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Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 9.27.10: ROH, Superstars, Impact & SmackDown Reviewed!
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In HD where available…
By: Aaron Hubbard
ROH on HDNet 09.20.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Erick Stevens & The Necro Butcher def. The Dark City Fight Club [***]
Colt Cabana def. Jay Freddie [1/2*]
Sara Del Ray def. Taelor Hendrix [*1/2]
CAGE MATCH: Delirious def. Austin Aries [***1/2]
DELIRIOUS vs. ARIES; THE FINAL CHAPTER: Most of the show was either dedicated to this match and angle or hyping it up, so it had to deliver. As a match, it delivered, but it didn’t quite meet the standard I would have liked. If anything has been made clear with this feud is that Aries and Delirious really didn’t have much chemistry as opponents. However, I thought the booking was done well, with Delirious getting his final revenge on Aries, and then being put on the shelf by Kenny King and Rhett Titus. This served to write the character out of the show so Deli can focus on booking, and really gave King and Titus a rub by injuring a staple of the ROH roster for the last five years. Plus, we got Daizee Haze with her own take on the Red Poison Delirious costume, and she has never looked finer.
EMBASSY vs. DCFC: I did not expect much from this match. Erick Stevens is the only one in the four that I would pay money to see, and there hasn’t been any reason to care about these guys for months. They are just spinning their wheels on the ROH undercard. But this was actually quite good for what it was; four big dudes beating the crap out of each other. I was glad to see Stevens win; considering his history with the current ROH Champion, I’d love to see him get a title shot before Roderick Strong loses to Davey Richards.
DEL RAY vs. HENDRIX: Poor Sara Del Ray. So talented, but wasted so much in ROH. They seem to want to push her, but the problem is that they don’t push anyone else. She’s a woman without a division, as meaningless as the WWE and TNA women’s divisions. Now, she may be outperforming them all, which always keeps these matches out of the wrong, but until ROH shows some direction with her and a women’s division, it’s just eating up screen time.
COLT CABANA COMEDY HOUR: I like Colt Cabana. I really do. But these two minute comedy squashes HAVE TO STOP! If you want Colt to do comedy, then let him do his full-blown comedy act with a ten-minute pure comedy match. Remember when this guy was having a match with Delirious that, while technically average, was five stars on the comedy scale? Yeah, well, he can’t do that in two minutes. It’s a disservice to one of the few acts in ROH who could actually pull in the average, non-hardcore wrestling audience.
The main event angle took up most of the show, and it accomplished a lot, ending a feud and putting two of ROH’s most valuable up and comers over strong. The follow up for The All-Night Express is key, but for tonight, everything went well. Add to this a surprisingly good opener, and you have a good, but not great show. SHOW RATING: 7.0 |
By: Chad Nevett
iMpact! 09.23.10:
QUICK RESULTS
– Rob Terry defeated Abyss via disqualification [1/2*]
– Chris Sabin defeated Jeremy Buck [**]
– Hamada & Taylor Wilde (C) defeated the Beautiful People for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship [*1/4]
– Samoa Joe defeated the Pope [**]
– AJ Styles defeated Sabu in a Ladder Match [**1/2]
CHRIS SABIN vs. JEREMY BUCK: This feud with Generation Me as heels continued with a solid little match from Jeremy Buck and Chris Sabin that began with Max being sent to the back after blatant interference. High energy with Sabin’s injured shoulder from Generation Me’s attack last week slowing him down and giving Jeremy a big target to attack. Sabin picked up the win to keep the Guns with the upper hand when it comes to in-ring action, while Generation Me attacked him after the match, because that’s what heels do, especially in TNA. I dug it.
