The Odyssey Arena was full to burst with a sold out crowd on Wednesday night as the WWE came to town for another night of wrestlin…sorry….Sports Entertainment. Surprisingly we opened with the upper mid carders, Antonio Cesaro –The King of Swing – took on Dolph Ziggler. Usually when the WWE come to town they kick off with a couple of up and comers but using these two as the opener ensured a hot crowd from the first bell. A 13 revolution swing by Cesaro later and Ziggler went down for the 3 count. The set has been vastly improved this time with 2 large screens above the entrance, a split video wall for the superstars to enter through and a raised entry point make it feel much more like an episode of Raw you see on TV and less like the “house shows” of old. WWE have finally woken up to the fact that you can’t half ass it just because it’s not on TV. The Odyssey must have 10k+ people in tonight, that’s as many as any Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus gig, and you wouldn’t get them showing up without their entire production. Frustratingly they still don’t make proper use of the side screens by showing the action on it, for the people in the cheap seats. The screens are only used for entrance packages, ah well maybe next time. The Bellas defeat Alicia Fox and Arksana when Nikki…or Brie… executes the X-factor(not sure the Bellas name for this) and secures the pin. This match was decent and shows with a little more time the Divas can put on a decent show, but as usual the crowd is decidedly flat throughout. Alicia does her crazy schtik after the match, in keeping with her current story line, and I think it’s nice they’re at least including these little bits and pieces in the house shows.
Damien Sandow draws heat a soon as he’s through the curtain by telling the crowd that although he expected the European audiences to be less advanced than Americans, he’s surprised just how bad we are. He then does a redo of his entrance so people can cheer more and boo less. Surprisingly it kind of works as there are decidedly more cheers on his second entrance. Sami Zayn is he opponent and it seemed not many people were familiar with him. A few exciting spots later and as Sandow was flapping his gums at the crown Sami scooped him up with the school boy pin and he had the crowd thoroughly behind him. One to watch out for in the future I think. The Wyatt Family vs Usos was a great match as the Usos were firm favourites from the off, the amount of their T-Shirts I sawwhe walking about tell you how hot they currently are, and rightly so. Their famous mid rope suicide dive to the outside resulted in one of the biggest pops of the night and when the Wyatts won the belts through cheating the crowd nearly revolted. Luckily Carrickfergus man Finlay came out and informed the ref and he restarted the match and the Usos secured the 1,2,3 in record time to win them back.
After a short intermission (where you could buy £25 T-shirts and £15 programs!!!) R-Truth and Xavier Woods fought 3MB to the win, I wasn’t much interested in this match to be honest so used the time to get a drink at the previously impenetrable bar. Ireland’s own Sheamus defeated Del Rio to retain his US Title belt in a decent “big man” match. The crowd firmly behind Sheamus the whole way. The usual mix of cheers and boos met John Cena as he came out to Take on Bray Wyatt, Brays creepy entrance played brilliantly live and a sea of people holding their lit up mobile phones emerged as fans showed their support. Cena’s win resulted in a very similar reaction as Wyatts sister Abigale wasn’t enough to take down the WWE stalwart. All in all a great show, with decent to great wrestling through-out. The improvements to the live experience are appreciated and my only grumble would be the absence of a few more big names at the top of the card.
