Wrestling’s 4R’s 07.04.11: Superstars, Impact and Smackdown Reviewed!

In HD where available…

By: Jeremy Thomas

iMpact! 06.30.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
Devon def. Samoa Joe [** ¼]
Low Ki Def Matt Bentley & Jimmy Yang [***]
Mickie James, Miss Tessmacher & Tara def. Madison Rayne, Angelina Love & Madison Rayne [* ¾]
Gunner def. AJ Styles [**]
Sting def. Scott Steiner [* ¼]

CRAZY STING IN HD/AN OFFER KEN CAN’T REFUSE: Impact Wrestling started off with Hulk Hogan welcoming Scott Steiner as a member of Immortal. Well, that felt like an afterthought from hell. He then saw a flat-screen with Sting giggling and ranting at him. His back was to the camera, and when he turned around…well.

Heath Ledger, eat your heart out. He’s clownier than I think they’re hoping for, and yes it’s a blatant rip-off, but hey…it’s nothing they haven’t done before that worked well, right? Hogan got on the mike out in the ring and ranted about how Sting had become a coward in a vaguely nonsensical promo. Nothing wrong with that, he’s supposed to be getting his head played with so it works. He then called out Anderson and told him they needed each other and thus he should join Immortal. Hogan’s promo was sort of without specifics and just consisted of vague threats, but it gave Anderson a lot to play off of and he took the openings he had, running strongly with them. This ended with Anderson playing as a face, but we would later find out what that ran into. The whole thing was cut off with Joker Sting beating up Immortal backstage and then coming down to the ring for a Hogan assault and a little brush-off of Kenny. Okay, so I gotta admit, the Sting thing is starting to grow on me. By inches at a time, but it’s starting to work and that’s because of the Stinger’s delivery. It’s odd, it’s jarring, it’s a little surreal but you know what? It’s working. The little bit with Sting and Hogan in the corner was oddly compelling in some weird way. God help me, they’re making it work somehow. Add in the sheer hilarity of Bully Ray saying that he hates bullies and I was at least amused.

DEVON vs. SAMOA JOE: This was a Bound for Glory series match, where both Devon and Joe were pointless. I wanna pause just a moment by referencing the recap of the Bound for Glory wins over the weekend; this is a pretty slick move. People have already discussed how this builds some anticipation for house shows since they matter in some respect, but it also gives them an excuse to show house show clips on Impact, which will further drive people to go and see them. Smart stuff.

Now, onto the match. I’m a Dudleys fan, but I have to question the inclusion of Devon in the BfG Series. No one really buys him as a contender, but yet he’s competing and even beating Joe cleanly. That’s…a little odd and hurts Joe more than it helps Devon to boot. But I’m getting ahead of myself; the weird booking choice aside, match itself was actually about as good as I was expecting it to be. Devon was more motivated than we’ve seen him as of late, Joe looked good as ever. I liked him pausing in the pinfall attempt and going for the submission; it portrays Joe as someone who’s cognizant of the rules of the game since a submission gets you more points. The finish really did hurt this but otherwise this was pretty good, and the eight minutes of wrestling certainly as opposed to two and a half certainly helped. Plus, the loss gave Joe a reason to argue with Kaz to build toward their Bound for Glory match, so there’s that too.

CONTRACT SIGNING: J-Bor was out to officiate this contract signing for what was called the main event of Destination X between Daniels and AJ. Predictably the pop for AJ was strong. We had a really quick contract signing before Daniels and AJ talked about the match potentially becoming personal, but how they wanted it to be about the X-Division. Oh hell, why do I see this turning into a Daniels swerve? They’re broadcasting it.

As soon as the hug was underway, out came Jerry Lynn who semi-tore into them but in a positive way about the PPV being about the X-Division, not who built it. That of course brought out RVD who took credit for building the X-Division before there was an X-Division. Lynn’s never been a great promo, but he wasn’t bad here and RVD wasn’t too bad either. This led into a four-way match between them being set up for next week. Well, guess what I’m looking forward to? This was here just to set up the RVD/Lynn match at the PPV and the big match next week, and it did that fine.

And no, I’m not going to complain about them giving away any kind of match on free TV, relax.

