Smackdown
Date: April 15, 2011
Location: Times Union Center, Albany, New York
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Booker T

Well all of a sudden this is a far different looking show.  As of Monday, Edge, the current World Heavyweight Champion, has to retire immediately due to neck problems.  Obviously this changes everything for both Extreme Rules and Smackdown as we’re going to have to crown a new champion.  I’d bet we’ll find out something about that tonight.  Let’s get to it.

This is a version where the commercials haven’t been edited in yet, so when they go to a break the match continues right where it left off so the traditional 3:30 won’t be added.  The show also has a long post main event segment which I’d bet is after the cameras went off and since the whole video is two hours, I doubt it’ll air on TV.  This is a bonus for you I suppose.

The opening video is of course about Edge and how he has to relinquish the title after retaining it at Wrestlemania.  The line used is destiny can change in the blink of an eye.

No theme song this week as Ricardo Rodriquez brings out Alberto.  The car of the night is a 1950 Rolls Royce.  He says his name but tonight isn’t about him.  WWE lost a hero on Monday.  He’s held more titles than anyone ever in company history, which is surprising for some reason.  It was Alberto’s destiny to be champion but he didn’t expect it like this.  He does however think it’s fair that the title be surrendered to him.

After a long delay, here’s Teddy.  No one is going to present Alberto with anything tonight.  Teddy says that Del Rio did win the right to fight in a ladder match at that PPV and that’s what he’s going to do.  The opponent for Alberto will be determined in tonight’s main event: a 20 man over the top rope battle royal.  Alberto says it’s a conspiracy.  This is in WWE, not TNA dude.  Del Rio takes credit for retiring Edge and Teddy says shut up and leaves.

Ezekiel Jackson vs. Kofi Kingston

The rest of Corre is on commentary here.  Barrett says he won the title on his own and Slater isn’t sure he agrees.  Jackson shoves Kofi away to start and Barrett says Jackson isn’t all that smart.  Jackson is a scary looking man.  We talk about the battle royal a bit and Barrett says the Corre is going to work together to make sure Barrett gets the title shot.  Slater and Gabriel both disagree.

Booker says the back of Jackson’s head looks like a tsunami hit it.  Not the best choice of words there former King.  We hit the floor and Jackson press slams Kofi onto Corre, wiping them out.  Back into the ring, Kofi tries the SOS but Barrett tries to get in.  Jackson takes advantage of the distraction and hits his release Rock Bottom (and no I won’t call it a Uranage) to end this at 2:22.  Short and mostly dominant here.

Jackson says he’s going to dominate the battle royal tonight.  Well according to his own song everything he does in life he dominates.

We see Laycool’s couples counseling with a therapist that looks like Paul Giamatti.  Layla is holding Michelle’s hand for some reason and says they’re like Bert and Ernie or Thelmer (yes Thelmer) and Louise.  “So now you’re comparing us to two puppets and two characters that drove off a cliff?”  The bluntness in that made me chuckle.  Layla asks Michelle how her back is and Michelle says it’s hurt since she’s been carrying Layla since day one.  The doctor is shushed and Michelle rips into Layla and is a total jerk to her before leaving.  Layla was borderline face here.

Back to the arena with Cody in the ring with a hood over his face.  He doesn’t feel anything anymore and tonight he’s going to hurt Rey tonight in the battle royal.  Rey is a father and there may not be any monsters in his kids’ closets but he wants Rey to become the monster they’re afraid of.  He’s going to make sure that happens but here’s Rey to interrupt and start a brawl.  619 misses but Rey eventually manages to get one in the ribs and send Cody running.

Kong vignette which is rather awesome.

Rey Mysterio vs. Drew McIntyre

How in the world did Drew fall so far in just a year?  Also I guess the whole Kelly thing is just going to be abandoned?  Drew absolutely towers over Rey.  He grabs a powerslam for two on Rey as we talk about the battle royal a lot.  Booker thinks Drew can be a world champion.  That’s so cute.  Snap suplex gets two for McIntyre.

Rey fights him off and uses some of his speed/high flying stuff to fight Drew off.  The fans really don’t seem to care as we head to the floor.  Drew rams him into the railing in a swinging powerbomb motion as we take a break.  Back with Drew holding Rey in an armbar.  Booker thinks Drew is Wade Barrett for some reason.  I thought it was Thomas Tallahassee Jefferson or something but whatever.

Drew counters a headscissors into a backbreaker and we hit the chinlock.  Booker messes up the name again and it’s back off to the armbar.  Rey avoids a corner charge to send Drew’s shoulder into the post.  Seated senton off the top and here comes Rey.  Springboard cross body gets two.  Big boot nearly takes Rey’s head off for two.

Powerbomb is blocked so Drew shifts to a hot shot.  Rey escapes and lands on the middle rope and hits a nice tornado DDT for another two.  In a very odd looking finish, Rey reverses a clothesline into a 619 and goes up for the splash.  The odd looking part is that Rey jumps for the splash while McIntyre is still on his feet.  Drew falls quickly and the splash hits to end this at 9:20.

Rating: B-. This started pretty boring but the stuff after the break had a lot more near falls and better looking moves, making it a better match.  I don’t think the ending was ever in doubt, but that’s what the position of jobber to the stars was invented for and that’s exactly what Drew is at this point.  That’s kind of a shame too but it is what it is.

Edge is walking to the ring and various people applaud him and hug him.  He runs into Kane and gets a handshake, I guess which says “sorry for the whole causing your dad’s death thing.  His….3^rd death I believe.”

Here’s Edge in his suit and sunglasses to surrender the title.  The fans chant thank you Edge and he says he’ll never get tired of hearing that.  He says this has made him think about a lot of things, like his entrance and how insane some of the matches he’s been in have been.  Wow Edge has been in a lot of gimmick matches.  Edge thinks his music is the coolest in WWE and he thanks Alter Bridge for it.  He wants to do his entrance one more time.  He’s going to go up the ramp and come out to the song one more time.  And that’s exactly what he does.

Edge does his full entrance again, complete with pyro and heads back to the ring.  Cool moment there.  He says he’s out of shape already because that tired him out.  Edge talks about how good it was that the doctors caught this early before he got hurt even worse and couldn’t get up.  He’s happy about everything he gets to do now, including wearing one of his two suits.  He bought it for $100 at JC Penny.  Well at least he’s honest.

His first world title came here in Albany so this place is special to him.  He also came up with the name Edge in Albany.  Edge’s mom is here tonight too.  What’s her name?  Cliff?  The fans chant “Thank you mom” which is rather funny.  Edge thanks her for everything and says that without her he wouldn’t be here.  Well yeah there was that whole giving birth thing.

He shifts over to the title and says that everyone holds a piece of it.  But now it’s time to do what he came here to do: relinquish the title.  Edge thanks the fans again and puts the belt down in the middle of the ring before leaving to go hug his mom.  That’s a sad moment at first but at the end of the day, it’s for his own good for the sake of his neck and his health.  Classy speech too.

That’s What I Am trailer.

Rosa Mendes says something to Edge in Spanish and Edge says he has no idea what she just said but she had him at quiero.  Alberto pops up behind him and offers a handshake but Edge leaves.

Kelly Kelly vs. Layla

On the way to the ring we recap the tag match last week with Michelle’s bad back.  Josh says he doesn’t buy it and asks Michelle about it.  She says no one ever accused him of being smart.  Layla goes off on Kelly to start but gets taken down and hammered on.  Cole and Michael chat a bit as Booker asks about the back injury.  Out to the floor and Kelly rams Layla’s face into the floor.  Layla is almost sent through the Cole Mine and is almost counted out before Michelle throws her back in.  Kelly gets the easy pin at 2:08.

Laycool argues post match and Michelle drills her.

The Raw Rewind is the announcement of the tag match at the PPV.

Booker wants to know how Cole could be that stupid.  Cole apologizes to Jack which I doubt will get him anywhere.

We get the same video from Raw talking about how awesome HHH vs. Undertaker was.

Battle Royal

Big Show, Brodus Clay, Chavo Guerrero, Chris Masters, Christian, Cody Rhodes, Curt Hawkins, Drew McIntyre, Ezekiel Jackson, Heath Slater, Jack Swagger, JTG, Justin Gabriel, Kane, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, Trent Barreta, Tyler Reks, Wade Barrett, Yoshi Tatsu

There is a TON of time left for this so it’s getting the big match treatment.  Alberto is on the floor also.  Kane comes out last when most people came in during the commercial.  Booker says someone has to make a pact with someone else.  There we go and I’m not going to try to call this for the most part.  Show throws JTG out to get us down 5% already.  Barreta tries to get Show out and guess what happens.  Yeah we’re down to 18.

Something I’ve always wondered: other than the final guys, is there a set order to the eliminations?  I mean I know the big stars have marching orders, but for guys like say Chavo (assuming he doesn’t make it to the final few people) is he supposed to stay in for like 8 minutes and then go when he has an opening to be eliminated, or is he told that he goes out say 7^th via Trouble in Paradise for instance?  I’ve always been curious about that.  Anyone know anything regarding that?

Anyway, Show gets the knockout punch to put Slater out and get us down to 17.  Slater is a great seller.  Show charges at Jackson and BOTH go out!  Wow I wouldn’t have bet on that one.  Del Rio applauding that is a nice touch.  Swagger and Reks can’t get Kofi out as we take a break.  We come back and nothing has changed.  They’re in the exact same place with maybe 3 seconds of time going by.  Ok then.  For the sake of timing at the end of the match I won’t be adding the 3:30 for that.

We get to the part of the show where everyone hammers on everyone and nothing is really happening.  Kofi fires some kicks at Swagger as Cole sucks up to Swagger.  Cody goes over the top but catches himself on the apron, only for Rey to hit him in the face and put him down.  Rey doubles up and gets Hawkins out with a forward roll out of an electric chair.  Kind of like a victory roll minus the pin.

Brodus takes out I think McIntyre as Chavo jumps on Clay’s back.  Chavo is gone and yes it was McIntyre.  Kane and Clay have our battle of the monsters and Kane beats him down with ease until like an idiot he tries a chokeslam.  Headbutt to the chest stops Kane but the big fried freak manages to fight back and send the big fat tub of goo up and over as we take a break.  Nothing changes again so we don’t add in 3:30 here either.  That’s really weird to see.

