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Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 4.23.10: Raw, Impact and NXT Reviewed!
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By: Jeremy Thomas
Raw 04.19.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Drew McIntyre d. Matt Hardy [* ¼]
The Undertaker d. Jack Swagger [** ¾]
The Great Khali & McGruber d. Vladimir Kozlov by countout [-*]
Triple H, Edge & Rey Mysterio d. CM Punk, Luke Gallows & Chris Jericho [***]
A RAW DEAL FOR STRAIGHT-EDGE: Raw kicked off with none other than the Game himself making his way to the ring. I bet the ‘E’s happy someone couldn’t make the tour thanks to that whole movie thing. It gives them some reason to be happy about one of their films at least, so it’s automatically got a leg up on 12 Rounds. ‘H posed for the crowd and then got on the mic as Vintage and the King talked about his upcoming match at Extreme Rules against Sheamus. The crowd was exceptionally hot for the H-Man, and he started off nicely by making a joke about them sucking up to him for being the only guy there. He then talked about the volcano situation and made another joke, this one about the Big Show. He then got somewhat serious, and talked about beating Sheamus at Extreme Rules. This was a decent little promo by the H-Man, doing what he could in order to put over his match with Sheamus with the time he had.
I say “the time he head” because it wasn’t long before the Straight-Edge Society interrupted. Vintage made a comment about the SmackDown roster trying to “steal the Monday night spotlight” as the trio made their way into the ring and Punk got on the mic. Punk put over the SmackDown crew and then trashed New Jersey for some cheap heat. He brought up the Draft and said that if he went to Raw, he’d be bringing the Society with him. ‘H knocked on the small number of his acolytes, then brought up the head-shaving. Punk made a cheap Shawn Michaels joke and said no foreign chemicals had ever touched his hair…well, except the time Truth gave him an alcohol and tobacco bath. This let ‘H make a few more jokes and then brought up Punk’s hair match with Rey Rey. This quickly degenerated into Punk offering ‘H a spot in the Straight-Edge Society—yeah, right—and Hunter pandering to the crowd. That worked well enough, and then the Game hopped back in the ring and threatened Punk, which turned into a beating for the Game and a save by Rey. Overall, I thought this carried well. They put two of their best talkers present in the ring to start the show, and of course it led to the main event match. The Straight-Edge Society looked good in their by beating down the Game, and the crowd was into it. Win-win to me.
JACK SWAGGER SPEAKS (AND BATTLES THE DEAD MAN): Midway through the show, Lillian Garcia announced the arrival of the All-American American, who came down to the ring to a smattering of crowd reaction. He got on the mic and ran Orton down for being a big man, talking 3,000 miles away. Swagger decided to show Orton what he was going to face and then made an open challenge. Decent promo, but he got more than he bargained for when the Dead Man came down. To his credit, Swagger didn’t look scared here, which says a lot to how his character is going to be portrayed. He had more of a “God DAMMIT” look. Clearly, Swagger knows to be worried; he’s not nuts. But he didn’t seem spooked, just serious, and that says a lot.
So, the crowd was hot as hell for this match, since they were getting a rare Taker appearance and the Dead Man didn’t disappoint. Now, true confession non-sequitor time…I was talking with someone about this match today, and they seemed surprised by my opinion of it. “You posed the question in Fact or Fiction that Undertaker shouldn’t have won,” they said. It’s true, I did…but keep in mind, I put up as many questions as I would answer Fiction myself as I do Fact ones. This was a very good match by Swagger and Taker, and I feel that Swagger got over by losing. The guy lasted fifteen minutes or so against the guy who ended Shawn Michaels’s career. No matter how you slice it, this was a win for Swagger’s credibility. Now, I do kind of sympathize with the crowd who thinks that Swagger needed the momentum going into the Pay-Per-View, but in this case I was willing to give them some credit because of Raw’s travel problems. Basically, Big Jack was a guy who looked competitive and fell prey to a mistake, then went down due to BOTH a choke slam and a Tombstone. That’s hardly a burial or a “job.” Good match, decent result, and I can go with that.
