wrestling / Columns

Wrestling’s 4Rs 7.12.13: WWE Raw, ROH TV and NJPW on iPPV

July 12, 2013 | Posted by Larry Csonka

How the 4Rs 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 need 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.


Let’s rock…

 photo KizunaRoad_zps3e63a4a7.jpg
New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Kizuna Road iPPV 7.05.13

  • Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Super Strong Machine beat Toru Yano & Takashi Iizuka & Jado via DQ in 9:08 [**]
  • Kushida & Togi Makabe & Tiger Mask & Manabu Nakanishi beat Hirooki Goto & Yuji Nagata & Captain New Japan & Takaaki Watanabe [**½]
  • Minoru Suzuki & Taka Michinoku & Taichi beat Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov & Tomohiro Ishii in 11:38 [***½]
  • Shinsuke Nakamura & Masato Tanaka & Yujiro Takahashi beat Tetsuya Naito & Tomoaki Honma & La Sombra in 12:52 [***½]
  • Karl Anderson & King Fale beat Kazuchika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi in 9:22 [*½]
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jushin Liger beat El Terrible & Tama Tonga to win the CMLL tag titles in 12:12 [***½]
  • Prince Devitt pinned Gedo in 18:11 to retain the IWGP Jr. Title [****]
    The Tirade

    New Japan Pro Wrestling returned to iPPV on July 5th, which was a questionable move to many. They have a show scheduled for July 20th, which is a big show, so this not only broke the once a month format but was also a self admitted “B-Style” show, with a reduced price. But even as a “B-Show,” it was a really enjoyable show that did a very good job of setting up the July 20th iPPV event. While I can see the argument for the show not being an iPPV, I loved it for the fact that I have been enjoying the NJPW product a lot and it allowed me to see more of it. There was only one dog of a match, Karl Anderson & King Fale vs. Kazuchika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi, which considering Anderson and Okada were in there, was surprising.

    Minoru Suzuki, Taka Michinoku & Taichi vs. Rocky Romero, Alex Koslov & Tomohiro Ishii, Shinsuke Nakamura, Masato Tanaka & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito, Tomoaki Honma & La Sombra and Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jushin Liger vs. El Terrible & Tama Tonga were all strong and enjoyable undercard matches. I personally liked Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jushin Liger winning the CMLL tag titles, as it made me care about the titles with two stars getting them, and it is also CMLL’s way of paying NJPW back with La Sombra holding the IWGP IC Title. Add in the fact that it gives Tanahashi something to do while not in the IWGP Title scene, and it is a win-win.

    Prince Devitt vs. Gedo as the main event worked on many levels. First of all putting Prince Devitt in the main event put the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title in the main event. While this was a “B Show,” he title is usually kept to the mid-card, so putting it in the main event sends a message that the title means something. Secondly, Devitt in the main event and winning is the perfect set up for his upcoming IWGP Title match against Okada. Add in the fact that this was a damn fine main event match (Gedo can still go when called upon) and this all worked out well.

    Overall this was a very enjoyable show, and I feel even more in sync with the NJPW product due to being able to see the show. I think that a lot of people skipped the show due to the perception of it being “a B-Show,” but the scary thing is that a new Japan B Show comes off a lot better than a lot of people’s “A Show.”

    Show Rating: 7.4

    As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

    0 – 0.9: Torture
    1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
    2 – 2.9: Very Bad
    3 – 3.9: Bad
    4 – 4.9: Poor
    5 – 5.9: Not So Good
    6 – 6.9: Average
    7 – 7.9: Good
    8 – 8.9:Very Good
    9 – 9.9: Amazing
    10: Virtually Perfect

    As a reminder, this is not a basic “how good was the show” number like a TV show, as I have always felt that a PPV is very different from a regular show. I have always judged PPV on how they built to a match, the match quality, crowd reactions to matches and angles, the overall booking, how the PPV leads into the future, PPV price and so on and so forth. I have added this in here for an explanation since so many have asked, and I have previously discussed it on podcasts. I understand that this may seem different, but that is how I grade. Obviously your criteria may be different.



