Monday Night Wars Return - Recap & Thoughts on TNA Impact & WWE Raw - March 9, 2010

Welcome to the “I was predicting a Brooke Hogan heel turn last night” edition of The Wrestling List. LOL. Last night was the first night of the new Monday Night Wars between WWE and TNA. This happens almost nine years to the day of when the original Monday Night Wars came to an end in late March of 2001. Back to the old days of watching four straight hours of wrestling. Well, I cut that down quite a bit with taking commercials out obviously. Still, it was midnight before I finished Raw. I watched Impact live and then watched Raw afterwards. It was a very entertaining night of wrestling for me. There were things that I liked and didn’t like about both shows obviously. We had a big debut on Impact and returns while WWE was mostly the same stuff as they build to WrestleMania.

I’ll start with TNA Impact. I am going to recap this thing and then I’ll go into my opinions on the show. The show opened up with Hulk Hogan and Abyss coming to the ring with a very hot crowd in the Impact Zone. Hogan said that the main event was taking place right then and there to kick off the show. Ric Flair and AJ Styles made their way to the ring and the match was underway. The match gets rolling and Abyss and Flair go at it for a while. All four end up in the ring and AJ takes down Hogan with the pele kick. Hogan and Abyss are down on the mat. The lights go out and then Sting appears in the ring. He stands with Hogan and Abyss as the crowd goes crazy. Sting then turns and nails Abyss and Hogan with the baseball bat. A Sting heel turn. AJ and Flair look surprised at what is going on. AJ and Flair nail Hogan and Abyss with unprotected chair shots to the head. They leave and then a bloody Hogan gets on the mic saying that this match wasn’t over. They would finish the match later in the show and it would be No DQ. Sting was shown backstage being confronted by Dixie Carter wondering what Sting was doing. Sting pushed her against the wall and said that he owed her nothing. Borash interviewed Flair and AJ who were hyped up on what had just happened with Flair saying that FINALLY Sting had come to his senses all these years. They were pumped for the match to finish later in the night. Abyss was shown in the back yelling on why Sting did what he did. We see Brooke Hogan backstage talking to Hogan’s girlfriend, Jennifer with Jennifer saying that Hogan would be ok. Brooke said that he is not ok and that she couldn’t watch the rest of what would happen. Dixie Carter is interviewed later and the announcers put over about how Dixie has always promised to never make matches but yet she was now. She said Sting would wrestle tonight and would have a surprise opponent. Sting makes his way to the ring and Rob Van Dam makes his TNA debut. Huge pop for RVD who hits the ring. RVD pins him immediately following a rolling thunder. Match lasted probably fifteen seconds. RVD goes to celebrate but Sting nails him with the bat and takes his leg out. Officials try to stop all of this but Sting wears out RVD with the bat. A bloody Hogan makes his way back out with officials holding him back. Bubba The Love Sponge was back on the show and was holding Hogan back as well. Hogan gets to the ring and gets nailed by the bat from Sting. Sting is continuing to pound RVD at this time too. Hogan is pulled away from ringside again but Sting follows him up the ramp. Sting nails him with the bat again and also takes out some officials. Later in the show, Hogan is confronted by Earl Hebner who wants a second chance. Bubba talks about second chances and Hogan is talked into it. Hogan makes him the ref in the main event saying that he needed someone to control the match and someone he could trust because his family was freaking out over this match. Brooke was shown backstage crying to Hogan about not wanting him to get hurt out there while Hogan was saying that the fans were calling him and he had to answer the call. He said that Abyss had his back but she demanded that this be his last match. The main event takes place again. Hogan and Abyss taking on AJ and Flair. Hogan and Flair went at it for a bit with Flair being bloodied along with Hogan. Abyss gets the hot tag and we end up with a double hulk up with Abyss and Hogan hulking up. Double fists, double big boots, and then Hogan whipped AJ into Abyss for a black hole slam for the pinfall. Desmond Wolfe then attacked both of them with a chair. His match with the Pope was canceled for earlier in the show as Wolfe had attacked Pope and his injured ankle. Hogan and Abyss start to get beat down and then Pope runs out to help. The odds still are stacked in the favor of AJ, Flair, and Wolfe. Jeff Hardy’s music hits and he runs to the ring. Hardy cleans house and nails multiple twist of fates on the heels. The show ends with Hardy still doing damage. Kurt Angle did an in ring promo with the Army surrounding the ring. They’re playing the storyline of that Anderson bashed on the military while Angle is standing up for them. He said that Anderson spit on them two weeks ago and he wasn’t going to take it. Anderson appears on the screen with the warrior medal while calling the military “high school dropouts”. Angle left the ring immediately while Anderson kept talking. Angle walks in and nails Anderson with them playing up that Angle knew exactly where he was in the building. The fight ends up back in the ring. Angle keeps throwing him to the floor to the Army guys who pound on him. Anderson ends up nailing Angle with the medal and goes to walk out. He backs into the Army who back him to the ring. Angle then gets back on the attack hitting the Angle slam. Angle is then lifted up on the shoulders of the Army crew. Kevin Nash and Eric Young had a segment with Hall and Waltman where they said that Bischoff had agreed to let Hall and Waltman wrestle for one night. Hall and Waltman made their way out with Hall calling Nash a sellout and saying that 2/3 of the Wolfpack were there which was a rip on Nash. Hall pointed out that the attack by Sting showed that Hogan wasn’t running this show. Hall says that they want their match to include the stipulation that if they win, they get a “fat money” contract and calls out Bischoff. Bischoff appears on screen and agrees to it. If they lose, they’re gone for good. That was Bischoff’s added stipulation. Waltman slapped Young and the fight was on between those two. Bischoff then said that he was tired of paying security extra money to take care of Hall and Waltman every week and had the two of them go at it in a match. Waltman misses the broncobuster and then Young nails a piledriver to win the match. The X-Division was featured on the show with Kazarian saying that he had proudly returned to TNA seeing how they were about to take off. Daniels made his way out saying that he had been there the whole time and had built the X-Division. Current champion Doug Williams makes his way to the ring and gets involved in the discussion. Both say that Williams is just the current champion while Daniels and Kazarian argue over the X-Division history. Bischoff makes his way out and says that he loves the X-Division and doesn’t just see it as the heart of the company but the adrenaline of the company. He has the three go at it in a three way for the belt. This was a fun match. Williams wins the match to retain after hitting the chaos theory on Daniels. Shannon Moore hits the ring and hammers on Williams. Bischoff then announces that Moore is Doug’s opponent for the title at Destination X. The Beautiful People defeated the teams of Angelina & Tara and Taylor & Sarita to win the knockouts tag team titles. Daffney got involved nailing Tara with the Knockouts title as Tara was about to hit the widow’s peak. That cost them the match. Beer Money was put in a match with Jeff Jarrett by Bischoff with Foley as the special referee. Jarrett was mad at Storm for agreeing to the match cause of Jarrett hand picking him to join the company. Storm basically said “what have you done for me lately?” Foley tried to help Jarrett out by giving Jarrett a barbed wire bat from under the ring. Referee Slick Johnson ran out and pulled the bat away which led to Beer Money finishing off Jarrett.

