BTBOTM: WWE 2019: No Wildcards

[Tg11]

Night 1 of WrestleMania definitely lived up to the hype I was thoroughly entertained

Hell In A Cell was exactly that...Hell...and it was brutal inside Satan's structure. It looks like Aleister Black whatever WrestleMania undefeated streak he was about to have...Rollins just ended that inside Hell In a Cell

But I can definitely see Black disappearing after losing in the Cell and we don't see him for a while. Much like Undertaker, Black will disappear into the darkness for a bit and we won't see him for a few months at best.

Rollins I can see him setting his sights back on the WWE Universal Championship but even if he does that, he will have to deal with The Bloodline specifically our Tribal Chief Roman Reigns especially if Roman retains

Xavier Woods proving he is not a weak link in The New Day as he becomes WWE Cruiserweight Champion dethroning Lio Rush of The Hurt Business...I really love this for Woods because he hasn't won singles gold and he finally gets it done here at WrestleMania on Night 1 but will his New Day brethren also walk out with gold? Will New Day hold all the gold or will The Hurt Business recover here on Night 1?


Drew McIntyre also beating Tommaso Ciampa on Night 1...it begs the question of where these 2 go from here? Does Drew set his sights back on the WWE Championship now that Big E is champion? Or how about Ciampa, does he too target Big E?


Love Beth Phoenix's segment with a pregnant Becky Lynch


Hurt Business in their locker room I would hate to be a fly on the ointment especially in that room after Lio Rush just lost their first bit of gold...I wonder if because of that the other guys turn on him and he gets kicked out of the group?


Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott...we know the history here because of The Riott Squad and they are going at it here tonight at WrestleMania on Night 1 in the Women's Money in the Bank Ladder Match


Beth Phoenix gets her revenge not only here at WrestleMania by beating Natalya but she makes her tap out...how many people can make The Queen of Harts tap out? But I wonder what is next for Beth after this? Does she go back into retirement? What happens to Natalya now? Does she get kicked out of the MMA Horsewomen now too?


But I love the WrestleMania entrances for people on Night 1 though...with people getting specific special entrances


Bad Bunny...biggest pop of the night and people singing his theme song and Priest his 1st Mania too...they beat Logan Paul in his 1st Mania as well as Noam Dar in the Tag Team Match...Bunny getting the decisive pin as he pins Dar...that protects Paul in a sense because he wasn't pinned and Dar was. Plus it's a Tag Team Match and Logan in singles competition still undefeated last I checked.


The Usos doing their job in retaining the WWE Tag Team Championship...making sure it stays within The Bloodline as they did it by hook or by crook with no help from Roman or Jacob or Naomi or Tamina...they got it done themselves even if by using heelish tactics to retain but will their cousins also be holding gold? Will Jacob become WWE United States Champion or will Roman retain the WWE Universal Championship and will Roman unveil his Special Counsel on Night 2?


- Ember Moon wins the Women's Money in the Bank Ladder Match winning the briefcase becoming Ms Money in the Bank? Her ticket back to the main event...this is her ticket back to becoming WWE Women's Champion or WWE Women's Universal Champion. But it begs the question of which Champion does she cash in on? Does she cash in on Asuka or on Tay Conti to become WWE Women's Champion? Or does she move brands to RAW and she cashes in on Shayna Baszler or on Rhea Ripley to become WWE Women's Universal Champion? Or the better question is when does she cash in? Does she do it tonight or tomorrow night on Night 2? Or does she wait and pick her spot because she can cash in whenever she wants it any time over the next year


Kofi Kingston becomes the new WWE Intercontinental Champion dethroning Swerve Strickland of the WWE Intercontinental Championship...Kofi becomes a 5 time WWE Intercontinental Champion in the process but now that Swerve is no longer IC Champion...could he be on the fast track to become World Champion here in WWE? But now that both Kofi & Woods are Champions here on Night 1 winning their respective championship matches...it is all up to Big E who is cashing in his Money in the Bank Ladder Match briefcase that he won at last year's Mania and cashing it in here tonight on WWE Champion Samoa Joe...could Big E be making a mistake here? He could very well cash in and lose


WWE Women's Championship match...Tay Conti in perhaps the upset of the year in this Diary she becomes the new WWE Women's Champion by dethroning Asuka who was so dominant but let's be real here...if it hadn't been for Bianca Belair, Tay would not be here as WWE Women's Champion. Ember Moon tried to cash in mid match pulling a Rollins to make it a Triple Threat but Belair stops her from doing so. I wonder if Ember returns the favor and costs Belair her Tag Team Match with Vanessa Hudgens as they take on House of Couture tomorrow on Night 2 as payback?


