WWE Backlash 2017 Review

On 21st May, WWE's SmackDown brand presented Backlash, their first PPV since WrestleMania, at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. AJ Styles challenged for Kevin Owens' WWE United States Championship, Jinder Mahal went after Randy Orton's WWE title, Shinsuke Nakamura made his SmackDown debut against Dolph Ziggler, as well as Sami Zayn, Natalya, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Luke Harper and more being in action...but was it any good? Let's take a look. 

Backlash Kickoff

• Our panel for the evening is hosted by Renee Young with Booker T and Peter Rosenburg as the analysts. 

• Dasha Fuentes lets the audience know that Sami Zayn will be in the Social Media Lounge later on, she speaks like an especially patronising CBeebies presenter. 

• The first hype package of the evening is for Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler and features a blindfolded woman painting, because Nakkers is an artist now. It somehow manages to make their feud look mildly interesting, but the painting gimmick is still lame.

• The majority of the panel's chatter about Nakamura v Ziggler was focussed on Nakamura's debut and how much anticipation there was for it. They spoke a lot but didn't really tell any new fans why the debut was special or build up Ziggler as a potential spoiler. 

• A replay of a WWE.com "Exclusive" with Aiden English interrupting Tye Dillinger's interview with Renee Young, with Dillinger taking the piss out of English for crying a few weeks ago. 

• James Ellsworth joined the panel to discuss The Welcoming Committee against Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Naomi. Booker T made a questionable hand gesture when asking Ellsworth about his relationship with Carmella. 

• Booker really put over Sami Zayn as the panel discussed his upcoming bout with Baron Corbin. 

• Erick Rowan walked in as the panel discussed Breezango v The Usos and just kind of wandered about for a bit. 

• Kayla Braxton interviewed Dolph Ziggler backstage, with Ziggler promising to put on a clinic in his match with Shinsuke Nakamura later on. 

• An ad for the WWE Network

• A rather cool hype package for AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens, focusing on the "Face of America" gimmick and mixing Owens' promos with various classic American iconography.

• As the Panel discussed Styles v Owens, Rosenburg discussed how he was "calling" it as the match of the night...no shit, Sherlock. 

• Sami Zayn joined Dasha Fuentes in the Social Media Lounge, with Fuentes stealing the show with her weird reactions to pretty much anything going on. 

Dillinger def. English

The longest of the pair's trilogy over the last month and a half, this was a fairly simple clash that was showed the importance of getting over with an audience. English's pre-match sing-song generated a, perhaps surprisingly, large amount of heat, as he ran down his hometown of Chicago and sang a few nicknames. Put this opposite the "Perfect Ten" gimmick which is still on fire and English singing "You can't help him" when in control and as long as the two didn't slip up they could pretty much coast through eight minutes of action. There was a couple of nice spots here, including a solid near fall for English off the Director's Cut, before Dillinger closed things off with the new version of the Tye Breaker. 

• Erick Rowan joined the panel again, stealing Rosenburg's pocket square and looking about a bit. Booker T said "You're looking real jacked, baby" about twenty six times. 

• The panel jumped straight into talking about the WWE title match, although this barely got anytime before they through to the final hype video.

• The hype package for Jinder Mahal v Randy Orton detailed Mahal's unlikely rise and Anti-American stance.

Backlash

• "We choose to show the world one face, but our true face we only show ourselves" - Was the rather awkward theme for the event's opening promo, with a lot of the comparisons not making any real sense. 

Nakamura def. Ziggler 

This bout needed to start hot, specifically the audience needed to see something from Nakamura that made them sit up and take notice. Instead, we got a few minutes of the pair exchanging holds, a couple of tame strikes from Nakkers, before Ziggler hit a big dropkick. Having waited weeks to see Shinsuke get in the ring, in what was already a questionable piece of booking, this was not what was needed. The pattern continued for most of the match, with Ziggler hitting most of the big moves, including a Fameasser and a Zig Zag, but seeing as it was inevitable that Nakamura would be winning his debut, it was difficult to buy into the majority of the near falls for anyway, especially after having seeing very little from Shinsuke himself. Whilst most of the sequences were well-thought through, which considering they'd have seventeen matches on live events building up to this should come as a given, a lot of the action seemed to be a step or two off the pace. 

The match spent most of it's time building up to Nakamura hitting his big moves, like the inverted exploder and the Kinshasha, almost at the expense of every other piece of the King of Strong Style's offence. By the time Shinsuke hit his big two for the victory, we'd got a bout that whilst having very few technical faults, hadn't managed to deliver what it needed to. It felt like the lads had about eight minutes of content, that they attempted to stretch over a quarter of an hour, yet even big moments like Ziggler spitting in Nakamura's face felt like they were thrown away. We were never going to get a bout on the level of Nakamura's NXT debut opposite Sami Zayn and that wasn't what this bout needed to be, but it did need to showcase Nakker's as a unique competitor, who has more to him than just an entrance, yet it ended up making him feel like the majority of the SmackDown roster. 

• A replay of this week's SmackDown's episode of the Fashion Files, with Tyler Breeze dressing up as a janitor and the wonderful "Day One is H" debut. 

Usos def. Breezango to retain SmackDown Tag Team Championship

Breezango took their PPV opportunity and ran with it, as we got to witness Tyler Breeze raiding WWE's dress up box and Chicago fucking loved it (and so did the commentary team). It was super silly, as we saw Breeze dressed initially as a janitor with a mop and then an old lady with a walking stick, but it was a different, didn't take itself too seriously and also allowed the Usos to shine in their role as the straight men. The match moved well towards it's finish as we saw Breeze almost die after being chucked over the barricade and then the Usos rebound from a Fandango tope conhilo to knock 'Dango off the top rope with a superkick to hold onto their belts. The shift from comedy to highspots was done well and those last few moments may have made Breezango as they both ended up looking incredible after holding the crowd with their previously entertaining antics and shenanigans. I hope we get to see these teams battle again as I'm sure this was only the tip of iceberg of what Breezango has to offer comedically, whilst both teams are more than capable of hitting that top gear for longer.

