WWE Fastlane 2018: Star Ratings For All 7 Matches
From out of nowhere.
The rating criteria explained...
Expectations and interest were low as SmackDown apparently thrust into higher gear ahead of WrestleMania 34.
On paper, the 6-Pack Challenge main event was a strange and less special imitation of the eponymous RAW Elimination Chamber effort over-booked to overcompensate for an obvious result. Baron Corbin's involvement - and the contrived damage to Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn that resulted from it - confirmed that SmackDown, unable to effectively promote its talent nor book simplistic singles storylines, is a meaningless mess of a TV show.
On paper, Bobby Roode Vs. Randy Orton was a potential lesson in anti-chemistry: a slow match lacking in dynamism featuring two wrestlers too similar and too methodical to mesh. Charlotte Flair Vs. Ruby Riott didn't look bad - at all - just unimportant. Road Dogg finally found something for Shinsuke Nakamura, the number one contender for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, to do. But, in facing the grassroots-popular Rusev, "getting booed" seemed a rare and rash risk for a Head Writer usually defined by a safe and repetitive approach. The New Day and the Usos always deliver - but they delivered an awesome Hell In A Cell match in October 2017. A straight singles bout felt like a backwards step. On paper, Becky Lynch and Naomi Vs. Natalya and Carmella was a TV match masquerading as a PPV match booked by a bloke bereft of imagination.
On paper, the show looked fairly unexciting.
In execution...
7. Tye Dillinger & The Fashion Police Vs. Mojo Rawley, Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin
Last-minute filler that if nothing else absolutely indicted the concept of Preshows, this six man tag at least had the good grace to provide some entertainment. Some. Stumbling onto a contrast with some semblance of a premise, the serious men versus the silly goofs was alright, for what it was.
Fandango kicked off proceedings with a not unfunny comedy spot, donning amateur headgear, to which Gable, with a preternatural ability to make anything entertaining, called him an idiot with an even more venomously funny invective than Chris Jericho managed throughout his run with the List. Just as the match started to not punish you for watching, it punished you for watching by cutting to an advert for WWE Network-exclusive content which you’d clearly need to already be a subscriber to watch. If this was a way of tempting illegal streamers, well, they were already watching an illegal stream.
Gable was great, but the gloss has already been dulled from Mojo Rawley’s heel turn. It’s hard to take a bad guy seriously dressed in such garish yellow. His one dimensional game is already growing monotonous, too.
A decent finish rewarded those who turned up early - but if you missed it, you missed absolutely nothing.
Star Rating: **