Reviewing the Review: Fast Lane 2015
So with this show, we had a meaningless show with a main event that no one wanted to see and a bunch of matches in the midcard that are there to set up future rematches, and it’s all free on the WWE Network, making it harder for me to complain about it? What a confusing show I’ve wondered into. Let’s get to it.
The pre-show segment was an interview instead of a match, because somehow the roster is thin enough that they have to have a talking segment on the pay per view and no match to warm the crowd up. Heyman was a bit weak as he said whoever wins between Bryan and Reigns will be the ultimate loser, but he got the point across well enough. The entertaining part though was Mizdow standing up to Miz for a few seconds when Miz told him to face the corner. This is a slow burn, but it would have been a lot better if they had just let Mizdow win a few more matches before the showdown. This was storyline development and that’s fine.
On a side note, why do we need a car themed show? We’ve already had Over the Limit which went nowhere. What is this obsession with cars? Did Thruman Sparky Plugg start a cult to get revenge for being named Thurman?
The Authority beat Ziggler/Ryback/Rowan with Big Show knocking Ziggler out cold to give Kane the pin. This booking has gone beyond the idea of coincidence and has reached the point of WHAT ARE THEY THINKING. Rollins isn’t even involved in the pin and you have to give the loss to Ziggler instead of the already destroyed Rowan? I get the idea that guys like Ziggler are so over that they stay hot despite these losses, but there comes a point where he stops being over and starts being a loser.
On top of that, we still have Kane and Big Show being treated like the second coming of the Mega Powers where no one can ever make them look bad whatsoever, but in this case we’ve seen the match for fifteen years and I still haven’t seen them entertain me. There’s a place for those two on the roster but it’s putting people over in the midcard, not hogging near main event spots and even winning matches there.
You build up monsters to have someone beat them. That’s exactly what happened, but then the monsters just stick around instead of going away for awhile. For some reason, these things just keep happening over and over and it stopped being interesting twelve years ago. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but somehow it’s reality.
That being said, at least the match was entertaining enough. It makes sense for them to have this match down as they’ve done variations of it on Raw and Smackdown for months now, because THIS STORY WILL NOT END. I know I’ve harped on this for months, but my goodness it’s been going on for months on end now with no ending in sight. Stop tormenting the guys for their Survivor Series actions and move on to ANYTHING else.
Orton ran out post match and cleaned house. It’s about time, especially considering he was crazed enough to stand in the back for fifteen minutes before attacking his hated enemy.
Goldust and Dusty Rhodes had a great exchange with Goldust saying he had to beat Stardust so badly that it brought him back to reality as Cody. Dusty didn’t want it to be that bad but Goldust said there was no other way. As usual, the old guys can talk better than almost anyone today.
However, the match was a pretty bad opposite. The idea was neither guy wanted to do this, but that doesn’t make sense. Goldust may not want to do this but he said he had to, and Stardust has shown no issue with attacking his brother over the last few weeks. It made the whole match feel way off and didn’t accomplish anything they were shooting for. Either have them fight or don’t set up the story so they should be fighting. Goldust won with a crucifix on what looked to be a botched finish. Stardust attacked his brother in the back after the match and blamed Dusty for their issues.
We got a package on Jon Stewart vs. Seth Rollins. See, THIS is a good celebrity appearance. It’s so annoying seeing C and D list celebrities shoved into the shows to try and make WWE look important. That idea stops working when you have to remind us who the celebrity is and why they’re famous. Stewart is one of the top stars in TV today and has a huge following. It makes for some interesting TV, but the timing isn’t great as Wrestlemania is coming up soon. That being said, you can’t really wait when something like this happens, even though WWE likes to drag their feet for months at a time.
Cesaro and Tyson Kidd won the Tag Team Titles from the Usos in a good match that we’ve seen far too many times before. I’m happy with the results though as the Usos can win the belts back whenever and don’t need to change anything about their act. Kidd and Cesaro have worked hard over the last year and more than deserve some recognition.
