It's been a while since I've reviewed a wrestling year in terms of its PPV shows. I'm here to talk about the most recent year, 2015. This year had a ton of highs and lows, gave a lot of new superstars mainstream exposure, resurrected the tag team division, attempted to resurrect the Divas division, and tried its hardest to give us one the year that defines the modern era. Did they succeed? That's what I'm here to find out.
Let's head to one of the WWE's biggest blunders of 2015, the Royal Rumble...
1. Royal Rumble
This show is a disaster. Plain and simple. The first hour had absolutely nothing going for it. Everything had worn its welcome by the time it got to the Philadelphia crowd. More on that in a bit, but when your opening match is a tag team squash match between The New Age Outlaws and The Ascension (an NXT tag team that was DOA once they made the call up to the main roster), you have a good idea of what else is to be expected for the show. After two tag matches that no fan will genuinely not care about, we're actually given the biggest surprise of the night: a fantastic match. Brock Lesnar defended the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a triple threat against John Cena and Seth Rollins. This match was an adrenaline rush from beginning to end and really did a lot for Lesnar and Rollins as far as performances go. It validated what Lesnar brings to the table as a part timer and it validated how Rollins was a superstar to watch out for in the near future. The only problem I have with the match is that it didn't close the show. If it had, the recommendation would be much stronger.But then we get to the Rumble match. The awful Rumble match. The worst Rumble match I think that there's been since Mr. McMahon won in 1999. This thing just sucked the life out of everything. Every mistake you could possibly make happened. Eliminating Daniel Bryan early, when the entire Philadelphia crowd was rooting for him to win. Having Kane and Big Show dominate the end of the Rumble and eliminate favorites like Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, and Bray Wyatt. Having Roman Reigns, the obvious winner, win the match in a lackluster fashion. Not having Randy Orton return, when he was primed and ready to do so. Recycling the false finish to the 2011 Rumble by having Rusev show up at the end without being eliminated just so Reigns can eliminate him and stake his "dominance" by putting an emphatic stamp on the victory. Having The Rock return just so you can get some cheap pops on having him help Reigns. And guess what, that part STILL DIDN'T WORK! The fans were all over this match, booing more than they had at the 2014 Rumble. That hostile crowd interaction for one of the worst Rumble matches ever, mixed with an amazing triple threat that should have closed the show is enough for me to say that they completely dropped the ball on this show. You should check out Lesnar/Cena/Rollins while avoiding everything else on this card.
Skip It
2. Fastlane
In what seemed like an idiotic idea to scrap the Elimination Chamber (or so we thought) event, the WWE incorporated a new PPV concept called Fastlane (or as I call it, the reboot of Over the Limit). As far as the final stop before WrestleMania goes, this show wasn't all that bad. I think it honestly deserves another look from fans, because there's a number of gems that helped with the landscape at the time heading into WrestleMania 31. There's a midsection of about 2 or 3 matches I could've done without, but there is a lot of fun matches attached. There's an entertaining six-man tag that opens the show, we get the return of a popular superstar following that match, there's an interesting feud between Goldust and Stardust that unfolds on the PPV, there's a really good WWE Tag Team Championship match between The Usos and the new duo of Tyson Kidd and Cesaro. We get a pretty solid United States Championship match that saw Rusev defend against John Cena. We even get an in-ring segment featuring Triple H (no surprise) going face to face with Sting that ultimately leads to the announcement that they're gonna fight at WrestleMania. What a lot of this is doing is bridging the gap between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. By the end of the show, you have a general idea of about half the matches that are being teased for Mania. And that's the point of the February PPV, so it's doing its job well.The main event definitely drew a lot of intrigue as Roman Reigns put his WrestleMania main event spot on the line in a match with the guy the fans wanted to main event Mania, Daniel Bryan. While not an absolutely amazing match, the match does its job in validating why Reigns "deserved" his spot in the main event. It also showed that Bryan was still capable of delivering main event level match quality since being back from injury. I remember not being too into the match when I saw it live because it was painfully obvious that they weren't going to pull a switcheroo and have Bryan win, but after a year of reflection, the re-watch helped me realize how unfairly I treated the match because of my skepticism. Way to go WWE. You were right and I was wrong. Don't get used to it. The year is young and you still have plenty of time to mess it up...
