Mike Reviews Shows Considered To Be Stinkers – WWE Battleground 2017

Happy Stinky Saturday Everyone!

I’ve never actually seen Battleground 2017 but it’s one of the lowest rated WWE shows ever on CageMatch.net so it felt like it made sense for the ol’ Stinker treatment. For those not au fait, the Stinker Review is a monthly thing where I look at a show with a bad reputation and see if it’s deserved or not.

The Main Event of this one is a Punjabi Prison match between Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton, which certainly sounds like it will be a real humdinger. The rest of the card has a slew of poorly rated matches by the looks of things, so I’m suitably nervous.

You can view the full card by clicking below;

Card with guide « WWE Battleground 2017 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

Without further ado, let’s see how stinky WWE Battleground 2017 is!

The event is emanating from Philly, PA on the 23rd of July 2017

Calling the action are Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton and John Bradshaw Layfield

The opening video package focuses on the matches featuring John Cena and Randy Orton, although the women get a brief mention as well.

Opening Match
Smackdown Tag Titles
Champs: The Uso Brothers (Jimmy and Jey) Vs The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) w/ Big E Langston

This one should be good at least. New Day appears to be representing the USA with their patriotic gear here, which means The Uso’s are representing the “evil” foreign nation of Samoa I guess? Apparently a rap battle led to this one getting set up, which I think we can agree is how all of the best wrestling Title matches are set up. Indeed, I believe George Hackensmidt dropped a phat rhyme onto Frank Gotch to set up their famous bout. It was described as “most heinous” by the musical reporters of the day.

The New Day gets the briefest of babyface shines to start us out but then Woods gets cut off and worked over for a bit, with The Uso’s offence looking good and Woods doing a good job of selling it all. Woods eventually manages to fight off a superplex though and gets a big dropkick before making the tag to Kofi, who proceeds to run wild on The Champs. Kofi looks good during that, although some of the crowd reactions are a bit disappointing, even though the work is good.

Kofi’s momentum is halted by The Champs giving him a double Powerbomb out on the floor however, and then The Uso’s proceed to clobbering Woods for good measure. The New Day hasn’t had a lot of offence here, with the feeling that it’s been done in order to make The Uso’s like strong Champions. And in fairness, the more New Day has been battered the more sympathy they’ve been able to glean from the crowd, so it’s worked for the most part. New Day also gets to kick out of quite a few big moves, so even though they haven’t had a tonne of offence they at least look resilient.

There’s a great spot at one stage where Woods tries an elbow drop off the top onto Jey but Jimmy catches him with a kick on the way down, which was a sequence that could easily be a finish if they wanted it to be, but Woods kicks out on this occasion. Jimmy looks to win it anyway with a Single Leg Crab straight afterwards, but Woods makes the ropes after the big sell job. That was an excellent submission tease and sometimes they can be as good as a near fall if done correctly.

Kofi finally reappears after his Powerbombing, leading to New Day getting some near falls of their own, although The Uso’s are still mostly taking the lion’s share of the offence. The crowd have progressed from mild interest to now thinking the match is awesome, and to be fair it’s been a good outing. Eventually The Champs miss the splash off the top onto Kofi, and that leads to Woods coming off the top with a big elbow drop for the three count and the belts, to a very a healthy pop I should add!

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: THE NEW DAY
RATING: ***3/4

Thoughts: This was good tag team wrestling from two very good teams done well, leading to a strong start to the show. You got the impression that both teams probably had a higher gear they could have kicked it into, but that’s why rematches were invented, as they certainly left enough on the table that you’d want to see this again. I didn’t know the result coming in but when The Uso’s took so much of the match I felt we might see the belts change, although it’s WWE so common sense isn’t always a factor

New Day does the big celebration with the belts whilst the crowd cheers along.

We get a WWE Network advert. What’s that exactly?

AJ Styles is warming up backstage.

