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Credit: WWE.com
We are three weeks away from WrestleMania 37 on April 10-11, but before we hit the biggest show of the year, we had Sunday’s WWE Fastlane pay-per-view.
Roman Reigns defended the Universal Championship against Daniel Bryan in the main event, with Edge serving as a special guest performer in an attempt to limit any outside interference.
Both midcard belts were at stake when Big E put the Intercontinental Championship at stake against Apollo Crews, and Riddle defended the United States title against Mustafa Ali.
Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks challenged Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for the Women’s Doubles Championship, Alexa Bliss faced Randy Orton, Seth Rollins fought Shinsuke Nakamura and Sheamus went to war with Drew McIntyre in a No Holds Barred fight.
Let’s look at each Sunday’s PPV match to see if Fastlane was worth the price of admission.
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Kickoff featured Riddle defending the United States Championship against Mustafa Ali in a Raw rematch on Monday.
They started with a standard shift before increasing the pace when Riddle took over. The rest of Retribution watched while Ali scolded them after a successful counterattack.
There he applied a lot of punishment while trying to take Riddle down. The champion finally found the urge to make a comeback, but Ali opposed the upper rope Broton with a pair of knees.
Bro escaped from a Koji clutch and hit Bro Derek from the middle rope to win and retain the title. Ali shouted at his followers and Reckoning abandoned him. She was soon followed by Slapjack. T-Bar and Mace ended up attacking Ali with a double chokeslam.
Grade: B
Analyze
Riddle and Ali had a good fight on Raw and this was a worthy continuation. They had good chemistry as opponents and had a good pace.
This was one of the most aggressive jobs we’ve seen from Ali since he became the heel and joined Retribution. What was surprising was how little Retribution tried to help him.
Stable separation is best for everyone. Mia Yim was criminally underutilized during this plot and everyone else was just playing pawns. Seeing how everyone is used after that will give us a good idea of who will be here and who can return to NXT.
2 of 5
The first game on the main card saw Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax defend the women’s doubles titles against Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks.
Banks and Belair used quick tags and double team moves to take control of Baszler immediately. Once the Queen of Spades had the upper hand, Jax signed up.
The champions isolated EST in their corner for a few minutes while exhausting it. Reginald hoped for Jax and Baszler on the side of the ring. The Boss scored and almost won with Baszler’s bank statement before Jax broke the block by pushing Belair towards them.
This caused an argument between the opponents that led Baszler to win with a rollup. Banks slapped Belair and left before Belair could react.
Grade: C +
Analyze
The first minutes had a fast pace and this led Belair to make some small mistakes. Corey Graves even mentioned one of them and cited his inexperience as a reason for failure.
The yellow card for this match was predictable. We all knew that Banks and Belair would not win the titles, and that would always end with each other in the throat.
The game action was good, but it could have been better. The first slips were not a big factor in the overall score.
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As soon as the referee called the bell, Big E and Apollo Crews were throwing punches. The champion put Crews in the apron and dropped him with a huge spear in the ropes.
He gave the apron a big splash while talking as much garbage as possible. Big E threw him across the ring with a pair of belly-to-belly suplexes. Crews responded with a trio of German suplexes.
Crews and E tried to do a pin reversal that ended up looking awful and made the end of the game look sloppy and inconsistent with what we’ve seen of these two so far. Big E held back, but it was difficult to say who won at the beginning.
Grade: Ç-
Analyze
Big E and Crews turned this into one of the best feuds on SmackDown. Even though Crews’ new accent was a little weird, they managed to keep us invested.
The way Big E dominated the opening minutes of the match made him look great, and the way Crews recovered was just as good. The ending completely ruined everything they had built.
Critical flaws happen, but when something is that bad, it stands out. It is difficult to say whether the fault lies more with the referee or the stars. Anyway, what could have been the best match of the night ended with a groan instead of a bang.
Everything until completion was great. Unfortunately, the way it ended is all people will remember.
4 out of 5
After suffering an injury during a training session, Shane McMahon somehow convinced Elias to replace him in his match against Braun Strowman.
Jaxson Ryker tried to protect Elias at one point, but did nothing to stop the monster among men from destroying him. The singer was able to hit a DDT and an elbow drop for a count of two.
As soon as he rose, Strowman launched his Powerlam to victory.
Grade: Ç-
Analyze
WWE.com had that game listed on Monday, but removed it on Tuesday, so it was difficult to say whether we would actually see Strowman on PPV until it happened.
Putting Elias to bear the loss is a decent heel move by Shane McMahon. It just didn’t make it any better. We saw Strowman and Elias fight several times in the past year. Strowman gained nothing from this victory, while Elias continues to fall into irrelevance.
5 out of 5
Shinsuke Nakamura had a quick chat with Riddle backstage before he and Rollins met in the ring for the fight. They locked and Rollins applied a side headlock.
Nakamura countered and teased Rollins to suck him with a kick in the stomach. The Messiah hit his head on the advertisers’ table to turn the tide in his favor. He almost fell with a gutbuster.
Rollins complained about Cesaro swinging him about 22 times. As the match progressed, they started to gain strength. Rollins was victorious with a Stomp.
Grade: B +
Analyze
This lacked a little bit of the physicality of their previous encounters, but they increased more as the match progressed. Up to this point in the show, this was the best fight for a kilometer.
Rollins is good as a heel, but his character is poorly defined now. Is he still a Messiah or is he just an arrogant bad guy? We didn’t get many answers here.
Nakamura may need some victories, but just having a singles fight on a PPV is a step in the right direction. Rollins will likely fight Cesaro at WrestleMania, leaving Nakamura alone.