Hiya!

OMG! AJ Lee is back in the WWE! As a huge fan of hers, I was super excited to see her back when she re-appeared on RAW a couple of weeks back. While I can’t say it was a surprise as, honestly, the lead up to her return pretty much telegraphed it. Even with that, I was super elated to see her back in a WWE ring. The thing is, when she returned, AJ Lee didn’t do much but pummel Becky Lynch. That simply wasn’t enough and I wanted to see her in a match.

Well, the WWE realized this is what the fans craved for, so they put her in the main event of Wrestlepalooza: Indianpolis with her hubby, CM Punk, to go against another married couple, the aforementioned Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins. They knew AJ Lee fans were hungry to see her in action and I can’t fault them for trying to rake in some big buck by putting her in a pay-per-view event. Besides, it worked because I did watch Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis and I might as well tell you my thoughts on not just AJ Lee’s return but the rest of the show.

The first match of the night was John Cena facing off against another returning individual, Brock Lesnar. I can’t say I was truly excited to see this, even though this was going to be one of the few matches before John Cena retires from the WWE (allegedly). It certainly didn’t help how this was another Brock Lesnar squash match for the most part as he simply dominated John Cena for the majority of the match.

The finish came when Cena got his second wind and hit Lesnar with a flurry of shoulder tackles before finally taking the Beast off his feet. Cena then hit 3 Attitude Adjustments but Brock still kicked out! Cena then when for his Five Knuckle Shuffle signature but Lesnar popped back onto his feet and hit his F5 finisher to Cena. Lesnar then hit Cena with 3 more F5s, all the while taunting him and the live crowd, before hitting one more F5 to get the pinfall victory. Yawn.

This match just rubbed me the wrong way. I’m no wrestling purist but I don’t like it when you hit a guy with 3 finishing moves and they still kick out. It makes the wrestler doing the finisher look weak. It makes the finisher look weak. It makes the guy on the receiving end come off as too strong and unbeatable, putting all of his future matches into question because you now have to come up with a plausible way for him to get pinned when he can kick out after getting his with 3 finishing moves. Bad booking, in my opinion.

The next match of the night had Jimmy and Jey, The Usos, once again teaming up against Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed of Seth Rollins’ faction, The Vision. The catch is this had LA Knight as the special guest referee. Side note: I hate the name The Vision as it doesn’t exactly strike fear into your heart, does it? Anyway, there were some fun moments, like LA Knight turning his back so he wouldn’t have to disqualify Jimmy for hitting Reed with a steel chair, LA Knight just looking at Bronson Reed as he walloped Jimmy Uso with a chair just to be fair, Reed and Breakker hitting a “piggyback splash” on Jimmy, The Vision (ugh!) connecting with the Steiner Brothers old finishing move and The Usos hitting Breakker with their 1D finisher after a superkick party.

The finish came after Jey Uso hit Breakker with an Uso Splash for a 2-count. Knight went to check on Reed, who got superkicked to the outside by Jey. While the two were jawing, Jey went for a suicide dive on Reed. Knight then thought Jey was aiming at him, leading to a quick argument. While this was happening, Paul Heyman tossed a chair into the ring. Breakker swung at “Main Event” but Jey stopped him with a superkick. Jey then picked up the chair and tried to hit Breakker but inadvertently nearly hit Knight with the weapon. This pause allowed Breakker to recover enough to hit Jey with a spear. Breakker then speared both Usos through a table which was set up in the corner. This allowed Reed to hit his Tsunami splash finisher to get the pinfall victory for his team.

This was a good match but nothing great. Having The Vision (ugh!) win was the right call as you have to pump them up if you want them to be an effective heel stable. I do wish they utilized LA Knight here a little more. He figured into the finish a little but I don’t think it was enough to really say he needed to be involved. I guess it’s to create a new feud with him and Jey Uso in the future but that could have been worked in other ways.

The next match of the night had IYO SKY and Stephanie Vaquer fighting to win the vacant RAW Women’s Championship. The match started out slow with both SKY and Vaquer kind of feeling each other out. Things did speed up quickly, however. There were a lot of neat moments, like the rapid fire pinning switches by both opponents, SKY connecting with a double underhook backbreaker, La Primera blocking a sunset bomb to the outside attempt and then hitting a springboard crossbody to the outside and SKY performing a frankensteiner from out of nowhere.

The finish came after SKY set Vaquer up for her Over the Moonsault finisher but The Dark Angel got her knees up to block the move. Vaquer hit another dragon screw and then went for her Devil’s Kiss signature. Vaquer connected with her SVB signature for a 2-count. Stephanie then went for what seemed to be a moonsault but IYO recovered enough to hit a big palm strike. Both women beat on each other while perched on the top turnbuckle with SKY getting the upper hand and hitting a spanish fly for another 2-count. SKY then hit her bullet knee double knee signature and then hit another running knee. IYO then tried for another Over the Moonsault but Stephanie rolled out of the way. This allowed Vaquer to climb the top rope and hit a corkscrew moonsault to get the pinfall victory and become the NEW RAW Women’s Champion!

