Impact
Date: February 10, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Don’t Be Roode

It’s a new era for TNA as we have Fourtune now as faces, leading the TNA charge against Immortal.  With AJ as arguably top face again, things are looking a bit more familiar around the Impact Zone this week.  We’re a mere four days away from Against All Odds and there aren’t many matches announced on TV yet.  I’d expect to find out what else is coming tonight though.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of Jarrett on a radio show talking about the Kurt Angle situation.  There are also some clips of Angle watching Jarrett at a house show.  We then shift over to Fourtune being revealed as THEY.  Roode has something to say tonight.

Immortal comes out to open the show.  No Flair again as I guess he’s either being held off TV or is out due to his shoulder injury.  Immortal looks a bit dressed down this week other than Jeff Jarrett and Karen.  Eric says that Immortal won’t miss a beat after last week.  He’s not going to give up power because for 15 years he’s made stars, built companies and changed the industry.  Bischoff just said he made stars.  Ok I regained my composure.  Almost died of laughter there.

Bischoff runs down Fourtune and says how worthless they are.  He hands the mic over to Jeff Jarrett who calls out Fourtune.  The fans chant for AJ.  Jarrett (when I say Jarrett I mean Jeff.  I’ll refer to Karen as Karen for clarification) says he gave all 4 of these guys a job 9 years ago.  Jarrett gets in their faces again but Roode grabs the mic from him.

Roode says that Fourtune is the backbone of the company and that they all had chances to go away for more money or better opportunities, but they were the ones that have stood by TNA.  They’ll continue to rise to the top no matter what Immortal wants to do.  He says for Jarrett to do something about it if he doesn’t like it and the brawl is on.  Good promo from Roode who I’ve never seen the superstar in him that is supposed to be there.  Angle, Crimson and Steiner run out to even the odds as Immortal runs.

Angle and Jarrett sign their contract tonight.

The world title is on the line as Anderson defends against Morgan.  The winner gets Jeff Hardy in a ladder match for the title on Sunday.  Well at least they announced the PPV main event.

Velvet and Winter are arguing in the back until Angelina breaks them up and has an official introduction.  They argue more and Angelina is frustrated as we take a break.

Back with Eric offering the returning Hernandez a spot in Immortal which he accepts.

Matt Hardy/Bully Ray/D’Angelo Dinero vs. D-Von/Samoa Joe/Rob Van Dam

This is a tables match.  These guys all have singles matches at the PPV which I think you can figure out.  Joe chases Pope out of the arena to start.  I think this is one table to a finish.  Van Dam vs. Matt in the ring as he hits Rolling Thunder.  D-Von beats up Bubba on the floor.  The Dudleys are in the ring now with Bubba hitting D-Von low.  Bubba gets a table set up but yells at D-Von’s kids.  They jump the rail and detain him, allowing D-Von to knock Bubba through the table for the win at 3:15.

Rating: C-. This was a total mess to say the least, but they got the right idea at least of having the three singles matches get pushed at the same time.  The Pope and Joe were out there maybe 4 seconds total, but the other matches got some camera time at least.  I’m a fan of this kind of booking, but this was too insane to really get much out of it.

The Angles have a surprise for Kurt.

Back with the Jarretts in the ring, flanked by security.  Karen says they have a hectic schedule but their perfect family works well enough to pull it off.  Here comes Kurt for the contract signing.  Karen says they need to get along for the sake of their kids while patronizing him terribly.  Kurt says let’s get this over with.  Jarrett says that there was no need for the violence at Genesis.

Jarrett says he’s going to raise the stakes.  If Kurt wins, he gets sole custody of Kurt’s two kids.  Three weeks from tonight however, the Jarretts are renewing their wedding vows.  If Jarrett wins, Kurt has to give Karen away on March 3^rd (three weeks from tonight).  Yes, they’re actually having a match for the custody of kids.  And yes I know WWE did it.  It was stupid then and it’s stupid now.  The contract is signed with no issues for perhaps the first time ever in professional wrestling.

Sarita/Rosita/Tara/Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Sky/Winter/Angelina Love/Mickie James

Winter tries to slide between Angelina’s legs like Velvet and almost knocks her over.  Then she blocks Velvet’s entrance.  Ah there it is.  Angelina vs. Sarita to start us off.  Rolling cradle into a sunset flip gets two for Love immediately.  The world title match is next apparently.  Top rope cross body gets two on Sarita but Rosita trips Angelina up before coming in.

Sarita back in as she and Rosita have decent chemistry.  Rosita is pretty tiny.  They’ve been the only members of their team in so far as it’s back to Rosita.  Angelina gets a front slam (World’s Strongest Slam) to break the momentum and it’s off to Velvet.  Winter gets mad at her for coming in and Rosita drills her.  More cousin double teaming results in Rosita hitting a moonsault for the pin on Velvet at 3:00.

Rating: C+. This was probably too short to grade but the chemistry between the cousins was impressive.  I would have liked more than half the girls to be in the match as this really should have been a tag match with Winter outside, but I get what they were going for here I guess.  The cousins carried this and I’d like to see more of them in the future.

Mickie wants to fight Madison right now as we go to a break.

Back with Mickie saying she wants to fight now.  Madison says that Mickie came here to prove that she’s the best in the world.  Madison says that Mickie talks a good game but can’t walk the walk.  She says she’ll see Mickie at Against All Odds.  This was kind of abrupt.

Jeff Hardy says it doesn’t matter who he faces at the ladder match as it’s his element.

World title match is next.

Angle goes into Fourtune’s locker room and tells Roode and AJ to hurt Jeff Jarrett tonight.  Angle says he wishes it were him tonight and Roode volunteers to put himself in there.  The pop for that makes it hard to hear the promo.  Listen to that TNA.

TNA World Title: Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson

After Anderson’s usual introduction, here’s Hardy with a personalized ladder.  Hardy sits on top of it as we get started.  They feel each other out a lot to start with Morgan overpowering Anderson.  Side slam gets two.  Anderson grabs a rollup for one and Morgan gets a clothesline for two.  Anderson speeds things up and takes over.  That was some nice stuff from him there.

Mic Check is avoided as is the Carbon Footprint.  Anderson gets a middle rope clothesline for two.  Morgan is on the apron and snaps Anderson’s neck across the top and the champion goes flying into the referee.  Hernandez runs in through the crowd and beats down Morgan, allowing Anderson to get the easy pin at 5:40.  Anderson didn’t see Hernandez’s beatdown.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match here but it was pretty clear they were going through the motions.  I like the title being on the line on TV though as it makes things seem important.  Even a match like this where there was little doubt as to who would win is a good thing as you want to watch because you might see something important.  Smart TV there.

Post match Hernandez and Hardy beat down Anderson.  Hardy poses with the belt as we take a break.

Ray says that D-Von’s sons are bastards and they’re in over their heads.  He issues a challenge to D-Von to bring his sons to Against All Odds for a 3-1 street fight.  Oh dear.  His kids are teenagers if you’re curious.

Brian Kendrick vs. Robbie E vs. Suicide

The winner is in the triple threat at Against All Odds against Generation Me of which the winner will get the shot at Kaz.  Robbie E isn’t happy as he got robbed of his title.  Tonight is the road to regaining his bling.  Robbie jumps Suicide to start as Kendrick is rocking back and forth on the mat meditating or something.  Suicide takes over on Robbie but is sent over the top to the floor.

Kendrick pops up and goes off on Robbie while still in his cloak for lack of a better term.  In comes Suicide again and Kendrick accidentally nails him.  Suicide gets up and takes down both guys, knocking them into the corners.  Suicide takes down Kendrick with the Suicide Solution (kind of a weird belly to back suplex/Angle Slam combination) but Cookie distracts, allowing Robbie to knock him to the floor and steals the pin to advance to Against All Odds at 2:55.  No rating as it was too short, but this was the weakest of these matches.

Eliminate the Hate ad.

Ink Inc says that they’re unique and that they give it their all in the ring.  Just a quick 30 second promo but this was perhaps the first or second time we’ve heard these guys talk about themselves.  This is the kind of thing TNA needs to do more of with some of their lesser established characters.

Gunner/Murphy/Rob Terry vs. Steiner/Beer Money at the PPV.  We also run down the rest of the card.

D-Von says his boys will be in the match.  From a kayfabe perspective, I don’t get why D-Von would do this to someone that has no issue hurting them.  Isn’t he just putting them in danger?  Not criticizing it, just not really getting it.

Jeff Jarrett/Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles/Kurt Angle

Angle has a big smile on his face on the way to the ring.  We take a break before the bell.  Jarrett vs. AJ to start but Kurt is tagged in almost immediately.  Let the stalling begin.  You can always tell a guy that cut his teeth in Memphis.  They can stall like few others.  Angle and Hardy start us off proper here.  Angle gets the belly to belly for two.  Taz says he’s wrestled both of these men before.  He needs to say things like that more often as unless you started watching before about 2002, there’s a chance you might not know he was a wrestler.

Off to AJ vs. Hardy for a bit before Jarrett comes in to beat down AJ.  Jarrett keeps running from Angle and it’s Hardy vs. Kurt again.  Hardy hooks a chinlock on Angle for a bit and takes him down with a back elbow.  In true heel fashion we get Angle vs. Jarrett when Angle is beaten down.  Karen yells at Kurt a lot but Jeff misses an enziguri and it’s ankle lock time.  Hardy saves and is in now legally I guess.

Hardy puts on a chinlock/choke to Angle as we take a break.  Back with more Hardy beating on Angle.  It seems that they’re protecting AJ which makes sense as he might not be back to full speed yet.  Angle gets the running belly to belly off the top and both guys are down.  Hot tag to AJ who cleans house.  Angle wants the Slam on Jarrett but Jarrett escapes.  Kurt goes after Karen and the distraction allows AJ to hit the springboard forearm (love that move) for the pin at 14:26.

Rating: C+. This was a main event tag match and it worked for the most part.  Jarrett running from Angle was a nice touch as that was the focal point of the match.  This wasn’t a great match or anything but it did the job it was supposed to do.  Fun main event tag and a good way to end the show.

The Jeffs beat down Angle and AJ until Fourtune makes the save.  Immortal comes down for the second save and controls for a bit.  RVD comes out for save #3 but Matt gets a shot to the knee.  Here comes Anderson for the final save to take down Immortal to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a hard one to grade.  Due to having everything come together last week, this was more or less 2-3 weeks worth of build in one show for the PPV.  That being said, they got the matches announced and for the most part they work.  A lot of it is a rehash of Genesis, but that’s the best they’ve got right now.  It seems the main event picture is shaky to say the least as no real challenger for Anderson is there other than Hardy who doesn’t seem like a threat at all.  Either way, I thought they did the best they could with what they had.  I liked this for some reason despite some very stupid stuff on it.

Results

D-Von/Samoa Joe/Rob Van Dam b. D’Angelo Dinero/Bully Ray/Matt Hardy – D-Von put Ray through a table

Sarita/Rosita/Tara/Madison Rayne b. Velvet Sky/Winter/Angelina Love/Mickie James – Moonsault to Sky

Mr. Anderson b. Matt Morgan – Pin after Hernandez attacked Morgan

Robbie E. b. Suicide and Brian Kendrick – Pin after a Suicide Solution to Kendrick

AJ Styles/Kurt Angle b. Jeff Hardy/Jeff Jarrett – Springboard forearm to Jarrett

Monday Night Raw
Date: February 7, 2011
Location: Bradley Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

We continue on the Road to Wrestlemania in what I’d assume will be a plot advancing show which is ok.  The Chamber is in less than two weeks so there isn’t much to say as far as adding new stuff goes.  Bear in mind that I’ve seen part of this show last night but am reviewing it on Tuesday/Wednesday, so if there are some odd things said it’s because I know what’s coming.  Sorry about that.  Let’s get to it.

Nickelback opens us up.

Here’s Vince, and according to Cole it’s the first time we’ve seen him in almost a year.  Where do I begin?

1. He wrestled at Wrestlemania on March 28, 2010.  We’ll call that 11 months when it’s really more like 10 and a half.

2. He was there for Nexus.  Nexus began on June 1 and attacked Vince on June 22.  We’ll go very conservative again and call that June 7.  That means we have eight months.

3. He was on the November 1 episode of Raw, which may be a stretch as he was in a coma/dream sequence.  Still though, he was there.  That would be three months

In other words, at minimum it was three months and at most it was eight months.  That means it’s closer to half a year than a year, but who cares about things like time right?

Vince starts talking about Wrestlemania and how after the Super Bowl is over, it’s time for Wrestlemania.  Apparently next week we’re going to meet the host of Wrestlemania who has set a record or a streak of some sort.  I’m kind of intrigued but it better not be Justin Bieber.

Anyway as Vince is about to leave, here’s Randy Orton.  We get a clip of him punting Harris last week and running from Nexus and their beatdown.  Orton wants to talk about Punk and how after last week they’re not even.  Before Orton gets going though here’s Punk.  Punk sits down on the stage and says that of course it isn’t over.  He asks if Orton wants to know why he cost “Randall” the title at the Rumble.

Punk shows a clip from Unforgiven 2008 with Punk as World Heavyweight Champion and Orton getting in his face and calling Punk a fluke.  Legacy jumped him and Orton punted him in the head, which made Punk have to forfeit the title due to an injury.  Yes, THIS IS CONTINUITY!  They did something back then and now we’re going to get revenge as a result of it.  That is huge as something is happening and there’s a reason for it.  That doesn’t happen anymore, which is a huge thing.

Punk says that he’s been patient but now wants his revenge.  As long as they’re on the same show, Orton will never be world champion again.  He isn’t waiting for Elimination Chamber but is going to eliminate Orton right now.  Instead of running like someone intelligent, Orton stands in the ring and gets beaten down.

After a little bit Punk starts talking and Orton breaks free for a bit but is eventually tied in the ropes.  Cena chant starts up but Orton is all alone.  Punk yells at him a lot but Orton gets a headbutt and kick in.  The kick hits Punk in the face and breaks his nose legit.  There’s blood coming out of it and it’s swollen badly.  If it’s not broken it’s bruised badly.  The Nexus puts Orton on Punk’s shoulders for the GTS to end the segment.

Mason Ryan vs. R-Truth

This was set up by an E-Mail during the break.  Apparently all members of Nexus will face people in the Chamber, finishing with Punk vs. Cena in the main event.  This is Ryan’s in ring debut in WWE.  Truth’s song is freaking catchy to say the least.  And now we get the important part of the night.  “GREEN BAY WISCONSIN!  WHAT’S UP???”  Cole: Truth we’re in Milwaukee!  This would become the running joke for the night.

The fans totally turn on Truth, booing the heck out of him and chanting MILWAUKEE.  Truth is clearly shaken here, messing up his sunset flip out of the corner as well as the spinning forearm.  It’s understandable as he hasn’t been a heel in years.  Truth may have hurt his knee on the missed forearm.  Ryan slams him into the ropes three times and then locks on a Brock Lock (Ryan bends Truth’s leg around Ryan’s head) for the submission at 2:23.

Post match Ryan gets a chair but the referee grabs it away.  With another Milwaukee chant going, the hold goes on again and the decision is reversed.  This would be stupid based on the fact that Vickie said a referee’s decision can’t be reversed but whatever.

The Did You Know says more people attended live events last year than the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals and X Games combined.  You mean having like 400 shows a year was enough to pass all those others?  REALLY???

Back from a break Punk congratulates Ryan on hurting Truth.  Later tonight it’s McGillicutty vs. Morrison and Otunga vs. Sheamus.

Eve Torres/Tamina/Gail Kim vs. Bella Twins/Melina

The Bellas and Eve look great here.  Even Gail looks kind of good.  Natalya is on commentary for this and has a shot at Eve next week.  Gail tries to fight both Bellas which fails pretty badly.  Off to Melina now as this isn’t anything special at all.  Here’s Eve as Natalya and Cole get into an argument.  Standing moonsault gets two on Melina.  Everything breaks down and a spinning neckbreaker (Moss Covered Three Handled Family Credenza for you technical people out there) ends Melina at 2:22.  This was pretty worthless.

2-21-11 promo, this time with the Johnny Cash song Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down.

We talk about Aaron Rodgers having the title belt on his shoulder during the celebration.  Allegedly Ric Flair gave him that but I’m not sure how much I buy that at all.

Video about the Chamber match.

John Morrison vs. Michael McGillicutty

McGillicutty takes him down early to start us off.  To say the crowd is dead for the early parts here is an understatement to say the least.  McGillicutty goes after the arm and tries to slam Morrison’s hand into the post by crushing it with the steps.  The dropkick to the steps misses though and here comes John.  Flash Kick sets up the Starship Pain to end it at 2:30.  Great looking moonsault there.

As Morrison is leaving, Punk is waiting on him with some kind of spray that goes into Morrison’s eyes.  Punk also kicks him in the head.  Medics check him as we go to a break.

After a break here’s Miz in wrestling gear.  He says that last week he was pulling for Lawler and asks him to get in the ring.  Miz says it wasn’t because he thought Lawler would be the easiest targets because they’re all easy wins for the Miz.  Lawler used to be a loudmouth and everyone would listen to Jerry.  Miz says he patterned his career after Lawler and is a modern day Jerry Lawler.  I’d say Roddy Piper but that’s just me.

Now it’s him on talk shows and now it’s him that people want to watch.  He’s also WWE Champion which Lawler has ever been.  Jerry says they’re not mirror images because he’s an original.  Miz shows us a clip from last week where Jerry punched DiBiase which looked great.  Miz says that was a sucker punch so Lawler says Miz is a sucker and sucks too.  Wow that was bad.

Lawler says he’s never competed at Wrestlemania or been WWE Champion.  He says no one knows what it means to do either of those things.  Lawler is going to win the title and go to Wrestlemania.  Miz goes for his catchphrase but Lawler cuts him off by saying awful and there’s your chant.  The fight is on and Lawler puts Riley down.  Cue DiBiase for the save and Bryan for the second save.  The GM makes the obvious match.

Daniel Bryan/Jerry Lawler vs. Ted DiBiase/The Miz

Riley is on commentary with Cole here.  Bryan vs. DiBiase to start.  Who would have believed say two years ago that on Raw we would be seeing the number one contender Jerry Lawler teaming with Bryan Danielson facing Ted DiBiase and the WWE Champion the Miz?  Think about that for a minute.  Miz sends King to the floor as we take a break.

Back with Miz holding a chinlock on Lawler but there’s a quick tag to Bryan.  If I hadn’t been looking at the monitor I wouldn’t have known it as the reaction more or less didn’t exist.  Running clothesline in the corner to Bryan gets two for Miz.  Off to Lawler (small pop) and DiBiase who is in trouble early.  DDT gets two for Lawler.  Everything breaks down as Miz is taken out by Bryan.  The middle rope punch ends DiBiase at 9:05.  Lawler wins again.

