0 of 4
Cliu: WWE.com
With a pay-per-view Fastlane in the books, WWE can focus all its attention on picking up the card for this year’s two-night WrestleMania event on April 10-11.
After coming so close to winning the World Cup on Sunday, Daniel Bryan filed a protest to ask for another bullet at Roman Reigns. As you would assume, Edge had a few thoughts about this.
Shinsuke Nakamura and Seth Rollins met for a relegation from Sunday, and after the Messiah picked up the trophy, he and Cesaro got into another scuffle in the ring and again back on stage more. later in the show.
We also saw Kevin Owens host another episode of The KO Show, a Big E team alongside The Street Profits to take on Apollo Crews and Alpha Academy and Rey Mysterio against Dolph Ziggler in singles action.
We’ll take a look at the highlights of Friday’s show and how they will impact WrestleMania 37.
1 of 4
At the start of the show, Bryan came out and stopped sitting until he was shot at the World Cup. If this is familiar, this is because something similar happened during construction to WrestleMania XXX.
The complaint came after Bryan confirmed he forced Reigns to tap out at Fastlane before Edge took out the two men with a steel chair. He said that should be enough to justify it, and refused to leave the ring until someone from the administration responded.
Adam Pearce came out to tell Bryan he couldn’t save the game, so Bryan suggested Edge and Reigns fight on Night 1 to face the winner on Night 2 .This brought out Edge, which the sons had taken out of Pearce’s hand before he marched to the ring.
The Rated-R Superstar said Bryan lost and does not deserve the picture. They pushed for a minute before Edge handed him a spear. He picked up the chair and hit The Yes Man with it before leaving.
During the final part of the night, Pearce took the three men to the ring and announced that the Universal Championship would be defended in WrestleMania’s Triple Threat game. This led to another fight, which ended with Edge taking out The Tribal Chief and The Yes Man.
While this is similar to what happened in 2014, this is a different situation. Bryan is not being added because the Yes Yes Movement wanted that. It is added because it makes the game better. Those who leave it with the universal title are slim at best.
2 of 4
Rollins defeated Nakamura Sunday at Fastlane. Since WWE is keen to make replays right after pay-per-view ideas, we’ve seen this bout again on SmackDown. Fortunately, they are so well together that no one is going to complain about seeing them go off for a second time.
What happened happened as physically and competitively as what we saw from them on Sunday. Unfortunately for The Rockstar, this game had the same result.
Instead of celebrating his victory, the Messiah decided to continue attacking his fallen opponent. As a result Cesaro came to the ring and knocked the stuff out of Rollins.
Shameful Rollins threw a challenge to WrestleMania, who was accepted by Swiss Superman by smashing Rollins head into a box and turning it around again. As soon as this was secured, he became a Match of the Night candidate.
Cesaro and Rollins are expected to meet at ‘Mania’ since Switzerland put him on its feet 22 times earlier in March. You had better believe Cesaro will go for the Big Swing at least once at Mania.
3 of 4
Two contestants were put together to create a six-man tag game on Friday when Big E teamed up with The Street Profits to take over Apollo Crews and Alpha Academy.
After a fun, fast-paced fight, the Crews were able to earn the win by pushing Big E. Despite losing six Inter-Division Championship games against Big E, WWE has give him another bullet at the belt at WrestleMania.
This has been obvious for weeks, but WWE still felt the need to force them to fight at Fastlane as well. If the Crews don’t get the title this time around, it will be clear that WWE isn’t really paying attention to it.
As good as these two are together, this must be the last time they fight for a long time. Seven title hits and several other random matches in between have stretched this conflict to some extent. After ‘Mania, everyone has to move on.
4 of 4
Owens hosted a program of The KO Show on Friday but there was no special guest. All he wanted to do was talk to Sami Zayn, who came out with his camera crew following close behind him.
The two best friends did not agree on how they should proceed, and it led to a fight and a game for WrestleMania. Like Crews vs Big E, this is a contest that everyone knew would finish the card as soon as the story began.
Later in the show, Rey Mysterio overtook Dolph Ziggler in a singles match with Dominik and Robert Roode at the edge of the ring. Despite being empowered over the barricade by The Showoff, Rey got the win. This clearly builds towards a tag title game at WrestleMania.
With The Street Profits and Alpha Academy also looking to make their mark at the PPV, we would see this turn into a deadly 4-Way game through the next issue of SmackDown.
With the biggest show of the year fast approaching, WWE still has work to do. There are two nights to fill and a few champions without proven opponents, but that should be dealt with accordingly.
Friday’s program featured a lot of story progression and hard action inside. It was a good show to deal with what fell from Fastlane while building up ‘Mania.