So this was kind of a big deal but I didn’t have the chance to really talk about it in detail.  It’s now two days later so here are some more thoughts on it.I’m still very much the same on it as I was before: I love the idea of pushing Axel, but I can’t stand the way they ended the show.

McGillicutty had been a guy who clearly had skill and looked very poised in the ring but he never got a chance to shine on his own.  The biggest reason of all was his stupid name: Michael McGillicutty.  I don’t know if you’re a fan of the show I Love Lucy, but Lucy’s maiden name was McGillicuddy, which is the first thing that comes to my mind whenever I heard Axel’s old name.  The name sounds like a low level dinner theater actor, not the name of a talented wrestler.  Again I’m not sure why they can’t just call him Joe Hennig, but I’m sure it’s some high concept idea that doesn’t make sense once you think about it for more than two minutes.

The idea of putting him with Heyman is a great move, especially given the amount of success Heyman has had lately.  Heyman putting his seal of approval on you is usually a good sign (Heidenreich aside) and it’s hard to argue against the theory that putting someone with Heyman is going to mean success for them.  Axel has the look, the skills, the poise, and everything else that he needs to win.  It was a good debut for the character and all that jazz.  Good move here.

Then we get to the problem.

The second HHH’s music hit, he became the focus of the whole thing.  Axel stopped mattering, with HHH even saying move away so the adults can talk.  What’s even worse is that Axel actually did step away as Heyman and HHH talked in the middle of the ring.  Then HHH slaps him in the face and Axel…..does nothing.  He falls down and just sits there as HHH smirks and says that they’re having a match later tonight.  Again, it’s all about HHH and Axel is just some new guy for him to beat up later in the night.

Then we get to the match and HHH beats up Axel like he’s any other guy.  He stomps Axel into the corner and then pounds on him outside as well.  Axel comes back in and gets in some shots to the jaw, but they’re nothing special: a dropkick, a middle rope punch and that’s about it.  HHH comes back, hits two of his signature moves (facebuster and spinebuster) and knocks Axel to the floor.  They start to head back in, HHH can’t get back in, the show ends with the focus entirely on HHH.

Based on what we saw, Axel was either completely destroyed after about five minutes of action with him being in control for about two of those minutes, or he’s just too nice a guy to follow up on HHH.  The idea of the match was that HHH was so banged up from his match with Brock that he couldn’t finish off Axel.  There-in lies the problem: it wasn’t Axel who did this.  Axel could have been any other guy int he match on Raw and HHH still would have been hurt.  That’s the same problem that has plagued the HHH vs. Brock feud.  Brock Lesnar could have been any other heel and now Curtis could have been any other guy who could hit a dropkick and throw right hands.  It wasn’t some big move from Axel that caused HHH to not be able to continue, but rather Lesnar’s actions the night before.

That’s what this boils down to: Lesnar and Axel are both just people who happen to be involved in a HHH story.  It has nothing to do with either of them specifically, but rather they’re just around and doing various things while HHH gets the glory (side note: Brock Lesnar has beaten HHH twice now.  The night after both of those victories, HHH gets promos in the middle of the ring.  Lesnar hasn’t been live on either show) and the attention.  This seems to be the start of some big long concussion angle with HHH and if we can get to Axel and Lesnar later on that’s cool, but the focus is ALL going to be on HHH.

I’m fine with HHH having a storyline, but the thing is he’s going to be around and likely on camera in WWE for the next twenty five to thirty years.  Brock probably has a year or two left and Axel is just getting started.  Do we really need to have HHH’s big story NOW?  Do we need to put him ahead of Lesnar and some new guy that apparently you’re going to push as a big deal?  From past experience with HHH stories, that’s by far the biggest thing you’re going to hear about over the next few weeks, because in HHH’s WWE, he can’t just be the big story.  He has to be the ENTIRE story and Heaven help you if you disagree with him on it, because he has no problem telling you why it should be about him in a 20 minute promo.

