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Wrestling’s 4R’s Tuesday Edition 03.03.09: TNA Impact and WWE Smackdown Reviewed
How the 4R’s of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. On Tuesdays I will discuss TNA Impact and any PPV’s, while my partner in crime Jeremy Thomas discusses WWE Smackdown. The column will run again on Friday’s, covering WWE Raw, with Jeremy Thomas as well as ECW on Sci-Fi by myself. If there is a PPV that weekend, I will also run the RETRO R’s of the show from the year before as well as address some comments when time permits. I will group my feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and need discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles, Diva searches and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come, unless you are TNA. They have a special R all of their own, the 6th R; the Russo-FN-Riffic~! This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, my goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. I will not apologize for my opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.
Hana Csonka RKO’s a Snowman!
In HD where available…
By: Larry Csonka
iMpact! 02.26.09:
THE MAIN EVENT MAFIA MAIN EVENT INTERVIEW: While I admit to being disappointed but the turn of the overall angle, I have to admit that they are doing the Sting vs. Angle program correctly. They have done well creating the dissention between them, it all makes sense, and the parts are being played correctly. Angle is the heel, Sting is the face, and again, this should lead to the Angle title victory and Sting receiving the Horsemen style beat down and ousting from the group. Going back to the doing it right thing, all too many times TNA doesn’t book to make the main event the main event. As much as some, including myself may not like it, THIS is the program. They began the show by being in the empty arena and discussing the previous week. We had the backstage segments that led up to the in ring confrontation. Jarrett got involved, and that led to the contract signing later in the evening. The show was used to progress to a purpose, the ending interview, where Angle solidified himself as the douche bag heel by attacking Jarrett and then Foley. Sting clearly defined himself as the face, making the save, helping JJ and Foley to their feet and signing the contract. It’s not the direction I thought they would go (I knew Sting was being ousted and all) or what I may have done, but as far as building to the PPV main event, they have done their job well here.
Rough Cuts: Again, I enjoyed this weeks edition of Rough Cuts, because not only was it a good piece, but it is exactly how they should use the segment. With Destination X coming up, and the return of the Ultimate X at that show, they need to hype the hell out of it. Destination X always has the Ultimate X, and while it is rarely the center of the show, they need to do anything they can to hype each and every PPV. This was a good start, I just hope that they have a kick ass Ultimate X planned, because they need something to deliver big time.
X-DIVISION TITLE LADDER MATCH: We had an X-Division title match on Impact, a ladder match at that between Lethal, Creed, Shelley and Sabin. As mentioned in previous weeks, the feud has been built VERY well, since before the last PPV and has continued since. I like that. It’s simple and it is a good sign of continuity. They had a fun little match, good spots, fun, the crowds liked it and Shelley retained. Unfortunately for him and the others, SUICIDE made an appearance, kicked ass and held the title high. I got the feeling that he wanted something. I would suspect that this leads to Lethal, Creed, Shelley, Sabin, Suicide and Kiyoshi in Ultimate X, and a title change. But I have to say that I just hate that they got short changed on the time. When you have these guys working hard and putting on good matches, it is just criminal to give them the lack of time that they are getting. Not only did you have a title match on TV, but also you gave away a FREE TITLE LADDER MATCH. Fine, I’ll accept that, but who gives a shit when they only get 5-minutes? Yeah it was fun, yeah they did some fun shit, but it does NOTHING to help build the title up. Bullshit. Sue me for wanting more wrestling on a TWO-hour show.
RAYNE and WILDE vs. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE: The first match of the evening was this ladies tag match. I have to say that I felt Tenay gave away the turn in the match with his speculation as to why Wilde would go into battle with a new tag team partner. A small nitpick on my part, but it stuck out tome when he mentioned it. I liked the idea of the match, as Wilde has had her issues with the Beautiful People, and of course wants to keep embarrassing them when ever possible, and on the other side the Beautiful People want their revenge. They had a very solid match, and I will say that Velvet Sky looked better than she had in some time in the ring, she always looks good if you know what I mean. As mentioned, Rayne ended up slapping the shit out of Wilde and left her for dead, signifying her heel turn, and I hope her inclusion into the Beautiful People. A solid match, but it fell apart a bit down the stretch.
