Wrestling’s 4R’s Tuesday Edition 06.30.09: WWE Smackdown, TNA Impact and The Bash!

Posted by Larry Csonka on 06.30.2009

Chris Jericho pulls double duty at The Bash, Punk is a jerk, Rage in the Cage, the Main Event Mafia runs wild on Impact and much more! Wrestling's 4R's breaks down all the action from Impact, Smackdown and THE BASH!

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In HD where available…


By: Jeremy Thomas

iMpact! 06.25.09:

THE RIGHT:

SCOTT STEINER vs. ROBERT ROODE: To start with, I would rather hear the regular Mafia music then Steiner's stupid-ass siren music playing when he walks to the ring. Just had to get that out. Scott and Robby had a pretty good match here, and certainly one of the best matches on iMpact this week. Roode and Steiner worked very well off each other once the bell rang and while this wasn't exactly PPV quality it worked fine as a television match to work on the rivalry between the two teams. Steiner, frankly, needed to get a win here to look like a threat to me, he's been little more than a MEM hanger-on for a while now and so I was okay with him winning, it's not like it hurt Roode any. It was a little slow in parts and the finish was sort of an out-of-nowhere thing, but otherwise this worked perfectly fine and I was happy with it.

BOOKER T vs. JAMES STORM: During Booker's entrance, Tenay and West talked all about Sharmell's just-made match against Jenna at Victory Road. Yeah, that's a match that people are going to buy the pay-per-view to see. Storm came out on the Boozer Cruiser, which is twelve shades of awesome, and then got into the ring for the bell to ring. This was the match that I had greater expectations between the two matches involving BMI because—well, frankly, Booker's better in the ring than Steiner. Storm and Booker started off very nicely and had some good exchanges. It dropped a bit in the middle portion of the match when it seemed to get disjointed, but otherwise I enjoyed this match through until the end when Sharmell gave Booker the beer bottle to nail Storm with. I didn't much like this booking and felt that, if Steiner beat Roode cleanly earlier than Storm should have beat Booker cleanly on this one. However it didn't drag the match down so much that I didn't enjoy it, and while this could have again been longer this one stays solidly in the Right.

THE ANGLE & STING DEVELOPMENTS/MAIN EVENT TALKIE BIT: Midway through the show we had Borash backstage with Angle, who promised he'd deal with Foley regarding the tag title match next week and said that he was the godfather of the Main Event Mafia, not Sting. Borash coincidentally got a text message at that moment about Sting on his way to the arena to get some answers from Kurt. This was left alone until the main event interview…but we'll get to Angle and Sting in a moment. First was A.J. Styles, who was chilling in the ring waiting for us to come back. The crowd was chanting for AJ as he called out "Mr. Nation of Violence," who made his way down to the ring with the black towel on his head. AJ asked him if he did it all for the money; I'm not a huge Bizkit fan, but I would have marked hard if Joe had said "No…I did it all for the nookie." AJ cut a pretty decent promo here, playing the betrayed and angry hero. Joe implied to AJ that it was Nash who got to him and then AJ attacked, which brought Matt Morgan down and then Daniels to make the save. The rest of the MEM came down and beat the snot out of the two X-Division pioneers. This worked pretty well actually, because AJ threw out all of his anger at being betrayed but Joe didn't really give any explanation; I'm concerned that they may try to delve too deeply into this and make "It was all about the money" make sense when I'd rather they just let it go and focus on Joe getting over as a heel.

In the midst of the Mafia's beat down on AJ and Daniels, Sting came down in the worst trench coat known to man. He climbed in the ring as the Mafia climbed out of it and got on the mic. Sting said he expected it of Angle, but not the other Mafia members. He tore down Joe and called him the reason that the Mafia was started. I'll give them credit in putting Sting in this position because no one has experience in being betrayed better than him. He then asked Kevin where he stood because he was most disappointed with Kevin than anyone else. Sting brought up the Wolfpac, which gets him a couple points from me, and Kevin then delivered a nice, strong promo about how he stood up for Sting time and again, but Sting's plan isn't working and Kurt's is. I have to give Nash credit, he absolutely sold the emotion here and delivered one of the best promos I've seen from him in a long time. Of course, it ended in a beat down of Sting, although he was smart enough not to trust Nash this time around and had a second bat. This was a strong way to end the show, and was honestly the strongest part of the show.

PURGATORY:

THE MAIN EVENT MAFIA REVEALS ALL: Before the big interview segment we saw Lauren trying and failing to get an interview while Kurt and Joe met in the parking garage and hugged. The Mafia then came down to the ring with Angle in front, minus the Stinger. Kurt introduced himself as the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion, and may I say that Kurt with a beard looks absolutely bizarre. Kurt introduced Joe, who was still getting mostly cheered by the iMpact Zone crowd with only scattered boos. Now, the challenge here was to make Joe's turn and joining of the MEM make sense. They had to find a way to make it all work and be believable. I have to say, they didn't do such a great job. Apparently it all came down to money, and Jenna had it. I'm okay with the ruse that Joe had taken out Nash, Steiner and Booker in order to put one over on everyone…that's perfectly fine. But the "well, we were able to meet Joe's price tag thanks to Jenna" seemed like a retcon after the fact to me. It sounds like a half thought-out way to cover for the turn and not a real, solid reason that was booked in advance. It's good enough for government work I suppose, and if they don't try to delve too much into it I'd be willing to let it go.

After Kurt was done, Foley came down to the ring and said he didn't need an explanation, just a rematch. Kurt made fun of Foley a bit for being emotional after the match, and this part carried off a fair amount better. Kurt was solid on the mic and Foley sold the emotion nicely and made his case for why he should have the rematch. Angle set Foley up to make a deal with the Mafia and it kept Foley in that tweener area. I liked this part and it evened the overall segment out from any problems with the opening portion. As it stands, I'm taking a "wait and see" position here.

