Wrestling’s 4R’s Special Saturday Edition 10.31.09: ECW and Raw Reviewed!

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 10.31.2009

Chris Jericho gloats, the Big Show explains, Kofi Kingston steps up to defeat Chris Jericho and then destroyed Randy Orton’s new racecar! Elsewhere, NASCAR geeks hosted Raw, DX will challenge Cena, Yoshi Tatsu takes Christian to the limit and much more! Wrestling’s 4R’s break down all the action from WWE Raw and ECW on SyFy!

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By: Jeremy Thomas

Raw 10.26.09

The Right:

KOFI KINGSTON vs. CHRIS JERICHO: The booking of this match made a lot of sense, considering that Jericho pinned Kofi the night before at Bragging Rights thanks to Show's betrayal. Kofi was in serious mode and took a more aggressive bent, which worked quite well for his character all things considered. Jericho was the perfect person to help Kofi look good going into his newest feud, and he did exactly that as the two put on a very good match. There was no doubt that Jericho was the veteran in the match and controlled Kofi at several points, with Kofi making exciting comebacks to pop the crowd. It's been noted by some that the amount of losses Jericho has taken are starting to hurt his credibility and I can see that to a certain degree, but at the same time he remains consistently over and all it will take is a major feud to get his momentum right back so I don't have major problems with it. Either way this was a great match for Kofi's career and he was doing things you don't see a lot of midcarders do, like countering the Walls of Jericho and avoiding the pin after the Codebreaker. There was some actual suspense to the finish as this really could have gone either way and the near-falls did the match a lot of good. The ending put Kofi over huge without hurting Jericho that much, as he was protected through thinking that he won. This was a good match that I really enjoyed, and Kofi's status was further cemented when Randy Orton came out post-match to attack him. This was another move that made a lot of sense in character, considering Kofi's involvement in Orton's match. At the same time the kid gets instant credibility just by virtue of being attacked by the Legend-Killer. Good stuff all around.

EVERYONE WANTS A PIECE OF CENA: Backstage, the guest hosts were making nice with Eve—not that I blame them, I would too—when Jack Swagger came up and did some sucking up. He asked for a shot at Cena, but apparently Cena wasn't getting a match because he had wrestled an Iron Man match the night before. They said that they were going to pick Cena's Survivor Series opponent tonight though. After a little hitting on Eve, Swagger was interrupted by Miz who demanded a title shot since he won on Sunday. Right here, I think we got a good shot of the difference between Swagger and Miz. Swagger is undoubtedly the better wrestler in the ring. However, when it comes to charisma and promos, it's all Miz. Swagger has a tendency to stand there with a bland look on his face when he's not talking. People have ragged on me about not giving Swagger his due before, but I just don't think he does the little things he needs to do to hit that upper-tier. The potential is there, it's just not yet realized.

Anyway, a short time later in the show we had Justin Roberts about to announce Cena..but out came Priceless instead. Ted and Cody came down to the ring and got on the mic to berate Cena about his win and announce that they wanted a match with Cena for the belt. They said they were men enough to go and challenge Cena directly. Nut up or shut up, John! Well, he nutted up and came on down and got on the mic to say he didn't have to brag, because it was just what it needed to be. He was good here, putting Orton over as well as himself and saying that they did it because the rivalry needed to end. Amen, John. I gotta say, his promo looked like one of those few times where the 'E acknowledges the IWC, because he said some things we've been saying for a while now. The "people are going to think Raw's going into reruns" was pretty good. The gist here was that Cena was going to make Priceless work for a shot, and I was okay with how this played. I wasn't too keen on Cena saying they hadn't earned anything—DX feud, anyone?—but it worked all in all. In reality, as much they've improved as performers and in credibility, these two aren't ready for a title feud yet, and if they tried Orton would certainly have to get involved and it ~would~ be a replay. I'm glad they're not going that route.

RANDY'S CONSOLATION PRIZE: Backstage, Josh Matthews caught up with Orton and asked him about the attack of Kofi. Randy basically spelled out why he did it and that he was far from done with Kofi. Somehow, I think this is gonna turn out better for the Jamaican from Ghana than Miz's feud with Cena did for the new US Champion. Cody and Ted then showed up and mollified Randy with some nice words and a gift…a Randy Orton racecar. Orton gave it a long look and then seemed pleased. All well and good, but…well, take a look here, folks, and see if you see what I see.



