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Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 4.30.10: Raw, Impact and NXT Reviewed!
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By: Jeremy Thomas
Raw 04.26.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
The Hart Dynasty d. Show Miz [*** ½]
Team Lay-Cool d. Eve & Maryse [* ½]
CM Punk d. Evan Bourne [* ¾]
Chris Jericho d. Christian [***]
Jack Swagger d. John Morrison [***]
Hornswoggle d. Dolph Ziggler via Count-Out [DUD]
Batista d. Sheamus & Randy Orton [*** ¼]
SHOW MIZ vs. THE HART DYNASTY/BRET HART IS FREAKING AWESOME: The SOOPER-DOOPER EXTRA-SPECIAL three hour Raw kicked off with none other than the Unified Tag Team Champions, Show Miz, making their way down to the ring to defend their titles against the Harts who beat them at Extreme Rules. Y’know, after two other teams nearly did the same. All love to the Harts. Miz got on the mic and complained about having to defend the titles, and then went after the Harts for having everything on a silver platter thanks to Uncle Bret. Miz trashed Stu Hart and then talked up Show and himself, then turned his ire onto Bret Hart. Miz reminded Bret that he had to come out and honor his deal. The crowd hated on Miz’s every word, and just as much as they did, they popped huge for Bret when he came out. Bret got on the mic and…well…he was bad-ass. He declared Show Miz the greatest tag team of all-time…then declared the Mountie the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all-time and…oh yes, he goes there. According to Bret Hart, David Arquette is the greatest World Champion of all-time. Somewhere, Deputy Dewey just got a smile in his heart, and decided it was a good moment to nail Gail Weathers. That was unexpected, but I will admit that I marked there. Bret pointed out that talk was cheap and that they would have to declare the Harts the new Unified Tag Team Champions. Now seriously…this was just awesome. Is there a better slam than associating someone with the Mountie and David Arquette? Fantastically worded stuff to get the crowd hopping before the match.
And then we had the match itself. With Bret and Nattie watching from ringside, the challengers and champions put on one very good match. I’m certainly not going to say it was a perfect match; there were a couple moments that seemed a little rushed and Tyson nearly botched disastrously in that springboard flip off the ropes early on. It worked out in the end though, which is a good sign for Kidd’s ability to cover for his near-mistakes. No one will be perfect in the ring; it’s how you cover for the mistakes that are important. They did everything they could to make the Harts look like bad-asses here and did a great job with it. Show had his moments, and I thought that double-handed choke headbutt was impressive and cool-looking. But the key thing about this match is that they were transitioning the belts onto a more regular tag team, as opposed to two singles stars combined into a team and they needed to elevate them in the process. That’s exactly what they did. The finish came off very well and the crowd popped HUGE for it, from Tyson’s somersault dive off the apron to the Hart Attack and then the Sharpshooter for the win. This was the moment that the ‘E absolutely needed to pull off and they couldn’t have done it better. Kudos to all involved; this was a GREAT way to start off the show.
DRAFT PICK MATCH: EVAN BOURNE vs. CM PUNK: The second Draft Pick match saw Evan Bourne taking on the Straight-Edge Sensei, CM Punk. Awesome points to Punk for gleefully flipping his locks on the way down the ramp. I have to say though, Striker’s nicknames for the Society are getting a little old. The outcome of this match was frankly never in doubt, but the path to get there was very nice. Bourne had a few moments of flying early on before Punk took control and dominated as he should. This was a showpiece to give Punk a nice win following his Extreme Rules victory and to put SmackDown up 2-0 in the early running of the draft. I was impressed to see Bourne get as much offense as he did, but this was a short little match which was fine for what it was and didn’t try to be much more than that. We also got the Hooded Mystery Man who got involved; normally I would say Bourne didn’t need protecting against Punk, but this was for storyline reasons and I’m completely okay with that. It may not seem like a Right from the star rating but everything worked exactly how it should have and I can’t ask for much more than that.
