Welcome to the “whew, that news of a trade had me concerned that WWE was going to mess up the best WWE show of the week, Smackdown” edition of The Wrestling List.
WWE did a “trade” last night which was explained in storyline by that Donald Trump made the deal before he left. They didn’t name all of the names on Raw but it was up on WWE.com today. Here are the talent moves. Raw is getting this talent: Gail Kim, Alicia Fox, Jack Swagger, Evan Bourne, and Mark Henry. Smackdown gets: Matt Hardy, Finlay, and The Hart Dynasty of David Hart Smith, Tyson Kidd, and Natalya. ECW gets: Shelton Benjamin, Goldust, William Regal, and The Bellas. Some interesting moves. I’ll go in depth on it after my Raw thoughts.
Sunday was the WWE Bash PPV. Here are the results of the show. The show opened with the ECW championship scramble match with Dreamer defending against Christian, Finlay, Henry, and Swagger. Dreamer ended up getting the pin near the end which had him retain the ECW title. Rey Mysterio defeated Chris Jericho in the title vs. mask match with Rey winning the Intercontinental title. Rey’s mask got pulled off but he had a second mask on underneath it. Rey hit the 619 and springboard for the win. Dolph Ziggler was next against The Great Khali in the no countout match. Kane got involved in the match and nailed Khali with a chair. As Kane walked off, Ziggler rolled in and got the pin on Khali. Next was the Unified tag team title match with The Colons defending against Priceless. As the match started, Teddy Long announced another opponent. Vince McMahon had put Long on notice for needing to step up his job performance and make some big moves. So, Edge and Jericho were put into this match. The finish had Edge making a tag that Carlito didn’t see. Carlito nailed Cody with the backstabber but the referee wouldn’t count cause Cody wasn’t the legal man. Edge then stepped in and hit a spear on Carlito to win the match and the tag team titles. Michelle McCool defeated Melina to win the Women’s title making Michelle the first woman to hold both the Women’s and Divas titles. She won the match with the Styles Clash. Next was CM Punk defending the World title against Jeff Hardy. Hardy hit the swanton and got the three count from the ref but Punk had his foot under the bottom rope. Hardy’s music was playing but the ref caught his mistake. He got the match going again which Hardy was very unhappy about. Punk went for the GTS but Hardy caught him with an elbow to stop the move. Punk was laying down covering his eye. The ref stopped Hardy so he could check on Punk. Punk then kicked the ref in the back which caused a DQ. The story was Punk saying that he couldn’t see and that the kick was accidental with him expecting the kick to land on Hardy. Hardy yelled at Punk that he had done it on purpose. Hardy then went on the attack on Punk frustrated over what Punk had done. Referees had to pull Hardy back. John Cena defeated The Miz after tapping to the STF. The main event was for the WWE title in the Three Stages match. Orton won the regular match which was the first fall when Triple H was DQ’d for hitting Orton with a chair. Triple H continued the assault with the chair which then started the second fall which was falls count anywhere. Triple H hit a pedigree on Orton on the floor to tie up the match. Last was the stretcher match in the third fall. The finish had Priceless getting involved. Triple H went for the sledgehammer and nailed Priceless with it. Orton then nailed Triple H with the metal piece off of the place where Triple H had the sledgehammer hidden. Orton then rolled Triple H across the line and won the match to retain the WWE title.
Getting to last night’s Raw. I thought this was a solid show. Vince McMahon opened the show and said that there was a 15 man trade with the storyline being that it was completed by Donald Trump before he quit. Also, McMahon announced that the weekly guest host or GM would happen. This week’s was Batista. Batista hit the ring and announced a four man tournament to set the challenger for Orton at Night Of Champions with Triple H taking on MVP and then John Cena taking on The Miz. Batista said that he wasn’t going to do this guest host deal when it was offered because he didn’t want to come back till he could wrestle. He was then told that he could have complete power and knew he could make Orton’s life miserable for a night so that was when he accepted it from Vince. Legacy arrived and Orton brought up the point of what was going to stop them from finishing the job on Batista? Batista then pointed out that he could fire all of them if they even looked at him wrong. He then said that Orton would be facing three of the newly acquired Raw talent from the trade in a three on one gauntlet match. Batista later told Orton that if Priceless interfered, they would be fired on the spot. So, Orton finishes the show with the gauntlet match. These were all surprises as we had yet to hear the names of the new Raw stars. His first opponent was Evan Bourne. The finish of that had Bourne going for his big finish and then Orton nailed the ropes knocking him off of the turnbuckle. Orton then hit a RKO as he pulled Bourne from the turnbuckle. That finished Bourne. Orton’s next opponent was former ECW champion, Jack Swagger. This finish had Swagger stepping on to the apron and taking a countout. Orton wins. Swagger got on the mic saying that he wanted to make a big impression on his first night on Raw and had always liked Orton. He stuck his hand out to Orton and Orton shook it. Swagger walked out. Orton’s last opponent was Mark Henry. Orton’s face was funny when he realized it was Henry. Henry got on the mic and said that he also wanted to make a good impression on his first night on Raw. He stepped out on the apron as well looking like he would take a countout. Henry then laughed and stepped back in the ring. Orton went to his knees begging and then Henry picked him straight up by his neck. The finish had Orton’s RKO attempt being countered by sending Orton to the ropes. Henry then hit the world’s strongest slam to get the pinfall on Orton. Wow, they put Henry over big by having him pin the champ. Moving on to the Night Of Champions tournament. Triple H against MVP was first with Triple H getting the win following the pedigree. John Cena and Miz was solid with Miz actually dominating most of the match. I thought Miz looked really good on offense and he had a lot of fans with him on every move he was hitting. The finish had Cena making the big comeback and hitting the legdrop off the top followed by the STF for the submission win. It will be Triple H vs. Cena next week with the winner moving on to face Orton at Night Of Champions for the belt. Chris Jericho and Edge took on The Colons in a rematch for the tag team titles. Edge and Jericho talked before the match with Edge saying he had went to Jericho about forming a united front to take over WWE. The finish was cool with Jericho and Primo battling on the floor. As Carlito was ready to hit the bottom rope for a move, Jericho shoved Primo into the rope on the floor. Carlito missed the rope and then Edge hit the spear for the win. The Colons argued a bit after the match. A fatal four way women’s match was held to determine the challenger for Maryse’s Divas title at Night Of Champions. This was a fun match!! Mickie James vs. Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix vs. Rosa Mendes. Funny moment with Beth turning on Rosa as Beth was on a mission to win. Mickie took out Beth with a kick which sent Beth crashing off of the steps. Mickie then hit the DDT on Rosa to score the win. Mickie then faced off with Maryse who had been doing commentary during the match. Kofi Kingston and Big Show battled to a double countout. Show took the fight to the floor. Kofi ended up knocking Show into the post but neither could beat the count. Show left very frustrated.
Other notes from Raw. It was announced that The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase will be the guest GM next week on Raw. Ok, someone explain this to me. Didn’t Cole and Lawler make this big deal for weeks about The Colons being able to jump brands as long as they were champions but then saying that if they got beat, the new champs would be locked on their brand? Ok, so what happened to that? Suddenly, Edge and Jericho can jump brands too. That was just kind of bizarre. Was I the only one that heard Cole and Lawler say that Triple H had to wrestle twice on Raw? When I heard that, I thought that meant that the finals were going to be on this show too. I wasn’t the only one that heard that, was I? Did Lawler also really call the RKO on Bourne a running bulldog??!! Isn’t there just something funny about Teddy Long being put on “probation” by Vince McMahon due to job performance? Yeah, sorry that your show is so good that we’re putting you on probation. LOL. I loved the old school ECW-esque move with the women all having holds on each other. Very fun. Then, the charge by Beth into all three other women into the corner was cool to follow it. Like I said, I really liked the women’s match. Miz looked solid on offense against Cena and the announcers were putting it over with how shocked that they were with how Miz was dominating.
When this 15 person trade came up, my first thought was, oh no, Smackdown is going to get destroyed since it has been so good. So, I got some good relief after seeing the news of who was being moved. ECW on the other hand got destroyed. That was a show that has gotten a lot of good feedback in recent months. Good in ring action for sure on the show. Raw got some new stars. As far as individual moves, Matt Hardy is the one that I’m the most happy about cause I have been critical of how badly he has been used since being moved to Raw. He got lost in the mix quickly and having him back on Smackdown should be a good thing for Hardy and for the fans watching. I’m happy about seeing the Hart Dynasty on Smackdown. I think they could really shine being on that brand. I’m curious to see what things will be in store for the ECW guys moved over to Raw with Henry, Swagger, and Bourne. I am concerned that they will get lost in the mix too. Although, giving Henry a win on the WWE champion was a big deal. I’m interested to see what they do with Gail Kim on Raw. She is a nice addition and I’m surprised that she didn’t do more on Smackdown. Alicia Fox? Well, they didn’t keep her and Michelle together long. As far as the talent moved to ECW, well, Shelton will be a good pickup. I’m just not sure what there is left to do with Goldust, Regal, and the Bellas. Like I said, the real winner for me is Matt Hardy getting moved off of Raw.
The main event for this week’s Smackdown is Unified tag team champions, Edge and Chris Jericho taking on CM Punk and Jeff Hardy.
Some flags went up a couple of weeks ago when WWE posted that they were looking for a ring announcer preferably female with a good singing voice. Doesn’t that sound like what they have with Lillian Garcia??!!! It got a lot of speculation going that Lillian might be on her way out of the company. Lillian posted a blog over the weekend which talked of the rumors: Lillian did confirm that she is leaving and you can read her comments at this link: http://www.lilliangarcia.com
This is a bummer to hear cause I think she has become such a great ring announcer over the years. She really has become the voice of Raw with ring announcing. It has been nice having a ring announcer with such a strong voice as well. If you haven’t heard her sing the national anthem before a live show in an arena, you don’t know what you’re missing. I have heard her sing it live several times and it just sends chills through you!! Her greatest moment in WWE will probably always be the Smackdown after September 11, 2001. She did an INCREDIBLE singing of the national anthem to open the show. Talk about getting chills and getting you all pumped up after such a horrible week.
Here is the preview for the July programming on WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand. The theme for the month is “Superstars and Stripes Forever. Big Ones airing include WCW Great American Bash 1989 (GREAT, GREAT, GREAT show, Flair vs. Funk, Sting vs. Muta, Steamboat vs. Luger, WarGames, and more), WWF SummerSlam 1993 (Luger vs. Yokozuna), WWE No Way Out 2009. Old School house shows airing include MSG (12/31/91 – Hogan vs. Flair – the Rematch) and Boston Garden (1/11/86). TV Classics continue to air in order including ECW (October 1996), NWA (December 1986), Monday Night Wars (January 1998), World Class (July 1983), Prime Time Wrestling (April 1988), Mid-Atlantic (December 1981), Monday Night Wars: The Beginning (October 1995). A couple of Film Room shows will air which will be on Harley Race and then one with the WWWF vs. NWA. A couple of Coliseum Video releases will air including Hulk Hogan: Real American and also Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Also airing will the recently released Life and Times of Mr. Perfect DVD. It should be just the biography portion of the DVD obviously which I am really looking forward to watching. I’ve been wanting to see it for a while but have got to where I save my money on DVD’s as well waiting for them to air on 24/7 (with the exception obviously being the Randy Savage DVD). The shorties for the month should be a lot of fun. All of them are US title matches which span from NWA/WCW to WWE. That isn’t just the US Heavyweight title but also includes the US Tag Team titles from the NWA which includes The Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics. That is great stuff!! Shorties should be really fun to watch. Hall of Fame profile will be on Tony Atlas. This should be a really fun month of WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand. Lots of good stuff to see.
There were live reports last week saying that WWE was taking Randy Savage signs from fans in attendance at the TV shows. Kind of strange especially when they just released that DVD. Also, John Cena threw his hat into the crowd last week and a fan threw it back at the ring. The fan was ejected from the building. WOW, that is just dumb.
Torrie Wilson has made the final four on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here on NBC.
So, Samoa Joe is now a heel in TNA and joined up with the Main Event Mafia? Sigh. It is so frustrating with how TNA has just ruined this guy. He was the hottest thing in wrestling a few years ago. If I could have picked one guy to watch matches of besides Shawn Michaels, I would have picked Samoa Joe. He was just incredible to watch. It’s just been awful to watch how the company has creatively ruined him.
That is all I have for this week’s Wrestling List. Wishing you all a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Custom Search
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Commercial Free Edition Of Raw, Smackdown Remains Must See TV - June 22, 2009
Welcome to the “I’m not selling Vince, I’m not selling Vince, I love these fans Vince, Double my money? Sold” edition of The Wrestling List.
