Welcome back to Pro Wrestling Review; this going to be my Wwe Batleground 2013 review.
Pre Show: Dolph Ziggler vs Damien Sandow
For the first time in a long time I actually watched the pre show; this was ok match with Ziggler getting the win with the zig zag after Sandow kayfabe injured his knee. They did this I guess to explain why he couldn't come out and cash in on Alberto Del Rio after his hardcore match. So I guess you could say that they were thinking and trying to not to leave plot holes but if I had opportunity to win a world championship I think I might just go out there get the three count no matter if my knee was hurt or not. Also Sandow was perfectly fine the next night on raw. I guess it was only the world heavyweight championship which these days isn't that important so maybe Sandow figured what the heck it's not worth it I'll just cash in later.
Ziggler and Sandow had rematch on raw and Ziggler actually won again. Despite the match being very very good; better than the ppv one I was disappointed that Sandow didn't get a win in the feud. So the MITB holder, someone who is supposed to be on the cusp of the main event losing to someone like Dolph Ziggler who is I guess sort of part of the main event becuase betting that person would be considered an upset and so big of one that they wouldn't give Sandow the win in order to not hurt Ziggler. That's pretty bad. So far they haven't been doing a very good job at all of handling Damien Sandow; in his first big feud he lost both matches to Cody; so he basically got dominated. Now the same thing just happened in his feud with Dolph Ziggler; at this point he's basically just a jobber to the stars. I really hope they don't screw up his career.
WHC: Alberto Del Rio vs RVD (Battleground Hardcore Match)
This was a pretty good match; there were lot's of cool spots in it. At one point RVD did the 5 star frog splash on a ladder that was on top of Alberto Del Rio; now this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but it definitely was very cool. The match was very entertaining and Del Rio won after hurting Van Dam's arm with a chair and then locking on the cross arm breaker. This was probably my second favorite match on the show.
Bray Wyatt vs Kofi Kingston
This match didn't have a whole lot of build up but the match was pretty solid. Bray Wyatt got more offence than he did in his match with Kane at Summerslam and he also did this really creepy thing where he did this crazy spider crawl upside down walk.
Now it looks like he's going into a feud with The Miz; hopefully they get a good feud going. I'm a big fan of Bray Wyatt but wwe has handled him completely wrong. I'll have another article talking about that coming soon. Over all this match was solid but I wish that it would have had more build.
IC Title: Curtis Axel vs R-Truth
I guess I'm glad that they're kind of doing something Curtis Axel and R Truth; it's not a great feud but at least it's something. I didn't see this match but I heard it was just ok. I'm guessing they'll have another match at Hell in a Cell.
Cody Rhodes and Goldust w Dusty Rhodes vs The Shield's Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns
This was a really really good match; it had a great story and was very fun to watch. Also having Dusty there was cool too. I do feel like they pulled he trigger a little bit too early on it and if they had a normal ppv schedule they wouldn't have had to do that. It didn't hurt the match though. The Shield's big win and celebration at the end was nice too. They also had a really great match rematch on raw this week where the shield captured the tag team championships. Overall the one storyline that I'm liking the most right is this one and I can't wait to see where it goes. I'm also glad that they built up a credible team to take down the shield instead of just some team with no build up. I'm really glad that they're giving Cody Rhodes this great storyline and I see very good things for him in wwe if they don't screw him up.
CM Punk vs Ryback
This match wasn't very good; for one the crowd was dead for most of it and I don't blame them. It got a little exiting when CM Punk started to get the upper hand and it ended when the referee was distracted by Paul Heyman who on the outside and then CM Punk low blowed Ryback who was behind him. The ending was kind of clever but when I finished the match I really didn't feel like I had needed to watch it.
The main reason I didn't care about the match though was because of the build up; except for CM Punk's segments this build has been absolutely terrible. I don't get the deal with Ryback; they won't bury him like they do everyone else but they refuse to give him anything near good storyline wise; I don't understand it. This past year he's had some pretty bad material but this has definitely been the worst. Basically the build up for this match was wwe teasing Ryback and Paul Heyman being in love. They have this great feud between Heyman and Punk and they decide that it's more important to tease a love angle...you gotta be kidding me...seriously! I don't know why in the heck they felt the need to do that in the first place but if they had to do it why put it in your second biggest storyline; come on really? I thought it was over after the week where Heyman asked Ryback to be a Paul Heyman guy instead of asking him to marry him but it's not. They still have Heyman referring to Ryback as his big beautiful man; I don't know if I can handle anymore of this; good grief.
