Wrestling’s 4R’s Monday Edition 12.20.10: ROH, Superstars, Impact & SmackDown Reviewed!

In HD where available…

By: Aaron Hubbard

ROH on HDNet 12.13.10:

QUICK RESULTS:
Daizee Haze def. Taelor Hendrix [**]
Kevin Steen def. Kory Chavis [**1/4]
Roderick Strong def. Austin Aries [****]

STRONG vs. ARIES: In 2009, I came to expect great main events from ROH on HDNet. That trend has largely been bucked this year. Well there have still been strong outings, I just don’t really expect a **** match every week. This, however, was excellent. I believe this was Aries final appearance for Ring of Honor for 2010, and he was all business, easily transitioning into the babyface role without completely overdoing it. Aries was Aries. Strong was Strong. And that’s all you really need. This was excellent wrestling and I’m glad it was on the show. Hopefully ROH can maintain this level of in-ring product in 2011.

P.S.: Congratulations to Roderick Strong on retaining your ROH World Championship.

STEEN CONTINUES TO SLIP: While Kevin Steen vs. Kory Chavis was a competent if uneventful match, Kevin Steen continues to be the most incredible actor in the promotion. It is clear by his facial expressions and his constant staring at El Generico’s match that he had lost all sense of purpose other than exposing the face of El Generico and ending his career. It was a sick level of obsession that really put over how psychotic he would be heading into Final Battle, and a nice counterpoint to El Generico’s match the week before. By all accounts, Steen vs. Generico more than lived up to the rest of the feud, so good job on all involved. This is unfortunately, probably the last we will see of Kevin Steen on television for several months.

HAZE SQUASH: Michael Ornelas proved that he and I can disagree very much on the quality of a match and the effectiveness of a segment when he rated this match a DUD. This was used as a vehicle to get Daizee Haze some momentum heading into her big tag-team match at Final Battle. She had a solid match with Miss Hendrix, not totally burying her clearly showing she was the better woman. Perfectly acceptable television.

NOTHING OF NOTE.

DAVEY-STRONG FACE-OFF: No, I did like this segment very much at all. First off, Richards, Strong and Truth are all middling in their promo delivery, so unless they have exceptional material to work with I don’t particular care for to listen to them talk. They didn’t really have much to work with here; they both insulted each other and said they were going to win. However, I did have an issue with Roderick using Richards’ dead grandfather to get inside his head. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed in pro wrestling, and in my opinion, dead family is one of those lines. Ergo, this segment goes in the wrong for me. It would have been better to simply do a pure sports build like they did for Black vs. Richards.

NOTHING OF NOTE.

By: Jeremy Thomas

iMpact! 12.16.10:

QUICK RESULTS:
Jay Lethal def. Robbie E. [** ¼]
Orlando Jordan & Eric Young def. Generation Me [½*]
Madison Rayne & Tara def. Mickie James & Miss Tessmacher [*]
Brother Ray def. Amazing Red [* ¼]
Rob Van Dam def. Rob Terry [* ¾]
Jeff Hardy & Kazarian def. Matt Morgan & Mr. Anderson [** ¼]

THE HONEYMOON’s OVER: Impact kicked off with a video package promoting Morgan vs. Anderson that was very well-done. Hype videos and production values have never been TNA’s strongest points, so I will give them credit for a really solid sell video of the events taking us where they have thus far. We then cut to Anderson earlier in the day getting pissed over being in a match with Morgan against Jeff Hardy and Kaz. Morgan got in his face about it and we got tension between the two that was carried off well. Normally I would be among the first to jump in line and bitch about the face vs. face and “wacky tag partners don’t get along” stuff, but damn if they haven’t done a decent-to-good job of portraying this one. And Matt’s in-ring promo that immediately followed explained Morgan’s justifications pretty well. It’s a risky thing to have Morgan be okay with the idea of Anderson wrestling before he knows the man is cleared, but I felt that Morgan explained himself well in the promo and his interplay with Anderson was solid. I enjoy the chemistry between Morgan and Anderson; they work well as allies and antagonists.

I will admit that once Jeff came out, I was worried. Let’s put all the legal concerns, drug abuse questions and all that aside. I’m not here to talk about the behind-the-scenes stuff—there are many other columns on-site that do that. Even with all of those concerns out of the way, Jeff is someone who’s great in the ring but his mic work has always been spotty. Has it gotten better since his main event push in WWE began all the way through now? Undoubtedly, but I would never consider him a great talker. However, the interplay between the faces and him was enjoyable, and I have to admit I marked when Morgan said Hot Topic was looking for their belt. This wasn’t as good as the stuff without Jeff—I thought that he was very half-assed in trying to play the admittedly-weak “Morgan is working Anderson” angle and something about him calling the fans “marks” just seemed stupid—but as a whole this was a good, solid opening segment that set up the show well.

