Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 10.19.09: ROH on HDNet, WWE Smackdown, WWE Superstars, And TNA Impact

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 10.19.2009

Wrestling’s 4R’s breaks down all the action from WWE Superstars, ROH on HDNet, WWE Smackdown and TNA Impact!

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In HD where available…



By: Aaron Hubbard

ROH on HDNet 10.12.09:

QUICK RESULTS:
- Austin Aries defeated Alex Payne [*]
- Bison Smith and Necro Butcher fought to a double count-out [1/2*]
- Tyler Black defeated Rhett Titus [***]
- KENTA defeated Chris Hero [***3/4]

THE RIGHT:
NECRO VS. BISON: This was the follow up to their pull-apart brawl from a few weaks ago, and these guys didn't waste any time wrestling. They just whaled on each other. Bison looked like a beast for pummeling Necro Butcher and Butcher looked super tough for taking the beating. In the end, they both got counted out, and we got another pull-apart brawl. This is how you use a count-out effectively. Hopefully this leads to a No Disqualification match of some kind, which will allow these guys to use some toys to make up for their mediocre wrestling ability. Not exactly pretty, but effective.

THE THRUST IS A MUST: The first of two good matches on this show saw Tyler Black take on Rhett Titus. Now, a blind dog could have told you that Black was winning. But ROH did the smart thing by allowing Rhett to have a competitive match with Black. Tyler was giving, and Rhett was up to the task, and they had a good match. It wasn't an amazing match as far as workrate or innovation goes, but it elevated Titus without making Black look weak. Tyler is the top babyface in the promotion, and having good matches with young talent that are over with the crowd but unproven in the ring is a good thing. Tyler eventually got the win, but it was an out of nowhere win; he hit the Pele Kick and that stunned Titus long enough for Black to hit God's Last Gift. Some may not like how Tyler has been Lynn's apprentice of late, but this was good stuff.

HERO VS. KENTA: I went back and forth on where to put this thing. Ultimately, I decided the ring work was good enough and the booking made enough sense that this lands squarely in the right. Chris Hero is one of the most improved wrestlers of the year, in my opinion, and KENTA has been on a tear. Hero cut a good promo early in the show sayign that KENTA's kicks are great, but KENTA is one dimensional, while Hero is versatile. They had chemistry and worked a good, hard hitting match. They sped it up at the right places and slowed it down at the right places, and it just really clicked. Super-KENTA reared his ugly head again as he kicked out of Hero's Rolling Elbow (two to the back of the skull), but he wasn't nearly as bad as he usually is. Hero tried to use his loaded elbow pad, but Eddie Kingston came out and stole it, and that allowed KENTA to hit the Go To Sleep for the win. The booking does nothing to help KENTA, and little to help Hero, but it helps progress an angle that has been pushed for most of the show's existence. But it needs a bloody payoff on TV! Terrific match, good albiet annoying booking.

PURGATORY:

A-DOUBLE L-DOUBLE I-DOUBLE: That I stands for Roman Numerals for those who didn't grow up in Rome. This was the second Austin Aries Lucky Lottery and went much like the first, with Aries picking out an undercard guy from a hat and beating him in short order. Not offensive, and it helps establish Aries' character, but it is a bit dull. Payne wasn't exactly up to the task like Grizzly Redwood was last time, either, so the match wasn't exactly thrilling. Prazak's glorious overexaggerated commentary returned, so that's another plus. Aries got upset with Payne getting a little offense and picked him up out of a cover after a brainbuster, and then locked on the Last Chancery. He kept it on until Bryan Danielson came out, called the whole thing a sham, and said if Aries wants to face the best in the world, he should wrestle Bryan right then and there. Aries said he's sick of fans and pundits calling Bryan the best, because Aries has the belt. But he neglected a match, as expected. The good news is that we will see these two wrestle tonight. Really, a good segment, and the only thing keeping it out of the right is the lackluster match.

CABANA PROMO: Cabana had a funny promo where he seemingly talked about his short-lived career in WWE, talking about how he got to travel and meet lots of nice people, but he felt creatively limited. But turns out he was talking about selling lemonade in Chicago. *Winkwinknudgenudge* This was a little too "cute" and not laugh out loud funny. I suppose this might get over Cabana somewhat, but he needs more than ninety seconds to cut a genuinely engaging promo.

