Welcome to the “if TNA is trying to do something different than WWE, why are they recreating the Montreal match finish down to the very last detail?” edtion of The Wrestling List. Wow, if you saw Impact this past Thursday, it just left me frustrated thinking why are they recreating this too? It was 1997…...again…in a different company. LOL.
First, let’s get into tonight’s WWE Raw. Really enjoyed tonight’s show. Solid booking, solid matches. There really wasn’t anything on it that I disliked. The show was guest hosted by Dule Hill. He was set to be joined by his co-star on Psych, James Dulay, but the story on his appendectomy was true. That was the real reason that he wasn’t on the show tonight. So, Hill was left on his own and was one of the better guest hosts. He was funny, didn’t stumble at all, and was entertaining. Good solid performance out of him tonight. The big news of the show was the Vince McMahon segment in the middle of the show. Vince talked about selling Bret down the river to WCW and how the fans forgot about him. Vince went into the crowd asking fans to give him one good reason on why he should bring Bret back. Vince eventually said that there was no good reason to bring him back and that Bret would not be returning to WWE. John Cena made his way to the ring and confronted Vince. Not the usual Cena entrance either as he walked straight to the ring with a game face on. Cena said that he wasn’t there to change Vince’s mind but said he was tired of the treatment of the legends that had helped Vince build the company to where it is today mentioning Bret and the treatment of Piper at MSG. Cena mentioned that Vince has put an expiration date on all of them for when they can’t make him any money anymore or help his ego. He pointed out how Vince wants the fans’ last memory of Bret to be of Vince kicking him a few weeks ago. Cena said for Vince to invite Bret to Raw next week or show that Cena is right about him but promised that when his own expiration date had passed that he would be knocking Vince out of his wheelchair on Vince’s 90th birthday. Cena then walked out after saying to Vince again to invite Bret to Raw next week. Vince got the last word by telling Cena that he was booked in a match tonight against Sheamus. However, the confirmation was made later in the show. Bret Hart will be on Raw next week to confront Vince McMahon. As for the Cena/Sheamus match, Randy Orton made his statement in it. Sheamus had Cena knocked out on the floor following a kick. As the count almost got to ten, Orton ran in and hit a RKO on to Sheamus causing the DQ. Orton then saw Cena crawling into the ring and went for the DDT off the middle rope. Cena got out of it and hit Orton with an adjustment to close the show. Other happenings on the show had DX opening it up against Legacy. Shawn and Triple H did a promo before the match saying that they each have a dream to win the Rumble and they’ll have to agree on that. During the match, Triple H was set to hit the pedigree and then Shawn tagged himself in. The two faced off for a moment and then Cody ran the two of them into each other. Shawn hit a superkick to Dibiase. Shawn turned back to Triple H. Triple H ran with a clothesline and Shawn ducked with the clothesline hitting Rhodes teasing on where that clothesline was intended. Shawn then pinned Dibiase for the win. After the match, Triple H offered his hand to Shawn. The two celebrated together and high fived giving a mutual respect look at each other. Legacy later was showing cracks in their foundation backstage as Orton walked in when the two were about to have words over the last couple of weeks of happenings. Orton said that they all needed to get on the same page now. MVP and Miz had more words back and forth before MVP’s match with Big Show. Show ended up beating MVP fairly easily following a chokeslam and Miz mocked MVP after the match. MVP would get his revenge later on when Miz faced Kofi Kingston. MVP’s music hit and he walked out on the stage. Miz then got distracted watching MVP and Kofi hit trouble in paradise to win the match. The semifinals of the Divas championship tournament took place. Maryse was cutting a promo before her match when guest host, Dule Hill started playing around with the pyro scaring her. Maryse ended up defeating Eve following a DDT to advance to the finals. Before the next match, Alicia Fox went to Hill asking for him to predict the future on whether she would win. They did put James Roday on speaker phone as Cena was in the room. So, he did get to appear on the show in some form. Roday started to say that he was actually the psychic on the show and then Hill hung up on him. He said that Alicia would win the match. Well, Alicia lost to Gail Kim who will face Maryse in the finals. Alicia goes out to Hill who was on commentary and ready to sneak off. He told her that he was just an actor who played the friend of a psychic. She ended up slapping him and walked off. The slap looked really good too. Earlier, Hill was with Carlito and went into the production truck. Hill said that he would pick a random graphic and that would be Carlito’s opponent for tonight. It landed on Kelly Kelly. LOL. So, Kelly was set to face Carlito. Santino arrived asking to take the place of Carlito in the match. Swagger then attacked Santino from behind getting revenge for previous weeks and put him into the post.
