Pre-show notes:
– If you’d like to read last year’s report, you can do that here. Hey, remember when I got people to fill in for me on pay-per-view reports?
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Please click through for the Best and Worst of WWE WrestleMania 30 Part 3. Sorry, “Payback.”
Best: Hornswoggle And El Torito Are Still Working Harder Than Everybody Else
Payback’s MOUNTAIN DEW VARIANT Presents KICKOFF match was El Torito versus Hornswoggle in a luchas de midget apuestas match with Swoggle putting his freshly-grown “shave this” hair against Torito’s … face?
The problems here were the same as the match before Extreme Rules; the announce team cannot possibly take them serious as wrestlers or human beings, everyone’s more interested in making HE’S SHORT MAGGLE jokes instead of noticing these guys busting their asses, and 3MB and Los Matadores are on HURT YOURSELF duty. The good news is that what worked before Extreme Rules worked here whether anyone noticed or not. Torito’s still a top-tier WWE worker going all-out to make a match with Hornswoggle seem like the best and most important thing in the world. 3MB and Los Matadores are still dedicated to ending their own lives to pop the crowd. These little dudes are working harder than everybody else to make a series of bad jokes seem crucial, and by God, I always find myself enjoying it.
The new stuff was good, too. El Torito doing the Mil Mascaras “I am wearing so many masks” gag was great and justified Destiny’s “why do his horns look so weird?” question when he entered. Swoggle was KILLING IT with the facial expressions, especially when he was getting his head shaved, and Torito having the end of his tail taped up adorably even though it was ripped off at the root is the perfect inattention to detail that makes LEPRECHAUN V BULL a story for everyone.
(Note: I actually hated that, but it was cute.)
Worst: WWE’s Continuing Inability To Understand How Haircuts Work
I thought El Torito was gonna go Father James Mitchell on Hornswoggle while cutting his hair, jamming a razor into his skull repeatedly while wearing God knows how many masks that might impair vision. Nobody knows how to cut hair in WWE. They’ve got shears, but they always clip the very ends of a person’s hair with scissors in one spot and then start shearing away. They go for the disposable razor with 80% of the hair left.
I don’t know, I guess I shouldn’t expect much. The one guy who called himself “The Barber” was always threatening to cut peoples’ hair with gardening shears.
Best: Shutting Down The CM Punk Chants In Two Parts
Payback happened in Chicago, which is ground zero for C-M-PUNK chants. WWE, in their infinite ability to f*ck with the emotions of people who feel unf*ckwithable, shut down these chants on two grand instances:
1. At the top of the show, Paul Heyman shows up and starts talking about Paul Heyman Guys, which of COURSE draws a CM Punk chant. The bait is taken. Heyman uses those chants as an excuse to point out that Punk straight-up does not give a shit about Chicago wrestling fans and is currently in another building somewhere watching the Blackhawks game. That’d be enough for most people, but Heyman (being the best talker in pro wrestling) connects one streak to another and ends up organically capping a man-to-crowd conversation about an absent Chicagoan with “my client Brock Lesnar conquered the Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania.” Organically. Point A to Point B. Masterful.
2. A little later on, Stephanie McMahon’s confronting Daniel Bryan about what a wiener he’s being about the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and Bryan starts talking about how much the people have supported him. The people, of course, start chanting C-M-PUNK. Daniel stands there for a moment with a total deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, and Stephanie chimes in with (to paraphrase), “these people want you to quit just like CM Punk did.” Kay-ohhhhh. The crowd keeps C-M-PUNK to themselves after that.
Trust me, nothing makes a wrestling fan stop what they’re doing faster than someone noticing what they’re doing.
Best: Sheamus vs. Cesaro
I watched the show live last night and revisited it this morning, and it was two very different experiences. Last night, nothing felt exciting. I’ve been watching some version of this show since March, and I’m tired of it. Everybody facing everybody feels stale. How many times have we seen Paige fight Alicia Fox? How many times have we seen Sheamus handily beat a dude he shouldn’t be beating? How many times JOHN CENA
Rewatching it this morning, I was able to appreciate a lot more of it. Sheamus vs. Cesaro was the big one, having come to terms with the finish. These guys beat the mess out of each other, and dammit, that’s all I’d ever asked for. The strength of a Cesaro match kinda coordinates with his opponent’s desire/ability to lean into the European uppercut, and Sheamus is willing to eat it as violently as anyone. I love how evenly matched Cesaro and Sheamus feel, like they’re the same class of fighter from different parts of the world. I love Sheamus getting strong title defenses with clean endings, too, especially when they aren’t just a Brogue Kick from Outta Nowhere.
