The Essential Starrcade. The history of Starrcade is one big deal in wrestling history. Before there was WrestleMania, there was Starrcade. The Essential Starrcade features a documentary and also includes the top 25 fan voted Starrcade matches in history. I liked that the documentary focused more on the early days of Starrcade than instead of toward the end. Unfortunately, the show became just another show in later years. When Starrcade began, it was what the NWA built toward and had huge matches which sold out buildings. The concept of Starrcade was Dusty Rhodes and Barry Windham who came up with it. There are a lot of people interviewed for this including Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Harley Race, David Crockett, Arn Anderson, Magnum TA, Road Warrior Animal, Jim Ross, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine, and more. A lot of focus goes to the first Starrcade in 1983 with Flair vs. Race. I love that they showed a lot of archive footage including announcements about the event. Talk turns to how they simulcast the event as well for people that couldn’t get into the building. Flair and Race isn’t the only great match from that show as Piper vs. Valentine in the dog collar match gets a segment including reflections from Piper and Valentine. The event grew and then was held from two different buildings with Greensboro and Atlanta. Oh, and I need to mention how great it was to have some of the interviews and new footage taking place from the Greensboro Coliseum. It added a cool retro feel to the documentary. Atlanta and Greensboro would have matches and then would get to watch the action from the other venue. The Night Of The Skywalkers is covered including interviews with Jim Cornette and Animal. Cornette said that he still has pain from that fall from the scaffold. Magnum TA is discussed with his accident before Starrcade 1986 which would have likely seen his rise to world champion over Ric Flair. Everyone really puts over how Magnum was being groomed to be a huge star in this business before his career ending accident. I often do wonder what would have happened with Magnum had his career kept going and how different that history might be. The controversy over Starrcade and Survivor Series in 1987 is touched upon. Starrcade had always run on Thanksgiving night but WWF decided to use it for Survivor Series. WWF told cable companies that if they wanted to carry WrestleMania, the big money getter of the year, that it would be in their best interest to pick Survivor Series over Starrcade. David Crockett talks a little about that on the documentary. One thing that isn’t really discussed about that Starrcade 87 event in Chicago is yes, it was a hot bed for NWA action, but they really hurt their drawing power there after The Road Warriors were not booked to win the tag team titles in their hometown. Fans were wanting that title change and didn’t get it. From there, it goes into the Ted Turner era of WCW and how Starrcade became mostly a gimmick event. Dusty Rhodes really criticizes WCW at this point for how they really had no clue how to book wrestling even though they had great business executives. They just didn’t know anything about wrestling. I didn’t hate the Battlebowl concept like so many people did. I thought the first one was fun but the rest were just kind of ehh. Starrcade was brought back in the mid 90’s and Bischoff is given credit for that. The 1995 one was not touched upon which included the US vs. Japan series although they do talk about the mistake of booking so many unknown Japanese stars on the 1992 event. No mention of the huge build to either the Piper/Hogan match from 1996 or the Sting/Hogan match in 1997. Both were huge matches for Starrcade although the finish of the 1997 match really started the fall of WCW in my opinion. They do cover the 1998 Starrcade match with Goldberg’s streak ending to Kevin Nash. Mixed opinions on this one. Jim Ross said that he thought it was a mistake while Arn Anderson said that it was long overdue but also pointed out how hot Goldberg was at the time. Anderson’s feelings were just that the longer that the streak kept going that it was actually hurting Goldberg. From there, the event isn’t even discussed from 1999 to 2000. Yeah, not much to discuss there. The only memorable thing from that is the ladder match in 2000. It was nice to see Starrcade get a nice tribute documentary and get treated like it should. It’s a shame that the event got lost in the shuffle in later years but it was huge in the beginning.
Now to the matches. Fans were asked to vote on their favorite Starrcade matches and here are the results. I’ve also added my thoughts on the matches too.
#25 Piper vs, Hogan – Starrcade 1996. This was the first match between the two in many years and WCW built up to it huge. What bugs me the most is that this match was in Nashville. I would go to my first show two months later.
#24 Sting vs. The Great Muta – Starrcade 1989. This match took place during the Iron Man Tournament and is a very solid match.
#23 Steamboat and Douglas vs. Windham and Pillman – Starrcade 1992. I actually watched this match not long ago on WWE Classics On Demand. This was a great match!! I had forgotten how good that it was.
#22 Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash – Starrcade 1998. This match had to likely get voted just for history’s sake. This match is still one of the more talked about title changes due to the creative decision behind doing it. Nash ended Goldberg’s winning streak that night with help from Scott Hall and a taser to win the WCW world title.
#21 BattleBowl Battle Royal – Starrcade 1991. This was the first BattleBowl event that WCW did. The basic idea was that there would be tag team matches with the winners moving on to the battle royal. The teams had names drawn randomly where you might have enemies teaming together. I liked the concept of it but it got way too predictable toward the later BattleBowl events cause the realism of that many enemies teaming together was just lame. The first one though was something I really enjoyed. The battle royal came down to Sting and Luger in the end with Sting winning the first BattleBowl. Solid battle royal and the ending with Sting and Luger was a lot of fun.
#20 Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes – 2 out of 3 falls match – Starrcade 1993. They had a really fun series of matches in the early 90’s in WCW.
#19 Anderson and Blanchard vs. The Road Warriors – Starrcade 1987. This is the night that the NWA ruined their drawing power forever in Chicago. This match had been built up huge with everyone and their mother expecting The Road Warriors to win the tag team titles that night in their home town. The title change didn’t take place and there was a ripoff DQ finish that really angered the fans. The NWA never drew attendance as well in Chicago after that.
#18 Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. – Starrcade 1996. Yeah, you can’t go wrong with two of the best high flyers ever going at it. I LOVED watching Liger matches in the 90’s and was always so excited when he’d have a WCW run. His style was so different from anything that I had seen in wrestling when he showed up in WCW in the early 90’s. Then, you have Rey who was incredible at the time of this match and you’ve got a classic.
#17 Night Of The Skywalkers II – Midnight Express vs. The Rock N’ Roll Express – Starrcade 1987. Definitely a solid match here. I think that more people talk about the first Skywalkers match more than this one but this deserves plenty of attention as well.
#16 Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger – Starrcade 1988. I remember this being a very fun match and I was sure that Luger was going to win the NWA title that night. WRONG. This was one of their series of matches from 1988 where Luger would get so close but couldn’t win the belt. That pretty much sums up the Flair/Luger feud. They did the finish at the Bash earlier that year in 1988 where Luger had Flair in the rack and had the title won but the ref stopped the match due to Luger bleeding from the forehead. That is a finish that most fans will remember from that time. #15 Eddie Guerrero vs. Shinjiro Ootani – Starrcade 1995. This goes back to the US vs. Japan event which had a lot of good matches.
#14 Dusty Rhodes / Sting vs. Road Warriors – Starrcade 1988. I have good memories of this match but it has been a while since I have seen it. World tag team championship battle.
#13 King of Cable Tournament Final - Sting vs. Big Van Vader – Starrcade 1992.
The Sting vs. Vader feud was one of the best feuds of the early 90's. Can't really go wrong with any of their matches.
#12 Brisco Brothers vs. Steamboat/Youngblood – Starrcade 1983. Match off of the original event and these two teams always had good matches against one another.
#11 Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair – Starrcade 1985. Classic. That is really all I can add.
#10 Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko – Starrcade 1997. This was in the midst of Eddie having some incredible PPV matches in 1997. Cruiserweight title on the line.
#9 Iron Man Tournament - Road Warriors vs. The Steiner Brothers – Starrcade 1989. I believe that this was the first meeting between these two teams. I remember being so excited that these teams going to face off in this tournament.
#8 3 Count vs. Jamie Knoble & Evan Karagias vs. Jung Dragons – Starrcade 2000. Ahh, one of the few highlights of the last months of WCW. This match is often forgotten cause of the bad era of WCW that it was in. Very fun match. What does it say that it is the only thing that I remember off of that show.
#7 Sting vs. Ric Flair – Iron Man Tournament – Starrcade 1989. Like the Road Warriors and Steiners, this match between Sting and Flair was an epic encounter in the tournament. It ended up being the deciding match in who won the tournament as well.
