Written by Mark Henley
The show starts off with Stephanie McMahon reminding the crowd that WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns recently beat up all the men in her life. At this point, the “hero”, Roman Reigns walks down to the ring and embarks on a paranoid rant bout how he wants to re-beat up all of Stephanie’s family members. At one point, he accuses Stephanie of “setting him up” for an attack from the League of Nations even though he interrupted her and walked to the ring unprompted. Stephanie screams at Roman to get out of the ring, which is what you do when someone threatens to beat up your entire family.
To get some revenge on Roman’s bizarre behavior, she places Roman’s family members in unwinnable matches. Roman’s cousins, the Usos, in a handicap match with the New Day and Roman’s “brother,” Dean Ambrose, in a match with Sheamus.
Next, Dolph Ziggler announces the Slammy nominees for Breakout Star of the Year. The Slammy Awards are weird because they don’t have any impact on the product or the wrestlers themselves. People who win Oscars and Grammys are able to use those awards to market themselves and get more work, but there is no guarantee that nay of these nominees won’t be “future endevoured” in two months. So, for what it’s worth, below are the nominees.
- Kevin Owens
- Neville
- Charlotte
- Tyler Breeze
- Braun Stowman
The fans are allowed to vote for the award and they get it wrong by giving it to Neville. Don’t get me wrong, Neville is a great wrestler, but there are other competitors that had a much bigger year. Both Kevin Owens and Charlotte would be better choices. Kevin Owens won the NXT Championship, beat John Cena in his first match on the main roster, and won the Intercontinental Championship. Charlotte is leading the movement to change the audience’s perspective on Women’s wrestling and is doing a great job at it.
Neville, Tyler Breeze, and Braun Stowman all don’t really deserve it. It is cool that Neville won in because he is a babyface and babyfaces (if they do their jobs right) should win awards like these. But, Neville doesn’t have the resume of Kevin Owens and isn’t changing wrestling itself the way that Charlotte is. Tyler Breeze is a great performer, but has only been on the main roster for a month or two. Braun Stowman has no claim on this award. He is a weird looking big guy. That is all.
Kevin Owens interrupts Neville’s speech and tells Neville to leave because he should have won. Pathetically, Neville does. It’s moments like that that show why Neville does not deserve the award. Owens calls Ziggler a has-been and they get into a big fist fight that is broken up by referees.
First Match of the Night: Kane Vs. Bray Wyatt.
Kane goes to do the taunt that sets off the turnbuckle pyros and nothing happens. Did WWE run out of money for that spot or has Kane lost his magic powers? Bray and Kane wrestle for less than two minutes before the entire Wyatt family jumps Kane. Kane gets the DQ win… I guess. The Dudley Boyz and Tommy Dreamer run out to save Kane.
Second Match of the Night: The Dudley Boyz, Kane, and Tommy Dreamer vs. The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Erik Rowan, and Braun Stowman)
This match ends up being very quick. Team ECW featuring Kane dominates and the Dudley Boyz get to do all of their really cool spots before Luke Harper gets the pin on Devon with a spinning clothesline move. Afterwards, Harper stares in disbelief at his arm. He himself could not believe he beat one of the greatest tag teams of all time with a clothesline.
Santino Marella comes out of retirement to announce the Slammy award for Best LOL Moment of the Year. The moments include things like Edge and Christian playing the Kazoo and the Bushwackers licking each other at the Hall of Fame. WWE isn’t really funny, so watching them give them give themselves an award for being funny is like watching someone give themselves a participation award. That being said, the winner of the award was pretty funny. It was a time when R-Truth came out to brag about how good he was going to do in a match that he wasn’t actually booked in. I don’t know, you had to be there. Santino decides to keep the award for himself.
Next, Mick Foley, in an exceptional Santa Claus costume, wishes everyone a “Merry Christmas.”
Paul Heyman comes out to present the award for OMG! Moment of the year. Kalisto wins the award for an awesome ladder spot he did at Money of the Bank. It was am undeniably cool moment and it is cool to see a wrestler as talented as Kalisto get some recognition. Even if it is only a Slammy Award.
