The Wednesday Wire: 2.8.12: We’ve Been Trolled!

Hello one and hello all! The Wednesday Wire is back where it belongs, here on the magnificent hump day that is the middle of the work week! To me, though, it’s a day before my day off! I’m going to miss having a weekday off. You don’t care!

As you will soon see (if I can keep your attention), I have a lot on my mind this week. This column has been in the works since last Thursday and I’ve spent a decent amount of time writing every day. Except for Saturday. I was sick as hell on Saturday. Lots of sleep that day. I had so much to write that I’m branching out this week with another edition of The Friday Supplement, which will focus on The Undertaker v. Triple H storyline. It involves all of your feedback from last week’s Discussion Point and will have even more content with another RAW in the books.

I’ve written enough. Let’s just get right down to it with (totally not a plug or a shill) some Ring of Honor talk!

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RING OF HONOR iPPVEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Ring of Honor has begun to announce matches for their upcoming WrestleMania weekend doubleheader iPPVs. The events will occur on Friday night 3/30/2012 at 8pm and Saturday afternoon 3/31/2012 at 1pm eastern time. You can order both from the Ring of Honor website through GoFightLive.tv — order them separately for $14.99 each or order them together for $19.99 total!

Yes indeed I will admit to the above being a completely shameless plug. Ring of Honor isn’t what it used to be, however they have a ton of great young talent and some fun storylines to follow on their TV show. ROH has become very easy to follow, as they run storylines on TV and make sure to cover any important house show occurrences there as well. It is a much stronger continuity system than they had with the HDNet show and the product benefits greatly from it.

The first night of action, Showdown in the Sun: Day One, will feature the main event of ROH World Champion Davey Richards defending his title in a triple threat match against long-standing foes Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong. The second day, Showdown in the Sun, Day Two (aptly titled!), will feature an as of yet not fully explained concept match with Davey Richards (or Strong/Edwards) defending the title against Michael Elgin, Kevin Steen and one other competitor who is yet to be announced. It is to be noted that this match is not confirmed to be for the World Title at this time.

It was originally reported by PWInsider that the second show’s main event was to be another triple threat, this time featuring the aforementioned competitors Kevin Steen and Michael Elgin challenging for the World Title. That actually sounded interesting — two triple threat matches in a row for the World Champ, both matches against a pair of significantly different opponents. I’m interested in seeing what the stipulation will be.

ROH’s 10th anniversary show will also be aired as an iPPV on March 4th. Although that was not the original plan, they’re saying that it’s being done due to popular demand. I haven’t checked (yes, I’m a terrible investigative reporter), but I would guess that if such is the case it came from Facebook and Twitter posts from the fans. The 10th anniversary show will only cost $9.99! The only announced match thus far is The Briscoes defending their Tag Team gold against the Young Bucks (formerly TNA’s Generation Me).

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WWE SmackDown will be going live on Tuesday February 21, just two days after the Elimination Chamber PPV. The show will cap off three days of live WWE television, with the PPV on Sunday 2/19, RAW on Monday 2/20 and SmackDown on Tuesday 2/21. A live SmackDown presents me with the proverbial double-edged sword. A lot of fun chaos can happen when you have live TV three nights in a row, presumably with talent from both shows appearing on all three nights. It’s a good way to push some storylines hard in the wake of the EC pay-per-view and the beginning of the final few weeks of build to WrestleMania with no other PPVs blocking the way.

I didn’t even address the double-edged sword I mentioned. On one end it could be a show more like RAW, which generally is less wrestling-centric. The live SmackDown in November was a bomb and felt like Tuesday RAW Tuesday and not like SmackDown. It’s good because they’ll have more “stars” on the show, but bad because the show won’t really be SmackDown. Maybe it’s not a double-edged sword. I’ve confused myself.

