wrestling / Columns
Friendly Competition 1.27.07
Before anything else, I want to address the passing of Doug Gentry and say that in a business where wrestling deaths have seriously desensitized me with their frequency, this one actually saddened me. I’ll address it more tomorrow in the news, but right now I just want to send out my condolensces to Rob Feinstein and Doug’s family.
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A good episode of ECW On Sci-Fi, an intriguing episode of TNA Impact, and the debut of Wrestling Society X. All this adds up to another positive edition of Friendly Competition, and I don’t even have to pretend this week!
ECW On Sci Fi Results 1/23/2007
-In a five man “Over The Top Challenge” (aka battle royal), Rob Van Dam defeated Kevin Thorn. Sabu, Sandman, and Tommy Dreamer were all technically in the match as well, but all were gone within a minute, so for all intents and purposes it was Van Dam vs Thorn, who was calling spots REALLY loud on camera.
-Styles and Tazz tell us that the main event was changed from Lashley vs Holly to Lashley vs Test, but they don’t know why. My suspicion is that they want to wow the fans with the workrate and squeeze a few final buys out of the Royal Rumble.
-Marquis Cor Von lays down the law to his poor victim of the evening, then squashes the shit out of him and makes him tap like a little white pussy to the man. I love this guy.
-Hardcore Holly confronts Test about getting the match changed tonight. Thankfully, Test doesn’t talk much.
-Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly comes out with what appears to be a couple of prostitutes. They proclaim themselves to be “Extreme Expose”, which is such clever alliteration that I’m certain they came up with it themselves. They proceed to do what might have been intended to be either a really crappy strip show or an African tribal dance, I couldn’t tell which. The good news is that this gave me a couple of minutes to go tighten up the previous few paragraphs. This tripe is interrupted by a video package of Test. Hey, if they use Test videos to cut this short every week, they might actually get him over.
-Matt Striker comes out to do guest commentary for CM Punk vs Elijah Burke. They once again bury Punk by giving him ten minutes and putting him over one of the top heels on the brand in a good, competitive, old-school match.
-In a non-title match mere days before their ECW Title match at the Royal Rumble, “Greenhorn” Bobby Lashley defeated Test totally clean with the PCPowerslam, despite taking a hard bump into an exposed turnbuckle. I loved the sign in the crowd that said “Yes, Test is ugly in person.”
TNA Impact Results 1/25/2007
-Samoa Joe says that he didn’t care about saving Kurt Angle last night, but he’s made it his mission to give Kurt a fair title shot, and reveals that he will be the special enforcer for the NWA Title match at Against All Odds. He guarantees Angle a fair match because the next time he gets him in the ring he wants it to be for the NWA Title. Angle comes out and says that he thought they were done at Final Solution, then accuses Joe of being Christian Cage’s secret consultant, but Joe says that he’s not a liar and guarantees Angle a fair match and…cue Christian Cage! Christian clears Joe’s name by saying that Joe is not his consultant because Joe isn’t good enough to be his consultant, then promises a second clue tonight, saying that Angle is very close to this person, probably closer than he thinks. I don’t remember any on screen interaction between Kurt and Scott Steiner. A pull apart brawl breaks out between Joe and Angle.
-Jim Mitchell tells Sting that with the kidnapping and aggravated assault last week, he could be one of those guys that gets traded for cigarettes in prison. He says it’s one thing to piss him off, and another to piss Abyss off.
-Jim Cornette lays down the law and says that he pays Raven to wrestle, and he’s going to wrestle Rhino tonight. Rhino beats the shit out of Serotonin and gets caned in the face by Raven…but it’s not Raven, it’s AJ Styles! That BASTARD!! Styles canes the crap out of Rhino and then lays him out with a chair. Rhino bleeds!
-Christian hangs out with the production guys in the truck.
-Coming soon: Ron Killings in…”A Few Good Black Men”?
-Paparazzi Productions follows Eric Young and Jeremy Borash to the convenience store at 4AM as they go condom shopping. James Storm wanders in with a beer (apparently they don’t have open container laws in Florida) and makes fun of the two guys buying condoms at 4AM. Miss Brooks seems to think that this means that Eric’s going to sign a contract. Roode says he’d better or she’s in trouble. Meanwhile, Miss Brooks thinks that interviewer chick is a dyke.
-Jerry Lynn defeats X-Division Champion Chris Sabin, Senshi, and Austin Starr by pinning Sabin.
-VKM wants to apologize to Christy Hemme…well, actually, Kip doesn’t. He sees this as a men’s business, but BG doesn’t dig what he’s saying and walks off.
-Konnan is on a walker and says that LAX has broken up Styles & Daniels and has broken up AMW, but Team 3D had better not worry about the title and should worry about their health instead.
