Brock Lesnar v Roman Reigns v Samoa Joe v Braun Strowman (Summerslam, 8/20/17)
Okay, so last month I watched the Eddie/Benoit/X-Pac/Jericho fatal fourway from No Way Out 2001, wrote about it here and said it was probably the best fourway in WWE history. It was also noted that fatal fourways kind of suck so the bar for best fatal fourway might not be very high, but either way it's a really fun match. HOWEVER, I was dead fuckin wrong about it being the best fatal fourway in WWE history. My god this is a riot of a thing. It feels like the perfect encapsulation of modern WWE -- big set piece moments, lots of heat from the WWE Universe, four BIG BOIS doing BIG BOI SHIT. How did they fuck up so badly with Strowman? He looks like the next megastar here and that first stretch of the match with him tearing the place apart is seven star territory. The initial face off with Lesnar felt massive and the crowd were so ready for it to happen. I was initially disappointed that they cut it off before even locking horns when Reigns and Joe appeared, but then both of those two were swiftly dispatched leading to another Lesnar/Braun face off, the crowd even MORE ready for it to happen, and then this time it actually does. Braun hucking Lesnar about the place like a child was amazing and it's a shame Lesnar went the "that doesn't work for me, brother" route with Strowman, because on this night he made him look like an absolute juggernaut. People were not the least bit pleased about Reigns clotheslining Strowman over the top rope, but then Strowman just...didn't go over and instead chucked Reigns away by the vest and they should've called an audible and put the belt on him right there. The sequence where Strowman slams Lesnar through the first announce desk, then throws a swivel chair at Joe and Reigns, then slams Lesnar through the second announce deck, then tips the THIRD desk on top of him -- perfect. Heyman on his knees shrieking "BROOOOCK!" damn near in tears like a bereaved spouse was incredible and then Strowman picks up the steps and fucking whomps anybody else who gets close to him. The floor over on that side of the ring looked like a mortar bomb had gone off. If you're doing to do a stretcher job on Brock Lesnar then you better make it look good and this looked amazing. Brock's face was beetroot purple as well, like it was about to explode from pressure build up. I say this every time I talk about a triple threat or fatal fourway but it's hard to do these matches without having moments where one or more of the participants are just kind of chilling out the way, selling for extended periods off of things that normally wouldn't have them selling for extended periods. Even when Lesnar was out of the equation for a while and it became a triple threat - where it's even more difficult to come up with sensible ways to keep the odd man away from the action - they never had someone linger on the peripheries for ages. They rotated in and out and the stuff that kept one man down for a little while was plausible. Very little looked contrived and so much of modern WWE feels contrived to me, so the fact they managed to make it look organic is sort of astonishing. Reigns smashing the point of the steps into Strowman's ear was ugly as fuck and also gave a little raggedness to something that would've had to be mapped out meticulously. When Lesnar comes back out like a blotchy mutant from hell you know someone's for getting chucked about the place and I think everyone got chucked about the place. Nobody is better at being speared than Brock, the way he'll take the thing almost fully upright, no loosening of the hips to absorb impact, a brick wall that you need to run through. Just a spectacular match and maybe the best example of a motorway pile-up in WWE history.
Brock Lesnar v AJ Styles (Survivor Series, 11/19/17)
We've established that it's hard to make a Brock Lesnar stretcher job look believable. It's almost just as difficult to make a Brock Lesnar opponent look like a legitimate threat, particularly when that opponent is undersized by about a hunner pounds. And well, Lesnar wasn't carted out on a stretcher here but they sure did make AJ Styles look like a legitimate threat despite being undersized by about a hunner pounds. For roughly a third of this it went how you'd expect. Lesnar obliterated Styles for 6-7 minutes unanswered, a 6-7-minute stretch that probably felt significantly longer to AJ. Lesnar was just launching him with suplexes, dumping him out the ring, and out on the floor he chucked him all face- and shoulder-first into the announcer's desk. It looked brutal as a bastard and Styles had a mean looking welt across his arm to show for it. There was one point where AJ was dead on the mat and Brock dragged him across the ring by the hair and threw him into the corner like AJ was a deer carcass being hung up on a hook to drain. AJ will obviously fly around like a maniac on bumps so that doesn't hurt either. I guess it's easy to draw this comparison because I watched Lesnar/Eddie recently, but AJ's comeback felt very similar to Eddie's against Brock from '04. The big moment where you go "oh AJ might actually have a chance here" was practically identical, with Brock missing the high knee in the corner and selling the leg (like in the Eddie match he managed to hit one earlier and this one AJ took right in the face like a maniac). It feels like AJ's weathered the storm and chips away at Lesnar, and Brock is all-time level at selling progressive fatigue and damage. AJ hits a couple dives and starts countering things he was getting bounced around with earlier, then Lesnar goes hurtling into the steps and leaves them dented with his own kneecaps. Even the botched tornado DDT worked fine for me because it looked like Brock just chucked AJ on his face to prevent it, or if you really want to stretch the boundaries of storytelling, his leg buckled and what was otherwise his one weak point actually became a boon in that moment. The F5 reversal into the Calf Crusher was a great spot and I shit you not, Lesnar grabbing AJ by the head and repeatedly bouncing it off the mat to escape is one of the best things I've seen in ages. Brock's leg nearly buckling as he catches AJ off the springboard was an awesome touch that Lesnar has a knack for, the way it looked like he was almost going down before righting himself and hitting it. This ruled a lot.
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