Am I the only one who thinks that the face looks almost as much like Cena as it does Orton? Apparently I'm seeing something that Orton didn't though, as like I said, he was fine with it. Priceless then said they had a surprise for Cena and that the title would come back to Legacy soon, and left Orton, as King called it, "enthralled" with his (or Cena's) face on the hood of the car. Later on he showed up following Ted and Cody's loss to MVP and Mizark, saying he didn't care about the stipulations of his Iron Man match, he wanted a rematch. Sucks to be you, Randy. Kofi then showed up on the 'Tron and said that no one wanted to hear from Orton anymore, before we saw Kofi was standing on Orton's car. He then trashed it to classic reactions from Orton. Dude, they're seriously going with a Kofi/Orton feud? If this goes the way it could, it will definitely catapult Kofi into the stratosphere. He doesn't have to win this feud, he just has to look somewhat credible and the fans will love him. Flat-out, this was the best part of Raw and I loved it.

SHEAMUS vs. JAMIE NOBLE: Holy hell. I seriously could have sworn Noble was never going to show up on TV again, with all the dark matches he's been wrestling against talent about to make their debuts. Noble seems to have scored himself the Val Venis position of working with the newcomers, and there's nothing wrong with that, it keeps him employed and he helps prep the next generation of talent. That was what he was doing this week, being booked against Sheamus in his Raw debut. I'm actually surprised to see that Sheamus has moved onto the Raw roster already, but hey if they think he's ready, more power to them. Vintage Cole tried to make Sheamus sound good by referencing the Cuchulain, a reference that was probably lost on most of the audience, but I got and liked. The match was of course a squash but it made Sheamus look impressive in his Raw debut. I don't know if he's going to fit on the roster, but since 'H is big on him he'll certainly get the opportunity. As a first match on Raw for Sheamus this was fairly good, and I can't complain much.

BIG SHOW vs. 'H: It was punishment time here for the Big Show, but we had a match to get through first. Big Show came down first with Jericho grandstanding alongside him, and then the crowd went nuts for DX. You know, as this match began, I thought of something…how does Show get a World Heavyweight Title match when he's a "proud member of the Raw Roster"? Sorry, the whole "I can fight for any title because I'm a tag champ" is kind of wacky to me. Anyway, this turned into a lumberjack match with the entirety of the Raw roster coming down to the ring to act as lumberjacks. Jericho very wisely skedaddled and left Show along against the entirety of Raw…no disqualification, and with Cena as the special guest referee. Classic. Someone might complain about the burial of the Big Show, and those people are nuts because he was battling the entire roster. Was it a great match? No, not at all. It was more of a crowd-pleasing segment than an actual match. But that was perfectly fine. What there was of a match was decent, and Show was still holding his own in the ring at times against the Game. This was their post-PPV push toward the impact of the brand extension, and I appreciated that. The idea that the roster is that loyal to a brand that you can get Jack Swagger and the Miz cheering for Triple H is refreshing, and it really does try to make the brand feel important. The entirety of the roster going in and beating down Show at the end was classic, and the crowd absolutely loved it. An observant person might note that Kofi was in the final four of finishers, right before Cena, HBK and 'H. Another encouraging sign for the guy. As I said this sent the crowd home happy, and afterward we heard that the Survivor Series match was going to be Cena vs. HBK vs. 'H. A three-face triple threat is rather interesting, and I'm curious to see how that will be pulled off. But I enjoyed this.

puRgatoRy:

PRICELESS vs. MVP & MIZARK: Wow, Montel looked happy to be coming down to the ring face Ted and Cody. Then again, considering the result I can't say that I blame him. I didn't have too much of a problem with Ted and Cody losing here…MVP and Henry need wins, and this kept them out of contention for the Survivor Series match which as I said above probably would not have been the best move. I didn't even have a problem with the work rate of the match. It was better than I expected out of a five-minute match between these two teams. Surprisingly, Henry was the face-in-peril and Ted and Cody did a good job of seeming believable against the big guy, and it certainly made them look good. Montel came in off the hot tag and hit his Ballin' Elbow Drop, then chaos reigned before Mizark gave Montel a clothesline assist to his roll-up to pick up the win. It felt short and clipped, which keeps it out of the Right but it certainly wasn't wRong.

