Neville and Zack Ryder def. Stardust and Tyler Breeze by pinfall
Jerry Lawler takes his opportunity, during the entrances, to drop his new nickname for his announcing partnership with Rich Brennan: “The King and The Thing”. Lawler reckons that this new moniker is likely to trend far better than #woowoowoo. No arguments here.
Briefer opening match than usual here, with six-and-a-half minutes aired either side of a commercial break. The heels got the heat on Neville for a while, during which Lawler denigrated the Englishman’s appearance, comparing it unfavourably to Breeze’s good looks. Brennan questions the relevance of such matters, to which King replies that a man with a “face for radio” is always likely to sympathise with those of his own kind.
Hot tag to Ryder leads into an unusual spot, where Stardust appears to set Zack up for the Queen’s Crossbow, only to hit a reverse DDT instead. Perhaps he momentarily forgot the finish, which saw Neville tag in, hit him with a superkick and land a Red Arrow for the victory.
Nothing much to this one. Brennan wraps it up by saying that “ the week gets worse” for Stardust and Breeze, who both failed to win the Fatal-5-Way match for the Intercontinental Title on RAW. The fact that both men were booked in that match in the first place, despite their respective win/loss records, is, of course, completely ridiculous.
Paige def. Summer Rae by submission
50/50 time! Both women got promo time before this RAW rematch, as Summer bizarrely claimed that as the Divas Revolution has been going on, she’s been “beating them all”, including the people’s “goth goddess”. In reality, her last televised victory before Monday’s win over Paige was an April 2015 defeat of Emma on this very show.
Paige responds by listing her title credentials, adding that she “didn’t have to dance to do that”. Sick burn. Paige attacks Summer viciously early on, following up by mocking Summer’s entrance dance as her opponent flees to the ramp. Paige chases her down and throws her back in the ring, only for Summer to gain the advantage with a leg lariat, which she follows up with a loooooong headlock. The King alleviates the boredom here by continuing to push #TheKingAndTheThing.
Paige’s comeback includes her running knee that looks like it will inevitably do some serious damage at some stage. The finish sees her block another leg lariat attempt, before hitting a superkick and locking on the PTO for the tap.
– The Social Outcasts are out for an in-ring promo, complaining about their omission from the Fastlane card; specifically the absence of a New Day title defence. Adam Rose lists off all the tag teams that the champs will not defend against on Sunday, including “Radwolf” and “The MadHappy Connection”.
Heath Slater, who is apparently the Moron Whisperer, divines from this that “Radwolf” refers to the Radical Mongoose (Rose) and the Crimson Werewolf (Slater), while the “MadHappy Connection” refers to Axel and Bo. Because one is mad and one is happy. Meanwhile, I am raging to Alex Riley level proportions that I have agreed to document total and complete bilge of this magnitude.
The New Day then interrupt to inflict more terrible “comedy” upon me. Big E reckons that no-one cares about the Outcasts’ nicknames (he’s right there) and calls them “booty”. Bo responds that he’s “a booty”, which results in an argument about removing the article from the insult. Kofi then does a completely terrible bit decrying the idea of babies teaching adults to walk and caterpillars teaching butterflies to fly, which mercifully ends in Slater finally extending a challenge. Jesus, that was terrible. Like, honestly, from a company that has no earthly idea how to write comedy in 2016 (see the Truth/Goldust skits), that segment might have been the worst yet.
The New Day def. Curtis Axel, Heath Slater and Adam Rose w/Bo Dallas on commentary by pinfall
Bo politely greets “Mr. Rich” and “Mr. King” as he takes his place at the announce desk, happily declaring that he’s delighted to be working with “The King and The Thing”. Lawler practically bubbles over with pride that his nickname is getting over.
The match was about what you’d expect from 15 minutes of two heel teams taking turns to get the heat. Very dull. I’m sure Mr. Belding, who Lawler pointed out in the crowd early on, was far from impressed.
It’s Xavier Woods’ turn to get beat on in the early part of the match. The Outcasts dodge interference from his buddies before the break, prompting a slow-motion, Chariots of Fire style, Bo Train, which Bo himself leaves the desk to join. After the break, Bo bemoans the fact that he forgot to high five Belding on the way. King helpfully recommends that he high five Rich in the face instead to compensate.
Woods eventually “hot” tags Big E, which leads to the second heat portion of the match; Adam Rose the victim this time. Eventually, Big E misses an apron splash to Rose, allowing the…ahem….”Radical Mongoose” to spinebuster Woods. The chains are then very much removed, as Axel gets another “hot” tag and cleans house. A Perfect Plex gets two before the bewildering finishing sequence kicks into gear.
Kofi hits a dropkick to Axel, before going to the top as legal man Woods places a prone Ax-Man back-first on his knee. Bo then feels it necessary to distract the ref, while Rose pushes Kofi off the top, despite the fact that interference has been ongoing throughout the match with no consequences. Axel then looks to finish Woods with an O’Connor Roll, but Woods reverses it, grabbing a handful of tights to secure the victory. What a mess.
Final Thoughts
The first half of the show was inoffensive, but the second half – particularly the Outcasts/New Day promo exchange – was dreadful. I have no earthly idea how anyone can write this kind of material down on paper and think it’s funny. Nor do I see any sense in booking a 15 minute heel vs. heel tag team featured contest. Mind boggling stuff.
