Z the blogger

I am back with a new Good, Bad, and Ugly segment after WWE's Backlash PPV.  In this article, we will go from ugly to good (let's end on a good note), primarily because Backlash 2020, a consistently underwhelming PPV, gave viewers emotional stories backed by physical, athletic, and innovative wrestling.  In a year filled by more ugly than good, Backlash provided some hope for the future and brought its audience away from the overwhelming aspects of life. The Ugly  I always love myself a good complaining, but Backlash did not deliver as much material as other recent PPVs.  But it started ugly.  It's hard to know how many people actually watch the pre-show, but the Women's tag team championship match belonged on it.  Smackdown's women division has lagged behind Raw's ever since the draft.  Alexa Bliss is not the wrestler she used to be (hence the pairing with Nikki Cross); Bayley and Sasha Banks may be, quite possibly, the two most overrated wrestler...

The Good 2020 Money in the Bank was advertised as "The Most Unique Money in the Bank" in WWE history.  Curiosity loomed over the the men's and women's MITB matches (which would be held simultaneously), but what delivered on one of WWE's more popular annual PPV's was some more old fashioned wrestling.   Drew McCintyre vs Seth Rollins:  This match was a blast.  It combined strength with athleticism and was backed by strong storytelling.  McCintyre, the newly crowned champion at Wrestlemania, was not a leader according to Seth Rollins.  This title was the cross for The Monday Night Messiah to bear.  New messianic esque music accompanied Rollins down to the ring, but there were no disciples to be seen.  The match featured a ton of highlights: a superplex into a falcon arrow; a German suplex off a reversal from the top rope; Rollins was thrown over the announce table; McCintyre survived a stomp; and the finish was classic high pace wrestlin...

I dream about many random things: sports, school, family events, dark desires, and fantasy worlds.  Most of the time, the dreams incorporate strange settings with strange people, and strange plot lines ensue.  Dreams and the subconscious fascinate me, partly because I have never had a firm grasp on how dreams are formed.  Sigmund Freud believes dreams are the manifestations of our deepest desires.  I concur that some of my dreams are rather terrifying, but I have a difficult time agreeing with Freud on a moral level.  Certainly dreams include desires of the flesh, but they are more than that.  Carl Jung believes dreams are the interactions between each side of the brain.  So, in theory, dreams are created by the brain's subconscious conversations with itself.  Even though Jung is a Buddhist, his theories on dreams are the closest to reality that I have ever heard.  I spent time recording a dream journal, and I felt connected to my subconsciou...

Super Meltdown: How the WWE Shit Themselves The Royal Rumble occurred over a month ago, but all the momentum which developed throughout that PPV and in anticipation of Wrestlemania was lost at Super Showdown on Thursday.  With Elimination Chamber looming a week from Sunday, no one expected Super Showdown to alter the landscape or turn heads, but it did in the worst possible way.  With the exception of The New Day and Miz and Morrison putting on an entertaining tag team clinic, each match was under par or overshadowed by nostalgia acts once again.  Many things can be said about Brock Lesnar, Carillo versus Garza, the repeat of Corbin and Regins, and the horrific gauntlet match, but they don't compare to the travesty WWE created when Goldberg defeated The Fiend. Goldberg had been absent from WWE since last year's Super Showdown with the Undertaker (lets not talk about that one), but during his absence, he was inducted (deservedly) into the WWE Hall of Fame.  The...

Yowie Wowie: The Character the WWE Needed Bray Wyatt had been on on an uptick entering WrestleMania 33.  He had just won the title in a grueling Elimination Chamber match, defeating John Cena, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, The Miz and Baron Corbin which allowed Wyatt to headline Wrestlemania 33 while defending the title against "The Viper" Randy Orton.  Wyatt would then proceed to lose to the Orton by way of the trademarked RKO; however, this RKO not only marked the end of Wyatt's short and first WWE Championship reign, it also pinned the character of Bray Wyatt and upended the cult following of the Wyatt family.  Bray's character was never the same.  He entered into a forgettable feud with an out-of-shape and washed-up Matt Hardy that resulted in one tag team title reign, but the reign spoke more for the lack of talent in the WWE tag team division than it did for the careers of Hardy and Wyatt.  Eventually, the WWE universe became bored with the Ultimate Deletion...

The Revival of Monday Night Raw by Zac VanderLey This episode of Monday Night Raw carried a story line throughout the entire show.  There were many wrestling matches including a tag team championship match.  The rivalry between the Shield and the Dogs of War continued and Stephanie McMahon also made an appearance on the show. The show began with the arrival of Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon.  She proceeded to chastise Constable Corbin and explain that mistakes were tolerated but not excuses.  She made it clear that if Corbin did not step up and control the Shield, that Kurt Angle would return and replace Corbin.  Constable Corbin has been a great story line that has provided comedy and a return to the Authority.  Angle is definitely going to return, but it is hard to say when.  Corbin has made the show more interesting and has changed the pace by allowing a heel to be in charge rather than a face. The Shield then proceeded to march o...

Hell in a Cell by Zac VanderLey The PPV reviews that I do will be match by match ratings and an eventual rating of the entire PPV.  Each match will be graded on the quality of moves, physicality, whether it was back and forth, exciting and if the ending was strong and satisfying.  Each category will get a number grade and all of the numbers will be added up and divided to create the final show rating. Jeff Hardy vs Randy Orton: Moves: 9.3. Randy Orton landed a superplex, powerslam and used many foreign objects.  Hardy landed a whisper in the wind and a swanton bomb on the chair.  They pulled out all of the stops and executed every move.  Every one would have loved to see an RKO when Hardy fell from the top of the cage, but overall the moves were well executed and interesting. Physicality: 10, There are not many matches that are more physical than a Cell match.  Hardy's belt was used, a screwdriver was placed in Hardy's ear and Hardy even ...