Friendly Competition 1.20.07: The Positive Edition!

I’ve gotten a lot of email recently which criticizes me for my ALLEGEDLY negative attitude towards ECW, TNA, and specifically Bobby Lashley. Since I’m here to give you, the reader what you want, I decided to try something a little different this week. I decided that no matter what, I am not going to say anything negative. Fuck the Great Positivity Debate, this is going to be the most positive column ever seen on 411. I guarantee it.

ECW On Sci-Fi Results 1/16/2007
LIVE from Little Rock, Arkansas

-My resolve to be positive is severely tested from the start when they open the show with the return of Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly, who reminds us that she’s an exhibitionist. The difference being that since she’s now single, she can do whatever she wants, Kelly’s Expose comes back next week and she won’t be alone. She gives us a short preview this week, which is interrupted by Matt Striker. See, there’s something I like. I am happy that Matt Striker interrupted Kelly’s crappy dancing! He says a bunch of words I’m not sure she understands and tells her to sit at ringside while he beats up CM Punk.

-CM Punk gives us a nice long, 11 minute old school match with Matt Striker. I wish they hadn’t gotten Kelly involved, but it beats doing clean jobs to Hardcore Holly.

-Up next, we have a nice little TNA reunion match as Monty Brown comes out with a new name and squashes Cassidy Riley. He actually does bust out a bunch of really good looking power moves before finishing him with a Fujiwara armbar, which is a great move for a guy that size to use as a legit finisher. Great debut. After the match he says that he’s come here to destroy anyone in his path and even makes me pop by making fun of the WHAT chant! This guy is totally going to make ECW worth watching, I just have this feeling.

-Bobby Lashley cuts a short promo where he reminds us that he doesn’t have to get pinned to lose the ECW Title. I think the inevitable match between Lashley and Corvon is going to be a lot of fun to watch if they’re really allowed to cut loose on each other.

-Sandman (who, in a great stroke of positivity, is still over despite not having the Enter Sandman music) comes out to face Elijah Burke, who I think is a great talker, probably the best promo on the brand right now, at least until I’ve seen a little more from Corvon. Sandman kills Terkay with a caneshot to the face to start, but takes a bad fall off the top rope and Burke pulls the jeans to get the win.

-Ariel and Kevin Thorn are backstage and promise love, pain, and destruction at the Royal Rumble. I’ll be interested to see how love fits into the equation.

-Okay, there’s no dancing around this one. Lashley has another crappy match this week despite having not one, but two guys in there with him to try and make the match watchable. He fucks up a backdrop spot, a corner clothesline spot, a schoolboy rollup, misses his cue breaking up RVD’s cover on Test by about three seconds, and even somehow screws up a bump out of the ring. However, since I’m forcing myself to find something positive about the match, he at least hits the powerslam correctly, which is most likely his finisher because it’s the only move he can do with any degreeof competence, and he succeeds in making Test (and Ahmed Johnson, for that matter) look like Bret Hart by sucking so badly. Also, Test makes me smile by knocking Lashley out with the belt…until I stop and realize that this could mean that the next ECW World Champion will be Test.

TNA Impact Results 1/18/2007
Taped on 1/15/2007 in Orlando, Florida

-The show opens with Sting taking out his frustrations on Jim Mitchell by beating him up and throwing him in his trunk.

-Team 3D gets a rematch with LAX, and tells Brother Runt to stay in the back because they don’t want him costing them the title again. Team 3D loses anyway, this time thanks to Moody Jack handing the slapjack to Hernandez, who parts Brother Ray’s hair with it.

-Backstage, Abyss is trashing the place because he lost the title.

