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| Decent enemies, better friends Photo Credit: WWE.com |
There's an ancient maxim you're probably familiar with: when life hands you lemons, find somebody with sugar, and more importantly find somebody with vodka to Russian up that lemonade; it's all about the act of turning something that could've been bitter into something sweeter and delicious and liable to make you sing Taylor Swift at karaoke night.
So it's safe to assume in the narrow window in the Networked Era between RAW and the new Tuesday night delight of Main Event that the WWE doctors knew Christian was trouble -- or at least in some -- when he walked in. Not having delivered on the doctorate my mother was so looking forward to second-grade me eventually getting, I can't say what constitutes a slight concussion. But what it did do was rip up the plans originally put in by his win Monday night and shelve them, or at the very least invalidate the Cpt.'s number one contendership to the Intercontinental Championship for the time being.
In the sort of shades that'd bring back warm fuzzies to the heart to the WWECW fan club, what started off with Monday's fatal-fourway permutated into a triple threat to kick off the show, and then into a one-on-one title match to close it. If you ever needed a more shining example that this wasn't even January's Main Event, three former World Champions duking it out in a triple threat for a shot at the IC belt should've glimmered brightly enough for you to point out. And quelle surprise, getting Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, and Alberto Del Rio in the same ring at the same time for two segments led to a damn good match.
While this had some of the similar beats that the fourway spawned, it always felt like its own seperate match. With the Champion alternating between disbelief, pacing, and coming in and out of his chair on several occasions he had a front-row seat to one of the better bouts Main Event's ever put on. It really helped that Ziggler and Sheamus refused to join forces at any point to put unintended sympathy on the smarmy Del Rio and rather went to firing off ridiculously well-done dropkicks and cringe-worthy body blows in an effort to bring him and each other down. And with the crowd mostly throwing their support behind the Show Off, he made sure to take a fusillade from both opponents to milk their ardor.
The scale was never in danger of dialing back the wayback machine to going Full Ziggler instead of Rollins, luckily, considering that this was the middle of a three-pack of hard-hitting matches Ziggler found himself part of in under a day's span. Still, when the second half of the match unfurled it started going from regular match territory to something notable, basically by everybody getting in a couple of signatures and surviving or surviving by pulling off some nifty reversals (sometimes both).
The way Ziggler launched himself into the winner's circle may be something they can never pull off again. It's worth seeing way more than reading about, especially since while it happened the way it was drawn up the execution wasn't McCoolEl. Counterargument for the defense is easy: they shouldn't even have tried to draw up something that nut clustered, let alone gotten close to the ideal. But that done, Renee gave a quick interview with both challenger Ziggler and Champion Not Langston Anymore in-ring. Dolph waved off Big's statement of good luck, saying he didn't need it, and this came on the heels of his pulling the old warming "he knows everything I taught him but not everything I know" sweater over the proceedings.
When they renewed acquaintances in the main event, it nearly matched the show opener. Surprisingly enough, the Champion outwrestled Ziggler early and overpowered him late on his way to a massive flapjack/Big Ending combo to end a match that wasn't really that in doubt. It was completely understandable given the fact that Ziggler's Teflon is starting to regrow and they have the built-in crazy schedule of matches the former MITBer had in such a small window to point to. Not only that, but this sets the table for a possible rematch with a fresher Ziggler as well as adds another few lines to the Langston/Ziggler history WWEipedia entry that's written. And in addition, it sets up some more possible frission when it comes to the Andre Royale come WM 30 next weekend (holy crap, WM 30 is next weekend).
The other part of the show that was fresh even featured AJ on commentary for a 10-diva tag in case this WWEME ep was worried it wouldn't be brought up in the discussions of Best WWEME Ever. So on one side, Summer Rae was the unofficial captain leading Foxsana, Layla and Tamina into battle against NattieKat, the Funkadactyls, Eva Marie and Emma. This was a clever way to promo the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday, in which I found out before this match via a promo for the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday that Nattie was talking smack and Summer slapped her so hard a promo for the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday got my attention. (Good thing that paragraph wasn't typed in the mirror since repeating it three times would cause me to care about the show. Sorry, Trey!)
Yet for all that and the beating Eva took it eventually came down to Tamina and Naomi. It didn't last long since everybody fought everybody for a while in the middle of it, but when it did after a brief flurry with some Regal-quality European uppercuts from the Elle Driver of WWE the (former?) Funkadactyl got superkicked so hard it was astounding that her good eye stayed in its socket. AJ raising her protector's hand after the match and hugging her before skipping to the back was as great a form of passively nonverbal character development that's been seen in some time. When somebody can put the super in superkicking -- let alone out physicalling you by several phylum in a match that nobody still knows the rules for -- you hug them and you hug them a lot in the hopes they don't kick your biscuspids into the fifth row.
Built around highlighting the importance of a secondary title with time for the Divas and Ms. Lee in the third chair. She is not my beautiful wife, but nor is this Main Event's old house, either. That said, it's not about how we got here for <$10 a month, but rather how long can we stay?