#6 Greg Valentine vs. Roddy Piper – Dog Collar Match – Starrcade 1983. This bloody match is one of the most talked about matches of both of these guys careers.
#5 Road Warriors vs. The Midnight Express – Scaffold Match – Starrcade 1986.
Just like the last match, this is also one of the most talked about matches of each of these teams careers. The sight of the scaffold was amazing. Jim Cornette's night? Yeah, not so good.
#4 Sting vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan – Starrcade 1997. This match had such an incredible build to it. Everyone was excited for this match that had been built up for over a year. This was Sting's return to the ring. The delivery on the match though went badly based on the very badly booked finish. The fast three count that wasn't actually fast. I point at this match as the turning point in the Monday Night Wars with the momentum going to the WWF.
#3 Ric Flair vs. Harley Race – Starrcade 1983. A Flare For The Gold. Incredible night in the history of Ric Flair in the steel cage.
#2 Magnum T.A. vs. Tully Blanchard - I Quit Match - Starrcade 1985.
Just a bloody brawl. How about just saying that?
#1 Ric Flair vs. Vader – WCW title and Flair’s career on the line in Charlotte – Starrcade 1993. One of my favorite matches ever. It absolutely deserved to ranked number one among the fans. If you are unfamiliar with this, Vader had just been built up as this absolute monster. Such a indestructible force!! Flair seemed to have no chance. The result would have Flair unleashing a big time pound attack on Vader which was a lot of fun to watch as the crowd in Charlotte went crazy.
This is a fun DVD set and you’ll really enjoy it. Documentary is a fun look back and there are a lot of great matches on this set. Big thumbs up from me.
Custom Search
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
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!!
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!!
WWE Tribute To The Troops Recap - December 21, 2009
WWE aired their Tribute To The Troops 2009 show on Saturday night on NBC and here is the recap of it. As I always say, you’re not going to get any criticism from me on booking, matches, or anything. That isn’t what this show is about. This show is all about entertaining our great troops over in the Middle East and giving them a break. The show was incredibly produced as it always is with the many video packages set to a lot of various music. I always look forward to seeing the music video at the end cause it is a tremendous highlight package. I’m also curious every year as to what song that they will pick to close it with this year’s video being set to Bon Jovi’s “Superman”. Great, great, great music video tribute. I really liked the John Cena video package on the many trips that he had made on the Tribute To The Troops shows. It was set to Nickelback’s “Never Gonna Be Alone”. There was another great video package as well showing all the superstars taking part in a lot of military activity with the troops. That was fun. As far as in ring action, the main event had John Cena taking on Chris Jericho. I can’t remember this happening in years past with timing but WWE had to explain why John Cena and John Morrison were still holding their championships on the show. They explained that the show was recorded earlier in the month along witn putting a graphic on the screen. Both stars lost those titles at the TLC PPV. Crowd was very much behind Cena in his match. The finish had Jericho going for a high crossed body. He landed it but Cena rolled through and picked up Jericho straight into an attitude adjustment for the win. Rey Mysterio and Mark Henry defeated Carlito and CM Punk. Rey hit a double 619 on to Carlito and Punk. Rey hit the springboard splash while Henry landed the world’s strongest slam. Each of them made the pin at the same time on Punk and Carlito. The Miz defeated John Morrison in what was billed as a champion vs. champion match. Miz avoided the starship pain but Morrison landed on his feet. Miz then knocked down Morrison and put his feet on the ropes to help get the pinfall win on Morrison. In another moment on the show, R Truth came out dressed as Santa Claus. He was a rapping Santa Claus and then he introduced the divas. Kelly, Layla, Alicia, and The Bellas all made their way to the ring handing out gifts and kisses to the soldiers. Speaking of the divas, Eve was the ring announcer for the show. Fun show and it’s just a bummer that it is only one hour now since being moved over to NBC. I want to say a thank you to all of WWE whether it is the talent, crew, and just everyone involved that take time out to go do that show. Not even just this year but I’m talking about this year and all the years. It was great to see the troops having fun and the line of the show was to this one soldier that was interviewed. He talked of his kids saying that he “does this job so that his kids don’t have to”. He said that with tears in his eyes and I thought that summed it all up. Incredible bravery. Merry Christmas to all of our troops overseas and praying that they all stay safe.
If you were watching Tribute To The Troops, the first thing you may have noticed is that WWE has done some replacing to their opening. Hulk Hogan is out of it including video and his voice. He was replaced by Ted Dibiase. Also, Mick Foley being thrown off of the cell has also been taken out. Yeah, I think WWE is paying attention.
If you were watching Tribute To The Troops, the first thing you may have noticed is that WWE has done some replacing to their opening. Hulk Hogan is out of it including video and his voice. He was replaced by Ted Dibiase. Also, Mick Foley being thrown off of the cell has also been taken out. Yeah, I think WWE is paying attention.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
WWE Slammy Awards, TLC PPV Results, TNA Final Resolution Preview, ROH Recap, & More - December 16, 2009
Welcome to the “wow, was that one boring and bad three hours of Raw” edition of The Wrestling List. I have been very entertained listening to audio shows this week with people just ripping that Raw show apart cause it really was bad. You know me, I’m optimistic but this was bad. LOL. First, let’s start with the PPV results from Sunday night.
WWE held their TLC PPV Sunday night from San Antonio, Texas. The dark match before the show was CM Punk and R Truth. That concerns me having Punk on the dark match. My concerns got worse after watching Raw. Truth ended up pinning Punk. The PPV started and Christian defeated Shelton Benjamin in the ladder match to retain the ECW title. Christian was cut open pretty badly during the match at one point and the match was stopped so officials could stop the bleeding. You may be thinking, what is that about? Well, WWE is really pushing that PG rating and they do not do blood anymore. So, they are going to do what they can to prevent it. That is why there was no blood probably for the first time ever in the Cell matches lately. Cena was cut open accidentally a few months ago and refs were down there immediately cleaning him up while the cameras tried to stay off of it. Drew McIntyre defeated John Morrison to win the Intercontinental title when he won with the DDT for the win. Vince McMahon was shown backstage congratulating Drew. Michelle McCool defeated Mickie James to retain the Women's championship when Michelle pinned her with a big boot. Next was the tables match for the WWE title. When I saw where this match was on the card, my first thought was that they might do the title change and then do what Cena teased a few weeks ago and have Cena finish the show by winning the title back in a rematch. So, Cena defends the WWE title against Sheamus. The finish had Cena holding Sheamus up on the turnbuckle looking to hit the adjustment through the table. Sheamus got out of it but Cena then tried a superplex. Sheamus countered and shoved Cena off the turnbuckle and through the table. Yep, new WWE champion, Sheamus. Guess what? No rematch though. I thought for sure that was what they were going to do but didn't. Next was the World title chairs match with Undertaker defending against Batista. Yeah, the finish to this was weak. The finish had Batista hitting a low blow on Taker and then nailed him with the chair. Batista gets the pinfall and wins the World title. Well, for a moment. Teddy Long arrives and declares that even though chairs are able to be used in this match, an obvious low blow is not legal. So, he restarts the match. Batista charged at Undertaker but Undertaker put his foot up into the chair. Batista then gets nailed again with the chair. Undertaker picks up Batista for the tombstone and wins the match. Yeah, I thought they booked this match lame as far as the finish. So, you can use brutality of chairs but that is off limits. Just kind of lame to me. Next was the match with Randy Orton and Kofi Kingston. The finish had Kofi going for the trouble in paradise but Orton countered into the RKO. Orton gets the pinfall. The show finished with the TLC match between DX and JeriShow. Sounds like this was a really good match. The finish had Shawn nailing superkicks and then DX shoved the ladder over sending Big Show to the floor. Triple H then held the ladder so Shawn could climb it for the win. DX wins the tag team titles.
