So we're less than three weeks from The Showcase of the Immortals, and things are really starting to shape as far as Mania matches, and what roles so many of the superstars are going to play in the actual event as well as the build to it. Some rivalries will be shorter, some will have been going on for months and possibly years dependent on how you view it. So we're going to continue and more than likely get at least one specific match will be set between the two shows. So let's kick it off with Raw!
Raw is in Chicago this week at the Allstate Arena (fuck off, it's the Rosemont Horizon and it always will be, and that's a reference that Chicagoans over the age of 35 will actually understand), so at least they're going to get a pretty hot crowd, and that crowd gets kicked off with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman. Heyman does his usual introduction, but also slags off Chicago. He goes into Seth Rollins' shtick from the previous week when he cut his own promo about how he was a combination of the smaller and faster wrestlers that Brock has had issues with like A.J. Styles, Daniel Bryan and Finn Balor. Heyman reminds us, in fired-up fashion, that Brock may have had initial issues with them, but he still came out on top. He then wonders why Seth would challenge Drew McIntyre tonight because if he's planning on coming into Wrestlemania after matching up against Drew, he might not prevail, and Drew's music hits and he comes out, and he tells Heyman that he's happy that he's finally getting the respect he deserves, and that when he takes on Seth tonight, he's going to continue to brutalize each member of The Shield, after what he did last week to Roman and Dean. Seth appears behind Drew with a steel chair and starts beating the living shit out of Dean. He heads toward Lesnar and Heyman in the ring, and they both retreat. Brock stares him down though and thinks about fighting Seth right now as he hands his belt to Paul, but Paul simply reminds him that if he fought tonight, he wasn't going to get paid for it, and Lesnar and Heyman head out while Seth stands tall in the ring. This was a great segment to start the show off with. It sold us on how while Brock is only making the rare appearance, he knows that he's only showing up to get paid, and he doesn't really have pride in the title, and he only fights when he's paid to do so. It's almost the same thing as what Ronda is doing right now, but about a billion times better. Seth looks like he's ready to take on the world right now, and Drew came out with the right balance of arrogance and anger. This just worked on pretty much every conceivable level and why? Because they kept it simple. The moment that they over-complicate things is when pretty much every story on the main roster starts to suffer.
Then Finn's music hit and he's going to be competing in a tag match against Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush with a "mystery partner". This could get fantasy booked in a few different ways, but we all knew there was only one person that they could bring in here. Finn is out there cutting a brief promo first wishing everyone in Chi-town a belated St. Patty's Day (a good city to that in other than NY and Boston, because we Irish are strong in Chicago), and how the luck of the Irish was not on his side last Monday when he lost his Intercontinental title to Lashley thanks to interference by Rush. But his stubborn Irish pride was not going to be undercut by this loss, and Lashley's music hits, and both Lashley and Rush come out together and Lio starts in on the "little leprechaun" in the ring and how his pot of gold was now around Lashley's waist. He tells Lashley to do his new favorite pose and that's raising the belt over his head. Finn tells Bobby to enjoy this pose while he can because he's coming back for his title, and as far as his partner, well, it's Braun of course.
The matchup begins with Braun and Bobby in the ring, and it's a test of strength that Braun wins relatively easily, and it goes to commercial, but we actually get Picture-in-Picture for this, so Finn tags in and is almost immediately taken control of by Bobby. Anyway, as things progress, Lio finds himself trapped in the ring with Braun. He eats a couple of massive biels, and goes to the outside to escape him, but is caught between him and Finn. Lashley then blasts Finn into some poor bastard in the timekeeper's area, and gets choo-choo'd by Braun. And while Lio is being brutalized in the ring by The Monster Among Men, Lashley just walks away, leaving his lil' buddy to eat a running powerslam sandwich for the win. This is somewhat confusing booking because A: Finn should have lost by another Lashley-Lio double-team in order to build him up as a bigger underdog than he already is. Also B: Braun getting the pinfall over Lio is not something that should happen either. If you think back to when Lio first got here, he was running and scrambling away from the likes of Kevin Owens, and that was actually really fun to watch, and that's how he should have played this match against Braun. And finally C: why did they have Lashley walk away from the fight? That just makes him look like a wimp when he should be really dominant. Yep, this one didn't work for me overall, despite watching Braun throw Rush around for a while. It didn't advance the story and rivalry between Finn and Bobby/Lio, and it didn't make anyone really look great.
Then we went backstage where Ronda was coming in with her husband, Travis Browne, and she's met by a ref and a phalanx of security, and the ref chastises Ronda for being late and saying that she's going to be fined again for that, just like she was fined last week (for an undisclosed amount) for striking an official, and that the security is there to make sure that she doesn't do the same thing tonight. I'm kind of liking what they're doing here because they're making Ronda look nigh unstoppable, and that she's now just acting like a spoiled fucking brat who actually doesn't give a damn about her reputation (get it?). I still think this is how she should have been booked since Staples Center as opposed to making her turn heel after Charlotte was already in the match. I'm dying to read some kind of real backstage accounting of when and why they decided to turn Ronda heel, because I'm just very interested to determine if this was actually part of a plan to really put Becky over or if Ronda just thought that it would be more fun to play a heel.
Then we get A Moment of Bliss where Alexa has Cole recap the matches already set for Mania, and then hypes herself up as being a good talk show host, and says that she likely inspired Lilly Singh to have her own late night talk show, and then introduces Elias, telling him that this is a safe space where he won't be interrupted, and he's going to be the headlining musical act at Mania. He then talks up why last year was going to be his best year, but he keeps getting interrupted and then explains to all the Chicago Bears fans out there that if his performance at Mania was a game-winning field goal (chef's kiss for that reference; Elias's heat is rarely ever cheap), he'd make it every time, and this performance will be the best musical performance of all time, and if anyone dares interrupt him, and cue No Way Jose's conga line led by Otis and Tucker of Heavy Machinery. Alexa is very disappointed that they rehearsed this walk-on 10 times, and they came out too early, and Elias explains that he's going to teach Otis a lesson that life, like music, is all about timing. And that's when a masked man dressed as a cheeseburger attacks Elias from behind, and when he removes his mask, it's indeed Jose. And he's wearing a Cubs shirt! So after we come back from the break, there's a match between Elias and Jose.
There's a lot of deep arm drags and Jose's new weird hair flying all over the place. And you can literally see people coming back or going to the back during this match. All the noise being made during this match is coming from the conga line. Elias picks up the win with Drift Away after hitting a Macho Man elbow from the top rope, and this match was waaaaaay too fucking long. It's not like No Way Jose is going to get over as a competitor, and Elias is okay in the ring, but again, he's not going to be the superstar that some people were saying he would be.
Then we get Kurt Angle coming out to continue his farewell tour, and he announces that his opponent at Mania will be the person that has made his life a living hell, and that's of course Baron Corbin, and it's going to make him so happy to end his career making Corbin tap out at Mania. Then comes out his friendly opponent for the evening, Chad Gable, so there are two Olympians in the ring.
