Wrestling’s 4R’s 02.07.11: ROH, Superstars, Impact & SmackDown Reviewed!

In HD where available…

By: Aaron Hubbard

ROH on HDNet 01.31.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
Colt Cabana def. Mike Mondo [*1/4]
Michael Elgin & Roderick Strong def. Alex Silva & Christian Hayme [*]
Sara Del Ray def. Taelor Hendrix [1/4*]
TV TITLE MATCH: Christopher Daniels def. Eddie Edwards (C) to become the NEW TV Champion [****]

EDWARDS vs. DANIELS: As you can probably tell from the matches and the ratings, this was one match show, but it was one heck of a match. Daniels and Edwards had a very good match at Supercard of Honor V, so I was looking forward to this match. I think this match showed two things: how much Eddie has improved in the last year, and that Daniels can still go as well as anyone. The best compliment I can give this match is it made a crowd who did nothing but heckle both wrestlers at the start, and by the end, they were all into it. Edwards got to go out a fighting champion by not accepting the fifteen minute draw, and Daniels finally won a singles title in Ring of Honor. Daniels got time to really put over the significance of the win. This match also sold me on their 2/3 Falls Match at the 9th Anniversary Show; if this is any indication that could be the match to watch.

ELGIN DEBUTS: With Josh Raymond (YEAH!) hanging up the boots (BOO!), Truth Martini has been forced to get a new guy for the House of Truth. This is the first I’ve seen of Michael Elgin, and he seems like a decent power guy. Personally, I would have preferred they just bring back Erick Stevens in this role, but whatever. The debut was impressive.

TAG TEAM THOUGHTS: Next week’s main event sees The Briscoes team with Haas & Benjamin to face the Kings of Wrestling and the All-Night Express. ROH took the opportunity to have all four teams cut promos on each other, which provided lots of fun tidbits (didn’t know the Briscoes feuded with the Haas brothers) and the Kings continuing to bash the ANX and get me behind them. This was a good segment that really put over the tag division as a whole.

NOTHING OF NOTE.

CABANA vs. MONDO: Cabana’s matches have always been hit or miss for me, and Mondo is about the last guy I think of when I think of guys I’d like to see in ROH. This match was passable but boring and inconsequential. Cabana beating Mondo is good and all, but begs the question of why they brought in Mondo in the first place.

DEL RAY SQUASH: Now, normally, I don’t have anything bad to say about a Sara Del Ray squash, but her opponent got absolutely no offense in and was an awful seller. It was embarrassing. If it weren’t for the awesome finish (TAKE NOTES TEDDY HART) I’d have given this a DUD. Screw this match.

By: Jeremy Thomas

iMpact! 02.03.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
Ink Inc. def. Gunnar & Murphy [* ½]
Jeremy Buck def. Douglas Williams & Jay Lethal [** ¾]
Mickie James def. Sarita [** ¾]
Mr. Anderson def. Jeff Hardy [** ¾]

JOIN THE DARK SIDE, SCOTT: Our EXTRA-SUPER-DUPER-SPECIAL TNA Impact kicked off with a hype video, after which we had an awkward transition to Immortal being in the ring and Bischoff starting to speak. I know that production isn’t TNA’s strongest suit, but a word of advice…give the audience a wee bit of time to get a lay of the scene before you launch into the promos. Bischoff invited Big Poppa Pump down to the ring and he showed up in his pimp suit and a mild reaction from the crowd. Bisch announced that there had been “a continuance” in the legal control of TNA situation, which is about as well as they can manage considering Hogan’s health problems. Bisch then implied that he told Kevin Nash to sign with WWE. Uncle Eric finally did something smart for TNA! Anyway, the point here was Bischoff trying to tempt Steiner to the dark side, and he was okay on the mic here. Her stumbled slightly a couple of times but didn’t fare too poorly. And Steiner was of course his usual self…actually, better than his usual self. He didn’t ramble like he usually does and was generally very good on the mic here. This set up the big “THEY” situation and I thought it played well. The tease of the Main Event Mafia was subtle with the suits, but nicely done and the talkie-talkie didn’t go on for too long. That’s an all-around win for me.

THE CONTINUANCE: As we learned earlier in the show, Dixie Carter had managed to get a continuance in the Hulk Hogan/Dixie Carter court case. It must be awkward for Jeff Hardy that his drug case lawyer is now working for Dixie. (Oh come on…the joke was RIGHT THERE!) Anyway, Hemme acted appropriately reporter-like as she reported exactly what we already knew, with the single addition that the continuance was until March 3rd. Now, I said earlier that TNA did the best with what they had, and that’s true. I do think there are better ways to go about this, but I give TNA credit for sticking with the course instead of just ditching the storyline or swerving it into something else. They haven’t made this a big focus yet and delaying it a month allows them to really focus on it more so people care. I’m not saying they need to write it into every storyline, but we need more than a tiny reminder each week in order to care about it. I give them the benefit of the doubt because I hope they will do the right thing going forward, even while I fear they won’t.