CHRIS JERICHO, CM PUNK & LUKE GALLOWS vs. EDGE, ‘H & REY REY: We had a segment a little earlier in the show which had Jericho telling the Society that in order to win, they had to stay in line and follow Jericho. There was a clear conflict of leadership, and Jericho basically put Punk and Gallows down before walking off. Awesome points for Punk’s sullen “I beat those guys, too” comment. This was, of course, the main event of the evening and for a crew that was put into a match likely at the last moment, they worked very well against each other. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Rey Rey has done a lot of work with the heels and of course Edge has been wrestling a lot against Jericho lately, but they still had some pretty cool spots like Punk slamming Rey face-first into the turnbuckle. They had about nine minutes and made the most of it, keeping the crowd hot and putting on a very good match that pushed the SmackDown feuds nicely. Some might take issue with the Game pinning Punk, but it didn’t bother me any since he was kept out of the match for most of it and was completely fresh; also, this IS the Raw show, after all. It was a good match that sent the crowd home happy, and didn’t provide a pinning finish from any of the matches for this Sunday.
DREW McINTYRE vs. MATT HARDY: The first match was between these two new SmackDown rivals, and sadly neither of them got their entrances. Probably so McGruber could crap his pants…but later for that! These two guys didn’t get a lot of time to rock here, and their match was booked around Matt’s continuing issues with blows to the head. I know Matt said he had a gimmick change coming, but I didn’t think it would be to Massive Head Wound Hardy. Anyway, while these guys didn’t get the amount of time they would have required in order to tell a really positive match, they did make the most out of the time they had and this wasn’t terrible at all. The ending was remarkably clipped with Drew yanking Matt off the ropes and getting the pin; this gets points because it puts Drew over, but loses them because of the shortness and abrupt ending. That places it squarely in the middle for me.
LIVE FROM BELFAST: I’m including these all in one. Basically, since the volcano had screwed the Raw roster out of a show, they decided to make the best of what they had and put the people in feuds on via satellite. Cena talked first, and talked about how he was going to be at Extreme Rules no matter what. He mentioned his match with Batista and talked about the Last Man Standing stipulation; this was short and sweet. Shorter was Orton’s. He just basically said that he would be taking the World Title to whatever brand he ended up at. Good, but too short to mean anything. The last had Sheamus showing up during the Game’s entrance in the main event, and that wasn’t at all bad. Sheamus talked about how he had beaten up Kofi, then showed the Game what he was going to do to him by beating up a camera man. Well, if you’re going to do something to get the feud over, that’s not abysmal. Basically, this was the Raw talent doing what they could to get the feuds over and do the hard sell. They weren’t entirely successful, but they get points for trying and extenuating circumstances.
VLADIMIR WANTS RESPECT, GETS McGRUBER: This was just terrible. Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of moments that I laughed at. But those were few and far between. To start off with, I realize it’s hard to keep track when one is never on TV, but when did Koz become a heel again? Last I remember, he was face. (No, I’m not including last week, because he was just kind of there.) But this week, it was back to “Russia is superior, Americans are weak.” Ugh. I guess someone realized that Koz had no real face qualities to him…good planning there, creative team. Koz asked for competition, and instead McGruber and Vicki St. Elmo came down. No, don’t get me wrong. I hate this skit, and I think that the movie is going to be utter shite. But I was willing to give these two a shot. And to be fair, Kristin Wiig had a few good moments; even McGruber had a single cute bit with that uterus comment and the “famous New Jerseyans” thing. But otherwise I thought this was stupid as hell. The whole R-Truth thing was retarded, made worse by the hokeyness of Truth actually being seen running off stage amidst the smoke. I know, I know, this is supposed to be funny and it’s not supposed to be taken serious, but this wasn’t funny outside of a few tiny moments and it set up a match I had no desire to see. But more on that later.
DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don’t care.
THE REST OF THE McGRUBER CRAP: I’m including both the backstage segments and the match here. It all melds into one blob of suck. First off, I don’t have a lot to say about the backstage segment other than this: pee pee and poop jokes? Really? Gee thanks…that’s exactly what I wanted to see and hear. Kane looked amazingly out of place there, but at least that part was short. Then we had Jericho running into McGruber backstage and Jericho talked about Oscar nominations and reviews being off the charts. Yeah, that’s stupid. Although Jericho riffing on the theme song was kind of cute. Jericho then gave McGruber advice that wasn’t very good advice, then walked off. Yeah, not even Y2J could save this whole thing.