Another Smackdown. Another great show. Nothing but love for Michael Hayes. This show just has logic all over it along with great action. The show opened with Josh Mathews talking to Jeff Hardy and CM Punk in the ring. I liked the segment with Punk telling Hardy that there is no rule in the contract that he couldn’t cash in on him while adding that he didn’t steal the title. They both agreed that they live a different lifestyle while Hardy said he would win the title on Sunday. The opening match had Hardy taking on Chris Jericho. This was a very fun and creative finish. Rey Mysterio got involved and hit a rana on Jericho on the floor which sent Jericho into the post. Where did Rey come from? He was sitting in the front row with others dressed like him. It was great!! Very much a play off of Jericho hiding in the crowd weeks ago. Jericho got counted out with Hardy getting the win. Jericho complained to the ref after the match but then Hardy hit the twist of fate and swanton. Rey Mysterio would see action at the end of the night against CM Punk. Rey and Jericho did set up their match stipulation for The Bash with the title vs. mask match. Jericho did commentary on this match and he was in GREAT form. I love how Jericho keeps saying how great Rey is and how great Rey can be . Jericho just wants to set him free from the mask to make him greater. Great line from Jericho when JR asked if his attack on Rey was cowardly? Jericho responded saying that it was strategy and called it the art of war. Punk threw Rey to the floor at one point. Jericho jumped up and threw Rey into the post. The announcers went at Jericho over what he had done with Jericho asking them if they really thought he was just there to talk to them. He was there to get even. I thought that was a great verbal exchange. Rey barely beat the count back into the ring. Punk hit the GTS for the win. Hardy ran out pointing out the Jericho attack to the ref. Then, Hardy got mad at Punk over taking advantage of the situation while Punk had a look of that he did what he had to do. Edge and John Morrison did battle in a really fun match!! Lots of near falls and they were really putting over how Morrison was so close to getting the huge win. Story of this match was Edge damaging Morrison’s ribs early on which was a disadvantage to him throughout. Yeah, logic!!!! Morrison missed his finisher and then Edge hit a spear to win the match. Haas, Benjamin, and Ricky “I’m a heel now” Ortiz lost to the team of R Truth and Cryme Tyme when Truth pinned Shelton with a corkscrew elbow. Melina defeated Alicia Fox with Michelle at ringside. Melina won with the sunset flip slam. Michelle landed a kick on Melina after the match. She then bashed Melina’s head into the announce table while talking of how she was going to win the title. Khali was once again outsmarted by Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler brought a chair inside the ring and threw it at Khali. Khali punched it to the mat and Ziggler fell to the mat. The ref didn’t see this but turned to see Khali having the chair in his hand. The ref called for the DQ while Ziggler faked that he had been hit with the chair.
Well, that was fast. Donald Trump was one and done in this storyline. Tonight’s Raw was the commercial free episode which was the first time that it has been done in seventeen years of Raw. Overall, I thought it was a good show. Trump opened the show promoting what he was going to do which also included him giving refunds for ticket holders in the arena. Later in the show, Trump announced that there would be nothing as far as a GM announcement. Instead, there would be a guest celebrity GM every week. Vince McMahon arrived to the ring area after being downgraded big time by Trump backstage including his office being moved to the men’s room. Vince was mad at the free stuff that Trump was doing saying that Trump was going to put him out of business in six months with this progress. Trump went on to say that he had paid a big amount for Raw and that he could do whatever he wanted with it. He went on to say that he had a ton of offers from people wanting to buy Raw for double what he paid for adding that he could sell it at any point. Vince then started to see that he had been played and began throwing offers at Trump to buy Raw back. Vince offered him the original price and a percentage increase getting up to 75%. Trump wouldn’t budge saying that he loved the fans and wasn’t selling. Then, Vince offered him double which is the offers of what Trump said he was getting. Trump then caved immediately and agreed to the sell. I thought that was just bizarre with how quickly that happened. Vince buys back Raw and tells Trump that he is fired. Trump slaps Vince and then some security gets in the ring to make sure Vince didn’t retaliate. So, there you have it. The Vince/Trump storyline is over after one week. Randy Orton defended the WWE title against Triple H in the last man standing match. I thought the match was a solid one. Lots of big spots including a RKO on the table, a backdrop on the table by Triple H, a monitor to the head of Orton, and more. They worked their way up the ramp. I should point out that one story told in the match was Triple H getting his knee and leg worked on by Orton from early on. They ended up battling beside the stage. Triple H grabbed a ladder. He went to hit Orton with it like a battering ram but Orton ducked with the ladder nailing a crew guy. They played up how Orton didn’t care anything about the crew guy and grabbing the ladder to do more damage. Orton used the ladder on Triple H’s knee and then stomped the ladder with his leg in it. Orton went for a RKO off of the ladder but Triple H shoved him off of it. Triple H nailed the pedigree. The ref made the ten count but Triple H couldn’t even get to his feet after hitting the move. No winner and Orton retains the title. Later, Triple H attacked Orton as Orton was leaving the arena which was the ending of the show tonight. Fun six man tag from Smackdown that I would have liked to see given more time. Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy, and The Great Khali defeated the team of Edge, Chris Jericho, and Dolph Ziggler. Lots of fun spots. The finish had Jeff pinning Ziggler with the swanton. CM Punk was on commentary and walked in the ring. He raised Hardy’s arm but Hardy pulled away when he realized who it was. John Cena and The Miz had a talking segment early in the show where Cena dished back at Miz for his recent comments. Cena took on Big Show in the last match of the night. Cena had the STF on when Miz arrived. Cena let go of it to go after Miz. Cena picked up Show for the adjustment but Miz shoved Show on Cena. Show gets the pin and then Miz stood over Cena. Cody Rhodes defeated Primo Colon. Primo hit a crossed body but Cody rolled through and hooked the tights to score the pin. Mickie James and The Bellas defeated Maryse, Beth Phoenix, and Rosa Mendes when Mickie pinned Rosa with a superkick. She blew a kiss at Maryse after the pinfall continuing the whole storyline of Maryse ducking Mickie James for title matches.
Other notes from Raw. I couldn’t have been the only one that kept waiting for a commercial all night long. It was just instinct to expect it at the usual commercial points of the show. In the six man tag, everyone was diving out of the ring and I was waiting for the commercial. Ok, the KFC chicken? If everyone was so hungry, why weren’t they eating the chicken? I thought that was kind of goofy. I did think it was funny to watch Punk looking at the chicken while he was talking about the match. At least Punk asked if they could eat it!! Cole just kept talking about how big his appetite was with that chicken nearby. So, did anyone eat it? Good idea for WWE to get some advertising though with the commercial free show. Trump did announce at the press conference earlier today about the free ticket deal. Anyone else hoping that the Santina Marella firing holds true? I’m sick of Santina. Did you see Donald Trump Jr. in the front row watching the last man standing match? The Cena/Chicago Cubs segment was fun. I noticed this last week but didn’t say anything about it while others did say something. I wasn’t crazy about the countdown clock to the title match last week or tonight. It just kind of ruins the show portion of it when you know that a match is going to end at a certain point. From a logic point of view, how do you know when a match is going to be over? How do you know that the match before the title match won’t go longer? I thought about that last week but it didn’t bother me as much as it did others.
Several media outlets reported the Donald Trump buying Raw storyline as fact last week. That is twice that WWE has done that to the media over the last year. You might remember that several media outlets picked up the Jeff Hardy unconsicious in a hotel room story which was the storyline that teased an Edge attack but eventually turned into the Matt Hardy heel turn. You have to know that these media outlets that report these stories as fact get such mud on their face for it.
I thought I would take some time to discuss the out of nowhere face/heel turns that WWE did when the draft happened. Some have done ok, others have been in the middle, while others have stopped their momentum completely. First, Santino’s sudden face turn. This has been a terrible thing. He was much better as a heel. Santino has almost gotten to be boring in recent weeks. How does that happen??!! John Morrison. The jury is still out on this one but it still has promise. Morrison is going to be a star for sure. It is just a matter of if he can get over as a face or if he is a better heel. MVP. This has been bad. He suddenly turned face and was moved to Raw. I can’t decide whether his downturn has been from the face turn or if it is the move to Raw. Actually, I think it is both. He’s a better heel and getting lost in the shuffle on Raw hasn’t helped. Ricky Ortiz. Who knows? I thought it was funny the first week that he was acting like a jerk on Smackdown. My first thought was so I guess he is suddenly a heel now since the draft happened? The only turn that is at all working so far is Morrison. The rest have either been bad or fans just don’t care. The Santino turn has completely stopped his momentum. Santina didn’t help either.
The Bash PPV is this Sunday on PPV. Here is the lineup for it. Randy Orton defends the WWE title against Triple H in a two out of three falls match. The first fall will be a regular match, second fall will be falls count anywhere, and the third fall will be a stretcher match. CM Punk defends the World title against Jeff Hardy. Intercontinental champion Chris Jericho defends against Rey Mysterio which also has Rey’s mask on the line. The ECW title will be defended in a scramble match when Tommy Dreamer defends against Christian, Jack Swagger, Mark Henry, and Finlay. John Cena vs. The Miz. Tag Team champions, The Colons defend against Dibiase and Rhodes. Melina defends the Women’s title against Michelle McCool.
That is it for this week. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Another Smackdown. Another great show. Nothing but love for Michael Hayes. This show just has logic all over it along with great action. The show opened with Josh Mathews talking to Jeff Hardy and CM Punk in the ring. I liked the segment with Punk telling Hardy that there is no rule in the contract that he couldn’t cash in on him while adding that he didn’t steal the title. They both agreed that they live a different lifestyle while Hardy said he would win the title on Sunday. The opening match had Hardy taking on Chris Jericho. This was a very fun and creative finish. Rey Mysterio got involved and hit a rana on Jericho on the floor which sent Jericho into the post. Where did Rey come from? He was sitting in the front row with others dressed like him. It was great!! Very much a play off of Jericho hiding in the crowd weeks ago. Jericho got counted out with Hardy getting the win. Jericho complained to the ref after the match but then Hardy hit the twist of fate and swanton. Rey Mysterio would see action at the end of the night against CM Punk. Rey and Jericho did set up their match stipulation for The Bash with the title vs. mask match. Jericho did commentary on this match and he was in GREAT form. I love how Jericho keeps saying how great Rey is and how great Rey can be . Jericho just wants to set him free from the mask to make him greater. Great line from Jericho when JR asked if his attack on Rey was cowardly? Jericho responded saying that it was strategy and called it the art of war. Punk threw Rey to the floor at one point. Jericho jumped up and threw Rey into the post. The announcers went at Jericho over what he had done with Jericho asking them if they really thought he was just there to talk to them. He was there to get even. I thought that was a great verbal exchange. Rey barely beat the count back into the ring. Punk hit the GTS for the win. Hardy ran out pointing out the Jericho attack to the ref. Then, Hardy got mad at Punk over taking advantage of the situation while Punk had a look of that he did what he had to do. Edge and John Morrison did battle in a really fun match!! Lots of near falls and they were really putting over how Morrison was so close to getting the huge win. Story of this match was Edge damaging Morrison’s ribs early on which was a disadvantage to him throughout. Yeah, logic!!!! Morrison missed his finisher and then Edge hit a spear to win the match. Haas, Benjamin, and Ricky “I’m a heel now” Ortiz lost to the team of R Truth and Cryme Tyme when Truth pinned Shelton with a corkscrew elbow. Melina defeated Alicia Fox with Michelle at ringside. Melina won with the sunset flip slam. Michelle landed a kick on Melina after the match. She then bashed Melina’s head into the announce table while talking of how she was going to win the title. Khali was once again outsmarted by Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler brought a chair inside the ring and threw it at Khali. Khali punched it to the mat and Ziggler fell to the mat. The ref didn’t see this but turned to see Khali having the chair in his hand. The ref called for the DQ while Ziggler faked that he had been hit with the chair.
