But if you managed to convince me, and told me one of those two teams would win, and the other so-called "favorite" would crap the bed and lose to a #8 seed, I would have guessed correctly. At no time were the Hoosiers the best team in the Big 10, and yet, they won the league by 2 games... they would have been an easy guess for an early out. Sure enough: yesterday afternoon, Indiana lost to lowly Michigan.
 
But what can you say about those Flyers that hasn't already been said? They won yesterday, as I completely expected them to, and moved on to today's semi-finals, where they were defeated in a 5-on-8 handicap match, with referees so incompetent, they make wrestling refs look good. "Hmmm, bad officiating, is that foreshadowing anything, The Rick?" Yes,  yes it is. FORESHADOWING~!
 
Still, there is no drama as I sit here, waiting for the Selection Show on Sunday night... the Flyers are in (and so are the Hoosiers, which is nice, since I might be Flyer by Choice, but I'm still Hoosier by Birth), and the only question is seeding. By any objective criteria, the Flyers are a 6-7-ish seed; apply the Committee's standard "We are no objective, and we'll contort our reasoning by applying thinks like the Eyeball Test, designed to punish all non-BCS teams," and it could be an 8-9, but let's keep our fingers crossed, eh?
 
So with that out of the way, let's get to the reason you're here. WWE just finished up a special "pop-up PPV" event. Here's what happened:
 
what happened at the just-completed Night of Champions 2014 pay-per-view:

• Opening Hype Package/Pyro/Etc., and we're live in Toronto, ONT. It's a totally lo-fi house show set-up, and it's not even WWE's usual arena in Toronto; it's a smaller one, just floor and one deck, maybe 8000. But we're still getting the A-team announcers from RAW: Cole, JBL, and Saxton. They cut the preliminaries short, because it's time for tag team action...
  
  
• The New Day beat Sheamus and Wade Barrett to retain the Tag Titles. The New Day hit the ring, and have a major announcement for us.... you see, the New Day talk a good game, but they walk the walk. And just like that, Booty-O's Cereal is real.
   
  Oh yes it is! Well, maybe not... but New Day unveil a realistic looking prop box of Booty-O's (which isn't hard; once, I turned in a finance project about the breakfast food industry, inside a box I made for "Fruity Rati-O's" cereal!), and proceed to talk about how Booty-O's make sure you ain't booty. They joked about the many ways the League of Nation are booty, and assured us that the LoN's problems could all be solved by Booty-O's.
  
  The LoN, obviously, disagree with all this, and their music interrupts the hijinx. It's Sheamus and Wade Barrett, flying solo, apparently. Come to think of it, that makes sense. WWE is running a house show somewhere else tonight, so they need a full crew for that (which means Rusev and ADR are probably there, making themselves useful, rather than hanging out at ringside, running interference here).
  
  Fun, dominant start for the New Day, who are pretty much the unanimous babyfaces here. But about 2-3 minutes in, the New Day start having too much fun during an orgy of hip swiveling and trombonering, allowing Sheamus to get in a cheap shot, and then the heel beatdown was on.
  
  That continued for several minutes, until Sheamus got greedy, and went up to the top rope. He intended to hit a flying shoulder tackle, but Kofi caught him in mid-air with a dropkick. Tag to Big E, and Barrett in on the corresponding move.
  
  Flurry of moves by Big E, but it's shortlived, as Barrett dodges a charge and turns it into a sort of morph between a tornado DDT and a snap suplex. Turns out this was just a brief interlude. as that took the starch out of both men, and both had to tag out again.
  
  So we're back to Sheamus and Kofi, and they pick up where they left off: with Sheamus in control. The secondary face in peril segment leads to Kofi in the Cloverleaf... but he fights it, gets a rope break, and makes the tag to Big E.
  
  Sheamus is able to tag in Barrett, too, but this time, it breaks down into a fourway brawl, with Barrett landing a stiff kick on Big E... but when Barrett goes for the pin, Eggsavier Woods gets up on the apron to create a distraction. Sheamus starts chasing Woods around ringside, and ends up running into a flying clothesline from Kofi.
  
  Meantime, Barrett is standing in the ring, watching all this in befuddlement and frustration. Then, he turns back to Big E, and walks straight into the Big Ending. D'oh.
  
  New Day are still the tag team champions after a perfectly dandy 12 minute match.
  
