This article is presented in a WordPress format to preserve the integrity of HGR’s creative vision.
Oh, hello there, did you miss me?
No? Oh ok, whatever, I didn’t miss you either. I didn’t even think about you this entire time I’ve been gone. Seeing as you didn’t think about me, or did.. no? Yeah totally me neither. Whatever.
We have officially gone through the FASTLANE on the Road to WrestleMania so let’s see what #RawEmotions I felt during this show, with a hope for limits on All Caps posting, no promises.
End of an Error
HIGH JUSTICE for @AliWWE.
Now THIS is what you call #RETRIBUTION!#WWEFastlane pic.twitter.com/Lex6q65khP
— WWE (@WWE) March 21, 2021
In what boils down to a really good match to end the Kickoff show. (Not Matt) Riddle gets the win over Ali. Would I have liked to see Ali get a win? Yes of course. R-Etribution is filled with multiple extremely talented people and for their history have been basically dead on arrival.
Why they couldn’t have been positioned as a reasonably competant midcard group from the start, I’ll never know. It was simple too, everything else could have been the same, just get rid of the masks and dumb names. They had an amazing promo (ON TWITTER) last year where they all explained their issues with their “placements” etc. Basically admitting who they already were.
Regardless of that hopefully Mia Yim and Dominik Dijakovic [checks google for spelling] show up on Raw soon and ask where Keith Lee is.
Bayley was Right (We knew that already)
DING DONG, HELLO? Has no one been paying attention? Sasha Banks is a terrible person. I shouldn’t have to type those words out, they are the unwritten laws of her character.
I am glossing over the fact that this match in and of itself was pointless. We’ve seen WWE do the “People feuding over a title win the Tag Belts” thing so many times, but this time they didn’t even WIN the tag belts. I would just like to point out it wasn’t due to anything Bianca Belaire did.
Shayna and Nia get to continue to ride their irrelevant belts to probably some multi tag match at Mania that they’ll probably win because there aren’t any other tag teams on the Main Roster.
The main story however again is the post match shenanigans when Banks goes full NXT Sasha and slaps Bianca cross da face as Bayley’s laughter can be heard from miles away.
Also can we stop having random dudes being the focus of Women’s angles kthnxbye.
Stuck in a Loop
This was the second shortest match on the card that didn’t involve demonic possesion and that just makes me sad.
I know both of these two can absolutely GO and I just want them to be allowed to do that. Because they WERE doing that, the match was great up to the point where someone just decided “What if we have a super awkward ending to the point that people THINK it was messed up” followed by an immediate beatdown.
For what? To lead to ANOTHER MATCH between these two? I love Crews but he’s had now THREE shots at Big E’s ugly belt (yeah I said it) and has been just, been beaten over and over again. And now we are redoing the thing that started it all with the double pin situation.
Beyond that what is it about WWE and people that enjoy expressing their heritage or saving the environment that automatically means they have to be an asshole? Projecting much?
All Aboard, we’ve got TIME TO WASTE
So let me get this straight. Shane McMahon was going to wrestle Strowman, but got a boo boo on his knee during a totally realistic training session that provided evidence of Shane’s immaculate acting skills by the way.
So instead he threw Elias to the wolves, or in front of a train, a train of wolves? Herd of wolves? Is Shane the Wolf who cried Braun? Am I stalling because all of this is dumb and a waste of time? Find out next episode.
SPOILER ALERT: IT WAS ALL A DUMB WASTE OF TIME.
I’m cheating by talking about what happened on the following Raw instead of the show itself, but I don’t care because the very next night on Raw, Strowman wrestles Elias AGAIN.
AND THEN SHANE AGREES TO WRESTLE STROWMAN AT WRESTLEMANIA?
calm down, no need for all caps, breathe.
Do these people actually pay attention to the stories they are writing WHILE they are writing them? I have no idea. All I know is Shane is probably going to jump off a Pirate Ship and I’m sure like 3% of WWE’s demographic cares about that so yay?
Good Pro Wrestlers being allowed to Pro Wrestle
And this my friends and people upset Birbyboy isn’t here to review this show is where what we like to call BIDNESS was COLLECTED OFF THE FLOOR.
It’s honestly so refreshing to see two guys really great at this stuff not brought down by terrible storylines, if you’d even call the lead in to this match a storyline, being allowed to go out there if even for a short thirteen minutes and do work.
The best part honestly is that they kept it short which allows for any future matchup they have to potentially build off of it.
Maybe throw these two and Crews and Big E in a Four Way at Mania? Let all that big meaty meat slap as the kids say.
SPEAKING OF MEATY MEAT SLAPPING MEAT
I have prepared a list of words for how I feel about Drew McIntyre and Sheamus being allowed to beat the crap out of each other for twenty minutes, ahem:
deep affection
fondness
tenderness
warmth
intimacy
attachment
endearment
devotion
adoration
doting
idolization
worship
passion
desire
lust
yearning
infatuation
adulation
affair of the heart
liking
enjoyment
appreciation
delight
relish
Before I broke free of my shackles and made my way out of the SRP basement and escaped my personal hell that was writing reviews for Raw, I spoke of a few times, The Sheamus Scale.