Well, that was fast. Donald Trump was one and done in this storyline. Tonight’s Raw was the commercial free episode which was the first time that it has been done in seventeen years of Raw. Overall, I thought it was a good show. Trump opened the show promoting what he was going to do which also included him giving refunds for ticket holders in the arena. Later in the show, Trump announced that there would be nothing as far as a GM announcement. Instead, there would be a guest celebrity GM every week. Vince McMahon arrived to the ring area after being downgraded big time by Trump backstage including his office being moved to the men’s room. Vince was mad at the free stuff that Trump was doing saying that Trump was going to put him out of business in six months with this progress. Trump went on to say that he had paid a big amount for Raw and that he could do whatever he wanted with it. He went on to say that he had a ton of offers from people wanting to buy Raw for double what he paid for adding that he could sell it at any point. Vince then started to see that he had been played and began throwing offers at Trump to buy Raw back. Vince offered him the original price and a percentage increase getting up to 75%. Trump wouldn’t budge saying that he loved the fans and wasn’t selling. Then, Vince offered him double which is the offers of what Trump said he was getting. Trump then caved immediately and agreed to the sell. I thought that was just bizarre with how quickly that happened. Vince buys back Raw and tells Trump that he is fired. Trump slaps Vince and then some security gets in the ring to make sure Vince didn’t retaliate. So, there you have it. The Vince/Trump storyline is over after one week. Randy Orton defended the WWE title against Triple H in the last man standing match. I thought the match was a solid one. Lots of big spots including a RKO on the table, a backdrop on the table by Triple H, a monitor to the head of Orton, and more. They worked their way up the ramp. I should point out that one story told in the match was Triple H getting his knee and leg worked on by Orton from early on. They ended up battling beside the stage. Triple H grabbed a ladder. He went to hit Orton with it like a battering ram but Orton ducked with the ladder nailing a crew guy. They played up how Orton didn’t care anything about the crew guy and grabbing the ladder to do more damage. Orton used the ladder on Triple H’s knee and then stomped the ladder with his leg in it. Orton went for a RKO off of the ladder but Triple H shoved him off of it. Triple H nailed the pedigree. The ref made the ten count but Triple H couldn’t even get to his feet after hitting the move. No winner and Orton retains the title. Later, Triple H attacked Orton as Orton was leaving the arena which was the ending of the show tonight. Fun six man tag from Smackdown that I would have liked to see given more time. Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy, and The Great Khali defeated the team of Edge, Chris Jericho, and Dolph Ziggler. Lots of fun spots. The finish had Jeff pinning Ziggler with the swanton. CM Punk was on commentary and walked in the ring. He raised Hardy’s arm but Hardy pulled away when he realized who it was. John Cena and The Miz had a talking segment early in the show where Cena dished back at Miz for his recent comments. Cena took on Big Show in the last match of the night. Cena had the STF on when Miz arrived. Cena let go of it to go after Miz. Cena picked up Show for the adjustment but Miz shoved Show on Cena. Show gets the pin and then Miz stood over Cena. Cody Rhodes defeated Primo Colon. Primo hit a crossed body but Cody rolled through and hooked the tights to score the pin. Mickie James and The Bellas defeated Maryse, Beth Phoenix, and Rosa Mendes when Mickie pinned Rosa with a superkick. She blew a kiss at Maryse after the pinfall continuing the whole storyline of Maryse ducking Mickie James for title matches.
Other notes from Raw. I couldn’t have been the only one that kept waiting for a commercial all night long. It was just instinct to expect it at the usual commercial points of the show. In the six man tag, everyone was diving out of the ring and I was waiting for the commercial. Ok, the KFC chicken? If everyone was so hungry, why weren’t they eating the chicken? I thought that was kind of goofy. I did think it was funny to watch Punk looking at the chicken while he was talking about the match. At least Punk asked if they could eat it!! Cole just kept talking about how big his appetite was with that chicken nearby. So, did anyone eat it? Good idea for WWE to get some advertising though with the commercial free show. Trump did announce at the press conference earlier today about the free ticket deal. Anyone else hoping that the Santina Marella firing holds true? I’m sick of Santina. Did you see Donald Trump Jr. in the front row watching the last man standing match? The Cena/Chicago Cubs segment was fun. I noticed this last week but didn’t say anything about it while others did say something. I wasn’t crazy about the countdown clock to the title match last week or tonight. It just kind of ruins the show portion of it when you know that a match is going to end at a certain point. From a logic point of view, how do you know when a match is going to be over? How do you know that the match before the title match won’t go longer? I thought about that last week but it didn’t bother me as much as it did others.
Several media outlets reported the Donald Trump buying Raw storyline as fact last week. That is twice that WWE has done that to the media over the last year. You might remember that several media outlets picked up the Jeff Hardy unconsicious in a hotel room story which was the storyline that teased an Edge attack but eventually turned into the Matt Hardy heel turn. You have to know that these media outlets that report these stories as fact get such mud on their face for it.
I thought I would take some time to discuss the out of nowhere face/heel turns that WWE did when the draft happened. Some have done ok, others have been in the middle, while others have stopped their momentum completely. First, Santino’s sudden face turn. This has been a terrible thing. He was much better as a heel. Santino has almost gotten to be boring in recent weeks. How does that happen??!! John Morrison. The jury is still out on this one but it still has promise. Morrison is going to be a star for sure. It is just a matter of if he can get over as a face or if he is a better heel. MVP. This has been bad. He suddenly turned face and was moved to Raw. I can’t decide whether his downturn has been from the face turn or if it is the move to Raw. Actually, I think it is both. He’s a better heel and getting lost in the shuffle on Raw hasn’t helped. Ricky Ortiz. Who knows? I thought it was funny the first week that he was acting like a jerk on Smackdown. My first thought was so I guess he is suddenly a heel now since the draft happened? The only turn that is at all working so far is Morrison. The rest have either been bad or fans just don’t care. The Santino turn has completely stopped his momentum. Santina didn’t help either.
The Bash PPV is this Sunday on PPV. Here is the lineup for it. Randy Orton defends the WWE title against Triple H in a two out of three falls match. The first fall will be a regular match, second fall will be falls count anywhere, and the third fall will be a stretcher match. CM Punk defends the World title against Jeff Hardy. Intercontinental champion Chris Jericho defends against Rey Mysterio which also has Rey’s mask on the line. The ECW title will be defended in a scramble match when Tommy Dreamer defends against Christian, Jack Swagger, Mark Henry, and Finlay. John Cena vs. The Miz. Tag Team champions, The Colons defend against Dibiase and Rhodes. Melina defends the Women’s title against Michelle McCool.
That is it for this week. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Three Hour Raw - New WWE Champ & New Owner, Smackdown, & More - June 15, 2009
Welcome to the “how fitting of a line was it for Vince McMahon to say that Donald Trump has lost his marbles when I’m thinking at the same time that Vince has lost his!!!” edition of The Wrestling List.
News for the week. WWE News: Raw will be going commercial free next week on USA Network. WWE is saying that Batista will be out for four months after having surgery on his torn tendon in his left bicep. Umaga’s release is a wellness policy violation deal. WWE posted the following on their website about his release: As reported on WWE.com on Monday, June 8, 2009, WWE Superstar Umaga (Edward Fatu) has been released from his World Wrestling Entertainment contract. However, consistent with the practice of announcing wellness policy violations, it should be noted that Umaga's termination was due to his second violation of the WWE Wellness Program and his subsequent refusal to attend a rehabilitation facility. Vickie Guerrero has asked for her release from WWE to spend more time with her family. That is why she was written off of TV last week.
Smackdown opened up with the new World champion, CM Punk. He talked of the rumblings of how he had robbed Hardy of the title but pointed out how people didn’t see it that way last year when he did the same thing to Edge. He went on to talk about how it doesn’t make him a bad guy for doing what you’re supposed to do with the Money In The Bank cash in. Punk talked of how he had never been someone to do the popular thing and did what was best for him. Punk talked of bringing honor and respect back to the World title. Jeff Hardy arrived and said he wasn’t there to complain because it wasn’t his style. Hardy said that Punk earned the Money In The Bank win but didn’t earn the World title. Punk said that when Hardy made the ladder match that he knew that it was his night to cash it in and it just happened that Hardy was the one that won the match. Hardy talked of how Punk was selfish and wondered if he even cared about his fans. Hardy wanted his rematch but so did another guy as Edge made his way to the ring. Punk and Hardy both agreed that Edge didn’t deserve in the argument cause he lost it to begin with. Lots of back and forth on who should get the rematch with Edge pointing out how Punk wants to be him so badly. Hardy ended up punching Edge and then hit a twist of fate and swanton on to Punk. Teddy Long made his way to the ring announcing a number one contender’s match as the main event with the winner moving on to face Punk for the title on the special three hour Raw. So, Edge and Hardy closed the show and Punk was on commentary for the match. Interesting that JR was on Punk’s side saying that he did what he was supposed to do with having that kind of advantage with Money In The Bank saying it was too bad if fans didn’t understand that. The end of the match had Hardy and Edge battling on the floor. Edge threw Hardy on to Punk. As Edge got in the ring, Punk went after Edge for retaliation. That caused the DQ and Hardy was DQ’d. As Punk was punching Edge, Hardy went after Punk. Hardy hit the twist of fate to Edge but it opened an opportunity for Punk to hit the GTS on Hardy. Controversy over the finish since Hardy didn’t have anything to do with it to get himself DQ’d and Teddy Long arrived again making Monday’s match a triple threat match for the title. Other happenings on the show had CM Punk defeating Chris Jericho with the GTS after Jericho had complained to Long about wanting in the title picture. Before the match, Jericho pointed out how he set Rey free by removing the mask so he wouldn’t have to hide anymore. John Morrison and R Truth defeated Benjamin and Haas when Morrison pinned Haas with the starship pain. Michelle McCool and Layla defeated Melina and Eve when Michelle pinned Melina with the Styles clash. Yeah, I’m still calling it that. Ha ha. Dolph Ziggler defeated The Great Khali by countout. Ziggler was running from Khali on the outside of the ring and then grabbed Singh. He used Singh as a shield and then threw him to Khali. Ziggler was watching the count and jumped in right before the ten count to get the outsmarting win.
Tonight’s three hour edition of Raw was called the 3 For All. For the most part, I liked the show. Lots of good action tonight. Now, the one storyline idea really got on my nerves and left me thinking that Vince had lost his mind but I’ll get to that in a minute. The fatal four way match was set up to decide the WWE championship. Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. Triple H vs. Big Show. Really good match. Triple H hit the pedigree on Big Show. Cena jumped in and hit the attitude adjustment on Triple H. Cena went to pin Big Show but he kicked out. Orton then jumped in and threw Cena into the post. Orton hit a RKO on to Big Show and got the pin to win back the WWE championship. His fifth title win. The other big story of the show was Vince McMahon’s announcement. Before the WWE title match, Vince said he had made a big decision and that was selling Raw to a new owner. He mentioned that he had a history with the person but that it was an offer that he couldn’t pass up. He made his way to the ring to announce the new owner of Raw. Who would it be? My obvious thought was that it would be Ric Flair especially with them in Charlotte. I wasn’t really into that though cause we’ve been there and done that with Flair in charge. Then, Vince announced the new owner of Raw and it was really making me want Flair instead. Donald Trump. Yes, you heard me right. Donald Trump is the new owner of Raw. Trump appeared on the big screen with a big speech about what he was going to do for Raw that Vince never had. Trump said that his first act for Raw was to go commercial free next week. Yeah, no surprise there as that news was out last week. Vince said that Trump had lost his marbles with wanting to do that. Trump said that he would be on Raw next week with Vince saying that he would give his farewell speech next week as well due to him being so emotional tonight. Vince did say that he was in charge tonight and named the ten man battle royal to decide who would face Orton at The Bash. The ten man battle royal took place at the ending of the show which included Priceless, MVP, Matt Hardy, William Regal, Big Show, Miz, Kofi Kingston, Triple H, and John Cena. Show started doing some damage but then had everyone gang up on him to throw him out. Miz hid under the ring for a lot of the match. The final four, in the ring anyway, was Priceless, Cena, and Triple H. Cena dumped out Dibiase but then thought he dumped out Rhodes as well. Triple H took out Rhodes. Miz then reappeared in the ring and ran at both Cena and Triple H. They ducked him and Miz went to the floor eliminated. Triple H then dumped out Cena and won the match. He will go on to face Orton at The Bash. Orton had watched the match from the stage. Trump then appeared on the screen saying that The Bash would happen early as Triple H would face Orton in a last man standing match on Raw next week. CM Punk defended the World title against Jeff Hardy and Edge in the triple threat match. Very fun match. Punk had earlier continued his talk of how everyone loved what he did last year when he did it to Edge but that suddenly fans are mad at him cause he did it to Hardy. I liked the story of the finish. Edge dumped Punk over the turnbuckle sending Punk’s knee crashing into the steps. Officials checked on Punk with his knee. Hardy hit the whisper in the wind on Edge but Punk dove in desperately to break the count up. Hardy jumped out and pounded on Punk’s knee trying to keep him from getting involved again. Hardy then hit a twist of fate and swanton on Edge. Punk then pulled Hardy out of the ring on the pin attempt and put Hardy into the steps. Punk then dove in the ring and pinned Edge to retain the title. I really liked that finish. Teddy Long showed up and announced that Punk would defend the World title against Hardy at The Bash. Punk and Hardy both had agreeable faces on their faces and approved. Tommy Dreamer retained the ECW title against Christian. The story of the match was Christian landing awkwardly on his ankle. Tommy took advantage of it winning with a small package while Christian was battling the ankle. Chris Jericho retained the Intercontinental title against Rey Mysterio in a very fun match that opened the show. Rey went for the springboard and Jericho caught him and messed with his mask. As Rey was trying to keep it on, Jericho hit the codebreaker to win the match. Mickie James defeated Rosa Mendes as Maryse watched from ringside. Mickie won with a DDT and gave a big stare at Maryse. She called for Maryse to get in the ring. Maryse got up on the apron and did her pose. Mickie went after her and Maryse bailed while laughing. The Colons defeated The Hart Dynasty by DQ after Priceless interfered. They were on commentary and attacked Carlito after he hit the backstabber on Smith which was about to result in the pin. Priceless then cleared the ring of The Colons.
