Wrestling’s 4R’s Tuesday Edition 08.18.09: TNA Hard Justice, WWE Smackdown, and WWE Superstars

In HD where available…

By: Steve Cook

Superstars 08.13.09:

John Morrison vs. David Hart Smith: Usually when Jim Ross tells me that two guys on my television screen could be future WrestleMania main eventers, I yell at the TV “You dumb bastard, there ain’t no way Gene Snitsky and Ricky Ortiz are gonna be WrestleMania main eventers!” I swear, the guy’s high on barbecue sauce half the time he’s on television these days. He may be right about these two…as I’ve said over and over again since entering this freak show of a column John Morrison has been on an absolute roll in 2009, and David Hart Smith is a young kid who has all the tools to be a big deal in WWE. He’s big, he’s a decent enough wrestler, and his father was a wrestler. I think that covers everything WWE desires in a pro wrestler. Smith was a pretty darn good independent wrestler in the limited stuff I’ve seen of him before he entered WWE, and it surprised me that he was so bad during his first stint on Raw. Maybe he wasn’t used to the big crowds. He’s getting used to them, and it probably warmed his heart that all of Calgary was supporting him against Morrison. As for the match itself, it was a pretty good piece of business. Smith got to look good for most of the match and Morrison did his usual awesome stuff that will get him over with the people even if his personality and promos aren’t quite there yet. A hot match with two young kids and a jacked-up crowd will always end up in the “right” section of this column, unless the writer is on crack. Do we know if Wilcox is on anything?

Goldust vs. Sheamus: Through my twenty glorious years watching professional wrestling, Dustin Rhodes ranks as one of the most frustrating wrestlers to watch. There have been times in his career where he’s been brilliant, like his early 90s WCW run where he was a upper mid-card babyface as “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes, or during his initial run in the WWF as Goldust. However, there have been times where Dustin has been absolutely god awful, as his early 2000s WCW run, his later runs as Goldust in WWE, and the inexcusable horseshit that was Black Reign in TNA would showcase. It appears that Dustin is re-motivated to not have Black Reign be his last image on national television, as Goldust looked better than he has in a long time in this match. For those who have speculated that Bryan Danielson would never make it in WWE due to his skin tone, I introduce you to Sheamus. The guy looks paler than Larry Csonka after watching a Buff Bagwell match (there’s a reference none of you will understand). Combine that with the red hair and it’s a freaky look. He’s your typical FCW graduate…still learning but looks like he might make something of himself someday. The one thing I didn’t like about this match was the slow, methodical pacing of Sheamus, but I guess it’s better that way than having him try to do everything too fast and end up screwing up most of it. Goldust getting the win was kind of bizarre, since he’s obviously on the downside of his career and Sheamus is on his way up, but I assume they’ll do more with this issue on the ECW show. I didn’t think this match was as good as some on the Internet did, but it was good enough for what it was.

Carlito & Rosa beat the champs: I’m all for using champions to get contenders over by losing to them in non-title matches. It’s a smart booking device. However, I have to question the contenders WWE decided to put over here, thus why I place this match in the purgatory section. The thing I love about Carlito’s new character is that it’s an extension of his real-life personality. The backstage scuttlebutt for years was that Carlito’s a moody SOB who doesn’t really give a damn about his job. So now he’s actually doing that on camera and it kinda works for him. Rosa Mendez…I’m not sure what to think about her. She was smoking hot as Roucka in OVW back when I could watch it in Cincinnati, but as Beth Phoenix’s protégé she did nothing for me. She was looking good here though, but I’m not sure I buy into her as a contender for Mickie James’s Divas title. One would presume that Carlito will be challenging Kofi for the U.S. title sooner rather than later…that could be either really good or really bad depending on whether both guys are “on” that night or not. I, for one, would rather see that than Kofi getting squashed by Big Show again.

Ask the Divas: There was absolutely nothing of interest said by anybody in this segment. If it was used to get Diva personalities over I would support it, but it sounds like these girls are actually honestly trying to answer the lame ass questions presented to them by the WWE Universe. What the hell? I still maintain that if you need to seek life advice from a WWE Diva you really need to re-assess your life and decide if it’s actually worth living.

