Raw Recap, TNA Final Resolution, ROH Final Battle, & More - December 21, 2009

Welcome to the “I knew we were in trouble with this episode of Raw when they started with the bad Tiger Woods spoof” edition of The Wrestling List.

January 4. Wrestling fans. Mark that date on your calendar. I know it already was marked but circle it even bigger. I’m not just talking about TNA’s three hour special but I’m also talking about WWE. This is going to be a VERY big and exciting night for all of us wrestling fans. Make plans to keep an eye on both shows. Hulk Hogan said in a media appearance that he was predicting that TNA does a 3.0 on January 4 head to head against Raw. Hogan is obviously pumping this show up big but no way does it do a 3.0. If it did that kind of rating, I would be stunned beyond belief. Realistically, I think it doing a high of a 1.5 would be a big deal. The show averages between a 1.0 and a 1.3. If they could keep their audience from Thursday and get them to follow to Monday night, I think that is a win. I think the highest that the show could do is a 2.0 and I really don’t see that happening. Of course, you never know but I’d love to see it do a really high number. I think Jeremy Borash said it best lately in an interview when asked about what kind of rating that they need to do for it to be a win for the company. He basically said that there is a lot of buzz among fans and that it is the talk of the wrestling world right now with their live head to head January 4 show. He said that they have already won just based on that. I tend to agree with that statement. Regardless, I am pumped to watch these shows on January 4. It should be the most fun that us wrestling fans have had in a very long time. TNA does have a billboard up in Times Square advertising the live Impact which features Hulk Hogan on it.

As I watched Raw tonight, my thought was are they trying to make a run to make this show even worse than last week? They sure tried!! LOL. That first hour was tough to watch. We opened the show with Johnny Damon in the ring as the guest host. He does his speech and then suddenly a tiger jumps over the rail being chased by a woman. I’m thinking what is this? Then, I finally got the joke or lack of one. A blonde woman chasing a tiger with a golf club. Yeah, a Tiger Woods spoof and it was really bad. When you spoof something and people aren’t sure what it is, that is a bad sign. Then, we got to the DX at Little People’s court. Oh, this was so bad. I love DX obviously but these segments were bad. Just not even funny. Thankfully, the court only went for two segments. I thought this was going to be painful if it continues all night. Basically, DX arrives in the empty arena. They get a message to go under the ring. They go under the ring complete with bad echo voice sound effects. This leads them to a hallway when they turn the lights on. Apparently, going under the ring leads you to another place in the building. They enter a room full of little people including the jury, judge, and officer. The judge was made to look like Judge Judy. Hornswoggle arrives and DX gets beaten down by the officer by a nightstick in the back of the leg when they won’t sit down. The video is shown of what they had done to Hornswoggle over the last couple of months. DX keeps putting their foot in their mouth as the court keeps going. They are guilty and Shawn goes off on a rant of how Hornswoggle would have to prove himself if he wanted in DX and they weren’t letting him in. They get all sorts of things thrown at them. DX runs out of the door and tries their hardest to keep the door shut from the group chasing them. They run out down the hall and come up from under the ring. Shawn then gets tripped and Triple H holds him from getting pulled under the ring. Yeah, this was bad. It was really bad. Big Show took Johnny Damon up on his promise that one of the Santas tonight would give a WWE superstar their wish for Christmas. Show called out Santa to close the show with The Bellas arriving with him. After hearing him talk for about fifteen seconds, I realized it was Chris Jericho’s voice. Show said that what he wanted for Christmas was for his best friend and partner, Chris Jericho to be back on Raw. Santa then granted the wish saying Jericho would be back next week. Hornswoggle then arrived in DX gear and exposed Jericho as Santa. Then, the little people surrounded Jericho in the ring. Jericho went after them and Show ended up side slamming one of them. They then grab Hornswoggle and surround him in the ring. Hornswoggle goes at them with a superkick and nails Jericho in the shin but Show picks him up for a chokeslam. DX arrives and makes the save. They take out JeriShow and then Triple H talks of wanting to beat up Hornswoggle. Shawn then says that he is starting to grow on him and Triple H says the same thing. They make a deal to let him be the DX mascot if he drops the lawsuit to which he agrees. Thankfully, the in ring action picked up at times. John Cena took on Jack Swagger. The match was competitive. Cena ended up winning with the STF for the submission. MVP took on WWE champion Sheamus. As MVP bounced off the ropes for his ‘ballin’ move, Sheamus nailed him with a kick. Then, Sheamus hit the celtic cross for the win. Cena arrived right afterwards reminding everyone that Sheamus still owed him a rematch and he wanted it right now. Sheamus teased facing him but then stepped out of the ring and left. Legacy took on the team of Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, and Evan Bourne. Bourne got a lot of nice offense in when he got the hot tag. The finish had Orton getting tossed from the ring and then Kofi caught Dibiase with the trouble in paradise kick for the win. The team of Melina, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim defeated the team of Maryse, Jillian, and Alicia. Maryse picked up Kelly and then Melina dropkicked Kelly on top of Maryse to get the pinfall. Carlito was shown hitting on Eve backstage and Masters stepped in to stop it. This led to a match between Masters and Carlito with Eve at ringside with Masters. Masters won with the masterlock and then Eve walked in with mistletoe and Masters got a kiss. The Miz defeated Santino in a Santa costume following the skull crushing finale.

