Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 11.20.09: RETRO Survivor Series, ECW and Raw Reviewed!

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 11.20.2009

Kofi Kingston and Randy Orton brawled all over Madison Square Garden, Roddy Piper hosted the show and The Undertaker stood tall at the end of the night. Elsewhere on ECW, the Hurricane kept his mask, CM Punk made his return, former NWA Champions teamed, and don’t forget about RETRO Survivor Series! Wrestling’s 4R’s break down all the action from WWE Raw and ECW on SyFy!

TWITTER

CSONKA TWITTER…FOLLOW HIM!
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

If you haven't already, make sure you bookmark 411 or better yet, set us as your homepage! As always, thanks for choosing 411 for all of you pop culture needs!


By: Jeremy Thomas

Raw 11.16.09

The Right:

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S MONDAY NIGHT!: Raw got us started with the Piper's Pit. That's one hell of an awesome start. Piper also had Luis Guzman, who was there to pimp Old Dogs. Roddy and Guzman talked a little bit about movies, Mr. T and food, which prompted Roddy to bring out his special guest the Iron Chef Sheik. Well, it's an honest mistake I suppose. Guzman made the mistake of mentioning Hulk Hogan which made Sheiky go off on a rant about the Hulkster and have his action figure beat up Hulk's action figure. Um…okay. This was one of those complete non sequitur things that made no sense and had nothing to do with anything at all, yet in some fashion is was strangely entertaining. Let's face it, almost any time the Sheik shows up there's hilarity to be had. It's not like they use him like he's a wrestler anymore, so it's fine. And Piper's going off about destroying Mr. T was goofy fun too. Was this a fantastic, can't-miss segment? No, but it was kind of fun, and short. That's good enough for me.

THE MIZ vs. MONTEL VONTAVIOUS PORTER: This was a match for the United States Championship, which was nice as I'm always happy to see a few title defenses on television to help build up the belt some. Miz got on the mic and got after the crowd, who was giving him what can only be described as an insane level of heat. He trashed on the Yankees—the bastard—and had the crowd begging for MVP to kick his ass by the time he was done talking. This match played into Survivor Series as well, with the two being on opposite teams which was nice to see. Cole did a nice job talking up the history of the US Title and pointing out MVP's pedigree as the longest-running US Champion during its WWE tenure. The match itself was decent for the time it got, which wasn't a very long time. Montel had his moments of offense early in to build up the crowd, and then Miz took over and never really looked back outside of the Ballin'. Some might question this as a burial of MVP, but I didn't mind that so much because Montel's been part of a tag team for a while now and that seems to be where they've decided his niche is. This could have been better with a few more minutes, but I was happy with what we got.

SHEAMUS WANTS A CHALLENGE: Sheamus came down to the ring midway through the show and got into the ring while Vintage and Lawler reminded us how he'd forced Noble into retirement. I love how they're building that up, it really does put Sheamus over as a dangerous force to reckon with. Sheamus challenged anyone who had the guts to come out, and no one answered so he decided to make the timekeeper famous. This brought Lawler to his feet, and he paid for it with a kick to the head that put him down. Okay, so I liked this, but I do have a concern. That concern is that, in the past, these angles have always led to Lawler putting up a fight against his opponent. To really put Sheamus over, he needs to just destroy the King in the inevitable match. It'll let him look like a bad-ass because even though Lawler's way past his prime in the ring, the crowd always buys him as a contender. However, this I didn't at all mind, and it got Matt Striker behind the booth which is never a bad thing.

CENA PROMO OF WACKINESS +7: Okay, so we know that Cena's a fan of going weirdly goofy in his promos. It irritates me when he goes from goofy to intensely serious, but outside of that I've always found him fairly amusing. This week, he tossed out a promo that was nutty to the extreme. And you know what, it was actually really funny. The little interlude with the production crew guy handing him the note that it's not a handicap but a triple threat match was great, and Cena threw out more off-kilter, left-field references than he may have ever done before. The delivery was really good and you know what, any time Ghostbusters and wrestling meld together is a good time in my book.

