wrestling / TV Reports
VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review 08.28.06
I got the McMahon DVD.. boy was that a stupid purchase. Tell ya what though, watching McMahon matches in a string is pretty fun. You guys think that wrestling will survive when Vince dies? No one else seems to be able to put together a successful national show except Vince.
Raw is on Sci Fi tonight, as USA is airing a tennis tournament instead. This Sci Fi thing, pretty handy!
We open with a DX/McMahon video… has DX broken Vince? We are LIVE in Atlantic City.
Shane’s music hits and he makes his way to the ring. He has a mic. Tons of DX signs in the crowd. The fans, they seem to be loving this DX thing. Sorry, interweb! Shane-o says that DX has endangered the lives of the McMahons. He believes that they have “ripped out a piece of (Vince’s) heart”. Shane says Vince is hanging out at a hotel on the boardwalk and will not be with us tonight.
DX will be facing a mystery opponent. Will we see the gauntlet of crap teams DX has been burning through on house shows this week? Only two hours will tell, if you can contain your excitement for that long.
And here’s EDGE! With Lita.. man, those boobs… she could hide all sorts of things under them. Pens.. maybe even a hamburger.. awesome. Edge’s belt is still a spinner, unfortunately. Edge confronts Shane. He’s upset about being tossed into the Long Island Sound by Cena last week. Cena’s music hits, here comes John now…
Sign: “He knows 5 moves” hahaha. True! Fans give Cena mostly cheers. John goes off on Edge, pointing out that Lita gives all the wrestlers “happy endings”. Then he points out that if Shane has ten bucks, he can get one too. Cena riffs on Shane’s theme: “The ho comes for moneeeyyy” heh heh. John’s always so, sooo close to a home run promo. Never quite gets it, though. Still, funny stuff.
Cena’s got… wtf.. a contract for Smackdown! He says he wants one more match with Edge for the belt, and if he loses, Cena will sign it! Good gawd, that’s worse than getting injured! JR: “Spin the wheel, make the deal” hahaha.
Edge agrees on two conditions – he gets to pick the day and the stipulations. Cena agrees. Shane doesn’t like Cena’s attitude, and decides that we will have an impromptu match right now…
John Cena vs. Chris Masters:
– Masters is back..! He is still very muscular, and is sporting a heel goatee. We cut to commercial, so the match gets underway without us. How odd. It’s like the intros are now more important than the matches.
– We return to one of Cena’s weird belly-to-bellies. Lots of fans chant “Cena sucks”, but they can’t get it in unison. Kids counter with a unified “Cena” chant to put them in their place, heh heh. Masters powerslam gets two.
– Masters cinches in a camel clutch. Cena escapes and hits a couple shoulder blocks which actually look more like a leaping kiss on the cheek. 5 knuckles are shuffled. F-U? No, Masters escapes and converts to an inverted DDT.
– Masters locks in half the masterlock, and then John twists and turns it into an awesome counter into the STFU. That was great.. but here comes Edge. He whacks John with a chair.
I gotta say, Masters looked improved here. These two gelled. Pretty good match.
Winner: Raw finish©
Edge hits Cena with a ladder. Then he props up a table in the corner. He weakly shoves Cena into it, looked more like Cena ran himself headfirst through it. Edge has a mic and says that their match will be at Unforgiven, and will be a TLC match. As reported.
Commercials.. ohh no. ECW tomorrow night: Sabu vs. Paul Heyman in XTREEM RULEZ! I guess this means Heyman can have other wrestlers get involved, though. Ugh.
We see a graphic of Orton vs. Hardy, a match taking place later tonight. In the graphic, Hardy’s got on the paint! OHHHHHH!
In the back, Cade & Murdoch and Vis & Haas want to be the ones to take on DX. Shane tells them no. Thanks for showing up, guys! Shane’s on the phone with Vince, who’s in his hotel. Vince is getting room service, you see. OUTRAGEOUS antics ensue! Ho ho! Vince’s platter: Two live roosters! And oh my, they cock-a-doodle-doo like crazy! UNBELIEVE-A-BULLLL – WHAT A RIDDDEE! HYAH HA HAAA!