Oh, where do I start with this bad edition of Raw? Let us not forget that this was a three hour Slammy Award special. How could this show be so bad? There are some nights where I’ll watch the show and think maybe I’m the only one that thought this show was bad. Monday night, I knew that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t like the show. It just didn’t make any sense all around. The matches were strange, the finishes were bizarre, and the Slammy stuff was just mostly annoying. What are you thinking WWE? This was a bad show. I wouldn’t even call it bad. Last night, the adjective that popped into my head was annoying. This was an annoying show. There was a really funny and ironic segment in this show that summed it up. Vince McMahon and Dennis Miller are on the stage. Vince was making comments and the crowd was not reacting at all. They really weren’t reacting to Miller either. Vince then asks the crowd if “they passed away before the show” and ripped on the crowd for being bad. They’re not a bad crowd. They got a bad show. Here is one of my points too. We had three hours of TV. Yet, we were having these matches that were barely going three minutes. I couldn’t believe that they had Punk and Cena go so short. They had such a good match the last time and I was looking forward to the follow up. Then, Punk basically gets squashed and it was the most annoyed that I’ve felt over a match finish in a long time. On Sunday night, Punk is wrestling dark matches and Monday night he was getting squashed. Anyway, let’s go into the recap of events. Dennis Miller was guest host. Yeah, this just didn’t work for me. The Superstar Of The Year award was decided by a tournament which should have been a lot more fun than it was. The four in it were Undertaker, CM Punk, John Cena, and Randy Orton. Cena took on Punk first and Punk controlled the very beginning. Suddenly, Cena hooks the STF and Punk gets to the ropes. Then, Cena pulls Punk back to the middle and taps out. Punk gets squashed. Cena got on the mic and apologized for letting anyone down Sunday night. He said that his road to WrestleMania began now and was saying that he would not lose another match until he won back the WWE title. Undertaker faces Randy Orton later on and the two ended up on the floor. Legacy arrived and distracted Taker. Taker kept being tempted to go after them. He then turns into a RKO on the floor. Orton then rolls into the ring and beats the count. After the match, all of Legacy attacked Undertaker. He took them all out including laying out Orton with a chokeslam. That gets us to the tournament final. Cena vs. Orton. There was a moment that made no sense to me. Orton ends up nailing his DDT off the apron on to the floor. Then, he PICKS UP Cena and rolls him in the ring. From a logic standpoint, I’m thinking that the count is at five, why would you pick the guy up and put him in the ring? Get the countout win like you did earlier!! LOL. This booking just made no sense. Cena made his comeback and won with the adjustment. Then, Sheamus walked out and faced off with him from the stage. Then, we had these other matches on the show that barely got any kind of time. DX took on JeriShow after they demanded their rematch for tonight. The match barely happened. As the match started, Shawn got down behind the referee. Triple H shoved the referee who fell over Shawn and then the ref called for the DQ. The story was that DX had gotten disqualified and now Jericho’s only chance at the tag team titles was out the door. Speaking of out of the door, Jericho was taken by a lot of the talent from the ring and kicked out of the building sending him back to Smackdown. Christian, Kane, and Khali teamed together to defeated the team of Regal, Kozlov, and Jackson. Kane and Khali are suddenly friends while it is clear that Kozlov’s push is forever gone as he got pinned by a Khali chop. Kofi Kingston is set to take on Cody Rhodes. The match goes on and then Dibiase interferes. Evan Bourne makes the save. Dennis Miller then declares it a tag team match. Cody wins with the crossrhodes on Bourne for the win. Then, we have the seven on seven divas tag team match which was basically a one on one match. Mickie James and Rosa went at it with Mickie winning with a DDT. It was over quick. We had Miz, McIntyre, and Ryder taking on Morrison, Tatsu, and Mark Henry. Tatsu got the win when he pinned Ryder. Ok, the Slammy Awards portion. Yawn for the most part. Tag Team of the Year was JeriShow which was not much of a surprise and deservedly so. They beat out DX, The Hart Dynasty, and Legacy. Breakout Star of the Year goes to Sheamus as he won over Tatsu, McIntyre, and Abraham Washington. Yeah, it would have been ridiculous if anyone else had won it considering he is WWE champion. Diva of the Year went to Maria which was fan voted. Surprised about that. During her speech, she was interrupted by Batista saying that he should be awarded the screwjob of the year award for what happened at TLC. Yes, they spoofed the Taylor Swift/Kanye West thing months after it happened. It didn’t work at all with Batista being the one to do it. It just looked goofy. Ok, here comes a good moment in the show. Match of the Year presented by Triple H. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker (WrestleMania 25) wins over Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown (Bragging Rights), Hardy vs. Edge ladder match and Punk cashing in the MITB (Extreme Rules), Cena vs. Orton I Quit match (Breaking Point). Yeah, this was the easiest decision ever on that one. Shawn accepts the award with Triple H saying that he had the unfortunate task of trying to follow that match and couldn’t. Shawn lays out the challenge to Undertaker for WrestleMania 26 saying that he knows he can beat Undertaker. So, there is the tease. Speaking of teases, let’s get right to the other one. Dennis Miller and Vince McMahon are on stage together and Vince presents the Raw co-host of the year category with Bob Barker winning over Shaq, The Osbournes, and Seth Green. Vince asks about who people would like to see as a future guest host. Dennis Miller brings up the name Bret Hart. Vince says the same old line of the last time Bret was there, Bret screwed Bret. Actually, the last time that Bret was there was for the Hall Of Fame but anyway. J Miller asked the fans what they thought and there were cheers. Vince walked off. It sure does look like we may be seeing Bret Hart in the near future on WWE TV. They went way too far with that tease for it not to happen. The Shocker of the Year award went to Jeff Hardy being retired by CM Punk which won over Sheamus putting Cuban through a table, Batista turning on Rey, and Orton DDT’ing Stephanie. Extreme Moment of the Year went to Jeff Hardy’s dive off of the ladder through the table on Punk which won over Triple H’s home invasion of Orton, Kofi’s dive on to Orton on the table at MSG, and Show throwing Cena through the light. Matt Hardy accepted the award. Carlito eventually nailed Matt and then went into a pretty funny acceptance speech. Masters hooks the masterlock from behind on Carlito and then Matt punches Carlito. We’re not done though. Here comes the really bad stuff. The oily dancing guy, Abraham Washington, and Tony Atlas present the Oh My Moment of the Year. Wow, this was bad. It was really bad. It had Atlas doing his laugh through the whole segment laughing at Johnson. Michael Cole getting sick on Jericho won over Masters doing his pectoral muscle dance, Shawn Michaels superkicking the little girl, and Santino’s Thanksgiving where he kept getting pies in the face except for the one he got on Vickie. Cole runs up the ramp like he just won an academy award and jumps all over Johnson. I am not making this up. LOL. Then, he takes some little shots at JR which I’m sure he was told to say. This segment here was the final straw on this show with just how horrible that it was.
Other notes from Raw. I am going to say this right now. If Bret Hart ends up being the guest host on January 4, you cannot tell me that they aren’t paying attention to TNA’s live three hour Impact. Yeah, they would just coincidentally put Bret on that night. Remember last week when they said that it was Jericho’s last match on Raw? Then, we get to this week and he walks out to get the first award. I get tired of the whole last match on Raw thing cause all three brands are on Raw all the time. How nasty looking was that crossrhodes by Cody on Bourne? Wow, that Abraham Washington segment was terrible. Is that gimmick getting anywhere on ECW? I think that segment would fit into that word I said previously which was annoying. Why didn’t Undertaker get a trophy too for being a part of the WrestleMania 25 match? LOL. I thought that would have been cool to have them both come out to accept it and face off. Then, you still could have had Shawn set up the challenge. Wasn’t it strange to see some of the guys that were escorting Jericho out? It isn’t like they were all Raw guys. Why are ECW guys kicking him out? LOL. If you’re wondering what Striker’s mistake was on commentary that he didn’t want to say was, he mentioned on the TLC PPV that the Intercontinental title hadn’t changed hands in 20 years in Texas. He really looked silly when the title had changed hands at WrestleMania this year in Houston. Have you noticed that WWE is starting to rotate the same “did you know” stats? Ok, I laughed a lot at the DX Christmas segment. That was funny. Triple H accidentally taking out Shawn’s built ladder match set was hilarious especially with the uh oh look on Triple H’s face. They were playing off of the similar segment last year where Shawn couldn’t get the Elimination Chamber set together for his kids in time for Christmas. This year had the point of Shawn saying that he had finished it 11 days early. So, Triple H looks to calm Shawn down and sits him down in the chair in a DX snuggie (!!!!) to watch a DVD. Shawn spits out his drink when he realizes that the match is of Triple H beating up Shawn. Hornswoggle shows up giving them gift cards to the WWE shop website. He plugs his own DX merchandise and they go for him. Hornswoggle escapes and Triple H is accidentally beating up Shawn in the snuggie instead of Hornswoggle. Triple H ran when he realized what he had done. This was a funny segment and much funnier than the one from last week.
