Raw, Smackdown, TNA Impact, & ROH on HDNet Recaps - November 30, 2009

Welcome to the “want to see great tag team wrestling action, tune into Ring Of Honor” edition of The Wrestling List. Ten years and counting for the List and let’s get right into it as I’ve got recaps of Raw, Smackdown, TNA Impact, and Ring Of Honor on HDNet.

Tonight’s Raw was from Baltimore and was a solid show for the most part. It opened with Jericho and Big Show talking trash on how they would win at TLC against DX. DX arrived and said how glad they would be that Jericho would be off Raw when they beat them at TLC. Remember that Jericho is a member of the Smackdown roster and is on both shows due to being a tag team champion. Jericho countered by saying that he knew how badly it ate up DX to never have been tag team champions. Triple H ended up challenging Jericho for later in the night and Jericho accepted. However, there was a stipulation from JeriShow. The loser of the match has to face the other team in a handicap match. DX agreed and the match took place to finish the show. Shawn and Big Show were on commentary during the match. Show got up at one point and Shawn did as well. Show shoved Shawn into the apron. Triple H leaned over and took a knockout punch from Show. The ref threw Big Show out of the ringside area. As the ref was turned, Shawn landed a superkick on to Jericho. The ref saw Shawn leaving the ring so he kicked him out as well. The codebreaker and pedigree were each countered. Triple H countered the walls sending Jericho into the corner. Triple H then rolled up Jericho for the win. That means that it will be Jericho vs. DX next week in Dallas. Randy Orton was set to take on Kofi Kingston tonight. As Kofi made his way to the ring, Rhodes attacked and then threw him into the steps. Kofi fought his way to his feet saying that the match will still happen. Orton’s music hit but no Orton. Dibiase ran in from the crowd and attacked Kofi from behind. He did an attack on Kofi’s leg. Dibiase left as Kofi continued to try and get to his feet. He still demanded that the match would happen. Orton then arrived ready to attack. He worked over Kofi’s injured leg and put a beating on Kofi. Kofi fought back for a little offense at the end but got hit by a RKO. Orton gets the pin but afterwards continued the assault by hitting the DDT out of the corner. Number one contender, Sheamus, was in action earlier in the night putting a beating on Santino including putting him through a table in the corner. John Cena arrived later in the night doing an intense promo saying that if he lost the title, he would be accepting his rematch clause at TLC cause he was challenging Sheamus tonight saying that the war was on. Carlito arrived instead of Cena. Carlito did a promo talking about how he didn’t know anything about Sheamus but wanted Sheamus to win. He said that the whole locker room including himself was tired of Cena and wanted him to lose. Carlito said that Cena may represent the fans but Sheamus represents the locker room. Cena fired back saying that Carlito picked the wrong night and said that if he didn’t like how he did things, step up. Carlito put the apple in his mouth and then caught a right hand from Cena. Cena hit the adjustment and then threw Carlito out of the ring. Sheamus arrived on the ramp and he and Cena stared off. Cena called Sheamus to the ring but Sheamus backed up and walked off. Verne Troyer was the guest host for the night and his involvement in the show centered around Miz, MVP, and Mark Henry. Miz and Troyer exchanged trash talk earlier in the show and then Henry came out to stand up for Troyer when Miz threatened for it to get physical. Troyer made a match with Henry vs. Miz which Henry won. The other theme for the night with them was Henry suddenly becoming a dancer. So, after the match they danced with the divas. Melina teamed with Gail Kim to take on Maryse and Jillian. Maryse and Melina were set to go at it to begin and then Maryse tagged out while mocking Melina. I liked the exchange between the two of them as Melina looked intense as she wanted to get her hands on Maryse who continued to mock her. The two did go at it later but Maryse countered Melina’s sunset flip out of the corner. Maryse then won with a DDT so Maryse has now pinned the Divas champion clean.

Other notes from Raw. I like the new intense John Cena that they are doing in the last couple of weeks in this Sheamus feud. I liked the exchange of Cena and Carlito. I also liked the exchange of Maryse and Melina like I’ve already said. Maryse is good with her character for sure and I like how she mocks her opponents. Melina was really great tonight too with the intensity of how she wanted to get to Maryse. I liked the segment of Orton and Kofi. The story was that Kofi was taking everything that Legacy had and wasn’t going to back down. The odds caught up to him but he fought the whole way. Can Mark Henry go back to being a destroyer instead of a dancer? Yeah, not crazy about all that. I did find Henry landing on Jillian to be funny though. What was up with Lawler when Santino made his way to the ring? He didn’t know that it was a match. Does he look at the lineup? LOL. It was just kind of bizarre. I did laugh at him later when he pointed out Cole’s comment of “this is almost unfair” to Kofi’s matchup with Orton. Well, yeah!! LOL.

