WWE Main Event 09/09/2014

Jack Swagger vs Seth Rollins

Liked the opening stages of this, with Swagger overpowering Rollins, sending him from the ring with a shoulderblock and slamming him into the barricades. Rollins takes over, including an odd spot where Swagger was perfectly in place for a curb stomp, but Rollins opted to dropkick him in the face instead. We get a decent spot where Swagger tries breaking a chinlock by twice ramming Rollins backwards into the corner, only for Rollins to side step the third attempt, sending Swagger crashing into the turnbuckle. The Rollins control is pretty uninspiring, but things pick up with Swagger back in control – nice big boot to the face and a huge overhead slam. Liked Swagger countering an enzuigiri by catching it into the Patriot Lock, but Rollins blocks a superplex by hitting a diving knee from the top and hits the curb stomp to win. Pretty impressive Swagger performance, he looked good in there.

Cesaro vs Zack Ryder

Short, but decent match. Ryder hurts his leg early, so Cesaro focuses his early offence on the knee, slamming it into the concrete floor and working a kneebar in the ring. Cesaro misses a corner dropkick and hits the post instead, which not only looks nasty, but also puts him in place for the Broski Boot in the corner. Ryder does a good job balancing selling the leg and trying to hit some big offence, tilting his dive slightly on a pescado so as not to land as heavily on the leg. However, inside he leaps into a Cesaro swing and an inverted cloverleaf causes Ryder to tap. Really good stuff from both guys.

Titus O’Neill vs Adam Rose

This is a waste of time really, and a waste of Titus. Titus looks really good here, nice big boot and a decent dropdown  backbreaker, but then Rose’s bunny comes down, distracts Titus by bouncing on the ropes, beats up Heath Slater and Rose gets the pin by ramming O’Neill into Slater during an O’Connor roll. Only goes two minutes, hard to find Rose and the bunny at all likable.

Los Matadores vs The Ascension

The Ascension are still NXT tag champs here, and it’s odd to hear them talked about as so dominant when they’re barely a factor 5 years later. I like Los Matadores a lot, but this is mainly them selling for the Ascension, and it’s not very exciting. The Ascension cut off the ring on Fernando, and I liked the crossarm clothesline they hit on him, but that’s it. Diego at least looks good on the hot tag (that the crowd barely react to), hitting a clothesline with more meat than anything the Ascension hit, before missing a top rope dive and getting finished off with the Fall of Man. The least exciting Matadores match on 2014 Main Event, and I guess that shows why the Ascension fell by the wayside – if you’re having less interesting matches with a team than Slater Gator are, you probably aren’t deserving of a decent push.

WWE Main Event 26/08/2014

Rob Van Dam vs Seth Rollins

This isn’t particularly good, but it ends up being much better than the nightmare that it looks like on paper. The early signs aren’t good, with Van Dam rolling into the world’s slowest dropdown on a rope running exchange, but he hits a great sudden kick in the corner, and a pescado that looks more impactful because of how ungraceful it looks. It’s just RVD hurling his body at Rollins without any concerns about it looking good. Both guys do some token arm work, with both throwing their opponent shoulder first into the corner, though this focus doesn’t get paid off by either guy. RVD gets pushed from the top to the floor, bumping huge, whilst a half-hearted (and very untrue) “This is awesome” chant starts. Rollins chucks RVD into the barricades, but Van Dam reverses an attempt to send him into the timekeeper area, sending Rollins instead, and RVD wins via count out. Functional stuff.

Curtis Axel vs Adam Rose

This was actually pretty decent, almost entirely due to Axel. You’d never build a promotion round the guy, but he’s able to make six minute C-show matches against questionable talent seem interesting. Here, he hits some nice punches, a great boomerang clothesline, and really works in a deep chinlock, making Rose carry his weight, working the hold. Rose hits a decent spinbuster to comeback, as well as a sloppy leaping rana, and Axel fully commits to a missed corner splash to set up the Party Foul for the Rose win.

Los Matadores vs Stardust & Goldust

This will have been filmed before the Raw where the Rhodes’ turned heel on the Usos, so this is ostensibly fought as face-vs-face, with both teams getting hot tags. This is a fun sprint, with a great performance by Goldust running thoughout. He looks terrific as the hot tag after the Matadors control Stardust with some nice double-teams. Goldust hits a great bunch of fired up clotheslines, his lovely scoop slam, and an elbow from the corner, where it feels like he really whips back into his opponents face.  Stardust does a corny exaggerated sell of a chinbreaker to let Diego tag in, and he’s great, full of energy, until he misses a top rope cannonball. A Stardust flatliner gets the win, neat little tag sprint.