WWE Battleground 2013 Review

WWE Battleground 2013
Buffalo, NY
4th October 2013

Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Rob Van Dam Hardcore Rules Match for the World Heavyweight Championship 


RVD’s contract is still expiring and has potentially expired. There are rumours of an unheard of 90 day on/90 day off contract that I don’t buy; WWE have never offered that kind of deal before. You knew, therefore, from the word go that despite the stips that were set up at the last ppv, there was no way that RVD was winning this one. This was the ideal ppv kick off match; Buffalo is a good crowd for Van Dam and, obviously, he is prepared to put his body through a lot for the purposes of entertainment. Del Rio is also a guy who has a high pain threshold so even though this match was fairly sloppy, it was a good opener.

There were some good spots here – the highlight being RVD’s frog splash off the apron onto a ladder that was on top of Del Rio - but even with all the smoke and mirrors it showed the RVD is beat up and not as capable as he once was. The direction that they’re going in next is unclear: RVD is against Christian at house shows through next week but there is still some unfinished business here with Ricardo. It’s unlikely that Sandow will cash in until the title changes hands. Heels don’t tend to cash in on heels.

Fantasy booking: Turn Cesaro and put him in the title picture.

Great Khali & Santino Marella vs. Jack Swagger & Antonio Cesaro

This match was added late on Sunday. A real filler match but one with the possibly the standout moment of the whole ppv: Cesaro doing an 11-rep Giant Swing on Khali and pinning him. The crowd really came unglued for the finish. They pretty much have to turn Cesaro after this. I really don’t know what you do with Swagger. He’s a tall guy, good physique and has a great amateur background but he’s an awful promo, he’s dangerous in the ring from being so stiff and his character is really two-dimensional and dull.

Cesaro is a star and they need to go with him.

Curtis Axel (c) vs. R-Truth for the IC Title

Rumours are that Truth is being turned again. It really didn’t work last time but they have a sea of babyfaces who have all been buried by the McMahon-Helmsley regime. Axel is good in the ring and showed it again here – the super slo-mo camera showing his picture perfect drop kick showed that – but he suffers from being such a poor promo and an unconvincing character.
 
Axel won clean with the neck-breaker after a hot shot onto the top turnbuckle.  This was technically a solid match, but crowd wasn't much into this. And it was at this point that I started to feel sorry for the crowd because clearly they wanted to enjoy the show: they were hot for the first match, popped huge for the Giant Swing but were ultimately about to witness a really poor ppv that they’d paid a lot of money to see. It is worth noting that US viewers had to pay $54.95 for this while UK fans had it free if they were Sky Sports subscribers.
 
This may continue into a short feud but I think they may go with Fandango or a rehabbed Tyson Kidd.

A.J. Lee (c) vs. Brie Bella for Divas Title

The odds for this match were so far in AJs favour throughout the weekend that it was hard to see them putting the title on Brie. What makes more sense is to crown Bryan and Brie both as champions at Hell in a Cell which will play into real life since there are now engaged to be married and into faux-reality in that Total Divas can cover the story in the last episode of the second half of their debut season.
 
A.J. retained with a schoolgirl using the trunks when Brie was distracted by Tamina Snuka (who is now in the enforcer role). She attacked Nikki Bella outside the ring. It is worth noting that there is value in continuing this feud because the wrestling was more solid than most Divas title matches of late. By this stage the crowd had checked out.


Cody Rhodes & Goldust vs. Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns non-title, if the Rhodes Family wins then Cody & Dustin get jobs back and if they lose then Dusty gets fired and they can never return.
 
This was probably the match of the ppv. Cody cut a great promo before the match and was more over at the end of this match than he has ever been and will ever probably be. The crowd were absolutely unglued at the end of this, it was beautiful. I think the plan now is to put the titles on Cody and Dustin and then do the slow turn to culminate in the brother vs brother match that they have always talked about for WrestleMania 30.
 
