Friendly Competition 5.26.07
Posted by Sam Caplan on 05.26.2007
For anyone who may have forgotten why the Steiners are one of the greatest tag teams of all time, Scott Steiner was more than happy to remind you and make Team 3D look like a couple of inferior idiots in the process. This entire scene had me grinning like you wouldn't believe.
I just want to start this off by sending out my condolensces to the Jarrett family for the loss of Jeff's wife Jill. Considering what he's been going through with this for the last couple of years, it's amazing that the guy has even been able to bring himself to work, and even though he gets kind of a bad rap on the internet, he is a human being and I really feel for him and his loss.
ECW On Sci Fi Results 5/22/2007
This week's ECW On Sci-Fi was all about the New Breed, with the main story being that Elijah Burke wanted revenge on CM Punk after losing to him at Judgment Day. Strangely, he blamed this loss on Matt Striker, claiming that his loss weeks ago to the Major Brothers was weighing so heavily on his mind that it distracted him and caused him to lose to Punk. He told Striker that he had to redeem himself tonight by beating Brett Major, and if he didn't, they were going to have a problem. Luckily for Striker, he averted such a problem by defeating Major (during which Joey Styles actually name dropped Gordon Solie), but the main event didn't go so well for the New Breed. Elijah Burke and Marcus Cor Von took on Rob Van Dam and CM Punk, but got themselves disqualified when Cor Von, who was not the legal man, continually ignored the referee when told to get out of the ring and after hitting the Pounce of Van Dam, the ref called for the bell.
Former New Breed member Kevin Thorn, now without Ariel, also saw action this week and squashed some poor jobber in vicious fashion. The poor man's Kane himself, Gene Snitsky, defeated Tommy Dreamer in a lengthy TV match after nailing him with the big boot. He grabbed a chair after the match, but before he could do a number on Dreamer, Rob Van Dam came out and hit a Van Daminator on Snitsky for the save.
Last, and most certainly least, we were spared Extreme Expose's weekly dance, but instead were forced to watch them in a crappy new music video. This is one of the reasons I don't believe in god, because if he really existed, there's no way he would allow Extreme Expose's continued existence.
TNA Impact Results 5/24/2007
The qualifying matches for Slammiversary's King Of The Mountain match continued this week, as Sting faced Samoa Joe in the main event of Impact. After a brief exchange where they would take turns trying to catch one another in their respective finishing holds, Joe took control of the match, drawing Sting's new follower Christopher Daniels to ringside. At one point when Sting turned the tide and had Joe down, Daniels hopped up on the ring apron and distracted the ref, tossing a baseball bat to Sting while the referee wasn't looking. Sting threw the bat out of the ring and shoved Daniels off the apron, but Daniels, feeling he had been jilted by the man he viewed as his new mentor, nailed Sting with the bat and allowed Joe to hit a Death Valley Driver for the win to advance to the King Of The Mountain match.
The Steiner Brothers got the confrontation with Team 3D that they were promised last week by Jim Cornette. Team 3D opened the interview by telling the Steiners how much respect that they have for them, even going so far as to say that if it weren't for what the Steiners accomplished, Team 3D probably wouldn't be there. Scott tells Brother Ray that they don't need Team 3D's damn respect, and starts running them down HARDCORE, basically saying everything I have been thinking for years. They acknowledge 3D's multiple WWE Tag Team Title reigns, but then tells them to name one team they beat that anyone would recognize. Then they tear down Team 3D's WCW Tag Team Title reign, saying that they (the Steiners) were the first WCW World Tag Team Champions and spent most of their careers in WCW, and that 3D's WCW Title reign was a joke. Then they start beating down the ECW World Tag Team Title hardcore, saying that there was no such thing as an ECW World Tag Team Title, because while the Steiners took the WCW World Tag Team Title all over the world, defending it in the main event at the Tokyo Dome in front of 67,000 people and winning the IWGP World Tag Team Title and defending it in front of nearly 200,000 people in North Korea, Team 3D were fighting a bunch of nobodies in front of a few hundred fans in the bingo hall. Brother Ray tries to suck the Steiners' dicks some more, but Scott says that Team 3D's precious legacy doesn't mean shit, then gets Rick to start reading off the names of all the teams they've beaten, such as the Road Warriors, the Horsemen, the Freebirds, Doom, Money Inc, Lex Luger & Sting, the Outsiders, and several others before Scott gets him because we get the point. Scott closes by saying that Cornette has made Team 3D vs the Steiners for the TNA World Tag Team Title at Slammiversary. This was seriously the best promo I've seen on TNA all year and might even beat anything in WWE this year as well.
