I enjoyed Monday's Raw. Fun show overall. I wasn't crazy about the last segment cause I just didn't think much of the whole Cena going for a truce thing with Nexus. It was played up to where I couldn't tell if WWE was wanting this to be serious or if it was a plan all along. When I heard of the segment getting ready to take place, I thought that this is going to be a Austin in a suit against McMahon type segment or even Hogan teasing that he was going to give the WWF title to The Million Dollar Man but it didn't. Instead, it played out more like Cena just trying to make a deal and when it didn't work, he loaded up a team. Now, obviously he had the team in place but it was just kind of a weirdly booked segment by WWE. The big finish to the show was Cena announcing his super team to take on Nexus at SummerSlam. Chris Jericho, Edge, John Morrison, R Truth, Bret Hart, and……The Great Khali. Wow, that one really left me thinking….really?? (to quote The Miz). It's kind of 2001 Alliance kind of feel with the superstars putting their differences aside to defeat Nexus. I seem to remember Chris Jericho not exactly being on the same page as the WWF guys during that feud back in the day. I don't really like that 2001 is now being referenced as back in the day from me. LOL. I really liked the opener with Edge, Jericho, and Orton. Crowd was hot for it too and popping like crazy for the multiple RKO's to finish the match. Orton won and that gets him the title match at SummerSlam. I loved the tease of that The Miz was about to cash in the MITB against Sheamus after attacking him. He hit the skull crushing finale on to the MITB briefcase and then went to try and take advantage of the hurt WWE champion. The crowd was up for it and the excitement was there to see what was going to happen. I was sitting up too waiting to see what would happen. Then, R Truth comes out and all the excitement is gone. You could hear the crowd barely making any noise after the run in. When they went to Miz in the back, I was thinking that we had better hear some anger from him on this whole thing and he did. The story was that Miz had the perfect scenario in place to win the WWE title. Then, Truth messed it all up and now Miz is back to square one. He should be furious over that and be looking for some major revenge for it.
I'm late posting this so these are my thoughts on the July 15 Impact. I watched TNA Impact last week for the first time in 3 months. With the new direction of the company possibly looming and talk that the company has went back toward wrestling, I decided to tune in especially with the big angle to close the show. I liked what I saw. I really enjoyed the show and there wasn't one thing on the show that made me want to go crawl in a hole. The ECW invasion angle that closed the show was fun. Dreamer, Rhino, Richards, and Raven watched the Hardy/Lethal match from the crowd. They also watched as RVD faced off with Abyss in the final segment. They did get involved to help RVD and others got involved as well including TNA talent and other former ECW talent. Al Snow and Simon Diamond were two guys that were in the brawl as well. The segment closed with Dixie Carter stopping the brawl by saying "I invited them". Yes, it is setting up something which is a One Night Stand type PPV on August 8 which I may be inclined to buy. The show is said to feature all ECW talent. There was a really good match between the Machine Guns and Beer Money which was a ladder match. Lots of nasty spots in the match and this was the first of a best of five series of matches. Lethal and Hardy had a solid match. Samoa Joe, Desmond Wolfe, and Rob Terry had a nice little three way match with Joe picking up the win. I liked The Beautiful People exploding segment. I have always liked Velvet Sky and I thought she was really good in this segment. The controversy continued over who was in the hooded outfit riding the motorcycle making attacks. Angelina Love got involved. I did laugh at Madison Rayne going nuts yelling that she wanted her title back and to give it to her. I liked the exchange between Pope and Anderson with the uneasiness of Anderson helping Pope. I also liked the Taylor Wilde and Sarita brawl especially when it got into the building. I just liked seeing more knockouts action from someone besides just The Beautiful People. Speaking of that match, did you hear Taz say that you could get fired for doing something like that in another company when Sarita choked out Taylor? A definite reference to WWE and Danielson.
