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[2nd RD] KEVIN OWENS vs. CHARLOTTE


KEVIN OWENS vs. CHARLOTTE  

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Charlotte isn't perfect but she certainly had a better year than Owens. 

Here's what I wrote about the HITC match:

Matt D, on 01 Nov 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

Let me try to talk this bit out. I only watched four real matches Sunday night into Monday morning. I saw the Kendrick one while it happened, more or less, and caught the women the next morning. The two others I saw? the Korchenko squash on NWAonDemand and the Blade Runners one. I figured someone should check them out just in case there was anything noteworthy in them. For the Blade Runners match, at least, it likely never aired and this is the first time anyone's seen it in 30 years. I have some doubts that more than fifty people in the world have even seen it now. It's not exactly a huge pull.

 

The match ended with one of the two ways a Blade Runners win ends. Either they hit the bearhug/running (no jump) clothesline Hart Attack combo or Rock/Warrior does a press slam and then Sting comes in with a big splash. In this case, it was the latter. Rock would, at times, do a press slam where he bumps the person like someone tossing Flair off the top rope, forward. Other times, he'd drop the guy like he'd do later in his career. In both cases, he usually needed to rely on the tights to get the guy up and it was bad when he didn't. We saw him, at the height of his career, dangerously drop Heenan time after time, for instance. 

 

Rock absolutely could not get his opponent up here. He made it about halfway and then just crumpled him, dropped him, and he landed in the most awkward, horrible way possible. It was nasty and gnarly and in that moment, actually helped the mystique of the Blade Runners, because it made it seem like they just killed this poor bastard and that they kayfabe had no regard for human life. His inability to hit his move successfully added to the moment instead of hurting it, but it probably did so at the cost of the the jobber's health, not because of any sort of skill or precision, but instead because of the lack of such.

 

That's what drove a lot of the women's title match. I mentioned that it had a mood before, that it felt more like a horror movie. Some of that was the intensity and Charlotte's heeling. Some of it was the innate concern that they were going to try to do something to warrant the main event spot. Most of it, however, was in their execution. People have mentioned sloppiness as a positive but I see sloppiness as a certain disregard or inexperience or lack of timing. That wasn't what this was. The match was made through them attempting things that they couldn't hit over and over again and there being obvious negative consequences to the attempt. It was made by being more real than it should have been and the Faces of Death impulses that seeing this, again and again, were sent down your spine; the way you might watch some sort of backyard trainwreck with lighttubes. There was the tope into the cage. There was the apron bump that went all sorts of wrong. There were the table spots. There was a willing disregard for safety so long as the the match worked. It wasn't built into the match, necessarily. Those spots were planned out to be mostly safe ones, but there was no veering off course when something didn't work out. It was total commitment and total immersion. 

 

The most memorable thing about the match wasn't them climbing the cage and the announcer table powerbomb. It wasn't the pop when Sasha got up. It wasn't the early Bank Statement attempt. It wasn't even that tope or apron spot. It was the two table throws in the end. Why? Because they didn't work and because Charlotte didn't for a moment show any sign of caring. She was completely immersed into her character. When Sasha didn't go through the first time, she lawn-darted her even more severely the second time. Unlike the case with Rock and the jobber, Sasha almost certainly wanted her to do exactly that, and it created one of the most striking moments we've had in a Cell in a decade. 

 

So they get a ton of credit for keeping together in the midst of all the failed attempts at execution, of working that into the match by never forgetting the characters they were portraying, by never interrupting the purity of the match with audibles or disingenuous repeats of spots. But from a comparative sense, I wonder if it doesn't raise some red flags that, in a business which is supposed to be about the illusion of danger and harm, they were able to craft a match with so distinct a mood primarily out of grisly, far too real, athletic failures. 

Charlotte's commitment to character there, whether it be from a desperate inexperience or actual savant level still, impressed me more than anything Owens did all year. I love some of the little touches Owens brings to matches but as a big picture wrestler, his matches all feel samey and they all feel sort of wrong.

People should take the time and listen to Elliott and Stacey break down the HITC match. They did an excellent job:

 

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I really enjoyed Kevin Owens this year from a character standpoint and he had some good matches.  I can't remember who it was who described him like a Create-A-Wrestler made by one of your friends who gives him every possible finisher, but it was pretty spot-on.  Watching Owens matches, especially at the WWE level where repetition of spots is encouraged, often ends up with the viewer going "Ok, that's it, it's over, oh nope, THAT's the finish, no I guess it's...oh that has to be it...all right enough really."  The stuff with Jericho was good, but I'm not sure you couldn't have plugged a half dozen other wrestlers into that slot and not have it worked out just as well.

