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3MAY 4 2010 FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY: WAR ENDS, TNA BACK TO THURSDAY, BUBBA DEBACLE, ROSS, TITO/JENNA, MORE
4BY OBSERVER STAFF | STAFF@WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM | @WONF4W
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6After TNA drew its lowest number in Spike TV history last week, the network made the decision to move the show back to its old Thursday night time slot, ending the "new Monday Night Wars" less than two months after they began.
7
8The TNA show going up against the WWE draft did an 0.5 rating with an 0.5 in males 18-49, an 0.61 in males 18-34, and 739,000 viewers. Raw going head-to-head did a 3.06 rating and 4.6 million viewers. The first hour did a 2.6 and the second two hours did 3.3s. In other words, as usual, 25% of the Raw viewers forgot the show started an hour earlier.
9
10Many things to note here. First off, TNA's number is a complete and utter disaster. It was obvious the rating was going to be down from the week before, both because the show was going up against the draft and also because the show with RVD beating Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles in the same night to win the title was the kind of show that was going to pop a good number, but also the kind of show you couldn't do every week, or even every month. However, a fall from an 0.95 to an 0.50 is beyond horrendous. Worse, it's not like Raw did a 4.5. The show did a 3.06, horrible for a draft show. In the normal two hours it did a 3.3, but in the head-to-head hours with TNA it only did a 2.95. So TNA did an 0.5 going head-to-head for two hours against a Raw that did a 2.95 during that same period.
11
12The TNA replay did 895,000 viewers, so a replay of a taped show beat Impact's first-run on Monday. There was no way possible to spin this. TNA had to give up on Monday. They could have tried to hang on at 8-10 for a few more weeks but the reality is nothing was about to change.
13
14The only reason TNA is still in business is because they've got a good contract with Spike TV. An 0.5 is WELL below the station average, so if something happens and Spike cancels them, unless Panda wants to blow another $35 million while airing stuff on Fox Sports Net, they're done. The move to Monday, this "WAR", eroded their audience to half of what they were doing on Thursday. I mean, think about this. They claimed that the reason they were stuck at a 1.1 was because Thursday was a terrible night to run a wrestling show, and that the only way to grow was to go head-to-head with Raw on Mondays. This is not a hindsight is 20/20 issue. For every reason that I wrote about back in late December, this move to Monday was a disaster. They managed, and I'll admit I thought this was impossible, to run off some of the 1.5 million viewers that watched the show loyally every single week. I mean, that's an astounding fact. But it's not like we didn't see it coming.
15
16Let's look at what I wrote in this very newsletter in late-2009:
17
18"The only similarities [between 1995 and today] are that WWE is number one and the other group is, at present, a distant number two. Nitro was not WCW Saturday Night moved to another day and time, and had it been I highly doubt they'd have beaten Raw on day one, or probably ever been competitive. Eric Bischoff changed nationally televised TV wrestling forever and Nitro set the standard for professional wrestling on Monday nights. Sure, it all crashed and burned just a few years later, but for a short time there it was absolutely revolutionary, at least on the big stage (both sides stole a lot of concepts from ECW, and Bischoff stole concepts from Japan). There are so many differences today that for people to even compare this to 1995 seems absurd.
19
20"What does TNA have that WWE cannot compete with? What makes them different? TNA has great wrestlers, but it's not like WWE is badly lacking in the talent department. WWE has the far bigger stars. TNA's biggest star, Hulk Hogan, can't physically wrestle more than maybe once a year. Nearly everyone that anyone in 2010 considers a megastar is either signed with WWE or, in the case of Hulk Hogan, can't move, or, in the case of Ric Flair, is long past their prime (and I love Flair). Rob Van Dam and Mr. Anderson could be considered big free agents, but are main events featuring the two of them going to pull viewers from Raw? Impact is hardly revolutionary, and if anything, is written like WWE television in 1997. Impact is doing the same ratings they've been doing for years, their television is such that their buyrates have not grown at all and are 10 percent of what would be considered an average WWE B-show buyrate, and their house shows of late have drawn between 300 and 500 paid, which is less than a lot of well-promoted indies with no national stars at all have drawn recently."
21
22"As noted, WWF was in dire financial straights in 1995 and 1996, and WCW was the promotion that had seemingly unlimited money behind it. I mean, even if TNA had some stars, a revolutionary concept, better wrestlers, etc., it's still the EXACT OPPOSITE of 1995 in that WWE is going to gross more than a half billion dollars in 2009 and TNA is still struggling just to break even. Unlike 1995, TNA isn't going to win a single bidding war that WWE cares about at all. There is no dollar amount that TNA could offer John Cena where WWE, if they were actually concerned, could not say, 'We'll double that.' The resource disparity between the two sides is actually kind of depressing, and there is a reason that, during WCW's most successful two-year period, Bischoff got the nickname 'ATM Eric.'
23
24"Prior to the first Raw vs. Nitro battle, almost everyone in the world thought WCW was going to get killed. They didn't, and some people have ignored all the reasons why in believing that history is going to repeat itself here. I will never say it is absolutely impossible that Impact will beat Raw on January 4th and launch a new glory period for American pro-wrestling. But I see absolutely zero evidence that such a thing is probable, and my feeling is that the story of 2010 will be how TNA will respond if they get slaughtered again, and if the signing of Hogan and this head-to-head shot was simply an experiment they thought it would be worth it to try and that they'll move on from with different ideas, or, as some people in the industry suspect, it is a last-ditch desperate effort by the Carter family before pulling the plug."
25
26What a fucking prophet I turned out to be. Or not. Actually, I just thought about it for a few seconds and then banged those paragraphs out in about ten minutes. I'd like to take credit for being a genius, but realistically the best I can take credit for is not being a complete idiot.
27
28So let's think about this for another 30 seconds and come up with a solution. They got the hell off Mondays, which is the best move for all concerned. They're back to Thursdays, a perfectly fine night where Smackdown once aired before millions of viewers every single week. I mean, Smackdown still does 3.2 million viewers on FRIDAY for God's sake, on a dead network. Now what? First things first, get rid of the morons who have been writing this show for years and find some people with a clue. It's not that hard. Some of them have worked there before. Cornette. Dutch. Axe some dead weight and get Spike to chip in to make Paul Heyman a good offer. And I mean good, like seven figures. A booker with a clue is going to do more for this product long-term than any wrestler in the world as has been evidenced by a million name wrestlers coming in and being booked such that the show is doing an 0.5 on Mondays. I mean, funny that I wrote months ago, before either of them had even signed, that "Rob Van Dam and Mr. Anderson could be considered big free agents, but are main events featuring the two of them going to pull viewers from Raw?" They both ended up signing and the answer, as was patently obvious, was no. Any why is that? Because the people writing this show don't have any idea how to make stars. The show where RVD won the title was great, but guess what? Does anyone remembers RVD's debut? The one where he got a flash pin on Sting, then Sting beat the shit out of him with his bat for about five straight minutes and made him look like such a tool that Chris Jericho could not help but go against company policy and publicly comment on it on Twitter? I remember people trying to tell me at the time that it wasn't that bad, or that it was actually good, but here is a fun fact for you. His debut on that show did a 1.07 rating, the highest thing on the program. And after that beating, you know how many quarters ever hit a 1.07 again on Monday night? Zero. Not a single one. His debut was the most-watched thing on that show, but after they destroyed him and made him look like an idiot they never did another 1.07 the entire time they ran Monday nights, because, as I've said a million times, these people have no idea what they're doing.
29
30Get Jeff Jarrett the hell out of there. He was the guy who brought in Vince Russo, not once but twice. Hell of a resume right there. Russo needs to be kept as far away from professional wrestling as possible. You can't replace Dixie, but for fuck's sake she needs to be as far away from this product as possible. Quit worrying about trying to make everyone one big happy family. That's done wonders. Nobody has gotten over, people are all pissed off, they're quitting and now they're burying the company publicly. Successful wrestling companies have pecking orders, and when you have a pecking order there are going to be people that are happy, people that grumble, and people that are pissed off. If you don't have that, you don't have a main event, midcard and undercard, and then you don't have the very structure you need to run a successful wrestling company.
31
32Hogan and Bischoff aren't going to be around forever so there had better be a contingency plan. Hogan signed for a year, but who knows, he could be gone in the next few months as well. He hasn't meant a thing for business and continuing to build the show around him is a disaster. Bischoff has brought nothing to the table, not a single thing. For all the talk about what a genius he was in WCW, this run has made it abundantly clear that he was a one-trick pony fifteen years ago. He's been there now for over six months, and not only is this content-wise the exact same show it was before he came in, but the ratings have been cut in half. His revolutionary idea to turn the company around was apparently to keep the same guy who killed WCW in charge of writing the scripts and then bring in a bunch of old or cast-off WWE wrestlers and push a bunch of concepts from the 1990s, which was the decade BEFORE the decade we just got out of.
33
34But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First things first. Two simple things. Now that they're back on Thursday, try to rebuild the company to where it can maintain those loyal 1.5 million viewers that were there before they made this move. Then find someone who can write TV that will result in more than 1% of those diehard fans buying PPVs. You do 1.5 million viewers on Thursday and find someone who can write TV that convinces 2.5% of those people to consistently buy your PPVs and you'll have accomplished more than everything else that has been done in the last 8 years. And that is not some impossible pie-in-the-sky fantasy dream like trying to go head-to-head with Raw on Monday nights.
35
36One last thing. I wrote this March 8th. This was patently obvious then.
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38"I don't even have the energy to write about why TNA has been the biggest failure of this generation, largely because I've been writing about it every single week in the Impact report for years now. The story of TNA is the story of a group of people who never learn a thing. They never learn a thing from their failures, and more astoundingly they never learn a thing from their few successes. They're run by a woman who has no idea what she's doing and the TV has been written for years by a guy who has no idea what he's doing. It's the classic story of doing the same thing over and over and over again and hoping that somehow things will change. Vince Russo needs to be fired immediately and never go anywhere near a wrestling promotion ever again. I would say he's the single biggest reason this company is in the shape it's in, but the reality is that Dixie Carter is the one who hired him and has kept him employed through one failure after another, so ultimately she's the one to blame. I can understand getting into the wrestling business in the mid 2000s and having limited understanding of its history, but one would think a wise business person would surround themselves with people who know more than they do. And even if you make a mistake and initially surround yourself with people who don't know what they're doing, which Dixie did, you'd think that when it became crystal clear that these people didn't know what they were doing you'd get rid of them and give other people a chance. People can make all the excuses they want, but the reason TNA is in the state it's in is so simple that I think the simplicity blinds people. When you hire everyone responsible for the death of WCW, from the bookers to the production guys to the top stars, why would you possibly think that the result is going to be any different this time around?"
39
40It's a broken record, but hey, it's now May 4th and, shockingly, as they're forced off Monday nights with their tail between their legs, NOTHING HAS CHANGED. So I guess the big question is whether anything changes when they move back to Thursdays next week. I boldly predict that the answer is no.
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42
43In House Notes
44The number next to your name on the address label indicates which issue your Figure Four Weekly subscription expires with. Thus, if you have a [776] next to your name, this is the final issue of your current subscription.
45
46Very special thanks to the following people for their help over the years in producing Figure Four Weekly: Gladys "Granny" Gibson, Dave Meltzer, Tony Leder, Alex Marvez, Zack Arnold, Colin Vassallo, Kris Zellner, Manuel Gonzalez, Craig Proper, Vincent Verhei, Keith Lipinski, Robert Bihari, The Cubs Fan, Kyle Wolf, Devin Cutting, Shawn Garrett, Bob Barnett, Mike Lano, Adam Lebow, Mike Sempervive, Adam Summers, Mike Coughlin, Karl Stern, Steve "Dr. Lucha~!" Sims, Mike K, Forrest Lynn. Thanks also to everyone who sent in news over the past week.
47
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49
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52
53WWE
54Jim Ross' WWE talent contract expired Friday and they never made him another offer. Maybe they'll claim it was "a clerical error" like when Rock's contract expired. That's a true story, by the way. Ross on his blog wrote: "This matter is much more simple than many perceive. My WWE 'talent contract' has ended after a 17+ year run with the company. However, I am still a WWE employee handling the same talent relations functions that I have executed for the company for the past few years including since moving to Oklahoma. I simply do not have a 'talent contract' as WWE has no plans to utilize me as an on air talent at this time. The WWE engaged in talks with me on Thursday of this week to discuss a new job description that would include what I am now doing along with other talent relations oriented matters. I am considering this offer and I trust that a decision will be made soon regarding this opportunity." As noted last week, if I were Ross there is no way I'd take a chance on TNA, especially if my contract with WWE expired the week that they drew an 0.5 on Monday nights. He has interest in doing commentary on an MMA show but I don't think any talks are serious at this point. He's not the only one.
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56This doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, but the line-up for the June 19th WWE show at Madison Square Garden has Cena vs. Sheamus for the Raw title, Big Show vs. Jack Swagger for the World Title, Undertaker & Kane vs. Punk & Gallows, Orton vs. Edge (and if this isn't the most ass-backwards booking with Edge as the heel and Orton as the face, although Edge is a better heel than babyface), Harts vs. Primo & Carlito for the tag titles, Miz vs. Mark Henry for the US Title, Kofi vs. Drew for the IC Title, and Eve & Beth & Kelly vs. Maryse & Michelle & Layla with Santino as the guest referee. Poor MVP is listed as "ALSO APPEARING" along with the Bellas.
57
58Over The Limit posters feature Edge, and show the PPV having some sort of racing theme. It's in Detroit.
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60More on NXT. It's going to last all summer as there are 14 weeks of the show left. There is still interest in Daniel Bryan despite the ridiculous booking and long-term the plan is for him to have a match with Miz for the US title. If any of the other guys end up winning they will likely ask for a Unified Tag Title shot with their mentor. Which is going to make David Otunga look like an even bigger moron for walking out on Cena during his Unified Tag Title match.
61
62Speaking of Bryan, he's been sick for weeks and has lost 15 pounds. He noted in his blog that he'd suffered from a weak immune system for most of his life.
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64Regarding Funaki, apparently he didn't leave WWE because he broke his neck. He did suffer a neck injury but that was over a year ago. I guess they just saw him in the WrestleMania battle royal and realized he was still employed after all these years and there wasn't much to do with him and so that was the end of that. He's already got dates booked in Japan, which was where he first made his name before coming to WWE.
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66Cena passed his 1,000th day as a world champion last week, which is still an impressive feat in 2010.
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68That awful NXT this week did an 0.79 and 1.069 million viewers. And believe it or not, that still beat Impact on Monday. Apparently the NXT lead-in did awful numbers because it wasn't on last week and if it's not on this week I'd presume they decided to drop it. Or maybe they tried to convince themselves that airing the replay convinced people to only watch every other week or something.
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70Linda McMahon has stated that if she is elected to the US Senate she won't accept the $174,000 per year salary. Her spokesman said, "There's an enormous amount of work that needs to be done to get this country back on track beginning with job creation and tightening of government's fiscal belt. Her refusal to take a salary, I think, is an important symbolic gesture that underscores her principles on this." What a noble act from a person who has said she's willing to spend $30 million of her own money on the campaign.
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72WWE released Tony Atlas. They had zero ideas for him after they got rid of Abraham Washington and his show.
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74Jericho to WWE.com on his thoughts on being drafted back to Raw: "I've spent most of the year on Smackdown, Raw and NXT, so what's the difference?".
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76I got the new issue of the WWE comic book in the mail and the main storyline is that HHH and Y2J are KILLED BY TERRORISTS at WrestleMania. The way it's written leads me to believe that they weren't actually killed and will be found miraculously alive in issue three, but still, a great comic book for the youngsters there.
77
78WWE officially paid mid-six figures for the rights to turn John Capouya's excellent book on Gorgeous George into a movie. The movie was Vince's idea, and the story it will tell is that the former George Wagner was nothing until he and his wife came up with the idea for the outlandish, flamboyant Gorgeous George character who then became the precursor to guys like Superstar Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan and the Rock. Vince had previously not wanted to make any movies about wrestlers. This is one of eight other WWE films that the company is all financing and producing in a very short period of time. By shooting them all back to back in Louisiana, with 20- to 25-day shoots, a week of rest, and then right back to work on the next film, they hope to save about $1 million per production.
79
80Matt Hardy is taking a few weeks off house shows to heal up some lingering injuries.
81
82An old lady was booted out of the Johnson City Smackdown show after she got so mad at Punk that she slapped him and told him he wasn't Jesus. Well, she got him there.
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84
85UFC
86Latest on Jenna and Tito. Apparently they are back together and trying to work it out. After saying she wasn't going to press charges, then she was, she finally decided not to and said they were going to make it work for their little twins. He also backed off on claiming she was addicted to Oxycontin. The new story is that he found two Oxycontin pills and that's how this whole thing exploded, and as it turns out they were old pills, not new, and she wasn't back on drugs. Supposedly he found the pills in her pants pocket, though, and while I guess you don't have to wash your pants every single time you wear them, well, that's a long-ass time without washing your pants. Anyway, she took a drug test the next day in Las Vegas and tested clean for everything. The general feeling among fighters in UFC is that Jenna is out of her mind and they feel bad for Tito. Tito was expected to move back home the day after we went to press.
87
88Mike Brown claims the story about him having issues with his long-time girlfriend and that's why he did so poorly in his fight with Manny Gamburyan aren't true. He said there were issues but they didn't affect his training camp at all.
89
90David Loiseau, who was cut from UFC in April of 2009, was called last week about coming in as a last-minute replacement for Nick Catone in a fight against John Satler on the UFC 113 show in Montreal. He's from Montreal so he'd be a big local star. Well, no sooner should this announcement be made than the Quebec Athletic Commission announced that they were refusing to sanction him due to rumors that he was involved in organized crime. I am not making this up. Loiseau immediately went and talked to the police and had them clear up the fact that he was not, in fact, suspected of such behavior, but by that time it was too late for him to get licensed. It was a real disaster for him as this was his big shot back with the company. But then Vancouver Athletic Commission Chairman Mirko Mladenovic called UFC and said he'd have no problem licensing him, so now it looks like Loiseau will get his next shot back with the company at the UFC 115 show in Vancouver on June 12th.
91
92Final WE -- er, Aldo vs. Faber numbers for last week were 12,555 paid for a $954,635 gate. This was a little less than the company's projections last week.
93
94Ultimate Fighter held up really well for this week for what I thought was an awful show (nothing happened in the house and then the fight was one of the worst ever with two guys who realistically did not belong on the show at all), doing 1.8 million viewers. I can only presume that a lot of casual fans tuned in after hearing about what happened with Tito and Jenna. I know that on our board, there wasn't even a TUF thread so there appears to be less hardcore interest in the show this season and perhaps more casual fan interest due to various things. Last week was up likely due to the tease of Tito punching a hole in the door.
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96
97TNA
98Jeff Hardy goes back to court on drug charges on May 10th. He has been indicted on charges of trafficking in opium, two counts of possession with intent to sell and deliver a controlled substance, maintaining a place for a controlled substance, and a misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia.
99
100Dixie Carter announced this week that the company was severing ties with Bubba the Love Sponge after Bubba, real name Todd Clem, 44, ambushed Awesome Kong on the radio and repeatedly called her a "black bitch.” Basically, what happened was that Bubba and this other radio host named Cowhead are friends and do a show on the same station in Tampa. They devised a diabolical plan. First, they worked a feud for three days on the air. Then Cowhead invited Kong to come to the studio and bury Bubba on the air. Unbeknownst to her, it was all a plan, and the idea was that she'd come to the studio and then Bubba would leap out and bury her face-to-face. A SURPRISE face-to-face confrontation, not cowardly at all. Kong ended up moving, though, and couldn't make it to the studio. So she called in, and in the middle of the interview Bubba show up and ambushed her. He went off on her, asking her about the lawsuit she filed. She said she never filed a lawsuit as he well knew. He said her lawyer had said some horrible things about him and called her a "fake bitch." She told him to come meet her face to face and actually gave her address on the air. They then proceeded to start screaming over each other and since they were in studio all you could hear was Bubba ranting and Kong saying something incomprehensible in the background. He called her a little pussy bitch, and the "big fake black bitch that you are." "How color-blind are you, bitch?" Bubba told her to come to his studio tomorrow. "Why don't we sanction something and we can give proceeds to HAITI!" he screamed, then sarcastically started shouting, "HAAAAAAAAAAITI!" He said, "You stupid bitch, I'll kick your ass right now!" at which point she hung up on him. Cowhead actually said they should take a camera and go to her apartment and kick her ass. Seriously, two grown men. Bubba said he wanted a sanctioned live event and he'd send every frikkin dollar to "HAIIIIIIIIIITTIIIIIIIIIIII!" He came off like the world's biggest asshole. After he was fired Bubba then went on his Twitter and went nuts on the fans, writing stuff such as, "Shut the fuck up, mark -- Maybe you should get your GED and stop worrying about men in tights." "You're entire life is pointless. Go back to screwing your sister and watching TNA you white trash simpleton." "Bubba Army, you guys are simply the best. Nobody could ask for better fans. TNA fans are nothing but a bunch of little cowardly cunts." "You love oiled up men in tights. You are a douche nozzle that thinks wrestling is real. Get a fucking life. Go away.” On his radio show Monday Bubba said that Dixie fired him via e-mail, saying the company had zero tolerance for racial insensitivity. That likely stems from the Konnan lawsuit. Bubba went off on her, calling her a "mark bitch" who made stupid decisions based on what online fans wanted. He said TNA was below him (now that he's been fired?) and that the product sucks. Well, it did for a long, long time. He said he was now looking to get an attorney to file charges against Kong for attacking him backstage. He said he couldn't figure out how his comments were racially insensitive when TNA had a character called The Black Pope (not a name they use on TV), a wrestler called Black Machismo, and noted that Awesome Kong was, in fact, called Awesome Kong, which one would conclude was a take-off of King Kong, who was a giant ape. He didn't mention that Kong was Kong before she came to TNA. He also talked about Orlando Jordan's bisexual gimmick and Chelsea dry-humping D'Angelo Dinero, though I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He said Kong told him he could kiss her "black ass" on the radio yet he was the one called racially insensitive. He said this whole thing could affect his friendship with Hulk Hogan because now Hogan was going to have to steer clear of him. He asked if he deserved to be hit three times for his comments about Haiti in January ("fuck Haiti"), and said while he hadn't "mobilized the Bubba Army yet" a full-scale war was now in effect. He tried to claim that the reason he was fired was because of something Kevin Eck wrote in the Baltimore Sun. Yeah, doubtful. He vowed that TNA would "feel the wrath of Bubba" and that he was "not going to go out as the racist bitch" they were portraying him as. Kong responded on Twitter: "Kongfucious says: Karma is a bitch -- named Kong!!!!".
101
102Abyss was announced this week as working TripleMania.
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104Tara explained her imminent TNA departure on her MySpace: "It appears that I'm winding down at TNA. Unfortunately some organizations 'leak' information to wrestling websites to put their spin on a situation, to make sure they come out in the best light. Not me. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna put my name on it. And I'm going to stand behind it. I came to TNA last year because I still had a lot of wrestling left in me. I was paid a fraction of what I thought I deserved. But I wanted to show I was still at the top of my game. Now my contract is up in May. I want a modest pay increase. They don't want to pay me what I think is fair. I have no problem going my own way. But about 12 hours after the conversation where we didn't agree on pay, unnamed sources claim that I am hard to work with and that I don't give my best effort. My only response is that TNA made an aggressive effort to re-sign me, among other things saying that they want to build the women's division around me. And I think wrestling fans see, both on TV and at live events, that I always give 100%. I take pride in that. Smearing me on the way out the door is an act of second rate character. I take pride in making my best effort to elevate my own wrestling and the entire TNA Women's Division. If people were rubbed the wrong way in the process, I stand behind my work and my positive intentions. In closing I will say this. In the few weeks that I have left in TNA, I will be the same wrestler that you have seen for the past ten years. After that, I haven't decided if I will stay in wrestling, or finally make the jump to MMA. I do have a lot of irons in the fire. We'll see where life takes me. But wherever that is, there's gonna be competition, and I'm gonna give it my all." And then they still used her on TV despite the fact that the last angle she shot before this tirade involved a brawl with Angelina Love, who hurt her biceps during it and will be out of action for at least a month or more.
105
106Regarding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Wells Fargo, saying they never spoke to him about the need for an umbrella policy, resulting in him having to pay a gigantic out-of-pocket settlement to the family of John Graziano, Wells Fargo last week said they had clear evidence of an attempt to get him such a policy and he turned it down.
107
108Homicide did an interview this week saying he had no faith in anybody in TNA. He said every six to eight months someone would tell him they were going to give him a call about some idea and then they never called. He said there was a lot of political BS going on, and all he knew was he was going to show up, get paid and take care of his family. He said Dixie was in charge but he had no idea who the real boss was. That sounds familiar. He said Hogan did come up and talk to him, asking him where he came from, why his name was Homicide, etc. Homicide said Hogan told him he loved the character, but if he loved it so much he needed to do something about it.
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110Flair got an endorsement deal for a $5 South Carolina lottery scratch ticket.
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112
113Strikeforce
114Robbie Lawler's opponent for the June 26th Strikeforce show at the Nokia theatre in California appears to be Renato Babalu Sobral. They wanted him to fight Jason "Mayhem" Miller but have changed their minds because an investigation by Tennessee Athletic Commission executive director Jeffrey Mullen is still ongoing into the post-show brawl on CBS two weeks ago. This Mayhem thing is pissing me off. Miller didn't start the fight. He didn't do anything except get in the ring and ask when he was getting his rematch. Guys do that all the time, and in fact, on the scale of stupid things people do in the cage, this was FAR less stupid than when Gilbert Melendez on the same show was asked if he thought he was the number-one lightweight in the world and he said he figured he was at least in the top three. Miller asked a question. Melendez shoved him. Then Shields shoved him. Then the entire Cesar Gracie camp jumped him and stomped a mudhole in him. The only blows he threw would have been in legitimate self-defense as those dudes were trying to kill him.
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116Lashley and KJ Noons are also scheduled to fight on that show.
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118Nick Diaz was going to fight but he's also off all future events until Tennessee makes a decision.
119
120Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum may headline but that's not official yet.
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122The show, it should be noted, airs on a Wednesday. It's not a CBS show. We'll see how that night does but I wouldn't have run it on that date. They chose this date because they want to run the show in association with the E3 video game convention. They couldn't run that same week on Saturday? UFC runs a show in association with the Arnold Classic every year and they don't run them on weird days as a result. I don't want to directly compare Strikeforce to TNA because that is totally unfair, but they both make some weird decisions for some weird reasons that somehow seem to make sense only to them.
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124Kid Yamamoto, one of the biggest mainstream MMA names in all of Japan, was scheduled to do a dark match on the May 15th Strikeforce show in St. Louis. Don't ask me to explain this. Ask the people running TNA, they'd probably be able to explain it much better than I could. DREAM ended up pulling him off the show so that he could fight on the DREAM 14 event on the 29th.
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127Other Wrestling
128At the CMLL show at Arena Mexico on Sunday, Volador Jr. beat Mistico with a small package in the third fall. Mistico was back playing full rudo heel, so I guess he'll be doing that when feuding with Volador and not when he's working with anyone else. Glad CMLL has been paying attention to how well that Randy Orton face turn got over after he went back and forth and back and forth for months. They challenged each other to a mask match and both accepted, though no date has been set.
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130At the AAA show on April 30 at Plaza de Toros, LA Park challenged La Parka to a match at TripleMania but didn't bother to mention what kind of stipulation he wanted. Last we heard it would be name vs. name. Main was Park & Zorro & A Surprise Luchador (ended up being Nicho el Millonario) over La Parka & Cibernetico & Heavy Metal when Vampiro ran in and helped Zorro's team win (meaning nothing at all was settled in Parka vs. Park).
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132Hector Garza & Polvora beat Volador Jr. & Delta in the finals of the CMLL Torneo La Gran Alternativa tournament, so Polvora gets the big push up the cards to presumably become a future superstar. This is somewhat surprising in that Delta got the big push last week and was the one who got the rave reviews from fans and reporters. I would assume he gets a huge push as well. Polvora got put over strong, fouling and pinning Volador in the third fall. Somehow this lead to Volador challenging Hector for a singles match. Well, Hector did distract the ref. Main on the show was Mistico & Strong Man & La Mascara & Hijo del Fantasma beating Ultimo Guerrero & Dragon Rojo Jr. & Taichi & Okumura in two straight falls in 11 minutes. Presumably they rushed this because the match started at 11:21, which is the latest people can remember them ever starting a main event at Arena Mexico.
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134La Parka was battling a respiratory tract infection last week and was in bad shape.
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136Scorpio Jr. was also hospitalized last week and we didn't get an update on him. He was also having breathing issues.
