Friendly Competition 3.24.07
Posted by Sam Caplan on 03.24.2007
ECW On Sci-Fi was unexpectedly good, TNA Impact was perversely entertaining, and as always, I have plenty to say about it all!
You know what's funny? Five months ago, I was loving every minute of TNA Impact while being bored to tears by every passing episode of ECW On Sci-Fi. This week, I thought that we got the best episode of ECW that we've gotten in a long time, while TNA made me feel like I was sitting there watching Dead Alive. Weird how things turn around so quickly, isn't it? I guess that's why they call it...FRIENDLY COMPETITION! (guitar riff)
ECW On Sci Fi Results 3/20/2007
-Chris Masters is still upset that Bobby Lashley broke the Masterlock, but he's going to get revenge by beating Lashley tonight.
-Kevin Thorn and Marcus Cor Von defeated Rob Van Dam and Sabu.
-Gene Snitsky beat the Jobber Of The Week with the Foot Fetish.
-CM Punk defeated Hardcore Holly when Elijah Burke distracted the referee while Kevin Thorn gave Holly a necksnap on the top rope, setting up Punk to give Holly the Go To Sleep for the win. After the commercial break, CM Punk confronts Elijah backstage and tells him that he doesn't need anybody's help, but Elijah tells Punk that the New Breed takes care of their own, and to think on what they could do for him in Money In The Bank. PLEASE let Punk go heel and run with these guys, PLEASE. He is the BEST HEEL EVER.
-Hardcore Hobags do their dance and I go take a leak.
-Elijah Burke scores a clean win over Tommy Dreamer.
-Bobby Lashley beat Chris Masters in a short match. You can always tell that Lashley's about to wrestle when the main event starts at 9:55. The highspot of the match saw Lashley reverse a Masterlock attempt into the Uncle Slam and then hit the PCPowerslam for the win.
TNA Impact Results 3/22/2007
-Kurt Angle says that he, Samoa Joe and Rhino are three huge egos who are going to unite and take out Team Christian. They open the show against Serotonin. Gee, I wonder who's going to win. Sure enough, it's Squash City, and they beat them up so bad they should get arrested for it. I can't imagine what Raven's going to do to them later that could possibly be worse.
-AJ Styles is backstage flipping out because of the trouble Christian got him into by bringing him on board, but Christian threatens to take back his title shot if he doesn't calm down. He says that tonight, the sides are going to even up...he thinks.
-We come back to Raven making it worse by dripping hot wax on his gay lovers. Seriously, it looks like some kind of gay sex party. Not that I've ever been to one, of course.
-Sting is backstage with Abyss...or is it Steve Borden? He says he's never steered Abyss wrong, I guess except for when he told the world about that shooting incident. He says the future belongs to Abyss and that Christian and AJ's future is bleak because it's time for their last rites tonight.
-Back in the ring, Team 3D calls LAX out to the ring and puts them over, then tells us about all the women they beat up. They then blow my mind by pulling out the WWF, WCW, and ECW Tag Team Title belts from their personal trophy case, and offer to put the belts and their legacy on the line against the NWA World Tag Team Title, all or nothing. WOW. Konnan comes to the ring and hobbles out of the wheelchair and into the ring. Konnan tells them that the other titles mean nothing, then challenges Team 3D to an electrified steel cage match for the title. That was a fucking awesome segment.
-Bob Backlund comes to Jim Cornette's office with a urine sample begging for a match at Lockdown since he doesn't eat marijuana. This guy cracks me up, but it's sad that this guy who's almost 60 has a more developed character than most of the guys on the roster. Cornette says he can't wrestle at Lockdown, but offers to let him referee the Austin Starr vs Senshi match...provided he doesn't get involved in Starr's match tonight.
-Eric Young faces Austin Starr, whose jockstrap he couldn't carry on his best day. Robert Roode makes good on his investment by suckerpunching Young and setting up Starr to give him the brainbuster for the win. Roode starts yelling at Young, but Petey Williams comes out and sticks up for him, and they brawl. Williams goes to shake Eric's hand, but Roode pulls him out of the ring.
-Backstage, Jerry Lynn says he's going to drink James Storm's beer and bust it over his head, then tells Christopher Daniels to face him face to face if he has a problem with him. The lights go out and we hear something crashing around in the dark. When the lights come back up, Christopher Daniels (w/ child molester beard) is choking Jerry out.
-Chris Harris is in Cornette's office begging to get back in the ring, but Cornette says that he can't take responsibility for letting Harris back in the ring without a doctor's note. Harris says that's not good enough. Speaking of Storm, we get an announcement that Jerry Lynn's injured and won't make the match, so Storm challenges anyone who wants to get in the ring with him. Predictably, Chris Harris tries to come to the ring, but the hulking muscle of Gail Kim holds him back. Jackie Moore calls her a slut, so Gail runs in and they brawl. Harris runs in and Storm bails and THE CHASE IS ON!!! Harris gets ahold of him briefly, but Storm gets away and we get a shot of Gail's ass. The referees pull them apart, so Gail Kim goes to Cornette demanding a match with Jackie at Lockdown. Jackie runs into the office and they brawl more and yell a lot. Does the Commissioner of TNA seriously not have anything better to put on his office shelves than TNA action figures?
