WWE returns to Oshawa
Instead of waiting 10 years to return to town like it did last time, WWE was back at the General Motors Centre Friday night for another live performance. This year’s show featured more of the promotion’s top performer’s, including Dean Ambrose, left, the company’s men’s champion. While the outcome of the matches was predictable, the show was enjoyed by all in attendance, even if they were greeted outside by heavy rains and flash flooding.
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
When WWE returned for a show at the General Motors Centre on a Sunday afternoon in
May last year, it was the first time the wrestling promotion had come to Oshawa in a decade. This time around, wrestling fans did not have to wait nearly as long.
I was curious to see how the show would pan out this time around, with last year’s show
appearing to be such a success. I assumed that selling out the GM Centre on a Sunday afternoon would bode well for any future show, and I was right.
The arena was packed on Friday night for the performance, with wrestling fans of all ages filling the rafters for the show. And it appears that WWE has now seen it can do well in Oshawa, this time electing to bring its higher-level show to the city – last year, while entertaining, contained more of the so-called B-roster. A good indicator of the level of talent in the show could be seen in the amount of title defenses that took place. Last year’s show saw one title, the tag time titles, put on the line. This year’s edition saw three, including the promotion’s top two titles – the women’s and men’s championships.
However, this is not to say that the show was an A-plus endeavour from top to bottom.
Most of the heels – slang for bad guys in wrestling – seem to only know one way to insult
the crowd, and that is to say you are better than them. It is not a super way to draw heat from the crowd in the first place, especially when it has been used three or four times in one night. One heel that did do a good job was Kevin Owens, who went and picked on individual people in the crowd, and even did so during his entrance into the ring. The wrestler out of Quebec certainly knows how to get a crowd to boo him, even if what he does in the ring – especially considering the guy is not what you would expect a wrestler to look like with a scraggly beard and belly – is extremely impressive.
The closer of the night featured a triple-threat match for the promotion’s men’s title, featuring three of the promotions top guys, including Dean Ambrose, who was here last year. The wrestler out of Cincinnati has done well for himself since that May 2015 show, now holding the belt.
However, as was a problem that I laid out last year, the match results were pretty predictable. If a belt was not on the line, the good guy would win. If a belt was on the line, it would not change hands – that is usually saved for the higher revenues of television – and if a bad guy (or in the case of the women’s title, a bad girl) held the title, then they would win it via shenanigans. But at the end of the evening, everyone – including myself – left entertained and satisfied. Despite the predictability, WWE knows how to put on a good show, and it appears they may have found a steady stop in Oshawa.
There was one thing that I, along with the thousands of fans, leaving the arena were not prepared for though – the flash floods. Nothing like ending a night completely drenched in the short run from the arena to the car park.