EVAN BOURNE vs. THE MIZ: Eve was the guest ring announcer for this match, for whatever reason. Hey, I won't complain it keeps her on-screen. Bourne came down first to an increasingly mild crowd reaction, and then Miz got his much more solid reaction. These guys have wrestled before and made a good match considering the amount of time they've gotten; this was much of the same. They weren't fantastic—I do think they should have slowed it down just a hair and it would have made for a cleaner execution—but Miz mad a solid heel and did some good work here, while Bourne sold nicely as he usually does. It got better as the match went on, and while it was only a little over four minutes I felt that it had mostly redeemed itself by the time Swagger came down and got on the mic to distract the US Champ. Swagger and Miz fighting over Eve and the US Title should be good, and while I think the countout loss didn't do Bourne as much good as it could have, it did the job. Solid work all around, but not great.

The wRong:

BUSCH LEAGUE ON THE MIC: Raw began with Chris Jericho and the Big Show coming out to ringside, with Jericho holding the trophy high and Show wearing SmackDown Blue. The crowd was all over the two as they went down to the ring, and the glee on Jericho's face was absolutely priceless, as if he'd just won the lottery. Show got on the mic and said that despite what happened at Bragging Rights, he was a proud member of Raw. Jericho cut him off and showboated for a moment, then talked about Show's loyalty to the team over his loyalty to Raw. They had some fun here with Show trying to explain that he did it to get a World Heavyweight Title Match while Jericho just wouldn't let him explain for a while. Jericho was busting out a whole host of SAT words this time around, and I still think they don't always work but they didn't drag things down much. The argument that broke out between them was pretty cute, but got cut short by the need to cut to the back where our race car-driving guest hosts were screeching around the parking lot before they showed up. The crowd popped nicely for the guys and we got Metallica's "Fuel" for their theme song—I have to wonder how much the 'E paid for those rights, by the way, but it worked well and got the crowd popping for Logano and Busch.

Okay, so I'll be honest here—I have no idea who these guys are. I don't watch NASCAR, and if I want to watch cars I'll put in The Fast and the Furious, the original Gone in Sixty Seconds or one of a host of James Bond films. That being said, I didn't mind these guys being Raw guest hosts at the outset. Redneck jokes aside, there's no doubting that NASCAR is a popular sport and the 'E is appealing to a good portion of their fan base by bringing these guys in. However, these guys were obviously not the WWE fans they claimed to be. Busch kept pausing like he had to remember details. You know, minor things like the name of the show they were on. In addition he was just generally bad on the mic and rambled. " So, a lot goes on, and everything happens, but you know what? Things are happening for a reason." Um. Okay. You think you can make that a little more generic for us there, Kyle? I did like the way they played Busch and Logan as heel and face, respectively, because it made for a little different dynamic than usual. Joey made a match with Show against 'H, and Kyle booked Jericho against Kofi Johnson. Wait…what? Seriously, is doing a LITTLE research that tough? Is practicing your lines a little bit so hard? There were some things I liked here, undoubtedly, and Logano wasn't bad on the mic. But Busch's terrible mic work drug this way down, and I can't in good conscience keep this out of the wRong.

The Ridiculous:

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

SANTINO MARELLA & MELINA vs. CHAVO GUERRERO & JILLIAN HALL: Okay, who else thought it was really weird to see Santino and Melina being all buddy-buddy walking backstage and on the way down to the ring? I'm not criticizing, his turn happened long enough ago that it's fine, I just found it a bit strange. Chavo and Jillian came down after as a duo, and Jillian was actually looking mighty fine in jeans. The men started it off and it played all right, with Santino's comedy against Chavo's aggressive attitude. Santino then made his comeback before Jillian tagged in, and it got freaking SLOPPY. Seriously, there's no god-damned excuse for what happened there. From the second these two locked up the match went downhill. And let me be clear—it went downhill from a Chavo/Santino match. That Last Call was one of the ugliest freaking things I've ever seen and Melina could have been seriously hurt. The Primal Scream was also ugly, but it mercifully ended it. Listen, I can assign blame one-way or the other, and we can argue about it. It really doesn't matter—whoever's to blame, those moves need to be put on moratorium at the moment because Melina can't hit them right, at least on Jillian. And if they keep it up, someone's going to be hurt. To end it we had the silliness of Horny being served with a cease and desist order from DX, which was weird and not all that funny. This whole thing was pretty much a disaster.