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138Super Porky and Hector Garza are set to feud. Garza is supposedly training Porky and has helped him lose 110 pounds (find that hard to believe) but Porky is upset at how hard Hector is riding him and stuff he does in their tag matches. Porky claims Hector is jealous of him and worried that Porky will become the bigger sex symbol of the two. I love Mexico.
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140Regarding the invasion angle, booker Panico did an interview saying the reason Los Vipers got matches against the CMLL guys was because independents are always welcome in the company and will be given the chance to show whether or not they belong.
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142Vampiro did a promo saying yes, he was aligned with Dorian Roldan, but that didn't mean he was a member of La Legion and he still hated Konnan and would never lower himself to align with him. He said he was loyal to Dorian because Dorian looked out for him when his father Joaquin didn't want to book him. He said AAA would always be his home and he wanted the AAA that Antonio Pena created to live on, and not the version that Joaquin was pushing.
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144TMZ ran a weird story last week. Apparently a woman named Gabriela Targos claimed that Joanie "Chyna" Lauer called her on Saturday and asked her to come to her hotel room and hang out. When she got there, Chyna "for no reason" went nuts, attacked her, beat the crap out of her and then threatened to kill her. She escaped and fled to a local diner where she found some cops eating dinner. They took a police report and there must not have been much to it because that's the last that was reported and no arrests were made.
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146Rock's next film is called Protection and he'll be starring alongside Clive Owen. He plays a mercenary so this is not a family project like, for example, Tooth Fairy.
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148EVOLVE ran their third show on Saturday night in Rahway, N.J. Most reports said they drew between 150 and 200. They've added a rule where there must be a winner and there are no time limits. Guys can still get counted out of the ring, but if that happens then whoever gets back into the ring first is declared the winner. In the top matches, Chris Hero beat Bobby Fish in a very good match; Brodie Lee beat Gran Akuma, Chris Dickinson and Hallowicked in a four-way Chikara-regulars match when Brodie pinned Dickinson; TJP beat Kyle O'Reilly in a good match with an MMA flavor to it; Jimmy Jacobs beat Brad Allen in a match said to be fine; and Chuck Taylor beat Claudio Castagnoli in the main event. The storyline there is that Chuck wasn't even on the roster on show one and had to win a qualifying match to even get future bouts, and now he's 2-0 and beat a big name in the main event. Show was said to be good and top-to-bottom the wrestling was better than on the earlier shows. Hopefully they sell some DVDs because they're obviously not going to make much money at the gate with indy attendance being the way it is these days. Next Rahway show is September 11th, and their fourth show appears to be taking place in July.
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150In a follow-up to the Jorge Rivera story last week, he did send an apology to Chikara via e-mail, saying the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and that the real reason Valiente and Turbo weren't there was due to visa issues on their end. Chikara decided they'd heard the "one big understanding" story enough times and aren't going to be doing business with him again. They were really happy that El Oriental figured out what was going on when Jorge tried to talk him out of going, and said the Perros Del Mal guys were upstanding folks who told them they wanted nothing to do with the trouble Jorge was causing. Chikara noted that they'd also lent him $1,400 for gear at one point and that money simply vanished and no new gear was ever seen.
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152Jushin Liger beat Negro Casas at the New Japan PPV in Fukuoka to win the CMLL Middleweight title.
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155Bryan's Friend Vince's DVD Review, Karaoke Showcase and MORE~!
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157History of the Intercontinental Championship
158Triple H vs. the Rock. Best two out of three falls, from In Your House: Fully Loaded, July 26, 1998. They came out with DX and the Nation. Hunter (introduced as “Triple H, Hunter Hearst Helmsley”) was such a degenerate that he had a big fancy robe. It was kind of amazing to see what some of these guys looked like 12 years ago, Hunter and Mark Henry in particular. Sgt. Slaughter came down and evicted everyone except Chyna. Those of you who hate the way they blur out the old WWF scratch logo will have to skip this match, because it’s everywhere. They were particularly lazy about it in the corners, blurring the entire corner rather than each individual turnbuckle. It was also on the t-shirt of everyone at ringside, on the referee’s chest, on the ring apron, hanging over the ring from several banners, and there was an enormous one over the entranceway. Rock attacked and Hunter attempted to bump like Mr. Perfect. He failed. Chyna hit a cheap shot and everyone cheered. Wrestling sure was weird in the late ’90s. They brawled up the aisleway and the ref politely did not count them out. Hunter ended up going into the stairs for the heat. Jim Ross noted that Chyna had a “stern and stoic” expression. You don’t say. So they ended up outside the ring for like two minutes straight with no ramifications. Rock did some inconsequential offense until Hunter hit a neckbreaker and made a comeback. Even when he crossed in front of the corners, they left the blurring in. What a half-assed job this was. They traded chops in the corner. Hunter was throwing them left-handed. Then he took his cool corner bump over the ropes to the floor. So they started brawling out there again. They were right in front of the scratch logo, so they threw up random blurry trapezoids to obscure it. Rock took the ref while Mark Henry returned and hit a splash on the floor. Billy Gunn ran down and chased him away, but the damage was done. Lawler said that on this show, Henry had beaten VADER. That’s so wrong. Then Chyna took the ref while Rocky hit a belt shot. What a shitty valet. And that was not the finish here in the first fall. So he went to a chinlock. I do not want to watch three falls of this. They lied there on the mat as the crowd chanted “BORING!” In the introductions for this Grisham noted that these same two men would have some great matches for the WWE title, but some people thought their Intercontinental matches were even better. That was a boldfaced lie. Ross said we were 15 minutes in and nobody had won a fall yet. They brawled on the floor AGAIN. Rock screwed up his floatover DDT but covered it well. It wasn’t the finish either. So it was time for MORE CHINLOCKING! Ross noted that Hunter was being forced to carry the weight of Rock, “the larger athlete.” Yes, Hunter used to be smaller than Rock. Lawler kept talking about a bikini match and Ross noted that he was more interested in that than this encounter. Well, hell, so am I. Wikipedia says Jacqueline defeated Sable by DQ. I assume this is the one where Sable had the handprints on her boobs. Now she’s married to Brock Lesnar. Weird. Anyway, the match aimlessly wandered on. Godfather came down to the ring, but the New Age Outlaws ran down and cut him off. And they all left peacefully. Rock took the ref for like an hour. He flexed. He looked around. He flexed again. He said “DAMMIT!” quite loudly. Finally D-Lo Brown tried to interfere, but Hunter cut him off, only to turn around and eat a Rock Bottom for the pinfall. And thus ends the FIRST FALL. This fucking blows. They opened the second fall by BRAWLING ON THE FLOOR!!! There were children out there telling Rock to suck it. Lawler was appalled. Rock hit the People’s Elbow, but Hunter kicked out. D-Lo climbed on the apron, but Chyna jerked him off. (I am forced to make dirty jokes to amuse myself.) While the ref was distracted, X-Pac ran down and hit Rock with an X Factor. The ref turned and counted, but ROCK KICKED OUT. So Hunter grabbed a chair, then Rock took it away. Hunter ducked and the ref took a MONSTER chairshot to the back. That was vile. With the ref out, Chyna jumped in and hit a low blow and a DDT on the chair. Crowd loved that. That finally ended the second fall. JUST ONE TO GO. So there was a one-minute rest period and both guys were down the entire time. When the bell rang Hunter crawled over and made a cover, but there was no ref. What? Where did he go? He was right there at the end of the last fall. So Earl Hebner ran down and counted, but Rock kicked out. They announced there were two minutes left in the time limit. They BRAWLED ON THE FLOOR more, including Rocky taking a nasty bump off a clothesline on the unpadded walkway. Hunter ran wild some more and hit the pedigree, but then the time limit conveniently expired. They had six wrestlers and a girl interfering, multiple referees, lots of weapon shots and floor brawling, and despite all that smoke and mirrors it was STILL way too long. *1/4, I guess.
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160Grisham said there were 10 different IC champs in 1999, including such luminaries as Val Venis and D-Lo Brown. And then there was Chyna.
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162Jeff Jarrett vs. Chyna. A “Good Housekeeping” match from No Mercy, October 17, 1999. Speaking of faces from the past, Jeff had Miss Kitty (the Kat, Stacy Carter) with him. Lawler was quite happy to see her, especially when she bent over and her skirt rose above her thong. Well, that made me happy too. Chyna came out to Hunter’s old song and entrance. They were still lazily blurring the logo, wiping out her entire arm as she held up a pushbroom. She was wearing a thong over pantyhose. I’d forgotten just how lewd the WWF used to be. Chyna beat Jeff up for a while. Mostly she was hitting him with weapon shots, including a salami and a toilet seat. Also, trash cans, a broom, and another broom. She laid him on a table and went for an elbow off the apron, but Jarrett dodged. Chyna landed with her spine straight up and down and almost overshot the table. That would have fucked her up bad. Jeff waylaid her in the head with a trashcan and then hit her with a fish. Yes, a fish. Don’t ask me. Chyna took Hunter’s corner bump to the floor. That scared me, but she pulled it off fine. Jarrett and Kitty put eggs and other stuff into a bowl. Jarrett filled his hands with flour, but Chyna threw it into his face, blinding him. She then dumped the bowl over Kitty’s head, but Jarrett cut her off and hooked the figure-four. Chyna struggled and reached for the ropes. In this match in which every weapon on earth was legal, reaching the ropes meant your opponent had to release the hold. The best part of this was Kitty in the background trying to maintain her dignity while cleaning eggs out of her hair. Chyna cut Jarrett off with a low blow and applied tongs to his scrotum. Then she hit him with pies and the kitchen sink, but Jarrett kicked out. She went for a pedigree into a cake, but Jarrett hit a slingshot, which resulted in a ref bump. Yes, in a match where all weapons are legal, they had to do a ref bump so Jarrett could hit a belt shot. So he did, and made the cover and won. Kitty jumped up and down with joy, adding a full star to my rating. Ref Teddy Long then overruled himself, saying that Jeff could not use the belt because IT WAS NOT A HOUSEHOLD ITEM. Holy FUCK this is stupid. Lawler pointed out that it’s an item in Jeff Jarrett’s household. Jarrett went to put Teddy in the figure-four, but Chyna killed him with a guitar shot and won. This match was dangerous. It was sloppy. It was gimmicky. It was a prime example, maybe the first example, of Vince Russo hating wrestling so much he felt the need to disguise it. It had one of the worst excuses to restart a match I’ve ever seen. And it was still significantly better than the Rock-Hunter match. **1/2. That’s the end of Disc Two, so it cut back to the menu, which included highlights of a lot of IC champs and matches that were not on this disc. Like Marty Jannetty beating Shawn Michaels. Wasn’t that like *****? Why isn’t that on here?.
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164Grisham opened Disc Three by telling us Chris Jericho defeated Chyna to win the title. He passed over that whole “co-champions” bit. They also showed Kurt Angle winning the European title from Val Venis.
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166Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle. From No Way Out, February 27, 2000. I believe that was an awesome show. Angle cut a prematch promo in an amazingly high-pitched and ungravelly voice. He vowed to win the championship and leave Connecticut like the Hartford Whalers. Chyna came out to be in Jericho’s corner. Were they friends at some point? I’ve completely forgotten. She now had her own entrance song and pyro bazooka. Jericho cut a promo saying Kurt was a jackass, and that his three I’s stood for idiot, imbecile, and ignoramus. He said his I was the Intercontinental title, and it would stay around his waist. I think this was the debut (on this collection, at least) of the new, slimmer belt they’re still using to this day It’s not nearly as cool. The athleticism here was the best on this collection since the Jarrett-Razor match. It was funny to watch Angle. He was still green here, and some things like running the ropes still weren’t natural for him, but he’s such a gifted athlete that he looks better awkward than most guys do at their best. They went back and forth for a bit, then Angle got the heat with a middle-rope belly-to-belly. Jericho fought back and hit his butterfly backbreaker, but Angle cut him off with a German suplex. Jericho hit his facebuster to set up the Lionsault, but Angle forgot the spot and got to his feet. So Jericho gave him a stiff forearm to the face. That was brave. Angle tried a jumping rana (!) but Jericho countered with a double powerbomb (!!!). There is a spot they will never repeat again. Kurt busted out a cross armbreaker, teasing a move into MMA ten years ago, and hit the Angle slam for a nearfall. He went to hit Jericho with the belt, but Jericho ducked and hooked the Boston crab. Angle got the ropes. They brawled on the floor. Angle grabbed his own belt. Chyna tried to cut him off. Jericho ended up shoving Angle into Chyna, who was pushed into the stairs. As the ref was tending to her, Jericho went for the Lionsault, but Angle lifted the belt into his face to win and become Euro-Continental champion. Another ref ran down and they got into an argument, but nothing became of it. Ah, it was nice and refreshing to just see a good wrestling match again. ***1/2.
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169ROH with Bryan's Friend Vince
170Show opened with a video recap of Roderick Strong’s hunt for a one-on-one title match with Tyler Black, which we were told he would receiver THIS SATURDAY in New York.
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172Joey Ryan vs. Roderick Strong in a Pick 6 match. Ryan was accompanied by Prince Nana and “Ernesto” Osiris. Roderick was wearing green trunks, which I think is the first time I’ve ever seen him in anything other than black. They opened with stalling. Then Ryan punched Roddy a lot. Nobody really cared. So Ryan went to a chinlock. This is not the best match either of these guys have had. Also a strange way to build a contender, by having him get his ass kicked from the opening bell. Crowd finally started chanting “JOEY SUCKS!” as the announcers plugged Chris Daniels’ return at this weekend’s shows. Ryan continued to attack with punches and choking. Five minutes in Strong’s offense had consisted entirely of one chop. Nana interfered for no reason during the heat. Hogewood was outraged by this and pointed out that Ryan didn’t need any help. Roddy finally dodged a corner charge and hit a back suplex and the crowd fired up. He made a comeback until Nana and Osiris interfered. “I do not like what the Embassy has done in this match at all,” said Hogewood. Word. So anyway, Ryan cut Strong off with a low blow and a superkick. He went for the moustache ride, but Strong evaded it. He ducked a second superkick and hooked the Stronghold for the win. So going into his title shot, he got his ass kicked virtually bell to bell and only won because Ryan made one mistake? This perplexed me.
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174Hogewood and Prazak plugged the New York shows, then they showed highlights of the TV title tournament final. They aired a promo by Edwards after the match. He said he and Davey would always be the American Wolves, and the hunt would never end.
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176Dark City Fight Club vs. Caleb Cuddly & Pee Wee. I am not making that second team up, although I may be getting Caleb Cuddly’s name wrong. There were no graphics, but that’s what it sounded like. Pee Wee’s gear has a cartoon of a guy giving a wink and an enormous thumb’s up. “I don’t know about those trunks,” said Hogewood, the best announcer in wrestling.” Pee Wee oversold everything, which is hard to do in a squash match. Prazak made some jokes about Pee Wee’s Big Adventure that went miles and miles over Hogewood’s head. DCFC won with a double team that consisted of several powerbombs and neckbreakers. Tyler Durden interviewed them afterwards and pointed out they had not won the tag titles. They said this match proved they were not a second-rate tag team, and they would be the next champions, and they dared anybody to do something about it.
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178Kings of Wrestling cut a promo backstage. Claudio was wearing his title belt around his waist, over his suit. Awesome. Hero said they had been top contenders for a long time before getting a shot, so they were going to make the Briscoes wait for a rematch. Claudio said the Briscoes were now at the back of the line and would have to fight their way through the pack for another title shot. We then got a Briscoes promo, which is always great news. They demanded a title shot from Jim Cornette. He said if they gave him some time and space, he would make them as happy as he could.
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180They showed clips of Necro Butcher punching the timekeeper “Giuseppe,” and thus being banned from television.
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182Colt Cabana hosted The Art Of Wrestling. This week’s guest was Sonjay Dutt. Dutt talked about swaggerism, then told Cabana that his SWAGGA was WACK. He brought in Peter Rosenberg, a New York DJ, to help him give Colt a makeover. The result was basically Colt Cabana dressed up like JTG. This was wacky.
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184Cornette had a discussion with Necro Butcher. He told Necro he was an insurance liability and a PR nightmare, and he couldn’t risk injury to fans to TV crew or anything. He said he was willing to lift Necro’s suspension, if Necro could agree to leave his matches inside the barricade. He said all of Necro’s matches would be under BUTCHER’S RULES, and anything would go within the confines of the ringside area. Necro accepted this offer.
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186Austin Aries cut a promo about ROH’s first year on HDNet. Jeez, it’s been a year already? He said when they started they didn’t know how long they would last, and then A-DOUBLE showed up and everyone started watching. He said he had his own television camera. “Look at this,” he said, showing a camera, “the Digi Super 75SX.” He said they tried to shoot him in a Digi Super 45, but it couldn’t capture his glory, so they had to upgrade. He said the camera guy had to train for six weeks how to shoot Austin. They panned over to the camera guy, who was just some HDNet lackey who had no idea what to make of this goofiness. He bragged about his accomplishments, winning two world titles and beating legends like Jushin Liger. He said he wouldn’t be like Tyler Black and Roderick Strong, getting up title shot after title shot until he finally won once. He said he had gotten his shot, it hadn’t worked out, and now he was setting new goals. He said he wasn’t world champion, but he was still the most important thing in ROH, and the reason we would tune in each week. This was tremendous stuff.
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188Necro Butcher vs. Robby Wolf. Butcher came out with a chair and opened the match by throwing it into Wolf’s gut. Good times. He went to work outside, pulling up the pretty black mats and hitting a chair-assisted bodyslam on the concrete floor. He wrapped a chair around Wolf’s neck and through him into the post. In the ring, he threw some chops and very slow punches. He used more plunder outside the ring. Even Hogewood was calling for mercy here. Necro set up two chairs back-to-back in the ring and dropped Wolf on them for the pin.
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190They plugged a Pick 6 contender series battle royal for next week featuring Rhett Titus, Joey Ryan, Austin Aries, Jerry Lynn, Eddie Kingston and Rasche Brown. They said the winner would replace Claudio in the Pick 6, since Claudio was now competing in the tag team division.
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192Tyler Black cut a promo backstage. He said that he had been friends with Roddy, but now he didn’t know him. He hoped that after the title match they could find a way to be friends again, but if not, he could live with that, because he would do whatever he had to to retain his title.
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194Austin Aries vs.Delirious in a Pick 6 match. We were treated to A-DOUBLE CAM, shot in HD on the Digi Super 75SX. Aries went after the mask early but got his fingers bitten for his troubles. Kenny King tripped Delirious, so Daizee Haze tripped Aries. Delirous hit a tope onto King and Aries, and he almost went right between them into the fans. He hit King with a fan’s hat, and when King recovered he just put the hat on. Sucks to be the fan. Aries worked Delirious over and went for the brainbuster, but Delirious escaped. Delirious hit a cobra clutch suplex. That scared. I meant to type “that scared me,” but somehow “that scared” just says it all. Delirious escaped another brainbuster, but Aries hit the Ric Flair kneebuster and then dropped Delirious right on his head. Delirious made a comeback but missed shadows over hell. Aries followed with a kick to the throat. The ref stepped in. A second ref hit the ring, then Daizee, then the doctor and Cornette and other officials. Then they all just left. Aries laid out Daizee with an axehandle to the back, then King held Delirious’ throat over the guardrail and Aries hit an axehandle from the top rope. THEY’RE REDOING THE SAVAGE-STEAMBOAT ANGLE! Jerry Lynn ran down with a chair to make the save. So Delirious is playing Ricky Steamboat while Jerry Lynn is playing George Steele. That seems, um, backwards. Show ended with the building quiet, except for one fan who was cursing very loudly.
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197Bryan's TV Reviews
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199NXT
200We got a WINK MARTINDALE reference from Michael Cole here in 2010. I remember Wink from Tic Tac Dough when I was six years old and refused to go to school functions because I wanted to watch that show. They introduced all the guys. Bryan got the WWE generic short haircut. He looks more and more annoyed with this bullshit every week. Stryker said tonight they were going to test their likeability and salesmanship by having them go into the crowd and sell WWE merchandise, and whoever sold the most was the winner. Skip was given WWE programs and change, and was told to sell them for $15. He went to sell. Nobody wanted to buy. He found two totally desperate kids. This was death TV. Someone offered a dollar and he refused to take it. What an idiot. He made $60. Thankfully they went right to a match as opposed to showing eight of these hideous segments in a row.
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202Heath Slater & Christian vs. Chris Jericho & Wade Barrett. Jericho worked over Christian and Slater of all people got the hot tag. He ran wild on Y2J and it broke down into a four-way. Jericho did a dive onto Barrett. Slater tried another small package on Jericho but Jericho kicked out and then hit the codebreaker for the pin. Just so everyone knows last week's upset was a total fluke and the rookies don't get over. Because, you know, why would you want new guys to get over on this show?.
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204It was Daniel Bryan's turn to sell shit. Daniel said he wasn't exactly a capitalist, so he proceeded to give away all the stuff. People liked that. Cole said he must be a Communist. The best part was that Cole, who tries every week to claim that Daniel has no charisma, was howling with laughter as he was giving the stuff away. When he was over, Cole said, "Ladies and gentleman, this guy is an absolute tool." His delivery here was phenomenal, I have to say. This segment enjoyed.
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206Carlito was shown chewing Tarver out backstage. He told him to carry his bags. Tarver was appalled. Well, he acted appalled. Don't know what he really was.
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208Justin Gabriel was next. People were actually buying from him. The guy is very likeable. So likeable that he sold 22 programs, putting him far in the lead. Christ, hire that guy for the merchandising department.
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210Michael Tarver vs. Darren Young in a battle of losers. This wasn't much. They cut to Luke Gallows outside and a human being could not look more bored. Carlito was at least pretending like he was watching the match. Gallows tripped up Tarver and Darren did his goofy finisher for the pin. Someone held up a giant sign that read "FAIL!" That about says it all.
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212Otunga was up next. He had to beat $210. How does 22 programs times $15 come out to $210? Otunga had a bunch of kids acting as personal assistants to help him sell his stuff. A street team so to speak.
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214They did a deal on Gabriel and pretty much everyone put him over. Punk did take the opportunity to bury Matt Hardy, saying he couldn't teach Gabriel a thing about wrestling but he could probably teach him something about Facebook and Twitter. I howled.
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216Truth was trying to tell Otunga how he fucked up his match last week. Otunga said that was all well and good but all Truth had to do was grab his hands on the sunset flip and he'd have been fine. Truth said he didn't play that, and if Otunga couldn't roll with the big dogs he needed to stay home.
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218Heath Slater was next. He didn't beat Otunga's $315. Darren went next. Another fail. He was begging people to help him out. They just looked at him. Stryker announced that he'd lost before even counting the money. I call shenanigans on this fucking contest. This was the worst TV in history. Tarver was next. He was all pissed off about losing to Darren and quit. They showed him quitting for 60 seconds. THIS SHOW FUCKING SUCKS. Wade also quit, but he took the money with him when he left. So he quit and was a thief. Cole said to stay tuned for the winner. I thought they already told us it was Otunga.
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220So yeah, the winner was Otunga.
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222The pros talked about Daniel Bryan. They all put him over except Miz of course. This show is so goofy, because we're supposed to think it's real but here are all these pros raving about a guy and saying he's far and away number one and meanwhile he loses every single match every week, sometimes in a minute.
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224Otunga challenged his own mentor, R-Truth, for next week. He said it was time the student beat the Teacher.
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226Miz vs. Skip Sheffield was scheduled to be the main event but his face and jaw were all fucked up from Show punching him the night before. I'm sure some of it was make-up but his face was also swollen and it's hard to fake that. He demanded Daniel do the match. So of course Sheffield beat him in like a minute. Daniel did look good for the minute before he was beaten, hitting a bunch of hard kicks and trying an ankle lock. Sheffield finally clotheslined and hit him with a wacky jawbreaker for the pin. This show is so lame.
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229Smackdown
230A happy Teddy Long came out to talk about how successful Smackdown had been in the draft. This has to be put Teddy high in the running for the most positive guy in the business today. He introduced the newest draftee Kofi Kingston. They were so happy together. Chris Jericho then came out. He was drafted to Raw Monday. Here he was on Smackdown. He proceeded to do his usual farewell promo that I think we've seen a dozen times in the last year. He said the fans could boo all they wanted but there would be an empty hole in their lives on Friday from now on. He's right about that. He told everyone to move on with their lives. He should moderate our board. Kofi told him to shut up. A troll. Kofi vs. Jericho. Jericho powerbombed him out of the corner and they immediately went to commercial. They had a pretty fun match. Kofi went for the wacky kick but Jericho caught the leg and put him in the walls. Great spot. Kofi got the ropes. Jericho hit the codebreaker but Kofi fell outside. Jericho threw him back in but Kofi kicked out. Jericho taunted him and told him to get up, so Kofi jumped up and gave him the wacky kick for the pin. Yeah, Kofi beat the guy on his way out. Smackdown is quickly going to become my favorite WWE show.
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232Swagger did a promo about how he want to the Rose Bowl and then got to spend time with the greatest president ever, George Bush. This was LOLworthy.
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234Jericho was shown backstage bitching someone out, telling him he should have known better than to leave him, just like he'd warned. Suddenly, a huge fist flew into the screen and it was Big Show punching him out. Well, Jericho left in style.
235
236Chavo did a promo saying it was true and we didn't need to adjust our sets, he was back on Smackdown. He said there were now two Guerreros on Smackdown, himself and Vickie, and they were like THIS. Kane vs. Chavo. Kane chokeslammed him immediately and then said "WELCOME TO SMACKDOWN~!".
237
238Shad alerted us that it was no longer Cryme Tyme, it was HIS TIME.
239
240John Morrison vs. Cody Rhodes in his Smackdown debut. Crowd didn't seem all that into Cody but they chanted "MORRISON!" Cody has clearly been watching his Ric Flair tapes as he's stolen the knee drop to the forehead and the multiple short punches to the head. Also, no kneepads. He missed a second knee and Morrison made his comeback. Morrison hit the springboard kick but Cody kicked out. They noted this was Morrison's last match before going to Raw. I'd completely forgotten he was drafted. They traded nearfalls. Morrison hit the running knee but Cody got the ropes. He finally hit the crossroads for the clean pin. Wow, guys are actually doing jobs on the way out. Match wasn't bad but it just didn't click like it probably should have.
241
242Swagger had another note for us. He said he lead the Oklahoma Sooners to three national championships. Then they cut away. Who is writing these things for him, Matt Stryker?.
243
244Edge came out to do his goodbye promo. He said unfortunately this Monday he was drafted to Raw. To be honest, he said, he didn't want to go. He said Smackdown had always felt like it was his show, his home, and the people felt like his family. Through all of his injuries, his trials, his tribulations, the people had supported him when he probably didn't deserve it. Their support, he said, got him back as quickly as he did from his Achilles tendon injury. He said he wanted to come back and tell everyone from the bottom of his heart that he loved them. Christian's music hit. Edge said wow, Christian, my best friend! Christian said that's right, we've been friends since childhood, we came up together in WWE, we won titles together, and as a result I know you better than anyone, probably better than you know yourself. And, he said, he knew that every word that came out of Edge's mouth before he came out here was a load of crap. Christian said that Edge had an amazing career and come back from several near-career-ending injuries and the fans respected him. But the problem was that Edge never really respected them back. He did what he always did, use them to get what he wanted. Edge said this wasn't about him, this was about Christian. He said he'd won the title nine different times, and Christian never had. "I've never been World Champion," Christian said. "Yet." Yay ECW Title. He said Edge was just trying to change the subject, so what he was going to do was look Edge in the eyes right now and tell him to his face what he really was: "YOU ARE A LIAR!" Edge said Christian was right, he was a master psychologist, he played the crowd like they were marks and he loved every second of it. Christian said ever since he'd returned people had been asking when they were going to see Edge and Christian reunite. But then it dawned on him, after all these years, that Edge had used him too, used him to get to the top. He said when he first came back he thought that was a possibility. But, he said, he didn't want to see Edge and Christian anymore -- he wanted to see Edge versus Christian right here, right now. Edge took off his jacket like he was going to fight, but then said "No!" and started to walk out. But then he turned and jumped Christian from behind. He went for the spear but Christian kicked him and they had a pullapart. Christian went for the killswitch but Edge escaped and bailed outside. Christian said he had a better chant than "SPEAR!" He did a horrible rendition of the goodbye song. I mean, awful. So we don't get the match? That sucks.
245
246Josh interviewed Edge and wanted to know if they were ever going to see a match with him and Christian. Edge said it would be bad news for Christian if they did. As he walked off he ran into Show. Show said yeah, it was too bad we weren't ever going to see that match, and also too bad the people weren't going to see Show vs. Edge. Then he punched him out.
247
248Michelle & Layla vs. Beth & Kelly's New Boobs. Kelly ran wild on Michelle early until Vickie cut her off outside. VICKIE. What a monumental collision that was. This match SO fucking sucked. Beth finally got the hot tag and nearly killed poor Layla. She hit a slingshot suplex and then tagged in Kelly, who hit her leaping legdrop thingy for the pin. That's the best finisher they can come up with for her? She's going to kill someone or herself.