Barrett tries to throw Kofi but Kofi hangs on and tries to skin the cat.  I say tries to because he gets tossed out by the IC Champion.  We’re down to roughly 8-9 at this point.  There goes Reks at the hands of Christian and we are indeed down to eight.  The remaining competitors: Swagger, Mysterio, Kane, Christian, Tatsu, Gabriel, Masters and Barrett.  As I type that Christian tosses Yoshi and we’re down to seven.

Booker says everyone should go after Kane which isn’t a bad idea.  Kane goes after the members of Corre but they manage to toss him to get us to six.  They’re the only two standing as well.  Barrett goes after Masters who fights back with some valor.  Masters is sent to the apron and like an IDIOT puts the Masterlock on while on the apron.  Barrett breaks it with relative ease and kicks Masters in the face to eliminate him.  Gabriel sneaks up on Barrett and we’re down to four!  It’s Christian, Gabriel, Mysterio and Swagger.

Rey vs. Gabriel and Swagger vs. Christian are the pairings.  Rey sends Gabriel into the 619 position but can’t connect.  Gabriel charges, only to get caught in a headscissors and put out.  Christian has put Swagger down but not out and squares off with Rey.  Christian is put down but not out and Swagger tosses Rey but Rey holds on.  Rey comes back with a rana off the top that sends Swagger into 619 position.

Cole jumps up on the apron and takes the brunt of the move to score points with Swagger I guess.  Rey goes after Swagger when he realizes what’s going on and tries what can best be described as a monkey flip position to get him out.  Swagger holds on though and tosses Rey to get us down to Christian vs. Swagger.  Vader Bomb is countered but Christian can’t shove him out.

Back to Swagger in control as Cole is more or less dead on the floor.  They’re both on the apron and Christian tries the pendulum kick, only for Swagger to catch the ankle in the ankle lock for a nice counter.  Christian tries to toss him but Swagger kicks him in the chest to break that up with ease.  Christian is tossed to the apron but like an idiot heel, Swagger stops looking and Christian gets back up.  Del Rio tries to pull Christian off but can’t do it either.  Swagger charges and Christian puts him out at 17:00.

Rating: B-. Good match here with Swagger vs. Christian being a nice ending to it.  I don’t think anyone doubted who would win but it’s the right choice given who he’s replacing.  Battle royals are hard to grade but this one certainly was pretty good.  Nothing was bad and it didn’t get boring, so this worked fine.

Edge comes out to celebrate and Del Rio stares them down.  This is where I’d bet the show goes off the air.  I’m sorry if this is confusing but this is the version I found at the site I use and I can’t watch it as it airs.

Christian gets a mic and it’s time for a 5 second pose!  They even do the hands at the sides which is very cool to see.  The locker room comes out and everyone, faces and heels alike, applaud Edge.  That’s always cool to see.  Edge starts crying as he and Big Show hug.  Chavo and Rey come in and hug him also.  And here comes HHH!

He’s getting the Vince walk going so you can tell he’s waiting to get in charge.  The ring clears out other than Edge.  He goes to the apron but climbs back in and picks up the mic.  He says he didn’t know this was coming and it was the ultimate show of respect.  Edge talks about how this is great and he loves being respected by his peers.  He especially talks about Taker (not there) and Kane who he calls one of his best friends in the business.

He talks about everyone that sets up the show, down to the production people and the graphic designers and the catering.  If he goes into the Hall of Fame he can thank all of them too.  He even thanks the writers (yes he said writers) and names a few them individually.  He thanks Vince, specifically saying it’s not Mr. McMahon.  Vince apparently was the one that thought he could run with the World Title.  He’s afraid to thank Booker because it would mean an Edge-a-Rooni which hurt the only time he tried it at Wrestlemania.

The fans chant Hall of Fame and Edge says he wants to thank people he’s worked with over the years.  He says Vickie and the people boo.  Edge says that’s a sign of how great she is.  He thanks Lita for all the fun they’ve had over the years.  “Hey get your minds out of the gutters…..even though we did.”  And now, he thanks Christian.  He talks bout them growing up together and wanting to be tag champions and at Wrestlemania 16, that’s exactly what they did.

Christian has been there all the time for him and Edge wants to see where he goes.  The Edgeheads should get behind him if they could.  He says he’s said enough and the fans boo slightly.  He says he doesn’t have any spears left in him and he’s gotten to live his dream.  He has no complaints and he’s had an amazing life and a lot of that is due to the fans.  If anyone sees him come up and talk to him.

He’ll always be part of the WWE in some respect so we’ll probably see him again.  He’s going off the radar for awhile though so he can be with his dogs.  A fan shouts to give his mom a hug and he says like you have to tell me to do that.  A huge thank you Edge chant takes us back to Alter Bridge.  Edge goes out to thank the commentators and high five some fans.  He hugs his family and goes up the ramp, throws his arms up and walks to the back, ending the show.  I really hope this is put on DVD somewhere at some point as it’s awesome stuff.

Overall Rating: B. Good show here and the rating isn’t including the post show stuff.  They had to throw this together at the last minute due to the injury and we got good stuff out of it.  The post show stuff was a nice treat that you should track down as it’s a very classy exit for him.  Good show that handled a surprising change very well and left you with a good feeling.

Results

Ezekiel Jackson b. Kofi Kingston – Release Mat Slam

Rey Mysterio b. Drew McIntyre – Top Rope Splash

Kelly Kelly b. Layla – Kelly pinned Layla after ramming her into the Cole Mine

Christian won a battle royal by last eliminating Jack Swagger

Every Wednesday I’ll be posting a review of an old Nitro on rspwfaq.com (Scott Keith’s Blog).  I’ve got the first two up and the third will be up next Wednesday.  Check them out.

Impact
Date: April 14, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz
Episode Title: Hogan’s Law

It’s the final show before Lockdown and most of the card is set.  Tonight is likely going to be just the final push to the show which is standard operating procedure.  We’ll also likely see Hogan and Immortal trying to go after Anderson for him double crossing them last week and also more development in the three way feud for the world title.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the three way feud stuff from last week, including Anderson being the referee for the non-title main event.  The most important thing though is Anderson screwing over Hogan and Immortal and Hogan being furious.

Here’s Immortal in full force to open the show.  Gunner has the TV Title in his teeth.  Hogan says there’s nothing but top level talent here but he wants to get rid of the strength of rotten garbage.  He calls out Anderson and here he comes.  Wow Anderson looks really skinny here for some reason.  Hogan says that he’s tired of Anderson doing things the hard way and he’s going to make an example out of him.

Anderson goes off on Immortal, talking about how they’re all just riding their coattails and no one respects Hogan.  Especially Bischoff who made his entire career off of Hogan.  Wow that’s cutting a bit close.  Anderson sets to say his line and Hogan I think slaps him down and the beating is on.  With Immortal holding him in place, Hogan gets in Anderson’s face and says he’s going to take Anderson out tonight, because he’s “the baddest mamma jamma in this place.”  Anderson spits in Ray’s face and gets drilled by the Bully.

Velvet yells at Winter and wants to know what Winter has done to her.  Winter says that Angelina can make her own decisions.  Velvet says she’s going to call Angelina out herself and if it’s not accepted she’ll come drag Angelina out there herself.

Back with Immortal celebrating but Bischoff is a bit upset.  He just got a call from the Network and they want a best of 3 series between Immortal and Fourtune with the winner getting an advantage in the Lethal Lockdown match on Sunday.  Hogan says Bischoff was supposed to take care of the Network and gets on him about it.

Jesse Neal vs. Douglas Williams vs. Crimson vs. Orlando Jordan

Winner gets….a win I guess.  All of the partners are at ringside and Moore gets after Steiner.  Orlando looks to be in a purple dress for lack of a better term.  Neal vs. Williams to start but the British dude tags in Jordan quickly.  Side slam gets two and it’s off to Crimson vs. Neal.  T-Bone suplex gets two but Neal hits his spear on Crimson.  Moore keeps making fun of Steiner and distracting Neal.  Moore finally pushes him and the fight is on.  Steiner goes out to help him so we’re down to a three way.

Crimson goes off to help but here’s Abyss to jump Crimson.  Magnus and Young fight on the floor as Abyss rips up the railing.  Chokeslam onto the guardrail leaves Crimson laying as the match is down to Jordan vs. Williams for all intents and purposes.  Jordan grinds on Williams and gets a clothesline for two.  Young and Magnus come in which goes nowhere as Jordan hits something like Cross Rhodes (called the Gender Bender) to end it at 3:35.

Rating: D. Considering the fact that about seventy five percent of this match was spent on the stuff outside and what you saw in the ring was nothing special at all, what are you supposed to say here?  Weak match to build to a match that really shouldn’t be in a cage.  It’s always a problem with Lockdown but rarely a big one.  Weak match though.

Bully Ray comes in to tell RVD that Hogan is going to make him an offer where the grass is greener and there are fewer seeds.  I don’t get weed jokes but I guess that makes sense.

Matt Hardy vs. Kazarian

This is match #1 in the aforementioned best of three series.  Team Immortal is here with Matt.  The series is for the initial advantage in Lethal Lockdown.  Fourtune comes out with Kaz but Hebner sends them away and does the same to Immortal.  Flair freaks out and wants to fight Hebner.  Kaz grabs some rollups to start but only gets two on both.  Kaz charges but is sent to the apron where Matt kicks the rope for a low blow on the way back in.

Neckbreaker gets two as they’re moving rather quickly out there.  I guess Matt is moving due to the lack of dreads out there.  Matt focuses on the neck of Kaz, hitting the slingshot into the middle rope for two.  Later we get Storm vs. Abyss and Roode vs. Flair.  Cravate works on the neck even more but the Twist of Hate is reversed into a backslide for two.  Side Effect doesn’t work and Kaz grabs a pinning combination for another two.

Side Effect gets two and there’s another one.  Matt goes up but misses a moonsault to give Kaz a breather.  Forearm by Kazarian and here’s the comeback.  Hogan is going to force Anderson to run the Immortal gauntlet.  Springboard legdrop gets two for Kaz and Fade to Black (called Kryptonite Crunch by Taz) is reversed.  Missile dropkick gets two as Matt gets his foot on the rope.  They go to the corner and Matt shoves Hebner into the ropes, allowing him to grab Kaz in a double underhook bodyscissors hold for the pass out/submission.  Hard to tell but the hold is called the Ice Pick and it ends this at 5:16.