Ok, thoughts on the overall show. Not a lot of wrestling on the show obviously. The wrestling that was on it was really good. X-Division match was good and I enjoyed the knockouts tag match too. The Sting heel turn did not sit well with me at first. I just kept thinking that this never works out. The fans won’t boo him. However, I started to get won over as the show continued. They just had him as a mean, nasty heel beating everyone with a bat. That leads to the Rob Van Dam debut. Yeah, this could have been better. RVD’s offense was WAY too short. If you blinked, you missed it. I wanted to see that live crowd fed on his offense and they were hungry for it. Then, he won with the rolling thunder which I thought was bizarre. Sting then beats up RVD repeatedly with the bat. Lots of criticism from fans on how this debut was booked already. I didn’t hate it as much as others cause I think they’re building to something and obviously HOPE that they’re building to something. My only problem was that RVD’s offense was way too limited for such a BIG debut. That should have played out more with more time. Too much Brooke Hogan. In fact, she was on so much that I thought she was maybe becoming a character. I was actually precicting a heel turn before the main event at the end of the show. I suddenly had comparisons of Brooke to Stephanie’s heel turn on Vince over a decade ago. Brooke turns on her dad and joins up with Flair. I really thought it was going to happen. I wasn’t cheering for it to happen obviously but there was way too much of her on the show. I liked the stuff with Angle and Anderson. I loved that Angle went right to where Anderson was immediately when he started talking. Such simple wrestling psychology there. Well, Eric Young did more for me last night than he probably ever has. I’m happy to see Daffney being used more as I liked that character back in WCW. It was one of the few things I liked about the end of WCW.

Other notes from Impact. Wow, Hogan, Sting, and Flair in the same ring on a live broadcast in 2010. Who would have thought? It was clear that RVD was the surprise opponent even more when they went to break and Tazz mentioned the old RVD ECW 4:20 line. The crowd knew too without even hearing that line. They were chanting RVD when Sting was in the ring but they tried to drowned out the crowd as it was happening. Everyone knew it was RVD. I want to know what the Impact Zone was chanting at Bubba cause they kept drowning out that crowd chant where you couldn’t hear it. I’m sure it wasn’t anything good. Whoops, did you see them cut early to back with Bischoff at the beginning of the Nash, Hall, Waltman, Young segment? Things like that are going to happen with live TV. I laughed at Hall telling Nash that he’d see him at the PPV and that he’d be “the one dressed like Elvis”. Nice throwback to the lame Elvis thing that they did years ago in TNA. New open and theme song for Impact which I thought looked good. I’m pretty sure that I saw Jesse from Big Brother in the crowd at the Impact Zone. He is a big wrestling fan.

