WWE No Mercy – October 4, 2020:
One day I will get back up to speed with this properly.
It’s truly interesting to see you take tag teams into different directions, as seen here by Rowe hanging out with Kevin Owens. Shawn Michaels makes for a decent authority figure as we have seen from NXT in the past year.
The O.C. is a loaded faction right now, isn’t it? I’m on board with Buddy Murphy being part of it – he just fits ideally as a faction guy, alongside Luke Gallows for that matter. Big Cass is a choice out of left field, and while Gallows is a part of a team, it’s interesting you have two big heaters in the same faction.
Apollo Crews is a dark horse candidate for King of the Ring, if you ask me. Good choice for the pre-show match, defeating Humberto Carrillo. Humberto is a square peg in a round hole as far as fitting in with the WWE roster, I’ve found.
There are a lot of factions in this, and that rings true and evident with the utilisation of this pre-show. Alpha Academy makes a world of sense to me, as everyone fits that mold pretty well.
I can imagine Rey Mysterio and Nathan Frazier would have been a special match between two high-flyers. Rey with the win was no surprise. Would not have minded seeing this go longer, though it’s hard with a pre-show.
Onto the main card, not a bad shout for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match to kick things off. You have done a solid job of beefing up the lacking tag team division in the women’s ranks, though I am a little tired of the MMA Horsewomen and WWE Horsewomen at this point. Regardless, this was a fun write-up and having Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks as the champions is a good call…but can they coexist?
I dig the contrast in couples with Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella opposite John Morrison and Franky Monet. Being uninformed, I am amused by the inclusion of Erick Rowan as Morrison’s second, though. Not a bad match, kept short here.
I do not know how I would have found a Braun Strowman and Karrion Kross match, but it is a spectacle with the Last Man Standing stip, and as a result could have been quite fascinating to watch. I think the ten count formatting took me out of the writing. It built drama for sure, but I do think in future there could be a better way of notifying the reader of a competitor beating the count of nine. Kross winning made more logical sense, as Strowman is an established name and was guarded well in defeat. Big drama in the closing moments, for sure.
Kevin Owens and Rowe makes for such a strange combination. At least if it were Hanson I could see KO and him with the stereo Cannonball sentons in the corner. With the Bloodline doing an injury angle with Hanson it makes sense why though. The Usos getting the win was a surprise, and I have reason to believe we may be in for a WarGames match or multi-man tag team match in the not too distant future perhaps, once Hanson returns.
Chad Gable and AJ Styles would have been an awesome match, I really enjoyed the write-up of this. I think it could have gone a little longer again, as some of these pay-per-view matches have gotten their wings clipped tonight. AJ with the win made sense, and while I’m not keen on the finish, it makes sense with Big Cass occupying the role of Omos in aiding AJ to victory. Still a bit of a disappointing finish for these two, though maybe that is the point with the cowardly O.C. characters.
I could imagine Bianca Belair and Ember Moon having a fun collision, and the right person won here. Bianca should rightfully be en route to the upper echelon of the women’s division, after all.
Finn Bálor defeating Matt Riddle was a surprise, but gets over the O.C. as a strong unit. It’s a shame this turned into more of an angle than a match, as these two are absolutely capable of a real banger if given time. Still, this got more time than I was expecting, even if it went 6:00. The WWE United States Championship remaining in the O.C. was the way to go, out to control titles.
I was very surprised we never got Ronda Rousey and Bayley in real life, though then again they were never truly around one another at the right time to set things in motion. Rousey winning the WWE Women’s Championship admittedly came as a surprise to me.
We have seen what can be afforded by Edge and Seth Rollins in big match situations, and it was interesting to see you put this in a Hell in a Cell scenario. Seth winning the WWE Universal Championship only adds fuel to the fire of the Church’s run over the WWE. I liked the use of the finish, and the Curb Stomp onto the chair made for a very fun callback from that famed angle in 2015. I suspect by the aftermath we may be in for a Bray Wyatt return?
Overall, this was a solid show. I felt with nine matches, you could have done away with one or two, though, down to pacing and overall priority of matches on the card – chiefly the WWE United States Championship and Usos/KO and Rowe tag team matches. There is a lot going on with a very fleshed out roster, which can be alarming sometimes as certain guys can tend to get lost in the shuffle. That aside, I’ll be interested in seeing how you pull off the 2020 King of the Ring.
