The Road To WrestleMania: TLC 2020 to Fastlane 2021

[Author’s Note: The following article contains the appearances of Riddle, who has been accused of rape at least once. Riddle’s innocence or guilt has not been determined in a court of law at this time. If the presence of Riddle causes you alarm and/or disgust, then viewer discretion should be advised].

TLC 2020

• Match #1: Big E, Daniel Bryan, Chad Gable and Otis defeated King Corbin, Sami Zayn, Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura: 5 out of 10
• Match #2: Drew McIntyre (c) defeated AJ Styles (with Omos) and The Miz (with John Morrison) -Triple Threat Tables, Ladders And Chairs Match For The WWE World Championship: 9 out of 10
• Match #3: Sasha Banks (c) defeated Carmella (with Reginald Thomas) – WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship: 7 out of 10
• Match #4: The Hurt Business (Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin) (with MVP) defeated The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) (c) – WWE Raw Tag Team Championship Match: 7 out of 10
• Match #5: Asuka and Charlotte Flair defeated Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler (c) – WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: 7 out of 10
• Match #6: Roman Reigns (c) (with Paul Heyman) defeated Kevin Owens – Tables, Ladders, and Chairs Match For The WWE Universal Championship: 9 out of 10
• Match #7: (Main Event) Randy Orton defeated “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt – Firefly Inferno Match: 1 out of 10

Royal Rumble 2021

• Match #1: Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler defeated Asuka and Charlotte Flair (c) – WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: 1 out of 10
• Match #2: Drew McIntyre (c) defeated Goldberg – WWE World Championship Match: 3 out of 10
• Match #3: Sasha Banks (c) defeated Carmella (with Reginald) – WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship Match: 7 out of 10
• Match #4: Winner: Bianca Belair – 30-Woman Royal Rumble Match For A Women’s Championship Match at WrestleMania 37: 7 out of 10
• Match #5: Roman Reigns (c) (with Paul Heyman) defeated Kevin Owens – Last Man Standing Match For The WWE Universal Championship: 7 out of 10
• Match #6: (Main Event) Winner: Edge – 30-Man Royal Rumble Match For A World Championship Match At WrestleMania 37: 8 out of 10

Elimination Chamber 2021

• Match #1: John Morrison defeated Elias, Mustafa Ali (with Mace, T-Bar and Slapjack) and Ricochet – Final Entrant In The WWE United States Title Match: 5 out of 10
• Match #2: Daniel Bryan defeated Cesaro, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, King Corbin and Sami Zayn – Elimination Chamber Match: 8 out of 10
• Match #3: Roman Reigns (c) (with Paul Heyman) defeated Daniel Bryan – WWE Universal Championship Match: 3 out of 10
• Match #4: Riddle defeated Bobby Lashley (c) (with MVP) and John Morrison – Triple Threat Match For The WWE United States Championship: 5 out of 10
• Match #5: Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks – WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: 5 out of 10
• Match #6: Drew McIntyre (c) defeated A.J. Styles (with Omos), Jeff Hardy, Kofi Kingston, Randy Orton and Sheamus – Elimination Chamber Match For The WWE Championship: 8 out of 10
• Match #7: (Main Event) The Miz defeated Drew McIntyre (c) – WWE World Championship Match: 1 out of 10

Fastlane 2021

• Match #1: Riddle (c) defeated Mustafa Ali (with Mace, Reckoning, Slapjack and T-Bar) – WWE United States Championship Match: 6 out of 10
• Match #2: Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler (c) (with Reginald) defeated Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks – WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: 5 out of 10
• Match #3: Big E (c) defeated Apollo Crews – WWE Intercontinental Championship Match: 6 out of 10
• Match #4: Braun Strowman defeated Elias (with Jaxson Ryker): 2 out of 10
• Match #5: Seth Rollins defeated Shinsuke Nakamura: 8 out of 10
• Match #6: Drew McIntyre defeated Sheamus – No Holds Barred Match: 9 out of 10
• Match #7: Alexa Bliss defeated Randy Orton: 0 out of 10
• Match #8: (Main Event) Roman Reigns (c) (with Paul Heyman) defeated Daniel Bryan – WWE Universal Championship Match: 9 out of 10

To start with, the basic thrust of the past four shows has been that Drew is the star of Raw through and through, while Roman is the star of Smackdown, if only by rote. I personally enjoy him as a heel and Roman is at his best as such, but the version he is playing is so boring right now. Roman is at his best when he is like a giant version of Homicide. So, if Roman is not at his best in these matches, but he is still better off than when he was Samoan John Cena, then what does that say for his matches on these cards? Roman had some good performances in this road to WrestleMania, but nothing that would suggest he is at the top of his game. Kevin Owens, on the other hand, has been the real reason why Roman is doing so well as of late. Kevin is the master performer and has managed to take every loss to Roman and make them into fuel for his fire. That’s been the real story of the past few months: Kevin Owens has “it”. Roman has worked hard and feels like the main event foil of a life-time, but he also feels like he is running out of steam at this point. Roman needs to get mean if his WrestleMania match is going to be more than just effective. WALTER can get more heel heat from a chop than Roman can from a month’s worth of promos. I hope Roman is thinking about s—t like that and making adjustments for WrestleMania.

