Reviewing the Review: Battleground 2015

This is going to be an interesting one as I was up late watching Battleground and had to leave to get on a plane about half an hour after the show ended. I saw the whole show, but I had a lot on my mind at the time. Now that I’ve had some time to think about the show, my opinions on if have shifted a bit. Let’s get to it.

Starting on the pre-show, King Barrett retained the Crown against R-Truth. Oh sweet goodness I hated this feud, I hated this match and I hated how Barrett was treated during the whole thing. Yeah Barrett won, but that’s like giving someone a sticker for not getting arrested this week: it’s exactly what he was supposed to do and not something he really should be praised for doing. I don’t know what WWE’s obsession is with treating Barrett like a joke but I’m hoping (yet again) that they’ll treat him seriously this time around.

Randy Orton vs. Sheamus was interesting, which goes against the main thing holding it back: the match didn’t change anything. Orton won, but would it really have been different if Sheamus won? No one has anything to lose and Orton is just kind of floating with nothing to do. I don’t want to see these two fight again because it’s not that interesting. Both guys were fine in the ring and the match was a good choice for an opener with the hometown boy winning, but there was nothing important here.

However, there is something interesting about how the match was worked. They definitely picked up the pace in the second half, but it felt like a long TV match minus the commercial instead of a pay per view match. It’s very telling that they’re basically working pay per view style matches on TV today, which takes away from something like this. You can see that they rarely change from the same formula, and that’s something that makes pay per views feel a lot less special. Anyway, good match but nothing I’m ever going to think of again.

After a recap of Stephanie’s awesomeness, Stephanie made a triple threat between a member of each Divas trio later. I’ve ranted enough about Stephanie hijacking this story to stroke her own ego, but can we at least make it clear if she’s a face or a heel? She associates with the heel, but does face things when she’s on her own and we’re just supposed to accept it because this is the REAL Stephanie as opposed to the Authority Stephanie. Or do I have that backwards?

The Prime Time Players beat New Day to retain the Tag Team Titles in another Raw match. The only thing of note here was Xavier Woods being an obnoxious jerk during the match, making him more entertaining than he had ever been. The Players are fine as champions, but New Day has the potential to be one of those long running acts in the midcard that stays entertaining with or without ever doing much. That’s a good thing, and given that the oldest member is Kofi at 33, it’s not like they have to rush anything. Let these guys grow into something special instead of just breaking them up after a few months.

Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns beat each other up for a long time until Luke Harper reunited with Wyatt to give him the win. This was the old school HIT EACH OTHER REALLY HARD style and these two nailed it as you kind of knew they would. It seems like we’re heading for a showdown with the Wyatts vs. Ambrose/Reigns, which is probably the best idea all around. Wyatt has been floating for a bit so putting him back with the guy that helped make him the biggest he’s ever been is a good idea.

Sasha Banks, Charlotte had a good match with Brie Bella in there too. The idea here was to let the two newcomers show off but they have to make it a three way to play up the three way feud that Stephanie has graced us with. They did a good job of keeping Brie away from the action and that’s the right move here as Brie just can’t keep up with these two. However, the stuff she did was acceptable as they kept it in small doses. There’s nothing wrong with that as Brie isn’t great in the ring, but she’s certainly passable and that’s a much better result than some of the disasters the Divas have had before.

This was meant to be a big showcase and it didn’t get there, but it was certainly good, which is a step in the right direction. Once we can get past praising Stephanie for setting this up and giving them a fighting chance to get the title off Nikki, things could pick up. I dig the idea though and they worked the match the best way they could have, which gives me a lot of hope for the future.

Oh and screw Cole’s “TEAM BELLA IS MORTAL!” line when Brie tapped out. They’re the Bellas, not Moolah in the 80s. Then they’re faces on Raw because……well because they’re the Bellas.

Now we get to the big match of the night as John Cena defended the US Title against Kevin Owens in their rubber match. This is the most controversial match of the show and while I started absolutely hating it, the more I think about it, and after I heard Owens’ promo on Smackdown this week, the more I can live with it. Yes Owens tapped out, but as he said on Smackdown, it’s his nature to live to fight another day. It came off more as Owens saying it’s not worth it anymore so he’ll just fight Cena again later.

However, the tap out came after Owens survived every single thing Cena threw at him, including the super AA, which, as far as I can remember, no one has ever kicked out of before. I would have gone the other way with it: Owens survives the STF and then goes down to the super AA, putting him on a short list of Cena opponents.

At the end of the day though, Owens debuted about two months ago, went 1-2 against Cena in three classics, and is going to have an awesome match against Cesaro at Summerslam. That’s quite the debut, but as usual I think it’s a case of people (myself included) wanting someone to go straight to the top after they did the same in NXT. I loved what Owens did and while I would have loved to see him take the title, I understand why they went the way they did.

Big Show punched Miz out because Ryback has a staph infection. There wasn’t much else they could do here.

Finally we had Brock Lesnar challenging Seth Rollins for the World Title. Much like the opener, this was basically a Raw match with Brock beating him up for nine minutes and then Undertaker showing up to get his revenge on Brock for breaking the Streak a year and a half ago. Keeping the title on Rollins makes sense here, but I really didn’t like how they made him look like an afterthought. That’s the World Heavyweight Champion, not Santino. Treat both him and the title with the respect they deserve. On top of all that though, it looked like they were trying to make Undertaker heel, and if that’s the case they’re stupider than I thought.

Overall, Battleground exceeded some very low expectations and kept up the WWE’s streak of having good pay per views. There was nothing that blew me away, but the show as a whole was entertaining enough and the whole show was more than acceptable. Now we get to go to Summerslam though, where things can get really big for a change.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of NXT Reviews: The Full Sail Years Volume I at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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