Welcome to the "who on creative thought that Meatloaf singing to Randy Orton was a good idea?" edition of The Wrestling List.
Raw last night was an all right show for me. No opinion either way on it but I did have an advantage this week and that was not having a bad taste of one hour of last week's TNA Impact in me. This week's Raw was the last show in Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh as they will be going over to the new building soon. Lots of WWE events held in that building. That opening segment with Randy Orton and Meatloaf had me scared. Wow, I thought they were about to blow it with Randy Orton. Orton was very Austin like with how they were booking him especially in that segment. I just hope that they keep him more heel like and not turn him into a big time play to the fans babyface. It is nice to have Edge slip over into the role of the heel that I love to cheer. Well, I always cheer Edge no matter what role which goes back to his debut in 1998. However, it's fun to have a heel to get behind like Orton was before this face turn. I liked the matches with the Hart Dynasty and Jericho/Miz. Jericho defeated DH Smith which resulted in Jericho and Miz getting a tag title shot at Over The Limit. Tyson Kidd defeated The Miz which means that Miz has to defend the US title next week on Raw against a member of The Hart Dynasty. Miz chose Bret Hart to defend against. Ted Dibiase was in full Million Dollar Man gear last night with the suit. He paid off the recently reunited Colons to attack R Truth. Vickie Guerrero was a one night Raw GM. How about the heat that she got upon her return to Raw? It was hilarious including Edge saying "excuse her". LOL. Just when I thought they were doing away with the guest host concept, they have Vickie quit and run out getting away from Orton. Flavor Flav did a solid job at guest host for the night. Fans were into him and he had fun entertaining them.
Raw will be commercial free next week taking place from Toronto. Buzz Aldrin will be the guest host. Place your bets on how long it takes for Jerry Lawler to say the words "Bizarro Land" in reference to when the Toronto fans don't do what WWE wants them to do. I love the Canadian crowds cause they do not do what they are told to do. They cheer who they like and this doesn't always revolve around country lines. I always laugh at how WWE goes into panic mode to their announcers to explain why the fans aren't doing like they want. Insert the name "Bizarro Land". Toronto is especially a vocal crowd and Bret Hart will be on the show taking on The Miz for the US title. I can't wait to hear the reaction to Bret as this will be the first show for Bret in Canada since returning to WWE. It should be incredible to watch.
WWE released their quarterly numbers last week including buyrate numbers. Royal Rumble was up to 462,000 buys from last year's 450,000 buys. The Elimination Chamber PPV got 285,000 buys as compared to last year's No Way Out which had 272,000 buys. WrestleMania was down from last year doing 885,000 buys as compared to last year's 960,000 buys. Vince basically took the blame for the WrestleMania buyrate going down saying maybe the event wasn't what everyone was wanting to see with how they built the show. He did also say that he thought group viewers might have hurt the buys. I am never really big into the whole group get togethers are hurting buys theory because people have been doing that for a long time back to the boom period. Sure, that can effect it some but not that big of number. I thought WrestleMania was a great show. One of the best top to bottom WrestleMania's of all time. I think the price may be effecting buys because that is a lot of money to be charging people for the show. The budget for WWE Studio movies is going down which will help them make their money back easier. Vince continued to talk about a WWE Network happening. This has been talked about for a while now and it does sound like they are determined to make it happen. I do wonder how the network would do with getting on to various cable/satellite systems. This is in the early stages but it will be an interesting story to follow.
So, is WWE Global Headquarters going to be the new Jack Tunney? The last several weeks have had superstars referencing getting in touch with WWE Global Headquarters for decision making. Now, all we need is for bad decisions to be made and it will be just like the old days of WWF storylines. LOL. Remember when Hogan lost to The Undertaker in controversial fashion and Tunney said that he could do nothing cause the referee's decision was final? Then, a few days later Hogan won the title back under controversial actions. This time Tunney stripped Hogan of the title despite the referee declaring Hogan the new champion. Ahh, the old days. LOL.
It's interesting that WWE Classics On Demand is getting promoted again. WWE seems to care about it and then not care about it. They'll promote it hard and then not promote it. With the promotion of it, I'd really like for them to fix their video problem that they've got going on. The video looks really weird on most of the programs and it's been like this for months. The recent PPV events look fine but the archive programming stuff looks really odd. Many have complained about it and WWE has given no answers.
Classics On Demand is currently airing in the process of airing all the old Bobby Heenan Show episodes from back in the Prime Time Wrestling days. The first episode had the debut of Jamison. He would be around for a long time after that appearance.
WWE released Tony Atlas last week. He had recently been appearing on The Abraham Washington Show which was awful segments every time I saw them. I just never found the segments funny. WWE is actually having a talk show kind of feature on the shorties section of Classics On Demand this month. Guess what show is on there and does not stand up against the others at all? LOL. I think Atlas did very well being paired up with Mark Henry. It was good for both of them and it seemed like they both went downhill when they were split up.
In the new WWE Magazine, there is talk that WWE is currently working on a 1993 Monday Night Raw DVD set which will include every episode of Raw from its first year. I'm hoping that this set sells well so maybe they'll do more season sets of various classic shows.
WWE recently had Mean Gene back in his old place of the Event Center. WWE has a Vintage Collection show that runs overseas which shows classic programming. So, Mean Gene hosted this new episode from the old Event Center which has of course been upgraded a ton since the last time that we saw it. It was a great nostalgia kind of thing to see that clip on WWE.com cause I remember watching all his Update segments from that place and also hosting shows from there including All American Wrestling and others.
The TNA Sacrifice PPV is this Sunday and here is the lineup for it. TNA Champion Rob Van Dam defends the title against AJ Styles. Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett. Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson. TNA X-Division Champion Kazarian defends against Doug Williams. Desmond Wolfe vs. Abyss with the stipulation of the ring vs. Chelsea. Matt Morgan and a partner will defend the tag team titles against Shannon Moore and Jesse Neal. TNA Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne will defend the title against Tara which also has Tara's career on the line.
That is all for this week. Take care and God bless!!
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Impact Going Back To Thursdays, Raw & Impact Thoughts, & More - May 4, 2010
Welcome to the "TNA did everything they could to put me out of a watching wrestling mood last night" edition of The Wrestling List. That show last night was AWFUL. I should point out that I only watched the first hour of Impact and just like the old days of WCW Monday Nitro of 2000, I was looking at the clock wondering when Raw would start. Then, Raw starts and I'm in such a lousy mood after the bad hour that I've watched that I had a hard time even getting into that show. I didn't really enjoy Raw that much but again I don't know if that is based off of the first hour of Impact.
I will start with the big news out of TNA yesterday. The Monday night experiment is over. TNA will be moving back to Thursdays beginning next week on May 13. The decision was a Spike TV decision and TNA went along with it. TNA has not been doing well on Monday nights and did a 0.5 last week against the three hour WWE Raw draft show. A bad number. Now, point out that the show has been replaying on Thursdays and doing a better number on that night. When you're doing all of this live TV on Monday nights and more people are watching the taped replay on Thursdays, it's a simple decision. I did love how TNA promoted it last night saying that they were doing what the fans wanted. Well, that and the ratings aren't good. The RVD title win show did do a better rating a couple of weeks ago getting up to a 1.0.
Ok, let me get into last night's Impact. This show was so bad that I will not be following them back to Thursdays until they get this show under control. Their product is so all over the place right now. They'll have a good show and then follow with two bad shows. The show opened last night with promos and a brawl that lasted 30 minutes!! 30 minutes!! We had Jay Lethal come out with Flair's Hall Of Fame ring on and doing a Flair impersonation. Now, the Flair impersonation was great stuff and he was doing stuff that I hadn't even caught on with what Flair does. Flair comes out insulted to which Lethal backs off saying that he wasn't doing this to insult him. He gives the ring back. Team Flair makes their way out as does Team Hogan minus Hogan who is in a limo with Bischoff at the time. This brawl goes on and goes to commercial. They come back from commercial and there is still talking going on after the brawl stops. The brawl continues and then Hogan arrives after he made his way back to the arena. Hogan destroys all of Team Flair by himself. We got to commercial and come back. Another promo is ongoing about this never ending brawl. Yes, the brawl continues. It was unbelievable. I looked at the clock and saw 7:30. I could not believe that this opening segment went for this long. This should have been over in 15 minutes tops. The next thing that we see is The Beautiful People backstage and Velvet Sky uses the line that could not be more true. She says that the knockouts division is all about The Beautiful People. It is!! LOL. This division was so strong a while back to where they even made a Knockouts DVD. They still have the strong talent for that division which is the sad part. It's turned into knockout of the week against The Beautiful People. Now, I should say that I am fine with The Beautiful People. I like Velvet Sky. She is by far the star of the group. She's a good talker and can hang in the ring. I'm indifferent to Madison Rayne and I am just not into Lacey at all. Samoa Joe was back after that getting involved in the segment with the Ink, Inc. team taking on Williams and Kendrick. Joe destroys all of them which is always good with me. Then, we go backstage to Ken Anderson dressed as a choir boy beating up The Pope. I am begging for Raw to come on the air. Actually, at this point, I'm thinking that I don't even want to watch any more wrestling tonight. LOL. I have read and heard the happenings of the rest of the show. Vince Russo booking 101 alert. The person that has been battling The Band turned and joined back up with them. Yep, Eric Young joined up with the group. Russo is notorious for booking that kind of stuff so no one has been surprised. Then, we have the fans voting for who they want to challenge for the TNA title. Desmond Wolfe gets the fans vote taking on Rob Van Dam. The match is very short which I didn't get considering that your fans wanted to see this match. This should have been a longer one. I've heard criticism of the rest of the show but I have no desire to watch it. Yep, TNA has got to fix things now cause I will not be following them to Thursdays. This show was horrible.
On to Raw. I didn't really like Raw that much but again I'm coming off of a terrible first hour of Impact. So, my watching mood was lousy at this point. I'll just hit some various points on Raw. So, Edge is a heel again. I liked the segment with him and Randy Orton. I liked his explanation of how he did what he did last week as a way to make a statement cause the draft had messed up all of his plans. Basically, he said that he had laid out his game plan and everything to take out Swagger and win the World title and the draft ruined it all. I found it kind of odd that they had Edge doing a promo about how he had done everything to get the fans to like him including playing to them, coming up with catchphrases, and tying them to finishing moves. I found it odd cause I had noticed that Edge was getting really over. So, just as we get used to him as a babyface, he is a heel again. That is fine because I love Edge as a heel. I love Edge either way obviously but I liked his exchange with Orton. Wayne Brady being involved in the segment was odd. Orton ended up laying out Brady and then Edge with a RKO. I love the idea of Miz and Jericho as a team. They will do some really fun promos together. They were gold on commentary and actually woke me up from my wrestling watching misery up to that point from Impact. LOL. Miz and Jericho did good with them basically being like two ex's bonding together over their hatred of being done wrong by the same person. I found that funny. The NXT rookies get thrown into the Beat The Clock matches. Basically, Cena faced one and Batista faced the other. The one that wins the quickest gets to pick the stipulation of their match at Over The Limit. Daniel Bryan got the match against Batista. Are you kidding that he is 0-9 on NXT???!!! I had no idea that he had lost that much. This match had an interesting story to it. Michael Cole ripping on Bryan like always. Then, he starts to get offense in on Batista and then Cole starts to turn on his commentary seeing how he is giving Batista a tough match. Bryan got a lot of offense in on him and it made him look good. Then, you have Batista finally going nuts at the end to beat him and continue the abuse after it due to him being taken further than he expected. I had to laugh at the reference by Santino to Regal and Kozlov when he said that he was one of the seven people that watched ECW and knew of their problems. Umm, WWE. You do realize that those same seven people are the only ones watching NXT? That was why I laughed. NXT is doing the same numbers as ECW was doing and has already been canceled.
The WrestleMania XXVI DVD has been released which includes the event and the Hall Of Fame ceremony. Best Buy has the exclusive Blu-Ray version of the DVD which also includes more bonus features which are the Raw and Smackdown shows from the week before WrestleMania.
Tara posted on her My Space last week that she will be leaving TNA.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
I will start with the big news out of TNA yesterday. The Monday night experiment is over. TNA will be moving back to Thursdays beginning next week on May 13. The decision was a Spike TV decision and TNA went along with it. TNA has not been doing well on Monday nights and did a 0.5 last week against the three hour WWE Raw draft show. A bad number. Now, point out that the show has been replaying on Thursdays and doing a better number on that night. When you're doing all of this live TV on Monday nights and more people are watching the taped replay on Thursdays, it's a simple decision. I did love how TNA promoted it last night saying that they were doing what the fans wanted. Well, that and the ratings aren't good. The RVD title win show did do a better rating a couple of weeks ago getting up to a 1.0.
Ok, let me get into last night's Impact. This show was so bad that I will not be following them back to Thursdays until they get this show under control. Their product is so all over the place right now. They'll have a good show and then follow with two bad shows. The show opened last night with promos and a brawl that lasted 30 minutes!! 30 minutes!! We had Jay Lethal come out with Flair's Hall Of Fame ring on and doing a Flair impersonation. Now, the Flair impersonation was great stuff and he was doing stuff that I hadn't even caught on with what Flair does. Flair comes out insulted to which Lethal backs off saying that he wasn't doing this to insult him. He gives the ring back. Team Flair makes their way out as does Team Hogan minus Hogan who is in a limo with Bischoff at the time. This brawl goes on and goes to commercial. They come back from commercial and there is still talking going on after the brawl stops. The brawl continues and then Hogan arrives after he made his way back to the arena. Hogan destroys all of Team Flair by himself. We got to commercial and come back. Another promo is ongoing about this never ending brawl. Yes, the brawl continues. It was unbelievable. I looked at the clock and saw 7:30. I could not believe that this opening segment went for this long. This should have been over in 15 minutes tops. The next thing that we see is The Beautiful People backstage and Velvet Sky uses the line that could not be more true. She says that the knockouts division is all about The Beautiful People. It is!! LOL. This division was so strong a while back to where they even made a Knockouts DVD. They still have the strong talent for that division which is the sad part. It's turned into knockout of the week against The Beautiful People. Now, I should say that I am fine with The Beautiful People. I like Velvet Sky. She is by far the star of the group. She's a good talker and can hang in the ring. I'm indifferent to Madison Rayne and I am just not into Lacey at all. Samoa Joe was back after that getting involved in the segment with the Ink, Inc. team taking on Williams and Kendrick. Joe destroys all of them which is always good with me. Then, we go backstage to Ken Anderson dressed as a choir boy beating up The Pope. I am begging for Raw to come on the air. Actually, at this point, I'm thinking that I don't even want to watch any more wrestling tonight. LOL. I have read and heard the happenings of the rest of the show. Vince Russo booking 101 alert. The person that has been battling The Band turned and joined back up with them. Yep, Eric Young joined up with the group. Russo is notorious for booking that kind of stuff so no one has been surprised. Then, we have the fans voting for who they want to challenge for the TNA title. Desmond Wolfe gets the fans vote taking on Rob Van Dam. The match is very short which I didn't get considering that your fans wanted to see this match. This should have been a longer one. I've heard criticism of the rest of the show but I have no desire to watch it. Yep, TNA has got to fix things now cause I will not be following them to Thursdays. This show was horrible.
On to Raw. I didn't really like Raw that much but again I'm coming off of a terrible first hour of Impact. So, my watching mood was lousy at this point. I'll just hit some various points on Raw. So, Edge is a heel again. I liked the segment with him and Randy Orton. I liked his explanation of how he did what he did last week as a way to make a statement cause the draft had messed up all of his plans. Basically, he said that he had laid out his game plan and everything to take out Swagger and win the World title and the draft ruined it all. I found it kind of odd that they had Edge doing a promo about how he had done everything to get the fans to like him including playing to them, coming up with catchphrases, and tying them to finishing moves. I found it odd cause I had noticed that Edge was getting really over. So, just as we get used to him as a babyface, he is a heel again. That is fine because I love Edge as a heel. I love Edge either way obviously but I liked his exchange with Orton. Wayne Brady being involved in the segment was odd. Orton ended up laying out Brady and then Edge with a RKO. I love the idea of Miz and Jericho as a team. They will do some really fun promos together. They were gold on commentary and actually woke me up from my wrestling watching misery up to that point from Impact. LOL. Miz and Jericho did good with them basically being like two ex's bonding together over their hatred of being done wrong by the same person. I found that funny. The NXT rookies get thrown into the Beat The Clock matches. Basically, Cena faced one and Batista faced the other. The one that wins the quickest gets to pick the stipulation of their match at Over The Limit. Daniel Bryan got the match against Batista. Are you kidding that he is 0-9 on NXT???!!! I had no idea that he had lost that much. This match had an interesting story to it. Michael Cole ripping on Bryan like always. Then, he starts to get offense in on Batista and then Cole starts to turn on his commentary seeing how he is giving Batista a tough match. Bryan got a lot of offense in on him and it made him look good. Then, you have Batista finally going nuts at the end to beat him and continue the abuse after it due to him being taken further than he expected. I had to laugh at the reference by Santino to Regal and Kozlov when he said that he was one of the seven people that watched ECW and knew of their problems. Umm, WWE. You do realize that those same seven people are the only ones watching NXT? That was why I laughed. NXT is doing the same numbers as ECW was doing and has already been canceled.
