Wrestling’s 4R’s Friday Edition – 12.05.08: RetRo TNA Turning Point, Raw and ECW on Sci-Fi Reviewed!

JERICHO HAS A STORY TO TELL: Raw started off with Jericho in the concession area, lamenting the degradation of the phrase “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect” into a merchandising phrase. He was surrounded by security and, of course, all Sharp-Dressed Man in his snazzy suit; if Blackwell doesn’t put him on the best-dressed list, then it’ll be another award our Savior’s been robbed of, I tell you! Anyway, he made his way down to the ring to mock the way Cena came out last week to end Raw with his fans and show Cena the difference between the fans and him. Unlike Cena’s fans, he said, he had goals, ideals, and morals. Jericho was typically great in this opening promo, and much like he did with the Jericho/Michaels feud he found a reason to make this very personal. This time, it was the fact that his son is a John Cena fan. Jericho’s super-serious mode is just so good, it’s hard to remember that this guy used to be one of the funniest guys in the ‘E, and he showed that insanely good serious mode tonight. It was a nice way for them to finally bring up the fact that Cena was the guy who beat Jericho in the match that resulted in his “firing,” took a feud that was already showing signs of being good, and made it great. This was an opening talky bit that wasn’t exceptionally long, but really did a great job of getting Jericho some heat back after the ass-kicking he got to end last week, and pushed the rivalry between Jericho and Cena up a notch.

CM PUNK & KOFI KINGSTON vs. PRICELESS: First off, I was far from pleased that this was a non-title match. I’ve said it before, but there’s no reason to make a match with the Tag Team champions non-title unless you want the challengers to win without taking the belts off the champs. By making it non-title, it takes away from the idea that Punk and Kofi are fighting champions as they were portrayed during their World and IC title runs. Kofi started out for the champs and immediately set to work selling Rhodes and Manu’s offense before the commercial break. I’m still not sold on Manu’s in-ring work, but he’s improving bit by bit and works okay with Cody. What I did enjoy about this was that the match was given a good amount of time and showcased all four men. Priceless have needed some building up after the hatchet job done to their credibility during the fall, and even though they did lose, this was a good way to do it; similarly, Punk and Kofi needed a win to help build them up and give them both momentum going forward into the Intercontinental Title Tourney. I’m also glad they didn’t go with the clichéd “partner loss through miscommunication” thing with Punk and Kofi just because they might face off in the tournament. It wasn’t needed and would have just created artificial tension that we didn’t need. This was a good little match that the crowd was into, and while it could have been better, I can’t gripe too much about it.

JILLIAN HALL vs. MELINA/SATINO NEEDS FLEXIBILITY LESSONS: Without warning, we went to the ring to hear Jillian Hall butchering out eardrums. Seriously, we need a little heads-up before that shit so we can cover our ears, ‘E! I couldn’t even figure out what the hell she was yowling; was it her theme song? Some current pop hit? Whatever it was, it was at least mercifully short before Melina’s music hit. And luckily, unlike last week’s debacle, it was actually Melina that came out and not Candice! (Yes, I went there again. It was THAT retarded that I needed to bring it up for another week.) My god, is it good to have the hottest Diva back. She was looking incredible as ever, and was ready to go before Beth and Santino interrupted with their entrance music to come down to the commentary booth to help out during this match. They actually did a really good job on the commentary booth once again; Beth is one of those people who can talk quite nicely off a script, even if she loses some when she gives a scripted promo. Inside the ring, they actually gave Jillian a pretty fair amount of offense for someone who’s been doing the job to everyone with a bra on the show. This match wasn’t the sharpest women’s match we’ve seen on Raw, but it was actually pretty good and gave Melina a nice win.

