WWE Main Event Review - January 14, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Cedric Alexander def. Eric Young

Remember when Alexander was positioned as a star on the rise on Raw and was feuding with AJ Styles over the United States Championship? It's a shame to see how far he's fallen. Sure, he's still winning on Main Event (most weeks, anyway), but much like Mojo Rawley, that doesn't mean much of anything. For what it's worth, this was a nice little match with a fun, frantic pace. Young looked good in defeat and the crowd was into Alexander's offense. As much as I love the Lumbar Check, it was cool to Alexander win with an alternate finisher (the Neuralyzer) for a change.

Shelton Benjamin def. Akira Tozawa

Tozawa and Benjamin are squashed so often on Raw that isn't easy to forget they're really talented. They were given more time than I thought would be here and made the most of it. There was a weird transition or two down the stretch, but otherwise, this was an enjoyable encounter that the crowd surprisingly wasn't entirely quiet for. By the way, would WWE giving Benjamin his old entrance theme back be too much to ask for?

Overall Show

The days of Main Event hosting must-see matches are long gone, but I'm all for episodes like this featuring two well-wrestled matchups with underappreciated athletes. Neither match will remembered a week from now, but I don't regret watching them, either. It'd be better if these guys were given more opportunities on Raw, even though I'm aware that will likely never happen. Meanwhile, the Raw and SmackDown replays were fine and covered all the key storylines from the last week in WWE.