Match Two
Jeremy Baron Corbin Vs The Artist Known As Shinsuke Nakamura

This feels like a super underwhelming feud for poor Nakamura, but I guess it’s what we’re doing here. Apparently Corbin beat Nakamura up at the Money in the Bank show, meaning that Nakamura couldn’t then compete in the match itself. Oh yeah, Corbin had Money in the Bank for a while didn’t he? I think he ended up trying to cash it in and failing miserably due to John Cena distracting him, leading to them having one of the most pedestrian matches I’ve ever seen at SummerSlam.

I’m not entirely sure what the finish will be here. Obviously you’d want to keep Corbin strong if he can potentially challenge for the belt at any time, but WWE often likes jobbing out the briefcase holder because they believe that they can always immediately heat them up again by having them cash in. Plus, Nakamura should really be able to get some revenge after being cost the case to begin with, but you can never guess with WWE. It’s like the wrestling show equivalent of walking through a field in the middle of the night without knowing where all the peaks and valleys are.

Nakamura shows some good charisma here, although the wrestling in the match itself is relatively drab from both men. Nothing looks bad, but the match is fought at a pretty tepid pace and the crowd doesn’t care, with Corbin’s punch/kick/rest hold offence hardly jazzing things up. Corbin targets the mid-section of Nakamura for the most part, working a bear hug and then shoving Nakamura ribs first into the barricades around ringside. Nakamura sells it well, but the crowd doesn’t really care that much.

Nakamura eventually makes a comeback with some kicks, and tries to get the crowd into the bout, getting some faint chants at least. Corbin replies with an impressive looking lariat though, with Nakamura taking a really nice bump for it. Corbin gets a near fall off the Deep Six soon after, as they’re picking this one up a bit. The selling from both wrestlers has probably been the best part of the match actually, as everyone’s big moves and attacks have looked good due to both wrestlers selling them properly.

Sadly just as it looks like the match might have a higher gear it could possibly kick into, they take it straight home with a super lame finish, as Nakamura preps for a suplex and Corbin just mule kicks him in full view of the referee for the DQ. So not only did they work quite a basic dull match, but they didn’t even have the courtesy to give the fans a proper finish.

WINNER: SHINSUKE NAKAMURA BY DQ
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: If they’d given us a pin fall or submission finish then I might have given it an extra ½* because it was more dull than bad, and it was looking like it might pick up a bit in the home stretch. That finish just sucked away any goodwill though. You might argue that they neither wrestler should have lost here due to Corbin having the case and Nakamura being a recent addition to the Smackdown roster. My response would be to not book the match at all then, rather than booking it and giving it a thoroughly rubbish non-finish

Corbin doesn’t seem too bothered that he lost, because wrestlers not caring about winning and losing is always a good idea get across to your audience. Corbin gets to lay Nakamura out following the bout as well, which I guess meant we got a rematch at some stage?

Match Three
Smackdown Women’s Title #1 Contender Fatal Five Way Elimination Bout
Nattie Neidhart Vs Becky Lynch Vs Tamina Snuka Vs Charlotte Flair Vs Lana Rusev

That match stipulation is certainly a mouthful! Naomi Fatu was the Champion at the time apparently, so the winner of this one faces Naomi at SummerSlam. They actually give this one a proper video package prior to the bout starting, complete with the pay per view song playing in the background, which at least makes the match feel more important than just a throw away multi-person bout to pad out the card. Naomi gets to do commentary for this one, as her entrance appears to be sponsored by Mountain Dew Pitch Black.

The story here is that Lana and Tamina appear to be working together, leading to them clearing the ring and working over Charlotte for a bit. Charlotte sells that well, even though Lana’s offence doesn’t exactly look that good. Some of Lana’s kicks in particular look pretty awful. Lana was a very good manager and there was no shame in just having her do that because she really added to Rusev’s act when they pushed them both correctly, but as an in-ring wrestler she was just another face in the crowd and not an especially talented one either.

