Well, That Was Unexpected – A WWE Fastlane 2017 recap

A Storm is coming

Backstage, Steph is berating Mick over the phone as her plane is delayed.  Mick gets interrupted by Jinder Mahal and Handsome Rusev who announce that their tag team alliance is no more.  They demand singles matches.  After Mick’s suggestion of a Best of 7 series is rejected, Foley just tells them to meet at the ring at the same time and he’ll get them another opponent.  So…we’re totally getting Rusev Vs. Jinder, right?

Mick leaves satisfied, mostly, but forgot he left Steph on the line.  She’s not too happy, as you can probably guess.

Swann and Tozawa Vs. Dar and Kendrick

This is one of the first times I’ve watched a kickoff match and felt like the moniker was accurate.  Like most Cruserweight matches, the crowd was dead at the start.  But slowly over the course of the match, the four really got the crowd into it.  Before the dual dives outside the ring, the crowd was hot.  Maybe this is just because this is the PPV before Wrestlemania, something that looks to be really really good.  Either way, it was a great match worthy of the cheers.

Swann wins with a Phoenix splash to Dar for the pinfall.

And now for the main show

Underdog from the Underground Vs. The Destroyer

With Sami starting off the night against Joe, I fully expect Joe to be back later.  Sami is motivated and serious tonight.  He’s taking his time and takes this very seriously.  It’s not a new matchup for fans of NXT, but it feels new.  It feels more important than before.

Joe is living up to his nickname and putting Sami in some very painful looking holds.  On top of the, Joe is no-selling arm drags and other basic moves.

But it’s not all bad for Zayn, he unleashes a monster Blue Thunder Bomb.  But that move never seems to find a pinfall unless you’re at a house show.

But it all goes wrong when Zayn tries out the Sunset Flip Powerbomb and Joe blocks it.  Joe quickly locks in the Coquina Clutch for the win.

Enzo and Cass Vs. The Club for the Raw Tag Team Championship

Insert Milwaukee specific Enzo and Cass banter peppered in with a few bald guy jokes.  I’m not a “Hatta”.

Ugh…Brock Lesnar guy is here.  I hate that guy.

It starts off strong for Enzo and Cass.  But then comes the part of the match where Enzo gets the shit beat out of him for 10 minutes.  At one point with Enzo free, he tries to dive for a hot tag but is intercepted by Anderson with a kick to the side of the head.  It was beautiful.

Cass racks things up for while but as E and C went for their tag finisher, Gallows breaks up the pin from the outside.  Enzo tries to get revenge on Gallows but it backfires when he returns to the ring.  He gets quickly taken out by Anderson and pinned near the ropes.  Enzo gets his foot on the ropes but Gallows clears it before the ref sees.  The Club hightails it out of there retaining their championship for another night.

This works.  Enzo and Cass winning at this PPV didn’t feel right, especially since they’ve never won a championship.  They need to win on a big stage when they finally win.

Sasha Banks Vs. Nia Jax

Michele noticed that Sasha’s has a new outfit that doesn’t clash with her hair.  The more you know.

It’s mostly one-sided, like you’d expect.  But Sasha has some fire in this match.  She gets a couple sleeper holds and a banks statement on Nia.  But it doesn’t work out.  Nia gets her in a torture rack and starts doing squats.

Nia got cocky though.  Sasha unleashed a flurry of offense and pinned her with a bridge for a shocking win.  I expect this to come back during the Women’s Championship match.

Rusev and Jinder’s Singles Matches.

So this is happening.  Rusev and Jinder make their way to the ring.  It looks like Jinder and Rusev were going to fight but a stiff knee sends Rusev over the barracade.

Commentary is selling this as a bonus match so let’s get into it.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Cesaro shows up to challenge Jinder.  I could right about this match but you know how it ends.  Cesaro wins with a pop up European Uppercut.

After, Rusev wails on Jinder until he goes away

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

You also get a Rusev Vs. Big Show match?  I’m way more excited about this.  Show dominates for the first half of the match.  Rusev takes out Show at the knees and finally gets an upper hand.  He delivers three Matcka kicks but is exasperated when the trio doesn’t take out Show.

The tide shifts back to Shows favor and delivers a trio of choke slams himself.  He finally seals the deal with a KO Punch.

