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| When is this Irish-on-Irish violence going to stop!? Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Unless you're El Torito and Hornswoggle, it must figure. Then it'd be sliders.
Yes, chapter two in the little rivalry happened, and since Horny 1½ starred his way to victory, apparently it must continue. But aside from that frivolity, what this episode of Main Event featured predominately was big dudes hitting each other real hard to the point that it concluded with a victory from the Big Guy himself in a two-segger. And good for him, since it felt like the last time he hit the Shellshocked was last year.
Yet while he got the bulk of the show going up against Jimmy Uso it was the Titus O'Neil/Sheamus fight that -- while the ending was wholly predictable for Albino Cena -- provided the bulk of the best action. There's only one obvious person ahead of the Irishman in the "love the worker hate the creative" sweepstakes in Stamford, and Sheamus showed off why in this match. It's not just that his body blows sound like gunshots or that he can quickly adapt to minor snafus in a match while it's going on; it's that he bumps like DiCaprio acting like a Wolf. Here for perhaps the first time in his entire career, Titus looked like the land monster heel threat he was built to be. His big boots and throwing a release fallaway slam are part and parcel of the experience when he gets the time.
What wasn't was his throwing open-handed chops, European uppercuts, and the old Train Wreck backbreaker that helped elevate this to hoss skirmish. And Sheamus ate it the same way he went through the ropes but landed on his feet off a simple O'Neil shoulderblock early: with aplomb. It just served to further underscore the ludicrous embarrassment of riches that is the WWE's roster from stem to stern right now, and hopefully in the TWB 100 Sheamus earns another high mark and doesn't have the fact that his signature could now be called the Brogue KickOutOfNowhere! or shoddy writing aside held too harshly against his work. He proved it against Barrett on Monday and here again tonight: less chatty, more splatty.
And now, back to the Big Guy. Should you not be able to summon fire and mask yourself before a ritual goat bludgeoning, the best way to re-establish bona fides once a Champion is targeted is beating them up and/or winning. Should you be able to check both those boxes in a 24-hour span, all the better. Ryback put on a display of hiccups of stupidity (dear everybody: stop slamming Samoan heads into turnbuckles, it only makes them angry) but managed to subsume them in the long haul with powerful if rudimentary offense. You know, the way he should be realized. He avoided the Superfly splash late and sent Jimmy into Jay and into the floor as a result before quickly snapping off his signature and getting his hand raised. It's almost a cheapshot for one of the Usos to lose to a running Samoan drop, but now that it's happened they need to right the ship quickly before XRules in what should be a well-contested match for the Big Pennies.
For a show focused on the bigs it was fitting that the former Mr. Langston got this party started right/quickly with the beating of Alberto Del Rio. As with the Sheamus/Titus match that would occur later about the only thing to complain about was relative brevity; both matches would've bumped into must-see TV match territory with additional minutes added on and maybe saving Midget Madness II for Smackdown, Superstars, or Wrestling Challenge. Nevertheless, with the time given both the former World Champion and current Intercontinental Champion put on a quality sprint. It helped that the crowd was vocally behind Big E. from the jump, as Del Rio pulled off a really early tornado DDT and blocked the belly-to-Bayley to set up his codearmbreaker. But once he survived the title-winning basement superkick, Big E. was well on his way to a W.
AND THEN WADE HAD SOME BAD NEWS! The lectern was raised, and the former Nexian leader told off everybody as a bunch of losers with nonexistent or ruined lives and ran down the ex-Hawkeye as being a personality vacuum with no personality and a horrible Champion. It would've been nice if he'd put over the fact he should know what a quality IC beltholder should be given his past holdings, but this is not the dreamland where it rains chocolate chips and my marriage to Anna Kendrick has survived my philandering with Kate Upton. At any rate, E challenged him to get into the ring but to no avail; he'll probably have to wait a couple of Sundays for that. If anyone's looking for the reason why the crowd is pouring more gas in the recently defibrillated Barrett's tank, it was all on display here. The man is born for being a gleeful scumbag, and somehow the same old heel tropes coming out of his mouth seem whimsically amusing. Perhaps it's because the glee of villanry is evident every time he's looming over the crowd he's about to denigrate; guys are higher on the card and getting more TV time, sure, but no one is currently enjoying his role on the ledger any more than the proprietor of the Bullhammer. Given what happened the last time he held that strap, you'd think he'd want to avoid it like a swim off of Fukushima, but rebounding is rebounding.