After the match, Santino started to tear into Melina verbally, before Melina got her shots back, making it obvious as to who gets the next women’s title match. Santino then claimed he could do Melina’s entrance, and promptly made an idiot out of himself. I could gripe about how it makes Santino look like a goof, but really, what else is new? He didn’t get jobbed out to a chick, a returning relic Legend like Goldust, and Santino played it off pricelessly. It was just damn funny, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The only downer was the stupid bit after the commercial break with Goldie coming onto Santino while Santino thought it was Beth; completely unnecessary. But that was a very minor part of a much better match and segment, so I won’t complain.

BATISTA vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER: Can you guess that I’ve been waiting for Dolph’s debut for a while now? Yeah, I thought so. Listen, I know that I’ve been very critical of Dolph, and let’s face it…he’s had it coming. When you’re built up for several weeks with nothing better than “Hello, I’m Dolph Ziggler” and then get a Wellness Violation, you’ve got some scorn coming your way. Well, tonight we finally saw him come out to the ring…and, may I say, with one of the stupidest and worst pieces of entrance music I’ve heard in a while. It was like a techno/rock version of “Mickie.” He then proceeded to introduce himself, which got boos from the crowd, so I guess he’s a heel. Well, that makes more sense now that he’s been annoying as shit for forever. Batista was amused by the attempted introduction, before Dolph slapped the shit out of the Manimal’s mouth. A little game of “in the ring, out of the ring” followed until Dolph got an actual impressive-looking leaping kick off the apron. Seriously, as much as I’ve given him shit that he’s really deserved to date, he looked pretty impressive for the time they gave him and he even got a lot of offense against a legitimate main eventer before he ate the Batista Bomb. I still don’t like his gimmick and I’d like to hear him say SOMETHING besides “I’m Dolph Ziggler,” but this was a good debut for him.

After the match Orton came out in his Age of Orton shirt and said that one day it would be him versus Batista. Big Dave dropped the bombshell that he had gotten them booked at Armageddon one-on-one. This has potential to be a pretty good match if Dave’s on his game, and it’ll be nice to see them finally square off mano-a-mano with all their history. In recap: stupid Dolph entrance music, impressive Dolph in-ring debut, good match-making for Armageddon. Works for me. Yeah, I never thought I’d see Dolph in the Right either, but I call ‘em like I see ‘em.

JOHN MORRISON vs. FINLAY: John Morrison came out first for this Intercontinental Title Tournament match; nice to see that the King agrees with me about Morrison having the greatest entrance in wrestling. Up next was Finlay; you know, I could make a “Fuck the Brand Extension” joke, but what’s the point anymore? Finlay and Morrison have worked together some in the past, and they were in decent form tonight as they delivered a hard-hitting and fast-paced match. The match wasn’t exactly a lesson in psychology, but it was good for a television match and didn’t drag on. Hornswaggle played a very small part in giving Morrison an advantage and he picked up the win with the springboard enzuigiri to advance and face CM Punk. It looks like they’re ready to make Morrison a breakout singles star again, which is good to see; it’s kind of sad to think that MnM 2.0 could break up as they’re the best thing the ‘E’s weak tag scene has going for it, but Morrison is clearly the star between the two.

THE ALLIANCE BEGINS…: Following their loss to the tag champs, Manu and Cody ran into Orton backstage. Rhodes was all, “Yeah, well you didn’t win either, douche bag!” but Orton wasn’t there to snipe, he was there to mend fences. He wanted to help them realize their collective potential, and left the offer there as he went to his locker room. We then found out later that Jericho had a proposition to finish John Cena. Jericho used some great psychology to get under Randy’s skin and get him to want to go after Orton, and these short segments did a nice job of setting up what was to come.

Of course, what was to come was the post-main event shenanigans. Cena went after Jericho to get some revenge for trying to interfere, and this brought down Cody Rhodes and Manu. Cena fought valiantly back until Orton came out and pummeled the hell out of Cena. The DDT spot onto the concrete was sick-looking, and while I’m never big on spots that could potentially re-injure someone it was much more controlled then Rey’s freefall to the ramp. The foursome just stomped the shit out of Cena until Jericho put Cena in the Walls on the concrete. That was a great way to give the challenger his heat back following the end of last week’s Raw, and left with an awesome visual of Superman himself helpless in Jericho’s hands.