249
250Swagger did another goofy promo. I wasn't even listening at this point.
251
252THE MASTERPIECE CHRIS MASTERS IS BACK. He looked sternly at the camera and danced his pecs. Cried with laughter, I did.
253
254Dolph Ziggler came out and cut a boring promo about how he'd beaten up the midget after the midget beat him via count out. He said he'd put him to sleep and now he was in leprechaun heaven. And that was that.
255
256Matt did a promo about how Drew had hit him in the head and messed him up both physically and psychologically, but he'd never quit, he'd never give up. Drew rushed in and laid him out with a shot from behind, then gave him the underhook DDT on the floor.
257
258JTG did an ’80s-style studio promo. Not quite sure what he said but I think he wants to win some titles.
259
260Punk came out and did a promo gloating about how he'd kept his hair at the PPV Sunday. He was talking about how he'd done this by being straight-edge when suddenly MVP's music hit. "I WAS TALKING!" Punk noted. MVP said he was BACK! People kind of cared. MVP apologized for everyone having to listen to this douchebag. He told Punk to do the people a favor and shut up. Of course, the heels jumped him and were stomping a mudhole in him when Rey made the save. It was a great save. Gallows ended up saving Punk to set up the tag match. Gallows & Punk vs. MVP & Rey. Heat on the little fellow. It was fine. MVP made a big comeback on Gallows. This actually killed the crowd. They loved Rey and they hate Punk but they don't give a shit about the other two and so this was the worst two guys to put together for the comeback. Rey hit the 619 on Gallows and MVP hit basically a downward spiral for the pin. Great, another guy using that move for a finisher. The masked guy ran in after the match and laid out Rey as MVP was busy celebrating. Stryker noted the guy was wearing a Straight Edge Society sweatshirt.
261
262More Swagger stats.
263
264Swagger came out with his title for the final segment. He started to speak and the people booed like crazy. I couldn't believe this heat. Apparently he couldn't either because he was trying so hard to not smile and did all right until he got to talking about how he became an Eagle Scout and the people were seemingly getting ready to riot. He rattled off all of his achievements, then said his crown jewel was when he won the World Heavyweight Title. He said when he won it 30 days ago he sat down with his father for another man-to-man talk, and his father told him, "Son, I told you so. I told you so!" Because his father, you see, had told him when he was a little boy that someday he'd be the best. He vowed to be champion until he retired. Suddenly, out came Teddy Long. He said he wanted to introduce the world to the new number-one contender: Big Show. He did some comedy, and thankfully he's a funny guy, then got serious and punched Swagger out. And that was the end of that. Show kind of fell off in hour two, but this was fine professional wrestling television.
265
266
267Impact
268Show opened with Flair and Bischoff in a limo. Hogan said Flair was going to shit when he found out who Hogan was going to give the Hall of Fame ring to. Bischoff said what are we going to do about Sting? Hogan said he was ready for this and Bischoff needed to just hold on for the ride.
269
270Show has a brand new open. Or I just noticed it.
271
272Taz and Tenay opened up the show. Tenay said they had huge news right off the top. He said earlier today Dixie Carter made the following announcement: Based on the feedback they'd been receiving, TNA had listened to the fans and was moving Impact back home to Thursday night's on Spike TV beginning May the 13th. Yeah. The CLAMORING from fans. Also, TNA Reaction will be starting soon in the 7-8 time slot. They didn't say when it was going to start but it won't be until June 24th. They pushed this like it was great news. Well, it is great news. Maybe they'll survive now.
273
274Jay Lethal came down to Ric Flair's theme sporting the Hall of Fame ring. He did a Flair impersonation. It wasn't quite as good as the Randy Savage impersonation but it was pretty fucking awesome. People were going "WHOO!" and such. He did all the mannerisms, catch-phrases etc. Flair finally came out, irate. Fans chanted "DOUBLE VISION!" Flair told Lethal that as it regarded this business Lethal was standing in front of GOD right now. He stomped on Machismo's glasses and started taking his clothes off. Machismo said if this was about the ring, here, he could have it back. People were booing. He said he meant no disrespect, he'd just always wanted to do that. He said he'd always wanted to be Flair, even if it was just for two minutes. He said he was going to take this footage and frame it and hang it on the wall. How is he going to do that? He totally put over Flair like he was the greatest of all time. People were standing and applauding. What is going on? Flair said thanks for giving him the ring back. Yes, all that stuff they did last week with Abyss vs. Flair in the ring vs. ring match and Flair got the ring back in the very first segment of the next show. Flair said that still wasn't enough and started slapping him around. He went into full CRAZY FLAIR mode. Machismo finally slapped him back and they got into a huge brawl. I'm still not sure what was going on at the beginning of this segment. Machismo gave him a backdrop and put on the figure four but Nigel, Beer Money and AJ all hit the ring and stomped a mudhole in him. Abyss waddled down to make the save, followed by Team 3-D. Heels took over until RVD finally ran down. He had a chair so everyone got out of their fast before he could start swinging. Back in the limo, Hogan got a call and then said "OH MY GOD, MACHISMO IS BEING AN IDIOT!" They turned around to head back to the Impact Zone. Why were they leaving?.
275
276After commercial RVD told the heels to get back into the ring for a fair fight. Flair sent his troops back there. They fought all over the place forever. The babyfaces had the advantage. Then the heels did. Then the babyfaces did. Back and forth. Hogan finally stormed out and started throwing punches at the heels. He was beating up everyone by himself. Awesome. They bumped all over the place like crazy. Hogan was finally in the ring with Flair. They did all their spots and Hogan sent him packing. They went to commercial and came back and the riot was still going on. This was 30 minutes of the show right here. Hogan did a promo saying he wasn't mad about this, but the TNA fans wanted action, brother. He said even if he didn't like Desmond, he was going to put him in an action-packed match tonight -- versus RVD for the title. He didn't mention the poll on the website so this made no sense if you didn't know about that. He also signed AJ vs. Abyss in a Monster's Ball match. He didn't explain what that meant either. Also, he said, he was signing Machine Guns vs. Beer Money vs. 3-D.
277
278They showed Sting in the rafters.
279
280Another commercial.
281
282Beautiful People were bebopping backstage. They were talking about their match tonight where, once again, they're doing a tag match with all the belts on the line. Get rid of Russo for FUCK sake.
283
284The ring announcer introduced us to London & Kendrick, "the first team". The first team in what? No explanation. Douglas complained that he'd been stripped of the title due to a volcano. He was nice enough to explain that this was, in fact, a tag match that was about to start. He was wearing the X belt, and said if Frankie wanted it he'd have to beat him for it at the PPV. Since this is TNA I presume Douglas beats him. Jesse & Shannon vs. Douglas & Kendrick. Neal isn't bad when they just let him wrestle. Better than he should be given his experience level. Morgan was doing commentary and he said he was giving Hogan seven days to reveal who his tag partner was going to be at Sacrifice, otherwise there was trouble. Are they unaware that there is no new Impact for 10 days? Shannon made a hot tag on Kendrick, then Jesse tagged in and speared Kendrick for the pin. Kendrick went after Doug afterwards but Joe came down and killed both of them. He tossed Kendrick back into the ring and hit the muscle buster. What message is this sending about the X-Division except that the guys in it all suck? Tenay said we still didn't know who was behind that abduction several months ago. Yes, that storyline lives on. He grabbed the mic, but then threw it down and walked off.
285
286Flair kicked out Borash and then started yelling at his guys. He said five dudes just kicked their ass again. AJ said he didn't appreciate being in a hardcore match. Flair told AJ he was a racehorse and needed to go out there and kick that elephant's ass. He bitched out Beer Money for not having won the titles yet. He said if they thought they were the best they needed to prove it and stop drinking so much. He told Nigel he needed to get it together or he'd be torn apart by RVD. He said he hoped he was giving it to Chelsea better than he was giving it to him.
287
288Hogan did a promo backstage. He said he didn't expect to walk into TNA and have everything go awry. Should have been paying more attention. He said he needed to find out what was up with the guy with the black bat.
289
290Announcers built up the show. Tenay plugged Monster's Ball. Again, neither guy explained what this match was. Taz finally explained that the fans had voted on TNA.com (it's actually TNAwrestling.com) and that's how Desmond got his title shot.
291
292TO THE BACK! Mr. Anderson and Pope were brawling backstage. Pope looked like he could still barely move. Anderson rammed a box into him repeatedly, apparently killing him.
293
294Anderson came out wearing a frock and Pope's glasses. He said he had a great sermon prepared but as his music hit he had an epiphany. His epiphany was that he wasn't going to heaven but would rather burn in hell. Jeff Hardy came out. He did a promo about how the congregation and the creatures of the night were one and the same. He said Pope wasn't going to be able to compete tonight, next week or at Sacrifice thanks to Anderson. Jeff determined that by what happened five minutes earlier. He challenged Anderson to a match at the PPV. He better hope he can make it. Anderson was as ungodly annoying as ever. He said he had something going on that night and couldn't do it. He did have one funny line where he said he was sick of Jeff and all the sinners. He tried to attack him but Hardy booted him in the gut and laid him out with a twist of fate. He ripped off the frock and Anderson was wearing a pair of trunks that said "SPEAK INTO" on the ass and "THE MIC" over his cock. Get it? Jeff then manipulated his mouth like he was Charlie McCarthy and had Kennedy announce that he would, in fact, face Jeff at the PPV. Jeff's closing promo was at least good.
295
296Beautiful People vs. Tara & Taylor & Sarita with all of the titles on the line. Yes, they put Tara back on TV after she buried the company online. She couldn't get along with her partners. You know, because that's what they do in TNA, not get along. They got into a fight with each other. BP's then pinned Sarita as Tara and Taylor were brawling. This about sucked in every conceivable way.
297
298Tara flipped out backstage saying she'd worked her ass off and nobody respected her at all. She said she only got respect when she was champion. She challenged Madison to a match at the PPV. Christy said you haven't won a lot of matches lately so why would they grant that match? Same reason anyone gets a title match in TNA -- just because. Tara said if Madison would accept she'd put her career on the line. Trivia fact. Even though she has been in the company since January of 2009 and is the current Women's champion, Madison Rayne has NEVER WON A SINGLES MATCH IN TNA. I am not making this up. And you wonder why people say this show is stupid. So beating Tara for her career would be her first.
299
300Beer Money vs. Machine Guns vs. 3-D. Fun match. Beer Money did their "BEER MONEY!" deal and now the fans add "SUCKS!" LOL. Bubba made the hot tag and ran wild. Suddenly, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall SNUCK DOWN TO THE RING. This was a DQ. They were not sneaky enough. They went right after 3-D for killing their friend. The announcers said Syxx-Pac's beating was so severe he might never return to TNA. Apparently they found legit health problems when he was trying to get licensed for the last PPV, so that might be true. Eric Young ran down next and wacked the babyfaces with a cane. Didn't Nash turn on him last month? Guns beat him up and hit a move on Hall, but then Nash made the save and Beer Money beat them up. Announcers had no idea what the fuck was going on with Eric. Join the club. This was stupid.
301
302Orlando Jordan, who they thankfully named this week, was doing his O-Zone interview segment. His catch phrase is, "Don't worry, it'll be our little secret." Lovely. His first guest was Rob Terry. Actually, a Rob Terry cutout. They cut to a shot of the announcers. Tenay looked completely bored and Taz just stared into the camera for awhile, then smiled as they cut away. Only in TNA. Orlando was cutting a promo on the cutout talking about how amazing it was. Fans were hating this, and it was not good hate. They wanted this to end immediately. It just kept going. Orlando said the cutout fantasized about him. The real Rob Terry finally came out, beat up the cutout of himself, threw Orlando onto the couch and then told him, "DON'T MAKE ME COME BACK!" He was about to leave when Jordan attacked him and put the boots to him. He choked him out with a chain and left him laying, then dropped what appeared to be a very heavy flower-pot on him. What a feud this is going to be. They plugged Monster's Ball again, and still no explanation of the rules. This is awesome. AJ vs. Abyss. Penzer finally, when introducing both guys, said it was no DQ and weapons were not only legal "but encouraged". They had a pretty good match. AJ kicked out of the shock treatment so Abyss spread out the tacks. Flair and Chelsea rushed down to ringside. Chelsea had a coat on and Flair was telling her to take it off. Abyss tried to protect her, allowing AJ to hit him from behind. AJ ended up hitting him in the gut with brass knux (how would that hurt Abyss?) and then gave him a springboard high cross into the tacks for the pin. Chelsea then revealed she'd been in on the ruse.
303
304RVD vs. Desmond. This was revenge for all the fans that voted for Desmond in the poll that TNA created that allowed people to stuff the ballot box by voting as many times as they wanted. First, he got no entrance. Then, this went like 4 minutes and then RVD pinned him clean with the frog splash. Nigel did get some offense in early, but came off looking like a geek in the end. This made Chelsea sad. AJ then ran down and laid out RVD with a flying forearm. AJ said he was cashing in his rematch at Sacrifice. Crowd chanted "AJ SUCKS!" After this match they put up a new poll to determine who would get a title shot next time and Desmond is running away with it again. Fucking hilarious. Not like they don't deserve everything they get with this stupid idea.
305
306Backstage, Hogan found Jarrett down. "Oh man, Sting just knocked the hell out of me! Oh geez!".
307
308Hogan came out to end the show. He said when he first came to TNA he knew what he was in for -- total nonstop action and great talent. But he had no idea that the guy he was going to count on the most, Sting, was going to be the one to change. He called Sting out. He said he knew who Sting was and what he was all about, but then said he didn't know what he was all about and wanted him to fill him in. Sting said he couldn't wait to tell him. TNA made him tick, he said. Hell of a heel here. "TNA!" the fans chanted. Sting said his agenda was the same today as it was five years ago -- and then my DVR cut out. Apparently the deal ended with Jarrett coming out and attacking Sting to set up a match at the PPV. Maybe I'll watch Thursday's replay. Doubtful.
309
310
311Raw
312Show opened with my favorite wrestler, Big Dave Batista, coming down to the ring. Dave said last week he became the number-one contender again but what should have happened is that he should have become the champion. He wanted to know if people even knew what a last man standing match was. He said of course they didn't, so he was going to explain it very slowly so that they could understand it. "A last man standing match is, now pay attention, pay attention, when you beat your opponent so brutally and so decisively that he is unable to stand before the count of ten -- can you count to ten? That is not what happened last week, I did not lose, I'm going to show you exactly what happened." They showed clips of Cena taping his feet up. Cole called his ingenious. Cole and Russo, two peas in a pod. He said this was by far the most embarrassing moment of Cena's career. No, no, he said, that was the most embarrassing moment of Cena's LIFE. To stoop that low, he said. "DUCT TAPE, ARE YOU SERIOUS, REALLY? DUCT TAPE? THAT'S SOMETHING HORNSWAGGLE WOULD DO!" And what do we have tonight, he asked? MORE GAMES. He said there would be a beat the clock match tonight with Cena with the winner getting to choose the stips for the PPV. He said his match was Miz. MIZ? The fuck sense does that make? Sheamus came out instead. My other favorite wrestler. He said if they were talking about pathetic, what was pathetic was Dave losing and then getting another shot at the next PPV. Unlike you, he said, I actually won my match at Extreme Rules, and not only that I did something you wanted to do but never could. "I took out Triple H!" He said maybe that was the problem. Maybe the reason he didn't get a shot at the next PPV was because he took out the son-in-law. What he did know was that he deserved to be in that title match, not Dave. He said if Dave wanted to fight like a man they could fight like men one-on-one tonight. If you win, he said, I'll shut up and walk away. If I win, I get what's rightfully mine, John Cena at Over the Limit for the title. Dave said he had his chance and he blew it. "You lost, I won, get over it!" Sheamus said he never got pinned. "YOU LOST!" Dave thundered. He told him to hit the bricks, he had a match to win. "IN OTHER WORDS, GET OUT OF MY RING!" Sheamus said if Dave thought for one second this was over, he was wrong. He said he would be WWE Champion again and it would be sooner than Dave thought. After commercial Miz came out and said there was nothing he'd like more than to face Dave right now and prove that he was a deserving US Champion. Unfortunately, he said, the trauma to his face after Big Show punched him wouldn't allow him to do that. He said he had a doctor's note to prove it. It was a note that read, and I quote, "DOCTOR'S NOTE". The announcers were cackling. He said Dave would have to find someone else to compete. "Lucky for you, though, I have just the guy." Poor Daniel. Miz told him to try not to get pinned in 30 seconds. Daniel grabbed the mic and said he was sick of this. He said he'd do Miz one better and make Batista tap out. Dave found this hilarious. Dave vs. Bryan in a beat the clock match. Dave went right for the powerbomb but Daniel turned it into a sunset flip for a nearfall. He went for an ankle lock but Dave slid outside. Daniel kept fighting back with desperation submission attempts, including a rear-naked choke and a guillotine. There was the most awesome moment every when Daniel put him in an UMA PLATA with a crossface and the place went fucking nuts thinking there would be a submission. I am not making this up. Batista finally speared him out of his boots and hit the bomb for the pin. This was great. Match went 5:06. Batista gave him two extra powerbombs for good measure.
313
314Eve was doing a photo shoot when Wayne Brady walked up. He said he loved WWE and Eve was his favorite wrestler. Jillian walked up and said she'd sing his song tonight. She started signing and he danced with her until he danced her out the door. After he left, Maryse rushed in and hit her with the belt and put her through the backdrop.
315
316Edge was bragging to a stagehand and telling him what footage he wanted for his Cutting Edge deal tonight. This dude was telling him he didn't know if they could use that stuff. Why not? Josh walked up and asked if Edge thought Orton was going to try something dangerous. Edge said WWE was PG lately but he was RATED R. I see, that's why he can't use that stuff. It's not PG-rated. He said it was time to start an era of controversy again.
317
318Ted Jr. came out and did a promo. He said you'd think a guy like Truth from the streets would relish the opportunity to never have to worry about cash again. He said Truth made money now, but what was he going to do after WWE? Sing? "He's only got one song and it's terrible!" He said he WAS going to hire a personal associate and his first job would be to help him slap some sense into this wannabe rapper.
319
320DiBiase vs. Morrison. Morrison ran wild immediately and so DiBiase walked out. Morrison grabbed the mic and said that wasn't the way "THE MONDAY NIGHT DELIGHT JOHN MORRISON" is going to debut on Raw. He wanted it restarted right here, right now. I could not have written a more generic promo. DiBiase kept walking. Morrison said listen, let's keep going, and if I lose I'll be your Virgil! This spoke to DiBiase. They actually had a pretty damn good match. Morrison made a comeback but DiBiase cut him off and went for the dream street. Morrison ran up the corner and kicked off, landing in pinning position. DiBiase went after him post-match but Truth ran down and made the save. Fun stuff.
321
322John Cena vs. Chris Jericho Beat the Clock. Jericho came out on the ramp before the match and said he wasn't going to pull himself out of this match with a flimsy excuse like the one Miz came up with, even though he'd also been KO'd by the 500-pound behemoth. He said he didn't need the ego boost of beating Cena again, but he'd hand-picked an opponent who had been begging to humiliate Cena for a long time. It was WADE BARRETT. The time to beat was 5:06. Cena did his goofy mat-wrestling shooter gimmick early. He threw Barrett over the top onto Jericho and the people went nuts. That was hilarious. Cena made a big comeback with 1:48 left but Barrett booted him in the jaw. Barrett is still kind of green but he did all right here. Cena put him in the STFU with 35 seconds left. Barrett tapped at the 28 second mark. Shouldn't Batista want to kill Jericho now? So yes, the babyface gets to choose the stip going into the PPV. TNA Booking Alert ™. Cena was about to announce the PPV stip when Sheamus ran in and booted him to death. At least they're making us wait for it.
323
324Maryse vs. Nikki Bella. Nikki did a FLYING MARE early. Awesome. She's put on some weight and is noticeably heavier than her twin. Maryse killed her with a DDT for the pin quickly. Maryse said something in French afterwards, then translated by saying she wanted to show us her newest photo shoot, "Maryse, The Sexiest of Sexy!" It was shots of her posing with an unconscious Eve. So then who should hit the ring but Eve, totally healed. Well that was dumb.
325
326ZACH RYDER was in the ring. Gail and Alicia were at ringside. He said the biggest news coming out of the Draft was that he was still on Raw. He said he was single and ready to mingle (since Rosa got sent to Smackdown) and that's why the girls were at ringside, to watch him kick ass. He said he beat Primo on Superstars and was going to do it again here. Suddenly, who should appear on the big screen but Wayne Brady. He said he had a better opponent -- Mark Henry. This went way too long, and by way too long I mean 2 minutes. Henry won clean with the world's strongest slam. Gail shook her head and giggled and Alicia was APPALLED. They left with Henry. So is Alicia a babyface now?.
327
328Jericho and Miz were talking about how horrible Big Show was for punching him. They agreed they had both carried him and brought him back to prominence. Miz said there's nothing we can do about it, he's on Smackdown now. Jericho was like, as if. He said he had an idea.
329
330Koslov did a promo with Wayne backstage. He said he was glad he was not foolish like MacGruber and had given him competition tonight. Santino walked up and asked to be Koslov's tag team partner. Regal walked up and told Koslov to ignore Santino because they had a match to prepare for. After everyone left, Goldust walked in. Brady had no idea what to make of him. This was our usual really stupid segment. At least it was short.
331
332Harts vs. Regal & Koslov. Jericho and Miz were out there doing commentary. They said they were scouting, I guess because they decided they'd show Big Show what a fool he was by teaming up and winning the tag titles. Koslov yanked Tyson off the top rope and nearly killed him for the heat. I mean, it was brutal. Match didn't have great heat but it was OK. Harry got the hot tag, ran wild on Regal and put him in the sharpshooter for the submission. Regal tapped almost before the hold was turned over. Jericho hit the ring after the match and laid out Harry with the codebreaker. Good angle to set up what should be a GREAT feud.
333
334Edge came out for the Cutting Edge. Like it or not, he said, the most controversial superstar in WWE history was back on Raw. Lots of people cheered him. So he turned on them. They didn't want to boo him. He basically said he speared Orton because he was unhappy and angry and had to get stuff off his chest. Yes, he said, he cost the guy the title shot, but at the end of the night he was the most talked-about guy on any brand. He called out Orton. Wayne came out instead. He said he came to Jacksonville not to challenge anyone, but to tell any other guest host that wanted to come on Raw, "You're not me!" To all the Mini Mes, to Cheech and or Chong, "to Bob Barker -- I'm BOB DARKER!" So he cut this weird-ass promo and then Orton's music hit. Orton got in the ring and Brady tried to shake his hand, but Orton grabbed him and hit the RKO. Good pop, not great. They didn't hate Brady enough. Edge said he knew Orton wanted to RKO but it wasn't going not happen and he had two reasons why. He said number one, Orton was in the wrong place at the wrong time last week and Orton would have done the same thing. He said the last time Orton was a guest on the show years ago -- "RKO!" -- the two of them became a tag team. "We became RATED RKO!" He said they dominated DX, the entire show, and he knew that it could happen again. "Only this time bigger and better!" He said Cena and Batista were going to beat the pulp out of each other and then the two of them could swoop in and pick the bones. Who could stop them, he asked? Edge wanted to know if he was too big a superstar now to share the spotlight. He said he wasn't planning on spearing him last week but now he was glad he did. He said he did everything a person was supposed to, gave the people everything he had, and the people didn't fully accept him. Seems like they did to me. He said it wasn't fair that they didn't support him but they fully accepted Orton. Now THAT was funny. This was not fair, he said, the fact he wasn't champion was not fair. "THE FACT THAT I GOT DRAFTED TO RAW DUE TO A BATTLE ROYAL IS NOT FAIR!" Well, that's true. He said Orton was GOING to listen to him. "YOU WILL JOIN ME!" That spear was just the tip of the iceberg, he said, and he'd do it week after week until Orton was an afterthought on this show. He demanded Orton say something. Orton went for the RKO but Edge shoved him off, booted him and then set up for the spear. As he went for it Randy turned it into an RKO in mid-air. I cannot BELIEVE they gave that spot away for free. What a fucking awesome finish to a PPV match that would have been. And that was the end of the show.
335
336wrestling news
337wrestling newsHOME   |   AUDIO ARCHIVE   |   NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE    |   SUBSCRIBE    |   THE BOARD   |    ABOUT US  |   CONTACT
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342
343~~~~~
344~~
34550 - Bryan and Dave live from Las Vegas or Anaheim - Oct 22 WOR
34649 - Jerry Jarrett cackles - Feb 16 F4D
34748 - Lance loves the KOTB song - Jan 28 F4D, The Cancer - KOTB Theme 2010
34847 - John Cena's biggest fan shows up at Mikey Whipwreck's school - Apr 9 Drunkcast
34946 - Lance tells a Sabu story - Feb 7 WOL
35045 - Shaquille is here! - Oct 17 WOR
35144 - The Freebirds only piss on you if they like you - Jul 27 WOR
35243 - Mike Sawyer rants on Jon Fitch - Aug 8 TT
35342 - Why is Bryan such a little bitch? - Mar 6 BVS
35441 - Jim Mitchell tells a karaoke story - May 14 F4D
355 
35640 - Do not be Matt Hardy! - May 18 WOR
35739 - Dave swears - Aug 6 WOR, Nov 8 WOR
35838 - Fuck the people complaining about foul language - Jun 11 BVS
35937 - Al Snow yells - Apr 23 Drunkcast
36036 - Caden Matthews chases down robbers at Tulalip - Jun 21 WOR
36135 - Buff Bagwell is a former TNA tag team champ - May 11 F4D, Jul 7 BVS
36234 - Wackyness from the Dr Keith Show - Jun 13 DKS, Sep 22 DKS, Oct 30 DKS, Jan 9 DKS, Sep 26 DKS, May 25 DKS, May 5 DKS, Jun 4 DKS
36333 - The racism caller - Nov 28 WOR
36432 - The descriptions of the NXT rookies - Feb 17 BVS
36531 - Dave runs a race - Nov 19 WOR
366 
36730 - Coughlin rants on Snowden - Nov 23 FSR
36829 - The first live banning - Sep 3 BVS
36928 - Paul Bearer talks funerals - Feb 2 F4D
37027 - Someone is knocking on Dave's door - Mar 6 WOR
37126 - The best Granny segment of all time - Oct 29 BVS
37225 - Natalaya's new boobs - Mar 30 WOR
37324 - Stone Cold, Stone Cold, Stone Cold! - Aug 22 WOR
37423 - Dave talks mechanical bullriding - Feb 23 WOR
37522 - Can identical twins be opposite genders? - Apr 22 F4D, Apr 23 BVS
37621 - Bryan has a lot of explaining to do about Alicia Fox - Jan 19 WOR
377 
37820 - Coughlin rants and raves about the Strikeforce brawl - Apr 21 FSR
37919 - Vinny dances - Mar 10 BVS, Apr 28 BVS, Animated GIF
38018 - What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas - Jun 2 K4D
38117 - The Lepord Woman hits on Lance - Apr 3 BVS, Apr 22 F4D
38216 - Mikey Whipwreck makes Bryan run the ropes - Aug 12 F4D
38315 - Bryan and Vinny argue over Cena's Wrestlemania entrance - Mar 31 BVS
38414 - Who is Mark Henry running after? - Jun 16 BVS, Animated GIF
38513 - Bruno Sammartino talks Impact, drawing power, and bitterness - May 19 WOR, Nov 3 WOR
38612 - What would Lance Storm do? - Mar 16 WOR, Apr 3 BVS
38711 - Mike and Oliver bury Anderson Silva six feet under - Apr 12 TT
388 
38910 - The bat under the bed - Mar 21 WOR
3909 - Papa Briscoe - Dec 15 F4D
3918 - The Kevin Von Erich tribute video - Oct 13 BVS
3927 - Coughlin loves Splice - Jun 21 FSR
3936 - Bryan plays Dig Dug - Jun 9 BVS
3945 - Most epic Dave'ings - Jan 18 WOR, Feb 7 WOR, Apr 6 WOR, Apr 27 WORR, Oct 17 WOR, Oct 19 WOR, YouTube
3954 - Bryan hates Wild and Young - Apr 7 BVS, Apr 15 BVS, Apr 20 BVS, Apr 23 BVS, Jun 4 BVS, Jun 11 BVS, Jul 9 BVS
3963 - Gold boat - Mar 10 BVS, Aug 3 F4D, YouTube
3972 - Mike Sawyer vs Gray Maynard - Sep 20 TT
3981 - Bryan gets married, Dave is proud, and Brent steals the show - Aug 3 BVS, Aug 7 OTR, Sep 9 F4D, Oct 30 BVS, Aug 2 WOR
399Tags: None
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401dewe
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403Join Date: Feb 2008
404Posts: 4787
405#2
40612-18-2010, 07:54 PM
407 
408
409~~~
410
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412HOMERADIO ARCHIVENEWSLETTER ARCHIVETHE BOARDNEWSUFC NEWSWWE NEWSJAPAN NEWSROH NEWSTNA NEWSMEXICO NEWSINDIE NEWS
413APR 7 2010 FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY: KANYON LIFE AND TIMES, ROH PPV, FIGHT NIGHT, IMPACT WOES, MORE
414BY OBSERVER STAFF | STAFF@WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM | @WONF4W
415TWITTERFACEBOOKGOOGLE+
416Last week I wrote about how much I loved this job and getting a chance to meet people. This week I was reminded of the other side of that.
