Friendly Competition 5.19.07

I bought Final Fantasy 7 when it first came out, and even though I’ve finished it a few times since then, I’ve never gone through and done the ultimate “max out everything, beat everything, get all the items, etc” deal, so I decided to try it again a couple of months ago and give it the full run. Now I’m at the end of the game, and I have all the Materia that you can possibly get without having the stupid Gold Chocobo (which I still refuse to raise), and I decided that this time around, I was going to take a serious run at the WEAPONs, which I’d never beaten. I’ve got everybody on level 99, all my materia’s maxed out, I’ve got 4X Cut, Ultima, Big Guard, Final Attack-Revive, my Limit meter full on level 4, the works, so I feel like I’m ready. In 56 hours of gameplay, I had not lost once, so I decided last night to go fight Ruby WEAPON, who is supposed to be the easier of the two. I lost in five turns. I tried fighting him two more times and lost badly both times. Nothing I did could even barely hurt him. So now I’m sitting there with my jaw hanging open because I thought I was the baddest motherfucker to ever come out of Nibelheim, and here I am getting dusted three times straight. Serious blow to the poylgonal ego.

So I’m sitting there like “…………………Fuck. Fuck. I can’t believe I fucking lost this badly. Fuck. Well, let me go pick a fight with Emerald WEAPON instead.” So I hopped in the sub and chased down my underwater friend, fully expecting to get annihilated even worse than I did against Ruby. I beat him on the first try. Wasn’t even close, I handed him his metal ass. So now I’ve got the Master Materia set from the guy in Kalm and I’m ready to take another crack at Ruby, but it was like 2 in the morning when I beat Emerald, so I turned in and I’m going to fight him later today. Wish me luck.

ECW On Sci Fi Results 5/15/2007

Vince McMahon cut a promo from a studio in Stamford and he tells us that he doesn’t like wearing this do-rag that he’s been forced to wear since getting his head shaved at Wrestlemania. Tonight, he’s putting Bobby Lashley in a 3-on-1 match against the New Breed, and at Judgment Day, he will face the judge, jury, and executioner, which would be himself, Shane, and Umaga respectively. Lashley takes all this in stride, saying that he doesn’t see the New Breed standing across from him tonight, he sees Vince, Shane and Umaga, and he will destroy the New Breed like he’s going to destroy Vince and company at Judgment Day. Indeed, Lashley emerges victorious against the New Breed despite the 3-on-1 handicap. He takes a bit of a pounding from Elijah Burke and Marcus Cor Von, but rallies to pin Striker for the win.

Speaking of the New Breed, following CM Punk’s victory over Steven Richards YET AGAIN (though this time it was a really good, stiff match during which Richards ripped off half of Low Ki’s moveset), we see the New Breed backstage and, after Elijah gives the others a pep talk for the evening’s main event, tells Striker that he wants him to get his head on straight following his loss to the Major Brothers a couple of weeks ago, then finishes by saying that he’s going to destroy CM Punk at Judgment Day. A lot of people are going to get destroyed on Sunday, I guess.

In other action, Rob Van Dam scored a DQ win over Snitsky in what may be one of his final matches on ECW TV given his contract situation. Strangely, he pretty much dominated Snitsky, coming up with two counters to Snitsky’s big boot, before Snitsky finally says screw it and kills him with a chairshot on the outside of the ring. Also, Kevin Thorn made his first post-New Breed in-ring appearance, defeating Nunzio (I guess he’s not Little Guido any more after all) in what would seem like a squash on the surface, but was actually somewhat competitive.

TNA Impact Results 5/17/2007

Kurt Angle comes to the ring with the new TNA World Championship belt around his waist, celebrating his title victory at Sacrifice. He remarks on how little time it took him to achieve his goal of becoming World Champion (less than eight months), but before he gets much further, he’s interrupted by Sting, who admits to tapping out but seems to think he pinned Christian before tapping. Then Christian comes out claiming that the championship advantage should give him the World Title in a disputed finish. Jim Cornette comes out and sets the record straight, saying that Christian’s not the champion because he got pinned, Sting’s not the champion because he tapped, and Angle’s not the champion because Cornette doesn’t feel like it. Okay, whatever. He announces qualifying matches for the next five weeks with the winners advancing to a King Of The Mountain match for the *TNA* World Title at Slammiversary. The first match was later that night, and saw Kurt Angle defeat Rhino clean with the Angle Slam to advance to Slammiversary, and next week we’ll see Sting take on Samoa Joe in another qualifier.

