2 War, 2 Furious 03.16.10

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 03.16.2010

Byers and Lansdell switch places to review what ended up as the most lopsided of the 3 Monday Night Skirmishes. Will Byers say anything good about Impact? Can Lansdell survive without catchphrases? Come in to find out!

Hey yo. Welcome back to 2 War 2 Furious, the real-time analysis of the New Monday Night Skirmish. I'm your host Chris Lansdell, and the guy spray-painting "I HATE MASHUP THEMES" on the wall of the 411 billiards room is your co-host Ryan Byers. His graffiti tag is SHIM-R, if you're in the neighbourhood.

So we're into the second week of this battle, and we heard what you didn't like last week. We've tried to make some changes to increase readability, but as always feel free to let us know what you thought. This week Raw is live with Stone Cold Steve Austin as guest host, 3 WrestleMania rewind matches and the Bret Hart-VinceMcMahon contract signing. Impact is taped with the go-home show for Destination X. Ready?

BANNER!



Pre-Show Scuttlebutt

Lansdell: Lots of positive comments with the negative for last week, but I think we need to make a couple of changes.
Byers:I guess it makes sense given that, if you look at the quarter hours, there were more people watching wrestling on Monday night than there usually are.
Lansdell:Indeed. So you got Impact tonight right?
Byers: I'll do it if you think it's a good idea, though the few comments we got on the subject were not happy with the prospect.

Lansdell: You know who's hot? Rayna von Tosh
Byers: You are correct, sir. I'd be surprised if WWE didn't snag her at some point. Probably the one SHIMMER girl that's come closest to having their "look" aside from Amber O' Neal.
Lansdell: Mercedes?
Byers: Mercedes Martinez?
Lansdell: Indeed.
Byers: I can't see WWE giving her a second look . . . she's too pierced and tatted up. Great wrestler though.
Lansdell: She had a better chance when Lita was around. Mind you, they hired Ashley Massaro.
Byers: True, though at least she was blonde and had ridiculous implants, which is more their speed.
Lansdell: Implants came after didn't they?
Byers: Looking at some Diva Search era pictures of her right now, and I don't think so.
Lansdell: I'll be honest, the keywords "Diva Search" filter to "bathroom break" in my brain.
Byers: The first two had some decent "so awful its funny" moments. From there, it was a waste . . . though they gave the later ones a lot less TV time, seemingly realizing that it was a waste.
Lansdell: The only moment I remember is Christy accurately describing Carmella as a cum-guzzling gutter slut on live TV.
Byers: There was also a moment during which Christy proclaimed that her "ass was hungry" before sitting on a pie.



Lansdell: I have ROH on in the background, and my wife just commented on how horrible Hogewood is. She watches wrestling once a year and she can hear his suckitude.
Byers: I probably haven't heard enough Hodgewood to agree or disagree with her. He seems to be very polarizing, though.
Lansdell: He sucks. "Slap the porpoise" was funny for a while, but no longer.
Byers: Well, at least he's got the excuse of inexperience, unlike some people. (See Cole, Michael.) By the way, I did something uncharacteristic and watched about half of Celebrity Apprentice last night.
Lansdell: I hear Maria came across very well
Byers: She really did. So did Goldberg, for that matter.
Lansdell: Good for her. Him, I could not care less about
Byers: Why's that?
Lansdell: He was so badly mishandled at the end of WCW...plus, if I remember correctly he never showed any remorse for what he did to Bret.
Byers:Yeah, I never recall hearing much of a reaction at all out of him as a result of the Bret situation.
Lansdell: If you end a guy's career, you say something. D'Lo did, for example. I also know for a fact that he has never done the running powerbomb since.
Byers: If he's been silent, I don't really think that it's because he's a prick. He apparently does a ton of charity work. A lot of which is for the ASPCA, which I can get behind.
Lansdell: Sure, I never said he was a prick. I just don't care much for him. Wouldn't wish ill on the man or anything.
Byers: Plus anybody will look like a saint standing next to Rod Blagojevich.
Lansdell: Who?
Byers: He's another Celebrity Apprentice cast member and the former governor of my home state of Illinois.

