 |
| It takes all types of crazy to power the World Wrestling Entertainment Photo Credit: WWE.com |
The moment that the first post-Night Of Champions Main Event started proper was with a cheerful "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Bunny and Adam Rose!".
And with that, down the hole for an hour we went. On a show with AJ Lee it was rare to see her be the shining beacon of mental health while psychosis spilled out of nearly every other orifice the show had like a guillotine legdrop off the top rope.
It culminated in the main interview segment nee Miz TV segment, where Miz and Mizdow welcomed Dean Ambrose with the former barely keeping a lid on his brewing anger over losing the Intercontinental Championship the day after gaining it for the second time in two years, and per usual, the latter upstaging the former. While it was a bit stunning to see a handshake occur between Ambrose and Miz to start, it didn't unmake the silent commentary running all the way through the spark in Ambrose's eyes.
When your DandD playing friends brought up the words "chaotic good", this is what they had in mind. His shit-eating grin at revealing the room the Authority had him in Monday night had a back door may've been a paper-thin out, but it was at least an attempt at one that didn't turn him into David Blaine and gave he and the crowd something to smile and chuckle about. Of course, this being an interview segment, it ended in violence; Miz got a little too extremely loud and incredibly close to Ambrose protesting his lack of gold so he ended up getting Dirty Deeds right into his own carpet. Ambrose being Ambrose, he couldn't let it end there, natch. Miz would be propped up in his chair, his sunglasses put back on and a microphone held up in his limp hand as Ambrose thanked him for being a great host and doing the whole Art Carney Sheila Meadows Audrey Meadows bit to close out the show. We missed you, Dean. Don't AWOL on us again if you could please.
The only downside to that concluding the show is that it probably cannibalized an earlier and also high-quality segment in which a visibly chastened Mark Henry came down to the ring after taking two Accolades in two days, with the latter on RAW making him pass out, and brought up some rather good and compelling points about America's need to win at all costs. This being a WWE audience in America (and in Little Rock at that, a town with particularly noxious history when it comes to recognizing African Americans as viable people, let alone equals), he was well on his way to a heel turn until the Big Show came out and demonstrated he had his back. He fired off some jocular "big people be eatin'!" stuff, sure, but he said he loved Henry repeatedly and was more than willing to stand with him if he got booed, which briefly happened.
And again, Show saying he felt Henry's pain specifically in Arkansas not only drew applause, it either served as one of the greatest cases of serendipity ever seen in WWE's 2014 being gently massaged and bettered by two long-time veterans who've mastered every thing alignment-wise and are way more attuned than most -- which is entirely possible --or someone is really enjoying the freedom of putting stuff together for Main Event without all the detritus and excrement that chokes the worst of the two big shows. It also served as a "watch Smackdown!" hook, as he promised to K Rusev TFO on Friday, and the big men left brothers in arms - at least for the time being - once again.
That said, if the most memorable thing about a show are the interviews, then the action was probably not up to snuff. That wasn't true, but it wasn't exactly anything to set a DVR for. Bo Dallas' newfound losing streak, exemplified by him taking Kofi Kingston's Trouble in Paradise after some funny pre-match barbs and a short match, seems to be a case of trying to do something that worked in NXT without putting in any work or back story to it, a.k.a. the stuff that made it work in NXT. Adam Rose and the Bunny distracted SlaterGator longer than the actual match part of them losing by LOLDISTRACTION to Los Matadores in maybe six moves; hell, the breakdancing conejito v. torito post-match unofficial danceoff probably lasted longer than the actual match part. It was taking seven minutes to tell a knock knock joke.
So if you wanted action action, Paige vs. Naomi with the present and once champion AJ on commentary was going to have to be the stalwart. Naomi was kicking out the jams so furiously somebody should've been on hand with a malfunctioning toaster just to scoop them all out. Cartwheels early lead to cartwheel headscissor takeovers out of the corner. She pulled off a gamengiri from the apron only to better it with a Bournesque flying double knee driver, or whatever name for it you can muster. Everybody ever thought she had it won when she busted out what could be best described as a handstand headscissor driver, but Paige survived it long enough to get a schoolgirl with her feet kinda sorta well mostly on the ropes. For this victory, she got belted in the back of the head by the champion. To be fair, Lee had said on commentary the frienemy business was merely her returning Paige's faux friendly fire by meeting her sarcasm with more sarcasm. Trying to outcrazy Lee in WWE canon would be like trying to outrun Usain Bolt.
