“I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world that I’m coming home.”
Superstars Nation, I have returned.
Seems fitting to bring back your favorite end-of-the-week obsession at this point in time. Comebacks are in these days. John Cena has come back to the top of the Sports Entertainment mountain. Chris Jericho and to a lesser extent, The Miz, have made on-screen returns to WWE in recent weeks. I saw a guy wearing overalls just the other day and it got me thinking whether or not I could pull that off. The Hornets are FINALLY coming back and nesting where they belonged all along in Charlotte. Even Lebron James is coming home – with a max contract – to Cleveland in order to right his ultimate wrong. Plus, Steve Corino and his smiling sidekick came back to the airwaves after a grueling one week hiatus this week. So in the immortal words of Kevin Garnett, “Anything is possible!” You get my point.
It has been a busy two months with the launch of a podcast and various other website projects and field trips but the excuse making ends here! We have business to attend to. These secondary TV matches will not review themselves and be honest, you’ve missed the PTBN Saturday Slams haven’t you? So sit back, be like the King of Old School and crack open a Michelob Ultra and let’s head down to ringside!
Your announcers tonight are Tom Phillips and Renee Young?!?! Whoa, what has happened in the last two months? They now let women folk at the broadcast table? I’m only playing ladies. Little wonder why I’ve managed to stay single right? Superstars has become groundbreaking television. I know they dabbled with this in NXT so this isn’t a complete shocker. I suppose the good news for Ms. Young is that when sitting at the desk, no one can tell if you are barefoot! Without hearing a comment I can already tell this is going to sound better than Raw.
ADAM ROSE VS. TITUS O’NEIL
The captain of the Exotic Express battles the guy everyone beats on Superstars. Classic encounter here. I might be one of the few who like Adam Rose’s gimmick but it does seem out-of-place on the big shows. There really isn’t much more you can do with a guy who likes to party besides maybe an angle where he forces the losers of his matches to join his flock of party goers. I’d love to see Titus here for example dressed as a cheeseburger and prance around ringside.
This is actually a rematch from Smackdown THREE weeks ago in which Rose beat the former Florida Gator not once, but twice in the same night. Too bad if this were actual fighting, Titus would crush this long-haired freak like a toothpick and would feast on his pet bunny for dessert. Rose offers him his already sucked on lollipop which Titus immediately swats to the ground. Just as quickly as that happened, Rose pulled another sucker out of his tights and smeared it in O’Neil’s face! Wow what just happened in those last two sentences!? Rose jumped into Titus’ arms and then proceeded to shake his backside against O’Neil’s, shall we say, pelvic region. It was at this point that I strongly questioned this comeback.
Rose went for a sleeper as the Express started jazzing up the crowd. It didn’t help our hero though as he was thrown violently against the canvas. Titus scored with some chops and stomps and took control of the matchup. Following some barking O’Neil throttled Rose with a nasty modified back breaker for a near-fall. Rose came back with some punching and his “choo-choo” bronco-buster move in the corner. Stunning the big guy, he rolled him up in a unique pinning combination utilizing his feet to hook both legs and three seconds later, cue the music! WINNER: ADAM ROSE
THOUGHTS: Both of these guys are way more talented than they were allowed to show here. Very short bout to say the least but pretty effective as a warmup for the Raw crowd. Titus should be a monster heel but isn’t and Rose could be much more than a comedy act but won’t.
We next get our first trip back to Monday’s Raw where Roman Reigns explains what the Authority has planned for the 4-way title match at Battleground and how he intends to ruin said plans. Reigns is stupid over right now. If you thought you had to wait forever for Daniel Bryan’s moment of the sun, get ready for another long and arduous wait for Roman’s ascension. Rome wasn’t built in a day they say and neither will this title push so until then, Reigns will have to deal with the likes of the Demon Kane week after week. If you don’t already jump ahead to Smackdown, you might enjoy knowing that Reigns battles Rusev on the blue show. Big spot for both of those men you better believe.
