Battleground has come and gone. There weren’t any title changes, but some big things did happen. The show was a match short due to Ryback’s injury forcing him out of working, which both got some more time for the remaining matches and resulted in the show ending early. How did that affect the show overall? Let’s take a look:
Randy Orton vs Sheamus
They went for 16 minutes and had a good enough match. They’ve hooked up plenty of times so the match flowed well as they know each other’s spots and all. Orton won clean, which was somewhat of a surprise to me. I figured Sheamus would cheat or Orton would get some kind of DQ victory. My guess is that they’ll both move on to other things now. This would probably be a good time to cast Orton in a movie or do an injury angle; he’s pretty much tapped out for the moment as far as what you can do with him.
Prime Time Players vs New Day (Tag Team Title Match)
This is about what you’d expect. PTP keeping the belts makes sense seeing as how they just won them last month. The next question is whether New Day get the titles back at Summerslam or if there’s a new challenger up ahead.
Bray Wyatt vs Roman Reigns
I was assuming that this wouldn’t end clean since it’s their first time hooking up, and I was right. I didn’t expect Luke Harper interfering and coming back to reform the Wyatt family. Harper and Erick Rowan were spinning their wheels on their own so bringing them back into the fold is a good idea. With Dean Ambrose having nothing to do right now I can see he and Roman teaming up against these two or with a partner against all three members. This isn’t over, obviously. It’s notable that these two got 22 minutes to work and that Roman worked a good match without the help of Daniel Bryan or Seth Rollins or selling Brock Lesnar suplexes for most of it.
Divas Triple Threat Match: Charlotte vs Sasha Banks vs Brie Bella
This match was another beneficiary of Ryback’s match not happening. Instead of five or six minutes they got eleven, and we benefited from it. This might be the best diva’s match I’ve seen on the main roster, and we have Charlotte and Sasha to thank for it. The difference between what they can do opposed to what we’ve been getting from the Diva’s division is striking. This was not the usual bathroom break match that we usually get from the Diva’s division.
The crowd was on Brie at the beginning, chanting “Brie is awful!” and for a while she sat out of the action while the two NXT stars did the heavy lifting. She got back in it later and was able to contribute during the last few minutes. I was rooting for Banks, but Charlotte winning is fine. What I’m really looking forward to is how having she, Sasha, and Becky Lynch around is going to elevate the entire Diva’s division. The days of the glorified slap and kick fests that Diva’s matches have been may well be over.
John Cena vs Kevin Owens (US Title Match)
I was skeptical of this one going in because after two great matches in a row I figured that there was nowhere to go but down, but they pulled off another great one here. They came out just dropping bombs on each other from the jump and did not let up for the entire 22 minutes. Best match of the night, easy. Cena haters have their reason to complain with him winning and all, but too bad. Get over it. It’s not like you’ll give him any credit when he does eventually lose the US Title. Where do they go from here? One of them has a date ahead with Cesaro for sure. Maybe a three way dance at Summerslam, or a four way with Rusev involved.
Main Event: Seth Rollins vs Brock Lesnar (WWE World Title Match)
Going in, I figured there was something afoot here. Having a match like this on tap a month before Summerslam raised a caution flag with me; no way you do a title switch here. And having Brock job to Lesnar, even dirty, was out of the question. Suplex City was back and Rollins bumped all over the place for them. He did get a decent amount of offense in himself but Lesnar was dominating here. And then….the lights went out.
When they came back on, Rollins was gone and in his place was…..the Undertaker. ‘Taker gave Brock a good thrashing, tombstoning him twice. This match was too short. They didn’t even go ten minutes and on a show that had extra time to spare thanks to a match being cut there’s no reason for that. Lesnar and Reigns went for almost twice as long at WrestleMania. But the fans ate up ‘Taker coming back to beat down Lesnar so it did what it needed to do. So what happens here?
Is ‘Taker finally trying to avenge his only WrestleMania defeat or is he acting on behalf of the Authority? Neither makes a whole of sense to me. Getting heel heat on the Undertaker is damn near impossible at this point so the Authority doesn’t seem right. And for ‘Taker to be looking for revenge after a year a half? If you say so. Three way match for the title at Summerslam maybe? I guess we’ll find out on RAW.
Overall Grade
Good show overall. No bad matches really, although the main event being cut short irked me. The show was a setup for Summerslam, but that’s no big deal if you have the WWE Network. Which you should just go ahead and get already. $10 a month beats debating over whether or not you should shell out $50 for pay per view any day. If I’d paid $50 I would likely be upset after the way the show ended, even though it was a real mark out moment. But for $10 already paid? Good enough for me.
Stroke of Genius 