wrestling / Columns
The Tuesday Communique 04.30.13: End of the Month
The Wrestling News Experience with Stephen Randle
My Take On: Top 10 Current Performers with Larry Csonka
The Professional 3: Underappreciated Specialty Matches with Jon Harder
The Wrestling 5&1: Emma vs. Charlotte with Tony Acero & Greg De Marco
The Piledriver Report: The History of Vince McMahon’s Wrestling Empire Part 14 with Ronny Sarnecky
Ask 411 Wrestling: Flair’s Flopping, WCW Dying, Vince Blowing Up and More! with Mathew Sforcina
News coming for you next week
What a bad haiku
WWE Monday Night RAW from Columbus, OH || TV Review
Winner Chooses the Stipulation: Zeb Colter v. Big E Langston v. Ricardo Rodriguez
Colter runs to the apron immediately so Ricardo is left to the slaughter. He gets a weak kick and punch which just annoy Big E, who hits the standard big man triple backbreaker and shoulder block in the corner. He misses a charge in the other corner and posts himself, allowing Colter and Rodriguez to work together and ground the big man. They square off to fight, but before they can do anything Big E absolutely flattens Ricardo. Zeb takes that as an agreement to work together and goes after Ricardo, but fakes a knee injury when Langston stares him down. Ricardo attacks from behind with the spit bucket to no effect and then hilariously lobs it at Big E’s head, which gets him nailed with a big belly-to-belly suplex. Del Rio interferes and hits a step-up enzugiri, but Ziggler comes in with a dropkick to take him out. Swagger tosses Ziggler and Big E clotheslines Swagger out and falls to the outside with him. That lets Zeb try to sneak a pin on the downed Ricardo, but AJ slides in and stops the ref from making the three count. That’s enough of a distraction to allow RR to get a schoolboy on Zeb for the pin, and Del Rio gets to pick the EXTREME stipulation for the title match on May 19. This was actually a really, really fun match and an awesome way to start off the show. It was short, simple and effective. Plus, the wrestling was decent! Ricardo def. Zeb & Big E, schoolboy – 5 min, **
John Cena introduces us to three Make-A-Wish Kids who are honorary WWE Superstars for the night. He gets the crowd to cheer loudly for them in a nice moment.
Randy Orton v. Cody Rhodes
Battle of the Legacy! I wonder if they’ll acknowledge it. Orton grabs a headlock and hits a shoulderblock and Cody matches with the same. Orton takes him down with a back elbow and it’s a stalemate. Another lockup leads to Orton tossing Cody over the top, but he hangs on and skins the cat. That’s met with a dropkick from Orton, though, and another dropkick gets 2. Orton mounts Cody in the corner for the 10 punches and takes him down with a big European uppercut. Garvin stomps keep Orton in control, but Cody grabs the trunks and takes Orton down in the corner. He stomps away to massive boos and gets a 2 count off of more stomps. Crowd is HOT tonight! Orton fights out and gets a knee drop for 2 and works the arm, but Cody hits a quick standing dropkick. He gets no advantage, though and ends up on the outside. Orton follows with clothesline and sets up the Hangman’s DDT, but Cody counters with a necksnap. He follows back into the ring but almost gets nailed with the RKO. It’s a stalemate as we hit comercial. This match has been incredibly simplistic but it’s absolutely awesome. Back from break and Cody hits the Disaster Kick, knocking Orton out of the ring. That gets 2 inside and a jacknife cover gets another 2. He smothers Orton with stomps and mounted punches and chokes him with his knee, which get him another 2 count. Crowd is all over Cody here. What’s in the water in Columbus? Orton elbows out of a chinlock but Cody backflips out of the back suplex and drops to his back to hit the Goldust uppercut thrust. Knee drop gets 2 but Orton again fights back with boots and a headbutt. He misses a charge and Cody comes off the second rope with an elbow, which gets another 2 count. Cody climbs up top, but Orton is up and he crotches him up there! Orton gets the big superduperplex from the top, but it’s only a near fall! Clotheslines for Rhodes and Randy gets the powerslam. Ugly t-bone suplex leads to the Hangman’s DDT for real this time but Cody counters the RKO and hits the Crossrhodes! Holy crap! Crowd bought that finish, but it was only a clooooose near fall! Cody is upset but stops to taunt Orton. He tries the Disaster Kick, but Orton catches him with the RKO and that’s the end. Really good match here, completely out of nowhere. After the match, Orton says he’s never been so focused or felt so… EXTREME. Rhodes tries to sneak up but just ends up taking another RKO. Orton def. Rhodes, RKO – 16 min, ***1/4
The Bellas gloat backstage over their new E! reality show. One of them takes on Naomi next!
