Highlights, takeaways and what’s next for the Superstars of WWE following Sunday night’s Stomping Grounds pay-per-view event.
WWE held the first-ever Stomping Grounds pay-per-view event on Sunday night and while there was a bit of questionable booking thrown in there (yes, more Shane McMahon nonsense and silliness at the end), it was a better show than initially expected given the card. Even the matches that didn’t have the best build exceeded expectations and just about everyone looked great in the ring.
As we suspected would happen, the triple threat match for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship was relegated to the Kickoff Show and it was once again a shame. I give a lot of credit to the live crowd at the Tacoma Dome (pretty much all night, actually) for being invested in this matchup and actually paying attention, as many crowds don’t. Tony Nese, Drew Gulak and Akira Tozawa put on a very fun show and gave us the first of two title changes on the night, as Gulak pinned Tozawa to walk out with the gold, which should lead to another one-on-one match with Nese.
Let’s get to the main card, starting with the Raw Women’s Championship Match.
Raw Women’s Championship Match
Becky Lynch (c) vs. Lacey Evans
I thought this was a nice choice to open the main card. The live crowd was into the cruiserweight bout and this kept the momentum going. While this match showed some of Lacey Evans’ inexperience (and Becky Lynch was audibly calling the match), she still managed to overcome some of that with the strength of her character.
Evans’ skillset is a bit limited but the brutality when she gets that her attitude going is very good and very entertaining. This has been a nice push to get her noticed but it was the right move not putting the belt on her. This was a fun back-and-forth affair and The Man got the win with the Dis-arm-her. It was a good start to the show.
What’s next: Well, I initially thought that this might be the end of things between Lynch and Evans but then we all saw what happened at the end of the night. Evans doesn’t deserve another title shot but there isn’t a ton of time to build up a new challenger between now and Extreme Rules so we’ll see what happens there. More on these two in a bit.
Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Big E & Xavier Woods
Following an insanely cute moment on the entrance ramp with a little peck from Kevin Owens to Sami Zayn, the heels got the upper hand very quickly in this tag match against The New Day members not named Kofi Kingston. It was classic heel teamwork and the chemistry these two have as a team is so much fun to watch.
On the other side of things, Xavier Woods took a lot of punishment at the start and looked very good doing it. There was a lot of fast-paced action in the first five minutes and Woods took all of it. However, my favorite thing from The New Day in this match was the intensity of Big E. With all the shenanigans that this group can get involved in, it was nice to see a different side. Big E has always been a talented guy and it’s been a little while since we’ve gotten to see him in real action.
There wasn’t a ton of downtime in this one and the finish was just about as exciting as the start. Big E made the save after Woods took the Pop-Up Powerbomb but couldn’t save his buddy after KO hit the Stunner for the win.
What’s next: Even with no titles on the line here, it feels as if this isn’t over. Owens and Zayn have really been trying to get at Kingston and the WWE Championship and this win over Big E and Woods seems as if it’s leading to more. I expect all these guys to stay involved with one another as the summer rolls along.
United States Championship Match
Samoa Joe (c) vs. Ricochet
Wow, this was a bit of a surprise. It was shocking enough to see Ricochet earn this shot at the United States Championship by winning the fatal five-way a couple of weeks ago and Sunday night, things went even further.
This was one of the few matches that I was looking forward to going into Stomping Grounds and while the pace was a bit slower than I imagined it would be at points, it still delivered nicely. While the high-flying focus is always going to be on Ricochet when he’s in the ring, it never fails to impress watching Samoa Joe’s athleticism, especially when we all know how brutal his beatings can be — and we certainly got plenty of that as well.
Joe was on the offensive for the majority of the match as Ricochet took some big bumps in this bout. But as he does, he was able to (literally) bounce back as he was up and down and all over the place (and doing a backflip off of a human being’s chest) and just doing the amazing things that he can do. It did legitimately shock when he got the 1-2-3 as I thought he might just turn into one of those guys from NXT that can do great things but never gets the real chance to shine on the main roster. This is a big win for his career, and kudos to Joe for letting the young talent go over here. Good match.