Then, we got the match. Wiig was pretty funny accompanying McGruber to the ring, and the hero’s petrified reactions wasn’t bad. I was actually hopeful that this might be a semi-decent comedy match. Instead, it turned into McGruber smacking Koz and then getting his ass handed to him for a few moments. Ryan Phillippe showed up and got the match changed to a handicap match, which brought out Khali. Yeah, because this whole thing wasn’t stupid enough. Ryan Phillippe looked like he had been being duped into showing up by being told that Freddie Prinze Jr. still worked there and was angry about it. Oh yeah, the match sucked huge. That’s no surprise. McGruber then got a cheap pop by doing the USA thing and pimped his movie. What did you think about this whole thing, Layla?
Yeah. Me, too.
| The 411
All in all, I enjoyed Raw. It wasn’t a fantastic show, but it does get some handicap points for the extenuating circumstances. The only bad stuff involved the guest hosts, and almighty were they bad. Not Dennis Miller bad, but bad. Everything else was middling to good and all things considered, this made for as good of a show as they could have. SHOW RATING: 7.0 |
From please:
stop doing roh. nobody reads it.
No. Thanks for reading!
From Vic:
Very smart booking by WWE. THRagger looks great after this week’s shows….
Yep! But then came Raw, so… (Kidding, kidding)
From The Great Capt. Smooth:
JTG looked so odd with the long hair. Maybe they should give him a jheri curl gimmick. I’m JTC, bitch!!!
If they ever decide to continue the comedy route with him, a Rick James gimmick would be bad-ass.
From Guest#6983:
Furthermore, I fail to understand how you give Superstars a 7 and ROH a 6….seriously? Other reports and reviews have praised the Steen promo in the ring with Edwards…it was an example of how to set up a heel dynamic. Did you even bother to watch the show?
SERIOUSLY? Superstars higher than ROH? Really?
From Guest#1655:
You say ‘Three decent wrestling matches but nothing you really need to go out of your way to see’ and yet you give Superstars a 7 and ROH a 6, while Smackdown only gets an extra 0.5. How about some consistency, that doesn’t make any sense
Hi guys! Just so you know, I do the SmackDown and Raw R’s, Aaron Hubbard does ROH, Steve Cook does Superstars and Chad Nevett does TNA. So yes, we do all have different opinions about things and what one person rates a certain way, another might rate differently. That’s why you might find inconsistancy sometimes.
From Quimby:
5 rights, 2 wrongs and a WWE-TV-MOTYC, yet only a 7.5 rating?
Were the Ziggler and Kane matches realy that bad?
From Joe Schmoe:
They weren’t–the *booking* of Kane-McIntyre was bad, and the Ziggler-Truth match was only forgettable. Thomas underrated the 6-man tag team and the show overall. This Smackdown rocked!
I may well have underrated the six-man tag a bit, I thought it was good but not great. As for the overall rating, it’s not something as simple as “X Rights, Y Purgatories and Z Wrongs = mc2 Rating.” Several other X-Factors come into play, such as the overall flow of the show, the crowd and just general intangibles like that. I thought this was a good show, but one that didn’t pace well and some of the Rights are just vaguely rights (The Divas match, the JTG one). If I was feeling generous, I might give it an 8.0 but 8’s and above are going to be pretty rare from me.
From Mentalist:
Great work as always. I’d love to see a running total of the Rs for the year, i.e. how many of each R each show has got. I appreciate there’s a different number of segments on each show but it would be fun to know. Also appreciate this would be pretty difficult to keep track of but just throwing it out there in case somebody has been made redundant and wants to do it 😀
If I’m feeling VERY ambitious, maybe that would happen. It would be pretty interesting to see, for sure!
From Guest#7573:
That Volcano is a smackdown fan!
You know, I was thinking the same thing. Nice to see I have the same opinion as a force of nature.
