As much as people might complain about Daniel Bryan being bumped 'down the card' to feud with the Wyatts and how this is a sign that the company has soured on him and he'll never contend for the top title again, he sure has been consistently main eventing television shows despite all this. Tonight was no exception, as the main event was Daniel Bryan vs. Luke Harper, continuing the secondary trend of Erick Rowan Cannot Wrestle Singles Matches. Harper continued to impress by keeping pace with Bryan and hitting his mix of ground and pound with high impact offense, and Harper was protected again in the finish, getting pinned by a flash rollup after CM Punk arrived on the scene to distract the Wyatts. The victory was short-lived, as Harper took out Bryan and Rowan took out Punk, leading to Bryan being hit by Sister Abigail and the last image of the show being Wyatt posing over our fallen heroes. But will that happen on Sunday?
In other matches, the show opened with the tag title match, with the Rhodes Brothers holding on to defeat the Real Americans. Cesaro landed a massive Cesaro Swing on Cody, but it was to no avail as Goldust hit the Final Cut on Swagger to get the win. The Ryback embraced his bully nature, only for the Great Khali to answer his open challenge. But being big didn't stop Khali from being bullied, as The Ryback Shellshocked him with ease to win the match.
Vindictive Smackdown General Manager Vickie Guerrero put AJ into a handicap match against the Funkadactyls. Despite Tamina's best efforts to cheat, Naomi wound up pinning AJ with the Rear View. The Shield faced the Usos and the returning Rey Mysterio in a six man tag, and it was Ambrose who let the team down by being beaten by Mysterio, after Rollins took out both Usos himself with a huge dive out of the ring. Finally, the team of Dolph Ziggler and Big E defeated Curtis Axel and Damien Sandow, when Big E hit the Big Ending on Sandow. Axel gets his rematch on Sunday at Survivor Series. Adjust your predictions appropriately!
They also held a poll on WWE.com about what the most devastating submission finisher in WWE currently is, with the choices being Daniel Bryan's YES!lock, CM Punk's Anaconda Vice, Alberto Del Rio's cross armbreaker, and Natalya's Sharpshooter. The winner, of course, was Natalya's Sharpshooter, earning twice as many votes as either the YES!lock or the Anaconda Vice.
Originally posted by RudoublesedoublelWait - their poll showed that?
Should I make a BCS joke, election joke, or just shrug and recognize they're pimping their TV show?
No, it makes sense. Natalya has perhaps the best submission move in wrestling - Bret Hart's Sharpshooter. She can't lock it in for shit, but it's still a great move.
Originally posted by RudoublesedoublelWait - their poll showed that?
Should I make a BCS joke, election joke, or just shrug and recognize they're pimping their TV show?
Yeah, their poll showed that, and the commentators reacted incredulously too.
Me, I'm just sad that in the videogame footage they used to show off the four moves, they have Bryan's YES!lock represented as a simple Crippler Crossface. If the point of these games is how authentic they are, is it that hard to mo-cap a new move with the trapped arm being hammerlocked? They take the time to get different animations for the Rock Bottom and the Book End, for Undertaker's chokeslam and Kane's chokeslam...
They also recorded a match between the Prime Time Players and 3MB on Tuesday...and 3MB came out as "The Fabulous 3Birds" since they were in Atlanta. The (short) match is up on WWE.com...JBL had a blast calling that one.
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