ECW on Sci–Fi
Date: February 16, 2010
Location: Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Byron Saxton

Well as you can tell this is the final edition of the modern ECW show. There are a total of two matches on the show: a tag title match and Big Zeke, a muscleheaded no talent hack that would never have gotten more of a second look in ECW and Christian who would have been ok there. Take a guess as to how this is going to end. NXT would debut the next week so let’s get to it.

We get to meet the NXT rookies and pros tonight.

Tag Titles: The Miz/Big Show vs. Goldust/Yoshi Tatsu

Miz has three belts at the moment, all of which would cause him to become my #1 draft pick in the fantasy league. Doesn’t this make you riveted to the screen? I mean it’s clear that two guys like Dust and Tatsu have a great chance to win the belts here. Goldust and the smaller champion start us off. Yoshi is fast but Goldust comes in and gets drilled by Show as we take a break.

Tatsu comes in and kicks a lot which gets him nowhere. Show busts out a headlock takeover of all things. Well that’s not something you expected. Yoshi has an eternal flame of pride. This just isn’t that interesting as there’s just a total lack of drama and it’s hurting things here. Goldie comes in and cleans the kitchen (not enough to be the whole house) but gets punched and the Skull Crushing Finale ends this.

Rating: D+. It looked like they were trying but come on: Tatsu and Goldust? Is that really the best they could do? They couldn’t bring Dreamer out of mothballs for this? It just didn’t do anything for me and while it was ok, no one cares about Goldust as a serious contender at this point and Tatsu hadn’t done a thing. It just fell flat and that’s never good.

The first pairing we see is Jericho/Barrett. Barrett is obsessed with money apparently. Where did that aspect of his character go?

Next up is Hardy/Gabriel. Gabriel is a cross between Johnny Damon and Adam Lambert.

Tiffany, the GM still and not a member of Blonterouge or whatever the name is now, addresses the ECW audience and is interrupted by Ryder and Rosa. He wants into the title match and says there’s nothing Tiffany can do about it.

MVP and Skip Sheffield are a team. No not really.

We do the final Abraham Washington Show and I have a feeling this isn’t going to be funny. He thinks they’re in St. Louis to get cheap heel heat. He talks about how he’ll be a free agent soon so people get to pay for him. He says he has the biggest name in wrestling for his final guest and of course it’s himself. Cue Shelton for no apparent reason.

Shelton really was bad on the mic. This is painful. He reminds Abe that everyone is a free agent now and gets interrupted by Vance Archer who had been feuding with Shelton for awhile. The Dudebusters come out and say they’re the most important thing on the show. Kozlov comes out and yells. Dang Vince really wanted to kick the original ECW to death didn’t he?

There’s the big brawl and Washington is mad because they’re messing up his furniture when he’s a single payment away from getting his security deposit back. Kozlov and Shelton shake hands and leave for no apparent reason.

Another pairing is Carlito and Michael Tarver.

The I think fifth pair is Daniel Bryan and Miz. And cue the IWC exploding over it.

We talk about the Elimination Chamber since that’s on Sunday.

Christian and Slater are announced.

Christian comes out and says it’s been a year since he came back. ECW isn’t a demotion to him but rather home. He talks about how he got to be the star on ECW and he’s loved every bit of it. Tonight is for the ECW Originals and for ECW. Oh come on now you know he’s losing. There’s an ECW chant for you. He’ll be proud to be the final ECW Champion. This came off well and made ECW sound very respectable and like a good thing.

Punk and Young, who apparently has incredible strength, will be a team.

ECW Title: Ezekiel Jackson vs. Christian

This is under Extreme Rules and Christian brought a shopping cart of weapons. Christian gets him to the floor and here’s Ryder to be a jerk. He gets beaten up like a little nitwit and Tiffany bounces down to the ring to take down Rosa. Back from a break and it’s all Big Zeke. Christian hits the Pendulum Kick into a trash can lid into Zeke.

