Wrestling’s 4R’s 02.07.11: ROH, Superstars, & SmackDown Reviewed!

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In HD where available…

By: Aaron Hubbard

ROH on HDNet 02.07.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
Mike Bennett def. Grizzly Redwood [*]
The Kings of Wrestling & The All Night Express vs. The Briscoes, Haas & Benjamin was thrown out. [***]

THE RIGHT:

DANIELS-EDWARDS SET UP THEIR REMATCH: The opening segment of this show saw “new” ROH Television Champion Christopher Daniels and former champ Eddie Edwards in the ring with Jim Cornette. They put each other and their match last week over (and what a heck of a match it was) and set up the 2/3 Falls 30-Minute Time Limit Match for the 9th Anniversary Show. This was a very effective sell for a match that I am looking forward to seeing.

Oh…and Mike Bennett came out. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, but it worked to show that YES, they are putting this guy in the main event scene. For whatever reason. I’m not over excited about it, but if they are going to push Bennett at least they are doing a decent job of keeping him on TV and making me hate him.

STEVE CORINO IS EVIL: Yes, write it down, I, Aaron Hubbard, find Steve Corino to be the most intriguing part of the ROH program. Corino’s new direction of “I’m an evil person, but I can change that,” has to be one of the most unexpected ways to play off the year long feud between Corino-Steen and Generico-Colt. Corino may not be the greatest wrestler on the planet, but he is definitely an interesting character to watch. I’m getting a serious Jake the Snake vibe off of him, and that’s always a good thing.

PURGATORY:

MAIN EVENT SCHMOZZ: I get the point of the eight-man tag team main event. Show off the four tag teams and build to the title match and dream match at the 9th Anniversary show. HOWEVER, I felt that the match dragged at times and that the Briscoes and KOW were going through the motions. It was fine, it just didn’t entertain me very much. The schmozz ending makes sense but isn’t satisfying.

BENNET VS. GRIZZLY: Because NOTHING says “I’m a star!” like beating Grizzly Redwood in four minutes. Also, for the record, Grizzly kicked out of the spinebuster than beat Eugene in Mike’s first match. Guh-huh?

THE WRONG:

STRONG SHILLS ELGIN: Isn’t this Truth Martini’s job? Roddy, I love you man, but man you were uninspired in your shilling of Michael Elgin on this promo. This is an early pick for worst promo of the year….if anyone bothers to remember it.

THE RIDICULOUS:

NOTHING OF NOTE.

The 411 I did not like much of anything on this show. Other than the Steve Corino stuff, which I loved. Be a better man than me; don’t watch this episode. Watch this. It’s much, MUCH better. SHOW RATING: 3.5

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By: Jeremy Thomas

iMpact! 02.10.11:

(Due to technical difficulties, Impact was not available for yours truly to be reviewed. It’ll be up in Friday’s edition.)

By: Tony Acero

Superstars 2.10.11:

QUICK RESULTS
– Natalya vs. Alicia Fox [*1/2]
– The Great Khali vs. The Usos [1/2*]
– Curt Hawkins vs. Tyler Reks [***]
– Trent Barreta vs. Jack Swagger [**]

THE RIGHT:

Curt Hawkins vs. Tyler Reks: Reks and Hawkins in the right? After so many weeks of saying I don’t give a damn about them? Weird right? Ok, hear me out. I have said before that they have given me nothing to care about. They come out week after week and win or lose, squash or wrestle, etc. There’s no consistency. Well in a matter of two weeks, there was a simple storyline thrown in and BAM…interest gained. Now for the match, this shit was intense and both men did greatly. Maybe it was the short time, but in that short time they packed a hell of a punch. Reks looked like he belonged with that sick ass Boot right at the start and an interesting body drop from the turnbuckle onto the ropes. Hawkins sold like a champ, and had that nice pump front face slam thing he did last week which is impressive considering the girth of Reks. Keep this up guys, you may gain a tip o’ the hat.

