WWE Main Event 7th August Review

Main Event this week felt like a battle of the rematches. The Shield took on The Usos and Mark Henry two weeks after defeating them on Raw, Curtis Axel and Sin Cara had thei fifth or sixth match since Axel’s name change, and Natalya and Aksana faced off in Divas action. There wasn’t really a lot to care about on the show this week.

Mark Henry & The Usos 

vs. 

The Shield

When these six competed two weeks ago on Raw, they put in a strong effort that continued to build on what had gone on before in the story. Unfortunately, since then a few things have changed. The Usos no longer seem to be in favour with WWE management and their push seemed to come to an end on Raw when they lost clean to The Real Americans. Also on last weeks Raw, the Shield, consisting of United States Champion Dean Ambrose and Tag Team Champion Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, seemed to return to their place higher up the card in six man tag team action against WWE Champion John Cena alongside Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton, whilst the work they had done with Henry was put on hold. Henry’s momentum of strong performances also took a hit in a poor showing against Ryback that seemingly went nowhere. Therefore heading into this match I was a lot less interested about seeing it, than I was the first time it happened.

The bout itself was decent six man tag action, which took a regular tag team match dynamic, with The Shield containing Jey Uso in their corner for the majority of the match, with some solid, if not particularly interesting work. The crowd were really into the match, in Main Event terms anyway, will Uso to make the tag to Mark Henry, which helped me to get into the match a little bit. Once the tag was made to Henry, after some nice work from Jey, the match really began to pick up, with Henry steamrolling through The Shield looking extremely impressive. For a man his size, Henry is extremely quick in the ring when he wants to be, and this quick burst in a six man tag is good role for him to play, for sure.

The ending saw Henry make the tag to Jimmy Uso, who went to the top rope for Superfly Splash. Reigns pulled Henry out of the ring and the brawled outside. After Uso had hit the Splash on Ambrose, Rollins made the save for his team ambushing Uso with a Blackout, allowing Ambrose to get the victory for The Shield. I really enjoyed the ending to this one, with a lot of action to keep an eye, and the crowd genuinely thought The Usos had got the victory, only for it to snatched away from them in seconds. It would seem The Usos are certainly done with The Shield for now, it would have been nice to see them get one more title shot, and their Money in the Bank Kick Off encounter certainly deserved to have a rematch. Hopefully, we’ll see more of The Usos at the top of the tag team division soon.

Later on, backstage, The Shield went on to cut another hand held promo. The majority of the work was done by Dean Ambrose as he put over himself and his stablemates, as well as their achievements over the last nine months in WWE, including their match with Cena, Bryan and Orton on Raw. It was another strong effort from the group, that was almost ruined by some poor camera work at the end, hopefully this means that The Shield are moving higher up the card again following SummerSlam. Hopefully, there will be some kind of definitive ending to the work they’ve been doing with Mark Henry which has been fairly good, but I’m quite sure what match they could go for. Although with Ambrose professing his United States Championship is more important than the WWE Championship, WWE could be setting up for a match between the two for the title at SummerSlam.

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Elsewhere, Intercontinental Champion Curtis Axel was in action against Sin Cara. The match wasn’t too dissimilar from the couple they’ve had on Smackdown and Raw in the last couple of months, with Axel dominating most of the contest, with Sin Cara getting in short bursts of highflying action. The match however was overshadowed for the most part, by the commentary team. Paul Heyman joined Josh Matthews and The Miz on commentary, and whilst what was being said was interesting it did not add to the match in the slightest, as Matthews asked Heyman question after question about CM Punk and Brock Lesnar, whilst The Miz went on a tangent about what it is like to be a Paul Heyman guy. Heyman summed it up best when he asked if they should really be talking about the match, at times sounding surprised that Matthews insisted on asking so many questions.

The ending saw Sin Cara attempt a Moonsault, only for Axel to reply with a pair of boots to the face. Axel finished Cara off with a Saito Suplex, followed up with his Hangman’s Facebuster finishing move to get the pinfall victory. It was clear that Axel would be picking up the victory for the outset, and seeing him go over clean again over the out of favour Sin Cara was no real surprise. What is surprising is that Axel hasn’t got a match of his own for SummerSlam. For me the Intercontinental Championship has always been a big part of SummerSlam, and a good match on the show for the title has helped to propel many a career in the past. I do expect to see Axel on the show however, as I’d be surprised if he doesn’t turn up during the CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar bout.

There was also women’s action on the show as Natalya faced off against Aksana. I’ve made it known in the past that I am not a massive fan of Aksana, and there wasn’t a lot here to change my mind. For the most part she was sloppy, whilst in control of Natalya and didn’t really seem to have an idea how to take most of Natalya’s offence. The fact that the match lacked any real story or flow didn’t really help this contest at all. Natalya went on to pick up the submission victory with a Sharpshooter, and it was good to see Natalya get back to winning wrestling matches rather than jumping around with The Great Khali and farting. Hopefully, she’ll get someone better than Aksana to work with soon.

Finally...

What did I learn from Main Event this week?

1. The Usos push is pretty much over.

2. Having Paul Heyman on commentary isn't always a good thing.

3. I'm not sure whether The Miz is a good commentator, or if Josh Matthews makes him look good.