Welcome to the “Super Bowl is approaching, WrestleMania 25 is this Sunday night” edition of The Wrestling List. I’ll send out a special edition List later in the week which will be my annual favorites of WrestleMania List where I rank my WrestleMania moments.
Vince McMahon spoke to The Hollywood Reporter last week and his comments stirred up a lot of people. His comments about TNA and the limits they push is just laughable compared to the stuff he has done in the recent past. TNA has also responded to some of his comments. He was asked if he sees TNA as competition and said: "My concern with TNA is not in terms of competition. My concern with TNA is that they are TV-14, and we are PG. They have to change with the times. I think some of the things they do on television are reprehensible, but it is a TV-14 rating. That's the only bone I have to pick with them. Their TV ratings are a fraction of ours." The reporter followed up by asking him about the Triple H/Orton segment where he broke into Orton’s house with a sledgehammer and asked why that was ok? “Right. What we try to do in situations like that is use things that you can't find around the house. You will never see us use a baseball bat. You don't find folding metal chairs around the house. We are very selective. You can go up to the line. It's storytelling; that's how our business thrives. If you have well-defined characters and put them in the right story line against other characters, people care about their welfare.” Vince was also asked if UFC and MMA had an effect on WWE’s business and he responded with: "Most people thought at one point that we would be competitors. But it turns out they are not competition to us at all, or hardly at all. They are sport, we are entertainment; it's a huge difference. The revenue they have cut into is that of boxing."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/features/interviews_profiles/e3i4f087b1aeac6f008ce7e043061b71c40
TNA’s Dixie Carter has fired back at Vince’s comments about the company to SunSport in the UK and I LOVE her comeback. “I think it’s wonderful that Vince watches TNA iMPACT. And I agree with him that things such as the brutal beating of a sixty-year-old man, a vicious home invasion and gratuitous man-on-woman violence can be seen as reprehensible – and that’s just the last three Monday nights.”
On to Friday Night Smackdown. Great segment to close the show. Druids made their way to the ring followed by someone dressed in all white. He did the whole Undertaker entrance even bringing up the lights and then walked in the ring. He took his hat off and it was Shawn Michaels with a big smile on his face. It reminded me of the Raw from their 1997-1998 feud when he was dressed as The Undertaker and then took his stuff off to reveal himself as the DX music played. Anyway, back to Smackdown, tons of fog going in the ring as the druids stood around it. He quoted scripture with how different that they were with him being light and Undertaker being the dark. He said that they had been criticized and praised in their careers but that was their only simliarities. He called Undertaker the greatest form of evil walking in the shadows while Shawn walks in the spotlight. Shawn pointed out how Undertaker strikes fear in opponents but yet he was standing right there. Music and fog start up again but then Shawn’s music starts to play as he starts dancing. Undertaker then comes up through the ring trying to grab a hold of Shawn as he tries to get away. Undertaker gets the choke on Shawn and raises him for the slam but Shawn gets near the ropes. He is able to escape over it to the floor. Shawn dances and laughs all the way to the back as Undertaker looks annoyed in the ring. Other action on the show had Matt Hardy defeating R Truth with the twist of fate. There were a couple promos that aired of Jeff and Matt where they talked about each other and their match. Well done segments. The Colons and Brie Bella were able to defeat Miz, Morrison, and Nikki Bella. Brie took Nikki out of the action and then Carlito pinned Morrison with the backstabber. Maryse defended the Divas title against Michelle McCool. The match was stopped later on into it when Gail Kim made her TV return taking out both women and making her claim to wanting the gold. Rey Mysterio defeated Chavo with the 619 and splash. JBL attacked Rey after the match with a big foot to the face. Kane, Christian, Shelton, and Finlay defeated the team of Punk, MVP, Kofi, and Henry when Kane pinned Punk with the chokeslam. Big Show won a squash match on Jesse and Festus. John Cena did a promo in the ring hyping his match at WrestleMania and why he did what he did to get it.
Tonight’s Raw was a very enjoyable show. The last segment was really good. Randy Orton walked to the ring for his WrestleMania statement. He played clips of his history with Triple H and gave his explanations on why things had happened. He talked of the big moment of winning his first WWE title and how his mentor turned on him in a jealous rage. Orton talked of how he waited to form his group and watched Triple H grow more powerful. He wanted to find something that meant so much to Triple H and that was his family talking about the McMahons. One thing that he mentioned that I loved was that he said he knew what he was doing all along and said it had nothing to do with the IED. That makes it much better as a heel with him saying that he was in control the whole time. Orton talked of how he had went to Vickie and eliminated the sledgehammer from WrestleMania. If Triple H gets DQ’d or even counted out, he loses the title. Triple H isn’t even allowed to bring the sledgehammer or he is DQ’d. A limo then arrived and the camera later showed all doors of it open with the limo empty. Orton yelled for Cody and Dibiase along with all the extra security. Vince McMahon’s music hit and he walked out on the stage. The same for Shane McMahon. Then, Triple H walked out. All three of them stood on the ramp in a major face off with Legacy. It was quite the visual. The three of them went to the ring and took out security along the way. Legacy jumped out of the ring and the fight was on. Triple H and Orton were going at it as the show went off the air. Another great segment on the show was the Shawn Michaels/Undertaker segment. Shawn had a funeral set up in the ring. Shawn put over how Undertaker had never beaten him and how he took it as a personal insult that Undertaker didn’t think he could beat him. Shawn said he would end the streak on Sunday and the lights went out with the bell tolling. You could hear the lid shut in the casket when the lights went out. The lights came back on and Undertaker was standing in the ring. No Shawn to be found. Undertaker destroyed the set and then paused looking back at the casket. He opened it but there was no Shawn. As Undertaker turned frustrated, Shawn slid out from underneath it and superkicked Undertaker when he turned around. Shawn then talked all kinds of trash and walked out of there. Great stuff. The Big Show got a win on John Cena when Cena hurt his back trying to lift Show. Show then landed the chokeslam for the win. Edge made his way out and slid in the ring. Show turned to see him and then Edge went and attacked Cena. Chris Jericho defeated Jerry Lawler. After the match, Jericho mocked Lawler and picked him up. Lawler punched him and Jericho bailed out. He got on the mic making promises of what he was going to do on Sunday. Rey Mysterio got a clean win on JBL with a 619 and splash. There was an 18 diva tag team match and the faces won over the heels when Tiffany got a quick surprising win. Afterwards, Santino came to the ring and revealed his mankini. He was continuing to try and get in the divas battle royal. The divas then dumped him out of the ring. It was funny. Kane won a battle royal which featured all of the MITB participants. Punk landed on the apron and was able to hang on. Kane then threw Christian at him and eliminated both of them for the win.
Other notes from Raw. Curious as to what happened after the show went off the air? Orton and Dibiase got out of there. Cody ended up getting beaten down by Triple H, Vince, and Shane with Triple H finishing him off with the sledgehammer. They then posed for the crowd. It really is like 1997 again with Shawn continuing to outsmart The Undertaker. I liked the touch of the pics of their 1997 feud in the ring. One was the pic of when Shawn BLASTED Undertaker with a chair. I still remember how nasty that chairshot was!! The other was Shawn pinning Undertaker in the first ever Cell match. How about the blast from the past with Santino saying that he went to WWE president Jack Tunney??!! Santino was definitely hilarious tonight with his mankini dancing. I definitely don’t need the reminder of WrestleMania 11. My least favorite WrestleMania ever. Nice to see the Austin music video again. It is really well produced. I’m liking that new Legacy t-shirt.
WWE has set up a survey asking wrestling fans why they didn’t go see 12 Rounds. The movie made only $5.3 million in its opening weekend opening near the bottom of the top 10. They have a list of questions on the survey and one of them gives a list of reasons of why they didn’t see the movie. They don’t have my reason listed so I’ll just go ahead and give my point of view. WWE overpromotes these movies insanely. There have been several of their movies where I think that I wouldn’t mind seeing it. When you get beaten over the head about the WWE movies with the same promos for the movie on EVERY WWE show, it gets old fast. I’m so sick of the movies by the time it is released just based on the way too many promos for it.
WWE 24/7 has a new logo to go with the new name, WWE Classics On Demand, which I’m not really crazy about upon first impressions. Yeah, I’m still calling it WWE 24/7. The only way that I’ve seen the new logo is on the promo for next month’s programming. I have yet to see it in the corner of the screen on regular programming on the service. I am wondering if it is going to be really huge and distracting up there. Another major change on WWE 24/7 that I do not like and has gotten many subscribers fired up. You may remember that on some of the syndicated WWE programming over the years that the show would go to black and white if there was blood being shown. Well, it appears that WWE is now doing that with WWE 24/7. I have seen them do that with some programs that I have watched. I have not seen this particular change but there is talk that parts of WrestleMania X-7 which is airing on WWE 24/7 has some black and white edits due to blood. Ok, that is going to get old really fast!!!! I get that they are trying to go more PG rated but, for goodness sakes, just put a disclaimer on the beginning of it if you are that concerned about it. WWE is going to have to be careful on this editing of the shows cause I’ve seen many subscribers getting annoyed over it and they may lose some subscribers over it. No chance that they’re losing me though!!!!! Ha ha. It’s the best $7.99 that I spend on entertainment every month!!
WWE Axxess will no doubt be a major attraction on WrestleMania weekend. I would love to go to that!! Lots of autograph signings going on so you can meet your favorite superstars. Interesting that a lot of superstars are scheduled for autograph signings during the Hall Of Fame ceremony. I’m sure that isn’t going well with those stars that are going to miss the ceremony.
The WWE Hall Of Fame will take place this Saturday night. I expect that part of it will air on WWE.com as it has in years past. They only air a little of it there though. The USA special will come on at 9pm central time. It will be a VERY condensed version of a few of the inductions. Expect Austin’s induction to be cut down big time. If you want to see the major portion of the show, you’re going to have to buy the DVD. Going into this year’s Hall Of Fame will be Stone Cold Steve Austin (no word on induction but I’ve heard rumblings of someone so I’ll leave the surprise), Ricky Steamboat (inducted by Ric Flair), Terry and Dory Funk Jr. (inducted by Dusty Rhodes), Cowboy Bill Watts (inducted by Jim Ross), The Von Erichs (inducted by Michael Hayes), Koko B. Ware (inducted by The Honky Tonk Man), and Howard Finkel (inducted by Mean Gene Okerlund).
Here is the lineup for WrestleMania 25 which will air this Sunday night from 6-10pm central time from Reliant Stadium in Houston, TX. WWE Champion Triple H defends against Randy Orton. World Champion Edge defends against John Cena and The Big Show. Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy in an extreme rules match. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker. Tag Team title unification match with WWE Tag Team Champions, The Colons vs. World Tag Team Champions, Miz and Morrison. Money In The Bank Ladder Match: CM Punk vs. Christian vs. Finlay vs. Mark Henry vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. MVP vs. Shelton Benjamin. Intercontinental Champion JBL defends against Rey Mysterio. Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Steamboat, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Jimmy Snuka with Ric Flair in their corner. 25 Diva Battle Royal which will crown the first ever Miss WrestleMania which will include Mickie James, Melina, Maria, Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox, The Bella Twins, Maryse, Michelle McCool, Gail Kim, Katie Lea Burchill, Layla, Eve, Beth Phoenix, Natalya, Tiffany, Jillian Hall, Rosa Mendes, and legends from the past. Kid Rock will be performing as well. Have I mentioned that Michael is going??!!! Yep, we’ll have to work on him to do a live report of his experience. Have fun and take it in for all of us who are very jealous!!!
I’ll be back later in the week with my WrestleMania moments special edition List. Talk to you then!! Take care and God bless!!
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Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Raw & Smackdown Thoughts & More - March 23, 2009
Welcome to the “well, that sure didn’t feel much like a 2 weeks till WrestleMania episode of Raw” edition of The Wrestling List. It just didn’t feel like WWE did much of anything new to build to WrestleMania tonight. We just mostly saw the same stuff that we’ve been seeing on Raw and Smackdown for the last couple of weeks. The last segment was worth watching as it was interesting to watch to see how they are going to keep pushing the Triple H/Orton storyline.