Opening Segment: Recaps Galore

Lansdell: So we're recapping the main event angle from last week, in case anyone flipped to Impact last week to see Flair and Hogan bleed.
Byers: Wait, what show am I supposed to be watching?
Lansdell: Impact
Byers: Okay, just making sure. The title of tonight's episode: "Hogan's Heroes." Because references to forty year old sitcoms will draw young viewers in.
Lansdell: Is that the show with the Germans?
Byers: Yes. It was a sitcom about American soldiers in a Nazi POW camp. I'll give TNA this: I like their new theme song and opening video package.
Lansdell: They've always been good at those.
Byers: I don't know, I thought "Adrenaline Rush" sounded pretty low rent.

Promo-off: Austin's Catchphraseapalooza vs AJ Styles and Crazy Ric Flair

Lansdell: GLASS
Byers: It's Shattering?
Lansdell: Indeed. 3:16 signs everywhere. Surprisingly mild pop though.
Byers: You know, when you hear the glass, it's your ass. My favorite Austin catchphrase that never really got over.
Lansdell: Impact just lost the first quarter hour
Byers: Well, unless there's been a magical groundswell of fan interest in AJ Styles talking about what he used to do in "the Asylum in Tennessee." The gashes in Flair's head as he stands next to AJ in this segment are SICK, by the way.
Lansdell: Well considering it's the day after they were inflicted, that's not surprising. And I was looking for a joke about asylums in Tennessee, but I got nothing.
Byers: Indeed. That's one positive of doing two shows: back to back - injuries like that look more brutal because they've lasted "a week." And Flair, the consummate professional, makes it clear that the first thing he talks about is the wounds.
Lansdell: Either Austin has laryngitis, or he's toning it down on purpose.
Byers: AND HE PUNCHES THEM BACK OPEN~! I love Ric Flair.
Lansdell: BLEED ME? BLEED ME? I'M ALREADY BLEEDING! Essentially we have a Ric Flair promo vs a Steve Austin promo, is that about right?
Byers: Actually, Styles and Flair appear to be splitting the time pretty equally, and Styles went first.
Lansdell: Austin is putting over Bret Hart. He already spoke about Mania 13 and now he's on Vince. Not literally you understand. It's like he's going out of his way to sound impartial.
Byers: Meanwhile, I've got Jeff Hardy with his face painted up like he just got done making out with Marcel Marceau.
Lansdell: 60-year-old mime references beat 40-year-old sitcom references.
Byers: Jesus, Styles trying so hard to copy Flair's intonation and phrasing is so pathetic.
Lansdell: Styles can be good on the mic when he's himself. Why try and change that?
Byers: Flair just told Styles that he's going to need to go backstage and get high in order to beat AJ in their match tonight. Who the HELL thought that was a good idea immediately before Hardy's trial on drug charges?
Lansdell: Writing for the IWC is fun. There are a few hundred people typing on message boards right now about how awesome that line was. Meanwhile we have Cena come out, Austin leave and Big Show come out. Austin just left the ring after Cena entered. No interaction. What on earth is the point of that? I expected something after the Hall of Fame last year.
Byers: Strikes me as a tease, planting the idea of Austin and Cena interacting into fans' heads and not delivering so that it seems like a bigger deal if they ever do it down the road.
Lansdell: I really don't see that. Austin-Cena might do well, but it's not the money match that WWE fans have been waiting for; that's Cena-Rock. Austin is even more done than Dwayne, I believe. Unimpressive start for WWE in my mind. Austin just reeled off his catchphrases, got a mild pop, put over both Vince and Bret, and left
Byers: Well, you've got to save his big stuff for his presiding over the contract signing.
Lansdell: He has something left? I think he just steamed through everything right there.
Byers: The ability to cut an awesome promo sans catchphrases, yes.
Lansdell: Well fair enough, but you almost had to see him to get what I mean. He seems completely different.

