The Tuesday Communique 04.9.13: Here To Show the World!

411’s Instant Access: WrestleMania XXIX with Scott Slimmer et al
Views From The Hawke’s Nest: WrestleMania 2013 with TJ Hawke
Tremendous Tirades: WrestleMania 29 with Larry Csonka
Thursday Sports Entertainment News Report with Sean Kelly
The Wrestling 5&1: Trish vs. Sunny! with Tony Acero & Greg De Marco
The Wrestling News Experience with Stephen Randle

WWE Monday Night RAW from East Rutherford, NJ || TV Review
The new WWE Champ John Cena starts us off with his championship celebration and teases a heel turn! Heh, that was actually pretty funny. Crowd: “Same old shit!” Damn, they were chanting that 7 years ago. He’s happy to have won the belt and challenges anybody, so out comes Mark Henry. Crowd: “Sexual Chocolate!” Henry wants a title match and Cena accepts for TONIGHT, but Booker T butts in (since when does he have jurisdiction over that belt?) and says that The Rock, who isn’t here, is the number one contender. Cena: “So ‘Once in a Lifetime’ is best two out of three?” Good on you, John. It’s Henry v. Cena tonight, and if Mark wins he gets a future title shot.

Daniel Bryan v. Big E Langston
Bryan’s mega over, obviously. He starts out pushing forward with kicks but gets caught on a charge by Big E with the S-T-Joe! Sweet! Big E does some power stuff but gets caught with a ton of kicks to the chest and a big head kick, but AJ distracts the ref, allowing Ziggler to toss Bryan off the top. Kane catches DZ for a chokeslam, but Big E throws Bryan out of the ring and wipes him out. Inside, the Big Ending finishes it. Not much going on, but good enough. Big E def. Bryan, Big Ending – 4 min, *1/2

IC Title: The Miz v. Wade Barrett
Miz takes advantage early with clotheslines and a boot to the head. Miz ducks a charge and slides under the ropes with a sunset rollup (can we call it that?) for 2. Crowd is either chanting for Barrett or a pirate. It’s a tossup, really. Barrett gets tossed out of the ring an Miz follows with a HYOOOGE baseball slide through the ropes. He killed him with that. Barrett comes back and hits a nice neckbreaker onto the apron with Miz tied up in the ropes. That leads us to a commercial. Back from break and Miz runs into the Winds of Change slam. Crowd wanted that to be it. Barrett with an elbow drop from the apron onto Miz and then it’s chinlock city back inside. Miz fights out with a backdrop suplex and makes the “babyface” comeback. The crowd is loving this. Miz sets up the corner clothesline but Barrett meets him halfway. Miz goes for the Reality Check and the crowd is receptive, but Barrett falls too early and ruins the spot. Miz gets the corner clothesline on his second try and gets the low DDT for 2. Miz counters out of Wasteland and the Figure Four looks to end it, but Barrett makes the ropes! I thought that was the finish. Barrett knocks Miz down and goes up top but gets caught. He blocks the superplex and knocks Miz off the top and he comes back in with the Bullhammer Elbow. Odd. Let’s hope they start fresh with him now. Barrett def. Miz, Bullhammer – 13 min, ***

Sheamus wants The Big Show, so Brickie give him a match. That was easy enough. Maddox insinuated that Sheamus has to know that if they do this, he “owes them one”. Sheamus being their heel asskicker could potentially be hilarious and awesome.

Randy Orton wants The Big Show, but Booker tells him that Brickie already gave Sheamus the match. Orton appeals and says that he’s a GM and can overrule them, so he does. Alright.

