The Wrestling News Experience: 01.09.12

Monday, January 9th, 2012

From 411Mania’s Canadian offices in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, this is The Wrestling News Experience, with Stephen Randle!

And Somehow, Once Again, It’s Tebow Time

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience, I’m Stephen Randle. You’d better not be expecting a long monologue, because the more words I type, the less time I have to play The Old Republic. Yes, it is that good.

Moving on.

De Marco has the live coverage.

Austin Aries defeated Jesse Sorenson, Kid Kash, and Zema Ion in a Four Corners Elimination Match to retain the TNA X Division title

Devon defeated The Pope (pinfall, Lifting Inverted DDT)

Gunner defeated RVD (pinfall, DDT on floor)

Gail Kim defeated Mickie James to retain the TNA Knockouts title (DQ, foreign object)

Abyss defeated Bully Ray in a Monster’s Ball match (pinfall, Black Hole Slam)

Crimson and Matt Morgan defeated Samoa Joe and Magnus to retain the TNA Tag Team titles (Morgan pinned Magnus, DeMarco Missed The Finish)

Kurt Angle defeated James Storm (pinfall, Kick Inna Head)

Jeff Hardy defeated Robert Roode (DQ, Roode lowblows referee). Roode retains the TNA World title

Oh for the love of…

Last week, thanks once again to the intervention of Johnny Ace, Dolph Ziggler defeated CM Punk by countout, and as a result, earned himself another shot at the WWE Title, this time at the Royal Rumble. Punk has clearly grown frustrated with Ace’s continued presence at inopportune moments, and one has to wonder how long it will be before the Second City Saint gets his hands on the former Dynamic Dude, and what it will cost Punk if he does so.

Plus, Kane continues to get into the mind of John Cena, emerging from underneath the ring as Raw ended and attempting to pull Zack Ryder into the darkness. After a valiant effort from Cena saved Ryder from harm, a massive fireball exploded from the ring and left both men clearly shaken. With a visibly unnerved Cena still unable to get his hands on Kane, will the Big Red Machine continue his push to force Cena to give in to his darkest desires?

Meanwhile, Chris Jericho returned after a lengthy absence, but said virtually nothing. So what were the promo videos all about, anyway? What kind of game is the man who claims to be the best in the world at what he does playing here?

Oh, and will someone tell me why the WWE Divas Champion apparently fell off the face of the earth, or why she seems to have abandoned her fellow Diva of Doom? All this and more, including the continuing potential debut of Brodus Clay, tonight on Raw!

One Way Or Another, You’ll Pay Per View

Rumours flying all over about WWE PPVs and the upcoming WWE Network, as it seems that the current plan, when last we heard, is that the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series will be on PPV, while the rest will air on WWE Network instead. Which I’m in favour of if it really is true, since outside of the Big Four all WWE PPVs have essentially cratered in terms of buys and interest. Sure, they still make profit, but when under 200k (and in some cases under 150k) is becoming the norm, that’s a problem. Hell, at this point CM Punk is probably going to end up a worse-drawing champion than JBL if you just look at PPV buys. Which you shouldn’t and it’s stupid, but hell, somebody’s going to say it and it might as well be me.

Also, after replacing it with Vengeance in 2011, it looks like Bragging Rights is back on the PPV schedule, replacing Capitol Punishment. This makes sense for several reasons, most obviously since Capitol Punishment only works when the PPV is in Washington, which it will not be in 2012. Secondly, Bragging Rights was an interesting PPV concept that was ruined by the fact that it took place right before Survivor Series, which had almost exactly the same concept and the “Big Four” history behind it as well. And thirdly, because I want to see what the third version of the Bragging Rights trophy will look like. Of course, for this to actually work at all, they’re actually going to have to reinstate the Brand Extension, which has been pretty much dead since Raw Supershow began. Come to think of it, rather than Bragging Rights, I’d be more in favour of King of the Ring returning to PPV, especially since either way, it’s not really a “PPV” if it’s going to be on the Network.

And there was a rumour going around that WWE had dropped Vengeance in October altogether for 2012, going back to 12 PPVs, but I haven’t seen that reported outside of one place that isn’t totally reputable, so we’ll get into it if I ever see anything more official.

