Fastlane (2017) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and WWE Network event produced by WWE for the Raw brand. It took place on March 5, 2017 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This was the third event in the Fastlane chronology, and the first to be brand exclusive.
Ten matches were contested at the event with one match on the pre-show. In the main event, Goldberg defeated Kevin Owens to win the WWE Universal Championship, becoming the only person to win the WWE Universal Championship, WWE's World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. On the undercard, Roman Reigns defeated Braun Strowman, ending Strowman's undefeated streak, Bayley retained the Raw Women's Championship against Charlotte Flair, thus ending Flair's pay-per-view singles match undefeated streak, Neville retained the WWE Cruiserweight Championship against Gentleman Jack Gallagher and Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson retained the Raw Tag Team Championship against Enzo Amore and Big Cass.
Akira Tozawa and Rich Swann def. Noam Dar and The Brian Kendrick
Don't ask me about the preshow as I didn't bother to watch.
Samoa Joe def. Sami Zayn
I don't want to shit on Samoa Joe but it's hard for me to care about him on the main roster for the same reasons I wasn't too crazy about him on NXT - he's just coasting on what worked for him over the last decade in TNA/Impact Wrestling. The average WWE fan is either too jaded or aren't aware of that fact so this stuff is new territory for them. For me after following Joe's career for a long time, it's more of been-there, done that.
RAW Tag Team Chammpionship Match - Gallows & Anderson (c) def. Enzo & Cass
While I was a little surprised that they didn't hand Enzo and Cass the win here, I can't be mad at the result. Gallows and Anderson have finally started to pick up a bit of steam since winning the tag team gold and I would like to see them hold the titles for a good while before losing them to Enzo and Cass. They have to be careful with this as Enzo and Cass have lost so many of these tag team title opportunities that it's hard to get behind these guys. It's starting to look like they are the tag team equivalent of Dolph Ziggler where they can never win when it matters the most.
As for this match, it wasn't nothing to write home about if you seen any other Enzo and Cass match. Enzo gets beaten up and bullied by the heels for 90% of the match until the hot tag to Cass, who cleans house upon arrival, and it ends with some crazy clusterfuck finish after Enzo and Cass' double team spot.
Sasha Banks def. Nia Jax
Goddamn, this was a sloppy match. Like I said on Twitter during the show live, I'll give them both credit for some creative spots here as they were definitely trying to make this special but the execution was off far too much for me to really get into it. I could tell Nia has finally been studying some of Awesome Kong's matches as that Accordion Stretch on Sasha was definitely a nod from her playbook. That move to the front guillotine choke was a nice touch too, but you can tell Nia botched the Samoa Drop counter and that's why Sasha called an audible to go into the Sleeper Hold from her back.
Can someone please tell Nia to stop the whining/shouting during her matches? It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Ugh, I'm totally not looking forward to her being led around by the other 3 Horsewomen at WrestleMania in that what is looking like a potential Fatal Four Way match.
Cesaro def. Jinder Mahal
I think Solomonster said it best on his post-Fastlane podcast: "Mahal is a walking, talking neon sign Wellness Policy violation." I'm guessing WWE is just keeping him around on payroll until they do the post-WM call-ups and firings. Cesaro was selling his back throughout this match, so that contributed to him not doing his more flashier offense. As a result, this match was pretty boring. It was pretty cool to see him bust out that 619 again and even use the Swiss Uppercut as his finish, that's all I could really give them props for in this match as it was clearly filler.
The Big Show def. Rusev (w/ Lana)
If you thought the match before this was boring, then this one was just as bad and felt like it was even longer as filler. From the look on Big Show's face, I thought they were going to have him come out and job out Rusev immediately but nope. I have to admit that I hate how Rusev (along with Lana too) have fallen off the radar (or rather the ladder) so quickly over the past year. One would think that Rusev would be groomed into being a potential main eventer by this point, but nope. He's still reduced to doing stupid midcard shit like this. No offense to Big Show, but there's plenty of other useless fodder on the RAW talent pool that they could feed to him if they need to job out on a throwaway PPV like this.