On Raw: John Cena vs. Big Show
On Impact: Nasty Boys beat down Jesse Neal, Nastys and Jimmy Hart vs. Team 3D and Brother Runt, Angelina Love Promo



Byers: The Nasty Boys are beating the shit out of some guy I don't recognize backstage. Goofy mowhawk . . . is it Shannon Moore?
Lansdell: More likely to be Jesse Neal, the marine guy
Byers: Yes, that's what Tenay just told me.
Lansdell: Big Show vs. Cena is basically the same as every other Big Show vs. Cena match you've ever seen. Actually, a little faster.
Byers: Knobs is now cutting some promo about a six man tag which hasn't been mentioned at any prior point in the show, assuming that we all know about it already. Yup, that's the TNA that I love and remember. Spike Dudley is out to team with Bubba and D-Von against the Nasty Boys and Jimmy Hart . . . so basically they just blew through one month's worth of angles in thirty seconds. Good to see that this promotion has apparently learned nothing about how to build a program in the time I was away.
Lansdell: How so? The only new thing there is bringing in Spike
Byers: Nastys take out Neal. Six man tag is announced. It's teased the six man tag might have to be a handicap match. Spike is brought in as the replacement for Hart so it doesn't have to be a handicap match. Switch the order so the match is announced before Neal is taken out, and you could literally do each one of those steps on a separate week of television.
Lansdell: I believe the match was announced last week, actually. Maybe online.
Byers: If it's announced online, it may as well not be announced at all. Just take a look at the number of views on the average TNA YouTube video after a week for confirmation of that.
Lansdell:Would you believe me if I told you that I just saw a video package for Edge vs. Jericho, built entirely around the Spear? They even defined the move.
Byers: I would believe that, because it's been the focus of the feud from the very beginning.
Lansdell: And in the biggest shock ever, Batista cost Cena the match.
Byers: Now the Nastys try to put the Dudleys through a table, and Jesse Neal saves to put Sags through a table. There's another two to three weeks of television carmmed in to this one segment.
Lansdell: The same Jesse Neal who was just taken out?
Byers: Yes. He was selling is ribs, but not to the extent that he couldn't have just, you know, wrestled the match hurt.
Lansdell: Oh dear. I try to defend it, I really do. At least the kid had the decency to sell the beating but…damn.
Byers: Solid babyface promo from Angelina Love about running through the Beautiful People one by one, though.
Lansdell: I can only describe the match and Batistaference as "Meh."
I mean, we don't generally get clean wins at this time of year, and Cena vs Show couldn't really afford one, but I get the sinking feeling that a trend has been set.
Byers: Unless they've decided that they need to save the screwjobs for later on in the show. I don't think it'd be wise to have all three of the WM rematches end with a DQ, count out, etc.

On Raw: Evan Bourne vs. Sheamus, Austin Backstage With HBK and Jericho
On Impact: The Band and Nash backstage, Mr. Anderson and Desmond Wolfe vs. Kurt Angle and The Pope

