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| Reigns is not a good friend this week Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Becky Lynch was on guest commentary during Sasha Banks and Charlotte's match, and after Banks won, Lynch immediately leapt into the fray and attacked both of her upcoming WrestleMania opponents. It was pretty formulaic as far as pre-title match WWE behaviour, but I'm disappointed that they decided to have Lynch behave like everyone else rather than sticking with her “do the right thing” character. I can buy her realizing that being nice hasn't gotten her anywhere, but that still wouldn't lead her to a completely unprovoked attack. Heroes, WWE. It's okay to have them! I did enjoy the match, but I wish WWE had continued to keep these three apart until WrestleMania, letting them build the story but not actually wrestle.
Friendship Business As Usual – The League of Nations and the New Day
I mean, what else can I say about these two teams? They had yet another singles match in preparation for their WrestleMania match. I guess the match was notable because Sheamus actually got a win for the League, but other than that nothing changed. I don't know, I feel like these constant run-ins are actively killing any buzz that the WrestleMania match might have been able to have. This feud was never based on anything to begin with, and the endless string of matches (usually with New Day coming out on top) haven't done much to build interest. I feel bad because I genuinely enjoy both of these teams, but with seeing them so often, I almost have friendship fatigue.
Worst Friends – The Usos
One of my biggest wrestling pet peeves is when wrestlers who are supposedly good guys use someone wholly unrelated to their current feud to “send a message.” That's exactly what the Usos did on Smackdown, where after their quick victory over the Ascension they added injury to injury by putting Konnor and Viktor through tables as well, while the Dudleys watched from backstage. I don't even like the Ascension, but it really bothered me. They came out, wrestled, and lost. They did absolutely nothing to provoke the post-match attack. What the hell did it even accomplish? Letting us know that the Usos are willing to use tables on helpless bystanders even though the Dudleys won't? Ugh, it's just such shitty behaviour from people we are supposed to cheer for.
Wisest Friend – The Miz
I was all set to type out a thing about how there's no way the Miz should have teamed up with Kevin Owens again after what happened last time.. .and then the Miz remembered what happened last time and took Owens to task for it. Continuity! Sometimes it's a thing! Owens did indeed try to bail on Miz AGAIN during their match against Sami Zayn and Dolph Ziggler, but he was tossed back into the ring by the three non-essential participants in the upcoming WrestleMania ladder match. Much as I love Kevin Owens, I do like him having to atone for his shittiness sometimes. As for the Miz, he still got pinned for his efforts, but I liked him at least getting a little revenge on his erstwhile tag partner. And I'm really glad that he's getting to be a key player in this story.
Being A Terrible Person Apparently Runs in the Family – Roman Reigns
I thought the Bubba Ray Dudley/Roman Reigns match was going to be based on Reigns defending the Usos, which would have been weird because the Usos were totally fine but at least would have given some sort of reason for the match. Hilariously (to me, because I probably pay more attention to Reigns' casual acquisition and disregard of family members more than most people), Reigns was just mad because Bubba Ray was “running his mouth” just like Triple H and that tenuous connection was enough to set up a match.
Not so hilariously, Reigns proceeded to get himself disqualified for unnecessary roughness, and when D-Von ran out to help his brother – without having interfered in the match beforehand, literally just to stop the assault – Reigns flattened him, too. All to, you guessed it, “send a message” to Triple H that play time is over or some shit. Where is Bo Dallas to inspire us all to be better than this?
Deserves More Friends – Tyler Breeze
Tyler Breeze showed up for a match against AJ Styles and while it was the last match of the show, it wasn't the main event. What scant time the two men got was great, and I would dearly loved to have seen them tear it up. The match was even worth listening to Jerry Lawler outright mocking Mauro Ranallo for daring to know the names of wrestling maneuvers and calling them, in other words DOING HIS DAMN JOB. Tyler Breeze's downward trajectory has been an absolute tragedy, but, hey, it's not everyone who gets a match against Styles, who's a pretty hot commodity right now, so...yay?
What was the main event? Well, instead of getting to see more of Styles versus Breeze, we got 20 minutes of Paul Heyman babbling (I briefly paid attention when he started talking about Lesnar wrapping his strong arms around dudes and pivoting his hips, but alas, he wasn't just reading out fanfic in the ring) and Brock Lesnar looking mildly interested in his surroundings. Lol j/k, he clearly could not give less of a fuck, but for some reason I'm supposed to. And then some suplexing occurred when the Wyatts popped by to try and trick me once again into thinking that they'll be of some lasting importance. Fool me several times, WWE, shame on me.
However, I am going to go ahead and pretend that Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt worked out their interruptions together in a combined effort to bring down Lesnar because they are now secretly best friends. No one can take this dream away from me.