• Another ad for the WWE Network and such.

Zayn def. Corbin 

This match was simple storytelling, with two performers in roles that suit them down to the ground and very little else. It was established early on that Sami Zayn had hurt his lower back and from that point on that became the driving force of the clash. Zayn sold his suffering damn well, making sure that he wasn't just grabbing hold of the body part, but showing the pain all across his body, in his face and in his arms and legs. Even when not selling specific moves, all of Zayn's movement was altered because he trying to convey the injury. Corbin's slow and methodical dissection of Zayn, as he laid into his opponent with a spinebuster, a chokebreaker and Deep Six, gave him plenty of chances to jawjack with the crowd. The only thing that was missing was some real heat from the Chicago crowd, who at times rallied behind Zayn, but didn't seem to fully buy into the bout. 

The finish saw Zayn nick a victory, managing to push Corbin into a corner and hit a fast Helluva Kick to get the pinfall. The pace of the finish really took me by surprise as the bout leading up to that point, beyond a few flurries early on, had been relatively slow. This contrast made the moment feel completely out of the blue, especially because I'd been fairly certain Corbin would get the win and continue onto a big push heading out. Zayn's selling post-match was arguably even better than what we'd seen during the match, as he threw his arm up into the air, only to bring it straight back down to his lumbar region with a grimace on his face. The Underdog from the Underground may be the best seller in WWE at the moment and I'm hoping this translates into his getting bigger matches and more opportunities. 

• Xavier Woods, Ember Moon, Zack Ryder and a dude played Rocket League, a video game that was sponsoring the show.

• Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers arrived, with Mahal cutting a promo straight down the camera in English and then Punjabi.

The Welcoming Committee def. Lynch, Flair & Naomi 

A basic six woman tag bout, that would probably have stood out on an episode of SmackDown but didn't do much for anyone on PPV. The majority of the wrestling was done well, with Naomi spending some time as the face in peril and a strong Becky Lynch hot tag standing out, but the themes of unity and teamwork that had previously been brought up in the rivalry, weren't explored as well as they as they could have been. The heels mostly controlled as a unit, working quick tags and switching in and out, but the babyface team didn't look they had any particular issues trying to gel either. There was potential to see tempers flair between the babyfaces as they all looked to gain some revenge on their rivals, but that just wasn't present. This bout wouldn't have looked out of place on a live event, due to it's lack of story development and a general feel that everyone was phoning in their performance. 

My main takeaway's from the finish was the dominance of Tamina, who managed to take out Charlotte Flair with a superkick and Naomi with a headbutt and Lynch tapping out to Natalya's Sharpshooter. Considering how Lynch was initially positioned as the top female face of the brand, it was a big moment for Natalya, but almost felt like it was thrown away. Overall, I feel like the contest didn't manage to provide the division with anything resembling an overall direction and especially after the multi-woman bout at WrestleMania didn't feel like the SmackDown Women's division was being used to anything resembling it's full potential with Charlotte Flair in particularly feeling like she was barely involved in the match at all. 

• The same promo we saw on the Kickoff show for Kevin Owens v AJ Styles aired, which means Jinder Mahal v Randy Orton will be our main event! 

Owens def. Styles via countout to retain WWE United States Championship 

Between September 2016 and January 2017 AJ Styles and Kevin Owens were the top champions on their respective brands and here we are in May and both men are battling over the United States Championship. That's not a knock on anyone, I just thought it was worth pointing out. Maybe because it would've been easy for the pair to phone this in, lose motivation and just not put the effort into this bout. There's plenty of wrestlers throughout history who would've done just that. That isn't AJ Styles and Kevin Owens though. They took their slot on the card (still the longest bout of the evening) and made it work. The two built their story, allowed the crowd to become invested and peppered in some big moves like Owens' swinging fisherman superplex and a suplex on the apron from Styles. The bout lacked any convincing near falls, which would have propelled it to the next level, but I'll get onto the finish in a moment. 

The story of the bout was set up by Owens attacking Styles' leg on SmackDown earlier in the week, but didn't become apparent until Styles hit his Ushigoroshi signature onto the leg. From here we got some strong work on both sides of the coin as AJ sold the injury well, whilst Owens made the body part his focus. Owens has a good knack for altering his offence to suit the story of the bout and that was clear here as he altered his cannonball to connect on the leg, as well locking on an Ankle Lock (perhaps mimicking Kurt Angle as part of his "Face of America" gimmick). Styles' leg would often result in him being unable to take control after a hope spot or being to slow when on the offence (causing the aforementioned swinging fisherman superplex) and whilst this often caused the pace of the bout to slow, the two utilised their large arsenal of moves well and made the most of the slower pacing as the crowd grew into the contest with them. 

I mentioned earlier that the bout lacked any convincing near falls and the finish itself was, of course, more than a little disappointing. Owens' escaped a Styles Clash attempt on the announce table, simultaneously trapping Styles' injured leg in the hole in the announce table, resulting in a count out victory when AJ was unable to escape from the various wires and what have you. It's difficult to wholly criticise a finish like this, because it followed the arc of the match and made Owens look like a bit of a shit, which will only help his Face of America character as it develops. Yet it's also difficult to not feel disappointing that we didn't get to see Owens and Styles hit top gear and we didn't get to see Styles battling out more convincing submission holds and really sell the drama of the injury and develop the Phenomenal One's new babyface persona. Let's hope we get to see these two have another PPV bout down the road as they could have torn the Allstate Arena apart and didn't. 