The WrestleMania XXVI DVD has been released which includes the event and the Hall Of Fame ceremony. Best Buy has the exclusive Blu-Ray version of the DVD which also includes more bonus features which are the Raw and Smackdown shows from the week before WrestleMania.
Tara posted on her My Space last week that she will be leaving TNA.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
WWE Draft Results, Impact Thoughts, WWE Classics On Demand, & More - April 27, 2010
The WWE Draft Raw special was last night. Interesting moves and Smackdown is hurting now. They really have no main eventers left. Edge and Chris Jericho were moved to Raw along with John Morrison. Well, Big Show can obviously main event as he was moved to Smackdown but that show is going to be hurting for drawing power especially with Undertaker taking time off. Let's go over the results of it. Here are the moves that happened on Raw last night. Going over to Raw are Edge, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, and R-Truth. Smackdown gets Big Show, Kelly Kelly, Kofi Kingston, and Christian. Now, the WWE Supplemental Draft was held today with the results being posted throughout the day. Raw added The Great Khali and Ranjin Singh, The Hart Dynasty, Ezekiel Jackson, and Goldust. Smackdown added Chavo Guerrero, Cody Rhodes, Chris Masters, Hornswoggle, Rosa Mendes, and MVP. They really didn't leave much reason to watch Smackdown for me. I was really hoping that MVP would get moved back to Smackdown cause the move to Raw was terrible for him. Hopefully, he can get his momentum going again on Smackdown. I like the move of Kofi to Smackdown as maybe that will get some focus on him as well. Raw was so up and down as far as his push. Cody Rhodes is a good name to move over as well and get him a fresh start. Christian is a guy that should get pushed but we'll have to wait and see. With Raw, they just added a bunch more talent including Edge, Jericho, and Morrison. Morrison kind of has me concerned cause I've seen too much talent moved over to Raw and then just don't get used like they were. Examples are MVP and Mark Henry. I was really hoping for a move for Mark Henry too but that didn't happen. I am kind of concerned as well over The Hart Dynasty but I expected that they might get moved to Raw. WWE really needs to push them and they are really getting over as babyfaces. Khali, Goldust, and Truth will now be on the show that focuses more on entertainment than wrestling. I throw Truth into that mix cause, well, they did blow him up on the stage last week. LOL. Interesting that WWE originally posted that JTG had been moved to Raw and then took it off of there. So, JTG is still on Smackdown.
As far as the overall Raw show, it was a good show. I enjoyed the tag title match with The Hart Dynasty winning the belts with Bret in their corner to a big pop from the fans. Then, Show knocks out Miz afterwards. We had Batista defeating Sheamus and Randy Orton in the triple threat match to decide the number one contender for the WWE title. Orton was poised to win and then Edge hit Orton with a spear and walked out. That cost Orton the match. So, does that make Edge a heel now or is he just going to go after everyone like Orton does? Every draft show always has to have a battle royal and it was fine. I'm happy to see Dibiase win it. I'm hoping they really turn things on with him. Funny segment with him and Truth where Truth realized that Dibiase wanted "a Virgil" just like his dad. Swagger got his win back on Morrison. I liked the "we want Mickie" chants during the divas match last night. Raw was held in Richmond which is the hometown of Mickie James. The chant was loud when it happened.
As far as TNA Impact, I liked that show as well. It wasn't at the level of last week's show of course. One thing that I liked about watching Impact on delay last night was the ability to fast forward right through Orlando Jordan. They are pushing more adult content that I don't like obviously but I expect that. Some solid action on the show and it kept my attention. The idea of fans voting to help determine the wrestler rankings is a cool idea. That was announced last night by Eric Bischoff. Samoa Joe comes out and destroys Kazarian. Very nice. Still have the destroyer happening and wrecking havoc. I liked the Shannon Moore/Kazarian match. The tag match with Hardy and Jarrett against Sting and AJ was good. I liked the knockouts match and the brawl afterwards between Tara and Angelina. Not crazy about the Abyss/Flair match to end the show. I've said that I don't like Abyss being the new Dave Sullivan of 2010. Hogan announced that next week we'd find out who Flair's Hall Of Fame ring would be presented to as a result of Abyss winning the match. I liked the Jesse Neal angle with Matt Morgan last night. Not sure why it grabbed me but it did. So, we're setting up a Team 3D/Band feud after 3D finished off Waltman backstage putting him through a table and leaving him bleeding. Nash and Hall told the camera that they would be bringing someone next week to even up the odds against 3D and Neal. Maybe Anderson is getting back on a roll. Really enjoyed most of his promo with Pope last night.
Extreme Rules sounded like a solid show. What was excepted to be good was good. CM Punk and Rey Mysterio was the match of the night according to many. I was surprised to hear that Swagger beat Orton cause WWE has been booking Swagger to lose to EVERYONE. LOL. Nice to see Sheamus getting the win over Triple H. Edge gets his win over Jericho in the cage. Cena defeats Batista to retain the title in the last man standing match.
When did they break up Cryme Tyme??!!! LOL. I really need to watch Smackdown more. I had no idea that they were feuding with each other until last week and NO ONE has been talking about it on any of the audio shows that I listen to.
I did watch the last WWE match of Mickie James on Friday night. She loses to Layla in a tag match and then gets released days later.
I have to say that Drew McIntyre's entrance and theme music is awesome!! Just too bad that I can't get interested in the character.
WWE Classics On Demand has been airing the old Best Of The WWF Coliseum Videos. They are running one of them every month. Fun to see those again and I remember renting those in video stores way back in the day.
Speaking Of Classics On Demand, it is getting hard to figure out what programming will be airing on the service. That just seems bizarre to me that you would go out of your way to make it hard for subscribers to learn what they are getting every month. That is why I quit doing the preview every month cause I have no idea what all will be airing. May is going to be "Pass the Mic" month which is going to focus on the biggest talkers in wrestling history. A Piper's Pit focused show will be airing along with the Hall Of Fame profile being on Bobby Heenan. I really look forward to seeing what kind of programming that they use focusing on Heenan. Prime Time Wrestling is currently up to August 1988 with the episodes being shown. I love it as these are the shows building up to SummerSlam 1988. I definitely remember all of that fondly and how excited that I was as a kid for that show. It was the first PPV that I ever got as I figured out what in the world a pay per view concept was. Before that, I had just waited for the videos to show up in the video store.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
As far as the overall Raw show, it was a good show. I enjoyed the tag title match with The Hart Dynasty winning the belts with Bret in their corner to a big pop from the fans. Then, Show knocks out Miz afterwards. We had Batista defeating Sheamus and Randy Orton in the triple threat match to decide the number one contender for the WWE title. Orton was poised to win and then Edge hit Orton with a spear and walked out. That cost Orton the match. So, does that make Edge a heel now or is he just going to go after everyone like Orton does? Every draft show always has to have a battle royal and it was fine. I'm happy to see Dibiase win it. I'm hoping they really turn things on with him. Funny segment with him and Truth where Truth realized that Dibiase wanted "a Virgil" just like his dad. Swagger got his win back on Morrison. I liked the "we want Mickie" chants during the divas match last night. Raw was held in Richmond which is the hometown of Mickie James. The chant was loud when it happened.
As far as TNA Impact, I liked that show as well. It wasn't at the level of last week's show of course. One thing that I liked about watching Impact on delay last night was the ability to fast forward right through Orlando Jordan. They are pushing more adult content that I don't like obviously but I expect that. Some solid action on the show and it kept my attention. The idea of fans voting to help determine the wrestler rankings is a cool idea. That was announced last night by Eric Bischoff. Samoa Joe comes out and destroys Kazarian. Very nice. Still have the destroyer happening and wrecking havoc. I liked the Shannon Moore/Kazarian match. The tag match with Hardy and Jarrett against Sting and AJ was good. I liked the knockouts match and the brawl afterwards between Tara and Angelina. Not crazy about the Abyss/Flair match to end the show. I've said that I don't like Abyss being the new Dave Sullivan of 2010. Hogan announced that next week we'd find out who Flair's Hall Of Fame ring would be presented to as a result of Abyss winning the match. I liked the Jesse Neal angle with Matt Morgan last night. Not sure why it grabbed me but it did. So, we're setting up a Team 3D/Band feud after 3D finished off Waltman backstage putting him through a table and leaving him bleeding. Nash and Hall told the camera that they would be bringing someone next week to even up the odds against 3D and Neal. Maybe Anderson is getting back on a roll. Really enjoyed most of his promo with Pope last night.
Extreme Rules sounded like a solid show. What was excepted to be good was good. CM Punk and Rey Mysterio was the match of the night according to many. I was surprised to hear that Swagger beat Orton cause WWE has been booking Swagger to lose to EVERYONE. LOL. Nice to see Sheamus getting the win over Triple H. Edge gets his win over Jericho in the cage. Cena defeats Batista to retain the title in the last man standing match.
When did they break up Cryme Tyme??!!! LOL. I really need to watch Smackdown more. I had no idea that they were feuding with each other until last week and NO ONE has been talking about it on any of the audio shows that I listen to.
I did watch the last WWE match of Mickie James on Friday night. She loses to Layla in a tag match and then gets released days later.
I have to say that Drew McIntyre's entrance and theme music is awesome!! Just too bad that I can't get interested in the character.
WWE Classics On Demand has been airing the old Best Of The WWF Coliseum Videos. They are running one of them every month. Fun to see those again and I remember renting those in video stores way back in the day.
Speaking Of Classics On Demand, it is getting hard to figure out what programming will be airing on the service. That just seems bizarre to me that you would go out of your way to make it hard for subscribers to learn what they are getting every month. That is why I quit doing the preview every month cause I have no idea what all will be airing. May is going to be "Pass the Mic" month which is going to focus on the biggest talkers in wrestling history. A Piper's Pit focused show will be airing along with the Hall Of Fame profile being on Bobby Heenan. I really look forward to seeing what kind of programming that they use focusing on Heenan. Prime Time Wrestling is currently up to August 1988 with the episodes being shown. I love it as these are the shows building up to SummerSlam 1988. I definitely remember all of that fondly and how excited that I was as a kid for that show. It was the first PPV that I ever got as I figured out what in the world a pay per view concept was. Before that, I had just waited for the videos to show up in the video store.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Raw Crew Arrives Home, WWE Releases, & More - April 23, 2010
First, the Raw roster is home. They arrived home last night after traveling from Ireland to Scotland and catching a plane from there to get home. The crew is understandably miserable and even their flight to leave was delayed based on The Miz's Twitter post yesterday. WWE.com has posted a video of the Raw crew arriving home. It put a smile on my face to see them arriving and you can just see the looks of relief on their faces as they walk through the airport. Here is the link to check it out: http://www.wwe.com/content/media/video/vms/raw/2010/april22-28/14222484
Ok, releases. WWE released some talent today and there are some that were surprising, some that weren't, and one that left me furious. The one that left me furious? Mickie James. Yep, she is gone from WWE. Mickie is an interesting story cause her release could be a factor from many things. There has been some heat on her in recent months from the company feeling that she wasn't working as hard as she needed to. The "Piggy James" storyline was seen as some sort of punishment for it by many. Now, Mickie has also been working on a country album and been setting up for a career outside of WWE. This was something very similar to what Maria was doing and both were not WWE projects. Maria was released lately as well. Mickie's country album is set to be released next month. It's no secret that I'm a huge Mickie James fan and it's a shame to see her released. It will be interesting to see what she decides to do from here. Mickie has commented on her release on her Twitter account posting this: "Awe... Thank you James Gang! I just want to say its been a beautiful journey... Wwe has been a childhood dream come true & I have loved every step... There is not a moment I would change for the world... It breaks my heart but the world doesn't stop turning.. I'm grateful for all my friends, family, loved ones, and fans who have supported me along this wonderful ride. To all the guys and gals I've had the pleasure of sharing the ring with... We made some magic! History... Memories to last a lifetime... Thank you... I love you all with all my heart! Every chapter has its close... The next one Is only gonna get better... I promise you that! =) One truly never knows what tomorrow may hold... That's why we embrace every moment... In love & joy! The James Gang Rides! Even stronger than before.... To Victory! Haha.... On ward & upward! Much Love.... Muah! JG4L...... MJ"
Another release that is surprising but not really cause WWE has misused him so much is Shelton Benjamin. Such a good talent and they just never could figure out what to do with him. He would be pushed, then not pushed, and pushed again. I expect TNA to be calling him when they can. Other releases include Kung Fu Naki, Slam Master J (Jesse of Jesse and Festus fame, also the son of Terry Gordy), Jimmy Wang Yang, Katie Lea Burchill, and Mike Knox.
I'm not the only person that liked TNA Impact on Monday night. The show is receiving rave reviews. It will be interesting to see if they can follow it up on Monday night. The Impact rating was up to a 1.0 again after doing a 0.8 the week before. They had fallen to 0.7 at one point a few weeks ago. Raw did a 3.1 this week.
Daffney worked a dark match before the TNA Impact taping on Tuesday night. She worked against another woman named Miss Betsy. She was injured and suffered a stinger but appears to be ok after taking a hard hit. I can't really explain what happened since there is no footage of the match but I'm very happy to hear that she is ok. It sounded really scary and people were worried backstage from everything I've heard. Here is Daffney's account of it that she wrote on her My Space page. "Just wanted to write ya'll a note to give you a little more info about lil 'ol me. I know my injuries were reported as having a severely bruised sternum, and a really bad stinger (common wrestling/football injury) but I also had a minor concussion. Thankfully - the hit to the head was nowhere near as bad last October when I decided jumping in barbed wire looked like fun. I sunset flipped my opponent but she stayed standing - then she sat down which caused the bruised sternum. Honestly, after that, I went into auto-pilot mode. I do not remember the rest of the match - even the finishing move (sitdown spinebuster) and the 1-2-3. You can ask any wrestler if they have finished a match while they were unconscious, and almost everyone of them will tell you they have. Next thing I remember was Andrew Thomas (our awesome ref) saying, "Trainer!" He said I was laying there with my eyes wide open and asked me numerous times if I was okay - but I must have been in my own little world as I recall nothing of that. When the trainers & everyone came to the ring, our TNA on site trainer came up near my head and I told him that my lower sternum hurt. I also told him my neck hurt - yet felt weird and it felt very warm. He then told me to go ahead and straighten my leg. From the hush that fell and tense vibe in the air, I said, " It's not moving, is it?" They all distracted me with other routine questions. A few minutes later he asked me to wiggle my toes. Same tense air that could be cut with a butter knife. Me: "They're not moving, huh?" The whole time I just stared straight to the top of the Impact Zone and prayed. Everyone around me was saying reassuring things so I just stayed still and answered questions. The next time I was asked to wiggle my toes, I could feel them going - and there was a collected sigh of relief. Stingers - (especially bad ones) can make you go numb for a short while - so once the sensation came back I kept praying, "It's just a stinger. And NO - my sternum/ribs aren't broken..." X-rays at the hospital showed just that. :) Are you there God? It's me...Daff. :) SO! Not much one can do for those injuries. A stinger is just VERY scary at first. Then your neck tightens up and is sore - so I have already begun some stretching. The sternum is a deep bruise. So that will just take a little while.... But ya'll know me...I'm a fighter!"
Add Angelina Love to the injured list for TNA. Dixie Carter posted on Twitter that Angelina had suffered a partial biceps tear and complete ulnar collateral ligament tear at the Impact taping as well and will be out for a "few weeks".
I forgot to preview the WWE Extreme Rules PPV for Sunday so here is the lineup. WWE Champion John Cena defends against Batista in a last man standing match. Jack Swagger defends the World title against Randy Orton in an extreme rules match. Edge vs. Chris Jericho in a steel cage. Triple H vs. Sheamus in a street fight. CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio and Punk has to shave his head if he loses. JTG vs. Shad in a strap match. I think it will be a solid show.
Anyway, that is the latest news. Busy couple of weeks in the wrestling world and we have the draft on Monday so that should be eventful. Remember that it is three hours!! Starts at 7pm on USA.