Other notes from Raw. What are you thinking Vince? I had to get online and get some immediate feedback from fans when Trump was announced as the owner. The feedback was mostly negative with some saying to give it a chance. I don’t know. I’m not feeling this at all and the live crowd just seemed really disinterested too. I am not into this at all. It just seemed like a major buzzkill to me especially after how good the first hour had been. The rest of the show was mostly solid too. This one segment was what was the big buzzkill. Wow, was it ever obvious that the Trump segment was pre taped or what??!! Interesting that they actually started the WWE title match during the end of the first hour which usually does a bad rating. One thing I wondered while watching Raw tonight was wondering if Vince had his hands on any of the Smackdown stuff or not or if Hayes had full control? Well, does anyone really have full control but you know what I mean. I really liked the finish to the World title match because it made logical sense. Welcome to the world of Smackdown where logic seems to happen. First time that I’ve seen the Hart Dynasty in action which I’ve looked forward to but just would have liked to have seen more out of them. Priceless already has another new theme. I wasn’t a fan of their second theme which was the rockier version from their original. It is always impressive to watch Cena pick up Big Show. Just amazing. I like Punk’s reasoning for Money In The Bank cause…..it makes sense!! What is great is that it isn’t really a heel line. He’s right. Everyone loved it last year when he did it to Edge but boo him now that he did it to Hardy. Good crowd tonight. I thought they were hot about all night. Well, except for the one segment where no one was into and you know what that was.
Ring Of Honor will not be doing PPV’s in the future. The PPV that is currently airing will be the last which is Take No Prisoners.
Mick Foley said on his recent My Space blog that he is writing his fourth autobiography. It will be entitled “Crossing The Line”.
Victoria has commented on why she left WWE and joined TNA. Interesting read which makes it sound like that she just wasn’t happy in WWE.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=117278735&blogId=494150451
Announced for this Friday on Smackdown is CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio. Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho. Again, if you aren’t watching Smackdown, you really need to be!!
WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand will be airing the NWA Great American Bash 1989 next month. If you’ve never seen this show, you really need to see it. It is often argued as the greatest PPV of all time. I know I’d rank it top five EASILY!! Flair’s comeback match against Terry Funk after Funk had injured Flair with the attack on him at Wrestle War 1989. Sting vs. The Great Muta for the TV title. Ricky Steamboat vs. Lex Luger. Wargames. Just an awesome show!!
Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!
News for the week. WWE News: Raw will be going commercial free next week on USA Network. WWE is saying that Batista will be out for four months after having surgery on his torn tendon in his left bicep. Umaga’s release is a wellness policy violation deal. WWE posted the following on their website about his release: As reported on WWE.com on Monday, June 8, 2009, WWE Superstar Umaga (Edward Fatu) has been released from his World Wrestling Entertainment contract. However, consistent with the practice of announcing wellness policy violations, it should be noted that Umaga's termination was due to his second violation of the WWE Wellness Program and his subsequent refusal to attend a rehabilitation facility. Vickie Guerrero has asked for her release from WWE to spend more time with her family. That is why she was written off of TV last week.
Smackdown opened up with the new World champion, CM Punk. He talked of the rumblings of how he had robbed Hardy of the title but pointed out how people didn’t see it that way last year when he did the same thing to Edge. He went on to talk about how it doesn’t make him a bad guy for doing what you’re supposed to do with the Money In The Bank cash in. Punk talked of how he had never been someone to do the popular thing and did what was best for him. Punk talked of bringing honor and respect back to the World title. Jeff Hardy arrived and said he wasn’t there to complain because it wasn’t his style. Hardy said that Punk earned the Money In The Bank win but didn’t earn the World title. Punk said that when Hardy made the ladder match that he knew that it was his night to cash it in and it just happened that Hardy was the one that won the match. Hardy talked of how Punk was selfish and wondered if he even cared about his fans. Hardy wanted his rematch but so did another guy as Edge made his way to the ring. Punk and Hardy both agreed that Edge didn’t deserve in the argument cause he lost it to begin with. Lots of back and forth on who should get the rematch with Edge pointing out how Punk wants to be him so badly. Hardy ended up punching Edge and then hit a twist of fate and swanton on to Punk. Teddy Long made his way to the ring announcing a number one contender’s match as the main event with the winner moving on to face Punk for the title on the special three hour Raw. So, Edge and Hardy closed the show and Punk was on commentary for the match. Interesting that JR was on Punk’s side saying that he did what he was supposed to do with having that kind of advantage with Money In The Bank saying it was too bad if fans didn’t understand that. The end of the match had Hardy and Edge battling on the floor. Edge threw Hardy on to Punk. As Edge got in the ring, Punk went after Edge for retaliation. That caused the DQ and Hardy was DQ’d. As Punk was punching Edge, Hardy went after Punk. Hardy hit the twist of fate to Edge but it opened an opportunity for Punk to hit the GTS on Hardy. Controversy over the finish since Hardy didn’t have anything to do with it to get himself DQ’d and Teddy Long arrived again making Monday’s match a triple threat match for the title. Other happenings on the show had CM Punk defeating Chris Jericho with the GTS after Jericho had complained to Long about wanting in the title picture. Before the match, Jericho pointed out how he set Rey free by removing the mask so he wouldn’t have to hide anymore. John Morrison and R Truth defeated Benjamin and Haas when Morrison pinned Haas with the starship pain. Michelle McCool and Layla defeated Melina and Eve when Michelle pinned Melina with the Styles clash. Yeah, I’m still calling it that. Ha ha. Dolph Ziggler defeated The Great Khali by countout. Ziggler was running from Khali on the outside of the ring and then grabbed Singh. He used Singh as a shield and then threw him to Khali. Ziggler was watching the count and jumped in right before the ten count to get the outsmarting win.
Tonight’s three hour edition of Raw was called the 3 For All. For the most part, I liked the show. Lots of good action tonight. Now, the one storyline idea really got on my nerves and left me thinking that Vince had lost his mind but I’ll get to that in a minute. The fatal four way match was set up to decide the WWE championship. Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. Triple H vs. Big Show. Really good match. Triple H hit the pedigree on Big Show. Cena jumped in and hit the attitude adjustment on Triple H. Cena went to pin Big Show but he kicked out. Orton then jumped in and threw Cena into the post. Orton hit a RKO on to Big Show and got the pin to win back the WWE championship. His fifth title win. The other big story of the show was Vince McMahon’s announcement. Before the WWE title match, Vince said he had made a big decision and that was selling Raw to a new owner. He mentioned that he had a history with the person but that it was an offer that he couldn’t pass up. He made his way to the ring to announce the new owner of Raw. Who would it be? My obvious thought was that it would be Ric Flair especially with them in Charlotte. I wasn’t really into that though cause we’ve been there and done that with Flair in charge. Then, Vince announced the new owner of Raw and it was really making me want Flair instead. Donald Trump. Yes, you heard me right. Donald Trump is the new owner of Raw. Trump appeared on the big screen with a big speech about what he was going to do for Raw that Vince never had. Trump said that his first act for Raw was to go commercial free next week. Yeah, no surprise there as that news was out last week. Vince said that Trump had lost his marbles with wanting to do that. Trump said that he would be on Raw next week with Vince saying that he would give his farewell speech next week as well due to him being so emotional tonight. Vince did say that he was in charge tonight and named the ten man battle royal to decide who would face Orton at The Bash. The ten man battle royal took place at the ending of the show which included Priceless, MVP, Matt Hardy, William Regal, Big Show, Miz, Kofi Kingston, Triple H, and John Cena. Show started doing some damage but then had everyone gang up on him to throw him out. Miz hid under the ring for a lot of the match. The final four, in the ring anyway, was Priceless, Cena, and Triple H. Cena dumped out Dibiase but then thought he dumped out Rhodes as well. Triple H took out Rhodes. Miz then reappeared in the ring and ran at both Cena and Triple H. They ducked him and Miz went to the floor eliminated. Triple H then dumped out Cena and won the match. He will go on to face Orton at The Bash. Orton had watched the match from the stage. Trump then appeared on the screen saying that The Bash would happen early as Triple H would face Orton in a last man standing match on Raw next week. CM Punk defended the World title against Jeff Hardy and Edge in the triple threat match. Very fun match. Punk had earlier continued his talk of how everyone loved what he did last year when he did it to Edge but that suddenly fans are mad at him cause he did it to Hardy. I liked the story of the finish. Edge dumped Punk over the turnbuckle sending Punk’s knee crashing into the steps. Officials checked on Punk with his knee. Hardy hit the whisper in the wind on Edge but Punk dove in desperately to break the count up. Hardy jumped out and pounded on Punk’s knee trying to keep him from getting involved again. Hardy then hit a twist of fate and swanton on Edge. Punk then pulled Hardy out of the ring on the pin attempt and put Hardy into the steps. Punk then dove in the ring and pinned Edge to retain the title. I really liked that finish. Teddy Long showed up and announced that Punk would defend the World title against Hardy at The Bash. Punk and Hardy both had agreeable faces on their faces and approved. Tommy Dreamer retained the ECW title against Christian. The story of the match was Christian landing awkwardly on his ankle. Tommy took advantage of it winning with a small package while Christian was battling the ankle. Chris Jericho retained the Intercontinental title against Rey Mysterio in a very fun match that opened the show. Rey went for the springboard and Jericho caught him and messed with his mask. As Rey was trying to keep it on, Jericho hit the codebreaker to win the match. Mickie James defeated Rosa Mendes as Maryse watched from ringside. Mickie won with a DDT and gave a big stare at Maryse. She called for Maryse to get in the ring. Maryse got up on the apron and did her pose. Mickie went after her and Maryse bailed while laughing. The Colons defeated The Hart Dynasty by DQ after Priceless interfered. They were on commentary and attacked Carlito after he hit the backstabber on Smith which was about to result in the pin. Priceless then cleared the ring of The Colons.
Other notes from Raw. What are you thinking Vince? I had to get online and get some immediate feedback from fans when Trump was announced as the owner. The feedback was mostly negative with some saying to give it a chance. I don’t know. I’m not feeling this at all and the live crowd just seemed really disinterested too. I am not into this at all. It just seemed like a major buzzkill to me especially after how good the first hour had been. The rest of the show was mostly solid too. This one segment was what was the big buzzkill. Wow, was it ever obvious that the Trump segment was pre taped or what??!! Interesting that they actually started the WWE title match during the end of the first hour which usually does a bad rating. One thing I wondered while watching Raw tonight was wondering if Vince had his hands on any of the Smackdown stuff or not or if Hayes had full control? Well, does anyone really have full control but you know what I mean. I really liked the finish to the World title match because it made logical sense. Welcome to the world of Smackdown where logic seems to happen. First time that I’ve seen the Hart Dynasty in action which I’ve looked forward to but just would have liked to have seen more out of them. Priceless already has another new theme. I wasn’t a fan of their second theme which was the rockier version from their original. It is always impressive to watch Cena pick up Big Show. Just amazing. I like Punk’s reasoning for Money In The Bank cause…..it makes sense!! What is great is that it isn’t really a heel line. He’s right. Everyone loved it last year when he did it to Edge but boo him now that he did it to Hardy. Good crowd tonight. I thought they were hot about all night. Well, except for the one segment where no one was into and you know what that was.
Ring Of Honor will not be doing PPV’s in the future. The PPV that is currently airing will be the last which is Take No Prisoners.
Mick Foley said on his recent My Space blog that he is writing his fourth autobiography. It will be entitled “Crossing The Line”.