• Highlights of Tye Dillinger's victory over Aiden English from Kickoff played

Harper def. Rowan 

Considering there's so much history between Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, you wouldn't have known it from what the match alone as there was no sign of hatred or even dislike between the pair. The crowd clearly hadn't bought into the story as their main involvement in the bout was to chant "Fire Bradshaw" for a little while at the start. The bout had it's moments like Harper's suicide dive and a big boy Powerbomb from Rowan and remained watchable, but I'm not quite sure what anyone was trying to achieve. There was some weird stuff with Rowan reaching for his mask, but it wasn't clear enough for a live audience to pick up and didn't actually go anywhere anyway. The finish was unfortunately the sloppiest part of the bout with Harper turning a Powerbomb into an awkward rana, before hitting a pair of unconvincing superkicks and a discus thing for the win. 

• Jinder Mahal v Randy Orton hype package, it's time!

Mahal def. Orton to win WWE Championship

I feel like some time next year, I'll turn to one of my wrassle pals and say "Do you remember when Jinder Mahal won the WWE title?" and they'll turn to me and say "Halcyon days, mate, halcyon days" as we watch Mojo Rawley battle Gronk for the title in the main event of whatever that month's PPV happens to be called. All that we once believed to be right and true has been turned on it's head in the space of a month. Jinder Mahal and the Bollywood Boyz are on top of SmackDown and there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it. I think Mahal's accession could have been handled with a little more precision and I'm not sure he really deserves the spot, but there's no denying that he has ascended and he does have that spot. 

I think the most shocking part of the whole story was that Jinder and Randy actually had a decent match. No, it wasn't a technical classic, but it told a story and told it pretty well. Orton jumping Mahal before the bell grabbed the crowd from the beginning and managed to keep them on side through the pedestrian first half of the bout. Mahal initially targeted Orton's shoulder, when that looked to be unsuccessful the Singh Brothers got involved, saving Mahal's arse on a number of occasions. The ringwork was solid, if unimaginative in the early going and whilst Orton didn't look particularly motivated, he still sold his shoulder well for Jinder. I would have liked to have seen Mahal take a leaf from Kevin Owens' book and vary some of his offence to make a real focus of the injury as apart from wear-down there wasn't much else. There were opportunities for Mahal to up the aggression and really go to town on Orton's shoulder that could have made the earlier part of the bout a little more dynamic. 

The last couple of minutes however were executed particularly well. Orton's frustration at the Singh Brothers constant interference lead to Orton attempting to murder Sunil and Samir by delivering a pair of belly to back suplexes onto announce tables that looked completely reckless. It sold the moment, but I'm not sure Orton needed to actually try to kill the lads. With Orton distracted trying to destroy the Bollywood Boyz with a double rope-hung DDT, Mahal took his opportunity, slithered in behind the Viper and nailed Khallas (Cobra Clutch Slam) to cap off one of the most improbable and illogical title ascensions in WWE history. The conclusion was exactly what it needed to be, bought the matches arc to it's conclusion and seemed to jump from one moment to the next at a reasonable pace. The strongest part of Jinder's run to the title has been the Singh Brothers involvement and how they've been positioned to allow the act to stand out, so it was fitting that the pair played a major part in their fellow Canadian taking the belt.  

Talking Smack: Backlash 

• Renee Young and Peter Rosenberg welcomed us to the show, giving their initial reactions to the madness of Jinder Mahal being WWE Champion. 

• Sami Zayn joined the panel for a quick interview, that never really got into his victory over Baron Corbin earlier in the night. The interview instead focused on Zayn's jump to SmackDown, Jinder Mahal's title win and the potential of being involved in Money in the Bank.

• The next interviewee Tye Dillinger followed some similar themes to Zayn's interview, in that there was no real discussion of his victory over Aiden English earlier on. There was some cool focus on Dillinger's journey back to WWE, alongside some parallels between Dillinger and Mahal's careers, before Dillinger also made a claim to a spot in next month's Money in the Bank ladder match.  

• Young and Rosenberg went back over the finish of the main event, to remind us all that Jinder Mahal is WWE Champion and Randy Orton almost murdered some lads. They then moved onto looking at Shinsuke Nakamura's win over Dolph Ziggler, discussing how Ziggler could potentially bounce back. 

Kevin Owens Interview

The United States Champion joined the panel for absolute cracker of interview that remained captivating from start to finish as he would go on to close the show after repeatedly shutting down questions from Young and Rosenberg. Owens initially refused to speak to Rosenberg because he was new, got confrontational when Young claimed he hadn't won "fair and square", got asked about Jinder Mahal, then repeatedly walked off the set, only to return once again. The moment when Rosenberg brought up that he felt AJ Styles was the best in the world felt like Owens was about to Machine Gun Kelly the shit out of Rosenberg right on that big glass desk. The Face of America brings an energy and passion to each of his performances that make you sit up and take notice and this was no different.

Finally...

ATPW Scale Rating - 5.78/10 

Backlash 2017 will be remembered as the show where Jinder Mahal won the WWE title. If nothing else, that was certainly a thing that happened. We also got some very good action out of AJ Styles v Kevin Owens, even if the finish didn't provide anything satisfactory, whilst Sami Zayn v Baron Corbin also more than held it's own on the card. The main event perhaps provided the most complete story bell-to-bell and had a great final stretch, with the reaction to Jinder winning being something we may have to wait a long time to see again. Shinsuke Nakamura v Dolph Ziggler didn't provide the impactful debut that many hoped for, but still had it's merits. Unfortunately, bouts like Erick Rowan v Luke Harper and The Welcoming Committee v Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair & Naomi weren't near PPV quality and dragged a potentially strong event down a few slots. 

