New WWE MOTY!

WWE SmackDown 03/26/19: The New Day vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows, Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura, The Bar, The Usos, Daniel Bryan & Rowan

First of all, that damn title was hard to write ^ up there. How do you even write down a handicap tag team gauntlet match like that?! Gonna make my MOTY list look real ugly 😉 

Anyways, this rocked my world. The first segment of the New Day going against Gallows & Anderson was pretty short, but I liked what we got very much; everything looked good and it served as a good opener for the Gauntlet. The 2nd segment w/ Rusev & Nakamura was very solid too - I actually thought that Nakamura looked the most compelling he has since probably SummerSlam vs. Jeff Hardy. And then out comes The Bar & things kick up into higher gear - Sheamus has a clear strategy going in, as he immediately starts doing some work over Big E's left leg; Big E is an awesome FIP with his selling & hope spots - loved the usual crawling-towards-your-partner-only-to-get-cutoff -stuff - might sound weird, but I thought Big E did that pretty amazingly. Not cheesy or over the top at all, he created just the perfect amount of drama in those, and the cutoffs by the Bar fellas were awesome as well. Xavier rules as the hot tag as much as Big E does as the FIP; some awesome, high energy flippy stuff w/ a nice amount of urgency & intensity to all of it. The finish of the segment with Big E pulling Cesaro from the top & Xavier then rolling up Sheamus was brilliant, as was the post-segment beatdown. The brilliance continued as The Usos' music hits, and they come out looking like the badasses that they are - LOVED Corey's commentary during this; between that, the presence of the Usos & the beatdown the New Day just received, there was a real great feel of danger & sadness, even. But then! BUT THEN! Just when it looks like Kofi's WrestleMania dreams might be done for, The Usos FORFEIT, because of the respect they have for him + Xavier & Big E. An absolutely AMAZING moment; it could've been so cheesy & cringe, but the way they did it, and with it being The Usos who did it, it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Then Bryan & Rowan come out, and start beating the crap out of the New Day - Bryan of course goes for Big E's leg right away - his torture of it is unsurprisingly great, and the moment where Big E finally rallied up some punches, but Bryan counters that into a half crab was superb. The rest of the action is red hot, and the finish was creative & brilliant - the crowd counting the count-out so loudly was an AWESOME final touch to the thing, and the post-match with all 3 of the New Day lads celebrating was a genuinely great, pure babyface moment. The whole thing was magic. ****1/4