D-GENERATION X vs. JERICHO & THE BIG SHOW vs. JOHN CENA & THE UNDERTAKER: The crowd was pretty damn amped for this match, and everyone got their appropriate reactions on the way down to the ring. And amazingly despite a Cena entrance, a DX entrance and Taker's entrance, the pre-match moments didn't take up the entirety of the show. Now, this was interesting because to my knowledge, the multi-tag matches have always been two men in the ring and it was basically just that anyone could be tagged in. Here we had a member of each man in the ring, and I actually rather liked it. It made for a chaotic match, but also allowed for pretty much no down time because there was always someone who could be fresh and let someone else rest. We had some good, hard and fast action and this made the match seem longer than it actually was. Everyone looked good here and everyone worked really well together, all the way into the finish where Cena pinned 'H. Looks like someone wanted their win back…which works for me. This was a great little spotfest of a match which the crowd was really into, and after the match we had Taker delivering the Tombstone on his tag team partner out of nowhere. Why? Some think it's setting up 'Mania, and I wouldn't be totally shocked about that. But it could also be because Taker always talks about being alone, and they wanted a big Madison Square Garden moment. I guess we'll find out, but either way this match kicked ass.

puRgatoRy:


DX 1, HORNSWAGGLE 0: Following the Chavo/Santino "match" and the DX-wearing Hornswaggle appearance during it, D-Generation X came down to the ring to confront the little guy. First though, they had a few things to say and a few glow sticks to toss out to the crowd. They played around a bit and talked about how they weren't going to do their usual shilling and such, while proceeding to shill their book. Call me nuts, but that always amuses me. They moved on to the triple threat match at Survivor Series match with Cena. Wow, the New York crowd hates Cena…not that I'm surprised. They said they weren't going to turn on each other and wouldn't be torn apart, then addressed Hornswaggle. Horny came out from under the ring when 'H said they'd consider letting him become a member of DX. I assume Horny hasn't ever seen any of DX's offers to people to join, because he'd know how this was going to turn out. 'H played it up like he was going to induct him, and then Pedigreed the leprechaun to a pretty mixed reaction from the crowd. They wanted him to do it, and then booed after the fact, but then went along with the "Suck It!" I really don't understand the point of this whole thing, but the crowd was really into it. I just hope it's over at this point.

MELINA vs. ALICIA FOX: The guest ring announcer for this was Judah Friedlander. That intro would probably be a lot funnier if I watched 30 Rock. Judah played it more or less straight and actually did a pretty good job of announcing the ladies. They had a little interplay, during which it was announced that this was going to be a Lumberjack match with the ladies around the ring being the members in the Survivor Series Diva match. I've said before that Lumberjack matches aren't my favorite, and this was exactly the same reason why. It's not about the ladies in the match, it's about how they get tossed out and beat up by the ladies outside of it. The in-ring stuff was actually better stuff than we've seen from these two as of late, but it was short and nothing of consequence. Mostly, it was an excuse for the ladies to brawl in the ring, and that's fine I suppose…it's just not anything I'm going to fall all over myself praising.

THE PIPER FIASCO & THE ORTON/KOFI BRAWL: Backstage, Piper was in the Pit playing with his coconuts when Chris Jericho came in dressed, oddly, like John Cena with the shirtlessness and the jeans. Jericho bitched about the lack of respect that was being shown while Piper blew his nose and did all sorts of other things like he'd missed his Ritalin. He then brought in Chris Masters to do the titty dance to "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas. I know, people think it's hilarious. I don't, but Jericho's facial expressions just made this work.

So that was iffy but not terrible, and I was hopeful that Roddy's guest stint would stay that way. Then, he got down into the ring and tried to cut a promo. Yeouch. Roddy is one of the great promo guys, but he's seemed scattershot for a long time now and this was a good example. He just rambled on and on, talking about dead guys he loves and bald ones he doesn't love quite so much; it was only the fact that he was getting crowd chants that he could pause for in order to collect his thoughts that it didn't seem even more incoherent than usual. Oh yeah, and there's the fact that he was READING OFF OF HIS HAND:



Think about that for a second…Piper had notes on his hand, and he still was rambling. How the mighty have fallen. He then said he wanted a match with Vince, which the crowd just ate up. He called the boss out, and down to the ring Vince came to the crowd's delight. Vince did what he could to save this segment, trashing Piper's physical condition and getting the crowd solidly behind his companion in the ring. Vince refused the match and said he was retired from ring action, and Roddy continued to cut a promo like he was going to beat him, then challenged him to come out later. This whole thing was just a car wreck.