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Shawn Michaels is being advertised for next week’s RAW in San Diego. Many readers have been speculating that he will be placed into the Undertaker/Triple H match as the special guest referee, and obviously this may be the start of that angle. Maybe they’re going to have Shawn come back to try to convince Triple H to give it one more shot against the Undertaker. I don’t think anybody has speculated that as the reason for Michaels being involved. Everybody else is painting him as being vengeful and selfish. Maybe he just thinks his bestest friend, his BFF if you will, can beat The Undertaker. I like that idea a lot more than Shawn teasing a turn on Triple H or screwing ‘Taker out of the match.

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Sting sat down with CNY Kiss Radio in jolly old London, England last week and discussed, among other things, how close he was to signing with WWE a number of times in the past. I am surprised to see that he was actually so close to signing that he was directly speaking with Vince:

“I’ve had great conversations with him (Vince McMahon) over the years and been real close on probably three or four different occasions of going up there.”

That is certainly news to me. Sting agrees with the masses that the big money/satisfaction match for him in WWE would be against The Undertaker. As his career has gone longer and longer, Sting is one of the guys who has been able to actually become more honest, open and humble. He’s still been pretty good in the ring as well, and has not ruined his legacy like others (Hogan, Flair) have been striving so hard to do over the years. Everybody thought Sting was ready to hang it up in early 2006 after his return match at Final Resolution, but here we are 6 full years later and he’s still in a very active physical role, and he only stopped being an active wrestle a few months ago. Sting says it’s nostalgia and the fans that keep him going. His words are better than mine:

“Every year, I say, ‘I think this will be the last year.’ Nostalgia is huge. For me, it’s huge.”

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One of the possible new shows on the WWE Network is a cruiserweight-themed show. There’s no further information at this time as to what that would exactly entail, but WWE is set to begin looking for cruiserweight talent for filming in the spring/summer. The network is promising new, first run in-ring action, and just having NXT and Superstars would be a let down. If they’re not going to feature cruiserweights on their regular TV shows I can certainly handle them getting a special show on the WWE Network. I’m looking forward to following how this progresses.

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ROH isn’t the only company utilizing WrestleMania weekend to draw more people to their shows. Dragon Gate USA will continue with their yearly tradition of following WrestleMania and present a double shot of pro-wrestling action on March 30 and March 31. DGUSA will be directly competing with ROH for the live crowds as well as iPPV viewers on the first night, as their show on 3/30 will air on iPPV at 8pm eastern.

Curiously, they will be dueling with the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Saturday night 3/31, as that show will also start at 8pm eastern, as opposed to ROH running at 1pm. It may have been a better decision for Dragon Gate to start the Saturday show at around 3pm so people could get to their show and then make it to the arena in time to see the HoF ceremony, but chances are that a large amount of people whom are attending the DG show(s) will be heading to WrestleMania on Sunday but not necessarily the HoF ceremony on Saturday. Usually these shows are big live gates for both ROH and DGUSA — I wonder which company will do better business this year.

Gabe already announced that the second night will feature the return of the six-man tag match that made Dragon Gate a recognizable name in the US after tearing down the house for the first time 6 years ago when ROH followed WrestleMania to Chicago and presented the Supercard of Honor. The lineup isn’t finalized, but they have confirmed that the main event of the first night will be a first time match pitting Low Ki versus Pac. That should be a spectacle.

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The Miz is reportedly in the doghouse with WWE for the lower-than-expected buyrate for the 2011 Survivor Series pay-per-view. Those with any grasp of sanity or the ability to think rationally or logically think that’s incredibly inane. On top of that, WWE, and specifically Triple H, are upset at Miz for not catching R-Truth Monday night on RAW when he came flying over the top rope. I agree that Miz possibly could have positioned himself better to catch Truth, but that kind of thing happens all the time. The vast majority of times the guy in Truth’s position comes out completely unscathed, which Truth did, and even in better shape than him, as they aren’t shaken up enough to be taken to the back to be looked at. And it turns out that Triple H “loudly disciplined” Miz, according to PWInsider, after the match.

