VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review 07.31.06

VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review

WWE Raw

Hey, we’re in the New York/New Jersey area tonight… sweet. Oh no, Umaga vs. HBK…

The McMahons hit the ring. They point out that Steph’s newly born kid has more money than all the people in the arena combined. Have they trademarked the name Aurora Rose McMahon yet? Why would you name your kid after sleeping beauty? Do you want her to be in a coma? DX comes out on the ramp. Why haven’t they given DX the tag titles? HBK points out that HHH was at the hospital last week for the birth, which gets a BIG roar for some reason.

Time for some “comedy”. It’s the McMahon family album. We see a pic on the big screen of people’s baby photos – Vince’s head pasted on a baby. Then Shane’s – with a spoon in his mouth. And now for Aurora – it’s got HHH’s head! But wait? What?!!? THAT’S CRAZY SHE DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A GIRL!

Blah blah DX blah blah…”Suck it”.. DX stands there.. no music plays. HHH grabs a mic and says they’re having a bad night in the truck. After an awkward exchange, DX’s music finally hits. Ouch, limp ending to a pretty lame bit. Crowd was into it at the start but died as it went.

Miz is in the back, and says we will see who the divas think should be eliminated next.

Jen: She says it should be JT, because JT copies her style.

IC Title Match – Carlito vs. Shelton vs. Johnny Nitro©:

– Benjamin with a big over the top rope splash on the other two. Shades of SAMOA JOE~! Except Joe’s looks better somehow…

– Nitro misses the standing SSP… Nice sunset flip sequence with all three involved. They follow up with two sequential monkey flips culminating in a front flip bump by Nitro. ‘Lito with a standing rana, nice…

– Shelton with the Mickie James DDT… this is entering Match of the Week territory in no time… Nitro suddenly steals it for the win as Melina distracts.

It’s almost like these guys are coming out of a cocoon. Each week, they shed the WWE Style just a little more and get more creative with the action. Something tells me if these three get 15 minutes at a PPV, it’ll be something to talk about.

Winner: Johnny Nitro

Layla: Thinks Milena should leave because she can’t “walk the walk”.

Randy Orton comes out to the ring… he’s doing a parody of Hogan knows best. Let’s see if he can say nothing stupid tonight. Chances… 50/50. “Hogan” chant, plenty of “Orton”‘s in there too. He introduces the cast of his show… people imitating Hogan’s family.

And GUESS WHO plays Nick Hogan?! SWEET AND SOUR LARRY FUCKING SWEENEY!! The 18 time ICW! ICWA! Tex Arkana Television champion! The guy who plays Hulk Hogan actually looks the part, except he’s too short.

JR says Orton is all about hair gel, tattoos, suntans and… LAPTOPS?! Huh? What websites does Randy go to?? Randy boots Larry in the gut and flings him out of the ring. Larry hams it up like a champ.

This goes on and on.. a “We want Hogan” chant breaks out. Randy kisses fake Brooke.. JR hates the “symbolism”. RKO on fake Hogan. Now wait. Randy paid these guys, right? Or do they really think they’re the Hogans? Did they know he’d actually hit them, and if not, wouldn’t they break character? Even in wrestling, that’s a big stretch. Randy slaps the King for some reason, too.

Armando has cigars for the McMahons. They’ve all been in Cigar Afficionado magazine.

Look at King’s hair.. he’s got a superman curl right out of the 50’s. Ohhh ok.. King vs. Randy Orton is booked for next week. Lawler’s gonna disappoint his home town as per WWE policy. “Always let down the home town”, that’s their motto. More people will certainly show up the next time through, no question!

Erica: She says Rebecca has a contract with some other company and thus should be eliminated.

Guest Ref Torrie Wilson – Trish & Candice vs. Mickie James & Victoria:

– Torrie will be on the cover of FHM… looks pretty sweet there..

– Get this.. Candice.. WORKS THE ARM. Sure it’s dull and simple. But her kneedrops and pulls all look just fine. She hits some nice forearms on Mickie before Mickie takes over.

