WWE Superstars TV Report - May 23rd 2013

A show with very little to get excited about, a show that lacked quality and a show that played into E!’s new reality show Total Divas.

Sweet T, Brodus Clay, Cameron and Naomi come out to kick off the show as Tons of Funk. They dance in the ring while Tony Dawson comments that ‘they’re shovellin’ and ready to go to work’. Albert aka Tensai aka Sweet T struggles to whip his trousers off, with one leg still in there once the pyro has gone off but the announcers ignore it, the camera cuts and out come The Usos. Justin Roberts then both answers my question and poses me another – this will be an 8 person, mixed tag match… but The Usos would seem to be paired with heels? Quite irregular but we’ll see where this goes.

Match 1 – Tons of Funk, Cameron and Naomi v The Usos & The Bella Twins

Tons of Funk with Cameron & Naomi pins The Usos and The Bellas in 7:04. The match starts with Brodus and Jimmy trading dance moves and smiling at each other like the two babyface teams that they are. As Striker puts it “The Usos and The Bellas are strange bed fellows”… I think I’ll leave that one alone.

Brie tags herself in and Brodus tags in Naomi. Naomi looks as if she's going to tag in one of her male partners, but instead hits Jimmy with a fairly loose hurricanrana. This is then the main thread of the match as Jimmy stares at her and Striker suggests that they have ‘chemistry’. This match is all comedy and next Sweet T gets left between the ropes using the position that an opponent would get into before Rey Mysterio hits his 619 and the Bellas, on the apron, shove their posteriors into his face, sandwiching his head between them. While they take the heat from the crowd, Sweet T would appear to have enjoyed himself and so puts himself back between the ropes for another helping, begging for ‘one more’. The Bellas then look disgusted and leave like good heels.

Tensai turns back and eats a superkick from Jimmy, who takes charge whilst constantly glancing back at a sultry-looking Naomi. Tony Dawson has already mentioned Total Divas on E! and so I assume that this must all lead into something that will appear on that show. Nothing is played out here and it won’t get air time elsewhere. At one stage here there was genuinely a ‘let’s go Sweet T’ chant from this crowd.

The finish sees Jimmy missing a Superfly splash on Sweet T and Brodus getting the hot tag. He does his typical move-set of the lariat, the scoop slam followed by the splash, the powerslam and the pin but Jey breaks the pin at 2. Sweet T then takes out Jey and Brodus tries again and gets the 3 count for the win. This was all fairly alienating: clearly this was all supposed to feed into some storyline on another show that we might never see and when we do will be outdated. Great!

After the break it is Raw Rebound which recaps Ryback's opening segment from Monday night, and the six-man tag match with Team Hell No and The Shield which was fantastic.

Alex Riley comes out next smiling like a geek and for the second week running we’re told of his varsity days as a walk-on at Boston College. Yes, he’s a tremendous athlete but he’s just about to job to the man he lost to last week on Superstar’s former tag partner. Sandow comes out with a microphone. I still LOVE this gimmick. He calls for silence and implores them to ‘watch closely as [he] shows them how [he] deals with incompetence.’

Match 2 – Alex Riley v Damien Sandow

Damien Sandow pinned Alex Riley in 3:57. The match starts with some holds and grappling as Riley works Sandow’s left arm. They run the ropes and Riley delivers a drop kick that was much less clean than the perfect one that he delivered on this show to Cody last week. Sandow then catches him with a dropped toe-hold and lands Riley with punches and elbows for a 1 count.

Sandow continues to dominate him and this begins to look like a squash as he lands knees to Riley’s mid-section and plants him on the matt with a side Russian leg sweep. He hits the Cubito Aequet (the elbow of distain) but Riley kicks out at 2. This only angers Sandow more as he puts Riley into a chin lock and then stomps on him for another 2 count.

Riley gets some heat, runs the ropes, hits a flying elbow and then puts together a hip toss and a spinebuster for a slow 2 count. Sandow sells briefly but comes back with the Silencer for the win. His finisher is far too derivative of the Rock Bottom, except he sits at the end of the move. Sandow is nothing special in the ring but the gimmick is fun.

Neither match was very good here and this was a nothing show. Quite the irony that the show ended in a Raw Rebound that featured Michael McGillicutty, formally of this parish, under his new name - Curtis Axel. He was jobbing on Superstars only last week; now he gets buried by HHH in the main event segment on the flagship show.