Charlotte is basically the foundation of the Women's Division.  I appreciate her commitment to the character.

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Trying to choose here. Running through a thought experiment. Take the two particulars, and envision them both in matches against a good-not-great opponent, someone they didn't wrestle during the year. Which match would you rather see?

Charlotte against Naomi

Kevin Owens against Zack Ryder

...this didn't help. I don't want to see either of those matches.

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1 minute ago, (BP) said:

Honest question, how much does Owens's best matches being with someone he's known and worked with for twenty years hurt him? 

That's a really compelling argument and it's one that has me hesitating on voting right now.  They could do the matches in their sleep and it's at least good and at best fantastic.  A counter-argument can be made that he had some great matches against Reigns as well.  But he's sandwiched between a great year before and with his recent demeanor a great year ahead.  But unfortunately it's not the slam-dunk vote that it should be for Kevin.  And I'm a huge fan of the guy.

Unlike Sami's matchup against Miz (where I voted Miz)  I have a hard time saying Charlotte's year deserves my vote.  She's had some great promos and has held her own in the heel department.  But while her ring work was inspired I can't say I was a fan of her in-ring stuff.

I'm trying not to vote with my heart (leaning toward Owens) but will need to think more about it to see if Charlotte is worth voting for.

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Owens hasn't had a great year, but Charlotte is the least of the Horsewomen in my opinion.  I really hate her moonsault (she badly missed the one in Charlotte, but they apparently saved it with camera work) and her streak combined with the title swapping has hurt the women's division, IMO.  I'm leaning Owens, but could be convinced otherwise.

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Kevin Owens's reign as the top champion on Raw was really bad in large part to just being in JeriKO, and made the Universal Championship look like a joke.

Charlotte's reigns as the women's champion on Raw led to a very acclaimed women's feud with Sasha Banks that managed to take it to the main event of Hell in a Cell, had a number of big matches...then went on to a feud with Bayley which also helped keep the title valid after the feud ran its course.

Owens made his top title look worse, Charlotte made her top title look BETTER. 

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i feel like owens character work is all over the place. is he a comedy character? is he a bad ass? is he a chicken sh*t heel? is he even a heel? is he a face? is he a leader? is he a follower?

it takes me out of his matches. 

i know who Charlotte is and her matches are better for it. 

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5 hours ago, SorceressKnight said:

Kevin Owens's reign as the top champion on Raw was really bad in large part to just being in JeriKO, and made the Universal Championship look like a joke.

Charlotte's reigns as the women's champion on Raw led to a very acclaimed women's feud with Sasha Banks that managed to take it to the main event of Hell in a Cell, had a number of big matches...then went on to a feud with Bayley which also helped keep the title valid after the feud ran its course.

Owens made his top title look worse, Charlotte made her top title look BETTER. 

In KO's defense, it's not entirely his fault that the Universal title is a joke.  The name; the Fruit Roll-up design; Finn having to vacate immediately after winning; KO only winning because of someone else's feud crossing the streams; and that bullshit on Sunday all play a part in the title having zero credibility.

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10 minutes ago, mattdangerously said:

In KO's defense, it's not entirely his fault that the Universal title is a joke.  The name; the Fruit Roll-up design; Finn having to vacate immediately after winning; KO only winning because of someone else's feud crossing the streams; and that bullshit on Sunday all play a part in the title having zero credibility.

The Raw tag titles have the same red leather design, and the SD new titles have blue leather. 

Even if Finn had to vacate immediately, KO held it for six months while that happened, and most of it was him being a comedy buffoon with JeriKO (with Jericho arguably being the leader over the Universal Champion.) 

It may not be entirely his fault, but KO being a bad champion meant more of it IS his fault than it seems.

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41 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

No.1 even true, that is still better then most of Owens matches.

No.2 even if true, it's also true for Owens best matches as well.

Yes but I think Owens completely blows her away outside of the ring. His promo to start RAW the other week was something that Charlotte could never dream of doing.

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Like many here I patiently waited years for K.O. to get his moment in the sun on the biggest stage in wrestling. Once he got there, what exactly did he do? Mailed it in as often as not. Charlotte is still learning, still improving and most importantly, she has her dad's work ethic. I'm not going to vote for K.O. based on what he can do, I'm voting for Charlotte based on what she actually did.

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