Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 11.09.09: ROH on HDNet, WWE Smackdown, WWE Superstars, And TNA Impact

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 11.09.2009

Chris Jericho battles Finlay, Batista destroys Matt Hardy, Danielson’s final countdown, Desmond Wolfe kills Cody Deaner and more! 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 11.02.09:

QUICK RESULTS:
- The Young Bucks and The Briscoe Brothers battled to a draw [***]
- Rhett Titus defeated Alex Payne [**]
- Claudio Castagnoli defeated Grizzly Redwood [**]
- Colt Cabana defeated Nigel McGuinness [***1/4]

THE RIGHT:

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN CONTINUES: The taped section of Bryan Danielson's last month in ROH has finally hit us, and we are building to his final two matches on television for the company. The second to last stop features him teaming up with Roderick Strong to face the American Wolves next week, a match I've been looking forward too. ROH has been doing Danielson's top five moments in ROH, as chosen by Danielson himself. For a long time fan like me, it's a very nice touch, but it also helps shill DVDs, which is a good thing. Danielson was the heart of ROH and it's good to get as much money off of him as they can while they can.

I also want to highlight Davey Richard's promo, where he said that everyone is talking about Danielson, but what matters is the American Wovles. He really put himself over here, and said that Danielson is overlooking the Wolves if he thinks it will be the "second to last stop". He promises that next week will be the LAST stop. Everyone has been talking about Davey Richards' in-ring improvement this year (and he has stepped up), but really, his biggest improvement has been on the mic. Eddie's follow up wasn't particularly great, but there have been worse promos. The only problem with this was that Eddie and Davey both said that "tonight" would be the last stop. Technically speaking, they were correct, because it was taped on the same show, but we are seeing the match a week later. I know getting a great promo is like capturing lightning in a bottle, but someone should have told them to retape it.

HEPA-TITUS VS. PAYNE: This was a psuedo-squash. Titus is at kind of a rough level where he's not an underneath guy but not really a midcard guy. Payne...is a job guy. He's talented and has "spunk", but he's a job guy. Thankfully, Titus is a guy low enough on the card that you can buy Payne having a semi-competitive match. Rhett's a guy I'm warming up to, due to his psychology and his reserved style in a company that relies heavily on doing what's "new and exciting". So I'm really glad he's getting a decent chance to be showcased. My only problem with this was Rhett pulling the tights to win. Payne's a job guy, he should have been beat convincingly and not by a fluke.

VERY EUROPEAN SQUASH: Claudio Castagnoli beat Grizzly Redwood in short fashion. I know I'm overrating it, but I DON'T care! I got to see him do an upside down airplane spin WITH HIS ARMS ON HIS SIDES! I also got to see a pop-up European Uppercut and a jackknife style Riccola Bomb. This was terrific and I loved it.

KING REDEEMS HIMSELF: We got a promo with Kenny King, which was one of the sit-down interviews. Kenny seemed much more comfortable here away from the crowd, and the promo came across a lot better. He said that injuries happen and he's not sorry that Jerry Lynn got hurt. He said it's a young man's game and if he got Jerry out of the picture, it's a good thing. He did say he was sorry that Lynn couldn't get groceries. Basically, he's just looking out for himself and that's that.

THANK YOU NIGEL!: I believe this was supposed to be Nigel versus Tyler Black one last time, but Tyler got injured, so we got Colt and Nigel. These guys had a very good European style match with some comedy thrown in (as expected with Cabana). Speaking from a purely selfish point, I was thankful that we got to see Nigel go back to his roots of European style, because it is really unique and I love watching it. Cabana was able to play into that game and the result was something very different from most mainstream wrestling. Nigel did the right thing, going out on his back and putting over an "on the fence" guy like Cabana. This is a huge win for Cabana and a suitable goodbye for Nigel. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Nigel for everything he's done in ROH, and for entertaining me. Best of luck in TNA!

PURGATORY:

BRISCOES VS. BUCKS: Among independent wrestling fans, this is something of a dream match. The Briscoes have been arguably the best team in ROH history, while many are pegging the Young Bucks as the next big thing in tag team wrestling. These guys went out there and had a really fun match with each other. The Briscoes took the mandatory heel role, which is fine since their characters are tweeners anyway. They had a fast-paced match but didn't really build to anything, which is smart considering the finish. The finish saw The Dark City Fight Club interfere to beat up the Young Bucks, who they've been having problems with. This segued into a brawl with the Briscoes, which is a match that could be really fun on TV.