Johnny Damon will be the guest host on next week’s Raw.
If there is a WWE show that you need to watch every year, it is the Tribute To The Troops this Saturday on NBC. The show was recently recorded from over in the Middle East with the superstars entertaining and meeting the troops. The special is always amazingly produced with matches and great segments set to music. This is a show that you should go out of your way to watch whether it is live or recording to watch it later. It is incredible. Tribute To The Troops airs on Saturday at 8pm central time on NBC.
WWE released some of their most recent PPV buy numbers and they did see increases. The Breaking Point buys was down from last year's Unforgiven PPV. 225,000 buys last year and the buys this year was around 200,000. The Cell PPV replaced No Mercy and did more buys than last year with this year getting 300,000 buys compared with 261,000 for No Mercy last year. Bragging Rights did 200,000 buys which was up from the Cyber Sunday PPV last year that it replaced which did 153,000 buys.
This is over a week old now but here are the results of last week’s Ring Of Honor on HDNet show. Jim Cornette opened the show announcing that there would be a Pick Six Contender Series. He picked out the top twelve competitors in ROH to face each other in matches. The top six would then get the opportunity at the title and also get a $2500 bonus from HDNet. If you lose, you’re out of the title picture. He announces the six matches which are Delirious vs. Kenny King, Colt Cabana vs. Claudio Castagnoli, Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards, Sonjay Dutt vs. the returning Tyler Black, Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Briscoe, and Kenny Omega against Chris Hero. These matches will take place over future episodes. Cornette took notice that Austin Aries didn’t bother showing up at the meeting but then Aries arrived. Aries ripped on Cornette and then Cornette fired back saying that this tournament was taking place because he was tired of Aries hand picking easy opponents to defeat. Aries stood up to Cornette telling him that he would face anyone of Cornette’s choosing in the main event. Cornette took him up on it and put him in the ring with Kenny Omega, Davey Richards, and Roderick Strong in a four way match for the ROH title. That match took place which was a fun one. Strong and Richards had an intense face off and went at it for a bit. Strong went to pin Richards after hitting a powerbomb. Then, Aries snuck in and nailed Strong. Aries pinned Richards and retains the ROH title. As the show was about to go off the air, Tyler Black appeared up on the ramp making sure that Aries knew that he was back. In other action, The Briscoes defeated El Generico and Kevin Steen in a number one contenders match for the tag team titles. This was a really fun one with a lot of nasty moves. Jay hit the Jaydriller on Steen leaving Mark to pin Steen for the win. There was a segment where Steve Corino talked about coming back to Ring Of Honor since they now had national TV and he wants to be on TV. LOL. Fun show.
TNA holds their Final Resolution PPV on Sunday night and here is the lineup. AJ Styles defends the TNA title against Daniels. Desmond Wolfe takes on Kurt Angle in the three degrees of pain match. Last man standing match with Bobby Lashley taking on Scott Steiner. Team 3D, Rhino, and Jesse Neal takes on Matt Morgan, Hernandez, Suicide, and Pope in an elimination match. In a feast or fired match, the loser will be fired from the company. ODB defends the knockouts title against Tara.
That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Umaga Passes Away, TNA Impact vs. WWE Raw Live On January 4, & More - December 7, 2009
Welcome to the “I'm waiting to see what WWE's reaction is to the Hulk Hogan/Dixie Carter/TNA announcement of a live three hour Impact going head to head against a live Raw” edition of The Wrestling List. A couple of big news items this week. One really sad while the other is very exciting.
The first bit of news is that Umaga passed away on Friday. Eddie “Umaga” Fatu was 36. It appears that he passed away due to a heart attack. He of course worked for WWE for a while but was released last year after a couple of wellness policy violations. He recently worked on the Hulkamania tour in Australia and had just recently returned home from the tour. No word on any kind of cause but obviously sad news. Umaga became a major player in WWE a couple of years ago including a great last man standing match with John Cena at The Royal Rumble. It was a fun match that they had and that is his best match in my opinion. Afa Anoai has put out this statement on his passing: On behalf of my family, the Anoa'i and Fatu family, we are devastated and shocked by the loss of our Eki. Our son, nephew, brother, cousin, husband, father. Our hearts are broken, and words can't express what each of us are feeling. It is so comforting to know how loved Eki is by his family, peers, friends, and most of all his fans. When I received that a.m. phone call that my nephew was in the hospital, I dug deep and prayed and cried and begged for a miracle. When we lost Eki, I knew it was God's will, and that he is with my sister, his mother, who passed just a year ago. We are making our plans now for our farewell to Eki, but I wanted to take this time to thank everyone for all of the thousands of posts, emails, letters, and cards. Although I have not been able to bring myself to answer them personally, your kindness does not go unnoticed. I want to especially thank our WWE family and Stephanie McMahon for everything, and her phone call was very comforting to me in my time of sorrow. God bless each and every one of you, and I've said it a hundred times, the best people in the world are our wrestling people. You'll never find a more dedicated group of people. Be safe and be healthy, and love one another. God bless, Afa the Wild Samoan "Pops"
My thoughts and prayers go out to his family as they have already been battling tough times even before this.
Now, the exciting news. Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter were at The Ultimate Fighter finale and were set to make an announcement concerning TNA. Hulk Hogan was interviewed by Joe Rogan while Carter looked on. Well, their big news was that TNA will have a special live three hour Impact on Monday, January 4 from 7pm to 10pm central time. Yes, that will go head to head with Raw. So, a battle between wrestling companies will happen with two live shows going head to head for the first time in almost ten years. Dixie Carter said that they had now fired the first shot at WWE. There is talk that this show will feature the first TV appearance by Hulk Hogan and I expect there to be more surprises. The show will be broadcast from the Impact Zone at Universal Studios, FL. They need to book this show full out going head to head. Have some big matches and do some good stuff. Keep Russo under control with his writing obviously and not do anything insane. LOL. How will this show do head to head? Honestly, I can see the show doing a good rating but I don’t expect it to take a chunk of the WWE audience. I think the WWE audience will probably remain mostly the same. TNA usually averages around a 1.1 or 1.2 with Impact on Thursdays. So, if they could jump that rating at all, that would be a win. My expectations would be maybe a 1.5. Regardless, getting that kind of promotion for the special on such a big show like a UFC show is big for them. Regardless of what the rating is, this is big for TNA. I expect them to start taking chances which is what they need to do. This is a gutsy move to go live head to head on that Monday night and I give them all the credit for going for it. That will be an exciting night for wrestling fans to have choices again. TNA has to make a big splash with this show and use the attention that Hogan is going to bring that night and showcase the other amazing talent that they have. What I am interested in seeing is what WWE does to react to this. Will they build up Raw on that date or just not care and go about normal business? If they build up that show, I think it shows that they at least care enough about this TNA special to have a bigger show. That is what I’m waiting on with how WWE reacts. What am I going to do? My plan is to watch the live Impact and then watch Raw afterwards. I just really feel that TNA is going to go big with this show and put together something big. I think a lot of people will channel change between the two like the old days of the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. I never did that though. I watched one and then would watch the other show afterwards. Then, Bischoff would ruin shows for me by announcing Raw results. Hated that!! LOL. I may have to go old school Wrestling List format for that night. That would be fun.