Lansdell: Well we now get to see Evan Bourne get destroyed by Sheamus
Byers:That should be fun. Not particularly productive in building Wrestlemania, but fun.
Lansdell: It's over. And now we get the promo. I don't get the point of squashing a MitB competitor, especially not a popular and exciting one like Bourne. It won't build Sheamus any more at this point. We've seen him do worse to better.
Byers: Scott Hall is wearing a sweatshirt with the worlds "Wolf Pac" written on it in magic marker. Yeah, this is a major league wrestling organization. Looks like he's dropped weight since the last time I've seen him, though.
Lansdell: That plays into the story of Hall and Waltman needing this contract, actually. It works. Sheamus is cutting a decent promo here. Talking about HHH being vicious and ruthless., and about how he used to look up to HHH. I continue to be boggled about the lack of respect for Sheamus.
Byers: Okay, I never really liked TNA. I never really liked Ken Kennedy. Now I am watching KEN KENNEDY ON TNA. Look out.
Lansdell: He's been impressively heelish recently.
Byers: Based on the replay they just showed, they blew off his feud with Kurt Angle last week.
Lansdell: No, because he walked away.
Byers: So Kurt Angle and the entire US military beat the shit out of the guy, and the feud continues?
Lansdell: Well I don't think the ENTIRE military was there, but if the heel leaves under his own power, it's not over.
Byers: What's left for Angle to prove?
Lansdell: He hasn't beaten Anderson in the ring, I don't think. It took the US Army for Angle to beat the man down.
Byers: Okay, so then why does Angle, the babyface, need the US Army to beat a heel?
Lansdell: Hmm...Austin tells Michaels that he thinks the Undertaker will win at WrestleMania
Byers:Hmmm . . . meant to motivate Michaels or slam him?
Lansdell: Given the calmness with which it was delivered, the latter
Byers: Kennedy and partner Desmond Wolfe just botched a tag.
Lansdell: Calm Austin is weird. Feels very wrong.
Byers: Calm Austin was always one of my favorites in the rare times that it happened. You never know when calm Austin will just snap. You know, all rattlesnakey like.
Lansdell: The interaction with Jericho after Michaels left felt pretty off. I dunno, it's missing a step for me. You know how you can have two great performers in the ring who just don't gel with each other?
Byers: Absolutely.
Lansdell: Well a segment with Austin, HBK and Jericho should have sent the needle past fricking awesome, but it was just OK.
Byers: That's unfortunate.
Lansdell: I get the impression that Austin is just not feeling it.
Byers: We've got stereo beatdowns, with Wolfe getting his shots in on Pope and Kennedy doing the same to Angle. Because, again, you can't just do one angle at a time on this show.
Lansdell: Both of these angles have been building for weeks.
Byers:Aaaand Kennedy slices Angle open with his dog tags.
Lansdell: And that's at least the third time he's done that. It's the focus of the angle
Byers: Well, I'll admit it, Kennedy didn't do anything too horribly obnoxious. If I didn't hate him going in and this was my first time seeing him, I'd be perfectly fine with the guy.
Lansdell: And that, folks, is as close to praise as Anderson is ever likely to get from my esteemed colleague.
Byers: Still not sure why they had to further Pope/Wolfe and Angle/Kennedy at the same time instead of giving each its own segment, though.
Lansdell: I don't think Pope and Wolfe are on the PPV card. In my mind it makes more sense to have them fight than to just ignore them and let them go to the back. I mean, they ARE feuding.
Byers: I just think that having them do a post-match brawl at literally the exact same time as Kennedy-Angle detracted from the latter, which, as I understand it IS on the pay per view card and should be the focus in that case.
Lansdell: Wasn't it the focus though?
Byers: They were going on at the same time.
Lansdell: When I flicked over to Impact, you had Kennedy center-screen with a mic to the blood-dripping face of Kurt Angle. Wolfe and Pope were nowhere to be seen. That's the way to build an angle, isn't it?