This is good because it gives the Briscoes something to do while elevating the DCFC, and really, a win over the Briscoes for the Bucks at this point wouldn't be credible. But the Briscoes beating them does them no good either, so this was a good decision. Still, it did kind of hurt the match; I probably would be forgiving if ROH's booking staff didn't have their recent hard-on for non-clean finishes.

RASCHE BROWN PROMO: We got a promo from Skullkrusher Rasche Brown, who has charisma to spare and legitimately freaks me out. His promo was memorable, unique, and scary. I haven't seen him in the ring, but this guy just has a presence about him that I like. I'm keeping this here until I see what ROH and Brown himself make of this guy, but I have high hopes.

The wRong:

BLACK-NIGEL PROMO: This started out as a chance for Tyler to talk about Jerry Lynn's condition, and ended up seeing Nigel McGuinness come out and say that Lynn's injury is his fault because wrestling isn't ballet. *COUGH* He then changed subjects to try and play with Tyler's head and said that the ROH Title was a curse, and that anyone who held it was injured. Personally, I would have Nigel talk about how every long-term champion (sans Danielson MAYBE) has eventually had the fans turn on them, since it would fit into Nigel's "blame the fans" character, but whatever. Anyway, Tyler said it's not a curse, it's his dream, and he will be champion. This whole segment just didn't do much for me. We've heard this a hundred times, and it's old.

THE RIDICULOUS:

NONE

The 411

This was a good show. The purgatory was leaning more towards good, and the wrong wasn't THAT bad. The good wasn't quite good enough to push this into the elite level of ROH shows, but it was much better than last week. Most importantly, it was the last time we got to see Nigel in an ROH ring, and that is definitely "must see" television.

SHOW RATING: 7.0

---

By: Daniel Wilcox

iMpact! 11.05.09:

THE RIGHT:

Team 3D vs. Matt Morgan and Hernandez: I've been saying for week's that Rhino is the most interesting character in TNA right now, and his conspiracy angle took a big turn this week when Team 3D seemingly turned heel and accepted his way of thinking. Or did they? We don't know yet, thanks to the torn look on Brother Ray's face at the end of the show, but that's good booking. We're meant to tune in next week to find out. Eric Bischoff was a master of that, by the way. The match itself was nothing special by the way, but that's not overly important because it was meant to be more of an angle then a match. It was very well executed. And I'm going to make a prediction and say that this angle will result in Rhino being TNA Champion by the end of the year.

PURGATORY:

Joe/AJ/Daniels Kick Off the Show & AJ vs. Daniels: Here's why I have opted to put this in the purgatory rather than the wrong. Over the last couple of weeks the bulk of this angle has been done in relatively short backstage segments and matches that have been almost as short as those backstage bits. This week, this angle was one of the main focuses of the show. They started with plenty of promo time in the ring, then later in the night they got the bait and switch version of AJ/Daniels out of the way that gave the announcers more time to build this one up. Then even later in the night we got the actual match, which was a good one but far too short. Actually I don't mind them not getting much time here because you don't want to give too much away before the pay-per-view, plus it sells the respective assaults on AJ and Daniels earlier in the night. I did think that Daniels should have gone over because really he nor Joe have done anything recently to suggest that they are a threat to AJ's title. So importantly, they gave this angle plenty of TV time, but I wasn't a huge fan of what they did with it. The match itself was fine but the promos, unlike in previous weeks, came across as forced and the riff between AJ and Daniels has been stretched a little bit too quickly for my liking, but there you go.

Tara vs. Hamada: Well Tara's match this week was miles better than the one from the previous week. But it got no time whatsoever. And we got the same pull apart brawl we saw last week. And the week before that. And the week before that. While I'm looking forward to seeing Kong and Tara in the Six Sides of Steel, they need to go up with something a bit more interesting then this to get us to the pay-per-view.

THE WRONG:

Madison Rayne vs. Taylor Wilde: This was just a really bad match. People give WWE Divas stick for some of their poor performances, but this was just as bad as a lot of the stuff WWE puts out. The post-match angle was fine, but we could've got to that without having to sit through a terrible match. Normally I'd complain about the lack of time it got, but on this occasion I was more than grateful for the fact that they got short-changed time-wise.