And yet for an hour, almost every aspect of Main Event did.
All aboard?!
And with that, down the hole for an hour we went. On a show with AJ Lee it was rare to see her be the shining beacon of mental health while psychosis spilled out of nearly every other orifice the show had like a guillotine legdrop off the top rope.
It culminated in the main interview segment nee Miz TV segment, where Miz and Mizdow welcomed Dean Ambrose with the former barely keeping a lid on his brewing anger over losing the Intercontinental Championship the day after gaining it for the second time in two years, and per usual, the latter upstaging the former. While it was a bit stunning to see a handshake occur between Ambrose and Miz to start, it didn't unmake the silent commentary running all the way through the spark in Ambrose's eyes.
When your DandD playing friends brought up the words "chaotic good", this is what they had in mind. His shit-eating grin at revealing the room the Authority had him in Monday night had a back door may've been a paper-thin out, but it was at least an attempt at one that didn't turn him into David Blaine and gave he and the crowd something to smile and chuckle about. Of course, this being an interview segment, it ended in violence; Miz got a little too extremely loud and incredibly close to Ambrose protesting his lack of gold so he ended up getting Dirty Deeds right into his own carpet. Ambrose being Ambrose, he couldn't let it end there, natch. Miz would be propped up in his chair, his sunglasses put back on and a microphone held up in his limp hand as Ambrose thanked him for being a great host and doing the whole Art Carney Sheila Meadows Audrey Meadows bit to close out the show. We missed you, Dean. Don't AWOL on us again if you could please.
The only downside to that concluding the show is that it probably cannibalized an earlier and also high-quality segment in which a visibly chastened Mark Henry came down to the ring after taking two Accolades in two days, with the latter on RAW making him pass out, and brought up some rather good and compelling points about America's need to win at all costs. This being a WWE audience in America (and in Little Rock at that, a town with particularly noxious history when it comes to recognizing African Americans as viable people, let alone equals), he was well on his way to a heel turn until the Big Show came out and demonstrated he had his back. He fired off some jocular "big people be eatin'!" stuff, sure, but he said he loved Henry repeatedly and was more than willing to stand with him if he got booed, which briefly happened.
And again, Show saying he felt Henry's pain specifically in Arkansas not only drew applause, it either served as one of the greatest cases of serendipity ever seen in WWE's 2014 being gently massaged and bettered by two long-time veterans who've mastered every thing alignment-wise and are way more attuned than most -- which is entirely possible --or someone is really enjoying the freedom of putting stuff together for Main Event without all the detritus and excrement that chokes the worst of the two big shows. It also served as a "watch Smackdown!" hook, as he promised to K Rusev TFO on Friday, and the big men left brothers in arms - at least for the time being - once again.
That said, if the most memorable thing about a show are the interviews, then the action was probably not up to snuff. That wasn't true, but it wasn't exactly anything to set a DVR for. Bo Dallas' newfound losing streak, exemplified by him taking Kofi Kingston's Trouble in Paradise after some funny pre-match barbs and a short match, seems to be a case of trying to do something that worked in NXT without putting in any work or back story to it, a.k.a. the stuff that made it work in NXT. Adam Rose and the Bunny distracted SlaterGator longer than the actual match part of them losing by LOLDISTRACTION to Los Matadores in maybe six moves; hell, the breakdancing conejito v. torito post-match unofficial danceoff probably lasted longer than the actual match part. It was taking seven minutes to tell a knock knock joke.
So if you wanted action action, Paige vs. Naomi with the present and once champion AJ on commentary was going to have to be the stalwart. Naomi was kicking out the jams so furiously somebody should've been on hand with a malfunctioning toaster just to scoop them all out. Cartwheels early lead to cartwheel headscissor takeovers out of the corner. She pulled off a gamengiri from the apron only to better it with a Bournesque flying double knee driver, or whatever name for it you can muster. Everybody ever thought she had it won when she busted out what could be best described as a handstand headscissor driver, but Paige survived it long enough to get a schoolgirl with her feet kinda sorta well mostly on the ropes. For this victory, she got belted in the back of the head by the champion. To be fair, Lee had said on commentary the frienemy business was merely her returning Paige's faux friendly fire by meeting her sarcasm with more sarcasm. Trying to outcrazy Lee in WWE canon would be like trying to outrun Usain Bolt.
And yet for an hour, almost every aspect of Main Event did.
All aboard?!