Victoria has commented on why she left WWE and joined TNA. Interesting read which makes it sound like that she just wasn’t happy in WWE.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=117278735&blogId=494150451
Announced for this Friday on Smackdown is CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio. Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho. Again, if you aren’t watching Smackdown, you really need to be!!
WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand will be airing the NWA Great American Bash 1989 next month. If you’ve never seen this show, you really need to see it. It is often argued as the greatest PPV of all time. I know I’d rank it top five EASILY!! Flair’s comeback match against Terry Funk after Funk had injured Flair with the attack on him at Wrestle War 1989. Sting vs. The Great Muta for the TV title. Ricky Steamboat vs. Lex Luger. Wargames. Just an awesome show!!
Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Macho Madness DVD Preview - June 8, 2009
The WWE Macho Man Randy Savage DVD set hits stores tomorrow. I have mine ordered and will be reviewing it in the future. Savage is in my top three favorite wrestlers of all time so I have to have this set. Even now, he is still one of my favorites to watch in the ring. There will be no biography story on the DVD as it is just a collection of matches and moments. The DVD is hosted by Matt Striker and Maria. Nothing new of Savage for this DVD as the ties between Savage and WWE continue to be troubled. The match lineup for this set is tremendous. What I like is that there is the common matches from his career that have been on multiple various DVD releases over the years but there are other great matches included as well that are more rare. A different Savage/Steamboat match while also including WM3. The cage match between Savage and Dibiase during Savage’s 1988 title run. I remember at the time seeing that Savage and Dibiase match on the Macho Madness home video release and how good it was. A different Hogan/Savage match from the mid 80’s. Mix and matching. The classic matches that we all love are there and the moments too. I think this set will be great. Here is the lineup of matches and extras included on the set: vs. Rick McGraw (7/9/85 – Savage’s WWF debut), vs. Steamboat (Boston Garden 12/7/85), vs. Hogan (MSG 12/30/85), vs. Santana (Boston Garden 2/8/86 – IC title win), vs. Sammartino (Boston Garden 1/3/87), vs. Steamboat (WrestleMania 3), vs. Honky Tonk Man (The Main Event – NBC – 2/5/88), vs. Dibiase (WWF title win at WrestleMania 4), vs. Dibiase (Steel Cage match at MSG 6/25/88), MegaPowers vs. Mega Bucks (SummerSlam 1988), vs. Hogan (WrestleMania 5 – Hogan wins the title), vs. Hogan (The Main Event – NBC – Buster Douglas special referee), Savage/Sherri vs. Dusty/Sapphire (WrestleMania 6), vs. Ultimate Warrior (Career match at WrestleMania 7, one of my least favorite wrestling moments ever with this result), vs. Jake The Snake Roberts (Tuesday In Texas PPV 12/3/91), vs. Flair (WrestleMania 8 – Savage’s 2nd WWF title win), vs. Shawn Michaels (Match in Europe from 4/19/92), Savage/Bret Hart vs. Flair/Michaels (7/22/92 Can’t remember if I’ve seen that match but it has to be from a Coliseum Video release??!!), vs. Yokozuna (Raw – 2/28/94), vs. Flair (WCW career starts on this DVD set with the lifeguard match at Bash At The Beach 1995), vs. Flair (Monday Nitro 1/22/96), vs. Diamond Dallas Page (Great American Bash 1997 – 6/15/97), Savage/Sid Vicious vs. Kevin Nash/Sting (Bash At The Beach 1999). Other segments and extras include Savage naming Elizabeth as his manager in 1985, Elizabeth’s debut from Championship Wrestling, the Macho King’s coronation (Can’t remember the last time that I saw that but remember it clear as day from Saturday morning wrestling!!!!), the Savage/Elizabeth wedding from SummerSlam 1991, and also lots of interview segments from various shows over the years. I am really looking forward to watching this set probably more than any set in a long time. I’ve seen most of this stuff but there is some stuff that I haven’t seen and some that I haven’t seen in a while. I’ll review this set when I get it watched.
Batista Injured, HHH Returns, 5 Title Changes On One Show, & More - June 8, 2009
Welcome to the “WWE booking runs wild with injuries meaning returns; five title changes on one show; release news; and blurring the lines of who are faces, heels, and tweeners” edition of The Wrestling List.
News for the week. WWE News: Major injury news coming out of WWE. The news is that Batista has a torn tendon in his bicep which will require surgery. The news appears to be better than it could have been for him as the injury isn’t as bad as originally thought and he won’t be out for as long. WWE did have Batista go ahead and defeat Orton for the WWE title at Extreme Rules last night. This was a surprising release today by WWE as it was posted on WWE.com that the company has released Umaga. Wow, I didn’t see that one coming!! Jeff Hardy apparently has a broken finger and a banged up shoulder coming out of last night’s Extreme Rules PPV according to his girlfriend’s Twitter account.
TNA News: Samoa Joe has a torn triceps in his right arm. The interesting twist is that he found that out when he was being examined over his broken fingers. No word yet on how these injuries will affect his in ring time but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him miss some ring time.
I’ll go in order of shows this week and start with Smackdown from Friday night. Good show which opened with a very fun Cutting Edge segment. Edge’s guest was Jeff Hardy and there were ladders set up all over the ringside area. Both of them ended up talking sitting atop two different ladders with the belt hanging overhead. Very cool visual. Usual trash talking going on and then Edge nailed Hardy in the head with the belt a couple of times. He shoved the ladder over and Hardy landed on the ropes sending him crashing to the floor. Edge then grabbed the belt and held it high. Chris Jericho took on R Truth and defeated him following a codebreaker. As Jericho was on his way up the ramp, he was jumped from behind by Rey Mysterio. Jericho made it to the floor and then Rey did a senton off the stage on to Jericho. The main event was Edge taking on Rey Mysterio. Rey hit the 619 but Edge avoided the springboard. Edge then hit a spear for the win. After the match, Edge got a ladder from under the ring and was about to use it on Rey. Jeff ran out and nailed the ladder with a chair. Jeff hit a twist of fate on the ladder and then set it up by the turnbuckle. Jeff then did his leapfrog legdrop over the ladder on to Edge. Hardy held up the World title as the show went off the air. Other action had John Morrison defeating Shelton Benjamin with the starship pain in a good match. CM Punk and Umaga wrestled in a preview of their Extreme Rules match. Punk hit the knee in the corner but Umaga then threw Punk off to avoid the bulldog. Umaga went to get the strap but the ref stopped him from using it. That distraction set up Punk to hit the GTS for the win. The team of Michelle, Alicia, and Layla defeated the team of Melina, Eve, and Gail. Maria was the special referee. There was a fight on the floor which got Maria distracted. Michelle nailed Melina with a kick from the outside which set up Layla to hit a neckbreaker for the pin on Melina. The Great Khali defeated Dolph Ziggler with the Punjabi plunge.
Big happenings at the Extreme Rules PPV last night. The show opened with the fatal four way with the US title with Kofi defending against Matt Hardy, MVP, and William Regal. Kofi pinned Regal to retain the title following the trouble in paradise. Chris Jericho defeated Rey Mysterio to win the Intercontinental championship. The finish was Rey going for the 619 with Jericho grabbing Rey’s head and pulling his mask off. As Rey covered his face, Jericho rolled him up to win the title. CM Punk defeated Umaga to win the Samoan strap match when Punk hit the GTS to get the advantage getting him to touch the fourth turnbuckle. Next was the ECW title match with Christian defending against Tommy Dreamer and Jack Swagger in an extreme rules match. Keep in mind that the build for this match was that if Dreamer didn’t win the title, he would be leaving and not signing a new contract. Swagger ended up taking out Christian at the end with the exposed turnbuckle while Dreamer nailed Swagger with a crutch. Dreamer followed with a DDT to win the ECW title. He went into the crowd to celebrate with them. Santina defeated Vickie to win the hogpen match and win back Miss WrestleMania. Not even going to bother recapping that finish. With the news of Batista’s injury, this finish surprised me but the match length didn’t. Batista defeated Randy Orton to win the WWE title in the steel cage match. The match was basically a squash. Batista reversed the RKO attempt sending Orton into the cage followed by a Batista bomb for the pin after a seven minute match. Batista held up the belt to the camera on the way out saying that the win was for Ric. John Cena defeated The Big Show in the submission match. The main event was Edge defending the World title against Jeff Hardy in the ladder match. The finish had Jeff trapping Edge between two ladders where he couldn’t get out. Hardy then climbed up and won the WWE championship. Jim Ross interviewed Hardy but then CM Punk’s music hit. Punk cashed in Money In The Bank to get the championship match. Hardy was able to kick out of an immediate GTS. Hardy rolled up Punk but Punk was able to kick out. Punk then hit another GTS to get the pin and win the World title.
With the news of Batista, my curiosity was on what WWE would do with Batista and the WWE title on Raw tonight. It didn’t take long to figure it out. Batista opened the show talking about his win and how it was only the beginning of ending Randy Orton. Orton arrived looking very disturbed. Batista immediately started looking for Priceless for the sneak attack. They did show and Batista fought them off for a bit. As Batista went for the Batista bomb on Orton, he was nailed with a chair from behind. The three on one assault got going from there. They pounded on the arm which is where Batista’s real injury is so there is your real injury played into the story. Orton hooked the arm in the chair giving it eleven stomps. Yeah, I counted cause I knew this was going to have to be an ugly attack to play out the injury storyline. Then, Orton pulled back on the arm and snapped it. Batista was left laying and Orton left with the WWE title. Batista was taken from the arena into an ambulance with him telling people that he couldn’t feel his arm. Orton later said that he was invoking his rematch clause tonight and that if Batista didn’t show, he would win the belt back by forfeit. Vickie cleared this ruling. So, the match is set to take place with no one expecting Batista to return to the arena. The match begins and the ref starts counting. As he gets to 8, the camera cuts to an ambulance backstage that has returned. Ref stops the count. Camera cuts back and we see a close up of Triple H. He walks through the back with the sledgehammer. Music hits and he walks on to the stage. Priceless attacks but gets caught with sledgehammer shots. Triple H makes his way to the ring and drops the sledgehammer. He and Orton go at it in the ring. The fight ends up on the floor with Orton avoiding a shot with the monitor. Orton bails out through the crowd with Triple H giving chase. They fight into the crowd with Orton returning to ringside. Orton grabs a chair and gets in the ring. He charges Triple H but gets hit with a spinebuster. Triple H then gets the chair and nails him with a shot to the head. He then hits Orton all over his body with the chair. Triple H nails Orton in the back of the neck with the chair as Orton lays out of it on the mat. Triple H leans down talking trash when the crowd starts chanting pedigree. Triple H then pedigrees Orton on to the chair. That was how the show ended. So, the title appears to still be up for grabs. If I had to guess, we’ll have some sort of match next week for the vacant title. I’d love to see a tournament but I think I’m in the minority there. The other major happening on the show was Vickie Guerrero resigning as GM. She walked to the ring and told the fans how she was sick of being made fun of and then quit. Edge made his way to the ring. He said that he was about to come down and apologize for what he said last night. He was talking of divorce last night. Edge told Vickie tonight that he didn’t have to apologize now since Vickie had quit. She had nothing that he needed anymore admitting that he married her for her power. He ripped on her saying how he needed the sympathy instead of her for having to pretend to be in love with her. Vickie was not handling all this well at all with Edge yelling that he wanted a divorce. The result was Vickie screaming huge at him. Other action had John Cena taking on The Miz. Big Show made his way to the ring before the match could get going. Cena nailed Miz and then picked up Show but Show countered it. Chokeslam for Cena followed by the camel clutch. Miz then grabbed a chair and hammered Show with it multiple times followed by one for Cena. Show got up and Miz bailed with Show promising trouble for Miz. MVP defeated Matt Hardy after he nailed Matt’s injured hand followed by the playmaker for the win. Priceless defeated The Colons when Dibiase pinned Primo to become the number one contenders for the tag team titles. Mayrse defeated Kelly Kelly to retain the Divas championship with Mickie James at ringside doing commentary. After the match, Maryse mocked Kelly with the belt and then slapped her. Mickie stepped in the ring and Maryse backed out. Kofi Kingston defeated William Regal after hitting the trouble in paradise for the victory. Santino, Goldust, and Festus with Hornswoggle in their corner defeated Chavo, Kendrick, and Noble when Santino rolled up Noble for the win after Hornswoggle’s distraction.