News for the week. WWE News: WWE finally announced what has been known for a long time now and that is the Von Erich’s will be inducted as a family. WWE will be airing one hour of the Hall Of Fame Ceremony on USA on Saturday, April 4 at 9pm central time. Expect it to be a VERY condensed version of the happenings. I just hope that it doesn’t make the ceremony sped along like last year when they rushed Flair cause of needing to get footage edited for the USA special. Ratings continue to fall across the board for WWE. The Raw rating was a 3.6 down from the previous week’s 3.7. The March 13 edition of Smackdown was a 1.9. The ECW rating for last week was a 1.3.
Friday night was the 500th episode of Smackdown and the big celebration for it. I thought the show was solid but kind of weak for such a big milestone for the show. No retro footage or major happenings. They did have all three brands represented on the show but the show would have likely had all three brands on it anyway this close to WrestleMania. I thought the show was fine but I just expected more from it. The show closed with the segment with Big Show, Edge, and Cena. The basic idea of it was that Show and Edge were ready to go at it but Vickie broke up their arguing before it escalated. She wanted a truce until WrestleMania while also adding that either Show or Edge would also win Vickie at WrestleMania as well. The two shook hands but Cena made his way to the stage. He stirred them up by continuing to escalate their problems. Eventually, they got physical shoving each other. Edge slapped Show and then Show grabbed Edge for a chokeslam. Vickie was trying to break them up and got shoved down. Show went to help up Vickie. Edge went for a spear but Show moved with him catching the spear on Vickie. Both looked stunned and Edge went to help her up. Show threw Edge off of her. They then battled over who was going to carry her out. Show got his leg clipped from behind and Show fell along with sending Vickie crashing to the mat. Show chokeslammed Edge and then carried Vickie off. The segment really seemed a lot like the Triple H/Stephanie/Kurt Angle triangle from years back as far as the comedy. Shawn Michaels defeated Kane when Kane went for the chokeslam and walked into a superkick from Shawn leading to the pin. Undertaker got a win on JBL following a tap out from the choke. Undertaker talked before the match saying that Shawn would feel the wrath of him when he least expected it. A new US champion was crowned as MVP defeated Shelton Benjamin. MVP’s push is definitely going while one push is definitely over as Kozlov was pinned again. Triple H defeated him with the pedigree in the opening bout. Yeah, not complaining on who is on their way up and who is on their way down. Jeff Hardy took on Kendrick in an extreme rules match. Hardy took out Zeke early in the match as he just nailed him with a chair over and over. Hardy then sent more messages to Matt when he hit the twist of fate on to Kendrick on a sitting chair. Hardy followed with the swanton to win the match. WWE announced the Von Erich family’s induction into the Hall Of Fame. It was announced on WWE.com as an exclusive on Tuesday. I’m sure that the reason for it not being announced on Raw was because of media attention due to Test. However, the media hasn’t really jumped on it and I don’t know why you put it on Smackdown later in the week while not on Raw.
Tonight’s episode of Raw was just eh to me. I just wasn’t really into it. The first segment and the last segment were the ones to watch. The rest of it was mostly just been there seen that stuff that WWE has been doing for weeks now. Like I said, it just didn’t feel like an episode with a 2 weeks to go till WrestleMania kind of build to it. A lot of the show felt like filler that you would see any time of the year much less right before your Super Bowl show. The closing of the show focused on a handicap match with Triple H taking on Randy Orton and Ted Dibiase. Triple H fought the odds but continued to focus his attention on to Orton. As Triple H went for the sledghammer under the ring, he was greeted by Cody Rhodes. That led to a 3 on 1 beating which also had them cuffing Triple H to the ropes. Orton told Triple H that the only way the beating would stop was if “she” stopped it. We all knew who she was and Stephanie made her way to ringside. Triple H yelled at her to go to the back. As she made eye contact with Orton, she turned to realize that she was surrounded by Legacy. Orton grabbed a hold of her and then set her feet on the ropes for his nasty DDT. He hit that as Triple H sat there unable to help. Orton then grabbed the hammer and looked to hit Triple H with it. However, he sat it down and looked at Stephanie. He then leaned down and kissed her as Triple H sat in the corner furious. That didn’t make much sense to me story wise when they had Orton’s “wife” on the show a few weeks ago. Unless, they are planning on bringing the “wife” back into the storyline of this match which I’m hoping they’re not doing. Anyway, back to the segment, Triple H gets to his feet and they stare off. Orton then nails him with the sledgehammer and walks out. Pretty intense segment that definitely added to the story of their feud. Part of me was thinking that Stephanie might turn on Triple H and go with Legacy. The opening segment saw a classic Flair beat down. Flair opened the show accepting Jericho’s challenge speaking for the three legends. Jericho eventually made his way to the ring and they did some trash talking on one another. Jericho ended punching Flair and then beat him up all over ringside. The first punch busted him open and they ended up on the table and the ring steps. Jericho also pulled a lot of his clothes off of him and bashed him with a camera. He just put a convincing nasty looking beating on him. Edge took on The Big Show in a match that just did nothing for me. It’s just becoming the same stuff with them both trying to impress Vickie. Cena has almost become a side note in this feud. He was on the screen and not in the building due to his Tonight Show appearance tonight. He stirred things up before the match. The result had them showing off for Vickie. Eventually, Edge got tied in the ropes and Show went for the knockout punch. Vickie yelled at Show to not do it and ordered Chavo to stop it. Chavo stepped in the ring causing the DQ. Show disposed of Chavo. As Show went for Chavo, Edge went for a spear on Show. Show moved and the spear caught Chavo. Show then nailed the knockout punch on to Edge. Undertaker spoke in the ring about Shawn and then a video appeared on the screen of Shawn talking in a graveyard about how he was going to bury the streak. After the video aired, Undertaker was furious in the ring with Lawler putting over how he had never seen anyone stand up to Taker and get under his skin like Shawn had. Jeff Hardy defeated Dolph Ziggler in an extreme rules match where Hardy destroyed Ziggler with a chair. He hit a reverse twist of fate on the chair followed by a swanton for the win. The team of CM Punk, Christian, MVP, and Kofi defeated Kane, Henry, Finlay, and Shelton when Christian pinned Shelton with the unprettier. Crowd was really into this one at the finish which made the ending fun. Finlay got a ladder and took out both teams with it after the match. Rey Mysterio defeated William Regal with the 619 and splash for the win. Regal and Layla arrived with JBL in his limo and JBL did commentary during the match. After the match, JBL got up and mocked Rey by clapping for him. Rey then ran and dropkicked JBL on to the floor. Santino announced that he was going to enter the 25 Divas battle royal at WrestleMania. After Mickie beat him up last week, he went to Vickie to get a match. If Santino could defeat Mickie with one arm tied behind his back, he could get in the battle royal. Good comedy in this one. Mickie eventually tied up both of Santino’s arms. He then tried to roll through her and kick her for the rest of the match. The finish had Santino climbing to the top turnbuckle. Beth knocked him off the ropes by accident and Mickie kicked him for the win. Melina and Kelly were at ringside with Mickie while Beth and Rosa were with Santino.
Other notes from Raw. I did like Undertaker’s point of countering Shawn’s you’ve never beaten me statement with bringing up how Shawn was recovering at home for five years after their last encounter. That is true. Shawn’s back was never the same after their bout when they wrestled at the Rumble in 1998. Shawn’s low back caught the coffin on the outside of the ring when he was backdropped out. Shawn talks in his book about how he wasn’t feeling that badly during the match but woke up a couple of days later unable to move. He was crawling around the house in pain and didn’t wrestle again till his last match at WrestleMania XIV. If you see the footage of the Rumble, it will make you cringe when his back catches that thing. When you think Ric Flair history, doesn’t part of you think that he could just take a poke in the eye and he’d start bleeding??!! He sure isn’t afraid to do that over the years. Nothing screams bizarre match like having Jeff Hardy take on…..Dolph Ziggler in an extreme rules match. Yeah, I just skip through all the 12 Rounds movie promo stuff with Cena now. WWE has an amazing way of overpromoting their movies where you don’t even want to see them when they’re finally released. ECW being the number one show on Sci-Fi for 25 straight weeks makes me wonder if they are just doing that well or if there is just nothing else on Sci-Fi drawing ratings. Wow, I really did not need to remember that sumo match from WrestleMania 21!!
I watched the new Legends Of Wrestling roundtable from WWE 24/7 over the weekend. The subject was about African Americans in wrestling and the biggest stars over the years including Junk Yard Dog, Ron Simmons, Tony Atlas, and many, many more. The panel included JR, Atlas, Theodore Long, Dusty Rhodes, and Bill Watts. Interesting show and they had a lot of great stories to tell. They showed the footage of Simmons pinning Vader for the WCW title. I still remember seeing that when it happened and how exciting that it was. Great to see the footage cause I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve seen that match. The next Roundtable show is up on WWE 24/7 (except for here where there is some uploading glitch on why we don’t have it yet) and is about Texas Wrestling.
Wishing all of you a great week!! Happy spring!! Take care and God bless!!
News for the week. WWE News: WWE finally announced what has been known for a long time now and that is the Von Erich’s will be inducted as a family. WWE will be airing one hour of the Hall Of Fame Ceremony on USA on Saturday, April 4 at 9pm central time. Expect it to be a VERY condensed version of the happenings. I just hope that it doesn’t make the ceremony sped along like last year when they rushed Flair cause of needing to get footage edited for the USA special. Ratings continue to fall across the board for WWE. The Raw rating was a 3.6 down from the previous week’s 3.7. The March 13 edition of Smackdown was a 1.9. The ECW rating for last week was a 1.3.
Friday night was the 500th episode of Smackdown and the big celebration for it. I thought the show was solid but kind of weak for such a big milestone for the show. No retro footage or major happenings. They did have all three brands represented on the show but the show would have likely had all three brands on it anyway this close to WrestleMania. I thought the show was fine but I just expected more from it. The show closed with the segment with Big Show, Edge, and Cena. The basic idea of it was that Show and Edge were ready to go at it but Vickie broke up their arguing before it escalated. She wanted a truce until WrestleMania while also adding that either Show or Edge would also win Vickie at WrestleMania as well. The two shook hands but Cena made his way to the stage. He stirred them up by continuing to escalate their problems. Eventually, they got physical shoving each other. Edge slapped Show and then Show grabbed Edge for a chokeslam. Vickie was trying to break them up and got shoved down. Show went to help up Vickie. Edge went for a spear but Show moved with him catching the spear on Vickie. Both looked stunned and Edge went to help her up. Show threw Edge off of her. They then battled over who was going to carry her out. Show got his leg clipped from behind and Show fell along with sending Vickie crashing to the mat. Show chokeslammed Edge and then carried Vickie off. The segment really seemed a lot like the Triple H/Stephanie/Kurt Angle triangle from years back as far as the comedy. Shawn Michaels defeated Kane when Kane went for the chokeslam and walked into a superkick from Shawn leading to the pin. Undertaker got a win on JBL following a tap out from the choke. Undertaker talked before the match saying that Shawn would feel the wrath of him when he least expected it. A new US champion was crowned as MVP defeated Shelton Benjamin. MVP’s push is definitely going while one push is definitely over as Kozlov was pinned again. Triple H defeated him with the pedigree in the opening bout. Yeah, not complaining on who is on their way up and who is on their way down. Jeff Hardy took on Kendrick in an extreme rules match. Hardy took out Zeke early in the match as he just nailed him with a chair over and over. Hardy then sent more messages to Matt when he hit the twist of fate on to Kendrick on a sitting chair. Hardy followed with the swanton to win the match. WWE announced the Von Erich family’s induction into the Hall Of Fame. It was announced on WWE.com as an exclusive on Tuesday. I’m sure that the reason for it not being announced on Raw was because of media attention due to Test. However, the media hasn’t really jumped on it and I don’t know why you put it on Smackdown later in the week while not on Raw.
