Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 11.13.09: RETRO TNA, ECW and Raw Reviewed!

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 11.13.2009

On Raw, Jerishow battled DX, Ricky Hatton was special gust host, Jack Swagger’s undefeated streak ended and more! Elsewhere, Christian defended the ECW Title against William Regal and don’t forget about RETRO TNA! Wrestling’s 4R’s break down all the action from WWE Raw and ECW on SyFy!

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By: Jeremy Thomas

Raw 11.09.09

The Right:

THE MIZ AND SWAGGER FACE-TO-FACE: Backstage, Josh Matthews was with "very special guest" The Miz. He asked about John Morrison's Survivor Series team, and Miz pointed out again that he was going to beat Team Morrison. He actually put over his team by calling them the best up and comers in the WWE, before Swagger showed up to do a play on Miz's catch phrase. These two guys started spouting off at each other, talking over each other and such, and while I don't normally like the constant talking over each other, I think this one worked. Swagger had more expression than he's shown in a while, and I think these two could play well off each other. I don't know what I think about the heel-heel feud, but otherwise this works.

RANDY ORTON vs. MARK HENRY: This immediately followed the VIP segment, and I was concerned about the potential here. Henry's done well in his role as MVP's tag partner, but to my knowledge this is the first singles match he's had since mid-summer and I didn't know how well he'd do. Honestly, he didn't do that bad. He had a few moments where he looked strong and in control, and the rest of it was allowed Orton to look strong in defeating a big, bad man. Orton needed this win after Kofi's been getting one up on him each week since Hell in the Cell, and he looked very good in getting it. The end came nicely as Mark looked about to dish out some punishment but Orton hit the RKO out of nowhere to pick up the pin. This wasn't a five-star match but I did enjoy it. Afterward we had Orton go after Kofi, but the guy smacked Orton to make him look good yet again. Good stuff.

puRgatoRy:

GENERIC OPENING SEGMENT #25: Raw opened up with Justin Roberts introducing our guest host, boxer Ricky Hatton who got a pretty big (relatively) hometown pop from the English crowd. He came down with the official WWE Guest Host valets, the Bella twins, and got on the mic to tell us who he was and show us a video of him knocking out some guy named Carlos Maussa for a world title. Sue me people, I don't watch boxing. It was an impressive knockout, though. He talked about himself a bit more and then brought it around to tonight, which is when Jericho and Show made their way down to the ring in their snazzy suits. They got into the ring with big smiles on their faces before Show towered over Hatton and made fun of his stature. He said he'd knocked people out too, and told Hatton to start stepping—which, of course, didn't happen. Hatton brought up the Mayweather thing again, which prompted Show to give Hatton a chance to knock him out. Jericho stopped the whole thing and told Show he wasn't going to let him get embarrassed by a boxer again, which prompted an argument between the two over who was going to win the World Heavyweight Title at Survivor Series. That prompted Hatton to book a Show & Jericho vs. DX main event. Jericho went overtime on the SAT words here, and Hatton said he couldn't understand a word he said. I actually enjoyed this portion, and I thought that Hatton did a fabulous job on the mic; he didn't stutter, he didn't mispronounce anything and he did some good humor. My one problem was that, as usual, Jericho's getting staler by the week with the big words.

Before the champs could beat down our GM, DX came out and made the save. The Game commented on how stale Jericho was becoming, which coming from a guy like 'H is unintentionally funny even if it is true. They made fun of Jericho and Show a bit, then Michaels nailed Jericho and Show left the ring. This was decent enough, but it did seem pretty much like a paint-by-numbers opening segment. Nothing special, nothing inspired, just okay work by all involved.

