6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (9 Jan - Results & Review)
2. The Problem With A ’Straight Up Wrestling Match’
The first fall of ‘3 Stages Of Hell’ was a standard wrestling match, which was never going to feel feisty enough for the feud that Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre have been working. Sure, it’s tough to format these kinds of matches without just going bang, bang, bang on stipulations, but that first fall needed to be more violent than it was.
Drew scoring the pin after cheating behind the ref’s back was fine, but WWE need to give this some thought in the future if they’re ever running another ‘3’ Stages’. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to make the first fall more gimmicky after all - something like a ’Tables Match’ would work nicely, because it'd end the first fall with a satisfying bump.
As it was, this opening was also short at less than 4 minutes. '3 Stages Of Hell' is often dubbed '3 matches on the same night' by eager commentators, but the truth is something a wee bit different. In this setting, workers sprint through the first couple of falls before slowing down a bit for the third. In other words, McIntyre wouldn't be beating Cody in less than 5 minutes under normal circumstances.
Brevity isn't the biggest bitch here, being fair. In future, drumming up something a tad more dramatic than a standard wrestling bout would be smart. Some slow build towards the crescendo is necessary, but drama is everything when '3 Stages' is wheeled out. That first fall just feels like it needs to have slightly more oomph.
Not a mood killer, but definitely food for thought for WWE.