– Trish with the HOT TAG!@ A big headstand thing.. follows up with a lucha headscissor/headlock takeover combo… sweet! Mickie goes for the clutch rana.. Trish turns it into a sitout powerbomb! Crowd is getting into it..!

– Mickie rakes the eyes.. knee to Trish.. rears back for a punch.. Torrie stops Mickie. For the eye rake? A little late? Is it for the closed fist? Where’s the universal gesture for “closed fist”, though? Trish goes for the stratusfaction on Mickie but for the 1,000th consecutive time they mess it up to a degree. JR covers by saying Trish “walked up the rope”, which is good enough, says my brother Ryan. Trish covers, Candice blocks the break-up with a well-timed and low, but sweet dropkick.

Good stuff! It’s too bad that Trish is ON right now, and she’s leaving. I gotta say, I think if Candice sticks with it, in 3 years she’ll be the next Trish Stratus. Before you balk, think of Trish stroking tables for the Dudleyz a few years back and look at where she is now.

Winners: Candice & Trish

Foley’s in the back with Melina and Nitro. He says Melina reminds him of Cha Cha Gregorio, the dancer from Grease. Gosh, I actually know who he’s talking about. Melina will accompany him to the ring, next!

Milena: She says Erica is not athletic enough to do what divas do.. like, say, hold a mic. Or string two sentences together, perhaps.

Foley hits the ring with Melina and it’s long and hilarious… Foley points out that Flair is friends with Pres Bush.. “BOOO” hahaha. Foley is friends with porn star Christy Canyon “YAAYY” hahaha. Mick starts to bust on Ric’s road rage incident.. Here comes Flair.

Now.. I’m not familiar with this Christy Canyon. So I did some investigating. 2 hours later, I have a sample:

Now there’s an 80’s porn star for ya. This broad is all business.

Flair gets FIRED UP~! He slowly works the crowd up as he rips into Mick. Ric asks if this is really Cactus Jack in front of him, then does a flair flop. He says they’re booing A-Rod in New York – “BOOOO” – “and they’ll be booing you (referring to Foley), because you’re lazier than him(A-Rod)!”. That was my most confusing attempt at a quote ever.

Ric “Woo”s and gets censored while trying to say “God dammit I’m fired up! Imaginary badasses? Bruiser Brody?” ..no reaction. “Stan Hansen”. No reaction. Supposedly, WWE writer Brian Gewirtz did not want Flair to refer to them because he’s never heard of them.

Flair wants blood.. barbed wire.. “Bring out socko and I’ll shove him up your ass!” Cheers. Ric continues… “Jesus! Who wants to see Flairy – heh heh – Foley and Flair go?” cheers. “You tasted my blood – I want to taste yours.. I want thumbtacks!” Flair promptly starts rolling around on his side on imaginary thumbtacks, I guess, hahaha.

“Melina’s the kind of diva…! 15 years ago! All night long!” Flair with a pelvic thrust. Crowd cheers. This offends Foley. He sees her as a human being, not a sex object. Foley says that Christy Canyon does work with children oversees? Breast-feeding? Mick rips on Flair being a two-time absentee father, and then it’s on like the proverbial neckbone. Foley runs up the ramp.

Coach comes out and says Flair vs. Foley is booked for Summerslam. Foley begs to differ, as his contract allows him to make that decision. “I’ve got a few good matches left in this body, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna waste one on a washed up cripple like you. Have a nice day! YEAH!”

Awesome. Crowd was into it to a degree, but they didn’t get super-into it like I hoped they would.

Rebecca: She says it’s 5 girls to go. She hopes she’ll follow in the footsteps of Christy and Ashley. Uh, you don’t want that. AT ALL.

Matt Striker vs. John Cena:

– Sweet. Striker has a mic. Cena should know that “homie” is not in the dictionary. Striker uses some “ad” “jec” “tives” to describe himself, and gets some healthy boos. Here comes Cena. JR warned us he might be booed, let’s see what we get..

– Sign: “Anyone but Cena”. Here come the boos. Before they lock up, Edge’s theme hits. There’s a tricked-out announcer table on the ramp for him.. cool. Edge points out he has the “queen of jug-a-nomics” at his side, hahaha.

