wrestling / Columns

The Wrestling News Experience: 08.20.12

August 20, 2012 | Posted by Stephen Randle

Monday, August 20th, 2012

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


Written In Front Of A Live Studio Audience

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, expert in matters of the heart. But that’s not why you’re here. Why are you here, again?

Oh, right, I write about wrestling. And inadvertently create alliterative statements. But mostly the first thing.

Moving on.

Slimmer had the live coverage. My commentary begins with the end to Bryan-Kane.

Antonio Cesaro defeated Santino Marella to win the WWE United States title (pinfall, Neutralizer)

Hallelujah, now the US Title can maybe be defended in real matches, and as for Santino…not much will change for him, actually. That’s not a bad thing, by the way.

Chris Jericho defeated Dolph Ziggler (submission, Walls of Jericho)

I figured this was where the build was taking us, since you can’t run down a guy and point out that he doesn’t win and then have him not win. Also, the curse of MITB losing streaks remains in effect!

Daniel Bryan defeated Kane (pinfall, small package)

Is it wrong that I only just now realized that the three triangles on Bryan’s trunks are his initials?

The Miz defeated Rey Mysterio to retain the WWE Intercontinental title (pinfall, Skull-Crushing Finale)

Note to Rey and his costume choice for the evening: despite what he said in the movie, not everyone can actually be Batman.

So Vince managed to hire a GM whose response to criticism is to stare blankly into the middle distance? I hate to say it, but I miss the laptop.

Sheamus defeated Alberto Del Rio to retain the World Heavyweight title (pinfall, Irish Curse)

Well, that finish looked botched. Unfortunately, that also means that this match will happen again at Night of Champions, methinks.

On watching the replay, I guess that was supposed to be the finish, but it’s odd to have a “missed foot on the ropes” finish benefit the good guy. When it’s not CM Punk at SummerSlam last year, I mean.

Okay, I don’t know how to justify my statement, but white shirts and pink trunks were a bad choice for the PTP.

Oh lord, Cole tries to justify Titus’ barking as “imitating a Gator because he played football in Florida”. Yeah, no, he’s barking like a dog, Cole. Mostly because he’s insane, I’d wager.

R-Truth and Kofi Kingston defeated The PrimeTime Players (Truth pinned Young, Little Jimmy)

Hard to say if this is a side effect of the AW firing, or just WWE realizing that Young and O’Neal are still a little too green to be holding the belts. I’m just kidding, it’s totally the first thing.

Any money on a tag title change tomorrow night instead, either involving the PTP or some sort of debuting tag team like Ascension?

Hey, here’s an obvious question nobody asks. How come Eve, Otunga, Miz, and Mark Henry can still do things like B.A. Star and hospital visits while playing heels on TV, but turning John Cena heel would mean that he’d have to stop doing those things?

*knock knock*

Who’s there?

“WWE-hired goons.”

Hired goons?

Hey, what a shock, despite the fake rumours, Triple H vs Brock Lesnar will be the main event. Didn’t see that coming. Oh, wait, yes I did.

In case you wondered, yes, Los Angeles is a “smark city”, as evidenced by the contrary cheering of Big Show just because he’s not Cena.

See, Punk makes pink work. Take notes, Young and O’Neal.

Oh, please tell me we’re not doing the stupid “double submission” finish.

Did Punk just say “Do the right thing like Spike Lee?”

Yeah, that’s pretty much the finish everyone predicted, with Punk stealing the pin from Cena.

CM Punk defeated John Cena and The Big Show to retain the WWE title (pinfall, AA)

Boy, that “”heel”” (excessive representation of air quotes fully intentional) turn that was their whole big summer angle is really working, amiright?

Oh, boy, Cena is disappointed in CM Punk. I imagine he’ll spend fifteen minutes making jokes before demanding a rematch tomorrow, which Punk will deny because he’s a bad guy now apparently, and then AJ will force him into the match because she’s CRAZY!

Oh good, Kevin Rudolf, I can finish writing the column.

Cole, I think on PPV you can at least say “ass-kicker” instead of “butt-kicker”. At least, you should be able to.

Brock Lesnar defeated Triple H (submission, Kimura Lock)

Well, that’s nice. Now what? Oh, right. Nothing until Mania.

You know the real shame in this whole Lesnar debacle? The guy brings a totally new style of brutal “shoot-style” match to wrestling that could have far-reaching implications on the stale “WWE Main Event Style” and which makes his matches total “must-see” events, and instead he’s going to wrestle three matches and more than likely be gone and we’ll never see it again instead of potentially revolutionizing the business like he could if he wanted to be a wrestler at all.

Overall, I was pretty much right. It wasn’t bad, but it was just kind of…average.

Last night, Brock Lesnar nearly broke Triple H’s arm and forced The Game to submit. Will Lesnar be in attendance tonight to celebrate his victory? I suppose stranger things have happened. And how will WWE’s COO react to losing such a big match when it took so much to get that match signed in the first place?

