Quick Results
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* Battle Royal No. 1 contender match for the Intercontinental Championship
Justin Gabriel won the match
Order of Eliminations:
1.Jimmy Uso
2.Yoshi Tatsu
3.Epico
4.Jinder Mahal
5.The Great Khali
6.Jey Uso
7.Alex Riley
8.Santino Marella
9.Drew McIntyre
10.Primo
* Intercontinental Championship
Wade Barrett (c) defeated Justin Gabriel
Detailed Results
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WWE Main Event returned last night (April 17, 2013) on ION Television from the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, TN. Featuring a Battle Royal of jobbers to compete to be the #1 Contender to the Intercontinental Title and the IC Title Championship match thereafter.
The show opened with a ten man Battle Royal for the right to face Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Championship,featuring The Great Khali, Primo, Alex Riley, Santino Marella, Jimmy and Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre, Jinder Mahal, Yoshi Tatsu and Justin Gabriel. That's quite an assortment of characters! It was a paint by the numbers Battle Royal. There was a lot of time wasted just standing around, wrestlers became oddly weak when their opponents were on the precipice, and we even got the cliched "everyone gang up and push the big guy over" spot. Nothing new or groundbreaking, but the formula does work for a reason. It was an entertaining match for what it was.
Justin Gabriel would eventually earn the victory, sending Drew McIntyre over with the head scissors takedown and dodging Primo's final rush. Which, good for Gabriel! They guy has potential, and it's a damn shame WWE isn't using him correctly. Well, it's a damn shame WWE isn't using any of these jobbers hard workers correctly. How much money was standing in the ring last night? How much time and energy has WWE spent teaching and building up that talent, only for it to waste away? Fans want to care about wrestlers. But it's impossible to when the promotion itself doesn't give a flying duck.
The win earned Gabriel the right to lose to Wade Barrett later in the night with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Wade was supposed to win, but this bull[explicit] of alternating loses every week is killing him. It's incomprehensible why WWE would book him the way it does.
With all the shaming aside, the match was actually wicked entertaining. Wade is Wade, and his limited move set is not always the most fun thing to watch. But he does work well with the right opponent, and he plays the heel role well in the ring. On the other side, it was clear Gabriel is very, very green. He seemed to be a step behind Wade the entire match, late getting to his spots and not moving comfortably around the ring. It was a little discerning to watch, but once you got past it was easy to see the guy's potential. The point of Main Event should be to get lower talent like Gabriel experience before making it to SmackDown and hopefully Monday Night Raw. A few more matches like this for the South African.