NEXT UP FOR BEER MONEY…: beer Money came out with the TNA Tag Team Titles they won at Slammiversary to put themselves over, celebrate a little bit and give Team 3D their due. I've really dug on the rivalry between Beer Money and Team 3D and I was actually not finding a problem with a rematch between the two for Victory Road; alas, this was not meant to be since apparently we needed to have more into the Main Event Mafia takeover. Booker T and Scott Steiner are apparently challenging BMI for the belts at Victory Road…or at least, that's what I gathered based on what I could understand of Booker and Steiner's promo. Now, I've been critical of Steiner's promo ability before because the man rushes and stammers his way through promos worse than Batista. Chalk another rushed and stammered promo up to the board. Seriously Scotty, you've been delivering interviews and promos for about two decades now. Do you think at any point you could learn how to do it right? Meanwhile Booker…fuck dude, I'm sorry but pick an accent between the New York City street hood or South African. Alternating between the two just sounds silly.

Now, with all that being said, I don't have a problem with Beer Money having new challengers while Team 3D battles the British Invasion, and Steiner and Booker definitely have the tag credentials to make a legit-seeming challenge. And Storm and Roode did a great job on the microphone for their parts. If this feud is carried right on toward Victory Road I can seriously get into it, they just need to keep Scotty off the microphone. We also got Team 3D coming down to pretty much echo what I was thinking about not being able to understand the MEM team and saying they were going to make Foley an offer they couldn't refuse, which ended up later getting them a match with Steiner and Booker for the title shot at Victory Road. It'll make a decent match for sure if given enough time, though I fully expect Team 3D to lose the match thanks to the Invasion. Either way TNA is giving tag team wrestling more of a spotlight with one two-hour show than the ‘E is giving with six hours of programming, and that deserves some credit.

THE JARRETT/FOLEY FEUD CONTINUES: Early in the show, Jeff Jarrett spoke with Tenay and West via the (obviously recorded) phone, and basically said that things have gone far enough and it was time for them to resolve their differences once and for all next week. Later in the show when asked about it, Foley said that he was willing to reconcile and will listen to an apology from Jeff. They played a little light humor off Mick saying there had been too many implications of intent between them, but then saying Jeff had implied he'd apologize. Listen, as long as this storyline actually ends, I'm happy with how it turns out. That's not to say I've had huge problems with the way the JJ/Foley feud's gone, but the whole thing is too damn convoluted and all the storylines are merged together and it's just leading to booking messes. End a few elements of the whole Main Event Mafia/TNA angle and make this all a bit cleaner and I think everyone will be happy.

THE WRONG:

BROTHER RAY vs. BRUTUS MAGNUS: The opening match on iMpact was billed as a New York City Street Fight, and began with Brother Ray jumping Magnus from behind to get to the early advantage. Ray was selling the intensity of the match pretty well as he controlled the early moments before Magnus turned it around for a moment. This match could have had some potential to it, but it was cut disgustingly short and never even began to get off the ground; it essentially boiled down to Ray beating on Magnus for a couple of minutes before the British Invasion and their foreign allies busted into the ring and beat the snot out of Ray. In addition, Magnus's one offense move was a badly exposed miss of a double axe-handle while they were in the crowd. I suppose the point here was to let the Invasion get one over on Team 3D via the screwy finish, but even that was only so effective since Devon made the save and the lasting image was Kiyoshi being put through the table. The two minutes worth of match quite frankly sucked, and sucked hard, making this a pretty ugly opening to the show.

ABYSS vs. KEVIN NASH: For those who don't know, I'm quite a fan of Abyss, and I think that much like Kane he's generally been poorly used by the promotion he works for. That aside he can really go in the ring, but let's face it, he can't carry someone like Nash to a good match, especially when it's short and booked as poorly as this. They did the thing I really hate by starting the match in progress, which as I said a few weeks ago on the Raw R's really makes a match feel disjointed. This was just slow, plodding and not in any way good. The crowd stayed into it by virtue of Nash's ability to draw heat but otherwise it was poorly executed and basically served as a reason for Dr. Stevie to get one over on Abyss at the finish. Neither guy in the ring got over one bit, and I hated the goofy sound effects and smoke from the tazer. I don't know if that's really how a tazer would work because I've never seen anyone get tazed, but I'm pretty damned sure that you wouldn't be able to hear that tazer louder than the theme music and the crowd. Poor match, poor booking, and all in all a poor segment.

DAFFNEY vs. TAYLOR WILDE: Okay, so I'm going to start off by saying this. A 10,000 Thumbtacks match should be a brutal and hardcore match that fans should anticipate and be excited over. A three-minute match in iMpact is not going to live up to something like that. It wouldn't be possible for the greatest hardcore icons in the history of the business to make a great match out of a three-minute thumbtack match. Daffney is actually one of my favorite women's wrestlers of all time, on par with MsChif, Trish, Lita and Victoria. And she and Taylor managed to make this match as good as it could have been given the circumstances, but it was still a three-minute match of which a minute was them either trying to get the bad down or trying to get it open. If TNA would just cut down on the crash TV crap with the cut-scene segments throughout the show they could give matches like this more time and they could actually be something worth the efforts of the people competing in them. Daffney (or Taylor, for that matter) shouldn't have to wear thumbtacks for a match that's going to be forgotten in a couple weeks at most, and that's a problem.

THE RIDICULOUS:

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE AND TARA (BY PROXY, ANYWAY: I almost didn't include this because it was too short to mean anything. But that's my point here, it was too short and it was completely pointless. We have Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne in a little sorority setting talking about how wrestlers from another promotion aren't going to get in on their turf, and then found out Tara was short for Tarantula. I suppose that makes sense with the whole "Widow's Peak," but did we really have to go there? Couldn't we have just called her Tara, let the subtlety stand for itself and move on, maybe nickname her "The Black Widow" to drive the point home? Apparently we couldn't, because we needed to have it make sense why a tarantula happened to suddenly appear on Madison's shoulder out of nowhere. Yeah, because a creepy pet worked so well for Black Reign, right? This could have been done more efficiently another way, this segment was pointless and didn't advance anything. This is the kind of crap we need to cut out and put into the matches, folks. And also, if we see a "Tarantula on a Pole" match, it's Russo-lynching time.