A lot of people (who obviously didn’t like Miz to begin with) in the comments section in the news piece that 411 put up about this incident have been getting all over him for being careless. That’s a load of bullshit. He wasn’t “out of place” and he didn’t forget the spot or any of that. It happened. That shit happens sometimes. It’s nobody’s fault and nobody was careless. Something is amiss.

It seems clear that somebody, possibly Triple H (although his being upset with Miz could be unrelated to anything else and only be over the spot on Monday), is out to get Miz. If all of this is true and Miz really is taking a lot of the blame for Survivor Series’ average performance in pulling in the almighty dollar, I ask you, what the hell for? He has been a perfect company man, making tons of media appearances for WWE, fulfilling Make-A-Wish requests and generally being everywhere and doing everything. He’s like the upper-midcard John Cena.

I beg you, loyal readers, please bestow upon me your WedWisdom and explain why the heck he’s in trouble.

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It has finally been made official, Chris Hero has signed with WWE and has reported to Florida Championship Wrestling. There are no specific details, but whatever was holding him up as far as the medical examination was concerned is officially cleared up. There are no plans to team him with Claudio (going by Antonio Cesaro, which is actually a pretty good name), but that’s likely for the best. God forbid anybody with the power to name new developmental talents reads my column or this website in general, because Guest#3814 made me laugh out loud (LOL! 😉 😀 😐 ROFL!) with his congratulatory message for soon to be the former Chris Hero:

“Welcome to WWE Bubmbles McGuffin.”

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Ring of Honor’s newest DVD release is Kevin Steen’s “Ascension To The Top” best of compilation. If you want to know what the big fuss is about Steen (and the Steen & Generico team), check out this DVD. It features a huge amount of Steen’s best matches, which is fantastic. ROH used to get a decent bit of flak from fans because the “best of” DVDs left out a lot of the matches that were widely considered to be the best matches from certain wresters’ ROH careers. The idea, of course, was to give the people a taste of these different guys and then have them buy the full show DVDs to see the absolute best matches that weren’t made available on the compilations. Anyway, check out the lineup:

Disc 1
1. Kevin Steen vs. B-Boy…Do or Die IV 2/19/05 (ROH debut)
2. Kevin Steen vs. El Generico…The Homecoming 7/23/05 (first time on DVD)
3. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe…FYF: Philly 2/17/07
4. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe…Fighting Spirit 4/14/07
5. Steen & El Generico-Briscoes brawl from Respect Is Earned 5/12/07
6. Kevin Steen vs. Mark Briscoe…A Fight At The Roxbury 6/8/07
7. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw…Domination 6/9/07
8. Highlights of Steen/Generico vs. Briscoes street fight from Death Before Dishonor V Night 1 8/10/07
9. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe (Steel Cage Match)…Caged Rage 8/24/07
10. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe (Ladder War)…Man Up 9/15/07
11. Kevin Steen vs. Takeshi Morishima (ROH World Title Match)…Honor Nation 10/5/07

Disc 2
12. Kevin Steen vs. The Necro Butcher (Street Fight)…Proving Ground 1/11/08
13. Kevin Steen vs. Bryan Danielson (#1 Contenders Tournament Semi-Finals)…Eye of the Storm 2/22/08
14. Kevin Steen vs. Go Shiozaki (#1 Contenders Tournament Finals)…Eye of the Storm 2/22/08
15. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino…Dragon Gate Challenge II 3/28/08
16. Kevin Steen vs. Nigel McGuinness (ROH World Title Match)…Injustice 4/12/08
17. Kevin Steen vs. Nigel McGuinness (ROH World Title Match)…Northern Navigation 7/25/08
18. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. The Motor City Machine Guns…Death Before Dishonor VI 8/2/08
19. Kevin Steen vs. Jigsaw…Age of Insanity 8/15/08
20. Kevin Steen vs. Kenny King…Night of the Butcher II 8/16/08
21. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs (World Tag Team Title Match)…Driven 2008 9/19/08

It doesn’t get much more comprehensive than that when it comes to Steen’s run in ROH. It leaves out his great work from 2009 and 2010, but that’s for another set. This is the bread-and-butter of his true breakout in the most well-recognized independent promotion in the US. I am all over this one. BUY!