JAY LETHAL vs. JEREMY BUCK vs. DOUGLAS WILLIAMS: This was the second three-way to determine the #1 contenders for the X-Division belt. As with the last week’s match, I was very hopeful here. This one wasn’t as good as last week’s; the opening was a bit sloppy in terms of the high spots, though that picked up well after the first minute or so. This was an entertaining spotfest without a doubt, and it worked out well as a whole. I think it suffered a bit in terms of time allotted, but not to the point that it made them rush or get sloppy and it worked out just fine. I like that they’re pushing GenMe and while I didn’t love this as much as last week’s it was still a lot of fun. And Max was pretty damned solid at the booth to boot.

MICKIE JAMES vs. SARITA: In another match that was set to prove that the Knockouts aren’t just TNA Divas, we had this Taped Fist match between Sarita and Mickie. The Knockout gimmick matches are usually pretty good and they had a couple good choices here to make this match as good as it could be. It also built into the loaded glove of Madison Rayne’s nicely. Unsurprisingly, this was a good match and they had a lot of good spots in here. The match was technically strong and didn’t have a lot of sloppiness to it, and the psychology in the match was very solid to boot. This is the kind of direction I like to see the Knockouts going; providing an alternative to the Divas. Not only that, but Sarita got a ton of offense and held her own before going down, which meant that the cred she’s been slowly building didn’t get hurt. Win-win as far as I’m concerned.

MR. ANDERSON vs. JEFF HARDY: Throughout the show, we got quick vignettes of the new THEY plotting while Immortal freaked out but tried to keep the course. These were generally good as they set up what was coming without being too obvious about it. We also had AJ come off with a great line about how Fourtune wasn’t taking a back seat to anyone anymore. Nice little hint as to what was coming. Anderson invited Hardy down to the ring in the middle of the show so that they could have a one-on-one chat, and that went pretty well. Anderson got his crowd-pleasing Austin-esque lines off nicely and sold the promo well with the “two kids with a dream” theme. Jeff’s promo was better than he usually is; it wasn’t great work, but he stayed on target, only yelled at the crowd once or twice and the crowd stayed into this. It set up that Immortal wouldn’t be at ringside, and built for the main event well. Good stuff to set up the match and angle.

Then we got the match itself, which began with a good, solid out-of-ring brawl that really sold the emotion between these two well. I didn’t think the match was great, but it was decent and accomplished what it needed to. Jeff and Anderson continued to show that they’re well-matched with each other and click well in the ring, They had a decent back-and-forth that got a lot of time and kept the crowd hot. Jeff’s high-flying offense was good and Anderson came back pretty solidly with his technical brawling skills. The ref bump was obvious and a bit overly telegraphed, but I’ll forgive that.

Then we had the big reveal of THEY. People will have their own opinions about this, and that’s fine; I thought it played very well. They built to it throughout the show and the crowd erupted when Fourtune turned on Immortal. AJ’s face turn and Styles Clash on Jeff was a great moment and they actually captured it well on camera. Anderson retains, the big reveal has been done and the promo from AJ was very nice in terms of delivery and giving justification for the turn. TNA is famous for their nonsensical turns and swerves, but this really made sense and I enjoyed how it played out. It’s a damn sight better than the Main Event Mafia and it now means that we have young guys taking on young guys in their biggest angle. It could easily get screwed up but this was fantastic and I loved the finish.

INK INC. vs. GUNNAR & MURPHY: We found out during entrances that Christy Hemme would be reporting from a courthouse with an update on the legal situation later. She’d be better as a naked weather girl. I’m just saying. Anyway, this was a quick match to give Ink Inc. some credibility and warm up the crowd, and it did that just fine. Gunnar and Murphy started off in control, and while they were they looked technically solid but they didn’t stand out. They have a very generic look and are pretty much being used to the best they can be. The match picked up when Shannon Moore took over and the win certainly helped Double-I because they beat a team that was physically oversized compared to them. On the flip side, I think this match was too short considering the fact that they let Gunnar and Murphy control the first portion; three minute matches are fine for squashes, but this wasn’t a squash and as a result it ended up seeming rushed. I didn’t actively dislike it but it was beyond unmemorable.