Tonight’s Raw was in Dallas and hosted by Mark Cuban. I thought WWE did a good job with Cuban and he seemed to settle into the role easily. Here are the happenings of the show. He opened the show talking about his plan for the show and also that he would be sitting at ringside just like he does for NBA games. So, he sat there with several of the Dallas Mavericks players. The show opened with John Cena taking on Carlito. As Cena was about to hit the five knuckle shuffle, Sheamus made his way on to the ramp. Cuban stood in the middle of the aisle making sure Sheamus wouldn’t get to the ring. Cena ended up pinning Carlito following the attitude adjustment. Cena and Sheamus would have a faceoff later in the show with Cuban asking them questions. Sheamus would talk a lot and then Cena would say no comment in rebuttal. Cena did a lot of talking to end it though talking about all of his challenges in the last seven years. The two ended up throwing furniture (imagine that!!) and then Sheamus shoved Cuban down. As Cena turned to Cuban, he caught a boot from Sheamus. Cuban got back up and faced off with Sheamus. Cuban shoved him down and I got really worried at this point of what WWE was doing. Sheamus got back up and then gave him a knee to the stomach. Then, he put Cuban through the table. The Mavericks players in attendance jumped over the barricade and slowly got involved. Sheamus walked off. The show ended with Cena getting to his feet and staring off with Sheamus who was on the ramp. DX faced Chris Jericho in the handicap match. Jericho shoved Triple H into the referee knocking him down. Big Show arrived and headbutted Shawn to the mat. Triple H went for a chair and nailed Show in the back. Show then punched the chair. JeriShow then took out DX from there. Show put them in between a ladder on the mat and Jericho nailed it with a chair a couple of times. Jericho then climbed the ladder as he and Show stood over the beaten DX. Other happenings had more with Mark Cuban. Legacy would arrive with Orton demanding that Cuban wave his no title match stipulation which Cuban didn’t do. They played off of the RKO at Survivor Series 2003 that Orton hit on Cuban with Legacy making threats. Dibiase and Rhodes ended up being put in a match against Bourne and Primo. Dibiase won with the dreamstreet. Cuban also had announced that Orton would take on Kofi Kingston and that he would be the special referee. The match finish had Orton going for the RKO and then Kofi countered it into a backslide. Cuban then big time fast counted giving Kofi the win. The whole storyline was that now Cuban had gotten even for the attack six years ago. Also, Kofi and Orton were even at 1-1 in their series of matches. Their deciding match will be at TLC on Sunday. The Miz defeated Mark Henry to retain the US title. Miz nailed Henry into the steps at one point. Miz was caught off of the turnbuckle in the finish of the match. Henry’s slam was counted into a DDT and Miz won cleanly. Wow. Maryse faced Gail Kim in a match which had Maryse winning when she kicked Gail off of the turnbuckle. Maryse used the ropes to help get the win. After the match, she went to special guest ring announcer Kelly Kelly to get her to announce her as the future Divas champion. They shoved and then Maryse was about to get on the attack. Melina ran down and Maryse took off. In one of those “hmm, ok” kind of matches, Hornswoggle teamed with Eve to take on Chavo and Jillian. The finish had Eve pinning Jillian. Chavo attacked Hornswoggle after the bell throwing him to the mat. Eve stood in front of him to prevent anything else from happening. Chris Masters then jumped in the ring to stand toe to toe with Chavo saying that he would have to go through him to get to Eve. Masters put him in the masterlock and then slammed him. He did the dancing pectorals again which Eve apparently liked. Yeah, it was a bizarre segment. So, they are going to try and push Masters as a face?? Well, they’ve tried everything else. WWE might as well see if this works.
Other notes from Raw. Wow, already getting chills just watching that Tribute To The Troops show promo that aired tonight. Always an incredible show. Anyone else find it funny that they made sure to announce that Cuban was the creator of HDNet which is the network that has Ring Of Honor programming. I liked a lot of the NBA references by Legacy including several things that I had forgotten about. The DX and Hornswoggle stuff was just kind of there for me this week. It just wasn’t as funny. Glad that Big Show is back to the black tights instead of the blue. Not sure what to make of the Miz/Henry finish. It sure helped Miz out for sure. Not sure if it helped Henry though. Henry’s stay on Raw just hasn’t been very good so far. He was much better when they just had his character as a monster on ECW. I was watching Eve’s offense and she has an interesting dropkick with how she lands it. Wow, no tribute to Umaga graphic by WWE. They have mentioned him on the website so it isn’t like they have completely ignored it. So, overall the show was all right for me. There were times where I wondered if WWE was going to build strong to the PPV or not. The last 30 minutes picked up with that.
I continue to enjoy watching TNA Impact. I watched the show again last week. The Kurt Angle/Desmond Wolfe feud along with the AJ/Daniels feud would be enough to get me to tune in. Both have been fun to watch so far. Wolfe opened the show saying how he hadn’t lost to Angle cause Angle beat him with an illegal submission hold. He also added that a beating required a physical and mental one and that he was winning that war. Wolfe talked of their match at Final Resolution which will be two out of three falls. First fall is pinfall. Second fall is submission. Third fall is escape the cage. Angle arrived and Wolfe locked himself in the cage. Angle then climbed over the cage and hammered on Wolfe. Wolfe then got brass knucks out and nailed Angle with them. Later, Angle was seen talking to Foley wanting a match but Foley tried to use it to bargain with Angle on his Hogan knowledge. The main event had Angle in a different scenario. Foley announced that Angle would face the team of Dr. Stevie and Raven. Foley said that he knew that both sides had done him wrong but that at least someone would get hurt out of it. Stevie was knocked from the ring and went up the ramp with Daffney holding his arm. Raven nailed Angle but Angle ended up winning with the anklelock. Up on the ramp, Stevie got hit with a black hole slam on the stage by Abyss. Wolfe then hit the ring again and laid out Angle. As far as AJ and Daniels goes, AJ was at ringside scouting Daniels during his match with Abyss. Daniels had a conversation with the Beautiful People earlier in the night. Daniels was about to get chokeslammed and then pointed to the screen. The female announcer linked to Abyss was being pushed around by the Beautiful People backstage. That distracted Abyss and then Daniels got the win. Daniels called AJ in the ring to battle it out. As AJ was about to get in there, the mystery man once again attacked AJ. Before the match, AJ made another plea to Sting to return his and everyone’s phone calls cause everyone was worried about him. They showed Mike Tenay’s sitdown interview with Dixie Carter about TNA’s future. Nothing really big out of this other than to say that her and Hogan would be working together on the company to make it better. She talked of how she wanted everyone to work as a team to succeed. When asked about Jeff Jarrett, she said that he had been sent home as a result of a personal situation and that was all she was going to say. Now, they showed Foley later calling Jarrett at home wanting answers about Hogan. Jarrett ripped on Foley and TNA. Later, it was announced that Foley would be taking the cameras to Nashville next week to interview Jarrett. I’m really interested to see where TNA is going with their storylines from here as it sure does scream that we’re going to be seeing more shoot style storylines. Foley continued to try and get answers from various guys including Kevin Nash about what Hogan was up to. Everyone kept saying that Hogan was there to make the company better. In other action, Alex Shelley defeated Doug Williams after hitting sliced bread for the win. The Pope tried to get Suicide to be his partner at Final Resolution which included Hernandez and Morgan already. Suicide defeated Homicide following a backslide. Homicide attacked him after the match and then Pope ran in for the save. Pope offered a handshake but then Suicide walked off. Pope wrestled Jesse Neal later on with Pope getting the win. Neal attacked Pope after the match and then the lights went out. Lights come back on and Suicide saves Pope to even them up for the night. Team 3D and Rhino hit the ring but then so did Hernandez and Morgan. Team 3D and crew ended up leaving. ODB interviewed Tara on her show where ODB basically accused Tara of wanting to just waltz in and take over cause she is a former WWE diva. Tara said that she gave up her two year contract in WWE to come there cause she respected the division so much and was tired of being a joke in WWE while being a Barbie doll trainer. ODB ended up attacking her as the segment was going. Beer Money ended up losing to Eric Young and Kevin Nash. Storm’s attempt at a superkick was stopped by Nash from the outside. Young then hit Roode low and nailed a piledriver for the win. Foley arrived after the match to talk to Nash about Hogan. Nash did more of the teasing stuff. I thought the best comment was Nash telling him to just call Hogan. Foley said he would and asked for Hogan’s number. Nash said that he had it but Hogan asked him not to give it to Foley. I thought that was funny. Lashley and Kristal talked about Scott Steiner to build to their match. I thought it was kind of silly when Lashley started the in ring promo by saying I have nothing to say about Steiner. Ok, why are you here then? LOL. Hamada defeated Sarita in the knockouts match. I was really impressed with Sarita as it was the first time that I’ve seen her.
