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

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

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

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

BREAKING NEWS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We talk about the monster truck thing to kill time.

Randy Savage vs. Zodiac

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

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

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

Kurasawa vs. Hawk

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lex Luger vs. Meng

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luger wants Savage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

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

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

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

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

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OR CAN IT?

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

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

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

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

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

Smackdown
Date: April 8, 2011
Location: Times Union Center, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Josh Matthews

We’re kind of in the new year here on Fridays as Edge is still World Champion.  Tonight we’ll probably start the build to Extreme Rules.  Since we’ve kind of passed go here, it’s rather hard to tell what else is going to go on.  It should be interesting as things usually are on this show.  Let’s get to it.

The theme song opens us up.  I guess the enemy this week is wrestling as this isn’t a wrestling company anymore.  The fact that Vince thinks this will get them more accepted by the mainstream is absolutely hysterical and head shaking at the same time.

Cue Alberto minus his car.  Is there a reason why he doesn’t have one as he apparently has like 50 of them?  He says that destiny can be delayed as it was at Wrestlemania.  He blames Edge and Christian for delaying his destiny and destroying his car.  It’s not about the money though, but those cars are like his children.  He starts to talk about revenge but is cut off by Edge.

Edge comes out in a tow truck which is pulling the Rolls Royce.  Nice bit there.  He says that if this car is like his child, Del Rio needs to love it unconditionally.  With a little tender loving care it can be fine again.  Edge pulls out some spray paint and writes something that I think was just scribbles.  Del Rio says he almost got him to tap out at Mania but Edge points out that he didn’t do it.  Alberto wants a rematch and Edge says no because there are people more deserving of title shots.

The driver of the tow truck honks the horn and it’s Christian.  Edge says Christian has beaten Del Rio multiple times so obviously Christian is ahead of Del Rio in line.  Here’s Teddy who makes Del Rio vs. Christian for the shot at Extreme Rules.  The match at the PPV will be a ladder match.

We’ll get to see Cena and Rock again tonight.  By that I mean the same thing from Raw.  They say highlights though which helps a bit.

There’s a rematch of the 8 man tag from Mania next that Josh says has a twist tonight that they’ll explain when we come back.  Now I’m no genius, but given that the graphic of the match says “2 out of 3 falls”, I’m thinking it’s in a cage.  I could be wrong though.

Corre vs. Big Show/Kane/Kofi Kingston/Santino Marella

 

We get a clip from the PPV of Show knocking out Slater and that looked AWESOME.  Kofi’s tights are lime green tonight.  It looked like there was a small edit during Kofi’s entrance but I could be wrong.  The video and song seemed to jump forward a bit.  Gabriel vs. Santino to start us off.  Slater comes in quickly and Corre takes over.  Remember that this is 2/3 falls.

Santino reverses a right hand into a throw and it’s off to Kane.  Show beats on him for a bit also and we get the Andre/Snuka splash with Kofi on top of Slater for two.  He sets for Trouble in Paradise but Gabriel and Barrett make the save as we go to a break.  Back with Kane working over the Intercontinental Champion in the corner.  Booker sounds out of breath for some reason.

Off to Jackson to face Kane.  Jackson gets Kane into the corner and Corre alternates in and out very quickly to hammer away on him.  Finally it’s off to Gabriel who gets a missile dropkick on Kane for two.  Kane finally remembers he’s fighting a cruiserweight and launches Gabriel to the mat.  Off to Kofi who cleans house and gets the first fall off a top rope cross body at 5:30 shown of 9:00.  Kofi looks shocked that he actually got a pin.

We take another break and come back with Slater vs. Santino.  Booker keeps going on and on about being ahead on points or something like that.  Santino escapes a sleeper but is taken down by a forearm for two.  Santino speeds things up and loads up the Cobra (I still can’t believe a move that Jon Lovitz taught him caught on like it did) but gets his head kicked off by Barrett.  Wasteland ties us up at 7:23 shown of 14:23.

Why doesn’t Barrett just cover him again?  There was no mention of a rest period or anything like that.  Barrett hammers away and it’s off to Slater again.  Jackson comes in and this should be a slaughter.  Clothesline in the corner gets two as Big Show DIVES to make the save.  Off to Gabriel and we hit the chinlock.  Show starts a weak Santino chant.

Gabriel misses a cannonball kind of move and it’s off to Kane.  Big side slam to Barrett gets two as does the top rope clothesline.  Everything breaks down as Corre takes over.  Kane sets for a chokeslam but all of Corre comes in to take him out for the DQ in the third fall at 11:10 shown of 18:10 (assuming 3:30 for commercials.  I watch a preairing from Australia so it’s hard to say for sure).

Rating: B-. Nice long match here to treat this like a match that deserved to be on Wrestlemania.  I like that they allowed this to play out so that Corre doesn’t look completely inept.  Also, when’s the last time you remember getting a nearly 20 minute match on free TV after getting a 15 minute one on Raw?  This worked rather well and was better than I expected.

The winners beat up Corre post match, including a triple (Santino helped) chokeslam to Jackson.

Sin Cara is still coming, even though he’s already been on Raw.

Cody Rhodes vs. Trent Barreta

 

I love Cody’s character right now.  At the forums I post on someone made a great point: Cody’s reaction to this is all the more psychological because everyone can see he looks exactly the same but in his mind he’s hideous now.  That’s very interesting.  Cody takes him down quickly and hammers away.  Trent gets a springboard dropkick to get two though so maybe this won’t be a total squash.  Russian leg sweep gets two for Cody.  This is the aggressive Rhodes as he sends Trent into the post shoulder first and Cross Rhodes ends this at 1:30.  Ok so maybe it was a squash.  Too short to rate.

Post match Cody beats on Trent some more until Rey makes the save.

We get the Rock vs. Cena confrontation from Raw again.  Eats up almost 15 minutes.  I get that it’s a major moment, but you could easily trim it down by at least half.  There’s no real need to use 1/8 of your total show and about 1/5 of your TV time to just show a segment from the more watched show.  I get that it’s huge, but they do this every week.  I’m curious about Corre if nothing else.

Edge says he hopes Christian wins because he’d love to have a ladder match with Christian.  Christian implies he’d win in the ladder match and says Edge can cheer for Alberto if he likes.  The camera stays on Christian after Edge leaves and he looks at the belt which Edge forgot.  Edge comes back and Christian says keep an eye on that, referring to the belt.  No sign of tension or anything here.

Laycool vs. Kelly Kelly/Beth Phoenix

 

Is Natalya injured or something?  I haven’t seen her in months.  Apparently she’s been on Superstars.  Ok then.  Josh asks Cole why he’s not in his singlet tonight.  Cole almost says he’s not wrestling tonight but cuts himself off to say entertaining.  The level of idiocy of this continues to astound me.  So remember people: this is an entertainment feature, not a match.  So in other words we have girls in small outfits performing choreographed moves while coming out to hip hop/R&B music while on a platform above the guests and gyrating around with other women.  Sound familiar to anyone else?

Beth vs. Michelle to start us off with Beth destroying her.  Michelle is knocked into Layla so Layla is yelled at.  Backbreaker gets two for Beth.  Layla is tagged in as Laycool argues.  After a scary press slam, Kelly is brought in and does her Tarantula kind of move to Layla.  X Factor gets two.  Layla reaches for a tag and McCool falls to the floor like Layla did, allowing Kelly to roll Layla up for the pin at 2:50.  Far more story advancement than match and that’s fine.

Laycool argues in the aisle.

We get a clip from Raw of Cole spraying barbecue sauce on Lawler.  In the arena Cole asks who shot JR.  HE DID!  Cole brings out Swagger who says training Cole was easy because Cole is smart and talented.  Swagger declares Cole the new Mr. Wrestlemania.  They take a victory lap but some music hits.  It’s Sin Cara who does his trampoline jump into the ring and takes Swagger down using a variety of speed moves including a corkscrew plancha to the floor.

We get the end of the Miz/Austin clip from Raw which was good.

Layla comes up to Michelle in the back and hands her a paper.  They’re going to have couples counseling.  Michelle says they’re not a couple.  Layla says just show up.

Decent length video recapping the Hall of Fame inductions.

Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio

 

Lot of time for this one.  We take a break before Christian’s entrance which is a nice perk because it means there will be some more time before the first break in the match.  Edge comes out to be on commentary.  Edge isn’t sure who he prefers to face as Christian is good with the ladders also.  Edge has been in 19 ladder matches.  That’s insane.

Christian takes Del Rio down with a headlock to start us off.  Both are sent to the floor at different times with Christian being the last one in the ring.  Big dropkick sends Del Rio crashing onto the floor again.  We take a break and come back with Christian being slammed into the steps.  Del Rio takes over and chokes him on the ropes back in the ring.

Time to start on the arm now as is Del Rio’s custom.  Christian fires off a bit right hand and goes up which gets him nowhere.  Well he went up but it didn’t advance him in the match anywhere.  Maybe I should just move on.  Superplex puts both guys down and Christian plays possum to get a cradle for two.  Edge is ripping into Cole here and it’s rather funny stuff.

Back to the floor again with both guys via a Cactus Clothesline from Christian.  Better than up their noses with a rubber hose I guess.  Christian fights back and gets an elbow off the middle rope for two.  Top rope cross body gets two.  Ricky Steamboat he is not.  Killswitch is reversed into an attempt at the armbreaker but that is broken up also.  Del Rio sends him into the corner and grabs the armbreaker but Christian gets a rope.  Christian sets for something but Brodus stops him.  Edge spears Brodus but the distraction allows Del Rio to hit the enziguri off the top for the pin at 10:30 shown of 14:00.

Rating: C+. Surprisingly enough this wasn’t very good.  It’s not bad but I couldn’t get into this one at all.  They were trying but at the same time nothing ever really got going.  Del Rio winning is probably the best choice as Edge vs. Christian is a potentially big match that needs to be on a big stage.  That being said I think we can pencil it in for Over the Limit.  Not bad, but I wasn’t huge on this one.

Overall Rating: B. Good show this week as it was very wrestling heavy and we had multiple storylines advanced at the same time.  Things seem to be staying the same after Mania but that’s ok I guess as it tends to be the custom after Mania.  Good show here but then again that’s par for the course here.  They’ve gotten very good at the use of squashes to advance stories which is incredibly hard to do in today’s product.  Solid show overall here though.

Results

Kane/Big Show/Santino Marella/Kofi Kingston b. Corre via DQ when all four members of Corre were in the ring at the same time

Cody Rhodes b. Trent Barreta – Cross Rhodes

Beth Phoenix/Kelly Kelly b. Laycool – Kelly Kelly pinned Layla with a rollup

Alberto Del Rio b. Christian – Enziguri

Impact
Date: April 7, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay
Episode Title: The Rise of the Fallen Angel

After two back to back solid shows we now have two shows before Impact and now have the returning Christopher Daniels to replace AJ Styles in Lethal Lockdown.  Also we now have the main event set for the world title match as it’s Sting vs. RVD vs. Anderson which is probably the best option.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Daniels’ return last week and presumably him being named to the Fourtune team at Lockdown.

Here’s Fourtune to open the show.  Daniels talks about how he’s been in and out of TNA a bunch of times now.  He’s had good times and bad times here but that’s not what matters because that’s the wrestling business.  What matters are the friendships you make in the business, like the one he made eight years ago with a guy named AJ Styles.  After seeing what Bully Ray did a few weeks ago, e Hehe knew it was time to come back.  He asks Fourtune if he can be on the team at Lockdown, but before they can answer here’s Immortal.

In this case it’s Flair, Ray, Matt and Abyss.  Flair says this is beyond fixing and rants about how this is wrestling and Daniels is nothing in this business.  There’s an offer to Daniels to leave now because someone is going to get hurt at Lockdown.  Daniels also has no contract so he needs to get out of here because he’s not going to be able to wrestle at the PPV.  Daniels says that Hogan, Flair and Bischoff aren’t going to matter because the Network says they want him here.

Cue Hogan and Bischoff who say that what the Network wants they get, so tonight it’s Daniels vs. Ray.  Ray gets in Daniels’ face and talks about how Daniels should go back to California and put on more makeup.  Daniels drills him and Hogan wants security who comes out and breaks it up.

Anderson is in the back on a laptop but sees a note for him.  It says “Last week was just a trailer.  Tonight it’s SHOWTIME!  Your friend, Stinger”.  He starts singing a version of the theme to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and goes back to his laptop.

Back with Hogan complaining about the Network and he thinks the Network has a wrestler in it because they think like a wrestler.  He slams the door in the face of the cameraman as he rants about them.

Hernandez/Anarquia vs. Tommy Dreamer/D-Von

 

Well this is kind of an odd team.  Tenay asks who better than Dreamer for D-Von to recruit.  …a lot of people Tenay!  D-Von and Anarquia start but this stops being anything resembling a tag match very quickly.  What’s Up to Anarquia and then everything breaks down even further.  Rosita gets in the ring and D-Von kisses her, which allows Anarquia to pop D-Von with a chair and Hernandez falls on top for the pin at 2:00.  Barely even a match.

Post match the girls roll back the mats on the floor and Hernandez teases a Border Toss to Dreamer to the concrete but Matt Morgan makes the save and we take a break.

Back and Winter is brainwashing Angelina some more.  Winter says she loves her.  Angelina is drinking that drink again.

Samoa Joe vs. Murphy

 

Pope is on commentary of course.  Murphy jumps him to start as Tenay talks to Pope about the beginning of this angle for some reason.  And the Koquina Clutch ends this in 46 seconds.  Joe chases Pope off.

