Superstars comes to you from London’s o2 Arena this week, and the new locale provided a bit more star power, as the show opened with The Big Show waddling his way to the ring.
1. The Big Show vs Titus O’Neil – Smiling, happy, babyface Big Show taking on arguably the MVP (as in, most valuable player, not Montel Vontavious Porter) of Superstars this year, my man Titus O’Neil. Big Show is a colossal bore, whether he’s smiling, happy-go-lucky friensly giant, or angry, unstoppable (despite being stopped many, many times over the years) monster heel giant. O’Neil controlled most of this, using reverse chin locks and some ground strikes. Show snapmared his way out of one of those chin locks, and hit the chokeslam for the win. Easy night of work for both men. Lousy match. *
Tom Phillips & Byron Saxton talk us through the Daniel Bryan neck surgery/title situation,setting us up for the Stephanie McMahon RAW promo. Phillips & Saxton are the least offensive WWE announce team by far. Any announce team with JBL or Lawler is instantly awful. NXT usually has more people in the booth than Lynyrd Skynyrd has guitarists, including try hard Renee Young who stinks, which usually results in four people talking at once and a less professional sounding broadcast than a typical local indie. Phillips & Saxton aren’t anything special, but they also don’t annoy you, which when it comes to WWE style WE HAVE TO ALWAYS YELL AT YOU AND POUND THE NARRATIVES DOWN YOUR THROAT BECAUSE WE ASSUME ALL OF YOU ARE STUPID announcing, the basic, generic style of these two ends up putting them on the top of the heap.
Next up is a recap of the Evolution/Shield happenings from RAW. What gave Seth Rollins the authority to name special guest commentators? Also, how great was Dean Ambrose?
2. Cody Rhodes vs Jack Swagger – Hyped for this, because I am the world’s only Jack Swagger fan. All I need is a money mark to back me, and I would build my indie promotion around Jack Swagger and prove he can be a star (use the Voices of Wrestling contact page if you’d like to finance the official Voices of Wrestling indie promotion). I am not nearly as high on the Rhodes Brothers tag team as most, so the impending break up doesn’t really bum me out like it does others. I think the break up will be bad for Cody, because they’ll try to run with him as a single again, but I think his limitations will shine through as usual, keeping him firmly planted in the mid card. The break up will be death for Goldust, because no matter how good he is, he’ll be a complete non entity (and likely cut) after losing a break up feud to Cody. Not much action until Cody escaped a Patriot Lock got a near fall on a standing moonsault press. Swagger locked on another Patriot Lock, center of the ring, and Cody tapped. No hint of dissension from the brothers. **
The show wrapped up with the Cena & Usos taking on the Wyatt Family from RAW. See the Bryan Rose RAW review for the recap of that.
This was the weakest Superstars since I’ve been doing reviews. The Big Show/O’Neil match featured a level of laziness you don’t normally see in WWE matches these days, and the Rhodes/Swagger match was dull. Skip this.
