The Tuesday Communique 09.11.12: Another Day, But Still No Dollars

– The Wrestling News Experience with Stephen Randle
– The Wednesday Wrestling Week That Was with Sam Smith
– Thursday Sports Entertainment News with Sean Kelly
– Handicapping The News 9.07.12 with Gavin Napier
– The Wrestling 5&1: AJ v. Stacy with Tony Acero
– Shining A Spotlight On Turns with Michael Weyer
– The 8 Ball: Career Killing Moves with Ryan Byers

To the detractors: What is it you don’t like? Well thought-out ideas? Good writing? Eh. I have plenty of readers who enjoy the column and take part in the discussions. I work my ass off every week writing for this site and I thank those of you who can appreciate it.

Bret Hart Returns to Montreal
In a move everybody expected, which certainly isn’t to say it was a wrong move, CM Punk interrupted Bret Hart to an insanely huge chorus of boos. Most anything Punk said was met with resounding disapproval; this was likely all done in order to make sure that everything else Punk did in the night would receive a similar response.

R-Truth & Kofi Kingston def. The Miz & Antonio Cesaro (approx 8 min)
I believe this was Cesaro’s first appearance on RAW. He spent it bumping all over the place for Kofi but at least he was able to keep up and help make sure Kofi looked good.

Sheamus’ Deposition: The Mini-Movie
“Drinkin’ and fightin’, but felt very guilty afterward.” Man, Sheamus is really, really bigoted. They do call him “The Great White” for a reason, eh? You would think that some of the stuff he said here would be avoided like the plague. Logic has certainly never been a factor in Vince’s plans. This was awesome. A lot better than just doing the same old “boring Del Rio speech – boring brawl” that Sheamus and ADR have been doing for the past almost 3 months. More mini-movies!

Layla, Eve & Kaitlyn def. Alicia Fox, Beth Phoenix & Natalya (approx 3 min)
The women actually had a very smooth, botch-free match here. All 6 of them had limited time in the ring, sure, but everything looked good. The fans, sadly, gave them the reaction that WWE has conditioned them to do, whistling and harassing, but that’s how it goes right now, isn’t it? Alicia Fox could not have looked dumber in that hat-a-ma-jig thingy, by the way.

Randy Orton def. CM Punk via DQ (approx 14 min)
Hey Cole… the middle-rope elbow is a Bret Hart move, not a Shawn Michaels move. Moron. I wonder if he’ll “get heat” for that one like he “got heat” when he didn’t call Punk’s Rock Bottom that wasn’t a Rock Bottom. The crowd didn’t even catch that it was a Bret move, but come on, Cole. The HBK connection to that elbow drop was a stretch, which he didn’t even need to fucking do, since the move was a BRET HART signature. Ya know, I defend Cole, but that’s just poor job performance.

Randy Orton & Jerry Lawler def. CM Punk & Dolph Ziggler (approx 7 min)
Teddy Long must be an advisor to AJ! Tag team match! I have been wondering for a few weeks… is Ziggler sandbagging Orton on the slingshot suplex or does Orton just not know how to do it properly? The Punk/Heyman aside was very odd to watch with the match going on in the background like that and no attention being paid to anything.

Ryback def. Heath Slater (approx 2 min)
The fans really need to make their minds up about Ryback. Every single week, without fail, he gets Goldberg chants and then they react big to his power moves and chant “Feed Me More”. Either cheer him or make fun of him, guys. It can’t be both.

Daniel Bryan & Kane def. The Prime Time Players
Titus O’Neil might (ha, might) look incredibly lost in the ring, but the man’s got some massive personality, which he somehow completely forgot to exhibit during his tenure on NXT. The original one a least. Match was fine… not sure if they’ve decided to give up on the tag division or what, but a Bryan/Kane reign with the gold could be a heck of a lot of fun.

Alberto Del Rio def. Tyson Kidd (approx 3 min)
This was there. Guess there really was no Tyson Kidd push in the works.

Cody Rhodes def. Rey Mysterio (approx 5 min)
Tough to talk about the match, but it was fine. Perfectly Acceptable Wrestling, as some may say. Rhodes taking out Miz afterward was unexpected and awesome. That alone makes it seem more important.

