Sports Entertainment 720 News Report 11.14.13

I’m back for more. Welcome to week number 2 of Sports Entertainment 720. I’d like to thank everyone for their honest comments and suggestions for the column. I was a victim of the ol’ Jericho Curse for column number 1, but I’m going to keep coming back for more and working to improve every week. As for the name change, I went with The Thursday Sports Entertainment Report because I liked the name. I got a congratulatory tweet from Sean Kelly and fully intended to move on with the name because it was straight to the point. Then I thought of another name that made me laugh and thought what the hell, I’ll go with something new. The general consensus was you wanted more opinions from me. Be careful what you wish for…Let’s do this shit!

Why Sports Entertainment 720? Because I stole it from Parks and Recreation will go around the wrestling world twice to get all the news you need. Here we go! First up, Double Double E!

Raw Thoughts
Goldust and Cody defeated Randy Orton via Countout
I’m not sure what the point of this was other than to get Orton to the point where Big Show could chokeslam him through the announce table. And it was a hell of a chokeslam. Did anyone else cringe when they saw the way Orton was holding his shoulder? Looked too much like the time he was injured in his match with Triple H a few years ago.

Los Matadores and Santino defeated The Union Jacks (3MB)
So what was the point of 3MB coming out as the Union Jacks? Cheap heat? Because the crowd seemed to like it. Of course, this is the same crowd that was chanting for themselves and that guy in the Superman suit. Twice.

Damien Sandow defeated Kofi Kingston
I feel like WWE has pattern of putting people near the main event level and then bringing them down to the mid card just to bring them up again. Sandow is working his way back up, and if you listen to the reports, he is destined to make his way up to main event status.

Curtis Axel defeated Dolph Ziggler
I can’t get behind Axel. Even being a Paul Heyman guy he still has zero charisma and average in ring skills. I don’t know what happened to Ziggler that put him in this spot of chasing the IC belt, but it seems a bit beneath him at this point.

Tamina defeated Nikki Bella Cena
Fandango defeated Tyson Kidd
Nobody gives a shit about your Total Divas storylines. Keep that crap on E!.

John Cena defeated the Real Americans
Props to Zeb for getting the We The People phrase over enough that the British said it with him. This was your typical Cena beats the odds handicap match, but what else do you expect when he gets in the ring? So…what was the highlight for everyone? The Cena powerbomb or Cena eating an uppercut from Cesaro? Thought so.

R-Truth defeated Ryback
The non dominant Ryback story continues. They seem to have knocked him down a peg and his match with Khali backs that up. He got the shit chopped out of him for awhile before he was finally able to end the match. Now he actually has a clean loss to R-Truth and I for one have no problem with that.

Alberto Del Rio Defeated Big E Langston
Big E is getting the upper mid card tryout right now, getting involved with the bigger players and he seems to be holding his own. I wonder how much of this comes from all the time he spent working out in John Cena’s gym?

Punk and Daniel Bryan vs The Shield went to a no contest
I like the team of Bryan and Punk but the part of this segment that everyone was talking about was the Wyatt Family vs The Shield. Heels fighting heels rarely happens in the E, so this was an awesome moment to watch. wwe.com made the announcement that Punk and Bryan will face Harper and Rowan in a tag team match at Survivor Series. I thought they were heading for a traditional Survivor Series match and may still be, but for now it’s 2 on 2.

Smackdown Preview
The Wyatt Family vs. The Usos
Tamina Snuka vs. Natalya
The Prime Time Players and R-Truth vs. 3MB
The Great Khali vs. Hunico and Camacho
CM Punk and Daniel Bryan vs. Ryback and Curtis Axel
Looking at that lineup gives me that read the spoilers and leave the show on for noise feeling. Honestly, when is the last time anyone said “Man! I can’t wait for Smackdown!”

There were 4 matches on Impact last week, and none of them went past 10 minutes. I have some thoughts about 2 of those matches. The first match of the night was ODB vs. Brooke Tessmacher vs. Velvet Sky in a number one contenders match. The result of a match was a no contest due to interference from Gail Kim and Lei’D Tapa. I seem to remember a few years ago when it became the norm for a triple threat match to be no disqualifications and no countouts. There has to be a winner. But this is TNA, so they decide to throw together a triple threat match just to have the competitors get destroyed. This led to Kim issuing an open challenge to any woman not on the roster. I really hope this is going somewhere.

The second match I want to address is the main event between Jeff Hardy and Chris Sabin. This was a Full Metal Mayhem match, and if you add the reveal of the upcoming Aries/Angle match this week you’ll see that the Wheel of Dixie will just happen to cater to what the wrestlers are known for. So you have Jeff Hardy, wreckless daredevil, against the current X-Division and former World Heavyweight Champion Chris Sabin wrestling in a hardcore match in the main event of the program. How much time does this match get? 10 minutes. Hardy and Sabin went out there and did the cliff notes version of a hardcore match and both of them were injured. Hardy obviously cracked a tooth and Sabin had a laceration on his leg. They also were monitoring him for concussion symptoms. This is the part that bothers me the most. With this new concept of Where The Action Never Ends we get to see behind the scenes footage. If you watch the video below you’ll see Sabin being attended to. If this is kayfabe, Sabin needs to work on his acting skills. There’s nothing wrong with footage of stitches or a chipped tooth, but faking concussions for YouTube hits is wrong to me.

