WWE Saint Petersburg, Russia House Show 4/25/2013

WWE Saint Petersburg, Russia House Show 4/25/2013

R-Truth vs Heath Slater

R-Truth won with his jumping reverse STO. The match was okay but mostly comedy. They posed multiple times and Truth did the "What's Up" phrase a ton. Both men then did tons of dances and then they had a basic match. Slater tried to cheat with a pin with his legs on the rope, which is shown above, the ref stopped him and he thought he won. Truth then hit his finisher for the win.

Tons of Funk vs Team Rhodes Scholars

Tons of Funk won with a Brodus Clay splash. As expected, this wasn't much. It was joined in progress and that's fine because this was all squash. It was interesting watching The Funkadactyl's steal The Bellas butt bump, which you can see above.

Antonio Cesaro vs Zack Ryder

Cesaro tried to get the crowd to stand up and cheer him beforehand. He then yodeled until Zack Ryder interrupted.

Zack Ryder got the win in a big upset with a Rough Ryder. The crowd was into Ryder and I really liked his transitional moves. I loved his neckbreaker counter off of a suplex and it was really surprising to see him win for a change. Cesaro did his usual offense too and was fun to watch. What I liked best about this is that they had the same match or better that they would have had on national tv. Rating:***

World Heavyweight Championship - Dolph Ziggler vs Daniel Bryan

Daniel Bryan won by DQ when Dolph Ziggler hit him with the belt. This was a lame finish to an otherwise very good match. Both men treated this as an important match and really put forth a great effort. They followed the classic match structure of starting small and working up to bigger things with some heeling in between. AJ Lee got kicked out after nailing DB and DB had this won with a No Lock. He went for a tope and Dolph cracked him with the belt for the DQ. This went around 19 minutes and was good. Rating:***1/2

John Cena and Team Hell No vs Dolph Ziggler, Big E Langston and Ryback
Zig and DB are working double duty tonight.

John Cena beat Dolph Ziggler with an FU. The big story here was Ryback and Big E having a staredown. E pushed Ryback and Ryback hit him with a meathook and left. This left the heels down a man and it cost them in the end. There was nothing special here but it wasn't bad or anything.
Overall thoughts: I liked this show. Zig/DB and Cesaro/Ryder were good and nothing was truly bad. The quality is totally watchable too, so this is worth a look on youtube.