JD McDonagh vs. Rey Fenix

[6.0] "I enjoyed this one. Fenix and JD worked well together and the match had a nice pace without feeling rushed. JD is really good in this role because he can make almost anyone look impressive, and Fenix had some great explosive moments. I could have done without all the stuff happening around ringside though. It added some entertainment, but I think these two were capable of having a good match without so many distractions. Fenix retaining was the right result, and overall this was one of the more enjoyable matches on the show. Rating: 6.5/10"

[6.0] "Pretty cool match. Fenix again delivered a good match for his championship, but his matches with Frazer and Axiom I liked more."

[6.0] "***. Good match that could have been if not for the damn Danhausen shenanigans. They could have just saved that shit post match. A face champion does not need distractions to win."

[7.0] "The only match that I would say was fun to watch, even with the insulting bullsh*t that they did with Dom and Danhausen here, I hope they have a rematch later so we can see how a real match can be without their BS, I hope in AAA because SmackDown sucks"

[7.0] "This was the best match of the show. Fenix continues to impress with regular title defenses and consistently delivers great matches. McDonah is excellent, but unfortunately, the company isn't banking on him."

[7.0] "Pretty fun match here between Rey & JD, they had solid chemistry with each other. Danhausen's interference at the end of it was expected, but I do wish that they got that nonsense out of the way before the eventual end of the match, like around the beginning, but that's just me, still a fun match."

[5.0] "Rey Fenix and JD McDonagh delivered a technically impressive sprint, even if the match lacked structure and never fully found its rhythm. The action itself was solid, but Danhausen's involvement at the end dragged the entire match down."

[5.0] "I'm a pretty critical guy myself, but giving this match less than three points is kind of ridiculous. Fenix and Devlin put on a technically demanding show for just under eight minutes, even if it wasn't necessarily well-structured. The Danhausen Effect at the end really drags the match down, but the action leading up to that isn't really to blame."

[7.0] "Rey/JD is the only interesting match on this show. The match is cool. The chemistry between the two was great; the in-ring action was quality, with JD being much more interesting in this sort of match than in those ridiculous ones. Dom's interventions and Viralhausen's appearance disrupted the flow of the match a bit."

[4.0] "Here too, there was potential for a really nice cruiserweight title match, but after a few minutes of satisfying action, Danhausen had to come in and pull his nonsense, causing a distraction that made the finish feel lazy. In-ring quality: 1.25/5. Stakes: 1.25/2. Justification: 0.75/1. Card placement: 0.75/1. Suspense: 0.5/1. Bonus/penalty: none. Total: 4.5/10. Match watched on Netflix (FR)."

[0.0] "It seems on this episode, that creative are hell bent on making me personally hate them. This match had banger written all over it. Two fantastic workers and entertaining wrestlers bell to bell having a spot fest in the mid card to get the (rather patchy looking) crowd buzzing. NAAAAAAH. Let's roll out Danhausen and his midgets to make this a sh*t show instead! What little there was to see of this match outside of the ad break was fairly generic and tame anyway. The finish was diabolical as the clean sweep of generic overbooking continues. Genuinely gutted by this match."

[4.0] "Another random match for the AAA Cruiserweight title. There was hope this would be good, Fenix and JD are certainly capable of it. Dom was at ringside which meant he was routinely interfering. The wrestling was solid though nothing you haven't seen before. The crowd didn't care until Danhausen and his band of midgets came out to attack Dom. Enough of this crap already. JD was distracted and Fenix took advantage to retain. No surprise about the outcome. 4/10"

[4.0] "An incredible matchup on paper muddied severely by constant interferences. The crowd unfortunately did not care for any of the actual wrestling product, and instead popped the loudest when Danhausen came to attack Dominik Mysterio. Their championship match was more focused on a separate feud revolving a comedy character."

[4.0] "I'm not the kind of fan who's satisfied just because wrestlers hit flashy moves. Great, even phenomenal spotfests absolutely exist, but they still need either a genuine sense of competition or something fresh and creative that leaves you surprised. I won't accuse Fenix and McDonagh of simply waiting around for each other's offense, but everything they did felt unbelievably bland. There was virtually no unique chemistry between them, and I couldn't bring myself to care. Considering this match came completely out of nowhere, considering the outcome was obvious from the start, and considering how unbelievably stupid JD looked in the finish, there's simply no way I can rate it highly. Those tricks don't work on me. I don't believe wrestlers deserve extra credit just because they did a bunch of dives. To me, that's no different from chinlocks or any other wrestling technique, they're all just tools. They become great only when they're used well. High-flying spots aren't automatically better simply because they're more spectacular. They're still just another tool for constructing a match, and in this case, nothing meaningful was built. I'll also say that while I like Danhausen, this entire segment was completely unnecessary. If these two hadn't received further development on the final SmackDown before the PLE, I wouldn't have complained at all, considering we'd already seen this exact beat on Raw. Did this add anything new? Not at all. If they absolutely had to feature Danhausen, they could've come up with something original. Instead, it was just recycled chewing gum that only made an already underwhelming match feel even more pointless in retrospect (**)."