The Wednesday Wire: 11.2.11: We’ve Finally Met The Muppets

I believe we have a small column this week. I’m breaking ground! I am your favourite columnist here on 411 and your 9 comments last Wednesday prove it! Somebody get me a gold medal and a trophy.

IMPACT WRESTLING 10.27.2011

“Cowboy James Storm don’t kiss nobody’s damn ass!” – James Storm

Simple and effective promo to kick off Impact. Storm is the new World Champion and he’s proud of it and thankful for all of the support of the people he loves. He offers his best friend the first shot and out comes somebody to disagree. And it’s Samoa Joe? Hot damn if I wasn’t glad to see that, but what has he done lately? Even Storm asked where he’s been. Now I’ve been honest about the fact that I haven’t paid a lick of attention to TNA for a long, long time. Hell, I truly cannot remember what any of the storylines, main or peripheral, were about the last time I was actually in tune with the program. I really can’t. That’s not an exaggeration. All I remember about Samoa Joe is that he was fatter than ever, had a Mike Tyson face tattoo and wielded a shitty plastic knife. That seems like it would be embarrassing to be a part of as either an active participant or a viewer.

Anyway, so Joe comes out and says that he doesn’t believe things are really changing around here. Yeah, there may be new, younger faces, but Fortune are still going to just keep it “within the family”. Roode gets the first shot, then who’s next? AJ? Kazarian? Not a bad point for a heel to make, honestly. Joe wants Storm to prove that things really are changing and surprise some people by giving him a shot instead of Roode. AF Sting comes out and makes a #1 Contender’s Match between Joe and Roode for later on. Works well for me. I like AF Sting in this role. He played it well and didn’t ham it up or make it about him. Let’s keep that up!

“I still looked really good, I know that.” – Rob Van Dam

Eh, you looked okay, mister Van Dam. I still die a little inside every time somebody sells one of his weak forearms instead of spiting in his face and laughing. Seriously, in all these years nobody has sat down with RVD and told him to at least make believe he was making believe to make believe to make contact? Come on! I still haven’t seen the AJ/Daniels “I Quit” match from Bound for Glory but it sounded underwhelming. Normally I’d be a typical IWC fanboy falling all over myself to watch as many AJ Styles v. Christopher Daniels matches as I possibly could get my hands on but I find myself failing to find any damns left to give. I also just realized that both the Lynn/RVD and Daniels/Styles storylines going into the PPV were about the lesser star feeling bitter about being in the shadow of the bigger star. Oy. So where do they go from here? Is RVD a part of this angle now? Is there a fourth man? Will this stay as a three-man feud that is as stimulating and exciting as the Joe/Morgan/Crimson stuff was? Say it ain’t so!

“My entire career, all I ever did was do what everybody told me to do.” – Gail Kim

Gail, if you’re going to take the time to mention “continuing on to another company”, why act like TNA was where you started? It would actually be a stronger point if she said she left “another company” to join TNA because it was greener on that side of the pillow and there was more grass to graze on or somesuch but then she she got dicked around in TNA, only to leave and make the same mistakes at the “other company” that she did the first time around. It would make her look more like the so-called goodie two-shoes that would never give up hope but finally has found the truth.

Really it’s a terribly minor point that I probably shouldn’t have bothered mentioning, but my OCD got upset that she skipped her first go-around with WWE. Blame the brain in my head, not the fingers on my keyboard. That’s my new school way of saying “don’t shoot the messenger”. I think it’s gonna catch on!

As far as Gail Kim being back and heeling it up, I dig it. She looks comfortable in the role and I really hope she stays with TNA and doesn’t bother with Vince & Co. ever again. She has to have enough money at this point that she can stay with a smaller company and get the chance to be in the spotlight somewhere and ply her craft the way we all know she can. I hope TNA starts building the Knockouts division again. Get rid of the unnecessary KO Tag belts, write AF Karen out of an authority position and let’s try to get back what once was great.

“Why don’t we air the footage when Jeff Hardy main evented Turning Point 2006?” – Jeff Jarrett

Of course, Jarrett would continue, we can’t do that because Hardy no-showed the event. I find multiple things wrong with this storyline:

1) Jeff Jarrett is heel even though Jeff Hardy is the one who wrestled while high and just got out of jail for drug charges.