Other notes from Raw. Yeah, it is really time to retire the guest host idea. It’s time for WWE to quit trying to be a variety show and get back to wrestling. Isn’t it funny how WWE fails to mention about Jack Swagger’s “not going to lose anymore” gimmick especially when he is facing Cena who is now doing the same thing? So, Masters is going to call out his finisher before he hits it? Is this the 2009 version of Bad News Brown’s ghettoblaster finisher where he called it out before he tried to hit it on Hogan back in 1989? LOL. We had a lot of legends dressed up as Santas backstage. The Dusty suit of course had a polka dot on it. Vince McMahon was shown in a backstage segment with Damon where Damon asked him about the rumor of Bret Hart being a guest host. Vince said that it was Chrismas and he didn’t want to talk about it. That wasn’t the only thing with Damon backstage as he ended up getting a kiss from Mae Young as well. It has been a while since we’ve gotten a Mae cameo. Just when the tiger segment was so bad, we got a repeat performance of it later. Make it stop. One of the highlights of the show was definitely seeing the Tribute To The Troops music video again. Can January 4 get here any sooner?

Next week’s Raw will be guest hosted by Timbaland with a main event of Sheamus defending the WWE title against John Cena.

TNA held their Final Resolution PPV last night from the Impact Zone in Orlando, FL. Mike Tenay and Taz have a new spot to call the action from in the building as they are no longer on the floor. The show opened with The British Invasion retaining the TNA tag team titles against The Motor City Machineguns. Tara defeated ODB to win the knockouts title after turning the TKO attempt into a sunset flip for the win. Next was the Feast or Fired battle royal. Oh, how do I cover this match? Basically, you can keep grabbing briefcases with some containing title shots but one containing the end of your TNA career. In the match was Beer Money, Homicide, Sheik Abdul Bashir, Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe, Kiyoshi, Rob Terry, Cody Deaner, Jay Lethal, and Consequences Creed. Sheik got the first briefcase. The second was received by Rob Terry while the third went to Kevin Nash. Samoa Joe got the last briefcase. Here is what each found in their briefcase. Nash got a tag team title shot. Samoa Joe got a TNA championship match. Terry won a X-Division championship match. That meant that Sheik was fired. Matt Morgan, The Pope, Hernandez, and Suicide defeated Team 3D, Rhino, and Jesse Neal in the elimination match. Morgan was left at the end against Team 3D but was able to defeat both of them in a row giving his team the win. Bobby Lashley defeated Scott Steiner in the last man standing match. Steiner was injured early in the bout but fought through it. The finish had Steiner with a pipe. Kristal grabbed it from him and threw it to Lashley. Lashley hit a spear and then nailed him with the pipe to win the match. Abyss and Mick Foley defeated Raven and Stevie Richards in the Foley’s Funhouse Rules match. That means no rules. Abyss pinned Raven with the black hole slam to win the match. Next was the three degrees of pain match between Desmond Wolfe and Kurt Angle. The first fall was a regular pinfall match with Wolfe winning with the tower of London. The second fall was a submission match. After many submission counters, Angle locked in the anklelock for good. Wolfe finally had to tap out. The last fall involved the cage where you had to escape to win the match. It was the classic battle of one going over the top while the other tries to go out of the door. Angle was climbing over the top and Wolfe tried to beat him to the door. Angle reached the floor first and won the third fall and the overall match. Main event time with AJ Styles defending the TNA championship against Daniels. AJ retained the TNA title by landing the Styles clash off of the ropes to get the pinfall.