Rating: C-. See, here’s the thing with Lawler: he doesn’t look terrible.  Yes he’s over sixty years old, but at the same time he looked decent.  He’s in great shape considering his age and can get by with the same basic moves he has for years.  It’s the Rocky story and it’s going to end in him losing at the PPV which is fine.  There’s nothing wrong with this story despite what various internet “geniuses” would have you think.

Sheamus vs. David Otunga

Holy squash Batman!  As Sheamus is on the way to the ring Josh interrupts him and asks his opinion on Mark Henry’s comments.  Sheamus hasn’t heard them but apparently Henry says that Sheamus should be out of the Chamber and Henry should be in.  Sheamus says Henry hasn’t done anything in 14 years and should only be in if it’s a cake eating contest.

Otunga comes out but here’s Henry instead.  The brawl is on with Otunga only trying to get in once and getting drilled.  A pair of World’s Strongest Slams ends Sheamus as I guess there’s no match.  Otunga stands over the fallen Sheamus but here’s…..Alberto?  Well he had to be here at some point I suppose.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Santino Marella

This should be short but likely won’t be.  After a break and before Santino’s entrance, Alberto says it was his destiny and all that jazz.  Santino throws Alberto over the top in a funny bit.  Was there ever a bell?  If there was I didn’t hear it.  Santino chant is the loudest of the night so far which I’m not sure how to take.  There’s the bell.  Kozlov isn’t here due to the beating he got from Corre the other night.

Santino sends him over the top again and talks some trash.  Back in and Alberto of course takes over as he’s supposed to.  He sends Santino into the post and the arm work is on.  Running enziguri in the corner misses but the Cobra misses.  Del Rio gets a Codebreaker to the arm and seconds later the Armbreaker ends it at about 2:59.  Just an extended squash with some minor comedy thrown in so no rating.

We recap the Nexus taking out the Chamber competitors so far tonight.

Here are Vickie and Dolph for no apparent reason other than we’re talking about Smackdown.  She says exactly what you would expect her to say until Cena’s music cuts her off.  He references Christina Aguliera butchering the national anthem at the Super Bowl.  He also apologizes for R-Truth, saying that Truth celebrated a bit too much because we’re in Milwaukee.

Cole morphs into the anti-Cena fan, saying it’s the same stuff every time.  Cena starts talking about the last time they were in a ring and Cena kissed Vickie.  Vickie and Dolph threaten to leave if the fans boo and Cena says you heard them, prompting huge heat.  He starts up a GO PACK GO chant, which is a local favorite and is enough to get them to go.

Cena talks about what Nexus has been up to tonight and gets another jab at Truth.  “They beat Truth up so badly that he forgot what city he’s in.”  The flaw in Nexus’ plan though is that Cena is still here.  He starts using the phrase Elimination Chamber instead of PPV.  There’s something awesome about people saying what they’re planning and seeing the Mania sign over their shoulders.  That’s always cool to see.

Another 2-21-11 ad, the same as before.

John Cena vs. CM Punk

Cena keeps looking at the entrance during Punk’s entrance.  Nice little touch there.  Punk hammers him into the corner to start as he controls early.  All Punk so far.  A charge in the corner misses though as this crowd is pathetic.  Cena can’t get momentum going though as he has to keep looking for Nexus.  Out to the floor with Punk landing a clothesline from the apron to keep control.

Back in the ring and it’s the knee and clothesline out of the corner to put Cena down.  The crowd is DEAD.  Punk says Cena can’t see him.  GTS is countered.  You can see some stuffing in Punk’s nose.  Cena pounds him down in the corner and the referee says he’ll disqualify Cena if he keeps that up.  Cena shrugs and drills Punk low for the DQ at about 5:00.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t very good, but they had a nice little thing going with Cena constantly being afraid.  Also the low blow was smart as he knew as soon as the match was over the troops would be on their way so he took out the leader.  There’s thinking there which gives this some points.  However, the match was boring and just a bridge to the ending, which isn’t good.

Post match Nexus of course comes out with Ryan guarding Punk.  McGillicutty and Otunga corner Cena but Lawler hands Cena a chair and house is cleaned.  Cena stands tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. I really wasn’t that impressed here.  The matches flew by and not much was going on at all.  They more or less burned this show off instead of going for something new for the Chamber.  That’s fine, but the problem is that it gets a bit boring.  There was nothing going on here for the most part though other than Punk trying to take out his opponents.  It’s not horrible, but I didn’t get excited once throughout the show, which isn’t a good thing.  Pretty weak show but not awful at all.

Results

R-Truth b. Mason Ryan via DQ when Ryan wouldn’t let go of his hold and the initial decision was reversed

Eve Torres/Tamina/Gail Kim b. Bella Twins/Melina – Spinning neckbreaker to Melina

John Morrison b. Michael McGillicutty – Starship Pain

Daniel Bryan/Jerry Lawler b. The Miz/Ted DiBiase – Second Rope Punch to DiBiase

Alberto Del Rio b. Santino Marella – Cross Armbreaker

CM Punk b. John Cena via DQ when Cena hit Punk low

NXT
Date: February 8, 2011
Location: Resch Center, Green Bay, Wisconsin
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Todd Grisham

It’s elimination night I believe which is probably a good thing.  I wish it was Curtis that was gone but he’s the chosen one so it’ll probably be Bateman or Saxton.  Anyway, this should be decent enough as the show has gotten a lot better recently.  I like them being in the Super Bowl town because it gives us a nice mini-theme tonight possibly.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the season so far which has been a lot better after the first two went out.

Striker is on the stage and we’re doing the joust thing called Rock-Em Sock-Em this week.  First match is Bateman vs. Curtis.  Bateman is in the final.  Winner gets two immunity points by the way.  Brodus pulls a Michael Tarver and goes after Saxton so it’s a DQ.  Bateman vs. Saxton is the final.  There’s a controversial finish but Saxton wins.  To be fair it’s very close.  Naturally we have to do it one more time.  Surprisingly enough the rematch announcement gets a pop.  Saxton wins again to get two points.  That gives Curtis 3, Bateman and Saxton 2 and Clay 0.

We recap the Talk the Talk Challenge from last week including the Turd Ferguson chant.

Derrick Bateman vs. Byron Saxton

No intro here as we end the package and it’s off to the match.  Bateman works on the arm and gets a nice kick to the back to take over.  Apparently Ricardo is the official new pro for Del Rio.  Please tell me that it would be Alberto getting the shot and not Ricardo.  Saxton takes over as we talk about the Dazed and Confused shirt that Ziggler is wearing.

Bateman fights back and gets a dropkick in the corner and a clothesline for two.  Josh says whoever loses here is gone.  Saxton gets a small package for two.  Bateman grabs a modified LeBell Lock (closer to a Crossface) to get the win at 4:30.

Rating: D+. Well it was ok but that’s about it.  This is one of those matches that was just kind of there.  I don’t like using that rating but that really is the best way to put it.  One great thing here though was we saw a coach teaching his pro something and having it come into play to end the match.  We never see that but this time it worked fine.  This wasn’t anything special but it wasn’t horrible.

Time for another challenge worth 3 points (Curtis 3, Bateman and Saxton 2 and Clay 0).  This time we’re going to more or less play the Price is Right.  Various people are going to model things and the rookies have to guess the retail price.  My goodness they’ve turned their show into a commercial!  First up is the 50 Greatest Superstars of All Time DVD presented by AJ from last season.  The DVD is 34.95???  SWEET GOODNESS that’s insane!  Brodus is closest.

Naomi is up next and presents WWE Kids Magazine.  By presents I mean holds up and smiles if you’re wondering.  Clay is closest with $1.  Oh ok you can’t go over.  That makes sense.  AJ is back again with a foam World Heavyweight Championship.  Saxton gets it right on the nose at $19.99.

Bateman says he said the same thing which he didn’t.  This is rather stupid if you didn’t get it but it’s surprisingly entertaining.  Naomi has the History of the WWE Book.  Clay wins with 23 dollars.  Saxton went just over with 23.95.  Ziggler (I think): “That’s the first time Saxton has ever been over!”

Clay and Curtis are tied for immunity.  My what luck that they have a match later.

Video about the Road to Wrestlemania going through the Elimination Chamber.

Truth is with Curtis in the back and they talk about the accusations of Truth saying Curtis has a big head behind his back.  Truth’s leg seems to be fine after the attack last night.

Brodus Clay vs. Johnny Curtis

This is the main event.  Apparently Josh thinks he gets to decide who gets immunity.  The superstars make fun of Truth not knowing the right town last night.  Curtis hammers away to start to control.  Clay takes over with a fireman’s carry into a hot shot.  Nice overhead suplex gets two for Clay.  The match drags badly so the Turd chant gets going again.  Ziggler eggs it on and continues to be one of the funniest parts of this show.

Dolph leaves and Brodus hammers away.  Curtis gets a slingshot legdrop to the back of Clay’s neck for two.  Dolph is back and Grisham hits on Maryse who is at the top of the stage now.  Top rope dropkick gets no cover as Clay is in the ropes.  Brodus gets a shot to the throat using the ropes and a powerslam ends it at 6:22.  The announcers called it a bulldog slam because they’re not very intelligent.

Rating: C-. This was a little better, but there are only so many times that these four guys can fight each other.  The match was ok but the level of interest is just completely gone.  Clay is cool, Curtis isn’t interesting, Clay is better than everyone else in the competition.  That’s the end of the stuff we can learn here but it’s what we keep seeing.

2-21-11 promo again with the grave line from last night.

Clay and Curtis get 20 seconds to say why they should get immunity.  Curtis says it’s because the Packers Rule.  Curtis says the Steelers should have won.  Why?  They scored less points.  Naturally Curtis wins the live crowd approval and gets immunity.  Dang it I hate this show.  He just got beat clean so let’s give him the advantage.  Saxton is out and can’t talk due to tears.  Ah ok there it is.

Saxton says that it’s ok and everyone makes mistakes.  He’ll forgive them though and will be back.  Ziggler goes off on him in a great rant to make Saxton mad.  Masters tells Saxton to punch him.  Instead he points at Ziggler to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. I wasn’t impressed tonight.  The immunity thing is a joke because it’s clear that Curtis was either the weakest or second weakest.  He lost to Clay and STILL gets immunity?  That makes less than no sense but something tells me he’ll manage to win this thing anyway because he’s what WWE has decided we want to see despite no one caring about him.  Bad show this week mainly due to the booking at the end.

Results

Byron Saxton won the Rock-Em Sock-Em Challenge

Derrick Bateman b. Byron Saxton – LeBell Lock

Brodus Clay won the WWEshop.com Challenge

Brodus Clay b. Johnny Curtis – Powerslam

Byron Saxton was eliminated in 4^th place

Against All Odds 2010
Date: February 14, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay

Well we’re a month and a half into the Hogan regime and things are looking better from a wrestling perspective but from a ratings perspective not so much. Anyway, tonight we have Joe vs. Styles and a one night tournament for the title shot at Lockdown, which isn’t for another two months but whatever. I fail to see where the card game aspect comes from also but whatever, The tournament is intriguing looking so let’s get to it.

Here are the brackets.

Pope
Desmond Wolfe

Hernandez
Matt Morgan

Kurt Angle
Mr. Anderson

Abyss
Mick Foley

We open with Flair storming in and he’s ticked because Bischoff is the referee. Ok then. Flair stumbles over his words a lot. Does anyone buy Flair as a 60 year old man being physically intimidating?

The opening video is about the tournament and how winning it is the ultimate prize. I thought that would be the world title but whatever. Oh and we hear about the world title match too. For the life of me, why are they making Styles into a Flair clone? He’s the best in the world, so let’s change it up right? That makes LOADS of sense.

The music sounds like bad lounge music.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Desmond Wolfe vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Sweet goodness Chelsea looks great. Good night though, shut up Tenay and West. Wlofe is a guy I like more and more every time I see him. Pope….I just don’t get it. He’s a wrestling Slick and somehow that’s a gimmick? Wait…Tenay just asked which young stud will break through. Angle, Abyss and Foley are all former world champions, Hernandez has been around forever and everyone knows Kennedy.

I get the idea of what he’s saying but it’s still kind of dumb. The people are behind Pope, but at the same time how serious can you take the Impact Zone fans? They’re starting out fast paced here which I like pretty well. Wolfe’s nipples are really close together. NICE DDT on Pope. Pope has a unique style of striking which is reminding me of Sting, which is a compliment.

A top rope cross body gets two. The big lariat misses and Pope gets a rollup for two. And then we get a very contrived ending on the levels of the 619 as Pope hits the dumbest finisher in the company at the moment with the double knee to the back of the conveniently placed opponent for the pin.

Rating: B. Not bad at all and a very solid opener. They went out there and had a fast paced match. I would have had Wolfe go further, but if they wanted Pope to go over strong, I can’t argue with how they did it as it was a completely clean win.

Flair yells at Bischoff again. He declares himself the wrestling god. Oh dang it they’re channeling JBL. That can’t be good. You can smell Flair vs. Hogan and Hogan going over from here.

JB is (back thank goodness. Not a huge fan of his but he’s not Bubba so he’s great by comparison) with Morgan and Hernandez who says they fight tonight but they’re still champions no matter what. Hernandez being that much shorter is funny for some reason.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan

Not wild in the slightest about them having these two go at it so soon but I get the point again. Something I need to make clear: any company is going to get a lot of points for just having a direction and an idea that is clear. I likely won’t agree with it, but if something has a point that makes something resembling sense a lot of the time I’ll just go with it. This is one of those times. Don’t agree with it, but it’s passable.

Tazz thinks both guys want to win. Oh year that’s such great analysis. Winner gets Pope. Hernandez goes for a cross body and they botch the living heck out of is as Morgan tries to catch him but it fails completely. They’re being really tentative here which makes sense from a storyline perspective but at the same time it makes for some boring wrestling. Taz and Tenay are REALLY annoying. They finally crank it up a bit but not that much really.

We do get a 25-30 second delayed vertical suplex. That’s rather impressive. Uh oh Hernandez might be hurt. So Morgan goes for the shoulder and uses the tights to get the win. TNA…why are you trying to mess with things that are like your mother: NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD BE MESSINGWITH! Yep they’re teasing tension between the two.

Rating: C-. This was too slow for my taste. It wasn’t bad at all but just not that good. I HATED the ending as these two simply do not need tension yet. I don’t like them as a team but it’s still stupid nonetheless. Morgan should have won though.

We recap Angle recently which is kind of odd but whatever. Ok this has gone on for about three minutes now. Angle apologizes to Hogan for….no apparent reason. Oh ok it’s for helping him Thursday. He also calls out Anderson, who is his first round opponent.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Mr. Anderson vs. Kurt Angle

He misses the mic. “That was intentional.” I chuckled. Kennedy is another guy that has found something that works and has RAN with it. Sometimes that’s the best thing to do and it worked here. For some reason his music starts up again after his promo and plays for like 3 seconds before Angle’s starts up. Whatever. Angle is another interesting case as he’s proof that a reputation can be a character.

The screen behind him says The Greatest Wrestler In The World. What more do you need to know about him? They start rather quickly which is a perk. Angle hits the post with his shoulder which I don’t think was his initial idea. Anderson gets the dog tag that Angle wears and cuts him open with it really bad. Oh man he’s bleeding nice and hard.

I love that release belly to belly that Angle uses. Take note Scott Steiner: there are other moves than that and a bad chinlock. There goes the buckle pad thanks to the heel here. Naturally the Angle Slam doesn’t work. Has that gotten anyone in forever? Angle GOES OLYMPIC but it doesn’t work. After being rammed into the buckle, Angle gets pinned by the Mic Check. Uh, yeah. Anderson spits on the dog tag afterwards.

Rating: C-. It’s certainly not bad, but this felt like it was just a total crash course of a match. They flew through it and it felt like it was about 3 minutes long when it was closer to ten or so. That’s not good, but like I said this certainly wasn’t bad at all.

Bischoff is with Foley and Abyss and if they don’t fight then the mask comes off. The fans are chanting Angle which is amusing for some reason. Also there’s no reason that Abyss should freak over the mask coming off when he took it off on his own months ago. It’s now a No DQ match. To clarify something FTS was wondering about, I’m ok with this as it makes sense from Bischoff’s perspective. It follows the story and I don’t need a scorecard to keep track of what’s going on. That makes up for the inconsistencies. I don’t like it, but it makes something close to sense so I’ll let it go.

8 Card Stud Quarterfinals: Abyss vs. Mick Foley

Remember this is No DQ. Foley’s music isn’t bad and Abyss’ is at least easily recognizable. Eric made him get rid of the flannel. Naturally Tenay argues over what material it is. The fans of course want to see the bat used for no apparent reason. Foley slaps Abyss. Only Foley could slap a monster and get away with it. We hit the floor and I like the mats they have.

They’re really thick which I have no problem with. Foley busts out a chair and takes over. The fans aren’t sure what to do here as is often the case with two faces fighting. It’s thumbtacks time. Abyss keeps going against the hardcore stuff here as he chokeslams Foley but makes sure it’s not in the tacks. The fans still want the bat. And Abyss steals the sock from Foley’s pants, prompting a USE THE SOCK chant. Ok then.

Foley takes the referee down and gets his sock. Well that works I guess. The Claw goes onto Abyss but it only gets two. Foley comes at him with the bat and walks into the Black Hole Slam onto the tacks for the pin. He freaks because he hurt Foley.

Rating: B. This is a very different kind of match as it’s more about thinking and storytelling than action. Now the smart thing is that they took a guy like Foley who is as good at in ring psychology and character development as anyone in history and let him do this as it worked really well for me. This was a situation where it wasn’t about the wrestling but it really worked which is incredible rare.

Pope
Morgan

Anderson
Abyss

No reason for those names. Just a writing exercise I thought I’d try.

The Nasty Boys are with Christy and apparently Nastys vs. 3D is 15 years in the making. The Dudleys (the famous pairing that is) haven’t been around that long but whatever. The Nastys say they’re here to prove something or other. Whatever. Knobbs can’t say the name of their opponents. It’s a number and a letter. We recap the feud which was ok if nothing else. Again, yes they Nastys have feuded with a lot of great teams. How many have they actually beaten?

Nasty Boys vs. Team 3D

So now people are being asked to pay to see the Nasty Boys. Good to know. That lounge music is REALLY annoying. No one in TNA has ever taken it to Team 3D like the Nastys? REALLY? Sags looks slimmer and nearly in shape. Knobbs…not so much. 3D runs them off and I guess they’re the faces? It’s been 2 minutes so they might have turned since then.