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“lol article that starts with ‘I have yet to see the PPV’.” – Guest#1275

Alas you are right, it was so horrid of me to let the readers know that my initial thoughts on the first pay-per-view of the year were based on the results rather than viewing with mine own eyes! For shame! For shame! For shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!

Daniel Bryan def. Big Show & Mark Henry – Steel Cage – World Heavyweight Championship
This was not an amazing match by any means, but in terms of an opener this was the best they were going to give us. I would have taken a semi-thrown together 6 or 8 man tag match with some fast paced action as well. Bryan looked, dare I say, like he belonged in this match. He was able to get in some offense on both men (without cheating) and he got out of the cage while actively being opposed. His early attempts to get out of the cage were good strategically and perfect for his character, and once the Champ started getting thrown around a bit he got into the action himself and used his well balanced striking repertoire (mostly his feet) to keep both of the big men at bay. All-time classic? Nah. Probably better than many were expecting? Yeah. Pretty inventive finish, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy dangling over the side of the cage from an opponent’s arm. It was a clean win for Bryan, but it was via escaping a cage.

Rating: *** – I am thinking of this as the closing of his current storyline, part one. He has spent his title reign thus far doing everything possible to throw obstacles (both physical and psycological/political) at his challengers in order to give him enough time to run away. They put him in a cage and he was able to successfully run away again, but this time it resulted in a legitimate victorious title defense. The Elimination Chamber match is part two, the final part, of the storyline. He’s in a bigger cage and this time there’s no escape. The rating is for the match + the storyline.

Beth Phoenix/Natalya Neidhart/Bella Twins def. Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres/Alicia Fox/Tamina
Not much going on here. There wasn’t any time for anybody to really do much, but they got the point across. Beth is legit, Tamina exists and all the rest are bodies to be trampled upon.

Rating: * – A star for the decisive Beth Phoenix victory. She’s done with the bullshit and is ready to assert herself as the dominant champion. Now on to Kharma!

John Cena v. Kane (Double Count-Out)
I think it’s been made clear by most people over the past week and a half that this match delivered a much better contest than people expected, myself included. The story of this one was pretty simple. Kane is an asskicker again and he’s on the level that not even Cena can run through him. Cena is likely somewhat distracted by the harm Kane has done to him as well as the more extensive damage to Zack Ryder and that gives Kane an even bigger advantage. Kane’s offense looked good here — granted it was just the usual uppercuts, clotheslines and big boots, but he was pretty energetic and John Cena was moving double speed to bump around and make him look good. Cena went Zig Zag mode in the selling department. The top rope 5 Knuckle Shuffle was nice and I liked that Cena was only able to attempt the AA twice and he was very quickly unsuccessful on both occasions. Kane countered and derailed the “5 moves of doom” (or however many it is) sequence at least once and the match was better for it.

Rating: *** – You’ll notice that I give a heck of a lot of three star ratings. The reason for that is unless something is notably painstaking or boring to watch, my baseline is three starskies. Both men here went out and put forth some real effort. I think a lot of people were expecting a paint-by-numbers Cena match, but we ended up with the short version of something that will likely be very good at the Elimination Chamber PPV. All the stuff afterward took too long and would have been better suited for RAW, but I won’t bitch about it. There’s no reason.

Brodus Clay def. Drew McIntyre
Drew hits a couple crappy forearms, a couple crappy boots, Brodus falls to a knee, Brodus crushes Drew with a crossbody. Dancing.

Rating: * – Both men should have been in the Rumble match. I said it last week and I’ll say it again here: this is a completely forgettable (if not already forgotten) match. Put the Funkasaurus in the Rumble match, give him a full entrance and have him pull some crazy antics in there and you have a memorable moment. What’s done is done, obviously, but Clay could have potentially been featured in different clips leading up to the Rumble every year and now he’s just an undercard “match” participant. Not a big deal by any means, but I’d have liked it.

