Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 2.12.10: Raw and ECW Reviewed!

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 02.12.2010

On Raw, Show-Miz won the Unified Tag Team Titles, DX is falling apart, Christian appeared to challenge Sheamus, Legacy continues to crumble and Bret Hart went crazy! Elsewhere, ECW prepared for its final show as we got the build to two title matches! Wrestling's 4R's breaks down all the action from Raw and ECW!

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By: Jeremy Thomas

Raw 02.8.10:

QUICK RESULTS:
Sheamus d. Christian [** 1/2]
Miz and the Big Show d. D-Generation X and The Straight Edge Society [*** 1/4]
Gail Kim d. Jillian [1/4 *]
Cody Rhodes d. Randy Orton [*]

THE RIGHT:

A FAST-TRACKED GUEST HOST: Raw kicked off with Cole and Lawler pimping the Unified Tag Team Title match tonight and promising a re-broadcast of what we already saw on SmackDown between Big Dave and Cena before we cut to the back where Carl Edwards was spinning his race car around a whole lot. Whee. He pulled his car into the arena and stepped out…and he was Hornswoggle. Even better. We then went to Triple K doing a really, really bad impersonation of a ring announcer by announcing Edwards and the Bella Twins. My only hope at this point was that we were getting all the bad out at once. Luckily this was the case, as Edwards did pretty well on the mic and while he did things like the cheap pop for the Saints, he was far from embarrassing and had a lot of great energy. Hell, the guy earns instant cred for back flipping off the top turnbuckle. He held his own in the promo with Sheamus and had fun standing between him and Christian as they dueled on the mic. He then had a segment with Jared from Subway and Santino, which was undoubtedly silly but inoffensively so and set up a match for Superstars as well as a pretty stacked-up card for next week's Raw. Edwards had a limited amount of time on Raw, so he made the most of it and I have to give him a definite passing mark.

CHRISTAN vs. SHEAMUS: So as Raw kicked off we had guest host Carl Edwards making his way to the ring and getting a pretty decent pop from the crowd, considering his name recognition. He pimped the Daytona 500 and talked about the previous NASCAR guys who hosted Raw, then put himself over by saying he had connections. Does that make Edwards the 'H of NASCAR? Edwards got a pop by mentioning Cena before Sheamus came down into the ring. Once again, anyone who's trying to say that Sheamus isn't over needs to listen to the crowd. He continued the Super Bowl comparisons and demanded he be the last participant in the Elimination Chamber. Threats were tossed off and before Edwards could say much more, Christian came out to the rescue. Now, I have to say this—I loved seeing the ECW Champion on Raw as much as anyone, but I do have to say that in terms of the opening promo work, he was actually the least impressive. Talk shit about Sheamus all you want, but he did a fine job here. Edwards was also decent; meanwhile, Christian wasn't bad by any stretch but he clearly tripped over his lines at least twice. Everyone gets a few bad line deliveries from time to time and it's not like his stock is lowered in my eyes, but it was a flaw in the segment. Otherwise I thought he did fine and I enjoyed his promo; the bit about them both being born without last names was cute.

So the match got started, and I was pleased to see that Sheamus and Christian actually worked pretty well together. It wasn't a thrill a minute match and I don't think we should have expected such, but it was a technically sound match and Christian got a good amount of offense against the WWE Heavyweight Champion. If anything, I think that the fifth-longest ECW Champion did a pretty good job of stating his case against our newest main eventer. The crowd was more than happy to see him in a Raw ring and I think he will have a good opportunity to make a name for himself, whether on Monday or Friday nights. Of course he didn't win, but I didn't mind that he didn't because the fact of the matter is that Sheamus is a bigger name in the 'E than Christian is right now. The match finished exactly how it should have and yet I don't feel Christian was buried at all; he made a good showing on behalf of the ECW free agents-to-be and that seemed to be the point so more power to them.