Other notes from Raw. Like I said, I liked the show and thought Hill did a very good job as guest host. Fans have to be thankful that Ticketmaster is hosting the Axxess tickets and not Live Nation after the mess with the Hall Of Fame tickets. The Miz’s catchphrase is really getting over. Fans are chanting with him. I don’t really have any other thoughts on the show other than what was put in the recap. Solid show.
Next week’s Raw has Bret Hart confirmed to confront Vince McMahon on the show. The guest host for the night is William Shatner.
This week’s Smackdown will feature DX defending the tag team titles against CM Punk and Luke Gallows.
Two things being released by WWE this week. The Best Of Raw 2009 DVD will be released tomorrow and will include matches and moments from the year. Also, WWE will release WWE The Music Volume 10 on Thursday and will be an Amazon download exclusive. The cost? Only $3.99. The price does go up on it after February 1. Theme songs included on it will be Legacy (Dibiase and Rhodes), Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Christian, Bret Hart (his new remixed theme), Sheamus, Tiffany, Ezekiel Jackson, Evan Bourne, Primo, Zack Ryder, The Hart Dynasty, The Bella Twins, and JeriShow.
Stone Cold Steve Austin appeared as a guest star on tonight’s episode of Chuck along with another favorite guest star of mine, Kristin Kreuk from Smallville. The episode was fun and it was fun to see Austin guest star on one of my favorite shows.
If you attend a TNA live event, you are not a fan but a cast member. That’s right. A cast member. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but before the Impact tapings last Monday night, TNA Director of Production, Steve Small talked to the live audience. He basically laid down a set of ground rules for fans after the crowd reaction to the Genesis PPV there in the Impact Zone. Some of the things that were mentioned were him telling fans, oops, cast members, that you need to help them tell a story to the audience at home. He wants the crowd to be rowdy and have fun. However, he wants the crowd to not be cursing, throwing up middle fingers, and gang signs due to there being kids in the crowd. I think the gang sign thing is something that the TNA audience has come up with for themselves as they have their own fun group name and signs for themselves. I don’t know that story so you’ll have to excuse me on that part of it. He talked of how they have to spend money to edit out the cursing on the broadcasts and really put over there being kids there. Ok, this is one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard of happening at a live event. Here is my counter points to this thing. I get the whole “we have kids in the audience” thing. That is completely understandable and I am perfectly fine with that of course. However, you have a show during the new regime change where a wrestler threw up a middle finger. What is the difference in that and the fans doing it?? You also have wrestlers cursing all the time on that show including Kurt Angle throwing out all kinds of loud words on last week’s Impact which was bleeped out and which was taped AFTER this meeting took place. LOL. Another point of mine is that you are talking about having kids watching when you had a strip poker game going on during the January 4 live show and having women dressing as they dress. Then, you have Beer Money, enough said there. You can’t tell the audience one thing when your show is doing the opposite of what you are telling them. Then, the sign issue. Bring your signs, unless we don’t like them, and then we’re taking them. That is the case there and at WWE events. That goes to the whole we’re telling a story and we want you to help tell it thing. It comes off like help us tell the story that we want you to tell. To nitpick this thing (LOL), aren’t cast members supposed to get paid??!! This whole thing was such a turnoff for me cause it was so contradicting of what they were telling the audience to do and what the show is. Just really turned me off. I’m really hoping that the TNA audience down there does revolt on this thing and protest it. I think it is getting ridiculous. You want to get the opinions of the fans of what is working and what is not. I guess if you don’t like something, just sit there and do nothing. If you don’t like the show, sit there and don’t move. LOL. There were ways for TNA to address this problem with the fans and all. I just don’t think that was at all the way to go about it.