The 411

Raw came back with another solid show this week, to build on the momentum they got last week and from Bragging Rights. Sure, we had some bad things and they really need to get Melina and Jillian to learn how to work against each other, and the guest hosts had a couple problems. Otherwise this was very watchable from start to finish. If they can keep this up, maybe they can make a case for being the "A" Show again one of these days.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

First off, as a lot of people pointed out to me, T-Grish was on his honeymoon. Congratulations Todd! I would love to say that I knew about it, like Nicole stated, but I actually hadn't seen that. My bad. But hey, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, and thank you guys for pointing it out. And also, everyone who said Matthews could have stood in for Grish, I agree. Hell, the whole ECW team could have. But such is the way it is.


From August:
The people saying they are looking forward to Batista's heel turn are going to be the same people who are bitching about it in two weeks after he takes CM Punk's spot as top heel.

Not at all. If Big Dave's turn works well enough that he takes the top spot, more power to him. Honestly I would like to see Punk move out of the title picture at this moment, because he's been there for several months and he could use a little rebuilding after he lost this feud to Taker. That's just my opinion, but seeing Punk take on someone like Morrison again or another upper midcard face would be great.


From WM26:
Too much foreshadowing of Vince vs. Taker come WM26 on SmackDown. I'd like Vince involved, but not the actual person fighting at Mania.

If it did go down, I wouldn't hate it, as it is a fresh feud (last feuded in 2003, and that is 6 years). I am sure the IWC won't consider fresh and new because unless it is a 'first time ever match' it isn't cool.

I guess that's possible. I refuse to speculate on 'Mania matchups this far away, but that's one way they could go I suppose. I guess we'll see.


From Hmmmmmmm:
With Batista turning heel now, does he fight Mysterio at Survivor Series or slow build that to an actual heated match at WM26? Plus, doesn't Batista vs. Taker seem like an option, even though Batista was pinned in the 4 way and Punk is all but exiled from the main event scene now?

I don't think Punk is "exiled from the main event scene." I think he's out of the title picture, but there's more than just the World Heavyweight Title in the main event. Anyway, I think they do the feud now, and it might well last toward Mania...again, I don't like to speculate on 'Mania matches this early in, but you never know.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
Orton without a nose? I love it! I must agree with you about the look on Punk's face. The only thing that would have been better is for him to have come out for the match playing with a Yo-Yo.

A Yo-Yo would have been priceless. I would have giggled my ass off at that.


From KanyonKreist:
JT, I disagree that the 4-on-5 loss of the previous Team SmackDown was as disastrous as you say, with regards to their individual momentum. I think it was a believable way to both put the new cats like Ziggler, McIntyre and Escobar over the established crew, AND have the established crew still take advantage of a, well, advantageous situation and go on to represent the brand. It was a handicap match; they didn't get buried or anything (DX already took care of that on Raw). They still WON their respective qualifying matches. Also, in beating the established team, the NEW Team SD showed cohesiveness and teamwork. That, too, was a good thing.

Was it a lousy way to build a PPV? Sure. But that's the only negative I can find there.

I do agree with you that it did do the new guys some good, but I still don't think that micron of credibility was worth the bait and switch. It was absolutely a bad way to build to the Pay-Per-View, and I think the 'E has to balance out those kinds of things. They've shown they can do so in the past, and this time around it was a failure. In the end, the bigger story than each of the new guys winning their singles match was that they lost their PPV spots on the last show before Bragging Rights, and I think that's what most people will remember.

---

By: Michael Bauer

ECW on SyFy 10.27.09

QUICK RESULTS:
- Sheamus defeated Shelton Benjamin [**1/4]
- Christian defeated Yoshi Tatsu to retain the ECW Title [***1/4]

The Right:

BUILD UP TO THE MAIN EVENT – I want to discuss the build first, because I think that it was done pretty nicely beyond just the announce team doing lip service. First we had a video package for Yoshi Tatsu, showing everything he can do and giving us his music as a background. Best way to go here, especially with Yoshi's limited ability to talk. For Christian, we got the have the normal champion's interview, which is always a positive with Christian talking. And he did the absolute right thing by putting over Tatsu again, but also putting over how much he has taught him and the lesson he will learn. Just great stuff here.