SHEAMUS vs. SOMEONE: Before this match we got a recap of Sheamus's assault on Noble which has supposedly forced him to retire. That's a good way to build a guy up, for the record…have him put out a guy who was probably looking at retiring from in-ring action as it is. We also got Team Miz vs. Team Morrison announced for Survivor Series, which looks like a pretty solid two teams. Sheamus got a brief, cheap heat-getting promo about the Irish killing the English before squashing his opponent. I would name his opponent but I couldn't find out who it was. Literally, I checked several sites and none of them listed him. Even WWE.com just had him listed as "a local talent." Poor guy. Anyway, this was another decent squash match. The poor unnamed kid didn't take the beating that Noble did, but then if I wasn't getting my name mentioned I wouldn't either. Hopefully they're going to take Sheamus somewhere soon with this instead of continuing the run of jobber-squashing, or he'll hit a point where they cease to be useful the way that Kozlov's run did. For now though this worked, more or less.

THE VIP LOUNGE GETS INVADED: We got a VIP Lounge segment midway through the show, with Mizark and Montel chilling in the ring. Mizark got to introduce their guest, which was none other than Kofi Kingston. We officially found out that Kofi was going to be captain of his Survivor Series team against Team Orton, and the crowd rocked out as he came down to the ring. Kofi talked about choosing the two guys for being on his team, and they recapped how Kofi's been topping Orton the last few weeks. We got the video recap of last week's six-man tag where Henry pinned Cody and then talked about what was going to happen at Survivor Series, then toasted to Kofi. Drinking is SO not PG. (I kid, I kid.) Anyway, this was good stuff and I remain amazed on a weekly basis how comfortable Kofi looks in his new push.

Of course, this wouldn't be taken lying down, and down to the ring came Orton and Priceless. Orton awesomely stared down the Lounge's doorman, then got in the ring and, disappointingly, went to the "street thug" comments. Listen, I don't harp on the racial stuff much, and honestly this wasn't as bad as it could have been, but there were better ways to go about this and I was disappointed that they couldn't figure out how to avoid that. It was unnecessary and I'm sure some people are going to think I'm blowing this out of proportion; again I'm not bitching about the racist connotations themselves, I just think that doing so is played out—anyone remember Swagger doing it to Montel a few months ago?—and they could have found something better. It's too bad that it had to drag this otherwise fun segment out of the Right.

SANTINO & CHAVO GOOF WITH THE GUEST HOST/CHAVO vs. RICKY HATTON: Hatton was chilling backstage with the Bellas who were fawning all over the guy in their low-cut T's when Santino came in wearing a fat-suit. Apparently Hatton was in on the joke, and the joke was that Santino was Ricky Fatton. Ha. Ha ha. Oh, hee hee hee. I'm so. Amused. Sorry, but it WAS a really lame joke. Chavo came in and made fun of Santino for sucking up to the guest host, and then the discussion turned to darts. Chavo apparently sucks at darts. Big shock. This turned into Hatton taking on Chavo in a match. Yeah, this is going to go well.

After the Orton/Henry match, we had this little segment so people could take a piss break. Lawler talked about how he had a wrestling vs. boxing match against Leon Spinks once and beat him, which was a way to put over Chavo's champion. Hatton had a sombrero—apparently he's the Manchester Mexican. Okay, I can dig that. Justin Roberts billed it as a "mixed martial arts match." Dana White is laughing his ass off somewhere, but anyway the rules were that Hatton had to get a knockout while Chavo had to get a pinfall or submission. So uh, if Chavo knocks Hatton out it's not a win? Anyway, I have to say, shockingly, I didn't hate this. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't great or even that good. However, Chavo actually looked not-terrible against Hatton, and taking the knockout punch from Hatton doesn't hurt his credibility any. This is an example of using Chavo with the guest hosts that actually worked, and while I didn't much like the segment that led up to it at least the match was an actual match and not a joke.