And if even it's merely another week, the time spent will have been worth it.
So it's safe to assume in the narrow window in the Networked Era between RAW and the new Tuesday night delight of Main Event that the WWE doctors knew Christian was trouble -- or at least in some -- when he walked in. Not having delivered on the doctorate my mother was so looking forward to second-grade me eventually getting, I can't say what constitutes a slight concussion. But what it did do was rip up the plans originally put in by his win Monday night and shelve them, or at the very least invalidate the Cpt.'s number one contendership to the Intercontinental Championship for the time being.
In the sort of shades that'd bring back warm fuzzies to the heart to the WWECW fan club, what started off with Monday's fatal-fourway permutated into a triple threat to kick off the show, and then into a one-on-one title match to close it. If you ever needed a more shining example that this wasn't even January's Main Event, three former World Champions duking it out in a triple threat for a shot at the IC belt should've glimmered brightly enough for you to point out. And quelle surprise, getting Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, and Alberto Del Rio in the same ring at the same time for two segments led to a damn good match.
While this had some of the similar beats that the fourway spawned, it always felt like its own seperate match. With the Champion alternating between disbelief, pacing, and coming in and out of his chair on several occasions he had a front-row seat to one of the better bouts Main Event's ever put on. It really helped that Ziggler and Sheamus refused to join forces at any point to put unintended sympathy on the smarmy Del Rio and rather went to firing off ridiculously well-done dropkicks and cringe-worthy body blows in an effort to bring him and each other down. And with the crowd mostly throwing their support behind the Show Off, he made sure to take a fusillade from both opponents to milk their ardor.
The scale was never in danger of dialing back the wayback machine to going Full Ziggler instead of Rollins, luckily, considering that this was the middle of a three-pack of hard-hitting matches Ziggler found himself part of in under a day's span. Still, when the second half of the match unfurled it started going from regular match territory to something notable, basically by everybody getting in a couple of signatures and surviving or surviving by pulling off some nifty reversals (sometimes both).
The way Ziggler launched himself into the winner's circle may be something they can never pull off again. It's worth seeing way more than reading about, especially since while it happened the way it was drawn up the execution wasn't McCoolEl. Counterargument for the defense is easy: they shouldn't even have tried to draw up something that nut clustered, let alone gotten close to the ideal. But that done, Renee gave a quick interview with both challenger Ziggler and Champion Not Langston Anymore in-ring. Dolph waved off Big's statement of good luck, saying he didn't need it, and this came on the heels of his pulling the old warming "he knows everything I taught him but not everything I know" sweater over the proceedings.
When they renewed acquaintances in the main event, it nearly matched the show opener. Surprisingly enough, the Champion outwrestled Ziggler early and overpowered him late on his way to a massive flapjack/Big Ending combo to end a match that wasn't really that in doubt. It was completely understandable given the fact that Ziggler's Teflon is starting to regrow and they have the built-in crazy schedule of matches the former MITBer had in such a small window to point to. Not only that, but this sets the table for a possible rematch with a fresher Ziggler as well as adds another few lines to the Langston/Ziggler history WWEipedia entry that's written. And in addition, it sets up some more possible frission when it comes to the Andre Royale come WM 30 next weekend (holy crap, WM 30 is next weekend).
The other part of the show that was fresh even featured AJ on commentary for a 10-diva tag in case this WWEME ep was worried it wouldn't be brought up in the discussions of Best WWEME Ever. So on one side, Summer Rae was the unofficial captain leading Foxsana, Layla and Tamina into battle against NattieKat, the Funkadactyls, Eva Marie and Emma. This was a clever way to promo the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday, in which I found out before this match via a promo for the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday that Nattie was talking smack and Summer slapped her so hard a promo for the Total Divas episode coming up Sunday got my attention. (Good thing that paragraph wasn't typed in the mirror since repeating it three times would cause me to care about the show. Sorry, Trey!)
Yet for all that and the beating Eva took it eventually came down to Tamina and Naomi. It didn't last long since everybody fought everybody for a while in the middle of it, but when it did after a brief flurry with some Regal-quality European uppercuts from the Elle Driver of WWE the (former?) Funkadactyl got superkicked so hard it was astounding that her good eye stayed in its socket. AJ raising her protector's hand after the match and hugging her before skipping to the back was as great a form of passively nonverbal character development that's been seen in some time. When somebody can put the super in superkicking -- let alone out physicalling you by several phylum in a match that nobody still knows the rules for -- you hug them and you hug them a lot in the hopes they don't kick your biscuspids into the fifth row.
Built around highlighting the importance of a secondary title with time for the Divas and Ms. Lee in the third chair. She is not my beautiful wife, but nor is this Main Event's old house, either. That said, it's not about how we got here for <$10 a month, but rather how long can we stay?
And if even it's merely another week, the time spent will have been worth it.