THE WRONG:

NONE

THE RIDICULOUS:

NONE

The 411

I really enjoyed this show, all things considered. The first segment was a little poor but set up next week's main event. Black vs. Titus was good, and Hero vs. KENTA was great. Plus, the show was just a breeze, with everything just flowing. Only the brawl between Necro and Bison got tedious. Very good show, and a recommendation to see it on Youtube if you missed it.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

---

By: Daniel Wilcox

iMpact! 10.15.09:

THE RIGHT:

Gauntlet Match – Hernandez vs. The British Invasion: It's always good to see a big dude kicking the ass of three other dudes, and that's all this was. Hernandez looked pretty bloody badass going into his big match at the pay-per-view, and although The Invasion got creamed, they at least got a measure of revenge by taking Hernandez out (with the help of Eric Young). Good stuff, although people will complain about the Invasion getting buried.

Daniels vs. The Pope D'Angelo Dinero: Now this is more like it. The match got a decent amount of time and both guys worked hard and simply put, what we got was a great little free TV match that served to entice viewers to buy the pay-per-view. I liked the post-match attack by Homicide, disguised as Suicide, and I LOVED that they mentioned that Homicide now knows who Suicide is and hopefully that's an angle that won't be dropped, but will develop in upcoming weeks and maybe even at BFG.

Mick Foley Sets Up Abyss: I absolutely loved this. The whole thing. Foley cut a very good promo on Abyss, but didn't bury him. We then got Abyss being tricked, and while people pointed out it was obviously Daffney, Abyss has never been the smartest guy on the show so it made sense that he'd be easily fooled. Later, we then got the backstage beat down and a great line from Foley about not falling for cheap imitations. I loved how they tied the whole thing together on the premise that Abyss is a Foley knock off. Their match at BFG will either be a train wreck, or a near-classic, or both.

Stretcher Match – Rhino vs. Lashley: You may be surprised to find that I've put this in the Right, because frankly the match was bland and uninspired. But for two reasons I'm going to commend TNA for this match, the first being that the important thing here was building Lashley ready for BFG and they did that. Secondly, with the backstage attack later on by Samoa Joe, they completed a fantastic build to this match despite it being thrown together with just weeks to go before the big show, and now I find myself actually looking forward to this match. Good stuff.

Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles: I don't need to tell you that this was an awesome match, but it was. While I do have some issues with the match, revolving around selling, a slow start, a predictable finish, and the fact that they followed it with half hour of video packages that should have been dispersed throughout the show, sometimes you just have throw your hands up and agree with Orlando, because this was fucking awesome. Apart from anything else, it reminded me of what TNA are capable of putting out, and ensured that I'll find a way to watch Bound for Glory at some point this week. Don't get me wrong, I ain't paying for that shit, but I'll watch.

PURGATORY:

The Mafia Open The Show: Apart from the fact that the Main Event Mafia opening the show is as tired a way to open the show as Triple H's 20-minute promos in 2003, in fact probably more so. This was a decent enough segment that ran down some of the bigger matches for Bound for Glory. We got the faces coming out, a few of them got some mic time, which is great, and they we got another big ass brawl broken up by security. While there wasn't much wrong with this per se, it just felt like we were seeing the same thing we've seen most weeks for the past few months and it really just came across as a way of getting all the big names out there and saying "hey, pay-per-view this weekend, buy, buy, buy!"

Falls Count Anywhere – Alissa Flash vs. Hamada: These two are great additions to the Knockout's Division, as I have said before. Thus, as we'd expect, this was a really fun little match even if it was a little similar to what we've seen before in recent weeks. But while the match was good, I have to ask what the point of this was, as neither are involved in the big show and as such this took up time that should be used to showcase guys that are actually booked for Bound for Glory, which is supposed to be TNA's biggest show of the year. And as mentioned, we were seeing nothing new here, so this time should have been given to another match, or more promo time for someone people are actually supposed to be paying to see Sunday.

X Division Championship – Amazing Red vs. Suicide: So Don West is now Amazing Red's mouthpiece. I'm not overly sure I like that pairing, but I'm more than willing to give the pairing a chance. Moving on to the match itself, its vintage TNA. The match was OK, but too short, and we got a shitty finish with The Pope coming out to attack Suicide and Red making the save. We get the Ultimate X match finalized, and it all felt a bit rushed. Still, this was a half decent match if nothing else.

