The Biggest Winners From WWE Fastlane 2016

When WWE hosts its ‘B’ Pay-Per-Views, I have a tendency to be pleasantly surprised. Call it low expectations, but when they simply put on a wrestling show I tend to like it. Fast Lane, the last stop on the road to WrestleMania, is most definitely a ‘B’ show, so how come there weren’t many people (including me) who were pleasantly surprised by this one? I know the ending of the show was a big drag for many, as well as a certain unannounced segment, but surely there was stuff to like from this event, right?

That’s the mission of this article, to find as much of the stuff worth liking from Fast Lane as possible. I’ll sift through the show and present the biggest “winners” of the night, regardless if they literally were match victors or not. Going through the card, I actually found plenty to appreciate and I hope you agree. If not, that’s what comment sections are for.

Time to start handing out my invisible trophies, starting with the pre-show…

Kalisto

Alberto Del Rio had a brilliant strategy going into this 2 out of 3 Falls United States Championship match. He sacrificed the first fall with the use of a steel chair,then strong-armed his way towards the second fall victory. Del Rio even performed a sick variation of his double foot stomp off of the barricade next to the timekeeper’s area.

Despite this sound strategy, it was not Alberto’s night. Kalisto withstood the onslaught from his aggressor and walked out as the United States Champion. This was an exciting start to Fast Lane and an overall great match. It also helped that this was the only one on the card called by the great Mauro Ranallo.

Becky Lynch & Sasha Banks

Even in this day and age, it still feels like a big risk to start off a WWE Pay-Per-View with a women’s match. Gamble they did and it felt like it was a good call. Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks teamed up to face off against Sasha’s former team B.A.D. buddies to settle that score. There were moments in the beginning to question whether Sasha and Becky would be cohesive, but they learned to work together to get the job done.

The crowd was very receptive and really got into the final couple of minutes of this one. It also helped that WWE gave them plenty of time to draw the crowd in. Sasha applied her Banks Statement while Becky locked on her Disarmher as both members of Team B.A.D. tapped out to finish off this one.

Does this win mean that we get both of them in a Divas match at WrestleMania now? I hope so.

Kevin Owens

In front of a hometown crowd for Dolph Ziggler, Kevin Owens successfully held onto his Intercontinental Championship in a hard-fought match. It felt like the story of this match was the Superkick as there were plenty of them. JBL even used the phrase “Superkick Party” at one point, which is a line that he may or may not owe residuals to The Young Bucks for.

If there’s one thing I felt like Kevin Owens really dropped the ball on from this one, it was the fact that he didn’t launch an attack against Machine Gun Kelly. He was shown to be in attendance just before this contest. I would’ve gotten a big kick out of another Powerbomb on that guy.

Random Collection Of Big Beefy Guys

Is it time to pull the plug on the Wyatts? Kane, Big Show, and Ryback are a group that have been cohesive for a whopping six days prior to this event and successfully defeated the cultish ensemble.

To give these guys their credit, they tore the house down by the end of this match. Big Show gorilla press slammed Luke Harper to the outside and then followed it up with the big spear on Braun Strowman. Ryback was even slamming Luke Harper over and over like he was a little child. I’m sure Kane was tossing around some bearded burly guys as well, but this is the point when I put my kids to bed so missed a little bit of it.

People have been speculating on which of the Wyatt Family members are going to have a big match at WrestleMania. Thanks to the win of this very large trio I question if there’s any major plans in store for them in Dallas. If so, they’re not being built up at all.

Brie Bella

Even though Charlotte retained her Divas Championship in this match, I have to say that the bigger winner here was Brie Bella. First of all, Brie dedicated this match to her sister and her husband earlier in the day on social media. Second, she wore Daniel Bryan’s kick pads. Yes, the very same ones he wore at WrestleMania 30.

This was the weakest match on the card but Brie went the extra mile to make it all go together as well as possible. She added a hint of realism by busting Charlotte’s nose up slightly. She also went ahead and removed herself from that Boston Crab when Charlotte forgot to power out of it, or whatever. It was kind of sloppy at that point.

