WWE Superstars TV Report – 31st October 2013

This week’s show had some horrendous Divas action, some house-show-style goofy comedy and ended the three-week streak of good WWE Superstars episodes.

Cameron and Naomi come out joined by Brodus. Tensai is nowhere to be seen. They dance and march to the ring as the camera shows various geeks in the audience dancing along. Aksana, who is awful, is out next, joined by Alicia Fox who is not acknowledged once nor is she shown again during the match. Naomi is the one competing tonight but Brodus is in his ring gear and even takes off his t-shirt as the bell rings. Is this some kind of Pavlovian effect? Anyway, this match ought to be short and awful. Let’s see…

Naomi v Aksana

They lock up and Aksana pushes Naomi to the corner, gets pulled off her for no real reason by the referee and they lock in the middle again. Naomi is put into a headlock, powers out, and whips Aksana landing her with a reverse elbow. The whole sequence is sloppy. She immediately scoop slams Aksana which only looks like it isn’t going to kill her at the last second when she tucks her head. Naomi postures to the crowd and lands a leg drop – this doesn’t actually look too bad!

Naomi splashes Aksana in the corner – well, ‘splash’ is used loosely here – and kicks Aksana in the midsection. The ref pulls her off (again!) and this allows Aksana to sort of land a sort of elbow to Naomi’s face and she then picks her up for a side suplex that is even more horrible than all the previous moves: Naomi doesn’t really jump into it and so it looks more like Aksana’s just holding Naomi and falling backwards. I hate to be so rude, but this is terrible stuff.

Aksana lands some elbows and gets a near fall. She kicks her, pulls her hair and chokes her using the middle rope – clearly having no idea that she has her back to the hard cam. The referee pulls her off; she realises her mistake and so turns around and heels to the crowd. Even better, next, she responds to some cat calls from the crowd by picking up Naomi for a side slam and shouts “you want some, huh, you want some?” to a random guy on the hard cam side and then proceeds to land a horrible side slam to poor Naomi. It gets worse.

Rather than going for a cover, Aksana crawls around Naomi on all fours, like a cat (I presume, given her ring gear) and wastes time. She sort of knees her to the ribs from her all-fours position and then goes for a cover and gets a one count.  Aksana applies the Superstars go-to move (the rear choke hold) and when Naomi powers out and whips her into the ropes, she applies a half-cooked monkey flip and gets another one count when she is pushed off by Aksana. They both get up and clothesline each other in order to build drama…

Naomi gets up, hits what can only be described as a shit hurricanrana that Aksana had no idea what to do with – so literally landed on her head – followed by a drop kick and a neck breaker that after she hits gives her time to smile at the crowd as if to say, “yes, look I can hit all kinds of moves!”. Aksana kicks out at two.

Aksana then picks up Naomi and hits another near-death move – this time a gutwrench suplex that she takes by landing on her side and right arm, looking horrible – and then out of nowhere Naomi puts us all out of our misery and hits the Rear View for the win in 4:03. I can’t believe that I wrote so much about that match. You think Eva Maria is bad? Check this out.

Winner: Naomi via pinfall

The Raw Rebound (and relief) is next – Cena and Sandow’s awesome match is up first, followed by Shawn and Daniel Bryan’s segment.

Out next on Superstars is Kofi Kingston leaping to greet us. It’s high time they did something with Kofi. Poor guy’s gimmick hasn’t altered a jot since 2008! His opponent is Santino tonight. So face v face and both crowd favourites. This is classic Superstars fodder.

Kofi Kingston v Santino Marella

They start the match with a handshake and they try some amateur wrestling mat work. It all breaks down though through miscommunication when Kofi goes for a takedown and Santino reads it wrong. The irony is, on commentary, Alex Riley is putting over how both men have training schools. Well on this evidence, I wouldn’t want training by either of these two.

They lock up and Kofi gets put into a headlock by Marella, they whip and Santino uses a shoulder barge to take Kofi down. Comedy next when Santino sidesteps a whip and does his goofy power walk while an aghast Kingston looks on. This is old; we need new material from Santino. Kofi rolls him up for a pin but only just gets two.

Marella sweeps Kingston’s leg and goes for a cover but is immediately thwarted by Kofi who gets up, sweeps Santino’s leg and does the same. All comedy, all annoying. Santino arm drags Kofi, Kofi arm drags Santino. Santino hip tosses Kofi, Kofi returns the favour and then they both drop kick each other. Kofi does a kip up, Santino fails. They whip each other; Kofi gets thrown over the top rope, skins the cat and then throws Marella over the top rope who fails to do the same. This is house show stuff and is no fun to write about. We go to a break.

When we return Kofi misses a stinger splash to the corner and Santino covers him for two and then applies a rear chin lock and starts trying various submission holds. Kofi then of course does the same. The crowd is dead as are the commentators. Kofi eventually hits a German suplex and Santino actually does a kip up so the crowd and the match spring to life. Kofi blocks Marella’s signature headbutt and hits the Boom Drop, he goes for the Trouble in Paradise, misses (of course) and Santino hits the Cobra but Kofi rolls out of the ring.

Santino rolls Kingston back in (still wearing the Cobra sock) but Kofi is under the ropes so the referee forces him to move and, because he does, Kofi is able to kick out at two. Santino goes for the Cobra again but Kofi hits the Trouble in Paradise on the Cobra and is able to roll Marella up for the win at 8:03.

Winner: Kofi Kingston via pinfall

Well the streak had to end sometime: three strong weeks of Superstars ended with this dud. We finish with the title coronation for Randy Orton followed by the Big Show-Triple H stare-down from Raw on Monday.