I have a confession to make. I bought it when Ace’s and 8’s was appearing to disband. My actual thoughts were: “Well, this makes sense. I’m sure Garett is on the way out with his dad leaving, and this group seems to have run it’s course.” Which was followed by “son of a bitch…” when the group joined forces to attack Ken Anderson. This will of course lead to a stipulation match to determine the fate of the group. Damn it TNA, you got me this time.

Coming up on Impact tonight we have the main event of Kurt Angle vs. Austin Aries in a Submission Match, Gail Kim’s open challenge, and the Wheel of Dixie takes another spin to determine the match types for Bobby Roode vs. James Storm and Samoa Joe vs. Magnus. With the brawling we’ve seen between Roode and Angle, I’d say they will cost each other their matches leading to a match down the road.

And now the fake news…

News Bites
-A few boastful claims on Twitter this week as Jake Roberts claimed that Triple H stole the cerebral assassin gimmick from him and Dusty Rhodes claimed that The Rock would be nowhere without him. This was in reference to the bionic elbow inspiring the People’s Elbow. I think Dusty is a legend and a genius with a mind made for the business, but The Rock could’ve done the Ultimate Warrior splash and still been insanely over with the fans. As for Jake’s claims, why is he just now saying something in 2013? Why didn’t he bring this up 10 years ago? Oh by the way, Dusty deleted his tweets. Wonder if Trips made Joey Styles call him?

-AJ Styles defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in Mexico’s AAA organization and posted a tweet to Dixie Carter about the coverage it received. The Winter of AJ is looking to be like Summer of Punk 2, but with more wrestling. I would like it if this angle continued on for months, in a way similar to how Shane Douglas would’ve booked Punk after his big title win at Money In The Bank 2 years ago. Have AJ show up anywhere and everywhere with that belt. How funny would it be if he made it into the crowd during a WWE show? Not a chance in hell of it happening, but it could create a buzz and maybe up his worth to the WWE if they saw what kind of reaction he could get.

-Kassius Ohno was released last Friday and regenerated as Chris Hero almost instantly. Hero has started taking independent bookings and immediately jumped on the T-shirt wagon that all the indie guys are on, with his CH Shield shirt becoming a top seller in less than 24 hours. Hero had nothing but nice things to say about his time in WWE, and seems to believe he will make his way back. In the meantime, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him show up in ROH or TNA very soon. Maybe he can be Dixie’s illegitimate half brother or something. Until we see you again Kassius Ohno, thanks for the memories. And this meme:

Deadline News
Seems like a few hours before my deadline hits a story comes out and I don’t have a chance to comment on it. Here’s the stuff that it just coming in off the wire.

–Jim Cornette has reopened his website and it’s chock full of good ol’ southern rassilin’ memorabilia. Jim has programs from a billion years ago, trading cards, books, magazines, and so much more for sale. But the main thing I noticed was his lone T-shirt is the Cornette Face image from Botchamania. Jimmy owes Matthew Greg a percentage of those profits.

–Hulk Hogan will be featured on Oprah: Where Are They Now? on OWN this Sunday. I guess nobody at own is a TNA fan. His new wife and thoughts of suicide a few years ago are mentioned in the preview, and I’m sure he’ll mention that time he body slammed a 926 pound Andre The Giant. Brother. Hogan is in great company on this episode which also features Carrot Top and ……Cris Judd. That one guy that was married to Jennifer Lopez for a few months. Damn brother, this doesn’t sound good.

–WWE is listing the Global Wrestling Federation as one of the many video libraries they own. GWF has been airing on ESPN Classic and it is really awful. They probably bought to have more footage of the Von Erichs and Booker T, but the majority of the show that has been airing lately is nothing fantastic. I remember being a kid and freaking out about the Dark Patriot/Patriot storyline, but I doubt much of this footage sees the light of day unless there is a demand for GWF On Demand.

Each week I filter through all the self promotion, Q and A’s, retweets, and TV references to bring you the best of Twitter in the Sports Entertainment world.

I can only assume both Shart Tank & Shark Taint has been someone else’s joke for 4 seasons now. If not, dibs?!

— Colt Cabana (@ColtCabana) November 12, 2013

Do werk! pic.twitter.com/Nvt6oYYAPJ

— Brooke Adams (@BrookeTess) November 12, 2013

Dear @HeymanHustle

I know that whole “Ryback” thing didn’t work out.

I still work here.

#RAW

— Corey Graves (@WWEGraves) November 12, 2013

U had 2 go there. @WWEGraves: I feel like Kane would be an effective supervisor. Nothing motivates quite like threat of being set on fire.

— Jim Ross (@JRsBBQ) November 12, 2013

Colt is his occasional funny self, but Corey Graves wins this week if we’re talking about words. Brooke Adams knows what the people like and for that I salute her. You can follow 411wrestling on Twitter here @411Wrestling and you can follow me here @Jarrod Atkinson.

So what was the big wrestling story this week in your opinion? Did I improve from last week? Did they really cheer for that guy in the Superman suit twice? Do you want more indie coverage? More ROH? More NXT? Less Colt Cabana? Hit the comment section or drop me a line on Twitter. That’s it for this week, until next week, I’ll be praying to the gods of fighting for a Johny Hendricks victory at UFC 167 this weekend. RING THE DAMN BELL!