On to the recap of WWE Raw. The match opened with Shawn and Undertaker talking about their WrestleMania match. Undertaker said that Shawn’s obsession was going to cost him the ultimate price, his career. Shawn talked of how he had seen fear in Undertaker over that his streak may be about to end. Undertaker told him to choose his next words carefully to which Shawn replied again “fear”. Shawn asked him if he really thought he’d sacrifice his career if he didn’t think he could win. Undertaker called him a man of desperation to which Shawn said no. Shawn was going right at him with what he was saying. It was a really good back and forth segment. Shawn said that he was so determined that he only wanted to win this match by pinfall or submission wanting the match to be No DQ and No CO. Undertaker agreed and said that Shawn might be the best ever that he has seen in the ring but that he will do whatever it takes to keep the streak going. Shawn told him to keep telling himself that and that the black cloud of the streak ending at WrestleMania would follow Undertaker forever. Both were really intense in their words and it was really good. Let’s get right to the main event. Yeah, this was lame. John Cena takes on Vince McMahon. Well, Vince announces that the match is a handicap gauntlet match. So, Vince keeps bringing out partners to help him. First guy is Kozlov. Kozlov does the damage and then Vince goes to pin Cena. Cena kicks out. Vince calls out Drew McIntyre. Same deal. Jack Swagger is the next guy out but Cena gets on offense with him. Swagger takes him down. Vince tries to pin. Cena kicks out. Vince brings out Mark Henry who does not look happy to be a part of this. He reluctantly hits the world’s strongest slam but Cena kicks out. Vince goes for the ring bell saying this is now a No DQ match. He tells Henry to hit Cena with the bell. Henry dumps the bell out to the floor. Batista then runs in and nails Henry. Batista had said earlier in the night that he would not get involved in the match. It should also be pointed out that Cena also said that he was not as confident against Batista cause he had never beaten him. Batista takes out Henry and then Kofi runs in for the save. Kofi gets some offense in but Batista nails him with a powerbomb out of the corner. Cena gets up and takes the fight to Batista. Vince then gets cornered by Cena. He goes for the adjustment but gets hit by a spear from Batista. After a Batista bomb, Vince pins Cena. The show goes off with a spotlight on the ring as Batista stands over Cena. Legacy took on Randy Orton. The question is how much offense will Legacy get in this week. Things looked bad when they got jumped by Orton walking down the aisle. The match went three segments and two of those had Legacy getting beaten up. Orton went for the RKO but Cody got in to stop it. Dibiase then recoved and hit dreamstreet to pin Orton. After the match, Rhodes hit crossrhodes and they mocked Orton with his old pose. Triple H did an in ring promo talking about the attack by Sheamus last week. He said that he had respect for what Sheamus did adding that he would have done the same thing in his shoes to make a statement. Sheamus did arrive and Triple H said that Sheamus had probably had the best first year ever for any superstar but that WrestleMania was a whole different ball game. Triple H talked of how he went on to win matches at WrestleMania looking to fight the biggest dogs and that his only list of defeats were Cena and Batista. Guess he forgot the Warrior. LOL. Basically, he asked Sheamus if he was willing to gamble of them going at it at WrestleMania. Sheamus ended up taking a swing and the fight was on. The fight went to the floor with them going back and forth. Sheamus ends up getting hit with a spinebuster in the ring and then bails out. The last Money In The Bank Qualifier was held with Evan Bourne defeating William Regal to get the last spot. Christian did commentary on the match. John Morrison and R Truth were set to take on ShoMiz in a preview of WrestleMania. The ref stopped it when the match got out of his control. Morrison and Truth take it to ShoMiz with them saying that they needed to now be taken seriously as contenders at WrestleMania. The team of Eve, Kelly, and Gail defeated the team of Maryse, Alicia, and Katie when Eve got Maryse to tap out to her armbar submission. Criss Angel was the guest host of the show and just basically did backstage segments with illusions and all. He did do the ring announcing for the main event.