DX vs. CHRIS JERICHO & THE BIG SHOW: Cena came out to the ring and then joined the commentary team while Vintage Cole called him "the brand new WWE Champion." Welcome to November Michael; Cena's been champion for over two weeks now, I don't think you can call him "brand new" considering the breakneck speed of the 'E's storylines. As expected the crowd hated Jericho & Show but loved DX. They talked more about Hornswaggle while DX hit the ring. Seriously, we've hit Horny overload right about now. Anyway, outside of the midget talk, Cena did a good job as always of sitting on commentary, and he pointed out how DX's success at Survivor Series depended on what version of HBK we see at the show. The match in the ring was pretty decent, sort of a standard match between these two. The champs looked good in their control while Cena ruminated more about the potential dissention between his challengers and Shawn played the face-in-peril. Shawn made the hot tag and then it was 'H's turn to get beat up a bit. It certainly wasn't bad, but until the last couple minutes when Shawn came in, it seemed like everyone was going on about three-quarters speed. The end worked fine for me because Jericho was protected in the loss, and so no one was really hurt by this. Had they given it a little more in the opening three-fourths of the match I would have given this a Right.

The wRong:

EVAN BOURNE vs. JACK SWAGGER: Wow, was Bourne seriously over with the Sheffield crowd. Had to get that one out there, 'cause while he gets a reaction it's rarely that strong. Of course they hated Swagger, the All-American American. Now, was this a decent match? Yeah, it was as good of a match as it could have been, all things considering. But did we really need to see this match again? Not at all. Basically Swagger was beating the living snot out of Evan until the Miz came out. I was intrigued as hell to hear Miz get pops from the crowd, but I really hope they don't turn him. He's a natural heel and he needs to stay that way. We then saw the distraction cost Swagger before Bourne hit the Air Bourne for the pinfall to end Swagger's win streak storyline. Listen, this was a decent match for work rate considering the length of the match but why in the hell would you kill his win streak this short into it. In fact, why bother with it at all if you're going to end it and kill his credibility…again? The match was too short to overcome the booking, and that keeps this one in the wRong.

MORE DX/CENA/HORNSWAGGLE JUNK: Backstage, Hornswaggle apparently didn't give a rat's ass about the potential legal ramifications of infringing on copyright. Cena got Horny to hide before DX came in, and they were more worried about finding the leprechaun to hide than their match. We got more joking around and more gay jokes, this time involving Tweeting each other. Listen, I didn't mind this in a one-time segment. But are they really building the entire freaking feud with Hornswaggle in the middle of it? Really? That's pretty dumb. This segment was pretty dumb too, despite a few semi-amusing jokes.

The Ridiculous:

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

TRIPLE K vs. ALICIA FOX: Before this match, we found out that there was going to be a five on five Diva's Survivor Series match. That has loads of potential to suck. That brings us right to this match . Let's face it, I love looking at Kelly Kelly Kelly, but watching her in the ring is painful most of the time. Tonight she was playing squash material to Alicia, to help build up the challenger's credibility before she faces Melina. This actually didn't start off too badly, but there were still some pretty embarrassing moments that occurred. Triple K trying to pull off a pin and yanking Alicia practically on top of her was the most egregious, but Alicia's finisher seemed to be pretty sloppy as well and the end result was about what I expected. It had loads of potential to suck, and guess what? It did.

The 411

Poor Sheffield, England had a very middling show this week. We had a couple segments that were quite good and a couple bad ones to balance it out, but otherwise everything was perfectly middle of the road. They did set up a huge main event for next week and I appreciate that, but otherwise this was a pretty skip-worthy show. I don't regret having seen it, but if you didn't catch it you really didn't miss anything.

SHOW RATING: 6.0

From Miss Necessary:
go back & watch some of punk's IC and tag title matches. he says 'it's clobbering time' then too.

If it's so, I missed them, and a lot of people are pointing it out. So I'll admit to being wrong...THIS TIME!


From Umno:
Jeremy Thomas, Layla's been heel for quite a while now. The last time she was face-ish was near the end of her feud with Eve, then it was right back to heel. Her and McCool have been partners in crime for a few months.

