Botched! 4.22.17: Referee Implosions, Inopportune Pop-Ups, More

Hi, hello & welcome to the professional wrestling column that nobody wants to be included in, Botched! Raw & SmackDown took things to my neck of the woods this week, with Raw in Columbus, Ohio & SmackDown Live in Louisville, Kentucky. Raw did a house show in Cincinnati on Sunday night as well I didn’t make any trips to see wrestling due to other committments, and not much that I saw made me regret it. Here’s five moments that I’m not too sad about missing…

1. Karl Anderson finishes Ezno Amore off with some innovative offense

Raw featured the continuation of the rivalry between Gallows & Anderson and Enzo & Cass. That’s what happens when there’s no Revival around to freshen things up, we go back to the old classics. Karl Anderson tried to make things different though, as we saw at the end of the match.

2 minutes into the video Anderson catches Enzo on a jump off the top turnbuckle, then awkwardly deposits him back there knees first. That could have been all sorts of dangerous, fortunately Enzo’s a guy that twists around at all times and managed to land on his back. Apparently that was the finish, as the move got a three count. Kind of. The referee held his count at two and a half and Enzo appeared to kick out, but the referee called for the bell.

It might end up being Anderson’s new finisher, but it obviously needs some work. At the very least the referees need to know it’s a finisher.

2. The ring implodes and so does the referee

Big Show takes big bumps that culminate in ring implosions every few years. It never fails to delight the crowd and they usually end up on countdowns of most memorable moments. This particular ring implosion, which occured after Braun Strowman superplexed Big Show, had some added danger for the referee.

Usually in these instances the referee will stand off to the side and away from the wrestlers, so they end up on their knees in the ring and unharmed. John Cone opted to hold on to the top rope, which sent him flying to the outside. It made for a really cool visual effect, but Cone was shaken up pretty bad. Should Big Show break the ring again (not likely since he’s retiring in less than a year and he only breaks the ring once every few years), the referee involved will know not to hold the top rope.

3. Louisville native pops up too quickly

US Champion Kevin Owens has been facing top-notch competition pretty much since his debut in WWE. John Cena. Bill Goldberg. Chris Jericho. So I don’t have a problem with him getting a night off and taking on somebody a little lower on the food chain…Gary Gandy of Louisville, Kentucky.

It didn’t last too long, as one would expect. Gandy didn’t do a whole heck of a lot, and his attempt at taking the pop-up powerbomb at 1:35 in the video wasn’t the smoothest looking thing of all time. I don’t expect a James Ellsworth-like rise to fame for him.

4. The Colons finish American Alpha off with some innovative offense

The move to SmackDown Live is doing wonders for Primo & Epico Colon, as they got a big win over American Alpha this week. They didn’t even need to hit their cool looking powerbomb into a backstabber…though with the way this came off they probably should have.

Primo managed to catch the top of Jason Jordan’s forehead with the side of his boot there, but it didn’t look like the type of kick that would result in a pinfall. Unless you’re American Alpha these days and are on quite the losing streak.

5. TJ Perkins works over Austin Aries’ knee a little too well

205 Live featured a pretty nice match between Austin Aries & TJ Perkins to close out the evening. Perkins, with his dabbing and general demeanor, is a perfect fit as a bad guy and the change is doing him wonders. He did a good job of working on Aries’ knee during the match, but that probably paid off a little too well when he attempted his double chickenwing gutbuster on Aries towards the end of the match. austin-aries.net is where you can go for pretty much anything Aries, and it’s where I had to go to get a couple of pictures since WWE’s YouTube video didn’t cover it.

Not the smoothest of landings or the best-looking of moves, as you can see 49 minutes into the 205 Live video on the WWE Network. If Aries’ knee wasn’t actually hurting before it probably was after that one.

Botch or No Botch: Jeff Hardy Does a Flair Flop in Celebration

Sometimes videos hit the Internet from strange places claiming to be the result of somebody messing up. Sometimes it is a botch, sometimes it isn’t. Last Sunday in Cincinnati, Ohio the Hardys were celebrating after a match when something funny happened to Jeff Hardy. He was about to do Matt Hardy’s pose, but apparently slipped and ended up doing a Flair Flop. It hit the Internet the next day and everybody got all excited. Let’s take a look:

After watching the video, I’m gonna say No Botch. Jeff seems to be having some fun with the people and has done a Flair Flop on occasion over the past few years to pop the crowd. The cool thing about this video getting a lot of coverage is that most WWE house show stuff gets no attention at all, and they could definitely use some positive buzz to drive the numbers up.

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. Have a good weekend!