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Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 11.15.10: ROH, Superstars, Impact & SmackDown Reviewed!
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In HD where available…
By: Aaron Hubbard
ROH on HDNet 11.08.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
ROH TV Title: Eddie Edwards def. The Necro Butcher [***]
Kyle O’Reilly & Adam Cole def. The Bravado Brothers [**3/4]
The Kings of Wrestling def. The Dark City Fight Club [***1/4]
KOW vs. DCFC: Our main event of the evening was a very solid tag team match as Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli faced the departing Dark City Fight Club. The Fight Club has been hit or miss for ROH, providing entertaining squash matches but middling longer matches. Fortunately, the Kings work well with anyone, and the DCFC was motivated in their current final ROH appearance. They worked a match very reminiscent of a Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express match, and it was a very solid main event that showcased quite possibly the most talented unit in professional wrestling. Watching Claudio and the DCFC hit some of their big moves on other big men was quite impressive and gave the match a slightly different feel than a typical ROH match. The only thing I didn’t like was the ending, where Hero hit the Death Blow and Claudio hit a European Uppercut. The sequence should be reversed, or have a Riccola Bomb added to it because it just doesn’t really work. Good, but not great, main event this week.
NEW TALENT INITIATIVE: This week saw ROH showcase a new team in Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole, putting them against the oft-thrashed tandem of the Bravado Brothers. O’Reilly had a very impressive showing with Chris Hero several months back and I was glad to see him again. Adam Cole also showed a lot of promise, hitting exciting moves crisply and cleanly. The Bravados looked impressive as well, and perhaps should get another chance to showcase their skills. Cole and O’Reilly had an impressive first outing, but they NEED to get some more interesting ring gear and a little more personality to stand out. Even Danielson and Strong have personality. We also saw a brief promo for “The Prodigy,” who is (spoiler) Mike Bennett; one can only hope he lives up to that name.
EDWARDS vs. BUTCHER: This match was better than I expected; once again, Necro was on his way out for an unspecified amount of time (perhaps the second most shocking roster cut after Austin Aries) and seemed extra motivated. We got another solid defense for Eddie Edwards, who is quickly becoming a guy you can count on to have a good match every time out. My unofficial “ROH on HDNet Awards” gives Eddie Edwards the “Most Improved” award for the year. Good match, and another solid addition on a very solid night.
NOTHING OF NOTE.
TALKING A LOT, BUT SAYING NOTHING: I preface this by saying that Christopher Daniels has always been very good on the mic and is probably the best mic worker in ROH bar Jim Cornette. However, his promo tonight on Roderick Strong was one of the most uninspired, lazy, and pointless promos I’ve heard in a long time. “I’m Christopher Daniels, I beat you, I’ll beat, I’ll be ROH Champion, blah blah blah that’s the Gospel.” That’s the promo I would have expected from Roderick, not Daniels. Then Homicide came out, and….said nothing of substance. He wants a title shot. Yeah, well, I like you Cide, but what have you done for ROH lately, hmmm? This was SOOO boring; if there was something worth remembering, I would have remembered it. I think the only reason the crowd didn’t crap all over this was because of the respect for both men. A blight on an otherwise solid show.
NOTHING OF NOTE.