After a little bit, we had Piper back in the ring for his Street Fight with Vince. Of course, Mr. McMahon didn't come out, so Roddy asked for a mic. Before he could speak up, out came Randy Orton. He got on the mic to talk about how he was going to relieve some stress by putting Piper down while the crowd chanted his name. Piper tried to fight back, and got his ass beat down. He prepped for the punt kick and gods damn if the music cue didn't come late to make this even further of a mess. Orton was clearly pissed at that, but didn't have time to do much other than throw his hands in the air before Kofi came down and take it right to Orton. Now, I'm a huge fan of Kofi's push as you may have noticed by now, and I loved this portion. THAT is why this is in puRgatoRy. It worked so well, including Kofi busting Orton open, that it pretty much saved this entire thing. Otherwise, I can promise you this would be in ridiculous. But Kofi and Orton had a truly fabulous brawl, and what I loved the most about it was that Kofi didn't just own Orton outright. Orton got his licks in which makes it seem more like a feud and less like the plucky face getting his shots in before the heel inevitably finishes this. Good stuff by Kofi and Orton, terrible work by Piper and whoever was doing the music cues. I actually wanted to split this into two portions, but it all sort of bled together and I couldn't find a good cut-point so there you have it.

The wRong:

CHAVO GUERRERO vs. SANTINO MARELLA: Chavo was already in the ring when we came back for this match, which didn't bode well for him. But then, what does lately? Santino came out with a Rangers jersey over a Giants jersey, which in turn was over a Knicks jersey and then a Jets jersey. Okay, that was kind of funny, but it ran a little too long when we got to the Jets, Phillies and Yankees jerseys. After that, there wasn't much time left for the actual match, which had Chavo hit the Three Amigos and then had them play roll-around for a bit. Finally, Hornswaggle came down and distracted Chavo so Santino could get the roll-up. This wasn't a match folks, it was a comedy routine, and while I found parts of it funny they ran both of the comedy portions too long. There is a phenomenon in comedy where if you do something long enough, it will stop being funny and then you keep going until it's funny again. This didn't go that long, and I don't know if it would have ever gotten there; instead it just went from funny too not funny. I'm sure people think I'm taking this too seriously but I was ready for pure comedy here, and what we got just wasn't funny. Sorry, folks.

EVAN BOURNE vs. JACK SWAGGER: Okay, really? Did we really need to see this match again? Listen, I get that after Bourne got the win last week, we needed to have Swagger get some heat back. But how hard would it be to have him take out Bourne backstage, then kick someone else's ass in a match? We've seen these guys trade wins and losses back and forth far too much and it's at the point where it has plateau'd both men. Bourne no longer gets momentum from beating Swagger and vice versa. Add in that this match started off joined in progress from commercial and lasted barely over two minutes means that this was pretty much a complete waste of time which didn't help either guy or even build heat for Survivor Series.

The Ridiculous:

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

The 411

Someone had said that the main event and Kofi/Orton brawl saved this show, and there's certainly a big case to be made for that. I do think they weren't the only good parts, but they were certainly the best parts. They counteract a terrible guest hosting job by Piper and a few other problems to make this a mostly worthwhile show.

SHOW RATING: 7.0

From Joey Hatton:
Loved Jericho vs. Taker. It isn't going to happen at WM26 anyways, so no reason to waste time complaining about it not being saved for then. Good battle; can't wait for it to come out on DVD.

I don't know that this will ever come out on a DVD. It ~might~ hit a Taker or Jericho retrospective DVD, but I think that the historical context will be lost and I think the two have enough matches that are better than this one to ever have room for it. It was a good match though.


From What?:
Drew/Finlay was brilliant. No better way to build the guy up. Cut him some slack, Jesus! What else did you want him to do? Cure cancer?

Cure cancer? Naah, not that far. Actually pinning someone would be nice, though. Call me crazy.


From Guest#8399:
The Morrison/Ziggler feud is just spinning its wheels now. They need to pull the trigger on Dolph soon, because it's all becoming so very repetitious.

I'm really starting to agree. They can only have these guys fight each other for so long before they're not doing each other any favors.


