Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 4.19.10: Superstars and SmackDown Reviewed!

In HD where available…

By: Steve Cook

Superstars 04.22.10:

YOSHI TATSU vs. ZACK RYDER: Nice little match here between two of Raw’s underappreciated people from ECW. I can only assume that the Raw guest hosts don’t know that these guys are actually on the roster. We’re lucky that Rosa Mendes was at ringside for this one, not only because she did some fun interference, but because she was the only person that Jerry Lawler & Michael Cole felt like talking about that was involved in the match. They spent most of the match talking about Raw Superstars’ tweets from Ireland, and if it wasn’t for King’s lusting for Rosa, they might have forgotten there was a match going on. Yoshi is a pretty good little Japanese guy with fun kicks and stuff, and Ryder is great at his role as Long Island douche bag heel with awesome entrance music. I wouldn’t be opposed to either of these guys getting a push on whatever show they end up on after the Draft. If they’re still having matches on Superstars I’ll feel sorry for them.

JOHN MORRISON vs. CARLITO: This was actually a pretty decent match, which surprised the hell out of me because Carlito is in the category of people that will be jobbing forever more and Morrison is in the category of people that are decent but shouldn’t be beating Jack Swagger. This helped continue the “Michael Tarver costs Carlito matches” angle, which means that Tarver will be the first guy to leave NXT. Unless the other Pros hate Carlito and decide to vote for Tarver to spite him. Maybe that’s why they voted Daniel Bryan #1 in the first poll, because they all hate Miz and voted to spite him. Manu Bomb said it was the greatest Carlito match he’d ever seen, so I invite the commenters to come up with better Carlito matches. I’m too drunk to come up with much better.

SHAD GASPARD vs. GOLDUST: I have to give the Gilded One props, because he did everything he possibly could to make Shad look good here. But I gotta say that I’m not feeling Gaspard as a singles guy and am not really confident that he’s going to be a big deal in WWE. He did nothing in this match to make himself stand out from other people in the company with his build and character traits. On the bright side, he did bring a strap to the ring with him to build his strap match with JTG at the Extreme Rules show. That was something Bill Watts was big on…he always told his wrestlers that if you’re going to have a match with an object as part of the stipulation, you have to bring the object out with you as part of the promo. Or the match building towards the stipulation match, in this case. Hopefully Shad & JTG will have a good match at Extreme Rules and prove me wrong, but I’m not too high on either guy as a singles wrestler at this point.

FIRED DIVAS BEING FEATURED IN A DIVAS PLUG: You’re telling me that WWE couldn’t have edited Mickie James out of a 30 second promo for the Divas? Child please. Stuff like this lets you know that sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. I would complain about them not editing out my girl Katie Lea, but I don’t think she was even in the video. Which shows you what the hell they know.

Nothing of note.

By: Jeremy Thomas

WWE SmackDown 04.23.10

QUICK RESULTS:
John Morrison d. Jack Swagger [***]
Drew McIntyre & Dolph Ziggler d. Matt Hardy & R-Truth [* ¼]
Layla & Michelle McCool d. Mickie James & Beth Phoenix [½*]
CM Punk & Luke Gallows d. Rey Mysterio & Kane [** ½]

SWAGGER IS AN ANTIDOTE…BUT NOT AGAINST MORRISON: Blue Brand Friday kicked off with the arrival of Jack Swagger down to the ring. The crowd was fairly against him as he made his slow walk down to the ring and climbed inside. He got on the mic and talked up how he was on a roll by beating Edge and Jericho last week, then claimed to have dominated the Undertaker like no other Superstar has been able to do…including Michelle McCool. ZING! They then played a video package that showed the Swagginator looking good in a way that only the WWE Production Gurus can do. He talked about the draft and how he planned to be on SmackDown where he is respected and admired, then moved on to mentioning that he would beat Orton at Extreme Rules. Swagger went nicely into a venom analogy, which led into an awesome sound bite about how he was “the Antidote” This was a very good promo by Swagger and helped establish him.

You know what else would help establish him? If he would win a match against upper midcarders. No, I’m really not that pissed that Morrison beat him, I just like to make jokes about it. Morrison and Swagger put together a very good match here and played against each other nicely. I would love to see an extended feud between these two, and maybe that’s what we’ll see after Extreme Rules. It had some really fun spots and like SmackDown opening matches often do, this gave us a really good match to make the crowd hot. Do I actually LIKE the fact that the guy going into a Pay-Per-View match with Randy Orton lost cleanly? Not so much. But Morrison’s been lost for a little while and he could really use the win. I could certainly think of worse people for Swagger to lose to, and maybe this was giving Morrison momentum for a later Swagger feud or just to raise his stock pre-draft. Whatever the reason, this was a great match and the result didn’t bother me so much that I was going to pull this out of the Right. Swagger raising the belt at the end as if to say “Yeah, still the champion” was nice too.