Rating: B-. I liked this actually.  They were moving out there and we got a lot of near falls and close finishes.  I’m really not sure what the point is in having the X Champion lose clean like that and get in next to no offense other than a quick flurry but he’s a Hardy so I guess he has to be made to look strong.  Pretty decent match here.

Madison is upset about something and Tara says just get it over with.

Back with Madison and Tara in the ring.  Madison says she hasn’t been able to sleep for a week over what happened last week.  She would have done something different: she would have backed up and run her over again.  Tara doesn’t like this that much.  Then Madison would have slapped Tara for questioning here.  Tara is getting too comfortable in her role so Madison reminds her that she works for Madison.  If Tara doesn’t chill, she’s going to be back selling lip gloss.

Tara has something to say but Mickie comes out instead.  She’s in a sling and has a separated shoulder.  TNA needs to really stop having Titantron videos playing during promos as they’re really distracting.  Mickie goes nuts and says she’s going to put Madison through more pain on Sunday than Mickie went through.  Sunday she’s going to take Madison out and get back at her for the last six months.  Very solid and intense promos here.

Jeff Jarrett/D’Angelo Dinero/Hernandez vs. Matt Morgan/Samoa Joe/Kurt Angle

Always a good sign to throw feuds into one match.  It’s the best possible way to get a bunch of them built at once and works almost every time.  That wasn’t sarcasm if it sounded like it.  Jarrett and Angle start us off here which is rather surprising.  Jarrett runs and tags in Hernandez maybe 10 seconds in.  We take a break after about 15 seconds.

Back with Morgan throwing the rapid fire elbows to Pope’s head in the corner.  Morgan loads up the Carbon Footprint but Pope takes the leg out and Morgan is in trouble.  Off to Hernandez who hammers away but a discus clothesline sends Morgan down and brings in Kurt.  Kurt is taken down by a simple boot to the ribs and Hernandez goes up top.  You don’t go up top against Kurt and Angle gets the running belly to belly to send Hernandez down.

Off to Joe and Jarrett as Joe cleans house.  Quick powerslam gets two for Joe but Pope breaks up a cross armbreaker.  Muscle Buster to Pope is blocked twice as Jarrett breaks it up.  Jeff throw Joe to the floor but runs into Kurt.  They run off to the back as Hernandez gets a slingshot shoulder block to take Joe down.  Border Toss is reversed into the Clutch but Pope comes off the top with an elbow to break it up.  Morgan back in as the tagging is completely abandoned.  Anarquia throws Hernandez some brass knuckles but Morgan takes him down.  Pope gets them and knocks Joe out cold for the pin at 9:20 total.

Rating: C-. Kind of a mess here but it got to the ending which is the right idea.  Also keeping Angle and Jeff from having any actual contact is always a good thing.  Not a terrible match but nothing all that great.  At least they built up the three matches the right way and it worked well enough.

The heels leave Morgan and Joe laying.

The Jarretts try to leave but Karen says she forgot her purse.  Jeff says screw it but she runs after it anyway, only to run into Kurt.  Jeff leaves without her and Kurt says what a great pick for a husband and leaves her there.

Here are Hogan and Bischoff.  Hulk calls RVD to the ring and lays it on thick, talking about how this is the new RVD who is all aggressive.  Hogan saw what happened last week where RVD pinned the TNA Champion, which was awesome.  Here’s Sting to say that what Hogan said was a lie.  Sting talks about how RVD needs to earn it and he won’t do that in Immortal.  If he beats Sting cleanly cool, but if it’s not clean it’s over Sting’s dead body.  RVD leaves.

Bischoff talks to Sting now and says that Hogan has been working Sting for his entire career and that Checkmate is in Sting’s future.  Sting disagrees, saying Checkmate is his.  He drills Bischoff in the ribs and hits the Death Drop on him.  Hogan is scared to death as he’s in a back braces still.  Sting says it’ll be on his time, not Hogan’s.

Abyss vs. James Storm

Abyss has new music.  Storm goes right at him, spitting beer in the face and we hit the floor early.  Apparently on Sunday the Angle/Jarrett match is now 2/3 falls.  First is pin, second is submission and third is escape only.  That match just got even more awesome.  Back in the ring and Abyss gets a big boot to take him down.

Storm pops up and hammers away, finally taking him down with a forearm.  Top rope cross body gets two and Storm counters a chokeslam into a Codebreaker and a Backstabber for two.  Chokeslam gets two and Abyss is surprised.  Shock Treatment and the Last Call both miss and the Black Hole Slam gets the pin clean at 3:50.  Immortal wins the man advantage.

Rating: C+. Nice little big man vs. little man here and it was a pretty surprising ending as you don’t have the predicted ending of having it go to the third fall.  Power vs. speed is always fun to see and it worked pretty well here.  The ending was a bit odd though as Storm seemed like he kicked out just in time.  Either way, fun little match.

Back with Bischoff talking to the Network and him being all upset about it.  He demands to know who is working with the Network and the Network apparently says in time.  Bischoff demands to know now and gets hung up on.

Here’s Velvet to call out Angelina.  She gets Winter’s music instead and Angelina is here in that trance still.  Velvet shoves/hits her to get her attention but gets speared down.  Angelina gets a chair and DDTs Velvet on it.  No emotion at all from Love here.  Winter beckons Angelina back and they leave together.

We run down the Lockdown card.

Mr. Anderson vs. Immortal

This is a gauntlet match.  First up is Murphy who gets a quick clothesline and a slam.  The slam puts Anderson’s leg into the rope and it might be injured.  DDT to the leg and Anderson is in trouble.  And never mind as the Mic Check sends Murphy out quickly.  Rob Terry is in second and Anderson grabs a small package and rollup for two each.  Terry goes after the knee some more and uses basic power.  Mic Check as a reversal ends him also.

In third is the TV Champion in I believe his first match since winning the title.  There’s not a lot to say here as you know Anderson is about to take this one with a quick win also.  Gunner works on the knee in the corner and Anderson is stuck.  Fourth is going to be Bully Ray and he’ll be last.  Anderson gets a boot in the corner and some strikes to set up a spinning neckbreaker for two.  Yep there it is as he sends Gunner into the corner and the Mic Check makes Anderson 3-0.

Finally it’s Bully Ray who hammers away and drops some elbows before hammering on the knee even more.  The fans chant you can’t wrestle at Ray.  There’s a WWE joke in there somewhere.  Anderson gets yelled at a lot and knocked down again.  The back splash from the middle rope of course doesn’t work as Anderson fires in some shots.  He manages to get Ray up in a fireman’s carry despite having a bad knee.  Well of course he can.

They slug it out and Anderson takes over.  Big boot puts him right back down though and Ray throws him to the floor.  Then he drills the referee and takes the fight to the floor.  Ray takes him up the ramp and sets for a powerbomb like he did to AJ a few weeks back.  As he sets for it Hogan comes out dancing a bit and walks to do it instead.  There goes the back brace and he sets for a powerbomb.  Here’s Sting with the bat though for the save.  Abyss pops up and Sting drills him with the bat.  Ray gets the same treatment and Hogan backs off.  We’ll say the match ended when Ray hit the referee so the match ran 9:30.

Rating: D+. Just a standard gauntlet match here with Anderson destroying everyone not named Ray, including the TV Champion, in short order with no real effort at all.  The ending was I guess to further Sting and Hogan which it did for the most part, but the ending made the match worse, which is bad since it wasn’t a terrible match to begin with.

Fourtune talks about how this ends Sunday.  Storm yells about Abyss.

RVD doesn’t say anything.

Anderson says nothing has changed with him and Sting.  He wants more mountains to climb and rants about the title.

Sting says he’ll keep the title on Sunday.

Hogan says Immortal is going to break Sting in half and if he wants a war, he’s got one.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very good go home show as everything was talked about I think.  We got some decent matches in there also and all in all the show worked.  There were some bad parts but at the same time everything worked.  However, this all comes down to Sunday as the PPV has to work right.  It depends on how that show goes to see if this works overall.

Results

Orlando Jordan b. Douglas Williams, Jesse Neal and Crimson – Gender Bender to Williams

Matt Hardy b. Kazarian – Ice Pick

Hernandez/Jeff Jarrett/D’Angelo Dinero b. Kurt Angle/Samoa Joe/Matt Morgan – Dinero pinned Joe after a punch with brass knuckles

Abyss b. James Storm – Black Hole Slam

Mr. Anderson vs. Immortal went to a no contest

Lockdown 2008
Date: April 13, 2008
Location: Tsongas Arena, Lowell, Massachusetts
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Lockdown very well may be the dumbest idea for a PPV that I’ve ever heard of in my life. Let’s think about this for a minute. For one thing, they’re actually putting matches like Gail Kim and ODB vs. Kong and Saed in there. That’s the biggest problem: so many of these matches flat out do not need to be inside a cage, which ties into the second problem: the matches that actually belong in the cage like Lethal Lockdown and Joe vs. Angle 19 or whatever it was are cheapened because weaker matches are in the cage as well.

As for matches tonight, TNA FINALLY is pulling the trigger on Joe, two years after they should have which means everything is all well and good. Other than that it’s of course Team Christian vs. Team Top Heel of the Month in Lethal Lockdown, their version of War Games. Let’s get to it.

Tenay says that tonight Joe’s life is on the line and that apparently all he knows is wrestling. Yeah TNA doesn’t get overdramatic at all. The video is about how EVIL, yes EVIL I say that steel is. They have a Latin prayer or something. TNA always went WAY too far with these things.

The fans are energetic if nothing else. JB and West are in the stands which is a cool idea I guess. It’s been done a million times but not in awhile.

X-Division Title: Jay Lethal vs. Johnny Devine vs. Shark Boy vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Consequences Creed vs. Curry Man

So the idea here is elimination but once you get down to two you have to get out of the cage. I always liked Curry Man. He was based off of a commercial that Daniels saw in India I believe. If nothing else you certainly remember him don’t you. Good night Devine is bland. He’s the X-Division traitor at the moment and hanging out with Team 3D. It went nowhere.

Creed is a guy that had his character completely changed as he started out like R-Truth was supposed to be and is now a total comedy character. Sonjay is Lethal and Socal Val’s best friend, so of course he would turn on them in like a month to take the title and Val. And this is the era of Stone Cold Shark Boy. This was so stupid I actually got headaches from it. Oh and Lethal is still Macho Man.