Without the win here at Fast Lane, there’s no indication that Brie will have a match at WrestleMania in Dallas. Maybe she will…or maybe this was her last Pay-Per-View appearance. We can all mourn together if so.

AJ Styles

I’m sure I will get some flack for this, but I haven’t been blown away by the AJ Styles/Chris Jericho rivalry. The matches have been good, even above average, but not great. This blowoff third match after they both scored a win against each other previously had the crowd competing with thunderous AJ/Jericho chants, but I wasn’t feeling it as much as they were.

Even though I wasn’t totally sold on the match, Styles still scored his first win on a WWE Pay-Per-View against a former multiple time world champion. Hopefully he gets his first chance at WWE gold soon. Kevin Owens is apparently already acting defensive about the guy…

Hey dweebs…If AJ Styles ever comes anywhere near MY #ICTitle, I’ll take him out in less time than it took me to toss him out of the Rumble.?

— Kevin Owens (@FightOwensFight) February 22, 2016

Cool. Somebody make Styles vs. Owens happen at Mania for me.

The First Half Of The Cutting Edge Peep Show

This started out so well so I’ll just focus on the part that was good. New Day were verbally sparring with Edge & Christian and it was hilarious. The hosts of this segment accused the Tag Team Champions of biting their style, which New Day took offense to.

The League of Nations came out next and this quickly went from a winning segment to a so-so at best one. So I’ll ignore everything from that part on and just name Edge, Christian, Xavier Woods, Big E, and Kofi Kingston the winners of this segment.

Curtis Axel

I genuinely like all the guys involved in this match, especially The Social Outcasts. I very often sing their praises and beg for these guys to get more opportunities, but come on WWE! Even I can’t believe that this match happened on an actual Pay-Per-View.

Congrats on your quick win on this show, Curtis Axel. I don’t understand why someone didn’t just add your 2:30 of match time on to one of the already booked matches, but I’ll take it.

Dean Ambrose

Make no mistakes about it, Dean Ambrose was the biggest star of this show. Everyone in that arena had to have known that Dean was only in this match to eat the pin, but they bought into his chances anyway. After that first Powerbomb through a table that laid out Brock Lesnar, the crowd erupted when he began striking Roman Reigns.

Every bit of offense that Ambrose inflicted was greated with a hero’s applause. I can’t fathom why WWE doesn’t consider using him in more than a supplementary role for the main event because he seems more than ready to be embraced as the face of this company. He might’ve been the one to actually lose the main event but he’s still a winner for the support he received during this show.

Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns was the literal biggest winner of the night and that can be also stated ironically. Surely WWE is aware that this guy is never going to be embraced in the way that they’re demanding for people to embrace him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Roman hater. I totally believe that the guy is championship material, just not in the way he’s currently being presented.

Roman was clearly the heel of this main event. The capacity crowd was not happy that he pinned the hero of the night and the online response was equally upset. One theory I have on Roman is that Triple H is actually hoping to be the hero in the main event of the largest audience WWE will ever perform in front of (WrestleMania 32), so that’s why they’re staying on this stubborn course. Reigns is perfectly positioned to make us love Hunter. I’m mostly just joking about this theory, but there’s still a slight part of me that would believe it if a more reputable person stated it.

Final Thoughts And Plugs

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d peg my enjoyment of this show at about a 6. Even though the ending of the main event was blah, I’d still peg it as a 4 star match. The AJ/Jericho, Del Rio/Kalisto, and even the Dolph/Owens matches were all above 3 stars as well. That’s four above average matches, which isn’t too shabby. Still, some moments like the League of Nations interrupting the Cutting Edge Peep Show and the R-Truth match did drag the show down a few notches.

I think my WrestleMania excitement is finally starting to wane. I kept holding out that WWE would really ramp up the excitement but everything feels more and more like they’re not going to pull it together in time. I’ll still watch the show, I’m just not looking forward to it as much as I’d want to by this point.

If you want to keep up with all that I do, check me out on Twitter @MitchNickelson. Also, I host a podcast with my wife called Wrestling Date Night. I flied solo this time around for some brief Fast Lane reactions, which you can listen to by pressing the Play button on below…