Ok, releases. WWE released some talent today and there are some that were surprising, some that weren't, and one that left me furious. The one that left me furious? Mickie James. Yep, she is gone from WWE. Mickie is an interesting story cause her release could be a factor from many things. There has been some heat on her in recent months from the company feeling that she wasn't working as hard as she needed to. The "Piggy James" storyline was seen as some sort of punishment for it by many. Now, Mickie has also been working on a country album and been setting up for a career outside of WWE. This was something very similar to what Maria was doing and both were not WWE projects. Maria was released lately as well. Mickie's country album is set to be released next month. It's no secret that I'm a huge Mickie James fan and it's a shame to see her released. It will be interesting to see what she decides to do from here. Mickie has commented on her release on her Twitter account posting this: "Awe... Thank you James Gang! I just want to say its been a beautiful journey... Wwe has been a childhood dream come true & I have loved every step... There is not a moment I would change for the world... It breaks my heart but the world doesn't stop turning.. I'm grateful for all my friends, family, loved ones, and fans who have supported me along this wonderful ride. To all the guys and gals I've had the pleasure of sharing the ring with... We made some magic! History... Memories to last a lifetime... Thank you... I love you all with all my heart! Every chapter has its close... The next one Is only gonna get better... I promise you that! =) One truly never knows what tomorrow may hold... That's why we embrace every moment... In love & joy! The James Gang Rides! Even stronger than before.... To Victory! Haha.... On ward & upward! Much Love.... Muah! JG4L...... MJ"
Another release that is surprising but not really cause WWE has misused him so much is Shelton Benjamin. Such a good talent and they just never could figure out what to do with him. He would be pushed, then not pushed, and pushed again. I expect TNA to be calling him when they can. Other releases include Kung Fu Naki, Slam Master J (Jesse of Jesse and Festus fame, also the son of Terry Gordy), Jimmy Wang Yang, Katie Lea Burchill, and Mike Knox.
I'm not the only person that liked TNA Impact on Monday night. The show is receiving rave reviews. It will be interesting to see if they can follow it up on Monday night. The Impact rating was up to a 1.0 again after doing a 0.8 the week before. They had fallen to 0.7 at one point a few weeks ago. Raw did a 3.1 this week.
Daffney worked a dark match before the TNA Impact taping on Tuesday night. She worked against another woman named Miss Betsy. She was injured and suffered a stinger but appears to be ok after taking a hard hit. I can't really explain what happened since there is no footage of the match but I'm very happy to hear that she is ok. It sounded really scary and people were worried backstage from everything I've heard. Here is Daffney's account of it that she wrote on her My Space page. "Just wanted to write ya'll a note to give you a little more info about lil 'ol me. I know my injuries were reported as having a severely bruised sternum, and a really bad stinger (common wrestling/football injury) but I also had a minor concussion. Thankfully - the hit to the head was nowhere near as bad last October when I decided jumping in barbed wire looked like fun. I sunset flipped my opponent but she stayed standing - then she sat down which caused the bruised sternum. Honestly, after that, I went into auto-pilot mode. I do not remember the rest of the match - even the finishing move (sitdown spinebuster) and the 1-2-3. You can ask any wrestler if they have finished a match while they were unconscious, and almost everyone of them will tell you they have. Next thing I remember was Andrew Thomas (our awesome ref) saying, "Trainer!" He said I was laying there with my eyes wide open and asked me numerous times if I was okay - but I must have been in my own little world as I recall nothing of that. When the trainers & everyone came to the ring, our TNA on site trainer came up near my head and I told him that my lower sternum hurt. I also told him my neck hurt - yet felt weird and it felt very warm. He then told me to go ahead and straighten my leg. From the hush that fell and tense vibe in the air, I said, " It's not moving, is it?" They all distracted me with other routine questions. A few minutes later he asked me to wiggle my toes. Same tense air that could be cut with a butter knife. Me: "They're not moving, huh?" The whole time I just stared straight to the top of the Impact Zone and prayed. Everyone around me was saying reassuring things so I just stayed still and answered questions. The next time I was asked to wiggle my toes, I could feel them going - and there was a collected sigh of relief. Stingers - (especially bad ones) can make you go numb for a short while - so once the sensation came back I kept praying, "It's just a stinger. And NO - my sternum/ribs aren't broken..." X-rays at the hospital showed just that. :) Are you there God? It's me...Daff. :) SO! Not much one can do for those injuries. A stinger is just VERY scary at first. Then your neck tightens up and is sore - so I have already begun some stretching. The sternum is a deep bruise. So that will just take a little while.... But ya'll know me...I'm a fighter!"
Add Angelina Love to the injured list for TNA. Dixie Carter posted on Twitter that Angelina had suffered a partial biceps tear and complete ulnar collateral ligament tear at the Impact taping as well and will be out for a "few weeks".
I forgot to preview the WWE Extreme Rules PPV for Sunday so here is the lineup. WWE Champion John Cena defends against Batista in a last man standing match. Jack Swagger defends the World title against Randy Orton in an extreme rules match. Edge vs. Chris Jericho in a steel cage. Triple H vs. Sheamus in a street fight. CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio and Punk has to shave his head if he loses. JTG vs. Shad in a strap match. I think it will be a solid show.
Anyway, that is the latest news. Busy couple of weeks in the wrestling world and we have the draft on Monday so that should be eventful. Remember that it is three hours!! Starts at 7pm on USA.
Raw Crew Stuck Overseas - April 18, 2010
Just wanted to send out some information about tomorrow night's Raw. If you're looking for the Raw stars, well, they're stuck in Europe. If you've been following the news, you know about the volcano story in Iceland which has messed up all European travel. Well, WWE has been on a two week European tour. The volcano already forced the the Raw and Smackdown brands to have to find alternate ways to get to the cities. Long and brutal rides and the talent is worn out to say the least. There is no way to put any kind of bad adjective on this travel that would do it justice. The Smackdown crew finally found a way to get home today so they are in the United States. They are already being sent to New Jersey for tomorrow night's Raw with the likelihood that the Raw stars won't be making it. So, Smackdown is likely taking over Raw. Flights have been banned from leaving the UK past the time of tomorrow's Raw and there is talk that it might be mid week before that changes. Want an idea of how hard it was for the Smackdown crew to get home? Matt Hardy posted this on Twitter: "Here's the deal-Wake up at 6 am Fri morn, prep, travel, & catch a train at 11 am (5 hrs) Uncomfortable train ride from Hannover, Germany to get the ONLY bus that would take us to Madrid, Spain (24 hrs) spent 18 torturous hours on that bus (42 hrs) to barely make our flight to the States which took almost 10 hrs (52 hrs) Clear customs, get to hotel and a bed took about 2 hrs (54 hrs total) Top that travel story guys!" Chris Jericho posted this on his Twitter: "Been 36 hours since I've seen a bed. No end in sight either...This trip is taking years off my career. I'm having my retirement match on Monday against Macgruber.. Our bus is about to break down. More redlights on the dash than a Christmas tree and the driver is on the phone while reading the manual.. The driver just crossed himself....lol!...The driver just took a shot of sauce! " Twitter has been interesting to read with the superstars that I follow on there to read of their experiences. I do know that Mickie James is in the area up there as she posted a picture from New York City earlier so the Smackdown crew has arrived. As you can expect, WWE is going to have to scramble with this being the last Raw before Extreme Rules on Sunday. I feel so bad for all the talent cause they are worn out. I have nothing but respect for all the talent for what they go through to entertain the fans. With whoever you are seeing tomorrow night, make sure to give respect to all of them that are so tired and having to perform on live TV. Keep all of them and also the Raw talent in your prayers too cause they are stuck over there away from their families and are completely exhausted wanting to get home. This is one of the more wild stories that I've followed over the years and definitely the worst travel story. Take care and God bless!!
Smackdown News, Raw Thoughts, TNA Lockdown Preview, & More -April 13, 2010
Smackdown will have a new home this fall. News came out yesterday from a Los Angeles Times article that Smackdown will be moving to SyFy and continue its usual 7-9pm time slot on Friday nights. I can't say that I'm surprised by the move as My Network has had trouble money wise from the beginning. Smackdown has been their only original network programming for a long while now. There is talk today that SyFy is going to cancel NXT later in the year and WWE is already trying to find a new home for it. Smackdown will start on SyFy in October is what it is sounding like.
Raw was in London last night and guest hosted by David Hasselfhoff. I have to say that I thought he did a good job. He was solid with his lines including him rattling off stipulations without any stumble. I did pop for him driving KITT out into the building with the Knight Rider theme being played too. It is amazing with how big that Hasselhoff is overseas. Ok, the Baywatch divas match was cheesy but I did chuckle at the Baywatch effect of the entrances with the slow motion running. LOL. Santino running out to the same effect as special referee was the funniest part of it. Add Hornswoggle to it later on. It was an all right comedy segment. I had a feeling that we'd see a new Divas champion on this show with the build to Eve and Maryse. They also like to change titles on the UK Raw shows over the years. Plus, they put that Divas championship graphic up there which they don't use all the time and that put the stamp on it that we were about to see a title change. Eve is the new Divas champion. When The Hart Dynasty arrived with Bret to step up to ShoMiz, I was hoping that we'd see another title change. However, I knew better than for us to have two title changes on Raw. I did enjoy the segment with Bret stepping up for The Hart Dynasty. I was surprised by the result however with Miz defeating DH Smith in a one on one match. If Smith had won, they would have gotten a tag title shot at Extreme Rules. Since Miz won, Bret now has to declare ShoMiz as the greatest tag team of all time on next week's Raw. I really thought this was paint by numbers booking with what the result would be until the result happened. LOL. Really thought Smith would win. I hope to see The Hart Dynasty win the belts soon. Bret got a big ovation in London when he arrived. I was happy to see that crowd get such a surprise as Bret was probably more popular overseas back in the day than he was here in the US. They LOVED him overseas. Wow, John Cena got a very mixed reaction in the UK. They are not big Cena fans in London. The setup with he and Batista facing off was fine during the Cena/Otunga match. Then, Cena got Batista later during the Orton/Batista match. Swagger attacked Orton leading to a DQ in that match. Cena then took the opportunity to hook the STF on to Batista who was on the mat after taking a RKO. Evan Bourne and Carlito was a random match to have on the show. When I saw Bourne walk out, my first thought as always is who is he going to job to. Then, I saw Carlito and thought, wow, he may have a chance of winning this week.
I watched TNA Impact on and off last night. TNA did a fireball spot that looked really good toward the end of the show where James Storm blew a fireball into Jeff Hardy's face. It wasn't shown on TV and you have to go to TNA's website to see the incident. I have not seen it yet but I heard that the Kazarian and Shannon Moore match was good. There was one thing that I couldn't stand on Impact in the Jarrett/Sting segment to open the show. I liked most of the segment but this one part just made me cringe. You have two guys up there hiding in the rafters from one another trying to sneak up on each other. Yet, each of them should be able to look at the camera guy and think, hmm, wonder what he is pointing at? LOL. Then, Sting gives a shhh quiet kind of look at the camera to top it off as he sneaks up on Jarrett. I thought that whole part was so lame. One of those deals where you shouldn't have the camera being noticed. They did an angle in the parking lot where someone ran over Abyss with a car. I've already heard people today comparing it to the hummer in WCW. LOL. We never did find out who was driving that hummer!! Remember when it showed up again in 2000? It was this feeling of, not this again??!! LOL.
Sad news to tell about from last week. Chris Kanyon passed away which is being reported as a suicide. Kanyon's biggest wrestling run was obviously in the late 90's in WCW. One thing that I remember about Kanyon was how he was someone that interacted with the fans online. I was on AOL back in 1996 and there were several wrestlers that had their own place on there with message boards where they would interact with fans. Kanyon was playing the character of Mortis at the time and was always answering fan questions. It was him, Chris Jericho, and Kimberly Page that were on there. I really enjoyed reading their comments to fans. Suicide is always awful to hear about and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends in this very difficult time.
I watched the post Impact show online last night. Fun to see them showing some house show footage from the last week. I also have to laugh at Don West with his Deal Of The Week. I say laugh because that guy can sell, sell, sell. He does such a great job in selling merchandise which goes back to his sports card selling days. He will make you believe that this is the most amazing deal ever and by the end you'll be thinking, I think I'd better order this. Look at all the stuff I get for this amount of money. LOL. West has done a great job in stepping up the TNA merchandise and there being a lot of great options of unique collectibles.
Maria's first CD is now available on iTunes for the price of $3.99. I believe it has four songs on it.
This week is the TNA Lockdown PPV in St. Louis. Sunday is the PPV and features this lineup. All matches will take place in a steel cage. TNA champion AJ Styles defends against The Pope. In Lethal Lockdown, Team Hogan of Abyss, RVD, Jeff Hardy, and Jeff Jarrett take on Team Flair of Sting, Beer Money, and Desmond Wolfe. RVD takes on James Storm for the advantage in Lethal Lockdown. Team 3D takes on Scott Hall and Sean Waltman. Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson. TNA Knockouts Champion Angelina Love teams with Tara to take on Knockouts Tag Team Champions The Beautiful People in a match with all the titles on the line. TNA X-Division Champion Doug Williams takes on Kaz and Shannon Moore. Kevin Nash takes on Eric Young.
The WWE Hart and Soul DVD that was recently released looks very good as far as that documentary preview shows. I still get this major feeling of sadness when they show Owen Hart's tombstone on there. Just takes you back to that sad and awful day. I really look forward to seeing the documentary portion as it looks well produced. The match lineup for the DVD was disappointing to me. I was hoping that WWE would dip more into that Stampede library that they have. Plus, there are a lot of matches on this set that have been released on DVD multiple times. I was hoping for more rare stuff. I have a feeling that the documentary will make up for that match lineup though.
Wishing you a great rest of the week!! Take care and God bless!!
Raw was in London last night and guest hosted by David Hasselfhoff. I have to say that I thought he did a good job. He was solid with his lines including him rattling off stipulations without any stumble. I did pop for him driving KITT out into the building with the Knight Rider theme being played too. It is amazing with how big that Hasselhoff is overseas. Ok, the Baywatch divas match was cheesy but I did chuckle at the Baywatch effect of the entrances with the slow motion running. LOL. Santino running out to the same effect as special referee was the funniest part of it. Add Hornswoggle to it later on. It was an all right comedy segment. I had a feeling that we'd see a new Divas champion on this show with the build to Eve and Maryse. They also like to change titles on the UK Raw shows over the years. Plus, they put that Divas championship graphic up there which they don't use all the time and that put the stamp on it that we were about to see a title change. Eve is the new Divas champion. When The Hart Dynasty arrived with Bret to step up to ShoMiz, I was hoping that we'd see another title change. However, I knew better than for us to have two title changes on Raw. I did enjoy the segment with Bret stepping up for The Hart Dynasty. I was surprised by the result however with Miz defeating DH Smith in a one on one match. If Smith had won, they would have gotten a tag title shot at Extreme Rules. Since Miz won, Bret now has to declare ShoMiz as the greatest tag team of all time on next week's Raw. I really thought this was paint by numbers booking with what the result would be until the result happened. LOL. Really thought Smith would win. I hope to see The Hart Dynasty win the belts soon. Bret got a big ovation in London when he arrived. I was happy to see that crowd get such a surprise as Bret was probably more popular overseas back in the day than he was here in the US. They LOVED him overseas. Wow, John Cena got a very mixed reaction in the UK. They are not big Cena fans in London. The setup with he and Batista facing off was fine during the Cena/Otunga match. Then, Cena got Batista later during the Orton/Batista match. Swagger attacked Orton leading to a DQ in that match. Cena then took the opportunity to hook the STF on to Batista who was on the mat after taking a RKO. Evan Bourne and Carlito was a random match to have on the show. When I saw Bourne walk out, my first thought as always is who is he going to job to. Then, I saw Carlito and thought, wow, he may have a chance of winning this week.
I watched TNA Impact on and off last night. TNA did a fireball spot that looked really good toward the end of the show where James Storm blew a fireball into Jeff Hardy's face. It wasn't shown on TV and you have to go to TNA's website to see the incident. I have not seen it yet but I heard that the Kazarian and Shannon Moore match was good. There was one thing that I couldn't stand on Impact in the Jarrett/Sting segment to open the show. I liked most of the segment but this one part just made me cringe. You have two guys up there hiding in the rafters from one another trying to sneak up on each other. Yet, each of them should be able to look at the camera guy and think, hmm, wonder what he is pointing at? LOL. Then, Sting gives a shhh quiet kind of look at the camera to top it off as he sneaks up on Jarrett. I thought that whole part was so lame. One of those deals where you shouldn't have the camera being noticed. They did an angle in the parking lot where someone ran over Abyss with a car. I've already heard people today comparing it to the hummer in WCW. LOL. We never did find out who was driving that hummer!! Remember when it showed up again in 2000? It was this feeling of, not this again??!! LOL.
Sad news to tell about from last week. Chris Kanyon passed away which is being reported as a suicide. Kanyon's biggest wrestling run was obviously in the late 90's in WCW. One thing that I remember about Kanyon was how he was someone that interacted with the fans online. I was on AOL back in 1996 and there were several wrestlers that had their own place on there with message boards where they would interact with fans. Kanyon was playing the character of Mortis at the time and was always answering fan questions. It was him, Chris Jericho, and Kimberly Page that were on there. I really enjoyed reading their comments to fans. Suicide is always awful to hear about and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends in this very difficult time.
I watched the post Impact show online last night. Fun to see them showing some house show footage from the last week. I also have to laugh at Don West with his Deal Of The Week. I say laugh because that guy can sell, sell, sell. He does such a great job in selling merchandise which goes back to his sports card selling days. He will make you believe that this is the most amazing deal ever and by the end you'll be thinking, I think I'd better order this. Look at all the stuff I get for this amount of money. LOL. West has done a great job in stepping up the TNA merchandise and there being a lot of great options of unique collectibles.
