wrestling / Columns

Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of Smackdown & NJPW

December 22, 2014 | Posted by Larry Csonka

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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NJPW Road to the Tokyo Dome 12.19.14

1. Yohei Komatsu beat Sho Tanaka (10:03) with a crab hold. [***¼]
2. Taichi & El Desperado beat Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask (9:30) when Desperado used the Guitarra de la Muerta on Liger. [**]
3. Yuji Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi & BUSHI beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma (9:33) when Nagata used a backdrop hold on Honma. [**½]
4. Toru Yano, Kazushi Sakuraba & YOSHI-HASHI beat Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka & TAKA Michinoku Kaientai Dojo (10:39) when Sakuraba used the Sakuraba Lock on TAKA. [**½]
5. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata beat Tetsuya Naito & Captain New Japan (13:52) when Goto used the Shouten Kai on Captain. [***]
6. Road to TOKYO Dome Special Elimination Match – Jado Return Match: Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Tomohiro Ishii, Jado & Gedo beat Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Kota Ibushi, Ryusuke Taguchi & KUSHIDA (29:39). [****]

Show Thoughts:Thanks to the glory of New Japan World (ONLY 999 YEN) my access to New Japan Pro Wrestling is even easier. As I finish out 2014, I decided that I needed to take in a Road to the Dome event, and caught up with the company on December 19th. Again, this was a Road to the Dome event, which is a building block to the big show on January 4th. It’s not a great show, but if you’re a fan of the product I feel it is a good event to watch because I think they did nice work building to the Dome show. Everything felt as if it had a purpose, no time or motion wasted, and essentially this came off like an old school Raw go home for a PPV and I mean that in a commentary way.

Yohei Komatsu vs. Sho Tanaka was a surprise and a fun opener. I haven’t had a chance to watch as much of these two as most of the other New Japan talent, but came away pleasantly surprised and wanting to see more. Desperado looks to be going after Liger and the NWA Jr Title & mask with the post match attack, which I suppose is fine, but not something I am overly excited about. Liger can still be fun, and the crowds still respect him, but you need to have him in there with the proper talent to make it click just right.

Manabu Nakanishi, Yuji Nagata and Bushi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima and Tomoaki Honma was developing into a really fun tag team match until Bushi’s injury. He did the spot where he went up top for the frog splash, his opponent got up, but he jumped anyway and was going to the senton roll through spot. It did not work out as planned.

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Scary shit right there. They went to the finish and then Bushi was stretchered out.

Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka and Taka Michinoku vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, Toru Yano and Yoshi Hashi was exactly hat I thought it would be, a bit of comedy from the usual suspects, with Sazuki or Sakuraba (Sakuraba in this case) picking up a submission victory to build towards their UWF Style match at the dome (o time limit, no pins, can only be won via knockout, submission or referee stoppage). There is nothing wrong with being what you need to be as a match or angle and delivering just that.

In the next match, Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata defeated Captain New Japan & Tetsuya Naito. One of the better matches on the show, and a lot of fun down the stretch with the near falls and Captain New Japan getting run. This was a match that proved even on a minor show that the second to the last match doesn’t have to be a “death slot” match. If you book properly, and you change culture, and treat the second to last match as a “co-main event” spot, and stay true to that, you can educate your audience to react to it that way.

Jado, Gedo, Tomohiro Ishii, Kazuchika Okada and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Togi Makabe, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Kushida and Ryusuke Taguchi in a big elimination match was the main event of our show, and while not a blow away match, it was easily four stars and worthy of a min event. You have eliminations from pins, subs, over the top and toss in all of the big stars and those aligned with them and this is the match you get. Specifically the co-main and main events got the spotlight here, along with Jado’s return from injury. I really enjoyed this, I felt that the eliminations came at the right time and with the right people for the most part, the flow was good and it never felt long. This was just a really good multi-man sprint with Tanahashi and Okada eliminating each other and Nakamura ending as the sole survivor, eliminating his challenger on the 4th by over the top elimination and then pinning Taguchi to score the final victory. I loved that booking because Okada vs. Tanahashi didn’t need the final spotlight, and tossing it onto Nakamura and by proxy the IC Title adds to the strong co-main event for their biggest show of the year.

Overall this is an easy as hell show to watch and is a good show to watch prior to the January 4th WrestleKingdom event as it does a good job of adding to the build of the show and quite honestly there wasn’t anything bad on the entire thing. Easy to watch and fun show are simply the best ways to describe this show.