417
418The longer I do this and the more people I get a chance to meet, the more often it becomes that someone passes away who I knew. Such was the case this week with the death of Chris "Kanyon" Klucsaritis, 40, after an apparent suicide via overdose, the second suicide death so far this year after Adam Firestorm of someone who at one point I was very good friends with.
419
420Kanyon was one of the first people in the industry that I became friends with after starting this newsletter back in the mid-90s. He was working for WCW at the time, first as Mortis and later without the mask as Chris Kanyon. I can't remember exactly how we met but I seem to recall that I found his mailing address somewhere, likely on the Internet, and I started sending him the newsletter unsolicited. He called me out of the blue and the next thing you know we were friends. He had a very easy number to remember as the last seven digits spelled out LOBSTER, and he seemed strangely proud of that. I remember we used to talk more about the art of wrestling than anything that was going on in the business, although we did talk about that, and one day he called and told me that he was put in charge of recruiting cruiserweight talent and asked me to send him a videotape and an 8x10. He was, in fact, trying to recruit me into WCW, but of course nothing ever became of that. I believe it was through him that I met Dallas Page, and, strangely enough, we talked a lot about the art of wrestling as well and he was the first person to explain to me the process of putting a match together. The two of them, of course, were good friends and ended up doing the Positively Kanyon gimmick together, of which a few of the skits were among the funnier things in WCW at the time when that ship was sinking.
421
422Kanyon was a huge WWE fan growing up. It is said that he snuck into the building at WrestleMania IV, stole a turnbuckle pad, and still had it all the way up until his death. He spent the first five years or so of his career both working various indies and doing jobs for WWE, ECW (then Eastern Championship Wrestling) and WCW. His first big break came when he donned a mask and worked under the name Mortis for WCW, one of what would end up being a few different video-game-style characters (the others being Glacier and Wrath) managed by Jim Mitchell of future ECW and TNA fame. He dropped the mask during a feud with Raven in early 1998. They had a bunch of matches together and then joined forces for a period before Raven took time off and Kanyon got a job working as a stunt coordinator for the Jesse Ventura movie. When he returned, he teamed up with Page and Bigelow as the Jersey Triad, which was probably the high point of his WCW career as the three of them won the tag titles and worked briefly as sort of a modern day Freebird team where any two of them could defend the titles at any given time. They eventually lost the belts to Harlem Heat, at which point he and DDP went to work on the ill-fated Ready to Rumble film starring David Arquette and the rotund Oliver Platt. Page was one of the stars of the film while Kanyon worked as the stunt double of Platt, which was actually pretty astounding given each man's respective physique.
423
424When he returned to the company he worked for a brief period as "Champagne" Chris Kanyon, doing something of a pimp gimmick I guess playing off the fact that he'd gotten work in Hollywood, but that was rather short-lived. Russo then joined the company and quickly booked an angle at Slamboree 2000 where Mike Awesome gave Kanyon a powerbomb off a Triple Cage structure, the same one used in Ready to Rumble, and Kanyon crashed onto the ramp and was seemingly killed. This show, believe it or not (and ten years later this is still astounding) took place at Kemper Arena, the same building where a year earlier Owen Hart had legitimately fallen from the ceiling at the WWF Over the Edge PPV and died. Chris had practiced the stunt one time, onto a crash pad, then they put a tiny X on the ramp where he was supposed to land and he did it live on the air and thankfully hit the mark perfectly. He returned shortly thereafter in a wheelchair and ended up turning on Page, unhappy that he'd been thrown off the cage instead of DDP. Or something. This led to the Positively Kanyon DDP parody where he dyed his hair blonde, stole Page's finisher, and would run around randomly hitting the move on various people at inopportune times. One of the people he hit was Judy Bagwell, Buff's mother, and that led to a Kanyon vs. Bagwell feud that culminated in a Judy Bagwell on a Poll match at New Blood Rising. I am not making this up. TNA later hired Vince Russo and he's still working in the business today writing television with some of the biggest names in the history of pro-wrestling that is drawing less than a 1.0 rating on Monday nights in prime time.
425
426So yeah, WCW died. Kanyon's deal was picked up by WWE and he joined the company as part of the WCW Alliance for the very ill-fated Invasion angle of 2001. He got a huge push early on in the sense that for a period he was both the US Champion and the WWF Tag Team Champions simultaneously, the latter belts he held with DDP. He lost both titles within a month of each other in August and September of 2001. It was a rough time for him because despite the initial push he was, like a lot of other guys (including, seriously, Chris Benoit), labeled as someone who "didn't know how to work". His claim to fame in WCW was as the "innovator of offense", and he took pride in coming up with all sorts of different never-before-seen moves that ended up being stolen by other guys and used in various other promotions. He was basically given the message that it was OK to be good, but it was not OK to go out there and be great or try to steal the show, and that really screwed him up mentally since he took such pride in his work. They also weren't high on him because he had somewhat of a lisp, and in fact later that became something he was made fun of for on television.
427
428In October he tore his ACL in a dark match with Randy Orton and was out until May of 2002. They sent him to Ohio Valley and he loved it there, because he loved to work and he loved to help the young guys out. On July 13th he suffered a shoulder injury against Lance Cade, underwent surgery a week later, and due to complications his lungs ended up filling with fluid, he lost 32 pounds and nearly died. They were able to save his life and after recovering for several months he was sent back to Ohio valley in October. He didn't return to TV until February 2003, when he did this completely bizarre angle where he burst out of a crate on Smackdown singing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and Undertaker beat the holy hell out of him. This was the last major thing he did with the company and it was clearly a cruel message of some sort that they sent to him. He wasn't released until approximately a year later, in February of 2004. Although he made some appearances in TNA, this was pretty much the end of his major league career.
429
430The last time I talked to him regularly was around the time that he nearly died in WWE. I called him and got his voice mail several times, and I seem to recall it being months before he called me out of the blue and thanked me for checking up on him. Apparently I wasn't the only person who called where it would always go straight to his voicemail, and others noted that, particularly of late, he'd disappear seemingly off the face of the Earth for months at a time before getting back into contact with them again. I did somehow end up his first friend when he opened up a Facebook account in March of 2008. He was astounded that I remembered his old phone number. We talked here and there about trying to set up an appearance for him on the radio show but it never ended up happening.
431
432Over the last few years he did a number of things to try to get attention, including announcing that he was coming out to become the first openly gay pro wrestling superstar, and that he was joining with Scott Levy and Mike Sanders in an attempt to sue WWE regarding WWE's claim that its wrestlers are independent contractors, not employees. The suit ended up being thrown out. It didn't make much sense to me at the time, but in August of 2007 he sent a brief email asking how the Japanese and Mexican wrestling systems compared to the US, and wanted to know about "the types of contracts the wrestlers sign here and their status of independent contractors? Do other companies have contracts? Are they Independent contractors? Can they work for other promotions?" Presumably this was research for the lawsuit attempt. He made regular appearances on the Stern talking about his various problems, and Stern noted a few days after his death that Kanyon had tried to call in a few days prior but that Stern hadn't taken the call. Stern then said that maybe his refusal to take it was what had sent Kanyon over the edge.
433
434Although he announced his retirement he never could let go of the fact that his major league career ended the way it did and he took occasional indy dates, including for Mikey Whipwreck's New York Wrestling Connection. He showed up at their event just last week and tried to buy a ticket to get in, and Mikey told him there was no way he was charging him for admission. They'd stopped booking him because he had just been out of control of late, completely manic. He would go into the locker room, line up all his 8x10s on the floor, pick them up, line them back up in a different order, pick them up again and repeat. He'd sent Mikey a bunch of emails with booking ideas, and they'd be these long 3-4 page tomes with spots timed to the millisecond. "He was treating every match like it was WrestleMania," Mikey said. He got so hard to deal with that Mikey told him he could just do whatever he wanted, but then his matches got worse and worse. They booked him for two shows which he didn't show up for, and they finally had to tell him to take some time off, get his head together, and get back to them, and that the door was open at any time for a return.
435
436Kanyon was found dead by his brother in his Queens, NY apartment on April 2nd. While it has not officially been ruled a suicide and will not be until toxicology reports come back, there apparently was a suicide note found near his body. It was one of those weird things. He'd obviously had serious issues for a long time and it was no mystery to friends that he battled depression and bipolar disorder and really needed help. He threatened suicide in the past, including publicly on the Howard Stern Show, but it's a strange thing in that sometimes the people who make the threats are the least likely to commit, whereas others, like Firestorm, don't seem to ever make the threat at all and then one day just do it. He'd threatened it so many times that many people concluded it was simply a cry for help and he'd never actually do it, and in fact, in the two weeks prior to his death friends said he seemed to be in a really good mood, was smiling and joking around again, and seemed to be in a good place. There were other people who said that just a few days before his death he'd started talking about his depression again and saying that he wanted to kill himself. This isn't confirmed, but according to one person he'd been having some financial issues and that made it tough for him to afford his medication at times.
437
438The question also remains as to the state of his brain at the time of his death. He was a big bump taker and most likely suffered a number of concussions during his career. With his heyday being in the mid-90s and early 00s, the mindset in wrestling at that time was that concussions were just dings and things that could be worked through, and it's very likely that, like Firestorm, Benoit, Awesome and others who ultimately took their own lives, his brain had been badly scrambled and that made a bad situation even worse. Interestingly, he wrote a big thing on his Myspace a few years back taking WWE to task for issuing a statement downplaying the theory that brain damage and concussions lead to Benoit's murderous rampage. "I personally know for a fact," he wrote, "that Chris had at least 2 concussions in matches against me. Both times in the late 90's in WCW. Both concussions were caused by the diving headbutt. Both times they resulted in bloody noses from the move and when we got to the back to congratulate each other for the match, he told me that the headbutt had caused the bloody nose as well as a concussion. I am one opponent. Chris probably did that move well over 1000 times in his career. He has also done it off the top of a steel cage a few times. He has taken tons of chair shots. Believe me, he has had a bunch of concussions, and for the WWE to try and insinuate that because no medical records exist to back that up that Chris has had no concussions, in my mind is criminal, disrespectful of their current slaves (I mean wrestlers), and worthy of a boycott of their product." He later added, "Wrestlers will continue to hide injuries, especially concussions. Wrestlers will continue to die at an unbelievable rate, and Vince will continue to have, in my opinion, the most EVIL lawyer on the planet, Jerry McDevitt, and this heartless broad, Jennifer McIntosh, put their spin on what's going on to protect his billions of dollars, insuring that more and more people will die prematurely. If that is not reason enough to boycott, I don't know what is."
439
440One wrestling personality who knew him said it was very clear he was bipolar and manic depressive and that they'd tried to convince him to get help since that is often "misdiagnosed and not treated properly. Most people who are bipolar and manic depressant try to self medicate with prescriptions or recreational drugs to attempt to balance themselves out." They added, "I am not chalking this up as another wrestling death. Instead I chalk it up as a person with a personality disorder that was not treated properly. I actually find this death more tragic than the standard heart attack under 40 by most wrestlers."
441
442
443ROH Big Bang PPV on gofightlive.tv
444The ROH Big Bang PPV from Charlotte was a good show, though perhaps overly long at nearly four hours.
445
446The positive of the online PPV format is that the show is only 15 dollars, there are no time constraints, it's almost impossible for the promotion to lose money given the miniscule start-up costs, and it's easy profit for a promotion with a decent following. The downsides are that a lot of people still haven't figured out how to hook up their laptop to their TV via HDMI cable and so you end up watching a four-hour show on your computer screen, plus for many people there will be some streaming issues unless you've got a super fast Internet connection. In a few years this medium will be far more successful, though there are people on the cutting edge now who can do OK with it.
447
448The show itself was very good, although personally it's really hard for me to sit through three straight uninterrupted hours of wrestling, especially a show like this with a lot of highspot-heavy action. I was really getting tired by the time the Briscoes match rolled around and was pretty much exhausted by the main event, but I was still able to acknowledge that both bouts were extremely good. In the end it was well worth the $15, especially for hardcore wrestling fans.
449
450We don't have any info on number of buys. The first show did around 1,000 and this was promoted significantly better. It did suffer from the TV show being pre-empted for the final two weeks before the show, something that ROH didn't know was going to happen when they booked the date. So really, the next show will be the real experiment as they'll be able to promote the event all the way through the final Monday before it airs, which should help buys quite a bit.
451
452Show opened with a good video package hyping up the show, which according to my player was 256:31 minutes long. That cannot be right. Well, it better not be right.
453
454Dave Prazak and Kevin Kelly opened up the show. Sad to see Mike Hogewood not there but this was a live show and Kelly was much better suited for the job. They plugged all the matches. It was funny to see Kelly claim he couldn't wait to see Blue Demon in action. A blatant lie, that.
455
4561. Jack Salvation vs. Phil Shatter. These were two local Charlotte guys. Salvation looked like an indy version of James Storm. Shatter is the NWA National Champion and came out with his belt. Fans were into him huge and chanted his name. What a great crowd. So then he got the heat. They botched something and got a "YOU FUCKED UP!" chant. It appeared to take them three tries to set up a triangle choke out of the corner. Salvation tried a guillotine next. Shatter finally pinned him with a sidewalk slam. (*1/2)
457
4582. Kenny King vs. Davey Richards in a Pick 6 match. Davey offered a handshake and King shoved him away. That was foolish. They said King was ranked number five in the World title contender rankings, so if Davey won this match he'd get King's spot and a $2,500 win bonus from HDNet and Mark Cuban's wallet. It was patently clear during this match that Kelly is better than anyone calling matches in WWE today. Granted, that's not high praise with Michael Cole and Todd Grisham as our options, but still. Rhett Titus interfered so Kenny could get the heat. Davey hit a diving headbutt and made his comeback. Very good heat. He ran wild with kicks and they traded nearfalls. Davey hit a German superplex and turned him inside out with a lariat, but Kenny kicked out of both that and a regular German. "ROH!" Rhett tried to interfere again but Davey went after him. Rhett took a boot to the outside, King went after him, and Davey went for his dive. King cut him off. Crowd was very sad about that. Tons of cradles and later submission attempts. Davey finally put him in the cloverleaf for the submission. Really good match. (***3/4)
459
460Prazak interviewed Davey afterwards, who said he used to live in Charlotte. He said there was no off night in ROH, the best wrestling company in the world, but with that said he needed to be the best wrestler in the world. No matter what people said, he wasn't the best until he had the title around his waist. He said he was on the hunt, Tyler was the prey, and he was going to devour whoever he had to go through. Suddenly, the music hit and out came CHRIS DANIELS. Kelly used the famous "HE DOESN'T EVEN WORK HERE!" line. Well, he does now. Crowd chanted "FALLEN ANGEL!" and "FUCK TNA!" He said he had a problem with what Davey just said. For 17 years, he said, he'd fought, bled and worked to make the name Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels synonymous with best in the world. He said after being held back and held down he was back in ROH to prove he was exactly that. He said he didn't care where or when, if Davey wanted to be called best in the world he'd have to go through him.
461
4623. Necro Butcher vs. Erik Stevens in a Butcher Rules match. I think this was the first match they had graphics up for. Stevens without his Mohawk looks like just a guy. Necro punched him in the face and did a cannonball off the apron. No catch whatsoever, he just crashed and burned. He tried suffocating Erick with a plastic bag. Stevens was bleeding from the mouth due to the punch I'm sure. Ernie Osiris got hit with a Section B sign. Necro beat the fuck out of him before finally getting tossed off the apron for the heat. Prince Nana tried to interfere and, as usual, was thwarted. Butcher immediately punched Erik in the face and then pinned him with an O'Connor role. Fabulous finish. Butcher cleared the ring of the heels afterwards. (*1/2)
463
4644. Rhett Titus vs. Cassandro. Rhett does the old-school '80s heel heartthrob gimmick. Cassandro is a lucha exotico, basically doing a transvestite gimmick. Fans went nuts for him. He did a bunch of lucha highspots. Rhett gave him a headscissors but Cassandro fought back with a kiss on the lips. Rhett got the heat and did some gay spots of his own, like a wheelbarrow where he made sure to hump him first. Cassandro sent him outside and hit a huge flip dive, then grabbed his leg. He broke it on the landing, just a total fluke thing. So then he got back into the ring, did a top rope dropkick, and then did a highspot that involved an attempt at running leading to a cradle finish. Tough dude, and hopefully he's OK. (**1/2)
465
466Announcers hyped up the next match and the audio went out so you couldn't hear a word they said.
467
4685. Colt Cabana & Generico vs. Kevin Steen & Steve Corino. Four-way stuff early, then Colt held Steen so Generico, after all these weeks and months, could finally waffle his former partner. Corino broke it up before Generico could do it. Heat on Cabana. Crowd sang the "OLE!" song. Generico got the hot tag and ran wild on Corino. He hit a tornado DDT and demanded Steen get in the ring. Steen dropped off the apron but Colt threw him inside. Corino cut Generico off before he could do anything again. The Generico/Steen staredowns were getting a lot less heat than you'd think. Steen gave Generico a powerbomb onto the ring frame. That was fucking completely insanity there. Cabana wiped out the heels with a dive. He put the reverse crab on Corino and Steen broke it up with a chairshot for the DQ. Crowd hated that and chanted "BULLSHIT!" (**1/4)
469
470Heels went to work on Colt and bloodied him up afterwards. Steen was actually licking blood off his hands. "YOU SICK FUCK!" Generico made it back in and tossed Corino outside. Steen slapped Generico across the face so Generico finally fired up, gave him the running boot in the corner. Geeks came in to break it up. Again far less heat than you'd think. Generico did follow it up with a flip dive that caused the place to explode. He got back into the ring and hit Steen with a German, a Yakuza kick and then went for the top rope brainbuster. Cabana was holding the geeks back. Corino ended up saving Steen and dragging him backstage. Generico then laid out several of the security geeks with brainbusters and such. Crowd did love that. He then hit poor Grizzly Redwood with the top rope brainbuster.
471
472They had a long intermission that thankfully I could fast forward through.
473
474Cornette came out with Bobby Eaton, who looks about 280 pounds, and Tommy Young. Cornette said Dennis Condrey wanted to be there but was stuck on business. Eaton, he said, was there to check out the Briscoes vs. Kings of Wrestling tag team title match. I'd give anything to watch that match with him. Cornette said he was picking the Briscoes, the best tag team in the business, and Eaton said he'd pick the Kings. Cornette also said Tommy would be the outside the ring referee and enforcer to make sure there were no dirty tricks in the main event three-way. Tommy said he was going to keep his eye on Austin Aries, who he compared to Ric Flair.
475
4766. Briscoes vs. Kings of Wrestling for the ROH World Tag Titles. Briscoes ran wild on the heels early. Prazak talked about how Hero had injured his back last weekend and made a miraculous recovery. The funny thing is that it was a legit injury and that's true about the recovery being miraculous. They said he was at about 75 to 80 percent. Claudio ended up getting a blind tag and Hero booted Jay in the face to get the heat. "LET'S GO BRISCOE!" Basic old-school heat at this point. Mark got the hot tag and ran wild. He tossed Hero outside and Jay followed it up with a huge dive. Mark tried one of his own but Claudio caught him in midmove and Hero hit a rolling elbow. Mark kicked out but it was time for heat on him. They teased the hot tag forever using all sorts of tricks, knocking the brother off the apron, etc. Mark finally rolled through a cradle and went between Hero's legs to make the desperation tag. Cool spot. Heels hit a multiple Yakuza kick spot, then Claudio hit his super European uppercut. "THIS IS AWESOME!" Claudio hit a sweet springboard tornillo elbow. Hero hit two rolling elbows but Mark kicked out. Briscoes foiled the giant swing/dropkick spot. That was sad. They hit a Demolition elbow on Hero for another nearfall. Claudio hit the UFO, a no-hand spinning torture rack drop which is awesome, then they followed it up with the giant swing/dropkick for a nearfall. More nearfalls and kickouts. A single guy managed to start a "THIS IS AWESOME!" chant. This was right about the time it was starting to go on too long. Awesome spot where Briscoes went for a doomsday device but Claudio grabbed Mark in midair and turned it into a giant powerslam. Kings hit their KRS-1 but Jay broke it up at the last second. Briscoes went for a second springboard doomsday device but Shane Hagadorn shook the ropes. Jay went after him and fans chanted "FUCK HIM UP!" As the ref was distracted Hero hit Jay with the loaded forearm pad, then threw Claudio on top for the pin and the titles. Jay barfed after the match. Hopefully he was just blown up and hadn't suffered a concussion. (***3/4)
477
4787. Tyler Black vs. Austin Aries vs. Roderick Strong for the ROH Title. Aries did a promo before the match talking about how he had no idea Tommy Young was still alive, and how while he respected Black and Strong it was too bad the two of them didn't respect each other. He did all he could to stir the pot, then said he'd let them settle their differences and he'd wait outside until they were done. This was a great promo. Strong and Black did mat wrestling at a quick pace early. Cornette did commentary here and was just awesome explaining every possible facet of this match. They noted that poor Roderick is 0-12 in title match opportunities. Aries finally got involved and they did a bunch of great three-way spots. Black hit a Fosbury flop dive over the top onto both guys. This was 201 minutes into the show and the fans were totally into it so they deserve a medal of some sort. Strong didn't have his shoulder taped up but he did smash into the barricade and they mentioned that he'd been "hurt" in Phoenix. He ended up Strong'ing up and running wild on both guys. He put Aries in a crab, but then Tyler hit the ring and put the sleeper on Strong. Strong broke out with a jawbreaker but sat on Aries' legs in the process. That looked like it sucked. There were chants for all three guys. Strong chopped the shit out of Aries. Cornette spent a lot of this match putting Roddy over super strong, so to speak. Tyler took the back suplex on the apron. Aries then hit Strong with a DVD on the apron. And I mean the move, not a plastic disc. Aries went for his tope of doom but both Strong and Black split apart and Aries crashed and burned on the guardrail. Everyone took turns running wild on everyone else. They noted this was an elimination match, meaning you had to pin the champion at some point to win the title. Crowd was getting tired at the 217-minute mark of the show. Amazing they lasted that long. Black missed the Phoenix splash and Aries turned him inside out with a lariat, then went for the 450. Black got the knees up. Roddy hit a stomach buster and followed it up with the Strong hold. Tyler broke it up. Well that made no sense. Strong hit him with a backbreaker and a flying kick but Aries broke up the pin with a kick and brainbuster. Again, why are these guys breaking up pins? Black hit a buckle bomb and a superkick, but Roddy no-sold it and spat in his face. Cornette said in 35 years he'd never seen anything like this. "THIS IS AWESOME!" Strong finally hit rolling brainbusters on Roddy for the pin. They put him over like a million bucks in this match, though. Aries hit his tope on Tyler. Black hit a superplex and rolled into a God's last gift, but Aries kicked out. Aries hit the buckle bomb and two superkicks but Aries got his feet on the ropes. Kenny King came out to take the ref. Tyler kicked Aries into him, hit two superkicks to the back of the head, a third to the face, and God's last gift for the pin. Finish was a little clunky and I don't think they needed interference, but still a hell of match. (****1/4)
479
480
481UFC Fight Night
482Kenny Florian beat Takanori Gomi in the main event of a UFC Fight Night show previewing the newest season of Ultimate Fighter.
483
484Show was fine. There weren't any blow-away matches. It was fun seeing Roy Nelson's Gut kill some dude and cause the fans to go nuts with joy. Florian looked great in beating Gomi, formerly a top star with PRIDE and the company's final lightweight champion, but a guy who hadn't been fighting top competition in years.
485
486Bonuses of $30,000 were paid to Kenny Florian for Submission of the Night, Roy Nelson for Knockout of the Night, and Ross Pearson and Denis Siver for Best Fight. The show didn't sell out, but drew 7,700 and a $590,000 live gate to the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte (real place).
487
4881. Ross Pearson vs. Dennis Siver. All on the feet early. Pearson rocked him with a shot and went behind him. Siver tried to drop down and grab the leg but Pearson put in a hook and got his back, then body triangled him. Siver turned and got mounted. He was bleeding like crazy. He did a sweep but Ross stood up. Siver came at him swinging. Good round, 10-9 Pearson. Siver hit a spinning back kick and Pearson threw a flying knee. Siver briefly had a takedown. Not much of a round, neither guy really did anything, 10-10. Ross tagged him but got immediately taken down. Pearson took him down but Siver stood right back up. Another nothing round. 10-9 Ross, so he wins 30-28. Ross won 30-27. Rogan liked this way more than I did.
489
490They interviewed BJ Penn about his upcoming fight with Frankie Edgar next weekend. BJ tried to convince us that Frankie was a threat. I was unsold. A tsunami can't stop BJ Penn, what is Frankie Edgar going to do?
491
4922. Jorge Rivera vs. Nate Quarry. Jorge tagged him with a few good shots. He dropped him, but Quarry was back up quickly swinging with punches and elbows. Jorge dropped him a second time and just went to work on him. Quarry was bleeding from the nose. Jorge was beating the holy piss out of him in the final 30 seconds. 10-7 round as this was very close to being stopped. Nate survived the round but Jorge finished him off a few seconds into round two. A pure legit ass beating here.
493
494Dana did a promo hyping up Ultimate Fighter. He's put on some weight. He promised great fights this season.
495
4963. Stefan Struve vs. Roy Nelson. They were in the middle of introducing this fight when the fucking power went out. They cut to a shot of Kenny Florian backstage, who looked completely stoned. When he discovered the camera was on him he woke up and started bouncing around. They went to commercial and came back and the power was still off so they went to a prelim instead.
497
498a. Caol Uno vs. Gleison Tibau. This sucked for three and a half minutes, then Tibau dropped him with a shot and pounded on him. Caol survived for a bit but was eventually finished with shots from the back.
499
5003. Stefan Struve vs. Roy Nelson. Let's try this again. They said Roy was a Kung Fu fighter. They should have said KUNG FOOD. This was the most absurd match ever. Roy is short and fat and Struve is 6-foot-11 and 240 pounds. Roy dropped him immediately with a shot and finished him off. A hell of a performance. "This guy gets his ass into his punches," Rogan said. "There's a lot of muscle behind that fat!" Fans went nuts for Nelson. They've got something in this guy because he's so different and he can fight. Roy put over Stefan after the match saying he'd be a stud at 25. Rogan wanted to know who he wanted to fight and he said James Toney.
501
5024. Kenny Florian vs. Takanori Gomi. All on the feet in the first round. 10-9 Florian as he lit him up with jabs for five minutes. Second round exactly the same. Gomi landed a nice shot in the third but Kenny took him down. He got the mount, then his back, then put him in the rear-naked choke for the submission. Florian looked awesome here.
503
504Florian did a promo afterwards saying he was honored to be face Gomi and was thrilled to have beaten their last lightweight champion.
505
506
507WAR UPDATE
508Still not much of one. But TNA did do better this week from 8-to-10 than they were doing from 9-to-11, and that was with only a week of promotion for the (well, at the time) one-time-only timeslot switch.
509
510TNA did its best number since March 8th, an 0.857 (basically an 0.9) off hours of 0.91 and 0.82. The first hour, with no Raw competition, did much better than usual, and surprisingly the second hour was stronger than usual as well despite not only going up against Raw, but also Dancing with the Stars and the NCAA Finals, both of which did approximately 20 million viewers each. The show did an 0.84 in males 18-to-49, and 0.84 in males 18-to-34, and 1.2 million viewers.
511
512Quarters were 0.87, 0.85, 0.98 (first half of women's match), 0.93 (second half, so they lost viewers), 0.81 (Raw came on the air, and that's a big plunge in the middle of the Angle vs. Kennedy ladder match), 0.88, 0.73, 0.70 and 0.97. UFC Unleashed started at 10 p.m., and given that this show usually draws three-quarters of a million viewers, most of that overrun bump was probably MMA fans tuning in for their show, although TNA will attribute it to the women and the trainwreck TV they were producing at the time. That's a bad thing, by the way.
513
514Raw was hurt badly by the non-wrestling competition, mostly the NCAA Finals, as they plunged 22 percent in persons 18-to-49 and 26 percent in males 18-to-49, their lowest-rated demos of the entire year. The first hour did just a 3.0 rating and 4.3 million viewers, and the second hour grew slightly to a 3.3 and 4.895 million viewers.