---

Twitter Break!

Lansdell on Twitter, for great justice!
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
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

---

On Raw: Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse, Diva Cluster, Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
On Impact: The Beautiful People and Daffney take out Angelina Love; Hogan, RVD and Sting showdown

Lansdell: Oh good grief. Speaking of rushed, non-sensical angles. Get this: Maryse beats Kelly clean. Then she decides to beat her down because she dared to be hot. Then Gail Kim AND Eve run in for the save and beat up Maryse (the HEEL...). Then Layla and McCool run in and beat down the faces. All in 5 minutes.
Byers: Impactriffic!
Lansdell: I have 6 women in the ring with only two of them looking good in their execution.
Byers: Now I've got four women: The Beautiful People, past and present.
Lansdell: You mean Dat Azz...CUBED
Byers: Or rather to the fourth power. Honorary Beautiful Person Daffney gets Angelina.
Lansdell: Daffney really has discovered a new level of awesome. She was kind of fun in WCW but since returning to national TV she's been gold.
Byers: Awesome in terms of playing her character . . . the in-ring aspect could use some work.
Lansdell: That applies to 60% of people in the Big Two.
Byers: Decent enough non-match for the TNA women . . . TBP and Daffney beat down Angelina, and Victoria makes the save.
Lansdell: No Hogan yet?
Byers: Hogan's been in some meaningless backstage stuff I haven't even bothered to mention. He's heading out to the ring now.
Lansdell: You enjoy that. I on the other hand have Jericho vs. HBK. Excuse me while I revel.
Byers:Hogan with a tattoo will never look right to me.
Lansdell: That does seem wrong. Then again, shrivelled Hogan doesn't look too great either.
Byers: Sting is doing an entrance that is taking twice as long as the usual Undertaker saunter down to the ring.
Lansdell: That would be about 6 minutes.
Byers: They had him walking slowly to the ring, all the way down from the rafters.
Lansdell: I guess they don't want to risk the rappel.
Byers: Now Hogan and RVD are double teaming him. Babyfaces!
Lansdell: If it isn't HBK-Jericho, it's inferior right now.
Byers: This may be the first time tonight that we're agreeing.
Lansdell: Oh come on...well, that didn't last. Countout.
Byers: To be fair, that strikes me as a match that neither man could afford to take a pinfall in. It's the world champion against the guy who's set to face the Undertaker in two weeks.
Lansdell: There are 3 matches like that on the card though. Why make them when you know none of them can finish clean? Oh, betcha can't guess what happened after Edge came out
Byers: Something something spear something something.
Lansdell: SPEAR. People have generally hated the way that's being forced down their throats. And by people, I mean the internet. Never mind that it's working. I'll agree it sounded forced at first, but the crowd cvaught on and really that's all that matters.
Byers: I like how now that people think they're smarter than the room, what would normally be a good job at establishing a finish for a match is "forcing it down their throats."
Lansdell: Of course we both think we're smarter than the room because we're questioning everything that happens too
Byers: Yes, but at least we've got the common sense to give something credit when it works, even if we may not personally enjoy it.
Lansdell: Even begrudgingly, as with anything involving Batista for me or the Anderson-Angle feud for you.
Byers:Well, it's hard to say that one's really working in any way aside from eliciting a reaction from the Impact Zone fans. It hasn't really added to TV ratings or buzz for any PPVs.
Lansdell: But from a storyline standpoint, it's well-executed, and I think it has added buzz to the PPV. Of course we could also argue that nothing on Raw is helping the ratings either, since they are static.

