Vengeance 2011
Date: October 23, 2011
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Jerry Lawler

We’re finally at the last PPV before Survivor Series and the end of the three PPVs in six Sunday run that happens every fall in WWE. The main events are nothing to write home about as we have a rematch with a gimmick on the Red side and a rematch from a few months ago on the Blue side. I still say this show doesn’t need to exist but that’s WWE for you. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video about the three main events and the almost required Pulp Fiction vengeance upon thee lines.

Tag Titles: Air Boom vs. Dolph Ziggler/Jack Swagger

Who exactly is Vickie wanting to be quiet? She’s the only one talking. It’s like she’s being overly loud and annoying for the sake of getting on the fans’ nerves. Air Boom has new music and their color of the night is red. Dolph and Kofi start us off. Now there’s a rivalry. Dolph has tights that have so many colors in them that RVD would be jealous. There’s red, white, blue, a darker red and what looks to be a flag pattern on it. Also it looks like a singlet with the straps down.

Kofi takes over to start and hammers on Dolph, getting two off a monkey flip that sent Dolph over so hard that he landed on his face. Bourne comes in and gets two. It’s so weird to hear Bourne listed as 165lbs. Swagger comes in and gets rolled up for two before it’s back to Kofi. He tries to go up but since AMERICA is better than Ghana, he catches him in a powerslam for two.

Sweet dropkick by Dolph puts Kofi down and we’re told that immediately after this it’s Ryder vs. Ziggler. That’s very intriguing. I can’t imagine Dolph leaves as a double champion. And there go Booker and Cole. To be fair we were a full twelve minutes into the show so you can’t expect the two grown adults in their 40s to maintain their composure much longer than that.

Lawler makes really bad Vickie jokes as it’s a hot tag to Bourne. He fires off his jumping strikes and gets a kick to Jack for two. The Shooting Star gets loaded up but Dolph makes the save and Evan lands on his feet. Now he fires off the Shooting Star but it eats knees. You could tell Jack was scared to death for that one. Dolph works on an armbar as the announcers debate who should have a talk show on the WWE Network. That thing is going to be a trainwreck.

Vader Bomb gets two for Swagger. The crowd is into this show so far. They’ve cut to Vickie about 8 times so far. Swagger goes after Kofi to break up a tag which gets him rolled up for two. Ankle lock is countered and Swagger is sent to the floor. Dolph goes old school heel to make sure the tag isn’t seen, but Jack pulls Kofi off the apron anyway. Back to Ziggy and this match is getting some time. Nice to see the PPV getting the longer matches like it’s supposed to.

A second Vader Bomb misses and Kofi comes in to clean house. He hits the big cross body for a VERY close two on Ziggler. Boom Drop hits the same guy which is a move I haven’t seen in awhile. Trouble in Paradise misses but the SOS gets two. Trouble in Paradise is caught in the ankle lock but Bourne comes in with the double knee to Jack to take them out. Dolph rolls up Kofi with tights for two but walks into the kick to set up the Shooting Star for the pin to retain at 13:30.

Rating: B.Good old fashioned tag match here with a very hot finish. I was digging this and it’s very cool to see an actual tag title feud like this with a pair of established (mostly at least) teams. Air Boom holding the titles for awhile and defending them almost every week it seems is really helping them out. Fun match and I had a really good time with it.

US Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder

This starts almost immediately with Dolph barely back to his feet. Zack doesn’t run straight at him but Dolph is barely moving. Ryder pounds him into the corner and Air Boom/Swagger/Vickie are still at ringside. Ryder gets a forearm for two and a whip into the corner gets the same. Dolph grabs a neckbreaker to get a breath of air. The fans are all behind Ryder.

Dolph is knocked to the floor so Air Boom throws him back inside. That gets them ejected and they’re stunned by this. The fans are all over Vickie and have been all night. Flapjack gets two for Ryder. I’m glad they didn’t have Ryder run out there and steal the title. Ryder misses a cross body and hits the ropes to put both guys down. My goodness Ziggler is technically a Triple Crown winner.

Ziggler is in total control here. Naturally as soon as I say that he misses a splash. Naturally as soon as I say that he avoids the Broski Boot and hits a Fameasser for two. The fans are staying into this or are at least into the near falls. Ryder gets the knees up in the corner and he has blonde hair now. Broski Boot hits but Vickie has the referee. Zig Zag is countered and down goes Swagger. Dolph fires off a superkick that totally missed but it’s enough for the pin at 6:10.

Rating: C-. Very basic match here and there was nothing going on in it at all. I don’t really get the booking here at all: they set up Ryder perfectly to have him take the title here and then they just don’t do it. At least it could have been worse though. I mean, can you imagine a company spending three months building up someone to get a title and then keep it on the guy that has nowhere to go with the title because they just decided at the last minute that it was the right move?

Punk is talking to DiBiase of all people when HHH comes up. There’s no rah rah speech but Punk wants to make it clear to Awesome Truth that it’s an unsafe working environment now rather than what it was when HHH was in charge.

Divas Title: Eve Torres vs. Beth Phoenix

We get a clip from earlier in the day with the evil girls attacking Kelly as Eve makes the save. I guess Kelly is Crazy is going into the pool of the forgotten right? Eve has new music too and it sounds awful. At least we can look at her awesome legs. Kelly and Natalya are banned from ringside. Eve grabs a sunset flip to start and we’re talking about Beth’s underwear for some reason.

They fight over to the ropes…and Beth is now handcuffed to the ropes via something on her own outfit. Eve kicks away and Beth is free. Uh, point to that? Beth takes over on the floor and gets two back in the ring. The fans are bored out of their minds here which is saying a lot as they were hot for the first half hour.

Gutbuster kind of move gets two and we’re off to our second rest hold in a minute. Beth slaps her head and screams at her to cry. Eve starts her comeback and puts Beth down with a clothesline and a flipping splash for two. Eve gets some kind of choke out while she on Beth’s shoulders and it turns into something resembling a triangle choke. The cool looking submission doesn’t work though because that might get it over as a finisher and Eve has one of those already. Glam Slam is countered into a rollup for two. Eve gets a kick in and goes up for the moonsault but Beth moves. Glam Slam ends this at 7:16.

Rating: D+. I’ve watched a lot of wrestling in my time and I don’t recall a division or story that I was less interested in than the Divas in WWE at the moment. I mean there is nothing of interest or note at all about them. They kill the crowds other than Kelly and the matches are as unnatural looking as any I’ve ever seen. I mean there is nothing interesting to them at all and I dread watching them every show. The match wasn’t bad. I just didn’t want to watch it.

Big Show says he’s back tonight and that better is better, not bigger. He says 3 seconds doesn’t end 15 years of failure for Henry. The military thing doesn’t really work for Big Show. Show gets in Striker’s face and says he’ll get Vengeance.

Ad for the Bret vs. Shawn DVD, which if my memory is correct, the Screwjob match is only on the Blu-Ray.

Christian vs. Sheamus

No recap here which is a nice time saver. Christian stalls before we get started. It’s a brawl to start and Sheamus takes that easily. The Canadian is beaten down into the corner as Cole repeats a line from Lawler. Sheamus gets Christian in the ropes and pounds away. Booker calls them Irish Hand Grenades. Cole says it’s called the Unreastra. It’s an Irish thing of some sort.

Christian comes back with a neckbreaker and then a neckbreaker followed by a punch and then more punches. A mixed set of moves isn’t his strong suit tonight. Cole lists off their resumes like JR lists off football stats back in the 80s. Hearing all of those title reigns for everyone makes them seem a little weak but whatever. Middle rope missile dropkick hits but the Swan Dive misses.

Cole says this is the second match trending worldwide on Twitter tonight. Yes boys and girls, stop watching the show and go look at Twitter instead! Sheamus hits a fallaway slam for two. Christian tries to charge at him but gets caught by a slingshot shoulder block for two. A gorilla press is countered and Christian pops off a right hand and the reverse DDT for two.

High Cross is countered as is the pendulum kick. Is Sheamus channeling Scott Hall lately? With the fallaway slam and the Edge I think he is. Irish Curse is countered into a Killswitch attempt but Christian gets caught in another High Cross attempt. Christian gets out and hits two pendulum kicks but jumps into the Irish Curse for two. Spear counters the Brogue Kick but it only gets two because Christian has no business using the spear.

Sheamus goes up top as this is trending on Twitter too. WHY SHOULD WE FREAKING CARE ABOUT TWITTER??? The people hearing about this have already bought the show so why are you trying to sell it to us again? Sheamus gets caught in a hurricanrana off the top but kicks Christian’s head off in another spear attempt for the pin at 9:37.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but dude, we’ve seen it how many times on Smackdown already? Christian using the spear is getting on my nerves (small guy using a power move) but Cole talking about how everything is on Twitter is really getting to me. I mean, WHO CARES ABOUT TWITTER??? Oh wait. It makes Vince think the world cares about his stuff and that he’s been accepted by the mainstream audience. Never let it be said he doesn’t cater things to himself at times.

Otunga and Ace are chatting when Awesome Truth comes up. Otunga leaves and the tag team sucks up to Ace a bit. Ace: “I think you could be the greatest tag team in the world.” Awesome Truth: “Really?” Ace: “No, but you guys suck up well.” Ace leaves and they get in an argument about who is better at sucking. Then they say HHH and Punk suck. Is there a point to this? This goes on way too long and they say they don’t like Texas.

We recap HHH/Punk vs. Awesome Truth with a video that I think aired on Smackdown. This eats up like 3 minutes and is about chaos that has been running wild on Raw since MITB. Good video though.

Awesome Truth vs. HHH/CM Punk

Miz vs. Punk to start us off. That goes nowhere so it’s off to Truth vs. HHH. The Game is still COO, but he doesn’t run Raw anymore. Ok then. Nothing at all in the first two and a half minutes. HHH takes over on Truth and the fans react big. Back to Punk who gets a chant and a falcon arrow for two. HEY! Two things are trending on Twitter that are related to WWE!

This has been going on over five minutes now and there is nothing to say. HHH and Punk even cheat like heels while Punk has Miz in an armbar. We talk about the immigration issue from Monday and it sounds like something that isn’t going to mean anything in a few days but will probably be a big plot point soon enough. Awesome Truth takes over on Punk and there’s a chinlock.

HHH has a little bit of a gut on him now. Off to Gutty McGame who cleans house and puts both guys on the floor with a double clothesline. Cole goes into a political rant about Republicans being on the fence to make fun of Booker and I have no idea what Booker’s original point was. HHH gets beaten down for awhile now as Lawler and Booker try to debate heel philosophy. Booker apparently cursed during that as Lawler says younger children need earmuffs when he talks.

Booker tries to claim the credit for “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” And in Texas of all places. HHH gets beaten down for a little while longer and Truth hooks on a figure four headlock. HHH stands up and hits an electric chair (why is it called that anyway) drop and then a DDT to set up the hot tag to Punk. Punk beats up Miz and stops to look at the camera in a creepy way. Truth breaks up the elbow but HHH stops Truth.

Macho Elbow hits and it’s GTS time. Miz is enough of a main event guy to escape it though. We watch Truth vs. HHH on the floor and Nash is back. He drills HHH and puts him down. Back in the ring, Miz and Truth hit a combination jumping downward spiral and Finale, which is called the Little Jimmy Finale for the pin on Punk at 15:03.

Rating: D+. Totally boring main event tag match here and Nash returning made me roll my eyes. It’s setting up Nash vs. HHH in some way which is something that no one but HHH and Nash want to see. The match was just boring because nothing changes because of it. The ending just gives us more questions and Punk now gets pinned before he’s allegedly going into the title picture. Great.

Nash beats up HHH post match and Jackknifes him. That looked a bit botched.

Alberto comes up to talk to Ace in the back and rants about the last man standing match. Ace says it’s an opportunity and Del Rio says he’ll find a way to win.

Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton

Non-title here. Randy takes over to start but Cody gets in a mask shot to take over. More Twitter things that are tweeting. There’s even a graphic to say what’s on there now. I give up. Cody throws on a Boston Crab which Randy eventually escapes with a kick to the face. Alabama Slam gets two for Rhodes. Cody busts out a moonsault but Randy moves. I guess he’s channeling his inner Angle.

There’s the powerslam but Cody blocks the DDT and goes up. That doesn’t go so well as he jumps into a dropkick. Beautiful Disaster gets two for Rhodes. The DDT is countered again and Orton gets his backbreaker for two. That sweet over the shoulder neckbreaker gets two. They go up to the corner and Cody gets a headbutt with the mask to set up a moonsault press for two.

One of the baggers distracts Randy so that Cody can hook Cross Rhodes for two. He’s shocked but welcome to the main event Cody: finishers mean jack. Now Rhodes loads up an RKO (yes that’s correct) but Randy counters into the elevated DDT. The other bagger pops up but Cody is shoved into him. RKO and pin at 12:08.

Rating: C+. It’s nice to see Orton out of the title picture for a bit but I’m not sure what the point of this was. Rhodes got to look good but the Baggers had no point being there. I can’t complain about the champion losing here because he isn’t ready to beat Orton, but this rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Decent match though.

Rock is at Survivor Series. Thank goodness.

We recap Show vs. Henry. Henry injured him, Henry won the title during Show’s injury time, Show wants the title for revenge.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Mark Henry

They fight over a lockup to start and Henry pushes him into the corner. Show gets to fire away at the ribs and the obvious question comes into play: why not use the big right hand that you know can knock Henry out cold? Show throws him back in and manages a superkick to put Henry on the floor. WE’RE TRENDING PEOPLE!!! WE’RE TRENDING!!! Henry tries to leave with the title but that goes nowhere.

A big slam hits Show to put him down and it’s all champion now. Off to the leg now and Henry works on it by laying on it. You can’t say he isn’t practical. Show tries to slam Henry but the leg gives out. Back to the leg for more cranking which goes on for a few moments. They hit the ropes and collide to put both of them down. They slug it out from their knees. Even from his knees Show is still taller than the local luchador.

Show makes his comeback with punches and clotheslines. Into the corner and it’s time for the power of fat to take over. That would be bald white fat instead of haired black fat. He loads up the chokeslam which hits clean but Henry kicks out at like 2.1. So is the punch his official finisher? The Punch is countered into the Slam for two. That would have been a horribly awkward ending if that had been it.

Hang onto your nachos with barbecue sauce: Mark Henry is going to the top rope. Show manages to throw him off with what is supposed to be a chokeslam and Henry kicks out again. Show is stunned and I can’t say I blame him. The announcers didn’t really react to the chokeslam that well either. Now Show is looking at the corner. Oh dear. Show goes up but Henry makes the save and keeps the planet’s tides from changine. Henry hits a superplex and there goes the ring. Not as good of an explosion as Lesnar, but still pretty good. Both guys are down and the match is thrown out (I guess) at about 12 minutes.

Rating: B-. Battles of the giants are always fun and this was no exception. There’s nothing wrong with having two big guys out there hitting each other really hard and this worked too. The ring breaking is really cool and you don’t need a ring for a last man standing match so that’s all cool. The show was looking to run short also so they needed something like this. Fun match and it sets up a gimmick match in New York.

They’re still down so here are Long and Ace. What role does Ace have here at all? Henry is still down but Show is up on his knees. Show gets on the cart and is holding his neck. He’s talking and cursing though. Henry actually falls out of the ring and is still trying to get up. He shoves the referees away and collapses. Henry stumbles up the ramp as he’s selling this thing to death.

Ace gets on the mic and says the title match is still on. He slips up (intentionally) and says it’s what he wants, not what the fans want.

We recap this feud, which can be summed up as Cena’s rematch after losing the title in a triple threat in the Cell.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio

Last man standing. Cena has a new shirt that says Rise Above Hate. More anti-bullying stuff even though that fad/movement is pretty much over. He walks up to a fan at ringside wearing a “We Hate Cena” shirt and gives him a little smirk. The guy has no idea what to do so Cena throws his hat over near him and gets in. The guy in the shirt was stunned.

Rodriguez jumps Cena and gets the advantage for Del Rio. Cena is in camo shorts here instead of the usual jeans. They’re actually in the broken ring. We talk about the ring collapsing and Jerry actually says Lesnar’s name. They head out for some brawling and Cena takes over back inside. I’m not going to bother mentioning the counts because they’re not going to come close until about ten minutes in.

Rodriguez has a big black eye. Belly to back puts Cena down and a second one puts him down again. Make it three of them. The ring is at a slant now. This really is a unique look. AA is countered into a Backstabber as Del Rio takes over again. He keeps going to the corners for some reason. Del Rio fires off some more suplexes but Cena counters and starts his finishing sequence. He looks for ropes for the Shuffle and has none in a funny bit.

AA is countered and the Mexican hits a German on the American. Cena hits a gutwrench suplex and they’re both down. A tilt-a-whirl backbreaker puts Cena down but Del Rio breaks it up. They have a good explanation for it though: why let Cena have a break when you know he’s getting up? Alberto puts Cena under the ropes and part of a post so he can stomp on it, getting about seven and Del Rio charges into the AA.

That only gets about 8 and Ricardo comes in to break up another AA. Cena fires off move #19, a big boot, to take Ricardo down. Alberto uses the distraction to try the armbreaker but Del Rio grabs a rear naked choke which slips into a sleeper instead. The referee checks the arm because….because…..because he’s not that smart. Cena is out and Del Rio has to be up to let the count begin, despite that not being a rule so far throughout the match.

Cena is up at like 7 and Del Rio is tossed into the barricade (no ropes remember) in a great looking crash. This is only the second time they’ve been out of the ring. Cena loads up the steps but goes into them according to Wrestling Law #2 (#1 is the table version). Rodriguez tries to cheat again but gets crotched on the post. Cena puts Alberto onto the post to teeter tot the post into Ricardo’s balls. Ok that was clever.

More steps are set up but Cena goes into them head first this time. Lawler says the steps weigh 400 pounds. So in other words, Del Rio and Cena could lift about half a ton if they were trying. A step shot to Cena like the one he hit Del Rio with on Monday gets 8. They fight into the back which is where things get interesting. Del Rio goes onto what looks like a catering/drink table and Cena is all fired up.

There’s a large anvil case (taller than Cena by about two feet) and far wider and Cena tries to drop it on Del Rio. He shoves it over but the champ moves. That would have killed him so that’s a good thing. Del Rio slams Cena onto the case and I think he breaks it. Cena is up at seven but back down at 8. Del Rio drops a big metal thing onto Cena (part of the interview set) and then shoves another onto him. Cena is getting buried AND THE INTERNET REJOICES!!! There are like five of them on him and he’s not moving. Jericho did this to Kane at Armageddon 2000.

Cena is like screw these five big metal objects on me and is up at 8. I love when wrestling just gets ridiculous like that. Rodriguez gets involved again and Cena is thrown through what looks like a cheap wooden V that the set is made of. He’s not on his back so we can’t count. Del Rio sets up a regular table (bigger pop than anything else in the match) and climbs up the set for no apparent reason. Cena pulls him down and he crashes through the table and Alberto is up at 9.

They fight over to the equipment stuff and then into the crowd. Ok they’re back at ringside now and onto the announce table. Cena throws Alberto into the barricade and takes out Ricardo for about the 9th time for fun. Alberto tries the running enziguri against the post but misses, probably breaking his leg. Cena loads up the steps for the third time and I think it’s Super AA time. You know, instead of letting the guy with a probably broken leg stay there.

Cena can be kind of a jerk in these matches you know? Yep it’s Super AA time and the Spanish Announce Table (trademark) explodes. That looks to be in but Awesome Truth runs in to beat down Cena. The referee stops looking at Del Rio as Miz hits the Finale and Truth hits Little Jimmy (the 10th name for his finisher) to put Cena out. Del Rio is up and Cena STILL gets up at 9. This is downright comical. There’s a belt shot and that’s finally enough to beat Cena at 27:00.

Rating: B. I’d call this match fun more than good. It’s when you get to the period of “can you top this and mix it with cartoon stuff that would kill people but only gets 9 counts that things get interesting. The idea here is it was Cena’s match but Del Rio found a way to win. I had fun with it and while I’d have liked something better than a belt shot to end it, it was still fun overall.

Cena looks messed up in the eyes.

Overall Rating: C-. Well the last two matches helped it A LOT but the rest of it was just weak. There was no reason for this show but it kind of gives us some closure to this segment of the year. With this ending we’re going to go into the Rock time which is what we’ve needed to do for awhile. This brings up the mentioned Survivor Series match with Miz/Truth being the two main heels on it. Not the worst show ever, but the first two hours or so were pretty weak.

Results
Air Boom b. Jack Swagger/Dolph Ziggler – Shooting Star Press to Ziggler
Dolph Ziggler b. Zack Ryder – Superkick
Beth Phoenix b. Eve Torres – Glam Slam
Sheamus b. Christian – Brogue Kick
Awesome Truth b. CM Punk/HHH – Little Jimmy Finale
Randy Orton b. Cody Rhodes – RKO
Mark Henry vs. Big Show went to a no contest
Alberto Del Rio b. John Cena when Cena couldn’t answer the ten count

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Crockett Cup 1986
Date: April 19, 1986
Location: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 3,500 (Afternoon), 13,000 (Evening)
Commentators: N/A

Here’s the first of a set of three rare shows I’ll get to eventually. This is a 24 team tag tournament that was held every year from 1986-1988. This year has sixteen teams in the first round and the winners of those eight matches would face eight teams that had gotten byes. As you may have guessed, some of these teams were thrown together because we needed teams to fill in the brackets. There are also two non-tournament matches. Thankfully this is the home video version so a lot of the 23 match card (see why it was split into two sessions?) is cut or clipped. Let’s get to it.

Again bear in mind that this is the home video version so a lot of the bracket is missing.

Here’s the first round. The winners will face the team in parentheses.

Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood
Bobby Jaggers/Mike Miller
(Road Warriors)

Sam Houston/Nelson Royal
Batten Twins
(Midnight Express)

Fabulous Ones
Fantastics
(Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard)

Guerreros
Sheepherders
(Rock N Roll Express)

Barbarian/Baron Von Raschke
Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant
(Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff)

Terry Taylor/Steve Williams
Bill Dundee/Buddy Landell
(Dino Bravo/Rick Martel)

Italian Stallion/Koko Ware
Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner
(Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA)

DJ Peterson/Brett Wayne
Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin
(Tiger Mask/Giant Baba)

See what I mean about thrown together teams? It’s no wonder this show is clipped.

The full title is Jim Crockett Senior Memorial Tag Team Tournament. Yeah it’s the Crockett Cup.

Crockett Cup First Round: Mark Youngblood/Wahoo McDaniel vs. Bobby Jaggers/Mike Miller

This is joined in progress with Wahoo pounding on I believe Miller. Expect to hear “joined in progress” and “clipped to” a lot in this. Off to Youngblood and it’s at this point that I realize there’s no commentary on this. Not even voiceovers. Something tells me this is going to be a lot harder to keep track of.

Youngblood gets beaten down and we’re cut to Jaggers holding him in a chinlock. Youngblood gets a shoulder block to put both guys down and it’s hot tag to Wahoo and everything breaks down. Wahoo chops Miller down and pins him with a big elbow drop (his finisher) to advance on. This was about 2 minutes of an 8 minute match. Expect a lot of stuff like that on this review.

Crockett Cup First Round: Sam Houston/Nelson Royal vs. Batten Twins

The twins are named Bart and Brad and that’s all I’ve got on them. Royal vs. let’s say Brad starts us off. And that’s enough of that so after about 8 seconds we’re off to Houston in trouble as the twins double team him. One of the twins misses a charge and hits the post but Houston can’t tag out. Jumping back elbow gets two for the one that didn’t hit the post. Lukewarm tag brings in Royal but its back to Houston quickly. At least the fans recognize him I think. The bulldog ends let’s say Bart quickly. This was about a minute out of 8 that the match ran.

Crockett Cup First Round: Jimmy Valiant/Manny Fernandez vs. Baron Von Raschke/Barbarian

We open with Jimmy dancing around like an idiot with the big beard against Baron’s evil paleness. Baron looks old and slow here in 1986. Off to Manny and we’re clipped to Barbarian hitting him in the back but missing a dropkick. Back off to Baron who can’t even throw very convincing forearms. Valiant gets a hot tag which Manny could make due to Baron being old and slow. Sleeper goes on Baron but things break down quickly. Some heel managers get involved but Manny hooks a sunset flip on Barbarian for the pin. About 2-3 minutes out of 11.

Crockett Cup First Round: Terry Taylor/Steve Williams vs. Bill Dundee/Buddy Landell

Team Mid-South here against I guess you would say Team Memphis. Joined in progress with Landell locking up with Taylor. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of these pairings so I apologize for how fast some of these matches seem. I’m just over ten minutes into the tap and we’ve seen this much. Clipped to Taylor in trouble as the fans chant for him. This is pre-Red Rooster so he’s got credibility. Dundee throws on a sleeper but Terry hooks a jawbreaker to escape. Hot tag brings in Williams who easily beats up both Tennesseeans. Oklahoma Stampede kills Landell dead at about two minutes out of twelve.

Crockett Cup First Round: Sheepherders vs. Hector Guerrero/Chavo Guerrero

The Sheepherders are the Bushwackers as CRAZY heels. Believe it or not there’s a match later on with them in it that Meltzer gave five stars, so they weren’t exactly the same team. Joined in progress with Butch pounding on Chavo but the guy with a famous brother escapes with speed moves. Off to Luke who pounds away even more but gets caught in a sunset flip for two.

Moderate tag brings in Hector and the announcer says we’re at ten minutes in. Abdominal stretch goes on but the Herders won’t quit cheating. Butch is knocked out of the ring as the flag bearer (Rip Morgan) is dropped for a BIG pop. Not that it matters as a double clothesline to Hector ends the Guerreros at just under three minutes shown of about 11. I’m sorry for the lack of ratings but at 15 minutes into the tape I’ve gotten through a two minute intro and five matches. What can I really do here?

Crockett Cup First Round: Fantastics vs. Fabulous Ones

Ok by sheer talent in the ring this has to be good. The Fabulous ones are Steve Keirn (Skinner and the current owner of FCW) and Stan Lane (future member of the Midnight Express). The Fantastics are Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rodgers and are probably my favorite NWA tag team. Fulton vs. Keirn to start and this goes fast. Clipped to Keirn hammering on Fulton. This lack of commentary is really pretty interesting.

A hot shot puts Fulton down but there’s no cover. Clipped to his comeback and Fulton’s tights being pulled down. Lane comes in for a superkick and we’re clipped again to both guys going down off a Russian legsweep. Hot tag to Rodgers gets a big pop as he hammers away on everyone in sight. House is cleaned and an O’Connor Roll pins Lane. WAY too clipped to have any kind of idea if it was good or not.

Crockett Cup First Round: Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner vs. Koko Ware/Italian Stallion

Ware is obvious and Stallion is a jobber to the stars. Sawyer is a bit nuts so he fits in perfectly. Ware vs. Sawyer to start off the latest clip-a-thon and I have no idea who the favorites are here. Sawyer is sent to the floor twice and wow he’s already back in. HOW FAST IS THIS GUY? Stallion comes in and works on Steiner who I didn’t recognize in regular trunks. I think he and Sawyer are the heels. Clipped to Ware in a bearhug by Steiner and it’s off to Sawyer. He misses a splash and Stallion comes in. We’re at the 15 minute mark so Sawyer hits a powerslam for the pin. Maybe two minutes shown.

Crockett Cup First Round: Brett Sawyer/Dave Peterson vs. Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin

This is the last match of the first round. Bart is a big fat cowboy and I don’t know much about their opponents. Bart hammers on Peterson and bumps around fast as Peterson isn’t that good from what I can tell. Off to Sawyer as they work on Bart’s arm a bit. Clipped to Garvin in control and then a hot tag to Sawyer. Bart drops a leg and a Garvin brainbuster ends this. The whole match was about 6 and a half minutes.

Now we’re onto the second round and most of the teams from here on are at least knows pairings. Here are the brackets.

Road Warriors
Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

Sam Houston/Nelson Royal
Midnight Express

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard
Fantastics

Sheepherders
Rock N Roll Express

Koloffs
Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant

Terry Taylor/Steve Williams
Dino Bravo/Rick Martel

Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA
Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin
Tiger Mask/Giant Baba

Crockett Cup Second Round: Midnight Express vs. Sam Houston/Nelson Royal

We start at the beginning with Houston vs. Condrey. Man Cornette is loud. Off to Eaton and the Midnights are moving in this one. This has been all Express so far. Houston gets in a knee lift and it’s off to Royal and his huge trunks. Everything breaks down quickly and Eaton hits a shot off the top to Royal for the pin. The whole thing (unclipped!!!) was under two minutes.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

Ronnie vs. Sawyer to get us going but it’s off to Magnum quickly. Magnum works on Buzz’s arm but we’re clipped to him working on Rick’s arm. Go figure. Sawyer comes back in and goes nuts on him with all kinds of pounding away. Off to a chinlock and also off to Steiner. We’re clipped to a bit later in the heel beatdown and a DDT by Sawyer for two.

Magnum grabs a small package for two as well as a backslide. He finally gets the hot tag to Ronnie who throws some punches and tags right back out. Magnum hits the belly to belly on Steiner and in 1986 that might as well have been a bullet to the head. Again, way too short. Is a full match over three minutes too much to ask?

Crockett Cup Second Round: Road Warriors vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

Animal pounds on Youngblood and it’s off to Hawk quickly. Total dominance so far. Wahoo comes in to chop Animal some but enough of the powerful veteran. Let’s get the skinny guy in again! Hawk kills him with a shoulder block and after a few punches from Youngblood, the middle rope clothesline ends this. Total squash according to the clipped version.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant

The first thing we see is Nikita in a leg lock. This is getting really boring because there’s not enough to gather anything from at all. We’re on the 12th match and I’ve watched about 35 minutes of this tape. Think about that for a minute. Wrestlemania 17 had 11 matches. Ivan gets a tag in and gets caught in the wrong corner. How was he a former world champion? Off to Valiant as Ivan’t crotch takes a beating.