BEER MONEY vs. ROCK AND RAVE: We had the second installment of the “Off the Wagon Challenge” this week on Impact, which saw the Rock and Rave Infection battle for the titles and their careers. It was a solid if short match, which is the theme of TNA TV it seems. Beer Money as always was awesome, Rock and Rave both worked hard as Rock was on his way out, and it worked rather well. I just hate that they got short changed on the time. When you have these guys working hard and putting on good matches, it is just criminal to give them the lack of time that they are getting. I think it means more for them to get more time, because it makes the opponents look better, and in the end, the screw job makes Beer Money the winner, but yet, a bit more desperate in their victory. Sue me for wanting more wrestling on a TWO-hour show.
DON WEST SHOOTS: While I think many people are expecting me to shit all over this angle, I won’t. West’s performance was actually good through out the show. He was more low key than usual, seemed offended and not interested in reading the TNA live lineups, and was generally uncomfortable looking the whole time, like something was wrong. His promo, while not great, was good in that he explained his actions and did a good job of selling the emotion of the perceived betrayal by Mike Tenay. That all being said, it makes no sense. There was no foundation for the turn, as it was one of those things that could have been built up over weeks and such and then done. It will not increase ratings, it won’t increase PPV buys and it will not make any money. All it WILL do is take valuable time away from people that deserve it. NO BUYS AT ALL!
BOOKER/POLICE/AJ and JOE THREATENS STEINER WITH A KNIFE, AND POSSIBLY THOUGHT ABOUT RAPE: While I sang the praises last week of the efforts of AJ and Joe to build their feuds with Steiner and Booker T, this week it took a turn to the shit side of things. Firstly was Booker calling the police. Before we got to the absurdity of him calling the police one week later to investigate his locker room, we had the MEM making fun of his last name, like they had no clue what it was. Seriously, they are supposed to be a family, and they didn’t know? It just felt stupid as did his interaction with the police, who had outfits on that looked like they were made in a 6th grade home economics class. Also, I couldn’t understand half of what Booker was saying. HORRIBLE. And then, then there was Samoa Joe and his KNIFE attacking Scott Steiner. Seriously, he came in, slammed Steiner against the wall and looked like he was about to rape him as he held the fakest looking knife ever to his throat. How does this make him the face? Seriously, HORRIBLE!
SO JO CALLS OUT KONG – KONG and SAEED vs. BOLT and KHAN: Sojourner Bolt and Rhaka Khan called out Kong and Saeed this past week, saying that they wouldn’t be told what to do and that Bolt would use her title shot against Kong. The match was, well, one of the worst things I have ever seen. First of al there wasn’t much of a match really, just a collections of attempted moves and such. Secondly, seriously, Rhaka Khan is officially the WORST wrestler I have ever seen. The fact that she hasn’t hurt herself or someone else simply amazes me. Shit broke down so badly at one point that Kong stopped and yelled “GO” because this thing had broken down so badly. This made baby Jesus cry.
FORMATTING/LACK OF WRESTLING: I complained about the lack of wrestling on the show, and while I have given up complaining about the amount of time, for this week, it needs to be discussed again. We didn’t even hit 20-mimutes this week, but what was worse than the lack of time given, was the formatting of the show. After quarter hour #2 (Off the Wagon Challenge), we didn’t have another match until quarter hour #6…seriously, we went almost a FUCKING HOUR with no wrestling on the show! Correct me if I am wrong, but this company is called TOTAL NON STOP ACTION, no TOTAL NON STOP TALKING. Seriously, what the fuck? Horrible.