  
• Chris Jericho beats Jack Swagger. Jericho prefaces things with a promo about how Canada is terrible, and how he used to be proud that he's Canada's Greatest Icon ("We Want Bret"), but now he's ashamed, and he's so proud he moved out of this awful country, and away from all these idiot people. They're the same idiot people who cheer for AJ Styles, and (in a tortured, but valid, segue) they are the same people who probably cheered when Jack Swagger beat him for the World Title after WrestleMania 26. Yay?
  
  But it works, and out comes Jack Swagger to something that is not boos, and not indifference. Ahh, Jericho, you clever bastard.
   
  Fast start for swagger, but that ends when Swagger doesn't want to grant a corner break, so the ref steps in between and pull Swagger off. That's when Jericho cheapshots him...
  
  Jericho's heel beatdown sees nominal support for Swagger, but also, a couple big chants for AJ Styles, which Jericho sells. Then, stupidly, some portion of the audience starts chanting "SEE EM PUNK," as if that has some bearing on our proceedings. It does not. The majority of the crowd boos that chant down, and it goes away quickly.
   
  Swagger gets his comeback when a Lionsault whiffs, including a near fall after a SwaggerBomb. But this isn't Swagger's night... the final spot has Swagger go for the anklelock, only to have Jericho flip through and counter into the Walls. Swagger has to tap.
  
  Serviceable little 8 minute match that shows the kind of fun you can have on a house show, where you can create your own little bubble of temporary reality by interacting directly with the crowd... I think the cameras and the overall sense that we're all just waiting for that anticipation for the HHH/Ambrose match might have spoiled it a bit, but Jericho's promo actually DID work, in the sense that fans were nominally more into Swagger than they ever would have been on a random RAW, where everybody so locked into WWE's hyper-scripted reality, where Swagger is just a glorified jobber.
  
  But nope, Jericho got a goodly number of his countrymen to boo him and cheer for an American, thanks to the extra freedom granted by the house show atmosphere. I won't pretend it was some great match, but it was more entertaining than it would have been in a different medium.
  
  
• The Less-Talented Version of the Brainbusters beat Enzo Amore and Big Colin Cassidy to retain the NXT Tag Titles. For any NXT Newbs, the NXT tag ranks are constantly overflowing with talent, and yet, somehow, Dash and Dawson ("The Revival") are the champions of said division.  They had done nothing until last fall's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, where they made the finals out of left field. Then, they injured Cass and Enzo, won the tag titles from the Vaudevillians, and now that Enzo and Cass are back, we've got us this feud.
  
  Most have Enzo and Cass on the cusp of a call-up... while most (at least, while *I*) don't see much in Dash and Dawson other than "the significantly less-good Brainbusters," so let's see how all that pans out.
  
  A little prematch promo by Enzo, Big Cass, and Carmella proves that Toronto watches its NXT and knows its catchphrases. And then, when the match starts, it's also a big flashy start for the good guys, including multiple instances of Cass rocket-launching Enzo onto the heels. But after a Flying Enzo takes out both of the Revival on the outside of the ring, the Jersey Boys spend a little too much time celebrating, and when Enzo finally rolls back into the ring, he's greeted with a boot to the head.
  
  Just like that, the champs are in full control, keeping Enzo trapped in the enemy corner. It's tried and true old school heel psychology, so even though the Revival are the dictionary definition of underwhelming, it works.
  
  Eventually, Dawson tries to tie Enzo to the Tree of Woe, and charges... but Enzo escapes, Dawson hits the ringpost, and we get the hot tag to Cass. Dash in on the corresponding move.
  
  The big man goes on a tear, and calls for Enzo to head up to the top rope. It's time for their rocket launcher finisher.... but Dawson pushes Enzo off, and thinks break down.
  
  Cass gets caught up in trying to save Carmella on the outside, and ends up taking a 3-D on the floor. He's out. Back in the ring, Enzo fights the good fight, and gets a VERY convincing near fall after leapfrogging Dawson, straight into a spike DDT on Dash, then superkicking Dawson into next week before going for the fall.
  
  But no dice, and fighting 1-on-2, Enzo falls prey to their Double Team Codebreaker finisher. Strictly by-the-numbers formula for about 10 minutes, but crisply executed, and the crowd gave the NXT guys plenty of love.
  
  
• Charlotte defeats Natalya to retain the Women's Title. Earlier in the day, Nattie did a backstage interview, dedicating this match to her uncle Bret... which is when Ric Flair and Charlotte crashed the party to take potshots at the Harts, and declare the Flairs to be much, much better. One thing led to another, and all of a sudden, Charlotte agreed to put the title on the line in this match.
  