THE WRONG:

The Beautiful People vs. Kong, Tara and ODB: Before anyone berates me for bias, I hated it when WWE had bitter rivals teaming up on Raw last week, and I hated it here. If these people really hated each other, why would they even bother working the match when they could just beat the shit out of each other. Thankfully, Kong did just that, but even still, just the fact that this was booked was a bad idea in my opinion. They could've booked The Beautiful People against three women not involved on the pay-per-view to put them over, and given the three-title contender's a separate segment. Apart from anything else, the match was short and crappy anyway.

THE RIDICULOUS:

Four-Way Captain's Interview: Now just what the fuck was this shit? Clearly it was just a way of setting up ANOTHER brawl (enough already), but it was quite possibly the worst way to go about it. We'll pretend that these teams have captains, we'll give them a few seconds to say two or three lines, and then we'll send them back to the brawl. This was so contrived, and so bad, they've really fucked things up with the tag division in recent weeks I feel, just by recycling through the same combinations of teams for months and months. This was really poor.

The 411

This was a pretty good hard sell for Bound for Glory, which actually has the potential to be pay-per-view of the year, just looking at the card. Bare in mind that I'm discussing this before the show takes place. But outside of a few dude segments such as the tag teams' interview, there wasn't really anything overly bad on this show, and we got one really good match, one great match, and some great Mick Foley promo action to really sell the big show. A very strong showing from TNA, and hopefully they did a good enough job to sell Bound for Glory. Although, the lack of Sting shouldn't be ignored.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

---

By: Steve Cook

Superstars 10.15.09:

THE RIGHT:

CM Punk vs. John Morrison: I wouldn't rate this match up there with some of Punk & Morrison's previous efforts on ECW, Smackdown & pay-per-view, but it was still a fine showcase of professional wrestling with two of WWE's top young stars. Adding to the display of young talent here was The Miz on commentary, who almost made us forget that Jim Ross had taken the week off for his wedding anniversary. I know a lot of people don't like Miz, but I think it's for the right reasons and he should be a pretty solid heel for years to come. Readers of this column know that I generally dislike the disqualification finishes used on this show, but the finish to this match with Miz stomping Punk and causing Morrison to get disqualified was good sneaky bad guy fun that I enjoyed. It was a good way to further the Miz/Morrison issue and continue Punk's recent trend of falling bass-ackwards into victories.

PURGATORY:

Mark Henry vs. Chris Masters: Henry & Masters' second Superstars match was a lot better than their first, but still wasn't anything I'd recommend watching. Henry makes a better addition to Team Raw than Masters, and while he's not quite as over as when he made the switch to Raw, his involvement in the 7 on 7 match should help. Masters is still treading water on Superstars, he did look good in the offense he did working over Henry's knee (which Henry did a really good job selling), but I saw no major improvement from him this week. Though both guys should get credit for having a better match the second time around, this wasn't quite good enough to make it out of purgatory.

THE WRONG:

Vladimir Kozlov vs. Tommy Dreamer: The right person went over, but this ends up in this section of the column because I had to watch it. Dreamer was introduced weighing in at 255 lbs…am I the only one who thinks that number may be a bit low? Everybody likes Tommy, heck, I like Tommy, but he's probably on the 19th hole of his career at this point. Kozlov has the look that WWE likes, but the execution isn't quite there yet and I don't think Dreamer's the kind of guy that Kozlov needs to work with in order to get better. On the bright side, Kozlov still has excellent entrance music.

THE RIDICULOUS:

Ask The Divas: This almost made it out of the "Ridiculous" section this week thanks to Michelle McCool's insider comedy. Her answer to "Which WWE Superstar would you most want on your side in a mixed tag team match?" (Kane) was a nice reference to her relationship status outside the ropes without being blatant about it. Cause, you know, Kane is Undertaker's brother. I got a kick out of it anyway. People tell me that there are people out there who really like this segment and flood the forum on the WWE Universe site with relationship questions. I can only hope these people have followed Bob Barker's advice and spayed or neutered themselves.

The 411

After two weeks of Superstars returning to form, it was a step backwards this week. Outside of a Punk vs. Morrison match that wasn't one of their best efforts but still worth watching, there was really nothing to see here. I do give them credit for including more storyline advancement on this show as usual, as the last spot on Team Raw was decided and the Miz/Morrison issue was furthered greatly.

