WWE Main Event And NXT Review: Is WWE Finding That Magic Of Making Great Characters Again?

wwe main event With all the over-the-top McMahon craziness from Monday night, people may gloss over the Wednesday night offering of the Main Event and NXT. But in reality it is still without a doubt the best one-two punch of WWE produced programming all week. Especially this week as we get a double dose of crazy, sexy and cool with Divas Champion AJ Lee. Plus, we see an awesome two out of three falls match with Antonio Césaro and Sami Zayn. Let us begin with this week's Main Event. The show begins with a solid six man tag with the Usos and Kofi Kingston versus The Shield. Everybody was on point as both trios gave it their all. At one point, the babyfaces did an amazing triple dive on the Hounds of Justice. The match had great back-and-forth between the two sides. Kofi Kingston definitely looks the best since his return to the WWE. Although I can't get over the long tights. There's a great ending sequence with Dean Ambrose and Kofi Kingston in which their a couple of close calls until Roman Reigns knocks Kofi off the top rope. The highflyer appears to have a really nasty landing leading to Ambrose to hit the Modified Mind Trip for the win. Next up, we see Total Divas reality star Naomi versus AJ with Cameron and Layla at ringside. The one thing AJ is a really good at is her reactions to things. AJ is great with the facials, especially during the dancing entrance of her opponent. The match itself was really good. Both women are very athletic and have always had a good chemistry together since the days of FCW. AJ bumps like crazy for Naomi make her look like a million bucks. Naomi hits her Rearview but AJ's new best friend Layla gives her the business. Naomi gets distracted by all this, but Cameron takes care of Layla pulling her off the apron. However, that's enough to give AJ advantage to put on the Black Widow. Great work from both women. Hopefully, Naomi will wrestle more due to the exposure of Total Divas. Jack Swagger with Antonio Césaro and Zeb Colter who asks about outsourcing and The War of 1812, directed towards the Great Khali and his crew Natalya (who they still call his girlfriend even though they have announced she's married to Tyson Kidd) and Hornswoggle. The Punjabi Playboy gives Zeb's answer in the form of a big chop to be bald head of Antonio. The match begins as the big man has the advantage on Swagger until Khali proceeds to miss a big boot leading to the former All-American American to work over at the leg of the big man. Jack even nailed the Swagger Bomb in the corner on Khali. Everything seemed to be in the real Americans favor until his compatriot attempted to take on everyone's favorite leprechaun. Natalya comes to his rescue slapping Antonio swagger gets distracted by all this and leaves the ring to handle Hornswoggle throwing him against the barricade. This gives Khali enough time to recover hitting his Brain Chop for the victory. (Not really sure what this does for the Real Americans momentum going forward as they seems to be on a downward drop as of late. I wonder if they're planning a split with the team where Colter goes with Cesaro leaving Swagger to be the American hero.) The Miz gets interrupted by Fandango, while talking about SummerSlam. And the show ends with Bray Wyatt getting his first single victory on Main Event defeating Justin Gabriel. Wyatt definitely seems to have found more of what that character is in the ring. That back bend before the splash in the corner is very reminiscent of the Exorcism of Emily Rose. And with his finisher being called the Sister Abigail which and reference to the movie Orphan. They are definitely playing up horror movie elements with him. I love the overall presentation that WWE has put on him with the abrupt cuts after his matches to put you a little off kilter. If Taker does plan to wrestle at Wrestlemania 30, I would not be surprised if it's against Bray Wyatt considering the obvious correlation with Kane. But it would also the interesting to see darkness versus darkness. I think it would have a really interesting vibe in a city like New Orleans, which is known for black magic and voodoo. We move on to NXT this week, which opened up with a great video package detailing the feud between Sami Zayn and Antonio Cesaro in preparation for tonight's two out of three fall encounter. The show actually started right off WWE Divas Title action as NXT's own Bayley battles current champion AJ. I like the overall dynamic of this match. I thought the opening sequence in which the very excitable Bailey kept using a hug as an offensive weapon was clever. AJ continued her streak of bumping like a mad woman for the NXT hopeful giving her quite a few near falls. This goes off what I said last week about using the WWE talents to get over your developmental stars. So when you bring them up to television, they mean something. And that's what they did here. Bayley means more now because she held their own with the top of the WWE women's division. In the end though, Bayley's nice demeanor got the better of her as AJ hit a reverse spin kick and then one hell of a Shining Wizard for the victory. I like the fact that they've showed that even though Bayley is starstruck by these personalities she