We get to a regular tag match with Sags vs. Bubba. Both guys have pants with their team name on it. Is that in case they get lost? Sign in the front row: pipe down nerds. That’s rather funny. The fans want to sit down and eat. What else could they want tables for? This hasn’t been as bad as I expected, but it’s nothing compared to the Nasty Boys doing science experiments like they did in 1995.

You have to see that clip if you don’t know what I’m talking about. SuperBrawl 1995, opening of the tape. Go find it as it’s just bizarre. Oh look: Brooke Hogan is here. It has nothing to do with the show or the match, but it needs to be noted: Brooke Hogan is indeed HERE. The Nastys take over now.

Taz says lifting Knobbs is like lifting a small foreign car. That’s rather funny. Sags takes 3D and JIMMY FREAKING HART makes the save. Are you kidding me??? His helmet is slammed into Bubba for the pin. Love that voice.

Rating: C-. I’m very surprised as this wasn’t terrible by any means. It wasn’t particularly good but it was far from bad. I do not get the point in the Nasty Boys being on TV but having Hart there is never a bad thing.

Joe and Bischoff talk about the world title match.

8 Card Stud Semi-Finals: D’Angelo Dinero vs. Matt Morgan

Again I ask: what is a street pope? I don’t get it. Pope does the Bret Hart glasses thing which works. They’re going big man vs. little man here so that’s all well and good. We’re on the floor now and not a lot is going on. Oh I almost forgot: this is the feud that made me hate Burke. Back in OVW these two feuded FOREVER and it couldn’t have been more boring if their lives depended on it.

It was that feud that made me hate Burke and it’s why I have issues about him to this day. Expect a low grade here. Morgan is acting very heelish here and I’m not big on that at all. It’s bearhug time so they’re not doing themselves any favors at all. Morgan is dominating here and screw that as Pope is making his comeback.

Morgan BLUEPRINTS UP though and takes his head off with a clothesline. So one minute Pope is in survival mode and the next he’s hitting the knees to the back for the pin. Riiiight. Oh I especially love Morgan being on the corner and looking over his shoulder twice to see when he needs to be ready to sell.

Rating: D+. While I want to fail it because of the people in it, this didn’t do it for me. The story and psychology were pretty much non existent here and the ending was completely unbelievable as in yeah right that was stupid. Yes there’s likely some bias in there and it wasn’t jumping off the page bad or anything so don’t think that’s what I’m saying.

Anderson cuts a rather funny promo about how he beat Angle. It’s funnier than it sounds. He says his name once, leaves to the left and comes back from the right to say it again. The guy can talk no matter what you think of his in ring stuff.

8 Card Stud Semi-Finals: Abyss vs. Mr. Anderson

We start with a very long stalling session here which I guess is ok. The crowd is oddly quiet here. Why is Abyss being a former world champion NEVER mentioned? I know it’s a different world title but it’s just never talked about at all. They’ll talk about the WCW and WWE titles whenever it benefits them. Hey, we’re on the floor!

Always good to see TNA mixing things up. For some reason I always love dropkicks to the knee. There’s just something cool about that. Anderson works on the knee so at least that makes sense. He goes for the mask and when Abyss is trying to fix it, the Mic Check sends Anderson to the finals.

Rating: D. This was really weak to me. The knee stuff led nowhere and the ending did nothing for me. Abyss is in desperate need of credibility. This should have been Foley vs. Kennedy, period.

AJ cuts a very solid promo about being a great worker. Again I ask; WHAT POINT IS THERE TO FLAIR BEING THERE IF HE CAN TALK THIS WELL??? “But KB, he learned so much from talking to Flair.” And I have to see Flair on TV making AJ look like he needs a mentor WHY?

If you want to make him act like Flair then fine but we don’t need to see him there every five minutes. Sorry I just completely fail to see what Flair is there for. He’s the golden boy and the man in TNA and the best wrestler in the world so he needs a mentor all of a sudden? He’s the BEST. How much better can he get?

We recap Joe vs. AJ which needs no recapping but whatever.

Bischoff is coming to the ring. And Hogan is here too. Ok then.

TNA World Title: AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe

Remember Bischoff is referee here. Why is he referee? No clue but it’s TNA so that comes with the territory. I love the total lack of tattoo on his face. AJ has a Flair robe. Shoot me now. Ok the hood on it makes it a lot better than I thought. Why in the world are they making AJ a heel here? Seriously, he’s so insanely over and they make a fortune off his merchandise so let’s just throw that away.

He has blonde highlights now too. That’s just great. Fans are WAY behind Joe. There is something awesome about the way JB says “From the Isle of Samoa.” No idea why but I’ve always loved that. As soon as the robe came off AJ got about 10x more awesome. AJ simply doesn’t need Flair to be a heel. The interesting thing here is that Flair and Eric have legit heat. Some of you might not know why though.

Back in 1998, Flair’s son Reid was wrestling in an amateur tournament in North Carolina and Flair was dead set on being there to watch him compete. He gave warning to Bischoff that he would be there and that’s all there was to it. The thing is there was a Thunder, not Nitro or a PPV but THUNDER, that night. Flair, having a thing called common sense, thought that since he was Ric Flair and this was WCW and he gave sufficient warning that he would be able to have a night off.

Bischoff thought otherwise and suspended him. This literally went on for months and the fans reverted back to 1991 and spent the whole show chanting WE WANT FLAIR. So this led to a famous as well as awesome moment where Arn Anderson reformed the Horsemen (adding in Dean Malenko for the first time) and completely unannounced brought out Flair for the first time in about four months in NORTH CAROLINA. What do you think the reaction was?

Naturally Flair gets one of the biggest pops in WCW history and looks like a million bucks and the fans are FREAKING OUT. And of course they had Flair have a heart attack a few weeks later then had Bischoff beat him at Starrcade with a screwjob ending that the fans booed out of the freaking building. How did that company ever make a freaking dime?

The Horsemen were then, you guessed it, fed to the NWO and made to look like jokes while Hogan won the world title from Nash in the Fingerpoke of Doom, because of course having the guy the fans are cheering for like there’s no tomorrow being pushed as a serious character can’t work so let’s just stick with the same stuff that’s made us lose the biggest ratings lead in wrestling history while Austin and Vince are destroying us in the ratings right?

ANYWAY, the point is that Bischoff more or less said that Flair was just one of the wrestlers and that carrying the company for as many years as he did was NOTHING in comparison to guys like Hogan and Savage who came in and tanked the company for two years before the one good idea that Bischoff had (read as stole from two Japanese companies that did the same thing years before the NWO was even heard of) made any money before he ran the company into the freaking ground. Flair was disrespected and the fans chanted WE WANT FLAIR very loudly and Bischoff had to back down and let Flair come back before embarrassing him again.

Oh yeah there’s a PPV here. There is something just freaking awesome about the fans chanting JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU. How can that not get into your head? AJ works on the knee. Ok, that’s fine if he does it a bit but you have AJ Styles in there. Have him use his stuff, not Flair’s as his primary offense. We’re on the floor (I know I’m shocked too) and AJ is trying to suplex Joe which fails more than Flair’s hair.

I’m glad Joe is in the shorts again. They work better for him. Joe counters a top rope hurricanrana and goes aerial and hits kind of an enziguri to the front of the face. Flair goes after the leg. Never mind that it’s the WRONG ONE as AJ had worked on the right leg and Flair went after the left one but whatever. AJ uses an Indian Deathlock and bends back to more or less have his hands like you would for a reverse neckbreaker.

Benoit did that to Booker T once on Thunder and WCW went to a commercial just as he locked it in. Brilliance I tell you, brilliance. There’s the figure four that you knew was coming. Love that snap powerslam Joe does. I know I tend to skip around a lot on my reviewing but here’s my thought on why I don’t just list off play by play: if you wanted that, you could just go watch the match yourself.

Just thought I’d make that clear in case people think I fast forward and just watch pieces of the match. I write out what pops into my head and at times there isn’t much. Doesn’t mean the match is bad or anything but just nothing strikes me about it. And end of random tangent.

And Bischoff punches Flair. Ok then. Joe hits the Muscle Buster while this is happening and is ticked off that nothing can be done about it. Joe pulls Bischoff back in and walks into the Pele and the Clash for the pin. Flair demands that Bischoff raise AJ’s hand.

Rating: B+. Solid stuff here but it was missing a little something that I just can’t place. This is another match that you just can’t mess up and they didn’t here. Another solid showing here and it was certainly worthy of being the world title match.

We recap the tournament to this point which seems like a way to kill 3 minutes.

Anderson is with the red hot Christy who talks very well again. He’s wearing a different shirt here too. I have no idea what he’s saying here as Christy is just ridiculously good looking here. The gum is a great touch for Anderson.

Pope is with JB. Ah I get why I hate Pope again: he talks once in awhile. I was liking him a bit earlier and that’s all gone now. And it’s Hall and X-Pac. TNA security running in to stop them reminds me of a Keystone Cops segment as they’re constantly chasing these two around the building trying to stop them from getting into the building. They say something to Hogan and it’s whatever. Does anyone care about them at this point?

8 Card Stud Finals: Mr. Anderson vs. D’Angelo Dinero

Pope takes forever getting out there because he got beaten up. Ok then. The referee starts counting and you know he’ll be there in time so this is kind of pointless. Yep there he is. Anderson beats on him on the ramp. Even money says they’ll brawl on the floor too. Hey they’re fighting on the floor! They haven’t actually been in the ring yet. AJ and Flair are watching in the back.

This has been ALL Anderson, making the ending a tad obvious. Pope of course is ok after that much of a beating. Most of the match is Anderson beating on Pope and there’s your comeback. The DDE gets two and Anderson is in control again. Pope uses an STO which is Kennedy’s finisher in reverse.

Kennedy cuts a promo mid match and stops to hit the Mic Check for two and a pop from the fans. That’s….a bit too much from Pope. Anderson misses a Swanton and Pope hits the double knees to the back. He REALLY needs a new finisher.

Rating: B. They kept it simple here and it worked. This was fun. That’s the best way to put it I think as it wasn’t particularly great or even very good but it was fun. That’s all you can ask for here I guess. Either way it worked fine though so all in all this was a good main event.

Overall Rating: B. This was a good show. It put me in mind of Survival of the Fittest that I did from ROH: nothing great but nothing resembling a bad match at all. This was solid and it worked rather well I thought. The whole show was based around the tournament and that’s all well and good. My main problem was how all of the tournament matches other than the final were so short.

They averaged about 8 minutes which just isn’t long enough for that many matches. That’s my only major criticism with the show. Other than that though, I liked this show and while it’s no classic or anything, it’s good. That’s how I would describe it: good. Check it out if you have some time to kill.

Impact
Date: February 3, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Expect the Unexpected

THEY arrive tonight.  After so much speculation, we finally find out who THEY are.  Also we see Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle for the world title.  It’s good to finally have a champion since RVD was attacked.  This should be….oh wait hang on I put in the wrong review.  Be right back.

Ah here we are.

THEY arrive tonight.  After so much speculation, we finally find out who THEY are.  Also we see Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy for the world title.  Yes, TNA is more or less running the same story three months later which isn’t as bad as it sounds, but it doesn’t bode well.  Allegedly THEY were the returning Main Event Mafia but that doesn’t seem to be the case now, due to the departures of Booker T and Kevin Nash.  Anyway, let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Steiner coming back last week and what probably was the Mafia angle, despite what Bischoff wants you to believe apparently.  We get a ton of quick interviews ala ReAction saying nothing of note.

In the arena we open up properly with Bischoff and Immortal in the ring.  The fans chant we want Flair.  I hear he’s too busy to be here but he’ll show up for an advance in pay.  Bischoff calls out Steiner who he isn’t happy with.  First things first: Hogan isn’t here tonight.  Yes, the guy they’ve hyped for weeks on this show, the biggest draw in the company (allegedly), STILL isn’t here.  He was last seen on a TNA show on Thanksgiving.

According to Eric, there is no THEY.  Bischoff tells Steiner that he told Nash to leave and take the money.  Sting isn’t coming back and no one cares about Booker.  Yeah nonsenseon it never being the Mafia until right now.  Eric offers Steiner a spot on the team and says his options are join or get beaten up.  Steiner takes option 3: he beats up Bischoff instead.

Scott says Bischoff is making the same mistake everyone does and assumes he knows Steiner when he doesn’t.  He says call him sir or he’ll snap Bischoff’s neck.  This brings out Crimson and Angle.  All three are in suits mind you.  Angle says THEY are indeed here and it’s real.  Bischoff looks a bit nervous as we take a break.

Back with Jeff Hardy being worried about tonight but Bischoff says it’s ok.  He wants Flair though and Angle/Crimson/Steiner pop up to say THEY’RE HERE!

Ink Inc vs. Gunner/Murphy

Big brawl to start us off with the security guys in control.  We get down to business with Neal vs. Murphy.  Off to Gunner quickly though as the security guys are moving quickly.  Ink Inc has had nothing yet.  Off to a chinlock by Gunner.  Moore finally gets the tag and fights them both off for a bit.  Heel miscommunication sets up the Mooregasm to Murphy to end it.

Rating: C-. This was really short at just barely over three minutes.  That being said they still managed to keep things fast paced.  I think they were trying to play up the idea of Immortal being shaken up, but I’m not sure this was an actual upset like the announcers would like you to believe.

Angle, Steiner and Crimson are in the back.  Crimson says THEY haven’t touched base yet.  He also calls Angle boss which means he’s the leader I guess.  Kurt gets a phone call and is told we’re still on.  They leave to go over the plan.

Christy Hemme is in Dallas apparently where she says that the judge issued a continuance until March 3, which is when we’ll hear the ruling.  Great way to earn that paycheck and trip to Dallas Christy!  Also nice job of hyping Hogan for a month and then not delivering him.

In the same shot Eric Young pops up and says Angle is a cyborg and he knows who THEY are.  This is another one of those insane bits that makes no difference at all for the most part.  Apparently he thinks they’re off air.

We get a video of the Jarretts’ house including the kids.  This is about what you would expect.

Anderson wants to talk to Hardy before the match, out in the ring.

Back with Bubba Ray (I will not refer to him as Bully Ray unless I have to) in the ring with Pope who is apparently his partner.  Ray talks about how he beat up D-Von last week and was the real star of the team.  The fans want D-Von.  Pope says that it’s Joe vs. Pope at the PPV.

This is one of the three storylines going on in TNA at the moment and it’s probably the best one.  The reason for that: it’s basic.  This isn’t something that is supposed to be huge.  It’s been built up over a few weeks and months and they haven’t gotten in the ring yet.  That’s how you build a feud.  I’d like to see them fight actually.

D’Angelo Dinero/Bully Ray vs. Samoa Joe/Brother D-Von

I didn’t hear a bell so I’m assuming this was an official match.  The respective feuds break off with the Dudleys in the ring and the other two in the aisle.  Pope tries to run but Okada stops him in the aisle.  Who is Okada you ask?  Well he’s the guy that Joe had filming Pope.  Well ok, that’s fine and good.  However, this is a great example of TNA asking the fans to do too much.

Okada has never appeared on Impact until he popped up in this.  He’s been on Xplosion, but since that show is referenced maybe once every six months on Impact, unless you pay really close attention to TNA or know him from his Japan days, this guy is a totally random addition that you’ve never seen before but apparently you’re supposed to be familiar with.

It confuses the viewer because the viewer is guided by the announcers.  The announcers treat Okada like someone they’re completely familiar with rather than someone that has never been seen on Impact before.  This makes fans think they’ve forgotten someone or even confuses them because they try to figure out why they don’t know who he is.

What that does is distract them from what’s going on in the story.  This is another shining example of a very easily solved problem that TNA just lets happen.  Here’s how you fix it.  Tenay: “Ladies and gentlemen that man’s name is Okada.  He’s been a member of TNA’s roster for a few months now and has been appearing on our syndicated program Xplosion.”

Bam ten seconds and you accomplish two things.  You establish this guy isn’t a stranger to TNA and does have a connection to the company.  You also let people know there is more TNA wrestling out there if they’re interested.  See?  Instead, we got this.  Tenay: “It’s Okada.”

Ok, who’s Okada?  Why should I care that he’s here?  Should I be surprised?  Is this a twist?  Is this expected?  Does he have a history with Pope?  With Joe?  Is he a wrestler?  A businessman?  A mercenary?  All we know about him is that his name is Okada and he’s done some work for Joe and he dresses like Kato from Green Hornet.  It’s confusing and it doesn’t have to be.  That’s not good and it happens way too much in TNA.

Back in the ring, Ray has a chain but gets dropped with a clothesline.  If there was a bell I missed it completely.  There’s a referee in there so I’m assuming this is a match.  D-Von hammers away and we hit the floor.  They’re having a street fight at the PPV.  D-Von drills him with a chair and Ray is in trouble.  Tenay says it was a scheduled match but security is pulling D-Von off Bubba so I guess it was thrown out.  Bubba spits on D-Von’s kids as D-Von is being held back.

Mickie vs. Sarita in a taped fist match later.

Jay Lethal vs. Jeremy Buck vs. Douglas Williams

This is another of those X-Division qualifying things.  Max Buck, the one that has already qualified, is at the announce table.  Great to see guys like Williams and Lethal staying in the upper midcard like they got pushes to isn’t it?  Buck gets on both other guys and manages to get out of the way before they massacre him, resulting in Lethal nailing Williams.

Jeremy sends Williams to the floor and lands a sweet Asai Moonsault.  He gets taken out by a suicide dive by Lethal though as they’re moving out there.  Jeremy gets a DDT on Lethal but at the same time Williams gets a Russian Leg Sweep on Jeremy.  With everyone in trouble, Max determines that Jeremy’s shoe is untied so he heads to the ring.  Tower of Doom has Buck in trouble.

Williams gets a small package for two.  Next week it’s Robbie E vs. Suicide vs. Kendrick for the last spot in the #1 contenders match.  Buck is on the floor for a long while Lethal and Williams do the work.  Williams hits Rolling Chaos but gets kicked low by Jeremy who steals the pin on Lethal to advance.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t impressed here at all.  The spots were nice so points for that but this went by really quickly.  Somehow this was four and a half minutes long which blows my mind.  Either way this wasn’t much as this flew by.  These matches are getting more spottish every week, which isn’t a good thing at all.

Bischoff is talking to Flair’s attorney and doesn’t know where Flair is.  Beer Money says it’s ok.  Fourtune leaves but AJ says not to worry about anything.  AJ says WE are in the driver’s seat.

Sarita says she doesn’t have a strategy for her match with Mickie because she doesn’t need one.  Her cousin Rosita is here next week.

We get some quick promos from Anderson and Hardy about their match tonight.  This is some of Jeff’s best talking in a long time as you can understand him perfectly well.