3) Jeff Hardy is a “changed man” and is looking for forgiveness for his actions and acceptance back into the locker room, but instead of talking it out he’s just physically attacking everybody who won’t give him a 500th chance, even when he isn’t physically provoked to do so.

The only one that can really be defended is number 2. If TNA wanted to hire back Jeff Hardy after he wellness’d himself out of WWE again a year and a half ago (or however long ago it was), they should not have put him back into the main event spotlight. TNA definitely has a lot to gain from having Jeff Hardy on their roster. The “lot” to gain is money. People buy the high holy crap out of anything with Jeff Hardy’s name or his signature puke stains printed on it. They’ll still buy that stuff whether he’s the World Champion or the middle-of-the-card special attraction. That really is the only thing any promoter should ever do with Jeff Hardy from this point forward. He should never, ever be put into a position where his lack of presence could ruin the spotlight of the show. He should be a money-making sideshow spot act. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. Andre the Giant was a money-making special attraction more often than he was a World Title contender. Granted there are zero other similarities between the two men (except for possibly death at a young age, but I still have a lot of hope that Jeff will finally clean himself up).

I went off on a tangent and I don’t know where I was going. I think I made a point in there somewhere though.

I’ll just say that it feels like 2004 with Hardy and Jarrett feuding again. All we’re missing is the Orlando crowd chanting “take your hat, your coat, and leave!”

Oh the good old days. Back when James Storm was the Matt Hardy of America’s Most Wanted**, Monty Brown was wrestling DDP for a shot at Jeff Jarrett’s NWA Heavyweight Championship and AJ Styles was wrestling Christopher Daniels.

**I guess at this point Matt Hardy is the Matt Hardy of America’s Most Wanted.

Ring of Honor TV 10.15.2011

“He may drink enough liquor to kill a small horse, [but] he’s not an idiot.” – Nigel McGuinness

The Briscoes and the All Night Express continued their rivalry here with a fast-paced and well fought battle. They billed this as the first match of a double main event and it more or less lived up to that billing as far as TV matches are concerned. The Briscoes were the “don’t care” heels they were played up to be and the ANX were the devil may care faces that they have grown into and both teams did it well. People complain about the Briscoes not changing enough to be booed, but outside of Mark’s big dive over the corner they didn’t do much that would entice the crowd to cheer for them. Remember, also, that the Briscoes went heel in the first place because the crowd turned against them. This match ended exactly how it needed to, as well, with Kenny King taking a shot in the ballsies from Jay Briscoe and getting pinned with an anticlimactic (in a good way) small package. The All Nights showed that they are a force to be reckoned with and the Briscoes cheated to win but didn’t sacrifice their badassery as they were still the Briscoes of old in the ring. The exchange between Jay Briscoe and referee Todd Sinclair after Titus alerted him about the ball shot was great:

Sinclair: “Did you kick him in the groin?”
Briscoe: HEEELLLLL NO, TODD!

Jim Cornette’s promo after the commercial break was a very good addition. ROH doesn’t have a lot of time to develop storylines but they were able to toss Corny in to advance this one almost immediately instead of waiting a week. Of course the decision that Cornette made about the #1 Contendership was a nondecision but at least they addressed it.

“Jay Briscoe was astonished to find out that he kicked a man in the groin. He had no idea. It came as a surprise to him; it was inadvertant. Mark Briscoe backs him up and everybody else in the conversation thinks he’s as full of crap as a Christmas turkey.” – Jim Cornette

Doesn’t make a lick of sense but it sure is funny.

“My opinion of Truth Martini? He’s full of shit. Smart guy, full of shit.” – Davey Richards

Inside ROH for this episode focused first on Truth Martini and summed him up pretty well. In fact, the quote above from Davey Richards says exactly what the segment was made to get across. Jim Cornette did what he has done in all of these segments thus far and talked about both the good and bad of Truth. He’s a con man but he’s effective, his example being that he led Roderick Strong to the World Title in about 6 months’ time after Strong spent 8 years with countless title shots and no victories. They then focused for a moment on Michael Elgin. I didn’t know he could talk! I’m torn on whether I think it was good for his character that he talked. I guess if they’re just having him be a confident big man then he pulled it off well but I’ve only seen them treat him like the House of Truth enforcer with an angry face and an unused tongue. Jim Cornette went old school (when does he not, though…) and used the term “policeman” to describe Elgin’s professional relationship with Roderick Strong. Never thought I’d hear that said on television any time after 1992.

