News From Cook’s Corner 04.19.11

Hi, hello and welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and today’s edition of the column is a little less “newsy” than usual. We’re featuring a live review of TNA Lockdown, which can be a little troublesome because TNA coverage always gets one of two reactions:

-WWE fans saying “Why are you talking about that crap?”
-TNA fans saying “You don’t like TNA enough!”

You really can’t win when you try to cover TNA in a fair & balanced way. I think they have a good roster with some great talent, but their writing & management keeps them from achieving more. And anytime they appear on the newswire, it’s because somebody there is doing something stupid. That doesn’t help the perception. So I’m going to talk about my live Lockdown experience, and WWE fans will hate all of it while TNA fans will hate me for not loving all of the matches. C’est la vie.

I’ll also reveal my favorite wrestling match ever, which makes a world that’s no longer Dashing a little bit easier to bear.

How did Bryan end up in Apple and not the Gauntlet match? Would anybody have blinked at all if R-Truth was in Apple? At least WWE is keeping him on TV, but just being in the match would have raised perceptions. Still, wouldn’t have been the same message to Morrison.

What a bad couple of opponents Bryan has had. He was on a roll with PPVs, then had the feud with DiBiase, who can’t even win dark matches any more. The heatless Ted ended the PPV streak, since people weren’t interested in a Teddy match. Then on to Sheamus, who has fallen out of favor. I’m afraid that he will fall between the cracks with all the new faces on RAW. Hard to say until after Extreme Rules. I’m hoping he gets drafted to Smackdown and feuds with Cody. – Guest#1027

Well, we’ve got a draft coming up next week! I don’t know if moving to SmackDown would necessarily lead to a better push for Daniel Bryan, but it could give him new opponents to have fun with. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bryan feud with Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Title, that seems like the kind of thing that’d really help Wade with his in-ring stuff and it’d give Bryan a compelling opponent.

If I was asked which Bella I would rather have it would be easy, either or both(preferably both). I hope you were joking why the ref put an x on Brie, it was to know which is which so they couldn’t cheat. – Still Guest#8287

Nikki should have stolen a marker and put an x on her hand too so the referee would still be confused. If only the Bella Twins had me in their corner, they would be unstoppable. Look how far your girl Reby has gone since I started assisting her wrestling endeavors. If I can do that for her, imagine what I could do for the Divas Champion & her identical twin. By the way, Reby is not in the column this week because I ran out of time to write about Other Wrestling News, and I want to save pictures for Greg DeMarco to use in his column. So I’ll go ahead and plug the EVOLVE show that’s being held tonight at the BB King Blues Club in New York City. She’ll be doing…something.

If I were Demolition these days… I would hide from the fucking camera. That could be one of the saddest/pathetic pictures I’ve ever seen a wrestler from the past in. Poor old men trying to hold onto the glory days. They are probably just wrestling for a bag of coke these days. – Guest #5859

I gotta back up guys like Darth Mortis & Brad B that disagreed with this. Bill Eadie looks pretty much the same he did back when he left the WWF two decades ago, except less tan. For a 63 year old guy he’s representing pretty well. Barry Darsow’s had the shaved head & mustache going since he was the Repo Man. It looks goofy with the Demolition face paint, but I get why he does it. I think their main problem is that whoever paints them up now isn’t as good as whoever was doing it in the late 80s. They’re less muscular too, but you’d expect that from guys that probably haven’t used steroids in well over a decade. One Man Gang dropped a bunch of weight after a heart attack in 2000, but he looks pretty good these days too. He didn’t put the weight back on like most people probably would have. The sad part of the picture is that the guy that’s twenty years younger than the next youngest guy there died first.

Hey, has anyone considered that Wrestlmania 28 is April 1st 2012? Cena and Rock are supposed to face, but what if, when the time comes, this is just an April Fools joke? If they main event they will be last which means Vince will already have your money before revealing its a joke…. just saying – Tim

Don’t give them any ideas.

Honestly, I really don’t see what the big deal is about not referring to it as professional wrestling. I’d like to think of myself as old-school. I’ve been watching pretty religiously since the late 70s. The word wrestling makes it sound like it is trying to pass as a legitimate athletic contest. It’s not, it’s entertainment. Hell, it’s General Hospital but instead of a hospital, it’s set in a wrestling ring. As a wrestling fan, I’m sure you’ve heard the reply “you mean that fake stuff,” when you’ve mentioned/let it slip that you like pro wrestling. Hell, it’s an art-form telling a story with your actions in a match, but is it wrestling? No, not really. Vince, Steph, HHH can call it whatever they want as long as it’s consistently entertaining week in and week out.

