Review for WWE Fastlane 2016

Fastlane is the last stop before Wrestlemania and after the fallout of the Royal Rumble I worried that all this PPV was going to be was WWE trying to save what they can before the biggest show of the year. I would say that I enjoyed this PPV and I was surprised by it. Some of the matches could easily have main evented and if you have never seen AJ Styles, then I recommend you buy this just to see how great he is. The main event was good and though I thought the ending could have been better, I do think that it helped the build to Wrestlemania.

Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks vs. Naomi and Tamina
This wasn't a bad match, just not the match I expected from the Divas lately. Both Sasha and Becky work well together (even when the point is of them not), but Tamina and Naomi still feel a little odd. A good match to start the show though and it felt like a classic tag match.

Intercontinental Championship
Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler
Both of these guys work really well together. I found this an exciting match, full of amazing moments and certainly what the IC Matches should be like.

Big Show, Ryback and Kane vs. The Wyatt Family
'Lumbering'. That is how I would describe this match. I understand what they were trying to do by making everyone in the match look like a monster. The problem is they failed. All six had moments where they looked like a monster, but all together it just felt like a mess of brutal spots that didn't really mean anything. It wasn't a bad match, just the match didn't really achieve anything.

Divas Championship
Charlotte vs. Brie Bella
With Brie already announcing her retirement it did make me think two things would happen. Charlotte wins which is the obvious decision or Brie wins and vacates the title so that it is up for grabs at Mania. That at least made the outcome seem a bit more interesting. The match itself? I hate to admit this, but this is possibly the best match I have ever seen from Brie Bella. The emotion between the two, feeding off each other Brie mocking Ric Flair and Charlotte mocking Daniel Bryan and Nikki Bella was just fantastic. Nothing felt awkward or forced, though I did feel the ending was a bit disappointing and could have been better. Apart from that, a great match.

AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho
After seeing their first two matches, I knew that this was going to be a (pun intended) phenomenal match. I was surprised there was not a stipulation for this match, but I knew that they didn't need one to make this match amazing. And they didn't. This was a technical masterpiece between the two and it is only a shame that this wasn't for a title shot or something as it was a great showing full of just some perfectly timed and executed moments. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't on some Top Ten Match lists for this year.

New Day and Edge and Christian should have been funny and maybe as a segment on Raw or Smackdown would have been. But on a PPV this was just hard to watch and not as funny as they thought. All The League of Nations interrupting did was remind me that Sheamus was still in the company seeing as he went from WWE Champion to just another guy.

Curtis Axel vs. R-Truth
Why was this here? Was the PPV running short? This would have been a great match as a Kickoff or on Main Event/Superstars, but here it felt out of place.
Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar
When this match was announced I felt like this was a lose lose lose match. If Lesnar wins, there was no heat for him against Triple H at Wrestlemania. If Reigns wins, the crowd will once again boo all over it. If Ambrose wins, what does that leave for Reigns and Lesnar? I know who I wanted to win and feel that anything other than that would be a disappointment.

So?

First up. This match is given twenty five minutes. TWENTY FIVE MINUTES!?? This is the main event and considering the type of match it is, it needs more time than that to mean something. One of the main problems with this match is that Lesnar is so strong that even two on one, he is still too much for Ambrose and Reigns. Everyone gets in their big spots and at times it felt like there was far too many times when there were only two people in the ring. This was taken to extremes at times which (though made sense) wasn't great to watch.

When it was Ambrose against Reigns one on one, I did think the match worked. There was some great back and forth and both get the best of the other. The ending? Well we shall have to see what the WWE Universe makes of it. I wasn't happy with it, but then it wasn't what I wanted.

All in all, Fastlane was a pretty good show. The only things not worth watching was the Six Man Tag and the Curtis Axel/R-Truth match and even the long New Day/ Edge and Christian segment had its moments. Taken away, this could easily have been one of the most satisfying PPVs in a long time. This is definitely a disk to pick up and I enjoyed most of it and I do hope WWE can keep that going into Wrestlemania.