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Wrestling’s 4R’s 05.27.11: Raw and NXT Reviewed!
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By: Nick Bazar
I’m covering for Michael Ornelas this week who is away attending to some serious business. Speaking of which, be sure to check out the debut edition of The BFF’in News Talk where we team up to cover a bunch of stuff in the world of wrestling.
Raw 05.23.11:
QUICK RESULTS
David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty def. Big Show/Kane [*3/4]
Jack Swagger def. Evan Bourne [*1/2]
The Bella Twins/Maryse/Melina vs. Kelly Kelly/Eve/Beth Phoenix/Gail Kim went to a No Contest [N/A]
Kofi Kingston def. Drew McIntyre [**]
John Cena/Rey Mysterio def. R-Truth/CM Punk [**3/4]
R-TRUTH HATES PROPAGANDA: Truth is much more entertaining and engaging as a heel; it just comes naturally to him. It was on display once again during the opening segment, interacting with Bret Hart and John Cena, and playing off the crowd like a pro. From teasing a young fan at ringside with sunglasses to mocking Legendary with the “I want my son back!” line, Truth was the star of that segment. He has some of the best facial expressions in the business right now, and it’s good to see they haven’t given up on his character. I look forward to his eventual feud with Cena.
SWAGGER vs. BOURNE: Fine follow-up for Swagger after his turn on Michael Cole last week. Good for a squash match, and it was pretty funny to see Bourne attack Swagger once it was over. If this leads to a feud between the two, sign me up.
THANK GOD IT’S FINALLY OVER: Michael Cole apologized to Jerry Lawler and all the fans for his actions over the past several months. It really doesn’t matter how they went about getting things back to normal, I’m just happy the Lawler/Cole feud is over. I forget which year it was, but one of the Smackdown vs. Raw games had a General Manager mode where you could set up feuds and schedule shows. After a while, if you had a certain feud go too long, it would get a big “Thumbs Down” graphic. Lawler/Cole should have ended a long time ago.
RILEY HAS HAD ENOUGH: This could have gone one of two ways, and thanks to the live crowd in attendance that night, it went extremely well. After one of Miz’s tantrums blaming Riley for his constant disappointments in the WWE Championship title scene, Riley exploded. He destroyed Miz in and around the ring, and the crowd was totally behind him. They even let out a loud “Riley” chant! As always, the follow-up is incredibly important here, but the kick-off was very satisfying.
VIDEO TRIBUTE FOR SAVAGE/CMACHO PUNK: Awesome tribute video followed by Punk wearing Savage-inspired attire? It was a fantastic cap to an emotional weekend of remembering the legendary Macho Man. We can call the WWE out on a lot of things, but they got this one right.
REY MYSTERIO/JOHN CENA DEFEAT CM PUNK/R-TRUTH: Good TV main event made even better by Punk’s heel antics all throughout. Mocking Hart with his old moves, the “Where did you learn to count? Canada?” line, and eventually getting a taste of the Sharpshooter, it was all pretty great. By the way, I’m willing to bet Punk suggested that finish, just to say he’s been in Hart’s Sharpshooter.
NEW NEXUS= NEW TAG CHAMPS: Here’s my reaction after Otunga and McGillicutty won the WWE Tag Team Championship: Ehhh, whatever. I would have rather seen Show and Kane carry the straps around for a little while longer, but they seem to be refocusing the New Nexus, so this was a bridge we were going to cross eventually. Again, whatever.
SHHHOOOOWWW!!!: The whole “car runs over wrestler” thing is classic pro wrestling, but this one was unintentionally funny and took way too long. Watching the gigantic Show with his leg “pinned” underneath a car was kind of funny in its own right, but Kane’s overacting just put it over the top. I don’t mind the idea behind the Kane/Show/Del Rio feud as Del Rio does need something to do before he gets his shot at Cena, but again, this just took too long to set up.
KHARMA BREAKS DOWN: I don’t know what to make of this yet, and we haven’t seen nearly enough, so I’ll reserve my judgment. If the rumors of Kharma’s upcoming nine-month sabbatical are true, it’s a real shame- she had singlehandedly restored my interest in the Diva’s division.
KINGSTON DEFEATS MCINTYRE/ZIGGLER LOOKS ON: Pretty good match between the two, and I’m happy that Ziggler has gone back to the blonde hair, but I really, really, really, really DO NOT want to watch another series of matches between Ziggler and Kingston. They had a seemingly never-ending feud on Smackdown last year that took up a large chunk of the Summer and Fall. While the matches were good for the most part, please don’t go back there again. Anyway, the quality of the Kingston/McIntyre bout balances the whole segment out and this lands in Purgatory.
Nothing!
CAPITOL PUNISHMENT COMMERCIAL: This, along with the erectile dysfunction inspired Over the Limit ads, are just WWE’s latest way of showing the world how funny and entertaining they can be. Unfortunately, they aren’t original whatsoever and have been done with superior quality in the past.