The 411

I know it appears as if I griped a lot about this show, and there was a hell of a lot to gripe about. The matches were mostly lackluster and cut way too short, not all of the promos and angle advancement worked and this is the kind of show that a WWE fanatic would point at as to exactly why TNA is behind the WWE consistently. That said, what did work, worked well and despite the problems there were some things to like this week. I'm hopeful as to where some things are going and if they can just quit shooing themselves in the foot with short pointless matches and the like then TNA could be gaining ground on a weekly basis.

SHOW RATING: 6.0

---

By: Jeremy "NOT LARRY CSONKA" Thomas

WWE SmackDown 06.26.09

THE RIGHT:

JOHN MORRISON vs. CM PUNK: Okay, so let's see if I can follow this. John Morrison and CM Punk had a lengthy set of feuds where Morrison was a heel and Punk was a face. Then Morrison turned face and teamed with Punk a few times without any problems as if they'd been friends for years. Now, Punk is turning heel and they're facing off again. Yeah, okay…if you guys say so. Only in wrestling, folks. Anyway, this was simply an excellent match between two people who know each other quite well. They started off civilly enough and began feeling each other out. They built this up slowly into becoming something really special, and a clear contender for Free TV Match of the Year. This match, much like the one with Edge last week, went a long way toward making Morrison a serious star on the Blue Brand. He looked competitive and very good in the ring with a multiple-time World Champion for the second week in a row, and this week he even won. In doing so though he also made Punk look damn good, and while some may say that a loss to Morrison is not a good sign for the World Heavyweight Champion, I think this did little damage to Punk's credibility…or at least, a lot less damage than it did Morrison good. And that's exactly what SmackDown needs right now, as thin as its main event face talent roster is. This match could have easily moved above the four-star range if it had gone on for a little longer, but as it was it worked amazingly well. It wasn't fantastically flashy, it was just great, solid wrestling from two guys in a match that helped them both out—Morrison in his cred and Punk in his heel turn considering the after-match events where he G2S'd Morrison instead of shaking his hand. Great stuff by both guys and I came away from this match very pleased.

CHRIS JERICHO & EDGE vs. REY REY & JEFF HARDY: Just a little before this match, Josh Matthews was backstage with Jericho who continued his line of thinking regarding his opponent at THE Bash, Rey Rey. Jericho said that Rey was an addict, Jericho was going to save him, the whole usual bit. It's all well and good and as I said it's nice to see this slight change to his character, but this is basically the same thing he said last week and the week before. Consistency is good…but change it up Chris, all right?

By the time the cage came down and we were ready to go, there was still a good twenty minutes left on the show. That's a very good sign. Special guest referee CM Punk came down first in a ref shirt to an increasingly mixed reaction, after which Day-Glo came down in a new face paint design that was actually working pretty well. Rey came down next to a big ol' crowd pop, and then came Jericho and Edge to a pretty strong reaction each. By the time the entrances were done we had about fifteen minutes to go and the four men used that time very well to deliver a Blue Brand-worthy main event. We had some really fun spots like Rey using Edge as a ladder to get to the top. This wasn't quite as good as Punk/Morrison but it sold the two big PPV matches from the Blue Brand nicely as all four men looked good in the ring here. The end was very good and had Day-Glo being distracted by Punk, which allowed Edge to get the three-count for the win. This was four guys who are helping make SmackDown THE professional wrestling brand to watch performing at some of their highest output and it made for some great TV, hard-selling THE Bash quite well in the process.

PURGATORY:

TEDDY'S ON NOTICE: SmackDown started off with Vince McMahon coming down to the ring, having gotten his swagger and smile back. He grabbed a mic and told us how happy he was to be back on SmackDown and joked with the fans a little before he got all serious for a second, then turned on them. He made a comment about cheese, being in Wisconsin, and then resorted to a fart joke. Yeah, that's what I tuned in for. He talked about how the fans were afraid of him and those like him who have power and can make them lose their jobs. This was about when I started to worry, because when Vince starts to talk about firing people, things start to go downhill fast. Sure enough, he got the crowd solidly against him by trashing them and then related it all back to Trump, which I was hoping would be confined to Raw. But alas this was not to be the case, and Vince brought out Teddy Long to threaten his job. Did we really need this? I promise, just because the rating popped big for the Super-Duper Commercial-Free Raw doesn't mean that bringing the angle to the Blue Brand is going to do the same. Teddy was cool under pressure and announced the main event of Rey Rey and Day-Glo against Jericho and Edge. Vince then stupidly no-sold the match by saying he wasn't impressed before Long said it was in a steel cage and would have CM Punk as the guest referee. Apparently that was JUST good enough for Vince to put him on probation instead of fire him, then left. This whole thing was bad, and I'll tell you why. Sure, the promo work was actually good between Vince and Teddy—I wouldn't expect any less from the two. But I hated the fact that Vince pretty much no-sold the talent here in the main event. He had an opportunity to show how impressed he was, and he still could have done the probation thing if he really wanted to. That would have done a lot of good in getting these guys even more over than they already are if he'd only acted like this was a match of ‘H/Orton proportions. Instead he just shrugged it off, and yes that bothered me. As for the Teddy probation, well…I'll cover Vince's attitude on this show elsewhere, but I'm willing to give it a chance.

