Royal Rumble 2010
Date: January 31, 2010
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 16,697
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Matt Striker

We’re getting close to the end of the run here with only three shows left. Tonight we’ve got the Rumble of course along with Undertaker defending against Mysterio and Sheamus defending against Orton. I remember really liking this one as the new generation had arrived and was rising up the card. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about the Road to Wrestlemania is beginning and how it determines what happens for months to come. This is called the most star studded Rumble ever, which is a tagline that has been used before.

ECW Title: Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson

Christian is defending and man that ECW ring announcer has an annoying voice. Regal is with Jackson here. According to Striker, Jackson went to Columbia Law School. Now there’s a factoid that fell through the cracks. Jackson shoves Christian into the corner and then does it again into the ropes so the champion slaps him in the face. After a brief chase, Christian dropkicks Jackson out to the floor.

The springboard plancha takes Jackson out and we head back in. Christian finally gets caught in the corner and pounded on before having the Killswitch easily blocked. Instead Christian chokes away on the ropes and hits another shot to the face. Jackson throws Christian to the floor where Regal tries to throw him back in, earning himself an ejection. Off to a neck crank back inside which Jackson picks up into a kind of cobra clutch slam for two.

A vertical suplex gets two for Big Zeke and it’s time for more choking. A sunset flip is easily blocked by Jackson and it’s back to the chinlock. Striker tries to figure out what a peep is, as he knows it as a something made of chocolate. Some shots to the face get Christian out of trouble for awhile, or at least until a clothesline to the back of the head gets two.

Jackson hooks both of Christian’s arms back for another hold before putting the champion on top. The superplex is blocked and Christian hits a top rope back elbow for two (LOVE that move). Jackson’s big clothesline misses and a middle rope dropkick gets two for the champion. A spinwheel kick gets two on Jackson but a swan dive misses and gives Zeke a near fall as does a backbreaker.

The tornado DDT gets ANOTHER two for Christian so Jackson takes his head off with a clothesline. Off to a sleeper from Christian when the Killswitch doesn’t work but Jackson counters into a powerslam position to ram Christian’s back into the buckle. Christian slides down Jackson’s back and grabs the Killswitch out of nowhere to retain.

Rating: C+. Trim two minutes out of this and it goes WAY up in quality. The period of near falls went on too long without getting any significant heat from the crowd. Jackson would get the title in a little over two weeks on the final episode of ECW because if there’s one man that should be the final ECW Champion, it’s a musclehead that could barely get through a five minute match most of the time.

Cryme Tyme come in to try to get a second spot in the Rumble from Teddy and Tiffany. Khali says “no dice homeslice” to selling their spot because he’s keeping it real. Apparently he’s learned his English from Family Matters (Singh’s words, not mine). Ok then. Anyway US Champion the Miz comes in and laughs which causes him to have to defend against MVP.

Orton is in the back when Cody Rhodes comes in. He’s there for Randy in the title match tonight but that’s not all. Apparently DiBiase isn’t in on this because his mind is on winning the Rumble and taking the title from Orton.

US Title: The Miz vs. MVP

A quick clothesline gets two for MVP and he works on the champ’s ribs to start. Miz gets a boot up in the corner to slow him down but MVP comes right back with a belly to back suplex for two. They head to the floor for this gem from Striker: “Miz is one of the most recognizable faces on this planet.” I don’t think Miz is one of the most recognizable faces in this match.

Back in and Miz sends MVP to the apron and gets kicked into the table on the floor. Not that this is treated like anything of note because the announcers are laughing about Sherri Shepard from The View. Miz sends shoulders into MVP’s ribs in the corner followed by the running corner clothesline. A top rope double ax gets two for Miz and we hit the chinlock.

After that eats up some time, MVP pounds away with all of his usual stuff. Ballin hits and a running boot to the side of the head gets two for the challenger. A big shoulder block gets the same for MVP but he misses a running boot in the corner. MVP grabs three straight quick near falls but gets caught in a small package for the pin to keep the title on Miz.

Rating: D+. If there was a reason for this to be on PPV other than the show was running short, I don’t know what it was. Miz didn’t look like anything special out there but somehow he would be world champion a year later. MVP on the other hand would be out of the WWE but he did well enough in Japan. Nothing to see here other than a filler match.

Post match MVP hits the Playmaker on Miz and gets booed LOUDLY. He lost completely clean so the booing is deserved.

Show and Jericho, the former tag team champions, run into each other. Show accuses him of being jealous of the chemistry Show and Miz have but Jericho brushes it off. He calls the crowd gelatinous worms before pointing out all of the similarities he and Miz have. Show says he’ll throw both Miz and Jericho out to win the Rumble. R-Truth pops up and says he’ll do the same. Show leaves Jericho standing there much to Jericho’s chagrin.

DiBiase wishes Orton luck and says he’s got Randy’s back. Orton asks where Cody is but DiBiase doesn’t know. This was during the time when Legacy was about to die and both members were trying to get on Randy’s best side. DiBiase claims that Rhodes only wants to win the Rumble but Orton has heard enough. He doesn’t want anyone’s help and gets a clear face pop in response.

The National Guard is here.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

Sheamus won the title in a shocker last month at TLC and is heel here. He’s also still not that good and wouldn’t really hit his stride for about a year and a half. They stare at each other to start and my goodness is Sheamus pale. A dropkick puts the champion down but he comes right back with a running ax handle. Sheamus gets in a shot to the arm and we head to the floor where said arm is sent into the steps.

Back in and Orton goes for the knee and things slow down a bit. Orton wouldn’t really pick up the pace of his offense until about the following year which made his matches pretty hard to sit through. Sheamus comes back by sending Orton’s shoulder into the post twice and hitting some shoulder blocks in the corner. That gets him nowhere though as Orton takes out the knee again and knocks Sheamus to the floor.

They head inside again and yet AGAIN momentum shifts back to Sheamus as he hits a DDT on the arm for two. Off to an armbar for a bit before they slug it out to the boo/yay chants. Orton wins the slugout but walks into the Irish Curse for two. The High Cross is escaped and Orton kicks Sheamus in the head to send him to the outside. Orton gets ready for the RKO but Rhodes jumps the guardrail and blasts Sheamus in the back before running away. The referee sees it though and despite Orton hitting the RKO, he’s disqualified and Sheamus keeps the title. Lame ending to a pretty lame match.

Rating: D+. Like I said, Sheamus just wasn’t very good yet. He was still this big imposing brawler who pounded on people and that’s about it. There was indeed a story in the match but it wasn’t a very entertaining one as they just kept beating on each other’s limbs but when there’s no difference because of the beating, the story doesn’t work. The ending didn’t help either but it did set up something in the future.

Post match Orton snaps on Cody as DiBiase comes down to save his partner. While Orton yells at Cody in the corner, Sheamus comes back in and lays out Randy with a Brogue Kick.

We recap Mickie vs. McCool. This was an awkward feud as Mickie won the title shot in a triple threat and then Laycool made fun of Mickie for being fat. This is of course odd as Mickie is a professional athlete and gorgeous and would only be called fat by a crazy person. It’s also pretty disturbing when you consider how WWE pushes the Divas as role models. The final bit of it was a segment where Mickie got beaten down and covered in food.

Women’s Title: Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James

Pre match Michelle runs her mouth about how fat Mickie is and accuses her of skipping out on the match. Michelle offers cake and here’s Layla in a Mickie Pig costume. The real Mickie sprints to the ring and hits a Thesz Press on Layla on the floor. She heads inside, sends Michelle into Layla and hits the MickieDT for the pin and the title in 20 seconds.

Post match the other Divas bring out a cake and smash it into Laycool’s faces.

We recap Mysterio vs. Undertaker. Rey won the shot by slamming a cage door onto Batista’s head to escape because that’s what heroes do. Taker said he’ll show no mercy on Mysterio so Rey uses the same line everyone does on Taker: he isn’t afraid. Batista beat up Mysterio as well, claiming that Undertaker and the world title was his.

Smackdown World Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Undertaker

Mysterio, in the deep south, comes out wearing a white hood. Striker talks about Lawler being in the ring with Kamala and Lord Humongous (Sid) because he thinks it makes him sound interesting. He’s trying to make a comparison to being in the ring with Undertaker, but if he was as smart as he thinks he is, he would ask Jerry what it’s like to be in the ring with Undertaker himself, which would save a lot of headaches.

Rey fires off some shots in the corner before Taker grabs him by the neck and throws him up and over the top and out to the floor. That looked awesome. Back to the apron and Rey fires off strikes to the face, only to get punched right back down to the floor by a single shot. Taker misses the legdrop on the apron but hits it the second time before heading back in. Rey counters a chokeslam into the 619 but Taker easily grabs the legs. Tombstone is countered and Taker misses an elbow drop.

Rey tries a springboard cross body but jumps into a boot to the chest. We head to the floor again and there’s another big boot to the head to take Rey down. A third big boot keeps Rey down but the fourth misses and Taker sends his leg around the post. Rey hits a baseball slide to send the leg into said post and Taker is in trouble. The seated senton off the apron is caught and Taker puts him back on the apron, only to be caught by an Asai Moonsault to put both guys down.

Taker grabs Rey by the throat and slams him into the barricade. The champion’s nose is busted a bit. Taker does that lifting wristlock of his to crank on the arm a bit before punching Rey down in the corner for a bit. A big side slam gets two for the guy who would use a side slam in this match as Striker goes into this big speech about how the blood shows that undertaker is mortal. Seriously, it’s a BLOODY NOSE. Watch the freaking Lesnar match in the Cell when the blood is literally dripping from Taker’s head and down onto Lesnar’s body.

Rey starts firing off some punches but a single shot from Taker is enough to put him back down. A jawbreaker finally staggers the big man and they do a kind of cross body, although Taker counters into something like Langston’s Big Ending, so it’s hard to say which hurt worse. Taker sits up so Rey kicks him in the face. Why has no one done that before? Rey drops the dime (springboard legdrop) for two but Taker kills him with a big clothesline. The Last Ride is countered and the 619 hits as does a second one, but the West Coast Pop is countered into the Last Ride to retain the title.

Rating: B. This was solid stuff for the most part for a few reasons. First of all, they didn’t make Taker look ridiculous to get into position for Rey’s moves. That’s my biggest issue with most of Rey’s battles against giants: how stupid the big men look. The other good thing here is that Taker wasn’t knocked silly after just a few moves. Rey only hit maybe a dozen offensive moves here other than basic strikes and it wouldn’t have made sense to have Taker in major trouble. Finally, Rey can bump like crazy when he’s trying to. The only issues here are the lack of a threat to Taker and Striker’s commentary. Chill out already man.

Shawn is watching in the back when Kane comes in and says Shawn’s obsession with Taker is unhealthy. This is KANE calling something unhealthy. He warns Shawn to cool it with Taker because it won’t end well. Kane leaves and HHH comes in. Shawn apologizes for whatever happened on Raw which apparently isn’t important enough to specify. HHH agrees Shawn vs. Taker is meant to be, but it won’t be by wining the Rumble.

Rumble by the Numbers time:

23 Winners

627 entrants eliminated

36 eliminations by Austin

11 eliminations by Kane in 2001

2002 was the last Rumble in Atlanta

62:12 Rey was in the Rumble in 2006

2 seconds was the record for 20 years until Santino broke it last year

3 wins for Austin

2 win for #1, the same as #30

70% of the winners win at Mania

Royal Rumble

Dolph Ziggler is #1 and Evan Bourne is #2. Bourne snaps off a headscissors to start and follows up with a spinwheel kick to take Dolph down. Ziggler comes back with the Zig Zag but can’t throw Evan out. Bourne decks Ziggler and hits Air Bourne as CM Punk of the Straightedge Society is #3. He slams the other two guys’ heads together and dumps them out one after the other. Punk gets a mic and says that tonight is the greatest night in the history of the Straightedge Society. These two are just the first of 29 men who will challenge him, but they can be saved.

The clock starts running down, so Punk gives us the line of the night: “Excuse me, it’s clobberin time.” JTG is #4 and after a few clotheslines, he poses like an idiot in the corner and gets dumped. Punk gets the mic again and says that not everyone can be saved because they don’t have his dedication. Great Khali is #5 and Punk immediately says he can make Khali greater by saving him. He asks Khali to raise his hand for the Straightedge Pledge but Khali lowers the hand onto Punk’s head for the chop.

There’s the Khali Vice and in less than 90 seconds, Beth Phoenix of all people is #6. She stares down Khali and gets picked up and placed on the apron. Beth kisses Khali but in the process pulls him over the top to eliminate him. Phoenix gets back in and BEATS UP PUNK, only to get caught in a GTS to the chest. Would that really knock her out? Before she’s dumped out, here’s Zack Ryder at #7.

As Ryder gets in, Punk grabs the mic and says Zack has potential. PREACH IT BROTHER! Punk starts offering him a spot but his Ryder with the mic before he gets done with it. The fans are going nuts for Punk now and there goes Ryder. Punk talks about how great he is and wants to know who is next, but whoever it is, they’re inferior to Punk. In at #8 is HHH as we enter the second segment of the Rumble.

They stare each other down and HHH starts punching. The facebuster has Punk staggered and a spinebuster puts him down as Drew McIntyre is #9. That gives us a tag champion in HHH and the IC Champion in Drew at the moment. HHH is looking a bit flabby here. He hits the high knee on McIntyre and escapes the GTS to eliminate Punk. DiBiase is #10 as we’re flying through this.

HHH gets double teamed down in the corner until John Morrison, the guy that lost the title to McIntyre, is #11. He takes both heels down and pounds away on them before hitting a jumping DDT on Drew. Starship Pain almost completely misses Drew and HHH clotheslines John down. Kane is #12 and comes in with the top rope clothesline to HHH. There’s a double chokeslam to McIntyre and Morrison before Kane tries to dump DiBiase.