On Raw: Randy Orton Interview, HHH vs. Randy Orton, More Clusterfuckery
On Impact: Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash (no, really), Bischoff-Foley shenanigans

Byers: Now we've got Nash and Hall in a five minute challenge match . . . Hall gets $25k of Nash's money if Hall wins.
Lansdell: I'm just going to let that one speak for itself.
Byers:Regarding Angle and Kennedy, I probably shouldn't comment on whether it's well executed or not because I've literally only seen this week's segment of the feud, but the thing with the Army coming in the middle of the feud still seems weird to me.
Lansdell:You did see that part about the dog tags right?
Byers: I saw the use of the dog tags tonight and heard that it's happened before.
Lansdell: Hence the army. Angle was given the tags by a wounded soldier.
Byers: Right. It just seems to me like that's something you'd save for the END, not the middle. Angle brings them out to corner him during the blowoff match, that sort of thing.
Lansdell: Wow, they just announced that the triple threat is on for WrestleMania. Legacy implodes...despite there being NO REASON for Cody and Ted to fight each other
Byers: Yeah, how is that going to be any different than the handicap match we watched a week ago?
Lansdell: I mean it was the logical match to make, but there has been no build to a triple threat
Byers: Zero. Really there wasn't even that good of a build to Rhodes and DiBiase as a unit splitting off from Orton given the start and stop nature of it all.
Lansdell: Any one of the three could have turned at various stages, but only Orton has moved to separate himself from the others. There has been ample time, motive and opportunity to sow seeds between Cody and Ted.
Byers: At this point, they've bungled it so badly that Cody and Ted may as well just get killed in short order at Mania, vanish for six to eight months, and return after that to get rebuilt from the ground up.
Lansdell: That might be a little drastic, but the match they've made almost has to end with Orton going over, and who does that help?
Byers: So now Jeff Jarrett is being forced by Eric Bischoff to referee a handicap match between Beer Money and Hotstuff Hernandez.
Lansdell: Jarrett has been forced into all sorts of shit recently, which still might just be better than HHH vs Orton. Where's my pillow?
Byers: I didn't realize that Hernandez was half of the tag champs.
Lansdell: Indeed. With Matt Morgan.
Byers: Matt Morgan is doing a good job on commentary with Tenay and Tazz, though I could do without the director cutting away from the match every fifteen seconds to get a camera shot of him.
Lansdell: He's another one that got pushed hard and forgotten.
Byers: That was pretty much the perfect way to do a handicap match if you feel you HAVE to do a handicap match. Hernandez got enough offense against two men that he looked impressive, but the numbers caught up with him in the end and he got pinned.
Lansdell: You know, I think this HHH-Orton match might be better than Jericho-HBK was. If it gets a finish, it probably will be. It's good to see the team win a handicap match instead of the one guy though.
Byers: And apparently they're setting up Hernandez and Jarrett being a team when Hernandez and Morgan finally split.
Lansdell: I've heard worse ideas
Byers: Though it'd be weird to add a third tandem in the "establish star/TNA original" mold with Flair/AJ and Hogan/Abyss already around. Again, there would still be worse ideas.
Lansdell: Hernandez is older than AJ and probably Abyss. Not that it matters much. By the way, face Orton wrestles much faster than heel Orton, and it is making this match VERY watchable
Byers: That's a change more guys need to make in their matches when they turn. There are way too many guys who keep wrestling like faces when they're supposed to be heels.
Lansdell:I think Matt Hardy did an excellent job of that during the "V-ONE-UH!" days. It's good to see that young Mr Orton has learned how to be a face since his last attempt.
Byers: I haven't seen him wrestle as a heel during this run yet, but I always used to HATE AJ Styles when he was supposed to be a bad guy, because he'd still do stuff like his backflip into the reverse DDT and the Pele kick.
Lansdell: Hey look, a Legacy run-in for the DQ. 3 Wrestlemania rematches, 3 non-finishes. But yes, highlight-reel guys are hard to keep heel unless they also have solid ground games, because the offence is not conducive to boos.
Byers: Meanwhile, Mick Foley has just beaten up Eric Bischoff and shaved half of his head.
Lansdell: Oh, and Sheamus comes out to kill HHH. Is this Book-by-Numbers?
Byers:Book-by-Numbers is perfectly acceptable in certain situations, and I'd include a midcard Wrestlemania match like Sheamus/HHH as one of those situations.
Lansdell: I mean all night though. It's been non-finish after non-finish, almost like Austin's presence has returned us to the Attitude Era. You'd shit on this if it was on Impact. They are doing the obvious in every situation thus far, despite some of it not making much sense. Wrestler A and Wrestler X fight. Wrestler B runs in to attack A with whom he is feuding. Wrestler Y comes in to attack Wrestler X.
Byers:Possibly. Can't really say if I'm not watching the show.
Lansdell:Very true. Trust me when I say, it's not good. Two very good matches ruined by non-finishes.
Byers: I still say I can at least understand it in Michaels/Jericho, though. Triple H/Orton you could probably afford to do a finish in given that neither of them is in a main event-calibre match for Mania.
Lansdell: My point being that you knew when you booked the show that you'd have to end at least 2 of the three with some sort of screwy finish, so why not switch things up a bit?
Byers: So I'm a little bit baffled by this Bischoff/Foley head shaving thing. I understand from what they've said tonight that Bisch has been trying to "clean up" Foley for the past couple of weeks.
Lansdell: Foley played up his hate for Bischoff from day 1, so the cleanup is more of an excuse for Eric to fire Foley.
Byers: But, if you're going to do a head shaving angle, why not build it up somewhat instead of doing it out of nowhere in a one minute segment? Why not do a hair match? It just seems like a better use of the shaving.
Lansdell: Bischoff in a hair match? Waste of time. He's no wrestler, and it would be on PPV which we'd both shit on for wasting PPV time. Plus he's lost one before, or at least been shaved before, so it would mean much when he loses.
Byers: Bischoff doesn't have to wrestle the match, just like Donald Trump and Vince McMahon didn't.

On Raw: Hall of Fame announcement, Batista vs. Kofi Kingston
On Impact: X-Division everywhere, AJ Styles vs. Jeff Hardy