R-TRUTH vs. SHELTON BENJAMIN: Truth actually came out to right as Vince and Teddy were leaving the ring, and tried to get them to rap with him. Shockingly, Vince didn't participate. We went to commercial and then came back with Shelton Benjamin coming out with a microphone, asking Truth if they were really going to do this again—odd, since as J.R. and Grish said he demanded the match. Goldilocks cut a little tolerable promo about how Truth was from the streets but Shelton actually went to school. This actually got the crowd pretty well against Shelton and added a little heat to this match. Once the bell rang the match was predictably good…Truth was all sorts of pissed and it played into the opening moments nicely. These two work well off each other and this helped showcase how much Truth has picked it up in the ring over the last few months. They followed the SmackDown Standard as of late by providing an exciting opening match that was given a good amount of time, and in terms of wrestling this was a very good match. So why is it in puRgatoRy? Because seriously, can we PLEASE get Shelton a win here? The man has officially hit zero in-ring credibility against people of Truth's stature, and I think he's probably lost more consistently than anyone in the ‘E right now. Unless he's really pissed someone off on the creative team I don't understand this. The announcers aren't even able to deny it any more, as they talked on several occasions in this match about how Shelton's losing more than he's winning and Truth has the far better record in the series with Shelton. I would hope that they're going the MVP route here but I just don't see it, and I simply think they're willing to put Truth over Shelton because it worked really well for Morrison. All well and good, but eventually you need to give Shelton some wins if he's going to be able to keep putting people over. Great in-ring action, brought down by the continued burial of a talent that I just don't understand.

MICHELLE McCOOL & ALICIA vs. MELINA & GAIL KIM: So yeah, whatever happened to Gail becoming a star of the Women's Division? The heel ladies came out first and in a nice touch were wearing semi-matching outfits; Alicia's hair was also not nearly as huge as usual which was nice. Meanwhile poor Gail had to step off to the side during their ring entrance so Melina could do her pose; I think what they're doing with Gail is unfair and she should be at the top of the division right now. Melina and Alicia got off to an awkward start as Melina's bendiness into the roll-up looked awkward and the kick that followed was equally off. Michelle then got a kick off which looked almost like it may legitimately hurt Melina as she was down on the mat for way longer then would seem appropriate, it was some interesting selling and made for a decent story on the rest of the match. The match picked up from there with Melina doing the face-in-peril act while Michelle and Alicia isolated and punished her. Eventually the tag was made and Gail came in, doing what was honestly a much better job than Melina, as much as I love her. The ending was rushed and came out of nowhere in a chaotic bit and I don't think it carried off nearly as well as it could have, but it put an exclamation mark on Michelle as a threat to the title and that was the point of the match as near as I could tell. Some good, some bad here and hopefully Michelle and Melina can pick things up once they hit THE Bash.

VINCE'S LATEST BREAKDOWN: So, I get it. Vince nearly lost boatloads of money via Donald Trump and he had to take a big loss in order to get his brand back. It's time for a little crazy Vince, and I'm mostly all right with that. I'm not really going to speculate on where this whole thing is going quite yet because I don't think anyone really knows—hell, if past situations are any indication, the Creative team probably doesn't even know where this is going to go. In the meantime though, we do have some segments with him being a little off, and let's address those. First off he came in to talk to Rey Rey and wished him luck, mocked him a little bit and basically took Jericho's side regarding the mask. "I don't know why you wear the stupid mask anyway…" Um, because it makes you a shit-ton in marketing money, Vince. They played a lot of the Vince stuff off as comedy, such as Rey talking in Spanish and Vince not understanding it at all, which led to an "English Only" rule on SmackDown. Ooookay. After that was a visit to Punk, who appeared to go ever toward being heel as he brought up the Straight Edge thing and Vince approved, whereas he tore Jeff down for his checkered past. Guess we officially know where that feud is going now.

Vince has a tendency to go back to the "crazy, erratic McMahon" well from time to time and the results haven't always been stellar, but sometimes they work well. I do have some issues with this because it seems almost like they're back to blurring the brand split and that bugs me with all the noise they made about keeping them separate. Also, I don't think we need the Raw-esque angles brought to the Blue Brand, which is doing just fine on its own. But for now I'm putting this solidly in puRgatoRy because I don't know where it's going, but I'm willing to give it a chance. See? I really am an optimist sometimes, I swear.

THE WRONG:

NADA!

THE RIDICULOUS:

WORD UP: After running down the card, J.R. and T-Grish introduced us to the special SmackDown Edition of Word Up. There's no other way to put it…this was a retarded waste of time. We had JTG and Shad start off by generally being annoying with dumb-ass nicknames for themselves, then they had Eve introduce us to the Word Up Word of the Night: Jackin'. Brought to us by the Cryme Tyme Institute for Higher Hoodification. Believe me, I wish I was making that up. After that we learned about Swagger Jackin', which was stealing someone's style. This brought out Jesse who was all sorts of ghetto and hip-hop and generally an idiot. I'm sorry, but this wasn't funny and served NO GODDAM PURPOSE, unless they're trying to set Jesse up with his new gimmick now that Festus is chillin' over on Raw. Even if that's the case, it's a gimmick change for someone who really doesn't matter on SmackDown, so it's not like we needed a few minutes of idiocy like this to push the gimmick change. The one bright side is it allowed us to see this moment of visual amazement:



Jim Ross is a real O.G., folks. And don't you forget it.

The 411

Okay, so Vince McMahon is erratic, and that was really rather silly. We also had that stupid Word Up crap, and several of the matches were just "there" as opposed to really lifting the show for me. As such, this show doesn't break the four-star arena. Still, two great matches and some good angle advancement made for a great hard-sell show leading into THE Bash. I'm hoping they keep to their strict brand-split plan and don't start merging the shows, because I really like being able to enjoy my Friday night wrestling experience.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

Comment Time with Jeremy!