Also, is it perverse of me to want to see a tag team of Mason Ryan and Skip Sheffield? I just don’t understand how after watching the awesome hof tribute video of the Road Warriors that the WWE doesn’t use tag teams to break in the youngsters. Reunite Ryder and Hawkins, throw Sin Cara and Primo, Bryan and Henry, the Dibiases, and John Morrison and a pair of balls together respectively and start putting some emphasis on a real division. WTF – The Big Fat F*g

I was hoping for a tag team with Skip & Ezekiel Jackson a few months ago, so I’d be on board with a Skip/Mason Ryan team too. WWE could really use a tag team with two powerhouses that beat the crap out of people, and Mason’s probably best off in a tag team situation since he’s still learning. So whenever Skip returns they need to team him up with another big dude and let them tear shit up. It would be awesome. I also like the potential of Daniel Bryan & Mark Henry as a tag team. Bryan does all the work, Henry knocks them all out at the end. I remember liking them against Tyson Kidd & Ted DiBiase on SuperStars.

WWE should have never changed their name from Titan. Titan Industries or Titan Entertainment would be a much more acceptable name to look at when looking for a production company or something. I did like someone’s idea of them changing it to World Wide Entertainment. That fits in the history of the company, from when it was WWWF. I’d just like them to turn their wrestling shows name back to WWF. – G-Walla

Yeah, I thought it was a mistake back when they dropped the Titan Sports name. I think their reasoning at the time was that WWF (later WWE) was a more recognizable name and would draw more attention on the stock market. It’s more recognizable, yes, but the name often gets attention that isn’t so good. Their films division would probably be better off if it wasn’t called “WWE Films”. You hear that name and you don’t really expect anything good because WWE doesn’t do non-wrestling stuff very well. The XFL & WBF have pretty much made sure that perception of WWE‘s non wrestling projects won‘t be good. “Titan Films” or something else wouldn’t make the same connection with the casual audience, it’d just be some movies with wrestlers that have lots of commercials on WWE programming. People like us would know better, but maybe the casual fans wouldn’t, and might be more willing to give them a chance. Maybe not. I think it’d be worth a shot though.

As a woman, I think the WWE are marketing to females the wrong way. Most instances, a chick only pretends to care for wrestling if her kids or significant other is into it. Even so, she probably only cares for the ‘cute’ wrestlers. John Cena is cute. Wade Barrett is charming. Sorry, but the likes of Swaggie and Miz are not.

They should just try to wrangle in the little girl market. They have a deal with Mattel.. Why not have a Divas line of Barbie dolls? It wouldn’t be hard to sell them because little girls just go for the dolls that they think is the ‘prettiest’ doll. If little boys play with action figures because they feel like they are ‘controlling’ their favorite wrestlers, I don’t see what harm letting little girls ‘control’ their favorite divas with the same mind set. – Guest #2492

I never made the connection with Mattel, the Divas & Barbie Dolls, but now that somebody’s said it I think it makes a whole lot of sense. I think they did a pretty good job back in the early 00s by drawing the girls in with people like Chyna & Lita. Chyna was a badass chick beating up boys most of the time, & Lita came off as the cool tomboyish girl down the street that liked extreme sports and doing guy things. It was too bad that Chyna had to leave & go crazy, and Lita got re-packaged as the company bicycle. The only Divas that seem to have personalities are the heels, and the faces all secretly hate each other and don’t show many positive qualities outside of doing cool flips in the ring. Eve Torres has seemed likeable during brief commentary appearances and promos, but she hasn’t had enough time to develop her personality outside of “happy Diva that wrestles”. That’s part of why Trish still has appeal to many of us, she had a personality and got the opportunity to showcase it for several years. They seem to focus their creative energy into making LayCool, Maryse, Vickie Guerrero & now the Bellas as unlikeable as possible, and I guess they just hope the faces get cheered because they’re feuding with the heels. It doesn’t always work like that.

I think if you give the face Divas likeable personalities and establish their gimmicks more, they become more appealing to the female audience. Having Diva dolls in stores next to the Barbies couldn’t hurt.

You bring up an interesting point about Russo booking women as opposed to Stephanie. But you know, many guys say nobody hates women like other women. The truth is that some of Russo’s general ideas are good, but the execution is awful. Look at how TNA has built up Velvet Sky since she re-signed with them. Rejoin her with Angelina Love and break up with Madison Rayne. Win the feud for TBP name, but no title switch. Start program against Sarita, where Sky finds wants to prove herself. Overcomes dastardly heel and finds strength as a singles wrestler.