NONE

By: Jeremy Thomas

WWE SmackDown 08.14.09

PUNK GIVES HIS “ONOZ!” FACE: SmackDown started off with a recap of last week’s main event, with CM Punk battling Jeff with Matt playing guest enforcer. We also got to see Punks awesome beat down of Jeff and Teddy’s making a TLC match for SummerSlam. After that, CM Punk made his way down to the ring to a good, strong heel reaction. Even in Canada they love to hate Straight-Edge, which is good to see. Punk cut a promo that pointed out, quite poignantly, that he was just as comfortable in a TLC-type environment as Day-Glo. He pointed out his experience in ladder matches, the damage he can do with a steel chair, his success in Money in the Bank and such. He then turned to his crusade and said he knew what he had to do to turn everyone around—he had to end Jeff Hardy. That was some decent work—not his best to date, but he’s keeping things fresh and keeping interest on the feud, and that’s a good thing. Punk then mentioned Jeff’s injuries, which brought down Teddy. The GM bitched Punk out for what he did, and there was a great moment there where Long said “Do you realize that you could have ended Jeff Hardy’s career?” To which we got this:

What a great little dick move there by Punk. It’s these things that make me more and more sure that Punk is on his way to becoming one of the greater heels we’ve seen in a while. Teddy then announced that Day-Glo would be here tonight—unable to compete, but ready by SummerSlam. Meanwhile, Teddy booked Punk against John Morrison, which brought Punk to calling Long a Jeff Hardy suck-up. Jeff made his way out in street clothes, walking slowly and gingerly to the ring. Jeff had the Canadian crowd going wild…and then proceeded to deliver a very short but over the top promo about how he was hurt but there and was going to defend his title at SummerSlam. Jeff’s appearance wasn’t all that necessary and he went for about 150% when 80% would have worked fine. Otherwise, this was good stuff and I dug it.

FINLAY vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER: This was stemming from Dolph pinning Finlay last week to become the number one contender, followed by Finlay giving Rey the chance to get one over on his opponent-to-be post-match. I was happy to see this match as Finlay is a guy who can really help get someone over, and he did some good work with Dolph here. We had some fun spots such as Finlay pulling the ring apron to catch Dolph inside it, and Ziggler was doing some pretty damn good work here as well. He looked like a star against Finlay and that’s what was most important coming out of this match; getting the pinfall via the Zig Zag was obviously key as well since it gives Dolph the momentum he needs moving toward SummerSlam. I think it’s great that they moved Finlay to SmackDown, where he’s doing the same sort of job as he did on ECW except for guys like Dolph who are past development and just need to get to that next level. That’s exactly what Finlay did here and it worked great.

Of course, we also had Mike Knox coming out to the ring, who appears to be Finlay’s next project. I’m happy to see that they’re trying to give Knox something to do as he does deserve another shot. He’s got a good look and he can work in the ring pretty well for a big guy. If he can connect with the crowd, all the better for him although I’m still not convinced he has that capability. His promo was creepy enough but was kind of generic, and they’ll have to follow up with something good for it to go anywhere. Right now, I’m cautiously optimistic.

JOHN MORRISON vs. CM PUNK: Did anyone expect this match not to kick some serious ass? Yeah, I didn’t think so. They certainly didn’t disappoint as they had a good, long match that let the both of them look very good and showed just how awesome the eventual resurgence of their feud will be. Punk has all of his mannerisms down as a heel and has them fully integrated into his in-ring work, while Morrison is certainly getting more comfortable as a babyface inside the ring. All he needs is the outside of the ring persona down and he’ll be ready for the main event. This was a clean finish but not in a way that buried Morrison at all; the crowd clearly loves the Shaman of Sexy as noted by the chants for him, and this worked perfectly fine toward giving Punk a boost on the way toward SummerSlam. I can’t imagine how anyone would have actively disliked this match, and I actually very much enjoyed it.

