WWE Superstars TV Report – 19st September 2014

Noteworthy: Harper and Rowan made their Superstars debut. Sin Cara and Justin Gabriel had their rubber match. This week it felt like a show that was actually relevant.

Luke Harper & Erik Rowan beat Los Matadores (w/ El Torito) in 4:57

With no space on Raw for them, Harper and Rowan were relegated to a tag match here on Superstars. Because of course Raw, Monday, was so good what with it being packed FULL of all those great segments and matches…

Erik Rowan and Fernando start things off and Fernando is quick to do his signature hand to the face as he halts the offense of Rowan, thrusts his arm in the air and shouts, “ole!” This kind of comedy really works with the bigger guys. A buffoonish Rowan is then caught unawares by a backslide pin attempt but immediately gets up, catches Fernando and hits a fall away slam.

Harper tags in and goes for a quick pin and continues to cut off Fernando from making the tag. He hits a huge boot that looked like it sucked for two and then went for the gator roll and then a rear chin lock. With a fairly woeful enzuigiri, that pretty much hit the enormous Luke Harper on the shoulder, the tag to Diego is made. He runs wild, hits a drop toe hold onto the middle rope and a top rope senton, but is stymied when the pin is broken up Rowan.

Fernando comes in to take out Rowan and they both tumble to the outside, meanwhile Diego gets up and takes the meat hook clothesline from Harper for the pin. This kind of felt like half a match; the finish came a little too early and I would have had no issue with these four going 8 minutes. Not that it’s anything of much but El Torito barely did a thing here.

Sin Cara beat Justin Gabriel in 8:17

This was their third match in as many weeks with last week’s probably being their best. Things got a little bit shaky and sloppy at the end of this but this was completely acceptable given some of the standard of work that this show sometimes produces. What was really nice, too, was that the announcers took time early in the show to acknowledge the feud and the quality of the matches (with video clips) that they’d had so far kind of gave it some build up. You know, like a proper wrestling show.

Gabriel comes straight out of the blocks with chops, forearms, kicks and just about anything that a good dastardly heel ought to be trying. I have to say that Gabriel looks infinitely more comfortable as a heel: he carries himself better, he has a better move set, he’s got good facials and, although they won’t, is really somebody that they could do something with. Put him in with Rollins or Ambrose and you’d genuinely get really good results.

Sin Cara returns the favour and now uses just about everything he can think of to beat down Gabriel. They try hard to make it look like this is the blow off in the time that they’re given. He hits a cross body into the corner and then tries several roll up pins, followed by an enzuiguri which Gabriel sold, just kicking out at 2 7/8’s.

Sin Cara’s double underhook suplex is blocked and he wriggles out and really lays in some chops in the corner and then an angry Sin Cara scoop slams him for two. He goes to the top rope for a dive but gets caught by a boot from Gabriel, both men go down and we go to a break.

Gabriel uses a snap mare followed by repeated kicks to the back of Sin Cara and goes for several quick pins. He then even tries pulling the mask off and just grins from ear to ear to the boos that the crowd shower on him. A la Hunter, he puts Sin Cara in an abdominal stretch but nothing in this match is given long so Sin Cara hits a suplex and then picks up Gabriel off the mat and smacks him back down in a powerbomb. It’s a move he’s done a few times before but really makes him look strong.

Both men go down for a count of six and then Sin Cara starts to go home. He uses two springboard cross bodies, a tilt-a-whirl headscissors and an enzuigiri before climbing to the top rope to hit a senton. It looks like the finish but Gabriel grabs the rope at the last split second. He recovers quickly, gets angry, goes to the top rope for his 450 splash but is crotched and Sin Cara hits a frankensteiner into a pin for the win. The pin was sloppy as it took them too long to get into position but the match was really good.