Of course that major milestone of moving to what would be the mid-card of a health division is a short match immediately overshadowed by Angelina from Jersey Shore. A walk on that has since led to nothing. Who kills an angle at its concluding moment? Then, having proven herself, she finds that meanwhile her best friend is being taken away. Done right this would have been the best friend finds a new best friend thing that happens in kindergarden. Naturally in TNA it is the person from the mirror that only Angelina can see made corporeal to drug Angelina. Because this is controversy, which sells.

So now Sky has no allies while having to fight Winter and possibly Angelina Love while facing the possibility of being jumped by Sarita and Rosita. A feud that, booked correctly, could put Velvet Sky in the Women’s main event. But there will be TNA booking.

So as a bare bones idea, Russo actually had a good story for women. Then he added the details. Same complaint can be said about the Angle/Jarrett feud. Basic idea fine, horrible details. Angle/Jarrett in the ring and on the mike. Sounds good, right? Jarrett had the old “I have your woman, children, and everything you ever wanted. I have your life” angle. Easy, right? Yeah, Russo and company killed that easy set-up too. So Russo doesn’t have a problem booking women so much as he has a problem not fussing with the details until he kills a good story. – Guest #7400

I’ve always thought of Russo as a guy who can write a great introduction and a solid first few chapters. Eventually he seems to lose interest, or just adds a lot of stuff that makes no sense. Throw in the whims and demands of other people in TNA, and most of their storylines become a complete mess after a few weeks. I might be messing up the names in this anecdote because I haven‘t watched this shoot interview in awhile…Bill Watts once said that when he booked for Eddie Graham early in his booking career, Eddie would always ask him what the ending was. Point being, you need to know what the result of your story should be before starting it. Otherwise, the story lacks a direction and goal and you‘re just filling time. I don’t think most of Russo’s stories really have an ending in mind. Or if they do, they’re something like “Russo impregnated Stacy Keibler” and somebody has to knock it off the rails. Also, there’s backstage politics and people are always going to want their ideas thrown in too. I get the feeling this happens more in TNA because there’s less organization than there is in WWE. Not that WWE’s writing is always greatly organized and well-thought out, but I think on the average it rates ahead of TNA’s.

A woman should be inspired by a women’s match. Because, let’s face it, that is the division she will be joining and that showcases what WWE trains its women to do.
Hey, if Cam Newton said he wanted to be the best QB, nobody would have blinked. He said he wanted to be an entertainer. Out of place, caused questions. Meanwhile, try out for a Broadway play or send in an audition tape to a studio and tell them you model yourself on QB’s and see what reaction you get. – Guest #8052

I don’t disagree with this at all, and was the point I was getting at when I said that I could understand why she picked that match as somebody who hasn’t watched a whole lot of wrestling. I think Cam Newton will be off the board before the Bengals can pick him. At least I hope so, for Cam’s sake.

OK Steve, as a woman, I need to tell you my favorite match was The First Money in the Bank ladder match. Shelton Benjamin and his “Spiderman” move stole the show!!!! I was impressed by his agility and strength. So glad he and Charlie Haas are in ROH because they are appreciated there, where as in the WWE, they were Kurt Angle’s lakeys! They are still and will always be the World’s Greatest Tag Team! – C-Girl

I’ve been watching some 2010 ROH lately, and one of the matches I finally got to see was Haas/Benjamin vs. Kings of Wrestling from Glory by Honor IX. That match was absolutely off the charts, and I’d recommend it to anybody who hasn’t watched it and loves tag team wrestling. Haas & Benjamin are great athletes and I think they fit in better in the ROH environment than they did in WWE. Unfortunately there’s not as much money to be had there, but they seem pretty happy with what they’re doing now.

I enjoyed hearing all of your favorite matches. Honestly, there wasn’t a bad one or even a mediocre one in the bunch. I’d rate them all ahead of Melina & Alicia by a pretty wide margin. Nobody mentioned my favorite match, which I kind of expected because I think that some people will say this is a bit of a cop out answer. But what the hell…

In my humble opinion, there’s never been a more entertaining hour and ten minutes or so than the 1992 Royal Rumble Match. Look at all the things it had going for it:

-An absolutely sick talent roster. Flair, Hogan, Undertaker, Michaels, Piper, Savage, Jake the Snake, Sgt. Slaughter, Sid, Bossman, Hacksaw, Million Dollar Man, Texas Tornado, British Bulldog…it was pretty much anybody that was anybody in 1992 WWF with the exception of Bret Hart.