There was a "This is Awesome" chant for a bit, as well as a "USA" chant. And this was more or less supposed to be a feel-good match with two friendly competitors, and there was actually a decent belly-to-belly suplex that Gable soled really well, but against someone like Chad Gable, this should be a pretty easy win for him. It just doesn't work. Gable is just too good. And the biggest problem with this match, other than the mere presence of Kurt Angle making me sad, and you can see that the man can barely move anymore, is that it's also just way too technical, but not in a really cool Zack Sabre Jr. or Minoru Suzuki or Johnny Gargano way. The "reversal" of the Angle Slam into a DDT was more of Angle just falling down. To be fair, Gable had to work his ass off during this match to sell, so that in and of itself is impressive. Anyway, Kurt finally gets Chad into the Ankle Lock for the submission win. After the match, though, Corbin came out to a chorus of boos, and wondered why the crowd was booing Angle's Mania opponent. He continues to heel it up as he says that he's enjoyed humiliating Angle in the past and how none of it will compare to the joy he'll feel at Mania when he humiliates him in his final match ever. There's a certain point where you just have to admire Corbin's work ethic as far as being the smarmy shitheel he is, and this was no exception. Make no mistake; that match at Mania is going to be a 10-15 minute slogfest (not slugfest; slogfest), but at least it will mean that we don't have to be saddened each time we watch Angle try to work. I'm a proponent of performers transitioning into other roles in the company rather than try to have that one final ride of glory. It's the problem I have with Undertaker and Kane and with Shawn Michaels. Keep those guys away from the ring from here on out.
Then we get Boss 'N Hug Connection coming out, but after the commercial break, we get Corbin with Dash and Dawson, and Corbin is bragging to them about how funny he just was, but then Apollo Crews sidles up to him and asks for a match before Kurt gets his hands on him. Crews continues to needle Corbin until he finally acquiesces, and then Apollo says that Baron's way too difficult, and that's why no one likes him, and then Baron gestures to The Revival and says that they like him, and both of them say, "Hell, no", and walk away laughing. That was actually pretty funny. Back to the ring where Charly is interviewing Sasha and Bayley and asks that, since they made the declaration that they'll defend their titles anywhere, they still haven't been to Smackdown and she asks if The IIconics are correct and that Boss 'N Hug are ducking them. Sasha wants to talk some shit about The IIconics, but Bayley plays peacemaker and announces that they still plan on defending anyone anytime anywhere and they're going to be on Smackdown tomorrow night, and then Sasha starts talking about Mania, and then they're interrupted by Natalya and Beth Phoenix. Beth puts over Sasha and Bayley and how she had to watch them from commentary and was okay with that, but she wasn't content to sit on the sidelines after Nia and Tamina tried to drag the Women's roster into the muck, and that awoke The Dragon (did she call herself a dragon at one point? I don't know). And Beth wants to come out of retirement and she and Nattie want to team together and have a Mania match for the Women's tag titles. Bayley pays a left-handed compliment to Beth when she says that it would be awesome, but since Mania is so close, should Beth challenge them so soon because she's been retired for 6 years. This begins the shoving and the pushing and this leads to a match between Sasha and Nattie.
So there's about three to four minutes of this match until it's interrupted by Nia. She wonders why Beth would think that she would be jealous of her when she's clearly the prettier and better version of the Glamazon, and that she's done more in three years than Beth has done in her entire career. Then Tamina crawls out from under the ring apron, attacks Beth from behind and does her patented awkward superkick on Bayley and Sasha causing a No Contest. Well, that was a whole lot of nothing, but this is probably setting up some kind of Fatal 4-Way match at Mania between Boss 'N Hug, Natalya and Beth, Nia and Tamina and The IIconics. I know that Becky v Charlotte v Ronda is the big money match at Mania this year, but do all the other women on the roster have to suffer because of it?
Then we get another of the weirdest series of promos ever with Mojo Rawley angrily talking into a mirror about potential. This seems like something they would have pulled the trigger on a long time ago, but just never got around to it, and now it seems like they're setting up a soft reboot of Mojo post-Mania. These promos are so weird and so confounding that you know nothing is going to come out of it, unless he just comes out during someone's promo and smashes the mirror over his head and just starts laying waste to everyone and everything like some kind of lunatic.
Then Ricochet comes out, in his winged ring gear, and without Aleister Black (who is apparently visiting The Netherlands, hopefully with Zelina Vega), and he's facing Jinder Mahal. Unfortunately, Chicago lets me down from time to time as some people started chanting "USA" at Mahal and the Singh brothers. Mahal is another walking rest hold as far as a competitor is concerned, and there are a lot of rest holds here. This is actually a good competitor for Ricochet to go over since no one really cares if Mahal loses, and he's also a former WWE champ. But Ric hits the 630 for the win. And Jinder clearly doesn't know how to compete against a high-flyer.
There's a bit about Sue Aitchison, a 30-odd year employee of WWE in the corporate headquarters and how she's going to be the recipient of the Warrior Award this year at the HOF ceremony thanks to her longstanding history of community outreach programs and working with Make-A-Wish. So that's pretty cool!
Then Ronda heads down to the ring all pissed off, and then there's a commercial break and then when we come back, for some reason, it's not Ronda cutting a promo, but Seth being interviewed backstage (repping the Bears in his ring gear colors) about whether or not it was smart to attack Drew earlier. Seth simply says that if you hurt his brothers, you better be prepared to get hurt. He wants to make sure that Drew feels it and that Brock is watching because he's going to burn Suplex City down to the ground at Mania. Then we get Charly interviewing Dana Brooke about her first championship opportunity against Rousey tonight. Charly wants to warn Dana, but Dana is an underdog, and she can maybe make history tonight.
Dana doesn't exactly get a lot of love because we all knew how this was going to end. But she puts Dana in the armbar for the win, even though she said that she wouldn't do it unless you paid $60. She leaves it in for longer than the actual match took place. And of course, she hit an official and then she went to see hubby Travis in the front row and security was too little too late and laid out one and then Travis laid one out himself. The refs check on Dana as Ronda storms out, and that was that, until we come back from the commercial, we get a replay of what just happened. So yeah, she's going to get fined, Travis is going to get fined, and Dana got medical treatment. I always say, if you can't give me a good match, give me a good story, and the continuing saga of Rousey "going rogue" (which is a phrase I never ever want to hear again thanks to Sarah Fucking Palin) is getting ramped up even more. I'm not entirely sure why Travis felt he had to get involved, but it's just so that WWE can throw another fake fine at her. And as I keep saying, we're in the Upside-Down in WWE, and this is another area where an attack like this could easily cast Ronda as a strong anti-hero, but the truth of it is that Steph and Hunter are the babyfaces here on Raw, so any fine at this point is actually justified.
Then we get Apollo vs Corbin. Crews is such a strong physical talent, but again, there's just nothing there. This is a guy who can do it all in the ring, but just doesn't have a personality and that's why the crowd was so out of it, and you have to hand it to Corbin, because at least he can get that mid-match heat to get the crowd into it. But Crews for some reason picks up the win in a roll-up reversal of End of Days. That was confusing as shit. It makes more booking sense to have both Angle and Corbin win on the same night. But whatever; this is going to be the least interesting match at Mania.