WINTER, ANGELINA LOVE & MADISON RAYNE vs. MISS TESSMACHER, TARA & MICKIE JAMES: Let me just start by saying that I loved the little interaction between Madison and Angelina in the beginning where Madison was clearly not on her side, to the point that she was hanging out in another corner. Nice little play to continuity with the ex-Beautiful People hatred; and pretty damn dumb of the commenters not to remind us of it and instead be all “I ‘unno.” There was only one really bad wrestler in this match and she was eliminated first, allowing the more talented Knockouts to work the majority of the match. Six-person tag matches are often problematic due to the fact that you have to cut short the wrestling due to time constraints. What they did here was as smart as they could do it, leaving it down to Mickie and the Dark Lesbionic Twosome. They had a slow and methodical beatdown of Mickie at that point and it played out very well; Winter’s manic crazed smile is a thing of beauty if you ask me. I have to question them having Mickie be so dominating, but it was a way for her to get her heat back after getting topped by Winter last week so it’s mostly forgivable. This was by no means a great match and I won’t give it a Right, but it was as good as it could have been.

AJ STYLES vs. GUNNER: Those who have followed me know that I’m a fan of Gunner and I think his push has done him a hell of a lot of good. That continued this week as he went one-to-one with AJ in a Bound for Glory series match. He had a decent, intense promo at the beginning against AJ, and the match came later.

Of course, the match didn’t kick off traditionally; Gunner came out to ambush AJ at the end of the contract signing which led into the match. This wasn’t as good as I was hoping, to be honest. The match had some intensity but I expected more than they gave and the in-ring work wasn’t as good as we expect from AJ. This wasn’t bad at any stretch and I love seeing Gunner’s push continue; he guy has a rocket strapped right onto him and it’s great to see. But nonetheless this was a bit of a disappointment as a match and I didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it either.

SO WHO GETS THE “USA” CHANT?: Toward the end of the show, Mexican America came out to bitch about…something or another. I’m sorry, I can’t stand Anarquia and it’s very difficult for me to give a rat’s ass about what’s on the screen when he tries to talk. Our own Larry Csonka mentioned that he should just be cut and replaced with Chavo when Chavo’s ninety day no-compete is up and I support that. He’s not a good promo, his look isn’t unique and he’s not good in the ring. Sorry, harsh but true.

But this wasn’t just about MA; it was about the Invasion too. I like the Invasion’s tweener sort of style here. They’ve sort of got the “We don’t care, cheer or boo us” attitude. Sure, the promo is pure babyface but they’re working the angle nicely and I do like Magnus and Douglas as a team. I’m interested to see this match between them, even if I have a feeling it’ll be MA winning instead of BI. I liked the Invasion’s work and I didn’t like MA’s; Las Chicas Calientes were a plus but Rob Terry making an appearance was a minus. That makes this a wash.

THE JARRETT’s MEXICAN VACATION: Karen Jarrett is back on my screen. That’s a wRong.

SCOTT STEINER vs. STING: This was set up in the beginning of the show and I didn’t have a whole lot of hope for it to be honest. Sting can do fine in the right matches, but Steiner isn’t that good in the ring anymore and he’s not the guy to help Sting have a great match. He is the right guy to be a sacrificial lamb, but he’s not the guy to make a main event match. And not surprisingly, we didn’t get a main event quality match. For one thing, it was way too short; I believe this was actually the shortest of the matches this week. Steiner ran through his offense in the opening moments before Joker Sting stopped him cold with a boot and other than a sloppy inverted Russian lesgweep and a T-Bone, this was all Sting. It was a very lackluster match and while it gave Sting the win over a name, it just didn’t do its job. And Steiner and Bully beating up Sting after the fact meant that no one really ended up the better at the end. Just a weak finish to an otherwise decent show.

VELVET WAS A BULLYING VICTIM?: Okay, this is a bit of a twist of fate. (Sorry Jeff, Matt.) What the hell? Since when was the biggest former bully in the Knockouts division a bullying victim herself? Yes, I get that a lot of bullies were bullied themselves, but this didn’t feel like smart character history (real or kayfabe), it felt like a retcon in the way that the bookers how we forget how she used to be. It’s like when two people who used to be worst enemies are suddenly friends because one of them turned. It makes no sense and I’m never on board with that; this felt the same way.

