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.

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By Daniel Clark
Smackdown 2.19.15
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Daniel Bryan def. The Miz at 2.56 by submission
* Ryback def. Kane at 3.50 by pinfall
* R Truth def. Bad News Barrett at 3.06 by pinfall
* The Ascension def. The New Day at 2.48 by pinfall
* Roman Reigns def. Luke Harper at 5.05 by pinfall
* The Big Show def. Erick Rowan at 1.27 by pinfall
* Paige def. Cameron at 2.08 by submission
* Tyson Kidd vs. Jimmy Uso at 0.57 ended as a no contest
* Dolph Ziggler def. Seth Rollins at 10.08 by pinfall

THE RIGHT:
Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz: It was a shame that the match was so short as it would have been nice to see this go a bit longer but this was a good start to the show. The Miz/Mizdow angle continued with the Miz sending his assistant to the back after he upstages him by getting cheered and when Mizdow eventually decides he has had enough of the Miz’s antics and turns on him, he is going to get a massive pop from the crowd. The match between Miz and Bryan was fairly decent and although the Reality TV star got in some offence, he never stop a chance and had to tap to the Yes Lock, although it was good to see him not tapping instantly and fighting it for a while. Bryan gets the win that he needed before Fast Lane and the Miz doesn’t get totally buried in his loss (although he is losing perhaps too many matches at the moment), which is all you can ask for.

Ryback vs. Kane: This is the way to book Ryback is you ever actually have designs on him making the move into the main event. He turns up and beats a respected veteran in Kane, who has been protected as of late, very quickly and easily. The speed of the win makes him look impressive, as does the fact all it took was the Shellshock to beat Kane. Ryback and Kane have no chemistry in the ring as well, so keeping it as short as this was the best way to make Ryback look good.

Roman Reigns vs. Luke Harper: By no means was this the greatest match but it was absolutely fine and did what it needed to get Reigns to Fast Lane with some more momentum. Harper gave him a decent fight but as he is completely and utterly directionless at the moment, he was always going to lose here. But, a victory over Harper, still means something and just continues Reigns’ dominant performances. The match was fine as well and he does appear to be getting better in the ring. Heading into Fast Lane, Reigns picked up a convincing win, which is always what the number one contender should be doing.

Goldust interview: The explanation that Goldust gave to sell his match with Stardust was simple and effective and said that he just wants his brother back. The match between them on Sunday will probably end up being rather short and pushed for time which is a shame as they probably could put something quite good together, but the feud has been a bit rushed and they are having a match just days after the breakup occurred. Still, he did a decent job of selling their match and trying to get the viewer invested into it.

puRgatoRy:
The New Day vs. The Ascension: There are appears to be absolutely no plans for either of these teams at the moment, which just doesn’t make any sense really. The Ascension were called up from NXT without any real plan and their booking has been slightly off-kilter from the start, but in the last few weeks they seem to decided that they are worth building up with their dominance last week and their comfortable win this week. The New Day meanwhile have done absolutely nothing ever since they formed and I can’t even remember a feud or any meaningful interactions that they have had, which does beg the question what was the point of putting them together. The Ascension win, but this will probably lead to nothing happening in the future as I don’t see them getting a title shot soon.

Paige vs. Cameron: The Bellas on commentary again were fairly annoying and 90 per cent of what they were going on about was not related to anything that was happening in the ring. But, Paige picked up another win, and despite all the tricks that the Bellas have tried to play on her, she does have all the momentum going into the Fast Lane. Although the feud is a bit high-school, Paige is making it work by simply sticking to the wrestling.

Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler: It does seem to be the case that Rollins and Ziggler have been fighting each other every week for months now and their matches are beginning to all blend into one. This again was a fairly decent match but is ultimately meaningless and both men are just treading water with no real plan as they approach WrestleMania, which is not how it should be given how hot both men have been over the last few months. Rollins gets the win here with the curb stomp after the distraction and then along with Kane, the Big Show, and Noble and Mercury, take turns it beating down Ziggler, then Rowan, and then despite a comeback, Ryback, and the Authority stand tall at the end of the show. Presumably there is a 6-man tag at Fast Lane and you would guess it would make sense for the face team to get the win back then, but there is just direction for any of these guys at the moment. And that lack of direction made this an odd choice to main event the final show before the PPV.

THE wRong:
Big Show vs. Erick Rowan: Oh look, Erick Rowan loses another match, what a surprise. At least this time he has a bit of a get out having been attacked by the Big Show before the match but having suffered the beating that he did and still want to fight, he looks stupid rather than brave, particularly as he only last just over a minute before being pinned. I don’t see who this helps as Rowan continues to get buried and no-one is going to change their view on the Big Show because he won a match after attacking his opponent from behind beforehand.

Jimmy Uso vs. Tyson Kidd: Nothing wrong with Rusev charging down to the ring and beating the crap out of a load of people to show his frustration for what happened to him on Raw, but it would have been a lot better had he not done it to competitors who are booked for a title match on Sunday. Kidd/Cesaro and the Usos are trying to build to a title match, so having one man destroy all four of them single handedly is not the way to sell the title match as being important because all of these guys have been made to look like losers. And again, Rusev beats up John Cena’s friends in the Usos and he doesn’t bother to make the save, or do anything to try and confront Rusev. I know he wasn’t booked for the show, but just a simple line on commentary to explain why Cena isn’t making the save because he is not here, would make him look less of an asshole.

THE Ridiculous:
Bad News Barrett vs. R Truth: And this was so close to being so good… Dean Ambrose did a great job of commentary on making the intercontinental title seem so important and making you believe that he wants to win the belt and restore the pride to it that BNB is taking away by not acting like a champion. And then, BNB lost the match because of a simple distraction by Ambrose, and again, the champion is made to look like a fool. If Ambrose wins the belt now it means that although he has backed up his words, the man he has beaten is not exactly someone who has looked like a champion and his recent booking has made BNB look like a fraud who has fluked the belt. And if he loses to BNB, then Ambrose looks stupid because he can’t even beat a man who lost to R Truth, who is pretty much a jobber. If you do feel the need to do this ending to the match then at least let someone with some upside and who you might push again in the future, such as Jack Swagger for instance, get the win, because in the future it might mean something. Instead, the IC title and the belt holder just gets buried again.

The 411:
As the final show before Fast Lane this was all a bit underwhelming really with in all honesty, pretty much nothing happening, which when you have booked nine matches, is not exactly what you want from the show.

Last week’s episode in which 90 per cent of the show was dominated by a single and lengthy match that told a great story was the total opposite of what we got here, which was a load of short and meaningless matches, with of the nine, only two going longer than five minutes (and one of them was only by a few seconds).

That said, for all the short matches, the booking on the show was fairly solid with the right people winning pretty much all the matches. Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns both picked up victories as they head to Fast Lane and looked impressive in doing so. But, given the ending of Raw when the two of them had their brawl, for them to have no interaction at all on Smackdown just looks strange and shows the folly of throwing everything into making Raw the number one show and doing the final-hype angles on it, and then booking Bryan and Reigns on Smackdown. You either do the big brawl on Smackdown or don’t book them at all – you can’t have them both appear but no interact.

John Cena not showing up either, nor there being an explanation for his absence, after Rusev attacked the Usos and Kidd/Cesaro on the face of it looks odd, although I’m sure the writers must be using ‘Cena is the world’s worst friend’ as some kind of in-joke given how often he leaves his supposed buddies lying in the ring and not coming to save them. Rusev did look dominant but it would have been better had he not taken out four people who are booked for a title match at Fast Lane.

The show closing angle with the Authority against Ziggler and friends sets up their six-man tag at the PPV but in reality they are just treading water with no clear and defined plan for where they are going. Ziggler and Rollins have been two of the hottest acts in the company over the last six months but have faced each other so often that their matches have lost all meaning and surely can’t face each other at WrestleMania. Ziggler and Ryback probably need to get a win at Fast Lane if they are to hang on to any momentum that they once had but you get the feeling they might be sacrificed to keep Kane and the Big Show strong for some reason.

BNB continues to suffer the curse of the Intercontinental Title after his loss to R Truth which was semi-caused by Dean Ambrose, who did at least put over the importance and the history of the belt in his words on commentary, just as the champ was booked for another defeat.

Overall, this really was a show that didn’t need to exist, which tends to be the case with the final episode before a PPV. All the big closing angles to hype Fast Lane are done on Raw which just leads to Smackdown feeling like a filler show, which effectively it was as nothing particularly new happened to advance any storylines. The sheer number of short and meaningless matches didn’t help things either, although it was fairly inoffensive to watch the show.

Show Rating: 5.5

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

By Jericho Ricardi
Impact 2.20.15
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Matt Hardy and The Wolves def. The Revolution at 6:30 via pin
* Grado def. Al Snow at 5:00 via pin
* Taryn Terrell def. Angelina Love at 2:00 via pin
* Eric Young def. Tommy Dreamer at 5:00 via pin
* MVP won the #1 Contender Gauntlet at 32:00 (Last eliminating Kurt Angle)

THE RIGHT:
The Mickie James segment was quite good: I’m a big fan of Ms. James, and it’s always nice to see her. I thought this segment with her and Bram added a lot to the developing feud between him and Magnus. I was pretty sure Bram was going to clock her, so good on TNA for not going the cheap heat route. Wouldn’t mind seeing Mickie involved with more of this feud, maybe appearing ringside during the blowoff match. Not sure where they’re going with Magnus or Bram (or why Magnus has a tag title briefcase at this point) but I’m interested to find out. Perhaps the best ending to the whole deal would be if Magnus and Bram reunited after beating the absolute shit out of each other with no winner emerging for months, then immediately cashed in, won the titles, and begrudgingly decided to try this hetero life mate thing again.

Opening Tag Match: While Matt Hardy does nothing for me anymore, I like this Wolves/Hardys alliance. The Wolves are always a treat to watch, though I’m starting to wonder if The Revolution are going anywhere besides spinning their wheels in opening matches. As for this one, the ending was well-done with the Revolution punishing Manik for his failure. This should be a running gimmick for them: Abyss just obliterates whoever took the pinfall in any given match. One day, ABYSS is the one who takes the pinfall. What happens then?