In other action, despite their squabbling backstage, Christian Cage and Tomko held it together well enough to defeat LAX, albeit thanks to distraction by Hector Guerrero. After the match, Konnan got into a physical altercation with Hector, who jumped in the ring and dared LAX to come after him, and Chris Harris and Rhino ran out to the ring to side with Guerrero. Lance Hoyt said that he appreciates everything VKM has done for him and didn't plan to let them down, but his decision to go after Christy Hemme outside the ring and leave Kip James alone in the ring led to them losing to Basham and Damaja. Robert Roode said that he still owns Eric Young, and would give him one week to respond to the letters from his attorney. Finally, the show closed with the announcement that next week's King Of The Mountain qualifying match would be Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles.
We Are The Champions
ECW World Champion: Vince McMahon (Champion Since 4/29/2007)
TNA World Champion: Title Vacant (Champion 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
Kevin Thorn: He's been showing a lot more intensity since breaking away from the New Breed, and for a guy that I used to think was just another generic big man who happened to have a unique gimmick, he's really been showing that he's more than that the last few weeks. While the loss of Ariel might seem like a loss on the surface, that just means that more people will be paying attention to Thorn instead of Ariel's tits.
Gene Snitsky: I can't believe I'm including him in this, but he really came off as a badass, heartless power wrestler this week while squashing Tommy Dreamer. I never really thought much of Snitsky as a worker, but he's looked good the last couple of weeks.
Marcus Cor Von: While he's not being focused on as much as Snitsky, Thorn, or anyone else, he's quietly established himself as a major force by basically manhandling two of the top faces in ECW, Rob Van Dam and CM Punk, and also had a good showing against Bobby Lashley. He's playing Elijah Burke's lackey right now, but I see a time not so far off when he's going to break off and become a big deal, and I definitely see him being moved up to Raw sooner rather than later.
The Steiners: I've wanted to see a Steiner Brothers reunion for years now, and what better way for them to do it than to beat the asses of my least favorite tag team of all time? In one promo, the Steiners made everyone realize not only how great they are and how much they've accomplished over their career as a team, but also how little Team 3D has done by comparison. Awesome, awesome promo.
Samoa Joe: He was on this week, and he and Sting put together one of the better Impact main events I've seen recently. He also happened to win, and will now go to Slammiversary and get a shot at the TNA World Title.
Dickhead Of The Week: Timbaland
No, he's not a wrestler or even directly involved in the business, but I really have to wonder what the hell he was thinking by putting Extreme Expose in a music video. First of all, it's not like ANYONE is going to watch the video and say "Hey, I recognize those girls! They're in ECW!" But they do the same paint-by-the-numbers crap every single week, none of them have any personality whatsoever, and it just boggles my mind that anyone can be a big enough mark for the business that they'd take probably the three LEAST talented broads in WWE and make a music video with them. Too bad he couldn't have gotten his hands on Ariel, that would have been interesting. Kelly Kelly has repeatedly shown that not only can she not dance, remove her bra, talk, and sometimes even walk, and while the other two are a little better, they're not exactly recognizable faces even to wrestling fans. Timbaland could have probably saved himself a few bucks by passing on Extreme Expose and picking up some other cheap sluts from the local strip club instead. What a fucking mark.