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

Email - acrossthepondwrestling@hotmail.com

The Real Lives & Side Projects of the WWE Or Publicly Exposing The Business Will Result In Being Placed On a Register

Recently, he updated it but for the longest time, Ricochet's Twitter biography read 'Yo, this is the official Twitter of The Future of Flight, King Ricochet. I also play a Prince on TV'. Not to give away trade secrets but the Prince in question is Lucha Underground's Prince Puma. Yes, I know, you're shocked, I thought it was Mickie James this whole time too. The reason I'm telling you all this is that it is faintly fascinating to see someone acknowledge that within the world of wrestling, they are playing multiple roles, let alone the question of what it means that a King is playing a Prince, what has the monarchy come to? Ever since 10th February 1989, the world has had to accept one simple truth: wrestling is not real, it actually happens, people can actually get hurt (see my earlier article on Seth Rollins' WWE24 special. WWE clearly has from the way they've been booking Seth recently) but it is fundamentally a story built for the audience's entertainment, it is a manufactured reality built to resemble the idea of an actual sport but both ramping up and simplifying the story in order to make it more satisfying (For an example of the benefits of this, look at the 12th March edition of Robot Wars, the climax between Cherub and Eruption was how the David and Goliath narrative fails in reality). Not that the people in the ring aren't wrestlers but they are people playing characters, they are people with lives outside of the show and other things going on. I don't know if you knew that Maryse was an estate agent for time between WWE runs and also has a jewellery line. See, rich lives.

Probably the most prominent display of side-projectry, in the WWE at least, is UpUpDownDown, the YouTube gaming channel of Xavier Woods/Austin Creed and friends. Within the grand tradition of 'Let's Play' channels, not much happens on there beyond Xavier plays video games, sometimes on his own sometimes with others and occasionally opens subscription boxes and other nerd stuff. Now if you watch The New Day in their promos, it's of no surprise to anyone that the bunch of them are nerds with the amount of reference comedy that they fit in but it's interesting watching the channel as a parallel narrative to the one presented over RAW, Smackdown: Live and NXT. You see there are also rivalries over on UUDD, it's not as clear cut as face-heel dynamics as these are what we call 'real people' but anyone who's watched the one-upmanship between Rusev and Cesaro in their never-ending Ping-Pong battles knows that there's something fundamentally compelling about seeing people whose job it is to make their disagreements seem like life and death just do things because they're bored and want to have a good time. Except for The Miz, to him everything is very serious and it's not entirely clear if he even has a gimmick any more or if Mike Mizanin is dead, long live The Miz (unless he's what was in that lockbox, we didn't consider that).

It is worth noting that Xavier is not the only one with a YouTube channel: Kenny Omega is an internationally regarded Street Fighter player, The Bella Twins have a constant stream of inane content, Emma's Taste of Tenille perfected the cooking show and introduced the world to the wonders of MuscleEgg, by expanding their 'brands' to include interests outside of just their day-jobs but still to an extent keeping it to normal people interests like video games, cooking, whatever it is the Bellas are doing, it makes the performers more relatable and as a result, it endears people to their characters. No one gives a shit about Titus O'Neil but if you see him having a good time playing some video games, maybe you'll give him some slack and think 'hey, he's not that bad'. Bad example, because he is that bad.

It's hard to work out how many Renee Youngs' there are. There is of course Smackdown and Talking Smack's Renee, but then there's also Total Divas's Renee, Unfiltered w/Renee Young's Renee but then there's also her podcast, Regular Girls, co-hosted with fellow Canadian, comedian and YouTube star Stacy McGunnigle, which seems to float back-and-forth between her being Renee Young or Renee Paquette. Slowly all these Renees seem to be converging in a somewhat Rick and Morty-esque manner but while personality-wise they retain similar traits, it's hard to explain why the woman who hosts a talk show where they interview murderers and arsonists also wants to talk at length about the virtues and difficulties of wearing leather trousers (far more fascinating than I can make it sound that second one). While I enjoy both sides of the coin, Regular Girls is one of the few podcasts left in my weekly rotation, it could be seen by some as trivialising the main product in that really, everyone should be terrified of Randy Orton right now, he is literally guilty of a few different crimes this month but there's never going to be an outcome where that comes up in storyline.

It's a commitment to having the cake and eating it, WWE want to both present the exaggerated theatrics of the wrasslin' and have the fun behind-the-scenes stuff like Unfiltered but they want this all to be the same person. This isn't the Indies where you can have The Young Bucks winkingly using 'insider terms' during their 'Being The Elite' travel diaries, this is a big self-enclosed universe that seems to not understand the divide between character and performer. As much as I malign the notion of referring to WWE superstars by their Indie names, perhaps if they're being interviewed behind-the-scenes, something as simple as using real names for some sequences and character names for others could help explain who they're actually talking to. If you look at the otherwise wonderful Breaking Ground series, a show that really explained the hardships of the developmental system in a simple but brilliant way, its issue is a commitment to pretending that despite showing William Regal working with people on their character, that the fights are real and the outcomes undetermined. You can't try to present a 'warts n' all' view of something and then try to just put make-up over something that is just a blank patch of skin. We want to know about the real lives of performers but we also want to believe that after the cameras stop rolling, those characters still exist in our world. 

Maybe I'm thinking too much into all of this, I mean, it's just a bunch of sweaty men and women not-punching each other right?

Article - Jozef Raczka (@NotJozefRaczka)

Editor - James Marston (@IAmNotAlanDale)

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

TV Review: WWE Smackdown Live #894 - The Dolphumentary + Talking Smack #10 - Dolph Ziggler Interview

As the final episode before the No Mercy supercard on 9th October, the 894th Smackdown Live saw Dolph Ziggler take centre stage as Intercontinental Champion The Miz premiered a new "Dolphumentary" and Ziggler's buddies from the Spirit Squad, Kenny and Mikey returned. With a supercard just days away and the likes of World Champion AJ Styles, Women's Champion Becky Lynch, Dean Ambrose, Alexa Bliss and Jack Swagger all in major spots, this was going to great, right?