CM Punk def. The Zig Zag Man – WWE Championship
“Please…for the love of God…STOP referring to him as the Zig Zag Man, TZZM, Zig Zag, Zag, flip flap flooha and scalliwops. Dolph Ziggler. That’s his name. Your nicknames are dumb. And lame. And stupid.” – Guest#1461

As soon as The Zig Zag Man wins the WWE or World Heavyweight Title I’ll call him by his given wrestling name. Until then, you’re stuck with it. I appreciate the feedback, though.

So I’ve seen the match and, while I was correct to assume that it was indeed good, I was wrong to think that some people were exaggerating the disappointment that they felt. This match could have been great, and I am hoping that in the spring/summer we get to see a rematch that doesn’t have an outside storyline bogging it down. Both guys looked like they wanted to have a great match (in TZZM’s case he was VERY vocal about that fact) and it started off looking like the beginning of something that could turn out to be special. But then Laurinitis got involved, then he got involved again, then the ref got bumped, then he got involved again, then he woke the ref up, then he got involved again. That was a significant detractor and made the match into a derailed train. There was no drama; it was just annoying and frustrating. Maybe it’s my fault (or Zig Zag’s fault!) because I was excited to see something special, but it was just a good match with a horrendous finish.

Rating: ***1/4 – I don’t often go with the quarter star, but it feels right in this case. The three star explanation above fits in. This was a good match and it would be a disservice to the two men in the ring to put it only equal to a lesser match like the cage match that started the show, but the Big Johnny interference was such a buzzkill that it ruined the match for me. The match could be four stars or above if they were given 20+ minutes to put on a show, but instead they were given about 10 to put on a show and then they were told to dick around for a few minutes while Johnny Ace danced around like an ass.

Sheamus Wins the 2012 Royal Rumble Match

This Royal Rumble match may actually be the closest to resembling a regular battle royal ever. Socko v. Cobra was cool, the random Ricardo Rodriguez was pretty fantastic and having all three commentators in there was unique. Their bickering throughout the segment that they all were entered and eliminated was entertaining.

I liked Kharma’s return and the attack on TZZM… hey, I just thought of something. After she runs through the Divas Division, why not go with Kharma v. The Zig Zag Man at SummerSlam? You KNOW that if anybody in WWE can pull off a match with a woman and sell for her like a million bucks it’s him. His attitude is absolutely perfect for a man v. woman storyline and it would be a joy to see his harrassment of her be paid off with him taking a beating for it live on PPV in the middle of the ring. To protect both of them I might go with a no contest for the finish and maybe pay it off with him getting a female partner and her getting a male partner and having Kharma pin Zig Zag in a mixed tag match at the next PPV. Somebody make that happen. In fact… let’s hold that thought for a quick moment.

With the amount of nostalgia acts entering (Booker, Road Dogg, King, Foley and Duggan) I would have liked to see Goldust in there so he could get thrown over the top by Cody, who ended up eliminating 6 others in the match. They may be done with that storyline, though. Goldy has been quite silent since little brother verbally bitch slapped him.

Kofi Kingston walking on his hands to get to the steps and save himself was amazing. Last year Morrison did something we’ve never seen by pulling a Spider-Man on the side protective wall and this year we’ve got Kofi walking on his hands. Bless these freakishly athletic men.

Finally, Jericho and Sheamus had a very good back and forth contest as the final two, and I was shocked, but very pleasantly surprised, that Sheamus got the victory. He’s been working his ass off and has improved remarkably since he won the title from John Cena by kinda sorta putting him through a table a couple years ago.