– It’s literally a squash, takes about a minute. By the time the crowd gets their boos together, it’s over. Edge calls himself the “forgotten man” of the WWE. Hey, he’s got a point. He’s definitely been under-utilized since re-gaining the belt.

– Cena locks in the no-torque, easily-escapable STFU for the win.

Winner: John Cena

Edge and Cena should be going at it in a hell in a cell at Summerslam. Edge excels in that kind of atmosphere, and we’ve seen them in straight normal rules matches more than enough.

Johnny vs. Rory McCallister:

– The Squad does a cheer before the match to no, I repeat, no reaction. Ref ejects the squad from ringside and they caper to Vince’s delight. JR’s tone on commentary is very odd tonight. I can’t tell if he can’t hide his boredom, or he’s just being real deadpan. He actually does a highlander imitation, but ends up doing a pirate voice, which is pretty awesome. King sounds shocked.

– The match isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really draw you in, especially with King and JR talking about general things. I guess I’m just finding JR so different.. calmer.. tonight, it’s throwing me off. Is he taking medication or something?

– Eventually, Rory goes for the rock bottom/backbreaker, but Johnny doesn’t go up for the bump, so Rory has to carefully bend him backwards to execute the move and avoid a botch. If they blew that spot, the crowd would go from sort-of-interested to turning on them completely.

– Johnny hits a sweet spin kick and then turns and taunts Robbie, and Rory suddenly rolls him up for the win.

They weren’t able to get the crowd into it. There was something really rare about this whole thing. Can’t put my finger on it though.

Winner: Rory

JT: Says Rebecca should go because she is too much of a beauty queen and couldn’t handle getting rough in the ring.

Diva search thing. Miz says Rebecca has been eliminated. Crowd could care less. How could we care? We know nothing at all about these people. I hate when Miz pronounces “Milena” like she’s on a French menu.

We see footage of the Wrestlemania fan rally in Detroit. That’s funny. TNA’s Bound For Glory will also be in Detroit…

Cops search DX’s bags. Armando planted Cuban cigars in HHH’s bag… heh, pretty cool idea. They take HHH out. Vince and Shane celebrate by smoking illegal Cubans on camera. So, you know, none of it makes sense at all, not even a little.

Sign: “RIP Firehawk”. Billy Firehawk was the promoter of Jersey’s NWA Cyberspace wrestling promotion. He’d fly in TNA guys, but then book himself 5 promo segments on his own shows. Supposedly he lost $200,000 over the span of a few years. He died of diabetes a few weeks back at the age of 40. He didn’t even know he had diabetes.

HBK vs. SAMOAMAGA:

– Crowd counts along with HBK’s mounted punches. HBK does some artful dodging, then re-groups at ringside. Here come the McMahon. Commercial time.

– We’re back. Umaga hits a sweet high kick that sends HBK over the top rope and to the floor. Umaga dominates with stomp-y striking. His chinlock gets fans behind HBK.

– HBK dodges the Charging Buttock. There’s a neat spot where AAE blocks HBK’s kip up by holding his arm. HBK gets his hands on Armando, Umaga charges, knocks Armando off the apron. HBK tries to capitalize, but Umaga hits the big press-into-a-samoan-drop.

– Umaga freaks out because Armando is down. He stomps around at ringside and trashes stuff. I thought he’d get counted out, but he slides back in. HBK dodges the THUMB~! And hits a low blow. Elbow drop on Umaga. Superkick? McMahons get in the ring, HBK gets rid of them. HBK kips up right into an Umaga clothesline… 1, 2, 3. Should have given it the flip sell!

It was a sportz entertainment-style main event. Not really too great, but not bad, I guess. It’s nice to see HBK jobbing a little bit, though personally I’d rather he do it for somebody else. It’ll be interesting to see if the fans will finally give Umaga a big reaction now. Hope not.

Winner: Umaga

After, Shane superkicks a chair into HBK’s face. Vince says next week, HHH faces Umaga. Will AITCH job? Probably not.

OVERALL: This show definitely went south big time after the Cena match. Edge is right, he’s really being under-used. It’s so blatant, too. This is a TWOOO out of FIVE.

ECW Episode #7

We kick off the evening with Mike Knox and Kelly-who-likes-to-take-some-of-her-clothes-off in the ring. Knox makes us watch a montage of Kelly stripping and says Kelly can never strip again. Keep in mind that right here, Kelly’s wearing nothing but pretty much a bra and panties anyway.

Sandman comes out to have a non-extreme rules match with Knox. Sandman tries to use his singapore cane anyway, but Kelly gets in the way and Sandman stops his swing. Test runs in and beats down Sandman for an ECW finish©.

Knox and Test strut down a hallway, talking about what an awesome team they are.

Paul is in the back with Sabu. Sabu apparently wants a match with Big Show for the title. Heyman says it will never happen and gives Sabu the night off. Ah the evil owner. A very fresh concept! Heyman sicks his riot police guys on Little Guido, who actually comes off as very likeable here when he speaks.

CM Punk says he was raised on the streets or something. He gets paid for that? Pretty sweet.

Little Guido vs. Fertig w/ Ariel:

– Fertig licks Ariel’s finger mid-match.. she looks really cool, I must say. Guido bumps like a God among men. Fertig rolls out some nice moves, including a neckbreaker and hits a razor’s edge for the finish.

Not too shabby for a squash, I guess. Fertig and Ariel feel very fresh, and Guido really shined with his realistic and effective selling.

Winner: Fertig

Hahaha these Shannon Moore vignettes are so bad. He walks up to the camera and stares at us.. in an EXTREME FASHION! And it gets so awkward as the camera hhooolldddsss….

Justin Credible vs. Balls Mahoney:

– Balls goes to town with the “balls” punch sequence and a leg lariat that sends Credible to the floor. Balls grabs Justin and sends him back into the ring

– Credible hits a nice northern lights suplex and follows up with some WWE style rest holds, trying to milk support for Balls. Unfortunately, this is pretty much a battle of the ECW jobbers right now so it’s hard to get fans into it.

– Balls hits a twisting spinebuster and covers, but Credible gets a foot on the ropes. Credible goes for a baseball slide but gets crotched on the post. Ref bump, Credible grabs a chair. Balls uses it, ref sees it, DQ’s Balls. Balls gives the ref a chairshot and then tries to start his own “Balls” chant, heh heh.

I have no idea what the point of putting these two in a non-hardcore match was. Were they trying to expose them? The match was actually fine, but I just don’t know why they booked this when they only have one hour and a ton of under-used talent to get over.

Winner: Justin Credible

Big Show wants to know why Paul won’t let Sabu fight him. Paul says he has his reasons. I have heard that the “Punjabi Prison” match was so bad that it was good. Like.. Kennel from Hell bad. I still don’t want to see it, though.

“Extreme Rules” ECW Title Match – Kane vs. Big Show©:

– Big Show, the champ of this company, comes out FIRST.

– This should be something. Supposedly these two hated working together a few months back. We get a shove into the ring post spot really early on. Kane gets out some tables. I dunno, I’d much prefer to see Kane in Show’s spot. It makes a lot more sense, and Kane does pretty well in hardcore style matches.

– Commercials… ECW is at the Hammerstein next week. Man.. those fans are going to tear this new ECW a new hole. Should be awesome.

– During the break, Kane killed time by choking Show with a cord. Show climbs the ropes and gets low blowed… Tazz points out that it’s legal in a hardcore match, like it causes DQs in regular matches. Kane hits a second rope back suplex, Show kicks out at one…

– Kane with punches and two clotheslines. Kane chokeslam? No, Show chokeslam. 1, 2… Kane kicks! Cool.. Show goes to get a table. Sweet. Show sets up two tables at ringside and hits a real weak trashcan shot on Kane. Show goes to suplex Kane off the apron but Kane grabs a chair and whacks Show, who falls through the table in a pretty goofy-looking bit.. I mean, Show pretty much jumped into the tables, he didn’t make it look like the blow sent him down.

