wrestling / Columns

Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of TNA Impact & WWE Smackdown

November 10, 2014 | Posted by Daniel Clark

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: Jericho Ricardi
IMPACT 11.05.14:

QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Matt and Jeff Hardy def. Samoa Joe and Low Ki at 16:00 via pin (Swanton and Moonsault hyper-combo)
* Tommy Dreamer and Devon def. Bram and Magnus at 10:00 via pin (Dreamer DDT to Magnus)
* Havok def. Gail Kim at 6:00 via pin (Harlot Slayer) to retain the Knockouts Title
* Bobby Roode def. MVP at 7:00 via pin (Roode Bomb) to retain the World Title

THE RIGHT:
I’m With Spud t-shirts! Only $9.99!: This promo was off the charts, as usual from these guys. Particularly enjoyed Spud talking about how he likes who he is and doesn’t need to change just because someone else doesn’t like him. Best anti-bullying storyline in wrestling. The only question now is where this storyline is going. Clearly it’s building towards a big one-on-one confrontation, most likely in the UK in January. But who will the victor be? Logic dictates a Spud win in London, but with EC3 on the ascent, all bets are off.

The Opening Promo: Great stuff here, with Roode representing as champion and Lashley showing signs of disillusionment with MVP. It also paid off later in the show with Lashley going into business for himself. This instantly makes Lashley a more interesting character. Rather than simply “destroyer”, he’s now “destroyer with an agenda”.

Brittany and Samuel: Speaking of agendas, both Samuel Shaw and Brittany have become instantly interesting thanks to their new psycho union. The inevitable blowoff match between Shaw and Gunner is another that, like EC3 vs. Spud, has been well built; with neither guy really in a position to take a major loss, the stakes are high.

Havok Vs. Gail: While this match was hard to watch at times, it got very good later on. Now that Havok has declared superiority over most of the Knockouts division, when will Taryn Terrell save us?

Samoa Joe’s Blistering Promo: Was awesome. I’ll just transcribe it here: “People DOUBT that Low Ki and myself can be a cohesive unit. They say these two men can’t possibly get along. But you see, there’s one thing we’re both committed to, one thing we both strive towards, and that’s greatness. Tonight, we face one of the greatest edifices of tag team wrestling. An institution…a MONUMENT which all other tag teams are held against. The Hardy Boys. Well gentlemen, all great things crumble. The sledgehammers have just arrived.”

puRgatoRy:
Roode Vs. MVP: This was… a match. Stuff happened. It definitely could have been better than it was, given that it didn’t even come close to the level of Roode’s two matches with Lashley. I think a lot of the problem was the length of the match; it kinda ended before it could get going. It needed twice as much time as it got, and I’m surprised to see Roode beat MVP so decisively so quickly. I was sure that MVP would be Roode’s next major feud, but it looks like it’s over before it even started. Much like this match.

The New Guy: Mahabali Shera has charisma and a good look, but having him get recruited by James Storm’s collective right off the bat isn’t a good move. We haven’t had a chance to get to know him yet; he can’t really be corrupted when nothing has developed TO corrupt. It’d be good to see this guy debut in front of an actual audience rather than an awkward cafeteria skit. Also, having Manik talk was just odd. It sounded more like Manik was flirting with the guy than trying to recruit him for a faction, which probably isn’t what the writers were intending. Manik is much freakier when he’s a silent Psycho Mantis type character.

THE wRong:
The Lighting Is So Depressing: This has gone for all of the recent episodes of Impact. The dark lighting and general color scheme of these shows is depressing to look at, to say the least. It’ll be really nice to get Impact in a nicer arena with a brighter color scheme; these sparsely attended Bethlehem tapings have been unpleasant visually and it’s unfortunate that the company taped 73 shows there.

Hardcore Old Folks Home: Dreamer and Devon going over Bram and Magnus at the end of 2014 is pretty ridiculous. Tommy Dreamer pinning Magnus is even more ridiculous than Matt Hardy beating Magnus a few weeks back. The only way this ends up being tolerable is if it leads to Bram turning on Magnus for his repeated failures, leading to a Magnus face turn for the UK tour. But even then, losing streak storylines never seem to do anything for anybody. Magnus deserves better. Even though Bram was protected as usual, this was just a misstep. Taz actually did a good job trying to save things by saying that Bram and Magnus were the tougher men in the matchup, but it was too little too late.

