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Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition 8.27.10: Raw and NXT Reviewed!
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By: Jeremy Thomas
Raw 08.23.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Edge def. R-Truth [**]
Chris Jericho def. The Great Khali [* ¾]
Melina def. Jillian Hall [* ½]
The Miz def. John Cena by DQ [***]
Vladimir Kozlov & Santino Marella def. The Uso Brothers [* ½]
Randy Orton def. Ted DiBiase & John Morrison [** ½]
SHEAMUS REIGNS ON RAW: Raw kicked off with Sheamus coming down to the ring, much to the derision of the crowd. Sheamus was in a foul mood as he talked about how we Americans are spoiled brats who are annoying, selfish and cry until they get what they want. He proceeded to walk outside and pointed out some kids to insult and talk about how they didn’t deserve to see him. He then brought it back to Randy Orton and how he had attacked Sheamus after SummerSlam and last week. Sheamus got the crowd to chant for the RKO and then pointed out that Orton isn’t the WWE champion. He ranted about how Orton should be in prison and not get another shot at the title. And then…. “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” Michael Cole said the GM had no problem with Sheamus and was going to do something unprecedented…he then said, “Gentlemen, will you please bring out the throne?”
Okay, admittedly that is a damn fine throne. And while Michael Cole doesn’t even generally belong in the same sentence as CM Punk, “Gentlemen, will you please bring out the throne?” rivals “Get me Jared from Subway” in terms of outlandishly hilarious declarations heard on Raw this year. The gist here was that Sheamus was going to watch several matches tonight and decide who his opponent for Night of Champions would be. The crowd hated it and Sheamus loved it. I actually thought this was pretty decent. Getting the crowd involved always tends to make for a better promo just by terms of a better crowd reaction and it set up the format for the whole show, which is what an opening segment should do. There were no gaffes and no botches, just some good promo work and that’s enough for me.
EDGE vs. R-TRUTH: The first of the matches for Sheamus to witness to help him decide who his opponent would pit Edge against Truth. Edge got a pretty mixed reaction from the crowd, which is pretty surely the result of the crowd giving him a residual Team WWE pop. Cole took the time during Truth’s entrance to bitch about the rap. Listen, go full-out heel or don’t Cole. Make a choice. I don’t care if the dude is a dick, in fact that would be great. But being a tweener is tough for the best promo guys to pull off; Cole does it very poorly. Edge and Truth had a decent match between them; it was shorter than I would have liked but that’s nothing new and for a TV match it did about what it needed to. Truth looked like he belonged in there with Edge and he only lost due to his showboating, which helps keep his credibility but still gives Edge a clean pin. This didn’t’ have any must-see moments but it was a perfectly fine match for what it needed to be.
YEAH, ABOUT THAT TRUCE…: Midway through the show, the Nexus came out and Sheamus was all “Hey, what’s up?” And then… “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” Michael Cole went up and said that he had asked the Nexus to come out because he was impressed by them last week and decided to lift the ban that said they couldn’t compete for WWE titles anymore. See, this is why last week worked fine for the Nexus—they aren’t taking all their time to point out how some of the only won by DQ or countout the way they usually do. All people will remember is that the Nexus beat members of Team WWE. Anyway, Barrett then turned to Sheamus and told him that the truce was over. Sheamus was pissed as the Nexus left. This was a short but important segment because it cleared a major hurdle for the main event and it helped in its own way to help the Nexus be considered a threat.
JOHN CENA vs. THE MIZ: Earlier in the show, Josh Matthews asked Cena about what the Miz did to Daniel Bryan. Cena said what Miz did was classless and he put Bryan over nicely. Cena said that Miz has gotten worse since he won Money in the Bank. It was short but sweet, and Cena really put both Bryan and Miz over in different ways. Nice to see that. We then got a promo from Miz later where he talked about how he didn’t cost WWE at SummerSlam, it was John Cena who put the team at risk by choosing Daniel Bryan over him. Miz said that he put his ego aside by not cashing in at SummerSlam and said Cena could have at least talked to him backstage. You know, Miz is a jackass, but he has a very legitimate point there. Good promos by both men.
