WWE Battleground 2014 Review

A show that didn’t live up to expectations, but then they booked themselves into a corner here. Most of these matches are SummerSlam matches that were booked a month too early and so they had to come up with screwy finishes or no shows in order to keep the status quo for August 17^th.

Naomi vs. Cameron

Disappointing. Both Divas have new looks, Cameron has new music and boy is it now clear that her blonde hair really lifted her look. The finish was poor and the match was nothing, when Cameron grabbed the tights for a school girl win. They didn’t work together well at all. Probably the worst match on the show. This needs work on the house shows over the next month and then they should give this another shot at SummerSlam

The Usos vs. The Wyatt Family 2-out-of-3 Falls match for Tag Team Championships

After two nothing falls this BURST into life. What was the purpose of the first two falls? I really don’t know. The first two falls went a little under eight minutes total and were both soft pins for both sides. The two early finishes made the last fall look stupid – they both got pinned by moves that all of a sudden they were able to kick out of later on?

Great spot when Jey superkicked Harper from outside, leading him to eat a splash from Jimmy. The dives were great, it was creative and both teams ended up looking strong. The double suplex off the top rope was a ‘this is awesome’ moment and worthily so and the stereo splashes to finish the match was a welcome end to this feud. I’m keen to know where they go next.

Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

Hmmm. Odd. Why take this off the show? They couldn’t come up with a finish that they were happy with? So, don’t book the match.

Neither of them wrestled on this show. Surely, that’s a negative here? The brawl (sans the car lot stuff) is Raw-worthy, not ppv. Instead of watching these two wrestling something that could have been absolutely tremendous, we had to sit through Adam Rose and Fandango? Makes me angry.

Paige vs. AJ Lee for the Divas Championship

Paige tried the Big E Langston tackle through the ropes and kind of just stopped and they half tumbled through the ropes instead. It looked like a botched spot at an indie show and the crowd grew less and less into this. There was also a sunset flip off the top rope by Paige that made AJ land on her head and it just looked like it really sucked. More’s to boot, after every spot, Paige would stop and shout fake encouragement, saying, ‘come on AJ!’ which just got tiresome. This didn’t come across well and the crowd weren’t in it and nothing in this match really ever looked right.

The shining wizard finish didn’t look right, either. The layout of the match was fine and could have been a good match as I had hoped and predicted it would be, but the lack of execution on so many spots, coupled with the lack of crowd reaction just left this one as a fairly damp squib, unfortunately.

Rusev vs. Jack Swagger

I was hot for this match and they’ve since had some mainstream pub for Lana’s implied comments about the Malaysian Airlines incident. The crowd weren’t into this, though, unfortunately. I wish it had happened in front of that Virginia crowd from Monday. When Lana was talking, there was far less reaction than I would have expected.

The patriot lock spots were good and Rusev is great at selling the submission hold. I’m glad that they put over the hold but kept Rusev strong for the finish, crawling in for the 10 count so that Swagger could get counted out. I wanted this to spill over into SummerSlam and given the current political climate, this is entirely appropriate and ought to get high billing in August. I think they need to go hardcore with this, but they won’t, unfortunately.

Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt

The finish came out of nowhere and, again, this was odd. I guess though, after the screwy finish in the Rusev match and after Rollins and Ambrose didn’t wrestle, you sort of had to do a pinfall in this match – I just never thought it would be Jericho.

So, Wyatt can beat Cena at WrestleMania but can’t beat the part-time 43 year old Chris Jericho? Made no sense to beat Wyatt here. They ought to have used Harper and Rowan (who had been sent to the back) in order to get the DQ so that a SummerSlam rematch was set up. Its obvious booking, but I have to say that this made no real sense.

Ultimately, the match never quite clicked. They never really synched up. There was some good stuff but nobody thought that codebreaker was the finish. Bray Wyatt's left eye looked really bad – it looks worse than it did on Monday, how does that work? And has anyone else ever wondered what the hell is wrong with that weird red tat on Bray’s left arm? It looks like someone has swiped a paintbrush across his arm and forgotten to wipe it off.

Battleground Battle Royale for the Intercontinental Championship

They’d tread water so much earlier and yet they were able still able to give all the guys entrance music burst – yet, oddy, no RVD, not that it matters hugely. Zack Ryder still exists. Wade Barratt looks thin and unwell. He’s claiming to be back to take on the IC champ, but by the time he’s back, it’ll have changed hands 5 times.

There was some awful camera work where they showed Miz hiding outside the ring on the floor and they weren’t supposed to. They also did that thing where if a guy would throw someone out, they would be the next person out. Surely in 2014, we’re beyond this in WWE?

The odds had Cesaro as favourite all week until late Saturday when Miz fell from 13/1 right down to 5/6 within 12 hours.

No Heyman with Cesaro? We’ll see tomorrow night what this means. Brock’s back – maybe they’ll just forget about Heyman ever being with Cesaro?

The Kofi spot was great and the Cesaro stuff with him was good fun, if not completely illogical. They seemed to get lost at some stage throughout this mini feud in this match, with Cesaro at some point pulling Kofi’s hair in order to stay in the match. Cesaro ultimately getting eliminated by Heath Slater has to lead to an amusing squash on Monday.

I wonder what they do with Bo Dallas now?

Miz winning leads us to wonder whether they will unite the titles once and for all at SummerSlam. Questions are: what would they call it? Is Dolph Ziggler involved?

John Cena vs. Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton vs. Kane for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

In the end, this was a good match, with lots of near falls and saves. Fans even did a ‘this is awesome’ chant at one point. It was all built around Cena vs. Reigns, but every time they'd get there Kane or Orton would break it up. They finally did a trading of punches and big moves. Reigns seemed to spear everyone constantly but it was always broken up. He also did his running kick on the floor to everyone. The big spot was Reigns spearing Orton through the barricade. Match wasn't smooth in spots and, like Jericho and Wyatt, was just missing something here.

They really wrestled in the spirit of the match (fatal four way), working tornado tag style early on but they kept everything in the ring with lots of saves and ruined pins by everyone. Better camera work allowed this to happen.

They made this all about Kane and Randy being at each other and Cena and Reigns being equals who were neck and neck throughout. If you didn’t know better, you’d really assume that Cena and Reigns were doing the main event at SummerSlam. What they do now, as a result, will be interesting.