Third Match of the Night: Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler
Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler are great performers and have a great match. Dolph sells like crazy and Kevin Owens barks about how good he is and how he should get more respect. Owens pins Ziggler with a beautiful powerbomb and the show rolls on.
Stephanie McMahon comes out to present one of the only awards that matters “Superstar of the Year.” All Superstars on the roster were eligible for the award and fans were allowed to vote for their favorite. The fans get it right in a big way by voting for Seth Rollins. Seth Rollins carried this company all year and would be carrying the company now if he wasn’t injured. Seth came out to accept the award on crutches and promised to come back a changed man. Does this signal a potential face turn for WWE’s top heel?
Fourth Match of the Night: Alberto Del Rio vs. Jack Swagger
It was only a few years ago that these faced each other for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 29, except Jack Swagger was the heel aligned with Zeb Coulter and Del Rio was the hero. There isn’t much to say about this one.
Next up, Mark Henry comes out to present Coca Cola’s Hero in All of Us Award. John Cena wins the award for all of the good stuff he does in real life. I don’t think I should say anything snarky about this one.
Bo Dallas dresses up like Santa Claus and presents the Slammy Award for Surprise Return of the Year. Sting wins the award, but is not in attendance to receive it. Is this technically Sting’s first and only win in WWE? I wish he was there to see it.
Fifth Match of the Night: The New Day vs. The Usos
The New Day starts out by threatening to ruin Star Wars for everybody, but the Usos make them pay by winning the match. The match was evenly matched even though it was a handicap match. It wasn’t a bad match, but it is hard to stay actively interested once you get so deep into the show.
R-Truth presents the Diva of the Year award to Paige. This is a really bizarre choice. It’s weird that the only woman who was nominated for “Breakout Star of the Year,” Charlotte, didn’t win the award.
Psyche! Nikki Bella won. WWE parodied the Steve Harvey mistake and gave the award to the wrong winner. I understand how Nikki could win because she did have a long title reign, but seriously, Charlotte should have won. Charlotte is changing woman’s wrestling and Nikki is just trying to keep up.
Sixth Match of the Night: Neville vs. Rusev
Neville and Rusev have a fine match that the crowd isn’t all that into. Miz is on commentary and spends the whole match talking about how Neville needs to let the Miz manage him if he wants to win. Rusev wins via submission hold. Poor showing for the Breakout Star of the Year.
The Miz presents the Slammy Award for the “This is Awesome Award.” The moment that won was when The Rock and Ronda Rousey intimidated the Triple H and Stephanie at Wrestlemania. It was a great moment and definitely deserves the award. Of course, neither the Rock nor Ronda were there to accept.
Seventh Match of the Night: Becky Lynch vs. Brie Bella
This show is really starting to feel long at this point. Brie does some cool Daniel Bryan kicking spots, but this match is too long for performers that the audience isn’t totally connected with. Becky wins and Charlotte tries to take the spotlight.
Next, Ric Flair comes out to present the final award of the night, “Match of the Year.” The winner of the award was Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar at Hell in a Cell. Paul Heyman accepts the award with a brilliant promo. Flair and Heyman were only on screen together for a moment, but there is some real chemistry there.
Then, the League of Nations beats up the Usos for some reason.
The Final Match of the Night: Sheamus vs. Dean Ambrose in a Steel Cage
This match would have been really exciting if Sheamus was still champion. Instead, it deservedly gets a loud “This is boring!” chant. At one point, Sheamus delivers White Noise to Dan Ambrose from the top rope. That was pretty cool, but the audience isn’t into it. Roman Reigns comes out to even the odds and ham it up outside the ring while Dean makes his comeback. Dean wins and Sheamus gets speared by Roman Reigns afterwards.
The show ends with Stephanie beating up a backstage interviewer.
This show really dragged. The WWE roster has gotten very thin and the show is suffering for it. Taking the title off of Sheamus has really eliminated any intrigue the terrible League of Nations might have had. The Slammy Awards took an incredibly amount of time and none of it will matter in three weeks. This was a boring show with no intrigue and it does not make me feel good about the future of Monday Night Raw.