SHOW RATING: 6.0

---

By: Jeremy Thomas

WWE SmackDown 10.16.09

THE RIGHT:

FINLAY vs. MIKE KNOX vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER: This triple threat was the first Team Blue qualifying match. The crowd was alternately hot for Finlay, more or less ambivalent to Knox and gave Ziggler a decent level of heat. Again, it appears that Knox's gimmick has failed to catch on, and this time I'll give as much blame to the lack of development as I do to Knox's inability to connect with the crowd. The match started with what looked to be a deal between Ziggler and Knox, but Knox amusingly would have nothing of it. This was not a particularly clean match; the three men were moving at too rushed a pace and there was some awkwardness along there. Otherwise this was an impressive little three-way, with all three men getting some good offense in. The majority of the match had either Ziggler or Finlay in control, but they did give Knox some moments as well. The crowd stayed pretty well into this which made for a better overall match, and the Rolling Thunder Finlay delivered to Knox was pretty impressive. Ziggler came in as an opportunistic bastard and stole the win, which puts him on Team SmackDown. That says a lot about Ziggler's potential, and much like the rest of this show and Team Raw it shows that they seem to want to use this PPV match to build superstars up which is encouraging. All in all I liked this, even with the occasional lack of crispness in the execution.

CRYME TYME vs. THE HART DYNASTY: Seriously, how many times have these guys faced each other at this point? It's kind of unfortunate that these are the only two real teams on SmackDown, as one more would at least add some variety to the mix. This was another Bragging Rights qualifier and as usual, these guys were pretty good against each other. After the Hart Dynasty started off in control, Tyson Kidd used the ring post in an assisted STF that was visually very impressive. These two teams are still continuing to add something new to each of their matches and it's keeping this otherwise stale feud fresh; they deserve a lot of credit for that. I never thought I'd be as impressed with Shad and JTG as I have been over their feud with Jericho & Show and then this one with the Harts, but they've really picked up their game and I've been impressed. The finish was quick-paced and yet nicely executed, and I'm okay with Cryme Tyme getting the win here as they're simply more over with the crowd. I also hope for some interesting dynamics between the two and Jericho—hopefully without the constant "Christina" references. That may be asking for too much though.

ENTER THE RAW LADIES: Jericho was backstage, trying to talk to Michelle McCool about how important Bragging Rights was. He wanted Michelle to kick a Raw Diva's ass at the show. Michelle gave a decent but vaguely uninspired promo about how she makes history and will beat any Diva put in front of her. It wasn't bad by any stretch, and Michelle's able to get into that arrogant, bitchy persona well. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing, once Jericho's permanently back on SmackDown, a partnership of some kind between Y2J and Michelle. Their personas fit well with each other and I think that Michelle's screen presence and mic skills would improve considerably under Jericho's watch.

It wasn't long before Mickie James showed up. Now, I don't know who was in charge of her outfit tonight, and she did look hot, but since when was Mickie a 1940's screen star? That's what she looked like with the dress, the ropes of pearls and the old-school hairdo. Let me cut people off at the pass and say that any pearl necklace jokes are too obvious to even post. Mickie made her case and Michelle left, only to run into Beth Phoenix. Seriously, what was with the wannabe formal dresses? I don't get it. Anyway, this was a tolerable little start-up establishment of what's sure to be the three ladies trading the Women's Title back and forth for a while, and I was generally okay with that. It wasn't great at all, but it worked.

PUNK GETS HIS REMATCH: Vince was backstage talking on the phone when CM Punk came up to interrupt and bitch about the Fatal Four-Way. Vince agreed and said Teddy remained on probation, but he wasn't going to change the PPV main event. Instead he talked up Punk's submission win at Breaking Point—or as Vince said, "in Montreal," and said he liked Punk's idea for a rematch of that. So he booked that for next week. Now, I can't imagine that Punk will be taking the title off the Dead Man just a few weeks in and before Bragging Rights, so it's pretty clear to me that he'll be fighting his way out of this. Depending on the execution, I'm okay with that. I don't think they'll bury Punk, so perhaps it will turn into some sort of Batista/Rey Rey screwjob run-in mess, or perhaps Armstrong or Teddy will fail to call for the bell as directed and Punk's anger will cost him the win. Whatever the case I'm not going to crap on it right away, and will wait to see what they're doing. This was short but decent, and I dig the Punk/Vince interactions because they seem to work well together.