You may be surprised when I say this was an excellent match because I didn’t mention that many highlights. What the highlights can’t convey is how well the two worked together in the ring. The back-and-forth and chemistry between both IYO SKY and Stephanie Vaquer was impeccable! There were a couple of moments when you could see the fight was a work but the action in the in-ring storytelling more than covered it up. This was also a star making match for Stephanie Vaquer. While she was already good before, this just cemented her status as one of the top female Superstars in the WWE.

The next match was the reason why I wanted to watch Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis in the first place! This was a mixed tag match which had married couple Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch going against another married couple, CM Punk and AJ Lee (yay!). I will say the first half was pretty dull, with the heel married couple beating down on CM Punk before AJ Lee got the hot tag. They did try to spice things up with typical heel antics like distracting the official so they didn’t see the initial tag. Still, this dragged on for too long. Once the hot tag was recognized, things did heat up with neat spots like AJ Lee using Rollins as a springboard to deliver a tornado DDT to Lynch, CM Punk helping AJ Lee to deliver sliced bread #2 to Seth while also landing on Becky, the heels, faces and couples switching their finishers between each other and Lynch throwing AJ at CM Punk to prevent him from hitting his GTS finisher on her hubby while on top of the announcers tables.

The finish came after the aforementioned table spot. Becky tossed AJ back into the ring and set her up for her Manhandle Slam finisher. As Lynch hoisted her into position, Lee reversed the move and locked in her Black Widow submission to get Becky to tap out and win the match for her team.

Like I said, the latter half of the match was great. The problem was with the former half. It just came off as too long. If they shaved even a minute or two from that part, this would have been a much better paced match. I will say you could see some ring rust on AJ Lee as it looked like she had to pause at times to set herself up. Even so, she looked fantastic overall! Welcome back, AJ Lee!

The final match of the night had Cody Rhodes defending the biggest prize on Smackdown, the Undisputed WWE Championship, against Drew McIntyre. Well, this seemed like a last second addition to Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis, didn’t it? I mean, there was hardly any build up to this! Then again, both Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre are great in-ring performers so, despite this being put together quicky, I guess that’s fine if they can pull off a good show. They tried to build an in-ring story with Cody not being 100%, even stumbling early on for some reason. Some of the bigger spots saw McIntyre blocking a suicide dive by Cody and then driving his opponent into the ringpost, Drew hitting an alabama slam to Rhodes onto the steel steps, Cody springing up to the top of the turnbuckle to superplex Drew and McIntyre hitting Sheamus’ White Noise from the 2nd rope and

The finish started when Drew tore off one of the turnbuckle pads and tossing it away so the official couldn’t put it back. McIntyre tried to toss Rhodes into the exposed turnbuckle but the referee was in the way. The official managed to roll out of the way in time but, while he was doing this, it looked like Drew managed to roll up Cody for a 3-count but the referee couldn’t count it. McIntyre charged at Rhodes but Cody sidestepped it, leading to Drew slamming himself into the exposed turnbuckle. Cody hit his Cross Rhodes for a 2-count. McIntyre blocks a Cody Cutter by slamming Rhodes into the mat, forcing Cody to roll out of the ring. Drew followed him out with a suicide dive and hit his Claymore finisher for a 2-count.

McIntyre was stopped by the official from hitting his Claymore finisher while Cody’s head was leaning on the Spanish announce table. He went for it anyway but Rhodes dodged it, sending Drew’s leg through the table! Rhodes went for a Disaster Kick but McIntye reversed it with a Glassgow Kiss headbutt. Drew then went for another Claymore but he stumbled because his leg got hurt from smashing through the table. Cody then hit a Super Cody Cutter and his Cross Rhodes finisher to get the pinfall victory and retain his Undisputed WWE Championship.

This was a pretty good match but I have to agree with Wade Barrett, who was the heel commentator for the night. The official stepped in too much and I guess they can make this a storyline, with Drew upset with the officiating and how he should have become the top dog of Smackdown at Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis. Even with this, this was a very solid match but nothing I would say was incredible.

Overall, Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis was pretty decent. The only match that kind of sucked was the first match but the rest of the show did make up for that. The match of the night was easily the one for the RAW Women’s Championship. It’s nice to see AJ Lee back but I do hope we get to see her in singles competition now so we call all see her wrestle in all her glory.

Byee!

What did you think of Wrestlepalooza: Indianapolis? Let me know in the comments section below!