The Commish’s note: Art has nailed this whole post and I thought it needed two posts to really get the point across. Part one of his thoughts from this week can be found here. Now, Part two:
Super ShowDown, AKA: Blood Money In Vince’s Bank
Super ShowDown is supposed to be this grandiose spectacle (“on par or better than Wrestlemania itself” remember) because of the money paid by the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia for use as a propaganda tool, but yet it’s pretty much reviled by almost all wrestling fans. Most fans don’t want WWE to be there, actual WWE talent doesn’t want to be there, WWE doesn’t want to seem to do anything memorable there – evidenced by the fact that nothing really happened and no storylines really get advanced here – but because the company signed a ten year contract, we’re going to be doing this thing twice a year with awkward builds in between actual pay per view events for a country and people that seem to have directed WWE to show them wrestling that would have been great in 2001.
Undertaker vs Goldberg even ten years ago would have been worth going crazy over, but now both men are over 50, they are wrestling in reportedly 100-degree heat and one of them knocked himself silly against a door before even walking into the ring. The result was maybe the worst match we’ll see in WWE if not all of the wrestling all year where we should just be thankful both men walked away and not ended up paralyzed.
The rest of the card was ok but had a lot more cringe than usual beyond the last match of the night. Braun and Lashley was your typical Vince ‘big man hoss fight’ special. Shane McMahon again is the winner against Roman Reigns while even the biggest Roman critics in the world would argue should never happen. The Lucha House Party somehow were disqualified against Lars for fighting 3 on 1 during a 3 on 1 handicap match.

Even Andrade versus Finn Balor, which was a fine match, of course, felt a bit off because why in the hell would Finn break out “The Demon™” against Andrade when six months earlier couldn’t be bothered to break it out against Brock Lesnar?
Battle royals always feel like a match that is part-time filler and part “let’s just get everyone on the roster on this show” and in that respect it was good, gave us a few fun spots and having a local talent like Mansoor Al-Shehail – who depending on who you talk to is someone high up on WWE’s top prospects list – win the whole thing makes it a nice feel-good moment and for those in attendance, it likely came across as one of those “effing great” moments that Max Landis referred to in his video.
Seth versus Corbin was good and how they played off the Brock Lesnar cash-in attempt was actually pretty neat. Admit it, when Corbin hit “End Of Days” and then Brock’s music hit, for a moment you thought a title change was happening… So in that respect, it was well played and maybe the highlight of the show beyond the battle royal ending.
Orton versus Triple H was fine, but it also felt like a match of no real consequence and thus kind of boring. Kofi versus Dolph was also good, but as we found out pretty much right after the match when they booked yet another match – this time in a cage for Stomping Grounds – it too felt like you had just watched a match of no real consequence on a card of no real consequence.

The best any of us can really say about Super ShowDown is that at least it’s over.