Rhodes is #13 and saves Ted as he comes in. Morrison is sent to the apron and springboards back in, only to get dropkicked out of the air. Legacy goes after Kane but HHH saves him for no apparent reason. Cody saves himself from being eliminated and MVP is #14. Miz runs up behind him though and blasts MVP with the US Title. Morrison hits the Moonlight Drive on McIntyre to break up the Future Shock on Kane. HHH is in trouble in the corner and MVP is carried to the back.

Carlito is #15 and the ring is starting to get full. There’s a Backstabber to HHH and one for Drew and Ted as well. Miz is #16 and hits a quick Finale on Carlito. Cue MVP to clothesline Miz out and eliminate himself in the process. Matt Hardy is #17 and lasts about 20 seconds before Kane puts him out. HHH immediately dumps Kane too and the ring is a lot more empty all of a sudden.

HHH starts laying out everyone and Shawn is #18. Carlito is backdropped out, Rhodes and DiBiase are tossed, Morrison gets dumped, and DX puts out McIntyre to get us down to DX. Before anything can happen though, Cena is #19 to get us to the final third of the match. Cena cleans house and hits a double Shuffle before getting caught in the Pedigree. Out of nowhere Shawn superkicks HHH out to pop the crowd BIG.

Shelton Benjamin in that stupid gold period is #20. He hits Paydirt on both guys but gets dumped by Cena in less than 50 seconds. Yoshi Tatsu is #21 and doesn’t even make it 30 seconds. Big Show is #22 and Cena is shaken. Big Show RUNS down to the ring and house is cleaned. Shawn and Cena try to eliminate each other but Show pulls Shawn back in for some reason. What’s up with that tonight?

Mark Henry is #23 and we get a quick battle of the giant. Who would think those two would have a world title feud a year and a half later and be REALLY popular? Henry slams Show and falls on Cena as he tries an AA. Show spears Henry down and Chris Masters is #24. Masters tries the Masterlock on Show and gets dumped for his efforts. Now Henry goes after Show but Shawn breaks it up for some reason. R-Truth is #25 and actually dumps BOTH big guys. There’s something you wouldn’t expect.

Truth hits a Stroke on Cena and Jack Swagger is #26. All three guys get Vader Bombs and Swagger goes old school with a very slow Oklahoma Stampede. Jack knocks Michaels to the apron but can’t get the elimination. Kingston is #27 and cleans house on Swagger, hitting the Boom Drop and dumping him out with a nice leverage move. Truth puts Kofi on the apron but gets pulled out by a reverse headscissors.

Jericho is #28 but after cleaning about half the house, Cena grabs an AA to put him down. Shawn adds the top rope elbow and tunes up the band but Kofi hits Trouble in Paradise to take him out. Cena dumps Kofi but walks into a Codebreaker. Everyone is down and EDGE makes his big return at #29. That’s rather brilliant instead of waiting for the big surprise at #30, we get a SWERVE that actually makes sense.

Everyone gets a spear and Jericho is out. Edge is back about six months early and it’s Edge-O-Matics all around. Batista is #30, giving us a final four of Shawn, Cena, Edge and Batista. Not bad at all. It’s power all around but Edge spears him down. Everyone is down now Shawn gets up first and hits the forearm on Cena followed by the nipup.

Shawn slams every American in sight and drops the top rope elbow on Cena. Batista takes one too as Edge is still down in the corner. Sweet Chin Music hits Cena and there’s one for Batista as well. Edge clotheslines Shawn to the apron and Michaels superkicks Edge back in, only to get knocked out by Batista. The crowd gasps HUGE at that and Shawn is about to cry. Shawn gets back in and superkicks the referee to vent some frustration. Shawn FINALLY leaves and Cena escapes the Batista Bomb before dumping Batista out. Edge misses the spear but throws out Cena a second later to go to Wrestlemania.

Rating: A-. This is kind of a hard one to grade. They definitely followed the three act structure which helped a lot and the match was VERY fast paced. I mean, the longest anyone was in there was Cena and he barely broke 20 minutes. The problem with that is it doesn’t give anything time to develop. The main story was Shawn which is fine and he would get to Mania at the end of the day anyway. It’s a really fun Rumble but not one of the best ever.

Overall Rating: B. The Rumble is very solid and the rest has nothing terrible so we’ll call it a good show overall. Things would get a lot more interesting soon after this with the rise of the Nexus and a very solid Wrestlemania. This was also a time of transition for the company as a lot of the guys in this show would be gone by the end of the year. Anyway good show here and worth checking out.

Ratings Comparison

Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson

Original: C+

Redo: C+

Miz vs. MVP

Original: B-

Redo: D+

Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

Original: B

Redo: D+

Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio

Original: C-

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: A

Redo: A-

Overall Rating

Original: A-

Redo: B

Dang I liked Sheamus a lot more than I thought I did.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/29/royal-rumble-count-up-2010-one-of-the-best-ever/

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Tables Ladders and Chairs 2010
Date: December 19, 2010
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

It’s the all gimmicks all the time show which was fun last year so we have that to hope for at least. The card looks decent and I’d expect a seventh match to pop up on here. The show is kind of predictable in theory though, but it’s nothing I’m worried about. Well I’m out of filler lines and the show is starting so let’s get to it.

Opening video/montage is about Cena vs. Nexus. Never mind as apparently it’s about champions, which makes more sense. The video is getting me hyped up at least so that should be a good sign.

Intercontinental Title: Kofi Kingston vs. Jack Swagger vs. Dolph Ziggler

That’s what I figured would be the opener. Nothing like a hot opener to be, you know, the opener. King says that Vickie isn’t as cute as Bill Dundee in another line that most people won’t get at all. Weird kind of three way brawl to start and we get a LOUD Kofi chant. Ziggler to the floor and Cole and Lawler start chatting about ladder matches which should be interesting.

First ladder brought in by the champion but both challengers shove him off as the champion touches the belt. Sweet dropkick by Kofi takes down Swags. In a smart spot Kofi shoves the ladder down onto Swaggers’ hands/arms as he’s using the ropes to get up. Another ladder in now, also by Ziggles. Swagger has to get his arm looked at as Kofi lands back first on a ladder.

Slingshot from the mat into the ladder draped over the middle rope. It may help if I say Swagger launched Ziggler into it. This is going WAY too fast to call play by play and such. Ziggler hits a Fameasser onto Kofi onto a ladder onto Swagger. Everyone is out so Vickie comes in. Lawler: who does she think she is, Michael Cole? She tries to go up for no adequately explored reason so Kofi starts to tip over the ladder until the heels make the save.

Everyone on the floor now as the fans are WAY behind Kofi still. He goes up the ladder but Swagger grabs the ankle lock. Ziggler climbs up their backs and nearly pulls it off. Ziggler vs. Kofi on top as Jack is down on the floor. Big BOMBS being thrown here. Dolph manages to get the freaking Sleeper on top of the ladder! He fights out and gets a big shot to put Dolph down a bit.

TEST OF STRENGTH on top of the ladder but Kofi shoves Dolph off. Swagger goes up now as this is awesome stuff with incredible balance. Both guys pull down the title….and Ziggler grabs it off the mat to retain. The fans boo the heck out of it but Striker points out you have to have possession of it which while a stretch does actually make logical sense. If nothing else we got to hear Lawler say “he’s clutching it to his bosom.”

Rating: B. This was more of an intellectual ladder match which is something you don’t see. They brought out some leverage and thinking spots which work far better than the usual high spots which we’ll get later on with Morrison. This was much better than I was expecting and sets a very good pace for the show.

Barrett addresses Nexus and we have a tag title match tonight apparently. Cena is a cancer, Nexus is united tonight, you know the drill I’m sure.

Beth Phoenix/Natalya vs. Laycool

Quick recap video which is of the table on Friday which didn’t work. No tagging here thank goodness. The pink table with the painting from Friday is brought in as Laycool is down early. Crowd is QUIET here. Lawler says he’s never seen a Diva go through a table. That’s just amusing. Double fireman’s carry by Beth is very impressive. Striker makes an important point: any method of going through the table counts. Also it’s only one Diva required for a win.

Laycool in control now as the fans do not care at all. Beth is on the floor now as Laycool takes over. SICK landing by Beth as her foot gets hooked on a rope and she lands straight on her back/head. That was painful as all goodness, it had to be. Michelle sets for a Faithbreaker (Styles Clash) through a table on Nattie but Beth comes back for the save.

Not table for Michelle (“JUST WAIT UNTIL MARK HEARS ABOUT THIS!!!”) as Layla rakes Beth’s eyes. Layla beats on Beth for awhile but can’t suplex her through it. Double gorilla press by the blondes to Layla until Michelle kicks both in the ribs. Beth may have fallen out for a bit. HOLY CRAP!!! Natalya puts Layla on top of Michelle and puts them BOTH in a Sharpshooter at the same time. TAKE THAT BRET!!!

The nice chicks set up the tables but Michelle sends Beth to the floor to make it 2-1 again. They set for a double superplex but Beth saves again. A lot of near finishes in this one indeed. Down goes Beth so they set for it again but they’re shoved off. The table DID NOT BREAK so Natalya is like screw it and splashes them through it to end this.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t as bad as you would have thought as Laycool fought them off far better than people would have predicted. It was a good match even but did anyone ever think Laycool had a realistic shot out there? Not a bad match or anything but at the same time it didn’t really get me into the match and it kind of dragged. Still fun though and that Sharpshooter was GREAT.

Ad for WWE Week which is cool indeed.

Kane talks about his childhood sucking but this year he gets toys: tables, ladders and chairs. He beats the tar out of a bunch of Christmas decorations while shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS. Oddly good actually.

Tag Titles: Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov vs. Heath Slater/Justin Gabriel

Santino does his usual funny stuff about how awesome he and Kozlov are. McGillicutty and Harris are with the guys in yellow. Santino vs. the homeless South African guy to start as this is a standard match. Surprisingly this is a pretty solid technical showdown to start. Off to the Wendy’s chick/man now with a hot crowd doing a Santino chant. The Cobra is the TLC tonight: Totally Lethal Cobra.

Now the fans like Kozlov. Harris clips him and the evildoers have won the day! Ok so they’re just in control but it sounds more triumphant the other way. Big Wendy’s chant now as we’re still being funny and not getting into TNA territory. Vlad gets beaten down for awhile until he uses his head to get Santino in. Santino raises the roof and cleans a few rooms. Cobra is set up but McGillicutty runs in for the LAME DQ.

Rating: D+. Nothing here at all and Santino is the guy getting hot tags now? Just a quick match but apparently they’re setting up the post match thing which is coming here. Nothing that couldn’t have been done on Raw here, but at least Nexus got their rematch out of the way now.

Nexus beats the champions down with Barrett coming down and killing Santino and Kozlov with a chair which makes sense.

Don’t try this at home. Try it in a place that I haven’t made a joke about a dozen times already.

Sheamus vs. John Morrison

Oh yes. These two have that weird chemistry that guys like Warrior and Rude did: you can’t explain it but it’s definitely there. Lawler will not shut up about Cole costing him the title still. They actually hit the mat almost immediately which is odd indeed. We hit the floor and Sheamus sets up a ladder early. Winner is #1 contender if I forgot to mention that.

Morrison slides under the ladder that is set up between the announce table and the apron. He teases Sheamus to get him to also but the big white dude can’t do it and gets kicked in the head. A fan calls Sheamus Casper which cracks me up. Morrison jumps over part of the crowd to hit a forearm, which is a former AJ move. Into the ring and they fight over a ladder which results in Morrison diving over a ladder to take down Sheamus.

Morrison goes up but isn’t in the right position and down he comes. He gets hung upside down with his leg getting caught and he’s stuck hanging upside down. Sheamus’ solution: shove him forward which could hurt his knee and head as well. Sheamus works the knee as a smart Irishman. The fans seem to be divided here but not equally. I think they’re for Morrison but I’m not sure.

Cole tries to make this tank vs. fighter jet which is a cool analogy. Morrison is somehow able to stand after a beating like that one. That’s quite impressive. After a slam onto a ladder where Morrison’s knee gets caught, Sheamus heads up. He naturally takes too long and here comes Johnny Boy. Sheamus charges at him with a ladder but Morrison gets a drop toehold to send the King’s face into the ladder.

BIG kick puts Sheamus down and we’re getting good now. Irish Curse takes down Morrison again though and he hits the floor. Both guys have ladders so they slug it out with the ladders and Sheamus gets his hand hurt. Morrison’s next step? CHUCK THE LADDER AT SHEAMUS’ HEAD!!! Why mess with the basics I guess. Atomic drop onto the ladder makes Jerry squeak in a loud voice.

Instead of climbing immediately John throws a ladder over the top to crush Sheamus all over again. Hand on the contract but a Brogue Kick to the knee/ladder brings Morrison down to the floor. Sheamus goes up but the contract is flying all over the place. Here comes Morrison but the both go down again. Headscissors sends Sheamus to the floor and here goes Morrison again. ALMOST but Sheamus shoves the ladder down for the save. Sweet stuff so far.

Sheamus backdrops Morrison over the top where he crashes to the floor but luckily he didn’t land on the ladder which is still bridged from the beginning of the match. They fight on the same ladder with their backs to the bridged one. Both guys fall backwards, Morrison to the floor and Sheamus THROUGH THE LADDER. That spot never gets old, period. Morrison is all alone in the ring, other than a ladder that is, but here comes Sheamus somehow! Cole asks if he’s the Terminator and I might believe it. Morrison KICKS HIM IN THE FACE and is the #1 contender, more or less sealing Miz retaining later on.