Big E...here I thought that he would cash in and fail but he becomes WWE Champion in the main event of Night 1 dethroning Samoa Joe who has been nothing short of dominant in his reign beating big name after big name but Big E is the one to beat him...now The New Day they all walk out with gold around their waist to end Night 1 and what an emotional heartfelt scene to cap off Night 1 as they all celebrate together...been a long time coming

 

[Stojy]

I don’t do this to often on this scale anymore, but it’s Mania so what the hell, right? Although admittedly, not sure night 2 will get the same treatment lol.

I’m not the biggest fan of the opener here. Feel like the opening match is about getting the fans going, fast paced, something to pump the fans up but not exhaust them. It’s about giving them energy for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, I think exhausting the fans is exactly what a 25 minute blood fest would do. Match positioning on the show aside, I enjoyed the match. A lot of blood, a lot of weapons, really ticked the box for HIAC, although maybe we could have had more actual cell spots, as opposed to just other weapons in the cell. I loved the brutality of Seth using the broken kendo stick to stab Black, by the way. A little shocked Seth got the win here, I just assumed Black would get revenge. No issues though, this was a good match, just positioning was weird for me.

Nice moment with Becky appearing to give Becky a pep talk. Fits in with the storyline well.

The full stop on a really well told story here with Xavier Woods finally capturing a singles title. The way you’ve built this over time has been great. The match itself was solid, with Woods walking the ropes surely looking impressive at the end. I am intrigued by the handshake from Rush and what his buddies think about that, but this was solid.

Typical generic Usos promo here tonight which is fine to promote their match later. I do love that you’ve given them real high calibre, big name opponents in Edge and Rey.

Honestly, I’m dubbing this next one ‘the celebrity match’, and it’s probably the one I was least looking forward to for the night. With that being said, I thought you structured this match as well as you probably good. Bunny can’t look like an equal so Priest softens the opponents early and then Bunny gets his moments, before being isolated. Then Priest cleans up at the end, and Bunny gets a few high spots to look ultra impressive. I was maybe expecting a huge spot from Paul to which seemingly just didn’t come which was unexpected. Solid match though, but I’m hoping that’s the end of this.

Enjoyed the fiery start to Beth/Natalya because that’s exactly the fury Beth should have after being betrayed by her best friend. The carnage on the outside was good stuff, and then it made sense to use Shafir for Nattie to be able to gain the advantage. Action was solid enough throughout, and I’m happy Beth got one back on Shafir towards the end. Beth refusing to just go for the pinfall, and instead locking in the Double Armed Chicken Wing (think that’s what it's called) was a nice way to further put over Beth’s thirst for revenge. Nice work.

Conversation between Liv and Ruby was fine playing on their history and VERY recent history. It’ll be interesting to see whether they do get caught in the moment and team together tonight.

MITB match was a lot of fun. Plenty of the usual spots and some inventive stuff which works well. As opposed to it just being a spot fest, the added psychology of Nia and Piper being bases for everybody to work off, Bloodline alliance and Liv/Ruby stuff really made this feel a lot better. Good stuff throughout, and was noticeable that the finishing run was really amped up with spot after spot. I thought Ember was on a downward slide so confused by the result, but I also love her as a wrestler and don’t mind the result as well. Good stuff.

State of the Union from The New Day promoting their matches still to come was fine.

Issues with The Hurt Business, especially with Lio Rush seemingly showing a new, babyface attitude. MVP trying to get things back on track here, intrigued to see how this night pans out for them.