Anderson is looking for someone but stops to get coffee.  And there’s a note for him there too.  This one says “Tonight let’s finish what we started Kenny Boy.  Stinger.”  Anderson destroys the coffee stuff.

Knockout Tag Titles: Beautiful People vs. Rosita/Sarita

 

Angelina Love is in a trance here and can’t even do the entrance.  Sarita jumps Velvet as she gets in which doesn’t last long.  Angelina keeps staring forward.  Off to Rosita now who Velvet beats up also.  Angelina doesn’t react to an offer of a tag at all.  Winter comes to the stage and makes a sign of snap her in half so Angelina stuns Velvet over the ropes and hammers away at her.  Rosita gets the easy pin at 2:00.

Anderson is looking for Sting and has a pipe.  He runs into Jordan and Young and Young says Sting is probably in the rafters.  Jordan says he’s into Anderson’s catchphrase thing.

Jeff Jarrett has a Lockdown promise for Angle later.

Back with Anderson searching the rafters for Sting and finds….nothing.  Someone is following him though and the person seems to be kind of tall.  It doesn’t appear to be Sting as the hair is too short.  Oh it’s RVD.  He says it’s 4:20 so Anderson is about to get smoked.  Good looking knees to the face of Anderson as this is a total beating.  RVD falls down carrying him off but locks a modified triangle choke on Anderson who has no room to move around at all in the confined space.  Van Dam says that wouldn’t be enough to beat Sting and chokes Anderson out with the pipe as we go to another break.

After a quick video on RVD and Anderson and a recap of what we just saw, here’s Sting, calling out RVD.  Sting apologizes to RVD for what he did to him last year and says that he’s here to get rid of Hogan and Bischoff.  Hogan and Bischoff make RVD vs. Sting for tonight, presumably non-title.

Tara says Madison is insane and she won’t do what Madison wants her to do.  Madison says Tara has a job because of Madison.  They get on the motorcycle and leave.  No idea where to.

Generation Me/Robbie E vs. Brian Kendrick/Chris Sabin/Suicide

 

Where did they did some of these guys up from?  Sabin vs. Robbie to start and the face team destroys Robbie one by one.  Suicide hammers on Max as there isn’t much to say here.  This is to hype up the X-Division Xscape match at Lockdown.  Off to Kendrick who destroys everything in sight and it all breaks down quickly.  Jeremy sets for something off the top but Max crotches him and DDTs him off the top.  Kendrick steals the pin at 4:40.

Rating: C. Just a standard Cruiserweight match with a screwy ending.  I guess we lose another team from the tag team division but hey, I’m sure it’s still awesome because it was at one point right?  Not much of a match but they did what they could in the time given out there.

Hogan yells at Immortal and has Gunner slap Rob Terry and someone else that I couldn’t recognize.  Anderson comes in with the pipe and is tired of getting beaten up every week so he asks Hogan for a favor.  Anderson offers his “support” in exchange for protection and shakes hands with Hogan.  He’s now the referee in the main event and Hogan says take the pipe with you.

We see Madison and Tara leaving Mickie laying and speeding off on the bike.

Back with medics looking at Mickie.

Bully Ray vs. Christopher Daniels

 

This is a lumberjack match so we can have our big pull apart brawl.  Ray controls early but Daniels manages to send him to the floor for a bit.  He lands in front of Immortal though so no harm befalls him.  Back in and Ray drills him with some loud chops to take over again.  Ray tries to get the chain in but that gets him nowhere.  Daniels gets an enziguri and a rana to take over.  Running STO sets up the BME which gets the long two as Flair pulls the referee out.  Somehow that isn’t a DQ and the brawl allows Hogan to pop Daniels with the chain for the pin at 6:25.

Rating: D+. The lumberjacks were only there for the very ending.  Other than that they played no role whatsoever which tends to be a problem with TNA gimmick matches: the gimmicks don’t really need to be there but they’re around anyway.  Not much of a match here but it advances Lethal Lockdown well enough I guess.  Nice way to push your big returning star too.

After a break, here’s Jarrett in the cage.  He talks about Kurt being arrested last week like a common street thug.  He says that if the cage match had happened a few months ago, the cops would have arrested him (Jarrett) for hurting Angle.  The kids won’t be visiting Angle in prison because they need more of Daddy Jeff at the moment.

There’s some kind of special entrance set up for Karen but it’s Kurt’s theme instead.  He flies in like Spider-Man and locks the door.  Kurt runs into the cameraman and Jarrett (and Karen who came out) run.  This is all they put the cage up for?

Back and Kurt says he’s going to hurt Jeff at Lockdown.  Oh and the Network says there will be a stipulation for the match.  No word on what that is.

Rob Van Dam vs. Sting

 

Anderson is referee and this is non-title.  Sting grabs a headlock to start but Van Dam breaks that and gets some kicks from the middle and top rope.  Rolling Thunder gets two.  RVD argues about the count but it was fine.  Stinger Splash gets two and Sting argues a bit also.  There’s the Scorpion Death Drop out of nowhere but Anderson drops Sting with the Mic Check.  He counts them both out and jumps from 1 to 6 and then to 9 in about 3 seconds.  Five Star to Sting ends this at 3:16.

Rating: D. Well this was pointless but it was long enough to warrant a grading.  Was there a point to having RVD get the pin here?  I’d say the same thing about Sting pinning RVD, but I guess this is better than another no contest.  Also we get that Anderson is against both of them, which he was in the first place.

Anderson lays RVD out with the belt and asks Van Dam about the rematch.  Terry and Murphy come out and put Anderson on their shoulders to end the show.  Hogan comes out to clap.  Apparently we’re not done yet as it’s a Mic Check for Terry and Murphy.  Well at least they didn’t go with the obvious ending.  He points the pipe at Hogan and says he’s next.  Hogan rants about Anderson to really end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This show was almost a chore to sit through.  Now even though most people probably aren’t going to read past the previous sentence, I’m not saying this was a horrible show because they’ve had far worse ones before.  However, you had to matches end in partners turning on each other, two matches ending in weapon shots and other than Immortal and the world title match, almost nothing new happened.  It was a very boring show that dragged really badly which isn’t a good sign in the slightest going into the second biggest show of the year.  Bad show and a disappointment after their last two shows.

Results

Anarquia/Hernandez b. D-Von/Tommy Dreamer – Hernandez pinned D-Von after a chair shot from Anarquia

Samoa Joe b. Murphy – Koquina Clutch

Rosita/Sarita b. Beautiful People – Rosita pinned Sky after Love attacked Sky

Chris Sabin/Brian Kendrick/Suicide b. Generation Me/Robbie E – Kendrick pinned Jeremy Buck after a DDT from Max Buck

Fall Brawl 1995
Date: September 17, 1995
Location: Ashville Civic Center, Ashville, North Carolina
Attendance: 6,600
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

So this is about two things: WarGames and Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair. Now this is important for a few other reasons as to begin with, Nitro has debuted at this point so we have a TV show on a night other than Saturday. With that show, Luger is here now. On the preshow, Hogan was on a motorcycle the fans gave him and Giant tried to run over him with a monster truck. Sadly it missed. Let’s get to this.

Brian Pillman vs. Johnny B. Badd

This is the number one contender match for the US Title. Badd was constantly opening shows, but this match is special as you’ll soon see. Those Frisbees are really stupid though. His intro takes like 3 minutes after the bell rings, just for him to throw stuff to the fans. And then Buffer talking about both guys takes even longer. Is wrestling such a hard thing to do?

Pillman gets booed actually. That’s most odd. They feel each other out to start which is a fine way to start so there we are. They start off with some solid stuff which is always a perk. This is a pretty fast paced match so far which is a good sign. Heenan cracks me up by saying that Badd is like Sting’s cocker spaniel because Sting trained him. We have a Bobby the Brain Heenan For President.

Heenan of course bashes him, but says he would appreciate a donation. Heenan is on fire tonight. They go to the mat again which is hurting things a bit. They plug Nitro tomorrow which would be the third show in history. That’s very odd indeed. We go to a wide camera shot which makes sure not to let us see the camera side, which I would bet is about 10% full.

Tony offers some insight by saying the far leg is the leg that is furthest away. Yep I love him too. Pillman goes heel here by throwing a punch. He would soon snap and go full heel but more on that later. Badd gets a weird submission hold where his feet are under Brian’s shoulders and he’s pulling back on his arms. That would hurt quite a bit I’d think. Brian is getting booed more and more.

See what something simple like just a straight punch can do? Brian hits the floor as this is getting good. A springboard legdrop gets two for Badd. It’s kind of sad that the fans are just wandering around when there’s a solid match going on because that’s what they’re so used to from WCW. That can’t be a good sign. With Badd on the floor we have five minutes to go. The over the top rope rule continues to be changed every show as Badd suplexes him over.

And now he jumps over the top to take Brian out as they crank it up again. Johnny goes for a double axe from the top but jumps into a dropkick with four minutes to go. Brian gets a Tombstone with 3 minutes left. Even the WCW crowd is into this so how much does that tell you about this match?

And we hit an armbar with 2 minutes to go. Ok then. And now Brian does the same. That’s kind of stupid. There’s a minute left and we’re in a rest hold. Yeah that’s brilliant. Badd gets his big punch with 20 seconds left but Brian is in the ropes. A springboard clothesline gets two for Brian and we’re out of time. The fans boo the that out of the building.

BUT WAIT!

There must be a winner, so we go to sudden death! It’s one fall to a finish so the sudden death term is kind of pointless but we get more of a good match so there you are. Heenan has never heard of this. Really? We go to the floor and it’s a slugfest. Badd uses the same dropkick counter on Brian that got used on him earlier. And that is what you call psychology.

We get a double count which is idiotic given the must be a winner idea. Heenan says no one has tried the one thing that could win: a pipe wrench. I love that. Pillman gets a sleeper which is smart after over 20 minutes of hard wrestling. We talk about the main event where Heenan seems to fantasize over someone turning on Hogan. A sunset flip off the top gets a LONG two for Badd. Crucifix is countered into a back slam.

This is a great match in case you can’t tell. Hurricanrana from the middle rope, which was an epic move at the time, gets just two for Badd. Tornado DDT, Pillman’s finisher, just gets two. We go BACK to the floor where Badd hits a somersault plancha over the top which he nearly misses and Pillman is out. He goes for a slingshot splash but Pillman gets the knees up for a block. We’re over 35 minutes into the broadcast and we’re still in the opener.

The overtime has been a solid match in its own right after a great opening 20 minutes. They get back in the ring and freaking FLY off the ropes about three times each before both go for cross bodies but Pillman lands on Badd’s knee so it’s almost like a backbreaker which is enough for the pin to blow the roof off the place. Well as much as that small of a crowd can do at least.

Rating: A. GREAT match. This is what two young guys can do when they’re given a ton of time and can show off. This is pretty easily Badd’s best match ever and it’s one of Pillman’s best. Somehow though, that’s not even Brian’s best PPV opener. That’s hard to believe. Find this match as it’s worth watching.

Flair talks about growing up as a wrestler with Arn and how they are so much alike. To say the blowoff for this at Halloween Havoc was great is an understatement. One thing though: Flair says the Horsemen were masters of the WarGames. Did they ever win a televised one? Flair says the problem is that he loves Arn, but one of them is going to have to explain to their son why one is better than the other. GREAT interview.

Sadly, the show is more or less downhill from here.

Cobra vs. Craig Pittman

So Cobra is more famously known as NWO Sting but here’s he’s an ex-CIA agent. And he’s a pro wrestler. Sure why not. Pittman is an ex-marine or something. And he’s not here. Apparently there’s a really stupid backstory here that isn’t important. No Pittman, but here is his private.

Ignore that he’s Prince Iaukea minus being an islander or a Prince at all. Pittman then repels from the ceiling. Yes, a guy is repelling from the ceiling to fight a fake Sting. There’s irony there somewhere. I have no clue who is face or heel here but I don’t think it matters. This is maybe a minute long with Pittman winning with a cross armbreaker. It was worse than it sounds.

Rating: F. This was just idiotic and WAY over the top to call it a no rating. Just stupid as all goodness and NO ONE cared. Waste of time and money. Oh and the arena is now 15 stories high. Sure why not.

We talk about Paul Orndorff having issues with confidence. We see him ranting to himself with no issues about having a camera there. And here’s a television psychic with a big white afro to talk to him. And Orndorff once main evented a show in Toronto in front of 60,000 people. How is this possible? This is just idiotic and Orndorff was gone soon enough anyway. The acting here is about as bad as you could imagine.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Renegade

So more or less, one of these guys was supposed to be a big deal and bombed and one was supposed to be a joke and became a big deal. You can figure out which. Page jumps Renegade to start. In a great line from Bobby: “This is a new DDP. This man has energy. This man has vision. This man is…flat out on the floor!” Dang he is cracking me up tonight. Kimberly is getting ticked off at having to do what DDP said.

She would get far hotter when she straightened her hair. Renegade just can’t do much and on top of that, no one liked him. It’s mostly DDP in control here as even though he’s very green, he’s FAR better here. They point out that this is the longest Renegade match ever. That’s just not a good sign at all. To be fair though, Rob Terry is doing the same thing today and he seems to be a success.

Renegade makes his comeback with no one caring. Hart is freaking out on him as we hear again how WCW is number one. Page gets a sweet jumping DDT for a counter though which helps things out a lot. Maxx Muscle goes after Hart so Renegade jumps at him. He grabs Renegade’s foot to allow the Diamond Cutter for the pin and DDP’s first title.

Rating: D. This was the right decision about a million times over. Renegade just was not any good at all and DDP was rapidly getting better. They had to make the change to someone. This was one instance where they saw the writing on the wall and just pulled the plug on a terrible angle.

We talk about Sherri and Colonel Parker and Tony is absolutely losing it on camera.

WCW Tag Titles: Bunkhouse Buck/Dick Slater vs. Harlem Heat

The talented tag team is challenging here. The idea here is more about the managers though as apparently they like each other. The match is going to suck though. Oh and along with this, we only have Arn/Flair and War Games. We’re an hour and five minutes into the show. That simply can’t be a good sign. I also have issues with a guy names Dirty Dick. Also, they gave THESE TWO the tag titles after like 5 months of Heat vs. Nasty Boys?

I don’t like the Nasties, but they’re light years ahead of these morons. Booker and Slater start so at least the one good wrestler in the match is starting us off. Slater is one of those good old southern boys that allegedly was really talented but never shook either the southern stigma or the lack of talent to get over. Crowd is deader than Booker’s career at this point. Again I love how two hicks like this are supposed to be trained wrestlers.

There’s something amusing about that. Yeah the idea here is that Sherri has a bump on the head and isn’t herself. Somehow this was put on national TV as a mainstream wrestling company with angles like that. Wow indeed. Apparently Dick Slater is one of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport. I can barely laugh at how stupid that is.

On the floor the managers are playing this messed up cat and mouse game that is just rather creepy. The fans prove they’re still alive with a short and incomprehensible chant. It’s weird hearing them talk about Booker as a power guy. That’s most odd indeed. Heenan seems like he wants to talk about Buck being undressed. Ok then. The heels are controlling most of the match here.

You can tell the match itself is pretty awful as I’ve barely talked about it. I’m trying very hard to think of anything else to talk about so that I don’t have to actually pay attention. Fact: I used to have this tape and this match cured my insomnia over a summer. I didn’t sleep regularly for a month but this match put me to sleep in five minutes. That’s saying something. We talk about WarGames to kill some time.

This match needs to end BADLY. And trust me, since this is WCW< I’m sure that will mean both possible things. Stevie gets the I guess you could say hot tag to get the crowd to do nothing at all. And here is that finish as Parker and Sherri get into the other ring and kiss. At the same time the Nasty Boys are here and rip Slater’s boot off to smack him in the head with it to give the Heat the titles. While this is happening, Sherri and Parker are still kissing. I hate this show.

Rating: F+. This was just terrible. The ending sucked and the match was worse. Who thought that Buck and Slater were the best options? Seriously, the American Males were on the preshow. They’re not the best in the world by any stretch of the imagination but they’re better than Buck and Slater. It’s stuff like this that is freaking idiotic and gave WCW the bad name it had.

Buck is ticked at Parker and lets him know. We’ll ignore the fact that he is perfect coherent and only has a mild southern accent despite allegedly being a mindless tough guy. Parker says he feels like he’s 20 years old and is in love. Oh dear. This went more or less nowhere as they managed the Heat as co-managers for awhile until they realized Booker had real talent and gave him a push.

Halloween Havoc is coming. Oh man that show. It might be dumber than Uncensored 96 if you can believe that.

Arn Anderson is with Gene as we see a package about this feud. Basically, Flair had used Arn as a guy to do his dirty work while Flair was obsessed with Hogan. It got to the point where they lost a handicap match to Vader. That’s insane when you think about it.

Yes, this is the time where Flair became the insane man that is obsessed with Hogan that he is now. Back in reality, Arn says that this has to happen even though he loves Flair, but win lose or draw, he’s going to respect himself in the morning and Flair is going to respect him. Ok, there is no way at all this can’t be awesome.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Ok, now this is actually cool. Arn always dominated the lower card to midcard while Flair was always world champion. Why did Arn never get a shot? Something interesting to note is a Flair 3:16 sign in the crowd a full 9 months before Austin gave him famous speech. A bunch of wrestlers are here to watch this. For old school fans, this is a very odd match indeed. It’s scary how much darker Anderson is than Flair.

Heenan says Flair has been a jerk. Now that’s not something you’ll hear often. Anderson goes to the arm which is his normal thing. And let’s blame Hogan for this to make sure he’s mentioned in most of if not all of the segments. This is a very slow start but that’s all fine and good I think. This is a huge match that can do what it wants.

They get a lot of counters and technical stuff in there as the announcers ask why Arn never got a shot. Oh and they try to make it sound like WCW was the company that went worldwide first. I’ll let them have that because even they can’t believe that one. They simply can’t. Arn gets a weak sleeper as the fans don’t know who to cheer for here. It never ceases to amaze me how simple things like arm work can do so much for a match.

Ok again Tony says that Flair is Arn’s cousin. This is a common thing to be said and for the maybe 3 people that don’t know otherwise, it’s true. Flair is Anderson’s cousin by way of their aunt Clotilda. Not true but I wanted to work the name Clotilda into a review for various psychotic reasons. Flair was often billed as a cousin to the Andersons back in the old days as a way to validate them being partners. That’s where that comes from.

It really is cool to see two guys that know each other this well FINALLY have a match. Flair goes up and actually gets his shot. That’s amazing to say the least. Heenan gets on too much of a rant and says that if Flair gets the figure four on then the referee will have to stop it and if Arn DDTs Flair….well that’s another story but neither guy will give up. That got a laugh out of me.

The knee drop completely misses but is sold anyway. Arn just goes off on Flair in the corner and it’s awesome. I love how sometimes Bobby gets on a roll and Tony has to just ignore him due to how out of left field some of the stuff is. Flair takes over for awhile with his usual stuff. There’s a feeling to this match that you just don’t get that often. Flair gets stuck in the Tree of Woe and Arn chokes away.

It’s hard to tell if Arn is being evil or if he hates Flair. DDT is blocked. Arn calls a spot to Flair on a two count. Figure Four is almost on but Arn blocks the leg. Never mind it didn’t work. Flair spits at him and Arn is FIRED UP. Crowd is WAY into this.

With Arn holding his knee, Brian Pillman of all people gets up on the apron and they trade punches. Pillman kicks him in the back of the head and Flair staggers into the DDT for the pin. This would be explained in solid detail, especially at Halloween Havoc so I’ll spare you the spoilers.

Rating: A-. Just a great match that felt like a bit match. Did you really expect this match to not be awesome? It was as great as you would expect it to be as Arn got to show that he could have a great match against a guy like Flair and beat him. That’s something he never really got to do and it needed to happen. Great match.

Taskmaster gives a messed up interview about Hogan. Just wait until you hear the lineups here and you’ll see why no one really cared about this match, despite how great of a gimmick match it is.

Now for those of you that don’t know the rules, here you go. You have two teams of four men. A guy from each team is sent in and they fight for five minutes. Then there is a coin toss to determine which team gets to go in next (the heels literally never lost this).

This gives the team that won a 2-1 advantage which lasts for two minutes. After those two minutes pass, we get a member from the losing team in to make it 2-2. After two more minutes, we get another member from the team that won. They alternate every two minutes until we have all 8 in. Then it’s first submission wins.

We get a recap of the feud including clips of the segment where the faces BLOW UP A BUILDING.

The face team talks about how they all have drank Agent Orange so they can’t get hurt. Hogan calls the Dungeon of Doom the Dungeon of Goom. Is that supposed to be an insult? I’m actually not sure.

WarGames: Hulkamaniacs vs. Dungeon of Doom

Dungeon: Meng, Kamala, Shark, Zodiac
Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Sting, Randy Savage

Gee, thing it’s one sided enough??? Luger replaced Vader who jumped to WWF a week earlier. They say a stipulation has been added where if Team Hogan wins, he gets 5 minutes with the Taskmaster in the cage tonight. They announced that earlier but maybe the crowd didn’t know yet. Now remember, we have Hogan, Luger, Sting and Savage, a WCW All-Star team vs. Kamala, Haku, Brutus Beefcake and Earthquake. Yeah this is a main event apparently.

Ok to be fair, this is the major feud in the company in their signature match so that makes sense. I have no issue there. I just don’t think this is the best they could do. Why not Flair and Anderson with two other guys? It would at least be more interesting. Sting and Shark start us off. More or less Sting massacres him as you would expect. Shark finally gets some offense in after Sting goes for a slam like the idiot he tended to be.

Sting is one of my favorites ever, but he did some DUMB stuff at times. In a funny spot, Shark goes to the end of one ring and after a running start, JUMPS OVER THE ROPE. However he doesn’t make it all the way as he gets stuck on the two sets of ropes over the gap in the rings. What a visual.

With 30 seconds to go before another guy comes in, Sting goes for the leg. With three seconds to go the Scorpion is on. The heels win the toss (naturally) and Zodiac comes in. In a cool spot, Sting grabs the top of the cage and pulls himself up and kicks Zodiac in the head. Sting does what he can but there is too much fat in there.

Savage comes in to tie it up. Like a crazy man he tries to suplex Shark. Are we really supposed to believe Sting and Savage can’t handle these two? The cage isn’t that great so Savage’s leg is hanging out of the cage and the heels are beating on it. His partners ignore him of course so there we are. Kamala comes in as it’s 3-2. Has Kamala ever won a big match? I don’t think so.

Luger makes it 3-3. There just isn’t much to say about this match as the periods are too short to really get anything going. Also the face team is so ridiculously stacked that there’s no drama whatsoever. Luger accidentally hits Savage to attempt to give us some drama as Meng comes in to make it 4-3. Ok now why would Meng hit Luger there? Savage is using energy and hurting Luger so why stop him? The heels dominate for the rest of the period and here he is.

Hogan is the final guy in of course and he has powder. Not only does he have a far better roster of guys but he comes in and cheats. That’s Hogan for you I guess. Naturally he beats up the four guys more or less on his own when Sting, Luger and Savage combined couldn’t do it. That makes perfect sense right?

Heenan says this is like Bosnia. Even Tony stops him on that one. It’s just total domination here as you would expect. This is totally boring at this point as there is no way the heels are winning it. And Hogan gets a TERRIBLE camel clutch on Zodiac for the submission to win.

Rating: D. And that’s with an elevated rating due to it being WarGames. This was just AWFUL as it was so painfully boring. There was never any drama at all. I mean look at the rosters. Would you believe for a second that Hogan’s team was ever going to lose? Of course not and no one bought the heels as having a chance. It could have been worse I guess. Ok no it couldn’t be. One of the weakest WarGames ever.

Sullivan fights Hogan now in really just a beating rather than a match. Everyone else is gone at this point so keep that in mind. Sullivan is nearly a foot shorter than Hogan. It’s very amusing to see. And here’s the Giant to sneak up on Hogan. He jumps over the ropes as he was just awesome at this time.

He does something to Hogan’s neck which put him out for awhile before the inevitable match at Halloween Havoc. Sting, Savage and Luger run out for the save as Hogan is hurt to end the show. Heenan is freaking happy to say the least.

Overall Rating: C+. This is a show where various things give and take from it. You have two GREAT matches, a non match, a title change that had to happen, a terrible title match, and a terrible main event but FINALLY something different to end the show.

This could have been FAR worse had they not had their great stuff in there like they did. Two great matches and a horrible main event make this mostly passable I guess though. Definitely check those two out as they’re great and combine for nearly an hour of the show. Other than that, take a pass.

NXT
Date: April 5, 2011
Location: Time Warner Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Todd Grisham, William Regal

This is week number five and now we’re back to the regular kind of NXT shows where we only lose 10 minutes a week to the main show building stuff.  The season needs to get moving along though as we haven’t heard about an elimination yet and I can’t take much more Jacob Novak.  Anyway this is kind of a new year show in the WWE logic so maybe the energy from last night will carry over here.  Let’s get to it.

Now that I’ve found what city this is in, we can get going.  WWE.com recently redesigned, making it a lot harder to

We bring out the rookies and go over the scores.  O’Neil has 9 points, Young has 7 and everyone else has zero.  The first challenge is a trivia game.  The idea is a category is named and you have to give an answer in that category as we go down the line.  First up is Wrestlemania 27 winners.  Young says Bret Hart right off the bat and is gone.  Cannon asks where Matt’s girlfriend was last night because Cannon does.  O’Brian can’t come up with anything.

Next category is 2011 HOF inductees.  We have Novak, O’Neil and Saxton left.  Novak is gone because he repeats Bob Armstrong.  Category 3 is name any former NXT rookie.  After saying themselves they list off the Nexus and this goes on for awhile.  No girls named yet until Titus repeats Saxton and gives Saxton the win and 4 points.  I’d bet almost anything on him winning whatever match he’s in tonight.

Titus/Horny vs. Young/Chavo tonight.  Yes, it’s Chavo vs. Hornswoggle again.

Jacob Novak vs. Conor O’Brian

 

Kozlov’s arm is in a sling.  Conor works on the arm to start as we talk about the color of Novak’s tights.  Now he works the leg.  I think this is supposed to be a long running feud on NXT.  The problem with this is that Rat Boy is the far better of the two, which coming from me you know isn’t a good thing.  Novak takes over with various stuff and gets a neckbreaker for two.

We hit the chinlock with O’Brian in trouble.  Regal talks about the NXT guys going around at Mania weekend and picking the brains of legends and pros, which is a good job by Regal of playing up the whole “they’re rookies” thing.  Regal insists he never threw European Uppercuts but rather British Uppercuts.  While he goes on about that, O’Brian rolls Novak up for the pin at 4:15.

Rating: D. Again, these two are just there.  It’s the problem with this entire show and the majority of the WWE farm system: these guys are just people.  There’s nothing distinguishing the vast majority of them other than Cannon being the ladies man or whatever he is.  This is definitely the biggest proof of that as these two are the most generic people I can remember this side of Johnny Curtis.  Dull match from these two as usual.

Cannon comes up to Tatsu and says he’s sorry for last week and that he thinks Maryse likes Tatsu.  He points out that Maryse is right over there so Tatsu should ask her out.  Tatsu does, apparently not caring that DiBiase is right next to her and gets beaten up as he should.  Maryse yells at Ted but Ted says Yoshi couldn’t afford Maryse, which makes Maryse leave with him, seemingly willingly.

Long video on the Hall of Fame class of 2011.  Carey was gracious at least and acknowledged he didn’t do much.  Why Bob Armstrong is in there is beyond me.

Kozlov brags to JTG about how his rookie beat JTG’s rookie.  JTG says Novak’s rookie is generic.  JTG’s rookie is Jacob Novak if you’ve forgotten.  This is like some weird argument at a little league game.  They make an unspecified wager on who can make their rookie look better first.

Darren Young/Chavo Guerrero vs. Hornswoggle/Titus O’Neil

 

Make this quick.  The rookies start us off as we debate whether or not Titus should ever tag in Horny.  Titus has an incredible look but he looks like he’s had a total of 9 seconds of ring time.  Horny doesn’t want a tag so it’s Titus vs. Chavo.  We hear the history of Chavo vs. Horny as my head shakes.  Chavo does what he can but he’s not a miracle worker.

Horny tags himself in and the pop is of course big.  Horny wants Young and what the leprechaun wants the leprechaun gets.  Young gets on his knees as we waste a lot of time.  They actually do a test of strength and Horny kicks him in the ribs.  There’s the tag back to Titus who gets a powerslam and barks.  Chavo gets knocked to the floor which is called a tag and Titus lays down for the frog splash.  Horny bites Chavo’s leg and hides under the ring to prevent the move.  Young comes at Titus but walks into the Sky High (I heard this was called the Clash of the Titan but I’m not sure) to end it at 4:30.

Rating: C-. For a comedy tag match this wasn’t too bad.  Titus isn’t as bad as he was in the second season as he now has a big power move like he was needing badly.  Horny was there for the kids and that worked fine.  Not horrid here but it’s nothing I ever want to see again.

We get the full Rock/Cena thing from last night.  I’m not sure if they’re going to make it all the way to Wrestlemania and I’m not sure if it’s a great idea, but it’s certainly something worth paying attention to.  Rock saying he respects Cena and getting booed for it does not come off as a good sign at all though.  Fashion advice from the Tooth Fairy is still a good line.  I still don’t get the Corre’s involvement or why Booker laughed when they came out.

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Ted DiBiase

 

Well at least this has some build to it.  We also get Tatsu’s awesome song so that helps a lot.  Regal talks about fighting a hunchback over a tattooed dwarf, incorporating a Percy Sledge song in the same sentence.  DiBiase takes him down quickly and gets a double stomp off the middle rope.  Regal says getting rid of Maryse would enhance his career.  Grisham says that Tatsu would like to have his samurai sword pierce her heart.  Wouldn’t that kill her???  He also calls this a Haku as Regal said it was poetic.  And then Ted goes off on Tatsu and gets disqualified for beating on him too much at 2:00.  Ok then.

Maryse yells at DiBiase so DiBiase says it’s NXT or him and she has a week to decide.

Overall Rating: C. This was probably the best show this season but I’m not sure how much that’s saying.  The matches weren’t anything great but the pacing was better, they kept the challenges to a minimum and the comedy was a bit better.  Not a good show but FAR less annoying this week, which is a huge upgrade for them.

Results

Byron Saxton won the Hot Seat Trivia Challenge

Conor O’Brian b. Jacob Novak – Rollup

Titus O’Neil/Hornswoggle b. Chavo Guerrero/Darren Young

Yoshi Tatsu b. Ted DiBiase via DQ when DiBiase repeatedly punched Tatsu

Monday Night Raw
Date: April 4, 2011
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re finally on the other side of Wrestlemania and not a ton has changed on Raw. The Miz is still champion, Cole can still run his mouth (I still don’t get that one) and Rock vs. Cena is still going on. Tonight we begin the build up to Extreme Rules and also have the debut of Sin Cara which is something a lot of people have been looking forward to. Let’s get to it.

Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are on commentary to open us up. Whoa.

John Cena will call out the Rock tonight.

HHH opens us up wearing sunglasses for some reason, possibly a black eye. He talks about being incredibly nervous last night and even mentions wrestling him at Wrestlemania before but it was nothing like this. Big bruise on the left hand (his left) side of the Game’s forehead. HHH says he hit Taker as hard as he’s ever hit anyone and they left it all in the ring last night, but for him it wasn’t good enough.

No one has ever taken the pain like Taker has and HHH doesn’t know what to do. The crowd looks HUGE here and the Cole Mine is at ringside with caution tape over it. It was a man that was carted off last night and a lot of people are saying he’s done now. He wants to say one thing. He takes off the glasses and there’s tape on his nose. HHH says thank you to the Undertaker for giving him the fight of his life last night. Undertaker will be back and HHH will be waiting. The fans give him a standing ovation as he leaves.

Apparently Cole is going to invite Lawler out for a match, which is why Lawler has some pads on.

Austin is here tonight and will introduce the cast of Tough Enough.

Jerry is talking to JR about his match last night when Cole comes out in his gear. Jerry doesn’t seem incredibly bothered by the outcome last night. With Shawn now in the Hall of Fame and Cole at 1-0, he‘s the new Mr. Wrestlemania. Jerry says that Cole needs to shut up because a computer beat him. Lawler says he had Cole screaming like a little girl. Cole says how about a rematch (Cole never says with him) and Jerry says let’s do it right now. Cole says not with him, but with Swagger.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jack Swagger

They slug it out a bit and Swagger takes over. A charge into the corner misses and Lawler hammers away but can’t get anywhere. The fans are hot for Jerry. That didn’t sound right. Slam by Swagger but he misses a leg drop. Vader Bomb misses and the Titantron seems to be flickering. Lawler hammers away and gets a dropkick. King goes for the middle rope punch but Cole comes in. Jerry goes after him, only to get locked in the ankle lock for the tap out at 3:55. Swagger won’t let go though and the decision is reversed.

Rating: D+. Nothing special but then again this was just to further the feud between Lawler and Cole. We’ll ignore the fact that the blowoff should have come last night but at the same time, who cares about logic? Anyway this was just ok with Swagger never being in any real danger. Also it’s good that they had him lose on a technicality as he can’t afford many more losses.

Post match Cole goes into the Cole Mine and finds JR’s Barbecue Sauce. He gets ticked off and sprays it on JR who chases him to the back. So now we have no commentary.

Punk/Rhodes vs. Mysterio/Orton next.

Back with Cole ranting about JR. He’s on commentary now with Booker and Josh.

CM Punk/Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio/CM Punk

Orton and Rhodes give us a Legacy reunion to start us off. Rey comes in and gets a shot to the face, sending Cody to the floor as we take a break. Back with Orton vs. Rhodes again as Randy drops the knee of him for two. Off to Rey who gets beaten down. Cody gets caught in a small package and it’s off to Orton again.

Punk tries to wrap the bad leg around the post but gets sent into the barricade. Chop block by Cody and Randy is in trouble. Punk sets for the GTS but like any good villain, waits too long and Orton escapes. RKO doesn’t work and it’s back to the leg as we take a second break. When do you ever see that anymore?

Back with Orton in a leg drop but he almost immediately gets a hot tag to Rey who comes in with a seated senton to Punk. He sets for the 619 but Rhodes gets the Beautiful Disaster to take Rey’s head off on the way for two. Back off to Cody who hammers away on Rey even more. Punk works on the arm a bit more as we hit the 15:00 mark for the first time in forever on Raw.

Double tag brings in Orton to use his vast array of clotheslines on Rhodes. The fans are wide awake now after being a bit quiet earlier. Elevated DDT to Rhodes and Randy goes into his zone. HUGE pop for the possibility of the RKO too. Punk distracts so Orton settles for the Angle Slam, likely resulting in that mean old hacker going after the completely innocent Kurt’s Twitter again. 619 sets up the RKO to end it at 16:32.

Rating: B-. I liked this here but for some reason Punk wasn’t in there that much for the first half. It’s nice to see a long match that has the time to build into something decent and this did. These four work pretty well together and they did here. Good stuff overall and a nice little surprise on Raw.

Austin is heading to the ring and runs into HHH. They shake hands and Austin says it was a hell of a match and wants to be there if it happens again. These moments between the big three are pretty awesome.

Sin Cara is coming. Still.

Here’s Austin to talk about Tough Enough. He brings out the kids to his ring. There are 14 of them. The trainers are Bill DeMott, Trish Stratus and Booker T. There’s only going to be one winner. They all get to introduce themselves and Austin gets annoyed when one guy talks too long. I won’t go through all of them as there’s not much to say. One looks almost exactly like Alicia Fox. Miss USA gets a nice ovation looks rather good. One girl is Latina and speaks Spanish. One is named Eric Watts but thankfully it’s not the more famous version.

They get done and the fans chant “stun them all”. Apparently that girl that looks like Fox does so for a reason: it’s her sister. Austin talks a bit more and here are Miz and Riley (in a tux). Austin says no one is ever going to tell him about being tough or having valor again. We see a clip of Miz getting speared to the floor last night and apparently getting a concussion. I wouldn’t doubt it for a second after his head bounced off that concrete.

Miz heads to the ring and tells the rookies to take a long look at them. He offers Austin a chance to hold his belt. He says Austin thinks he has one more run in him. The fans chant one more match and Miz challenges him to one more match right now. Austin says clear the ring and Miz jumps him. He runs off and it’s down to Austin and Riley.

Riley hammers away but Austin remembers that he’s Austin and beats the tar out of him with the Thesz Press and FU elbow. Big old Stunner sends Riley to the floor. He tosses beers to the Tough Enough kids and the fans aren’t thrilled. Austin walks over to Cole and pours some beer in the Cole Mine.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Evan Bourne

No car tonight. Cole talks about how Austin pouring beer on him was him showing how impressed Austin was and initiating him into the brotherhood. Points to Cole for trying as hard as he can here. Alberto controls early but gets caught by a spin kick. That’s about the extent of Bourne’s offense there though as down he goes. Out to the floor and it’s all Del Rio. Chinlock by Alberto and Bourne starts his comeback with various strikes and rollups that get him nowhere. Bourne goes up but the enziguri sets up the Cross Armbreaker to end it at 2:42. Just a squash.

We get a video on Axxess from the previous week. These are cool things to do and it makes WWE look good which is always a good thing.

Cole talks about giving Lawler a rematch next year in the art show but is interrupted by Vickie. She blames Laycool for the loss last night and is in tights. Ziggler wants a mixed tag RIGHT NOW. They head to the ring and we take a break.

Dolph Ziggler/Vickie Guerrero vs. John Morrison/Trish Stratus

Obviously the match is accepted and the guys start us off. Off to the girls after some basic stuff and Vickie actually beats trish up a bit. Something resembling a leg drop misses and it’s back to Morrison. Ziggler gets a big clothesline to turn Morroison inside out and Trish has to save. Dolph gets in his face so she drills him. Moonlight Drive KILLS Ziggler and Starship Pain ends this clean at 3:27.

Rating: C+. A lot of that is for the kick. That thing looked and sounded great. Ziggler selling the hell out of it helps too as Ziggler looked like he got hit by a train. Nice little tag match here and it’s good to see Trish sticking around past Mania. I want to see more of the guys fighting too as they seem to have good chemistry together.

US Title: Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan

Bryan has the ring jacket back and Sheamus now wears red, white and blue. Sheamus throws him around to start and takes his head off with a double axe handle. Cole talks about how awesome he is again and Sheamus hammers away on Bryan even more. Bryan rolls out of a chinlock but gets caught in a tilt–a–while backbreaker which is now called the Irish Curse by Cole.

Bryan starts his comeback with some clotheslines and a running knee strike for two. Sheamus kicks him in the knee and tries the real Irish Curse which is countered into the LeBell Lock which can’t go all the way on. Brogue Kick ends this at 3:59. Not much here and Bryan was never in any real sense of control.

Rating: C. Just a match here without anything to it for the most part. Sheamus has dominated Bryan in almost every match they’ve had save one. Still a good little match though to set up what’s coming next, which I’ll get to now.

With Sheamus posing the lights go out and it’s SIN CARA! He points at Sheamus and charges the ring, diving over the rop rope and hitting all kinds of high spots, sending Sheamus to the floor and hitting a HUGE dive from the top to the floor, taking out Sheamus. This is like Rey Mysterio back in 96 which if you’re familiar with him is a huge compliment.

Here’s Cena to more insane booing. He says that there was a guy who said he was coming to Wrestlemania to whip some candy ass and Cena is glad he did because otherwise the ending of Wrestlemania would have been a draw. That’s a good point actually. Cena congratulates Miz on coming into and leaving Wrestlemania as the champion. He says that Miz has earned the people’s respect.

That brings him back to that certain someone. That someone doesn’t like Cena that much but he’s here tonight. He was supposed to be the guest host of Wrestlemania but very quickly got into some business. That would be Cena’s business, meaning they have business to settle right now.

Cue Rock to an eruption. The fans chant Fruity Pebbles. Rock says that of course he got involved. Just because Rock has been away that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know about Cena. Cena lives and breathes WWE and Rock says that he is one of the best WWE Champions and superstars of all time. However, Rock just doesn’t like him.