Rating: A. That’s probably a bit overrated but DANG this was good stuff. The se two have MAD chemistry together and every single one of their matches have been awesome. The announcers say this is Morrison’s best match ever, and I can’t really argue against it. Morrison vs. Miz is going to be sweet stuff at the Rumble indeed. Great match.

Miz says that he’s the new face of the company. Everyone has said he can’t do it and he’s proven everyone wrong. Indeed he has.

Barrett won’t talk to Grisham as it’s powwow time. Nexus is LAID OUT with chairs everywhere and only Harris, who was with Barrett, left standing. I smell a setup.

Raw World Title: The Miz vs. Randy Orton

Orton is power walking down to the ring. This is a tables match remember. We get a quick recap video of Miz cashing in which while semi-predictable was still great stuff. Big match intros are always sweet. Orton pounds him down early and we’re off. Miz is in gold trunks, just like Sheamus was. Orton misses a charge and eats buckle as Miz takes over. We get into the Superstar of the Year argument again which goes nowhere.

Orton hits the floor and grabs a table from under the ring as I guess the seven or eight in the aisle aren’t good enough for them. Riley moves the table to save his boss/friend/teacher/dom to his sub. Orton gets his sweet dropkick. Miz gets in a cheap shot and here comes Miz, setting up a table. Orton is sent into the steps and it’s table time all over again.

Miz’s table breaks/falls apart though. Clearly not an awesome table. Miz goes up but Orton rolls off the table which was stupid because he could have won if he hadn’t moved early. Table #3 pulled out by Miz. Even the Artists Formerly Known as the Dudleys say REALLY to that many being brought out by one guy. Running clothesline in the corner has Orton in trouble.

Angle Slam by Orton and he puts Miz on the top. Superplex off the top but Riley again moved the table. There’s the snap powerslam and the elevated DDT. Riley moves the table again so Orton puts him down for fun. Table set up in the middle of the ring and we have an RKO chant. Backbreaker keeps Miz down. Orton sets for the RKO but Riley comes in AGAIN.

Skull Crushing Finale is blocked and we lose a referee. Powerbomb to Riley through the table but there’s the Skull Crushing Finale to Orton. I think I know what’s coming. Yep, Miz moves Riley off the broken table and puts Randy on it. The referee wakes up and Miz retains the title! AWESOME!

Ok wait maybe not as the referee sees the video and we’re on again! Orton hammers away and boy is he ticked off. And never mind as Riley shoves Orton off the apron and through the table to tapdance on the pieces of the broken hearts of the fans while the magic fairies of instant replay were repairing them. AWESOME AGAIN!

Rating: B-. I loved the ending here as it played into the whole Miz defies the odds thing. They also covered that this is fair. It’s probably a bit too highly rated but I had a lot of fun in this one. Also the right guy won as Orton goes back a bit now so we don’t have to deal with him for awhile. I liked it a lot as this whole show has been awesome.

Royal Rumble ad which is about how one person is going on while 29 aren’t. Other than the other guy getting a title match that is.

Off to Alberto and some hot chick in the back near his car. Edge is standing in it and bouncing up and down. He offers an alliance between the three of them to take out Kane. Alberto thinks about it but Edge says no not really as that never works.

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Kane vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. Rey Mysterio

You win by gaining custody of the title. Dang it Rey has the advantage now since he had a custody ladder match before! Rey is dressed….like Gene Simmons of KISS? Really? Entrances take a very long time here. Kane goes straight for Edge as the expected pairings go off together. Striker goes through everyone’s experience in four ways or TLC matches to waste some time.

Alberto shoves Rey off a ladder as Rey jumps onto Kane and Edge, taking them both out with ease. Rey hits a Seated Senton onto the ladder onto Alberto which was cool. The problem with these matches becomes apparent very early as we know the match isn’t ending this early. Chokeslam is countered into an Edgecution by Edge to put the champion down.

Baseball slide to the ladder puts Kane down again, ticking off Cole since it knocked down his Slammies. Alberto and Mysterio kind of disappeared and we have the original title match now. Ah there’s Alberto with all four guys on the floor. Kane rips the legs of a table off which is rather impressive strength. Edge is in the crowd now and not by his own choice.

For some reason he jumps off the barricade to break up a double chokeslam on both Spanish speakers. Everyone but Del Rio combines to put Kane through a table, leaving only Rey to climb the ladder. Running enziguri in the corner has Rey down so Alberto speaks some Spanish. For no apparent reason Del Rio pauses to go get a chair which doesn’t work. Spears for both Del Rio and Rey and Edge climbs up.

Kane is back though and Edge’s balls get a bit too acquainted with the top rope as a result. Out to the floor (again) with Kane killing everyone (Katie Vick anyone?) with a chair. Everyone but Rey is on the stage where Edge spears the champion down. Rey climbs up onto the tables that hang from the ceiling to take down Kane with another seated senton. Everyone else is down so Rey is like screw it and hits the ring but is too small to get the big ladder up, allowing Del Rio to stop him again.

619 for both Edge and Del Rio but Edge stops his with a chair shot. Two ladders go up, one of which Edge couldn’t reach the title from the very top of. Edge and Rey go up the huge ladder but crash down in a painful looking drop. Ricardo tries to get Del Rio up before going up the ladder himself. And never mind as Kane is back. Chokeslam to “Eddie Munster (I love Striker)” and one to Alberto as well.

Edge through a table now as Rey gets rid of the ladders and beats on Kane for a bit. Del Rio somehow stops him from getting up the HUGE ladder and there’s the Cross Armbreaker which Rey taps to, not that it means anything. Striker thinks you can’t climb a ladder with a bad arm. Morrison did it earlier with a bad leg but you can’t do it with a bad arm? And people wonder why teachers get so little respect.

Alberto goes up and gets his hands on the belt but Rey saves by shoving the big ladder over, sending Alberto CRASHING through two tables on the floor. Big old sick spot there. Kane saves again and a Tombstone flattens Rey one more time. The top of Kane’s head is cut a bit. Kane goes up but Edge pops him a few times with a chair. I think our announcers are out. Edge spears Kane off the apron and there he goes and there’s World Title #10. Riveting.

Rating: B. Fun match but it was a step behind what I thought it would have been. This is LIGHT YEARS ahead of what Edge vs. Kane would have been though so that’s a perk. There wasn’t a good pick to win this one really as everyone would be pretty boring. Somehow this is the weakest big match so far, which is saying a lot as it was still good stuff. Good match, but nothing legendary.

And here’s Cody Rhodes. Uh why? Rhodes is straight up ROCKING the suit he’s in. He talks about the jowel (not a typo) which is where the jaw meets the chin or something. He runs down Houston for some cheap heat which is perfectly fine. Houston is the fattest city in America apparently. And here comes Santa with the Bellas. It’s Santa Show this time. Jerry: it looks like Santa got bigger this year. Striker: if I was around the Bellas I’d get bigger too.

Show and the Bellas throw out DVDs which apparently are all of Knucklehead. Not a bad thing for free I guess. Cody makes fun of Show in his underwear on the DVD cover. Show shills the DVD and makes fun of Cody. Cody says Show looks like a vanilla Shrek. Show threatens Cody with being in Knucklehead II. Spinebuster to Cody and the suit gets ripped off. Cody has Sunday written on his underwear.

Cena takes out Harris and says see you out there to Barrett, who was next to Harris when he got cracked by a chair. Cena is a ninja!

And here’s CM Punk, apparently taking over for Striker for the main event.

John Cena vs. Wade Barrett

This is PPV main event number……five for Barrett in his seven months on the main roster. Not that WWE made a new star or anything. BIG reaction for Cena as this is a chairs match. DUELING CHANTS!!!! Barrett hits the floor and Cena cuts him off as the fight is on. There must be twenty chairs at ringside. Barrett gets the first one so instead of picking up another, Cena slowly backs up and tries to keep fighting.

Both guys in the ring with chairs which last a few seconds as we’re back to the slugout. The idea here is that neither guy can get to the chair which they’re treating as something special here, which I like. They hit the floor with Barrett in control. Barrett gets a chair shot to the back of Cena but it’s in the aisle. Barrett sets up the steps which would be illegal wouldn’t they?

Cena slams him on the stage and goes to the back. He comes back with a rolling chair in a rather funny moment. He puts Barrett in it and wakes him up with some water. Cena gets a running start and throws Barrett down the ramp in the chair into the steps. Awesome spot and kind of funny at the same time. Barrett gets control way too quickly and we’re back in the ring and the English dude has a chair.

He chokes away with it as someone as the announce table can’t stop coughing. In an amazing strength move, Cena has Barrett sitting on the chair on top of him. Cena says screw it and bench presses his way out of it. HOW STRONG IS THIS GUY? Barrett gets a chair up to stop a shoulder block and Cena hits the floor. Cena gets tied up in the ropes and Barrett has a freaking field day on him with the chair.

Cena fights out and hits the Protoplex and the Shuffle but can’t get the FU. Bossman Slam gets two. Chair is wedged in between the top and middle rope. STF is countered with Cena being launched into the wedged chair. Barrett goes up with the chair and dives off (think Foley diving off the apron with one) but gets canvas instead. Top rope Fameasser with the chair but Cena won’t cover.

He sets up about six chairs in a two rows of three facing each other. I think I see an FU coming. Hey what do you know I’m right. In the FREAKING OW MAN spot of the night, the chairs DON”T MOVE and Barrett just stops cold. The pin is academic and for once and for all, the feud is OVER.

Maybe it isn’t as Barrett crawls away and Cena picks up another chair. Let the beatdown begin. They’re up by the stage and Cena gets some kind of a metal pallet thing. Cena looks up at all the chairs hanging from the ceiling and THEY ALL FALL ON BARRETT. Nice job as Barrett is BURIED to end the show and the year. The visual on the replay of a bunch of them just falling straight down is great.

Rating: B. Not a great match or anything, but it certainly worked. I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to include the post match stuff in the rating for this one. That part is the real aspect here, as Cena didn’t beat Wade Barrett. He defeated him. That’s a key difference here. Cena did exactly what he said he’d do: he defeated Nexus. It’s not a great match, but it’s a great ending. That’s what the important thing is here, and it worked like a charm.

Overall Rating: A. This show was fun. That’s the best possible description that I can give it. You have at least one great match with Morrison vs. Sheamus and depending on your tastes another in the TLC match. There wasn’t a single bad match here with the worst certainly being the tag titles, but that was under seven minutes and really not that bad. Also it’s early enough in the show that it doesn’t hurt anything, plus it was a bonus match so it’s not like anyone has anything to be disappointed in either.

The key thing to me though is that for once we got the END of an angle here. That’s the important part of this show to me. Instead of having a show just be the next chapter in a story, it was the final chapter in it and the whole thing is done. It’s a perfect way to close out the year and it worked very well. Excellent show and exactly what it was supposed to be: incredibly violent and fun. No complaints at all.

 

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Final Battle 2010
Date: December 18, 2010
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Commentators: Kevin Kelly, Dave Prazak

 

This is the final show from 2010 in Ring of Honor. Someone requested this months ago and I got really behind so it’s been sitting on my computer since February. There’s a double main event here with Davey Richards vs. Roderick Strong for the ROH World Title and the real main event of mask vs. ROH career in the final battle of Kevin Steen vs. El Generico which was called feud of the year by Meltzer, showing that once again he has little idea what he’s talking about (Cena vs. Nexus anybody?). Let’s get to it.

 

Davey says Final Battle is the beginning for him.

 

The Briscoes say Man Up.

 

Steen says if he loses he’s gone.

 

All Night Express vs. Kyle O’Reilly/Adam Cole

 

O’Reilly and Cole are young guys I’ve heard a lot about but have never actually seen. The Express recently turned face (in March that is. Still heels here) and have grown up on camera from comedy jobbers to a serious tag team. They’re Rhett Titus and Kenny King (Kenny from the second season of Tough Enough). Titus vs. O’Reilly to start us off. Kyle is a submission guy apparently.

 

O’Reilly hammers away and moves very quickly to take over and it’s off to Cole. Ok Cole has longer hair. Got it. Back elbow off the middle rope gets two for Cole. Reilly takes over so King pulls Titus to the floor. Kyle dives to the floor to try to take the Express out but they manage to catch him, only for Cole to dive on all three of them and take them down.

 

Back to the ring and it’s O’Reilly vs. Titus but King is in before I finish that sentence. The Express tags in and out very quickly. Double teaming sets up a spinwheel kick by King to take down Kyle for two. We hit the chinlock and it’s back off to Titus quickly. We get one of those relatively annoying contrived spots as O’Reilly hands King’s foot to Titus and leg drags Titus, making Titus leg drag King.

 

Hot tag to Cole who gets a DDT to King onto the apron. That always looks awesome. O’Reilly gets rolling butterfly suplexes to Titus although I’d question the amount of pain in them. Missile dropkick by O’Reilly from the apron takes down King on the floor as Cole hits a top rope cross body for two on Titus. King back in and some nice double teaming gets two on Cole. It was a hot shot by Titus to set up a double knee to the back by King so Titus could roll up Cole for two if you were curious.

 

Terrible kick by Cole but he gets caught in a suplex anyway so it didn’t get him anywhere. The superkicks start flying and everyone is down. Titus gets caught in the tree of woe and it’s a double baseball slide to his face. Cole and O’Reilly are a lot like the Guns but not as crisp. Titus pulls the rope down to send O’Reilly to the floor and a blockbuster/powerbomb combination ends Cole.

 

Rating: B. Nice fast paced tag match to open things up here but the total forgetting about tagging hurt it at the end. It turned into can you top this which is fine for an opener but I have a feeling that’s what it’s going to be in almost every match tonight. Fun match and a good way to open the show, but nothing we haven’t seen in a lot of other matches before.

