It was with great anticipation that TWM rolled into our third row seats at WWE Manchester for the latest leg of the WWE’s WrestleMania Revenge tour at the Manchester Arena.
With only minimal curtaining off of small parts of the upper tier, there was a healthy crowd on hand for a night of wrestling action. With the show coinciding with the Smackdown taping in London it was, in some ways, a depleted roster that showed up for WWE Manchester. You only hope the scores of fans walking up to the arenas in Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles tees had advance warning that their favourites were not going to be there.
After the usual preamble we were straight into the action. Things kicked off with Cesaro vs Stardust. The Swiss Sensation was very popular with all sections of the crowd and the chemistry with the man who isn’t Cody Rhodes made for some great entertainment. Not for the last time of the evening there was the feeling that they were working within themselves but that’s not to say that they were phoning it in. Cesaro took the win.
Things took a little downturn in the next match, which pitted the Social Outcasts’ Heath Slater and Bo Dallas against the makeshift team of Darren Young and Zach Ryder. It was fine for what it was but anyone expecting a five-star classic from this one clearly hasn’t been paying attention to WWE TV. The babyfaces won.
To see the Bulgarian Brute Rusev waving his countries flag was not a surprise in his entrance for the next match. To see Jack Swagger walking out with the Union Jack perhaps was a surprise. As cheap heat goes it did the trick, no matter how illogical it was. I’m a fan of both men and have to say I enjoyed the back and forth nature of this one and as daft as it was, the dual flag waving at least added to the atmosphere. Rusev took the win by submission.
The pre-interval bout was the first championship match of the night as the New Day defended their World Tag Team titles in a triple threat match against the Uso’s and the Dudley’s. In an attempt to be the heels in the match, Bubba unveiled a Liverpool FC flag during his entrance. It worked momentarily but the only other time they got the “desired” reaction was when they teased the introduction of a table into proceedings only to throw it back under the ring, never to be seen again. This match was comedy all the way but was very entertaining. Kofi and Xavier took the ring duties for the champs and it was, naturally, them who won the match and retained the belts.
After the intermission the second half of the show kicked off with a fast-paced battle between Tyler Breeze and Sin Cara. Neither are exactly high profile on WWE TV at the moment but both have talent and they put on a good little match, with plenty of high octane high spots.
We then came to the two main events of the evening and first up was the only match of the night that fit under the “WrestleMania Revenge” banner as Charlotte defended her WOMEN’S Title against Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch. Of course it couldn’t hold a candle to the Mania bout but it was still a very good and heated affair. Even the inevitable Ric Flair interference ending, again, couldn’t spoil things too much.
We then finished off with the WWE Title match pitting Roman Reigns against challenger Sheamus (who was filling in for the injured Bray Wyatt). To attempt to get the “correct” reactions Sheamus, like the Dudley’s earlier on, pledged his allegiance to Liverpool FC…complete with an intentionally awful rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Of course there were the boos for Reigns, but there were also a hell of a lot of cheers for him (including from me). It’s easy to be dismissive of Reigns (and John Cena) for only being over as babyfaces with the “kids” but people shouldn’t be so dismissive of what remains a vital part of WWE’’s audience. The three kids behind me, whose parents (also present) must have dropped upwards of £300 on an evening’s entertainment, certainly enjoyed cheering their hearts out for their hero. Wrestling is supposed to be fun. Never forget that.
It goes without saying that with half the roster (well those not injured, anyway) in London this was always going to be a “depleted” show. But three World title matches and a series of largely entertaining matches made for a great night out.