WWE Battleground Pay-Per-View – Big trouble in little Tampa (in GIFs)

I’m not gonna dance around it – I hated the WWE Battleground Pay-Per-View last night. I can’t sugarcoat it – aside from a few bright spots, the overall show was worse than your average Raw.

And I’m gonna tell you why. In GIFs.

After the Wyatt Family/Usos tag title match I was like

But after the AJ/Paige match I was like

The Swagger/Rusev match made me feel

When Dean Ambrose got “kicked out” I was like

But when I realized Ambrose/Rollins really wasn’t going to happen

When Jericho beat Bray with a Codebreaker (a signature move, not even a finisher)

When Heath Slater eliminated Cesaro, I was legitimately like

And after Miz won (which I called every step of the way – Dolph Ziggler eliminating Sheamus only to have Miz eliminate him and win) I was all

After John Cena overcame the odds because CENAWINSLOL and I realized Seth Rollins was gone and couldn’t cash in his Money in the Bank contract, I felt

But overall, WWE Battleground left me feeling

The Kickoff opened with Summer Rae and Layla accompanying Adam Rose to the ring to squash Fandango followed by an OK (mostly because it was short) match between Naomi and Cameron. Both were mostly forgettable – though Layla and Summer Rae have this effect on me 

The opening match of the show was the 2-out-of-3 falls match for the tag team titles between the Usos and the Wyatt Family. This was easily the best match on the card. The Usos have improved by leaps and bounds in the past few years and though I wanted to see the Wyatts come out on top, this match was a great way to kick off the show.

Unfortunately, things quickly took a turn.

The Divas championship match left a lot to be desired. The story leading into it has been boring and nonsensical – why would Paige want to still be AJ’s friend after AJ took the title from her?! Plus, the match itself was a botchfest – which I’m sure no one saw coming. Which wasn’t sarcasm – Paige and AJ usually put on good matches and I thought these two given PPV time would lead to something great. Instead, what we got was this:

The “hoss battle” between Jack Swagger and Rusev was pretty good. The crowd seems to be getting behind Swagger as a face, surprisingly, and even though I could nitpick things (like Rusev not selling the ankle lock more) it was a perfectly fine match and the Swagger count out even set up a rematch well by not giving Rusev a clean victory over Swags.

I’m pretty livid about the blatant “bait-and-switch” which was Seth Rollins vs Dean Ambrose. The match which was one of the most hyped on the card and touted as a selling point for buying WWE Network, didn’t happen because Ambrose got “kicked out” for attacking Rollins. In other words, WWE screwed fans out of a highly anticipated match because Ambrose did something he’s been doing for weeks. I get they want, what will no doubt be, an amazing match for Summerslam but this was a bait-and-switch of the highest degree and fans should rightly be pissed for not getting it.

I don’t get the point of having Chris Jericho go over Bray Wyatt at all. They want to make the Wyatt Family look strong at some point during their main roster run, right?? So why are they losing every single PPV match they’re in?!

The last important match anyone in the Wyatt Family won on PPV was Bray’s victory over Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble all the way back in January – because Bray’s victory over Cena in that cage match (at Extreme Rules in May) was essentially meaningless since Bray needed multiple outside interferences to win that match and Cena won every other meeting. Whatever credibility the Wyatt Family had is pretty much gone and it’ll be hard to view them as a legitimate threat from here on out.

As for the Intercontinental title battle royal, I honestly don’t hate Miz winning. His current heel character is pretty great and the sneaky, underhanded way he won really cements it. I only hope that because it was at the expense of Ziggler, that the two will feud for the belt but that would make sense and as I tweeted last night:

What I can’t get over is why, why, WHY did they have Heath Slater eliminate Cesaro? It’s bad enough they treat Damien Sandow like the GIF at right, but now a glorified jobber is better than the guy who won the inaugural Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal? I already lamented Cesaro’s current situation in my article about theBattleground go home Raw so I won’t dwell on it too much now. But still, Cesaro may as well leave for a few weeks and start working on a new character because any momentum he had out of Wrestlemania 30 is dead and buried.

Finally, I wish I could say I’m surprised by the finish of the fatal four-way main event between John Cena, Randy Orton, Kane and Roman Reigns – but there’s a reason the phrase CENAWINSLOL exists. I can only hope Brock Lesnar shows up tonight and does to Cena what he did to Big Show at the Royal Rumble because if Lesnar doesn't get a shot at and take the titles from Cena between now and Summerslam (or at Summerslam), I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Does WWE hate their fans? I can’t say whether they actively hate the people who give them money and ratings but they sure do seem to have this attitude toward us: