Monday Night Raw
Date: October 31, 2011
Location: Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler
Guest Stars; The Muppets

I’m not going to lie: I’m a diehard Muppets fan. I’m going to absolutely lose it when they come out and I don’t care who knows about it. As for the show, I really don’t care as it’s going to pale in comparison to all of the stuff with them. Henry vs. Punk is happening tonight and if Punk wins, he gets the shot at Del Rio in New York. Let’s get to it.

We open with Rock on satellite from earlier today. This is his response to Cena’s request for Rock to be his tag partner. Rock is pretty calm here. He says they both represent a generation and Rock (with some gray in his beard) says no. Why would he join up with the Fruit Loop Troop when Cena has been going after Rock for years?

However, the people started talking about how Rock had to do this. With that, he listened to the people and in that sense, Cena’s wish is coming true and at Survivor Series they’ll be a team for one night only. Also though, Rock is doing this so that Cena can witness what is waiting for him at Wrestlemania. The match is on.

Cena vs. Miz later.

CM Punk vs. Mark Henry

We get some exclusive footage from Vengeance, which is just the ring collapsing. They showed this on Smackdown ads last week but it’s called “never before seen”. So they don’t even watch Raw anymore? Before the match starts here’s Johnny Ace who says that if Punk can beat Henry he gets the shot at Del Rio. They probably needed to tell the live crowd that.

Punk tries to fight down the monster but gets caught in a powerslam for two. Punk sends him into the corner and hits a slingshot clothesline and the Macho Elbow for two. Alberto and Ricardo come down with Alberto giving Ricardo some specific instructions. Ricardo comes in and attacks Henry who shoves him off. That isn’t a DQ so Ricardo comes in with a shoe and that’s enough for the DQ at 2:35. That fits in the story so I can’t complain here.

Punk beats on Ricardo a bit and throws him in for the Slam.

THE MUPPETS ARE NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In two weeks, it’s the return of Rock to Raw. What is this, his third return special in 9 months?

HERE THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s Kermit and Miss Piggy and I can’t stop smiling. They come up from behind a stage and are kind of cheered. Piggy calls herself the original Diva and that brings out Vickie and Dolph. Swagger says it ain’t easy being a plate of frog legs and a ham sandwich. Kermit tries to play peacemaker and says they don’t want trouble from Swagger and his mother. Piggy and Vickie get into a shoving match and here’s Santino to a pop. He announces himself vs. Swagger later but Swagger closes Kermit’s mouth for him. Kermit faints from a lack of air. Santino says there will be no Dolph in Jack’s corner tonight because he has to face Ryder. Kermit and Piggy say WOO WOO WOO You Know It.

Here’s Kelly for no apparent reason in….some kind of costume. She has a cowboy had and a sword. Kelly kisses Kermit and Piggy is MAD. There’s a Divas costume battle royal next.

Battle Royal

They’re all in costumes and I’m not going to list off what they’re all in. Eve is Robin, the Bellas rule all as Mario and Luigi. AJ is a chick from Mortal Kombat. The match of course is junk as are most battle royals. Natalya is in there as….some kind of queen I guess. Kaitlyn is Dog the Bounty Hunter and is out.

We’re down to Nattie, Kelly, the Bellas and Eve. Eve beats up both Bellas and Alicia is in this still too. There go the twins after a Stinkface from Kelly. Natalya tries a cover out of instinct which Beth got on Eve for earlier. There goes Alicia as well as Kelly, but Eve dumps Nattie for the win at 2:45. She’s #1 contender now.

The good chicks stand down the evil ones and the bad ones leave.

OFF TO MUPPET LABS!!! Bunsen Honeydew has a potion for Santino and sends Beaker after him. Beaky runs into Christian instead and the Canadian steals the potion, pouring it out. Sheamus pops up behind Beaker who now has his head stuck inside his shirt. Christian leaves and Sheamus fixes Beaker. Beaker talks to Sheamus…..who says he can’t make the family reunion, but tell Aunt Teresa he says high. Sheamus fixes Beaker’s hair to look like his.

Air Boom vs. Cody Rhodes/Wade Barrett

The bell rings after a break. Bourne vs. Rhodes starts us off but it’s off to Kofi about ten seconds in. Kofi hits kind of a spinning pendulum kick in the corner but gets taken down by Rhodes kicking the rope on a springboard. Off to Barrett (in dark gray instead of black) who hits a Bossman Slam and then a chinlock. Barrett actually throws some punches and it’s back to Kofi. Kofi is beaten on for a bit until it’s a hot tag to Bourne. He speeds things way up and counters Wasteland into a DDT for two. Everything breaks down and Kofi is sent to the floor. Bourne gets caught in Wasteland and we’re done at 5:22.

Rating: C-. I don’t get that at all. What is the point in having the champions lose clean again to a thrown together heel combination? The match wasn’t horrible, but why did they need to lose twice like that? I don’t understand at all and it’s book like this that makes the tag division and champions in general look weak.

Post match Christian comes out for some reason to help beat down Kofi but Sheamus makes the save and kicks Cody’s head off.

STATLER AND WALDORF ARE IN THE BALCONY!!!! Statler does the WHAT chant to annoy Waldorf.

Punk comes in to see Ace, who he makes fun of. Ace says Punk can have the title match, if he can convince Alberto to give him one.

Brodus Clay is here next week.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show

Show pounds away in the corner and Del Rio is in trouble early on. It’s domination for the first few minutes with Del Rio only managing a few kicks to the legs. Show misses a charge but hits a clothesline to keep his momentum. Alberto grabs a sleeper which shifts into a chinlock. Show breaks it up and we head to the floor where Show pounds away on him. The bald one misses a charge into the barricade and Del Rio misses an enziguri which is sold anyway.

Alberto hooks a front facelock back in the ring but Show throws him off with relative ease. Both guys are down now. For some reason, Del Rio wants to slug it out with Show as they’re on their knees. Somehow Show is knocked down for two but he easily shoves out of it. Shoe sends him to the floor again and we take a break. Back with Del Rio working on the leg as this is needing to end soon. Speaking of that, Del Rio is sent to the floor and when he comes back in, he walks into the punch for the pin clean at 14:00. Another champion loses.

Rating: C-. The psychology was there for the most part but parts of this were way boring. Show is a guy you have to wrestle a certain way which I think Alberto did here for the most part. Not a bad match, but it needed to have about three and a half minutes cut out of it for the match to work.

Post match here’s Punk while Del Rio is still out cold. He pours water on Del Rio to take him up. Punk wants a clean answer and says before he gets that answer, Punk is going to put on the Anaconda Vice. There’s the hold and Del Rio agrees to the match. His mic goes out again but Punk shouts into the other one that HE SAID YES.

FOZZIE AND GONZO ARE IN THE BACK!!! They talk about how big the guys are and Gonzo says he could be a champion if he tried. Team Vickie comes up and pulls Gonzo’s arms through his shirt to tie him up, saying stay out of Ziggler’s match later. Gonzo is cool with it and Fozzie isn’t sure what to say.

Muppet Movie promo. Oh yes.

Animal is the guest time keeper for the next match. He’s as crazy looking as ever.

Jack Swagger vs. Santino Marella

Swagger beats him down quickly and does pushups on Santino’s back. The fans want Ryder. Swagger grabs the ankle lock but Santino rolls through it. Here’s Beaker with the energy drink to give to Santino. He winds up spitting it into Swagger’s face for the rollup pin at 2:37. Harmless fun.

Zack Ryder vs. Dolph Ziggler

This is non-title. Basic start with a missile dropkick missing and we head to the floor. Dolph is put down and we take a break. Back with Ziggler in control, working on the neck. A neckbreaker puts Ryder down and Dolph nips up. Ryder catches him in a slingshot and they slug it out. A flapjack puts Ziggler down and here’s the Broski Boot for two.

Ryder gets a double knee to Ziggler’s chest in the corner for the pin but Ziggler’s foot was on the rope. The bell rings but it gets waved off due to the feet. Zack chases him around the ring but Vickie interferes. A superkick puts Ryder down but he avoids the Zig Zag. The Rough Ryder pins Ziggler clean at 8:54.

Rating: C. Do they know if they want Ryder or Ryan to take the title off Ziggler yet? It’s really unclear at times but maybe that’s the point. You do have to give them credit for giving Ryder a push due to his crowd reactions lately. Not a horrible match, but they need to either have him win the title or move him on to something else.

We recap HHH/Nash from last week. It’s 10:47 and we have Miz vs. Cena and Cole’s Challenge to go. Doesn’t Nash have a contract already? Why would he need another one? HHH will be out five weeks and Nash has been re-signed.

Cole gets on the announce table and says Ross isn’t here tonight due to something regarding his bowels. Yeah yeah here we go again. Adult diaper jokes are made and the Challenge is moved to next week due to having too much on the show I guess.

Statler and Waldorf make fun of Cole but the laugh isn’t quite right.

Miss Piggy is rubbing Morrison’s abs and Morrison isn’t sure what to make of this. She hits on him but Morrison says he has a friend for her. It’s Horny, who now has a Piggy tattoo on his ankle. He kisses her but gets karate chopped for his efforts. Kermit comes up and Horny is in love. Cody comes in and bags Kermit. SOMEBODY SHOOT THAT MAN!!!

So yeah, no Cole vs. Ross tonight despite it being pushed harder than anything most of the week.

John Cena vs. The Miz

Statler and Waldorf make fun of Miz a bit. This has easily been the weakest part of the Muppet part of the show. We go to a break before the bell….at 10:55. The bell rings after 11pm so this is going to be short. Totally basic match so far and we’re over five minutes into it. There’s just nothing to say because they’re flying through it for the sake of time. Miz hits some of his basic stuff until Cena fires back with a big running clothesline which gets two. Cena hits a superplex for two and we head to the floor. A guy in a Scream mask hits Cena and back in the ring….it means nothing as the STF ends this at 9:00.

Rating: C-. Hard to fault them here because they had to rush things and the match didn’t mean much at all. Cena is always good for a quick one though, even though this would have fit better at a house show more than on Raw. For a main event though, especially for a fun show like this, I can’t fault it much.

Post match the Scream guy comes in again and takes an AA. It’s Truth.

Overall Rating: B. Ok now that’s likely high because of the Muppet involvement but they’re my reviews so who cares? The Muppets fall squarely under the category of “if you don’t like this at least a tiny bit, you have no soul.” This was designed to be a fun show and that’s exactly what it was. Rock/Cena was officially set up, the traditional Survivor Series match was planned and that’s all that needed to happen. The Muppets were fun and that’s all there is to this show.

Results
Mark Henry b. CM Punk via DQ when Ricardo Rodriguez interfered
Eve Torres won a battle royal last eliminating Natalya
Wade Barrett/Cody Rhodes b. Air Boom – Wasteland to Bourne
Big Show b. Alberto Del Rio – WMD
Santino Marella b. Jack Swagger – Rollup
Zack Ryder b. Dolph Ziggler – Rough Ryder
John Cena b. The Miz – STF

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Ring of Honor
Date: October 29, 2011
Location: Davis Arena, Louisville, Kentucky
Commentators: Nigel McGuinness, Kevin Kelly

After last week we can actually see some angles starting to come together. This is I think the sixth episode for this show and it’s about time that it turned into a regular show. Their pacing is still pretty bad but from what I can find that is going to start changing on this show in that there are actually three matches for this episode. Let’s get to it.

Ok so it’s Saturday afternoon and I turn on Ring of Honor…..and it’s the same episode from last week. I mean Mondo vs. Perkins and the TV Title match tonight. The show re-airs on Sunday night so I’ll see if that’s the new one. Until then I’ll try to find a copy of it.

Ok so now it’s Sunday night and we have the actual show. Good to see.

We open with a recap of last week’s TV Title match which ended in a draw.

Kyle O’Reilly says he’s good. Roderick Strong says he isn’t worried about O’Reilly because he’s a punk kid.

Kyle O’Reilly vs. Roderick Strong

Truth Martini sits in on commentary. They start with technical stuff as Martini talks about Strong’s open challenge for Final Battle. They hit the mat and neither guy can take over that well. Both guys avoid strikes and the fans applaud the stalemate. These guys look a lot alike. Time for strikes because this is a Ring of Honor match. Northern lights suplex gets two for Kyle.

Strong goes to his bread and butter in the form of a backbreaker (half nelson variety here) for two. We take a break and come back with Kyle chopping Roderick but getting caught in a waistlock. Martini is off commentary now. More strikes from O’Reilly including a missile dropkick for two. Butterfly suplex is countered as is a backbreaker. O’Reilly hits rolling butterfly suplexes for two.

Roderick takes him off the top and pounds him down with ease. A modified sitout powerbomb gets two. Strong tries a few moves but Kyle counters off of there. Here are some more strikes for his troubles and a fireman’s carry into a spinebuster gets two. Strong Hold (Boston Crab) doesn’t work because Strong is a heel. A half nelson is countered into a crucifix for two. O’Reilly hooks on a guillotine choke but Rodderick rolls forward for two. A running kick (gee, another strike!) ends this for Strong at 12:28.

Rating: C. I get the appeal of it, but man those strikes get annoying fast. I mean, DO SOMETHING ELSE!!! Why is that such a difficult request to fulfill? I don’t like Richards’ style at all and Kyle is part of Team Richards or whatever it is. They try to do almost MMA matches out there and it doesn’t make for entertaining wrestling other than in the eyes of people that think doing a lot of strikes and such make for good matches.

Post match more House of Truth people and Richards come out with Richards being beaten down. Eddie Edwards comes out for the final save. I think I smell a tag match.

After the break, Cornette says that every member of the House of Truth is being fined $2500. Some fans want Kevin Steen back and let’s put the cameras on them. Cornette says Steen has too many mental problems so there won’t be any Steen back. If Steen doesn’t like that, sue him.

Either Lethal or Edwards will get the world title match at Final Battle. Gee, I wonder if it’ll be a guy that has nothing to do with Richards or his former partner that he beat for the belt in the first place. Both guys say they should get the shot.

We also hear about Proving Ground matches. The idea is that they’re non-title, but if you can beat them or get to a time limit draw, you get a title match within 90 days. Logical. A new tag team has such a match next week and they say nothing of note.

Alex Silva vs. Tomasso Ciampa

Steve Corino sits in on commentary. His first line: “My name is Steve Corino and I’m an evil http://onhealthy.net/product-category/cholesterol/ person.” He’s trying to reform his evil ways which could set up a sweet heel turn later on if need be. Silva is an OVW guy who likes to kick a lot. Oh ok so that makes sense now. Ciampa spits at a handshake attempt and hits a jumping kick to take over early on. They go to the floor and let the pain begin.

Silva takes a suplex on the floor and it’s off to a chinlock in the ring. They kick it out a bit as Corino offers to be a mentor to Ciampa. A neckbreaker puts Silva down and there’s a running knee to the face. Make that two knees. Ok three. I think you get the idea here. Silva’s face would seem to say…”THAT REALLY FREAKING HURT!” A powerbomb onto double knees (Project Ciampa) ends this at 4:00.

Rating: C. Total squash here but Ciampa is a pretty decent power guy. He needs to have an actual feud though which is one of the problems with the way they air ROH. With only an hour a week, having the multiple ten minute matches is becoming a big problem. I do however really like them fitting in a quick match like this to showcase someone else other than just two teams/acts a show.

All Night Express vs. Briscoe Brothers

Main event here and the winners get Haas/Benjamin at Final Battle. It’s a brawl on the floor to start as they don’t wait for the intros. I think that’s Jay vs. Kenny to start but it’s off to Titus quickly. The Express takes over to start with the quick tags. A big clothesline gets two for King. The Briscoes take over and pound away as we go to a break. Back with King in trouble but hitting an enziguri to put Mark down.

The fans are totally behind the Briscoes here which isn’t the idea but who cares about that? They know what wrestling is right? Anyway Jay runs in as we hear about how good Titus is in bed. Why does McGuinness know that? Next week we find out who gets the shot at Richards. Backslide gets two for King. There’s the hot tag to Titus and they beat on Jay for a bit, including a dropkick for two.

The fans still chant for the Briscoes as we’re really running out of time here. Jay counters King but can’t hit his finisher (Jay Driller). Mark takes out Rhett and a spinebuster puts down King with a spinebuster. Rhett and Jay go up but Jay is dropped into a snake eyes. Mark goes off on Titus and botches a springboard cutter to put Titus down.

King hits a springboard Blockbuster but walks into a DDT from Jay as all four are down. In a pretty innovative ending, the Express sets for their finisher (Blockbuster/powerbomb combo) but Jay knocks King down and clotheslines his own brother into a rana on Titus for the pin at 12:42. Think about that and it’ll make sense.

Rating: C+. The opening stuff of this (as in before the commercial) was really pedestrian but after that the match got a lot better. They threw out the tagging aspect and the hot tag didn’t have a lot of heat on it, mainly due to the Briscoes being one of those teams that is so over they can’t really be turned heel. Also the fact that they’re athletic and do impressive looking stuff makes it hard to boo them.

Overall Rating: C. Well, they’re getting there. I guess that’s the best way to put it. The show having a third match is a huge step in the right direction and they cut down the lengths of the two featured matches to make them fit into the time frame much better this week. Not a bad show but it’s nothing good either. At least we’re building to something for a change, which is a nice thing to see.

Results
Roderick Strong b. Kyle O’Reilly – Sick Kick
Tomasso Ciampa b. Alex Silva – Project Ciampa
Briscoe Brothers b. All Night Express – Hurricanrana to Titus

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Halloween Havoc 1995
Date: October 29, 1995
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 13,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

So we plow on through 1995 as I want to finish this year and get to the NWO stuff. Anyway this is a rather infamous show as we have a double main event: Hogan vs. The Giant for the WCW Title and Hogan vs. The Giant in monster trucks. Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Anyway, this is a show I remember kind of fondly from when I was seven. Now I’m 22 so let’s see how bad it really is. Also on here we have Sting and a freshly face Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman, and we know that can’t go wrong at all right?

Also on the preshow, Paul Orndorff beat Renegade, the previously unstoppable machine, in about 80 seconds. Also we had three guys that had just recently signed with the company: Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Sadly enough this show is only 15 years ago and of the five men mentioned in this paragraph, Orndorff and Malenko are still alive. Eddie died of heart failure despite being in great shape, Renegade and Benoit killed themselves, and Orndorff is so injured he can barely move. Wow indeed.

WCW really was hilarious with how overblown their Halloween stuff was. It’s pure camp and it’s hilarious. So Hogan has gone to the dark side, shaving his facial hair and wearing all black. Yeah whatever. Remember we’re still about 8 months from the NWO at this point. Hey a big arena is actually full! I’m stunned too. Oh I forgot: the truck think is on the roof of the building next door.

BREAKING NEWS!

Flying Brian and Arn Anderson have apparently beaten up Ric Flair. That’s just amusing.

Tony wants to know why Heenan has been eating sushi. That’s actually foreshadowing.

We recap Johnny B. Badd and DDP. So if you remember the last show, Badd won a title shot against Sting. We have the match, but Badd is nowhere to be seen. Brian got the shot instead but lost. Badd showed up at the end of the show and says he had a flat tire. Gene says he could have called. Just whip out your cell phone the size of a brick and call Johnny. DDP showed up and said that he should have gotten the shot. His bodyguard says it must suck to have four flat tires. Johnny realizes something is up because he only said it was one flat tire so he punched Page. It was never explained WHY DDP would have messed with Johnny’s car but whatever.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd

Apparently Sting isn’t here yet so he doesn’t know what happened to Flair. Seriously, how do these people get away with being late to work all the time??? This is being written about two hours after Lockdown went off and Bischoff got to the arena at like 1030. HOW DOES HE HAVE A JOB??? Can you imagine if you showed up to work on a huge day two and a half hours late minimum?

A fake Johnny B. Badd comes out but the real one comes through the crowd to jump him. Tony says this started with a bang. That’s just amusing given what Page would become. Ok hang on a second. Earlier on we saw the two monster trucks dueling a bit. Apparently that was Hogan and Giant driving. So they just get together and ram trucks together? Also note that they were already welded together. Keep that in mind.

In a funny spot, Patrick asks Badd if he pulled DDP’s hair. Badd replies by shouting YOU MEAN LIKE THIS and pulls DDP’s hair. That’s just amusing. Heenan says everyone has been talking about the PPV, even the pilot on his plane. WOW. Tony says DDP likes controlling his matches. Wow I thought he liked getting beaten up. You can’t buy commentary like this.

And we hit the chinlock. Maxx Muscle slaps the mat while the fans are chanting for Badd. Yeah Page had a tendency to have stupid managers. We do some more stuff and hit another chinlock. At least there’s a theme to this match. Just to be clear: Bobby Heenan will NOT be managing the Detroit Tigers. Ok then.

After Badd makes another comeback, he throws Page to the floor with no explanation for the lack of a DQ other than that’s not the planned finish. He even busts out what would become the basis for the 619. Maxx Muscle interferes but screws up and the big punch ends this.

Rating: C. This was one of those matches that was just kind of there. It’s not particularly good or bad but rather just long. It’s not terrible by any means but it just happened. Badd vs. DDP would be a feud for a good while until he got fired/left for WWF as Marc Mero.

We talk about the monster truck thing to kill time.

Randy Savage vs. Zodiac

Zodiac has what would become Rey’s music soon. It’s Brutus Beefcake being able to only say yes or no. Yeah it didn’t work. I’m stunned too. Ok so apparently Luger and Savage have to win their matches earlier in the night to get a match with each other tonight. If just one wins then…nothing happens I guess. Well ok then. I love that rock version of Pomp and Circumstance.

Savage jumps him early and is dominating. A fan runs into the ring and stays in there for like 20 seconds with the referee just owning him. Security gets rid of him as Savage wins with the elbow in less than two minutes. This was supposed to be Kamala but he left the company. No one else noticed. Total squash so no rating.

Badd says that he believed he could do this and he did it. This is supposed to be emotional or something but it just isn’t. Gene mentions singing Tutti Frutti in a bar. It’s far funnier than it sounds.

Kurasawa vs. Hawk

This was an odd choice. On Clash of the Champions, Kurasawa broke Hawk’s arm and this is the rematch. No one got this feud or why Hawk was wrestling singles matches or who in the world Kurasawa was other than a good movie makes. Hawk jumps him like you would expect him to as we get going. Hawk gets his one wrestling move, the neckbreaker.

Crowd is into Hawk if nothing else. He even busts out a powerbomb and a gutwrench suplex. Total dominance here. Parker interferes so Kurasawa can take over. He misses a top rope elbow and Hawk takes over again. He was in trouble for MAYBE 4 seconds. Big old clothesline puts the heel on the floor.

On the floor Hawk is rammed into the post, taken into the ring, Kurasawa hits two Samoan Drops and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. I have been reviewing shows for over a year now and I have NEVER seen a match that made less sense. This was never mentioned again. Hawk destroyed him until that ending. No sense at all.

Rating: WTF. I have nothing else to say for that. Hawk looked like he was beating up a jobber and he loses? No rating again but dude, what the heck were they thinking here? Why did Hawk have a singles match here anyway? WCW continues to boggle the mind.

Savage says he’s going to make sure Luger wins. But let’s talk about Hogan instead.

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

JL is short for Jerry Lynn in case you didn’t know that. And yes, it’s the same Sabu. The reason he’s here is he’s the Sheik’s nephew and Sheik was the king of Detroit back in the day. Lynn is in a mask here. WOW it’s weird hearing Sabu being talked about by Tony. Also that sounds like La Parka’s future music but I’m not sure. Both guys are in purple which is odd to see. They do all kinds of flying around ringside with Sabu doing all kinds of crazy dives etc.

We even get a Bobo Brazil reference to make this even more off the wall. This is pretty good for today’s standards despite being sloppy, but for 1995 this was INSANE. I mean remember, WWF was running stuff like Mabel vs. Taker at this time so having Lynn vs. Sabu on a major PPV was ridiculous.

Sabu wins it with a moonsault and Sheik throws a fireball at Lynn and hits him in the mask. Ok then. Heenan freaks over this and wants to know how to do that. Don’t ask Hogan. He tried it once and it didn’t work at all.

Rating: B+. Somewhat above average match, but considering the timeframe, this was insanity. Rey was nearly a year away from changing the whole idea of what cruiserweight wrestling was, but everyone knew this kind of stuff rocked. Sabu can be passable when he’s not trying to do a garbage match, and this is an example of that.

We talk about Hogan/Giant for a bit and go to the Master’s Lair to hear from him and Taskmaster. I would ask how we get a camera and electricity in there, but it doesn’t need to be asked. Why is that you ask? BECAUSE THE LAIR IS IN THE ARENA. Ok, let’s think for a minute. We have Kevin Sullivan and his master, an old man, standing in the arena with no apparent protection. Is there a reason why Hogan isn’t out there bashing their heads in with a chair?

I mean, I get that his friends are all busy, but can’t he fight off an old man and Kevin Sullivan on his own? This is something that I mean when I say idiotic storylines that go beyond suspension of disbelief. I have no idea what Master is saying here. Something about an eclipse or something. I wonder if he looks like that at the airport. Oh we get a mention of the Yeti. We’ll get to that one later. And now let’s talk about the trucks. The fans are booing the heck out of this. Let’s end this now.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

So if Luger wins here, he gets Savage later. Ok then. The fans pelt Sullivan with garbage. I knew I always liked Detroit. During Luger’s entrance we get a HILARIOUS sight joke that if you know your history is great. There’s a graveyard set due to Halloween and one of the graves says Crockett. If you get that joke, it’s hilarious. If not, it means nothing at all. Meng gets his head rams into the buckle and….it works? Come on man, learn your stereotypes!

Luger was rocking the mullet at this point which is just amusing. Meng busts out a small freaking package of all things. Well that was unexpected. Luger works on the right arm. Wow that’s weird to type. I know the common complaint about guys like Cena is they only know five moves, but I think Luger might break that. He might only know four: punch, clothesline, slam, rack. Oh wait: he uses an atomic drop. Dang I thought I had him there.

Meng is a weird case as he was someone that they seemed ready to push for like 3 and a half years but they never pulled the trigger on. Odd as he could have been perfect for a quick heel run near the title. Not saying he should have gotten it or anything, but a run against a top face was certainly within the question. Oh yeah: the NWO happened. He hits a chinlock, which is better than the nerve hold I guess.

Apparently the Dungeon of Doom is recruiting Luger. Yeah I don’t remember it either. We talk about Heenan talking to Sonny Onoo. That’s more foreshadowing for Starrcade which was a very interesting show. We’ll get to that soon. Meng gets his Golden Spike and Sullivan runs in and kicks Luger to give him the win. Ok then. Apparently it’s a method of getting Luger to fight Savage. Ok then. Yeah it’s odd but it kind of makes sense in a way.

Rating: D+. Again, it’s long but not very good. Also the ending was just rather annoying. Not particularly bad, but it’s just there. Luger was boring as always, but this needed to lose about 4 minutes and it makes it FAR better. This wasn’t that interesting but it certainly was long.

Gene is with the Giant. He literally doesn’t make it up to his shoulder. That’s just amusing. Giant taking the mic and Gene’s hand with it is funny stuff as Gene tries in vain to get out of his grip. Giant is pretty funny here as he’s like 23 years old and about 100lbs lighter than he is today.

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Ric Flair

So basically before Fall Brawl, Anderson and Flair had been fighting. Pillman gave Andersont he win by kicking Flair in the head. The next night on Nitro they had a rematch in a cage and Anderson and Pillman beat him down. Flair got Sting to help him, but Flair got jumped before the show so it’s a handicap match to start. Sting is US Champion here if that means anything to anyone at all.

Sting of course saw nothing wrong with this plan at all. The fans want Flair. Sting does a great job of fighting on his own for awhile but after about five minutes here comes Flair! He’s in street clothes and the fans like him. There’s a massive bandage over his head and Sting is in trouble now. The heels go old school and bust out a Rocket Launcher. Again, a few people will actually get that.

The idea here is that Sting can’t make the tag no matter how hard he tries. We get a stupid spot where Pillman gets a half crab. Ok, that’s fine. Pillman is pulling back on the leg to apply pressure right? Anderson reaches out his hand for extra pressure. One thing: Arn is pulling the opposite way. Wouldn’t that, like, take pressure off of Sting? Flair runs in for a save and gets a HUGE pop.

One thing though: he never actually gets a shot in on either heel. That doesn’t mean anything….does it? Sting is screaming for the NATURE BOY! Does Sting want to ride Space Mountain? This is fifteen years ago and Flair still has a horrible looking chest. That’s amazing. Sting FINALLY makes the tag and the place erupts. Wait for it. Wait for it. FLAIR DRILLS STING! Sting snaps but he gets beaten down. Flair is of course fine as Gene waits on the ramp for Flair.

The two not named Flair hold up four fingers and Flair reforms the Horsemen. A guy named Benoit would be added soon. Pillman would be gone by about April though and they would replace him with Mongo a few months later. And we couldn’t get those four vs. Sting, Luger, Savage and Hogan in WarGames…why? Yes I know why but I like complaining.

Rating: B. This is ALL angle and while it’s predictable, it’s classic Horsemen. This was the right move to make as it all came off as a great angle and the whole thing worked very well I think. This is a lot based in taste for me so don’t go looking for a great match here.

I love the Horsemen and their shenanigans as this was a great throwback to the 80s with the group beatdown. Pillman never quite fit but Benoit certainly did so there we are. Also it’s funny seeing Sting get beaten down due to being an idiot. Sting vs. these two is hardly bad either.

Luger wants Savage.

We recap Sting vs. the Dungeon. Basically it’s your standard Hogan vs. Monster and Giant hurts Hogan’s neck. They shaved his mustache and he started wearing black. This naturally started up a war of monster trucks. You see the connection don’t you? I mean it’s clear as day isn’t it? And then on Monday we did something that I don’t want to talk about for as long as I can so we’ll spare it for later.

We come back to the announcers’ table and Bischoff has replaced Tony since Tony had to go play with his hamster I guess. We talk to the guy that made the truck. Yeah no one cares. Apparently the truck weighs 11,000 pounds with 6 foot tall tires.

We go to the roof and a few things to note. First of all, Hogan stands about 7’8 apparently as he TOWERS over those “six foot tall” tires. Second, the rules are you have to get both sets of axels out of the ring, which is 100ft in diameter. Ok, fair enough. Third, we’re going to weld the trucks together. Pay no attention to the fact that they were welded together earlier (this was taped the night before but that isn’t mentioned).

Also for no apparent reason, in this ring we have two charges that will go off if you run over them. Yes, allegedly, on the roof of a building, there are BOMBS that will go off if a truck runs over them. The idiocy here is off the charts. Let’s get this over with.

First of all, we waste a few minutes welding the trucks together. Allegedly these trucks run on alcohol. So wait. There are BOMBS, as in EXPLODING FIRE, near alcohol based fuel? And this company made money??? Again, someone was PAID to make this up. That’s sad.

Oh and they have co-pilots so they’re only driving one set of axels. Hogan gets put halfway out but makes the save. Hogan’s truck has a flag kind of thing that is supposed to be the bandana I guess. One of the bombs goes off and my head hurts. Ah I think I know why Tony left: he has integrity. And Hogan wins of course. Somehow, the idiocy is just beginning.

Giant gets out of his truck and goes after Hogan, and the champ goes back towards the edge of the building. They fight some more up on the ledge and Hogan accidentally knocks Giant OFF THE ROOF. Yes, this was on a major Pay Per View broadcast by a major wrestling company. Hogan’s acting here makes Mr. Nanny look like De Niro. The monster truck dude has to sit here and not break up laughing. That’s just awesome.

And after the apparent death of a wrestler, let’s have a match!

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

Dang it’s a lucky thing they won their matches and that this is all they had left other than the main event isn’t it? And thus begins a grand WCW tradition of “we’re going to talk about something else entirely while this match is going on.”

Tony: For a minute let’s talk about this match. They make it about 8 seconds. This will apparently be on the front page of every newspaper in the world tomorrow. After some uninteresting wrestling, Jimmy Hart comes down for no adequately explored reason and Luger gets run into him. Elbow ends it.

Rating: F+. This was like 5 minutes long and I don’t remember any of it. That’s never a good sign. Just a total filler here as was the majority of the rest of WCW’s upper midcard around this time. There was this big mystery angle and all that jazz and it never went anywhere.

Heenan wants to know what’s going on and he leaves to go find out. We recap, as in reshow, the Hogan/Giant thing. Tony tries to keep from cracking up despite of Heenan’s overacting.

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

They introduce Giant first but Hogan comes out instead, all in black and sans facial hair. Wow that’s odd to see. Was Hart being Hogan’s BFF ever explained? Giant of course walks out with no explanation at all. In what might be the funniest thing that I have EVER seen in wrestling, the camera shoots back to Hogan just in time for him to turn to the camera and blankly stare while his mouth hangs open in awe.

I laughed out loud for a LONG time. I mean the timing was better than you could have planned if you tried forever. This was hilarious stuff to say the least. Heenan sounds orgasmic over this. His hatred of Hogan stayed forever if nothing else. Hogan has black horns painted on his head. Uh….deep?

He can’t slam him though. Oh and Giant is allegedly Andre’s son. Heenan: Eat Hogan like you would eat villagers! Ok then. Giant hooks a test of strength once Hogan is on his knees already. You know that might be more effective if your muscles were flexing or if you had ANY torque on them.

Heenan says he’s never seen Hogan wrestle in anything other than yellow and red. Odd that he’s seemingly managed against him in blue or white tights but what do I know? Giant is destroying him here. Hogan makes a comeback to some SOLID face pops and knocks Giant to the floor. Taskmaster tries to get Giant to leave but Hogan, like an idiot, stops him. Giant gets a SWEET backbreaker. Hogan was WAY in the air for that and it looked awesome.

Heenan points out how stupid Giant is for not going for Hogan’s bad neck. Give the guy a break Bobby. I mean he just fell off the  roof! The bear hug goes on and Tony cracks me up by making it sound like it’s perfectly normal to come back after falling off a roof. Even in kayfabe this is ridiculous. With the paint knocked off Hogan’s head it looks like there’s a Triforce on it. And back to the bear hug. He powers out but walks into the chokeslam. He powers out of that too.

He Hulks Up and the usual puts Giant down, but the referee goes down too. The fans say Jimmy did it. Just to add to the stupidity of this match, when Hogan is yelling at Hart, you can see Giant stick his head up three separate times to see what’s going on. Even playing devil’s advocate and saying he’s playing possum, you don’t have a 7’ monster playing peek-a-boo!

Anyway, Jimmy hits Hogan with the belt but Giant saves him. And it’s bear hug time again. Luger and Savage come out. Luger of course turns heel and….here it comes. This is the thing I didn’t want to talk about all night. On the previous Nitro, the Master had said he had a surprise. At the end of the show, a random block of ice blew up and a mummy came out of it. Yes, I said a mummy.

They called him a Yeti, but he’s a large man wrapped in bandages and tape. What the heck would you call him? With Giant having him in a bear hug, Yeti comes up behind Hogan and more or less dry humps him without actually hurting him at all. It’s Reese from the Flock if you care who is under there.

Luger puts Hogan in the rack to something resembling a pop. They dry hump Savage and rack him too. Giant wins by DQ because he was Hogan’s manager when he hit the referee. They announce that the title can’t change hands on DQ.

OR CAN IT?

Yeah in this match, Hart slipped a clause in, stating that the title CAN change hands on a DQ, so the Giant is the champion. They would strip him of the title in like two weeks and put it up in the inaugural World War Three Battle Royal, which is complete nonsense as Hogan lost the title via a stipulation in a contract he signed without reading. That’s not Giant’s fault but whatever. Hogan and Savage are helped out to end the show. Heenan crying from happiness is funny.

Rating: D. This was a Hogan match with a big angle to end it and nothing more. Giant wasn’t capable of doing much here as he was just a 23 year old kid that had like 5 matches under his belt but he was 7’0 tall, athletic beyond belief and could talk. I’d push him hard like that too.

Anyway, this wasn’t that good but it was Hogan fighting a monster which was what he was best at so I can’t fault them there. A bit long with FAR too many bear hugs but to be fair Giant had no experience and no real style set yet. He would get a lot better. Yeah this was his WCW debut. I’d say this was fine given the circumstances then.

Overall Rating: F+. Uh…yeah. This show sucked and it sucked bad. The highlight of the show is EASILY the Horsemen thing. Outside of that it’s a bunch of WTF moments with bad wrestling mixed in. This just didn’t work at all and it came off really badly. The whole thing was about Hogan and Giant, which is fine, but the roof thing wound up going nowhere.

It wasn’t mentioned at all in the last 20 minutes of the show and it was never explained at all. In short, it wasn’t needed at all. Just a lot of stuff here that made no sense at all and it didn’t work. Bad show, but a ton of moments that are considered classic bad ones here.

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I turned on the show and it was last week’s episode. I’ll track down this week’s episode but for now, there won’t be one because there’s no new episode airing here.

Smackdown
Date: October 28, 2011
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Booker T

Well it’s after Vengeance and not a lot has changed. Rhodes is still IC Champion because he didn’t defend at the PPV. Henry is still champion because he broke the ring. Ace is still annoying because it takes half the show for him to introduce himself. Other than that, there isn’t much to talk about on this show. It should be interesting to see where thing go as we approach Survivor Series. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the ring collapsing at Vengeance. There’s talk of something happening tonight but nothing specific is mentioned. This was a lot more like a commercial than an opening video.

First line of the show: “With Vengeance still a trending topic in the WWE…” It’s going to be a long night.

Teddy is in the ring to open things up and says Big Show, Henry and the status of the title are in flux. Both of them are here tonight though and the future of the title will be addressed tonight. That of course brings out Christian. He says the future of the title will be addressed right now. Vengeance was historic, meaning that it is now history. Since Show has had his shot, we need a new challenger.

Teddy brings up the loss to Sheamus and Christian says he’s resilient. He wants Long to name anyone that deserves the shot more than him. That brings out Punk of all people. Teddy talks about how there will be some Raw people here tonight for a Super Smackdown. The Brand Split’s days are numbered. Both wrestlers run down their respective bosses and Punk says Ace makes Teddy look like Theodore Roosevelt. Long: “Thank you for that player.” Punk: “It wasn’t exactly a compliment.”

Punk says he wants Christian to get one more match and Christian runs him down for some reason. The Canadian says Punk was the guy that stole the title and that Punk doesn’t deserve the title shot. Punk says he isn’t the one complaining and whining, which he uses a more colorful word for. Make that a word he uses about 15 times. Christian says no one wants Punk here, drawing a huge Punk chant. Punk says there are at least 10,000 people that want to see him here in Houston. The main event is made. Punk: “Holler holler holler.”

Air Boom vs. Awesome Truth

I’m not sure how smart this is but that’s WWE for you. We get a lot of clips from the PPV and Raw, showing the Cena beatdowns and the announcement of Rock/Cena, 24 hours after that was told to us on Vengeance. This is non-title. Kofi vs. Miz gets us going. A big knee puts Kofi down and it’s off to Truth. Off to Bourne as well for some double teaming by the champions.

BIG kick to the head takes Truth down but the Shooting Star is avoided. The heels double team Bourne on the floor a bit as we take a break. We get an explanation for Miz/Truth being annoyed because of Mania’s main event being made without them being in it. Back with the heels beating Bourne down again and Truth hooking a front facelock. Evan snaps off an enziguri and it’s a hot tag to the African who lives in America and used to be Jamaican. Everything breaks down and Kofi hits a BIG spinning cross body off the top. Bourne goes to the floor and the Little Jimmy Finale ends Kofi at 4:48 shown of 8:18.

Rating: C-. Not a great match or anything and while I get the point of pushing Awesome Truth, wasn’t there another team they could beat other than the champions? I could easily see Air Boom losing the titles before Survivor Series but it’s going to take more than that to make Awesome Truth into anything remotely close to a threat to Cena/Rock.

Awesome Truth runs down their list of accomplishments and says Cena picked the only guy that dislikes him more than they do.

In the back we see Bryan and Kidd arguing over Bret vs. Shawn. That’s a cool idea for a match actually. Santino (in a WWE All-Stars shirt) says we should have a match to see who the better trainer was.

Hornswoggle is a Broski. Thankfully Team Vickie pops up and brags that Ziggler has the title still. Dolph vs. Orton for later with Swagger banned from ringside. They leave and Aksana appears. DANG those things are big. Teddy sends Horny off.

Overly long recap of HHH and Nash from Monday.

Wade Barrett vs. Trent Barreta

Barrett says the Barrett Barrage continues. Trent tries to speed things up but walks into a Bossman Slam for two. Off to a bow and arrow hold which doesn’t last long. A big boot puts Trent on the floor as we’re in squash mode here. Barrett keeps hammering on him and counters a rana attempt into Wasteland at 2:33. Total dominance which Booker said as I was typing it.

Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler

Before the bell here’s Cody with the Baggers. He jumps in on commentary as a distraction for Randy. These two usually have good matches together so this should be decent. Cody doesn’t want to talk about Vengeance. The match is pretty fast paced to start. Well, fast paced for the standards of these two. No one can get much of an advantage here. Cody takes credit for Dolph’s success so far since he wore Orton down on Sunday.

Orton takes over and drops a knee onto the arm (he missed) for two. Randy uses some psychology though by working on the arm. It would have been better if he was working on the arm he dropped the knee on but maybe that’s too much to ask for. Orton gets all fired up so Ziggler wisely runs. I’ve never gotten why more heels don’t do that. If you see Hogan Hulking Up, GET OUT OF THE RING. Vickie yells at Orton as we go to a break.

Back with Ziggler getting two off a dropkick. Ziggler works on something that looks like the inbred cousin of the Rings of Saturn. Orton escapes but a DDT gets two for Dolph. Booker credits Ziggler, saying he does this with no gimmick or foreign objects. Cody takes offense to this, which means this might be the beginning of Booker vs. Rhodes which I’ve heard rumors of.

Ziggler goes up but Orton pops him in the ribs. Any chance we’ll get a Bob Orton superplex? Oh yes we will. Now for the bonus points will we get a mention of Pappy Orton? The suplex gets two and they slug it out. Orton gets all fired up and hits the powerslam to set up the RKO. Scratch that as it’s just the elevated DDT. Ziggler counters with a NICE superkick for two. Zig Zag is countered and Ziggler charges into the RKO for the pin at 10:27 shown of 13:57.

Rating: B. As usual, these two have a good match. Ziggler doesn’t need to lose anymore though as he’s lost most of his matches or has needed to cheat to win. The cheating is fine as he’s a heel, but he needs to stop losing clean. Even a countout loss would work fine for him. This was good though and I like this pairing more and more every time.

We recap the mask vs. mask match from last week.

Sin Cara Black (Hunico) looks like a stereotypical Mexican now and pants a lot. He calls himself Hunico (in a Spanish speech) and says it’s payback time. Oh joy. Yes let’s make a Mexican themed heel in a place where there’s a large Mexican population. Nothing could go wrong there at all right?

Brodus Clay needs to return already.

Tyson Kidd vs. Daniel Bryan

This is the Bret vs. Shawn Special. Things start off fast and they go to the mat. Bryan can’t hook the LeBell Lock but does manage to hit a running clothesline and a dropkick for two. Kidd rolls through a middle rope rana for two and it’s pinfall reversal time. Tyson tries the sharpshooter but Bryan counters into the LeBell Lock for the tap at 2:37. Short but really fun while it lasted.

Video on the ending of Raw, including the announcement of Rock as Cena’s partner.

Cole gets on the table and goes over the Michael Cole Challenge. We also see the same pictures he tweeted on Raw. Next.

Here’s Show to talk about the title match and what happened with the ring. “Oops I did it again.” That got a chuckle out of me. He says he’s never been in a fight like that. Show says he’s never been right in the head so let’s reenforce the ring and do it again! He’s been in conference with Teddy Long all day and there will indeed be a rematch. That brings out Henry who is a bit ginger. Must have eaten some bad Slater.

Henry says no rematch and that he made Show hurt, not the ring. The challenge is issued to fight right now and Henry bails. This was pretty basic.

Christian vs. CM Punk

The first few minutes goes back and forth with basic stuff and neither guy getting an advantage. Not that you would know that from the commentary as we talk about Herman Cain, Johnny Ace and Cole’s wife. After about three minutes of decent stuff, Christian misses a middle rope headbutt. Punk loads up the GTS and here’s Del Rio with music and Ricardo. The distraction lets Christian escape and we take a break.

Back with Christian in control and getting two on a few things, including the reverse DDT. Cole logically explains how Del Rio didn’t cheat in the last man standing match with the answer of “if there are no rules, how can you cheat?” Booker has nothing to answer that with. Punk fires off some strikes to put Christian down and Punk goes with him.

Back up and Punk starts up his comeback with a swinging neckbreaker for two. The sunset flip out of the corner by Christian is rolled through and Punk kicks him in the face. A middle rope cross body by Christian is rolled through for two. Punk tries a dive but gets caught in a powerslam for two. Punk hits the running knee and bulldog but has to chase Ricardo away. Springboard clothesline gets two so Punk loads up the Macho Elbow. Ricardo interferes and Del Rio is able to crotch Punk and momentum changes again. Christian sets for a spear but here’s Sheamus to distract him and the GTS ends this at 9:36 shown of 13:30.

Rating: B-. The match started off slowly but the stuff after the commercial helped it out a lot. I was wondering where Sheamus was so the run in at the end was perfectly fine. I don’t think anyone expected Christian to win here and that’s fine. Punk needs the momentum going into his title match so a win over a main event jobber is fine. Fun little TV main event.

Overall Rating: B. Smackdown is back with a good show here. The idea of the Brand Split being over on Fridays as well is a nice touch and we should get some good matches out of it in the end. This felt a lot more like a Raw than a Smackdown but Raw’s stars are bigger deals than Smackdown’s so that’s understandable. Once Rock is back things will pick up again, but for now this was fine. Good show but not a classic.

Results
Awesome Truth b. Air Boom – Little Jimmy Finale to Kingston
Wade Barrett b. Trent Barreta – Wasteland
Randy Orton b. Dolph Ziggler – RKO
Daniel Bryan b. Tyson Kidd – LeBell Lock
CM Punk b. Christian – GTS

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Impact Wrestling
Date: October 27, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re in the James Storm as champion era now which is what a lot of fans have wanted to have happen for a very long time now. It’s nice to have some fresh blood in there because there’s no reason to have Angle as champion anymore. His reign was becoming stale so having the change was a good thing. That being said, let’s see if TNA can keep up their hot streak. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week’s title change as Storm won the world title in a shocker, providing you don’t read spoilers.

