Ups…
3. Solid Tag-Team Showcase
At first, War Raiders vs. Fraxiom looked like it might be Erik and Ivar eating Axiom and Nathan Frazer alive in 90 seconds (because the latter didn’t even get an entrance), but this turned out to be one of the better matches on the show. Sure, it remains to be seen if there’s anything to this Raiders reprieve on the main roster, but they looked decent here. As usual, the tag-teams deserve better on SmackDown. However, everyone worked hard and did well to make something of this by sucking the live crowd in come the end.
What a fab near fall on a Phoenix Splash from Frazer too. The crowd bought that one as the finish.
Wade Barrett and Joe Tessitore went above and beyond to present the Raiders as a simplified, no-frills version of themselves. Will it work and lead them to tag glory on SmackDown? Again, the jury is out on that. They’d need to oust Damian Priest and R-Truth as champs first, but that comedy double act has been sucking wind for a while now. Anything’s achievable if WWE really knocks heads together creatively and sticks to a plan.
Triple H surely saw enough from Erik and Ivar here to suggest they’d be excellent heel linchpins for a revamped division. Axiom and Frazer likely deserve some proper storytelling to sink their teeth into as well – they consistently do their best no matter what’s put in front of them, whether as a duo or individually.
This was better than it probably had any right to be, not least when WWE has deleted the third hour that’d normally make matches like this more commonplace.