One Night with ODB: I found the segment not only poorly done, but so bad I wondered how the hell that it even made air. I mean, shit, it was just horrible TV that made wrestling fans look like idiots. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that it is smart to alienate the fan base that supports you. The only thing that saves this from ridiculous or worse is the fact that this appears to be an angle to bring in someone new. That gives it a little save, not much thought, because this was BAD and I really feel like hiding when this hits the air.
HARDCORE HISTORY 101: Listen, I think most of you know that I love Mick Foley in a totally non-gay way. I have been a fan for a long time, I like that he wants to give back, I have enjoyed his books and I also love hearing his stories. That being said, this segment has NO PLACE on this show. If they want to run something like this, show it on TNAwrestling.com, show it on the syndicated shows show it on the international shows, but do NOT show it on Impact. Here is why. Mick Foley is over. Mick Foley already gets TV time. WHY would you give him MORE valuable TV time, just to talk about himself? This is valuable time that should be dedicated to the guys that NEED to get over. This is time that they should be using for Rough Cuts. This is precious time that, I don’t know, YOU COULD GIVE TO THE MATCHES! So yeah, this was a good idea, but the absolute wrong execution of the plan. By the way Mick, great job of putting WWE over for almost the entire segment. Fuck wit.
| The 411
This…this was just a bad show. I have no desire to discuss it anymore. As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale. Also, PPV rankings can and will likely change through out the year: 0 – 0.9: Torture SHOW RATING: 2.0 of 10 |
By: Jeremy “NOT LARRY CSONKA” Thomas
WWE SmackDown 2.27.09
MIZ & MORRISON vs. THE COLONS: This was a match for Primo and Carlito’s Tag Team Titles, but apparently not Miz and Morrison’s. I’m not even going to try to figure out how that works. Yes, I realize that with the show on SmackDown it makes more sense to defend that show’s belts, but still…I don’t know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Either way, it means a Blue Brand Tag Team Title match, so I guess I’m okay with it instead of non-title match after non-title match. These two teams have been working better and better against each other as time goes on and have actually developed a pretty nice chemistry with each other; it’s also been a great way for Primo to develop his in-ring skills, which have improved tremendously, and given the Colons a lot of legitimacy as tag champions. This match was more of the same, with both teams providing some good offense and selling for each other incredibly well. They were doing a nice little back and forth match before the Bellas showed up, which immediately had me worried for some sort of screw job finish but luckily that was not to be. Instead we saw a good, long match that the crowd was remarkably into, considering how little we’ve been shown over time that tag teams don’t matter; it is a credit to both teams that the crowd is starting to care about them and this feud. This was a good, classic tag team formula match that went to the basics and provided some solid in-ring action to advance the feud. Kudos to all four men for putting each other over and working quite well with each other.
JOHN CENA vs. THE BIG SHOW: In our REAL main event of the evening (more on that later), Cena was facing off against the Big Show as a result of the opening segment. Now, at the time this happened we still had almost twenty minutes left, not counting commercials, which frankly surprised me a little. However, I wasn’t complaining, and Cena and Show didn’t disappoint. Both men delivered solid work here and paced themselves to provide a very strong TV main event match. The story was Cena trying to overcome the giant, and in creating that story in the ring they actually did a great job of putting the big guy over. It’s not everyone who gets as strong a performance against Cena without being in a direct feud with him, and they’ve actually done a remarkably good job in rebuilding Show over the last several months. He’s gotten big wins over a lot of major players in the ‘E, including Taker, ‘H and now Cena, and I daresay he’s probably in the strongest on the card he’s had since he returned the ‘E. Now, of course he didn’t win cleanly, but I have no problem with this, because it is SuperCena after all, and any win over the ‘E’s flagship boy is big news. I’m not sure what they have planned for Show come WrestleMania but I hope it’s something big; he deserves it after doing the company man job to Mayweather last year. This was overall a really good main event and a great way to advance the feud between Cena and Edge without putting them in the ring together, and I was quite happy with it.