Jack Swagger vs. Trent Barreta: Wow. Give these guys more time!! The match was all of 3-4 minutes but I’ll be damned if they didn’t give it their all within that time. Swagger manhandled Barreta from the start but it didn’t stop Barreta from using his speed to get some offense in. There was even a bit of story intertwined with Swagger thinking this was easy pickin’s until Barreta’s speed got the better of him. Nice exchanges and a match that whetted the appetite for more immensely.

PURGATORY:

NOTHING

THE WRONG:

Alicia Fox vs. Natalya: I really wanted to put this in Purgatory because myself made system on paper tells me it belongs there, but I just couldn’t do it. This could have been at least passable if it weren’t for the last 2 minutes. Firstly, the match was clunky at times but there were bright spots, such as the Mexican Surfboard into a pin and the splits/pin Fox did, but a majority of the match was arm locks and power moves, which may fit Natalya, but not so much Alicia. The match moved steadily along into puRgatoRy until the last two minutes including, but not limited to, that horribly botched Suplex. The blame falls on both wrestlers as Alicia didn’t straighten herself out fully for the move and Natalya didn’t have a firm grasp on the suplex and didn’t have the mind to turn it into something else. She instead had to show her strength. Yeah, I’ll go with Wrong on this one.

THE RIDICULOUS:

Raw Rebound: John Cena vs. CM Punk: Man do I hate when they do this. It’s bad enough when Superstars and NXT are interrupted with nonsensical recaps of shows that we have already seen and can pretty easily see again if we want to, but to replay a match in its entirety (and not even a very good one) is just a waste of my time and the show I’m watching. I get the recaps, it’s a reminder of what happened but it’s condensed. Showing an entire match just shows me that they wanted to kill some time. Maybe it’s my disdain for Cena that upsets me, but I’d like to think that regardless of what they’re recapping I’d be pretty bothered by it.

The Usos vs. The Great Khali: My question here is why? What was the point behind this. The Usos are obviously not anything big and I blame the WWE for that but that has little to do with the reasoning behind allowing them to get their asses handed to them by Khali. I’m a proponent of using fodder for larger Superstars if it’s going to lead to anything but for some reason, I don’t see that happening here at all. Man, where did Tag Teams go?

The 411 I feel that if the Cena/Punk recap wasn’t there we could have given Swagger vs. Barreta more time and would have been in for a hell of a treat, but alas…that didn’t happen. It was hard for me not to like this week’s episode with two quick but greatly intense matches but it was harder for me to ignore the sheer ludicrousness of Khali vs. The Usos and the somewhat plodding match of Fox and Natalya. With that, I have to put Superstars somewhere around average as it had potential this week but fell short of anything great. SHOW RATING: 7.0

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By: Steve Cook

WWE SmackDown 01.28.11

QUICK RESULTS:
Alberto Del Rio d. Kofi Kingston (**½)
Justin Gabriel d. Vladimir Kozlov (½*)
Drew McIntyre d. Chris Masters (**)
Wade Barrett d. Rey Mysterio (***)
Kane d. JTG (½*)
Eve d. Layla (½*)
Edge d. Dolph Ziggler (**½)

THE RIGHT:

ALBERTO DEL RIO vs. KOFI KINGSTON: ADR started SD off with a speech about the things he loves, mostly himself. I plan on loving myself during V-Day as well, but you don’t see me advertising it on television. Anyway, Kofi was all mad because Alberto beat him up with a kendo stick last week, so he returned the favor this week in entertaining fashion, hitting Del Rio & his heart-shaped picture with the kendo stick before they had a match. I would have thought they would hold off on their first meeting until Elimination Chamber, but we got a 5 minute test-run here that was pretty solid stuff. I love the spot Alberto’s been doing lately when he jumps at somebody and flies out feet first through the top and middle ropes. Good stuff.