Brie Bella v. Naomi
Well, at least the first hour was good. Naomi hits a couple decent looking spots and knocks Brie out of the ring. Nikki replaces her and gets a small package for the win. That was quick. Cameron comes in and complains, which is somehow enough for the referee to reverse the decision and disqualify Brie. That makes no sense. The Bellas beat the Funkadactyls down in retaliation. Naomi def. Brie, DQ – 2 min, NR
The Shield are here and show us pictures of all the stars they’ve powerbombed, then introduce a video package of them taking out the Undertaker on SmackDown. They turn their attention to Cena and Ryback, which apparently is the perfect opportunity for 3MB to interrupt. As you may have expected it doesn’t go well for 3MB, but Kane and Daniel Bryan interrupt the beatdown, causing The Shield to head for higher ground. Live to fight another day, boys! Kane and Bryan finish the beatdown on 3MB for good measure.
Ryback walks in on Cena getting his ankle taped up. Cena essentially says even hurt, he’s not as shitty as Ryback, who he believes to be a complete bum. He may not have said that, but that’s what he meant.
Champion vs. Champion, non-title: Dolph Ziggler v. Kofi Kingston
The segment starts with Cole and King awkwardly plugging the Dominoes Pizza tracker as if it hasn’t existed for more than half a decade. Kingston starts out quick with a kick to the face and an ugly springboard splash. Ziggler was too close to the ropes. Ziggler grabs a headlock which leads to the forward and backward leapfrogs from Kofi. He hits a dropkick from that and heads outside for a springboard, but Ziggler catches him with a dropkick of his own, knocking Kofi to the floor. Perfect place for a commercial! Back in and Ziggler has a headlock. Kofi tries to get out but takes a clothesline in the corner for having the gaul to fight back. Neckbreaker puts Ziggler thoroughly in control. He misses a splash in the corner, though, but recovers with punches in the corner. Kofi gets back in with the BABYFACE COMEBACK! and hits the jumping clothesline. Boom Drop sets up Trouble in Paradise, but Ziggler ducks and hits the jumping DDT. So far this is every match they’ve ever had. That’s not a bad thing, but these guys need to not be anywhere near each other for like 2 years to make this fresh again. SOS gets 2 for Kofi as this one goes back-and-forth. Ziggler misses the Fameasser and Kofi hits the Trouble in Paradise kick, but he’s too close to the ropes and AJ is able to get his foot on the bottom. Big E pulls Ziggler out to wake him up, but Kofi’s not having that as he flies off the apron and takes out Langston. He rolls Dolph back in and hits a HYOOOOGE flying crossbody, but it only gets 2. AJ and Big E interfere and Ziggler rolls Kofi up, but Kofi reverses and almost gets the quick pin. He catches a dropkick attempt and catapults Dolph, but he misses an attempt at a springboard crossbody and takes the Zig Zag. Afterward, Big E hits the Big Ending twice for the exclamation point. Good match, but why did they have to use Kofi? He just won the belt… shouldn’t they be building him up? Not only is the match stale (solid, but stale) but there are tons of people that could have had a good match with Ziggler who didn’t just break a losing streak and win a title. I guess the cycle just continues. Ziggler def. Kofi, Zig Zag – 12 min, ***
AJ runs into Kaitlyn backstage and Kaitlyn, who doesn’t have her belt (why?) isn’t scared. Some dude delivers a gift to Kaitlyn from a secret admirer. Cool!
Video package for Brock/HHH at Extreme Rules. Better than wasting time having them say nothing important to each other.
Ryback meets Brickie in their office and Vickie changes the main event to Ryback & Team Hell No v. The Shield. Ryback doesn’t accept and walks away. That’s one way to handle it.