Randy Savage, Comic-Con, and WWE was quite the talk in the last couple of days. Mattel announced that Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior are now signed to be part of the action figure line. The Savage figure is part of the Defining Moments series with his figure having his WrestleMania VII look. The big shocker of the announcement was how it all was announced. Savage was the feature of the presentation and they kept him a surprise until running a video. The video started with black and then you hear "ooohhhh yeah". The video shows the figure being held and then the camera pulls out to show Savage. Savage talked about the new figure line and went into full Savage promo mode. It was awesome!! It was probably the most pumped that I've been to see a returning superstar in a long time and it was just for a Mattel figure promotional piece. Best part of the whole clip is Savage comparing himself to how he looks now. I laughed hard at that. The crowd there was loving the video too. Here is a video from the presentation that shows the entire Savage video. A must see.
Nora Greenwald, or also known as Molly Holly will be getting married in the near future. The White Bear Press had a great article up about how she was working at a drug rehabilitation facility helping others fight addiction. If you don't know her story very well, she is a strong Christian and I have admired for her many years with how strong of faith that she has. While working at the facility, her now fiance' was working his way through there as a recovering drug addict. He eventually ended up working there and the two began dating. She is going one for one with dating as the article says this is her first boyfriend. He had no idea of her wrestling past until she told him and he looked up some of her videos on You Tube. The two plan to minister together in helping others battle drug addictions. Just a great, great story and I am thrilled for her. One of the great stories and people that has come from the wrestling world. Here is the link to the article if you want to read it. http://presspubs.com/articles/2010/07/20/white_bear_press/news/doc4c461f5508850811901173.txt
The voting for events to air in August on WWE Classics On Demand is between three different SummerSlams. 1992, 1997, and 2007. Just thought I'd go over some thoughts on each one of them. 1992 was from Wembley Stadium in London. This event is always remembered for the great Intercontinental title match between Bret Hart and The British Bulldog. That match closed the show. Other matches on the show included the big rematch between Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior with the WWF title on the line this time. The fans were split in this one with who to cheer for. Undertaker's feud with Kamala was capped off with a casket match between the two. The tag team title match with LOD against Money Inc. opened the show. 1997 was a solid show which had a main event of Bret Hart and The Undertaker battling for the WWF title with Shawn Michaels as the special guest referee. I remember this PPV greatly as we had a fun group together watching the PPV that night. Mankind battled Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a steel cage. 2007 was a solid show. John Cena took on Randy Orton in the main event which had a split crowd which is always fun. I love split crowds during Cena/Orton matches. Triple H made his long awaited return taking on King Booker. Batista took on The Great Khali and I have no recollection of that match which is probably because I blocked it out. LOL. Rey Mysterio returned to action taking on Chavo Guerrero. Stone Cold Steve Austin had an appearance on the show having a beer drinking contest with MVP. I remember this show being a solid one but not a show that I was jumping up and down about. Just a thumbs in the middle show is what I remember. Ok, so if I am voting between the three of them on which to play on Classics On Demand, I would pick between 1992 and 1997. Either one would be fine. 1992 is probably a better event overall than 1997 but I enjoyed both shows.
I watched The History Of The World Heavyweight Championship documentary recently. Thumbs in the middle for me on it. The best part of it is them going way back to the early to mid 1900's talking about the history and seeing a lot of old footage that I hadn't seen. It's really impressive with how they cover it and talk about how wrestling was in that time period and how it evolved to what it was in the 60's and 70's. I was wondering how they would cover the title situation when it got to 1991 and Ric Flair. If you remember, Flair left with the title and took it to the WWF after a fallout with those in charge. WCW crowned a new champion which was Lex Luger. What I found odd was that the documentary didn't even talk about Luger being the first champion after Flair leaving the company. They skip right ahead to Ron Simmons win over Vader. The end of the documentary does kind of just go all over the place with stories and timelines. I will forgive them for that though because, let's be honest, the lineage of that title got so messed up and confused over the last decade or even longer than that. When I was watching it, I was thinking that I'm not even sure how you cover that anyway cause of all the battles involving the NWA and its lineage with the title. If I had to recommend anything, I'd check out the first half of it and watch the really classic footage and stories on it. That was worth watching it for me.