CONTENDER TALK: Toward the end of the first hour, down to the ring came none other than Sheamus, to a mild but noticeable crowd reaction. The Irishman got on the mic and mocked Triple H, saying he would never wrestle again. Sheamus gave a decent-enough promo here lording his win over the Game and crowing about how he ended the man’s career while the crowd booed. Sheamus then turned his attention back to the WWE Championship, but before he could get much further, Orton came out and the crowd went nuts. Orton came down into the ring and pointed out that he hates the H-Man more than anyone, but that he fought him like a man. Well, except when Priceless would run in every other match, but you get the point. Orton complimented Sheamus on getting the job done but said he didn’t deserve a title match; Sheamus countered that Orton lost his title match the night before. The words got heated and the crowd was starting to heat up when down to the ring came the Champ himself. Cena was in a good state of humor as he pointed out that there was no guest host, amidst a whole host of jokes. I will admit, I don’t often like Cena when he’s jokey, but I was chuckling on this one. Baloney-Fudgin-Mustard! Sheamus was all, “DIZ IZ SIRIUS BIZNIZ!” and Cena said he was the guy who got to name the Number One Contender, so it was Sheamus vs. Orton. That let Cena leave, the main event set (for the moment), and both men nearly hit their finishers to finish off the segment. Good stuff here and I dug it.
DRAFT PICK MATCH: CHRIS JERICHO vs. CHRISTIAN: Before this match began, Jericho got on the mic and talked about how he was brutalized by Edge and demanded a suspension on Rated-R because he was too good to lose to anyone. Jericho then brought up that he lost to Heath Slater last week on NXT, and only a guy like Jericho could (or would) put someone over out of nowhere by pointing out how he as a main eventer lost to an NXT rookie. Jericho demanded that Slater come down and apologize, and down to the ring he came. Slater got on the mic and mocked Jericho—not the wisest kayfabe move, but it’s definitely nice to see that they’re getting Slater some face time on the big shows. This match was more or less joined in progress post-break, since there was little more than a brief moment of match before they went away from it. Jericho and Christian had, unsurprisingly, a very good match here. Christian looked very good against Jericho but took the loss as he should have, with Jericho needing the win following last week. They had a great set of counters and near-falls late in the match that led into the Walls of Jericho, and finally a Codebreaker on a top-rope flying Christian for the win. I love the different ways the man can hit that move. Good match, and Jericho finished up by beating the crap out of Heath. Hey, he still came out ahead in my book.
DRAFT PICK MATCH: JOHN MORRISON vs. JACK SWAGGER: Morrison was fighting for his newly-drafted brand here for a draft pick against the World Heavyweight Champion in a rematch from SmackDown. I’d talked last week about how I was generally okay with Morrison beating Swagger, and this solidified it because it was a chance for Swagger to get his heat back with the win. These two had a very good match on SmackDown and this was just as good. Swagger went amateur-style early on and added some insult to injury that Morrison repaid with a smack and a kick. These guys had plenty of time and put together a well-paced match that I enjoyed. It wasn’t as fast-paced but built things up a bit better and both men worked hard here. The psychology was solid and this match gave Swagger a further boost in credibility by looking strong and having control for good periods of time. And, of course, he got the win here, too without burying Morrison. Both men came out looking good and it a show full of good wrestling, this kept the standard high.
RANDY ORTON vs. SHEAMUS….vs. BATISTA: Before Justin Long could announce this match, the Manimal’s music played and down to the ring he came. Big Dave was in a very foul mood as he grabbed the match and railed about how he should be the number one contender and better yet, the champion. Batista lost his shit over the fact that he was humiliated and that Cena couldn’t beat him; that brought Sheamus down to the ring with a mic. Sheamus told Dave that he needed to get it through his skull that he lost and was a loser like Orton. Orton then got in the ring and ranted about how the Manimal was whining and complaining for years, but said he would beat Sheamus and then beat Dave. This degenerated into a shouting match until Cena came out and made it a triple threat match. Well, that works.
I was curious to see how this triple threat was going to turn out. Not just the finish, but the wrestling quality. Sheamus and Orton’s last match wasn’t great by any stretch and Sheamus hasn’t worked with Batista much, if at all. As it turned out, they worked together very, very well. They worked the triple threat formula quite nicely and all three guys worked very effectively against each other. I’m not going to go out on a limb and call it a four-star affair because it wasn’t; Sheamus sat on the sidelines a little bit too much and the match was very competent but lacked that something truly special to make it into that range. Still, I enjoyed the hell out of this and thought it was very encouraging for the positioning of all three men in the match. The finish worked very well, both in establishing Edge’s big turn and setting up Big Dave for one last hurrah. I thought it was a great way to end a very strong show and definitely showed that the landscape on Raw has changed with the Draft.