Handicap Match: Alberto Del Rio v. Jack Swagger & Zeb Colter
Colter talks on the way to the ring and I fast forward through it, through the commercial, and right to the match, because fuck this angle already. The new version of Del Rio’s song stinks. It has zero bass and sounds incomplete. Bell rings and the crowd immediately launches into a “We Want Ziggler!” chant. Del Rio gets a kick to the back and sends Swagger outside. He follows with a nice suicide dive. Crowd “We Want Ziggler!” King: “The crowd is really behind Del Rio tonight.” Del Rio comes back inside with a double sledge from the top, but Colter gets a cheap shot and allows Swagger to get a chop block and start working the ankle. Both guys go for German suplexes and can’t get them, so Swagger gets a SWEET sequence that leads to the ankle lock. ADR gets out quickly and gets an armbar in the ropes, but Swagger knocks him off the apron and into the barricade. Off to commercial! Swagger gets two off a back suplex and continues to work the ankle. ADR dodges a charge and Swagger gets posted in the corner. ADR stupidly gets the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and hurts his own leg. He gets a superkick anyway for 2. Swagger counters the cross ambreaker and gets the Patriot Lock. Crowd, again: “We Want Ziggler!” King: “Is the crowd chanting ‘We Want Colter’?” Really? Fuck you, King. ADR somehow gets the cross armbreaker and Swagger taps two nights in a row. Okay match. Del Rio def. Swagger/Colter, cross armbreaker – 10 min, **

Here comes Ziggler! The crowd is going FUCKING NUTSO BATSHIT! Cash in time!

World Heavyweight Title: Alberto Del Rio v. Dolph Ziggler
Ziggler attacks the leg! Fameasser! Only 2! Crowd is going insane! DZ misses a charge inthe corner! Step-up enzugiri! That gets 2 for the champ! Cross armbreaker! Oh no! Crowd is ready to start crying! Ziggler grabs the injured ankle! He’s out! They’re up! Zig Zag! New champ! Holy shit this is fantastic! THIS is how pro wrestling should always feel. Ziggler def. Del Rio, Zig Zag – 2 min, NEW CHAMP

The Undertaker is here to a raucous ovation. I wonder what he’s here to say. He dedicated last night’s match to the memory of Paul Bearer… and HERE COMES THE SHIELD! JBL: “How can this show get any better?” They surround the ring, but all of a sudden Kane’s pyro goes off louder than it has in years. Good lord that was loud. Bryan and Kane run down to even the odds, but The Shield run away. That’s no fun.

Ziggler is backstage with the title and says he’s been too damn good for too damn long. Crowd agrees.

Zack Ryder, R-Truth & Santino v. 3MB
Truth controls early and tags in Santino, who takes one punch from Slater and tags out to Ryder, who quickly becomes the home area boy-in-peril. He gets a great neckbreaker to counter a suplex from McIntyre. Santino and Slater tag in and it’s breaking down in East Rutherford! Santino gets the Cobra on Slater to pick up the win. Geez, they really hate Ryder that much, eh? His team wins but he’s not anywhere to be seen when it happens? That’s pretty shitty. Ryder/Truth/Santino def. 3MB, Cobra – 3 min, NR

Orton and Sheamus argue about who gets to wrestle Big Show. Orton wants to right his wrong and fix it, but Sheamus wins out. Yeah, this is going to end with an RKO to Sheamus. No doubt.

Sheamus is out for his match but instead of Big Show, out comes Orton. I guess the argument isn’t over. We get to Tweet to decide who gets to kick Big Show’s ass, apparently. After the commercial we find out that Orton won 77% to 23%. Booker and Vickie decide “fuck the fans”, and make Sheamus v. Orton now with the winner getting Big Show. Way to bait and switch the social media lovers, guys. Not that it matters.