Any show where the average match rating is three stars is worthwhile television. Nothing MUST see here, but the wrestling delivered, for what it was. The Daniels-Homicide stuff really dragged this down in my book though. The weakest show in a month, but hopefully things will pick up next week. SHOW RATING: 6.5 |
By: Jeremy Thomas
iMpact! 11.11.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Robbie E and Cookie def. Jay Lethal and Taylor Wilde [*]
Samoa Joe def. Gunnar and Murphy [NR]
Kazarian def. Rob Van Dam [* ½]
AJ Styles def. Stevie Richards [** ¾]
Matt Morgan def. Douglas Williams & Beer Money [** ½]
IMMORTAL CELEBRATES: Impact kicked off with Immortal making its way down to the ring. I gotta admit, I kind of like their theme song. The guitar riff is vaguely reminiscent of the nWo theme, but not so much that it screams “retread” and it has some attitude to it. Bisch got on the mic and acted like the boos were pops, then bragged about each Immortal win at Turning Point. I thought that the MMA reference was a bit overly smarmy on Bisch’s part, but it didn’t bug me too much at all; that’s what he’s supposed to be after all. The promo skills of AJ Styles are still a bit uneven at times and this was a wee bit over the top on his part; on the other hand, Jeff did a really good job selling his promo as a heel here. It wasn’t too long, but it did exactly what it needed to and Jeff going off on the “overrated” chanters was great. There is one particular thing that I had a huge problem with, but I’m going to separate that from the rest of this segment; otherwise, they did a good job of putting Jeff and Immortal over. I thought Hogan had some iffy word choice in his promo and it sounded like he was rambling a bit, but otherwise it was good stuff, and the faces showing up at the end showed that they wasn’t afraid or taking this lying down, although Pope’s promo was drastically overdone. This accomplished everything that it needed to do. With that one exception, of course. This was really long but it didn’t drag, and that’s a something TNA doesn’t often get right. Kudos to them.
SAMOA JOE vs. GUNNAR & MURPHY: If Murphy was named Matthew instead, I would mark whenever I saw them come out. Just saying. Anyway, this wasn’t much of a match, but neither was it intended to be. This was intended to be an opportunity for Joe to brutalize JJ’s poor security goons to get some heat back after his loss to Jarrett. It did exactly that and allowed Joe to look good. The after-match antics with Jarrett attacking and Kurt Angle coming down to make his return was nicely done and popped the hell out of the crowd. Good stuff; I’m not rating this as a match because it was basically an angle.
AJ STYLES vs. STEVIE RICHARDS: This TV Title match saw Stevie come out during AJ’s entrance and attack him from behind—normally a heel tactic, but you can understand the faces doing it since they’re generally fighting for their careers and Steve was undoubtedly “pissed about Sabu’s firing.” This match had the most potential on the show and it got just enough time to deliver. AJ looked impressive and yet Stevie wasn’t treated like a total bitch here. I do like that they have AJ defend the title a semi-decent amount of the time and while I certainly won’t disagree with the assessment that he’s above a secondary title, he’s once again doing a great job rebuilding a belt’s credibility—or in this case building. Let’s face it people, this title didn’t have a lot of cred ever since it was the Legends Title and AJ’s doing what he can—once again—to make it a worthy title. They seem to be good at forgetting about it once it’s off AJ, but for now they’re doing a good job and this was a pretty solid match to boot.
MATT MORGAN vs. DOUGLAS WILLIAMS & BEER MONEY: Well, at least they’re not trying to make Morgan a superman or anything. Seriously though, this was booked by Bisch, Hogan and Flair during the post-opening promo pow-wow and “Jackson” the referee was assigned to it after Bischoff accused him of screwing up at Turning Point. With Jackson seeming to face possible repercussions from Bischoff, the deck was nice and stacked against Morgan and the certainly played up the numbers advantage. I know that some people were angry that Beer Money were sacrificed to Morgan here as part of a three-on-one match, and admittedly the odds were a bit high for rationality’s sake but they’re firmly committed to making Morgan a top face and following his loss to Hardy at Turning Point, this was needed to really re-establish him. I was kind of annoyed with Bischoff coming out to bitch about the Pope in the midst of a match that had nothing to do with Pope, but that was a minor thing and I thought this did a good job in solidifying Morgan’s spot on the card. This was a strong way to finish the show with Morgan looking good, and yet had Jeff Hardy give his sneak attack to end the show looking strong. This built the feud and both men well, and that’s exactly what it needed to do.