If It Can’t Be Shakespeare, It Can At Least Be Kaufman-esque

So, Chris Jericho returned this past week on Raw, which means to every single one of you that spent the last year and bit telling me to take him of the injured list can go take a long walk off a short pier AGAIN. Didn’t any of you learn from the first time, when I left him on the injured list for years before he returned? The lesson is, I’m going to do what I want, and you’re going to sit there and read about it. Also, I’m right and you’re wrong. Nyah.

Anyway, Jericho’s return was…odd, to say the least, as he spent an entire segment soaking in cheers from the audience without actually saying anything of substance, then left the arena without addressing the reasons behind his return at all. After Raw went off the air, opinions sprang up left and right as to whether Jericho and WWE were essentially “trolling” their fans and actually bringing Jericho back as a heel who will presumably be mocking the fans for getting themselves all worked up over his return even though he’s a bad person who doesn’t like them, and he proved it by getting them to cheer for him for ten minutes even though he didn’t actually do anything.

Well, as a social experiment, it’s an interesting concept. As a television segment…it kind of blew, especially to people who maybe watch wrestling to be entertained and not just to watch a segment drag on with no apparent point. Sure, it’s hilarious in context, and the comparisons to Andy Kaufman (as was pointed out, Raw was in Memphis last week, home of the infamous Lawler-Kaufman feud) are probably apt, but taken as a single segment, without knowing (or, at least, “knowing”) what the point of it was, it was a pretty boring segment (although the show did end with John Cena saving Zack Ryder from being dragged into an exploding hole in the ring like something out of a horror movie, so at worst it wasn’t the craziest thing to happen on Raw last week).

Okay, obviously this shouldn’t be looked at as an instant gratification thing, and clearly there’s a plan going forward or they never would have done something that, well, weird. And hey, all the kudos in the world to Jericho and WWE, who had to know that there was no way that Jericho doesn’t get massive ovations for his return anyway, and managed to turn it into something heelish instead. And hey, I’m a big fan of the potential Jericho-Punk match that’s probably coming out of this. But let’s not do something like this again, okay? I mean, a lot of people still didn’t think Andy Kaufman was funny or groundbreaking, either.

– Chelsea Handler mocked Beth Phoenix again this week, and I’m so upset by it that I won’t be watching her new sitcom that debuts later this month. I’m just kidding. I’m not that petty. I’m not watching her new sitcom because it looks like a pile of fetid crap.

– Roddy Piper is the first confirmed houseguest in WWE Legends House, the “Big Brother”-style reality show on WWE Network. Would it be too much to ask that we get just one program on that channel that’s even a little highbrow or educational? I’m not asking for Anderson Cooper 360, but how about something in the style of QI, where wrestlers can show off their knowledge about more things than just wrestling, while still being light and entertaining?

– Another Edge DVD set is on the way, and presumably this one will actually have a documentary portion on it, which is half the reasons I’d buy it in the first place. Although “Decade of Decadence” pretty much covered all his biggest matches anyway, and I’ve got to have at least fifty different DVDs with the TLC II match lying around.

– Goldberg apparently would be interested in coming back to WWE for a one-time rematch with Brock Lesnar. Yeah, because the first one went so well.

– Claudio Castagnoli, formerly of ROH but now under WWE developmental deal under the name Antonio Cesaro, has apparently started working house shows, teaming with Michael McGillicutty against Alex Riley and Mason Ryan. Man, if he can make those matches any good at all he’ll be on the main roster inside a month. And also nominated for sainthood.

– Kevin Nash and The Ultimate Warrior have been sniping at each other on the Internet. See, kids, this is why we don’t teach our grandparents how to use computers.

1. Chris Jericho Well, you can’t argue that whatever they were aiming for, people are talking about it, and what he could do next.

2. Kane After years of being superhuman, it turns out that John Cena’s weakness is…Kane wearing a mask? Why didn’t anyone think of this years ago?

3. Dolph Ziggler Ziggler gets a main event title match for the second Rumble in a row, and while there’s very little chance he’ll be walking out with the title, he clearly belongs in that spot. Plus, his celebration after each victory over Punk makes the title seem so much more important, which is a great thing.

4. Mark Henry For a guy who literally cannot walk properly because of a torn groin, he sure is doing a whole lot of work, and the best part was his commentary work on Smackdown this week, where he put over both Show and Bryan, as well as repeatedly threatening Michael Cole with violence if he didn’t shut up. I could be happy if Henry did commentary every week.

