Review: WWE Monday Night RAW #1239 (20/02/2017)

On 20th February, WWE hosted the 1239th episode of Monday Night RAW, returning to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California for the third time in ten months. The show's main event  was a rematch between The Big Show and Braun Strowman, after their first match ended in DQ on 15th February...2016! Cesaro, WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Kofi Kingston and Sheamus were also featured on the episode. As the penultimate episode before Fastlane, how would the WWE landscape look as the Road to WrestleMania roared on?

The show began with Kevin Owens sitting in a single spotlight in the middle the ring, holding his Universal Champion. The Prizefighter deliberately kept the focus away from his attack on Chris Jericho on #1238, instead honing in on his title defense against Goldberg on 5th March. The character shift away from his double act with Y2J felt much more fitting a main event act, as he used meticulous delivery and pacing, coming across as aggressive and Machiavellian as he set out the story for the Fastlane match with Goldberg. It was nice to start the show without a cavalcade of entrances and interruptions, keeping things simple with Owens' powerful utterances allowed to have the maximum impact with the minimalist set-up juxtaposing well with the elaborate "Festival of Friendship" segment from last week.

Match 1

Big Cass, Enzo Amore

def.

Cesaro, Sheamus

to become #1 Contender's to WWE RAW Tag Team Championship

I'm not quite sure what the aim of this tag team match, as the two supposedly babyface tandems struggled to hold my attention, in what was a bit of jumbled opening match. Enzo Amore's character is steadily becoming less and less likeable, with his diatribe becoming monotonous and repetitive as he struggles with the sheer amount of content he has to produce. Having Enzo block Cesaro doing the swing was an odd choice, because of the moves popularity, unless the seeds are being planted for a full heel turn, but with Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson as the current RAW Tag Team Championship that seems unlikely. Following the match, Amore start chattering like a dickhead on the mic, leading to Sheamus getting a pop for kicking his head off with a Brogue Kick. 

• Highlights from Bayley's RAW Women's Championship win over Charlotte Flair from #1238.

• Backstage, Mick Foley booked Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson in a Handicap match with Roman Reigns later on.

• In the Cruiserweight Division, The Brian Kendrick assaulted Akira Tozawa before their match could begin, followed by Kendrick doing a backstage interview with Charly Caruso.

Match 2

The Club 

Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows

def. 

Roman Reigns

via DQ

With the RAW tag team division looking threadbare at the moment, I'm not sure I get the logic of having The Club feuding with Roman Reigns, other than to help Reigns pass sometime until WrestleMania. In terms of booking, there was no way for WWE to book this, had they had Anderson & Gallows go over, clean or otherwise, Reigns' momentum heading into Fastlane is halted, had Reigns gone over then the crowd would have absolutely shat on it and your Tag Team Champions look like idiots. The DQ finish, with The Big Dog using the steel chair that the heels had introduced, was probably the best they could do, but the majority of the match was dull. Obviously, Reigns killed Anderson and Gallows post match, including a pretty cool visual of Anderson diving off the top rope into a spear. Personally, I would've prefered to have seen Reigns in a simple squash victory against someone like Bo Dallas or Titus O'Neil, or, if they intent on doing a handicap match, The Shining Stars. 

• A replay of Kevin Owens' show opening promo.

Match 3

The New Day

Big E, Kofi Kingston

with Xavier Woods 

def.

Jinder Mahal, Rusev

with Lana

(5:00)

Honestly, I had very little time for this match or the pre-match stuff, but the crowd absolutely loved it. Seriously, Los Angeles lapped up everything and anything that E, Kingston and Woods did. To be fair to the works, the tag match they had wasn't half bad, highlighted for me by Kingston' silly fosbury flop dive over the top rope towards the end. However, the skit before the match was not my cup of tea, as it was revealed that Lana had hacked New Day's tablet to steal their blue-prints for some ice cream...because she's Russian. D'ya get it? Russian? LOL! I groaned, the crowd laughed. The match then concluded with Woods stealing Lana's tablet and smashing it on the steel steps. I groaned, the crowd went nuts. Even if you accept the idea that Lana wants to steal the New Day's ice cream plans, the logic of Woods destroying her tablet would stop her from taking the plans back at a later time is extremely flawed. But hey, RAW is a mainstream three hour show, it's unlikely that the every segment is going to work for anyone person.

• A tribute video to WWE Hall of Famer George Steele, who passed away on 17th February.