-Sting and Abyss face NWA World Champion Christian Cage and AJ Styles. It occurs to me that we've never seen a Sting vs AJ singles match. Midway through the match, Jim Mitchell comes to ringside with some old lady, and when Abyss sees the old lady, he leaves Sting high and dry and follows them to the back while Don West is like "Who is this woman? What power could this woman possibly have over Abyss?" I guess since all wrestling fans are retards, we're not supposed to figure out that it's Abyss's mother until they tell us. Sting gets AJ in the Scorpion Deathlock, but Scott Steiner (who is apparently the third member of Team Christian) comes out and bashes Sting with a steel pipe and AJ covers for the win.
-ADRENALIN RUSH ADRENALIN RUSH.
Overall Top Ten Ranking
As voted by me. This ranking includes wrestlers from both groups, is done on a week by week basis, is based on a combination of how well they produce in the ring and how much they entertain me, and is entirely subjective.
ECW World Champion: Bobby Lashley (Champion Since 12/3/2006)
NWA World Champion: Christian Cage (Champion Since 1/14/2007)
1)CM Punk
2)Team 3D
3)Elijah Burke
4)Team Angle
5)Scott Steiner
6)Rob Van Dam & Sabu
7)Bob Backlund
8)Marcus Cor Von
9)Austin Starr
10)Gene Snitsky
Dickhead Of The Week: Chris Masters
This guy can't buy respect. Seriously, even if we put aside the strong feelings the IWC has for him, the guy does the smart thing by getting off the gas when faced with the Wellness Program, and he is rewarded by being run down on TV every week for how skinny he's gotten. So he "bulks back up" and what happens? He goes on a losing streak by jobbing to every IC Title wannabe over the course of two months. Then he goes back to the stupid Masterlock Challenge that bored fans to tears in the first place and doesn't do any better this time around. Then the whole thing is mercifully ended by Bobby Lashley, who isn't even on his show, and Masters follows that up by going to ECW and losing a crappy match to Lashley to top it all off. Can it get much worse for The Masterpiece?
Vital Social Issues N' Stuff With Stuart
Am I the only one who noticed how motivated Rob Van Dam & Sabu looked this week? They do always seem to put in an extra effort when they're working together on TV anyway, but they were both on this week. Even knowing they were jobbing going in, they both actually looked like they cared about putting on a good match this time out. Not to knock on them or anything, but you can always tell when their hearts aren't in something because they seriously dog it and blow spots like crazy. I think that having an actual storyline that's going somewhere instead of just being used as job guys for the WWE guys is a big part of that. It showed this week, and not only did they look good themselves this week, but it made for a good match which, in turn, led to Thorn and Cor Von looking good as well, and everybody benefits from that. See what happens when you give the boys a reason to give a damn?
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Speaking of which, did anyone else notice the almost complete lack of non-wrestling content on ECW On Sci-Fi this week? They did the backstage segment with CM Punk and Elijah Burke and the stupid weekly crappy dance, but other than that it was all wrestling. True, they may just be on cruise control going into next week's go home episode (where I expect something big to happen with Bobby Lashley), but it really made for something different. In fact, Van Dam and Sabu weren't the only ones working hard this week, it seemed like everyone was putting in the effort. As sacreligious as this may sound coming out of my mouth, it almost felt like a one hour ROH show because of both the focus on the in-ring product and the effort involved this week. I'm sure that this was just a one-off week where they were killing time while waiting for Wrestlemania, but I'd really love to see more episodes like this in the future.
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The one complaint I had about ECW this week was the Bobby Lashley vs Chris Masters match. Now, I'm going to say that both guys looked like they were trying in this one, especially Masters because he really has something to prove considering how he's been booked lately. But the thing I really want to mention is that they should stop throwing Lashley in there with guys like Masters and Randy Orton because, quite frankly, he's not ready to carry those guys yet. I know he's being groomed to be a major player for years to come, but he's just not at the level where he can take any chump and pull out a good one just yet. I appreciate what it is they're trying to accomplish by having Lashley get all these great wins but, as ludicrous as this may sound, they'd do better to have him get back into a program with Hardcore Holly after Wrestlemania because there's a lot more he can learn from someone like Holly than he could from Masters or Orton. If they're looking to him to carry the ball in the future, now's the time they have to develop him as a worker in addition to building his name on TV.