D-GENERATION X vs. THE STRAIGHT EDGE SOCIETY vs. MIZ & THE BIG SHOW: So it's interesting to me to note that being Straight-Edge doesn't mean that you have to remain bald, you just have to sacrifice the hair you have. Is that so no one can test it for drugs, or so Punk can? I kid. Anyway, Serena was looking fantastic and I love the way she and Punk seem to have an almost romantic thing going on—but it's clearly not actually at that level. It's shades of cult leaders and how they abuse their power over their followers. Punk then cut a promo about how the New Orleans fans celebrate and mourn the same way, via drugs. It was solid work by Punk as always, and you know what, I had to laugh my ass off when Punk got Jared from Subway involved. Punk tried to recruit Jared into the Straight Edge Society but the submarine sandwich man was having none of it. "Luke, Serena…go get me Jared from Subway" is one of my new favorite lines. Before poor Jared could get beat down, D-X came out and popped the crowd. Miz and Show were out last and the match started off with a Pier 6 Brawl, as they used to say. Teddy Long was watching from ringside as these three teams settled into a very enjoyable match.

They went with "True" Triple Threat tag team rules with one person from each time in, and that made for a fun formula that seemed chaotic while still being thoroughly in control. Everyone got a nice chance to shine and everyone sold for everyone. I have to admit that it was really strange seeing 'H selling for Miz, but it was a nice strange. There were some nice touches throughout it as well—Serena interfering against Miz, Shawn avoiding the kippup and such. I will admit that I thought Punk and Gallows were going to win this, but I was fine with them losing because Punk has a shot at the title at Elimination Chamber while Show & Miz have nothing to do. What else would they do, have Miz face MVP again? Yeah, no thanks. Shawn sold nicely for Miz and Show after the xSx was eliminated, and the crowd was very behind him every time he battled back. The crowd popped huge off the hot tag to the H-Man and things were looking hot before Shawn tagged himself in and Miz used the distraction to roll Shawn up for the tag belts. The US and Tag Titles will only help Miz that much more, and the match itself was a lot of fun. This was just an all-around win, and the tension between Hunter and Shawn was well-done at the end.

OBSESSION: A HEARTBREAK KID FRAGRENCE: Early in the show backstage, Shawn was apologizing to 'H for being distracted and out of sorts after losing his shot at fighting the Undertaker. He seemed to be trying to put himself past his problems, but his heart didn't seem to be in it and it was just another example of HBK selling a storyline nicely. Of course, the H-Man had to reluctantly kick Shawn when he was down by pointing out that he was in the Chamber and that they might well not be going to 'Mania as a tag team. Shawn got pissed and walked off, leaving 'H looking frustrated. Later in the night following their loss to Miz and Show, Shawn went looking for Teddy Long. He demanded a trade to SmackDown so that he could get into the Elimination Chamber, win and take on Taker at 'Mania. Teddy refused and ate a Sweet Chin Music for his trouble. This was an awesome little punctuation to his heel turn where flat-out said "I don't care about D-X" and walked off. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm loving Shawn's turn and it's being carried off with his typical wonderful work in a 'Mania build-up.

HALL OF FAME INDUCTION: THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN: It's been far too long for this guy to not have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. DiBiase may not have ever been WWE Heavyweight Champion, but he was in the main event against Hogan and Savage during the Rock N' Wrestling days and was a huge influence on the way that modern heels act. Of course, this won't hurt Ted Jr.'s push any and that's an added bonus; congratulations to Ted Sr. and it's a well deserved spot. I'd pretend to laugh here, but the effect would be lost in text.



Gods bless Hulu. And also, there's nothing funnier than Ted DiBiase kicking a ball away from a young boy to deny him $500. That's a fact.