Rock says they’re very different but they both want to be the best. Well other than where they shop as Rock goes to department stores (I guess they sell sleeveless Brahma Bull shirts and workout pants at department stores now) and Cena shops at Baby Gap. Cena: “Oh great. Fashion advice from the Tooth Fairy.”

Cena says Rock is the man of the people and the people want to see one match. Never else can you see a match like this so does Rock want to talk or does Rock want to bring it. Cena takes the hat and shirt off and Rock says he has no idea what he just asked for. Rock says he‘ll bring it, but let‘s bring it on the grandest stage of them all. Rock vs. Cena, Wrestlemania 28. Rock sticks out his hand and Cena shakes it, ending the show. Wow are they really going to wait that long?

The music looks to end it and…..here‘s THE CORRE??? Rock and Cena fight them off and it‘s a People‘s Elbow for Barrett followed by an FU for Slater. Cena‘s music plays but Rock hits a Rock Bottom on Gabriel. They stare each other down again and Rock says he‘ll see him at Wrestlemania. They shake hands again and Cena leaves, ending the show.

Overall Rating: A-. As hit and miss as Wrestlemania was last night, this show hit very well. We got continuations of storylines, the debut of a new character, development in Rock vs. Cena and some decent wrestling to boot. I’m not sure where they’re going with Miz or Bryan and various other characters but there was definitely an energy to this show that is carrying over from last night. It wasn’t quite perfect, namely due to Cole getting annoying on multiple occasions but the good certainly outweighs the bad here, making for a great first show post Mania.

Wrestlemania 27
Date: April 3, 2011
Location: Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 71,617
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Jerry Lawler, Booker T, Jim Ross
America the Beautiful: Keri Hilson

Well here we are.  It’s the biggest night of the year and we’re heading to Georgia for the first time in Mania history.  The main events are John Cena vs. The Miz for the Raw Title, Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio for the SD Title and HHH vs. Undertaker (not II of course).  This is the night we’ve all looked forward to, and there’s that Rock guy here too.  Let’s get to it.

The dark match was the US Title match but it turned into a non-title battle royal with Khali eliminating Sheamus to end it.  I’m assuming the US Title match will be later.

Note that this is being written live so please excuse any marking out moments.

Keri Hilson, some singer I don’t know, sings America the Beautiful.

The voiceover guy here is like an old vaudeville voice which is kind of cool.  Up first: here’s THE ROCK!  The Great One looks…well great.  The arena looks awesome too.  Actually it’s a stadium but whatever.  After posing forever he teases the FINALLY before hitting it.  Bunch of Fruity Pebbles signs in the crowd.  Rock promises this will be electrifying.  Time for a little game: the Rock says Yabba, the people say Dabba.  This somehow takes up FIFTEEN MINUTES overall and he does a huge IF YA SMELL to end it.

Video about the major moments in Mania history and the big ones tonight.  Standard awesome intro video.  I know they were cutting out the wrestling but this is ridiculous.

There’s the traditional big fireworks display and we get a match!

 

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio

 

WHAT THE HECK???  THIS IS THE OPENING MATCH???  The intro is great for Alberto as the video where the car comes from is designed to look like his driveway at his estate so he’s driving out of it.  That’s awesome.  Clay is here with Alberto.  Here’s Christian to back up Edge.  I think shenanigans may be afoot.  This gets the big match intros because it’s a big match.  Can’t fault their logic there.

I’m watching on a stream so I’ll do my best on the times but I make no guarantees on their accuracy other than in general.  Edge fires away early on as Cole talks about the arm.  Naturally that triggers an attack on said arm which is in trouble early.  The arm work continues as is intelligent.  Alberto goes to the floor so Edge flips forward over the ropes and lands mostly on Del Rio in a cool spot.

As the champion comes back in though Del Rio pulls him off the top in an armbar.  The Cross Armbreaker is countered into the Edge-O-Matic as Edge gets two.  Out of nowhere the armbreaker goes on but Edge rolls through to escape.  Dueling chants begin.  Edge goes up again but Del Rio gets the running enziguri to take him down for two.  Christian and Clay get into it and Christian goes flying via a suplex.

Edgecution sets up the attempted spear but Alberto avoids.  He stops in the corner and Clay grabs the arm and rams it into the post.  The armbreaker goes on full force after a bit of a block.  Edge reverses into a rollup/cradle move that makes Alberto break it up to escape.  Edge gets the Edgecator and Alberto is in trouble.  Clay tries to come in but Christian gets the tornado DDT off the apron to the floor to take him down.  Del Rio escapes but walks into the spear to end this at approximately 11:00.  Wow that was abrupt.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t terrible but dude, 11 minutes for this?  That’s in the level of Cena/JBL at Mania 21.  Not a bad match but it felt like a match that could have easily been on Smackdown as a regular main event.  Alberto didn’t need to get the title yet so at least the right man won.  Still though, 11 minutes?

Edge beats up the Rolls Royce post match.  By that I mean he destroys it with a crowbar.  Why Alberto doesn’t go after it is beyond me.  Alberto yells for Christian for some reason.  Oh ok Christian was helping with a ball bat.  I need to pay more attention.

Cole talks about being in the main event and is in a suit, as is Jerry.  They….they couldn’t really be putting that on last could they?

Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes

 

As Rhodes comes to the ring we get the video recap of this.  In short, Rey hit Cody with a 619 with a metal knee brace that Cody exposed earlier in the match, injuring the Dashing features of Cody.  If this is a few years later, look up Dashing Cody Rhodes for an awesome heel in 2010.  Rey’s character this year: Captain America.  Ok that’s not bad.

Rey “helps” Cody take the jacket off as Cody is all afraid of being seen.  Rana takes Cody down but a shoulder block shifts the momentum immediately.  Cody immediately goes for the knee which is a bit odd but whatever.  Beautiful Disaster leaves Rey seemingly dead but it only gets two.  I could definitely see this being the modern Bob Orton injury angle which could work for months if played up right.

A rana is eventually countered into the Alabama Slam for two.  That’s one of the things I like about Cody: he incorporates things from his past into his offense, which is a sign of him growing.  Also he stopped having the big Triforces on his boots which was definitely a face thing.  Cody gives Rey a neck massage which I’d assume is to get his arms tingling right?

Mysterio tries to speed things up a bit but gets caught on top and it’s a delayed vertical suplex from the middle rope which is pretty awesome.  That only gets two though.  The crowd is mostly into this but is kind of quiet.  Granted that’s what a superhero comeback is all about.  Cross Rhodes is avoided and we hit the floor for a bit with Cody’s face being sent into the apron.

Back in the ring and a seated senton means we speed things up a little.  Rey kind of looks like something you would see in a Captain America cosplay contest.  Wheelbarrow suplex by Cody gets two.  Rey finally gets him in 619 position but it gets caught and Cody hits a slingshot to send Rey’s throat/chest into the middle rope for two.  Cody tries to take the knee brace off and manages to get it, meaning Rey’s knees are about to snap like a Kit Kat.

Rey fights him off to a bit and gets a moonsault press for two.  Cody’s mask comes off and he gets sent into the 619 position.  You can see Rey’s not moving the same without the knee brace.  Rey goes up but the splash meets knees.  Big kick to the head gets only two as this is a good match.  Rey puts Cody’s mask on and I’m not sure if Cody knows it or not.  Rey gets some running headbutts to send Cody reeling and a swan dive gets….two.  Wow I would have thought that was the finish.  The referee throws the knee brace out and Cody hits Cross Rhodes for the shocking (but good) pin at approximately 12:15.

Rating: B. I was into this and it was a solid match.  Also, thank goodness Cody won here so he can continue his Phantom of the Opera kind of thing.  I’m very pleased with this as Cody continues to be one of the best guys in the company at this point.  I’d love to see him get a quick title feud with Edge but I doubt it’ll happen.

Snoop Dogg is with Teddy Long and Snoop is looking for talent for a tour he’s got coming up.  Teddy has some WWE talent to audition for him.  Regal does a rap and it’s again hilarious.  Khali and Beth Phoenix do a song from Grease and get hooked more or less.  Zach Ryder sings something that is apparently from a chick named Rebecca Black and Roddy Piper hits him with what might have been a coconut.  Piper looks good.

Tatsu and Masters do We Will Rock You with Masters doing the pec dance to the drums.  Horny is going to do a rap apparently but he can’t talk.  Teddy and Snoop leave and Horny raps while the Bellas dance.  At least we got the good looking twins.

Corre vs. Santino Marella/Kofi Kingston/Big Show/Kane

 

The change of Kozlov to Kingston was kind of a surprise but I’m pretty sure if was officially announced.  I can’t complain a bit there either as Kofi should be on the card.  Santino vs. Slater to start us off here.  Big kick by Santino misses so it’s off to Show who cleans a few rooms.  You can’t really say cleans house for one guy.

Show rams into Slater in the corner but Jackson runs him over.  Everything breaks down almost immediately and Barrett takes Trouble in Paradise.  This is moving around too fast to call.  Cobra time and it hits Santino.  The Knockout Punch ends Slater and the match in about 1:40.  Yeah there was a point to this.  No rating of course.  That punch was SICK in the replay.

Rock hits on Eve in his first appearance in 45 minutes.  He talks about making magical moments.  For instance whoever comes around the corner next (without Rock looking) is going to get a magical moment with Rock.  And it’s Mae Young.  I was thinking it would be her.  She wants the People’s Strudel.  Rock says that Mae should be after Moses’ strudel.  Rock have Eve escort Mae to her seat.  Mae spanks Rock for fun.

Rock does the around the corner thing again and IT’S AUSTIN!!!!  I was hoping this would happen as it flat out needed to be done.  This is like an old western.  They’re both retired and it’s an incredible moment to say the least.  They shake hands and say it was good to see each other.  Totally AWESOME moment here and something that absolutely had to happen.

We recap Punk vs. Orton.  In short, Orton punted Punk in the head two years earlier and cost Punk the title.  Punk waited two years to get his revenge and sent the New Nexus after him.  This more or less crippled the entire feud as it just died when Orton ran through Nexus the entire time.  Oh and Orton had a bus for some reason and Punk hit him in the knee with a pipe or something so the leg is bad.

CM Punk vs. Randy Orton

 

Punk goes for the knee early but that gets him clotheslined.  Out to the floor and Punk is sent into the steps but he jumps/steps over them which I don’t remember seeing before.  He kicks the steps into the knee of Orton to take over.  The fans chant for Orton as Punk hits a top rope cross body for two.

Orton fires back with the backbreaker and Punk is down a bit.  He tries to fight out of the corner but Punk gets something like a jawbreaker onto the knee.  That’s a new one.  Orton gets caught in the Tree of Woe and Punk hammers away.  Punk gives the sign for the GTS which of course doesn’t work as Punk does what any idiot villain does and walks around before he tries anything.

Randy escapes over the back and tries the RKO but gets kicked in the head for two instead.  Punk goes to the outside but gets crotched.  His reaction is awesome to say the least.  The fans want a DDT off the top so Orton goes up.  And the fans get something similar in the form of a superplex for two in a NICE callback to Orton’s papa (that was Bob’s finisher).

Punk fights back and actually gets the figure four around the post and does it to the correct leg!  Leg lock back in the ring and it’s almost an Indian Deathlock.  Orton fights out and gets the Angle Slam.  Finally Cole doesn’t call it something stupid.  Orton goes insane again and hits the Thesz Press to ZERO reaction.  Punk fires back with kicks and a leg sweep and there’s the Anaconda Vice!  The hold makes no sense given the knee work but it’s not going to be the finish anyway.

Orton is in trouble but he manages to roll out of it and into the ropes in a nice little counter.  Punk goes to the apron and stands on the bottom rope because he’s not that intelligent.  He gets sent into the post and the elevated DDT takes him down.  Orton slams the mat and doesn’t break his arm this time.  The face is awesome to say the least.  He takes FOREVER though and you know it’s not hitting here.

Instead he backs up for the one legged punt because you know he can get a running start after not being able to stand a few minutes ago.  Thank goodness Orton falls down on the approach.  Punk looks all psycho and his hair is even freakier.  He goes over to Punk and gets….not caught in the RKO as Punk shot out of the back.  I thought it was a botch but that was intentional.  Here’s your big RKO spot as Punk tries the springboard clothesline but jumps into a nice RKO to end it at 14:40.

Rating: B-. I’m not a fan of Orton but this was pretty good stuff.  They gave it some time and the knee worked pretty well as Punk went into the air rather than having to jump.  Pretty good here but you kind of have to wonder where this goes from here as well as where Punk goes.  Granted that’s the point of watching tomorrow I guess.

Rock is with Gene Okerlund (do your own caps) who says that Cena’s #1 fan is coming here to confront Rock tonight.  And it’s Pee Wee Herman.  Gene wears Cena gear and Herman does the Rock’s line.  I don’t care for Herman so this was nothing at all.

Hall of Fame time.  Abdullah can barely walk.

Sunny looks good for the most part.  She needs to just flash the crowd and get it over with.

Animal in a tux looks weird.  Ellering is there too, complete with sunglasses.

Drew Carey is murdered by the crowd and rightfully so.

Armstrong gets no reaction at all, probably because no one knows who he is.

Duggan gets a nice ovation and there’s a bowtie on his 2×4.

And now for the one that matters.  Yep the roof is gone.

We get a Wrestlemania Recall….which is from Raw.  It’s Cole throwing soda in Lawler’s face.  I hope this is next and it is.

Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole

 

Booker T and JR are on commentary with Josh.  They both get intros, I guess to buy the guys time.  As JR is coming to the ring, Cole interrupts him, complete with an orange hoodie and headgear and shorts.  I give up.  Cole runs his mouth about Lawler being old and all that jazz.  Oh and he runs down the barbecue sauce.  Well at least this isn’t the main event like they hinted at.  Cole keeps stalling for time for Lawler which is fine.

Swagger comes out to no reaction at all.  We get the pushups but in mid push the glass shatters and Austin is here with ATV and I think a new shirt.  Cole took off the hoodie and is in a singlet.  For no apparent reason Cole jumps off the apron when Austin is charging around it and has to hide in the box.  Lawler comes out to his regular music thank goodness.  He looks a bit like Shawn with his attire.

Somehow this is the best built match of the night.  Lawler is in his usual attire in the ring as Cole stands on his desk in the Cole Mine to warm up.  Austin says ring the bell and sends Lawler after Cole.  Swagger charges and gets sent into the post and then the barrier.  Cole begs off and is close enough to a mic for us to hear him.  He offers a handshake through a hole in the box.  Is that like a glory hole for idiots?

Lawler pulls on Cole’s hand and rams his head into the box.  Jerry finally climbs into the freaking box and beats the heck out of Cole.  This is awesome.  Jerry destroys him and gets him out of the box.  Into the GM podium he goes and Jerry tosses him into the ring.  Swagger gets up and drills Jerry to put him down.  Cole gets something close to a baseball slide to the send Jerry down.

Ankle lock by Swagger when Austin is distracted.  The comeback for this is going to be awesome.  Austin counts incredibly slowly and Cole works on the knee.  Cole might have a 3 Stooges tattoo on his back.  That’s something I really didn’t want to know.  The fans say Cole can’t wrestle.  Well he’s not a wrestler so I think that’s ok.  The fans think this is nonsense.  Such an impatient generation.

Cole tries a Vader Bomb (screw that Swagger Bomb stuff) from the bottom rope and Jerry powers out of it.  Jerry gets some punches in but Cole goes back to the leg.  The fans say boring so Cole pulls a strap down and puts on the AnCole Lock.  Jerry doesn’t seem to mind and kicks Cole off to wake up the crowd.  He walks it off and Cole is caught.

A mudhole is stomped….kind of.  Swagger throws in the towel and Austin is like WHAT?  There’s a Stunner for Swagger as the fans are way into it now.  And now it is time to pay.  Austin looks at his watch and Cole slaps his hand away and SHOVES AUSTIN.  Big right hand by Lawler and the beating is on.

The fans get behind Lawler as the punches come in hard and there’s a dropkick.  With a point to the sign and the strap coming down it’s a jumping punch from the middle rope.  That gets two as Jerry pulls him up.  This has to end with the Piledriver.  Jerry grabs the ankle lock and Cole taps.  Austin makes sure it’s really a tap in a funny bit.  Cole insists he gives up and there’s the bell.  Dang it that should have been the Piledriver but the ankle lock ends it at approximately 14:00.

Rating: C. This was a letdown for me.  First of all the ankle lock was a pretty weak finisher and Cole was on offense too long.  It wasn’t bad but they needed to change a few things out there to really make it awesome.  This needed a Piledriver but I can understand Cole being afraid to take it or whatever.

Post match it’s time for a beer bash and Booker gets in the ring.  Jerry takes a beer but doesn’t drink it (he’s a known non-drinker).  There’s a spinarooni for Mania and why is this about Booker T again?  Stunner to Booker and more beer is consumed.  Jerry hasn’t drank any it seems.  We get an E-Mail of all things to interrupt this.  The referee overstepped his boundaries and the winner is Michael Cole by DQ.  Please let this be a late April Fool’s joke.  Amazingly it’s not and Matthews gets a Stunner.  And the show is officially killed.

This should have been easy and they screwed it up.  I’m in awe of their utter stupidity here.

We get a video of Wrestlemania Week and I do not care.  I’m still stunned at the utter stupidity of what they just did.

Lawler and Ross are on commentary now which is cool but they couldn’t do that without the whole stupidity thing there?  Yes I’m harping on it but man that was idiotic.

We recap HHH vs. Undertaker with a package we’ve seen a dozen or so times now.  In short, HHH wants to break the Streak because there’s nothing else for him to do.

Undertaker vs. HHH

 

There’s a rock version of Taker’s theme which is WAY too up tempo for him.  Oh wait that’s for HHH.  Oh man it’s For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica.  That’s cool but dude, it’s HHH.  Ah there’s All About the Game.  That’s more like it.  He has an army and a crown and yeah you get where this is going.  Still cool though.  Taker does his usual awesome entrance to Johnny Cash.

The song loops as the entrance takes too long.  Or maybe that was just the second verse.  The lightning goes off when Taker removes his hat.  The crowd is surprisingly quiet.  This is no holds barred and they slug it out immediately.  Taker grabs him by the head and fires him over the top with ease.  We go to the floor and HHH actually wins a fistfight.  His reward is being thrown into the steps.

We set up the announce table (Spanish of course) but HHH spears Taker into the Cole Mine to destroy it and put Taker down.  Taker looks up at HHH and is all ticked off.  Back in the ring and they slug it out again.  Taker works on the shoulder and here comes Old School.  That of course doesn’t work but this time you can’t blame it on him shouting OLD SCHOOL at least.  Another clothesline sends Taker to the floor as HHH is favoring his left arm.

Now they set up the American announce table as Lawler is in an Austin shirt.  Pedigree is countered as is the chokeslam but there’s a backdrop off the table to the floor and he’s holding that arm and wrist again.  Oh yeah that thing slammed into the ground HARD.  The fans chant 19-0 as the match more or less stops.  Taker busts out the Taker Dive which at least cleared the ropes and hit HHH.  It wasn’t great but at least he hit a person and not the floor.

We start using the steps and someone shouts about Shawn either being here or not being here to save HHH.  Taker sets for a tombstone I think but gets countered and hit with a headbutt.  Taker tries a running charge but gets caught by a spinebuster into the table/through the table, whichever you prefer.  This has been big spot, lay down, big spot, lay down for about 8 minutes now.

Back in the ring and a chokeslam gets two.  Taker loads up the Last Ride but gets rammed into the corner.  More dueling chants begin and HHH fires away with punches in the corner.  Taker tries the Last Ride but HHH counters in a nice callback to Mania X7 (which had nothing to do with these two facing each other.  That’s never happened at Mania.  Silly people) Pedigree is reversed as is a big boot to the face, the latter being via a spinebuster for two.

HHH goes to the floor and grabs a chair which of course goes across the Game’s back.  Pedigree out of nowhere gets two.  Last Ride gets a long two as we’re in that same formula from earlier.  Taker gives the throat slit but the Tombstone is of course….not reversed for two.  HHH kicked out of the tongue sticking out thing!  I know they’re wanting this to be epic and while it’s good they feel like they’re trying to be epic rather than actually being epic.

Taker sets for another Tombstone, this time on the chair.  Instead it’s a DDT mostly on the chair to put both guys down.  Somehow this has been going almost 20 minutes.  They both struggle to their feet and there’s a decent Pedigree for a long two.  If Scott Armstrong didn’t have the biggest hitch in his count this side of something with a very large hitch in his count, this would have been over a long time ago.

A third Pedigree is kicked out of as this is bordering on stupid here.  We get it: you can kick out of the Pedigree now DO SOMETHING ELSE!  Both guys are down and HHH gets the chair.  BIG chair shot to the head of Taker and he’s in big trouble.  Taker does his best Terry Funk shaking impression as HHH shouts what’s wrong with you.  He gets grabbed by the throat for his troubles but Taker can’t hold it.

Taker says bring it on so HHH does a throat slit.  Tombstone hits Taker and of course it gets two.  They try to play this off as some huge thing but dude, no one thought that was going to end it.  HHH goes to the floor and it’s sledgehammer time.  HHH holds up the hammer but Taker pulls him down into the Hell’s Gate and HHH is in trouble.  He drops the hammer and is in big trouble.  HHH tries to stand but is fading fast.  He gets the hammer again but can’t get a shot to the head.  HHH TAPS OUT to end this at approximately 29:10 but I had some stream issues so I’m not sure how accurate that is to the second.

Rating: B. Well it was brutal, but at the same time did anyone really believe this was ending with anything other than a big sign that said 19-0?  The whole big spot rest big spot rest got really annoying and it made the match feel a lot longer than it should have.  Good stuff, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time it ran too long and that hurt it in my eyes.

Taker gets checked out by a trainer post match and they do the big exit with both of them leaving at the same time.  Taker can barely walk and keeps falling down.  He falls down next to the ring and they have to get a cart to take him out.  I’m not sure if this is legit or not but I’m leaning towards it being so.

Good time for a Don’t Try This at Home no?

Wrestlemania 28 will be in Miami as we all knew.

Laycool/Dolph Ziggler vs. John Morrison/Trish Stratus/Snooki

 

Please….make it short.  Dolph is officially the business associate.  Not sure if they had covered that before but it’s official here.  At least Laycool looks incredible.  Trish should never be allowed to not wear leather.  And here’s the draw, Snooki.  Oh dear.  Well I guess she’s an improvement over Bieber.  I can’t wait for like three years from now when this is totally dated.

The girls go at it early and the guys pull them off.  Trish and Michelle start us off officially.  Trish tries to tag in Snooki early but I think the small one doesn’t want in.  Matrish leads to an attempt at a Faithbreaker but Trish counters into a facejam.  McCool counters the Stratusphere and they fight on the buckle with both crashing to the floor.  Everything breaks down and Morrison hits Starship Pain to the floor to take out Ziggler.

Off to Snooki and let the booing begin.  She does a handspring elbow into the corner which is still a stupid move.  A cartwheel into the WORST SPLASH EVER ends McCool at 3:15.  Snooki was in the match for a total of 12 seconds.  Note to future girls wanting to be a Diva: don’t bother marrying Undertaker or working to become awesome.  Get on a bad reality show and get in fights in bars.  You’ll get wins at Mania.  No rating due to it being short and it ticking me off.  Match was nothing special to say the absolute least.  Perhaps the worst celebrity match ever.

There’s a new attendance record for the Georgia Dome of 71,617.  That’s always cool to hear.

It’s time for the main event of Cena vs. Miz.  Yes, the Miz is wrestling in the main event of Wrestlemania.  BE JEALOUS!  No recap at all and it’s time to go.  I guess we’re running behind.  Ah ok here’s a package as we see Miz’s rise to the top and interspersed with various world title wins at Mania.  Miz is looking at a screen watching all this.  We get the DEMON CHILD and clips of him on Real World and Tough Enough and doing all kinds of stupid things before he got serious and AWESOME as a result.

This gets the music video treatment about how everyone hates Miz but he keeps winning.  Miz having his back to the camera the entire time is great.  This transitions into a video about the feud with Miz constantly getting the better of Cena.

Raw World Title: The Miz vs. John Cena

 

Miz runs through some things that look like balloons saying AWESOME.  This is MIz’s moment and it’s working.  Riley has the varsity jacket with him here and Miz has his coat also.  Must be chilly in Atlanta.  Cena’s big entrance this year: a full on gospel choir.  We actually have a prayer with clips of Cena growing up and being awesome I guess.  They actually say Jesus here which is a bit different.  This takes a long time also, as has everything else tonight.  After the prayer the choir actually sings Cena’s theme in full on gospel style.  And then he sprints to the ring in a new shirt.

Cena is of course mostly booed out of the building.  This is listed as Cena’s 8^th straight Mania main event which is a relative term as some of them were in the middle of the card.  The bell rings twice for no apparent reason and they lock up.  Miz controls early but Cena gets a hip block to get us back to even.  Cena with some nice technique to get a headlock but that doesn’t last long.

They’re in a long feeling out period here and Miz stomps away to end that.  Miz takes over with basic stuff but gets caught in a gutwrench suplex for two.  Miz misses his running clothesline in the corner which hit earlier.  Top rope Fameasser hits for two.  Big boot to the head of Cena gets two.  They botch something so Miz gets a dropkick to the ribs to send Cena to the floor.

Back in the ring and Cena starts his finishing sequence but can’t get the FU.  Short DDT gets two for the champion.  A Let’s Go Miz chant starts up as he escapes the STFU and gets caught in a neckbreaker for two.  Miz unhooks the buckle which gets him nowhere.  Cena gets the STF but Miz grabs the rope.  Riley sends Cena into the exposed buckle and Miz gets the Skull Crushing Finale for a long two.

Down goes the referee and wouldn’t you know it that it hits just a second before the FU.  Riley comes in with the briefcase and down goes Cena again.  Naturally that only gets two as the fans are finally back into this.  Miz goes for the case but hits Riley and walks into a HUGE Attitude Adjustment for TWO!  Wow I would have bet on that being the ending there.

Out to the floor and Cena kills him with a running clothesline to send him over the barricade.  Big old spear onto the concrete by the fans and that looked sick.  They’re both dead and this is going to be a double count out.  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???  This can’t be.  That had better be a legit injury or we’re not done yet.

And here’s Rock to make sure this doesn’t suck.  There’s an e-mail and Rock says that it doesn’t matter what the GM thinks so this is restarting, no DQ, no countout, no time limit.  Cena goes for the FU immediately but walks into the Rock Bottom and MIZ RETAINS!!!  The pin was at 19:30 overall, counting the big stoppage.