From KanyonKreist:
Am I the only one who can't think of a logical way for the Orton/HHH feud to end without Orton getting beaten? Are they just going to have somebody else attack Triple H for some bullshit reason and segue into another angle that way? Even if they do, the desire for championship gold is pretty much the linchpin of H's character. Eventually, he's going to come back around for a title shot. I mean, merciful lord, we actually COULD see HHH/Orton again at Wrestlemania 26!!

Honestly, I would love for this storyline to end with Orton beating 'H and moving onto someone else while the Game did the same. I don't know that it'll happen, but it's what I'd like to see. The only way I can see it is a "Last Chance" match where if the Game doesn't win he doesn't get any more title shots for a good long while. That at least will finally end the damn feud one way or another.


From David Burcham:
And here is what's wrong with proffessional wrestling today.

Fans have been so trained into this whole Pavlovian idea of the "What camera? There's no camera!" backstage skit bullshit vomited from the creativeless pit of Vince Russo and the "Attitude" eras of late 90's -2000's WWF and WWE... that when someone does something RIGHT (like Donald Trump did by acknowledgeing the camera and, thus, the fans), web writers who grew up watching the single stupidest fucking idea in pro wrestling history don't even REALIZE it and label it as "amateurish."

With all the potential things one can list as a pro wrestling flaw, I don't believe expecting people not to look in the camera is the one thing that's ruined it. You're certainly welcome to your opinion though, and thanks for sharing!


From Odin:
"It was fun for the time it got and added a little more to the Jeff/Punk feud, and I couldn't find anything terrible here."

Really? Not even the fact that without buildup or explanation, Donald Trump's Raw has talent from Smackdown competing on it? (Not to mention the Fuck the brand extension complaint - this is the first time it's been valid since Backlash.)

"Either way, the team of Nikki, Bella and Mickie almost—between the three of them—were hotter than Maryse."

I must say, I'd rather have a foursome with the Bellas and Mickie, than a twosome with Maryse, but to each his own. (Maths is fun.)

"Okay, call me a nitpicker here."
You're a nitpicker.

The presence of the SmackDown people on Raw was odd and possibly annoying, but I didn't consider it terrible. Especially when it resulted in a good match on Monday night. The foursome thing...well, I can see your argument and I'll leave it at that. And I admittedly left myself open to the nitpicker argument; hell, I invited it, so I can't fault you for going there.


From ZeroVX:
You know, going into the whole McMahon-Trump thing, I thought it was insanely stupid. It was a new level of ridiculous unheard of in the WWE. I even once thought to myself "this is something TNA would do".

And that's when it hit me. This IS something TNA would do. And that's why Vince did it.

He's mocking TNA with their ridiculous and nonsense angles. Why else would he have Trump take over RAW for a week, and then fire him when it was over?

Trump even suggested ideas (commercial free, celeb hosts) that sounded like something the TNA staff would create. In fact, I'm willing to bet Jeff Jarrett and Vince Russo saw RAW and went "Damn, those are good ideas! We should try that!"

Of course, this is mostly theory, but at least it makes sense, right?

You know, I only wish I could believe you were right on that, because it would make sense to me. I don't think that's the case because Vince frankly doesn't care about TNA or see it as a threat, but I'd like it if that were the case.


From Shockmaster:
CENA FINALLY ANSWERS THE MIZ: Cena just did what he always does to anyone not named Triple H, so it didn't bother me. Talking severe trash is part of his character. He only gets credit for "getting Miz over" in the sense that he is over enough that all of Miz's solo work against him riled up the fans all these weeks.

'H vs. ORTON: LAST MAN STANDING: Am I the only one who noticed the announcers talking up H's "injured leg" FAR before he started selling it? I spent two minutes thinking "What the hell are they talking about?" before his first noticeable limp. And leaving Orton out cold while H barely fails to win just buried Randy again, if that's even possible. Sunday has nothing to do with establishing the hierarchy and everything to do with a mere booking decision. That doesn't make me want to part with $40.

THE BELLAS & MICKIE JAMES vs. BETH, ROSA & MARYSE: Last I remember one Bella was evil and they hated each other. You must prefer blondes Jeremy, cuz ain't no way she's hotter than Mickie.

"Cena deserves credit for realizing that he needs to help get the younger guys over while his reputation is invulnerable." You know, I don't believe Cena is calling his own shots that way. I really think he just readily does whatever they want him to with a smile, and that's half of why Vince loves him. The green being the other half.

THE TRUMP/VINCE SAGA: These are the things that make me question why I'm a fan. Then I watch Smackdown and remember.

Well-put regarding Cena, Shock. By "getting Miz over," I was talking about being willing to get involved in an angle like this, and Cena has taken a few hits from Miz throughout (such as the end of the show). but yeah, I'm sure Cena could have totally nixed this if he wanted to, and that he seems to be totally behind this gives me hope. I actually didn't notice that error in selling from 'H until I went back and looked close, and you make a point. As for Maryse, I don't have a preference toward blondes--I still think Daffney is one of the hottest divas out there in either organization. I have a deep-seeded thing for goth chicks. But yeah, there's just something about Maryse that does it for me in a way Mickie doesn't...not to say that Mickie isn't very hot herself.


From Truth Detector:
You're a nitpicker.

It is far more amateurish to pretend that a camera and sound crew ISN'T crammed into a crowded dressing room with you while disussing super-serious private matters or hatching nefarious heel schemes.

If this were the era where wrestling didn't pretend that cameras weren't there capturing anything I could agree with you. The problem here is that, as neverAcquiesce said, this wasn't the act of a guy who was looking into the camera to acknolwedge that it was there. This was a guy who kept looking at it as if he thought he was on "The Apprentice." This isn't reality television, at least not in the same way that Trump's show is, and when he acts like this is just "The Apprentice" with bodyslams then he looks amatuerish.