So we have a guy that would become Apollo Creed, a guy impersonating Steve Austin, a guy impersonating Macho Man, a guy as an Indian guru, a guy imitating an Indian curry commercial, and a guy named Johnny Devine that is bland . Does anyone else thing that this sounds like a bad parody instead of a match? Also note that it’s taken 11 minutes and 49 seconds for the first bell to ring.

Wait, they have to TAG? Dutt and Devine start as my head is hurting more and more here every second. One thing that TNA got very right with the cage matches: putting a hole in the cage to get camera shots with nothing barring the shot. Now we just get completely ridiculous with the spots. I mean they just don’t even try to make it seem like they aren’t totally planned out.

After Dutt saves Lethal he gets rolled up by Devine for the pin to begin the wedge between the two of them. Creed hits a bad DDT on Shark Boy after Curry Man messes up and he’s out. Something tells me this is supposed to be epic and it’s just failing completely. We go back to nothing but big spots that are completely insane but make for good TV when you don’t think too hard about them.

After a dive off the top of the very tall cage that should have killed him, Curry Man hits a Burning Hammer which is called the Spice Rack to put Creed out. Devine, the idiot that he is, breaks up the pin on Lethal to hit the Devine Intervention, a double underhook piledriver, on Curry Man to get us down to one on one under elimination rules. Devine puts him down but Dutt won’t let him go through the door. What a great face move to do there. And Lethal dives out the door to win. That was just stupid for an ending.

Rating: C-. Well, considering what they were going for with the opener here, this was ok. The spots were RIDICULOUS looking though and I hated the ending. You could see Dutt getting ticked off slowly but surely and the feud was coming soon. It sucked too.

Frank Trigg is in the back and says that both guys are getting ready. Good to know. The problem here is that Trigg might as well be Angle’s twin. He had an ok TV presence but they went a bit stupid here by trying to make this an MMA fight when it was a wrestling match. To be fair though, this was a good idea to have a legit MMA guy come in and give an analysis here.

Roxxi vs. Angelina Love vs. Velvet Sky vs. Salinas vs. Rhaka Khan vs. Traci vs. Christy vs. Jacqueline

Yep 8 knockouts in a single cage is JUST fine. I still think Christy Hemme is a robot. No human can look that good. Has ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, ever cared about Jackie? EVER? Traci Brooks comes out to Aerosmith’s Rag Doll. I hardly ever notice those things. Somehow the rules are as follows: you fight on the floor and the first two INSIDE the cage have a one on one match. Could this be any stupider?

So wait, the idea of this show is that every match is INSIDE the cage right? I’m not confused on that am I? And after about 2 minutes Love and Roxxi get in with ease. The match is about three minutes long and while it’s ok, that’s just it: it’s ok. It’s not particularly good or bad. It’s just ok. I think this one gets the it’s just there rating, as there’s nothing to talk about here and it’s hardly bad either. Roxxi gets a shot at Kong for this which she wouldn’t win.

Rating: F. It’s failing for just being stupid. At a show about cages, there was a match outside a cage where the point was to get into the cage. In what wrestling universe does that even begin to make sense in?

Lauren makes her TNA debut here and GOOD FREAKING NIGHT she looks amazing. She looks like Jenny McCarthy back when McCarthy looked hot. Joe says he’s not retiring. No really? Apparently Joe will sacrifice his life to be champion. Again, TONE IT DOWN.

Kip James (Billy Gunn) cuts the most cue card based promo that I’ve ever heard about being an animal in a cage.

BG James (Road Dogg) says he’s coming for James.

BG James vs. Kip James

Seriously, how has this match not happened before? This started as Roadie won a tag title shot in Feast or Fired and had his 60+ year old father be his partner of all things. No one bought it and this is what it was setting up. This should have been the finals of the 99 KOTR but that would have made sense so there we go. Billy breaks out a Diamond Cutter of all things to counter the punches of Roadie. Sorry, I refuse to call him Kip James.

Roadie is easier to type than BG James also, even though that really is closer than Jesse James. The problem with this whole PPV shows up again: while this could actually be a decent feud/match, the first match of it simply doesn’t belong in a cage as it’s just a regular match but in a cage. A Fameasser gets two and then a low blow has both guys down.

Naturally the finish sucks: Billy stomps his foot three times before going for a splash which misses and Roadie rolls him up for the pin. They do the reunion for about two seconds and Kip does the heel turn which no one cares about but of course it’s evil and no one saw it coming. After a bad and short feud with Matt Morgan, Billy would be Cute Kip to just end any shred of credibility he had.

Rating: D-. What was the point of this again? Actually that’s not a fair question. This match actually had a point. However, giving them seven minutes in a pointless cage match is just freaking stupid by TNA as they throw away a potentially kind of big match with no time and a terrible finish. Makes sense at least.

Angle says he wanted to come to TNA to fight Joe. And he did: this is match number 5. Angle looks like he’s under 200lbs here. Oh and it’s personal here.

Rock N Rave Infection vs. MCMG vs. Eric Young/Kaz vs. LAX vs. Scott Steiner/Petey Williams vs. Black Reign/Rellik

This is Cuffed in the Cage: all 12 in the match at once and it’s elimination by being cuffed to a rope, last man standing gets his team a shot at the tag titles at a future date. Reign and Rellik (Killer backwards. Clever huh?) beat up Eric backstage before they can come out. The entrances take a few hours or so. Oh and Black Reign (Goldust but a cheap knockoff that no one bought) and Killer are supposed to be monsters. This is idiotic.

How in the WORLD have the Guns not been tag champions yet? There are two sets of tag titles in TNA (don’t even get me started on how freaking stupid that is) and they can’t get one of them. That’s just stupid. Oh LAX already have a title shot, so they’re getting a chance to get a second one here, because it would make NO SENSE to take two people out of here to, oh I don’t know, unclutter the stupid thing a tiny bit???

This was back when Petey was Maple Leaf Muscle, as in a tiny version of Steiner. Is this supposed to be Mexico or something? Steiner just beats the heck out of everyone until LAX takes him down. About four people get him cuffed to eliminate him. What would be smart here? Perhaps having him leave? Nope, that would make too much sense, so he just stays in the cage cuffed to the cage. Someone was actually paid to think of this. That’s just sad.

Young comes down and gets scared by the monsters. You can’t tell a thing that’s going on because THERE ARE ELEVEN PEOPLE IN THERE AT ONCE. Sabin and Shelley get cuffed at the same time. Petey is put out and I just couldn’t care less. The problem here is that you get some decent stuff and spots but there are just so many people in there and the camera jumps around so much that you can’t tell a stupid thing at all. LAX are both out.

Kaz is out as we have Killer and Rock N Rave and Black Reign left. The fans already get the idea as they chant Super Eric. The idea is this: Eric Young puts on a shirt, a mask and a cape and all of a sudden he’s not scared anymore and is a tough fighter. This is making me lose intelligence very rapidly. He does a HUGE dive off the top of the cage to put four guys down. Ok that was pretty cool looking. Hoyt (Vance Archer) is put out.

The other problem becomes that no one can move anywhere as there are people on so many parts of the cage. Oh Jimmy Rave is out too. Young gets the two monsters to win the thing. To further drain my intelligence, here’s how this played out. Eric and Kaz won the tag titles (why they’re not being defended here and why the X Title isn’t being defended here is beyond me.

Tomko and AJ FREAKING STYLES were the tag champions, yet they’re not on the PPV. Upon further review they’re in the Lethal Lockdown match so that makes it a bit better) at the next Impact but because Super Eric wasn’t the guy Kaz entered the match with they didn’t get the titles.

Instead they were held up and a whole PPV, Sacrifice, was dedicated to getting new champions with LAX and 3D fighting in the finals of the Deuces Wild tag tournament where you had random partners fighting established teams but the random partners WON NO MATCHES. THIS WAS PRAISED by TNA fans. They thought this was a good idea.

Rating: F-. This was just so freaking stupid that I can’t believe it exists. Seriously, TWELVE PEOPLE in the cage at once and you handcuff them to eliminate them. I wanted wrestling, not some screwed up sex fantasy that even Vince McMahon would say slow down when offered. Seriously, screw Dave Meltzer. He said that Edge vs. HHH vs. Kozlov was worse than this? Dave is a brilliant guy, but his anti-WWE bias gets out of hands at times.

And we go to Samoa Joe’s family who are dressed in “traditional” clothing. This makes my head hurt. Yes because Samoans apparently have no idea of what the modern world is like and they all wear grass for clothing. If nothing else though, Lauren is entering Hemme territory in hotness.

We recap the Knockouts tag match which again doesn’t belong in a cage match.

Gail Kim/ODB vs. Awesome Kong/Raisha Saeed

Please…make it quick. Don’t get me wrong, three of the four here are very talented, but WHY IS THIS IN A CAGE? You can’t just call it a grudge match and make it interesting. I get the feud here, and it should be a decent match, but the cage is just freaking pointless here. Kong and ODB start us off. Both of the faces want Saeed for some reason that isn’t covered at all because that would be too helpful.

Oh apparently she’s cost both faces the title which Kong holds. I found that online, not from here of course. She’s more commonly known as Cheerleader Melissa, who is amazingly talented and very good looking as well. Kong rams Kim’s head into the cage to turn the tide. Kong hasn’t actually been in the match yet by the way. Dang it how do I time these things so well?

She beats the living tar out of Kim who is half dead already. And Kong is already out again. ODB comes in to clean house as she was being pushed very hard around this time. Naturally nothing ever came of it as they had Kong beat her anyway. Everyone is in now and the referee says nothing, meaning they never needed to tag at all. Gail gets a SWEET hurricanrana from the top of the cage. Kong accidentally knocks the heck out of Saeed and a splash from ODB ends it.

Rating: D+. The match was indeed fine, but there was no point to having this on PPV. It’s ok, but it’s just ok, and that’s the problem here. Why should I pay money to see this? Nothing was accomplished as Roxxi had the title shot next and Kong wasn’t even involved in the pin. The wrestling is fine and even good at times, but why is this on PPV is what I want to know.

Karen Angle is here and it’s no shock now that Jarrett slept with her. She supports Kurt.

We take a SPECIAL look at Booker vs. Robert Roode. Why is it special? We’re never told but we know it’s SPECIAL. Roode makes a great point: he keeps moving up the charts and someone from WWE kept showing up and instantly being handed a push. He’s absolutely right. The feud is over Roode accidentally hitting Sharmell, and no one would want that of course.

The announce guy calls this a towering inferno of rage. Do I even need to make fun of this? Naturally it’s a mixed tag instead of one on one, because Booker was so nervous about his wife being hurt that he has her in a match here. Oh and it was a punch heard around the world. It wasn’t even heard around Wrestlezone.

Peyton Banks/Robert Roode vs. Booker T/Sharmell

They don’t even try to hide the theme music being a rip off here. Ok so the match is now over and I have the same complaints I had for the previous match: why is this in a cage and why is this on PPV? Literally, the girls are in there for 30 seconds total as it’s all Booker vs. Roode and then Sharmell is tagged in and rolls up Banks for the pin.

It’s just Booker vs. Roode again in a feud that went on for like 6 months and no one really cared about it. I mean the match is ok, but again that’s just it: it’s just ok. Why should I want to pay my money to watch this show? I can’t think of a reason to do so. Roode leaves Banks in the ring and goes back on his own.

Rating: D. This was the same thing as the previous match but the previous one had better wrestling in it. This is the big problem that the company has with this show and I’ve said it a dozen times now I think: not every match needs to be in a cage. It’s complete overkill and makes no sense at all, and that’s what’s going on here. If this was a regular match, it’s probably a C or so.

We go to the gorgeous Lauren who is with Marcus Davis who trained Joe for the fight. Again, I get the idea, but this is wrestling, not MMA.

We look at Lethal Lockdown. The rules are just like WarGames but with one ring and after the last person comes in the roof comes down and there are weapons attached, and only then can you win the match. It’s kind of a nice twist but this needs to be 3 on 3 and not 5 on 5 as one ring is just too much. Oh and you can win by pin. That’s fine.

Team Cage vs. Team Tomko

Christian, Nash, Sting, Rhino, Matt Morgan
Tomko, Bubba, D-Von, AJ Styles, James Storm

Remember that AJ is a comedy heel here so the talent is a bit one sided. Christian and AJ start as the smarks explode. Tomko teases being number one for his team but he sends AJ in instead. Now remember they’re going for five minutes and then after the coin toss whoever wins will have a two minute advantage and after that two minutes the losing team makes it 2-2.

That continues until all ten are in. Ten men are WAY too many but I love me some WarGames so this is fun. The heel team of course wins to continue the tradition. AJ is freaking amazing. He might be better at this point than he is now if you can believe that. AJ is dominating here and we have another heel coming. What is our future ECW Champion going to do???

Christian takes over for a bit but we get back to even as Brother Ray comes out. One of the beauties of this match is that you have seventeen minutes at least of wrestling before you get to the finale of the match. It’s a nice little break from those never ending matches that get rather boring.

Ray wears a Yankees jersey and remember we’re just outside of Boston (those teams hate each other for you non baseball fans). And Ray uses a Boston Crab. That’s just amusing. Rhyno ties us up. Didn’t they hate each other for like ever? The clock is ten kinds of messed up now so it’s anyone’s guess how close they get to the right time. James Storm comes out maybe a minute and twenty seconds later. He’s got Jackie with him. Yeah I don’t care either.

He and Roode would hook up soon. For no explainable reason AJ climbs the cage and he and Christian fight on the top but Christian climbs down on the outside and gets knocked to the floor. Nash ties it up but Christian is still on the floor. He launches an AWESOME high cross body to Bubba and Storm. That was sweet looking. D-Von comes in after maybe a minute.

The clock is completely insane, but I can’t criticize it as the Royal Rumble is never anywhere close. I never remember a team that turns face or heel faster than 3D. I like the booking here as they’re letting the heels dominate when they’re way behind in talent but the booking is realistic. Matt Morgan comes in next and he’s as green as possible. He had been Cornette’s bodyguard forever but never got in the ring until here. We know it’s Tomko and Sting left so that’s no mystery.

There’s a lot of laying around here but you have to do that in a sense here as there are just too many people in there. AJ and Matt hook up for awhile which is a PPV main event someday if they quit messing around with Morgan. Oh that’s right: we need to have Hogan’s boys in the main event. Christian and Tomko go at it as the two captains which is always interesting.

D-Von is bleeding pretty well. The fans want Sting. Everyone stops to meet Sting but he pulls a 96 WarGames and beats them all up by himself. In a cool spot, Sting throws AJ up like for a back body drop but just kicks him in the balls instead. The roof with the weapons is lowered. Everybody grabs one as they have them on the roof too. Yeah they’re not even bothering trying to hide that they’re going up there.

Oh ok there’s a trap door so it’s more obvious. I kind of like that. Storm and Christian go up there which unclutters the ring a bit as it badly needs. There’s a bit hole in the roof which is kind of a cool visual. Nash and Morgan do a double chokeslam on 3D. AJ grabs a kendo stick and just massacres people with it. We have a table on the roof and AJ heads up there too so there are three up there and seven in the ring. AJ sets up a ladder ON TOP OF THE CAGE. Once he climbs it, he might be higher up than on top of the HIAC. I’m pretty sure he is.

As someone afraid of heights, that’s scary to me. Christian climbs up too and Storm shoves the ladder over. Nothing at all is happening in the cage mind you. They couldn’t have gone any further without a potential serious injury. And then Rhyno gores Storm for the pin. What the heck was that???? It’s like they ran out of time all of a sudden and said go home NOW.

Rating: B-. That’s mainly for the bad ending. There was no big dramatic moment or anything and they just had the Gore for the pin. I’m not wild on that at all. The ten people are just WAY too many for one ring. This should have been 3-3 or so and nothing more. Actually 4-4 could work. There were also far too many dead spots too.

This is definitely a good idea but it needs a lot of tweaking with the main thing being an adjustment to the amount of people. I’m probably shortchanging this a bit, but there were too many people and too much laying around doing nothing because of the confined space. The two ring, 8 man matches were always, well at least almost always, awesome because they found that balance. If TNA can do that then these matches go WAY up in value.

We recap the Angle/Joe feud. Let me make this clear: counting the intros, this takes over 12 minutes. That’s not counting the JB intros where he says who each guy is. Counting that we hit 15 minutes. It is 18 minutes from the end of Lethal Lockdown to the start of this match. That’s just ridiculous.

TNA World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe

Now the first thing you notice is that this is more or less designed as a half MMA fight and half wrestling match. Now I get the idea here as they want to spread out the audience, but this isn’t something I can get into. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but it’s just not the greatest idea in the world to me. It’s new though so I have to give them credit for not just doing the same match.

They use a lot of MMA techniques and it’s actually working pretty well. They have Frank Trigg on commentary which is a good idea as he offers a perspective that we wouldn’t usually get, much like Tenay used to do with the cruiserweights in WCW. This is about seventeen minutes of primarily submission based stuff and while it’s not my style, it’s certainly great stuff.

You can tell there’s been a lot of training done for both guys to incorporate a lot of new submissions. In a CREEPY moment, Joe gets a crossface on Angle and the fans chant Joe’s gonna kill you. I don’t think it was intentional or anything, but that’s rather chilling. After a ton of submission attempts, and I mean at least 12 apiece, Joe hits the Muscle Buster to get the pin. Massive posing and celebrating ends the show.

Rating: A-. That might be a bit high but after what I went through with the idiocy earlier, this was gold for me. It’s a completely different style but it worked exactly like they wanted it to so I can’t complain at all. This was named match of the year in TNA and I can buy that.

I’m glad this was a one off thing though as it’s not something I’d want to become the norm. Either way, this was a great way to put the belt on Joe, but because it came two freaking years too late, no one cared and he was a boring champion.

Overall Rating: D. Well, the two main events were really good, but that’s all this show has going for it. The all cage thing is just not a good idea at all. The last two matches belong in a cage and by having another I believe 6 matches before that, it just makes the last two seem weak.

If you take away the cage earlier for everything other than maybe the X match, then this is easily a C+ or so. The matches are ok, but the Women’s match and the tag match were just so freaking STUPID. What was the point of those gimmicks? Anyway, this was a bad idea but if tweaked could turn into a much better one. Show sucked for the most part though. Get Joe/Angle and the Lethal Lockdown if you’re very bored, but you’ll be better off with an old WarGames match. Other than that, not worth it.

NXT
Date: April 12, 2011
Location: Times Union Center, Albany, New York
Commentators: William Regal, Todd Grisham

Another week here in NXT Land as hopefully we get the announcement of the first elimination.  This season has gone on for a long time already and thankfully they’ve shifted away from the whole obsession with challenges.  I can live with boring wrestling as that’s at least not harming my intelligence.  Also tonight we get Maryse’s decision and reply to DiBiase’s ultimatum last week.  Let’s get to it.

We recap last week’s stuff with Maryse and DiBiase.

Striker brings out Maryse who says she can find other millionaires besides Ted.  She picks NXT.  Well that was abrupt.  So she’s single now?  Anyway here are the Rookies.  The hosts go over the Redemption Points standings which are as follows:

O’Neil 9

Young 7

Saxton 4

Everyone Else 0

The challenge tonight is the Power of the Punch with the punching bag thing.  First up is Saxton who gets 649.  Second is Novak with 465.  Third is 469.  Regal wants royalties from the title of this.  O’Brian gets 770 to give Rat Boy the lead.  O’Neil blasts it to give him 801 and Cannon says he’s here to win championships and is above this so O’Neil wins.  Could they push this guy any stronger?  He gets four Redemption Points.  Cannon gets in Titus’ face and says this is about him rather than everyone else.  He hits on Maryse who more or less says get out of his face.

Cue Yoshi who gets between them.  Lucky gets mad at him and challenges Yoshi for a match and invites Maryse to be at ringside.

O’Neil vs. Young later.

First though: a new WWE trailer!!!  This is called “That’s What I Am” and it has Randy Orton and Ed Harris in it.  It’s set in the 60s and appears to be about bullying.  Orton looks to be in about one scene in it, which might be the best idea possible.

Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young

Pre match Darren yells at Horny and calls him a bootleg leprechaun.  Chavo warns Darren, saying that Horny is tough.  Darren takes him down with ease and we’re in the chinlock less than a minute in.  After a two count it’s off to a Cravate.  Regal wants to eat Hornswoggle apparently.  Amazingly enough we get the explanation for the arm pose during Titus’ bark: it’s the symbol of his fraternity from college.  As we have that explained to us, Darren yells at Horny and gets rolled up by Titus for the pin at 2:30.  Match was dull while it lasted.

