The impressive thing about Main Event this week was that it
featured two matches that on paper could have held the main event spot, with
one cut short by interference, the other was a solid contest that showed off
what the men involved can do well.
Chris Jericho vs. Cody Rhodes
For me this match felt like WWE taking a look at what Cody
Rhodes can still do when tasked with a longer contest, such as this one. It’s
been a while since Cody was in a position to have a match anywhere near this
length on either TV or PPV, after kind of getting lost in the mix on Raw and
Smackdown after the original break down of Team Rhodes Scholars in February. He
hasn’t really been given anything to get his teeth into in terms of a feud,
apart from a bit part in the Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow feud. It truly is
telling that with Money in the Bank coming round, Cody isn’t being talked about
as a potential winner, as he’s been the first name on most people’s lips for
the last few years events.
The match was a back and forth type of contest, with each
man being given just enough time in control of the match to showcase what they
are capable of in the ring. The majority of the contest focussed around an
injury to Jericho’s eye, caused after a stray thumb from Cody Rhodes. It was
nice twist on the heel taking advantage of an injury type of match, which would
usually see the heel work on the arm or leg. Rhodes used a lot of his signature
moves throughout the contest including a beautiful moonsault onto a standing
Jericho, the Disaster Kick (taking advantage of the Jericho’s eye) a huge
Alabama Slam and Cross Rhodes all of which got him a two count. Rhodes managed
to keep himself looking strong enough with by getting his foot on the ropes
after a Codebreaker.
The end of the match saw Jericho block a kick from Rhodes,
and after a long struggle eventually manage to turn it into the Walls of
Jericho, resulting in the submission victory. I enjoyed this ending, as with
Cody reaching and clawing to get to Jericho’s eye before he was turned over it
felt like the storyline running throughout the match had led somewhere and
brought a satisfactory conclusion to what was a good contest, for both men.
Chris Jericho has been known over the last few years for
helping young talent get over with the WWE audience, mainly due to his selfless
style of wrestling which allows his opponents to look as good as possible, as
well as years of wrestling knowledge built up from around the world. Cody
Rhodes certainly benefitted from being in the ring with Jericho for this amount
of time and the psychology and story throughout the contest was spot on. It
would seem Rhodes is being positioned for another repackage soon, after a long
losing streak and having seen his finishing moves kicked out of by a number of
opponent on the way. WWE would be foolish to let a talent like Rhodes go
without ever giving him a proper chance to run with the ball.
Best of the Rest (in the World)
I mentioned at the start of this review that there was
another match that could have potentially taken the Main Event spot, and if the
rivalry hadn’t been completely missed from Raw this week it probably would have
been. The match in question was Christian against the United States Champion Dean
Ambrose of The Shield, it certainly had potential to fill the fifteen to twenty
minute slot and with the rivalry behind it could arguably been a bigger draw
than Jericho-Rhodes.
The match was essentially a brawl between the two spilling
to the outside before Ambrose took control with a nice version of an STF. With
Christian hitting a number of familiar moves, this match finally looked to be
getting going, but was the unfortunately cut short as Tag Team Champions Seth Rollins
and Roman Reigns interfered to push Christian off the top, to give Christian
the disqualification win. It was a shame to have this match end so quickly,
especially with a number of Ambrose’s matches having had similar endings
recently, he hasn’t had much time to show what he can do on his own as of late.
With The Shield beating down Christian, the number one contenders The Usos made
the save, seeing off The Shield in style. Whilst both Christian and The Usos
deserve to be in this position with The Shield, it’s difficult to see either in
the same position as some of The Shield’s opponents over recent months.
Before Tons of Funk made their entrance to face The Prime
Time Players, they were given a new entrance with The Funkadactyls and new Diva
Jo-Jo (who’ll be appearing on reality show Total Divas in July) sang the
entrance theme. It really was awful to watch and I felt pretty uncomfortable
watching the three young ladies struggle in the ring, luckily this wasn’t Raw
and hopefully it never happens again. Luckily the match was good tag team fare,
with both teams looking good in the ring. It’s a shame we don’t see enough of
Clay and Tensai as a duo, because as big men go they’re pretty good in the
ring. The Prime Time Players needed the win to go into their match on Raw with
CM Punk and Curtis Axel looking strong and duly delivered when Darren Young hit
Brodus with his afro comb, allowing Titus O’Neil to get the pinfall, in a nice
ending to develop the heel duo.
For the first time this week, I was disappointed with a Zeb
Colter promo. I was behind the partnership with Antonio Cesaro to start with,
if it emphasised how Colter had back tracked from his previous position,
however that does not look to be the case. What was presented here was a over
long rambling promo that took way too many tangents and seemed to forget that
Colter was now aligned with a foreigner. Cesaro attempted to pull it back with
a decent promo of his own, but it couldn’t quite paper over the cracks in the
logic of their relationship. I'm sure the crowd chanting U-S-A was not the desired reaction!
Announced For Friday's Smackdown:
Christian & The Usos vs. The Shield
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