5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2023 (Results & Review)

Ups…

5. At Least It’s Over, Right?

WWE Fastlane 2023 Seth Rollins
WWE.com

The World Heavyweight Championship feud of the past couple months between Shinsuke Nakamura and Seth Rollins has been a huge letdown. Short of a blow-away match at Fastlane, this rivalry is going to be remembered as one of wasted potential.

Their Last Man Standing match definitely wasn’t blow-away good, nor did it simply blow. The match – as many of these WWE varietals do – plodded along at times with the numerous counts off a suplex or some moderately damaging bump.

The contest picked up steam toward the end, with tables getting broken left and right, and both men breaking out their finishers to try to keep the other down for the full 10 count. It finally ended with Rollins hitting a Falcon Arrow off a platform and through a couple tables, getting back to his feet at nine while Shinsuke couldn’t answer the count.

The match was fine, but more importantly, this hopefully marks the end of this feud, as that is now two definitive losses for Nakamura. For those reasons, this item gets positive marks. If WWE decides to go for a third installment, then the downward-facing thumbs will come out in force.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.