Post match Young beats up Titus with a gutbuster and goes after Horny.  Chavo tells Young to chill and focus so he lets Horny go.

Here’s JTG and we get a recap of his bet with Kozlov.  The idea is JTG can make Novak look more fly than Kozlov could make O’Brian a beast.  Regal talked to someone at Rosetta Stone (a company that helps you learn other languages) and figured out what they were talking about.  Funny stuff.

Here’s Novak, looking kind of like Slam Master J if you remember him.  Novak just says no as JTG hasn’t gotten him a single point.  Aren’t they just tiebreakers?  The guy that Vanilla Ice looks at and says “Dude you look like an idiot” yells at Regal about what Regal has been saying about him.  Whenever Regal is ready, Novak will show him what he can do.  It was meant as a threat.

Jacob Novak vs. Byron Saxton

Novak is in jeans here.  Regal talks about the people he’s helped along in their careers and how they’ve all turned on him.  He’s rather upset over this as Saxton gets a clothesline to put Novak on the floor.  Regal says he always wiped his feet before he got in the ring because that was his temple.  Regal is really ticked off about this actually and it’s kind of cool to hear.

No one is really taking over here until Saxton tries to get some offense going.  Bulldog gets two.  Regal is talking about Japanese wrestling for some reason.  He said wrestlers also so expect the debut of Arn Anderson on commentary next week.  Big boot by Novak ends this abruptly at 3:40.

Rating: D+. Well I think everyone knew that it would be Novak winning here which is fine.  He’s dying for some kind of character and I guess this is better than nothing.  They’re trying at least so points for that.  The problem is that Novak is boring both on the mic and in the ring.  If he was actually entertaining in any possible way this would help but he simply isn’t at all.

We get the Edge retirement speech last night.  It blows my mind that this is real still but if Edge is losing feeling in his arms and is that hurt, by all means he should retire.  There’s no reason for him to risk paralysis or death for the sake of one more run, especially when he’s got perhaps the best resume in WWE history.  I got to watch him earlier this year at a house show and he was awesome there and had probably the match of the night.  I won’t call it a shame though, as like I said if this makes his health last longer, more power to him.  This eats up about 10 minutes.

Lucky Cannon vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Maryse is on commentary here.  Regal doesn’t like the Titantron video of Tatsu because it’s mainly Regal getting kicked in the head.  Apparently Lucky’s nickname, Mr. Delish, is the name of a French dish made of potatoes and cheese.  Ok then.  Cannon says it’s about HIM and Maryse says it’s about her and as long as she has chocolate, credit cards and stilettos she’s happy.  All Cannon for the early part of this until Cannon walks into a kick to the head on the floor.  Yoshi takes over back in the ring and fires off some kicks.  Spin wheel kick off the top ends this clean at 3:08.

Rating: C-. Just a match here but the commentary was funny.  Maryse is wittier than you would give her credit for.  Not terrible but it played off the main story of the show which is the right idea for this show.  They don’t have much to work with so using it well like this is a good sign.  Not bad but just a bookend for the angle.

Maryse kisses Yoshi post match and his eyes are hilarious.

Overall Rating: B-. Amazingly enough this was a pretty entertaining show.  The lack of stupid challenges and the rise of WRESTLING MATCHES on here helps a lot.  I’m more than happy with three matches a night and one quick challenge.  They have small stories here but they really do need to cut some of the fat here.  Probably the best show of the season, which is a good sign.

Results

Titus O’Neil won the Power of the Punch Challenge

Titus O’Neil b. Darren Young – Rollup

Jacob Novak b. Byron Saxton – Big Boot

Yoshi Tatsu b. Lucky Cannon – Top Rope Spinwheel Kick

I saw this in the comment section and thought I’d throw this out there for you guys.  The debate was over where Edge ranks as an all time great.  I figured this might get some people talking, so here are my (thrown together off the top of my head) top ten greatest ever.  Also I’ll throw in approximately where Edge would rank.

1. Hulk Hogan

2. Steve Austin

3. The Rock

4. Shawn Michaels

5. Ric Flair

6. Harley Race

7. Sting

8. Andre the Giant

9. John Cena

10. HHH

Edge I would put in the high teens, probably around 18-19.

Your lists?  And also that list is off the top of my head remember, so I’d likely change things on it that I had forgotten about later.

Monday Night Raw
Date: April 11, 2011
Location: Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard, Bridgeport, Connecticut
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Josh Matthews

Tonight we’ll likely begin the build to Extreme Rules.  We didn’t have much time last week as the focus was on Mania fallout and of course next year’s Wrestlemania main event being set up.  It should be interesting to see what Cena does to fill the next 50+ weeks.  No matches on the Raw side have been announced for the PPV so we should get something tonight.  Let’s get to it.

On Tough Enough there was a teaser that Edge says his career might be over.  That came out of left field.

Cole gets a special introduction as the only undefeated superstar in the WWE.  “What’s up Jerry?”

Here’s Cena to open the show properly.  He talks about how this is a great time to be in the WWE Universe because last week there was an announcement made that turned WWE upside down.  Cena talks about the announcement that was so big it takes a year to digest.  The match can’t just be a match though, so that match needs to be for the WWE Championship.  Therefore Cena needs to win the WWE Championship, so he issues a challenge for right now.

Instead he gets Randy Orton.  Orton says that Cena may want a title shot but he had his already and lost.  Orton says Cena should step aside and let someone that won their match at Wrestlemania get a shot.  Cena gets ready to reply but here’s John Morrison.  He says we’ve seen this show (referring to Cena vs. Orton) before but now it’s better because John Morrison is involved.

Before that though here come Vickie and Dolph.  Vickie says she should get the shot because she pinned Morrison.  But if not her then Dolph.  Ziggler says he isn’t here on Raw to waste his time on Cena.  He’s never faced Miz for the title so the line starts with him.  Don’t worry though because everyone will get title shots when he’s champion.

We’re not done yet because here’s R-Truth.  He says that the gospel truth is that he’s never had a WWE Championship match.  I think there’s a reason for that Truth.  An e-mail says that there’s a new cobncept match.  It’s a 5 man gauntlet match.  Tonight (presumably) there will be two starting and another enters at a preset interval.  You can’t get a win until all five are in and the winner meets Miz at Extreme Rules.  I think those are the rules at least.  It was a bit hard to keep track of.

Lawler vs. Swagger later.  If Lawler wins he gets a rematch with Cole.

There’s a video of a baby doll with its head taken off.  You can see the person holding it, clearly the soon to be debuting Awesome Kong.  She laughs crazily.

Divas Title: Eve Torres vs. Brie Bella

Brie allegedly won a Divas battle royal to win this shot.  Wasn’t that weeks ago and she got the shot already?  Eve brings a marker to have an X put on Nikki’s hand so we know she’s on the floor.  That’s rather intelligent.  Brie takes her down to start but Eve makes her comeback with a dropkick and the standing moonsault for two.  Eve gets her in the Tree of Woe and when she’s being taken off there’s a switch.  While Nikki is being taken out Brie sneaks up on her and an X-Factor gives Brie the title at 2:20.  Weak match but all the girls looked good from a looks perspective at least.

Sin Cara debuts next.

Back with Eve being all upset about losing and Gail comes in to say she knows how it feels.  Eve says all the Divas are the same.  Natalya gets the same response.  Tamina walks up to get something and just keeps walking.  Ok then.

Sin Cara vs. Primo

The fans cheer for Sin Cara as Primo hammers away.  He tries to toss Cara into the air so Sin Cara lands on his shoulders and backflips off.  Out to the floor and a slingshot rana sends Primo flying.  Primo is thrown back in but gets a baseball slide to send Cara back out.  We hit a modified chinlock as Primo is getting way too much offense in here.

Cara chops away and gets another rana to get the crowd going a bit more.  Powerbomb is countered into a very fast and hard sunset flip.  Primo goes up but gets kicked in the head.  They stand on the top rope and Primo falls, sending Cara to the floor.  A C4 2000 (Downward Spiral with a backflip off the top) ends Primo at 4:30.

Rating: D+. I haven’t seen this big of a blown debut in a long time.  Primo controlled the majority of the match and whenever Cara got something going, Primo would hit something to slow him down.  You couple that with the botch at the end and this was a glorified train wreck.  At least the ending was good.

We get a clip from the end of Raw last week with Corre running in.  During the live chat on NXT last week Howard Finkel said that was very stupid of them to do.  When the Fink comes down on someone, that’s not a good sign.

Corre is in the ring and Barrett says he used to see them as equals, but if they can’t hold up their end of the bargain then there’s no point in continuing.  Gabriel takes offense to it and says the 450 has taken out more people and he’s a 3 time tag champion.  Slater says WE are three time tag champions.  Jackson says he made Corre legit.  He gets cut off by Santino’s music though.

Here are Santino, Henry, Bryan and Bourne.  Santino says if they’re the Corre then they’re the A.P.P.L.E.: Allied People Powered (by) Loathing Everything (you stand for).  This fight is for Kozlov so APPLE POWERS UNITE!  And yes Santino really said that.

Corre vs. Apple

This is joined in progress as we come back.  The Apple name is hilarious if nothing else.  Corre is in control hammering away on Daniel Bryan.  I wonder if he regrets leaving being the king of the indies yet.  Gabriel gets a hilo for two.  After a nice long beating it’s the hot tag to Santino who cleans house.  Cole makes apple jokes the whole time.  Everything breaks down and Bryan throws out a suicide dive to take out Barrett.  Cobra is loaded up and a reverse DDT ends Santino at 3:37.

Rating: D+. Nothing special at all here other than to show that Corre is mostly united at least.  Bryan sells very well so the match was about as good as it was going to get given what they had to work with.  Not a terrible match but all things considered it was just ok.  At least the right team won.

We talk about Lawler vs. Swagger and here’s JR to be in Lawler’s corner.  Cole makes fun of Ross so JR tries to break into the Cole Mine.  When that fails he hits Cole with his hat.  Jerry gets up to take out Swagger and we go to a break.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jack Swagger

If Lawler wins he gets a rematch with Cole at Extreme Rules and gets to pick the stipulations.  If Swagger wins then Cole never has to face Lawler again.  Cole and Ross are at ringside and are on microphones.  Swagger controls with basic stuff to start, namely hammering on Jerry.  Cole keeps talking trash as Jerry makes a brief comeback, including taking a brief victory lap around the ring.