ORDER NOW FOR ONLY 6 EASY PAYMENTS OF $69.95

Between matches Kevin Owens reminds us that Goldberg has only won one match in 10 years and Aries keeps showing his clip package.  I smell interference in this upcoming match.

Gentleman Jack Gallagher Vs. Neville

It’s definitely a hot crowd here in Milwaukee.  As I’ve established, I hate Brock Lesnar guy and I hate the Putin and “CNN is Fake News” signs.  STFU.  Get politics out of my wrestling.

Jack starts off with the upper hand but Neville unleashes some brutal shots on the extraordinary gentleman.

Commentary goes out of the way to mention that Jack Gallagher isn’t a high flyer.  Tonight it was a little foreshadowing.  Not only does dive out of the ring, but also gets a brutal back body drop on Neville.

But it all comes at a cost.  Jack takes a couple suplexes where it looks like he lands on his head.  It basically looks like he’s Sasha against Charlotte at Summerslam.  It looked brutal, like a possible botch, but more than likely he’s ok.  It’s probably just a close call.

Jack tries to answer with three monster head butts (side note: it’s taking three of a lot of moves tonight).

It wasn’t enough.  Neville unleashes the Red Arrow once again to secure the pinfall.

New Day Ice Cream

If this PPV wasn’t jam packed enough, New Day shows up to unveil its ice cream.  They seem to imply that Big E is drunk because he sings Orton’s theme and more.

It’s basically just a promo for them hosting Wrestlemania.  I’m actually unsure if the Ice cream is actually going to be available.  They’d be leaving a bunch of money on the table if they don’t actually sell it.

Roman Reigns Vs. Braun Strowman

It’s a downright hostile crowd towards Roman.  I’m not the biggest fan of Roman either but he definitely deserves better chants than “Roman sucks.”

I wasn’t excited about this match until the the Strowman Vs. Show match from a couple of weeks ago.  When someone can match the power of Braun, they can put on a really compelling match.

Still, Braun dominates.  Sure, Reigns gets in a Samoan drop, a spear, a drive by, and Two Superman punches.  It’s not enough though.  On top of that, Braun takes him through a table.

But then, inexplicably, Braun Strowman goes for a frog splash.  If he got it, it would have probably killed him.  In this case, it’s purely Strowman’s weird decision that caused him to lose the match.  Reigns picks this up for the victory.

Braun’s streak is over.  But, to borrow an old catch phrase from Goldberg, “Who’s Next?!” For both of these guys actually.

Charlotte Vs. Bayley for the Raw Women’s Championship

I assumed that there’s was going to be some sort of interference in this match.  I was kind of right, but just not what I was expecting.

When Charlotte entered, she sends Dana Brooke to the back.  She’s doing this alone.  Meanwhile on commentary, Cole is touting that Charlotte now has the largest championship match win streak, man or woman, in WWE history.  It sounds like there’s a chance that Bayley is the winner and defeats the streak.

I don’t think it was Bayley and Charlotte’s best match.  It seemed a little off to me.

But let’s get to the heart of the matter.  Sasha runs down, for some reason, and draws Charlotte away from Bayley, right before a moonsault.  She doesn’t even really get anything in.  The distraction is enough for Bayley to get a Bayley-to-Belly on the outside and again in the middle of the ring. Bayley gets the pin for the win and to retain the Women’s Championship.

What are they doing here?  Is Charlotte going to demand a Wrestlemania triple threat?  Where’s Nia in this picture?  What are they doing with Dana Brooke.

Goldberg Vs. Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship

“A match you didn’t know you wanted to see because you didn’t want to see it.” – Michele Fitzgerald

Kevin spends what feels like a feel 5 minutes just circling the ring.  This was before the belt could even ring.  When he finally rolls in the ring and tells the ref to ring the bell, what do we hear?

Break the wall doooooooowwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn!

It’s Chris Jericho, ladies and gentleman.

The shock of the return gives Goldberg the perfect opening. Spear.  Jackhammer.  New Universal Champion.

I have a lot of questions

The only thing I really feel like I accurately predicted was Goldberg’s win via interference or distraction from Chris Jericho.  I’m don’t like the idea of either Goldberg or Lesnar having the Universal Championship after Wrestlemania.  It makes no sense.  The US Championship is the only thing that will be defended on Raw up until Summerslam.  I just don’t like it.