Rating: *** – Good, but not that good. Fun, but not that fun. That pretty much sums this whole thing up for me. They need somebody who will really put some time and energy into booking this match, because without Pat Patterson (and in some recent years with very limited involvement from him) the match has fallen into the “hey, it’s the Rumble, so it’s good enough” territory instead of the “holy crap that was a Rumble!” territory. Nobody had a real storyline throughout, there was no intrigue leading up to the match, and people were being eliminated quickly and somewhat randomly.

OVERALL: I sound pretty damn critical of this show, and yes, I did find a bunch of things to nitpick. The show as a whole was a fine way to spend a few hours, and I enjoyed watching the cage match, the Cena match and the Rumble match with my son. The lack of any true intrigue disappointed me going into the show and they never really grabbed me and made me excited to be viewing it. It gets a positive mark from me but nothing, outside of a few cool spots, is worth going out of your way for to see.

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Triple H turns down The Dead Man.

The Triple H v. Undertaker saga continues and I’m liking where it seems to be heading. It is a lot more interesting than last year’s scenario, but that’s obviously with good reason, because now there is more of an immediate backstory to it. The segment was good and Triple H was on point with his delivery and reasoning. The ‘Taker video package was cool-looking but a live appearance and promo would have been better. Hopefully starting next week we’ll start getting Undertaker live in the arena. More on this rivalry on Friday, as I am putting together a special Friday Supplement this week to discuss the whole deal as a follow-up to the discussion point I laid out last Tuesday.

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He is our role model and A VEGAN!

I missed the beginning of the Show v. Bryan match, but it seemed to be only about 30-40 seconds before they went to commercial. The 3-4 minutes when they returned was moving along pretty well. I don’t know what got into the powers that be, but Bryan is actually being booked like he’s a legitimate World Champion. He ran away from Big Show at the end, of course, but that’s just going to get him more heat. The match itself featured D-Bryan getting a lot of strong offense in and it didn’t look like a fluke either. I’m very happy to see that. The promo afterward was simple but great as well. Going the “Being vegan means I’m better than you!” route a-la CM Punk with Straight Edge seems to be working and it’s also entertaining as hell.

Any of you Daniel Bryan detractors ready to eat your hats and admit that he’s got charisma and he isn’t just some bland indy darling? The man’s got every tool a man needs to be a star. Prove me wrong if you can.

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Sheamus coasts toward WrestleMania.

Any idea what this fella will be doing at the Elimination Chamber show? Nobody has started any shit with him yet. Ya know what could be awesome? Fellasaurus versus Funkasaurus. Yeah, I’m still working on the nickname for Sheamus. Why did Otunga get any offense against him? That makey no sensey.

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The best troll in the world… at what he does. Which is trolling.

Jericho finally speaks at length and it’s great! The new character seems to be a bit of a mixture of his old “Why me? I’m great! Conspiracy!” heel character together with the 2008-2010 suit-wearing, slow-talking villain. He’s added in some qualities that I would describe as somewhat like a jaded old veteran who has been there and done that, and it all seems to be working together well. Time will tell as far as how he’ll be able to keep it fresh, but I think we all have confidence that if anybody can pull it off, it’s Jericho.

His promo was a great example of how he’s an old vet that’s so jaded toward the current roster and so full of himself that everybody just wants to be him. His proclaimed Wannabe list:

The Miz stole his suit wearing and scowly slow talk.
R-Truth says “What’s up?” which is far too similar to “Shut the hell up!”.
The Zig Zag Man stole his gimmick of having an annoying female manager, since he walked to the ring with Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 18.
Kofi Kingston does cool moves, which we know Jericho did first.
CM Punk claims he’s the best in the world, but Jericho is the true best in the world and doesn’t need to write it on the back of a t-shirt to prove it.

Jericho has fallen almost into lunacy, claiming that TZZM is aping him because he had a manager on one specific night and that Kofi Kingston wants to be Jericho because he uses the top rope or Truth has a catchphrase that has the word “up” in it. Just tremendous. CM Punk completed the best segment of the show by trolling Jericho in wonderful fashion, just dropping the mic, holding up his belt and walking right back up the ramp. That caused Jericho to throw a fit, and that means this fight is about to get going. This is set to be so much better than the last time Jericho was in a title match at WrestleMania. SPEAR! SPEAR! SPEAR! They weren’t even trying.