The main segment for the Cruiserweight division was a contract signing for Jack Gallagher's shot at Neville's WWE Cruiserweight Championship at Fastlane, with Austin Aries acting as the host. The two having tea and biscuits was perhaps a little hackneyed, but certainly fits Gallagher's English Gentleman gimmick and he played it the role well throughout this segment. The two characters have good chemistry, and their interplay here was simple, but entertaining, as Neville believes he's what a Englishman really is, going as far as saying that Gallagher doesn't actually exist. The feud between the two is steadily finding it's feet and has arguably grabbed the attention of the audience more than anything that the 205 Live brand has done and by the time Gallagher planted Neville with a headbutt it seemed like the majority of the Staples Center was sold on both guys. Good work lads. 

• Match 4 - Nia Jax squashed Sarah Pierce (1:26)

• A tribute to Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, was shown as part of WWE's coverage of Black History Month.

One of the lengthiest segments on the show began with RAW Commissioner Stephanie McMahon attempting to get RAW Women's Champion Bayley to relinquish her title, because of "tainted victory" last week, because of Sasha Banks's interference. Despite beginning with promo where Bayley seemed to be struggling to remember her scripted lines, this segment only worked because of Bayley's do-gooder character and her body languange and facial expression making it seem like she was about to hand the belt back to McMahon. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised to have seen Bayley drop the title like this and perhaps it would have made sense of spunking away her first title win on TV. That didn't happen and after Charlotte Flair had announced she'd be invoking her rematch clause on 5th March, with Banks then coming out a challenging Flair to their 16th televised (56th including house shows) singles match. 

Match 5 

Sasha Banks

def. 

Charlotte Flair

(12:00)

This was at the lower end of Banks v Flair matches, coming nowhere close to their matches on NXT Live, NXT Takeover: R-Evolution or Monday Night RAW #1209, but this was still a decent outing for a thrown together television. Thrown together is probably the best phrase to describe the feeling I got when watching the match, as there seemed to be a lot of orphan ideas in the match, like Flair focusing her attack on Banks' previously injured knee, where nothing stuck around long enough to fully build a narrative. The action was solid throughout though, with Flair and Banks almost sleeping through a number of nice sequence and Flair continuing to own her bruising cocky heel role. The highlight of the entire match for me was when the show came back from the break, with the match in progress and the two were just tearing strips off each other. Having Flair lose two weeks before getting a title shot was dumb, but arguably Flair's PPV streak gimmick is strong enough that losing on television won't hurt her and sets the wheels in motion for a multi-person match at WrestleMania, after Flair wins the belt back at Fastlane.

• Three time WCW World Tag Team Champion Diamond Dallas Page is announced for the 2017 Hall of Fame class, with a video looking back across his career in WCW and WWE.

• After a backstage interview with Charly Caruso, Sami Zayn got brutally attacked by Samoa Joe on the entrance ramp, leading to...Match 6 - Kevin Owens def. Sami Zayn (2:00)

• In their office, Mick Foley shouted at Stephanie McMahon for a few minutes for reasons, if he's not fired next week then it will make absolutely no sense.

• A sit down interview hosted by Michael Cole, ended in Paul Heyman cutting a promo on Goldberg, with Brock Lesnar sat right in front of the camera, creating a brilliant visual.

Match 7

Braun Strowman 

def. 

The Big Show

(12:15)

It was past 4am when this match started, I was tired and nowhere near interested in what Strowman and Show had to offer, especially after Strowman's match with Mark Henry on #1239. Therefore, the fact that I was almost glued to the screen by the end of the match is a massive endorsement for the hard work that both men put into making this contest. This was Strowman's best singles match to date, as well as the best non-gimmick match that Show has done in the past five years (dating back to his match with Sheamus at Hell in a Cell 2012) The two doing some chain wrestling at the start was a little weird, but credit to the big lads for trying something different and building the match from the bottom up, certainly aided by how much Los Angeles was up for two near 400lbs scrapping about in a supposedly "re-enforced" ring. The contest moved towards a series of near falls, with Strowman kicking out of a chokeslam and a knockout punch and most surprisingly Show kicked out of slightly awkward running powerslam. The win will give Strowman momentum among the casual fan, whilst the strength of the contest should begin to endear him to the more hardcore audience also. Good work. Reigns running in at the end was unnecessary as Strowman hadn't really done anything to warrant it and The Big Dog got punk'd anyway. 

Finally...

ATPW Scale Rating - 4.64/10

Show in a Sentence: Strong opening, strong main event, everything else was at best average and/or a little too brief.

Show Highlight: Kevin Owens show opening promo

Show Lowlight: The New Day v Jinder Mahal & Rusev

Review: James Marston

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

Review: WWE Elimination Chamber 2017

On 12th February, WWE's Smackdown brand took it's final major pit-stop before WrestleMania 33 as the Elimination Chamber returned for the first time in almost two years. The titular match saw AJ Styles, The Miz, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt and Baron Corbin challenging for John Cena's WWE Championship in the evenings main event, whilst Randy Orton, Dolph Ziggler, Natalya, Mickie James and Nikki Bella were also featured on the three hour show. The direction for the biggest show of the year would become a lot clearer heading out of the Phoenix, Arizona show, but would Elimination Chamber be worth the watch?