Maria's first CD is now available on iTunes for the price of $3.99. I believe it has four songs on it.
This week is the TNA Lockdown PPV in St. Louis. Sunday is the PPV and features this lineup. All matches will take place in a steel cage. TNA champion AJ Styles defends against The Pope. In Lethal Lockdown, Team Hogan of Abyss, RVD, Jeff Hardy, and Jeff Jarrett take on Team Flair of Sting, Beer Money, and Desmond Wolfe. RVD takes on James Storm for the advantage in Lethal Lockdown. Team 3D takes on Scott Hall and Sean Waltman. Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson. TNA Knockouts Champion Angelina Love teams with Tara to take on Knockouts Tag Team Champions The Beautiful People in a match with all the titles on the line. TNA X-Division Champion Doug Williams takes on Kaz and Shannon Moore. Kevin Nash takes on Eric Young.
The WWE Hart and Soul DVD that was recently released looks very good as far as that documentary preview shows. I still get this major feeling of sadness when they show Owen Hart's tombstone on there. Just takes you back to that sad and awful day. I really look forward to seeing the documentary portion as it looks well produced. The match lineup for the DVD was disappointing to me. I was hoping that WWE would dip more into that Stampede library that they have. Plus, there are a lot of matches on this set that have been released on DVD multiple times. I was hoping for more rare stuff. I have a feeling that the documentary will make up for that match lineup though.
Wishing you a great rest of the week!! Take care and God bless!!
Random Thoughts On The Wrestling World - April 8, 2010
I already miss Shawn Michaels. That is a real shocker. LOL. Not only is he my favorite but we lost that guaranteed good match and segment with him every week. Who is going to step up and take over that role of being the guaranteed good on every show? The music video recap of his farewell was fantastic by the way.
I have to say that WWE has been much better here lately. I'm very nervous about Randy Orton though. I love him as a heel and he is a fun heel to cheer for. Now, they've turned him face because the fans forced WWE to do it. I just hope that they keep doing with Orton with what they did on Monday night. He teased hitting Cena with the RKO. Make him an equal opportunity heel where he is just after everyone. Don't turn him into someone that plays to the fans a lot and befriends all of the faces. Make him that tweener kind of character.
Jack Swagger - World Champion. Wow, I didn't see that coming. I really thought that Swagger would be the first guy to cash in and not win the belt. I especially thought that because of the Money In The Bank PPV coming up later this year. So, he cashed in on Jericho last week on Smackdown and won the belt. I'm not sure having him job on Raw was a good start for his title reign but what can you do?
The WWE Draft will be taking place in a few weeks. Definitely need some moves to take place. I've actually quit watching Smackdown again and haven't seen it for weeks. Can Mickie James please be moved back over to Raw? That would be great if that could happen. :)
Batista. Ok, you know how I feel about Batista. It's been no secret. However, I have to give him his due. He has been fantastic in the last month with the Cena feud. He's just this jerk of a heel that is only in it for the money and just rips on the fans. I think he is doing the best performance that he has ever done. His promos are good. His spotlight entrance with the new character is good. Like I said after WrestleMania, I was stunned with how much that I cared about the Cena/Batista match. I was really looking forward to it and that is after I could not have cared less about their first match at SummerSlam. So, I give Batista and WWE credit cause he has been really good for the last month.
The Hart Dynasty. Loved that they turned them face. I was thrilled when they finally got that TV time on Raw last week with Bret. That helps their cause and, come on, isn't it cool to see the next generation of Harts standing there with Bret? I look forward to them continuing their run as a face team and really have enjoyed watching them. Fun team. They will hopefully get a tag title run soon.
TNA has become awful. It is awful. I can't even watch it. The ratings have shown that I am not alone in that opinion. They started up over a 1 when they moved to Monday nights. Last week, they fell to a 0.6 against the Shawn Michaels farewell edition of Raw. This week, they moved to 7-9pm. After doing a 0.8 this week, the time move is now permanent. This is a good idea for them to stay at that timeslot. Get a one hour head start on Raw and try to hook viewers before Raw comes on the air. The first hour of Impact did a 0.9 and they dropped in the second hour. So, that brings their rating up as an average. They are also bringing back the Thursday replay. What was amazing when they first moved to Monday nights was that they were doing a 1.0 on Monday and then still doing their usual 1.0 on Thursday nights. Combine those numbers and it looks better. 0.6 against Raw looks bad. The product doesn't help. It is just bad. I watched 30 minutes of it on Monday night and then watched the premiere of Little People Big World with my mom and dad until Raw came on the air. Problems with TNA? Too much Eric Bischoff on TV. The booking is typical Vince Russo. Go on the air and announce five million stipulations that you can't understand for matches. Orlando Jordan. Enough said there. The reformation of the nWo calling them "the band". Abyss and AJ being turned into mini Hogan and mini Flair is not working and I didn't think that it would. They're ruining both of them. TNA is just bad and it doesn't make sense on how it can be this bad. The roster is so strong but the TV product is so frustrating to watch. All of it is of course not bad. There are things that I like but the bad is so dominating. Changes already need to be made. You know what I want changed and his name ends with Russo.
Christopher Daniels has been released from TNA and has returned to Ring Of Honor. Wow, there has to be a story to this. Really TNA? You let that guy go??!! The Nasty Boys are gone from TNA as well after getting a 90 day tryout.
NXT. Already stopped watching it. It has turned into just another WWE show already. Bummer.
Maryse. Really enjoy that character. The posing that she does and then the reaction from the other divas wanting to hurt her is fun to watch. She's good on the mic.
I'm currently watching the Shawn Michaels My Journey DVD and it is good. The interview stuff is good. It was funny to hear him talk about the Beware Of Dog PPV where the power went out in the building. It was no secret that he had a lot of pressure on him at the time being the new champion and going up against the hot WCW product. Shawn talked about how he had that attitude and talks about yelling at a woman in the front row during the match that was heckling him. LOL. They show the footage too. You could tell at the time that Shawn was fighting the world and it was interesting to hear him reflect back on it. I'm only one disc into it but if you're a Shawn fan, you really need to pick it up. Really good.
Want the chance to meet Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Sting all in the same room in St. Louis? Now is your chance. TNA Lockdown will take place this month in St. Louis but the day before will be the fan interaction event. April 17 will be the fan interaction and that is your chance to meet the superstars of TNA. How far into it that fans want to get is all up to them. There is the regular fan interaction but then there is the main event. Hogan, Flair, and Sting are part of the exclusive VIP "Evening With the Legends" which is the main event of the fan interaction. It carries a steep price tag of $299 to get into it but it has a ton of advantages of it. You might see me as insane but I completely see it as a deal. $299 gets you admission to that exclusive, get your picture taken with all three of them, and a maximum of three items autographed by them. Plus, there are other legends exclusively appearing to that too including Bobby Heenan, Dory Funk Jr., Baron Von Raschke, and Jimmy Hart. Upon entering the event, you get your picture taken with them. You also get to have VIP access to the rest of the fan interaction. That basically means that you wander around the rest of the general admission part and get to go to the front of every autograph line. There should be no reason that you don't get the autograph and get to meet every talent in attendance which includes Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Mr. Anderson, Eric Bischoff, and many more. To me, it seems like you should leave there with 30 autographs at the most guaranteed including Hogan, Flair, and Sting and pictures with everyone. If you stayed for the PPV on Sunday, you get to be escorted to your seat by The Beautiful People. There are other ticket prices to getting into the fan interaction. $55 gets you general admission into the event but you will have to pay for the 8x10's to get signed. The photo package tickets are $100 and includes all the 8x10's to get signed and you can get whoever you want in the regular fan interaction. Yeah, $299 is a lot of money but look at the chance of a lifetime that you get and you get full access to EVERYONE there.
Mickie James album has been pushed back to a late May release due to her recent surgery. In case you didn't know, she had a bad infection in her leg which ended up being MRSA. She commented on Twitter about how she was telling the doctors that she was going to be working WrestleMania before the surgery not realizing the severity of the injury. They told her otherwise and she said she would prove them wrong. She woke up from the surgery and saw a big brace on her leg and laughed about seeing it their way. However, she ended up working WrestleMania after all. Anyway, with the surgery, she wasn't able to promote the album like she wanted to and said that she took it as a sign from God that she needed to slow down a bit. She is getting refreshed and ready for a May album release. I have to say that I really like the first single off of it and it is a country album.
Wishing you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!
I have to say that WWE has been much better here lately. I'm very nervous about Randy Orton though. I love him as a heel and he is a fun heel to cheer for. Now, they've turned him face because the fans forced WWE to do it. I just hope that they keep doing with Orton with what they did on Monday night. He teased hitting Cena with the RKO. Make him an equal opportunity heel where he is just after everyone. Don't turn him into someone that plays to the fans a lot and befriends all of the faces. Make him that tweener kind of character.
Jack Swagger - World Champion. Wow, I didn't see that coming. I really thought that Swagger would be the first guy to cash in and not win the belt. I especially thought that because of the Money In The Bank PPV coming up later this year. So, he cashed in on Jericho last week on Smackdown and won the belt. I'm not sure having him job on Raw was a good start for his title reign but what can you do?
The WWE Draft will be taking place in a few weeks. Definitely need some moves to take place. I've actually quit watching Smackdown again and haven't seen it for weeks. Can Mickie James please be moved back over to Raw? That would be great if that could happen. :)
Batista. Ok, you know how I feel about Batista. It's been no secret. However, I have to give him his due. He has been fantastic in the last month with the Cena feud. He's just this jerk of a heel that is only in it for the money and just rips on the fans. I think he is doing the best performance that he has ever done. His promos are good. His spotlight entrance with the new character is good. Like I said after WrestleMania, I was stunned with how much that I cared about the Cena/Batista match. I was really looking forward to it and that is after I could not have cared less about their first match at SummerSlam. So, I give Batista and WWE credit cause he has been really good for the last month.
The Hart Dynasty. Loved that they turned them face. I was thrilled when they finally got that TV time on Raw last week with Bret. That helps their cause and, come on, isn't it cool to see the next generation of Harts standing there with Bret? I look forward to them continuing their run as a face team and really have enjoyed watching them. Fun team. They will hopefully get a tag title run soon.
TNA has become awful. It is awful. I can't even watch it. The ratings have shown that I am not alone in that opinion. They started up over a 1 when they moved to Monday nights. Last week, they fell to a 0.6 against the Shawn Michaels farewell edition of Raw. This week, they moved to 7-9pm. After doing a 0.8 this week, the time move is now permanent. This is a good idea for them to stay at that timeslot. Get a one hour head start on Raw and try to hook viewers before Raw comes on the air. The first hour of Impact did a 0.9 and they dropped in the second hour. So, that brings their rating up as an average. They are also bringing back the Thursday replay. What was amazing when they first moved to Monday nights was that they were doing a 1.0 on Monday and then still doing their usual 1.0 on Thursday nights. Combine those numbers and it looks better. 0.6 against Raw looks bad. The product doesn't help. It is just bad. I watched 30 minutes of it on Monday night and then watched the premiere of Little People Big World with my mom and dad until Raw came on the air. Problems with TNA? Too much Eric Bischoff on TV. The booking is typical Vince Russo. Go on the air and announce five million stipulations that you can't understand for matches. Orlando Jordan. Enough said there. The reformation of the nWo calling them "the band". Abyss and AJ being turned into mini Hogan and mini Flair is not working and I didn't think that it would. They're ruining both of them. TNA is just bad and it doesn't make sense on how it can be this bad. The roster is so strong but the TV product is so frustrating to watch. All of it is of course not bad. There are things that I like but the bad is so dominating. Changes already need to be made. You know what I want changed and his name ends with Russo.
Christopher Daniels has been released from TNA and has returned to Ring Of Honor. Wow, there has to be a story to this. Really TNA? You let that guy go??!! The Nasty Boys are gone from TNA as well after getting a 90 day tryout.
NXT. Already stopped watching it. It has turned into just another WWE show already. Bummer.
Maryse. Really enjoy that character. The posing that she does and then the reaction from the other divas wanting to hurt her is fun to watch. She's good on the mic.
I'm currently watching the Shawn Michaels My Journey DVD and it is good. The interview stuff is good. It was funny to hear him talk about the Beware Of Dog PPV where the power went out in the building. It was no secret that he had a lot of pressure on him at the time being the new champion and going up against the hot WCW product. Shawn talked about how he had that attitude and talks about yelling at a woman in the front row during the match that was heckling him. LOL. They show the footage too. You could tell at the time that Shawn was fighting the world and it was interesting to hear him reflect back on it. I'm only one disc into it but if you're a Shawn fan, you really need to pick it up. Really good.
Want the chance to meet Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Sting all in the same room in St. Louis? Now is your chance. TNA Lockdown will take place this month in St. Louis but the day before will be the fan interaction event. April 17 will be the fan interaction and that is your chance to meet the superstars of TNA. How far into it that fans want to get is all up to them. There is the regular fan interaction but then there is the main event. Hogan, Flair, and Sting are part of the exclusive VIP "Evening With the Legends" which is the main event of the fan interaction. It carries a steep price tag of $299 to get into it but it has a ton of advantages of it. You might see me as insane but I completely see it as a deal. $299 gets you admission to that exclusive, get your picture taken with all three of them, and a maximum of three items autographed by them. Plus, there are other legends exclusively appearing to that too including Bobby Heenan, Dory Funk Jr., Baron Von Raschke, and Jimmy Hart. Upon entering the event, you get your picture taken with them. You also get to have VIP access to the rest of the fan interaction. That basically means that you wander around the rest of the general admission part and get to go to the front of every autograph line. There should be no reason that you don't get the autograph and get to meet every talent in attendance which includes Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Mr. Anderson, Eric Bischoff, and many more. To me, it seems like you should leave there with 30 autographs at the most guaranteed including Hogan, Flair, and Sting and pictures with everyone. If you stayed for the PPV on Sunday, you get to be escorted to your seat by The Beautiful People. There are other ticket prices to getting into the fan interaction. $55 gets you general admission into the event but you will have to pay for the 8x10's to get signed. The photo package tickets are $100 and includes all the 8x10's to get signed and you can get whoever you want in the regular fan interaction. Yeah, $299 is a lot of money but look at the chance of a lifetime that you get and you get full access to EVERYONE there.
Mickie James album has been pushed back to a late May release due to her recent surgery. In case you didn't know, she had a bad infection in her leg which ended up being MRSA. She commented on Twitter about how she was telling the doctors that she was going to be working WrestleMania before the surgery not realizing the severity of the injury. They told her otherwise and she said she would prove them wrong. She woke up from the surgery and saw a big brace on her leg and laughed about seeing it their way. However, she ended up working WrestleMania after all. Anyway, with the surgery, she wasn't able to promote the album like she wanted to and said that she took it as a sign from God that she needed to slow down a bit. She is getting refreshed and ready for a May album release. I have to say that I really like the first single off of it and it is a country album.
Wishing you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Farewell To Shawn Michaels - March 30, 2010
The showstopper. The headliner. The main event. Shawn Michaels had his farewell last night on Raw and it was an incredible moment. He came out and gave a tearful and heart felt speech. Shawn got a huge ovation with chants of "thank you Shawn" and "please don't go". Before he could speak, Undertaker's music hit and he walked out on the stage. Taker gave a tip of the hat to Shawn and walked to the back. Awesome moment especially coming from Taker. Shawn tried his best to thank everyone but pointed out that he didn't want to go too far into names cause he would leave someone out. Shawn even went on to thank one of the production guys who puts together all of the incredible video packages for WWE. I loved that cause that is one of the unsung heroes of the company that he pointed out. He thanked Triple H, Bret Hart, Jim Ross, and Vince McMahon. He talked of how Triple H had always stuck with him when nobody else would. I liked his honesty where he said that he knew that he drove them crazy sometimes and that he was difficult to work with at times. He said that even with all that that Triple H never left his side. He thanked the fans saying that at one point in his life that the fans and wrestling was all that he had in his life. Shawn thanked Jesus Christ for being his Lord and Savior and for saving him which was awesome!! It is so great to have someone in such a high profile position being a Christian and testifying to others. A "one more match" chant broke out at one point from the fans and Shawn said that he appreciated it but that he was going to do everything to make sure that didn't happen. He talked of others that couldn't hold on to the promise of retirement and how he was planning on sticking to it. That was quite the moment where you just really got the feeling of that he really is done. Shawn closed the speech saying that he was going to close things out like he started and said that "the Heartbreak Kid has left the building". Shawn left the ring and got a big ovation up the ramp as he waved goodbye to the fans. Triple H came up behind him on the stage giving him a big hug. He raised Shawn's arm up in the air and laid some DX glow sticks down on the stage as they stood over them. Great to see him out there to take part in the farewell. During the show, other wrestlers paid tribute to Shawn including Triple H and Bret Hart. Triple H talked of how great of a friendship they had including him throwing up the old "Kliq" sign which was fun to see again. Triple H said how they took on the world together. Bret Hart spoke of Shawn wishing him the best with his retirement and saying that Shawn was one of the best ever while pointing out his epic career. How wild was it to have Shawn and Bret on the same show of Shawn's farewell speech? We really have come around full circle and it is very fitting.