From panik:
Sorry, but the Mickie/Natalya match deserves to be in the Ridiculous section. How can you willingly accept someone who gets the jobber treatment (Natalya already being in ring with no music), not to mention she isn't even on the Survivor Series PPV, getting a big win over Mickie so easily (in their first ever meeting I might add)? It's sad but it looks like they are already jobbing Mickie out so that, when she does decide to leave, she'll have not an ounce of dignity remaining.

That's not it at all. As Nicole and Caprice mentioned, they're giving Mickie a storyline. There is nothing wrong with Natalya getting a win over Mickie, because it doesn't hurt Mickie's cred with the fans at all and boosts Nattie's a bunch. That's calling helping put someone over. It does happen from time to time. (See: Kingston, Kofi & Orton, Randy)


From Knitted Character:
"and really…a feud development over Diva clothes?"

It worked for the Rock and...someone else at Fully Loaded 2000.
I know that fitted into the storyline a bit better 9 years ago, but there's still a precedent.

Big difference. Mr. Johnson has charisma that trumps any of the Divas involved and could make some pretty wacked-out angles work. I love Mickie and Layla has charisma, but I don't see the same thing panning out the same way here.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
That was a nasty spill that Morrison and Ziggler took. I wonder what would have happened if they had done that in the 2/3 falls match. TLC PPV anyone?

Actually, I hope that it does last to TLC. They deserve a shot at another Pay-Per-View match, hopefully one in which Dolph finally comes out on top and doesn't drift back to the lower rungs of the midcard.


From Jason King:
R-Truth annoys the piss outta me. I hope Kane turns on Taker next week to cement his heel turn, then comes back the week after and straight up sets R-Truth on fire, a la JR a few years back.

Then bring R-Truth back as a heel...just take away his shit ass music/entrance.

To each their own.


From Carnivore:
Jeremy your complaints about Punk's promos are ridiculous, in the same sentence you say it is often repetitive and boring but Punk has great delivery, you sound like the ADD wrestling fan...Punk's promos have been awesome as of late, but you can't expect him to change his shtick every time he comes out, maybe you don't desire that, but your complaints about it confuse me.

I don't expect it to be totally different each time, but I would like some variation other than him telling the crowd they're a bunch of addicts. As for my praise and criticism both, I suppose I should clarify. Much like film scripts, there's two crucial elements to a promo--the writing and the "acting," or performance. Punk's performances are dead-on, but the writing (his or the staff's, whoever's behind it) seems to be spinning its wheels and relying solely on the performance. It's not bad (thus the presence of it in the Right), just not as good as I think it could be.


From KanyonKreist:
I really don't know if they're gonna run an extended 'Taker/Jericho program, but the little three-week mini-angle they've done has been so entertaining in itself. Like a delicious free sample at some kind of gourmet Sam's Club. Maybe it's just a quick stop on the Dead Man's farewell tour, which would be fine; nobody's immortal... yeah, I'm looking at you, Hulkster. But yeah, maybe it's like when they had Flair feud with a different guy every month between 2004 and 2006... except that 'Taker won't be jobbing to every single dude.

I've said it once, I'll say it again: Undertaker/Cena at WM26. As far as I can see, it is the ONLY big money 'Mania match that WWE has to offer right now.

I think Cena/Taker is quite possible the big set-up here, although we still have a lot of time until 'Mania, so we'll see. I agree with the whole of what you said though.

---

By: Michael Bauer

ECW on SyFy 11.17.09

QUICK RESULTS:
- Hurricane defeated Paul Burchill in a Mask vs. Career Match [**3/4]
- Vance Archer kills a local talent [1/4*]
- William Regal and CM Punk defeat R-Truth and Christian [**3/4]

The Right:

BURCHILL'S CAREER VS. HURRICANE'S MASK – The first match of the night featured the finale to this ongoing feud between Paul Burchill and The Hurricane. As I said in the recap last night, the sense I got from Burchill's face was one of someone knowing he was going to lose. Now, the commentary did a good job of talking about it and saying how it was probably nerves or just thinking about his career being over, which was great, but it just didn't feel right to me. I'm at least glad the match didn't make me feel that way. Burchill and Hurricane both went out all in this match, with the traditional both men kicks out of each other's finisher routine. Burchill bringing out the Pele was sick, as someone his size shouldn't be doing those moves. Of course, Hurricane would remain masked as Burchill has his moment of realization in the ring upon losing to Hurricane. Where exactly we go from here for Burchill is anyone's guess, but I would have had Burchill get the duke to give a new reasonable challenger to Christian. Anyway, the match was great, the finish was off the charts over, and the feud is finally done in a more than acceptable fashion.