    By: Shawn S. Lealos

    ROH Television 07.06.13:
    QUICK RESULTS:

  • C&C Wrestle Factory def. The Beaver Boys
  • Adam Page def. Silas Young
  • Matt Taven def. Eddie Edwards (TV title match)
  • THE RIGHT:
    Nigel McGuinness and Kevin Steen – It is about time that Kevin Steen started cutting promos again. Basically, this was Nigel talking about how Mark Briscoe is out of action indefinitely with a major concussion following his match against Jay for the world title. As a result, Team ROH needed a new member for their big Steel Cage Warfare match with SCUM (I’m thinking this is a War Games style match). That brought out Kevin Steen. Nigel asked why he should trust the man who started SCUM and Corino agreed that no one should trust Steen. Then SCUM attacked, which brought out Jay Lethal, BJ Whitmer and Michael Elgin to save Steen for the first time since he left SCUM. This was a nice setup to the big match at the end of July.

    Silas Young vs. Adam Page – This is one of the best free TV matches I have seen in a long time, which is shocking because it is Silas Young and Adam Page. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Silas Young is a more athletic version of Dirty Dick Slater and Adam Page is a young version of Flyin’ Brian Pillman. Before the match started, Silas cut a promo talking about being embarrassed about following a women’s match because women don’t belong in the ring. The, he made fun of Page’s hair. When the match started, I thought it would be just another filler match. However, these two guys laid it all out there and both men proved they belong in Ring of Honor. It took like 30 seconds before the match spilled out to the floor and they beat the holy hell out of each other. A big highlight outside of the ring was Adam Page superplexing Silas Young from the top of the ringside barricade to the floor. What is most impressive is that these two guys weren’t just moving from move to move, but they were actually telling one hell of a great story in the match. They had the crowd chanting “this is awesome” and the crowd was right. This was better than the main event and these two guys became stars tonight.

    Matt Taven vs. Eddie Edwards – This match had a lot to follow, and while it was a really good match, it just couldn’t live up to the Silas Young and Adam Page match. However, it was lucky that the fans were so excited after that match because they carried it over here. Eddie was fighting a great match, as expected from him, and Taven is growing into his role. Taven picked up the upset win with the pump handle headlock driver after Truth Martini’s ho’s distracted Eddie. It was a decent match and there was nothing wrong with it, but it seemed a little less because of the match before it.

  • PURGATORY:
    C&C Wrestle Factory vs. The Beaver Boys – This match wasn’t bad, but there was just something missing. I think a lot of it had to do with no one knowing much about the Beaver Boys, who were making their ROH debut as a tag team. Alex Reynolds was pretty generic, but John Silver was pretty good as the “little man complex” bad guy. There was also a great moment on commentary when Kevin Kelly called Silver an annoying guy and Steve Corino asked why he was annoying – just because he is short? Then Corino pointed out that Davey Richards is just as short and even more annoying. Good stuff there. The end came in front of Adrenaline RUSH (ACH and Tadarius Thomas), who stood in the doorway watching with smirks on their faces. I don’t really want them to turn RUSH bad, but as long as they keep pulling off their amazing moves, it might work. As you can see, the stuff surrounding the match was more memorable than the match itself.

  • THE WRONG:
    Veda Scott vs. Mschif – If I was only judging the final two minutes of this match, it would get an overwhelming RIGHT as Mschif hit Veda with all the big moves and Veda kept kicking out. It was a fantastic finish. The rest of the match was complete BALLS. Basically, Veda moved WAY too slow to make anything exciting. It was like she was walking into Mschif’s next move. This match was really, really bad – until the end. The match was so bad, I can’t give it a Purgatory for the solid end because what led up to it was horrible.

  • THE RIDICULOUS:
    Production Values – The lights came on to show Adrenaline RUSH in the entryway watching the opening match, and they never went back off. This caused us to see the empty seats around the arena, and even more distracting, the GIANT windows in the arena were uncovered and the light shone through. Now, I am not usually complaining about things like this, but the wide camera angles they used this week made the show really look low class. Not a good move for a promotion that wants to compete with TNA.

