The air-brushed battle on Tuesday nights, Maggle!
Pre-show Notes:
– Hey folks, make sure to share this report! Each Main Event Best & Worst is as unique and special as a Ryback singlet and, like a Ryback singlet, they deserve your love and support.
– Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. Follow yours truly on Twitter too! We’re rebuilding our With Spandex followers from the ground up, so if you like what we do around here, make sure you follow us!
Hit the next page for your Main Event of the evening (er, afternoon)…
A Note Before We Begin: The central irony of this show is that they call it Main Event despite the fact that the show is obviously the modern incarnation of Jakked. So, just to add a little extra interest to these reports, I thought I’d keep track of how close all the matches on the show, combined, come to equalling one legit main event. You’ll see how it works as we progress.
Worst: The Usos Talking
The Usos may look, talk and act very much like The Rock, but they’re not quite there, and there’s nothing as annoying/sad as not quite The Rock. Thankfully they didn’t break out Dave Chappelle white guy voice this week, but still, less yappin’, more superkickin’.
Best: Main Event Open Challenges
Usually an open challenge is designed to set up somebody particularly threatening or, alternatively, somebody who would never usually get a title shot coming through the curtain. Something unexpected in other words, so of course on Main Event the Usos’ open challenge was answered by…drum roll…Rybaxel.
I was ready to Worst this to the deepest, dankest pits, but I guess even the Main Event bookers realized Rybaxel wasn’t going to cut it, so they also added the team of RVD and Sheamus to the match, which I guess you could call unexpected in a “these two guys had nothing else to do, so what the f*ck ever” random kind of way.
I’m mostly Besting this because, holy shit, seeing Rybaxel and RVD in the same ring has me all fired up for a feud waged entirely via terrible air-brushed singlets. Ryback could come out wearing a singlet with “RVD = STUPID” on one of the straps and RVD could respond in classic WWE babyface fashion with a singlet featuring a dragon calling Ryback the ASS of the company. Writes itself it does.
Worst: Happy Dancin’ Kofi
So, yup, that Xavier Woods group is officially dead. Because an angry black guy stable might be too edgy for 2014, but shunting all your black performers back to the undercard is right as rain. Oh well, at least we can now add “that time he briefly wore a hoodie” to the very slim “Instances of Kofi Kingston Being Interesting” folder. That yellowed picture of him pouring paint on Randy Orton’s car will finally have company.
The match itself was a good guy Kofi Kingston match. He made determined faces and danced around and it went on longer than it needed to. Kofi didn’t appear quite as morose as Big E did on Smackdown, but he looked particularly skinny and weirdly defined. It’s clear being dumped back to Boom Dropping purgatory has negatively effected the guy’s workout schedule. Could be worse though — I have a strong feeling this is going to negatively effect Xavier Wood’s continued employment.
Main Event Status: Rollins is a somebody, but I refuse to give happy dancin’ Kofi anything more than a 5%.
Best: A Pint and Shepherd’s Pie
Cut to a backstage interview with Brandon’s favorite new tag tandem!
The main take away from this segment was the unsurprising revelation that RVD actually has no idea what the yin-yang represents. In Rob’s world yin and yang aren’t opposite but complimentary forces, they’re just two things that frequently sit beside each other, like beer and shepherd’s pie. To be fair, “two things that happen to be sitting beside each other” does rather succinctly sum up this RVD/Sheamus pairing.
Worst: I Swear, If I Wasn’t Being Paid To Watch…
Is there some sort of behind the scenes feud between the guys running Main Event and Smackdown? A couple weeks back Main Event “promoted” Smackdown with the promise of a Randy Orton promo, and now they’re dangling the less-than-enticing prospect of MizTV featuring The Shield’s worst talker (and hey, maybe Randy Orton will be a surprise appearance!)
Best: Tag-Team Triple Threat
This was good stuff, as WWE multi-man tags almost always are. I’m also kind of a sucker for tag matches featuring three teams or more, as guys having to steal tags to get in is a fun extra element. The match started on a solid note with Ryback being an amusing dunderhead and accidentally tagging in Sheamus, and Sheamus/RVD even worked in a goofy rolling senton/rolling thunder double team spot. Of course The Usos won in the end, because this is Main Event, but they actually got me into the near-falls at the end of the match — not that I thought anybody but the Usos would win, but I was at least excited to see how they’d win.
Main Event Status: Two solid upper-midcarders in RVD and Sheamus, The Usos, who are now being pushed as one of the greatest tag teams of all time and, uh, Rybaxel. We’ll call this 50%.
Final Main Event Tally: Yeesh, last week I said Main Event needs to step it up and start doing four matches per show again, and this week they gave us two. But hey, WWE wouldn’t want the half-dozen people on the planet who watch Main Event but not Raw to miss out on even a second of the dramatic Megan Miller action. So uh, yeah, 55% this week. That’s a D, WWE — one more week of this and I’m calling your parents.
