WWE Battleground 2014

RATING LEVELS:

Curt Hennig – A “GOAT” show, as Perfect as possible

Watch It – A consistently good show worth watching in its entirety

Watch It…With Remote in Hand – 3 or more above-average ratings

High Risk Maneuver – Mostly filler, inessential, but 1-2 good matches

DUDleyville – Zero redeeming qualities, chore to watch

Battleground - July 2014

Tampa Bay, Florida

CHAMPIONSHIP BACKGROUNDS: Heading into tonight’s show, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is held by John Cena. The WWE Tag Team Champions are the Uso Brothers, while the Intercontinental Championship is vacated. AJ Lee is the Divas Champion and, though he is not defending the title tonight, Sheamus is the recognized United States Champion.  

COMMENTATORS: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and JBL

In the first match of the Kickoff Show, Fandango wrestled Adam Rose. The lone “moment” of this match was Layla and Summer Rae slapping the taste out of Fandango’s mouth, but aside from that, there just wasn’t anything to this. This is the kind of match that makes it easy to believe that the sole purpose of a “kickoff match” is for the lighting crew and sound guys to test their equipment and check levels. (1/5)

Fortunately, the next match, Cameron vs. Naomi, was an improvement. While no one is going to call this a Match of the Year contender, it was stiffer than I expected and Naomi’s confidence in the ring makes up for what she lacks as a technician. I won’t fault Creative for trying to extend one of the few non-Divas Title-based Diva storylines we’ve seen in awhile, but I do hope it ends sooner than later as Naomi’s energy and charisma leads me to believe she is worthy of a push aside from just being an ex-Funkadactyl. (2.5/5)

In the opening contest of the actual pay-per-view (or whatever they call these now), The Usos took on Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in a 2-out-of-3 falls match for the WWE Tag Team Titles. While I did not necessarily love the first two falls of this match, which I felt betrayed what we saw in their Money In The Bank contest (where scoring even one pinfall seemed impossible), the third fall was everything one could ever want in a score-settling title match. I also believe, more than any other match I’ve seen from them, this one did the best in establishing the subtle differences between Jimmy and Jay as workers – Jimmy possibly being the stronger “hot tag” guy and Jay playing the face-in-peril role excellently. As has been the case for months now, Luke Harper has proven himself to be an absolute beast of a worker, though Rowan is no slouch either. Great, great match and one I could easily see other reviewers bumping up another half-point. (4/5)

Before our next bout can even begin, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose brawl backstage. Triple H arrives to get Ambrose kicked out of the building, cancelling their match tonight. The commentators spend the next few minutes explaining the bait-and-switch, but there really is no excuse for promoting such a major match and then not having it take place. I can’t imagine the live crowd is going to be too happy about not getting the bout they paid good money to see.

So AJ Lee vs. Paige for the Divas Championship becomes our second actual match. Paige’s title defenses on PPV were consistently good, even if her character was lacking. AJ Lee’s charisma and personality has always been her strength, though I’ve never been a massive fan of her in-ring skills. This match showed that it is not a guarantee that two such pieces will fix together to form a great match. Granted, the crowd was a bit burnt out, but there were also noticeable miscues/poorly executed spots.  Paige’s constant screaming of “C’mon AJ!” got irritating fast and the commentators didn’t help by drawing more attention to it. Once AJ locked in her submission finisher, the match won the crowd back and the final stretch was noticeably better than the first half, but this wasn’t the strongest showing we’ve seen from either competitor. (2.5/5)

Next up, Rusev vs. Jack Swagger. Before the match began, Lana cut a promo that didn’t generate as much heat as I expected considering Putin’s current position as arguably the world’s most hated despot. Then again, how many WWE fans can even spell Malaysia? As for the match, it was quite good, particularly in terms of character development as Rusev showed some more vulnerability. Swagger looked stronger here than he has in a long time and the post-match shenanigans made it clear that this is not going to be the last time these two square off. The crowd, which definitely got louder as the match went on, helped things too. (3.5/5)

