After Fast Lane, the WWE was on the road to Wrestlemania, but now that road has hit a Roadblock. In the great white north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Triple H will go one on one with Dean Ambrose for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, in a match which may have huge Wrestlemania consequences. And after the Wyatt Family eliminated Brock Lesnar from the Royal Rumble, this event will also see Bray Wyatt versus Lesnar. Will Bray conquer the Beast or will Toronto become Suplex City?
+ Triple H (c) vs Dean Ambrose (WWE World Heavyweight Championship): wow, the crowd was bonkers for this entire match. Maybe 70-30 split in favour of Ambrose, but there was not a single moment without noise. This was an amazing match, with many high points, and so many perfect near finishes I was on the edge of my seat the whole time
+ Charlotte (c) (w/ Ric Flair) vs Natalya (Divas Championship): this match started slowly, but some fantastic sequences, power moves and near kickouts made transformed this into one of the best Divas matches in a very long time
+ The Mechanics (Dash and Dawson) (c) vs Enzo Amore and Colin Cassidy (w/ Carmella) (NXT Tag Team Championships): fantastic match. The crowd was on fire for Enzo/Cass, and the Mechanics (aka The Revival, which is a horrible name and I refuse to use it) were getting huge reactions when they acted like the dastardly dudes they are. Both teams can go far, either in NXT or the main roster
+ Chris Jericho vs Jack Swagger: Jericho cut a fantastic heel promo pre-match, and the Canadian crowd bought into it completely. Swagger is a severely underutilised in-ring performer, and this was no exception. As a short and sweet match, this is worth watching
– The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Big E) (w/ Xavier Woods) vs The League of Nations (Sheamus and King Barrett) (WWE Tag Team Championships): aside from some confusing alignments (New Day started as the good guys, but had a handful of bad-guy tricks up their sleeves) this match was pretty standard in every way. A potential botch near the end slowed the pace down and left a bad taste in my mouth
– Bray Wyatt vs Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman): this was turned into a handicap match (Bray and Luke Harper vs Lesnar) at the last minute, seemingly by Wyatt himself, and Wyatt never even got into the match. This was a glorified squash, and was not worth the time it spent to promote it
– Sami Zayn vs Stardust: as a character actor, Cody Rhodes is probably one of the best the WWE has ever had, but Rhodes (as Stardust or himself) deserves far better. Not in regards to Zayn, of course, as Sami Zayn is one of the best in-ring performers in the world right now. This was a slow and plodding match, which didn’t suit to either man’s strength and went on for far too long. Stardust did bust out a reverse boston crab, which was a sight to see
Should you watch this event: It is unfortunate that each of the three worse matches featured some of the better wrestlers, because this could have been a sleeper hit for one of the best WWE events in a long time. The few negatives are not enough to mar the event as a whole, and I’d happily recommend this is worth a watch before Wrestlemania rolls around in a few weeks.
MoshFish Reviews 