TNA KNOCKOUTS TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH – HAMADA & TAYLOR WILDE (C) vs. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE: The prospects of another Knockouts Tag Title match didn’t thrill me, especially since, again, Lacey Von Erich was involved, but this match was better than last week’s. The movement in the ring was less stilted and Velvet Sky is a definite upgrade from Madison Rayne when it comes to ring work. Hamada and Taylor Wilde are a nice duo with a complete lack of personality or reason to care about them beyond being better in the ring than pretty much every Knockout. There were some hiccups, like an odd moment in the corner where Taz and Mike Tenay both had no idea what to say, and the lame finish where Madison Rayne hit Von Erich in the back of the head with a motorcycle helmet and Von Erich’s response was to get back up immediately. Does she think she’s Abyss now? Another Tag Title match that makes it clear that it’s not about the belts or the women who hold them. Good job, TNA.
THE POPE vs. SAMOA JOE: There’s a certain logic in the Pope demanding to be in the World Title match at Bound for Glory when both Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy are in. After all, neither man won his match to earn a spot in the finals. Of course, Eric Bischoff never said the obvious retort to that argument: neither man lost either, Pope. But, this little temper tantrum put the Pope in the ring with Samoa Joe to earn a spot in the match at Bound for Glory; though, I am always bothered by these sort of matches, because it’s not like Samoa Joe winning earns HIM the spot in the match. How does that make sense? Joe’s good enough to be the gatekeeper to the match, but not actually be in the match? The match was standard stuff with both men bringing it, but not too much. Joe dominated with the Pope having some moments on top, ending when Jeff Jarrett came out to cheer on Joe. I did like how, when Sting and Kevin Nash began beating up Jarrett, it had no effect on the match. Hell, the Pope cared more than Joe, but that’s because Samoa Joe is a Professional and made sure the Pope was pinned before getting involved with Nash and Sting. You don’t often see that. And, if anyone can decipher the backstage talk that Nash, Sting and the Pope had, I would be grateful.
LADDER MATCH TO DETERMINE ADVANTAGE IN LETHAL LOCKDOWN MATCH AT BOUND FOR GLORY – AJ STYLES vs. SABU: A question that has no real bearing on the match or my thoughts on it: why is there a ref in the ring during ladder matches in TNA sometimes? It’s completely unnecessary and gets in the way. The only job a referee has during a ladder match is to sit outside the ring, notice when someone grabs the belt/key/whatever, and ring the fucking bell. Leave it to TNA to add an unnecessary distraction/complication to something as simple as a ladder match.
This match never got going for me. There were some standard spots and Sabu brought his A game, but it never clicked. Styles and Sabu just didn’t display the passion or inventiveness you’d expect. I like Styles’s quick-thinking in some parts, but then questioned why Sabu was diving outside the ring into a group that contained security guards, Tommy Dreamer… and no members of Fortune whatsoever. At first, the brawl outside the ring looked like a repeat of the Joe/Pope match with neither man inside the ring getting involved, but Robert Roode and James Storm helped Styles pick up the win — quite literally in Storm’s case. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pushed up the ladder to retrieve the goal. An enjoyable match, but it didn’t wow.
ABYSS vs. ROB TERRY: Because if there are two people you want to kick off your show with a match, it’s the Monster and the Freak. With nicknames like that, how are these two not a tag team? The highlight of the match was Rob Terry busting out a spin kick and, come on, getting excited about that is up there with losing your shit when John Cena busts out a dropkick. When you’re that impressed by a simple move, that says a lot about the guy who managed to pull it off. This match was slow, disjointed and existed for the sole purpose of allowing Rob Van Dam to come out. I thought the opening segment of shows were supposed to get you excited and pumped, not bore you into a coma.
ROB VAN DAM CONFRONTS ERIC BISCHOFF: Hey, look, Rob Van Dam is back! He’s pissed off about the TNA World Heavyweight Championship being stripped from him and who can blame him? After all, he’ll be ready to wrestle before they even crown a new champ. So, TNA takes the belt off him and writes him out because of the limited number of appearances in his contract, then brings him back just over a month later because they realized that maybe they want him to wrestle in their biggest show of the year? That’s some good planning! Conveniently, RVD will be cleared for in-ring action on October 10, 2010. Specifically. Wow. Less than two months after being left half-dead in a pool of blood that would fill an elevator in a Kubrick movie easily. They really don’t care, do they?
