Fastlane 2018

HAPPY RUSEV DAY!

I have to say, I enjoyed the wrestling on Fastlane more than I expected to. Some weirdness, some questionable booking decisions, but except for the US Title Match, I enjoyed the matches. There was a pointless six-man tag on the kickoff show that I never had time to watch, but apparently Tye Dillinger pinned Mojo Rawley, and I’m always in favor of that.



Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev:  Nakamura wins.

I was surprised at how amazing this match was. I love both guys, but I wasn’t sure their styles wouild click. But click they did, and Rusev looked really good despite the loss. I’m not sure how long he can go on “looking good despite the loss”, though. (1/1)

Bobby Roode (c) vs. Randy Orton (US Title): I’ll predict Roode retains and probably be wrong.

Yep. Fuck this match, and fuck United States Champion Randy Orton. I don’t even feel bac about the Never pick Randy rule costing me this prediction. (1/2)

Becky Lynch and Naomi vs. Natalya and Carmella: let’s say the faces win.

This was always a 50/50 pick because the match didn’t mean anything, and I picked wrong. But surprisingly, I enjoyed watching it - it was surprisingly intense. (1/3)

The Usos (c) vs. New Day (Tag Championship): Usos will retain, possibly through chicanery.

And indeed they did, in one of the more questionable booking decisions of the night. After about six minutes of awesome action, the story of which was both teams stealing each others’ moves to try and get an advantage, the Bludgeon Brothers came in and destroyed both teams. This was overlong and annoying, but I will give it the benefit of the doubt retroactively because of what it led to on Smackdown. Probably going to see Usos/BB/New Day on Mania, bleah. (2/4)

Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Ruby Riott (Women’s Champ): Flair retains and probably wins decisively.

Indeed she did. Solid match. Slower paced than I would have expected, but great stuff from both performers. And afterwards, as I’d been hoping, Asuka came out and challenged Carlotte and the place exploded. Great moment. (3/5)

AJ Styles (c) vs. John Cena vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler (Men’s Champ): AJ wins.

Despite the foregone conclusion, I did enjoy this match. Everyone got stuff to do, and while I could care less about Ziggler and Corbin at this point, their segments of the match worked fine. Shane McMahon interfered, costing both Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens the title, another booking decision I’m not happy with but ended up leading to a great bit on Smackdown, so I’ll give it a pass. (4/6)