CENA RETURNS TO SMACKDOWN: SmackDown this week became the first Red or Blue-Brand show in well two weeks to not have the new Uber-GM of the ‘E, Vickie the Chipmunk, starting us off. This was a welcome change because frankly, while the segments carried themselves off tolerably-to-well individually, I was tired of seeing Vick every Monday and Friday starting off my wrestling fixes. Instead, we got John Cena. Judging by his crowd reaction, working opposite Vickie is doing wonders for his face status, as those boos have been getting harder to hear. They aren’t impossible to hear by any stretch, but they are a bit more overshadowed by the pop. I would say it’s just the SmackDown post-production but it seems to be the case on Raw too, so maybe not. Anyway, he came to the ring and pandered to the crowd a little bit, then pretty much stole one of Santino’s jokes from a few weeks ago in reverse by referring to Good Ol’ J.R. as Michael Cole. I’m serious, guys…we actually DO have memories beyond a couple weeks, I promise. You know, I’m normally amused enough to give Cena a pass on his jokes, but tonight they were especially tired and just didn’t work. He then switched gears to serious, calling Edge a coward and calling him out for his rematch. Edge then came out to accept the challenge, but his darling wife came out and stopped him. Gee, I wonder if they planned that? Instead Vick set Cena against the Big Show for the main event of the evening, leaving John looking all serious-like and Show, Vick and Edge being all confident.
There were a couple thoughts I had about this particular opening segment, which wasn’t the strongest we’ve seen lately but wasn’t horrible either. First off, as I said before, the Cena portion seemed like nothing more than recycled jokes and a jarring shift from comedic to serious. It picked up though when the SmackDown lovebirds hit the stage. Vickie seemed far more natural then she has as of late and it actually seemed to work for her. She’s still not a great speaker and wasn’t great here, but it was improvement, and that’s always nice to see. Edge was again great with his facial expressions, particularly as Show hit the stage and he had this look that just said “Oh, now you’re in for it!” While I hope they resolve the Edge/Vickie/Show storyline sometime in the relatively near future, they’re milking it nicely at the moment and I’m okay with that. So while this segment was flawed, particularly in comparison to opening segments for the past couple months, it carried well enough to keep it out of the wRong, and it’s at least nice to see they’re picking up the feud a bit more than they did on Raw. It was also kept shorter which leaves more time for matches and other segments, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
VLADIMIR KOZLOV vs. THE UNDERTAKER: This was touted as a “potential WrestleMania preview” pending what happens at Raw this Monday between Vlad and Shawn Michaels. Is it just me or is Kozlov gaining some weight? I mean, he’s always been a stocky guy as well as muscular, but he seems to be packin’ on a little extra as of late. Of course, Taker got his uber-entrance and accompanying crowd pop; I liked how they made a point to show the Koz as not intimidated, as it supports his character nicely. This match started off rather slow, with about a minute of side headlocks to start it off before the Dead Man put a stop to that. We also got a commercial break less than two minutes into the match, which always irritates me and gives the thing a disjointed feel, especially when we come back at such an inopportune time as Taker delivering a leg drop on the apron. Seriously, they deal with the commercial breaks in post-production thanks to tape delay; they can’t find a better time than that? Such as maybe the friggin’ side headlocks? Anyway, the point of this was to make Kozlov look like an unbeatable monster for his match against HBK on Raw, and they certainly did that by having the big Russkie pin Taker out of nowhere, but the match itself seemed slow and plodding for the most part. Kozlov relies far too much on rest holds and boring-looking offense for my taste and that was pretty much the bulk of his offense here. Taker tried his damnedest to get a good match out of the Koz and failed. It wasn’t a bad match per se, it just wasn’t a very good one either. Hopefully Shawn can pull a better match out of Vlad this Monday; he’s carried far worse than him to very watchable ones. But in the end, this did what it needed to do, and we have an added bonus. I think if Christopher Nolan (or Zack Snyder or Warner Bros. wants for the next Batman movie) recasts the Joker, we’ve found our man:
Tell me that smile isn’t seriously messed up on a whole lot of levels. I mean, wow. I think I’m going to have nightmares about that expression, as I believe it is traditionally accompanied with the demand to squeal like a pig. But I digress.
