As we get closer to WrestleMania, we’re about to culminate some of the biggest WWE stories of the year. On Main Event, though, it tends to be business as usual no matter what time it is, so let’s check out what the show had to offer this week.
Tyler Breeze vs. EC3
Here, we had a bout between a man who says he is the face of Main Event (Tyler), akin to Stevie Richards for Heat circa 2003-2004, and a man who presumably hopes that his stint on the recap show is brief (EC3). EC3 was fairly over with the fans here, even if it’s difficult to determine if he’s supposed to be a face or a heel right now. As for Breeze, he was sporting a new hairstyle and new ring attire here, which I guess freshens his act up a bit while we wait for Fandango to recover from injury. It amused me that some of EC3’s fake tan stained the canvas at the very beginning of a long TV taping. After surviving a superkick, EC3 hit an inverted DDT and a Headlock Driver for the victory.
Highlights aired of Asuka vs. Charlotte from SmackDown, as well as a reminder of how the Roman Reigns-Drew McIntyre rivalry has escalated on Raw. We also had a run-down of the current card for WrestleMania 35; it isn’t exactly Mean Gene Okerlund in the Event Center, but it’ll suffice.
Heavy Machinery vs. The Ascension
The main event of, erm, Main Event tends to be two segments of around 7-8 minutes, which gives the impression that you get a 16-minute match (almost 20 if you include commercials when shown on the likes of Sky Sports). However, the entrances take up more than three minutes in total, and the post-match scenes can last for around two minutes, so in reality, it’s more like a sub-ten minute encounter from bell to bell. With that random observation out of the way, we come to the match, which was very similar to previous encounters between the two teams. Whether that’s a positive or a negative is down to personal opinion, though it doesn’t seem like these sides have much in the way of chemistry. But Ascension are a heel team, and I guess that warrants these bouts happening. Renee Young may have been exaggerating when describing HM as “hilarious”, though they are getting over, with fans very much behind them here. Heavy Machinery claimed victory over Viktor with the Compactor. Also, Renee said she’d give twenty bucks to Otis if he did the Caterpillar, which he did execute; I wonder if he got his cash.
We had footage of The New Day running the tag team Gauntlet on SmackDown, thus confirming Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston at WrestleMania, to close out this episode.
If you missed Main Event this week, you didn’t miss much. We’re at the stage of WrestleMania Season where WWE just wants to get through its remaining TV shows now, so the likes of Main Event will receive even less attention than usual. It wasn’t bad to watch, but it epitomised the word “filler” during WWE’s most hectic time of the year.