Other notes from Raw. They had better not be even thinking about turning Edge face??!! He’s too great of a heel!! Don’t do it Michael Hayes, please!! Speaking of heels and faces, this face turn by Santino just isn’t working for me at all. I don’t think that MVP’s is either. Cable’s most watched TV show? I didn’t know I was tuned into Jon & Kate Plus 8??!! Did you see the little girl that caught Cena’s shirt? She was so happy about it which was fun to see. Even the announce team was getting confused over whether it was the women’s or divas title that is on Raw now. Wow, even the little 30 second recap of the hogpen match was bad. Glad I didn’t have to watch that match. Did we really need Jerry Lawler making pig noises as Vickie made her way to ringside? Don’t you just know that it was Vince in his ear saying to make those sounds cause it will be hilarious? It wasn’t. So, that six man tag was just bizarre. Strange, strange. Well, at least Mickie is in the mix for the Divas title again. That was what I complained about a couple of weeks ago with how she should have been in the area when Maryse and Kelly wrestled previously.
Just thought I’d comment on the CM Punk title win. Does this make him a heel now? There was a mixed reaction to Punk coming to the ring and cashing in the money in the bank. Punk technically didn’t do anything heelish cause he was just doing what you’re supposed to do with Money In The Bank. Take advantage of the situation. However, when you do that to one of the most popular wrestlers in WWE, I’m thinking that might make you a heel in the eyes of many fans. Don’t you have to turn Punk heel with this victory? I’ll be interested to see what happens on Smackdown.
WWE Raw will be three hours next week with all three brands on the show. 7pm central time start. I’m sure we’ll get answers on the WWE championship. Like I said, I’d like to see a tournament on the show but I tend to think we’ll get a triple threat match for the vacant title. All three titles will be defended is what the promos said so expect to see the World and ECW titles defended as well.
Another $40 saved with WWE 24/7. I watched the WWE Armageddon PPV from a few months ago over the weekend. It was an all right show. I wasn’t very crazy about it though. The main event was the must see match of it. Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H vs. Edge. This was the night that Jeff Hardy won the WWE title. Seeing that moment was great!! Fun that the announcers just stepped out for the most part and let the music and crowd be the sound for us to hear during the celebration. Like I said, the rest of the show was just kind of ehhh to me.
That is it for this week. Busy wrestling week and that was just in the last 24 hours. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
News for the week. WWE News: Major injury news coming out of WWE. The news is that Batista has a torn tendon in his bicep which will require surgery. The news appears to be better than it could have been for him as the injury isn’t as bad as originally thought and he won’t be out for as long. WWE did have Batista go ahead and defeat Orton for the WWE title at Extreme Rules last night. This was a surprising release today by WWE as it was posted on WWE.com that the company has released Umaga. Wow, I didn’t see that one coming!! Jeff Hardy apparently has a broken finger and a banged up shoulder coming out of last night’s Extreme Rules PPV according to his girlfriend’s Twitter account.
TNA News: Samoa Joe has a torn triceps in his right arm. The interesting twist is that he found that out when he was being examined over his broken fingers. No word yet on how these injuries will affect his in ring time but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him miss some ring time.
I’ll go in order of shows this week and start with Smackdown from Friday night. Good show which opened with a very fun Cutting Edge segment. Edge’s guest was Jeff Hardy and there were ladders set up all over the ringside area. Both of them ended up talking sitting atop two different ladders with the belt hanging overhead. Very cool visual. Usual trash talking going on and then Edge nailed Hardy in the head with the belt a couple of times. He shoved the ladder over and Hardy landed on the ropes sending him crashing to the floor. Edge then grabbed the belt and held it high. Chris Jericho took on R Truth and defeated him following a codebreaker. As Jericho was on his way up the ramp, he was jumped from behind by Rey Mysterio. Jericho made it to the floor and then Rey did a senton off the stage on to Jericho. The main event was Edge taking on Rey Mysterio. Rey hit the 619 but Edge avoided the springboard. Edge then hit a spear for the win. After the match, Edge got a ladder from under the ring and was about to use it on Rey. Jeff ran out and nailed the ladder with a chair. Jeff hit a twist of fate on the ladder and then set it up by the turnbuckle. Jeff then did his leapfrog legdrop over the ladder on to Edge. Hardy held up the World title as the show went off the air. Other action had John Morrison defeating Shelton Benjamin with the starship pain in a good match. CM Punk and Umaga wrestled in a preview of their Extreme Rules match. Punk hit the knee in the corner but Umaga then threw Punk off to avoid the bulldog. Umaga went to get the strap but the ref stopped him from using it. That distraction set up Punk to hit the GTS for the win. The team of Michelle, Alicia, and Layla defeated the team of Melina, Eve, and Gail. Maria was the special referee. There was a fight on the floor which got Maria distracted. Michelle nailed Melina with a kick from the outside which set up Layla to hit a neckbreaker for the pin on Melina. The Great Khali defeated Dolph Ziggler with the Punjabi plunge.
Big happenings at the Extreme Rules PPV last night. The show opened with the fatal four way with the US title with Kofi defending against Matt Hardy, MVP, and William Regal. Kofi pinned Regal to retain the title following the trouble in paradise. Chris Jericho defeated Rey Mysterio to win the Intercontinental championship. The finish was Rey going for the 619 with Jericho grabbing Rey’s head and pulling his mask off. As Rey covered his face, Jericho rolled him up to win the title. CM Punk defeated Umaga to win the Samoan strap match when Punk hit the GTS to get the advantage getting him to touch the fourth turnbuckle. Next was the ECW title match with Christian defending against Tommy Dreamer and Jack Swagger in an extreme rules match. Keep in mind that the build for this match was that if Dreamer didn’t win the title, he would be leaving and not signing a new contract. Swagger ended up taking out Christian at the end with the exposed turnbuckle while Dreamer nailed Swagger with a crutch. Dreamer followed with a DDT to win the ECW title. He went into the crowd to celebrate with them. Santina defeated Vickie to win the hogpen match and win back Miss WrestleMania. Not even going to bother recapping that finish. With the news of Batista’s injury, this finish surprised me but the match length didn’t. Batista defeated Randy Orton to win the WWE title in the steel cage match. The match was basically a squash. Batista reversed the RKO attempt sending Orton into the cage followed by a Batista bomb for the pin after a seven minute match. Batista held up the belt to the camera on the way out saying that the win was for Ric. John Cena defeated The Big Show in the submission match. The main event was Edge defending the World title against Jeff Hardy in the ladder match. The finish had Jeff trapping Edge between two ladders where he couldn’t get out. Hardy then climbed up and won the WWE championship. Jim Ross interviewed Hardy but then CM Punk’s music hit. Punk cashed in Money In The Bank to get the championship match. Hardy was able to kick out of an immediate GTS. Hardy rolled up Punk but Punk was able to kick out. Punk then hit another GTS to get the pin and win the World title.
With the news of Batista, my curiosity was on what WWE would do with Batista and the WWE title on Raw tonight. It didn’t take long to figure it out. Batista opened the show talking about his win and how it was only the beginning of ending Randy Orton. Orton arrived looking very disturbed. Batista immediately started looking for Priceless for the sneak attack. They did show and Batista fought them off for a bit. As Batista went for the Batista bomb on Orton, he was nailed with a chair from behind. The three on one assault got going from there. They pounded on the arm which is where Batista’s real injury is so there is your real injury played into the story. Orton hooked the arm in the chair giving it eleven stomps. Yeah, I counted cause I knew this was going to have to be an ugly attack to play out the injury storyline. Then, Orton pulled back on the arm and snapped it. Batista was left laying and Orton left with the WWE title. Batista was taken from the arena into an ambulance with him telling people that he couldn’t feel his arm. Orton later said that he was invoking his rematch clause tonight and that if Batista didn’t show, he would win the belt back by forfeit. Vickie cleared this ruling. So, the match is set to take place with no one expecting Batista to return to the arena. The match begins and the ref starts counting. As he gets to 8, the camera cuts to an ambulance backstage that has returned. Ref stops the count. Camera cuts back and we see a close up of Triple H. He walks through the back with the sledgehammer. Music hits and he walks on to the stage. Priceless attacks but gets caught with sledgehammer shots. Triple H makes his way to the ring and drops the sledgehammer. He and Orton go at it in the ring. The fight ends up on the floor with Orton avoiding a shot with the monitor. Orton bails out through the crowd with Triple H giving chase. They fight into the crowd with Orton returning to ringside. Orton grabs a chair and gets in the ring. He charges Triple H but gets hit with a spinebuster. Triple H then gets the chair and nails him with a shot to the head. He then hits Orton all over his body with the chair. Triple H nails Orton in the back of the neck with the chair as Orton lays out of it on the mat. Triple H leans down talking trash when the crowd starts chanting pedigree. Triple H then pedigrees Orton on to the chair. That was how the show ended. So, the title appears to still be up for grabs. If I had to guess, we’ll have some sort of match next week for the vacant title. I’d love to see a tournament but I think I’m in the minority there. The other major happening on the show was Vickie Guerrero resigning as GM. She walked to the ring and told the fans how she was sick of being made fun of and then quit. Edge made his way to the ring. He said that he was about to come down and apologize for what he said last night. He was talking of divorce last night. Edge told Vickie tonight that he didn’t have to apologize now since Vickie had quit. She had nothing that he needed anymore admitting that he married her for her power. He ripped on her saying how he needed the sympathy instead of her for having to pretend to be in love with her. Vickie was not handling all this well at all with Edge yelling that he wanted a divorce. The result was Vickie screaming huge at him. Other action had John Cena taking on The Miz. Big Show made his way to the ring before the match could get going. Cena nailed Miz and then picked up Show but Show countered it. Chokeslam for Cena followed by the camel clutch. Miz then grabbed a chair and hammered Show with it multiple times followed by one for Cena. Show got up and Miz bailed with Show promising trouble for Miz. MVP defeated Matt Hardy after he nailed Matt’s injured hand followed by the playmaker for the win. Priceless defeated The Colons when Dibiase pinned Primo to become the number one contenders for the tag team titles. Mayrse defeated Kelly Kelly to retain the Divas championship with Mickie James at ringside doing commentary. After the match, Maryse mocked Kelly with the belt and then slapped her. Mickie stepped in the ring and Maryse backed out. Kofi Kingston defeated William Regal after hitting the trouble in paradise for the victory. Santino, Goldust, and Festus with Hornswoggle in their corner defeated Chavo, Kendrick, and Noble when Santino rolled up Noble for the win after Hornswoggle’s distraction.
Other notes from Raw. They had better not be even thinking about turning Edge face??!! He’s too great of a heel!! Don’t do it Michael Hayes, please!! Speaking of heels and faces, this face turn by Santino just isn’t working for me at all. I don’t think that MVP’s is either. Cable’s most watched TV show? I didn’t know I was tuned into Jon & Kate Plus 8??!! Did you see the little girl that caught Cena’s shirt? She was so happy about it which was fun to see. Even the announce team was getting confused over whether it was the women’s or divas title that is on Raw now. Wow, even the little 30 second recap of the hogpen match was bad. Glad I didn’t have to watch that match. Did we really need Jerry Lawler making pig noises as Vickie made her way to ringside? Don’t you just know that it was Vince in his ear saying to make those sounds cause it will be hilarious? It wasn’t. So, that six man tag was just bizarre. Strange, strange. Well, at least Mickie is in the mix for the Divas title again. That was what I complained about a couple of weeks ago with how she should have been in the area when Maryse and Kelly wrestled previously.
Just thought I’d comment on the CM Punk title win. Does this make him a heel now? There was a mixed reaction to Punk coming to the ring and cashing in the money in the bank. Punk technically didn’t do anything heelish cause he was just doing what you’re supposed to do with Money In The Bank. Take advantage of the situation. However, when you do that to one of the most popular wrestlers in WWE, I’m thinking that might make you a heel in the eyes of many fans. Don’t you have to turn Punk heel with this victory? I’ll be interested to see what happens on Smackdown.
WWE Raw will be three hours next week with all three brands on the show. 7pm central time start. I’m sure we’ll get answers on the WWE championship. Like I said, I’d like to see a tournament on the show but I tend to think we’ll get a triple threat match for the vacant title. All three titles will be defended is what the promos said so expect to see the World and ECW titles defended as well.
Another $40 saved with WWE 24/7. I watched the WWE Armageddon PPV from a few months ago over the weekend. It was an all right show. I wasn’t very crazy about it though. The main event was the must see match of it. Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H vs. Edge. This was the night that Jeff Hardy won the WWE title. Seeing that moment was great!! Fun that the announcers just stepped out for the most part and let the music and crowd be the sound for us to hear during the celebration. Like I said, the rest of the show was just kind of ehhh to me.