Homicide vs. Bobby Lashley: Now just what the hell was the point of this? Homicide is being built up as a challenger for the X Division title, so they put him on the wrong end of a squash match with Lashley? I'm not expecting Homicide to pull out the win here, but why not go to a no contest with Lashley getting distracted by Steiner's antics during the match, rather than after it? It would've accomplished the same thing without having to job Homicide out. And then Homicide wanting the official to raise his arm would've made sense. As it is, we got a crap match where one got wrongly dominated, and an odd post-match brawl between the Homicide and Red. Oh, and if I was a betting man, I'd put good money on Lashley's wife turning on him in the near future.

THE RIDICULOUS:

Eric Young and Big Rob vs. Beer Money: Let's get the typical TNA stuff out of the way first; decent enough match, but it got no time. Now here's the bit that annoys me. The British Invasion are meant to be suspended. They said that last week. Yet there they were. And here they are now. And people say WWE has continuity problems. Oh, and we got another pull-apart brawl. Because you can never have enough of them. If Hogan does come in and take over booking responsibilities, at least we might get something a little bit different than the same old shit every week.

Mick Foley and his MPD: Honestly, I am over the Abyss/Foley/Richards stuff. I'm done trying to keep track of whether Foley is a good guy or a bad guy, and I'm bored with Abyss being a muppet. That guy needs to turn heel again. Of course, I say all this, but having read spoilers for this week's show, this could actually get interesting again. But the ADD booking of this is just pissing me off, and there's no end in sight! Mick's promo was decent enough though.

Desmond Wolfe vs. Cody Deaner: First things first, I loath Cody Deaner and really did not appreciate seeing him back on Impact. On the Bright side, he got obliterated, which is cool. But I can't believe they only gave this match a matter of seconds. They couldn't showcase Wolfe a bit more? Let him drill Deaner with some big power moves, so nasty looking holds? I'm not asking for a competitive match because it's clear they want to have Desmond look like a beast, but they could have done that better in a 2-minute squash match, I felt. But what I really, really, really hated, was that whilst Wolfe was cutting his promo, they had Angle talking over him "via phone call." That was bullshit and just poor. The show's taped, they could've worked in Angle's comments when Wolfe wasn't talking. Or they could've done a "via satellite" interview before or after the match. After two weeks of really building this guy up, I feel that they took quite the step back this week. This was bush league.

The 411

TNA has been on a hell of a roll lately, but it could only go on for so long. The two angles that have been interesting me lately continue to do so, but one of them took something of a sidestep this week, while the other advanced nicely, talking about Joe/AJ/Daniels and Rhino's conspiracy respectively. My biggest gripe is with the booking of parts of this show. I hated the way Wolfe's promo was overshadowed, and the lack of continuity regarding the British Invasion. These small things can make a big difference. But perhaps just as frustrating was the lack of wrestling, the longest match running about 5 minutes. That's piss poor, even by TNA's standards. Hopefully this is just a minor slip up and TNA will recommence their impressive run next week.

SHOW RATING: 4.0

---

By: Steve Cook

Superstars 11.05.09:

THE RIGHT:

Chris Jericho vs. Finlay: I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time that Chris Jericho graced the sycophantic plebians of Superstars with his presence. The presence of Internet favorite Finlay had hopes up for an outstanding Superstars match, but it ended up merely being a good Superstars match. I think Finlay's been missing something since he turned babyface in 2008…maybe it's that lame theme music he comes out to now. The penguin pointed this out to me and said it didn't make sense because he and Hornswoggle aren't even connected anymore, I had to remind him that Finlay's still ‘Swoggle's father. I wish I'd forgotten about that angle. Anyway, there were a couple of high points in the match, like Jericho nearly getting killed on the apron spot, and the finishing sequence was pretty solid. It wasn't Must See TV, but a perfectly acceptable Superstars main event.

PURGATORY:

Paul Burchill vs. Tyler Reks: Does anybody who watched this show know how Reks got busted open? I saw the blood on his face at the end of the match, but had no idea how it happened. Let's hope those Connecticut Democrats weren't watching Superstars…anyway, this match didn't last long enough for me to rate it as anything. I will give Katie Lea some props for actually doing some interference at ringside, which is a step up from her usual "stand there and look cute in a scary kind of way" routine.