Kick Off

Mojo Rawley def. Curt Hawkins (6:58) 

A couple of minutes into this one, I was watching GIF's of JBL falling over on Twitter. Therefore it would be difficult for me to really comment on the quality of anything after those first few exchanges. However, I had absolutely no reason to care about either of these two guys and their reasons for having this match were confusing at best and then there was very little that grabbed me or made me want to keep my attention on Rawley and Hawkins at gone midnight. This match was perhaps a symptom of booking six wrestlers in the main event and every tag team on the brand in the same match, as it meant that Rawley and Hawkins were pretty much the only two wrestlers that were left available for the Kick-Off show spot. In it's defense, the crowd sounded like they were pretty into it, but that may have been down to the excitement of a city hosting it's first WWE PPV in over four years.

Main Show

Becky Lynch def. Mickie James (11:45) 

The opening match found it's groove early doors and developed into a solid, enjoyable contest. The pair wrestled a nice technical contest, that had plenty of animosity behind it and played out in front of a healthily invested audience. The bulk of the contest revolved around James focusing on Lynch's arm, following catching The Lass Kicker on the way into the ring, with Becky doing a cracking job of selling the arm and helping keep that part of the narrative in the audiences mind throughout. The bout however felt a little cockeyed in it's layout, feeling like it was beginning to elongate it's second act out, before cutting itself short just when it appeared like it was about to get going. For me, the work on the arm could have been used to develop stronger near falls for James and developed to create more issues for Lynch, to the point where I was questioning just how Lynch was going to pull out a victory over the 3 time TNA Knockout's Champion. 

Apollo Crews [Uhaa Nation], Kalisto def. Dolph Ziggler (7:20)

I'm still trying to think about what the aim of this match was. I'm sure that those aims weren't to get wild cheers for Dolph Ziggler battering babyfaces Apollo Crews and Kalisto with a steel chair, but then again Ziggler was the one in the two on one handicap match, so who the fuck knows. The bulk of the match boiled down to a Ziggler v Crews singles match, after The Show Off had chucked Kalisto into part of the set, before the babyfaces picked up the win when Kalisto "bravely" made his way back down to the ring for a two on one assault. The more I think about this match, the more it actually caused me mental (and perhaps physical) pain. The time would have been much better used on a decent singles match between Ziggler and either babyface, with their previous TV matches being used to develop something resembling a character for either. 

American Alpha (Chad Gable, Jason Jordan) def. Rhyno [Rhino] & Heath Slater, The Usos (Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso), The Vaudevillains (Aiden English & Simon Gotch), The Ascension (Konnor, Viktor), Breezango (Fandango, Tyler Breeze) in Tag Team Turmoil to retain WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship (21:05)

The first championship contest of the evening, all Smackdown's tag teams got a run-out in a match that seemed to designed to take up as much screen time, with as little build as possible. The bulk of the match was taken up by the on again, off again, feud between the title-holders American Alpha and The Usos with the two having a decent (albeit with a sloppy finish) six minutes collision, that demonstrated the potential the two teams have together. It's a shame that this feud has been rolling along since the brand split and has yet to be fully captilised upon and could very well find itself lost in the shuffle when the card for WrestleMania 33 is put together. The post-match attack by Jimmy & Jey, that continued to showcase the fire shown in the match, set-up a dramatic conclusion where The Ascension attempted to capitilise on the fallen champions. This was helped by some smart booking where Viktor and Konnor had picked up a pinfall in a multi-team bout on the go-home Smackdown Live. A trick was perhaps missed in not having The Ascension take the belts, as it would have provided extra material to burn through on the next seven episodes between now and WrestleMania, whilst also making American Alpha's issues with The Usos bigger and lifting The Ascension from tag team fodder for at least a couple of weeks. 

The earlier portion of the bout was watchable, carried by how over Heath Slater & Rhyno remain with the audience. The duo's involvement in the first three sections of Tag Team Turmoil worked it's job of putting some heat on The Usos, but the trio of matches were nothing to get excited about. The opener with Breezango never seemed to click, floating through some awkward comedy, but The Man Beast's match winning Gore made things worthwhile. The Vaudevillains struggle on the main roster was showcased as they fell to Slater & Rhyno in just over two minutes. The idea was obviously to build momentum behind the babyfaces, that could be transferred over as heat for The Usos followed the elimination and to an extent it was successful in it's aims. As a whole, the bout suffered from the problems that the majority of types of matches do, in that in trying to tell an arch across five matches, each individual clash was underdeveloped and even the more exciting streaks of action struggled to stand out across the a mostly beige backing. 

