This week’s WWE Main Event was taped at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania before Monday’s episode of Raw.
One poor and one good match this week, but it was a show that had a variety of fresh faces and was all the better for it.
Veer & Sanga w/Jinder Mahal defeated Noam Dar & Oro Mensah w/ Lash Legend & Jakarta Jackson (6:02)
Despite there being a lot of people in and around the ring, that traffic didn’t translate into much of an exciting match. It was largely slow and methodical interspersed with sporadic moments of pace.
For a while there, Veer was a Main Event regular, but this was just his second Main Event appearance as part of Indus Sher. For Mensah, it was his Main Event debut, and he did well.
Jinder Mahal looks very comfortable in the elder statesman role because he’s a very experienced performer now who has worked at the top level and been in big title matches in the past.
Dar and Mensah tried their best to inject some action into the match, but it quickly became a series of slow double-team moves from Veer and Sanga, cutting the ring in half and using quick tags. Everything was made to look bigger than it was, with the camera kept low to make even an elbow drop look damaging.
Dar got a hot tag after Mensah had been destroyed for a while, but this was quickly thwarted as he and Mensah tried to get Veer off his feet. Veer reversed it into a double suplex in what was probably the highlight of the match.
In the end, Sanga held Dar up as if he was going to use a backbreaker while Veer came off the second rope with a leg drop and they got the win from there.
Ludwig Kaiser defeated Apollo Crews (7:11)
This was a much stronger match than the opener as Kaiser and Crews were great together. It was a genuine 50-50 bout with a real smoothness about how they worked.
While this match marked Kaiser’s Main Event debut, Apollo Crews has been here many, many times before. Yet, it was Crews’ first televised match since August, in a summer where he was a show regular.
They worked quickly together in the opening couple of minutes, but went to an early commercial break when Crews clotheslined Kaiser over the top rope to the floor.
When they came back, although there was a brief rest hold, it was all action as both men tried to get the win. Crews used a belly to back suplex to get some separation and as he was mid-air, Kaiser threw out out his hands in desperation. There’s a lot to like about Kaiser and his instincts are clearly very good.
After Crews hit his standing moonsault, he went up to the top rope. Kaiser had it scouted and nailed Crews with a kick to the head. At some point here Kaiser had bloodied his nose, but it made it look all the more cool when he hooked in his finisher and glared at the hard cam.
He held Crews a bit like you would for a Sister Abigail, but hooked his arm behind Crews’ neck so that he could transition into a DDT to get the win.
There was a lot to like and enjoy here but, sadly, I don’t think Kaiser is about to become a Main Event regular anytime soon.