TNA Impact last week. Oh, where do I start with this show? This show left me so worried about the new creative direction of the company. So, now WWE is not the only one recreating Montreal as now TNA is doing it too and right down to the last detail. Let’s run down the recap of what happened and compare it to Montreal in 1997. AJ Styles and Ric Flair open the show bragging over the win at Genesis. Out comes Kurt Angle followed by Hulk Hogan. Hogan talks of how he had changed his mind on Angle only getting one title shot in 2010 due to the unfair events of Genesis. The rematch would take place on Impact which had AJ and Flair furious. So, the rematch takes place. Hogan makes his way to the ring as the match continues. I should also point out that Earl Hebner was the official in the match. AJ and Angle start reversing holds. Angle’s anklelock gets reversed into one by AJ. As soon as AJ hooks the anklelock, Hebner calls for the bell. Angle playing the part of Bret Hart gets up furious. AJ playing the part of Shawn Michaels takes off out of there. Hulk Hogan playing the part of Vince McMahon gets all sorts of words yelled at him by Angle. Yes, lots of words that had to bleeped out over TV. Remember the lecture that production gave the TNA audience about language with kids in the building? Well, here is Kurt Angle yelling all sorts of words. Angle spits in the face of Hogan who was still standing on the floor. Angle yells how he is quitting TNA and going back to WWE. Angle goes nuts and roams up to the announce position grabbing a chair and slamming it against the staging area. That is the same as Bret Hart destroying ringside equipment after the finish of the match in Montreal. This was so bad and just had me wondering what are these guys thinking? You are trying to be an alternative to WWE and you do a finish that is EXACTLY the same as the Survivor Series 1997 finish in Montreal. This finish has got to be the most overdone finish in wrestling history. It has been just over twelve years later and we still are seeing companies booking this finish. Like I said, this finish and the rest of the show left me concerned over the future of the creative direction. Mick Foley continued to try and get to talk to Bischoff throughout the night. Foley eventually got his wish and Bischoff asked the cameras to leave after Foley ranted about how he wasn’t going to let Bischoff and Hogan ruin the company that he had helped build. At the end of the show, Bischoff walked to the ring bloody and got the mic. He said that Mick Foley was fired. What happened with The Band? Well, Hogan talked to Nash and said that Nash was under contract while Hall and Waltman weren’t. Hogan told him that he had to get them under control to which Nash replied that he understood but they were like brothers to him. Hogan said that this was time to work and not play like with what Hall and Waltman had been doing. Hogan told Nash to get the job done tonight as he had a match with Young against The Nasty Boys. Later, Hogan and Bischoff were in the ring when The Band arrived. Hogan told Hall and Waltman to hit the road and that they didn’t work there anymore. Nash was later shown with them backstage as they were being escorted out. Nash told them to just go and that he’d find a way to fix this. So, Young is concerned that Nash doesn’t have his back cause of The Band being back. Nash assures him that things are cool with them. The match takes place with Nash and Young against The Nasty Boys. The finish has Knobs nailing Nash into the ring post outside. Saggs hits a pump handle slam on to Young for the pinfall. In other action, Orlando Jordan got a clean win on The Pope. Yeah, Jordan is now winning matches over Pope and Pope has had all sorts of momentum. Ken Anderson arrived in the ring during the show. He talked of how everyone hypes what they are going to do in TNA but he isn’t because he is going to let action speak louder than words. As he talks trash on Abyss, Abyss sneaks up behind him listening to him. He speaks a few compliments on Abyss but then starts bashing him. Abyss goes on the attack but Anderson is able to bail out before Abyss can hit the black hole slam. Hernandez and Matt Morgan defeated The British Invasion to retain the tag team titles. Rob Terry got involved and threw a briefcase in the ring. The swing of the briefcase backfired as Hernandez ducked it. The British Invasion was then pinned. Terry got in the ring afterwards and the finger pointing began on who cost who the match. Foley then arrived and destroyed them with a chair as that was one of his attempts to get Bischoff’s attention on the show. Madison Rayne took on Angelina Love. Angelina won it with a bicycle kick. After the match, Angelina continued to hammer on Madison. Velvet and Lacey made their way to the ring with the “ugly stick”. Angelina stayed on offense against them as well but the numbers added up. The Beautiful People ended up beating down Angelina. They also played audio throughout the night of Bubba The Love Sponge calling Jeff Jarrett live on the air talking about TNA and the new Hogan/Bischoff regime. It was really lame to be honest. LOL. So, can you tell how I felt about this show? Like I said, I am very concerned over the creative direction of this company right now after seeing the Montreal finish AGAIN and so blatantly done. I’m still giving this time as it is early with the company making changes but I am beginning to get concerned.
This release really had me surprised. TNA released Alissa Flash last week. What in the world?? I have been a fan of hers after seeing her on the TNA house show. Solid in the ring and good gimmick. The fans were into her but they let her go. Someone is going to have to make me understand the decision on letting her go.
The WWE Royal Rumble is this Sunday on PPV. The lineup will consist of these matches: the 30 man Royal Rumble match with the winner getting a title shot at WrestleMania, Sheamus defending the WWE title against Randy Orton, The Undertaker defending the World title against Rey Mysterio, Michelle McCool defending the Women’s title against Mickie James. ECW champion Christian defends the belt against Ezekiel Jackson.
That is it for tonight with The Wrestling List. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
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