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| The WWE's Benjamin Button was willing, but his opposition's flesh was weak Photo Credit: WWE.com |
So, Main Event!
Good news: it didn't suck.
Bad news: nothing compelling happened the entire hour. A bad thing to have happen when it comes out at roughly the same time as NXT, even worse considering what's lined up for this week's NXT. Yet at the beginning of the Thursday, we must parse the crown jewel of Ion's televised arsenal and attempt to fish some gold out of what we're panning.
You'd think we'd be able to do really easily do that in a show that started off with the second Main Event appearance of Goldust. And yet that didn't happen, and was made all the more inexplicable with Ryback getting out with a DQ loss. Summarily having served his purpose, Curtis Axel was backdropped out onto his hetero lifemate and doomed for yet another week to play Shawn Stasiak to the WWE Universe's knight.
Goldust looked as good as usual, in both the big ways and little ones. His right hand was on point as usual, and he took Ryback's merely recovering on the floor as an opening to set up his point of attack for the match by stomping the left hand that was on the apron and busting out some armdrags and hand work. Hand work! In a Main Event match! Who does he think he is, William Regal? (Side note: if NXT ever finds a cheap excuse to have a Rhodes Boys/Regal trios match the resultant force of my joygasm will get on the boss' shoes from here.) (ED NOTE: While the prospect joygasm spillover doesn't bother me, I would rather see Goldust and Regal on other sides of the ring from each other. Hello, remember Superstars in 2011? -- TH) He hit the bulldog natural as can be, snapped off the Final Cut, and even busted out a plancha to continue the Golden Era of Lucha Libre.
But outside of an impressive delayed vertical suplex, Ryback looked off. He looked sluggish moving around the ring, the usual Rhodesian snap powerslam spot was botched so badly it exposed the business; even worse, it apparently fended off any logical efforts to edit around it and was shown on TV. Eva Marie shines in comparison to that, sad to say. Ignoring dirt sheet rumors is a secondary major here on TWB, but you have to tilt your head and shrug a bit when somebody who was main eventing in June answers the question "Well, who the hell can't have a good match with Goldust nowadays?" in the affirmative.
Making this more bizarre (and more able to ignore the predictable wins of Damien Sandow over R-Truth and the Usos splattering a Heathless 3MB with full Jinder hinderage) was that a few weeks ago, Ryback had looked good in a match against Kofi Kingston. It was the sort of full performance that suggested that no matter what they were stripping from him that the man who'd defined beast mode at the end of last year was only just a small wave away from being relevant and on the plus side of the ledger when it comes to the best roster in industry history. Kofi Kingston is many things, but in the land where 10-year-old marks hopefully fear to tread, better than Goldust in the ring is not one of them.
Sadly, the defining question of this show wasn't "Why would a man go for the Osaka Street Cutter when his opponent's finisher is the Uncle Slam?", "Is Titan really actually going to form a Sambo Voltron with the Truth and Consequences Players?", "Does Miz think any of us are going to buy Jingle All The Way '13 at Wal-Mart?" or even "Do you think the Intercontinental Championship can be revitalized as something of worth again when there's finally a Unified Champion and that rising tide lifts all secondary title boats?"
It's "Come next June, is Ryback going to be reduced to wearing a suit and getting cheap heat from behind a podium?"
Good news: it didn't suck.
Bad news: nothing compelling happened the entire hour. A bad thing to have happen when it comes out at roughly the same time as NXT, even worse considering what's lined up for this week's NXT. Yet at the beginning of the Thursday, we must parse the crown jewel of Ion's televised arsenal and attempt to fish some gold out of what we're panning.
You'd think we'd be able to do really easily do that in a show that started off with the second Main Event appearance of Goldust. And yet that didn't happen, and was made all the more inexplicable with Ryback getting out with a DQ loss. Summarily having served his purpose, Curtis Axel was backdropped out onto his hetero lifemate and doomed for yet another week to play Shawn Stasiak to the WWE Universe's knight.
Goldust looked as good as usual, in both the big ways and little ones. His right hand was on point as usual, and he took Ryback's merely recovering on the floor as an opening to set up his point of attack for the match by stomping the left hand that was on the apron and busting out some armdrags and hand work. Hand work! In a Main Event match! Who does he think he is, William Regal? (Side note: if NXT ever finds a cheap excuse to have a Rhodes Boys/Regal trios match the resultant force of my joygasm will get on the boss' shoes from here.) (ED NOTE: While the prospect joygasm spillover doesn't bother me, I would rather see Goldust and Regal on other sides of the ring from each other. Hello, remember Superstars in 2011? -- TH) He hit the bulldog natural as can be, snapped off the Final Cut, and even busted out a plancha to continue the Golden Era of Lucha Libre.
But outside of an impressive delayed vertical suplex, Ryback looked off. He looked sluggish moving around the ring, the usual Rhodesian snap powerslam spot was botched so badly it exposed the business; even worse, it apparently fended off any logical efforts to edit around it and was shown on TV. Eva Marie shines in comparison to that, sad to say. Ignoring dirt sheet rumors is a secondary major here on TWB, but you have to tilt your head and shrug a bit when somebody who was main eventing in June answers the question "Well, who the hell can't have a good match with Goldust nowadays?" in the affirmative.
Making this more bizarre (and more able to ignore the predictable wins of Damien Sandow over R-Truth and the Usos splattering a Heathless 3MB with full Jinder hinderage) was that a few weeks ago, Ryback had looked good in a match against Kofi Kingston. It was the sort of full performance that suggested that no matter what they were stripping from him that the man who'd defined beast mode at the end of last year was only just a small wave away from being relevant and on the plus side of the ledger when it comes to the best roster in industry history. Kofi Kingston is many things, but in the land where 10-year-old marks hopefully fear to tread, better than Goldust in the ring is not one of them.
Sadly, the defining question of this show wasn't "Why would a man go for the Osaka Street Cutter when his opponent's finisher is the Uncle Slam?", "Is Titan really actually going to form a Sambo Voltron with the Truth and Consequences Players?", "Does Miz think any of us are going to buy Jingle All The Way '13 at Wal-Mart?" or even "Do you think the Intercontinental Championship can be revitalized as something of worth again when there's finally a Unified Champion and that rising tide lifts all secondary title boats?"
It's "Come next June, is Ryback going to be reduced to wearing a suit and getting cheap heat from behind a podium?"