THE RIDICULOUS:
NOTHING

The 411:

Decent show this week. Nothing really stands out about it. It was good, but mostly unmemorable. I’m still interested to see where some of these storylines are going, but it feels like they’re in a holding pattern until the UK shows (much like the way the pre-NYC shows felt). Overall, though, the show continues to be perfectly acceptable. The way nearly every segment on the show serves a purpose (and the way nearly everyone has an interesting storyline) reminds me of WWF circa 2000. Something is constantly being built towards, with little wasted motion.

Cheap plug time; support this site and this column by sharing it with your homies. Also, support my site Coronajumper.com by reading my recent posts on wrestling videogames, including TNA Impact. Featuring gratuitous Rebel.

Show Rating: 7.0

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 Daniel Clark
Smackdown 11.07.14

QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Stardust and Goldust def. The Usos at 9.43 by pinfall to retain the Tag Team Titles in a Steel Cage match
* Ryback def. Cesaro at 6.48 by pinfall
* R Truth def. Adam Rose at. 1.18 by pinfall
* Summer Rae def. Natalya at 1.46 by pinfall
* Dolph Ziggler def. Kane at 11.50 by escape in a Steel Cage match

THE RIGHT:
Ryback vs. Cesaro: If you are going to rebuild Ryback then these are the kind of matches and wins that he wins to be having. Squashing jobbers is one thing but means nothing in the grander scheme of things, but beating Cesaro does actually mean something. The match was perhaps not the greatest but it was okay, Cesaro put up a bit of a fight, but Ryback in the end dominated him and got the clean win. It does nothing for Cesaro who is still in purgatory but is a really big win for Ryback who at the moment has the crowd behind him and invested in what he is doing. And by just walking away after the match and not giving any idea as to what his motives are or whether he will join Team Authority, it keeps some mystique around him. But…

Kane vs. Dolph Ziggler: This push that Dolph Ziggler has been given is working wonders for him and is pushing him back to the main event. The fact that the Authority continually gives him reasons why he should stop doing what he is doing and give up on John Cena and he keeps rejecting them says something about him. HHH gave him some valid reasons tonight – that both Randy Orton and Cena are not there tonight to save him and that he need to save himself, but Ziggler is still up for fighting the Authority. And then in the main event Ziggler managed to drag out of Kane one of his better matches of recent times, partly due to the fact that unlike the tag team title match, they actually took advantage of the Cage gimmick and incorporated a match around it – they make it into a cage match rather than a match in a cage. The match was fine and perfectly watchable and Ziggler got the win that he needed to get and looked resourceful in doing so and several occasions he was in control before he could the win. Ziggler comes out of this looking stronger which is exactly what should have happened.

Dean Ambrose on the Peep Show: A much better attempt this week to advance the Dean Ambrose/Bray Wyatt feud although something about it does still feel a little bit off. Ambrose is slightly confused as to why Bray is coming after him given that he has nothing yet for him to take away and that is not scared of facing him. But Bray’s reasons do make some sense as to why he is targeting him – it is that that he is trying to take him down but that he is trying to fix him, as the love and security that he had in the Shield has been ripped away and now he is left like a fish without water and is grasping for air. He has that he will help him and offers Ambrose the chance to prove him wrong, but when he goes to confront him, he vanishes and then re-appears behind him, which was some great editing on the part of the production team and the kind of thing that you can do a lot better on taped shows than live shows. This was good segment that began to answers the questions as to why Bray is targeting Ambrose. Christian got a chance to make his return, although it is not that easy to see a slot on the roster for him, other than doing these Peep Show segments occasionally.

puRgatoRy:
The Usos vs. Stardust/Goldust: As a match this was absolutely fine but felt as if it could have been so much more than it actually was. The whole match felt as if it was a tag team match that happened to be taking place in a cage, rather than a cage match, as for the first half of the match they didn’t really make much use of it at all and just felt very much like a normal match. Once the match got going after the hot tag was made it started to feel like a cage match and actually got to be quite good, but almost was too late. The ending of the match was really impressive, until the match ended on a roll-up, which is just about the worst ending you could think of for a cage match, as it totally defeats the purpose of the cage as a feud ender. Given the nature of the ending, you feel that there has been another match between these two teams, but will need a gimmick that is a step up from a cage for it to happen. There was nothing really wrong with this match, but the ending and the lack of commitment to the cage match gimmick let this down as it could have been so much more.