Nikki Bella v Natalya ended in a Double Countout (13:15) 

Let's get the finish out of the way early...a Double Countout is pretty lame no matter how many PPV/Special Events/Network Specials/Extra Value Sports Entertainment Deals, you host a month. The two women did the best they could with it, having a fierce brawl up the entrance way, that will perhaps make a rematch stronger, but having wrestled for almost fifteen minutes, it wasn't what this programme needed. I was relatively high on this match before it broke down, as Natalya and Bella put together some decent technical exchanges, as an unusual narrative of The Fearless One looking to prove her wrestling chops to her more critically acclaimed opponent, whilst still having an underlying edge bitterness between the duo. The sequence of submissions just before the finish was a clear highlight. Even without a definitive finish, this was a match that more than held it's own with the other two Women's bouts on the card. 

Randy Orton def. Luke Harper (17:13)

In the only male one on one contest on the card, Luke Harper produced his strongest singles match outing in WWE and arguably Orton's best since he stole the show at WrestleMania 31 with Seth Rollins. It wasn't a particularly complicated contest, sticking to a familiar structure, but the pair did the fundamentals well, drawing in the live crowd and taking them on a journey in the process. The two showed real ring intelligence, starting with a wild brawl around ringside, which initially grabbed the interest, before The Viper took the sting out of the contest with a series of wear down holds. This lead to the people, who had been mostly behind Orton from the outset, beginning to root more and more for Harper, with a near perfect build into The Backwoods Brawler's fiery and flashy rebound.

The contest's second part was built around Harper's momentum continuing to build, as he picked up a number of near falls on the 8 time WWE Champion, including a sweet sequence into a sitout powerbomb. The flash finish with The Apex Predator hitting an RKO out of the proverbial nowhere, gives room for a potential rematch and with the issues involving the Wyatt Family yet to be settle the chances that these two will tangle again over the next few weeks, months and years are high. A rematch under relaxed rules could tear the house down. With the two mixing technical and brawling style throughout the contest and doing the basic to a high standard, this became a real sleeper contest, easily the strongest bout on the undercard.  It wasn't anything new but, just like a good Ploughman's sandwich, each ingredient was done well, creating a tasty combination.

Naomi def. Alexa Bliss to win WWE Smackdown Women's Championship (8:18) 

Curiously placed between the semi-main and main event, Naomi capturing her first championship in WWE, was the shortest and weakest of Women's trio. The match wasn't given enough time to really find it's feet, but the moments that the two had to potentially shine were often awkward or mistimed. The finish in particular was more than a little confusing to follow, with Naomi's split legged moonsault and Bliss' Twisted Bliss seemingly happening about four times in various combinations before Naomi got the pin. The confusion surrounding the finish took away the feel good moment of the former Funkadactyl grabbing gold, at least for me anyway. The main positive I took away from the bout was the strength of Bliss' character, which drove the story and kept me from drifting to social media at a couple of points. Both of the women have bags of potential and getting to work with Becky Lynch, Natalya and Mickie James on a regular basis will almost certainly push them to deliver on that potential.

Bray Wyatt def. John Cena, AJ Styles, The Miz, Dean Ambrose, Baron Corbin in an Elimination Chamber Match to win the WWE Championship (34:26)

The main event of the show was one of the best booked Elimination Chamber matches that I can remember with almost every step along the way getting the very best out of the talent involved, managing to create a compelling, exciting contest, that managed to create potential friction for future events, whilst providing a satisfyingly clean finish that propelled the winner Bray Wyatt into the upper echelon. Perhaps the best piece of business done was having John Cena and AJ Styles start the match and act as the spine or glue, continuing their epic in-ring feud. I could watch these two wrestle for days and it got the crowd pumped from the very beginning. Whenever the pair came back together (also extended to having Dean Ambrose come out third, calling back to their No Mercy three way was nice touch) there was an extra jolt of energy and with the two spending over half an hour in the Chamber, meaning that if there was ever a risk of thing beginning to drag, Cena and Styles would run through a sequence and you straight back into wizardry and wonder. Cena and Styles forever. 