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The Great Khali? Who the– what the– ?

So Khali came back at the Royal Rumble. I’m thinking (read: hoping) that he eliminates Mahal (check!) and then goes back to wherever he came from while mister Jinder Mahal goes back down to FCW for more seasoning and repackaging. Who knows what the future holds for Jinder Mahal (hopefully a gimmick that doesn’t paint an unneeded negative stereotype), but it appears the future is bright for the Great Khali, which makes it pretty dim for the rest of us (and not just because he’s super tall and thus he puts us in his shadow!). Rhodes & Barrett v. orton & Khali. One of these is not like the other. Somebody needs to give me some sort of explanation for this. Well, hold on. Let me not jump to hasty conclusions.

Okay. I’ve reset myself. Khali has been back for a little over a week. All that he’s done is make a very quick appearance in the Rumble and look kinda scary. He dominated Rhodes and Barrett in the tag match but took an RKO in short order from Randy orton. He can probably be used for a cool spot or two inside the Elimination Chamber, and I would bet that after that show is over he’ll be pushed right back into comedy. Who agrees? I think we can handle him for a few more weeks, eh? Cody’s over. Taking a clean loss to a 16-foot tall man isn’t going to bury him, no matter how silly he looks.

Khali is only smoke and mirrors anyway.

I crack me up!

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Tamina can be the stand-in while Kharma breastfeeds.

Maybe that’s an inappropriate heading. I’m gonna use it anyway. Seriously. She only gave birth a few weeks ago. Granted she’s a big girl and probably far more physically resilient than most others, but a brand new mother’s gotta do some convalescing. She’s also probably bonding with the baby. That’s not important for RAW, though. Congratulations to Ms. Kia Stevens and her soon-to-be husband, by the way. I don’t remember if I have said that yet. If I have, then double congrats! I hope to be getting ready to bring another one of my own little ones into the world this time next year. Yay for parenting! Enough hijacking of my own point.

Beth Phoenix is completely dominant, and that is a very good thing. Everybody else is below her level, but recently Tamina has been stepping up and dominating all of the other divas. Plus, she’s Jimmy Snuka’s daughter, if you haven’t been told. With Kharma out (hopefully only until WrestlemMania), Tamina is a very good roadblock for the Divas Champion at the Elimination Chamber rest stop on the road to WrestleMania. If they get some time and a chance a good match could be produced. Imagine that!

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Jericho gets his heat back from Punk, as it were.

The Six-Pack Challenge started out as something of a mash-up mess but it turned out to be a fun sprint of a match that ended with a really hot sequence and as far as I’m concerned, the right result. I wouldn’t be surprised if they teased us with getting Jericho v. Punk at the end of the Elimination Chamber only to have it somehow cut short. I don’t know how I necessarily feel about it, but at this moment I’m getting a feeling that Jericho’s going to win the belt in the Chamber match and then lose it back to Punk at WrestleMania. Not gonna make that an official prediction, but something hit me that put the idea in my head. We’ll see.

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Due to a massive amount of having everything on my plate and no time to eat it all, I had to shovel something off the side of the table for the pets to eat, and Impact Wrestling has been slurped up by the cats this week. Awesome analogy. I will be patting myself on the back all week for that one.

In layspeak, I’ve been busy and sick and it has caused me to fall back a bit on TNA. I have seen about 30-40 minutes of the Impact Wrestling debut in London, which is really quite cool. It sounded like they were still editing in unnecessary crowd noise, though. I could be wrong. Either way the crowd was legitimately hot as hell and packed to the rafters indeed. It’s shows like this one and the ones they did in the south a few months back that make me want to see TNA go on the road full-time for television. Tape two at a time in one building to save money and travel and go from there. That will almost definitely make house show business stronger, which will come alongside eventually getting some good money from the gate at the TV tapings and then that would lead to more interest in the company across the country and more PPV revenue and so on and so forth. Dixie, you have an assload of money to work with. Start using it to take some chances.