A scale that determines how good a Sheamus match is based on the pigmentation level of his skin at the end of it. Fair to say by the end of this match look like a patch of tráta and I loved almost every bit of it.
I say almost because corny exploding equipment shenanigan’s were corny in 1998 when Mick Foley was landing on them and it’s been over twenty years and oh my god I am so old..
I think really the only thing this match needed were some legitimate STAKES involved, make it number one contenders even though that tells us who’s going to win. We knew anyways. Sheamus is basically the Kane to Drew’s John Cena right now and I just remembered that entire storyline and now I am sad.
Things you have to explain to your Non-Wrestling Fan Friends, for $800 Alex
“Well yeah obviously Randy would win a regular match against Bliss.”
“No, because she’s been kind of possessed.”
“She’s dressed like that you see because..”
“Oh he’s puking up the black stuff because..”
“Oh there’s actually basically a literal Christian hell down there..”
“He looks like that because Randy set him on fire, no like..”
“The red lights are a thing he does..”
“Um..”
“Uh..”
“No I have no idea why she pinned him like that.”
So we have finally got back The Fiend. And I will be the first to say, uh, meh?
It’s weird. Bliss and The Fiend (and Randy) carried Raw for so long that I’m just kind of, tired of it to a point, I think? It almost sounds blasphemous I know.
But we all basically knew this was leading to a Fun House match at Mania or sorts. We’ve just had to wait a VERY long time to finally get to that point.
I just hope actual Bray comes back as well, seeing as you know, he didn’t die in a fire, the Fiend did. Why has he been gone anyways? Do I think about storylines too much? Or just more than the people that write them do? Sigh.
When Great Wrestling meets Over Booking
First off I just want to say that both Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns BROUGHT IT during this match. Bryan obviously is a world class wrestler, and seemed to almost be toying with Roman Reigns in the beginning. And this is HEAD OF THE TABLE Roman Reigns, who is NOT to be toyed with.
But Bryan did not carry him to anything, Reigns himself brought everything and more in return. I don’t know when Roman became a SUPER WORKER that sells of fricken offense but he’s here and I love him.
After the dastardly shenanigans at Elimination Chamber I was very perturbed that Bryan was seemingly being shoved aside going into WrestleMania. I was also mildly confused on how basically being screwed over of his title shot, and wanting a fair one later some how made him the bad guy according to Edge?
The entire “going into business for himself” line still irks me every time they replay it. It makes no sense in even the context of the story THEY are telling. But whatever.
The end of this match was a cluster fudge of bodies. Beyond a poorly executed ref bump which annoys me, everything else played out very well, if not predictably.
EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT ROMAN REIGNS TAPPED OUT.
YOU GUYS, ALL CAPS IS OK RIGHT NOW, I’M EXCITED.
Can you imagine Reigns for the next two weeks having to face the fact that he TAPPED OUT.
JUST LIKE BRYAN SAID HE WOULD.
It’s going to be ah-may-zing.
I might actually watch Smackdown.
And now, If I may direct your eyeballs, we have what I’d like to call..
The Top 10 SRP Discord Comments from WWE FASTLANE
SHough610
Steph throws more believable punches than Shane at this point
Otherwise_Known_as_Tara_the_Ref
From my husband in regards to Riddle “I hate when people on coke pretend to be on pot.”
The Real Birdman
Remember when we thought both Cesaro & Nak were being set up for big pushes?
Man, you people are dopes…
HGR
“im mad he never said thank you”
“if he’s mad i never said thank you, which i am admitting that i did not say, i guess ill have to kill him”
Baron Von Raschke
The Rays will be leading in the 9th inning of opening night and a grounder to second is going to hit a piece of the monitors they just broke for a bad hop single to start a game-winning rally for the road team.
Mitchinerd
Ref can’t count you out if the ref ran the fuck away.
Yukon Cornelius
I can’t wait for the Snyder cut of Fastlane…
Baron Von Raschke
HHH: Randy, you’re going to lose to Alexa Bliss and she’s going to have like a 30-count on you
Randy: WHAT? I’M OUTTTA
HHH: Let me show you this drawing to explain the position
RANDY: Hmmmmmmmmm
Bigsexy75
Randy v. Toxic Avenger at Mania
Pdragon619
Reigns may still be champion, but it’s clear that Bryan won the moral victory, and we can all agree that’s just as good right?
And that was WWE Fastlane. If you enjoyed the show, Enjoyed this Column, or just enjoy life in general, give this a share. Leave a comment below with your thoughts about how much better I am at this than Birdman. Feel free to stop by the SRP Discord where I probably get most of my jokes during our live discussions subconsciously and say hi. Until next time, I’m HGR and Tango Mike.