  As soon as the match begins, the women go to the mat wrestling, and a game of one-upsmanship. Nattie seems to have the edge with technique, but Charlotte has strength and size. Nattie had counters for Charlotte's moves, but Charlotte was able to get to the ropes or power out of Nattie's moves.
  
  But as Charlotte's trashtalking escalated, Nattie let it get under her skin, and she started throwing fists. As soon as the striking starts, Charlotte takes comand.
  
  Nattie throws in a few hope spots, but it's all Charlotte all the time for several minutes. Charlotte even starts specifically targeting Nattie's left knee, in anticipation of the Figure Eight.
  
  Nattie finally snaps off a significant sequence of moves, including a side Russian legsweep, into an attempted Sharpshooter. But Charlotte snuffs that out with a big boot, and finally seems intent on finishing the match, rather than taunting and strutting so much.
  
  This leads up to the Figure Eight. Charlotte locks it in, but Nattie is able to get a rope break. Charlotte is extremely frustrated, but snaps off the Natural Selection... Nattie kicks out. Charlotte is even more frustrated.
  
  T-Bone suplex by Charlotte, and Charlotte heads to the top rope.... but Natties able to get up and catch her. In fact, Nattie plucks Charlotte off the top rope and drops her with a sit out powerbomb for a convincing near fall.
  
  Another Sharpshooter attempt, but Charlotte reaches up and turns it into a small package. Nattie kicks out, and instantly picks the leg, again. This time, the Sharpshooter is cinched in!
  
  Charlotte crawled towards the ropes (where her dad was encouraging her), but never got a rope break. Yet, for some reasons, Nattie just gave up the hold, anyway. The hell?
   
  It's at this point that Flair gets up on the apron, and creates an even bigger distraction. Nattie walks over to him, but Charlotte gets behind her, rolls her up, and gets the cheap pin thanks to putting her (Charlotte's) legs on the ropes for leverage.
  
  Screwy/mis-timed ending aside, a really good match, and at 15 minutes, I think it's also the longest one of the night, so far.
  
  
• Lesnar Happens (but not to Bray Wyatt). On Bray Wyatt's walk to the ring, he's not carrying his lantern. He's carrying a microphone, and he delivers a speech about how Brock Lesnar is everything Brock Lesnar claims to be. Bray is going into this, eyes wide open. But Bray doesn't think Lesnar, nor the fans, believe that Bray is what Bray claims to be.
  
  Well, disbelieve at your own risk, because Bray Wyatt is going to show us all when he slays the Beast.
   
  Oh, and also: Michael Cole has a vital news update. This is now a handicap match, and it'll be Bray and Luke Harper against Lesnar. Well, whoop-do-freaking-do, at least now everybody in the arena knows how this one will end. [Rowan and Strowman are not present, again, I'm guessing because WWE is running a B-show, and they were needed to flesh out that card.]
  
  Lesnar enters, and Heyman also has a mic... so he decides to do some extra ring introductions, putting Lesnar over, but then, it's go time.
  
  Harper starts the match, and though Luke sneaks in his lariat finisher, we're all adults here, so let's not pretend this is something it isn't.  A total of 9 suplexes, and then it's finally F-5 time.
  
  Bray just drops off the apron, and watches Harper get beat. So all that hype for Lesnar vs. Wyatt, and THAT is what we get?
   
  Well, on the upside, they didn't "waste" Lesnar/Wyatt. On the downside, theyd didn't DO Lesnar/Wyatt; they didn't do ANYthing. And you don't advertise something and not deliver it, and get patted on the back for it, just because it was a mistake to advertise it in the first place. This was a case of WWE committing two wrongs; I'll leave it up to you, the home viewer, to decide if that adds up to one right, in this particular instance.
  
  
• Sami Zayn defeats Stardust. One of these guys just made his victorious return to TV, is on pace to fight for the IC Title at WM32, and is wrestling in front of his home country fans. The other is Stardust.
  
  You do the math.
  
  They certainly milked it for all it was worth, and then some... the most fun part of Cody deliving a series of Glove Slaps (I say I say, good Suh, I hereby challenge you to a DUEL!) at the end of the heel beatdown, which jumpstarted Zayn's fire up. But at the end of the day, the fact that they did almost 15 minutes is overshadowed by the fact that this one was never in serious doubt.
  
  They should have taken a note from Jericho/Swagger, and repurposed 2-3 of those minutes for Stardust to cut a promo to get the fans vested in a unique little micro universe, rather than just letting this exist in the larger WWE universe, where nobody but Zayn was ever winning.
  
