WWE Superstars
April 29, 2016

Watch: WWE Network

Zack Ryder def. D-Von Dudley

Zack Ryder’s post-WrestleMania glow has definitely faded. He was dominated by D-Von for the most part in this match. When Ryder did gain a little momentum he allowed himself to be distracted by Bubba Ray looking under the ring — in the process, Ryder looked like a clown. After more domination by D-Von, Ryder gained a little offence before again being distracted by Bubba Ray (fool me once…). This time however, he ducked a clothesline from D-Von and picked up the pin with a schoolboy. You have to work hard to make a win look this unconvincing. Consider yourself de-lime lighted Zack.

This Week in Superstars History

Again this week it’s the lucky folks of the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas who witnessed Superstars. I didn’t mention last week, as I thought it might be a one off that these Superstars began with the most obnoxious Hulk Hogan/USA themed opening. Two episodes deep and I’m already sick of them. Rowdy Roddy Piper is in a foul mood with Ted DiBiase and starts the show by cutting a promo on him. The two were involved in an ongoing feud after Piper encouraged Virgil to escape the Million Dollar Man’s clutches.

Mene Gene gave us an update on last week’s events at the Funeral Parlour. These episodes of Superstars are full of unintentional humour. This week’s courtesy of Mean Gene who informed us that The ‘Taker and Paul Bearer were called before a disciplinary hearing with Jack Tunney where they explained that they did not mean to try to kill the Warrior but rather just scare him. I like to think of the undead ‘Taker engaging in an industrial relations meeting with Tunney.

An early highlight of the jobber matches was an Orient Express match complete with Bouncing Around Japan™ entrance music. During their match we also got to some lazy racial slurs by Marty Jannetty.

During a Ted Dibiase match, Piper refused to commentate on the match saying he would see him when they squared off. The two had a more than passable main event match at Madison Square Garden supershow two days after this show aired.

In the Funeral Parlour, we were ‘treated’ to Sgt. Slaughter. There’s countless examples of McMahon’s pig-headedness but his persisting with this Slaughter gimmick is striking. Slaughter was still doing his Iraqi sympathiser shtick post-‘Mania and cut his usual throat ripping promo basically saying that he will keep his feud with Hogan going.

Kalisto def. Tyler Breeze

A re-match from last week and this looks to be turning into one of those excellent C-show programmes no one sees. This match told a completely different story to last week. It started at a methodical pace with Breeze looking determined to ground Kalisto. As Breeze injured Kalisto’s knee, the remainder of the match was worked around this. Breeze was excellent in ranging his attacks on the knee between painful looking submissions and nasty looking strikes. Contrarily, Kalisto played his part in selling the knee to perfection including collapsing on the knee at several points. Most crucially when he attempted to apply the SDS, it allowed Breeze to respond with a kick to the chin for a near fall. As the match climaxed Kalisto threw his all into a final SDS for the win. I’m not sure this match would have been given the time or space to develop on the A or B shows but this was a tremendous effort from both.