JESSE NEAL VIDEO PACKAGE: A history of Jesse Neal… who doesn’t appear in this episode at all. Um, what? Did they realize they had time to fill or something?
MR. ANDERSON CALLS OUT KURT ANGLE: Ah, the strange world of professional wrestling. When we last saw these two men in the ring alone, they fucking hated one another. It was a cruel, mean, brutally personal feud. Now they can’t shut up about how much they respect one another. This was apparently meant to make me care about the match at Bound for Glory, but neither man said anything to raise the stakes or create any interest. It was a bunch of meaningless, empty words said with conviction. It ended and I immediately asked aloud, “And what was the point of that?”
ABYSS KILLS JEFF HARDY: This began with the backstage ‘documentary-style’ video with RVD and Jeff Hardy that ends with Abyss attacking Hardy. I think. I mean, I couldn’t see what was going on. I think I saw Abyss’s leg? Maybe? It sounded like Abyss. He didn’t shout “You!” or anything, but I’m pretty sure it was him, because he came out carrying Hardy’s body to the ring. I don’t know what Abyss did to Hardy, but Hardy laid there for the next five minutes. Didn’t move at all. This is the guy who kicked out of two Angle Slams last week and, now, after Abyss beat him down for thirty seconds, he doesn’t move a fucking inch for five minutes. Of course, Abyss called out Rob Van Dam, who threw a chair at Abyss and that somehow hurt the Monster despite his history of no-selling chair shots… I think they then said some stuff about fighting one another at Bound for Glory, but I couldn’t be bothered to try and care anymore.
Typical TNA Impact pattern: the wrestling is good, the stories are shit and the promo segments are worse. Beginning and ending the show with Abyss is something that should be avoided at all costs. The build to Bound for Glory continues and, if this is meant to be TNA’s WrestleMania, the company should just give up now, because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it no matter how many times we hear someone say “TEN TEN TEN!” SHOW RATING: 5.0 |
By: Steve Cook
Superstars 09.23.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Primo d. JTG (**)
Goldust d. William Regal (**)
PRIMO vs. JTG: I didn’t really have high hopes for this match. JTG hasn’t done much to interest me since…well, I was going to say “Cryme Tyme” but then I remembered that I was never a huge Cryme Tyme fan. It was kind of strange to see Raw’s Primo take on SD’s JTG randomly, but at least Todd Grisham & Matt Striker mentioned the intra-brand matchup. Pretty solid action here. Primo didn’t look like a complete idiot like he did last week, JTG got to do some good stuff and look competent, and AJ was good at hopping around ringside, looking concerned for Primo, and being cute as a button. Good stuff here. I assume that Primo smacked AJ on the butt after the match because he’s been watching TNA Knockout matches and that’s how they display their friendship.
GOLDUST vs. WILLIAM REGAL: I didn’t like this match as much as I liked the one from a couple of weeks ago, but it was still a pretty good outing. Regal did a good job on offense, and Goldust did a good job of selling the leg. The ending was a bit too sudden for me, which is why I rate the match lower than most will. Aksana did a fine job of standing at ringside and looking good.
Nothing of note.
Nothing of note.
2 MATCHES? REALLY?: I know WWE’s taping schedule this week combined with their trip out of the country means they had less time to dedicate to this show, and I completely understand why. But as somebody who has to watch this show and write about it, it’s annoying. Now I have pretty much nothing left to talk about, and Thomas is going to yell at me because I didn’t write about enough stuff. What else is there? I didn’t bother watching the Gauntlet Match again because I already saw it on Raw and thought it was kind of blah the first time.
It is ridiculous that I don’t get to talk about more stuff.
[Jeremy’s note: I don’t have to yell. I find that WAVING THE GUN AROUND gets the same results!]