JEFF HARDY v s. CM PUNK: After the opening segment, we say Teddy Long in his office, where he got a call from Mr. McMahon. Apparently, Vince wanted Jeff to wrestle, and Teddy asserting his own mind wasn’t what Vince had in mind. So instead we got Jeff against the Hart Dynasty. This was a perfect opportunity for them to get the Harts hugely over since Jeff was injured and a handicap match wouldn’t do his credibility any damage; that’s exactly what they did here, and it worked awesomely. The Harts got a great reaction from the crowd as was to be expected and they made the most of this opportunity, looking very good in the process. The psychology and story was good DH and Tyson targeted Jeff’s neck and head that Punk had damaged, and while the champion kept fighting back, the injuries and numbers were too much for him and he lost. See, THIS is how you use a handicap match to put a tag team over; pay attention, Mr. Helmsley. It was great work and did the Harts a lot of favors; I think it’ll reap major dividends down the line.

After the match, Punk came down and went after Jeff, only to have Morrison come to the rescue. The Harts got involved and it was too much for Morrison either, and Punk went back to work on Jeff…until Matt ran on down and got involved. He attacked Punk and just beat him to hell, making the save along with Morrison. The crowd went WILD for Matt, and it looks like he’s back to being a face. For now, anyway. This sets up a phenomenal match for next week and gave us a fantastic moment to end the show. Jeremy approves.

MELINA vs. LAYLA: Earlier in the show before this happened, we had Melina and Maria gushing over what they were going to do SummerSlam weekend. Layla interrupted and trash-talked the two before saying that Michelle McCool would be back next week. I’m okay with that if Melina & Michelle can pick up where they left off, although the little bit with Layla saying Dolph deserved better put nightmares of Layla and Maria feuding in my head. I don’t want to think about those matches.

This match got off to an awkward start thanks to the Kane/Singh segment, but that wasn’t really the fault of the women. In fact, Layla actually looked amazingly good thanks to the booking here and Melina working her ass off. This is to take nothing away from Layla who seems more motivated than she’s been in a long while and probably did her best work also. The only problem with this match was that it was too short and a little bit of a spotfest. The point here was to give Melina a convincing win and while it ended strong, she probably should have gone over Layla with more dominance to put her in a position to challenge Michelle. Otherwise this was okay, and I hope we see more of this kind of match out of Layla.

JTG vs. THE BIG SHOW: No Word Up this week; instead we got JTG and Shad going straight to the ring and putting over JTG’s win over Jericho last week. They delivered a decent promo—not great, but decent—talking about how it didn’t matter who Jericho & Show had beat, the challengers were leaving SummerSlam with the titles. What’s amazing is that I could see that happening, whereas it would have been a laughable proposition a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, this match was supposed to be payback to JTG for beating Jericho last week, and payback it was. Was the match as good as the JTG/Jericho one? Of course not; Show isn’t the in-ring worker his partner is. Jericho joined T-Grish and J.R. and the booth and did an as-expected good job there while Show dominated JTG in the ring. Jericho knows how to put his opponent over on the mic while trash-talking him too, and he did exactly that by giving Cryme Tyme their props. But basically, this was a squash by Show and that was all it was intended to be. It worked for that and it was what it was, neither great nor bad. Shad even got some heat back for Cryme Tyme by knocking Show off the apron and looking pissed off, which I was very okay with.

KANE TORTURES RANJIN SINGH: You know, I’m okay with Kane kidnapping Singh to fuck with Khali. It’s not the most original angle in the world, but I’m fine with it. I’m not sure about the way they’re doing this though. Kane was basically putting Singh through the kind of things we’d expect to hear in a hostage video, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re going to take this some sort of strange “Kane hates foreigners” place. The feel was appropriately creepy and that’s what they were going for; you can’t argue with that.

Of course, then it went terribly wrong. They decided to cut in the middle of Layla’s entrance so that they could have Kane force Ranjin to reveal that Khali is his brother. Kane then implied that Singh was jealous of Khali. Um…okay? This took a very stupid turn very suddenly, and I was irritated that they interrupted put this in between the entrances and the match for Layla & Melina. There was no reason for them to plop it right in the middle like that. Eventually Khali showed up to rescue his brother and got brutalized by Kane; the payoff was okay but did we really need three segments to build to this? Did we need to throw in a “he’s Khali’s brother” thing? The whole thing was poorly conceived and the guys did their best with it, but I wasn’t digging it at all.