  
• Triple H beats Dean Ambrose, via pinfall, to retain the WWE Title. Before Ambrose's ring entrance, we got a camera shot of him storming down the hallway and turning into Gorilla, before cutting back to the arena and seeing him come out to his music. That's..... different.
  
  Then, full-on boxing-style ring intros by Joey Jo Jo, and we're off.
  
  They launch into an old school back and forth feeling out process. Lock-ups, headlocks, hiptosses, armbars, and the like. HHH's body language is that he's totally got this, because he's the WRESTLER, and Ambrose is just a lunatic brawler. But then Ambrose wins a few grappling exchanges, and rewards himself by lounging int he turnbuckle, while HHH seethes.
  
  Crowd is into it, but there seems to be some split loyalties. "LETS GO AM BROSE" is only slightly louder than "TRIP UHL AITCH" as they go back and forth.... but when fans are responding to the action, Ambrose's offense gets 80% cheers, and HHH's get mostly boos, so something wonky is going on.
  
  Match spills outside, which favors Ambrose. A couple big spots, and then back into the ring, where Ambrose starts attacking HHH's left knee. Cole: "What's this? It's almost like Dean Ambrose has a plan!!!"
  
  HHH eventually has to duck out of the ring to regroup. This time, when Ambrose follows, it does not end well for him. HHH counters a move, and Ambrose crashes into the steel ring steps. Then, HHH slams in into the barricade. His ribs and lower back are now in bad shape.
  
  The heel beatdown is well and truly begun. If those "TRIP UHL AITCH" chants were anything but a vocal minority, they've mostly disappeared, as HHH's offense gets nothing but audible grumbling and boos. Oh, and another attempted "SEE EM PUNK" chant, which again gets hilariously booed down, causing those wankers to tuck their tails between their legs and shut up. The beatdown ends when HHH sets up for a superplex, but Ambrose fights out of it. HHH crashes to the mat, and Ambrose follows shortly after, nailing his standing elbow.
  
  Both men down. Double count. Both men up. They start trading punches for a bit of YAY/BOO, which breaks in favor of Ambrose. Big flurry for Ambrose, and he gets his first convincing near fall after a running bulldog.
  
  But when Ambrose goes for a turnbuckle mount-and-punch, HHH turns it into an inverted atomic. HHH goes for the Pedigree, but Ambrose has it scouted, and counters with an attempted Dirty Deeds. HHH blocks, and Ambrose comes at him with a clothesline, only to have HHH hit his own preemptive clothesline.
  
  HHH tries to hook the Pedigree again, but Ambrose back flips him out to the floor. Ambrose steps back and runs at HHH, intending for a suicde dive, but instead, HHH catches him in mid-air with a forearm shiver.
  
  HHH has designs on a table-related move, as he clears the announce desk... but before HHH can finish his prep work, Ambrose gets back into the match, and takes it back into the ring. After a back and forth exchange, Ambrose locks in the Figure Four, finally capitalizing on his Leg Attack Scheme.
  
  HHH powers out, but Ambrose doesn't let up. After another brief exchange, Ambrose cinches in the Sharpshooter! Nice. HHH tries for a rope break, but the crowd cheers like crazy when Ambrose pulls him back to the center.... but another crawl to the ropes, and this time, HHH gets it.
  
  Ambrose uses almost the full 5 count before releasing the hold. HHH lounges on the ropes, seeming to play possum... but when he tries to spring his trap on Ambrose, Ambrose hits a Flash Dirty Deeds. One. TWO.
  
  THREE!!!!!!!
  
  The arena pops its cork!!!! But only for about 2 seconds, before the ref waves it off, claiming that Ambroses foot was under the bottom rope, and he just spotted it. BOO~!
  
  Ambrose argues with the ref, and the ref just signals that this match is still on-going.... HHH takes that moment to sneak up from behind and hit a roll-up on Ambrose. HHH BLATANTLY puts his own feet on the rope for leverage, and the ref doesn't see it.
  
  But Ambrose still kicks out.
  
  Also, this makes Ambrose very, very angry. We get the Full Lunatic as Ambrose takes the fight outside the ring, and as the crowd chants "THIS IS AWE SOME."
  
  Big spot: Ambrose, having decimated HHH, goes up to the top rope and hits his standing elbow. Wow. For added yuks, Ambrose crotchchops HHH, as he continues the onslaught.
  
  Now, Ambrose spots the announce desk, which has been cleared, and is ready for usage. Ambrose plops HHH's carcass on top of the table. Ambrose jumps up onto the barricade, gets a walking start, and tries a flying elbow.
  