Here’s the champ to open the show with a new video, a new song and the belt. He talks about watching Wrestlemania III with his dad and saying he wanted to be a pro wrestler. He couldn’t do it without all of the fans. However there’s another group of guys he wants to thank, so get out here Fourtune. Storm wants to set a few things right, and that means Roode gets the first shot at the title.

That brings out Joe of all people. He says he used to be part of the group that was always held down. James has broken out of that role though because he’s now the champion. Joe sees the same four people before he got that belt. He looks at Fourtune and sees a group trying to keep it all in the family. Incest is implied. Storm says Joe hasn’t earned anything so why is he running his mouth? Joe says because Storm is about to give the title shot to a failure.

Cue Sting who makes Roode vs. Joe for the title shot tonight. The winner gets the title match next week.

Hardy vs. Ray tonight in his first match since March.

Daniels says he didn’t say he quit at BFG. AJ doctored audio allegedly, which is what Rock/the Corporation did in 99. He fights Van Dam next.

Christopher Daniels vs. Rob Van Dam

Feeling out process to start with both of them having control for a bit each time. AJ pops in for commentary a few minutes into things. Standing moonsault gets two for Van Dam but Daniels takes over again with a release Rock Bottom. BME doesn’t hit so Van Dam fires off some kicks. He loads up Rolling Thunder but Daniels rolls to the floor. Van Dam is like whatever man and dives out to take Daniels down again. Five Star misses but RVD lands on his feet. They go to the floor where Daniels finds a tool box. A shot to the ribs of RVD draws the DQ at 5:23.

Rating: C-. I don’t get the appeal of Daniels. The guy bores me to death every time I see him out there. He’s glued to AJ’s hip which isn’t helping him at all either. Get the two of them apart and let Daniels face someone else. ANYONE else. Not a bad match here, but I didn’t want to watch it at all, especially since it’s just leading to more AJ vs. Daniels.

AJ comes down for the save from a screwdriver.

Here are Gail, Karen, Madison and Traci. Gail talks about how she did what everyone told her to do for years until Karen brought her back and told her that it’s all about Gail. Karen makes Gail vs. Velvet for the title at Turning Point. Gail says get someone out here for her to beat up.

Gail Kim vs. Tara

Gail jumps her to start and it’s all her in the opening. Tara is sent to the floor and Traci is yelled at for trying to help her. After a break we’re back with Gail still in total control. Tara fires off some basic stuff but Gail uses the same finisher she used back in WWE, which is that boot to the jaw where she drops the other girl down onto the side of her boot. That’s good for the pin at 6:57.

Rating: D+. Same thing as before here, although the legs looked better in this. Gail practically squashing Tara isn’t something I expected. Not that Gail shouldn’t have squashed someone, but is there really no one else? Gee I guess there actually isn’t. At least it wasn’t ODB or Jackie.

Bischoff and Flair are here. Didn’t they hate each other or something like 13 years ago?

TV Title: Eric Young vs. Robbie E

Eric starts by locking up with the referee and now we’re ready to go. Eric gets a sunset flip for two. A crucifix ends this at 1:00.

Rob Terry and Robbie E beat Young down with little Rob saying he’ll win the belt. Eric gets on the mic and says a Jersey Shore guy is coming next week.

Daniels is on the phone and says he wants his title match after beating RVD. Kaz comes in and says he wants AJ and Daniels to make up. He offers Daniels a mini vacation in California and Daniels says he’ll call him about it.

Ray says he’s going to take care of Hardy tonight and make his first match back his last.

Garrett Bischoff recaps the story of his dad making him be all evil. I’m not sure I buy that but it works for a backstory.

Here’s Eric who says he has important family business to take care of tonight. He calls out Garrett and after awhile here he is. Eric talks about how he raised Garrett to follow him instead of to think for himself. He says about what you would expect him to say to his son. Garrett says this isn’t what he wanted. Eric says he has half an hour to either apologize or it’s child abuse time.

We cut to Flair in the back where he rants about Garrett a bit and says he’s going to yell at him.

After a break Flair and Garrett miss up (Garrett: “Yes Mr. Flair?” Flair: “Not Mr. Flair. God.”) and Flair says Garrett is a punk. He rants for a long while more and says he might beat Garrett up later.

We recap Jeff Hardy’s return and all of the people reacting to him. Jeff Jarrett’s voice is over the video, talking about how no one wants him here.

Here’s Jarrett who says someone forgot a piece of video in that package. He’s talking about Victory Road which Jarrett will never forget. We also can’t air the main event of Turning Point 2006 when Jeff no showed there too. That brings out Hardy for another pull apart brawl. Bully Ray jumps Hardy and it’s time for their match.

Jeff Hardy vs. Bully Ray

Ray gets in a chain shot and we go to a break almost immediately. Back with Hardy hammering away a bit and hitting a Whisper in the Wind. Twist of Fate is countered and Ray hits a big boot to take him down. Ray pounds him down and a big elbow drop gets two as does an avalanche splash. He hammers in with some crossface shots but a charge gets feet in the corner. There’s a Matt screaming legdrop for two. Twist of Fate and Swanton give him the clean pin at 9:42.

Rating: C. It wasn’t that good of a match, but for a return by Jeff this was a decent enough performance. They kept Hardy to what he does best (selling) and only had him hit high spots. This wasn’t that bad for the most part and for a meaningless match, it was a good way to get Jeff back into the ring with someone he’s familiar with.

Jeff is being interviewed post match and Jarrett comes through the crowd to blast him. Immortal sets to put him through a table but Anderson makes the save.

Roode says this is another obstacle in his way and he’ll go through Joe tonight.

Robert Roode vs. Samoa Joe

Roode has a new entrance as well. Winner gets the shot against Storm next week. They take turns beating each other down in the corner and Roode gets a neckbreaker for one. Crossface is countered as Joe heads to the floor. Joe hooks him into some chinlocks on the mat but Roode fights up and hits the spinebuster.

They slug it out and Roode gets the best of that because he’s the good guy. Blockbuster gets two but Joe escapes the Payoff. Death Valley Driver gets two for the fat boy. MuscleBuster is countered into a crossface but Joe escapes. Joe goes after the knee but Roode snaps off a fisherman’s suplex for the pin at 7:00.

Rating: C. Not a bad match again but nothing of note. Was there ever any doubt that Roode would win? I have no idea why they’re using Roode vs. Storm so quickly. That could be BFG next year or Lockdown or something but instead, we get it next week at a show that has already been taped. Nice to see them having this huge match after such great build right?

Storm comes out for the post match staredown.

Here’s Bischoff (older version) for the big showdown with his son. As he’s coming to the ring, it’s announced that next week that we get Hardy/Anderson vs. Ray/Jarrett. Eric calls out his boy and is all happy because he’s sure Garrett is going to apologize. Garrett says nothing and Eric gets testy. Eric keeps shoving him and saying to apologize until Garrett grabs him with a fist pulled back.

That brings out Flair because he has to be out here for some reason. He rants and raves for a bit until Garrett hits him. Eric hits him low and Garrett gets beaten down. Remember, this is what is ending the show. My goodness. Flair and Eric stand tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This was boring. That’s the only way to describe it. The matches were all just ok, the main event for next week was built along with some other stories but it was nothing interesting, and the focus is right back on Bischoff and Flair and whatever their drama of the week is. I don’t know who they think they’re drawing to the show with a 62 year old vs. the non-wrestling son of an executive, but I don’t think it’s too many people. Bad show this week.

Results
Rob Van Dam b. Christopher Daniels via DQ when Daniels hit Van Dam with a toolbox
Gail Kim b. Tara – Eat Defeat
Eric Young b. Robbie E – Crucifix
Jeff Hardy b. Bully Ray – Swanton Bomb
Bobby Roode b. Samoa Joe – Fisherman’s Suplex

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Monday Nitro #54
Date: September 23, 1996
Location: CSU Convocation Center, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 4,308
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Schiavone, Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenay

As mentioned on the previous show, this is the one where everyone not named Savage is in Japan. Eric, ever the lunkhead, mentioned this last week and the NWO knows about it. Expect a lot of unusual names on this show and a lot of matches that no one would ever want to see. Oh and a lot of the NWO as well I’m sure. Let’s get to it.

Tony holds up an ad that is allegedly in the USA Today, talking about Nitro being taken over by the NWO tonight. Larry talks about parasites.

We get clips of fans tearing up NWO stuff.

Konnan/Kevin Sullivan vs. Brad Armstrong/Juventud Guerrera

The two Mexicans start us off and Konnan takes it to the mat. Juvy is like “screw that in Spanish” and fires off a plancha and slingshot leg to speed things up. And there’s the 187 to stop that quickly. Sullivan won’t tag in so Konnan has to keep fighting. Armstrong comes in and cleans house a bit but there’s a powerbomb. Sullivan finally makes a tag and here are the NWO sign guys. Sullivan gets a pin. That’s literally all he did in the entire match: walk in and get a pin. Pretty much a squash match.

The Dungeon beats down Konnan for no apparent reason post match. And then they stop and help him up. It was an initiation according to Sullivan.

We get some clips from the end of last week’s show where the NWO said they were coming for Savage this week. Savage says he’s a marked man and if that’s what it takes to get at Hogan, that’s cool with him. He’s the last hope for WCW and says he volunteered to stay here tonight on his own. As for Liz, and I quote, “The only thing we have in common is that in a thousand lifetimes, we might be goldfish swimming in the same water.” Kids, don’t do drugs.

Mike Enos vs. Chris Jericho

We’re told that it’s Harlem Heat vs. Outsiders for the titles at Havoc. They start fast and Jericho gets slapped, as does Enos. Enos channels his inner JYD and gets on all fours to headbutt Jericho. Pretty basic match so far as we talk about Savage and the NWO. Larry says there was something else Savage said that Larry didn’t like. He doesn’t bother saying what that is, but I guess that’s an exercise left up to us.

They go to the floor and it’s all Enos. He loads up the steps and suplexes Jericho onto them, which isn’t a DQ I guess. Three minutes after he initially brought it up, Larry says it was the last hope for WCW line that he didn’t like. Off to a bearhug and then a powerslam for two. All Enos so far. Jericho gets put into a Boston Crab which isn’t ironic yet. Over the shoulder backbreaker now but Jericho counters into a sunset flip for two.

Missile dropkick puts Enos down and up to the corner we go. He sets for a super rana but Enos powerbombs him out of it (not as exciting as it sounds) for two. In a pretty cool ending that I don’t think I’ve seen before, Jericho counters a powerslam into something like a powerslam of his own (better than it sounds) for the pin. That looked pretty sweet actually.

Rating: B-. Much better match here than I was expecting. Enos was fine for what he was supposed to be here: a power guy acting as a foil for Jericho to look good against here. The ending was good too and it’s always fun to see a guy like Jericho getting one of his first big breaks on national TV. Fun match that did things simply but well.

Pat Tanaka vs. Glacier

Tanaka comes out to what would become Goldberg’s music. The guy that got the music became one of the biggest stars ever while Tanaka became the referee for Micro Championship Wrestling. It’s snowing again and we hear about Larry being a black belt also. Think they’ll be kicking a lot? Larry explains what the fist behind the hand for the bow means (wanting violence to be the second choice). They avoid kicks for awhile until Tanaka hooks a sitout powerbomb. Ignore that as a spin kick ends this in about 30 seconds. Glacier won in case you’re really stupid.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. Public Enemy

Arn vs. Lex is announced for Havoc as well. The champs jump them and double team Rock for a bit. Booker vs. Rock to start but it’s off to Grunge quickly. We take a break and come back with Heat in control now. Booker crotches himself on a kick attempt though and it’s a not hot tag to Grunge. Big clothesline puts Johnny down (it’s Booker T/Stevie Ray vs. Johnny Grunge/Rocco Rock if you’ve been confused so far) and it’s off to Ray.