The question now is, where do they go from here? Is this an official foursome stable (five when DiBiase comes back), or are Priceless and Randall just helping Chris for the one-time thing? There’s a lot of great ways they could go with this, and I’m glad to see them FINALLY pulling the trigger on Orton’s alliance with Priceless. Good things are coming with this group, I can feel it, and I can’t wait to see what they do.

THE REY MYSTERIO/MIZ/MOUNTAIN MAN MIKE SAGA: After the opening theme, we went right into one of the last two quarterfinal matches in the Intercontinental Title tournament as Rey Rey headed down to the ring to take on the Miz. I just need to say it now…those skull-mask covers Rey wears over his mask? They look kind of stupid. I’m sure there’s some people who like it, but you can count me in the ‘not a fan’ column. Anyway, I suppose a better way to put it is, he started to make it down to the ring before he stopped, because out of nowhere Mike Knox had appeared in the way. It appears that he’s been taking some stealth tips from the Undertaker…or possibly Warrior Warrior. You think he can appear in mirrors? Rey Rey of course refused to back down, and took a shot at Knox. This went pretty terribly for the tiny former World Champ, as he got shoved back and slipped to land on his arm. Knox then proceeded to beat the crap out of Lil’ Rey until the refs pulled him off. Now first things first…they want to try and get Mountain Man Mike over as a bully who beats the snot out of the little guys like Bourne and Rey. Great, no problem. The idea here in theory was good; the execution, however, was crap. Knox didn’t actually injure Rey, he just shoved him back; it was Rey’s crappy footing that caused him to slip and fall on his arm. If they’d wanted to have Mike injure Rey’s arm, then why not do that? All this did was make Rey look like a yutz for slipping. It was also a pretty stupid spot because Rey’s most recent injury was to his bicep, and having him fall in a semi-controlled state was one of the riskier ways to have them sell the arm injury; there are only certain ways you can protect your arm from a forward freefall onto steel steps. Even worse, Jerry Lawler had to point out the needless the fault in the row by saying that it wasn’t the damage Knox did, it was Rey falling. Ultimately this is a situation where if they’d kept it simple and had Knox go after the arm they could have done something good that got Mike over; instead, they went for needlessly different from the usual and it didn’t help anyone.

After that, T-Grish was backstage and got from Steph that Rey had torn ligaments in his elbow. Layla showed up, missing the accent this time around, and said that if Rey couldn’t compete he should be out of the tournament. Seriously, that girl needs to decide whether she’s going to let her accent out or not instead of switching back and forth. We then got the match later, as Miz came out first, followed by a commercial break and then Rey. See, that’s how to do it, ‘E; you don’t need commercial breaks mid-match, just have then in-between entrances. I’m okay with that. Rey was selling the injured arm and pushing a “refuse to quit” attitude. Miz went after the arm of course, and controlled the majority of the match. It was a nice way to put Miz over, and the out-of-nowhere roll-up finish advances Rey without really taking anything away from Miz. This is a good way to go with Rey Rey, as it gives pretty much everyone a story here; Punk has history with Morrison and Kofi, while Rey Rey is fighting against his injury. The match was a bit messy in parts, but it certainly wasn’t bad. The only thing that keeps this from being right is the stupid segment that set it up and the way it was played out.

STEPHANIE AND THE SLAMMIES: Steph came out, clearly having read my column and wanting to look sexy for me, as she had the glasses back on. Mrs. Palin-McMahon announced the Slammy Award Nominees for Superstar of the Year, and then said we’d be seeing them all in action next week. I have to give Steph props for covering her blunder regarding the matches next week nicely by staying thoroughly in character; also, “pulling an Adamle” is a great code-word for “fucked up.” I may just start using it in my everyday life. It looks like they’re really trying to stack next week’s Raw between Jericho/Hardy, Cena/Edge and ‘H/Batista; as long as they don’t go with stupid non-finishes, this could be a step up for the last couple three-hour Raws. It actually sounds like they might take the Slammies semi-seriously, and I’m not sure if that’s the way to go, but this match had a purpose and the only mistake was covered beautifully, so while I can’t put this in the right for the mistake, it certainly wasn’t wrong.