Lansdell: Gorgeous George is your latest Hall of Fame inductee
Byers: Yeah, they leaked that in a press release a little bit ago.
Sort of an odd choice given that he has no connection to WWE and they don't really have any footage of him they can try to sell. I'm interested to hear what the backstory on the selection is.
Lansdell: His ex-wife, who is 96, is inducting him. Hopefully.
Byers: Alex Shelley just called the Young Bucks the "X Box to his Atari," and the crowd reacted like it was the biggest burn of the whole night.
Lansdell: And that tells you everything you need to know about the Impact Zone, right there. "It's better because it's old," "We got that joke because we're geeks," "Guns and Bucks are awesome so that must be awesome." Pick and mix those options.
Byers: Solid little promo from the Guns, and it turns into a huge schmozz with practically ever X Division wrestler fighting each other. Again, would it kill them to do one angle at a time?
Lansdell: Considering there are actually 2 different X-Division matches on the PPV with no build for either, I guess they felt the need to do something about that.
Byers: Also, it's weird to see all these twenty-something guys out here with their jeans and their t-shirts, and, in the middle of them all, stands thirty-eight year old Christopher Daniels in his JC Penney suit.
Lansdell:Not really, considering he can hang with them all.
Byers: He can hang with them athletically, but it's still weird visually given that the age difference is now visibly apparent, as is his style of dress. It would be a different story if everybody on the screen had a distinct look, but all of the young guys dressing similarly and Daniels being in business casual just makes him stick out like a sore thumb.
Lansdell: Maybe that's the point? He's the guy with the most name value in that group after all.
Byers: Could well be. If it was, they did their job. I'm not even necessarily saying it's a bad thing, it's just the one thing that struck me about that segment.
Lansdell: Interesting. Kofi Kingston was expected to qualify for MitB tonight, but instead he gets squashed by Batista.
Byers: After he basically got squashed by Batista last week. So does this mean that Evan Bourne is now officially higher on the pecking order than Kofi?
Lansdell: I don't know what that does for either man. Batista is a monster, we know this. Kofi gets squashed and is STILL not on the Mania card. Kofi at least got some offence in though.
Byers: Well, to be fair, is Kofi being on the Mania card in a meaningless role as one of ten guys in a ladder match going to do anything more for him than not being on the WrestleMania card at all? Aside from the fact that he'd get paid more.
Lansdell: And he'd be considered a possible winner of MITB. That list stands at 2 right now. In fact if he DOES qualify next week, I'd shoot Kofi to the top of my favourites list for that match.
Byers: OH GOD. OH GOD. OH GOD.
Lansdell: That sounds ominous…
Byers: YOU KNOW MY HATRED FOR THESE WRESTLING THEME MASH-UPS.
Lansdell: That will be Abyss then.
Byers:WHY HAVE YOU SUBJECTED ME TO ABYSS' MUSIC BEING MIXED WITH AMERICAN MADE?!
Lansdell:American Made Monster?
Byers: Speaking of Mash-Ups, how about that robe?
Lansdell: I hate it.. I can't decide if it's Ric Flair meets the Blue Blazer or Michael P.S Hayes meets the Red Rooster.
Byers:I agree with you there. It looks like it cost approximately one third of what Flair's robes costs. If that.
Lansdell: Let's be fair, no piece of music can be improved by mixing it with American Made.
Byers: Indeed. They may as well have just cut to the chase and given him "I Wannabe a Hulkamaniac."