DREW McINTYRE vs. CHRIS MASTERS: This was as good a two-minute match as you will ever see. Masters brought the solid offense, including an awesome Sky High spine buster. Loved the finish with Drew trying a backslide, Masters using his strength to flip Drew over, and Drew then hooking him into the Future Shock DDT, which Masters sold like a million bucks. Drew dedicated his efforts here to Kelly Kelly, and holds Edge responsible for her departure. This may lead to something in the future.

WADE BARRETT vs. REY MYSTERIO: After a few weeks of struggling with the Big Show, Barrett finally got to work with somebody that makes everybody look like a million bucks, and he took advantage of it. He cut a nice little promo before the match about how the Corre are all equals (the more he says that, the less I believe him), but he will be the one to represent them in the Chamber and become the World Champion heading into WrestleMania. Rey & Wade showed great chemistry in their match, and I enjoyed Wade using the Boss Man Slam and Booker T doing a Big Bubba Rogers shoutout. Wasteland looks really good when you have somebody like Rey taking it. Wade got the win and then the Corre got to beat up Big Show again. They had a pretty good night to build themselves up, and hopefully it’ll pay dividends down the road.

KANE vs. JTG: Not much of a match, but it had exactly the right result.

PURGATORY:

JUSTIN GABRIEL vs. VLADIMIR KOZLOV: These two have clashing styles and I wouldn’t expect a great match to come from them. It wasn‘t a great match, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I did like how the Corre beat down the tag team champions after the match to establish their dominance. Why does Kozlov come out to Santino’s music now? I like Santino’s music, but Kozlov also has an awesome entrance theme that should be used in cases like this one.

EDGE vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER: The match itself would go into the “Right” column because it was mostly good and Vickie Guerrero did a pretty good job in her role as a heel referee. A little dull at times, but it picked up at the right time. Unfortunately, it had an ending that…well, I’m sure some will say that it creates drama in the title scene, and maybe they’re right. It didn’t do anything for me, though. Why wouldn’t Vickie Guerrero immediately ring the bell when she saw Edge hit the illegal spear? Was she in shock? It made no sense to do the finish in that manner unless they plan on booking Dolph Ziggler vs. Clay Matthews at WrestleMania. I’d support that. I didn’t like the ending at all (has Michael Cole quit screaming yet?), but am willing to see if it leads to something worthwhile.

THE WRONG:

EVE vs. LAYLA: I like Eve & Layla. They’re both very attractive girls who have worked a lot on their wrestling ability since winning their respective Diva Searches. For whatever reason, this match had them on completely different pages and was really tough to watch. They had a rough start, the fans were more interested in chanting about the Packers, and mercifully it only took up three minutes of time. I love them both, but I never want to see them wrestle each other again.

THE RIDICULOUS:

REY MYSTERIO’S TAKE ON INJURIES: Injuries happen? Only a broken nose? What the hell, Rey? You ought to show some remorse for the horrible pain and agony you inflicted on Cody Rhodes. Shrugging it off like it’s no big deal is a bad example to set for your fans, and is just going to get you in more trouble when the Dashing One is ready to return.

THE BLACK WIDOW: Yeah, I wouldn’t go with that nickname for Vickie Guerrero. People still love Eddie and it kind of rubs them the wrong way if you give Vickie a nickname that implies that she kills her husbands. Don’t know if Booker came up with that or it was fed to him (probably the latter), but it was a bad choice.

The 411 Pretty decent episode of Smackdown this week. I’ll be interested to see what happens next week on the six-hundredth episode because I’ve never seen a 12-man tag team match before. I thought the ending of the show was kind of ridiculous, but I liked the building up of the heels throughout the show, making them look dominant as we head closer to WrestleMania, the place where bad guys usually get their comeuppance. The show probably featured Wade Barrett’s best match yet, so if you’re not sold on him yet give it a look. SHOW RATING: 7.0

Until Friday, keep on kickin’ it!

…and remember to stay grounded!

~546~