Tonight’s episode of Raw was just eh to me. I just wasn’t really into it. The first segment and the last segment were the ones to watch. The rest of it was mostly just been there seen that stuff that WWE has been doing for weeks now. Like I said, it just didn’t feel like an episode with a 2 weeks to go till WrestleMania kind of build to it. A lot of the show felt like filler that you would see any time of the year much less right before your Super Bowl show. The closing of the show focused on a handicap match with Triple H taking on Randy Orton and Ted Dibiase. Triple H fought the odds but continued to focus his attention on to Orton. As Triple H went for the sledghammer under the ring, he was greeted by Cody Rhodes. That led to a 3 on 1 beating which also had them cuffing Triple H to the ropes. Orton told Triple H that the only way the beating would stop was if “she” stopped it. We all knew who she was and Stephanie made her way to ringside. Triple H yelled at her to go to the back. As she made eye contact with Orton, she turned to realize that she was surrounded by Legacy. Orton grabbed a hold of her and then set her feet on the ropes for his nasty DDT. He hit that as Triple H sat there unable to help. Orton then grabbed the hammer and looked to hit Triple H with it. However, he sat it down and looked at Stephanie. He then leaned down and kissed her as Triple H sat in the corner furious. That didn’t make much sense to me story wise when they had Orton’s “wife” on the show a few weeks ago. Unless, they are planning on bringing the “wife” back into the storyline of this match which I’m hoping they’re not doing. Anyway, back to the segment, Triple H gets to his feet and they stare off. Orton then nails him with the sledgehammer and walks out. Pretty intense segment that definitely added to the story of their feud. Part of me was thinking that Stephanie might turn on Triple H and go with Legacy. The opening segment saw a classic Flair beat down. Flair opened the show accepting Jericho’s challenge speaking for the three legends. Jericho eventually made his way to the ring and they did some trash talking on one another. Jericho ended punching Flair and then beat him up all over ringside. The first punch busted him open and they ended up on the table and the ring steps. Jericho also pulled a lot of his clothes off of him and bashed him with a camera. He just put a convincing nasty looking beating on him. Edge took on The Big Show in a match that just did nothing for me. It’s just becoming the same stuff with them both trying to impress Vickie. Cena has almost become a side note in this feud. He was on the screen and not in the building due to his Tonight Show appearance tonight. He stirred things up before the match. The result had them showing off for Vickie. Eventually, Edge got tied in the ropes and Show went for the knockout punch. Vickie yelled at Show to not do it and ordered Chavo to stop it. Chavo stepped in the ring causing the DQ. Show disposed of Chavo. As Show went for Chavo, Edge went for a spear on Show. Show moved and the spear caught Chavo. Show then nailed the knockout punch on to Edge. Undertaker spoke in the ring about Shawn and then a video appeared on the screen of Shawn talking in a graveyard about how he was going to bury the streak. After the video aired, Undertaker was furious in the ring with Lawler putting over how he had never seen anyone stand up to Taker and get under his skin like Shawn had. Jeff Hardy defeated Dolph Ziggler in an extreme rules match where Hardy destroyed Ziggler with a chair. He hit a reverse twist of fate on the chair followed by a swanton for the win. The team of CM Punk, Christian, MVP, and Kofi defeated Kane, Henry, Finlay, and Shelton when Christian pinned Shelton with the unprettier. Crowd was really into this one at the finish which made the ending fun. Finlay got a ladder and took out both teams with it after the match. Rey Mysterio defeated William Regal with the 619 and splash for the win. Regal and Layla arrived with JBL in his limo and JBL did commentary during the match. After the match, JBL got up and mocked Rey by clapping for him. Rey then ran and dropkicked JBL on to the floor. Santino announced that he was going to enter the 25 Divas battle royal at WrestleMania. After Mickie beat him up last week, he went to Vickie to get a match. If Santino could defeat Mickie with one arm tied behind his back, he could get in the battle royal. Good comedy in this one. Mickie eventually tied up both of Santino’s arms. He then tried to roll through her and kick her for the rest of the match. The finish had Santino climbing to the top turnbuckle. Beth knocked him off the ropes by accident and Mickie kicked him for the win. Melina and Kelly were at ringside with Mickie while Beth and Rosa were with Santino.
Other notes from Raw. I did like Undertaker’s point of countering Shawn’s you’ve never beaten me statement with bringing up how Shawn was recovering at home for five years after their last encounter. That is true. Shawn’s back was never the same after their bout when they wrestled at the Rumble in 1998. Shawn’s low back caught the coffin on the outside of the ring when he was backdropped out. Shawn talks in his book about how he wasn’t feeling that badly during the match but woke up a couple of days later unable to move. He was crawling around the house in pain and didn’t wrestle again till his last match at WrestleMania XIV. If you see the footage of the Rumble, it will make you cringe when his back catches that thing. When you think Ric Flair history, doesn’t part of you think that he could just take a poke in the eye and he’d start bleeding??!! He sure isn’t afraid to do that over the years. Nothing screams bizarre match like having Jeff Hardy take on…..Dolph Ziggler in an extreme rules match. Yeah, I just skip through all the 12 Rounds movie promo stuff with Cena now. WWE has an amazing way of overpromoting their movies where you don’t even want to see them when they’re finally released. ECW being the number one show on Sci-Fi for 25 straight weeks makes me wonder if they are just doing that well or if there is just nothing else on Sci-Fi drawing ratings. Wow, I really did not need to remember that sumo match from WrestleMania 21!!
I watched the new Legends Of Wrestling roundtable from WWE 24/7 over the weekend. The subject was about African Americans in wrestling and the biggest stars over the years including Junk Yard Dog, Ron Simmons, Tony Atlas, and many, many more. The panel included JR, Atlas, Theodore Long, Dusty Rhodes, and Bill Watts. Interesting show and they had a lot of great stories to tell. They showed the footage of Simmons pinning Vader for the WCW title. I still remember seeing that when it happened and how exciting that it was. Great to see the footage cause I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve seen that match. The next Roundtable show is up on WWE 24/7 (except for here where there is some uploading glitch on why we don’t have it yet) and is about Texas Wrestling.
Wishing all of you a great week!! Happy spring!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Test Passes Away, Shawn vs. Undertaker, Raw, Smackdown
Welcome to the “Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker feud is making for excellent TV and we’re just getting started” edition of The Wrestling List. They are putting on a show so far and I love the build that is being put on it as Mr. WrestleMania vs. the undefeated streak of Undertaker’s. Plus, Shawn has never lost to Undertaker one on one. WWE has a perfect build to this marquee match.
Sad news to start this week. Andrew “Test” Martin passed away on Friday. He was found in his apartment in Tampa and no foul play is said to be involved. A neighbor called the police after she had noticed him to be motionless for several hours as she could see into his apartment. She then called the police to do a welfare check on him and they found him to be passed away. Martin was 33. Way too young to be passing away for sure!! My thoughts and prayers obviously go out to everyone!! The media has picked up the story and several wrestlers have commented on his passing on their websites. Many in the industry are taking it very hard. Trish Stratus posted a memorial in her My Space status update and Kelly Kelly posted a really sad posting on her My Space which said: "You were my world my best friend the one i always ran to u were always there for me..what happened to our plan...Why did god take u away from me...my heart is always with u and u only..I know your in heaven watching over me now my angel..." WWE News: The Royal Rumble buyrate number was released last week. The show did 445,000 buys as compared to last years 575,000 buys. Last week’s Raw rating was a 3.7 which is down from the previous week’s 3.8. ECW did a 1.3. Smackdown on March 6 did a 2.0 which was down from the previous week’s 2.3. TNA News: TNA has announced that Danny Bonaduce will be competing at the Lockdown PPV in April but no word on who against. Last week’s Impact rating was a 1.2.
Not much talking and mostly action on last week’s Smackdown. Solid show. Very good segment with Jeff and Matt Hardy. Matt came to the ring for his “tell all” where he basically said that he was behind everything that had happened to Jeff over the last several months. He brought up the incident with Jeff’s house as well. Matt held the dog strap of Jeff’s dog and said he wanted to present it to Jeff in a symbol of love. Jeff eventually made his way to the ring and couldn’t believe that Matt was behind everything. Jeff said that Matt hated him but that Matt hated himself more. He called Matt sick and demented. Jeff then said that he was demented too and jumped on Matt landing punches. Matt got out of the ring to the floor and started backing up while he was saying he was sorry. Matt walked to the back and then paused with a smile on his face. He then finished walking to the back. Very solid segment and it was a job well done in continuing to build up their feud. WWE did announce that Jeff and Matt will wrestle at WrestleMania 25. In the main event, Undertaker defeated Kozlov with the tombstone. Edge got a win on Kofi in a solid match. Edge went for the spear and Kofi was able to counter it into a sunset flip. Edge then avoided Kofi’s kick and got him in a sharpshooter. Kofi tapped out and it gave Edge the win. Only followup on Edge and Vickie was Edge talking to Chavo. He didn’t like what Chavo had to say either and shoved him against the wall asking if everyone had a conspiracy against him. Miz and Morrison retained the World Tag Team titles against The Colons when Morrison hit the moonlight drive on Carlito for the win. The Bellas were at ringside for the match arriving with The Colons but they left with Miz and Morrison. Am I the only one that can’t ever remember which team holds what tag title? Shelton Benjamin and Chavo Guerrero took on MVP and R Truth. At one point, Shelton wouldn’t tag into the match from Chavo and then tagged himself in. The finish had Shelton hitting the paydirt on MVP for the pinfall. Finlay defeated Kendrick to get the last Money In The Bank qualifying spot. Maria and Melina defeated Maryse and Michelle. The finish had Maryse reaching for a tag but Michelle wouldn’t take it and Melina pinned her. After the match, Maryse confronted Michelle about it. Michelle got on offense against Maryse quickly and they were eventually separated.
Tonight’s Raw was from San Antonio and the crowd was very into it. The hometown guy, Shawn Michaels, was out first on the show and got a big pop. Really good opening match. Shawn teamed with The Undertaker against Kozlov and JBL. Undertaker’s music hit before Shawn was even done posing. That set the tone as Shawn went to tag early on but Undertaker wouldn’t. He later tagged in and everything was fine as far as them working as a team. Undertaker got the hot tag and came into the ring. He was about to finish JBL and pulled back his hand ready to deliver the chokeslam. Shawn then tagged himself in and hit the superkick on JBL for the win. As Shawn got up, he ducked a kick from a very angry Undertaker. Shawn talked trash all the way up the aisle and then Undertaker followed him up the ramp. Shawn disappeared and Undertaker did his normal thing on the ramp where he turns and looks at the crowd. As he turned, Shawn reappeared and Undertaker turned back around into a superkick. Shawn then let him know all about it and the San Antonio crowd was loving it. Yeah, me too!! Great stuff in this first segment!! Triple H faced Cody Rhodes in a match. Orton and Dibiase arrived before the match started. Triple H wore Cody out all around ringside and then grabbed the sledgehammer. Legacy had been making their way to ringside until that happened. He hit the pedigree on to Rhodes. As Legacy again tried to make a charge, Triple H held the sledgehammer in hand and proceeded to wave which brought the cage down from the roof. Triple H chased Legacy from the ring and made it back just in time for the cage to finish lowering. Orton and Dibiase were unable to get back in time. The bell rang for the match to start and Triple H actually dropped the sledgehammer. He pounded on Rhodes. Orton and Dibiase would try to climb the cage and then Triple H would just throw Rhodes into whoever was climbing which was really cool. Triple H went and faced off with Orton through the cage which was a nice visual. Dibiase was almost over the top at that point and Triple H took a sledgehammer swing at him. Triple H then blasted Rhodes with the sledgehammer and got the win. He faced off with Legacy after that. Later in the night, Todd tried to talk to Triple H as he left asking him how he got Vickie to agree to the cage. Then, we saw Triple H get in his vehicle and kiss Stephanie who was in the passenger seat. There is your answer. The main event was John Cena taking on Edge with Vickie as the special referee. Earlier in the night, Edge forgave Vickie for what she did with Edge saying that Show was using her. Show later told Vickie that he loved her and kissed her while adding that Edge was the one using her but he had taken it a step further with marrying her. The stipulation was made on if Cena touched Vickie, then he was out of WrestleMania. Vickie of course wouldn’t make counts for Cena. Cena went for the five knuckle shuffle and Vickie jumped on top of Edge. Cena backed off and she moved. Cena then hit it on Edge. He picked up Edge for the adjustor but Vickie pulled him off. Then, he put Edge in the STF and Vickie grabbed on to Cena. Big Show arrived and the double team was on. Vickie got in some slaps as well since Cena was tied in the ropes. Edge then hit a spear on Big Show as the show ended. Chris Jericho made his challenge to Ric Flair saying that he was giving Flair the chance that he wanted to take the spotlight that he so badly couldn’t let go of. Flair walked out saying he was retired but had some guys who did want a piece of him. He brought out Steamboat, Piper, and Snuka. All four surrounded Jericho in the ring. Jericho tried to escape and three of them jumped on him. Jericho got out of the ring but caught a right hand from Flair as he went up the ramp. Jericho was later interviewed by Todd who said that he was challenging Steamboat, Piper, and Snuka to a handicap match at WrestleMania and wanted Flair in their corner. He also invited Mickey Rourke to be in the front row to watch. The team of Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, and Melina defeated the team of Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, and Layla when Melina pinned Beth with a rollup. Santino did commentary on the match which was entertaining as usual. MVP, Kofi, and CM Punk defeated Kane, Henry, and Shelton when MVP was able to trip up Shelton leading to Punk’s GTS for the win. On commentary during that match was Christian, Finlay,and Hornswoggle. Rey Mysterio defeated Dolph Ziggler following a 619 and splash.