-Ric Flair putting on an amazing performance, lasting over sixty minutes to win the Rumble. This was in the days before everybody and their sister lasted all the way through the match, so it really meant something.

-Bobby Heenan doing the best performance on color commentary that there ever was. The Brain was at his finest during this match.

Bobby: There’s good ol’ Jack “On The Take” Tunney!
Gorilla: QUIET!

Bobby: He’s the best president since Noriega.
Gorilla: Will you stop!

Gorilla: No one ever, in the history of the Royal Rumble, has drawn numbers 1-5, and been there at the end.
Bobby: OH, SHUT UP! Take your time, Champ. Pace yourself! I’m gonna have to apologize to the people; I don’t think I can be really be objective.
Gorilla: When have you ever been objective?!

Bobby: Shawn Michaels is making guacamole out of El Matador.
Gorilla: He is not.

(Ric delivers a low blow to British Bulldog)
Gorilla: Did you see that? Talk about desperation.
Bobby: You know what’s at stake? A man’ll do anything!
Gorilla: Pulling out all the stops, Ric Flair doing whatever necessary to hang in there.
Bobby: I’d do that to my own grandmother if I had to.
Gorilla: I’m sure you would.

Bobby: I’m soaking wet, I need something to drink. Hey, you, stupid, get me something to drink!

(Roddy Piper saves Flair from a Jake Roberts DDT)
Bobby: I never thought I’d say this, but thank you, Roddy. It’s a kilt. It’s not a skirt, it’s a kilt.
(Not long after, Piper attacks Flair)
Bobby: You no-good creep! You skirt-wearing freak! It’s not a kilt, it’s a skirt!

Bobby: (after Flair eliminates Sid Justice, winning the Royal Rumble and the title) OH YES! YES! YES YES YES YES…
Gorilla: Flair did it!
Bobby: YES! YES! YES! YES! He did it! I told you, Monsoon! I told you, I told you! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! I told you!
Gorilla: Flair did it, I don’t believe it!
Bobby: I knew he’d do it! I knew he’d do it! Oh, you humanoids… I’m gonna meet him!

The commentary combined with the characters, the action & the drama of the WWF title being on the line in the match make the 1992 Royal Rumble Match my favorite match of all time. As much as I love the Flair vs. Steamboat series, Bret vs. Austin from WM 13 and many other matches, this match stands out to me more than any other.

And now, the fake news!

Is there a draft in…nah, let’s not lead with that. The annual WWE Draft will be taking place next week on Raw. Unfortunately we haven’t heard many rumors on who will be switching brands yet. This seems like a good topic for the Wrestling Sandwich on Saturday, so I’ll probably be talking more about it then. Some are saying that the draft was originally scheduled to be held in June, which I’m not sure makes sense because it’s been in April the last two years. It was held in June before that. I do think SmackDown is going to need some new talent, and there’s a lot of talent in WWE right now that could benefit from a change in scenery. We’ll see how it goes.

John Cena will be appearing on the SmackDown taping on April 26, according to the Greensboro Coliseum. Either he’ll be drafted to SmackDown, or they’re doing this to make people think he could be. I’m leaning towards the latter, as USA’s going to want Cena to remain on their show no matter what since he’s the top guy that regularly appears on television right now.

WWE Creative has added another soap opera veteran to the ranks. Tom Cassielo won several Daytime Emmys for his writing on As The World Turns, and has also worked on One Life To Live & The Young & The Restless. With several soap operas getting cancelled in the next few months, WWE should have plenty of candidates for creative openings very soon.

Jackson Andrews, the big dude who was Tyson Kidd’s bodyguard for a couple of weeks, has been removed from the FCW roster page. This is leading to speculation that he’s been released, but it could also mean that they’re changing his name or repackaging him as a bodyguard for somebody else. WWE’s pretty slow to give up on big guys, so if they’re actually letting him go…yikes.

WWE has trademarked the word “Kharma”, which leads many to believe that it will be the name of a soon-to-debut Superstar that may or may not kill bitches dead. Could be. I still like my “Kofi Kongston” idea better, but I don’t think it’s in the cards.