By: Tony Acero

Superstars 6.30.11:

QUICK RESULTS
Beth Phoenix Defeated Gail Kim [**]
Chris Masters Defeated JTG [**]
Alicia Fox Defeated Kaitlyn [1/2*]
The Usos and Trent Barreta Defeated Tyson Kidd, Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel [***1/2]

GAIL KIM VS BETH PHOENIX: I kind of expected this match to be one of the better Diva matches and it met those expectations. Both Gail and Beth know what they are doing and although there was a smaaaall bit of mishaps, the match was nice. They had some nice reversals and turn arounds and Stamford sold it well that this was their first encounter. It didn’t make the match any more special, but the effort was there. A nice opening match for the show, most definitely.

MAIN EVENT GOODNESS: The match had its ups and downs, but mostly ups. There were small pockets of silence from the crowd which kind of killed the match and my disdain for Slater was in full effect as he did nothing of note…again. Ok, I take that back…he had a nice ass Powerslam from the top rope that looked pretty fuckin’ sweet. I’ll give him that. The Usos are doing a good job with this seemingly second go ahead of their careers. I saw the excitement when they first came but it did not last long as they seemed tamed by the higher ups. On Superstars they are bringing in both their heritage and good wrestling. Tyson Kidd is Tyson Kidd and although I liked his match on NXT against Yoshi more than this match, he was his usual great self. Gabriel is another good wrestler, although he didn’t do much in this match. The fact is that there were 6 men here, 5 of which I feel can actually wrestle and they all did. And let’s not forget that bad-ass superplex onto the guys outside! Yeah, I said it A SUPERPLEX ON KIDD FROM BARETTA ONTO THE USOS, SLATER AND GABRIEL ON THE OUTSIDE!! THIS is why I enjoy doing the R’s for Superstars and THIS is why you guys should try and catch the show when you can.

KAITLYN vs. ALICIA: The match was kind of short, a bit too short to make much of it. I will give credit to Alicia for working the arm and even a bit more to Kaitlyn for selling it. They both had some hard hitting moves and even though it was short, Kaitlyn showed that she knows more moves than slapping and kicking. The ending of the match was kinda crappy as Alicia messed up her axe kick. It appears that both girls need a bit more work. That may be ok with Kaitlyn…but Alicia, step it up!

JTG AS A HEEL: “It feels so good, I should write y’all a check.” That’s insulting? Man, JTG needs a change and he needs it fast. He does not work as a heel at all. I’ll make a quick note of what the great Marc Elusive said in his Superstars report “I like the fact that the WWE is allowing a lot of the midcarders and even lower carders to develop personalities, because if everyone in the company is a generic character, why would we watch.” I agree with him completely, but at the same time, I have to be interested in the personality whether it be me liking or disliking the character….as for JTG, I just don’t care.
As for the match, it was an average match and if it wasn’t for JTG’s character just making me not care, the match itself would be in puRgatoRy.

NOTHING

By: Steve Cook

WWE SmackDown 07.01.11

QUICK RESULTS:
Randy Orton d. Mark Henry via countout (*½)
Daniel Bryan d. Ted DiBiase (***½)
Christian d. Sin Cara (***)
Cody Rhodes d. Ezekiel Jackson (**)
Kane d. Wade Barrett (**½)

MARK HENRY GOING INSANE: Mizark was given the chance to become #1 contender by defeating Randy Orton in the opening match of SmackDown. The match was just kinda there…a four minute affair not long enough to mean much, but the finish was very interesting. Henry & Orton were on the outside when all of a sudden, Big Show’s music started playing. Henry turned his attention to the entrance area where he expected Show to emerge from, but instead, Show never came out and Orton RKO’d him on the floor to ensure a countout victory. Henry was not happy and decided to take out his anger on the audio technician, destroying the sound equipment and tossing the kid across the Mexican border. An angry Mark Henry is a compelling Mark Henry, and he’s been killing it since Capitol Punishment. It’s just too bad Henry didn’t take out whatever equipment enables us to hear the announcers.

DANIEL BRYAN vs. TED DiBIASE: The DiBiase Redemption Tour continued this week, as Teddy had another impressive match with Daniel Bryan. Of course, it’s pretty easy to have a great match with D-Bryan, who was on point with the selling of his shoulder and on fire with his offensive arsenal. Loved Bryan finishing the match with the guillotine choke, showing that he has more than just one submission move that he can win a match with. DiBiase’s night did not end here…

CHRISTIAN vs. SIN CARA: This match featured some great heel work by Christian, complaining about how he couldn’t see because of the lights, mocking Cara by chanting his name, and generally being a nefarious cad. Sin Cara might have had his best showing since entering WWE, and it sure seems like I’ve been saying this after each of his matches lately. This guy’s going to be pretty good, sorry haters! It was a good idea to have him lose though, as fans seem to get annoyed with wrestlers that never lose. That, and Christian is a main eventer on SmackDown, so he should get wins over guys that haven’t been with the company very long.

