I was not happy with Fastlane on a whole last night. I could do a blow by blow of the many poor decisions. How the obvious lack of build hurt the Rhodes match. How Ziggler should never be pinned by Kane. How I legit fell asleep during the Cena match. I will take a pass on a blow by blow review and instead choose to focus on the the two things that really took the show to the pits for me and the one thing I thought was well done.
Side note. Many people ripped the crowd in Memphis for being flat. I found them to be muted, which is a great representation of how the WWE fanbase feels these days, muted. Also, all the crowds have been strange since the forced return of the Authority. There is a general lack of passion for the product at this time. WWE can ignore it all they want, but that's what it is.
For me this PPV had all the makings of what I like to call a trap PPV. One that looks good on paper and probably should play out fine even if rooting interests lose. Then when I watch it and it's executed very poorly I realize the WWE has trapped me again. I can't tell you how many times WWE has done this to me over the years.
One really bad takeaway from this PPV was the Sting segment. This was something you could hardly mess up. It would take some effort to have this sequence come across as bad. Yet, WWE found a way to get there. To me the match is a foregone conclusion. Everyone knows it's going to happen. What we all wanted to hear was Sting speak.
Now I realize for WWE you don't give everything away all at once. You don't make the match and then have Sting speak all in one night. The WWE often, and annoyingly, gets these situations wrong. Sting should speak first. Then later on Raw set a match for WM31 with Hunter. Why? Because we need to establish why Sting has a beef with HHH. Otherwise we are lead to believe it's really because of WCW being put out of business, which is beyond stupid.
If WWE were smart Sting would have hit the ring grabbed the mic and the crowd, as dead as they were, would have popped. He could explain to HHH that he doesn't live in the past, but from what he remembers WCW put itself out of business. Sting is here because he's trying to make sure that HHH doesn't put the WWE out of business. He's watched the actions of HHH as he's held down stars like Ziggler, Bryan, and Cena over the past two years and it reminds him of abuse of power. The same type of thing he saw in WCW.
This all should work with fans because WWE has made a huge deal about their Monday Night Wars show and how WCW really fell apart. So all the pieces should fit in nicely. Sting should state that he is here to take down the Authority and return the WWE to being a place where people get rewarded for the their fighting spirit. The fans would pop. HHH would go angry heel about how he is the WWE the fans would eat it up more and they would scuffle. I probably have HHH go for the sledge and Sting go for the bat, but don't actually have them do what they did.
I instead have HHH back out with his sledge and say another time. This allows HHH to cut a promo where he challenges Sting to a match at WM31 on Raw. Then Sting can accept under the Stipulation that the loser sort of leaves town.
Instead the WWE went bland. We have a match that we really don't have the reason for yet. Sting hasn't talked in the 4 months that he has been around and with the match already made everything will seem a bit dry from here. I guess WWE can fix it all by adding the stipulation after Sting talks in the coming weeks. I like slow burns, but this is ridiculous. If they really play he's defending the pride of WCW, my god.
The other major drop off for me was the main event. It was a solid match, but once Bryan hit the knee and Reigns kicked out I was sold on the fact that he would go for another one and get speared. That's ok, but they could have done a little better. I would have Bryan kick out of the Spear, but have Reigns land another one to get the win, so it feels really earned.
Here's my issues. First and foremost Bryan is not an aging star passing the torch to the next guy. Bryan was barely the guy and they are only a few years apart in age. Bryan did this to himself because it's well documented that he doesn't fight for himself backstage. He's happy to go with the flow. That's why WWE doesn't mind burying him at every turn.
The truth is Bryan is way more over than Reigns. Bryan is a believable superstar and Reigns is a guy that's still very green. The only reason Bryan would get booed is because WWE had him execute promo's to make the crowd react adversely to him. Last night Bryan worked that match as a heel to help Reigns look more like the big time face, but the crowd ignored it.