515
516Based on how Raw's first hour usually does when they start at 8 p.m., Impact's first hour was probably down about 20 percent from what they would do if that became their permanent home, which the company announced would be happening starting this coming Monday. If you presume a 20 percent increase, hour one goes from 0.9 to 1.12, and if we presume the second hour is going to average an 0.8 that's an 0.96 weekly average, or basically a 1.0. That's still below what they were doing on Thursday nights, and with the added expense of going live every week that doesn't seem to be worth it. They have announced a special encore for Thursdays, perhaps to try to regain some of the viewers that will apparently watch on Thursday but not on Monday.
517
518It is quite fascinating to observe the flip-flopping of various timeslots during this brief war, TNA constantly looking for the "best possible formula" while simultaneously making absolutely no changes to creative which just happens to be their single biggest problem right now.
519
520
521In House Notes
522The number next to your name on the address label indicates which issue your Figure Four Weekly subscription expires with. Thus, if you have a [771] next to your name, this is the final issue of your current subscription.
523
524Very special thanks to the following people for their help over the years in producing Figure Four Weekly: Gladys "Granny" Gibson, Dave Meltzer, Tony Leder, Alex Marvez, Zack Arnold, Colin Vassallo, Kris Zellner, Manuel Gonzalez, Craig Proper, Vincent Verhei, Keith Lipinski, Robert Bihari, The Cubs Fan, Kyle Wolf, Devin Cutting, Shawn Garrett, Bob Barnett, Mike Lano, Adam Lebow, Mike Sempervive, Adam Summers, Mike Coughlin, Karl Stern, Steve "Dr. Lucha~!" Sims, Mike K, Forrest Lynn. Thanks also to everyone who sent in news over the past week.
525
526Worldwide renewal rates due to rising postage costs are $100 per one-year subscription (52 issues), $55 per six-month subscription (26 issues), $30 per three-month subscription (12 issues), and $12 per one month subscription.
527
528To order through the mail, send a check, money order or cash payable to Figure Four Weekly to PO BOX 426, Woodinville, WA 98072. To order with a credit card, send your Visa or Master Card order with your name, address, phone number, Visa or Master Card number, expiration date AND CVR number (three-digit security code on the back of the card) to figure4@ix.netcom.com, or you can order by faxing that information to 530-730-2920. You can also subscribe via paypal at www.paypal.com using the bryan@wrestlingobserver.com address, or subscribe via credit card by mail. Please include all the information listed above, particularly the CVR security code that many people forget.
529
530
531WWE
532Jim Ross on his blog wrote: "JR is NOT retiring. It's tempting and financially doable but I want to work a few more years in a role that is fun and not as laden with stress as some of my previous assignments have been. No I am not 'vanishing.' Life is so good here in Norman and I have a tremendous amount of things to look forward to although I know that I have not broadcast my last event. One doesn't do something for over 35 years and stop cold turkey or at least I don't. There are no issues or problems with my negotiations with WWE. The ball is in WWE's court to put together a new role for me within the company. Essentially they have decided to reassign me from weekly broadcasting and that includes the monthly PPV's to focus on other areas of the company. I am guessing, and I stress guessing, that may be some form of scouting and/or talent development. I might be wrong on that assumption but I'll know before the end of April as that is when my current extension expires." His current short-term deal is up in a few weeks.
533
534Elimination Chamber this year appears to have done approximately 290,000 buys, up from the 280,000 buys the show did last year. Keep in mind that's with a greatly expanded international universe, and international buys bring in less revenue than domestic buys.
535
536This has to be a rib, but I was told that WILD AND YOUNG, by the band American Gang, the fucking hideous NXT theme song, was number 46 last week on the Mediabase Active Rock charts. Maybe 2012 is the end of the world.
537
538Superstars last week did an 0.67 rating and 707,000 viewers, so it just lost to Impact. That's a terrible number by the way.
539
540Batista shoots the latest WWE Film, Killing Karma, starting on April 13th. Doubtful he'll have to miss any TV time since Randy Orton shot all his scenes for the upcoming Big Red in about a week.
541
542The DiBiase angle is probably leading to a new faction involving his younger brother Brett, who is a spitting image of him, and Joe Hennig. At least, that was the plan originally. They may use the name "The Fortunate Sons," but I hope not because that's lame.
543
544The Draft, as noted several weeks back, is April 26th on a three-hour show, so five hours of wrestling in one night between WWE and TNA. Well, if TNA is still on Mondays by April 26th, which God knows they may not be. They'll be having Raw and Smackdown guys working both shows until the Draft because, well, that makes absolutely no sense but it's what they do ever year.
545
546The Briscoes' contracts are coming due in the next few months and they are negotiating with ROH over new ones. They've been given both dark matches by WWE and invited down to Florida to attend tryout camps. Not sure what WWE's thoughts are on them right now but Jay did our show and talked about how they grew up as WWE fans, and if the money is right they'd love to go there. A WWE source says they are on the radar, but the problem is that a lot of guys there pan them for their work and look. Bryan Danielson has always had guys like Regal and others backing him and talking about how he's legit and can go, unlike the Briscoes who don't have that kind of backing. Danielson had been on the radar since around 2002 or 2003. If they went there would almost certainly be a name change due to Jack and Gerry's legacy. Another WWE source said the problem was that maybe two people on the creative team were really aware of them since most of the people doing that job don't follow the indies at all.
547
548WWE is actually working on a book about the life of Goldust. He's certainly had his ups and downs over the years and his battles with various demons, and this is probably the best place he's been in a long, long time. I would presume that means they'd have to bring him back to TV at some point and push him at least to some degree. I guess that also means at some point he's a lock for their Hall of Fame. The gimmick is long since played out and he's been typecast as a low midcarder, but his work over the last two years on ECW was probably the best of his entire career.
549
550Jericho did an April Fool's joke on Twitter saying he had been sequestered for jury duty and would be out six weeks minimum.
551
552Some notes on next year's WrestleMania. Talk won't get far, especially since the Phillips Arena is right next door, but there was a brief discussion about doing both Mania and Raw at the Georgia Dome with night two massively scaled down. Either the Phillips or Fox Arena will get the Hall of Fame. Goldberg is probably a lock, as is Ron Simmons. Other suggested names are Sting (thought not if he's with TNA still), Luger and the Steiner Brothers.
553
554Linda McMahon, as part of her Senate campaign, resigned from the Connecticut Board of Education this week. Board members are now restricted from engaging in political activities so she pretty much had no choice. She said she regretted having to quit the Board. "Although the opinion does not preclude a board member from running for public office, it does disallow them from engaging in many of the activities that are necessary to be a successful candidate," Linda wrote upon resigning. "The recent revelation of this rule has come as a surprise to me as well as to other members of the board," she wrote. "Therefore, in order to avoid any violation of this rule or even the appearance of a violation, it is with deep regret that I must immediately resign and relinquish my position on the board".
555
556David Hasselhoff is this coming week's Raw guest host. The MacGruber cast hosts the week after and there is no host listed for April 26th yet. They are working to try to get Tila Tequila in for sometime next month.
557
558Syfy started doing NXT replays at 9 p.m. ET this past Tuesday. They'll air the prior week's show at 9 and then the new show at 10 p.m. So really, you only have to tune in every other week now and you won't miss anything. Will be interesting to see what kind of rating the replay airing does.
559
560Lance Cade, who was released from his contract due to passing out on a plane after taking too many pills, was rehired in October, never used, and just this week released again. Basically he asked to go to rehab again several months ago and then shortly after he got out they released him again. Most likely they figured that after having two different pill-related incidents he was too big a potential liability.
561
562Zach Gowen also completed WWE-sponsored rehab for a pain pill addiction as of March 15th and is now staying at a sober-living facility and taking indy bookings again.
563
564We're told the new Hart Family DVD is awesome. There is a very sad half-hour period early where they cover the deaths of Owen Hart, Stu, Helen and Bulldog. Overall it's said to be the best thing WWE has put out since the Ric Flair Hall of Fame DVD, and we're told that after watching it, at least for the time being, it'll be pretty much impossible to boo the Hart Dynasty.
565
566There is a Ricky Steamboat DVD coming out at the end of June.
567
568Jack Tunney's son Eric, 45, who worked as both a stand-up comedian and writer, died this week. No word on the cause of death but we're told he'd been going through a really rough spell.
569
570HBK's retirement speech will be a bonus on the WrestleMania DVD that comes out in May.
571
572The citizens of St. Louis got a mailer last week asking them if they wanted to bid for WrestleMania in 2012. There are a half dozen different cities bidding to get the show between now and 2013.
573
574Edge has been involved in every single Money in the Bank title change. At WrestleMania 21 he won the deal and beat Cena at New Year's Revolution; he helped RVD beat Cena at One Night Stand following Mania 22; he beat Taker after winning the briefcase from Mr. Kennedy following Mania 23; he lost the title to Punk following Mania 24; Punk beat Jeff Hardy to win the title at Extreme Rules after Mania 25 after Hardy had finished a match with Edge; and Swagger won the title from Jericho after Mania 26 following Edge beating up Jericho.
575
576Smackdown did a 1.8 and 3.025 million viewers last Friday.
577
578Carlos Colon, Teddy Hart, Bobby Heenan, Danny Spivey and Mean Gene Okerlund (looking 300 pounds) were all at the Hall of Fame last week.
579
580
581UFC
582UFC announced that they'd be airing UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez head-to-head with the Strikeforce show on CBS April 17th. Well, you knew something like this was going to happen. I'm going to be interested to see this rating. They should be beaten by CBS given the respective TV universe for CBS as compared to Spike. UFC 110 was one of the least-purchased UFC PPVs of all time. I'm wondering if that means low rating for the replay or if it might actually mean a higher rating since most people didn't buy it. UFC 100, when it aired on free TV, didn't do a record rating or anything like that perhaps because so many people either bought the show or went and watched it at a friend's house. Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping is also on the show.
583
584Thiago Alves underwent an eight-hour brain operation last week to correct and an arteriovenous fistula in his brain. That sounds like a pretty fucking major deal, but apparently it's not and he'll not only be returning to training in a few weeks but he'll be facing Jon Fitch at UFC 115 in Vancouver's GM Place on June 12th. And yes, they're booking Fitch for another fight after his boring-ass performance at GSP vs. Hardy.
585
586TUF Finale takes place on June 19th in the Pearl at the Palms Las Vegas.
587
588The first episode of the new season of TUF did a 1.5 rating with 1.9 million viewers. That's down a ton from TUF 10 with Kimbo, but nobody in their right mind was expecting it to do anywhere near those numbers. I'd consider a 1.5 and 1.9 million viewers to be a success, to be honest with you, since it's the 11th season of this show, there are no big stars among the fighters, and Tito vs. Chuck, at least to me, seems completely played out. Maybe they'll manage to turn it around in the next few weeks. The show did a 1.8 in males 18-to-49, a 2.1 in males 18-to-34, a 1.3 in males 18-to-24, and a 2.6 in males 25-to-34.
589
590Among the guys at the tryouts for TUF 12 in Charlotte last week were Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett and Jason Guida, brother of Clay. Guida was a contestant on season eight but came in too fat, got ill during weight-cutting and was bumped from the show after the commission told him they weren't going to allow him to try to cut any more weight before his upcoming fight.
591
592Full line-up for the April 24th WEC PPV has Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Urijah Faber for the 145-pound title; Ben Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone for the 155-pound title; Shane Roller vs. Anthony Njokuani; Scott Jorgensen vs. Antonio Banuelos; Chan Sung Jung vs. Leonard Garcia; Anthony Pettis vs. Alex Karalexis; Demetrious Johnson vs. Brad Pickett; Anthony Morrison vs. Mackens Semerzier; Rani Yahya vs. Takeya Mizugaki; and Tyler Toner vs. Brandon Visher. Show airs live from the Arco Arena at 7 p.m. PT.
593
594
595TNA
596Don't know whether he asked for his release or was fired, but Chris Daniels is done with TNA and going full-time with ROH. He had an awesome PPV match with Samoa Joe and AJ Styles late last year, and then Hogan and Bischoff came in and he totally fell off the radar. They didn't see anything in him, which tells you something about their eye for talent, and him getting the hell out was probably destined to happen sooner or later.
597
598TNA sent out a deal offering "8 Reasons to watch Impact Tonight." Of course, they sent this out on Thursday, when Impact wasn't airing. I can't make this stuff up.
599
600Jeff Jarrett in an interview with Kentucky.com put over the house show business, saying all the shows were financial winners. Well, I don't know about every single one of them but they are largely making money, mostly due to low advertising costs (which is funny because they'd probably do a lot better at the gate if they did advertise) and the low overhead costs of running smaller buildings. They have done some shows where attendance was so small (300 or so) that I can't believe they broke even. He also said by the end of the year they wanted to have more of the TV stars on the road so that what you saw on TV was what you got at the house shows. Christ, I hope not, because the house show I went to last year was an awesome wrestling show and all I need are guys like Hall and Nash bringing them down.
601
602The 9-to-11 Thursday time slot that Impact used to inhabit was filled with a Chuck Liddell special that has been replayed countless times and only did an 0.4 rating. So I guess the number can go that low. Why they're not replaying Impact is beyond me. I guess they want everyone watching Monday but clearly it made no difference whether there was a Thursday replay or not because the rating was actually better on Monday when there was. Pretty amazing when you can get rid of a Thursday replay and it results in the rating for Monday dropping. This promotion is a comedy of errors.
603
604TNA Epics episode 4 airs on April 15th at 11 p.m. on Spike TV.
605
606
607Strikeforce
608Lashley will not be fighting on the Strikeforce show. They couldn't find anyone for him and hadn't even approached him with any potential opponents. He did an interview saying nobody told him why he was off the show, but that he figured he'd be fighting on the May show, which will be aired on Showtime. He did an interview with MMA Junkie saying that fans were clamoring for him to fight Fedor and guys like that, and while those were the kind of fans that were going to bitch no matter what (true) he did feel that it was time he started facing stiffer competition.
609
610Strikeforce is also working on a show for June 26th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. The rumors are that if they can get everything worked out that would be the show with Fabricio Werdum challenging Fedor Emelianenko. Although Scott Coker said last week that everything had been settled between his company and Fedor's M-1 management group, they were actually still working on a contract renegotiation at press time.
611
612If you look closely you'll see Strikeforce Middleweight Champion (for the time being) Jake Shields in the background on the new season of Ultimate Fighter, as Chuck Liddell brought him in as a trainer. The two have been friends for a long time. Shields has talked openly about potentially going to UFC after the Dan Henderson fight on the 17th, which is the final one on his current contract.
613
614
615Other MMA
616War Machine was arrested again last week for assault with a deadly weapon out the Thruster's Lounge Bar (?) in San Diego last week. Never got a report on what the deadly weapon was. They actually put a spit bag over his head as apparently the officers were not happy with how he reacted to his arrest. It was all over TMZ on Wednesday.
617
618
619Other Wrestling
620Bob Ziolkowski, 34, an indy wrestler from Wisconsin, passed away earlier this week of heart failure. No further details on this one.
621
622I was going to the post office last week to get stamps for the print newsletters and got a call saying I needed to run back home to grab something to mail. So I turned around, went home, and when I returned what should I see but the entire post office shut down and swarming with cops and firetrucks. I think, "Sweet Christ someone tried to shoot up or blow up the post office and had I not gone home I might have been there when it happened!" I legitimately thought my life had been saved. As it turned out, there was a "suspicious vehicle" parked out front with a canister on top of it spewing some sort of mysterious substance, so the place was evacuated. I thought back to all the times I've gone to the post office and the weirdos are out front with their goofy signs that have, for example, Barack Obama's face with a Hitler mustache painted on it, and thought these men had finally gone too far and flipped out. In the end, what happened was a guy parked at the post office in his cleaning truck and locked his keys inside, and left to go find a locksmith. Someone saw the vehicle running, freaked out, and the rest is history. I can't wait to read the Woodinville Weekly Police Beat on that one.
623
624CMLL ran their 76th anniversary of Arena Coliseo show on April 4th at -- where else? -- Arena Coliseo. Main event saw Mistico beat Atlantis. It's a weird deal because Mistico is kind of working babyface on Tuesdays and heel on Friday's at Arena Mexico. His win was the sixth straight for the babyfaces on this show. Atlantis wanted a return singles match at Arena Mexico and Mistico said the only way he'd do it is if it was a mask vs. mask match. Well, that's not happening this Friday.
625
626DGUSA on May 8th in Toronto has BxB Hulk vs. Masato Yoshino for the Open the Freedom Gate Title; CIMA & Dragon Kid vs. YAMATO & Shingo; Naruki Doi & Pac vs. Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw; and more.
627
628New Japan announced that Negro Casas would be defending the CMLL Middleweight title against Jushin Liger on May 3rd in Fukuoka. Hiroshi Tanahashi is going to CMLL in May. They also announced that all of the CMLL big shows, such as the anniversary show, Dos Leyendas, etc., would be airing on Samurai TV this year.
629
630AAA is running a poll on their Web site asking what kind of match fans would like to see La Parka vs. LA Park become, and it was 3-to-1 in favor of a mask match. AAA was hoping people would vote name vs. name. There was a feeling that so many of the AAA viewers today are newer or younger fans that nobody would care at all about the mask aspect of this feud.
631
632CMLL did 1,500 last Tuesday for a show that featured Brazo de Oro losing his hair, as he does every spring, to Asesino Negro with a Boston crab in the third fall.
633
634CMLL isn't doing much at all until the next WWE tour concludes, feeling everyone is going to be saving their money to go to the big shows the first week of May.
635
636All of the planned Perros Del Mal shows in Texas this month have been canceled, and it appears the Yonkers Lucha PPV is off as well.
637
638Wrestlelicious announced that they will be doing TV tapings on May 28th at the 1st Avenue Nightclub in Minneapolis, Minn., so the project lives on.
639
640
641Bryan's Friend Vince's DVD Review and Karaoke Showcase
642
643History of the Intercontinental Championship
644DVD opens with trailers for other DVDs, including a re-done version of the Eddie Guerrero DVD that now includes “the last match of his illustrious career.” Yes, I really want to see Eddie in a throwaway match with Ken Kennedy in which he takes a super-hard chairshot just days before his death.
645
646They aired a video of a bunch of guys winning the title, including Steve Austin after Owen Hart dropped him on his head. Some odd editing on this so far. Todd Grisham listed a lot of men who had held the title, including Austin and the Honky Tonk Man. He told us that the title was born in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, although now the story is that Pat Patterson unified the North American and South American championships, nothing about a tournament.
647
648Pat Patterson vs. Ted DiBiase. From Madison Square Garden, October 22, 1979. Howard Finkel announced this as one fall OR TO CURFEW. I don’t know who the ref was, but he may have also officiated David vs. Goliath. He was old, you see. He was also very tiny. Maybe I should have said he officiated Frodo vs. Gollum. Patterson stalled forever at the beginning. Vince McMahon on commentary had a guest from some magazine discussing a feature on the sexiest album covers of the year. He also plugged a concert by FOREIGNER. DiBiase finally had enough and lit it into Patterson, who took without question the greatest turnbuckle bump I’ve ever seen, going back-first into the corner and then flying high into the air. Patterson stalled some more, then DiBiase went to work on the arm. He hooked an abdominal stretch that they used as a false finish, with the ref checking Patterson’s arm and everything. He finally got the ropes. Think about this: Pat Patterson nearly lost the IC title to an abdominal stretch five minutes into a match in which had seen zero sustained offense. Wrestling has changed in the ensuing 30 years. Patterson cut DiBiase off and attacked with punches and chokes. DiBiase fought back with a dropkick, but missed a second one. Patterson then reached into his trunks and pulled out an ENORMOUS pair of brass knuckles. INSANE heat for this. DiBiase punched him first and the knuckles fell to the mat. DiBiase grabbed them, but then Patterson cradled him and put his feet on the ropes for the pin. Not an all-time classic or anything, but a fun look inside a time capsule. **1/4.
649
650Ken Patera vs. Pedro Morales. From MSG, October 20, 1980. This is described in the match listing as OLYMPIC STRONGMAN vs. FIERY LATINO. That is BUYS right there. Grisham explained Patera’s weightlifting feats, and they showed him doing a clean-and-jerk in a wrestling ring, then said Pedro was old but the Puerto Ricans loved him. He did not use these exact words. Patera, who was managed by the Grand Wizard, declared that his belt would never go around Morales’ fat waist. So then Pedro came out and fought Patera out of the ring, and the heat was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. JESUS. Austin at his peak never got a reaction this rabid. And it wasn’t just the Puerto Ricans, there were plenty of white folk in the crowd who loved Pedro too. The match finally began. As far as Olympic strongmen turned pro wrestlers go, it sucks that I missed out on most of Patera’s career and saw all of Mark Henry’s. That dude was so good. The action was all kicking and punching and elbowing and throwing each other out of the ring. Patera hit the safest bodyslam ever on the floor. Every time Pedro tried to get back in the ring Patera cut him off and knocked him back out, then he finally threw him into the post. Then Patera hooked a front facelock in the ring. Pedro lay there for a few minutes, then fought up to his feet and everyone went crazy. Then Patera muscled him back down. Then Pedro fought up again, this time hitting a move that was half backdrop, half northern lights suplex, breaking the hold, and the place went electric. That whole facelock bit killed like four minutes. Pedro fired up the crowd and made a big punchy comeback, then went for the eyes. Patera cut him off with a suplex and dropped some elbows, then hooked a bearhug. That’s a few more minutes killed. Pedro started punching him and they fell to the mat. Patera’s shoulders were down, but he maintained the bearhug and just rolled over. Pedro finally fought to his feet and escaped with an earclap. That served only to infuriate Patera, who snapped like the Incredible Hulk and unleashed flurry of stomps and kicks. Unfortunately for him, Pedro out-angered him (he was a fiery Latino, you see) and unloaded on him in the corner. The ref tried to separate them, but first Patera shoved him down, then Pedro, then they both did, and he called for the double-DQ. By this point Pedro was in control and a half-dozen geeks came out to break it up. Patterson and Rick Martel were out there for the faces, and Patterson almost got into it with a guy who I think was Buddy Rose. Pedro fought free a few times, but the heels finally escaped. This started off great but went too long and ended up going nowhere. ***.
651
652Pedro Morales vs. Magnificent Muraco. From Madison Square Garden, December 28, 1982. Muraco had Lou Albano with him, although he was taken to the back before the match started. Since the last match, Pedro had won the belt from Patera, lost it to Muraco, and then regained it. You’ve never seen two men do so little in the first five minutes of a match. They did lockups, headlocks, a punch here and there, stalling. Muraco finally hit a low blow for the heat and the action really began. I love that Muraco had a lightning bolt on the hip of his trunks. Because he was quick as lightning. Or something. He did a long front facelock, got a nearfall with a suplex, then dumped Pedro out of the ring. He worked him over on the floor and the crowd became angered at this dirty play. Pedro fought back with elbows in the ring until Muraco knocked him back outside with a dropkick (!). Morales then apparently just decided it was time to become angry, whacking a chair into the guardrail and attacking Muraco in the ring. The crowd was into the match for the first time. I just love that there was no impetus for this comeback. Muraco didn’t miss a move or get cut off or anything. Morales was just on the floor, alone, and I guess that enraged him. The ref got shoved down. Oh Jesus, not again. Then Muraco just kicked him right in the gut. That was a DQ. Who in the HELL picked the matches for this set? Pedro won the postmatch brawl again. And it went FOREVER, like five minutes or more before Muraco finally walked away. This was hideously boring until Pedro’s comeback, and then it went right to the finish, so fuck this match. * “Now that was the definition of a classic,” said Grisham. That was a lie.
653
654
655TV Reviews
656
657TUF 11
658Dana opened the show alerting us that Tito and Chuck hated each other. Sometimes the coaches' rivalry is a work but this one is pretty real. They introduce the guys. JOE HENLE is one we'll be talking about. Giant hair, giant beard, automatically awesome. Also, there is a man named WOODY WEATHERBY, who said this training center looked DOPE. Tito looked really weird. He was super head and had a giant head. Dana said there would be a new deal this year, THE WILDCARD. He said there were 28 guys, 14 would get in the house, and then after the first seven prelim fights they'd pick two guys who deserved a second shot, and those guys would face off for the WILDCARD SLOT, the eighth position in the quarterfinals. Is Russo booking this show? Dana cut a promo on the guys telling them to go in there and let it all go and not leave it in the hands of the judges or they'd be riding home in that fucking bus asking themselves why they didn't go all out and regretting for the rest of their lives that they didn't throw. Good promo to start the show.
659
660Jamie Yager, who has absurd giant hair, versus Ben Stark, the HEBREW HAMMER. Jamie went in there and just threw a bunch of wild wacky kicks. The Hebrew Hammer did nothing and just got knocked out in 20 seconds. Hilarious.
661
662Jordan Smith vs. Brad Tavares. Jorgan makes Bryan Danielson look like Mayhem Miller. He got KO'd in like 20 seconds. "Awesome," said Tito.
663
664Cleburn Walker vs. Cris McCray. Cleburn could play a convict in a horror film. McCray said he had the "most ferociousness" in the group. He immediately suplexed Cleburn and destroyed McCray's shoulder. These fights were all edited. "I'm like a SWAMP THING," said Cleburn.
665
666Norman Paraisy, a Frenchman who looks like a Briscoe, versus James Hammortree, who looks like a generic fighter. Fighting is fun for him. It sure was tonight. The Frenchman said he was going to prove tonight that what people thought about French people, that they're soft, wasn't true. He then quit after the first round. No joke. Chuck cut a promo on him for being a complete pussy, saying doing that was like tapping for strikes. "Oh wait," he said, "I think Tito did that once.".
667
668From here they showed a bunch of random fight clips. Kyle Noke, one of the favorites, won a bloody battle. Court McGee, who nearly died due to a drug addiction, won a three-round battle. Victor O'Donnell vs. Cris Camozzi had a long battle that Dana, Tito and Chuck gave a standing ovation. Cris won, and Victor fought two rounds with a broken orbital socket. Unlike the Frenchman he didn't quit. Kyacey Uscola vs. Brent Cooper. Uscola said he had a shit record but he could beat these goofs. Actually he called them "cats." Punching people in the face "is what I do," said Cooper. Uscola killed him. More fights occurred. My DVR died. Fight Night went long so this show started late and then my DVR cut off at exactly 11, which was before this show ended. And it's funny because I set the DVR to go an hour long on TUF to make sure this didn't happen and it did anyway. Oh well.
669
670
671NXT
672
673Show opened with The Teacher welcoming us the most important night in the history of NXT. He said the guys had done everything to impress their pros and the WWE Universe. "How are they doing so far?" he asked. No one cared. He said for the first time ever they were going to reveal the PRO'S POLL. All the geeks came out to the fucking most annoying song in the history of mankind. Daniel Bryan came out second to last and had to stand right there next to the gigantic Wade Barrett. Striker said they were judged on their win/loss record, quality of opponent, heart, and "the ever-popular IT FACTOR." They played nutty music. Standings were Darren Young number 8, Michael Tarver number 7, Skip Sheffield number 6, David Otunga number 5, Heath Slater number 4, Justin Gabriel number 3, Wade Barrett number 2 and Daniel Bryan number 1. Bryan, Slater and Gabriel all got pops at least. Striker interviewed Darren, who blamed this all on CM Punk. Bryan said his win/loss record wasn't the best and Michael Cole kept telling him that he didn't have the IT FACTOR, but there were a lot of guys there who looked like superstars who may be married to people who were famous, but the truth was they couldn’t wrestle. Otunga was not happy about that. He said he was the first person to admit he didn't have the most experience. He said he had more charisma than anyone there. He said Daniel could do a lot of moves but talking to him was like eating mashed potatoes. Daniel wanted to know what that meant. He buried Otunga's sunglasses and his crappy jeans. Otunga responded, and I quote: "Crappy jeans? These are True Religion!" I howled at that. Striker said the next time they do voting they were going to eliminate the lowest-ranked guy, and keep doing that every week until they were down to the final four. The guy who wins the NXT competition not only gets to become the next breakout WWE star but they can also challenge any WWE champion to a match on PPV. He added that they were doing a battle royal tonight and the winner would get to host Raw on Monday. HOST RAW ON MONDAY.
674Cole and Josh had a huge argument at the booth about Bryan and whether or not he deserved the number one spot. Cole wouldn't give up on the fact that he hadn't beaten anyone yet and was ranting and raving. Cole on this show is actually awesome because he has believable passion, which he does not have AT ALL on Raw.
