Tremendous Tirades: WWE Battleground 2014

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

WWE Battleground 2014

Opening video package, hyping the WWE World title Match and the chance of “Plan B”…

2 of 3 Falls Tag Team Title Match: The Usos © defeated Harper and Rowan via pin: The good news heading into this match is that these four have developed a great chemistry, and had a great PPV match last month. The bad news is that they have faced off A LOT the last few months, and that is because the company has purged the tag team division. The Shield is done, 3MB is gone, Ryback and Axel exist, Los Matadores are only around for Torito and with Cody and Goldust downgraded most of 2014, there simply have been no other teams to have around the gold in a legit fashion. The Usos are a damn good team and interact with the crowd well, Luke Harper is awesome and Rowan continues to noticeably improve. As expected, they worked really well together again, had a good match layout, and some tremendous near falls down the stretch. They also did an amazing job of playing off of the familiar spots from their previous matches, with each team escaping and or kicking out of things that finished previous matches. The Usos had to finally use the double Superfly splash to win the match. I loved their match at Money in the Bank, and this one was even better. I think they should have pulled the title change here, that’s about my only gripe. You cannot ask for more out of your opening match, although the bar has been set high for everyone else.
Match/Segment Rating: ****¼

So they were hyping Rollins vs. Ambrose, and they ended up brawling backstage. Triple H kicked Ambrose out of the building. I can understand if people are pissed, but I would actually much rather shift that match to Summerslam as it is. It needs a better build to be honest with you. The other thing is the big tease of “Plan B,” Ambrose isn’t there to stop Rollins now, and now we have that tease.

Seeing a lot of reports on Twitter that the Network feed has been sketchy, how was the feed for you guys?

Divas Title Match: AJ Lee © defeated Paige via pin: Once again, like MITB I am glad to see that the ladies were not placed into the PPV death spot. They are at least giving them a chance with the crowd instead of that next to last, nothing here matters spot. I have said that they are showing signs of the division going in a new and more serious direction, and that will take time, a lot of time, but it can be done. They worked really hard, and I felt had the right idea for their match. They had solid back and forth, Paige is showing signs of cracking because she wanted to win but seemed to not know what to do at times (as in she was conflicted). Paige was the first to get out of the black widow, while AJ got to kick out of the Paige turner. Unfortunately it was sloppy and had a few blown spots, and that it took away from the overall presentation because it was very noticeable. They have the right idea, and probably need to work together more to get the execution down. It came off as a disappointment because I had high hopes for the match. The ladies are finally getting the chance, but they haven’t been able to deliver yet.
Match/Segment Rating: *¾

Randy Orton and Kane had a special meeting in the deepest, darkest part of the building.

They then stalled and went to the panel for random bullshit, no one cared.

Rusev w/Lana defeated Jack Swagger w/Colter via countout: Lana came out and talked her shit pre-match, noting that the US should be ashamed of their war waging ways, and of course praised Vladimir Putin. Lana slapped Zeb, and we were underway. The early story was Swagger constantly looking for the ankle lock, and Rusev bailing to the floor, which angered Lana because the big man hasn’t been backing down almost at all during the run. They did the superkick into the ankle lock spot from Raw, which people reacted too thankfully. The crowd wasn’t dead by any means, but I didn’t think that they were into it as much as I had hoped following the build to the match. They did a finish to protect Swagger and to allow the feud to continue, while also teasing that Rusev is vulnerable. Post match, as the medical team was attending to Swagger, Lana ordered Rusev to crush, so he attacked and rolled him back into the ring and applied the accolade. This was fine overall, but the match was a disappointment as I felt they would do much better, and it simply lacked the heat that the lead up had, which is a shame. I would guess, depending on how long you want to continue things, you could do a flag match at Summerslam; which would again allow the loser to be protected if you just do the capture rules.
Match/Segment Rating: **

Stardust and Goldust do weird shit backstage.

Seth Rollins came out for promo time. He did the gimmick where he wanted to accept his win via forfeit, due to the fact that Ambrose would not be competing. It got heat, and then Ambrose arrived and they brawled into the crowd. They did a big pull apart, the parade of agents made an appearance along with Triple H and overall it came off well. Ambrose was carried away as Rollins attacked again. They are building the hate, which I like, but not how they pulled it from the show.

Chris Jericho defeated Bray Wyatt via pin: This is a match with a ton of potential, but the build has been lacking. With the build lacking in my opinion, I felt the heat (both from in the ring and from the crowd) lacked here. As I was watching this match, all I could think was that I couldn’t remember the last time I watched a match with people I liked so much involved that I cared less about. I never got into what they were trying to do, the match felt slow and never got out of that low gear for me. As I said, I really like both guys and figured at worst that this would be a “good” match. But I feel that the guys never clicked, and while it was not horrible, I was completely disappointed by the match. Also, the fact that Wyatt lost, hasn’t really done any evolving as a character and that WWE doesn’t seem to know what to do with his is not a good thing.
Match/Segment Rating: **¼

I cannot believe how badly this show has fallen off since the opener.