Reigns is so far beyond not ready that the mere suggestion that this guy could hang with Lesnar is laughable. If they really put Reigns over Lesnar at WM31 they are kidding themselves. I don't think they should worry about fans canceling the network, but instead fans losing interest in the product all together. Cena has been slapped on down everyone's thoughts for years. No disrespect to his work ethic, but he can't elicit a positive crowd response.
Now we are going to take a guy who's really bad on the mic to this point and have him go over a guy that has the best manager in the business and a track record of success the past year that is off the charts? Lesnar will be the babyface and get audible support from the crowd. It's just the way it is. That's not a good thing for anyone or the WWE.
Also, the match will not deliver. How can it? Reigns is limited and Lesnar is a spot guy that works really well off other good workers. Remember the 16 german suplexes Lesnar gave Cena? That's because Lesnar doesn't have that creative of a move base himself so they went for same move over and over. So now you match him with a guy the fans are down on who is also limited and think it's going to have the crowd excited?
It's like common sense has left the WWE. I know they think Reigns can be this huge star and many pundits are even supportive of that for the future, but I really believe he's not the guy everyone thinks he is. He's got some great ring speed and a good look, but beyond that he's an unfinished product and WWE needs to realize this. Hogan made up for his limited move set with Charisma and good match story telling. Reigns doesn't demonstrate that he can do anything more, but take direction from Daniel Bryan really well.
It's not a knock on Reigns the person, but his character which is months, maybe years, from being ready to lead this company. A knock on him personally is the lack of humility and knowledge he demonstrated on the Sam Roberts show a few weeks back. The one where he claimed to have invented everything and that he's going to be richer than you and me. If he's not even ready for softball media how can he be ready for it all?
The Reigns project is going to bomb and it's not going to be because of a hashtag about canceling the network. The formula for failure is simple. John Cena came into the WWE and became the new face of the company. Instead of addressing the mix crowd reactions to him the WWE had him pretend like they weren't important. So for years the fans continued to boo. The ratings of the main shows hit a steady point and were down from the Attitude Era. Only when CM Punk cut his promo and got hot for WWE did things change.
With Reigns expect the same mixed crowd reactions. Just like Cena many fans will tune out and I expect ratings on the TV shows to drop. As they do subscriptions will go flat. I just see people losing interest because they don't have a passion for a guy that was thrust on to them as being centrally important over other guys that appeared to be working much harder. Your basically telling people that looks, and family ties get you ahead. Hard work doesn't. Is that really a message that works?
Lastly and possibly most shamefully the WWE did something that I thought demonstrated a new low. They played with the crowd noise during the main event. When Bryan was introduced his Yes chant was not very audible. Even if the crowd was split I thought it would be louder than that. During the match the chants were strong. At the close there was a positive pop for Reigns, but it went away quickly. I think the cheers were piped in by WWE. They flashed to one happy fan and a wide shot of a few fans reacting positively while some were leaving. You heard boos when they did the handshake, but otherwise you heard nothing.
Here's why. The WWE drained out the negative crowd reaction to Reigns at the end of the match. They are trying to control their crowd. They muted the fans. That really got under my skin. Is that really where they are at? Do they not get that it's not just smart fans who upset about this Reigns push? That it's a majority of fans that feel it's not organic and rushed. That many actually want the Bryan story to shine through?
There in lies the problem. Good booking is all about eliciting reactions from the fans. When they don't go for it you try something different. When Kevin Nash bombed as champ of WWE they went another direction. When fans chanted for Stone Cold over Brett they went another direction. When fans wanted Bryan last year they went another direction. Apparently now WWE is tired of doing that.
This PPV, while free for some, was a trap PPV. It only served to further make me treat WWE main roster product as a DVR material that I can quickly fast forward through.
The one bright spot was the tag title match where Kidd and Cesaro won. Two really talented guys getting a much deserved win. Yet, would it be too much to ask for them to have a some of that mic time HHH wasted for 30 minutes at the start of each show?
Thumbs way down WWE.
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