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Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 08.14.09: ECW and Raw Reviewed!
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By: Jeremy Thomas
Raw 08.10.09
BUTTERFLY TITLE CONTENDER’S FOUR-WAY: This was for a shot at Mickie’s Butterfly Title “down the line,” and featured Beth Phoenix, Gail Kim, Alicia Keyes Fox (way to go, Lillian) and Triple K getting down. We started off with Gail pairing off against Alicia as Beth took on Kelly, which was a wise decision considering those ladies’ familiarity with each other. This actually played out fairly decent for a women’s title match. We had several good dynamics in the match and the in-ring action didn’t look bad or terribly choreographed. The only weak spot was Gail catching ‘K’s legs and trying to toss her over the ropes, which was botched and looked bad. But that was quickly countered by Beth with her double-submission hold that looked pretty damn impressive. They seem to be trying to make Alicia more aggressive, which is good because it differentiates her from your average arrogant heel Diva who’s hot and little else. The match ended with Gail finally getting a win and a shot at the Butterfly Title, which makes it look like the Gail/Mickie thing is actually on. I won’t complain too much. Really, this is only a marginal Right due to the Kelly suckitude, but the booking and the rest of the action was good.
RANDY ORTON vs. BIG SHOW: The crowd really didn’t know what to make of this one, but they stayed hot for it throughout as Orton locked up against Show. They actually played this off with Orton playing sort of the face in this match by necessity, since the crowd had a stronger face reaction for him. This is where I have to give Randy credit because he played the match as a face without compromising his uber-heel character, something that isn’t easy at all to do. Show dominated the early parts of the match before Orton managed to turn the match around and the crowd got behind him as he beat on Show. This was a slow match but not a terribly boring one, and was very well-booked. They protected both guys with the ending as Orton took the voluntary count-out, which saves this potential feud down the road if they ever do it. This wasn’t a great match but it was a decent one and it at least felt new. That gets it a lot of points from me.
LOST IN HOUSTON: They started this off by recapping Priceless beating ‘H last week and his speech after—minus the Flair, Batista and Orton bashing, at least. J.R. and Cole announced then that we’d have footage of the H-Man hunting for Shawn Michaels…who had a new job. Anyone else get a bad feeling at this point? You should have been, because we ended up with Hunter wandering around an office building and looking for Shawn in the cafeteria. Now, before you guys start tearing me down, read on. I actually thought parts of this were funny. ‘H inadvertently scamming on the long-haired guy got a laugh out of me and reminded me of the earlier D-X days when he proclaimed to J.R. “I’m bi a lot of things, but lingual’s not one of them. …wait, did I just mean to say that?” Ahh Hunter, you nutty little fruitcake. Shawn was actually really funny too, as the stressed-out, at his wit’s end cook at the cafeteria. We then found out that Shawn didn’t feel like he needed it anymore after WrestleMania, which is why he’s a chef. O….kay? As the title alludes, this felt like the terrible Cactus Jack “Lost in Cleveland” skits, except that it was more tongue-in-cheek and the dynamic between Hunter and Shawn more or less saved it. Mostly. Yes, this was silly. Yes, it was dopey and stupid. But you know what? For some reason, I actually liked this, probably due to the way ‘H and Shawn played off each other. Plus, they made fun of Summerfest and Shawn’s real name and superkicked a bitchy boss and a little girl. That was made of awesome.
THE SWAGGLES vs. PRICELESS: Oh my god, the Swaggle family wasn’t a one-shot deal? Maybe they saw how much I liked this:
Anyway, this was supposed to be Chavo and a partner versus the Swaggles, but Chavo instead came out and said that he had injuries, so he had a replacement…Priceless. Yes, I will admit I was afraid that Priceless would be jobbing to a midget. However, it amazingly didn’t happen as Henry controlled the opening moments against the two men. This worked really well even though the in-ring stuff wasn’t exactly great; Henry doesn’t lose anything by losing to Priceless, and Cody and Ted actually get over more by beating Henry and Horny. DiBiase finishing this a Dream Street and then hooking the leg was awesome, also. Call it a crap match—and it was from an in-ring perspective—but I liked it and it gave Priceless the heat for beating up on Horny. After the match Ted got on the mic and talked about how they’d be giving D-X the shortest reunion ever. Nice to see them giving Priceless a moment or two of looking like they have a shot here.