Anderson calls out Hardy and here he comes.  Hardy looks exactly like he did “last week in Germany” as the promos were from.  There is literally water/sweat dripping from Jeff’s hair.  You can see it and it looks like a leaky faucet.  Anderson asks how many jerks  there are here and gets a nice reaction.  He asks the same about the Creatures of the Night.  Not so good of a reaction, which translates to me that there aren’t many Taker fans tonight.

Anderson makes fun of the title belt but says that he’s worked for 11 years to win what it represents.  Both guys don’t respect authority and he talks about the gum chewing thing again.  Anderson can’t seem to decide if this is a serious promo or a comedy one.  Ken wants a fair match tonight.  Hardy talks about how he doesn’t need Immortal to win here so the fans of course keep talking and ranting about things that don’t need to be chanted about.

Mickie is taping up her fist.

Back to the Jarretts and in this case it’s about their kids and family life.  Apparently they’re going to have a talent show.

Mickie James vs. Sarita

This is the taped fist match which means you can tape your fists.  Shouldn’t this be Velvet instead of Mickie though?  Apparently Mickie’s title shot is in a Last Knockout Standing match.  Seated dropkick puts down Sarita and Mickie adds in some splits.  You have to win by knockout apparently.  We head to the floor and Mickie might have punches the post.  Sarita works on the hand, because that’s clearly the easiest way to knock someone out right?

Hand goes into the steps and it’s all Sarita.  This is rather boring indeed.  Sarita keeps dancing and locks in an armbar, in a match where you have to win by knockout.  Are they even trying here?  In the cheapest of cheap endings, Mickie dodges some shots and gets a single left hand in to end it.  So let me get this straight.  A single shot with one of those fists can end it?  THEN WHY DID WE NEED TO SPEND SIX MINUTES GETTING HERE???  Whatever just end this.

Rating: F. Can someone, anyone, tell me what the freaking point to the tape was?  It’s a classic example of a gimmick match not being needed and being there for the sake of a gimmick.  This was boring as heck and I absolutely hate the lazy booking of one person is beaten down the whole time and then a single shot ends it.  Bad booking and I hate it.

Madison blasts Mickie with the cast and stands over her all evil and such.

Bischoff tells Hardy that he’s a bit worried while Jeff says he’s ready.  Hardy says no one from Immortal can be out there.

The Jarretts are going to renew their wedding vows.  This of course is absolutely sickening.  Oh and it’ll be on Impact of course.

TNA World Title: Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy

Hey look it’s the match that they should have built up for weeks but instead hot shotted it on a PPV for shock value!  Hardy jumps Anderson during his intro and the fight is on as we’re still on the ramp.  Since this is a title match that is scheduled, a bunch of referees pull them apart and we get swearing.  Anderson had some kind of arm hold on Hardy that apparently worked a bit.

The match hasn’t started yet either.  We take a break before we start which is a bit stupid but not bad.  Here’s the bell.  Let me clarify that: I have no problem with a break before the bell which is probably the best idea.  I don’t get the point in having a big brawl instead of just starting the match.  Anderson controls to start and gets some elbow drops for two.

Hardy fights back and takes over.  This is the complete opposite of epic as we knew that Anderson would win the first time but it still felt big.  We talk about THEY because the world title match isn’t interesting enough I guess.  Off to a choke/chinlock by Jeff.  Hardy gets a leg drop as this is needing to pick up a lot.  Now Hardy wants to work on the leg for no apparent reason.

Anderson’s balls go into the post and Hardy works on the head.  Wow that sounded very bad indeed.  Back to the chinlock now.  Whisper in the Wind takes Anderson down but of course here comes Anderson.  They slug it out from their knees and are now back up with some nice sequences still of punches.  Anderson gets a spinning neckbreaker for two.

Mic Check can’t hit but Anderson gets a double spin kick (not joking) much like the one Red hits on Lethal in the package from the New York house show that they air every week.  That was kind of awesome.  Front suplex by Hardy gets two.  Dueling chants here.  Great job of getting Hardy over as a heel there Hogan/Bischoff.  Twist of Hate is reversed and down goes the referee of course.

Here’s the Twist of Hate and here comes Immortal.  Terry kills Anderson with a clothesline and the beatdown is imminent.  AJ hands Anderson to Hardy and throws up the Fourtune sign.  And then Fourtune beats up Immortal and it’s a Styles Clash for Hardy.  The fans are liking this a lot as Anderson gets the pin on Hardy to retain.

Rating: D+. This just did not ever get off the ground.  We knew that something was coming and while the ending is good, there’s no big pop here.  THIS should have been Hardy dropping the title to Anderson rather than at the PPV, but since that would be logical booking and TNA doesn’t want that at all, this was what we got and it was just ok.  It’s pretty clear this was supposed to be epic and that the company thinks this is their big feud, it’s never clicked for me.  Match wasn’t terrible to be sure, but it was nothing great at all.

After a break, AJ says look what we have here.  Fourtune isn’t taking a back seat to anyone and this is on Eric’s head.  Fourtune is THEY of course.  Eric comes out to call AJ an ungrateful son of a gun.  Fourtne was nothing without Hogan and Bischoff and all that jazz.  Angle, Crimson and Steiner are in there now too but this is AJ vs. Bischoff.

AJ yells about how Eric and Hogan changed everything and how they messed up a ton of stuff.  The fans of course decide that they need to speak up and let us know they want six sides.  Hogan is back on March 3^rd.  Really.  We mean it this time.  Hogan WILL be here this time unlike tonight when we promised he would be here.  He hasn’t been seen since Thanksgiving and is somehow the #2 or #3 heel in the company.  The big staredown ends the show.

Overall Rating: D-. There’s a lot to get to here so let’s get started.  First the good: Fourtune.  This is exactly what TNA needs at this point: TNA originals (kind of) vs. the outsiders.  That’s the perfect story given how they’ve set all this up.  I’m very happy with that.  Now for the bad.

Number one: This should have happened FOUR MONTHS AGO!  Fourtune has been the popular faction in TNA for MONTHS.  There was never any need at all for them to join up with Immortal and again, IT MADE NO SENSE!  Flair wanted to tick off Dixie and did that and then his boys were far more powerful than Immortal but kept the alliance anyway to be lackies.  THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

So now it’s Fourtune/Angle/Steiner/Crimson/Anderson/probably Morgan vs. Gunner/Murphy/Hardys/Jarrett.  That doesn’t exactly sound riveting as you have the titles and the power with Fourtune who are supposed to be the underdogs as the, you know, good guys.  Here’s where you see the criticisms of Bischoff and Russo shining through.

This is, once again, the NWO vs. WCW and the Millionaires Club vs. New Blood.  It’s a faction war with the heels being led by the corrupt leader and the good guys being all about keeping things like they were before.  Like I said, this is the right choice but it’s not like this is something we’re going to be riveted by as we’ve seen it before.  That’s not good but it’s what Russo and Bischoff do: they have one idea and that’s all you see out of them.

One last good thing I forgot to mention: AJ.  This is what TNA needed to have months ago (notice that I’m kind of harping on that).  AJ Styles is the golden boy in TNA and represents everything that the company is about.  FINALLY he’s standing up to fight off these guys that have wanted to change everything about the company and while it’s not exactly interesting, AJ belongs as a face in this company and that’s all there is to it.

Other than this, the show is worthless.  There isn’t a good match to be seen, the whole thing is thrown together around the basic premise of THEY coming back.  The BFG show did such an incredible job of building up the tension and atmosphere before the reveal that even I, one of TNA’s harshest critics on here, was dying to know who THEY were.  This time though, there was nothing.  It happened and that was it.

The show was just bad overall with only AJ and the reveal being the good parts.  I’m curious as to where this will go but only to an extent.  Hogan coming back on March 3^rd does nothing for me.  He can’t wrestle, he can barely walk, but he’s supposed to be a big deal?  Just get to the destruction of Immortal and let it go.  Bad show this week but there was a somewhat redeeming quality to it.oganglaksj

Results

Ink Inc b. Gunner/Murphy – Mooregasm to Murphy

Samoa Joe/D-Von vs. Bully Ray/D’Angelo Dinero went to a no contest

Jeremy Buck b. Jay Lethal and Douglas Williams – Buck pinned Lethal after Rolling Chaos Theory

Mickie James b. Sarita by knockout

Mr. Anderson b. Jeff Hardy – Pin after a Styles Clash from AJ Styles

Monday Nitro
Date: July 6, 1998
Location: Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 41,412
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Mike Tenay

So I found a website where I can download every episode of Nitro. This is very helpful since there are some individual episodes I want to review but can’t do because it would take months if not years to get up to them going from the beginning like I’ve been doing. This show is important for multiple reasons. There are 12 matches here on a 3 hour TV card. For one thing, this is one of the very last wins for Nitro. Other than the Warrior weeks of all things and the night after Halloween Havoc 98, Nitro never won again, which was due to more idiocy and cost them millions of dollars but that’s another story.

The reason this show is something I’ve wanted to do is because it has the loudest pop and one of the coolest moments ever. Tonight is the night the Goldberg faces Hulk Hogan for the world title. Now there is a backstory here. Since this is WCW’s home area, a lot of the big shots from Turner were going to be there. Hogan thought to himself that if I’m in the main event and we draw a record crowd (they did) then the executives will think I caused it. The idea was to announce a POST show NON title match between Hogan and Goldberg. Somehow this got changed to a TELEVISED TITLE match. This was announced a mere FOUR DAYS before the show. Now let’s take a look at why this is very stupid.

Number one: It’s HOGAN vs. GOLDBERG. That’s the main event of Starrcade, not a Nitro in July. This was 1998. It’s not like the company was completely dead here or Hogan didn’t mean anything. This was still Hulk Hogan and he was still a huge draw. Goldberg was undefeated here and had broken 100 wins and was US Champion so he was a huge deal. This is a PPV main event at minimum and the biggest match of the year more than likely. That probably cost them millions and millions of dollars.

Number two: This was announced 4 days before the match happened. With the internet being a very limited factor, if you didn’t see Thunder, there’s a very good chance you didn’t know this match was happening at all. On Rise and Fall of WCW, they tried to make it sound like all the tickets were sold the day the match was announced. In other words, WCW would like you to believe that NO ONE bought a ticket to Nitro until they knew about this match.

Number three: This shows how obsessed Bischoff had become with beating Vince, even for one night. The ratings streak had come to an end and Nitro had lost like 5 or 6 weeks in a row. Bischoff decided that it was worth giving away all that money for a surefire win. The problem was that only diehard fans and the people working for the companies would know this and it wouldn’t bring in much money at all. This became a trend for Bischoff as he became obsessed with a quick solution to WCW’s problems when there simply wasn’t one anywhere.

Number four: This is the last one I promise. This threw off all creative plans for WCW. Keep in mind that Hogan was world champion at this point and all of a sudden Goldberg was going to be. Any plans they had for Hogan, which included matches with Nash and Hart likely coming by the end of the year including Hart at Starrcade, were now being thrown away in favor of Goldberg being world champion. Since there were very few upper midcard/main event heels other than Hogan, this made limited sense. In other words it was perfect for WCW.

Now with that all being said, let’s get to the 11 preliminary matches to get to the reason I’m reviewing this.

We open with a video from Thunder of James Jay Dillon making the announcement of the match, four days prior to this. I actually got a chill when he said Goldberg was the challenger. Make no mistake about it: WCW could do drama when they had to.

The place is PACKED as this is where NFL games are played, making this a major PPV size crowd. Wrestlemania 27 will be held there. If I remember right at the time this was the 4th biggest American crowd ever. This is a three hour show and oddly enough the commentators change each hour. The listed ones are the openers.

The Nitro Girls dance us into the show. They were like cheerleaders and would almost all become TV characters eventually. Larry as always does a salute to the crowd.

Hogan actually starts us off with Disciple (Brutus Beefcake), Bischoff and Liz with him. We need to take a moment and honor the herd of cows that died to make all the leather they’re wearing. May you moo in peace. Dang now I want a burger. This is the go home show for Bash at the Beach, where the main event was Hogan and Dennis Rodman (basketball player) vs. DDP/Karl Malone (Hall of Fame basketball player who was inducted earlier tonight actually).

He talks about all the fans and the PPV on Sunday while saying exactly what you would expect him to say. Hogan says the name of his opponent tonight and says the match isn’t happening. It should be noted that Hogan says jabroni here, which may predate Rock saying it, but I’m not sure. Hogan says he has an NWO guy coming in that Hogan has to beat first. Cue the chant, which is deafening and might be legit given that it’s his hometown.

Ad for the Hogan shirt, which really was cool looking.

We talk to a guy that won a NASCAR racecar last year and they’re giving away another one. We’re only 15 minutes into the show now with no matches but whatever.

TV Title: Dean Malenko vs. Booker T

Expect a lot of matches that have no point and are really just there for the sake of filling up the show. Booker is TV Champion at this point but no word if that is a title match yet. Booker is WAY over here, but wouldn’t get pushed for like two years. Apparently it’s on the line. Ok then. Bret Hart, the HUGE signing from WWF a mere 7 months ago, has a shot at the winner on Sunday. That sums up their second set of problems.

The mat is dark gray which is weird to see and makes it seem like a really weird atmosphere. Both guys do standard stuff and then crank it up as Booker misses a Missile Dropkick, which was his finisher. Cloverleaf is blocked and a bunch of kicks put Dean down. We hit the floor and Jericho pops up with a mic. His distraction is enough to let Booker hit the Axe Kick to Dean for the pin to retain.

Rating: B-. For a quick TV match this was pretty good. Did you expect anything less from these two though? Dean and Jericho would feud for awhile over the Cruiserweight Title that Jericho had and while the matches were good, nothing ever came of it of course since WCW couldn’t push guys that were young and talented right? This was solid enough for an opener and I would love to see more of these guys.

Goldberg can do pushups.

Karl Malone is ready for the PPV.

Kanyon vs. Raven

Kanyon has just recently lost the Mortis mask and is feuding with the Flock now for the sake of feuding with the Flock I guess. Ah ok Kanyon/Mortis wanted to be in the Flock and Raven said no. It’s on in the aisle and Kanyon takes over. We’re on the floor again already. Dang they’re moving out there tonight. Kanyon gets a reverse F5 onto a chair which was kind of cool.

Lodi, who was pure awesomness back in the day, crotches Kanyon on the top rope. After a SICK suplex onto the open chair, Saturn runs in, which is somehow a DQ after all the stuff with the chair. He and Kanyon are teaming on Thursday and he accidentally hits a Death Valley Driver on him here. Saturn does a huge dive onto a table onto Raven which doesn’t move AT ALL. Kanyon takes down Saturn afterwards.

Rating: C+. I liked this but then again Kanyon’s offense back then was great stuff. This was really just to further the angle on Thursday. You have to keep in mind that a lot of stuff was going on with Nitro and WCW back in the day as they had the same amount of TV that WWE has currently but it was one show. That meant a lot more was going on at the time and you had to pay more attention to everything. This was opposed to WWF where there was Raw and Sunday Night Heat. Smackdown didn’t come into existence for over a year after this. Match was good but just furthering an angle and rather short.

Buff Bagwell is here. He had his neck legit broken in a match with Rick Steiner and is in a wheelchair. We get Judy Bagwell, the first OCW Champion as well.

The Nitro Girls dance to what would become Stacy’s theme song.

We see last week where Malone and Page drove to the arena in a semi-truck. The NWO was waiting with a bunch of weapons for them and amazingly enough a semi-truck coming straight for them is enough to scare them off. Malone slams Hogan and has the longest arms I’ve ever seen.

Malone and DDP come out. Given that he was a celebrity that never wrestled before, Malone actually did quite well in the ring at the PPV. It helps a lot having a guy that is a full time athlete out there because you don’t have to worry about conditioning or anything like that which gets a lot out of the way. Page was just awesome at this point and had been for like a year. Malone putting his arm around Okerlund is funny for some reason. He can’t really talk but he’s trying.

Ad for the DDP shirt, which I remember very well.

Mongo talks about joining the Horsemen, which he was awful at but he tried at least. Mike Ditka makes a cameo. He wants them to reform the Horsemen. We’ll get to that.

We’re 42 minutes into this without even counting the commercials of which there have been at least 3 and we’ve had two matches.

Scott Putski vs. Scotty Riggs

Oh just make it short. When Riggs is by far the better worker, you know you’re in trouble. Yep they’re just talking about the potential Hogan vs. Goldberg match. I can’t say I blame them here though. We actually talk about the match a bit as Riggs is dominant. Larry talks about Ivan Putski, Scott’s dad, who was pretty awful.

Both guys hit cross bodies at the same time to get us back to even. Putski plays to the crowd to no reaction and then hits his dad’s move, the Polish Hammer. It’s a double axe handle to the chest but instead of covering, he tries to get the crowd to care and picks Riggs up. Crossface Chickenwing (Riggs’ finisher) is blocked into a sitout spinebuster for the pin by Putski. Sweet merciful pig meat this was bad.

Rating: F. Why did these guys get five minutes? The match was horrible and no one cared. Riggs is somehow the far better and more successful of these guys. Putski was somehow worse than his dad, which means he’s in the running for worst wrestler of all time.

Goldberg headbutts a locker which was one of his signature things.

We look at his first win which was over Hugh Morrus, which was a legit shocker.

Scott Hall is the surprise opponent for Goldberg.

Chris Jericho vs. Ultimo Dragon

Not sure if this is for the title or not since they won’t tell us that. I’d bet on a Dean run in here but I’m not sure. Jericho says Rey is the #1 contender for some reason and here’s Dillon. He’s commissioner more or less if that wasn’t clear. Dean comes out and Dillon is taller than both of them. There’s no contact between them and if there is, no match. Jericho tries to bait him and eventually gets him by implying his parents cheated on each other.

And now we actually get the match. They actually did go with Rey vs. Jericho at the PPV which is odd. You can’t say it was bait and switch though so they’re clean on that. That corner handstand that Dragon did was always cool looking. Dean runs in about two minutes in and jumps Jericho, pulling out some of his hair.

Rating: N/A. I’m not sure if we ever got the showdown between these two which sucks as it could have been awesome.

Dean gets taken away in handcuffs.

The Nitro Girls dance and Heenan joins commentary with I think both other guys leaving so it’s him and Tony.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Johnny Swinger

Swinger was in ECW later on and was at Hardcore Justice recently. Tenay is still on commentary so Bobby replaced Larry so far. Swinger cuts a really bad heel promo to start. Chavo has short tights and a hard hat. He’s crazy at this point and wants to cut Eddie’s hair. He’s going to wrestle in the hat. Ok then.