R-Truth vs. Adam Rose: At the very least they did follow-up the stage backstage segment that these two had last week so I have to give the WWE some credit for that as I was not sure that they would. The match itself as not the point of this, although R-Truth mocking Rose by acting like the Bunny was a novel way of getting the win as usually the Bunny causes the distraction to give Rose the win. The whole thing was fine… until Rose pushed the Bunny over. This was obviously where this was going to end up but they got there far too soon. This should have been a slower build over the next couple of weeks with Rose getting more frustrated and then attacking the Bunny rather than doing it straight away. Had they waited a few weeks before doing this it would have been better but just seemed a bit rushed. But at least there something to happen next as the Bunny was sort of welcomed back by the Rosebuds afterwards…

Natalya vs. Summer Rae: This was much more about building up Tyson Kidd’s character than actually anything to do with Natalya and Summer Rae, which is just as well as this was not the two ladies best outing in the ring and it was pretty sloppy. Tyson Kidd looked pretty disgusted that Natalya lost the match and this character that he is playing at the moment is really good and he has got the mannerisms and the actions down perfectly.

THE wRong:
AJ Lee Promo: The premise behind this was fine. AJ is giving an interview backstage, Brie Bella comes to ‘apologize’ to her, but this distraction means Nikki Bella can attack her and shove her to the ground. The flaw is that it is yet another episode where the gimmick and stipulation of Brie having to be Nikki’s assistant is totally wasted as it does not feel like Brie is being punished by Nikki at all or having to do anything that is really bad.

Ryback vs. John Cena: They couldn’t help themselves, could they, with Ryback’s push? Announcing Ryback vs. John Cena for Raw is a strange move. If Cena wins, then straight away, Ryback’s push is devalued and he drops back down the card. If Ryback wins, then he will have been pushed to the moon too quickly again. And if it ends as a no contest, then it is a big match that has been wasted.

THE RIDICULOUS:
Replays: Just how many replays and recap videos do we need to see in one episode? In a two-hour episode – roughly 90 minutes after adverts – we had, three promo videos for Survivor Series on Sky Box Office, three promos for the upcoming WWE Tour to the UK, three ‘Raw exclusives’ – aka a match that we had already seen in its entirety on Raw, the Xavier Woods and the choir promo twice, two Raw rebounds, a recap of the Bellas/AJ Lee stuff from Raw, and the end of the Rusev/Sheamus match from the WWE Network. It almost felt as if there was more stuff on the episode that was a replay of something that we have already seen rather than something new. And given that everyone who watches Smackdown already watches Raw, none of the ‘Raw exclusives’ are needed, other than maybe to fill time. I was watching this on Friday night with a stopwatch so that I can time all the matches and also was making sure that nothing ‘new’ was skipped. The program started at 10pm. I started watching of Sky Plus at just at about 11pm, and very nearly caught up with the live show, as I was in the middle of the Ziggler/Kane match at 12pm. Just far too much recap and filler that just is not necessary.

The 411:

This was a strange episode of Smackdown really as it was absolutely fine really but could have been so much better and just felt a bit disappointing in the end.

The show began with the tag team title match inside a cage and although the match was fine it could have been so much more. It was just a normal tag team match inside a cage and given the talent involved in the match, it could have been a great match if they had bothered to utilize the stipulation to a much greater effect. The fact that the match ended with a rollup was a surprising move that doesn’t really fit with the gimmick and defeats the purpose of the cage being used as a feud ended. This feud probably continues now, which is a good thing, as long as whatever match they have next they actually put together the match that they could have done.

The Kane/Dolph Ziggler match was actually better and was one of the best performances that Kane has put together for a while. The two of them treated the gimmick perfectly and did what they needed to do to ensure that the match was entertaining and they used the cage to good effect. The win for Ziggler was important as well as it continues his rise up the card as the man who is prepared to stand up to the Authority, despite all the logical reasons that are being presented to him as a reason why he should just give up. The win for Ziggler was exactly what he needed to get and the fact he did so in a decent match helps him significantly.

Ryback’s build back up the card continued as well with a good win over Cesaro, in what was a decent match, and his refusal to commit to joining the Authority keeps him strong for the time being. It will be interesting though to see what happens when he faces John Cena on Raw as it does seem to be a match that is coming a bit too soon and could crush Ryback’s push if he does lose that match.

And for the first time, the Dean Ambrose/Bray Wyatt feud seems to begin to make some sense and we are getting some answers with Bray explaining the reasons why he is going after him which finally gives you a reason to want to see them fight rather than just Bray attacking Dean randomly and talking around the issue but not actually saying anything.

But still the show fell a little bit flat and the fact there were so many recaps and video packages and stuff that was not needed that just disrupted the flow of the episode. This was a much improved episode compared to what we got last week but was just ok, no more than that.

Show Rating: 6.0

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 938th edition is over…

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