Mild Recommendation
3. WrestleMania 31
Still, there's a lot that's still great to watch. Even if I disagree with the winner of the Intercontinental Championship ladder match, the match is still a heck of a lot of fun. The Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins match is a fantastic gem that was match of the night for a good amount of the PPV. John Cena winning the United States Championship led to him bringing a lot of fun and prestige to the title while he held onto it. Although, I could've done without the complete burial of Rusev that came out of that. AJ Lee retired shortly after Mania, so her teaming with Paige to take on the Bella Twins is a fun way to have a final WrestleMania match.
The main event is still brilliant. And I'm not even talking about Rollins cashing in at the end. I'm talking about the match that is purely Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. I'm still happy with how it ended, but I'd definitely be open to another match between Lesnar and Reigns to see who would have won if Rollins wouldn't have capitalized. We're on the Road to WrestleMania 32 now, so maybe I'll get my wish this year. Only time can tell, but I can safely say that WrestleMania 31 has aged very well in a year.
Highly Recommended
4. Extreme Rules
Heading into a 7 match PPV, I didn't care about 3 of the matches that were happening. With 2 of them being main event matches, that is not a good thing. Even worse is knowing that those 3 matches are 3 of the final 4 matches. That means with this edition of Extreme Rules, I didn't care about the second half of the show. That is not good. That's not good at all. Why didn't I care? We had a Divas Championship match between Nikki Bella and Naomi that essentially had two heels fighting, which isn't a good formula when they should have built it originally as a triple threat also featuring Paige. Get a babyface in there so the fans can care. Another match that suffered to get anything out of me was the United States Championship match. I'm all for another match between John Cena and Rusev, but I've never been a fan of strap matches, so making it a Russian Chain match didn't do a lot for me. Besides, we knew who was winning anyways, so why care for a match stipulation I already don't care for? The main event could have been booked nicely. It was a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Seth Rollins and Randy Orton. Well, I liked their match at WrestleMania. It's a Steel Cage match, and I like those. Ok. So far, so good. The RKO is banned. Well, that's really one of the only reasons to keep Randy Orton relevant in 2015, so that's a bad call. And a crucial point of the match booking was seeing what Kane was going to do in the match, who really shouldn't be relevant in the main event of a 2015 PPV. See how this match derailed all momentum on arrival? And people wonder why the championship reign of Seth Rollins was considered a disappointment. But we've just started on that.If you can get through those mediocre ideas, the midcard isn't that bad. The show opens with a very interesting Chicago Street Fight with Luke Harper and Dean Ambrose. They call back to the Goldust/Roddy Piper match from WrestleMania XII and drive away from the arena for a little while, then resume the match later on in the show. Something about that with these two guys really worked. I'm actually a bit disappointed that Luke Harper's singles career was derailed shortly after this match, as I really liked what he was able to do in matches with guys like Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler. This PPV also featured a WWE Tag Team Championship match between the team of Tyson Kidd and Cesaro and The New Day. This is a year when the tag team division has been on fire, and a lot of that can surprisingly be credited to The New Day, which could arguably been kicked off thanks to this match. Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus have a pretty solid match with each other, although the "Kiss Me Arse" gimmick is a bit goofy and doesn't go anywhere. And the Last Man Standing match with Big Show and Roman Reigns was a lot better than it had any right to be. It had good spots, tension, and good character moments for Reigns. It was a match where the fans were like "we still don't want him as our top babyface, but we'll give him props for not messing this match up." It's a start.
Mild Recommendation
Initial Thoughts: So let's see. The Roman Reigns experiment didn't work as well as they would've hoped. But, he did get some matches under his belt that got the attention of a lot of his skeptics. Rollins was getting some great traction, but then that match at Extreme Rules reminded me of how rocky his WWE World Heavyweight Championship actually was in 2015. The Rumble was a complete bomb, there was some good stuff at Fastlane and Extreme Rules, and WrestleMania 31 was a fantastic show. So, for now, the momentum is average. Hopefully, it'll get better as the year progresses. I mean, how bad can they mess it up, right? RIGHT?!?! I've got a bad feeling about this.
Continued in Part II...
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