Then we get a very well-dressed Batista "via satellite" (who must be secretly thrilled as fuck that James Gunn has been re-hired to direct GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3) discussing his side of the story in regards to why he wants to a match against Triple H at Mania. This is a three-hour show after all. If I were a fan, I don't know if I'd be too keen to go to any live episode of Raw between Fastlane and Mania, because it's going to be 90 minutes of promos and recaps, 30 minutes of entrances and if you're lucky, about an hour of match content. Batista says that he just doesn't like Hunter and that's why he wants the match. Cole is asking him questions, and he continues on about how Trips has made all of his fellow teammates into his lapdogs and how he uses people and spits them back out once he's done with them. He goes on to say that he left in 2010 because of Hunter, but he didn't quit, and Hunter's always been jealous of him and never gave him the opportunities he deserved. And since he's left the WWE, he's gone onto worldwide fame. Cole tells him that Hunter has always been fair to him in his career and everything he's done with NXT, and The Animal asks Cole what his malfunction is, and why he thinks HHH is called the "Cerebral Assassin", and how he's got everyone fooled into thinking that he's a nice guy. He hopes that Vince wakes up and fires Hunter, and that how, at Mania, he's going to end the career of the King of Kings. Good stuff from Dave here.
Then for some reason, they're still talking about Michael Che and Colin Jost being the special correspondents at Mania, and Braun destroying the car last week. And they got him so angry that he's going to enter the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal so that as many people as possible can get his hands. But Alexa tries to calm things as the host of Mania and wants to broker some peace between these parties over the next week, and Braun says that if they disrespect him again, they're going to learn the real meaning of discipline, which, if it had come out of just about anyone else's mouth, would probably have sounded pretty kinky. It's sad that Braun has fallen out of grace so much with Vince that the only place they can make a space for him is in the Andre Battle Royal. And honestly, I just want this story to end. No good can come of Braun playing second fiddle to a comedy act. It didn't help him last year when he tagged with Nicholas to beat The Bar for the Raw tag titles, and this isn't going to do much for him either, but what the hell; he sells merch and gets decent pops. Sometimes, you just gotta work within the system and make Vince happy. Not everyone can be Punk or Daniel Bryan or Becky or even Kofi for that matter. Some people just come along at the right time and tap into the zeitgeist of WWE fandom, and that's certainly not Braun.
Then we got Drew, who comes out to cut a promo about what he did to Roman last week, Claymore-ing his head into the ring post, and how he's destroyed The Shield (not true, but let's move on), and how we're all morons for believing in fairy tales and when he destroyed Roman last week, he pulled back the curtain on the fact that he's just a man. He calls Seth a coward for attacking him from behind, and then he brings up not Roman the superstar but Joe the man, and talks about his leukemia. He then challenges him to a match at Mania. He tells Roman to think before he accepts the match and how he may have beaten leukemia, but he won't beat him. Then we cut to Seth backstage on the Tron and he explains that what he did earlier in the evening with the chair is because of these gross things that he's saying. Seth continues after a recap (hey, it happened 2 and a half hours ago; how are we expected to remember back that far?) and says that attack was for his brothers, but what's about to happen is for him, and he heads out to the ring and is cut off by Drew in the aisle and they start the hockey fight, but the match starts after a commercial break.
And the match is another tremendously solid outing for both McIntyre and Rollins. They work together well, their moves are tremendously impactful, and they have great in-ring chemistry. But they went even further with this match and they told a good story too, because just as it seems Seth's going to hit the Stomp on a downed Drew, Lesnar's music hits and while Seth beckons him for a fight, he turns around and eats a faceful of Claymore and that's the pin. It's always interesting to see Lesnar, or really anyone, play mindgames with potential opponents because it's a sign that the champ is not 100% sure they're walking out with a title, and that's a good hint of story for Brock and Seth going into Mania. And Drew continues to shine in singles competition. The worst way to book Drew into anything is as part of a team, because that team is always going to lose a big match. But even if Drew ate a pinfall here, which I'm glad he didn't, he would still have come out of this match looking good. I'm going to go ahead and call it now: by Survivor Series, Drew is Universal Champ, and next Mania is going to be a rematch of this year's Roman vs Drew match. Whether I want that match or not, I'm just betting that's what we're going to end up seeing.
Look, I'm not looking for a lot of good content on Raw from week to week, but they've done okay the last few weeks with their starts and with their ends. Everything in the middle is pretty much just a lot of filler, especially just a few weeks before Mania, and that was certainly the case for this week.
Now, let's look at Smackdown!
We started with The Miz, who was there to respond to Shane's actions at Fastlane as well as to his order to have a match against Shane at Mania. He says that he's been here for thirteen years and he's laser-focused every year on getting to The Grandest Stage of Them All, and that other than his family, he's sacrificed every relationship he's had in this business to make sure he makes it to Mania every year, but he really wanted have this work out with Shane, because Miz wanted the love and respect he wanted from his father and Shane was able to fulfill his lifelong fantasy of being a tag team champ. And Miz was warned by others in the back about Shane, which he felt was incredulous because he's The Miz; he's the one that's usually taking shortcuts and stabbing people in the back. He goes on to say that Shane was a disgusting person who was rotten to the core, just like Shane's father. Miz continued by saying that Shane and Vince may own the company, but they don't own him and they don't own Kofi Kingston (this is a motif that will continue through the evening). And finally, after all his hard work and dedication, he has finally earned the respect of the WWE Universe, and the only thing Shane has deserved is the one thing that he earned all by himself and that's an ass-whupping at Wrestlemania. Watching Miz this fired up and this passionate reminded me of the work/shoot he did on Talking Smack a few years back, which has gone down as one of the great all-timers. I'm not saying this promo is one of the all-timers, but it is a transformative promo that got him over as hell as a babyface, and I'm here for a solid babyface run from The Miz. I know that apparently they tried this about five or six years ago, and it did not go over, but this seems like it's going to work this time.
Then we get an appearance by The Boss 'N Hug Connection! The IIconics come out for a match, but first cut a promo about how scared and tiny in a Smackdown ring, and add that they look like a pair that have bought their way into an Ivy League school (because The IIconics and WWE Creative are up on current scandals), and they've come running to Smackdown to avoid all the teams on Raw, but now they're going to go up against the best tag team in the Women's division.
As far as the match is concerned, there were some good moments from both teams, but also some really weird moments. First was a weird double-team attempt by Bayley and Sasha that got Sasha's boots into Billie's midsection that looked like they were literally just trying out for the first time. Then Lacey Fucking Evans came in and went back out (like she keeps doing) for what seemed to perhaps be a distraction that would benefit The IIconics, but it didn't, and I am so sick of Lacey Evans. And then another really weird moment was when Sasha looked like she was going to do some kind of slingshot move off the apron, but nothing happened, but it ended with Peyton stacking up Sasha and Billie, on the outside out of the ref's eye line, holds Sasha's arms down so she can't kick out for the three-count. With this win, the match at Mania for the Women's tag titles is starting to shape up into a Fatal 4-way, and that's going to possibly be bowling-shoe ugly. But it was nice to see The IIconics pick up a win.
Then we get Kayla backstage with Rey Mysterio and his son Dominic (who's maybe 15 or 16 and is about a foot and a half taller than Rey is) and he tells Kayla that, since he pinned Samoa Joe last week, he's been given the opportunity to face Joe for the US Championship at Mania. This seems like the most arbitrary booking they possibly could have come up with for this match. Will Rey vs Joe be a good match? Most likely, but is this the culmination of any kind of story they've been telling? Not even a little bit. The story that Joe is the most involved in with any other competitor on the roster (that isn't A.J., anyway) has been Mustafa Ali, and the fact that all that Mustafa is likely to get at Mania is in the Andre Battle Royal is a bit of a shitty predicament since he came out on fire when he came to Smackdown, and the only thing that hurt him was the few weeks he was out, and unfortunately for him and nearly every other competitor on Smackdown, Kofi has been the story in the Men's division, and everything else has been thrown to the wayside.