Mick Foley wants to attend the Rock’s birthday party at Raw on May 2nd. I’m fairly certain he still has a contract with TNA, and it’d be quite ironic if he ended up on that show after not hosting the Lockdown airing party they had in Orlando on Monday night due to “unforeseeable circumstances”. Well, I hope it’s something like a WWE deal and not something that would be bad. Usually unforeseeable circumstances are bad things.

-Skid Mark is just like an actual skid mark, he just won’t go away.

-Hearing Cole yell and scream at JR & King during R-Truth’s entrance reminds me of a show I watched the other day. It was one of Terry Funk’s retirement shows, and had Joey Styles doing commentary by himself. Am I the only one who’d prefer a single announcer to what WWE commentary is in 2011? I dunno, I’ve grown bored with three announcers yelling over each other and seemingly always joined by one or two wrestlers who usually can’t get across a point because they’re being yelled at and interrupted too.

-Did Morrison lose his coat in baggage claim? Maybe Melina got cold backstage and needed it.

-So now we’re putting over one of our top contenders by showing them drinking water during Cena’s entrance. Not a first though, I remember Bill Alfonso tossing Sabu & RVD water all the time.

-R-Truth putting his spot in the Extreme Rules match against Morrison seems like a pretty horrible idea. When was the last time somebody put their slot in a match on the line and actually defended it? I remember Shawn Michaels defending his slot at WrestleMania XII against Owen Hart. That’s going back a ways.

-R-Truth’s got pretty good abs for a fat guy.

-And sure enough, R-Truth loses his spot. Guess Morrison apologized to Trish or Vince or whoever.

-Why’s Morrison asking for a handshake after he screwed R-Truth out of his main event slot? With friends like that, why would R-Truth need enemies?

-R-Truth agrees, growing a set and attacking Morrison. About time! The last time I saw him show some fire was about nine years ago in TNA.

-The water bottle smack isn’t as cool as James Storm crushing Ric Flair with a beer bottle at Lethal Lockdown, but it gets the desired reaction.

-English fans have a strange way of saying “water”. That is what they’re saying, right?

-Smoking is a pretty disgusting habit. No offense to those of you that do it, but I never really got the appeal of smoking cigarettes. I tried it once and didn’t really care for it.

-Morrison doing the seizure sell from Truth blowing smoke on him is pretty funny. I don’t like second-hand smoke either, but I’ve never had that reaction.

-The New & Improved Dolph Ziggler has ditched the Billy Gunn haircut. Now he looks like Ted DiBiase. I’m not sure that this is an upgrade.

-It looks like Evan Bourne’s hair too. So now Ziggler has the same hair as several people on the roster. He does have a better dropkick than most, so he’s got that going for him.

-Evan Bourne could benefit from a change of scenery. Ziggler going back to Smackdown after being on Raw for a couple of months would be pretty funny.

-Jeez, Rock & Cena roided up!

-Boy, the United Kingdom will knight anybody, won’t they?

-I like me some Three Doors Down. That Edge guy was pretty cool too.

-Alberto’s throwing a retirement party for Edge on SmackDown! What a guy!

-So why’d Miz go with 40 for the number on the back of his shirt? He likes the 40 ounces? I went through that phase once, it was pretty cool.

-Indeed, Sin Cara has never faced somebody the likes of Alex Riley. Poor Primo.

-Cena & Cara would draw so much money in Mexico as a tag team or as opponents it’d be absolutely ridiculous. They’d have to print more pesos to cover it.

-Why do they still have the podium for the General Manager if he’s sending stuff to Cole’s iPad?

-I’m not sure Miz has a clue where to go on Sin Cara’s offense. In his defense, I don’t think Miz has ever wrestled somebody like him. Wrestling guys like Cena & Lawler is nothing like wrestling Cara.

-Uh oh, Vince will have my ass for saying “wrestling” that many times in one thought.

-Sin Cara gets the win! Remember a few weeks ago when I said that everybody would be burying him to the newsletter writers because they would be jealous that he‘s getting a push? Have you seen the newswire lately? I’m not the kind of guy to say “I told you so”…but I told you so.

-This new woman doesn’t seem to like dolls. How bizarre.

-So are the Bellas still exclusive to Raw? I thought the Divas champ worked both shows (theoretically), so Eve could still get a title shot even if she was drafted to SmackDown. This why they need me in their corner, so they’d know stuff like this.

-I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the ladies are looking good tonight!

-I didn’t know you could have a knighting ceremony with Jack Swagger doing the honors. You learn something new every day.

-The fans are not treating their Queen with a lot of respect. They must think this William/Kate coverage is as overblown as I do.

-The Queen is getting Whated. Gotta love it.