KANE vs. JOHN CENA: You know, there’s just something that seems funny and oddly appropriate about the thought that George Bush is watching Raw in the White House. I know, I know, he isn’t, but still, could you see him sitting in there talking about it with his Secret Service agents? From the crowd reaction, Kane’s face turn earlier (if it was one) didn’t exactly go over well, as he was garnering his usual heat before the place came unglued for Cena. Now, with these two guys in the ring, you’re not expecting a workrate exhibition; Kane’s lost a lot off his step since he was once the best big man in North America, and while Cena is better than most internet haters give him credibility for, he’s no HBK in his prime. What we did get was exactly what we would expect, a nicely-paced brawl. Cena had the STFU locked in, which brought down Jericho, and Kane nearly got the win before Cena slipped out and hit the FU for the pinfall. Again, this wasn’t anything amazing and for a main event it lacked something, but there was nothing terrible about it.

KANE LOVES THE FANS…WAIT, WHAT??: Early in the show, Jericho went and found Kane backstage in the boiler room area with the spooooooky red lighting. Jericho wanted Kane to know that everyone in the back was saying that Cena was going to make him tap out like a little bitch, but Kane was too smart to buy into Y2J’s mind games. Well, that’s a nice change for the character, usually guys just have to point at their opponents and say said opponent said something funny about Kane’s mom to make him kill them. Of course, Kane’s mom is dead in a fire, so I guess that makes sense. Kane said he was going to take care of Cena and put on a show for all the fans that he love and that love him. Uh…what? Wait a minute, wasn’t Kane just talking about how he wanted to make Rey feel pain because everyone loved him? Normally I don’t worry too much about things like this; I’ll gripe, yes, but it’ll be minor. However, the continuity swerve on this one was so sudden that it gave me fucking whiplash. Is Kane a face now? Uh, sure. Thanks, guys.

JBL TAKES SHAWN’S SMILE AWAY: JBL came down to the ring and said that, since he hadn’t heard about his offer from last week, he had gotten a street fight booked between him and Shawn. He then proceeded to demand an answer from Shawn, bringing HBK down to the ring. Before the ref could call for the bell, JBL then gave him a choice; fight him or take care of his family by working for Bradshaw. Wait, what? JBL proceeded to babble on about how he had stored away money before economic crises while Shawn lost everything. Now, don’t get me wrong, JBL did a good job selling this speech, but this twist to the storyline is just fucking stupid. I know the point of it, the ‘E wanted us to pray for Shawn to superkick JBL out of his cowboy hat instead of take the offer; the only problem is, I wanted him to do that not because of the deal itself, but because of how retarded I see this angle going if he gives in. In the end, Shawn had the sad puppy eye stare and instead of giving JBL the Sweet Chin Music, he walked away. Really, do we need to have Shawn lose his smile? Do we need to see Shawn as JBL’s manservant until he finally loses it in a few weeks to a month and we get the PPV blow-off? This is just a dumb storyline that the ‘E is trying to do in order to make the feud seem interesting, and it’s the wrong way to go. K.I.S.S., ‘E. Keep It Simple Stupid. I only hope that either Shawn loses it on JBL next week to avert this potentially catastrophic clusterfuck of an angle, or failing that they at least keep it short and don’t extend it out to WrestleMania or something like that.

Comment Time With Jeremy!