From Funky Freddy Feelgood:
People who complain about Trump looking at the camera need to move oput of their Mommy and Daddy's house, take a bath, lose some weight, have sex with an actual human being, and quit watching wrestling forever because YOU are the fuckwads RUINING professional wrestling. the only wrestling "smarts" you have about you is being able to masturbate while scrolling.

And yet, you're here reading my opinion, Freddy. What does that say about you? Anyway, whatever it says, thanks for reading!

---

WWE THE BASH 2009~!
By: Larry Csonka

QUICK RESULTS:
- ECW TITLE SCRAMBLE MATCH: Tommy Dreamer defeated Christian, Finlay, Jack Swagger and Mark Henry @ 16:00 [**]
- IC TITLE vs. MASK MATCH: Rey Mysterio defeated Chris Jericho to win the IC Title @ 17:00 via pin [****½]
- NO DQ MATCH: Dolph Ziggler defeated The Great Khali @ 5:00 via pin [*]
- UNIFIED TAG TITLE MATCH: Edge and Chris Jericho defeated Los Colons and Legacy @ 9:30 via pin [**¼]
- WOMEN'S TITLE MATCH: Michelle McCool defeated Melina to win the Women's Title @ 6:40 via pin [*¾]
- WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jeff Hardy defeated CM Punk @ 14:00 via DQ [***]
- John Cena defeated the Miz @ 5:30 via pin [*½]
- THREE STAGES OF HELL WWE TITLE MATCH: Randy Orton defeated HHH @ 21:30 [***]

THE RIGHT:

IC TITLE vs. MASK MATCH : It is no secret that I have been a huge fan of this feud. Now I wish they could have pulled the feud along for a bit more, but that's the bitch of having so many PPV's and special Raw's in such a short period of time. But these guys have rocked and had good matches thus far, and I was ready for this match. And you know what? THIS…this was a sexy match, one of the best this year. First of all, this bad boy had heat, BIG time heat, hell, this had way more heat than the "real main event," which didn't do anything for me in build, or execution really. The thing that made this work, besides the fact that we had two seasoned guys in there that have had many matches together, was the fact that they made it all mean something. They constantly played off of the past matches, the spots, the mask removal, the counters of counters, it was how a feud should progress. They pulled the double mask ending, where when Jericho tried to remove the mask in desperation so that he could win again via those means, he got fooled and ended up losing. The ONLY small gripe is that I wish they could have sold that moment longer, like have Rey dive and cover his face while Jericho celebrates for a few seconds with the mask, and THEN go to the finish. But that is a very small thing. This rocked my face and is ALMOST worth the price of the PPV.

WORLD TITLE MATCH : CM Punk vs. Jeff hardy for the World Title was up next. I had very high hopes for the match, and while I will sound a bit disappointed with what we got, I didn't think this was bad at all. It's a very bi-polar match as far as opinion goes, as some thing it sucked and some think it ruled. I fall in the middle, it was good, but could have been better. They had a good match, worked well together but I just felt like they held back, which I hope wasn't to help HHH and Orton look good, because these guys should be able to shine. But they work this fun match, Jeff makes the big comeback and hits the SWANTON for the 3…or so we thought. Punk's foot was under the ropes, the ref saw it and ordered the match to begin again. Punk tried for the GTS, ate an elbow to the eye and sold it excellently. As he was backed off, he then laid into the ref with a kick to the back! he got the DQ, retained the title and was HATED. Hardy got some revenge, but Punk escaped and lived to fight another day. What made this work so well was that he constantly sold the eye and "needed help" to the back. Punk can use this as ammunition, ala the MITB post win speech. "If it was anyone else that got hurt, you wouldn't doubt their sincerity, you would believe them. If it was Jeff Hardy, you'd believe him." This was a good match, and this was the right kind of finish for what they are looking to do with Punk.

THREE STAGES OF HELL WWE TITLE MATCH : And then we came to the main event. With then adding Khali and Ziggler, and everything running off during the night, the match was shortened, because they were "supposed to" have a 40-minute window. Well I am glad that didn't happen. They compensate dwell by having the first fall shorter, with HHH taking the DQ with the chair. He then destroyed Orton with the chair, pedigreed him on the floor, and evened things up to go into the stretcher match. The match was good, but again, I just felt that they didn't get to that level where to are INTO it big time. It just kind of, well, was a drag, and then what happened was what we all figured. Legacy ran out, they got involved and that eventually led to the finish. HHH then, after losing this GRUELING three stages of hell match, stood up with his hammer, and beat down Orton so that he could stand tall and have his music play. Fucking yawn, give me something new and or interesting please. HHH should have been laid out, plain and simple, leading to a possible return of Shawn Michaels.

PURGATORY:

UNIFIED TAG TITLE MATCH : It came time for the Unified Tag Title match, but things got changed because Vince decided to tell Teddy he sucked and has done exactly jack and shit for 5-years. So since Edge wanted on PPV in a title match and Jericho wanted another title match, he decided to make a triple threat with them as the third team, TEAM AWESOME. The basic story was that Los Colons and Legacy tried not to tag in TEAM AWESOME. Los Colons and Legacy had a fine little match, with little reaction, but not bad. Primo got a good hot tag, Jericho would get involved and Edge would tag himself in, get the spear and the title win. I think that the problem comes with Jericho and Edge winning. Yes they are great, yes the run can be fun, and it was a good surprise. But all too often these "super team runs" fail at what they should be designed to do. Everyone thinks that this will raise the prestige of the titles and that someone will go over huge in the end. Unfortunately this will be used to set up a feud with the two "stars" as they will either cost themselves the title or slip on a banana peel in a loss, thusly making who won look like a complete fluke as the real heat will be them feuding. I hope I am wrong, but we have seen this all too often. The one good thing is that they can technically be on all three brands, which since they are so awesome, is a good thing. But mark my words, this will be the floodgates for people jumping brands. I just have a feeling…

ECW TITLE SCRAMBLE MATCH : I had high hopes for the ECW Title match, and was excited that they would be getting 20-minutes on PPV. Well, they didn't get the full 20-minutes for some reason, and the match while fun at times, just didn't click overall. There was miscommunication early on a corner spot, they looked a bit lost, and then again when they did the tower of doom there was a delay on Henry and they seemed lost again as they waited. Also the end they were going for the wild everyone going for pins finish, but that timing was off and when the bell rang, they kind of sat there with their dicks in their hands. They did have good moments, and they did work hard, but it was one of those times where it didn't all click as you would hope. I did like that Dreamer survived to fight another day, which most didn't expect. I am pretty sure he loses at NOC, which if done right is fine. Overall this was disappointing, but not bad.

