The Tuesday Communique 04.23.13: Time To Refocus

The Wrestling News Experience with Stephen Randle
My Take On: Top 10 ‘Mania Weekend Disappointments with Larry Csonka
The Wrestling 5&1: Audrie Marie vs. Sasha Banks with Tony Acero & Greg De Marco
The Professional 3: Top 3 Mustaches with Jon Harder
Thursday Sports Entertainment News Report with Sean Kelly
The Heel Report: Stop and Start with James Wright
The Piledriver Report: The History of Vince McMahon’s Wrestling Empire: Part 13 with Ronny Sarnecky
Ask 411 Wrestling: Flair’s Hair, Savage’s Apologies, Vince’s Generosity & More! with Mathew Sforcina

I heard that you guys
Demanded the return of
My awesome haikus

Before we begin, I want to address a couple of things. First off, I know over the past few weeks some of you have felt my column has come across as being “phoned in” or lazily done. I understand that criticism. I won’t go full disclosure because it’s personal business and it’s not what you’re here to read, but I will say that at the end of March and into April my family has experienced a litany of medical issues. My wife, son, father-in-law and myself have all been in and out of doctors offices, hospitals, emergency rooms and so on and so forth. It’s been a rough few weeks. Through all that I was able to get by without missing a week. I probably shouldn’t have submitted something the week before WrestleMania, but being that it was to be my last column before the show, I simply delayed it a day and gave you something on Wednesday instead. The main point of this is that I care. If I didn’t, I would have just skipped a week and moved forward, but I promised to finish out a feature I started, so I did that, even if it wasn’t as thoroughly completed as I had originally planned, and I greatly thank those of you who appreciate my efforts. My family’s medical fiasco isn’t over yet, but barring anything catastrophic I don’t foresee missing a column or having to lighten the load and deliver something that I personally feel to be substandard.

Secondly, I feel that the main idea that I returned with back in 2011 has fallen to the wayside. The Wednesday Wire was written every week with the number one intention of creating and facilitating discussion. It worked, mostly, and it was a lot of fun and I believe many of you had a good time sharing in the discussions, arguments and what have you. When Disqus was introduced to 411 I tried a different method, and allowed everything to happen within the comment section. It has been fine, I guess, but in my opinion it lacks the true nature of the discussion I was trying to drive. Yes, the new system allows for immediate back-and-forth discussion, and that won’t change, but I am going to try to bring some things back up into the main column so we can have ongoing topic discussions that can evolve and grow, which we were able to do in the past. I’m going to change up the style of the news section in order to lend to more pointed discussion within the comment section as well, so we’ll see how that goes, also. It will be a process, I’m sure, to get it right, but we’ll work on it together if you’re up for it. In the end, and I know it’s a cheesy cliche, this column isn’t mine. It’s for everybody, and I want to really get some interesting discourse going again. Let’s see what we can do.

But first, RAW!

WWE Monday Night RAW from London, England || TV Review
Paul Heyman is here and says that Triple H isn’t here, and that he’s a coward, essentially. Heyman gets out a great line, saying that he has no idea how he got the reputation of being a liar. Obviously Triple H shows up, accepts the cage match, and Pedigrees Heyman. He took it darn well, too. He should teach Kane. This was quick, simple and not completely without unneeded drama. I think I said it last week, but I’ll say it again — I am actually kinda looking forward to the cage match in May. Much like this promo, it’s going to be less about silly melodrama and more about being a straightforward fight.

R-Truth v. Antonio Cesaro
Truth sings to the ring, which he hasn’t done in a while. It doesn’t work as well with the ‘heel’ remix of his music. If he’s going to sing, just go back to the older version. Still better than Cesaro’s stupid yodeling though. Cesaro controls early with a great European uppercut to the back and a short-arm clothesline. Truth comes back but Cesaro dodges the Ax Kick. Truth cracks his hat rack with the front suplex and hits the ‘Lil Jimmy (Flatliner) or whatever they’re calling it. It was really ugly, too. Match was short and inoffensive, but why’s Cesaro being buried in favor of another Truth push? and can they please just merge the US and IC Titles already? All the same guys are fighting each other over the 2 belts as it is. They should do an extreme unification 6-way match at the PPV or something. Who cares what the rules are, just merge them and have a lot of people falling from high places. Truth def. Cesaro, flatliner – 2 min, *

The Shield arrive in a helicopter. Cool. Ambrose didn’t seem too enthused to be in such a situation. I bet he hates heights.