There was kind of a show this week. The matches were decent enough, but the show as a whole was nothing to get excited about. Since it’s about half a show, I think my rating is appropriate. SHOW RATING: 5.0 |
By: Jeremy Thomas
WWE SmackDown 09.24.10
QUICK RESULTS:
Kane def. Chris Masters [* ¾]
Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre def. the Hart Dynasty [**]
Chavo Guerrero vs. Kaval [** ¼]
The Big Show def. Hawkins & Ryder [¼ *]
MVP def. Dolph Ziggler via Countout [** ¼]
DASHING CODY RHODES & DREW McINTYRE vs. THE HART DYNASTY: So here was the Hart Dynasty’s rematch against Cody and Drew, and was intended to get the heels over as champions. This is the match we should have gotten at Night of Champions and it worked perfectly fine as a TV match. Both teams worked well together and they got a decent amount of time to put together a solid match. The match honestly ended a little abruptly for my tastes but it was a loss that protected the Harts and got the heels over as legit champions. Can’t argue too much with that, and hopefully these guys will continue to feud. Honestly, who else are they going to go with? Koztino? Bourne & Mizark? Yeah, let’s stay with these guys.
DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. MVP: Vickie came out with Kaitlyn in order to announce Dolph for this match, and MVP was out next. It looks like we’re getting an MVP/Ziggler feud which is fine since they’ve built Montel up a bit, and they actually worked together pretty well. They played the story of Kaitlyn trying to help Dolph and Vicki getting jealous, which resulted in a shove to Vicki and the two heading back. That left Dolph and MVP to have a one-on-one match and it worked well for what it was. They built up MVP a bit and then Dolph took his ball and went home. I’m hopeful to see them continue this feud; I just hope they don’t make it Kofi vs. Dolph redux.
KANE vs. TAKER SET FOR HELL IN A CELL: After his opening match, Kane got on the mic to gloat about pinning the Undertaker. This was typically good delivery on Kane’s part and basically had him rub in the win while pissing off the crowd. He even walked into the crowd to take the fear theme of the promo to a more interactive level. And I have to say, this kid played it off perfectly:
Yeah, I’d be giving him some space too. The gist was that Kane had a challenge for the Dead Man tonight, and we’d find it out later. Solid work from Kane to set up the main event segment. We then got a few quick segments throughout the show of Taker looking weakened and despondent in the back to further build things up. We then saw him see “someone” backstage and look reinvigorated; gee, who could that be? I thought the three separate segments of him were overkill, but that’s a minor blemish. Anyway, at the end of the show we got Kane talking about how he was the new Beast of the Apocalypse and the ring was his yard now and so on. You all know I hate the scoring of these promos, and yes it bugged me here. But on the plus side, they didn’t go with intercut video montages which just further disconnect these promos. Kane challenged Taker to Hell in a Cell, threw out his new catchphrases and talked about epitaphs and such. Then we got Taker’s full druidic entrance, coffin and all. The crowd liked it and while I do think it’s a little goofy to bring Bearer back, this storyline is perfectly over the top for it and in that, it works. Besides, they’re going to SyFy, right? This is better than bringing the Zombie back. The crowd loved the finish, I liked it and we can leave it at that.
KANE vs. CHRIS MASTERS: Our opening segment on SmackDown was a match between the World Heavyweight Champion and a guy who hasn’t won a match on any show since July. Yeah, this should have been a slaughter and it surprisingly wasn’t. Masters actually got himself an early flurry of offense and even locked in the Masterlock for a fair amount of time before Kane broke it and took over. This was way more of a match than I was expecting from these two and that was a good thing in some respects, but not so much in others. Listen, I talk all the time about how matches should be longer so fans have a reason to care about the talent in the ring. I stand by that statement, but there’s a big difference between letting Luke Gallows, a guy who’s been part of ongoing storylines on the show, go a little longer against Big Show and a guy whose last SmackDown win was over two months ago in a nothing mixed tag match looking like a threat against the World Heavyweight Champion. I’m not hating on the job they did in the ring which wasn’t bad by any stretch; I’m just saying that the booking didn’t do Kane, the guy heading into a Pay-Per-View match against the Undertaker, a heck of a lot of good. This certainly wasn’t wRong per se, it was just odd.