-Gail Kim and Miss Tennessee brawl, and then we go to a video package of Christy Hemme standing up for women’s rights. Yes, instead of laying down for them. I wasn’t going to go there, but since you felt it necessary…

-The NEW NWA World Champion Christian Cage comes out to the ring and announces that he will defend the title against Kurt Angle at Against All Odds. He calls Angle an asshole, which instantly draws Angle out to the ring, and he brings the badass by telling Christian to enjoy being the champion for three weeks, because at Against All Odds he’s going to take the title, and closes by spitting in Christian’s face. Christian responds to this by saying that unlike Angle, he knows how to channel his anger because he has a consultant, a consultant who apparently thinks and wrestles just like Angle. Angle asks who it is, offering a couple of interesting possibilities in Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar, but since Christian isn’t telling, Angle opts instead to suplex Christian out of his shoes and try for the ankle lock, but Christian bails.

-Sting continues beating up Jim Mitchell in the parking lot of the prison. After the break, Sting is asking Jim Mitchell about Abyss’s stay there, and Mitchell says he did six years, but won’t say what for. All he’ll say is that Abyss is a piece of shit and that Mitchell has been using him. Sting says he looks at Abyss and sees a human being, handcuffs Mitchell to the fence and leaves.

-Kevin Nash is backstage with the X-Division guys and says he’s going to give them an Extreme Makeover. Austin Starr jumps Senshi, and they have a pull apart brawl. Looks like we might have another match for Against All Odds.

-Kurt Angle is in Jim Cornette’s office complaining about his confrontation with Christian Cage, but Cornette tells him to worry about his match with AJ Styles tonight instead.

-James Storm beats Lance Hoyt with a superkick after AJ Pierzynski hits Hoyt with a chair, and then this big confusing brawl breaks out where Hoyt brawls with Pierzynski and Dale Torborg, Gail Kim brawls with Miss Tennessee, Storm attacks Gail, and Petey Williams runs in and tries to give both Miss Tennessee and Storm the American Destroyer, but Miss Tennessee lowblows Petey and he eats a superkick from Storm.

-Eric Young wants to go into real estate with Jeremy Borash, but AJ kicks him out of the interview hallway and says that he’s not impressed with Angle’s background because it’s in the past.

-Sting arrives back at the Impact Zone just in time for the main event. I like AJ’s new tights, they look pretty cool. Regular TV match, and Tomko sits at ringside to distract Angle, but Angle wins when AJ tries to use a chair, but Angle moves and gives AJ the Angle Slam on the chair for the win. Angle goes after Tomko, but Christian sneak attacks him and Christian, Tomko, and AJ toss Angle in the ring and attack him, but Rhino chases off AJ and Joe runs in and chases off Christian and Tomko. Christian says that Angle now has his first clue.

-Sting is in the ring and calls out Abyss, then repeatedly asks Abyss what he did time for while jabbing him in the ribs with his baseball bat. Abyss won’t tell him, so Sting says that he’ll just go look it up since it’s a matter of public record. Abyss just kneels in the middle of the ring yelling “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Overall Top Ten Ranking

As voted by me. This ranking includes wrestlers from both groups and is entirely subjective.

ECW World Champion: Bobby Lashley (Champion Since 12/3/2006)
NWA World Champion: Christian Cage (Champion Since 1/14/2007)

1)Kurt Angle
2)Samoa Joe
3)Abyss
4)Test
5)Marquis Corvon
6)Sting
7)CM Punk
8)Elijah Burke
9)James Storm
10)AJ Styles

Dickhead Of The Week: Bobby Lashley

I can’t stress enough how badly this guy embarrasses himself every week. I would have to imagine that SOMEBODY in WWE realizes how bad he is, but they’re hell bent on getting him over anyway. Well, it’s working. He is over, but even the densest mark on the planet can’t help but notice how much he sucks in the ring. Every time I think he’s had the worst performance he possibly can, he always manages to top himself. The fact that he was able to ruin a match in which he did relatively little and had two competent workers there to carry him just boggles my mind. I’m almost afraid to see what is going to happen when he and Test get fifteen or twenty minutes at the Royal Rumble.

Things Worth Talking About

I decided to combine ECW & TNA News into one feature, which will now only cover the stuff that’s really worth talking about. With me taking over Sunday News, I figure I can fit all the extraneous stuff in there.