Brodus Clay v. Damien Sandow
Brodus controls with headbuts and slams while the British crowd chants stuff I can’t understand because of their accents. Eventually they sing the Fandango song for a few seconds. Thankfully it was over quick. Sandow takes over with the Edge-o-Matic and hits the ELBOW OF DISDAIN~! which, due to the lack of push, is no longer over. Why is this going longer than the Truth/Cesaro match? Brodus gets the Stinger Splash and a t-bone suplex while the crowd chants for JBL. I think they did that during the previous match as well. Cody’s interference allows Sandow to schoolboy Brodus. He holds the tights for the win. Not bad by any means, but just there. This could actually be a really fun feud if they would let the two teams actually do things to show how different they are instead of just putting them in boring matches that don’t matter. Sandow def. Clay, schoolboy – 4 min, *

Ziggler and AJ make out backstage and rudely send Big E away. Brickie shows up and tell them that if Jericho can beat Ziggler tonight, he will be in the title match at Extreme Rules, making it a Fatal Fourway. That would instantly make the match about 50 times better, which means they won’t do it.

The Shield are backstage and say that tonight, Undertaker will feel the justice. Something like that. They really need to do something with these dudes soon. They never really had any sort of direction, but they were new, different and chaotic, so it was okay. I hope they put the belts on two of them (with the Freebird rule, please) at Extreme Rules and give them at least a bit of a focused motivation.

Non-title: Dolph Ziggler v. Chris Jericho
So odd how the crowd actually cares about two wrestlers who actually get to wrestle week-in and week-out for longer than 2 minutes. Ziggler gets a headscissors and Jericho does the Austin Aries escape, even finishing with a low dropkick. Ziggler slides out and tries to take a powder, but Jericho follows with a baseball slide, knocking him into a commercial. Ziggler is in control and hits a neckbreaker as we return. Another very short Fandango song breaks out, but at least it’s slightly topical in this instance. Jericho whips Ziggler into the corner but misses a charge and flies out of the ring. That gets 2 back inside. Ziggler shows off a bit too much and almost fall prey to a backslide. He takes over with a clothesline and goes to the chinlock. Y2J fights out but it’s sleeper time! Ziggler’s the World Champ, so does that make it a MAIN EVENT SLEEPER~!? Maybe not, as Jericho gets out with a backdrop and comes back with shoulder blocks and comes off the top with a sledge. He can’t get the Walls but the step-up enzugiri gets a near fall. If he was Owen Hart that would have been it. Running facebuster sets up the Lionsault, but Big E punches his face off. Ziggler only gets two, though. They botch something and DZ improvises pretty well, but they seem to have lost the crowd, who just want Fandango at this point, but probably only ironically. Even though they don’t know that they ironically want him. Crowd does the wave as Ziggler hits the jumping DDT. Fuck these British assholes. Jericho panders and ends up hitting knees on the Lionsault, but he kicks out of the Fameasser. That finally stops the idiots. Dolph goes up top but gets caught and Jericho brings him down with a superplex. Codebreaker, but DZ gets his foot on the ropes. Big E tries to interfere again but takes the springboard dropkick. Walls of Jericho for real now, but Fandango’s music hits, much to the delight of the crowd. That causes enough distraction for Ziggler to hit the Zig Zag and keep Jericho out of the title match. Very good match, but the lack of respect from the crowd was annoying. Ziggler def. Jericho, Zig Zag – 17 min, ***1/2

Mick Foley is randomly backstage and Josh Mathews asks him how the Attitude Era is different from now, for some reason. He kinda answers, and then says that there will be no excuses on Foley’s favourite night, Extreme Rules. I was really hoping he was going to go for some stupid May 19 reference and bring Kane into it somehow, but sadly he did not.