We of course get a Charlotte and Becky segment, and it’s decent, with Nattie getting in to do some spots with them as well, leading to some cromulent wrestling. Becky runs wild with suplexes on everyone except for Tamina, who manages to block it. The crowd was definitely into the thought of seeing it though. There’s a really silly spot at one stage where Nattie has Charlotte beat with The Sharpshooter but Lana breaks it up, which makes no sense as its elimination. I get Lana and Tamina rescuing one another if they’re working together, but why would Lana rescue Charlotte? They suggest that Lana wants to eliminate Charlotte herself, but why bother? Just let Nattie do the work for you and then catch her unawares once Charlotte taps.

Tamina rescues Lana a couple of times from Becky, which actually does make sense due to the previously established alliance between Tamina and Lana, but Becky eventually manages to catch Tamina in the Dis-Arm-Her and that’s enough for the submission for our first elimination

Elimination #1
Tamina Snuka via submission by Becky Lynch (1)

Lana tries to pounce on Becky following that, but she gets caught in the Dis-Arm-Her as well for another submission fall to Becky. However, Nattie leaps right in with a roll-up to eliminate Becky to give us three quick-fire eliminations.

Elimination #2
Lana Rusev via submission by Becky Lynch (2)

Elimination #3
Becky Lynch via pin by Nattie Neidhart (1)

So now we’re down to Nattie Vs Charlotte, as I ponder why they didn’t just book that anyway if they were going to faff around with three lightning fast eliminations. It’s not like Nattie Vs Charlotte wouldn’t be good as they’re both competent workers who can put together a solid match. Nattie and Charlotte do a nice closing section together, with both getting near falls, although the finish comes a bit out of nowhere as Charlotte misses a Moonsault and Nattie rams the back of Charlotte’s head into the bottom turnbuckle for the flash win.

Elimination #4
Charlotte Flair via pin by Nattie Neidhart (2)

WINNER: NATTIE NEIDHART
MOST ELIMINATIONS: BECKY LYNCH & NATTIE NEIDHART (2)
RATING: **1/4

Thoughts: This was rushed and a bit sloppy in places, but I didn’t think it was actively bad either. The quick-fire eliminations didn’t help with making the match feel important. Becky, Charlotte and Nattie all had some good stuff at points and Tamina played her role of muscle for the conniving Heel well. Lana looked very out of place here and I still don’t get why they were so dead set on pushing her as a wrestler when there were other things she could do much better. Not everyone has to be an in-ring performer. Being a dedicated manager is fine if you’re good at it, as Lana was

Naomi offers a celebratory handshake following that but Nattie isn’t interested and walks off. I believe she would win the belt from Naomi at SummerSlam.

Match Four
WWE United States Title
Champ: The Phenomenal AJ Styles Vs The New Face of America Kevin Owens

I vaguely remember these two feuding and I believe it was all leading to Owens’ feud with Shane McMahon when he refereed the deciding match between the two. This is another match where I’m hopeful that it might be good. The video package shows that AJ Styles won a battle royal on an episode of Smackdown after previously defeating Chad Gable earlier in the night. The Title match took place at Madison Square Garden three days later, with Styles getting the win and the belt. Owens was doing the faux Pro-American gimmick at the time I believe.

Owens is peeved here and attacks Styles right from the opening bell, but Styles arm drags his way back into things. The crowd is pretty flat for this one, as they have been for most matches on the show thus far, but the wrestling is good at least. Styles shines on Owens with standard babyface fare and Owens does a good job of selling his frustration at being unable to get the better of the Champion, which is classic Pro Wrestling storytelling and both wrestlers get the story across well.

Styles ends up doing a tribute to Sting by missing a splash on the outside of the ring, allowing Owens to spread eagle the Champ onto the ring post for the cut off. Owens does his usual good job of being an unlikeable Heel whilst getting the heat, attacking Styles viciously and giving the crowd some lip, whilst Styles does a good job selling it all. The crowd atmosphere is still pretty flat, as I wonder why these people bothered coming to the arena just to sit on their hands, especially when a solid match is taking place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like this is a classic or anything, but it’s solid work from two highly skilled wrestlers, and it’s not like Owens in particular hasn’t tried to get the crowd involved.

