VIOLENT PANDA Monday Night Review 04.24.06

Posted by Peter Kent on 04.25.2006

TNA sucks! Raw bikini contest! HHH & Cena are funny! & What the heck should I call this review now?



VIOLENT PANDA Monday Night Review

Sorry this is a little late, 411maniacs! It's Tuesday afternoon… I guess reading the Raw spoilers really made reviewing the show to be a drag. Plus, 411 head honcho Ashish sent us writers some free DVDs. I got the Benoit DVD and was reluctant to stop watching it to do this review. Not that I'm a big Benoit fan or anything, but it's interesting stuff. I'll probably have a review of the DVD up by this weekend.

Impact is no longer on Monday nights, but this is still called the Monday Night Review. For now, at least. I could just use this to review whatever wrestling I saw in the past week, maybe, though that might make this really long.

TNA had their all-steel-cage pay per view last night. I didn't order. It's just too much money. Though TNA did use one of my favorite wrestlers of all time - Low Ki. He's now calling himself Sen Shi? OK, then.

And apparently Christy Hemme made an appearance as well, who I am also a fan of. What could TNA will possibly do with her, though? Have her valet for an X guy, maybe?



WWE Raw

I did the TNA review first, and bah gawd this Raw is going to have to be pretty bad to not take show of the night honors.

We open Raw with a video recap of which feud: The world title angle or the "God" story? No need to ask, correct?

I love the "hey, look it's Stacy Keibler!" milli-moment in the Raw open. You know she made almost twice as much money in her two month run on Dancing with the Stars than she did in a year in the WWE?

Here comes Edge and Liter to the ring. Lita licks Edge's cheek and he couldn' t look more uncomfortable. Edge has a mic. The mention of HHH's name gets massive cheers. Cena's name gets a mix. Edge's logo seems criminally close to the logo of video game company Rockstar games, doesn't it? HHH's music hits and Britain loves it.

Massive "HHH" chant. HHH talks about Edge's 3 week title reign, and points out that Edge can go - he just can't go very long. Crowd LOVES it. Big "HHH" chant. He says Edge could call himself the "Premature Superstar" hahaha. "Until you can do it ten times in a row, you are not in my league pal".

Edge wonders how HHH even got involved in this match. Did he call the "old man"? Heyyy... Edge wonders if HHH got on his knees and b...b.. begged Vince. Wow, awesome. They should let Edge go farther with that. HHH quickly points out that he'll do anything to get what he wants.

Cena's music hits. He clears the ring. HHH is about to charge the ring when out comes the Spirit Squad. They do a cheer and say that the Squad is taking all three of these guys tonight. Eww. What else is on?

The Weekly rewind: PUT THAT PIECE OF PRODUCE DOWN.

Chris Masters, Matt Striker & Shelton vs. Carlito, Charlie Haas & Rob Van Dam:

- The crowd pops big for Carlito's entrance.

- Rob flips and kicks the heels and celebrates. You KNOW he's dying to point to himself, but I think he's only allowed to do it two times per night, tops.

- RVD gets dominated for a while, and then Haas gets the.. Haas tag! Ho ho I coined a phrase! What a treat! In a WWE.com interview, Haas talked a bit about being more "loose" in the ring this time around in the WWE and you can really see it. He works the crowd more and it comes off much better. His problem still remains, though - no gimmick.

- There's an orgy of signature moves, and somewhere in there Charlie Haas forces Masters to release the Masterlock on Carlito, and Rob pins Shelton in a crowd pleasing effort.

Fun match! Why are the arenas in England always so smoky?

Winners: Carlito, Charlie Haas & Rob Van Dam

Somewhere in the bowels of Wembley Stadium, Vince is with Todd Grisham. Vince explains that there were pyro malfunctions last week. And tonight, Shane faces HBK. It takes a surprisingly long period of time to get that information out of their mouths, though.

Kane and Big Show are in the back. The whole point of this stupid angle is to drill the date of Kane's movie's opening into our presumably thick skulls. Being that I resent such crass, clubbering promotion, I feel inclined to not give this too much lip service. And I also feel the need to always type the wrong date in this recap. Like, leap year or something.

Now it's time for the Raw diva bikini contest, hosted by The Coach. Poor Candace. Her playboy spread must have sold pretty poorly. The harder the WWE pushed her, the less over she was. Torrie goes first in this contest and good lord... I'm gonna need a minute alone.

Back. Victoria goes next and actually looks hotter, until she starts doing these goofy walks and stuff to ruin whatever sexiness she had going. Maria reveals a blue bikini, doesn't look like she has implants. You think she might be the new Stacy? Candace disrobes last and looks great, gets a big erection.. I mean reaction! She kisses Victoria to seal the deal. Well, I think. Coach asks for the crowd's reaction...

Torrie gets a big pop, Maria gets a louder one. Victoria and Candace get a mix, mostly boos. Coach declares Candace the winner. Coach says as her prize she gets to make out with him. He starts to close in on her and the McMahon rape fetish once again rears it's ugly head. It gets even worse as Viscera hits the ring. He takes out Coach, slaps him in the ass and then Viscera has a repulsive make-out session with Candace. Please don't tell me they're sticking her with him. Awful.

