Monday, November 12, 2012

Main Event: An Appreciation

Where else would this match get as much time and importance as it did?
Photo Credit: WWE.com
WWE Main Event has existed for about six weeks now, give or take a week. In that time, it has become the best show WWE produces on a consistent weekly basis. I say this without irony, derision or any hint of facetiousness. It is the best thing they do by far.

The obvious question to ask after making such a bold claim is "why?" What makes Main Event better than RAW or Smackdown? It's not just the fact that it's differently formatted, although the differences help in their own way. The advertised main event of the show comes on first, an anomaly in that most of the time, what's announced as the most important match comes on last (or at least very close to it in the case of RAWs where a "segment" or "confrontation" closes the show). I like the unpredictability of it. I like that I won't know whether the match will go 10 minutes and be over in time for more than one match to fit on the show, or whether it might go the entire 60. It's the match you came to see, so why not dedicate the show to it, oh and hey, here are some well-produced hype pieces for each competitor.

It's also not the fact that the matches, more often than not, are really, really good either. I've missed two episodes of the show so far (2nd and 3rd), but other than those, every single one of the main events have made it to my Match of the Year watchlist. Whether it be an epic Champion vs. Champion showdown between CM Punk and Sheamus or a six-man tag featuring three guys in Darren Young, Titus O'Neil and Sin Cara who are still relatively new to prime time (no pun intended), a glorified squash of an insane bumper in Dolph Ziggler at the hands of The Ryback or a two-commercial-break-spanning broadway between Sheamus and Wade Barrett, the signature match has delivered. Hell, even the add-on matches at the end have been at least decent.

No, my favorite part of the show has been that the matches have all been made to feel important. They've all gotten time, and they've been matchups that haven't been done to death on pay-per-views ad nauseam. Yes, we've seen Sheamus and Barrett go at it on free TV, but there's something about Main Event that makes every one of their marquee matchups feel like we're paying for them, even with the commercial interruption. If we were to see these matches on TV, they wouldn't be as long, and yet, here we are, seeing a preview of what these guys can all legitimately do for our enjoyment. That's the best thing about the show to me.

Yes, there are recaps, but really, when they're that small a part of the show, they become negligible compared to the main portion. Main Event is almost a perfect wrestling show. It's one hour with a heavy dose of wrestling, great production and even promos for everyone involved. While RAW can feel bloated or Smackdown warmed over, Main Event has yet to underwhelm. It may be a small sample size so far, but hey, there's no harm in lauding what they've done so far if what they've done has been this good.