THE WRONG:

Santino Marella vs. Chavo Guerrero: I'll confess to enjoying Santino & Chavo's interaction with Raw's various guest hosts. They usually bring the funny without fail...Santino with his brand of laughter (though he did get upstaged by Chris Masters in that regard this week), and Chavo always getting embarrassed by guest hosts makes me laugh. But that doesn't mean I want to see them wrestling each other. I don't have confidence in Chavo getting a victory over an eggplant at this point, and Santino is…what he is. Forcing me to watch them try to have a five-minute wrestling match with each other instead of a funny two-minute backstage sketch is wrong in my book. Chavo may be "better than most of the roster" (his words), but he can't save this.

THE RIDICULOUS:
Jack Swagger vs. Primo…again: OK, last week I praised this match and said they had good chemistry with each other. So they went and had the same match. It wasn't a bad match, but I watched the same thing last week. This isn't like the Cryme Tyme/Hart Dynasty feud, where either team can win on any given week, this is like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals. It's all well and good that Swagger wants to go undefeated the rest of the year, and maybe he's going to go the route of certain college football teams and schedule nobody of substance. What's wrong with throwing another jobber in there to feed to Swagger? Hell, Carlito's not doing anything now, throw him in there.

Ask The Divas: I didn't really pay attention to this because I was negotiating cameos for my News From Cook's Corner column while it was going on. There was a Bellas appearance though, so maybe it could have escaped the "Ridiculous" section. Maybe next week…

The 411

Not much going on here this week. You had one decent match and a whole lot of filler. I have nothing more to say about this that is either relevant or true.

SHOW RATING: 5.0

---

By: Jeremy Thomas

WWE SmackDown 11.06.09

THE RIGHT:

THE DEAD MAN COMETH: SmackDown began with the Undertaker's entrance, which of course meant that the show really god started about five minutes after it did. I kid, I kid. Taker came down to the ring, a wee bit slower than he usually does which really makes me wonder about his physical state. But of course he's still getting the mega-crowd reactions, which means he'll still keep doing it. He got on the mic and said it had felt like forever since he had shown up. He just said it in much cooler terms than that. Taker brought up how he debuted at Survivor Series and how people have come for him and the World Heavyweight Title for years at Survivor Series and he keeps taking them down. Taker brought up how Show betrayed an entire team for his shot at being terminated by the Dead Man, and that Jericho took away his little bit of joy at being able to fight Kane. I have to admit, I loved the line about the only two joys in his life was fighting alongside Kane and fighting against him. This was a good start to the segment, which tied into history and had some great delivery by Taker.

Of course, mentioning Y2J means that you're going to bring him down to the ring, and thus down came sharp-dressed Chris. Jericho was smart enough to stay outside the ring—nice touch, by the way—and he talked about how the Jericho and Taker matchup was one fans have wanted to see for a long time. He launched into the Webster definition of phenomenon and how it really meant him, gelatinous tapeworms, sycophants et al. He pointed out what a roll he was on and how he was going to beat Taker. This was a nice little interaction between them, and Jericho had a nice little cocky swagger as he talked about how he wasn't afraid of the Dead Man and was the new Phenom. Of course this brought about the near-choke slam and the physicality before Jericho bailed. This got the crowd hot and was a good way to build the feud and make Taker look tough without overexerting him. I was very much fine with this.

DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE HART DYNASTY vs. JOHN MORRISON & CRYME TYME: This was, it would seem, primarily to build the feud between Ziggler and Morrison. Nattie was looking hotter than usual as she accompanied her team down to the ring, and the crowd was decently against the tag team before they quickly turned to cheers thanks to Morrison and the greatest entrance in professional wrestling today, and Cryme Tyme after that. Morrison was still selling the announcing booth shot from last week during the match as T-Grish and Striker pointed out, though it was JTG who played the face-in-peril for the heels and did it nicely. I'm starting to really feel like this feuds are getting a bit stale, but at the same time they keep on putting good matches together and so I'm willing to forgive that somewhat. The ending was a bit sudden, but Ziggler got a nice win without doing any damage to the faces, and this builds his credibility for the eventual lock-up with Morrison. Sounds good to me.