Then came Kevin Owens to host The Kevin Owens Show with guests Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, and Kevin's outfit is killer; a sportcoat, his own t-shirt, and a red tie. KO starts the segment off with reintroducing everyone to his show, and how things are getting crazy on the Road to Wrestlemania, and he puts over Kofi (see a pattern here?), but then introduces his guests. When The Queen and The Man arrive in the ring, he says that former best friends can really get under someone's skin and if anyone would know, it would be him. He then starts reading statements from note cards to both of them quoting some of the things Ronda has been saying in the last few weeks, and then starts reading things that Charlotte said about Becky and vice versa. KO finally says that they've done a lot of talking but he thinks that no one really wants to see them talk anymore. His slogan is "Fight, Owens, Fight", but now he wants "Fight, Becky, Fight" and "Fight, Charlotte, Fight". Charlotte gets up and says that she's going to beat the "holy hell" out of Becky at Mania (okay, Creative, what the fuck is it with the "holy hell" line all of a sudden? We heard it twice in the same promo last week from Shane, and now Charlotte's saying it this week? Come on! Try a little harder!), and before Becky can respond, KO asks for a moment so he can get out of the ring, and Becky throws a hard right to Charlotte, because there was no way this wasn't ending in a brawl. They continue to beat the crap out of one another outside the ring and eventually officials and security come down to separate them both (I'm assuming that this is the same security they brought to Raw), and of course, both of them slug security guards before they're eventually separated. So yeah, there are going to probably be fines.
There's a really awkward cut to backstage where Kayla ends up interviewing A.J. about his upcoming match against Randy Orton at Mania, and A.J. does what good babyfaces are supposed to do and put over their grudge match opponents, and that while Mania might feel like a home-field advantage for Randy, since he was built for WWE and Styles is more of an indie, he's not going to Mania to continue to build; he's going there to tear the house down. I do have to state that this match will be good to get Randy somewhat back into my good graces. When he cares about what he's doing, it's clear, and he makes it damn good, as was the case with the promo he cut last week, so hopefully come Mania, he's going to put that same level of energy into this match. One last thing, though, as A.J. wishes Kofi good luck tonight. This was a motif as I stated earlier that was set up from the start where basically all the babyfaces in all their promos (with the exception of Rey) put Kofi over, because he has one hell of a night ahead of him, but it never quite worked because it felt a little forced each time.
Then we get Daniel Bryan, in his ring gear for some reason (hint hint!) and Rowan coming out, and Daniel starts talking immediately about injustice. He says that Kofi getting an opportunity like the upcoming gauntlet match is an injustice because he doesn't deserve it. He was picked to replace Mustafa at the first gauntlet match that really got him over and he was hand-picked out of the tag division to compete in the Elimination Chamber match, and while he fought his heart out, he still came up short. And when he was given an opportunity at Fastlane, he again came up short. And he sort of sympathizes with Kofi because he was in this same position not long ago, but he can't abide Kofi getting this opportunity because he sees Kofi as a B+ player. And the fans who chant Kofi (cue crowd chanting "Kofi") are just fine with a B+ player. Then New Day comes out to support Kofi getting ready for the gauntlet match. This was another great promo from Bryan because he's telling the truth for the most part. The only reason Kofi got booked into the spot he currently is in is because of Ali's injury, and so the last month of Smackdown has been consumed by Kofi. And let's face it; while Kofi is a terrific talent, he's not on the level of someone like Bryan. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually agree with the heel about their competitor. I love Kofi, but he's been thrust into a spotlight that I don't know if he's completely ready for in specific regards to this gauntlet match. But I'm still behind him here.
The gauntlet match begins, and it's really a grueling affair. Sheamus starts out and beats the hell out of Kofi for a while but Kofi ends up hitting Trouble In Paradise for the win (another one of those rare occasions where a signature move can get you the win). Cesaro comes in and keeps laying into him, but then Kofi hits S.O.S. for the win over the Swiss Cyborg. Then Rowan comes in and just jacks Kofi up and then he hits Kofi with one chair shot, which causes a DQ loss for Rowan, but of course that doesn't stop him. He keeps slamming him into the barricades and eventually uses the Iron Claw and puts Kofi through the announce table. Then Samoa Joe comes out, and he puts more of a hurt on Kofi, but he gets some life and gets Joe into a roll-up for the win. Of course, this incenses Joe beyond belief and he puts Kofi into the Coquina Clutch until Kofi goes to sleep. So by the time Randy Orton comes out, it must be over, right? Well, this is pretty much the last bit of life for Kofi as he half-heartedly hits Trouble In Paradise, but can't capitalize. Randy sets up for the RKO, but Kofi counters it into another roll-up, and despite one of Randy's shoulders clearly being up, Kofi gets the three-count and he makes his way into Wrestlemani... uh-oh.
Here comes Vince.
He congratulates Kofi for his win and says what he did was nothing short of miraculous, but he's changed the rules again and still has one more opponent to defeat. Of course it's the American Dragon, and this should have been apparent since, as I pointed out before, when Bryan came to the ring to cut his anti-Kofi promo, he was dressed in his ring gear ready to go. Anyway, Kofi has been going for nearly an hour by this point, and he hit another half-hearted (and nearly botched) S.O.S. on Bryan but couldn't keep him down for the three. Daniel eventually hit Kofi with the running knee and picked up the win.
The moment this happened, I knew that the IWC was going to go insane that they keep fucking with Kofi, and just like Vince and everyone wants, that's exactly what they did. There's more than a few people I follow who wrote scathing tweets accusing Vince of being an idiot, and some even going so far as to say that Vince is racist. Now... to be perfectly honest, he absolutely is both of those things. But this is not idiotic, and nor do I think this is racist in any way. This is not the end of this story, and I am really, well, I can't say excited, so I would more appropriately state that I'm very interested to see how they're going to end up booking Kofi into this match. Kofi is going to face Daniel at Mania for the WWE title, and Kofi is going to win. This is just another chapter in this saga. I honestly don't know, though, if they've booked themselves into a corner here, because what else does Kofi have to do in order to get this match? Does he and the rest of New Day have to lose it and just beat the shit out of Rowan and Bryan until they capitulate? Does Kofi have to headbutt Vince in order to get this spot? Do they have to uncover evidence of collusion between Bryan and Vince to keep Kofi out of the match? I don't know, and that, to me, is when WWE really gets interesting. So many things are really simple to predict as far as how they're going to book things, but this is something that feels very new, and I would argue that the reason that it feels new is because this clearly wasn't the plan going into Mania for Bryan or Kofi, and now that Kofi has become the new organically-grown uber-babyface superstar that everyone is going crazy for, they've been scrambling to make this work over the past month.
My point being: stop worrying about Kofi not being in that match at Mania. It's going to happen. Or really worry about it and keep marking out the way that Vince wants you to. Either way, it's a win-win for WWE, and that's not something they get very often.