Outside of the Cena and Styles love-in the Chamber did two other things particularly well, that being it's abundance of big highspots or moments and the timing, and also placement, of it's eliminations. The bulk of the craziness took place before the first elimination, taking advantage of the bodies filling up the structure and the new design to create chaos that perhaps hasn't been seen in this type of match before. Ambrose's whirlwind of offence after entering five minutes in, somehow managed to build into The Lunatic Fringe, Cena and Styles battling on a ledge installed half way up the chamber, in a stunning visual, before the madness peaked with an impressive take on the tower of doom from Ambrose, Styles and Wyatt. The bout settled soon after with the elimination beginning about 20 minutes in, with a nice domino effect that saw Corbin, Ambrose and Miz gone with a space of five minutes. Corbin's attack on Ambrose following the elimination, should begin an interesting Intercontinental title feud and made The Big Breakfast look like a real monstrous bastard. 

Wyatt winning the WWE Championship was an emotional moment for anyone who has followed The Eater of World's tumultuous career, since he debuted as "The Tank with the Ferrari Engine" Husky Harris on the second series of NXT in 2010. After his ups and downs, call ups and set backs, it was immensely satisfying to see someone, who has clearly worked his arse off, reach a career highlight. Having Bray pin both Cena and Styles with Sister Abigail, put a real exclamation point on the win, instantly lifting Wyatt up to the next level and legitimising his title reign before it even properly began. Whilst The New Face of Fear isn't quite as hot as 2014-15 when he was ripping it up with Cena, Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns, but a length of time with Wyatt at the helm of the blue brand has heaps of potential, especially with the initial storytelling possibilities with Randy Orton and Luke Harper over the WrestleMania period and beyond. 

Talking Smack

The main feature of the Renee Young and Daniel Bryan post-show was a chat with Alexa Bliss and Mickie James. Both gave pretty separate interviews, continuing to be an unconvincing partnership, with no particular chemistry and even contradicting outlooks. Bliss however gave another good accounting of herself as an individual character, listing a number of reasons for why she lost her Smackdown Women's Championship to Naomi, that seemed to be anything but giving praise to her opponent. For me, James' promo didn't really work, as she rambled for a long time and looked uncomfortable with the more relaxed style of the show.

• American Alpha were interviewed about retaining their Smackdown Tag Team Championships and The Usos attack.
• An interview with Naomi closed the show with a big focus on WrestleMania taking place in her hometown.

Finally...

ATPW Scale Rating - 5.71/10

Show in a Sentence : A superb main event, but only Orton v Harper managed to stand out on the undercard, although only the Handicap match was distinctly poor, mainly because of the head spinning booking.

Review - James Marston

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

Opinion: Seasons and Structuring in Wrestling or 525,600 Minutes of New Content Every Week.

Recently CHIKARA (If you aren't aware of them, they're the closest thing Wrestling has to a Multiverse) began a bold structural experiment. Having presented their first sixteen seasons of wrestling, they jumped forward a year in their storylines to season 18, having written out some characters, changed some rudos to technicos and generally messed with everyone's heads. Simultaneously, they have begun releasing the secretly filmed episodes of Season seventeen which will explain away all of this and provide probably quite lovely goodbyes to esteemed alumnus like Drew Gulak and first female CHIKARA Grand Champion Princess Kimber Lee. What's amazing here is I can find no other promotion that has broken the real passage of time in the universe, even pre-taped shows like NXT or Lucha Underground (mostly) pretend that they exist in that week. So why has it taken this long for someone to actually bend the rules of time itself for storytelling purposes? Probably because an indie like CHIKARA can get away with such experiments in ways that WWE never can because they put on one, maybe two shows a month where WWE are producing so much damn content, I don't think even Vince has time to watch it and we all knows he's an immortal Highlander.

Do you remember when RAW and Smackdown did a WWE Season Finale? No, well they must have done, they had a Season Premiere and that had...stuff happen. I mean, Sting wrestled his first two matches on WWE TV (in tribute to New HOF-er Teddy Long, I should mention it was a DQ win against Big Show thanks to Seth Rollins' intervention leading to a tag match of Sting and John Cena vs Show and Rollins, playa.). But they had their Season Premiere so they had a Season Finale right? They wrapped up all their stories and started new ones, all the questions were answered (as normal, like The Simpsons of graps gags, Kayfabe News already made this joke. A year and a half before the Season Premiere). No, it was, surprisingly, an attempt to sell RAW as 'big' TV in middle of American Football season, but it highlights the differences between RAW and Chikaratopia or Lucha Underground.