SURVIVOR SERIES PREVIEW TAG TEAM MATCH – The main event for the evening was a preview for the main Survivor Series style match as Punk came back home to ECW to team with William Regal against Christian and R-Truth. I always like these Survivor Series preview matches, because it produces some pretty unique teams and some matchups that can get lost during a huge 10 man elimination tag. The match was not as good as I thought it could be, but it was worked pretty much near perfection. R-Truth gets worked over by the heel team after a fast start with Christian and Punk, who I swear I want to see a long feud with in the future. Of course, we have the hot tag and Christian runs wild on CM Punk. The ending was kinda cool with Punk and Christian just reversing each other left and right until Christian nails the inverted DDT. The save is made and R-Truth tweaks his knee, leaving Regal wide open to pretty much end the match, expect for one last Go2Sleep on Christian. The match pretty much accomplished everything it should and also, just maybe, kept Regal as a viable threat to Christian. But dang did it make me want to see Christian vs. Punk just that much more.

puRgatoRy:

PUNK MAKES SOME BACKSTAGE APPEARENCES – So on three occasions during the show, we saw CM Punk backstage. First time, it was opening the show to hype the main event... sort of. The second time was with Tiffany and this had to be the best Tiffany has been on screen, probably because it was more natural than actual acting. Talking about drinking and partying, yeah, that's normal. Plus Punk got burned big time with Tiffany flat out calling Punk an anti-social who needs to loosen up. What made it better is that Punk just smiled at that thought. Then, we get Punk and Christian, which would normally just equal gold. The segment was just alright, but the battling of Punk being a nerd was just not as funny as it should have been. Again, Punk took a burn about being a former champion and that one stung him, as it should of. Overall, I chalk it up as being good, but not great work from Punk this week.

The wRong:

VANCE ARCHER KILLS ANOTHER KID – This is the same song and dance routine I always go through, so I'll keep it short. After the third squash match, we need to see him face some real challengers, or you risk losing the fans. Throw Tyler Reks at him, it will be better than the latest hometown kid that steps up to get killed.

The Ridiculous:

ZACK RYDER AND ROSA... AND SHELTON... AGAIN - First things first, can we please never give a microphone to Rosa Mendes again? I swear, that the crowd reaction said it all there. She talks faster than the Micro Machines guy and they boo immediately. But I'm pretty sick of Zack Ryder looking like a puppy dog being dragged on a leash. Need proof? Check what happened when Shelton came out. Ryder backed away so fast and I don't even think fully stood back up after being called a power tool. As a side note, that had to be the funniest line Shelton has ever given out and he actually delivered it decently. Anyway, I say Zack never got fully back up because Rosa was the one in Shelton's face, not Ryder. I know it was to setup the cheap shot, but Ryder is once aging being made to look like a total bitch, now with Rosa looking like she has more bit than he does.

THIS WEEK'S DID YOU KNOW - So, did you know that more men watched ECW than Larry King Live last week? Um, that is different than any other week how? Seriously, if the WWE is saying this, then things must be really bad.

THE MADISON SQUARE GARDEN VIDEO PACKAGE - Don't get me wrong, plenty of history happened in MSG and I understand showing this package in the Garden... BUT NOT IN PHILADELPHIA!!!!! I swear, I hope that was not shown to the live crowd.

The 411

Two very good matches made this show better than it had been a few weeks. Normally, we have the one really good match with the rest of it just there, but not this week, as we ended one feud and expanded on the Survivor Series hype. Punk was all over the place, which was both good and bad, but it still served its purpose like when Jericho crashed the party a few weeks back. And the ridiculous stuff... at least the non in-ring stuff was short and painless.