Sweet T v. Cody Rhodes
Cody baseball slides through the legs and hits a nice jab. He hits another after ducking a clothesline attempt. T gets a throat thrust and gets a niiiiiice stalling butterfly suplex. That was pretty great. Cody comes back with the falling uppercut and hits a nice neckbreaker for 2. Jawbreaker leads to a Disaster Kick to the back of the head, but it only gets 2. Cody lays the boots and gets another pin attempt, but Sweet T fights out of a front facelock. Dropkick puts T in the corner, but he dodges a charge and starts the comeback. Monkeyflip! Cody is downed in the corner and it’s cannon ball time! Awesome. Sandow tries to interfere buts gets taken out by Brodus. Sweet T hits the Baldo Bomb and the senton backsplash finishes. Surprisingly good match, short as it was. Still should have just used one 10 minute promo segment to build to a tag match. Sweet T def. Rhodes, senton backsplash – 4 min, **

Daniel Bryan is upset because Undertaker is not here yet, and he has DIAGRAMS! Kane makes him promise not to try to give ‘Taker a hug, but they get taken out by The Shield

Ryback says that last week he enjoyed letting Cena get taken out by The Shield last week. He will be the next WWE Champion and that Foley will have to face him in the ring tonight.

Big E Langston v. Zack Ryder
Big E comes out to some music that isn’t his awesome NXT theme. Ryder has no silly frills, which he said would happen on Twitter today. Too bad it’s not going to mean anything since he’s just here to get squashed. Ryder tries to fight, but it doesn’t matter. Big E hits the standard big man three-in-a-row backbreakers and running shoulderblock in the corner. Ryder hits a missile dropkick but takes a clothesline the the Big Ending is all she wrote. Okay then. Langston def. Ryder, Big Ending – 2 min, NR

Maybe he’s going to start over, just with a different approach.

Undertaker & Team Hell No v. The Shield
Or is it The Brothers of Destruction & Daniel Bryan? Cole calls Undertaker “near mythical”. What the crap is that supposed to mean? He almost doesn’t exist? I guess that’s kinda true, since “The Undertaker” is only a character, but Mark Calloway is a person, so he truly almost doesn’t exist. Nah, Cole’s just an ass. Undertaker gets his entrance, and then The Shield get theirs, and for some reason Cole doesn’t go batshit that Team Hell No aren’t there yet. This is weird. Why aren’t they there? Bryan must be sulking that ‘Taker wouldn’t look at his diagrams. Oh yeah, they got attacked. My bad. Anyway, here they come! The Shield are down and it’s a commercial! Match is next! There goes the commercial. Match is now! Bryan starts off with kicks on Ambrose and a knee to the gut. Kane comes in with a low dropkick for 2. Armwringers lead to a tag to Undertaker, and shoulder blocks lead to an attempt at Old School, but Ambrose blocks. Second try gets him and leads to a 2 count. Crowd chants “you still got it” even though all he did was clumsily walk the rope, but to each his own. Kane and Bryan double team Reigns and Bryan gets 2 off the corner dropkick. Kane goes for some rest holds, but Reigns takes him down with a shoulder tackle and tags in Rollins, who gets the running one-footed dropkick-a-majig. They triple team Kane in the corner for a while. Rollins comes off the middle rope and gets a fist to the gut, and in tags Bryan, who runs the ropes like a motherfucker and takes him down with the running forearm. Chest kicks in succession lead to the head kick, but it only gets 2. Bryan dumps Rollins and follows with a suicide dive. Bryan comes back in with the missile dropkick but misses the running dropkick in the corner, and it’s commercial time. Back from break with Reigns controlling Bryan. Rollins in and he whips Bryan into the buckle. Rollins yells at ‘Taker, who tries to look angry and intimidating but ends up just looking old. Ambrose in with a short-arm clothesline. He ties Bryan in a Mexican surfboard and Rollins comes off the top with the knee drop. That move is awesome. Bryan finally tags in Undertaker, who goes to town with snake-eyes, the big boot and leg drop, but falls to a Reigns spear off a double chokeslam attempt. He clotheslines Rollins and tags in Kane, who does the normal Kane offense. Rollins gets out of the chokeslam and hits a jumping enzugiri. Bryan up top for the headbutt, but Reigns crotches him. ‘Taker goes after Reigns, Rollins goes after him, and Kane goes after him. During the chaos, Ambrose cuts Bryan off up top buts gets shoved off. Bryan misses the headbutt. Ambrose covers! Shield remains undefeated! Good match, but pretty standard stuff. Shield def. Kane/Bryan/Taker, missed headbutt – 19 min, ***1/4

Cena tries to talk Foley out of talking to Ryback. Shut up, Cena. What the hell could Ryback do that’s worse than all the shit that’s already happened to the guy? Cena gives Foley a chair to bring with him, probably because his knees are so shot that he can’t stand for long periods of time.