I was thinking last night on Shawn's career. In my opinion, he is the best in ring performer EVER. He's better than Flair or any other name you want to throw in there. Shawn is a guy that could change his style to go with anything. If any wrestler had talent, the thought was to put him in the ring with Shawn and see what he could get out of the guy. He can take on big guys and small guys. I don't like watching a lot of big guy type matches but Shawn has a way of making them work. He was the complete package. I've heard Triple H talk of how Shawn was that guy that didn't realize how physically smaller that he was than others. He could do either role of being a face or a heel. How many classics has Shawn had? Way too many that I can count. Shawn could bring so many wrestlers up to another level.
As many of you know, Shawn has been the favorite of mine for a LONG time now. Enough to where I had to battle it out with a lot of you on opinions. LOL. I often have always said that Hogan was my all time favorite. Well, Shawn is right there even with him and has been for a while. Funny thing is that I liked The Rockers as a tag team but didn't really jump aboard the Shawn Michaels express until he turned heel and went singles. I started liking him quickly as a favorite as he started his heel run with Sherri. He was this great heel that had such amazing matches and it was fun to cheer him on. Then, he got the face turn and took off to his WWF championship run in 1996. I still remember that moment of cheering when Shawn won that first WWF championship against Bret Hart at WrestleMania 12. One thing with Shawn in that era was that you either liked him or didn't like him. Lots of fans didn't like him and it has reminded me for years of the reaction that Cena gets sometimes. It took a while for Shawn to win some fans over and it didn't happen in his first run. When he came back in 2002, I think the fans that didn't like him gained that respect for him as a performer. Shawn rarely has gotten boos since then and actually got the crowd most of the time in the face vs. face matches. He gained the respect of all the fans that knew how hard that he worked in the ring. He was that guy that you knew was going to give you 110 percent in the ring. I loved him for it and I saw that in him early on. Great talker and could just get you up on your feet cheering.
Favorite matches of Shawn's for me. Obviously, both matches against The Undertaker this year and last year. Incredible matches and the two have an amazing chemistry in the ring that few wrestlers have. Their matches in 1997-1998 do not need to be overlooked either. What I always found funny as a Shawn fan was that Undertaker could never beat Shawn. From a fan standpoint, I loved it to be able to brag about that. Undertaker talked all sorts of trash and then would lose. LOL. A moment that took place in their last match of their series in 1998 would lead to another favorite Shawn match of mine. If you don't know the story, Shawn took on Undertaker at the 1998 Royal Rumble in a casket match. During the match, Shawn was backdropped over the top and his lower back accidentally caught the end of the casket. The match went on but days later, Shawn found himself unable to move and crawling around his house in terrible pain. He tells the scary story in his book. Shawn would have to retire and his last match was set to be WrestleMania 14 against Stone Cold Steve Austin where he would drop the title to Austin. This is the gutsiest performance that I've ever seen in wrestling history. Shawn is out there barely able to move and is flipping and flying with all he has. He would not slow down. There is one moment where he is crawling to the top rope to drop the elbow and lands it. People wondered if he could even do the match and he literally gave all that he had left. Shawn would drop the title. After helping to build the start of the Attitude Era with DX, he would have to sit on the sideline which I'm sure had to frustrate him so badly as WWF took off business wise. Shawn would show up for various appearances over the next few years and his life was in disarray. His wife was a great Christian and he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Shawn's life turned around and he eventually worked his way back to returning to WWE. That return is also a favorite Shawn match of mine. That return match at SummerSlam in 2002 against Triple H in the street fight was also one of the most amazing performances that I've ever seen. The guy has been out of the ring for four years and goes out there like he hadn't missed a beat. It was unbelievable!! The matches that would follow in years to come would be great classics with Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and more. Going back to his earlier days, his match with Mankind in 1996 at Mind Games is also a favorite of mine. That was another example of Shawn switching styles to go with Foley using an extreme style in front of the Philadelphia fans where ECW was going strong at the time. The ladder match at WrestleMania X against Razor Ramon really put Shawn on the map. The matches with Bret Hart are classics including the ironman match, Intercontinental title matches, tag team matches against The Hart Foundation, and more. Shawn and Bret are always going to be tied together cause of their rivalry in and out of the ring. As far as live shows, I've seen Shawn wrestle a few times. One was a house show match against Chris Jericho which was amazing. The last time that I saw him was this past February at Raw where he took on Randy Orton. I wish that I had taken the moment in a little more knowing that it might be the last time that I would see him live.
Will Shawn be retired for good? It is wrestling so you never know but that speech last night sure convinced me that he was done. He's talked retirement for a while now and what better way to go out than he did at WrestleMania. How do you top that? At the very least, I think this is it for him full time. Shawn left us wanting more and that is how it should be. We know that he is fully capable of incredible performances. He can top every show with his matches. It reminds me of back in the day of the stories of Shawn having a great match in his early big run and going backstage yelling for everyone to "top that" or "follow that". You can't. You can't top it. Shawn is that type of performer. He is the guy that you don't want to try and follow and these two WrestleMania matches against Undertaker showed that. Thank you Shawn for all the amazing years that you gave all of us fans. You're going to be missed and I hope that the younger talent has learned a lot from you. My advice to the younger talent is to buy the DVD's and watch him perform. You made this long time fan of yours jump out of my chair so many times over the years that I can't even count. You've earned every bit of this retirement and wishing you all the best with the time that you now have with your family. You left us wanting more and it reminds me of the old tribute song back from 1995-96. Tell me a lie. Say that you won't go.
I was thinking last night on Shawn's career. In my opinion, he is the best in ring performer EVER. He's better than Flair or any other name you want to throw in there. Shawn is a guy that could change his style to go with anything. If any wrestler had talent, the thought was to put him in the ring with Shawn and see what he could get out of the guy. He can take on big guys and small guys. I don't like watching a lot of big guy type matches but Shawn has a way of making them work. He was the complete package. I've heard Triple H talk of how Shawn was that guy that didn't realize how physically smaller that he was than others. He could do either role of being a face or a heel. How many classics has Shawn had? Way too many that I can count. Shawn could bring so many wrestlers up to another level.
As many of you know, Shawn has been the favorite of mine for a LONG time now. Enough to where I had to battle it out with a lot of you on opinions. LOL. I often have always said that Hogan was my all time favorite. Well, Shawn is right there even with him and has been for a while. Funny thing is that I liked The Rockers as a tag team but didn't really jump aboard the Shawn Michaels express until he turned heel and went singles. I started liking him quickly as a favorite as he started his heel run with Sherri. He was this great heel that had such amazing matches and it was fun to cheer him on. Then, he got the face turn and took off to his WWF championship run in 1996. I still remember that moment of cheering when Shawn won that first WWF championship against Bret Hart at WrestleMania 12. One thing with Shawn in that era was that you either liked him or didn't like him. Lots of fans didn't like him and it has reminded me for years of the reaction that Cena gets sometimes. It took a while for Shawn to win some fans over and it didn't happen in his first run. When he came back in 2002, I think the fans that didn't like him gained that respect for him as a performer. Shawn rarely has gotten boos since then and actually got the crowd most of the time in the face vs. face matches. He gained the respect of all the fans that knew how hard that he worked in the ring. He was that guy that you knew was going to give you 110 percent in the ring. I loved him for it and I saw that in him early on. Great talker and could just get you up on your feet cheering.
Favorite matches of Shawn's for me. Obviously, both matches against The Undertaker this year and last year. Incredible matches and the two have an amazing chemistry in the ring that few wrestlers have. Their matches in 1997-1998 do not need to be overlooked either. What I always found funny as a Shawn fan was that Undertaker could never beat Shawn. From a fan standpoint, I loved it to be able to brag about that. Undertaker talked all sorts of trash and then would lose. LOL. A moment that took place in their last match of their series in 1998 would lead to another favorite Shawn match of mine. If you don't know the story, Shawn took on Undertaker at the 1998 Royal Rumble in a casket match. During the match, Shawn was backdropped over the top and his lower back accidentally caught the end of the casket. The match went on but days later, Shawn found himself unable to move and crawling around his house in terrible pain. He tells the scary story in his book. Shawn would have to retire and his last match was set to be WrestleMania 14 against Stone Cold Steve Austin where he would drop the title to Austin. This is the gutsiest performance that I've ever seen in wrestling history. Shawn is out there barely able to move and is flipping and flying with all he has. He would not slow down. There is one moment where he is crawling to the top rope to drop the elbow and lands it. People wondered if he could even do the match and he literally gave all that he had left. Shawn would drop the title. After helping to build the start of the Attitude Era with DX, he would have to sit on the sideline which I'm sure had to frustrate him so badly as WWF took off business wise. Shawn would show up for various appearances over the next few years and his life was in disarray. His wife was a great Christian and he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Shawn's life turned around and he eventually worked his way back to returning to WWE. That return is also a favorite Shawn match of mine. That return match at SummerSlam in 2002 against Triple H in the street fight was also one of the most amazing performances that I've ever seen. The guy has been out of the ring for four years and goes out there like he hadn't missed a beat. It was unbelievable!! The matches that would follow in years to come would be great classics with Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and more. Going back to his earlier days, his match with Mankind in 1996 at Mind Games is also a favorite of mine. That was another example of Shawn switching styles to go with Foley using an extreme style in front of the Philadelphia fans where ECW was going strong at the time. The ladder match at WrestleMania X against Razor Ramon really put Shawn on the map. The matches with Bret Hart are classics including the ironman match, Intercontinental title matches, tag team matches against The Hart Foundation, and more. Shawn and Bret are always going to be tied together cause of their rivalry in and out of the ring. As far as live shows, I've seen Shawn wrestle a few times. One was a house show match against Chris Jericho which was amazing. The last time that I saw him was this past February at Raw where he took on Randy Orton. I wish that I had taken the moment in a little more knowing that it might be the last time that I would see him live.
Will Shawn be retired for good? It is wrestling so you never know but that speech last night sure convinced me that he was done. He's talked retirement for a while now and what better way to go out than he did at WrestleMania. How do you top that? At the very least, I think this is it for him full time. Shawn left us wanting more and that is how it should be. We know that he is fully capable of incredible performances. He can top every show with his matches. It reminds me of back in the day of the stories of Shawn having a great match in his early big run and going backstage yelling for everyone to "top that" or "follow that". You can't. You can't top it. Shawn is that type of performer. He is the guy that you don't want to try and follow and these two WrestleMania matches against Undertaker showed that. Thank you Shawn for all the amazing years that you gave all of us fans. You're going to be missed and I hope that the younger talent has learned a lot from you. My advice to the younger talent is to buy the DVD's and watch him perform. You made this long time fan of yours jump out of my chair so many times over the years that I can't even count. You've earned every bit of this retirement and wishing you all the best with the time that you now have with your family. You left us wanting more and it reminds me of the old tribute song back from 1995-96. Tell me a lie. Say that you won't go.
Monday, March 29, 2010
WrestleMania 26 Recap & Thoughts - March 29, 2010
Super Bowl Sunday for me has come and passed. WrestleMania 26 is now in the books and I really enjoyed the show. One judge on that the show was good was me looking at the clock and thinking how I was surprised to be that far along in it. WrestleMania has become the only PPV that I buy every year. I have to say that the build to this WrestleMania has been better than most in recent years. Really strong lineup and there wasn't any match on this show that I didn't like. I had one finish that I didn't really like and no, it isn't the one that you'd expect. LOL. The official attendance at the University Of Phoenix Stadium was 72,219. The building looked amazing and started with there being sunlight outside as they had the roof open.
The show opened with American Idol season three winner Fantasia singing America The Beautiful. This is always amazing and then we had the military flyover during it. The opening video was greatly produced as always and a good pyro opening. Show opens with the unified tag team title match with ShoMiz taking on Morrison and R Truth. It's interesting to see who they let open the show every year cause that is an important spot to be put in. Wow, I think they upped the pyro for ShoMiz. Really cool entrance by everyone involved. This was a really short match. The champions retain as Morrison goes for a springboard but is caught by a Big Show knockout punch. Miz pins Morrison and the champs retain. Pretty good pop from the fans when it happened. Next is the triple threat match with Orton vs. Dibiase vs. Rhodes. Solid match and predictable. Dibiase and Rhodes did have separate entrances. Doubleteam for a while and then Dibiase went for the pin. Cody was going for a moonsault at the time. Cody jumped off the ropes to break it up. The two end up in a brawl to the floor. Orton starts to get up and both start paying attention to it. Attention goes back to Orton. Orton gets on the offense including hitting a double DDT off the middle rope which looked really cool. Big pop from the crowd on it too. Orton started to go for the RKO on Cody but then changed his mind. Orton nails the punt kick to Cody. Dibiase tries to sneak up and hit dreamstreet from behind but Orton counters it into a RKO for the win. After the match, they lowered the screen from above which had the RKO graphic on it as Orton posed. They did this throughout the night for various superstars. Funny segment backstage promoting Slim Jim. Basically, it was a comedy segment where Santino would snap into the Slim Jim and the person next to him kept changing. It started with it being Mae Young who kissed him, turned into Mean Gene in a dress, and then turned into Melina who he walked off with. Glad to see the injured Melina getting on WrestleMania even if it was just for a cameo. That brings us to the Money In The Bank match with all of these participants: MVP, Christian, Drew McIntyre, Shelton Benjamin, Matt Hardy, Kane, Evan Bourne, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, and Dolph Ziggler. Lots of wild spots in this one as you would expect. The ladder sandwich on Swagger with the others climbing was a new and fun spot. Bourne of course did all sorts of nasty spots, airbourne off the ladder and also took a nasty hiptoss from Hardy off of a ladder. I liked the spot with Dolph climbing Kane as he went up the ladder to get over him. Kofi walking the broken ladder as stilts to climb up was really cool. The finish had Christian and Swagger up on the ladder. Swagger nailed Christian with the briefcase and won the match. The Hall Of Fame class was brought out next with after an excellent ceremony recap video. I definitely enjoyed seeing Bob Uecker and Dibiase on the same stage again thinking back to WrestleMania 4. They were introduced by Howard Finkel. Next was Triple H vs. Sheamus. Solid match for sure. Sheamus hit the big kick on Triple H but he kicked out. Triple H later got hit with another one but Sheamus couldn't capitalize on it. He then went for the celtic cross but Triple H escaped and hit the pedigree to win the match. That was the finish that I didn't like. I thought Sheamus should have gotten to kick out of one pedigree if Triple H is kicking out of his stuff. Triple H wins. Next is Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk accompanied by his crew. If Rey loses, he has to join Punk's group. Fun match. The finish had Rey going for a 619 but Serena stopped it. Gallows then blocked it on the other side. Rey then took out Gallows and hit the 619 on Punk followed by the springboard to win the match. Next was Bret Hart and Vince McMahon. The video package before this match was awesome. Vince announced that he had bought himself some lumberjacks and a special referee. He brings out the the entire Hart Family and they all are supposedly against Bret. Bret talks to them saying that the Harts always get paid up front and how annoyed he was. However, then he said that the Harts had let him in on what was going on. The Hart Family was united against Vince. Bruce was the referee. This match was Bret beating Vince up for about ten minutes or so. Vince didn't land anything. He took a hard slap from Natalya. The family would throw Vince back in the ring after beating him up on the outside. Bret hit him a chair at one point at my count of eleven consecutive. He then pounded him more with it. Vince tried to pull a tire iron out from under the ring but Bret got a hold of it and used. Bret teased a sharpshooter which got the crowd up on their feet. He went back to using the tire iron on Vince. Then, he hooked the sharpshooter for the tap out victory. The Harts all celebrated together after the match. The World title match was next with Chris Jericho and Edge. Crowd was kind of settled down for the first half of this match. I wondered if the squash booking of the last match kind of brought them down or if they just needed a break. They had been hot to this point. Jericho went for the walls and that got the crowd up and they were up for the rest of it. Jericho went for a spear but got a kick to the face. Edge's spear attempt landed in a codebreaker. Edge then had his achilles tendon worked over by Jericho. Jericho grabbed the belt at ringside and went to use it. The ref got in the middle of it and Edge accidentally knocked the ref down. Jericho nailed Edge with the belt but Edge kicked out of the pin attempt. Jericho then nailed the codebreaker and won the match. Jericho started to work on the injury once again on the ring post but Edge made a comeback. A furious Edge put Jericho on the table. Edge ran off of the other table and speared Jericho through the barrier at ringside. Looked awesome!! Next was the ten divas tag match. Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim, Eve Torres, and Beth Phoenix against Maryse, Michelle McCool, Layla, Alicia Fox, and Vickie Guerrero. I was wondering how active that Mickie would be in this match. Then, she planted a nasty DDT on Michelle and I got my answer. Vickie kept screaming whenever she'd be in trouble which was funny. Michelle took out Beth after the divas were hitting move after move on one another. They set up Kelly for Vickie. Vickie hit a bullfrog splash as it was called. Vickie gets the pin although it was an awkward one. She celebrated after it doing a Eddie dance which was fun to see. WWE title match was up next which meant that Shawn and Undertaker was closing the show. Batista had a cool entrance especially with the lights all set after the sun had set outside the building. Cena had a military entrance with the troops which was really cool. Mixed reaction here. Lots of anti-Cena signs right in the way of the main camera. Punch exchange between the two really showed the mixed reaction from the fans. Cena's five knuckle shuffle attempt got turned into a spinebuster which got a big reaction from the Batista cheering section. Cena would later hit that move off the top rope. The finish had Cena getting nailed with the a powerbomb after Cena jumped off the top rope again. Batista went for the Batista bomb but Cena countered it into the STF and Batista tapped. John Cena is the new WWE champion. That leads us to the final match. Streak vs. Career. Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. Big entrances and this match had such a big fight feel to it. Undertaker went for old school early and hurt his knee early on. Shawn went right for it. Lots of fun spots in this one. A kip up into a chokeslam from Undertaker. Shawn went for a dive off the middle rope on the floor and Undertaker caught him and hit the tombstone on the floor. Shawn countered the last ride and hit a nasty superkick. His second superkick was countered into a last ride. Both kicked out of each other's moves. Undertaker looked to do damage to Shawn on the table on the floor. Shawn countered and superkicked Undertaker on to the table. Shawn then did a moonsault off the top rope on to the table which looked incredible. Shawn hurried to get Undertaker back in the ring to pin him but to no avail. Undertaker would hit another tombstone and Shawn would kick out. Undertaker got very frustrated at this point seeing that Shawn wouldn't give up. Good commentary as I believe it was Striker that said that Undertaker is now realizing and looking at his greatest opponent ever. Undertaker pulled the strap down and started to do the throat slash. He saw Shawn getting up and Undertaker looked at him in amazement telling him to just stay down. Shawn then did the throat slash back at him and slapped Undertaker. That fired up Taker and he hit a nasty tombstone that left you thinking that was definitely the finish and it was. Undertaker wins and is 18-0 at WrestleMania while Shawn's career is over. Undertaker pulled Shawn to his feet and the two faced off. Undertaker offered a handshake and Shawn accepted. Really cool moment. Undertaker walks off and Shawn gets the ring to himself. Standing ovation for Shawn from the fans and he walks out paying tribute to the fans and of course bowing before God and thanking Him for everything. Interesting that the show closed with Shawn walking off instead of the traditional music video.
