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| Stardust doing an impersonation of this week's Main Event viewer Photo Credit: WWE.com |
It's episodes like these that bring back warm fuzzy memories of Nat King Cole. Not because they were smooth, ahead of their time, or cruelly underrated by the masses, but because they seemed to be a good idea in theory but in reality they'd end up becoming a thinly held up shield that could only be the idea of a coked-out daughter.
Also?
Incomprehensible...that's what this was...incomprehensible...seemingly just because...
(Just imagine that was to the tune of "Unprofessional." If that doesn't ring a bell, curse your youth and use the damn Google.)
It's messed up that the only thing on the show that wasn't a recap or cheap shill that made sense was a battle between Ax and Rose. (Adam Rose won with the Party Foul, by the way. With his hetero lifemate The Big Guy on the shelf it looks like Axel is going to be rolling solo dolo/treading water for the next few weeks.) But what about the newly black hatted Dust Brothers, reeking of hand rubbing and mustache twirling and tying women to the railroad tracks and whathaveyou going up against Los Matadores in the two-segger main?
They didn't get booed until it was over and Stardust threw El Torito out of the ring for no good reason. You know, the El Torito who was going in the Royal Rumble toe-to-toe with (and temporarily succeeding over) Vince McMahon's new Lord Voldemort and the longest reigning WWE Champion of the modern era. Even that seemed to get cursory boos and not the fuller throat Seth Rollins got from the audience when he kicked off the program. More on that later.
Here's the thing: all the nefariousness and scummery that comes from jumping fan favorites who're injured and have just wrestled two matches against you is somewhat if not completely nullified when you go out literally the next night and show absolutely no trace of having flipped the alignment switch. Both Dust Brothers got individual "let's go _____" chants, and neither of them so much as thumbed an eye on their way to a showcase win. Honestly, the reason to harp upon this is that at this point on the 2014 tag team ladder it's entirely possible the Beverly Brothers are a bigger threat than the luchadores have been, so that should've been an even bigger imperative for Not Cody and Dustin to go out and really use their lengthy experience and size differential to go out there and get slimy with it. Nope nada nyet none zero nada goose egg Confederate money beep flatline. You never got the sense they were ever in any trouble to the point where there wasn't even a double-team move out of the ostensible babyfaces, so it was a train that took too long to be the local when it would've been served perfectly fine by being the express.
Running neck and neck in the WTF Derby on the evening was Rob van Dam getting his first win over Seth Rollins in their seeming best-of-11 via countout. What exacerbated this was that they were playing a fun game of goose and gander with Rollins dominating his older doppleganger early on in the match with RVD coming back in the second act to give back exactly what he got: armwork, kneedrops to the arm, throwing it into the post, and so on. They even teased a countout with van Dam being unable to break the count and Rollins more than willing to take it after pushing him from the top rope into the barrier only to fall victim a bit later to RVD reversing an attempt and throwing him into the timekeeper's area.
It should be noted that these events are setting up matches and events on Smackdown, but ask yourself this: how's WWE been treating SmackDown lately? What's been the last thing SmackDown did that you went out of your way to see? When's been their last appointment TV moment? When you get more entertainment out of a five-second fight than an hour-long show, well...you don't have to be Marvin Gaye to know what's going on.
Also?
Incomprehensible...that's what this was...incomprehensible...seemingly just because...
(Just imagine that was to the tune of "Unprofessional." If that doesn't ring a bell, curse your youth and use the damn Google.)
It's messed up that the only thing on the show that wasn't a recap or cheap shill that made sense was a battle between Ax and Rose. (Adam Rose won with the Party Foul, by the way. With his hetero lifemate The Big Guy on the shelf it looks like Axel is going to be rolling solo dolo/treading water for the next few weeks.) But what about the newly black hatted Dust Brothers, reeking of hand rubbing and mustache twirling and tying women to the railroad tracks and whathaveyou going up against Los Matadores in the two-segger main?
They didn't get booed until it was over and Stardust threw El Torito out of the ring for no good reason. You know, the El Torito who was going in the Royal Rumble toe-to-toe with (and temporarily succeeding over) Vince McMahon's new Lord Voldemort and the longest reigning WWE Champion of the modern era. Even that seemed to get cursory boos and not the fuller throat Seth Rollins got from the audience when he kicked off the program. More on that later.
Here's the thing: all the nefariousness and scummery that comes from jumping fan favorites who're injured and have just wrestled two matches against you is somewhat if not completely nullified when you go out literally the next night and show absolutely no trace of having flipped the alignment switch. Both Dust Brothers got individual "let's go _____" chants, and neither of them so much as thumbed an eye on their way to a showcase win. Honestly, the reason to harp upon this is that at this point on the 2014 tag team ladder it's entirely possible the Beverly Brothers are a bigger threat than the luchadores have been, so that should've been an even bigger imperative for Not Cody and Dustin to go out and really use their lengthy experience and size differential to go out there and get slimy with it. Nope nada nyet none zero nada goose egg Confederate money beep flatline. You never got the sense they were ever in any trouble to the point where there wasn't even a double-team move out of the ostensible babyfaces, so it was a train that took too long to be the local when it would've been served perfectly fine by being the express.
Running neck and neck in the WTF Derby on the evening was Rob van Dam getting his first win over Seth Rollins in their seeming best-of-11 via countout. What exacerbated this was that they were playing a fun game of goose and gander with Rollins dominating his older doppleganger early on in the match with RVD coming back in the second act to give back exactly what he got: armwork, kneedrops to the arm, throwing it into the post, and so on. They even teased a countout with van Dam being unable to break the count and Rollins more than willing to take it after pushing him from the top rope into the barrier only to fall victim a bit later to RVD reversing an attempt and throwing him into the timekeeper's area.
It should be noted that these events are setting up matches and events on Smackdown, but ask yourself this: how's WWE been treating SmackDown lately? What's been the last thing SmackDown did that you went out of your way to see? When's been their last appointment TV moment? When you get more entertainment out of a five-second fight than an hour-long show, well...you don't have to be Marvin Gaye to know what's going on.