Carlito’s in the back with Trish. He wants to talk to her “privately” in front of the camera airing to millions of people live. Apparently, Lita mentioned Trish’s retirement on WWE.com and goofball webmaster Michael Cole put it up. So Carlito asks her if it’s true. She says yes and curses out Lita. OK.. the pop for Trish at Unforgiven is going to be HUGE now.
Carlito goes to kiss her, and Randy Orton hits him from behind. Trish took a nasty whack, there.
Last Monday, Umaga attacked Kane. JR says he’s not sure when Kane will be back after that vicious attack. And so, his #1 contendership is up for grabs.
Lillian Garcia’s dressed like she just came from Libby Lu. That’s Jerry Lawler’s favorite store, no doubt.
Paddle on a pole match – Candice vs. Torrie:
– The ladies are in schoolgirl outfits. Whoever grabs the paddle is the winner. At that point, a whacking will ensue. And what follows is, I swear, the most REALISTIC pole match ever. They both just rush the pole and try to get at the paddle while smacking their opponent down.
– We are told that this is “like watching a Pussycat Dolls video without the music” heh heh. Pop culture reference – check. Candice hits the hanging choke. Fans are just done with tarantula-type holds, it seems.
– Torrie actually tries to give Candice a turnbuckle powerbomb, which would have been frigging awesome if she put any oomph into it. But it came off real weak, unfortunately. Torrie goes for the stinkface, Candice counters with a BITE~! To the ass! Hahaha! That rules.. Candice goes up and gets the paddle.
– Candice has the words “spank me” on her ass, and despite winning, wants to be spanked. She does a couple of her patented rope poses as Torrie goes to work, then Candice gives Torrie a weak one and that is all she wrote.
There were a lot of clever things going on in here. For whatever reason, fans are reluctant to react to Candice but I hope the WWE keeps giving her time to develop. It took Trish a LONG time to get decent, and you can feel Candice treading that path each and every week. As for Torrie, considering how long she’s been doing this, you’d think she’d be able to bring more to the table.
Winner: Pedophiles?
This Week in Wrestling History: Summerslam 1992 – Bret Hart vs. The British Bulldog. We go into detail of the big moments of the match. Zzzzzz.. I mean, *****!!
#1 Contender’s Match – Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton:
– So are we jobbing Jeff down the card or what? Like when Hurricane got a pin on The Rock? Sign: “Randy pooped on my sign” hahaha.
– Randy starts off with lots of clubbering. “Hardy” chant. Jeff hits some boots in the corner. They blow a jawbreaker, some kind of miscommunication,there. Jeff hits a corkscrew to the floor, super-slow rotation on it. Looked good.
– Back in, Ortonlock. Hardy escapes. Orton ends up standing at ringside, Hardy goes for a plancha. He hits Randy in the back of his knees, effectively hitting a diving chopblock of all things. Roll it into the ring.. ortonlock two! Hardy immediately escapes the hold, and hits a top rope dropkick.
– Orton goes for a powerbomb.. when has he EVER gone for a powerbomb? Hardy converts to a rana. Hardy goes for the run-up corkscrew, but Orton catches him mid-move with a dropkick. Well timed!
– Orton bails.. here comes Carlito. He rolls Randy back into the ring and spits apple in his face. Twist of lime… Swanton! Really? 1, 2, 3!! Hardy wins! JR: “Orton can dial L for Loser on this night!”
Hardy over Orton? Wow. Hey TNA guys, look what you can get! Just sign right here…
Hardy did EVERYTHING in this. Orton was just there. Didn’t even do any decent heeling. I’d like to see Hardy have at least one new signature move. That might extend his freshness date a bit. I enjoyed this.
Winner: Jeff Hardy
In the back, DX is.. confronted by Shane and some cops.. one cop just stares a hole through HHH, he doesn’t look anywhere else.. how odd..hey… HEY! CLAUDIO CASTAGNIOLI! Is a cop! Hahaha frigging sweet. He’s the one with the beard and his head tilted back. He’s taller than HHH… he passes the Vince test.. the dude is going to get hired! Do you people SENSE the CHIKARA invasion?
Marine hype. Rottentomatoes.com, prepare yourself.
