Wrestling’s 4R’s 11.18.11: ROH and WWE Raw Reviewed!

By: Shawn S. Lealos

ROH Television 11.12.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
The Young Bucks def. The Bravado Brothers

The American Wolves def. Michael Elgin and Roddy Strong

The Young Bucks – I think the Young Bucks are a very talented young tag team with a lot of potential. They can easily become as good as Paul London and Brian Kendrick but I doubt they ever reach the level of the Hardy Boyz. With that said, I love the way they debuted on Ring of Honor. Obviously, ROH is playing off the infamy of them refusing to shake hands and show respect to the veterans when they received their WWE tryout. I’m good with that. Take what they might be best known for and run with it. I also like how they are not neutered and can continue their innovative double team moves, which makes sense for their gimmick since they are cocky and over confident. Everything about this debut worked perfectly to introduce them to the television audience, which is all that matters because ROH fans already know who they are. This was the exact opposite of the T.J. Perkins intro from a few weeks back and I mention that because I became fans of both during their NWA stint. Hopefully, ROH will utilize this sort of introduction for all their new talent in the future.

Kevin Steen: This is Your Life – The video introducing Kevin Steen to the new ROH TV audience was perfectly executed. Forget all the junk last week with the attorneys and just watch this promo. We only see his career from the moment he turns on El Generico and then get to see some great stuff as he takes out Generico, Steve Corino and tries to put out former ROH owner Cary Silkin as well. We see exactly why Jim Cornette hates him. This is the way to tell a story – show what happened. This was better than hearing Cornette rant about Steen because now we see why he is the baddest man in Ring of Honor.

American Wolves vs. House of Truth – This was the best match I have seen on ROH television yet. Forget every bad thing I have said about Roddy Strong’s bland personality. He is one of the most entertaining men in ROH right now, both in and out of the ring. He is perfect when in the ring with both Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards. Plus, Michael Elgin is the best power wrestler in wrestling right now (outside of Mark Henry). Elgin can pull off stuff with anyone and look like a million bucks doing so. The match ended with Eddie using his new submission hold (dragon sleeper) and Davey looking confused. Despite the American Wolves getting the win, and that was the right choice, The House of Truth looked great as well. This match proved that you could have a great television match, have it end cleanly and have everyone involved look even better by the end. Perfect television match.

Who is the Bad Guy Again? – Now, I love wrestling where there is a shade of gray. No one was better than “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in the past when it came to blurring the line between good guys and bad guys. However, in professional wrestling, most fans need to know if a wrestler is a good guy, a bad guy or just another wrestler who doesn’t care one way or the other. This leads me to the first match on the card between The Young Bucks and Bravado Brothers. Now, it is obvious the Young Bucks are the bad guys because they refuse the Code of Honor. However, last time we saw the Bravado Brothers, they were also bad guys, whose gimmick was knowing what the best for the fans is. On this show, they defended the Code of Honor. This will be a problem for awhile with some smaller wrestlers because no one knows who these guys are.

All Night Express Confront Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team – This promo really make the All Night Express look like bitches. For one thing, they lost two matches to the Briscoe Brothers and blew their chance at the ROH Tag Team titles. Now, they are coming out and whining that WGTT is overlooking them. Well, maybe you are being overlooked because you lost. Twice. If this was Roddy Strong, I would be all for it, kind of like how Christopher Daniels seems to overlook all his own losses in TNA. They are bad guys and they are arrogant. The All Night Express are supposed to be good guys and they come out and whine like little girls. Add in the fact that Kenny King flubbed his line about the WGTT ducking them and you have a lackluster moment. With the Briscoes beating them and the Young Bucks being a perfect foil for WGTT, the All Night Express did little here to make themselves look good. Plus, the fact that the WGTT never respond to them makes them look forgettable.

Steve Corino Talks – This has gone on for too long. I have had this in Purgatory for a while. Most people know he is talking about Kevin Steen and I was interested to see where it was going. The problem was they trotted the same horse out for too many weeks now. We know Corino wants to ask Cornette for a match with Steen but they are just putt-putting around and not doing anything about it. Get on with it already. Plus, if Jimmy Jacobs is going to be involved, he needs more TV time. None of the new ROH fans know who he is.

Mike Bennett – Let’s respond to a question from the comment section. Why do we hate Mike Bennett so much? The main reason is that Ring of Honor presents three basic kinds of wrestling action. There is the technical wizardry and stunning moves of most of the wrestlers in ROH. There is the MMA styled kicks and submission holds that men like Davey Richards, and Bryan Danielson before him, utilized. Finally, there is the Blood Matches that old school ECW fans love. Bennett does not fit into any of those categories. He is a boring WWE styled wrestler (that is not an insult of the WWE product in general) in a promotion that runs circles around him. He is John Cena without the personality. And he is still being pushed in a feud with Jay Lethal.