DID YOU KNOW?: Nope. And as always, I don’t care.

From Ryan Haseldine:
How sick was Orton’s RKO on Jericho while he was in the Attitude Adjusment.

It did look damn good, although I agree with Jason from the comments that it looked a little dangerous to pull off for something like that. It may have made a good PPV moment, but I’ll be happy to not see them do it again because it did seem quite risky.

From Sam:
Beth didn’t save the spot by doing her double diva move, that’s how it was supposed to go O_O

Ahh, so you were on the booking team? Thanks for the inside tip. Seriously though, I didn’t mean that it was an improv’d move that saved it, I meant that the Gail/Kelly spot came off poorly and it was only the coolness of Beth’s double-submission that made people forget about it.

From Erik:
Am i the only one that doesn’t enjoy Mark Henry with that fucking leprechaun?? It’s not about whether it’s funny or not…just that when Mark first came over to Raw, it seemed like they wanted to establish him as a man that’s gonna go around killin bitches heel or face…and now he’s doing this…guess i’m just a little disappointed.

You’re not the only one, as evidence by other commenters, but my take is this. They need to do some of this silly stuff to make people stick in mind he’s a good guy. Once they do, he can go back to killing bitches and still be put over as a face. It’s jkust transitional work in my mind…or at least, I hope so.

From errrty:
There is a reason why they fired miz and rehired him in this fashion : to develop his “devious and witty” persona, the sort of heel cunning that he will only benefit from if he shows it more often.

Still a pretty weak reason that could have been booked a lot better but I think that is the reason it was done.

I understand why, I just think it was a stupid way to do it and feel it was half-thought out. Saying that they could have done it much better is an understatement and a half, and I don’t see why they didn’t just move him; it would have been far better for his career.

From Shockmaster:
CHRIS JERICHO vs. JOHN CENA: Not a word on one of the most disastrous botched endings since Starrcade ’97? Orton comes in, then gets stuck like a video game going buggy. That makes everyone else freeze in confusion. Jericho taps even tough Cena has clearly let up, the ref calls for the bell for a DQ, and the announcers are completely confused. Orton screwed up either by timing or inaction. Vince has fired guys for less.

Some of us bitterly remember her Playboy promos. Santino was a heel for not wanting anyone with $6 to see his girlfriend naked, and she turned cold blooded. Her entire character has been “I’m hot” ever since. So to some of us, she HAS played a heel before. Just look at the heat Lita got over betraying Matt. If a scripted turn got even half that reaction it would be big.

You know what, you bring up a good point on the Jericho/Cena thing, I didn’t catch that somehow and it may have drug that down into puRgatoRy. As for the Sweagger/MVP feud I think the point was to have Montel get one over, then Swagger do another back which they did. I agree it’s glaring, but they wanted to keep it even I bet. I won’t arguye on Sarge being better than a host who constantly just self=promotes, but I still feel they executed it very poorly. Someone should have come out and taken Sarge down to Canada; it would have given them a major pop and would have come off very well. I remember Maria’s Playboy storyline but I don’t remember her going cold-blooded; I’ll have to look back at that. Either way Maria could certainly pull off the initial turn well; it would be a matter of sustaining it, which I don’t know if she could pull off. It’s possible, though.

From Amazing Flyer:
Maria looks so bubbly and sweet that I don’t think I could see her has a full blown heel. A goofy, slutty but overall sweet heel, maybe, but I don’t think I could think of her like Michelle or Trish. This could definitely change.

She might well have it in her, and she might surprise us Flyer; we’ll have to see if they ever go that route. Hard to say for sure at this point.

From WhattheDeuce?:
No, sorry, the first two DX skits were atrocious. They weren’t funny, they were pathetic DX lite jokes that were about as funny as itching your nuts and finding a lump.