Rating: C-. Even with the ending this was still pretty boring.  They’re not hurt which is always a good thing but dude, did we need a false finish in something like this?  It’s the main event of Wrestlemania for crying out loud.  I get that you needed Rock out there, but make something better than that.  I’m not impressed here at all which is hard to do with me at Mania

Miz holds up the title post match and Rock looks at him.  The beatdown is on and it’s a People’s Elbow for Miz.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a VERY hit or miss Mania and it’s going to have a very mixed reaction I think.  A lot of the booking is just kind of out there, namely Cole/Lawler.  I get that they’re setting up for future shows but at the same time this is WRESTLEMANIA!  There’s some good stuff but nowhere near enough to make this really work.

There are times when you just do certain things and this is one of them.  Not impressed here at all and this is a huge fall down from last year.  Rock helped, but there’s only so much he can do.  Summerslam and Raw tomorrow better be AMAZING.  The ending helps this but certainly doesn’t save it.  WAY too rushed of a show and that’s the downfall of it.  I’ll probably have more to say on it later but that’s my initial reaction.

Results

Edge b. Alberto Del Rio – Spear

Cody Rhodes b. Rey Mysterio – Cross Rhodes

Kane/Big Show/Kofi Kingston/Santino Marella b. The Corre – Big Show pinned Slater after a punch

Randy Orton b. CM Punk – RKO

Michael Cole b. Jerry Lawler via DQ when Steve Austin got involved in the match

The Undertaker b. HHH – Hell’s Gate

Snooki/John Morrison/Trish Stratus b. Laycool/Dolph Ziggler – Snooki pinned McCool after a splash

The Miz b. John Cena – Miz pinned Cena after a Rock Bottom from the Rock

And I thought Starrcade 97 stood alone as the dumbest ending of all time.  The GM reversed the decision because Austin overstepped his boundaries as referee or something like that.  I’m stunned here.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is Wrestlemania Sunday. This is why we are all here. This is what we wait our entire year to arrive at. Tonight, everything in all of wrestling stops for four hours to watch what has been called the Showcase of the Immortals, the Granddaddy of Them All, the Super Bowl of Wrestling and countless other names. In short, this is Wrestlemania.

Over twenty six years ago at Madison Square Garden held on March 31, 1985. It was the climax of what was known as the Rock N Wrestling Connection as Hulk Hogan teamed up with the star of the A-Team Mr. T to face Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff. The response was incredible and wrestling hit the mainstream like no one had ever thought possible before.

Two years later in Pontiac, Michigan 93,173 people came into one building to see the main event of Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant for the WWF World Title. The next year we saw the biggest wrestling tournament of all time. After that we saw everything from the Mega Powers Exploding to the Ultimate Challenge to NFL players to Iron Man matches to I Quit matches to Mike Tyson to Austin vs. Rock in a trilogy to a UFC Champion nearly breaking his neck to 80,000 people at Ford Field to Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker in a pair of classics.

Wrestlemania has been all over the map over the years, going from New York to Los Angeles to Seattle to Orlando. It’s a global phenomenon and the wrestling world stops to watch it. This is what we watch wrestling for. This is the one night each year when nothing else matters and all eyes focus on a 20×20 foot ring where the best in the world go at it to entertain us.

This is Wrestlemania. In the words of Vince McMahon, “it only comes once a year”, and tonight it comes again. This is what we’re here for people, so enjoy it while it lasts tonight. Take off your smark goggles and have a flash back to when you were a kid and you couldn’t be happier about this night. It’s the most important night of the year in wrestling. Treat it like it is.

Final Resolution 2009
Date: December 20, 2009
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 1,200
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz

This is the final PPV before we got to the Hogan Era and the difference is remarkable.  AJ is world champion here and the main event is him vs. Christopher Daniels for the title.  On the undercard is Angle vs. Desmond Wolfe in a 2/3 falls match which should be awesome.  Notice how the emphasis is on the older guys mixing with the younger guys in order to make the younger ones look good.  That’s called giving someone a rub which you don’t see enough of anymore.  Let’s get to it.

Also expect the TNA shows to have a lot of 2009 coming as I found every show from that year which is a big plus since it’s hard finding TNA PPVs that are complete.

We open up here with a Christmas theme set in front of the wrestlers which then turns to fire and clips of the aforementioned main feuds.  This looks like the opening video to a TV show rather than a PPV.

Tag Titles: British Invasion vs. Motor City Machine Guns

 

The idea here is that the Brits are just there and the Guns are tired of being overlooked which is a very true statement.  At least we get the Motorcity song.  The Invasion is part of World Elite and is comprised of Magnus and Doug Williams.  The ropes are red and green here which is either cool or stupid.  Not sure which.

Sabin vs. Williams to start us off here.  Williams takes him down with a wristlock and they roll around on the mat a bit.  Off to Shelley and it’s a bit more of the same.  Magnus comes in and the fourth guy works on a wristlock.  Shelley tries to jump at Magnus and it just fails.  Right back to the arm because we’ve gone a full 8 seconds without doing that.  The Guns both come in and kick away to take both members of the Brits now.

Stereo double dives from the middle rope on the inside to the Brits on the floor in an awesome spot.  Back in now with Magnus taking Shelley down and it’s off to Williams.  Technically this has been very sound so far.  Williams gets an inverted Gory Special to drive Shelley into the top turnbuckle in a cool spot.  Shelley manages to get a top rope cross body for two.

Back off to Magnus now for some double teaming.  Shelley and Williams (these Brits tag too much) have a nice technical piece and Magnus takes down Sabin to prevent the tag.  Full nelson by Magnus gets him nowhere.  A Vader Bomb by Magnus eats knees and it’s off to Sabin vs. Williams now for a nice change of pace.  Tornado DDT by Sabin gets two.

Back off to Shelley and Magnus and Shelly hits a top rope kick to the chest (think RVD) for two.  The tagging thing is more or less being more forgotten by the second here.  Sabin dives through Shelley’s legs to take Williams into the guard rail.  Sliced Bread #2 to Magnus gets a close two.  Double stomp by Shelley misses and he runs into an exploder suplex by Williams.

Everyone in now as the Guns are taken down one by one.  That would be all as far as numbers go as there are only two Guns.  Shelley and Magnus slug it out in the ring as we’re back to a standard tag format now.  Back off to Sabin again and the Guns hit a double team downward spiral/missile dropkick for two.  Rolling Chaos doesn’t work as Sabin saves Alex by hitting a Cutter on Williams.  The unnamed Skull and Bones gets two on Magnus.  Double team Sliced Bread doesn’t work and Sabin gets caught in a sweet powerbomb/European Uppercut off the top combination to end this.

Rating: B. Good stuff here as it was fast paced and the fans were into it.  For the life of me though I don’t get why they waited for so long to put the belts on the Guns as they got them due to Hall being released for being Scott Hall.  This was a good match and I was getting into it by the end, which says a lot given that I knew who was winning.

We talk about Hogan and we all know how well that’s gone for the company.  Jeff Hardy appeared there too.  Oh dear.

We run down the remaining card in case someone decided to randomly buy a PPV 20 minutes in.  Oh it’s just the main event.  Ok then.

Knockout Title: Tara vs. ODB

 

These two feuded forever around this time and I think they’re both faces.  I get to hear the Broken song so I’m a bit happier.  She still has that stupid spider though which is rather stupid and I never got the point of it.  Dang Tara is hot.  Actually ODB might be a heel here.  She’s acting a bit cowardly.  I never got the appeal to her in the slightest.  And never mind as she jumps Tara when the referee is taking the belt away.

Tara grabs a quick Tarantula and adds a leg drop for two.  They do some sloppy stuff and ODB gets a knee to the ribs.  BAD shoulder breaker by ODB gets two.  Bronco Buster doesn’t work as instead it’s a kick to Tara’s shapely chest.  Almost all ODB to this point other than a quick attack at the beginning.  Fall away slam and a nip up by ODB.  After a LONG delay she gets two.

Tara grabs the sloppiest jackknife cover of all time for two.  There’s no Impact on Thursday due to it being Christmas Eve.  There’s a New Year’s Eve show with a Knockouts Tournament apparently.  Hey TNA is having a tournament.  I’m SHOCKED.  ODB tries….something and falls on her face.  Tara slugs away and gets a flapjack for no cover.  Standing moonsault gets two.  No shake first which makes me sad.  ODB puts her in a fireman’s carry but Tara reverses into something like a sunset flip/rollup for the pin.  Wow this was bad.

Rating: D-. The ONLY thing keeping this from failing is Tara looking great.  I mean this was terrible.  They were sloppy here and ODB constantly rubbing herself doesn’t help anything.  Weak match and I couldn’t wait to get this done.  Terrible match and a great example of why the Knockouts Division was dying around this time.

Tara is happy to have won.

We get a video on Hogan coming to Impact on 1/4.  That 1.5 rating they got is the highest they’ve gotten as of this writing, in March of 2011.

Feast or Fired

 

Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Cody Deaner, Robert Roode, James Storm, Eric Young, Homicide, Kiyoshi, Sheik Abdul Bashir, Rob Terry, Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe

Everyone from Young to Nash is in World Elite, making up half of the lineup here.  Simple concept: four cases, one has a world title shot, one has an X Title shot, one has a tag title shot, one has a pink slip.  You pull down a case, that’s what you get.  Like I said, simple concept.  This is of course almost impossible to call as everyone is doing random stuff and it’s a big fight so far.

Lethal goes up early, only to be stopped by Kiyoshi.  The idea here is that World Elite doesn’t want Beer Money or Lethal Consequences to get a case so that the Brits don’t have to fight them.  Smart actually.  Joe hammers on Young as we hear about how experienced Homicide is in these.  Deaner almost gets up but can’t quite get there.  Apparently all of World Elite is banned from going up.  Stupid but whatever.

Deaner goes up again but gets pulled down.  This is a total mess with two people in the ring and the other nine being outside.  Bashir goes up for the third time but Deaner stops him.  They have been the only two in the ring forever now.  Sheik rakes the eyes but he falls off and it’s Lethal Consequences beating on various people.

Lethal plays defense while Creed goes up but he gets knocked off by Bashir.  Deaner challenges him for it and it falls off.  They fight for it on the floor and Bashir kicks him in the knee and clocks him with it to get case #2.  In the ring Rob Terry gets #4.  Young gets all ticked off at him as does the rest of the World Elite team.  Beer Money is like screw this and jumps them.

Beer Money double teams Nash and then Young.  I can understand them not going up there as Nash was on his feet so that makes sense.  BEER MONEY runs into Kiyoshi who doesn’t last long.  All Beer Money here as they beat the tar out of everyone.  Roode goes up but it’s Nash with the save.  He goes up and easily gets case #1.  The people that get cases leave by the way.

Joe gets in the ring for the first time as the fans are clearly behind him.  He beats on Lethal Consequences because he can but he doesn’t have as much luck with Beer Money.  Finishers all around now with Homicide hitting a top rope cutter to take down Roode.  Deaner is up now but Joe is like boy what the world do you think you’re doing and kicks him to the floor and grabs #3 to end this.

Rating: D. No idea what to really think about these matches but this wasn’t very interesting.  It’s like a battle royal but it was messed up beyond belief.  Deaner being in there way too much always hurts things.  Nothing any good here but then again these matches never were worth anything.  Boring but it sets up future storylines so I guess it has that going for it.

Angle and AJ are in the back and Angle says that Wolfe is one of the best he’s ever faced.  He implies he’s coming after AJ once he beats Wolfe.  AJ says cool but first he has to get by Daniels.  Christy was there also and good grief she was gorgeous.

Time to unveil the cases.  Remember it’s World Title, Tag Titles, X Title and being fired.  First up is Nash and he gets a tag title shot.  He and Hall would use that in like May to give the Band the tag titles after not mentioning he had the case for four and a half months.

Joe goes second and gets a World Title shot which he would cash in at Against All Odds and lose.

We do the last two at the same time.  It’s Rob Terry and Sheik Abdul Bashir if you’ve lost track.  Terry gets the X Division Title shot which he gave to Douglas Williams who won the title.  Bashir is fired and then actually left the company.  He gets the future endeavored line and the Goodbye Song as parting gifts.

Taz insists this isn’t part of the show.  Yeah the last 17 minutes for that stuff wasn’t part of the show at all.

Matt Morgan/Hernandez/D’Angelo Dinero/Suicide vs. Rhyno/Team 3D/Jesse Neal

 

This is an elimination match so think Survivor Series.  Actually for the first five minutes it’s 1 on 4 and that would be Hernandez vs. the other four.  Why is that the case?  Who freaking cares?  Apparently not TNA as they barely mention it.  Leave it to TNA to be able to screw this up.  If Hernandez loses in this five minutes it’s over but it’s just an elimination for the other guys.  Leave it to TNA to manage to screw up an elimination tag with overly complicated rules.

Neal is a total jobber at this point and just a student of Team 3D.  Hernandez is coming off a super push where he was almost world champion but was then pushed down into a tag team with Morgan just because.  Ray beats on Hernandez a bit and it’s off to Rhyno.  Why are these teams feuding?  Not necessary information.  Gore hits for two so we know Rhyno won’t last long.  Another Gore misses and a rollup makes it 1-3 which is soon to be 4-3.

Neal is sent out to get a chair but the heels just stand around while the rest of the time runs out and here are the other three.  Morgan is also in the middle of a big push which would just die when Hogan got there.  Hernandez dives out on everyone at once and we get down to regular stuff.  Suicide (Kazarian) hammers on Neal to start.  They have this whole thing backwards at this point as the faces are dominating, which is the total wrong idea in matches like these.

Not being very intelligent, Neal picks up the chair and pops Suicide with it.  Hernandez, not being very intelligent either, picks up the same chair and pops Neal with it.  So it’s a DQ if you hit someone no longer in the match?  3D takes out Suicide so it’s 2-2 now….wait why is Neal still out there?  He cracked Suicide with the chair and the referee clearly saw it.  Heck he reacted to it.  Why does this surprise me?  What the heck ever man.