AJ GETS SOME PAYBACK: So this started out benignly enough. AJ got called out once again by Eric Bischoff backstage for losing the Television Title to Doug Williams and basically “bitch out”-motivated him, asking him when they were going to see the pound-for-pound best in the world. It concluded with Bischoff complimenting Jay Lethal’s Ric Flair impression, and somehow made sense. Then we had a brief Magnus appearance to foreshadow the return of London Brawling before AJ showed up and beat the living tar out of Morgan. Now, this did go on too long and the appearance of Tara and Madison was silly and unnecessary…all it did was give us some annoying shrieking during the attack. However, I appreciate that they’re trying to do something to build AJ back up, and this is building toward something else so I’m fine with it. Douglas got his win and there’s nothing wrong with AJ getting some heat back. I’m interested to see where this goes with this and that’s all I ask.

BROTHER RAY vs. AMAZING RED: So tonight was the chance for them to push the bullying thing some more, and I’m okay with that. But really, this was a chance for Ray to get a squash win to build his credibility as a singles guy. They did choose the right guy to be the squashee, as Red sold for Ray like a champ and they had the crowd chanting for Devon throughout the match. Was this great? Not from an in-ring perspective really, but it was a perfectly fine squash match and we can’t hold that kind of match to the same standards of more even-handed ones.

JEFF HARDY & KAZARIAN vs. MATT MORGAN & MR. ANDERSON: This was our main event of the evening, and I will admit that I was curious to see how this would play out. We had some good, solid action between these guys, though I think they pushed the head trauma a bit too much. When Kaz fell and accidentally headbutted Anderson it seemed overly contrived. However, I understand what they were trying to do and it wasn’t so egregious that it killed the match in any way. This was shorter than I probably would have liked, but it worked just fine and Terry’s interference was a turn that actually made sense instead of the “SWURVE TURN LOL” that TNA often does. Not bad, really. Not bad at all.

JAY LETHAL vs. ROBBIE E.: So does this mean that the Robbie experiment is dead in the water? I am in no way a fan of the Shore angle, but if you’re going to go with it you have to give Robbie and Cookie a chance, and I don’t feel that they did that with his X-Division run. A lot of goofy gimmicks have ended up getting over because the worker’s company let it run (read: Rhodes, DASHING Cody and Undertaker, The), and I would never say that the Shore couldn’t have gotten over well if they were given a chance. I will say that Cookie somehow manages to make the Snooki look vaguely attractive, and that disturbs me. Tenay spent the opening moments of the match pointing out how much help Robbie’s needed in his feud with Lethal, which in most situations would make this Robbie’s chance to earn his credibility with a legit win here. Instead, they had him lose to Jay, and I have to question hotshotting the title back to Lethal. That being said, Lethal and Robbie had a solid match in here and while I think they focused a bit too much on the Christy/Cookie stuff, the work by the guys kept this match out of the wRong. I love me some X-Division action but the booking wasn’t good enough to for this to make the Right.

ROB VAN DAM vs. ROB TERRY: So Rob Terry’s match here was an opportunity to get him on TV before the main event under the guise of being booked to take RVD out, and I’m okay with that. He was facing a guy who had every reason to be able to get a good match out of him. It seemed at the time like Terry was getting too much offense on the former World Champion to me, but it makes sense after seeing the main event why, so they get a pass from me on that. However, this was not a particularly good match. Terry just isn’t that good in the ring and Van Dam couldn’t compensate enough. Decent booking but iffy match.

ERIC, ORLANDO, HOOTERS GIRLS AND A BELT: You know I’m not a fan of this whole angle. This is the flipside of what I was talking about with the Shore…this is a storyline that is failing despite all the effort that they’re putting into it. This week, Eric had picked up some Hooters girls and found a title belt in the trash. But wait…TNA already has a Television Champion. (HOOOO!!!) Now, Eric Young has a sensei by the way, which is a stoned-acting Brian Kendrick meditating in a circle of candles. Because that’s exactly what this angle needed, more wacky crap. Yeah, I hated it. It’s not funny, it’s not doing these guys any favors and it’s not time I’m ever getting back. Let’s move on.

MADISON RAYNE & TARA vs. MISS TESSMACHER & MICKIE JAMES: So apparently Bisch is having fun screwing with Mickie, as he told her just before the match that her partner was the “rookie” Miss Tessmacher. Well, that’s just fantastic. Tara was reportedly injured at Impact last week (which was taped the day before this show) and Tessmacher can’t wrestle, resulting in a match whose quality was pretty much SOL. Tessmacher looked good, I’ll give her that but this match just wasn’t good. Tessmacher wasn’t as terrible as I expected her to be because they booked her as well as they could, but starting off with Madison and Tessmacher was a bad idea as it started the quality off low. They were basically wrestling a WWE Divas match, which is especially egregious since they showed us exactly what the Knockouts Division is capable the week before with the cage match. I was disappointed with this and have to hope it’s a brief bump in the Knockout’s road.