  HHH moves. Ambrose crashes through the table. HHH slinks back into the ring, willing to take the count-out.
  
  But Ambrose makes it back in at the count of 9... only to walk right into a Pedigree. One. Two. Three.
  
  Boo.
  
  The crowd is not pleased, and only gets more not so when HHH just walks away with the belt. Lesnar/Bray didn't even happen, and now, all this talk of Roadblocking delivers nothing of the sort. I mean, really, really good match in a vacuum.... but this wasn't in a vacuum, this was in the context of WWE selling Roadblock as a show with serious WM repercussions. Which it wasn't.
   
  So, I repeat: Boo. And "boo" seems to be the overwhelming consensus as we fade to black a half hour earlier than scheduled....

And so ends the show. I don't know what to say, other than, "Told you so."
 
I mean, I wanted to believe this show was gonna be something. But when I made that Roadblock vs. Tollbooth joke, I did it, because the less naive part of me didn't actually think it would ever happen. And it didn't.
 
I guess the door is open, because the "foot under the rope" thing is such total horseshit that you could use it to re-open the issue of Ambrose's candidacy. I mean, if there had been anything clear-cut about the ref's call, then it's just the cheap "mistake" by a clumsy ref... but they went out of their way to never actually SHOW Ambrose's foot under the ropes. All we got were angles where you had to do some interpolation, based on how close Ambrose's toe looked to the edge of the apron, but you never really saw his foot relative to the ropes.
 
From what we saw, at MOST, his big toe might have been under, and that's just not convincing. And if his foot was under? Well, that's where the other half of "horseshit" comes into play, since that's not really a thing that happens in pro wrestling. If the pinnee gets a foot anywhere near the ropes, that's a break and a cheap escape. But if the pinner is an inch and a half out of bounds, it's not a canonical "wrestling call" to break the pin unless there is an advantage gained (like using the ropes for leverage), which means the ref did something unusual and hinky.
 
Remember: crooked offciating? FORESHADOWING~!
 
Either way, WWE's party line will be "Hey, we never promised anything, so just sit back and take it, and it'll all be better in the end." Which is just great. Maybe there is another, less disappointing, chapter to come on Monday, but in the meantime, hey, we got 3 hour show on Saturday that didn't really deliver anything. Whee?
 
WrestleMania was altered in zero ways tonight, and the subtext of all hype for the PPV was "Roadblock will change the face of WrestleMania." Lesnar/Wyatt didn't even happen, much less do anything to whet anyone's appetite for anything upcoming. Then, the main event seemed pretty clear cut: FULL SPEED AHEAD TO REIGNS vs. HHH!!!
 
The in-ring product was actually pretty solid, if not really good. But salesmanship and delivery ARE linked, and WWE sold us on something that didn't happen. "Hey, everybody, impromptu NBA Slam Dunk Contest this Saturday at 8pm!" But then, it turns out to be a high school basketball team of white guys under 6', with impeccable chest-passing and free-throw form.
 
OK, that's a hyperbolic cheap shot... Ambrose/HHH really did bring grade-A, for-real-PPV levels of effort and drama, regardless of the ending. Imagine how hot things would have been if THAT was the WM32 main event?
 
Alas, it is not to be, unless there are more twists and turns as our time on the Road to WM rapidly dwindles.
 
It sucks most for Reigns, because I don't know of anybody who wants him to fail.... I just know of an overwhelming majority of fans who don't see how he can succeed, given how WWE insists on booking him. After a cavalacde of errors dating back 16 months, tonight's misstep was dangling that carrot of Something Better -- the whole PPV was about "something better" and then THEY ACTUALLY GAVE US THE AMBROSE PINFALL, before the reversal -- only to take it away. Better to have jsut forged ahead and done your best to make Reigns more popular, than to have spent 3 weeks reminded us that you have better options, WWE.
 
Wrestling needs big time super mega stars, and nothing about Roman Reigns disqualifies him from becoming that guy. Well, nothing except everything that WWE is doing to him. His road to "that guy" would be so much shorter if the fans' voices were just heeded, and Reigns got a nice, dickish detour to heeldom. But not, 16 months after the fact, even that might be too little too late (at this point, Reigns can't turn heel in a one-on-one HHH match, so the earliest would be a "swerve" double turn whenever Seth Rollins is healthy, which is still a couple months).
 
Ahhhh, well, whatever, nevermind. I digress.
 
Let's just call it a C+ final grade (B+ for the in-ring, D+ for the disconnect between hype and delivery), and I'll see you all again on Monday night!