The Highlanders join JR & King at the commentary table.
Tag Title Match – Eugene & Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. The Spirit Squad©:
– Not much to say here. Highlanders and bonus Squadders are ejected. Duggan gets a hot tag, misses the three point charge and gets rolled up for the loss.
Filler crapola
Winners: Spirit Squad
Umaga comes out to beat on Eugene and Hacksaw. JR unfortunately says this: “We may have a Katrina-like tragedy”.
Umaga goes to town. BUTT! THUMB! Eugene is hurt, bah gawd! Let us note again.. NO CROWD REACTION. Umaga tries to drum up some heat by yelling the names of Japanese wrestlers at the fans, but still… no reaction.
Armando takes the mic. He says Kane was put out of commission by Raw’s only monster.
Press Conference: … A podium is in the ring. Melina and Nitro hit the ring, and “paparazzi” (no, not Alex Shelley) are at ringside, along with some “press”. Why didn’t they invite 411wrestling.com press? I could have been there in an hour.. but then, we’re on the WWE “don’t talk to” list for some reason. Probably for the whole Matt Hardy going off on us thing, heh heh. Come on, Matt, we love you, buddy!
Anyway. This segment is for Melina and Nitro to explain why Melina turned on Foley last week. It’s because she thinks he’s gross and a pervert. Nitro adds that everyone’s jealous of him, because he gets to “go home, get freaky with Melina and cuddle with my IC Title” hahaha. Some fans are also funny, holding up dollar bills for Melina.
But sadly, these interesting notes are inside of a rambling, painfully long segment where Melina appears to COMPLETELY lose her train of thought. It’s Farrah Fawcett at William Shatner’s roast-level awkward. I think there were steady “boring” chants through about half of this thing. Ouch.
When it’s over, JR weighs in: “That was sad. What a weak press conference. It was self-promotion, and not even a good one!” heh heh. Not their finest outing, that’s for sure.
JR and King then check out al4a.com.. wait, no, it’s WWE.com. They talk about Kurt Angle’s release.
Women’s Title Match – Mickie James vs. Lita©:
– Heyy! All right! Well hell, how about a little build up? Man… They forego the usual formula, and have the heel dominate from the opening. Mickie rallies with an enziguri, a dropkick, an OK monkey flip (Lita will never get that right on either end) and busts out a sweet fisherman’s with the bridge~! JR loved that. King strangely didn’t note the explicit crotch shot, though.
– Only two… Lita hits Mickie with a forearm, and Mickie does a great stalled sell. Lita gets the belt and wants to whack Mickie with it, but the ref snatches it away. Mickie crotch rana? No.. Lita turns it into a really soft powerbomb. Awful. Lita pins, grabbing the ropes right in the ref’s face.. 1, 2, 3. Lita retains.
Ehhh.. disappointing. Sadly, the crowd was just not into this at all. I’d like to say that the press conference killed the fans, but the bottom line is that the fans just weren’t into Mickie here. She isn’t doing her psycho antics, which is what people loved to begin with. The WWE have left her with nothing.
Winner: Lita
DX is here. Elaborate intro. HHH does the shpiel, adding that Vince is in a hotel room “choking his chicken” right now. You know, was there EVER a better time to bring back the Gobbledy Gooker? Wasn’t that Chavo Guerrero senior? It’d fit right in.
DX (HHH & HBK) vs. Smackdown (William Regal, Finlay & Kennedy):
– Again we go to commercials as the match starts. When we come back, the first thing we see is Regal putting HBK in a clinch and delivering the most fake knees in months. Nothing but air on those things.
– We spill to ringside, and the leprechaun is here! Finlay hoists up the little fellow and SLAMS him down on HBK. Poor little guy. Heh heh, King is now of the opinion that everything is under the ring. It’s like a portable hole, perhaps.
– Finlay cinches in the neck massage submission. HHH gets the hot taggery and it’s knees a go-go! HHH with a HUUGGEEE spinebuster on Finlay. Kennedy misses the senton bomb (gonna change that for Hardy or what?). Regal accidentally hits Finlay with a chair. Regal is pedigreed.. 1, 2, 3.