Other notes from WrestleMania. The match placement was interesting on this show. They had big matches leading off the last three hours. Like I said, time flew by watching this show. It did not feel like I had watched four hours of wrestling. Shawn's finale was great with the tribute at the end. The two put on an amazing match and it will be hard to top it for match of the year. Like I said, the only finish that I wasn't crazy about was the Sheamus/Triple H match. I would have been better with it if Sheamus had to have gotten to kick out of at least one pedigree. The entrance order and length was interesting to watch of the Money In The Bank match where you got to get a feel of where they ranked. McIntyre got the last entrance which showed his position within the company. Love his entrance but not crazy about him. Matt Hardy still gets that great pop from the fans. Anyone else shocked that Flair got mentioned during that figure four from Triple H? I figured his name would be ignored for now. Great to see Mickie get to work after the serious staph infection that she got in her leg which was going to have kept her off the show. I felt bad for Swagger when it took him forever to get that briefcase undone. That few seconds felt like an eternity especially thinking of it from his position. Lots of heat on CM Punk. He had a lot of anti signs in the crowd. He has turned into possibly the biggest heel in the company. Rey continued his tradition of dressing up for WrestleMania as this year he had an Avatar outfit. Did you see that his entrance got messed up? Some sort of malfunction there. Wow, that Bret Hart beating on Vince went on forever. It went about as it could cause you can't have Bret taking hits cause of his physical problems. That was really all anybody wanted to see was Bret beating up Vince so it was fine. With that beating, Vince SHOULD be off of TV for a while. WWE is going to Atlanta next year for WrestleMania at the Georgia Dome. How long of a drive is Atlanta? LOL. Vickie's outfit was hilarious with "excuse me" written on it. I thought the divas match was fun. Cena and Batista was a match that I was surprisingly excited about. Great build to this one and I think Batista is probably doing the best that he has ever done. He has been a really good heel. Kudos to WWE for the great build in this match. Undertaker's entrance was cool with him rising up on the stage. Shawn definitely had an extra bounce in his step for his entrance which had me wondering if this was it for him.
Like I said, I really enjoyed the show. Best build by WWE to a WrestleMania in quite some time. WWE has been really good lately for the most part. With Wrestlemania behind them, it will be interesting to see how their motivation is following it.
The show opened with American Idol season three winner Fantasia singing America The Beautiful. This is always amazing and then we had the military flyover during it. The opening video was greatly produced as always and a good pyro opening. Show opens with the unified tag team title match with ShoMiz taking on Morrison and R Truth. It's interesting to see who they let open the show every year cause that is an important spot to be put in. Wow, I think they upped the pyro for ShoMiz. Really cool entrance by everyone involved. This was a really short match. The champions retain as Morrison goes for a springboard but is caught by a Big Show knockout punch. Miz pins Morrison and the champs retain. Pretty good pop from the fans when it happened. Next is the triple threat match with Orton vs. Dibiase vs. Rhodes. Solid match and predictable. Dibiase and Rhodes did have separate entrances. Doubleteam for a while and then Dibiase went for the pin. Cody was going for a moonsault at the time. Cody jumped off the ropes to break it up. The two end up in a brawl to the floor. Orton starts to get up and both start paying attention to it. Attention goes back to Orton. Orton gets on the offense including hitting a double DDT off the middle rope which looked really cool. Big pop from the crowd on it too. Orton started to go for the RKO on Cody but then changed his mind. Orton nails the punt kick to Cody. Dibiase tries to sneak up and hit dreamstreet from behind but Orton counters it into a RKO for the win. After the match, they lowered the screen from above which had the RKO graphic on it as Orton posed. They did this throughout the night for various superstars. Funny segment backstage promoting Slim Jim. Basically, it was a comedy segment where Santino would snap into the Slim Jim and the person next to him kept changing. It started with it being Mae Young who kissed him, turned into Mean Gene in a dress, and then turned into Melina who he walked off with. Glad to see the injured Melina getting on WrestleMania even if it was just for a cameo. That brings us to the Money In The Bank match with all of these participants: MVP, Christian, Drew McIntyre, Shelton Benjamin, Matt Hardy, Kane, Evan Bourne, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, and Dolph Ziggler. Lots of wild spots in this one as you would expect. The ladder sandwich on Swagger with the others climbing was a new and fun spot. Bourne of course did all sorts of nasty spots, airbourne off the ladder and also took a nasty hiptoss from Hardy off of a ladder. I liked the spot with Dolph climbing Kane as he went up the ladder to get over him. Kofi walking the broken ladder as stilts to climb up was really cool. The finish had Christian and Swagger up on the ladder. Swagger nailed Christian with the briefcase and won the match. The Hall Of Fame class was brought out next with after an excellent ceremony recap video. I definitely enjoyed seeing Bob Uecker and Dibiase on the same stage again thinking back to WrestleMania 4. They were introduced by Howard Finkel. Next was Triple H vs. Sheamus. Solid match for sure. Sheamus hit the big kick on Triple H but he kicked out. Triple H later got hit with another one but Sheamus couldn't capitalize on it. He then went for the celtic cross but Triple H escaped and hit the pedigree to win the match. That was the finish that I didn't like. I thought Sheamus should have gotten to kick out of one pedigree if Triple H is kicking out of his stuff. Triple H wins. Next is Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk accompanied by his crew. If Rey loses, he has to join Punk's group. Fun match. The finish had Rey going for a 619 but Serena stopped it. Gallows then blocked it on the other side. Rey then took out Gallows and hit the 619 on Punk followed by the springboard to win the match. Next was Bret Hart and Vince McMahon. The video package before this match was awesome. Vince announced that he had bought himself some lumberjacks and a special referee. He brings out the the entire Hart Family and they all are supposedly against Bret. Bret talks to them saying that the Harts always get paid up front and how annoyed he was. However, then he said that the Harts had let him in on what was going on. The Hart Family was united against Vince. Bruce was the referee. This match was Bret beating Vince up for about ten minutes or so. Vince didn't land anything. He took a hard slap from Natalya. The family would throw Vince back in the ring after beating him up on the outside. Bret hit him a chair at one point at my count of eleven consecutive. He then pounded him more with it. Vince tried to pull a tire iron out from under the ring but Bret got a hold of it and used. Bret teased a sharpshooter which got the crowd up on their feet. He went back to using the tire iron on Vince. Then, he hooked the sharpshooter for the tap out victory. The Harts all celebrated together after the match. The World title match was next with Chris Jericho and Edge. Crowd was kind of settled down for the first half of this match. I wondered if the squash booking of the last match kind of brought them down or if they just needed a break. They had been hot to this point. Jericho went for the walls and that got the crowd up and they were up for the rest of it. Jericho went for a spear but got a kick to the face. Edge's spear attempt landed in a codebreaker. Edge then had his achilles tendon worked over by Jericho. Jericho grabbed the belt at ringside and went to use it. The ref got in the middle of it and Edge accidentally knocked the ref down. Jericho nailed Edge with the belt but Edge kicked out of the pin attempt. Jericho then nailed the codebreaker and won the match. Jericho started to work on the injury once again on the ring post but Edge made a comeback. A furious Edge put Jericho on the table. Edge ran off of the other table and speared Jericho through the barrier at ringside. Looked awesome!! Next was the ten divas tag match. Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim, Eve Torres, and Beth Phoenix against Maryse, Michelle McCool, Layla, Alicia Fox, and Vickie Guerrero. I was wondering how active that Mickie would be in this match. Then, she planted a nasty DDT on Michelle and I got my answer. Vickie kept screaming whenever she'd be in trouble which was funny. Michelle took out Beth after the divas were hitting move after move on one another. They set up Kelly for Vickie. Vickie hit a bullfrog splash as it was called. Vickie gets the pin although it was an awkward one. She celebrated after it doing a Eddie dance which was fun to see. WWE title match was up next which meant that Shawn and Undertaker was closing the show. Batista had a cool entrance especially with the lights all set after the sun had set outside the building. Cena had a military entrance with the troops which was really cool. Mixed reaction here. Lots of anti-Cena signs right in the way of the main camera. Punch exchange between the two really showed the mixed reaction from the fans. Cena's five knuckle shuffle attempt got turned into a spinebuster which got a big reaction from the Batista cheering section. Cena would later hit that move off the top rope. The finish had Cena getting nailed with the a powerbomb after Cena jumped off the top rope again. Batista went for the Batista bomb but Cena countered it into the STF and Batista tapped. John Cena is the new WWE champion. That leads us to the final match. Streak vs. Career. Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. Big entrances and this match had such a big fight feel to it. Undertaker went for old school early and hurt his knee early on. Shawn went right for it. Lots of fun spots in this one. A kip up into a chokeslam from Undertaker. Shawn went for a dive off the middle rope on the floor and Undertaker caught him and hit the tombstone on the floor. Shawn countered the last ride and hit a nasty superkick. His second superkick was countered into a last ride. Both kicked out of each other's moves. Undertaker looked to do damage to Shawn on the table on the floor. Shawn countered and superkicked Undertaker on to the table. Shawn then did a moonsault off the top rope on to the table which looked incredible. Shawn hurried to get Undertaker back in the ring to pin him but to no avail. Undertaker would hit another tombstone and Shawn would kick out. Undertaker got very frustrated at this point seeing that Shawn wouldn't give up. Good commentary as I believe it was Striker that said that Undertaker is now realizing and looking at his greatest opponent ever. Undertaker pulled the strap down and started to do the throat slash. He saw Shawn getting up and Undertaker looked at him in amazement telling him to just stay down. Shawn then did the throat slash back at him and slapped Undertaker. That fired up Taker and he hit a nasty tombstone that left you thinking that was definitely the finish and it was. Undertaker wins and is 18-0 at WrestleMania while Shawn's career is over. Undertaker pulled Shawn to his feet and the two faced off. Undertaker offered a handshake and Shawn accepted. Really cool moment. Undertaker walks off and Shawn gets the ring to himself. Standing ovation for Shawn from the fans and he walks out paying tribute to the fans and of course bowing before God and thanking Him for everything. Interesting that the show closed with Shawn walking off instead of the traditional music video.
Other notes from WrestleMania. The match placement was interesting on this show. They had big matches leading off the last three hours. Like I said, time flew by watching this show. It did not feel like I had watched four hours of wrestling. Shawn's finale was great with the tribute at the end. The two put on an amazing match and it will be hard to top it for match of the year. Like I said, the only finish that I wasn't crazy about was the Sheamus/Triple H match. I would have been better with it if Sheamus had to have gotten to kick out of at least one pedigree. The entrance order and length was interesting to watch of the Money In The Bank match where you got to get a feel of where they ranked. McIntyre got the last entrance which showed his position within the company. Love his entrance but not crazy about him. Matt Hardy still gets that great pop from the fans. Anyone else shocked that Flair got mentioned during that figure four from Triple H? I figured his name would be ignored for now. Great to see Mickie get to work after the serious staph infection that she got in her leg which was going to have kept her off the show. I felt bad for Swagger when it took him forever to get that briefcase undone. That few seconds felt like an eternity especially thinking of it from his position. Lots of heat on CM Punk. He had a lot of anti signs in the crowd. He has turned into possibly the biggest heel in the company. Rey continued his tradition of dressing up for WrestleMania as this year he had an Avatar outfit. Did you see that his entrance got messed up? Some sort of malfunction there. Wow, that Bret Hart beating on Vince went on forever. It went about as it could cause you can't have Bret taking hits cause of his physical problems. That was really all anybody wanted to see was Bret beating up Vince so it was fine. With that beating, Vince SHOULD be off of TV for a while. WWE is going to Atlanta next year for WrestleMania at the Georgia Dome. How long of a drive is Atlanta? LOL. Vickie's outfit was hilarious with "excuse me" written on it. I thought the divas match was fun. Cena and Batista was a match that I was surprisingly excited about. Great build to this one and I think Batista is probably doing the best that he has ever done. He has been a really good heel. Kudos to WWE for the great build in this match. Undertaker's entrance was cool with him rising up on the stage. Shawn definitely had an extra bounce in his step for his entrance which had me wondering if this was it for him.
Like I said, I really enjoyed the show. Best build by WWE to a WrestleMania in quite some time. WWE has been really good lately for the most part. With Wrestlemania behind them, it will be interesting to see how their motivation is following it.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday Night Wars Return - Recap & Thoughts on TNA Impact & WWE Raw - March 9, 2010
Welcome to the “I was predicting a Brooke Hogan heel turn last night” edition of The Wrestling List. LOL. Last night was the first night of the new Monday Night Wars between WWE and TNA. This happens almost nine years to the day of when the original Monday Night Wars came to an end in late March of 2001. Back to the old days of watching four straight hours of wrestling. Well, I cut that down quite a bit with taking commercials out obviously. Still, it was midnight before I finished Raw. I watched Impact live and then watched Raw afterwards. It was a very entertaining night of wrestling for me. There were things that I liked and didn’t like about both shows obviously. We had a big debut on Impact and returns while WWE was mostly the same stuff as they build to WrestleMania.