THE RETURN OF THE DIRT SHEET: I was definitely looking forward to this one, having been a big fan of the Dirt Sheet during MnM 2.0's run together. Miz came out first to a half-red, half-blue ring with the US Title over his shoulder, before we were treated to the greatest entrance in professional wrestling today. No, I'll never get tired of that. They took their seats and Morrison started talking crap about Miz and his title win. They started to bicker back and forth and immediately started to one-up each other. They went right to the teammates who split up and you only ever heard of one of them again…but in true keeping to the pop culture-oriented team, mentioned Mork & Mindy and Bill & Ted, Wayne & Garth, Regis & Kathy Lee and such before finally touching on the wrestling quotient with the Rockers. They went right to bickering with each other over merchandise and who was the Janetty. Let's face it, this was pretty much pure awesomeness as they took potshots at each other over such important wrestling qualities as how they dress, who has the better hair and whether Miz is husky or not. These two were fantastic on the mic, unsurprisingly, and they got some great shots in. I loved Morrison equating Raw to Saturday Night Live with the guest host thing, and the crowd loved every moment of it. I did too, and this is a match I'm definitely looking forward to seeing.

PURGATORY:

TEAM BLUE STARTS TO TAKE SHAPE: SmackDown began with Teddy Long coming out to the stage to talk about Bragging Rights. He addressed the Team Red vs. Team Blue main event and said he would ensure that SmackDown prevailed as the dominant show. As such, he introduced the captain of Team Blue, Chris Jericho. Jericho was dressed in his snazzy suit and made his way down to the ring. T-Grish mentioned how Vintage Cole puked on Jericho's shoes on the SmackDown 10th Anniversary Show, which was awesome. Jericho's promo was about what we would expect from him. Jericho put over Orton as a guy who's going to beat Cena and then ripped on the champ. I love how they're completely building it like Cena's going to lose across the shows; it's a nice way to build the match without having Cena and Orton show up on each show and cut promos. Jericho then did a reverse-psychology shill of the DX book—nice touch—and ripped on DX and the fans for liking them. The shredding of the DX book was a nice move and got the crowd super-hot. Sure, Jericho did a couple SAT words, but it seems like he's been moving away from that over the past couple weeks and that's nice to see.

We weren't done yet, though. Down to the ring came Kane, to what was actually a bit of a pop. He named himself co-captain of the team, which got the crowd cheering. Jericho's reactions were priceless as usual, and he quickly covered and said he had just been thinking the same thing. Kane tried to get back on the heel side by talking about the book and DX, but the crowd didn't seem to care. I really don't mind Kane's involvement as a co-captain and Jericho was good in that portion, but it did seem a bit tacked on and the ‘E was clearly hoping he'd get a heel reaction, which didn't happen. It didn't drag the segment down overly much, but it did knock it out of the Right for me.

DREW McINTYRE vs. R-TRUTH: Before we got to this, the last Team Blue qualifying match, we got a recap of the feud between Drew and Truth. Kudos, as always, to the incredibly talented WWE Production team for making it look more epic than it has been. The crowd was behind Truth as always, though there still isn't a huge reaction to McIntyre. I have to wonder how much of that is the poor booking of this feud and how much is McIntyre's failure to get himself over. They went in there and had a decent match that worked perfectly serviceably as a TV match. They're starting to work well with each other, and this was better than their match at Hell in a Cell. The match was laid out well and the crowd was into it; the problem here was the booking of the finish. I fail to understand why they aren't just blowing off this feud finally. What good does it do to have Drew win by count out here? Have him pin Truth and move on so he's looking strong going into Bragging Rights. I also think this might be too much too soon like a certain other individual (see below). The match was fine, but the ending nearly ruined it for me.

THE DEAD MAN SPEAKS…AGAIN: For the second week in a row, we got a special message from the Undertaker. This time it was less about Bragging Rights than it was about CM Punk specifically. He talked about how history had a way of repeating itself, but not in his yard. This was okay for what it was, but my problem here is why they're keeping Taker on pre-taped promo work. My assumption, based on everything we know, is that they're trying to keep him out of action so he can heal up from his physical problems. Okay, fair enough. Then why, WHY is he our World Heavyweight Champion? It's not often they've done feuds where one of the guys wasn't live (so-to-speak) for most of it. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I don't feel that this one is outright failing, but it does make me worried for the condition he'll be in for the match against Punk next week and then Bragging Rights just five days later. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think I am.

BATISTA vs. REY REY: Before the match, we had a backstage segment with the Manimal and Rey Rey suiting up. Big Dave said he didn't feel right and Rey Rey asked if he was afraid. They then talked about Bragging Rights and did the mutual respect thing. Again, I'm glad that they aren't pushing these guys as friends-turned-enemies over the title, it's something that's new and I'm okay with that.