675
676Christian & Regal & Miz & Carlito vs. Punk & Matt Hardy & R-Truth & Wade Barrett. Wade took the place of Jericho. Regal and Punk tagged in and Regal got on his knees and begged for him to tag Barrett in. Barrett got in there and Regal immediately tagged Christian. He did all right when working with Christian but also looked green in spots. Michael Cole said, and I quote, that 50 million people watched WrestleMania, so I guess that means that each house had, on average, 50 visitors watching the PPV. Miz asked Jericho why Daniel Bryan was chosen number one. Jericho responded by telling him that Truth was doing a great comeback and they needed to pay attention to the match. He did put over Daniel as a great worker. The funny thing is that as Jericho was commanding us to pay attention to the match his back-and-forth with Cole about what a geek Cole was was literally a billion times better than this match. Crowd got into the match at the finish, particularly as Truth fought for the hot tag. Punk and Christian got the hot tags. Broke down into an eight-way. Everyone either hit or failed in trying a finish. Truth did a big dive to the outside and landed on his face. Wade tired himself in but got hit with the reverse DDT. Christian went to finish him off but Jericho distracted him, allowing Barrett to hit a fireman's carry slam for the pin. At least they gave the rookie the win on the rookie show.
677
678They showed an AWESOME Shawn Michaels video package.
679
680NXT Goof Battle Royal. Barrett was tossed immediately. They came back from commercial and Skip Sheffield and Darren Young were both gone. Daniel tossed Tarver. Slater tossed Daniel and went over at the same time. So after 1 minute of televised action it was down to Otunga and Gabriel. Gabriel hit a 450 but couldn't cover since this was a battle royal. He went to throw him out but Otunga dead-weighted him, raked his eyes and then threw him out for the win. Lame finish. Otunga did a promo talking about how awesome it was going to be when he guest-hosted the show Monday. Yeah, I'll bet.
681
682
683Smackdown
684Show opened with Jericho coming down to the ring and looking surly. He said he was still the World Heavyweight Champion and the best in the world at what he did. He said he told us last week that he was genetically superior to Edge and in the end he was right. He wrestled a perfect match, he said, dismantling Edge piece by piece, and he deserved their respect. But afterwards, he said, Edge had the temerity to spear him off the table and through the dasher boards. He said he couldn't understand why this happened and as he was there internally bleeding all he could hear were 70,000 fans chanting "SPEAR!" He said the fans were just like Edge, losers who cut corners and took shortcuts. He was a champion, he said, because he was an honest man and always did what he said. Edge interrupted. He said Jericho made a valid point, maybe he did have a lot in common with the fans, such as the fact that they all loved watching Jericho get speared. And they'd love to see me do it again tonight. He demanded a rematch for the title right now. Jericho said he didn't care what anyone wanted, Edge had his chance at WrestleMania and lost, and that put him at the back of the line. He told him he was a loser and nothing Edge could say or do would change that. "GET OUT OF MY RING NOW!" Edge attacked him, ripped his shirt off to reveal taped ribs, gave him a big suplex and then speared him out of his boots. As he was leaving the ring Swagger rushed down and walloped Edge with his briefcase. He demanded a ref come down to he could cash it in right now. The ref made sure to clear the ring and allowed Jericho to get to his feet before ringing the bell. Fans were actually chanting "RING THE BELL!" Swagger immediately hit the doctor bomb and won the title. He didn't do any of his goofy wacky smiling, he just looked into the camera deadly serious and raised the title over his head. Fans were going nuts, I guess just happy that they'd seen a real life title change.
685
686Truth & Morrison vs. Cryme Tyme. Yes, Truth and Morrison are still a team. This went one minute. JTG never tagged in. Truth immediately hit his axe kick and then Morrison pinned Shad with the twisting moonsault. JTG was in the corner befuddled. Shad then proceeded to kick the piss out of his partner for really no good reason. This seemed totally rushed. Shad looked like he killed him with one of the punches.
687
688Swagger was walking around backstage as various people begrudgingly congratulated him, including Tony Atlas, who is still employed. Swagger walked by Shelton and told him that maybe HE should be called the gold standard now. This upset Shelton.
689
690Josh interviewed Shad backstage. Shad said Cryme Tyme was finished, and now it was MY TIME. Compelling.
691
692Drew McIntyre vs. Matt Hardy. Drew attacked him before the match, posted him, then gave him the DDT. Then he got his belt and celebrated. Bell never even rang. This is the night of burials here.
693
694Vickie, Michelle and Layla were backstage. Vickie was upset that people weren't calling her finisher the frog splash, they were calling it the HOG SPLASH. Michelle said they should call it the COUGAR SPLASH. Jack Swagger walked up. He looked ten feet tall. He wanted to know where Teddy was. Vickie said she was official consultant so maybe she could help him. He said he wanted a State of the Championship Address tonight. Vickie said yes, he could have all the time he wanted out there. He responded by giving her a kiss on the cheek. This caused them to all giggle.
695
696Dolph Ziggler vs. Great Khali. Dolph took all of his wacky bumps early, then put Khali in the sleeper. Khali fought free once, but then got put back into it. He got his foot under the ropes but the ref didn't see it. In fact, Ranjin Singh was trying to alert him but the ref just told him to fuck off. That wasn't very nice. Khali went out and the ref called for the bell. Khali asked for the mic afterwards. Another burial here, by the way. Khali told Ranjin to tell the people that he had been doing a lot of soul-searching (??? In the last 30 seconds?) and it was time for him to go back home to India, spend time with his family, regroup, build up his strength and stamina, and then return to become World Champion. And that was the end of that.
697
698Punk and his crew came out. Luke cut a promo saying the people needed to open their ears and listen. Punk had saved him, he said, and each and every one of you. He told us to look at how much he'd changed since going under Punk's wing. So if drugs were fucking up Festus, shouldn't Jesse be held responsible? Serena grabbed the mic next and told us to show him some respect. She said Punk was perfect in every way, which is always such a great line. She said he was selfless and remarkable, and also a healer. She told us to look into his beautiful eyes and we'd see that he wasn't blinded by a world of sin and addiction like the people were. If it weren't for this man, she said, she and Festus would be like the rest of the people. She said she looked into the crowd and saw a sea of demons, which in Vegas may have actually been an accurate statement. Punk did a promo saying if there was ever a city that needed to be saved it was Vegas. He talked about how decadent Vegas was, which caused everyone to cheer. He called the people sheep following the herd. They were so happy that what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas. He wanted a rematch from Rey, saying he was willing to sacrifice something very important to himself -- his hair. He said he was willing to sacrifice a piece of himself just to say Rey. Then they played his music and that was it.
699
700Tiffany & Beth vs. Layla & Michelle. Tiffany sold early. It was horrendous. Beth made a hot tag and ran wild. That saved the match. She KILLED Layla with a clothesline, knocked Michelle outside, then ducked a Layla kick and hit her with the glam slam for the pin. They showed Teddy smiling and nodding backstage. Jericho walked in and said he was going to say this one time. "I demand that you reverse the decision and give me back my World Title." Teddy wanted to know if he was out of his mind. Teddy said he wasn't going to do that but he wanted to know if he wanted his rematch tonight. Jericho said no, he was hurt. Teddy said if you don't want it tonight then I have nothing else to tell you, playa. Jericho vowed that Swagger wasn't going to get away with this.
701
702Josh interviewed a VERY JUBILANT Hart Dynasty. They celebrated the doom of Vince McMahon when Swagger walked up, got in front of them and posed with his title. The Dynasty all just stood there looking stupid.
703
704Kane came out with a huge black eye. He said he was getting kind of bored, and when he got bored he got frustrated, and a frustrated monster was not healthy for anyone. He demanded some COMPETITION. He demanded to take on the entire NXT roster, all eight of them. Oh God. Kane and Daniel started. The other seven NXT guys were all on the apron. They did a spot and then Darren tagged in. Kane beat them all up one at a time. They put Wade Barrett in there to alert the world that he's not really as big as we thought. Kane quickly beat him with a boot. They announced this was an elimination match. Heath tagged in and was immediately chokeslammed. They've gone from burying individual workers to entire rosters. All the guys then hit the ring and gang-raped Kane for the DQ. Daniel gave him a huge dropkick off the top and then Gabriel went up top and hit the 450. Then they played WE ARE WILD AND YOUNG. Kane began to stir and he was ANGRY so they all left. Yeah, that song would piss me off too.
705
706Swagger came out for his State of the Championship address. He said this was the first of many he would be giving. He had a few statements. He congratulated all the fans on being part of history tonight. He vowed to be champion for an extremely long time. He told them to give him complete silence until the speech was over. He began reading his life history. People were booing like crazy. "You have found your replacement for Shawn Michaels as the greatest living wrestler on the planet." So who is the greatest dead wrestler on the planet? Jericho's music hit. Jericho came out all taped up and demanded Swagger give him the belt back. Swagger said he couldn't do anything about it. Jericho said he was the champion, not Swagger, and Swagger had committed the biggest crime in WWE history tonight. He said Swagger was so lucky he was injured. He healed quickly, he said, and then he was going to take his belt back. Out came Edge. He said if Swagger wanted to show what kind of champion he was he should put his title on the line against him, since Swagger wouldn't be champion right now if it wasn't for him. Face someone who is not injured, he said, and not afraid to face you. Crowd chanted "TRIPLE THREAT!" Jericho and Edge bickered about who should get the shot. Teddy came out and said since they had a little situation here. He said Jericho deserved a rematch but wouldn't take it, and Edge wanted one but wasn't in line for it. So he said next week Edge and Jericho would face off and the winner would get Swagger. Edge turned his back and Jericho gave him the codebreaker, then Swagger rushed in and hit the doctor bomb on both. Edge looked like he smashed his head on the mat.
707
708
709Raw
710Show opened with WWE proving they didn't give a shit about Impact, as they opened with Jack Swagger coming out to talk about how he'd won the World Title. He said he was thinking of cashing in against Cena, but figured it would be better to cash in against the guy who was largely considered the best in the world at what he did. He said he'd have beaten Cena if he wanted to, and he'd have done it in less time then it took him to beat Jericho, which was 9 seconds. He said nobody on Raw could compare to him in terms of ability so he was going to be exclusively a Smackdown guy from now on. Cue Cena. He said Swagger was the luckiest guy in the world, having cashed in a briefcase to win a title. He said what was important now was what Swagger was going to do next. We'll be so sorry to see you leave, he said. However, he took exception to the fact that Swagger claimed nobody on Raw could compete with him. He said he didn't consider Swagger a deserving champion, and that behind the façade he was nothing but a weasel. He dared Swagger to try to shut him up in a match tonight. In addition, he said, he was so sure he'd do to Swagger what he did to Batista that he'd put his title on the line. "Your move, champ, what's it gonna be?" Orton's music interrupted. He said perhaps Swagger would rather face the man who beat him last week. "Me." Cue Miz and Big Show. Miz was ranting about being awesome and all the bullshit when David Otunga of all people came out. He had the Raw logo shaved into the side of his head. At least that was unique. He said this show was going to be top-notch, A-List all the way around. He signed Swagger vs. Orton for later. "What else can I do?" he asked. He signed Miz & Show vs. Batista & Cena for the tag titles. No one was happy about that. Then they played the worst song in the history of the universe and there was major feedback. Orton went for the RKO on Cena but Cena shoved him off and he gave an RKO to Swagger. That was a neat little spot.
711
712Sheamus vs. Kofi Kingston. Sheamus won in two minutes with the Razor's edge. After the match Sheamus went under the ring, got a metal pipe, which I guess is his version of the sledgehammer, and waffled poor Kofi in the back of the head with it. After Kofi had been killed they cut to backstage where Hunter was slowly making his way to the ring. They went to commercial and when they returned Sheamus was ranting and raving about Shawn Michaels. He said it had been a great career for Shawn but it took him eight years to win his first World title, and he won his in just six months. Hunter, he said, fucked it all up and now he was ANGRY. He said Shawn left before he could take him out, but Hunter was just too stubborn. He said he didn't think Hunter had any more great matches left and wanted to know if he was going to leave on his own or if he'd have to send him away in a wheelchair. This was a hell of a promo. Hunter came out on the ramp, stared the dude down, walked to ringside, got his sledgehammer and proceeded to go to work on Sheamus. Sheamus ran for his life, jumping the rail and fleeing backstage. So yes, Hunter beat him clean at Mania and has now run him off like a coward. This is one strange feud.
713
714Maryse came out to do commentary for the Divas Red Carpet Dress to Impress Battle Royal. Not making this up. Was this a rib on Vince Russo? The winner, they said, got a title shot against Maryse next week. The participants, all in evening gowns, were Kelly, Alicia, Gail, Rosa, Jillian, Katie Lea Burchill, the Bellas and Eve Torres. Titanic battle royal, both because everyone jumped ship quickly and because it was a disaster. I wanted to make a joke about a lack of heat and the iceberg but there was actually a ton of heat. Came down to Alicia, Jillian and Eve. Eve's selling consisted of pulling her dress up repeatedly. "I'm proud I'm not part of this!" said Maryse. Can't blame her. Alicia got sent out. She tried to eliminate Eve but failed, then Eve low-bridged Jillian for the win. So it's Maryse vs. Eve next week.
715
716We got the same David Otunga promo we've seen about 600 times. It's a rib at this point.
717
718Otunga was backstage with an entourage of geeks. Santino showed up, as did the midget. We got some slapstick.
719
720Showmiz vs. Cena & Big Dave for the tag titles. Cena started. Dave stood on the apron looking like he could care less whether he ever got in there. So why doesn't he just leave? Well, no sooner should I speak than he did. So Cena went after him and they brawled on the ramp. Dave gave him a boot to the gut and then walked off. Cena was then counted out. He was so sad about that. The man is a competitor, what can you say? Otunga came out on the ramp afterwards. He said Miz and Show weren't getting off that easily, because later tonight they were going to defend their belts again. Since Cena and Batista couldn't get along, he said, Cena's new partner was going to be himself, David Otunga, the A-Lister. Oh God.
721
722Ted DiBiase -- the 2010 version -- came out with the Million Dollar belt. He said last week at WrestleMania his father was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He said that prestigious honor had some profound effect on him because last week on Raw he did something he'd never done before, ever. "He tried to act like a father!" Well, he said, newsflash, one act of random kindness doesn't make up for all the lost years, the missed football games, birthday parties, his graduation. But, he said, Ted knew better than anyone how to win him over. He thanked him for the trust fund and for his Million Dollar title. "It truly is good being the fortunate son," he said. So how did he get the belt? That was never explained. DiBiase vs. Christian. OK, this whole fucking thing was straight out of TNA. So last week they had a lumberjack match, and Christian won clean to set up a normal match the next week. DiBiase yelled at his dad after the match, then yelled at him this week, yet still came out with the old Million Dollar belt. And then DiBiase won the parity booking rematch here. No idea what's going on.
723
724Jack Swagger vs. Randy Orton not for the World Title. Swagger tossed him off the apron into the dasher boards for the heat. They had about the 40th commercial in the last 15 minutes. Orton did the dead-weight gimmick on a few suplex attempts. That did wonders for Kennedy's career. He booted Swagger coming through the ropes and hit him with the draping DDT to a big pop, but Swagger got his foot on the ropes. Orton made his big comeback and set up for the RKO. Swagger cut him off and hit the Vader bomb but Orton kicked out. He hit a second one and then set up for the doctor bomb. Orton flipped out and hit the RKO for the clean pin. This was completely baffling. Swagger needs all the help he can get and they beat him clean here. Well, it's not like this isn't how they operate. I mean, if this was setting up a title match next week that would be one thing but I have this funny feeling it won't.
725
726Showmiz vs. Cena & Otunga for the WWE Tag Titles. Cena started but gave Otunga a tag almost immediately. He is so green he can't even run the ropes. He actually lifts the wrong fucking leg when he hits them. I mean, this is a first week of wrestling school fuck-up. So Cena tagged in and he was like HBK in his prime. He sold for a long time and they were setting up Otunga to make the comeback. My God. Cena crawled and crawled and crawled and Otunga dropped off the apron and refused to make it. Big Show then punched Cena out for the pin. So let me get this straight. This guy, David Otunga, wants to win NXT, and he had a chance to win the Unified Tag Team Titles with John Cena and he dropped off the apron and bailed on the guy. What a shitty program. Batista came down afterwards and gave Cena the Batista bomb. He demanded his spotlight, then Otunga told the world that Dave had an announcement to make. "I'm invoking my rematch clause for the WWE championship at Extreme Rules," he said. He explained that you couldn't win via tapout, the only way to win was to be the last man standing.
727
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729Impact
730
731Show opened with Christy explaining something called the TNA Diva Lockbox Showdown. I swear to fucking God this HAD to be a rib. This was the most convoluted, unnecessarily complex explanation for a match perhaps in the entire history of wrestling, and it was for showdown involving the girls. If I had the time I'd have gone back and transcribed this entire thing but it would have taken me hours. In the end, I had no idea what this showdown was about, a single one of the rules or what led to what or how you won. I know that there was a stip involving nudity, a spider and the girls stripping down and parading around ringside. The best part was that she began by saying, direct fucking quote here, "The rules are simple." This was so OBVIOUSLY a fucking joke that I give it two thumbs up because it made me laugh like a fucking idiot. Oh, also, the show -- a LIVE show mind you, was titled, "Advantage Team Flair." HOW THE FUCK COULD THEY KNOW THAT WHEN THE SHOW WAS LIVE? This is the worst TV show ever in history. So anyway, Velvet and Madison came up and started talking about the stips. The fact that they understood the stips was pure legit comedy. Madison said they'd get everything they deserved tonight. LOL. Lacey in a towel was excited to parade around naked later.
732Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett and Abyss came out. Place went nuts for him. He said they had some real firepower behind their team. Abyss cut a great promo about how he was going to kick the shit out of Flair's team. Abyss deserves so much better than this. Actually, almost everyone employed in this company does. Flair's music hit and he came out with Desmond, Sting and Beer Money. He's still in a wheelchair being pushed by Chelsea. "HOGAN!" Flair did a promo saying Hogan had to be kidding. "THAT'S YOUR TEAM!?" He put over all the guys on his team, plus Chelsea. He vowed to take his Hall of Fame ring and shove it down Abyss' throat. Hogan told him to shut up and never sell him short again. He said Flair would find out who his team was when the time was right. Flair and his crew started making their way down to the ring. Jarrett told him to hold on. He demanded Sting put the bat down and get into the ring so he could answer one question man to man. Jarrett said they'd known each other over 20 years and they had a storied history. His one question for STEVE was "Why now?" He said he might not deserve an answer but the people did. Jarrett slapped him across the face so Sting beat him up and left him laying, then Flair sent his troops into the ring. Jarrett and RVD made the save. They came through the crowd and were in no hurry whatsoever. The heels just stood there like geeks waiting for them.
733
734RVD vs. James Storm. Not a bad match and the crowd was super hot for it. RVD made his big comeback and hit the rolling thunder for a nearfall. He kicked out of the eye of the Storm whirlybird deal, then hit the split-legged moonsault for the pin. Storm broke a beer bottle over his head after the match and they did the major injury angle type of deal. This was a winner of a segment. They went to commercial and came back and RVD was bleeding all over. Blood. I may have spoken too soon about this being a winner of a segment. Jeff Hardy ran down and beat up Storm and sent him packing. Robert Roode then came through the crowd and laid out Hardy with a spinebuster. This was still OK but, as usual, this was two week's worth of angles in ten minutes.
735
736Christy interviewed Tara, Angelina, ODB and Hamada. Tara said this whole thing was a joke. She said TNA wanted ratings and they were doing all this bullshit at her expense. This show is astounding.
737
738Homicide vs. Rob Terry. Tenay kept telling us to call and text our friends and tell them Impact was on. I want to keep my friends. Homicide bumped all over, then Terry pinned him with a powerslam. Homicide gave him a chairshot to the back afterwards, which Terry no-sold. So Homicide KILLED HIM with a chairshot right to the forehead. Terry no-sold that one as well, but he got hit so hard that the chair was destroyed and he was busted open hardway. Maybe that was TNA's way to pay tribute to the multiple concussions and subsequent suicide of Chris Kanyon. So yeah, fuck them all to hell. Orlando Jordan then came out and poured milk all over himself. Worst show ever on television.
739
740The Beautiful People were stretching backstage. It consisted of them shoving their tits out and bending over.
741
742Tara & Angelina & ODB & Hamada vs. Beautiful People & Daffney. Tara pinned Madison immediately. So it appears that meant they were both out of the match and Tara got a key. What did Russo watch that has resulted in all the fucking KEYS on this show? During the break Daffney pinned Hamada to eliminate both of them and win Daffney a key. Taz got some sort of WCW reference in here. Velvet pinned ODB to win a key. So it was down to Lacey and Angelina. Angelina pinned her to win the final key. They showed the lockboxes backstage and said they'd all be opened later.
743
744Angle vs. Kennedy in a ladder match to win yet another KEY. This match started during a commercial break. This is what Kurt needs, by the way, to be taking suplexes on ladders, which he took here. The announcers said if Kurt won the key he could keep Anderson from fleeing the cage at the PPV. So can he throw the key in the river tomorrow if he wins tonight, and then Anderson could never get out? Does he have to bring it to the PPV? Kurt went to climb and Anderson tipped over the ladder. Kurt took the fucking most insane bump ever to the outside. I thought he was dead. People chanted "HOLY SHIT!," which was bleeped, then "ANGLE!" Anderson almost had the key but Angle took the ladder out with a dropkick. That looked like a legit train wreck. So you've got Kurt Angle with all his injuries doing a ladder match with MR. ANDERSON, whose gimmick is that he is the most fragile wrestler in the business this side of Edge. Angle put Anderson on a ladder and hit his moonsault. Completely insane. Angle went to climb and Anderson choked him with the medal. Kurt was being choked to death but kept climbing. When he was almost there he went unconscious and fell off the Empire State Building. Anderson got the key and won. I hope we don't get a swerve and his key actually opens the box that requires him to strip down to his underwear and parade around ringside.
745
746Borash interviewed Hogan about all the horrible things Bischoff had done last week when Hogan was gone. Hulk said what happened between him and Eric was between them alone. Bubba the Love Sponge showed up. Hogan wanted to know why Bubba was running with the Band now. He told Bubba he was running with the wrong crowd. Bubba said he was having fun with them and hadn't been having fun with Hulk. Jay Lethal was up next. This was like a Raw Hornswoggle skit except it wasn't supposed to be a comedy segment. Machismo said he was going to go find his MegaPowers tights. Didn't the MegaPowers explode?.
747
748Morgan did a promo with both of his TNA Tag Title belts. He's the one-man tag team champs right now. Yes, he's a heel but he's defending both belts on his own. "I'm so confused," Christy said. "Help me here!" Join the club. She said he was defending the belts next week against the winner of Machine Guns vs. Team 3-D. They had a pretty damn fun little match. And then the Band came out and beat up both teams for the DQ. Welcome to Nitro. Hall managed to give Sabin the edge without assistance this week. Heels tagged them afterwards. In 2010. This segment went through commercial. Nash did a promo saying they weren't signing the checks but they were running the show. He said Hogan was worried about Flair and Bischoff but that was the worst of his concerns. He said Hogan was looking at his worst nightmare. He said they'd been carrying his ass for 15 years, and if people thought they were bad, they learned if from Hogan. Then they did the Wolfpac dance. In 2010.
749
750Borash interviewed Pope. He was cutting a great promo when Desmond came up. He said he didn't have any idea why they were having a match tonight because he beat Pope last week and should be facing AJ at the PPV. Pope said if Desmond beat him tonight he could have his spot. But tonight, he said, it would be a different ball game.
751
752Doug Williams came out and cut his usual funny promo about the shitty X-Division acrobats and the greatness of technical wrestling. He demanded to be referred to as DOUGLAS WILLIAMS from now on. He doesn't need to ask twice. He said he'd arranged a gauntlet match with Generation Me. Douglas beat the blonde one with chaos theory and then beat the dark-haired one with the guillotine. I love this Douglas Williams push, the best thing on this show. Shannon Moore ran out afterwards and beat up Williams. That made me sad. Shannon then cut a promo and said what he hated was boring-ass wrestlers like Williams. What the fo.
753
754Christy interviewed Team 3-D, who were all pissed off. They challenged Wolfpac to a match on free TV next week.
755
756Desmond vs. Pope. Desmond didn't even get an entrance. This was fun while it lasted. Pope won with seriously the greatest codebreaker in the history of man. AJ attacked Pope afterwards, knocking him right into one of the HD cameras. You know how much those fucking things cost? Probably more than both of Generation Me and the Machine Guns make in a year here. Thankfully TNA has the money to burn. Abyss ran down to American Made and scared AJ out of the ring. This allowed Nigel the opportunity to attack him, then AJ clipped his leg. Nigel laid him out with a fire extinguisher and they cut to commercials as the announcers were ranting.
757
758It was time to reveal the contents of the lockboxes. This was the Impact main event going up against a John Cena match. I guess they've given up. Borash is at least a great game show host. Velvet got the open contract. People booed, wanting the striptease. Tara got the spider. The spider meant more to her than her title belt. So it came down to Daffney and Angelina with one of them being new champion and one of them stripping. Angelina got the belt and so Daffney had to strip. Daffney tried to bail and Borash told her that she'd signed the deal and needed to either strip or be fired immediately. They played goofy stripper music and she was taking as long as humanly possible to strip. Lacey then ran down with her giant pink dildo, wacked Daffney, then stripped down. Meanwhile, Angelina and Tara got into a fight over the belt. This ended the striptease. So yes, they not only didn't deliver on the original stip, they didn't deliver on the swerve. So then Velvet did a promo saying, "No Beautiful Person upstages another one." She said she was cashing in her match next week and wanted Angelina in a leather and lace match, presumably for the title. And this was the end of the show. Holy shit this show sucked.
759
760wrestling news
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771HOMERADIO ARCHIVENEWSLETTER ARCHIVETHE BOARDNEWSUFC NEWSWWE NEWSJAPAN NEWSROH NEWSTNA NEWSMEXICO NEWSINDIE NEWS
772APR. 14 2010 FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY: SMACKDOWN TO SYFY, NXT DONE, UFC 111 WITH SILVA INANITY, TONS MORE
773BY OBSERVER STAFF | STAFF@WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM | @WONF4W
774TWITTERFACEBOOKGOOGLE+
775WWE announced on Tuesday that effective October 1st Smackdown will be moving to the Syfy Network as part of a new multi-year deal. While unofficial, this would appear to be the death knell for MyNetworkTV, and unless a new deal is signed it also signals the end of the current incarnation of NXT.
776
777The move was made about two weeks ago. WWE opened up negotiations with MNTV for a renewal this fall and MNTV told them they weren't sure about continuing to pay the $700,000 per episode that they're paying now, and also weren't interested in signing a long-term deal. Both of these statements seem to indicate that MNTV is aware their days are numbered. Earlier this year they stopped subscribing to ratings services and basically became a syndicate, which at the time was believed to be the beginning of the end for them. Vince, according to a source, "poker-faced them" and went right to Bonnie Hammer of USA, saying he wanted to be on an NBC Universal affiliate all along, and she signed the deal.
778
779"He's learned a valuable lesson from the Spike negotiations," said one source in reference to the incident where he tried to play hardball with Spike when the Raw renewal came due in 2005 and they called his bluff, resulting in him being forced to take a far less lucrative deal with USA. "Good for him."
780
781One important thing to consider is that with Smackdown moving to Syfy and everything under the NBC Universal umbrella, theoretically WWE television now lives and dies at the hand of Hammer. She's hugely into the programming right now, but she's also moving up fast in the NBCU hierarchy, and the day may come when she no longer has the power to oversee the day-to-day operations as it regards WWE. Conceivably a Jamie Kellner could come in, hate wrestling, and cancel all the TV. While that's unlikely to happen since Raw still does great numbers, Kellner did cancel the WCW programming when they were doing numbers several times what TNA is doing now on Monday nights, and numbers that were closer to what Raw is doing now than what Impact is doing. Of course, there are two thing strongly working in WWE's favor that WCW didn't have. The first is that they're not owned by NBCU and losing money hand over fist as WCW was doing. That made the decision to cancel the programming easy. Also, they're actively working on the creation of their own WWE Network. While there are many hurdles to be overcome with that project as well, not the least of which is getting national clearance (keep in mind the NFL Network still doesn't have national clearance), this is at least a Plan B if something should go horribly wrong and WWE somehow finds itself unable to get a TV deal anywhere (which, realistically, sounds pretty much inconceivable, although a worst-case scenario might see them on a much lower-rated network making significantly less on rights fees).
782
783The big question on the WWE side is why they will continue to air the show on Fridays. The show did significantly better ratings on Thursday nights, and not only that they were able to sell ads to movie studios promoting films that would be opening the next day. The move to Fridays was made several years back when the CW decided to give the Thursday night slot to the new show Everybody Hates Chris, which at least initially did comparable numbers and much higher ad rates. When WWE moved to MyNetworkTV they inexplicably stayed on Fridays, and the decision to stay on Fridays when they move to Syfy this fall was the number one question asked to me by people who have been following the situation. Nobody seems to have a good answer, so all I can do is speculate that WWE doesn't want to move back and admit that Fridays was not the best time slot for them.
