FanPost

WWE Main Event Recap and Reactions: New Year, New Format, New Stable

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Tonight's Main Event on Hulu Plus from Tuesday Jan. 5th, 2015 features 3 match-ups.

Titus O'Neil VS. Stardust

Zack Ryder VS. Tyler Breeze

Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas VS. The Usos

Don't forget to check out Geno Mrosko's RAW recap and reactions, as well as Sean Rueter's NXT and Tonya Rodgers' Smackdown recap and reactions.

Tonight's announcers are Rich Brennan and Jerry Lawler.

**You'll notice if you are a frequent reader that changes have come to the Main Event recap. Let me break it down for you. Meh and Awesomeness will still be the final grade, but this time matches will get letter grades. The positivity or negativity of the letter grade will affect the outcome of the show's final grade. Also matches will no longer be written out. Instead, a highlight of important moments and moves will be featured and a reaction paragraph following with any extra information. This is to ease the flow for the reader and make this author get to bed at a reasonable time. I choose to get these up before Thursday night because I feel once Smackdown comes and goes, Main Event really becomes irrelevant. Finally, of course a picture is still going to accompany the grade!**

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We start our show with #SocialOutcasts. The best new stable of men to grace our TV screens.

Slater: "Forever Trending baby, Social Outcasts! What we need you to do, tell a friend. Email your ex-wife or husband, grab your bottle of penicillen, we're going viral baby!"

Rose: "We were 4 seeds struggling in the dirt, reaching for the luminous light. You know what? I just realized something. I don't need these glasses i have 20/20 vision."

Slater: "What? What is he talking about? Hey what I think Rose is trying to say is that we are four individuals that found the light together, and we.. what are you doing man why are you pacing back and forth?"

Bo: "Listen listen, our friend.. " off mic asks Slater what the guy's name is pacing back and forth. Genius. "Our friend Curtis is very upset and rightfully so. Tonight we get the chance to take out some of our inner anger on the Usos. From now on we are walking the path to success together. All we have to do.."

The Usos music cuts off Bo as they walk out and start talking. The promo is dreadful so I'll spare you. As they get into the ring Curtis and the rest of them just go after the Usos and bail out of the ring.

Interesting start to the show.

Stardust then cuts a promo on how he knows he is Cody by listing all his past gimmicks and says he is now known by one name, Staaaaaaardust. I love his commitment to this character.

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Titus O'Neil VS. Stardust

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Cody chants start up immediately. Stardust is not happy.
  • Stardust goes for Titus and Titus tosses him halfway across the ring. The pure strength his has is great.
  • Titus throws Cody on his stomach from over his head. Again, just pure strength.
  • Titus slaps Stardust's chest so loud it sounds like gunshots.
  • Stardust brings out his mean streak to attack Titus's head and arm. He is very creative wrapping Titus' arm around the ropes and pulling his arm like he's trying to drag an anchor.
  • Most of Titus' offense has been throwing Stardust around. Not a bad offense, but not a great one either.
  • Titus dodges a tackle in the corner from Stardust and pushes him into the ringpost so hard it sounds like one of the slaps the wrestlers do during a regular move. They really have to be careful with those.
  • Stardust does anything he can to weigh down the big man and executes multiple chinlocks and armbars throughout the match.
  • Titus gains momentum and literally picks Stardust off the mat by his neck with one arm.
  • Titus executes his powerbomb finish "Clash of the Titus" for the win

Titus O'Neil defeats Stardust

Titus and Stardust can put on decent matches, but I wasn't feeling it this time. Titus' strength is incredible but he can't just rely on that in each match. They sort of become constant to a degree that you know what's coming next. Yes most wrestlers have the big spots but most also don't just get attacked by a move and sell the move for most of the match, hit a power move, sell more moves, hit a power move, sell more moves, sell MORE moves, momentum, finisher, win. That's a Titus O'Neil match ladies and gentlemen. Stardust was his usual Stardust-ness here. I love Rhodes' commitment to this character. Unfortunately the likely thing to come out of it is nothing.

Titus has to work on some of his selling. He hit his finisher without remembering that his left shoulder has been targeted the entire time and moves around freely, then as the ref raises his hand you can kind of see in his face he remembered and shakes it off a little. I didn't have any problems with Stardust here.

Grade: C+

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Tyler Breeze is getting ZERO reaction from the crowd. I know it's Main Event, but it's like there's no one in the place. His music could be turned down and you still wouldn't hear anything except maybe footsteps of people getting to their seats for Smackdown.