I seem to remember her flipping around more than that; other than the argument with Mickie, she was almost a face during the Halloween contest too. They've never gone full-bore with her turning, but she's definitely toed the line a couple times, and I've never dug the tweener role with a few exceptions.


From Guest#2767:
Jeremy, why does a comedy segment have to involve developing a storyline or continuing a feud, can't you just accept the fact that it is there to entertain and just be used for non wrestling nerds like yourself to have a laugh?

I've explained this before 2767, but I'll go again. In my mind, the WWE has X hours of programming each week. If they're properly promoting all their Pay-Per-View matches adequately, I don't mind a silly segment. Hell, I don't mind a silly segment sometimes when they don't; what I do mind is when said silly segment takes forever to finish and comes at the expense of some promotion for a match that could use some heat. I've given props to a lot of segments, including most recently the Halloween contest, which served no purpose. But if they're going to run forever there had better be SOME purpose to it, because they can get laughs without taking a significant portion of the show.

And keep in mind, this is my personal opinion, just as all my comments are in the R's. You don't have to agree and people with different opinions are fine, it's just the way I see it. Of course, that's mitigated by comments about "wrestling nerds." I am a wrestling fan and I am a fanboy geek (s)mark, but nerd is one thing I'm not. Thanks!


From Jason King:
I watched Fantastic Four last night and laughed when I heard The Thing say "It's Clobberin Time!"

Not gonna lie...kinda wanted to see him hit a Pepsi Plunge.

Seriously, we should totally get a Marvel/'E collaboration here. Think of the sales! (And that also gives us a good chance for that Robert Downey Jr. referee thing for the next Iron Man Match. Added plus!)


From Loki:
It seems a little patronizing to refer to a wrestler the caliber of Rey Rey as 'the little guy' 4 times.
Once fair enough, twice maybe.
But 4 times?

It's all in love, Loki. I'm a small guy (not height, but weight) myself, so I'm not going to fault someone for being undersized.


From ZeroVX:
I still don't like where they're going with McIntyre. If they gave him an actual move set instead of him just beating up people before the match begins, I might understand why people are so high on him.

Likewise for Escobar.

I'm with you there. But this was at least somewhat of a match. Baby steps, I guess.


From KanyonKreist:
Jericho's promo with 'Taker on Friday was his best work all year, if I'm not forgetting anything...

I can't remember the last time somebody went after 'Taker from the "you're just a man, and these people are suckers for buying into your smoke and mirrors" standpoint. I mean, it has been done before, but I can't remember the last time it was, and I can't remember anybody ever doing it as convincingly as Jericho.

Oh, and JT, did you catch Triple H on Raw last night calling out the kettle- I mean, Chris Jericho - for being *repetitive*? Wow...

Punk did do the smoke and mirrors thing during their feud, and I thought it was as good as Jericho. I did think that the Jericho/Taker segment was one of his most effective in a while. And as for 'H and Y2J...yep. You can't buy that kind of irony.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
I don't know why, but I think Knox might be better used in an angle with a really large heel. He kind of has a "man of the people" look. A working class hero thing going on. While he is better as a heel, I wouldn't mind the WWE trying this well into the future. Just don't make him a lumberjack.

I could maybe see that. I think the problem would be that he's got too soft of a voice. That kind of voice works better in his current gimmick, but if all else fails they could go that route.

---

By: Michael Bauer

ECW on SyFy 11.10.09

QUICK RESULTS:
- Goldust defeated Paul Burchill via pin [*1/2]
- Vance Archer kills a local talent [1/2*]
- Christian defeated William Regal to retain the ECW Championship [***1/2]

The Right:

CHRISTIAN DEFENDS THE TITLE AGAINST REGAL – Our main event was William Regal finally getting his shot against Christian in his home country. Being in England made this match so much better, because the crowd was actually into the match, even though you could never truly tell who the favorite was. Regal has his country supporters with him, but Christain got quite a pop with his entrance. I would say it was 50/50, but at times I thought Regal held the crowd better than Christian. It didn't alter the match at all, which is a positive. The match itself so more near falls than I could count doing the recap, on both sides, which also added to the whole concept of a title match. Going into the beginning of the show, I thought there was no way that Regal would lose this match and that grew with the opening segment (more on that later). Then I had some doubt when seeing Regal backstage with Tiffany and by the time the match started, I had no idea who would win. That is the type of matches we need to see and ECW built up this match perfectly. I was shocked to see Christian get the win here, because quite frankly, I have no idea where we go from this spot. But the action was great and if not for Christian's matches with Tatsu and Ryder, this could have been ECW's Match of the Year.

puRgatoRy:

THE ABRAHAM WASHINGTON SHOW – We opened the show with the Abraham Washington show and him using cheap heat, while admitting it. He brings out Yoshi Tatsu as the guest and my first thought was that this was either going to be a train wreck or just pure awesomeness. It ended up actually being in the middle, which I think was the most surprising result. The "thank you" back and forth routine ended fast enough thankfully and Yoshi was asked on his opinion for tonight. And this was the most right thing about this, because Yoshi put over BOTH Christian and Regal with his one line. You couldn't have asked for anything more, especially with someone having limited English skills. We then got the greatest part of Washington's show EVER as they channeled Rush Hour. The problem is that it just sank as soon as Yoshi called Washington stupid Chris Tucker and did his Tony Atlas impression. The main thing is that this had as much right as wrong, but actually accomplished in hyping up the main event in a perfect manner.

VANCE ARCHER KILLS ANOTHER KID – Yep, we had another squash match. I would put this under wrong, because Archer actually took a punch, but his pre match promo was spot on. Yeah, I said it. Vance is intense and him simply saying his opponent will find out who he is was perfect. Again, I think last week was better, but I'm not complaining.

The wRong:

BURCHILL LOSES TO GOLDUST – So Burchill faces Goldust?? Great bait and switch WWE. I understand why they did it, because of the crowd effects of England (aka Bizzaro-Land Light), but then why hype the match for this week? Anyway, this match was not all that good and Burchill got made to look stupid by losing to the Hurricane running around the ring. Which is another thing? Why even have the Hurricane come out if he wasn't going to actually face off with Burchill? It just felt sloppy all the way around.

The Ridiculous:

ZACK RYDER AND ROSA, PART 2 - Yeah, I'm sorry, but I am not buying this whole Zack Ryder and Rosa Mendes deal. Nobody wants to see Ryder go into a dream sequence every week, especially when these shows are normally supposed to be live. Meaning this type of stuff could never actually happen. Not to mention that Ryder was a legit title contender about a month ago and now he has sunk to being down at the Goldust level, which is not the way you should go.

The 411

Bottom line, this was a one match show. When it is 10;40 and the Main Event starts, that proves the point I just made. It also means we are in for a great main event, which we got. The rest of it was just there and didn't real do anything for me. The commentary again made this show better than it has any right to be, as I am not missing Matt Striker right now.

SHOW RATING: 6.0

---

~TNA TURNING POINT 2008~

By: Larry Csonka

The Matches:

X-DIVISION RANKINGS MATCH: Eric Young defeated Jay Lethal @ 18:00 via pin ***½

Roxxi and Wilde defeated Awesome Kong and Riesha Saeed @ 9:00 via **

GRUDGE MATCH: Rhino defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir @ 9:00 via pin *

TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Beer Money defeated the Motor City Machine Guns @ 17:00 via pin ***¾

TNA LEGEND'S TITLE MATCH: Booker T defeated Christian Cage @ 12:00 via pin **

FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE: Kurt Angle defeated Abyss @ 18:00 via pin ****

Kevin Nash defeated Samoa Joe @ 12:00 via pin ***

TNA WORLD TITLE MATCH: Sting defeated AJ Styles @ 15:00 via pin ***

The Right:

X-DIVISION RANKINGS MATCH/YOUNG SPEAKS: The show kicked off with the X-Division on display as TNA brought back a match they used to do in the old days, the ranking match. There were 10-guys, and if you lost first, you were ranked 10th and so on and so forth. I think that many will argue the rankings, which will always happen, but I thought this was a great opener for the show. When the X-Division is on and goes out there to do their thing they are great and we got that tonight. Everyone in the match was motivated and working hard and in the end, Eric Young won the match and is the new #1 contender for the title. Some thought my rating of ***½ was a bit low, but the ending sequence with Young and Lethal didn't quite click and I felt brought down the match in my opinion. But the bottom line is that this was a fun and crazy opening match here and got things going very well. I was hoping that they would get at least 15-minutes, and they got more, which always helps in this kind of match. The crowd dug it, lots of guys got to look good and the new direction of Eric Young continues to take shape with the victory. Young's post match speech, while nothing that will be up for the promo of the year was well done and was also another good kick off point for the show. They did well, and one has to wonder how this will lay at the next Impact with the Guns, Joe and AJ all losing.

TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Simply put this was a great tag match here. Like many matches on the show the key here was that they got time, and weren't rushed at all. Even with the Guns not being used as well as they can be, when these guys get on PPV they deliver. The match was just a fun sprint, with Beer Money being the good, dick heels and the Guns being resilient and constantly fighting the good fight. The Guns are great, Beer Money is great and they clicked to have a good match that made both teams look good, and you believed that the Guns were about to finally win the titles that have managed to allude them for the last 2-years. The finish is getting played a bit, but you have to imagine that it is only a matter of time before it bites Beer Money in the ass and costs them the titles, and in that case, that is why it works so well. I also love them using the DWI (Driving While Investing *THANKS FOR THE CORRECTION*) as their finisher. Matching gear, good team work and a double team finish goes a long way to making a tag team actually BE a tag team.

FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE: In my opinion the PPV hit the top right here as Abyss and Kurt Angle went out there and busted their asses for 18-minutes in a falls count anywhere match. Quite honestly I think if they could have went without some of the slow ass crowd brawling at the beginning that it could have been even better. But the bottom line is that it delivered in my opinion. But I think it all depends on if you like this style of match. If you do you likely loved this. It was a great match that had the crowd the whole way, maybe more than any match on the show thus far. Great heat, big moves, kick outs of all the big stuff and in the end Angle survives while defeating the monster, but also Abyss isn't hurt in the loss due to how it was booked. Abyss takes a lot of shit from people that say he can't work a lick without the PLUNDAH, but for the most part this was very light on it. Brawling, the chair, and that's about it. Abyss can bring it, and as I have mentioned, he and Angle have great chemistry and always seem to deliver. If you don't like the style, then you likely didn't dig it like myself or the live crowd did. These dudes are going to be sore as hell after this, Angle is a crazy fucker but bless him he does always try to steal the show.

Kevin Nash defeated Samoa Joe: Surprisingly this was a really good match, with a wild pace to begin things. I mean they had shit clicked into 4th gear from the get go, and I was afraid that Nash would pass out they were going so quickly. Joe was just whooping that ass until Nash managed to slam him to the steel post, two times. Nash would use clippers to remove the turnbuckle pad and in the end it took every trick in the book for Nash to SURVIVE Joe. Joe survived two powerbombs as well as being slammed to the exposed buckle anywhere from 4-6 times and they had to use the low blow on top of all of that. I will agree that the decision for Joe to lose, again, is questionable at best. But I will also say that the ending was a screw finish and Joe was made to look like a monster. I mean, he got out of two powerbombs, that's Undertaker at WrestleMania level shit right there so that was good. The follow up will be key, and they will need to focus on the fact that Joe is continually screwed when he is obviously dominating the Main Event Mafia members as he has with Sting, Steiner and now Nash.