THE DRAFT: You know what I’m really tired of hearing? “Raw raped SmackDown in the Draft.” “SmackDown was raided.” “Raw gets all the talent, as usual.” Seriously people, take a closer look. I thought that the Draft worked out very well for what needed to be accomplished. Let’s break this down for a moment. In order to establish whether the Draft was successful, we need to look at the two brands and what they mean. Raw is the “A Show.” No one can deny that. Does that mean that it’s the one I enjoy watching more than SmackDown on a weekly basis? Not at all; in fact, I generally enjoy SmackDown more. What I mean by “The A Show” is that Raw is where all the big name, “main event” talent goes. It’s always been the case. Meanwhile, SmackDown is the show where the talented up and comers have a chance to BECOME the main eventers of tomorrow. Look at what happened with people like Edge. Edge was a World Champion, but he was a lesser-tier main eventer. It took a long, drawn out series of feuds with the likes of the Undertaker and Chris Jericho until he became an official, “real deal” main eventer. SmackDown has built men like CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. So basically, Raw is where the Main Eventers and Midcarders go, while SmackDown is where the Midcarders become Main Eventers. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the Draft. (I’m ignoring the Supplemental Draft because both sides broke even there)
Raw Gets: John Morrison, R-Truth, Edge, Chris Jericho.
SmackDown Gets: Kelly Kelly, The Big Show, Christian, Kofi Kingston.
So, basically, Raw got two Main Eventers in Edge and Chris Jericho, as well as a Morrison and Truth who are solid midcarders who need some grooming before they’re ready for a main event push. Meanwhile, SmackDown got The Big Show for an insta-face who can feud with Swagger and who replaces some of Jericho & Edge’s name value, plus it avoids the Show/Miz feud that may have otherwise happened. Meanwhile, you have Kofi Kingston and Christian. These are two guys who people have been begging to have in the main event, and now they have their chance. If they excel on SmackDown they could very well become the next guys to be given the ball to run with, and I would love to see it. As for Kelly…eh. She provides another face for Team Lay-Cool to beat on. Whatever. The Draft did exactly what it needed to, and I would submit that SmackDown didn’t turn out so bad at ALL.
A WORD WITH THE CHAMPION: Backstage, Josh Matthews was standing by with the World Heavyweight Champion. Jack Swagger gave a decent promo about how what he did the night before screamed World Champion. He talked about beating Randy Orton like it had been a foregone conclusion, and then talked about how he was basically perfect and would have saved America from the economic troubles its currently suffered. That made Edge show up and he basically told Swagger that he was coming for him as champion on SmackDown. Somehow, I don’t see that happening. Just a guess. This did what it needed to for the most part, though I do think that Swagger rambling on about his GPA and how he was a financial genius was kind of silly and wandered from the point. The only major problem I had with that is that it made it seem more scripted than main eventer promos usually do, but the delivery was good and it did remind everyone who didn’t see the Pay-Per-View that Swagger beat a legit main eventer at Extreme Rules.
DRAFT PICK MATCH: TEAM LAY-COOL vs. EVE & MARYSE: For the Divas! This was the first of the Draft Pick matches, and I’ve always enjoyed this concept. It reminds us that the brands are supposed to have a rivalry to them and raises the stakes for the matches on Raw because the wins actually mean something instead of just being filler time. On the Raw side, we had two people with no love lost for each other in Eve and Maryse. I gotta say, I enjoyed Eve celebrating while Maryse was being all cold shoulder-esque during her walk to the ring. Things started off about average for a Divas match, until we got the great moment where Maryse “tagged” Eve with her foot in Eve’s stomach. That prompted a brawl between the partners, and let the SmackDown ladies take control. One thing I do have to say is that this showed how much the gulf in quality is between the wrestling skill on Fridays vs. Mondays. Layla and Michelle made Eve and Maryse look like FCW trainees by comparison. Of course, Eve and Maryse are the ones who can actually get heat, so there is that. This had its moments and was better than what we usually get from the ladies on Raw, so I’ll give it an even break but not much more.
