WWE Main Event 19/08/2014

Sheamus vs Curtis Axel

Really good match, worked within their hierarchy. Sheamus lets Axel look really good here, whilst ultimately ending up the comfortable winner. Sheamus is very giving here, letting Axel power out of the 10 Beats, before Axel takes over after sending Sheamus throat first into the ropes. Lovely running knee to the head sends Sheamus out of the ring. Loved Axel putting Sheamus in the tree of woe, then hitting a running boot to the head from the floor. Looked nasty. Even when Sheamus tries a comeback with a slingshot shoulderblock, he gets caught by an Axel forearm to the face. In the end, Axel makes the mistake of slapping Sheamus repeatedly in the face, firing him up for a comeback. Sheamus basically rolls through him from that point, culminating with the rolling senton and a Brogue Kick for three. Well worked to give Axel the shine, but when Sheamus took control, Axel had no answer.

Nikki Bella vs Emma

This was Nikki’s first match after turning heel on Brie. Short, but effective as she runs through Emma pretty easily. Cranks in a front-facelock, rams Emma’s face into her knee then, after Emma misses a crossbody, just whacks her with the forearm and the Rack Attack gets the academic three. Effective.

Los Matadores vs Slater Gator

The Matadores are accompanied by Hornswoggle in a cow outfit as well as El Torito, for reasons unknown. This is fun stuff, with Slater in particular stooging about amusingly for the Matadores offence. Los Matadores make everything look so smooth, just a fluidity to their movement. Titus O’Neill coming in is the gamechanger, as he’s able to overpower Fernando, and send him flying with a big hurling slam. Slater gets taken down with an enormous flapjack, but after escaping a series of roll-ups, he nails a big implant DDT for the win.

The Big Show vs Erick Rowan

Exactly what you’d hope for from these two, nothing pretty, just two big boys battering each other. There’s a small run of Rowan working the Big Show’s leg after a chopblock to the knee, but they wisely decide that the crowd aren’t here for Erick Rowan’s limbwork, they want to see some big boy shit, and that’s what they get. Big clotheslines from both men, massive sounding chops by Show, running corner splashes from Rowan at full speed, even a side Russian legsweep by Show…just full on collision from both guys. Really good fun. Rowan even gets to slam Show for two, but as he tries raising Big Show to his feet, he gets caught with a sudden KO punch for the win.

WWE Main Event 01/07/2014

Luke Harper & Erick Rowan vs Xavier Woods & R-Truth

Bit of a disappointment here, as not only is this an extended squash, but Woods and Truth look a bit off the pace here, awkward and hesitant in their movements. I did like the big boot to the face that Harper hit on Truth and Rowan’s match-winning sitout uranage on Woods was decent.

The Funkadactyls vs Nikki Bella & Alicia Fox

Another very short match, and this was mostly all angle. Nikki had lost a handicap match to the Funkadactyls on Raw (in the midst of her feud with Stephanie McMahon). Here, she’s been given Alicia as her tag partner, and we’re all just sat waiting for the moment that Fox turns on her. The bulk of this is Cameron “controlling” Nikki with a submission, before Nikki tries the hot tag…only for Fox to shockingly move out of the way and kick her in the head for the Cameron pinfall. Match was barely two minutes, thankfully.

Dolph Ziggler, Big E & Rob Van Dam vs Cesaro & Rybaxel

On the last Main Event, I waxed lyrical about how a six-man tag match is a pretty solid format, making it easier to hide the sins of the less capable performers in the match. Thus, it feels sad that just one episode later I’m pretty disappointed in this one. Cesaro is working an “injured eye” bit, complete with an eyepatch, so it makes it a bit more jarring when “babyface” shitbag Ziggler attacks his eye and rips off his eyepatch. What a cunt. There were a few bits I enjoyed here – Ryback blocking a Big E belly-to-belly with a few headbutts was nice, and the eventual overhead belly-to-belly by Big E was super impressive. But we get a lengthy RVD face-in-peril section that wasn’t very interesting. Ryback hits a snake eyes on him that has visible space between the turnbuckle and his head, and Cesaro works a long chinlock to the delight of no-one. Ryback at least commits fully to missing the top rope splash that leads to the hot tag. Ziggler runs through all his worst offence – the un-countalong corner punches, the back-slap DDT and the dreadful fameasser – before pinning Cesaro with a zig zag. Yeah, this was a bit of a shit episode.

WWE Main Event 17/06/2014

Rusev vs Santino Marella

As good as 30 second squash as you’ll get. Rusev blocks a Santino kick, hurting Santino’s leg, then hits a jumping kick and the Accolade to win

Paige vs Naomi

Face vs face match, with Paige only recently winning the Divas title. This wasn’t very good, both ladies looked pretty clunky in the ring, like they weren’t quite sure what the other was going to do. There were a few nice bits, such as Paige cutting off a corner bulldog with a clothesline and a really good nearfall as Paige rolls through a top rope crossbody. It’s just that every time they have to exchange a hold, it looks like they’re trying to remember what comes next but are failing to do so. Naomi gets the surprise win with an inverted DDT.