HHH called out Sting and gave one heck of a promo, walking around Sting and talking about how this is about WCW vs. WWE. I get the idea behind it, but HHH saying he was one of the main reasons WWE won the Monday Night Wars is pretty laughable. That being said, there’s a much bigger issue for WWE here. What are they supposed to do at Wrestlemania? I can’t imagine the WCW guy winning the match, but how in the world do you bring in Sting and have him lose? Doesn’t that defeat the entire point of having him show up? However, the ball bat vs. the sledgehammer was perfect and got a big smile from me.
Paige lost to Nikki Bella in the Divas Title match. This was about what I expected with Nikki grabbing the trunks to retain the title. I know the big idea right now is GIVE DIVAS A CHANCE, but they had five and a half minutes here and I really don’t want to give them much more of a chance after this. The Bellas just aren’t that good in the ring but they’re the focus of the division because of Total Divas. Granted the lack of any interesting story here didn’t help them and Paige having as good of a chance as a snowman on Miami Beach made it even worse.
Bad News Barrett retained the Intercontinental Title via DQ when Ambrose stomped him a lot. The champ spent the entire match trying to run away, which felt WAY out of character for him. Granted it’s also out of character for him to win a match but that’s another story. This really didn’t help either guy as Dean blows what should be another layup and Barrett gets to look like a lame coward all over again. But hey, maybe they can have a rematch and make both guys look awful one more time, just on a bigger stage.
Bray Wyatt came out to Undertaker’s entrance, popped out of a coffin, and challenged Undertaker like everyone knew he would. They had to do this at some point and if they can kill off more time on a bad PPV, so be it.
Cena and Rusev had the match everyone thought they would have with Lana offering a distraction so Rusev could kick Cena low and make him pass out in the Accolade. If there’s one thing Cena can do well (and there are a lot more than that), it’s have the heavyweight slugfest. They did a good job of not having Cena hit the AA until the end, which made the impact a lot stronger. That and we didn’t have to see Rusev kick out of it three or four times as is the custom for Cena matches. Again this was to set up a rematch and there’s nothing wrong with that for the most part. If nothing else, it means looking at Lana some more.
Roman Reigns pinned Daniel Bryan clean in the main event with a spear. This was the match that they needed to have as Reigns goes over the only other person people wanted to see face Lesnar clean, basically giving him the big endorsement. Yeah people wanted to see Bryan, but Reigns hanging in there for nearly twenty minutes, kicking out of the running knee and getting the pin helped him quite a bit. It made him look like a warrior instead of someone being handed the spot and that’s exactly what he needed. At the end of the day, fans will always respond to good wrestling and that’s exactly what they got here.
Unfortunately, the last two matches being good to very good didn’t validate this show’s existence. No matter what they threw out there, this show didn’t need to happen. They would have been better off just setting up a nine week Wrestlemania build and doing these matches along the way to California. It’s a good enough show to pass, but there’s no need for it to be taking place and that outweighs whatever good wrestling they had on the show.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Saturday Night’s Main Event at Amazon for just $3.99 at:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SATPVKW
And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:
This should’ve been a SNME instead of a PPV
“but there comes a point where he(Ziggler) stops being over and starts being a loser”
STARTS being a loser? He’s already a loser. Talk about wasted potential after Survivor Series this could go down as one of WWE’s biggest screwups of all time.
If you notice, he’s doing some stuff differently, including the Flying Goat. It’s more of a shove now with no head collision.
The thing with a concussion is each time you get one, it makes it easier to get another one. When you start racking them up, you get them more and more often. With the neck, it could be good for a long time, but there’s really no way of guaranteeing that it’s going to hold up through the next match.
I think you and this “Larry” (I wonder who that could be…) may have to just agree to disagree on this issue. I think what “Larry” was trying to get across was that most injuries as severe as the neck injury has that consequence of the injured body part not being able to ever fully recover. In most other physical sports this would be treated as either the injured person would be made to recover to a state where they can actually compete with confidence no matter what the opposition, or be forced to retire. You’re not going to see a pitcher come back from shoulder surgery and be medically cleared to throw, only to play every game except against San Francisco. They’d play every game, or stay out injured.