Well, you can blame Vince McMahon for enforcing new rules for referees to start ending matches on DQ’s for double teaming, tossing your opponent against the steel ring post, doing moves on the outside, and to not use the “five count” anymore. Expect more of these “BS finishes”

Posted By: Guest#2501 (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 12:19 AM

Yeah, I remember that he was wanting that, and I think it’s kind of stupid. If we’re getting away from the “sports” part of “sports entertainment,” then we don’t need to make the refs rules-sticklers. My advice to Vince is make a choice one way or the other, because trying to have it both ways is just stupid.

How the Hell can the six divas tag match on smackdown be better than Christy Hemme vs Raisha Saeed I thought that the match was way better than the tag match besides at least christy didn’t kepp botching all of her moves throughout the match. And Are you insuating that cherry wasn’t good looking? And if any diva is the hottest right now it’s obviously Melina.

Posted By: Ryan (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 01:53 AM

It can be better, Ryan, because separate people reviewed the two shows. Larry does iMpact, I do SmackDown. And we are allowed to have different viewpoints. I didn’t see Christy vs. Raisha, so I can’t say which was better. Thanks for reading!

Stop fucking calling him Day-Glo. Yours sincerly Matt P.

Posted By: Matt P (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 06:20 AM

Dear Matt,

With love, Jeremy Thomas

“Who the hell cared about Sunny’s ring work? It was Sunny for smeg’s sake.
And if that wasn’t enough, she was one of the only (if not THE only) woman who could really work the mic. Admit it, when was the last time any Diva promo had the same amount of charisma as Sunny mocking Todd Pettingil during her ring entrance on the WMXII Free-for-All. ”

Posted By: His Bubbliness (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 09:26 AM

His Bubbliness put it perfectly. They don’t need a washed-up Diva, they have several good ones on the roster right now who have mike skills and just need a little work. Sunny is completely not worth the effort, the risk, or the paycheck she’d demand. Although I will admit that Sunny mocking the Pett was pretty cool…fourteen years ago. Miss Sytch is not the personality she was a decade and a half previous, and if she were to get hired, it would be a depressing statement about how interested the ‘E is about creating new stars vs. riding on the backs of old ones.

“Kendrick got a very decent amount of offense…especially if you consider that his love affair with Mary Jane has supposedly derailed his push.”

Posted By: DaJ (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 09:43 AM

Thanks to others for answering this one for me, that Mary Jane = marijuana and Kendrick’s supposed love of smoking the wacky tobacky has gotten him in trouble. Man, don’t you kids listen to Tom Petty anymore? You don’t? Well hell, I’m officially old now.

As for the idea that Matt attacked Jeff; I think it would be interesting, but needlessly complicated. There’s no reason to turn Matt when he’s the major face of ECW, and the Matt vs. Jeff feud happened once before and the fans didn’t buy it. I prefer seeing Jeff vs. Edge, because I think that’s got some great potential. Interesting thought though!

On another note, I wonder how many more columns it will take before people realize that Larry doesn’t do the R’s for every show…

Posted By: Ben (Guest) on December 02, 2008 at 10:43 AM

1,034 more columns. But then, I’m an optimist, so…

Everyone who liked the MnM & Festus Segment:

I liked the segment, I really did. MnM are hilarious when they want to be, and it was fun. I just felt it went on too long; you guys are free to disagree. Except Vinnie the Rooh who was all ‘quit your whining, lol.’ For you, I have something special:

Thanks for reading!

melina is the hottest by far.

Posted By: iconzeke (Guest) on December 03, 2008 at 08:06 AM

You are correct, sir.