Sheamus & the Usos vs the Wyatt Family

This was pretty good, but I kinda expected better from the talents involved. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it – it’s genuinely good all the way through – it just never heats up to quite the levels you’d expect. The best bits, as you’d expect, are when Sheamus and Luke Harper mix it up. They exchange some nice looking shots, with a mix of head shots and body blows. The faces control with some quick tags until Harper hits a throat thrust on Jey Uso. I like that, as the head of the family, Wyatt doesn’t get in the ring until they’ve got full control of one of their opponents. The heat on Jey is pretty fun, with a few hope spots sprinkled in. Loved him fighting out of the Wyatt’s corner, but then running directly into a Harper Michinoku Driver. The hot tag gets made only after Rowan misses a few moves, and Sheamus and Jimmy Uso both get to run wild off the hot tag. The end is pretty great, as Jey hits a big dive to the outside on Rowan, but Bray intercepts Jimmy as he goes to dive on Harper, fluidly hitting him with Sister Abigail for the win. As I said, nothing bad about it, just that it’s good rather than great.

WWE Main Event 03/06/2014

Only two matches this week, but they make up for it by virtue of one match being a real cracker.

Goldust & Kofi Kingston vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan

This is during the “Cody Rhodes tries to find Goldust a better partner” angle that ultimately led to Stardust. This is a really cool little match however. Goldust and Kingston work this as a real cat-and-mouse match to start, doing their best to try and avoid their larger opponents and only approaching them on their own terms. Things like holding the ropes to halt an Irish whip and working in opening from their opponent’s confusion. Goldust hits a lovely bulldog on Harper. The tactics actually work perfectly against someone like Rowan, who is a very meat-and-potatoes, no-nonsense wrestler who can be outsmarted by quicker opponents. The heels do take over on Goldust for a fun spell of heat, and Kofi is really good on the hot-tag, hitting a huge dive onto Harper. Really liked the end too, as Kofi tries Trouble in Paradise on Harper, but gets caught with a rolling clothesline in mid-air to give the heels the win. Ending made the face team look good too, as one seconds difference would have seen Kofi nail his knockout blow first, putting this THAT close to winning.

Bad News Barrett vs Rob Van Dam

This is for Barrett’s IC title, and is played up as a big deal. Match itself isn’t anything special though. Van Dam really shows his age here, despite a nice cannonball from the apron, as his kicks all look super-light and he’s definitely moving at 2/3 speed. Barrett isn’t a guy who’s going to carry Van Dam to anything better, but at least his offence was better. His second rope elbow was terrible, basically landing feet-first then falling onto RVD, but his strikes looked nice and I dug him meeting a diving kick with a big clothesline. Barrett looks to be about to hit the bullhammer for a clean win, but Cesaro interferes and hits both men, drawing the DQ. The terrible ending doesn’t help an already average bout.

WWE Main Event 27/05/2014

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.

WWE Main Event 08/04/2014

The Shield vs The Wyatt Family

Bit of a C-show treat to have their feud blown off on Main Event. This wasn’t as good as the Elimination Chamber match the same year, but I preferred this to the Raw match. Dean Ambrose was really good here, kicking the bout off by smacking the sheep mask off Erick Rowan’s face. As the smallest man in the match, this made him look tough as fuck. Following a brief heat section on Rollins, the main heat of the match is on Ambrose, and he excels here. Loved his facial expressions as he sold Rowan’s squeezing of his temples, and as a wild, scrappy face, it allowed him to have hope spots naturally interspersed in the bout. You can buy Ambrose as a “going down swinging” type, and it felt totally in character when he’d make his comebacks. Rather than Ambrose actually making the hot tag, things instead break down when Rollins makes a save, as if this match was a powder keg just waiting to ignite. Loved Luke Harper’s wildman tope, which sent Reigns flying over the announce table. With Reigns down, Rollins does some great work as the face saviour, hitting back-to-back dives to take out Rowan and Harper. More chaos ensures before Ambrose hits Dirty Deeds on Rowan to win. Really great match. Also worth pointing out Reigns’ post-match promo, where he’s so natural on the stick and the crowd just eat it up.