LEGACY CAN'T PLAY NICE: This week we had more Legacy dissention. First Ted and Cody were backstage sniping at each other about how Ted was in the Elimination Chamber but he did it via a weaker opponent. Priceless started arguing over who was better, and Orton came in to interject and ask Ted if he thought he was better than him. They had a nice little face-off and Orton then announced that Ted would be facing Cena while Cody would be facing him. Orton, once again, is one of the best heels in the business bar-none. He talked about how Cody's heart was in the right place and how he appreciated how Cody tried to help, all the while in a tone which wonderfully put Cody down. It was a subtle little condescending pat on the head before the revelation that they would be facing off. I'm glad to see they're moving this forward without the start-stop that we've had over the past year or so, and you know what? I enjoy that it's not going the way we predicted with Ted being an obvious face against Randy and Cody. It's not stupid (yet, at least) and it creates an air of mystery about what's going to happen. Works for me.

WE HAVE A 'MANIA MATCH….OR NOT: So tonight we got the continuation of the Bret Hart & John Cena/Vince McMahon and Batista angle. After re-showing us what happened last week when Raw went off the air twice—for the record, it's not "exclusive" footage when it airs on two supposedly separate brands—he came out for his match against Ted DiBiase and basically started pounding the ever-living hell out of him. It certainly popped the crowd and gave the match a rocking start, which continued when Cena threw Ted into the ringside wall. He then applied the STF on the outside and basically choked Ted out. There was no match here, it was pure angle and while it carried off well, I'm not sure it should have been Ted who became Cena's whipping boy of choice. They're trying to use the guy in an angle with his stable-mates over who's better, and this certainly didn't make Ted's case one bit. And yes, I realize that Cena is way above Ted and was pissed so this isn't quite a burial, but it sure as hell wasn't a push either.

After the "match" Cena came into the ring and called out Big Dave. He said he didn't care why the Manimal did what he did, he just wanted to fight the man. Cena was pure intensity here, as opposed to funny-intense, and as usual it worked far better than his often-uneven mix does. He talked about how the attack may have been a business decision and brought up Vince and how he was probably behind all this. So he called out Vince to have a chat. Vince was in super-swagger mode, especially with his hordes of security around him. Vince eventually got into the ring and laid down some lines of sheer pomposity then admitted that he called Big Dave down to embarrass Bret again, but said he had nothing to do with Batista attacking Cena. Vince said maybe Batista didn't like Cena, 'cause he certainly didn't. Vince was having fun until Cena snapped on Vince and accused him of being about the money. Cena blamed Vince for turning Dave into a greedy and cold-hearted bastard, then got a cheap Saints pop from the crowd. This was a classic fan favorite vs. money man heel speech, and culminated with Cena announcing that Bret wanted a match with Vince at 'Mania. The crowd loved it but Vince didn't, at least until Cena managed to goad him into saying yes. Cena left and then Vince replayed the embarrassment from last week—again. That brought out Bret from the crowd to beat on Vince, which turned into Vince saying no. I will say that Bret's punches didn't look their strongest, but otherwise I thought this segment came off quite well. It ended with Bret trashing the production equipment and that was probably the weakest moment, as he just seemed to be missing a step. I hope that's not a forecast of things to come, because if it is than the physicality of a match is something Bret can't even begin to handle; otherwise this whole thing was great stuff and continued the feud nicely.

PURGATORY:

CODY RHODES vs. RANDY ORTON: This wasn't as much a match as it was a physically-oriented storyline segment with a bell. Which, I guess, is what a match is…but I digress. I enjoyed the way this played out because both men played their parts nicely and you have to give it to Cody for both playing the expressions up nicely and holding his own during the actual wrestling portions. My big problem with this one is that as a wrestling match, it was fairly boring. Everything was moving at a slower pace so as to sell the angle and while that isn't inherently wrong, the crowd was dead for most of this match. They picked up just a wee bit when Randy went all viper, but then went fairly dead when Cody hit that ugly-looking Cross-Rhodes for the win. Sheamus ended up taking out Orton after the match to get a boo from the crowd and that was fine; Rhodes chasing Sheamus off was cool too. I just wish they'd put a little more effort into the match.