The second part of iROH was a quick bit about Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards not being done in regards to their friendly feud. A rubber match is certainly in the cards, but for when? If they can wait about 4 months it would be smart to run it on WrestleMania weekend.

“[Truth] knows this is important, he’s not an idiot… even if he looks like one.” – Nigel McGuinness

The final match of the first TV taping was definitely a very good one, second best in quality only to the Lethal/Generico TV Title match that stole the entire set of tapings. It was worked in more of a hard hitting yet somewhat nonchalant style that you see in Japan much more often than you see over in the States and the match greatly benefitted from that choice. I haven’t seen nearly enough of Eddie Edwards’ singles run since the Wolves stopped being a dedicated tag team but I really need to catch up on some of it. He’s ridiculously smooth and it’s a pleasure to watch him ply his craft. He has come so far from his original ROH bookings and it is really great to see a guy that I really did not expect anything from become one of the company’s top stars and a truly fantastic performer. Plus his haircut is far superior to what he had going on 4 years ago. Eeeew.

Elgin looked good here as well. He is going to be a really great power wrestler as his career progresses. It’s not likely he’s going to make it as a “big man” or a big bruiser type guy anywhere outside of the indies though, since he’s billed here as 5’11” 245lbs. He may be built like a brick shithouse and he can work the style exactly right but he’ll be dwarfed by any and every other big dude he may encounter. It works for ROH, which is where it matters at this time, however, and the guy is 24, which I did not know. He may end up changing his style completely over the next few years. And speaking of hair, while Edwards’ hair was stupid-looking for no good reason, Elgin’s hair looks like the awesome badass mullets that are still popular over in Japan even though we put them in our fanny packs and tossed them in the trash in the early 90s stateside.

Overall I would say that this episode was second best. It is behind episode two because of the stellar TV Title match but this episode felt the most comfortable of the lot. Obviously these four were all taped the same night but it seems like they had begun to settle in and get the hang of it by the end. Let’s hope this becomes a trend as the show continues and airs episodes from the next set of tapings…

Which I intended to start today with the episode that aired on 10/22, but since the random snowstorm knocked my power out I never got a chance. Oh well.

WWE RAW Supershow 10.31.2011

“The Rock would just as soon slap the lips right off your face!” – The Rock

Rock challenged Miz & Truth to try to attack him from behind, which honestly is going to be pretty hard with him never being anywhere near where they are going to be. I don’t know… I want to like him, but it just feels like he’s trying too hard to be “The Most Electrifying Man”. It comes across as anything but genuine and I have to believe that he’s only doing this for one, if not all, of three reasons: 1) somebody guilted him into feeling like he owed the fans something, 2) he has some sort of grudge against John Cena and feels like it’s necessary to prove that he is better than Cena, 3) Vince is paying him a shit ton of money.

Or maybe Disney stopped calling.

“It’s all in the reflexes!” – CM Punk

Did I miss something here? What does that mean? Just another random inside joke Punk is yelling mid-match? Eh, works for me. I’m a Punk mark. Sorry. The match looked like it could have actually been pretty good if it wasn’t interrupted, but I preferred the aftermath anyway. Nice line by Cole, too – “Del Rio was coerced! Ridiculous understatement. So Punk’s got his title match and he does it in a way that the crowd popped big for and that makes him look like he’s going to continue doing whatever he wants to get whatever he wants. I doubt he has a chance at winning the belt but it should be a fantastic match.

“We had a pirate, a sailor and Robin back off The Queen and The Queen of Hearts.” – Michael Cole

So am I right when I assume that they’re giving up on Kelly’s angry crazy chick push and giving the love right back to Eve? I’m not necessarily upset if that is the case, since Eve is definitely a stronger wrestler but I thought it would be interesting to see Kelly be something other than a hesitant, smiling happy-go-lucky girlie. She’s been doing that for what, 5 years? Enough already.

Also I totally call bullshit on Kelly being a pirate. That was most certainly a Melina costume.

“The Barrett barrage continues.” – Michael Cole

Please tell me they only teamed Rhodes and Barrett to help set up an elimination tag match for the PPV. This match in particular seemed pretty good from the short clip WWE has up on Youtube. The sequence with Bourne and Barrett that ended in Bourne countering into the swinging DDT looked fantastic and I would love to see what the two of them could do in a one-on-one contest. Barrett’s a good, big base for a guy like Bourne and when he’s not stoned he can do amazing things with a tall dude to springboard off of.