 

TJ Perkins vs. Colt Cabana

 

Cabana has since won the NWA World Title. This is a scientific match or something like that. Perkins is a good technician apparently. He was more famous as Puma in TNA. TJ does some nice escapes to hit a dropkick and it’s a standoff. Colt tries to send Perkins through the ropes but can’t quite get him through. There’s another standoff so Colt grabs the arm.

 

Headscissor takeover by Perkins so Cabana does some exercises and a headstand. Cabana gets something similar to a cousin of a surfboard which he shifts into a body scissors. The dueling chants begin. This has been a scientific match which is a nice change of pace but at the same time it’s a bit boring. This is almost a recital than a match. Cabana manages to move into a Billy Goat’s Curse (reverse Boston Crab) but a rope is grabbed. They slug it out and Colt takes him down with a big elbow to the head. Out of nowhere Cabana grabs a sunset flip and grabs Perkins’ wrists for the pin.

 

Rating: C+. Like I said in the match itself this was fun but at the same time it got a bit too rehearsed for me. Definitely something different but they needed to have some more aggression in there to make it good. That’s why people watch wrestling: to see the fake feuds and stories rather than legit stuff like this.

 

Daizee Haze and Sara Del Ray talk about being taken seriously as wrestlers. They’re both bringing in tag partners tonight.

 

Sara Del Ray/Serena Deeb vs. Daizee Haze/Amazing Kong

 

Deeb is of course Serena from the Straightedge Society. The fans are way into Kong. Haze is dressed like Kong but she’s a bit slimmer. Sara vs. Haze to start us off. They go back and forth a bit until Haze gets a sloppy rana off the top. Deeb comes in and she prevents a tag to Kong. The fans chant for the ROH boy CM Punk as Haze hammers away.

 

Deeb gets a gutbuster for two and it’s back off to Del Ray. Abdominal stretch by Serena as Kong hasn’t been able to get in yet. It’s so weird hearing Kevin Kelly on commentary for the first time in about 13 years for me. In a nice counter, Haze gets out of the Tree of Woe by lifting up and hooking a cutter to bring in Kong to a ROAR.

 

Powerbomb is blocked as is a clothesline. Implant Buster puts Del Ray down but instead of a cover we get Haze in again. A backsplash gets two and Deeb gets destroyed by Kong and Haze. Everything breaks down again and Haze climbs up Del Ray to get a sunset flip for two. Del Ray gets her finisher, the Royal Butterfly (butterfly suplex into a powerslam) for two. Deep spears Kong out of nowhere and a Piledriver kills Haze dead for Del Ray to get the pin.

 

Rating: C. Not great here and appropriately enough after that big speech aboutbeing taken seriously, Haze is carried out after having the shortest match of the night. Not bad but really just kind of there at the end of the day. It’s certainly better than what the Divas and Knockouts have done recently, but nothing special at all.

 

Sonjay Dutt vs. Eddie Edwards

 

The place erupts for Edwards who is now the world champion but here is just the former TV Champion. I haven’t seen Dutt in a long time. Place is totally behind Edwards here to say the least. Technical stuff to start us off as Dutt grabs a bow and arrow hold which gets him nowhere. They dance around a bit with no one being able to get an advantage.

 

Dutt slaps Edwards in the face and then hits the floor, crawling under the ring. He sneaks up on Eddie, only to get chopped down hard. Dutt gets a Lionsault to the back of Eddie to take over. Sonjay likes to clap a lot. We hit the floor and talk about Haas and Benjamin for some reason. Eddie is in trouble but something tells me he’ll be just fine like nothing ever happened in a few seconds.

 

Back in and we hit the chinlock. Hey what do you know I was right about Eddie who hits a sitout F5. Into the corner and Sonjay is crotched on the top. Springboard rana gets two as the fans chant for Eddie again. Lots of counters and escapes follow, resulting in a half crab (called an Achilles hold here) by Eddie which is reversed into a small package. Top rope splash by Sonjay gets two.

 

Spinning DDT by Dutt and a standing shooting star gets two. Superkick to the ribs by Eddie followed by a Codebreaker from the middle rope. This is firmly into the ROH style and my boredom is building rapidly. They trade superkicks and a clothesline gets two for Eddie. Double stomp to the back gets no cover for Eddie as instead it’s a powerbomb into the 2K1 Bomb which is a leg hook brainbuster.

 

Rating: C-. They’re getting into the ROH style early here which I think spells bad news for the rest of the show for me. I’ve never been a fan at all of the whole kick out of everything and strikes all around and popping up after every move. It gets repetitive and makes the offense look weak in the process. Not bad, but did nothing for me at all.

 

We get an ad for the Glory By Honor with the Kings of Wrestling vs. Haas/Benjamin. The WWE guys say ROH is awesome and that was fun.

 

Jim Cornette talks to Haas and Benjamin who talk about their careers. This interview was taped at the Davis Arena, the home of OVW and where ROH had their TV tapings for a long time. This must be intermission as you can hear the fans chanting something. They make the announcement that they’re officially in Ring of Honor on a permanent basis.

 

A guy named Mike Bennett comes out in a suit and a guy who looks like a coach named Bob Sanders. Sanders has a chair, as in one you would have at a dinner table. The fans chant who are you.

 

Christopher Daniels vs. Homicide

 

Daniels is TV Champion but this is non-title. That annoying pest Julius Smokes is with Homicide here. Egads I don’t know who is more overrated and annoying here. The fans are kind of split here so they’re no help. The dueling chants begin and they’re rather loud. They trade headlocks and call some spots. Arm drags get no one anywhere either.

 

Daniels gets two off a snapmare of all things and we hit the chinlock in about 90 seconds. Now we’re talking about Waffle House for some reason. Apparently Bennett is the Prodigy and wants a title. They hit the floor and Daniels takes over with a moonsault. Back in that gets two. Backslide gets two for Daniels. I can barely hear the commentators. Three Amigos by Homicide gets an Eddie chant. They also get two.

 

Homicide sends him to the floor and it’s a tope con hilo from Homicide. Back in and a t-bone suplex with a bridge gets two for Homicide. Top rope splash eats knees though and Daniels looks at his hand. Spinarooni maybe? Homicide gets a suplex and a jumping knee to the back of the head from the middle rope for two. Homicide gets a submission on the neck but Daniels counters into a Crossface for a few seconds.

 

Cop Killer is reversed into a release Rock Bottom (screw that Uranage nonsense) but the Best Moonsault Ever misses. Homicide can’t get a tornado DDT so Daniels hits an enziguri and calls for Angels’ Wings. The ref is bumped though and Homicide throws his shirt at Daniels and a Diamond Cutter ends it. I don’t see the point of the ref bump at all but at least the finish was clean.

 

Rating: C. Just a match really but not as bad as I expected it to be. Daniels keeping the striking to a minimum is always a good thing and it certainly was here. Homicide is someone I’ve never gotten the appeal of either so this really was a bad match for me. Could have been worse though.

 

We recap the Briscoes vs. the Kings of Wrestling. In short, the Briscoes are brothers and they got beaten down for attacking the Kings’ associate Sarah Del Ray. The Kings’ manager Shane Hagadorn kicked one of them in the balls so the Briscoes’ dad (called Papa Briscoe) jumped the rail and beat up Hagadorn, setting up this.

 

Kings of Wrestling/Shane Hagadorn vs. Briscoes

 

The Briscoes are Papa, Jay and Mark and the Kings are Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli. Papa says something to Hagadorn and is loudly booed. I can never remember which Briscoe is which. Ok Jay is starting here against Hero. Jay is completely bald and Mark has really short hair. That helps a lot. Jay controls early and lets Papa get in a chop of his own. Double teaming gets two for Mark.

 

Hagadorn tries to help and accidentally chops Hero. He’s like the third person to chop him so Hero is a bit annoyed to say the least. Mark grabs a rollup for two as we’re very early in the match still. Running boot by Mark for two. Off to Claudio now who accidentally chops Hagadorn to send him to the floor. The Briscoes (the younger ones that is) chop away at him for two.

 

Claudio is like screw this and suplexes Jay with ease. The Kings get a double back drop/suplex for two on Jay and it’s off to Hagadorn. It’s the modern day Bobby Heenan as he hammers away and can’t get anywhere. It’s time for Papa vs. Shane as the tags are going way too fast here. Some terrible stomps by Papa and it’s off to Claudio again. Papa actually gets a rana for two!!! WOW!

 

Sara had to make the save so Papa dips her back and kisses her which I think she likes. Del Ray is GONE according to the referee, drawing a big old pop. Now the fans are behind the Kings which is kind of odd as they’re the faces here. Mark gets double teamed in the corner and the Kings take full control. Off to Hagadorn who gets the roaring elbow ala Hero to Mark. And then he runs. Well you can’t say he’s not intelligent.

 

Hagadorn comes in again, hits a European uppercut and is gone. I told you he’s like Bobby Heenan. Papa runs in to break up a hold by Hero and it’s off to Claudio again. Good night is he strong. Powerslam gets two after a chinlock. Mark manages to escape some double teaming and it’s lukewarm tag to Jay. Downward Spiral into the middle rope and a middle rope boot get two.

 

Claudio vs. Jay now with Jay being tossed into the air and Claudio trying a European Uppercut, which is one of his big moves. It misses by about 9 inches but it’s sold anyway, getting two. Riccola Bomb (arm trap powerbomb) is reversed into a Death Valley Driver by Jay for no cover as instead he brings in Mark. Not a horrible idea. Mark and Claudio slug it out and it’s a double clothesline to send them both down.

 

Papa vs. Hagadorn again and Shane takes the straps down because Hero is behind Papa. They set for a low blow but everything goes insane and it’s kicks either to the balls or head/chest all around. Papa spears Shane down so his boys can hit stereo tope con hilos to the Kings. Papa teases a dive but Hagadorn trips him up. Rolling Elbow kills Papa and the fans cheer for Hero. Nice people there. Jay breaks up the Kings’ finisher on Papa and Papa gets a Stunner on Claudio! Doomsday Device with PAPA (his name is Mike apparently) playing Hawk gets the pin on Hagadorn. Good looking clothesline too.

 

Rating: B-. All things considered, this was good. Hagadorn has training but is a manager. Papa isn’t a wrestler but did ok here considering he knew all of two moves (observation, not criticism). There was no way the Briscoes would lose here and everyone knew it, but the manager got pinned so the Kings don’t lose any credibility. This was fine and even good at times.

 

Davey Richards talks about being reborn here. Isn’t he supposed to be retired now? It’s the same “I’m still here” promo he seems to always do.

 

We get clips of Truth Martini brainwashing Roderick Strong with various babbling. Roderick said something about Davey’s grandfather and it got under Davey’s skin apparently.

 

ROH World Title: Davey Richards vs. Roderick Strong

 

Strong is the heel champion here. The fans chant Best in the World for Richards. I’ve always been a fan of Strong so this isn’t a total loss for me. Richards is likely going to be doing the ROH style, meaning I’ll be bored quickly. There’s the bell and the fans are immediately chanting for Richards. They grab each other and go into the corner as we’re in a total feeling out process here which is fine.

 

Some mat work gets no one anywhere. To the mat for some counters and Richards has a very slight advantage. He grabs a modified bow and arrow hold which is reversed into the same hold by Strong. Indian Deathlock goes on for Richards and Strong’s leg gets stretched a bit. We get the Benoit hold where the Indian Deathlock is still on and it’s a bridging reverse crossface.

 

Ankle lock by Richards as this is submission central at the moment. Cross armbreaker gets Davey nowhere. We unleash come kicks and another cool hold before more kicks get two. Richards likes to kick. Northern lights suplex gets two. We hit the floor and it’s all Davey here. Running big boot to the face of Strong and the champion is in big trouble. They go into the ring for maybe 2 seconds and we’re back to the floor again.

 

Strong takes over again and fires in elbows to the head. Leg lariat gets two. They slug it out again and down goes Richards again. More striking commences and Strong counters a handspring enziguri with a baseball slide in a cool spot. Dropkick puts Strong on the floor again but only for a second. Now he’s out there again, making it twice in 5 seconds. Big dive by Richards and they’re down in the crowd.

 

They slug it out for about the fourth time with Davey getting a suplex for two and an armbar which gets him nowhere. More strikes follow and a swan dive gets two for the challenger. Cross armbreaker to Strong gets Richards nowhere again. Strong wakes up and hits a Falcon Arrow for two. Roderick gets the Stronghold (Boston Crab, finisher) and Richards is in trouble. The fans tell him not to tap in rhythmic succession of course.

 

We strike it out for about the thousandth time and Richards kicks Strong a lot. German suplex gets two. Belly to back off the top gets no cover because Richards isn’t that smart. Lariat gets two. Big kick gets two so Richards throws on an ankle lock which makes no sense but whatever. Strong taps but Truth Martini has the referee. Shooting Star Press gets two for Richards.

 

They go up to the top rope again and Roderick gets a half nelson backbreaker onto the ropes. Why not a suplex off the top is beyond me but whatever. They slug it out on the apron and Davey is dropped through a table and takes a Gibson Driver (release tiger bomb) on the floor.

 

Richards is thrown into the crowd and Strong heads back in. Richards is back in at 19 (20 counts in ROH remember) and a Gibson Driver sets up the Stronghold again. That gets rolled through into another ankle lock but Strong reverses into one of his own. Richards counters into a Texas Cloverleaf as my head hurts again. Crossface by Strong is reversed into a rollup for two.

 

Gibson Driver by Richards gets two and it’s back to the ankle lock. Davey lets go of the hold and has something wrong with him. Backbreaker and a big boot (Sick Kick apparently) gets two and it’s another backbreaker. More kicks get two. Liontamer goes on and Richards passes out to end it.

