Tag Archives: TV Match

WWE
Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)

The WWE announcers sure are being heavy-handed – even for them – with their talking point on how Orton and Cena are the two best wrestlers of “this generation” and have had an all-time great rivalry. I can usually tune that noise out, but it was so constant and consistent in this match that it was impossible. I am not sure I get the point either. Cena is already the most over guy in the promotion. Orton could use some additional pushing but telling us how great he is and then beating him all of the time is counterproductive. These two are headlining a pay-per-view against each other anytime soon which only means that whatever top matches we get at WrestleMania won’t be between the two guys who are supposedly the best two wrestlers going currently. I am not sure what the endgame is in promoting these two as the top guys with an historically great rivalry.

Cena and Orton are always going to have okay matches versus one another and this was no different. I thought this was maybe a tad better than the Royal Rumble match, although it’s hard to tell since this match had a hot crowd that was paying attention to the match while the Rumble bout . . . well . . . did not. I liked Cena coming out strong and going fast paced for the first five minutes or so before Orton took over.

Orton does a lot of nice, little heel tactics here but his push is so inconsistent that he does not nearly get the heel reaction he should. His timing on when to bail and stall is very good. Here he bailed out twice early-on to stunt Cena’s momentum and it worked both times. Cena was over too which helped him get a reaction for this stuff. His little heel mannerisms like slowly touching his ear and slowing looking at the audience drew a good reaction when at other times those things are met with silence, which is probably attributable to being in the ring with Cena.

The ending run was good. They teased their finishers and Cena kicked out of the RKO, but they didn’t go to PPV-levels of finisher kick outs (and that’s a good thing). Cena went over clean, meaning Orton has beaten Christian but lost to both Bryan and Cena in his Elimination Chamber match gauntlet. If he loses to one more of the participants – Cesaro in particular – there is no way he is not leaving the PPV as champion.

WWE
Century Link Center (Omaha, Nebraska)

In a lot of Daniel Bryan baby face matches – both on the Indies and now in the WWE – he’ll control more of the match than a typical baby face might. I won’t speculate as to why, but the end is largely justifiable. Bryan often has significantly better offense than his opponent so the match is usually better off with him on offense for a significant amount of time rather than letting his heel opponent control things like you would normally expect.

Taking on Randy Orton on RAW, Bryan had a relatively long control segment in which he took apart Orton’s leg. The problem was that it failed to come across as Bryan getting well-deserved revenge on the heel. Instead, it just felt like a strange role reversal where the face was on offense and the heel was doing sympathetic selling. I am not sure if the already-poor reacting Omaha crowd would have reacted better had they gone a different route (like Bryan using his come back offense here in lieu of the leg work) but it certainly would have worked better for the TV audience.

When the match reverts to more traditional roles – the heel champion Orton tearing apart the underdog babyface’s arm – it is immediately better off for it. Bryan’s selling of the arm was fantastic in this. He is an underrated limb-seller and at his best he can get you to question whether he really did tweak something. Leading the crowd in post-match “YES!” chants with one arm was a nice touch, but it was really the start of the arm work here where I thought for a brief second “I hope he is not really hurt.”

Bryan picked up the win here which may or may not mean something. Orton is going to face all the Elimination Chamber participants in singles matches prior to the pay-per-view. If Bryan gets the only win, then maybe they are keeping him strong for a post-WrestleMania run although that we go against conventional WWE-booking. This was a good match and better than the Orton/Bryan pay-per-view bouts from last year but not top tier or anything.