5. Daniel Bryan Much like Jericho, if you’d told me Bryan would manage to go from beloved underdog to potential arrogant heel within the space of a single Smackdown, I would have thought you were crazy, but there he is, being all heelish by doing the little things that change his character from “nice guy” to “bastard”. Hopefully once he’s done with the big lugs, he’ll get a chance for a feud where he can actually wrestle.

6. Cody Rhodes I don’t think the outcome of his match with Booker T was ever in doubt, nor should his apparent upcoming feud with his older brother, but I’m looking forward to a Cody-Dustin feud nonetheless.

7. R-Truth Well, he’s just crazy enough to make this work, although I suspect the face turn may have halted his chances of getting any WWE Title shots again in the future. Well, he’ll always have Capitol Punishment, and it’s not like he can’t turn heel pretty easily. He is crazy, after all.

8. Mr. Belding Come on, the principal from Saved By The Bell wants to guest host Raw. It’s not like people are lining up for that job anyway, but either way, this would be a Raw that I’d have to watch. On the down side, they’d probably bring Dustin Diamond along for the ride too. Man, I hate that guy.

9. Santino Marella Well, it’s nice that they didn’t forget that Zack was Teddy’s assistant, not that he’d performed that task in a month or so, but at least it’ll give Santino something to do in between getting squished by everyone.

10. Hornswoggle Someone remind me why this guy not only still has a job, but gets put over talent (well, okay, it’s only Heath Slater, but still)? Hell, he hasn’t even resembled a leprechaun since he joined D-X, now he’s just an angry bearded midget who comes out to a semi-Irish Jig theme.

Inactive List as of 01.02.12

WWE Raw

– Alberto Del Rio, out 6-8 weeks as of December 26th (ACL)
– Chris Jericho, out indefinitely as of September 27th, 2010 (punt-related injury)
– Kevin Nash, out 6 weeks as of December 18th (back)
– Kharma, out 9 months as of May 23rd (pregnancy)
– Rey Mysterio, out indefinitely as of August 23rd (knee surgeries)

WWE SmackDown

– Christian, out 6-8 weeks as of November 13th (ankle)
– Layla El, out indefinitely as of May 23rd (ACL/MCL surgery)
– Randy Orton, out 4-6 weeks as of December 30th (back)
– Sin Cara, out 6-9 months as of November 20th (ruptured patella)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out indefinitely (shoulder)
– Ric Flair, out 4-6 months as of September 14th (tricep)

Transactions

– Chris Jericho, RAW, returned to television on January 2nd Raw

WWE

WWE Champion: CM Punk
– 50 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on November 20th (Survivor Series PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Dolph Ziggler, Royal Rumble PPV

World Heavyweight Champion: Daniel Bryan
– 22 day reign, defeated The Big Show by cashing in Money in the Bank on December 18th (TLC PPV)

WWE Intercontinental Champion: Cody Rhodes
– 143 day reign, defeated Ezekiel Jackson on August 12th (Smackdown)

WWE United States Champion: Zack Ryder
– 22 day reign, defeated Dolph Ziggler on December 18th (TLC PPV)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne
– 133 day reign, defeated David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty on August 22nd (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: Beth Phoenix
– 92 day reign, defeated Kelly Kelly on October 2nd (Hell in a Cell PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Bobby Roode
– 67 day reign, defeated James Storm on November 3rd (Impact)

TNA Tag Team Champions: Crimson and Matt Morgan
– 53 day reign, defeated Mexican America on November 17th (Impact)

TNA X-Division Champion: Austin Aries
– 113 day reign, defeated Brian Kendrick on September 11th (No Surrender PPV)

TNA Knockouts Champion: Gail Kim
– 57 day reign, defeated Velvet Sky on November 13th (Turning Point PPV)

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: Gail Kim and Madison Rayne
– 67 day reign, defeated Miss Tessmacher and Tara on November 3rd (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Robbie E
– 57 day reign, defeated Eric Young on November 13th (Turning Point PPV)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

Martell has The Triple Threat.

Reid has Hot or Not.

Kirk has The Wrestling Sandwich.

Ari has Column of Honor.

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EST.

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That’s our show, That Damned Cook is in tomorrow, I will be back next week. Plus, don’t forget to look for me this Tuesday in the Games Zone for Four Player Co-op.

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy

Buddy Volunteers To Be Assistant To The Assistant To
The Smackdown GM. Buddy Imagines That Job Would Not Be Hard.

Have a good one, and always be a fan.