Time to talk about Savage again and we have a table from nowhere set up on the floor. Grunge is knocked to the floor and hit his back on it on the way down. Well that sucks. A Harlem Side Kick hits Grunge for two and we cut to the back to see the NWO arrive, now in two limos. At least it’s a chinlock that we’re missing which is an old school technique for getting around this kind of stuff. It was usually used when there was a fight in the crowd or something. Whenever you see fans looking elsewhere, you’ll often see a veteran go into a rest hold to make sure the fans don’t miss anything. That’s how a good wrestler thinks.

The hot tag brings in Rocco and he cleans house as well as a dirty man like he can. He fires off a bunch of right hands but runs into the Heat. The Hangover misses for the most part (Booker’s back landed on him instead) and we get a near fall due to Grunge’s foot being on the ropes. There’s a small package on Booker and Rock reverses it for the pin and the shocking title change.

Rating: D+. The match sucked but this was the kind of surprise that was designed to make you think anything could happen. They lost the titles like two weeks later so that Harlem Heat could defend against the Outsiders so it’s not like this lasted a significant amount of time, but it was a good surprise and I was legit shocked when it happened.

Second hour begins.

Greg Valentine vs. Randy Savage

Eric says there’s a new NWO member tonight. I can’t think of who that would be as the next member wasn’t until October and it was nothing of note unless I’m totally overlooking someone. Valentine jumps him and that doesn’t work all that well. They go to the floor with Valentine having his token control period. We hear that Super Calo has injured his elbow in a dark match so he’s out for awhile. Savage clocks Valentine with a chair twice and that’s a DQ. The whole point of this is coming down the aisle though.

Here’s the NWO and it’s beatdown time. A Jackknife puts him down and Savage is in trouble. Giant grabs a mic and introduces Hogan. They beat him down even more and drop a leg on him. They even beat him with a Slim Jim. Hogan talks about Savage being bald and they spraypaint the top of his head.

They storm the announcers’ booth and Bobby runs with Tenay. Eric can’t get away though and the announcers sit down with him. They debut their head of security: Vincent. That would be Virgil from WWF. To be fair, no one cared about him or had heard of him in years so it’s not like this meant anything.

Ok so the NWO will be running the commentary for the rest of the night. Eric keeps trying to leave but can’t get away. They debut the NWO Nascar car which used to be the WCW car. Kyle Petty is the driver.

Jim Powers vs. Michael Wallstreet

Giant is the new announcer. Hall and Nash leave the booth and DiBiase sits down instead. The Outsiders are beating up Powers now so there’s no match.

Randy Anderson walks out so Nick Patrick says he’ll do all the refereeing.

Giant chokeslams Powers again and we cut to Hogan in the back, spraypainting something. He comes down the hall and runs into the Nasty Boys. Hogan gives them his hotel key and says tonight they won’t be fighting the Outsiders because they can talk some business with Hogan later. A defection is implied.

Jim Duggan vs. Syxx

It’s supposed to be Ron Studd but that doesn’t happen as Hogan and Nash beat him down in the aisle. We hear what might be the debut of the NWO theme song. Hogan jumps in on commentary which is something that is very rare to hear. Duggan takes over to start and gets the USA chant going. You know, Syxx is from Minnesota. Wouldn’t a USA chant help him as well? The three point clothesline hits but Giant pulls Duggan out and hits one of the worst chokeslams I’ve ever seen on the concrete so that Syxx can get the pin. He had no other offense.

NWO Sting vs. Bo LaDue

LaDue has never had another televised match as far as I know. Sting does the usual Sting stuff and no one buys it. Splash and Deathlock end this.

Hogan talks about Savage a bit.

High Voltage vs. Outsiders

This is part of the NWO Tag Team Tournament. The French Canadians are supposed to be the opponents but the Outsiders come out next so the French dudes run. I have no idea what there is to say about this. Hall beats on one of them, Nash beats on one of them, we take a break, we come back with more beatings, we get a Brooke/Nick reference, Hall suplexes Rage off the top, a Jackknife pins Kaos. That match lasted about 11 minutes.

Rating: F. Yeah it’s a squash, yeah it’s supposed to be dominant, yeah it was really boring.

The NWO talks for a few minutes to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This is one of the benchmarks where you can see that everything is about TV instead of being for the live audience. Can you imagine how bored they’ve been for the last two hours of this show? Nothing has happened at all. The whole thing was about the NWO and they have no idea that Vincent is the new man either. This was all for the TV show, which is fine but it takes the crowd out of stuff quickly. Not a good show, but a lot of that is due to everyone being in Japan.

NXT
Date: October 26, 2011
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Commentators: Jack Korpela, William Regal

We’re past Vengeance now and there are actually signs that some things are starting to wrap up on this show. I can’t say I’d be complaining, as this show is almost the length of a full term pregnancy at this point. Anyway, according to the card that I’ve seen we might have four matches on here which almost has to be a record for this show. Let’s get to it.

At least they’re trying to make it look like this show is still coherent by not changing the opening credits.

We open with Bateman, JTG, Maxine, O’Neil and Watson in the ring. O’Neil makes fun of Maxine and calls her a dolphin or something. It’s time for the Talk the Talk Challenge. Bateman goes first and talks about football and the Cowboys, who are mostly booed. He makes fun of Titus’ trunks. This is pretty weak. Titus says the trunks are for breast cancer awareness because he lost two grandmothers to it. He says he’s awesome and that Bateman won’t stop him from winning this competition. O’Neil wins with ease.

Titus issues a challenge of his own. He and Watson make fun of Maxine and JTG and a brawl breaks out. Two singles matches are made.

Percy Watson vs. JTG

The fans start booing loudly for some reason at the start of the match but nothing has happened yet. Regal buries the talking skills of both guys as Watson takes it to the mat. Watson knocks him to the floor and we take a break with JTG clubbering him. Back with Watson in control again and getting two off some punches. Out to the floor again with JTG hitting a running clothesline that gets two back in the ring.

Off to some choking and we hear that JTG has been in the WWE for about six years. That doesn’t seem possible to me for some reason. It still makes me smile when I think of people saying he was going to be something once Cryme Tyme broke up. Off to a chinlock as Regal keeps burying the challenge. JTG goes up but jumps into a facebuster to put both guys down. Watson takes over and hits a clothesline and the spinning splash for two. The fireman’s carry into the pancake (called the Persecution) ends this at 6:47.

Rating: D+. Technically it was fine but there was nothing to this at all. Percy’s name isn’t doing him any favors as it makes me think of one of the trains from Thomas the Tank Engine from when I was a kid. JTG continues to be boring and the match was nothing to see at all other than just a long squash.

Hawkins is ranting about his injury and Striker comes up with a suspension due to something related to the walkout. No idea what that’s about. Nor do I particularly care.

The Muppets are coming to Raw. I’m going to get bashed for this, but I haven’t been more excited for a show in YEARS. No sarcasm or joke there at all.

Jey Uso vs. Tyson Kidd

Hawkins is with Kidd here for some reason. Regal talks about Kidd spending the past week in Calgary training with Bret on a rolling Indian Deathlock. Cool sounding move. Uso takes over quickly and puts Kidd in the Tree of Woe for two. Kidd comes back as we compare Harts vs. Samoans. Korpela brings up a good question: if Hawkins is suspended, why is he at ringside?

Tyson hammers away and hooks a chinlock. Regal says he’s the darling of Twitter. My goodness it’s nice to not hear about trending topics for once. Alley-Us doesn’t work so Jey kicks him in the face instead. The Superfly Splash hits knees though and a spinning fisherman’s neckbreaker ends this at 4:33.

Rating: C. Pretty decent match from guys that are actually good in the ring when they get to be in it. Kidd is a good guy to push as the NXT Champion when it finally is introduced. Nothing too bad here and it’s fun to see two young guys out there getting a chance to have some fun. More time would have helped though, but it is just NXT.

Tatsu makes the save from a post match beatdown. We’re waiting on the six man I guess.

Ad for Cena vs. Rock which really is going to be huge. I know that’s a really obvious statement but it’s starting to sink in just how big this match is.

Raw ReBound eats up a few minutes. The announcement would have been a bit better if it hadn’t been told to us at the end of Vengeance.

Rock will make his decision on Raw.

AJ and Kaitlyn talk in the back. Kaitlyn talks about how she’s going to destroy Tamina. Tamina pops up behind her and Kaitlyn knows she’s there. This is stupid but that goes without saying.

Kaitlyn vs. Tamina

Kaitlyn is the hometown girl. Not that we’re told that but I guess it’s implied. Tamina hits a superkick to kill Kaitlyn for two. Tamina beats her down as this is a very dull Divas match so far. That covers a lot of ground too. Tamina goes for a fireman’s carry and Kaitlyn gets her only move of the match with a sunset flip for the pin at 2:58. This was as boring as it sounds.

Derrick Bateman vs. Titus O’Neil

AJ is on commentary because….eh who cares she’s cute. AJ lists off reasons why Maxine isn’t nice, including she’s wicked. I want AJ to call me wicked. Maxine sits in on commentary as well. The girls get into an argument of course and Regal says go ahead and fight. AJ: “Fun fact about Maxine: she feeds off the souls of babies.” Maxine suggests AJ was caught between a midget leprechaun and a large black man in pink underwear that barks like a dog in some very non-PG positions.

Bateman slides to the floor to talk to Maxine and then hits a big dive on Titus when he comes out to see him. Bateman hammers away back in the ring and it’s off to a chinlock. This is all about the commentary and to be fair it’s far more interesting. Regal talks about the match and he’s just outnumbered. The couple’s name is BetaMax. I give up. O’Neil misses something from the ropes and Bateman rolls him up for the pin at 4:40.

Rating: D. The match sucked but the commentary was hilarious. I love shows like these where the announcers know no one important is listening and can have some fun on the commentary. That’s what NXT is good at and it’s far better than listening to Cole talking about Twitter 100 times an hour.

Post match, Bateman proposes to Maxine (Regal: “I think I might start self-harming.”) and gets slapped. Then he gets kissed. O’Neil covering AJ’s eyes on the floor is pretty funny. Maxine says yes. There’s your main angle for three weeks. They hug and Maxine looks like she’s in big trouble.

Overall Rating: C-. If there was a rating between this and D+ it would get that. It’s not really bad but there’s nothing to see here. Again it’s playing out like a low level old school indy company. That’s a fun thing to see because they know they’ve got nothing to lose so why not just have fun out there? That’s a great attitude to have and when you stop taking things so seriously in wrestling, you can have a much more entertaining show at times. This wasn’t their best, but I like watching this show for that laid back feeling to it.

Results
Titus O’Neil won the Talk the Talk Challenge
Percy Watson b. JTG – Persecution
Tyson Kidd b. Jey Uso – Spinning Fisherman’s Neckbreaker
Kaitlyn b. Tamina – Sunset Flip
Derrick Bateman b. Titus O’Neil – Rolling Cradle

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Monday Nitro #53
Date: September 16, 1996
Location: Ashville Civic Center, Ashville, North Carolina
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Schiavone, Eric Bischoff

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these. We’re done with Fall Brawl now and Sting is public enemy #1 in WCW, even though he showed up in WarGames and proved that he was innocent. The card is nothing special tonight but we do have a debut of a pretty big name which we’ll get to later on tonight. Let’s get to it.

