Bang For Your Buck PPV Review: The 2014 Tables, Ladders, Chairs (and Stairs) WWE PPV

Stairs Match

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Erick Rowan vs. Big Show

Best Case Scenario: This serves as the launching pad for a Big Red megapush, where in addition to a mid-card title run, he becomes the spokesperson for Rubik’s Cubes and they start selling his wine at the WWE Shop.
What Will Happen: A match that the crowd likes more than the Ryback-Kane match, but only because Rowan solves a Rubik’s Cube before hitting his finisher.

This is where the PPV got weird, and for some, disappointing. But I, like Aubrey Sitterson, actually enjoyed this match a great deal. Part of the issue was pacing, certainly, but for a match that was clearly supposed to be a bit of a cool down between the first two matches featuring two of the most over performers in the company — Ziggler and MizDow — and two hometown performers — Miz and, again, Ziggler — it did about as good a job as could be expected from a match with no real point and, more importantly, no real history.

Which is an important thing to mention: this was the first ever Stairs match, so while there were no well-worn tropes we’ve seen a thousand times and have grown proportionately tired of, there are also no well-worn tropes to avert, subvert or add a completely new twist to. It was a blank slate for two guys who are much better served by having very specific roles to work in, but they did their level best  to entertain the fans. And, between a few high spots, the amount of just silly throws of and hits into the stairs and what was a good idea for a finish that was not particularly well executed (which is the complete opposite of the main event)  this match was definitely not going to hurt either performer going forward.

But, whether or not it  helped Show or Rowan going forward remains to be seen. Which is probably less than ideal and the reason this match was, even with the caveats, a bit of a stinker relatively speaking.

Match .25 | PPV 2.05

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