Score: 7.1


By Daniel Clark
Smackdown 12.16.14

QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Roman Reigns def. Fandango at 5.06 by pinfall
* The Usos and Erick Rowan def. The Miz/Damien Mizdow and Luke Harper at 12.33 by pinfall
* Seth Rollins vs. Ryback never got underway
* Nikki Bella def. Naomi at 4.10 by pinfall to retain the Divas title
* Kane def. Adam Rose at 1.24 by pinfall
* Dolph Ziggler def. Seth Rollins at 16.33 by pinfall

THE RIGHT:
Fandango vs. Roman Reigns: I had a feeling that this was just going to be a quick squash for Reigns so was pleasantly surprised that we actually got a fairly competitive match that actually helped both men. Okay, the match might have been a little bit slow and all the tempo of the match went when Fandango locked in the headlock, but it sort of fits with his new found aggressive attitude. The crowd are still into Reigns are were behind him, and seemed happy when he got the win. Reigns returns with a win but showed a little bit of vulnerability as he didn’t just run through his opponent, while Fandango was actually allowed to look semi-competitive against Reigns and even though he lost the match, he came away from it looking better than he did behindhand.

Naomi vs. Nikki Bella: The booking of this was very predictable but that is not necessarily a bad thing as there are times when doing what is simple and obvious is the right move. The Miz came down to the ring to ‘cheer’ on Naomi, Jimmy Uso being the jealous husband that he is came down to fight the Miz. All of this caused the distraction and cost Naomi the match as Nikki rolls her up. Simple and effective story telling that plays off Naomi telling Jimmy earlier in the show that she wants to do this on her own, and with the Miz not technically doing anything wrong, it keeps the story that he is doing his best to make Naomi a star and not just trying to mess with their heads alive and on the face of it the truth, even if no-one believes him, and the fact that Jimmy cost Naomi the match is going to mess with their heads a bit more. The match itself was a bit of sideshow, but it was a fairly competent match between the divas, although did lack a little bit of crowd involvement, although partly that is because we still have not really been given a reason to cheer for Naomi.

Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler: This all begins when Rollins is left without a match after Rusev attacks Ryback, only for Ziggler to come out and challenge him to a match, with Rollins eventually accepts and says he will curb stomp him to the mat. Rollins accepting the match when he didn’t need too does show partly his arrogance that he thinks he can beat Ziggler but also that he is a fighter and is willing to get involved in matches. He then in an interview backstage says that he will make sure that John Cena is unsuccessful is everything that he does until he brings back the Authority, which in truth, is exactly the kind of absurd thing that I could see him doing and fits in with his plan to take revenge on Cena and get the Authority back. Then onto the match between them which was different to the ones that they have had recently in the sense that it was much slower and deliberate than previous matches, but given the matches and the ‘injuries’ that they have had this week, it makes sense to wrestle the match in a different way. The match was good, but given that it was the 5th time in the last two months they’ve gone one-on-one on TV, it does feel slightly overplayed as a rivalry. Ziggler though finally got his win over Rollins and it continues the fantastic week that he has had and he is definitely positioning himself as the number 2/3 face in the company at the moment. The loss for Rollins is slightly protected as it came after he was a little bit distracted given that J and J security had just been thrown out of the ring, and given the plenty of wins he has had over Ziggler lately, the loss is not too damaging for him. A good match and good way to end the show.

puRgatoRy:
Dean Ambrose promo: Having improved the logic behind the feud lately, they went back to some of the stuff that makes little sense. Ambrose says that the fight will continue after Bray saw that Ambrose simply does not care about anything. Fair enough, but it does come across like they have used the main event of TLC (a PPV event), to build to a throwaway match on the Tribute to the Troops show, which surely can’t be a smart move. Bray comes out and say that the only reason Ambrose is still breathing is because he is enjoying the game of theirs. Just seems like they have slightly run out of steam and although the two guys just want to fight each other and beat each other up, they are adding things to the feud that take away from that simple aim. Just let them tear each other apart with no words necessary as it only detracts from it.