TNA WORLD TITLE MATCH: Amazingly enough Sting has set a record for himself in regards to holding the TNA title, so good on you Sting! I have always wanted to see Sting vs. AJ, one on one for some time. Sting is good when motivated and in there with someone that wants to go, and AJ Styles is…well, AJ Styles. They had a really good 15-minute match, unfortunately AJ decided to not take advantage of Sting after he hit the big move, he got distracted, missed the PELE and Sting used the old side roll for the victory. By doing that Sting completes the Main Event Mafia sweep in a match with great crowd heat, both guys working hard and a good match layout. Overall there was good drama here, and basically they needed to have Sting go over to not only complete the sweep, but to get the MEM over as the mega-heels that they are supposed to be. Similar to back when WWE had at least one PPV with the Evolution sweep. As always the follow up booking will be the key, they have done the easy part. They had the "veterans" go over and look like they are right. Now they have to follow it up with solid booking and in the end CLEAN and DECISIVE victories. You know, the part WCW left out…

puRgatoRy:

Roxxi and Wilde defeated Awesome Kong and Riesha Saeed: The TNA Knockouts were in action in a match that was built up pretty well. After focusing on the Beautiful People and Christy Hemme so much, they has refocused on the title scene and building that, and the tag match helped do that. This was a good match from the ladies, who have been cold for a while. Wilde looked better here than she has in some time, and she gets the important rebound victory, while keeping Kong strong by not defeating her here. With Saeed taking the loss again, and the new association between Kong and Khan, like I said in the Impact R's, you have to wonder if the Saeed character is coming to an end. In my opinion that would be great. As I said, this was a "good" match, but I felt as if it was lacking something to get it into that right category.

TNA LEGEND'S TITLE MATCH: With Scott Hall and the ICP now gone from the ringside area (but hey, good work on Hall making it to "Turning Point" for once), we moved onto the Legend's Title Match. I think 99% of people watching knew that Booker would somehow retain the title and thusly force Cage into the Main Event Mafia. It was a given, being that he just introduced the title and the fact that the Main vent Mafia vs. Originals angle has really just begun. Now, with that being said, you have to counter predictability with a great in ring story and or a great wrestling match. We didn't get either of those. In the end this was a very average match, not bad, but it felt slow at times and it is nothing you'll go away from the show talking about. Booker continues to coast in the ring during his TNA tenure, and while he delivers on the mic, he leaves something to be desired in the ring. I will say that Christian in the MEM makes for interesting booking going forward and I am interested to see how that plays out. That's if it goes anywhere at all considering that Cage may be gone soon.

The wRong:

GRUDGE MATCH: And this was where the PPV hit its low point. It became obvious at this point that Rhino was on the show to give him something to do, to give Bashir something to do and to give another face a win on the show. This is something that most people noticed right away. The match was just uninspired as it was a long Impact match that never got out of first gear. Bashir tried but Rhino seemed completely unmotivated in about everything he did, which is a shame because these guys aren't bad wrestlers. Also the appearance of the ICP ad Scott Hall totally took away from the match as the crowd ended up caring about them and not the match, not that I can blame them. Hall was supposedly going to be involved in the show, but thankfully TNA thought better of that idea. This was a completely forgettable match and was the only bad part of the show in my opinion.

The Ridiculous:

NONE

Closing Thoughts:
Overall I will go with a 8.4 out of 10 for the event and a definite recommendation to pick up the show. To put it simply, this show was full of win, as the kids say, and it made me feel like I was watching a TNA PPV from 2005. And what I mean from that is that the show felt focused and delivered a lot of good wrestling on it. Five matches clocking it at *** or over, a couple of fine matches and only one rotten tomato in the bunch makes this a very good event. With Cage having to join the Mafia, and the group getting the clean sweep they set up a lot of stuff they can do, whether they follow up with good booking or not is another question.

---

And I'm out of here!


~418~