CHRIS JERICHO vs. JOHN CENA: Before the match they had Y2J give a nice little promo where he started to play to the Calgary crowd to get them to pop. Unfortunately for him the Show came in and Jericho thought they were off-camera, so he started talking about how easy Canadians were to manipulate because he wasn’t even Canadian. See, Top 5 readers? We told you! He couldn’t manage to get the Canadian crowd against him, but it was at least a damn good try and he didn’t use “hypocrite.” Points for that.
Once we got into the match, they really delivered as one might expect they should. Cena and Jericho always work very well with each other and deliver good matches, and this was no exception. If Cena hadn’t completely owned Jericho for quite a while, I would dig their matches a lot more. But as it stood they had a good match here, the crowd was really hot for obvious reasons and Jericho looked good in decent stretches. Of course, the focus was Cena and Orton and so we got the screwy finish with Orton coming to the ring and causing a no contest just before seven minutes. Then Jericho hit Orton with the Codebreaker and shoved Orton; this brought Show out. The resulting chaos brought Sarge out who booked Cena & Orton vs. Show and Jericho. Well, that will be interesting. The feuding partners then took out Show and Jericho and faced off. I was okay with this in general and it despite the post-match beatings on the tag champs, this worked and I’m looking forward to next week.
SUPER-SERIOUS CENA AND THE CALGARY CROWD: Raw began with the arena in Calgary dark, as Lillian Garcia announced the entrance of the WWE Champion, Randy Orton. The lights came up with Orton in the ring with the title around his shoulder. If you ask me, all the horrible booking is finally starting to get to Orton as he got a lukewarm reaction…of course, this is Canada, and Jerry Lawler was contractually obligated to point out its status as Bizzaro-Land. Orton said he’d been hearing rumors that people have been saying he’s worried about facing Cena at SummerSlam. He said he bullied Piven last week because he could, and that we were all beneath him. Yo Randy…I think you got your script mixed up with Jericho’s. Wait, he didn’t say hypocrites…never mind. He managed to get the crowd more solidly against him though with the promo and, amazingly, they were cheering Cena. Cena was in SUPER-SERIOUS mode as he talked about how Orton’s rumors and lies bit was making him angry. Cena went into overactive mode, like he does about once every major feud. He did it with Edge during their last feud as well, although even though it seemed like a sudden and random complication it worked here, perhaps because Randy played it off really well. It still was way overdone, and the forehead to forehead thing was the capper. I don’t condemn this because it played well to the crowd, but it was a bit much.
Before things could go further, out came Jericho and Show. Their entrance music works far less when it’s played in its entirety, for the record. The crowd started chanting loudly for Jericho while Show talked shit to Orton and Cena. Cena fired back with a joke…but it was a SERIOUS joke! Jericho then got on the mic and awesomely, didn’t even bother to turn the crowd against him. Cena did that by pointing out that Jericho left for the US. It wasn’t a long-lasting boo and the fans quickly turned on Cena with a “Cena Sucks” chant, but take it for what it is…it’s a credit to Cena that he got even a brief boo for Y2J. Jericho then, in a rare occurrence, stumbled briefly in his speech as he mentioned how Sgt. Slaughter had given him a match against Cena. Orton then tried to get in Cena’s face and then found out that he was facing the Big Show. There was stuff that worked well, but there was stuff that really didn’t, and that makes it a wash to me.
