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The first good thing that comes to mind about No Way Out 2012, is the quality of the championship matches. The opening World Heavyweight Championship match between Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus set the tone for the rest of the night. Dolph Ziggler is so good, that he made Sheamus look awesome during the course of this match. The Intercontinental championship match between Christian and Cody Rhodes was even better. The WWE championship match was the best match of the night without any doubt. It is matches like these that increase the value of the titles, and tempt the audience to look forward to more such title matches.
The WWE Championship match had all the ingredients to be the show-stealer and it delivered. There was a powerful storyline leading up to it, the X-factor in the form of AJ, and three good wrestlers who will give it their everything in the middle of the ring. The conclusion to this match was perfect even though it left Daniel Bryan out in the cold. It would have been awesome if AJ had cost the title for both Punk and Kane, but WWE booked it the logical way that could pave way for continuation in this storyline. AJ smiling at Punk will being carried off by Kane indicates that this is not the end of this threeway battle. Kane and Punk might feud in this regard, but they have to figure out a way to keep Bryan in the mix.
There’s a breath of fresh air in the tag-team title picture, with the Prime Time Players becoming the new No.1 contenders for the title by winning a fatal 4 way. AW joining forces with them is a good move as he can handle the mike with ease, compared to both Titus and Young. Kidd and Gabriel too make up a good team. With Raw extending to 3 hours, these tag-teams will get more exposure and hopefully they’ll get over with the crowd.
Speaking about the crowd, another plus about No Way Out was the crowd at the Izod Center in New Jersey. They were hot throughout the show, especially during the triple-threat WWE championship match. ‘Let’s go Ziggler’ chants at the start of the event was a pleasant surprise.
John Laurinaitis was fired at the end of the show by Vince McMahon
When was the last time the WWE Championship match was the main event of a PPV? It was a PPV called TLC, way back in December 2011 and John Cena wasn’t a part of that event. Since then, all the PPV main events have involved John Cena which is bad. Yes, John Cena is the face, but the WWE Championship has to be given its due as the top prize in the company.
John Cena loses to John Laurinaitis in a no disqualification match, but beats Big Show in a Cage match. Seriously? The match didn’t help their cause either. Slow match riddled with interference from Clay, Kofi Kingston, Santino, Ryder and Riley and it wasn’t pleasing to watch. The only good thing was that John Laurinaitis was fired in the end.
Triple H coming out and throwing a challenge to Brock Lesnar was predictable. They could’ve reserved it for Raw. Atleast they could’ve had Paul Heyman involved in the segment to make it spicy.
No title changes in the event, despite of having 4 title matches on the card was not good. I expected the tag titles to change hands considering the R-Truth situation, but instead we got a No.1 contender’s match. CM Punk‘s impressive run as the WWE champion has amassed 210 days, but WWE is in no mood to snatch the title away from him. The Divas title too is in the firm grasp of Layla, and Sheamus is currently a hot property as the World Heavyweight Champion. It is true that there were limited options, but no title changes and continuation in the current storylines will disappoint those who spent time and money on watching No Way Out. It amounts to nothing else than just another show.
The tuxedo match was boring
How many times have we seen Sin Cara wrestle Hunico? And how many times have we witnessed Sin Cara emerging victorious in this duel. Yet again, we were forced to watch this duel for the umpteenth time and there was no kicker at the end of it. This is really really bad booking by the WWE.
There were totally 10 matches at No Way Out including the Pre-show match which is way too much for a PPV. It also indicates that the matches were shorter than normal. The tuxedo match wasn’t exactly a match in my opinion. I second the crowd in saying that it was boring. The 2 squash matches involving Ryback and Sin Cara were pointless and were no different to what we watched for the past few weeks on Raw and Smackdown.
No Way Out seemed like a 3 hour Raw with no commercial breaks. There were minimal memorable moments during the event. We had two or three good matches, crappy backstage segments (except the ones involving AJ!), lots of filler matches and John Cena celebrating in the end – all ingredients of a typical 3 hour Raw. I’ll give a thumbs down for No Way Out 2012.