Shane McMahon vs. HBK:

- The intros take a century.

- Shane unloads an array of dull punches and knees to the back. Shane follows up with a sort of less-threatening burning hammer, and then follows up with a missed moonsault that looks like he could have broken both of his legs on.

- HBK rallies and sets Vince (who is at ringside for this) on the announce table and is about to go for an elbow, but Shane puts a stop to it. So I guess this is a tease and HBK will execute the move at the PPV. Shane ends up dropping an elbow on HBK through the announce table. Shane over-shot it a bit but it was still awesome. "Holy shit" chant.

- Vince takes the mic and says that God is not here tonight and that God has abandoned HBK. "God will be a chicken this Sunday" he says. "You and God have no chance in HHEELLLLLL." he says. "I assure you this is not boring", he insists in his mind.

A brawl with a neat spot. I guess you're either into this feud or you're not. From what I can tell, most people are not.

Winner: Shane?

Heh heh. Lawler and Styles look so naked with the destroyed table in front of them. They introduce a clip from Kane's movie. Hey, do you think they'll do a Kane angle during the red carpet movie premiere (you know they'll have one)? How awful will that be?

In the back, Cena is SITTING. Here comes Edge. Cena: "Hey! Look what the cat threw up!" hahaha. Awesome. Cena warns Edge no to try anything sneaky tonight or he'll go down quicker than his girlfriend. Heh heh.

Back from the break, the camera peers around a corner and we see Edge and Lita plotting. Now wait. The camera is visible now? Is this an end to our long national nightmare?

Umaga vs. Steve Lewington:

- This one might go to the time limit. One of my favorite indy wrestlers, Mana the Polynesian Warrior, is thinking about quitting wrestling now that the WWE is using his exact gimmick. Not that it was an original gimmick or anything, but instead of just using him, they got someone else to do exactly what he does. Probably because of Mana's average height. Instead they took Jamal, a guy who was fired once already for his shitty attitude. Because Jamal is "BIG", see?

- Samoa Joe likes to do the bootscrape charge in the corner. But Samoa Jamal, he does the tree of woe headbutt off the ropes. He follows up with a charging butt to the head for the win. Yes, that was his finisher in this one.

A squash. Obviously, I hate everything about Umaga.

Winner: Umaga

Ric Flair runs out as Umaga celebrates. Flair sends him out of the ring after groping his testicular region.

In the back, HHH is working out so he can get YEWWWGGGG. Here comes Lita, who insincerely tries to make sure that everyone's going to work as a team. She is so freaking awesome. She points out that if HHH wins at the PPV, maybe he could hit her with his sledgehammer hahaha. Each segment on Raw feels like it's from a totally different creative team. How does that happen?

Mickie James hits the ring, dressed as herself. She makes a whole bunch of squeaky noises as she talks, hilarious. What a cutie. She says she knows who she is now, and the crowd roars in approval. She says she's better than Trish, and gets booed. Then Trish comes out... still dressed as Mickie. Trish looks so weird dressed as Mickie. Mickie can't take this stuff. Trish acts like a mirror of Mickie, which drives her nuts. They go at it, and Trish misses a kick (whoops) and then hits another, and a big cheer is added in post-production.

Spirit Squad vs. HHH, Cena & Edge:

- The teams go face to face to start. The Squad members each do a little dance and yell their names, and some of it is pretty awesome. Especially the last guy, who does a 30's style shimmy right up into HHH's face and yells "NICKY!" and then goes "WHAT?" right at HHH. Heh heh.

- Edge ends up selling for the Squad, but then HHH tags in. And you know HHH ain't gonna sell for male cheerleaders. BECAUSE HE'S DEHR GAME-UH and he RULZ!

- But Cena, yeah he'll have to sell. And yes, the crowd cheers the squad over Cena. Edge seems to be THE only guy the crowd just will not cheer (though I could definitely see that changing very quickly). The Squad do an awesome trampoline choke thing into a sweet enziguri kick, which the crowd cheers for.

- It's funny that the only way you'll ever see indy-style wrestling spots in the WWE is from 5 guys with the most cheesy, 80's throwback gimmick in the fed.

- Cena gets pounded on for a while, then HHH tags in and shockingly he beats down ALL FIVE GUYS AT ONCE! SUPERDUDE! Wait.. they finally begin to overwhelm him, and Cena comes in to take them down. Stereo F-U and pedigree, cool. But then Cena and HHH start brawling. Cena rolls on top of HHH and punches - crowd boos. HHH rolls on top - cheers. Hahaha they do it again! Crazy.

OK filler match.

Winner: ?? Nobody wins wrestling matches any more.

Overall: Not a very good show, I must say. What the heck happened to this build-up? The triple threat feud started out hot, but now feels stretched thin. Probably due to 4 consecutive shows of almost exactly the same thing. God/HBK got tons of TV time this month and resulted in lots of sub-par HBK matches ending in heel chicanery. And Mickie/Trish confused the crowd with the switches - I can't tell if the crowd is into that feud or not any more. I give this a TWOOO out of FIVE.