Other notes from Raw. Wow, Kelly made me sad tonight seeing her blow a kiss to the heavens upon her entrance. No doubt on what that symbolized. I wondered if we would see her on TV tonight but she did not actually enter the match. No mention of Test on Raw tonight. How great was it to see Flair and Steamboat side by side??!! Loved that!! Memories. One of the greatest rivalries ever in wrestling history. Then, you have Piper and Snuka out there as well which had an incredible hard hitting feud. I loved the hometown pop for Shawn Michaels. Is there ever more buzzkill than a JBL entrance following two great entrances such as Shawn and Undertaker? It really is like channeling 1997 all over again with Shawn outsmarting Undertaker. This is going to be a lot of fun with them over the next few weeks. Does Hornswoggle ever talk besides grunting? I loved Christian’s line about how Punk won last year cause he wasn’t in it last year. They announced the participants for the 25 diva battle royal at WrestleMania as far as the current group of stars. There were 6 spots left so we’ll see who the returning ones are. I’ve seen quite a few names turning it down. The WrestleMania moment tonight was on WM 15. I think I like that WrestleMania less and less as time goes by. The main event was really good with Austin and Rock but the rest of the show didn’t have a lot of memorable moments on it. Of course, Butterbean knocking Bart Gunn out cold is a big time memory. I’ll never forget the reaction of me and my friends that night as we watched that nasty knockout shot land on Bart. Yeah, that Brawl For All idea didn’t turn out so well for WWE .
This Friday will be the 500th episode of Smackdown. All three brands will be represented on the show. Only match announced is MVP vs. Shelton Benjamin.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Sad news to start this week. Andrew “Test” Martin passed away on Friday. He was found in his apartment in Tampa and no foul play is said to be involved. A neighbor called the police after she had noticed him to be motionless for several hours as she could see into his apartment. She then called the police to do a welfare check on him and they found him to be passed away. Martin was 33. Way too young to be passing away for sure!! My thoughts and prayers obviously go out to everyone!! The media has picked up the story and several wrestlers have commented on his passing on their websites. Many in the industry are taking it very hard. Trish Stratus posted a memorial in her My Space status update and Kelly Kelly posted a really sad posting on her My Space which said: "You were my world my best friend the one i always ran to u were always there for me..what happened to our plan...Why did god take u away from me...my heart is always with u and u only..I know your in heaven watching over me now my angel..." WWE News: The Royal Rumble buyrate number was released last week. The show did 445,000 buys as compared to last years 575,000 buys. Last week’s Raw rating was a 3.7 which is down from the previous week’s 3.8. ECW did a 1.3. Smackdown on March 6 did a 2.0 which was down from the previous week’s 2.3. TNA News: TNA has announced that Danny Bonaduce will be competing at the Lockdown PPV in April but no word on who against. Last week’s Impact rating was a 1.2.
Not much talking and mostly action on last week’s Smackdown. Solid show. Very good segment with Jeff and Matt Hardy. Matt came to the ring for his “tell all” where he basically said that he was behind everything that had happened to Jeff over the last several months. He brought up the incident with Jeff’s house as well. Matt held the dog strap of Jeff’s dog and said he wanted to present it to Jeff in a symbol of love. Jeff eventually made his way to the ring and couldn’t believe that Matt was behind everything. Jeff said that Matt hated him but that Matt hated himself more. He called Matt sick and demented. Jeff then said that he was demented too and jumped on Matt landing punches. Matt got out of the ring to the floor and started backing up while he was saying he was sorry. Matt walked to the back and then paused with a smile on his face. He then finished walking to the back. Very solid segment and it was a job well done in continuing to build up their feud. WWE did announce that Jeff and Matt will wrestle at WrestleMania 25. In the main event, Undertaker defeated Kozlov with the tombstone. Edge got a win on Kofi in a solid match. Edge went for the spear and Kofi was able to counter it into a sunset flip. Edge then avoided Kofi’s kick and got him in a sharpshooter. Kofi tapped out and it gave Edge the win. Only followup on Edge and Vickie was Edge talking to Chavo. He didn’t like what Chavo had to say either and shoved him against the wall asking if everyone had a conspiracy against him. Miz and Morrison retained the World Tag Team titles against The Colons when Morrison hit the moonlight drive on Carlito for the win. The Bellas were at ringside for the match arriving with The Colons but they left with Miz and Morrison. Am I the only one that can’t ever remember which team holds what tag title? Shelton Benjamin and Chavo Guerrero took on MVP and R Truth. At one point, Shelton wouldn’t tag into the match from Chavo and then tagged himself in. The finish had Shelton hitting the paydirt on MVP for the pinfall. Finlay defeated Kendrick to get the last Money In The Bank qualifying spot. Maria and Melina defeated Maryse and Michelle. The finish had Maryse reaching for a tag but Michelle wouldn’t take it and Melina pinned her. After the match, Maryse confronted Michelle about it. Michelle got on offense against Maryse quickly and they were eventually separated.
Tonight’s Raw was from San Antonio and the crowd was very into it. The hometown guy, Shawn Michaels, was out first on the show and got a big pop. Really good opening match. Shawn teamed with The Undertaker against Kozlov and JBL. Undertaker’s music hit before Shawn was even done posing. That set the tone as Shawn went to tag early on but Undertaker wouldn’t. He later tagged in and everything was fine as far as them working as a team. Undertaker got the hot tag and came into the ring. He was about to finish JBL and pulled back his hand ready to deliver the chokeslam. Shawn then tagged himself in and hit the superkick on JBL for the win. As Shawn got up, he ducked a kick from a very angry Undertaker. Shawn talked trash all the way up the aisle and then Undertaker followed him up the ramp. Shawn disappeared and Undertaker did his normal thing on the ramp where he turns and looks at the crowd. As he turned, Shawn reappeared and Undertaker turned back around into a superkick. Shawn then let him know all about it and the San Antonio crowd was loving it. Yeah, me too!! Great stuff in this first segment!! Triple H faced Cody Rhodes in a match. Orton and Dibiase arrived before the match started. Triple H wore Cody out all around ringside and then grabbed the sledgehammer. Legacy had been making their way to ringside until that happened. He hit the pedigree on to Rhodes. As Legacy again tried to make a charge, Triple H held the sledgehammer in hand and proceeded to wave which brought the cage down from the roof. Triple H chased Legacy from the ring and made it back just in time for the cage to finish lowering. Orton and Dibiase were unable to get back in time. The bell rang for the match to start and Triple H actually dropped the sledgehammer. He pounded on Rhodes. Orton and Dibiase would try to climb the cage and then Triple H would just throw Rhodes into whoever was climbing which was really cool. Triple H went and faced off with Orton through the cage which was a nice visual. Dibiase was almost over the top at that point and Triple H took a sledgehammer swing at him. Triple H then blasted Rhodes with the sledgehammer and got the win. He faced off with Legacy after that. Later in the night, Todd tried to talk to Triple H as he left asking him how he got Vickie to agree to the cage. Then, we saw Triple H get in his vehicle and kiss Stephanie who was in the passenger seat. There is your answer. The main event was John Cena taking on Edge with Vickie as the special referee. Earlier in the night, Edge forgave Vickie for what she did with Edge saying that Show was using her. Show later told Vickie that he loved her and kissed her while adding that Edge was the one using her but he had taken it a step further with marrying her. The stipulation was made on if Cena touched Vickie, then he was out of WrestleMania. Vickie of course wouldn’t make counts for Cena. Cena went for the five knuckle shuffle and Vickie jumped on top of Edge. Cena backed off and she moved. Cena then hit it on Edge. He picked up Edge for the adjustor but Vickie pulled him off. Then, he put Edge in the STF and Vickie grabbed on to Cena. Big Show arrived and the double team was on. Vickie got in some slaps as well since Cena was tied in the ropes. Edge then hit a spear on Big Show as the show ended. Chris Jericho made his challenge to Ric Flair saying that he was giving Flair the chance that he wanted to take the spotlight that he so badly couldn’t let go of. Flair walked out saying he was retired but had some guys who did want a piece of him. He brought out Steamboat, Piper, and Snuka. All four surrounded Jericho in the ring. Jericho tried to escape and three of them jumped on him. Jericho got out of the ring but caught a right hand from Flair as he went up the ramp. Jericho was later interviewed by Todd who said that he was challenging Steamboat, Piper, and Snuka to a handicap match at WrestleMania and wanted Flair in their corner. He also invited Mickey Rourke to be in the front row to watch. The team of Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, and Melina defeated the team of Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, and Layla when Melina pinned Beth with a rollup. Santino did commentary on the match which was entertaining as usual. MVP, Kofi, and CM Punk defeated Kane, Henry, and Shelton when MVP was able to trip up Shelton leading to Punk’s GTS for the win. On commentary during that match was Christian, Finlay,and Hornswoggle. Rey Mysterio defeated Dolph Ziggler following a 619 and splash.
Other notes from Raw. Wow, Kelly made me sad tonight seeing her blow a kiss to the heavens upon her entrance. No doubt on what that symbolized. I wondered if we would see her on TV tonight but she did not actually enter the match. No mention of Test on Raw tonight. How great was it to see Flair and Steamboat side by side??!! Loved that!! Memories. One of the greatest rivalries ever in wrestling history. Then, you have Piper and Snuka out there as well which had an incredible hard hitting feud. I loved the hometown pop for Shawn Michaels. Is there ever more buzzkill than a JBL entrance following two great entrances such as Shawn and Undertaker? It really is like channeling 1997 all over again with Shawn outsmarting Undertaker. This is going to be a lot of fun with them over the next few weeks. Does Hornswoggle ever talk besides grunting? I loved Christian’s line about how Punk won last year cause he wasn’t in it last year. They announced the participants for the 25 diva battle royal at WrestleMania as far as the current group of stars. There were 6 spots left so we’ll see who the returning ones are. I’ve seen quite a few names turning it down. The WrestleMania moment tonight was on WM 15. I think I like that WrestleMania less and less as time goes by. The main event was really good with Austin and Rock but the rest of the show didn’t have a lot of memorable moments on it. Of course, Butterbean knocking Bart Gunn out cold is a big time memory. I’ll never forget the reaction of me and my friends that night as we watched that nasty knockout shot land on Bart. Yeah, that Brawl For All idea didn’t turn out so well for WWE .
