In what was probably the second best match of the night, Kevin Owens predictably retained the Intercontinental Title by defeating Dolph Ziggler. For the 458,459th time. In 2016. Already. These two seem to face each other every week at the moment, but the ability of both means they rarely produce anything less than stellar matches. The problem isn't with Owens winning, or even the match itself in particular. I mean, the problem could be with Dolph Ziggler's hair, but that's another story for another day. The state and positioning of Ziggler in 2016 is one of the biggest small problems that WWE faces. Any pretence of him moving up to the main event scene has surely gone now, and his position as gatekeeper to the up-and-comers in the midcard isn't such a bad one to be in. The problem is that this isn't 1990. Fans are a lot more clued-in these days, and this leaves Ziggler in a weird sort of limbo. When he was the sole survivor in the big Survivor Series main event in 2014, there was a lot of scepticism around whether he would finally get the push he deserved. The scepticism, it transpired, was well-founded. Going into Fastlane, Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler was what Vince McMahon claims WWE doesn't do - it was wrestling for wrestling's sake. A good match, yes, but ultimately pointless.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