The crowd was hyped by the time the match came, and was hyped for Rey Rey as he came out first. As a nice touch, they used the Raw vs. SmackDown video game shots in the graphic for the Bragging Rights four-way match. This was a face vs. face match where the crowd was actually more or less behind both men instead of defaulting to one of them as the heel, and I did like that. Boos occasionally went toward Big Dave which is sort of the standard since he looks like the bully, but those were restrained and the pops were more common. Part of it is the little things they did, staying in character and keeping it more like a friendly rivalry. This had its drawbacks too, because for most of the first part of the match there was a lot of them facing off after a set of counters and it resulted in a slow start. The match picked up a little bit but never really got off the ground right, and while it was an enjoyable match I wouldn't call it a great one. They went out there, they did their thing and Rey Rey got the surprise win to make him look credible. Despite the argument over whether Big Dave's shoulders were up or not, he still gave a show of respect which was nice. After the match Punk showed up and delivered what was frankly a pretty ugly Go2Sleep on Rey Rey before booking through the crowd. It puts Punk over nice for his showdown next week with the Dead Man but it loses points for the sloppiness of the move.

THE WRONG:

ERIC ESCOBAR vs. MATT HARDY: Before this Bragging Rights qualifier, Vickie Guerrero was given an introduction and the crowd remembered that they loathed her. She tossed out her catch phrase and introduced Eric Escobar, who seems to have stolen Steve Austin's outfit to wear to the ring. A generic look is not a good start, folks. Matt got his usual huge pop on the way down to the ring, and in that respect I'm okay with Escobar facing Matt Hardy as it will hopefully be a good way to get him some heat. This was Escobar's first impression, and what did we learn? Well, we learned he's got the basics down, which is actually a little more encouraging than some of the people we've seen the ‘E bring up in the past. And really…that's about all. He didn't look impressive, he merely looked competent. I would be okay with that except that he's facing someone who is very skilled at making people look good. Basically, what we learned about Escobar here was that he can lock up, he can punch, and he can deliver a clothesline and take some offense, and then pull the tights on a roll-up. I would hope for something more out of someone being tossed straight into the main event of Bragging Rights. I also think that it's WAY too early to put him in that match, considering we've only just seen his first match now and the Pay Per View is a little more than a week away. I'm all for elevating new talent, but this is WAY too soon and I think the fans will reject it. So while this was a competent match, it wasn't special at all and the drastic over pushing is a bit much for me.

THE RIDICULOUS:

DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don't care.

The 411

For the most part, I liked this show. Most of the Bragging Rights qualifiers were good, with the exception of Escobar/Hardy and McIntyre/Truth. We got a fantastic Dirty Sheet out of Miz and Morrison, and the set-up for the ladies was short but mostly good. On the downside, there was that Escobar/Hardy match that didn't do anything for me and the problems in the main event match, and the continuing and worrying tendency to use the World Champion in pre-taped vignettes. These don't drag it down to a sub-par show by any stretch, and the good easily outweighs the bad. SmackDown has put on better shows than this in recent memory but they've put on worse too.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

From WATRYYYY:
I can't be the only one expecting Big Show to 'pull a Kurt Angle' from Survivor Series 2001.

From Guest#2845:
Well no sh!t sherlock they are tag team champions who are feuding with DX. It's not like Show's anywhere close to a face turn either.

He might do that, but I don't think so. The Jericho/Show tag team has always been a team of convenience and focused on winning. So being on opposite sides, it makes complete sense that they would be itching to beat each other and show who the dominant person on the team is. Obviously Show's not a face, but then you have Cryme Tyme on the SmackDown side so it's clearly not all faces vs. heels. I think that Jericho and Show will come to blows at Bragging Rights (and probably before) and it will lead into complications in the feud with DX, but I don't see Show screwing the Raw team. Could be wrong though.


From BPN:
Am I the only one that loved the Divas match...or matches...or segment. Whatever, it was good, bro! WWE gave us Jillian DIVA'S CHAMPION! That was so great moment. I enjoyed it even more than this year's Wrestlemania main event. Kidding. Seriously, I loved that thing. I didn't make Jillian look sloopy, it made Jillian look SMART cheating heel! The only thing WWE should do now is to make feud between Melina and Jillian. It could be awesome. And actually the only ridiculous were both Melina botches of both her finishers. Jillian did a great work, great acting, she looked superb! I DARE YOU 411! MAKE HER WRESTLER OF THE WEEK! Cuz she's Jillian and she...won the title at least.