-And what else this week could possibly be worth talking about but the mass firings that happened on Thursday? In one fell swoop, Gangrel, Tony Mamaluke, the Bashams, Jazz, Rodney Mack, Sylvester Terkay, and CW Anderson all got wiped out. The only one out of this group that really surprised me was Sylvester Terkay, since they had booked him as a pretty big badass and were heavily playing up his history with Kurt Angle. I guess once Angle was gone and any chance of a match between them went with it, Terkay’s vlue diminished. I think the fact that he got put together with Elijah Burke tells us that he’s not the best talker ever, but I think the guy had potential, if not as a title contender, then at least as a threat to the title or as an enforcer for a heel champion. The guy’s got some serious legit credentials (unlike the ECW Champion), and I hope he’s not done in the business because, as crazy as this might sound, I think he’d have potential in ROH where I think his natural wrestling ability would make him a pretty big deal instead of a guy who is brought in once and then never seen again, or used to put over Pelle Primeau.

As for the others, I can’t say I’m very shocked that they’re all out of work now. Gangrel and Rodney Mack never even appeared on TV, and Jazz was only on TV once, almost a year ago. Without Paul Heyman, the Bashams had no purpose in being there. CW Anderson and Tony Mamaluke were guys from the original ECW who were brought on when it was thought that it would be a more faithful recreation of the original, but once that vision went away, so did any need for Mamaluke and Anderson. I really feel bad for these guys because it was probably the last shot that a lot of them had of making it in the business, and none of them were given any real chance to get over. It’s the fault of WWE for bloating the ECW roster as much as it did given that it only had an hour of TV each week, but at least these guys got one last guaranteed paycheck before heading back to the indies or civilian life.

-On the other side of the fence, it looks like TNA is going to run a special on a Monday night in February when Raw is pre-empted for the Westminster Dog Show. Though they won’t be going head to head with Raw (which will be running on Thursday that week in an interesting twist), it is a good opportunity to pick up people who usually watch Raw and will now be flipping around channels looking for something else to watch, and it’s also going to be a good test to see how much of TNA’s audience is going to follow them to a different night. When they run that Monday episode, they had better plug the hell out of their usual timeslot, otherwise it’s going to be one major missed opportunity. I don’t think this is going to be any kind of turning point for TNA (no pun intended), but it’s a good chance to make a little more progress.

Against All Odds Control Center

NWA World Title Match: Christian Cage vs Kurt Angle

As a result of his victory over Samoa Joe in the Ironman Match, Kurt Angle is going to get a chance to add another World Title to his resume when he meets Christian Cage. I don’t think this will be a five star classic or anything, but I do think it’ll be a good match anyway. While normally I’d be worried about what would happen if Angle injured himself (which he seems to do in nearly every match these days), but Christian is a good worker and a veteran who is experienced enough that he’d be able to work around whatever injury Angle has and still make the match entertaining. But will Angle win the title? I doubt it. Yes, he won the series against Joe and should be unbeatable by anyone else now, but I have a feeling that Christian’s consultant is going to get himself involved and cost Angle the match. I don’t think Christian’s undefeated streak (which is getting pretty close to matching Joe’s) is going to end here.

Vital Social Issues N’ Stuff With Stuart

-Since Abyss’s incarceration is a matter of public record, why didn’t somebody think to look it up when this whole angle started two months ago? (Update: I wrote this before I read it in Larry’s Impact Report. Glad to see I’m not alone.)

-I don’t blame Angle and AJ for not going all out for a TV match, but I have to question Angle pinning AJ. This is a match that could draw reasonably well on PPV, but it takes some of the mystique out of it by having something like this happen.