Is there a reason why Hogan, the NWO leader and top heel for over two months now is still in the red and yellow and the first three pictures you see in the intro to a WCW show?

We open with some shots from last night with Larry and Tony talking about how it was all about Sting. At the end of the show, Liz came out to save the beaten down Savage and got her dress spraypainted.

Tony apologizes to Sting because we were supposed to know he was in Japan. Larry says if Sting is so sensitive he should get another job.

Apparently there were NWO guys at the entrance handing out papers with their logo on it.

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Juventud Guerrera

The announcers are talking about Sting as soon as the bell rings. Rey grabs a weird looking backbreaker hold and Juvy grabs a DDT. The NWO wants their own TV show now. Glacier debuts tonight. GLACIER DEBUTS TONIGHT! Well kind of as for absolutely no apparent reason his debut match was on some Sunday show instead of here. WCW never thought things through.

We’re 90 seconds in and there has been absolutely zero nothing said about this match or the guys in it. I mean that literally. They have talked about everything else. Not even saying that was almost it on a two count. At 95 seconds, we start talking about the match with Juvy whipping Rey in. They speed things up and Rey kicks his head off with a spinwheel kick.

Scratch that momentum as Juvy takes over again and goes up for a springboard dive, only to see Rey dropkick him in the stomach to the floor. Rey hits a springboard rana as we take a break. During the break, we get an NWO t-shirt ad. Back with Juvy getting two off something we didn’t see. A springboard spinwheel kick and a baseball slide send Rey to the floor and an Asai Moonsault puts him down again.

Back in a springboard 450 gets two. Well he’s no AJ Styles. Top rope rana gets two…and here’s an NWO rally instead of the match. Back in the ring (that place with that wrestling stuff), Rey counters a top rope powerbomb into a mid-air rana (SWEET) for the pin to retain. We saw that move by about 4 seconds. I can’t wait for them to mess up something like that which I’m sure they will for the sake of nothing of note at all.

Rating: B. Oh come on were you expecting something other than a fast paced and fun match with these two at a combined age of 42? The lack of talking about it got annoying but that’s to be expected. Either way, very fun match even if the crowd didn’t care about Juvy. These two would have more classics.

Mongo and Benoit say how they should have been in WarGames instead of Luger/Sting so tonight they’ll take revenge on them. Now that sounds like something a Horseman would say.

We get a video on Glacier who talks in this. His Georgia accent ruins the image. I get why I never heard him talk other than this. Well not for several years at least. He talks about going to Japan to train and being taken in by an old master who is his sensei. His mask is a tribute to gladiators or something. This goes on WAY too long, clocking in at almost two and a half minutes. The accent absolutely killed this.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Ice Train

Train shoves him around a bit as I begin to think of a really bad tag team in the form of Ice Train and Glacier. They do a weird spot where it looks like they’re supposed to collide but they stop like an inch ahead of each other to eliminate all of the momentum. Weird. Page hits a top rope clothesline to take over and there’s a discus punch. Discus lariat follows it up but Page won’t cover.

The Cutter is countered and Ice gets a belly to belly to put both guys down. Train gets going with a spinebuster and powerslam for two as Teddy Long, Train’s manager, gets on the apron. Now let’s cut to the back for a shot of “fans” in NWO gear taking over the merchandise stand. While this is being shown, THE BELL RINGS AND WE HAVE A PIN.

Yes, they actually missed the end of the match to show “fans” putting caution tape around the merchandise stuff. Who won? Not mentioned. What did he win with? Not mentioned. We didn’t even cut back immediately and the stuff in the back kept going on even longer. Apparently Ice Train had a full nelson and Page grabbed Teddy Long’s towel to throw it in for a forfeit on Train’s part. We see that on a replay, but that’s beside the point. We didn’t see enough to rate it but it was fine.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the point where wrestling has officially stopped meaning anything. The match wasn’t much, but the company decided that showing people in the back (not wrestlers mind you, just “fans”) were more important. This is what the Attitude Era would become defined on over the next few years and would become the foundation of what Sports Entertainment was. We aren’t focusing on wrestling and competition anymore. We’re focusing on drama.

This kind of thing gets on my nerves. It’s one thing if there’s something of note to show, but this is saying to the wrestlers “Yeah, we know you’ve trained for years to do this and we know you’re working hard out there, but we have something more important than you to put on screen.”

If this was Hall and Nash beating people up or something, that’s one thing but that isn’t what’s happening here. It’s fans taking over a merchandise stand and it’s the second match this has happened in. Is there ANY reason this couldn’t have waited another two minutes? No, there isn’t and everyone in WCW is cool with that, which is why people stopped watching (in part): it stopped being about wrestling. This will become huge later on when we eventually hit the late 90s.

Anyway the fans take over the stand and put up NWO stuff.

Sean Waltman, formerly known as the 1-2-3 Kid, is in the front row and his release from WWF is acknowledged.

Konnan vs. Super Calo

Konnan is sent to the floor so Calo hits a flip dive (mostly) to take him out. Tony invites Mike Tenay to sit on his lap. Ok then. Back in Konnan hooks a top rope butterfly superplex before hooking a backbreaker kind of hold for a bit. We go back to the floor and Calo tries another spinning dive but leaves it short again, more or less slapping Konnan instead of landing on him.

Konnan takes over again and drops Calo with the Scorpion Death Drop. Here’s something you don’t see something every day: Calo hooks a headscissors/ankle rana off the top and Konnan lands on him. This is a really sloppy match. A missile dropkick to the floor mostly misses as does a regular one in the corner. Konnan drops him with what would later be called the 187 (fisherman’s brainbuster) for two and a powerbomb into a victory roll gets the same. The Power Drop (Razor’s Edge into a sitout powerbomb) gets the pin.

Rating: F+. The plus is for the speed of the match, but there’s no excuse for a match having this many misses and mistakes out there. Calo never got over at all for the most part despite being on TV pretty often. This was a horrible match from an execution perspective and I don’t think they knew if it was a squash or not.

The 1-2-3 Kid says he’s here because Nitro is hot. He asks Tenay who won WarGames and Tenay isn’t impressed. Waltman seems surprised the NWO won. Total “I’m in the NWO but I’m not saying I’m in the NWO” promo.

Hugh Morrus vs. Brad Armstrong

Nothing of note in the first minute. I have no idea why this match is happening. Armstrong takes over with a dropkick and we talk about Liz last night. Larry thinks Flair went through her alimony from Savage and dumped her. Tony: “How do you know how much she had?” Larry: “No matter how much she had, Flair could spend it.” Preach it brother! Morrus takes over and hits No Laughing Matter (moonsault) but makes a very casual cover, allowing Armstrong to quickly roll him up and steal a pin.

Rating: D+. What in the world was this? I really don’t get this: it’s the most random wrestling match and ending I’ve ever seen. It looked like a squash but we get that ending? It didn’t go anywhere or anything, so what was the point here? It wasn’t bad or anything, but why did it happen? I don’t understand this at all.

Hour #2 begins.

Here’s Savage for an interview. We get some shots of last night where the NWO beat Savage down and left him laying. Savage says he’s ready for Hogan and that’s all he’s got left.

The NWO arrives, including the fake Sting. They’re going to beat up someone tonight.

Randy Savage vs. Scott Norton

This starts in the aisle with Savage being all crazy again. A knee to the back puts Norton back on the floor and it’s Crazy Macho again. There’s the double axe off the top to the floor and we talk about the NWO wanting to beat him to death next week because there’s going to be no WCW guys around as they’ll be in Japan. Eric talks about how Sting was in Japan promoting the tour that he (Eric) set up but he didn’t realize it was the impostor last week. That’s either foreshadowing or really stupid.

Norton takes over with power and it’s the traditional Randy Savage beating. That’s more or less one third of what he did around this time: get beaten up, get disqualified, or hit one move, a slam and the elbow to end it. Savage takes over and we go to the floor with Norton getting sent into the barricade a few times. Norton gets slammed on the floor but grabs a DDT for two back in the ring. There’s the shoulderbreaker and Macho goes to the floor. He avoids being sent into the post and then WHACKS Norton with the chair for the DQ.

Rating: C. Pretty fun brawl while it lasted and it accomplished the goal that it needed to get through: making Savage look like a crazy lunatic that could kill Hogan if given the chance. They managed to kill the heat on the match because we needed to have Hogan vs. Piper for some reason. Anyway though, this was more fun than I expected.

Glacier vs. Big Bubba

Let’s get this over with. Glacier has his infamous overblown intro which cost thousands of dollars per time I believe. Bubba doesn’t get an entrance and it’s snowing in the arena. They have the blue lights ala Sin Cara/early Kane matches too. Glacier fights like a Power Ranger. Bubba finally gets in a punch and a big spinebuster but Glacier pops up and fires off a bunch of kicks because that’s all he knows how to do. A big spin kick ends this. More or less just an exhibition by Glacier.

Sting (the real one) is here and Eric says this wasn’t expected. This is a very famous moment. He wants to explain last week. Last Monday, he was on a plane coming back from Los Angeles. Important note to this: his back is to the camera and he won’t turn around. He talks about how Luger hasn’t come to see him and he’s tired of all the doubt. The fans are kind of booing him here.

That brings us to Fall Brawl where he was going to tell Lex to his face. Luger didn’t believe him there either. After everything he’s done, how dare no one believe him after everything Lex has done over the last year. That’s a really good point. He’ll stand by all the wrestlers and fans that stood behind the Stinger, but as for everyone that doubted him, you all can stick it. From now on, he’s a free agent. He’s going to pop in when you least expect him. With that, he walks out of the ring and leaves. That’s the last time he would speak on camera for about 16 months.

Ric Flair/Arn Anderson vs. Chris Jericho/Marcus Bagwell

Think this is going to get any attention from the announcers? Before the Horsemen come out we cut to the back where Liz is too scared to come to the ring with them. Before the match starts, Waltman stands up in his chair and holds up a box with a button on it. He presses a button and a ton of leaflets fall from the ceiling with NWO on it. Bischoff says Waltman is the 6th one (Hogan, Hall, Nash, DiBiase, Giant, Fake Sting makes six without him but I guess math is too hard for WCW).

After a break the papers are still falling. We at least get a bell. Arn vs. Jericho gets us going. The Canadian takes over with a dropkick for two to start as we’ll be lucky to hear 5 words about the match. Spinwheel kick puts Arn onto the floor as the papers keep following. Eric admits that he’s the Executive Vice President of WCW and admits he agreed to give the NWO their own TV show if they won last night or they wouldn’t fight. That would wind up being a segment on Saturday Night that was done for comedy.

Flair comes in to chop away at Bagwell but Buff (not yet Buff but who cares) fires back and it’s about what you would expect. The Horsemen double team a bit as there is zero heat on this match. Flair is crawling around on all fours outside and is mad about the papers. I’d be mad too if the fans kept throwing the papers at me. Anderson gets a spinebuster on Jericho for no cover. Tenay starts questioning Eric’s decision and it’s covered up well by Bischoff. It’s interesting to look for the hints to the swerves that would come.

Jericho gets beaten down by both guys and Heenan enjoys it way too much. As the Canadian gets his leg worked on Horsemen-style, we cut to the back where Giant is arriving and Waltman is with them with a small boom box. At least it’s split screen so we can see the match, as boring as it is. And there goes the splitting. They play a tape of “Sting” running his mouth about not trusting anyone. After about a minute of that, back to your regularly scheduled match.

Hot tag brings in Bagwell and he’s still Marcus so no one cares. They tried forever to get people to care about him and it didn’t work ever with him as a face. Woman interferes to allow Anderson to knock Bagwell out dead with a DDT. The Figure Four goes on and Bagwell gets beaten by the rare pin in the submission.

