Wrestling Week in Review for 2/10
Posted on February 16, 2008
Filed Under News
This was a monster week for wrestling fans, 2 PPV’s and 1 top notch weekly wrestling program from WWE, with a valiant attempt from TNA. This past week TNA gave us their February PPV offering, Against All Odds, WWE gave us an AMAZING match between Shawn Michaels and Jeff Hardy on RAW, and TNA Impact fleshed out the fallout from the unexpected heel turn of Tomko… And in just one day No Way Out will occur! The WWE is going to deliver two separate Elimination Chamber matches, 3 separate World title matches and Ric Flair fights Misteerrrrrrrrr Kenneday for his career.
Let’s start off the week by covering the Against All Odds PPV from Sunday. The show opened with Bullet Bob and son Brian facing Tomko and AJ Styles for the Tag-Team titles. The match was pretty much crap but the coolest part had to be that fact that Tomko refused to sell anything Bullet Bob threw at him. Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for Bob Armstrong and what he’s accomplished inside and outside the ring BUT come-on… the dude is almost 70 freakin years old. BG did the best he could considering the pace that AJ and Tomko work the ring, and even though the match wasn’t great, the drama that went into it was worth the build up. BG seemed genuinely proud to share the ring with his daddy and AJ bumped his hiney off for both of them, so from a pure performance aspect the match had it’s moments.
Payton Banks and Traci Brooks in a pointless chick match that resulted in a quick school boy pin from Brooks to thankfully end it before it bored me too much.
Petey Williams and Scott Steiner put on a great show and even though the weeks leading up to it had Petey trying to carry the heel mantle, the match fleshed it out and Scott took the lead to pretty much destroy Petey. Williams made a few good comebacks and even managed to deal a bit of damage to Scotty in the process, and it was a good match from start to finish. I was worried that the writers would screw this up and have Scotty selling everything Petey threw, and I was even worried they’d make Scotty take the Canadian Destroyer. Instead, it came down to interference from a gigantic black chick with stiletto heals, and a giant rack.
Eric Young vs James Storm for the drinking championship. Match was a 4 star affair and even though these two guys have worked each other a few dozen times, it was a solid back and forth contest with an exciting finish that involved the GORE! Rhino makes his return after being away for about 6 months to re-kindle the feud he and Storm had before he left. TNA is infamous for running an angle, and then screwing it up with a pointless swerve to avoid being too obvious in their story telling. Storm and Rhino had a good feud, but it ended when Rhino gored Storm through a wall and pinned him last year to complete the story. I don’t want to get off on a tangent here but I get bent out of shape when I see that writers have no idea what to do with talent, and they keep throwing them into the same feuds over, and over again.
Kong beat ODB with a spinning back fist followed with an Awesome Bomb. Enuff said!
Abyss and Judas Mesias in a Barbed Wire massacre match. According to the South Carolina athletic commission this match was deemed too violent and it had to take place in the Impact Zone, and be viewed via big screen for the crowd in attendance. This match, on paper looked like it would be a blood bath, and the fact that they replaced the ring ropes with barbed wire and scattered the ringside area with tons of barbed wire wrapped weapons, just made it seem even more barbaric. Abyss will color for anyone and if you ask me he F’N loves to bleed… BUT, a match like this can’t just be one guy bloody as an undercooked 2 dollar steak, they both need to be bathed in the red stuff, or the match just doesn’t work. I have grown to enjoy Mesias’ matches and I’m a real fan of Abyss so I was looking forward to this one. Abyss did in fact bleed from everywhere he could. Both arms, top of the head, under his right eye, and even his F’N ear… but Mesias only had a few scratches and that was it. Abyss took a shot from a barbed wire wrapped chair and he bled like a pig. Mesias got power bombed through a table wrapped in the shit, press dropped on a board covered in it and even took the F’N Black hole slam on top of it and he barely bled a drop. I’m not a blood thirsty heathen that gets off on seeing guys bleed out of every orafice, but I say if you’re going to do it, DO IT RIGHT. Don’t book it if you’re gonna half ass it. Abyss over Mesias with the Black Hole Slam and the 1-2-3.
Robert Roode and Booker-T to settle the score. Double count out and Booker chased Roode to his waiting rental car. Up to the point they decided to screw the crowd out of a solid finish, this match was 5-Stars all the way. Both men gave a ton and took everything the other had to offer. Judging by the crowd reaction this feud has legs so I’m sure it won’t be settled until April in a 6-Sides of Steel match @ Lock Down.
Semi Main was Motor City MachineGuns and Jay Lethal taking on Team 3-D and Johnny Devine for the X-Division title in a 6-Man street fight. Before the match started Brother Ray aluded to the fact that the Guns lack heart and respect for the business but Lethal is a man they respect, and he does respect this industry… This would turn out to be the case when the match began as well. Team 3-D took quite a few big triple moves (triple DDT, triple dropkick, triple frog splash), and sold everything they were hit with, but once the match got moving, they hit 3-D on both Shelley and Sabin forcing Lethal to finish the match alone. Lethal ultimately hits his top rope elbow on Devine to recapture the X-Division strap and force Team 3-D to get below 275 lbs to participate in future TNA contests. Sabin and Shelley were absolutely no where to be found after the match and So Cal Val (cough, Elizabeth, cough) got in the ring to celebrate with her man. Very good match with emotion and a huge pop for Lethal when he was recrowned TNA X-Division champ.