Well, that's it for this edition of my Raw and Smackdown recap! Come back again tomorrow night for my recap of NXT!
Until next time, kids...
Raw is in Chicago this week at the Allstate Arena (fuck off, it's the Rosemont Horizon and it always will be, and that's a reference that Chicagoans over the age of 35 will actually understand), so at least they're going to get a pretty hot crowd, and that crowd gets kicked off with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman. Heyman does his usual introduction, but also slags off Chicago. He goes into Seth Rollins' shtick from the previous week when he cut his own promo about how he was a combination of the smaller and faster wrestlers that Brock has had issues with like A.J. Styles, Daniel Bryan and Finn Balor. Heyman reminds us, in fired-up fashion, that Brock may have had initial issues with them, but he still came out on top. He then wonders why Seth would challenge Drew McIntyre tonight because if he's planning on coming into Wrestlemania after matching up against Drew, he might not prevail, and Drew's music hits and he comes out, and he tells Heyman that he's happy that he's finally getting the respect he deserves, and that when he takes on Seth tonight, he's going to continue to brutalize each member of The Shield, after what he did last week to Roman and Dean. Seth appears behind Drew with a steel chair and starts beating the living shit out of Dean. He heads toward Lesnar and Heyman in the ring, and they both retreat. Brock stares him down though and thinks about fighting Seth right now as he hands his belt to Paul, but Paul simply reminds him that if he fought tonight, he wasn't going to get paid for it, and Lesnar and Heyman head out while Seth stands tall in the ring. This was a great segment to start the show off with. It sold us on how while Brock is only making the rare appearance, he knows that he's only showing up to get paid, and he doesn't really have pride in the title, and he only fights when he's paid to do so. It's almost the same thing as what Ronda is doing right now, but about a billion times better. Seth looks like he's ready to take on the world right now, and Drew came out with the right balance of arrogance and anger. This just worked on pretty much every conceivable level and why? Because they kept it simple. The moment that they over-complicate things is when pretty much every story on the main roster starts to suffer.
Then Finn's music hit and he's going to be competing in a tag match against Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush with a "mystery partner". This could get fantasy booked in a few different ways, but we all knew there was only one person that they could bring in here. Finn is out there cutting a brief promo first wishing everyone in Chi-town a belated St. Patty's Day (a good city to that in other than NY and Boston, because we Irish are strong in Chicago), and how the luck of the Irish was not on his side last Monday when he lost his Intercontinental title to Lashley thanks to interference by Rush. But his stubborn Irish pride was not going to be undercut by this loss, and Lashley's music hits, and both Lashley and Rush come out together and Lio starts in on the "little leprechaun" in the ring and how his pot of gold was now around Lashley's waist. He tells Lashley to do his new favorite pose and that's raising the belt over his head. Finn tells Bobby to enjoy this pose while he can because he's coming back for his title, and as far as his partner, well, it's Braun of course.
The matchup begins with Braun and Bobby in the ring, and it's a test of strength that Braun wins relatively easily, and it goes to commercial, but we actually get Picture-in-Picture for this, so Finn tags in and is almost immediately taken control of by Bobby. Anyway, as things progress, Lio finds himself trapped in the ring with Braun. He eats a couple of massive biels, and goes to the outside to escape him, but is caught between him and Finn. Lashley then blasts Finn into some poor bastard in the timekeeper's area, and gets choo-choo'd by Braun. And while Lio is being brutalized in the ring by The Monster Among Men, Lashley just walks away, leaving his lil' buddy to eat a running powerslam sandwich for the win. This is somewhat confusing booking because A: Finn should have lost by another Lashley-Lio double-team in order to build him up as a bigger underdog than he already is. Also B: Braun getting the pinfall over Lio is not something that should happen either. If you think back to when Lio first got here, he was running and scrambling away from the likes of Kevin Owens, and that was actually really fun to watch, and that's how he should have played this match against Braun. And finally C: why did they have Lashley walk away from the fight? That just makes him look like a wimp when he should be really dominant. Yep, this one didn't work for me overall, despite watching Braun throw Rush around for a while. It didn't advance the story and rivalry between Finn and Bobby/Lio, and it didn't make anyone really look great.
Then we went backstage where Ronda was coming in with her husband, Travis Browne, and she's met by a ref and a phalanx of security, and the ref chastises Ronda for being late and saying that she's going to be fined again for that, just like she was fined last week (for an undisclosed amount) for striking an official, and that the security is there to make sure that she doesn't do the same thing tonight. I'm kind of liking what they're doing here because they're making Ronda look nigh unstoppable, and that she's now just acting like a spoiled fucking brat who actually doesn't give a damn about her reputation (get it?). I still think this is how she should have been booked since Staples Center as opposed to making her turn heel after Charlotte was already in the match. I'm dying to read some kind of real backstage accounting of when and why they decided to turn Ronda heel, because I'm just very interested to determine if this was actually part of a plan to really put Becky over or if Ronda just thought that it would be more fun to play a heel.
Then we get A Moment of Bliss where Alexa has Cole recap the matches already set for Mania, and then hypes herself up as being a good talk show host, and says that she likely inspired Lilly Singh to have her own late night talk show, and then introduces Elias, telling him that this is a safe space where he won't be interrupted, and he's going to be the headlining musical act at Mania. He then talks up why last year was going to be his best year, but he keeps getting interrupted and then explains to all the Chicago Bears fans out there that if his performance at Mania was a game-winning field goal (chef's kiss for that reference; Elias's heat is rarely ever cheap), he'd make it every time, and this performance will be the best musical performance of all time, and if anyone dares interrupt him, and cue No Way Jose's conga line led by Otis and Tucker of Heavy Machinery. Alexa is very disappointed that they rehearsed this walk-on 10 times, and they came out too early, and Elias explains that he's going to teach Otis a lesson that life, like music, is all about timing. And that's when a masked man dressed as a cheeseburger attacks Elias from behind, and when he removes his mask, it's indeed Jose. And he's wearing a Cubs shirt! So after we come back from the break, there's a match between Elias and Jose.
There's a lot of deep arm drags and Jose's new weird hair flying all over the place. And you can literally see people coming back or going to the back during this match. All the noise being made during this match is coming from the conga line. Elias picks up the win with Drift Away after hitting a Macho Man elbow from the top rope, and this match was waaaaaay too fucking long. It's not like No Way Jose is going to get over as a competitor, and Elias is okay in the ring, but again, he's not going to be the superstar that some people were saying he would be.
Then we get Kurt Angle coming out to continue his farewell tour, and he announces that his opponent at Mania will be the person that has made his life a living hell, and that's of course Baron Corbin, and it's going to make him so happy to end his career making Corbin tap out at Mania. Then comes out his friendly opponent for the evening, Chad Gable, so there are two Olympians in the ring.