TEN MAN DRAFT PICK BATTLE ROYALE: This battle royal was for three draft picks, and was the usual “get a bunch of guys a payday on the three-hour show” match. The Blue Branders came out to Rey Rey’s entrance music while the Red Branders came out to MVP’s; Ted was once again carrying the Million Dollar Belt which was awesome. They had a little funny moment with Rey, Santino and Kane before things exploded. Drew went out quickly and Yoshi followed suit; as a Battle Royale went this was pretty generically standard but the crowd was very into it during the early points for some reason. Things bogged down for a wee bit before MVP got tossed by Rey and Santino eliminated Shad and Truth together. Wait…SANTINO? Wow. Talk about a sudden semi-wannabe boost of credibility. It ended up with Ted and Santino against Rey Rey and the odds were too strong, leaving both Raw guys in the ring as the winners. This wasn’t bad in terms of being a battle royal, but it wasn’t anything too special either. Still, it evened the odds and got Santino a little fun and hey…a win, too. Stranger things have happened, but not many. Losing points to Cole though for being unable to count: “Raw’s got two draft picks!” Idjit.
DESPERATELY SEEKING VIRGIL: Late in the show, we had Ted DiBiase backstage trying to sell Carlito on an offer, to little success. Ted was offering Carlito exposure and was being a pretty slick salesman, but Carlito said he would rather sit on the sidelines. Sounds like Carlito. Truth then showed up and DiBiase pitched the idea to him; he was looking for an assistant. Truth took offense to that and made the Virgil reference. And by “Virgil,” I mean PG code for “indentured servant.” DiBiase tried to be all “it ain’t like that,” and Truth refused to sell out, deciding instead to smack Ted and quote Homey D. Clown. This was silly, but I see where it’s going so I’ll give it a pass, just vaguely.
DRAFT PICK MATCH: DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. HORNSWOGGLE: Something on the show had to hit the wRong, I suppose. At least they kept it short. Dolph came out first while Cole admitted he was wrong about the Supplemental Draft. What else is new? Horny then came out in his DX gear. Whoever thought ‘Swoggle would be the last surviving member of the stable? This was silly and stupid, and basically involved Dolph threatening Hornswoggle and Swoggle tossing crap at Dolph outside the ring until the countout win gave Raw a draft pick. Yeah, this was stupid and pointless other than giving Raw a pick.
DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don’t care.
| The 411
I can’t remember when the last time was that we had a Raw this good. Four three-star matches? Draft results that made sense? A much-needed Edge heel turn? An awesome opening segment including a HUGE win by the Hart Dynasty that the crowd popped huge for? Yeah, there was very little I disliked here, and a whole shitload of stuff I loved. I doubt we’ll see a Raw this good in a while, so enjoy it while we got it. SHOW RATING: 8.5 |
From Hindu Friend:
New Straight Edge Society’s member was not Mercury….
IT WAS DANIELS!!!!!!
That would actually be pretty damn cool. It’s not happening, but I would mark. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was like Kaval or someone like that instead of Mercury, but we’ll see.
From The Great Capt. Smooth:
Jeremy, sorry for the brain trauma. I’m just sad for the Knox beard. Is it really gone, or is it all just a bad dream? Maybe Punk’s beard can replace it.
From Cyrith:
Daniel Bryan looks to be growing his beard back out. If it can reach 05 levels again, it might be in contention for new best beard.
It’s possible that the beard is still under contract and will appear on another Superstar. Evan Bourne maybe, or Vickie? Or perhaps one of the Bellas so we can tell the two apart.
From Guest#6768:
i liked seeing Layla get the win. wish she could contend for the title.
From Eboney:
Me too. Mainly because she acted like she won the World Series. Layla is actually very funny and doesn’t totally suck in the ring.
It is funny how the Divas that get the spotlight all the time no emotion in matches. ‘No big deal. I will win again next week.’
Well, yeah. I mean, that’s human nature…if you get used to winning, then winning becomes less special. Meanwhile if you’re Natalya or Layla, a televised win is a great thing. But I agree, it would be nice to see them show a little more emotion when they win.
