Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt
Bray Wyatt CARRIED this match. I am so tired of the Roman Reigns hype machine. The guy is not exciting in the ring. His offense consists of varied types of strikes, a Samoan Drop and the Spear. Bray Wyatt is an incredible performer from his in ring ability and physicality to his facial expressions in the ring. The entire build for this match was awful outside of Wyatt’s amazing promos. Reigns did as much to contribute to the quality of the match as he did to the build. Strikes, 2 Samoan drops, a variation of his outside dropkick, Superman Punch and a spear. As much as people have always criticized John Cena, he is a good wrestler and his matches the last several months like it or not have been top notch since that horrible chain match with Rusev. Reigns last night was a personification of everything people hate about John Cena. The return of Luke Harper was awesome and the guy threw a damn good super kick. The Uranage by Bray on the apron and the Sister Abigail that followed for the finish were perfect. Bray NEEDED this win and I hope WWE continues to build him to a main event level. I read on Wrestlezone.com today that the feud is expected to continue which is disappointing but not unexpected. Harper’s return will bring Ambrose to Reigns’ side and I’m praying this whole thing will lead to a Dean Ambrose heel turn. How that guy goes from main eventing two straight PPVs for the title to not being booked while Roman Reigns is prominently featured is mind boggling to me. The Wyatt Family is back and I couldn’t be happier as a fan of both Wyatt and Harper.
Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks vs. Brie Bella
Brie was out of her depth and slowed down the match considerably as evidenced by her constant laying in the corner or outside of the ring. She really stepped it up towards the end but I just don’t believe in her intensity or legitimacy in the ring, especially not with the other two women in the match. Charlotte, for all her ability was the queen of the roll up last night. For someone with her talent level she didn’t turn it loose last night. She was technically sound but not as exciting as I’ve seen her be in the past, which was a little disappointing considering the big stage she was on. However, I can’t enough about Sasha Banks. “The Boss” is exactly that. When she’s on T.V. you can tell she belongs there. She has the IT Factor, more so than any of the other 8 divas who were out there last night. She’s exciting and intense in the ring and has more swagger and confidence than any of the other two divas in this match showed last night…and that suicide dive she hit was awesome. Sasha Banks this past week was on Raw making the Divas Champ tap in the ring on her first night, NXT where she defended her title successfully against Charlotte in a very good match, Smackdown where her charisma established and legitimized Team Bad and last night at WWE Battleground where she stole the show from the other divas. She is the future of women’s wrestling and WWE seems to see that too. All that being said it made sense for Charlotte to go over on Brie. The woman from the babyface faction at the start of the “revolution” gets the win while the NXT Women’s champion is protected. Enjoyable match and a good start to the revamped Divas Division but it will only improve from here.