Then we got to the match. Cole and Lawler started sniping at each other over Daniel Bryan and the Miz as the match began. I will certainly give them credit, this could have been a flattening by Cena but they gave Miz a fair shake here on offense. Once again, Mr. Awesome-O 5000 looked like he belonged in there with a main eventer and proved that you don’t have to get a win against one of these guys to be elevated by a match with them. Members of the IWC have complained for some time about how Cena pretty much buried the Miz during Miz’s attempts to call Cena out a while back, but that has to be at least partially forgiven with a match like this. Cena made Miz look good with things like countering out of the Attitude Adjustment and letting him escape the STF. And then the finale saw Miz get the win but lose the war as he escaped the ring, only to find Daniel Bryan there to attack him. Bryan then got some heat on and had the crowd solidly behind him as he locked in the Crossface and wouldn’t let go. Fantastic stuff here.
RANDY ORTON vs. TED DiBIASE & JOHN MORRISON: This was, essentially, our main event match and it worked fine in that respect. I do have to ask though—what was with that dress Maryse was wearing? Yellow is her color, but that pattern looked like a banana that was going bad. Sheamus walked away as we had a fairly standard trip[le threat formula play out; one guy is out of the match while the other two wrestle a singles match. In this case Orton generally stayed in the ring and that was probably for the best. These three had some pretty good timing between them and that helped the format well; clearly this was Orton’s match to win though and he pretty much dominated the match before he picked up the win with an RKO off a springboard move. Not Shooting StaRKO good but not bad at all and the match was a decent main event match to boot.
ZACK RYDER GETS HIS SHOT AT THE BIG-TIME: So in the main event promo, Sheamus got into the ring and talked about how he’d seen a lot of great matches tonight, but he was all about opportunity so he was going out of left field. Apparently, Zack Ryder plays left field for someone, because he was the choice. If he’d said Abe “Knuckleball” Schwarz I would have marked out, I gotta tell you.
Ahh, the days. Anyway, Zack came out, had a promo where he tried to act like he had a prayer in the world while Sheamus grinned like the dick heel he was. We then got about 4 seconds of a match and Sheamus was still champion. I’m not going to rate that, it was angle advancement and did a good job of putting Sheamus over as a dick. It was what happened after that was important, as Sheamus tried to play rules lawyer. But as any D&D DM will tell you, being a rules lawyer will always—ALWAYS—backfire. Wade Barrett then came out and said he had a title shot so he was taking it at Night of Champions. Then… “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!” Wade Barrett got his title shot, as did John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge and Chris Jericho. I have no problem at all with this as it means that the Raw match for NOC is well-stacked and as I said in Fact or Fiction, it will allow them to either put Sheamus over six guys, establishing him as a legit champion, or transition it off him without killing his credibility. And the finish worked out really well, with Sheamus feeding Barrett to the other guys and getting him a nasty beatdown before things turned into chaos and ultimately Randy Orton stood tall for the fans to close out the show with something to cheer.
CHRIS JERICHO vs. THE GREAT KHALI: This was the second match of the night and Jericho looked a little pensive walking down to the ring. Frankly, my expectations drop whenever Khali enters the ring, but if anyone could pull a good match out of him it would be Jericho. And to their credit they tried in there. Khali started off with his chops and such until a leg drop missed and Jericho took control by targeting the knee that was supposedly still injured after the Nexus’s attack. That gave this match a good story and we had a rare Khali match with some psychology to it. Khali blocking the Codebreaker was pretty cool, though there were of course a few lumbering moments when Khali tried to come back. Jericho getting a submission win over a guy like Khali is a big thing, because it helps put the Walls—a move that has lost some sparkle over the years as people have countered out of it—over as a legit submission move. Jericho of course had his promo at the end like Edge did and did fine, and I didn’t even mind Khali getting some heat back. You have to keep Khali’s monster cred alive, otherwise he’s completely useless. This sucked when you compare it to most Jericho matches, but for a Khali match it was flat-out good.
JILLIAN HALL vs. MELINA: We got a pointless promo by Jillian before this that turned into a horrible rendition of Eminem’s “Not Afraid.” Typical embarrassing par for the course crap, nothing to see there. Melina was out then, thankfully not wearing that atrociously bad SummerSlam outfit, and they had a surprisingly decent match. Yes, it was choreographed all to hell in the early moments and it lost credibility there, but this surprised me because Melina’s been far from on fire since her return and Jillian’s generally been a much poorer worker than her potential would have led us to believe. But they worked a very tolerable match, Melina hit the Last Call and it didn’t look like a near-botch so I’m giving this one a passing grade. Plus we had the Lay-Cool mocking that took place after that hinted at further developments. The Women’s division unified at last? We can hope.