Regal and Zeke set up a table but get it knocked into their faces. Some WEAK kendo stick shots give the advantage back to the Canadian. This was far better on the first viewing. Regal interferes and breaks up the Killswitch and Jackson slams Christian through a table to completely kill the history of ECW forever. Until TNA redoes it soon and kills its corpse.

Rating: C-. It’s ok but the ending was again fairly clear. You knew Vince was going to go with the big title change to end things and that it would be fairly stupid. The match was ok at best but with three interferences for Jackson it became watered down and overbooked. Glad to see they kept with the original ECW vision on that one.

We close the show and the brand with R-Truth being Otunga’s pro and the big musclehead holding the ECW Title. I’d love to see Heyman’s reaction to that.

Overall Rating: D. This was just bad. It’s really more of a commercial for NXT than anything else. Christian’s speech was nice but this was about ending ECW once and for all which was just done to let Vince have a good feeling about it at the end of the day. I wish this had been the end of ECW but of course TNA wants to get a few more dollars out of it while they can so here we go all over again. ECW dies once again with nothing to show for it. Yeah I’m stunned too.

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But only one you’ve likely heard of.The big name is Percy Watson, who has been floating around the minor leagues for years now.  No shock that he’s gone.

Also we have Anya, a 6’1 kickboxer who I never remember seeing.

Finally Brandon Traven is gone too.  I don’t remember seeing him appear at all.

To recap, the following people have been released today:

Derrick Bateman

Briley Pierce

Sakamoto

Audrey Marie

Percy Watson

Anya

Brandon Traven

Spring cleaning appears to be upon us.Sakamoto, Briley Pierce and Audrey Marie are all gone from NXT.  Sakamoto was originally Tensai’s lackey and had a good look to him.  Pierce is Dolph Ziggler’s brother.  Marie wasn’t great in the ring but she was absolutely gorgeous.

More to come, most likely.

According to his Twitter.  No real surprise here as he was about as generic in the ring as you could ask for.  His character wasn’t terrible but he wasn’t interesting at all for the most part.

This might be the start of the annual spring cleaning releases but it’s too early to tell.

I want to have its children.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Antonio Cesaro’s position backstage and how he hasn’t been pushed anymore because he’s considered boring.  This can be attributed to the WWE Creative team.  Again.Let’s see: he held the US Title for months on end and rarely got to defend it, he lost far more often than he won as champion, and once he lost the title he became a yodeler. That was the major gimmick of the guy who was put in the main event of Tribute to the Troops to face John Cena: He yodeled.

Why in the world would the fans care about this guy? He was treated like any other jobber and the fans stopped caring about him. Cesaro wasn’t the biggest star in the world, but he puts on solid matches and plays the smug foreign heel to perfection. There’s money in that kind of a character and there has been for years. The solution from WWE’s creative team? Make him a yodeler.

The same thing happened with Ryder.  He was over with the fans so the WWE crushed him for whatever their reason was that time.  Presumably because he got over against the company’s wishes.  I mean, why would you want to make money off a character who has done the hardest part of the job for the writers: making the fans care about him.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

It’s not one you would expect.Back at Over the Limit 2010, Punk was fighting Rey Mysterio and got cut open.  As usual, the match was stopped for a doctor to look at it.  The crowd starts to chant BORING, and Punk goes nuts.  In just a few seconds he hits about five moves on Mysterio, all faster than you’ll ever see Punk move anywhere else.  Punk took offense to the crowd thinking his match was boring because it had to be stopped and he wasn’t going to accept that because it meant he wasn’t doing his job.  That’s something so few people take pride in anymore.  How many people have you seen in a match with a five minute run time and they just throw on a chinlock for a minute of the match?  It’s a cheap way to get through a match and not fair to the people that paid to see you have an entertaining match.