“Larry” isn’t going to be convinced by the second paragraph either. You can replace the words “concussion” and “neck” with tons of stuff and it will still hold true.
i.e. “The thing with a neck/shoulder/finger/knee/ankle/groin/back/concussion injuries is each time you get one, it makes it easier to get another one. When you start racking them up, you get them more and more often. With the neck/shoulder/finger/knee/ankle/groin/back/concussion, it could be good for a long time, but there’s really no way of guaranteeing that it’s going to hold up through the next match.”
You wanted Orton v Lesnar, didn’t you? Think of how many shoulder issues Randy’s had over the years and how easily that thing would pop out after taking one German with slightly too much weight on one side, hell, Roman Reigns hasn’t taken that many bumps on his bad back since he came back has he? Certainly not as many as he’ll take in the Lesnar match.
You and Mr “Larry” have differing philosophies regarding injuries that’s all.
Triple h wasn’t even the fourth reason wwe won the Monday night war. Good recap kb though I don’t agree about reigns he’s still not ready and having everybody ensorse him isn’t going to make it so. He had a good match yes but who doesn’t with Bryan? In fact here’s a crazy idea why not just use Bryan?
I say the following not in defense of Reigns.
The main reason I think they aren’t going with Bryan is his neck. I more than understand not wanting to risk him out there as the top guy when his neck could go at any moment.
Because of this, are they afraid his neck will not hold up to scratch in a physical match? If that’s the case then surely they shouldn’t have had him return until after Wrestlemania, to both get the neck to its optimal health and so he doesn’t take all the heat away from the Reigns monster push right?
If you can wrestle a match after returning, you should be able to wrestle a match against any opponent, that’s why I think the Bryan neck excuse isn’t valid.
That’s REALLY oversimplifying it. His neck could be fine one night and then mess up soon after that. Just because it’s fine one night doesn’t mean a single bump won’t knock it back out of whack.
That’s the exact same reason why people with concussion problems like Corey Graves have to retire from wrestling, so I’m just asking why it would be different when it’s Daniel Bryan’s neck, since according to the “he might get injured again” line he may as well just retire from wrestling if it’s actually that much of an issue. It’s even the same kinds of shots that would trigger something bad happening.
“I say the following not in defense of Reigns.
The main reason I think they aren’t going with Bryan is his neck. I more than understand not wanting to risk him out there as the top guy when his neck could go at any moment.”
interesting but two things
1. This company has never cared about injuries despite what they say.
2. Steve Austin wrestled with a neck made of paper clips for years.
This is nothing more than McMahon thinking he knows better, and well in the past he’s been right. He’s not exactly batting a thousand these days.
1. I’m not saying they’re worried about Bryan. I’m saying they’re worried about what happens to them if he goes down again.
2. Austin is a bit different case than Bryan for a few reasons.
1.I suppose you could make that argument.
Would you willing to say this whole Reigns thing is a enormous mistake? Not that Reigns is a bad wrestler or doesn’t have promise. Rather that trying to tell your fans what to like rather than listening to them is a bad idea?
This mode of everyone being sacrificed to make Reigns is clearly not working.
Is it that important to be Vince to be right that he would sacrifice money? That he would allow there to be 70 thousand people booing or worse not reacting to this supposed new Cena? Make no mistake that’s what the company is going for with Reigns.
Not enormous no. I will however say they’ve done just about everything wrong in this story that they could do while still having a coherent goal in mind. You’re right on the fans not wanting to cheer Reigns. He’s clearly been the chosen one whether the interest is there or not.
I don’t think the fans are going to boo him in unison. I’m worried they’re going to be indifferent, which is the worst thing you can be to a big name.
One disagreement I have with you. While Triple H has many flaws, to say it is laughable that he was a main reason wwf won the Monday night war is not that ridiculous. He led the hottest group in some very well done segments and matches over the entire point of the war when WWF turned the tide. He then was the topo heel in the company over wcws last year and a half. I mean he was never the top guy during that point but to not give him any credit seems like blind Triple H hate to me. If not him who obviously Rock and Austin were the top guys but those two were far from the only reasons for WWF’s success during that period. Give credit where credit is due.
When you have Austin, Rock and McMahon around, HHH is a stretch. By the time he got to the top in early 2000, the war was all but over already.