SHOW RATING: 7.9

---

~WWE SURVIVOR SERIES 2008~
By: Larry Csonka

The Matches:

TEAM HBK defeated TEAM JBL @ 18:00 via pin – HBK, Khali and Rey Survived [**]

TEAM RAW LADIES defeated TEAM SMACKDOWN LADIES @ 10:00 via pin – Beth Phoenix was the sole survivor [ASS]

CASKET MATCH: The Undertaker defeated the Big Show @ 13:00 [*]

TEAM ORTON defeated TEAM BATISTA @ 17:00 via pin – Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes Survived [**¾]

WWE TITLE MATCH: Edge defeated HHH and Vladimir Kozlov to become the NEW WWE Champion @ 14:00 via pin [*¾]

WORLD TITLE MATCH: John Cena defeated Chris Jericho to become the NEW WORLD CHAMPION @ 21:00 via pin [***]

The Right:

TEAM ORTON defeated TEAM BATISTA: William Regal reportedly had the flu, which is why he was eliminated so early by Punk. I HATED it though because once again it makes the IC Champion look like shit. I mean, I don't know, they couldn't let him chill on the apron for a bit or something? Sorry I had to get that off of my chest. The good news was Layla throwing a shoe at Punk; this was glorious! As a whole the match was pretty good. Everyone worked hard, it felt like it flowed better than the earlier matches on the show and I liked the lay out. Henry pins Hardy, which will likely lead to another ECW Title match, and if Matt is hurt that may be the way to go for now. Batista beating Henry and Shelton so easily bothered me a bit, I mean he AGAIN beat Henry in one move, yes we get it BIG DAVE IS A BIG STAR! But overall, from the booking point of view, getting down to 4-1 was the way to go. They need to work the tease on Batista vs. Orton, and this was the way to do it. He had to go through everyone, and he was about to finish off Cody, but Orton got the blind tag, RKO and Orton survives once again. This was the right booking and the right finish in my opinion, I liked it. Another good thing is that Cody didn't lose here. The kid can't afford to keep losing, and the fact that he survived was great because he needed it.

WORLD TITLE MATCH: While overall the match wasn't what it could have been, and I will talk about that later, I thought that the game plan for the match was perfect. The story was of course around Cena's neck, which I felt was played well. An early bump the floor and Cena grabbing at his neck with caution in his eyes was captured very well. Another thing I loved was he went to go up top, but hesitated and the look in his eyes was perfect, "oh shit, this is how I got hurt last time." These things allowed Jericho control of the match, and he wasn't only the general, he made the match. He worked like the dick heel he is, taking full advantage, and Cena not only had to overcome ring rust and hesitation, but he had to overcome everything, take the chance from the top and show the resilience that some love (and other hate) to get the victory and the title. I loved the celebration in the end, because it is the perfect way to cap off what was supposed to be and ended up being a big comeback victory. I will say that this barely got to the *** level. Cena is clearly limited right now and he didn't go balls to the wall as we are used to seeing on PPV. He took less punishment, and while some was part of the angle, he seemed tentative. This wasn't nearly as good as past Cena vs. Jericho matches. It was good, but it felt as if it lacked overall. Chris Jericho has this ability to make others look way better then him, which is a gift and a curse.

puRgatoRy:

TEAM HBK defeated TEAM JBL: This was the opening match of the evening, and I have to say I had pretty high hopes for it. You had Rey (who looked better than he had in some time) HBK who is HBK, and Morrison and Miz who had been on a roll. We had components there to make this a very strong opening match, but instead I felt as if we had a go through the motions adventure. It felt very basic and obvious that they wanted to get the faces off to a strong start, which is fine. Cryme Tyme were the only faces eliminated, clearly showing the rank of importance of the face team. As mentioned Rey looked good, the HBK/JBL drama built for a match, the HBK/Morrison interaction was fun and it was a "fine" opener, that as mentioned got the crowd happy, but it wasn't anything you couldn't see on TV. Disappointing I think is the key word here.

WWE TITLE MATCH and OTHER: And then we got the WWE Title match. I will talk about Hardy later, but we got Vladimir Kozlov challenging HHH for the WWE Title. I had been a fan of the booking of Kozlov, but like most wondered how he would do in the big match, hell, even a longer match. For the first, 12-13 minutes this was SHIT. It was bland, slow, and the crowd shit on it. I was getting what they wanted to do, but the fact that Kozlov cannot sell hurt things. HHH tried to overcompensate at times and it looked like shit. And what the hell was with HHH out wrestling the SAMBO champion? So the match is sucking, Vicky comes out and proclaims that "HE'S HERE!" But it wasn't Hardy, it was the return of Edge and his awesome beard! He looks good for a man that was in hell for months. He cleans house, and then, then Hardy comes out. Hardy, with like a band aid on his neck comes out, looks fresh as a daisy and cleans house. Edge ended up with the win, which saved this from being an abortion. Unfortunately this comes down to more of the same with Edge and Vicky. People are claiming that this is so great, but I guarantee if it was TNA they would be shitting all over it. But I will say that taking the title off of HHH was the best thing to do. HHH's run here has been boring and they needed a change. Kozlov wasn't the answer, and we can argue all day long about pulling the trigger on Hardy but I don't think they are ready to do it. Now if we get rid of Kozlov, we have a title scene built around HHH, Hardy, Taker, Big Show and Edge; and to me that's pretty damn good.