From Westen:
You guys are surprised someone whined about something as pointless as the 30 second mickie thing, when they whine about did you know every week still?
Actually, I whined about “Did You Know,” Steve whined about the Mickie thing. Good try though!
From ThePants:
What’s eerie about this is that I remember speculating about the Punk/Rey Hair vs. Mask match and saying that they wouldn’t have Punk lose his hair because he would look too much like Knox then. I thought there is no way they would do it unless Knox was gone, considering how high up Punk is. I”M MISS CLEO, BITCHES.
Excellent prediction skills, my apparel-nomenclatured friend. Well, other than that Punk didn’t lose his hair, but then the feud might not be finished with quite yet. I still don’t like a bald Punk, but that’s just me.
By: Chad Nevett
iMpact! 04.26.10:
QUICK RESULTS
– Madison Rayne (C) defeated Angelina Love and Tara in a three-way match for the TNA Knockouts Championship [**]
– Kazarian (C) defeated Shannon Moore for the X-Division Championship [*1/2]
– AJ Styles & Sting defeated Jeff Hardy & Jeff Jarrett in a falls count anywhere anything goes match [*1/4]
– Team 3D defeated Matt Morgan (C) & Jesse Neal for the TNA World Tag Team Championship via disqualification [1/2*]
– Abyss defeated Ric Flair for his Hall of Fame ring [*]
TNA KNOCKOUTS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH – MADISON RAYNE (C) vs. TARA vs. ANGELINA LOVE: I wasn’t expecting much from this, I’ll admit, but this was a really solid match from the women. I loved how Madison Rayne and Mike Tenay both pointed out TNA’s predilection for moving the Knockouts Championship in a manner where the champ doesn’t actually lose the belt by being pinned or made to submit. The dynamic of this match was good with each woman having a problem with one another, so the closest we got to a double-team was Tara and Angelina Love beating on Madison Rayne so that they could fight one another to further their feud. Still, none of the women were out of the mix too long with a lot of fast action and near falls. Madison Rayne picked up the win by ‘stealing’ the pin, but she more than held her own and looked like she deserved to win (all three looked that way), and Tara and Angelina Love continued to fight after the match. Interesting that their feud won’t involve the belt, but I don’t think it needs it.
“CAN I GET AN AMEN?”: Despite a separated shoulder and a kayfabe eye injury, the Pope D’Angelo Dinero made an appearance in the Impact Zone to share a few thoughts on what AJ Styles did to him at Lockdown. He spelled it out clearly that Styles will get his at some point in the future, playing up his street preacher persona more than he has lately. It was a very effective promo with lots of “Can I get an Amen?” calls and probably the best promo from the Pope in the last couple of months. For some reason, Mr. Anderson interrupted the Pope and delivered a promo that makes me wonder if Anderson is on the fast track to ‘X-Pac heat,’ because, when he starts talking, I want to change the channel. But, hey, he’s a heel and that he’s annoying me that much, that’s probably a good thing. He basically challenged the Pope to a match at Sacrifice and then beat him up after the Pope slapped him, targeting the injured eye by sticking his thumb in it. I really do wish they would limit how much Anderson talks, though, because a little goes a long way and his gibberish becomes more intelligible with each appearance. Still, the Pope was great and this set up this feud well, playing off their meeting in the finals of the 8-Card Stud Tournament at Against All Odds.
MR. MONDAY NIGHT BECOMES MR. TNA: The show kicked off with Hulk Hogan coming out and doing his usual shtick of wasting time talking about how great TNA is instead of just showing us. He talked about Rob Van Dam’s big win last week, put over AJ Styles surprisingly, and invited Mr. Monday Night himself out. RVD cut an average promo about himself, about his lifestyle and marijuana use, about people not understanding him, and drove home the point that he works his ass off in the ring. Out came AJ Styles with Ric Flair where Styles was somehow the best thing about this opening segment by tearing apart RVD’s promo for its nonsensical elements and said he was going to get his rematch, but not when Van Dam wants it to happen, not when Hogan wants it to happen, but when AJ wants it to happen. I even liked him dismissing his tag match that night as BS because he should still be world champ. Good heel promo work. Ric Flair got on the mic and was a little crazier than usual in promoting his match with Abyss. I’m beginning to think that Flair needs a script because he changes what he’s going to say multiple times in a single sentence. This promo was especially bad for that with a fragmented, hard to comprehend flow. This was an okay opening that set up the two big matches of the show, but the mic work was lacking.