    The 411

    Silas Young and Adam Page was easily the best ROH TV match I have seen in a long time. It was really, really great. The main event was pretty good too, making this an easy episode to recommend. I just can’t get over how the production look dropped thanks to the bright spotlights, the giant windows in the background and the wide camera angles showing a small attendance. But, for the wrestling, there was little to complain about this week.

    SHOW RATING: 7.5



    By: Jack Stevenson

    Raw 07.08.13:

    QUICK MATCH RESULTS:

  • Daniel Bryan d. Sheamus
  • The Shield d. Tons of Funk
  • Chris Jericho d. Curtis Axel
  • Alberto Del Rio d. Sin Cara
  • Kane d. Christian
  • Kaitlyn & Layla N/C AJ & Alicia Fox
  • CM Punk d. Randy Orton

    THE RIGHT:
    Happy Days: While the overarching job evaluation storyline is deathly dull, I rather enjoyed Guerrero’s promo to open the show; it was a nice mixture of heelish self-delusion and crowd-pandering, with a cool visual of the charismatic Vickie sitting at the top of the ladder cutting her promo. I also liked that the segment essentially had the entirety of the show set-up within seven minutes; it took Smackdown longer to put together a measly ten-minute main event. Getting the fans to evaluate Vickie’s performance is a nice idea as well. A decent start to the show.

    Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan: This was a fairly easy ‘right.’ The near-falls went on for perhaps a little too long, but this was still a tremendous opener, with tons of great sequences, smooth near-falls, and close two counts. This wouldn’t have looked out of place in the early stages of a PPV.

    Waiting for Wyatt So throughout the show, to build to the Wyatt Family’s debut, we got a series of vignettes in which a WWE.com reporter tried to track down the group’s lair. And while they never ended up going anywhere, they were really, really creepy (the bit where Luke Harper appeared for the first time made me flinch quite violently it was such a shock) and helped build anticipation up that little bit more, very effectively. Good work.

    Chris Jericho vs. Curtis Axel: I am not even close to a Curtis Axel bandwagon, let alone actually being on it, but he’s very competent in the ring and with a solid personality like Chris Jericho can definitely have decent matches. And this a decent match, with a good pace and a smart finish, which underlines Jericho’s wily-veteran credentials and gives him a big win, while pushing the Miz-Axel rivalry forwards slightly. Decent stuff.

    puRgatoRy:
    The Shield vs. Tons of Funk: I was surprised at how competitive this actually was. Tons of Funk got quite a bit of offense in. Sadly, not much of it was interesting, but the bout did heat up enough for an entertaining final stretch. I really wish the Shield looked a bit more dominant, but this was OK.

    Sin Cara vs. Alberto Del Rio: I’m fond of Sin Cara, Alberto Del Rio, and watered down American lucha. I’m not a fan of fan-favorite Dolph Ziggler. These two things cancel each other out and put this in purgatory.

    Randy Orton vs. CM Punk: This was a perfectly fine main event, albeit not on the level of their superb series from two years ago. Some decent near falls, slick sequences… all very acceptable, though not very memorable. I’m really not certain what’s going on with Daniel Bryan but I think his post match attack on both men was an attempt at putting him in the forefront for Money in the Bank rather than an indicate that he might be becoming a fully-fledged rule breaker. A little weird though.

    THE WRONG:
    Endgame I expect this will be the final promo in the Cena-Henry saga, with the perennial champion winning at the PPV and moving on to probably Daniel Bryan for Summerslam. Anyway, I didn’t really get this. It seemed all over the place with no coherent point to it; less a promo than a string of barely connected comments on Sunday’s main event. There was some general posturing and they talked about fear for a bit and then a potentially interesting strand came up when both men started to talk about how much Henry had sacrificed for this world title shot, and whether it was all worth it, but then Henry bellowed that he didn’t care about any of said sacrifices, killing that topic, and they almost brawled but didn’t, and that was that. To be honest, I don’t really want an introspective Mark Henry, I want an ass-kicking, wig-splitting monster, but that would have been preferable to this slightly disjointed segment.

