Brief thoughts on night 1 ("the sober night") in ranking form:
1. Belair vs Lynch - the praise for this match is already abundant and it's all true. Easy top 2-3 WWE women's match. A few rough edges away from perfection; fantastic pacing and selling. Every bit of 4.5-4.75*.
2. Miz/Paul vs. Mysterios - a pleasant surprise from douchebag Logan Paul, who fits like a glove doing the Miz's heel act and is competent or better in the ring, with a nice physical presence (although he benefits from the surroundings). And of course the great pro work we expect from Miz and Rey, doing heel/face work and a classic tag format that they could do in their sleep.
3. Austin vs. Owens - like the previous, this gains a lot from exceeding expectations. And yes, from the sheer goofy emotions of the moment. Ever since they announced, all my old lapsed Attitude friends wanted was some Stunners and beer, and boy they got it, plus 14 minutes of classic... okay, classic-reminiscent chaos brawling and old-man bumps.
4. Flair vs. Rousey - not actively bad, but it lived *down* to expectations instead. I enjoyed the old school finish with a ref bump and a simple shock blow instead of 21 finishers, both as a Flair fan and in the sense that it's fine booking for still-green occasional wrestler Rousey to lose like that. Out of booking, of course, she still has major working problems. But this amused me more than...
5. Rhodes vs. Rollins - speaking of living down to expectations and not actively bad, I just can't believe this was the longest match on the damn card--I suppose the closing segment was longer, but this was still 21(!) of match and 30 with packages and intros. And this was probably the least interesting overall. Not a great acquittal work-wise for Cody, Rollins is Rollins, and I had never actually seen the neck tattoo, so I couldn't stop laughing for the first 2 minutes of the match.
6. MacIntyre vs. Corbin - both guys are fine and I like Happy Corbin the character, but this got short shaft on the booking totem and was just kind of there. The rope slaying was neat.
NR. Smackdown tag titles match - I was running late and didn't see this, but based on the description and the length I imagine the previous note also fits here.