BETH vs. SQUASHES BRITTANY CARTER: As Beth came down to the ring, we learned that Brittany has an extensive background in dance. Do we need to say anything else about the result of this match people? Yes, Beth flattened the poor girl and it was an excellent squash that continues to rebuild her as a monster. The one-armed backbreakers were impressive, and the shoulder backbreaker was too. Simply put, Beth manhandled Carter for a minute-plus before putting her out of her misery, and while I hope these won't continue past the point where they're useful they're doing exactly what they need to for now and remind us that Beth is still a monster and not just Santino's old comedy partner.

DREW MCINTYRE vs. JIMMY WANG YANG: Drew McIntyre's been so busy with his go-nowhere feud with R-Truth that he's been unable to capitalize on any momentum he might have gotten from the Vince McMahon endorsement. They've taken steps to rectify that over the past couple of weeks, with having him take Finlay out last week and then Jimmy Wang Yang this week. He knocked Jimmy off the turnbuckle to the outside and then got on the mic to say he needed some worthy competition. That's when Jimmy called for the bell to ring, which is a nice little move that gives Jimmy a little credit. He fought back, and Drew just beat the living hell out of him. This was short, it was a squash, but it was also actually a match that made Drew look good and I appreciated that. I like Drew and now, finally, I have some optimism about where they're going with him.

CM PUNK vs. R-TRUTH: So as a side note, Meehan notes in his always-enjoyable news report that CM Punk has been saying "It's Clobberin' Time" for years, so this is nothing new. Fair enough; it's at least new for his WWE character, to my knowledge. Anyway, this match had Scott Armstrong as the referee, so you just knew this was going to be a wacky match. I loved the pre-Truth into interaction between Punk and Scotty, where Punk was clearly enjoying making Scott feel like crap. Truth got a nice little pop as usual from the crowd before things got started. As a match, this was pretty good. I enjoyed the work between Punk and Truth, which was fairly crisp and was well-executed as a whole. Punk looked very strong in his offense and had some great mannerisms when he mocked Truth; at the same time Truth got some solid offense in as well. The ending was something that some people will hate by claiming that Punk shouldn't be losing to Truth, but I actually didn't mind it at all because a fast count doesn't do Punk any damage and yet the win period makes Truth look good. I mean hell, Punk DID tell Armstrong to count faster. So sorry, everyone who thinks this is a de-push, but I enjoyed it. My only concern is that, as was mentioned last week in the comments, I hope to the gods that this doesn't mean an extended feud between Punk and a referee. That would be a bit silly.

PURGATORY:

REY REY SPEAKS AND DAVE FOLLOWS SUIT: Rey Rey was backstage for a Jim Ross-style sit-down talk with Josh Matthews. Matthews asked how Rey felt about what happened at Batista's hands, and the little guy did an okay job of selling this. He slipped into Spanish a little, which I never mind as he seems to do it mostly when he's selling the emotion of a situation. Let's face it, the little guy isn't a great talker and never has been, but he wasn't bad here. We learned that Rey Rey vs. Big Dave was set for Survivor Series, and Rey once again used Eddie's name for this one. No, it doesn't bug me like it does some, but I said before and I'll say again that it isn't necessary. That isn't what earns it puRgatoRy for the record; like I said Rey was all right, but nothing remotely spectacular.

This was just here to remind us of the Rey/Dave feud without putting them in physical proximity, and it did that serviceably but not great. Similarly, the interview backstage with Batista where Matthews asked him about the attacks on Rey and Matt Hardy was okay, but hardly great. This is where it was all about Big Dave, it wasn't about making friends and Rey and Matt should have known better. It was all right, and Dave's done much worse in his promo work. He didn't stumble or rush anything. I just didn't like how quickly it's turned from anger at Rey Rey to a mercenary viewpoint. I prefer slow burns, and while I know some people probably liked this more than me (and that's okay!), I wanted a bit more from it.

