Look out, Bill Goldberg’s back to ruin another WWE Blood Money main event from Saudi Arabia… or so I’m told.
So… a bit of a minor correction to be made here; in the last PPV Musings, I had stated that this Super Showdown show would be the last WWE PPV event to be held before COVID forced everyone to stay at home and begin WWE’s long period of Performance Center empty arena and Thunderdome shows. Turns out that’s not the case because a week or so later, there was an Elimination Chamber PPV that I completely forgot about or never knew about… then again, this was during my so-called moratorium period where I swore off watching any more WWE PPVs that weren’t the major ones, so the fact that I forgot about that one shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
I don’t know… maybe I should give that one a watch. Considering Wrestlemania is still weeks away, I’d need something to fill the void.
In the meantime, we have Super Showdown… and I regret watching this show.
The Undertaker wins a gauntlet match to win a trophy of some kind… he chokeslams AJ Styles and this starts their feud that would lead to the Boneyard match at Wrestlemania 36, which is probably as good of a note for Taker to call it a career on as any. Honestly, Undertaker coming out at the tail end of the Gauntlet and giving AJ the goozle without taking off his jacket and hat is probably the best showing Taker has had with these Saudi shows since his match with Rusev at the Oil Rumble. Sad but true.
Miz and John Morrison defeated Smackdown Tag-Team Champions The New Day (Big E and Kofi) via a roll-up of the tights to win the titles. Watching this match highlights how much Big E’s presence and charisma is dearly missed on these shows and I’m hoping he’s in much better spirits these days (seems to be). The match itself is a perfectly acceptable slice of tag team pie, but not much more than that.
Angel Garza defeated Humberto Carrillo in what could be best described as a house show match. It’s short, it fills time, it was fine for what it was, and you’ll forget about it not soon after.
RAW Tag Champs Seth Rollins and Murphy (a.k.a. Buddy Murphy a.k.a. Buddy Matthews of House Of Black fame) defeated The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) to retain the titles in a match I forgot existed featuring a pairing that I also forgot existed. Seeing Seth and Matthews in a team together seemed odd and yet they were the champs. GO figure. The match, again, was perfectly functional tag-team wrestling where I would say that the ending was never in doubt, but when you only know one pairing at most, I’d say there was a bit more doubt than usual. Still, not too bad a showing for both teams.
Mansoor defeated Dolph Ziggler in a thing that happened. I wouldn’t call it a bad match or anything, but compared to the Cesaro match at the previous Saudi show, this was a step down for Mansoor and even Ziggler looked as though he was just going through the motions. Mansoor then does a rah-rah speech proclaiming his proud citizenship of the gloriously benevolent and progressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia… yeah, whatever. This did nothing for me. There goes the one sure thing that this show had going for it.
WWE Champion Brock Lesnar squashes Ricochet in 90 seconds to retain the title. Might as well tell it like it is and move on.
Roman Reigns defeated King Corbin to get his win back from the horrible TLC PPV from months prior. Commentary proclaimed this to be the end of the feud and that would be the case, though not by their hand. This was a thing that happened and let’s leave it at that, please.
Smackdown Women’s Champion BAY LEY defeated Glow “Naomi” Girl to retain the title… again, WWE is going to treat this match as a bigger deal than it actually is, but it was just a thing that happened. Not a bad match, but it was just there to fill time, fulfill a quote, and be promptly forgotten about days later.
GOLDBERG defeated Blue Belt Universal Champion “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt to win the title in three minutes. Well… they kept it short. I’ll give them that much. Goldberg winning the title back from Bray Wyatt wasn’t a surprise to anyone but the most deluded fools who thought Bray Wyatt had a sliver of a chance of main eventing Wrestlemania in any capacity. Clearly, they wanted Roman back in the title picture and they wanted to give him a big star for him to beat and I hate to break it to you, kids, but Bray Wyatt in a rubber mask did not qualify. Hell, I remember the last time Bray Wyatt had a WWE title match at Mania and it fucking sucked. So yes, GOLDBERG beating Bray for the title and having none of this Fiend nonsense was not a surprise.
People were upset by the end result and felt that this ruined the Fiend… but the truth is that you ruined the Fiend the instant you booked him a title match, let alone booked him to win a title. The Fiend needed more time to cook before he even sniffed the soils of a title picture. He needed a run that built him up as such a force that when he did get that shot, it was well earned. Shit, I’d even argue that the Fiend, if booked properly, could have finally reached that similar aura to Undertaker – used as a special attraction every so often, building up his mystique and marquee to such a degree that there’s no need for a title. He’d be his own, unique figure.
Instead, he got put into a title picture too soon and ended up in a match that was so reviled it killed the credibility of former champion Seth Rollins. And then they gave him a title run that not only had a finite shell life, but was largely highlighted (lowlighted) with many horrible fucking matches plagued with horrible fucking gimmicks and horrible fucking storytelling devices and plot points that made no fucking sense. Do I need to hammer this point in how much the Fiend SUCKED during this time?
I’m sure some people reading this think I’m going to burn in Hell because how dare speak ill of the late Bray Wyatt’s creative genius… dude, it’s sad that the guy left us way too soon, it’s sad that he never got a fair shake in WWE. I wish that his run had gone on differently and he was at a point where his creative energy would flourish. The guy had lots of ideas that were good on paper, had a good start, and hey, he did get a following, so he must have done something right. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn around and say that all this shit that was bad is suddenly good just because he passed away. That’s not how things work. I thought the Fiend sucked then. I still think the Fiend largely sucked. And I don’t think I’m going to change my mind on that. And if you’re upset because I don’t have the same feels as you do, that’s on YOU. Not me.
So yes, that was Super Showdown… a complete and utter waste of time that only exists to change one title and that’s it.
So I guess I’ll check out that elimination chamber show after all. That’ll be for next week, kids. Bye.
dtm666 