JACK SWAGGER vs. EVAN BOURNE: This match was billed as “the rubber match” between Swagger and Bourne, which while technically true I find a bit mislead. A rubber match implies that it’s been even, and a Bourne roll-up win out of nowhere followed by a Swagger squash does not indicate even. Bourne was all hyped up while Swagger was all business before the bell, and they booked this match as aggressive ex-ECW champion against underdog Bourne. To their credit they booked Bourne looking good for portions of the match, but in the end Swagger was the winner in a very short amount of time. I hate this mostly because these two look like they could work very well against each other and all they’re getting are two to three minutes to show what they’ve got. They deserve better and this did no favors for Bourne, although Swagger probably will get some benefit off of this leading into his re-feud with MVP. Speaking of which, he came out after the match and got on the mic. They played the Canadian crowd vs. All-American card which was nice and smart. MVP wanted Swagger tonight, and Swagger said no of course, but maybe next week. The post-match stuff was good because I think these two deserve a better feud than the mini-one they got, and what was there in the match was good, but the short length and damage to Bourne makes this a not-quite-Right.
MVP vs. CHRIS MASTERS: Really? We needed this match again, after the Beat the Clock match was…well, what it was? Chris Masters is officially has the D-Lo Brown comeback; his momentum is already completely dead. And yes, I still say he looks like a walking Wellness Violation, at least in comparison to the natural-looking guys. As far as the match goes, this was actually not a bad match, despite it being as short as it was. We had some decent action and MVP looked good. I don’t understand why they brought Masters back if they were just going to job him out like this, but whatever, it works. MVP gets a much-needed win, and then Swagger comes out to get his revenge with Masters’s help. I’m okay with that too.
SARGE BASHES ON CANADA: So, this week we actually had a WRESTLING-related Guest Host, as Sgt. Slaughter was hosting. He made his way out about a half-hour in, to the complete lack of caring from the fans. That lack of caring turned into boos when he started to talk, and surely they anticipated this as Sarge sucked up to the Canadian crowd a bit before he quickly turned it around and went full-on heel against the fans. I’ll admit, this was a pretty good way to go…they know that Canada has a mind of their own, so why not play into it? So the first of these segments, I appreciated.
Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Sarge came out to apologize and said he had Celine Dion to sing the Canadian National Anthem, to which the crowd started immediately booing. Awesome. Sadly it wasn’t Celine…it was of course Jillian out to torture our ears. Have I ever mentioned I hate this gimmick? Anyway, the idiotic singing gimmick that continues to bury Jillian aside, I don’t understand the point of this or the later segment with Hacksaw Jim Duggan. You do one segment to get the point across and…oh yeah, if you’re the WWE Raw creative team, you ram the point home so far that it ceases to become funny. We didn’t even need them for bathroom break moments because we had other stuff for this. At least most of the guest hosts were involved in the show. This was just stupid as hell, and it saddens me that they used the one wrestling-related guest host since DiBiase to no real purpose.
EUGENE vs. CALGARY KID: Holy shit, it’s EUGENE! Get that kid with Hornswaggle…Chavo hasn’t been embarrassed enough yet, right Steph? His opponent was the masked and jersey-wearing Calgary Kid, who got a pop from the crowd. The Kid nearly put one over on Eugene before the Retard Superstar caught on and hit the Rock’s moves to very mixed reactions. Then the Kid came back, knocked Eugene off the top and pulled the contract down. A nothing match, truly. The crowd cheered for the Kid, who quickly hit Eugene with the Reality Check and then unmasked to become the Miz. Everyone who called this one gets props from me. Also, it’s fucking stupid to kick him off Raw and then put him back on the next week. What the HELL did this do for anyone? It was flat-out piss-poor booking and I can’t imagine what the hell they were thinking. I would have rather seen Miz shipped off to ECW where he could have a good feud with Christian…but no, instead he gets to stay on Raw where he’s been treated like shit. Fuck that.
DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don’t care.
| The 411
I have a feeling people are going to call me nuts here, but somehow I didn’t mind this Raw. Yes, there was some fucking awful stuff, and a lot of pointless stuff too. Yes, all my Rights just BARELY hit the right. But this was a Raw that was, while not must-see TV, not painful to watch either. I consider it harmlessly iffy, and while that still is iffy, I don’t have a lot of bile to spill here. It was just a middling episode, and it made no bones about it. SHOW RATING: 6.0 |
From fanboi13:
“Has came down to the ring and showed how little the crowd cares about him”
I find this sad. Has can bring it in the ring, but as much as he has gotten buried and used as enhancement fodder nobody gives a flipping fig. Maybe he should go back to his gimmick of imitating other wrestlers. As it is I can see him being future endeavored very soon.
I don’t think Has will be given the pink slip. He’s similar to Val Venis at this point as a guy who they can throw people in there to get experience against and they know will always deliver well. Of course, Val got the boot eventually too, but he was enhancement talent for years before then. As much as I don’t like it, I think that’s what Haas’s role is destined to be.
From Shockmaster:
CM PUNK vs. JEFF HARDY: For me Matt’s presence hurt this match since you knew he would play into the end somehow. Making a TLC match so soon after Jeff’s ladder match with Edge is dicey. Punk’s dismay despite winning two MITB matches made no sense. A preachy heel should never be afraid to back up his words.
PUNK IS BETTER THAN US AND RULES FLY OUT THE WINDOW: I was distracted by the assumption that Jeff would interrupt the promo, since nobody ever finishes a thought in the ring without being confronted. This dragged for me. If Punk could have made it more personal, like playing on the idea that people use booze and drugs to escape reality, it might have worked better. He came off as fishing for heat here, rather than having a natural superiority complex. Once he establishes a fervent belief that the fans are a lost cause because he’s just inherently better than them, the heat will perpetuate itself. As for the brawl, asking us to believe the main event was going on first was too much. Why couldn’t this just be a promo, Punk goes too far, Jeff attacks him, and the same aftermath?
GIRL BONDING TIME: This better get a slow build, because I think a lot of fans have somewhat stopped caring about Maria. If they avoid the obvious ending this could do a lot for Dolph. They should have him actually be a nice guy putting on a tough guy act. It would be original, an occasional vicious beat down could keep him credible, and he could even turn face later by Maria backstabbing him (if a turn should later make sense; he needs to stay booked heel for now).
I can see the argument on Matt, but it seems like they’re trying to build to his return and if that’s the case then maybe they have plans for him. I’m totally okay with that and so was able to overlook the obvious ending. As for Punk, I just interpreted his anger as “Oh, not again.” I don’t think he’s afraid to back up his words, he just doesn’t want to be put through that if he doesn’t have to. I agree that Punk’s promo wasn’t his best, but I did still dig it and I also agree that the brawl was unnecessary. Your idea of Maria backstabbing Dolph would be a nice twist, except I don’t see Maria being remotely believable as a heel. Otherwise I like it!
From The Great Capt. Smooth:
JTG has a lot of interesting moves. I’d love to have a match between him and Morrison for some reason.
That would be interesting. Never thought I’d say that, either!
From Jeremy from Palmdale:
It may be the inclusion of Eve, it may be the promo on Jericho and Show, it may be my fickle nature, but I am starting to like Cryme Tyme. I don’t want them to win the gold, because Jericho and Show are legendary, but if they were facing The Baby Oil Boys, they would get my support.
They’re getting better in the ring, I think is part of it. And the promo work they’ve been given is helping them loads. Basically, this is an example of how you build up a tag team right, and hopefully they can maintain that cred after the feud is over.
From 17:
Seems I was right about the Miz staying on RAW. I’m glad how it happened wasn’t as bad as I imagined but I’m not convinced winning a three minute poll match with a retard does his credibility much good, especially when it was murdered the other week. I’m sure we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this point Jeremy but I find this a case of an unnecessary burial due to the writers being out of ideas and I swear Super Cena went up a couple of levels to being Mega Cena or Ultra Cena when he buried almost every heel on RAW.