I enjoyed this show on the whole, and it lined up some potentially fun storylines going forward. It had some pretty good stuff and some pretty average stuff, but nothing too bad; well, unless you count the Capitol Punishment commercial, but I won’t count that against the quality of the show itself. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with Truth and Punk from here. Who is the next challenger to Cena’s championship? I’m also interested to see how they handle the Riley/Miz feud- assuming there is one- and what led to Kharma’s breakdown. Has she always wanted to be pretty like the Divas? It remains to be seen, but it’s intriguing. SHOW RATING: 7.0 |
By: Jeremy Thomas
NXT 05.24.11:
QUICK RESULTS:
Lucky Cannon & Tyson Kidd def. Byron Saxton & Yoshi Tatsu [** ½]
Conor O’Brian def. JTG [* ½]
Titus O-Neil def. Darren Young [** ¼]
BYRON IS BIG LEAGUE: NXT kicked off by announcing the No DQ main event match between Titus O’Neil and Darren Young, before Byron Saxton came down to the ring. Nice to see them break from the established format a bit to keep things fresh. Bryon got on the mic and said he didn’t need Yoshi. Byron was in heel mode here, but he did so in a way that was justifiable in a certain context. It’s a heel attitude that makes sense and I always appreciate that. Bryon was fired up and gave a good, solid promo that established himself as an egotist with a new gimmick—”Big League” Byron Saxton. I don’t know how much that’ll get over but it’s certainly an attempt to break him out from the crowd, and I liked that.
After that, Maryse came out to dress Saxton down. Maryse’s promo was decent enough, though I don’t think she and Saxton have a lot of chemistry on the mic. She also used a wrong word or two, but that’s nothing new and it’s acceptable as being part of her persona. I liked the start here, as it was different from what they usually do for NXT and that made it seem significant.
BYRON SAXTON & YOSHI TATSU vs. TYSON KIDD & LUCKY CANNON: Yoshi did a little staredown with Maryse before coming to the ring for this, the inevitable “tag team partners who do not get along” match. The story for this match involved both the enmity between Yoshi and Lucky and the problems between Yoshi and Saxton. Yoshi went it alone for the opening part of the match and did well, both on offense and in making Kidd and Lucky look good. This wasn’t a high spot-filled match, but it was technically solid and wasn’t dull. There was a decent amount of psychology to boot with Lucky and Tyson working over Tatsu’s arm for much of the match. The crowd was decently into this and it made Yoshi look damn good. And of course, we had Byron to the arrogant “tag himself in” bit which cost him as he ended up tapping to the Sharpshooter quickly. I think that Saxton took a credibility hit but otherwise I really enjoyed this match.
TITUS O’NEIL vs. DARREN YOUNG: This was our main event of the evening. To build to it, we saw a recap of last week’s segment where Darren Young revealed Hornswoggle’s imprisonment and Titus saved him, only to get beat up by Chavo before taking Horny down for an ass-kicking. We then saw an interview by the two that saw some decent mic work from Young. Young’s developed tolerably on the mic and this was a good bit of work by him. The bit later in the show with Titus and Hornswoggle was a bit less enjoyable; it wasn’t terrible though and they kept it short.
The match itself did have a bit of a special feel to it, being one of the first matches on NXT with a gimmick to it. Making this match No DQ in the middle of a competition made it seem significant, and that was nice to see. The match was slow to get started, but once it did both men showed some good aggression and sold the emotion of the match. Titus looked good here as he had to contend with both Young and Chavo, which builds him effectively as a threat in the competition. The missed body block by Young looked really impressive as well. The run-down by Hornswoggle was goofy, but you have to expect that when he’s involved in something. The end result was a good win for Titus and I can’t argue with that at all.
JTG vs. CONOR O’BRIAN: I have to say before getting to this match; Conor’s beard is getting more and more epic. It’s not a Knox-level beard yet, but it’s still looking pretty bad-ass. This was stemming from the JTG/Kozlov mini-feud over remaking their rookies, and it wasn’t too terrible; hardly good, but not abysmal by any stretch. The two didn’t click particularly well on this one and there was no real flow to the match as a result. That being said, O’Brian looked good coming out of this with a win over a Pro, and JTG carried the match enough so that it wasn’t something you felt dirty after watching. Conor got a clean win by capitalizing on JTG’s showboating and yet JTG got his heat back after the match. I have some issues with the match itself, but otherwise this was okay.
NOTHING
NOTHING
Really good episode of NXT this week. Even the one match that lacked a bit wasn’t terrible by any stretch and all of the matches had a sense of storyline to it while still keeping in mind that this is a competition. I would say that this was the strongest episode of this “season” to date and definitely was a refreshing change for the show. SHOW RATING: 7.5 |
…and remember to stay grounded!
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