When the rest of the product is any good, I can forgive blips, but RAW is so bad, it needs Jesus Christ himself to resurrect and come down out with Buddha as his manager and Allah as his tag team partner to even slightly interest me nowadays.

Well, you’re welcome to your opinion Deuce, and while it may be different from mine I’m not going to call yours invalid. I thought that the goofiness was working long before the superkicks, and I don’t think you can say what would have happened had he not disched out the superkicks because I was already entertained. It’s silly, it’s stupid, but it was done with the right tone and Hunter and Shawn pulled it off.

As for Henry, I think you’re going WAY too far to compare Henry’s teaming with Horny with Sexual Chocolate and the hand birth. I don’t like Hornswaggle as a performer and I think that’s been clear for a while now, but he’s not THAT bad. Raw has more downs than ups these days, but that’s slowly been changing and with any luck it will continue to. We’ll see for sure, though…thanks for reading!

From The Great Capt. Smooth:
For a second, I thought HBK was going to superkick the old woman who said, “Suck it!”.

And he damn well should have, too!

From 17:
Seems to me like you either loved Lost In Houston or you hated it. I definitely hated it so I’m obviously biased but even when it was being actually kind of funny it was still so stupid it shouldn’t be anywhere but the ridiculous section. Take the super kicking of the annoying little girl. Sure I laughed but it was hardly a very PG thing for Shawn to do, or a Christian thing for that matter, so it just seemed too stupid to be right. And the whole time watching it I kept thinking this, this is how they bring back Shawn freaking Michaels! Really! Really?

Obviously it’s not very PG-oriented, but there have been a host of things that have hinted at a shift back toward the PG-13 line. The celebration of drug abusing Jeff Hardy as an uber-face, Punk’s exceptionally violent attacks on Jeff, the Kane hostage thing this week. I think they’ll toe those lines back and forth for a while, and Shawn superkicking a girl was pretty light considering it was obviously a one-shot thing that may be brought up at best in jest down the line.

By: Larry Csonka

TNA HARD JUSTICE 2009:
MATCH RESULTS:
– Terror Dome Match: Christopher Daniels won a shot at the X-Division Title @ 15:00 via escape {****}
– Bounty Match: Abyss defeated Jethro Holiday @ 10:00 via pin {**}
– For The TNA World Title Shot Briefcase: Hernandez defeated Rob Terry @ 0:05 via pin {NR}
– IWGP Tag Team Title Match: The British Invasion defeated Beer Money @ 10:00 via pin {***}
– Knockouts Title Match: Cody Deaner and ODB defeated Angelina Love and Velvet Sky to win the Knockouts Title @ 5:00 via pin {SHIT}
– X-Division Title Match: Samoa Joe defeated Homicide to win the TNA X-Division Title @ 10:00 via pin {***}
– TNA Tag Team Title Match: Booker T and Scott Steiner defeated Team 3D @ 14:00 via pin {*½}
– Legends Title Match: Kevin Nash defeated Mick Foley @ 12:00 via pin to win the TNA Legends Title {**½}
– TNA World Title Match: Kurt Angle defeated Matt Morgan and Sting @ 12:00 via pin {**½}

Terror Dome Match : As expected the Terror Dome match was a great way to kick off the show. All of the usual guys involved bust their ass and deliver when given a chance, and that was the case here. Not a GREAT or classic match, as I feel they rushed a bit too much at times and left the selling behind, and yes you can sell in a spotfest, but that’s how I saw it. Easily the best thing on the show. I also have to say that Elijah Burke (Pope D’Angelo Dinero) had a VERY good debut. There are times that guys come into the X-Division and either will not sell for the guys, or cannot keep up with them, but he did both and looked great in the whole match. If this is any indication of his work ethic going forward, then we will be in for some good things from the “Harlem Preacher”. The spots with Daniels were very good, and the work on commentary linking them in a way (Fallen Angel, Pope) was good shit. Daniels took the win to move onto a feud with Joe, and that I will also not complain about. Joe vs. Daniels is full of win, as the kids say. But the finish kind of comes off stupid as Burke looked as if he was about to win, but instead of doing that, he dropped to the mat to beat up Suicide, because they apparently had an issue. Just odd, and not the best of ways to do this.