Last week's Ring Of Honor on HDNet opened with a match between Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli. Chris Hero watched the match from the aisle. The whole story of the match was Kingston wanting to be like Hero. The finish had Eddie getting a chair but it was taken away by the ref. Kingston then reached into his tights and had one of Hero's loaded elbow pads. He nailed Claudio with it and got the pin. Hero was shown being very frustrated up on the ramp. Next was The Briscoes taking on The Dark City Fight Club. I, of course, know of The Briscoes and have seen some of their incredible matches over the years in ROH. The other team was new to me. I really enjoy watching The Briscoes cause they are so fast paced. I picked up on something so small as Jay whipping his opponent to the ropes and Jay was already in the air with the dropkick before the opponent was on his way back. Then, it landed perfect. The finish of the match had them all fighting on the floor and chairs started getting thrown. The ref lost control and rang the bell. Wrestlers and officials made their way out to try and separate the teams but little progress was made. Nice tag team brawl on the floor. The ROH on HDNet debut of The Set was next as they took on Kevin Steen and El Generico. I loved the finish of this match. The little guy jumped off the top rope and was caught in mid air by Steen. Steen then LAUNCHES him up in the air and then just slams him. It was one of those moves that we often joke about with how bigger guys must enjoy wrestling little guys cause of the ability to launch them like that. LOL. They then hit the tag team finish of the swanton and frog splash for the win for Steen and Generico. The main event finished the show with ROH champion Austin Aries taking on Colt Cabana in a non title match. Cabana hooked an inverted sharpshooter and then King made his way to the ring to interfere. Albright ran out right behind to keep him from the ring. As the ref was distracted, Aries tapped out. Titus made his way to the ring but Cabana knocked him off of the turnbuckle. Aries then took over from there and won with a submission victory.
WWE is back home after touring overeas for the Tribute To The Troops show last week. The show will air on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 8pm central time on NBC. This is such a great show every year. Seeing the WWE superstars getting to mingle with our superstars, the troops is just incredible to see every year. It is such a pleasure to watch the troops get to just take a break and be entertained for a little while by the WWE show. One of my favorite shows to watch every year and WWE does an amazing job producing it.
Mickie James has indeed signed a recording contract with Nashville producer, Kent Wells. The plan for release for her debut album is the spring of next year. Good for Mickie. I wish her all the best with it for sure.
The TLC PPV is this Sunday coming to you live from San Antonio. Here is the lineup. John Cena defends the WWE title against Sheamus in a tables match. The Undertaker defends the World title against Batista in a chair match. Chris Jericho and Big Show defend the tag team titles against DX in a TLC match. ECW champion Christian takes on Shelton Benjamin in a ladder match. John Morrison defends the Intercontinental title against Drew McIntyre. Kofi Kingston takes on Randy Orton. This looks like a solid show on paper. I expect DX and JeriShow to be a wild one. I have hopes for the Christian/Shelton ladder match. It should be good if WWE gives it a decent amount of time. It will be interesting to see what WWE does with Sheamus in this main event as this is easily the highest profile match for him to date. Like I said, I think it will be a solid show all around.
That is it for this week. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
The first bit of news is that Umaga passed away on Friday. Eddie “Umaga” Fatu was 36. It appears that he passed away due to a heart attack. He of course worked for WWE for a while but was released last year after a couple of wellness policy violations. He recently worked on the Hulkamania tour in Australia and had just recently returned home from the tour. No word on any kind of cause but obviously sad news. Umaga became a major player in WWE a couple of years ago including a great last man standing match with John Cena at The Royal Rumble. It was a fun match that they had and that is his best match in my opinion. Afa Anoai has put out this statement on his passing: On behalf of my family, the Anoa'i and Fatu family, we are devastated and shocked by the loss of our Eki. Our son, nephew, brother, cousin, husband, father. Our hearts are broken, and words can't express what each of us are feeling. It is so comforting to know how loved Eki is by his family, peers, friends, and most of all his fans. When I received that a.m. phone call that my nephew was in the hospital, I dug deep and prayed and cried and begged for a miracle. When we lost Eki, I knew it was God's will, and that he is with my sister, his mother, who passed just a year ago. We are making our plans now for our farewell to Eki, but I wanted to take this time to thank everyone for all of the thousands of posts, emails, letters, and cards. Although I have not been able to bring myself to answer them personally, your kindness does not go unnoticed. I want to especially thank our WWE family and Stephanie McMahon for everything, and her phone call was very comforting to me in my time of sorrow. God bless each and every one of you, and I've said it a hundred times, the best people in the world are our wrestling people. You'll never find a more dedicated group of people. Be safe and be healthy, and love one another. God bless, Afa the Wild Samoan "Pops"
My thoughts and prayers go out to his family as they have already been battling tough times even before this.
Now, the exciting news. Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter were at The Ultimate Fighter finale and were set to make an announcement concerning TNA. Hulk Hogan was interviewed by Joe Rogan while Carter looked on. Well, their big news was that TNA will have a special live three hour Impact on Monday, January 4 from 7pm to 10pm central time. Yes, that will go head to head with Raw. So, a battle between wrestling companies will happen with two live shows going head to head for the first time in almost ten years. Dixie Carter said that they had now fired the first shot at WWE. There is talk that this show will feature the first TV appearance by Hulk Hogan and I expect there to be more surprises. The show will be broadcast from the Impact Zone at Universal Studios, FL. They need to book this show full out going head to head. Have some big matches and do some good stuff. Keep Russo under control with his writing obviously and not do anything insane. LOL. How will this show do head to head? Honestly, I can see the show doing a good rating but I don’t expect it to take a chunk of the WWE audience. I think the WWE audience will probably remain mostly the same. TNA usually averages around a 1.1 or 1.2 with Impact on Thursdays. So, if they could jump that rating at all, that would be a win. My expectations would be maybe a 1.5. Regardless, getting that kind of promotion for the special on such a big show like a UFC show is big for them. Regardless of what the rating is, this is big for TNA. I expect them to start taking chances which is what they need to do. This is a gutsy move to go live head to head on that Monday night and I give them all the credit for going for it. That will be an exciting night for wrestling fans to have choices again. TNA has to make a big splash with this show and use the attention that Hogan is going to bring that night and showcase the other amazing talent that they have. What I am interested in seeing is what WWE does to react to this. Will they build up Raw on that date or just not care and go about normal business? If they build up that show, I think it shows that they at least care enough about this TNA special to have a bigger show. That is what I’m waiting on with how WWE reacts. What am I going to do? My plan is to watch the live Impact and then watch Raw afterwards. I just really feel that TNA is going to go big with this show and put together something big. I think a lot of people will channel change between the two like the old days of the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. I never did that though. I watched one and then would watch the other show afterwards. Then, Bischoff would ruin shows for me by announcing Raw results. Hated that!! LOL. I may have to go old school Wrestling List format for that night. That would be fun.