I've long described Pro-Wrestling to people who are dubious as an insane musical Telenovella but all the songs are partially choregraphed fight scenes and really nowhere is that truer than with RAW and Smackdown, they are Soap Opera both in the sense that the storylines are blown away and often swallow up all potential subtlety that could be invested into them but also because they never. Ever. End. Where LU uses its limited time to tell a deliberate story, WWE is an ongoing, all encompassing media empire. When a feud ends, it has to feed into whatever's next for the performers, there is no downtime in which to let things build up and make plans, especially as the injury rate isn't slowing down and if you try to plan too far ahead, there's a likelihood all the intended performers could be out of action before you get there.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? All stories have an appropriate length, Macbeth works because it is a contained narrative, Breaking Bad was intended to be five seasons and it didn't need to continue from there, not that I'm complaining about having Better Call Saul which for my money might be better but that's an article for my other day-job. WWE needs to be a shark of a conglomerate, constantly moving, making its plot-lines link into its other media, it wants you to know that while you're watching that when you're done, that it's not over, that you could go and watch a classic episode of Smackdown it references or you could go and see whether there's any reflection of in-ring feuds over on Total Divas or you can go and work out which demographic Holy Foley is aimed at (the demographic in question is Sado-masochists). There has to be a Frank the Clown fan out there somewhere right? No, I don't count Noelle, that's cheating. I digress, the point is that even if it feels like there's sometimes a tossed-off at the last minute quality to the endings, that's because they don't have enough time to provide anything more than the ending being 'one person wins, one person loses'. But that is the nature of soap storytelling, there isn't the time to devote to conclusions and epilogues because that's not the intention of WWE TV. It isn't binge-watch TV where you would sit and watch it all day, it is 'The Longest Running Weekly Episodic Television Show In History', it isn't something where they want you to have been watching since the beginning, it's something that aims to catch new fans every week, to make itself available to any random viewer who tunes in on a whim, it wants to catch the casual viewer and the hardcore, it wants you to stay tuned in after Smackdown Live for 205 Live and Talking Smack because it wants your attention but it doesn't demand that you devote more than the prescribed weekly time to it.

Which, to play devil's advocate, is not to say it couldn't benefit from taking a more seasonal approach. Imagine if they positioned WrestleMania as the Season Finale and then took a month or two's break to let the dust settle before it continues. Yes, I know what you're thinking; 'but what about the Post-Mania RAW? That's where all the surprises really happen'. That is just really ridiculous. WrestleMania is their biggest show of the year, it should be the culmination of all the chess moves over the year, it should be their check-mate but instead it seems like big stuff happens but then the actual storyline resolutions happen the next night instead. That's a Lord of the Rings level of dragging out the ending. Look at what LU are doing, what Chikara are doing, what even other critically acclaimed indies like PROGRESS are doing and you'll see that leaving space allows for more intention and impact. I'm not saying they'd have to shut down House Shows even for that time but just allowing for a re-set period would give them the freedom to plan ahead, to really think about how to make an impact, to avoid the holding patterns of feeling like we're going to just see the same four or five people doing the main event for a while. It would also make WrestleMania feel more significant as it would become an event, as it is, it's the biggest show they produce but then the next night, it continues. Structurally, there is no logic to what happens because there are generally no consequences beyond the immediate. If you look back to Survivor Series, there was a big build surrounding the consequences of either brand losing, on RAW Stephanie McMahon threatened to fire people if they lost, on Smackdown The Undertaker basically said he'd murder them. Yet the following two nights post-SS, the only punishments were that all these professional wrestlers were put in wrestling matches. Literally, their punishment was to do their job. That explains perfectly the lack of forward thinking of the structural style of WWE because they always have something happening the next day, there's no time really to think ahead. In short, Wrestling moves pretty fast. If the WWE don’t stop and look around once in awhile, they could miss it.

I don't want to end this article on a down-note (not just in the hope that a certain Mr. Levesque is reading and likes what he sees) so I will say that, I'm not trying to say there's no forward planning at all in the 'E, I mean look at Monday's almost certainly soon-to-be legendary Festival of Friendship. Since SummerSlam, the development of the story of Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens has been one of the few remaining lights of RAW for me and the build towards this has been stellar, it's not only a fantastic segment but sets up perfectly for building to what comes next. But because I lied, time to end on more of a down-note as I say, this is an aspirational point for all of WWE's attempts at rivalry building to equal, give things more time and don't rush through everything. WWE, you have all the time in the world and you seem intent on using all of it to produce as much original content as possible. Don't always worry about trying to make history, just try to tell the stories you have as well as you can. Also viewers, if you're annoyed about there being too much going on in the WWE Universe to follow all of it and you feel it's getting on top of you, you could do a lot worse than to try out Chikaratopia for a change of pace.