X-DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH – KAZARIAN (C) vs. SHANNON MOORE: This looked like it could be good after the time limit draw these two wrestled to a couple of weeks back and it began well, but quickly became fodder for two different stories as Matt Morgan came out and pushed Moore off the top rope as retribution for turning down his offer to tag with him last week. This gave Kazarian, who didn’t see it happen, the advantage and the win, but that didn’t end the segment as Samoa Joe came out and laid Kaz out with a superkick and a muscle buster. It was fine for what it was.
TNA WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH – MATT MORGAN (C) & JESSE NEAL vs. TEAM 3D: This match was more about advancing a couple of stories, but, in the process, hinted at an interesting story. First, Matt Morgan asked Jesse Neal to be his tag partner in a title defense against Team 3D that night. While Neal was skeptical, Morgan won him over by talking about his deceased friend and fellow soldier, tempting him with the idea of being a World Tag Team Champion. From there, Neal approached Team 3D to get their blessing and the discussion between the three of them was really good as Team 3D brought up what Morgan did to Amazing Red two weeks ago and, then, kind of laughed at the idea that Neal could beat them before wishing him luck and promising to go harder on him than they would anyone else because of their relationship. That hit all of the right notes.
When Team 3D’s music hit, they didn’t come out and we went backstage to, surprisingly, find them over the body of Syxx-Pac who they put through a table, a puddle of blood under his head. I expected to see Team 3D laid out, but this was a pleasant surprise. The match began well with Neal and Devon in the ring, and Devon gaining the upper hand by faking out Neal, showing that experience is what counts in the ring. But, that didn’t last long as the Band’s music hit and they came out to brawl with Team 3D. Neal tried to help his mentors out, but Morgan attacked him from behind only for Shannon Moore to come out and make the save. That left Neal and Moore in the ring and it’s hard to not notice their similar looks with the Mohawks and tattoos and OH MY GOD maybe they should team up against Matt Morgan! People, we have just witnessed the birth of the Princes of Punk. Book it. Some good work in these segments, but it was much too busy. That it didn’t turn into a train wreck is surprising.
ORLANDO JORDAN PROMOTES THE O-ZONE: Orlando Jordan wearing flowers for tights promoted his new segment, the O-Zone where his first guest will be Rob Terry next week. There was some talk about art and Terry being a beautiful specimen or something. I’m interested to see what the O-Zone will be like and think this could be a good way to make Jordan’s new character work, but I’d rather they just do it after all of the teasing out of Jordan they’ve done over the past month.
AJ STYLES & STING vs. JEFF HARDY & JEFF JARRETT IN A FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE ANYTHING GOES MATCH: This match looked like it had potential when it was just a regular tag match, but soon into it, it became two brawls: AJ and Hardy, and Jarrett and Sting. AJ and Hardy fought on the ramp, a ref standing by, while Sting and Jarrett fought in the stands like they did last week, also with a ref. That’s when we learned that it was a falls count anywhere anything goes match. Fine, fair enough. It was a little scattered with two separate matches, basically, taking place at the same time, either one of which could result in a pin. But, they played with that, getting the timing of Hardy and Jarrett both going for pins pretty close. However, when both fights got back to the ring, the match lost me because it became a regular tag match where the ref enforced tags. Except it’s anything goes I thought. There are no disqualifications or penalties! Why are they listening to the refs? Why are they tagging? Why did the story of the match take a drastic left hand turn and forget any internal logic it had? Fuck! After that, I just didn’t care anymore. Sting walked away, leaving AJ to fend for himself, but Jarrett went after Sting, following him up into the rafters. Hardy beat on AJ more, took him out of the ring up near the entrance and got ready to do a swan ton off a ladder onto AJ who he placed on a table, except Sting was beating Jarrett with a bat and pinned him on the stairs. AJ saved by ref. I don’t care. This was three matches in one (AJ/Hardy, Sting/Jarrett, AJ & Sting/Hardy & Jarrett), except they didn’t mix because of the stipulations of the match. You want a regular tag match? Book one. Don’t try and sell it in the middle of a match where tagging is irrelevant and unnecessary.