– Show is bloody. Kane brings him in the ring. Kane goes for a leaping clothesline, but since he did it earlier, Show catches him in a chokeslam set-up. Kane counters the chokeslam, into a DDT, looked soft. Paul breaks up the pin, Kane goes for Paul…

– Show chokeslam on a chair, Show wins. Crowd is non-plussed. Show wants to continue beating on Kane, but Sabu runs in and hits a nice top rope chair dropkick.

They had some cool ideas, but Show’s execution lacked balls. He made the two biggest spots look really weak. IMO, if you’re going to be the champ of a company, then you should be giving it 100%, and it just looked like Show wasn’t trying to put on something that would turn heads. He looked more like he was just trying to get through the match.

Winner: Big Show

OVERALL: ECW drifts ever-so-slowly forward. Angle will be back next week, and RVD should be soon too, right? It is what it is, I guess. Another mediocre wrestling show where nobody wants to try anything new. A TWO out of FIVE.

TNA Impact

BORSH is in the back with The Jameses and Eric Young. They are teaming tonight or something. BG says Eric Young is “a good segment” on TV.

Brother Runt is fighting with Abyss in the entrance hole. The entrance hole metaphorically could symbolize a vagina giving birth to TNA’s brand of non-stop adrenaline rushes. Or perhaps it’s actually a giant TNAnus shitting out meaningless matches and partially-digested WWE wrestlers.

Non-match match – Brother Runt vs. Abyss:

– Runt lands a chairshot and slides in the ring. Raven is watching from his “perch” in the crowd.

– Abyss kicks the chair into Runt’s face. “Doomsday”. Black hole slam. Security carries Runt out.

What a way to start off impact… let’s see what else is on. OH WAIT I HAVE TO REVIEW THIS. Now, come on… if you’re going to book Runt vs. Abyss, the point is that Runt gets flung around and takes crazy bumps and it’s awesome. The way this went down, literally ANYONE could have filled Runt’s shoes. All Runt did was take a big boot and a finisher. What is wrong with these people?

Winner: Abyss

BORSH (TV appearance #2 on a one-hour broadcast) is in the back with Monty Brown. Monty calls Rhino “rhinoceros”, and says Samoa Joe is a “hippophant” – which is some kind of sci fi futuristic hybrid creature comprised of a hippo and elephant, he explains. Monty asks BORSH who he thinks will win tonight – Rhino or Joe? BORSH starts to answer, but Monty pulls a Rock and says “SILENCE! I don’t care what you think.” Well hell, at least Monty’s trying. But even Cena is less derivative.

Petey Williams vs. Johnny Devine vs. Shark Boy vs. Sonjay Dutt:

– Petey goes for the “Oh Canada” pose, but Shark Boy bites him in the pooper to stop it. Crowd has no reaction. Both spots are pretty played out at this point, I guess.

– They go into a four way sequence where Dutt hits a nice standing ssp, but it’s ruined because the cameras cut away two times to show that Nash and Shelley are watching from the crowd.

– Shark Boy hits the DSD on two guys, but eats a Canadian Destroyer for the loss.

The commercial break was as long as the portions of the match we got to see. What is there to do with Petey Williams at this point?

Winner: Petey Williams

BORSH (Appearance #3) is in the locker room with Brother Runt. Runt goes off on how this is what he does – he looks for the biggest, meanest locker room, and he goes after them. “I’m a 140 pound runt with nothing to lose”.. he challenges Abyss to any kind of match, any time. That was AWESOME. Runt was microphone gold right there. Wow…

Jerry Lynn is in the back with Sabin. He tells Chris that losing to Nash at Hard Justice will be a blow to the whole locker room. He tries to get Sabin fired up by making him scream. You know, it’ll be really annoying if Nash beats Sabin again.. but Sabin hasn’t got any more over at all in this feud. The guy really needs more character development than screaming twice.