For all the hype a certain segment of smart fans give guys like Finlay and Regal, they sure didn’t impress here on live TV. Not even some awe-inspiring STIFFNESS~! This match just WAS. It wasn’t good or bad.. it just existed.
Winners: DX
Shane says it’s not over. Here comes HHH’s other friend, Big Show!
Big Show vs. DX (is this a match?):
– Chokeslam on the H’s. HBK goes up HUGE for the cobra clutch backbreaker, looked great. Vince is here. He has his trademark lead pipe. Vince whacks HHH right in the head with it. HHH is bloody. Vince grabs a camera and hits HBK with it. Fans: “you suck cock”.
Winner: I don’t think this was a match.
Vince grabs a mic. He books a match for Unforgiven: DX vs. Shane, Vince & The Big Show – Hell in a Cell. No.. really.
Now.. you’ve got the big Cena/Edge blowoff at this PPV, right? And it’s a TLC match. So why would you book another big gimmick match on the same card? Why not just a steel cage, at least?
OVERALL: This thing went downhill in hour two, as seems to be the trend lately. The usual mix of surprisingly good, expected badness and unfortunate awfulness. TWO out of FIVE.
TNA will live without me this week.
So according to the latest Observer, reality TV psycho Johnny Fairplay wants to work for the WWE. He’s met with Johnny Ace at least once, and the impression they got was that Johnny’s a “mark”. Why? Because he wants to work for ECW, not Raw. The ‘E mindset is that everybody’s supposed to want to be on Raw. … They’re all insane.
We are in Wilkes Barre, PA tonight! Being so close to ECW’s home, will the crowd be hot and into it? No.
We start things off with an extreme bikini contest between Raw’s Torrie Wilson and Kelly Kelly Kelly. Sign: “If Kelly doesn’t strip we riot” hahaha. She loves that one. I like how the “riot” thing has been ironicized in record time.
Torrie disrobes and WINS instantly with a sparkly get-up. Shockingly, Mike Knox comes out and stops Kelly from disrobing. Huh.. you’d think she’d have figured out this would happen by now. Why does he let her go out to begin with? Oh wait, I’m thinking. Wrestling is for the slow kids, I guess.
This becomes a good old ECW insta-challenge:
Mike Knox, Test & Kelly vs. Sandman, Tommy Dreamer & Torrie Wilson:
– Torrie drags Kelly into the ring and the crowd pops HUGE. Will we get a catfight? Naw… Tazz on Torrie: “She’s.. I’m assuming.. a proud Raw member.” Assuming?
– The lights go out for a sec… ah, they forgot to do the ECW lighting after Smackdown. Torrie with the stinkface. Knox tries to make fans tap out of boredom through stomps and elbows. He receives a medium-sized “You can’t wrestle” chant, heh heh.
– Test with a penis-to-penis bearhug on Tommy. Dreamer slips out of a pumphandle attempt and hits a nice neckbreaker. Sandman gets the hot tag and man, he is QUICK now. Sandman hops up top and hits a sweet senton, Styles calls it the “rolling rock” hahaha.
– Dreamer hits the DDT, and Knox again does a beautiful headstand sell of it. Faces win!
The heels’ offense sucks ass, but this was a very spirited and fun bout. Knox seems to have a somewhat quiet appeal. Test is just a big, roided nothing out there.
Winners: Sandman, Dreamer & Torrie
Odd crowd tonight. Sign: “ECW in Wilkes Barre”. Yes. Yes it is. You’d half expect someone else to hold up a sign that says “Humans breathe”.
Heyman’s in the back with Show and the Po-lice. Paul’s worried about Show’s match tonight against Sabu. Show points out that it’s not an extreme rules match, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Hey! Matt Striker’s somewhere else. I know the gimmick is 80’s crap, but come on, the guy is MONEY on the mic. He talks down to us slow fans and then says he’s bringing his brains to EC DUB.
Extreme Rules – Kevin Thorn w/Ariel vs. Balls Mahoney:
– Yes, they are still “students of vampirism”. This is funny, because I just met a girl who still plays Vampire: The Masquerade every Monday night and something tells me she has no fucking idea what a bite club is, heh heh. I want to see an ECW vignette where Kevin goes to a bite club, actually, hahaha. That would be grade-A wrestlecrap right there.