THE NEW RANKING SYSTEM: So, after weeks (months!) of waiting, we have the new ranking system and the ‘revolutionary’ part of it? It’s just fans voting for who they think deserves a title shot. Vote early and vote often, Bischoff said before Jay Lethal interrupted him and rhymed off a bunch of ‘80s stars to form his top ten, which was amusing. I’m unimpressed with this ranking system if only because online voting can be screwed with pretty easily and I think that any creative activity like booking wrestling is best left out of the hands of fans. Yes, use crowd reactions to influence who gets pushed, who is a face, who is a heel, etc., but fans tend to want instant gratification and that works against good storytelling at times. Then again, who’s up for a campaign to give Black Machismo a title shot?
RIC FLAIR vs. ABYSS FOR THE HALL OF FAME RINGS: Was there anything in this match that wasn’t ridiculous? The crimson mask so early in? The double ball shot? Abyss shrugging off a brass knuckles shot to the face before being punched in the genitals? Ric Flair dropping the brass knuckles when his hand was raised, causing Hebner to restart the match despite refs often ignoring obvious cheating so long as they didn’t see it? Abyss shrugging off everything else Flair threw at him before getting the quick win? Hogan coming out at the end to take the ring off Flair’s hand and tease giving it away next week? Or how about Flair talking about receiving his ring in front of 17,000 people, which suggests to me that we’re talking about the WWE Hall of Fame rings, not the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame rings? Completely ridiculous, all of it.
| The 411
After a really strong episode last week, Impact returns to regular territory with a couple of really good segments, a lot of mediocre ones, and some really bad ones. Maybe they can only tell two stories at a time effectively. What killed this episode was using most of the matches to advance angles rather than simply putting on good matches. Last week was a good wrestling show, this week was angles ruining interesting matches or completely ridiculous matches. SHOW RATING: 4.5 |
By: Michael Bauer
NXT 04.27.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Chris Jericho and Wade Barrett defeated Christian and Heath Slater [**]
Darren Young defeated Michael Tarver [*1/2]
Skip Sheffield defeated Daniel Bryan [1/2*]
JERICHO AND BARRETT VS. CHRISTIAN AND SLATER: We opened the action with the tag match that I have to believe would have happened last week had Christian not been stranded in Europe. Yeah, I’m saying that Slater would have never pinned Jericho in a one on one match had he not needed to. But instead, Slater would have pinned him in the match we saw this week and lost in the one on one match this week. But that’s neither here nor there. We got the tag match for the one rookie/pro vs. rookie/pro feud that we have and it came out pretty good. Slater’s slap to the face of Jericho immediately was a shock, but it played off last week’s match. Overall, the action was really good with all four men being on their game for the time given. This match could have definitely been helped by a few more minutes of time, but that is nitpicking a little bit. Also, the ending was damn near perfect if you can ignore a really weak neck breaker. Christian dumping himself and Barrett to the floor so we can get a second walls into a roll up for nearly a second win. But it wasn’t meant to be and we went right into the real finish, with Jericho getting his win back from Slater. Pretty good match that did its job.
VIDEO PACKAGE FOR DANIEL BRYAN: The third pro package on a rookie was Daniel Bryan’s and it was the best one of the night. Much like last week, the praise that came from the pros is what we needed to hear, especially for someone like Bryan, who has been ripped to shreds by Michael Cole. I was a little concerned about how this would come off, but my fears were erased immediately from these two phrases:
Punk: Daniel Bryan being #1 is spot on.
Jericho: Bryan is already a star.
The rest of the video didn’t even matter because the two biggest pros on NXT gave the highest phrase to Bryan and he needed that badly. We then also got Regal praising Bryan followed by Christian and Matt Hardy giving some weaknesses, but saying he can be a star. Of course, The Miz ranted on how he doesn’t get it, but that was expected for their shaky relationship. So Cole, the pros like him, now shut the hell up!