Saturday Night’s Main Event 1
Date: May 11, 1985
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Long Island, New York
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

So I figured this was a good one to get around to. This is the fallout show from Mania but there isn’t a ton of fallout. No one really knew what this was going to be like but it was an experiment worth trying at least. It was the first chance a lot of people would have to see these guys on television as it was shown on NBC in prime time which was unheard of back then. Either way, this should be fun so let’s get to it.

As usual we open with the main faces for the night talking. Wendi Richter and Cyndi Lauper are talking about the match with Moolah tonight and Hogan and Mr. T. say they’re ready for Bob Orton tonight. As always, the music rocks. Jesse is in pink. He can get away with it though.

Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff/George Steele vs. Mike Rotunda/Barry Windham/Ricky Steamboat

That’s quite the face tag team. This was on the SNME DVD (great DVD that should certainly be picked up if you can find it. Awesome stuff on it) as an extra. Blassie is with the heels and Albano is with the faces. The two foreigners had taken the tag titles from the US Express at Wrestlemania for a token tag title change.

About a year prior to this, the US Express had been using Real American for their theme music. That went to Hogan of course and here they use Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen which works like a charm for them as it’s perfect. We start with Windham and Steele which is an odd matchup if there ever has been one.

Sheik was hitting the end of whatever usefulness that he had at this point. Rotundo would soon head to WCW and become a member of the Varsity Club, ending in an awesome moment with Rick Steiner taking the TV Title from him after months of being talked down to by him. Wow what a tangent that was.

Oh and he’s more commonly known as I.R.S. Oddly enough the faces dominate early on. We go to commercial with the faces dominating. We begin the awesome SNME tradition of not having action during commercials so we don’t have to be all confused about how we got to a point during a break.

Wow there are four hall of fame wrestlers in here and two on the floor. That’s rather impressive, especially considering that the two that aren’t in there are two of the three most talented. Steele comes in and his teammates abandon him, allowing Windham to get a quick rollup for the pin. Steele eats a turnbuckle and the tag champions beat him up. That doesn’t last long as Albano comes in to calm him down and Steele is a face.

Rating: C-. Eh this was fine. It wasn’t meant to be anything special other than a way to get Steele out of the dark side, but the heel offense consisted of about four Volkoff punches and other than that it was a complete squash. I don’t get why it was so one sided, but it did its job and wasn’t bad at all so for the first match in show history this was perfectly fine.

The heels blame Steele for the loss and Steele and Albano scare them off.

Piper’s Pit

The guest is Paul Orndorff, who was Piper’s partner in the main event of Wrestlemania. Orton is there as well. Paul more or less says go ahead and try to beat me up to Orton which Piper tries to defuse quickly. Piper has to be high on something. Either that or he’s just completely insane. I’m not sure which it is.

Piper keeps insulting Orndorff and then he would jump up and yell at both guys who run and scream. Piper finally gives up and calls Orndorff a piece of garbage and Paul cleans house. A piledriver is blocked by a cast shot from Orton. Mr. T. makes the save. Ok, we get it: Mr. T. is in a wrestling company. Let it go already.

Hogan says he dedicates the match tonight to his mother. Ok then. He’s also happy about Paul’s recent face turn.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Bob Orton

Hogan coming out to Eye of the Tiger is some combination of odd, awesome and epic. You figure out the proportions. Naturally it starts out with Hogan completely dominating Orton. This was also on the DVD but the color and picture quality were WAY better there. It looks bad here to say the least. This is exactly what you would expect it to be: Hogan works the arm and then a shot from Orton gives him control. Our hero is in trouble. WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO???

Well at the moment he’s going to get his teeth kicked in a little more. And of course there’s the comeback and you know the finish. Actually I typed too soon. Hogan drops an elbow and uses a headbutt of all things. Orton takes over again. This is most odd indeed. Hogan fights out of the superplex and comes off the top rope! He goes for the leg but Piper runs in for the DQ. The heels beat up T and set for the double team but Orndorff runs out for the save and the full face turn.

