WWE Main Event results and reactions for Wed., April 17: Intercontinental Battle Royal

WWE Main Event returned last night (April 17, 2013) on ION Television from the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, TN. Featuring a Battle Royal of jobbers to compete to be the #1 Contender to the Intercontinental Title and the IC Title Championship match thereafter.

If you missed the show, or just want to go back and read the live blog again, click here.

To the reactions!

• The show opened with a ten man Battle Royal for the right to face Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Championship, featuring The Great Khali, Primo, Alex Riley, Santino Marella, Jimmy and Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre, Jinder Mahal, Yoshi Tatsu and Justin Gabriel. That's quite an assortment of characters! It was a paint-by-the-numbers Battle Royal. There was a lot of time wasted just standing around, wrestlers became oddly weak when their opponents were on the precipice, and we even got the clichéd "everyone gang up and push the big guy over" spot; nothing new or groundbreaking, but the formula does work for a reason. It was an entertaining match, for what it was.
• Justin Gabriel would eventually earn the victory, sending Drew McIntyre over with the headscissors takedown and dodging Primo's final rush. Which, good for Gabriel! The guy has potential, and it's a damn shame WWE isn't using him correctly. Well, it's a damn shame WWE isn't using any of these jobbers hard workers correctly. How much money was standing in the ring last night? How much time and energy has WWE spent teaching and building up that talent, only for it to waste away? Fans want to care about wrestlers. But it's impossible to when the promotion itself doesn't give a flying duck.
• But yeah. Gabriel actually picked up a victory. So there's that.
• The win earned Gabriel the right to lose to Wade Barrett later in the night with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Wade was supposed to win, but this bull[explicit] of alternating losses every week is killing him. It's incomprehensible why WWE would book him the way it does. I could spend hours ranting about how poorly WWE has treated the strap -- and everyone who has held it -- for the past...year? Two years? Better part of a decade? I can't even tell anymore. All I know it's a damn shame.
• With all the shaming aside, the match was actually wicked entertaining. Wade is Wade, and his limited moveset is not always the most fun thing to watch. But he does work well with the right opponent, and he plays the heel role well in the ring. On the other side, it was clear Gabriel is very, very green. He seemed to be a step behind Wade the entire match, late getting to his spots and not moving comfortably around the ring. It was a little disconcerting to watch, but once you got past that, it was easy to see the guy's potential. The point of Main Event should be to get lower talent like Gabriel experience before making it to SmackDown and -- hopefully -- Monday Night Raw. A few more matches like this for the South African, and I think he could be ready for some mid card feuds with the "real" roster.
• That being said, something stupid is going to happen with Wade and Gabriel in the coming weeks, and last night's match will be meaningless. Because, that's just how it works these days.

This was about as perfectly average of a show as one can get. A formulaic Battle Royal, a rough but entertaining long form match, and a few recaps to advance the major storylines. This is what Main Event should be. Let the talent out there to either sink or swim on their own. I would much rather sit through a horrible match, than not even let the wrestlers have a chance to prove themselves. Sometimes we'll get great matches, sometimes we'll have bad ones, and sometimes -- like last night -- we'll have some that are right down the middle.

Grade: B-

What say you, Cagesiders? Did you enjoy Main Event's bounce back, or is it the same old crap as recent weeks? Let me know how right -- or how wrong -- I am in the comments.