Bash in Berlin Review

Saturday afternoon, we had WWE’s Bash in Berlin, another good international PPV for them. It was not Backlash in France or any shows that were in the UK, but it was a solid event for a place that has not had an event there in over twenty years. Some matches were incredible or may have ended flat for some, but here is my review of the show. I tried a new thing with the Right Hook Rating where instead of the scale to ten, I did the scale based on the number of matches on the card, which were five.

Undisputed WWE Championship Match
Cody and KO had a good match. Owens’s conflicted attitude throughout the match about his killer instinct was well done in the match. I would not have expected less from them. The faint injury from Rhodes took away from the end, but Rhodes pulled out the win. Hopefully, Owens’s turn is coming soon especially following the post-match stuff with him and Rhodes.

RHR Rating: 4 out 5

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match
Unholy Union is a solid team that somehow stays in the title picture, but Jade and Bianca as champions make more sense and draw more attention to the division. The bigger question is who can challenge them and pump that division up?

RHR Rating: 2 out 5

CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre: Strap Match
This match was incredible. These two are having great matches without doing too much. It is nice to see an old-school strap match back on WWE big shows. The ending was great, with Punk hitting multiple GTS to win and get his bracelet back. It is only his second match, but Punk looks like his old form and hopefully will have some more good matches going forward and cannot wait for their next encounter.

RHR Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Terror Twins (Damian Priest & Rhea Ripley) vs. Dominik Mysterio & Liv Morgan
The crowd was crazy for Rhea Ripley all match; Priest looks like an absolute badass. The match was good, and the fans were into this. Dom and Liv were fine in this match, especially Dom getting his butt kicked throughout the match, but I wish Judgement Day stole the victory to make them feel more legit as a group Rhea and Damian are absolute stars, and hopefully, this is far from over.

RHR Rating: 3.5 out of 5

World Heavyweight Championship Match: Gunther vs. Randy Orton
The entrances were great, with that UFC main event feel. Orton is bulletproof with the crowd, like Cody and Jey Uso. The crowd for Gunther’s entrance was magic; hometown crowds just made the match better. Ludwig Kaiser doing Gunther’s introduction was the right touch for this match.

Orton acknowledged the fans throughout the match and was priceless. It is so nice to see simple, old-school wrestling matches on these shows. It is OK to have these simple matches sometimes because they never fail. Orton working Gunther’s arm throughout the match was well done. The chop exchange with Orton and Gunther is the way it is supposed to be done!

Orton and his back always make me nervous, but he has added something to his matches since his return. Regardless a marathon of a match where the ending may have been disappointing for some people, but it made sense here with Orton passing out for Gunther to retain the championship. The show of respect between Orton and Gunther at the end was the passing of the torch moment. While it was not Savage vs. Steamboat or Steamboat vs. Flair, it was an equal or better response to Danielson and Strickland at All In from the previous weekend.

RHR Rating: 5 out of 5