By: Chad Nevett
iMpact! 04.19.10:
QUICK RESULTS
– The Beautiful People (C) defeated Daffney & ODB for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship [*]
– Rob Van Dam defeated Jeff Hardy [***1/4]
– Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Terry & Samoa Joe defeated Sting, Desmond Wolfe & Beer Money, Inc. [**1/2]
– Rob Van Dam defeated AJ Styles (C) for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship [***]
“WHAT WE ALL FIGHT FOR”: The show began with TNA World Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles coming out alone and cutting a promo about beating the Pope the previous night at Lockdown. The Pope was good, but AJ is the best. He’s the best in the world. He’s the champ! His delivery was nice for a solid prick heel champ promo that made you hate him if you didn’t already. His words, though, brought out Rob Van Dam and he took issue with AJ being the best, saying that things have changed in TNA recently and while maybe AJ WAS the best that simply isn’t true anymore. He wanted his shot to prove he’s the best in TNA. RVD’s portion was a little too slow and drawn out, partly from Van Dam mugging to the crowd a bit too much. Next came Jeff Hardy and his portion was thankfully short as he demanded he get a title shot, too, before Hulk Hogan interrupted them all. He actually put over AJ somewhat by saying that, yes, he’s the champ, so he is the best, but being the best means having a bull’s eye on your back and being ready to take on all comers. So, that night, it would be Jeff Hardy versus Rob Van Dam to determine the number one contender — which didn’t fly with AJ since he might not be ready to fight by Sacrifice, but that wasn’t a concern because the title match was happening that night on Impact. The segment was a little slow and drawn out at times, but introduced an interested story and moved AJ away from the feud with Hogan and Abyss and company somewhat, which is good. Him coming out alone was another good sign. Good way to begin the show and set up the two main events.
MATT MORGAN APPROACHES SHANNON MOORE: Backstage, Matt Morgan approached Shannon Moore about being his partner on next week’s Impact when Morgan has to defend the tag belts against Team 3D. Moore refused since he has a match against Kazarian for the X-Division title and then made fun of Morgan’s new habit of referring to himself in the plural. Short, sweet and set up two matches for next week.
ROB VAN DAM vs. JEFF HARDY: The story surrounding this match was good: two friends fighting for a title shot. They resisted the urge to break the two up (yet), which is good. The match began with the two feeling each other out before going to commercial. We returned from it to find the stakes a little higher as Van Dam nailed Hardy with a spin kick off the apron. From there, the match was a little disjointed with choppy (or nonexistent) transitions between moves. I would have liked to see a little more flow, but they recovered and went into a nice series of counters where Hardy looked like he had the edge, but Van Dam just wouldn’t stay down. Eventually, Van Dam gained the upper hand save for a few brief periods of offense by Hardy. There were some nice variations on their moves like RVD saving Rolling Thunder for his match against AJ and delivering a rolling splash instead. Van Dam seemed to win because he was quicker getting to the top to hit his finisher than Hardy, an interesting use of their different styles to sell the match. After the match, they shook hands and delivered a backstage promo affirming their friendship with RVD looking forward to his title shot later in the night. Good match that set the stage for the main event well.
TEAM FLAIR vs. TEAM HOGAN: This rematch had lots of build beyond the first meeting of the teams with a horrible segment between Hogan and Bischoff, and a solid one backstage with Abyss, Jarrett, and Rob Terry. The match was, basically, War Game as a tag match with Jarrett and Sting starting things for five minutes and then a new person entering the match every two minutes after that, but having to stay outside the ring until tagged in. Once all eight men were out, pins and submissions could happen. I was a little concerned that this variation on the gimmick wouldn’t work since the hot man/new entrant doesn’t join the match directly, but they managed to make it work, making sure he got a tag relatively quickly in each case. The first five minutes between Sting and Jarrett consisted of a brawl in the stands with Jarrett having the advantage by the end. Solid work, but nothing amazing. The first guy to come out was Desmond Wolfe who got the tag quickly and took it to Jarrett hard, though Jarrett put up a good fight. Next was Rob Terry who demolished Wolfe and Sting, while Orlando Jordan came out and stood on the ramp… something which the Freak ignored, making it especially meaningless. During the commercial break, both Robert Roode and Abyss came out, so we returned to the two of them in the ring together with Abyss in control. Next out was James Storm who nailed Abyss with a kick in the corner, allowing for the tag. The only question left was: who was going to be the final member of Team Hogan? Team Flair did some double- and triple-teams as the clock counted down and it was… SAMOA JOE! He’s back. Joe came down, looking very determined and he destroyed Team Flair after tagging himself in. He looked dominant and like a man possessed. He didn’t say anything and, after winning the match, just went to the back, leaving Team Flair in a heap and Team Hogan confused. A pretty good brawl match, but a little too cluttered to be great. The rules worked against them somewhat, but they managed to work around the rules to still make sure the new entrant got involved quickly. Hopefully, this ends the Team Hogan/Team Flair feud… or at least splinters it off into the sub-feuds like Jarrett/Sting, Abyss/Wolfe, and whatever else is left.