The Rockstar Spud Barber Shop: This segment was a veritable smorgasbord of Guys Misused Or Underused By WWE as they did battle with Guys Too Small For WWE To Look At. It was a fun segment, with the previously stale-as-hell Mr. Anderson bringing his entertaining, cocky persona. I’m looking forward to EC3 beating Anderson, but I still feel like this Mandrews guy is detracting from Spud’s heat somewhat. This whole scene was better when it was more focused on just EC3 and Spud. Much like the original NWO, it lost some steam when they added Brodus, Mandrews, and now Anderson. Still, Anderson is a good challenge for EC3 at this juncture.

Al Snow’s Father Vs. Grado: Al Snow’s Dad had a great debut here as he battled the guy we don’t know from British Bootcamp. With the debuting Drew Galloway! This whole segment was somewhat of a schmozz, but it was a fun schmozz. It showed us that the BDC will get involved with whatever they want, that Grado can wrestle, that Al Snow will put aside his reasonless hatred for youngsters on his lawn when presented with a common foe, and that Drew Galloway can swing some pipe. Speaking of swinging pipe, who wants to bet that he accidentally busted Low Ki open because he was nervous about passing his ex-wife Taryn Terrell in the hallway afterwards?

Taryn wins a match with her finisher: This was good. People simply winning matches with their finishers on a consistent basis = Something that we need more of in wrestling. Less roll-ups and less 50/50 booking would be great for everyone. Surprised they killed the newly-solo Angelina as a title contender so fast, but it makes sense. Taryn has bigger fish to fry. I’m also really liking the footstep-esque audio cues that accompany Awesome Kong’s appearances now. Taryn put up a great fight against Kong (good for you, woman) but it wasn’t a winnable battle at that moment. Having Gail Kim remind us that she exists afterwards was also a good moment; looks like they’re re-creating the three-way feud from late last year and substituting Kong in for Havok. So…where’s Havok?

Pre-Gauntlet Video Package: This was awesome and old-school, hearing snippets from each guy about why he would be the one to win. Not much else to say about this. It gave us more reason to care, and that’s never a bad thing.

EY Vs. TD: Nice little hardcore brawl here. Bobby Roode was oddly missing from this show given that he won his match with EY, but Tommy Dreamer made a decent stand-in. EY winning handily was pretty much what should have happened, and I appreciate Dreamer being here to work with the newer generation.

The Glasgow Rumble: I really like the idea of having the Top 5 contenders get to enter the Rumble last. While a Rumble is nothing new as a concept, giving a bye of sorts to the top-ranked contenders hasn’t been done before to my knowledge. The match itself was a lot of fun, and I was quite surprised by the ending. They spent the whole show building towards Kurt Angle being Lashley’s next big challenge, and instead he played runner-up to MVP. This makes sense, as an MVP/Lashley one-on-one match is the next logical step in the title scene given their feud.

puRgatoRy:
Having a Rumble so close to The Rumble: On one hand, I’m a Rumble-thusiast and can’t get enough Rumbles (unless they’re awful, which is pretty hard to pull off but it does happen nowayears). On the other hand, isn’t it a bit cheesy to have a big Rumble match so soon after the most well-known one? I know they called this a “Gauntlet” instead, but aren’t Gauntlet matches traditionally matches with pinfalls, as the winner moves on to the next person or team in the gauntlet? I have many questions.

THE wRong:
Announcers Booth: Still not a fan of this concept. Unless there’s some huge reason for it (Taz gets stricken with polio), I don’t know why the announcers can’t be at ringside for the shows live.

Spud getting eliminated so fast: I don’t know what they were going for here, but the audience was really behind Spud and then he just sorta got eliminated before he could really get going. Boneheaded move here.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:
Good show this week; nothing particularly great but nothing particularly bad either. The extended gauntlet match gave the show a big boost, and EC3’s promo work was gripping as usual. I liked the storyline throughout the show of everything building towards the gauntlet. The BDC running roughshod – just because no one else can form a cohesive enough unit to combat them – was a good meta-story within the match. It isn’t all good, though. I’m finding it a little bit hard to get excited about the show right now, and I can’t pinpoint why exactly. It always feels like they’re building towards something rather than blowing anything off, and I wonder if the lack of PPVs is hurting the story progression itself. Not having monthly PPVs (or specials) is sorta like putting on two-act plays, then not having a third act, then resolving the various plot threads of the play during the two acts of the next month. I’d like to see the company work on telling cohesive storylines within set spans of time, culminating with their specials. They did a good job with Lockdown, but now with no other specials on the horizon, it feels like everything is just sorta being thrown out there willy-nilly on a weekly basis.

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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

The 966th edition is over…

STARTING THRUSDAY, THE 411 STAFF WILL RANK THE WRESTLEMANIAS FROM WORST TO BEST! MAKE SURE TO JOIN US FOR THE FUN!