Rating: C. This was just pure average. It was what you expected but the DQ was kind of odd. It’s not like a pin would have been odd here but whatever. This was fine for what it was. Hogan gets on TV and the biggest star got to showcase himself.

After a break we come back to the three of them posing and you can just tell that Vince wants to screw all of them.

Gene is with Cyndi Lauper and Albano. Lauper has a VERY annoying voice. These two started the Rock N Wrestling Connection and launched wrestling into the stratosphere.

They air her new video which has about ever wrestler with a cameo in it other than Piper who shows up to yell about it. That was awesome actually.

Women’s Title: Wendi Richter vs. Fabulous Moolah

Before the match, Moolah says she’s tired of the interference so Lauper is barred tonight. The reading of the announcement that Lauper is gone tonight takes the better part of forever to get through and FINALLY we get to the match. This was match number two that fueled the mega run that wrestling went on.

We’re on the floor nearly immediately. To say Richter was popular at this time was the understatement of all time. She would actually main event house shows if you can believe that. Surprisingly, Moolah is being beaten down for the most part here. Considering she was champion for about 30 years, that’s saying a lot. Yes I know she didn’t really hold it that long but that’s kayfabe for you. Richter gets a quick small package for the pin.

Rating: D+. This is just long enough to grade but there isn’t anything of note here. It’s ok but that’s about it. Women’s wrestling back then was more of a mess than it is now, but the women could work MUCH better than they can today for the most part. Ok not really but these two had a feud going and that was better than nothing. Yeah the match sucked and I’m rambling.

JYD has his mother here for Mother’s Day. Her name is Bertha.

Pete Doherty vs. Junkyard Dog

Take a wild guess who wins here. Grab Them Cakes is a decent song if nothing else. Them Cakes means a woman’s hips in case you were wondering. Oh never mind that’s Another One Bites the Dust. Wow my hearing must be off. And it’s a three minute squash with Doherty being on the floor for a lot of that. JYD and his mom dance afterwards.

Rating: N/A. This was just thrown in for filler as a lot of stuff was around this time.

We come back to see Cyndi Lauper’s Mother’s Day party. It’s just a long line of wrestlers with their “mothers” including Hogan. They all say they love them and then a food fight starts.

Jesse and Vince wrap things up.

Overall Rating: C+. It got the big names on TV other than Andre but he was a very sporadic guy at this point. This was fine for a debut but you could see that it was a lot of rehashing Mania which to be fair was so groundbreaking that they didn’t have a lot of other stuff to go with. Also, that was the hottest thing in the world back then so they were right to go with it I guess.

Not bad but a lot more for entertainment than wrestling which is fine. Great job of showing who everyone is though so that’s a major plus. Check it out because it’s a huge deal as far as starting a big tradition so there we are.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 10, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,200
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage

Back to 1993 as we’re approaching King of the Ring. Tonight we have a tournament qualifying match as well as an Intercontinental Title match between Shawn Michaels and Jim Duggan which is a lumberjack match, likely due to Shawn running in the previous match. Other than that it’s hard to say as these are still the early days for the show. Let’s get to it.

Earlier tonight Shawn was outside of the arena when Mr. Perfect jumped him and slammed Shawn onto the hood of a car.

Heenan goes on a rant about how Duggan was behind Perfect attacking Shawn. Perfect and Duggan associating with each other just sounds wrong.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Typhoon vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

They collide off the ropes a few times with no one going anywhere at all. Typhoon slams him down and Bigelow (kind of) slams him down as well. Off to an armbar on Bigelow but Bam Bam suplexes out of it. They head to the floor with Typhoon being sent into the steps to shift control. Typhoon is rammed into the buckle to put him back on the floor as Bigelow is bleeding from the top of the head. Back in and we get a chinlock….and take a break. THIS MATCH needs a break??? Bigelow avoids a charge in the corner, hits a Samoan drop and the top rope headbutt sends Bigelow to the tournament.