John Cena & Bret Hart Teach Punk A Lesson
I had some trouble getting into this one and at the start it seemed like Cena did too, but once it got going both Punk and Cena spat out some absolute gold. Maybe a little more foreshadowing of a match with Austin at WrestleMania if he’s able to go?

Overall RAW Thoughts
The show started off well and I enjoyed it before King’s collapse, but obviously it wasn’t easy going from that point on. I followed it on Twitter and paid more attention to that than I did to the show that was on TV, to be truthful. The last segment was a damn good hard sell for Sunday’s pay-per-view. I don’t really have much else to say.

Ring of Honor Frustrations: Your Opinion
I’m curious about the feelings of the 411 readers in regards to Ring of Honor. I know I’ve been making the joke for weeks and weeks now that “next week” I will be airing grievances and frustrations about the Ring of Honor product. Truth is that it didn’t start out as a joke. I had been wating ROH and generally enjoying it, but it wasn’t exciting enough for me that I was looking forward to the next TV show every week or even paying attention to the website for the upcoming iPPVs and live shows. When I first had “Ring of Honor frustrations” listed as a topic for “next week” my intention was to watch the two episodes that I hadn’t seen yet as well as at least part of the June 24th Best in the World iPPV. Problem was, I just could not come up with the desire to sit down and watch any of it. And that continues right on through today. I’ll watch RAW and SmackDown, I have been watching some stuff from New Japan and I check out random matches from WWE, TNA and elsewhere, but ROH… I just can’t do it. The last episode of TV I watched was from July 28, and I didn’t even finish that one. I checked out all of Border Wars except for the title match (I couldn’t tell you why) and I haven’t seen Best in the World or Boiling Point, nor can I find it anywhere inside me to check any of it out.

So back to my curiosity. I don’t want to waste column space talking about things you don’t care to read. That has been my biggest concern since I returned to 411 almost exactly 1 year ago. I want to write about things that the readers are interested in not only reading but also discussing. That said, do enough of you give a crap about ROH enough to warrant me taking the time and column space to explore what it is that has been keeping me more than an arm’s length away from Ring of Honor? If not, I won’t bother you with it here. I could take it to my Tumblr blog if there’s a very small amount of people who want to discuss ROH with me. As I said, I’d rather venture into topics that more people are interested in discussing here on 411. So it’s up to you, Communiquetors!

– Discuss ROH in The Communique
– Discuss ROH on Tumblr
– Discuss ROH with the voices in my head

Daniel Bryan & Kane: Team Names
If they’re going to be putting the tag titles on Mysterio & Sin Cara, why not feud them with Daniel Bryan and Kane? That would be all kinds of spectacular. If they are going to get together as a true team, maybe they need a name…

His Bubbliness
– Dragon Fire
– Weenie Roast (Reminds me of Double Trouble Crap-on-a-Stick)
– The Yes! is on Fire
– The Burning Sensations (AJ would surely take offense!)
– Bromance of Destruction (Clever…)
– Seeing Red
– The Insane and Kane Travel Together on the Plane

My comments are in red in case you didn’t figure that out.

Jason Douglas
– The Devil’s Favorite Vegan (They could use that if Kane somehow took mind control over Bryan and had him do his evil bidding. Which would be awesome, by the way.)

TPK and G-Walla
– Anger Management (Out of all of the suggestions, this one seems most likely. It would be great if they made it into a big gimmick, too — they try to work on their own anger management together and then when they feel comfortable they try to give tips to their opponents, only for it to end poorly, starting the cycle over again.)

The Big Fat F
– Grilled Veggies (Could they wear “Kiss The Cook” aprons to the ring?)

neverAcquiesce
– Hellfire & Tapouts (I dig this one. We need more teams whose name describes an element of their character or in-ring attributes. Somehow I can’t come up with one for any of the current teams. Help.)

Mr. Magnanimous
– K-Bry (Only if they have Alex Riley get upset about the name and get his ass handed to him for it.)