TNA KNOCKOUTS TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH – THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (C) vs. DAFFNEY & ODB: This is something of a random match since Daffney has been allied with the Beautiful People lately and was too short for anything to really happen other than reaffirming that Lacey Von Erich can’t wrestle. Velvet Sky carried her team well and it established that the Beautiful People are harmonious and dominant.
TEAM FLAIR BEATS DOWN THE DEPLETED TEAM HOGAN: Upset over Team Flair’s loss the previous night, Ric Flair decided to challenge Team Hogan to a rematch on Impact and, if they didn’t participate, he’d declare it a win by forfeit. Back from commercial, Abyss and Jeff Jarrett were in the ring, Jarrett grabbed a Team Hogan sign from the crowd, and Abyss said that the war between the two sides was over and Team Hogan won the night before. If Hardy and Van Dam didn’t already have matches, they’d beat Team Flair again, but Flair and company came out, Flair saying he didn’t care if they were down two members and sent the troops in to beat down Abyss and Jarrett, which they did. Until Rob Terry came out and made the save in a somewhat awkward fashion, prompting Ric Flair to shout “Who the hell are you, anyway?” which made me laugh. Then, Eric Bischoff came out and said the rematch would happen and he’s got the fourth member of the new Team Hogan backstage just waiting to kick Team Flair’s ass. Not a bad segment, but it didn’t need this. Most of what happened here could have been folded into the match itself with the build being around the two people who would step up, something I don’t think would have detracted from Samoa Joe’s return at all. We basically saw the two groups fight twice, which was unnecessary given the amount of times we’ve seen them fight in the past, but it was executed well.
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH – AJ STYLES (C) vs. ROB VAN DAM: I was looking forward to this match and expected a lot, but it didn’t quite deliver. The match itself had some good flow and good moves. AJ busted out some flashier moves, which is a heel no-no, but always made sure he acted like an arrogant prick while doing them, eliminating any good will he may have received. Rob Van Dam didn’t look too tired and had some nice spots. The ending seemed somewhat abrupt as I thought we’d have the overrun to give this match some more room, something it needed. This match needed to be better than the RVD/Hardy match and it wasn’t. I don’t understand the lack of overrun. It was a good match that was too short and could have been great. I do have some issues with the post-match celebration like Dixie Carter coming out. People involved in the story and on Hogan’s side against Flair coming out makes sense, but the president of the company? Why? She should be above this crap. I’m also not a fan of sticking the belt on RVD this way. No build, the night after a pay-per-view… I have no problem doing it on free TV, I just prefer some build when the challenger is a random guy who’s had little to no contact with the champ and for it to not happen the night after the PPV. TV ratings matter, but PPV buy-rates matter more and sending the message that the PPV doesn’t matter as much by changing the belt the night after isn’t the right move. These are all a bunch of small issues that keep this match out of the Right.
TWO STORIES?: This was a really strong episode, but it basically focused on two stories: the quest for AJ’s title and the rematch between Team Flair and Team Hogan. They could have easily booked the AJ/RVD match for another night to make room for something else and the pre-match segment where Team Flair beat down Abyss and Jeff Jarrett before Rob Terry comes out could have been folded into the match itself to increase the anticipation/surprised of who the final two members of the team would be. It’s great that TNA managed to produce such a strong episode of Impact, but that it had to ignore most of the locker room to do so is sad.
NOTHING: Holy shit…
| The 411
By focusing on two stories, TNA delivered a strong impact with three good matches, segments that advanced the story in strong ways, and a competent Knockouts match that was very brief. I’m not convinced about Rob Van Dam winning the belt, but it was a ‘feel good’ moment that should get people excited. I would have liked to see a little more diversity in the matches/angles being advanced, but it’s hard to be too pissed off when the quality is this high. SHOW RATING: 8.0 |
By: Michael Bauer
NXT 04.20.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Justin Gabriel defeated David Otunga [**]
Darren Young defeated Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver [*1/4]
Heath Slater defeated Chris Jericho [*1/2]
JUSTIN GABRIEL vs. DAVID OTUNGA: The opening contest saw the battle of #3 vs. #5 as Matt Hardy led Justin Gabriel against David Otunga led by R-Truth… sort of. Otunga looked like he didn’t want any part of R-Truth now, as he had grown too big for his mentor. The match itself was given the right amount of time and the ending looked well played, with Otunga knowing to avoid the 450 splash. But then, despite shrugging off R-Truth, he looks to him for help and his pro wants nothing to do with helping his rookie out. Gabriel is the benefactor of the win, but the story here was all about Otunga and R-Truth continuing to have a conflict of ideals. So much for that pairing working out.