– The “Balls” punches are over big here. Balls did a lot of IWC shows in this area, didn’t he? Kevin’s kind of got a My Chemical Romance thing going on. Better than a Jim Carrey “Once Bitten” look, I guess.
– Ringside brawling. Balls asks Tazz: “You drinking that?” and then grabs Tazz’s water, hahaha. He whacks the vampire with it. More “balls” punches.. then a HUGE Balls spinebuster, nasty. Ariel bites Balls’ leg and Kevin kicks a chair in his face. Kevin with the elevated stunner for the win.
– After, Kevin holds Ariel upside down so she can hang and talk shit to a laid-out Balls. AWESOME.
This vampire gimmick is evolving by leaps and bounds every week. Seems like he’s adding signature moves in there, too. Fun stuff! Balls is already almost relying on the “balls” thing too much. Needs some more spice.
Winner: Kevin Thorn
Argh.. Shannon Moore’s in a boiler room. He stares at a cement wall. Then he turns to us and says: “The system is oppressive” hahaha. This would work if it was a parody of rebellion, but sadly, they’re serious.
CM Punk vs. CW Anderson:
– Medium-sized “CM Punk” chant. Starts off slow with a couple dull rope breaks. Tazz says Punk has “it”. Punk unleashes a tarantula choke to minimal reaction. He hits his running knee and bulldog. CW goes for his patented awesome spinebuster, but unfortunately Balls outdid him tonight.
– Strike combo by Punk with the trusty Aja Kong spinning backfist… Anaconda Vice. CW’s downfall was your WWE standard – going for the same move on two separate occasions. The spinebuster, it was.
Seems to me these two could do a billion times better. Was OK. Despite the internet love, Punk is getting faint-to-medium sized chants only.
Winner: CM Punk
Sabu promo. Worst one yet. He has this dumb look on his face.. ugh… let’s not even talk about this.
Trailer for John Cena’s Marine movie. LONG two months!
Paul Heyman pumps up ECW’s newest addition – Hardcore Holly. Is it 1998 yet? Almost? Paul tells Holly he needs to make an “impact”.
RVD vs. Danny Doring:
– RVD busts out a sweet body scissors pin combo. “RVD” chant. Super-close-up of Rob talking to Danny. RVD hits a big monkey flip, rolling thunder – Rob almost overshot that one. His mid-air adjustments are part of what make him so much fun to watch.
– Frogsplash, RVD wins.
Doring got in a couple kind of cool moves, but this was pretty much a squash.
Winner: Rob Van Dam
Hardcore Holly runs in and takes both guys out with chairs. Then he gives Rob an Alabama Slam. Holly vs. RVD – are they trying to injure Rob? Holly’s neon-y tights are only extreme if you’re in a gay bar getting hit with a riding crop.
Rene Dupree says he’s hardcore.
ECW Title Match – Sabu vs. Big Show©:
– Show gets cheered during the intros. Crowd loves the MEATCHOP! More penis-to-penis hugging… Sabu gouges the eyes, Show sees spots and ends up lunging into the ref.
– With the ref out, Sabu gets himself some PLUNDER~. But Show hits that awesome, gigantic fallaway slam. Man that looks like agony…. Triple jump! “ECW” chant! Arabian facebuster.. new ref slides in to count, only two!
– Sabu’s pants, they look like they’re made from Fraggle. Sabu grabs a ring bell… guh? Hits Show in full view of the ref. Nobody can ring the bell though, because Sabu’s ringing it off Show’s skull. Show is bloodied. One final whack sends Show off the apron and through a table! Show GUSHES blood as the show ends.
I like it! Sabu didn’t really act like a psycho who just wants to hurt Show, but good enough.
Winner: Show?
OVERALL: This was another mix of good and cringeworthy badness. The negatives slightly outweighed the positives this week. Shannon Moore’s vignette is “kid gets beat up if he’s caught watching it” bad. Hardcore Holly is just one too many stale never-wases for a one hour show. A TWOOO out of FIVE.