Sheamus v. Randy Orton
Stalemate to start and Sheamus takes down Orton with a shoulder block. Crowd doesn’t seem to care, so they chant “Ole, ole, ole, ole…” Orton gets a back elbow but misses a knee drop. Sheamus follows up with a pair of them. Crowd chants “Ole…” again. Kind of weird that they don’t care about this match. “Boring!” chant. Wow. In response, both men go for extended chinlocks. “R-V-D” chant now. Then they chant for JBL and the crowd goes bonkers when they show him on the screen. “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”… no, no, not this… yep. “Michael Cole! Michael Cole!”. This is awesome. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but this is great. I guess when you book two stars to be completely inconsequential and then have them wrestle each other 2 hours into a long show, this is what you get. Commercial break, and we return with an “E-C-Dub!” chant. Why not just end the match? Sheamus gets the Irish Curse backbreaker as the crowd does the wave. Seriously, I don’t know what exactly led to this, but maybe it will be a wakeup sign. Sheamus gets the forearms to the chest as the crowd chants to end the match. Orton gets the backbreaker and the crowd chants for Randy Savage. He hits the worst T-bone ever as they chant for HBK. Rope-hang DDT and this match is still going. Sheamus blocks the RKO and hits White Noise. Orton ducks the Brogue Kick and Big Show’s music hits. I feel like they didn’t just do this 10 minutes ago because they wanted to see how out of control the crowd could get. Crowd: “Thank you Big Show!” He takes out Sheamus and nails Orton with the WMD to a massive ovation. Orton v. Sheamus ends in a No Contest – 16 min, NR

Big Show destroys Orton afterward and throws him like a rag doll over the announce table. He launches two chairs toward the ring, but both hit the top rope and don’t make it in. Crowd chants for “One more chair!” but don’t get their wish. What a gigantic mess.

Fandango v. Kofi Kingston
Crowd is singing Fandango’s entrance theme. Awesome. Nothing happens, so Jericho comes out to a MASSIVE reaction and kills Fandango. He beats him up all over the ringside area and locks in the Walls inside the ring. He ends it with the Codebreaker. Fandango is announced as the winner and says his name properly. Crowd sings and dances like crazy along with his theme. This is just great. No Match

Paul Heyman is backstage and the crowd loves him even though he calls them idiots. Brock Lesnar is ready for a fight tonight, but Rock left early, so he’s not going to fight. He builds up bringing CM Punk to talk, but they says he’ll be on RAW next week. Man, what an ass. The crowd was all excited for Punk, too.

8-Person Mixed Tag: Tons of Funk & Funkadactyls v. Rhodes Scholars & Bellas
Match is joined in progress and it seems that they’re still singing the Fandango theme. I care as much as they do. ToF & Funkadactyls def. Rhodes Scholars/Bellas – NR

Mark Henry v. John Cena
Crowd is still singing Fandango’s theme, so Cena plays to them and dances to a mild pop. Right back to the song, though. Henry tries to slam Cena through the announce table, but Cena gets out. He tosses Henry into the steps and gets the countout victory as the crowd continues singing Fandango’s song. Wow. Cena def. Henry, count out – NR

Henry takes Cena out with the World’s Strongest Slam, but Ryback takes him out and then turns his sights on Cena. The crowd wants him to kill John, but they boo when he extends his hand. They putz around for a while, then Ryback kills him with a clothesline and ends the show with Shellshocked. I guess that’s a heel turn.

Overall RAW Thoughts
Show was going quite well until the crowd gave up and started chanting for everybody they could think of. Then it just became stupid fun, even though nothing really got accomplished. It would be nice if the crowd reaction would get WWE thinking about actually doing something to prevent that, but they’ll chalk it up to the insanity of a post-WrestleMania crowd in New Jersey and it will be same old, same old from here on out until forever. Hey, Ziggler wasn’t the second guy to fail at cashing in! That was nice.

WrestleMania XXIX Review
I had no interest in paying for this show, but a gracious individual offered to help me out and I had nothing better to do, so I ended up seeing the show. Yay for me.

IC Title: The Miz def. Wade Barrett – I missed most of the match, but what I did see was good. I was shocked by the massive positive reaction Miz got when he locked in the Figure Four. Good choice giving Miz the belt, as Barrett has been dead in the water for a while.

The Shield def. Orton/Show/Sheamus – Certainly not quite as out-of-control as their previous matches, but it was a darn good PPV opener. There were small pockets of the crowd chanting for Ambrose, which was good to hear. Show punched both guys out post match, which I guess means he won’t be turning face after all. He’s been so boring as a heel.