For The TNA World Title Shot Briefcase : On paper, Hernandez vs. Rob Terry was a horrible match to book. Terry is way too green, and while Hernandez is good, he isn’t good enough to carry Rob Terry. But thankfully this was booked perfectly. Hernandez stood up to the Invasion, tossed them around and pinned Terry in seconds. Going into the last set of tapings, Hernandez was tapped as one of the guys to push and push hard, and they have done a good job of that. I could do without the short squashes on PPV, but in terms of advancing Hernandez, this worked.

IWGP Tag Team Title Match : I though that this match could be really good, as their last meeting was surprisingly good, and Magnus is working well as a tag guy along side Williams. And it was a good match, it just never got into the next gear. The crowd was hot for this, as they love Beer Money, and who doesn’t? I guess I was hoping for more, as they seemed as if they were going to head into the next part, the next gear as it were, but it kind of stalled, and we got the blah finish. But it was a good match and worked well for its position on the card. I can see them eventually having better matched than this. The finish takes away from the match a bit, as it is the same old shit, but the Invasion retaining is the right call for now, as they need the momentum and Beer Money, as always, is mad over.

X-Division Title Match : And our final right is the X-Division Title match. Joe is being reinvented so to speak with Taz as his mentor, and with the MEM storyline, the Joe win was expected, but it is how you get there that is important. I felt that Homicide looked good, and Joe gave enough to him to make that possible, but also not too much, to keep with the new bad ass persona. They had a great near fall off of the gringo cutter, which eventually led to Joe getting the choke. Homicide fought, but he couldn’t break the hold and had to tap. Refreshing to see a heel win clean, while not hurting the face. But while a good match, it unfortunately didn’t live up to expectations. I have no idea why the shitty tag title match got FOUR more minutes than this did, but it did, and that is a DAMN shame. These guys can go if they are given the time and opportunity, but they weren’t here. It was good, but we all know that they can do better.

Legends Title Match: The Legends title match I will admit, I wasn’t looking forward too. Taking into account he physical condition of both men, and the fact that they weren’t going to work with all the gimmicks, and well, that has disaster written all over it. But I will give credit where credit was due, this was a perfectly acceptable match. It was simple, deliberate and hard hitting at times, and it worked. The blood helped, I liked how they played up the stoppage aspect, and I don’t have a reason to hate on the match. The booking is a bit questionable, with the quick title change once again, but that’s Russo crash booking for you. Also the finish Had to have Brooks involved. Much better than expected. I also liked the Abyss save at the end. In theory, an alliance between Abyss and Foley and eventual feud can only help Abyss. In theory…

TNA World Title Match: So we come to the main event of the show. A match where Morgan had a lot to prove, and Angle was expected to carry the load. Overall I will say that the main event wasn’t a bad match, but it also didn’t deliver like a main event should. The overall story was good, and Morgan worked hard and looked good in there, but Angle seemed a bit off, and Sting is continuing to disappoint. I hate to say that people are losing it and near the end, but that is how he has looked recently. I really liked the tease with the Angle neck injury, as it did add some drama, but the finish was the same cliché’d and overbooked stuff with the ref pull out and chair shot. Not bad, but it didn’t deliver. And then there is the decision to keep the title on Angle. Now he is innocent until proven guilty, but I think it sets a bad example. He WAS arrested, and WILL be going to court, and that is simply put, a black eye on the company. Other sports punish athletes when similar things happen, but not in TNA. They send Jeff Jarrett home for having a relationship with a DIVORCED woman and are looking to take power from him, but Kurt Angle can be arrested the day before the PPV and bring the company a ton of bad press, but that’s ok? Makes no sense to me. A suspension until his legal matters were settled would have worked in my opinion, and would have shown that they take this seriously. Shit, if Consequences Creed was accused of this, he would be out the door so fast they would have to FED-EX his hair to him. It is a case of push instead of punishment.