Ring Of Honor held their Final Battle 2009 event from The Manhattan Center in New York City despite the blizzard conditions. The show was also ROH’s first live streaming pay event on their website. So, you were able to watch live if you weren’t able to be in attendance. Here are the results of the show. Claudio Castagnoli won a four way match which involved Kenny Omega, Colt Cabana, and Titus. The finish had Claudio pinning Titus. Travel problems kept the Necro/Deirious vs. The Embassy match from happening. Necro Butcher and Gypsy Joe were unable to make the show due to the snow. So, Delirious ran out taking on The Embassy by himself. The odds were not with him but then Pelle Primo arrived. He ended up being taken out by The Embassy. Bobby Dempsey arrived and he evened up the odds. However, The Embassy was able to fight back to defeat them pinning Dempsey. Eddie Kingston defeated Chris Hero when Kingston put on the elbowpad and nailed Hero with it. The Young Bucks defeated Kevin Steen and El Generico. Steen got on the mic afterwards talking about how he was going to be gone for a little while due to needing knee surgery. He talked of how he hasn’t been the performer that he used to be due to his knee while thanking ROH officials and wrestlers for his time in company. Then, he turned to Generico and said how he hated his guts. He then nailed him followed by a chair shot to the head. An upset Colt Cabana made his way to the ring and faced off with Steen. Steen kissed Cabana and left. Well, that was bizarre with Cabana but a big heel turn. Kenny King defeated Roderick Strong when King rolled him up along with a handful of tights to get the win. Rocky Romero defeated Alex Kozlov with him winning by submission. New ROH tag team champions as The Briscoe Brothers defeated The American Wolves to win the belts. Teddy Hart, Jack Evans, and Julius Smokes all arrived in the ring together after the lights went off and then came back on. They were set to be on the show but were delayed due to the blizzard. It ended up turning into a match between Hart and Evans. Evans got the win following a 450 splash as Smokes was the referee. The main event saw a 60 minute match between ROH champion Austin Aries and the returning Tyler Black. The match ended at the 60 minute time limit and resulted in Aries retaining the title. The fans there were just not into this match at all. The live reports are interesting to read as this match just never got to a good pace for the fans along with expectations. Add into the fact that there was a blizzard outside and that is going to make your mood worse. The Kings of Wrestling and The Briscoes came brawling through the crowd after the match concluded. The show ended with The Briscoes and Tyler Black in the ring. Tyler’s arm was raised and the crowd started booing. Tyler then got on the mic and ripped on the fans saying that if they didn’t like that performance, then they weren’t real wrestling fans. He put over how everyone in the company works hard to make it the best wrestling in the world and apologized for not getting things done for the fans. He said that there is always next time which just got the fans to boo more not wanting to see a next time. Yeah, the main event left a bad taste in a lot of fans mouths.

ESPN did a story recently which followed up on the chronic traumatic encephalopathy being in athletes. Basically, it is damage due to hits to the head. The Brain Injury Research Institute has been researching this in athletes including football players. I think that they have released some interesting information in the last couple of years. The article last week talked about the CTE found in Andrew "Test" Martin. The levels were said to be close to Alzheimer's patients that are much older than him. I think these studies are very interesting and it just goes to show that these guys need to tone down the style of shots to the head. I feel like it has toned down quite a bit in WWE. The product years ago was just very different though.

WWE has major PPV competition on the weekend of WrestleMania 26. UFC has moved their UFC 111 PPV to March 27 which is the night before WrestleMania.

Christy Hemme announced her retirement last week. You may remember that Christy injured her neck badly a while back and recently returned to the ring. She said that she was extremely nervous being back in the ring afraid of re-injuring it especially with how bad of a road that she had coming back from it. She just doesn’t want to be an in ring performer anymore. I don’t blame her a bit. She is still staying with the company but just won’t be in the ring.

That is it for another week. I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I hope that it is a very blessed one for you. Take care and God bless!!