WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

• SmackDown Elimination Chamber (Cesaro vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Jey Uso vs. Kevin Owens vs. King Corbin vs. Sami Zayn): 6/7. Started a bit slow but picked up once everyone was in the ring.
• Universal Championship (Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan): 5/7. Surprisingly entertaining for what was such a brief match and such a foregone conclusion.
• United States Championship (Bobby Lashley vs. Riddle vs. John Morrison): 2/7 I'd rather Matt Riddle was not on this show; I don't care about Bobby Lashley; and I knew John Morrison wasn't going to win. So I didn't care about this match.
• Women's Tag Team Championship (Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler vs. Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks): 4/7. Bianca and Sasha don't have any reason to be a team (and nor do Shayna and Nia, really), and the stuff with Reginald seems weirdly pointless.
• WWE Championship Elimination Chamber (Drew McIntyre vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Kofi Kingston vs. AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton vs. Sheamus): 5/7. Why did AJ Styles cheat to give himself a disadvantage? In this type of match you want to enter as late as possible, so breaking out of your pod to get into the ring early is counter-productive. Also, disappointed that his pod didn't then get selected to open (to mark his official entrance into the match). I don't think they really thought this through. Also, like the other Elimination Chamber match, it didn't really get good until everyone was in anyway.
• WWE Championship Money in the Bank Cash-in (Drew McIntyre vs. the Miz): 4/7. I'm just glad the 2020 MitB story is finally over. Everything from the nonsensical race up the building, to Miz suing Otis, to Miz cashing it in but then getting it back, has been garbage.

Overall rating: 4/7. Having two men's elimination chamber matches instead of one men's and one women's was a weird choice. And cancelling the Raw Championship match instead of replacing Lacey Evans was another weird choice. The show had its moments, but a lot of it felt haphazard or less than it should have been.

The Watch

I originally wrote a review of each week's episode as they came out and posted them on my Facebook. If you already read them there, there'll be nothing new here. I have very slightly rewritten them to reformat them into a single review of the entire series, but have made no significant changes.

NXT TakeOver Vengeance Day

• Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final (Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart vs. Dakota Kai and Raquel González): 7/7. It took me a little bit to get into it because I wasn't expecting the show to start in top gear, but it did and it was great.
• North American Championship (Johnny Gargano vs. Kushida): 7/7. Johnny Wrestling on top form.
• Men's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final (MSK vs. the Grizzled Young Veterans): 7/7. Perfect tag team wrestling from both teams.
• NXT Women's Championship Triple Threat (Io Shirai vs. Mercedes Martinez vs. Toni Storm): 6/7. On almost any other show this would have been a highlight, but on this show it just wasn't quite as intense and focused as the other matches.
• NXT Men's Championship (Finn Bálor vs. Pete Dunne): 7/7. Almost painfully good.

Overall rating: 7/7. Aside from the extremely weird and lame Josiah Williams song at the start and the one Cameron Grimes promo in the middle, this was almost perfect from start to finish.

iMPACT! No Surrender 2021

• Six-Person Intergender Tag (Tenille Dashwood and XXXL vs. Decay): 4/7. Either do proper intergender matches, or do mixed tag matches. This weird hybrid where you pretend it's intergender but it's actually not is bad and dumb.
• Brian Myers and Hernandez vs. Eddie Edwards and Matt Cardona: 3/7. I would have preferred to see Myers vs. Cardona one-on-one, so the other two dudes were just an unwelcome distraction.
• Deaner vs. Jake Something: 3/7. The result was obvious, but hopefully it'll lead to something more interesting.
• Triple Threat Revolver (Daivari vs. Suicide vs. Willie Mack vs. Ace Austin vs. Trey Miguel vs. Chris Bey vs. Josh Alexander vs. Blake Christian): 7/7. This is a neat concept for a match. Basically a gauntlet match, but it kind of fixes the problem with regular gauntlet matches by putting an extra person in there so that it's not such an uphill climb for one of the first in to make it all the way to the end. And then it finishes with that sudden-death feeling of a triple threat. Plus, there was some really good wrestling in this one.
• No Disqualification Tornado Knockouts Tag Team Championship (Fire n Flava vs. Havok and Nevaeh): 4/7. They seemed weirdly reluctant to use weapons, but also obliged to? I feel like, if you're going to bring weapons into a match, you've got to commit to them. Don't just put the kendo stick down; use it till it breaks.
• X Division Championship (TJP vs. Rohit Raju): 5/7. Started off really strong but slowed up a bit as it went on.
• Six-Person Tag (Deonna Purrazzo, Kimber Lee, and Susan vs. Jordynne Grace, Jazz, and ODB): 4/7. So, Susan is some kind of alter-ego or suppressed personality or something, right? I feel like we're just waiting for the other version of her to reappear and that's when it's going to get good?
• Triple Threat Tag Team Championship (Chris Sabin and James Storm vs. the Good Brothers vs. Private Party): 4/7. I don't like tag team triple threats. Why are there only two people in the ring at a time? That whole thing where the third team is just sitting on the sidelines until one of their opponents tags them in is weird and doesn't really make sense. I get that it creates a different dynamic to a regular triple threat, but is it better? I don't think so.
• World Championship (Rich Swann vs. Tommy Dreamer): 1/7. Very slow and boring and I don't want to watch Rich Swann.

Overall Rating: 4/7. Some of it was very good, some of it was very bad. Some of it was setting up things that may be very good later.

WWE Royal Rumble 2021

• WWE Championship (Drew McIntyre vs. Goldberg): 1/7. I barely even watched this one because who cares.
• Smackdown Championship (Sasha Banks vs. Carmella): 4/7. It was just a match.
• Women's Royal Rumble: 6/7. This is where the show should have started. If Rhea Ripley or Alexa Bliss had won it would have been 7/7.
• Universal Championship Last Man Standing (Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens): 5/7. I'm not really into this Roman Reigns storyline but it was a good match.
• Men's Royal Rumble: 5/7. Rating it lower than the women's just because there was no one I particularly wanted to see win it. Throw Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, and Walter in there and suddenly I'm way more invested. Add Tyler Breeze and Drake Maverick for a bit of fun and you've got a 7/7 match.

Overall Rating: 5/7. Cut the first two matches and you've got a really good show. Part of my lack of enthusiasm for the men's rumble was probably down to how long the show was.