By: Jeremy Thomas

Raw 11.14.11:

QUICK RESULTS:
Cody Rhodes and Hunico def. Sin Cara and Kofi Kingston [** 1/4]
Mason Ryan def. Dolph Ziggler by DQ [* 1/2]
Kelly Kelly def. Natalya [DUD]
Alberto Del Rio & Mark Henry def. CM Punk & the Big Show [** 3/4]
Randy Orton def. Wade Barrett by DQ [** 1/2]

SIN CARA & KOFI KINGSTON vs. CODY RHODES & HUNICO: Our first match of the evening saw Cara and Kofi battle Cody and Hunico in a battle of Survivor Series opponents as part of the big five-man elimination match. I actually thought this was a pretty decent effort from these guys. Putting these guys together on the first match of the show was a good move as they lifted the crowd following the (SPOILER ALERT) incalculably bad opening segment and put on a solid, exciting match. Cody had a new remixed entrance theme which I wasn’t a big fan of and I hate the way Hunico’s gimmick as “generic Hispanic guy,” but otherwise it was a good, solid seven and a half minute bout that saw some fun back-and-forth action. Hunico sold well and the match was well-structured enough; the pacing was a bit off but otherwise it wasn’t bad at all.

ALBERTO DEL RIO & MARK HENRY vs. CM PUNK & THE BIG SHOW: After a whole bunch of crap and a tiny bit of good, we got this match which really raised the average quality of the show. (Faint praise, I know.) This match could really have gone either way depending on how it was booked, as we haven’t seen a lot of Punk vs. Henry or Show vs. Del Rio thus far to know how good their chemistry is. But it was laid out well and everyone worked really solidly to make a good match. Punk was hindered by the attack on his earlier in the show which is good because it means that his loss is protected, and yet it wasn’t so drastic as to make him seem like Superman for being there at all. What’s more, I thought the personalities fit together very well; I liked the tension between ADR and Henry and Show and Punk seemed solid as a team. This wasn’t the best match we’ve seen on Raw in recent weeks but it was very good and built heat for the PPV matches nicely.

KEVIN NASH WIPES OUT SANTINO: This was a good way to use Santino as a comedy guy, to be honest. It was kept simple; Santino had a good, legit reason for coming out, even if it did seem superfluous and we just knew someone was going to interrupt, and then Nash came out and played nice until he murdered Santino with a boot. That helps Nash’s heat since Santino is very over as a babyface, it didn’t require a lot of convoluted explanation and it made sense to see Nash there since he did have a connection with Santino in terms of the Rumble. Smart, simple booking that carried off effectively. Strange concept, eh?

RANDY ORTON vs. WADE BARRETT: I will admit that I had concerns here, as I thought Orton would be getting his win back in strong fashion. To their credit, they continued Barrett’s push by making him seem like a very credible and dangerous threat to Orton. I like that they’re really putting effort into making the Survivor Series match seem important, and having the teams come down telegraphed the ending a bit but that was perfectly fine. Orton did a fine job in helping put Barrett over and then we had the obvious chaotic ending. Nothing wrong with that, it built the PPV well and that’s about all I needed.

RAW GETS ROCKED: Our main event segment of the night saw The Rock come down to the ring to address the WWE Universe. Now, it goes without saying that obviously the Great One got the usual mega-pop from the crowd. It’s always just a little embarrassing that he gets long chants and can’t even speak for a few minutes when the full-time guys can’t get even particularly strong reactions outside of a select few. Obviously the part-time status comes into play here and his appearances are always special; those reactions would drop some if he was there week after week. Anyway, Rock gave another great promo from him; anything less is downright disappointing. I would venture to say it was a better promo than any of the ones he’s given since he first made his “return.” He had some fun and made some jokes, but he also kept the focus strong and kept the whole thing on point: John Cena Survivor Series, with a few slight detours into Twitter, Foley-land and G.I. Joe-ville. Some people think that Rocky’s coasting in his recent return on the mic but I disagree; the only time I thought he dipped was when he tried to put over Twitter but even that wasn’t bad, just “good” instead of great.

Anyway, the point of all of this was that Rock wanted Miz and Truth to come out to kick some ass and he got the both of them. You know, I was kind of concerned that they would seem very flat compared to Rock but they held their own, more or less. Sure, they got their asses handed to them by the end of the segment but they worked well on the microphone against Rock I was enjoying this. Then we got Cena coming down, and made jokes about all three of the guys in the ring. They were fun jokes though, and the mic dueling without looking at each other was really kind of fun. If there was ever a time to turn Cena, now would be it. I don’t think that they’ll do it, but it’s perfect timing. Miz came back strong on the mic by pointing out how he had become the star at WrestleMania last year when the Rock was the guy everyone was talking about, and Rock responded with a beating. This is the part of the segment I disliked, because at this point the only way Truth and Miz win is if Rock or Cena turn on each other, but that was gonna be the case anyway. As a build-up to the PPV, it was pretty good.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. MASON RYAN: This…really wasn’t much of a match. All love to Dolph who tends to have good matches with pretty much everyone, and this isn’t even a knock against Mason, but a minute and a half is not enough time to have a good match in. This whole thing kicked off with Vicki Guerrero announcing that Christian was out of Survivor Series with an injury (get well soon!) and that Dolph had taken his place, so we got this match to continue the trend of Survivor Series match opponents facing off. What we saw was okay–basically, Ryan beat on Dolph until he tried to run and that was effective enough–but it didn’t sell me any on Ryan’s skills in the ring and he’s still just a big guy with a good look so far. The notable thing was Morrison running out and throwing Dolph in after the match so Ryan could beat on Dolph some, which was the set-up for the US Title match at Survivor Series. This is a bit sudden for Morrison to get a title match after one measly win and a run-down, whatever the reason, but the match should be great. This one served its purpose and that keeps it out of the wRong, but great it was not by a long shot.