I’ll start with TNA Impact. I am going to recap this thing and then I’ll go into my opinions on the show. The show opened up with Hulk Hogan and Abyss coming to the ring with a very hot crowd in the Impact Zone. Hogan said that the main event was taking place right then and there to kick off the show. Ric Flair and AJ Styles made their way to the ring and the match was underway. The match gets rolling and Abyss and Flair go at it for a while. All four end up in the ring and AJ takes down Hogan with the pele kick. Hogan and Abyss are down on the mat. The lights go out and then Sting appears in the ring. He stands with Hogan and Abyss as the crowd goes crazy. Sting then turns and nails Abyss and Hogan with the baseball bat. A Sting heel turn. AJ and Flair look surprised at what is going on. AJ and Flair nail Hogan and Abyss with unprotected chair shots to the head. They leave and then a bloody Hogan gets on the mic saying that this match wasn’t over. They would finish the match later in the show and it would be No DQ. Sting was shown backstage being confronted by Dixie Carter wondering what Sting was doing. Sting pushed her against the wall and said that he owed her nothing. Borash interviewed Flair and AJ who were hyped up on what had just happened with Flair saying that FINALLY Sting had come to his senses all these years. They were pumped for the match to finish later in the night. Abyss was shown in the back yelling on why Sting did what he did. We see Brooke Hogan backstage talking to Hogan’s girlfriend, Jennifer with Jennifer saying that Hogan would be ok. Brooke said that he is not ok and that she couldn’t watch the rest of what would happen. Dixie Carter is interviewed later and the announcers put over about how Dixie has always promised to never make matches but yet she was now. She said Sting would wrestle tonight and would have a surprise opponent. Sting makes his way to the ring and Rob Van Dam makes his TNA debut. Huge pop for RVD who hits the ring. RVD pins him immediately following a rolling thunder. Match lasted probably fifteen seconds. RVD goes to celebrate but Sting nails him with the bat and takes his leg out. Officials try to stop all of this but Sting wears out RVD with the bat. A bloody Hogan makes his way back out with officials holding him back. Bubba The Love Sponge was back on the show and was holding Hogan back as well. Hogan gets to the ring and gets nailed by the bat from Sting. Sting is continuing to pound RVD at this time too. Hogan is pulled away from ringside again but Sting follows him up the ramp. Sting nails him with the bat again and also takes out some officials. Later in the show, Hogan is confronted by Earl Hebner who wants a second chance. Bubba talks about second chances and Hogan is talked into it. Hogan makes him the ref in the main event saying that he needed someone to control the match and someone he could trust because his family was freaking out over this match. Brooke was shown backstage crying to Hogan about not wanting him to get hurt out there while Hogan was saying that the fans were calling him and he had to answer the call. He said that Abyss had his back but she demanded that this be his last match. The main event takes place again. Hogan and Abyss taking on AJ and Flair. Hogan and Flair went at it for a bit with Flair being bloodied along with Hogan. Abyss gets the hot tag and we end up with a double hulk up with Abyss and Hogan hulking up. Double fists, double big boots, and then Hogan whipped AJ into Abyss for a black hole slam for the pinfall. Desmond Wolfe then attacked both of them with a chair. His match with the Pope was canceled for earlier in the show as Wolfe had attacked Pope and his injured ankle. Hogan and Abyss start to get beat down and then Pope runs out to help. The odds still are stacked in the favor of AJ, Flair, and Wolfe. Jeff Hardy’s music hits and he runs to the ring. Hardy cleans house and nails multiple twist of fates on the heels. The show ends with Hardy still doing damage. Kurt Angle did an in ring promo with the Army surrounding the ring. They’re playing the storyline of that Anderson bashed on the military while Angle is standing up for them. He said that Anderson spit on them two weeks ago and he wasn’t going to take it. Anderson appears on the screen with the warrior medal while calling the military “high school dropouts”. Angle left the ring immediately while Anderson kept talking. Angle walks in and nails Anderson with them playing up that Angle knew exactly where he was in the building. The fight ends up back in the ring. Angle keeps throwing him to the floor to the Army guys who pound on him. Anderson ends up nailing Angle with the medal and goes to walk out. He backs into the Army who back him to the ring. Angle then gets back on the attack hitting the Angle slam. Angle is then lifted up on the shoulders of the Army crew. Kevin Nash and Eric Young had a segment with Hall and Waltman where they said that Bischoff had agreed to let Hall and Waltman wrestle for one night. Hall and Waltman made their way out with Hall calling Nash a sellout and saying that 2/3 of the Wolfpack were there which was a rip on Nash. Hall pointed out that the attack by Sting showed that Hogan wasn’t running this show. Hall says that they want their match to include the stipulation that if they win, they get a “fat money” contract and calls out Bischoff. Bischoff appears on screen and agrees to it. If they lose, they’re gone for good. That was Bischoff’s added stipulation. Waltman slapped Young and the fight was on between those two. Bischoff then said that he was tired of paying security extra money to take care of Hall and Waltman every week and had the two of them go at it in a match. Waltman misses the broncobuster and then Young nails a piledriver to win the match. The X-Division was featured on the show with Kazarian saying that he had proudly returned to TNA seeing how they were about to take off. Daniels made his way out saying that he had been there the whole time and had built the X-Division. Current champion Doug Williams makes his way to the ring and gets involved in the discussion. Both say that Williams is just the current champion while Daniels and Kazarian argue over the X-Division history. Bischoff makes his way out and says that he loves the X-Division and doesn’t just see it as the heart of the company but the adrenaline of the company. He has the three go at it in a three way for the belt. This was a fun match. Williams wins the match to retain after hitting the chaos theory on Daniels. Shannon Moore hits the ring and hammers on Williams. Bischoff then announces that Moore is Doug’s opponent for the title at Destination X. The Beautiful People defeated the teams of Angelina & Tara and Taylor & Sarita to win the knockouts tag team titles. Daffney got involved nailing Tara with the Knockouts title as Tara was about to hit the widow’s peak. That cost them the match. Beer Money was put in a match with Jeff Jarrett by Bischoff with Foley as the special referee. Jarrett was mad at Storm for agreeing to the match cause of Jarrett hand picking him to join the company. Storm basically said “what have you done for me lately?” Foley tried to help Jarrett out by giving Jarrett a barbed wire bat from under the ring. Referee Slick Johnson ran out and pulled the bat away which led to Beer Money finishing off Jarrett.
Ok, thoughts on the overall show. Not a lot of wrestling on the show obviously. The wrestling that was on it was really good. X-Division match was good and I enjoyed the knockouts tag match too. The Sting heel turn did not sit well with me at first. I just kept thinking that this never works out. The fans won’t boo him. However, I started to get won over as the show continued. They just had him as a mean, nasty heel beating everyone with a bat. That leads to the Rob Van Dam debut. Yeah, this could have been better. RVD’s offense was WAY too short. If you blinked, you missed it. I wanted to see that live crowd fed on his offense and they were hungry for it. Then, he won with the rolling thunder which I thought was bizarre. Sting then beats up RVD repeatedly with the bat. Lots of criticism from fans on how this debut was booked already. I didn’t hate it as much as others cause I think they’re building to something and obviously HOPE that they’re building to something. My only problem was that RVD’s offense was way too limited for such a BIG debut. That should have played out more with more time. Too much Brooke Hogan. In fact, she was on so much that I thought she was maybe becoming a character. I was actually precicting a heel turn before the main event at the end of the show. I suddenly had comparisons of Brooke to Stephanie’s heel turn on Vince over a decade ago. Brooke turns on her dad and joins up with Flair. I really thought it was going to happen. I wasn’t cheering for it to happen obviously but there was way too much of her on the show. I liked the stuff with Angle and Anderson. I loved that Angle went right to where Anderson was immediately when he started talking. Such simple wrestling psychology there. Well, Eric Young did more for me last night than he probably ever has. I’m happy to see Daffney being used more as I liked that character back in WCW. It was one of the few things I liked about the end of WCW.
Other notes from Impact. Wow, Hogan, Sting, and Flair in the same ring on a live broadcast in 2010. Who would have thought? It was clear that RVD was the surprise opponent even more when they went to break and Tazz mentioned the old RVD ECW 4:20 line. The crowd knew too without even hearing that line. They were chanting RVD when Sting was in the ring but they tried to drowned out the crowd as it was happening. Everyone knew it was RVD. I want to know what the Impact Zone was chanting at Bubba cause they kept drowning out that crowd chant where you couldn’t hear it. I’m sure it wasn’t anything good. Whoops, did you see them cut early to back with Bischoff at the beginning of the Nash, Hall, Waltman, Young segment? Things like that are going to happen with live TV. I laughed at Hall telling Nash that he’d see him at the PPV and that he’d be “the one dressed like Elvis”. Nice throwback to the lame Elvis thing that they did years ago in TNA. New open and theme song for Impact which I thought looked good. I’m pretty sure that I saw Jesse from Big Brother in the crowd at the Impact Zone. He is a big wrestling fan.
On to the recap of WWE Raw. The match opened with Shawn and Undertaker talking about their WrestleMania match. Undertaker said that Shawn’s obsession was going to cost him the ultimate price, his career. Shawn talked of how he had seen fear in Undertaker over that his streak may be about to end. Undertaker told him to choose his next words carefully to which Shawn replied again “fear”. Shawn asked him if he really thought he’d sacrifice his career if he didn’t think he could win. Undertaker called him a man of desperation to which Shawn said no. Shawn was going right at him with what he was saying. It was a really good back and forth segment. Shawn said that he was so determined that he only wanted to win this match by pinfall or submission wanting the match to be No DQ and No CO. Undertaker agreed and said that Shawn might be the best ever that he has seen in the ring but that he will do whatever it takes to keep the streak going. Shawn told him to keep telling himself that and that the black cloud of the streak ending at WrestleMania would follow Undertaker forever. Both were really intense in their words and it was really good. Let’s get right to the main event. Yeah, this was lame. John Cena takes on Vince McMahon. Well, Vince announces that the match is a handicap gauntlet match. So, Vince keeps bringing out partners to help him. First guy is Kozlov. Kozlov does the damage and then Vince goes to pin Cena. Cena kicks out. Vince calls out Drew McIntyre. Same deal. Jack Swagger is the next guy out but Cena gets on offense with him. Swagger takes him down. Vince tries to pin. Cena kicks out. Vince brings out Mark Henry who does not look happy to be a part of this. He reluctantly hits the world’s strongest slam but Cena kicks out. Vince goes for the ring bell saying this is now a No DQ match. He tells Henry to hit Cena with the bell. Henry dumps the bell out to the floor. Batista then runs in and nails Henry. Batista had said earlier in the night that he would not get involved in the match. It should also be pointed out that Cena also said that he was not as confident against Batista cause he had never beaten him. Batista takes out Henry and then Kofi runs in for the save. Kofi gets some offense in but Batista nails him with a powerbomb out of the corner. Cena gets up and takes the fight to Batista. Vince then gets cornered by Cena. He goes for the adjustment but gets hit by a spear from Batista. After a Batista bomb, Vince pins Cena. The show goes off with a spotlight on the ring as Batista stands over Cena. Legacy took on Randy Orton. The question is how much offense will Legacy get in this week. Things looked bad when they got jumped by Orton walking down the aisle. The match went three segments and two of those had Legacy getting beaten up. Orton went for the RKO but Cody got in to stop it. Dibiase then recoved and hit dreamstreet to pin Orton. After the match, Rhodes hit crossrhodes and they mocked Orton with his old pose. Triple H did an in ring promo talking about the attack by Sheamus last week. He said that he had respect for what Sheamus did adding that he would have done the same thing in his shoes to make a statement. Sheamus did arrive and Triple H said that Sheamus had probably had the best first year ever for any superstar but that WrestleMania was a whole different ball game. Triple H talked of how he went on to win matches at WrestleMania looking to fight the biggest dogs and that his only list of defeats were Cena and Batista. Guess he forgot the Warrior. LOL. Basically, he asked Sheamus if he was willing to gamble of them going at it at WrestleMania. Sheamus ended up taking a swing and the fight was on. The fight went to the floor with them going back and forth. Sheamus ends up getting hit with a spinebuster in the ring and then bails out. The last Money In The Bank Qualifier was held with Evan Bourne defeating William Regal to get the last spot. Christian did commentary on the match. John Morrison and R Truth were set to take on ShoMiz in a preview of WrestleMania. The ref stopped it when the match got out of his control. Morrison and Truth take it to ShoMiz with them saying that they needed to now be taken seriously as contenders at WrestleMania. The team of Eve, Kelly, and Gail defeated the team of Maryse, Alicia, and Katie when Eve got Maryse to tap out to her armbar submission. Criss Angel was the guest host of the show and just basically did backstage segments with illusions and all. He did do the ring announcing for the main event.
Other notes from Raw. Did you notice that Ultimate Warrior has replaced Ric Flair in the WWE open? Wow, Legacy just isn’t getting any favors done for them. You can’t have them just getting beaten up EVERY week and have them taken seriously. Yeah, Dibiase got the win but what I remember is that Orton was beating them up for most of the match. The Criss Angel stuff was just there for me. I was done with it after the eye deal in his first segment. I thought, oh ok, I’m done while cringing away from the TV. I like the new addition of pyro to Morrison’s entrance. Looks really cool with the effect. How much lamer can they have Regal’s rookie looking? He is wearing an Austin vest and a cowboy hat? Do you remember when Kozlov was a main eventer? I like Drew McIntyre’s new music even after only hearing seconds of it. The song “Be Yourself” returns to WWE after four years as a WrestleMania theme song. You may remember it being used for the Divas Search in 2005 and then became the theme song for the winner, Ashley Massaro. Where was Michael Cole at when Legacy was holding up the Orton pose? Cole says that they are taunting him with his “classic pose”. Wouldn’t that be “vintage”? It was perfect timing for it and he went for classic. I kind of laughed at Triple H completely ignoring his WrestleMania debut loss to The Ultimate Warrior. Oh, the WrestleMania Recall moment of Lesnar and Goldberg from WrestleMania XX. One of my favorite WM moments ever and that was because of the crowd reaction. The fans knew Lesnar was leaving and ripped on him through the whole thing along with Goldberg. Austin was the ref and the only one getting cheered. The Raw main event was lame. Just lame. TNA needed to take advantage of that last night for sure.
Stone Cold Steve Austin will be the guest host on Raw next week from San Diego. He will handle the contract signing next week between Bret and Vince. That should be fun with Austin helping Bret.
Hulk Hogan appeared with Jimmy Hart last week where he announced the news of the signing of Rob Van Dam to TNA wrestling. Dixie Carter announced on Twitter last week that Sting has signed a new deal to remain with TNA. Traci Brooks was let go by TNA last week and she posted a statement about the release saying that the company just had nothing for her to do. She talked about how much that she had enjoyed being a part of the company all of these years. Roxxi and Sean Morley are also gone from TNA.
Eric Bischoff has already come out firing at WWE including something about the Bret/Vince match at WrestleMania. "Allegedly WWE found out about a Lloyds of London policy that Bret had in effect AFTER setting up this match, and as a result Lloyds of London has to approve of the physical structure of the match. Can't confirm this, and perhaps WWE has "bought out" the problem, but if not..could be disappointing. Either way, I am looking forward to it and am happy for Bret. Going back to WWE in any capacity was the right thing for him to do at this stage of his life."
Mickie James posted on her Twitter about surgery that she had last week due to a staph infection in her leg. She did say that she will not be competing at WrestleMania this year due to it.
I am sad to hear the news of the passing of Angelo Poffo. He is of course the father of Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo. He passed away at the age of 84. I haven't seen much footage of his wrestling career since it was many years ago so my memories of him are mostly with his WCW run along side of Savage in the mid 90's. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family in this tough time.
The new Shawn Michaels “My Journey” DVD was released in stores today. Included on the set is a sitdown interview with Shawn talking about his career and various matches. Many great matches on the set as well. Matches on the set include:
Shawn vs. One Man Gang (World Class – 1/11/85)
Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose and Doug Summers (AWA WrestleRock 1986)
Rockers vs. Brain Busters (Boston Garden – WWF – 3/18/89)
Rockers vs. Hart Foundation (WWF – MSG – 11/25/89)
Shawn vs. Bret Hart (Intercontinental title match – 6/2/92)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (Raw – 3/6/95)
Shawn vs. Sid (Raw - 9/11/95)
Shawn vs. 123 Kid (Raw – 3/4/96)
Shawn vs. Mankind (Raw – 8/11/97)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (One Night Only – 9/20/97)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (Royal Rumble 1998)
Shawn vs. Jericho (WrestleMania XIX)
Shawn vs. Flair (Bad Blood 2003)
Shawn vs. Angle (WrestleMania 21)
Shawn’s Promo on Hogan the night after SummerSlam
Shawn vs. Triple H (Raw 12/19/05)
Shawn vs. Cena vs. Edge vs. Orton (Backlash 2007)
Shawn vs. Orton (Survivor Series 2007)
Shawn vs. Jericho (Unforgiven 2008)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (WrestleMania 25)
Cue the Kane/Pete Rose stuff. Pete Rose will be the Raw guest host on the Monday before WrestleMania.
The Celebrity Apprentice premieres this Sunday night on NBC. Definite ties to wrestling with Maria and Bill Goldberg being a part of the cast.
Back to the Monday Night Wars of last night with my opinions on what I liked best.
Show Of The Night: I’m going to give it to TNA Impact. The show was more exciting and had more going on. Raw was just more of the same stuff but I did like a lot of the stuff on it.
Match Of The Night: Daniels vs. Kazarian vs. Williams in the X-Division championship match from TNA Impact.
That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!