Dr. Wiki
– The Big Red Nos
– Two Angry Men (Sadly that joke would be lost on the whole target audience)
– Beards and Fires

Guest#2575 (evil twin of Guest#0341) Rebuts RE: Cena/Punk
“I’ll admit that I forgot about the Cena-Punk match at Raw 1000 but that’s probably because it ended in DQ but I thought Cena won that match anyway just not the title. I don’t really care who is called the BITW but the fact that you have to go back to over a year ago to find Punk’s last pinfall victory over Cena, which was before his current title reign doesn’t really help Punk’s case for this year in my opinion. If this was last year when Punk had 3 or 4 victories to Cena’s 1 then that would be different.

Then the question becomes, would King (or whomever) call John Cena the Best in the World? If yes, then why is HE best and not Punk? Just like Punk had not defeated Cena in over a year, Cena also had not defeated Punk in that span as well. If Cena’s not best and Punk’s not best, then who is? By default Punk must be the best, because he’s the champ. I think, in this kayfabe context in which we are speaking, it’s pretty clear that Punk is cut and dry the best.

– The current plan for Jack Swagger is reportedly to have him return on the October 1st RAW in Oklahoma City. Being that he is from Oklahoma it can be a positive homecoming for him. The piece I read states that he would likely be returning as a face, which would certainly be a fresh outlook for the big guy. I think what they should do to really help to start nailing it down is have him praise JR (Oct. 1 is also JR Appreciation Night) and maybe even defend him from a detractor. I would LOVE to see CM Punk come out to run down Ross only to have Swagger defend his fellow Oklahoman and challenge Punk to a match. He could lose it in a very close contest with JR in his corner and then embrace JR in the ring to close out the show. It could work well and be a great new beginning in the career of Swagger.

– Heath Slater challenge Zack Ryder on the most recent episode of “Z! True Long Island Story” to a match for the Internet Championship. Slater wants a shot at the belt on a Youtube pre-show match before an upcoming PPV. If they actually go ahead with the idea, it would be a fun belt to have defended on pre-shows and it could make that, as well as Ryder’s Youtube show, seem more important.

– Bully Ray has indeed signed a 2-year contract extension with TNA to be an on-screen character as well as a backstage agent. It is rumored that some people in TNA are upset that Devon wasn’t offered a good enough contract to make it worth sticking around, since he has gotten himself into amazing shape and was said to be a great asset for younger talent backstage. He’d make a great agent for WWE, I’d say. I doubt it will happen since he and Ray are still running their wrestling school out of Florida, but if they’re serious about the tag division, Devon would be a perfect agent for that segment of the roster.

– Apparently the WWE Network has not been placed on an indefinite hold. At least that’s what a WWE rep said in response to the WrestleZone news bit from last week that stated as such. I don’t buy it. That network is not going to move ahead and time soon and I would be very surprised if it ever materializes.

– Spike will be airing a special one-hour live Bound For Glory pre-show on October 14 before the biggest TNA show of the year. That certainly will give the show some extra hype and will give it more of the “big event” feel that it has often lacked.

neverAcquiesce on Derrick Bateman
“If Vince saw Bateman’s video he’d just think he was going for full-blown babyface. And hell, with the overly-patriotic USA chants you get in most arenas he might not be wrong. Remember, this is the same company that basically fell into a brilliant gimmick in Muhammad Hassan and resorted to making him the same generic heel all other foreigners have been.”

I don’t even necessarily like the Bateman gimmick. It would be a fun thing to run as a silly gimmick on Superstars for a while but I don’t think it would work on either of the main shows.

The Big Fat F on the Tag Titles
“For Night of Champions: I’d love to see a multi-tag match. Next week on Raw they could have 3 qualifying matches. Kane/Bryan vs Usos, Kidd/Gabriel vs Mysterio/Cara, Colons vs PTP. Have Kane/Bryan, Mysterio/Cara, and PTP win. I’d love to see a Kofi/Truth vs Cara/Mysterio face-face feud for a while. Great matches.”

Looks like we’re going to be getting another two-on-two match between the Champs and PTP. Titus and Young are probably going to win this time, too. At least they has them win the #1 Contendership in a three way match with the Usos and Primo/Epico. It was a good match on SmackDown even though Titus O’Neil looks SO lost in the ring sometimes.