Tonight’s Raw was in Dallas and hosted by Mark Cuban. I thought WWE did a good job with Cuban and he seemed to settle into the role easily. Here are the happenings of the show. He opened the show talking about his plan for the show and also that he would be sitting at ringside just like he does for NBA games. So, he sat there with several of the Dallas Mavericks players. The show opened with John Cena taking on Carlito. As Cena was about to hit the five knuckle shuffle, Sheamus made his way on to the ramp. Cuban stood in the middle of the aisle making sure Sheamus wouldn’t get to the ring. Cena ended up pinning Carlito following the attitude adjustment. Cena and Sheamus would have a faceoff later in the show with Cuban asking them questions. Sheamus would talk a lot and then Cena would say no comment in rebuttal. Cena did a lot of talking to end it though talking about all of his challenges in the last seven years. The two ended up throwing furniture (imagine that!!) and then Sheamus shoved Cuban down. As Cena turned to Cuban, he caught a boot from Sheamus. Cuban got back up and faced off with Sheamus. Cuban shoved him down and I got really worried at this point of what WWE was doing. Sheamus got back up and then gave him a knee to the stomach. Then, he put Cuban through the table. The Mavericks players in attendance jumped over the barricade and slowly got involved. Sheamus walked off. The show ended with Cena getting to his feet and staring off with Sheamus who was on the ramp. DX faced Chris Jericho in the handicap match. Jericho shoved Triple H into the referee knocking him down. Big Show arrived and headbutted Shawn to the mat. Triple H went for a chair and nailed Show in the back. Show then punched the chair. JeriShow then took out DX from there. Show put them in between a ladder on the mat and Jericho nailed it with a chair a couple of times. Jericho then climbed the ladder as he and Show stood over the beaten DX. Other happenings had more with Mark Cuban. Legacy would arrive with Orton demanding that Cuban wave his no title match stipulation which Cuban didn’t do. They played off of the RKO at Survivor Series 2003 that Orton hit on Cuban with Legacy making threats. Dibiase and Rhodes ended up being put in a match against Bourne and Primo. Dibiase won with the dreamstreet. Cuban also had announced that Orton would take on Kofi Kingston and that he would be the special referee. The match finish had Orton going for the RKO and then Kofi countered it into a backslide. Cuban then big time fast counted giving Kofi the win. The whole storyline was that now Cuban had gotten even for the attack six years ago. Also, Kofi and Orton were even at 1-1 in their series of matches. Their deciding match will be at TLC on Sunday. The Miz defeated Mark Henry to retain the US title. Miz nailed Henry into the steps at one point. Miz was caught off of the turnbuckle in the finish of the match. Henry’s slam was counted into a DDT and Miz won cleanly. Wow. Maryse faced Gail Kim in a match which had Maryse winning when she kicked Gail off of the turnbuckle. Maryse used the ropes to help get the win. After the match, she went to special guest ring announcer Kelly Kelly to get her to announce her as the future Divas champion. They shoved and then Maryse was about to get on the attack. Melina ran down and Maryse took off. In one of those “hmm, ok” kind of matches, Hornswoggle teamed with Eve to take on Chavo and Jillian. The finish had Eve pinning Jillian. Chavo attacked Hornswoggle after the bell throwing him to the mat. Eve stood in front of him to prevent anything else from happening. Chris Masters then jumped in the ring to stand toe to toe with Chavo saying that he would have to go through him to get to Eve. Masters put him in the masterlock and then slammed him. He did the dancing pectorals again which Eve apparently liked. Yeah, it was a bizarre segment. So, they are going to try and push Masters as a face?? Well, they’ve tried everything else. WWE might as well see if this works.
Other notes from Raw. Wow, already getting chills just watching that Tribute To The Troops show promo that aired tonight. Always an incredible show. Anyone else find it funny that they made sure to announce that Cuban was the creator of HDNet which is the network that has Ring Of Honor programming. I liked a lot of the NBA references by Legacy including several things that I had forgotten about. The DX and Hornswoggle stuff was just kind of there for me this week. It just wasn’t as funny. Glad that Big Show is back to the black tights instead of the blue. Not sure what to make of the Miz/Henry finish. It sure helped Miz out for sure. Not sure if it helped Henry though. Henry’s stay on Raw just hasn’t been very good so far. He was much better when they just had his character as a monster on ECW. I was watching Eve’s offense and she has an interesting dropkick with how she lands it. Wow, no tribute to Umaga graphic by WWE. They have mentioned him on the website so it isn’t like they have completely ignored it. So, overall the show was all right for me. There were times where I wondered if WWE was going to build strong to the PPV or not. The last 30 minutes picked up with that.
I continue to enjoy watching TNA Impact. I watched the show again last week. The Kurt Angle/Desmond Wolfe feud along with the AJ/Daniels feud would be enough to get me to tune in. Both have been fun to watch so far. Wolfe opened the show saying how he hadn’t lost to Angle cause Angle beat him with an illegal submission hold. He also added that a beating required a physical and mental one and that he was winning that war. Wolfe talked of their match at Final Resolution which will be two out of three falls. First fall is pinfall. Second fall is submission. Third fall is escape the cage. Angle arrived and Wolfe locked himself in the cage. Angle then climbed over the cage and hammered on Wolfe. Wolfe then got brass knucks out and nailed Angle with them. Later, Angle was seen talking to Foley wanting a match but Foley tried to use it to bargain with Angle on his Hogan knowledge. The main event had Angle in a different scenario. Foley announced that Angle would face the team of Dr. Stevie and Raven. Foley said that he knew that both sides had done him wrong but that at least someone would get hurt out of it. Stevie was knocked from the ring and went up the ramp with Daffney holding his arm. Raven nailed Angle but Angle ended up winning with the anklelock. Up on the ramp, Stevie got hit with a black hole slam on the stage by Abyss. Wolfe then hit the ring again and laid out Angle. As far as AJ and Daniels goes, AJ was at ringside scouting Daniels during his match with Abyss. Daniels had a conversation with the Beautiful People earlier in the night. Daniels was about to get chokeslammed and then pointed to the screen. The female announcer linked to Abyss was being pushed around by the Beautiful People backstage. That distracted Abyss and then Daniels got the win. Daniels called AJ in the ring to battle it out. As AJ was about to get in there, the mystery man once again attacked AJ. Before the match, AJ made another plea to Sting to return his and everyone’s phone calls cause everyone was worried about him. They showed Mike Tenay’s sitdown interview with Dixie Carter about TNA’s future. Nothing really big out of this other than to say that her and Hogan would be working together on the company to make it better. She talked of how she wanted everyone to work as a team to succeed. When asked about Jeff Jarrett, she said that he had been sent home as a result of a personal situation and that was all she was going to say. Now, they showed Foley later calling Jarrett at home wanting answers about Hogan. Jarrett ripped on Foley and TNA. Later, it was announced that Foley would be taking the cameras to Nashville next week to interview Jarrett. I’m really interested to see where TNA is going with their storylines from here as it sure does scream that we’re going to be seeing more shoot style storylines. Foley continued to try and get answers from various guys including Kevin Nash about what Hogan was up to. Everyone kept saying that Hogan was there to make the company better. In other action, Alex Shelley defeated Doug Williams after hitting sliced bread for the win. The Pope tried to get Suicide to be his partner at Final Resolution which included Hernandez and Morgan already. Suicide defeated Homicide following a backslide. Homicide attacked him after the match and then Pope ran in for the save. Pope offered a handshake but then Suicide walked off. Pope wrestled Jesse Neal later on with Pope getting the win. Neal attacked Pope after the match and then the lights went out. Lights come back on and Suicide saves Pope to even them up for the night. Team 3D and Rhino hit the ring but then so did Hernandez and Morgan. Team 3D and crew ended up leaving. ODB interviewed Tara on her show where ODB basically accused Tara of wanting to just waltz in and take over cause she is a former WWE diva. Tara said that she gave up her two year contract in WWE to come there cause she respected the division so much and was tired of being a joke in WWE while being a Barbie doll trainer. ODB ended up attacking her as the segment was going. Beer Money ended up losing to Eric Young and Kevin Nash. Storm’s attempt at a superkick was stopped by Nash from the outside. Young then hit Roode low and nailed a piledriver for the win. Foley arrived after the match to talk to Nash about Hogan. Nash did more of the teasing stuff. I thought the best comment was Nash telling him to just call Hogan. Foley said he would and asked for Hogan’s number. Nash said that he had it but Hogan asked him not to give it to Foley. I thought that was funny. Lashley and Kristal talked about Scott Steiner to build to their match. I thought it was kind of silly when Lashley started the in ring promo by saying I have nothing to say about Steiner. Ok, why are you here then? LOL. Hamada defeated Sarita in the knockouts match. I was really impressed with Sarita as it was the first time that I’ve seen her.
