Super Showdown In A Nutshell: WrestleMania It Is Not

Good morning folks! Hope you are all enjoying your weekends, and thank you for taking time out of it to read this particular post. This one, as you’d expect, is all about WWE’s most recent trip to Jeddah-the Saudi Arabian edition of Super Showdown. We’ve got Kofi Kingston defending his WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler. There is Seth Rollins defending against Baron Corbin, and the looming threat of a Brock Lesnar cash-in. There’s the 50 man battle royal, Goldberg versus The Undertaker and, of course, not a women’s match to be seen. So, while WWE had been billing this as possibly as good or better than WrestleMania, let’s crack open this Nutshell to confirm that, well, WrestleMania it is not.

Best Match of the night:

Tough choice here, because there weren’t many good matches on the card. I will give it a 1a and 1b kind of treatment.

1a goes to Triple H and Randy Orton. A surprisingly long match when you consider the heat and the thinking that Hunter isn’t a full time performer anymore (as in, you’d think maybe he’d get gassed for a 20+ minute long match). Not great (none on the card were), but good.

1b I think goes to Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley.

There might have been one other match even worth considering.

Worst match of the night:

Let’s see…

Rollins and Corbin was disappointing for so many reasons.

Lars Sullivan and Lucha House Party? Need I say more?

Crowd Chants of the Night:

Whatever they chanted, not much came through. We had this issue at previous Saudi shows too.

Star of the Night

Folks, for the life of me I can’t think of anyone actually deserving of this award.

Spot of the Night:

Another where nothing really screams “pick me”. I suppose I could give Mansoor the nod, just for his elimination of Elias and all…but I admit it’s a reach.

Jobber of the Night:

I think I have to give this to Lucha House Party, because they were used to prop up Lars Sullivan.

Upset of the Night:

I don’t know if I can really call it an upset…perhaps “bad booking” is better. If Roman Reigns is one of their top guys, they really don’t need to book him losing to someone who isn’t a full time wrestler. Sure, they made it more about Drew McIntyre and Roman at the end of it, but Shane now is channeling his inner Vince from a couple decades back, when Vince was convinced no one could be as good a heel as him.

And then we had Mansoor win the battle royale…so I think he really wins this here.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

Was a bit surprised by the blood spots we did get.

Really, REALLY surprised that WWE put over a guy, in the battle royale, who a great number of viewers likely did not know. I get it, he’s local and it was a nice moment for them…but it was still shocking.

Botch of the night:

Whether it was part of the plan or not, I will award this one to Heyman. He stumbled into the ring just when we all thought Brock was going to cash in.

Noteworthy Moment:

At the conclusion of this show, a few noteworthy things are worth calling out:

Still no women’s matches.

Might have been the hottest wrestling arena temperature.

Goldberg and The Undertaker had their first match. Probably should be their one and only.

You’ve got wrestlers complaining they don’t or can’t get a shot, right? Then don’t book tag teams in the pre-sh0w AND the battle royale. Especially with it that hot.

Authors of Pain are back, as was Sin Cara, helping fill out the way-too-massive 50 man match.

Overall lowlights:

So much to discuss here…

There is a risk with outdoor shows, and there always has been. With WrestleMania in New Jersey, it could have been too cold. In Levi’s Stadium, they had to wait for Undertaker to go on so that it was dark enough. Plus there’s always rain concerns. Then you get to Jeddah and the announcers reported that the temperature had a real-feel of 101. That’s insane, and could have been an issue for the wrestlers.

It’s terrible that WWE still has not managed to get a women’s match on one of these cards. They need to, and soon.

Also, a lot of these matches felt much less like a WrestleMania-esque and much more an underwhelming house show.

Overall highlights:

Nice to see The Demon.

Orton and Triple H actually worked a decent match.

So too did Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley.

After the final bell:

I don’t care about the Saudi money. The truth is, this is a house show on a pedestal. WWE was on something when they commissioned the ads saying that this show would be, or could be, as good or better than WrestleMania. It wasn’t, it couldn’t…it never had a shot.