can hold her own in the squared circle. And I mentioned it a few weeks ago when he made his commentary debut, I really like Alex Riley and Tom Phillips as a broadcast team. Are they a good as William Regal and Tony Dawson maybe not, but I love their subtle delivery. Nothing is overplayed everything is very subdued and I like that. And this brings the focus back to the ring where it should be. I mean I one-liners as much as the next guy, but sometimes it isn't necessary. We go backstage and see the ever so gorgeous Tyler Breeze ask a fan take a picture of him. And as in weeks past, CJ Parker photo bomb him. This time however, Breeze notices and is not happy. We later learn that Parker will be making his re-debut in the NXT arena later in the episode. We come back from commercial and we see two guys in the ring set to take on the Ascension 2.0 Connor O'Brien and Ric Victor. Pretty much a squash match. The pair nail their version of Total Elimination for the win. (I guess you would call it Fall of Man 2.0?) There'll be footage shown next week of NXT at SummerSlam weekend. We then see the you re-debut of the very, very groovy CJ Parker, who is now billed as being from the Moonchild Compound complete with his dreads, psychedelic colors and music out of this summer of 1969. He has a match with Baron Corbin, who they attempt to put over for his NFL background playing for two consecutive teams. In the end, it's pretty much a glorified squash as Parker nails a Tripping DDT for the victory. After the match,. René Young attempts to get word with Parker about where he has been. Parker says it's not where he's been. It's where his that. When asked about the video bombing he's been doing, he says that it's not a bomb. That's way too harsh. It's more video loving. This brings out a very angry Tyler Breeze doing a much more pronounced Derek Zoolander impersonation. Saying that CJ is ruining his day by being in his pictures as they show the offending image from earlier on the screen. Parker tells Tyler to Chillax, Breeze goes after CJ and just as this is countered Tyler exits the ring. I have to say I'm liking where the overall scheme of things is going in NXT with the introduction of these new characters. Wrestling has always been and will always be about over-the-top personalities. And it's nice to see with guys like Bayley Bray Wyatt, CJ Parker, Tyler Breeze and others that WWE is trying to get back to that. Speaking of characters, we got the repackaged Alexander Rusev against Dolph Ziggler. Imagine if you will, Zangief and Honda from Street Fighter had a baby and that would be Alexander Rusev. On commentary, they mentioned that he had both skills in sumo wrestling and Muay Thai kickboxing background. Before the match Dolph did his best, much like AJ before him, to make the guy look very credible. In the end though a missed top rope opportunity leads the Show Off to capitalize hitting the Zigzag for the win. Overall, I like the character of Rusev, especially the entrance breaking the wooden board with his opponents name on it. I just don't know if the combination of the fighting styles translates to sports entertainment. I guess this is one of those wait and see moments. And now we get to the match of the night, match of the year really. Sami Zane versus Antonio Cesaro two out of three falls. I don't know if words can do this match justice. Both men gave their all and and told an amazing story. The first fall is over quick and Sami gets the jump on Antonio hitting a dive as he was coming to the ring. This leads to the big Mafia kick in the corner and a quick rollup. The second fall goes goes a little longer as the two men go back and forth. Cesaro uses power and his vice like grip with a reverse chin lock swinging Sami to get Zayn to tap out tying up the score. The third fall was balls to the wall with both men pulling out all the stops from outside in vertical suplexes to swinging DDTs through the turnbuckles. They left it all out there. In the end, Antonio counters a Lucha DDT into the pop-up European uppercut . Man, was that a thing of beauty. This leads to the Neutralizer and the win for Antonio. I don't know where they go here. I don't know how they could top this. But both men should be very happy with what they've accomplished in that match. And we go off the air with the fans chanting Match of the Year. If we didn't have Brock versus CM Punk and Daniel Bryan versus John Cena this past Sunday, I might agree with them, but it's still a great match that everybody should go out of their way to check out. It's just a shame that fans in the US have to have Hulu Plus to see this. Because it was a thing of beauty. Overall, two great hours of WWE programming that is well worth your time. If you're in a hurry, check out six man tag and the divas match from Main Event. Over on NXT, check out the Divas Title Match, the Tyler breeze-CJ Parker confrontation and the two out of three falls match most definitely. Until next week everyone.
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Paul Jordan is a handycapable source for all things entertainment. Whether he is watching the guys who go bump in the night with the world of professional wrestling or the latest small or big screen feature you will receive the blunt and honest truth on everything