 

Rating: B-. Yeah go ahead and jump down my throat for it. I’ve never been a fan of these types of matches at all. Every main event guy in ROH seems to have about 19 finishers or signature moves and the last ten minutes of every match is nothing but kicking out of/reversing them. Also, we get it: you can kick each other and throw forearms. I’ll never get the obsession with strikes in this company. Long match that needed to have about 8-10 minutes chopped out, which you can say about every main event match in ROH.

 

Davey takes awhile to get out. Not sure if it’s legit or a great selling job. If it’s legit, no issues with them taking a few minutes to get him out.

 

We recap Kevin Steen vs. El Generico. This was a year long feud with them starting as tag partners. Steen turned heel with a huge chair shot and recently ripped the mask off of Generico. Steve Corino and Colt Cabana got involved for awhile also. This is mask vs. career in ROH and is the final battle for them.

 

Kevin Steen vs. El Generico

 

The fans chant feud of the year which Meltzer agreed with apparently. Steen offers a handshake but gets spit on. Steen spits back as we’re told this isn’t sanctioned and is more or less anything goes. Steen is sent to the floor immediately and the fans seem to be behind Generico. The fat guy (Steen) is sent into the railing and then back into the ring.

 

Generico finds a chain from somewhere and blasts Steen in the face a few times with it. Mafia kick with the chain around the face of Steen has Generico in control. Steen goes under the ring for a bit to blade. Table time as it bounces off the head of Kevin. Steen tends to sit there and breathe a lot. Somebody get that boy a Twinkie before he passed out!

 

A ladder is pulled out and it also goes into the head of Steen. Steen is of course fine and grabs a powerbomb to the apron. He takes the time to write out DIE in his own blood and licks it off. Ok then. Steen takes the ROH signs off the barricade and piles them onto Generico for a splash off the apron. A full barricade is picked up and launched at Generico, missing for the sake of avoiding death.

 

Generico gets a backdrop on the floor to take over. Back in and the ladder is broken when Generico bounces off of it. Steen paints his blood on Generico’s back and goes for the mask which gets him nowhere. They slug it out and Steen counters a rana into a powerbomb for no cover. I can live with that as this is more about fighting than winning. A chair is brought in which is the big symbol of the whole feud.

 

The mask is ripped at even more and he gets a good chunk off over Generico’s right eye. They fight over the chair and it’s a Codebreaker into the chair by Steen. Generico’s eye is busted and Steen has the mask he pulled off at the last show. Steen licks Generico’s blood. Nice guy. Chain to the head of Generico and Steen yells at him a lot. El manages to figth back with a slam onto the ladder and it’s time for an OLE chant. It’s making me want salsa.

 

T-Bone exploder suplex into the ladder by Generico and the ladder is all deformed. Half nelson suplex onto the ladder gets two. To the floor and Generico gets a running start, only to have a sign slammed into his head. A metal sign that is. Kevin sets a ladder like a platform between the ring and the barricade. A table is put on top of the ladder. Since this takes FOREVER, Generico gets up and gets a tornado DDT to the floor while diving between the gap between the ladder and table which looked good.

 

Superkick by fat boy and a chair is set up. Since Steen set it up he winds up crushing it. That and a brainbuster gets two. Generico winds up on the table on top of the ladder but when Steen goes for a splash through it, he channels his inner Flair and is slammed straight through it. Package Piledriver gets two on Steen. Brainbuster on the apron gets two as Corino comes in for the save.

 

Old School Expulsion puts Generico down and the referee gets in Corino’s face. So much for him as Steve puts him down. Corino grabs the chair that started all of this (how do they know it’s that one?) but Colt Cabana comes down for the save. A Cabana chair shot to Steen gets two and those two leave. Steen keeps spitting at Generico so Generico accidentally dropkicks the referee through a table.

 

Package Piledriver to Generico gets two via the new referee. Package Piledriver to the second referee and it’s back to the chair. The same move on the chair gets two via a third referee. Steen takes him to the top but gets reversed and Generico gets the Brainbuster on the corner which is his finishing move for two. That’s the first time he managed to get it on Steen. Generico picks up the chair that started it all and Steen holds up the original mask. Generico drops the mask and caves his head in with the chair to put Steen out of ROH.

 

Rating: B. Well if they wanted to blow off a feud this was a pretty good method of doing so. The chair is a nice touch and it was a good wild brawl. It shouldn’t have gone 30 minutes as there is a lot of time where it just drags badly. It’s definitely good, but thirty minutes is WAY too long. Make this 20 minutes and it’s far better. Ending was solid though.

 

The fans chant match of the year. Give me a break. They then chant for the deranged psychopath, out of respect apparently.

 

A weird mini-argument with Truth Martini and Strong ends this. Incredibly odd placement there.

 

Overall Rating: C. This is the weakest ROH show I’ve reviewed I think. It’s not terrible but I have very little desire to see where any of this goes or any more from these people. It’s not great and I still don’t like their style, but it’s clear that they’re trying very hard. This company doesn’t try to pretend it’s a huge deal like TNA and it makes it a much more enjoyable show. That being said, this wasn’t incredibly good and it didn’t have any great matches on it. Not bad, but I like their stuff from a year ago more.

 

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NXT
Date: December 14, 2010
Location: Cajundome, Lafayette, Louisiana
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Todd Grisham

It’s week 2 of NXT and things are looking good so far. Last week was a good start so hopefully that continues here. I’d like to see more of their characters come out this time though which isn’t something we got to see much of on the season premiere. It’s weird to be getting ready for NXT and to have a positive outlook on it. Let’s get to it.

We open as always, with Striker bringing out the rookies. We’re opening with a karaoke challenge. I already don’t like this. There are six envelopes with wrestlers’ theme songs that they have to sing. O’Brian gets Sheamus and we FINALLY get the official words to Sheamus’ song. Surprisingly it doesn’t say Lobster Head. His voice is all nasal and this is just awful.

Bateman gets Miz. He’s not bad but the pacing is all off. He throws in a shoutout to the college football team which is smart.

Novak gets a pop as he comes up for some reason. He gets Dolph Ziggler, who happens to be his pro. Novak sounds really quite drunk. He more or less just says the words which might be the best course of action.

Clay, the white Viscera, goes third with Cody Rhodes’ song….and doesn’t do half bad. It’s more talking but there was a little flair to it. Best so far.

Curtis gets Orton and gets down in the slither pose. I know nothing about music and I’m not sure if this worked or not. Imagine a guy trying to sing like James Hetfield without having talent and singing Orton’s song and that’s about it.

Saxton is last and draws Shawn Michaels whose name gets a bigger pop than anything else so far. He messes up one of the most famous lyrics in wrestling history. How is that possible? He does dance a bit which helps somewhat. Saxton wins which I guess is the best choice as he was definitely trying.

Masters/Saxton vs. DiBiase/Clay up next.

Profile on Novak who says he used to play every spots, including football. They had a motto on the team: DTD – Determined to Dominate. He says he’s destined to dominate. That’s a good line. Novak says he’s the most like Jack Swagger on the roster and that you have to look out for #1, and that’s him. Kind of a generic promo/character but he sold it quite well.

Chris Masters/Byron Saxton vs. Ted DiBiase/Brodus Clay

See I told you it was up next. You didn’t think I’d lie to you did you? Josh talks about having dinner with Brodus recently and that he’s a fascinating person. He actually comes off as that which is good. The rookies start us off. Clay shoves him around with ease so here’s Masters instead.

After a little back and forth stuff Ted comes in and we actually take a break on NXT. Back with Ted holding a chinlock on Masters. I like this Brodus guy. Masters fights out of the corner but walks into a dropkick from Ted for two. In a funny bit Masters brings in Saxton and in a Shawn Stasiak like moment he charges and is taken down immediately.

Clay hits a huge spinebuster but tags DiBiase back in. A kneedrop misses and Saxton is able to get out and it’s pro on pro again. Another spinebuster, this time from Masters, hits DiBiase as does an accidentally shot from Clay. Masters calls for the Masterlock but Saxton gets a quick tag and walks into Dream Street to end it at approximately 7:00.

Rating: C-. Not a great match or anything but it did its job with Clay looking good for a big man and Saxton getting a bit of character development as being a headstrong guy that isn’t as good as he thinks he is. This worked ok though and wasn’t a bad match at all.

We go to the back where Bateman is warming up when Bryan comes in. He says that Bateman has a match tonight so Bryan is going to teach him a hold. It’s a heel hook which Bryan demonstrates step by step (Hey kids! Pay attention as the United States Champion shows you a basic way to snap someone’s ankle in three easy steps!) how to do it and tells Bateman to do it now. Bateman goes insane and shouts about how he’s doing submission wrestling while Bryan is telling him what to do. In order to get Bateman to chill, Bryan KICKS HIM IN THE FACE! I told you that was the best solution to a lot of problems! Funny segment.

Obstacle Course time, but this time it’s for TWO immunity points. Novak goes first and does relatively well until he gets to the push-ups where he has to start over. He sets the time to beat at 37.9 seconds.

Saxton goes second and is a jerk to Striker. I guess he’s not all bad. Saxton falls going over the hurdles and slams his head. He can’t do push-ups either and goes over a minute.

O’Brian is third but messes up on the wall/hurdle as well. He can’t do the balance beam that well and winds up getting 42.7.

Bateman is fourth and the referees are REALLY anal about these push-ups. Bateman manages to break the time at 35.7.

Curtis says he’s feeling very gazelle-like and breaks the time but the referees say he messed up on the balance beam so it’s a disqualification.

Brodus Clay is last and literally throws the walls out of his way. Naturally he’s disqualified though.

Curtis gets another chance to a chorus of boos. He destroys the time at 31.4 seconds.

Profile on Curtis who talks about dabbling in a lot of stuff. He and a friend of his trained in a ring in the woods apparently and the friend was killed in a car wreck so he has dog tags on his tights because of it. That’s a cool story.

Raw Rebounds wastes some time.

Jacob Novak hits on Vickie for some reason. Ziggler comes in and asks Vickie to leave. He’s not happy and more or less says hands off. Is there a reason why Vickie is going to be a focal point of a storyline on this show in back to back seasons?

Ad for the 50 Greatest Superstars DVD which might be worth looking at.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Derrick Bateman

This should be short in theory. Alberto asks Ricardo to take out Bateman. Del Rio dominates early on as you would expect him to. The fans aren’t exactly thrilled by this match to put it mildly. Bateman makes a brief comeback and gets a modified neckbreaker. Think the Moonlight Drive that Morrison used back on ECW. Cross Armbreaker ends it in about 3:20. Not much more than a squash.

Rating: C. Really hard to grade this as it’s barely a competitive match. They tend to have one of these a season and I’m not entirely sure I get the point to them. Del Rio has a major match on the PPV so why would we believe that Bateman stands a chance against him? Also, why not have a rookie against Bateman? Either way it wasn’t bad but it was rather short.

Overall Rating: B. Another good episode this week as things continue to look up for this season. We got some character development, two challenges that went by pretty fast and two matches. That’s pretty good for a little under an hour I’d say, especially considering a 3-4 minute Raw Recap plus commercials. I’m liking this 6 man set of rookies as it’s definitely more workable. Nothing bad at all here and some decent stuff make this a solid outing for the second episode of the season. Good show.

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To me.  The first post ever on the site was three years ago today.

 

Good grief I sucked back then.

Survivor Series 2010
Date: November 21, 2010
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Matt Striker

This is all about the Nexus with the main event of Orton vs. Barrett for the world title with Cena as the referee. If Barrett wins, Cena is free from Nexus. If Orton wins, Cena is fired. Other than that we’ve only got one Survivor Series match which is kind of a letdown but it could be worse. This is one of those shows that doesn’t mean much because of what happens the next night anyway so it’s hard to get into this in a way. This is one of the two Survivor Series I reviewed live so the grades should be interesting. Let’s get to it.

The usual opening video is the video that opens us. The idea tonight is Cena not wanting to compromise his integrity and give the title to Barrett when he doesn’t deserve it, but he doesn’t want to quit. A song about being what you believe plays over this.

US Title: Daniel Bryan vs. Ted DiBiase

DiBiase is challenging here because he wants to win his first title. Simple but effective I guess. Bryan has Rise of the Valkyries here which makes things all the more awesome but the lack of beard hurts. Maryse is with Ted here too and is rocking a beige dress. Bryan speeds things up to start and there go the lights. Daniel dropkicks DiBiase to the apron but as he goes to get Ted, Bryan gets suplexed out to the floor in a cool bump.

Back in and Bryan fires off the kicks. It’s so weird to not hear YES or NO whenever he hits…well anything actually. DiBiase hooks a chinlock to slow the champ down followed by a backbreaker and dropkick for two. Back to the chinlock as the fans are way into Bryan here. This one doesn’t last as long as Bryan fights up and speeds up the pace. There’s the moonsault out of the corner and a dropkick to send DiBiase to the floor. Bryan hits the suicide dive to the floor but he comes up favoring his shoulder. Why is that called favoring? It’s in worse shape than anything else so how is that favoring it?

They head back in and Bryan hits a missile dropkick for two and it’s time for more kicks. The LeBell (NO) Lock can’t go on because of the bad shoulder though and DiBiase clotheslines him down. Dream Street (Cobra Clutch) from DiBiase is countered twice so Ted hits a sitout spinebuster for two. Dibiase’s superplex is countered a belly to back superplex by Bryan but he still can’t get the LeBell Lock. A rollup gets two for Ted and Bryan grabs the arm for the LeBell Lock to retain.

Rating: C+. This felt like an extended Smackdown match but that’s not a bad thing. Bryan was still a pretty big underdog in a lot of his matches at this point but wins like this were exactly what he needed. DiBiase never got over in this role or really in any other either. He’s a guy who needs to change his name as he’s never going to get out from under his dad’s shadow and it’s crippling his career. Well that and WWE never putting him on TV.