SANTINO AND KOZ vs. THE USO BROTHERS: Wow, the Usos have become the Job squad for the likes of Santino and Koz now? That didn’t take long. It’s too bad because I think Jimmy and Jey have a lot of potential, but clearly the ‘E thinks there is more value in some kind of burgeoning thing between Tamina and Santino. The match itself was all right I suppose; it was less comedy than we typically get from a match involving Santino and that was fine but it was too short. I would really know what this thing is all about. Just in case someone at WWE is listening—I wasn’t really being serious when I said Tamina is the new Beth for Santino a few weeks ago. Stop trying to make her such. Thanks.
DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And, as always, I don’t care.
Good show this week, as Raw continues its focused push from PPV to PPV. The stuff with Sheamus worked out nicely and the end was good, they kept the heat high on the Daniel Bryan/Miz feud and very little actually bothered me. Sure, there was the tag match but that was short and otherwise I can’t gripe much. This continued all the storylines it needed to and I’m gonna give it props for that. SHOW RATING: 8.5 |
By: Michael Bauer
NXT 08.24.10:
QUICK RESULTS:
Cody Rhodes defeated MVP [***1/4]
OPENING REMARKS, KAVAL STEPS UP: We open the show with each of the three finalists being able to speak their minds about NXT, why they should win, and whatever else. What we got, was three very strong promos once again. Michael starts by thanking Kofi for all of his guidance and support. He calls his time in NXT the greatest days of his life and the simple fact that he gets to fight in the same ring as his father made it all worth it. Alex Riley says he expected to be here because of what this contest is all about. He made a point about this contest being about finding the next breakout star and called himself the total package, walking and talking the part. But damn, I did not see Riley directing anything at Sheamus and I was amazed by his words. Riley finally gave himself a catchphrase, I guess, but I don’t know how much The Miz will like what he said. Which led to Kaval and holy cow, did it get good from there. Kaval called out Rhodes for ruining his moment last week and stepped up to the plate to challenge him to a match. I loved his shot at Cody for needing to be upset at himself for not being a good enough pro and for getting into the WWE on his father’s back. Rhodes, of course, declined while taking shots at MVP and Lay-Cool for backing him up. MVP stepped up to the plate to challenged Cody to a match instead, which led to…
MVP vs. CODY RHODES – 20 MINUTES OF TELEVISION: There were only two things wrong with this match. The commentary, which is pretty obvious and has no bearing on my thoughts on this match, and the two commercial breaks. The match itself was really, really good and the fact that it went as long as it did was quite a surprise. Now, I don’t think it was earth shattering match, nor do I think it was a great contest as some people like it was. But for a match that went around a half an hour (counting commercial breaks), it was a very good showing by both Cody and MVP. Yes, the match was slow at times but tell me any match that long that didn’t have some slow parts. Even with those slow parts, this was a tremendous back and forth match, leaving you questioning who would come out top. Every match should be like that, whether it goes 10 minutes or a half hour. Again, while the action was slow at times, when it picked up, the action was clean, crisp, and with no fault. MVP and Cody gave us a better performance than anyone would have expected with a really well done ending. I like Cody going over MVP right now as well, since he has the new gimmick and a better upside right now.
NOTHING
THE ROOKIES TRIVIA CHALLENGE: Okay, let me be honest here. There were moments of this that did make me laugh or mark out slightly. I mean, we have to give bonus points for Demolition lyrics if nothing else. But at the end of the day, this was pretty bad. It made Alex Riley look like he doesn’t know anything about the history of the WWE. It made Michael look like he knew, but only because he had to actually think about history from when his father was in the WWE. Seriously, how does it take someone like him more than a second to name the two people in the first Iron Man Match? Especially when his father working for the WWE as a backstage interviewer during the show. In the end, Kaval looked really good with his knowledge, but let’s face it. Most of these questions were really, really easy. The first Iron Man Match? The most WWE Title Reigns? The name of Christian’s Finisher? Anybody who has watched the WWE for a mere six months could answer those questions. Though, I have to admit, even I hadn’t heard of the Dynamic Dudes. But even I would not say Boogie Boards as a mode of transportation. Kaval got the win and a feature on WWE.com to go hand in hand with the internet voting opening at noon Wednesday. So he has momentum heading into the finale, but no more than he had after last week, beating Husky Harris. The whole segment wasn’t a train wreck, but it was pretty pathetic.
NOTHING
This was a one show match and not even a rookie match. But the match itself was really good and that made for a great show. I’m not thrilled with all the rookies doing nothing the week before the finale, but I’ll overlook it here. SHOW RATING: 8.0 |
…and remember to stay grounded!
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