Bounty Match: The second match on the show was the bounty match between Jethro Holiday and Abyss. As predicted, it was mostly the same old Abyss match we have seen for ages, thankfully with out the tacks. It wasn’t a bad match, but as mentioned, more of the same, nothing new, and the Dr. Stevie Angle seems to continue from here. Also, Holiday has been portrayed as such a jobber, him getting so much on Abyss, even with help I felt was bad booking.

TNA Tag Team Title Match: I felt that this match COULD be good, if they pulled out the smoke and mirrors and such, and they did that here. They had falls count anywhere and no DQ to aid them. Unfortunately, when they announced that there would be two referees, I had a very bad feeling about the match, which was realized when we got to the finish. The match, well, wasn’t good. It was the same cliché’d brawling that we have come to expect when we get these guys, and while the crowd loved it, it was slow, sloppy, and went way too long. With the two referees, they went for the simultaneous pins, leading to a controversial finish. The two referees argued, and then, THEY WENT TO INSTANT REPLAY! Here is the best part, they went to instant replay, and you could clearly see that Ray had roughly 1/3 of his body UNDER the ropes, but yet, THAT PIN COUNTED! That’s right, the referees were portrayed as such idiots that even on a replay that they could not see this! A bad match and a shitty finish and again, the same shit, different PPV. At least they didn’t hold up the belts. If they don’t play a “Team 3D got screwed angle” from this, they are fools.

Knockouts Title Match: This match was a mess before they even got to the ring. First of all, the website had it listed as a singles match, while on TV they pushed it as a tag. They have had this issue before, and you never quite know what you will be getting until the show. But they went with the tag match, Deaner and ODB vs. Sky and Love, which was a bad idea for so many reasons. First of all, the match was never going to be good, because they were going to primarily play it for comedy, which they did. Secondly, I think we ALL feared Deaner winning the title. Russo did it with BRUCE early on in the company as MISS TNA, and well, he did it again here. The match was shit, it was nothing more than spanking spots, and Deaner got the pin. ODB was announced as the champion, and then they became TAG TEAM PARTNERS THAT HATE EACH OTHER as Deaner stole the belt. What a shame, they have a ton of female talent, Scott D’Amore gets rehired, and THIS is the shit we get! Fucking shit…

–TNA SACRIFICE {7.5}
–WWE BACKLASH {7.5}
–TAKE NO PRISONERS {7.4}
–WWE ROYAL RUMBLE {7.3}
–TNA GENESIS {7.2}
–TNA LOCKDOWN {7.2}
–ROH CAGED COLLISION {7.1}
–WWE WRESTLEMANIA {7.0}

–WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS {6.9}
–WWE THE BASH {6.9}
–WWE EXTREME RULES {6.8}
–WWE JUDGMENT DAY {6.5}
–TNA HARD JUSTICE {6.0}

–TNA AGAINST ALL ODDS {5.5}

–TNA DESTINATION X {3.5}

–TNA VICTORY ROAD {2.0}

–[ROH RISING ABOVE] – ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Nigel McGuinness © vs. Bryan Danielson (****½)
–[WWE NO WAY OUT] – THE SMACKDOWN ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****½)
–[WWE BACKLASH] – LAST MAN STANDING: Edge vs. John Cena (****½)
–[WWE THE BASH] – MASK vs. TITLE: Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (****½)

–[TAKE NO PRISONERS] – Tyler Black & KENTA vs. Austin Aries & Katsuhiko Nakajima (****¼)
–[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)
–[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – X-Division King of the Mountain Match: Suicide vs. Lethal vs. Creed vs. Sabin vs. Shelley (****¼)
–[WWE NO WAY OUT] – THE RAW ELIMINATION CHAMBER (****¼)

–[WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS] – WORLD TITLE MATCH: CM Punk © vs. Jeff Hardy (****)
–[WWE EXTREME RULES] – IC TITLE MATCH: Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (****)
–[WWE EXTREME RULES] – WORLD TITLE LADDER MATCH: Edge vs. Jeff Hardy (****)
–[TNA HARD JUSTICE] – X-Division Title #1 Contender’s TERROR DOME Match: Christopher Daniels defeated Suicide, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Consequences Creed, Amazing Red, D’Angelo Dinero and Jay Lethal (****)
–[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – TNA World Title King of the Mountain Match: Foley vs. Angle vs. AJ vs. Joe vs. Jarrett (****)

