WWE Live Review (Salt Lake City, June 17th, 2016)

To start, I want to give a little background about myself and how I got back into the wrestling fandom again. I haven't watched WWE or much wrestling in general for 10 years. I got bored with the product and basically boycotted WWE when they took
ECW and made it it's own thing on the SCI Fi network and all of that.

I joined Instagram back in 2014 and I started following wrestling accounts for all of the old school flavor, plus one of my friends from way back convinced me that there was still great wrestling going on in Big Japan, Ring of Honor, NXT and the WWE. April 2016 I saw that Wrestlemania was coming up, WWE Network was offering a free monthly trial, and with it you get the PPV.

My 10 year old daughter and I watched the Raw right before Wrestlemania and she got into the characters, storylines and the action, and it was really fun for me to have someone to watch with and just overall feel smart because I knew so much about wrestling. We watched Wrestlemania together and I really got a chance to see some of these new stars shine, from Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, to Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, these new guys were not only impressive in the ring, they were very entertaining. Safe to say thats all it took and my daughter and I havent missed a Raw, Smackdown or a PPV since.

We went to the Live WWE event last night in Salt Lake City, UT. The experience was amazing,

Alberto Del Rio vs. Cesaro

Tickets said Doors open at 7, showtime at 8, we got there at 6:30 and they were already letting people in, it was about 7:45 while we were standing in a concession stand line when we heard Alberto Del Rio's music playing, so we jumped out of line and ran to our seats. Del Rio was in the ring 15 minutes before scheduled time, his opponent was Cesaro, both wrestlers played their roles perfectly, Del Rio is a such a great heel, easy to hate him. This was the match of the night imo, first match, To me this was PPV quality from all of the near falls and combination/reversal wrestling, fantastic match, only bad thing is between all of the excitement i can't remember who won.... does it matter though. both of these guys will bring that to Money In The Bank on Sunday, so we all win.

Lucha Dragons vs. The Club (Gallows & Anderson)

I had been checking the line up scheduled for this show, early on Kalisto was scheduled alone, then taken off altogether, so it was a real surprise to see them in action. It's amusing that I never knew that they used a mini trampoline to enter the ring, they hide that really good on the live broadcasts, still one of the coolest ring entries by the Lucha Dragons. The Club came out to a very hateful crowd there were some cheers but 90% boo's, my daughter was really letting them have it to the point where she blew out her voice after three matches!  The Club won this one in pretty dominating fashion, some good high flying spots by the Dragons. Can't remember what The Club's finisher is called, but they won with that.

Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler

I feel I have seen this match 5 times already, Baron Corbin is huge in person, I really like the attitude of his character, this match went back and fourth until Corbin won, again amidst all of the excitement and we finally snuck up to get a drink during this one. I can't remember how the match ended, but I know Corbin got the win. This was a preview of a match at the Money In The Bank Kick Off Pre-Show tomorrow.

Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose (Salt Lake City Street Fight)

The matches were coming fast and furious, next up Byron Saxton announced a Salt Lake City Street fight coming up, and the place blew up, one way to get a crowd, is to promise a no DQ anything goes match with the cities name in the title. Jericho is a master on the mic, he had everyone eating out of his hand and it was great, he did the whole Gift of Jericho "Drink it in man" and had everyone booing. Ambrose came out and again I feel like I have seen this match 5 times already, still very good, some kendo stick spots, some chair spots, and of course The Table! One of the biggest cheers of the night was when Ambrose pulled out a table and set it up in the corner, He ended up throwing jericho through it while he was holding a chair which looked really cool, Ambrose hit his DDT and won the match. This was another PPV caliber match, they don't hold back on these WWE Live events.


The main event was announced before the intermission, it would be a Three Way WWE Heavyweight Championship Match with Roman Reigns putting his belt on the line vs. AJ Styles and Seth Rollins.


8 Woman Tag Team Match
Summer Rae, Eva Marie, Dana Brooke & Charlotte vs.  Natalya, Paige, Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch

What a treat this was, the only women announced for this show were Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Becky Lynch which had me expecting some type of 3 way match, but nope, we got all of the active women in the ring all at once. Sasha Banks is so bad ass, there's something about her, she has that charisma. Charlotte is the most impressive women's wrestler I've probably ever seen, a great heel, sells every move 100% and can do so many other things, I really like Dana Brooke too. There was tons of action in this one, Sasha Banks made someone tap out with her finisher I think it was Dana Brooke. Natalya's team won. I'm wondering how they will get Sasha back into the action, it's apparent that it needs to happen on Sunday or as late as Monday.

Rusev w/ Lana vs. Titus O'Neil

Lana came out by herself to begin, mic in hand to address the crowd, she ripped Salt Lake City, calling it a small pathetic village, and said that there isn't one truly powerful man in the whole entire audience. There was a group of guys sitting behind me that were chanting "We Want Lana" the entire match, she is definitely a sight to behold in person. Rusev won this match with a super kick, after Titus broke out of his submission hold twice. Good action here, another PPV Preview, I see the PPV match going close to the same here, Rusev is just too dominant.

Main Event, Three Way Title Match
AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns

AJ got a decent response, some boo's and cheers but everyone had a reaction, Rollins got a great response, I saw tons of Rollins T Shirts in the crowd, but of course, Roman Reigns got the loudest response, I was totally expecting a lot of booing but I heard it 90% positive, the place blew up when he came out, I guess I kind of get the criticism of Reigns because he's got that aura about him that you know he's not going to lose, which makes watching the match not as exciting. Can he work though? absolutely, he's quick on his feet, sells well, and his punches are god damn believable.

Seth Rollins is so great in the ring, ring psychology is amazing, he's definitely a student of the game, tricking AJ into teaming up with him and trying to sneak pin falls and do things deliberately to mess with AJ, really funny stuff. Reigns speared the hell out of AJ in a spot we have seen many times in recent months with AJ missing the flying forearm, coming off the ropes into a full blast spear.

Reigns got the win. I get the hate (internet, and around the country) but at the same time, is his title reign really that bad? I think back to the days of champions like Sid Justice, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, all of those guys in ring work is worse than Reigns, sorry, some of the gimmicks and stories were great which made up for boring in ring work. Could any of those guys do a flying press over the top ropes to the outside? the answer is no. I hope Reigns loses the title, and comes back to get it, so everybody can shut up for a while. You're only as good as who you wrestle, Reigns can put on a match with anyone, the before mentioned champs all sucked ass in my opinion.

Noticeably absent from the card were Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, The Vaudevillains, The New Day and Enzo & Cass. That's probably my only complaint about the whole event.

That's it. Can't wait for Money In The Bank exclusively on the WWE Network.... if you're not a subscriber, what's the wait?