WWE Superstars Review – 7/22/16
Match #1
Summer Rae vs Alicia Fox
Summer and Alicia lock up and Summer shoves her away. They tie up again and Alicia works over Summer’s arm until Summer pulls her down by the hair and mocks her. Headscissors snapmare by Alicia Fox and Summer clings to the ropes, making the referee pull Fox away. Alicia goes at Summer but Summer throws her down by the hair. Alicia Fox gets sent into the corner and goes for a sunset flip but Summer catches her with a spinning heel kick to the stomach. Summer laughs as she puts the boots to Fox. Summer chokes Alicia on the ropes and tosses her across the ring. Summer taunts the crowd before heading back over to Foxy. Summer locks in the cobra clutch but Alicia fights out and makes her comeback. Alicia with the northern lights suplex for two. Alicia goes towards Summer in the corner but Summer sends her face first into the turnbuckle. Summer rolls up Fox and uses one foot on the ropes for leverage (misses it the first time) and gets the win!
Thoughts
SUMMER WINS A MATCH! Forgive me, this doesn’t happen everyday. Overall I wasn’t really into the match though. There was definitely some positive stuff though. I loved the variation of the spinning heel kick in the corner and Summer’s facial expressions are fantastic as is her crowd interaction. She’s constantly talking down her opponent and the crowd and makes you feel like she’s a character rather than just a wrestler. And Fox still has that great northern lights suplex. Summer’s celebration after the match was pretty funny too. As a whole though, the match felt a bit clunky and it was obscenely short. I thought these two clicked better in their matches from February and April but it also looked like they tested out some new things. Summer kind of botched having her foot on the rope but recovered well enough to understand what she was doing. Alicia didn’t really sell the loss after either. She chased off Summer but then looked happy and started high fiving fans. Reminds me of when face Nikki Bella would come out and look excited for her 1 on 5 handicap match. Regardless, it’s nice to see the one person that WWE will let Summer beat more than once back. Although I do feel bad for Alicia too because like Summer, there’s really nothing wrong with her. My heart says that Summer will have some significance on the main roster but my brain says that we’ll be seeing Summer/Alicia on Superstars nearly every week. If that’s the case, at least give them like 8 minutes. This really wasn’t up to the standards that Summer Rae has held herself to this year though. Can’t get’em every week.
Recap of the GM unveiling on Raw followed by a recap of Ambrose vs Rollins from Smackdown.
Match #2
The Usos vs The Dudley Boyz
Bubba Ray beats down Jimmy Uso early. Jimmy goes for a crossbody but Bubba dodges it. Couple armdrags from Jimmy Uso and Dolph is starting to overstay his welcome on commentary. Jey gets the tag but gets clotheslined by Bubba. D-Von gets in and punches away at Jey. Big “we want tables” chant. Throat thrust by Jey takes down D-Von. Jimmy gets the tag but Bubba Ray runs into the match. Bubba accidentally takes out D-Von in the corner and then eats a double superkick. Back from the break and The Usos hit a double elbow drop on D-Von. Bubba trips up one of the Usos on the rope which gets pretty loud cheers. Bubba looks confused as hell. The crowd wants tables so Bubba goes outside and pulls up the apron. Then he pulls it right down and tells the crowd “YOU AIN’T GETTING NOTHING!”. Back in the ring D-Von hits a spinning uppercut to Jey Uso. Bubba gets in and grabs Jey by the hair and asks how many of his family members he can name. Bubba punches Jey in the head and dedicates each punch to a different family member, ranging from Afa, Sika, Snuka. “This one’s for Haku and he ain’t even related to you” as Bubba punches Jey again. Big splash from Bubba. Jey misses an enziguri and Bubba tags in D-Von. D-Von goes for a diving headbutt and misses. Jimmy Uso comes in and makes the comeback sequence for The Usos. Samoan drop by Jimmy. Flying crossbody to D-Von! Bubba makes a blind tag and the Dudleyz hit a reverse 3D for two. Dudleyz set up for 3D after a tag to D-Von but Jey runs in and hits both of them with superkicks. Jimmy climbs to the top and hits the splash off the ropes on D-Von, getting the win.
Thoughts
Bubba Ray was the MVP of this match. It was a fairly generic match but Bubba’s trash talking is just legendary and the teasing of the tables is always fun. Usos matches have just become so interchangeable. Rarely do they wrestle a bad match but they really only wrestle one kind of match other than some exceptions. They’re still very credible though and I think they’ll help the tag teams of Smackdown immensely. Dudleyz are still great after all these years. They’re not high flyers or mat technicians or anything but they’re just great brawlers that understand how to tell a story in the ring.
We get a quick recap of the draft to end this week’s Superstars.
Overall
Somewhat below average show this week. Summer vs Fox was a bit disappointing considering the great year Summer has had. And the Usos/Dudleyz tag match, despite having some fun moments, was fairly generic. It was nice seeing trash talk from the Ray & Rae connection though. Two of the best in terms of that. All in all it’s a pretty skippable week though. It seems that Superstars will now be Raw’s C show while Main Event will be Smackdown’s. This would be a great time to start incorporating small storylines into these shows.