Fandango v. William Regal
I believe this is the first time that NXT’s Summer Rae has accompanied Fandango on TV. I implore you to check out the Regal/Ohno match from the 4/10-4/11 episode of NXT. Might be my WWE match of the year thus far, honestly. Regal does some bad dancing and then punches Fandango in the face a couple times. He gets a back body drop, but Fandango takes over as the crowd sings Regal’s song. Fandango hits his Flatliner-ish finisher for the win. Cole calls it “A Perfect Ten”, which is a perfectly acceptable name. That was quick. Crowd goes right back to Fandangoing. Jericho takes him out from behind as he dances up the ramp. Fandango gets tossed off the ramp and Jericho dances with his chick. Man, it’s pretty obvious that she has no dancing training. She’s a pretty good wrestler… why not just put her in the battle royal? Eh, whatever. I guess the feud is continuing, nullifying some of my complaining below. Fandango def. Regal, Perfect 10 – 2 min, NR

#1 Contendership Divas Battle Royal: Naomi v. AJ v. Tamina v. Layla v. Aksana
Aksana is the first to go, and nobody bothers to acknowledge it, though Cole eventually gets to it in passing. Tamina eliminates Naomi, and I don’t think anybody mentioned that at all. Layla eliminates Tamina, and Cole does call that. It’s down to Layla and AJ, but AJ is knocked out from a Tamina superkick from the beginning of this gruelling contest. She’s only playing possum, though, and kicks Layla out of the ring. She’s the new #1 Contender. AJ wins the battle royal – 3 min, NR

Brodus Clay stars (I think) in No One Lives. It seems like he’s the bad guy, but it’s tough to tell. The only noteworthy part of the trailer is that the movie was made by the same guy who directed “Midnight Meat Train”.

Mick Foley wants to talk but the fans give him the “What?” treatment, because they’re assholes. Plus because who cares? Why does Mick Foley have to be part of this build? Mick tells Ryback to quit whining, because he never whined when people took advantage of him. Good promo with Mick trying to convince Ryback to stop being a baby and to just be a man about it, but why does Mick even care? I guess Ryback did save him from Punk once. Ryback actually cuts a good promo about how he gets what he wants, and he’s right. He should have just done this instead of that pre-taped promo. Damn, Ryback was actually pretty damn good here, but all this did was make me want to see him and Foley square off. Couldn’t they have just done this with Cena last week instead of what they did? Ryback takes the steel chair away from Foley and Cena runs down for the save, but here come The Shield! Cena leaves as Cole says “see how it feels, Ryback” as if that’s not WHAT THIS WHOLE FUCKING FEUD IS ALL ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU MORON. Cena does end up saving Ryback with some silly-looking chair shots and then lays him out with the AA.

Overall RAW Thoughts
The show flowed pretty well and didn’t feel as long as most every other three-hour RAW, so that was nice. We got a couple good matches and no shitty booking, really, so I have nothing to complain about. The last angle would have been better if they just put Cena in place of Foley and had Ryback cut that same promo on the guy he’s actually wrestling in a few weeks. I’m sure we’ll be back to the tedious grind next week, but for one week it was nice to have minimal bullcrap and a pretty simple show.

WrestleMania Buyrate Flop Leads to Young Stars Getting Center Stage?
There are early, early, early, early — let’s stress here — early reports coming from… somebody, that the buyrate for this year’s WrestleMania is much lower than the initial record-breaking number that everybody projected. Obviously it’s just complete speculation, but what if the buyrate is in the 800,000 range? Obviously that’s still a lot of people, but nowhere near the one and a half million or something outrageous that WWE initially seemed to expect to draw. Again, I know it’s incredibly speculatory, but say it is a much lower than expected number. Does it serve as a wakeup call? Rock v. Cena did gangbusters in 2012. Rock v. Cena does mediocre in 2013. Throw a big Triple H match in there as well alongside Brock Lesnar, and maybe Vince starts to think that he got it wrong? In my mind, Rock’s injury at WrestleMania and subsequently pulling out of RAW the following night could end up being the beginning of the end of the era of returning former stars. They didn’t get to start the Rock v. Brock story, and with Rock hurt (and maybe not coming back?) and this year’s ‘Mania not drawing as expected, that match gets scrapped and Brock gets a non-part time opponent for next year’s show in New Orleans. Maybe instead of having 4 of the 6 people in the final three matches on the show be part time guys, have that many full time guys in those roles instead? They’ve got a year to really start building their year-round roster. What better place to really drive home the beginning of a new era than the 30th annual Grandest Stage Of Them All?