-Sting knows what Abyss did and knows that he’s going to set him off, but is going to tell what Abyss did to land in prison. Sting reveals that Abyss put three bullets in his own father’s back and put him in a coma. THAT drew an uncomfortable gasp from the crowd. Sting says that “Chris” needs to come out and explain why he would do that, but Abyss comes out and attacks Sting, then drags him around the building and just trashes him. They head out to the parking lot where Jim Mitchell is waiting, and Mitchell throws a fireball in Sting’s face.
-We come back from commercial to an ambulance pulling out of the parking lot, and for some reason this reminds me of the part in Clerks when Dante’s ex-girlfriend gets taken away in an ambulance after fucking a dead guy in the bathroom.
-Christian makes fun of the last segment, then says that they’d better bring the ambulance back because Christopher Daniels is going to need it too. Christian Cage says that Tomko had better get Angle’s second clue ready, and Tomko says he’s all ready, then puts on Scott Steiner’s sunglasses.
-Interesting bit of trivia: while Christian does indeed have yet to be pinned or made to submit in TNA, Christopher Daniels handed him a clean pinfall loss in Ring Of Honor last summer. Unfortunately, this does not help him here as Christian kicks him in the nuts and gives him the Unprettier. In a twist, Samoa Joe was at ringside keeping an eye on Tomko, and when Tomko tried getting in the ring, Joe got in as well to confront him, and while the referee was distracted getting them out of the ring, Christian was able to pull off his underhanded tactics for the win. Christian dove out of the ring and gave Joe a thumbs up and a smile, drawing an accusatory Kurt Angle back out to the ring to confront Joe once again.
Wrestling Society X Results 1/26/2007
-Jack Evans defeated Matt Sydal in a match that immediately blew away anything seen on the entire run of ECW On Sci-Fi.
-A look at the tag teams that will be appearing in WSX in the coming weeks.
-6-Pac and Vampiro were co-winners of a Royal Rumble-style match to advance to a match for the WSX Title next week.
Overall Top Ten Ranking
As voted by me. This ranking includes wrestlers from all three 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)
WSX Champion: Title Vacant
1)Kurt Angle
2)Samoa Joe
3)CM Punk
4)Marquis Cor Von
5)6-Pac
6)Vampiro
7)Jerry Lynn
8)Jack Evans
9)Rob Van Dam
10)Elijah Burke
Dickhead Of The Week: Test
For the first time, I didn’t even have to bother watching Impact before making my pick of the week. Test wins this for two reasons. Number one, Lashley somehow didn’t fuck anything up or cut a promo this week, and actually looked pretty good to boot, so he saved himself for a week. Second, even though he’s not the most impressive challenger in history, Test lost a non-title match totally clean just days before he’s supposed to be challenging the same guy for the ECW World Title. You never know what the booking is going to lead us to, but if I’m Joe Average watching this match in Des Moines, Iowa, I just saw the ECW Champion beat his challenger on free TV, giving me one less reason to buy the show. Furthermore, who’s going to take Test seriously as a title threat now?
PPV Control Center
WWE Royal Rumble
ECW Title Match: Bobby Lashley vs Test
Even though they took away all intrigue from this match by having Lashley beat Test clean in the middle of the ring on free TV, they still need something to have ECW represented on the show, so here you go. However, because of the way WWE booking usually works (whoever wins on free TV the week before loses at the PPV), I have a small suspicion that Test could win here, but I don’t think even the brain surgeons at WWE would be dumb enough to make Test a World Champion. This is probably just killing time for Lashley until he gets in there with Marquis Cor Von.
TNA Against All Odds
NWA World Title Match: Christian Cage vs Kurt Angle (Special Enforcer: Samoa Joe)
As time goes by, the less likely it seems to me that Angle’s going to win the title here. I think Joe will call it down the middle, but I expect the consultant to make an appearance and cost Angle the match, veering us away from another Joe-Angle match in favor of Angle vs The Consultant and Joe vs Christian.
Also expected in some form: Jerry Lynn vs Chris Sabin, LAX vs Team 3D, Eric Young vs James Storm, Austin Starr vs Senshi, Sting vs Abyss, AJ Styles vs Rhino
Vital Social Issues N’ Stuff With Stuart
-I was really happy that ECW had a good show this week. In fact, it looks like they’re starting to seriously build people up to mean something. Marquis Cor Von, CM Punk, and Elijah Burke are all being treated like a big deal on TV. Cor Von is obviously the one that’s going to be getting the big heel push going forward, but Punk and Burke are also getting some star treatment on the show. As I subtly alluded to above, I don’t think Punk’s getting buried because he’s getting more ring time on TV than anyone outside of the main events, and he did just beat somebody WWE is really high on. Yeah, the first loss deal didn’t come off that well and probably wasn’t the best way to go about it, but he’s been steadily pushed except for those few weeks with Hardcore Holly.