The heat on the Intercontinental Championship was turned up a notch as title holder, The Miz, presented a video package on No Mercy opponent Dolph Ziggler, that looked at some of the more infamous moments in The Show Off's career, before Ziggler fought off old pals from The Spirit Squad, Kenny [Dykstra] and Mikey [Mondo] in their WWE returns. I wasn't overly excited about Kenny and Mikey and the segment could have been just as effective without it, but it definitely gave the interaction a nice boost of nostalgia for the heady days of 2006. Whilst most of the coverage of this looked at the return, it was Ziggler and Miz would worked the hardest to keep stirring their feud up. Both worked when on the attack throwing verbal barbs, but it was when reacting to these barbs that the pair created their most effective work. Ziggler's frustration and aggression when Miz told him he'd be doing $5 autograph signings should he lose at No Mercy was the standout moment of an enjoyable scene. 

In a show that was full of talking, World Champion AJ Styles and #1 Contenders John Cena and Dean Ambrose closed the show, in what developed into Styles and Ambrose taking turns to take shots at Cena. There was a surprising amount of variety here as The Phenomenal One stuck to Cena's attempts at equaling Ric Flair's "World Championship record", whilst Ambrose went about questioning Cena's personality traits and his Hustle Loyalty Respect mantra. Both Styles and Ambrose brought strong performances to match the strong content, with the segment building nicely to Cena beginning the scrap without having to really say a word. The close of the show was a little paint by numbers, as all three men got a chance to hold the belt up, with Ambrose ending the show in control. There were ways of getting the supposed chaos of a triple threat match over without having to fall into the predictable and formulaic.

The adjoining episode of Talking Smack was headlined by an appearance from Dolph Ziggler, as he discussed his match with The Miz at No Mercy and added some depth to the tie. With Ziggler's career on the line on 9th October, this was another fact and fiction mixing effort from The Show Off, which long-time fans may have become a little numb towards over recent years. Ziggler definitely has knack at getting his pacing and passion just right, this was only interrupted by Renee Young appearing to want to steer Ziggler in a certain direction. The style worked for the audience that would be watching Talking Smack, as you'd expect these to more interested in insider terms and therefore I think that the upcoming bout has been given an extra layer of interest, as this was more a look at how Nicholas Nemeth feels about his current situation in the company, than it was a look at his issues with Miz. 

After Alexa Bliss and Nikki Bella's singles match had ended in a no contest, thanks to Carmella interference, Daniel Bryan pulled a Teddy Long and booked a tag match with Bella being joined by Women's Champion Becky Lynch. The tag bout, managed to carry two storylines well, but couldn't have been called anything more than basic. Taking up just over 4 minutes, Bella worked in the face in peril, which mainly involved rest holds from Carmella & Bliss. There wasn't a lot to get excited about, but the San Diego crowd seemed largely into it, which at least gave a bit of drive when watching at home. Lynch's hot tag was probably the best part, featuring crisp exploder suplexes in quick succession and the finish gave fuel for the two upcoming supercard bouts as Carmella and Bella brawled to the back, whilst Bliss pinning Lynch gives her even more momentum heading into her title challenge.

Round off the top part of the card, Baron Corbin suffered defeat to Jack Swagger in controversial fashion, as the referee called for the bell despite Corbin not appearing to tap whilst in the Patriot Lock. Despite the dodgy finish, I was surprised by the strength of this contest, as Corbin and Swagger put together some quality action. The story appeared to paint Swagger as the more powerful of the pair, getting the better of Corbin in the early stages, leading to Corbin having to resort to taking advantage of a rope break and then shoving Swagger into the barricade. This was well put across by the performers and managed to get Corbin a decent amount of heat, which was only added up when The Lone Wolf took his time during his beat down. The transition into the Patriot Lock, showed that perhaps with an extra five minutes and a real finish that Corbin and Swagger could do something good together. 

Best of the Rest 

• On Talking Smack, AJ Styles' interview with Renee Young and Daniel Bryan covered a variety of topics, with Styles handling the occasions well, adding to what he'd said at the close of Smackdown Live and ending with a passionate promo about defeating anyone Bryan or Shane McMahon put in front of him, because he's a winner.

• Bray Wyatt and Kane went through the motions, until Randy Orton appeared on the big screen upside down and Wyatt left to find out where he was, leading to multiple pre-taped backstage skits. 

• The Hype Bros (Mojo Rawley & Zack Ryder) went over The Vaudevillains (Aiden English & Simon Gotch) in an awkward and cringey tag encounter, that also involved The Ascension standing about on the ramp and pointing a bit.

• Daniel Bryan introduced five female fund-raisers for Susan G. Kommen and presented them all with Women's Championship belts, in an emotionally charged in-ring event.

Finally....

ATPW Scale Rating - 

4.45/10 [Smackdown Live Only]

4.67/10 [+ Talking Smack]

The main storylines this week were well served as World and IC title stories carried the show, with two good segments. It was a shame that there was a distinct lack of wrestling as only Corbin v Swagger went longer than five minutes, which, of course, reflects on the rating. With this being the last chance to get people interested in the No Mercy supercard, I can understand wanting to hammer the main stories and make sure that each narrative is hammered home. Despite, a lack lustre showing for this episode, there was a lot of good groundwork laid for No Mercy to build upon.

Words - James Marston

Banner - Kai Stellar

Match of the Night - Jack Swagger v Baron Corbin

Non-Wrestling Segment of the Night - The Dolphumentary

WWE Main Event #94 Review (Sheamus vs Miz VIII)

This week's WWE Main Event was headlined by a rematch from Raw (Review here - http://www.acrossthepondwrestling.co.uk/2014/07/wwe-raw-14th-july-2014-review.html) as United States Champion Sheamus battle the man who defeated him the previous night, The Miz. After a match that seemed to have potential but fell flat on Raw, could the pair deliver live on the WWE Network? Let's find out! 