Jack Swagger vs Dolph Ziggler

Really like Swagger, so it’s sad to see him weighed down by Ziggler, who is just wretched here. This started really quickly, to the extent that we saw the Swagger Bomb in the first 30 seconds. Things go to shit as Swagger tries to do some basic leg work to set up Ziggler for the Patriot Lock. Swagger chopblocks Ziggler’s leg from under him, but then Ziggler hits a load of offence that is totally dependent on the leg – knee up to block another Swagger Bomb, dropkick, Fameasser – just totally undermining any attempt by Swagger to prepare for his finisher. Thus, when Swagger does lock it in, plucking Ziggler from midair to grab the ankle, it has less impact when Ziggler taps out. Would have been a better match if Swagger has faced literally anyone else on the roster.

Rusev vs Sin Cara

This is days after Rusev was called up to the main roster, so he’s still called “Alexander” here. Sub-one minute squash, with the leaping kick and the Accolade finishing off Cara.

WWE Main Event 11/02/2014

Well, these shows feel like they're going to be enjoyably quick to blast through. This show was a lot of fun, and the opener was legitimately very good.

The Wyatt Family vs Sin Cara & Los Matadores
Well, this was really great. This was shortly before the Wyatts took on the Shield at Elimination Chamber, and they still had all their aura. Here, they beast the high-flying face team, but allow them some well-timed moments of hope to keep this competitve, and the crowd do get behind the face team. The Wyatts dominate Fernando, tagging quickly and hitting some nasty looking offence. I loved Bray just unloading with nasty looking body shots in the corner. Sin Cara looks great as the hot tag, all kinetic energy as he uses every side of the ring to bounce back at Luke Harper with crossbodies and elbows, but gets caught springboarding in by a big boot to the face. Bray was so explosive here, it's really easy to remember why everyone was so hyped for the big Shield match. Loved Bray's big avalanche in the corner. Diego is the matador who gets the hot tag, and as the least-beaten down face, it makes sense for him to look solid, outsmarting Rowan (again, the right choice of Wyatt to outsmart). He gets a really close nearfall on Rowan after Cara kicks him in the face. After a fun series of dives and nasty bumps, we end up with Bray and Cara in the ring, with Sister Abigail picking up the win in short order. Really fun competitive squash.

Natalya vs Aksana
I had totally forgotten Aksana existed, so it took me a few seconds to place the porno sax theme tune. This is shortly after she shattered Naomi's eye socket with a clumsy knee, so she keeps patting her knee to taunt Nattie with it as a weapon. Early on, Aksana downs Natalya with a sudden clothesline that looked really good, and a match I had no hope for actually turned out pretty fun. Aksana used to be a powerlifter and Natalya has always been one of the more powerfully built divas, so there were moments here where both girls collided with greater gusto than you normally see. There's a spot where they both try a crossbody that looks suitably hurty. Aksana is actually pretty good at cutting off Natalya's comebacks, and I thought her getting a 2 count by snatching a small package off a Sharpshooter looked smooth. The end saw Aksana try to knee Nattie in the face, only for Natalya to catch the leg and swiftly lock in the Sharpshooter for the win. This surprised me.

Big E vs Drew McIntyre
We've lost the "Langston" surname this week, the second week in a row the IC champ has been on Main Event. They play up Big E facing former IC champs back-to-back weeks. Loved the start as Drew gets more and more frustrated at Big E avoiding his attacks, and thus getting more sloppy with each attempt. Drew takes control and hits a lovely clothesline from the top rope. A lot of Drew's control work is based on working Big E's arm on the mat, which doesn't really go anywhere, but things heat up towards the end with Big E's lovely running splash, Drew nailing a big boot to the face and an excellent finish with Big E grabbing a running McIntyre with a tilt-a-whirl straight into the Big Ending for the win.

Big E vs Jinder Mahal
After the match, Jinder demands a match right away. With the slider showing 2 minutes left, I knew this would be quick, and Big E shakes off some blows, hits a huge clothesline and the Big Ending to squash Mahal. Harmless fun.

WWE Survivor Series 2014

I recently wrote another review of this show, which was a little more accessible to non-fans, for www.strangethingsarehappening.com, which you may want to check out if you feel like reading TWO reviews of this show. This is the more nerdy version.

Fandango vs Justin Gabriel
As a Johnny Curtis fan, I really like the aggressive edge to the "new and improved" Fandango. His back suplex onto the apron looked suitably nasty. Gabriel got really impressive height on a springboard moonsault, just a shame only his hands made any connection with Fandango. This was brief, but pretty great from Curtis, nailing Gabriel with a big clothesline, the falcon arrow and the Last Dance to pick up the win.

