wrestling / Columns
Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of Impact & Smackdown
How the 4Rs of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. We will group our feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and needs discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come. This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, our goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. We will not apologize for our opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.
By Daniel Clark
Smackdown 4.16.15
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Bray Wyatt def. R Truth at 1.50 by pinfall
* Bad News Barrett def. The Miz at 0.38 by pinfall
* Neville def. Sheamus at 7.52 by disqualification
* The New Day def. Los Matedores at 2.43 by pinfall
* Cameron def. Natalya and Alicia Fox at 4.45 by pinfall
* Fandango def. Adam Rose at 1.29 by pinfall
* Daniel Bryan and John Cena def. Tyson Kidd and Cesaro at 8.17 by submission
THE Right:
Los Matedores vs. The New Day: The heel turn of the New Day is still being taken slowly, but that is what is making it more and more effective, as they are still ‘trying to get the crowd to cheer for them’, but doing it in a way that further their dislike of them. The match itself was nothing special but was a decent little two-minute tag match, and the New Day got the win that they needed to pick up. Eventually they will give up on their attempts to bring sunshine and light to the fans and will stop clapping on, and will snap, but it doesn’t need to happen just yet.
puRgatoRy:
John Cena/Daniel Bryan vs. Tyson Kidd/Cesaro: John Cena opened the show and initially sucks up to the crowd, before outlining the rules for the Russian chain match. He mentions the open challenge and out comes Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, but they lay out some facts and say that no one wants to see Cena anymore. Cena then challenges them to a fight, but Daniel Bryan comes out and makes it a tag team match, to end what was an incredibly generic opening promo. The main event tag team match between the two teams was a good match, as it is every time that Kidd and Cesaro get into the ring, but even though it was against Bryan and Cena, having the tag team champions lose a non-title match if never the best idea, particularly after they lost on Raw. It was a good match, but ultimately didn’t mean anything.
Sheamus vs. Neville: Once again, Neville puts on a great performance, and the fact that he is continually being thrown in matches against the top guys shows that they do have some faith in him and that they can see him being near the top of the card. Although he does perhaps need to pick up a couple of wins at some point, the fact he lost this match by DQ does help him, as he forced Sheamus to get himself DQed as he was on the verge of perhaps losing the match and he didn’t want that to happen. Sheamus then beats down Neville afterwards before Dolph Ziggler makes the save, and calls out Sheamus for being a bully. All good so far, but then Sheamus announces that at Extreme Rules they are having a ‘kiss me arse’ match. It’s a gimmick that just doesn’t really seem to make sense and turns what should be a great and hard-hitting match into something that might be a bit of a joke.
THE wRong:
Bray Wyatt vs. R Truth: Every time the WWE want to get Bray Wyatt on a show but don’t have any plans for him, they seem to stick him in a quick squash match with R Truth, as this is the 5th time in the last year he has beaten R Truth in a meaningless match. Bray after his loss at WrestleMania is once again back to having no direction and although he is trying the ‘face of fear’ angle, no-one is really buying it because he cannot back up his words. If Bray is going to be treated as a special attraction, then wrestling these kinds of meaningless matches that help no one is a bad idea.
Cameron vs. Natalya vs. Alicia Fox: Is there anyone who cares about these three divas feuding? No, I didn’t think so either. But, just in case someone does, we get the match that last week’s antics suggested that we would, but the match did not need to be four and a half minutes long, particularly as it was not a good match at all. Natalya was the only one of the three who looked as if they had a clue as to what they were doing in the ring and she controlled this match, so obviously, you have her pinned by Cameron who has no talent and no-one has ever cared about. Plus, given that the divas division is bereft of any faces (AJ having retired, Paige ‘injured’, Naomi randomly turning heel), why push another heel, especially one who no one wants to see winning.
Fandango vs. Adam Rose: Having treated Fandango as a joke for the last year, if not longer, he turns face on Raw by once again getting the crowd to ‘Fandango’. But, all that has happened, if that his face/heel alignment has switched, as he can’t even get a convincing win over Adam Rose, who is the definitive comedy jobber at the moment. If you going to try and get the crowd behind Fandango again and take him seriously, then let him win matches properly rather than relying on a distraction and a roll-up, as otherwise the crowd will go quiet on him again and the revival will die a death.