It’s Dinero vs. Ray at the moment and now Neal leaves as it’s a DQ for him.  How do you make a simple DQ complicated?  Pope gets a top rope clothesline for two.  3D takes Pope out and it’s 2-1 finally.  Team 3D hammers him together for awhile which the referee doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with.  Morgan hits a double clothesline and splashes them both in the corner.

D-Von takes the corner elbows but can still save Ray from a chokeslam.  Oh and the Dudleys are the IWGP Tag Champions here.  Not that it means anything to the vast majority of wrestling fans but TNA insisted it mattered so there we are.  There hasn’t been any time during the 2-1 part where a Dudley has been on the apron.

Big boot takes out D-Von, even though the hand didn’t hit the mat the third time and they wait 15 seconds to announce his elimination.  So it’s Ray vs. Morgan now which would be a win for Ray at the moment somehow.  Ray counters the Hellevator into a DDT and it’s chair time.  Carbon Footprint into the chair ends it.

Rating: D. What the heck were they thinking here?  Was there any need for the five minute thing or for this to take up sixteen minutes or air time?  I mean dude, seriously?  It wasn’t even anything special with the two DQs and the total lack of drama as the biggest star on the other team was who, Ray?  This was boring and another example ot TNA managing to take something simple and overcomplicate it.

We recap Abyss vs. Dr. Stevie which incorporated Foley on Abyss’ side and Raven on Richards’ side.  Richards lit Abyss’ leg on fire which I don’t remember at all.

Oh wait that’s not next.  This is next.

We recap Lashley vs. Steiner.  I’m not kidding here.  They just flat out said they aired the wrong video and this is the next match.  Steiner thinks Lashley’s wife loves her or something.

Scott Steiner vs. Bobby Lashley

 

Last man standing here as Steiner had hit him with a pipe last month in their match to end Lashley’s unbeaten streak.  Kristal, the wife, is thrown out before the match.  Steiner goes after her and Bobby chases.  Bobby catches Steiner and does nothing.  Steiner drills him and we start on the floor.  Back in the ring now and it’s a T-Bone by Bobby to take over.

Dragon sleeper goes on as Steiner is in trouble.  Since Lashley lets Steiner go, that isn’t enough to end it.  Scott’s leg may be messed up here.  Out to the floor and Lashley hits him with a chair.  Steiner hits him with a pipe and down goes Lashley.  Naturally a lead pipe to the head by a huge muscle man like Steiner isn’t enough to keep him down though as he’s up at 7.

Lashley goes into the post and then the steps.  Back in the ring and Steiner gets a downward spiral from the top rope (Lashley’s feet were on it and Steiner was on the mat) for 9.  Belly to belly suplex off the top (with Bobby landing on his head and Taz making a Cole Vintage joke) gets about 8.  Steiner jumps into a suplex of his own Powerslam for Bobby gets two and a Frankensteiner gets the same.  The pipe is retrieved but Kristal comes down to steal it.  A spear and a pipe shot from Steiner end this.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t much at all as Steiner was pretty uninteresting at this point to say the least.  Lashley would be gone in a month as he became a full time MMA guy and didn’t exactly do that well at it.  Boring match here that was more or less just there.  At least this ended the feud though.  The Lashleys would turn heel on January 4^th to no one really caring.

We talk about the upcoming tag match for a bit before it happens.

Raven/Dr. Stevie vs. Mick Foley/Abyss

 

Is there a reason why we’re supposed to believe that he’s a doctor?  This is now No DQ which makes things a bit better I guess.  Yep Foley makes it anything goes.  Total mess to start where you can barely keep track of what’s going on.  Abyss beats on Stevie near the announce booth and pulls out a table.  The fan on Tenay’s desk amuses me for some reason.

Abyss wanted to powerbomb Stevie off the stage through a table but Raven makes the save with a kendo stick.  It’s broken over Abyss’ back and jabbed into various parts of his body.  Foley is nowhere to be seen.  Back at ringside Raven rams into Abyss and bites him.  This isn’t much to look at.  Abyss’ leather pants have burn holes in them.  Raven pulls out some gasoline but Foley pops up with a shopping cart full of weapons.

A barbed wire bat is rammed into both heels stomachs and a Piledriver gets two on Raven.  He and Stevie are stacked on top of each other and Abyss sits on them.  Here comes Socko but Raven throws powder into Foley’s eyes.  Abyss saves his partner and puts Stevie in the Shock Treatment while at the same time dropping a leg on Raven in a cool spot.  Abyss has his own sock.  I give up.

Stereo Mandible Claws but Raven gets a low blow and the DDT for two on Abyss.  Foley makes more or less a lasso of barbed wire and wraps it around Richards.  He sets Richards on a table and dives off the stage onto the table with an elbow.  Daffney comes out and hits Abyss with a chair but Raven saves.  Black Hole Slam ends Raven and it’s over.

Rating: C-. If you’ve seen one of these hardcore matches you’ve seen them all.  There’s nothing special about them at all for the most part as they’re all the same thing after awhile.  The big ending spot if Foley diving off and it’s treated like any other elbow drop in a match instead of a huge spot like it was.  Not bad though.

Joe says he’d win and he did.  He isn’t sure when he’s cashing in but it could be tonight.  This is to fill in time to clear the ring.

We recap Wolfe vs. Angle which is the end of the feud.  Wolfe is brand new and keeps beating on Angle but can’t quite beat him by pin or submission (he won by a referee stoppage in a street fight).  This is 2/3 falls with the first being pin only, second being submission only and third is in a cage which is escape only.

Taz and Tenay talk for too long.  Oh it’s for the cage.  I see.  So all three falls are in the cage?  That’s kind of cool actually.

Desmond Wolfe vs. Kurt Angle

 

Angle is still in a Mafia shirt even though that’s long since dead.  They have a ton of time here so they start slowly with ground work.  Angle grabs the leg and down to the mat we go.  Off to a cobra clutch by Wolfe.  Lots of technical stuff here which is pretty solid of course given who is in there.  Hammerlock by Angle and we look at some guy and his kid in the crowd for no apparent reason at all.

Multiple covers get nothing for Wolfe.  A knee drop misses for Wolfe so Angle goes after the leg.  Headlock takedown and it’s Wolfe in control.  They’re in first gear here or maybe a mild second one but it’s still entertaining.  The dueling chants have already started.  Angle fights up and gets a buckle bomb for our first big high impact move.  We’ve been at this almost 8 minutes now so you can tell this is going slowly.

Wolfe in control again with Wolfe working on the arm a bit more.  Modified cobra clutch goes on for a bit but Kurt fights back.  Overhead belly to belly but Kurt can’t get the Angle Slam.  A single arm DDT hits but Wolfe misses a big clothesline misses.  Rolling Germans go on in a set of about five or six.

Angle goes up and gets caught in the Tower of London for two.  It’s a Diamond Cutter off the top if you’re wondering.  The lariat misses again and it’s another attempt at the Tower of London but Kurt escapes and the Angle Slam gets two.  Angle tries the moonsault and, say it with me, it misses by a mile.  Clothesline hits this time and the Tower of London gets the first fall for Wolfe.  Really should have been after the clothesline.

Wolfe goes straight for the arm and Kurt is in big trouble already.  The crank that Wolfe has it on there is INSANE.  Kurt rolls out of it though and it’s time for a figure four out of nowhere.  The rope is grabbed and we’re back to the arm again.  Wolfe puts on a ton of arm holds and they’re all at least somewhat different.  Kurt reverses one of them into the ankle lock and Wolfe is in trouble.

Wolfe reverses into the LeBell Lock minus the crossface.  That gets rolled through and it’s back to the ankle lock.  This is a technical masterpiece so far.  Angle reverses ANOTHER arm hold into the ankle lock which Wolfe reverses into an ankle lock of his own.  Angle grabs something like a triangle choke which gets reversed into an arm lock again.  Triangle choke goes on but Kurt runs through it into an ankle lock again and it’s the grapevine added that ends fall 2.

Ok so it’s now escape to win it.  Oh that guy they showed earlier is Jason Williams of the Orlando Magic.  WWE is in town tonight so they’re making fun of it somehow.  Angle puts Wolfe down and goes up so they fight on the ropes a bit.  Wolfe rams the arm into the cage which is rather smart and basic.  Wolfe goes up so Kurt does the same thing to Wolfe’s leg.  I like that as it’s nice storytelling.

Wolfe knocks him off the ropes so Kurt pops up and throws him off in the running suplex.  Desmond is busted BAD.  Kurt goes up but Wolfe gets a boot up which might have hit Angle’s bad arm.  It was Wolfe’s bad leg though so everyone is down.  Desmond calls for the door to be open but Kurt makes the save again.  Wolfe taps forever but Kurt won’t let go.  Desmond passes out and Kurt climbs out.  Wolfe almost made it but couldn’t quite do it.

Rating: A. Great match here with some incredible back and forth stuff in the submission round.  I don’t tend to like matches like these but this was very fun to see.  Wolfe being left laying like that at the end was great but I would have had him stay there until Kurt had won.  Either way, great match and the whole thing worked incredibly well.  Brutal match with a clear winner, which is the point of matches like these.

Mick Foley talks about Hogan for no apparent reason.

We recap Daniels vs. AJ.  There was a masked man running around jumping AJ and he thought it was Daniels.  There was a three way match at Turning Point where AJ pinned Joe, stealing Daniels’ pin.  The idea here is that Daniels is equal to AJ but Daniels has never gotten anything out of AJ’s friendship.  In short, it’s Anderson vs. Flair.

TNA World Title: Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles

 

Anyone that has read my reviews knows I don’t like Daniels at all for the most part.  This is AJ before they turned him into the Flair tribute character, therefore making him awesome.  The challenger is called Daniels here but I need more names to swap in and out so there you go.  They stare each other down for awhile and then lock up with no one really having control to start.

Daniels grabs the arm when AJ is talking to the referee and takes over.  AJ tries a nip up to escape but Daniels drops down onto him in a nice counter.  Daniels stays on the arm for a good while but tries a dropkick which AJ holds the ropes for.  We speed things up now and AJ pops off an awesome dropkick to take over.

We head to the floor with AJ doing his flips and dives to take down Daniels.  Back in and a hilo sets up a discus clothesline for no cover as it’s all AJ at the moment.  Off to the chinlock and the fans chant for Angle.  Or is it Angel?  Daniels goes with those palm strikes and a monkey flip to send AJ flying.  Clothesline sends AJ to the floor but his foot gets caught on the rope and he lands on his head.

On the floor and Daniels puts AJ in a chair.  He picks up another chair and tries to swing it.  The referee stops him but when he’s not looking Daniels hits a release Rock Bottom onto the chair AJ was sitting in.  Taz asks a good question: “Does the referee think the chair just exploded?”  Back in the ring a side slam gets two as Daniels keeps up the assault on the back of AJ.

A headscissors out of nowhere puts Daniels down but it’s only for a second.  Daniels sits AJ up on the ropes facing the crowd.  He picks AJ up for something like a belly to back suplex but rotates him a bit to drop AJ back first on the turnbuckle in a sick bump for two. Moonsault “hits” and Daniels locks on a crossface minus the arm trap.  Doesn’t go on long but it looked good.  I don’t get why AJ couldn’t just put his arms down to break the pressure but what do I know?

Lionsault minus the running start misses and AJ hits a suplex to put both guys down for a bit.  AJ goes to the apron so Daniels tries a rana to the floor.  AJ just drops him down in a powerbomb which sounded awesome.  He hammers on Daniels and we go back into the ring.  AJ hits an FU into a backbreaker and the backflip into the reverse DDT for two.

Daniels is able to get something like a backdrop onto the top rope to crotch AJ.  From there Daniels steps onto the middle rope and suplexes AJ back in with a unique move.  With AJ sitting on the top rope Daniels hits a HUGE palm strike to the head.  A Frankensteiner and a Shining Wizard gets two.  The fans say someone got served in this youth language that I’m not familiar with.  Stupid young whippersnappers.  BIG knot on Daniels’ head here.

They fight over a suplex but AJ settles for a big old brainbuster instead.  There’s the springboard forearm that I always love for a long two.  Styles Clash is blocked so it’s a Pele instead.  Another attempt is blocked by a palm strike.  Another release Rock Bottom by Daniels sets up the Best Moonsault Ever for a long two.

Daniels hammers away as I think that knot on his head could take over a small country at this point.  AJ sends him chest first into the corner and rolls through into the Styles Clash for two.  Daniels gets up and puts AJ on the second turnbuckle on the inside (I had to channel Gorilla once or twice) but goes for a rana and is caught in the Clash from the middle rope to end it.

Rating: B+. Good match but it’s definitely a step or two behind the previous one.  Daniels was never a real threat here as eventually he has to win something to be classified as a real threat.  This was when AJ had a lot of meaningless matches as champion, but they were good enough that you could overlook that.  Either way, this was good but not as good as the match before it, which hurts it a bit.

Overall Rating: B-. This show suffers from what came after it.  In 15 days, Hogan showed up and all of this was tossed out the window.  They were clearly just holding down the fort at this point and while some of it was good, parts of it are utterly forgettable or just weak.  After the opener, everything until Angle vs. Wolfe is AWFUL.  It’s definitely not the worst TNA show and it’s actually good, but as far as importance goes, this means nothing at all due to Hogan and Bischoff hitting the reset button.  Good show, but the definition of not important.