Goldust’s face paint was very odd – a kind of inverse of his normal set up, with black being the dominant colour. Maybe this is a sign of things to come in his character. They could easily have him turned by the McMahon-Helmsley regime in order to explain the feud between him and Cody.
 
This was a good match throughout. The Shield worked well and we were given a really strong performance from Goldust as well as Cody. The finish was really well done: Dusty give Ambrose the bionic elbow; Reigns was about to jump Dusty when Goldust gave him a flying clothesline on the floor and Cody used the crossroads on Rollins for the pin. All the wrestlers and producers like Arn Anderson, Fit Finlay, and Mike Rotunda came out to congratulate them along with Kaitlyn, Renee Young, The Usos, Brodus Clay, Zack Ryder, Santino and others who had already worked or were not working the ppv.


Bray Wyatt vs. Kofi Kingston
 
The issue with the Wyatt family and Bray, particularly, is that the character is so interesting and his promos are so good that people are more interested in the mystique and the posturing than they are seeing him actually wrestle. There was an article in Forbes this week that claimed that much of what he was saying was drawing from Nietzsche among others. The crowd were not interested in his in-ring performance at all tonight. He is a good worker – as Husky Harris he showed this and as Bray Wyatt in NXT he proved this – but he still looks short of ring conditioning whenever he wrestles. He needs to be on Raw working every week and have an extended run at house shows to get himself back into the rhythm.
 
They’re still holding off on much development with the Wyatts until Kane returns for filming See No Evil 2. I don’t like his finisher, Sister Abigail, it is thoroughly underwhelming. This only came alive when Kofi got to do a over-the-top-rope flip onto all three of the family but other than that this was a nothing match that was horribly placed after such a wonderful moment at the conclusion of the match before.
 
 C.M. Punk vs. Ryback 
 
I feel sorry for Punk. He had to carry Ryback this time last year at Hell in a Cell and he did it again tonight and may have to again in 3 weeks. 15 minutes with Ryback and you really see his limitations. They were actually ‘boring’ chants in a CM Punk match – something that probably hasn’t even come close to happening since 2007. That said, the finish was OK and putting Ryback with Heyman is a master stroke because he’s actually quite good, particularly in moments outside the ring where he’s getting advice or in promos.
 
The Flair-style low blow was the finish since they felt that neither man should lose clean and they knew that they were doing the non-finish in the main event. The crowd were delighted that Punk got the win and he’s still one of the biggest if not the biggest star in company. They want him in the title picture for WrestleMania so we will see what other holding matches he gets before January – he just has to wait it out.
 
Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton for the vacant WWE Title 


If I had paid for this show, I would have been as angry as many fans who are currently out there, rightly livid at this finish. This is where gimmick ppvs booked way in advance back WWE into a corner and mean that they are forced to put on sub-par finishes in order to find their way out of a jam.
 
The power-outage before this main event just accentuated the awful finish – we were made to wait even longer for the match. You could hear that the announce team were shaken by the outage, clearly there had been discussion as to whether the main event would or should go on at all or whether they would get the power back. 
 
Unfortunately, this was no better than most Raw matches between these two and the finish where the title remained vacant led to even less satisfaction from fans. Interestingly, odds were drastically short for Orton up to 30 minutes before the event and so they did a swerve finish to keep the title vacant and made the match a no decision. Bryan had Orton in the Yes lock when Big Show came out and took out ref John Cone. Big Show then knocked out Bryan but Brad Maddox ordered Scott Armstrong to count the fall – Armstrong was let go by Triple H last month on Raw, so this was a way to write him back into television. Suddenly, Show turned again and knocked out Armstrong so Orton started yelling at him and he, of course, then knocked out Orton. And then the show ended. That was it. No announcements, no nothing. Apparently, in the building, there were chants of ‘refund’ and ‘bullsh*t’ which is entirely understandable. 
 
This was the worst ppv of the year, closely followed by last month’s Night of Champions. The sad thing is that 2013 had been such a hot year for ppvs until last month; there had been a string of really strong events with some fantastic matches. If everything aligns, however, Hell in a Cell should at least be good but will certainly be memorable.