Elimination Match: Evolution vs. The Shield







This seems to be getting billed as the blowoff match between these two sides. Last month's match delivered. I'm less optimistic about the elimination stipulation, but yeah this will certainly have its good spots here and there at the least, and hopefully will be another really good match. Tend to think they peaked with this matchup last month though.

Last Man Standing: John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt







Matches between these two wrestlers suck. Last man standing matches suck. So yeah have fun with this one.

Daniel Bryan gets one last chance to voluntarily surrender the WWE Title



Stephanie McMahon has given Daniel Bryan an ultimatum: hand me the WWE Title or your wife gets fired. Seems to me like smart money is on him handing over the title and then Brie getting fired anyway.

Intercontinental Title: Bad News Barrett (c) vs. Rob Van Dam





RVD is no great shakes these days, but this is a fine first PPV defense for BNB since at least RVD is credible enough. Match will probably be firmly in the middle between "good" and "this is sux."

US Title: Sheamus (c) vs. Cesaro







This, to me, is a reasonably clear favorite for Match of the Night honors. Think this will be watchable at worst and could be excellent.

Divas Title: Paige (c) vs. Alicia Fox







They've given Alicia a painful amount of post-match time this month, but I still can't imagine they're giving her Paige's belt at this time.

Rusev vs. Big E







I'm not interested in this match, but it could be watchable.

Show probably won't be very good, but it could benefit from low expectations and deliver somewhere above those. There's enough potential kicking around on this card to possibly make that happen. Or maybe it will just suck.

Have extremely low expectations for this
Wyatt vs cena might be wmoty

Yeah, Wyatt vs. Cena is essentially a lock to be horrible. And to drag on for 15+ minutes while being horrible. Every other match on the card has at least a little bit of potential to surprise and not suck, but that one's gonna be brutal.

I don't think Wyatt and Cena is a lock to be horrible at all. Both those dudes can work. the buildup has been painful, and the cage match was dumb as hell, but in a vaccum there's no reason this can't be a good match. Obv there's a concern it will drag and/or be overbooked with Harper/Rowan and the Usos- but I'm holding out hope.

The buildup to the whole PPV has been lousy-but every match has the potential to be pretty good. The worst worker on the whole show is what, RVD? I don't like him, but that's not so bad.

Excited to see Rusev in what should be his first non-squash in WWE. Always excited to see Cesaro. Paige and Alicia Fox could be horrible and I'll probably still enjoy it for umm... reasons. Shield and Evolution will own.

The thing I fear worse is lots of Brie Bella and a bunch of annoying Punk chants.

I really wish a Harper/Rowan vs Usos (vs Rhodes brothers vs Rybaxel) match had been the pre-show, just because they need something to do and I wish they'd do it away from the Cena/Bray match.

haven't watched in the past month

did the play 60 kid make another appearance?

also have we established that there's no better surefire way to kill a potentially uberelite heel than cena?

Virtually no follow up on the kid. If he was mentioned at all after I don't recall. There's basically been zero evolution to the fued since Extreme Rules, save the Usos buddying up with Cena.

I don't think they've killed Bray, he's still pretty over at this point.

They're in that tier of workers who can do good-to-great stuff against a superior worker, but put them against workers of similar in-ring ability and the result is generally not good. And if you haven't experienced a last man standing match before, it's generally a bottom-rung style of gimmick match. I remember sort of enjoying one between Cena and Edge, but meh.

Batista.

In a sense, but he's pretty effective at doing what they'll need him to do in this match. RVD can't be as easily hidden.

Character wise a Last Man Standing match makes a lot of sense between Cena and Bray, it's just a total failure of the buildup that we're not looking forward to it. While it would be better if Cena wasn't an indestructible superhero, in theory a Last Man Standing (and yeah, I've seen at least one bad one, but can't recall what it was) match should play to Cena's strengths. I can buy both guys as being these forces of nature who it will take a ****load to put down.

I thought the biggest issues with their previous PPV matches were just the psychology. IN the Mania match they didn't really effectively pull off the "Will Cena go dark" bit, and the cage match was stupid as hell. Just in terms of guys working together and hitting moves on each other I think they've been solid. I think this setup hopefully forces them into something that's just about pounding on eachother and less about head games.

Well, hopefully you're right.

I'm still going with "Cena/Wyatt will suck" as my

I have no doubt that I will hate the match. All I'm really interested in is where they take Bray from here if this is the end of the angle. He has had lengthy feuds with the 2 biggest faces in the company and had a decent amount of time with the shield. It's going to be interesting to see how they attempt to keep his momentum going. He's basically a tweener at this point so I don't think he necessarily has to feud with a face but anything other than HHH or the belt just feels like a step backward. HHH is working with Roman so that's not going to happen even though I reckon they could do something really cool with Wyatts vs Evolution/Authority. Or maybe they will put the belt on him if they strip Bryan. I have no idea. Apparently Vince and HHH are his biggest fans so he will no doubt continue to be a major focus of the show, I just can't predict how.

here's the problem with the last man standing stipulation:

it's always going to be an overbooked abortion because there's literally 0% chance wyatt beats cena to the point where the ref is standing over cena, calling the match. it's never going to happen. i guess it kinda happened in cena/ryback but somehow cena didn't lose (still don't understand the rationale).

im guessing that cena has to win since this (hopefully) is the blowoff match. i also can't see wyatt being booked to just roll over and die, so you're basically guaranteed to see some horrible shenanigans here.

I just remembered about that dumb**** Cena/Batista LMS match and the way that it ended (with Cena tying Batista's boots together around the steel ringpost). God that was the worst.

But yeah they always do something over-the-top and ridiculous to finally end the match. The ending will never be satisfying.

The sad thing is that Cena has had two great matches with Luke Harper and has put up average performances with Bray.

I remember liking the first LMS with Mankind and the Rock, though I haven't seen it in awhile. Cena/Edge one was good, and the Shane-O-Mac/Big Show had a really memorable ending.

I'm sure there are a few others that have been decent, but I can remember more bad ones than good ones, especially recently. My expectations for this match are super-low.

Cena/Umaga was also decent, IIRC.

You nailed it with the awful stipulation and they couldn't even work a decent match at WM so I have expectations that it will be the worst on the card even if Paige wins after one move.

This might be a lock for worst finish to a gimmick match, ever. The ultimate PG garbage.
Well above decent but with a pretty meh finish.

That's the one with Mankind cuffed and taking all the chairshots, right? (or was that an I Quit?)

Can't really do that match again in a world that recognizes the danger of concussions and has to be PG13.

Match ruled a no contest because Cena couldn't continue says hi

In, haven't watched in a while. Card seems so-so.

Was the cena ryback ending scripted or was cena legit hurt?

You know the sad part?

If Bryan wasn't hurt and we'd had to deal with another month of Kane/Brie horror angles and a burried alive match or something, it would be like... worse.

I rewatching Bryan/HHH yesterday waiting for NXT Takeover to be available and realized that the biggest mistake that isn't really a mistake because the result was kidna awesome but still maybe hurt was moving HHH away from Bryan.

While Steph's been great, HHH's mic work added to much to the feud. Even if they still kept HHH in Evolution and the feud with Shield he still should have been sharing the stage with Steph.

Chances one of the Shield joins Evolution? Part of me thinks it could happen, but then again, why would they throw it away on a minor PPV? I think I might be grasping at straws.

This show will probably suck. Won't be watching.

Dids, according to Meltzer and dirtsheets we're going to be living with a Buried Alive match at whatever ppv Bryan comes back for.