Rating: D-. These battles of the giants usually suck and this is another version which did just that. Typhoon was such a worthless wide load that he never accomplished anything at all. Nothing to see here although that headbutt was kind of cool. When that’s the highlight of a match, you can tell it was lame.

Yokozuna vs. PJ Walker

Walker is more famous as Justin Credible. Yoko chops him down and ENDS Walker with a belly to belly and a legdrop. A splash in the corner sets up the Banzai Drop and we’re done in about 90 seconds.

Mr. Perfect vs. Iron Mike Sharpe

Before the match, Perfect looks at one of the overweight Raw girls and puts his gum in her mouth. Sharpe shoves him around to start but Perfect comes back with a quick dropkick, sending Mike out to the floor. Back in and Perfect chops away before hitting the Hennig neck snap. They trade some hard chops before Perfect takes over with a knee lift. Heenan is channel surfing while watching TV at the announce table. Now we’re watching him watching TV at the announce table. The PerfectPlex ends Sharpe with ease.

Rating: D+. Just a squash here and we got the weekly “comedy” bit thrown in here. I have no idea why they did those bits like Heenan watching TV but they were rarely funny and hopefully would stop soon after this. Hennig continues to look good but he would be disappearing soon because of back issues.

Mr. Hughes vs. Cannonball Kid

Hughes is debuting Harvey Whippleman as his manager. This is another squash with Hughes pounding away with almost no resistance whatsoever. A big boot and Bossman Slam end the Kid. The next week it would just be The Kid and he would face Razor Ramon. I think you know the story.

Promo for All-American Wrestling, which I didn’t know was still on TV at this point.

Intercontinental Title: Jim Duggan vs. Shawn Michaels

This is a lumberjack match but before the match, Duggan jumps Yokozuna. Shawn is defending and comes out in jeans and a t-shirt on crutches. Perfect goes after Shawn and indeed the champions was faking. An atomic drop puts Shawn down so Vince says that Shawn is going to lose the title tonight. A slam and elbow get two for Duggan as Heenan is losing his mind. There’s a suplex by Duggan as the fans think Shawn is gay.

Hacksaw stays on offense as we hear about Duggan NEVER getting a title shot before. I know 1988 was a long time ago Vince but come on. Duggan chokes away in the corner as Yoko is glaring at him from the floor. A HARD elbow staggers Shawn and it’s off to a reverse chinlock by Duggan. Off to a quick bearhug on Shawn but Duggan lets it go pretty quickly. Duggan slugs him down as this has been completely one sided so far. Shawn gets tied up in the ropes and Duggan pounds away even more. Michaels tries to take a walk but gets thrown back in as we take a break.

Back with Duggan slamming Shawn down again but missing a knee drop. Shawn takes off his own boot and blasts Jim in the face with it to take over for the first time this whole match. Duggan is kicked to the floor but comes back in and slams Shawn’s face into the mat. Somewhere in there Duggan has hurt his leg so he very slowly runs into Shawn’s boot in the corner. Off to a chinlock by the champion but Duggan fights back with a clothesline.

Duggan chokes away in the corner and slams Michaels down for two. Now Hacksaw puts on a chinlock of his own but the three point clothesline puts Shawn on the floor as we take another break. Back again with Shawn missing a splash in the corner but hitting Duggan in the ribs with a knee. Bam Bam Bigelow distracts the referee, allowing Shawn to throw Jim out to Yokozuna. A big splash CRUSHES Duggan but Mr. Perfect runs in for the DQ.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t as awful as I would have expected, but at the end of the day it’s Jim Duggan in the year 1993. How much faith can you put into the guy at this point? Also given that it was a lumberjack match, the ending was pretty clear from the get go. It’s not a bad match or anything and for a TV main event, this wasn’t bad at all.

The lumberjacks brawl to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This was your typical early Raw: mainly squashes and a long main event with this one running nearly twenty minutes. The problem is none of the matches are particularly good and nothing on here is required viewing (although the Duggan match is on multiple home video releases for some reason). Not a terrible show but it’s nothing great.

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