Lansdell: Spare us that. Anything but that.
Byers: You know, you may complain about good WWE matches being ruined by non-finishes tonight, but at least you're getting good matches. Pope/Angle vs. Kennedy/Wolfe has been the best to this point, and even that was painfully short.
Lansdell: It's the biggest mystery to me. I think you'd agree that TNA has the potential to blow WWE away in terms of match quality on a weekly basis, yet they rarely have a match over 5 minutes
Byers: Vince Russo is writing the shows. Vince Russo has never been a proponent of long matches.
Lansdell: Did I mention that HHH made the save for Orton and Pete Rose has made the match for next week, HHH and Orton vs Sheamus and Legacy?
Byers:No, you did not.Looks like this Styles-Hardy match could get eight to ten minutes based on the length of the overrun.
Lansdell: Bret's leg has healed incredibly well.
Byers: Healed healed or he's revealing it's a work?
Lansdell: Healed healed. Limping, but he should still be in a cast
Byers: Yeah, I've never heard of somebody with a broken leg getting out of a cast in three weeks. Hell, my friend has some broken bones in his foot and he's been in a boot for a month now.
Lansdell: Oh for fuck's sake what are they doing now?
Byers: Okay, bravo to AJ Styles: He teased a dive and didn't deliver to piss off the crowd, going back to our conversation earlier about heels wrestling like heels.
Lansdell:So guest hosts now have the power to induct people into the Hall of Fame
Austin just told Vince that Stu Hart WOULD be inducted
Byers: They've given guest hosts some weird powers before . . . it's been established that they can hire and fire people, so HOF inductions aren't that much of a stretch.
Lansdell: Hiring and firing makes sense though.
Byers: Why? Why should a guest have the ability to influence the company beyond the one week that they're in control?
Lansdell: I suppose. It is now no holds barred at Mania, and Vince says the contract is iron clad. Yeah, that injury is a work alright. Well obviously, but a work within the storyline.
Byers: That's the only way the cast being off makes sense, so I say run with it. Meanwhile, Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles are having a good but unspectacular professional wrestling match.
Lansdell: Combination of ring rust and unfamiliarity?
Byers: And, forget what I said about AJ wrestling like a heel, because he just did a Pele kick to get a huge "Ole!" chant from the crowd.
Lansdell: See, you either neuter his offence or run this risk of him popping the crowd. Tough one to manage, but at least by faking dives he's trying.
Byers:Slight duelling chant in response to "Let's go Hardy" as well. And there's the springboard 450 . . . even less heel-like. Swanton. CLEAN. PIN.
Lansdell: Hmmm. Well, Hardy IS a former world champion…Lansdell: Vince turns around from watching Austin go up the ramp, and Bret's cast is on the table. I guess I missed it.
Byers: And now Ric Flair sneaks up and takes out Jeff Hardy with one chair shot to the back. Abyss no-sells a bunch of chairshots and chokeslams Flair through the entrance ramp.
Lansdell: OK, so they transitioned it to putting Abyss over.
Byers: They transitioned it to putting Abyss over, and I have no problem with that. If he's the babyface title challenger on PPV, he should be put over. The problem I have isn't with Abyss being put over, it's with Styles being put UNDER. A guy who isn't even in the title picture pinned him clean in the middle and then the guy who pinned him was taken out by one chairshot from a sixty year old manager. So Styles winds up looking like a huge putz.
Lansdell: Raw meanwhile ends with Bret waffling Vince with the cast and pushing him over the table. Probably the best way to set that match up for Mania because it needed a reason for Vince to want the fight.
Byers: And they needed to establish that Vince couldn't back out of the match in light of the fact that he already accepted it and then backed out once before.
Lansdell: Especially since the "iron-clad" thing was his idea
Byers: Bingo.

Final Thoughts

Lansdell: The Road to WrestleMania normally has a bunch of stuff that you just don't want to miss. That said, only the last segment felt like must-see TV, or even should-see.
Byers: That's better than the zero segments of Impact that felt that way.
Lansdell: Which is not to say it was a bad show, from the impression I got
Byers: I don't think it was a good show. The burial of Styles was pretty inexcusable and killed any interest that people could've had in his title match with Abyss. The Bischoff thing was a wasted opportunity. They're still cramming too much shit in to segments and running through some angles at a pace ten times as fast as what they could or should be. Oh yeah, plus they decided to have Jeff Hardy pin their World Champion despite the fact that there's a very real possibility Hardy could be IN PRISON three months from now. The positives are that Hardy/Styles had a good match and that, regardless of whether you think he's the right guy to get this treatment, Abyss really was put over strong.
Lansdell: So out of 10?
Byers: I'd give 'em a four.
Lansdell: Raw going in had a stacked show, but we should have known that none of those matches would end clean. What we got was 3 main events blown off with non-finishes, a pair of squashes that did nothing to build the monsters and actually hurt Money in the Bank, which is always a feature match at Mania, and one very good segment to end the show. The part where Michaels, Jericho and Austin were on the same screen and nothing good happened was really a good summary for this show: underwhelming. I'll go with 5.5 on the strength of the McMahon-Hart build.

And that about does it! The new format is still a work in progress folks, so bear with us as we fine-tune it. After a consensus win for Impact last week, Raw put on the better, or should I say less bad, show this week. We'll probably be back next week as Impact goes live coming out of Destination X, and Raw bundles everyone in cotton wool for the last live show before the big dance. Until then…

Lansdellicious – Out.