Mark Henry def. Kane – What the hell happened? Crowd cheered Henry over Ryback, which I really was expecting, to be truthful. Then they turned on the match as a whole, which most people seemed to be expecting. Then… Mark Henry wins? What? At least the spot looked pretty devastating. Ryback went splat. This match should have been 5 minutes of two big dudes hitting power moves on each other and not selling anything. Instead, Henry beat Ryback up and spent a couple minutes using bearhugs before taking the Meathook clothesline and winning via being too fat. After the match Ryback got a spinebuster and hit Shellshocked anyway. Why not have him win? I ask again: what the hell happened?

Tag Titles: Team Hell No def. Ziggler & Big E – The crowd was HOT for this one, and were definitely happy to see Ziggler and Bryan out there after being put through the rigors of the Henry/Ryback match. Sadly this was very short, but the callback to last year with Bryan kicking Ziggler’s head off after kissing AJ was great and I honestly thought that was going to be the whole match! Big E and Kane looked good as well.

Fandango def. Chris Jericho – Good match, but they fucked up the last two spots. Not much else to say, really.

World Title: Alberto Del Rio def. Jack Swagger – Serviceable. It probably would have been better if I cared even a little bit. Much like myself, the crowd wanted Ziggler and was upset when he didn’t show up. What a waste. Can the Swagger/Colter experiement be over now, please?

Undertaker def. CM Punk – Easily the match of the night, though partially in my case because I truly was not expecting it to be as competitive as it was. Just a great match with a couple of moments that legitimately made me believe that Punk might actually have a chance. He didn’t, of course, but there were some seeds of doubt in my head. The sequence that led to Punk kicking out of the Tombstone was awesome. The only small hitch in the match was that the Spanish (Japanese?) table didn’t break from the big elbow drop. Lastly, if you want to know what a 50/50 split crowd reaction really sounds like, look no further than this match. Thank you for that, MetLife crowd.

No Holds Barred: Triple H def. Brock Lesnar – Maybe a little better than the piece of dogshit Triple H had with The Undertaker two years ago. I love how JBL of all people was overselling how dangerous Brock was to Triple H. It was slow and plodding and the crowd didn’t care in the first place, and they certainly weren’t going to give a crap after the great match that preceeded this. The match was just Triple H masturbating. Fitting seeing as that’s what appeared to have happened right before he made his entrance. Everything from the superkick on Heyman through the finish was admittedly pretty great, though. Too bad there were almost 20 minutes before that.

WWE Title: John Cena def. The Rock – I kinda liked it, actually. The first 10 minutes were weird and slow, as it seemed like both guys were trying to make the match “epic”. Or Rock was tired. One or the other. Once they got going and just started trading finishers for 10 minutes it got kinda awesome. The finish came out of nowhere, though. The sequence directly before it was awesome, but instead of building up to the end, they just went right to it. Rock and Cena celebrate together to close the show. Please let this be the end.

Overall WrestleMania Thoughts
It was okay. There was nothing actively bad, not by a long shot, except for maybe Henry/Ryback, but whatever. Punk/Taker was great, Rock/Cena was fun and the last few minutes of Brock/Triple H was darn good. Everything else, honestly, could have been on RAW. The show wasn’t bad, but I didn’t pay anything for it so I didn’t hate spending my evening watching. It just wasn’t WrestleMania. It was big, long, outdoor RAW.

Southside Wrestling

Marty Scurll & Zack Sabre Jr v. MK McKinnan & Jonathan Gresham || – SWE Supremacy 2012 – August 19, 2012
From Jesse Nguyen: “This is a match that starts off slow, then picks up as it keeps going. Sabre Jr. and Scurll show they are an established tag team with some good dual offense. McKinnan and Gresham did a good job, but they were obviously more suited to singles as their best came from the one-on-one encounters. It is a long match that doesn’t feel long at all. “

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We’ll be back in full force next week, I promise.

– Nicholas A. Marsico