But elsewhere, CM Punk retained his WWE Championship against both Big Show and John Cena, by using his brain. Will this victory garner CM Punk some of the respect that he feels he deserves, and definitely isn’t getting from certain people?

Meanwhile, Sheamus retained the World Heavyweight title by defeated Alberto Del Rio yet again, but some end-of-match shenanigans might leave Del Rio a case for getting another shot. Can Sheamus move on, or will he be forced to deal with the Mexican Aristocrat yet again?

Plus, Chris Jericho shocked, well, not really anyone except possibly his opponent, when he went toe-to-toe with Dolph Ziggler and proved that, at least for now, he isn’t losing his touch. How will Ziggler react to his loss, in a match that he seemed so confident of winning?

And Daniel Bryan escaped with a victory over Kane, but the Big Red Monster did not seem like he was going to let Bryan get away that easily, tearing through the arena in search of his opponent after the match was over. Can Bryan continue to dodge both Kane and the attention of Raw GM AJ?

All this, plus we have a new US Champion, and the same WWE Tag Champions, and we’ll see how those situations continue to play out, tonight on Raw!

When To Abort (An Angle)

Word out of TNA is that the actress playing Claire Lynch, who, if you aren’t paying attention, is a drug addict who is friends with Dixie Carter and AJ Styles and may also be carrying AJ’s baby (which, at least, is pretty much the only head-slappingly stupid angle running in TNA right now, to their credit), may be done with TNA, and they’ll be blowing off the whole angle with a paternity test this Thursday on Impact. Or, at least blowing off the part involving her and hopefully just going back to having AJ beat the crap out of Daniels one last time in a good match and then maybe feuding with someone else afterwards. In any event, speaking as one of many who has called for this angle to be mercy-killed as soon as possible, I couldn’t be happier. Plus, thanks to being stuck in this sinkhole of an angle, AJ has a bunch of matches “in hand” in the BFG Series, and could literally catapult himself from being last with a score of zero a few weeks back right into the final four in time for No Surrender.

So, I guess we wait and see what happens this Thursday. If the angle’s over, clearly AJ won’t be the father. And if he is…well, at least there’s an hour and forty five minutes of Impact that doesn’t involve this insanity.

The End Of The WW*BLUR*

Good news, everyone! WWE has finally, finally come to an agreement with World Wildlife Fund, who you may recall handed them their ass in court and resulted in years of blurred footage and having to re-learn the name of the entire promotion. Well, at least the first thing is no longer a problem, as the new settlement will allow WWE to show old footage without having to smear Vaseline over every single instance of the old WWF “scratch logo”, as they have been doing for years. Obviously, they still aren’t allowed to go back to being WWF or mention it in new footage, but still, this is something they should have worked out with the panda people years ago. Or at least before I bought the Royal Rumble Anthology, which is chock full of blur. Although I guess I shouldn’t complain, because I bet if they re-released that set it would mysteriously be missing 2004.

Anyway, clearly this deal was made so that they won’t have to blur millions of hours of footage for the WWE Network, which is probably the first positive Network-related news we’ve heard since they announced they were going to do this damned thing. And even that involved a crappy
dubstep music video, so this is probably #1 on the list by default.

– Online humour-based site Cracked.com ran an interesting article this past weekend entitled “The 5 Most Bafflingly Racist Shows on TV Right Now”, and surprise, surprise, WWE made it on to the list. I do have to take issue, though, with the term “bafflingly racist”. We’re all well aware of how blatantly racist (and sexist, and misogynistic, and homophobic, etc) WWE is, there’s nothing baffling about it.

– The location for SummerSlam 2013 is still the Staples Center in LA, after there were rumours that WWE might want to run the show in MSG next year, apparently because they thought it might be a good idea to put a little distance between themselves and Kobe for a while.

– And like most weeks, Kurt Angle said something weird on Twitter that he then had to clarify as having a completely opposite meaning. Who taught this man about the existence of social media in the first place? You should be ashamed.

– WWE may be thinking about inducting Randy Savage into the WWE Hall of Fame at WrestleMania 29. You may all now proceed with giving yourselves false hope because it’s not going to happen.

1. WWF Scratch Logo

Ah, how I’ve missed you, Scratch Logo. Or, at least, I’ve missed being able to watch wrestling footage from 1997-2002 without feeling like I’m squinting at a “Magic Eye” puzzle. Now, magically restore all my DVD’s to unblurred states!

2. CM Punk

Hey, he won by the rules of the match, so even though Cena’s going to try and poo-poo his victory tonight on Raw, that doesn’t make it any less true. And since Brock’s not going to be at Night of Champions, Punk may get to main event a PPV for the first time since he became champion nearly 300 days ago!

