WWE Superstars Review – 8/12/16

Match #1

Jinder Mahal vs Jack Swagger

Jinder beats down Swagger in the corner but Swagger ducks a clothesline and hits a shoulder block. Crowd is fired up for “We the People”. Swagger grabs Jinder’s ankle but Jinder reaches the ropes before Swagger can lock anything in. Jinder attacks the left knee of Swagger and hits a running superkick. Jinder chokes Swagger on the ropes and comes down with a few knees on the neck. Jinder locks in a chinlock. Swagger blocks a suplex from Jinder and hits one of his own. Two huge corner clotheslines from Swagger and a belly to belly suplex! Swagger connects with the Swagger Bomb for two! Swagger goes for the gutwrench powerbomb but Mahal fights out and hits a running knee to the head of Swagger. Jinder goes for an enizguri but Swagger ducks it and hangs onto the leg, locking in the Ankle Lock. Jinder is forced to tap!

Thoughts

Can’t talk enough about how great Swagger’s offense is. I never realized that this guy was born to be a face until he finally turned. He’s genuinely still over too and not in a ‘piped in’ sort of way. You can see people in the crowd cheering him. Jinder looked pretty solid here too. He’ll never be a main eventer and probably won’t even touch a midcard title but he’s good at what he does. I really liked his running knee. I’m hoping to see this match get more time next time.

Next they show all 67 minutes of the Rusev/Reigns segment from Raw. God forbid trying to get more than 15 minutes of wrestling on a 50 minute show or pretending that Summer Rae still exists.

Match #2

Axel and Sami lock up and Sami quickly uses his speed and technical prowess to gain the advantage. Sami leap frogs Axel and hits a go-behind arm drag, sending Axel out of the ring. Sami goes to dive on Axel but Axel moves and Sami flips back into the ring. Outside the ring, Axel sends Sami into the barricade but Zayn jumps and hits a moonsault! Axel sends Sami, shoulder first, into the ringpost. Axel attacks Sami’s shoulder and wrenches his arm over the top rope. Back from the break and Axel is working over the shoulder of Zayn. Axel is cackling until Sami elbows him in the face. Axel wraps up Zayn in the ropes and attacks the shoulder, neck and back of Zayn. Sami fights out with an arm drag but Axel immediately comes back with a running knee. Axel tries to superplex Zayn but he gets knocked off the ropes by a headbutt. Zayn goes for a diving crossbody but Axel catches him with a dropkick right on the bad shoulder. Sami hits a couple hard clotheslines to Axel. He tries to irish whip Curtis but instinctively uses his bad arm and Axel wrenches it. Axel runs at Zayn, right into an exploder suplex. Sami goes for the Blue Thunder Bomb but Axel reverses. Axel tries the Perfectplex but Sami fights out. Sami grabs Axel’s hand and hits the tornado DDT off the ropes, followed by a Helluva kick for the win!

Thoughts

This was a great match! Zayn’s selling of the shoulder was absolutely fantastic and Axel did a wonderful job basing his offense around it. This was the kind of wrestling I love, where the match tells a story and sticks to it. And commentary really sells it, talking about Sami’s past shoulder injuries and how a veteran like Axel knows how to exploit things like that. They even talk a little about how Zayn has been lost in the shuffle since being drafted to Raw. Graves/Phillips is by far my favorite current commentary team and Tom Phillips is so underrated, imo. Also I loved that despite being a Superstars match, this match had some pretty significant spots, especially the moonsault off the barricade and Axel catching Sami in mid air with the dropkick. Really good stuff!

Overall

This was a really refreshing episode of Superstars that reminded me why I love watching it. I really wish they’d add some backstage segments or something though. I know they’re limited in time before Raw to run matches, but why not run some backstage stuff with people like Summer, Fox, Dudleyz, Swagger, etc? Make it essentially like 2012 NXT Redemption where they had all those wacky little storylines. Main Event gets 3-4 matches on it’s show yet Superstars 15 minutes (on a good week) of wrestling and the rest is recapping Raw. Isn’t this what This Week in WWE exists for? But the matches this week were entertaining. Mahal/Swagger was enjoyable and Zayn/Axel was definitely a top 5 or at least top 10 Superstars match from this year for me. Also Summer Rae’s undefeated streak extends to four weeks.