The Big Show tells a story: I don’t have a problem with the style of promo that the Big Show cut here, and the story telling device can work well, but it does need to be entertaining or at the very least have a meaningful point to it. Unfortunately, this promo did not and ended up being rather boring and didn’t really go anywhere that couldn’t have been achieved in half the time. He tells the story of how he destroyed Roman Reigns but he kept getting up, but didn’t finish him off because he will only do that when he wants to, but the fact it was cut with clips of the attack on Raw made it longer than it needed, and the slow and ponderous pace of him doing play-by-play of his attack made the crowd zone out. We eventually got the announcement of the Last Man Standing match, but we got have got their quicker than we did.
THE Ridiculous:
The Miz vs. Bad News Barrett: The Miz and Damien Mizdow deserve so much better than what has happened to them. They take what appeared to be a ridiculous throwaway comedy gimmick and turn it into one of the best things in the WWE. They drag out the break-up story perfectly and get the crowd invested in them. And then, from the moment that Mizdow eventually got fed up of the Miz and turned on him at WrestleMania, they have been treated pathetically. Their first match should have been at Extreme Rules and gone 10-15 minutes, before maybe a blow-off match at the following PPV if they can sustain the momentum. Instead, they’ve had a couple of two-minute matches and having a match for the rights to the Miz character even before Extreme Rules! Really? That’s just ridiculous. I’m not quite sure what having the Miz lose in 38 seconds to BNB does to help anyone. And rushing the gimmick match seems stupid. Surely, the Miz should win, as he needs to keep the character, and I don’t have faith in the WWE being able to do a redemption angle with him where he tries to recover from the loss of being ‘The Miz’, but if he is off to film a movie, then him winning and then disappearing off TV would be even worse. What should have been a great midcard feud for a couple of months has been treated like a joke and ruined months of good storytelling.
Smackdown has always had the feel of the second-class show and this episode was very much no exception to that. But in fact, this episode was worse than that in that a lot of what happened was counterproductive and rather than advancing storylines, turned you off them. It used to be that when the WWE went abroad they upped their game and put on better TV shows, but that was not the case here and this was just so bland and uneventful.
The main event involving Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Tyson Kidd and Cesaro was a decent enough match, but having the tag champs lose clean, particularly after they lost clean to Randy Orton on Raw, diminishes the tag division, and does nothing for Bryan or Cena, neither of whom needed to be in this match given that they have their own feuds to be involved with. Not that you’d know Bryan and Bad News Barrett were due to face each other at Extreme Rules with them having no interaction on the show at all.
BNB ended up squashing the Miz in 38 seconds in a ridiculous move that does nothing for BNB and makes the Miz look like a complete idiot, and by quickly rushing into a feud ending gimmick match on Raw, the excellent and patient build between the Miz and Damien Mizdow ahead of their split has been completely wasted, and the fact they aren’t even going to be one PPV match between them is scandalous. I guess, with the Miz off to film a movie, he will lose to Mizdow on Raw, but given that the WWE surely knew that the Miz would need time off, and the fact that their feud was hot, they could have given them a match at WrestleMania and have the feud finished by the time the Miz needed to take time off.
Another feud that is looking like being wasted is the Sheamus/Dolph Ziggler feud, now that a gimmick of ‘kiss me arse’ has been attached to the match. It might still be a good match if they work around the gimmick, but it is not one that needed to be attached to the feud, and just smacks of them not really having an idea as to where to take a lot of the storylines.
We also were treated to a long-winded and dull Big Show promo where he spent the best part of ten minutes doing play-by-play on the beatdown he put on Roman Reigns on Raw, which firstly, everyone had already seen, and secondly, did nothing extra to make me want to see them fight in a last man standing match, and we could have gotten to the same outcome in a one minute backstage interview.
This was just a pretty dull and boring episode of Smackdown with nothing of any importance happening. When the highlight of the show is a two-minute tag team match involving the New Day, and a seven-minute singles match that ends in a DQ, you know the show hasn’t been the best.
Show Rating: 3.8
As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…
0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect
By Jericho Ricardi
Impact 4.17.15
* The Hardys def. The Revolution (James Storm and Khoya) at 6:00 via pin (Twist of Fate into Senton to Khoya)
* BDC (Low-Ki and Kenny King) def. Rockstar Spud and Mr. Anderson at 6:00 via pin (Warrior’s Way to Spud)
* EC3 and Bram def. Tigre Uno and Jay Rios at 5:00 via pin (EC3 steals pin off Bram’s DDT)
* The Dirty Heels (Bobby Roode and Austin Aries) def. The BroMans (Robbie and Jessie) at 6:00 via pin (Aries 450 to Robbie)
* Ultimate X to crown new tag champions: The Hardys defeated The Dirty Heels, EC3 and Bram and The BDC at 12:00
THE RIGHT:
Tournaments Are Awesome: This show kicked off with a match, good call. The tournament was the central focus of the show and it was a lot of fun to watch. Almost felt like a stand-alone show in a way, telling a great story with the Hardys trying to get their first title win in this company. Side note: It’s impressive how much more interesting Jeff Hardy is than Matt Hardy.
