WWE Superstars TV Report – 19th December 2013

Happy holidays, everyone! This week’s WWE Superstars returned to its normal taping slot before Raw on Monday day night and saw two debuts: Summer Rae, as an in-ring competitor (she has appeared on the show with Fandango before), and Xavier Woods who, with R-truth, had the joy of taking on 3MB, appearing for their third straight week on this show.

Summer Rae comes out to start the show, dancing at the top of the ramp and then strutting to the ring. If you haven’t seen her on NXT, she does a very cool thing when she gets to the ring where she sits on the top rope and poses, sliding her hand seductively up her leg. It’s a very striking, original image. She has so much more presence and charisma than Kaitlyn, who comes out next.

Kaitlyn v Summer Rae

The bell rings and Rae immediately starts to dance a la Fandango. This angers Kaitlyn who charges at her forcing Rae to take solace in the ropes. The ref breaks them up and Summer hilariously shouts, “I haven’t stretched yet!” and then goes through some hamstring stretches in the corner. She’s a good heel. Rae dances some more, so Kaitlyn starts to attack with clotheslines and then whips her into the corner and lands a high knee into a throw.

Summer Rae rolls out of the ring after the beat-down shouting, “are you kidding me? I don’t need this!” She’s awesome. She starts to walk off up the ramp; Kaitlyn follows but eats a roundhouse kick from Summer’s long right leg. Rae rolls Kaitlyn back in and gets a near fall. She uses the middle ropes to choke out Kaitlyn and then shoves her head back into the ring with a little flick of her ass.

Kaitlyn then goes for a quick steal but only gets a two count. Rae gets up and kicks Kaitlyn in the face and then plants her head into the mat and gets a near fall of her own. Summer continues to use her long legs to kick and choke Kaitlyn and then settles into a Camel Clutch shouting, “they don’t love you, Kaitlyn.” No, they really don’t. Kaitlyn powers out and rams Rae into a turnbuckle and then uses a backbreaker to buy herself some time.

Kaitlyn hits Rae with clothesline and then a really sloppy shoulder tackle (clearly Summer Rae had no idea that this was coming). When Summer recovers from it, she takes a gutbuster and cover for a two count.

For the finish, Kaitlyn teases the spear, misses and is thrown into a turnbuckle. Summer Rae rolls her up quickly and steals a win. And what a win. This was so very much more entertaining than the turgid Aksana matches that Kaitlyn has had for the last few weeks. Summer Rae is still green but clearly gets what this is all about and has the timing and the athletic ability to pull of some interesting offence. An enjoyable opener.

Winner:  Summer Rae via pinfall (4:53)

The Raw Rebound is next – we’re shown highlights from the opening of Raw with Steph’s promo followed by Cena’s interruption and then Orton and Bryan facing off. After the break we get the end of the Punk & Usos v The Shield match.

Out next on Superstars are R-Truth and Xavier Woods. I suppose Woods’ presence gives R-Truth a raison d’etre for a few weeks after he had largely been akin to Zack Ryder for the last year or so. Remember when he was in the title picture in 2011? Crazy. Woods, though, has potential and, let’s be honest, Truth is an old hand at this now - at 41 (42 in January) he’s surely going to be hanging up his boots soon. 3MB (still without Heath) are their opponents. I really hate that Jinder Mahal is on this show every week – he’s a poor professional wrestler.

R-Truth & Xavier Woods v 3MB (Drew McIntyre & Jinder Mahal)

Woods and Mahal lock up and Wood drives Mahal to the mat. On commentary, Alex Riley says that if you look up Xavier Woods online you’ll see a picture of Eddie Murphy. Yeah, he really said that. I’d say that’s casual racism at its laziest right there. Mahal and Woods chain wrestle until Mahal eats a nicely-timed drop kick from Woods which he turns into a pin for one.

Mahal gets up and drives Woods into the turnbuckles as McIntyre blind tags in. They work over Woods in the corner until McIntyre eats a chop and Woods is able to tag in Truth. Truth also chops McIntyre and the wiggles his hips at Drew, throws him over the top rope and both Truth and Woods dive over the top rope to take out 3MB as we go to a break.

After the commercials, Truth is schooling McIntyre in armbars and wrist locks until Drew powers out and out of whip tags in Mahal who comes in to redress the balance and take the offence to Truth. Mahal and McIntyre use multiple, quick tags to work over Truth who attempts to power his way out but to no avail. Out of whip McIntyre hits a drop kick and gets a two count and so goes to a rear chin lock rest hold. Again, Truth tries to power out but Mahal tags back in and they punch, kick and bully Truth. Another rest hold from Mahal as Woods is vociferous on the apron, desperate for a tag.

Despite several reprimands from the ref, Drew heels on Truth in his corner with illegal punches. After Drew takes too long to hit a move and postures to the crowd, Truth manages to finally make the hot tag for Woods. McIntyre also tags in.

The finish sees Woods running wild and after taking out Mahal with a series of clotheslines and a drop kick, he uses the Honour Roll on Mahal, chases off Drew with a roundhouse kick and then hits a Lost in the Woods that barely grazes Mahal for the pin and win.

Woods is good but then any competent wrestler who is given this kind of treatment will shine. The match was built around him and was designed for Truth to soak up the pressure so that Mahal and McIntyre could bump all over for Woods. Like last week, once again the tag match steals the show.

Winners: R-Truth and Xavier Woods via pinfall (6:46)

The show finishes with the last 10 minutes of the Randy Orton v Daniel Bryan match from Raw on Monday.

Superstars has turned a corner of late - all of these new tag teams that are coming out under Hunter’s reign are helping the quality of the B-shows and long may it continue.