The Phenom Versus The Phenom!
The Deadman Versus DA MAN!
The UNDERTAKER Versus GOLDBERG!
Both men PAST THEIR PRIME!
What could possibly go right?!
Yep, we’re looking at another WWE Blood Money show from Saudi Arabia because I hate watching good wrestling PPVs. This not only has the double whammy of not only being a WWE show from Saudi Arabia pre-COVID, but also being a WWE from 2019, which was when the product was the absolute drizzling shits. So yeah, we’re in for a fun time here.
I mean, we COULD be talking about what happened this past weekend in Toronto… I hear a big LEGENDARY event took place and my only reaction was… “Took them long enough.” So instead, we’re doing a bunch of pre-COVID WWE Blood Money shows from the benevolent and progressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is the only wrestling content you’re getting this month. (I promise we’ll do the Chamber first thing in April.)
Anyway, let’s bitch about some crappy WWE shows before we can start talking about some good ones.
Red Belt Universal Champion Seth Rollins defeated Baron Corbin in the opening match to retain the title. The match itself was short, but it was fine. The sort of match you’d see at a WWE house show (a.k.a. LIVE EVENT). People still liked Seth here. That won’t be the case for the next Blood Money show, but we’re saving that for another time… oh wait, Corbin attacks Seth to “get his heat back” or whatever, which brings out Brock Lesnar, who was that year’s Money In The Bank winner… says something when I couldn’t even be bothered to remember that fact. Brock wants to cash in, but Paul Heyman trips and drops the briefcase, which allows Seth to beat on Brock to prevent a perfectly legal cash-in. Thank goodness we have Seth Rollins to prevent Brock from taking the cheap path to a title match. It’s not like he’s ever had the briefcase himself so he could cash in on a Wrestlemania main event that would win him his first WWE World title… oh wait.
Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor defeated Andrade to retain the title… and Finn’s even decked out in Demon gear, which I always liked as a visual and a spectacle. Why waste that on Andrade, though, who was largely floundering around this time? Anyway, this was another perfectly acceptable match that you’d see at the house show circuit. Quick time-filler, but fine while it lasts.
Shane McMahon… yes, SHANE MCMAHON defeated Roman Reigns with an assist from Drew McIntyre. I’d question why Roman Reigns is having a match with SHANE MCMAHON of all people, but then I remembered that SHANE MCMAHON won a tournament the year prior to be declared THE BEST IN THE WORLD.
It’s worth noting that this match took place following Wrestlemania 35, which took place following Roman Reigns’ return to WWE after a bout with leukemia… and they decide that rather to re-insert him back in the title picture to burn away all the good will, they’ll book him in a match with SHANE MCMAHON.
By the way, that shot came from this show. And it won’t be the first time that I’d be pulling this gem out.
Some big dude named Lars Sullivan is in a match between three luchadors. Since Lars is a big dude, it stands to reason that he’s getting a big push and this is clearly a showcase of his dominance by having him kill these three luchadors quick… and then this match somehow ends in a DQ because… we don’t want to job the luchadors to the big guy? How do you fuck up something so simple.
Randy Orton defeated Triple H in what would end up being, for all intents and purposes, Paul Leveques’ last actual professional wrestling match ever. (He had a “match” during the Thunderdome era, but come on, that was barely a match.) For those wondering, HHH now has a pacemaker due to heart issues, which means the chances of a comeback is somewhere between jack shit and fuck all. And what a sorry note to end a legendary career on. This Randy/HHH match was very much like the last Randy/HHH match I saw; slow, plodding, ran way too long, put the crowd to sleep, and… fuck, I might have dozed off a couple times here and there. To be fair, I can’t say that I was surprised. A lot of HHH matches during his last few years have been somewhat underwhelming affairs and this was, honestly, more of that and thensome. I mean, glad to see he’s doing well and handling the business on the other hand, but I’m sure that if the guy could do one more match that does his career justice, he’d probably go for it. Then again… maybe not.
Braun Strowman defeated Bobby Lashley in a slow, dull, and plodding match that, at the very least, lasted less than ten minutes, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Crowd was mostly dead for this one… hold on, I should probably choose my words carefully… the crowd was mostly silent in boredom for this match… yeah, that’s a little better.
WWE Champion Kofi Kingston defeated Dolph Ziggler in a match to retain the title, after which Ziggler challenges Kofi to a cage match at some point; probably a PPV or something. I’m trying very hard to forget WWE 2019. The match was perfectly acceptable house show fare and nothing more. Not much else to say here, but maybe when we get to the next show… somewhere along the way.
Next we have a 50-man Battle Royal won by Mansoor – the same Mansoor (or Man Soir or whatever he’s calling himself these days) of that Male Models gimmick – who was just a rookie in NXT who won by virtue of being from Saudi Arabia, so this is a way of giving the locals a bone so to speak. Unfortunately, nothing else of note beyond a silly gimmick rebrand later down the road would come of this victory that the crowd claims Mansoor “deserves.”
And in the main event… The Undertaker defeated Goldberg… you know, when WWE first held their Super Showdown show in Australia, I had dubbed it a WCW PPV due to two old guys in the main event. I resisted the urge to repeat the gag here, but honestly, when you think about it, this felt like a WCW PPV headlined by two old timers way past their primes. Undertaker looked old and frail, Goldberg looked old and frail, both guys tried to hit their moves and it looked all goofy… except for the one jackhammer that Goldberg hit Taker with that almost seemingly killed Taker… but then Taker was somehow able to hit Goldberg with a tombstone without killing ol’ Bill for the win and we get the following lovely shot.
Yep.
There’s no two ways about it. This show sucked. A lot of the card was boring, nothing happening house show matches and the headlining matches were underwhelmingly dull. The main event, in particular, was a sad sight to behold. This was precisely why I skipped out on this show the first time around and sure enough, it was as bad as I thought it’d be. Skippable.
dtm666 