So yeah, Sheamus vs. Cesaro from Payback wasn’t quite as epic as I wanted it to be and doesn’t scratch my best matches of the year list, but it was rough around the edges and fun in its inherent hossiness. Still, though:
Best/Worst: That Finish
This made me SO MAD last night.
Cesaro gets Sheamus where he wants him and starts spinning him with the Cesaro Swing. Paul Heyman does his best Michael Jackson impression on the outside, holding his arms out like he’s getting blown out by a wind machine. Cesaro gets him around for a count of about 22, poses, and then Sheamus just TOTALLY IGNORES IT and small packages him for the three count. Oh man, the nerd rage inside of me. You could see it bubbling up behind my eyes.
Aside from the WHY DID YOU DO THIS angry table flipping, I think they could tell a good story with it. The Cesaro Swing is Cesaro’s big crowd pleasing move, right? His partnership with Paul Heyman has always been a weird clashing of “guy who is about to be hugely popular” with “guy who can NEVER be popular,” so the rub here should be Heyman getting Cesaro to STOP swinging people. Right? It cost him the United States Championship here, and if it comes back to bite him another time, that’s reason enough for Heyman to request killing Cesaro’s darlings. Plus, maybe it’d get Big Tony out of that awkward-fitting King Of Swing jacket that makes him walk like Mr. McMahon.
Quicker version: If this is Sheamus getting another bullshit Sheamus win, f*ck it. If it’s the start of a story that leads to Cesaro swinging Paul Heyman and realizing that it’s finally time for him to stop relying on manipulative managers and rise to the top on his own? F*ck it too, but in the good way.
Best: And Now We’re Finally Kinda Sorta Shitting Or Getting Off The Pot!
I think the thing I enjoyed most on Extreme Rules (this is still Extreme Rules, right?) is the behind-the-scenes segment with Ryback using thumbs down and raspberries to insult the Rhodes Brothers. God, I love these goobers. I want to see them wander around in their airbrushed underpants and drug store beanies giving asinine commentary from the desk of the jocks in Revenge Of The Nerds all day.
The tag match felt very much like something we’d see on Raw — a lot of the show did, honestly — but I’m happy we have moved from Step 1 to Step 1B in the Rhodes Brothers breakup. Now instead of being upset and walking away angrily, Cody is upset and saying that Goldust deserves a better tag team partner. If they follow that up on Raw with an actual Step 2, we’re good. If they have another Rhodes Brothers/Ryback match tonight to redo this on television, I’m making fart noises.
What’s the payoff? Cody deciding he DOESN’T deserve a good tag team partner and pairing back up with sad-ass Damien Sandow? I’d be down for that. Rhodes Scholars vs. Goldust and Booker T? Maybe Dusty can show up and give them a variation of the I DON’T WANT YOU TO FIND ANOTHER PAHTNAHHHH.
Best: The Awkward Flag Waving Contest
Okay, sorry, my FAVORITE part of Payback was the Rusev vs. Big E FLAG WAVIN’ SHOWDOWN, where both dudes stood firmly (in their underwear) ANGRILY WAVING A FLAG to show the other guy that THEIR angry flag waving WASN’T AS GOOD. Oh man, it was glorious. Rusev waves the Russian flag like he’s trying to hit a home run, and Big E shows up and stands on the ramp doing the exact same thing. Neither guy knows how to wave a flag and it RULES. I’d hate to see them try to give a haircut.
