WWE Battleground Coverage: Ambrose Retains Title in Sleepy PPV

The WWE debut of Bayley, as well as the return of Randy Orton was not enough to make this year’s Battleground an absolute snoozer.

While the card was beefy, the pace was sluggish at best and away from an amazing Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn match, the whole event was tough to get into. The awful Miz/Darren Young encounter and throwaway matches between Natalya Neidhart/Becky Lynch and The New Day and Wyatt Family hurt the overall potential of the card. With many of these competitors locked on different brands now, a lot of it felt meaningless.

Sad, but true.

After a month of storylines on RAW and Smackdown, it’ll be interesting to see the way both brands differentiate themselves and how that translates to Summerslam. But as of now, it was near sleep-inducing.

Matches:

Kickoff: Jimmy and Jey Uso vs. Tyler Breeze and Fandango: Breeze found a way to counter the Uso Top Rope Splash and steal the win.

Sasha Banks and Bayley vs. WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair and Dana Brooke: The crowd went nuts when Bayley’s music hit and the NXT legend wasted no time becoming a factor. After a few minutes of feeling out, Flair hit the Natural Selection, but Bayley broke it up. After Brooke broke up one attempt at the Bank Statement, Banks hit the maneuver again and got the win. While Bayley was unable to hit ay of her signature maneuvers, it was still a nice cup of coffee and gives Banks a submission win over the champion.

WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day: Big E. Langston, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods vs. The Wyatt Family: Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman and Erick Rowan: This was a fun match but after Kingston and Langston were taken care of, Woods was forced to fend for himself and nearly won. However, Wyatt who spooked Woods with his trademark Wyatt Walk, hit the Sister Abigail for the win.

United States Champion Rusev w/Lana vs. Zack Ryder: Rusev was dominant. but Ryder stayed in the match and hit signature offense whenever it appeared he was finished. But after Ryder hit the Rough Ryder, Rusev countered the ElBro from the Top Rope and Rusev locked in the Accolade. Although Ryder almost reversed it, Rusev locked it in with Scissors to get the submission win. After Rusev continued the beat down after the match, Mojo Rawley made the save.

Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens: This was a fantastic match, full of big moves and counters. Zayn hit a Brainbuster on the apron, but Owens was a beast throughout, with strikes and wild offense. However, Zayn put the exclamation mark on the match with the Exploder Suplex and Two Helluva Kicks for the win.

Becky Lynch vs. Natalya Neidhart: Lynch continuously tried to take Neidhart down to the ground with The Disarmer, but Neidhart took her to school and got the win with The Sharpshooter.

Intercontinental Champion The Miz w/Maryse vs. Darren Young w/Bob Backlund: Young got the last laugh with the Chicken Wing on The Miz on the outside to get the match thrown out, but this was a weird one as both Maryse and Miz hit Backlund.

John Cena, Enzo Amore and Colin Cassidy vs. The Club: AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows: This was like a TNA match circa 2006, with plenty of signature maneuvers, near-falls and miscommunications. After Cena delivered the Attitude Adjustment on Styles, the action spun to the outside. After Gallows and Anderson beat on Cena on the outside, he got back in the ring and got caught with the Styles Clash but Cassidy made the save. Gallows and Anderson then nailed Cassidy with the Magic Killer, but Enzo wasn’t about to lay down. After Gallows kicked Amore in the face, Cena took out Gallows and then hit The Attitude Adjustment from the top rope for the win.

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins:Lots of feeling out as all three competitors were rarely in the ring at the same time in the early going. Once the action got heavy, the signature maneuvers and offense was traded among all three performers. Regardless, this was not even close to being anywhere as good as the Zayn/Owens match. A Suicide Dive from Ambrose on Reigns and a Somersault Plancha on Reigns got the crowd going and soon enough Ambrose and Reigns Powerbombed Reigns through the Spanish announce table. With the action back in the ring, Ambrose countered the Turnbuckle Powerbomb from Rollins and hit a Frankensteiner in the corner, but Rollins hit the Superplex/Falcon Arrow combination for a near-fall. Reigns then came back into the match and hit a Powerbomb on Ambrose and added a Sit-Out Powerbomb to Rollins for a near-fall. After a series of counters between Ambrose and Reigns, Rollins hit the Pedigree on Reigns for a near-fall. Rollins then hit the Turnbuckle Powerbomb on Reigns, but Reigns bounced back for a Superman Punch and a Spear, but Ambrose jumped back in for the Dirty Deeds and the win.