On Brand Segunda Caida: Goldust on WWE Main Event

Goldust vs. Seth Rollins 10/22/13

ER: Wow, I had never seen this match before, and I loved it! Goldust was absolutely on fire as a singles match babyface, and this match was filled with his perfectly timed and excellent offense. Rollins worked this match like he was Stevie Richards working HHH cosplay, which is infinitely better than whatever style Rollins has been working the past few years. Outside of a couple punches, an enziguiri, and a nice grounded headlock, literally every piece of Rollins' offense was just him sending Goldust into objects with an Irish whip. I counted no less than 8 Irish whips, into the buckles and into the ringside barricade, and goddamn is Goldust a great enough worker that he can easily work an incredibly compelling 12 minute match based around being run repeatedly into stationary objects. He's a great control babyface because he has great, dominating offense. I love when he shows off that he can outfast a smaller, younger heel: quick armdrags and hip toss, throws his best in the company punches, and he keeps fading classics like the atomic drop and the bulldog alive (while also executing them as well as they've ever been executed). Once the focus of the match becomes Rollins whipping him into the buckles, Goldust shows just how much mileage he can get just selling the fact that he ran into things. He uses it as a great opportunity to sell damage, while also leading to a great unexpected moment of offense: Rollins whips him in, charges after a delay, and - stumbling out of the corner - Goldust catches him with his finisher worthy quick rotation powerslam. The match easily could have ended there and it would have been great. Rollins is great at taking Goldust's masterful offense, and Goldust even gets revenge by whipping Rollins into the barricade, and even dishes out a snap suplex on the ground! The finish had some good shenanigans, with Reigns threatening to get involved, only to get waylaid by Cody. Rollins wins with a schoolboy, which isn't a finish that anyone would actually hope for, but credit to Rollins as it was a deeply sunk in, finish-worthy schoolboy. This was excellent.

Goldust vs. Ryback 12/3/13

ER: If you give Goldust 10+ minutes on TV, he's going to work a compelling match. He works his speed against Ryback, although Ryback can't take armdrags and his offense in general as well as Rollins in Goldust's prior Main Event match. But Goldust breaks out a few tricks he didn't use in that match, including his heavy crossbody off the middle buckle. Goldust was good at flummoxing the big guy, hits his great atomic drop and bulldog, and I loved when Ryback got knocked to the floor off a dropkick: Goldust walks out to the apron and stomps right on the big guy's hand, then slams his arm over the ring barricade. Suddenly Dust is working as Finlay against Ryback and it's the best. He really does a lot of the best Finlay qualities (and it's possible that just means "great at wrestling" qualities), like cutting low on clotheslines and also just hitting hard clotheslines. We get some fun arm work (doesn't go anywhere at all, but looks great while it's happening) with Dust dropping knees on the arm he smashed into the barricade. Ryback grounds Dust with a body vice - and I like body vices - but things go a little awry on a powerslam. Goldust rotates fast as usual, but he's typically not slamming guys Ryback's size so Ryback does not rotate as quickly, and kind of gets spiked while landing headfirst on Goldust's body. Oops. But Dust is a pro and easily gets the crowd into it, really knows how to do that "calm before final stretch" slow clap build better than anyone. When they spill to the floor again, we get an awesome moment where Curtis Axel makes his way over to interfere while Dust/Back are tussling on the ground, and Cody leaps over both and blasts Axel out of the frame with a superman punch. Goldust even gets the visual win over Ryback, hitting the curtain call, before Axel runs in for the full DQ. Pretty lame that we get an awesome 10 minutes of this singles match, building to a tag match, and the tag (taped later at these tapings for Smackdown) only gets 4 minutes. Still, I really dug this singles.