Backstage, we get comments from Rybaxel in the locker room as Curtis prepares for a one-on-one match against Tyson Kidd later tonight. Axel laughs off a question about getting ready for his match by calling Kidd the “professional wrestler turned total diva.” After more banter, Axel proclaims he will go on to Battleground and win the IC title in the battle royal. Ryback makes fun of Curtis being a former champ and Axel replies with a line about the Big Guy being winless in main events. It was actually pretty amusing but they remain friends as we go to break.
In our next flashback segment, we go back to the clash between Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose. This is a tough spot since Ambrose is scorching and they need to keep Orton strong for Battleground. A schmoz would have been nice here but Ambrose seems unbreakable right now so wins and loses shouldn’t matter. On a personal note, his pop in Boston at Money in the Bank was electrifying. I wonder if they knew they had three stars on their hands when they originally formed The Shield.
TYSON KIDD VS. CURTIS AXEL
One thing I like about this show now is they actually are starting to call the second match on the show, the “Superstars main event.” Phillips stated before the bell that Kidd could have the homefield advantage since they were in Canada. It’s the little things like this that just add legitimacy to these smaller programs. Excellent stuff WWE! Kidd, who has been much-maligned since losing to Adrian Neville down in NXT, comes out to a nice pop from the Canadian crowd. Some of that might have to do with his arm candy, however, as he is joined by the lovely Natalya. They share a smooch just before the bell rang.
While the smartass crowd starts chanting for Goldberg and “Feed me more,” these two feel each other out to begin the contest. Kidd worked the arm of the former IC champion and I loved the deep arm drag he used. With the green trunks he was rocking, it reminded me a bit of Ricky Steamboat. TK is phenomenally athletic and doesn’t look like a guy who lost nearly a year of his career to knee surgery. He still busts out some innovative maneuvers like when he flipped Axel onto the floor.
It isn’t said enough, but Curtis is great at selling, at least in this match, as he looks downright drunk after taking some of these kicks. He gets hung up in a tree of woe at one point and is rewarded with two well-placed boots to the dome and I thought that was it. Out of desperation, Axel scored with a belly-to-back suplex followed by a kneelift for two. Kidd then nailed a beautiful legdrop to the back of the Ax Man’s head but still, it wasn’t enough. Following a missed high-risk move, Axel delivered his facebuster finisher for the three-count. WINNER: CURTIS AXEL
THOUGHTS: Really guys? You couldn’t give a member of the Hart Family a win in Montreal? What are we even doing here? Moving on!
More Raw stuff in the final 10 minutes of the program including Seth Rollins confronting John Cena backstage. This sets the stage for the final moments of Raw where Mr. Money in the Bank battles the World Heavyweight Champion. Decent match with oodles of interference as one comes to expect from the Monday show. To me, it’s more like a big what if scenario as I see no chance in hell that Rollins will cash in on Cena. The champ will likely lose it cleanly to someone like Lesnar, Brock will keep it until passing the torch to Reigns, Ambrose or Cesaro and then maybe Seth will hand over that case. It’s just a theory but it’s mine so don’t steal it jerkface!
FINAL THOUGHTS: I would have liked a real interview segment but otherwise, this was a solid show. Funny stuff from Rose and Rybaxel and we got to see a rare Tyson Kidd showcase in front of a big crowd. No complaints on this end so pop it in this weekend if you need time to kill before overalls shopping. Damn, it’s great to be back!
Join the conversation by liking Place to Be Nation on Facebook or follow me on Twitter @DmcG4881. Also don’t forget to hear me banter with the King of Old School as a new episode of The Steve Corino Show comes out each and every week on Place to Be Nation. And finally, send us your questions for the next Kevin Kelly Show by using #AsKKevin and be sure to do the same for Steve Corino by tweeting @SteveCorinoShow.