R-TRUTH & MATT HARDY vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER & DREW McINTYRE: Funny coincidence: in the TEW game I’m currently running that started post-‘Mania, I have Dolph and Drew as a tag team. Granted, they’re in a stable with Chris Jericho too, but give them time, I could see it happening. Anyway, we got individual entrances here, and Drew got the last one so that we could be subjected to the awesomeness of his. Striker called Matt and Drew’s rivalry “storied.” I don’t think you get to have your feud labeled with that unless you’ve been feuding for more than three weeks. But that aside, I really appreciated this match. Truth and Matt make great tag team partners, better than Truth and Morrison did. Dolph sold nicely as well, until he got Matt to the outside and Drew curb-stomped the hell out of Matt and Dolph added injury to injury. From that point, it was all academic. Matt fought back, but Dolph was just too much for him and the ref called for the bell. Listen, this wasn’t a great match. It was way too short for that. But the booking was great, the spots in the ring were good and the curb stomp was about as sick as the ‘E gets anymore. Drew beat Matt some more after the match and mocked him before leaving. I would have liked a longer match, but otherwise this worked for me.

CAGED HATRED: Midway through the show a steel cage lowered to cover the ring, and down came Chris Jericho with his NXT rookie Wade Barrett in order to get on the mic. Jericho talked about how he was going to end Edge’s career and detailed the ways he would use the cage to bring that about. Jericho tied in Edge’s Achilles’ tendon injury nicely, and had a great line about “drafting” Edge back to the hospital. Jericho got the crowd riled up by inciting them to chant for the Spear, and soon after Edge himself came down to the ring. Rated-R was walking somewhat gingerly and stopped at the top of the ramp to speak. Edge brought up the injury, then mocked Jericho for losing to Heath Slater. I knew that was coming out of his mouth. This was, as usual, a great promo between the two men and they did a good job of selling their dislike of each other. Edge was a bit…well, on edge as he told Jericho that he had nothing to lose. The Edgester’s intensity was great and I enjoyed his delivery here. The end saw Edge attack but lose the numbers advantage for a bit, until Edge made a comeback, Jericho bailed just before the spear and Barrett got up in time to eat the finisher. Good stuff here, and they sold the feud nicely.

BALD IS BEAUTIFUL: Early in the show, Punk was backstage with Teddy Long and was pissed as hell about losing some of his hair on Raw. This gave them the opportunity for Punk to be furious and for Long to act as the surrogate Rey Rey by mocking the Straight-Edge Superstar. I’m going to keep this short; we had some good mic work by both men. Long seems to have a little more life to him as of late, and Punk is of course always awesome so you can’t find much to complain about here. The end result was Teddy booking Punk and Gallows in a tag match against Kane and Rey. I’m trying to figure out who’s sided with more people that they feuded with during their most recent heel turn, Kane or Orton. Probably Orton. But still, I enjoyed this backstage segment and it let Long have a little fun here.

This match was the main event of our show, and Punk came out first with his acolytes and a mic. He got on the mic and talked about how he was going to let his actions speak louder than words, but that Rey already had. Good stuff as always by Straight-Edge. He teased saving another soul, but Rey came out and the match was on instead. Luke Gallows has been looking very impressive as of date with Rey to bump for him, and this was no exception. The rest of the three carried the majority of the match of course, but Luke was no slouch and we got a good match that saw all four men look credible in the ring. Gallows is really turning into Kane circa several years back, when he was underrated and one of the best big men in the country. Of course, the focus was on Punk and Rey Rey, and they did good stuff in the ring together. The end was a win for Punk which helped his momentum out, but the tag team situation didn’t kill Rey’s credibility. The last bit had Rey early shaving Punk again before Serena made the save. Good way to close out the show and give is a great build to Extreme Rules.

JTG vs. MIKE KNOX: Before we get started, a very important message. Hats off, people.

The WWE will never be the same. Anyway, Shad was out on commentary, and he actually did a pretty good job at the booth. He didn’t go overboard, and while I think Shad looked a little goofy in a suit it certainly made the difference between the two obvious. This was largely a squash of Knox, and it just seemed…lacking somehow. Knox and JTG didn’t seem to click well, and the match was too short to be worth much of anything anyway. Basically, this was just to say “Hey, JTG can beat a big guy” after all that losing he did to Show. The match was over quickly and Shad came in to whip his partner. Not great stuff, but it did what it needed to.