784
785The Friday Syfy programming in the 8-to-10 p.m. time slot will be moved to Tuesdays. The show will replay the following day on Universal HD, which airs replays of Raw and NXT currently. NXT is history unless they can be picked up by another network. WWE this week was in talks with both Bravo (a network whose name has come up in the past when discussions came up regarding where WWE programming might go if MNTV went belly-up), Universal/Universal Sports HD, and WGN, which is the home of Superstars. WGN is apparently a back-up to the back-up, and if they went there that would be the end of Superstars.
786
787Syfy will be paying approximately $30 million per year for the show, down slightly from what WWE is making from MTNV right now. They'll also lose about 12 percent of their potential audience with the move, which is also bad. Of course, all of these negatives aren't so negative when you consider that the alternative -- MNTV going out of business and Smackdown not having a home at all -- would be significantly worse. There are also positives to the deal. Smackdown is regularly preempted on many MNTV affiliates in major markets due to sporting events, and that's not going to happen on Syfy. MNTV was also never available on DirecTV, and Syfy is, so that's an additional 18 million homes that didn't have the opportunity to see the show before but do now. It's not a major thing, but MNTV only broadcasts in 780p, and Syfy broadcasts in 1080p, so there will be an increase in HD quality for those who would be able to notice such a thing.
788
789
790Silva a God damned tool
791The story of UFC in Abu Dhabi was what a fucking prick that Anderson Silva turned out to be.
792
793I'm actually probably being pretty nice here. People said some really horrible, nasty things about him. Dana White cut a scathing promo on him both at the show and at the press conference afterwards, including saying that he might become the first-ever UFC champion to fight on the prelims. People were wondering whether he was suffering from some sort of mental illness. Fans said they'd never buy a show he was headlining again.
794
795What happened was, he got in there with Demian Maia and it was pretty much what one would have expected. Everyone knew Maia had to either take him down and submit him or he was in lots of trouble. Well, he couldn't take him down and ended up in lots of trouble. But not quite as much trouble as people figured. I expected a first round knockout. Silva probably could have gotten it, but he didn't. Instead, he toyed around with the guy, openly mocked him in the second round, and then toyed around with him for most of the third until he apparently got really tired. Then he proceeded to do absolutely nothing. I mean, zero. It was an impossible fight to score. The second round, for example, was such a one-sided shellacking that I gave it a 10-7. Later rounds I initially gave to Silva because he was in there with a guy who couldn't do a thing to him at all, but then upon further reflection I asked myself why he deserved any points at all because superior fighter or not, he was doing NOTHING in those rounds. He won the fight unanimously, but he did it in such a way that he was booed vociferously and people were chanting for Maia by the end, essentially begging for him to kill the guy.
796
797"This was a historic event for us," White said. "The arena tonight was incredible. The energy was amazing, and to end it the way that we did was an embarrassment for me, the Fertittas, the UFC and the sport in general. I apologize, and I will – I don't know how yet – but I will make this up to the fans who bought this bullshit tonight. I didn't like [the main event] from the first minute of the first round. Nobody has been more supportive of Anderson Silva than me – talking about him being the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Even after a couple of goofy performances, I'll call them, I still stood behind him and supported him. I think this guy is incredibly talented, and in the first couple of rounds, he was showboating and doing whatever he was doing, and that's not what I'm in to. I don't like it. If you're that talented, be Mike Tyson. Go in and finish it in two minutes. I'd rather have somebody say, 'Let's not buy the Anderson Silva fight tonight because he knocks people out in two minutes,' rather than, 'He runs around like a jackass for five rounds.' As mad as I am right now, he's one of the most talented guys in the business. I don't know what I'm going to do to him right now. I don't know. I honestly don't know what to say. I'm so blown away and disgusted and saddened." He talked about putting him in prelims, which is never going to happen while he's champion, and then said, "Anderson Silva might be the first champion in history fighting on a prelim," White said. "How do you sell Anderson Silva after tonight? How do you do it? People don't want to see that shit. I don't want to see it. It makes me sick to my stomach."
798
799White was particularly enraged because the show was put together to celebrate the purchase of 10 percent of UFC by new partners Flash Entertainment of Abu Dhabi.
800
801Before the fight they were strongly hinting at a Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre fight next, but Dana said he had no desire to do that after this fight. St. Pierre would stay at 170 and Silva would move down, if that's even possible since his natural weight is in the 220 to 230 range and he usually trains around 212 to 215. That's a 45-pound weight cut, which is inconceivable but not impossible. He has fought at 170 before, but he was much younger and smaller. It's tough to say how a weight cut of that magnitude would affect his performance, but one would think it would not be good.
802
803The other major news on the show was the 155-pound title change as Frankie Edgar, a major, major underdog, upset BJ Penn via decision in the semi-main event. Penn apparently had a sinus infection that severely limited his training in the last two weeks prior to the fight. Having just gotten over a pretty severe one-week sinus-related illness as well and having attempted to train through it, I can tell you that two weeks of that as a top level athlete attempting to train for a five-round fight would have badly fucked me up. The ironic thing is that BJ is better than Edgar at pretty much every facet of the game with the exception of his cardio. To lose even more of his cardio due to an illness was pretty much the one thing that was going to make a major difference in this fight, and that's exactly what happened. The fight was still very close, close enough that you could have scored it as a draw or for either man. I had it two rounds for Edgar, one round for BJ and two even rounds. At the time I thought, wow, interesting score I came up with, but Edgar isn't getting the win. And then he did.
804
805It wasn't a great show. Part of the problem was it was 100 degrees out in Abu Dhabi, they were in an open-air building, the air quality was such that a lot of guys had trouble breathing, plus it was so hot that people were sweating all over and that made good grappling and takedown attempts nearly impossible.
806
807The show did 11,008 fans for a $3.5 million live gate. DeMarques Johnson won the $75,000 Best Knockout award, Rafael Dos Anjos won Best Submission and Mark Munoz vs. Kendall Grove won Fight of the Night (and it was awesome).
808
8091. Mark Munoz vs. Kendall Grove. Munoz took him down quickly. Kendall stood up but took some shots on the way up. Munoz went for another one and Kendall killed him with an uppercut, stuffed him, threw some knees and then started raining down what appeared to be hammer fists to the back of the head. I mean, this was like 20 shots in a row, but Munoz was grabbing the fence and that ended up being the main concern of the referee. Kendall went for one submission after another. He was just owning this poor fucker. Munoz was desperately grabbing his feet trying for the takedown. It was almost sad. Munoz survived but this was so one-sided I'd say 10-7. Munoz was swinging wildly with shots early in the second and got WAYLAID with a knee, then Kendall got him down and went for the back. Munoz made it back to his feet. It was actually kind of impressive that he was able to survive in this manner. He ended up in Kendall's guard. Kendall tried to roll but Munoz got his back, then proceeded to make a pro-wrestling-style comeback with a barrage of ground-and-pound, including what appeared to be some shots to the back of the head of his own, and Kendall just turtled up until the referee stopped it. A hell of a fight.
810
811Munoz did a promo afterwards admitting that he'd been in serious trouble in the first round, but to be a fighter you need heart and that's what he had. He said he wanted to be a top fighter. "I just love being on top," he noted.
812
8132. Rafael Dos Anjos vs. Terry Etim. Anjos went for a shot and Terry caught him in what appeared to be a tight guillotine. Anjos laid in it for a long-ass time. It was an arm-in guillotine so there was plenty of open space on the right side of Anjos' neck. Etim finally gave up, and Anjos got him in side control and threw a bunch of knees. Etim rolled to his side and the ref ended up stopping the fight and telling Anjos that the knees he was throwing were to the spine. Rogan said that looked like the body to me. This looked like bullshit. Anjos went for a heel hook and a kneebar but the horn sounded to end the round. Anjos dominated the round but Etim got the close submission, so 10-10. Anjos got him down again in the second and dominated from side control. He was dropping hard forearms and elbows right onto his face. He mounted him briefly and then went back into side control. Rogan described this as black belt jiu jitsu. Etim hooked the armbar and extended. Rafael tried to roll but couldn't make it and was forced to tap.
814
815a. Alexander Gustafson vs. Phil Davis. Alex did all right early negating Phil's wrestling, but that was short-lived. Phil got him down and went for a guillotine. He didn't get it but Phil continued to dominate the positioning. I was about to write that Phil didn't seem to have any finishing skills, but then he hooked a perfect anaconda for the submission. This was fun while it lasted.
816
8173. Renzo Gracie vs. Matt Hughes. Renzo got a huge standing ovation coming out. Hughes got a decent reaction coming out but then the people booed during the ring intros. Both guys hugged -- HUGGED, I SAY -- before the handshake. A poor kickboxing match early. Renzo landed a couple of shots but nothing significant at all. Crowd was booing at the end of the first round. Yes, a full round of RENZO GRACIE and MATT HUGHES KICKBOXING. That sucked. That was a 0-0 round. Worse, as shitty as it was, they shook hands afterwards. This made me want to vomit. We got another high five at the four-minute mark of round two. Crowd was starting to boo again at the 2:30 mark of the second. This fight is hideous. Booing started to pick up with whistles and catcalls at the four-minute mark. They both landed some shots in the last minute. Hughes got a hold of his neck and then laid in some knees to the body and the legs. 10-9 Hughes. Pains me to hand out a total of 19 points for that round. Hughes was landing leg kicks in the third. Hughes landed an overhand right and then backed off. Rogan was like, why would he do that? Hughes started unloading on him. The fans loved Renzo but they were so excited to see ACTION that they popped big. Hughes gave him a hard leg kick that spun him all the way and knocked him on his ass. He invited Hughes to the ground, but instead Hughes went over and helped him to his feet. Renzo was pretty much taking bumps at this point, hoping Hughes would follow him down. Hughes just waited for him to stand up. Renzo had nothing. I mean, this was pathetic. Herb Dean finally stopped it with 30 seconds left in the third.
818
819Rogan asked Renzo if he thought he should have taken an easier fight for his UFC debut and Renzo said something completely incomprehensible. He said he would be back. That's unfortunate. Hughes told his family he loved them and that he'd be coming home tomorrow.
820
8214. BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar for the 155-pound title. They noted that Edgar walked around at about 158 so he barely cut at all to make 155. He landed a hard leg kick early. His movements are very herky-jerky. Not necessarily a good or bad thing but it seems like it would take a lot of energy to always be moving like that. BJ landed most of the standing shots this round. It wasn't bad, but after the last fight I can see people really hating it. 10-9 BJ. They noted that BJ hadn't been taken down at lightweight in six years. So Frankie kept trying to take him down. So his plan was to have a GROUND FIGHT with BJ Penn? Edgar briefly swept him to the mat but BJ was back up seconds later. So I guess that was the first takedown in six years that we just witnessed right there. I'm such a nice guy I'm going to call this round a draw since Edgar actually got BJ to his ass for an instant. But I'm being very generous here. 10-10. Herb Dean called a time out due to excess lube on Edgar. They wiped him down. Rogan got to chit-chatting about BJ's knee pad and what it might mean. He was bored too. Frankie was getting in and out and landing shots and leg kicks here and there. He also tried some takedowns but kept failing. 10-9 Frankie. 10-10 fourth round. Pretty much JACK SHIT happened here. They showed a replay and Penn apparently landed two shots. That was all they could find in an entire five-minute round. Lots of boos after the round ended, but the people cheered going into round five. Edgar got a pure legit takedown in the fifth but Penn got right back up. Crowd cheered for the final minute. Edgar definitely won this round 10-9. I mean, based on my scoring Edgar won but when it was over I thought for sure it was going to BJ. Admin Tony was so bored watching this that he suggested both men be BEHEADED. Judges actually gave it to Edgar 50-45, 48-47 and 49-46. Regardless of my scoring this shocked me. Well, BJ should have destroyed this guy and he didn't so too bad for him. They didn't have time to interview him afterwards.
822
8235. Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia for the 185-pound title. Silva killed him with a hard leg kick, but that was pretty much the only contact in the first three minutes. Anderson was bobbing and weaving but not going much else otherwise. Then he started doing this wacky dance, like he was trying to summon demons. Maia tried a shoot, got stuffed, then Silva started kicking his arms. He was totally mocking the poor fucker. But he didn't finish him. 10-8 Silva. Maia was running and diving for takedowns, failing every time. Silva was now openly fucking with him, begging him to do something. He stuck his chin out, he pounded on the mat, he slapped himself in the face, he danced and he shimmied his chest. In the last 30 seconds he started screaming "COME ON!", and then landing shot after shot in the midst of it. 10-7 Silva. Rogan was pretty much rendered speechless. Fans did not know what to make of this at all. Going into the third all I could think was that Silva had proven his point and it was time to end this. Silva did not end it. In fact, he stopped dancing, he stopped taunting, he just assumed a fighting stance and stood there. There was a moment where Maia got aggressive and Silva proceeded to eat his lunch for about 15 seconds, then Maia missed the takedown and Silva walked off cackling. Later, he ran behind the ref and kept hiding behind him until the ref shoved him away and told him to fight. 10-7 Silva via shenanigans. Maia actually punched him in the face early in the fourth. People started booing. They were openly talking about how after this was over Silva was going to fight GSP. At least it would be a guy who would push him. "I don't know what Anderson's doing," Rogan said. "It's almost like he got tired of beating him up." The people were now chanting for Maia. People then started chanting "GSP!" Round ended and crowd booed like crazy. Anderson's corner was yelling at him going into the fifth. Maia's face was completely fucked up going into the fifth. He had nothing to lose except for his life, so he went nuts just swinging wildly. He was connecting with shots, not super hard, but he was connecting, and boy was that something to see. Rogan concluded that Silva must be tired and didn't want to show it. Maia got a leg and almost got the takedown, and boy was he fighting, but Silva finally snuck free. He proceeded to jog around the periphery of the cage. The ref finally stopped it and told Silva that if he kept running around he was going to fine him a point. Hey, it was a good idea but it was too little, too late. I was PRAYING that in the last ten seconds Maia would just go all out, swing wildly, rush at him, maybe throw a dropkick. Nope. Crowd booed like crazy but then chanted "MAIA!" This fucking sucked a massive cock. More loud "GSP!" chants. Judges scored it "a win by unanimous decision" for Silva. I must see the scores. Silva got on his knees and bowed to Maia afterwards. Maia should have kicked him right in the face for that. Silva did a promo apologizing, saying he didn't know what got into him tonight, it was ring rust, it would never happen again, and that Maia surprised him with some of his shots.
824
825
826In House Notes
827The number next to your name on the address label indicates which issue your Figure Four Weekly subscription expires with. Thus, if you have a [773] next to your name, this is the final issue of your current subscription.
828
829Very special thanks to the following people for their help over the years in producing Figure Four Weekly: Gladys "Granny" Gibson, Dave Meltzer, Tony Leder, Alex Marvez, Zack Arnold, Colin Vassallo, Kris Zellner, Manuel Gonzalez, Craig Proper, Vincent Verhei, Keith Lipinski, Robert Bihari, The Cubs Fan, Kyle Wolf, Devin Cutting, Shawn Garrett, Bob Barnett, Mike Lano, Adam Lebow, Mike Sempervive, Adam Summers, Mike Coughlin, Karl Stern, Steve "Dr. Lucha~!" Sims, Mike K, Forrest Lynn. Thanks also to everyone who sent in news over the past week.
830
831Worldwide renewal rates due to rising postage costs are $100 per one-year subscription (52 issues), $55 per six-month subscription (26 issues), $30 per three-month subscription (12 issues), and $12 per one month subscription.
832
833To order through the mail, send a check, money order or cash payable to Figure Four Weekly to PO BOX 426, Woodinville, WA 98072. To order with a credit card, send your Visa or Master Card order with your name, address, phone number, Visa or Master Card number, expiration date AND CVR number (three-digit security code on the back of the card) to figure4@ix.netcom.com, or you can order by faxing that information to 530-730-2920. You can also subscribe via paypal at www.paypal.com using the bryan@wrestlingobserver.com address, or subscribe via credit card by mail. Please include all the information listed above, particularly the CVR security code that many people forget.
834
835
836WWE
837We may be moving back to publishing on Monday nights starting next week since there's not much to talk about in the ratings anymore. Impact did an 0.79 rating this week off hours of 0.82 and 0.78, with an 0.7 in males 18-to-49, an 0.7 in males 18-to-34 and 1.1 million viewers. Spike for whatever reason sent out a release claiming they did an 0.9. No idea how they got that number. The two hours were close enough that it appears they got zero bump from the unopposed hour, although they never announced on the show last week that 8 p.m. was the new permanent start time. An unopposed hour on Monday nights should do better than an 0.8, but I did predict months back that if they went 8-to-10 it would only be a few weeks before they were back to doing what they were doing from 9-to-11, and while this week doesn't really count it's looking like that could end up the case. Quarters were 0.74, 0.84, 0.83, 0.85, 0.78 (Raw started), 0.65 (Morgan & Red vs. Guns), 0.72, 0.80 and 0.97 (overrun which went 1 minute). Raw did a 3.2 rating off hours of 3.0 and 3.4. First hour did 4.399 million viewers and second hour did 4.994 million. They did a 2.05 in persons 18-to-49, a 2.75 in males 18-to-49, and 4.7 million viewers over the two hours.
838
839Jim Ross on his future: "There are no issues or problems with my negotiations with WWE. The ball is in WWE's court to put together a new role for me within the company. Essentially they have decided to reassign me from weekly broadcasting and that includes the monthly PPV's to focus on other areas of the company. I am guessing, and I stress guessing, that may be some form of scouting and/or talent development. I might be wrong on that assumption but I'll know before the end of April as that is when my current extension expires." Ross is also talking with a number of publishers about either a book or a series of books on his career. I don't know this but I would suspect that he'd only want to do that if everything with WWE fell through, because I don't think he'd want to do a book unless he could tell the entire story, and I'm not sure he could tell the entire story if still working with WWE.
840
841HHH is having issues with both his neck and one of his quads, so he's being taken off house shows for the time being. He is working all of the upcoming TVs unless they do some sort of injury angle with him. Cena vs. Sheamus headlined most of the Raw European house shows this weekend with Cena going over after a ref bump and a three-count by outside-the-ring enforcer Bret Hart.
842
843Ezekiel Jackson suffered what was believed to be a torn quad on the April 10th Glasgow house show taking a bump over the top rope in his match with Kane. He'll be out 3 to 6 months.
844
845Superstars did an 0.77 rating this week and 788,000 viewers.
846
847Maria's new album came out on iTunes on Tuesday. It features four songs and is selling for $3.99.
848
849Upcoming Raw guest hosts include Will Forte, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe of MacGruber next week; Wayne Brady on May 3rd; FLAVA FLAV on May 10th (not making this up); and Jon Lovitz on May 24th.
850
851Several WWE stars have cameos in MacGruber including Mark Henry and MVP, so most likely it'll lead to a Carlito & Kozlov vs. MVP & Henry match on the show.
852
853The June 7th Raw is also going to be a three-hour show. Maybe they'll do another King of the Ring tournament.
854
855Smackdown two weeks ago did a 1.9 rating and 3.2 million viewers.
856
857NXT did an 0.94 last week with 1.217 million viewers. The replay of last week's show which aired beforehand (now a weekly thing, meaning if you want to you only have to watch NXT every other week) did an 0.45 and 614,000 viewers.
858
859Dos Caras Jr., sans mask, worked the WWE house shows in the UK this week. He's been doing a lot of work with William Regal, which is good.
860
861Matt Hardy injured his biceps on the tour and was hoping at press time that it wasn't a torn biceps.
862
863Billy Kidman, who is a trainer in FCW, was brought on the UK tour as an agent.
864
865Goldberg on ESPN: "At this point, it's not that I want to get back in the ring, but I have a 3½-year-old little boy, and what an experience for him to still buy an action figure with his daddy represented? The doors are kind of open to negotiation as far as a merchandising deal. If it leads to something else? It's a wonderful day. It's not something that I'm seeking out to do at 43 years old. But you know, Wrestlemania is next year in Atlanta. Hulk Hogan and I put 43,000 people in the Georgia Dome with three days' notice. I've got a fairly big following in Atlanta. Is it out of the realm of possibility? I'd say no. If not, I'm totally content with the way I went out. To be able to get merchandise out there not only satiates the fans but hopefully there have been a lot of people wondering where my merchandise is. The reason why I want to do this is my boy; just trying to be a good father."
866
867
868UFC
869In a very interesting move, UFC announced that the main event for the June 12th show in Vancouver is Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin. Apparently the rumors of Tito dropping out of this season of Ultimate Fighter and being replaced by Franklin are true. Dana had tried to downplay the rumors in the past, but never outright said they weren't true, only that we had to watch the series to find out what went down. I still believe it has to do with Jenna Jameson's recent miscarriage, as that's a hell of a good reason to give up on working a reality show, and it would explain why Dana did make it very clear that there were no problems between himself and Tito. Although it's a spoiler and people were upset about it, the reality is that UFC couldn't put tickets on sale for Liddell vs. Ortiz if they knew full well that the fight was never going to happen and that Liddell vs. Franklin was the one they were planning all along. So they either had to announce the real main event or try to put tickets on sale without a main event announced at all, which a) would have been bad for ticket sales, and b) would have been a spoiler anyway.
870
871Dana White has been teasing that he's close to a deal with Fedor. "I've talked to his people more recently than you would think," he said last week. He's told others that signing him is one of his top priorities right now. Of course, Strikeforce and M-1 have had issues of late and are not yet back on the same page. M-1 officials jumped on the story, denying it and saying they hadn't spoken to Dana and he was just trying to get people talking. They continue to claim they are close to working things out with Strikeforce.
872
873Former UFC star Junie Browning disappeared last week. His family got really worried after they hadn't seen or heard from him in three days and called the police. They ended up finding him a couple of days later in Arizona. He's had a lot of issues of late.
874
875Chuck Liddell will have a wax statue made of him at Madame Tussaud's Las Vegas, the first MMA fighter to be bestowed this honor. They're debuting it at the Fan Expo on May 28th and then it will be moved into the museum and housed with a pair of his trunks and a UFC title belt. An interesting trivia note is that each wax figure costs approximately $300,000 to create.
876
877Per the judge's ruling in the UFC vs. Ken Shamrock case talked about a few weeks back in the newsletter, Shamrock was forced to pay $175,000 to Zuffa in attorney's fees, costs and expenses.
878
879Saw an interview on YouTube with Frank Mir talking about why he lost to Shane Carwin. He spent about five minutes explaining it. Basically said that he spent too much time concentrating on training to avoid the takedown. He said he barely expended any energy in that first round and figured he'd let Carwin bull him into the fence, and then with a minute left he was going to explode out and steal the round. He said Carwin went to take him down and he was able to avoid it and he got all excited about that, thinking, wow, I avoided this fucker's takedown, and then the next thing you know said fucker punched him right in the face. He said he was shocked at how hard Carwin hit and when Carwin got him in the guts with the uppercut he was pretty much stunned. After that, he said, it was all a blur. He said he just lost and pretty much deserved to be at the back of the line right now but would fight his way back. Regarding his weight gain he said it wasn't like he gained 25 pounds of muscle. He said he was 245 dieted down and that was with no weight training whatsoever. He said he started eating more protein, watching his diet, and working on a guy doing Olympic lifts and was able to put on a lot of mass really fast because he was like a garden hose all sucked up before starting. He said he'd plateaued now. He said it was like a fat guy who diets and loses a ton of weight early on but then suddenly can't lose anymore, just in reverse where now he was stuck at a certain weight and couldn't put anymore on.
880
881Spike will be airing two UFC 114 prelims on May 29th, Efrain Escudero vs. Dan Lauzon and Dong Hyun Kim vs. Amir Sadollah. They won't be airing the prelims for UFC 113.
882
883Tickets for the show at the GM Place went on sale Monday to Fight Club members and they sold them all out in 30 minutes, the fastest sellout in company history. Within hours there were scalpers trying to unload floor seats for as much as $5,000.
884
885Full line-up for the show outside the main event has Pat Barry vs. Mirko Crocop; Martin Kampmann vs. Paulo Thiago; Carlos Condit vs. Rory MacDonald; Evan Dunham vs. Tyson Griffin; Mac Danzig vs. Matt Wiman; Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel; Peter Sobotta vs. James Wilks; Ricardo Funch vs. Claude Patrick; and Jesse Lennox vs. Mike Pyle.
886
887Ultimate Fighter this week did a 1.2 rating.
888
889Full line-up for 113 on May 8th at the Bell Center in Montreal has Lyoto Machida vs. Shogun Rua in a rematch from a bout that many thought Shogun deserved to win for the light heavyweight title; Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley; Sam Stout vs. Jeremy Stephens; Kimbo vs. Matt Mitrione (should rule one way or another); Patrick Cote vs. Alan Belcher; Tim Credeur vs. Tom Lawlor; Marcus Davis vs. Jonathan Goulet; Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs. Mike Guymon; Joey Beltran vs. Chad Corvin; TJ Grant vs. Johny Hendericks; and Nick Catone vs. John Salter.
890
891Everyone at UFC 111 tested negative for steroids and drugs of abuse.
892
893
894TNA
895TNA debuted a new show on Monday nights, TNA Reaction, airing at 7 p.m. just before Impact on Spike TV. This was the press release description. "Spike presents TNA Reaction, a never-before-seen look at the combustible world of TNA Wrestling with exclusive backstage access and candid interviews featuring the biggest names in wrestling. Fans will experience all the unseen drama as rivals speak openly about their plans to destroy their most hated foes." (Not making that line up.) "TNA superstars featured include Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles, and more." My DVR listed UFC on at that time. I saw a preview and it looked better than Impact at least in terms of building storylines and pushing PPV matches. I guess the idea is that it would remind people that TNA started at 8 p.m. so they wouldn't miss the early minutes of the show. Or something. You'd think if you wanted people to know that Impact started at 8 p.m. from now on you'd have waited another week and alerted them on television as to this fact, or the show designed to remind people would have been announced earlier than the day before. The show did a horrendous 0.25, which is well, WELL below the station average, under what a normal show would do in that time slot, and likely under what an infomercial would do. It was less than 300,000 viewers, but since they didn't announce the show until Sunday that number should be thrown out.
896
897So yeah, nothing has changed in TNA except that more and more people internally are of the realization of what a complete joke this is. It's not like a deal where I go rant and rave on the radio shows about who shitty it is and people there are all offended and can't understand why I'd be so mean. I'm not saying anything that isn't thought by at least a good portion of the locker room. The problems are with the higher-ups, who have to blow off anything critics say because, well, if they didn't it would indicate that they do, in fact, have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Vince Russo this week talked openly about being burned out on booking, which is quite the coincidence as ratings have plummeted to new lows of late. I've been burned out on his booking since approximately 1999. Most feel this is damage control so that there will be some sort of face-saving explanation for when he gets the boot. There are actually arguments that they can't get rid of Russo right now because there is no one to replace him. I would argue that the janitor at the Impact Zone could replace him. Yes, writing out those long-ass detailed scripts is a job nobody wants, but fuck, off the top of my head I could rattle off a dozen names in TNA right now that would (not "could") do a better job booking, not to mention if the people in charge really gave a fuck they'd be open to mending fences with people who worked there in the past who definitely had a clue, like Dutch Mantell and Jim Cornette. But they're not. Making sure they don't look stupid and making sure that they don't hurt people's feelings is far more important than actually turning the ship around or making any money, which is why I remain out of hope for anything getting any better anytime soon.
898
899TNA has re-signed Orlando Jordan, Brian Kendrick, Chelsea and Christy Hemme to long-term deals. There was a report claiming that Christy was making over $150,000 per year for three years. That sounds impossible to believe, but hey, it would hardly be the most astounding thing about this company. As noted a few weeks back, where the fuck is all this money coming from? For years I heard that the death of WCW was largely due to all these huge guaranteed contracts (even though it wasn't) and now here we are in 2010 and TNA is signing all of these people to all of these deals with the only major revenue stream being house shows, and believe me, based on their attendance figures and ticket prices that's not a revenue stream that's coming close to covering even a small number of these larger deals. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of undercard guys making jack shit, and Awesome Kong left in part because they wouldn't give her a very, very minimal salary increase.
900
901As the wrestling world turns. Jeff Jarrett and Karen Angle have announced their engagement, so they're getting married. Meanwhile, Kurt Angle is also getting married to Giovanna Yannotti, described as his long-term girlfriend. I could have sworn he was dating Rakha Khan within the last year. I guess anything more than a month or so is long-term in wrestling. She's 24 and they worked together on End Game and some other projects.