Vital Social Issues N' Stuff With Stuart
Some people are going to crap on the finish of this week's main event on ECW On Sci-Fi, but I have no problem with that kind of booking. The way I look at it, if you're in the business of selling PPVs, it doesn't make any sense to have people at their level getting pinned on TV. Listen, ROH can get away with having 100% clean finishes on all their shows because they don't have weekly TV, but WWE's got a different business model, and while I appreciate the much better matches we've been getting lately, I don't feel like they should be giving away, say, a one hour John Cena vs Shawn Michaels match on Raw that was probably better than anything else they've done all year, on TV or PPV. The other side of the coin is that if they really are going to start concentrating more on improving the in-ring part of the product and bringing it back to where it used to be, disqualifications are a part of that and can make a great storytelling tool if not overused. For example, I might not have had as much of a problem with the aforementioned Cena-Michaels match if it had ended in, say, a run-in from Edge or somebody. Sounds ridiculous, right? But now both Cena and Michaels would have had an issue with Edge for ruining the match they had both been trying to win for an HOUR, then once Edge is out of the way, they can rematch and it will sell because the fans, having been frustrated at watching such a great match without getting a finish, will now pay to see them do it again and have a conclusive ending. It worked great for Bret Hart and Diesel back in 1994/95. They had WWF Title matches at King Of The Ring 94 and Royal Rumble 95, but both ended in DQs due to run-ins, so by the time we finally got to the third match and they made it no DQ, people were really into it because we were now going to finally see a winner. Then, when Bret beat him, it made a perfect catalyst for Diesel's heel turn because after two inconclusive finishes over the course of a year and a half, they finally went to a clean finish and Diesel lost, and he couldn't deal with having come all that way only to fall short in the end. So DQs can work really well, but it wouldn't have been the same at all if Diesel and Bret Hart kept pinning each other in tag matches every week.
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But with that little digression out of the way, and moving back to the subject of improving the quality of the wrestling on TV, I thought Kevin Thorn and Gene Snitsky both looked a lot better this week than I think they've gotten a chance to show before. When I first saw Kevin Thorn, I was kind of like "Ehhhh, he's big and he's got an interesting gimmick, but he's really nothing special and he's getting lost in the shuffle in the New Breed." But ever since breaking away, I've been impressed with the intensity he's shown. I like how they've given him a vicious streak because it gets him over as more than just another generic big man, and he even managed to look like he was killing a guy with a headlock of all moves this week. I also liked how he did the TKO onto the ropes before hitting his version of the Tower Of London, it was innovative. Snitsky, on the other hand, I've been watching for weeks now and have been thinking that he was being booked in these short squashes because he probably isn't good enough to go longer, but he actually showed some psychology in working over Dreamer's shoulder the whole match. While it's possible that it was because Dreamer was leading the match, I think it makes him look like more of a monster by having him beat the crap out of a guy for seven or eight minutes instead of one or two because when he basically walks out, kicks the guy in the face and pins him, it says to me that he's too limited to go long. When he beats a guy up for close to ten, it looks more like he's toying with his opponent and his opponent can't mount any kind of effective comeback, thereby portraying Snitsky as a difficult opponent and a sadistic person for not just beating him and getting it over with. And if he did look good by having Dreamer lead him, well good. I know a lot of people bitch about wrestlers being too limited or too green or whatever, but folks, the only way these guys are going to learn how to get better is by putting them in there with experienced guys who can teach them something about how to work a TV match in the big time. Just to pick two names, Kenny Dykstra and Elijah Burke aren't going to become any better wrestlers by wrestling each other every week because there's only so much they can pick up from one another given how young they are in the business. However, if you throw them in there with Dreamer, or Flair, or whoever, while I wouldn't put in terms of "The veteran is leading them through the entire match spot by spot because they can't do it themselves", they are picking up little glimmers of wisdom every time out that can eventually add up to somebody having enough tricks up their sleeve to become an entertaining worker. Also, being an entertaining worker means more than just being able to chain wrestle or do highspots or whatever, it means you have to learn how to entertain a crowd and tell a story with your match. While I could personally enjoy myself if I were to sit there and watch Bryan Danielson and Kurt Angle go hold for hold for an hour, that doesn't appeal to the masses, so you need to be able to identify and do what does appeal to the masses, or at least whatever crowd you find yourself in front of that night, and that's one of those things you're only going to be able to learn from someone who's been doing it for a while.