Yes, yes, the pay-per-view. I’m liking the card, and unlike the horrific poster for the show, the match graphics are quite cool. The World Title one is above, and you can see the rest (including the poster) at the official Against All Odds website. Predictions are bold!

In bold typeface, that is. They aren’t really boldly chosen results. Probably not, at least.

Bobby Roode v. Jeff Hardy v. James Storm v. Bully Ray, Fatal Four Way, TNA Heavyweight Championship

I have been enjoying all of the build for this. I expect that the match will see Roode and Ray teaming up more often than Hardy and Storm will, since that’s just what heels do, but it will break down and Ray will fight his ass off to win that belt. If I was going to make a bold prediction, I would choose Bully Ray. But I’m not. Roode keeps his belt.

Austin Aries v. Alex Shelley, X Division Championship

Aries ain’t dropping that belt yet, but Shelley’s going to be the biggest challenge of his reign thus far. I foresee Shelley taking the title in March and getting a rubber match in April inside the cage at LockDown. Shelley’s return promo was fantastic and his match with Ion the following week was great fun, but I haven’t seen anything else since that. I’ve seen these two wrestle before and that was, wow, close to 7 years ago. Good golly that’s weird. If you get a chance, check out Aries defending the ROH World Title against Shelley from Manhattan Mayhem in 2005. Worth it. ROH doesn’t have it in stock right now so you may have to resort to other ways to see it (ask a friend!) but search it out.

Samoa Joe & Magnus v. Matt Morgan & Crimson, TNA Tag Team Championship

A title change seems imminent at this point. If they lose, Joe and Magnus might get one more chance but a victory here, likely by somewhat nefarious means, is the outcome I expect to see. We’re getting a title change on this show, and this one will be it.

Kazarian v. AJ Styles

Like I mentioned above, due to being behind on TNA I am not up to speed on some angles. I know that Daniels has some kind of control over Kaz, but if they have revealed it I’m none the wiser. I would expect, either way, that this will continue with a win for the “heel”, in the form of Kazarian as the surrogate for Daniels.

Gail Kim v. Tara, TNA Knockouts Championship

I am getting a feeling (geez, sounds like I’m going psychic mumbo-jumbo here) that Tara will take the belt and then turn heel, but I’m not willing to make the pick (because it’s a life-and-death matter) without seeing more Impact Wrestling leading up to the PPV. Probably will be a good match, and that does matter.

Zema Ion v. Jesse Sorensen, X Division Title #1 Contender’s Match

Ion has a cool and fun gimmick and Sorensen is booooooring. Ion is a more spectacular, experienced and overall stronger wrestler. Sorensen tries hard but has a lot to learn. Sorensen also had his moment in the sun (for a while, I’m shocked he didn’t get turned to ash) and the silly Impact Zone crowd got behind him because they’re sheep like that. Nothing against Jesse — I think he’s good and he’s probably got a good career ahead of him, but he’s not ready to be a big player. Ion is much closer to that.

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I believe that’s all they have announced for the show. No gimmick matches and only one non-tag team multi-man match. I am impressed! I am looking forward to checking this one out. Who saw that coming?

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Reading for fun and knowledge gathering!

– Randle’s Experience!
– Cook’s Corner!
– Triumvirate of Truth!
– SOTF 2011 Fordified!
– Sean Kelly’s Friday Sports Entertainment!

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I told you to hold that thought on Kharma up in the Royal Rumble review. Now bring it back out. Miniature Discussion Point:

Would you be for or against a Kharma v. Zig Zag Man angle and subsequent one-on-one match?

That’s enough for now. Check out the Fripplement on Friday for some good discussion about the Triple H v. Undertaker angle and come back again next time!

Next week: Less text!

– Nicholas A. Marsico