The IC Title match, whilst continuing to tell the story of the decline of The Hurt Business (tonight), didn’t quite hit for me. The New Day’s successful night continues which is fine, but this match just didn’t have any real substance to it. The action was fine, sure, some impressive moves and whatever, but it literally just felt like I was reading moves back and forth with no rhyme or no reason. No focus in terms of offense, no real in match story. Just felt a little dull after some of the great psychology you’ve utilised in your previous matches.

LOVE Ember Moon interrupting Conti to tease the cash in. MITB, for as formulaic and restrictive as it can be, it can also be a lot of fun.

I don’t want to start on a negative so I will say I enjoyed the tag title match, and I’ll get to the positives soon enough. With that being said, I HATED the start. I get the justification of Rey keeping his cool to win and avenge Dom, I can live with that. But then for him to slide through Jey’s legs and laugh at him like everything’s perfectly fine really irked me. Why are you trying to be cocky and get into somebody’s head when avenging your son? It felt like to much for me. That’s the negatives out of the way. I LOVE the booking of this as The Usos win as the real team. I also feel that Edge and Rey are two HUGE names, so there’s some added value to the champs winning this one. There was one thing missing which would have put Usos over as a GOAT level tag team. I would have loved if you had Rey and Edge bust out some moves from their 2002 run as a tag team, but then Usos had them scouted because they are THAT well prepared. Still thought, this was really good with The Usos team work really shining through, which was the most impressive and smartest thing to do. Good match.

Ciampa/Drew was solid. I was initially going to criticise when Ciampa rolled out the ring to stall, feeling like we don’t need to see that tactic multiple times in one night and Nattie had already done that. I guess Drew got the action going right away though, which was different to the last one, and Ciampa rolling out of the ring here was a reoccurring theme so I can live with it. The story here was the opportunistic Hangman DDT which changed the match, and then Ciampa’s cheating throughout. That coming full circle with Drew getting a low blow to set up The Claymore was a fun way to go about it. I enjoyed it.

Womens Title match was good for the most part but wasn’t perfect. I’ll start with the story, the idea of Tay improving over the past three months because she knows what she needs to defeat Asuka now is a great underdog story. You’ve executed that really well. I loved the psychology here in the early stages, with Asuka in control but every time she got to cocky, Conti would show she’s here to play for keeps. It was a good dynamic, until Asuka got ultra serious and just started to beat her up. The Ember appearance was fine, but Belair getting entrance music and all that jazz to beat up somebody at ringside just felt like to much of a distraction from the match for me. This leads me to the end of the match, I didn’t like it. The underdog fighting hard to get the win is fantastic, but Tay hulking up and no selling because she’s mad Asuka used her move is a bit meh for me. Makes me groan as a fan of Tay and it does nothing for Asuka either. A down ending to what was otherwise a really good piece of business.

The main event was exactly that and certainly delivered. Just two big men throwing blows at each other for the most part. Felt like bomb after bomb was being dropped here, with the added story of whether Big E was outmatched after already losing to Joe previously (in essence, I just realised very similar to the previous match). The big Spears from Big E to turn things around were some great spots, and I enjoyed the back and forth ending, with Big E suffering through the Coquina Clutch and still finding a way to accomplish the dream. Strong ending to the show.

Fun celebration stuff with The New Day all having titles to end night one.

 

[Roy Mustang]

I don’t do this to often on this scale anymore, but it’s Mania so what the hell, right? Although admittedly, not sure night 2 will get the same treatment lol.

I’m not the biggest fan of the opener here. Feel like the opening match is about getting the fans going, fast paced, something to pump the fans up but not exhaust them. It’s about giving them energy for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, I think exhausting the fans is exactly what a 25 minute blood fest would do. Match positioning on the show aside, I enjoyed the match. A lot of blood, a lot of weapons, really ticked the box for HIAC, although maybe we could have had more actual cell spots, as opposed to just other weapons in the cell. I loved the brutality of Seth using the broken kendo stick to stab Black, by the way. A little shocked Seth got the win here, I just assumed Black would get revenge. No issues though, this was a good match, just positioning was weird for me.

Nice moment with Becky appearing to give Becky a pep talk. Fits in with the storyline well.