POPE GETS REVENGE: This was pretty short and sweet, and it continued the theme of the faces getting their revenge and rebuilding their forces. Bisch had Abyss following him around to make sure that Kurt Angle wasn’t going to take him down, but while Abyss was in the john the Pope came out. He took out Eric easily and then took Abyss by surprise and pounded him down. This didn’t’ work as well as some of the other segments tonight because it was short and it kind of came out of nowhere, but Pope got some solid pops by trashing and humiliating Bischoff and I enjoyed it as a whole…at least until Bischoff and Abyss took back control and ended up over Pope again. You’ve got to let the guy walk away with a definite one-up on the heels before people stop taking him seriously. That point is coming soon.
KAZARIAN vs. ROB VAN DAM: I would love to think that this is the beginning of a major push for Kaz, but let’s be honest—we’ve been down that road before. This match had the potential to be something really good, with two talented guys in the ring and a TNA Title Shot on the line, but instead it got about three minutes. I did not at all mind the Rhino run-in, it means that RVD doesn’t get hurt by the loss to a midcarder, but the ref bump was kind of cheesily done and the match was too short to really come across as anything more than an average spotfest. I know people don’t like Rhino turning after all that EV2.0, and I’m certainly not fully on-board. It certainly makes more sense than anyone else, but I’m still not behind it and I frankly don’t understand WHY. Does Immortal really need Rhino? Did Rhino need Immortal any more than he needed EV2.0? I’m holding this in puRgatoRy for the moment but barely so, and this has a long way to go to be Right.
JAY LETHAL & TAYLOR WILDE vs. THE SHORE: This mixed tag team match was preceded by a promo where Cookie said she wasn’t a wrestler but knew how to fight while Robbie was all distracted by the shiny thing over his shoulder. Taylor was looking pretty decent tonight on her way to the ring with Jay while they were having the Shore be all catty with each other in another level of parody of the real thing. However, once they got down to business they were generally working together despite the jawing. This match was dull as hell and the only involvement of Cookie had her interfering illegally and running around the ring while Taylor was chasing her. This led to the finish which is fine, but the match wasn’t good at all and there wasn’t much accomplished here.
TEAM 3D RETIRES IMPLODES: Okay, I love Team 3D. I’ve actually enjoyed watching them these days even though they’re getting pretty well past their prime. But Ray and Devon breaking up and feuding has never worked. And I mean it has never, ever worked. I liked Ray and Devon’s promo skills, they were doing very well and had the crowd eating out of their hands. So what the hell was with this? Sure, at least this time it was Ray going heel which has always seemed to make more sense to me, but I have no desire to see these guys feud or wrestle as singles guys. This just failed and the crowd didn’t really seem to care about the turn either. I don’t see good things coming here.
JEFF HARDY: NEW TNA HARDYFACE CHAMPION: After Jeff’s bit, out came the Hulkster to a mixed but loud reaction from the crowd. It’s kind of funny that Jeff Hardy has had an easier time going full heel than Hogan has as a side note. Hogan’s promo was all well and good as he put over Flair and talked about family. And then…he presented Jeff with this.
Good Christ. That’s right, people… TNA’s top champion can now be called the TNA Hardyface Champion. I know, some people are going to think I’m complaining too much here. Those people are wrong. This title belt makes the freaking WWE Butterfly Title look absolutely regal by comparison. One person noted that it looked like a very badly done tramp stamp, and I would agree—if the tattoo artist was on a few hits of acid.
Listen, I don’t hate TNA. (Yes, I feel like I have to say that every week.) And I get that they’re trying to “brand” their new storyline, as well as get Jeff over a la Cena, Austin or others who have had their own customized titles. But this just looks stupid. The purple leather is iffy, the side plates are okay and that faceplate (no pun intended—it was impossible to avoid though) looks infantile. And yes, I know that WWE has the aforementioned Butterfly Title. That’s the least important title in the company. This is TNA’s most prestigious title, and it looks like something a fourteen year-old Fall-Out Boy fan who practices cutting would design on the front of their Trapper Keeper. And even then, it wouldn’t be their first choice, it would be the first version before they moved onto something better. Probably with a black tear. Screw this belt.