That is it for this week. Busy wrestling week and that was just in the last 24 hours. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Kennedy, Raw, Smackdown, WWE 24/7 June Preview, Extreme Rules PPV Preview, & More - June 1, 2009
Welcome to the “I never want to have Batista as my back up plan cause he takes coffee breaks and can’t figure out to climb the cage when the door is locked” edition of The Wrestling List. Yeah, I know trying to think logic with WWE's writing. What am I thinking?? LOL
Some big news to start out with this week. Mr. Kennedy is gone from WWE after being released last week. What happened seemed to be a last straw of sorts with him. During the ten man tag team match on Raw last week, there was a situation where Kennedy did a back suplex on Randy Orton. Orton landed hard and got up immediately furious. I actually noticed this at the time it happened that Orton sold it kind of odd but I just kind of brushed it off. Orton took a swing in the air toward Kennedy’s direction in anger over being dumped on his head. Orton crawled and made the tag like planned. The match ended and then there was the sequence where they were hitting finishers left and right. Orton still mad over the landing brought the receipt for Kennedy. He hit a vicious RKO on Kennedy. Kennedy’s wrist was injured slightly from the landing but he appears to be fine. You can clearly see Kennedy holding his wrist after the match. I happened to notice that too wondering if Kennedy was hurt again. Kennedy has had some strikes against him in the company. He was ready to be big time pushed but always seemed to get injured at the worst times. He was the money in the bank winner and then got hurt. One thing that really made him look bad was when he was doing interviews about how great the wellness policy was while venting out against the ones that had been suspended from wellness violations. Then, Kennedy got suspended for a wellness violation. This was right around the time that Kennedy was going to be named as the unknown McMahon son which WWE had to change plans on. Kennedy was then injured again and was just now back. Kennedy’s piling up of injuries were hurting his value with the company as well with him looking too fragile. Nearly injuring the WWE champion on a live show isn’t going to do you any favors with the company and appeared to be the final straw. Remember that Orton’s broken collar bone kept him out of action for a lot of time last year so no wonder that Orton was so furious. The decision to release Kennedy was made not too long afterwards. So, Kennedy has been released by WWE. He’ll have a 90 day no compete but I have to think that he’ll show up in TNA eventually. Kennedy has a lot of talent and I really got behind him for a while. Good on the mic. If he can stay healthy, TNA could really do big things with him. I’m just speculating on TNA of course but I HAVE to think that they’ll be interested in him once his no compete clause is over.
How did the NBA do up against Raw with all the attention on that situation? The Lakers/Nuggets Game 4 did a 6.9. while Raw did a 3.6. Raw was also beat on cable by the monster number that the season premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8 did which was a 6.8.
Ric Flair is gone from Ring Of Honor which is no surprise due to his being back with WWE. He came out and talked to the live crowd before the HD Net TV tapings this weekend announcing that he was leaving. He had great things to say about ROH and said that he hoped that the fans would understand that his heart was with WWE. He had been doing an on screen role as ROH ambassador. He will still make his advertised appearances for ROH that he agreed to do. That is a bummer for ROH.
John Tolos passed away last week. He was 78 and passed away from kidney failure. Tolos had a big run in the 70’s as a heel against Freddie Blassie, Killer Kowalski, and others. To us younger fans, Tolos was known as The Coach, who managed Mr. Perfect in 1991 after Heenan quit managing.
Ok, so Raw. I was going to name this List the “can Michael Hayes please book Raw too?” edition but then the Batista greatness at the end changed all that. I have to vent at this one. Ha ha. Ric Flair challenges Randy Orton to a fight saying that he is going to keep calling out Orton until he answers it. The two meet in the parking lot with Flair attacking from behind. Orton got cut open somehow during this battle backstage possibly on that cart ride. The two end up battling into the arena. Flair has the advantage as they get to the announce table and he locks on the figure four on the table. Rhodes and Dibiase attack. Time for Batista, right? They continue to attack. They punch Flair and take him into the cage that had lowered. Still no Batista. The beating continues in the cage. Orton gets up and walks into the cage. He tells them to lock the cage and leave him alone with Flair. Still no Batista. The cage door gets locked and, hey, here comes Batista. So, was he at catering or something? I know. Here comes me thinking logic at WWE booking but I just have to laugh at all of this. He runs off Legacy. However, he can’t break the lock on the cage. I’m thinking at this point. Climb the cage. It’s a slow way to get in but you’ll get in. It sure beats standing outside and throwing steps. Ha ha. So, Flair gets beat down and Orton stares off with Batista outside the cage. From a WWE logic standpoint, I never want to have Batista as my backup plan EVER. It was lame too when he was concerned earlier about Flair in this fight. Wouldn’t he be watching the match on a monitor? It would have been excusable if Cole and Lawler had said that Rhodes and Dibiase attacked him in the back on the way to the ring leaving him slow to get out there. No mention of that. Instead he waits till the door is locked way after the initial multiperson attack. Let’s also remember that the same thing happened with Shane McMahon weeks ago too. Now, there was a stip on that with him not being able to get involved but the stip was off once Legacy got involved. Anyway, I know. I’m trying to criticize WWE's writing logic but my WWE logic says I want anyone watching my back other than Batista. LOL. Anyway, on to the rest of the show. Orton had gotten a cage match for Batista with a coin flip determining if Batista would face either Rhodes or Dibiase. Rhodes was the winner and he ended up losing to Batista fairly quickly. Orton stared off with Batista through the cage afterwards. At least Orton had a reason to not climb the cage cause he is a heel. LOL. A tag match was set up by Vickie with John Cena teaming with a name drawn out of a bag against Miz and Big Show. Chavo’s name was drawn and he was Cena’s partner. Miz and Show did not get along still. Miz tagged himself in at one point which infuriated Show. Show later tagged in and then Cena hit the attitude adjustor on Miz. The ref didn’t see the tag and Show was forced to get out. Miz then wouldn’t tag out to Show so Show punched Miz out from behind. Chavo then tagged in and pinned Miz to get the win. Cena took out Chavo after that with the adjustor. Show and Cena then went at it. Cena jumped off the ropes and landed right into a Show knockout punch. He then hooked the camel clutch on Cena. Kofi Kingston defeated MVP for the US title which was a fun match. Kofi countered MVP’s pin attempt into his own to get the win. Afterwards, MVP presented the title to Kofi and walked out. Maryse and Beth defeated the team of Mickie and Kelly when Rosa’s distraction led to Maryse pinning Kelly with a DDT. The Colons defeated William Regal and Matt Hardy. Hardy accidentally hit Regal with the cast which led to Carlito pinning Regal with the backstabber. Hardy and Regal argued afterwards. They later went to Vickie wanting a rematch and presenting their plan on why she'd want to help them. They told Vickie to make a match with her and Santino with Matt saying to trust them. The match took place and Santino had a bucket of slop that Vickie had brought to the ring. Matt and Regal hit the ring to attack from behind. Santino swung the slop all the way around hitting everyone. Everyone froze. The numbers got to Santino and he was knocked out by Matt’s cast. Vickie then poured the slop on Santino. Blah, blah, blah on that part.
Other notes from Raw. Isn’t there just something great about seeing Flair battling a Rhodes family member? Is it me or was MVP way too ok with losing the US title? Anybody else concerned that MVP and Matt Hardy are already getting lost in the mix on Raw? That was my initial concern with the draft. When the slop buckets came out, I had flashbacks to Sunny and The Godwinns. Speaking of the slop, did the front row get hit with that stuff too? They sure did freeze also. Wow, WWE sure was reaching on that Raw ratings graphic about last week? Isn’t it funny to watch them stretch saying they had more female viewers than these certain networks? Yeah, they were all on reruns probably and the females were watching Jon & Kate Plus 8. They got rocked by that show and the NBA last week like I said in the ratings news. Is Cole and Lawler announcing the PPV matches live in the ring supposed to increase buy rates? How great is the Randy Savage DVD commercial? I have to have that DVD.
Moving on to Smackdown. Yet another solid show. Easily the best WWE show of the week every week. Michael Hayes is doing a great job with that show. This show featured one of the best sneak attacks that I’ve seen in a long time. Rey Mysterio was set to team with Jeff Hardy to take on Chris Jericho and Edge. Jericho leaves Edge during their backstage segment sounding like he wasn’t interested in the match. Edge arrives and then Jericho’s music hits but no Jericho. Rey walks out and is doing his headbutt type deal with the kids with their masks on. He touches masks with one and then that one slams Rey into the barrier. Jericho takes the mask off to reveal himself and then pounds on Rey in the aisle. It was awesome!!!! No one saw that one coming and such a brilliant idea for an attack. Jeff runs out to save Rey as Jericho was about to take his mask off. Earlier in the night, Rey and Jericho had words with Jericho promising to take off Rey’s mask and expose him. So, Jeff takes on Edge and Jericho in a one on two match. The finish had Jeff hitting the twist of fate on Jericho but then gets speared by Edge. Edge gets the pin. After the match, Edge gets a ladder and nails Jeff with it. He finishes Jeff by using the ladder on Jeff like a sandwich. Other action on the show had Umaga taking on John Morrison. Umaga was DQ’d for using the samoan strap. He tied up Morrison in the tree of woe. Punk arrived with the money in the bank briefcase. He used it multiple times on Umaga to get him to bail out of the ring. Melina defeated Alicia Fox who was accompanied by Michelle McCool when she hit the legdrop landing in the splits. After the match, Michelle put the belt on Melina’s shoulder and walked off. Haas/Benjamin defeated Cryme Tyme when Shelton did an amazing counter out of Shad’s move to hit the paydirt for the win. The Great Khali and R Truth defeated Ziggler and Mike Knox when Ziggler bailed out on the match. Khali pinned Knox with the Punjabi plunge. Layla and Eve had their first match against each other with Eve getting the win. Layla tried to attack her afterwards but Eve avoided her sending her crashing to the floor.
I've read a live account of Jericho's sneak attack with the mask. The fan said that Jericho just quietly made his way from the back walking along to the right of the stage with the mask on. He didn't get hardly any attention on him. He hid his hands where he didn't look so much like an adult. Then, he nailed Rey Mysterio. Gotta love when something surprises you and in a good way. Very well done!!
In a wild reflecting type of story, the merger of AOL and Time Warner is about to come to an end. Why is this a wrestling story? Well, it isn’t now obviously. However, that merger was what many blame the ending of WCW on when it happened back in 2000. Eric Bischoff has talked in many interviews including the Monday Night Wars WWE 24/7 roundtable show that he knew things were about to go bad for WCW around that time. He spoke of how he walked in on a meeting with a bunch of guys in suits that he had never ever seen and they knew nothing about wrestling. WCW was losing money at the time and the new people in charge had no tolerance for it. Bischoff would be fired and WCW would continue to spiral downhill. Bischoff tried to buy the company with partners in 2001 but then Jamie Kellner made the move to not want WCW on the Turner networks anymore. Hard sell with the company then not having any TV deal to go along with it. The deal fell through and WWE bought WCW for a very little amount. Yeah, Russo deserves a lot of blame for WCW going down but this merger got the ball rolling big time. This is really what I see as the major problem that shut down WCW. After all that big deal with AOL and Time Warner merging, now it’s over with a little whimper. Amazing how things turn out isn’t it?
Here is the preview for WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand for June. The theme for the month is Wild, Wild West. Big Ones airing are: WWF Royal Rumble 1989, WCW Clash of The Champions 18, WWE Royal Rumble 2009. Old School house shows airing include MSG (7/13/85), Philly (7/16/83). TV Classics airing that are going with the theme for the month are Saturday Night’s Main Event (2/8/92), Prime Time Wrestling (2/6/89), Weekly shows continue to air with ECW (October 1996), World Class (July 1983), NWA (November 1986), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from January 1998), Monday Night Wars: The Beginning (October 1995), Prime Time Wrestling (March 1988), Mid Atlantic (December 1981). The History Of The Intercontinental Title will finish airing and WWE will also be airing The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling biography portion of the DVD set which is fantastic if you’ve never seen it. The Hall Of Fame profile will be on Dusty Rhodes. Shorties will revolve around the Wild West theme. Also airing will be a couple of Gordon Solie’s Film Room shows with one being on Terry Funk and the other being on Dory Funk Jr. The fan voting is between Royal Rumble 1997, WCW Road Wild 1998, or WWE Unforgiven 2005 with the winner airing in June.
The WWE Extreme Rules PPV is this Sunday. Here is the lineup. WWE Champion Randy Orton defends against Batista in a steel cage. World Heavyweight Champion Edge defends against Jeff Hardy in a ladder match. Intercontinental Champion Rey Mysterio defends against Chris Jericho in a no holds barred match. John Cena takes on The Big Show in a submission match. ECW Champion Christian defends against Jack Swagger and Tommy Dreamer in a hardcore rules match. CM Punk takes on Umaga in a Samoan strap match.