Owens works a chin lock for a bit, but it’s more of a working hold than a rest hold as he jaws with the crowd whilst applying it and Styles actively fights to get out of it, leading to the crowd to start gradually get more invested in Styles’ efforts to escape the hold. Styles eventually does make the comeback, getting a sit out face buster at one stage for a two count. Owens gets some near falls of his own, as they start picking up the pace with bigger moves and pin attempts. Both wrestlers time their kick outs well and the moves look good, but the crowd continues to give the action disappointing reactions considering that the story and the wrestling have both been on point.

Styles ends up hurting his left shoulder when Owens knocks him onto the apron, leading to Styles doing the big sell job of the injured body part whilst Owens attacks it. The shoulder means that Styles can’t get the Styles Clash, leading to Owens throwing Styles off and taking out the referee in the process for one of the more brutal ref bumps I’ve seen recently. Owens and Styles trade submission attempts whilst the referee is down, with neither really getting a visual victory whilst the referee was out, leading to Owens countering a crossface into a pinning hold for three.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: KEVIN OWENS
RATING: ***

Thoughts: That was a kind of random finish that really didn’t make any use of the ref bump. They could have done the exact same finish without bumping the referee, which kind of wasted the spot. The match itself was good, although the poor crowd reactions left it feeling flat overall

Jinder Mahal is warming up backstage in front of an Indian flag. The Singh brothers say they cannot join Jinder inside the Punjabi Prison later, but Jinder doesn’t seem too bothered and says he won’t be alone because India is behind him.

Match Five
United States Vs Bulgaria
Flag Match
John Cena Vs The Bulgarian Brute Alexander Rusev

This one is your standard “American Vs Foreigner” xenophobe angle that you see so often in wrestling. Maybe John Cena was just REALLY miffed that Bulgaria made the Semi-Finals of the 1994 World Cup whilst the American’s went out in the Round of 16 and this is just the final chapter in an ambitious long term plan to avenge Tony Meola? Just watching the video package rams home how lame and antiquated these sorts of storylines are in the modern age. I’d think the same if it was a British guy feuding with a foreigner over here as well. I thought it was cheesy when PROGRESS did Pete Dunne Vs Ilja Dragunov for Hello Wembley and that was far more subtle than this nonsense.

We get the parade of international announce teams prior to the match that’s all about how evil foreign people are, which had to be intentional. So you have to grab the flag and then take it down to a podium in the entrance way to win, which adds an extra level of complication to things that I don’t think adds anything to the match. The match itself is a heatless kick and punch fest for the most part, with the crowd not really caring and nothing especially exciting about any of the wrestling going on. It’s not actively bad or anything, but it is rather dull and flat.

Rusev does show some good cocky Heel attitude at certain points, such as when he gives Cena a nice DDT and then gestures to the crowd, although Cena soon shrugs that off and gets the Shuffle. There isn’t a tonne of selling here actually, it’s mostly just both guys doing moves and then popping up quickly so that they can do another climbing the flagpole tease. It’s kind of like watching someone play a wrestling Video Game actually, as it’s just the two wrestlers taking it in turn to do moves for the most part.

Rusev is the first to get a flag after countering a Cena leg drop off the top into a Powerbomb, but Rusev spends too much time taunting and that allows Cena to recover and lay Rusev out before the Bulgarian can get his flag down the aisle way. Cena gets the F-U following that and makes the climb, only for Rusev to cut him off. That ends up going badly for Rusev though, as Cena locks him in the STFU until Rusev seemingly passes out, leading to Cena finally being able to claim Old Glory, only to then turn around into a running kick from Rusev.

Rusev grabs his flag, but walks down the aisle at a pace that even Dimitar Berbatov would think was lackadaisical, and that allows Cena to cut him off. This is like all the worst elements of the ladder match “slow-climb”, as you also have the “slow crawl” down the aisle to put the flag on the podium. At points Cena is desperately crawling like he’s Solid Snake in MGS IV when he’s trying to get through the microwave corridor. Rusev gives Cena a Fall Away Slam out on the entrance way at one stage, which is pretty big bump to take so it’s not like they’re dogging it here.