Headlock by Swagger is reversed by a belly to back suplex.  Ankle lock goes on and Jerry does as Ross says by getting to the ropes.  Cole shouts MOMMY at Jerry during the hold.  Josh isn’t talking during the match.  Swagger grabs an armbar and cranks on it a bit.  Ross: “Your guy had you in an ankle lock and now has a wrist lock.  Show’s how stupid he is!”

Cole calls Swagger Jackie as he rams Jerry into the buckle.  Lawler Lawlers Up and hammers away.  Cole keeps running his mouth so JR finally blasts him.  The distraction allows Jerry to grab a rollup for the pin at 5:18.  Swagger’s face after it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Rating: C-. A lot of that is for the commentary/talking alone.  JR’s line is one of the most obvious yet brilliant lines I’ve heard in a long time and shows the basic lack of psychology that is present in wrestling today.  Not a great match or anything but given who was in there, this was solid.  And no, I’m not saying this was better than the previous two matches.  They’re not on the same scale and shouldn’t be.

Cole rips into Swagger post match, blaming him for everything and saying he paid good money for his help.  It was all Swagger’s fault that he lost.  Then he slaps Swagger and runs.  Jerry grabs the mic and says we need to talk about Extreme Rules.  He picks the obvious tag match: JR/Lawler vs. Swagger/Cole.  Smart thinking actually.  Jerry reminds Swagger that Cole just slapped him in the face.  Cole panics as Swagger looks like he’s about to eat him.

We get a video package of wrestlers both past and present talking about how great Undertaker vs. HHH was.

Edge is talking to Cena and will be heading to the ring next.

Here’s Edge as JR, King and Matthews are doing commentary now.  Please, I beg of you, pick a team and stick with it.  This rotating lineup in the middle of the show is getting annoying.  Anyway Edge says he’s going to ramble a lot in this.  He says a lot of people thinks WWE doesn’t hurt and he wishes that wasn’t true.  8 years ago he had a neck injury and had spinal fusion surgery to correct it.

He knew he was wrestling on borrowed time but recently he’s been losing the feeling in his arms.  He’s taken some tests and managed to make it through Wrestlemania, but the tests tell him he has to retire.  The doctors have said he has no choice but thankfully they’ve found out now and he’s not going to be in a wheelchair.

Edge breaks down into tears as I’m thinking this isn’t a storyline at all.  The fans chant thank you Edge and he says thank you guys.  Edge talked to Christian who has been his best friend for 27 years.  Edge was mad at himself but he’s still a fan of the WWE.  He talks about going to Maple Leaf Gardens with Christian and seeing guys like Demolition, the LOD and Hogan.

Then he went to Wrestlemania 6 and saw Hulk Hogan vs. the Ultimate Warrior and said he’d be doing that.  Fast forward 18 years and it was him in there against the Undertaker.  Now he’s won more titles than anyone in WWE history and had his last match in a main event at Wrestlemania and gets to retire as World Heavyweight Champion.

Edge has been in this business for 19 years and he grew up in front of these people.  He runs through his career from running through the streets of New York to doing posing for the benefits of those with flash photography to a live sex celebration (“luckily with Lita and not Vickie Guerrero”) and he hopes that he’s earned the fans’ respect.

He’s going to miss this and tomorrow he doesn’t have to wear tights and now he gets to eat ice cream.  He says he’d do it again, even getting hired by JR.  He drops the mic and gets a standing ovation.  No Alberto, no interruptions, nothing else.  If this was a work, give this man an Emmy right now.  He does his pose on the stage and his music plays him out.  Heavy stuff man.

We’re back and everyone, faces and heels, is applauding Edge.  Even Vickie, Dolph, Corre, everyone.  Dustin Rhodes is there in a shirt and tie.  Still no Alberto or Christian.  No word on the title situation yet but I’d assume Christian will take his place in the ladder match for the vacant title.

Cue Miz to a nice pop actually.  He’s on commentary here.

John Cena vs. Randy Orton vs. R-Truth vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. John Morrison

Two will start and then it’s a standard gauntlet match, last man standing wins.  Ziggler locks on a chinlock after some back and forth stuff.  Lawler asks Miz who he’d prefer to face and Miz says he can’t hear him over his awesomeness.  Josh is reading something and not seeming to pay attention.

Orton fires off some offense and looks down at Miz.  Ziggler hides in the ropes to avoid the RKO.  He can’t avoid the elevated DDT though and Orton sets for the RKO.  The Nexus returns though and distracts Orton, allowing him to be pinned at 2:43.  Well I didn’t see that one coming.  Orton has to fights off the Nexus but Ryan takes him out.  Orton is left laying as we take a break.

Back with Truth vs. Ziggler.  Miz runs down Truth, wondering which version of him would come up.  Lawler asks who Miz would rather face and Miz says he’ll face either of them.  Chinlock goes on by Ziggler as Miz talks about not getting respect.  If Cena wanted icon vs. icon he should have challenged Miz.  Miz says he’s not a talker.  Lawler responds with a facepalm.

The in ring stuff is rather boring, mainly because everyone knows Truth doesn’t have a chance here of winning the whole thing.  Truth hammers away with right hands and gets a sitout gordbuster for two.  Ziggler comes back with a neckbreaker as the fans aren’t exactly thrilled by this.  Out of nowhere Truth gets a jumping downward spiral to put eliminate Ziggler after 4:00 (all times other than the final are of the two in the ring, not overall time).

Morrison is next and will face Truth after the break.  They exchange a bunch of pinfalls to start us off until Morrison hits a breakdancing legdrop and throws on a chinlock.  Miz keeps bashing everyone and is sounding like a less insulting version of Mystery Science Theater.  They hit the floor and a double clothesline puts both guys down.  Both guys slide back in at nine and we keep going.

Morrison gets all angry and takes down Truth with some running offense, including a leg lariat.  Truth reverses into a suplex/Stunner.  He picks Morrison up for a suplex but shifts him to the side and catches him in a Stunner.  Cool looking move.  Morrison gets up and hits his kick off the middle rope but misses Starship Pain.  The jumping Downward Spiral sends Truth to the final two at 4:51.

Cue Cena as it’s him vs. Truth for the shot at Miz.  I didn’t see this one coming.  We’re going to start this up after a break.  During the break we’re told Edge will surrender the title on Friday.  This looks more real every second.  Back and we’re ready to go.  Miz comments on the dueling chants and Cena hits a dropkick to the champ’s shock.  Cena hammers away and hits a new move: a combination powerslam/side slam for two.

Release fisherman’s suplex gets two and Cena goes up top.  Top rope Fameasser gets two and I have a feeling this isn’t going to be as easy as it seemed.  Truth makes the comeback and “hits” (read as it misses by about 8 inches) his spinning forearm for two.  The downward spiral (that needs a name) can’t hit and Cena initiates his ending sequence.  Cena sets for the FU but Miz and Riley run in and hit both guys at the same time for a double DQ I guess.  The last pairing ran 5:36 and overall counting commercials it ran 30:40.

Rating: C+. The grade is for the whole thing rather than any individual segment.  Hard to really grade this as there isn’t much of a precedent for it and the whole match was choppy.  Luckily this had a lot of time as the matches where people are eliminated in about a minute are rather annoying as they’re ridiculous any other time of the year.  Not bad, but hard to grade.  Ending was good though.

Miz says there’s no #1 contender and we get an E-Mail.  There are now 2 #1 contenders: Cena and R-Truth, and there will be a triple threat match at the PPV.  Odd choice but ok then.  Cena and Truth have a weird bromance moment for a bit as they slap each other on the back rather fiercely and Truth glares at Cena as he leaves.

Overall Rating: B. Well it can’t be said nothing happened here.  We have a new stable (and yes I know it’s a joke), a new #1 contender, a new champion and one of the biggest stars of all time retired.  The wrestling here clearly wasn’t the point and for a show with this much going on that’s more than understandable.

Results

Brie Bella b. Eve Torres – Sitout Facebuster

Sin Cara b. Primo – C4 2000

Corre b. Apple – Slater pinned Marella after a reverse DDT

Jerry Lawler b. Jack Swagger – Rollup
Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. R-Truth vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. John Morrison went to a double disqualification when Alex Riley and the Miz interfered

It’s been about six months since this show and I thought it would be interesting to look back and see how things have gone since then.

Impact
Date: October 14, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: THEY Have Arrived!!!

Well this is it. After four days of waiting we can finally get to the explanation from Jeff as to WHY he did what he did. This is something that is very important because you have the entire THEY angle riding on it. The importance of this show can’t be overblown as we begin the next chapter in TNA’s history.

The opening is likely to be about Jeff and THEY as well as set up the fairly obvious RVD vs. Jeff match, although I could see them postponing that one if need be. I’d also be interested in knowing how much actual wrestling we’ll have tonight but we’ll see. Let’s get to it.

We of course open with the recap of the ending of Bound For Glory.

Dixie’s attorney is here and as everyone thought we’re told that Dixie signed the contracts but they weren’t the ones she thought they were.

Hogan (still on crutches) and Bischoff are here to a MASSIVE pyro display. Of course Hogan is acting just like he did as a face. Tenay explains that Hogan and Bischoff now have the majority share of TNA….despite the fact that the attorney never said that.

Naturally Hogan gets a big face reaction with like two signs against him in the whole audience. Oh wait three fat chicks are booing. Well there’s a Hogan sucks chant so there’s something I suppose. Hogan wants Dixie here now. Apparently she promised him everything, much like Ted Turner did in 96. Hogan gets a text or something as he has his phone out and is messing with it.

Here we go: the explanation. It started with Abyss apparently and the Hall of Fame ring. Bischoff and Hogan knew why he randomly turned on Hogan. We bring him out and Hogan declares Abyss his son. THEY’RE HERE! Ok now that my pizzas are here we can get back. What did you think I meant by they?

None of the fans believed Abyss but they are now in control. The fans want RVD. Abyss follows them as Hogan and Bischoff’s soldier now. Hogan declares that Abyss with live forever and is now immortal. I think The Immortals might be the name. Eric brings out Jarrett. Wait was there an actual explanation in there for abyss? If there was I missed it.

Yeah this was no real surprise: he wanted control of his company back. I think that was the easiest of all to understand. And here’s FOURTUNE! Ok this just got good.

