Wrestling Week in Review for 2/2
Posted on February 3, 2008
Filed Under News
After last week forced me to write on the weekend I decided to make that the norm, so from now on the column will be available each week between Saturday and Sunday and it’ll start with WWE and close out with the TNA weekly offering… Well now that, that’s out of the way lets talk Wrasslin’.
This was was the week we got to see the results of the Royal Rumble, The Return of John Cena, HHH’s master plan to work his way into the main event @ Wrestlemania, Team 3-D DESTROY the X-Division, Samoa Joe obliterate a table, and AJ Styles begin his face turn.
Royal Rumble: The first match of the evening was Ric Flair and MVP for Flair’s career. The match was a bit slow at the beginning but once it got moving it wasn’t too bad. The finish came when MVP went for his finisher, and Flair grabbed his leg and slapped on the Figure-4 for the submission victory.
McMahon and Hornswaggle have a ‘little’ exchange about trust before the next contest. This was a waste of PPV time and I hope Vince kills this gimmick off very soon. Just because you own the company doesn’t mean you need more TV time than the rest of your roster. Other egomaniacs in sports… Jerry Jones, George Steinbrenner, Dan Snyder, the list goes goes on but the point is, they only do it for the press. You don’t see George coming in to show Rivera how to throw strikes, so why should Vince be involved in every main event his company books and runs with! That was not a question it was a statement that NO ONE can answer, but it needed to be asked just in case one of you has some valuable insight, you’d like to share.
Jericho vs. JBL: Jericho goes under via DQ after plastering JBL with a chair. Last week I expressed my concern for this match because I had commented on both of these competitors, and their ’ring rust’. Well, I was right and I was wrong at the same time! JBL looks like he’s back in full swing but Jericho is still a little slow in my opinion. I have no doubts he’ll get back there but I think this feud is the wrong one to get him back to LionHeart Chris Jericho level. And, for my money the fact that Cena is back I think they should flip Jericho and have him work a program with either Hardy or Cena over the summer.
Edge and Mysterio for the World Heavyweight strap was a very good match, that saw Edge win via screw-job finish involving Vickie Guerrero followed by the spear. Edge is a great Heel and his feud’s always end in big finishes so I’m curious to see how his and the Undertaker’s will end. My cookies are on Taker getting at least one more title run before he decides to hang em up, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen @ Wrestlemania.
Orton and Hardy WAS the best match of the night. The crowd was so into this one I thought my speakers were going to blow from the reaction Hardy got when he hit the ring. High spot after high spot followed by a very well balanced dose of heel heat for Orton, made for a very solid Championship match. Orton goes over cleanly with his RKO, but it’s still too bad it wasn’t in the cards for Jeff to wear the gold, because the fans were really into him and right now, he IS the hottest babyface the WWE have on the RAW brand. Maybe next time Jeffrey, maybe next time.
Mian Event Time, the moment we all were waiting for, The Royal Rumble. Who will win and face the champion of their choosing? Who will get dumped out before they should have? Who will make a return that NOBODY in the Internet world was expecting? Well all those questions and more, got answered in this contest. My money was clearly on HHH, because the guy wants another run and since your family and you have the talent he does, chances are your’e going to get your way. I was watching very closely and the fact that HHH, didn’t come out @ 27, which coincidentally has produced more winners than any other number in the Rumble, I was waiting for him to be 30. Which also coincidentally has never produced a winner, so I expected him to be the first. But, he came out @ 29 and promptly started tossing folks to the floor, eliminating 4 Superstars before the final participant hits the ring. Oh MY GAWD! The WWE has done it. They’ve managed to keep a return a secret and as far as I knew, no one was expecting to see John Cena return to the ring, just 4 months after tearing his pec muscle, and more surprisingly that he would eliminate HHH, and win the Royal Rumble. I was dumb founded, I couldn’t believe HHH would accept losing the Rumble when he’s this close to his 12th title run, but hell if he didn’t.
The PPV was pretty good with the exception of some weak moments in between the matches, but the surprise finishes more than made up for it. The DVD should be a great seleer and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s still available on PPV replays… Or, if you have the where with all you can find it floating around the nannernet, and save yourself $40.
RAW: The show opens with the return of John Cena. Now I have to say it’s amazing to see how well Cena handles the boos/cheers he gets, but this was Philly baby and they love to hate everything… I’ve had the pleasure of seeing that first hand and the fact that it keeps going after all these years, is nothing short of astounding. Well anywhoo, Cena says he doesn’t want to wait until Wrestlemania… What is this, another curve ball??? IF Cena blows his shot before Wrestlemania, that pretty much guarantees HHH, will still get his way. But how will they pull this off you ask? That’s quite simple my friends you build up the main event for No Way Out to be an Elimination Chamber match, and let him win that since he so graciously went under at the Rumble. You win 3 ways by doing that, you let Cena heal up so he can face Orton @ No Way Out, and if he’s healthy enough you put him over and have HHH, work him for the WWE title in April… Or, you put Cena under due to the injury and let HHH, challenge and defeat Orton at Wrestlemania… Or, you put all 3 of them in 3-Way for the strap, and you still put the title around HHH’s sizable waist. Do you guys see the trend here? One way or the other Paul Michael Lesveque will be the WWE Champion when the smoke clears, because that’s what he wants, and that means, that what Steph wants, and what Daddy’s little girl wants, She gets! So 39 minutes has passed and not a single match has occured (chicks don’t count, so don’t question my math), and I’m getting the itchy remote finger.