Clipped to the five minute mark with Fernandez missing a dropkick to bring in Nikita again. Clipped to Manny in a bearhug as Ivan comes in again. Hot tag brings in Jimmy who cleans house and hooks a sleeper. Everything breaks down (that should be the name of this show) and Nikita gets a Sickle for the pin. WOW IT WAS OVER THREE MINUTES SHOWN!!!

Rating: D+. This was just ok as the Koloffs who were usually a good heel team came off looking like clowns here who hit one big move to win the match. I wasn’t huge on this one but a lot of that is probably due to Valiant. He had no room on a show outside of Memphis as he was just a crowd favorite rather than anyone talented in the ring. That being said, his pops were huge and I get why he’s in this. I just don’t like him.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Dino Bravo/Rick Martel vs. Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Bravo is hurt, forfeit, no match.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Rock N Roll Express vs. Sheepherders

Oh pardon me: the New Zealand Sheepherders. It’s a big brawl to start and Luke has to bail quickly. Clipped to Robert sending Luke into the buckle and bringing in Ricky who cleans house. Clipped again to Butch pounding Ricky down to the shock of no one that knows anything about 80s wrestling. We’re at the five minute mark (when I say that it means that’s what the announcer says) and we’re clipped to Robert coming back in.

Gibson misses a charge into the corner and we’re clipped into even more of a beating on him. It’s weird to see an Express match without having Morton in there getting beaten down for the majority of it. Hot tag brings in Morton and there’s a double dropkick to Butch. The Flag Bearer comes in for the attack but Morton gets caught with the flag for the DQ to send the Sheepherders to the third round.

Rating: C. Pretty fun match with all four guys being all over the place here but in a good way. This was meant to be more of a fast paced match with the Express being dragged into a brawling style where they were in over their heads. Not a great match or anything, but these teams could have had a decent match if given the time.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Tully Blanchard/Arn Anderson vs. Fantastics

We actually get an opening bell and it’s Blanchard vs. Rodgers. They slug it out and we’re clipped to Rodgers holding a headlock. Off to Arn and he doesn’t do very well either. Clipped to Arn hammering away on Fulton as he becomes the Fantastic in peril. Fulton is sent to the floor and into the barricade. Not that we need to care or anything as we’re clipped to the hot tag to Rodgers. Arn grabs the Gordbuster but Fulton makes the save. We get the dropkick into the back of your partner as he’s slammed for the pin. Another short one.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Giant Baba/Tiger Mask vs. Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin

That’s Tiger Mask II, as in Misawa. Clipped to Tiger being faster than anything anyone has seen in America ever up to this point. Tiger grabs the arm and speeds things way farther up than this audience is used to with a baseball slide. Clipped to Baba hammering on Garvin after some heel double teaming. Clipped again to the heels working on Tiger Mask. Baba comes back in and destroys them all because that’s what old giants do. A big boot gets the pin on Bart to end what appeared to be a long squash.

That takes us to the third round. Here are the quarter-final brackets.

Road Warriors
Midnight Express

Fantastics
Sheepherders

Koloffs
Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA
Giant Baba/Tiger Mask

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express

We open with Animal beating on Condrey. The Midnights are in different tights than earlier. This might be in the evening session. Animal runs him over a few times and hits a dropkick to the stomach. Clipped to Condrey trying to have a pose down with Hawk for no apparent reason. Cornette gets up on the apron for some double teaming which doesn’t work at all and the Midnights hit the floor.

Hawk takes a piledriver from Condrey and actually stays down for a few seconds! Oh scratch that as he’s back up and hammering away again. Clipped to a Rocket Launcher attempt but Hawk pops up and slams Eaton. Eaton gets beaten down for awhile and it’s off to Animal. The Midnights cheat some more as Animal catches Condrey in a powerslam. The makes Cornette pull the leg and it’s a DQ to send the Warriors to the final four. We got about 5 minutes out of ten here which is the most we’ve seen so far.

Rating: C+. This was getting pretty good while it lasted and the ten minute version would have been a pretty solid match. That being said, the clipped version is still pretty good and these are teams that seemingly would have been able to have good matches if they had the time to work with, but you can say that for almost any talented team.

Crockett Cut Quarter-Finals: Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Taylor and Ivan start us off with Taylor working the arm. Taylor controls early and we’re clipped to Williams coming in to work on the arm. Doc (Williams) is in yellow and red here. We get the always cool gorilla press with reps from Williams to Ivan. Clipped to Taylor working on the arm. Ivan finally figures out he’s a bad guy and goes to the eyes so he can bring in Nikita.

Nikita vs. Williams at the moment in what is a power wrestling fan’s dream. Both of these guys are just scary strong. Koloff tries to pose so Williams dropkicks him to the floor. Clipped to a two count for Ivan and a tag back to Williams. We hit the fifteen minute mark of a twenty minute time limit with Doc slamming Ivan off the middle rope for two. Clipped to a powerslam getting the same result.

There’s the hot tag to Taylor and in Soviet Russia, house cleans you. He beats up both Russians but Ivan catches him with a knee/boot and various other power heel offense. Taylor is sent to the outside and they almost break the railing when he goes into it. Two minutes left. Ivan stomps on Terry and it’s back off to Nikita for a bear hug. A minute to go. Doc comes in anyway but Taylor keeps kicking out at 30 seconds to go. Taylor grabs a small package (this is a family show!) and time runs out with no real urgency from anyone.

Rating: C+. This was about ten minutes shown out of twenty which is something I can live with. This wasn’t bad and was probably the best match of the night so far. What a shock: a match that gets more time than any other one on the show is also the best one. Nothing too bad here but it wasn’t a memorable match or anything.

The double elimination means whoever wins in Garvin/Magnum vs. Baba/Tiger Mask is in the finals.

The Koloffs plus Krusher Khruschev (Smash from Demolition) beat down Doc post match.

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Sheepherders vs. Fantastics

Big brawl to start and the Fantastics clear the ring. Clipped to Butch hammering on Fulton until the Fantastics dropkick everything in sight to send them to the floor. Clipped to Butch hammering on Fulton. I’ve seen this before it seems. Out to the floor for more dropkicking and it turns into a brawl. Fulton is beaten down on the floor and can barely move. Rodgers is ticked off because of it.

Clipped to Luke beating on Fulton but the flag bearer messes up, resulting in Luke going into the flag. There’s the hot tag to Rodgers and Butch is busted open. The cameraman and referee are taken out and now Fulton is busted as well. The flag bearer tries to cheat again and one more time it doesn’t work. The future Wackers get the flag stick in the ring and beat on Fulton with it but as is the case in wrestling, they get beat on with it as well. Another referee comes down to wake up the first and it’s another double DQ. That means the Road Warriors are in the finals as well.

Rating: B. Meltzer gave THIS five stars? It’s a fun brawl and WAY violent for its time, but the clipping must have killed it because this wasn’t a classic or anything resembling one. It’s good and the most fun match on the show so far, but if the full version was 15 minutes, this was the low half of it. My mind continues to be blown by his ratings at times as this is one of the matches better than Savage vs. Steamboat? Really?

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Tiger Mask/Giant Baba vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

Tiger Mask vs. Garvin starts us off but we’re joined in progress again. Garvin works on the leg and it’s off to Magnum vs. Baba. Baba runs him over a bit until we’re off to Tiger again. Magnum gets a suplex and we’re clipped to him being caught in a front facelock. Sunset flip gets two for Magnum and it’s back to Baba. Garvin comes in to get smacked around a bit by the Giant and everything breaks down again. Baba’s arms are frighteningly skinny. Tiger hits a dropkick and senton on Magnum. He goes up for the cross body but jumps into a belly to belly for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: D+. From what I could see here this wasn’t that good. They were all faces which hurt things a lot. The ending wasn’t bad but the match was still pretty dull. This sets up another all face final which isn’t going to do this show any favors. Nothing great here but that’s just the way things have been going all day tonight.

Garvin/Magnum vs. Road Warriors in the final.

UWF North American Championship: Jim Duggan vs. Dick Slater

Oh great we’re going to get this one in full. Duggan is champion and that’s the top title in the Mid-South company. Jim Ross does the introductions which isn’t something you see every day. This REALLY could have gone on earlier in the tape and it would have helped a lot. Duggan takes over with power and we’re clipped to Slater coming back in after being knocked to the floor.

Duggan throws on a headlock and this match is already boring. He hammers away with his usual array of stuff, which is to say a lot of punches. Slater punches back and we head to the floor. Duggan is thrown into the barricade which falls over under his weight. Off to a chinlock as I begin to look for some traffic to play in to cure my boredom. Slater hooks a neckbreaker and we’re clipped to him missing something off the top.

Duggan starts hammering on him again and does his stomp to appeal to the patriotism in all of the fans. How that stomp is American I’m not sure but Duggan is on a different intellectual level than I am. The referee gets bumped (meaning kneed in the back by Slater) and Slater drops a top rope elbow for two. Duggan gets tied up in the ropes, but when the referee tries to pull him off, Duggan escapes with the three point shoulder block to end it.

Rating: D-. This was horrible. Duggan was a popular guy in Mid-South and would be a huge star in WWF, but without any kind of story or anything like that, this was just boring. It’s almost all punching and when Dick Slater is the more interesting wrestler in your match, you can tell you’re in a lot of trouble.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes

They fight over a top wristlock to start and Dusty’s manager Baby Doll is already getting on my nerves with her screaming. Now they chop it out in the corner and Dusty takes over to start as you would expect. A bunch of right hands sends Flair running and Baby Doll is a very old looking woman. Back in Flair tries a leapfrog and walks into an elbow to the head to put him down.

They fight over the arm again as we hit five minutes. There might have been a clip in there somewhere because it doesn’t seem like we’ve been at this that long. They go to the floor for a few seconds and somewhere in there Dusty got busted open. Dusty fires back by crotching Flair on the post. Now I know we have a clip as they’re slugging it out until Flair grabs a sleeper.

Dusty sends Flair into the corner to counter and we’re clipped to them on the floor and Flair blading very obviously. We don’t see what the shot was that caused it but who needs that? You can hear the referee say Ric’s cut too. Flair gets caught in the Tree of Woe which goes nowhere. Dusty gets two off a clothesline at the fifteen minute mark. We saw about 5 minutes out of ten between the 5 and 15 minute announcements.

Off to a sleeper which Dusty doesn’t crank on at all. Flair grabs the rope about 10 times but the hold isn’t broken. Isn’t touching it the same as grabbing it? Dusty hooks his awful Figure Four as there’s no crank on it at all. You see that a lot in his holds. They clip out the hold to just Flair grabbing the rope. Are you serious? Flair goes up and yeah you know the drill. Dusty tackles him into the referee so there’s no count on his small package. Flair hits Dusty in the head with Dusty’s own boot for two at the 20 minute mark. Flair goes after baby Doll so Dusty hits him with the boot and that’s a DQ.

Rating: C. The curse of the clipping strikes again because this looked like it was a pretty good match but we didn’t get to see the middle parts of it which is where most of the good stuff came from. This has really been a problem but for the love of all things good and holy, can we please see the full match in the final? It’s all that’s left.

Side bar: why is a boot considered a foreign object? He wore it into the ring and kicked Flair with it on multiple times. Why is it illegal when there isn’t a foot in it and presumably the shot would be weaker as legs are usually stronger than arms?

Crockett Cup Finals: Road Warriors vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

All faces here. The winners also get a million dollars. Animal and Magnum get things going. We get some surprisingly quick stuff until Magnum takes over with a dropkick. Animal takes him down with a top wristlock and they trade arm work on the mat. Off to Hawk who puts on a chinlock….and they clip this match too. ARE YOU SERIOUS???? The whole show is about one freaking tournament and you give us a total of ONE MATCH THAT ISN’T CLIPPED??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

A middle rope splash misses and Garvin gets a small package for two. Off to Magnum who doesn’t have as much luck with Animal who stomps away on the US Champion. Off to Animal again and it’s chinlock time. Powerslam gets two as Magnum is in trouble. Magnum grabs the belly to belly for two as Hawk saves. Hot tag to Garvin and down he goes almost immediately.

Garvin tries an abdominal stretch on Hawk but punches Hawk instead. The problem with this is he punches Hawk so hard that he breaks his hand. I’m not sure if this is kayfabe or real but it doesn’t really matter either way as Animal hits a pretty weak clothesline on Garvin and gets a quick pin for the tournament win and the million bucks.

Rating: D+. Apparently Garvin’s hand was broken coming in. Imagine that: Ronnie Garvin does something stupid like HIT A GUY IN THE HEAD WHILE HE HAS A BROKEN HAND. Garvin’s team deserves to lose after that. This match was pretty boring and the ending didn’t help things at all. Nothing to see here other than the end of a long and boring show.

The Warriors get the check to end the show.

Overall Rating: D-. OH man where do I begin with this one? The problem with this show comes down to one thing: four and a half hours. That’s the amount of ring time that this card would have had if the matches all got their full time shown. Now imagine that being put down into a two hour tape. That includes the time dedicated to the entrances, the graphics between matches, and the ending. Based on that alone, I think you know why this isn’t anything worth seeing. The other two tournaments can’t be this bad. I mean, it’s not possible. Without the clipping this would have been bad anyway.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Ring of Honor
Date: October 21, 2011
Location: Davis Arena, Louisville, Kentucky
Commentators: Kevin Kelly, Nigel McGuinness

We’re into the second batch of tapings here so hopefully they can change up a few things this time. This is OVW’s home base and I believe the third set of tapings will be held here as well. I’m really not wild on this show so far and I haven’t seen many great reviews on it. I think the main event this week is the TV Title being defended. Let’s get to it.

We open with a brief intro from the announcers.

TJ Perkins and Mike Mondo (Mikey from the Spirit Squad) talk about how they’re excited to debut in Ring of Honor, even though Perkins has been around for years.

Mike Mondo vs. TJ Perkins

Mondo is doing the Crash Holly “I’m a giant even though I’m small” thing. They shake hands pre-match and we’re ready to go. Mondo is a roided up mess. They go fast to start until Perkins grabs a Boston Crab but picks Mondo up by the arms to crank on him. We go into the Tree of Woe and Perkins hits a hesitation dropkick to send Mondo to the floor. Mondo takes over again and we enter into the always annoying forearm smash-a-thon.

Out to the floor again and Perkins hits his second suicide dive of the match. Springboard dropkick gets two for TJ. Perkins hooks half of a Figure Four but turns it over into a Scorpion Position. It looked more like a Cloverleaf/Sharpshooter hybrid than the Figure Four Deathlock name they gave it. After a few seconds Mondao remembers to sell the leg but then snaps off a Codebreaker because he was playing possum. Superkick is blocked but the second one hits and Perkins fires off some kicks. They hit the mat for some rollups and La Majistral pins Mondo at 7:15.

Rating: C+. Pretty entertaining cruiserweight style match but Mondo was far less entertaining. Perkins would be fine as a cruiserweight style guy in TNA or WWE with a few more years of practice. Mondo, who has been in WWE and was a tag champion there, was horrible as a lot of the stuff he did made no sense and his offense was boring on top of that.

We get clips of last week with the All Night Express vs. the Briscoes and the announcement that neither is the #1 contender.

Here are the Briscoes to talk to Cornette. Next week there’s another match between the two teams and the winners get the match at Final Battle which is the last show of the year. The Briscoes go insane and rant and rave as they’re known to do. They shout Man Up and beat on each other a bit before hugging.

We hear from Haas and Benjamin about how they want the Briscoes. So why is the Express even an issue in this?

Truth Martini talks about the Roderick Strong/Eddie Edwards staredown last week. Strong makes an open challenge for Final Battle. Also he’s going to beat up Richards’ friend Kyle O’Reilly next week.

Richards talks about how he knows he can beat Strong and how he’s worked so hard and is so tough and all that jazz.

We get a clip from Lethal winning the title from Generico like a month ago.

TV Title: Jay Lethal vs. Mike Bennett

They fight over a lockup to start and Lethal controls with some dropkicks. Lethal misses a baseball slide and they slug it out on the floor. There are I presume plants in the crowd yelling about Kevin Steen. Bennett takes over as they’re back in the ring at about 12. Oh I forgot to mention that in ROH there’s a 20 count on the floor instead of 10. Lethal puts on a freaky submission hold as he has the legs locked like a Cloverleaf but is behind Bennett instead of sitting on top of him. The freaky part is he leans back like a surfboard. That looked sick although the surfboard part would seem to make the hold weaker.

Bennett’s manager distracts Lethal and Bennett can hit a hot shot and clothesline to take over. Back with lethal running the ropes but getting caught by a corner clothesline and a neckbreaker for two. Powerslam gets two as it’s all Bennett at this point. There’s a 15 minute time limit here and they’re over ten so far. Bennett hooks a front facelock for a bit to kill some time.

Lethal starts his comeback and we have three minutes left. That’s about right actually so I can’t complain there. It’s better than the NWA show I’ve been watching which has times all over the place. Lethal looks to set for the elbow but Bennett gets up so they slug it out a bit. He tries a springboard something but jumps into a spinebuster for two by Bennett with 1:45 to go.

DDT by Lethal hits with a minute to go. He tries a leg lock but gets rolled up for two. Superkick hits and Lethal goes up. The elbow misses at 40 seconds and Bennett pounds away at 30 seconds. This is pretty stupid as he’s wasted 15 seconds with just punches on his arms. Lethal rolls him over and punches away as well until the time runs out at 15:03 (close enough).

Rating: B-. Pretty decent match here but the ending hurt it a lot. Why in the world would Bennett just go insane and start punching until the match was over? He had been fine until then and had Lethal beaten given the missed elbow. I don’t get this but the other 14:30 was solid enough that I can’t complain much.

Lethal wants 5 more minutes but Bennett declines. Ok then.

Overall Rating: C+. Probably their best show so far as we have some actual stories coming up. It would be nice to see these guys wrestling even in squashes rather than just talking about these matches but that’s ROH for you. The main event was pretty good and the rest of it worked pretty well also. Mondo is bad but everyone else was ok. Best show so far I think.

Results
TJ Perkins b. Mike Mondo – Majistral Cradle
Jay Lethal vs. Mike Bennett went to a time limit draw

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

I figured that’s a better title than PPV Predictions as I’ll have some general thoughts in this as well.

As I’ve made very clear, this is a show that doesn’t need to exist.  The HIAC show should be moved to this date, or in a perfect world HIAC wouldn’t exist as a PPV but we’re splitting hairs here.  This show seems like a cutting off point as just after Sunday we start the build for Survivor Series and ultimately, Wrestlemania.  It seems like they’re just in a holding pattern until then, which isn’t a good thing for the most part.

As for the matches, I’m going to take Henry, Alberto and HHH/Punk.  My guess would be Kane returns around the end of the year and fights Henry at the Rumble.  Cena doesn’t have anything to do if he wins the title again and if they’re smart, they’ll let the title and Cena be apart for awhile as you can have two draws for the Mania build period.  Cena vs. Rock is bigger than the title anyway.  You need to have a face win in there so there’s the tag match stuff.

Thoughts/predictions?

Smackdown
Date: October 21, 2011
Location: Mexican Sports Palace, Mexico City, Mexico
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Booker T

It’s the final night of shows in Mexico and it’s also the final show before the PPV. I’m not really sure what else they’re going to add to the show as I think they have six or seven matches on the card so far. That being said, we could use some more build for most of the matches, primarily because there were only three weeks of build for this show. Let’s get to it.

Do You Know Your Enemy? Mine is 3 PPVs in 6 Sundays for WWE alone.

Here’s Alberto to open the show. Naturally he’s a huge face here in Mexico. Ah there’s the commentary. Nothing had been said for over two minutes. I didn’t know Cole had it in him. Tonight Alberto was supposed to face Big Show but due to Cena’s attack on Monday, that can’t happen. I wonder if the fans chuckle at being told that dinner is attacking people. He wanted to perform for his Mexico but he can’t do that now. Alberto speaks some Spanish, talking about wanting to be the best Mexican ever and that’s about it.

As he’s leaving, here’s Teddy to interrupt him. Alberto has been checked out by WWE doctors and they say all is well. Teddy thinks that Alberto is trying to get out of the match, so tonight Alberto will indeed face Big Show. Alberto says he’ll make Show tap so Teddy asks the fans if they want to see the match. Uh…why?

As Teddy is leaving and Alberto is still in the ring, here’s Henry. We go to a graphic for the mask vs. mask match tonight and there’s no commentary still. I don’t know what’s going on with that. We get a clip of Henry hurting Morrison on Monday. The rest of the audio is fine so I don’t know where the commentary is. I heard them earlier.

John Morrison vs. Mark Henry

Decent pop for Johnny. Morrison is shoved to the floor quickly and then has his head shoved against the post like a vice. The commentators don’t seem to be doing anything. Back inside it’s time for a neck crank and we take a break. Back with Morrison in mid-flight on Starship Pain for two. He tries a baseball slide through Henry’s legs but gets stomped on. The Slam ends this at 2:05 shown of 5:15.

Rating: C-. Just a squash here for the most part but I’m digging this no commentary thing. I don’t know if it’s something with the version I’m watching or what but it’s kind of a nice change of pace. Morrison’s depush continues as it looks like he’s on his way out, especially given the way most others were treated similarly on their ways out. Nothing to see here.

Christian and Vickie are in the back and Vickie talks about being friends with Johnny Ace. Vickie wants Christian to join her team. Teddy comes in and makes Christian vs. Sheamus at the PPV. Christian leaves so Teddy makes Dolph vs. Ryder for the US Title. That means Dolph is wrestling twice, which they point out. Ryder comes in with a catchphrase, making Vickie scream.

The announcers talk about Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara. Ok so they can talk. I guess the first match was just an error? They talk about the mask vs. mask match tonight and how it’s a battle of the Sin Caras. We hear about how Black had his identity stolen by Blue and tonight it’s about who the real Sin Cara is. Having this in Mexico is brilliant.

(I flipped on the regular airing on TV and the commentary was there for the first match. I guess it was just the version I was watching not working.)

Wade Barrett vs. Daniel Bryan

Commentary sounds fine now. We get a quick promo from Barrett, talking about how tonight will be the beginning of the Great Barrett Uprising and how he doesn’t need to have anyone by his side anymore. Bryan isn’t going to shave until Mania. That’s some high level reporting there guys. Wasteland is countered into a crucifix a few seconds in. LeBell Lock is countered and there’s a Boss Man Slam for two. NICE big boot puts Bryan on the floor.

Off to a chinlock for a few seconds but Bryan gets back into things with a missile dropkick for two. Another big boot by Barrett gets two and it’s off to a bow and arrow hold. A forearm puts Barrett down and Bryan does the, and I’m not making this up, Ultimate Warrior rope shake on his way up. Barrett takes him down again and hits the pumphandle slam for two. Bryan goes up but jumps into Wasteland for the pin at 5:11.

Rating: B-. Pretty fun stuff here, especially for only about five minutes. They hit a lot of stuff here and it was a pretty hard hitting match on top of that. These two have some solid chemistry together, but it’s been awhile since either guy has been on the show. I wonder why that is.

Sheamus/Zack Ryder vs. Dolph Ziggler/Christian

As always it’s cool to see the two feuds at once thing. Ryder vs. Ziggler to start but Christian comes in quickly. Ryder grabs a rollup for two and I’m already sick of him being called the Woo Woo Woo Kid. A dropkick gets two for Dolph. Off to Christian who gets a decent heel reaction. Cole is yelling at Booker about softballs or something. There’s a double tag to Sheamus and Ziggler. Josh actually talks about it as he has to shout over his partners. Irish Curse gets two on the champ. Christian runs and the Zig Zag fails, allowing the Brogue Kick to end Ziggler at 3:58.

Rating: C-. Just a quick match here but it was nice to see both feuds getting TV time at once. However, there wasn’t much here from both pairings directly against each other which hurt things a bit. Still though, this wasn’t too bad so I can’t really complain much. As crazy as it sounds, Ryder could become US Champion on Sunday. That’s hard to believe but it’s realistic.

During the break, Christian speared Sheamus on the stage.

Here’s Cody in the ring. We get a clip from a few weeks ago with Orton taking Cross Rhodes and being bagged. He talks about being infected by the Viper’s blood and now let’s talk about Dusty. Dusty told Cody that people are inherently evil and after years of Orton holding Rhodes down, he got his release a few weeks ago by bagging Randy. Rhodes says this time he’s the one with everything going for him while Randy is just the same old guy with the same old tricks.

He calls out Orton and wants an admission from Randy, saying he was wrong about Cody. That brings out the Viper (I really hope some new fan isn’t reading this stuff because all the names might get confusing) who says Cody has cost him the title twice. The injury from the ring bell will pale in comparison to what he has planned on Sunday. Randy wants a preview but the baggers distract Randy long enough for Cody to take over. Cody gets backdropped to the floor and a bagger gets the elevated DDT. Another bagger makes the save but gets his head stomped into the steps. The one that got the DDT takes an RKO as well.

Black Sin Cara has a Blue mask on and that’s next. Seriously, that isn’t the main event? From what I can find, it was taped last and aired at this time instead. That’s pretty logical.

Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara

This is a regular mask but the loser has to unmask. To avoid confusion, I’ll be calling them blue and black. Blue gets a BIG ovation and is clearly fired up to be here. There’s a big Mistico chant to start things off. Cole explains the story which makes sense, although I don’t think many people outside of America care. Black is sent to the floor and there’s a big dive off the top to the floor.

Another one in the ring gets two. Blue tries to speed things up but messes up a springboard move, getting caught in the ribs by a dropkick instead. Black is sent to the floor and we take a break. Back with a backbreake getting two on Blue. Black takes it to the mat and hooks the leg in a submission and then into a booed camel clutch. After some more time on the match, Blue fights back for just a few seconds before going back down again.

Black goes after the mask but Blue fights him off. Black hits a Jeff Hardy slingshot dropkick to Blue in the corner but a charge misses and both guys are down. Blue busts out some of his high flying stuff and I think we get an edit but I’m not sure. A pair of rollups get four which isn’t three. Black hits a Samoan Drop for two. They go up and Blue snaps off a rana from the top for no cover. Blue hits the Swanton for only two. They hit the ropes and Blue busts out his old finishing move, La Mistica, to end this at 10:34 shown of 14:04.

Rating: C+. This was WAY better than their PPV match which might have been due to it being their hometown crowd or something like that, but either way this was a far better match than the other one. Blue can now move onto something better, perhaps a shot at Ziggler or Rhodes or something (the face thing would fit pretty well) while Hunico will probably be gone.

Post match Black tries to leave but Blue beats him up and takes the mask to a big reaction.

Brodus Clay is still coming.

Beth and Natalya are in the ring and Beth talks about how much more dominant they are. We get some clips of the beatings on Kelly and that submission is called Pinup Strong. As for Eve…she’s going to cut off their music because that’s how it works in wrestling. She says the evil ones are ugly on the inside and she’s not a Barbie Doll. They can’t break her and they think Eve should cry. They shove each other a little and Beth might have fallen out of her top. This might be the weakest build I’ve ever seen.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show

I wonder if the car angle will be brought up. Del Rio can’t do anything to start as Show hammers away in the corner. Del Rio gets choked and sent to the floor but he clotheslines Show on the top rope…but then gets chopped down with ease as we take a break. Back with the champ kicking away at the leg but that fails too. Alberto manages to drive the steps into Show’s knees to take over for what must have been a good 4 seconds.

A clothesline puts Del Rio down as this has been one sided the entire time so far. Show hooks what looks like a cobra clutch before dropping a leg for two. Alberto FINALLY wakes up and fires off a ton of kicks to a huge face reaction. They combine to get him a count of one before Show catches a kick and gets fired up again. The champ escapes the chokeslam and hits a chopblock.

There’s the cross armbreaker but Show is facing the mat to take away a lot of the pressure. It’s more like a LeBell Lock minus the crossface at this point. Show does the British Bulldog vs. Shawn Michaels short arm scissors counter to break it and is promptly booed. Show sets for the chokeslam but Ricardo jumps on him for the DQ at 8:40 shown of 12:10.

Rating: C. Not bad here but I’d question having the world champion get dominated like this. This match would have been a good place for someone like Christian. It’s a big enough match and I can understand why you don’t want to have Show lose before his title match, but you’re also making Del Rio look pretty weak going into his own title match. Show being a Giant makes that a bit less annoying though.

Mark Henry runs in post match and is DROPPED by the right hand from Big Show. He was on his feet in the ring for maybe a second and a half. Remember what I was saying about making your champion look weak?

Quick aside: if Show can knock someone out cold with a single punch, why would he do all that stuff like clubbing them in the back or trying to chokeslam them? Pop off one punch and win in like 12 seconds.

Overall Rating: B-. This was much better than last week but it still wasn’t all that great. One thing Smackdown has going for it right now and that it almost always has had is that it keeps things simple. It’s the best thing that they do as they don’t have anything complicated going on or anything that doesn’t make sense after you think about it for the span of 5 minutes. Also more than one ten minute match is a nice thing to see. As for Vengeance, not bad on the build but the show doesn’t need to exist and there’s no way around that.

Results
Mark Henry b. John Morrison – World’s Strongest Slam
Wade Barrett b. Daniel Bryan – Wasteland
Sheamus/Zack Ryder b. Christian/Dolph Ziggler – Brogue Kick to Ziggler
Sin Cara b. Sin Cara – La Mistica
Big Show b. Alberto Del Rio via disqualification when Ricardo Rodriguez interfered

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Impact Wrestling
Date: October 20, 2011
Location: Impact Wrestling Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

It’s the show after Bound For Glory and a few things have changed. First and foremost, Hogan is a face now, having turned after a year of being the top heel in the company. Also we have the same world champion in the form of Angle who was hurt going into the match and for some reason they didn’t put the title on Roode….uh….because he wasn’t ready or something? Clearly that’s their new policy on new champions and won’t be changed at all tonight right? Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the last year leading up to Hogan’s face turn at BFG.

Here’s Sting to open the show as we hear about how much of a betrayal it was for Bischoff’s son to turn on him. Sting is sane again. He talks about how this was about getting Hogan back instead of staying with what we had for the last year. He calls out Hogan because the fans want to see him and here’s the old bald dude himself, now in yellow and red.

Hogan and Sting hug because 15 years of feuding can be solved by one match or something. Hogan admits he’s been wrong and thanks the fans. He’s had a few rough years and he became a follower instead of a leader. He’s been following Bischoff’s lead instead of leading things and now he realizes how wrong Eric was. Hulk takes the blame himself and says it wasn’t Eric’s fault. Heaven forbid we have a heel come off looking evil I guess.

He talks about how he saw Immortal as a pack of wolves and saw the light to make the save. So he had a soul changing moment all of a sudden? Well that’s an explanation at least. Hogan calls Sting the true icon and shakes his hand a bunch before leaving. Sting says Hogan still has it and then calls out Dixie Carter, who still has her own theme song on standby.

After a break Dixie is in the ring to thank Sting. Sting says it’s a day to remember and to celebrate. He also mentions that Dixie wouldn’t listen to him 18 months ago and she got burned because of it. However, it’s all cool because he loves it here and Dixie is going to look out for the fans and this is her second chance. Dixie apologizes to Sting about Hogan and Bischoff. She says she doesn’t belong in the ring and needs to be at headquarters. Because of that, she’s giving Sting the day-to-day authority in Impact Wrestling. So Sting is the new GM? That could work. Sting accepts.

They hug in the ring but a 20 minute segment isn’t long enough. Here’s Kurt who somehow still has the title. For the life of me I don’t get this company at times. After another break Angle calls them superheroes and blames Dixie for his own heel turn. Angle says he’s still champion but Sting is always talking about Bobby Roode. At BFG he made Roode look like a loser and he’s the better man.

That brings out Roode who yells at Angle because of the shaky finish to the title match. He blames Kurt for cheating at the PPV and saying it was bull. That was Roode’s night and he messed it up. If you believe the internet, it was Hogan that messed it up but who’s counting? The fans chant rematch and Sting likes that idea. Sting makes the rematch but Angle plays the Lee Corso card with a not so fast my friend.

The contract says Angle had to face Roode once and only once so there’s no rematch tonight. Angle wants to know what Roode’s partner’s catchphrase is and that brings out James Storm. After break #3, Storm is in the ring and wants a title shot as well. Angle screwed the company, the fans and Roode at the PPV. That means Angle screwed Storm as well and that doesn’t work. Sting however can fix that. Since the fans want a title match tonight, maybe Storm should get one. Angle cuts him off, saying there are ten guys in front of him. That’s very true. Sting makes the match anyway because logic means nothing in TNA.

Time of that very long segment: 40 minutes.

We jump to the back and Eric and Immortal come up to Hogan. Eric calls back the dogs and says they want something to go down in the ring tonight. Eric wants to meet Hogan in the ring tonight, one on one.

During the break, something occurs to me: didn’t Sting say that the REAL Hogan was the one that wanted to take over TNA last summer? Now the REAL Hogan is the good guy? I don’t think we’re supposed to remember that.

Knockout Tag Titles: Winter/Angelina Love vs. Tara/Brooke Tessmacher

Winter and Angelina break up Tessmacher’s shirt tear and the double team is on. We officially start with Angelina vs. Tessmacher. Tessmacher is messed up because of the beatdown and the challengers both beat her down. After a few minutes of beating, Angelina misses a middle rope crossbody and it’s a double tag to Winter and Tara. Spinning side slam gets two. Everything breaks down and Tessmacher gets the pin on Winter with a top rope crossbody at 3:40.

Rating: C. This was fine, mainly due to large implants flying around and them keeping things short. Tessmacher still can’t do much in the ring but she’s improved a lot. She’d still be better at just being a sex object but most of the girls would be other than like two of them. This was nothing to see but for a quick Knockout tag, this wasn’t too bad.

Here are the Jarretts and Jeff calls out Hardy. For the sake of sanity, Jeff Jarrett will be called Jeff and Jeff Hardy will be called Hardy. Jeff talks about how Hardy has screwed up before and he’ll do it again. He says Hardy can leave tonight or he has to face Jeff. I’ll give Jeff this: he’s always ready to fight. Hardy says the fans want him here and it eats Jeff up. He’ll never light up a crowd like Hardy can and that brings about the brawl. They do the pull apart stuff like they did at the PPV. Agents come out and D’Lo Brown and Al Snow get into an argument for no apparent reason. Jeff gets in a low blow and Hardy is left laying.

Angle says he’ll keep the title tonight because he’s Kurt Angle.

We get some stills of Bischoff beating up his son on Sunday.

Eric Young wants to do a calendar photo shoot but Robbie E and Rob Terry come up. Has this been mentioned in months? Eric makes fun of Big Rob, calling him Conan the Barbarian. He calls himself a fighting champion and I begin to laugh. Eric says Robbie E can have a title shot and we’re told that Ronnie from Jersey Shore will be coming here. Oh good grief.

Abyss vs. Gunner

Gunner says that Immortal needs to prove they’re still on top so he’s fighting Abyss for Immortal tonight. Brawl to start and Gunner tries to run. Out to the floor and Gunner goes into the steps. They go back in and Gunner runs away for a countout at 1:50.

Velvet is going to thank the fans next.

Gunner says Immortal needs Abyss back and sounds scared of Abyss. Eric and company say they’re not worried. They’ll take care of Hogan first though.

We get a video about Velvet overcoming the odds because she was bullied as a kid. I don’t know what high school you went to, but girls that looked like her who were jocks weren’t bullied.

Velvet is in the ring now and holds up the belt, saying how awesome it is to finally be champion. She talks about the bullying thing again but says it was all worth it in the end. This brings out Karen and Traci and Karen yells a lot. She says she’s the Knockouts Boss and it would be boring if she just fired them both. Karen calls out security to get rid of Traci and it’s just the two of them left. She gets in Velvet’s face and threatens to strip her of the title but Jeff told her that wouldn’t be very fun. Karen wants the putting in her place to be physical.

She says she knows the perfect person to do it and says Velvet needs eyes in the back of her head. Since Velvet is a face and therefore an idiot, Madison Rayne comes out to the stage and Velvet looks at her as Gail Kim returns through the crowd and beats up Velvet. They both beat Velvet down and stand tall.

More clips from BFG.

Here’s Immortal and Bischoff will be doing the talking. He says that he’ll deal with his son later and calls out Hogan. Hogan’s music is playing before Bischoff is done talking. Eric says he’s got a lot to say so hopefully Hogan packed a lunch. He wants to know how Hogan can dare turn on these guys after they protected him for 18 months. We’ll ignore the storyline issues with that for the sake of sanity. Eric talks about how he’s the man that made Hogan who he is today. Well that’s true. Hogan is a much weaker star today than he was in the 80s.

The real problem though is that Hogan got in Bischoff’s son’s ear and stopped Eric’s son from becoming like his father. Hogan says that he’s learned a lot in the past few days and part of that is that Bischoff’s son is more of a man than Bischoff. Immortal is at ringside and Bischoff tries to hit Hogan. That fails so Hogan points at him. Here’s Immortal but they don’t attatck him. Sting slides in with a pair of ball bats and Immortal (all three of them) run.

Bischoff backs up the ramp but his son is behind him. He says how dare you Hogan but backs into his son. Eric yells at him and the son calls him a disgrace. He rips his son’s shirt open and reveals a Bischoff tattoo on his chest. Eric says his son doesn’t deserve that name anymore and gets drilled for it. He gives Hulk and Sting a thumbs up. So…what’s the payoff to this? I mean, how can this go anywhere since he’s not a wrestler and neither is his dad?

TNA World Title: Kurt Angle vs. James Storm

The bell is ringing at 10:55 so this is going to be short. Angle pounds him down in the corner but brags too much. He walks into a superkick and Storm is champion at 1:20. Well they can’t make it much more definitive than that.

Roode comes out to celebrate and is quickly followed by the rest of Fourtune. Storm goes into the crowd to celebrate.

Storm comes back for the celebration and says this is great. He hands Roode the belt because it belongs to him. Roode takes it and wraps it around Storm’s waist. Fourtune stands tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. I wasn’t into this show. There was way too much talking, but I can understand wanting to focus on storylines a lot. That’s fine, but with a huge twist at the end the show felt like one big angle instead of a TV show. I can live with that once in awhile, but if it becomes the norm this show is in trouble. Anyway, things have certainly changed, although I have a lot of questions about a lot of things, and that’s not really a good thing. As for the title change, as usual with TNA: I think I like the end results but I’m not wild about how they got there.

Results
Tara/Brooke Tessmacher b. Angelina Love/Winter – Top rope crossbody to Winter
Abyss b. Gunner via countout
James Storm b. Kurt Angle – Superkick

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions 6: Ragin Cajun
Date: April 2, 1989
Location: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 5,300
Commentators: Jim Ross, Michael Hayes

Where do I begin with this one? First and foremost, this is on the same night as Wrestlemania 5 in a final attempt to sabatoge the WWF. The problem was that this ran against Savage vs. Hogan which if my memory is right was either the highest PPV buyrate ever or the second highest. The main event from WCW (NWA but we’ll keep things simple here) is Steamboat vs. Flair II in a 2/3 falls match with Steamboat defending his newly won title. Let’s get to it.

Also, 5,300 people in the Superdome? That place holds over 75,000 for football.

We see a lot of legends at a dinner or something last night. Big names like Muchnik, Thesz, O’Connor, Funk and Funk among others. Jim Herd talks about protecting the integrity of the NWA or some jazz like that. Turner had recently bought the company I think so the NWA’s days were numbered.

Terry Funk will be replacing Hayes for commentary on the main event.

We run down the card through a long video package. Or maybe this is just an opening video in general. This goes on a bit too long.

National anthem.

Midnight Express vs. Samoan Swat Team

Dangerously manages the Samoans here. This is his second team to beat Cornette and run him out of the NWA after the Original Midnight Express lost a loser leaves town match at Chi-Town Rumble. This version of the Samoans would become the Headshrinkers and are Samu and Fatu (Rikishi). It’s Samu vs. Lane to start us off and Samu misses a cross body. Lane’s gets two.

Off to Eaton who hits a missile dropkick and it’s back to Lane who controls. The Midnights are the faces here. Cornette pops Fatu with the tennis racket but doesn’t get caught so we keep going. Fatu comes in for a few seconds and it’s back to Samu again. We get heel miscommunication and the Samoans have a meeting on the floor. Hayes uses Monsoon’s line of saying this is a main event in any arena in the country. Except this one.

Back to Eaton vs. Samu and Eaton out moves him quickly. Samu is like screw this wrestling stuff and starts using power to take over. The Midnights tag in and out quickly. I didn’t even notice Eaton going out. The Midnights cheat but they’re good guys so they can get away with it here. Back to Eaton and this has been all Midnights so far.

The heels finally start cheating like good evil Samoans and Eaton is in trouble in the corner. Off to a chinlock/nerve hold as Eaton is taking a good beating. Fatu hits the kick to the face but it’s in the corner so it doesn’t look as good. Eaton avoids a shot and it’s hot tag to Lane. They double team the Samoans and ram their heads together which starts a fight between the Samoans.

Cornette hits a Samoan (you can’t tell them apart from behind) with the racket and Dangerously pops Lane I believe with his phone, allowing the Samoans to take over on Lane for a bit. Back to the nerve hold which eats up awhile. This is a long match as we’re approaching twenty minutes. Another Fatu superkick gets two. Lane finally avoids a middle rope headbutt and it’s a double tag to bring in Samu and Eaton.

Eaton hammers away but tries a double noggin knocker. Take a guess as to how that goes for him. Just guess. Lane gets back in and everything breaks down. Lane sends Fatu to the floor and the Rocket Launcher hits Samu. Cornette and Heyman get into it on the apron and the phone goes flying. Fatu clocks Eaton with it for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was ok but it wasn’t a classic or anything. The Samoans weren’t nearly as difficult to do anything as Rikishi would become but they were still something different than the Midnights were used to. Also with this being more about the managers than the teams, it became a bit harder to have heat out there. Still though, nothing bad.

Great Muta vs. Steve Casey

Casey is a jobber and Muta is one of the hottest acts in American wrestling at this point. Muta does a trance/meditation thing to start as Hayes makes fun of Oklahoma. Casey shows why he’s a jobber by charging at Muta. You deserve that mist you get you schmuck. Handspring elbow (Muta invented it) hits Casey and we hit the chinlock. Casey goes for the arm for a short arm scissors but Muta gets bored so he kicks Casey in the face.

Casey heads to the floor to clear his head but Gary Hart, Muta’s manager, rolls him back in so that Muta can hit a hard dropkick off the top. JR compares Muta to Sting which would be the feud that made Sting into a great in ring guy to go with his charisma. Muta hooks some freaky leglock and then a nerve hold. Casey tries something else so Muta hits a spin kick to kick Casey’s head off again.

Off to another nerve hold and this is starting to go too long. Casey gets what is probably the highlight of his match by hitting a clothesline to take Muta down. He hits a dropkick but Muta swats the second one away. Casey grabs his foot so Muta hits another SWEET spin kick to send Casey to the floor. A pescado and the handspring elbow on the floor continues the dominance and the Muta Moonsault (a quick one that stays low) ends this slaughter.

Rating: C+. It’s just a long squash but Muta was REALLY good back then. When he got to fight Sting for months on end, it was pure gold because Sting was actually able to keep up with Muta in the ring. As for this though, it was total dominance and Muta’s calmness throughout the match is a really great addition to his character as he knew he was better and didn’t sweat Casey at all, because he had no reason to.

Junkyard Dog vs. Butch Reed

This is an old Mid-South feud and New Orleans was a big Mid-South town so the fans are probably going to be way more into it than they should be. JYD has a band to bring him out. As in tubas and horns and such. It’s a very New Orleans style intro. Reed was in a singles push at this point and was kind of almost maybe sort of considering being put in the Horsemen to the point where he even held up four fingers at one point. That wouldn’t happen of course but he was probably the top candidate for it. He has Hiro Matsuda here though.

JYD takes over to start and Reed is on the floor quickly. Back in and Dog does his all fours headbutts to send Reed right back out. Dog hammers away some more until Reed pounds away to take over. This is almost all kicking and punches. Off to a chinlock by Reed and Dog makes his comeback. Both guys go down off a double clothesline. Reed goes up for his top rope shoulder but Dog gets his foot on the rope. Dog sends Reed into Matsuda and botches a rollup for the pin.

Rating: D. This was so boring that it almost put me to sleep. Ok not really on the sleep thing but it was very dull. It’s your standard 80s kick and punch match which means it wasn’t interesting at all. Reed would go on to form Doom after this though while Dog would flounder for awhile before fading into obscurity.

Bob Orton vs. Dick Murdoch

Ross is way too excited for this match. They start on the mat with Orton firing off some fireman’s carry slams. You might almost say he’s adjusting Murdoch’s attitude. Murdoch puts on an armbar and the old school nature is very clear very quickly. Orton kips up to get out of it. Can his son do that? Dory Funk Jr. and Pat O’Connor are watching from the crowd. Murdoch has a wristlock on again and by that I mean he has it on for awhile.

Now it’s Orton with an armbar. Murdoch is the face here. I didn’t really know that either until Ross mentioned that the fans loved him. We’re still in the arm stuff here. Muchnick, Kiniski, Thesz and I believe Buddy Rogers are at ringside also. Five minutes in and the arm stuff is finally over. Orton pounds away but Murdoch is waking up in the corner. A dropkick puts Orton down and they brawl a bit more. Both try their finishers, but Murdoch has his foot tripped during the brainbuster and Gary Hart (Orton’s manager) holds the foot for the pin. Think of Mania 5 and the finish might sound familiar.

Rating: D. This was boring. The match is just under ten minutes long. 5 were spent in arm holds, 3 were spent brawling and 2 were spent on the finish. That doesn’t make for an interesting match at all. Murdoch and Orton were both old at this point and it was obvious that no one was interested in seeing this match other than maybe a bit for Murdoch.

World Tag Titles: Varsity Club vs. Road Warriors

It’s Rotunda/Williams here and the Warriors have the belts. Hawk vs. Rotunda starts us off. Mike isn’t in a good mood as he lost the TV Title to Sting the day before on TV. Off to Animal who cleans house including a powerslam to Williams. Hawk comes in and doesn’t do as well. I always thought Animal was the better of the two. To prove me right, Animal comes in and runs through both of them again.

The Varsity Club (Williams I think) pulls the top rope down and Animal tumbles to the floor. Off to a bearhug but Animal manages the tag. Teddy Long (referee) doesn’t see it so Hawk has to go out. This is important because at the same time, Rotunda comes in with no tag and Long allows it. Remember that. Williams comes back in and takes the leg out from Animal as JR explains the football strategy at play there.

The beating goes on for awhile longer with Animal getting close but not being able to make the tag. You’ve seen the same thing a million times before. It’s a good thing they’re letting Animal stay in there this long as when Hawk gets tired, he gets bad in a hurry. There’s the hot tag and Hawk cleans house. Everything breaks down and Animal accidentally tosses Long. Doomsday Device hits and Teddy won’t count. Williams comes in and rolls up Hawk and Teddy dives in for the absolute fastest three count you’ll ever see for the title change. His hand didn’t go above his shoulder on any of the counts.

Rating: D+. Pretty dull match here but the ending got Teddy out of being a referee and turned him into a manager. I think he took over the Skyscrapers just after this. The Road Warriors wouldn’t get close to the titles anymore after this and would leave for the WWF about a year later. The Freebirds would get the belts in a little over a month before a team called the Steiner Brothers took them in November.

The Warriors and their manager rant about the cheating.

Ranger Ross vs. Iron Sheik

Ross is a military themed guy and he repels from the ceiling. Sheik does the national anthem bit before the match and then jumps Ross before the bell. Ross gets beaten down and both guys get abdominal stretches. Ross gets a standing Mafia Kick but Rip Morgan, Sheik’s flag bearer, comes in for the DQ. JYD makes the save. This was nothing and I don’t think it led anywhere.

Flair says he’s ready and he’s awesome and all that jazz.

US Tag Titles: Rick Steiner/Eddie Gilbert vs. Kevin Sullivan/Dan Spivey

Steiner and Gilbert are champs here. Sullivan and Spivey are Varsity Club. That would break up later in the year. This is a rematch from yesterday on TV where the Varsity Club won. Oh and Missy Hyatt is with the champions. The challengers jump them to start and Spivey lets Gilbert up at two which even Hayes criticizes. The big beatdown is on and it’s all Varsity Club here.

They’re out on the floor now and Spivey rams Gilbert’s back into the post. Off to Sullivan now which only lasts a bit. A flying clothesline gets two for Spivey. Tree of Woe (not named that) to Gilbert but Sullivan tries it again with the second time failing. Here’s Steiner who beats up Spivey and hooks a belly to belly for two. Everything breaks down and Gilbert pops Sullivan with Missy’s loaded purse for the pin.

Rating: C. It’s really short because we have an hour long main event. This went nowhere because the time killed it but it wasn’t anything all that bad while they were in there. For no given reason (literally) the titles were vacated soon and weren’t won by anyone until a tournament in February, about 9 months later. This was fine.

NWA World Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair

This is 2/3 falls with a 60 minute time limit. As usual, Flair comes out with women while Steamboat has his son and wife. The son is in a dragon costume. The belt looks good on Ricky. Then again that belt looks good on almost anyone. Except Ronnie Garvin but that goes without saying. Flair has the always awesome black robe here. I miss that thing. Terry Funk is on commentary instead of Hayes which is the very beginning of the next world title feud once this ends.

They hit the mat quickly and MAN are they fast down there. Steamboat gets a very hard chop and the fans are buzzing over it. Flair works the arm as they’re going slow to start. The difference between this and Orton vs. Murdoch: this is going to go somewhere else. I have a feeling the other one wouldn’t have if they had 40 minutes to work with. Flair hits the floor and says come out here.

Steamboat grabs a headlock and they chop it out. By that I mean they hit each other so hard you can hear the skin slap every time. Steamboat speeds things up and it’s back to the mat with the headlock. Dropkick gets two for Steamboat. We’re ten minutes in now. The US and TV title matches might be on but we’re not sure. For some reason they were scheduled later. Neither will wind up airing but they’re nothing of note anyway. Sting and Luger both retain over Rip Morgan and Jack Victory respectively.

Back to the mat now and Steamboat controls with a front facelock. Flair tries to fight back but gets chopped down for two. They have a ton of time here so they’re definitely in slow mode. Flair heads to the floor and there’s the Flair Flop outside. We get an explanation of how the other title matches will air on Saturday’s TV show if necessary. I like that and the reason being is they wanted to make sure this gets the full time limit if they need it.

We’re 15 minutes in and they chop away hard. Steamboat puts Flair down with a double shot for two. Flair blocks a splash with knees and goes to work on the ribs. Butterfly suplex gets two. Steamboat keeps kicking out as Flair has a test of strength grip while Steamboat is on the mat. They chop it out but Steamboat misses a dropkick in a nice bit of psychology. Steamboat counters a Figure Four attempt into a small package but Flair reverses into one of his own for the first fall at just shy of twenty minutes.

Back with the second fall after a brief rest period. Steamboat takes over quickly and hits a top rope chop to the head for two. Funk says this is like his brother vs. Brisco. Now that is a compliment. Flair misses his knee drop and Steamboat goes after the other leg. He drops SIXTEEN elbows on it and slaps on the Figure Four (ON THE CORRECT LEG!!!). Flair finally grabs the ropes but he’s in trouble.

Flair avoids another Figure Four but gets caught in a Boston Crab at what sounded like the 25 minute mark. He gets to the rope again but he’s still in big trouble. Flair fires a few shots off but we go down into the backslide reversal spot which I’m sure you all are familiar with. They hit the floor and Steamboat goes into the railing. We’re at thirty minutes now and Flair suplexes Steamboat over the top for two.

Abdominal stretch time by Flair and he even rolls Steamboat up for two while still holding onto it. Steamboat gets beaten on a bit more until Flair goes up top, only to get crotched and superplexed for two. Out of nowhere Steamboat grabs a double chickenwing hold (think the position for the Glam Slam but he holds Flair in place) for a submission to tie us up at a fall apiece.

After a quick break Flair is spent but Steamboat gets poked in the eye so he can’t follow up at the thirty five minute mark. There’s the second Flair Flop in about a minute. They chop it out but Flair grabs….something that we can’t see since the camera angle was really bad for a bit. It was a leg move whatever it was. The Figure Four goes on quickly but Steamboat grabs the ropes even faster.

Steamboat fires back even more chops and Flair gets taken down as he tries to do the Flair Flip in the corner and run up the other corner spot. Flair rolls Steamboat up and puts his feet on the ropes for two. We have twenty minutes left in the time limit. Flair works on the knee even more and there’s the Figure Four. Steamboat taps like crazy but that doesn’t mean anything for a few years.

The hold is finally broken and Flair goes up top again for a cross body for two. Steamboat tries to slam him but can’t hold him due to the leg work. We have 15 minutes left. Steamboat’s cross body gets two as does a sunset flip for the champion. Flair throws on a sleeper which is the logical idea here, although I don’t ever recall it winning a match in this situation.

Steamboat manages to send Flair into the corner and out of the ring to get a break. We hit the 50 minute point as JR makes fun of the WWF by saying they’re not coming out to music and posing. Flair goes after the knee again but Steamboat chops away. Just because irony is fun, Steamboat poses after coming out to music. The NWA doesn’t do that right? The champ lowers his head and Flair pops him in the back and hooks a suplex for no cover.

We have six minutes left and Flair goes up for no apparent reason. After the legally required slam, it’s time for the screwy (but legal) finish. Steamboat goes back to the double chickenwing but his leg gives out. It’s almost like a tiger suplex at this point and Steamboat pops his shoulder up at the last minute to have Flair pinned.

Rating: A. Hard to argue with this one as it wasn’t an iron man match so the time limit was just there to give it a cap on the ending. Everything makes sense and the psychology flows very nicely with both guys having the injuries from earlier in the match come into play later on, especially in the ending. This was great stuff and while you could probably cut out some of it, it’s still good stuff.

HOWEVER, we have an issue. Flair’s foot was in the ropes during the pinfall, meaning we have an unclear finish. Steamboat is in the back and sees it and exactly as you would expect from him, he’s totally calm about it and says Flair has a legit complaint and needs to talk to someone about it. This set up match #3 at Wrestle War which is allegedly the best of the trilogy, although I’ve always liked Chi-Town Rumble best.

Overall Rating: B. When you have a three hour show and one hour of it is spent in a very good match, it’s hard to say this isn’t a good show. The question then is how good is it. The middle of the show isn’t that great but it’s not the worst show you’ll see. Steamboat vs. Flair is always worth seeing, but I think this might be the least interesting of their series, which might be because the title didn’t change. Still though, good old fashioned NWA stuff here before they got silly.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

NXT
Date: October 19, 2011
Location: Mexican Sports Palace, Mexico City, Mexico
Commentators: Jack Korpela, William Regal

Obviously we’re in Mexico now and we only have two people left. The Young suspension may be a blessing in disguise as it might give them an opening to round out this season after the thirty two weeks they’ve had so far. After last week there aren’t any major loose ends that need to be tied up so maybe there’s a means to an end now. Let’s get to it.

We start in the ring….WITH A CHALLENGE??? Striker has a rope and there are flags around the ring ropes (not the one Striker is holding). It’s a capture the flag challenge. There are only O’Neil and Bateman left. This is worth 15 points to really make sure we make the rest of the challenges before this worthless by comparison. They both have on weightlifting belts and there’s a rope attached on their backs. Whoever can get the most flags wins. And after about 15 seconds Bateman jumps Titus and leaves him laying. Titus wins and the main event tonight is Titus/Percy vs. Bateman and whoever Bateman picks.

Tyler Reks vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Hawkins is limping to the rings with Reks. Reks and Hawkins complain about the injury and Reks sounds nothing like his looks would make you expect. Reks overpowers him to start so Tatsu chops away. Yoshi snaps off a spinwheel kick to take over so Reks, being a modern WWE heel, hides. Reks takes over again and the fans don’t seem all that impressed by him.

An O’Connor Roll doesn’t work for Tatsu and Reks works on the back a bit. Tatsu responds by hitting a big kick to the head…and never mind as Reks beats him down all over again. Yoshi dodges a charge and Reks’ shoulder hits the post. That allows Tatsu to go up top for the spinwheel kick and the pin at 4:33.

Rating: C-. Not much of a match here but it was fine. This was very basic as they were keeping things simple, primarily due to there only being about 4 and a half minutes to work with. Tatsu’s new look hasn’t meant much of anything, but at least he’s not talking about an action figure anymore.

Post match Reks and Hawkins beat down Tatsu but the Usos make the save. I smell a 6 man.

AJ has a note in the back when Kaitlyn comes in. It’s from Horny and he says leaving is the best decision he ever made. Kaitlyn says it’s from Maxine. Kaitlyn, who looks a lot worse with light blonde hair, fights Maxine next.

Kaitlyn vs. Maxine

Both of them look good but Kaitlyn looks better with darker hair. She has great legs though. Maxine is in essence in a swimsuit. Here’s your Maxine fact: her aunt is a careless maiden from Guadalajara who is engaged to a one legged Elvis impersonator who does a great version of Blue Suede Shoes. The match is your usual basic stuff here that isn’t very good.

Maxine hooks something like a dragon sleeper but Kaitlyn falls into the ropes. The fans here do not care at all. All Maxine so far but I’d rather look at Kaitlyn in gold so I’m not paying attention to the match here. Kaitlyn takes over with her horrible looking offense. She hits a Bubba Bomb and then a full nelson with her legs to make Maxine tap (with her foot) out at 4:48.

Rating: D. It’s your usual bad Divas match and more proof that AJ was the best choice for the 3rd season winner. Kaitlyn looks great in tight gold shorts and other than that, she’s about as worthless as anyone else you’re going to find on the roster. Not much here overall and the girls just aren’t that good. Granted this is on NXT so it’s not like anyone is watching them.

Video on how insane Raw has been lately and how its been in chaos, even dating back to Punk winning the title at MITB. This eats up like five minutes.

Kidd turns down Bateman to be his partner. Maxine comes up to yell at him for not being here. She leaves and JTG comes up to agree to be his partner. Oh my.

Percy Watson/Titus O’Neil vs. JTG/Derrick Bateman

Bateman vs. Watson gets us going and Watson shows off a bit. We go to the mat with a headlock as Regal explains exactly where the arm is supposed to be for it to hurt the most. Leave it to an old villain to know that. There’s a double tag and JTG gets his head kicked off. That was a nice touch because I don’t like JTG. O’Neil has black and pink on for breast cancer awareness. That’s always cool.

The good guys double team JTG for awhile and rule the ring as we take a break. Back with Bateman hammering away on Watson which doesn’t work all that well for him. They head to the floor and Bateman hits a missile dropkick off the apron which gets two back in the ring. Off to JTG again who hammers away a bit more. A spinning neckbreaker gets two. Watson tries to fight back and the fans react to it.

This match has somehow been going on for ten minutes. It’s one of those matches where nothing has been going on at all but it’s been happening if that makes sense. Titus finally gets the hot tag that we know has been coming for awhile now. Bateman breaks up the pin but misses a top rope cross body. Clash of the Titus ends this at 10:41.

Rating: D+. The match was pretty boring but the problem with it is that it summarizes the main problem that these guys are having anymore: there is no reason at all for these matches to take place. If we’re just waiting around for the end of the show and the matches don’t really count towards records or standings or anything, what’s the point? I mean, how many times can O’Neil pin Bateman before it stops meaning anything? I think that’s the question they’re trying to answer.

Overall Rating: C-. Not a horrible show but at the same time it reiterates the same issue I just went into: this show is chasing its own tail. We’re no closer to finding a winner of this competition than we were two months ago and the only thing that has really changed is that Young is gone and that’s not even because of the show but rather him being Wellnessed. Young will be able to return in about two and a half weeks and he’ll probably be brought back and we’ll be right back where we were two weeks ago. Such is the life of NXT I guess.

Results
Yoshi Tatsu b. Tyler Reks – Top Rope Spinwheel Kick
Kaitlyn b. Maxine – Full Nelson Leglock
Titus O’Neil/Percy Watson b. JTG/Derrick Bateman – Clash of the Titus to Bateman

Remember to like me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Monday Night Raw
Date: October 17, 2011
Location: Mexico Sports Palace, Mexico City, Mexico
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s the rare taped Raw tonight as this happened on Saturday night in Mexico City. This is a new place for the company and the crowd should be very hot. After about 5 angles were blown off last week, we’re at the go home show for Vengeance which has about 2 matches at the moment. To be fair though you can see a lot of them that just haven’t been announced yet. Let’s get to it.

I got home late tonight so I’m trying to catch up as fast as I can.

After the theme song here’s Johnny Ace to no music. As he comes to the ring we get a quick video from last week with HHH being fired and Vince naming Ace the new GM. He teases Rey returning but he’s in San Diego for rehab and isn’t here tonight. Ace talks about how the Board of Directors have confidence in him and how he was criticized for firing JR on Twitter. With that, he brings out JR.

JR goes to commentary but Ace calls him into the ring. He apologizes to JR and makes fun of his speech impediments. We get a clip from last week which aired during a commercial where Cole led the goodbye song for JR and was booed out of the building. Back live Ace says he wants to settle the differences between Cole and JR, so tonight it’s Alberto/Cole vs. JR/Cena. Cole says he’ll squash JR like refried beans.

Here’s Orton for no apparent reason. Oh ok he has one of those match things.

Randy Orton/Sheamus/John Morrison vs. Mark Henry/Christian/Cody Rhodes

We’re back after a break and Orton vs. Christian starts us off. Oh and Orton vs. Rhodes is official for the PPV. Christian gets beaten down so it’s off to Rhodes vs. Sheamus. That doesn’t go well for Little Dust so here’s Henry. Orton goes after Rhodes on the floor to a huge pop and Rhodes runs away. They run up the ramp and we go to a break. Back with Morrison hammering on Henry and getting dropped with one punch.

It’s 2-2 now and Christian misses a cross body. Morrison hits one of his own for two. Christian loads up the Killswitch but Morrison counters into the C4 for two. Christian goes after the neck that was injured like three months ago and it’s off to Henry again. He drops Morrison with a headbutt and it’s time for the Canadian to work on the neck of Morrison again. John fires off something like a Pele but can’t escape Henry. I guess it’s the gravitational pull.

Off to the bear hug which is as old school of a heel power move as you can get. Morrison tries a tornado DDT but has to settle for a guillotine on the top instead. Morrison shows some intelligence by going around Henry instead of over him, but Christian takes Sheamus off the apron and now they go into the crowd in a brawl. Morrison hits the Flying Chuck or whatever it is but walks into the Slam for the pin at about 12:30.

Rating: C. Well considering this was supposed to be a six man tag and for the most part it was a four man tag and would up being a two man tag, there’s only so high of a grade you can give it. Henry beating Morrison is fine and it gives Henry some of his heat back after getting beaten up by Big Show twice in a row.

Punk vs. Miz later, which is a match that happened under HHH also but is praised for being made by Ace here. Go figure.

Brodus Clay is still coming.

The Bellas come in to hit on Ace and he calls whoever he was talking to back. Ricardo comes in to a reaction and tries to say Alberto is here. Alberto gets a moderate face pop. A lot of Spanish is spoken and the winner of the tag match gets to pick the stipulation of the title match Sunday.

Eve Torres vs. Natalya

Eve gets the title shot Sunday. It’s your basic Divas match and Natalya of course spanks her a bit because that’s what she hates. It’s mocking though so it’s ok I guess? Natalya hammers on her for a bit but Eve hits some kind of spinning takedown and the moonsault for the pin at 2:13. This was nothing.

CM Punk vs. The Miz

Of course there is talking first. Miz talks about how they cost Punk his title shots and then got rid of HHH which Punk couldn’t. Truth says he can’t stand people that run their mouths. Truth and Miz run their mouths more but here’s HHH to even things up. The bell is after the break. Punk takes it to the mat and hooks a chinlock almost immediately but Miz gets a rope, which Truth points out very loudly.

Miz grabs a headlock and the fans loudly boo. Out to the floor and Punk hits a big dive followed by an Eddie Guerrero hilo for two. Truth tries to cheat and HHH goes over for the evil glare. Springboard clothesline gets two for Punk. Miz takes over with his traditionally bland offense. Jerry talks about looking forward to HHH being back in the ring at full force. You mean like he was what, two months ago?

Truth tries to cheat again so this time HHH gets in the ring. You know, because that’s not going to cause more double teaming or anything. How can a Cerebral Assassin be so stupid as a face? Off to a chinlock and Jerry quotes Taylor Swift of all people. Miz gets a kick to the chest for two. Corner clothesline hits and back to the chinlock. Punk tries to fight back with the knee in the corner but Miz gets a boot up.

Miz goes up (?) and jumps into a spinwheel kick to put both guys down. Punk is sent to the floor and the fans are incredibly into this show. Truth hits Punk with the bottle of water and HHH goes after him…and here’s Johnny Ace saying stop the match because HHH has an immigration problem or something. We’ll pay no attention to the fact that he isn’t part of the match I guess. It ended at 8:45.

Ok no it didn’t because we’re back with Miz holding a chinlock on and the match is still going. Can this match make up its mind? Punk starts his comeback and hits a neckbreaker for no cover. Cole’s voice sounds different and sounds like a voiceover. The Macho elbow hits and it’s GTS time. That gets reversed but Punk rolls Miz up for the pin at approximately

Rating: C. This was just ok at best, mainly because Miz is very boring on offense. The elimination of HHH was fine because it was to set up the post match beatdown on Punk which gives them a chance in the match on Sunday. Either way, not much going on here but these two don’t have good matches against each other, which is far too common a thing with Miz.

Post match Miz gets beaten down until referees get them out. Truth gets in another shot after running back in, as does Miz.

Here’s Team Vickie. Vickie yells in Spanish a lot first. She says she’s a Mexican goddess and she’s something about Angelina Jolie. The latest tag title shot for Ziggler and Swagger is announced for the PPV. Dolph plugs the US and calls himself the Heel. There’s a good and simple name. Swags tries to sing the Star Spangled Banner but is about as popular as Volkoff was in the 80s. He yells at the fans instead and here’s the reason he’s here.

Jack Swagger vs. Zack Ryder

Swagger hammers him to start but Ryder gets his knees up and the Rough Ryder ends this at 35 seconds. Literally that’s the whole match.

The heels go after Zack but Mason Ryan makes the save. Why it’s not Air Boom is beyond me but I guess that would make sense. It’s supposed to be Ryan vs. Ziggler but Team Vickie leaves. Ryan calls him back and their match is next.

Mason Ryan vs. Dolph Ziggler

This is joined in progress and Ryan is overpowering him which is expected because Ryan is bigger and stronger. Ryan has an awesome body but his offense and in ring abilities are leaving something to be desired. Vickie slaps Ryan on the floor and he charges back in to beat on Dolph some more. Ryan hammers away in the corner….and it’s a DQ at 2:40. Well that was worthless.

Ryan cleans house afterwards. So let me get this straight: Air Boom is booked to face Team Vickie on Sunday but instead we have two other unrelated guys beat one of the challengers in 35 seconds and then beat the other one so badly he gets disqualified. And people wonder why we say WWE is missing it right now.

Cena is with Ross and Ross isn’t sure if he’s ready to be in a match because it can cost Cena the title match Sunday. Cena says it’s cool because he can handle Del Rio. JR uses bad words about Cole.

In the arena, Cole gets his mic and says he’s going to take care of JR tonight. He says his wife is Mexican so the fans have to like him and he goes to the back.

Back and we hear about Smackdown being long running or something. Josh Matthews is in on commentary now.

We run down the card for Vengeance to fill in some time. Orton vs. Rhodes isn’t for the title I don’t think.

John Cena/Jim Ross vs. Alberto Del Rio/Michael Cole

The announcers start us off and Cole talks a lot of trash until JR clocks him. Off to the wrestlers for a wrestling match. What a concept. Alberto and Cena smirk at each other and speed things up. The fans are booing Cena…I think. Off to a chinlock by the champ and the fans are cheering for Cena. Now it’s Cena with the chinlock as Josh says Cena weighs 251lbs. That means he gained 20 pounds since his entrance.

Del Rio takes over and we’re waiting on the hot tag to Ross it seems. Cole gets some pikes in at Cena and Del Rio gets two. Alberto hits a top rope shot to the head and some kicks. Cena can’t see Alberto. Back to the chinlock and the fans cheer Cena but aren’t really booing Alberto. The Mexican gets a German on the American for two. Cena fires off some stuff but a running enziguri in the corner stops him for two.

Alberto goes up but misses a senton back splash and Cena engages his finishing sequence. Del Rio runs from the AA and tags in Cole. Cena gives him kind of a belly to belly to bring him in and makes the hot tag to JR. Is JR a big deal in Mexico? I mean, wouldn’t he be on the English commentary team which most people in Mexico don’t hear? An AA ends Cole and JR gets the win with an ankle lock at 11:40.

Rating: D+. Man this was boring. The Spanish/English/JR thing is still confusing but again it’s WWE which at the moment is pretty stupid. I wasn’t into this match for the most part because it was just Del Rio vs. Cena and then a screwy ending. Not much to see here and another weak main event from Raw, which is becoming a tradition.

Post match Alberto tries to attack Cena but Cena hits an AA and starts counting. He hits Del Rio with the steps and counts to ten. Last man standing it is.

Overall Rating: D+. I guess they’re just waiting for Rock to come in and save us, but DANG these shows have been boring lately. What even happened here? We have a stipulation added to the main event that isn’t going to mean much. HHH is thrown out of a country that isn’t going to host the PPV so it’s not like that matters. Two matches were added to the PPV but they were nothing special either. I have no idea what the goal was here and the main event was stupid on top of all that. Announcers mean very little and it was way too focused on Cole again tonight. Bad show, but WAY better than last week.

Results
Mark Henry/Christian/Cody Rhodes b. Randy Orton/Sheamus/John Morrison – World’s Strongest Slam to Morrison
Eve Torres b. Natalya – Moonsault
CM Punk b. The Miz – Rollup
Zack Ryder b. Jack Swagger – Rough Ryder
Dolph Ziggler b. Mason Ryan via DQ when Ryan wouldn’t stop beating Ziggler
John Cena/Jim Ross b. Michael Cole/Alberto Del Rio – Ankle lock to Cole

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Bound For Glory 2011
Date: October 16, 2011
Location: Liacouras Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

It’s the major show of the year for TNA and I can’t say I’m as excited about it as I was for last year’s. It should be good though as we have two major main events. Now that’s part of the problem: one of them is Sting vs. Hogan. They couldn’t have a good match 14 years ago so what are you expecting from them here? Other than that the rest of the show looks pretty solid. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about exactly what you would expect: a highlight package with everything leading up to the double main event.

The dark match was the tag title match with Mexican America retaining. Well at least the title didn’t change hands on a dark match. To be fair it was streamed free on the website so anyone could see it.

X-Division Title: Brian Kendrick vs. Austin Aries

I’m not sure if I’d have gone with a rematch for Kendrick so soon after Aries too the title from him. They have the garage door style lifting wall for the guys to come through. The fans are way behind Aries here. The crowd looks good here. They fight over a wristlock to start as we get a good feel for the crowd here with the loud Austin Aries chant. Tazz talks about how this crowd isn’t like most and that’s an understatement.

Things speed up a bit as they hit the mat. Aries goes to the floor so Kendrick is like PORKCHOP and dives onto him in a huge spot. Back in Kendrick gets caught in an STO and Aries loads up the Pendulum Elbow which blows the roof off the place. Kendrick counters and hammers away but the fans are all over Brian since this is the ultimate smark town. This could become a problem tonight.

They try what looks to be a rollup but Kendrick falls to the floor. Aries hits a HUGE suicide dive to fire the crowd up even more if that’s possible. Back in Aries tries the brainbuster but Kendrick knees his way out of it. They go up on the ropes but Aries talks to the crowd too much and gets caught in a top rope Sliced Bread for two as Aries grabs the ropes. They head to the apron and Kendrick tries it out there again but gets dropped onto the apron and then the floor. That and the brainbuster in the ring gives Aries the clean pin at 10:27.

Rating: B-. Can’t complain much here band this was what I was expecting for the opener. You can’t ask for much more than a cruiserweight match to start things off, but I’m hoping the show stays hot throughout the rest of the match. The right idea is to have things like this for later on in the show when you need to fire the crowd back up, but in Philly I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Keep that in mind: all rules about crowds are thrown out the window tonight.

The Knockouts are with some kids in the back and Karen comes in and she’s not happy. Oh ok they’re Kurt’s kids. The kids leave and Karen freaks out as always. Karen is refereeing the Knockouts match tonight. That means Madison wins tonight. Traci has to stay in the ring unless Karen is in danger.

We recap RVD vs. Lynn which is over Jerry being jealous or something. It’s Full Metal Mayhem which means TLC with pins. Can’t argue with putting this match on in Philly.

Jerry Lynn vs. Rob Van Dam

Technical stuff to start but they’ve probably got a lot of time. There are only 8 minutes on this card and I can’t imagine that Hogan vs. Sting will break ten minutes. Rob takes over early and tries Rolling Thunder but Lynn pops up with a kick to the face. Tornado DDT is countered but the suplex is as well. The psychology here is solid and we hit a stalemate. They try a cross body over the top and that doesn’t work right, drawing half boos/half silence from the crowd.

We’re on the floor now and Van Dam tries a moonsault off the apron but misses and might have hurt his knee. Lynn brings in a ladder but Rob sends him in and gets a chair. He takes too long though and Jerry hits a baseball slide to send it into the face of Van Dam. Van Dam gets a spinning cross body onto Lynn onto the chair for two. The surfboard dropkick with the chair in the corner gets no cover. Rob does however get a ladder so the crowd is pleased.

The fans chant ECW and the ladder is splashed with Lynn under it for two. The fans never stay silent for long in this city. It’s something I wish you could hear in more cities too. Rob does a springboard moonsault over Lynn which appeared to be intentional. No idea what the point of that was other than to have Lynn hit him with the chair to take over. Lynn misses a senton backsplash onto the ladder and Van Dam takes over again.

Van Daminator misses so Lynn pelts the chair at him. Lynn gets a German for tow and Lynn is down more from it than Rob is. Lynn gets suplexed onto a ladder which is a lot more effective, so I guess American > Germany. Lionsault onto the ladder gets two for Rob. Rob tries one of his rolling moves but Jerry jumps off the middle rope and they collide at the same time. Lynn goes to the floor to get another ladder and I have the same question as Tazz: how many ladders do you need?

The second ladder is put up against the railing and Lynn tries a sunset bomb, resulting in Rob’s head slamming into the railing. FREAKING OW MAN!!! Lynn has a big bump under his eye. Van Daminator gets two. Rob sets up the Van Terminator with a ladder over Lynn’s face and it’s enough for the pin at 13:16. So Lynn can get up from a Van Daminator after two seconds but he can’t move after about 30 seconds of sitting in the corner?