As Bryan poses on the stage, Miz and Alex Riley (speaking of guys who need to be on TV more) jump him with the MITB case. Miz and Riley get in the ring but the lights go out again. Miz talks about how he’s from Cleveland and doesn’t like the Miami Heat that much. He compares Barrett to LeBron James because neither will ever be a world champion. The fans chant for the Heat and Miz says he’ll cash in soon. That’s true.

We recap Sheamus vs. Morrison. Sheamus is a bully, Morrison is sick of him. That’s it.

Sheamus says Morrison is jealous of him for being a former and future world champion because Morrison never will be.

Sheamus vs. John Morrison

Jerry tells a story of a guy in high school that kept taking everyone’s lunch money and picking on everyone he could but no one ever stood up to him. Striker: “Was his name Judas? (HUH?)” Jerry: “Actually it was Jerry Lawler.” Your lesson for the day kids: beat up other kids and treat them like trash and you could be a multiple time world champion and get a job on national TV every week and get into the WWE Hall of Fame. But you’d rather be a STAR right?

Cole says Morrison described this match as a tank against a fighter jet. Cole: “Of course Morrison the jet and Sheamus the tank.” What would we ever do without Cole? I’m not sure, but I’m going to go look into it. Anyway Morrison starts fast and dropkicks Sheamus to the floor followed by a corkscrew dive to take the pale one out. Sheamus sends him into the barricade and runs Morrison over with an ax handle.

Back in and we hit the chinlock as the fans aren’t all that into Sheamus at all. A backbreaker gets two for Sheamus and it’s back to a chinlock again, although this one has an armbar added in. Sheamus hits the ten forearms to the chest from a seated position instead of in the ropes. It’s always cool to see the evolution of a move like that. Sheamus puts him on the top and pounds away again but Morrison slugs Sheamus down to the mat. A cross body gets rolled through for two for Sheamus and John is in trouble.

The Brogue Kick misses and Morrison enziguris him down. Morrison is all fired up and hits some clotheslines for two but it’s hard to keep Sheamus down. Irish Curse stops the momentum but it only gets two again. The High Cross is countered into a Russian legsweep for two for Johnny. Sheamus goes after the knee to stop Morrison again. This match really is as back and forth as it sounds. No one has had an extended advantage for the most part.

Sheamus puts the leg over his shoulder and pulls Morrison forward to the mat in a cool looking move that I haven’t seen before. Half crab does more damage for Sheamus but he slaps Morrison in the face a few times to tick him off. John kicks him down but Starship Pain is broken up with ease. The High Cross is countered again and the Brogue Kick misses, allowing Morrison to hit the Flying Chuck and a running knee to the face for the surprise pin.

Rating: B-. These two always have this freakish chemistry that really doesn’t make a ton of sense but is always there. Morrison’s flying style was a great counter to the power stuff from Sheamus, and as usual the idea of power vs. speed works as well as anything else. Morrison would never hit a level that they were hoping for him to, while Sheamus would go on to win the world title at Wrestlemania in a few years. You never know what’s going to happen in wrestling, which is why it’s funny.

Watch Big Show’s movie! No one else has.

R-Truth continues to meddle in Cena’s business and offers to interfere in the main event tonight because you can only win by pin or submission. He offers to attack Orton and Cena will be guilt free. Cena yells at him for suggesting it.

Intercontinental Title: Kaval vs. Dolph Ziggler

Kaval is more famous as Low Ki and won NXT Season 2 to get any title shot he wanted. In his first win, he beat Dolph on Smackdown and picked to challenge for this title tonight. A quick elbow gets two so Dolph takes over with a forearm in the corner. There’s the Hennig necksnap and a mini AA for two for Dolph. A handspring elbow takes Dolph down and Kaval pounds away in the corner until a Vickie distraction lets Dolph take him down.

Kaval comes back with a handspring into a kick to the face in the corner which looked pretty awesome. Kaval goes up with his back to the ring, allowing Dolph to put on a sleeper on the top rope for some reason. Dolph gets knocked back and Kaval misses a big flip dive, allowing Dolph to hit the Fameasser for two. The sleeper goes on (on the mat this time) but Kaval escapes and is launched to the top rope where he springs off and hits a spin kick to the face in ANOTHER awesome looking move. Ziggler misses a charge in the corner and gets rolled up for two before Ziggler gets a rollup of his own with tights to retain.

Rating: C-. Kaval tried here but this crippled whatever he had as far as momentum was going. He would be gone before the end of the year and I can’t say I blame him. The match here was ok enough but the chemistry didn’t click at all. Also, why would you pick a match for the IC Title when you can pick whatever you want?

Jack Swagger doesn’t like the idea about being on Team Del Rio, because it should be Team Swagger. Jack says some stuff about the Spanish being spoken here because he doesn’t habla Espanol. Rhodes, who is still Dashing at this point, comes up and makes fun of Swagger’s shoes. Del Rio, who only mostly sucks at this point, says that he won a bet about Swagger getting interrupted. This goes nowhere.

Team Del Rio vs. Team Mysterio

Alberto Del Rio, Tyler Reks, Drew McIntyre, Jack Swagger, Cody Rhodes

Rey Mysterio, Chris Masters, Big Show, MVP, Kofi Kingston

Team Mysterio is all in blue in a nice touch. The fans chant for MVP as he’s the hometown boy. The captains start things off but there’s no contact as Del Rio tags in Rhodes. We start talking about baseball (Striker: “Rickey Henderson may be the greatest baseball player of all time.” Cole and Lawler: “WHAT???”) as Rey hooks an O’Connor Roll for two on Cody. Cody comes back with a Disaster Kick and stomps away in the corner.

Here’s Del Rio again who gets caught in the corner and hit by a hard running dropkick. Off to MVP who hits a dropkick and ducks an enziguri in the corner. This was right around the time when he was getting good, but he would be gone in less than three weeks. Here’s Kofi with some bouncing offense but it’s quickly off to Masters. Lawler does his usual talk about the Clowns vs. Kings back in 94 as Reks and McIntyre take turns beating on Masters.

Drew’s middle rope jumps lands on a boot and Masters can tag in MVP. MVP suplexes McIntyre down and hits the Ballin Elbow, only to fall victim to the Ultimate Warrior/Rick Rude ending from Mania 5 (MVP suplexes Drew but Alberto hooks MVP’s foot and Drew falls on top for a pin). Masters comes back in again and hits a kind of Jackhammer for two. Del Rio avoids the Masterlock and puts on the Armbreaker for the submission to make it 5-3.

Here’s Big Show as the stopper for his team and Del Rio bails, bringing in Swagger. Swagger tries to wrestle him down and is immediately chopped in the chest. A kind of chop block takes Show down and it’s back to Del Rio. Show glares at him again and Alberto tags out to Drew, but before Alberto gets out Show knocks him out cold. With McIntyre down, Show slams Kofi down onto Drew for a two count. Apparently Alberto can’t continue and is eliminated. Cody comes in to face Kingston and Rhodes snaps when he gets hit in the face. He goes on a rant and heads to the floor to check the mirror on the back of his jacket.

Rhodes heads back in and gets hit in the face again. Off to Show who slaps Cody on the back and the KO punch makes it 3-3. It’s Kofi/Rey/Show vs. Reks/Swagger/McIntyre and Reks immediately clotheslines Show down in an impressive move. Swagger comes in to work on the leg and hooks the ankle lock. After nearly tapping, Show crawls over to Rey for the saving tag. Rey speeds things up but Jack kicks his head off for two.

Swagger drills Kofi on the apron before catching Rey’s 619 into the ankle lock. Mysterio rolls through the hold and makes the hot tag to Kofi who cleans house and hits the top rope cross body on Reks for two. Kofi misses a charge in the corner and gets caught in the Tree of Woe. After Kofi gets down, Reks charges into a double boot in the corner for the fast elimination. Swagger comes in almost immediately and catches Trouble in Paradise into the ankle lock to tie things back up. Kofi tapping is a weird sight.

Back to Big Show who uses that large body of his to run Swagger over a few times before Swagger has to lay down so Rey and Show can do the on the shoulders splash. McIntyre breaks up the big splash though and Rey is down. Rey gets placed on the top rope but headbutts Jack down to the mat. The 619 sets up that splash off Show’s shoulders to make it 2-1. Future Shock is countered and it’s a chokeslam from Show for the elimination.

Rating: B-. This was a fine Survivor Series match with both teams working well together. I don’t get the point in having Del Rio eliminated that early, but I guess it allows for Rey vs. Del Rio to happen later on. The match wasn’t a classic but it worked well enough for what it was supposed to be. Decent stuff here and the fans were happy with the ending.

Randy Orton talks about how he’s tired of hearing all of the talk about Cena and Barrett, because tonight it’s either the RKO or the Punt to stop Barrett.

Divas Title: Laycool vs. Natalya

I miss Laycool’s entrance, if nothing else for how they look in the shorts. Laycool are the co champions here as both have belts in a story that wasn’t that interesting in the first place. The champs have to tag here and it’s Michelle to start. Natalya takes it to the mat early on and Michelle actually takes over with the amateur stuff. Off to the hometown heel in Layla who distracts the referee so Michelle can pull Nattie onto the floor.

Back in and Natalya supelxes both chicks at once but her back is hurt in the process. Michelle blasts her in said back on the floor, but Natalya shoves Michelle over the barricade. They all brawl at ringside for a bit before Natalya and Michelle head into the ring. McCool gets rammed into Layla and the Sharpshooter gives Natalya the title.

Rating: D. Here’s this whole feud in a nutshell: Natalya beat up Layla, then Natalya beat up Michelle, then Natalya beat up both of them at once. This wasn’t much of a match but it’s the kind of breather that you have to give the fans before you get to the big stuff later on. Laycool would be around for a few more months, but once they split they fell off the face of the planet all of a sudde.

Beth Phoenix returns to save Nattie from a double beatdown. This would set up a Divas tables match next month.

We recap Kane vs. Edge. Kane beat Taker in the Cell (Today is November 6, 2012 and that match is the last time Smackdown main evented a PPV to date) when Paul Bearer shocked no one and turned on Taker. Edge got this shot by uh……tall. I think he just got the shot because he was on a hot streak. Edge also kidnapped Bearer and tortured him and I don’t think has returned him yet.

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Kane

Kane is defending here. Edge wheels out with an empty wheelchair to mess with Kane a bit more. Kane tries a quick chokeslam but Edge punches out of it. Kane sends him to the floor and Edge wheels the chair around a bit more to make Kane mad. A baseball slide sends Kane into the barricade before we head back inside where the Canadian takes out the Spaniard’s leg. He wraps the leg around the post and lays on it for a bit to make sure we don’t get excited.

Kane gets in an uppercut to take over and slugs away slowly. The Big Bald chokes away and yells about Bearer a bit as the fans aren’t really thrilled by this stuff. Granted I question how many fans know Smackdown exists still so it’s a fair problem to have. To really mix things up, Kane puts on a cravate and yells even more. A low dropkick gets two for the champion and it’s back to the trusty cravate. Edge finally gets up and hits a cross body off the top for two.

Kane slugs him down but Edge dropkicks him out of the air on the top rope clothesline attempt. A side slam gets two for Kane and he goes up again. Edge makes the stop but gets crotched and clotheslined down for two. Something resembling a DDT puts Kane down but Edge’s spear hits boot. There’s the chokeslam for two so Kane tries the Tombstone. Edge slips down the back and spears Kane down for the pin and no title, because all four shoulders were down and it’s a draw. Yep, that’s really what they did.

Rating: F+. The ending until the cover wasn’t bad, but other than that this was dull, slow and horrible. These two just did not work well together at all, so of course they had another title match on PPV. Horrible match here as Kane just stood around and held Edge by the neck for LONG stretches of time. Kane would accidentally kill Paul Bearer soon after this. Don’t ask.

Kane beats up Edge post match. Edge comes back and puts Kane in the wheelchair and sends him through part of the barricade.

Barrett tells Cena if he doesn’t help him tonight, Cena is gone. Apparently Nexus started in this building. Cena says he knows what he’s going to do.

Tag Titles: Nexus vs. Vladimir Kozlov/Santino Marella

Slater and Gabriel are the champions here and have Harris/McGillicutty/Otunga with them. Santino and Slater start things off and Marella gets to use some of the martial arts that Kozlov has been teaching him. Off to Gabriel and Kozlov who tags himself in. Remember that two years ago, Kozlov was in the world title match against HHH and now he’s here. That’s quite the fall. Gabriel dives at Kozlov and gets caught in a kind of spinebuster to give the challengers control.

Gabriel gets in a kick to take Koz down and Slater drops a knee for two. Back to Justin for a cravate and then a front facelock. Kozlov is about to get to Santino when Slater draws Cobra Man in. That’s some good old school tag stuff there and it’s awesome. Slater hooks a front facelock of his own but it’s a hot tag to Santino. He hits all of his usual stuff and loads up the Cobra, but the other members of Nexus distract him (not that hard really) and Slater hits the sleeper drop for the pin to retain.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here that wouldn’t be on Raw on any given week. The tag titles were absolutely nothing at this point but then again that could go for any show for a good six year stretch or so. It makes the current tag team resurgence look more impressive as they took it from nowhere to something decent, which is a big deal. The match here was fine but it was another breather for the fans.

Post match the challengers get beaten down again and the Anonymous Raw GM says if Nexus interferes in the world title match, they’re suspended indefinitely.

We recap Orton vs. Barrett. Barrett got the title shot I believe through winning NXT and got Cena to join Nexus through winning at HIAC. Cena hates it and somehow he gets to be the guest referee tonight. If he screws Orton over, he won’t be able to live with himself, but if he doesn’t screw Orton over, Barrett will fire him. This gets the music video treatment of course.