Jack Swagger v. Zack Ryder
The pizza is here, but it was delivered to the audience, not Cole and King! Hilarious! Hey, Zack Ryder has a microphone. He shows us Colter getting rolled up by Ricardo Rodriguez. Oh. I thought he was getting to say something meaningful. How silly of me. Swagger immediately pounces and destroys Ryder with knees to the gut in the corner and pulls him out with a short-arm clothesline. Ryder comes back with a facebuster and a nice-looking dropkick, but he gets cut off by a powerslam and Swagger DDTs the leg. Big biel leads to a pair of Swagger Bombs, but a third one meets boots. Swagger charges and gets back body dropped out of the ring and takes a baseball slide dropkick to follow. Back inside the match quickly goes south for Ryder who runs into an impressive tilt-a-whirl gutwrench powerbomb and taps to the Patriot Lock. Colter gets a shot in on Ryder after the match for being a jerk. Serves him right. Swagger def. Ryder, Patriot Lock – 4 min, *
During the break, Ryback walks out of the building, giving Matt Striker the cold shoulder.
Mark Henry is here with a rope and actually gets cheered when he introduces himself. He says he gets two opponents for a Tug-of-War, so Tensai comes out. He beats Tensai in about 15 seconds, so Brodus Clay comes out and he loses in even less time. Is this really happening? Have they completely run out of ideas? Thus far this is like most of the recent episodes of RAW, with the first hour being quite good and the show falling apart from there. Sheamus comes out as well, because everybody knows that Tug-of-War is EXTREME~! Weren’t these two guys just ambushing each other backstage and kicking the shit out of each other? Sheamus fares a bit better but lets go of the rope like a jerk when he realizes he’s going to lose. Then he hits the Brogue Kick. Well that wasn’t fair. If they want this segment to have even a tiny bit of relevance to anything, they should do a Bullrope Match at Extreme Rules. Not that it would be any good, but at least it would give this segment some meaning.
Team Hell No don’t want Ryback as a partner. After the commercial Brad Maddox is with Cena, who enters himself as their partner tonight.
Here’s Brad Maddox for no reason.
Alberto Del Rio v. Antonio Cesaro
Ya know, Cesaro gets his rematch for the US Title on Wednesday, so both him and the champion get to job tonight on RAW. That makes sense. Why would I tune in on Wednesday to see two losers wrestle each other? Lockup to starts leads to nothing, so Cesaro grabs an armbar. Del Rio reverses to his own as the crowd that started this show hotter than hell just sits on their hands. Cesaro blocks a vertical suplex and hits one of his own. Del Rio kicks the arm and grabs another armbar, which is sure to wake everybody up. The excitement continues with Cesaro grabbing his own armbar. ADR gets out with a jawbreaker and comes back with a headscissors takeover. He gets the kidney punches in the corner (nobody counts with Ricardo) and the backstabber. That sets up the cross armbreaker but Cesaro gets out and bails. They’re giving this match a commercial break? No! Back live and Cesaro ratchets up the drama with a chinlock. During the break he hit a backdrop on the ring apron, which is the only interesting thing so far. Sunset flip gets 2 for Del Rio but Cesaro comes back with a double stomp for 2 of his own. Gutwrench suplex gets another 2 count. Cesaro nails a running European uppercut in the corner and follows up with a CHINLOCK! Yes! Del Rio tries to fight up but takes a backdrop. He finally gets the babyface comeback with clotheslines and a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Cesaro actually blocks the low superkick and gets a small package, but it only gets 2. Nice German suplex gets a very near fall as the crowd wakes up a bit. ADR goes up for the double sledge but gets hit with the European uppercut! Cesaro misses a charge and takes the low superkick, but it only gets 2. He goes for the cross armbreaker but Cesaro counters to a schoolboy! Del Rio counters that with the cross armbreaker and that ends it. Good match if you cut out the first 7 and a half minutes of chinlocks and armbars. Afterward, Del Rio announces that the World Title match at Extreme Rules will be a Ladder Match. That should be pretty darn good. Del Rio def. Cesaro, cross armbreaker – 12 min, *1/2
Fandango is here for a Dance-Off with the Great Khali. Well this show continues to improve. Khali says a bunch of unintelligible stuff and then says he’s a better dancer than Chris Jericho. He and Natalya dance like idiots. Fandango says Jericho was clumsy on Dancing With the Stars and then proceeds to dance with his clumsy dance partner Summer Rae, who has the body of a dancer but has no idea what she’s doing. Why bring her up for this role? She’s a halfway decent wrestler and okay on the mic, so they put her in a position where she won’t be talking or wrestling and instead looking silly trying to fake being a dancer? Oh well. At least Fandango’s top rope leg drop is awesome. Seriously. It’s friggin’ gorgeous.