WOMEN'S TITLE MATCH : Maybe I went into this match with too high of expectations, but I feel that this match disappointed. Not bad mind you, but it just never got out of gear. This felt like a TV match, actually, it reminded me a lot of the Slammiversary match between Love and Tara. Tow ladies that could have had a better match, but were cramped time wise and just never got into gear. It was also a shame that they had like, no heat for this. No one really cared. I figure they rematch next month or do a three-way, and I hope that they get a bit more time. I think they can delver, but they didn't here. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, and was really good in parts, but they needed more time I feel. I just wish that the WWE ladies would get a little more time and respect, some of them can go, but the company just doesn't seem to care most of the time.

THE WRONG:

NONE

THE RIDICULOUS:

Dolph defeated The Great Khali: There wasn't a lot to this match. Ziggler tried to use his speed, he'd get slapped down. He'd use a chair, get slapped down. He'd use a chair, get slapped down. I guess it wasn't atrocious, but it also was far from good. Kane made his, well, return, beat the shit out of Khali like he was owed money and that allowed Dolph to get the victory. Pretty blah match, an under whelming return leading to an even worse feud and Dolph really gets nothing out of this. They made it DQ, he could have used a fucking chainsaw to get the win. Why are we protecting Khali? So yeah, no thanks here.

John Cena defeated the Miz: And so we came to John Cena and The Miz. Going in, I knew Cena was winning and that was fine. This was a big match for the Miz though. Win or lose, as long as he had a good showing with one of the company's top guys, THAT is what goes a long was. Many matches have made a guy when they lose, it's all in the booking of that match. But they failed and failed big time. They essentially had a 10:45PM Raw match, where Cena comes out, Miz gets a little heat, Cena makes the comeback and wins clean. Add into this the promo Cena cut before the PPV, calling his opponent a never will be and the way they worked the match, they completely ruined any and all work that they dedicated a ton of TV time too. Miz did NOT have to win here, he just had to hang with Cena, and the booking did nothing to help him here. It was a glorified squash, and did no one any favors. Such a shame, they really could have done something here to make Miz look like a star.

The 411

In the end I feel this was a disappointing show. The scramble under achieved, Khali vs. Dolph sucked, the IC Title match WAS the show, Jericho and Edge as tag champs are cool on the surface, but I shared my issues with it above, ladies were just there, Punk vs. Hardy was good, but forgettable, Cena and Miz was bad and did the Miz no favors, thus rending tons of TV time useless, and the main event was good, but forgettable and with the same HUNTOR FINISH we've seen for years. Unfortunately this was another PPV that had its moments, but failed to deliver in some ways. Dolph vs. Khali didn't need to be on the show, and that time should have gone to Miz vs. Cena. Also, there is no reason that the ECW Title match needed to be cut down. But then again, they don't care about that show or the champion, which is a problem itself. Oh well, the right ingredients, but the chef is still in home ec. Class half of the time.

I also have to mention how this show went a long way to devalue the next PPV. First of all, the next PPV is NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS, where all of the titles are on the line. Well, I guess that would mean something of six of the eight titles WERE NOT on the line tonight. But they were, so what's the point? Also, we had another show with multiple title changes, which has been happening more often lately. Thusly, all of the shows are beginning to feel the same and have been so crammed together, that they run together when you try to think back on the shows. Anyway, all you have to see in the IC Title match, the rest is honestly stuff you don't need to see.

SHOW RATING: 6.9

---

LARRY'S RANKINGS THUS FAR

2009 PPV Rankings:
-ROH RISING ABOVE {8.0}
-WWE NO WAY OUT {8.0}
-TNA SLAMMIVERSARY {8.0}

-TNA SACRIFICE {7.5}
-WWE BACKLASH {7.5}
-TAKE NO PRISONERS {7.4}
-WWE ROYAL RUMBLE {7.3}
-TNA GENESIS {7.2}
-TNA LOCKDOWN {7.2}
-ROH CAGED COLLISION {7.1}
-WWE WRESTLEMANIA {7.0}

-WWE THE BASH {6.9}
-WWE EXTREME RULES {6.8}

-WWE JUDGMENT DAY {6.5}

-TNA AGAINST ALL ODDS {5.5}

-TNA DESTINATION X {3.5}

---

2009 TOP PPV Match Rankings:
-[WWE WRESTLEMANIA] – HBK vs. The Undertaker (*****)

-[ROH RISING ABOVE] - ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Nigel McGuinness © vs. Bryan Danielson (****½)
-[WWE NO WAY OUT] – THE SMACKDOWN ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****½)
-[WWE BACKLASH] – LAST MAN STANDING: Edge vs. John Cena (****½)
-[WWE THE BASH] – MASK vs. TITLE: Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (****½)

-[TAKE NO PRISONERS] – Tyler Black & KENTA vs. Austin Aries & Katsuhiko Nakajima (****¼)
-[ROH RISING ABOVE] – I QUIT MATCH: Jimmy Jacobs vs. Austin Aries (****¼)
-[TNA GENESIS] - Kurt Angle defeated Jeff Jarrett (****¼)
-[TNA GENESIS] - X-Division Title Match: Alex Shelley defeated Chris Sabin (****¼)
-[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – X-Division King of the Mountain Match: Suicide vs. Lethal vs. Creed vs. Sabin vs. Shelley (****¼)
-[WWE NO WAY OUT] – THE RAW ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****¼)