Raw World Title: Wade Barrett vs. Randy Orton

Oh and you can only win by pin or submission. Feeling out process to start with Orton grabbing a headlock. A shoulder puts Barrett down and Orton fires away elbows and uppercuts in the corner. Cena finally does something and it’s correct procedure, but the fans boo because it’s against Orton. He goes the same thing to Barrett and Orton hits a dropkick to take over.

We head to the floor where Barrett hits a kick to the ribs to take over. Orton gets sent into the steps and punched down back in the ring. Barrett covers and gets a fair one count. We hit the chinlock for a good while until Orton fights back with his usual comeback stuff. The backbreaker gets two and Orton glares at Cena. Barrett gets in an uppercut and hits a top rope elbow for two.

Barrett hits his pumphandle slam for two and now Barrett glares at Cena too. This is pretty dull stuff so far. Wasteland is countered and there’s a Boss Man Slam (called a Black Hole Slam by Striker) for another close two. The fans do the usual pro/anti Cena chants as Orton hits the Elevated DDT. Barrett gets in a knee to the head and Wasteland hits, but Orton grabs the rope at two. I do love how the idea that Barrett could just win the title on his own is a completely non-factor. Barrett shoves Cena so Cena shoves him back, right into the RKO and the clean pin to fire Cena. Striker: “Cena’s free!” Cole: “Cena’s fired.” Striker: “Oh.”

Rating: D. This barely worked as the focus was entirely on Cena and the match was really dull for the most part. It was someone hitting a move that would be lucky to get two and then glaring at Cena when they didn’t get a pin off of it. Cena was “fired” as a result, but would of course be back on PPV the next month. I don’t think he ever missed a Raw. I like the moment with him counting the pin because that’s him being himself which is the essence of Cena’s character, but the match sucked.

Cena has no idea what to do post match. Nexus runs in and gets beaten down by the Super Best Friends. Cena hands Orton the title to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. The main events sucked but the first half or so of this was fine. The problem with the main event here is the same problem that brought down the whole Nexus angle: Barrett never won the title. Without that, Nexus and Barrett in particular weren’t really big threats but rather guys that annoyed Cena for a few months until he beat them all. Besides, the next night Miz cashed in and won the title after Cena cost Barrett another title shot. This show isn’t really worth seeing but it’s not horrible.

Ratings Comparison

Daniel Bryan vs. Ted DiBiase

Original: B

Redo: C+

John Morrison vs. Sheamus

Original: B

Redo: B-

Dolph Ziggler vs. Kaval

Original: B-

Redo: C-

Team Mysterio vs. Team Del Rio

Original: B-

Redo: B-

Natalya vs. Laycool

Original: D+

Redo: D

Kane vs. Edge

Original: D

Redo: F+

Nexus vs. Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov

Original: D

Redo: D+

Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett

Original: D+

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: B

Redo: D+

I liked this one WAY better on first viewing. Then again I didn’t know what was coming for Nexus back then.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/11/19/history-of-survivor-series-count-up-2010-when-did-orton-and-barrett-get-good/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of Complete Monday Nitro Reviews Volume I at Amazon for just $4 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for just $4 at:

He’s going to be paid to sit at home until his contract runs out.  I can’t say I’m complaining as the last few years haven’t been the most interesting for TNA.  At the end of the day, they had one really good idea with the THEY ARE COMING storyline and since then it’s been downhill for me.  As usual, back to square one for TNA.

Bound For Glory 2010
Date: October 10, 2010
Location: Ocean Center, Daytona Beach, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz

So here it is. This is the show that they have spent MONTHS building to. This is their Wrestlemania and by far their biggest show of the year. We get a new champion tonight and find out who THEY are. Even I’m excited and I’ve made no secret that I’m a big critic of this company. Tonight is the final match for Abyss apparently which I don’t buy at all. Let’s get to it.

Main event is no time limit, no count out and no DQ. That makes me nervous.

There’s and entrance ramp as well as three video screens. The production values are rather solid here, especially by TNA standards.

Tag Titles: Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation Me

Good choice for an opener. Shelley and Max (does it matter?) start us off. Naturally it’s insanely fast paced to start us off. The Guns get all tricky and destroy Max in the corner. A big elbow Poetry in Motion move gets two on Max. The heels are getting dominated here for the most part as we hear a lot about Shelley’s neck.

Double DDT out of the corner to Shelly and he’s in big trouble. Shelley keeps fighting and manages to get out with a big double stomp off the top. Hot tag to Sabin as this isn’t bad at all so far. The Guns and everything else go completely insane and Sabin hits Punk’s springboard clothesline to Jeremy for a close two. Tenay is right that no one has tag wrestling like this.

The Guns are just straight up fun to watch. I’m not sold on making this the opener though as this is something that probably should have been used to fire up the crowd in case they get bored later on. Max gets two and is legit shocked that Sabin kicked out. They go for the DDT again but Shelley makes the save.

Elevated Sliced Bread is blocked and Jeremy takes out Sabin with a big dive. A Piledriver like move is broken up by Sabin at two. Very fast paced match naturally. This is too fast to call. We actually get a tag. Are you kidding me? They set for More Bang For Your Buck but a nice counter sets up a running German off the top by Sabin. Skull and Bones on Max ends this.

Rating: B. Very fast paced and fun match. Do I need to explain this one again? It’s an insanely fast paced tag match to open up a show. That’s PPV 101 but I worry that this might be the high point of the show. We get the awesome Motor City music twice though and the Guns keeping the belts is a good thing so I’m happy.

Tara and Madison go nuts on Christy about hair dye or something. Tara is grateful to Madison for life apparently.

We recap the Knockouts Title situation which I think you all know by now. It’s all about the Beautiful People and that’s about it. This again becomes all about them and nothing else. Keep in mind Mickie James is the referee here.

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne vs. Velvet Skye vs. Tara

Mickie looks good. I could go without the hardcore country thing though. One fall to a finish here and tags are required. Angelina vs. Madison to start us off. Off to the regular Beautiful People now which is the only match left in that division I suppose. Madison comes in and gets in Mickie’s face but that goes nowhere.

This is another match that is going too fast to really keep track of. Tara vs. Velvet at the moment. How in the world did Hefner think Tara didn’t look good enough for Playboy? Octopus Hold from Velvet to Tara which blows my mind a million ways to Monday. The tagging thing is of course abandoned soon.

Widow’s Peak doesn’t go on as Angelina makes a save. And then she rolls up Velvet with some tights being pulled to give her the title. We get the BROKEN song so I’m very happy. Madison goes off on her and Mickie kicks her all around the ring. So it’s Tara vs. Mickie now? Ok then.

Rating: D+. Pretty much just a mess here and only a way to get the title on the show. This wasn’t much at all but you had five hot women and you get to add Mickie to the division now which is definitely not a bad thing at all as it was dying for some fresh blood. Nothing very good here but I’ve seen worse.

Eric Young babbles about some code. Yeah I don’t care either.

We recap the “feud”. Yeah I don’t care either. Let’s get this over with.

Eric Young/Orlando Jordan vs. Ink Inc

Eric has the TNA rule book while Orlando is in a white suit with a beekeeper mask. And now Eric has fake tattoos or something. I give up. Jordan and Neal start us off because someone has to. Let the gay jokes begin.

Taz recommends that Shannon avoid the crotch of Orlando. I give up. Total meh match here as it was boring on Impact and it’s boring here. This is really just an outlet for Taz to make gay jokes about Orlando which aren’t incredibly funny. Eric gets crotched on the top rope.

Orlando vs. Shannon at the moment. Eric is fooling with the rule book because it’s been a few seconds without “comedy.” We talk about the German broadcast team for no apparent reason. Eric starts cheating by pretending to tag in and Taz is just like “screw it’. Eric tags himself in to fight Orlando. We get a Midnight Rocker reference which makes Taz laugh. Eric causes Orlando to get caught by Shannon for the pin.

Rating: D. Just move on please. I hate comedy matches, especially when they lack comedy.

Jeff says he’s going to win with the Twist of Fate and Swanton Bomb.

X–Division Title: Douglas Williams vs. Jay Lethal

This is the return match apparently from Impact a few weeks ago when Lethal won it in the first place. Non-British tights for Williams here. What would the Bulldog think? Fast paced start until Williams gets a hold on Lethal to take over. And so much for that. Tenay talks about the new tights because that’s interesting I guess?

Apparently his family crest is on it. No mention of Fourtune here which is kind of odd. Williams takes it to the mat and we stay there for awhile. Williams is getting back into the style of hating the X Division style that worked so well for him in the spring and early summer.

Lethal cranks up the speed to make things work a bit better. Taz likes suplexes and you can hear it in his voice. It changes when Williams uses a few of them. He even throws in some analysis of them for fun. Hey he sounds like an analyst. I thought this was 10/10 not 10/31.

Chaos Theory out of nowhere gets two. Dang I love that move. Williams gets all ticked off and takes him up top and sets for a rana. Lethal gets a SWEET counter where he rolls through it perfectly into a sunset flip for the pin to retain. He celebrates in the crowd which is always a nice touch.

Rating: C+. Nothing special here but the ending was rather good. This felt like a decent Impact match but it was totally tacked on here with no particular rhyme or reason. Dang I need to stop listening to Shinedown. This wasn’t bad but it was just kind of thrown on there to get the match on the card.

And while he’s in the crowd SHORE attacks him. Like the idiot that he is, he says he’s winning the title and taking it back to Jersey. You know, where Lethal is from.

We recap RVD vs. Abyss which is a bit early on the card I’d think for it. I can’t imagine this is where THEY are revealed. That’s just way too early for it I’d think but who knows? The idea here is RVD isn’t at 100% but he wants revenge no matter what.

Rob Van Dam vs. Abyss

Monster’s Ball here which means anything goes. And remember this is his last match EVER! He brings Janice and Bob, which are the names of Dixie Carter’s parents in what I’d assume is a rib, and puts them on the announce table. Abyss says RVD is done and THEY are coming. And remember this is once a century. You know, like EVERY OTHER DATE.

RVD of course kicks the heck out of him to start to a HUGE RVD chant. Van Dam is in a t-shirt here for some reason. There’s a barbed wire table at ringside. Total dominance so far by Van Dam who is on fire. He gets taken down by an elbow of all things. Given the shirt I’d bet on RVD going into barbed wire.

Chokeslam is countered and of course Abyss eats barbed wire. This would be more effective if we hadn’t seen it just three days ago with bigger stars. And of course he’s up again just a few seconds later, dodging a splash that send RVD into the wire. Abyss busts out a regular table as we talk about THEY.

Trash can to the head of Van Dam as Abyss tries to make a barbed wire platform between the railing and the ring. Oh never mind it’s just a regular table. Abyss winds up on it and RVD hits Rolling Thunder onto it. Cool spot. Too many dead spots here though as we hit a spot and then stop to look for more stuff to use in the next one.

RVD sets up Coast to Coast but gets shoved off and RVD winds up in barbed wire. Sick looking bump. The match more or less stops as the referee is thinking about stopping it. Instead we throw him back into the ring and Abyss gets…nothing. Ok then. Instead we get the Hogan ear taunt.

Van Dam comes back and sends him into the barbed wire board in the corner. Now it’s Abyss in trouble. RVD goes for the Five Star but Abyss moves and RVD has a tummy ache. And now It’s time for Janice. Well of course it is. RVD counters though and gets a pair of shots with Janice to the gut of Abyss and the Five Star. Abyss is bleeding from the mouth.

Rating: B-. Fun hardcore match with everyone beating the tar out of each other. Ok so maybe saying everyone for two people is a stretch but you get the concept. This worked fine for what it was with lots of weapons being used and all that jazz. They’re dragging this angle out for all it’s worth and more though so points for that….I think. Fun match.

Abyss says here WE come. Oh great.

We recap the handicap match with the whole Deception thing. This is the other major angle and Hogan is VERY hurt keep in mind. Yeah I don’t buy it either.

Jeff Jarrett/Samoa Joe vs. D’Angelo Dinero/Kevin Nash/Sting

Joe vs. Pope start us off. Oh and Joe is fighting for Hulk’s honor despite having zero connection to him. Nothing special so far and we hit the floor. It more or less has broken down with Jarrett fighting Pope and the old guys vs. Joe. And so much for that as we get back to Nash vs. Joe.

The entrance ramp really does look good. Pretty basic match so far. Joe gets beaten on for a good while but FINALLY gets a shot in on Nash to get away. He goes for the tag and there goes Jarrett for your swerve. Nash says I told you and Joe is in trouble. Now it really is 3-1. Jackknife to Joe ends it.

Rating: D+. Just the match that no one cared about to build to the swerve. Pay no attention to the fact that we’ve been building up Sting vs. Jeff for months and now it’s all cool. I’ll allow him an explanation but dude, this was supposed to be the explanation, not more questions. Whatever man.

Anderson says he’ll win.

Here’s 3D for their major announcement. Yep they’re retiring, but they want one more match, and of course they want the Guns. They’re retiring either way. Nice. This is solid I think and it’s good that they’ll retire this way.

We recap Fourtune vs. EV 2.0. If there is ANY justice in the world, EV loses here. Naturally it’s more about Flair vs. Foley than anyone else.

Fourtune says exactly what you would expect them to say. Regular vest for AJ thank goodness.

Fourtune vs. EV 2.0

This is a one ring WarGames match. A man from each team starts and after a set amount of time (5 minutes I think) there’s a coin toss and another guy comes in from the winning team. That goes on for two minutes then a guy from the losing team comes in. Two more minutes of that and then the winning team gets the advantage again. Alternate until all 8 are in and then we lower the roof, complete with weapons. No pins or submissions until everyone is in.