THE DOUBLE-M A CHALLENGE CONTINUES: I feel like I complain about this every week. Not Jeff Jarrett’s MMA run, which I’m actually enjoying more or less. But it bugs me that each week, they feel that repeating the exact same segment in more or less the same fashion in successive weeks counts as angle advancement. It isn’t; it’s angle holding pattern. I get that they want to take a couple weeks to get this over and they need to stall so Angle makes his return at Genesis, but there are other ways to go about this without basically repeating the exact same events week after week. There was absolutely nothing new that occurred here and to me, that’s a missed opportunity.

GENERATION ME vs. ERIC YOUNG & ORLANDO JORDAN: So apparently the Hooter’s Girls were there to promote a Spike TV Hooter’s show. Also, Orlando Jordan was wearing the official Hooter’s Girl outfit. Yeah, okay, whatever. Young then cut a promo about how he was a fighting champion and that he was wrestling in a battle royale—except it was a tag team match. Wait, what the fuck? Seriously, what in the name of CHRIST was this shit and why was it on my television? The wrestling was insignificant which would be fine for a comedy match, except it wasn’t funny. There are people who will take me to task for being too hard on this, but I hated it deeply and I think sacrificing a team who just had a killer match with the MCMG’s last PPV to a terrible comedy team was a dirt-poor idea. Hey, Jim Ross…what did you think about this “match”?

The expression says it all.

By: Tony Acero

Superstars 12.16.10:

QUICK RESULTS
– JTG Defeated Curt Hawkins [*]
– Zack Ryder Defeated Darren Young [**]
– Drew McIntyre Defeated Yoshi Tatsu [**1/2]

ZACK RYDER vs. DARREN YOUNG: Who taught Darren Young how to wrestle? I loved this match! It was fast paced and full of action with some very logical action going on. I particularly liked Young slapping Ryder on the back to break the pin, something hardly ever done. We all know Superstars is the place to go to see some wrestling of the lesser known talents and a match like this is exactly why this show isn’t just a throw away show. Both Young and Ryder could have just as easily went out there lacking motivation, but instead they gave me a match I enjoyed and Young impressed me, half-fro and all.

DREW McINTYRE vs. YOSHI TATSU: When Drew McIntyre first came on the scene, he really bothered me. All the hype he had and he bored me in the ring. With that being said, this match is telling of his growth. I’ve been looking for a forum to speak on Drew’s growth and finally I get to here as he is one man that has completely won me over with his slow, calculating and methodical way of pinpointing one limb and destroying it throughout the match. This match was no different as he worked Tatsu’s arm throughout. I also loved how McIntyre didn’t take Yoshi seriously at all and it was nearly his down fall as it made Yoshi look like a formidable opponent. One last little tidbit would be this Stanford guy who, until recently I have never heard. His voice alone brings some sort of legitimacy to our sport as he definitely has the NFL-commentator voice. Good match all around, from commentating to in ring psychology and the crowd being fully supportive of Tatsu, it was an enjoyable main event.

JTG vs. CURT HAWKINS: With storyline progression nearly unheard of on Superstars matches, the sections in which these matches are placed rely solely on in-ring action. JTG is off and on in my book and Curt Hawkins is more off than on. With that being said, this match did little for me as it seemed just as JTG was about to gain speed, it was stopped by a boring rest hold or move on Hawkins part. While the match as a whole was done well, it was just boring. I’ll give credit to JTG though who looks happy each time he comes out which bodes well as a character with motivation always elevates the match.

SHODDY CAMERA WORK: This is really small in the grand scheme of things but it bugged me. In the JTG/Hawkins match, there was a sequence where they were in the turnbuckle and for whatever reason the camera man tried to get a real close close-up of the wrestlers. While the first second or so of it may have been a bit different, we ended up literally being in the face of both men in the corner. This was bothersome and although it was just me, I’d rather not see that JTG may have had broccoli as a pre-match meal, thank you very much.

NOTHING:

By: Steve Cook

WWE SmackDown 12.17.10

QUICK RESULTS:
Kofi Kingston/Kaval d. Dolph Ziggler/Jack Swagger (**½)
Dashing Cody Rhodes d. Chris Masters (¼*)
The Miz d. Rey Mysterio (**½)
Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov d. Chavo Guerrero/Tyler Reks (*½)
Edge/Rey Mysterio NC Alberto Del Rio/The Miz (**)

EDGE GETS MORE PEOPLE INTO HIS TITLE MATCH: Edge’s opening interview was pretty amazing. I always thought that adding the Benny Hill theme song to any video made the video hilarious, but it didn’t help the Kane/Paul Bearer video any. Maybe it’s because it sounded like a second-rate version of the Benny Hill theme song.