TNA: Papering The Crowd & Bound For Glory Location
Matt Morgan responded to reports that TNA only sold 3,000 tickets for the recent TV taping in Corpus Christi, Texas. Honestly, I think 3,000 sold is a pretty decent number. It’s certainly 3,000 more than they got at the Impact Zone. Yes, there are more associated costs inasmuch as they have to transport the ring and the set and pay the rental fee for the building, but that’s the price of going on the road. 3,000 tickets this time, maybe 3,500 next time and then so on. That’s not a guarantee, but it is an opportunity to improve. Maybe they sold more than that, though. Matt Morgan’s never steered me wrong. On top of that, the location currently being looked at for this year’s Bound for Glory even in October is San Diego, California. They’re doing three shows in California there in May, so maybe that’s going to be their testing of the waters to see how well they can draw. They did well in Phoenix last year, and I bet they would likely do better in San Diego.

CM Punk Not Out For The Summer; Who Should He Wrestle?
CM Punk will probably only be gone for about a month, as he is being advertised for RAW again starting in May. He’s not going to be a part of the Extreme Rules PPV, but he is likely to be back to work the Payback show in June, which is in Chicago. I’m glad he’s not going to be skipping the summer, but I wonder who he’s going to be programmed with. It would be great to see him come back as a face, starting by lamenting that since Brock Lesnar returned, Paul Heyman has turned into every stereotype Punk was lashing out against in the first place. Have Heyman tap into the Shield to shut Punk up — Punk v. Rollins in Chicago at Payback, give him Reigns on RAW in between and then Punk v. Ambrose at Money in the Bank. I’d have him beat Rollins in Chicago, have a non-finish against Reigns on RAW and then lose to Ambrose at MITB somewhat clean, with only a slight bit of Shield/Heyman interference. Then do Punk v. Brock at SummerSlam.

Sami Callihan Going Through WWE Medical Testing?
Word around Cauliflower Alley is that independent standout Sami Callihan, one of the guys who was at the closed evaluation a couple months back, has begun the rigorous medical testing process that WWE has prospective signees go through. I wonder how he would fit in WWE, to be perfectly honest. With his short stature, odd body shape and interesting facial features and expressions, I fear that he would find himself as a low-end gimmicky comedy figure. Then again maybe his odd nature will help him stand out and they’ll try something different with him. Maybe they’ll put him and Sami Zayn (I believe that’s how they’re spelling the former El Generico’s name now) in a tag team. On an unironic note, I think they would actually make a pretty good team.

– Chris Jericho is going to be appearing sporadically at best over the next couple of months. If he’s not going to actually be around to continue his feud with Fandango, why didn’t they give the dude a more decisive win at WrestleMania?

– In a recent Twitter Q&A, Chris Sabin said that he’s coming back to Impact this Thursday and that he’s gunning for the World Title, not the X Title. I don’t see how he could possibly fit into the World Title picture until after Bound For Glory. It would be pretty awesome to see Sabin be AJ’s first challenger after BFG if Styles being the saviour of TNA is the direction they’re going.

– WWE is officially moving their developmental system to Orlando and housing it in a ridiculous state-of-the-art facility. It’s going to have seven rings! If nothing else, this does mean that they are interested in really securing themselves for the future.

– Mick Foley claimed on Twitter that he’s done wrestling. I think he and CM Punk could have done something really interesting last fall.

New England Frontier Wrestling

AR Fox v. Frankie Arion || NEFW Slamrock 2013 – March 2, 2013
From TJ Hawke: “Fox was his usual entertaining self here, and Arion did well as well. Arion has got a lot of potential, but I think his heel work that I’ve seen elsewhere is much more interesting than the babyface Arion that I saw here. Still though, this was a fun match. How can it not be? It’s got AR Fox.”

For more, please visit FreeProWrestling.com

– Nicholas A. Marsico