What’s next: While it’s likely that Samoa Joe won’t just go away after losing the title, it looks as if AJ Styles will be getting the first crack at Ricochet’s United States Championship. Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson interrupted a photo shoot as The One and Only posed with his newly-won title and AJ announced that he’d be seeing Ricochet on Monday night.
So are we in for a one-off match with AJ Styles and Ricochet or are we setting up an entire feud that may involve Samoa Joe as well? You know what, I don’t even care. Just give me Styles and Ricochet in the ring together and I’m good.
SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match
Daniel Bryan & Rowan (c) vs. Heavy Machinery
The Tacoma crowd was fired up for this one right from the start. Heel or not, Washington loves homegrown son Daniel Bryan and that was on full display on Sunday night as the “Yes!” chants rang throughout the Tacoma Dome, as did hilarious chants like “Please recycle!” and “Drive a Prius!” Fantastic.
What was so great about all of that was it didn’t take away from the match. This bout was a late addition to the Stomping Grounds card and it did not disappoint. Some will say that the crowd negatively affected things but I respectfully disagree. Everyone still knows that Bryan and Rowan are the heels and Heavy Machinery are the babyfaces. This was simply the hometown crowd cheering on their guy. The boos will once again reign down on the champs come Tuesday night.
As for the match itself, this was a lot of fun. Bryan and Rowan continue to impress with their chemistry and so many of their double-team maneuvers are original and fun to watch. As for Otis and Tucker, this was their biggest match since coming to WWE and they showed up to work. I think everyone knew what the outcome would be here but they looked like legitimate threats, even with some of the silliness thrown in. They’re great athletes and performed well on this big stage.
What’s next: I do see Heavy Machinery getting another title shot but perhaps not right away. They got their shot and lost and should learn from it from a storyline perspective. Put them in some other good matches with more veterans and have them earn it. Or they could just get another shot at Extreme Rules. It’s WWE booking, so the logic might not be there.
SmackDown Women’s Championship Match
Bayley (c) vs. Alexa Bliss
After so much time off due to injury these past eight or nine months, it’s so great to see Alexa Bliss back in the ring and healthy again, especially in the title picture. She has been a massive part (and a highlight) of the women’s division for a while and out of all of the great women on this roster, Bliss can still claim that she’s had more time with the belts than anyone (396 days with the Raw Women’s Championship and 109 with the SmackDown Women’s Championship) so seeing her back in the title picture is a good thing, even if she didn’t get the job done on Sunday night.
This wasn’t the best match that Bayley or Bliss has ever put on but it was good enough to keep things rolling. Everyone knew that Nikki Cross was going to get involved somehow and the story told here was executed well. Bliss is a user and her essentially throwing Cross in front of a diving Bayley was a nice touch. It took a little too long for Cross to get in the ring to set up the finish but it still worked. Bliss takes the loss but she can say it was because of the distraction so she still comes out looking fine and Bayley gets a nice win.
What’s next: I’m very interested to see exactly how this split with Cross and Bliss happens but we all know it’s coming at some point. I was still thinking that Sasha Banks might return to even up the odds but that didn’t happen, although she’ll probably get involved in all of this somewhere. With Extreme Rules coming up, perhaps a match where anything goes allows more for her involvement if she returns.
Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre
And now we come to the Shane McMahon portion of the show. Oh yeah — Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre were here as well. This is just getting out of control. Only a few months after the promise of change and the minimization of The Authority, WWE officials now want us to get behind McMahon (and his abuse of power) as the biggest heel in the company. So he can pick up a win over Reigns but a monster like McIntyre can’t? Alrighty then.
While there were some decent elements to this match, so much of it was an absolute mess and a lot of that had to do with McMahon. The match was way longer than it should have been and got off to a very slow start, which the Tacoma crowd certainly let them know about. But once McMahon was taken out of the equation for a bit, this was actually quite enjoyable.
McIntyre is so great when he gets a real chance to shine and these guys actually did take some surprising chances, especially with the top-rope activities. It became the brawl that it’s supposed to be, including that awesome Alabama Slam onto the announce table. And then McMahon was back and it got stupid again.