The Usos vs The Miz & Damien Mizdow vs Los Matadores vs Goldust & Stardust
Mizdow is easily the most over person in this match. I enjoyed Los Matadores in the opening, all quick tags and goofy fun matwork. I love the fact that heels in the match soon realised thet can get great heat by not tagging in Mizdow, even his own partner. I loved Mizdow finally getting in, and Goldust blind tagging him right away. I liked the logic of the Dust brothers, as defending champs, working the heat section just between themselves, not risking getting blind tagged by opponents. Fun series of tombstone reversals between Stardust and a matador leads to a swank looking tornado DDT by the matador. The Usos get in and offer a lot of superkicks, but not much else. There was a really great dive series, featuring both Usos, Stardust, El Torito and finally the Matadores before Mizdow brilliantly blind tagged himself in to get the winning pinfall on Goldust. Hot opener.

Paige, Cameron, Summer Rae & Layla vs Natalya, Naomi, Emma & Alicia Fox
Despite being a heel, Paige gets the second biggest chant from the crowd. The biggest chant goes to Mizdow, who is way more entertaining than this awful match. Naomi sets the tone early with a shitty crossbody, before Cameron obviously sympathises with her former Funkadactyl colleague by hitting a super-bad bulldog on Natalya. Cameron is soon pinned with a roll-up by Naomi, yet somehow removing the worst wrestler from the match doesn't improve it's quality. Normally, the announcers ignoring a match would really annoy me, but here listening to Michael Cole reminise about the Mean Street Posse is preferable to watching the match. Fox pins Layla following a backbreaker. This just goes on for ages and goes nowhere. The only fun part is watching Paige despairing about her awful team-mates, openly calling Summer an idiot. Summer taps to the Emmalock and we get a briefly watchable "Paige vs the world" section, before Naomi pins her. The crowd goes mild. It's unbelievable that they looked at this face team of utter no-marks and decided to have all four of them survive. To be honest, the sooner they release all the non-Paige participants in this bout and promote the NXT girls, the better. Most of this was WEW bad.

Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt
This was a big leap forward in match quality. Really enjoyed the brawling in this one, felt like two guys who really wanted to hurt each other. Ambrose's diving forearm from the apron looked great. Wyatt stamping on Ambrose's hand, a body part he ended up not working on, just made him look really sadistic. Wyatt's big senton was fantastic, he gets great height on it, and I loved Wyatt emphasising his bulk for once by standing like a brick wall in the face of an attempted Ambrose crossbody. I liked the fact Wyatt was able to reverse the rebound lariat after watching Ambrose go through the set-up for it, but later turned his back when throwing Dean through the ropes, and thus got hit by THAT attempt instead. Ambrose hitting a diving elbow when his opponent was still standing really works for his character. The DQ ending was a bit of a copout, but I really liked that Wyatt passed Dean the chair to use on him, and rather than putting the chair aside, Ambrose waffled him with it, then battered him with tables, ladders and a heap of chairs.

Slater Gator vs Adam Rose & the Bunny
Brief fluff that continued the Rose/Bunny split that was never really resolved. Slater Gator don't normally spend too long on offense, so it was fun to see some nice power moves by Titus on Rose before the hot tag to the bunny, who pinned Slater after a second rope dropkick.

AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella
Eh, nothing to this. Brie kisses AJ, Nikki hits the Rack Attack and wins. Still, better than the other divas match.

Seth Rollins, Rusev, Luke Harper, Mark Henry & Kane vs John Cena, the Big Show, Erick Rowan, Ryback & Dolph Ziggler
So, the start of this is pretty fun, I did chuckle at Triple H psyching up Mark Henry, only for him to run straight into a knockout blow from Big Show for the first elimination. I'd rsther have seen Kane go first, but hey ho. Ryback looks really good running wild on everyone, especially nailing a spinebuster on Rusev, which makes his early elimination also seem odd. Harper and Rusev destroying Ziggler is pretty great, loved the big spinning slam from Harper. There's a fun dives spot involving Rollins and Ziggler, before Rusev is eliminated after hurling himself through the Spanish announce table. It was a predictable way to eliminate him, but the execution was terrific. The Rowan/Harper stand off gets a big reaction from the crowd, before Harper eliminates his former team-mate with a huge clothesline. I like the fact that the Big Show turn actually makes sense here - he looks at his two team-mates, sees Cena down and Ziggler barely conscious and makes the best decision he can to keep his job. This of course sees him knock Cena out for the pin and then get himself counted out. This leaves Ziggler against three men, and really is where the match loses any remaining credibility. I can just about buy Ziggler getting one last run of momentum and pinning Kane with the Zig Zag. I struggle to accept him kicking out of a monstrous looking Liger bomb and then being able to roll-up Harper for the elimination. However, one thing that gets totally overlooked in all the hoopla of Sting coming out is the fact that Ziggler hitting Rollins with the least threatening finishing move in the whole WWE somehow knocks Rollins out for nearly seven minutes. I've seen referees recover from real finishers quicker than the "future of the WWE" recovered from being lightly pulled to the mat. Aside from that quibble, it's a fun main event match.