As for SmackDown I thought Punk’s promo was way too good for purgatory and you should have separated the promo and the ‘first match’.
I rate full segments, and Punks promo and the brawl was all one flowing segment so it gets grouped together. As for Miz…well, see my comments above.
By: Michael Bauer
ECW on SyFy 08.11.09
– Shelton Benjamin defeated Zach Ryder via pin at 3:30 [**1/4]
– Vladamir Kozlov kills a jobber at 1:10 [1/4*]
– Yoshi Tatsu defeated Paul Burchill via DQ at 2:20 [1/2*]
– Tyler Reks defeated a jobber at 1:30 [1/4*]
– William Regal defeated Tommy Dreamer via pin at 5:15 [**]
ESTABLISHING A NEW #1 CONTENDER: Ok, this will be a first for me here, because the Abraham Washington show falls into the right category. Shocking, I know. But for once, Washington made me laugh with a joke as he compared hockey to an LAPD Riot. Also, for once, Washington didn’t get too much a chance to direct attention away from the main story, which was Christian being champion, his relation with Tommy Dreamer, and introducing the new number one contender to his title. Regal was introduced as this man and did a nice, quick job of building up for his future shot before taking on the former champion, Tommy Dreamer. This was the right match for William Regal here, as it allowed to him to face a former champion, the most recent challenger, and pretty much the top guy behind Christian in one shot. Regal got his win, but he also didn’t squash Dreamer, which was very key here as well as it didn’t make Christian look weak with his recent matches. Overall, well done.
STAND BACK, THERE’S A HURRICANE COMING THROUGH! : Ok, this might go into the personal markout moment for me and just about every friend I have who watches wrestling, but this was done very well. Burchill has been high on his horse about Gregory Helms being the Hurricane for weeks and took it too far earlier by beating up the reporter. So after he got DQed against Yoshi thanks to his sister, Paul was ready to unleash another massive beatdown until the lights turned green and that familiar tune was heard…
STAND BACK, THERE’S A HURRICAN COMING THROUGH!
The crowd popped as this has been hinted at for some time and Burchill sold it perfectly as the Hurricane flew off the top rope with a cross body. I think if Burchill didn’t do this right, it would have killed the whole deal. Extra points to Tatsu not having a clue what the hell was going on. I mean, that ain’t normal for Japan.
SHELTON BENJAMIN VS. ZACH RYDER: This was a great match, don’t get me wrong. But after all the hype last week, these two open the show and get… three and a half minutes??? I’m sorry, for all the stuff that happened last week, this should have gotten more time. Given twice as much time, these two would have had an easy three star match. Give them at least ten minutes and it would have come close to Ryder’s match Christian a few weeks ago, if not done better. That is my only gripe about this match, but it a major one this time.
BIG ZEKE AND KOZLOV WEEK 4: This almost feels like lather, rinse, repeat, so I will (mostly) say what I did last week: This is getting ugly now. First, Kozlov kills a guy Big Zeke defeats. Then, Big Zeke returns the favor the next week. Next, Kozlov comes out and returns the favor again just to have it thrown in his face with Big Zeke not waiting a week to slam the poor kid and walk off. Now, just take the previous sentence and reverse the people. Now, it has been FOUR weeks and this is begging for an explanation. We don’t have any clue what the hell is going on and I’m thinking it is getting too predictable. When I saw Kozlov show up, I was just counting the seconds until Big Zeke came out to unleash hell.
TYLER REKS COMPLETES SQUASH #2: So we had Tyler Reks, after defeating Burchill twice in a row take on some local Canadian guy who Striker says hates surfers since he is a fisherman. Ok, why exactly is Tyler getting the enhancement talent now after a few matches on Superstars AND two wins over an established veteran? He shouldn’t be going backwards, but that is exactly what he was doing this week. Not to mention, he didn’t look all that great this week also in his ninety second squash match. That’s not going to get him over.