Rusev grabs a table following that, which actually gives us a faint “EC-Dub” chant, which is kind of amazing as I thought WWE succeeded in killing that chant off years ago, even in Philly. Cena manages to avoid getting tabled though, leading to a double down in the aisle. Cena’s flag is near enough for Cena to grab it however, and he once again crawls to the podium flag in hand, only for Rusev to catch up and clobber Cena with the stand for the flag before applying The Accolade (Camel Clutch) in the gap between the two podiums.

That looks to be it for Cena, but the spirit of America within his heart refuses to allow him to taste defeat, leading to him powering out of a second Accolade before giving Rusev the F-U off the podium through the tables that Rusev set up earlier (I hear irony is the second biggest killer in Bulgaria, behind getting kicked to death by a donkey of course), thus leading to Cena placing the USA flag onto the podium to win.

WINNER: MURICA
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: They put effort in to trying to make this good by taking some big bumps, but the stipulations didn’t lend themselves to a good match flow. Still, they won me over by the end after a shaky start, although the crowd still didn’t really make a lot of noise for it

SummerSlam 2017 video plays. That show ended up being decent I think.

The Fashion Police are doing an X-Files parody, which leads to The Ascension revealing that they destroyed a horse. However, it turns out it wasn’t them, as I feel I’m lacking some context to all this. The Fashion Police end up getting knocked out by someone and Fandango gets dragged away. I wonder how many of WWE’s younger fans even knew what the X-Files was and actually got the reference?

Cool-down/Death-slot Match
Mike Kanellis w/ Maria Kanellis Vs Sami Zayn

Goodness me, pour one out for these two chaps. I think Mike’s gimmick was that he was basically a henpecked husband who did whatever his wife said, including taking her surname. Amazingly that sort of writing didn’t propel him to the top of the card. Sami was kind of just pottering around the mid-card at this stage but he would eventually turn Heel later in the year by helping Kevin Owens in his feud with Shane McMahon.

Mike defeated Sami on Smackdown thanks to Maria, so we’ve got a rematch here. I’m guessing Sami gets his win back here because this is WWE and 50/50 booking is the norm there, but maybe they’ll put Mike over again in an effort to try and get him over seeing as Sami was going Heel eventually anyway? The crowd predictably doesn’t really care about this, but the wrestling is pretty good, with Sami’s offence in particular looking good with Mike doing an excellent job bumping around for it.

Maria causes a distraction and that leads to Mike getting the cut off and working some heat, with the crowd actually getting annoyed when the Heels Inuit kiss together. Mike and Maria as an insufferable Heel couple potentially could have been a good gimmick but they quickly positioned Mike as geek and it didn’t end up going anywhere. Sami sells well during the heat, making Mike’s offence look good, whilst Maria plays the manager role well by barking orders to Mike whilst he works Sami over.

Sami makes the comeback and Mike bumps and feeds for it well, but the crowd is deader than the dodo (although I believe scientists are trying to bring the dodo back by using cloning techniques so that comment might no longer be relevant depending on when you read this review). Sami finally gets the crowd to wake up a little but with a swinging DDT, which brings Maria in for some yelling. Sami is of course distracted by that, leading to Mike almost taking advantage, but Sami fights that off and Helluva Kick gives Sami the win.

WINNER: SAMI ZAYN
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: WWE 50/50 booking in all its glory! The match itself had some good wrestling but the crowd didn’t see it as important and it had no atmosphere as a result

Talking Smack is plugged.

The Punjabi Prison is lowered whilst imposing music plays. We get a video package for the match following that.

Main Event Anywhere In The Country
Punjabi Prison for the Smackdown Men’s Title
Champ: The Modern Day Maharaja Jinder Mahal Vs The Viper Randy Orton

WWE had decided to make Jinder into the World Champ of Smackdown because they were running a big show in India later in the year and wanted a big Indian star for it. The fact that Jinder would be going from not being able to beat the popcorn salesperson all the way to the World Title in roughly 3 weeks in order to make that scenario work didn’t seem to bother them. Shockingly, Jinder going from comedy enhancement talent to World Champion didn’t work and the Smackdown ratings suffered as a result until they finally de-belted him later in the year. He then lost the big match in India they’d been building him up for, because WWE.