YOSHI TATSU GETS HIS TITLE SHOT – The main event of the evening was the most hyped match in ECW on SyFy history... seriously. When is the last time that a main event was hyped for a week on ECW that didn't involve someone coming from Raw or Smackdown? Anyway, I spoke about the hype, now I'll speak about the match. We all know Christian can carry just about any human being to a good match, but unlike most of the ECW roster, Tatsu doesn't need to be carried and this match showed it. Yoshi and Christian started fast and furious before the commercial, which is what any match should do. But coming back it was much slower and almost had a gigantic fuck up with Tatsu diving to the floor. While these two were on point, going move for move with more near falls than I wanted to count, I think that spot did slightly kill the crowd and I think it hurt the match overall. Yeah, they got back into it at the end, but the middle part just felt weird. But anyway, Tatsu did everything and anything to win and he backed up Christian's words for the past month, which I think is just as important as Christian retaining the belt. The Regal and company run in was to be expected here and they at least made it quick and painless for everyone watching, but it all grabbed a ton of heat, which is a bonus.

NEW ANNOUNCE TEAM – Just wanted to discuss this quickly. Now, I understand that the WWE had to make a quick audible with JR's health. The decision was made to move Striker to Smackdown with Byron Saxton coming up from FCW. Now, I honestly didn't know he was in FCW at first and if there was no way to find out, I would wonder why this guy is on my television. No disrespect, but the guy is no Matt Striker. That said, I was more than impressed with Byron this week. I especially loved his comment about Tatsu's gold tights with him going for the ECW Title (even if it isn't gold). Stuff like that is so overlooked, but it makes every show that much better.

puRgatoRy:

SHEAMUS GETS THE LAST LAUGH ON SHELTON - So Sheamus' last match on ECW was against his nemesis Shelton Benjamin. Granted, this is not the way I pictured it ending, in more ways than one, but nonetheless it is over. Sheamus gets to the ring and we get to see him get his ass kicked from last week and then Shelton's pre-match interview. Shelton's words were pretty good, but we cut back to Sheamus twice and he was blankly staring at the screen, like he was in a trance. But anyway, the match itself was good, but not over the top great. Sheamus ended up winning and at first I did question this. Sheamus going to Raw for me was like when anyone leaves a company and gets jobbed out. I would think the same thing should happen here, but at the same time, this isn't a different company, just a different brand. Therefore Sheamus had to win this match to be considered anything serious on RAW. So the decision ended up being right, even if the whole match didn't feel like a blow off feud ender.

The wRong:

THE ABRAHAM WASHINGTON SHOW – The only thing saving this from ridiculous is that Abraham did not go through any sort of routine before brining out Tiffany. Now, this whole thing felt like a train wreck from the very first question and it had nothing to do with anyone's acting. When asked about Bragging Rights, Tiffany said that a number of ECW had a presence because ECW alum were featured in big matches at that show. She might be right, but how on earth could any GM be satisfied with just giving Raw and Smackdown talent? Which brought up Sheamus leaving. And this I do not get at all. Sheamus didn't want to be there, so she let him walk? Couldn't you get back something to either feud with someone else or challenge Christian at least? Maybe Chris Masters or Carlito would have worked. Hell, I would settle on Jamie Noble. And then Regal came out as predictably as his beatdown after the title match. Regal again asks for a title shot and again gets shut down before pitifully throwing furniture around like a maniac. Now, let me think about this. Sheamus left for Raw because he didn't want to be on ECW and Regal is obviously unhappy. So why not just follow suit or threaten to do so? It seems so obvious, I know, but it also makes the most logical sense for someone with Regal's wealth of knowledge. But maybe I'm asking for too much here.

BURCHILL MEETS HELMS - Ok, so these two hate each other and the best we get is Burchill going to Gregory Helms to challenge the Hurricane for match? Like I get it that Burchill challenges Hurricane by asking who he thinks is the Hurricane. But with how last week went, you would think there would be more hostility involved, or at least Burchill sealing the deal with a sucker punch. Just didn't sit right with me.

The Ridiculous:

NONE

The 411

This week's episode was a lot like last week's, with every feud moving forward as they should, but it felt kinda light on actual work due to how many people were not on the show. Also, it could be because the feuds have nothing left to offer. Sheamus and Shelton is done, Burchill and Helms looks to be near done, and Regal is definitely boring me. That said, the actual action was quite good and both matches left me more than satisfied with this week's show.

SHOW RATING: 7.5

---

And I'm out of here!


~414~