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Am I the only one who took one look at The Woman We're Not Supposed To Realize Is Abyss's Mom and immediately thought of Judy Bagwell? I guess there's no limit to what kind of crappy angles will be recycled when Vince Russo is in charge. I guess now the storyline is going to play out that Abyss shot his dad so he'd stop beating up his mom or something. But why did she seem so surprised to see him? I mean, she had to know that he was a wrestler, so when this weird guy with 9 1/2 fingers, long hair, a pointy beard, and a bright red suit comes knocking on her door saying "Hey, would you like to come to Orlando with me to go backstage at a wrestling show?", don't you think she might have some inkling that it's got something to do with her son? This is the same kind of moronic, lobotomized crap we get with Michael Cole's commentary. It's not good storytelling, and on the contrary it's irritating and insulting to our intelligence when they do this stupid question asking crap when the answer is totally obvious. Every time a wrestling announcer goes "What is this? Who is this? What's going on?" it makes me want to reach through the screen and FUCKING STRANGLE THE MOTHERFUCKER UNTIL HE SHUTS THE GODDAMN FUCK UP.
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I'm sorry to say that I'm not totally enthusiastic about the new direction of Christopher Daniels' character. For one, I always think that facepaint is a sign of the beginning of a downward spiral, but I thought that this whole disappearance/refocusing angle was to bring Daniels back and have him do something other than go for the X-Division Title. Now here he is jumping Jerry Lynn, another X guy, and while it will no doubt lead to some excellent matches at the next PPV or two, it's also a little disheartening. If they were going to keep Daniels in the X-Division, I would have preferred they just keep him the way he was. You know who got reinvented and went absolutely nowhere? Remember LOD 2000? Remember El Matador? Granted, Daniels is nowhere near as over the hill as they were, but sometimes coming out with a new look but not actually doing anything differently just drives home the fact that you're stuck in neutral that much more. Daniels is way too talented for that, and I'd hate to see him fall into that trap. He could conceivably win the X-Division Title and then throw it down, proclaiming that the World Title is the only title that means anything to him, but a)that would make the X-Division Title look meaningless (which it probably is in the world of Vince Russo), and b)he's not getting anywhere NEAR the World Title as long as Christian, Joe, and Angle are around.
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One thing TNA has been doing well is the way they've handled the Chris Harris vs James Storm feud. They've done a great job of building anticipation to the eventual blowoff match by seriously limiting their contact with one another. Too often we see tag teams break up and then they're facing each other at the next PPV, or even on free TV. TNA's been very smart in the way they've handled Storm-Harris. They wrote Harris out with a storyline injury and that gave Storm a good 2-3 months to build himself up as a smarmy, cheating heel to get the fans to hate him without Harris around to influence his development. Once Harris did finally show his face again, it got a big pop, but even though he's back on TV, he's not allowed to wrestle because of the injury, so he's reduced to making run-ins after Storm's matches, only to have Storm see him coming and run for the hills. This is all a great way of building anticipation for the blowoff match, and is much better than if they'd had the blowoff match on the first PPV after the breakup and had Storm pin Harris in a tag match two weeks before that. I think that not having opponents in big title/blowoff matches touch before the PPV is a very important touch that's been completely jettisoned in today's wrestling landscape, and it's nice to see that somebody's still willing to give it a shot and that it's producing some great results.
Links To Stuff You Can Read
Andy Clark comes up with Wrestlemania matches that should have been in The Shimmy.
Sam Berman takes us all the way back to 2003 for the first meeting of Samoa Joe and AJ Styles in The Independent Mid-Card.
Julian Williams checks in with his Top Ten Wrestlemania moments, and I wholeheartedly agree with his #1 pick.
Daniel Wilcox finally decided that his Wrestlemania Screwjob feature is going to be four parts long, and you can read Part 3 in Schmozzes And Screwjobs.
Vinz Rothenburg goes all Back To The Future on Matt Hardy in < a href="http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/columns/52046/The-Timewarp-03.20.07:-Matt-Hardy.htm">The Timewarp.
O'Dog thinks Wrestlemania 23 will be Bobby Lashley's breakthrough moment. Don't believe him? Find out his reasoning in The Goodness.
Vinz makes a second appearance this week, going head on with Scott Slimmer in week ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE of Fact Or Fiction.
Bayani discusses the tri-branding of WWE PPVs in Truth B Told.
What Did We Learn This Week?
In all things, there is at least one lesson to be learned. Here I will impart upon you what I took away from the weekly television of ECW, TNA, and WSX. You too can learn important life lessons from Kevin Thorn and Maverick Matt, and are encouraged to send in your own revalations.
-No matter how roided up you are, there's always a bigger steroid freak out there who can break your full nelson and beat you with three moves or less.
This week on TNA Impact, I learned that...
-No matter how badly embarrassed you are in the ring, being in Raven's stable means it'll only get worse once you get backstage.
-Team 3D can still cut an awesome promo when they have to.
-Robert Roode is the worst businessman on the planet.
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Well, it's been unusually fun this week, I'll say that much. I'll be back tomorrow with The Ominous Thoughts News Report, but until then, this is "Weekend Warrior" Stuart Carapola, signing off.