There was some top-notch bad faith arguing going on back in the day during this Jinder push, with people saying that fans were complaining that no one new was getting pushed, but were then complaining that Jinder was getting pushed. This of course ignores the fact that most people were perturbed at Jinder getting shoved to the top of the card after literally years of being a comedy figure with almost zero work being done to give him any credibility first more than they were at Jinder himself being pushed. If they’d actually pushed him for a decent amount of time before putting him in the Title picture then reactions might have been more positive.

The video package showed that Jinder’s sidekicks hassled Randy’s dad back at the Money in the Bank show in order to cost Orton the match, leading to Shane McMahon giving Orton another shot but Jinder gets to pick the stipulation due to Orton technically being out of Title shots, which led to Jinder picking the Punjabi Prison. The Punjabi Prison is actually one cage surrounded by another, and you have to escape both to win. So basically it’s the Kennel From Hell, except there aren’t Dobermans doing one another in between the cages for this one.

Annoying WWE speak means they can’t call it a cage of course, so they call it a “structure” instead, which is just so inexplicably lame. It’s a match with PRISON in the name, you can call it a cage/cell for goodness sake! The inner cage has four doors on it, and you can call for one to be opened but you only have 60 seconds to exit and once it closes it can’t be opened again. This means that if you use up all four doors and can’t escape, you then have to climb over the first cage to escape instead. They try and push how big a star Jinder is in India, but I think Triple H actually got cheered over him when the two of them wrestled in India.

The Punjabi Prison sure looks impressive, but it’s next to impossible to see what’s actually going on inside there most of the time due to how big and cumbersome it is. The first door is opened pretty quickly, leading to a decent scramble between the two wrestlers to escape in all fairness. Jinder and Orton never really had any great matches together but most of them were usually fine when they were just able to wrestle one another without silliness going on. Jinder was hardly a World Class in-ring worker, but he was basically fine and Orton is always mechanically sound, so the actual wrestling the two do here is okay, it’s just hard to see any of it and the dead crowd doesn’t help.

I know some laugh at the notion of being thrown into a cage of bamboo, but if you think about it a Kendo Stick is made from bamboo and they can hurt like a mother grabber, so it’s not the silliest thing to build a cage out of. It’s not like they built a cage out of pretzel pieces or something. Eventually two doors get opened and no one escapes, leading to both wrestlers trying to climb out instead, which leads to Jinder getting crotched on the top rope at an eye watering velocity. Jinder manages to counter the Draping DDT though and flings Orton into the inner cage before splashing Orton into the wall a few times.

The cage doesn’t really give that much and the spaces between the links are pretty big, meaning there isn’t a lot of noise when both wrestlers get flung or suplexed into it, which takes away from the impact somewhat. That’s not an issue you tend to have with a more standard chain-link fence. You sort of get the impression that both wrestlers are holding back when throwing one another into the cage as well, likely because straight up yeeting someone into it would no doubt hurt really badly due to the cage having so little give, meaning they are playing it safe, which I totally approve of but it doesn’t lend itself to an exciting contest.

Orton does finally get the Draping DDT following a failed escape from the third door, but he calls for the fourth door and then goes for the RKO, with the idea being that the door will be closed by the time Jinder recovers from the move and Orton will be long gone, meaning that Jinder will have to clamber out over the top and the delay could prove to be decisive. That’s a clever bit of storytelling that uses the stipulations to build to a certain story beat. However, though Orton does manage to get the RKO, The Singh Brothers run into the cage in order to help their boss Jinder, dragging him out of the door just before it closes, meaning that Orton is now trapped inside whilst Jinder just has to escape the outer cell in order to win.