We get the announced attendance: 39,919. Now here’s the odd thing. That’s 1,300 people LOWER than it really was. Yeah for some reason they cut down the potential over 40,000 people attendance number. WCW continues to astound. The hat comes off and the fans are pretty bored. Tornado DDT ends it in like 90 seconds though so at least it didn’t last long. Chavo cuts some of Swinger’s hair afterwards. Hair vs. hair is announced for the PPV with him vs. Eddie.

We see Goldberg’s 25th win in a row, which was over Glacier.

Goldberg keeps warming up.

Disco Inferno/Alex Wright vs. Public Enemy

I didn’t know Public Enemy was around this long. Wow they were there for the entirety of 97? I never knew that. Tokyo Magnum, a Japanese dancer, follows Wright out and dances too. Brawl to start with the Public Enemy dominating. The more famous team is wearing Braves jerseys for cheap pops as they’re on a streat that would get them almost to the World Series if I remember right.

Tony talks about Thunder in Wyoming of all things. The heels dominate here as we’re told that Magnum is a fan of the Dancing Fools (later named the Boogie Knights). Grunge comes in and beats up Disco as we have two tables set up on the floor. Disco and Wright run off and Magnum goes through the pair of tables. Here they are again with weapons to beat down the Public Enemy for a DQ I guess.

Rating: D. Just a match to set up the whole big table spot at the end which was indeed cool looking. Public Enemy never went anywhere in WCW once the NWO showed up although they did win the tag titles almost two years before this. Not a good match or anything and not really even a match, but it did the job it was supposed to do so mild points for that.

Gene brings out Bagwell in his hometown. He comes out to the NWO music and has his mother pushing him in the wheelchair. There’s something hilarious about that. He’s a total face here which implies to me he’ll be turning soon. Bagwell talks about how he and Scott Steiner need to go their own ways and that he loves his mom.

Goldberg beats up some guy named Rick Fuller and is 50-0. His match with Hall is next.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Scott Hall

The bald one has to win to get the REAL bald one for the title. I’m not sure if the chants are piped in here or not. Ok apparently this is a US Title match. They really need to work on making it clear what matches are for titles. Hall hits those shoulders that he’s kind of known for. Naturally they don’t work as it’s all Goldberg. To say this match is sloppy is an understatement.

It never ceases to amaze me how they managed to screw up Goldberg. Hall is clearly not someone that needs to be in the ring at this point as he was really messed up with substance abuse etc. It’s also his first televised match in two months which likely isn’t helping him. Then again I find him incredibly overrated. Goldberg beats him up and Hall calls down NWO guys.

Cue Disciple and Vincent but DDP and Malone pop them with chairs and it’s back to one on one. Hall calls for the Razor’s Edge and is LAUNCHED onto his back. Spear sets up the Jackhammer and the roof is partially gone since it’s on for later tonight. Again, HOW DID THEY MESS HIM UP?

Rating: D+. Bad match but that’s not the point here. This was about setting up Goldberg as the unstoppable force for later tonight which was kind of overkill but it fit Hogan pretty well I guess. This was relative dominance and it worked rather well. Hall just wasn’t worth a thing at this point though and it didn’t look pretty.

The Nitro Girls dance again. You might be getting the idea here. One is Whisper, who would marry one Shawn Michaels.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Psicosis

Juvi has no mask at this point since those things bringing in money was just not going to be tolerated. This is a bring down the crowd match after the whole insanity just a few minutes ago. With time this could be awesome but if it goes past four minutes I’d be stunned. AWESOME back splash off the top onto the floor on Juvi which looked painful. There are some moves that are going to hurt no matter what you do, this one included. Like 40 seconds later the Juvi Driver and 450 ends it. The Flock comes in and destroys him for no apparent reason.

Rating: C-. Just didn’t get enough time to really do anything. These two could be completely awesome but they didn’t get the chance to. I don’t get the Flock thing but I’d assume a one off match that never meant anything past like the following week. The back splash spot was cool though.

Goldberg’s 75th win was over Raven for the US Title.

We hear about a PPL show, as in Pay Per Listen. You can’t see it, but you can listen to the commentary for like $10. That’s not a horrible idea actually.

Video about the celebrity tag match on Sunday. There is way too much happening on this show. This is proof that three hours is WAY too long for one show.

The Giant vs. Jim Duggan

See what I mean about the three hour deal? This is the kind of stuff you get when it’s this long. Giant does a hip swivel in the corner but misses. Chokeslam ends it in like 90 seconds. Again, no point to this other than to fill in time. Giant says the football player he’s fighting on Sunday is pathetic. Oh ok it was supposed to be a tag match but they’re changing it to a singles match because of Goldberg. Not said here of course but you get the idea. Greene, the football player that no one cared about, comes out and spits at Giant.

Malone says he’ll get Rodman on Sunday.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jim Neidhart

See what I watch for you guys? Page is in jeans as usual and brings out Malone with him. Two more minutes, one more Diamond Cutter, match over.

Goldberg’s 100th win is over Konnan in a nothing match at Great American Bash.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Sick Boy/Kidman

Flock vs. Wolfpack here which shouldn’t be much of anything. Yeah 7 months after the biggest match ever in WCW, Sting is smiling and laughing and in the NWO which he swore he would destroy. Don’t you love WCW? Nash, the leader, says nothing at all. Neither does Konnan. Apparently no one knew the opponents as Kidman and Sick Boy are surprising for some reason. Less than a minute, Luger with the Rack. In the Dining Room. And Colonel Mustard with the Revolver.

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Hulk Hogan

Immediately you can see why the match with Hall was a bad idea as the pop is solid but nowhere near what it should be. The fans have already seen him once tonight so the excitement is limited. Hogan gets booed out of the building. Naturally we’re 6-7 months removed from Starrcade and Hogan has the belt again. He’s held it since late April so for about two and a half months. Sting’s reign was like two months or so. After the match tonight, Hogan would have it AGAIN in less than 6 months, which we’ll get to later.

The bell gets a pop. This is one of the hottest crowds I can ever remember as the people are salivating over everything. In a funny line, Tenay says WCW is the third biggest wrestling company on the planet. This stuns me, until he says “after the two NWO factions.” So in other words, 6 months after Starrcade, not only does Hogan have the belt again but there are TWO NWOs instead of the original one being gone. And you wonder why they went out of business.

Just basic power stuff here to start as they’re feeling each other out a lot to start. Hogan takes over with some punches and whips Goldberg with his weight belt. Goldberg gets a full nelson but takes a low blow. There’s a great energy here which is making this awesome. Hogan takes a clothesline and the place POPS. The match itself is pretty bad but much like Hogan/Andre, that’s not the point.

We hit the floor and Hogan gets a chair shot in but there’s no DQ called. There’s the chant and the legdrop is treated like any other move. Hogan hits two of them and here’s Curt Hennig. THREE legdrops gets a two count as Malone pops up to hit a Diamond Cutter on Hennig. Goldberg more or less no sells the leg drops and spears the heck out of Hogan. Heenan is LOSING it here. Jackhammer hits and the place goes NUTS. Goldberg is the world champion, and the image of him standing on the stage holding up both his titles is very cool.

Rating: A+. Like I said in the Hogan vs. Andre at Mania 3 review, this wasn’t about the match in the ring and if you think it was you’re an idiot and don’t get wrestling. Goldberg looked awesome here and Hogan put him over 100% clean. That was the key thing here: Goldberg didn’t have to have some screwy way to win the title. He hit his two big moves and pinned Hogan after kicking out of the legdrop. This is how you put someone over and amazingly enough, Hogan never got this one back, even though this was the plan. Hogan had made a deal that he got to beat Goldberg when the time was right, which is more nonsense but at least they would get this one night. The payback would evolve into the Fingerpoke of Doom, which we’ll get too soon enough.

Overall Rating: C+. The main event aside, this just wasn’t interesting at all. Three hours was just too much for the TV shows as you get stuff like Duggan vs. Giant which does nothing at all and the minute long squashes just to fill time with the entrances and such. Once they went to three hours they dug their own graves because the first hour was never good enough to get people to stick around so they put their good stuff in the first hour and then the other two hours sucked and people watched Raw. WCW was dead and didn’t know it yet though, especially given the stupidity that they would bring out later on. Good show, but only because of the amazing moment at the end.

Again though, as great of a moment as it was, there is very little gained for it since there was nothing to follow it up with since they blew everything here. Goldberg’s win got them one big victory in the ratings, but it didn’t make much money when it could have made millions. That’s simply bad business and being shortsighted, which is never a good thing.
Also the handling of Goldberg was just awful because do you remember his first title match? It was the following Sunday against Hennig and went less than 4 minutes. He wouldn’t have a serious challenge until DDP in October and then would lose the belt to Nash in the idiocy that was Starrcade 98. This was a great moment, but that’s all it was. It’s a single moment that meant nothing after it because WCW is freaking stupid. This had FOUR DAYS of buildup. See why it made no money and could have made a much higher rating if done right? Great moment, but I don’t see how WCW is responsible for much of it, which is their eventual downfall.

Smackdown
Date: February 4, 2011
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, New York
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Booker T

It’s the first show since we officially started the Road to Wrestlemania with Alberto Del Rio vs. Edge being the tentative match for the title at the biggest PPV of the year.  Edge/Kelly vs. Ziggler/Laycool for the title tonight which certainly sounds intriguing.  Also expect the beginning of the set up to Elimination Chamber.  Let’s get to it.

Do you know your enemy?  Where I live it’s SNOW.

There’s a fiesta tonight apparently and there’s a Wrestlemania piñata.  Yes let’s take something we love and are looking forward to and beat it with a stick.

Here’s Booker T and he’s apparently the new member of Smackdown’s announce team.  Cool, and based on what he looked like at the Rumble hopefully he’s an occasional wrestler.  We get a Spinarooni to really get the crowd going.  Booker got a good reaction.  It’s like he hadn’t been around since 2007.

Vickie interrupts Booker’s entrance and says that we’ll get qualifying matches tonight for the Smackdown Elimination Chamber which will be for the title.  Ziggler is with Vickie.  She orders Kelly to come out here right now which prompts a bunch of screeching.  Ah there she is.  Booker’s voice is much better than it was when he did some commentary with TNA.  It’s clear and deep instead of hard to understand.

Vickie yells at Kelly, saying that without her interference Dolph would be the world champion.  She’d rather humiliate Kelly instead of firing her.  Kelly is going to cost Edge the world title tonight.  Kelly says Vickie is trying to destroy her character.  Kelly has a character?  Oh she means her personality.  Kelly has a personality?  Ah ok she’s saying Vickie is a bad person.  Makes more sense.

Dolph blames Kelly for the world title loss because she allowed Edge to hit the illegal spear.  We see a clip of it, which makes me wonder why Vickie doesn’t just reverse it since she’s GM and there’s proof Edge broke the rules.  Dolph: “Now Vickie can’t reverse the referee’s decision.”  Wait why not?  She can do ANYTHING but she can’t reverse it?  She can’t make the referee reverse it?  She can’t show the referee the tape and have him do it for her?  I love the ever changing rules in wrestling.

Anyway Ziggler yells at Kelly, blaming her for him not being champion.  The only reason she’s here is because she may be the reason Dolph wins the world title tonight.  Until then she can get out.  Kelly slaps Dolph and shoves Kelly.  Cue Laycool until Edge comes out for the save.

Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov vs. Justin Gabriel/Heath Slater

Non-title here.  We get a clip from Raw of Orton attacking the New Nexus and putting out Harris.  I missed him RKOing Harris so I thought Harris was down from the Cobra for like three minutes.  That punt looked good too.  I might be missing something but it sounds like Corre’s music is different here.  Kozlov vs. Gabriel to start.  Booker is having some issues getting in on the commentary here but I can definitely give him a break on the first night.

Off to Slater vs. Santino.  Booker says Cole talks a lot of nonsense so he’s definitely a nice guy commentator.  He talks about how there has to be a leader on all teams, but Josh has to lead him into it.  Slater gets a nice reverse DDT to Kozlov and the 450 ends this perfectly clean at 3:03.

Rating: D+. This was just long enough to rate but there wasn’t much here.  The DDT was nice but that’s about all it had going for it.  I really don’t get the idea of having your tag champions constantly lose clean.  Corre could use some titles I guess so I could live with the titles changing down the line.  Very short even at a surprising level.

Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Kofi Kingston vs. Drew McIntyre

We’re told that Edge and Ziggler are automatically in the Chamber because Edge is champion and Dolph just because.  Booker has no comment on that.  We’re of course talking about the Chamber and since Booker has experience in one, Cole cuts him off every few seconds.  Basic back and forth stuff to start us off.  Booker talked to Drew and he says he’s the Chosen One but Booker isn’t sure.

I know I’m talking about the announcers a lot but it’s one of the main aspects of the show tonight.  Kofi gets a jumping back elbow for two.  Not a lot is going on in the ring anyway so the commentary and how Booker is doing is a bit more interesting anyway.  Armbar by Kofi as they’re seeming to have issues getting off the ground here.  Could be a slow build though which is fine.

Pendulum kick in the corner breaks the little bit of momentum Drew had and a clothesline puts him on the floor.  We hit the floor with Kofi in control until Drew manages to get a modified flapjack to send Kofi into the steps as we take a break.  Back with Drew getting a back elbow for two.  Wisely Drew goes after the ribs with something close to an abdominal stretch on the mat.

Kofi gets dropped on the ribs in a gutbuster which gets two for McIntyre.  Drew gets a nice dropkick to put Kofi down for two.  Cole rants about Lawler for awhile until Drew tries a clothesline.  Kofi jumps up into the air and spins around, catching Drew with a DDT.  That was awesome looking.  Kofi hammers away in the corner and stomps a mudhole in him.

Superman punch/clothesline gets two.  Boom Drop hits and Kofi wants Trouble in Paradise.  Drew manages to avoid the kick though…and here’s Ricardo on the big screen to introduce Alberto?  He doesn’t say anything but just stares down Kofi (remember Kofi beat him in a tag match last week).  The distraction is enough for the Futureshock to end it at 9:42 shown of 13:12.

Rating: B. This picked up in the second half but wasn’t as good as some of their other matches.  Still though, this was pretty solid.  Also if it sets up Alberto vs. Kofi to fill in time until Mania I certainly can’t complain.  Either way, decent enough match and Drew going to the Chamber gives him something to do while the Kelly story develops.

Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Rey Mysterio vs. Jack Swagger

This should be pretty good.  The push-ups are back!  Apparently Cody Rhodes is going to have facial reconstruction surgery next week.  Swagger’s boots are a brighter color and they’re taking some getting used to.  Rey sends him to the floor as we take an early break.  Back with Swagger sending Rey into the corner which gets him nowhere.

Rey gets a cross body for two.  619 is avoided though so Rey tries what might have been an Asai Moonsault.  Jack blocks it though and Rey’s legs are tied up in the ropes.  Back to the ring with Swagger working on the knee.  The leg goes around the post which gets two.  Back to the floor with Swagger in complete and utter control.  After knocking over a Red Bull we’re back in the ring.

Vader Bomb gets two.  Swagger picks him up and throws him across the ring.  I love basic moves like that.  Another Vader Bomb misses though and here comes Rey.  Tornado DDT takes Swagger down for two.  Rey tries the 619 but Swagger grabs the legs for the ankle lock.  Rey is in the ropes though.  Not that it matters though as Swagger pulls him back to the middle.  Rey sends him into the corner and gets a kick into a rollup to end this at 8:37 shown of 11:07.

Rating: C+. I couldn’t get into this one for some reason.  It’s definitely good and Swagger working on the knee is a good story for the match.  My issue with it though is that Rey didn’t have to do much at all to take over and win here.  That’s not good in my eyes as it makes Swagger look weak.  I get that Rey is the superhero but can they make it look like they’re trying?

We get a clip from Raw of Alberto picking his opponent.

Edge and Kelly are in the back and Edge says he didn’t think his title reign would end like this.  Kelly says Edge has no faith in her and that Edge is just like Drew McIntyre before storming off.

Here are Horny and Rosa who looks a bit different now.  They throw some t-shirts to the fans until Ricardo introduces Alberto.  He says his usual stuff while Horny and Rosa are still in the ring.  Alberto has a present for Horny: the piñata.  The candies and toys are symbols of everything he wants to give to all his fans here in New Jersey, drawing nice heat (show is in New York).

Horny is blindfolded and swings the stick while the piñata is still in the air.  Naturally he misses and hits Alberto low.  Alberto enters a higher level of heelness as he kicks Horny in the head and hammers away.  Kofi runs down for the save.  Ricardo distracts Kofi though and Del Rio beats him up with the stick and throws on the cross armbreaker.

Stone Cold is hosting Tough Enough.  Booker throws in that he’ll be a coach on Tough Enough.  That’s kind of cool actually and something he’d be great at.

Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Chavo Guerrero vs. Kane

Uh…yeah.  I wonder if this lasts longer than their Wrestlemania match.  Well there’s that record.  Chavo goes up and is caught in the chokeslam.  He counters though by clothesline Kane over the top.  Frog Splash hits but Kane catches him in the chokeslam from the mat and it’s over at 1:02.

Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Big Show vs. Wade Barrett

Yeah Corre definitely has new music here and it’s much better.  It’s a toned down song this time that still has lyrics.  All of Corre comes out and surround the ring.  This is for the final spot in the Chamber.  Barrett has to keep moving and gets a shot to the knee to take over.  Barrett gets sent into the corner where he crushes the referee.  Jackson comes in to run over Show but only gets two.  And never mind as a DDT by Barrett ends it seconds later at 2:00.  This was incredibly quick.

Show tries to fight off Corre post match but gets slammed.  Jackson grabs a mic and says the end has come, it has awakened against you.

That sets the Chamber at Edge vs. Ziggler vs. Barrett vs. McIntyre vs. Mysterio vs. Kane.

Smackdown World Title: Kelly Kelly/Edge vs. Laycool/Dolph Ziggler

We even get big match intros for this.  Chimmel has cut down on the throat cracking during Edge’s intro.  The genders have to match here.  Vickie says if there’s a spear the title is vacated.  The guys start us off with Edge in control.  He wants the spear and Vickie shouts at him to do it.  Ziggler tags both members of Laycool so we get Michelle.  Off to Kelly to make it Kelly Kelly vs. Michelle McCool for the World Heavyweight Championship as we take a break.

Kelly is all fired up here and beats up both members of Laycool with her gymnastics.  Instead though Michelle catches a rana on the floor and spins Kelly into the barricade.  That gets two back in the ring.  Dolph: “Stay down Barbie!”  Layla in now as Kelly is in trouble.  Belly to belly by Michelle gets two.  Kelly backflips out of a suplex and slaps the heck out of McCool to put both girls down.