The next big thing to consider is that these last four shows have the rise of the Drew McIntyre/Sheamus feud that has gone from respect to hatred to respect again. Everything about that feud has been about the WWE World Title and the jealousy of not having it. I don’t like stories in wrestling. Wrestling is not made for story-telling, by and large, and if you are gonna “tell a story”, then you should just let it happen in the midst of the match like it’s supposed to. Roddy Piper said as much on Howard Stern’s show and he knows way f—kin’ more than any of us do about wrestling. The reason why the build to the feud has worked is because you could take every promo out and still get why Sheamus turned on Drew. Sheamus wants to be the champion and he knows time is running out to be it, so Sheamus was willing to break the bond with a friend if it meant holding the gold one more time. We finally get to the Fast Lane match and it was a fight and one that made sense. There was no goofy s—t about story-lines or what the f—k ever. You had a grudge match between two people who were friends, but ready to whoop each other’s asses. It gave Drew a big match that didn’t require the strap to make him feel important and that is as big a test for a champion as any other. Now, Drew has proved that he can feel like a focal point without the belt around his waist. I’d call that whole match a success. Now, Drew is ready to go after the strap at WrestleMania.

The women got stuck with the matches they got stuck with. Asuka isn’t really defending the title at these shows. Why? Who has Asuka as a champion and sticks her in a tag division? Alexa Bliss got stuck playing a dead woman for the past few months and it hasn’t worked out too well for her. Nia Jax is still on PPV. Why? Nia can’t wrestle. Nia has a hard time making walking look legitimate. Shayna works hard, but is constantly stifled by tagging with Nia. Sasha Banks and Carmella did have a couple good ones. The women’s revolution…right back ‘round to where it started…s—t. Good luck women. You’ve got the talent, but the people in charge don’t have the talent to know how to give you the bookings y’all deserve.

The rest of the roster has managed to get on camera at the PPVs, so at least they got some money and some time to their line of credit. The Big E and Apollo Crews have developed a very personal Intercontinental Title feud for WrestleMania thanks to a few of these shows. Seth Rollins and Cesaro got into a heated feud very quickly that gave Shinsuke Nakamura something to do as well. The Miz went from mid-card comedy act to main event foil once again when he won the WWE World Title from Drew McIntyre after Bobby Lashley attacked the latter. Bobby Lashley…he beat Miz for the strap. Now it’s Bobby and Drew for the strap at WrestleMania. That’s interesting. The biggest piece of news is that Edge and Daniel Bryan got into the main event of WrestleMania by mostly doing nothing on these shows. Edge did win the Royal Rumble and Daniel Bryan did win the Elimination Chamber, but they have not dominated the PPVs the way contenders from other years would have (John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista, Triple H, Roman Reigns, etc.). The two nights of WrestleMania have a lot of matches to get to, like:

• Bobby Lashley versus Drew McIntyre
• Roman Reigns versus Edge versus Daniel Bryan
• Seth Rollins versus Cesaro
• AJ Styles and Omos versus The New Day
• Asuka versus Rhea Ripley
• Sasha Banks versus Bianca Belair
• Kevin Owens versus Sami Zayn
• Randy Orton versus The Fiend
• Riddle versus Sheamus
• The Miz versus Bad Bunny

That’s a lot of matches for over two nights and, while some of those are not completely set in stone, two thirds of that card is quite good regardless of what you take off the line-up. As long as The Fiend doesn’t burn further (looks like a chunk of charcoal shoved up a monkey’s ass), then his match should go over well enough.

It’s been a decent set of shows recently. The big matches have delivered and the smaller ones have held-up their end of the deal. The road to WrestleMania has been paved with gold, anger and crispy people. It’s interesting that this year’s card has a big crowd coming in, even during the COVID crisis (along with all the other diseases that never went away). I wonder if the crowd will just eat everything up on account of not getting to come to the events for a year, or if they will be even more opinionated than normal on account of wanting the best of the best just for coming on back. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens for WrestleMania. Will Drew win it again? Will Daniel Bryan win the strap instead of Edge? Will Lily Tomlin show me she’s got a bigger d—k than I do? Get the f—k back and enjoy WrestleMania, because I just watched Def Comedy Jam and got my ass kicked by the credits. This was…The Road To WrestleMania.