Monday, February 29, 2016

WWE Fastlane 2016


WWE Fastlane was such much see TV for me that I completely forgot about it the weekend it took place. It just felt like a show that was there for the sake of filling a PPV slot in a model of execution and presentation that WWE claims to be obsolete, even in the face of PPVs featuring big-time fights proving otherwise. But, seriously, what's the point of this show? Nothing ever happens, nothing here threatens the status quo, or throw an interesting curveball for the "Road To Wrestlemania" thing they like to celebrate around this time, nothing seems important; it's just "Here's a show with a bunch of random matches that mean fuck all. Have fun, assholes."

So if the musings for this show is late, trust me; this show did not warrant a timely viewing or subsequent posting. In fact, this is based on a later replay of the show. Not that it really matters because... well.


For some reason, I was tempted to check out the Kalisto vs. Del Rio match that took place on the pre-show, if only to hear Mauro Ranallo's wonderful commentary attempt to make this a match worth watching. Kalisto retains the title, for those who care.

Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch defeated Naomi and Tamina when both tapped out their opponents. Honestly, I can't complain too much about this. This was mildly interesting and even remotely entertaining, so I'll call it a perfectly acceptable opener and leave it at that. Really, though, this was fine and may actually help in pulling the women's division out of the pissbreak category for the long term.

Intercontinental Champion Kevin Owens defeated Dolph Ziggler to retain the title. Not a bad match, but I wish KO would do other things than have matches against Ziggler for the umpteenth time. But I guess doing so would only make his head hurt worse or something. I don't know.

Big Show, Kane, and Ryback defeated The Wyatt Family in the obligatory six-man pissbreak match. Because if you want build up threatening bad guys, you have them be embarrassed by Big Show and Kane. Yeah, unfortunately, while this match was taking place, I was making a sandwich. When Vince sees six big guys in the ring, he gets a hard-on. When I see six big guys in the ring, I fall asleep. Sorry.

Divas champion Baby Flair defeated Brie Bella to retain the title. This was ten minutes too long and despite the goodwill that Brie has attained as a result of her husband retiring and her sister on the shelf, she was clearly outmatched by Baby Flair. On the bright side, though, hopefully this clears the way for Baby Flair to defend the title against Sasha Banks or Becky Lynch or both and give the Mania crowd a women's match worth their while.

AJ Styles defeated Chris Jericho in a pretty good match up, though I'd be lying if I said this was as good as their Smackdown match. They teased Jericho possibly going bad, but they have a manly handshake and start teaming up for some reason. Not complaining in the slightest, though; they gel nicely together, I think.

There's a bit with Edge and Christian to promote their WWE Network show, and then New Day and the Evil Foreigners show up and nobody cares. It totally reeked of time-waster. On the bright side, though, the Edge and Christian Network show was actually pretty good in a hodgepodge sort of way and I hope they do more of these on a frequent basis. It'd be nice to have something more interesting and entertaining than the vapid interest vampire that is Total Divas.

There's also a brief match with Curtis Axel and R-Truth that nobody cares about.

And speaking of stuff nobody cares about, Roman Reigns defeated Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar, with Roman pinning Ambrose... BECAUSE WE GOTTA KEEP BROCK STRONG or some shit like that. The only interesting thing to come out of this match was the interaction between Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar because that could be an interesting match up and that could very well be a highlight on a Wrestlemania card that so desperately needs highlights and stuff to look forward to. Roman Reigns, on the other hand, gets stuck with McSon-In-Law for the title in the main event, which means everyone can go home early. Wouldn't that be a Wrestlemania moment worth cherishing?

So in conclusion... I didn't miss much by skipping this show the first time.

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