The full stop on a really well told story here with Xavier Woods finally capturing a singles title. The way you’ve built this over time has been great. The match itself was solid, with Woods walking the ropes surely looking impressive at the end. I am intrigued by the handshake from Rush and what his buddies think about that, but this was solid.

Typical generic Usos promo here tonight which is fine to promote their match later. I do love that you’ve given them real high calibre, big name opponents in Edge and Rey.

Honestly, I’m dubbing this next one ‘the celebrity match’, and it’s probably the one I was least looking forward to for the night. With that being said, I thought you structured this match as well as you probably good. Bunny can’t look like an equal so Priest softens the opponents early and then Bunny gets his moments, before being isolated. Then Priest cleans up at the end, and Bunny gets a few high spots to look ultra impressive. I was maybe expecting a huge spot from Paul to which seemingly just didn’t come which was unexpected. Solid match though, but I’m hoping that’s the end of this.

Enjoyed the fiery start to Beth/Natalya because that’s exactly the fury Beth should have after being betrayed by her best friend. The carnage on the outside was good stuff, and then it made sense to use Shafir for Nattie to be able to gain the advantage. Action was solid enough throughout, and I’m happy Beth got one back on Shafir towards the end. Beth refusing to just go for the pinfall, and instead locking in the Double Armed Chicken Wing (think that’s what it's called) was a nice way to further put over Beth’s thirst for revenge. Nice work.

Conversation between Liv and Ruby was fine playing on their history and VERY recent history. It’ll be interesting to see whether they do get caught in the moment and team together tonight.

MITB match was a lot of fun. Plenty of the usual spots and some inventive stuff which works well. As opposed to it just being a spot fest, the added psychology of Nia and Piper being bases for everybody to work off, Bloodline alliance and Liv/Ruby stuff really made this feel a lot better. Good stuff throughout, and was noticeable that the finishing run was really amped up with spot after spot. I thought Ember was on a downward slide so confused by the result, but I also love her as a wrestler and don’t mind the result as well. Good stuff.

State of the Union from The New Day promoting their matches still to come was fine.

Issues with The Hurt Business, especially with Lio Rush seemingly showing a new, babyface attitude. MVP trying to get things back on track here, intrigued to see how this night pans out for them.

The IC Title match, whilst continuing to tell the story of the decline of The Hurt Business (tonight), didn’t quite hit for me. The New Day’s successful night continues which is fine, but this match just didn’t have any real substance to it. The action was fine, sure, some impressive moves and whatever, but it literally just felt like I was reading moves back and forth with no rhyme or no reason. No focus in terms of offense, no real in match story. Just felt a little dull after some of the great psychology you’ve utilised in your previous matches.

LOVE Ember Moon interrupting Conti to tease the cash in. MITB, for as formulaic and restrictive as it can be, it can also be a lot of fun.

I don’t want to start on a negative so I will say I enjoyed the tag title match, and I’ll get to the positives soon enough. With that being said, I HATED the start. I get the justification of Rey keeping his cool to win and avenge Dom, I can live with that. But then for him to slide through Jey’s legs and laugh at him like everything’s perfectly fine really irked me. Why are you trying to be cocky and get into somebody’s head when avenging your son? It felt like to much for me. That’s the negatives out of the way. I LOVE the booking of this as The Usos win as the real team. I also feel that Edge and Rey are two HUGE names, so there’s some added value to the champs winning this one. There was one thing missing which would have put Usos over as a GOAT level tag team. I would have loved if you had Rey and Edge bust out some moves from their 2002 run as a tag team, but then Usos had them scouted because they are THAT well prepared. Still thought, this was really good with The Usos team work really shining through, which was the most impressive and smartest thing to do. Good match.

Ciampa/Drew was solid. I was initially going to criticise when Ciampa rolled out the ring to stall, feeling like we don’t need to see that tactic multiple times in one night and Nattie had already done that. I guess Drew got the action going right away though, which was different to the last one, and Ciampa rolling out of the ring here was a reoccurring theme so I can live with it. The story here was the opportunistic Hangman DDT which changed the match, and then Ciampa’s cheating throughout. That coming full circle with Drew getting a low blow to set up The Claymore was a fun way to go about it. I enjoyed it.