THE DUDEBUSTERS ARE A-MOVIN’: Okay, this was just a goofy segment, and the second I saw Croft and Barreta in those outfits and Hornswoggle, my opinion toward the segment took an immediate downward turn. You know what, though? Yes, this was undeniably silly, but it was short, accomplished a purpose—reminding viewers of the move to SyFy—and for some inexplicable reason, I chuckled at Hornswoggle imitating Miz’s pose from WWE magazine. Maybe this deserves a wrong, but it is saved by that from low expectations and the fact that it didn’t overstay its welcome. Plus, no nuns. Even the bit later with Swagger was fine.
CHAVO GUERRERO vs. KAVAL: Kaval’s second match on SmackDown was against the man who’s jobbed to pretty much everyone but has actually picked up a win here or there lately. Kaval was again pronounced as the NXT tagline, “the next breakout star,” which must surely explain how he lost to Chavo. Obviously they don’t want to uber-push Kaval the same way they did the Nexus and I’m okay with that; they actually had a decent match here as well. Both guys worked well against each other, and it was a solid effort by Kaval but he came up short; while I think giving their NXT Season Two winner two losses in a row is questionable, the match balanced things out.
ALBERTO DEL RIO 2, FACES 0: Early in the show we saw Alberto Del Rio standing over a fallen Christian, lording what was presumably a sneak attack over him. Brief and to the point, it set up what happened later in the show nicely. Later in the show Alberto’s announcer was trotted out so Del Rio could come to the ring so he could give an update on Rey Rey. Del Rio did what he could to get the crowd against him by mocking Christian for not facing him and making fun of Rey Rey for getting brutalized, but oh dear gods was the crowd silent until the Rey Rey recap. Del Rio then announced that Rey Rey was coming back next week for a match, but that he didn’t want to face him. That brought out Christian, looking hurt, and he went after Alberto until Ricardo Rodriguez held Christian back so Del Rio could brutalize him. The ‘E was in a tough spot here because of Christian’s injury, and kudos for them actually writing him out with an injury angle. Sometimes they just don’t bother so when they do, I’m glad to see it. I’m worried that Del Rio’s heat isn’t sticking to him and that hurt the segment, but they played their roles fine.
CM PUNK vs. LUKE GALLOWS: This was kicked off by a segment where Punk was prepping for his match and Luke Gallows came in. Punk said he was through and Gallows countered with a chokehold and said he was going to beat Punk and then have a beer. Well, that’s one way to do a heel turn. Also… “I don’t think that I’m better than anybody, but I know that I’m better than you.” Uh…what? Yeah, they lost me there.
As for the match itself, this was actually not a bad one at all. They were in a catch-22 because Punk needed some credibility, while Gallows needed a strong showing to get his face turn over, and yet this was the match that made sense storyline-wise. I think this worked as well as it could have; it wasn’t a great match by any stretch and was too short, but Gallows looked strong and Punk got the needed win, so I’ll give them a pass.
Nada!
HAWKINS & ARCHER vs. THE BIG SHOW: Yeah, there was no point to this handicap match. Hawkins and Archer may not have much credibility with the crowd, but they are an established tag team. The ‘E is obviously low on tag teams based on Tag Team Turmoil at Night of Champions. So why feed these guys to Big Show in a minute or so-long match? It didn’t get Show over any, and as for Vance Archer…well, I’m going back into Larry’s bag of tricks for this one…
DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don’t care.
The ‘E’s holding pattern continues until Hell in a Cell, amplified by the fact that they’re stalling until their move to SyFy. We got some good stuff here and I thought the final segment played out all right, but most of this show was middling and that colors the overall rating heavily. There was little that actively pissed me off, but in the end this was a show only noteworthy for Gallows’ face turn and Bearer’s reappearance, and two quick moments do not make a good show. SHOW RATING: 6.0 |
…and remember to stay grounded!
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