THE WRONG:

GAIL KIM vs. JILLIAN HALL: Maryse was on commentary for this match, which had me preemptively cringing. And frankly, it was well worth cringing over. Maryse was awesome as she bashed on Vintage Cole and talked some smack about the SmackDown Divas; I have to say I'm surprised to hear her jumping to Mickie's defense a bit, even if she has knocked Mickie over the whole thing too. I assume it's leading to an inter-promotional match for 'Mania, but we'll see. Anyway, onto the match; yeah, there was nothing to this and it sucked. I can't say they botched anything but the crowd was beyond dead for it and it was way too short to be worth a damn thing. Maryse continued to praise Gail in English and then trash her in French, which I have a good feeling is going to play into things nicely when Gail reveals that, being Canadian herself, she understands French. If they don't, then she'll just look stupid as hell. The promo and Maryse's false niceties were okay; the match was very far from it.

THE RIDICULOUS:

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

The 411

The WWE can always be counted on to pick things up heading toward 'Mania, and this was no different. I thought that outside of Bret fumbling the equipment destruction, the Kim/Hall "match" and the Rhodes/Orton match that this whole show worked very well. They're building momentum and keeping things interesting, yet not completely predictable either. I'm enjoying the Shawn heel turn, I was okay with Miz and Show winning the tag titles and it was nice seeing Christian represent the final days of ECW nicely in the opening. Carl Edwards did just fine and all in all, this was quite the fun little Raw.

SHOW RATING: 8.0

From Guest#6450:
how could you put smackdown below tna. i watched tna and the matches were extremely short. smackdown gave us some above average matches with an exciting finish to the show. FU

From The Examiner:
You've lost all possible credibility by putting Impact > SmackDown this week.

And you've completely failed to understand the Batista/Punk angle too.

Must try harder.

From Guest#5293:
Smackdown lower than Impact and Superstars?

I thought Smackdown was far and away the best wrestling show this week. Good matches, but the big segments made it great, all the stuff between Edge, Punk, Jericho and Taker throughtout the show was phenomenal and the ending made me look forward to the next PPV and beyond, while the ending to Impact was terrible and made me cringe watching "The band" try and relive the mid 90's.

From Guest#3127:
I personally think Smackdown killed Impact this week but some of yoy guys need to chill, this column is one writers opinion, nothing more.

Actually, it's four writer's opinions. Aaron does ROH, Chad does Impact, Steve does Superstars and I do Raw and SmackDown. SO Chad and I probably would have rated our respective shows a little differently. But ultimately 3127 is right, it is our opinions and you are allowed to disagree. So hey, thanks for the reading and the comments!


From Guest#5388:
Batista/Punk in the Wrong? Wow.

Sorry but wasn't it after RAW obvious that Batista had cut some sort of backstage deal with Vince? I mean the EC is constantly put over as the most brutal match WWE has nowadays so given Batista's heel personality is that he's a smart pick your battles wisely type, him not wanting to jump into the Chamber with Taker and 4 other guys is smart on his part.

If the bait and switch really bothers you that much it's Purgatory (it really shouldn't though) but no way is it Wrong.

From KanyonKreist:
JT, I agree that the Batista/Punk tease was a waste of time. I think Batista should have just not shown up at all, forcing the ref to declare it a forfeit. Then maybe have a backstage interviewer catch up to him backstage as he's leaving... BUT, it played into something larger; it doesn't seem fair to deliver such judgment on this segment on its own.

Actually... screw it, it was a time-waster. Hopefully this is the last entrance/false start/walk-off/count-out that we see for a while....

From theHomewrecker!:
Batista taking off makes sense bc he has his hands full with Hitman & Cena, plus, he seems to be on McMahon's agenda... his actions hopefully become clear this Monday night or Friday night.