EV has Dreamer, Sabu, Rhyno, Richards and Raven. Yeah ten people in there great. Foley is with them. Flair brings out AJ, Storm, Roode, Kaz and Morgan. Fourtune has the advantage so screw the coin flip idea. Flair is in an undershirt. Oh dear.

The old guys go at it before the match starts and we try to figure out who starts the match. Kaz and Richards to start. Again Taz wants to say ECW and can’t do it. Kaz beats the tar out of him to start. And he continues doing so. Well that’s what you get for sending in Richards as your leadoff man.

Stevie gets a Downward Spiral into a modified Koji Clutch but AJ comes in seconds later to make it 2-1. Richards is of course in WAY over his head and gets destroyed. Figure four on Richards and he’s almost dead. Dreamer is in next. How in the world is this guy feuding with AJ Styles?

Dreamer spits mist or something at AJ as Richards gets back into it. All of Fourtune is in blue which is a cool idea I guess. Roode goes in third as this is going to take awhile to just get everyone in. Flair punches Dreamer through the camera hole. I love that thing as it gives you far better shots.

Sabu comes in and hooks a seated crossface chickenwing on AJ which we’ll call a camel clutch for fun I guess. This is REALLY slow now with EV controlling. Dreamer is bleeding fairly badly. Storm is in so it’ll be Morgan and Raven or Rhyno in last. Storm turns the tide and we get BEER MONEY!

With nothing left in the other minute here’s Raven who looks stupid with blonde hair. He cleans some house and shoves a snot rag in someone’s face. Ah ok it was Roode. Dreamer gets his crotch stepped on for fun. Dude seriously, Raven is your hot tag in essence? Roode is busted open.

Sabu is busted too. Morgan comes in as the final member of Fourtune. He drills Richards and drills Sabu back first into the cage. Dreamer takes the elbows in the corner as the advantage does the same thing it’s done the whole time so far. Raven is bleeding too so every member of EV who is in the match is busted.

Big time Gore to Storm and here comes the roof. This is where the advantage is supposed to come for EV I guess. Flair and Foley get into it of course as is their custom. EV takes over and there are bigger weapons on top of the cage such as a table, a ladder and something else that I can’t make out.

Raven and Morgan beat the heck out of each other as EV is mostly in control. Morgan goes for the Carbon Footprint and misses, hitting the door which doesn’t move at all. Kaz gets drilled into the door and there it goes. Richards and Kaz go up and we set up the ladder up there. This always scared the living heck out of me.

Sabu dives through the door to take out Morgan and maybe Storm. Richards sets up the table on top of the cage and Kaz goes up the ladder and here’s Kendrick on top of the cage too. Kaz goes through the table and Kendrick appears to be meditating or something. In the ring Dreamer drills AJ in the leg and drops him on a chair, winning the match. Yes, EV won the match and everything seems to be fine with it. WELL OF COURSE THEY ARE.

Rating: D+. Not much here as there were a lot of very slow spots. Also the Kendrick thing just did nothing for it. The weapons were ok but the ending felt kind of tacked on. This never got to the level that they wanted it to get to and that hurt it a lot. This was one of the weaker matches they’ve done with this gimmick and I think a lot of that is due to the participants.

Oh yeah. DID I MENTION EV 2.0 JUST FREAKING BEAT FOURTUNE and that TOMMY DREAMER PINNED AJ FREAKING STYLES??? And people wonder why this company can’t be taken seriously.

Music video about the main event.

TNA World Title: Mr. Anderson vs. Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Hardy

Hardy has new music. Nothing all that special as again you can barely understand it. He’s called challenger #1. Who exactly is he challenging if no one has the title? Anderson is in gray tights which is odd. It’s 10:33 and we’re just starting. Think they’re cutting this close? No big match intros either which is weird also.

Angle is knocked to the floor and Anderson gets a neckbreaker on Hardy for two. Angle pops in and goes for Anderson’s knee. Big old belly to belly as it’s all Angle here. Then Hardy saves and it’s all Hardy. Little theme going on there. Angle Germans Hardy who Germans Anderson to take both of them over in a cool spot.

It gets two on Hardy as we keep going. 10:37 and no sign of THEY which scares the heck out of me. Hardy sends Angle up and over and might be hurt. I don’t buy it but whatever. Hardy goes over the top in a dive to take out everyone. Back in and Angle is ok, hooking a chinlock on Hardy after a cover gets two.

Running German to Hardy and he’s up seconds later. Ok then. Hey we went a full two hours and 40 minutes before we got a shot of Dixie. Angle is busted open a bit. Angle busts out some Germans on Anderson as Hardy is down. Hardy gets some of the same. Ankle Lock on the face painted one.

Anderson tries to save and winds up in the ankle lock. Angle locks the ankle lock on BOTH of them at once. That looks awesome. Naturally it doesn’t work but it looked cool while it was on. Anderson gets that rolling fireman’s carry slam from the middle rope on Angle so that Hardy can cover both for two.

10:45 now as this has somehow been going 12 minutes. Angle Slam gets two on Hardy. Top rope Angle Slam on Anderson but Hardy gets the cover for two. The fans think this is awesome and it’s not bad. Twist of Fate to Anderson and the Swanton hits. Angle saves into the ankle lock and Hardy is in trouble.

Jeff kicks off and sends Angle into a Mic Check for a VERY close two. Pinfall reversal sequence gets a lot of two counts. Angle is the only one left and hits the moonsault on Hardy for two again as Anderson is still down. Angle and Anderson go at it and block each others’ finishers.

And there goes the referee. Oh blast it. Everyone is down and here comes Eric with a chair. And here it comes. This is what TNA has spent the last 4 months building to. And what a shock: HULK IS HERE! Or at least his music is here. Yep there he is but on crutches. He needs help getting into the ring which I don’t buy.

Hulk looks ticked at Eric who throws the chair out and wipes his hands. Hardy stumbles to his feet on the floor and gets in. Both Bischoff and Hogan have crutches and Hogan gives Jeff his. Angle is up. Hardy pops Angle with the crutch and Hogan points at Jeff. Yes, it appears that Jeff Hardy, the most popular star in the world, is part of They. Twist of Fate to Anderson, and Hardy is world champion.

Rating: B. Ending aside obviously, this was a solid main event. It felt like a big match, but then again I would prefer a singles match for the title. That’s the traditionalist in me talking but if there is a match to end the biggest show of the year, only on very special occasions (this isn’t one of them) should it not be one on one for the world title.

Here comes Jeff Jarrett and Abyss. The fans throw trash in for no apparent reason. Hogan and Abyss hug, and THEY are revealed. Yes, it was Hogan and Bischoff with Hardy all along. RVD comes down and yells at Jeff and is of course laid out. Massive posing ends the show.

Overall Rating: B-. This one took me a very long time to reach as it’s now almost 330 Monday afternoon as I write this. This show, without a doubt, was not boring. The ending was a legit shock and I think lived up to most of the hype, but we’ll get to that later.

As for the rest of the card, there are two important things here. Number one, Lethal vs. Williams was the only standard one on one match. Number two, expect to see a lot less wrestling in the near future. Nothing was incredibly bad, but not a lot really stood out.

What I saw in this card was a great example of an old school WCW card: the opening stuff was great, then the stars come on and things go downhill a bit. For instance, Fourtune loses? Why? I understand the whole heels win at the end so faces have to win something, but dude, Tommy Dreamer beat AJ Styles at the biggest show of the year in 2010. The theory may work fine but when you put it into action that doesn’t mean it works.

And now for the big reason this show has perplexed me so: the main event. The match itself was rather good and considering my disdain for triple threats that’s saying a lot. As for the angle, the best thing I can say about it is that it was shocking. I didn’t see Hardy turning. Hogan and Bischoff I did and I have the LD posts to prove it.

The common issue with the turn is that it makes no sense. It does make sense to a degree but it’s one of those things that you have to suspend a lot of disbelief, think about a lot of things, ignore a lot of things and just accept parts of. That’s rarely good and I don’t think it’s good here.

The big comparison has been to Vince and Austin at Mania 17. Not really as in that it was simple as JR put it: “Steve Austin has sold his soul to the devil himself to win the WWF Title!” There. That’s it. That’s your explanation. There is no conspiracy, there is no hidden meaning, there is nothing but Austin saying he’s not good enough to beat Rock on his own and is taking the shortcut to get what he wants.

This is a huge conspiracy that is going to require a lot of explanation and in which something is going to get fouled up. I’ve said this many times: I don’t want to have to have a pencil and paper and a flow chart to understand an angle. TNA should not be more complicated than Lost.

Now after all that is said, the show was still good I thought. The ending was good. The shock was good. Impact is going to be through the roof for a few weeks. That being said, the real ratings are going to show through in a few weeks. They’ll be most interesting. I was VERY intrigued last night and while I think it came off as a letdown, the PPV has to be viewed as a success, despite Hogan managing to be the focus of the end of ANOTHER major show and angle.

 

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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 tar 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 ticked. 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.

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NXT
Date: September 28, 2010
Location: U.S. Cellular Coliseum, Bloomington, Indiana
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Michael Cole

Back in Bloomington this week as the show was taped. There’s a chance this is the final episode on Sci-Fi but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. On my digital preview there’s a sci-fi show on next week, but a week later, on the 12th, NXT is listed. It’s likely a misprint but interesting nonetheless. Let’s get to it.

We open by recapping musical chairs. It amuses me how they’ve just given up on this being a wrestling show at all and are just trying to make it as entertaining as possible. Talk the Talk is a bit better but it is kind of interesting to see WWE say how talking is very important and apparently more important than wrestling.

No Punk to start us out which makes me a sad reviewer.

Striker brings out the girls who mostly look good. Maxine still has the straight hair which looks really weird on her for some reason. Voting for the first elimination begins tomorrow on WWE.com which is where the results show will likely be seen. There’s a wheelbarrow in the aisle and they have to run around the ring with it, fastest time wins.

Maxine is first but before we start we need something in the wheelbarrow. And here’s Hornswoggle to make me roll my eyes. Cole asks what this has to do with being a Diva as Maxine sets the mark at 14.7 seconds. Horny bites her tights after she shoves him out of the wheelbarrow.

Naomi goes second and beats her time but they keep the clock running anyway for some reason as they have a tendency to do, putting her in second.

Jamie gets 14.4 to take the lead.

Kaitlyn is fourth and flies through this, getting 12 flat. Cole gets the line of the night as he yells at Josh: YOU’RE ANALYZING A WHEELBARROW RACE! He’s annoying but you can’t deny that he’s right.

AJ is the next to last girl and is rocking an I Love Nerds t-shirt. She’s nowhere close and Horny hugs her for a long time.

Aksana goes last and gets 13.9 to give Kaitlyn the win. What a great way to spend the first 13 minutes of a wrestling show.

This Week in WWE History is about Madison Square Garden and in particular the Raw where there was a triple interview with Dude Love, Cactus Jack and Mankind where Cactus returned and had a great falls count anywhere match with HHH. Oh and Austin gave Vince the first Stunner between the two. And now, back to the wheelbarrow racing show.

We profile AJ and how nerdy she is. We get a cool clip of her in line for tickets to Wrestlemania in MSG which I’m assuming was 20. That’s very cool that she is in a clip from footage like that as a kid for some reason.

Diss the Divas later tonight. Oh joy: more reading from scripts.

And now we recap Raw. I wonder how long they can go without actual wrestling on this show. Well that’s enough content so we need another commercial now.

Yep next week we’re on WWE.com. Not sure how that’ll effect the reviews but I’ll get it up somehow.

We profile Kaitlyn now who wants to be herself. And ANOTHER commercial. It’s 10:35 and there has not been a single piece of wrestling whatsoever. They’re coming back for 2 minutes of profiles etc and then a commercial.

Back from a break and we recap Smackdown with the Taker vs. Kane segment. When I say that, I mean they PLAY THE WHOLE THING. I don’t mean a highlight package, I don’t mean a synopsis, I mean Kane is talking about Undertaker and the druids are about to come out and Paul Bearer is about to return. If you’re curious as to what’s going on see my Smackdown review because I’m not talking about something I reviewed four days ago.

Time for Diss the Divas which is exactly what it sounds like. Aksana goes first and says she’s hot which she is. Her diss to the Divas is they don’t look as good as she does and she’s in better shape.

AJ goes second and is rather adorable. This is by far the highlight of the show which is hardly saying much. AJ says she belongs more here and she should be the winner because she’s not the typical Diva. This would come off better if Cole would SHUT UP. It’s one thing to get on the girls but it’s another thing to talk over them so we can’t even hear them.

Kaitlyn does an impression of Naomi by sticking her hips out. Naomi literally kicks it and that’s all for Kaitlyn.

Jamie says Aksana belongs in a circus and AJ is a ten year old but Jamie is awesome. Striker is more or less begging them to pick this up as it’s awful.

Naomi says this is about wrestling and entertainment and has them beat in those areas. Kaitlyn only won last week because Naomi messed up. Shame AJ won last week but whatever.

Maxine says the same thing she’s said every week as AJ and Kaitlyn conspire and play patty cake in the background.

AJ wins the competition over Naomi but just slightly, giving her the most victories and immunity.

And here’s Vickie to make sure we get her face time this week since this is the Vickie/Cole show. She bashes Kaitlyn who more or less turns face and wants Vickie in a match. Vickie accepts but gets a BIG OLD SLAP to Kaitlyn. That was Stephanie level slapping and somehow the highlight of the show. They “brawl” to end this joke of a show.

Overall Rating: F. This was an absolute joke. They can’t throw in a two minute match just to give us something? I don’t watch this show to see a segment I already watched. The show is moving to WWE.Com and I can’t imagine this show is going to make people want to watch it. I love the WWE but I never want to hear them complain about ratings again, not after this. Horrible show with no appealing value at all like this show usually has with its bad comedy. I feel sorry for the people that paid for tickets to it.

 

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