Cody Rhodes and Carlito face off and just like last week with Hardcore Holly and Carlito, Marella distraction leads to backstabber and Carlito victory. I’m not a fan of Carlito, nor am I fan of Cody Rhodes so this match was the wet drizzling sheeots as far as I was concerned. They should send both of them to Smackdown, and bring a couple of Cruiserweights to RAW, and I’d be fine with that.
DX makes their return and as far as I could tell got the biggest pop of the night. Earlier you might have gotten the impression that I have something personal against HHH, or that I’m drinking hateraide on the man, well neither of those things are true. I respect his in-ring skill and you have to respect his stroke in the locker room, my problem is passing up younger talented superstars to keep replaying the same matches every year. HHH is still as over today, as he was 5 years ago and he puts asses in the seats, so for Vince it’s not a big stretch to let his son-in-law carry the company banner, it’s just kind of stale if your on the outside looking in. Enough bitching about HHH, and his connections, DX goes over and they do their shtick for another 4 or 5 minutes before commercial break.
2 matches left (ONLY 2), Kennedy squashes Brian Kendrick and the best match of the night, Orton/JBL vs. Hardy/Jericho. The tag match had a lot of emotion and all 4 men told a great story… right up to the point Orton hit Jericho with the RKO and the 1-2-3. JBL and Orton were a very good tag-team and even though Jericho and Hardy have teamed before they were a little less in synch than their opponents. All in all RAW rated a 3 out of 5 because of the lack of Wrestling and 2 damned Diva matches in one show.
TNA Impact: The show opens with AJ Styles reminding Kurt Angle that he’s not a flunky and that he was 3 time TNA Heavyweight champion. Hopefully this is the beginning of AJ returning to face territory and contending for the TNA title. Next was Team 3-D being mocked by Jay Lethal and the Motor City Machine Guns in a pretty funny impersonation of the Dudley’s from the old ECW days. Bubba and D-Von don’t take kindly to the harmless rib and they proceed to dismantle the 3 little guys. Even though this was not a full blown match, it did have enough spots to count for a nice preview for the PPV. Lethal got colored, the MCMG’s got pulverized with the Kendo stick. Now in case you guys were wondering, the Kendo stick CAN hurt when you get popped with it. The key is seeing where the band on the stick is located, IF the band is near the top and the bamboo is tight and solid, that little F’r will light you up and you won’t want to take very many shots at all from it. But, if you see the band is near the bottom it’s about like getting hit with a bundle of sticks. You can feel both, and both of them will leave marks, just one means whelps, while the other means deep purple bruises. Let’s just say when Bubba is swinging it, most of the time it’s near the top.
Rock and Rave Infection take on Petey Williams and Scott Steiner for the official opening contest. The Guitar Hero gimmick that Rave and Hoyt are running is F’N retarded, and judging by fan reaction it isn’t getting over anyway, so hopefully they’ll kill it soon. Rock and Rave go over when Jimmy hits a very bizarre twisting maneuver on Petey, after Scotty clocked him with a briefcase and left him to fend for himself… As for the other little side to this match it looks like the Williams/Steiner feud is starting to come to a boiling point. I’m not sure what the plan is here, but it looks to me like it’s going to suck whatever it is. Williams as heel, is too damned small to work a program with Steiner as a face. Don’t get me wrong, Petey is in phenomenal shape, but come on! Scotty is twice his size and if Scotty doesn’t want to go with a move, he isnt going… Period point blank. You’ll look like a complete idiot trying to force him because he’s not going, and again, knowing the man myself I can tell you he’s not going to take anything Petey throws at him. This feud is a bust before it even gets started - unless Scotty is the heel it will not work!
Robert Roode, James Storm and Peyton Banks took on Sonjay Dutt, Eric Young and Traci Brooks in a 6 person mixed tag match. Now as best as I can tell this is the 3rd week in a row that Roode and Storm have tagged up, and each week they get better and better. Roode has been working Eric Young so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like for him to face a different style of opponent, and Storm is a Tag-Team wrestler by nature, so in my opinion this pairing is a good thing for both of these guys. Dutt gets pinned when Roode hits him with the Pay-Off (Perfect-plex), and the 2 chicks fought each other to the back, leaving the opening for Booker-T to run in and chase Roode away and further build his feud for the upcoming PPV.
Last week we learned that Tables are allergic to wrestlers, and no matter how hard you try they can not maintain their form when placed within 3 feet of one another… well this week we learn another lesson in Wrestling physics regarding the contract signing. IF a wrestler comes to the ring to sign any sort of contract, and there’s a table in the ring, 2 things will happen. One, the contract will not get signed, and two, the table is going to be splintered when someone goes through it. Now there are many theories as to why this continues to happen; Magnetism between the wrester’s inflated posterior and the table, Or clumsiness, Or it could be poor damned writing that insists on doing the same damned thing for nearly 30 F’N years. I’ll go with the latter, and at the same time make a proposition to all the shitty wrestling writers in the business - Get some G’D originality in your story lines and stop rehashing the same old shit every 6 months, before you kill the beast for good!
Main Event time - Tomko and Kurt Angle with AJ Styles as special guest referee. Back and forth contest and AJ played the torn between 2 lovers thing really well. Each time either Tomko (his tag partner), or Angle (his boss) would be in a pinning predicament, he would very slowly slap the mat and plead with each to let him stop. The finish finally came when AJ was bumped to the floor, Christian came down and hit Angle with his title belt. Tomko covers Angle and AJ reluctantly slaps the mat for the 3 count resulting in Tomko going over. TNA was a slightly better show than RAW this week because of the amount of wrestling, and if it hadn’t been for the damned contract bit it would’ve gotten 4 stars but as it was, it only gets 3.
See ya next week.
Later!
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