I think the time spent in the Smackdown segment are worth it because, despite the heel turn & 'ripping Rey's head off,' he still gets pops from the crowd so I thought it was smart to "try" & get over his heel persona...robbing the live crowd of a match they were fired up for... I think the arena would have cheered Batista in that match, counter-productive for where Batista's character is going. Plus, Punk can claim a win on Batista again (didn't he have a funny DQ win or something against him in his first Title run?) & his cheap count-out win adds to both men's heat so I found it worth the time... Cryme Tyme however...

Kanyon hit my thoughts pretty much dead on. Just so we're clear...I didn't mind that they played the angle out, but I don't think they needed to do two entrances, then a couple minutes of Punk and Big Dave chilling in the ring before they left. It was a blatant time waster that didn't need to be done, and I would have given it a Right if had played out under somewhat different circumstances. As you guys will know, I don't like it when they waste time for no reason because they typically need all the time they have to sell the Pay-Per-View. So that's where I was coming from.


From The Great Capt. Smooth:
For all the crap he gets, Rey sure has had a great year. It "should" be fun watching him and R-Truth flip around in the EM. I say "should", because I fear Batista may take one of them out to get in.

It should definitely be a lot of fun to see him in the Elimination Chamber; Rey Rey is the kind of guy who would do well in the Chamber because he's good at coming up with those innovative spots. We'll see what happens, but he's definitely a boon to the SmackDown Chamber match.


From Brad B:
You're wasting your time giving any props to Michael Cole, the worst long-term announcer in the history of pro wrestling. Bar none.

One occasional well-timed cover up for someone else's mistake (oh, the irony!) doesn't mean he's good at his job. He's improved little over the 12+ years he's had his job, a timespan where he should have enough experience to be the best in the world. Instead, he'd need to improve just to get to "really fucking shitty."

And again, I want to point out the ridiculousness of his tenure - Michael Cole has been a WWF/WWE employee for more than 12 years without interruption. He's been around BEFORE Bret was originally screwed! How the fuck this is possible!?!

You can say others have been worse (David Crockett, Don West, Mike Adamle, Lord Alfred Hayes, Sean Mooney, Craig DeGeorge, Todd Pettingill), but none of them had been employed as long as this douche and continued to bring absolutely NOTHING to the table!

An extra fuck you goes to Sean Mooney who got Cole the job in the first place!

You know, I think that Zoloft would be good for you Brad; you get way too hopped up about the little things. Now yes, Michael Cole is a terrible announcer. But I'm still going to call out the few things he does right. Things aren't black or white, and just because I'm giving him props on one thing doesn't mean he was golden. To put it shortly...every dog gets a bone from time to time.


From Guest#6992:
Miz and Maryse need to be paired up now. I've no idea why, but for some reason I think it would work better than the usual thrown together diva/superstar combos, I mean Regal and Layla, Chris Masters and Eve, it goes on and on, most valets suck now but Maryse with Miz could work.

Miz & Maryse would be awesome as a couple. They would both build on each other's heat, though clearly Maryse would benefit more, and it would give a major boost to her character within the Butterfly Division.

From Guest#4949:
Let's get this straight, Vickie gets loudly booed and then from that huge reaction the crowd goes stone cold dead when Michelle's music hits... and Vickie is the one getting the 'get this bitch off my screen' reaction? Really Jeremy? Really?

Well, it's not like I was praising Michelle & Layla for being heat magnets. In fact, I noted that Vickie's appearance didn't help them get a crowd reaction. So yeah, I think you're reading a little too much into what I said.


From Guest#8446:
Right, so Dave isn't already in the Raw chamber thanks to his attack on Cena...

I could see that happen, but I rather doubt it. I think Big Dave vs. Cena will be the cross-brand match at 'Mania and that requires Dave stay on SmackDown. We'll see though!