He must figure a fourth run as the latest man to hold Pat Patterson's belt must be the (re?)start of something big.
Yes, chapter two in the little rivalry happened, and since Horny 1½ starred his way to victory, apparently it must continue. But aside from that frivolity, what this episode of Main Event featured predominately was big dudes hitting each other real hard to the point that it concluded with a victory from the Big Guy himself in a two-segger. And good for him, since it felt like the last time he hit the Shellshocked was last year.
Yet while he got the bulk of the show going up against Jimmy Uso it was the Titus O'Neil/Sheamus fight that -- while the ending was wholly predictable for Albino Cena -- provided the bulk of the best action. There's only one obvious person ahead of the Irishman in the "love the worker hate the creative" sweepstakes in Stamford, and Sheamus showed off why in this match. It's not just that his body blows sound like gunshots or that he can quickly adapt to minor snafus in a match while it's going on; it's that he bumps like DiCaprio acting like a Wolf. Here for perhaps the first time in his entire career, Titus looked like the land monster heel threat he was built to be. His big boots and throwing a release fallaway slam are part and parcel of the experience when he gets the time.
What wasn't was his throwing open-handed chops, European uppercuts, and the old Train Wreck backbreaker that helped elevate this to hoss skirmish. And Sheamus ate it the same way he went through the ropes but landed on his feet off a simple O'Neil shoulderblock early: with aplomb. It just served to further underscore the ludicrous embarrassment of riches that is the WWE's roster from stem to stern right now, and hopefully in the TWB 100 Sheamus earns another high mark and doesn't have the fact that his signature could now be called the Brogue KickOutOfNowhere! or shoddy writing aside held too harshly against his work. He proved it against Barrett on Monday and here again tonight: less chatty, more splatty.
And now, back to the Big Guy. Should you not be able to summon fire and mask yourself before a ritual goat bludgeoning, the best way to re-establish bona fides once a Champion is targeted is beating them up and/or winning. Should you be able to check both those boxes in a 24-hour span, all the better. Ryback put on a display of hiccups of stupidity (dear everybody: stop slamming Samoan heads into turnbuckles, it only makes them angry) but managed to subsume them in the long haul with powerful if rudimentary offense. You know, the way he should be realized. He avoided the Superfly splash late and sent Jimmy into Jay and into the floor as a result before quickly snapping off his signature and getting his hand raised. It's almost a cheapshot for one of the Usos to lose to a running Samoan drop, but now that it's happened they need to right the ship quickly before XRules in what should be a well-contested match for the Big Pennies.
For a show focused on the bigs it was fitting that the former Mr. Langston got this party started right/quickly with the beating of Alberto Del Rio. As with the Sheamus/Titus match that would occur later about the only thing to complain about was relative brevity; both matches would've bumped into must-see TV match territory with additional minutes added on and maybe saving Midget Madness II for Smackdown, Superstars, or Wrestling Challenge. Nevertheless, with the time given both the former World Champion and current Intercontinental Champion put on a quality sprint. It helped that the crowd was vocally behind Big E. from the jump, as Del Rio pulled off a really early tornado DDT and blocked the belly-to-Bayley to set up his codearmbreaker. But once he survived the title-winning basement superkick, Big E. was well on his way to a W.
AND THEN WADE HAD SOME BAD NEWS! The lectern was raised, and the former Nexian leader told off everybody as a bunch of losers with nonexistent or ruined lives and ran down the ex-Hawkeye as being a personality vacuum with no personality and a horrible Champion. It would've been nice if he'd put over the fact he should know what a quality IC beltholder should be given his past holdings, but this is not the dreamland where it rains chocolate chips and my marriage to Anna Kendrick has survived my philandering with Kate Upton. At any rate, E challenged him to get into the ring but to no avail; he'll probably have to wait a couple of Sundays for that. If anyone's looking for the reason why the crowd is pouring more gas in the recently defibrillated Barrett's tank, it was all on display here. The man is born for being a gleeful scumbag, and somehow the same old heel tropes coming out of his mouth seem whimsically amusing. Perhaps it's because the glee of villanry is evident every time he's looming over the crowd he's about to denigrate; guys are higher on the card and getting more TV time, sure, but no one is currently enjoying his role on the ledger any more than the proprietor of the Bullhammer. Given what happened the last time he held that strap, you'd think he'd want to avoid it like a swim off of Fukushima, but rebounding is rebounding.
He must figure a fourth run as the latest man to hold Pat Patterson's belt must be the (re?)start of something big.