The show kicked off with everyone's favourite wrestling talk show... MIZ TV! Essentially, this was just THE MIZ cutting a promo with a special set as it didn't appear like he would be having a guest. Miz's new self-obsessed Hollywood star gimmick is a million times better than anything he ever during his ill-fated babyface run. Miz has changed up his promo style and takes a lot more time with his delivery and actually managed to get a decent reaction out of the Fayetteville crowd. The idea of Miz reading out a letter he had written about himself was a nice idea on paper, that seemed to lose a little in it's delivery. 

Miz was, of course, interupted by his opponent for the evening Sheamus and the two had some back and forth  on the microphone, mainly focused around Miz calling his face his "moneymaker" and Sheamus threatening to kick it. Eventually, Sheamus went for the Brogue Kick, with Miz once again escaping and fleeing up the entrance ramp. An enjoyable opening segment that set up the main event nicely, laying out the storyline clearly and setting up an issue between the two opponents, it really couldn't have done much more. 

Match 1 - EMMA vs CAMERON

YIPPEE-KAY-EH, Emma is back! She must have begged, borrowed and stole to get a place on the show. 

Her opponent Cameron is currently embroiled in a feud with former Funkadactyls partner NAOMI who joined Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton on commentary. I found the commentary to be very frustrated throughout this match, as whilst it did push the feud hard and Naomi offered some nice insights into her relationship with Cameron there was no real effort to call the match and tell the story of the match embroiling in front of them. For the time they were given I thought the girls did well, incorpating a nice story where Cameron continued to escape a number of Emma's signature moves, including the DilEmma, which unfortunately wasn't picked up on by the commentary team. The finish saw Cameron to focused on taunting Naomi and walking into an inside cradle that allowed Emma to steal the victory. It was surprising to see Emma pick up the victory here for a number of reasons, but it did make sense in the continuing storyline with the former Funkadactyls pair. 

Following the match a frustrated Cameron attacked Emma, with Naomi quickly making the save, chasing off her former partner. Am I particularly interested in watching the match between the the Naomi and Cameron on the Battleground Kick Off show? Hmmmm...not really. 

Match 2 - RYBAXEL vs BIG E and KOFI KINGSTON

Billed as a look at four participants in the Intercontinetal Championship Battle Royal, this was an decent slice of tag team action, with all four men pulling out some nice looking offence. Big E again looked impressive against a similar sized man, in the shape of Ryback, before launching Kingston over the top rope onto RybAxel in a nicely worked highspot to send the match into the break. The momentum changer of Curtis Axel leaping off the apron onto E was looking solid and the use of repeated knee drives in the corner by RybAxel was also well done. The booking of the match was good enough to get a "We Want Kofi" chant out of the game crowd, as RybAxel worked off E for an extended period. Following the hot tag the match headed to it's conclussion with a flurry of action seeing all four men get involved, ending with Kingston delivering Trouble in Paradise to Axel for the pinfall victory. An enjoyable finish to an enjoyable match, although I would've liked to have seen more tension between the teams to remind us of the ever man for himself aspect of the upcoming battle royal. 

Backstage, RENEE YOUNG interviewed Miz in a segment that really wasn't needed. That's not to say Miz using phrases describing himself as "WWE's most valuable asset" or a "1000 watt megastar" weren't good lines, it just felt like after the opening segment set up the main event this was a little bit of overkill. 

Chris Jericho vs Luke Harper for Friday's Smackdown was hyped, that has potential to be a very good match and add a little extra spice to Jericho's battle with Bray Wyatt at Battleground on Sunday.

Match 3 - THE MIZ vs United States Champion SHEAMUS

This was the match that the Raw bout should have been. The story was much more focused than we saw Monday night, as Miz attempted to protect his face and avoid Sheamus' Brogue Kick. Whilst the match was slow to get going and at times felt a little awkward, the final few minutes were pretty entertaining with the two putting together a good sequence of reversals and quick pins that go the crowd into the match. The finish was cleverly done as Sheamus attempted a Brogue Kick with Miz quick to protect his face, allowing Sheamus to get the victory with a School Boy roll up. Not only did this call back to the finish of their match the previous night, but it also set up a potential rematch for next week's Raw with Sheamus still to hit Miz with the Brogue Kick. I would have like to have seen this match be for the United States Championship, as Miz holding a victory over the champion should have earned him a shot and if Sheamus was going to win this one anyway it would've meant the match could remain the same, yet feel a little more important. 

This episode of Main Event was an enjoyable watch, the matches were all passable, whilst also furthering some storylines and adding something to match-ups occuring on this Sunday's Battleground. It wasn't must see WWE television however, and you won't really have missed out on anything if you didn't watch the show, but it was still decent piece of action to pass an hour away with.

Let us know what you thought of this week's Main Event on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

WWE Battleground Kick-Off Review

We're going to try a different format for these show reviews and see how it works out. If it doesn't work we'll flip back to the “Match of the Day” format, but for now we'll simply be running through each show and giving thoughts.

So, Battleground Kick-Off started with Josh Matthews welcoming us to the 1^st Niagra Centre in Buffalo, New York, USA. Matthews was the host of the specialist panel for tonight's Kick Off show, which featured an underwhelming collection of panelists, with The Miz, Titus O'Neil and Tensai all on hand. They ran through a collection of bouts including Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton for the vacant WWE Championship, The Rhodes Family vs. Tag Team Champions The Shield and Rob Van Dam going after Alberto Del Rio's World Heavyweight Championship in a Battleground Hardcore Match. This panel was painfully awkward, with only Tensai seemingly knowing what he was talking about, with a lot of hesitation and confusion from both Miz and O'Neil. They finished up this segment, by really pushing the idea that Damien Sandow could cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase tonight to become World Heavyweight Champion, but after the booking he's received over the last few months, I'm wondering why I'm supposed to care if this happens. They quickly skimmed over the random bout that was occuring on the show, with Sandow facing Dolph Ziggler, despite the two having very little interaction on television, like ever!