Rollins and Ambrose brawled in the parking lot.

IC Title Battle Royal – The Miz (presented by The Asylum) is the New Champion: Cesaro, Kofi Kingston, The Great Khali, Dolph Ziggler, Big E, Curtis Axel, Damien Sandow, Ryback, Bo Dallas, Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Titus O’Neil, Diego, The Miz, Zack Ryder, R-Truth, Sin Cara, Xavier Woods and Heath Slater are the participants. This felt so long, a match filled mostly with guys that no one cares about laying around and doing acceptable wrestling. Kofi did wacky Kofi spots with Cesaro, Miz hid on the floor, Cesaro got tossed by Heath Slater; I have no words for that. The crowd got into a bit towards the end, Ziggler appeared to win, but Miz snuck in to toss him and win. Yup. The crowd goes mild. Miz will feud with Ziggler and or Sheamus, nothing has changed in the last four years it seems. Of note, Rob Van Dam was not in the match although he had been advertised.
Match/Segment Rating: **

Cole tries to tell me about how valuable the network is because of PPVs like this. I question his credibility.

WWE Title Four Way Match – John Cena Retains: John Cena © vs. Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton vs. Kane is our match. I suspect Cena retains, pinning Kane after Reigns and Orton brawl and get separated from the others. Orton vs. Reigns and Cena vs. Lesnar are rumored for Summerslam, so it makes sense if that is indeed where they are going. Orton and Kane worked together early, but that of course fall apart because they don’t trust each other and Kane went for a pin. They did several teases of Reigns vs. Cena early as well. We eventually got the brawl, Reigns looked to have Cena finished by Kane stopped that. The crowd was mildly into Cena vs. Reigns, but not as much as the company likely hoped for. Reigns ran wild late, and eventually speared Orton through the barricade. After what seemed like a long time (since the opener really), the crowd was finally getting into things. We had a lot of near falls, crowd seemed to be into it more as it went on, and it broke down into a mini-finisher festival; Cena hit the AA on Orton, who landed on Kane, and Cena then pinned Kane. Not exactly what I thought, but close enough. Overall a solid main event, but that being said, I expect more from what should be the biggest match on the show. It got better as it went on, but the first half was weak. Better than a lot on the show, but in many ways that is not saying much.
Match/Segment Rating: ***¼

John Cena celebrates.

Steve Cook and I will be breaking down the show live at 11:30PM ET at this link. We’ll be taking calls as well, so if you have an opinion on the show and want to share, please do.

End scene.

Thanks for reading.

The Tirade
The first hour featured an amazing opening match between the Usos and Wyatts, better than last month and last month was nothing to shake a stick at. They shot the Rolins/Ambrose angle, which I felt worked for various reasons, and I discussed them above. But I also think that it was shitty to do the bait and switch. Sure, card subject to change, but that is supposed to be for injuries and such, not just because they realized that they fucked up their story. The ladies followed that with a disappointing match. They have the right idea, moving them early in the card and giving people a chance to care, now the work has to match up with the opportunity that they are getting. Some filler rounded out the hour. The second hour started with Rusev vs. Swagger; which I thought was fine, but an overall disappointment. It just lacked the heat of the previous encounters. Rollins and Ambrose had a good pull apart to build to their match, which looks to be moved to Summerslam. I get why they did it and even think it was the right call, but not in the shitty bait and switch way that they went about it. Wyatt and Jericho was next, and completely disappointed, and is not a match I would even call “good,” I have no clue what happened there, but it did not work. The final hour started with the IC Title battle royal, the Miz won, and it was every battle royal you’ve ever seen. The main event was good, but not great and closed out a very lackluster event.

Overall: This was a one match show, and a show that outside of that opener you can completely skip and not feel bad about. Even wrapped in with the network, it was not a good show for the price in my opinion because it just had no sizzle to it. I get that this was largely a placeholder show for Summerslam, but placeholder show doesn’t have to be bad.

What You Need to See: The Usos vs. Harper and Rowan

Show Rating: 5.5

As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect

As a reminder, this is not a basic “how good was the show” number like a TV show, as I have always felt that a PPV is very different from a regular show. I have always judged PPV on how they built to a match, the match quality, crowd reactions to matches and angles, the overall booking, how the PPV leads into the future, PPV price and so on and so forth. I have added this in here for an explanation since so many have asked, and I have previously discussed it on podcasts. I understand that this may seem different, but that is how I grade. Obviously your criteria may be different.

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Larry Csonka is a Pisces and enjoys rolling at jiu jitsu class with Hotty McBrownbelt, cooking, long walks on the beach, Slingo and the occasional trip to Jack in the Box. He is married to a soulless ginger and has two beautiful daughters who are thankfully not soulless gingers; and is legally allowed to marry people in 35 states. He has been a wrestling fan since 1982 and has been writing for 411 since May 24th, 2004; contributing over 3,000 columns, TV reports and video reviews to the site.

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