VIDEO PACKAGES FOR WADE BARRETT AND HEATH SLATER: So we finally got some new video packages, now with the pro giving their thoughts on each rookie in between all the video highlights. Wade Barrett was first and every pro put him over big time for his size, his ability, his mic skills, and what he has done so far. Didn’t matter if you were heel or face, nobody had a bad thing to say about him and then Jericho topped it off with a huge seal of approval. Heath Slater’s was different as it started with Christian talking about their relationship and how he has mentored him, then went to the pros. The heels all gave him crap, but did so in different ways. I like how Carlito just threw him under the bus, but Jericho and Miz actually did it with more good to come out of it. Jericho said that he will piss off people and Miz said that despite being over the top, he could see him in the WWE. Both packages were amazingly done and unlike when just the rookies spoke, the pros giving the highlights of each rookie will mean that much more. I can’t wait to see more of these.
HEATH SLATER UPSETS THE SIX TIME WORLD CHAMPION: Our main event was a continuation from the mini-feud between Christian and Jericho with respect to their rookies. We first saw Barrett pin Christian in the eight man tag, followed by Christian getting the win back thanks to Slater counteracting Jericho’s distraction. So the next logical match was seeing Slater take on Jericho. The continuity here is outstanding and it definitely added a nice feel to the match. Outside of that, there wasn’t a ton to like since the match was just so darn short. Which would have been fine had Jericho won in definitive fashion, but he didn’t. Instead, Slater countered the roll up and pinned Jericho, for the biggest upset yet on NXT. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with Jericho taking the fall here. I just feel like the match needed to be twice or three times as long if you were going for this result. Still, the match was solid for this short of an affair and I find nothing too wrong from it.
MICHAEL TARVER vs. SKIP SHEFFIELD vs. DARREN YOUNG – THE MATCH: The promo will be discussed a little later. As for the match, the dictation was okay as the two winless wrestlers worked over the ever rising Darren Young until they both wanted the win and couldn’t have it. The whole match wasn’t the greatest, but there was nothing criminally wrong. The ending was interesting and I think will play off nicely in the end when Darren Young doesn’t make it to the end. Kinda like the whole tension between Punk and Gallows ends when the third wheel of Young is no longer there.
THE PROMO LEADING UP TO THE ABOVE MATCH: Ok, let me get this straight. You go from a pit bull to a bulldog on a leash, yet in the past two or three weeks, Michael Tarver has done nothing to back it up. First he drops the keg in that competition. Then in the promo challenge, he doesn’t even say a word. Then this week, he drops his stick and just lets Bryan push him off. So now he comes out and says he is the most dangerous guy here. I don’t buy it. I get the idea of saying he is not here for our amusement, but when you are doing nothing and not winning matches, then what are you here for? Of course, he makes an open challenge for someone to stop him… I guess from keep losing… and it got answered by Sheffield… who has also won nothing so far. And then out comes Punk to put over Darren Young and throw him into the match. The whole just seem really off, considering outside of Young, nobody involved was worth caring about.
THE WHOLE ROCK’EM SOCK’EM ROOKIE COMPETITION: Ok, forget the whole nonsense of why we are doing these challenges. This week at least saw real competition again each other and as much as I tried to be positive about it on the recap, let’s face it, this was boring. Also, the staggering of the challenge throughout the night was not needed, especially when it looked to just totally make the show dysfunctional. Like having Skip and Young win their semi-final matches to come out for a match and then come back out for the finals. That just felt disjointed and sloppy. It would have been much better to just have the competition at the beginning, end it, and move on for the night. The finals also looked like there was a totally fuckup with Skip falling off the pedestal. Why else would there need to be a rematch after the referee made a decision? Yeah, we don’t get restarts in real matches, why should we have here? Made no sense to me.
NOTHING
| The 411
To say this show was better than last week’s is to say that The Undertaker has a better legacy than Santino Marella. In other words, it’s pretty obvious this was an improvement, but it’s not saying much. The matches were fine, but definitely could have used the time that wasted on jousting. SHOW RATING: 5.5 |
Until Monday, keep on kickin’ it!
~465~