We then head to Renee Young, in the “Social Media Lounge”, which is essentially a sofa and a television. Young capably leads us through how to use a hashtag on Twitter, before talking about how both Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella could walk out of Battleground with gold (or a butterfly atleast) around their wastes. I'm not a massive fan of them using Brie as part of Bryan's storyline, for a number of reasons, firstly because Brie can't act to save her life, secondly it shows that WWE don't really know what their audience likes, and placing a popular character like Daniel Bryan, with a shall we say not so popular character like Brie Bella, just doesn't work. Yes, I know they are a real life couple, and that WWE wants to promote Total Divas more, but I'm not sure if theres much crossover between the viewers of Total Divas and WWE's other programming. The segments finished with Young introducing a WWE.com poll to find out who was WWE's best power couple, with the options being Triple H & Stephanie McMahon, Edge & Lita, Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth and King Booker & Queen Sharmell. I find it's best not to think too much into these selections.

Josh Matthews then moved discussion onto the CM Punk vs Ryback later on, with them showing a replay of last weeks tremendous Raw segment where Paul Heyman “proposed” to Ryback, followed up by an attack from Punk. Matthews went onto interview Heyman who was accompanied by Ryback, with Heyman once again giving a top quality promo, attempting to portray Ryback as an underdog, claiming that Punk was a bully and that the WWE fans had been brainwashed to follow him. It was short, but sweet and gave a good idea of what to expect later on when Ryback got in the ring with Punk.

Dolph Ziggler 

vs. 

World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank Winner 

Damien Sandow 

(10 minutes, 22 seconds)

It was then time to head down to ringside, where our commentary team for the evening would be Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and JBL. They briefly talk about Rob Van Dam and Alberto Del Rio's World Heavyweight Championship bout later on, before seguing onto the idea that Damien Sandow could cash in his briefcase tonight, they're really pushing that idea tonight after weeks of ignoring the fact. Out comes Damien Sandow, mic in hand and cuts the kind of promo we've come to expect from the Intellectual Saviour of the Masses. Sandow quoted Benjamin Franklin, before moving onto to talk more about potentially cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase, personally I would've preferred to hear him talk more about his opponent, rather than everyone continue to sign post a cash in, the promo only proved that this match was entirely pointless.

I can't say I was particularly enamoured with this contest, Sandow and Ziggler just didn't seem to connect in the ring, in what was there first singles match together. The early part of the match especially just didn't seem to flow correctly, with a slow motion replay of a Sandow clothesline that obviously didn't connect and a botched swinging neckbreaker from Sandow not helping the situation. This bout needed some kind of story to draw me into the match straight away, seeing as it had no storyline heading in, and it just wasn't present. The bout did pick up towards the end, when the action gathered some pace, with a succession of pin variations getting near falls for both men. I thought the finish was also strong, when a remnant of a story appear with both men tweaking their knees, before Ziggler slipping out of a powerslam attempt by Sandow, landing a kick to the knee before hitting a Zig Zag to pick up a pinfall victory. Personally, I think Sandow was the one most in need of a victory here, as he's been made to look pretty rubbish since winning the briefcase, and at the most will not make a realistic World Heavyweight Champion, and the loss wouldn't exactly harm Ziggler who is already over with the audience.

After a replay of The Shield's attack on the Rhodes Family on last week's episode of Raw, which was oddly for WWE pretty poorly edited together, we headed back to Josh Matthews for the opinions of the panel. Once again, it was a pretty cringeworthy experience, with Miz and especially O'Neil completely butchering what they had to say, luckily Tensai kept his words short, wishing the Rhodes Family good luck. It seemed a strange decision to have an all face panel, especially with Triple H in charge of WWE, it would have given more balance to the panel.

Then we moved on to the always exciting “Social Media Lounge” where Renee Young read the most generic tweet I have ever heard about Daniel Bryan. She was then interupted by Los Matadores miniature bull, El Torito, who ran around the lounge and appeared to be making sexual advances on Young. It was a little bizarre, and I really want to hate Torito, but this was pretty funny, with Young doing a good job of awkward confusion, although she may have just been awkwardly confused. The segment finished with a reveal of the results of the WWE.com vote for WWE's best power couple, with Edge & Lita winning with 43%, Triple H & Stephanie McMahon coming second with 30%, Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth in third with 23% and King Booker & Queen Sharmell bringing up the rear with 5%, like I said before it's best not to think about these too much, it's just a bit of fun.

They finished up the show by replaying Randy Orton's attack on Daniel Bryan from last week's Raw, where Brie Bella looked on, with each of the panel giving their opinions on who would pick up the victory, with Tensai even donning a fake beard and failing at getting the crowd to chant “YES!” which is quite an achievement in today's WWE.

Overall, I didn't think Battleground Kick-Off was much good, a difficult bout between Dolph Ziggler and Damien Sandow and a biased and un prepared panel didn't exactly make me want to watch Battleground anymore, although they did do a good job of promoting that the first match would see Rob Van Dam face Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship.  

WWE NXT 11th September 2013 Review

This week's WWE NXT, was a bit of an underwhelming edition of the show, for me. Whilst there wasn't anything on the show, that I would call particularly bad, it was distinctly average, with really only the women's match between Paige and Sasha Banks fighting to stand out.

Xavier Woods 

vs. 

Leo Kruger

The main event of this week's NXT, saw Xavier Woods taking on Leo Kruger, after Kruger had attacked Woods last week in the parking lot. Personally, I was surprised that WWE decided to hot shot this into a match, as imagined they could have pulled out the angle a lot longer than one week and really build up anticipation to a singles contest between the two. I've noticed this a few times with NXT, that one week something will happen between two wrestlers and then the week after they'll have a match and that's the feud done with. Usually, it's when they have main roster wrestlers appearing on the show and they don't have long with that particular wrestler, but here there really is no excuse, they had the time to build a nice feud and decided not to.