TNA Impact:

This show aired on Thursday night, and re-aired on Saturday. It was the final build-up to the Lockdown pay per view. The pay per view seems to have gotten a hesitantly positive reaction from most fans.

Team Canada vs. Team USA - Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley & Jay Lethal:

- We start the show off again with Team Canada. It's interesting to see that pwtorch.com head honcho Wade Keller is now completely sick of them as well.

- Team USA comes out to a theme that starts off with what sounds like Jeremy Borasch chanting "USA", distorted slightly in a failed attempt to make his one voice sound like a crowd. It's lame angles like this that make me hate TNA the most. Yes, the live crowd will chant "USA" and enjoy it, but it does nothing for the TV audience. Very lame.

- Alex Shelley does a lot of funny bits here, as he's friends with Team Canada and doesn't even want to be tagged in. Lethal goes to tag him, but Shelley is sitting on the apron stretching out his hammy, heh heh.

- Lethal is still over, but not to the insane degree he was a month ago. He gets a medium-sized "lethal weapon" chant.

- Petey and Sabin have an awesome, speedy sequence. During this, they show Jerry Lynn in the corner of the screen announcing Sabin as the new captain of Team USA, and then Tenay and West talk about that and ignore the action. Why does TNA wait until the best parts of a match to purposely talk about other stuff?

- Dutt looks great, as always. Lethal hits a soaring springboard missile dropkick and Eric Young gives it the same sell that The Rock used to give the stunner.

- Shelley nonchalantly bumps Lethal, who then takes A-1's comparatively lame pumphandle slam finisher for the loss.

Decent match. At best, Team Canada is just kind of there, keeping their lame offense to a minimum.

Winners: Team Canada

Simon Diamond, Elix Skipper & David Young vs. Rhino, AJ Styles & Ron Killings:

- Killings "What's up" theme is still over huge. There's one fan in the crowd with this super-serious look on his face wearing shades and waving his arms in the air.. hilarious.

- Killings and AJ do stereo flip dives out of the ring. The problem I'm having with these dives lately is that the attacker pretty clearly just rolls over the victim's back. It looks like a virtually painless attack. I mean, it's still cool to watch, but if the camera is at the wrong angle, then the move probably isn't worth doing.

- Diamonds do a cool boot kick into a neckbreaker combo, looked cool. AJ sells with ZEST!

- Simon tags in and does nothing but punches. You know, there was a time when I thought Simon could have been an awesome top heel. He seems content as enhancement talent now, sadly.

- Killings comes in and does all his quick but pointless corkscrews after strikes. Still looks cool, though. Imagine Killings vs. Cena? What an awful match that would be. Killings has not gotten any better in the ring since 2002.

- AJ hits the "pele". Killings hits an axe kick plus a pointless corkscrew for the win.

A fine match, very similar to the first one, actually.

Winners: AJ, Rhino & Killings

Backstage, Zbysko is in the back with BORSH and the ref guy, Slick Johnson. Slick, I swear, is better on the mic than almost anybody else in the company. Zbysko gets a little too loud and hammy for my tastes as this progresses, as Slick says there's a new authority coming in or something. BORSH makes a "comb over" joke at the end, heh heh.

Christian hits the ring. There's a bunch of green lasers that spell out the TNA logo in the darkened arena.. awesome. This segment goes on and on and eventually Abyss attacks Christian and gives him the black hole slam. security breaks it up. Very dull.

AMW & JJJJ vs. Team 3D ("Runt" Spike Dudley included):

- Who do Gail AND Jackie accompany to the ring? Jeff Jarrett, of course! Man, they didn't even give AMW one woman and Jeff the other. QUADS had to have both! Even he knows he needs every single thing he can get to stay over.

- Runt waves the American flag before the start to assure us that Team Canada will be doing a run-in shortly.

- Jarrett and Spork Deadly have a spirited exchange. After commercials we get into that scintillating ringside brawling.

- Iron Matt Hyson makes the catatonic look awesome, swinging around so far that he lands on the back of his head.

- Gail Kim interferes and Little Sprite Lovely gives her a modified Stratusfaction..err.. the Acid Drop. And here's Team Canada with a run-in! GASP!

- Does Team Canada have a run-in every single week? I'm pretty sure they do. So why would we care? It's not like when they get their come-uppance that the run-ins stop.

- The match degenerates into run-ins galore including Christian, Abyss, Steiner and Sting.

Stale. Uninspired. The arrival of Spike has not exactly freshened anything up.

Winner: Who knows?

At this point, do they think continuing to use Sting so sparingly is a good idea? You're paying the guy a lot of money. USE HIM!

Overall, this show was a waste of time. TNA sucks. I'm so tired of this crap, I'm giving this show a ONE out of FIVE.

Match of the Night: Simon Diamond, Elix Skipper & David Young vs. Rhino, AJ Styles & Ron Killings - TERRIBLE night for matches. I almost picked the RVD match but ah, whatever.

Show of the Night: Raw. Mostly because TNA is really annoying to watch at this point.