Is there a reason why the initials on Dolph’s tights are backwards?  Layla gets a head scissors choke on Kelly for a bit.  Kelly fights back and it’s an X-Factor to break the momentum.  The referee misses the tag to Edge allows Layla to beat on Kelly a bit more.  Edge goes after Ziggler anyway but Michelle misses a big kick to Layla.  Edge is ready for the tag but instead Kelly spears Layla to retain the world title at 6:50 shown of 10:20.

Rating: C. Decent main event here with a nice ending.  Vickie said Edge couldn’t use a spear, not Kelly.  It’s kind of cheap but it worked just fine for the ending to a TV main event.  I’d have liked more Edge though as he was in there maybe a minute.  I guess that was the point though as it made the title seem to be in jeopardy.  This was just ok though as it was really Kelly vs. Laycool for the most part.  Still though, creative way to have Edge be in trouble.

Post match Kelly gets fired.  So Vickie can fire people but can’t coerce a referee to change a decision?  She yells at Kelly about how she never cared about Vickie and how this is her show and all that jazz.  After Kelly is gone, Vickie makes Edge vs. Dolph for next week with her as guest referee.  Perhaps a title change for a quick title reign before the PPV?  Zig Zag to Edge out of nowhere ends the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Not a bad show but a bit different than what they’ve done recently.  Either way this was a pretty good show.  They set up the Chamber perfectly and also gave us more of Ziggler vs. Edge.  They’re doing a decent job of channeling Vince vs. Austin with Austin being put through torture.  The one key thing though: they’re not trying to recreate it but rather use a similar story.  That’s very important.  It’s not Austin vs. Vince.  It’s Edge vs. Vickie.  Let it be that and it’ll be a good story.  Anyway, not bad at all this week.

Results

Drew McIntyre b. Kofi Kingston – Futureshock

Rey Mysterio b. Jack Swagger – Rollup

Kane b. Chavo Guerrero – Chokeslam

Wade Barrett b. Big Show – DDT

Edge/Kelly Kelly b. Laycool/Dolph Ziggler – Kelly speared Layla

Victory Road 2004
Date: November 7, 2004
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 700
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Well you knew I would start doing these eventually so here’s the first one. TNA is officially the number two company in the world, but back in the day they were more or less fighting for their lives every night. This was a major step for them though as all of a sudden they were mainstream with a show on FOX Sports South and now PPV.

The main two matches here are Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy (pre-main event appeal) in a ladder match and the X-Division Title match with AJ Styles taking on Petey Williams. Oh and Hall and Nash are debuting here. This sound familiar to anyone? Let’s get to it.

The intro is kind of a western theme about how we make our own destinies. It’s pretty basic really but it sets the stage I guess. We do however begin the idea of having every announcement be overblown and made to see huge when they just aren’t. It’s not bad but it’s fine I guess.

X-Division Gauntlet

The winner gets a cup. Ok then. This is called a reverse battle royal which in reality is a Royal Rumble and then the final two have a singles match. Kaz is number one and Sonjay Dutt is number two. It’s out of 20 mind you. In other words it’s the main event of the first weekly PPV. The time is sixty seconds here. Michael Shane and Kaz hold the X-Division Title at this point mind you.

Puma, a Japanese wrestler is 3rd. This is pure spotfest stuff here but that’s really all it needs to be for the most part. La Parka is number four. Oh he’s LA Park now. Good to know. I wonder if his brother is named Central and lives on the east coast. He has the chair and does that stupid dance of his. Jerelle Clark, a guy that did nothing at all ever, is number 5.

He’s Mr. 630 because he could do a 630 flip. Yeah I’m not impressed either. Miyamoto is number 6. He’s on Team Japan which is an actual team of Japanese wrestlers. There was a thing called the World X Cup which was way too complicated and not a lot of people cared about it but whatever. They keep the clock on the screen here which is nice. Michael Shane, the co-X-Division champion is number 7.

More importantly than anything else in his career, he’s Shawn Michaels’ cousin, hence the name. Puma is the first guy out. Clark is too. Miyamoto is out We have the champions, LA Parka and Dutt. Number 8 is Hector Garza, who is the captain of Team Mexico. The clock is messed up now of course. Nosawa, another Japanese guy, is 9th. This is taking way too long and there aren’t enough stars in there. You can’t use this crowd to grade it though as they’ll cheer for everything.

Mikey Batts is 10th. See what I’m having to deal with here? There’s just nothing interesting happening at all here. Alex Shelley, a more or less unknown heel at this point, is 11th. He puts Dutt out to clean out a bit of the clutter in there. There goes Parka also. Matt Sydal is number 12. He’s more commonly known as Evan Bourne which is what he’ll be called here.

Shelley goes through the ropes so he’s still in and has a back injury. Sonny Siaki who I think signed with WWE for awhile is 13th. What do you expect: he’s a musclehead. Nosawa is gone. Jason Cross is number 14. Oh great it’s Shark Boy. That’s just who I wanted to see in here. Shelley pulls out Bourne and Psycosis is 16th. D-Ray 3000, perhaps the most worthless wrestler ever, is 17th.

They’re just killing time out here and it’s not interesting in the slightest. Both he and Shark Boy are put out by Siaki. Eighteenth is Amazing Red. Shelley finally goes out. Kendrick, called Spanky here, is 19th. Chris Sabin is 20th as this just needs to end. Seriously, THIS is opening the show. It’s 1/6 of the entire show and everyone is ok with that. Siaki is out. Spanky puts out Shane. I hate that name.

In the most contrived spot I’ve ever seen, we get a seven man Tower of Doom. Give me a break. Jason Cross is gone, no word yet on if anyone not related to him cares. Red gets a nice superkick and puts out Psychosis. And Red is out next. Spanky is out and we’re down to Sabin, Garza and Kaz who started it. Sabin goes out so it’s Garza vs. Kaz for the cup. This is SO much more entertaining than say, the X Champions fighting EACH OTHER?

Garza hits a sweet moonsault that gets a long two. Garza takes a DDT and gets up at four which is called two for some reason. He then misses his big corkscrew move and rolls up Kaz to get the win. I hated this match. Naturally his interview is all in Spanish and there’s no translation. That’s perfect right? Oh there is one. I just don’t care.

Rating: D. The spots were cool, but this was WAY too long. Seriously, we just spent half an hour on a match for a cup. Does anyone else see why this was freaking stupid or is it just me? TNA doesn’t get it, so things are all normal I guess. Garza would be deported in like a month.

Ron Killings/Erik Watts/Johnny B. Badd/Pat Kenney vs. Dallas/Kid Kash/Naturals

Oh look MORE people in the same match. Could this get any worse? Why would you sign Mero at this point? Seriously, why? Dallas is now known as Vance Archer and Killings is R-Truth in case you didn’t know. This is just what you would expect it to be: bad wrestling but overhyped to heck and back by West and Tenay. Badd is said to be a legend.

Even in his own mind I don’t think he’s that dumb. To the shock of no one, this turns into a big brawl. They do the random people jump into the ring and get knocked out again spots as this has no flow to it at all. Badd hits a hurricanrana to set up something resembling a Pedigree from Truth for the pin. Badd was gone in a few months as was Watts. Kenney (Simon Diamond for you ECW guys) was seen once in awhile I think.

Rating: D+. There was just no point to this at all. It was all over the place and had no flow to it. This makes 28 wrestlers in two matches. Do you think that’s enough? It’s complete overkill at this point and is just insane.

Some actor from Dodgeball says that Nash isn’t in a limo with him.

Mascarita Sagrada vs, Piratita Morgan

And we have a midget match. Morgan is a pirate. We hear the history of midget wrestling from Tenay who tries to make this interesting and fails. This is incredibly short and Sagrada wins with a small package. This is exactly what you would have expected it to be.

Rating: N/A. It was no more interesting or boring than any other match not having Max Mini in it.

Hall says Nash isn’t here. Shock and surprise, he’ll be here later. Can no one get to a show on time?

Tag Titles: 3 Live Kru vs. Team Canada

Team Canada here is Bobby (Robert) Roode and Eric Young while 3LK is Konnan and Road Dogg. They use the Freebird rule to fight and will use it if they win the belts here, along with Ron Killings. Anyway, this is the finale of a long feud between them which of course didn’t end here. We start with Roadie and Roode. For the life of me I do not get the hype on this guy. He’s ok and that’s it.

People to this day think he could be a main event guy. Why? Tell me one thing that he could do that would validate him as a main event guy. And I don’t mean a line like just watch him or how can’t you see it. Pretend I’m stupid and tell me what it is that this guy has that makes him a big star. Konnan is in now with Young and these two just amuse me to no end.

We have a guy that no one cares about that tries desperately to play up the gimmick of being from another country which makes him interesting when he’s just bland otherwise and no one cares about him, and then we have Eric Young. We hit the formula portion of our event with the heels working over Roadie to build up Konnan for the hot tag.

Does anyone else see this sucking harder than a Diva wanting to get a job? I miss Scott D’Amore. The guy was a fat waste of oxygen but he was a decent talker and heel manager. Nothing great here but it’s kind of like the first Mania where the tag titles changed: it allows you to have a title change so the show is memorable and has some impact to steal a pun from myself.

Konnan finally gets the tag after a heel miscommunication (remember folks: TNA is breaking NEW ground!) spot and cleans house. It of course turns into a brawl with Roadie being fine after getting taken out for about 4 minutes. D’Amore tries to use the hockey stick but Killings comes in for the save and a BAD looking X-Factor gives the Kru the titles.

Rating: C. It was average, plain and simple. This match could have been on any TV or house show or PPV and it would have been fine. At seven minutes long they didn’t have much time to get anything substantial going but still, this wasn’t much but it was fine for what it was I suppose.

And now we have Piper’s Pit with Jimmy Snuka. This has seriously been done to death and for the life of me I don’t get it. We understand: Snuka got hit with a coconut twenty years ago at this point. WE GET IT! Piper apparently wants to make amends by letting Snuka, who looks BAD hit him with a coconut.

This goes on for a few minutes until Kid Kash comes out. Naturally there’s a brawl, including the Naturals in a nice pun that was unintentional, and everyone leaves as the fat man takes his jacket off. I have no clue why this happened.

Trinity vs. ???

She issued an open challenge, Jacqueline accepts it, the guys she manages interfere, Trinity wins with a moonsault to prove she can wrestle and doesn’t just have a job because she looks decent and that’s it.

Rating: N/A. Can you tell I didn’t care? I hope I was subtle with it.

Abyss vs. Monty Brown vs. Raven

This is the original Monster’s Ball match, which originally was far different. The idea here is that the guys have been locked up without light or food for 24 hours. This aspect has since completely disappeared due to reasons of sanity and now it’s just a regular hardcore match. The announcers say that Raven has the advantage here as he’s smaller and crazier which makes sense, at least in the lack of food and light idea.

We have a table set up inside of 30 seconds. Abyss is dominating here for the most part. It’s really more of an intense triple threat rather than a hardcore match and now we have chairs coming in. Raven really is underrated in the ring. I love what Brown does by just chucking a chair at Raven’s head. That’s awesome. Naturally we have a ref bump because they’re required I suppose.

Now we move to the big spots of the match as we have Brown sitting on the top rope and Abyss busts out the tacks. Since he’s the only one wearing a shirt you know that he’s the guy that’s going to wind up going through them. Yep, Raven comes in to powerbomb him while he’s trying to suplex Brown. That wasn’t predictable at all. Not a bit. Raven gets two off of it and then we set up another stupid spot as the table is set up in the corner and Raven gets Pounced (a spear/tackle) through it. It was a mess of course.

Rating: D+. These things are going to happen and while I can’t stand them, I get that there’s a point to them. There is a market for these I guess and at least they’re keeping it shorter. There’s really no way to make these good without going too far, but this was really lackluster even for one of these.

AJ wants to be champion again.

X-Division Title: Petey Williams vs. AJ Styles

AJ was a huge star almost at this point but he was still the king of the midcard as he would be for a long time to come, as in like 5 years. These two just go freaking nuts like an old school cruiserweight match. AJ hits a perfect backflip off the apron to the floor and then a senton over the top rope to the floor. Petey takes over with a jawbreaker and we get down to a bit more of a standard match to set up AJ’s big comeback.

For a crowd the all loves AJ that’s a heck of a dueling chant they have going. Ok that was cool. Petey puts AJ in the Tree of Woe and stands on his crotch. He does it again and AJ does more or less a really bit sit up and grabs AJ to pull him back in a German suplex which he follows with a Pele. I LOVE that springboard forearm. It just looks awesome.

Both guys counter each other’s finisher and then AJ just chucks Petey into the corner. That’s one way to do it I guess. AJ has the pin but the fat Canadian coach interrupts it. AJ kicks out of a belt shot so at least the match should be ok for the ending as that would have killed it for me. After more interference, we get the awesome finish as Petey hits the Canadian Destroyer, which is just completely awesome. It’s a jumping flip piledriver. In other words he’s got him in a regular piledriver but jumps forward and does a full flip before hitting it. That’s just amazing on a lot of levels.

Rating: B. This was very fun but AJ should have gone over here. I mean it’s your biggest show and your top face for the most part goes over to a generic guy with a cool finisher. That just doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s TNA so why am I surprised? Fun match though.

Dang there haven’t been many interviews tonight.

We recap this way too long of a feud with nothing of note to talk about. They hate each other, end of recap.

XXX vs. America’s Most Wanted

So this feud more or less went on for about two years. That’s not overkill at all though is it? XXX is Daniels, Skipper and Low-Ki, but here’s it’s minus the third guy. This is elimination, last man standing rules although they use the Texas Deathmatch formula of pin then the count starts here instead. It’s also tag rules which makes even less sense but whatever.

Storm and Skipper begin the match after a huge brawl that I guess actually began the match which makes even less sense. Ok we’re two minutes in and we’re at about our fifth double team move including a Hart Attack and a Death Sentence. Why do the names of moves have to be so freaking violent??? We get a pinfall on Daniels but he’s up at about 8.

To be fair this makes it seem like XXX lost inside of 5 minutes but also it could be said that he let himself get pinned so that he could have the 9 second breather, which at least makes sense. They brawl a good bit but for the most part they’re staying in the ring and keeping this as a normal tag match. There’s a chair being used a fair amount which strikes me as odd.

Speaking of striking a shot to Storm’s knee puts him down for thirteen to make it 2-1. After some miscommunication that sends Skipper to the floor, a guillotine legdrop makes it Skipper vs. Harris. Skipper is messed up bad and he looks like he’s got one heck of a concussion. To my surprise the other two are gone. They need to end this, like now. Skipper looks like Brock did at Mania 19 if that tells you anything.

So what does TNA do when the guy can’t even set up his one big move? They have him take a Catatonic, a big spinning slam onto a chair. You couldn’t improvise a leg injury and have him just not be able to stand? To prove how out of it he is, he tries to get up at 10 but the referee more or less shoves him back down to end this. Thank you. At least the referee had some intelligence and decency about him.

Rating: D+. The injury just completely destroyed the ending here and it hurt the match a lot. The point here though is the complete lack of care for Skipper though as he was clearly injured badly but the match kept going anyway. I get that this is supposed to be a brutal match and so forth, but this was just ridiculous on a lot of levels. It’s ok to change something if a guy is clearly injured. Either way, the match wasn’t that good with no violence or brutality to warrant such a gimmick.

Dusty Rhodes has been elected Director of Authority or something. He makes a speech, I need a drink.

Finally it’s main event time. Hardy beat Monty and Raven on Impact to get this. It’s a ladder match here. Jarrett beat him up a few times. This somehow takes five minutes to say.

NWA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Jeff Jarrett

It took 9 minutes to get from package to bell. Oh and remember Hall and Nash are both here and allegedly they’re both in Jarrett’s corner. Now in case you don’t know, Jeff Hardy has had ladder matches before. I need to make sure you know this, because the announcers only tell us about 49 times so because they don’t go with the full 50, make sure you know: Jeff Hardy has been in ladder matches before.

West is surprised that Hardy is using the ladder as a weapon. Has he never watched WWF television? Why do the announcers have to keep repeating themselves? There’s really no attempt at getting the ladder and it’s just moves to hurt each other. There’s no flow to this at all and it’s just spot after spot. I know the others have that also, but there’s a clear flow to it and you can easily see the differences between the two.

Hall comes out and hits a Razor’s Edge on Hardy which does nothing at all. The fans for the most part look bored as they have all night. That’s the problem here: all of these spots have not only been done but they’ve been done better by more interesting characters. There’s just no reason to care at all here and it’s painfully showing. And now we have a big ladder. Where have I seen this before?

They set it up on the floor and climb it which is completely pointless as it’s about even with what a regular ladder in the ring would be at. Oh look, Hardy is in control and Nash, with his own entrance music, is coming down. Nothing but good can come of this right? Oh you know it’s coming. They beat up Hardy and Jarrett keeps the title. They call themselves the Kings of Wrestling as they try to do the NWO thing all over again.

AJ comes out to fight them and gets beaten down then Three Live Crew (because I like literacy) comes out and fight to something resembling a stalemate before Macho Man debuts and we go off the air. Yep, the six man was your main event next month and then Savage was gone. What a mess this was.

Rating: D. This was awful. It felt like they said we’re going to have a ladder match then looked around and asked if anyone knew how to do that. It wasn’t interesting at all and it wasn’t any good. None of the spots made you want to see more and nowhere in here did I think Hardy would win. The Outsiders as usual meant nothing. They had one big moment 14 years ago and they’ve ridden it ever since. This felt like an imitation of something better but they knew it was bad.

Overall Rating: D-. I get that this was the first PPV and I’m grading it as such. This was just a failure on almost all levels. Seriously, the two top faces both lose their title matches in favor of Petey Williams, Jeff Jarrett, the Outsiders and a weak NWO parody. 1/6 of the show was one boring match, and the rest was more or less filler.

There wasn’t one moment here where I wanted to see what would happen next. This felt more like a final show than a first show, and that’s just not good, MAYBE hardcore TNA fans will like this, but casual fans will hate it. Avoid for the most part.

Starrcade 1997
Date: December 28, 1997
Location: MCI Center, Washington, D.C.
Attendance: 17,500
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Dusty Rhodes, Mike Tenay

This is a show that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time so instead of just sitting around waiting to get there, I’m doing it because I feel like it. I’ve long since argued and I’ll forever argue that this is the show that ultimately ended WCW. At this point, WWF had nothing on WCW and everyone knew it. Austin was fast on the rise, but no one was watching.

For 18 months WCW had built up to this one show. The NWO had dominated and in particular Hogan had been virtually unbeatable. Tonight was WCW’s night. Tonight was WCW’s chance for revenge as they would win back everything and Sting would make his long awaited return to the ring and win the world title from Hogan. Let’s get to how they managed to blow the biggest lead in wrestling history and allow themselves to be mortally wounded to the point where they could never recover.