The match itself was decent, it wasn't anything to shout about, but for the most part the action was strong, even if for some reason the Full Sail Arena wasn't having any of it, with what sounded like a small group of fans trying to get themselves over. This might be NXT, be the action gave off an old school vibe, with Kruger running around the ring to evade Woods, until Woods got hold of Kruger's hair, which got a nice pop from the crowd. Kruger spent the majority of the match in control, although continuing with the old school theme was mainly made up of rest holds, which never goes down well with a modern audience. There were some nice near falls towards the end of the match, once Woods started to edge his way into the contest, such as a nice High-Angle Spinebuster from Kruger after catching Woods in his attempt to hit Honor Roll.

The finish saw Woods duck a Slice from Kruger, and counter with a headkick followed with a version of former partner Jay Lethal's Lethal Injection for a near fall, with Woods going on to hit Honor Roll and then a slightly botched Lost in the Woods to pick up the pinfall victory. Personally, I could have done with the near fall off of Woods ducking the slice, and feel that Woods hitting Lost in the Woods straight off the duck, would have been a much more satisfying ending, if it hadn't been botched. I thought it was strange to see Woods go over Kruger here, and automatically get his revenge on Kruger, who they seemed to have a plan for at last. Kruger has suffered a series of losses in high profile matches and it's becoming difficult to take his character seriously, which is a shame because the character does have potential.

Whilst this match won't be making my list for Match of the Year, I do like both men involved in the contest. We've seen good stuff from both Woods and Kruger on NXT before, and both deserve decent programmes before getting called up. With Woods currently travelling with the main roster and appearing on a number of house shows recently, it would have to assumed that Woods is close to being called up to the main roster very soon. I do think he will fit in on Raw and Smackdown well, being able to put on exciting matches, with a recognisable look and move set, I'm pretty sure he will go down well with the quirky mix of kids and adults that WWE attracts. Kruger on the over hand, I still think still needs some time, he is in desperate need of a nice long programme, that I think will really sell to me what Kruger has to offer, which isn't something he hasn't been afforded on NXT. He has potential, but it isn't being fully realised, just yet.

Best of the Rest (In The World)

NXT Champion Bo Dallas also turned up this week to speak to the Full Sail Arena about Sami Zayn. I'm beginning to realise why I was beginning to like Bo Dallas in this segment, because the scripting is so strong. It realised the feelings the fans in the Full Sail and elsewhere were feeling against Dallas as a face and began to turn add it to his character, over empathising the elements that were already gaining the ire of wrestling fans all over the globe. Once again this another very well written promo with Dallas claiming he was a mentor to Zayn, reminiscent of the way The Miz gained heat in 2010 as Daniel Bryan's “Pro” on the very first series of NXT. However, Dallas' actually delivery does leave a lot to be desired. In front of a live crowd, Dallas seems easily put off, often corpsing when the often imaginative Full Sail Arena faithful chant at him, which definitely affects the flow of his promos.

I am actually quite excited to see the Dallas and Zayn feud play out on television, as NXT has been consistently strong at creating feuds that are watchable from start to finish and giving them enough time to breath, which isn't always the case when it comes to regular WWE television. However, this offering from Dallas, just simply wasn't up to scratch, and he won't have the strong booking of NXT to protect him once he heads to the main roster, but that probably says more about how WWE operates than it does about Dallas himself. It could take a while for Dallas to be ready to be able to step up to next level, but giving him more opportunities like this can only help the Twenty Three year old.

In the strongest match of the night, NXT Women's Champion Paige took on Sasha Banks. The action was fought at a good pace throughout, with both women working together to put on an enjoyable bout. Whilst the match might've rested a little too heavily on rest holds, especially considering neither woman was heel at this point, there was a really nice section that saw Paige attempting to hold Banks' arms to the mat, with a good looking reversal into a roll up getting a near fall for Banks. The finish saw Paige reverse a running Cross Body block from Banks into a pinfall to pick up the victory. It was ending that we've seen plenty of times before, but allowed Banks to continue to look competitive, and sold the story of the bout well. After the match was over, as had been hinted in the build up to this one, Banks attacked Paige from behind to complete her heel turn, and was later seen to be fully aligned with Summer Rae, in a pretty awful backstage segment, which really showed up both girls lack of acting ability.

In a very disappointing tag team contest, the Sylvester LeFort managed team of Alexander Rusev and Scott Dawson took on Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady. Amore looked great in his pre-match promo, unfortunately that didn't translate to the ring. To be fair, the main body of the contest, actually wasn't a complete failure, with both Rusev and Dawson looking impressive whilst in control. However, it was the ending of this contest that really let it down, after a awkward looking version of the Hart Attack, featuring a Spinning Heel Kick from Rusev, the referee ending up disqualifying the heels for being in the ring for too long. It really was bizarre, with no one knowing exactly what had happened and simply wandering around. It felt like the DQ was shoot, as Harry Smith talked about in his interview with Wrestle Talk TV, but if that was the case NXT is taped, why didn't they just re-shoot the ending?

Something that did work on the show was a Renee Young interview with CJ Parker. I've been calling out for some interview time for Parker over the last few weeks, as his character will only work if it is given time to speak and get over with the people, other wise it is just another 2D gimmick that will be hard to buy into. Luckily, Parker did a good job here, with a quirky promo about beavers and phoenixes, to explain his feud with Tyler Breeze. In a solid wrestling cliché, Breeze turned up at the end of the interview to lay the boots into Parker, with the nice added touch of a cheeky selfie whilst posing on top of Parker.

Finally...

My final thoughts on this week's WWE NXT.

1. Xavier Woods could easily slot into the main roster of WWE, Leo Kruger still feels like he needs a bit more time.

2. The scripting of the Bo Dallas character, is strong than it's delivery.

3. Sasha Banks might be able to wrestle, but she certainly can't act!