Main Event Time! Kurt Angle taking on Christian Cage with Samoa Joe as special ring enforcer. Angle can make anyone look good and Christian is an amazing psychologist in the ring, so this match was hyped to be the biggest thing in months. I was not one of those peeps, I respected the contest for what it was and the match was good, but it wasn’t great. Both guys avoid, and then take each other’s finisher’s, and each of them kick out. What’s the point of doing it if it isn’t going to finish off your opponent you ask… well that’s simple, just screw up weeks and weeks of build up by flipping a possible monster face and turn him heel, and screw up any drama you’ve been building for the past 2 months. Tomko and his ‘Im Doing what’s best for Tomko’ schtick was working and the crowd was eating it up like candy… so why F this up??? I have no G’D clue, because I never would’ve done it. This time next month we would’ve had a new champ, and his name would’ve been Tomko, not Samoa Joe!
WWE RAW: This week was pre-taped but it was still a great show, regardless of the McMahon ‘Kiss My Ass’ bull sheet!
Hornswaggle over VKM with the tadpole splash after Finlay popped Vince with the Shilly-Log.
JBL and Jericho in a rematch from the Rumble. 4-Star match with Jericho getting the clean pin after avoiding the Clothesline from Hell and hitting the Code Breaker. I’ve been commenting on JBL and how good he looks in the ring and at the same time criticizing Jericho for looking less sharp than he has in the past… This match wiped all of that away and I can say Jericho is back in full swing. Now, hopefully Jericho catching JBL and putting him away will put this feud to rest after this Sunday’s Elimination Chamber, and Jericho gets an opponent that he can work a faster, more evenly matched program with.
When we came back from commercial break we got a gander at the newest hotty on the WWE roster, Katie Leigh Burchill. This chick has a body that won’t quit but at the same time she has an oddly shaped head that takes away a little of her hotness. She is being billed as Paul Burchill’s sister, and they’re running an incest type gimmick between these two and I can promise you right now, it isn’t going to work and the gimmick along with the 2 of them more than likely will be over and gone by Wrestlemania. This is the cut throat aspect of this business… you get picked to play a character that you know full well is going to bomb, or you’re given an angle that is going to blow harder than a toothless whore in need of false teeth, but you do what you’re told and pray you survive the fallout of a shitty writer and his ridiculous concept. Let’s just say more often than not you do throw the baby out with the bath water.
Cena goes over on Mark Henry with the STFU to build up his match with Orton this Sunday. Cena got a huge pop but for the most part this was a throw away match that could’ve been skipped.
Main Event was Jeff Hardy and HBK Shawn Michaels in another preview of No Way Out. This was definitely a 5-Star match and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Jeff caught a solid shot to the jaw and it busted his lip, but he repaid the favor with a receipt of his own, when he caught HBK across the bridge of the nose with an elbow so snug, I felt it from my couch. Shots like that one are the reason I have no desire to get hit in the face anymore :-) Jeff takes the win cleanly by hitting the the Twist of Fate/Swanton combo after both breaking Shawn’s new leg submission and ducking the Sweet Chin Music. Jeff is over mroe than other guy in the WWE and e deserves to be WWE Champ, but the win over KBK is all he’s going to get… Right Now that is, but don’t be surprised to see Jeff feud with the new champ after Wreslemania, no matter who it is if his popularity continues to skyrocket.
Now I know I’ve made it a point to drive home the fact that I do not watch or care about the WWE’s bastardization of ECW but I have a friend (my former brother in arms, and tag partner), we’ll call him DSM. He’s going to cover the ECW broadcast from Tuesday… Take it away brother!
Here’s my recap of ECW for Feb. 12, 2008. Lena Yada, despite the fact that she’s smoking hot, failed to show she has any charisma or personality. Joey Styles and Tazz reminded us how unorthodox Kofi Kingston’s offense is. CM Punk hit someone in the face with his knee. For a recap of next week’s ECW show, please read the previous three sentences.
How very insightful and true… Thanks Dude, hopefully things will improve and you can elaborate in the weeks to come.
TNA Impact: Weakest of the 3 wrestling programs. Opening match was billed as a tag team match between Team 3-D taking on Shark Boy and Curry Man but thanks to the stipulation regarding Team 3-D from Against All Odds, Brother Ray was unable to contribute to the match ‘legally’ since was well above 275 lbs… I’m not sure how much Ray actually weighs these days but I can clearly see he’s gained about 100 lbs. since leaving WWE. Anywhoo, Devon wins in a handicap match after dropping Curry Man on his bowl.
Scott Steiner and Petey Williams in a rematch from AAO. This time there’s no doubt who was the heel and who was playing babyface. Petey took a whooping and got beaten very convincingly by Big Poppa Pump and his freak finally got identified as Rokka-Khan. Decent contest but more of the same from AAO so it wasn’t really necessary.
Tomko does an interview with Crystal explaining why he screwed Christian, and that he’s joining the Angle alliance… This was F’N retarded but I’ve beat that horse so I’m gonna stop pointing out the obvious.
AJ Styles and Tomko vs Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash in another throw away match that just took up valuable air time. 3 of the 4 men in this match are top stars and the other was great in his day but this match had no emotion, or conviction. Thankfully it was short.
Eric Young got squashed by Rellik with a clothesline… that should explain why this sucked!
Triple Threat match with Chris Sabin - Homicide - Jimmy Rave. Absolutely abysmal match… NASCAR driver hits Lance Hoyt with a chair and it looked like total shit. This was a complete waste of time and talent. 3:00 was enough pain so they ended it quickly before the ratings hit absolute zero!
Rhino challenges James Storm to Elevation-X to finally end their long running feud. This was also pointless because half the audience didn’t even know why he’s still pissed after 6 months of being away from action. Oh, well if these two guys are willing to run a scaffold match so be it but this match is F’N dangerous and if were part of the company I’d protest it as much as possible. One slip and you’re gone!
Wedding segment… Waste of Time!
See Ya Next Time
JC
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