WWE Fastlane 2021: Every Match Ranked From Worst To Best
A night of two halves - one forgettable, one terrific.
This year's Fastlane event was basically the prototypical pre-WrestleMania show that had the responsibility of charting the path towards the big one, which it did with wildly mixed results.
The card wasn't hugely appealing on paper, and the main show got off to an incredibly rough start, such that things only really picked up during the far more inspired second half.
The WrestleMania picture has at least become clarified moving forward, even if this was an incredibly uneven show - if one that sensibly kept the worst matches relatively short.
The most anticipated bouts meanwhile largely delivered on their promises, significantly elevating the overall show from its earlier sluggishness.
Once again an overabundance of screwy finishes and odd booking decisions derailed numerous matches, but at least the show moved fast and had the good sense to wrap up within a reasonable time (as is one of the few benefits of the pandemic era).
Even for the middling standards of pre-Mania events this was all over the place, but thanks to strong performances on the back-end it ended up being mostly worthwhile where it really mattered...
8. Braun Strowman Vs. Elias
Result: Strowman murders Elias with a Running Powerslam for the easy win (3:50).
Rating: Nobody asked for this, plain and simple. It makes sense to save Shane vs. Braun for WrestleMania, sure, but coming off the back of two puzzling opening matches, it was the whatever three-peat.
This was about as glorified a Raw match as you could get, but at least it had the good sense to be relatively short at less than four minutes long.
Then again, they could've easily whittled it down to mere seconds given that it was a generic squash at best. 3/10