    Vickie Guerrero’s Last Tape: OH I DON’T CARE. This would be fine if Vickie Guerrero hadn’t already been General Manager 23,000 times and will be a further 23,000, or if the General Manager of Raw made the slightest bit of difference to the way the show actually felt, but it doesn’t. Brad Maddox is GM now and nothing will change and then he will leave and the cycle will continue and it will never ever be even remotely interesting. On the plus side, this story is maaaaaaaaybe over? Hopefully. Brad Maddox is the most dashingly handsome General Manager in Raw history. And I liked Vince McMahon appearing to admit that corporate America is patriarchal. Feminist Vince McMahon was unexpected but welcome.

    Catastrophe: This is a wrong with a caveat; if this was just a one off attack, or even if it initiates a short feud between Kane and the Wyatts that the family win convincingly, I have little issue with this beyond the silly fans chanting “Husky Harris” as if it validated their existences that they watched NXT in 2010. Seriously, what do you get out of chanting something like that? I can understand if you’re dissatisfied with a segment or a show, that’s fine, be as obnoxious as you like (within reason) but The Wyatt’s had done nothing wrong, people were positively excited to see them debut, and you want to kill some of the mystery surrounding them for, I don’t even know what reason, you think WWE will broadcast 3 hours of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan wanking each other off if you prove your internet credentials to them maybe? But I digress. The issue I had with this segment as a whole was the anti-climax of the whole thing. I was convinced going into this the Wyatt’s would attack the McMahons. They’d been built up as such a big deal for so long that I thought that they would go right for top-level talent with a vicious beatdown and it would be awesome. Instead, they initiated a fairly lacklustre attack on someone who’s most worthwhile work this decade has come in a comedy tandem with Daniel Bryan. There were good things about this segment; the visual of Bray Wyatt creeping down to the ring with his barbed wire lantern was fantastic, and all the Wyatt Family clearly have acting skills, but this was all rather under whelming.

    Kaitlyn & Layla vs. AJ & Alicia Fox: This was as lacklustre as the other chapters in the Kaitlyn-AJ rivalry, with unwelcome added fat-shaming from the Bellas on commentary. Nothing worthwhile here.

    THE RIDICULOUS:
    NOTHING

    The 411:

    Up to and including the Jericho-Axel match this episode was coming together relatively nicely, and then it all rather predictably fell off a cliff. The Vickie Guerrero job evaluation was dreary, the Wyatt Family disappointing, and the Orton-CM Punk main event not good enough to pick things up to any great extent. Perhaps watch the opening hour or so to catch the excellent Sheamus-Bryan match and some of the Wyatt vignettes, and then maybe just turn off the TV and imagine the rest of the show?

    Show Rating: 5.0

    As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

    0 – 0.9: Torture
    1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
    2 – 2.9: Very Bad
    3 – 3.9: Bad
    4 – 4.9: Poor
    5 – 5.9: Not So Good
    6 – 6.9: Average
    7 – 7.9: Good
    8 – 8.9:Very Good
    9 – 9.9: Amazing
    10: Virtually Perfect


  • If you haven’t already, make sure you bookmark 411 or better yet, set us as your homepage! As always, thanks for choosing 411 for all of you pop culture needs!

    The 803rd edition is over…

     photo vqXlWQI_zps5dd16912.gif

    HOLY SHIT IT’S STING!

    Have you checked out the Csonka Podcasting Network? If you haven’t, you should We run anywhere from 15-20 shows a month, discussing pro wrestling, the world of MMA, the NBA, general sports, popular TV series of the past, bad movies, battle rap, interviews, MMA & Wrestling conference calls and more! Around 10 different personalities take part in the various shows, which all have a different feel; so you’ll likely find something you like. All of the broadcasts are free, so go ahead and give a show a try and share the link with your friends on the Twitter Machine and other social media outlets! Running since May of 2011, there are currently over 350 shows in the archive for you to listen to.

    Listen to internet radio with Larry Csonka on BlogTalkRadio

    Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it…TO CSONKA’S TWITTER!

    http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
    http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
    http://www.twitter.com/411music
    http://www.twitter.com/411games
    http://www.twitter.com/411mma

  • article topics

    Larry Csonka