By: Michael Bauer

ECW 02.09.10:

QUICK RESULTS:
Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust defeat Trent Barreta and Caylen Croft [**1/2]
Ezekiel Jackson beats up a local talent [1/4*]
Shelton Benjamin defeats Vance Archer [**3/4]

THE RIGHT:

SHELTON BENJAMIN AND VANCE ARCHER ONE LAST TIME: Our main event of the evening saw Shelton Benjamin have one more fight with Vance Archer, this time with no countout and no DQ. Now, Shelton gave us a promo before to get some cheap pops and to talk up his entire run in ECW. To Shelton's credit, this was a simple promo to execute, but quite possibly some of his best mic work in some time. The match started out as the match last week started, with Shelton going aggressive early and Vance being thrown off his game in a huge way. The beauty of this match was that despite the no rules of the match, they didn't let the concept dominate the match. In fact, outside of two parts of the match, I don't recall the match resembling a traditional No DQ brawl. Now, I think this we being done to save up to next week's finale, which is totally the right call. But also, the way they didn't use the weapons made for a better match. Yes, it played into Vance's hands, but Shelton had been a step behind for almost the whole feud and you didn't need this going too far away from him. Shelton would end up getting the win for the feud ender, which can only help Shelton as he goes back to Raw or SmackDown and should fill in nicely into the IC or US Title hunts.

YOSHI AND GOLUST GET A UNIFIED TAG TITLE SHOT: The opening match was also a feud ender as Goldust and Yoshi take on Croft and Barreta. Now, forget who is fighting for a second. My eyes bugged out when I heard that the winner would be getting a Unified Tag Title shot on the ECW finale. Now, of course, the teams were obvious once they said this, but adding that little extra incentive made this match. And I tell you, I never thought I would say this, but damn did the two Guitar Hero dudes impress me. Croft and Barreta brought their A game and had we seen this for the past two months, I would have never been down on them. Goldust also was impressive, which doesn't always happen, and Yoshi was his normal impressive self. The ending was also pretty crisp with the babyface comeback and quick win after the typical pin breakup and double dump to the floor. Now, let's be honest here. There is probably no chance in hell of Yoshi and Goldust winning against The Miz and The Big Show. But to finally get the Unified Tag Team Champions on ECW is a huge win and should possibly lead to a good last show. Hell, at the least I'm looking forward to The Miz and Yoshi going at it in the ring.

PURGATORY:

BIG ZEKE GETS ONE LAST SHOT AT CHRISTIAN: so Big Zeke gets a match and he gets to squash the local talent. Now, I don't get why they went this route. Sure, they wanted Zeke to have a dominant match before going against Christian again, but did they have nobody else to throw under the bus. Why not Hurricane based off of last week's beating of Gregory Helms? But anyway, that is what happened and Regal started calling the Royal Rumble a travesty as he was ejected from ringside. This did feel way too familiar to Christian defeating Regal after Zeke and Kozlov got chased from ringside before the match began a few months ago. Like, exactly the same, where there was no other way to do this. So that was only a small factor, but the rest of the promo was rather good with Regal again going after Tiffany's legacy as the person in charge when ECW was taken down and to make the final championship match for the finale. Big Zeke then had one of the most perfect quotation of the book of Ezekiel I could have ever imagined. We go to break and Christian was ready to grant the title shot to Zeke and to make it Extreme Rules, as a nice remembrance to the good old days, when every match was Extreme Rules. Big Zeke and Christian did some good stuff at the Rumble and I am looking forward to more of the same on Tuesday Night, but this wouldn't have been my choice for a match. I seriously would have given Shelton and Ryder another shot at the belt as well, because both of those guys had title shots, but never got a second one because Regal kept getting his big nose involved. Nothing major, just my two cents.

THE WRONG:

NOTHING

THE RIDICULOUS:

NOTHING

The 411

They are keeping it simple in closing out ECW, but they are also making this end with a bang. Everything they did this week worked and with ECW looking to end, there is really nothing more they could do.

SHOW RATING: 8.5

Until Monday, keep on kickin' it!


~445~