This Friday will be the 500th episode of Smackdown. All three brands will be represented on the show. Only match announced is MVP vs. Shelton Benjamin.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Old School - MSG - 3/17/85 Recap
I watched the March 17, 1985 WWF MSG show that recently aired on WWE 24/7. This was about two weeks before WrestleMania 1. Solid show. Second half was better than the first half. On commentary was Gorilla Monsoon and Mean Gene Okerlund. Opening match had Rocky Johnson defeating Charlie Fulton with a sunset flip. Barry O defeated Rene Goulet with a small package. Jim The Anvil Neidhart with Jimmy Hart defeated SD Jones with a powerslam. King Kong Bundy was next taking on Jose Luis Rivera. Wow, did this scream squash match when I saw the participants. Jimmy Hart was in Bundy’s corner. Bundy hit the avalanche and dropped a big elbow for the win. In classic Bundy fashion, he demanded that the ref count to five instead of three. Next was Piper’s Pit. This was a lot of fun. I’m almost positive that I’ve never seen this Piper’s Pit before. Maybe bits and pieces but not the full version. Either that or I forgot. As if Piper needed any more heat, he ripped on New York City saying that there was 13 million people there and they couldn’t find 9 decent people to play baseball for the Yankees. He introduced his bodyguard, Ace. That always cracks me up. Piper gave a big introduction for his guest which was Mr. T but the introduction ended up being for Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff. The three of them talked for a bit and then Piper brought out Mr. T. Mr. T brought Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Snuka with him to the ring. Piper asked Mr. T if he was afraid to come by himself and Mr. T asked him the same thing. Piper eventually asked if they could have all of their men back off so they could talk. He said that he had looked into Mr. T’s background and realized what all he had going for him in his career right now. Piper offered him the chance to back out of WrestleMania as a way to keep from humiliating himself and hurt his career. Mr. T responded by saying that he had been training and offered Piper the chance to back out. Funny moment when Piper asked Mr. T if he could speak Snuka’s language and tell him “whoa” as Snuka and Hogan had started edging back to the middle of the ring. Piper and his crew started showing drawings of what was going to happen to Mr. T which had him in various casts and told him to just give up. Piper then put on a Mr. T wig and mocked him. This fired up Mr. T and his crew. Piper and his gang stepped out of the ring and backed off. Piper then grabbed a drink from the announce table and hurled it at all three while leaving. It was great stuff. Mr. T then talked to MSG about all of his training and how he would do at WrestleMania. Next match was just “eh”. I’ve never been into David Sammartino at all and he defeated Matt Borne when he countered a slam into a cradle for the win. Six man tag team match was next with Andre The Giant, Junk Yard Dog, and Jimmy Snuka taking on Big John Studd, Ken Patera, and Jesse Ventura. This was a fun match. Andre went right for Studd as the match started. Everytime Andre got in the match, he just cleaned house on everyone. The fans kept popping for every babyface that entered the match. Great crowd. The finish had Andre getting the hot tag. He pounded on Studd with big chops in the corner. He had Studd up for a bodyslam but it was broken up by Patera. Remember that there was a money reward at the time on if you could slam Studd. Andre eventually got that money when he slammed Studd at WrestleMania. Ventura tagged into the match and Andre hit a big foot on him. That set up Snuka for the big splash getting the pinfall. After the match, they all rammed the three heels in the corner over and over. Ricky Steamboat defeated Terry Gibbs after he hit the high crossed body from the top turnbuckle. Main event time as Greg Valentine with Jimmy Hart defended the Intercontinental title against Tito Santana in a lumberjack match. No surprise here as the heels kept helping Valentine while the faces helped Santana. I always loved Gorilla’s commentary and he always made logical points. He brought up how he always looked for the right spot to go out of the ring in those matches cause the wrong spot could cost you the match. Valentine tried to bail at the end of the match but the faces which included JYD threw him back in the ring. Tito hooked the figure four and then Jimmy Hart jumped up on the apron. The distraction led to Studd helping Valentine get to the ropes to break the hold. Tito then started hammering on Studd and Valentine hit Tito from behind. After bouncing off the ropes, they hit head to head knocking each other out. Tito landed first and Valentine landed on top of him. The ref made the three count and Valentine retained the title. Fun match. Things to see on the show are obviously Piper’s Pit, the six man tag, and the Intercontinental title match. The rest is just mostly filler as far as viewing.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Raw, Smackdown, WWE 24/7, TNA Destination X Preview, and More
Welcome to the “when I saw Orton’s house open up Raw, I was thinking here comes Austin/Pillman 2 with hopefully a lot less controversy” edition of Raw. And it happened. Good segment and I’ll get into it momentarily. WWE is really hitting stride heading toward WrestleMania.
News for the week. WWE News: WWE announced tonight that a 25 woman battle royal would be taking place at WrestleMania 25. These 25 women will be stars from the past and current. This could be a lot of fun!! I’m really excited to see who they might bring back. Bring back Molly Holly!! WWE announced tonight on Raw that Koko B. Ware would be going into the 2009 Hall Of Fame. Remember when I joked in my live report of Raw from Nashville about how Ryan Braddock wrestled and I had no clue that he was still with the company? Well, now he isn’t. WWE released him last week. Other releases included The Boogeyman who had been recently appearing on ECW, Afa Sr. who had been working behind the scenes. One more release from WWE today. Wait for it. Kizarny. Anyone shocked? The Raw rating dropped to a 3.8 last week which fell from the 4.1 of the previous two weeks. Smackdown on February 27 did a 2.3 making it the highest number in My Network TV history. Last week’s ECW was a 1.4 which was up from recent weeks. JBL is going to be investing into Ohio Valley Wrestling. Remember that OVW is no longer tied to WWE as their developmental system is now in Florida. OVW has been hurting since WWE went to Florida. He is hoping to help it out. TNA News: TNA has apparently raised their consistent audience. I told of their 1.3 rating that was their highest rating yet. Well, they are hitting that 1.3 on a consistent basis now. Survivor Amazon winner, Jenna Morasca is apparently going to be wrestling for TNA. I liked her on Survivor and have actually met her in person.
One thing was for sure after watching last week’s Smackdown. Triple H has been officially physically provoked. Good segment to close the show where they had Triple H wrestling Umaga. As the match continued, Legacy jumped the rail from the crowd and surrounded Triple H in the ring. Dibiase and Rhodes went first to attack Triple H while he was able to fight the odds. Orton jumped in and nailed Triple H. From there, the beating was on. Legacy just pounded on Triple H for probably a good five minutes. Very cool shot to close the show where they had Triple H raising his hand up trying to fight Orton while Orton looked down trash talking him. Enjoyed the segment. Edge and Big Show’s contract signing got another player involved. Edge was still mad at Vickie over Show being the number one contender while Show said that Vickie wanted a strong champion. Show signed the contract and then Edge added that he wasn’t falling for the dominant champion stuff talking about how he himself had won titles all through his WWE career. Edge said that he would be happy to sign the contract but then John Cena’s music hit. Cena ran out and nailed a low kick on Show and then hit Edge. Cena followed with a belt to the head of Show knocking him out of the ring and threw the signing table at Edge. Cena then cornered Vickie and whispered something in her ear. Vickie looked concerned as Cena left the ring. She later told Edge that the contract signing would now take place on Raw. I was guessing that the storyline would be that Cena would get higher approval to make the match a triple threat. Money In The Bank Qualifying matches were held with a Hardy in each one. Matt lost his match to MVP. Jeff took on Shelton Benjamin. Jeff looked to be on his way to the win when Matt walked into the ring. He stared off with Jeff and then went to Shelton punching him. That caused the ref to DQ Jeff since he did attack his opponent. Matt cost his brother his chance of the MITB match at WrestleMania. They stared off again in the ring. Matt then turned his back to Jeff allowing him to hit him but Jeff didn’t go for it. Maryse defeated Eve as Michelle was at ringside on commentary. After the match, Melina hit the ring attacking Maryse for what occurred on Raw. Michelle then got in the ring and laid out Melina. Michelle finished Melina by sending her into the post. Undertaker did a really strong promo talking about how he never speaks of the WrestleMania streak. He said that night just happens to be when he shows his peers and everyone watching what he is made of. Taker talked of how people seem determined every year to make a name for themselves by trying to end the streak and it insulted him. He accepted Shawn’s challenge. A Shawn Michaels video package then aired interrupting Taker. Taker said that he was the wrong person to be playing mind games with and said Shawn’s fate would be the same as the other 16.
Other notes from Smackdown. Yeah, the Hardys in the MITB qualifying matches was predictable. When I heard about it, I thought Matt would lose and then cost Jeff his match too fueling the way to their showdown at WrestleMania. So, MVP and Shelton have been added to MITB. I really liked the promo by Undertaker. The build for that match is going to be so good. How cool was that camera shot of the beginning of Undertaker’s entrance to the ring where it just lowered through the lower level? I have to say that it was really strange hearing the fans booing Matt Hardy’s twist of fate tease. How about that big pop for Cena when his music hit?
Tonight’s Raw was a really fun one. They are doing some interesting stuff lately. Storylines have been better and some eye grabbing segments. When they came on the air showing Orton’s house and that he would be talking from there, it made me think of one thing. Austin/Pillman. I’m speaking of the controversial segment between the two of them that aired on Raw back in 96 and got USA and WWE a ton of phone calls. It went way too far. So, I figured tonight would be something similar and just knew that Triple H wasn’t going to be at Raw for his handicap match. Orton and his wife were live via satellite for much of the night from his home. Triple H was set to take on Priceless but he never showed. Priceless won by forfeit and then it was back to Orton at home. The doorbell rang and I thought here we go. Ha ha. Doorbell rang again and he asked his wife to get the door. He then did some rethinking on that a few seconds later telling her not to get the door. Next, we saw Triple H hammering the door open with the sledgehammer. Orton took off. Triple H roamed the house and did run into Orton’s wife at one point. He left her to herself. He kicked open doors and eventually got jumped by Orton who was hiding in a closet. Triple H then got back going and threw him into the wall a couple of times. Then, Triple H fired him out of the window into the front yard. The police arrived and arrested Triple H. Orton then got a shot in on Triple H as the cops had Triple H under custody. The last images we saw were of Orton being dragged inside the house and Triple H being in the police car. This was a really well done segment!! Speaking of good segments, the show opened with Shawn Michaels talking of how he was going to end the streak. Undertaker countered Shawn’s video from Smackdown with a video of his own showing the streak. The bell tolled at the end of it and the Undertaker stood behind him as Shawn finished watching the video. Shawn didn’t even turn and said “hello Undertaker” and then turned saying he had been expecting him. They both talked of how they respected each other but continued to trash talk about how this was all going to play out. Shawn said that he had never been out performed at WrestleMania and won’t be. Undertaker told Shawn that he had many epic wins at WM but bitter defeats and that Shawn would fall like all the others. As Undertaker went into his “rest in peace”, Shawn stopped him saying that he’ll rest great knowing that he did the impossible and ended the streak. He then added that Undertaker had never beaten him and never would. Shawn then walked out as they stared off down the ramp. What a segment that was!!! The contract signing for the World title match was fun as well. Vickie brought out Edge and Big Show. They agreed that they were the best two superstars in WWE today and were going to put on a great match despite what the fans wanted to see. They both signed the contract and then enter John Cena. This was odd how it started but it did turn out very funny. Cena mentioned how Vickie must not have told them the news. Vickie said it was fair to the audience to let Cena compete and he signed the contract. This didn’t go over well at all with Show and Edge. Cena then went into this whole thing about how the truth was that he loved Vickie and that she loved him back. He said the feelings were true cause she put him in the match. He went to walk off adding that he couldn’t help who he fell in love with. Edge stopped Cena as he was about to leave asking Vickie to tear up the contract. Cena said that she wouldn’t do it and told the truth which didn’t involve love. Well, love from a different point of view. Cena played the security camera footage from Raw which showed Vickie in her office. Edge was in the shower and Show walked in talking to Vickie. They talked of how things would be different after WrestleMania once Edge was out of the picture. Show asked for a quick kiss and they kissed with the camera catching it. They cut back to Cena who has a huge grin on his face with a shrug of the shoulders. Cut to all the three in the ring who have equally great looks on their faces. Edge’s face was great. Kofi Kingston defeated Chris Jericho in the Money In The Bank Qualifier. Jericho had Kofi in the walls when Flair’s music hit. Flair stood on the ramp which distracted Jericho. Kofi then nailed the spin kick for the win. Jericho later challenged Flair to come out of retirement next week on Raw. JBL defeated CM Punk to win the Intercontinental title. Yeah, that was annoying!! Punk went for the GTS but JBL raked him in the eye. So, with Punk unable to see, JBL hit him with the clothesline for the win. Rey Mysterio, Finlay, and Christian defeated the team of Kane, Miz, and Morrison when Rey pinned Morrison with the 619 and rana for the win. Divas champion, Maryse defeated Women’s champ, Melina following a slam out of the corner. The divas from both brands were at ringside supporting their own. Rosa tried to get to Maryse after the match and then both sides faced off. The fight was on and the faces all cleared the ring of the heels so both brands’ faces stood tall in the ring.