Anywho, Edge cut a promo about how he did all this stuff to Kane because he’s a monster and deserved it. It’s pretty hard to argue with that logic, Kane has been a pretty big pain in the butt for most of his time with WWE. Backstage, Teddy Long was all like “OMG Kane might not show up for the PPV.” Edge was all like “OK, but I wanna wrestle somebody.,” so Alberto Del Rio & Rey Mysterio came in, spoke some Spanglish and said they wanted title shots too. I was a little more excited about all of this right after I read the spoilers and thought that Del Rio might actually win the title because that would be fresh and exciting. Once I realized that they’d probably either keep the title on Kane or give it to Edge, I calmed down a bit. Adding Rey & ADR should make the match better, so it works. They probably should have done it sooner, all those people that watch only Raw will be pretty confused when they notice that the Smackdown title match has four people in it.

KOFI KINGSTON/KAVAL vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER/JACK SWAGGER: I’m liking the Kofi/Kaval tag team. They both have styles that excite the crowd and add a lot of heat to their matches, which especially works when they face methodical heels like Ziggler & Swagger. This match had pretty good action, and I liked Swagger decking Ziggler after he lost the match. Vickie Guerrero yelling “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” eighteen times at Swagger was pretty funny.

DASHING CODY RHODES TEACHES US ABOUT BLOW DRYING: I wish I still had hair, because I would have loved this information back when I was a teenager. We can hope that the younger members of the WWE Universe are heeding Cody’s advice, so the next generation of wrestling fans will be better groomed than this one is.

THE MIZ vs. REY MYSTERIO: The highlight of Miz appearing on Smackdown is Tony Chimel’s introduction of him. The way he says “The Miz” is dare I say, awesome. Fun little match here, it drug a little bit in parts and it kind of annoyed me how Miz refused to do anything with Rey’s leg even though he was trying to sell it. Granted, Rey’s leg is probably in 15,000 pieces by this point, but it just seems kind of weird to the viewer when a wrestler doesn’t take advantage of their opponent’s weakness. The finish was kind of lame too, but it made more sense than some matches where wrestlers hit 95,000 finishers that only get a two count. Yeah, I went there.

BETH PHOENIX & NATALYA PUNK OUT LAYCOOL: This one was struggling through the talking portions, which mostly weren’t good. but I enjoyed the LayCool caricature and they did a good job of seeming rattled by the whole thing. It was a decent enough way to build their match on Sunday.

DREW McINTYRE LIKES HIM SOME KELLY KELLY: It looks like we’re going to be introduced to a different side of the Sinister Scotsman. I think this has potential to expand Drew’s character and give Kelly something to do other than wrestle, I’m going to stick this angle in Purgatory for now until we see where they’re going with it. It certainly doesn’t surprise me that Drew would go for a blonde with Kelly’s figure since he’s married to one. Actually, it’s too bad they fired Tiffany and can’t go all work/shooty with the angle. Drew cheating on Tiffany with Kelly would have made for some interesting television back when the Blondetourage was still together. The old Vince Russo would have totally booked that.

Though it should be pointed out that the acting here would have made Susan Lucci roll over in her grave if she was dead.

SANTINO MARELLA/VLADIMIR KOZLOV vs. CHAVO GUERRERO/TYLER REKS: I had no idea where to put this match so it ends up here. I’m not a fan of the “Chavo finds different people to be his partner” angle, but the matches have been pretty decent so far. One question: Why does Michael Cole mark out for Santino & Kozlov? The only possible thing that makes sense is that Cole’s character likes wrestlers that are completely ridiculous.

EDGE/REY MYSTERIO vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO/THE MIZ: The finish made sense from a booking standpoint, but you knew it was coming at some point and it made the match pretty hard to sit through when you knew it was going to be a schmozz at the end anyway. At least we know that Kane isn’t so depressed that he can’t go to SmackDown and beat people up.

DASHING CODY RHODES vs. CHRIS MASTERS: This has been a pretty odd feud. DCR not being able to break the Masterlock doesn’t really matter when their matches last a minute and the Dashing One is never in any position to lose. I’m thinking this is just something for Cody to do until they move him on to something bigger, and it is nice that Masters is getting some SD appearances, but a shame that he’s not getting to showcase his talents like he has on Superstars for most of 2010. Maybe next week?

STR8 OUTTA BROOKLYN WITH JTG: I guess it’s nice that they’re doing something with JTG. But yeah, this was a pretty bad attempt at comedy. I’ll be somewhat positive and point out that it only lasted a minute, and I can always hope that the people who put Smackdown up on YouTube can “accidentally” leave it out in the future like they usually do with the Raw Rebounds.

Until Friday, keep on kickin’ it!

…and remember to stay grounded!