WWE Superstars Review - July 31, 2014

Alberto Del Rio takes control of Justin Gabriel.

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Alberto Del Rio def. Justin Gabriel

This marked Del Rio's third appearance on Superstars in the last month. Is he slowly becoming the new face of the Thursday night program? Not to mention that this was the guy who was involved in the main event of the Money in the Bank pay-per-view for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at the end of June. You have to assume Del Rio is just counting the days until his contract expires. Anyway, this was a pretty good matchup as the two had similar styles and they worked well together. I couldn't tell you the last time Gabriel was on any WWE show (aside from NXT), so it was nice to see him even in a losing effort. Del Rio playing to the crowd at various points was interesting, but I'm sure it's gotten to the point where he doesn't care whether he stays within character or not especially on a throwaway show such as Superstars.


The Slater Gators def. Zack Ryder and Sin Cara

On paper, I figured this would be the same exact match we saw on Main Event this week, but it ended up being much more fun than it had any right to be. The action was enjoyable and the live crowd was hot for a lot of what Ryder did. It the most motivated I've seen him in a long, long time. Even Sin Cara held up his end of the bargain well. The match was done to establish the team of Heath Slater and Titus O'Neil, but as I've said before, the two have zero chemistry together and it feels like a randomly paired team to me. At least they had a nice match on this show.

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Overall Show

Based off the matches that were advertised, you'd think this would have been a mediocre episode. It actually ended up being one of the best in recent memory. Both matches, while inconsequential, were well wrestled and fun to watch. I skipped through the Raw recaps and if you do take the time to watch the two matches from this show, I'd suggest you do the same. It makes the experience much more enjoyable and quicker.