-Earl Robert of Eaton’s knighting ceremony was a lot better from my recollection.

-Oh, just what we need, a Kiss My Foot angle.

-I don’t know how JR would rate kissing Cole’s foot compared to kissing Vince’s ass. I don’t know why we have multiple angles that involved JR kissing something. I guess that’s “entertainment” or something.

-Sheamus makes reference to Santino’s Tea Party from last year. So that’s why he’s in the doghouse, he remembers stuff from more than a few weeks ago.

-Punk & Orton really are great opponents for each other. Neither guy really believes in the spot spot spot spot spot style of wrestling.

-I have the feeling that one of these guys will be going to SmackDown. Orton probably makes the most sense because he’s the #2 baby face on this show and John Cena’s not giving up the top slot anytime soon.

-So much for that faith CM Punk had.

-Why do I have the feeling that Punk ultimately won’t be able to control this Mason Ryan fella? He’s kind of got that Frankenstein’s Monster vibe about him.

TNA Lockdown took place on Sunday at the USBank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. TNA fans on this website have invited me to come down to Orlando & visit TNA before. I’ve not taken them up on that, but I was more than happy to welcome them to my neck of the woods. I had some pretty nice seats too, as we were in the first row behind the hockey boards & the ridiculously priced seats on the floor. Not bad at all. It should be noted for the record that I had a couple of Stellas at the bar before the show, and then had a couple of way overpriced Miller Lites at the show. This likely helped my overall opinion of the show. Wrestling shows are more fun when you’re in attendance and have a couple of beers in you. I don’t think anybody can dispute this.

As for the attendance, the side facing the hard cam was pretty packed. The side it was on was completely empty. I’m not good at guesstimating numbers, but there were less people there than the last two events I attended at the arena, concerts with Metallica & Avenged Sevenfold. I thought the crowd was a bit louder than given credit for online, but Cincinnati crowds aren’t usually as unruly as other places. Also, you have to keep in mind that most of the opening matches didn’t exactly give people a lot to get excited about. I can’t blame people for not getting excited when there’s nothing exciting going on. I thought they were up for the later matches.

Pre-PPV Bout: Brother Devon d. Anarquia

Like I said in the Roundtable, you kind of have to feel for Devon since he’s been relegated to pre-show duty while Bully Ray was in the main event. He did get a decisive win here, but lost points with the crowd when he ignored their request for a table and just suplexed Mexican American dude a couple of times on the ramp. Seemed a bit excessive for pre-show shenanigans, but I guess they wanted him to send a message.

I’ll go ahead and mention it now while I’m thinking about it…SoCal Val spent the evening at ringside leading the crowd in chants. I thought it was pretty bizarre, but I won’t complain too much because it gave Val a reason to be at ringside. I just hadn’t been to a wrestling show where they had somebody at ringside leading the crowd in chants before. Maybe TNA needs to have some cheerleaders at ringside. I’d support this if it led to the return of Cheerleader Melissa.

X-Division Xscape Cage Match: Max Buck d. Jeremy Buck, Robbie E, Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal, Amazing Red, Suicide & Brian Kendrick

I have no idea why Jeremy Borash didn’t announce the rules for this so people like me weren’t wondering why the hell they didn’t just try to climb out of the cage when the bell rang. This match & the Ultra Male Match really would have benefited from Borash announcing the rules so my friend and I wouldn’t have to try and remember what happened on Impact (or in this match’s case, at Lockdown last year) to know what the rules were. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones with this problem.

I guess this was an athletically solid opener, but there really wasn’t anybody to care about here. Suicide got the biggest pop, so of course he was the first man out. Our theory was that either Kazarian or Daniels wanted to get in and get out because they had a match later. Kendrick eventually won the people over, but this was just a lot of people doing a lot of stuff with a pretty lame finish. Buck theoretically threw the ref into the cage, which theoretically had enough force to knock Kendrick off the top. That went over real well.

I’m still wondering why they’re doing a Generation Me breakup angle. They haven’t done enough in TNA to make people care about them, and there’s not really a strong link in the tag team from what I can tell. It’s one thing if you’ve got a Michaels/Jannetty situation and you think one guy‘s going to break out, but when both guys are pretty equal…what’s the point? Why does Max get the push? Is he the older brother? I can’t tell which one Max is most of the time. I think he’s Matt Jackson & Jeremy is Nick Jackson, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Eric Bischoff promo

Eric had a pretty easy night. Show up, cut a rambling promo, leave. They couldn’t have pre-taped this? I guess he needed to be there in case somebody in the main event was drugged up.