Last week’s Smackdown opened with Chris Jericho upset over being left out of the #1 contender’s match main event. The match was set for Kane vs. Batista with the winner facing Undertaker at TLC. Teddy Long arrived on the scene and gave Jericho a non title match against The Undertaker later in the show. The Kane/Batista match had Kane hitting a chokeslam but Batista got his foot on the rope to stop the pin attempt. Batista rolled out of the ring and the fight went to the floor. Kane sent Batista over the barricade and then Kane followed. Batista grabbed a chair and nailed Kane with it while he was still laying low. So, the ref didn’t see that in the ring. Batista then got up and got in the ring. The ref counted Kane out of the ring and Batista wins. Later, Batista did commentary (or actually didn’t say one word on commentary which I always think is goofy) during the Undertaker/Jericho match. During the match, the fight was on the floor. Batista started to sneak up from behind on Taker but Taker turned to see him. The two faced off with Batista smiling and then sitting back down. The finish had Undertaker lifting Jericho for the tombstone. Batista then slid in the ring and chop blocked Taker from behind. Jericho then hit a codebreaker as Batista went to get a chair. Jericho left and Batista pounded Undertaker in the back with the chair many times. In other happenings, CM Punk brought out Luke Gallows, formerly known as Festus. Punk said he was continuing his straight edge brigade and pointed out how he had helped Gallows turn his life around. Ok, so are they saying that the whole Festus bell ring and snapping gimmick was a drug problem??!! LOL. Anyone else find it odd to have a heel pushing how you should be drug free? I love the Punk character obviously and I just find it funny how people boo someone for talking about how you should avoid drugs. He ripped on the Jeff Hardy DVD set to be releaed this week but pointed out how he finished Hardy’s career. Matt Hardy arrived on the scene and said that Jeff was a free spirit but had his faults like everyone. Matt said that Punk was more upset that Jeff wouldn’t be a follower to him. The match then took place between Matt and Punk. Gallows ended up interfering and put a beating on Matt. Punk then got involved as well as they left Matt laying in the ring. Vickie Guerrero got a match for Escobar from Teddy Long for the Intercontinental title. Morrison ended up winning with the starship pain. Vickie was furious after the match yelling at Escobar saying how he messes up every chance that she gets for him. She said she was done and slapped him. She then walked out. Backstage, Escobar walked up telling the same thing to Vickie saying that this opportunity for his career wasn’t worth being with Vickie. He said that he was done. Ok, I thought this was lame. She sends him packing and then he comes back to tell her the same thing. Never mind the fact that Escobar just isn’t impressing me overall. I don’t know what WWE has planned from here on whether they are keeping them together but what is he going to be able to do on his own? I’m just not into that character at all. The Hart Dynasty defeated Cryme Tyme when Smith pinned Shad. Mickie James was interviewed backstage about the treatment from Michelle and Layla. Mickie said that she wasn’t backing down from their behavior toward her. She was pushing forward with her career and not going anywhere. An all right edition of Smackdown. I do like a heel Batista better than a face Batista but I still find myself fast forwarding through his matches. LOL.

Next week’s Raw will be guest hosted by Mark Cuban in Dallas.