Last week I profiled Bo Dallas and Leo Kruger and brainstormed a quick idea for how they could possibly debut. Let’s do it again this week, now with two more promising young men, Richie Steamboat and Seth Rollins.

Richie Steamboat

Richie Steamboat, shockingly enough, is the son of the legendary Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. He’s 6’2” and 215 pounds at 25 years of age. He just began his 4th year as a wrestler and he has made steady improvement all along. Steamboat has an advantage over some of the other young men in developmental, as he spent a short time traveling the world at the beginning of his wrestling career, working in Japan (in NOAH), Mexico (CMLL) and Europe/England (All Star Wrestling). It wasn’t an extensive period of time, but he had a chance to broaden his horizons before being thrown into a more restrictive WWE developmental system. He has some similarities in the ring to his father (deep armdrags, two-handed chops and a great high crossbody) but one of his biggest priorities is to become his own man and his own wrestler, not to be lumped in with his father every time somebody talks about him.

Bottom Line: I like him. Once WrestleMania season is over he should be brought right up to the roster in a lower card role so he can work with more experienced wrestlers. You can only improve so much when wrestling week-in, week-out with guys either at or below your level of experience.

Booking A Debut: One very important thing for Richie’s debut is that he stays away from his father. They obviously can and will and should bring up that he is indeed The Dragon’s son, but it should be stressed that he spent time wrestling all around the world before coming to WWE so he could become his own man. He debuts on SmackDown similar to how John Cena did. A high level heel (CM Punk?) is tired of not having enough competition and Steamboat answers his open challenge. He gives a quick introduction of himself “My name is Richie Steamboat. Yeah, my father is who you think. But right now I think it’s more important that I shut CM Punk up.” Steamboat loses to Punk, but it’s a close contest that makes Richie look good. Even Punk looks impressed (spitting right in the face of his meme!) but gets away from the ring before shaking Steamboat’s extended hand. He automatically has some buzz about him.

Seth Rollins

Seth Rollins is a 26-year-old billed at 6 feet, 1 inch and 205 pounds. He is a 7-year pro who made his way up the ranks in the independents going from small shows in the midwest to main eventing the Hammerstein Ballroom as the Ring of Honor World Champion. Rollins is no stranger to national television, as he was part of the DIFH tag team with Jimmy Jacobs on MTV’s smash hit show Wrestling Society X during its record breaking 2 month run on TV. In all seriousness, Rollins has shown amazing ability and agility, and what he lacks in spoken promo ability he makes up for with in ring presence. He’s a high-flyer with a lot of high impact moves.

Bottom Line: Rollins should be on TV right now. Put him on somebody’s Survivor Series team and let him shine.

Booking A Debut: *Note: Cesaro has declared that even though Booker T refused to rename his belt the “European Championship”, he has been able to bring some European class to his title defenses, as they will be wrestled under “European Rules”. The other stipulations are small ones, but the main one is that due to “European Rest Period Rules” there is a 20-count on the floor instead of 10.* Rollins enters a tournament for the US Title that is taking place because Cesaro is refusing to give anybody a title shot unless he deems that they “earned it”. Cesaro doesn’t think the established stars are worth his time so he allows several up-and-comers to enter (this includes Rollins, Steamboat, Bo Dallas and Conor O’Brian). They get paired in the first round with the established guys and Cesaro does everything he can to help the new guys win (only Rollins and Dallas win). Seth earns his shot and has to win the final of the tournament on PPV. The title match begins immediately after he is declared winner and hefights a fresh Cesaro. The 20-count factors in at this point — in borrowing a very pivotal point of Seth Rollins’ career that happened when he was Tyler Black in Ring of Honor, he gets taken out by Cesaro with a devastating move that lands him in the first few rows of the crowd. In what seems like forever, Rollins is able to roll into the ring at 19, where he almost immediately falls prey to AC’s finisher. He kicks out and proceeds to kick out of a few other high impact match enders before mustering up the strength for a superkick and a Phoenix Splash to take the belt.

Next week: Conor O’Brian and Kenneth Cameron.