Best: Rusev vs. Big E, Or
Worst: Rusev vs. Big E Getting Three Minutes
This f*cking match isn’t four minutes long. You’ve got two guys who should have killer momentum — Rusev as the unstoppable new monster and Big E as the dynamic young guy who proved himself by winning championship gold — and you have one beat the other in three minutes. Really? Before the match and even DURING it, I had discussions about what made the most sense for booking … do you do a non-finish to keep both guys looking strong and build to a bigger match, preferably one NOT built around how much they love their nation’s iconography? Do you have Big E get a lucky win to ease the “undefeated” pressure on Rusev and make him a constructive part of your show, and to help Big E not slide into obscurity? Do you have Rusev go over, but in a way that makes him look like he barely survived?
I guess the answer is “you treat Big E like Xavier Woods.” The good news there is that E is way better than Woods, so the three minutes we got were cool as shit. The spear through the ropes, the superkick counter from Rusev, the VADER VS. VADER body attacks that didn’t knock either man down … so much of it was good. Would it have hurt to maybe cut the Bo Dallas segment and given that time to these guys?
Worst: The Hockey Match
Bo Dallas has instant heat for me for referring to the Stanley Cup playoffs as a “match.” A hockey match? This is the Bo Dallas that made everybody stand with their backs to him on NXT, man, not the funny one that shows slides of his vacation and hands out cookies. A HOCKEY MATCH, REALLY.
Best: LOL Kofi Kingston
On the pre-show, the crowd starts chanting C-M-PUNK and Booker T jams his finger in his ear. HOLE ON A MINUTE Y’ALL I GOT BREAKIN’ NEWS. IMPORTANT BREAKIN’ NEWS. KOFI KINGSTON WILL BE WRESTLING BO DALLAS. I don’t know if they timed it like that on purpose, but good lord.
Bo Dallas vs. Kofi Kingston is the least important, least breaking news ever. I did end up loving it, though, because Kane just showed up randomly and beat up Kofi. Did I hit my limit break already? Apparently this was about some INFLAMMATORY TWEETS, but who cares. The pre-show should be LATE BROKEN into matches on every show, and every single one of those matches should begin and end with Kane brutalizing them. Have it happen over and over until Alex Riley is calling himself “reek.”
Way to go, Koaf. Enjoy that pay-per-view payday.
Best: Bad News Barrett Fights No-Selling With No-Selling
Speaking of things we’ve seen a billion times before and everything feeling like Raw, Bad News Barrett defended the Intercontinental Championship against Rob Van Dam. See the trend here? You could’ve searched “WWE 2014” on YouTube and the first 10 videos that popped up would’ve formed Payback.
I don’t like Van Dam’s matches, but he’s been visibly trying the last few weeks, so I won’t throw shade at him. The finish was a little weird, with Barrett Dog Bonering the ringpost, Van Dam taking advantage, then Barrett just countering a splash with his knees and hitting the elbow anyway for the win. It’s everything I hate about RVD matches. His opponent targets the leg or the back to keep him from hitting his moves, and when they’re done he just no-sells everything and hits his moves. He might touch his leg or hold his back after he does it, but it doesn’t keep him from winning. Barrett did that here, hitting a big spot on the post to set up a finish, then doing the opposite of that finish. But hey, he held his arm!
I just wish they’d done a post-match promo with him and had him be all, “I WAS WEARING AN ELBOW PAD. THIS IS WHY WE WEAR ELBOW PADS. YEAH MY ELBOW’D PROBABLY BE MESSED UP HAD I NOT BEEN WEARING AN ELBOW PAD.”
Worst: Barf, This Mountain Dew, Barf
Watching the announce team try to force down Diet Mountain Dew all night was hilarious. A supplemental Best goes to Michael Cole for getting outed for not drinking his Dew and responding with “I’m on my SECOND one!” SAVE MADE MAGGLE.
Worst: Stephanie Should’ve Just Chokeslammed Both Of Them
My “this story doesn’t make sense” stuff appears to be rubbing a lot of people the wrong way (a lot of people are fine with stuff not making sense or having no value if they “like it”), so I’ll focus on Stephanie being a foot taller and half a foot broader than either Brie or Bryan, and how she should’ve responded to them with a double goozle and a chokeslam.