The wRong:

TEAM RAW LADIES defeated TEAM SMACKDOWN LADIES: The ladies elimination match was an exercise in bad execution. It felt like one of those TV elimination matches/X-Division Clusters/Cruiserweight Battle Royals where everything goes too fast, and it doesn't work. They did nine finishes in 10-minutes, the ladies were off 90% of the time (which made for hilarity at times) but it was very sloppy outside of a few moments and basically it was poorly laid out. Bottom line is this, it was bad! Beth as the Survivor was the right call, Maryse did well also, but that wasn't enough to make this worth your time. I am all for giving the ladies a chance to shine on PPV, I am a huge fan of women's wrestling, but this just did not deliver. While there was poor execution, I feel that the layout of the match and the fact that they had to execute that in such a short period of time was the real problem of this match.

CASKET MATCH: I will say this to kick this off, this was the worst Taker match in a long, long time. He and Show has done well thus far and I have really enjoyed their matches, but this one, well, in theatre terms, it felt like a dress rehearsal for the opening night. This match was a 13-minute snooze-fest. I felt that both guys were just going through the motions out there, they had a beginning, and end, and well, there wasn't much substance to the sandwich if you will. While the casket match gimmick can be somewhat limited, I just never got into this match. They had the feud, they had the history but the closure, if this was the closure did nothing for the crowd or me because they shit on it as well. I think part of it was that they killed the beginning of the match. If you look back at the other matches they had, they always had a beginning where they beat the hell out of each other, went to a big spot and then went from there. This time they went right to the big spot, and went on and it killed the drama. Unfortunately this was a trend for the show.

The Ridiculous:

JEFF HARDY SHIT: I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but I do want to discuss it because it did have an impact on the PPV. I think that the WWE made a big mistake doing this angle with Hardy and I will tell you why. They took a guy with two strikes, that has well known drug problems and basically tried to write a story where he OD'd. With the knowledge of wrestlers dying in hotel rooms and the fact that Hardy was a likely candidate for this, it was not in good taste. They played it up all day, and when the PPV opened they had JR with his sad voice and Tazz with sunglasses off and sad eyes to sell the angle. They claimed that ABC, CNN, TMZ have all been reporting on this. TMZ didn't, I didn't see anything on ABC or CNN, and if I were them I would be having some words with my lawyers. Sure AOL bit on it, so did some place in Miami, but to falsely claim that major media outlets picked this is up is shooting yourself in the foot. WWE bitches and moans that they do not get fair reporting from the mainstream media, but how can they expect to after something like this? WWE.com killed their credibility with the mainstream media, and unfortunately the next time something major and or serious happens the media will likely shy away because WWE has become the boy that cried wolf. Now it wasn't until the Matt interview that we found out that it was an ATTACK on Jeff. You see, this is the main problem I have. WWE intentionally played off of the fact that people would think it was a drug related incident. That is bullshit. If they wanted to do an angle, they just should have done the old school, "Jeff Hardy was beaten to a bloody pulp in a Boston hotel." That's all they had to do. But they didn't, and they have now alienated the media to a point and some of their fan base. That's not a good thing.

The 411

WWE is feeling the pain of the ratings being stagnant and the economy being bad, and decided to hit the restart button and make two big moves by bringing Edge back for a title win and also putting the title on Cena once again. While these are newsworthy items, they don't save the show. HHH vs. Kozlov was bad, the ladies match was BAD, the opener was bland, the casket match was bad, Team Orton vs. Team Batista was solid and the main event was just "fine." This was a big drop off from the last PPV, and basically WWE laid the egg here. Unfortunately for them they delivered what is in my opinion the worst PPV of the year, do NOT buy this show.

SHOW RATING: 4.0

---

And I'm out of here!


~421~