I enjoyed last week’s TNA Impact with the focus being on the TNA Championship Series. The tournament would have the winner getting a future title shot against the champion in the division that they compete in. The first round opened with Lashley accompanied by Kristal taking on Abyss. Kristal got caught in the crossfire on the outside of the ring with them going at it. She went down holding her ankle. Abyss looked on from inside the ring asking if he did that to her. Abyss turned around into a spear from Lashley and then Lashley won with the dragon sleeper. Kristal then jumped up and down showing that the ankle was fine. The next match was very solid with Suicide taking on Desmond Wolfe. Wolfe hit the tower of London for the win. Next was another solid match with The Pope taking on Kurt Angle. Pope had quite a bit of fan support going on during this match. Angle hooked the anklelock but Pope was able to get out of it. Angle then hit the Angleslam for the win. The last first round match was Homicide taking on Robert Roode. Roode won with a spinebuster. Homicide was furious after the match grabbing a chair and threatening an assistant producer at ringside. The second round had Wolfe taking on Lashley. Wolfe worked over Lashley’s arm. Lashley was still able to hook the dragon sleeper but Wolfe got to the ropes to break the hold. Wolfe ended up hooking a hold on Lashley’s hurt arm in the ropes but didn’t break on Hebner’s five count. Wolfe was yelling about this being the future for Angle as he had the hold on. So, Wolfe gets DQ’d. Next was Angle taking on Roode. My “WHAT??!!” moment of the match was Roode kicking out of the Angleslam. Are you kidding me? LOL. Wolfe made his way to ringside and got Angle’s attention. He spit at Angle and then Angle jumped to the floor and fought with Wolfe. Angle ended up noticing the ref’s count and tries to beat the count back in but doesn’t make it. Wolfe costs Angle a shot at the title and Wolfe smiles all the way up the ramp about it. Robert Roode gets to the finals and takes on Lashley. Roode worked on Lashley’s injured arm but Lashley was able to hit the spear for the win. Lashley will get a shot at the TNA championship in the future. Speaking of the TNA championship, AJ Styles came to the ring set to talk about Sting’s disappearance but was interrupted by Daniels. Daniels talked about their friendship and he asked where it ever got him talking of how he got fired and AJ couldn’t make one phone call for him to get him back. He also mentioned how AJ stole his championship victory at Turning Point saying he had the match won. Daniels said that the only reason that AJ wanted him as a best friend was because it was better to have him as a best friend than his worst enemy. AJ stood up and was sick of what Daniels was saying while Daniels said that the friendship would no longer be an anchor of his career. This was a really good promo and did really well to build to their match. Mick Foley was shown backstage being very paranoid about who Hogan was bringing with him. Nash said last week that Hogan was bringing someone so that was what Foley was referring to. Foley went to Angle, Steiner, and Nash to try and get answers. Nash and Young messed with Foley’s head with names from the past and Nash promised that he’d tell him if he heard anything from Hogan. Nash then showed that he said that just to get rid of Foley. A Knockouts battle royal was held to crown a number one contender for the Knockouts title. Tara ended up winning it and the special ref for the battle royal was champion, ODB. Tara and ODB faced off after the match with Tara offering a handshake but ODB walked off. Like I said, I enjoyed the show and liked that the show focused mostly on wrestling. The AJ/Daniels segment was really strong. Battle royal was soiid.

I checked out last week's Ring Of Honor HD Net show and thought I'd go ahead and recap it for you. Now, keep in mind that it has been a while since I've seen the ROH product as far as consistency. The show opened with Kenny King with Titus in his corner taking on Brent Albright. King and Titus took out Jerry Lynn the previous week following a big piledriver. Really impressive exploder from Albright as he sent King over the ropes to the floor. Titus did interfere but both he and King were sent into the barrier. As Albright went to suplex King back in the ring, Titus grabbed Albright's foot leading to King getting the win. After the match, Albright looked to fight both of them off. Austin Aries arrived and the triple team was on. As they looked to be about to spike piledrive Albright on to a chair, Colt Cabana ran in and made the save. The next match had D'Lo Brown in basically a squash match against Sal Rinauro. Really liked D'Lo's ring gear which is a play off of the UPS logo. Funny that D'Lo was tweeting during the match as well. The next segment had Nigel McGuinness's farewell from Ring Of Honor. He came to the ring saying that he couldn't summarize all of these years into just a few minutes. He wanted to say thank you to someone and said the person in the back knew who he was. So, he roams back to the backstage area and walks back out. He says that he wants to thank himself for always believing in himself for what he was able to do despite everyone doubting him. There was a big thank you Nigel chant from the crowd. Nigel then said that he was leaving and would never be back. They showed him walking out of the building and down the street. It was a really good promo. Next was The Super Smash Brothers taking on Brandon Day and John Kermon. Dos took out Day on the floor with a dive and then Uno made the rollup to pin Kermon. Jim Cornette was shown backstage talking about the changes coming to Ring Of Honor due to his new role of Executive Producer of ROH TV. He said that there may be problems in the backstage area mostly coming from Aries but that he wasn't going to put up with the selfish attitudes anymore. It was going to be a team effort and said that if anyone wasn't on board or didn't like the new creative direction, there was the door. Good promo. The main event was an incredible match for the ROH tag team titles with The American Wolves defending against The Young Bucks. What a match. Now, this is tag team wrestling!! I like the tandem moves of both teams which we don't get near enough of in today's wrestling. Wow, there is no way to call all of the action in this one!! There was a great spot with the Bucks with one hitting a 450 followed by a moonsault from his partner. The Wolves move which was a powerbomb and backstabber type move was just nasty!! The Wolves ended up winning via a tapout. The fans were chanting "this is awesome" as the match went along and there was no doubt that it was. Best match I have seen in a while. Big thumbs up from me on this first ROH show that I have gotten to see in a while.

Wishing you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!