BULLY RAY & THE POPE vs. DEVON & SAMOA JOE: We had a pre-match promo with Pope and Bully where Bully went off more about how he was Team 3D and Devon was the co-star, and Pope is his new brother and partner. The crowd was into this and got off a nice “WE WANT DEVON” chant. Pope’s portion promo was…well, not great, but it let us know that Pope and Joe were fighting at Against All Odds. Nice to see that this feud may get a blow-off. Apparently Pope is going to expose Joe as a Sloppy Joe. Uh, right. As far as a match, this really wasn’t much of one. Ray beat the crap out of Devon but found himself stopped by a flurry of offense while Joe and Sakada chased Pope off. This wasn’t a match at all and I won’t rate it as one; this was a solid opportunity to heighten the Devon/Ray heat, but otherwise there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to this and it was just kind of “there.”

Nada. However…

THE JEFF JARRETT EDITION OF CRIBS: This was stupid and tacky. There’s no other way to say it. The point here was to show off how much of a bitch Karen is and how much of a dick Jeff is, and it did that. It’s semi-sort of original, if you pretend that it wasn’t a rip-off of Cribs. But this takes worked shoot to a new level. I know people are going to bitch that I’m taking this shit too seriously, but the fact remains that Kurt and Karen’s kids are not actors. That was blatantly clear here. But that being the case, they’re too young to get drawn into Mommy and Daddy’s storyline that mirrors their real life. I know people will say that WWE did it with Rey Rey, Dominic and Eddie, but this is a very different situation. No one ever thought that Dominic was actually Eddie’s kid, so this didn’t mirror real life. In this case, how the hell do you convince your little kids that Mommy and Daddy and New Daddy may not like each other anymore, but they don’t hate each other in the exact way the cameras are recording so just play along. Yeah, these fucking kids are going to be in therapy. What the hell, dude? Besides, I think that making the kids dance to Jarrett’s music is child abuse. This was retarded as hell and it’s going to lead to a vow renewal in March. Yeah, that’ll go well.

By: Tony Acero
Superstars 2.3.11:
QUICK RESULTS
DH Smith & Yoshi Tatsu Defeated Zack and Primo [*]
Melina Defeated Tamina [***]
Curt Hawkins & Tyler Reks Defeated JTG & Trent Barreta [**]

CURT HAWKINS & TYLER REKS vs. JTG & TRENT BARRETA: This Main Event matchup of high flying vs. high power barely made it into the right. I say this because I still don’t care about Hawkins or Reks. But based on the wrestling alone, I’ll place it here. JTG sold a majority of the match and did a good enough job, both Hawkins and Reks looked extremely powerful and stiff with their moves which helped and Hawkins had a nice looking bodyslam, a pretty looking hangman facebuster AND a beautiful elbow drop. MVP of the match, definitely…and I don’t even care for the guy’s in-ring ability. Belt buckles, black painted nails and dreadlocks does not a monster make, but it appears they’re not giving up on Reks considering the after-match antics of him. Nonetheless, this was done Right…but only barely.

ZACK RYDER AND PRIMO vs. DAVID HART SMITH AND YOSHI TATSU: I wanted to put this match in the Right as last week they had a great match full of action, but this one had a lot of little issues I didn’t like. For one, the beginning of the match had all four members trade the head scissors/headlock combination which got repetitive. The winning pin also wasn’t done correctly with Yoshi cradling Ryder’s shoulder, therefore placing the pin as incomplete, but that’s minor. I also have to question the decision of having Ryder and Primo lose. I know it’s only Superstars but they had a nice thing going and could have ridden the “Winning Streak” ego boost for some time. With the exception of aforementioned, the match had four men that know what they’re doing and if it weren’t for these small things it would have been in the Right, most definitely.

MELINA vs. TAMINA: In terms of women’s wrestling, this didn’t bother me too much. Tamina got to show off some power moves that looked effective. I love me some Heel Melina so maybe I’m biased, but I didn’t see anything too offensive in terms of bad wrestling. I do want to point out that Tamina working the left arm of Melina for all of 30 seconds of the match did nothing for the match and Melina’s Dragon Sleeper variation was extremely contrived. With that being said, I can’t put it in the Right so it gets placed here. Damn, I love that finishing move.

NOTHING

NOTHING

By: Steve Cook

WWE SmackDown 02.0411

QUICK RESULTS:
Heath Slater/Justin Gabriel d. Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov (*½)
Drew McIntyre d. Kofi Kingston (**½)
Rey Mysterio d. Jack Swagger (**½)
Kane d. Chavo Guerrero (SQUASH)
Wade Barrett d. Big Show (*)
Edge/Kelly Kelly d. Dolph Ziggler/Lay Cool (**)

BOOKER T, SUCKA: Any show that starts off with a Spinarooni is a good one from where I sit. I don’t agree with the decision that Matt Striker needed to be removed instead of one of the others, but I did like the dynamic of Josh Mathews constantly asking Booker questions and ignoring Michael Cole. If you were sitting between Booker & Cole, whose opinion would you be more interested in? If I wanted Cole’s opinion on anything I’d just ask Vince McMahon for it. It seems like Booker’s not quite up on the storylines yet and is going to need a little time to get that down, but I see a lot of potential there…assuming he doesn’t go nuts like other people have. I also approve of Booker as a Tough Enough coach.