TRIPLE K vs. NATALYA: It’s official, ladies and gentlemen; Nattie is the new Victoria. She is there to drag good matches out of the faces so they can be built up as challengers to the heel champion. The problem with this is that no one can have a good fifty-second match. But hey, Triple K has a magazine cover, so she gets a win. I legitimately can’t tell why this was on the show when the PPV match is between Eve and Beth. This was pointless and unentertaining but at least it was short.

THE MICHAEL COLE CHALLENGE: Raw kicked off by getting something out of the way that we’ve been waiting for for a few weeks now. And when I say “waiting for,” I don’t mean “anticipating in a positive manner,” I mean “waiting to get done with so we can stop hearing Michael Cole make stupid and unfunny jokes about why Jim Ross wasn’t there.” That’s right, it was the Michael Cole challenge. I’m a bit…perplexed by this being the kick-off to Raw. This was a three-hour show, and the big problem the company tends to have ratings-wise with three-hour Raws is the fact that the first hour is a lower rating since people are used to tuning in at nine. Thus, you have to try and retain any viewers you have. I suppose their reasoning was “well, it’ll do less damage first off for the people who don’t tune in” but I imagine that more than a couple people didn’t tune in specifically due to this being the opener, or turned it off quickly and resolved to come back later (or not at all).

Anyway, the placement aside, this was a terrible, terrible segment. I’ll give them credit that the image of Jim Ross dancing was so over-the-top ridiculous that it was worth a laugh, but the rest of it was just incredibly dumb. You had Michael Cole getting ample time to make his stupid jokes, not one of which was funny, and getting owned by JR until he got inevitably screwed by the final test. Honestly, I think we all knew this was pointless the moment that Cole said that JR had to win all three challenges to win; the rest was just time-wasting. And for time-wasting, we got two of what are traditionally the lamest challenges that WWE presents us. The arm-wrestling was stupid and dragged on too long with Cole doing his stalling tactics. The dance contest, as I said, had one bit of amusement to it but was otherwise worthless. And then we got the final challenge: “how much do you weigh?” Am I the only one surprised by the fact that Cole weighed only thirty-some pounds less than Ross? Anyway, this thing went on and on and one, clocking in at fifteen minutes before CM Punk came out to kick Cole’s ass. That was kind of nice, but even that gave us only a brief reprieve from Cole as he was back shortly later. This at least had a brief set-up of Punk getting his match with Show against Henry and Del Rio, but there were better ways to do it and this whole thing was just flat-out stupid.

THIS IS YOUR LIFE, TAKE TWO: Who the hell thought this was a good idea? I have to assume it’s the guy who thought making John Laurinaitis a guy who should get a ton of mic time was a good idea–namely, Vince McMahon. The idea seemed to be making this whole thing so bad that it would make the Rock’s pop even louder when he showed up. That…is not a good strategy, because you cannot get around the fact that you have a twenty-three minute-long segment that sucked the life completely out of the show. How the hell do you put someone who’s widely considered one of the best mic workers of all-time in Foley in the ring amidst something like this? Listen, I didn’t particularly like the original “This Is Your Life” segment during the height of the Attitude Era. I know it was the highest-rated segment in the history of Raw, but I thought it had the same problem of being too much stupid humor that took too long. And that was with better participants in the special guests as well as the Rock doing a lot of talking. Cena didn’t even talk all that much, it was mostly just the Coach, Bull Buchanan (who admittedly got a laugh from me by the fact that he was there at all) and Foley trying to sell this, followed by Cena’s father turning heel on the crowd. Do I even need to go further into how bad this was? It was almost half of the first hour and not even the Rock killing Foley at the end of it made it watchable.

BRODUS CLAY’s DEBUT PUSHED BACK: Listen, this shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. The reason that it was is simple; it shows how short-sighted the ‘E’s booking is. This is not the only segment that they announced for a specific date and pushed back more than once. It’s a small thing but it’s symptomatic of how poor the ‘E is planning shit these days and how they have no idea what they’re doing.

Until Monday, keep on kickin’ it…

…and remember to stay grounded!