FIVE MATCH FORMULA: It’s the same song and dance when we talk about this, but it got worse this week. Because we “had” to have the whole D-X story talked about on ECW, we had a total of 13:45 of wrestling and there were no commercials during matches either. Split that over five matches and this is getting into TNA territory here in terms of too many matches that are way too short. This just made for a bad overall show.
| The 411
I can honestly say this was the worst episode of ECW since I started recapping it. I looked back and I couldn’t find many other weeks that I was this under whelmed with what I was watching. The opener was hot, but should have been three times longer. The main event was decent and did the job right. And of course, the Hurricane is back! But all of this can’t hide the fact that this show was totally pathetic. SHOW RATING: 3.0 |
~TNA HARD JUSTICE 2008~
The Matches:
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: To me the opening match on a PPV is one of the most important parts of the show. It has to set a tempo for the show, and it has to be something that can hooks the crowd. When Creed and Williams faced on TV in a short match, I thought they showed enough chemistry to put on a good PPV match, and they did that to open Hard Justice. They had a strong match, they got time and they kept the crowd the entire time. It was a tremendously fun match with tons of counters and it was what you want from the X-Division title match. Creed lost due to Sheik Bashir making his presence felt, and came off strong in defeat. Bashir’s promo was an 80’s style promo, he is the Middle Eastern Nightmare that just ended the American Dream and so forth. I would have preferred that the stuff with Sheik Bashir happen all after the match, because all too often TNA uses these finishes and on PPV to boot. It does add Bashir to the mix, and the old school “Middle East vs. USA” theme can work. But in my opinion it took away a bit from the overall package. Some strong wrestling to kick off the show.
THE KNOCKOUTS TAG: We had a Knockouts tag match on the PPV, and overall it was a solid match. The addition of Traci Brooks as some sort of peacekeeping referee is a nice way to keep her on TV. She claims that she wants to help keep order, personally I look for her to turn heel which she has done well at. I thought all the ladies worked hard, when Kong and Kim were in they were great and I really want them to revisit that feud once again after some more time passes. Brooks tossing Saeed worked and got the match under control, Brook asserted her self as the ref but never overshadowed the match. After the silliness early on they really settled in and delivered a fine match that I really have no complaints about. Taylor Wilde keeps her streak of winning going, while Kong looked dominant and was protected in the match. I figure that we’ll get the Kong vs. Wilde rematch soon, likely with Brooks turning heel as the ref. Kong was pissed when Saeed was taken out of the match, maybe she’ll drop her and that will allow Cheerleader Melissa, actually it will be Cheerleader Melinda so TNA can own the name. Well those are my thoughts anyway.
NEW JERSEY STREET FIGHT: After feuding through full metal mayhem, elimination table matches; after trying to break Rhino’s neck and putting Cage through a glass table, Team 3D would do battle with Christian Cage and Rhino in the dreaded New Jersey Street Fight. Thankfully there were no fish, no barber poles, no tables and no Italian food to be seen. There were just the normal weapons, road signs and the like. While not as good as the tag title match, this was a fun tag bout overall. It could have been a lot better I feel if they wouldn’t have had the long crowd brawling segment. It felt like it lasted forever. Cage was the workhorse here, don’t get me wrong they all worked hard, but he just stood out above the rest. I think your enjoyment of the match depends on how much you like the style of match. I love it when done right, I think brawls can be very effective. This crowd LOVED this match, they were digging it. They did the old “USE MY SIGN” gimmick, tables and in the funniest part of the night they had one of those giant Orange and White Road Barrels with the stop sign attached. Devon charged at Cage, he pulled it in front of him, Devon stopped and then ate a GORE from Rhino. A cute spot that got a laugh from me and the wife. The finish seemed as if they would be ending the feud as Cage and Rhino won clean with a gore through the table and a frog splash. Afterwards Devine ran out, the heels did some beat down and Abyss made the save. This makes me think that they still have some stuff to settle, possibly a 6-man next month with Abyss and Devine involved so we’ll see how that works out.
TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Another match I was looking forward to was the tag title match. LAX are great and Beer Money is a really fun heel team, so I had high hopes, especially since they didn’t have the handicap of the strap gimmick this time around. The teams have developed a great chemistry, Beer Money are great heels and they do what heels should do. Be chicken shits, get their ass beat and then cheat to get the advantage. It is as old as time and more importantly simple. They got the heat on Homicide, Roode was a tremendous asshole as he used the three amigos and mocked Homicide afterwards. Hernandez is so great off of the hot tag, and the selling by Beer Money made it even better. The comeback by LAX, which saw Hernandez Border Toss Homicide from the ring to the floor onto Beer Money was SO sweet, as well as crazy. The finish was Beer Money cheating, with Jackie low blowing Hernandez on the floor, the chicks fighting and Storm using the beer bottle on the “bad eye” of Homicide for the win. In the end they played the injury from TV well enough to make it matter, and everyone turned in a strong performance. It will be a shame if LAX splits soon as they are saying, because I feel that there is more to get out them with Beer Money and The Guns as the focal points of the division.
LAST MAN STANDING MATCH: And this was our match of the night. I have to say that I was looking forward to this match more than any other. I have been a huge fan of AJ Styles for years and I always wanted a series of AJ vs. Angle matches. AJ styles has developed over the last 6-years into a great performer. Kurt Angle may be held together by superglue and duct tape, and I think we can all agree that sanity left him a long while ago; but the fact is that the guy can still go and he always busts his ass in the ring. In my opinion that makes a lot to look forward too. They opted for the “Texas Death Match” rules here, pin or submission and then answer the 10-count. I prefer this format to the count when the man is down, as I think it allows for more drama. They worked a long match here, with the story that Angle didn’t want the brawl to begin with and wanted to rely on his wrestling. AJ wanted to kill him, plain and simple. They worked a good pace for the opening segment, which went around 17:00. We got dives, brawling, hell Angle busted out a senton dive off of the stage; he seriously just doesn’t care. Styles took the first fall as he countered Angle going for a Styles Clash but AJ countered with the ankle lock and grapevine, and Angle tapped. Angle would respond with some quick pins and looked to dominate the match as the climax was them fighting to the top rope, and AJ getting a SICK DDT from the top. He pinned Angle and as the ref counted commentary did a good job of playing up Angle’s neck issues, and he could not answer the count. Styles got a decisive victory here with no help, there were no run ins, no Karen and it was exactly what it should have been. Simple. After the match they went to stretcher Angle out, but AJ returned to the ring and gave him a brain buster for good measure. As AJ left, Sting appeared and gave him the scorpion death drop on the ramp. Nash would confront him and that was our end. In a way I felt that this took away from AJ’s moment, but it also begins the Sting vs. AJ angle. The match delivered though, and that is the important thing.
TNA WORLD TITLE SIX SIDES OF STEEL WEAPONS THAT WILL HURT A MAN REAL BAD MATCH: To sum up the main event in one word I would say “disappointment.” Hey had the set up, they had the history going in and early on they had the crowd. Unfortunately they were tired out from the gimmicks earlier in the evening and Joe and Booker gave them nothing to make them care. There was no real drama, no threat of the title change. They walked through it and it showed. It would have been a fun TV main event, but as far as PPV goes I cannot say it delivered as it should have. Booker was great at the end when he saw the guitar, acting as if he saw a ghost, but while I liked the twist to a point, it makes me feel like we’re headed towards WCW 2000 again with those two men. Again I have to stress that I was completely under whelmed by the match. It wasn’t BAD at all, but the crowd died a few minutes in and the performances were autopilot. Joe is much better than this, Booker T is much better than this, but they just didn’t deliver a main event match when they had the ability to do so. While the tease of Jarrett is interesting, the fact that Joe needed help in a cage match was poor booking I thought. Also I strongly disagree with using the cage on a PPV that is not Lockdown. Quite simply it could have been MUCH better. And one last thing, rope breaks in the cage? Really? What is the purpose of breaking, they can’t DQ you.