Other notes from Raw. Did you notice that Ultimate Warrior has replaced Ric Flair in the WWE open? Wow, Legacy just isn’t getting any favors done for them. You can’t have them just getting beaten up EVERY week and have them taken seriously. Yeah, Dibiase got the win but what I remember is that Orton was beating them up for most of the match. The Criss Angel stuff was just there for me. I was done with it after the eye deal in his first segment. I thought, oh ok, I’m done while cringing away from the TV. I like the new addition of pyro to Morrison’s entrance. Looks really cool with the effect. How much lamer can they have Regal’s rookie looking? He is wearing an Austin vest and a cowboy hat? Do you remember when Kozlov was a main eventer? I like Drew McIntyre’s new music even after only hearing seconds of it. The song “Be Yourself” returns to WWE after four years as a WrestleMania theme song. You may remember it being used for the Divas Search in 2005 and then became the theme song for the winner, Ashley Massaro. Where was Michael Cole at when Legacy was holding up the Orton pose? Cole says that they are taunting him with his “classic pose”. Wouldn’t that be “vintage”? It was perfect timing for it and he went for classic. I kind of laughed at Triple H completely ignoring his WrestleMania debut loss to The Ultimate Warrior. Oh, the WrestleMania Recall moment of Lesnar and Goldberg from WrestleMania XX. One of my favorite WM moments ever and that was because of the crowd reaction. The fans knew Lesnar was leaving and ripped on him through the whole thing along with Goldberg. Austin was the ref and the only one getting cheered. The Raw main event was lame. Just lame. TNA needed to take advantage of that last night for sure.

Stone Cold Steve Austin will be the guest host on Raw next week from San Diego. He will handle the contract signing next week between Bret and Vince. That should be fun with Austin helping Bret.

Hulk Hogan appeared with Jimmy Hart last week where he announced the news of the signing of Rob Van Dam to TNA wrestling. Dixie Carter announced on Twitter last week that Sting has signed a new deal to remain with TNA. Traci Brooks was let go by TNA last week and she posted a statement about the release saying that the company just had nothing for her to do. She talked about how much that she had enjoyed being a part of the company all of these years. Roxxi and Sean Morley are also gone from TNA.

Eric Bischoff has already come out firing at WWE including something about the Bret/Vince match at WrestleMania. "Allegedly WWE found out about a Lloyds of London policy that Bret had in effect AFTER setting up this match, and as a result Lloyds of London has to approve of the physical structure of the match. Can't confirm this, and perhaps WWE has "bought out" the problem, but if not..could be disappointing. Either way, I am looking forward to it and am happy for Bret. Going back to WWE in any capacity was the right thing for him to do at this stage of his life."

Mickie James posted on her Twitter about surgery that she had last week due to a staph infection in her leg. She did say that she will not be competing at WrestleMania this year due to it.

I am sad to hear the news of the passing of Angelo Poffo. He is of course the father of Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo. He passed away at the age of 84. I haven't seen much footage of his wrestling career since it was many years ago so my memories of him are mostly with his WCW run along side of Savage in the mid 90's. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family in this tough time.

The new Shawn Michaels “My Journey” DVD was released in stores today. Included on the set is a sitdown interview with Shawn talking about his career and various matches. Many great matches on the set as well. Matches on the set include:
Shawn vs. One Man Gang (World Class – 1/11/85)
Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose and Doug Summers (AWA WrestleRock 1986)
Rockers vs. Brain Busters (Boston Garden – WWF – 3/18/89)
Rockers vs. Hart Foundation (WWF – MSG – 11/25/89)
Shawn vs. Bret Hart (Intercontinental title match – 6/2/92)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (Raw – 3/6/95)
Shawn vs. Sid (Raw - 9/11/95)
Shawn vs. 123 Kid (Raw – 3/4/96)
Shawn vs. Mankind (Raw – 8/11/97)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (One Night Only – 9/20/97)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (Royal Rumble 1998)
Shawn vs. Jericho (WrestleMania XIX)
Shawn vs. Flair (Bad Blood 2003)
Shawn vs. Angle (WrestleMania 21)
Shawn’s Promo on Hogan the night after SummerSlam
Shawn vs. Triple H (Raw 12/19/05)
Shawn vs. Cena vs. Edge vs. Orton (Backlash 2007)
Shawn vs. Orton (Survivor Series 2007)
Shawn vs. Jericho (Unforgiven 2008)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (WrestleMania 25)

Cue the Kane/Pete Rose stuff. Pete Rose will be the Raw guest host on the Monday before WrestleMania.

The Celebrity Apprentice premieres this Sunday night on NBC. Definite ties to wrestling with Maria and Bill Goldberg being a part of the cast.

Back to the Monday Night Wars of last night with my opinions on what I liked best.

Show Of The Night: I’m going to give it to TNA Impact. The show was more exciting and had more going on. Raw was just more of the same stuff but I did like a lot of the stuff on it.

Match Of The Night: Daniels vs. Kazarian vs. Williams in the X-Division championship match from TNA Impact.

That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!