I don’t think I fully appreciated Night 1 until I saw Night 2. It was, in my opinion, a night of some baffling storytelling choices on the part of the WWE. Take the first match: Randy Orton vs. The Fiend. This guy comes back from the dead out of a huge ringside jack-in-the-box only to lose to Randy Orton. Alexa Bliss crown-of-thornsed her way out of the top of the box and distracted The Fiend in the middle of executing the Sister Abigail. At first, I was totally there for this twist. I wanted creepy witch-goddess Alexa Bliss to reveal that The Fiend was under her control now and she’d double crossed him or some such nonsense. But she just sat their bleeding that weird oil-blood and reaching out towards The Fiend until the lights came back on. I know better than to trust the WWE to explain storylines, but I got the sense that the crowd agreed with me: we all wanted to know what the hell was going on. Will we get an explanation on Raw? I mean, probably not, but what a missed opportunity!
Next we had Tamina and Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax. Even though I was excited for Tamina and Natalya, the match felt a little slow and lackluster to me. I was pretty impressed with Natalya’s wrestling, though. I haven’t really seen her a lot and she was good! Perhaps it wasn’t that strange to have Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler retain the Tag Team titles, but I still found it a slightly odd choice. They seemed to be setting Natalya and Tamina up with some momentum after the first night, so it was a bit disappointing to watch them lose. Also, though I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the way Reginald sucks up the air in some of the women’s storylines, where was he? His absence was strange considering the whole Nia Jax boytoy angle. Overall, in a night with two women’s matches, I was kinda disappointed this was one of them. I’d rather see Bayley wrestle any day.
Next up were those lovable Canadian scamps: Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Now, I’m a huge Sami Zayn fan. I love his work on the mic, and damn the man can dance. However, as Sami Zayn has moved away from the whole cowardly heel schtick into the delusional conspiracy theorist schtick, I think his story has gotten just a tad uncomfortable. Now Zayn is playing the character almost as a paranoid schizophrenic, and his friend Kevin Owens wants to beat the delusion out of him? I’m not sure that’s going to work, dude. To me it reads as rather cruel. The shenanigans with Logan Paul at the end of the match revealed that the WWE is at least a little confused about where and how audience sympathies are to be directed. The audience was rightfully pissed as Logan Paul and Owens seemed to gang up on Sami Zayn despite Zayn’s obnoxious heel work, but at least the WWE knew enough to have Owens stun Logan Paul.
Riddle and Sheamus had a good match, though I don’t think much of this storyline. It felt like they didn’t have much for Sheamus to do after his feud with Drew McIntyre, so they threw up their hands, decided they’d have him beat Riddle with a scooter backstage, and voila, Wrestlemania United States Championship match. (Btw, I am the only one who doesn’t understand how we’re supposed to believe these matches are being booked? What is the kayfabe logic here? Who can get a Wrestlemania match? Why? Most importantly, why not Bayley?). I usually don’t see slip-ups, but I think it was pretty obvious that Sheamus messed up a spot where he was supposed to go to the top rope with Riddle on his back. He carried it off pretty well, though, and I’m glad nobody got hurt.
Okay, so what is a Nigerian Drum Fight? I still don’t know, and I was a little underwhelmed both by the explanation and by the set dressing around the ring. I have so many thoughts about how they’ve rebooted Apollo Crews’s character. It seems crazy to have him show up with an assumed Nigerian accent one day and claim “this is how I talk” when it clearly isn’t. I also worry that WWE is once again drawing on xenophobic tropes to inform their portrayal of a particular heel without really interrogating where those tropes come from and why they might be problematic. But, aside from that, the match was okay. Another super baffling ending though. Why have Big E lose in his hometown to interference by a random dude we’ve never seen before?
I don’t have much to say about Rhea Ripley and Asuka. I like them both and I thought the match was great. Since I’m a real Asuka fan, I was sad to see that she lost the title, but I get it. It felt a little premature to me since I don’t watch NXT very much and I don’t feel like I know Rhea Ripley well, but she’s got a great look and she’s clearly a great wrestler. Which brings us to…BAYLEY. “HIT MY PYRO” iconic. What. A. Legend. Okay, okay, I’m clearly biased. I was glad to see they gave Bayley something to do, but they clearly still did my girl dirty, and I really hope she gets a real match really soon. Love her glasses, turtlenecks, and overall weird-ass talkshow host vibe. Heel Bayley forever!!!!!
And then we came to the end…Daniel Bryan, Edge, and Roman Reigns. I have a question, WWE: When will this Roman Reigns storyline end? What will the payoff be? Is “main event” Jey Uso finally going to be the one to take him down? Can Jey Uso carry that? If not Jey Uso, who? I get that people are excited by Roman Reign’s heel work, and I do think he’s got a good look. However, I have no idea where this story is going. Though I haven’t been watching for very long, it seems to me that all too often, the WWE spends lots of time setting up stories and characters only to whiff on the payoff and immediately forget about them. I love spectacle. I love story. I love pageantry and the sheer audacity of the unabashedly ridiculous aesthetic the WWE manages so well. However, with just a little more planning, it could be better.
Ah well. I’m going to keep watching, and I hope you’re going to keep reading. Until next time!
Ashley Paige 