–[ROH CAGED COLLISION] #1 CONTENDERS MATCH – Tyler Black vs. Jimmy Jacobs vs. Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries (***¾)
–[ROH CAGED COLLISION] ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH – Nigel McGuinness vs. El Generico (***¾)
–[TNA SACRIFICE] – I QUIT LEGENDS TITLE MATCH – Booker T vs. AJ Styles © (***¾)
–[TNA SACRIFICE] – Eric Young and Lethal Consequences vs. The Machineguns and Sheik Abdul Bashir (***¾)
–[TNA LOCKDOWN] – PHILLY STREET FIGHT: IWGP vs. TNA TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH – Team 3D vs. Beer Money (***¾)
–[TNA DESTINATION X] – X-Division Title Ultimate X Match: Suicide defeated Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Consequences Creed and Jay Lethal (***¾)
–[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – THE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH (***¾)
–[WWE ROYAL RUMBLE] – WWE TITLE MATCH: Edge defeated Jeff Hardy (***¾)
–[WWE WRESTLEMANIA] – MONEY IN THE BANK (***¾)
–[WWE JUDGMENT DAY] – Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (***¾)

–[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
–[WWE NO WAY OUT] – EDGE – The Ultimate Opportunist
–[WWE WRESTLEMANIA] – HBK and The Undertaker – Stealing the Show
–[ROH CAGED COLLISION] – Nigel McGuinness – Better Than You Sugar Nuts
–[TNA LOCKDOWN] – Christopher Daniels – Pulling Double Duty
–[WWE BACKLASH] – Edge and John Cena – Stealing the Show
–[TNA SACRIFICE] – The TNA Roster – Making the Best Out of Shitty Booking
–[WWE EXTREME RULES] – Rey, Jericho, Edge and Hardy – They Are Awesome
–[TAKE NO PRISONERS] – Tyler Black, KENTA, Austin Aries and Katsuhiko Nakajima – Main Event Excellence
–[TNA SLAMMIVERSARY] – Daffney and Taylor Wilde – Two Hardcore Bitches
–[WWE THE BASH] – Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho – Making the Show Worth It
–[WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS] – CM Punk – Solidifying His Spot
–[TNA HARD JUSTICE] – The Terror Dome Guys – Continuing to deliver despite the booking of the division

–Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black – (ROH on HDNet: 07.25.09) {****½ }

–Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio – (Smackdown: 07.10.09) {****¼}
–ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jerry Lynn vs. Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black vs. Bryan Danielson – (ROH on HDNet: 06.06.09) {****¼}
–TABLES ARE LEGAL TAG TITLE MATCH: Kevin Steen and El Generico © vs. The American Wolves – (ROH on HDNet: 05.30.09) {****¼}

–Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison – (Smackdown: 07.31.09) {****}
–Edge vs. Rey Mysterio – (Smackdown: 06.05.09) {****}
–Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black – (ROH on HDNet: 04.25.09) {****}
–Evan Bourne vs. John Morrison – (ECW: 04.14.09) {****}
–Christian vs. Jack Swagger – (ECW: 02.24.09) {****}
–Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena – (Raw: 01.12.09) {****}

–Christian vs. Zack Ryder – (ECW: 07.28.09) {***¾}
– Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho – (Smackdown: 07.24.09) {***¾}
–Edge vs. John Morrison – (Smackdown: 06.12.09) {***¾}
–Edge vs. Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk – (Raw: 06.08.09) {***¾}
–Edge vs. Jeff Hardy – (Smackdown: 06.12.09) {***¾}
–CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho – (Superstars: 05.21.09) {***¾}
–Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black – (ROH on HDNet: 05.09.09) {***¾}
–Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries – (ROH on HDNet: 04.04.09) {***¾}
–Beer Money vs. Team Canada – (Impact: 02.19.09) {***¾}
–Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles – (Impact: 01.22.09) {***¾}

The ***½ TV matches can be found here!

And I’m out of here!