I don't have time to think up a witty way to open this article CESARO VERSUS SHEAMUS MORE AFTER THE BREAK.
Best: Cesaro-Sheamus Feud? God Yes
So last week everyone kind of tilted their head at Sheamus taking Dean Ambrose's United States Championship and thought this was a sign he might turn heel. Now he's entering into a feud with Cesaro, whom everyone thought would turn face up until a month ago. I don't really care though, because Sheamus vs. Cesaro is something I've wanted to see since Sheamus came back from injury. I don't even care if we have to have Sheamus needlessly being a jackoff to random innocent bystanders (as innocent as Paul Heyman can ever be, at least) in order to get there. A prolific match-up for the United States championship has my mouth watering, and I cannot wait to see these two go at it.
Best: Holy Crap, Sandow Has a Storyline!?
I don't know if the pay-off to this whole new angle with Sandow will go anywhere. It's weird to have a heel come out, say he's being silenced by the company when he has important things to say, and try to publicly reveal them only to be repeatedly cut off. The way he's going about it makes it sort of seem like he's doing it on purpose for the sake of garnering attention, but the earnestness with which he tries to spill the beans at certain points kind of confuses the issue. And of course, there's the possibility that the writers haven't actually thought up what it is he has to say, and there's no guarantee it'll be intriguing at all. The fact that Sandow's actually getting a chance to do something, and cut meaningful promos instead of just being carted out to make a fool of himself, is a good sign in any case however.
Sandow has a very quick match with Dolph Ziggler, and the ending really doesn't make much sense. After applying the Royal Arch, Sandow beats up Ziggler on the ground, picks him up, and tries to lift him over his head so that Ziggler can backflip out of it and hit the Zig Zag for the win. None of Sandow's signature moves involve lifting his opponent over his head like that. The closest thing is the You're Welcome, which is a full nelson slam, which looks nothing like whatever the hell Sandow was trying to do. It's just one of those illogical set-ups for a weird counter that really dulls the climax of the match.
Best: Emma Without Santino
It's almost like female characters can be in situations without constantly being attached to men!
Worst: Losing A Match With A 95% Offensive Ratio
One of the things that's really annoyed me about the past few weeks of WWE television is that on seemingly every other show, there's a match where the heel spends several minutes beating down the face, uninterrupted, only for the heel to hit a single move and get the victory. The Emma-Alicia Fox match wasn't QUITE that bad, as it ended in a schoolgirl roll-up rather than Emma hitting a single signature move. It was still annoying though, because it seems to really kill this vicious, psychotic angle that they're going for with Alicia. Who cares if she's extra aggressive if she ends up losing to a single move? It's like being a villain in Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. Yeah, I don't care if you spent the whole duel completely dominating Yuma if he just pulls out one of his one-turn-kills on your ass. Dominating the rest of the game means nothing if you can't avoid the most important thing there is for you to avoid.
Best, though: Alicia Goddamn Fox
Fox absolutely kills it in this match up until the finish. Her pre-match promo is quick but badass, her in-ring behavior is wonderfully cocky and occasionally a little funny, her offense looks great - check out the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker she pulls out, it's amazing. Emma at one point goes for the Emma Sandwich and Alicia just kicks her gut from a seated position in a surprisingly brutal spot. It's amazing how great she looks in the rest of the match only to be undone by a single roll-up. If she's headed for a title match with Paige, I have no idea how she's actually going to look like she stands a chance.
The thing is though, she's getting some heat in the most bizarre ways. Once the match is over, she goes crazy again, but does so completely differently than she did on Raw. Presumably, having the C-show team at ringside is what allowed her to be more abusive to the commentators and ring announcers, and holy crap was it a sight to behold. Never in my life did I ever think I would see someone embrace a commentary team while singing "We are family," then demand they hand over their wallets, then literally force-feed them their own torn-up notes.This is the kind of crazy shit we could've been getting for months if WWE remembered that the Divas division exists for some purpose other than promoting an E! Network show.
Sheamus and Cesaro had a roughly fifteen-minute match that began as a slugfest, briefly dipped into a finishing sequence, then devolved into an outside brawl resulting in a double count-out. For what we got, this was good, but the fact that this match was deliberately designed to leave plenty of room for escalation only confirms my suspicion that this feud is going to be awesome. The third quarter or so of the match reeks of a WWE-style finishing sequence, with both men trading signature moves, and it seems like when these guys get to a bigger stage, their fights are going to be really exciting. Sheamus counters the Neutralizer into White Noise absolutely perfectly, it's beautiful to watch two moves that perfectly flow into one another like that. At the end of it all, Sheamus stands tall, but only to balance out Cesaro getting the better of him at the start of the show. In all, in the span of one hour there's a completely beginning chapter of the feud that unfolds, making this without a doubt the best episode of Main Event I've covered thus far.
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