Two things:
1. I really hate “you can’t fire me, because I QUIT!” It’s such a false bravado. You aren’t cooler because you quit. If you got fired for some bullshit reason, doesn’t THAT put you in the right? I wanted Stephanie to be like “uh, that’s actually more of a paperwork thing, but hey, either way you’ve lost your job, so go f*ck yourself.”
People who want to fire their employee are always so insulted and taken aback by the employee quitting. They got what they wanted, right? And now they don’t have to worry about that person collecting unemployment. SORRY YOU DON’T GET YOUR SEVERANCE PACKAGE NOW BRIE, AND ALSO SORRY YOU QUIT RIGHT BEFORE STRIKING ME, ENJOY BEING IN JAIL FOR ASSAULT FOR REAL.
2. Let me recap the good guys for you here: one of them was told he wasn’t physically or professionally able to carry the company’s top title and be the face of the WWE, and the second he won the company’s top title, he went down with an injury. Now he’s refusing to give up the titles because his boss is being mean about it. The other one was put into a horrible position by her boss, and dealt with it by cussing her out and slapping her. Then they did wrestling taunts in her face. Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella are a couple from an episode of COPS. Act like a bitch get treated like a bitch, am I right folks?
Best: Bray Wyatt’s Entrance Is Now Officially Rad As Hell Again
If the Cena/Wyatt feud accomplished nothing else, it got crowds into participation mode for Bray Wyatt. I can’t thank it enough for that. The starlight visual is great, and I can’t wait until they do it at a big outdoor WrestleMania.
Best: The John Cena Memorial Pay-Per-View Clusterf*ck
I considered writing “John Cena defeated Bray Wyatt” and having that be that. The biggest Best here is that this is the end of Cena/Wyatt, I hope I hope I hope, and that both guys find something else to do on Raw.
There was a lot to love. Paying off the “Cena is friends to the little people” angle with the Usos showing up to back John up and take a bunch of bullets for him made sense, and was a legitimately smart move on Cena’s part. Sure, you CAN fight off three guys by yourself, but why not do yourself a favor? I think the most painful Usos-related spot was the superplex to the floor through two tables from Luke Harper, mostly because Harper missed the tables himself and went tailbone first to the ground. Ugh. The moment of the match was Cena launching the 5,000 pound stairs to the outside and braining Wyatt, slicing up his arm in the process. I honestly would’ve bought that as the finish of the match. It was something we’d talk about, and was a cooler visual than “Bray Wyatt is stuck in some boxes.”
There was also a lot to dislike. Cena is at his very worst in Last Man Standing matches, where he’s basically asked to amp up his “nothing REALLY hurts me, you die now” act for their entirety. The replay crew was so busy showing the stairs to the head that they missed Bray catching Cena off the apron and Sister Abigailing him on the floor. That was probably Bray’s best moment of the entire match, especially since he had to do it with that arm gash.
The major thing to dislike is that Last Man Standing matches feel more like video game brawls than anything WWE does. The stairs throwing, the very slow “hold each other by the hair and walk to the props” setup for big moves, Bray Wyatt deciding it’d be a great idea to pull Cena up onto this thin platform to throw punches at him … it felt like you were watching somebody build up specials and drag their opponent to the OMG Moments. The finishes never look violent. They look like prop spots, with long, loving looks at the crash pads. Whether it was a cool visual for Cena to “entomb” Wyatt and win the match is beside the point. A story built around a man losing his LIFE to a hillbilly cultist dead set on destroying him to corrupt and change a nation of children probably needed more than “I took your finish in a place I normally wouldn’t.”
So, yeah. Entertaining, and the best match of the three big pay-per-view showdowns, but I’d rather be playing something else.
Best: Alicia’s Scott Evil Runaway
I don’t remember a lot about the Divas Championship match, honestly, but I will never forget Alicia Fox’s post-match meltdown. We’re so used to her stealing hats and bathing in soda that I expected a full-on football helmet and Mountain Dew Kickstart dunk tank. Instead, we got the thinking man’s Alicia Fox meltdown. She demanded silence from the crowd, tried to keep her cool, then just screamed and ran away flailing her arms and legs around like a weirdo. It was John Cena’s legendary boner run times ten.
Five stars, Alicia.
