After sleeping on it.
The real loser in all of this was the commentating. The biggest issue I had with nearly every match, especially the WWE Storiezzz Style match, is that Cole/Lawler/JBL suck at telling the damn story so if they are going through this type of match, they need to improve so much in this regard.
The Usos v. The Real Americans v. Los Matadores v. Rybaxel - ***1/2. One of the better openers in a long time. I enjoyed it. Crowd was shockingly there in full force and into the match.
Triple H v. Daniel Bryan - ***3/4 - This was exactly the type of match that was needed to advance the storyline. A simple, straight forward old school Triple H methodical beatdown. Was it what the crowd wanted? Nope. Was anyone at home? They shouldn't have been. Commentary did a poor job of telling the story and holding the viewers hand through it. But the in-ring work was good and told the story that needed to be told. I thought it was a strong performance by Triple H. I bash him enough...I gotta give him props when they are due, too. If any match gets a bump from a second watch, it will be this one, I'm sure.
The Shield v. Kane/New Age Outlaws - ** - Squash match. It was exactly what it should of been...so I liked it.
The Andre The Giant Battle Royal - N/R - The right guy won. Fin.
John Cena v. Bray Wyatt - ** - No sir, I didn't like it. Wyatt just can't go in the ring yet (he may never) and Cena wasn't dragging him to a decent match. If you're going to tell storiez, you need adequate story teller on commentary. The best storyteller the WWE has is the guy that does all of their promo packages. Neither Cena nor Wyatt told an adequate story leading up. The commentary didn't elaborate on the story being told in the ring. The talent didn't relay the story adequately in the ring to make the lack of storytelling all around work. Wyatt just lacks the ability to tell the story he needs to in matches in a way that someone like Jake Roberts or Mick Foley can...and who can, really? Not many. But he needs to start doing his homework more and those are the two guys who he can model his style after and become a stronger in-ring worker, especially because all of his matches seemingly are STORIEZ-centric format matches.
The Undertaker v. Brock Lesnar - * - The match was bad. Real bad. I don't even care about the ending...he needed to lose sooner or later, hell, he has wanted to lose for years. But at this point people have been conditioned to expect a great match and this wasn't it. They didn't tell the story right in the ring nor could they on commentary. Maybe if you tell the story of the old, overconfident Undertaker taking on the younger, professionally trained beast and getting bulldozed properly, no one feels like they got kicked in the balls after the match and you don't get a go-away reaction. I simply didn't like anything about this match to the point they rustled my jimmies. If that was what they were going for...good job, I guess.
The Divas Match - * - It was sloppy and boring.
Randy Orton v. Batista v. Daniel Bryan - ** - As Warner said, this was your typical Attitude Era - Nitro style main event match that is overbooked to smithereens. First off, Triple Threats suck and are prone to shenanigans. Secondly, this match was destined to involve shenanigans to begin with. I wasn't feeling this match and no one will be feeling it after given time to breath. These matches never hold up. It was building up to THE MOMENT, but the journey getting there sucked, and honestly, to me, felt somewhat flat because of it. Sure, it was awesome to see Bryan finally overcoming da oddz, but again, it fell a bit flat because you had a good portion of the crowd dead on the inside from the Undertaker loss. Kudos given where they are due...the crowd doesn't bounce back from that Undertaker match until Stephanie and Triple H come back out. So, to be fair, that was well booked.
