Mixed Match Chambers: Jake’s MMC Review – Week 3

Last week I tried to impress upon the readers just how a jaded WWE fan finds it possible to enjoy the Mixed Match Challenge, and the truth is it’s not hard. This is an easy going show that is rarely dull, features a first-ever robin robin tournament in the WWE, and is 50/50 gender equality in the wrestling, the characterization and the wackiness. Oh… and the team names are amazing!

All these silly MMC tag team names are a great throwback to the days when the WWE(F) used to be non-stop fun. Just think about some of these old names: The Hart Foundation because it featured three guys with “Hart” in their last names, The Killer Bees were two bad-ass (?) guys with last names that started with the letter B, you had the Natural Disasters because they were two big guys named Earthquake and Typhoon, a rich man and a tax man in Money Inc., The Smokings Gunns (cowboy brothers with two Ns in their last name), Power and Glory (strong guy and handsome guy), The Road Warriors (looked like post-apocalyptic characters from The Road Warrior), The Can/Am Connection, The Dream Team, The Powers of Pain, The British Bulldogs, The Heavenly Bodies, The Rockers, Harlem Heat, even the Bodydonnas and Tekno Team 2000 were pretty fun names. What about the Attitude Era? The New Age Outlaws was a weirdly abstract name, then you had The Headbangers, Too Cool, T&A, APA – Acolytes Protection Agency, Head Cheese, c’mon! The tag team name creativity used to be busting at the seams over there!

On the other hand, the current crop of tag team names are hold outs from the Ruthless Aggression era, and you can’t associate one clear image with any of these randomly generated team names, from The Ascension to The Revival, The Undisputed Era, Sanity, The Authors of Pain, War Raiders and what’s gotta be the worst one of all #DIY (what are they doing, making a hipster bench out of balsa?). The B Team makes no sense because those guys would be lucky to even be considered C level. Nexus and The Corre, I don’t know what those even mean in relation to the wrestlers. Even The Shield and The New Day, despite being popular three-man teams, have names that are just the most generically forgettable and randomly associated with imagery completely unrelated to the identity of the wrestlers (a black ops attack team and a gospel choir?).

But the Mixed Match Challenge… hello! It’s like a wacky team name extravaganza! Every team gets a name that evenly mixes an aspect from both members in such a goofy way that you gotta love it. My favourite might even be Mahalicia because it just mashes up the two names into one nonsensical word that’s totally fun to say. Go ahead, I dare you not to smile when you say “Mahalicia” out loud!

Awe-ska is a great one too, although rather less smooth when coming out of the mouth.

Still, it’s fun because it’s Awesome + Asuka… get it? Fenomenal Flair uses an interesting spelling choice as well, but it has multiple meanings for both AJ and Charlotte: they’re phenomenal like AJ’s catch phrase, they have Flair like Charlotte’s last name, the feminine dominates the spelling, and as a team they think they are great. Fabulous Truth, Country Dominance, Team Paws, Monster Eclipse; it’s not a complicated formula – find one word to describe each team member and mash ’em together – works every time.

On to the review! Now, of course, 411mania is the home to the greatest show/match reviewer alive, Larry Csonka, and his weekly reviews of this show will breakdown the matches and expertly rate them in relation to his extensive knowledge of the pro-wrestling canon. However, I will be giving alternative “star ratings” specifically for the self-contained MMC universe. Presented below is a rubric of what I’m looking for in comparison to the other mixed gender matches WWE has put on this year, and my star ratings will be measured against this, NOT matches you’d see on a weekly NXT episode or something like Kobashi vs. Akiyama from the ’90s.

MMC Match Rating Rubric

5 Stars – a transcendent match that truly evens the playing field for the male and female wrestlers involved at a main event level.

For example = Ronda Rousey & Kurt Angle vs. Stephanie McMahon & Triple H: this marquee match enraptured a Wrestlemania audience with action and moments of believable inter-gender combat, and featured a star defining debut performance for mainstream celebrity Ronda Rousey. It is unlikely any match from MMC 2 will be able to reach this rating level.

4 Stars – near-flawless and exciting wrestling action, where characters are out of the element and realistically trying to win the match in dramatic fashion; elements of inter-gender wrestling will be a strong bonus.

For example = MMC S2 – Week 1 – AJ Styles & Charlotte vs. Jimmy Uso & Naomi: featured a house-show level competitive back-and-forth between Charlotte and Naomi, fun verbal interactions between Styles and Uso, and inter-gender elements that resulted directly in the finish.

3 Stars – solid, clean wrestling where you don’t notice any continued errors or lethargic sequences; if lacking in drama or action, superior exterior features such as macro or micro storylining and/or character flourishes are taken into account.

For example = MMC S2 – Week 2 – Alicia Fox & Jinder Mahal vs. Mickie James & Bobby Lashley: Some very well-timed sequences fit together like dominoes, giving four wrestlers often with little opportunity to stretch their legs on the main roster a chance to fill out a compelling and satisfying match.