Night of Champions is coming up this Sunday, and it certainly could, and should, be far more interesting. Oh well. At least we’re guaranteed at least a pair of very good-great matches. That’s my main draw in wrestling anyway.

WWE Championship
Champion CM Punk v. Challenger John Cena

Cena and Punk have been poised to renew last Summer’s hottest rivalry for the last few months, and after Cena’s Money in the Bank cash-in ended in a schmozz at RAW 1000 he has been vying for another one-on-one shot at the WWE Title. This Sunday will be his first singles match for the WWE Title on PPV in almost 11 months (Vengeance 10/23/11), and it will take place in what will surely be a hostile territory even though he is in his home state of Massachusetts. I think a lot of people felt that this would be the final night of CM Punk’s reign as WWE Champion, but after the revelation of his alliance with Paul Heyman on the 9/3 edition of RAW it seems likely that he will continue to hold WWE’s top prize.

World Heavyweight Championship
Champion Sheamus v. Challenger Alberto Del Rio

Alberto Del Rio will be getting his third shot in three months on pay-per-view against Sheamus. It is not easy to call this one, as it would appear likely that Sheamus keeps his title and finally moves on, but with Del Rio’s recent addition of David Otunga as legal counsel he may end up sneaking out of Night of Champions with the Big Gold Belt. I am personally shocked that this is the third PPV match in a row between these two men and they have not yet added a stipulation, but with the Brogue Kick banned this contest will indeed come down to Del Rio’s cross armbreaker submission versus Sheamus’ Texas Cloverleaf submission. I hope they throw the Submission match stipulation in there just to further allow the men to differentiate the match from their first two one-on-one encounters. I would have liked this to be a multi-man match (with Ziggler, Orton, Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow) but that would then take away one other prospective match.

Pride On The Line
Mr. MITB Dolph Ziggler v. The Viper Randy Orton

As I said above, my main interest in professional wrestling is indeed the wrestling, so my complaints about this match are minimal. They have already had two good TV matches (the second better than the first) and a PPV match will likely eclipse them both in quality. Better build-up would have seen these two involved in the aforementioned 5-man match at NoC (with one costing the other a chance at the belt) followed by a one-on-one rubber match at the Hell in a Cell PPV with Ziggler’s briefcase on the line. That notwithstanding, this quasi-feud has been as simple as simple gets — I beat you, you beat me, now let’s fight once more to see who the better man is. I can go for that.

Divas Championship
Champion Layla v. Challenger Kaitlyn

I am not looking forward to a catch-as-catch-can classic, as Good ‘Ol JR might put it. I’m expecting a car crash; hopefully one that ends quickly. Layla has shown the ability to put on a good match with an opponent better than she is and Kaitlyn has shown the ability to throw in a few good-looking moves, but against each other there’s nobody to carry the match and no hope for anything beyond perverse entertainment (in multiple ways, I guess).

WWE Tag Team Championship
Champions Kofi Kingston & R-Truth v. Challengers Daniel Bryan & Kane

I really hope they call D-Bryan and Kane “Team Friendship”. I’m sorry, but I think that eclipses all of your above suggestions. Should be a good match.

United States Championship
Champion Antonio Cesaro v. Winner of Battle Royal

Would it have killed them to have a legit challenger make a challenge 3 weeks ago? Eh, I like battle royals, so I’ll deal. Cesaro won’t lose.

Intercontinental Championship
Champion The Miz v. Challengers Rey Mysterio & Cody Rhodes

I assume this is where they’re going. I approve.

Predictions: CM Punk, Sheamus, Orton, Layla, Bryan/Kane, Cesaro, Miz

I told you I would talk about ROH frustrations this week. Now it’s your turn to tell me how you want me to continue, or if you want me to continue at all. I’ll try to catch the whole Night of Champions PPV before RAW next week so I can write about it for Tuesday, otherwise I’ll say something about it on Tumblr. I like Tumblr. I should use it more often.

I apologize if a portion of the PPV preview seemed rushed or sub-par, as well as some of RAW. I wrote a bunch of it last night and I was a bit shaken over the Lawler situation.

Until next week, seeya.

– Nicholas A. Marsico