VIDEO PACKAGES FOR JUSTIN GABRIEL AND MICHAEL TARVER: The reason that these are here is not because that the packages aren’t as good as the other we have seen. It’s because that they didn’t really help the rookies at all in getting over. Even the pros that didn’t like Slater at least said something that could help get him over. But here, we really didn’t get the sense that the pros thought anything of these two rookies. First we have Tarver, where every pro outside of Regal pretty much said he is in trouble and probably the first one out the door in two weeks. Way to hype the guy up, even if it is totally true. Justin Gabriel at least had some positives, but all the heels thought he was nothing without the 450 splash. Punk had the best comment yet with Matt Hardy being only able to teach him how to Twitter. But then Hardy even came out and said Gabriel doesn’t have a personality. This is probably the best pro/rookie combination and the pro couldn’t even say anything that good about his rookie. It struck me as pretty odd and didn’t so one of the more popular rookies any favors.
DARREN YOUNG BEATS TARVER AGAIN: Tarver was looking for his first win coming into this match with Darren Young, who pinned him last week in the triple threat match. We got his video package before the match and Tarver looked really focused for this match. Young came out with Gallows and Serena, which is really odd, considering the nonsense from last week. This match was kind of just there, but still not too bad. What really made this interesting was Gallows interfering to help Young, not hurt him, like he did last week. I don’t know who is more confused about this, me or Darren Young. Especially when Gallows and Serena still look like they want nothing to do with him after helping him. Definitely a head scratcher.
THE ROOKIE SEAL THE DEAL CHALLENGE: Yeah, believe it or not, we finally got a challenge that wasn’t that horrid, despite having no bearing on how you wrestle. So while the concept was totally corny and had train wreck written all over it, they way it was worked played up to each rookie’s personality perfectly. The crazy part was that it almost didn’t matter how far down the scale each rookie was, the fans were into all of them. Skip had trouble, but he also was at ringside to where not many people had access to him. Daniel Bryan gave away all the programs, which is classic Bryan. Cole of course gave him shit, but what else is new? Gabriel did a heck of a job for someone with no personality, but I was kinda of shocked at how poorly Slater was in this. Both of them have the same kinda of fan interaction, but Slater just looked like he was going through the motions. Otunga played to his strength the best by being “The A-list” and getting two kids to do the hard part of the job. “Celebrities don’t do manual labor” was fucking classic. The crazy part was that it worked. Darren Young played off wanted a match between him and CM Punk, which flocked some fans to him. Striker quickly said he didn’t win, but I think they should have done a count first to add some intrigue to the situation. Tarver and Barrett then both walked out, but for different reasons. Tarver lost again and said he should be sold on the fans, not him selling to them. Barrett said he had nothing to prove and pocketed the money, which was also a great idea for his style. But damn it Cole, what is the difference between Barrett and Bryan? Both of them didn’t try and you liked Barrett for not doing it. Come on! So Otunga won and he chose to challenge his own pro, R-Troth, for not helping him last week against Gabriel. This was the match that made the most sense from a booking perspective as we need to hold off on Bryan vs. The Miz and possibly even Young vs. Punk.
SKIP SHEFFIELD FINALLY GETS A WIN AT DANIEL BRYAN’S EXPENSE: So our main event was to be The Miz taking on the winless Skip Sheffield. But of course, The Miz isn’t able to talk or wrestler when half his face looked like a bomb hit it. So he forced Daniel Bryan into action, which meant more bitching back and forth between Cole and Matthews instead of calling the match. Sorry, but it is to the point that I don’t care that Cole hates Bryan. Just do your job and call the match. Granted, there wasn’t much to call as Bryan has 90% of the offense, but still lost to one move and Skip’s finisher, which is pretty sweet. I’m thinking more and more than everyone wants to just end the match fast with Bryan, because they know how talented he is and don’t want to give him any chance of getting back into the match. Just look back to his first match with Jericho. It went three or four times longer than any recent match of his and he brought Jericho to the limit. But still, this match length is reserved for squash matches, and this wasn’t one of them.
NOTHING
| The 411
The was the best showing of NXT since they started the rookie challenges. The matches were good for the most part, the video packages were great, and for once the rookie challenge didn’t suck the life out of me. Now, let’s see if they can build on this. SHOW RATING: 6.5 |
Until Monday, keep on kickin’ it!
~467~
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