I’ll start with TNA Impact. I am going to recap this thing and then I’ll go into my opinions on the show. The show opened up with Hulk Hogan and Abyss coming to the ring with a very hot crowd in the Impact Zone. Hogan said that the main event was taking place right then and there to kick off the show. Ric Flair and AJ Styles made their way to the ring and the match was underway. The match gets rolling and Abyss and Flair go at it for a while. All four end up in the ring and AJ takes down Hogan with the pele kick. Hogan and Abyss are down on the mat. The lights go out and then Sting appears in the ring. He stands with Hogan and Abyss as the crowd goes crazy. Sting then turns and nails Abyss and Hogan with the baseball bat. A Sting heel turn. AJ and Flair look surprised at what is going on. AJ and Flair nail Hogan and Abyss with unprotected chair shots to the head. They leave and then a bloody Hogan gets on the mic saying that this match wasn’t over. They would finish the match later in the show and it would be No DQ. Sting was shown backstage being confronted by Dixie Carter wondering what Sting was doing. Sting pushed her against the wall and said that he owed her nothing. Borash interviewed Flair and AJ who were hyped up on what had just happened with Flair saying that FINALLY Sting had come to his senses all these years. They were pumped for the match to finish later in the night. Abyss was shown in the back yelling on why Sting did what he did. We see Brooke Hogan backstage talking to Hogan’s girlfriend, Jennifer with Jennifer saying that Hogan would be ok. Brooke said that he is not ok and that she couldn’t watch the rest of what would happen. Dixie Carter is interviewed later and the announcers put over about how Dixie has always promised to never make matches but yet she was now. She said Sting would wrestle tonight and would have a surprise opponent. Sting makes his way to the ring and Rob Van Dam makes his TNA debut. Huge pop for RVD who hits the ring. RVD pins him immediately following a rolling thunder. Match lasted probably fifteen seconds. RVD goes to celebrate but Sting nails him with the bat and takes his leg out. Officials try to stop all of this but Sting wears out RVD with the bat. A bloody Hogan makes his way back out with officials holding him back. Bubba The Love Sponge was back on the show and was holding Hogan back as well. Hogan gets to the ring and gets nailed by the bat from Sting. Sting is continuing to pound RVD at this time too. Hogan is pulled away from ringside again but Sting follows him up the ramp. Sting nails him with the bat again and also takes out some officials. Later in the show, Hogan is confronted by Earl Hebner who wants a second chance. Bubba talks about second chances and Hogan is talked into it. Hogan makes him the ref in the main event saying that he needed someone to control the match and someone he could trust because his family was freaking out over this match. Brooke was shown backstage crying to Hogan about not wanting him to get hurt out there while Hogan was saying that the fans were calling him and he had to answer the call. He said that Abyss had his back but she demanded that this be his last match. The main event takes place again. Hogan and Abyss taking on AJ and Flair. Hogan and Flair went at it for a bit with Flair being bloodied along with Hogan. Abyss gets the hot tag and we end up with a double hulk up with Abyss and Hogan hulking up. Double fists, double big boots, and then Hogan whipped AJ into Abyss for a black hole slam for the pinfall. Desmond Wolfe then attacked both of them with a chair. His match with the Pope was canceled for earlier in the show as Wolfe had attacked Pope and his injured ankle. Hogan and Abyss start to get beat down and then Pope runs out to help. The odds still are stacked in the favor of AJ, Flair, and Wolfe. Jeff Hardy’s music hits and he runs to the ring. Hardy cleans house and nails multiple twist of fates on the heels. The show ends with Hardy still doing damage. Kurt Angle did an in ring promo with the Army surrounding the ring. They’re playing the storyline of that Anderson bashed on the military while Angle is standing up for them. He said that Anderson spit on them two weeks ago and he wasn’t going to take it. Anderson appears on the screen with the warrior medal while calling the military “high school dropouts”. Angle left the ring immediately while Anderson kept talking. Angle walks in and nails Anderson with them playing up that Angle knew exactly where he was in the building. The fight ends up back in the ring. Angle keeps throwing him to the floor to the Army guys who pound on him. Anderson ends up nailing Angle with the medal and goes to walk out. He backs into the Army who back him to the ring. Angle then gets back on the attack hitting the Angle slam. Angle is then lifted up on the shoulders of the Army crew. Kevin Nash and Eric Young had a segment with Hall and Waltman where they said that Bischoff had agreed to let Hall and Waltman wrestle for one night. Hall and Waltman made their way out with Hall calling Nash a sellout and saying that 2/3 of the Wolfpack were there which was a rip on Nash. Hall pointed out that the attack by Sting showed that Hogan wasn’t running this show. Hall says that they want their match to include the stipulation that if they win, they get a “fat money” contract and calls out Bischoff. Bischoff appears on screen and agrees to it. If they lose, they’re gone for good. That was Bischoff’s added stipulation. Waltman slapped Young and the fight was on between those two. Bischoff then said that he was tired of paying security extra money to take care of Hall and Waltman every week and had the two of them go at it in a match. Waltman misses the broncobuster and then Young nails a piledriver to win the match. The X-Division was featured on the show with Kazarian saying that he had proudly returned to TNA seeing how they were about to take off. Daniels made his way out saying that he had been there the whole time and had built the X-Division. Current champion Doug Williams makes his way to the ring and gets involved in the discussion. Both say that Williams is just the current champion while Daniels and Kazarian argue over the X-Division history. Bischoff makes his way out and says that he loves the X-Division and doesn’t just see it as the heart of the company but the adrenaline of the company. He has the three go at it in a three way for the belt. This was a fun match. Williams wins the match to retain after hitting the chaos theory on Daniels. Shannon Moore hits the ring and hammers on Williams. Bischoff then announces that Moore is Doug’s opponent for the title at Destination X. The Beautiful People defeated the teams of Angelina & Tara and Taylor & Sarita to win the knockouts tag team titles. Daffney got involved nailing Tara with the Knockouts title as Tara was about to hit the widow’s peak. That cost them the match. Beer Money was put in a match with Jeff Jarrett by Bischoff with Foley as the special referee. Jarrett was mad at Storm for agreeing to the match cause of Jarrett hand picking him to join the company. Storm basically said “what have you done for me lately?” Foley tried to help Jarrett out by giving Jarrett a barbed wire bat from under the ring. Referee Slick Johnson ran out and pulled the bat away which led to Beer Money finishing off Jarrett.
Ok, thoughts on the overall show. Not a lot of wrestling on the show obviously. The wrestling that was on it was really good. X-Division match was good and I enjoyed the knockouts tag match too. The Sting heel turn did not sit well with me at first. I just kept thinking that this never works out. The fans won’t boo him. However, I started to get won over as the show continued. They just had him as a mean, nasty heel beating everyone with a bat. That leads to the Rob Van Dam debut. Yeah, this could have been better. RVD’s offense was WAY too short. If you blinked, you missed it. I wanted to see that live crowd fed on his offense and they were hungry for it. Then, he won with the rolling thunder which I thought was bizarre. Sting then beats up RVD repeatedly with the bat. Lots of criticism from fans on how this debut was booked already. I didn’t hate it as much as others cause I think they’re building to something and obviously HOPE that they’re building to something. My only problem was that RVD’s offense was way too limited for such a BIG debut. That should have played out more with more time. Too much Brooke Hogan. In fact, she was on so much that I thought she was maybe becoming a character. I was actually precicting a heel turn before the main event at the end of the show. I suddenly had comparisons of Brooke to Stephanie’s heel turn on Vince over a decade ago. Brooke turns on her dad and joins up with Flair. I really thought it was going to happen. I wasn’t cheering for it to happen obviously but there was way too much of her on the show. I liked the stuff with Angle and Anderson. I loved that Angle went right to where Anderson was immediately when he started talking. Such simple wrestling psychology there. Well, Eric Young did more for me last night than he probably ever has. I’m happy to see Daffney being used more as I liked that character back in WCW. It was one of the few things I liked about the end of WCW.
Other notes from Impact. Wow, Hogan, Sting, and Flair in the same ring on a live broadcast in 2010. Who would have thought? It was clear that RVD was the surprise opponent even more when they went to break and Tazz mentioned the old RVD ECW 4:20 line. The crowd knew too without even hearing that line. They were chanting RVD when Sting was in the ring but they tried to drowned out the crowd as it was happening. Everyone knew it was RVD. I want to know what the Impact Zone was chanting at Bubba cause they kept drowning out that crowd chant where you couldn’t hear it. I’m sure it wasn’t anything good. Whoops, did you see them cut early to back with Bischoff at the beginning of the Nash, Hall, Waltman, Young segment? Things like that are going to happen with live TV. I laughed at Hall telling Nash that he’d see him at the PPV and that he’d be “the one dressed like Elvis”. Nice throwback to the lame Elvis thing that they did years ago in TNA. New open and theme song for Impact which I thought looked good. I’m pretty sure that I saw Jesse from Big Brother in the crowd at the Impact Zone. He is a big wrestling fan.
On to the recap of WWE Raw. The match opened with Shawn and Undertaker talking about their WrestleMania match. Undertaker said that Shawn’s obsession was going to cost him the ultimate price, his career. Shawn talked of how he had seen fear in Undertaker over that his streak may be about to end. Undertaker told him to choose his next words carefully to which Shawn replied again “fear”. Shawn asked him if he really thought he’d sacrifice his career if he didn’t think he could win. Undertaker called him a man of desperation to which Shawn said no. Shawn was going right at him with what he was saying. It was a really good back and forth segment. Shawn said that he was so determined that he only wanted to win this match by pinfall or submission wanting the match to be No DQ and No CO. Undertaker agreed and said that Shawn might be the best ever that he has seen in the ring but that he will do whatever it takes to keep the streak going. Shawn told him to keep telling himself that and that the black cloud of the streak ending at WrestleMania would follow Undertaker forever. Both were really intense in their words and it was really good. Let’s get right to the main event. Yeah, this was lame. John Cena takes on Vince McMahon. Well, Vince announces that the match is a handicap gauntlet match. So, Vince keeps bringing out partners to help him. First guy is Kozlov. Kozlov does the damage and then Vince goes to pin Cena. Cena kicks out. Vince calls out Drew McIntyre. Same deal. Jack Swagger is the next guy out but Cena gets on offense with him. Swagger takes him down. Vince tries to pin. Cena kicks out. Vince brings out Mark Henry who does not look happy to be a part of this. He reluctantly hits the world’s strongest slam but Cena kicks out. Vince goes for the ring bell saying this is now a No DQ match. He tells Henry to hit Cena with the bell. Henry dumps the bell out to the floor. Batista then runs in and nails Henry. Batista had said earlier in the night that he would not get involved in the match. It should also be pointed out that Cena also said that he was not as confident against Batista cause he had never beaten him. Batista takes out Henry and then Kofi runs in for the save. Kofi gets some offense in but Batista nails him with a powerbomb out of the corner. Cena gets up and takes the fight to Batista. Vince then gets cornered by Cena. He goes for the adjustment but gets hit by a spear from Batista. After a Batista bomb, Vince pins Cena. The show goes off with a spotlight on the ring as Batista stands over Cena. Legacy took on Randy Orton. The question is how much offense will Legacy get in this week. Things looked bad when they got jumped by Orton walking down the aisle. The match went three segments and two of those had Legacy getting beaten up. Orton went for the RKO but Cody got in to stop it. Dibiase then recoved and hit dreamstreet to pin Orton. After the match, Rhodes hit crossrhodes and they mocked Orton with his old pose. Triple H did an in ring promo talking about the attack by Sheamus last week. He said that he had respect for what Sheamus did adding that he would have done the same thing in his shoes to make a statement. Sheamus did arrive and Triple H said that Sheamus had probably had the best first year ever for any superstar but that WrestleMania was a whole different ball game. Triple H talked of how he went on to win matches at WrestleMania looking to fight the biggest dogs and that his only list of defeats were Cena and Batista. Guess he forgot the Warrior. LOL. Basically, he asked Sheamus if he was willing to gamble of them going at it at WrestleMania. Sheamus ended up taking a swing and the fight was on. The fight went to the floor with them going back and forth. Sheamus ends up getting hit with a spinebuster in the ring and then bails out. The last Money In The Bank Qualifier was held with Evan Bourne defeating William Regal to get the last spot. Christian did commentary on the match. John Morrison and R Truth were set to take on ShoMiz in a preview of WrestleMania. The ref stopped it when the match got out of his control. Morrison and Truth take it to ShoMiz with them saying that they needed to now be taken seriously as contenders at WrestleMania. The team of Eve, Kelly, and Gail defeated the team of Maryse, Alicia, and Katie when Eve got Maryse to tap out to her armbar submission. Criss Angel was the guest host of the show and just basically did backstage segments with illusions and all. He did do the ring announcing for the main event.
Other notes from Raw. Did you notice that Ultimate Warrior has replaced Ric Flair in the WWE open? Wow, Legacy just isn’t getting any favors done for them. You can’t have them just getting beaten up EVERY week and have them taken seriously. Yeah, Dibiase got the win but what I remember is that Orton was beating them up for most of the match. The Criss Angel stuff was just there for me. I was done with it after the eye deal in his first segment. I thought, oh ok, I’m done while cringing away from the TV. I like the new addition of pyro to Morrison’s entrance. Looks really cool with the effect. How much lamer can they have Regal’s rookie looking? He is wearing an Austin vest and a cowboy hat? Do you remember when Kozlov was a main eventer? I like Drew McIntyre’s new music even after only hearing seconds of it. The song “Be Yourself” returns to WWE after four years as a WrestleMania theme song. You may remember it being used for the Divas Search in 2005 and then became the theme song for the winner, Ashley Massaro. Where was Michael Cole at when Legacy was holding up the Orton pose? Cole says that they are taunting him with his “classic pose”. Wouldn’t that be “vintage”? It was perfect timing for it and he went for classic. I kind of laughed at Triple H completely ignoring his WrestleMania debut loss to The Ultimate Warrior. Oh, the WrestleMania Recall moment of Lesnar and Goldberg from WrestleMania XX. One of my favorite WM moments ever and that was because of the crowd reaction. The fans knew Lesnar was leaving and ripped on him through the whole thing along with Goldberg. Austin was the ref and the only one getting cheered. The Raw main event was lame. Just lame. TNA needed to take advantage of that last night for sure.
Stone Cold Steve Austin will be the guest host on Raw next week from San Diego. He will handle the contract signing next week between Bret and Vince. That should be fun with Austin helping Bret.
Hulk Hogan appeared with Jimmy Hart last week where he announced the news of the signing of Rob Van Dam to TNA wrestling. Dixie Carter announced on Twitter last week that Sting has signed a new deal to remain with TNA. Traci Brooks was let go by TNA last week and she posted a statement about the release saying that the company just had nothing for her to do. She talked about how much that she had enjoyed being a part of the company all of these years. Roxxi and Sean Morley are also gone from TNA.
Eric Bischoff has already come out firing at WWE including something about the Bret/Vince match at WrestleMania. "Allegedly WWE found out about a Lloyds of London policy that Bret had in effect AFTER setting up this match, and as a result Lloyds of London has to approve of the physical structure of the match. Can't confirm this, and perhaps WWE has "bought out" the problem, but if not..could be disappointing. Either way, I am looking forward to it and am happy for Bret. Going back to WWE in any capacity was the right thing for him to do at this stage of his life."
Mickie James posted on her Twitter about surgery that she had last week due to a staph infection in her leg. She did say that she will not be competing at WrestleMania this year due to it.
I am sad to hear the news of the passing of Angelo Poffo. He is of course the father of Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo. He passed away at the age of 84. I haven't seen much footage of his wrestling career since it was many years ago so my memories of him are mostly with his WCW run along side of Savage in the mid 90's. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family in this tough time.
The new Shawn Michaels “My Journey” DVD was released in stores today. Included on the set is a sitdown interview with Shawn talking about his career and various matches. Many great matches on the set as well. Matches on the set include:
Shawn vs. One Man Gang (World Class – 1/11/85)
Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose and Doug Summers (AWA WrestleRock 1986)
Rockers vs. Brain Busters (Boston Garden – WWF – 3/18/89)
Rockers vs. Hart Foundation (WWF – MSG – 11/25/89)
Shawn vs. Bret Hart (Intercontinental title match – 6/2/92)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (Raw – 3/6/95)
Shawn vs. Sid (Raw - 9/11/95)
Shawn vs. 123 Kid (Raw – 3/4/96)
Shawn vs. Mankind (Raw – 8/11/97)
Shawn vs. Bulldog (One Night Only – 9/20/97)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (Royal Rumble 1998)
Shawn vs. Jericho (WrestleMania XIX)
Shawn vs. Flair (Bad Blood 2003)
Shawn vs. Angle (WrestleMania 21)
Shawn’s Promo on Hogan the night after SummerSlam
Shawn vs. Triple H (Raw 12/19/05)
Shawn vs. Cena vs. Edge vs. Orton (Backlash 2007)
Shawn vs. Orton (Survivor Series 2007)
Shawn vs. Jericho (Unforgiven 2008)
Shawn vs. Undertaker (WrestleMania 25)
Cue the Kane/Pete Rose stuff. Pete Rose will be the Raw guest host on the Monday before WrestleMania.
The Celebrity Apprentice premieres this Sunday night on NBC. Definite ties to wrestling with Maria and Bill Goldberg being a part of the cast.
Back to the Monday Night Wars of last night with my opinions on what I liked best.
Show Of The Night: I’m going to give it to TNA Impact. The show was more exciting and had more going on. Raw was just more of the same stuff but I did like a lot of the stuff on it.
Match Of The Night: Daniels vs. Kazarian vs. Williams in the X-Division championship match from TNA Impact.
That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!
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