Worst: The SummerSlam Commercial Should Be A Duck Quacking ‘SUMMERSLAM!’
HEY YOUTZ. I’M TALKING MONEY OVA HERE. YOU WANNA GET YER HOPES UP FOR DOLPH ZIGGLER AT SOME POINT THIS YEAR? WATCH MONEY IN THE BANK PAY-PER-VIEW! FAHGETABOUTIT!
The next commercial should be Flo from Progressive showing Vince McMahon how to save money by bundling WrestleMania 30, Extreme Rules and Payback.
Worst: Randy Orton, Triple H And Papa Smurf
“Okay, what’re we wearing tonight?”
“Black trunks, black everything.”
“Cool. You remind Dave?”
“Oh yeah, Dave’s good, he felt like an asshole showing up in all red at Extreme Rules but we worked it out.”
*Batista enters in ALL BLUE COMPRESSION SOCK EVERYTHING*
“LOOK’A ME I LOOK LIKE A NERF GUN”
“god dammit Dave”
“HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP”
“oh my God are you Ernest Hemingway? Can I have your autograph?”
“CAN YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET A BLUE SLEEVE ON THIS INK PEN”
Best: I Don’t Think You Could Put Over A Team More Than The Authority’s Put Over The Shield
Can you?
At WrestleMania, The Shield beat Kane and the New Age Outlaws in the most decisive WrestleMania match this side of S.D. Jones. At Extreme Rules, The Shield got all the spotlight moments and Roman Reigns pinned Batista with a spear. At Payback, The Shield got all the spotlight moments and each member eliminated their Evolution counterpart with something strong. A 3-0 sweep in an elimination tag in the main event. Holy shit, right? If they had a match at Money in the Bank, what’s the result? The Evolution guys begging The Shield to piss in their faces?
As wrestling fans, we love to go back to times when we felt one thing and apply them to how we should be feeling now. I do that as much as (and probably more than) anyone. We see what Triple H is doing for guys like The Shield and Bryan now, and we go back 10 years to justify those horrible days when H would call you boy, pedigree you and wait 5 minutes to pin you. Days when he’d beat up Brian Kendrick and Paul London for absolutely no reason because he needed an exclamation point at the end of the “Triple H is tough” sentence. Even a few years ago when Punk blew up and his first mission was an immediate pinfall lose to Triple H.
With the changes coming over WWE, it may be time to finally stop seeing how things connect to the past, and start worrying about where they’re going. We’ve gone from cheering the veterans and being wary of the new guys to cheering the new guys and being wary of the veterans, but the core WWE audience is still the opposite. There’s a nexus point between how things used to be and how things are GONNA be, and I don’t think anyone fully understands it yet. But we can see Triple H giving it everything he’s got to be the “Wounded King” and eating piles and piles of shit for the bulletproof stars of today, and Orton and Big Dave following his lead. That’s something. That’s something we need to see and not take for granted.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
cyniclone
Evolution is defeated easily. The replay of this match is going to main event tomorrow’s 700 Club
Marczak
Welcome to Whose Match Is It Anyway? where the rules are made up and the eliminations don’t matter!
Thrillhouse, on Roman Reigns being caned:
This is fine and all…but it could really use Don’t Stop Me Now, just sayin.
ShimmerDownMeow, on also that:
YOUR! NAME! IS! LEAKEE!
Heisenblerg
Now you might think it’s impossible for an “old Irish saying” to involve hashtags, but there actually used to be hashtags in Ireland before Saint Michael Cole drove them out.
Space Monkey Mafia
Big E’s new gimmick is “Blacksaw” Jim Duggan.
Big Baby Yeezus
There’s only one black man who can take Russev down…. JAAAHNNN CEEENA
Sudz McDuff
Bo ran out of that ring like a man coated in baby oil near an open flame, probably because Bo is a man covered in baby oil near an open flame.
LBCS
He just threw those 500 pound stairs at least 100 yards in front of 60,000 people
Harry Longabaugh
Cena can’t go to AA because the steps don’t carry any weight for him.
Thanks, everybody. See you back here tonight for the Raw open discussion thread, and on Tuesday for the Best And Worst Of A Hopefully Very Different Raw.