The Usos and Erick Rowan vs. Luke Harper/The Miz/Damien Mizdow: Once again we get a very solid match involving these guys although the match never quite got going to the level you might have hoped from it as they could have done a lot more. The Usos continue to work well as a team and the Miz and Mizdow, although their antics can be a little detracting from the match now they are overdoing a bit in typical WWE fashion, they have at least got the crowd involved and they both are playing their roles to perfection as they know exactly what they need to do. However, as entertaining as they are, they still have taken over the curse of the champions who cannot win non-title matches and Rowan pinned the Miz here, which again makes the champs look like they won the belt on a fluke rather than because they are the best team.

Ryback vs. Seth Rollins: Booking these two in a match never really made a lot of sense simply as there was no way that they could have a match with a definitive ending that didn’t hurt one of them, so you always knew that there would be a cop out here, and that was achieved with the Rusev attack on Ryback. Rusev comes out of this looking very strong having just taken care of and disposing of Ryback very easily and kicking him off the stage looked quite impressive, and the fact that Ryback had no answer to his attack doesn’t half make him look strong. But on the other hand, it does not look great for Ryback when one attack from behind is enough to neutralize him totally, and coming away from this it does look as if Rusev has already proven he is better than Ryback.

THE wRong:
Nothing

THE Ridiculous:
800th episode: I’m sure at some stage on either last week’s episode of Smackdown, or on Monday’s episode of Raw, they mentioned that Smackdown would be live on Tuesday this week – at least – I hope they did. But if they did, I missed that announcement as the first time I knew that Smackdown was live on Tuesday night was when I read online on Wednesday night about it. For what is supposed to be a momentous episode and a rare live outing, it could have gotten an awful lot more promotion with maybe some of the hundreds of recaps that we get on Raw replaced by promos making sure that you know Smackdown would be live this week. Just seemed as if they put no effort into promoting this live episode so much so that I would not be surprised if a lot of people just didn’t know it was taking place.

Adam Rose vs. Kane: I am not adverse to comedy in wrestling at all, and to be honest, I kind of like Adam Rose and if done correctly, the Bunny could be decent character. But this helps no one and I can’t really see what the point of it really is. No one is going to suddenly take Kane seriously because he is destroying Adam Rose. It doesn’t help Rose because losing matches within a minute does not make him look anything other than a joke act, which he could be more than. And unless the Bunny rising up and gets revenge on Kane, all this is doing is wasting everyone’s time because there is never going to be a payoff to the angle.

The 411:

Given how half-heartedly they seemed to book this special live episode of Smackdown, in truth, it was quite a decent episode that did a good job of advancing things.

Roman Reigns made his return to in-ring action and rather than just roll through Fandango, he was forced into a competitive match, which given the complaints that he is going to be pushed as the chosen one who cannot be harmed, is not a bad thing. Reigns having only just come back from injury is in kayfabe terms not quite at his best yet and thus needed a bit of time to beat Fandango. Reigns gets the win and looks impressive, but Fandango comes away from the match looking decent as he could hang with Reigns for a bit.

The angle between the Miz and the Usos continued successfully as well with some incredibly simple and effective booking. The Miz uses his contacts to get Naomi a Divas title match. He then comes out to support her during the match, but Jimmy Uso, not trusting him, comes out to confront him, which leads to Naomi getting distracted and thus losing the match. This drives a wedge between Naomi and Jimmy, which is clearly what the Miz wanted, especially after losing their six-man tag match earlier in the show, and yet, the Miz technically did nothing wrong as again, we all know he is playing a game here, but he is acting in such a way that he has not done anything against his word and is trying to help Naomi, all of which is turning this into a very logical and effective tag team feud.

But this show was really all about Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler who continue to show themselves as two of the most valuable players that the WWE has. Rollins continues to be an incredibly effective heel and his motivation to get the Authority back is furthered by the fact that only Cena can bring them back, so Rollins is going to make Cena’s life miserable until he does so and will do everything that he can to make sure that he fails at everything he attempts.

Rollins and Ziggler then had a good main event match that was a different style to the other matches that they have recently with a slower style, but it did work and differentiated the match from the others that they have had recently. Ziggler got the win to end what has been a massive week for his career, while Rollins is protected slightly in defeat by the fact it came when he distracted by J and J security being kicked out of the ring.

Of course, this show could have been a lot better, particularly had it been promoted properly and actually advertised so that people firstly knew that this live episode was happening and secondly, actually booked something to happen on the show other than just Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt would be appearing. There was no reason why they could not have booked a marquee match that would have forced viewers to tune in and really make the live episode important. But, what they did put on, was a fairly simple and yet very effective episode.

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 949th edition is over…

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