Eric Young and Kurt Angle have words: This was quick and to the point, reminding us that these guys are going to face off soon. It didn’t take the focus off of tag titles being the centerpiece of the show, and it didn’t drag on and on or eat up time. This was fine for what it was and presented both guys as more or less equals. Their match should be really good.
Bram and EC3 are an interesting duo: TNA’s two biggest up-and-coming stars teaming up was a very compelling idea, and they had a ton of chemistry as semi-antagonists to each other despite their teaming. I don’t like seeing Tigre Uno get jobbed out yet again, though. Couldn’t they dig up The Menagerie for this role instead of Tigre Uno + Random CAW?
Christy Hemme’s Legs: Putting aside the question of what alignment Madison Rayne is this week, it was good to see the Knockouts get some promo time as well as setting the stage for next week’s themed show. Brooke’s promo was terrible, but I still hope she wins next week. Seeing this group in the ring really emphasized just how badly TNA needs new blood in the Knockouts division. I’d like to see them elevate Brooke, as she’s the least-overexposed of the bunch (ironically enough, given her ECW gimmick).
The BroMans Implode: The fourth and final tag match was possibly the most entertaining of the lot, with The Dirty Heels (Roode and Aries) running wild and the BroMans fighting amongst themselves. Hopefully this leads to a face run for Jesse Godderz, who has a huge amount of potential as a beast-mode face (especially since everyone who previously held that role, like Hernandez and Gunner, have dropped off the face of the Earth). I’m a bit concerned by the lack of crowd reaction to his turning on Robbie, though. It’s entirely possible that Jesse has spent so much time being in Robbie’s shadow that the audience no longer takes him seriously as a competitor.
Dollhouse: This was a creepy (and sexy) vignette. I’m really looking forward to getting new faces in the Knockouts division, as I said before. Hopefully Joss Whedon doesn’t sue.
Ultimate X: Main event was fun. I’d have rather seen the Hardys win their first TNA tag team championship in a direct match with The Wolves, which I think is where things were going before. It had potential to be a super-memorable moment, but instead they were kinda lost in the shuffle here. Regardless, the match was fun, gave Kenny King and Low Ki a bit of a rub, and made Bram look like a total badass.
puRgatoRy:
Homicide beats down Kurt Angle: Impromptu street fights are usually cool, but what was the point of this? MVP put a hit out on Angle and the BDC ended up standing tall over his corpse, and it totally took the focus off of the Eric Young / Kurt Angle feud that they just established. So now is Kurt feuding with MVP? This whole segment just felt random and went on for way too long. What saves it from the Wrong is Eric Young’s appearance later on.
THE wRong:
Spud needing Anderson to defend him: I’m not really a fan of Spud’s booking since his match with EC3. I’d like to see him standing up for himself in backstage vignettes, and I’d REALLY like to see him cleanly winning some matches on his own. Also, TNA doesn’t normally have champions get pinned, and I wasn’t a fan of seeing Spud take the fall here.
THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING
This was yet another good episode of Impact, with a tag title tournament that was a lot of fun. I would have rather seen the tournament continue with three more matches next week rather than have an Ultimate X ending, but it was what it was. They did a good job building up next week’s episode, though it does kinda feel like the show as a whole is holding back for some reason. Like the company is stuck in 2nd gear or something. While the booking is sound, most of the problems have been tweaked/addressed, and the shows have been good… they still lack that spark of excitement that I know they can have with this roster.
I want to note here that May 1 is going to be my last Impact 4Rs. I started on May 8 last year, and May 1 will complete a full year of Impact recapping for me. It’s a fun gig, but I’m ready to move onto something else. This also means that I’m looking for a replacement, so if any regular readers are interested in taking over, let me know.
Cheap plug time; support this site and this column by sharing it with your homies. Also, support my site Coronajumper.com by reading my musings on video games, including TNA Impact for the PS2/PS3. Featuring gratuitous Rebel.
Show Rating: 7.5
As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…
0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect
Cheerleader Raisha…
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