Words: Jozef Raczka (@NotJozefRaczka)

Images: Jozef Raczka (@NotJozefRaczka)

& Thom Carrol/ForPhilly Voice (@Thom_Carroll)

Editing: James Marston (@IAmNotAlanDale)

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

Blu-Ray Review: WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2016

The last Smackdown PPV of 2016 has finally arrived on DVD and Blu-Ray and we've got the lowdown. TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs is available now from Amazon, Ebay, Base and more, ranging between £13.99-£17.29 at time of writing. The event tends to be one of the most violent and exciting nights in the WWE calendar, as the WWE Superstars get to play with some dangerous toys. This year's event is no different, as AJ Styles defends the WWE Championship against Dean Ambrose in a TLC match, The Miz puts the Intercontinental Championship on the line in a Ladder match with Dolph Ziggler and Alexa Bliss challenges for Becky Lynch's Smackdown Women's Championship in a Tables match. Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt, Natalya, Zack Ryder, Nikki Bella and others also feature across the single disc release.

The Show

The event begins with short and energetic Smackdown Live Tag Team Championship match, with The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt & Randy Orton) challenging for Heath Slater & Rhyno's belts, it's a basic tag affair, that's help by a clear sense of direction. Carmella and Nikki Bella have a gritty scrap in a No Disqualification match, that is unfortunately held back by silly conclusion. 

The first use of the show's gimmick comes in a Ladder Match over the Intercontinental Championship, between Dolph Ziggler and The Miz, that grows into a wonderful battle at the top of the ladder. It's not on the same level of their No Mercy collision, but is still a compelling and dramatic watch. Personally, I think the two went a little bit longer than was necessary as the first ten minutes provide very little of note. 

Baron Corbin v Kalisto in a Chairs match is the sleeper contest, with the pair producing physical and intense spot-based contest that doesn't pull it's punches. A tables match for the Smackdown Women's Championship with Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch sees the pair struggling to get to grips with the gimmick, often grappling with the weapons, rather than each other. The bout never really connects with the Dallas crowd, leaving a lot of the action feeling flat, which is a shame because both women have talent and worked hard throughout. 

The main event see's a World class performance from AJ Styles opposite Dean Ambrose in the Tables, Ladders and Chairs match for the WWE Championship, as the Face That Runs The Place kills it in the stunt show environment. Living up to the demolition derby moniker, Styles and Ambrose work their socks off in over half an hour of thrilling highspots, that keep the viewer on the edge of their seat throughout. Even the involvement of James Ellsworth doesn't stop this from being one of the best WWE main events of 2016 and well worth the price tag on it's own. 

Special Features & Blu-Ray Exclusives

A ten man tag team test with Apollo Crews [Uhaa Nation], American Alpha (Chad Gable & Jason Jordan), & The Hype Bros (Mojo Rawley & Zack Ryder) against The Ascension (Konnor & Viktor), Curt Hawkins & The Vaudevillains (Aiden English & Simon Gotch) from the Kick-Off show is a cute contest, that entertains for it's time on the screen. An Intercontinental Championship match between Kalisto and The Miz and Becky Lynch v Natalya (both from Smackdown Live #901) are also included, but the strongest Blu-Ray exclusive is a tag match between American Alpha and Bray Wyatt & Randy Orton of the Wyatt Family (Smackdown Live #902), which is a real sleeper match that is arguably stronger than the Smackdown Tag Team title match on the main show.

Finally... 

The Smackdown brand put on another PPV event that is well worth checking out, with two great matches included. The Intercontinental and WWE Championship match are two very different, but wonderful matches, featuring strong performances from AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, The Miz and Dolph Ziggler, four men who have owned the blue brand since the split. It's a shame that the Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch are unable to make the most of their high position on the card, but the Chairs match with Baron Corbin and Kalisto manages to make up for it. The added content on the disc provide some watchable action, but nothing worth going out of your way to check out. 

Review - James Marston 

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling

Opinion: WrestleMania Main Event From Outta Nowhere!

To paraphrase, Sir Alex Ferguson: wrestling, bloody hell. I certainly didn’t see that coming.

The Undertaker was my pick at the start of the evening. Then when the match started, I fancied Jericho as he adopted the out of sight, out of mind approach that any self-respecting heel would. For a brief moment at the end, we all thought it would be Roman, all the while quietly praying that it would be Bray. But Orton? Wow.

I’m clearly referring to the fact that Randy Orton won the Royal Rumble. Just like that, he moves from tag teaming in a mid-card programme to the main event of the biggest show of the year. The finish got a good pop from the live crowd but once the “anyone but Roman” effect wore off, this became a result that divided the room. But then dividing a room is what Orton has done for much of his career. Whilst not as polarising as certain other babyfaces on the roster, he has proven to be a fairly Marmite character and has felt the wrath of an apathetic crowd or two in his time. Likewise, whilst having a career that many would kill for (he is behind only John Cena and Triple H for number of WWE World title runs and has twice headlined Wrestlemania), he never quite reached the absolute level of stardom that many experts forecast on his debut in 2002. By all accounts, Orton, a third generation star with a great look and an undoubted aptitude for the wrestling game, was the clear choice to step up to the plate and become the WWE’s next big thing as the smoke cleared on the Attitude era. So why has he gone on to have an A- career? True, this is far from shameful but with all of his gifts, he should have been an A* player for years. Why has his Rumble win, and the opportunity to revitalise his career, been viewed as a mistake by the WWE?

