 By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Natalya def. Summer Rae It's a shame Natalya wasn't contending for the WWE Women's Championship at an earlier time because I really would have liked to see her with a title again. It would have been logical to have her win Sunday's Submission match at Extreme Rules had Charlotte not been in the midst of a long reign as champ heading into SummerSlam. At any rate, she and Summer contested a solid match here and it was nice to see Summer showcase her skills a bit while on offense. Natalya emerged victorious as she should have, but Summer at least looked good in defeat. Zack Ryder def. Viktor As I've expressed before, Ryder is perfect in the ultimate underdog role. Sami Zayn plays a similar character, of course, but Ryder is a bit different because he has had to fight his way up the card over the years. That said, I wish he was more prominently featured on programming because he definitely has the fan following. Viktor bores me to tears whenever he's in the ring, more so on his own than when he was with Konnor, but Ryder increased my interest in this match and made it bearable.
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 Cesaro locks in the Sharpshooter on The Miz. By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Alberto Del Rio Staked Their Claim at Winning Money in the Bank We'll be seeing segments like this one in the weeks leading up to Money in the Bank with the Ladder match participants talking about why they're going to win, so I'm surprised they gave one away so early. I suppose it was WWE's way of getting these guys on the show, but on the bright side, everyone played their role well and I'll never complain about hearing from Owens on the mic. I specifically enjoyed his verbal exchange with Zayn and I'm glad their feud is still at full force heading into the event. Del Rio's involvement at the end basically gave away the outcome of the next match, but at least Zayn talked up Zack Ryder as a potential threat by bringing up his WrestleMania upset victory. Alberto Del Rio def. Zack Ryder in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match Del Rio and Ryder worked well together and I was happy Ryder scored as much offense as he did (going so far as to hit his finisher on Del Rio before he rolled out of the ring), but again, the ending outcome was never in doubt after what we saw in the opening segment. I know Del Rio is a former Mr. Money in the Bank and world champion, but honestly, I would have rather seen Ryder appear in the Ladder match over Del Rio. At least he has attempted to rejuvenate his character recently, which is more than what can be said for Del Rio at the moment.  By Graham "GSM" Matthews and RJ Marceau
With all the excitement surrounding the impending return of the WWE Draft, RJ Marceau and I thought it was only appropriate to hold a draft of our own using the current WWE roster and wasted no time in doing so. The rules were as follows: each of us could select up to 20 Superstars with a minimum of two tag teams and two women. Each tandem, although they could consist of two to three people, counted as one pick. Every active/signed NXT talent wa eligible as well. Afterward, we created our own pay-per-view card using the talent we selected. The only rules were that every individual must be used in some form or fashion and multi-person matches were fine but only one special stipulation match (i.e. Last Man Standing) was allowed. Voice your feedback on which was better in the comments down below, or by tweeting us on Twitter at the links provided in the byline. With RJ taking SmackDown and myself taking Raw, here were the results.  By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Chris Jericho def. Rene Dupree Jericho was hot as a babyface coming out of his official turn at WrestleMania 20, so I'm surprised more wasn't done with him that year. There was no way he was going to go after the World Heavyweight Championship on Raw as long as Triple H was in the picture, but he was underutilized beyond his feud with Christian. This was a fun little match that served as a fine farewell for Dupree, who was drafted to SmackDown immediately beforehand. He was another guy I thought had potential to be bigger than he was. He was virtually wasted during his time on SmackDown and was gone from the company not long after. Kane def. Rico Kane embarked on a rampage following his humiliating loss to The Undertaker at WrestleMania 20, hence why this match was so short-lived. Not to say Rico would have lasted any longer otherwise, though. Kane wasn't too much of a threat following 'Mania seeing as how he lost to Edge at Backlash, somehow got a world title shot against Chris Benoit at Bad Blood and lost that, too. He might have actually benefited from moving to SmackDown that year.  Who walked out the new No. 1 Contender? By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa def. TM61 For those who missed it, TM61 are among the latest signees to NXT and were a pretty established tag team on the Australian independent scene. Even if you weren't aware of them before, you should have taken notice of them after their impressive outing against Gargano and Ciamapa here. I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't a standard squash match and was actually given a decent amount of time. They definitely made the most of the time they were allotted and contested a very fun tag match. I look forward to seeing more of TM61 in the future. Also, right now is easily the best tag team division in NXT has ever been. NXT General Manager William Regal Made Austin Aries vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Official For NXT TakeOver: The End Aries has always been an excellent talker, and while he's had a number of backstage interviews since arriving in NXT, I believe this marked his first ever in-ring promo. He cut a great promo about his NXT Championship aspirations, and Nakamura did the same. His English still needs work, of course, but at least he's easy to understand. I figured a TakeOver match between them was likely and that should be one epic encounter. On a side note, I was waiting for it to be made a No. 1 Contender's match given all the talk about the title. |
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