Happy Sunday folks! And it’s a historic Sunday at that, as we get the first ever WWE all woman PPV. Evolution is history being made, live from Long Island. WWE is giving us some big names from the past as a nice touch, but make no mistake, the future is front and center. We’ve got some big matches, with the NXT, SmackDown and RAW women’s titles all on the line. Who is ready to watch history being made? Then let’s crack open this Nutshell!
Best Match of the night:
For me, this show peaked during the Last Woman Standing match. Hands down, the best match on the card.
Honorable mention to the NXT Women’s title match. Baszler is legit, Sane is too. What brought this match down a peg was the interference. Not that it wasn’t good to get Duke and Shafir involved-it was. But, the interference was kind of clunky at times, and Baszler honestly didn’t need the assist.
Worst match of the night:
Loved seeing Lita and Trish…but Alicia Fox is just bad. I might not have called out her issues in the botch section, but Fox probably deserved a spot there. If this match had a healthy Alexa Bliss, this match would have looked very different (duh).
Crowd Chants of the Night:
Let’s go Lita
You deserve it
This is awesome
NXT
ECW
Let’s go Becky
Let’s go Charlotte
Let’s go Ronda
Let’s go Nikki
Star of the Night
I can’t single out just one woman. This show was a culmination of the blood, sweat and tears so many women, past and present, put into the business to get here. Some aren’t here. Some are. But without a single one of them, tonight probably doesn’t happen. So, I salute every single one of those women who helped tear down barriers and push things to the point where WWE had to make this happen. Even if the show lacked some of the hype it should have gotten last week, the show mostly delivered better than expected.
Spot of the Night:
I could grab plenty out of Charlotte and Becky’s match-the leg drop through a table and the power bomb through another certainly come to mind, as does a Figure 8 ladder spot. But then we got Ronda Rousey lifting and dropping the Bella twins at the same time, and that has to take home the prize tonight.
TWO Bellas for the price of ONE! #WWEEvolution #RondaRousey #NikkiBella @RondaRousey @BellaTwins pic.twitter.com/jY8fXeyuoh
— WWE (@WWE) October 29, 2018
Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:
I know some knocked the Last Woman Standing match (I saw one saying it was all the elements of what the guys would do, but half as good). I don’t buy them. The women knew they needed to dial it up, and for the most part, they brought it. I think the final count and how Charlotte was, was a bit off perhaps, but it’s a minor nit to pick.
Loved the big spots, and loved the use of the ladder by Charlotte.
Botch of the night:
Polling Twitter, fans felt most of them happened during the Last Woman Standing match.
The obvious one was the ref assisting Becky in getting the steel chair to break up the Figure 8 in the ladder.
All these botches and Nikki Bella hasn’t even came out yet #WWEEvolution
— WWE News & Polls (@wrasslinpolls) October 29, 2018
That ref just gently nudged the chair closer to @BeckyLynchWWE and I want to hug him for that. #WWEEvolution
— PiratePoots? Commissions Open! (@PiratePoots) October 29, 2018
But, as we’ve seen before, some of those tables just don’t want to break as easily as they should. Either they weren’t gimmicked ahead of time, or they weren’t gimmicked well, or the women did not hit quite right.
Commentary of the night:
Cole saying that Becky had a cult following.
…No, Cole (and WWE). Anyone who could and can hear the crowds knows that Becky has far more than a cult following. Don’t insult fan intelligence by trying to say Lynch just has a pocket of rowdy fans.
Noteworthy Moment:
Nia Jax looks to be Rousey’s next challenger, after winning the battle royal.
Post-show, all the women were on stage hugging and celebrating. These shots are always interesting because you get some heels closer to faces than you’d think. My favorite shot was both brand champions, Rousey and Lynch, clanging title belts together. You’d think, if WWE wants us to think one is a face and one is a heel, that they’d frown upon it.
Overall lowlights:
Hard to gripe because injuries happen, but it was a bummer not having Alexa Bliss on the show in a truly meaningful capacity.
Was not a fan of Alicia Fox, but I’ve never been a big fan of hers.
I think WWE could have really set things up nicely if they had had Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke interfere on Shayna Baszler’s behalf-but unsuccessfully. And then, during the main event, while the Bella Twins were beating on the outnumbered Rousey, you had Heyman hit the arena and bring out the other 3 Horsewomen of MMA. Just like that, you bring them up to the main roster, and it’s not a huge leap to get to a Survivor Series (or later) Horsewomen versus Horsewomen battle.
Overall highlights:
Finally seeing this happen was awesome.
Seeing the Hall of Famers come back and shine, you get why they walked away, but you want them around more.
The NXT women’s march was good.
The Mae Young final was another good one
The SmackDown women’s title was the show stealer.
After the final bell:
What can I say? The show was announced a while ago and at times felt overlooked. But, by all accounts, the show did what it set out to do. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely.
I do wish that the production value felt more like a traditional PPV, but I think this is the new production/lighting package that WWE is aiming to try more (saves cost, may mean we see more specials). But I would have liked this one feeling on par with all but the Big Four (or, even those).
Hopefully this was the first of many.
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