My thoughts:
Ziggler vs The Miz: I was surprised because I thought the powers that be in WWE had written Ziggler off. However, he has been consistently getting huge crowd reactions for 2-3 months in spite of being story line buried. That’s the kind of the thing creative does listen to after some point, at least usually. It’ll be interesting to see if he can sustain momentum.
Paige vs AJ: I’m someone that thinks women’s wrestling is boring and doesn’t need to exist. However, this match was okay, decently wrestled and it only made sense for Paige to win this one in their rivalry.
Rusev vs Swagger: I really like Rusev in the ring, he plays a cowardly heel, a cheap heel, a monster heel, all in one, and he does it pretty well. He’s athletic, energetic, and he also can sell really well. I think Rusev is a genuine talent. Swagger on the other hand is a decent talent who has the “look” but no charisma, and a bad habit of seriously injuring other wrestlers (ask Wade Barrett.) I think Lana is good for what she is. I used to like Zeb, but he’s getting stale now, and his whole purpose was to speak for Swagger since Swagger cannot talk on a mic, but Zeb has fumbled his way through almost all his spoken word moments the past 2-3 months.
I suspect there’s a chance that this feud ends and they move Rusev in another direction. If not, I think Zeb’s days are numbered and Swagger’s may be too, at least as a singles competitor (I could see him becoming a dreg like Curtis Axel or something.)
Rollins v Ambrose: This was probably the best actual match of the night, and the lumberjacks were used to great effect, especially when they all turned on Kane. These two are really shining as the legitimate stars of the Shield, it’s unfortunate WWE has chosen to push Reigns more.
Wyatt v Jericho: Bray needed the win, the match was decently worked. I felt this match was a let down because I think these two are in the upper percentile of workers in the company and thus I was expecting a classic match. I felt it was just an average match that didn’t tell a very exciting story. If Reigns and Batista had worked it I’d be amazed because it’s way beyond their capacity, but for these two I was left feeling “you could have given us better.”
Stephanie v Brie: I actually thought this was decently wrestled. Stephanie used a lot of traditional “real” wrestling moves and showcased her “power” relative to Brie. I liked that it felt like two women wrestling a match versus a “women’s” wrestling match. The ending was storyline stupid, but this whole storyline is in and of itself pretty stupid. The Bella twins exist in WWE because of their physical appearance, neither can do anything creative or worthwhile and while Stephanie is normally a great heel she can’t carry this thing herself.
Reigns v Orton: I said this was going to be a big match for Reigns because it was going to be a lengthy singles match. Not a match where Reigns can “hide” in the format (due to it being a 8 person ladder match, four way match etc.) Reigns excels in matches where he can be off camera for a long time then come in and do his 2-3 moves and get a pinfall, because frankly Reigns doesn’t have the wrestling chops to do much else. I said if he could work a good singles match with Randy, there’s a chance Reigns will grow into the wrestler WWE is going to paint him to be.
I came away…unsure if that will happen. I’m not saying Reigns will never develop any talent, but he didn’t wow me either. I do have to say he seemed to work a “slowed down” match, and I think that was smart. I think he knew that a fast paced match would exhaust his move set too quickly and, for him, get repetitive. I don’t intrinsically hate slower paced matches (it’s possible to have a good slow paced wrestling match.) So I think strategically Reigns was correct to work slow. He took some decent spots from Randy.
Lesnar v Cena: Boring “wrestling” match, but told a great story. And it was a squash match, storyline wise the squash needed to happen but I’m surprised WWE pulled the trigger. That being said, because they had pulled the trigger I think Brock/Cena played it exactly as it needed to be played. Cena sold the pain being inflicted on him very well. Lesnar played the “animal toying with his prey” very, very well. This told a perfect story in the ring and that’s what wrestling is actually about, so it has to be regarded as a job well done, even if it was technically uninteresting. The novelty of seeing the company’s top face beaten in a 20 minute squash match in the main event of one of the Big 4 PPVs is worth the price of admission.
Long term view:
-I think Cena gets some props for doing this. Hogan, Michaels, Bret, Austin, Rock, I genuinely do not believe any of those guys, in their prime (and not later when they were just novelty appearances) would have willingly hurt their brand by losing this way. Cena did the job, probably only HHH would have been willing to do the same (but he’s basically part of management so it almost doesn’t count.)
-I head Heyman say in an interview Lesnar being a part time presence could be good for the WWE Championship. I actually think this may be true. One of my biggest criticisms of Hulk Hogan in his WCW days was he almost never appeared on TV. I stand by that criticism because Hogan held the WCW title for such a huge portion of his time with that company, that for months on end that belt would feel “asleep.” On the other hand, I do think you can overexpose a champion. And when the champion is himself already massively overexposed, I think that’s a bad thing. Cena has been on top for ten years, largely because the WWE has failed to produce a lot of superstars who can either avoid injury or avoid basically wanting to leave. Even just a year ago when CM Punk was still around I think Cena was at least sharing the spotlight to a degree. But over the past ten years WWE has lost Austin, Michaels, Undertaker, Edge, Jericho, The Rock, CM Punk…and they’ve really not replaced them with anyone (I know some of those wrestlers occasionally still appear.) I think over the past year the hatred of Cena was hitting an all time high because he was so overexposed with no one else to showcase.
Further, the WWE Championship was itself overexposed, and devalued. Largely because regardless of who was holding it (be it Cena or Daniel Bryan or even Randy) all they could do is rehash old feuds. I mean DB vs Kane has been done a lot, and that was the best they could do with DB’s time as champion.
I think WWE will actually benefit from having an unbeatable monster who only comes out for special occasions. We could see Brock do 5 title defenses against any number of guys and anything but a rematch with Cena will feel fresh because Lesnar has been out of the game for so long.
It’ll be interesting to see where WWE goes with it, but I don’t know that a champion who isn’t involved in Raw every week (which frankly is a show often poorly booked and ran, which hurts the important/prestige of the title and the titleholder to even be on when it involves something stupid) is going to be a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to see this go on for 5 years, but until WM31 I think it can do the WWE good to not have their champion on every single Raw doing bad storytelling because they run out of good ideas. I think the scarcity of Lesnar’s contracted wrestling appearances means creative has a lot of incentive to use them wisely, instead of how they use superstars like Kane/Daniel Bryan/Cena/Bray Wyatt who they can go to 2 times a week.