This entire PPV was just the definition of being whelmed.
Goldust finally returns, and they waste that on the pre-show match. At least had some build-up with Stardust for a possible feud between them but besides that the match was pretty much forgettable.
Del Rio continues overtly looking like he hates his job, not that I blame him knowing the gimmick he's been saddled with. Were some solid spots in the match but I ocassionally felt like Del Rio was carrying Reigns through some of the more technical stuff which did not improve his mood. Pace picked up enough after the tree of woe spot to give it a solid finish at least.
Roman continues to prove that they nailed his character (Strong but silent type badass) during the Shield run and that he should not be giving promos or interviews with answers longer than a sentence. Creative keeps giving him promos because Vince yells at them if they don't.
Owens vs. Ambrose actually has pretty solid chemistry and a solid match. Agree with the MotN description if only because there's finally a match where Ambrose's rebound clothesline doesn't entirely look like ass, and the second he tries it a second time in the same match he gets superkicked in the face as he should. Really hoping this is leading towards an IC feud between the two of them. Might not be the spot in the card that Dean should be in, but a feud between him and Owens is pretty much the only interesting thing to possibly come out of tonight.
Agree with the criticism of the Diva's match regarding how decisive it was. Would've been more interesting to have it end in DQ resulting from some remaining rage from the Reid comment last Monday to lead to some sort of stipulation match at TLC instead of just kinda spending Paige's turn in one go like this after fucking around with actually starting the damn thing in the first place.
Mostly agree with the Wyatt vs. BoD match assessment. I honestly wonder in hindsight whether they intended to do more with the supernatural slant of the angle before calling it off for one of various reasons since the whole "I ATE THEIR SOOOOOULS! LIGHTNING, BITCHES!!" seemed like it got dropped with zero explanation whatsoever. The thing lost even more tension when Kane and Taker took out the entire damn family on their return. Why should we actually care about them fighting half of the group they just dominated in its entirety?
And once again any theory involving a heel turn is rendered invalid because I'm rather certain the WWE is too afraid of affecting merch sales or their own plans with two of their top guys to actually try and change anything about them. Dean takes a second after losing to kiss Roman's ass before rolling from the ring to give him his moment, as does everyone to the man who either loses through interference or just flat-out wins cleanly. Following the audience and IWC opinions the last few months, Sheamus cashing in was basically considered the Darkest Timeline, yet the WWE managed to create a situation where Sheamus cashed in on a guy who just beat up his best friend and was highly emotional at winning the championship... and got a bigger fucking pop.
I really hope the bit that came back after the feed had gone through some final commercials and such will finally inspire the WWE to change at least some things. I really don't have anything against Reigns himself. He's competent and getting better constantly, but his booking along with the eye-rollingly obvious intent behind it has been so atrocious that the audience's reaction to him being left alone in the ring nearly crying at the belt being taken away from him, was to basically boo him out of the building until his music hit to cover up the crowd. Have him get some more proper feuds, take him out of the title picture for a while, just do SOMETHING before he hits Eva Marie levels of crowd hate and gets shanked on the way to the ring one night.
I started watching wrestling around May this year. Watched WWE stuff through its ups and downs, spins and turns; but this is the first PPV that I honestly don't care about so far. No stand-out matches, no interesting feuds, no big moments. It's just there. Survivor Series is to this year's PPVs as its own matches were to the PPV itself: it's there, but only to fill time.