There was a "This is Awesome" chant for a bit, as well as a "USA" chant. And this was more or less supposed to be a feel-good match with two friendly competitors, and there was actually a decent belly-to-belly suplex that Gable soled really well, but against someone like Chad Gable, this should be a pretty easy win for him. It just doesn't work. Gable is just too good. And the biggest problem with this match, other than the mere presence of Kurt Angle making me sad, and you can see that the man can barely move anymore, is that it's also just way too technical, but not in a really cool Zack Sabre Jr. or Minoru Suzuki or Johnny Gargano way. The "reversal" of the Angle Slam into a DDT was more of Angle just falling down. To be fair, Gable had to work his ass off during this match to sell, so that in and of itself is impressive. Anyway, Kurt finally gets Chad into the Ankle Lock for the submission win. After the match, though, Corbin came out to a chorus of boos, and wondered why the crowd was booing Angle's Mania opponent. He continues to heel it up as he says that he's enjoyed humiliating Angle in the past and how none of it will compare to the joy he'll feel at Mania when he humiliates him in his final match ever. There's a certain point where you just have to admire Corbin's work ethic as far as being the smarmy shitheel he is, and this was no exception. Make no mistake; that match at Mania is going to be a 10-15 minute slogfest (not slugfest; slogfest), but at least it will mean that we don't have to be saddened each time we watch Angle try to work. I'm a proponent of performers transitioning into other roles in the company rather than try to have that one final ride of glory. It's the problem I have with Undertaker and Kane and with Shawn Michaels. Keep those guys away from the ring from here on out.
Then we get Boss 'N Hug Connection coming out, but after the commercial break, we get Corbin with Dash and Dawson, and Corbin is bragging to them about how funny he just was, but then Apollo Crews sidles up to him and asks for a match before Kurt gets his hands on him. Crews continues to needle Corbin until he finally acquiesces, and then Apollo says that Baron's way too difficult, and that's why no one likes him, and then Baron gestures to The Revival and says that they like him, and both of them say, "Hell, no", and walk away laughing. That was actually pretty funny. Back to the ring where Charly is interviewing Sasha and Bayley and asks that, since they made the declaration that they'll defend their titles anywhere, they still haven't been to Smackdown and she asks if The IIconics are correct and that Boss 'N Hug are ducking them. Sasha wants to talk some shit about The IIconics, but Bayley plays peacemaker and announces that they still plan on defending anyone anytime anywhere and they're going to be on Smackdown tomorrow night, and then Sasha starts talking about Mania, and then they're interrupted by Natalya and Beth Phoenix. Beth puts over Sasha and Bayley and how she had to watch them from commentary and was okay with that, but she wasn't content to sit on the sidelines after Nia and Tamina tried to drag the Women's roster into the muck, and that awoke The Dragon (did she call herself a dragon at one point? I don't know). And Beth wants to come out of retirement and she and Nattie want to team together and have a Mania match for the Women's tag titles. Bayley pays a left-handed compliment to Beth when she says that it would be awesome, but since Mania is so close, should Beth challenge them so soon because she's been retired for 6 years. This begins the shoving and the pushing and this leads to a match between Sasha and Nattie.
So there's about three to four minutes of this match until it's interrupted by Nia. She wonders why Beth would think that she would be jealous of her when she's clearly the prettier and better version of the Glamazon, and that she's done more in three years than Beth has done in her entire career. Then Tamina crawls out from under the ring apron, attacks Beth from behind and does her patented awkward superkick on Bayley and Sasha causing a No Contest. Well, that was a whole lot of nothing, but this is probably setting up some kind of Fatal 4-Way match at Mania between Boss 'N Hug, Natalya and Beth, Nia and Tamina and The IIconics. I know that Becky v Charlotte v Ronda is the big money match at Mania this year, but do all the other women on the roster have to suffer because of it?
Then we get another of the weirdest series of promos ever with Mojo Rawley angrily talking into a mirror about potential. This seems like something they would have pulled the trigger on a long time ago, but just never got around to it, and now it seems like they're setting up a soft reboot of Mojo post-Mania. These promos are so weird and so confounding that you know nothing is going to come out of it, unless he just comes out during someone's promo and smashes the mirror over his head and just starts laying waste to everyone and everything like some kind of lunatic.
Then Ricochet comes out, in his winged ring gear, and without Aleister Black (who is apparently visiting The Netherlands, hopefully with Zelina Vega), and he's facing Jinder Mahal. Unfortunately, Chicago lets me down from time to time as some people started chanting "USA" at Mahal and the Singh brothers. Mahal is another walking rest hold as far as a competitor is concerned, and there are a lot of rest holds here. This is actually a good competitor for Ricochet to go over since no one really cares if Mahal loses, and he's also a former WWE champ. But Ric hits the 630 for the win. And Jinder clearly doesn't know how to compete against a high-flyer.
There's a bit about Sue Aitchison, a 30-odd year employee of WWE in the corporate headquarters and how she's going to be the recipient of the Warrior Award this year at the HOF ceremony thanks to her longstanding history of community outreach programs and working with Make-A-Wish. So that's pretty cool!
Then Ronda heads down to the ring all pissed off, and then there's a commercial break and then when we come back, for some reason, it's not Ronda cutting a promo, but Seth being interviewed backstage (repping the Bears in his ring gear colors) about whether or not it was smart to attack Drew earlier. Seth simply says that if you hurt his brothers, you better be prepared to get hurt. He wants to make sure that Drew feels it and that Brock is watching because he's going to burn Suplex City down to the ground at Mania. Then we get Charly interviewing Dana Brooke about her first championship opportunity against Rousey tonight. Charly wants to warn Dana, but Dana is an underdog, and she can maybe make history tonight.
Dana doesn't exactly get a lot of love because we all knew how this was going to end. But she puts Dana in the armbar for the win, even though she said that she wouldn't do it unless you paid $60. She leaves it in for longer than the actual match took place. And of course, she hit an official and then she went to see hubby Travis in the front row and security was too little too late and laid out one and then Travis laid one out himself. The refs check on Dana as Ronda storms out, and that was that, until we come back from the commercial, we get a replay of what just happened. So yeah, she's going to get fined, Travis is going to get fined, and Dana got medical treatment. I always say, if you can't give me a good match, give me a good story, and the continuing saga of Rousey "going rogue" (which is a phrase I never ever want to hear again thanks to Sarah Fucking Palin) is getting ramped up even more. I'm not entirely sure why Travis felt he had to get involved, but it's just so that WWE can throw another fake fine at her. And as I keep saying, we're in the Upside-Down in WWE, and this is another area where an attack like this could easily cast Ronda as a strong anti-hero, but the truth of it is that Steph and Hunter are the babyfaces here on Raw, so any fine at this point is actually justified.
Then we get Apollo vs Corbin. Crews is such a strong physical talent, but again, there's just nothing there. This is a guy who can do it all in the ring, but just doesn't have a personality and that's why the crowd was so out of it, and you have to hand it to Corbin, because at least he can get that mid-match heat to get the crowd into it. But Crews for some reason picks up the win in a roll-up reversal of End of Days. That was confusing as shit. It makes more booking sense to have both Angle and Corbin win on the same night. But whatever; this is going to be the least interesting match at Mania.
