Ricochet vs. Happy Corbin

In a match made backstage following Ricochet’s reaction to Pat McAfee’s recap of his win over Happy Corbin, The One and Only battled Corbin in singles competition to kick off Friday’s show.

Ricochet used his speed and agility to frustrate the former King of the Ring early but the bigger, stronger, former Golden Gloves boxer flattened him with a hard right hand to turn the tide in his favor entering the commercial break.

Corbin overwhelmed his opponent with his size advantage, delivering a torture rack neckbreaker for a count of two. Unfortunately, he allowed his vendetta against McAfee to distract him. Ricochet capitalized, delivered the Recoil and scored the win with the 630 splash.

This was a fun, somewhat unexpected way to kick off the show.

McAfee is so likable and is a mainstream media personality, so it would make sense that the creative team would want to capitalize on his popularity among the WWE fans and feature him early.

It came at the expense of a top heel who is perpetually over with fans and featured Ricochet, one of the many underutilized talents of his generation, scoring a much-needed win.

The One and Only is one of Triple H’s guys dating back to his days in NXT. He is the former United States and Intercontinental champion but somehow, feels like he has only scratched the surface of what he is capable of achieving in WWE

His utilization in hyping the crowd off and creating energy from the opening match may prove telling of the new Head of Creative’s plans for him moving forward.

Result: Ricochet pinned Corbin

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