That is all for this week. Take care and God bless!!
Some big news to start out with this week. Mr. Kennedy is gone from WWE after being released last week. What happened seemed to be a last straw of sorts with him. During the ten man tag team match on Raw last week, there was a situation where Kennedy did a back suplex on Randy Orton. Orton landed hard and got up immediately furious. I actually noticed this at the time it happened that Orton sold it kind of odd but I just kind of brushed it off. Orton took a swing in the air toward Kennedy’s direction in anger over being dumped on his head. Orton crawled and made the tag like planned. The match ended and then there was the sequence where they were hitting finishers left and right. Orton still mad over the landing brought the receipt for Kennedy. He hit a vicious RKO on Kennedy. Kennedy’s wrist was injured slightly from the landing but he appears to be fine. You can clearly see Kennedy holding his wrist after the match. I happened to notice that too wondering if Kennedy was hurt again. Kennedy has had some strikes against him in the company. He was ready to be big time pushed but always seemed to get injured at the worst times. He was the money in the bank winner and then got hurt. One thing that really made him look bad was when he was doing interviews about how great the wellness policy was while venting out against the ones that had been suspended from wellness violations. Then, Kennedy got suspended for a wellness violation. This was right around the time that Kennedy was going to be named as the unknown McMahon son which WWE had to change plans on. Kennedy was then injured again and was just now back. Kennedy’s piling up of injuries were hurting his value with the company as well with him looking too fragile. Nearly injuring the WWE champion on a live show isn’t going to do you any favors with the company and appeared to be the final straw. Remember that Orton’s broken collar bone kept him out of action for a lot of time last year so no wonder that Orton was so furious. The decision to release Kennedy was made not too long afterwards. So, Kennedy has been released by WWE. He’ll have a 90 day no compete but I have to think that he’ll show up in TNA eventually. Kennedy has a lot of talent and I really got behind him for a while. Good on the mic. If he can stay healthy, TNA could really do big things with him. I’m just speculating on TNA of course but I HAVE to think that they’ll be interested in him once his no compete clause is over.
How did the NBA do up against Raw with all the attention on that situation? The Lakers/Nuggets Game 4 did a 6.9. while Raw did a 3.6. Raw was also beat on cable by the monster number that the season premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8 did which was a 6.8.
Ric Flair is gone from Ring Of Honor which is no surprise due to his being back with WWE. He came out and talked to the live crowd before the HD Net TV tapings this weekend announcing that he was leaving. He had great things to say about ROH and said that he hoped that the fans would understand that his heart was with WWE. He had been doing an on screen role as ROH ambassador. He will still make his advertised appearances for ROH that he agreed to do. That is a bummer for ROH.
John Tolos passed away last week. He was 78 and passed away from kidney failure. Tolos had a big run in the 70’s as a heel against Freddie Blassie, Killer Kowalski, and others. To us younger fans, Tolos was known as The Coach, who managed Mr. Perfect in 1991 after Heenan quit managing.
Ok, so Raw. I was going to name this List the “can Michael Hayes please book Raw too?” edition but then the Batista greatness at the end changed all that. I have to vent at this one. Ha ha. Ric Flair challenges Randy Orton to a fight saying that he is going to keep calling out Orton until he answers it. The two meet in the parking lot with Flair attacking from behind. Orton got cut open somehow during this battle backstage possibly on that cart ride. The two end up battling into the arena. Flair has the advantage as they get to the announce table and he locks on the figure four on the table. Rhodes and Dibiase attack. Time for Batista, right? They continue to attack. They punch Flair and take him into the cage that had lowered. Still no Batista. The beating continues in the cage. Orton gets up and walks into the cage. He tells them to lock the cage and leave him alone with Flair. Still no Batista. The cage door gets locked and, hey, here comes Batista. So, was he at catering or something? I know. Here comes me thinking logic at WWE booking but I just have to laugh at all of this. He runs off Legacy. However, he can’t break the lock on the cage. I’m thinking at this point. Climb the cage. It’s a slow way to get in but you’ll get in. It sure beats standing outside and throwing steps. Ha ha. So, Flair gets beat down and Orton stares off with Batista outside the cage. From a WWE logic standpoint, I never want to have Batista as my backup plan EVER. It was lame too when he was concerned earlier about Flair in this fight. Wouldn’t he be watching the match on a monitor? It would have been excusable if Cole and Lawler had said that Rhodes and Dibiase attacked him in the back on the way to the ring leaving him slow to get out there. No mention of that. Instead he waits till the door is locked way after the initial multiperson attack. Let’s also remember that the same thing happened with Shane McMahon weeks ago too. Now, there was a stip on that with him not being able to get involved but the stip was off once Legacy got involved. Anyway, I know. I’m trying to criticize WWE's writing logic but my WWE logic says I want anyone watching my back other than Batista. LOL. Anyway, on to the rest of the show. Orton had gotten a cage match for Batista with a coin flip determining if Batista would face either Rhodes or Dibiase. Rhodes was the winner and he ended up losing to Batista fairly quickly. Orton stared off with Batista through the cage afterwards. At least Orton had a reason to not climb the cage cause he is a heel. LOL. A tag match was set up by Vickie with John Cena teaming with a name drawn out of a bag against Miz and Big Show. Chavo’s name was drawn and he was Cena’s partner. Miz and Show did not get along still. Miz tagged himself in at one point which infuriated Show. Show later tagged in and then Cena hit the attitude adjustor on Miz. The ref didn’t see the tag and Show was forced to get out. Miz then wouldn’t tag out to Show so Show punched Miz out from behind. Chavo then tagged in and pinned Miz to get the win. Cena took out Chavo after that with the adjustor. Show and Cena then went at it. Cena jumped off the ropes and landed right into a Show knockout punch. He then hooked the camel clutch on Cena. Kofi Kingston defeated MVP for the US title which was a fun match. Kofi countered MVP’s pin attempt into his own to get the win. Afterwards, MVP presented the title to Kofi and walked out. Maryse and Beth defeated the team of Mickie and Kelly when Rosa’s distraction led to Maryse pinning Kelly with a DDT. The Colons defeated William Regal and Matt Hardy. Hardy accidentally hit Regal with the cast which led to Carlito pinning Regal with the backstabber. Hardy and Regal argued afterwards. They later went to Vickie wanting a rematch and presenting their plan on why she'd want to help them. They told Vickie to make a match with her and Santino with Matt saying to trust them. The match took place and Santino had a bucket of slop that Vickie had brought to the ring. Matt and Regal hit the ring to attack from behind. Santino swung the slop all the way around hitting everyone. Everyone froze. The numbers got to Santino and he was knocked out by Matt’s cast. Vickie then poured the slop on Santino. Blah, blah, blah on that part.
Other notes from Raw. Isn’t there just something great about seeing Flair battling a Rhodes family member? Is it me or was MVP way too ok with losing the US title? Anybody else concerned that MVP and Matt Hardy are already getting lost in the mix on Raw? That was my initial concern with the draft. When the slop buckets came out, I had flashbacks to Sunny and The Godwinns. Speaking of the slop, did the front row get hit with that stuff too? They sure did freeze also. Wow, WWE sure was reaching on that Raw ratings graphic about last week? Isn’t it funny to watch them stretch saying they had more female viewers than these certain networks? Yeah, they were all on reruns probably and the females were watching Jon & Kate Plus 8. They got rocked by that show and the NBA last week like I said in the ratings news. Is Cole and Lawler announcing the PPV matches live in the ring supposed to increase buy rates? How great is the Randy Savage DVD commercial? I have to have that DVD.
Moving on to Smackdown. Yet another solid show. Easily the best WWE show of the week every week. Michael Hayes is doing a great job with that show. This show featured one of the best sneak attacks that I’ve seen in a long time. Rey Mysterio was set to team with Jeff Hardy to take on Chris Jericho and Edge. Jericho leaves Edge during their backstage segment sounding like he wasn’t interested in the match. Edge arrives and then Jericho’s music hits but no Jericho. Rey walks out and is doing his headbutt type deal with the kids with their masks on. He touches masks with one and then that one slams Rey into the barrier. Jericho takes the mask off to reveal himself and then pounds on Rey in the aisle. It was awesome!!!! No one saw that one coming and such a brilliant idea for an attack. Jeff runs out to save Rey as Jericho was about to take his mask off. Earlier in the night, Rey and Jericho had words with Jericho promising to take off Rey’s mask and expose him. So, Jeff takes on Edge and Jericho in a one on two match. The finish had Jeff hitting the twist of fate on Jericho but then gets speared by Edge. Edge gets the pin. After the match, Edge gets a ladder and nails Jeff with it. He finishes Jeff by using the ladder on Jeff like a sandwich. Other action on the show had Umaga taking on John Morrison. Umaga was DQ’d for using the samoan strap. He tied up Morrison in the tree of woe. Punk arrived with the money in the bank briefcase. He used it multiple times on Umaga to get him to bail out of the ring. Melina defeated Alicia Fox who was accompanied by Michelle McCool when she hit the legdrop landing in the splits. After the match, Michelle put the belt on Melina’s shoulder and walked off. Haas/Benjamin defeated Cryme Tyme when Shelton did an amazing counter out of Shad’s move to hit the paydirt for the win. The Great Khali and R Truth defeated Ziggler and Mike Knox when Ziggler bailed out on the match. Khali pinned Knox with the Punjabi plunge. Layla and Eve had their first match against each other with Eve getting the win. Layla tried to attack her afterwards but Eve avoided her sending her crashing to the floor.
I've read a live account of Jericho's sneak attack with the mask. The fan said that Jericho just quietly made his way from the back walking along to the right of the stage with the mask on. He didn't get hardly any attention on him. He hid his hands where he didn't look so much like an adult. Then, he nailed Rey Mysterio. Gotta love when something surprises you and in a good way. Very well done!!
In a wild reflecting type of story, the merger of AOL and Time Warner is about to come to an end. Why is this a wrestling story? Well, it isn’t now obviously. However, that merger was what many blame the ending of WCW on when it happened back in 2000. Eric Bischoff has talked in many interviews including the Monday Night Wars WWE 24/7 roundtable show that he knew things were about to go bad for WCW around that time. He spoke of how he walked in on a meeting with a bunch of guys in suits that he had never ever seen and they knew nothing about wrestling. WCW was losing money at the time and the new people in charge had no tolerance for it. Bischoff would be fired and WCW would continue to spiral downhill. Bischoff tried to buy the company with partners in 2001 but then Jamie Kellner made the move to not want WCW on the Turner networks anymore. Hard sell with the company then not having any TV deal to go along with it. The deal fell through and WWE bought WCW for a very little amount. Yeah, Russo deserves a lot of blame for WCW going down but this merger got the ball rolling big time. This is really what I see as the major problem that shut down WCW. After all that big deal with AOL and Time Warner merging, now it’s over with a little whimper. Amazing how things turn out isn’t it?
Here is the preview for WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand for June. The theme for the month is Wild, Wild West. Big Ones airing are: WWF Royal Rumble 1989, WCW Clash of The Champions 18, WWE Royal Rumble 2009. Old School house shows airing include MSG (7/13/85), Philly (7/16/83). TV Classics airing that are going with the theme for the month are Saturday Night’s Main Event (2/8/92), Prime Time Wrestling (2/6/89), Weekly shows continue to air with ECW (October 1996), World Class (July 1983), NWA (November 1986), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from January 1998), Monday Night Wars: The Beginning (October 1995), Prime Time Wrestling (March 1988), Mid Atlantic (December 1981). The History Of The Intercontinental Title will finish airing and WWE will also be airing The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling biography portion of the DVD set which is fantastic if you’ve never seen it. The Hall Of Fame profile will be on Dusty Rhodes. Shorties will revolve around the Wild West theme. Also airing will be a couple of Gordon Solie’s Film Room shows with one being on Terry Funk and the other being on Dory Funk Jr. The fan voting is between Royal Rumble 1997, WCW Road Wild 1998, or WWE Unforgiven 2005 with the winner airing in June.
The WWE Extreme Rules PPV is this Sunday. Here is the lineup. WWE Champion Randy Orton defends against Batista in a steel cage. World Heavyweight Champion Edge defends against Jeff Hardy in a ladder match. Intercontinental Champion Rey Mysterio defends against Chris Jericho in a no holds barred match. John Cena takes on The Big Show in a submission match. ECW Champion Christian defends against Jack Swagger and Tommy Dreamer in a hardcore rules match. CM Punk takes on Umaga in a Samoan strap match.
That is all for this week. Take care and God bless!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)