Other notes from Raw. Did anyone laugh out loud as much as I did when Triple H stood in the door way after breaking the door down? It looked like something out of a horror movie. Nicely done on that camera shot. Just who were all these random people in the house anyway??!! LOL. Anyone else thinking that Orton had failed horror movie 101 when we thought he had went upstairs? You never go upstairs. Orton learned and got the upperhand…..until he met that window. LOL. Yeah, I’m having fun with this segment cause I thought it was really well done. Good stuff. Wow, Shawn Michaels talking about how Undertaker has never beaten him brought back some memories. I still remember laughing back in 1997 as a Shawn fan cause Undertaker would always talk all kinds of trash but then Shawn would always win. Yeah, I had a lot of fun with my friends on that stuff. How great were the looks on everyone’s face after Cena ran that video? Great stuff. I was cracking up. Well done by everyone in that segment. The pat from Vickie to Show in the video cracked me up too. Grr, that footage of Warrior pinning Hogan still gets on my nerves all these years later. Put a lousy finish on that show for this Hulkamaniac. How funny was Big Show telling Vickie “who cares about what the audience wants, I’m the number one contender”? Koko’s HOF video was worth it just to hear Piledriver. Classic stuff. Next week’s main event will be Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker vs. Kozlov and JBL.
WWE 24/7 is going to be doubling up The Monday Night Wars programming starting next month. It has been announced that they will continue airing the Raw and Nitro shows from where they are in December 1997 but they are also going to start airing them again from the beginning. So, the Raw and Nitro shows from September 1995 will begin to air. They originally aired on 24/7 when the service started but very few people had it. This is a very good idea for subscribers that didn’t get WWE 24/7 until recently.
Someone want to hook me up with a PS3? Ha ha. I really am wanting to play that new Legends Of WrestleMania game. It looks like a lot of fun.
TNA is holding their Destination X PPV this Sunday and here is the lineup. TNA World Champion Sting defends against Kurt Angle. The return of The Ultimate X match. Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner. Beer Money defends the TNA tag team titles against Team 3D. Awesome Kong defends the Knockouts title against Sojo Bolt. And more.
To wrap up this week’s List. Want to see a fun clip? Here is a video of CM Punk, Mickie James, and Chris Jericho doing karaoke in Panama. Strong language at the end so be warned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8XWHRmu1K8
Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
News for the week. WWE News: WWE announced tonight that a 25 woman battle royal would be taking place at WrestleMania 25. These 25 women will be stars from the past and current. This could be a lot of fun!! I’m really excited to see who they might bring back. Bring back Molly Holly!! WWE announced tonight on Raw that Koko B. Ware would be going into the 2009 Hall Of Fame. Remember when I joked in my live report of Raw from Nashville about how Ryan Braddock wrestled and I had no clue that he was still with the company? Well, now he isn’t. WWE released him last week. Other releases included The Boogeyman who had been recently appearing on ECW, Afa Sr. who had been working behind the scenes. One more release from WWE today. Wait for it. Kizarny. Anyone shocked? The Raw rating dropped to a 3.8 last week which fell from the 4.1 of the previous two weeks. Smackdown on February 27 did a 2.3 making it the highest number in My Network TV history. Last week’s ECW was a 1.4 which was up from recent weeks. JBL is going to be investing into Ohio Valley Wrestling. Remember that OVW is no longer tied to WWE as their developmental system is now in Florida. OVW has been hurting since WWE went to Florida. He is hoping to help it out. TNA News: TNA has apparently raised their consistent audience. I told of their 1.3 rating that was their highest rating yet. Well, they are hitting that 1.3 on a consistent basis now. Survivor Amazon winner, Jenna Morasca is apparently going to be wrestling for TNA. I liked her on Survivor and have actually met her in person.
One thing was for sure after watching last week’s Smackdown. Triple H has been officially physically provoked. Good segment to close the show where they had Triple H wrestling Umaga. As the match continued, Legacy jumped the rail from the crowd and surrounded Triple H in the ring. Dibiase and Rhodes went first to attack Triple H while he was able to fight the odds. Orton jumped in and nailed Triple H. From there, the beating was on. Legacy just pounded on Triple H for probably a good five minutes. Very cool shot to close the show where they had Triple H raising his hand up trying to fight Orton while Orton looked down trash talking him. Enjoyed the segment. Edge and Big Show’s contract signing got another player involved. Edge was still mad at Vickie over Show being the number one contender while Show said that Vickie wanted a strong champion. Show signed the contract and then Edge added that he wasn’t falling for the dominant champion stuff talking about how he himself had won titles all through his WWE career. Edge said that he would be happy to sign the contract but then John Cena’s music hit. Cena ran out and nailed a low kick on Show and then hit Edge. Cena followed with a belt to the head of Show knocking him out of the ring and threw the signing table at Edge. Cena then cornered Vickie and whispered something in her ear. Vickie looked concerned as Cena left the ring. She later told Edge that the contract signing would now take place on Raw. I was guessing that the storyline would be that Cena would get higher approval to make the match a triple threat. Money In The Bank Qualifying matches were held with a Hardy in each one. Matt lost his match to MVP. Jeff took on Shelton Benjamin. Jeff looked to be on his way to the win when Matt walked into the ring. He stared off with Jeff and then went to Shelton punching him. That caused the ref to DQ Jeff since he did attack his opponent. Matt cost his brother his chance of the MITB match at WrestleMania. They stared off again in the ring. Matt then turned his back to Jeff allowing him to hit him but Jeff didn’t go for it. Maryse defeated Eve as Michelle was at ringside on commentary. After the match, Melina hit the ring attacking Maryse for what occurred on Raw. Michelle then got in the ring and laid out Melina. Michelle finished Melina by sending her into the post. Undertaker did a really strong promo talking about how he never speaks of the WrestleMania streak. He said that night just happens to be when he shows his peers and everyone watching what he is made of. Taker talked of how people seem determined every year to make a name for themselves by trying to end the streak and it insulted him. He accepted Shawn’s challenge. A Shawn Michaels video package then aired interrupting Taker. Taker said that he was the wrong person to be playing mind games with and said Shawn’s fate would be the same as the other 16.
Other notes from Smackdown. Yeah, the Hardys in the MITB qualifying matches was predictable. When I heard about it, I thought Matt would lose and then cost Jeff his match too fueling the way to their showdown at WrestleMania. So, MVP and Shelton have been added to MITB. I really liked the promo by Undertaker. The build for that match is going to be so good. How cool was that camera shot of the beginning of Undertaker’s entrance to the ring where it just lowered through the lower level? I have to say that it was really strange hearing the fans booing Matt Hardy’s twist of fate tease. How about that big pop for Cena when his music hit?
Tonight’s Raw was a really fun one. They are doing some interesting stuff lately. Storylines have been better and some eye grabbing segments. When they came on the air showing Orton’s house and that he would be talking from there, it made me think of one thing. Austin/Pillman. I’m speaking of the controversial segment between the two of them that aired on Raw back in 96 and got USA and WWE a ton of phone calls. It went way too far. So, I figured tonight would be something similar and just knew that Triple H wasn’t going to be at Raw for his handicap match. Orton and his wife were live via satellite for much of the night from his home. Triple H was set to take on Priceless but he never showed. Priceless won by forfeit and then it was back to Orton at home. The doorbell rang and I thought here we go. Ha ha. Doorbell rang again and he asked his wife to get the door. He then did some rethinking on that a few seconds later telling her not to get the door. Next, we saw Triple H hammering the door open with the sledgehammer. Orton took off. Triple H roamed the house and did run into Orton’s wife at one point. He left her to herself. He kicked open doors and eventually got jumped by Orton who was hiding in a closet. Triple H then got back going and threw him into the wall a couple of times. Then, Triple H fired him out of the window into the front yard. The police arrived and arrested Triple H. Orton then got a shot in on Triple H as the cops had Triple H under custody. The last images we saw were of Orton being dragged inside the house and Triple H being in the police car. This was a really well done segment!! Speaking of good segments, the show opened with Shawn Michaels talking of how he was going to end the streak. Undertaker countered Shawn’s video from Smackdown with a video of his own showing the streak. The bell tolled at the end of it and the Undertaker stood behind him as Shawn finished watching the video. Shawn didn’t even turn and said “hello Undertaker” and then turned saying he had been expecting him. They both talked of how they respected each other but continued to trash talk about how this was all going to play out. Shawn said that he had never been out performed at WrestleMania and won’t be. Undertaker told Shawn that he had many epic wins at WM but bitter defeats and that Shawn would fall like all the others. As Undertaker went into his “rest in peace”, Shawn stopped him saying that he’ll rest great knowing that he did the impossible and ended the streak. He then added that Undertaker had never beaten him and never would. Shawn then walked out as they stared off down the ramp. What a segment that was!!! The contract signing for the World title match was fun as well. Vickie brought out Edge and Big Show. They agreed that they were the best two superstars in WWE today and were going to put on a great match despite what the fans wanted to see. They both signed the contract and then enter John Cena. This was odd how it started but it did turn out very funny. Cena mentioned how Vickie must not have told them the news. Vickie said it was fair to the audience to let Cena compete and he signed the contract. This didn’t go over well at all with Show and Edge. Cena then went into this whole thing about how the truth was that he loved Vickie and that she loved him back. He said the feelings were true cause she put him in the match. He went to walk off adding that he couldn’t help who he fell in love with. Edge stopped Cena as he was about to leave asking Vickie to tear up the contract. Cena said that she wouldn’t do it and told the truth which didn’t involve love. Well, love from a different point of view. Cena played the security camera footage from Raw which showed Vickie in her office. Edge was in the shower and Show walked in talking to Vickie. They talked of how things would be different after WrestleMania once Edge was out of the picture. Show asked for a quick kiss and they kissed with the camera catching it. They cut back to Cena who has a huge grin on his face with a shrug of the shoulders. Cut to all the three in the ring who have equally great looks on their faces. Edge’s face was great. Kofi Kingston defeated Chris Jericho in the Money In The Bank Qualifier. Jericho had Kofi in the walls when Flair’s music hit. Flair stood on the ramp which distracted Jericho. Kofi then nailed the spin kick for the win. Jericho later challenged Flair to come out of retirement next week on Raw. JBL defeated CM Punk to win the Intercontinental title. Yeah, that was annoying!! Punk went for the GTS but JBL raked him in the eye. So, with Punk unable to see, JBL hit him with the clothesline for the win. Rey Mysterio, Finlay, and Christian defeated the team of Kane, Miz, and Morrison when Rey pinned Morrison with the 619 and rana for the win. Divas champion, Maryse defeated Women’s champ, Melina following a slam out of the corner. The divas from both brands were at ringside supporting their own. Rosa tried to get to Maryse after the match and then both sides faced off. The fight was on and the faces all cleared the ring of the heels so both brands’ faces stood tall in the ring.
