Lesnar vs Reigns vs Strowman vs Joe (WWE - 8/20/2017)

Okay, so last month I watched the Eddie/Benoit/X-Pac/Jericho fatal fourway from No Way Out 2001 and thought it was probably the best fourway in WWE history. Fatal fourways kind of suck so the bar for best fatal fourway might not be very high, but either way it's a really fun match. HOWEVER, I was dead fuckin wrong about it being the best fatal fourway in WWE history. My god this is a riot of a thing. It feels like the perfect encapsulation of modern WWE -- big set piece moments, lots of heat from the WWE Universe, four BIG BOIS doing BIG BOI SHIT. How did they fuck up so badly with Strowman? He looks like the next megastar here and that first stretch of the match with him tearing the place apart is seven star territory. The initial face off with Lesnar felt massive and the crowd were so ready for it to happen. I was initially disappointed that they cut it off before even locking horns when Reigns and Joe appeared, but then both of those two were swiftly dispatched leading to another Lesnar/Braun face off, the crowd even MORE ready for it to happen, and then this time it actually does. Braun hucking Lesnar about the place like a child was amazing and it's a shame Lesnar went the "that doesn't work for me, brother" route with Strowman, because on this night he made him look like an absolute juggernaut. People were not the least bit pleased about Reigns clotheslining Strowman over the top rope, but then Strowman just...didn't go over and instead chucked Reigns away by the vest and they should've called an audible and put the belt on him right there. The sequence where Strowman slams Lesnar through the first announce desk, then throws a swivel chair at Joe and Reigns, then slams Lesnar through the second announce deck, then tips the THIRD desk on top of him -- perfect. Heyman on his knees shrieking "BROOOOCK!" damn near in tears like a bereaved spouse was incredible and then Strowman picks up the steps and fucking whomps anybody else who gets close to him. The floor over on that side of the ring looked like a mortar bomb had gone off. If you're doing to do a stretcher job on Brock Lesnar then you better make it look good and this looked amazing. Brock's face was beetroot purple as well, like it was about to explode from pressure build up. I say this every time I talk about a triple threat or fatal fourway but it's hard to do these matches without having moments where one or more of the participants are just kind of chilling out the way, selling for extended periods off of things that normally wouldn't have them selling for extended periods. Even when Lesnar was out of the equation for a while and it became a triple threat - where it's even more difficult to come up with sensible ways to keep the odd man away from the action - they never had someone linger on the peripheries for ages. They rotated in and out and the stuff that kept one man down for a little while was plausible. Very little looked contrived and so much of modern WWE feels contrived to me, so the fact they managed to make it look organic is sort of astonishing. Reigns smashing the point of the steps into Strowman's ear was ugly as fuck and also gave a little raggedness to something that would've had to be mapped out meticulously. When Lesnar comes back out like a blotchy mutant from hell you know someone's for getting chucked about the place and I think everyone got chucked about the place. Nobody is better at being speared than Brock, the way he'll take the thing almost fully upright, no loosening of the hips to absorb impact, a brick wall that you need to run through. Just a spectacular match and maybe the best example of a motorway pile-up in WWE history.