The Singh’s try to heave Jinder to his feet so that he can climb out of the outer cell, whilst Orton starts to climb the inner cage, although Jinder has a heck of an head start. Orton manages to climb over more quickly though and the two start fighting atop the outer cell wall, leading to Jinder taking a bump off to the floor. I felt for sure The Singh’s would catch Jinder there to break his fall, but no, he just fell off down to the floor in what looked to be a very unpleasant bump. The Singh’s try once again to prevent Orton from climbing out, with Orton getting dragged back into the outer cell area, although he doesn’t drop anywhere hear as far down as Randal Keith Orton is a very cagey man who isn’t taking any silly bumps if he doesn’t need to.

Orton does his customary killing of The Singh’s, as Jinder had the Raven Flock Finish almost down to a science at this stage in his Title reign, with his lackeys getting destroyed in order to open the door for Jinder to win via screwy means. Orton manages to fight off all three Heels by himself, finding a Singapore cane/Kendo Stick at one stage and wearing them all out with it. Because yeah, that’s just what we needed, more bamboo. The poor Singh’s end up getting beaten even more, with Samir taking a bump off the outer cell wall through the announce table, with his body hitting the table and his ankles hitting the floor.

That looked all kinds of painful. I can’t believe Samir took such a silly bump in order to get this silly stipulation match over. The Singh’s should have had jobs for life after all the wacky beatings they took from Randy Orton during this feud. I have to say though, since they’ve gotten out of the inner cage the match has picked up quite a bit due to the Dog and Pony Show overbooking and the fact you can actually see what is happening now as they have a camera operator inside the outer cell and that means they get a clear shot of the action.

Orton introduces a chair next and clobbers both Jinder and Sunil with it, seemingly leaving the coast clear for Orton to climb out and win the Title. Sunil takes another silly bump for the road by trying to climb up and attack Orton, only for Orton to knock him down, which leads to The Great Khali making his return to WWE in order to prevent Orton from winning. Khali of course moves really slowly, so Orton has to patiently wait for Khali to foil him, but it’s not the worst way of rescuing Jinder the Title whilst protecting Orton in defeat. The finish of Jinder climbing out whilst Khali chokes Orton through the bars of the outer cell gets groans of disappointment rather than genuine Heel heat though, as I think fans were already sick of Jinder in this role and there were still MONTHS to come.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: JINDER MAHAL
RATING: **

Thoughts: You know what, it might be that the age of Cinematic Wrestling during the pandemic that came after this was so bad that this seemed better by comparison, but I didn’t hate this. It wasn’t especially good, but Jinder and Orton usually wrestled okay together and The Singh’s suffered for their art in trying to get the match over, so I thought it was okay when all was said and done. It was silly and really hard to tell what was going on when both wrestlers were fighting in the inner cage, but once the fight spilled out to the outer cell it became a reasonably entertaining overbooked mess. I’m a sucker for the Raven Flock Finish as well, where you have the babyface fend off the Heels’ goons until the numbers game becomes too much and the Heel manages to eke out a win. I was all set for delivering some real snark for this match as well, but I never got to unleash it

Jinder and Khali celebrate in the aisle following that, with Khali hilariously raising the belt in the air as if he’s the Champion before remembering that it’s actually Jinder who is the Champion and handing the belt back to him.

Is It Really A Stinker?

This show was more boring than it was actively horrible. The opener was really good and the US Title match had its moments, although the finish was a bit flat. The rest of the card ranged from dull to adequate; with the biggest issue the show had being that the crowd just didn’t seem to care about anything. It was like they’d be corralled into the building under the promise of getting a warm meal and place to sleep, only to then be told they had to watch a wrestling show first. Kind of like when you get to spend a holiday in a log cabin but you have to watch a boring 2 hour presentation about a Time Share first.

The Main Event wasn’t even that terrible, with it having its entertaining moments here and there. Overall it was just a middling show to be honest. I certainly wouldn’t recommend watching anything on it outside of the opener, and even then The Uso’s and New Day had better matches together than this. However, I wouldn’t call the show a Stinker either. It’s just kind of boring with a couple of good matches, which left me feeling unmoved for the most part.

Final Rating – Odourless

Ratings go Stinker/Stinky/Odourless/Pleasant/Fragrant