Then we get a very well-dressed Batista "via satellite" (who must be secretly thrilled as fuck that James Gunn has been re-hired to direct GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3) discussing his side of the story in regards to why he wants to a match against Triple H at Mania. This is a three-hour show after all. If I were a fan, I don't know if I'd be too keen to go to any live episode of Raw between Fastlane and Mania, because it's going to be 90 minutes of promos and recaps, 30 minutes of entrances and if you're lucky, about an hour of match content. Batista says that he just doesn't like Hunter and that's why he wants the match. Cole is asking him questions, and he continues on about how Trips has made all of his fellow teammates into his lapdogs and how he uses people and spits them back out once he's done with them. He goes on to say that he left in 2010 because of Hunter, but he didn't quit, and Hunter's always been jealous of him and never gave him the opportunities he deserved. And since he's left the WWE, he's gone onto worldwide fame. Cole tells him that Hunter has always been fair to him in his career and everything he's done with NXT, and The Animal asks Cole what his malfunction is, and why he thinks HHH is called the "Cerebral Assassin", and how he's got everyone fooled into thinking that he's a nice guy. He hopes that Vince wakes up and fires Hunter, and that how, at Mania, he's going to end the career of the King of Kings. Good stuff from Dave here.
Then for some reason, they're still talking about Michael Che and Colin Jost being the special correspondents at Mania, and Braun destroying the car last week. And they got him so angry that he's going to enter the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal so that as many people as possible can get his hands. But Alexa tries to calm things as the host of Mania and wants to broker some peace between these parties over the next week, and Braun says that if they disrespect him again, they're going to learn the real meaning of discipline, which, if it had come out of just about anyone else's mouth, would probably have sounded pretty kinky. It's sad that Braun has fallen out of grace so much with Vince that the only place they can make a space for him is in the Andre Battle Royal. And honestly, I just want this story to end. No good can come of Braun playing second fiddle to a comedy act. It didn't help him last year when he tagged with Nicholas to beat The Bar for the Raw tag titles, and this isn't going to do much for him either, but what the hell; he sells merch and gets decent pops. Sometimes, you just gotta work within the system and make Vince happy. Not everyone can be Punk or Daniel Bryan or Becky or even Kofi for that matter. Some people just come along at the right time and tap into the zeitgeist of WWE fandom, and that's certainly not Braun.
Then we got Drew, who comes out to cut a promo about what he did to Roman last week, Claymore-ing his head into the ring post, and how he's destroyed The Shield (not true, but let's move on), and how we're all morons for believing in fairy tales and when he destroyed Roman last week, he pulled back the curtain on the fact that he's just a man. He calls Seth a coward for attacking him from behind, and then he brings up not Roman the superstar but Joe the man, and talks about his leukemia. He then challenges him to a match at Mania. He tells Roman to think before he accepts the match and how he may have beaten leukemia, but he won't beat him. Then we cut to Seth backstage on the Tron and he explains that what he did earlier in the evening with the chair is because of these gross things that he's saying. Seth continues after a recap (hey, it happened 2 and a half hours ago; how are we expected to remember back that far?) and says that attack was for his brothers, but what's about to happen is for him, and he heads out to the ring and is cut off by Drew in the aisle and they start the hockey fight, but the match starts after a commercial break.
And the match is another tremendously solid outing for both McIntyre and Rollins. They work together well, their moves are tremendously impactful, and they have great in-ring chemistry. But they went even further with this match and they told a good story too, because just as it seems Seth's going to hit the Stomp on a downed Drew, Lesnar's music hits and while Seth beckons him for a fight, he turns around and eats a faceful of Claymore and that's the pin. It's always interesting to see Lesnar, or really anyone, play mindgames with potential opponents because it's a sign that the champ is not 100% sure they're walking out with a title, and that's a good hint of story for Brock and Seth going into Mania. And Drew continues to shine in singles competition. The worst way to book Drew into anything is as part of a team, because that team is always going to lose a big match. But even if Drew ate a pinfall here, which I'm glad he didn't, he would still have come out of this match looking good. I'm going to go ahead and call it now: by Survivor Series, Drew is Universal Champ, and next Mania is going to be a rematch of this year's Roman vs Drew match. Whether I want that match or not, I'm just betting that's what we're going to end up seeing.
Look, I'm not looking for a lot of good content on Raw from week to week, but they've done okay the last few weeks with their starts and with their ends. Everything in the middle is pretty much just a lot of filler, especially just a few weeks before Mania, and that was certainly the case for this week.
Now, let's look at Smackdown!
We started with The Miz, who was there to respond to Shane's actions at Fastlane as well as to his order to have a match against Shane at Mania. He says that he's been here for thirteen years and he's laser-focused every year on getting to The Grandest Stage of Them All, and that other than his family, he's sacrificed every relationship he's had in this business to make sure he makes it to Mania every year, but he really wanted have this work out with Shane, because Miz wanted the love and respect he wanted from his father and Shane was able to fulfill his lifelong fantasy of being a tag team champ. And Miz was warned by others in the back about Shane, which he felt was incredulous because he's The Miz; he's the one that's usually taking shortcuts and stabbing people in the back. He goes on to say that Shane was a disgusting person who was rotten to the core, just like Shane's father. Miz continued by saying that Shane and Vince may own the company, but they don't own him and they don't own Kofi Kingston (this is a motif that will continue through the evening). And finally, after all his hard work and dedication, he has finally earned the respect of the WWE Universe, and the only thing Shane has deserved is the one thing that he earned all by himself and that's an ass-whupping at Wrestlemania. Watching Miz this fired up and this passionate reminded me of the work/shoot he did on Talking Smack a few years back, which has gone down as one of the great all-timers. I'm not saying this promo is one of the all-timers, but it is a transformative promo that got him over as hell as a babyface, and I'm here for a solid babyface run from The Miz. I know that apparently they tried this about five or six years ago, and it did not go over, but this seems like it's going to work this time.
Then we get an appearance by The Boss 'N Hug Connection! The IIconics come out for a match, but first cut a promo about how scared and tiny in a Smackdown ring, and add that they look like a pair that have bought their way into an Ivy League school (because The IIconics and WWE Creative are up on current scandals), and they've come running to Smackdown to avoid all the teams on Raw, but now they're going to go up against the best tag team in the Women's division.
As far as the match is concerned, there were some good moments from both teams, but also some really weird moments. First was a weird double-team attempt by Bayley and Sasha that got Sasha's boots into Billie's midsection that looked like they were literally just trying out for the first time. Then Lacey Fucking Evans came in and went back out (like she keeps doing) for what seemed to perhaps be a distraction that would benefit The IIconics, but it didn't, and I am so sick of Lacey Evans. And then another really weird moment was when Sasha looked like she was going to do some kind of slingshot move off the apron, but nothing happened, but it ended with Peyton stacking up Sasha and Billie, on the outside out of the ref's eye line, holds Sasha's arms down so she can't kick out for the three-count. With this win, the match at Mania for the Women's tag titles is starting to shape up into a Fatal 4-way, and that's going to possibly be bowling-shoe ugly. But it was nice to see The IIconics pick up a win.
Then we get Kayla backstage with Rey Mysterio and his son Dominic (who's maybe 15 or 16 and is about a foot and a half taller than Rey is) and he tells Kayla that, since he pinned Samoa Joe last week, he's been given the opportunity to face Joe for the US Championship at Mania. This seems like the most arbitrary booking they possibly could have come up with for this match. Will Rey vs Joe be a good match? Most likely, but is this the culmination of any kind of story they've been telling? Not even a little bit. The story that Joe is the most involved in with any other competitor on the roster (that isn't A.J., anyway) has been Mustafa Ali, and the fact that all that Mustafa is likely to get at Mania is in the Andre Battle Royal is a bit of a shitty predicament since he came out on fire when he came to Smackdown, and the only thing that hurt him was the few weeks he was out, and unfortunately for him and nearly every other competitor on Smackdown, Kofi has been the story in the Men's division, and everything else has been thrown to the wayside.