-[WWE EXTREME RULES] – IC TITLE MATCH: Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (****)
-[WWE EXTREME RULES] – WORLD TITLE LADDER MATCH: Edge vs. Jeff Hardy (****)
-[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – TNA World Title King of the Mountain Match: Foley vs. Angle vs. AJ vs. Joe vs. Jarrett (****)

-[ROH CAGED COLLISION] #1 CONTENDERS MATCH – Tyler Black vs. Jimmy Jacobs vs. Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries (***¾)
-[ROH CAGED COLLISION] ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH – Nigel McGuinness vs. El Generico (***¾)
-[TNA SACRIFICE] – I QUIT LEGENDS TITLE MATCH – Booker T vs. AJ Styles © (***¾)
-[TNA SACRIFICE] – Eric Young and Lethal Consequences vs. The Machineguns and Sheik Abdul Bashir (***¾)
-[TNA LOCKDOWN] – PHILLY STREET FIGHT: IWGP vs. TNA TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH – Team 3D vs. Beer Money (***¾)
-[TNA DESTINATION X] - X-Division Title Ultimate X Match: Suicide defeated Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Consequences Creed and Jay Lethal (***¾)
-[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – THE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH (***¾)
-[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – WWE TITLE MATCH: Edge defeated Jeff Hardy (***¾)
-[WWE WRESTLEMANIA] – MONEY IN THE BANK (***¾)
-[WWE JUDGMENT DAY] – Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (***¾)

---

2009 PPV MVP AWARDS:
Not every PPV will have one, it just depends on who I think steps up and deserves some extra recognition.

-[TNA GENESIS] Sabin, Shelley, Angle and Jarrett – Rocking The House
-[ROH RISING ABOVE] – Danielson and McGuinness - Defining the ROH World Title
-[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – RVD – The Joke Pays Off
-[WWE NO WAY OUT] – EDGE – The Ultimate Opportunist
-[WWE WRESTLEMANIA] – HBK and The Undertaker – Stealing the Show
-[ROH CAGED COLLISION] – Nigel McGuinness – Better Than You Sugar Nuts
-[TNA LOCKDOWN] - Christopher Daniels – Pulling Double Duty
-[WWE BACKLASH] – Edge and John Cena – Stealing the Show
-[TNA SACRIFICE] – The TNA Roster – Making the Best Out of Shitty Booking
-[WWE EXTREME RULES] – Rey, Jericho, Edge and Hardy – They Are Awesome
-[TAKE NO PRISONERS] – Tyler Black, KENTA, Austin Aries and Katsuhiko Nakajima – Main Event Excellence
-[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – Daffney and Taylor Wilde – Two Hardcore Bitches
-[WWE THE BASH] – Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho – Making the Show Worth It

---

2009 TOP TV Match Rankings:
I will update as often as needed.

-ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jerry Lynn vs. Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black vs. Bryan Danielson – (ROH on HDNet: 06.06.09) {****¼}
-TABLES ARE LEGAL TAG TITLE MATCH: Kevin Steen and El Generico © vs. The American Wolves – (ROH on HDNet: 05.30.09) {****¼}

-Edge vs. Rey Mysterio - (Smackdown: 06.05.09) {****}
-Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black – (ROH on HDNet: 04.25.09) {****}
-Evan Bourne vs. John Morrison - (ECW: 04.14.09) {****}
-Christian vs. Jack Swagger - (ECW: 02.24.09) {****}
-Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena - (Raw: 01.12.09) {****}

-Edge vs. John Morrison - (Smackdown: 06.12.09) {***¾}
-Edge vs. Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk - (Raw: 06.08.09) {***¾}
-Edge vs. Jeff Hardy - (Smackdown: 06.12.09) {***¾}
-CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho - (Superstars: 05.21.09) {***¾}
-Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black – (ROH on HDNet: 05.09.09) {***¾}
-Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries – (ROH on HDNet: 04.04.09) {***¾}
-Beer Money vs. Team Canada – (Impact: 02.19.09) {***¾}
-Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles – (Impact: 01.22.09) {***¾}

-CAGE MATCH: Edge and Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio and Jeff Hardy - (Smackdown: 06.26.09) {***½}
-WWE TITLE LAST MAN STANDING MATCH: Randy Orton vs. HHH - (Raw: 06.22.09) {***½}
-WWE TITLE MATCH: Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. HHH vs. Big Show - (Raw: 06.08.09) {***½}
- Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk- (Smackdown: 06.12.09) {***½}
- Chris Jericho vs. John Morrison - (Superstars: 06.11.09) {***½}
-Jeff Hardy and R-Truth vs. Chris Jericho and Dolph Ziggler - (Superstars: 06.04.09) {***½}
-Christian vs. Tyson Kidd - (ECW: 06.02.09) {***½}
-Edge vs. Chris Jericho - (Smackdown: 05.15.09) {***½}
-Rey Mysterio vs. Shelton Benjamin - (Superstars: 05.14.09) {***½}
-Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho - (Smackdown: 05.08.09) {***½}
-Edge vs. Kofi Kingston - (Superstars: 04.23.09) {***½}
-John Cena vs. Chris Jericho - (Raw: 04.20.09) {***½}
-Undertaker vs. Shelton Benjamin - (Smackdown: 04.17.09) {***½}
-Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy - (Smackdown: 04.10.09) {***½}
-Primo vs. The Miz - (ECW: 03.10.09) {***½}
-Edge vs. John Cena - (Raw: 03.02.09) {***½}
-Lethal Consequences vs. Motor City Machine Guns – (Impact: 02.19.09) {***½}
-Undertaker vs. Shelton Benjamin - (Smackdown: 01.09.09) {***½}

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And I'm out of here!



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