REY REY vs. MIKE KNOX: Hey, everyone remember when these two were feuding on Raw? Me too. Remember how over Mountain Man Mike got? Yeah, I don't either. He did get a few boos on his way down to the ring here, but they did sound more like "You're Rey's opponent so we don't like you" heat than "Mike Knox is evil" heat. The booking of this match was solid in concept, because we needed to see Rey Rey beat a big guy going into his feud with the Manimal. And Rey always does a lot to try and get his opponents over, and the amount of offense Knox got on the little guy showed it was no different here. What sat very badly with me here was how obvious the crowd reactions were. When Rey Rey got the offense kicking, the crowd came alive. When Knox turned the tables and beat on Rey, the crowd went basically dead. There hasn't been a match that's been so obvious how NOT over Knox is. He got the "OHHHH!" sounds when he would flatten Rey with a kick or whatnot, but otherwise the crowd stayed silent until Rey got his offense in. Of course the little guy got the pin which was exactly how it should have happened, and that was good but I can't help but be a little sad with how much they've tried to get Knox over and failed to do so.

BATISTA vs. MATT HARDY: Just before the match began, Josh was backstage with Matt who looked ready to go against Big Dave. He said that he got involved because he thought the thing between Dave and Rey was like his thing with Jeff, but now he knows the truth. Decent work by Matt to help get the Manimal's new character turn over, and to hype the main event. It wasn't an intricate, multi-layered promo or anything but he did well, the crowd reacted nicely and that sounds like a decent job to me.

Matt was also out first for the entrances, and the crowd popped nicely for him; it's nice to see that even though his character has lost a bit of focus as of late, the crowd still likes him. Meanwhile, Big Dave now officially has the crowd way against him. These guys had thirteen minutes and made the most of it. Special credit has to be given, by the way, to Striker and T-Grish who went out of their way to help push Batista's turn, and I've been very happy to see them quickly re-capture their magic from the ECW days last year to become a solid announcing team on the Friday Night Show. The booking of this match played much like the Rey/Knox match; where Rey Rey was facing someone who was big, dangerous and sadistic like Big Dave is now, the Manimal is facing a smaller guy who's very over with the crowd, basically a Rey Rey proxy. Where Rey vs. Knox was a back-and-forth match, this was pretty much an extended domination by Dave with Hardy fighting back admirably a few times. I realize that they need to make Dave look big, strong and dangerous following his turn and so I was mostly okay with this. Of course, technically Matt won, but there's no question that the result and reality were very different. I can deal with this very easily, though I would have liked to see Matt get a little more offense in because I don't think it would have hurt Big Dave, but it would have done Matt a lot of good.

THE WRONG:

THE DIVAS HAVE WORDS: So, Mickie was backstage looking over the costume-maker's work when Michelle and Layla came up to talk some crap to her. Okay, for Christ's sake can someone in the Blue Brand creative team decide if Layla's a face or a heel? Girl's flip-flopped back and forth so much I'm getting whiplash just tracking it. The gist here was that apparently Mickie was crying about being traded to SmackDown and so no one likes her…or at least, that's the gist of what I understood from all the horrific talking over each other these three did. Michelle sounded more monotone than usual, Layla was just basically saying "Yeah!" and Mickie seemed lost in the segment. I guess that Mickie and Michelle are leading Survivor Series teams against each other, which should be interesting, but this segment was not.

THE RIDICULOUS:

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

The 411

It was another step back toward the Right direction for SmackDown this week, as we had little to complain about. They're building or rebuilding people (Drew & Beth), creating some very solid feuds and they even set stuff up nicely for next week with Taker vs. Jericho and Morrison vs. Ziggler. I think they could have done developments in the Big Dave/Rey Rey feud slightly better and of course the Diva segment was bad, but otherwise it was all-good here. Hopefully they can keep this up, because if so Survivor Series will be looking very solid.

SHOW RATING: 8.0

From Thought:
Best part of RAW was Chris Masters.

Anyone wanna name a better moment?

Evan Bourne landing on his feet from the aborted Air Bourne. Kofi Kingston's promo where he said he left the mirror alone so Randy could see why he's not a champion anymore. Ozzy yelling for Sharon. There are three for you.


From Coming:
Sheamus vs. Cena at WM26. Maybe too soon, but HHH is high on him and Cena will need a fresh RAW challenger soon.

I think it's way too soon for Sheamus to be main eventing 'Mania. Don't get me wrong, I like what I see, but they're going to need more than this for that primo spot. More than likely it'll be an established upper midcarder/main eventer.