MICHELLE McCOOL & LAYLA vs. BETH PHOENIX & MICKIE JAMES: We learned that Beth and Michelle would be meeting at Extreme Rules in an “Extreme Makeover match.” Well, depending on which edition, this could go either way. Michelle has more surgery so she would win regular, but Beth can probably put up houses quicker so she’ll win Home Edition. If you think I’m joking…well, this could very easily be the kind of match it is, so be afraid. The in-ring work of this match wasn’t there. They had some goofiness early on with Michelle hopping over an airplane-spun Layla and that looked a little silly; this wasn’t a great match by either of them and Layla and Mickie just didn’t get into it either. The finish here saw Layla beat Mickie with the “Lay-Out,” a neck breaker. Thanks for the memories, Mickie. Afterward the heels beat on Beth and put her through an ironing board. Not the best work by anyone here…though is it just me, or has Vickie lost weight? Just sayin’.

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

From Dr. MagicPants:
I seriously can’t understand how going 15 minutes and being very competitve against The Undertaker OMGBERRIES!!11 Swagger. Swagger looked like a million bucks and honestly he has no business beating Taker at this point. If 6 months down the line he’s beaten Orton and other main eventers like Jericho, Edge, and/or Batista, then he can legit beat the Deadman. Until then Swagger has no business doing what HBK couldn’t less than a month ago.

From GIMH:
Thanks god to see there are some sensible people about who realise that any wrestler ever losing to Taker is not a burial. If you think Swagger losing to Taker buries him or devalues the belt, you’re a retard. And if you think his age matters, you’re a retard. it’s this simple, end of discussion.

MPMoore’s opinion pretty much matches mine. I don’t think they should have had that match at all. Now, I realize that they were spread thin on what they could do with the travel problem, but they could have booked some other match. Being that they didn’t, the right person went over.

From Guest#5946:
Anyone defending UT burying The Champ may want to remember that Taker is in mid to late 40s and can barely walk

He shouldn’t be wrestling anymore, or he should actually put SOMEONE over. JUST ONCE

If you think Taker can’t work a match anymore, you clearly didn’t see ‘Mania. As for putting people over, “just once,” I have a few words for you. Mr. Kennedy. Edge. Jeff Hardy. Brock Lesnar. If you don’t think Taker puts people over, then think again, dude.

From That guy:
I can’t be the only wrestling fan that thought Macgruber was funny and Truth getting blown up was one of the funniest things this year. I thought he was one of the best hosts until that Khaluber stuff.

If you thought it was funny, then good for you. I give them credit for giving it their all, but I never liked the character so I didn’t laugh.

From Spaz Monkey:
One more “Ridiculous” for Raw —

THREE GODDAMN MINUTES OF WRESTLING IN THE FIRST HOUR

Well yeah, that too. But again, they get a slight bit of leeway because the roster was stretched kind of thin due to the ash cloud. Just the way things go.

From Guest#6418:
Way overrated on raw. it was just plain boring and for the most part painful to watch

I’d need a little more justification than that for you to convince me I was overrated. Evidence and examples to back up your argument and such. Otherwise, you’re just tossing out random words.

From mp:
OH COME ON! Jeremy!

You gave the Jerry Springer shit positive thoughts but you gave something that WAS shit (but not as shitty) a Right?

Okay, you lost me here. You sound incredulous because a) I gave positive comments to something bad, and then b) gave positive comments to something bad. Sorry mp, I just don’t get what you’re saying here.

From Fro:
Kozlov turned back heel when ECW ended, and he was moved to RAW. He was one of the ‘hired goons’ by Vince McMahon that fought Cena before Vince picked up the win.

Don’t reply with ‘to each their own’. Just learn to laugh a little bit more than be ‘Mr Serious-wrestling is all business on Mondays’!

To each their own. (Kidding!) Seriously though, it’s not about “getting a sense of humor.” I have one, and I’ve talked about how I’ve thought various things are funny. The problem, Fro, is that I don’t have the same sense of humor as you do. I don’t find humor about peeing one’s pants funny; not that there’s anything wrong with doing so, it’s just not my thing. You gotta realize that humor is extremely subjective, and sometimes you just won’t find stuff funny that I do, or vice versa. It’s all good though, and thanks for the reminder about Koz being Vince’s stooge. I’d forgotten that.

From The Great Capt. Smooth
Khali should do a line of “sex” products. And the name of it would be…Khaloober.

You have broken my brain by mention of Khali and sex products in the same sentence. I’ll be sending my therapy bills your way.

Until Friday, keep on kickin’ it!

~466~