Last week's Ring Of Honor on HDNet opened with a match between Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli. Chris Hero watched the match from the aisle. The whole story of the match was Kingston wanting to be like Hero. The finish had Eddie getting a chair but it was taken away by the ref. Kingston then reached into his tights and had one of Hero's loaded elbow pads. He nailed Claudio with it and got the pin. Hero was shown being very frustrated up on the ramp. Next was The Briscoes taking on The Dark City Fight Club. I, of course, know of The Briscoes and have seen some of their incredible matches over the years in ROH. The other team was new to me. I really enjoy watching The Briscoes cause they are so fast paced. I picked up on something so small as Jay whipping his opponent to the ropes and Jay was already in the air with the dropkick before the opponent was on his way back. Then, it landed perfect. The finish of the match had them all fighting on the floor and chairs started getting thrown. The ref lost control and rang the bell. Wrestlers and officials made their way out to try and separate the teams but little progress was made. Nice tag team brawl on the floor. The ROH on HDNet debut of The Set was next as they took on Kevin Steen and El Generico. I loved the finish of this match. The little guy jumped off the top rope and was caught in mid air by Steen. Steen then LAUNCHES him up in the air and then just slams him. It was one of those moves that we often joke about with how bigger guys must enjoy wrestling little guys cause of the ability to launch them like that. LOL. They then hit the tag team finish of the swanton and frog splash for the win for Steen and Generico. The main event finished the show with ROH champion Austin Aries taking on Colt Cabana in a non title match. Cabana hooked an inverted sharpshooter and then King made his way to the ring to interfere. Albright ran out right behind to keep him from the ring. As the ref was distracted, Aries tapped out. Titus made his way to the ring but Cabana knocked him off of the turnbuckle. Aries then took over from there and won with a submission victory.
WWE is back home after touring overeas for the Tribute To The Troops show last week. The show will air on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 8pm central time on NBC. This is such a great show every year. Seeing the WWE superstars getting to mingle with our superstars, the troops is just incredible to see every year. It is such a pleasure to watch the troops get to just take a break and be entertained for a little while by the WWE show. One of my favorite shows to watch every year and WWE does an amazing job producing it.
Mickie James has indeed signed a recording contract with Nashville producer, Kent Wells. The plan for release for her debut album is the spring of next year. Good for Mickie. I wish her all the best with it for sure.
The TLC PPV is this Sunday coming to you live from San Antonio. Here is the lineup. John Cena defends the WWE title against Sheamus in a tables match. The Undertaker defends the World title against Batista in a chair match. Chris Jericho and Big Show defend the tag team titles against DX in a TLC match. ECW champion Christian takes on Shelton Benjamin in a ladder match. John Morrison defends the Intercontinental title against Drew McIntyre. Kofi Kingston takes on Randy Orton. This looks like a solid show on paper. I expect DX and JeriShow to be a wild one. I have hopes for the Christian/Shelton ladder match. It should be good if WWE gives it a decent amount of time. It will be interesting to see what WWE does with Sheamus in this main event as this is easily the highest profile match for him to date. Like I said, I think it will be a solid show all around.
That is it for this week. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Jeff Hardy; My Life, My Rules DVD Preview - November 30, 2009
The new Jeff Hardy: My Life, My Rules DVD is released tomorrow in stores. Matches that are going to be included on the set are:
Disc One
Jeff Hardy vs. 1-2-3 Kid
Superstars - 6/25/94
Triangle Ladder Match for the Tag Team Titles
The Hardy Boys vs. The Dudley Boyz vs Edge & Christian
WrestleMania 2000 - 4/2/00
(Alternate Commentary with The Hardys)
Steel Cage Match for the Tag Team Titles.
The Hardy Boys vs. Edge & Christian
Unforgiven - 9/24/00
Hardcore Championship Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Mike Awesome
SmackDown - 7/12/01
Ladder Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam
SummerSlam - 8/19/01
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy
Vengeance - 12/9/01
Jeff Hardy & Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho & Christian
Raw - 2/17/03
Disc Two
Jeff Hardy vs. Edge
Raw - 8/21/06
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Johnny Nitro
Raw - 10/2/06
Tag Team Title Match
The Hardys vs. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
Backlash - 4/29/07
4-Way Elimination Match for the Intercontinental Title
Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Santino Marella vs. William Regal
Raw - 7/16/07
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin
Raw - 9/17/07
Ladder Match - Intercontinental Title
Jeff Hardy vs. Carlito
Raw - 12/10/07
Winner Receives a WWE Title Match at The Royal Rumble
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H
Armageddon - 12/16/07
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton
Raw - 1/14/08
WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton
Royal Rumble - 1/27/08
Jeff Hardy vs. Shawn Michaels
Raw - 2/11/08
Disc Three
Falls Count Anywhere Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga
Extreme Rules - 6/1/08
Jeff Hardy vs. John Cena
Raw - 6/2/09
Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison
SmackDown - 7/4/09
WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H
No Mercy - 10/5/08
Extreme Rules Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Undertaker
SmackDown - 11/14/08
Triple Threat WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H vs. Edge
Armageddon - 12/14/08
Extreme Rules Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Dolph Ziggler
Raw - 3/23/09
Stretcher Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy
SmackDown - 4/10/09
World Heavyweight Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk
Night of Champions - 7/26/09
Steel Cage World Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk
SmackDown - 8/28/09
Disc One
Jeff Hardy vs. 1-2-3 Kid
Superstars - 6/25/94
Triangle Ladder Match for the Tag Team Titles
The Hardy Boys vs. The Dudley Boyz vs Edge & Christian
WrestleMania 2000 - 4/2/00
(Alternate Commentary with The Hardys)
Steel Cage Match for the Tag Team Titles.
The Hardy Boys vs. Edge & Christian
Unforgiven - 9/24/00
Hardcore Championship Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Mike Awesome
SmackDown - 7/12/01
Ladder Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam
SummerSlam - 8/19/01
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy
Vengeance - 12/9/01
Jeff Hardy & Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho & Christian
Raw - 2/17/03
Disc Two
Jeff Hardy vs. Edge
Raw - 8/21/06
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Johnny Nitro
Raw - 10/2/06
Tag Team Title Match
The Hardys vs. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
Backlash - 4/29/07
4-Way Elimination Match for the Intercontinental Title
Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Santino Marella vs. William Regal
Raw - 7/16/07
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin
Raw - 9/17/07
Ladder Match - Intercontinental Title
Jeff Hardy vs. Carlito
Raw - 12/10/07
Winner Receives a WWE Title Match at The Royal Rumble
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H
Armageddon - 12/16/07
Intercontinental Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton
Raw - 1/14/08
WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton
Royal Rumble - 1/27/08
Jeff Hardy vs. Shawn Michaels
Raw - 2/11/08
Disc Three
Falls Count Anywhere Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga
Extreme Rules - 6/1/08
Jeff Hardy vs. John Cena
Raw - 6/2/09
Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison
SmackDown - 7/4/09
WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H
No Mercy - 10/5/08
Extreme Rules Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Undertaker
SmackDown - 11/14/08
Triple Threat WWE Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H vs. Edge
Armageddon - 12/14/08
Extreme Rules Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Dolph Ziggler
Raw - 3/23/09
Stretcher Match
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy
SmackDown - 4/10/09
World Heavyweight Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk
Night of Champions - 7/26/09
Steel Cage World Title Match
Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk
SmackDown - 8/28/09
WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand - December Preview - November 30, 2009
Time for the December preview for WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand. The theme of the month is Season’s Beatings. Events airing include NWA Starrcade 1988, World Class Star Wars 1985, In Your House: Season’s Beatings, WWE SummerSlam 2009, WWE Tribute To The Troops 2006, 2007, and 2008. Old School house shows airing include MSG (12/28/89) and Houston (10/9/87). TV Classics airing include a Christmas themed episode of Prime Time Wrestling from 1990 and the 1997 Christmas edition of Raw which airs EVERY year. As far as regular programming, you’ll see NWA (February 1987), ECW (December 1996-January 1997), Mid-Atlantic (February 1982), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from February 1998), and Monday Night Wars: The Beginning (January 1996), and Prime Time Wrestling (June 1988). The Hall Of Fame profile appears to be featuring Cowboy Bob Orton. This is the majority of the programming airing but there will be more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)