5 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Stomping Grounds

2. A Tale Of Two PPVs

Stomping Grounds Drew McIntyre ROman Reigns
WWE.com

Not gonna lie, about 90 minutes into Stomping Grounds, and this writer thought he was going to have to eat his words about the PPV.

And then WWE went and did what it does best – disappoint.

From the Cruiserweight Championship match through the SmackDown Tag Team Championship bout, Stomping Grounds was looking like an event where the WWE brass told the talent that no one was expecting anything out of the show, so they should go out and overperform to prove them wrong.

The cruiserweights went full speed ahead. New Day, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn didn’t slow down either. Ricochet and Samoa Joe had a solid match. Daniel Bryan’s homecoming was entertaining enough. And Becky Lynch carried Lacey Evans well enough, plus she convincingly retained her Raw Women’s Championship.

But then, things went off a cliff.

Bayley/Alexa Bliss was pedestrian. Roman Reigns/Drew McIntyre had more Shane McMahon than anyone should be subjected to. And the two world title matches sucked the life out of the place.

If you stopped the PPV after Bryan’s hometown win, it would have been an enjoyable night. But the second half just killed things dead and rendered this another disappointment.

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Contributor
Contributor

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.