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Wrestling’s 4R’s 6.03.13: TNA Impact & WWE Smackdown Reviewed
How the 4R’s of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. We will group our feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and needs discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come. This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, our goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. We will not apologize for our opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.
Impact 5.30.13:
By: Maxwell Baumbach
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
Samoa Joe is Pissed Off: Despite my complaints that Joe and Magnus are essentially occupying the Aces and Eights B-Team, TNA and Joe in particular made the best of a bad situation. Joe and Magnus fended off Aces and Eights when they surrounded Dixie Carter. Joe then cut great promos before and after the match where he sounded fired up and announced the return of Jeff Hardy. Joe’s anger added legitimacy to this portion of the Aces and Eights feud and made it feel important.
Brooke Hogan, Actual Human-Being: When Brooke comes out in front of the live crowd, her acting skills suffer. She gets nervous, and doesn’t seem natural. However, in her backstage segment with Hulk Hogan, she delivered one of her best performances yet. Brooke’s acting was on point, and she seemed actually torn up over Bully Ray despite her better judgment. The way Brooke was behaving was in-line with real life experiences that I have had with women in similar situations, and which made this segment seem real.
Making Gunner Look Good: Last week I was annoyed by Gunner being chosen as James Storm’s partner at Slammiversary. This week, TNA put the focus on Gunner during the eight-man tag team match. Gunner’s intensity came through well, and giving him the fall put him on the level of his opponents at Slammiversary.
Bully Ray Talks to Aces and Eights: Although we have seen many segments with Aces and Eights backstage saying that they are declaring war on TNA, Bully took this one up a notch. From his perspective, Slammiversary is huge for Aces and Eights, and this promo showcased that. This gave insight into the struggle of the Aces and Eights characters, and gave a greater understanding to the fans of how important Sunday will be for them.
Sting and Joseph Park vs. Team 3-D: Sting and Bully Ray are going to be headlining Slammiversary on Sunday, and this week that rivalry was tied in with another feud. In theory, that’s fine. However, that feud involves Joseph Park, who is a comedy character. If the go-home show to Summerslam during the WWE’s rendition of the Summer of Punk saw John Cena teaming with Santino, people would not be happy. I feel that the same holds true here.
Mickie is Blatantly Disingenuous, Velvet Does Not Catch On: I thought that Mickie James killed it on Thursday. Her delivery was completely insincere, and it was obvious that she was going out of her way to try and justify her not-so-friendly actions. However, instead of Velvet Sky smelling the bullshit, TNA had her act as if Mickie was being genuine. When Gail Kim and Taryn came out, things got muddled, and any potential that the segment had quickly went away.
Inter-Gender Tag + Suicide is in the Ultimate X Match Also!: Following the basic King/Kim vs. Sabin/Terrell tag team match, Kenny King jumped Chris Sabin. Suicide then came out and hit his finisher on King. Suicide has been background noise this entire feud, and as Jonathan Sullivan noted, he is clearly being shoehorned into this feud.
Mr. Anderson vs. AJ Styles, Everyone Brawls: The Anderson/Styles match was just alright, and it ended in a DQ following a run-in from Kurt Angle. This led to the standard “everyone brawls!” segment that TNA loves to do before every pay-per-view, and the focus was quickly shifted to Sting and Bully Ray. While it makes sense to focus the final part of television time going into a pay-per-view on the main-event match, I felt like it diminished AJ Styles’ value. It appears as if he is going to be a big part of storylines going forward, and this made him appear as an afterthought.
AJ’s Return to the Ring, For Free!: To continue on the AJ Styles train, TNA has built a great deal of intrigue around him. A lot of people are looking forward to his match with Kurt Angle on Sunday, particularly because it has been a long time since we’ve seen him in the ring. By having AJ’s return match on Impact, they took away a part of the appeal for his match on Sunday.
The Inherent Problem with the X-Division Format: Kenny King and Chris Sabin are currently in a singles feud. However, due to the new format of the X-Division, they cannot have a singles match. This makes it next to impossible to develop individual rivalries, build them up, and blow them off without in a satisfactory way.
TNA had a big opportunity to deliver going into their Slammiversary event. However, instead we got what felt like a fairly standard episode. Rather than building matches or making things more intriguing, it felt like TNA was in a holding pattern this week, and that they were just waiting for the pay-per-view. Show Rating: 5.5 As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale… 0 – 0.9: Torture |
By: Tony Acero
Smackdown! 05.31.13:
QUICK RESULTS
– Kane Defeated Seth Rollins [***]
– Roman Reigns Defeated Daniel Bryan via DQ [**1/2]
– Curtis Axel Defeated Sin Cara [*]
– Big E Langston Defeated Alberto Del Rio [**]
– Ryback Defeated Kofi Kingston [*1/2]
– Chris Jericho Defeated Cody Rhodes [**]
– Randy Orton Defeated Dean Ambrose via DQ [***]
BELIEVE IN THE SHIELD: What a way to start the show! I’ve not really mentioned the voice-overs to start each show mainly because they’re pretty damned cheesy, but for whatever reason, this week’s Smackdown one really set the tone for the show and was solid. I mean, the entirety of Smackdown was pretty awesome, and we’ll get to that in a second, but it really seemed like as if this episode was in a vacuum of some sort. Anyways, we start with Kane and Rollins, and I thought they had a pretty good match. Rollins worked the leg, it started a little bit slow, but it picked up fast and didn’t let up. Daniel caused the distraction, which lead to the win and gave The Shield a bit of their own medicine. Just as the dust settled on their match we moved right into the next! It’s a little thing, but it made this entire first thirty minutes of the show really awesome.