ORTON/CHRISTIAN CONTRACT SIGNING: I’ve seen enough contract signings to last a lifetime, but this makes it into the “Right” part of the column due to the return of Sheamus. The Celtic Warrior Fella took out both Orton & Christian, which made sense because Christian screwed him out of a title shot & Orton punted him. I’m curious as to how Sheamus would do as a face, and if nothing else he’s a pretty interesting tweener character right now. Let the WWE Universe decide whether they want to support him or not, then go from there.

MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH LINEUP: We got our first look at the lineup for SmackDown’s MITB match, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. I’m not convinced that Sheamus is going to remain in the match after he tore up the Orton/Christian contract…he may be added to that match to make it a three-way and freshen things up a bit. Kane is fine in these matches, but I hope they stop talking about how unique it is to have Kane in a ladder match because he’s always in them. Sin Cara might have an outside chance at winning but I don’t see it happening for him. He, Daniel Bryan & Justin Gabriel will be there to do cool-looking spots. Heath Slater is there because…well, I like Heath more than most but he’s got no chance in Hades. I think your two most likely people to win, and the two people that a victory in this match would do the most for, are Wade Barrett & Cody Rhodes. Wade really needs something to get himself back on track, and this seems like the perfect way to finally bump Cody into the main event picture. I’ve got no issue with Christian’s performance, or Sheamus or Mark Henry for that matter, but this is as good a time as any to see if Cody can deliver as a top contender for the World title. Maybe let him hold on to the briefcase for a little while like the Miz did last year. If they don’t want to do that just yet, hopefully the match he had tonight will lead to something…

CODY RHODES vs. EZEKIEL JACKSON: You know that I’m never going to complain when my main man Cody gets a big victory. The one part I question about this is the continued trend of making the Intercontinental Champion look like a goof. Guys like Kofi Kingston, Dolph Ziggler & Wade Barrett lost non-title matches all the time, to the point where it make the belt & the champion holding it seem meaningless. I hope Big Zeke isn’t headed in the same direction. If Cody does not win the Money in the Bank ladder match, I wouldn’t mind seeing him as the Intercontinental Champion, hopefully bringing back some honor & prestige to the strap. I quite liked the match, my only issue was I didn’t see the point of having Jackson lose so soon after his big title victory, even if Ted DiBiase was involved. Speaking of Ted, I’m finding his recent interaction with Cody very interesting. Having a life coach led Roderick Strong to the ROH title, so maybe Ted can have similar success with Cody’s guidance.

KANE vs. WADE BARRETT: Not a bad match, Wade in particular had an impressive outing and I liked Kane busting out a cross-body, but it was weird that the people talking during it couldn’t decide if it actually mattered or not. It really took my interest out of it, that’s for sure. Speaking of which…

THE ANNOUNCING: I don’t hate Michael Cole as much as my good friend Geoff Eubanks does, but good God he does everything he can to take a dump on the matches, minor verbal flubs and the stories people are trying to tell. I know a lot of people aren’t high on Booker T as an announcer, but I get the feeling that he actually could become really good if his main influence wasn’t Michael Cole. I wish this show was like Pro Wrestling Guerilla DVDs, where you can choose whether you want to listen to the announcers or not.

I do have one Booker complaint…dude had to go on YouTube to watch the CM Punk promo? He was on the show! Was he busy packing the Raw Roulette set up or something?

JINDER MAHAL WILL DIVORCE THE GREAT KHALI’S SISTER: Yeah, I liked this angle a lot better when it was about Mahal trying to get Khali to stop the comedy crap and be the killer that we know he can be. I guess we’ve given up on that and now it’s degenerated into…whatever this is. I guess this will lead to some hot Indian chick playing Khali’s sister, which hopefully won’t be a bad thing. I also kind of get the feeling that this means WWE higher-ups are cooling off on Mahal, which it seems a bit early for.

TONY ACERO: Dude begs me to take over the SmackDown Rs for months, then he needs me to fill in for him the week after I let him do it?

Child please.

Until Friday, keep on kickin’ it!

…and remember to stay grounded!