John Cena & Team Hell No v. The Shield
It’s a brawl to start but clears out quickly to Kane v. Ambrose. Kane gets a nice stalling suplex and Ambrose tags out to Reigns, who also gets dominated by Kane. He is able to back Kane into the corner and tag Rollins, but the advantage doesn’t last long, as Rollins eats a big boot. Kane pounds him down with punches in the face corner and chokes him with his boot. The ref gets in the way so Kane goozles him. Cena tags himself in to avoid the DQ. Ambrose goes right after the leg, so Cena pulls him back to his corner and Bryan tags in. He hits kicks to the back and alternates with elbows to the shoulder. Bryan snubs the injured Cena and tags out to Kane. Kane snubs Cena and tags Bryan. Teamwork Irish whip leads to Bryan hitting the running dropkick. He gets the Mexican surfboard and holds Ambrose up for a low dropkick from Kane. Nice. Kane goes up for the flying clothesline but takes WAAAAAY too long to get up there, so Ambrose ducks and tags Rollins. They hit a double vertical suplex that takes us to a commercial. Back from break and Ambrose has Bryan down with a standing surfboard. Bryan fights out but gets nailed with a back elbow. Tag out to Rollins who hits the one-legged dropkick for a quick 2 count. He lays the boots and gets an abdominal stretch. Bryan fights up and takes out Ambrose and Reigns but runs into an enzugiri from Rollins. In comes Reigns for another chinlock for Bryan to fight out of. He does, but runs into a Samoan drop for 2. Reigns charges but Bryan low bridges him and he goes flying out. Tag to Kane who takes out his frustrations on Ambrose with the usual. Rollins gets tossed out and this time the flying clothesline hits its mark. Kane sets up for the chokeslam but then decides the better plan would be to put Amrbose through the table. That turns out to be a bad idea, as Ambrose gets a DDT on the floor. Kane is able to get back in at 9. Ambrose stupidly taunty the Big Red Machine who is able to get the chokeslam. Hot tag to Cena and he gets the usual on Reigns. Rollins comes off the top with a crossbody but Cena catches him. He can’t hold him up for the AA due to the bad ankle and the spear from Reigns is all she wrote. The Shield win again, and Cena takes the fall! Ryback, who is dressed in a leather jacket and skull cap just like Goldberg, comes out and stares at Cena from the ramp. The Shield def. Cena/Hell No, spear – 15 min, ***
Overall RAW Thoughts
More of the same. As has been the case for a while now, the first hour was actually quite good. The opening manager three-way match was surprisingly good and a very entertaining segment. The Make-A-Wish thing was an inoffensive way to spend a few minutes and Orton/Rhodes was a very simple match with no bullshit frills and ended up being quite good. Ziggler/Kofi was good but who cares? They’ve done the same match 50 times on TV and it makes no sense for the new US Champ to be losing. On top of that, his challenger lost too, in a match that was almost 8 minutes of rest holds followed by 4 minutes of a good match that was far too little to fix the damage that the first 2/3 did. The show wasn’t actively bad by any means, but there’s nothing to care about. Nothing ever changes. The Shield preached in the middle of the show about how they changed the landscape of the WWE. How? When they arrived, Ryback was fighting for the WWE Title and Cena was injured. Now, about 6 months later, Ryback is fighting for the WWE Title and Cena, who is now holding the belt, is injured. They’ve been having good matches and it’s fun to watch young guys show up and actually be made to look like stars, but in the grand scheme of things they’ve been completely ineffective. They win matches, but thus far they’ve won zero titles (not that those matter) and the same two guys are on top now that were on top when they debuted. Nobody who they’ve taken out is any worse off than they were before The Shield showed up. So yeah, they’ve had some fun matches and the guys themselves are some new blood, but exactly no change and no justice has come from any of their actions. What a bummer that is.
WrestleMania Buyrate Not A Flop, So What Now?
So it turns out that all of those doom and gloom reports about a scary low buyrate were wrong. The initial reported figure for WrestleMania 29 is 1.2 million buys worldwide, which is just below the 1.25 that was pulled in by WrestleMania 23 and still holds the record. Well darn. Okay, so lots of people still bought the show, even with the higher price and the rematch main event. My feeling on the matter is that they’re going to continue with the theme of returning former stars for one more year, then maybe at WM 31 they’ll start focusing on younger stars. Ideally, they could put the part timers in big lower card matches and then close the show with a young guy making himself in the main event. I don’t see it happening, but it would be nice.