Rating: D. Not an entertaining match at all. It was ok but with all of the distractions going on in it, there’s only so much you can get out of it. The papers and then cutting away from it for about a minute took way too much out of it. To be fair to the bad ideas though, the match wasn’t going to be interesting no matter what they tried with it.

Buy this Horsemen t-shirt for $22! This is back in the days of $30 PPVs. That would be the equivalent of about a $35 t-shirt today.

Chris Benoit/Steve McMichael vs. Lex Luger

No Sting for Luger to tag with. Benoit start with Luger and I guess they’re still going with the idea of the other Horsemen being upset about not being in WarGames. There’s the snap suplex. You know for a guy that went through WarGames last night and passed out from the pain of a double submission, Luger looks pretty good. Mongo comes in for his usual boring stuff.

A forearm/elbow gets two for Benoit. We’re told that more or less EVERYONE ON THE ROSTER other than Savage is going to be in Japan next week. Heenan: “QUIT TELLING EVERYONE THAT!” Listen to Brain. He knows his stuff it seems. A double clothesline puts both Benoit and Luger down as we’re waiting on the screwy finish. Luger makes his comeback and Racks Benoit but here are Flair and Anderson for the DQ.

Rating: D+. Another weak match here but it was around to set up what the lack of Sting means for Luger and for just the big beatdown post match. Not a horrible match again, but at the same time they were really just wasting time here until the ending and everyone knew it, which is one of the most boring kind of matches you can have.

During the beatdown, Eric gives us the word that Waltman is officially to be called Syxx.

Outside the NWO is watching Nitro in a limo. They hear that no one will be here but Savage next week, so they’ll beat him up. Thanks Eric.

Overall Rating: C-. The wrestling was terribly boring here but they have like six weeks before Halloween Havoc so they have plenty of time left. Not the worst show ever but it was really more about transitioning things, including the start of the REALLY big part of the NWO angle, which is saying a lot. Sting’s speech is huge and the rest is just there.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: October 24, 2011
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

We’re past Vengeance now and everything is about as it was before hand. Alberto is still champion, Henry is still champion, Nash is still irrelevant, Miz and Truth are still causing trouble and everything else is still the same. Like I said for weeks, Vengeance didn’t need to exist. Anyway, now things are all leading towards Survivor Series so the hype machine is being cranked up. Let’s get to it.

After a quick recap of last night’s events, here’s HHH to really get us going. He’s in serious Game mode tonight and the fans all cheer for him. He says it’s a tough business and he was taught from the beginning that you can make friends or you can make money. HHH however has made both. He thought there were guys that could be real friends after the cameras went off.

There were guys like Waltman and Nash but somewhere along the way things changed. For them it became about money and power. When HHH got power, some of those guys wound up just being there to latch on. He thought Nash was one of the good ones but then that started to change. Nash broke his heart last night and tonight HHH wants to take it out on him. He knows Nash is here tonight and he calls the big man out.

HHH shouts for him for awhile until here’s Johnny Ace. Ace does his usual talking thing and HHH says shut up in his angry voice. Even though Ace is the boss of Raw, he still answers to the COO, as in HHH. So tonight, Ace is going to find Nash and bring him to the Game. HHH says give Nash a contract or do whatever it takes to get him here. HHH doesn’t care what or where it is, but he’s going to get back at Nash and he’s going to go to jail for what he does. HHH goes up the ramp and looks back at Ace, allowing Nash to come through the entrance with a sledgehammer and whack HHH in the back with it.

HHH is all shaky and can’t stand as we cut back to Nash. Everyone is looking away and he walks down the hall in the back. We cut back to HHH who thinks he can stand but collapses and starts foaming at the mouth as we go to our first break.

Back with Cole and Lawler being all solemn about what they just saw. After some replays HHH is being loaded into the ambulance when Nash pops up again. He pulls HHH off the stretcher and stands him up against a wall where he pops him in the head with the hammer again. He’s loaded in again and we take another break.

Back with more replays. We’re 25 minutes into this and this is the entire show so far.

Randy Orton/Sheamus vs. Cody Rhodes/Christian

Orton and Christian start us off and that goes to Randy. Sheamus comes in via a slingshot shoulder block for two. Cole drops in the Irish name for whatever those forearms to the chest are called. Off to Rhodes but Sheamus manages to fire off another shoulder off the apron to the Canadian. Cody gets a Russian legsweep for two and hooks a chinlock as we take a break.

Back with Christian trying a Killswitch but Sheamus escapes with power. Cole starts up the talking about Twitter stuff. Didn’t he get most of that out of his system last night? Hot tag to Orton who fires off the powerslam on the Canadian. There’s the over the shoulder neckbreaker for two. Christian gets in a shot but is caught in the elevated DDT. RKO misses on Rhodes and Christian takes over with the pendulum kick and a jumping elbow from the middle rope.

The Americans slug it out until Cody hits a dropkick so he can tag in Christian. Off to a chinlock which eats up a little time. Christian goes up but jumps into a dropkick and here’s Sheamus. Irish Curse gets two on Rhodes and ORTON IS TRENDING BABY!!!! Beautiful Disaster staggers Sheamus and the spear from Christian gets two for Cody. Everything breaks down and Christian takes the RKO. They botch the finish as Rhodes was supposed to try the Beautiful Disaster and jump into the Brogue Kick. The kick hit the knee though so Sheamus hits a quick High Cross to end it at 9:00.

Rating: C+. Not bad but this was more like a house show main event than anything else. It picked up a bit but for the most part all they were doing was signature stuff. I’m not sure how many more times the good guys can beat these bad guys before it stops meaning anything but they’re approaching that point.

We get some pictures of Awesome Truth jumping Cena last night.

Ace is on the phone and has Otunga with him in the back. Ace is on the phone with Stephanie and says HHH is ok. Cena comes in and makes fun of Otunga, implying he’s Carlton from Fresh Prince. Cena demands a match with Awesome Truth so Ace makes Awesome Truth vs. Cena and a partner that Ace picks. Cena: “As long as he doesn’t carry a skateboard, he’ll be fine.” Old NWA fans will get that joke.

Santino Marella vs. Dolph Ziggler

Non title. Santino loads up the Cobra quickly and Dolph runs. He’s back in the regular trunks tonight instead of the weird ones from last night. Dolph takes him down with the dropkick and Santino starts up his usual stuff. Swagger gets up on the apron and the Zig Zag ends it at 1:46. Just a squash.

We get a double heel beatdown until Mason Ryan makes the save.

The Bellas are talking about HHH’s attack and Ryder comes up, screaming that he’s Cena’s partner.

Del Rio has a victory speech up next.

Alberto talks about how he said he was going to do it and did. It’s the start of a new era or something and that he’ll be champion for a very long time. Cue the Cult of Personality and that’s Survivor Series I guess. He points out that he beat Alberto four weeks ago on Raw and mentions he never got a one on one match after getting MITB cashed in. Del Rio says he’ll fight any worthy opponent but Punk isn’t one. Come see him again when Punk has a better victory.

At this moment, Punk is at the back of the line. Punk says he’ll put Del Rio to sleep anyway. Cue Ace who makes the match for some reason. Punk wants to know the catch and it’s that Punk has to say he respects Ace. Punk: “Are you Aretha Franklin?” He goes on a rant about how things aren’t any better with Ace in charge. He actually references the Pillman/Sullivan Bookerman moment and says he respects you “Fun Man”.

Punk goes on a rant about Ace’s career in the ring and how he never was any good but got where he is by brown nosing everyone. He respects that someone who has done so little has gotten so far. No title shot for Punk now but Ace will take another week to take about it. Punk says cool, but think about this. He jumps Del Rio and loads up the GTS but Ricardo takes it instead.

Natalya vs. Alicia Fox

Make it quick even though Fox’s hips look good. Beth sits in on commentary for this. Total squash to start and Natalya works on the legs as Beth talks about cleaning the Divas Division up. Cole talks about Tweeting and JR because he doesn’t know what else to talk about. Natalya says tear time but gets kicked in the face and a sunset flip gets the pin at 2:11. Fox escapes the double beatdown.

Wade Barrett vs. John Morrison

Barrett runs as JR talks about tweeting even more. There are going to be photos that JR tweeted in a bit. Oh for goodness sake. Out to the floor and Barrett sends him into the barricade as we take a break. Back with Barrett in control and hitting a big boot for two. All Barrett so far other than a dive. Another kick puts John on the floor.

Morrison makes his comeback with his flippy offense and the running knee for two. Sunset flip gets the same but Barrett grabs a Bossman Slam for two. Wasteland is countered into a Russian legsweep. Starship Pain misses but Morrison lands on his feet. He tries the Flying Chuck and is supposed to jump into Wasteland but Barrett drops him. Regular Wasteland ends this at about 8:30.

Rating: C. Not bad here as Morrison’s de-push continues. He’ll probably have his leg broken by Henry or something to write him off TV. This was really just a match to help rebuild Barrett which is something that he needs right now. It’s not like Morrison is going anywhere or anything so this is fine.

We look back at the HHH/Nash stuff from earlier and hear that HHH has a concussion and a neck injury, possibly even a broken neck.

Time for Cole to talk. He gets up on the table and talks about JR tweeting and being in a live chat or something. Oh come on. This now needs its own segment? Cole shows some pictures JR tweeted and they’re making fun of JR. I hate this show right now. I really do. Cole is tired of JR so next week Cole is challenging JR to the Michael Cole Challenge. He doesn’t say what the rules are but if JR wins, Cole quits and JR gets his job back. Jerry is thrilled.

The Muppets will be on Raw next week. I have never been this happy. Truly, never.

Ryder is happy about being in the Raw main event when Awesome Truth jumps him.

Here are Awesome Truth for the main event but first of all, let’s talk about HHH. They talk about how HHH deserved it and Truth says nothing saves Cena until he gets got. Catchphrases take us to a break.

Awesome Truth vs. John Cena

Back and it’s a handicap match now. Miz starts off and does as well as you would think. Truth does about the same so the double teaming beings. Miz comes back in and hammers away a bit and the problems he has become more and more apparent every time he’s in the ring. Miz simply isn’t that good on offense. He’s not bad or anything, but offense isn’t his strong suit. Part of that is due to his size though as he’s kind of small.

Truth comes in again and is caught in the Protobomb for no cover. Back to Miz who misses his running shot in the corner. Cena starts up the finishing sequence but Truth comes in with the water bottle for the very lame DQ at 4:30. I guess they’re setting up for something later with this? They better be after this lame ending.

Rating: D. Miz and Truth were talking about a Revolution of some kind. If this is part of it, the Revolution may be televised, but not many people will be watching. This wasn’t much at all with the match only lasting a few minutes and being boring while it did so. Nothing to see here, but I guess that’s the point.

Miz and Truth both get chairs so here’s Ace again. He says stop it because it’s disrespectful. Ace throws them out to a surprising pop. He then stops them and says Cena can have a rematch with a partner of his own choosing. Cena yells about how anyone he picks is going to get beaten down or taken out, but then he stops and asks if he can choose anyone he wants. It was like he had a revelation. His choice: The Rock. Let me check. Yeah, just as I suspected: it’s on.

Overall Rating: C. I liked this show fairly well but it was no classic. The show is revolving around HHH and Ace more and more which isn’t incredibly interesting. Nothing was really bad tonight though which is a big perk and there seemed to be a point to almost everything. It’s not a terrible show and is a step up for Raw, but they need to start answering some stuff instead of just throwing out more and more questions.

Results
Sheamus/Randy Orton b. Cody Rhodes/Christian – High Cross to Rhodes
Dolph Ziggler b. Santino Marella – Zig Zag
Alicia Fox b. Natalya – Sunset Flip
Sheamus b. John Morrison – Wasteland
John Cena b. Awesome Truth via DQ when R-Truth hit Cena with a water bottle

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