The Main Events
Alberto Del Rio defeated Damien Sandow in a great back and forth contest that is pretty fresh for the viewers. The beginning of the night say ADR try and convince Vickie Guerrero to change the main event at Hell in a Cell. She does not and Sandow comes out to confront Del Rio. I thought this was great to expose Sandow at the very beginning of the night because he has been bottled down time and time again. He continues to lose and seems to be out of the minds of many fans. I really hope his promo, which was face friendly, is not a sign for things to come. I love Sandow because I can see him maturing into his character as champion. I do NOT think it translates well for a face. They tried it with Ziggler and, for some odd reason, he is falling down the ladder. I would rather see Sandow as a heel than a face. He has that old school mentality and promo ability that helps his character get booed ever so easily. Del Rio could take notes from him on how to cut a heel promo. The match ended with Del Rio making Sandow tap out. The pacing was fantastic. I counted six 2 count pinfalls in the last four minutes of the match. They kept up and had a logical booking type of match. It was one or two big moves and a pinfall. Another two or three moves and a pinfall. Sometimes that is all that you need to do with guys like these.
Grade: B
Cody Rhodes and Goldust defeated Luke Harper and Erick Rowan of The Wyatt Family. This was the best outing from the young guys since coming to WWE. They did not have much to work with before, battling Tons of Funk for consecutive weeks. Goldust was the victim of the beatings for the entire match. He took the blunt of the damage. We were able to see some versatility and shocking athleticism. I liked how they unleashed them a little bit. Luke Harper is growing on me because he knows how to do the little things. He knows what his character needs to be. He grunts and moans in such a creepy way that it makes Bray Wyatt laugh. This was a good part of the match because the maturity level is better than I gave them credit for. Cody got the hot tag and took over. He hit a diving crossbody onto Rowan, kicked Harper in the head, and was able to pick up the victory for his team. Goldust seems to be in the best shape of his life and you can tell WWE is going to put time and effort into Cody and Goldust.
Grade: B+
WWE Smackdown Grade: C
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*Where was Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, Triple H, The Shield, Big Show, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, and many more big names? Yes, I know they had a show in Abu Dhabi, but they really lacked big star power on this show. It helped some guys get much needed time like Sandow, but I felt like it was really a filler of a show.