Ink Inc. d. Scott Steiner & Crimson, Eric Young & Orlando Jordan & The British Invasion

Another match with not much in the way of story & way too many people in it. It’s tough to care when both of those factors are going against it. Steiner was very popular with the crowd, and nobody else got any kind of reaction. I did see a girthically-enhanced woman wearing an Ink Inc. shirt, so I guess there’s that. My friend did like Moore’s bedazzled tights & entrance attire, which made me wonder a little bit.

TNA Knockouts Hair vs. Title Cage Match: Mickie James d. Madison Rayne

They pretty much booked themselves into a corner on this one since there was no way that Mickie was going to be shaving her head. It sucks for Madison though, who I would rate as the most improved wrestler on TNA’s roster over the past year and definitely deserves better than to lose her title in thirty seconds to a one-armed woman. It’s also too bad that Mickie’s big moment of finally winning the Knockouts title didn’t come after something a lot more impressive than this. She’ll be able to actually wrestle again in a few weeks, so now we’ll get a non-existent champion for a month. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Samoa Joe d. The Pope

Two things here that vaguely have to do with this match:

-Samoa Joe made an appearance with Tara & SoCal Val at the Beer Sellar (don’t ask me why they spell it like that) on Friday night. I had forgotten just how charismatic Joe can be because he never gets the chance to show it on Impact with the crappy storylines he constantly seems to be involved in. Dude can own a room with his coolness. I have no idea how TNA hasn’t capitalized off of this and can’t think of anything good to do with him. Hopefully since he beat the Pope in decisive fashion in one of the better matches either man has had in quite some time, they can move him on to something more worthwhile. I’m not exactly optimistic about it, but at least now I remember why I like Samoa Joe. He’s cooler than the other side of the pillow.

(Yes, I was within a couple of feet of Tara. Eat your heart out, Sforcina.)

-The Hogan family showed up during this match. It amazes me that I even bother to note this, but I feel the need to because Brooke was incredibly popular with the fans around me. You’d think these people had never seen a hot blonde chick before. I know it’s Cincinnati and it’s not exactly a hotspot for the most beautiful women in the world, but jeez, go to a bar sometime. I’m not a Brooke-hater or anything, but the fascination with her seemed weird to me.

Matt Morgan d. Hernandez

This did have a really cool finish with Hernandez jumping off the top rope into Morgan’s Carbon Footprint. Not a whole lot going on before it, but if you’ve got a good finish you can make people forget about things like that. We also got Velvet Sky running down to beat up both Sarita & Rosita, so I didn’t have to complain about her doing the online chat instead of being at the show. The fact that she managed to beat up the Knockout Tag Champs by herself was pretty funny considering that she couldn’t even beat Sarita a couple of months ago. Velvet’s come a long way, baby.

Ultra Male Match: Jeff Jarrett d. Kurt Angle

There are two pretty distinct schools of thought on this match. Some (mostly Internet people) were all like “OMG, how could Kurt do that crazy stuff?”. Some (myself & the live crowd) were all like “OMG, how is Kurt doing all this crazy stuff?”. I came to terms with Kurt Angle’s insanity a long time ago. He’s going to keep pushing himself to the limit and doing ridiculous stuff in the wrestling ring until he’s no longer physically able. That’s who he is, for better or worse. If I was sitting at home in front of the TV or computer watching the match, I probably would have complained that he pretty much no-sold getting dropped on his head in a sick fashion to run across the ring and Angle Slam Jarrett off the top rope. Being in the building watching it happen and having a few beers in me, I was yelling “OH MY GOD!” and phrases that wouldn’t fit in a family column. In that moment in time, it was one of the damndest things I’ve ever seen. Then a few minutes later the crazy bastard climbed up top and did a freaking moonsault. I couldn’t tell if he landed on Jarrett or not from my vantage point, but at that point it didn’t really matter.

Crazy stuff. This was a heck of a lot of fun to watch live, and even the ending with Jarrett winning with help from Karen didn’t really hurt it in my eyes. Would it be a Jeff Jarrett match without people running down and interfering? Of course not. I expect nothing less!

TNA World Title Cage Match: Sting d. RVD & Mr. Anderson

This may or may not be interesting: The top two t-shirts sported by people at this show were a Mr. Anderson t-shirt & a Jeff Hardy shirt. I can only assume that they were on clearance at the merchandise stand that I didn’t see on the half of the arena I walked around. Sting was still the most popular man in the match by a fairly wide margin, but I guess his shirts weren’t as cheap.