Then came Kevin Owens to host The Kevin Owens Show with guests Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, and Kevin's outfit is killer; a sportcoat, his own t-shirt, and a red tie. KO starts the segment off with reintroducing everyone to his show, and how things are getting crazy on the Road to Wrestlemania, and he puts over Kofi (see a pattern here?), but then introduces his guests. When The Queen and The Man arrive in the ring, he says that former best friends can really get under someone's skin and if anyone would know, it would be him. He then starts reading statements from note cards to both of them quoting some of the things Ronda has been saying in the last few weeks, and then starts reading things that Charlotte said about Becky and vice versa. KO finally says that they've done a lot of talking but he thinks that no one really wants to see them talk anymore. His slogan is "Fight, Owens, Fight", but now he wants "Fight, Becky, Fight" and "Fight, Charlotte, Fight". Charlotte gets up and says that she's going to beat the "holy hell" out of Becky at Mania (okay, Creative, what the fuck is it with the "holy hell" line all of a sudden? We heard it twice in the same promo last week from Shane, and now Charlotte's saying it this week? Come on! Try a little harder!), and before Becky can respond, KO asks for a moment so he can get out of the ring, and Becky throws a hard right to Charlotte, because there was no way this wasn't ending in a brawl. They continue to beat the crap out of one another outside the ring and eventually officials and security come down to separate them both (I'm assuming that this is the same security they brought to Raw), and of course, both of them slug security guards before they're eventually separated. So yeah, there are going to probably be fines.
There's a really awkward cut to backstage where Kayla ends up interviewing A.J. about his upcoming match against Randy Orton at Mania, and A.J. does what good babyfaces are supposed to do and put over their grudge match opponents, and that while Mania might feel like a home-field advantage for Randy, since he was built for WWE and Styles is more of an indie, he's not going to Mania to continue to build; he's going there to tear the house down. I do have to state that this match will be good to get Randy somewhat back into my good graces. When he cares about what he's doing, it's clear, and he makes it damn good, as was the case with the promo he cut last week, so hopefully come Mania, he's going to put that same level of energy into this match. One last thing, though, as A.J. wishes Kofi good luck tonight. This was a motif as I stated earlier that was set up from the start where basically all the babyfaces in all their promos (with the exception of Rey) put Kofi over, because he has one hell of a night ahead of him, but it never quite worked because it felt a little forced each time.
Then we get Daniel Bryan, in his ring gear for some reason (hint hint!) and Rowan coming out, and Daniel starts talking immediately about injustice. He says that Kofi getting an opportunity like the upcoming gauntlet match is an injustice because he doesn't deserve it. He was picked to replace Mustafa at the first gauntlet match that really got him over and he was hand-picked out of the tag division to compete in the Elimination Chamber match, and while he fought his heart out, he still came up short. And when he was given an opportunity at Fastlane, he again came up short. And he sort of sympathizes with Kofi because he was in this same position not long ago, but he can't abide Kofi getting this opportunity because he sees Kofi as a B+ player. And the fans who chant Kofi (cue crowd chanting "Kofi") are just fine with a B+ player. Then New Day comes out to support Kofi getting ready for the gauntlet match. This was another great promo from Bryan because he's telling the truth for the most part. The only reason Kofi got booked into the spot he currently is in is because of Ali's injury, and so the last month of Smackdown has been consumed by Kofi. And let's face it; while Kofi is a terrific talent, he's not on the level of someone like Bryan. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually agree with the heel about their competitor. I love Kofi, but he's been thrust into a spotlight that I don't know if he's completely ready for in specific regards to this gauntlet match. But I'm still behind him here.
The gauntlet match begins, and it's really a grueling affair. Sheamus starts out and beats the hell out of Kofi for a while but Kofi ends up hitting Trouble In Paradise for the win (another one of those rare occasions where a signature move can get you the win). Cesaro comes in and keeps laying into him, but then Kofi hits S.O.S. for the win over the Swiss Cyborg. Then Rowan comes in and just jacks Kofi up and then he hits Kofi with one chair shot, which causes a DQ loss for Rowan, but of course that doesn't stop him. He keeps slamming him into the barricades and eventually uses the Iron Claw and puts Kofi through the announce table. Then Samoa Joe comes out, and he puts more of a hurt on Kofi, but he gets some life and gets Joe into a roll-up for the win. Of course, this incenses Joe beyond belief and he puts Kofi into the Coquina Clutch until Kofi goes to sleep. So by the time Randy Orton comes out, it must be over, right? Well, this is pretty much the last bit of life for Kofi as he half-heartedly hits Trouble In Paradise, but can't capitalize. Randy sets up for the RKO, but Kofi counters it into another roll-up, and despite one of Randy's shoulders clearly being up, Kofi gets the three-count and he makes his way into Wrestlemani... uh-oh.
Here comes Vince.
He congratulates Kofi for his win and says what he did was nothing short of miraculous, but he's changed the rules again and still has one more opponent to defeat. Of course it's the American Dragon, and this should have been apparent since, as I pointed out before, when Bryan came to the ring to cut his anti-Kofi promo, he was dressed in his ring gear ready to go. Anyway, Kofi has been going for nearly an hour by this point, and he hit another half-hearted (and nearly botched) S.O.S. on Bryan but couldn't keep him down for the three. Daniel eventually hit Kofi with the running knee and picked up the win.
The moment this happened, I knew that the IWC was going to go insane that they keep fucking with Kofi, and just like Vince and everyone wants, that's exactly what they did. There's more than a few people I follow who wrote scathing tweets accusing Vince of being an idiot, and some even going so far as to say that Vince is racist. Now... to be perfectly honest, he absolutely is both of those things. But this is not idiotic, and nor do I think this is racist in any way. This is not the end of this story, and I am really, well, I can't say excited, so I would more appropriately state that I'm very interested to see how they're going to end up booking Kofi into this match. Kofi is going to face Daniel at Mania for the WWE title, and Kofi is going to win. This is just another chapter in this saga. I honestly don't know, though, if they've booked themselves into a corner here, because what else does Kofi have to do in order to get this match? Does he and the rest of New Day have to lose it and just beat the shit out of Rowan and Bryan until they capitulate? Does Kofi have to headbutt Vince in order to get this spot? Do they have to uncover evidence of collusion between Bryan and Vince to keep Kofi out of the match? I don't know, and that, to me, is when WWE really gets interesting. So many things are really simple to predict as far as how they're going to book things, but this is something that feels very new, and I would argue that the reason that it feels new is because this clearly wasn't the plan going into Mania for Bryan or Kofi, and now that Kofi has become the new organically-grown uber-babyface superstar that everyone is going crazy for, they've been scrambling to make this work over the past month.
My point being: stop worrying about Kofi not being in that match at Mania. It's going to happen. Or really worry about it and keep marking out the way that Vince wants you to. Either way, it's a win-win for WWE, and that's not something they get very often.
Well, that's it for this edition of my Raw and Smackdown recap! Come back again tomorrow night for my recap of NXT!
Until next time, kids...
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