MATT HARDY vs. JEFF HARDY…NOT!: Matt Hardy came down to the ring ready to rumble for his match with his brother, who apparently is “the Strange Enigma” this week if J.R. is accurate and Matt is “the Black-Hearted Brother.” The crowd was hot for him, but not nearly as much as for Jeff; they popped big for the Day-Glo Warrior, who came out distinctly non-Day-Glo. Much to the contrary, he came out looking like he’d just come out of his painting/sculpting studio in a flannel shirt and jeans. Apparently the gist here was that he refused to fight his brother and he wanted Matt to get out of the crazy phase he was in. Jeff and Matt did pretty good work here, with Matt looking like he was just a single hair short of losing his self-control and Jeff playing the “I don’t want to fight you” attitude pretty nicely. It was actually rather interesting seeing the duo dueling on the mike; it showed that, at least tonight, Jeff is the brother who’s got the mike skills. Matt still occasionally lapses back into his slow rhythmic promo style that seems stilted, and he did so tonight, while Jeff seemed more natural. Besides that there was one thing that irritated me. I’m all right with Matt being jealous of Jeff winning the WWE Championship, because no one in their right mind would ever call the ECW Title on the same level as the other two. But mediocre? Really? Gee, way to crap all over Jack Swagger, Christian, Mark Henry, Finlay and the rest of the ECW-ites there, Matt. It was sort of a throwaway comment but not really, and it does leave a bit of a stain on an otherwise pretty good promo between them. One last bit I really liked was Jeff’s pausing at the ramp, then turning to face Matt and throwing his arms in the air to get the crowd to pop; it was a sort of shot from Jeff to Matt in response to the slaps, as if to say “Look what I have that you don’t,” and Matt sold it well with the twitch of his lips into an angry sneer. Obviously, this is headed to WrestleMania and we all know more or less how this is going to play out, but it should be a fun ride along the way.
SHELTON BENJAMIN vs. CHAVO GUERRERO: MVP was out and looking quite dapper in a suit to watch this match, which continued to build toward a multi-man United States Title Match sometime in the relatively near future. Montel provided some fairly good commentary for this non-title match, which featured some good action but was just too short to mean anything. There were a few good moves and some nice feud advancement between Shelton, Chavo and MVP but nothing else really of note, as Chavo got the win thanks to Shelton being distracted by MVP’s presence. This gets points for providing some further feud progression for the US Title and the snap superplex by Benjamin was pretty swank, but otherwise I could have done without this, and that’s unfortunate because I like all three men.
HOW MANY “MAIN EVENTS” DOES ONE SHOW GET?: Okay, I’ve seen this happen a couple of times, and it’s always slightly bugged me, but this week it was especially noticeable. Did anyone else notice J.R. calling pretty much every match a “Main Event”? We had MnM 2.0 vs. The Colons, Matt vs. Jeff, Kozlov vs. Taker and Cena vs. Big Show all called main events tonight. What, Shelton and Chavo can’t get some main event love while we’re at it? Seriously, I know a lot of people will think I’m nitpicking here and I probably am, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s silly to call 80% of your matches on a show “main events.” You wanna call them main event-level matches, that’s okay. I can go with that, more or less. But a two-hour show has one main event, maybe two if you consider a main event for each hour. Otherwise you’re full of crap and even the most gullible fan knows it.
| The 411
Lukewarm show this week. The Cena/Big Show match was quite nice and the opening tag match kicked some serious ass, but everything else was flawed in problematic ways. It’s frustrating, because I feel they’re moving in the right direction on things such as giving the undercard belts attention and cutting down on the length of the opening segments in favor more match and segment time, but they’re stumbling in spots along the way. The show was better than Raw overall but was still a step down from recent weeks, and hopefully it’ll pick up because I like where I think the feuds are going. SHOW RATING: **¾ |
Comment Time With Jeremy!