TNA put on a decent show this week, because they followed the rules I keep harping on the Big Two about: they kept the focus their main storylines and nearly everything that happened served to advance those storylines. The more TNA and WWE get distracted, the worse the shows get. Sure, we had some bad stuff here and I absolutely loathe the Hardyface Title Belt, but this one hit more than it missed and I have to give the company credit for that. SHOW RATING: 7.0 |
By: Chad Nevett
Superstars 11.11.10:
QUICK RESULTS
– Yoshi Tatsu defeated Zack Ryder [**]
– Ezekiel Jackson defeated Primo [*1/4]
– Drew McIntyre defeated Kaval [**1/2]
PRIMO vs. EZEKIEL JACKSON: A short squash match that had some fun spots. Primo starting the match with some flexing before Jackson knocked him on his ass and flexed was funny. Jackson dominated physically, while Primo tried to use his speed and agility to his advantage. Didn’t work, but it was all he had. As far as squashes go, this was fine, but utterly forgettable.
KAVAL vs. DREW MCINTYRE: I wasn’t feeling this match immediately, but Kaval’s dive off the top to the outside picked things up a bit. Kaval was all flash and McIntyre was brutal viciousness. Striker and Grisham sold the idea of Kaval as the energetic newcomer trying to prove himself as he fights against another relative newcomer that’s made a big impact in his time in the WWE so far. They made a victory over McIntyre seem bigger than it normally would, which only added to the drama of the match as Kaval made his comeback. The tease of the Future Shock DDT on the apron was well done, but quickly overshadowed by the Rolling Liger Kick up the steps by Kaval. That was pretty cool. The finish was one we’ve seen with Kaval before where a missed Warrior’s Way throws him off balance enough to be taken down, but it’s effective. McIntyre wins and Kaval is still looking to actually get a victory. Good match by the two.
YOSHI TATSU vs. ZACK RYDER: This was an energetic and fun ECW reunion match to kick the show off. The banter between Michael Cole and Josh Matthews was also entertaining, especially when Cole said, early in the match, “Very, very eventful week in World Wrestling Entertainment…” and both men followed that up with 30 seconds of silence. I’m not sure Cole should be insulting Vince McMahon’s commentary skills with that level of craft and professionalism. In the ring, Ryder was dominant, but Tatsu pulled off some great counters. Ryder’s Superplex was executed wonderfully, especially with the roll through right into the pin attempt. Ryder impressed me here more than he has anywhere in the past. Tatsu got the win and looked a little less impressive than his opponent. All in all, a good match to begin the show with.
NOTHING
NOTHING
Only three matches and none were bad. All three effectively accomplished what they needed to. None of them were runaway classics, but definitely a solid, entertaining show. SHOW RATING: 7.0 |
By: Steve Cook
WWE SmackDown 11.12.10
QUICK RESULTS:
Alberto Del Rio d. Kofi Kingston (**½)
Natalya d. Layla (*½)
David Otunga d. Edge (*½)
Dolph Ziggler d. MVP (**½)
Big Show d. Kane (**)
ALBERTO DEL RIO vs. KOFI KINGSTON: Kofi showed some good fire in this matchup early on, but ultimately he wasn’t enough for the magnificence of Alberto Del Rio. Alberto mocking the Boom Boom Boom clap was pretty choice. Kofi almost got as high on a cross body as Kazarian did for that RVD monkey flip on Impact. The match kind of slowed in the middle, but was a good showcase for Kofi’s high flying moves and Del Rio’s dickhead heelishness. Great finish, with ADR ramming Kofi’s shoulder & arm into the ring post, kicking it and then finishing him with the cross arm-breaker. We also got Rey Mysterio running down to 619 Alberto, continuing their conflict while Rey continues to recover from his maladies.