Other notes from Raw. Did anyone laugh out loud as much as I did when Triple H stood in the door way after breaking the door down? It looked like something out of a horror movie. Nicely done on that camera shot. Just who were all these random people in the house anyway??!! LOL. Anyone else thinking that Orton had failed horror movie 101 when we thought he had went upstairs? You never go upstairs. Orton learned and got the upperhand…..until he met that window. LOL. Yeah, I’m having fun with this segment cause I thought it was really well done. Good stuff. Wow, Shawn Michaels talking about how Undertaker has never beaten him brought back some memories. I still remember laughing back in 1997 as a Shawn fan cause Undertaker would always talk all kinds of trash but then Shawn would always win. Yeah, I had a lot of fun with my friends on that stuff. How great were the looks on everyone’s face after Cena ran that video? Great stuff. I was cracking up. Well done by everyone in that segment. The pat from Vickie to Show in the video cracked me up too. Grr, that footage of Warrior pinning Hogan still gets on my nerves all these years later. Put a lousy finish on that show for this Hulkamaniac. How funny was Big Show telling Vickie “who cares about what the audience wants, I’m the number one contender”? Koko’s HOF video was worth it just to hear Piledriver. Classic stuff. Next week’s main event will be Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker vs. Kozlov and JBL.
WWE 24/7 is going to be doubling up The Monday Night Wars programming starting next month. It has been announced that they will continue airing the Raw and Nitro shows from where they are in December 1997 but they are also going to start airing them again from the beginning. So, the Raw and Nitro shows from September 1995 will begin to air. They originally aired on 24/7 when the service started but very few people had it. This is a very good idea for subscribers that didn’t get WWE 24/7 until recently.
Someone want to hook me up with a PS3? Ha ha. I really am wanting to play that new Legends Of WrestleMania game. It looks like a lot of fun.
TNA is holding their Destination X PPV this Sunday and here is the lineup. TNA World Champion Sting defends against Kurt Angle. The return of The Ultimate X match. Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner. Beer Money defends the TNA tag team titles against Team 3D. Awesome Kong defends the Knockouts title against Sojo Bolt. And more.
To wrap up this week’s List. Want to see a fun clip? Here is a video of CM Punk, Mickie James, and Chris Jericho doing karaoke in Panama. Strong language at the end so be warned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8XWHRmu1K8
Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, March 2, 2009
WrestleMania 25 Matches Announced, Raw, Smackdown, WWE 24/7, & More
Welcome to the “you mean I have to watch Raw on TV like normal people again and not live?” edition of The Wrestling List.
News for the week: WWE News: WWE released their quarterly numbers last week. PPV buyrates continue to fall. No Mercy did 261,000 buys as compared to last year’s 271,000 buys. Cyber Sunday did 153,000 buys which was down from last year’s 194,000. Armageddon decreased as well doing 193,000 buys as compared to the previous year’s 237,000 buys. WWE has announced that WrestleMania 26 will be held in Arizona at The University of Phoenix Stadium on March 28, 2010. WWE announced last week that Ricky Steamboat would be inducted by Ric Flair into the WWE Hall Of Fame. WWE announced Cowboy Bill Watts on tonight’s Raw who will be inducted by Jim Ross. Yeah, not much with surprises going on as the names of the Hall Of Fame have been out for a while now.
TNA News: Big news for TNA a couple of weeks ago. Impact did a 1.3 rating with the Kurt Angle vs. Sting match. That was the highest ever rating for the show. TNA followed last week with another 1.3 rating so the ratings are up and staying consistent so far.
ROH News: Ring Of Honor taped their first three shows for their new HD Net TV show over the weekend. ROH has signed Ric Flair to make some appearances for the company. Flair will be appearing at the St. Louis ROH show on March 13th at the Gateside Center.
I talked in my live report from Nashville about the injury to Jamie Noble when he took Knox’s finisher. Noble reportedly suffered a stinger from it but will be ok. Noble apparently lost all feeling in his arm and hand. WWE.com is saying that Noble plans to be back in the ring very soon. Very glad that Noble is ok cause it looked scary looking back at it on the recording. Knox definitely had a scared look of “uh oh” when he realized that Noble was hurt.
Last week’s Smackdown opened with John Cena. Cena made it clear that he was there continuing to chase Edge claiming that the world title was now held by a coward. He said that he wanted his rematch that night and wasn’t leaving until he got an answer. Edge then showed up saying that he was sick of Cena running his name in the ground and accepted the match. Vickie then walked out saying that her husband was a warrior but that he would not be competing that night. Cena went on to say that he thought this might happen and wasn’t going to let the fans down meaning that he was going to get his hands on Edge that second. Vickie stopped him saying that if he wanted a shot at Edge that she would have to see how he competed against The Big Show later in the show. Big Show dominated most of their match. Cena countered the chokeslam into an attitude adjustor. Edge then rolled in the ring and right back out not making any contact. This distracted Cena which allowed time for Show to nail his knockout punch on Cena. He then hit the chokeslam for the win. As Show walked away, Edge stood over the defeated Cena telling him that it was his show and his belt. Moving on to the rest of the show. Matt Hardy arrived during the show ready for his fight with Jeff. However, Jeff walked out in street clothes not dressed for a fight. Jeff said that he wasn’t fighting Matt “now or ever” telling him that he was his brother and he needed to get over this. Matt said that he didn’t have a brother and that Jeff was used to everything being about him but now it was about Matt and his own needs. Matt talked of how he was always the more talented Hardy but yet his career had been mediocre cause of all the fans that had believed the hype in Jeff. Matt continued to egg on Jeff to fight by giving him a slap. He yelled “fight me you coward” and then nailed him with a backhanded slap. Jeff then got up and gave a look of disgust while walking away. Jeff shook his head down the aisle and waved at the fans who gave him an ovation for not taking the bait. Kozlov got a win on The Undertaker when he countered old school into a powerslam for the pinfall. Shelton Benjamin took on Chavo Guerrero. At one point in the match, Shelton threw Chavo into MVP who was doing commentary. MVP just sat back down. Shelton started showing off and his move got countered by Chavo into a pin. As Shelton was in the ring stunned, MVP ran up and nailed him with a kick. The Colons defeated Miz and Morrison when Carlito pinned Morrison with the backstabber. The Bellas were at ringside for a lot of the match and left with Carlito and Primo.
Other notes from Smackdown. Yeah, I thought the date stuff with The Colons, Bellas, and Miz & Morrison last week was pretty funny. Nicely produced. I loved watching the clips of WM 4 and 5. Isn’t it amazing how WWE used to plan things so far in advance? WrestleMania 4 ended and they started the build to Hogan/Savage at WrestleMania 5.
Tonight’s Raw set up several matches for WrestleMania 25. The show opened with Jerry Lawler’s announcement that Vickie Guerrero had made the Edge vs. Cena match for tonight. This would be Cena’s rematch. The show closed with that match. The finish had Edge hitting the spear but Cena kicked out. Edge got frustrated and grabbed the belt. Cena picked up Edge for the adjustor but the ref picked up the belt taking it out of the ring. Edge grabbed it and nailed Cena with it causing the DQ. Cena wins but Edge retains the title. Show walked out on the ramp standing next to Edge. Vickie then walked out and announced Show as the number one contender for the world title at WrestleMania. Yeah, I’m thinking that Cena will end up in that Show/Edge match. That brings us to Randy Orton deciding on who to face at WrestleMania. He originally said he would be facing the winner of Edge and Cena. The reasoning? Triple H would be in jail and not at WrestleMania cause he was pressing charges over last week. He did have Rhodes, Dibiase, his doctor, lawyers, and a ton of police officers with him. He invited Triple H to the ring and Triple H brought his sledehammer with him. Triple H talked of Orton’s IED but then added that he had complete control of his actions and headed for the ring for Orton. The officers stepped in front but then Triple H dropped the hammer. Orton backed the officers off and let Triple H walk in. Triple H pointed out that Orton needed to beat him at WrestleMania after taking out all of the McMahon’s but more importantly to avenge his big moment. The moment that he spoke of was when Triple H turned on Orton the night after Orton won the world title in 2004. Triple H said that he wasn’t happy with Orton’s success and took back what was his being the title. He pointed out that Orton was afraid and didn’t have what it took to get the job done. Orton’s doctor stepped in as Orton was shaking with anger at this point. He told the officers to remove Triple H from the ring but Orton backed them off. Orton said that he had changed his mind and wanted to face Triple H. The stipulation was that they couldn’t touch each other until WrestleMania unless provoked. Triple H took the deal and left the ring. As he made his way up the ramp, Orton started talking about the damage that he had done to the McMahons. He got to Stephanie and said how he had replayed it over and over. Triple H finally had enough and jumped back in the ring nose to nose with Orton. Triple H finished by saying that the last time they faced off in the ring that he broke Orton’s collar bone. He said that that was business while this is personal adding that he was going to break Orton’s neck. That brings us to Shawn Michaels vs. Kozlov. Kozlov dominated most of the match. Shawn mounted a comeback and hit the top rope elbow. He then surprisingly hit the superkick straight on with no counters and got the pinfall. Shawn goes on to face Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. Undertaker made his way on to the ramp and looked on at Shawn. He then gave the throat slash sign to Shawn. What a match that is going to be!! Mr. WrestleMania takes on the undefeated streak. Another Money In The Bank qualifier was held with Kane defeating Rey Mysterio and Mike Knox when Kane pinned Knox with the chokeslam. Chris Jericho hosted Piper’s Pit. He had brought the original set to the show. His guest? Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Jericho played footage of the Snuka/Piper feud and the famous coconut shot from 1984. Jericho told Snuka that he was the poster child for The Wrestler adding that Snuka was in his 60’s and working independent shows not knowing when to quit. I liked that Jericho brought up the Royal Rumble last year as he said that Piper and Snuka entered taking away two spots from younger stars where a win could have changed their life. Very good lines there. Jericho continued to tell Snuka to hang it up and brought out all the fruit mimicking the 1984 Piper’s Pit segment. Snuka took the coconut away and he threatened Jericho with it. Jericho bailed but then returned knocking the set over on Snuka. He then whipped him with his belt. Mickie James and Kelly Kelly defeated Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall when Kelly pinned Jillian. Melina and Maryse were at ringside doing commentary. Rosa attacked Kelly after the match. This brought everyone in and then Melina went to help. Maryse pulled Melina out of the ring and nailed a DDT on her on the floor.
Other notes from Raw. So, you mean I have to watch Raw on TV this week like normal people??!! We couldn’t have gotten Undertaker on the show LAST WEEK??!!! Isn’t it sad that the first thing that I think of when I hear Bill Watts name is his top rope move ban from 1992 WCW. Yeah, that is just great. Ground all the high flyers. Yeah, it was really lame at the time and still is looking back on it. So, I’m assuming that WWE is building to a Melina vs. Maryse champion vs. champion match at WrestleMania? Yeah, I’m going to be skipping See No Evil when it airs on Sci-Fi this week. I actually have not seen any of the WWE films. The reason is that they promote them so hard that I get sick of them before they even premiere. Fun to see the footage of the WrestleMania 12 ironman match tonight with Shawn and Bret. I did not expect that Shawn/Kozlov match to end so quickly once Shawn got on offense. I’m not complaining though!!!! Nice interview by Todd with Edge. I liked that they had him point out how Edge was giving Cena the rematch days after the knockout punch from Show. Edge then pointed out how Cena had been begging for the match and now he was the bad guy for giving him the title match now. Pretty funny.
The new WWE Superstars show on WGN will premiere on Thursday, April 16 at 7pm central time. WGN is already running promos for it as I saw them over the weekend.
I watched the 2008 WWE No Mercy event over the weekend. Solid show and like I say, I enjoy these shows a lot more when I’m seeing them on WWE 24/7 instead of paying $40 for them. The ladder match with Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho is definitely must see. Only match that I skipped was Batista and JBL. Yeah, no desire to watch that one. The rest of the show was definitely enjoyable.
I watched a Randy Savage/Bad News Brown match from 1988 which was featured in the shorites section of WWE 24/7. They had a nice feud that never really had a nationally broadcast payoff TV match for their feud. So, this was nice to see this match of when their feud was going on.
Speaking of Randy Savage, it appears that the hosts for the Randy Savage DVD set will be Matt Striker and Maria. Well, that is an interesting pairing for a Savage set. Striker definitely knows his history and I’m assuming that they needed a female to host with him going with the Savage/Elizabeth theme so they went with Maria.