Zack Ryder VS. Tyler Breeze

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Zack Ryder has a flawless dropkick
  • If Tyler wasn't saddled to this nowhere gimmick he could be a great contender for the I.C. Title or the U.S. title.
  • Tyler gets vicious quickly with stiff looking kicks to Ryder's midsection.
  • Ryder gets vicious back and tackles him top the ground punching him in the head.
  • Ryder with a great looking elbow to the jaw spot that almost sends Tyler over the top rope.
  • Tyler ducks the Broski Boot and rolls out of the ring. All of a sudden OUTOFNOWHERE style, Ryder's boot appears and kicks him to the floor.
  • Tyler executes his inverted double underhook facebuster finisher "Unprettier." Looks vicious but man what an awful name.

Tyler Breeze defeats Zack Ryder

This was a match that happened. Tyler and Zack are decent wrestlers who can really bring out their vicious sides and look intimidating. Unfortunately they're not allowed to bring that viciousness to Raw or Smackdown. Well Zack isn't. Tyler for the better part of his call up from NXT was featured on both shwos but either to be booked 50/50 with Ziggler or sitting on the sidelines interfering in matches. And Zack, well, he's great for a decent match on Main Event.

For the very limited time this got, it looked pretty good. Both men were able to get their offense in and got vicious enough to peak my interest. I would like to see them more together in longer matches. However there were a number of called spots, that's a no-no.

Grade: B-

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Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas VS. The Usos

HIGHLIGHTS

  • The Usos can never break up. They work best with each other.
  • Curtis starts the match and is vicious from the get go. He's bland as hell but he's a decent brawler.
  • Jimmy makes a cool tag when Jey gets Bo into their corner and tackles him with his right hand up almost like he was high fiving him. I liked it.
  • HEATH SLATER IS TELLING BO TO BOLIEVE IN HIMSELF.
  • This seems to wake Bo up and he gets in some stiff elbows to Jimmy.
  • Jimmy throws Bo out of the ring and Bo screams "I did it!" He starts jogging around the ring and gets the rest of #SocialOutcasts to jog with him. HA! Slater is air guitaring around the ring. I hope this is on Raw next week.
  • Bo counters a slap to his face with an armbar and Curtis tags himself in. Bo bounces off the ropes and Jimmy ducks it thinking he got away and here comes Curtis OUTTANOWHERE with an elbow to the back of his head. That was a fun spot.
  • Goodness Curtis is a madman. He can't even execute a pin properly because he's too angry.
  • The ref tries to get Jimmy out of the ring and Slater hits Jey with a punch to help his bro.
  • Curtis is making every move vicious looking, even a headlock. He looks crazy and grabs Jey's face almost as if he's going to literally rip it off.
  • Curtis cleverly pulls Jey's hair out of the ref's vision while executing another headlock.
  • Usos gain momentum now and really get the crowd pumped up. Jey tags Jimmy in.
  • Jimmy hits the usual spots. Slaps, Samoan drops, dabbing for some reason.
  • Curtis breaks a pin attempt by just clobbering Jimmy like a kid on the floor mad he didn't get what he wanted for Christmas. This renewal of his character is very interesting.
  • Bo rolls up Jimmy on a distraction by Slater but Jimmy counters with a roll-up to get the win.

The Usos defeat Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas

All men involved did well here. The Usos bore me but their in ring work is pretty good. They can really get the crowd pumping when they're bored. The real stars here even in defeat are the Social Outcasts. It doesn't make any sense, it isn't going anywhere, but it's fun as hell for the time being. Slater saved this by being awesome.

There's not much different here that hasn't been featured in an Uso match before so you get the picture. Where do the Social Outcasts go from here? Probably a comedy segment on Raw and right back to Main Event next week to lose.

Grade: B-

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That's all for this week. I wasn't inspired by much but the action was decent. A lot of wrestlers expressing more vicious sides of themselves and being entertaining. Main Event is not a B show but it would be really nice to have it be treated as such since this used to be something WWE really cared about. We've come a long way from the very first featured contest being WWE Champion CM Punk VS. World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus. I always appreciate each wrestler that comes on here though, even if they bore me to death. I'm talking to you Usos. I like your wrestling but man are you staler than year old bread.

O'Neil VS. Stardust - C+

Ryder VS. Breeze - B-

Axel/Dallas VS. Usos - B-

Show grade: MEH

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So that's the new and (hopefully) improved WWE Main Event recap. Did you like it? Did you not? Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll see you back next week! I hope everyone has had a great 2016 so far!

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.