NATALYA vs. LAYLA: People have always said that Natalya is a vastly talented wrestler. She hasn’t really had the chance to show it so far in WWE, but this match with Layla did a lot to show off her talents. The squatting suplex was pretty cool. Layla has been improving at a pretty rapid rate this year, and looked good with the offense that she got to do. She also looked really good with her black outfit, but what else is new? This match was short, but good, and gives me a little hope for their triple threat with Michelle McCool at Survivor Series.
FINLAY~!: Unfortunately he didn’t wrestle, but Fit making an appearance as a lumberjack for Edge vs. Otunga was the highlight of the match.
DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. MVP: MVP bringing the intensity now that he has a push of sorts! Dolph, as usual, brings lots of chinlocks and methodical offense. I enjoyed Dolph’s intelligent shenanigans, such as undoing the turnbuckle to distract the referee, and how he pushed MVP’s feet off the ropes during the deciding pinfall. He’s pretty smart for a guy that went to school in Ohio. I had to chuckle at Michael Cole calling the 38 year old MVP “young”.
DASHING CODY ADVISES BRITS ON THEIR TEETH: British people have bad teeth. This has been pretty well-established over the years, and it’s almost to the point where you can’t really point that out in a humorous fashion because everybody else has gone there. That being said, Dashing Cody Rhodes’ promo on the Manchester crowd’s poor dental hygiene was probably the best live promo that he’s ever done. The “summer teeth” line was especially good, and the “God Save Your Teeth” graphic at the end was a nice touch. Good stuff from the Dashing One, and this was probably the highlight of the show.
EDGE vs. DAVID OTUNGA: Fortunately, WWE was smart enough to involve as many people in David Otunga’s match as they possibly could, so hopefully his stinkiness in the ring wouldn’t take away from things so much. I’m all for giving Mr. A-List some ring time with veterans so he can learn how to wrestle, but how come they have to do it on Smackdown and not Superstars? Couldn’t they let him have these matches on house shows until he gets passable? I dunno. At least we had people like Finlay at ringside, and Alberto Del Rio’s involvement was especially useful. Things went ok enough when Edge was on offense to keep it from being “Wrong,” but this match had enough Otunga offense to keep it from getting into the “Right” section. Kane’s interference in favor of Otunga continues the confusion of whether Kane is in cahoots with Nexus, or if it just depends on how Creative feels on a given week.
BIG SHOW vs. KANE: If you’re like Jeremy Thomas and like to see two big heavyweights slugging it out, this was the match for you. I wasn’t expecting much from this one, as Kane & Big Show have had approximately 459,094 matches with each other and I only really liked the one where Big Show tried to do lucha moves. It was ok for what it was, with an ending we’ll talk about later…
Nothing of note.
PAUL BEARER IN BONDAGE: After Kane cut a promo earlier in the show with Paul Bearer by his side, he was shocked when he returned to the scene later and saw the urn lying on the ground. He spent the next twenty minutes or so looking for Daddy Paul. Turns out that it was Edge that was behind Paul’s disappearance, and he brought Paul out during the main event so Kane could be distracted and lose the match. I guess this finish was supposed to keep Kane looking “strong” in defeat, but it also made him look like a blithering idiot, so I don’t think it really helped anybody. Apparently Edge has a thing for tying people up, which for some reason doesn’t surprise me. Will Edge take Paul all the way back to America with him? I guess time will tell.
Another decent Smackdown, but if you missed it you really didn’t miss anything too special. Edge tried hard with Otunga, but his streak of good matches finally came to an end. As much as I like Dashing Cody Rhodes & Finlay, when they’re the highlights of a show just by either cutting a promo or showing up, it’s not really a good sign. I’m still waiting for the show to kick it up a notch before the PPV, maybe it’ll happen this week. SHOW RATING: 6.0 |
…and remember to stay grounded!
