Cody Rhodes vs Curtis Axel
Pretty much the definition of a solid little match. Axel
looks good here, takes his usual flip bump onto his head when Rhodes kicks his
leg out, and has some nice intensity on offence. Axel never does anything
fancy, but what he does looks good. Rhodes’s offence is a bit less impressive –
he does both Goldust’s drop down punch and Bob Holly’s abdomen kick, but does
it worse than both. Nice looking moonsault press though. Ryback distracts
Rhodes, allowing Axel to hit a chopblock and roll up Cody to win.
R-Truth vs Damien Sandow
Sandow comes to the ring rapping, which is very much not
hilarious. This is a lot shorter than the match they had on the previous Main
Event, which is good, and this time they manage to make a victory roll look
better. Sandow yelling “Put your hands in the air” before the Elbow of Disdain
raised a smile, but Truth hits the Lie Detector from nowhere to win, and it
looks a little bit shit. Not great.
Brie Bella vs Natalya
Well this was better than expected. The idea of a match
starting with Brie Bella and Natalya working the mat sounds terrible, but it actually
looked pretty good. I mean, it definitely felt like Natalya was walking Brie
though it, but it was enjoyable. Brie’s running knees in the ropes looked a bit
pony, but Natalya swiftly reverses a single leg crab to the sharpshooter and
this ended up alright. Very short, but surprisingly fun.
The Usos vs Erick Rowan & Luke Harper
Less surprisingly, this is also a treat. Love the Usos using
hit and run tactics against Rowan, the slower, less intelligent member of the
opposing team. With Harper, they seem like they need to be more proactive in
attack, knowing that he’ll be able to match them for pace (a dropkick out of
nowhere catching Jimmy Uso proves that early doors), but against Rowan they
stick and move. Of course, when Rowan does get them, it seems more devastating,
with a fallaway slam sending Jey all the way outside the ring. Jey becomes FIP,
which is a fun sequence of Wyatt offence, and things break down on the hot tag
with all four guys in. A double dive by the Usos looks great, and I dug the
ending where Jimmy looks to have Harper down and goes up top, but gets briefly
distracted by Rowan slamming his brother into the ringpost. Though Jimmy is
able to leap over a now-standing Harper, he walks right into a discus lariat
for the win. Really good main event.
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