Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

By Nicholas Jason Lopez

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at then bottom of the post.

(Aired 6/9/16)

Momentum In The Bank

– The opening in-ring segment with The Club and Enzo Amore/Big Cass solidly hyped for the fatal four-way Tag Title match at Money In The Bank, which would involve Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson, Enzo/Cass, The Vaudevillains and WWE World Tag Team Champions The New Day. We also had AJ Styles talk up his big match with John Cena and sold it as “bigger than WrestleMania” to an extent. He also threw in some good heel logic when he mentioned that it was time for a change and the “New Era” didn’t truly start until he took out Cena, which was his plan all along. Enzo/Cass delivered their lines nicely for the most part, even if they spun their wheels a bit on the material. Did like how Gallows/Anderson sold their global credibility, while Enzo/Cass had “Mr. Clean Dream Team” as a retort. Gallows may have even threw a rhyme down there. Overall, a decent interaction that set up the match to follow.

– The Enzo/Cass-Gallows/Anderson match with New Day on commentary was a lot. New Day’s commentary was hit-or-miss as they mocked everyone as The Vaudevillains watched from the ramp, so there was more hype for the four-way at least. The action itself was okay, the biggest highlight was Gallows’ big boot to wipe out Enzo when he attempted to dive for a hot tag to Cass. Eventually, the outside action took over as New Day attacked VV when it appeared they’d attack Cass and the match was thrown out. It all made sense, but it didn’t feel big. We did like how it ended though, as Enzo/Cass cleared VV from the ring.

– The backstage segment with Lana, WWE United States Champion Rusev and Titus O’Neil was just okay. On one hand, we thought it was smart for Rusev to grab easy heat and put down the late great Muhammad Ali, which set the stage for O’Neil to come in, but O’Neil was too cutesy with his lines to take seriously. This did advance their feud a little bit as we knew now that Rusev and O’Neil would fight at MITB with the US Title on the line.

– The Cesaro/Sami Zayn-Kevin Owens/Alberto Del Rio match succeeded as a time-filler bout to push the MITB competitors with good action and increased tensions between Owens/Del Rio and a random brawl between Zayn/Owens just because. Owens was uber-entertaining here and benefitted from the finish as he let Del Rio do his finisher on Cesaro and then pulled him out of the ring so he could get the pin. Vintage Owens.

– The Becky Lynch-Dana Brooke match was mainly forgettable despite Lynch’s submission victory, but it felt overshadowed by all the outside shenanigans between WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte/Natalya before the Referee ejected them. Much ado about nothing here.

– The latest “Life Lessons With Coach Backlund” was maybe the best of the vignettes so far, with the theme this time being Backlund telling Darren Young not to spend those “millions of dollars” and wear one pair of clothes. The bowtie bit at the end was chuckle-worthy, but we have fears that Young will begin to adopt Backlund’s style. Good to see this is actually headed somewhere though.

– The Baron Corbin-Kalisto match with Dolph Ziggler on commentary was a bout that combined Corbin’s killer instincts with Kalisto’s athleticism for a logical glorified squash to keep Corbin strong while Ziggler got to spread his two cents throughout the match. There was no physicality besides some hard stares between Ziggler and Corbin, but the End Of Days was the expected finish.

– The backstage segment with Sheamus, Zack Ryder, The Golden Truth and Summer Rae was used as a platform to advance the Sheamus-Crews feud. Sheamus bragged about his role in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and referred to himself as an A-Lister before Crews walked up to him with an angry face and flat-out punched him in the face. While we liked Crews’ intensity (a sure rarity), it would’ve been better had Sheamus slapped him first because Crews came off a bit heelish.

– The Ambrose-Jericho main event had solid hype through the night with highlights of their superficial feud. There was some decent action early on, as Jericho tossed Ambrose from the announce table to the floor for a nice spot. This turned into a great back-and-forth match down the stretch as both guys teased their finishers, but this was easily their best match together. Even liked how Jericho won the match cleanly with the Codebreaker, yet it was Ambrose who stood tall to close the show when Jericho got greedy and tried to attack Ambrose with the ladder only to end up attacked by it himself.

Quick Results

• Enzo Amore/Big Cass and Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson (w/AJ Styles) to a no-contest 
• Kevin Owens/Alberto Del Rio def. Sami Zayn/Cesaro via pinfall 
• Becky Lynch (w/Natalya) def. Dana Brooke (w/Charlotte) via submission 
• Baron Corbin def. Kalisto via pinfall 
• Chris Jericho def. Dean Ambrose via pinfall