From m8:
Haitch hit DiBiase with the HANDLE of the hammer. Why does everyone think it was a full-on sledge shot?
Upon a second viewing you and the others who mentioned this were right, m8. To my defense, it was rather hard to tell as most of Sledgie the Second was off camera and ‘H always hits people with the head of it. But thanks for pointing that out, guys!
From Guest#6007:
i dont know if anyone noticed but isnt this ironic
the WWE Championship since april of last year has went through these ppl
Triple H wins from Orton
Edge wins from Triple H
Jeff Hardy wins from Edge
Edge wins from Jeff Hardy
Triple H wins from Edge
Now imagine if Orton wins from Triple H
…okay, that is some impressive research, Guest. Now I really hope that Orton wins, as it’ll make for one of the greatest WWE Championship trivia questions ever. Thanks!
Jeremy, the second sledgehammer was taped to H’s back. The real question you should be asking is: How did he know in advance that Orton would propose they both drop their weapons? In addition to being smarter and tougher than everyone else Hunter is apparently psychic. The only possibilities at Mania now are HUNTOR wins, or Orton cheats and looks completely unworthy of being champion, cuz ain’t no way with this booking Orton can win even semi-clean.
Todd was another person who asked that question, and it is a great point; it’s one of those things that we’d be pointing at and groaning at in a movie, and should be pointed out here too; thanks for bringing it up. I’m hopeful that they’ll book Orton to win; if he does it in a screwjob fashion then I’ll take it as long as he looks strong during the match. However I don’t really have a huge problem with the Game winning either because he’s due a WrestleMania win; I’d just vastly prefer the Age of Orton begin again.
From confused??:
Ok why doesnt Edge get a remach for his championship, just because he won a different one? That doesn’t make sense and the ‘E overlooked his remach for some reason?…
Well, the big reason is that they don’t want to risk discussion of unifying the titles, and I doubt the Edge rematch will ever come up. But if you wanted a kayfabe reason, I would venture to say that Edge probably is considered to have gotten his rematch in the Raw Elimination Chamber match and that’s how Vickie was able to finagle it with the Board of Directors. It would make sense and close that particular plothole.
From FUZEY:
Jobbing out Chavo and Noble like that was brutal- why not have no name local jobbers for that shit?
Jericho is just the best thing on wrestling lately- I never thought he could get any better, but this last year blows away anything he’s ever done.
You will get absolutely no argument from me on either of those, Fuzey. Now, I do get why they didn’t have local indy guys against Cena because they wanted to bait and switch the match with Edge, but there is NO reason whatsoever to have him go down like that, or have Noble be continually squashed. Thanks for reading!
–ROH RISING ABOVE {8.0}
–WWE NO WAY OUT {8.0}
–WWE ROYAL RUMBLE {7.3}
–TNA GENESIS {7.2}
–TNA AGAINST ALL ODDS {5.5}
–[ROH RISING ABOVE] – ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Nigel McGuinness © vs. Bryan Danielson (****½)
–[NO WAY OUT] – THE SMACKDOWN ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****½)
–[ROH RISING ABOVE] – I QUIT MATCH: Jimmy Jacobs vs. Austin Aries (****¼)
–[TNA GENESIS] – Kurt Angle defeated Jeff Jarrett (****¼)
–[TNA GENESIS] – X-Division Title Match: Alex Shelley defeated Chris Sabin (****¼)
–[NO WAY OUT] – THE RAW ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****¼)
–[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – THE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH (***¾)
–[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – WWE TITLE MATCH: Edge defeated Jeff Hardy (***¾)
Not every PPV will have one, it just depends on who I think steps up and deserves some extra recognition.
–[TNA GENESIS] Sabin, Shelley, Angle and Jarrett – Rocking The House
–[ROH RISING ABOVE] – Danielson and McGuinness – Defining the ROH World Title
–[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – RVD – The Joke Pays Off
–[NO WAY OUT] – EDGE – The Ultimate Opportunist
And I’m out of here!
Happy Birthday to the Mania, born 03.03.03!
