Going into WWE No Mercy 2017, it’s not hard to imagine feeling like it was a two-match card.
Outside of John Cena vs. Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar‘s title defense against Braun Strowman, everything else felt pretty standard and nowhere near as important.
However, history has shown that these types of shows can be surprising, as sometimes those two important matches stink up the joint or the others far exceed expectations.
Now that No Mercy has concluded, it’s time for us to look back on what happened and assess the damage, talk about the ups and downs and see where the chips fell.
Presented in order of appearance, here are those standout segments of the show, for better or worse.
Mixed Bag: Pre-Show Kickoff Hour
Per usual, unless you needed the panel to refresh your memory on the feuds, you could skip the pre-show.
Alexa Bliss in the social media lounge had a laugh when she was responding to someone asking her to marry her, but nothing else with that material was special.
All the analysis and video packages were as bland as normal and no ground was broken in any regard.
This is to be expected, though, so any complaints about that have to be weighed against the already low expectations you have to have prior to going into the pre-show.
At least Elias was able to have another musical performance and a decent enough match with Apollo Crews to help add a positive to the mix.
Still, none of this was necessary to follow along with and if you missed out on it, you didn’t truly miss anything.
Highlight: Intercontinental Championship Match
On top of being a decent match from start to finish, the Intercontinental Championship match between Jason Jordan and The Miz also ended with the right call.
There is definitely some potential to the idea of Jordan holding the title, but the crowd simply isn’t being receptive to it.
With that in mind and the amount of boos that he received tonight, the better choice was keeping the belt on The Miz, so that in itself is a highlight.
The ending of the match, with The Miztourage interfering, was also a way to help protect Jordan going forward if this feud is going to continue.
However, judging by Jordan’s lackluster promo after the match, that may not necessarily be the best decision unless the former American Alpha is being primed for a heel turn.
In any fashion, this particular match was solid and the right person ended up winning.
Low Point: Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt
Finn Balor and Bray Wyatt first had a match on Monday Night Raw to set up the idea of their follow-up at SummerSlam.
That match was only special because Balor brought out the face paint, but if you ignore that aesthetic, it was the same basic confrontation as before.
This time around, WWE took a step backward and tried to get out of it by billing it as “man vs. man”—as if that somehow made things more interesting.
It didn’t, which meant this match had nothing going for it that we haven’t seen before, rendering it one of the most forgettable of the entire night.
Highlight: Raw Tag Team Championship Match
Wow, this was a good match!
Their previous encounter at SummerSlam was one of the better fights of that card, so it was to be expected that this would be at least good, but they stepped it up a notch and delivered even more.
This was hard-hitting and…
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