Christopher Daniels makes an open challenge for a First Blood match, a challenge which was answered by an apparently pregnant Raven. Despite having a bandage on his head from being busted open at Sacrifice, Daniels picks up the win in fairly short order, then goes backstage and interrupts Sting’s promo, thanking him for setting him down the right path. Sting interrupts him, saying that he didn’t tell Daniels to go down that path, instead saying that he’s doing the complete opposite of what Sting suggested. Daniels, confused, tells Sting that he saved him when he was lost, but now he thinks Sting’s the one who’s lost.

Eric Young came to the ring and celebrated his newfound freedom with the fans, but was rudely interrupted by Robert Roode and Miss Brooks. Roode insists that, despite what Jim Cornette had to say about it, Eric’s contract with Robert Roode, Inc is still valid and Roode still owns Eric. He lists a few real dick moves he can make before deciding that he won’t do any of them, and instead will just sue Eric for everything he’s got. Roode’s adjusting to life in the United States very well. Eric takes the contract and wipes his ass with it, prompting a brawl which is again won by Roode until Stomper, the new TNA mascot, distracts him long enough for Eric to grab a chair and run him off.

In other action, X-Division Champion Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley defeated Jerry Lynn & Tiger Mask IV, then attacked Lynn afterward, prompting a failed save attempt by Bob Backlund before Black Machismo gives us the real thing. Jim Mitchell says that with Abyss out of the way, he’s going to finally lay waste to TNA with his new monster. Sonjay Dutt apologizes to Kevin Nash for his behavior at Sacrifice, and though Nash forgives him, he says he won’t be as forgiving next time. Following his loss to Christopher Daniels, Raven is told by Frankie Kazarian to get on his knees and take a caning like all the rest of them have done. Matt Bentley and Johnny Devine stop him, and Raven smugly stands up and starts shoving Kazarian around by the face. After announcing next week’s main event, Jim Cornette is confronted by the Steiner Brothers, who want Team 3D in the ring next week. Jim Cornette smells money, and we’ve got a deal!

We Are The Champions
ECW World Champion: Vince McMahon (Champion Since 4/29/2007)
TNA World Champion: Title Vacant (Vacant Since 5/13/2007)
TNA World Tag Team Champions: Team 3D (Champions Since 5/13/2007)
TNA X-Division Champion: Chris Sabin (Champion Since 1/14/2007

People Who Impressed Me This Week

Stevie Richards: Sure, the guy’s become CM Punk’s personal jobber, but he looked a lot better this week than he has in a long, long time. He wrestled with an intensity that I didn’t know he still had, and pulled out some moves I’d never seen out of him before. If he could have squash matches like that against everyone he ends up jobbing to, I’d start getting a little more excited for his matches.

Marcus Cor Von: We got the first preview of a match I’ve wanted to see for a while this week with Cor Von against Bobby Lashley. Cor Von showed off how good of a power wrestler he is by knocking around the fairly large Lashley with relative ease. I really think that if Lashley does get the title back at Judgment Day (or One Night Stand, if they go ahead with the rumored Vince vs Lashley singles match), they should have him drop it in short order to Cor Von. Forget Snitsky, this guy’s more than just a big guy, he’s a good power wrestler, and he’s a hell of a lot more entertaining a personality than either Lashley or Snitsky.

Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley: This week was the first time I’ve ever seen them work as a team, though I’ve heard how great they are for a while now. They really impressed me given how short their match was, and I’d love to see them team up more in the future and maybe go for the TNA World Tag Team Title if Sabin ever gets around to dropping the X-Division Title.

Rick & Scott Steiner: I don’t care what anyone says, I love the Steiner Brothers, and though I think their past greatness is lost on a lot of today’s fans, they were (and I guess now are) one of the stiffest, legit badass teams in the world, and if it came to a legit shoot they would wipe the floor with Team 3D and make them their bitches. Let’s hope the eventual match looks like a shoot.

Dickhead Of The Week: Raven

I think just about everybody looked pretty good across the board, with the notable exception of Raven. I said this in the Impact Crater, but after seeing what he looks like now, I am not at all surprised that he has not been wrestling. He looked absolutely terrible this week, he’s really let himself go and is actually embarrassing to look at considering what he was ten years ago. I actually started to feel bad for the guy as I saw him waddling around the ring, and I swear to god that every time I see him walk out in that white suit, I see Vic Grimes. On top of all that, he continued his crappy S&M angle with Serotonin that nobody cares about and isn’t going anywhere, and is basically a TNA-branded rehash of Raven’s Flock, which also went nowhere and nobody cared about, and just like all the freaks who got paid to sit at ringside and watch Nitro with Raven back in the day, I have a feeling that this angle is going to kill Bentley, Devine, and Kazarian. But as for Raven…how embarrassing.