First of all, that spot with him pulling the ref out of the ring was so horrible it was laughable. Seriously, are we supposed to believe that the ref wasn’t aware of what was happening? Oh wait, he doesn’t want to lose his job if he disqualifies McIntyre, right? I think that’s what we’re supposed to believe. And then McMahon goes coast-to-coast (he’s coming up shorter and shorter as time passes) but it’s still not enough, and Reigns fights back to get the win. Poor Drew.
What’s next: Well, as we saw in the backstage interview afterwards, this unfortunately isn’t over as Shane announced that a 2-on-1 handicap match will take place this week. So is this on Monday Night Raw or SmackDown (it’s hard to know what show Reigns is on anymore) or at Extreme Rules? Just get this over with already. At this point, I don’t even care if they turned McIntyre just to get him away from McMahon. It won’t happen but he’s being wasted right now and it’s a shame.
Steel Cage Match for the WWE Championship
Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
This was my original pick for the match of the night but it certainly didn’t turn out that way. Given the long history and chemistry between Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler, I was hoping for a lot more out of a steel cage match from these two great in-ring talents, but it just never got to that next level.
Yes, there were some fun spots and Ziggler’s selling ability never ceases to impress but we were hoping for more. It’s not that they have to be doing all sorts of crazy things during the 20 minutes this match was given, but there was more ground action than anticipated. The intensity didn’t get to where it needed to be, which was unfortunate given the dramatics of this feud.
While the match overall was a bit of a letdown, the ending was not. It’s refreshing to see originality and unless there’s something I don’t recall, I don’t remember a cage escape like that before. The sheer timing and talent that takes to pull off something like that is insane. That door isn’t crazy wide and Kingston was able to leap through the middle rope (over Ziggler) and through that gap to hit the floor first, and it saved the match. I’m wondering if I’d like a little more the second time around.
What’s next: It will be interesting to see where things go from here for both men. With having now lost twice in clean fashion, one would think that Ziggler is out of WWE Championship opportunities. So is he just leaving again until they need him for something else? That also means that Kingston will be looking for a new challenger.
So is this where Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn now get involved again? Once again, the problem arises of having only a few weeks to get viewers excited about a title match at Extreme Rules, which also may have to help set up some sort of big match at SummerSlam in August. Does someone else step up? Are we set for another No. 1 contender match?
WWE Universal Championship Match
Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin (Lacey Evans named the special guest referee)
The only way to make Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin (yet another rematch) interesting was the special guest referee element and the call to put Lacey Evans in there was actually quite interesting. Sure, it had all the typical things you’d expect from a heel referee with the slow counts and the changing of the rules and so on, but it worked out just fine. Was it the best match of the night? Obviously not. But it’s not as if the match was terrible.
Corbin got his fair share of offense in and while he’s not yet at a main-event level, this tends to happen during the summer. You need a filler opponent for a champion and he was it. It was good heel work as he did everything in his power to turn the momentum his way and it backfired. It’s storytelling and it was a story that worked.
Corbin brings in Evans knowing that Rollins won’t attack her. Evans hates Rollins’ girlfriend and has lost to her twice so she doesn’t want him winning anything, which leads to the slow counts or fast counts and Rollins gets upset. She gives him the low blow and Becky Lynch comes out to a huge pop and saves the day for her guy. It’s fun stuff for a B-level pay-per-view and Rollins and Lynch are just so damn adorable. Rollins retains, we get some cute-couple stuff and that’s that. Not every match is going to be a five-star classic. Take it for what it is and know that we’ll get something more high-profile moving forward.
What’s next: There’s no doubt that we’ll be getting that mixed tag match at some point, possibly as soon as Monday night on Raw and that’ll be what it needs to be. It might prolong the Evans-Lynch storyline longer than it needs to go, but assuming that Rollins and Lynch win that match, that should tidy everything up and allow everyone to move on.
Rollins will need a new challenger as another title match with Corbin can’t be allowed to happen and there’s also Lesnar lurking around with the Money in the Bank briefcase, so there’s always that to be on the lookout for. Monday’s Raw should be a good indication of where things are headed.
What were your thoughts on WWE Stomping Grounds? What was your favorite match? Feel free to join in the conversation in the comments section below.