From losersayswhat:
Wow. I don't know how old you are Jeremy but you ARE WWE target demographic. Masters comes out and does a comedy routine that's original and surprising, yet because you're uncomfortable with your sexuality and staring at a man's pecs you trash it. HOWEVER...a backstage segment with a leprechaun and masturbation jokes? GOLD, JERRY, PURE GOLD!

Heh. Chris Masters doing the pec dance isn't original, first off. Sean Astin did it in 50 First Dates, and many others have made a joke out of that which I've never found very funny. The comment about my comfort level with my sexuality is pretty funny, though, for a lot of reasons. Second, the DX/Cena segment was marginally in the Right, which means it's far from gold, I just didn't mind it because it didn't last forever and a day and at least referred to a feud. The Raw's Got Talent crap was super-long and did nothing for anyone--and no, I don't consider Hornswaggle Tadpole Splashing Chavo to be the advancement of a feud or storyline. Thanks for reading though!


From Guest#7026:
You're hatred of the "WWE's Got Talent" segment proves that you have no business reviewing anything carnie-related, ESPECIALLY pro wrestling... which ALWAYS has been, and ALWAYS will be nothing more or less than a carnie attraction.

Thanks for your feedback, and for reading!


From Tobias:
I guess no one noticed that Cena's "once" bit was a reference to the film, "Johnny Dangerously.

Sadly, it's been far too long since I saw that movie, so I did miss it. Good catch though!


From Johnny:
Jeremy. I was just wondering if you were kind of disappointed that there wasn't a younger challenger for Survivor series. Sure Cena vs. DX sounds like fun. But i would have liked a younger kid in there. Miz, Swagger, And maybe even Dolph Ziggler or maybe even, Evan Bourne. That whole angle two weeks ago on raw with them wanting the shot now seems pointless. What do you think?

Not really, for once. Would it be nice if they got a young challenger? Absolutely. But I'm also a realist. This is one of the "Big Four" Pay-Per-Views, and none of those guys are ready for a Pay-Per-View World Title match, nor are anyone who's a heel in the midcard. Give them time and sure, but for now I'm okay with DX.


From Guest#1493:
Jeremy, get a sense of humour, you can't label the Raw's got Talent as a ridiculous, who cares if it didn't put anyone over or continue a storyline - it was there as some fun and the normal people who don't just wanna see 2hrs of nonstop wrestling like yourself would have been entertained by it

Actually, I can label it ridiculous. I have no desire to see two hours of nonstop wrestling, as my thumbs up to various non-wrestling segments have shown. Comedy is entirely subjective. Some people thought it was funny...I appreciate that. Some people think Freddy Got Fingered and Meet the Spartans are hilarious...and no, I'm not saying those two groups are the same group, stop shaking your fist. I didn't find them funny. To each their own.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
I vote Masters as well. For some reason, I want to see them do the bit to "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?".

Again, to each their own. That song just bugs me for some reason.


From Guy:
"Gail actually had some god offense for once"

I don't remember the bit where Gail flooded the ring. :P

Eh, close enough. Can't win 'em all!


From Cardinal Puff Puff Puff:
Since WrestleMania, I've been of the unflappable opinion that the only things worth watching on Raw were Mickie James and Kofi Kingston.

Now Mickie's gone, but Kofi is filling that void all by himself. I still say that with this new direction, Kofi is THE reason to watch Raw right now, with a side of the always awesome Chris Jericho.

Agreed. Ain't got much more to say than that.


From P.N. News:
"…he looks more like a doddering octogenarian than the Prince of Darkness."

I didn't know Jericho was a guest writer for this column! Sweet!

Hey, what can I say. Jericho's greatness is rubbing off on me. Plus, I was always a fan of the SAT words myself.


From KanyonKreist:
Yeah, Bourne looked great in his match this week... again. And AGAIN, he'll probably disappear for a week or two and nothing will come of it. Do you really think there's room on the Raw roster to move him up the card right now? ECW, on the other hand....

Also, hahahahaha "Close My Eyes Forever" is one of your favorite songs... What takes the number one spot, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"?

It's all in good fun, JT.

Oh, I know. For the record, my favorite song of all-time is "Tomorrow, Wendy" by Concrete Blonde. Anyway, I would love it if Bourne didn't disappear, but I wouldn't be shocked if he did. That's the way the Red Brand bookers seem sometimes. Keeping my fingers crossed for the guy though!

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And we're out of here!


~417~