punk vs Becky. That’s the best stuff right there. To me the real key player in all of this is Becky. She’s been the MVP of that feud because she really turned it up having someone where she can be a super bitch to and get away with it. It’s kinda sad thinking just how wasted of a feud she had with Valkyria or whatever her name was and that horrible match against the Bella girl. I mean the matches might not themselves be great but I’m more interested in the way these people are reacting, selling and doing all the drama. That’s the real fun stuff and the secret sauce that’s been missing in modern wrestling. Yes, sir, give me a whole lot more of that.
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