SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
The following report was originally published on PWTorch.com five years ago this weekend…
WWE European Tour results
May 14, 2014
Glasgow, Scotland
Report by Gary Sansome, PWTorch reader
WWE’s first show at the new 13,000-seat Glasgow Hydro was very impressively sold out.
The show opened with Justin Roberts telling the crowd that World Hvt. champion Daniel Bryan would not be there (loud boos). Interestingly, my friend’s son was desperate for a Bryan t-shirt, but the only kids t-shirts available were for John Cena. Lots of kids in Cena t-shirts, but I wonder how many wanted Bryan shirts.
After Roberts’s announcement, Randy Orton stormed the ring and called out Roman Reigns, who he referred to as the leader of The Shield. The sound on the mic was very poor all night and it was difficult to hear what Orton said or his music very well. Reigns came out and we had the first match ready to go.
(1) Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns went to a No Contest. Nothing match to set up the main event. Rybaxel stormed the ring and Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins made ran in to make the save.
This brought out Raw GM Brad Maddox (remember him?). He ruled that Rybaxel would face Ambrose and Rollins right now and Orton would face Reigns in the main event in a steel cage!
(2) The Shield (Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose) beat Ryback & Curtis Axel. The match was just okay. The highlight was a Shield double suicide-dive at the close. Rollins then pinned Axel after a jumping head stomp. Rybaxel were not particularly over and their offense was pretty plodding, which hurt the match. Ryback looked gassed and at one point was holding himself up on the ropes while Axel was the legal man.
Next was a fatal four-way for the Intercontinental Title. Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger came out first. Zeb said it was good to be in Ireland, which drew boos. (England would have gotten bigger heat.) Zeb said American Football was the only real Football, then hr brought out an American Football, which Swagger played with. Strong pop for Rob Van Dam, little for Big E., and Bad News Barrett came out. Good mic work slagging off Scotland, which set him up well as a heel. A bit sad that the act getting the biggest pop was for nostalgia reasons.
(3) IC Champion Wade Barrett beat Jack Swagger (w/Zeb Colter), Rob Van Dam, and Big E. in a four-way match to retain the Intercontinental Title. The match started with Big E. and RVD teaming up on Swagger – is that not what the devious heels do? Overall, the match was all action and decent fun. Barrett pinned Swagger after pushing RVD out of the way following a Five-Star Frogsplash to Swagger. Also during the match, RVD did Rolling Thunder, Big E. did the Big Ending, and Swagger applied the Patriot Lock, so decent key spots were hit.
(4) Mark Henry “beat” Fandango in a dance contest. Brad Maddox asked the crowd to cheer for a dance-off or a match. Dance-off won a vote, which the crowd booed. Great pop for Henry coming out and Fandango had the crowd humming some, but not much overall. For the dance-off, Henry danced to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and was handed a Michael Jackson glove, which he tried a number of times and failed to get on his hand as the glove was too small! Henry dancing was good fun. Henry seemed to win this, but it was never clarified. Fandango attacked Henry during his dancing and a bell rang as if a match were starting since there was a referee there. Henry quickly did the World Strongest Slam and that was the end of that (but no pinfall). Henry got a kid from the crowd and dance to Billy Jean with him. It will be hard sleeping tonight not knowing who won the dance-off as it was never announced.
(5) Rusev (w/Lana) crushed Sin Cara. Cara got a decent pop, which was nice. Lana came out and talked about Vladimir Putin, who was heavily featured in the Titantron package more so than Rusev. No one seemed to care or notice. Rusev then won the match with a Camel Clutch.
(6) Big Show beat Kane in a Last Man Standing match. The action was plodding until they got tables, chairs, and the Singapore cane involved. They had a decent match thereafter. Big Show won after putting Kane through a table.
After the match, Kane chokeslammed Brad Maddox after he came out to stop Kane from chokeslamming the referee. Not sure why heel Kane was doing that, but there you go.
[Intermission]
(7) NXT champion Adrian Neville beat Bo Dallas to retain the NXT Title. Great bonus match here. The speed they worked at was a huge contrast to the rest of the show. Neville did a great triple somersault plancha and won with the very impressive Corkscrew Shooting Star Press. The crowd unsurprisingly was not that into this as they didn’t know who the wrestlers were, but the best action of the night.
(8) Divas champion Paige & The Funkadactyls beat Layla & Tamina Snuka & Rosa Mendes in a six-Divas tag match. Paige got a good response, but since it was a six-Divas match, she didn’t get to do much. She did the pin to win, but a singles match would have been better. The Funkadactyls wanted to dance with Paige after the match. She genuinely seemed embarrassed, but did a quick little dance and got out of there.
(9) Roman Reigns beat Randy Orton in a steel cage main event. Reigns won with the spear. Interesting to see Reigns in a main event singles match. I thought Orton did a great job carrying him to a good match. There was a botched spot with Reigns going for the spear into what was supposed to be Orton’s snap powerslam, but they both missed each other. To me, at this point, Reigns doesn’t seem to quite have the intensity or experience to carry main event match yet. Orton really led the match. In fairness to Reigns, he hasn’t been pushed in singles and it was a good match, so not a bad sign. The climax was Reigns going to escape when Rybaxel ran in, slammed the cage in Reigns’s face, locked the cage, and began a three-on-one beat down. Rollins and Ambrose then ran in. Rollins did a spectacular cross-body from the top of the cage onto Rybaxel. Orton then RKO’d Rollins, but turned round into the spear for the 1-2-3!
FINAL THOUGHTS: Decent fun. The show suffered from quite a flat crowd. With the booking, WWE simply does not have enough over acts to run two hot shows a night. The crowd gave good pops to the acts, but little noise for the in-ring stuff, unfortunately.
With Bryan being out and no Cena or Wyatts, the show definitely lacked star power, but with the Last Man Standing and Cage matches, they put on a good show overall and deserve credit for that.
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