Do I think Bobby Lashley is in any way ready for the main event push he’s getting? No, definitely not. But outside of the perverse amusement I get from watching him “perform”, those three other guys give me more than enough reason to want to keep tuning in since they appear to be the next batch of headliners for the brand. And by the way, I really don’t get very upset about the ECW originals getting jobbed out. They’re all getting far enough on in years that they should not be the people getting main event pushes and should instead be used to put over the young guys who have actual potential to move ahead. Besides, in the grand scheme of things and the way the business is today, and also taking into account how broken down they all are, they’re all really lucky to even have jobs at this point.
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TNA announced that Lockdown on April 15th will be held in St Louis, Missouri, making it the second PPV that TNA has run outside of Orlando. They also plan to run at least two other PPVs in other cities later in the year. I think it’s a good move to slowly try and build their way out of Orlando instead of just busting out and doing 12 PPVs in 12 different cities. If TNA tries to grow too quickly, they run the risk of repeating the mistakes of ECW, who tried to blow up to take care of their TV and PPV deals, and ended up collapsing as a result. St Louis is a good city to run which has a very deep history in wrestling, including being the home base of all time great Lou Thesz. You know what they should do if they really want to have some balls and tweak WWE? They ought to run a show at the Meadowlands or the Nassau Coliseum. I doubt they’d get into the Garden, but those would be close enough.
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I was really impressed with the debut of Wrestling Society X last night. Couple things about it: first, I thought the ring announcer was a little over the top, and the gimmicks with the box of live wires and the explosives was a little goofy, but other than that I thought it was great. The band was not the slightest bit intrusive on the action, and Jack Evans and Matt Sydal had a great match to kick the series off. I wasn’t kidding up above, I really thought the Sydal vs Evans match was better than anything that’s been on ECW On Sci-Fi since it started in June. I sat there watching WSX and I was thinking to myself that if it keeps up this kind of quality workrate, it’s too bad they don’t get a full hour and run all year long.
The Rob Van Dam Contract Watch
With the knowledge that the ECW Revival wouldn’t be faithful to the original, Rob Van Dam has been open about the fact that he’ll be exploring his options when his contract comes up in late 2007/early 2008. Each week, I will give expert analysis on Van Dam’s activity in WWE/ECW in what may be his final year with the company.
Van Dam climbs back up a bit this week by winning the Over The Top Rope Challenge. However, it was mostly done to promote a match which nobody in ECW has any chance whatsoever of winning. I think it is possible that Van Dam might be among the last men in the ring, but even though he’s clearly the top star among the ECW guys in the match, I highly doubt he has any shot at winning.
Links To Stuff You Can Read
Larry does the 3R’s of Final Resolution and then he continues our extensive coverage of 2006 in My Take On. The coverage will continue through late November when we begin our coverage of the year that was 2007.
Jordan Linkous hits us up with Edge vs Christopher Daniels in WWE vs TNA. I’d actually love to see this match.
It’s a double dose of Samuel Berman this time around, first in the ROH…I mean, Independent Mid-Card and then comes back with the debut edition of The Box In The Attic.
Julian Williams gives us a nice, thick edition of The Top Ten, this time looking at his favorite matches at the Royal Rumble PPV
Daniel Wilcox talks about screwing in Schmozzes & Screwjobs.
O’Dog does me proud by praising my favorite wrestler of all time, Shawn Michaels, in the latest edition of The Goodness.
Ryan Byers is back with the latest edition of Ask 411.
My fellow ROH enthusiasts Ari Berenstein and Brad Garoon go head to head in week ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN of Fact Or Fiction.
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 the weekly television of ECW, TNA, and WSX. You too can learn important life lessons from Kevin Thorn and Maverick Matt, and are encouraged to send in your own revalations.
This week on ECW On Sci-Fi, I learned that…
-If you yell a sequence of wrestling moves at your opponent, they will magically happen a moment later.
-Dancing hookers are HARDCORE!!
-The best way to prove yourself worthy of a World Title shot is by doing clean, non-title jobs to the champion before you even get your title shot.
This week on TNA Impact, I learned that…
-Everyone in TNA frequents the same crappy convenience store.
-If Team 3D doesn’t beat LAX, we might be subjected to their crappy singles pushes again.
-Jim Mitchell is still the best manager in the business simply because he’s the only guy I know who could put together an entertaining scenario in which Sting would be traded around in prison for cigarettes.
This week on Wrestling Society X, I learned that…
-Getting tossed onto live wires or explosives has about as much of an effect on WSX wrestlers as it would your average Looney Tune.
-When given the proper opportunity, younger, smaller, talented wrestlers can absolutely perform on a national television stage as good as anyone.
-No matter how far off track your career has fallen, there’s always an opportunity for another chance.
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Easily my favorite week of wrestling in quite some time. Let’s hope the quality keeps up. I’m back tomorrow with The Ominous Thoughts News Report. See you then!
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