When evaluating why Orton hasn’t hit the heights expected of him, it comes down to two factors: the WWE and Orton himself. Let’s look at the role of the machine in shaping Orton’s career. Have the WWE truly booked Randy to his fullest potential? No, probably not.  Hotshot booking saw Randy win the title too soon back in 2004 but he was rehabilitated on screen to the point that by 2007 he was an engaging heel character that warranted his main event positioning. He was at his hottest in late 2008 when, as the leader of Legacy, his arrogant heel promos demanded audience attention. A showdown with CM Punk on Raw in September 2008, in which he branded the Straight Edge star an unfit champion was an excellent piece of business in which Orton came across as a more edgy, real character than Punk himself. His brutal beat down of all things McMahon certainly helped and led to him headlining Wrestlemania 25 where, unfortunately, he was beaten in a flat, uninspiring match by Triple H. Had Orton won a cracker and moved onto a lengthy and dramatic championship reign then I think he would have reached a new level. But he didn’t and I’m not sure he ever really fully recovered from that setback. Since then there have been title wins but none on a stage so grand or with a build so strong. Throw in far too many similar feuds (the volume of Cena matches is just too much- they’ve even had two Hell in a Cell matches now) and you can understand some of the audience burn out we’ve seen in recent years.

But some blame has to lay with Randy Orton, the man: the way he interacts with fans and fellow pros helps us understand his inability to rule the promotion and establish a close bond with the audience. Prior to entering the wrestling business, Orton received a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps. This could be a reason some portions of the audience (particularly the more patriotic element) have failed to warm to him; a couple of summers ago, his past was the cause of an angry Twitter exchange with an enraged fan. It even cost Orton a part in the WWE film franchise, The Marine 2 and in doing so an opportunity to further his case to the company as a reliable and multi-faceted performer. Orton has had on-screen meltdowns (screaming at fans who cheered his shoulder injury in 2008 and publicly chastising Kofi Kingston for a blown spot during a 2010 Raw encounter) and multiple backstage issues (unsubstantiated rumour and innuendo is that the divas had good reason not to leave their handbags unattended when Orton was in the vicinity). Most notable of all, he has served two suspensions for violating the Wellness Policy. With all of these transgressions, one can see why WWE haven’t made Orton the face of the company and this brings us to the man with whom Orton has been tied since his debut: John Cena.

It is quite fitting that on the night Orton surprisingly won the Rumble, Cena won his 16^th World title in grand fashion. Cena has gone on to become a part of WWE’s Mount Rushmore, in the conversation of greats with Bruno and Hogan, Rock and Austin, while Orton is a level below. It’s not because Cena is a better worker (although he has amassed more great matches); it’s because John knows how to connect with (most of) the crowd and, to Vince, is a safer, more reliable option. Orton has too much baggage to be the face of the promotion. However, despite this Orton is still seen as a made man by swathes of the audience. For whilst the WWE haven’t made Orton the top dog, they have protected his interests significantly. His win-loss record is excellent and the family connections will always suggest his path to the top was easier than that of others: the fact that he was never an indie darling is held against him in some quarters.

The crux of the problem is this: fans see Orton as a contradiction- an edgy, outspoken anarchist who is also an untouchable part of the corporate machine. So long as Orton remains opinionated and unpredictable, management will never make him the true star of the show; so long as he is protected by the top brass, fans will never fully embrace him as one of their own. 

In the short term, the outlook is bright for Randy: his programme with the Wyatts has been interesting and chances are that by Mania, his match will involve Bray, allowing their story to come to a head on the biggest stage of them all. However, it probably won’t headline the show and there is every chance Orton won’t even win: for the second time in his career, a Rumble victory would not culminate in a meaningful title run, which would be symbolic of his standing in the industry. Randy is good, very good, but he’ll likely fall short of the title of an all-time great. Unless he has one last big run, a classic feud or a dramatic character reinvention that, like his final RKO from Sunday's match, comes from literally outta no-where.

Words - Sean Taylor-Richardson

Images - James Marston

Editor - James Marston 

Twitter - @ATPWrestling 

Facebook - /acrossthepondwrestling 

Instagram - @ATPWrestling