The Rock Claims He May Be Done
Last week during a Twitter Q&A, The Rock said that his match at WrestleMania against Cena may well be his final contest. I don’t believe it, because I surely think they still want to do Rock v. Brock next year and I firmly believe it will end up happening, but golly I wouldn’t miss Rock if WM 29 was it. No matter how you look at it, Rock wasn’t the entertaining performer this last go around that he was in the past. It was a nice novelty to have him around and Punk did everything he could to bring the best out of him in January and February, but the shine is off now and the arduous three-year story arc is finally over, so see ya later, so long, farewell. I’d be open to seeing him in a program with somebody new and different but I have no interest in a match with another part-timer.
Responding To Some Comments
On Recent Crowd Behavior: It’s true that it may seem like a double standard, and that’s not entirely untrue. I feel that the crowd in New Jersey the night after WrestleMania were voicing their confusion and displeasure of the situation — they were told it was going to be Orton vs. Big Show, then the match got changed on them with no explanation. Orton and Sheamus have been complete lame ducks forever, and they haven’t been feuding, and they were wrestling each other for a shot at wrestling The Big Show in a match that would have zero stakes. That’s a pretty crappy situation. Honestly, I’m not a fan of what happened. It was weird and different, which made the show from that point on interesting to watch, but if they REALLY wanted to make a point that they didn’t care, then a simple “boring” chant and not reacting when Big Show came out would have done more. After that, though, the show was pretty shitty anyway, and they had to do something to keep themselves awake. Seems to me that the crowd in London on Monday did it just to do it, not because they were bored, confused and annoyed.
On Fandango Getting Decisive Wins: I based my opinion on the idea that Jericho wasn’t going to be around for any followup. Without a rematch, Fandango should have either lost the match or won after hitting a finisher. With a rematch likely, the cheap rollup victory is fine, because they’re building to the second match having a clear, true winner. It doesn’t even matter which guy wins as long as Fandango doesn’t look like a loser. It’s probably actually better for Fandango to lose a decisive rematch. Give them 10-12 minutes and have Fandango tap to the Walls after looking like an equal during the match. That way the douchebag gets his comeuppance but isn’t buried.
On Cage Matches: The cage itself is fine. I think the rules are fine as well, but the onus is on the booking. Cage matches don’t matter right now because nobody really believes that the cage keeps other guys out since somebody interferes successfully in every single one of them. There’s no blood anymore, so the brutality factor really takes a hit. On second thought, maybe they should take the pinfall/submission part out of it and make it all about getting out of the cage. It’s ineffective as a weapon because without blood there’s no visual payoff for using it. Instead of playing it up as a dangerous environment, they should do cage matches with the whole idea being that a coward is stuck inside with the guy he’s been running from, and now he has an obstacle in his way. The other guy has him in a situation that makes it hard to run, but to win, all the coward has to to is run away one more time. The good guy wins after finally getting his hands on the bad guy and easily making his way out of the cage when he has his opponent down and out.
– WWE is planning to bring up NXT guys some time soon, however news is that Triple H will not have anybody brought up to the main roster without a long term plan set in place for them. In related news, never expect to see anybody new ever again.
– Rey Mysterio is being advertised for the Money in the Bank PPV in July as well as that month’s Australian tour. Hey, what happened to Sin Cara? Is he hurt again? What did he do?
– Naomichi Marufuji is injured and won’t be able to appear for ROH this weekend, so they went out and got Paul London as a replacement. That’s awesome. Now on May 4 it’s going to be London v. Davey Richards and on May 5 it’s London v. Michael Elgin, which I am super amped to see. That should be the tits. The tits indeed. That’s a fun saying.
– In a short meeting last week, Vince McMahon seems to believe that the WWE Network will still be a thing, and that it will be successful. He also says that the three hour RAW shows are a good thing, even though his employees seem to hate them. Nobody ever claimed he was in tune with what the hell is going on, I guess. He did just make $72 million dollars in one weekend, though, so who am I to pontificate?
TNA Wrestling
Triple Ladder Match: Low Ki v. Jerry Lynn v. AJ Styles || TNA Wrestling PPV #11 – August 28, 2002
From Murray Peterson: “That match was fantastic. After about fifteen minutes I was going to say that the finish would be anti-climatic. There had only been a few attempts at the belt, as most of the action taking place around the ladders. Then, in the final minutes, all three men’s attempts to take down the belt really legitimized everything.”
The greatest song of our generation?
– Nicholas A. Marsico