GIMMICKS: Since they did brand this as “the most hardcore PPV of the summer” I will be short and lenient. It is fine to gimmick a PPV, I have no problem with PPV branding. But when you constantly run gimmick matches of every PPV, and when you saturate the TV with gimmick matches, there is only so much people can take, and only so many different ways the guy can perform the matches. By the end of the night the crowd was wasted, they had seen it all and they would likely have shit on the main event, except they were too tired to do so. Stop burning the crowds out, tone down the gimmicks please.
BLACK TIE BRAWL AND CHAIN MATCH: Easily the worst thing on the PPV was this convoluted match between Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. A tuxedo match meets the chain match, wow. I will say that it was better than expected, but considering that I didn’t expect much at all, that really isn’t saying too much now is it? The first half was pretty bad as they focused on Val too much once again, missed the action and then did the walk out. But after she was gone things did get better. The action picked up, Dutt was a great dick heel as he beat on Jay in front of his parents and the finish of the match was good. Unfortunately it couldn’t erase the beginning portion of the match, which was slow and uninspired. The stipulation really killed this, it should have been a simple chain match. The tuxedo deal added nothing to the match and was extremely lame. Don’t make shit more difficult than it needs to be. Simple is better most times. This whole feud has been a failure, it makes me not want to watch, which is a shame because the guys deserve better booking than this.
SO LONE STAR, NOW YOU SEE THAT EVIL WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH BECAUSE GOOD IS DUMB…: One thing that was a recurring theme Sunday night was the fact that just about ALL of the heels were over big time with the crowd. This wasn’t a smart crowd or a heel crowd, these people didn’t care about the faces at all and loved the heels. At first this was confusing, but when you think about it, it makes COMPLETE sense. It hasn’t always been this way, but for a lot of this year the faces in TNA have either been booked as STUPID or as whiney bitches, like Joe. Think about it, in TNA who are the coolest guys? The heels. Take the opener, Petey was completely over with the crowd and they hated Creed. Why? Petey does cool moves. Petey constantly countered Creed. Petey poses for the crowd and has a chick with him. The crowd loved Beer Money. They have Beer, they have Money, they have a chick that kicks ass and they are bad asses that put people through glass tables. Sonjay Dutt was over as a heel IN LETHAL’S HOMETOWN! Why? Because he constantly outdoes Lethal, hell Val left because she was mad at Lethal. During the Knockouts match they LOVED the heels. WHY? Kong killed the faces on eat a time, and then all together. She’s a cool monster, and they loved her. They loved Booker because he came off like a star and Joe even called himself a “wanna be Indy worker.” Bottom line, I feel that they need to sit down between this show and the next tapings and really re-evaluate their booking of the faces. There is one thing to letting the heels get one up on the faces so that we can get excited for the comeuppance, but it is another to make them goofs and crybabies.
NOTHING
Overall I will go with a 7.6 out of 10 for the event. It wasn’t a blow away show, but there were a lot of good matches, a very good match for the tag titles and an excellent AJ vs. Angle match. The only bad was the tuxedo bullshit, and even that was way better than I expected. The main event was a disappointment, but overall the show was very enjoyable. I hope that they go back to simple next month, for both TV and PPV because the gimmick overuse is going to hurt them live. They seriously need to realize that wear the crowd out and it will continue to wear out crowds if they don’t tone them down and make them mean something. A fun show and an overall recommendation from me to see it for some really fun wrestling; just turn your brain off.
And I’m out of here!
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