Vital Social Issues N’ Stuff With Stuart

One of the major knocks against WWE, especially in light of the situation on Smackdown following the injuries to the Undertaker and Ken Kennedy, is that they haven’t done a very good job of building new talent since the brand extension happened. The creation of new stars was one of the reasons given when they did the brand extension in the first place, so the fact that really only John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista, Ken Kennedy, and maybe one or two others have come out of the developmental territories and really become anything doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially when you have so many other people who have come through developmental and either buried on TV and released or never even got on TV to begin with. But one thing you can’t argue about ECW is that it’s done a great job of creating its own stars in a more or less isolated environment. After the first couple of months, ECW has had minimal involvement with Raw and Smackdown, and after losing Kurt Angle and Big Show, really didn’t have any major stars to piggyback off of other than Lashley. To fill the void, they’ve done a good job of grooming CM Punk and Elijah Burke to be top guys for the brand, and the other members of the New Breed have shown flashes of brilliance as well. I think anyone that doesn’t see Marcus Cor Von as a future star in WWE is out of their mind because the guy has a ton of charisma and knows how to work. Striker may or may not go anywhere, but Kevin Thorn looked better than I’d ever seen him this week and looks like he may be on the verge of a solo push. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that ECW is a televised developmental territory or anything like some have, but if you’re coming out of developmental and being brought up to the main roster, I’d personally hope to go to ECW where I’d have a chance at being built into some kind of recognizable star instead of going straight to Raw or Smackdown and getting buried.

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On the flip side, while I don’t have a problem with them using guys like Stevie Richards or Nunzio/Little Guido as jobbers (because let’s face it, that’s all WWE fans know them as), I think it’s a bad idea for them to have Lashley go over all three members of the New Breed as a build up to a PPV match. Like, if they were going to do Lashley vs the New Breed, THAT should have been a PPV match instead of just something to do for a TV main event. Granted, they had the weak link (Striker) take the fall, but for every step they take forward by building up the New Breed to the point where they’ll be able to go on and accomplish something on another brand, they take a step back by having them lose 3-on-1 to Lashley. It’s the same kind of logic that applies to what we have seen CONSTANTLY over the last few years when some main eventer will be put in a handicap match against the Tag Team Champions and handily defeat them both by himself. I understand that the point is to make the singles guy look strong by beating several people on his own, but I think that the damage done to the credibility of the group getting defeated by one guy offsets whatever benefit you get by doing this.

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So of course the big news of the week was the release of Sabu by WWE (which I’ll talk a whole lot more about in the news tomorrow), but in an interesting stroke of timing, Rob Van Dam may have also finished up with WWE this week. His contract expires late next month and at this point, he’s not expected to resign. I really find it curious that they’re getting this close to a guy’s contract expiring and they’ve been booking him to be as strong as he’s been. I mean, if you look at the last few weeks of TV, he beat all the other ECW Originals to win an ECW Title shot, lost that shot in the main event the following week, and then in what is being rumored to be his final match with the company, defeated Gene Snitsky via DQ. Normally you put people over on your way out the door, so I’m not sure I understand why they’re booking him in this way unless it’s a last ditch effort at trying to get him to stay. But here’s something to ask yourselves: with Sabu gone and Van Dam as good as gone, where does this leave the Sandman and Tommy Dreamer? They’ve been lucky to have gotten involved in the ECW Originals vs New Breed angle, but if we’re really being honest here, the ECW Originals was all about Van Dam and Sabu, and with both of them gone and the feud seeming to have ended anyway, are they going to go back to being jobbers? Sandman’s recent match against Umaga would seem to indicate so. I said earlier that ECW is the best brand for developing new talent, but the flipside to that is that it looks like the old talent is going to be finding its way either into job duty or back to the indies.

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It looks like tag team wrestling is back and is going to be a relatively major focus of TNA for the time being. Aside from champions Team 3D and LAX, they have now added Basham & Damaja, the Steiner Brothers, and if they keep them together as a regular team, Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley. I’m happy if that’s where they are going, but the important thing to remember if you’re going to have a truly successful tag team division is that you need to have regular tag teams. Not singles guys with nothing else to do being thrown together and given the title for a month or two or to get over some other angle, but real long term teams, and I think that all of the above teams fit that bill wonderfully. I think it would help legitimize Team 3D’s (in my mind, entirely questionable) legacy as one of the great teams if they were able to dominate this tag team division, but I also think it would help lend a lot of credibility to the new TNA World Tag Team Title if it was given to Rick & Scott Steiner, one of the best teams ever. I’d personally prefer to see Scott get a big singles push and maybe hold the TNA World Title, but ifthey’re not going to do that then they can do far worse than reunite him with his brother and have them make a run at the title. I’d definitely rather pay to see that than Team 3D vs LAX for the millionth time.