-I’ve heard some people criticizing the Punk-Striker match this week because people perceive it as Punk needing more than ten minutes to beat a guy who is relatively low on the totem pole, but I like that they gave him more time this week. For one, Punk is a great worker, and it’s nice to see him get more than three minutes to squeeze it into. But it’s also good for him to be able to show that he can carry a somewhat limited worker like Striker to a passable match. I also get the feeling that by having him job last week and then go ten minutes with Striker this week, it’s a test to see how he handles not being pushed like the greatest thing ever. I tend to agree with that thinking if it’s true, because the last thing WWE needs is another Brock Lesnar or Randy Orton on their hands.

The Rob Van Dam Contract Watch

Ever since it became clear that the ECW revival wouldn’t turn out the way he expected, Rob Van Dam has been pretty open about the fact that he’s going to explore his options when his contract comes up in late 2007/early 2008. Each week, I will give expert analysis on Van Dam’s position and recent activity in WWE/ECW in what may be his final year with the company.

This week, Rob was once again put in the unenviable position of trying to make Bobby Lashley look like a serious wrestler. In what could be taken as either WWE acknowledging the situation and giving him some help, or alternately as an insult since they felt he needed help from TEST, Rob Van Dam once again did his best and pulled out the only interesting spots in the entire match, but after nearly getting killed by Lashley after a few botched moves, Rob Van Dam got to do the job to Greenhorn clean in the middle of the ring. It’s a good thing Lashley doesn’t competely rip off Goldberg’s finishing sequence and try to do the Jackhammer, because if he screwed that up, Van Dam could have been in some serious trouble.

However, on the flip side of the coin, the fact that he now appears to have been removed to the situation can be seen as a blessing in disguise. After all, now Van Dam isn’t in a position where he’ll have to try and carry Lashley in a PPV match. After Test inevitably fails (as just about anybody is doomed to do), he will most likely get shunted back down the card and Van Dam will have a chance to try and climb back up to a position where he’s at least main eventing TV again.

Links To Stuff You Can Read

Larry brought us the TNA Final Solution PPV Report

Michael Bauer has the ECW On Sci-Fi Report and JD Dunn has the ECW eXperience.

Over in TNA, Larry has the TNA Impact Report and Ryan Byers has The Impact Crater.

Julian Williams and The Top Ten get a special plug since I wholeheartedly approve of his pick for the greatest opening match of all time.

Daniel Wilcox seems to be facing a crisis I faced last year as to whether or not Wrestlemania will be worth ordering. See what he has to say about it in Schmozzes And Screwjobs. And for the record, last year was the first year I didn’t order Wrestlemania.

Samuel Berman takes us out of ROH for the first time in The Independent Mid-Card, and instead brings us…a match between two ROH guys in OVW. I can’t argue the fact that I’d rather write about ROH than WWE, but come on Sam, throw us a bone and get some Jersey All-Pro in there!

In addition to the Impact Crater, Byers comes at us with a second dose of his trademark awesomeness with Ask 411 Wrestling.

Mike Campbell and Phill Feltham go head to head in this week’s FACT OR FICTION!

Finally, it’s the self-plug of the week, as this week in That Was Then, I answer some of my more interesting reader email. Who knows, maybe YOUR letter got printed!

What Did We Learn This Week?

In all things, there is at least one lesson to be learned. Here I will impart upon you what I took away from each week in ECW and TNA. You are encouraged to send in your own life lessons learned from such men as Kevin Thorn and Sonjay Dutt.

This week on ECW On Sci-Fi, I learned that…

-Being given 11 minutes of ring time on a one hour show means you’re getting buried.

-The fact that Sylvester Terkay won’t be back means that the Sandman has the deadliest caneshot in the world.

-It would take a three way with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels with Bobby Lashley tied to a chair outside the ring to drag a Lashley match out of negative stars.

This week on TNA Impact, I learned that…

-Long tights and chairs are not a winning combination.

-Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar get bigger pops than anyone else on this show.

-You have no reason to search out readily available information if not doing so gives you an opportunity to threaten someone with a baseball bat.

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Well, we hit a few snags along the way, but that was one goddamn positive column! GO ME!! High five and a gold star! Well, make sure to come back next week when I’ll be back to my usual miserable self…maybe?