Now that it looks like that Shaq match isn't happening, you would think that WWE would want to give Show a credible opponent on the roster to have him bow out against on what could be possibly his last WrestleMania to improvise, but nope, they don't establish nothing here - even more so with that lackluster finish to this match.
Cruiserweight Championship Match - Neville (c) def. Jack Gallagher
I have to say that it was hilarious that the cruiserweights had to save this show at this point. Neville and Gallagher killed it here as I would have been happy with either man walking away with the win here. Austin Aries had the funniest comment on commentary for the entire evening when referring to that he has the best "package" in the WWE in reference to his comeback package promoting this upcoming in-ring return. I'm guessing that they will be lining him up to square off against Neville at WrestleMania. Now that definitely won't be a piss break match. I'm sure Aries and Neville will knock that one out of the park if they are given enough time to shine.
Roman Reigns def. Braun Strowman
I think the match itself was the best thing on this entire show if I'm perfectly honest, BUT the finish was fucking stupid. At the same time, this match shouldn't have happened in the first damn place. All of these months of building up Braun Strowman and they couldn't give him a clean win over the Golden Boy to legitimize his status as major player. No matter how many ways you look at possible finishes/outcomes for this match, it just irons the fact out harder that WWE shouldn't have booked this match to begin with as there was no way to make both of these guys (who both need to look strong going into WM) look strong for WrestleMania right around the corner.
RAW Women's Championship Match - Bayley (c) def. Charlotte
Despite the fact that most people will be making fun of Bayley's botch out of the corner for a while (FYI ALL of the Horsewomen have been botching spots since NXT, so don't try to act like that's something new...), this was a pretty solid match between Bayley and Charlotte. Previously, I thought that these two women didn't mesh well since their days on NXT now that they've had a chance to gel together better on the main roster, this match wasn't a clusterfuck in the least.
Much like the Reigns/Strowman match, I was fine with this match until the finish. Sasha Banks' interference made it look like Bayley and Sasha were the heels that needed to cheat for Bayley to retain and it made Charlotte's "streak" ending look insignificant. Sure, WWE were the ones that made a bigger deal out of her undefeated PPV streak than fans did, but it was weird to see it end without any impact or significance made of it. I thought they would have ended it at WrestleMania instead of on one of these throwaway brand exclusive PPVs. It would have been easy to just have Bayley retain via disqualification with Charlotte's streak intact, but much like the rest of this show, I have absolutely no idea what the hell WWE Creative were thinking here tonight.
WWE Universal Championship Match - Goldberg def. Kevin Owens (c)
21 seconds... That's the total time for this entire match. Owens milked it by walking around the ring until finally stepping back in, only to get distracted by Chris Jericho's music. This allowed Goldberg to hit him with one of the weakest looking spears I've seen him hit outside of that one on The Undertaker at Royal Rumble. I honestly can't say that I'm surprised at the result but there were a lot of people thinking that WWE would actually let Goldberg lose to Owens here. Nah, the main event for WrestleMania means a lot more if it's actually for the title instead of two part-timers fighting over nothing. On top of that, let's be honest here. Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens wouldn't be closing out that card anyway no matter how many ways you slice it with Goldberg and Brock Lesnar on that card anyway.
Closing Thoughts
Simply put, this show was horrible. There were a lot of glimmers of hope for something great (Nia v. Sasha, Roman vs. Braun, Neville v. Gallagher, Bayley v. Charlotte) but blundered by creative in terms of finishes ruined this show from top to bottom. With WrestleMania right around the corner, WWE are going to have to be really creative if they hope to salvage this mess before April 2nd rolls around. After this show, I honestly don't see much of a reason to care about WrestleMania at this point.
Plus with RAW in Chicago tonight, I can't see myself sitting through three hours of CM Punk chants, knowing he's not going to come out.
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