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On the other hand, let's talk about a group of girls who haven't been in the business for any significant length of time, but have somehow been pushed as major stars in ECW, Extreme Expose. Why do these girls have any airtime at all? They come out and dance every week, and while I'm sure it appeals to some loser somewhere out there who doesn't have access to any kind of actual porno, but to the rest of us it's just several minutes being eaten up on a show that already wasts too much time showing us video packages of what happened on Raw the night before. I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if their schtick was in some way related to the rest of the product, but they've been doing this for months now and, outside of one instance where Gene Snitsky came out and glared at them menacingly while they tried to find their way out of the ring, they have had ZERO involvement in any kind of wrestling angles. I mean sure, it beats watching Kelly Kelly wander out to ringside and say "I'm an exhibitionist and I'm only 19!" every week, but given how little time they have to work with each week, and also remembering that they're trying to improve the in-ring product, it might help a little bit if they'd give these three third-rate stripper wannabes the ax and use it for wrestling matches instead.
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Like I said, I fucking loved the Steiners' promo on Team 3D on Impact this week, but one thing I think TNA should be careful about is that it really made Team 3D look like a couple of idiots. It's one thing with me because I've been thinking all this stuff for years anyway so it's not going to make a difference with me, but for the average fan at home, they're going to sit there and listen to Rick and Scott read off everything they've accomplished over the years and list the names of people they've beaten, then they're going to look at Team 3D and say to themselves "You know what, Scott's absolutely right, these guys don't compare at all!" I know what the point of the promo was, but it just drove home how totally inferior Team 3D is to the Steiners, and I don't think that's a wise move. Even at their age, the Steiners are very imposing figures to be sure, but I don't feel like they're people TNA should be building long term plans around. For that matter, I don't think that Team 3D are the young bucks they used to be, but I feel like they've at least got a few more years left in them than the Steiners. This is one of those things that would make Jim Cornette turn around and say "Great job, now that you've made one of the teams look like a couple of pussies, nobody's going to feel like they have to buy the show because they think they already know what's going to happen." With too many tag team stars of the 80s and 90s either dead or retired, this really is the last tag team dream match that can be done, and while I'm happy as a pig in shit to watch Team 3D get run down like that, they'd do well to make them appear a little more equal if they plan to sell anyone on the match.
Links To Stuff You Can Read
Michael Bauer and JD Dunn have you covered with ECW On Sci-Fi, while Larry has the happenings from TNA Impact.
Andy Clark has THE FINALE! of his look at interpromotional matches in The Shimmy.
The Fink's Payload is once more under new management! Go check out what Rob Halden, Matt Adamson, and Dan Wilcox are doing with this longtime hit.
Mat Sforcina profiles the legendary Brooklyn Brawler in Evolution Schematic.
Sgt Slaughter wants his country back, but is willing to wait while he reads Ask 411 Wrestling.
Mat Sforcina and Matt Adamson go one-on-one in week ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT of Fact Or Fiction!
Bayani talks about the prospects of an openly gay wrestler being accepted in pro wrestling in Truth B Told.
In this week's edition of my favorite new column, You're An Idiot And Here's Why, Rob Halden takes a look at the poor decision making skills of the Homicidal, Suicidal, Genocidal, and Unemployed Sabu.
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...
-It really doesn't require any talent of any kind to wind up in a music video.
-No jobber can beat Matt Striker in two straight matches.
-Gene Snitsky does know enough moves to go more than a minute after all.
This week on TNA Impact, I learned that...
-Claims of being "the greatest of all time" aren't worth the air they're spoken into.
-You should be really careful about letting down crazy stalkers, they might not react well.
-Christy Hemme makes a really shitty heel manager.
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That's it for me. Odds are I'll see you tomorrow for The Ominous Thoughts News Report. Good odds. Thanks for reading, and see you then.