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In addition to what looks like the beginning of the revitalization of the tag team division, it looks like they’re getting ready to try and rebuild the main event singles scene as well. While I think the given reason for taking the TNA World Title away from Kurt Angle is flaky at best, I’m totally down with the idea of the qualifying matches for the King Of The Mountain match. Look at it this way, if they’re going to give away main event matches every week on Impact, it might as well be for something, and a shot at winning the World Title definitely counts as something. I will say that I wish they’d stop running commercials in the middle of the main event (which is just about the worst time you can run a commercial), but minus that, this week’s Angle vs Rhino match was great and makes me think “If these guys get 15-20 minutes on a PPV, I might want to buy that.” It’s also a chance for an upset to happen, and have somebody who might not be considered a top main eventer to take a step up by beating an established name to get into the match. There’s also a lot of possibilities when it comes to who eventually ends up with the title, and while it might seem poetic for Joe to get the title at Slammiversary, I think they’d be better served to wait and have him win it in a singles match instead. I’m really happy with the change in direction they seem to have made beginning with this week.

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Unfortunately, I don’t feel as good about the direction of the X-Division right now. It’s really funny that what was once the centerpiece of the entire promotion and what set TNA apart as more than a crappy company run by a money mark is now being used as a comedy sideshow. Listen, I have nothing against comedy wrestling, and I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t think the stupid gimmicks are going to kill Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt because, frankly, I never see either of them ever amounting to much of anything, but for a division that ONE YEAR AGO was having classic match after classic match between Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, and AJ Styles, and going even further back was made into the main attraction of TNA by Styles, Jerry Lynn, and Low Ki, it’s really depressing to look at it now and see the champion in a comedy feud with a guy in his mid to late 50s while the rest of the division is either dressing up in silly costumes for the amusement of Kevin Nash or having good, yet meaningless and repetitive multi-way matches that end up amounting to as much as all those lucha six man tags on Nitro years ago. It’s even more confounding that when you have a promotion that consists of Robert Roode owning Eric Young, James Storm and Chris Harris are bashing each other over the heads with beer bottles and fighting in blindfold cage matches, and Sting and Abyss are having matches where you win by strapping your opponent on a table and having him lifted out of the arena, the X-Division is somehow the joke of the promotion. The guys in this division, especially Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, are so incredibly talented that getting them mired in stuff like this is just a crime. Can somebody please explain to me why cruiserweights can’t get any respect anywhere, ever?

Links To Stuff You Can Read

WOO HOO INTERPROMOTIONAL MATCHES!!! Andy Clark talks about ’em in The Shimmy.

Larry’s got the 4R’s of TNA Sacrifice 2007.

Edge screws Cena for the third week in a row in Schmozzes And Screwjobs. Then Daniel Wilcox makes a second appearance the same day, filling in for Julian with the Top Ten Edge matches of all time. I’m sensing a theme here.

Mike Minotti looks at Bobby Lashley, Undertaker, and Christian Cage and asks…Can They Be Champ…Again?

Steve Cook answers some awesome questions in Ask 411 Wrestling.

Andy Clark and Geoff Eubanks go head to head in week ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN of Fact Or Fiction.

Bayani mourns the current state of tag team wrestling in North America in Truth B Told.

Michael Weyer looks at how attempts to do what WWE does has caused the death of the AWA, WCW, and ECW, and notes that TNA is also in danger of this in Shining A Spotlight.

Drunk Rob Halden is so drunk that he tells us why the TNA Title is an idiot…And Here’s Why.

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.

This week on ECW On Sci-Fi, I learned that…

-Italians are the masters of the alias.

-YOU CAN’T BIG BOOT ROB VAN DAM!!

-Low Ki has not trademarked his moveset.

This week on TNA Impact, I learned that…

-Slavery contracts are still legally binding in the South.

-Sting told Christopher Daniels to lay out open challenges for crappy gimmick matches.

-Titles can be stripped from World Champions for no other reason than the Commissioner feels like it.

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That’s it for another edition of Friendly Competition. I’ll be back tomorrow with a NEW FORMAT for The Ominous Thoughts News Report! See you then.