Also, this is going to be commentary heavy, so if you’re not a fan of me going on rants and putting a lot of my opinion into things, you might not want to read this one.

Just to give you a bit of backstory and context here, WCW was at its absolute peak. This show drew a 1.9 buyrate, which is completely insane for PPV of any kind. They had come up with a second show called Thunder which would debut in I think eleven days, a year and 8 months before Smackdown became a regular show. Nitro also hadn’t lost in the ratings for a little over a year at this point, so to say WCW was dominating would be an understatement.

The opening video is one of my all time favorites as we see shadows of Hogan’s dominance and then Sting watching down at him the entire time. Sting rises up but you can barely see him as he’s all covered in rain and shadows. They’re in the ruins of some building which I guess could be used as an allegory for WCW being ruined but then again I might be looking too much into this. The arena looks great and Tony’s hype is absolutely right here. He claims over 24,000 people but I can’t find an estimate over 18,000. We immediately hear about the referee being a controversy, which should make everyone realize that this isn’t going to end well.

A bunch of WCW guys are in the audience to see the show. I like that actually. It also does well to show us who isn’t good enough to get on the biggest show of the year, such as Rey, Harlem Heat and Disco Inferno. Dusty goes on a rant about horses or something but gets cut off. Oh and Kevin Nash isn’t here for the 2nd biggest match on the card. No reason was ever given other than he didn’t want to lose so he didn’t show up. He was never punished or anything and the match just isn’t going to happen.

Cruiserweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero

Dean is VERY popular here and was just totally awesome at this point having won the fan poll this year as the best wrestler in the world. That’s saying a lot. This is the first event at the arena which is brand new. This should be awesome. This feels like a huge show like it should. Crowd is WHITE hot too. Surprisingly enough Dean starts by just throwing punches and Eddie is in trouble early on. The crowd is all over Eddie and once he gets powerbombed the fans cheer so loudly you can’t hear Dusty.

I can’t get over these fans being this hot. They’re cheering for very basic stuff. That’s a very great sign as we have a standoff between the two guys. Dean dominates and sends Eddie to the outside. Tony: “Eddie being on the outside like this makes me think of the Outsiders and how Kevin Nash isn’t here tonight.” WOW. That’s the kind of commentary I have to deal with here. It was like that for about three years straight.

Mike suggests that working on Malenko’s legs would negate the Cloverleaf. Wouldn’t that be the arms actually? Tony goes back to Nash and Hogan/Sting just to make sure we don’t leave during the PPV I guess. I’ve always hated this. The fans chant USA for two American guys. I guess they like them both. Dean launches Eddie WAY into the air, prompting Dusty to stop talking about the Hogan/Sting referee for a full half second. Eddie kisses Dean’s foot to prevent being beaten so he gets a dropkick for his efforts.

Dean wins a test of strength and gets Eddie’s hands all the way to the mat and then stomps on him. Then he kicks Eddie in the face. I love that move. When all else fails, KICK THEM IN THE FREAKING FACE! Eddie gets it to the floor and works on Dean’s knee with the post and the steps. He gets a nice powerbomb as we continue to ignore the action in the ring which is a good match so far.

Both guys go for top rope moves at the same time in a weird spot but neither gets it. Dean has a sweet powerbomb. Cloverleak is blocked because of the bad knee. A missile dropkick to the knee sets up the Frog Splash onto the knee for the pin to retain. Sweet blessed psychology there but uh, yeah the crowd being white hot for Malenko should have been a hint for that. Great match though.

Rating: A-. GREAT match here as there was psychology throughout and both guys worked very hard out there. Dean was nothing short of divine in 97 and this was a great way to cap off the year, even though e didn’t get the title. These two never were able to have a bad match and this was one of their better ones ever. I loved this and would love to see more of them fighting.

Oddly enough I can’t find a review of this that’s anywhere above average. Really? I loved it.

And here’s Scott Hall. He has a tag title belt on him but the Steiners are the champions at this point I believe. Ah yes they were. Hall says that they’re taking a survey and the crowd is NWO so of course Tony says it was WCW. Hall says that Nash isn’t here tonight and that we need a referee so that Giant can be declared the winner.

Giant of course comes up behind him and (wearing a ponytail of all things) says Nash can’t run forever and he’ll get his chance eventually. That’s true as he would get his match the next month and Nash would botch a jackknife on him and mess up his neck for awhile. Hall punches him a bit and then gets his head kicked in for his trouble. Giant Jackknifes him and leaves. Yeah this wasn’t a match for some reason. No reason was ever given for it but whatever.

So the real story is that Giant was supposed to go over Nash and Nash kept saying there was no way he’d do it. On the day of the show he called up and said he was having a heart attack. Everyone laughed when they heard the news. What does that tell you about this? Naturally he was fine the next night and was never punished. Things like that are what hurt WCW later as there was no discipline at all and no one cared.

Vincent/Scott Norton/Konnan Vs. Steiner Brothers/Ray Traylor

There’s no Konnan for some reason. The Steiners are the tag champions and managed by DiBiase. Traylor was the first guy the NWO had jumped so he later joined them. They threw him out and he had been trying to get revenge since. Scott would join the NWO in like two months anyway so this didn’t mean much. The replacement is Randy Savage, making the ending of this pretty obvious.

His entrance takes forever as he gets in an argument with the WCW guys who are taking up front row seats all over the ringside area. Randy vs. Scott Steiner start us off which would be a dream match three years later. And hey we stall some more. Savage lays on the rope as we’ve had a tie up over the course of the first two minutes here. Oh look it’s Vincent on the biggest show of the year.

Norton hits a Samoan Drop on the other Scott as Steiner is getting dominated here. The faces send them running and the NWO is in trouble. Rick vs. Norton gives us something interesting as the power of Norton is pretty awesome. And now we have Vincent vs. Big Boss Man on the biggest show of 1997. Why am I watching this again? Scott comes in and I get to see the spinning belly to belly that I use on No Mercy and Wrestlemania 2000. The crowd is virtually dead here by the way.

We hear about how great Vincent is as I shake my head at how much they push these jobbers at times. There is no heat for this match at all, meaning of course they give it even more time than they should have. Rick comes in off the should be hot tag to clean some trailer. Vincent takes their top rope DDT to end….nothing. Oh I don’t like where this is going.

Frankensteiner continues his slaughtering but Savage makes the save. Scott destroys the NWO as his singles push continues. Norton grabs him and hits an electric chair so Savage can hit the elbow to an ERUPTION to give the NWO the lead so far. So yeah the tag champions jobbed to Vincent and Scott Norton. That’s ok though as it was a six man so him getting pinned clean means nothing right?

Rating: D. Oh this was boring. Vincent and Scott Norton got the majority of the heel ring time and it was all downhill from there. This was an awful match and nothing ever came from it at all. The Steiners jobbing is DUMB as it’s not like the heels gain anything from winning. So in other words we’re over fifty minutes into this show and the high point for the faces is a chokeslam on a replacement in a non-match.

James J. Dillon, the commissioner or whatever comes out and announces Nick Patrick as the referee. And there ends WCW’s run on top, but we’ll get to that later on. Gene says String returns tonight as we’re in arts and crafts class now I suppose.

Bill Goldberg vs. Steve McMichael

Goldberg is a heel here and means nothing at all. He has the music and the finishers but other than that he’s got nothing. Anyone he beats at this point is pretty much a surprise here, but in less than seven months a lot would change as he would beat Hogan for the title. This feud is over a Super Bowl Ring I think. They go at it in the aisle and the fans love it. Ok just stretch with me on this one.

In a slightly funny moment Goldberg just lifts him up and carries him to the ring. Hey we have a bell! There’s a table set up at ringside. Sweet goodness Mongo was terrible. We hear the football careers and Dusty of course insists Mongo is better and that the SEC isn’t real football. Oh that’s amusing. Goldberg gets a leg lock and sweet goodness Mongo is awful at selling at this point.

Some fans seem to get into a fight at ringside which is the more interesting thing here. Spear hits but means nothing at this point. Goldberg sets a table at ringside which goes nowhere so far. The more famous of these two busts out a decent dropkick and Mongo is in trouble again. He goes through the table in something completely boring and uneventful.

There’s that ECW chant again. Tombstone doesn’t work because of his back hurting and the Jackhammer ends it. Hey we’re only an hour in so far without a face winning. That doesn’t mean anything as the main events are all that matter right? It’s still amazing to think what Goldberg would become in just a few months.

Rating: D. Another boring match here as Mongo was just AWFUL. He never did get any good and rightfully became the jobber that he should have been. His career was about over at this point and no one cared. He was put into the college football hall of fame recently so to get as far as he did is saying something I guess, although I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Raven is here for his match vs. Benoit.

Chris Benoit vs. Raven

Raven has been ducking Benoit forever and this is where they finally have their showdown. Raven says he’s not wrestling tonight so Saturn is taking his place. That’s false advertisement number two.

Perry Saturn vs. Chris Benoit

And the Radicalz explode AGAIN! Saturn is just a tough guy here and more or less completely insane. I love that simple vest Benoit wore. That was always awesome. Benoit gets a mic and…..yeah he should go with the silent but violent thing. This is under Raven’s Rules so more or less anything goes here. Saturn has some hair here and to say it looks weird is an understatement.

The Flock comes over the railing and that goes nowhere at all. Even Sick Boy (how awesome of a name is that) is here. Kidman throws in a Shooting Star to put Benoit in trouble. Saturn mostly hits a nice moonsault and it’s all the less famous one. The genius fans chant USA. Maybe they just like Saturn better? The fans look up at something else which has to be a record for the most times in such a little span of time.

Dang Raven looks like garbage. I think that’s just how he always looks. We hit the floor and Benoit gets a Crossface out of nowhere but the Flock jumps him. It’s Raven’s Rules though so this is all fine and dandy. HUGE diving headbutt hits and the Flock runs in again. Raven comes in but more interference causes Benoit to take a DDT. Rings of Saturn and it’s over. Benoit vs. Raven would be at Souled Out and would be a solid brawl.

Rating: C-. Kind of slow but the violence helped it a lot here. This was more to set up Benoit vs. Raven….which should have happened here at the BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR but whatever. This was something that happened more than once I thought so of course we just do it again at the equivalent of Mania. This was a decent enough match though.

Buff Bagwell vs. Lex Luger

This is more or less a grudge match and remember that Luger was WORLD CHAMPION four months ago. Bagwell has beaten him three times in a row apparently. So you remember that white hot crowd that you could have fried an egg on to start the show? It’s long gone and has been placed by this….whatever. Tony reminds us that Luger was world champion earlier this year.

Bagwell’s facial hair looks like it’s painted on. Bret Hart gets his SECOND reference of the night so far as he’s the former WWF Champion (Montreal was maybe 6 weeks before this) and he’s a referee tonight. Yeah….no room on the card for him when we have VINCENT BABY! We begin making Montreal allusions which should be a telling sign.

Luger beats him up for awhile and puts him on the floor. Bagwell gets Vincent to come back down as we get our second appearance by this guy which is about two too many. He gets rammed into the post and doesn’t come within a foot of it. Wow that looked awful. We talk about Sting vs. Hogan for the 983rd time so far just to mix things up a bit. More interference causes Bagwell to take over again.

By the way we are now an hour and a half into this show and no face has won all night and the NWO is undefeated so far. We hit the chinlock just to waste some time. When I say some time that apparently means about three straight minutes. Make that five minutes. My goodness I know these guys aren’t the best in the world but this is ridiculous.

Luger makes his standard comeback and calls for the Rack. Instead of course he hits an atomic drop. Vincent comes in again but Luger beats the heck out of him. Bagwell rams Luger into the referee and say it with me: there’s no referee for the Rack. Savage runs in and gets racked too. Now Norton runs out and hits Luger with a chain and Bagwell gets the pin.

There’s an hour to go in this tape and the NWO is undefeated and the faces haven’t won a single match. There would be a rematch the next night where Luger would freaking massacre him. That of course couldn’t happen here though. Finally, THIS is the longest match of the show at just under 17 minutes. Liz comes down to check on Savage.

Rating: F+. Buff Bagwell vs. Lex Luger went 17 minutes. Add in the idiotic booking and too much Vincent and of course this is awful on a stick. Just a boring match too with a 5 minute chinlock. This was supposed to be Buff’s big match to make him a big deal, but taking three guys and getting crushed the next night kind of makes that pointless so whatever.

US Title: Curt Hennig vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Hennig turned NWO at Fall Brawl after slamming Flair’s head in a cage door. Everyone has wanted to kill him since. He had been DDP’s mystery partner at a PPV and had kind of turned on him there too. Page stole the belt last night but had to give it back off camera, making that entirely pointless too. Page is ridiculously popular here and possibly the second biggest face in the company. He’s also a lot better in the ring now too after a ton of practice and a great series with Savage earlier in the year.

Page gets a rollup like 4 seconds in for two. Page dominates early as Hennig runs. We’re told DDP has never held a major title, meaning the TV Title means nothing and must be a minor title. I’ve always wanted one of those. Page likes headlocks a lot. Dusty suggests starting the Sting World Order. Oh my head hurts. Dusty: “I haven’t seen any titles change hands on the outside. Except where falls count anywhere.”

The fans chant USA, likely because their boredom has brought them to that point. We hit a chinlock and the fans decide this is boring. I can’t say I disagree here at all either. Page hits a plancha after a lot of punches. We’re going into the crowd which actually cares a bit here after nearly 2 hours. Diamond Cutter is blocked and the fans are cheering for it like Orton gets cheered for the RKO.

We do a bunch of near falls for no apparent reason which gets us nowhere. And out of nowhere the Diamond Cutter ends this. With 45 minutes left in the show, WCW wins its first match and the faces win their first match. The fans pop loudly for it, but the ending came a bit flat.

Rating: D+. Not great but again this could have been SO much better. For one thing, the match should have been Flair and not DDP. There were a lot of dead spots here and those are what really bring this one down. DDP would hold the title for about four months so at least he got a solid reign out of it. I still can’t get over how long it’s taken to get a win for the fans here.

Bret Hart is here. There’s no pyro, no special entrance, no special announcement, no anything like that. He just showed up and is the referee for the next match. I can’t imagine a lot of people will ever get what they were thinking with Bret.

Eric Bischoff vs. Larry Zbyszko

If Eric wins, the NWO gets Nitro and if Larry wins he gets Hall at Souled Out. Eric booked himself into the second main event at the biggest show of the year. There was an NWO Nitro on Monday where the show just went down the drain as it took about 20 minutes to set up the NWO stage. The ratings switched incredibly fast and it was great.

Larry gets a nice pop and comes out to the Nitro theme. This match was reaired for free on the debut Thunder so I’ve done it before but in a different context. Ok so the show has been horrible so far other than the opener but we have 40 minutes left and the two matches that mean anything to go. For the final rating I’m going to put next to zero stock in the first match as the final match is probably about 99% of this show’s importance and value.

Bret even checks them both for hidden objects. Fans are ENTIRELY behind Larry here. Larry looks in decent shape and had just turned 44 earlier in the month. They even call this mixed martial arts. Oh give me a break. Bischoff, a karate guy, keeps trying to land kicks and Larry keeps trying to grab him so at least they’re playing to their own strengths.

I can’t believe Bret Hart is refereeing this 6 weeks after being WWF Champion. Eric gets a kick and down goes Larry for a second or so. Larry just goes off on him and takes him down so Bret pulls him off. Bret breaks up another one as we enter Bill Alfonso in 95 territory. Bret is following the rules to perfection but the fact that he’s doing so is making people think something is up. It’s amazing how basic stuff like that can be. It made Fonzie the most hated man in ECW history. What does that tell you?

Tony declares Bret NWO and uses the word tweener. Eric gets a kick in and Larry is in trouble. Bischoff just unloads on Larry with everything he’s got and Larry covers up. It’s Rope-A-Dope time as Eric is just spent and Larry just stands up. As my dear old Aunt Petunia used to say, IT’S CLOBBERIN TIME! He hooks Eric up in the Tree of Woe, and then things just completely fall apart.

Bret pulls Larry back and is LOOKING AT ERIC in the corner. Hall loads up Eric’s boot with a piece of metal. Bischoff throws a kick at Larry and the metal flies out in mid kick. The kick hits Larry barely on the arm and Bret looks at the metal object as it flies out of the shoe. Larry of course sells like he’s been shot and just lays there while Bischoff celebrates. Eric turns to Bret to celebrate and gets popped in the jaw for his troubles, securing Bret as being WCW and getting the fans to cheer for the first time in a good while.

Hall gets beaten up and down by taking a Sharpshooter. Seriously, WHY IS BRET NOT WRESTLING HERE? You couldn’t throw him out there in a squash match at least? Larry chokes out Bischoff with a belt or something and Bret raises his hand as the winner, I guess by DQ for the foot thing? Tony and Tenay talk about how they can have Nitro because WCW wins this match. Yeah that’s why they spent over two hours talking about how important this match was.

Rating: F. The best move of this was a terrible vertical suplex. Larry did what he could, but there’s a reason why Bischoff shouldn’t have been in this: HE ISN’T A WRESTLER. This is fine for something like Nitro, but think about this for a minute. This is Starrcade and it’s the next to last match. At Mania 17 this would have been Taker vs. HHH. At the 89 Bash this was a War Games match. And this is a guy that’s been retired about 4 years vs. an announcer. Like I said, Larry tried but there was too much to overcome here. Just a freaking joke.

And here we are. To put it mildly, this show has been horrible so far. Nothing has made sense and the fans are rightfully ticked off about things. There has been one good match and one match with logical booking (US Title). However, literally none of that matters at this point as this upcoming match is at least 95% of the value of this show. Think Mania 6 and the main event. Nothing else on the card mattered and nothing else here does either. This show is about Sting vs. Hogan and nothing more.

Given that this is the biggest match in WCW history, some backstory might help a bit. Granted WCW doesn’t think you need it but since the entire planet was watching this show in their eyes I guess that makes sense. Back in the fall of 1996, the NWO was running rampant. Sting was on a tour of Japan and therefore wasn’t at Nitro that night. Luger fought I think Hall to the parking lot where “Sting”, a guy in a Sting costume, popped out and beat him up.

That following Sunday was Fall Brawl and WCW vs. NWO in War Games. None of his teammates believed it wasn’t him, despite him being about 4 inches shorter than the real Sting. This was more or less a running joke in WCW as there were all kinds of people impersonating Sting including Hogan and Nash and only the announcers would buy into it as the fans could tell by, you know, LOOKING AT HIM.