Seth Rollins made his way to the ring next, ostensibly to be awarded a forfeit victory over Dean Ambrose, who was kicked out of the building earlier in the evening. After Rollins demands the ring announcer to reward him the match, Ambrose arrives out of nowhere. They end up brawling and getting pulled apart repeatedly in a segment that I enjoyed, but would hardly call a “game changer.” I’m going to reward it some points as the crowd absolutely loved it, but to be clear, I would’ve preferred an actual match as that is what was advertised. Ambrose and Rollins are playing their roles so well right now that I think, for the first time since maybe Michaels vs. Jericho, the audience is really convinced that these two despise each other. Triple H’s presence in both segments not only makes this rivalry seem extra important, but also gets me salivating for an HHH/Ambrose feud somewhere down the line. For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to write separately about their third brawl, which happened later in the show and took place in a parking lot. (3/5)

Bray Wyatt vs. Chris Jericho was next and with the repetitive nature of tonight’s show, it really makes it painfully clear that the WWE is running with basically a two-act show right now (namely “Whatever The Wyatts Are Doing” and the ongoing Shield/Authority feud). I’m hardly complaining, though, as these storylines are deserving of being the centerpiece of the WWE’s summer productions, even if it does seem a bit much to see the sides involved in every other match. This bout was a little uneven for me, especially the first third, but the competitors “turned it on” as it went along. Wyatt, in particular, bounced back from a mistimed/botced modified sidewalk slam to deliver a pitch perfect chokeslam and cool-looking chest breaker (?) in the corner. Jericho, to his credit, helped build suspense with several kick outs at 2 and 5/8ths. Unfortunately, the finish was too “out of nowhere” for me as even the crowd’s response seemed to be one of bewilderment rather than joy. (3.5/5)

The Intercontinental Championship Battle Royal began with Bad News Barrett announcing his intentions of dethroning whoever ends up winning the title tonight. I'm not sure if there's been a battle royal since WrestleMania, but with the Andre Invitational so recent in my memory, I must admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this. Fortunately, there were a ton of eliminations within the first 3-4 minutes, followed by a small amount of tedious filler before we got the big spots that saved this one. As one could predict, Kofi Kingston did some incredible high-wire near-eliminations, aided by the strength of Cesaro and Big E Langston. Sheamus, much like his performance at last month's Money In The Bank, was arguably the MVP though, his journey in the match being the obvious "through line." Most promising was the positioning of Ziggler, though, who was given a nice spotlight at the end that makes him an obvious contender for SummerSlam. Too bad about the poorly executed finish, one that attempted to "outsmart" the audience with a cheap heel tactic but didn't achieve it because of a noticeable lack of subtlety. (3/5)

Main event time - a Fatal Fourway for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship as John Cena defends against Roman Reigns, Kane, and Randy Orton. Putting another multi-man match after the battle royal was a questionable sequencing decision (as was the placement of the Divas Title match). The story here was that Orton expected Kane to help him win, Kane was sick of being a Monster-for-Hire, and Cena and Reigns are on a collision course they can't settle as long as the Authority keeps getting involved. Unfortunately, with those as your central stories, unless you throw in a wild twist, what you get is just a "stepping stone" match meant to escalate tension and not necessarily relieve any of it. This makes delivering a definitive main event match difficult and, sadly, this one could not achieve such a task. When Cena and Reigns did come to blows, the delivery seemed too choreographed, a symptom of Reigns being very good at his own spots, but not particularly great at transitioning between them, tweaking their sequence, or selling his opponent's offense. Any pin attempt from Kane or Orton was predictably not going to end the match, making their control stretches meaningless. Not terrible and certainly above the typical TV match, but nowhere near great. (3/5)

For a bit of history, last month’s Money In The Bank  earned an average match/segment score of 3.11, the prior month’s Payback earned a slightly lower 2.95, and Extreme Rules scored a 3.3. Averaging things out, Battleground comes in with a bit of a thud – 2.88-out-of-5. Not to toot my own scoring abiity, but this sounds about right based on others’ reviews and ratings, many of which argued that this was the worst PPV the WWE has put on this year. Removing the Fandango/Rose match would’ve actually catapulted this show into a much higher score, but AJ/Paige, Wyatt/Jericho, and the main event all underperformed too. With only one match that I found to be worth ever watching again, this show is easy to classify.

FINAL RATING – High Risk Maneuver