Bash in Berlin 2024: Gunther and Randy Orton Turn Germany's First WWE PLE into a Fight

Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens begin with the awkwardness the story requires. Owens has spent weeks insisting he has not earned the opportunity, Rhodes has insisted that he has, and both men know the belt will eventually force them to stop behaving like friends. The opening exchanges therefore feel cautious without feeling empty.

The match gets better whenever Owens allows instinct to override courtesy. He counters Rhodes cleanly, attacks the back and knee when openings appear, and repeatedly gets close enough to winning that the audience has to consider what an upset would do to both men. Rhodes responds with the athletic offense expected from his title reign, but the champion never looks comfortably ahead.

The crucial character beat is Owens hesitating over the apron powerbomb. It is one of his most dangerous signature weapons, and the pause tells the entire story without requiring a speech: Owens wants the championship, but he is not yet willing to become the version of himself most likely to take it. That restraint gives Rhodes the space to survive and eventually regain control.

The closing stretch is excellent without becoming absurd. Stunners, Cross Rhodes attempts and counters escalate naturally, and Rhodes finally blocks the top-rope senton before landing Cross Rhodes for the retention. The post-match embrace keeps the friendship intact, but the match has already shown the audience where the fracture lines are.

As an opener, it is almost ideal. The match is long enough to feel like a real championship defense, strong enough to establish the event’s floor and restrained enough that later chapters of the Rhodes-Owens relationship still have somewhere to go.

The women’s tag title match has a simple assignment: restore Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill to the top of the division without making Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn look like temporary placeholders. Twelve minutes is enough time to accomplish that, but not enough to create much uncertainty about where the belts are going.

Fyre and Dawn work best when they can isolate one opponent and keep the champions from turning the match into an athletic exhibition. Their control is credible, and the champions have to sell rather than simply cycle through signature offense. The structure is sound even when the crowd is clearly saving more emotional energy for the larger singles programs.

Belair remains the connective tissue of the team. She handles the longer exchanges, creates the speed changes and makes the eventual Cargill power spots feel larger by contrast. Cargill’s presence is the obvious visual weapon, and the match wisely uses her in bursts rather than asking her to carry every transition.

The finish is clean and efficient. Dawn’s splash misses and creates contact with Fyre, Belair and Cargill capitalize with their combination offense, and the championship changes hands without outside help. The result feels less like a shock than a restoration.

This is good tag wrestling rather than memorable tag wrestling. It advances the division, gives the new champions a satisfying win and leaves almost no debris behind, which is exactly what the middle of a five-match card needs.

CM Punk and Drew McIntyre do not need the strap match to be elegant. They need it to feel personal, restrictive and slightly ridiculous in the way the best wrestling grudges often are. The leather strap gives them a weapon, a leash and a visual reminder that neither man can simply walk away from the other.

McIntyre controls the early stages with size and violence, repeatedly threatening to touch all four corners before Punk can recover. The rules create useful suspense because every corner becomes a miniature near fall. Instead of waiting only for finishers, the audience can react to progress around the ring.

The bracelet remains the feud’s most theatrical prop, but the match earns the right to use it. McIntyre stealing it again gives Punk a concrete reason to escalate, and Punk’s run of GTS strikes near the finish makes the comeback feel angry rather than merely procedural. He is not solving the strap rules; he is knocking McIntyre unconscious long enough to complete them.

The final sequence is clever because Punk touches the last corner with the wrist wearing the recovered bracelet. It is sentimental, vindictive and completely consistent with a rivalry that has spent months treating a piece of jewelry like a world championship. The image gives Punk a major televised victory while leaving McIntyre enough grievance to continue.

The match is not as brutal as their later Hell in a Cell bout, nor should it be. Berlin is the escalation point between SummerSlam and Bad Blood, and the strap match succeeds because it feels like a real victory without pretending the feud has reached its final level.

The mixed tag is less a standalone match than a public sentencing for Dominik Mysterio. Berlin wants Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest to hurt the people who betrayed them, and WWE spends fourteen minutes making sure the audience receives that service without resolving the larger Judgment Day story.

Priest and Mysterio have an easy power imbalance to exploit. Dominik can steal openings and survive through numbers, but every extended exchange with Priest feels temporary because the former world champion can erase momentum with one strike. Ripley and Morgan carry the more consequential championship-adjacent tension.

The interference is inevitable. Finn Bálor, JD McDonagh and Carlito eventually turn the bout into the kind of Judgment Day swarm that has defined the group’s matches for years, giving the villains a believable chance to steal the result. Priest clearing bodies from ringside restores the emotional order before the finish.

Ripley pins Morgan after the Riptide, which is the booking the crowd wants and the story can afford because the Women’s World Championship is not on the line. That distinction matters. Ripley gets revenge without shortcutting the eventual title rematch.

The match is fun, loud and professionally assembled, but its dependence on outside interference limits its replay value. As part of the card it works very well; separated from the 2024 Judgment Day story, it becomes a good mixed tag with an excellent audience.

Gunther and Randy Orton wrestle as though speed is a rumor. The match is thirty-four minutes of leverage, impact and waiting for one man to make the mistake that allows the other to take ownership of the next five minutes. In a louder, faster era, that patience is either the match’s greatest strength or the exact reason some viewers will find it too long.

Orton gives Gunther an opponent who does not need to prove he belongs in the main event. Every headlock, table bump and RKO tease carries the authority of a wrestler who has spent two decades winning these matches, which means Gunther cannot simply dominate through reputation. The champion has to dismantle him in stages.

The ringside punishment becomes excessive in the best heavyweight sense. Orton repeatedly backdrops Gunther onto the announce table, later drives him through it and keeps looking for the RKO whenever the champion’s posture rises too high. Gunther answers with clotheslines, a shotgun dropkick, a splash and a powerbomb, but Orton survives enough of the offense to make the champion search for another ending.

That ending is the sleeper hold. Orton counters and escapes once, hits an RKO for a major near fall and seems close enough to make a title change imaginable, but Gunther returns to the choke and refuses to release the pressure. Orton eventually passes out, giving the champion a clean technical-submission victory without asking a veteran character to voluntarily concede.

The post-match handshake is respectful, but the finish is the lasting statement. Gunther does not leave Berlin because someone interfered, because Orton slipped or because the referee missed something. He leaves because Randy Orton could not stay conscious, which is about as useful a second major chapter as a new world-title reign can receive.