Flair talks to Hogan and says that Fourtune runs this company, not Hogan. LOUD Fourtune chant. One of them have to leave apparently. Hogan suggest him vs. Flair and it’s…..not on as they hug. Flair bows down to Hogan and it’s a massive Hogan orgy more or less. The explanation here makes sense though as Fourtune was mad at Dixie for bringing in EV. That actually makes sense. We get a reference to Flair’s five former ex wives and here comes Jeff!

No face paint here either. The fans think Jeff sold out. You can barely see the ropes with so many guys in there with him. He didn’t sell out but sold in. He blames the fans and doesn’t care about popularity. The fans drove him to this because he did everything with all those injuries for what?

And now it’s on to RVD. He’s the whole F’N reason Abyss took RVD out because RVD had to be gone for this to work. They are Immortal. Sting and Nash are watching in the back. Eric and Hogan offer them spots on the team. We go to a break 22 minutes into the show with them coming to the ring.

Security escorts Dixie….somewhere.

Nash and Sting come out and Sting is in street clothes which isn’t something you see that often. Tenay is already annoying. Eric says this is about money and all that jazz. Nash whispers to Sting and says this is perfect for him because it’s always been about money and him in his career. He’s gotten wiser though and quotes the Bible of all things, saying gray hair is a sign of wisdom. He’s passing on the money and if THEY want to run the company into the ground, they can do it without him. I’m surprised.

Sting says this isn’t what he came here for and says he’s here because he loves TNA. He’s shouting the whole time mind you. Sting points to Hogan, Bischoff and Flair (I think) and says this is a no win situation, turning them down. Allegedly both of these guys are leaving TNA with Nash being permanent and Sting possibly being permanent. Bischoff says they can come back anytime. Hogan’s music plays the segment to an end at 9:32.

We cut to the back where Sting and Nash leave but Pope isn’t happy with it. They offer him a place in the car out with them but he’s staying to fight the fight which they’re cool with. Dixie comes up to them and says they can’t leave her. Sting says what everyone thought: if she had listened this wouldn’t be happening. She says he was cryptic. Dixie, he sent crows down at the NWO to demand a title match one night. He’s a weird guy.

Hogan and Bischoff come up to Dixie and she slaps the heck out of Bischoff. She tells Hogan to look her in the eye and tell her he didn’t screw her. He says we’ll talk about this in HIS office as we go to another break.

In the office we have MORE talking. Bischoff smokes a cigar and Hogan flat out tells her that he screwed her out of the company. This is a big Hogan ego trip of course. Hogan and Bischoff both say this is their company. Hogan has had enough and so has Dixie. She tells her security guards to get rid of them but they work for Hogan too. Dixie’s husband SURGE gets knocked out and we take ANOTHER break.

Some hot chick in a BMW shows up. And we’re just not going to talk about this at all. Ok then. Ah ok it’s the Jersey Short chick.

Madison comes out with a referee as I’m guessing this is going to be about Tara. She yells about how Tara has HER title. She wants a match RIGHT NOW. Here’s Tara, looking GOOD. Madison says they had a deal and apparently we’re getting a match….at 9:50pm.

Knockouts Title: Tara vs. Madison Rayne

And Tara lays down so Madison can pin her. I kid you not.

Madison celebrates and here’s Mickie to talk some more. She wants a title shot RIGHT NOW but Madison sends Tara after her. Mickie sends her running and stares her down.

J-Woww from Jersey Shore comes in and talks to the Beautiful People. Apparently she’s an honorary BP tonight.

Back from break and they’re still looking for Cookie. This results in Eric Young freaking out about J-Woww. Jordan comes up and nothing of note happens.

And here’s Angle for MORE talking. No music, no intro, nothing like that. He talks about how he’s all banged up but wants to know why Hogan and Bischoff screwed him before he officially retires. Angle says what we all expected him to say: he didn’t win but he didn’t get pinned either. Cue Jarrett’s music and here he is.

Jarrett more or less calls bull on what Angle is saying. He takes a jab at Angle being an ex-husband (the real meaning being that Jarrett literally married Angle’s wife and not in kayfabe). Angle says he put TNA on the map. Uh, not quite Kurt. He says Jarrett held down everyone but couldn’t hold Angle down.

Kurt Angle, the man that held the tag titles, X-Division and World titles at the same time is talking about holding others down. Jarrett says taking Angle’s career meant more than destroying his life. Angle goes for him and the security guards take him down and handcuff him. The beatdown is on. Uh, Joe anyone?

TAZ of all people comes out of the broadcast booth and calls off Jarrett and says that he has a censored up (censored of course) neck. Old school Taz chant takes us to another break.

70 minutes in, 6 seconds of “wrestling.”

Joe talks (shocking isn’t it) about Jarrett on a tape from Monday, still in Daytona. He’s coming for Jarrett of course.

GOOD NIGHT  IT’S A MATCH! And it’s Abyss. Oh joy.

Abyss vs. Samoa Joe

Yeah they’re officially called Immortal. Well ok then. Joe beats the heck out of him first and beats him into the corner. Chokeslam takes him down and Joe is in trouble. He goes to get a chair but Joe hits a suicide dive into the chair which more or less didn’t hit Abyss’s head at all but he stays down anyway. Sure why not? Bell to the head and we’re done in two minutes. No rating. RVD comes down for the save.

Wait, why didn’t Joe come down and massacre Jeff like 5 minutes ago?

Hey look RVD wants to talk. It’s about Hardy which makes sense. Jeff pops up on the screen and says it was an illusion as he brought RVD as close to him as he could and then destroyed him. Well ok so he told Abyss to destroy him. Hardy says he’s the Anti-Christ of wrestling. WOW.

Bischoff comes out and says if RVD wants Hardy at Turning Point he has to beat Anderson tonight, winner gets the shot.

Back from a break Tessmacher is propositioned by Bischoff for “a meeting later at his place”. He snaps on her and calls her easy. Bischoff knows about Nash and Pope apparently. She’s fired from the Knockouts authority job and can either wrestle or leave. Anderson comes up and declares Bischoff a douchebag and squeezes his hand really hard saying that Bischoff won’t win this war.

D’Angeol Dinero vs. Fourtune

Yep it’s 1 vs. 5 here. Morgan and Flair aren’t in this. Total dominance here of course but it’s better than more talking I suppose. AJ misses the Pele and kicks Kaz which Pope gets two off of. DWI hits him and Kaz gets the pin. Another short match so no grade.

Ad for Turning Point where Angle is named specifically as being there. Nice one guys.

Here’s The Shore to get on my nerves and be booed out of the building. They point out that this is on at the same time as Jersey Shore because that’s how TNA works. Cue up the Beautiful People and J-Woww. Cookie and J-Woww argue as usual and Cookie says go back to the hole you came from. You know, the same one she’s from. Catfight, Shore bails. 15k for a minute long segment and an EY joke.

We recap things to kill time so we can run over into ReAction as always.

Mr. Anderson vs. Rob Van Dam

No mic time for Anderson here as he’s mad. The bell rings at about 11pm as we just HAD to have a commercial as RVD made his entrance. Make that 11:01. Naturally to see the main event of Impact you have to watch ReAction. So would that mean the winner got the win on Impact or ReAction? Winner gets Hardy at the PPV mind you.

Basic stuff to start as Van Dam hits a moonsault off the apron to kick Anderson in the head, which might have been how he injured his head and Impact is OVER! And now REACTION has started and we didn’t miss a thing and it serves no purpose but screw that who cares? If you want to see the Impact main event, don’t watch Impact!

After I have a psychotic episode over the stupidity of some of the things this company does, it’s still a boring match. Rolling Thunder is countered into a fireman’s carry and the split legged moonsault gets two. Five Star eats knees and both guys are down. And here’s Bischoff to screw us over. He tells the referee to come with him and here’s Hardy, holding his ribs with a chair.

Chair to RVD. Chair to Anderson. Pillmanizer on the arm of Anderson. Anderson curses a lot and rolls to the floor. That’s your ending by the way.

Rating: D+. Match was pretty weak due to the crowd knowing the ridiculous ending was coming. This match never really got off the ground or anything but it could have been worse. The guys knew the ending was coming and clearly didn’t get going until the very end as they were just going through the motions. Nothing bad really, but nothing particularly good.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a VERY subjective grade to put it mildly. This show can be looked at their get out of jail free card. It was the first show after their biggest show ever and a huge angle. The show as a stand alone show was atrocious. However, this was a show where a lot of talking was actually required.

The explanations that they gave needed to be done. I can understand that and I’m mostly ok with it. However there comes a point where you need some wrestling to get you through a show. Having the show revolve around one angle is fine and makes sense, but you really need some wrestling to go with it. As was said in the LD, even a 4 minute throw away match would have helped tremendously. One or two of those thrown in somewhere and this show goes WAY up.

As for doing what needed to be done tonight, they got a lot out of the way. Jarrett, Dixie, Hogan and Bischoff are all explained. Nash and Sting are written off TV, Pope has a new thing to do, Anderson’s loyalty is pretty clear and RVD and Joe will fight on their own. Hardy was explained but to say it felt rushed is an understatement. Abyss wasn’t explained at all but did we really need to hear about him? All you really get from that is the beginning of the story and we can live without that.

This show did explain some things and kind of got things going for the angle, but at the same time this is showing signs of turning into one massive soap opera much like the NWO angle. The problem with that is back then you had some amazing matches on the side to compliment the drama. You’re not getting that in the first week.

That being said, it’s the first week and I can understand a ton of talking here. However if this is now the status quo, there are REAL problems for this company. This was kind of a disappointment but to say it was horrible isn’t fair. They got through a lot tonight, but what scares me are the weeks to come. There has to be some wrestling out there, and I’m not seeing it here so far. I’m neither thrilled nor optimistic, but I’m also not convinced this is bad. Definitely interested in next week’s offering, but I’ll be less lenient on it to say the least.

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

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

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

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

BREAKING NEWS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We talk about the monster truck thing to kill time.

Randy Savage vs. Zodiac

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

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

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

Kurasawa vs. Hawk

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lex Luger vs. Meng

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luger wants Savage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

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

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

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

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

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OR CAN IT?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cody Rhodes vs. Trent Barreta

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

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

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

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

Laycool vs. Kelly Kelly/Beth Phoenix

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

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

Laycool argues in the aisle.

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

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

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

Decent length video recapping the Hall of Fame inductions.

Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio

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

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

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

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

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

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

Results

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

Cody Rhodes b. Trent Barreta – Cross Rhodes

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

Alberto Del Rio b. Christian – Enziguri