ADR HELPS DREW MAC BEAT KOFI: I was a little worried about what would become of the Chosen One now that the object of his affection insisted on involving herself in the World Title picture. Turns out that Drew’s going to be involved in it too, at least in the Elimination Chamber. He was also mentioned in a backstage segment with Edge & Kelly where Edge proved that he doesn’t watch his own TV show. He probably stopped during that never-ending Paul Bearer angle. Kofi & Drew have had better matches than this one, but it did have one of my favorite endings to a match ever, with Kofi getting distracted by Alberto Del Rio winking on the TitanTron. I said in last week’s Corner that it’s kind of sad when you lose a match when you’re distracted by somebody in a luxury box…but I’ll give Kofi a little more credit here because I think anybody would be distracted by a TitanTron-size view of Alberto winking at them. Except Booker T., who would wink back. Big win for Drew here, and Kofi’s got a little business to attend to between now and WrestleMania.

REY MYSTERIO vs. JACK SWAGGER: It’d been a little while since these two hooked up, but they can still put on a good show. One has to wonder if Swagger spilling Booker’s Red Bull will infuriate Booker the way CM Punk was when John Cena spilled his diet soda. Is Red Bull an advertiser for this show? We also got an update on Cody Rhodes, who will be having reconstructive surgery this week. We here at the Rs wish Cody a speedy recovery, even if nobody on Smackdown will call him to see how he’s doing.

ALBERTO DEL RIO’S FIESTA: You have to wonder how dumb Hornswoggle & Rosa Mendes are…did they really think it was a good idea to head down to the ring and give out t-shirts when the ring was set up for the Del Rio Fiesta? Anyway, this was a pretty entertaining piece of business, with Del Rio acting like a glorious asshole and managing to make himself even less likeable to the masses by attacking the midget with a heart of gold with a boot to the head. Of course, that just made people like me like him even more. Kofi Kingston came down to save the day, but also ended up getting a beating from Alberto and a Mexicano kendo stick. I think wrestling needs more piñatas.

EDGE/KELLY KELLY vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER/LAYCOOL: It was a different way to present a World Title match, and I thought the women did a good job in carrying the lion’s share of the match and making it come off as TV main event quality. It’s not something I’d like to see every week, but it was a decent way of making it seem like Edge’s hold on the World title was in jeopardy. Vickie Guerrero’s new goal in life is to get that title off of Edge, and she will keep booking matches with Edge & Dolph Ziggler until that happens. At least there’s a reason and a variety to Smackdown’s rematches now, as in the past they had a lot of the same matches every week for no apparent reason.

SLATER & GABRIEL vs. SANTINLOV: This wasn’t much of a match, but I can’t put it in the Wrong or Ridiculous section because Gabriel’s 450 on an out-of-position Kozlov was good stuff. I also like Slater incorporating the reverse DDT into his moveset, obviously in preparation for his upcoming feud with Sting. Hopefully one of these guys doesn’t meet the same fate that Husky Harris did after a loss to the Tag Team Champions.

KANE vs. CHAVO GUERRERO: If you’ve seen one Kane/Chavo match you’ve seen them all. Kane hasn’t had much of anything to do since losing the World title, so at least this gives him something to keep himself busy for a little while.

WADE BARRETT vs. BIG SHOW: I don’t think the Corre is struggling to catch on as much as the esteemed Nick Bazar thinks they are, but feuding with Big Show isn’t really doing Wade any favors. These short matches with Show beating Wade up for a couple minutes and finally getting taken down by three guys don’t really make him look like a threat to anybody’s championship, not even the one that Eric Young’s been wearing for no reason on Impact.

OMG VICKIE GOES THROUGH KELLY’S THINGS: So we got an explanation for why Kelly Kelly attacked Vickie Guerrero at the Royal Rumble. Turns out that Kelly is mad at Vickie because Vickie has been trying to destroy her character by going through her stuff backstage and meddling in her personal life. Yes, like that one time when we saw…um…well, I guess they needed to come up with something. I’ve read lots of people saying that Kelly showed a lot of fire in her wrestling and her speaking parts this week, but I didn’t really see anything that out of the ordinary with her performance. Her in-ring stuff has been pretty good by Diva standards for awhile now, so her good performance in the main event was expected, at least by me. She called Vickie a witch and almost cried at the end of the show, managing to show a little bit of emotion. It wasn’t bad, but I can only assume that the reason she’s getting a lot of credit from folks is because their expectations for her are so low.

Until Friday, keep on kickin’ it!

…and remember to stay grounded!

~548~