The worst thing about this too is that besides this being the second biggest storyline going in wwe right now; it's also the prelude to the return of Brock Lesner and the continuation of his feud with CM Punk. You might know that I absolutely loved the build up the match at Summerslam between Lesner and Punk it's actually one of my top five favorite matches of all time because of how good the storyline and the match was. Now though when that feud eventually starts back up again I don't think it will be quite the same; I'm sure I'll still be really exited for it but this storyline has the potential of really damaging a huge match for survivor series, wrestlemania or when ever it ends up happening. I mean I knew this was just kind of going to be filler until Lesner returns but I didn't think it was gonna be this bad! I mean they must have hired tna writers to do this crap. I guess I can just be glad thr they didn't do the love storyline with Brock Lesner and Paul Heyman...at least not yet.
WWE Title: Daniel Bryan vs Randy Orton
This match was very good probably better than the NOC one but the ending...not so much. So Orton and Bryan are having a great match and Bryan has Orton in the YES lock; then Big Show comes down and knocks out Bryan. Next the same ref that was fired after Night of Champions comes out and is going to count the win to Orton when Show KOs him. After that Orton starts yelling at him and eventually gets KOed too. This really made the match seem like it was just filler and that it didn't need to be there. Matter of fact that's how almost all of this ppv was.
For the most part I've been really on board with this wwe championship storyline but after Battleground not so much; I definitely feel disconected from it now and that wwe's fault. They had this great storyline and they messed it up because of their bad ppv scedule. The Night of Champions no contest ending I was fine with; I actually thought it made the feud better becuase it redid Randy Orton's character. They can't do an ending like that twice in a row though.
Not important has been a reoccurring theme with this ppv and everything besides the Rhodes match seemed like I didn't really need to watch it. I would've probably put that match on in the main event spot since it was the only one with anything note worthy to happen. They should've just gone from NOC to HIAC and skipped this ppv; almost every match wasn't important. The whc title match was very good but definitely could've waited a few more week to happen, CM Punk vs Ryabck's match at HIAC could have benefited from bot being a rematch; and the WWE title one really shouldn't have happened until Hell in a Cell. Even the Rhodes vs the Shield match could've benefited from more time to have built it up.
I don't know why wwe usually does this crouded ppv schedule in the fall but they really need to stop doing it. They're sacrificing most of their top storylines in order to make a little bit more money which in the long run might not make more money if people don't care about the storylines anymore.
Besides sacrificing top storylines they're also messing up the entire ppv market; when someone pays 50 or 60 bucks for a ppv where almost nothing important happens they're probably not going to buy the next one. Especially Hell in a Cell which is probably going to be another filler event. Because you know wwe probably won't want to do anything super huge at that event because they'll want to save it for Survivor Series. I'm guessing that HIAC's buy rates won't be very good at all; in fact I hope they're not because then maybe it'll send wwe a message. And they won't be able to blame John Cena not being on the show because Cena will be on it but I'll talk about that situation in a different article.
It kind of irritates me that wwe expects it's loyal fans to pay 50 to 60 dollars to watch crap that you would get on raw. I was watching some old ppvs from like 10 years ago and they were able to show video package for midcard feuds; video packages of the build up. Now days that would be very very rare. Wwe's midcard matches already don't seem important now they can't even get the main ones to be too gosh.
PPVs used to be the big climax of all these huge angles that had been going on in the wwe for the last month in a half or two now thought they're not important at all. And when wwe treats something like it's not important the fans will too; it happened with the divas, it happened with the tag team division and it can happen with they're ppv market as well. I know that I'm sure as heck not buying Hell in a cell and I'm guessing there's a lot of other people that feel the same way.
You can tell me your thoughts on everything that I discussed in this article and/or check me out on twitter: @ENC98, Facebook: Enc Wwe, and Instagram: ENC98. Also on Pro Wrestling Review's very twitter: @PWReview, you can follow that account for information specifically related to this column such as when new articles come out etc. Thanks for reading.
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