Rating: B. Good match but it’s going to be overrated because it’s Lynn vs. Van Dam. This was more about the weapons and the violence than the whole psychology which was the standard of their old matches. The fans were of course into it because these guys used to be huge in ECW like 10 years ago. It was entertaining though and that’s the point of these matches.

They hug afterwards, meaning I guess it’s cool to cost Van Dam a title shot. I guess he doesn’t seem to mind or whatever.

We recap the triple threat which is all about getting the world title shot or something. It’s the first I’ve heard of that but they’re talking about it which is the right idea. Joe went crazy and hurt Crimson once Joe was mathematically eliminated from the BFG Series so Morgan went after him for being a bully. Hence the triple threat.

Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan vs. Crimson

New music for Crimson. I’m not digging it. Joe tries to get both guys to fight each other but they beat him up instead. Joe is wearing red and blue tights while the others are both in white. Morgan’s continue to be way too small for him. Crimson hits the floor against his wishes and Joe takes down Morgan with ease. Crimson tries to steal a pin off a Morgan side slam but just gets one.

The non-Samoans are sent to the floor so Joe tries a huge suicide elbow. Morgan steps to the side so Crimson takes all of it. As Crimson gets up and brawls with Joe, Morgan goes up and dives onto Crimson from the top. Not a good few seconds for the red one there. Back in Crimson suplexes Joe and Morgan tries to steal the pin. We’re into the triple threat formula here and that’s all fine and good.

The non-Samoans slug it out and Morgan takes him down, only for Joe to trip him up and pull him to the floor. Crimson’s leg injury is fine by the way, despite him having it on Impact. Joe loads up the MuscleBuster on Crimson but Morgan comes in to break it up. I’ve never gotten that. Why wouldn’t he let Joe take Crimson out? Anyway Crimson sends Morgan to the floor and Crimson hits the spear on Joe for the pin at 7:15.

Rating: C. Not much here and this was something you could have seen on any Impact. To be fair though, there was no real heat on this match as it was all about pride or whatever. I mean, we have to have the TV Champion fighting Scott Baio in his underwear so we can’t have the TV out there. It’s TNA though so titles mean less and less all the time other than the world title. This was probably going to be the weakest match on the card and it was certainly watchable.

Ray says he needs no introduction and talks about himself anyway. He buries Philadelphia, talking about how he’s never liked it here and he’s used the idiot fans for years to get where he is. This was really needed because Ray would have been the crowd favorite otherwise.

Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson

Anderson charges the ring and we start fast. Remember that this is a falls count anywhere match. Anderson tries to control early but Ray kicks his head off and puts Anderson down. Is there a reason why Anderson wears his shirt in his matches anymore? Ray chops him haRD in the corner (not good enough for all caps but decent) as Anderson’s hair is uh….weird. Anderson goes to the floor and takes a sign which has to be loaded. Yep there’s a metal sign in there and Ray goes down in a heap. Dead end sign and it goes over Ray’s head again.

They fight on the floor and a fan throws a beer on Ray. Anderson gets two on the floor and they go up the ramp. Anderson is infinately more entertaining when you let him stop wrestling. Ray reverses a suplex on the stage for two. Ray grabs the mic and talks about New York but Anderson beats him down and says this is Philadelphia. They head into the back and Ray hits a piledriver onto the concrete for two. Anderson gets choked with a red chair.

Back into the arena and they’re near the Spanish announce area. That has to be a copyrighted brawling area. Anderson takes part of the railing away and slides it into the ring but Ray beats him down and sets up a table. There’s another set up on the floor as well. Ray gets backdropped onto the railing and it’s bent.

Anderson goes up and misses the swanton onto the railing, allowing Ray to hit the Bubba Bomb (why is it not the Bully Bomb?) for two. I thought that was the ending. Anderson gets in a trashcan shot and loads Ray up onto the table on the floor. He goes up and channels his inner Jeff Hardy. There’s the huge Swanton BUT THE TABLE DIDN’T BREAK! FREAKING OW MAN!!! A Mic Check onto the table finally ends this at 14:28.

Rating: C+. This is one of those matches that was fun to watch. It wasn’t technically good or anything but if you’re expecting it to be you’re totally missing the point. This was a fun weapons match, although I kind of question having two of them on the same show like they did with Lynn and Van Dam. Decent match here and rather entertaining.

Bischoff is talking to a referee and says it’s a big night. It’s implied that the referee is in Immortal’s pocket. Eric says Hogan has to win and Sting has to be taken out for good. It’s revealed that Jackson James, the referee, is the son of Bischoff. This is treated as a shock by the announcers.

Knockouts Title: Winter vs. Velvet Sky vs. Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne

Karen is referee and Winter is champion. The crowd is WAY into Velvet. Winter is in a coat of some kind and Angelina is in a pink corset. Karen looks good in her referee stuff and Madison gives her the tiara. They have to tag here and it’s Winter vs. Mickie to start. Winter controls early but Mickie snaps off the slick rana in the corner and a neckbreaker puts Winter on the floor.

Madison comes in sans tag and tries to slap Mickie or throw something in her face but it doesn’t work. They’re playing up the Karen factor a lot here as the fix is in or something like that. Mickie goes to the floor and Velvet comes in. I guess it’s lucha tag rules. Velvet hits a bulldog but Karen ties her shoes instead of counting. Velvet and Mickie have to fight but shake hands first.

Both get rollups but Karen won’t count for either of them. The fans are all over this in a hurry. They slug it out for a bit with no real purpose because Karen isn’t going to count. Winter and Madison pull them to the floor and that’s a tag in a way I guess. Madison is in there finally and make that all four are in now. The good girls take over and the fans aren’t going to stick with this much longer.

Mickie vs. Winter at the moment but Mickie won’t cover because there’s no point to it. She beats Winter down but argues with Karen, allowing Angelina to give Winter blood. It gets loaded up but Mickie ducks, sending the blood into Karen’s eyes. I typed that before it happened. There’s the jumping DDT and here’s Traci. Things totally break down and Velvet hits the double underhook X Factor to win the title at 8:45.

Rating: D+. They wanted Velvet winning to be a huge moment and it just wasn’t. There was so much going on here and most of it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before so this wasn’t much to see. Winter’s second reign was about as worthless as her first but at least there’s the title reign for Velvet which has taken forever to get to. Not the big moment they were looking for though.

Kaz doesn’t know who to cheer for in the I Quit match but he hopes Daniels sees the light after it’s over.

We recap Daniels vs. Styles #4895 which is about Daniels being way too excited about beating him on a fluke and turning heel on him, setting up an I Quit match.

AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels

It sounds like new music for both guys. AJ has another new remix. This is I Quit. There’s also no pyro for anyone tonight so far. The guys have the mic here and it’s a brawl to start. Daniels is asking if it’s over about 30 seconds in with a choke on AJ. AJ hooks a bridging Indian Deathlock and Daniels says no. We’re in that place in the match where they’re trying for fast submissions but no one believes it’s happening yet.

AJ hits his leapfrog/drop/dropkick spot and we head to the floor. AJ hits a flip dive and both guys are down. They find a tool box and Daniels tries to stab AJ with a screwdriver. The maiming attempt fails and they fight to the apron where they botch some kind of a suplex move. The screwdriver is stuck in the buckle. AJ has pink on his tights for breast cancer awareness month. Nothing wrong with that.

AJ still won’t quit so Daniels busts out the BME to AJ while he’s on his knees, making it more like Shadows Over Hell (Delirious move). Off to a half crab and of course AJ doesn’t quit. A spin kick is blocked and Daniels gets a backbreaker. There’s no eyeliner on Daniels either which is a weird look. He’s in tights instead of shorts too. It’s chair time and Chris sits down on it with the bar over AJ’s throat. Styles is bleeding over the top of the head, right around his hairline.

Daniels says everything AJ has in TNA will belong to him and he never wanted to hear AJ say I qu….”oh no I’m not saying it.” The fans chant for him to shut up and Daniels lets up for some reason. He looks into the camera and talks to Wendy (AJ’s wife) and says take the kids out of the room because they shouldn’t see their father murdered. Yeah this isn’t overkill at all.

AJ gets fired up and hits the backflip reverse DDT. Styles Clash fails and Daniels misses the BME. He shouts DIE AJ but runs into the Pele and the Clash. So….how does this make Daniels say he quits? AJ picks up the chair but grabs the screwdriver instead. And Daniels quits to avoid the pain ala JBL vs. Cena in 05. He quit at 13:52.

Rating: C. I’m not a fan of these matches because the ending is either the heel giving up after being hurt for a few seconds or giving up before something big happening. I wasn’t into this and the fans weren’t really either. I think they were going for a big ending and emotional moment but it never got to the level they were hoping for.

As AJ is leaving, Daniels jumps him and plants him with Angel’s Wings on the ramp, meaning this is going to continue.

We recap the final two matches on the card but here’s Jeff Jarrett.

He yells about Jeff Hardy and says no one here wants anything to do with Hardy. The fans chant for Hardy as Jarrett buries the city. He calls out Hardy and here he is with new music. They brawl with Hardy only saying a few words and it’s a brawl. This isn’t a match. Security comes out to break it up but Hardy gets free for a bit as happens in most brawls. That happens with both guys more than once. The agents come in and we get a D’lo chant. Hardy is left in the ring and poses to his music.

We recap Hogan vs. Sting. I’m shocked this isn’t the main event. The recap covers like a year and a half which is all about Hogan stealing the company from Dixie and Sting trying to get the control back for Dixie because it’s her’s.

Now the announcers talk about the match and how big it is.

Hulk Hogan vs. Sting

This is a “fight” remember, so Hogan is in an Impact Wrestling shirt and black tights. Dixie Carter is in the audience. If Hogan loses, Sting and Dixie get control of the company. Sting is in his Hogan shirt again. Jackson James, Bischoff’s son, is the referee. Before anything of note happens, Hogan waves out someone and it’s Flair. Dixie isn’t happy. And they lock up. We get a headlock in this “fight”.

Hogan Hulks Up and there goes the bandana. Sting throws off the Hogan shirt too. The fans sound into it so points for that. Hogan puts on a neck crank and we look at Dixie again. It’s in a rest hold so no complaints there. Hogan keeps crotch chopping. All Hogan so far with him sending Sting to the floor so Flair can pound away a bit with chops and a low blow.

All Hulk still as he hammers away on Sting on the floor. There’s some kind of object given to Hogan by Flair and Hulk pounds away with it. Sting is busted and Hogan struts and WOOs. Sting fires back and Hogan is in trouble. He keeps going to the floor to chase Flair and this time gets the object from him. Flair tries to warn Hulk but he can’t get away in time. Hulk is busted.

There’s the splash and down goes Flair. Hogan takes another splash and Hogan is down in the middle of the ring. Here’s the Scorpion and Sting gets it on full. He sits down on it and Hogan taps out right in front of the referee…..and he rings the bell for the submission at 9:49. The fans are not happy….like at all.

Rating: D+. The ending hurt it a lot but the fans were WAY into this. Tis is a fine example of a match where the match wasn’t the important part. However, there was nothing important to see here and the ending didn’t work at all for the most part. Keeping it short was good but Eric’s son wound up meaning almost nothing at all.

Immortal runs out for the beatdown with the chairs and Abyss is watching from behind the stage. Eric sets for a chair shot but his son takes the chair away. Down goes the son and Hulk is getting up. For no apparent reason Hulk turns face and beats up Immortal. Hogan and Sting clean house and Flair takes the brunt of the beating. Bischoff is cowering in the corner.

Hogan and Sting go back to back and stare each other down. They don’t shake hands but Hogan beats up Bischoff. This makes absolutely NO SENSE but the fans are more into it than anything ever in TNA. Hogan says he’s back and kicks Bischoff out of the ring. Hogan and Sting stare it down again and Sting wants Hogan to pose. They play to the crowd and that’s about it.

We recap Roode vs. Angle and I think you know the drill here.

TNA World Title: Bobby Roode vs. Kurt Angle

It’s 10:36 when the bell rings so they have about 20 minutes or so, barring them going right up to the hour. They head to the floor for a few seconds and Angle kicks him low on the way back in. Angle is coming in with a legit hamstring injury. They go to the mat and Angle works on a gutwrench. The fans are all behidn Roode. The American hits a German on the Canadian and make it three of them, getting a two count.

Kurt sets for the moonsault but Roode suplexes him off and Kurt lands on his head. The fans went SILENT after that. Kurt seems to be ok as they slug it out. Roode hits a forearm and some clotheslines to take over. Blockbuster hits for what looked to be three but they’ll call it two. Belly to belly gets two for the champ as does a DDT. Angle Slam is countered into the spinebuster (no pop at all for it) for two.

Angle does the run up the rope suplex for two. They’re really just using signature stuff here instead of a longer match. Roode grabs the Crossface out of nowhere and Kurt can’t reach a rope. Angle teases tapping but he grabs the ankle to escape the hold. Now Roode is in the submission and teases tapping but reverses right back into the Crossface in the middle of the ring. Angle reverses again and is put in the hold on the other arm this time. Kurt rolls through into the Slam for two.

Back to the ankle but Roode kicks him off and hits the spinebuster to still not much of a reaction. The crowd just does not care after the Hogan vs. Sting stuff. Fisherman’s suplex gets two. The dueling chants start up and Kurt hooks the ankle again. Angle Slam is countered into an armdrag as the fans are starting to get into this a bit. Angle gets the referee in between them and kicks Roode low. There’s another Slam and it only gets two again.

Time for more rolling Germans but Roode reverses into the Crossface again, this time on the left arm which is the one that I think it’s been on more often than the right one. Roode’s face is really bad when he’s got these holds on. Kurt’s arm is under the ropes so the hold is broken. Spear gets two for Angle. I’m so over the move I can’t stand it anymore. Angle goes up for something but jumps into the Crossface. Kurt escapes and tries the Slam but Roode tries the Fisherman’s into another Slam and Kurt grabs the rope….for the pin at 14:20. Oh….oh no they can’t be doing this. Roode’s arm was under the ropes too.

Rating: C. The ending cripples this. It wasn’t a classic before that but the ending hurt it more than I can comprehend. The match was so based on having finishers escaped and kicked out of and all that stuff which was the vast majority of the match. Not horrible but man, that ending is actually standing and it’s over. That CRIPPLED things.

Overall Rating: B+. The ending to this show brings it way down. I mean WAY down. There isn’t a truly bad match on the whole card but there isn’t a classic either. Still, it’s a very good show and worth checking out, but the ending to the main event hurt this like nothing else. There was zero point to having Angle go over there and he was helped out by the trainer post match so maybe he was legit hurt. I’m in awe over that ending. The rest of the show was solid though and Hogan’s illogical heel turn is fun stuff. Worth seeing, but prepared to roll your eyes at the main event.

Results
Austin Aries b. Brian Kendrick – Brainbuster
Rob Van Dam b. Jerry Lynn – Van Terminator
Crimson b. Samoa Joe and Matt Morgan – Spear to Joe
Mr. Anderson b. Bully Ray – Mic Check through a table
Velvet Sky b. Winter, Mickie James and Madison Rayne – Sitout facebuster to Rayne
AJ Styles b. Christopher Daniels – Daniels said he quit
Sting b. Hulk Hogan – Scorpion Deathlock
Kurt Angle b. Bobby Roode – Angle Slam