2 Stars – even if the wrestling performed is average or the outcome predictable, a match at this level should feature a solid pace that stops it from being boring or pointless.

For example = Hell in a Cell – Daniel Bryan & Brie Bella vs. The Miz & Maryse: Bryan and The Miz were able to entertain, but were mostly sleepwalking through recycled sequences from past encounters while highlighting the less interesting involvement of their one-dimensional spouses.

1 Star – basically a match that goes through the motions, relies heavily on rest holds, or features a lop-sided effort from competitors of one gender; mistakes and botches that stand out significantly more than any of the actual action in the match.

For example = SummerSlam KickOff Show – Lana & Rusev vs. Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas & Zelina Vega: simple, dull, featured mostly the men, and the finish was cheesy.

MMC2 – Week 3 Review

Match #1: B ‘n’ B (Finn Balor & Bayley) vs. Mahalicia (Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox)

Rest holds. Do we need these anymore?

I’ll admit this much, I do like the way a classical rest hold can work. As a fan of long matches, I understand the necessity of a rest hold for the energy replenishment of the performers, but stuff like chin-locks and arm-bars don’t pass the eye test in the post-MMA enlightenment of professional wrestling (bring back the headlock!). These guys should be able to slip out of any of these lackadaisical rest holds we see applied today.

In matches that are less than 10 minutes, in 2018, I don’t know that we need multiple rest hold spots, unless they are following like a wild burst of Will Ospreay-like energy. Even then, there are more creative or basic ways to catch your breath, like simply taking a walk to the outside like you’ll see in Mexican wrestling. That being said, I can still respect someone like Randy Orton who really commits to an extended chin-lock sequence, and watching an audience start clapping to power-up a babyface locked in a rest hold can be a piece of pro-wrestling magic when everything falls in to place perfectly.

However, that’s NOT what happened in this match and in the numerous unnecessary rest holds throughout. There were at least four of them, which is way up from what unofficially feels like the one (at most) average for a MMC match. None of these rest holds played any real logic into the competitive sway of the match, as you can argue they do in longer more traditional matches.

Finn Balor, while often promoted as this playful, happy go-lucky dude, feels so forced whenever he’s put in scenarios like this, where he’s supposed to be having “fun”. The core value of the MMC is the fun factor, but Balor’s strained smile and performance make it look he wishes he was anywhere else, likely the main event scene on RAW having serious matches every week. Although not a “heel” for most of his career in NJPW, his Bullet Club run was probably his best character work, and before that he was a plucky yet serious babyface. No idea why the WWE wants to push him like a goofball, but Balor feels way out of place in the MMC, especially if this season is going to be more wacky antics heavy than the first.

Balor’s wrestling sequences with Mahal, when not rest holding, was a lot of Ultimate Warrior style run and tackles, which feels today, as it did then, like empty wrestling. Why does the guy getting hit keeping jumping back up to his feet again? It’s weird looking. Alicia Fox was the glue that held this one together, strangely, because at least her irrationality can be rationalized in a chaotic situation, but she’s like a poor person’s R-Truth and it showed here much more than it did in her team’s vastly superior match with Country Dominance last week. The timing overall felt awkward, the Sunil Singh parts were forced, Fox wanting to fight Balor went nowhere, and we had to be subjected to seeing TWO Belly to Bayleys (which is just a belly-to-belly suplex, by the way).

In the end this was the most disappointing match of the second season so far.

Match Rating: *

Match #2: Day One Glow (Naomi & Jimmy Uso) vs. Ravishing Rusev Day (Lana & Rusev)

Usually in a pro-wrestling in-ring dance off the concept is that one person is a great dancer and the other is terrible. In this case, both Naomi and Lana matched off in a somewhat equal display of dance moves to start off the match. This was no Step Up, clearly, but it was fun enough and I like that they didn’t play Lana as being like an uptight ballet dancer. Of course it wasn’t as great the Michael Cole vs. Jim Ross dance-off Cole referenced on commentary, but what is?

That being said, I’m not sure this match did it for me, even though the character flourishes would make it fall into the 3-star category of my rubric, there was just too much “dancing” and it all felt a bit forced to me. And the Rusev/Uso segment should have paid off with the old Too Cool music at least.

When they actually started wrestling it was quick and not dull, so it can’t be lower than 2-stars, but I don’t feel good going any higher.

Match Rating: **

4.0

The final score: review Poor

The 411

The round robin tournament style of this season of the MMC caught up with the producers this week it seems, as they put together two matches that felt insignificant in the bigger picture and were wrestled as such. Seeing the wrestlers have fun is the charm of this series, but if the producers are just going to point to the ring and say "Go have fun!" then we may be in for more strained performances this season than I expected.