Womens Title match was good for the most part but wasn’t perfect. I’ll start with the story, the idea of Tay improving over the past three months because she knows what she needs to defeat Asuka now is a great underdog story. You’ve executed that really well. I loved the psychology here in the early stages, with Asuka in control but every time she got to cocky, Conti would show she’s here to play for keeps. It was a good dynamic, until Asuka got ultra serious and just started to beat her up. The Ember appearance was fine, but Belair getting entrance music and all that jazz to beat up somebody at ringside just felt like to much of a distraction from the match for me. This leads me to the end of the match, I didn’t like it. The underdog fighting hard to get the win is fantastic, but Tay hulking up and no selling because she’s mad Asuka used her move is a bit meh for me. Makes me groan as a fan of Tay and it does nothing for Asuka either. A down ending to what was otherwise a really good piece of business.

The main event was exactly that and certainly delivered. Just two big men throwing blows at each other for the most part. Felt like bomb after bomb was being dropped here, with the added story of whether Big E was outmatched after already losing to Joe previously (in essence, I just realised very similar to the previous match). The big Spears from Big E to turn things around were some great spots, and I enjoyed the back and forth ending, with Big E suffering through the Coquina Clutch and still finding a way to accomplish the dream. Strong ending to the show.

Fun celebration stuff with The New Day all having titles to end night one.

Thank you for the feedback as always . Reason I went with Hell in a Cell to start the show is I wanted a major match to start and I didn't want the MITB to start the show here. Honestly in hindsight I probs should have gone with Rush vs Woods here to start the show. Black losing was done for a reason and will have a big impact going into the next year (if I ever book it).

Yeah in hindsight the Rey spot and laughing was a mistake, I was trying to play it as him outsmarting them but yeah he shouldn't be laughing as he gets revenge for his son. So originally when planning out year 2, I was going to have a different heel win the Money in the Bank briefcase (It was going to be Naomi ironically who just won it in real life) but Athena's real life work, made me pick her for this spot once I knew I was turning heel post-Summerslam.

Yeah the ending I could have wrote better as was not meant to come off as hulking up. I went for the music hitting to give Belair a big moment on night 1 and also to set up plans with her and Moon going into year 3. Kofi's win was the one I found the hardest to book well as it had the least story and was mostly there to give us the moment at the end of the show plus I wanted to protect Swerve who I have major plans for going into the 2nd year.

Will deffo take some of this on board when writing the rest of night 2 (currently on the 3rd match on the show)

 

[Roy Mustang]

Predictions contest:
Stojy: 11/20
Dubb: 10/20
Tg11: 8/20
RDT: 5/20

Predict the winners: Big E, Conti, Kofi, Usos, Rush, Rollins, Beth, McIntyre, Moon, AR Fox (1 each)
Predict the shortest match: Bad Bunny and Damian Priest vs Dar and Logan Paul (9:25) (2 points)
Predict the longest match: HIAC (25:12) (2 points)
Who will get the winning fall on who in the tag team matches: Bad Bunny on Dar, Jimmy on Edge (1 point for each right answer)
And who is the mystery entrant in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal: Elias (2 points)​

News update:​

Ariya Daiviari is out for 7 months with a bicep injury​

In the middle of the Andre the Giant Battle Royal a few fans noticed Daivari clutching his ribs partway through the match and being quickly tossed out. Whilst there were no major plans for him to go much longer, he was tossed out of the ring early due to the pain he was in. Ariya will now be out of action for the next 7 months due to this injury, a low to the Cruiserweight division on Raw.

Asuka out of action for 3 months due to an eye injury​

Asuka lost her WWE Women’s title in a huge upset at WrestleMania 37 and it looks like it worked out well for WWE, as Asuka picked up an eye injury during the match. Asuka is expected to take 3 months off TV for the time being due to this, which means she will likely miss the draft but will be back in time for Summerslam.

Mod note: Part of the reason why I made the call to switch the title is due to Asuka getting an EWR injury. I was considering the title switch before this but this sealed it as otherwise I would have had to vacate another Women’s title.