“How did Beaker wander down here?” – Michael Cole

Holy cow Beaker showed up out of nowhere and it was awesome! That, plus there was a “We want Ryder! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!” chant. THAT was awesome.

“What’s he saying, the match is not over?” – Jerry Lawler

I really don’t like the “pin while the foot is under the ropes” deal. All it ever does is confuse everybody, commentators included. I don’t know if the point was that they were trying to protect The Zig Zag Man or what, but if that was the case it was a ridiculous attempt to do so. That notwithstanding, Ryder is continuing to pick up momentum and the crowd is continuing to get louder with their support every week. I don’t remember Mason Ryan being on RAW this week, which is a good sign for Ryder. I assume. I hope. Ryder is going to be getting the belt soon, right?
I only saw a short portion of the match (no power=no live RAW) but it looked good and I’m going to try to check this one as well as the Show/Del Rio match in full later on.

I am loving the attention that Ryder is getting right now but I’m still afraid they’re going to pull some crap on him and he’ll disappear all of a sudden. If this truly is the real deal, though, I guess this puts a lot of us critics at bay with the argument that you have to be proactive and make yourself a star, not just wait for your opportunity and bitch when it doesn’t come.
Well that’s egg on my face if it holds true. Maybe some of the guys that aren’t getting TV time will step up and try to figure out a way to get noticed. Thinking back, the same thing worked for Cena too. He was a bland babyface with a big smile and lots of ruthless aggression but he entertained everybody off camera with his personality and unique lyrical ability and they gave him a shot. Shit, maybe I’ve been blinded by the IWC company line and Triple H was right all along. Just do something to get yourself noticed. Damn.

“He could pass a lie detector test when he tells you he can beat anyone in the WWE.” – Jerry Lawler

I gotta say, this match was better than the one they had at WrestleMania, though it’s not really saying much because that match kinda stunk. This one was definitely a legitimately good match… at least for the 1 minute of match time they had up on Youtube. Better nonetheless; the one they had at WM28 blew all kinds of chunks. I could have done without the finish of the match, though at least it wouldn’t have been that bad if Cena didn’t make insanely short, simple work out of Truth as well. I mean come on, what a waste of outside interference. It didn’t even phase the man. I’m not one of the (many) people that bitch about Cena being Superman, but taking out Mr. Awesome and The Sun-Tanned Superman with the greatest of ease? Why does he need The Rock? Miz and Truth are supposed to be a massive threat and the biggest problem that all of the do-gooders need to deal with, and even when they double team and attack Cena from behind they can’t get the upper hand? That’s kinda crappy.

On a side note I do like the idea of having two major faces team up against Miz and Truth in big matches on PPV like they did for Vengeance and like they will do again for the Survivor Series. I think this time it will be last to go on, too.

“I am not trying to dance with celebrities or anything like that.” – CM Punk

So what’s the deal with CM Punk and Chris Jericho anyway? Do they really have some sort of problem with each other or is it just a lot of fun shot-taking between the two? It’s tough to tell whether Jericho is annoyed at the fans or is just keeping the gimmick going since he was a heel when he left. Anybody think Jericho will be coming back any time soon? Is he doing anything right now with Fozzy or any other projects? Does he want to come back and do another inverview on the radio show I used to be a co-host of?

“I look forward to continuing my career in entertainment and creating new and exciting content!” – Maryse

I wouldn’t say that I am either saddened or surprised by the release of Ms. Oullet. She was very inconsistent as an in-ring performer. There were times where she looked really good out there and was even somewhat smooth and crisp and then there were other times where she looked completely lost. She did pick up on how to work the crowd as a wrestler but she couldn’t really do much as a valet because her English isn’t strong enough for her to put together a decent promo and get any sort of message across other than “I’m hot and you want me”. New and exciting content, as far as I can assume, is going to be more modeling, some more nude shoots here and there, appearances at wrestling conventions to sign autographs and probably tiny roles in shitty Kurt Angle movies that don’t even make it to DVD let alone into theatres.

That’s all the time we have left this week. I actually DO have a Vengeance review (half) prepared and you WILL (probably) get that on Friday! I’ll give you some thoughts on Bound For Glory but at this point I honestly don’t care. Then, I didn’t care when it was fresh either. We’ll see what happens.

See you Friday (I assume)!

— Nicholas A. Marsico