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Daniel Bryan w/Randy Orton vs Seth Rollins w/Roman Reigns - RAW 6/10/13

 

Much like the Cesaro/Bryan RAW match, I initially thought this match was overrated. Unlike the Cesaro/Bryan match, upon rewatch, I loved it. They went balls to the wall and did not let up. Bryan started off red-hot with a barrage of offense including a surfboard attempt (important later) and Rollins juts bumping all over the place for him especially dug the baseball slide to barricade bump. Rollins uses his head drop on the middle turnbuckle as a transition, which suits him well given his head-related offense and is a good sudden transition. Rollins, who King astutely points out (shocking, I know), likes to rub the salt into his opponent's wounds by trying to use their own moves against them. Rollins gets the surfboard (no Yes! mockery for shame), but Bryan powers out of it like only he can. Bryan proves he is better by getting on his surfboard and modifying it ala Liger or Dragon to have a Dragon sleeper. Even the Richmond crowd was good in this as during the trading of hands they would say Yes! for Bryan and No! for Rollins ala the Yay/Boo chant. Bryan catches a Rollins enziguiri into a half-crab in another cool spot. Remember, Rollins likes to mimic his opponent so after a connected enziguiri he starts doing the kicks to a kneeling opponent's chest ala Bryan (at this point I want to get "ala" into every subsequent sentence). They each tease Germans on each other. This leads to one of my all-time favorite moves the corner powerbomb from Rollins, but it still not enough to put down the fiesty Bryan. Crazy ROH workrate sequence ends in Chaos Theory and a huge Bryan kick to the head that should have been the finish. Rollins shifts his weight on a super back suplex, but cant get two. Orton pulls Reigns' legs out from under him and Bryan gets the small package for two. After the match, Bryan kicks Rollins in the head, who eats the RKO from the newly forged Team RK-No, wonder what happened to that team.

 

Even though, they depart from Bryan's "inferiority complex" (which commentary gets over pretty well in this) this is a very entertaining match in a vacuum. There is not a whole much in the way of storytelling or even selling just hitting big moves, but escalating them well to the finish. Fans of plot advancement over MOVEZ~! do not wring your hands yet because the finish does put over the fact that brand new team of Orton/Bryan are gelling and a real test for The Shield. It was important to demonstrate those two were on the same page. ***3/4

This is the one where WWE was pushing it was a five star match afterwards when going through the curated tweets, right?

I would agree with Marty on the Orton/Bryan team gelling. The rest of the match was good, fun workrate wrestling with a little character work by Rollins thrown in.

More good work between these two, picking up where they left off four years earlier in ROH. There were admittedly moments in which the crowd was noticeably quiet, mainly during the submission work. I believe that if D-Bry plans to keep using the surfboard as a signature move, he needs to do the "Woah" like he did on the indies. It'll cause the crowd to become more engaged, which is why they're always so happy when he throws strikes now, so that they can yell "YES~!"

Rollins was great once again at being a troll, slapping the head of D-Bry when he locked the surfboard on first. He put forth such a competitive effort that it didn't decrease his stock whatsoever when he fell victim to the small package. I expect these two to feud over the WWE Title in the future. ***1/2

Rollins' first real singles showcase on the main roster, and who better to go against than the man who made him look like a star in ROH (shout-out to Nigel as well) way back in 2008? This was really good. Bryan's connection with the crowd is pure magic as they go nuts for everything he does, and everything he does rules, of course. Loved him bringing those classic elbow strikes of his into the usual repeated YES Kicks sequence, him countering Seth's enzuigiri by catching his leg & slapping on a half crab was AWESOME, and that roll-through German Suplex was extremely neat in all of its blunt-brutality. Also a big fan of them continuing the running bit of Rollins being overly cocky by going for that Surfboard once again, only for Bryan to get out of it almost immediately & punish him for it. ***1/2