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TV Reports
WWE SUPERSTARS ROUNDTABLE REVIEWS 10/22: Caldwell, Mezzera, Parks rate and review Oct 23, 2009 - 10:35:44 PM
Not a very memorable or particularly star-driven episode of WWE Superstars. When the top star of the show is Matt Hardy, who has been taken pinfall after pinfall on Smackdown, then it's not a very strong episode. Seems to be a regular trend of not including a lot of star power on the Superstars before a PPV. Last week, you have Punk, Morrison, and Miz delivering the goods. This week it's Hardy, Truth, and the "who are they?" members of Team Smackdown. ("Who are they?" being a reference to Triple H knocking Escobar and McIntyre on Raw.)
That said, I liked what I saw from Eric Escobar and Drew McIntyre. Escobar is a combo of Rick Martel and JBL, I've determined. Big, brawling type with a little arrogance mixed in. McIntyre is like a 1996 Triple H with some Orlando Bloom. Very bright futures for both, leaning more toward Drew right now. They've only scratched the surface thus far.
ECW's offering was okay with the YMCA men's league basketball match-up of Goldust & Dreamer vs. Kozlov & Jackson. It was like watching four guys calling "foul" on every instance of contact while jockeying for position in the post. Dreamer took the beating in the match since he was the smallest man in the match, but he stood out the most for enhancing the heck out of Jackson and Kozlov in the post-match attack. I like the prospect of Goldust in a feud against Jackson and/or Kozlov just because Goldust is so agile right now that he can make an entertaining match with them. Goldust has a certain vibe to him right now that is highly marketable after that Sheamus feud.
Jon Mezzera, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.0)
Superstars this week gets a 6.0 for having one good Divas match (Kelly Kelly vs. Gail Kim) and for being an otherwise solid, but not particularly good show. I enjoyed watching a Divas singles match that was about 2 minutes longer than the average Divas Raw match which typically feature six to eight Divas instead of just two. Kelly and Kim delivered well in the ring. The two tag matches, Goldust & Tommy Dreamer vs. Ezekiel Jackson & Vladimir Kozlov and R-Truth & Matt Hardy vs. Drew McIntyre & Eric Escobar were perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with them, but they weren't really good. They weren't bad either, just ok. We can't get a great match on Superstars every week like last week's CM Punk vs. John Morrison. However, the overall quality of matches is usually a bit higher than this. Also, there weren't any storyline advancements this week so there isn't much to comment on.
Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (6.0)
It's really sad that Gail is losing to the likes of Kelly, but I guess WWE thinks Kelly is more marketable at this point, but I'd even argue that. Kim was the glue that held that relatively decent Divas match together. The ECW tag match was rough in spots, but it was nice to see Goldust get the pin on Kozlov and the big boys get their heat back. Still not sure where the tag program is going with no belts around.
Good win for Escobar and McIntyre, even if it was on Superstars. They needed all the rub they could get, being green rookies thrown into a PPV main event tag match. I don't know if WWE got cold feet or what and that was the reason pretty much the whole team was pulled from the match or what, but I'd rather see these new guys than Matt Hardy and Finlay in that spot.
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