Christian hits the ring. “Christian” chant. He goes on about Sting and how he came to TNA and made it the “greatest wrestling promotion in the world”. He gets the “what” treatment in the early going. The fake crowd screams are super-obvious here. Christian asks Sting to come out. Sting says he will remove the “cancer from TNA”, aka Jeff Jarrett. OK then…

We cut to a video of Jarrett who says the fans are ungrateful and blah blah. He says Sting is not good enough to beat him and should pack his bags and go. SCINTILLATING. They’ve been building Sting vs. Jeff since January.. and wow, has it not paid off.

AMW & A-1 w/ Gail Kim vs. James Gang & Eric Young:

– Heh heh.. sign: “Old Age Outlaws”. Lots of Eric Young signs out there. Gail Kim’s short shorts are by far the best part of this match.

– A few Eugene-y shenanigans leads to Eric getting a quick roll up on A-1 for the win.

Winners: Jameses & Eric Young

Alex Shelley, Devine and Nash are in a ring. Shelley says that at last the Madagascar Pro Wrestling superstars are here. It’s Super Blue Cross #6 and Samolian Joe, a couple random dudes in lucha masks. Nash: “They look like crack heads” hahaha. Alex goes into a submission and then asks Nash to try. Nash just drops his guys with forearms to the back, heh heh. Devine hits a moonsault.. Nash says he’s been practicing a three-somersault move from his trampoline into his pool, and climbs the buckles. Shelley’s not too keen on this. Nash makes like he’s gonna jump, and then through creative editing he magically lands his move and we see nothing in-between. Alex is stunned, hahaha.

I doubt it needs to be pointed out, but DX gets SMOKED weekly by these guys. I mean, they make HHH and HBK’s “comedy” look really, really bad.

Bobby Roode video. Apparently, managers are vying for his services. You know, this would work a lot better if fans haven’t already seen this guy wrestle and do the same boring stuff every week for a year. How many managers are there in TNA, anyway? Two?

Samoa Joe vs. Rhino:

– Dueling chants.. big punch exchange leads to a sweet joe enziguri kick. It’s been.. 45 seconds, but they’re both lying on the mat like it’s been 14 minutes. And here comes Monty Brown. He’s going to sit at ringside.

– Joe throws some NASTY punches.. “Rhino’s gonna kill you” chant. And there’s your lame ref bump… Rhino with a sweet spinebuster, fans want the GOARRRR.. but here’s Monty with a run-in.

– Monty brawls with Rhino at ringside, and Joe hits Brown with a beautiful plancha. Rhino hits Joe with a belly-to-belly on Joe on the ramp. Rhino gets a table. Rhino wants to gore him through the table, but Monty again gets involved.

– Joe hits Monty with a BEAUTIFUL jump kick to the back of the head and cinches in a standing choke. Then Rhino GORES THEM BOTH THROUGH THE TABLE! Crowd goes nuts! Awesome. Crowd agrees.. “That was awesome” chant. What’s really interesting is that Rhino thrusted two other large men right inside the TNA Vagina entrance hole, penetrating the table and getting an incredible reaction for it.

Crazy, fun stuff. Easily the only match on the show worth seeing.

Winner: TNA Finish©

OVERALL: I was well on my way to giving this show a ONNNEEE out of FIVE, but the main event was pretty great. It just endlessly boggles my mind how TNA has so much talent and gets so little out of it. Where THE FUCK is Senshi? How dumb are these people? I’m giving this a TWOOO out of FIVE for the main event, and the fact that right now the Shelley/Nash segments are the best thing going in mainstream wrestling, no question.

Match of the Week: Tough one! Lots of short, sportz-entertain-y bouts to choose from. I’ll go with Joe vs. Rhino. It was barely a match, but had some really big and exciting spots in it.

Show of the Week: Each show this week had a few good things going for them. Raw, though, had the most good things. I loved Foley/Flair, the women’s tag, the IC match and of course, LARRY SWEENEY~! So Raw is YOUR show of the week.

Check out 411’s wikipedia entry. I had no idea of our storied history, not to mention our huge volume of traffic!

I reviewed the new WWE Classics show. This one had a ton of cool stuff, including Foley vs. HHH, Austin stunning McMahon, Macho Man’s debut, Ricky Steamboat vs Greg Valentine and all the old school crumb bums you can shake a record player at!