(There were lots of Jeff shirts, and even one or two Matt shirts. This doesn’t surprise me and is why I think that Jeff will be an over baby face whenever he comes back to TNA. Yes, there are reports that he’s considering retirement, but you have to consider the source that these reports are coming from.)

The match itself wasn’t as bad as I was fearing. RVD & Anderson did better here than they did last month, and Sting was on point with what he did and got great reactions for it. It was nice to cross Sting off the list of people that I’ve never seen live. The ending with Hogan walking down…the thought of a Hogan vs. Sting match in 2011 makes my head hurt. You might be able to draw a decent live crowd with it and maybe more of them will pay for their tickets, but I can’t imagine it being anything remotely worth watching. It wasn’t very good at Starrcade 1997, so I don’t like the odds of it working at TNA PPV 2011.

On the bright side, Sting won, and there’s no reason I can think of that he shouldn’t have. RVD’s just kind of there these days, and Anderson’s “ASSHOLE ASSHOLE ASSHOLE” gimmick gets irritating after a couple hours. If he stuck with just doing his ring introduction every show I think I’d be a much bigger fan.

Lethal Lockdown: Fortune (Kazarian, James Storm, Robert Roode and Daniels) d. Immortal (Bully Ray, Matt Hardy, Abyss and Ric Flair)

I’ve been a bit hard on Ric Flair lately for some of the questionable stuff he’s done outside the ring. It’s only fair for me to give him credit for what he did on Sunday night. Should he be competing in these matches and bleeding all over the place at his age? It’s probably not healthy, but at least he’s doing the right thing for business and putting other people over in the process. Flair worked harder than anybody else on the Immortal team (not a slight against those guys, just stating fact here), he lost a ridiculous amount of blood even by his standards, and he submitted to give Fortune the victory. You can add this to the list of reasons why people say Ric Flair is still The Man.

Fortune came off like stars during this match and got a great reaction from the crowd. Flair was still the most popular person in the match, but people dug the good guys too. You can’t underestimate how fun it is to yell “BEER!” “MONEY!” back and forth. Abyss starting the match was a pretty strange decision, I guess he wanted to prove something in front of his hometown audience. Hardy nearly backdropping Daniels off the top of the cage was a pretty scary moment. I wasn’t really bothered by AJ’s run-in, though I got where Larry was coming from on how it made it 5 on 4. I dunno, they did learn from the Dirtiest Player in the Game, so if anything that just shows that they outsmarted Naitch & the rest of Immortal, who didn‘t think to have some of their cronies run down since it was no-disqualification and the cage door was open.

Maybe Scott Steiner chased them all out of the building.

Overall Thoughts

The show pretty much went the way I thought it would. The undercard was pretty much just there to kill time and was pretty unmemorable until Angle vs. Jarrett. That match and the Lethal Lockdown delivered. The World Title match was ok…points have to be taken away for the Hogan run-in, but it was as good as I could have hoped for from the people involved. The Knockouts title stuff was garbage. The show had a couple of high points and I had fun attending it, but I think the six out of ten score from our new recap guy was pretty fair.

Last week I was part of the Sandwich, did the NXT Report & SmackDown Rs & took part in the Lockdown Roundtable. Busy week!

Time for some newbie love! Spencer Baum is presenting his novel One Fall in serial form right here at 411. I’ve never read it, so I look forward to seeing what it takes to get published these days. (Answer: The opposite of what I bring to the table every week.)

Aaron Frame brings us The Wrestling Framework, which rates the best & worst matches of each TV show every week. His distaste for women’s wrestling aside, I think there’s some potential there.

Steven Reynolds reviews SummerSlam 2007. I had a friend named Steven Reynolds in high school. Well, we were kind of friends, as I found out later that he constantly buried me behind my back. I guess that’s high school for you. Or wrestling. All I know is that you can never have enough Steves on a wrestling website.

R.J. Lewis reviews WrestleFest 95. I thought somebody at some point would have used WrestleFest as a PPV name. Is it just too simple? And what is Stephanie Wiand up to these days? Inquiring minds want to know!

Colin Rinehart reviews Dragon Gate USA’s United We Stand show from a couple of months ago. He plans on recapping major Japan shows, so I’m sure all the WOTW commenters will love him.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! My sources tell me that Larry Csonka was out last week with a knee. Will he be back tomorrow? Come back tomorrow and fine out! Until next week…