WWE Superstars Episode 275 Review (R-Truth vs Ryback IV)

Ah WWE Superstars, the least appreciated of all WWE's TV offerings. Serving up two matches a week, alongside clips of that week's episode of Raw, Superstars has never really got a look in, against it's bigger, brawnier brothers, but that doesn't mean it can't be a good show? Right? 

R-Truth vs Ryback

 

 

The crowd goes mild as two former PPV main eventers and WWE title contenders faced off in an "epic" encounter. This match was actually better than I had expected it to be, but I hadn't expected much at all. The positives that I took away from this were that it told a fairly effective story, of the willy, veteran attempting to put away his bigger, younger opponent, as Truth pulled out his big moves like Corkscrew Scissors Kick and Truth or Consequences to no avail. Seeing Ryback bring back the "Feed Me More" chants was a nice touch, which was probably the only time the crowd was into this (apart from all the piped in reactions) and got them pumped up just before Raw went on the air. However, there was a lot of unconvincing offence from both men, mainly both men's strikes which were about as unconvincing Giant Gonzales's muscle suit. Small moments like R-Truth dancing for an age before hitting a leg drop, after only knocking Ryback down with a clothesline, also felt and made Ryback look very silly for having to sell a move for so long.

Ryback picked up the clean victory following the Meat Hook Clothesline and Shellshocked to appear to give The Big Guy some momentum heading into the Intercontinental Championship Battle Royal at Battleground on Sunday. Was anyone was convinced that either of these two will ever make a return to the main event scene? I certainly wasn't!

Naomi vs Rosa Mendes

 

Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans, it's Naomi vs Rosa Mendes. I felt sorry for Naomi here, as it was clear that she was trying to drag Mendes to a half decent match, and it just didn't happen. There were some nice ideas, like Rosa reversing a baseball slide on the outside into a side slam, only to end up taking a head scissors takedown, but the smoothness needed to make that spot work, just wasn't there. Beyond Tom Phillips calling Naomi "Cameron" when she missed a split legged moonsault, there was little to keep me awake here as Naomi picked up the victory with a Modified Falling Reverse DDT. I do wonder why Rosa Mendes is still employed after all these years of really adding nothing to the product? Her spot on the next series of Total Divas seems to be just so they can get a Hispanic girl on the show.

Recaps

There was, of course, a number of recaps from this week's Raw, looking at the Two on Three Handicap Match between John Cena & Roman Reigns and The Authority's Randy Orton, Kane & Seth Rollins, the confrontations between Bray Wyatt and Chris Jericho and the detente between The Real Americans and Rusev & Lana. Thoughts on these segments can be found in this week's Raw review -  http://www.acrossthepondwrestling.co.uk/2014/07/wwe-raw-14th-july-2014-review.html

Finally...

There probably wasn't enough here to convince me to watch Superstars on a regular basis, as whilst elements of Ryback and R-Truth's match were good, the execution was lacking. The same could be said for Naomi vs Rosa Mendes but then I'd be using the word "good" rather liberally there. I'll give it another look next week, but I'm not holding out much hope that these reviews will be a regular occurence.