So the second match was a bit different, but again Daniel Bryan was the star. He was angry, aggressive, and bad ass. Kickin ropes n shit. I especially liked that leg lock into droppin elbows on the face of Reigns. That shit looked brutal, and all the more menacing considering the size difference between Reigns and Bryan. Kane causing the DQ adds a bit more dissension and Bryan’s actions really foreshadowed the main event aftermath.
SANDOW, MEET BOOT: Last week, I flubbed up with writing that Sheamus Brogue Kicked Sandow instead of saying he attempted to. I was met with disdain as I harped on Sheamus’s character and how he is essentially Cena-lite. I still stand by that, but I will minimize the vitriol tonight because Sandow did something here that kind of altered the way the feud may continue. Sandow is a great heel, and he really upped the sleaze tonight. His slight-of-hand cheating, and his berating of the crowd and Sheamus made even JBL want to kick his teeth in. So when Sheamus Brogue kicked him into oblivion, I wasn’t as upset as I would have been last week. Although there is minimal reason, and it’s not “justified,” sometimes we just want to see people like Sandow get their teeth knocked out. This will be all the better if/when Sandow gets his one-up next week, or at the PPV.
BIG E VS DEL RIO: This will have been the fourth time we’ve seen this, right? Still, I can’t help but feel that it’s not simply a means to an end. There’s a story being told here, and although I’m not even sure the WWE knows what they’re doing, something organically may stem from this and if a new guy gets an opportunity to shine, then so be it. The little things, like AJ’s little “Did you see what I did? No? Oh…well ok then” face and Big E pretty much ignoring her seem to be leading up to something. At this rate, Del Rio will most likely get his match with Dolph, but I think they’re attempting to shift the spotlight elsewhere, and I’m at least interested.
POOR KOFI: What a send off. This was a great way to keep someone looking strong and send a favorite home for some R&R. I said last week on air that Kofi was really growing into something, and he was actually being looked at (at least with my eyes) as a main eventer. The first few minutes of this match was fuckin awesome. Kofi was going crazy in that ring, and it just wasn’t good enough. If you didn’t get excited here, you may have watched tired because Kofi had me up and smiling.
JERICHO-RHODES: This match was short, but effective. Cody didn’t look like a chump, and Jericho looked strong. This was a nice little calm before the storm that was the main event. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but was still a nice little match that kept the show moving.
AMBROSE AND ORTON: This match had some awesome energy and a lot of good things mixed in. I loved Orton continuously chasing Ambrose out of the ring every time he tried to escape. It was great storytelling. Of course, the match was cut short due to interference, but what happened afterwards was…gold.
CRAZY BRYAN: I spoke a bit about Bryan in the RAW Rs and how effective he is as a wrestler and story teller. The man does the little things that matter, and is consistent. But please tell me you weren’t shocked at the last couple of minutes of Smackdown so I can smack you for lying. When Kane and Bryan came down to help Orton, I figured it’d be a run-of-the-mill save with the three faces clearing the ring and standing tall. Never did I expect to see Bryan go ape-shit and destroy The Shield single-handedly. And don’t give me that burial crap where it’s unbelievable that Bryan could do this, and we only back it up because he’s our beloved hero. That’s simply not the case here. I could try and kayfabe an explanation that would have something to do with exhaustion, being “on it” and bla bla bla, but I won’t even elaborate on that and instead just focus on how COOL it was! The last few minutes of Smackdown was those minutes where you were like “oh…OH…OOHHHHH!!!” It was a build up of emotion and due to Bryan proclaiming he wasn’t the weak link the last few weeks, it all culminated in a great end to a solid ass edition of Smackdown.
NOTHING
THAT PAUL HEYMAN GUY: If you want to keep this guy interesting, putting him in short squash matches won’t do it.
DID YOU WATCH RAW?: This was really close to the Ridiculous section, because I see absolutely no need for all this, but considering how good the show was, it put me in a good mood. A rough estimate of time was about 17 minutes here that was wasted on recapping RAW. We got the entire match of Curtis and Cena, which wasn’t bad but also wasn’t necessary. Then we got the entire Jericho and Heyman segment, which, again, wasn’t bad but also wasn’t necessary. This was 17 full minutes, that’s like 17 Ryback squashes. That’s like one Triple H Promo. That’s like….17 minutes we could have used to have AJ do nothing but stare at the camera…
NOTHING
This week’s Smackdown was awesome. No filler, good to great matches, a natural progression of storylines, and it also felt like a stand alone episode. Almost as if someone else wrote it completely. If that’s the case, I like that guy. This is the perfect example of how a show should be written; able to stand on its own, but also a piece of a larger puzzle that culminates at the PPV. Solid, solid effort from all angles. SHOW RATING: 9.0 |
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