Yeah, somehow I don't see that happening. Yes, the Melina botches were bad, but I can't get on board with the idea that it was good, great or anything other than abhorrent. But we all have different tastes, and to each their own.


From Ben:
I'd usually call you out on your low rating of Raw but this time, I'd have to agree with you. The entire show just felt really...Weird. Like they were trying some sort of new formula which just didn't work at all.

I did notice you left off the Hornswaggle stuff. I personally found it cringe-worthy and hope to god it was just a one time thing and they don't try and make a storyline out of it.

I left out the Horny stuff because as bad as it was, I had enough to bitch about. Sometimes you have to pick your fights and save other ones for later. But yes, it was pretty bad.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
I agree about Eve on RAW. If you remember the most recent match between CT and HD, she tripped up Bulldog Jr. to get a win. Could it be that if she is going to be cheating, might she be starting a heel turn? I doubt it, but you never know.

I doubt it too. Wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility, but I think Eve works too well as a face for them to turn her. Let her get her skills as good as she possibly can, then let her work on a possible heel persona if its needed. I don't think it is needed now though, so I'll be happy to see her stay a face.



From Jackson:
Mr. Thomas I need you watch that divas cluster again. Your love for Jillian is blind. She was the reason the first finish of the match with Melina went wrong. She clearly fell to early.

From Adam Jones:
Jeremy, I have to respectfully disagree with you. It looked to me like Jillian was responsible for fucking up spots in the Mickie match, and looked like she started to drop backwards before Melina got her leg up.

To be fair, I did watch those both a couple times, since it seems like no matter who I criticize in the Diva matches everyone says I criticized the wrong person. With the split leg drop move of Melina's, you can't blame that on Jillian as much as I love Melina. Jillian is behind held backward, and it's nearly impossible to keep yourself balanced like that, so it was up to Melina to keep her held as long as possible and she just let go. That's why she dropped backwards early, because gravity took over.


From Jason Douglas:
The Divas title debacle was just heinous. First, the moment Jillian was announced as having a title shot I thought "based on WHAT???". Second, I don't think it even hit two minutes. Third, the very first spot was blown, with Mickie landing wrong. For those keeping score, I thought it was Mickie's fault. An ending out of nowhere, then a ridiculous turn of events that was presumably hinged on Jillian pulling the colossal upset. Would Mickie have been put in an impromptu defense against Melina had she retained? The horrible split leg botch, then mercifully it was over. This made Mickie and Jillian look worthless, and thus did nothing for Melina. It was bad booking on more levels than I care to count.

On a general Raw note, the matches seemed even shorter than usual. In fact, I would call them matchlets. How, when this is the show with an overrun, do they have about a quarter as much time for matches as Smackdown? That show has Teddy and others in the back every week, Raw rewinds, etc. and you never see matchlets. What gives? For all the deserved praise SD gets, you can't tell me that a lineup with Swagger, MVP, Kofi, Bourne, HBK, Jericho etc. couldn't deliver quality matches if allowed to. Even Cena and Orton can have good matches with any of those guys rather than each other forever.

Pretty much my entire point summed up, Jason. Well-put.


From Guest#2335:
Jeremy, you need to realise that if the WWE did what you and the IWC wanted you to, ratings would drop even more, they could easily get you to give 8-10 ratings for each show by just having 5 20 minute matches on Raw and that would make you cream yourself, but this isn't what the rest of the wrestling fans wants

I bet if you gave your 4R's to the Raw's in the attitude era they would all suck to you, but guess what, this was the greatest time for wrestling so I think you need to lighten up and stop bitching about anything that isn't wrestling

Oh, I would HATE a Raw with nothing but twenty minute matches. It would be underutilizing a lot of other talent, and I wouldn't be pleased. It would also burn the crowd and us the viewers out. However, you're going to an extreme. I'm saying that a bunch of matches that don't even reach three minutes sucks. The Attitude Era, for the record, generally had longer matches on average. And blind worship of the Attitude Era is still blind worship. Let's not forget the Attitude Era gave us a lot of crap stuff too. I think the current era is not better than the Attitude Era by any stretch, but it's not as much worse as some people think. Thanks for reading!

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And we're out of here!


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