3. AJ Styles

With a win over Daniels, five more matches in hand, and a light at the end of the tunnel that is Claire Lynch, things could be looking very bright for Styles and his future prospects.

4. Antonio Cesaro

Cesaro wins his first title in WWE, so I guess they’re going to give him a real chance to show them something. And from what I’ve heard, Cesaro has a lot to show people, if given the opportunity.

5. Chris Jericho

It’s not exactly “the big one”, but Jericho is off the schneid, picking up his first PPV win of 2012, which would be his first win since he returned. And yet he’s still over. Hmm….

6. Daniel Bryan

Bryan gets a big win when I thought he would have lost, because, you know, sometimes Kane gets wins when it doesn’t make sense given his status as glorified JTTS. Can Bryan parlay that into a WWE or World title match, please?

7. Reks/Hawkins

Well, at least it’s a cultural reference from this year, even if I don’t really want to watch a male stripper tag team. Don’t look now, but there are actually a half-dozen tag teams in WWE!

8. Paul Heyman

Much as I didn’t care for the whole Triple H-Brock Lesnar feud as a whole, I will miss Paul when he goes away again. The wrestling world is always poorer when he’s not involved in it.

9. The Miz

Man, Mysterio’s doing a lot of jobs since his return, when before it was almost like clockwork that he’d get the win. Renewed faith in the Miz, or is it just Rey realizing that his time is almost up?

10. Brock Lesnar

Hey, great, he got to beat Triple H. If I thought he’d be around for the next six months, every week plus PPV’s, I might actually care. As it is, well…see you in a while, Brock.

Inactive List as of 08.13.12

WWE Raw

– David Otunga, out indefinitely as of July 7th (movie)
– Evan Bourne, out indefinitely as of March 19th (foot)
– Rosa Mendes, out indefinitely as of August 6th (personal)

WWE SmackDown

– Mark Henry, out indefinitely as of May 1st (surgery)
– Ted Dibiase, out indefinitely as of March 7th (ankle)
– The Great Khali, out until November as of July 24th (surgery)
– Wade Barrett, out 3-4 months as of Februrary 20th (dislocated elbow)

WWE NXT

– Bray Wyatt, out six months as of July 4th (torn pectoral)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out 6-9 months as of June 14th (ACL)
– Jesse Sorenson, out at least one year as of February 12th (spine)
– Sonjay Dutt, out 6-8 weeks as of July 8th (shoulder)

Transactions

– Taryn Terrell, TNA, made TNA debut on August 16th Impact

– The Pope, TNA, out 2-3 months as of August 12th (broken collarbone)

WWE

WWE Champion: CM Punk
– 274 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on November 20th (Survivor Series PPV)

World Heavyweight Champion: Sheamus
– 141 day reign, defeated Daniel Bryan on April 1st (WrestleMania XXVIII)

WWE Intercontinental Champion: The Miz
– 28 day reign, defeated Christian on July 23rd (Raw 1000)

**NEW** WWE United States Champion: Antonio Cesaro
– 1 day reign, defeated Santino Marella on August 19th (SummerSlam PPV)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and R-Truth
– 112 day reign, defeated Epico and Primo on April 30th (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: Layla
– 113 day reign, defeated Nikki Bella on April 29th (Extreme Rules PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Austin Aries
– 43 day reign, defeated Bobby Roode on July 8th (Destination X PPV)

TNA Tag Team Champions: Christopher Daniels and Kazarian
– 53 day reign, defeated Kurt Angle and AJ Styles on June 28th Impact

TNA X-Division Champion: Zema Ion
– 43 day reign, defeated Kenny King, Mason Andrews, and Sonjay Dutt in an Ultimate X Match on July 8th to claim the vacant title (Destination X PPV)

**NEW** TNA Knockouts Champion: Miss Tessmacher
– 4 day reign, defeated Madison Rayne on August 16th (Impact)

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: ODB and Eric Young
– 165 day reign, defeated Gail Kim and Madison Rayne on March 8th (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Devon
– 155 day reign, defeated Robbie E on March 18th (Victory Road PPV)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

Sarnecky has The Piledriver Report.

Byers has The 8-Ball.

And this week’s TWNE After Dark features our semi-recurring feature, Feed The Trolls, as I respond to criticism that I didn’t think SummerSlam was going to be any good, especially Triple H vs Brock Lesnar. Oh, and our Question of the Week is “Who’s having a better 2012 so far, WWE or TNA?” The answer may surprise you!

Also, don’t forget to join the TWNE After Dark a Facebook group.

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 8 pm EDT.

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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 Four Player Co-op in the Games Zone on Wednesday, and the TWNE After Dark podcast at 10 pm EDT this Wednesday as well!

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy



One Day, Buddy’s Going To Get That Squirrel

Have a good one, and always be a fan.

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Stephen Randle

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