Here is the March preview for programming on WWE 24/7. The theme for the month is of course centered around WrestleMania. Big Ones airing include WrestleMania 1, 17, and 24 along with WWE Cyber Sunday 2008. The Pick Your Big One fan voting is between WrestleMania 4, 10, and 12 and the winner will air this month. Yeah, I voted for 4. Old School house shows airing are Houston (11/26/86) and MSG (3/17/85). TV Classics airing include ECW (September 1996), World Class (June 1983), NWA (October 1986), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from December 1997), and Mid-Atlantic (November 1981). WWE 24/7 will be airing some shows that were the last weekly shows to air before certain WrestleManias which are All American Wrestling from 3/31/85 and Smackdown from 3/29/01. The Rock DVD continues to air along with the Superstars Of WrestleMania DVD set. The shorties will be hosted by The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase. It will tie to matches featured in the new Legends Of WrestleMania video game. The Hall Of Fame profile will be on Hulk Hogan featuring a profile on him along with matches of his against Big Boss Man, Kamala, Tony Atlas, Curt Hennig, Randy Savage, Kurt Angle, and more.
That is all that I have for now. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
News for the week: WWE News: WWE released their quarterly numbers last week. PPV buyrates continue to fall. No Mercy did 261,000 buys as compared to last year’s 271,000 buys. Cyber Sunday did 153,000 buys which was down from last year’s 194,000. Armageddon decreased as well doing 193,000 buys as compared to the previous year’s 237,000 buys. WWE has announced that WrestleMania 26 will be held in Arizona at The University of Phoenix Stadium on March 28, 2010. WWE announced last week that Ricky Steamboat would be inducted by Ric Flair into the WWE Hall Of Fame. WWE announced Cowboy Bill Watts on tonight’s Raw who will be inducted by Jim Ross. Yeah, not much with surprises going on as the names of the Hall Of Fame have been out for a while now.
TNA News: Big news for TNA a couple of weeks ago. Impact did a 1.3 rating with the Kurt Angle vs. Sting match. That was the highest ever rating for the show. TNA followed last week with another 1.3 rating so the ratings are up and staying consistent so far.
ROH News: Ring Of Honor taped their first three shows for their new HD Net TV show over the weekend. ROH has signed Ric Flair to make some appearances for the company. Flair will be appearing at the St. Louis ROH show on March 13th at the Gateside Center.
I talked in my live report from Nashville about the injury to Jamie Noble when he took Knox’s finisher. Noble reportedly suffered a stinger from it but will be ok. Noble apparently lost all feeling in his arm and hand. WWE.com is saying that Noble plans to be back in the ring very soon. Very glad that Noble is ok cause it looked scary looking back at it on the recording. Knox definitely had a scared look of “uh oh” when he realized that Noble was hurt.
Last week’s Smackdown opened with John Cena. Cena made it clear that he was there continuing to chase Edge claiming that the world title was now held by a coward. He said that he wanted his rematch that night and wasn’t leaving until he got an answer. Edge then showed up saying that he was sick of Cena running his name in the ground and accepted the match. Vickie then walked out saying that her husband was a warrior but that he would not be competing that night. Cena went on to say that he thought this might happen and wasn’t going to let the fans down meaning that he was going to get his hands on Edge that second. Vickie stopped him saying that if he wanted a shot at Edge that she would have to see how he competed against The Big Show later in the show. Big Show dominated most of their match. Cena countered the chokeslam into an attitude adjustor. Edge then rolled in the ring and right back out not making any contact. This distracted Cena which allowed time for Show to nail his knockout punch on Cena. He then hit the chokeslam for the win. As Show walked away, Edge stood over the defeated Cena telling him that it was his show and his belt. Moving on to the rest of the show. Matt Hardy arrived during the show ready for his fight with Jeff. However, Jeff walked out in street clothes not dressed for a fight. Jeff said that he wasn’t fighting Matt “now or ever” telling him that he was his brother and he needed to get over this. Matt said that he didn’t have a brother and that Jeff was used to everything being about him but now it was about Matt and his own needs. Matt talked of how he was always the more talented Hardy but yet his career had been mediocre cause of all the fans that had believed the hype in Jeff. Matt continued to egg on Jeff to fight by giving him a slap. He yelled “fight me you coward” and then nailed him with a backhanded slap. Jeff then got up and gave a look of disgust while walking away. Jeff shook his head down the aisle and waved at the fans who gave him an ovation for not taking the bait. Kozlov got a win on The Undertaker when he countered old school into a powerslam for the pinfall. Shelton Benjamin took on Chavo Guerrero. At one point in the match, Shelton threw Chavo into MVP who was doing commentary. MVP just sat back down. Shelton started showing off and his move got countered by Chavo into a pin. As Shelton was in the ring stunned, MVP ran up and nailed him with a kick. The Colons defeated Miz and Morrison when Carlito pinned Morrison with the backstabber. The Bellas were at ringside for a lot of the match and left with Carlito and Primo.
Other notes from Smackdown. Yeah, I thought the date stuff with The Colons, Bellas, and Miz & Morrison last week was pretty funny. Nicely produced. I loved watching the clips of WM 4 and 5. Isn’t it amazing how WWE used to plan things so far in advance? WrestleMania 4 ended and they started the build to Hogan/Savage at WrestleMania 5.
Tonight’s Raw set up several matches for WrestleMania 25. The show opened with Jerry Lawler’s announcement that Vickie Guerrero had made the Edge vs. Cena match for tonight. This would be Cena’s rematch. The show closed with that match. The finish had Edge hitting the spear but Cena kicked out. Edge got frustrated and grabbed the belt. Cena picked up Edge for the adjustor but the ref picked up the belt taking it out of the ring. Edge grabbed it and nailed Cena with it causing the DQ. Cena wins but Edge retains the title. Show walked out on the ramp standing next to Edge. Vickie then walked out and announced Show as the number one contender for the world title at WrestleMania. Yeah, I’m thinking that Cena will end up in that Show/Edge match. That brings us to Randy Orton deciding on who to face at WrestleMania. He originally said he would be facing the winner of Edge and Cena. The reasoning? Triple H would be in jail and not at WrestleMania cause he was pressing charges over last week. He did have Rhodes, Dibiase, his doctor, lawyers, and a ton of police officers with him. He invited Triple H to the ring and Triple H brought his sledehammer with him. Triple H talked of Orton’s IED but then added that he had complete control of his actions and headed for the ring for Orton. The officers stepped in front but then Triple H dropped the hammer. Orton backed the officers off and let Triple H walk in. Triple H pointed out that Orton needed to beat him at WrestleMania after taking out all of the McMahon’s but more importantly to avenge his big moment. The moment that he spoke of was when Triple H turned on Orton the night after Orton won the world title in 2004. Triple H said that he wasn’t happy with Orton’s success and took back what was his being the title. He pointed out that Orton was afraid and didn’t have what it took to get the job done. Orton’s doctor stepped in as Orton was shaking with anger at this point. He told the officers to remove Triple H from the ring but Orton backed them off. Orton said that he had changed his mind and wanted to face Triple H. The stipulation was that they couldn’t touch each other until WrestleMania unless provoked. Triple H took the deal and left the ring. As he made his way up the ramp, Orton started talking about the damage that he had done to the McMahons. He got to Stephanie and said how he had replayed it over and over. Triple H finally had enough and jumped back in the ring nose to nose with Orton. Triple H finished by saying that the last time they faced off in the ring that he broke Orton’s collar bone. He said that that was business while this is personal adding that he was going to break Orton’s neck. That brings us to Shawn Michaels vs. Kozlov. Kozlov dominated most of the match. Shawn mounted a comeback and hit the top rope elbow. He then surprisingly hit the superkick straight on with no counters and got the pinfall. Shawn goes on to face Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. Undertaker made his way on to the ramp and looked on at Shawn. He then gave the throat slash sign to Shawn. What a match that is going to be!! Mr. WrestleMania takes on the undefeated streak. Another Money In The Bank qualifier was held with Kane defeating Rey Mysterio and Mike Knox when Kane pinned Knox with the chokeslam. Chris Jericho hosted Piper’s Pit. He had brought the original set to the show. His guest? Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Jericho played footage of the Snuka/Piper feud and the famous coconut shot from 1984. Jericho told Snuka that he was the poster child for The Wrestler adding that Snuka was in his 60’s and working independent shows not knowing when to quit. I liked that Jericho brought up the Royal Rumble last year as he said that Piper and Snuka entered taking away two spots from younger stars where a win could have changed their life. Very good lines there. Jericho continued to tell Snuka to hang it up and brought out all the fruit mimicking the 1984 Piper’s Pit segment. Snuka took the coconut away and he threatened Jericho with it. Jericho bailed but then returned knocking the set over on Snuka. He then whipped him with his belt. Mickie James and Kelly Kelly defeated Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall when Kelly pinned Jillian. Melina and Maryse were at ringside doing commentary. Rosa attacked Kelly after the match. This brought everyone in and then Melina went to help. Maryse pulled Melina out of the ring and nailed a DDT on her on the floor.
Other notes from Raw. So, you mean I have to watch Raw on TV this week like normal people??!! We couldn’t have gotten Undertaker on the show LAST WEEK??!!! Isn’t it sad that the first thing that I think of when I hear Bill Watts name is his top rope move ban from 1992 WCW. Yeah, that is just great. Ground all the high flyers. Yeah, it was really lame at the time and still is looking back on it. So, I’m assuming that WWE is building to a Melina vs. Maryse champion vs. champion match at WrestleMania? Yeah, I’m going to be skipping See No Evil when it airs on Sci-Fi this week. I actually have not seen any of the WWE films. The reason is that they promote them so hard that I get sick of them before they even premiere. Fun to see the footage of the WrestleMania 12 ironman match tonight with Shawn and Bret. I did not expect that Shawn/Kozlov match to end so quickly once Shawn got on offense. I’m not complaining though!!!! Nice interview by Todd with Edge. I liked that they had him point out how Edge was giving Cena the rematch days after the knockout punch from Show. Edge then pointed out how Cena had been begging for the match and now he was the bad guy for giving him the title match now. Pretty funny.
The new WWE Superstars show on WGN will premiere on Thursday, April 16 at 7pm central time. WGN is already running promos for it as I saw them over the weekend.
I watched the 2008 WWE No Mercy event over the weekend. Solid show and like I say, I enjoy these shows a lot more when I’m seeing them on WWE 24/7 instead of paying $40 for them. The ladder match with Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho is definitely must see. Only match that I skipped was Batista and JBL. Yeah, no desire to watch that one. The rest of the show was definitely enjoyable.
I watched a Randy Savage/Bad News Brown match from 1988 which was featured in the shorites section of WWE 24/7. They had a nice feud that never really had a nationally broadcast payoff TV match for their feud. So, this was nice to see this match of when their feud was going on.
Speaking of Randy Savage, it appears that the hosts for the Randy Savage DVD set will be Matt Striker and Maria. Well, that is an interesting pairing for a Savage set. Striker definitely knows his history and I’m assuming that they needed a female to host with him going with the Savage/Elizabeth theme so they went with Maria.
Here is the March preview for programming on WWE 24/7. The theme for the month is of course centered around WrestleMania. Big Ones airing include WrestleMania 1, 17, and 24 along with WWE Cyber Sunday 2008. The Pick Your Big One fan voting is between WrestleMania 4, 10, and 12 and the winner will air this month. Yeah, I voted for 4. Old School house shows airing are Houston (11/26/86) and MSG (3/17/85). TV Classics airing include ECW (September 1996), World Class (June 1983), NWA (October 1986), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from December 1997), and Mid-Atlantic (November 1981). WWE 24/7 will be airing some shows that were the last weekly shows to air before certain WrestleManias which are All American Wrestling from 3/31/85 and Smackdown from 3/29/01. The Rock DVD continues to air along with the Superstars Of WrestleMania DVD set. The shorties will be hosted by The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase. It will tie to matches featured in the new Legends Of WrestleMania video game. The Hall Of Fame profile will be on Hulk Hogan featuring a profile on him along with matches of his against Big Boss Man, Kamala, Tony Atlas, Curt Hennig, Randy Savage, Kurt Angle, and more.
That is all that I have for now. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
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