Anyway, the Fake Sting came in and then the real Sting came in and beat up the NWO on his own. He looked at his best friend, Lex Luger, and asked if that was good enough and walked away. He then cut a promo the next night with his back to the camera, saying he wasn’t sure what he was doing anymore and that he would be popping up every now and then.

The next week the crow Sting debuted and he would begin hiding in the rafters. He would beat up random people as WCW would swear up and down that he was in the NWO. He also started carrying the ball bat and he would hand it to random guys and turn away from them. It was some kind of test for trust or something like that. Anyway, we hit Uncensored 97 and there’s no answer as to which side he’s on.

After the NWO wins the main event, Sting repels from the ceiling and beats the tar out of them, which of course makes the WCW announcers sure that he’s WCW now. Over the next 9 months or so he stalked Hogan while Dillon kept trying to get him signed to a contract, which you would assume he was already under but whatever. He turned down matches with Hennig and X-Pac before being given an ultimatum of pick an opponent or leave.

He gets in the ring and the fans chant for Hogan. Sting points at the crowd and of course Dillon doesn’t get it. The following Thursday at Clash of the Champions, the lights go out and Sting is in the rafters with a crow. The voice of a child comes over the PA system and says stuff about how the battle is just beginning and Sting is the light in the darkness. This somehow gets Dillon’s attention and he makes the match.

Keep in mind that this whole time Hogan has been running scared, screaming at the sight of Sting and never landing a single shot on him. On the last Nitro before this they got to him and beat him up but it didn’t really do anything. So the point of this is that Hogan, surrounded by goons including guys the caliber of Hall and Nash has been scared to death of Sting for about 9 months minimum.

One more thing and then I promise we’ll get to this mess. This was supposed to be about revenge. Other than a 6 day reign by Luger in August which I guess was a marketing ploy to get more buys for Road Wild, Hogan has held the title non-stop since August of 96. The NWO and especially Hogan has dominated the whole time and it hasn’t been close at all. Tonight is about revenge. It’s time for WCW to rise up and take back what is theirs. This is the night where WCW gets their big win over the NWO and makes them realize their days are numbered. In short, this is supposed to be the beginning of the end for the NWO with Sting leading the WCW charge. This should have been screwupable. Let’s see how they managed to screw it up.

WCW World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Sting

This is the one match we’ve never gotten: the biggest WCW star vs. the biggest WWF star. Here’s how this SHOULD have gone:

Hogan won’t come out. He locks himself in his dressing room or whatever and just won’t fight. WCW guys kick the door in and literally drag him kicking and screaming to the ring. He tries to run and the Giant and Luger carry him back to the ring and they stand guard of him until Sting gets there. The bell rings, Hogan MIGHT get a punch or two in and Sting just beats the heck out of him for about 3 minutes, Stinger Splash, Scorpion Death Lock, new champion, we’re out in 5 minutes. THAT’S IT.

Seriously, after 9 months of running and hiding, Hogan should have been scared to death of Sting right? He was scared with no help and he should be scared with help. Add in the fact that Hogan has been a cowardly heel for about 99% of his run and this should have been a walk in the park for WCW. And that’s how you know it’s going to be screwed up: it’s WCW.

Hogan’s music hits, Michael Buffer does the intro, and the whole thing is instantly ruined. After 9 months of running and hiding and screaming at the sight of Sting, Hogan is strutting down the aisle. He’s singing the words to his theme song and playing the belt like a guitar. He might as well be fighting the Brooklyn Brawler tonight on a house show in front of 900 people in East Orange, New Jersey.

And now, the entrance of Sting. He’s come through the crowd, he’s repelled from the rafters, and he had a helicopter drop him from the sky. What more could he do this time? Buffer simply says “Ladies and Gentlemen, the challenger.” The same speech from the Clash plays….and Hogan is walking around the ring with his arms in the air so as to make sure the attention never leaves him for one second.

Yeah this is already damaged but there’s still the match itself right? Thunder and lightning hit, the music is loud, the crowd is on fire, and Sting walks through the entrance like anyone else would. They do the effect where Hogan is kind of superimposed over Sting. This would be a much more effective shot if Hogan was scared or something like he was supposed to be but he’s saying bring it on. Sure why not.

We get the staredown which is indeed cool. AND IT’S ON! Hogan immediately shoves him and throws the bandana in his face. I immediately don’t like where this is going as he’s showing more life than he did vs. Andre. The fans pop like cherries for a slap from Sting. Hogan stalls to make sure the crowd remembers who put them in their seats is. This is already bad and we’re 40 seconds in.

Hogan shoves him back into the corner but Sting hits a punch. The place ERUPTS. Remember that Sting is known for his jumping all over the place and speed and power etc. So far he’s slapped and punched. Hogan punches him and Sting goes flying. ALL Hogan here as Sting looks pathetic. Hogan dedicates a punch to his son and isn’t even sweating yet. Crowd has been mostly killed by this point, about three minutes in.

Sting hits an ok dropkick and Hogan goes to the floor. Yeah that’s his big offense so far. He doesn’t go after Hogan or anything. He just stares at him even more. Hogan hooks a headlock and then puts Sting down with a shoulder block. Tony says he ran through Sting and he’s absolutely right. More dropkicks and down goes Hogan again. And as soon as Sting goes on offense again, Hogan hits the floor and stalls even more to kill the crowd every time Sting gets something going.

Now Sting uses a headlock. HE’S SO ENRAGED! Hogan has dominated almost the whole match other than those dropkicks and Sting is down again. So far this has been like a seven minute intro match with nothing at all of note. Hogan has dominated for the most part and the biggest move and most impactful move by far have been dropkicks. Other than that there just isn’t anything but punches and headlocks.

We REALLY crank things up with a suplex which is no sold. Sting comes back with a crotch chop of pain and his offense lasts a total of 9 seconds since Hogan takes over again. Sting is looking like a total jobber here, getting nothing in longer than maybe 20 seconds. He’s controlled less than half a minute and we’re about 9 minutes into this. Hogan punches the heck out of him as the crowd is virtually dead.

Stinger Splash of course misses on the floor. That could have gotten the fans to cheer so we couldn’t have that of course right? With Sting more or less out on his feet, there’s the big boot and legdrop. As he’s in the air, Bret Hart walks by the front of the ring. Keep that in mind. Patrick does a semi-fast count for the clean pin. Hart keeps the bell from ringing and shouts at Patrick and half into the microphone that he won’t let it happen again. He hits Patrick, throws Hogan back into the ring, the NWO runs in and gets beaten up, Splash and Scorpion ends the match and Sting wins the title. The WCW guys run in for the massive celebration and we end the show.

Now the fun part: explaining why this was freaking horrendous.

For those of you that haven’t heard the history, here was the new plan that for some reason that I’m not sure God himself understands. Nick Patrick, the referee, had been very biased towards the NWO in the recent months. He was supposed to make a fast count, leading to Bret Hart running down and saying he wouldn’t let this become Montreal all over again (not in those words but that was the idea). Two things caused this mess of a plan to fall apart: Patrick counts a relatively normal count, and Hart is there before the bell rings. With Patrick counting normal speed, it looks like Sting just got pinned in a normal match.

Another problem with the whole fast count thing: Sting stayed down. You can see him getting up about 20 seconds later when Bret is arguing with Patrick. If this was supposed to be a fast count then Sting should have popped up a split second after the three correct? Instead he popped up almost half a minute later and looked like he could barely get up if his life depended on it. If this was supposed to be a fast count, why did no one tell Sting that was the finish? Could it be that he knew it would bomb?

The announcers don’t bring up Patrick’s heel tactics, and they touch on it being a fast count. They don’t have time because instead of Hart running down to the ring like he was supposed to, he was already there, so he stops the bell from ringing about two seconds after the pin. He says it won’t happen again, which makes no sense to non-WWF fans, or to wrestling fans in general. Since he was a referee earlier in the night, he is apparently has refereeing powers all night, so he jumps in as referee. Sting hits the splash, the scorpion, and he gets the title to end the show. Two weeks later, the title is held up vacant, and Sting FINALLY pins Hogan mostly clean in LATE FEBRUARY (this was three days after Christmas) at Superbrawl.

The whole thing just made no sense and everyone saw that it was nothing but a way to get the buyrate for Superbrawl up. Hogan and the NWO should have died then and there. Hogan should have disappeared until about June before coming back in the red and yellow, begging for the fans’ forgiveness while Sting slowly accepts the fans again and becomes the surfer or at least a normal looking wrestler. Instead, it’s the same things over and over again. All the fans, myself included, had their intelligence insulted. I and many other fans I knew at the time started watching Raw and loved what we were seeing, because it wasn’t WCW. I never left.

Sting would wind up holding the title for about two months until Savage beat him for it at Spring Stampede, only to lose it back to Hogan the next night. Goldberg beat him for it three months later. To say the fans didn’t react well is an understatement. The next night on Nitro the ratings were GREAT. The lead for Nitro stayed intact until the fans started getting what was going on.

Once the fans were told the title would be held up, they started to watch Raw more often. You couple this with the introduction of Mike Tyson and Steve Austin getting the world title and the lead was gone. About a week after Mania, Raw won for the first time in nearly two years. While the content on Raw was a major factor in this, there was no reason for WCW fans to watch Raw until they got screwed over here.

Sting had been this hero for WCW and would end the NWO once and for all. That was supposed to happen, much like Austin winning the title at Mania. Sting was supposed to destroy Hogan but that just didn’t happen for some reason. That reason would be Hogan didn’t want to lose clean like that and when he got the title back just a few months later, everything fell apart. WCW proved they had learned nothing a little over a year later in the Fingerpoke of Doom. The fans wanted something new and WCW decided that wasn’t going to happen. The rest is history.

Rating: F. For managing to screw up something that should be as unscrewable as a nun.

Overall Rating: F. This was just a pure failure all around. There was a very simple idea here: WCW and the fans win. That’s it. That’s what this show is supposed to be and they managed to mess it up. There are 8 matches on this card. A face won three of them. One had a clean ending, one was never announced to be a DQ as Larry was just declared the winner while the biggest acquisition in wrestling was the referee and the last one was the debacle of Hogan/Sting where Hogan just had to dominate the whole thing and make Sting look like a jobber that stole a win because he got destroyed by Hogan clean as a sheet. This was just a disaster all around and still the thing that caused them to begin to die.

NXT
Date: February 1, 2011
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, New York
Commentators: Todd Grisham, Josh Matthews

Another week but no elimination this time.  It’s good that we’re down to the final four as the show went way up in quality last time.  Also putting Clay with Alberto is a nice idea as that’s a very lethal combination especially with Alberto having momentum at the moment.  This is a day late but that’s fine I suppose.  Let’s get to it.

Striker is in the ring as is traditional on this show.  There will be an elimination next week.  Here are the Rookies and the Pros.  For some reason Brodus comes out with Ricardo instead.  When asked, Ricardo says that Alberto is too busy so he’s filling in tonight.  I hope that’s not traditional now.  Oh and Ricardo speaks English.

The first challenge tonight is Arm Wrestling.  Yeah is there any point to this at all?  First up is Curtis vs. Saxton.  They go left handed and Curtis wins in about 2 seconds.  Clay vs. Bateman now in what should be one sided.  Bateman screams at Bryan to slap him so Bryan smacks the heck out of him a few times.

This lasts a bit and then Brodus turns on the jets and destroys him.  This is for three immunity points by the way.  Johnny almost gets him but then Brodus headbutts him to give Curtis the win.  Dang it they’re really pushing Curtis aren’t they?  He’s painfully boring but they’ve decided that they want him to win.  I hate that.  He’s painfully boring but they’ve decided that they want him to win.  I hate that.

Byron Saxton vs. Chris Masters

This is the first match and had no intro to it at all.  They went to a break after saying it was later tonight and there’s the bell.  By the way I’m watching this on Youtube so the breaks are edited out so I’ll be adding 90 seconds to the time as the NXT commercials are noticeable shorter.

Masters starts out with power but gets kicked in the face to slow him down.  Nice let’s go Masters chant.  He’s improved dramatically over the last few months.  Saxton starts getting destroyed by the power again and there’s the Masterlock to end it in 3:12.  Ziggler was about to throw in the towel once Saxton was in trouble.  There’s another Mr. Perfect trait for Ziggler: a towel.

Rating: D. This was one of those matches where they were doing stuff but nothing happened at all.  It wasn’t a squash but more or less just an extended workout for Masters.  I like Saxton but he comes off like this season’s Otunga.  He has charisma and is entertaining but can’t back it up so well in the ring.  He’s better at it than Otunga, but not by much.

We see a clip from earlier with Bryan trying to teach Bateman the guillotine hold.  Bateman can’t quite get it and says he isn’t strong enough.  Bryan says that isn’t what submissions are about.  This is a fine example of why Bateman is talented: this is actually rather funny but the lines they’re saying are boring.  That’s the sign of a talented entertainer.

Gail comes up and Daniel says she’s good at the guillotine.  Bateman says that women know nothing about submission wrestling.  He’s unconscious 4 seconds later and Gail and Bryan are making out.  Again, much more entertaining than it had any right to be which is a good sign.

Brodus Clay vs. Ted DiBiase

Still no entrances tonight.  Before this starts we get a quick recap of last week where Brodus switched pros to explain why Ricardo is there.  See, that’s something WWE is very good at.  They’re incredibly user friendly.  If this is your first show in awhile or your first show ever, you’re immediately told why Brodus has that guy at ringside, that Brodus dominated the other rookies and why he has a match with DiBiase tonight.  That took about 90 seconds.  That’s what you get from WWE all the time and it’s a great touch.

DiBiase gets an entrance and Maryse comes out after he does in almost her own entrance.  DiBiase charges at him and gets shoved into the corner twice.  He charges again and manages to get a chinlock.  The main thing here is that Maryse is hitting on the announcers and actually gives Todd her number.  That’s rather awesome actually.  As that’s going on, the guys hit the floor and it’s all Ted who hits a seated dropkick while Brodus is up against the railing.

Josh wants to call the number because he thinks it’s a pizza place.  While this is happening, Brodus sends him into the post and we head back into the ring.  Nice head and arms suplex as Brodus is taking over quickly.  Off to the nerve hold as the crowd is into this actually.  Maryse is taking pictures with her phone.  Brodus misses a splash and Ted looks like he wants Dream Street.  Maryse kisses Todd and then slaps him.  The distraction is enough for Brodus to hit a powerslam to end DiBiase at 4:28.

Rating: C+. This was rather entertaining actually.  Maryse added a nice level of comedy to this and it raised the match up.  That and you add in Brodus being fun to watch and you got an entertaining match.  Brodus is the kind of guy that you see and you want to look at due to how different he looks.  That’s a very valuable asset to have and sets him apart from the rest of the group.  Bateman is entertaining but you wouldn’t stop to watched unless he was doing something.  Brodus is someone you stop to see because he looks unique.

In the back Curtis is holding ice on his head after the headbutt.  Saxton comes up and says he’s worried about Johnny.  Apparently R-Truth says Johnny is getting too big a head and his ego is out of control.  Johnny says they’re not friends and that Saxton is the creepiest man he’s ever met in his life.  The deadpan delivery there is great.

Time for another challenge.  At the moment Curtis has three immunity points and everyone else has zero.  This is the Talk the Talk Challenge and it’s worth 2 points.  Then why are we having this?  Oh I guess it might shift the voters’ opinions.  Kind of a stretch but ok.  Everyone has 30 seconds to talk about a given topic.  The first topic is WWE Pros and Saxton gets R-Truth.  Saxton does a parody of Truth’s rap and is booed out of the building.

The category is still WWE Pros and Bateman gets Ziggler.  He says he has the face of a worn out catcher’s mask and his name used to be Turd Ferguson.  I love SNL references.  Curtis gets Chris Masters.  Since he can’t top Saxton he drills Brodus and runs away.  Ok then.  Another Turd chant starts up.  Ziggler says if they don’t stop he’ll leave, drawing the pop of the night.

Brodus gets Daniel Bryan and says he’s incredibly boring.  He does have a pretty girl though and that she probably sits in bed at night, wondering what it’s like to be with a real man.  He’s quoting a scene from Rocky III here where Clubber Lang says the same thing to Rocky.  Bryan says he’s fat.  Bateman wins which he should have.  This was more or less a waste of time.

The trailer for the Chaperone is aired again.  It still looks bad.  There are three minutes I’ll never get back from my life.

Raw ReBound eats up about 4 minutes.

R-Truth/Johnny Curtis vs. Daniel Bryan/Derrick Bateman

This is the main event.  Bateman vs. Truth to start us off.  Truth takes over and it’s off to Curtis for some rookie on rookie action.  Ziggler says ECW a few times for no apparent reason.  They tumble out to the floor and slug it out.  This turns into a brawl until the Pros break it up and we take a break.

Back with Curtis vs. Bryan and the Pro is in control.  Apparently this is the 50^th episode of NXT.  Josh thinks Saxton is gone next week.  Off to the rookies again with Bateman in control.  Bryan comes in again as there’s much better continuity between Bateman and Bryan.  Bryan tries a surfboard but can’t get Curtis back.  Instead with his legs intertwined with Curtis’ he jumps into the air for a stomp.  That was cool looking.

Body scissors by the US Champion as Curtis is in trouble.  Off to Bateman again but Curtis gets a bad looking spin kick to take Bateman down.  Off to both Pros with Truth beating Bryan up a bit.  Curtis comes back in for a double suplex with his pro.  Bateman and Truth go to the floor and Curtis misses the leg drop.  LeBell Lock ends it seconds later at 6:33 shown of 8:03 (90 seconds assumed for commercials on NXT) and we’re off the air.  Or web I suppose.

Rating: C. Not bad here with some nice teamwork from Bateman/Bryan.  Curtis is ok at his very best but he’s about as generic as anyone I’ve ever seen.  Bateman is funny on promos and passable in the ring but also no one great.  This was probably the best choice for a main event and it wasn’t too bad.  Bateman looked pretty good at least.

Overall Rating: C+. This was pretty good I thought.  They packed it with stuff and the 45 minutes flew by.  You had three matches and two challenges with only the Talk the Talk one being somewhat bad.  The rest of it was either ok or short enough to not be bad.  Brodus continues to look like a huge fish in a small pond which means Curtis will likely wind up winning the whole thing.  Either way, good show this week as the final four continue to make this show watchable.

Results

Johnny Curtis won an Arm Wrestling Challenge

Chris Masters b. Byron Saxton – Masterlock

Brodus Clay b. Ted DiBiase – Powerslam

Derrick Bateman won the Talk the Talk Challenge

Daniel Bryan/Derrick Bateman b. Johnny Curtis/R-Truth – LeBell Lock to Curtis