By: Larry Csonka

ECW 12.03.08:

MATT HARDY vs. MVP: The main event for the evening was a match up of old partners/rivals: MVP and Matt Hardy. MVP came to Teddy Long, since he was the one that originally signed him to his deal and wanted a match with Hardy, because he OWNED him in the past and wanted to get a win. Teddy was excellent as he mocked MVP for not making what were apparently easy bonus goals, and I laughed at Teddy’s shenanigans here. Striker was also great on commentary, as he stated that MVP had to cut back on his entrance (no tunnel and pyro) due to having to pay back some of his bonus. I thought that was a great touch and Striker continues to be great on commentary. I am glad they gave him the job instead of releasing him. MVP and Matt had a good match and showed that they still have the chemistry that made their initial matches a lot of fun. After the commercial they got about 9-minutes, and they used it very well. The crowd dug it, Matt scored the clean win and looked good as the champion. This was good stuff all around, no complaints other than I really hope they have something good planned for MVP when this losing streak gimmick is finished.

OPENING TALKY BIT/SWAGGER vs. ORTIZ: The show kicked off with the All-American American Jack Swagger came to the ring because he had something to say. Swagger was coming off of the dominating victory of Tommy Dreamer, and he felt that he should be the #1 contender to the ECW title. He then asked for Teddy Long to come to the ring, so that he could, in grand fashion, announce him as such and give him a title match. Teddy wasn’t exactly down with this, and then Tiffany suggested that her love muffin Ricky Ortiz is the #1 contender. Swagger was OFFENDED by this notion, and Teddy made a match right then and there, basically to crown an undisputed #1 contender. They had a solid match, as Swagger worked the ribs and back of Ortiz well and Ortiz is a good wacky face and sold well. Swagger would eventually hit the DOCTOR BOMB and score the clean win, which would basically make him the #1 contender for the title. It was a fine little match, nothing too impressive and it had some flow issues, but it worked well enough. One thing I disliked, and I complain about this for Impact as well, is that this was basically a #1 contender’s match, but after the commercial they only got about 5-minutes. They really needed a bit more time, to make it feel important, unfortunately it came off as just another match.

DJ Gabriel: DJ Gabriel was in action once again this week, and he continued his winning ways. Gabriel and Alicia are getting over with their dance routine pretty well as the crowd seems to respond, and that is a good thing. He had another short match, and once again he continues to look strong in the ring. I had to laugh though as Matt Striker stated that this was Gabriel’s third competitive match. There is nothing competitive about jobber matches. Don’t get me wrong, they have their place and he is getting to show his skills and personality in the ring off, but it is just the same old thing. I really hope that they have a plan going forward for him, because we don’t need 6-weeks of the same jobber matches. They need to find someone for him to feud with and give us a reason to care about him. If they don’t, he’ll just be spinning his wheels. We’ve now seen the basic package, and we know what he seems to be about, but I think that we need more.

FINLAY/HENRY/ATLAS/HORNSWAGGLE: We then had an odd, yet entertaining segment with Finlay, the midget, Mark Henry and Tony Atlas. Finlay explained that he and his family had been in wrestling forever, and that he was pissed that Henry and Atlas tried to attack the poor midget last week. Finlay would call out Henry to finish business, and he and Atlas answered. Henry said that Finlay constantly caused him problems and only ever won with the SHACKALAKCKI; so now he was set to ruin Finlay’s life. Henry and Atlas laid out a challenge to face the father and son team, which Finlay didn’t want to accept, but Hornswaggle wanted the fight after some hilarious instigation from Henry. Sure I want no part of the match, but the segment was fun overall.

NONE

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RetRo TNA TURNING POINT

Due to a cable outage and time issues, there was no R’s column for Turning Point. But I did cover it in my news column. So we have RetRo, just not in the usual R’s format.

It was an odd PPV, with only one title defense on the show, the Women’s Title, lots of tag team matches and a battle royal with poles, boxes, title shots and a pink slip. On paper, one of the weakest TNA efforts ever, which will be reflected in the buyrate I am sure. Was it a total cluster, or was there some redeeming stuff on the show? Let’s break it down and find out!

Overall this wasn’t the abortion some are making it out to be, but obviously not the show that last two were. We’ll score this around 5.9-6.0. No real recommendation either way, I won’t say to get it, but the tables, women’s title and Storm vs. Young were all good.

And I’m out of here!