10 Opening Wrestling PPV Matches Better Than The Main Event

Main Event: Wade Barrett (w/ John Cena) vs. Randy Orton

If this opening match doesn't perfectly encapsulate the complete divide between WWE management and WWE fans in 2010, I don't know what does.

Two titleholders, Bryan (United States Champion) and Ziggler (Intercontinental Champion), neither of whom were featured in the promotional materials for the event, were put in a non-title match to start the night, and ended up putting on the match of the night. By a long shot. But it didn't affect their stock with the company brass one bit.

Regardless of backstage politics, the in-ring action was sublime. Both men could deliver high-impact aerial maneuvers with the best of them, but this is more about storytelling. Each acrobatic exchange is used to set up a reversal, or a submission attempt, or a dramatic double count. The attacks were meaningful and the bumps were hard. This was a matchup we deserved to see more often.

And then there's the main event. It seems like the entire match had been (poorly) designed around a convoluted finish, with both Orton and Barrett (and Cena) stuck in a holding pattern until the last few minutes . That lackadaisical pacing, combined with Orton's inability to capture the babyface empathy required for the tedious beatings he took from Barrett to mean anything, made most fans check out long before the silly DQ finish.