902
903Speaking of Angle, he announced that he was taking some time off to rest his body and heal up, and then in the very same sentence also wanted people to know that he was not injured. So he's not injured but he needs to heal. Gotcha. He told everyone that he was totally fine after he took that horrendous bump in the ladder match last week, but then we got reports that he was walking around backstage like he'd been hit by a semi truck. For all the talk about how TNA is a big happy family, between that ladder match and the Rob Terry chairshot to the head this comes off as a company that doesn't give a fuck about the health and well-being of its performers. And I can tell you that it was not ignorance that resulted in the Terry chairshot, it was something that was debated and, well, it happened. So there you go. And last week I was debating whether there were two worse guys in TNA to put in a ladder match. Anderson's gimmick is basically that he gets hurt all the time and Kurt has broken his neck God knows how many times and is a physical wreck. These were the two people TNA decided to put in a ladder match. I was thinking it would be worse to put Hogan and Nash in there, but then I realize that Hogan and Nash would not have done anything NEAR as stupid as these two did, so yes, in conclusion, there were no two worse guys that TNA could have put in that match.
904
905Speaking of Nash, he got a concussion during the cage match when Jeff did the senton and landed on his head. A LOT of people are talking about the state of Hardy. His work has sucked since he came to TNA and his promos are rambling and sometimes virtually incoherent. Don't think people haven't noticed. This same thing happened the last time he came here, shortly after he was fired from WWE for refusing to go to rehab.
906
907Angle and TNA did a fund-raiser for the families affected by the West Virginia mining accident last week and raised $9,000.
908
909The Impact replay on Thursday, which started 10 minutes late since a movie ran over, did an 0.6 rating and 758,000 viewers.
910
911Hogan did a tryout of sorts for his own radio show on Sirius radio Monday night. The show went from 7-to-8 p.m., head-to-head with the new TNA recap show. I can't wait until he tries to go 7-to-8 and needs to be at the building at 8 for the show, especially since, like in WCW, they're rebooking all throughout the day leading to the live shows. I didn't hear the show but was told it was really bad and he came off as a guy who had not done any preparation whatsoever. One person said he admitted on the air to drinking while doing it. He talked about slamming the 700-pound Andre the Giant; how Warrior couldn't even lace his own boots up; how Warrior tried to take the match home in 8 minutes at WrestleMania VI and Hogan had to put him in a chinlock and tell him they were GOING to finish as planned; how he'd never heard the Stephanie McMahon/Randy Savage rumors (that Savage did something with her sexually and that's why he's blackballed from WWE); how a Hollywood producer came onto him in his 20s and when he refused the sexual advances his movie career flopped (that's a good one); how one day his wife walked in on Brutus Beefcake getting a blowjob from some blonde and then later accused Hogan of being the blonde and having an affair with Brutus (this man is amazing); and how in due time TNA would be the number one wrestling company in the world. The last one, realistically, is probably his biggest whopper of all.
912
913Brian Knobs did an interview on the Monday night Mayhem Show saying he didn't know for sure if they were done with TNA because nobody from TNA had told them anything and they couldn't get an answer from Hogan either. Well, that doesn't sound like a good sign. He said the rumors that something happened at the Hard Rock Café with the two of them that resulted in their firing was not true. He said the stories were that he took his pants down and ran naked across the pool in front of a bunch of Spike execs, but that was stupid and they "knew better than that." For whatever it's worth, all I can say is that I was told something happened at that party, but that it involved Sags, not Knobs. "Let me put this into perspective. Something did happen two or three weeks ago, but I was there with Orlando Jordan's significant other and Ric Flair. Now you don't think that if I went crazy and we haven't been there in over a month, even if it was in February or January, somebody would have said or put on the Internet because they are a bunch of fans in front of everyone? There are no private parties like they put on the Internet. There was nothing like that. Every time we were through with a match, we went out for a couple of beers, and we were professional as hell. We were at the Hard Rock Cafe, and we were with everybody. So you don't think if we were acting like people are saying, it would have been on the internet the next day? Not when you hear The Nasty Boys are not there now, and this might have happened; that's all speculation, and it's a bunch of BS.".
914
915Kevin Nash said he hated the name The Band and was looking for something different. WWE owns the rights to NWO and Wolfpac so those are out of the question. He told fans to come up with names and said he'd fly the winner to Florida and put them on TV.
916
917
918Strikeforce
919Line-up for this weekend's show on CBS from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., has Jake Shields vs. Dan Henderson for the middleweight title; Gegard Mousasi vs. King Mo for the light heavyweight title; Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki for the lightweight title; Jason Miller vs. Tim Stout; Zach Underwood vs. Hunter Worsham; Josh Schockman vs. Cale Yarbrough; Dustin Ortiz vs. Justin Pennington; Andrew Uhrich vs. Dustin West; Chris Hawk vs. Ovince St. Preux; and Thomas Campbell vs. Cody Floyd. CBS wants the show off the air in two hours so they're only airing the top three fights. Inexplicably, all three are title matches, which means the potential for five rounds, so 90 minutes of fighting not counting commercials. May be bad times timing wise, and also probably means no interviews, no ring intros, no video packages, no personality profiles, etc. In other words, all the things normally used to hook casual fans who might be flipping channels and catch the spectacle on CBS.
920
921Scott Coker this week said that they had the ability to exercise one more fight in Shields' contract if they chose to. He also said they had a negotiation period worked in there with him as well. Shields has talked openly about the possibility of going to UFC after this fight, and in fact he appears if you look closely in the newest season of Ultimate Fighter as one of Liddell's assistant coaches. Dana White has expressed interest in bringing him in. In fact, he's flat out said that he plans on making a great offer so that if Strikeforce wants to keep him they'll have to pay out the ass for it. I think a lot will depend on how he does on April 17th on CBS. If he has a great showing and beats Henderson and comes out of the show looking somewhat like a star, it'll be on. If Henderson destroys him, well, that's another story.
922
923
924Other Wrestling
925CMLL ran on April 9th in Mexico City with Sombra & Mascara Dorado & Mistico beating Negro Casas & Felino & Dragon Rojo Jr. Mistico is now a full-fledged tweener as he worked this show on the babyface team and working babyface highspots. He was heavily cheered. For a while he was doing babyface stuff on Tuesdays and heel stuff on Fridays but this was a Friday show and he was back to doing babyface stuff. They did play up that Dorado and Sombra weren't comfortable teaming with him. Part of it is that this was back to the usual 8,000 fans that they draw, and when they were doing bigger crowds it was the extra rudo/anti-hero fans that showed up and were all ready to boo him. Mistico unmasked and threw it at Felino, who caught it and was seen and DQ'd. Felino demanded a singles match with Mistico afterwards and Mistico said no problem, as long as it's mask vs. hair. That is the match that Felino wants in real-life for the payoff and they're strongly teasing that's the direction they'll go.
926
927They are about to start the Torneo Gran Alternativa tournament, which is where veterans team up with young guys and the idea is that the young guy on the winning team gets moved permanently up the cards. The tecnico teams are Sombra & Diamante, Blue Panther & Rey Cometa, Hector Garza & Polvora, and La Mascara & Sensei. Rudo teams are Atlantis & Inquisidor, Terrible & Disturbio (best team ever), Mephisto & CANCERBERO, and Rey Bucanero & El Semental. Those are some awesome rookie names.
928
929Konami will be distributing the new Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes del Ring video game in the US, Canada and Latin America -- everywhere in North America except Mexico, actually. Gamexpress is in charge of Mexico distribution.
930
931Texas Stadium, the last vestige of World Class Championship Wrestling, was imploded on Sunday. SportsCenter on ESPN showed footage of it and actually noted that it was the home of the famous Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair match at the David Von Erich Memorial Show in 1984.
932
933Paul Lazenby with an update on Vancouver, this time in regards to pro-wrestling: "Vancouver City Manager Penny Ballem, who has already been throwing many obstacles into the path of UFC coming to Vancouver, is also proposing that all pro wrestling organizations no matter how small be required to pay both a promoter's fee and a $100 per show event fee, which could cripple or kill groups like ECCW. She also wants a hike in the seat tax for large-scale wrestling shows (over 500 spectators) up to $1 per seat. Now what do you think that's going to do for our chances at getting Vince to bring Wrestlemania to the 55,000-seat BC Place?".
934
935ROH announced Kings of Wrestling vs. Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley for May 8th in New York, which should be a hell of a match.
936
937The ROH PPV did around 900 buys for the initial airing. Didn't get word on the replay yet. That's down a bit from the December show. It would seem most of the same people bought this one as the last one and that they lost some viewers due to the production issues that plagued Final Battle. Unlike with traditional PPV they can make money off 900 buys so it wasn't a disaster or anything like that, but they were hoping a month or so out that they'd do 2,000 to 2,500 buys. It probably didn't make a huge difference but it also didn't help that they were pre-empted the two weeks prior to the PPV airing by HDNet. One interesting note is that we ran a poll on our site and a decent number of respondents, more than 30 percent, said they didn't buy the show but would have bought it had it aired on normal PPV. Don't know if that's really the case or not because people say all sorts of things both positive and negative and it doesn't mean much until it's time to act (case in point, all the feedback we got in December from people who said they'd never ever buy an ROH Internet PPV again and then when the time came it appears most of them did), or even whether if all of them did order on normal PPV that would be enough to be profitable, but it was interesting.
938
939Even though Wrestlelicious announced new tapings for May, it was announced this week that the show on MavTV and BiteTV would be going on hiatus. They claimed this was to let syndicated affiliates catch up so that when the network shows resumed everyone would be caught up. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
940
941Masked Republic announced this week that they'd be launching a PPV series, Viva La Lucha, to run every two months starting in June, featuring "lucha libre's biggest stars." Names listed include Los Perros Del Mal's Perro Aguayo Jr., Damien 666, Halloween, Mr. Aguila, Charly Manson and Sabu. The first show will be taped May 2nd in Mexico City and debut June 11th on PPV (day before UFC in Vancouver).
942
943For DGUSA, the Open the Northern Gate show in Windsor on May 7th has B&B Hulk & Pac vs. YAMATO & Shingo, Dragon Kid vs. Masato Yoshino best of three falls, and more. For the 8th in Mississauga, Ont., it's BxB Hulk vs. Yoshino for the Open the Freedom Gate Title, CIMA & Dragon Kid vs. YAMATO & Shingo in a grudge match, Naruki Doi & PAC vs. Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw, and Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Akira Tozawa.
944
945John Moxley vs. Drake Younger has been added to the May 1 EVOLVE show in Rahway, N.J.
946
947
948Bryan's Friend Vince's DVD Review
949
950History of the Intercontinental Championship
951Todd talked about Jimmy Snuka and doing his big splash years before Rob Van Dam and Eddie Guerrero made the frog splash popular. He also talked about Superfly’s leap off the cage, and how everyone remembered where they were when they saw it, especially Mick Foley.
952
953Don Muraco vs. Jimmy Snuka. From Madison Square Garden, October 17, 1993. Vince interviewed Muraco backstage about his match in “the hungry cage.” Muraco talked about how calm he was. He said he had trained for months as a champion, and he was prepared. He said Superfly was the finest, but he wasn’t the smartest, and since Muraco was still the IC champ, Snuka clearly wasn’t the best. Muraco came out to the cage and waited for like four minutes for Snuka to enter. Pat Patterson on commentary was very concerned about the steel cage collapsing. Gorilla Monsoon assured him this had never happened. The cage was about seven, maybe eight feet high by the way. They started trading chops and selling like they’d been wrestling for ten minutes. About three minutes in Snuka took a slingshot into the cage. He gigged and started bleeding everywhere. Muraco raked his face against the cage and worked his face over. They brawled on the top rope and Snuka sent Muraco down to the mat. I actually thought they were going to do the splash right away, but Muraco recovered first and slammed Snuka off the top. He went for the door, but Snuka cut him off. Muraco took a wacky turnbuckle bump where he got about halfway through flipping upside down like Ric Flair, then came flying out of the corner upside down. He ended up bleeding somehow and Snuka worked him over. Snuka hit a running headbutt in the corner, but Muraco went upside down backwards over the ropes and right out the door to win. Well, that makes them both look like geeks. Snuka dragged Muraco back inside and hit a suplex. He went up top, scaled the cage, and hit the giant splash. Everyone went ballistic, of course. Match was just sort of there until Muraco won via shitty finish (“He won this match on a fluke,” Monsoon noted), but none of that matters because nobody remembers everything except the cage splash (“Eighteen to twenty feet,” claimed Monsoon). Muraco sold this like complete death, unable to even roll over for several minutes.
954
955Grisham compared Snuka’s dive to Foley going off the Cell. He then talked about Tito Santana and Greg Valentine.
956
957Tito Santana vs. Greg Valentine. Lumberjack match from Madison Square Garden, March 17, 1985. So two weeks before the first Wrestlemania, in the same building. My GOD has wrestling changed. Howard Finkel explained that the lumberjacks were there to throw the wrestlers back in. Valentine was decked out in a phat-ass lavender velvet robe. He also was introduced first, even though he was the reigning champion, which they hardly ever did back then. They brawled back and forth. Valentine rolled to the floor amongst the heel lumberjacks, but Ricky Steamboat and some other guys ran over and threw him back in. That happened a few times, then Valentine got the heat with a reverse atomic drop. Rocky Johnson was at ringside and Monsoon kept calling him The Rock. That was distracting. Tito came back and hit that old school move where you hook the guy like you’re going to do a piledriver, then just jump up and land on your feet. I’m bringing that back as soon as possible. Valentine kept trying to flee and failing. I think Axel Rotten may have been one of the lumberjacks. Tito finally ran into a knee in the corner and Valentine started working over the leg. He tossed Tito out right in front of the babyface lumberjacks, and they gave him a ton of time to recuperate. Not much of note happened for a few minutes, then Tito made his comeback. They traded some of the best punches you’ll ever see. Tito went for a figure-four, but Valentine rolled outside and got shoved back in for the 400th time. Is this match going anywhere? Just like that, Tito finally hooked the figure-four in the middle of the ring and the place went crazy. Jimmy Hart took the ref and Big John Studd pulled Valentine into the ropes, so the ref broke it up when he turned around. Tito went after Studd, but Valentine cut him off from behind. It looked like they were on separate pages for a bit. Then they bonked heads, and Valentine fell on top for the pin. They sure did find creative ways of giving the heels screwy wins back in the day, I’ll say that. Match just wandered around for a while and was pretty forgettable.
958
959Up next are a pair of Randy Savage matches, against Santana in Boston Garden, and against Steamboat at Mania III, but I just reviewed those on the Savage DVD like six months ago. The Steamboat match basically had to be on both sets, but I have no idea why the Santana match was doubled up.
960
961Grisham said that Ric Flair called Steamboat his greatest opponent ever, so you knew it would take somebody special to beat him. Enter the HONKY TONK MAN.
962
963Ricky Steamboat vs. Honky Tonk Man. From Superstars, June 2, 1987. Jesse Ventura was disappointed that Honky didn’t play his guitar behind his back. Honky attacked at the bell, but Ricky worked in his skin-the-cat spot and went to work. Honky’s selling was so great. Steamboat went for an O’Connor roll, but Honky kicked him off and Steamboat went into the corner for the heat. Steamboat evaded the shake, rattle & roll, dodged a corner charge, and went up top. He hit the karate chop, but Jimmy Hart had the ref. They did a convoluted spot that saw Honky bonk into Hart. In the middle of all this insanity, Steamboat hooked a small package, but Honky countered the hold and held the ropes for the pin. That was like the best five-minute match of all time right there.
964
965Honky Tonk Man vs. Ultimate Warrior. From SummerSlam, August 29, 1988. Grisham told us beforehand exactly how long Honky’s title reign had been (longest of all time of course, and as Grisham pointed out, that will probably never be broken), then said that if you’re concerned about him spoiling the next match, he wasn’t giving away much. Honky had no scheduled opponent here, but demanded a title match on this big show, so nobody knew who the challenger would be, not even Finkel. They waited for like a minute until Warrior’s music hit, and Honky pretty much knew he was fucked. Warrior lit into Hocky, and the reaction was amazing. Thousands of people jumping in the air and waving their arms back and forth. Warrior won in like a minute with some of the worst clotheslines ever and the big splash, and that just drove the people even more insane. STAR MADE.
966
967Grisham talked about former IC champions were either technical wrestlers or high flyers, and Warrior stood out because he was all about power. Then he talked about Warrior dropping the title to Rick Rude at Mania.
968
969Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude. From SummerSlam, August 28, 1989. Announcers were Jesse Ventura and TONY SCHIAVONIE. Rude had maybe his best tights ever, a picture of Warrior in tears. Warrior no-sold all of Rude’s offense early. Warrior press slammed him over the ropes to the floor. That would suck. Warrior went to work on the floor, including hitting Rude with the belt. Ventura called for a disqualification. Schiavonie explained that it was allowed because they were outside the ring. “SO WHAT?” Jesse cried. “You can SHOOT your opponent as long as it’s outside the ring?” Then he called Schiavonie the stupidest man ever, stupider even than Gorilla Monsoon. This team is fucking MONEY. Seriously, this was back when Schiavonie still cared about wrestling and was a pretty good play-by-play guy, and he was a perfect straight man for Jesse to fuck around with. Warrior hit a top rope axehandle for a nearfall. He got another with a BODYSLAM, and then with a suplex. He then began to assault Rude’s ass with an atomic drop and, well, he just picked Rude up and dropped him on his ass. He went up top again, but Rude cut him off and crotched him. He worked Warrior over for a bit. He went for the Rude Awakening, but Warrior powered out, so Rude hooked a sleeper instead. Warrior escaped and tackled Rude, who bonked into the ref and all three were down. Warrior was running at full speed and, well, it was believable that three men would be knocked unconscious here. Rude recovered first, and took a long time to survey the scene. He attacked Warrior, but Warrior WARRIOR’D UP. They traded Mongolian chops, which is one you don’t see every day. Warrior hit a bunch of clotheslines and a powerslam, but the ref was still down. So Warrior added a piledriver. The ref came to and inched his way across the ring to count, but Rude got a foot on the ropes. That fooled the fans and they all cheered, then groaned. Warrior hit a powerslam and went for the splash, but Rude got the knees up. Rude picked Warrior up and hit – I shit you not – a TIGER DRIVER ’91. It was slightly different because Rude had him by the waist and not with the arms butterflied, but the result was the same, Warrior landing on his head. Rude added a top rope fistdrop. Roddy Piper chose then to make his way to ringside. Rude hit a standard piledriver for another nearfall. Then he noticed Piper on the floor. Rude flexed at him, so Piper mooned him. Rude, outraged, climbed to the middle ropes to yell at him. Warrior came up behind him and hit a GERMAN SUPLEX. He followed with the press slam and the splash for the win. Rick Rude was a fucking MAGICIAN here, a SORCERER, because he got an easy ****-plus match out of the Ultimate Warrior. They then cut to Sean Mooney, who cut a promo about how great it was to be out among the fans. Thus endeth Disc 1, and boy did it go out on a high note.
970
971
972Bryan's TV Reviews
973
974ROH on HDNet
975They showed photos and clips from the Big Bang PPV last weekend including Tyler Black's win in the three-way.
976
977Cornette called out Tyler to open up the show. This was taped before the PPV but Dave Prazak and Mike Hogewood did new voiceovers talking about his title defense in Charlotte. Cornette told him it was clear this wasn't going to get any easier for him. Tyler said he was mostly concerned with Roderick Strong, who appeared to have fallen off the deep end. He said he wasn't like Roderick, a guy defined by his failures, but rather a guy who learned from his failures, kept trying and ended up succeeding as a result. He said if he could get by Aries and Strong he felt like the majority of his battle was won. Out came Davey Richards. He did a promo saying Tyler was used to dealing with guys that like to play games, and so he was going to cut to the point: Tyler was the champion and he wanted his belt. "YOU SUCK!" He said as of tonight he was the hunter, Tyler was the hunted and the hunt was on.
978
979Announcers did a cut-in plugging the PPV and saying you could still watch it on demand on your computer right now.
980
981We got a Jerry Lynn in ROH video package. He's making his return. The video package showed highlights of his ROH career and built to Rhett Titus and Kenny King putting him out of action with a stuff piledriver.
982
983Jerry Lynn vs. Jake Manning. Manning got the heat and worked over the piledriven neck. Jerry made his comeback and hit the cradle piledriver for the pin. Very basic TV match getting over Jerry's return. Kyle Durden interviewed him afterwards. Lynn said there was one thing he agreed with Kenny King about, and that was that everyone knew the risks they took the moment they stepped into the ring. He said Kenny shouldn't feel bad about what he did because he wasn't going to feel bad for what he did to him later.
984
985They showed clips of KOW beating Briscoes for the tag titles.
986
987Durden interviewed Corino about his predictions in the Eddie Edwards vs. Kevin Steen TV title tourney match. Corino said there was no need for a prediction, Steen was obviously going to win. Durden said he was supposed to be wrestling Generico tonight but he was still in a suit and tie. Corino said he'd been wrestling forever, and if anyone needed to concentrate on getting ready, it was Generico. He vowed to destroy him and make sure Generico would never forget the name Steve Corino.
988
989Corino vs. Generico. Corino came to the ring still wearing his suit. He cut a promo saying the reason Generico wore a mask was because a) he was ugly, and b) he was hiding behind the fact that he was never really any good. He told him he was a certified loser. Where do you get that kind of certification? If Generico died tomorrow, he said, nobody would care. That's not very nice. He said Generico was nothing but a tall skinny piece of garbage. He said he didn't care about Generico and never did, therefore he was forfeiting the match. Hogewood said he couldn't understand why Generico stood there and took this. "He's a coward," Prazak said. Corino concluded saying Steen was right, Generico would never be anything without him. Generico attacked him, ripped his suit off, wiped him out with a dive, and then geeks ran down to break it up.
990
991They showed clips of Steen beating Titus and Eddie beating Colt in tourney matches. This is how you promote a tournament.
992
993Eddie did a promo saying people were talking about how there was tension between himself and Davey Richards, and that if they faced each other in the finals it would destroy the team. Kenny King walked up and told him to stop looking past him towards some imaginary final. Eddie told him that geeks like Kenny were too busy trying to look as pretty as possible as opposed to concentrating on getting wins. This was not the best interview segment I ever saw.
994
995Steen vs. Edwards. Steen cut a promo before the match saying he had something very important to say. Last year, he said, the Wolves were involved in one of the most intense feuds in ROH history against himself and Generico. He said for that year he really hated Edwards, but leading up to this match he went back and watched some footage of the feud and concluded that the reason Eddie did what he did last year was because of Generico. He should have explained what it was that Eddie did because for new viewers like me, I was sitting here having absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He reminded us that he broke Eddie's elbow once and didn't want to do it again. "Actually, I think I do!" he said, and attacked him. He worked over the elbow for a long time. People got into Eddie's comeback quite a bit. Steen cut him off and hit the big senton but Eddie kicked out. They traded nearfalls and people chanted "LET'S GO EDDIE!" Steen unwrapped the tape on Eddie's elbow and began stomping on it. He finally got the crossface on but Generico came out and distracted Steen. Edwards then got a surprise small package for the pin. This finish would have worked a lot better if they hadn't kicked out of 200 giant moves earlier, because it made Steen look like a chump, even with the distraction.
996
997
998WWE NXT
999Show opened with the Teacher calling all the NXT guys out and discussing their rankings. He talked about how Otunga won the guest host spot on Raw, had the chance to win the tag titles with John Cena and then walked away. He explained that he could have tagged in Cena and taken Miz's head off, but he didn't like Cena in the first place and by walking out on him he guaranteed that Miz, a judge on this show, would help him out. Well, that makes no fucking sense. He could have been tag champs with JOHN CENA and had the right to work on EVERY SHOW, but he threw it all the way so he could get an NXT vote from Miz? This was an Impact-worthy excuse. Teacher asked Daniel if he felt he deserved to be in first place. He said he wasn't sure. He wanted to know if Miz deserved to be a pro, did Otunga deserve to be the guest host on Raw, did Cole deserve to replace Jim Ross on Raw? He said no, he didn't deserve it, but he'd do his best to become a WWE superstar. Stryker said he was in first place and the answer should have been yes, he did deserve it because he was Daniel Bryan. Cole said, and I quote, "He's a peewee." A PEEWEE. Stryker interviewed Tarver about whether Daniel should be in first place. Tarver said no he didn't, and he (Tarver) was sick of being ignored. He warned everyone that he was a pitbull ready to attack and everyone had better watch out. Promo was awful. Teacher said every week we were going to have some sort of physical challenge. This week the guys had to lift a keg, carry it around the ring and then back over a line. Whoever did it fasted won. Daniel went first. He was laughing the entire time. He held it at waist-height and shuffed around the ring. It took him 24.9 seconds. Barrett went second -- 14.7. Size matters in keg challenges. Cole, I should note, said Barrett had won "a number of tough-fights over the years." Gabriel made 13.6. Slater made it in 12 flat. Otunga, who got massive heat, did it in 14.1. He looked like he was in danger of tearing something with every step. Sheffield did a 12.4. He would have won but he hoisted the keg onto his shoulder first and that killed a good second of time. Tarver dropped the keg immediately and was DQ'd. Darren Young also failed and also looked like he was going to tear everything. Since Slater won they announced that he was getting the main event tonight against none other than Kane. Sucks to be him.
1000
1001Sheffield did a promo claiming the keg was rigged and that's why he didn't win. The same keg everyone else used? He said the people weren't ready for him. "The universe isn't ready," he said. I can see that.
1002
1003Daniel vs. Darren in a first-place vs. last-place match. Daniel ran wild on him early with a running knee off the apron. He put on the cattle mutilation but it seemed like almost nobody knew what he was doing. He took the entire match and did a great job with the guy, then Young just swept his legs and pinned him with a folding press. It's not Bryan's fault, but Young is so green that this finish came off as ridiculous, like Daniel let him win.
1004
1005Michael Tarver vs. Justin Gabriel. Gabriel is badly lacking in personality but I think they've got something in him. He made a big comeback and went up top, but Tarver split his legs. They fought up top. Tarver got knocked off, then Gabriel hit the 450 for the pin.
1006
1007Wade Barrett vs. David Otunga. I am really watching this match. Otunga made a big comeback they actually showed a replay of him hitting the ropes and taking his first step with the wrong leg before hitting a shoulderblock. Wade then yanked him off the top rope and gave him his fireman's carry slam for the pin.
1008
1009Kane vs. Heath Slater. Heath hit a flying dropkick and a flying body press early, but then Kane cut him off with a boot to the skull. This was actually better than your usual Kane match because it was so simple. It also had a shocking amount of heat. Kane hit the flying clothesline and eventually hit the chokeslam for the pin. I turned the corner on Heath here. And Kane. I mean, this was a real thumbs up.
1010
1011
1012Smackdown
1013Show opened with Jack Swagger coming out to celebrate. He talked about how he won the title last week, and now tonight Edge and Jericho were going to fight for the right to face him at the PPV. He claimed he was the odds-on favorite to walk out of the PPV as champion. You'd never have known that had you watched Raw. He said some people were born to be champions. "I'm one of them." He said he deserved to be champion. He was pretty much in the middle of his speech when Morrison's music hit and out he came. The Teacher said Morrison was the resident rock star on Smackdown. Has he ever sung a song once, or played an instrument? He did get nearly a rock star reaction here. He said Swagger got lucky one night, and while that made him a titleholder it didn't make him a champion. He noted that he got buried on Raw and even showed clips. Well, fuck me. What next? He said Swagger may claim he was a changed man but he had the same stupid haircut, the same stupid nickname, the same stupid speech impediment. Anything else while they're at it? Swagger said Morrison was just upset that he lived in the shadow of Miz. Swagger went after him and Morrison low-bridged him.
1014
1015Morrison vs. Swagger. So in the middle of this match Swagger got busted open and they stopped the match and sent geeks in there to clean it up. This is a TAPED SHOW and they aired this. Astounding. Swagger looked so pissed off as they went to work closing him up. Well, it did kill the momentum immediately. Morrison, of course, had tons of time to recover but had to pretend he was still badly hurt the entire time. It took a while but they finally got back into it. Swagger added the run-up-the-ropes Kurt Angle belly-to-belly. He went for the Vader bomb but Morrison got his feet up and then made his comeback. They traded nearfalls, then Morrison went for the twisting moonsault. Swagger rolled outside to safety, then clipped Morrison's leg when he went out on the apron. This whole sequence was clunky. "LET'S GO SWAGGER!" Swagger then rolled him into the ring, hit the gut wrench, and actually pinned the guy. Wow, a win by Jack Swagger.
1016
1017Swagger ran into Jericho backstage and said he was pulling for him tonight. He said the only reason he cashed in on Jericho and not Cena was because Jericho was hurt and was therefore a sure thing. Jericho demanded he give him the belt back, saying cashing in the way he did didn't make him world champion. Swagger slapped the belt and said THIS made him the World Champion.
1018
1019Shad, who has shaved his head, came out and showed the video of him beating up JTG last week. He said he knew there were people out there who could relate to him, people with a sibling who got more attention than they did, or people who knew a co-worker who got the benefits they didn't. Stand up, he said, take what you want, and don't let people like JTG stand in your way. He said this wasn't Cryme Tyme, or the people's time, it was his time, Shad Gaspard's time. That remains to be seen. JTG ran down to attack him and immediately got booted like a complete fool. Way to go there.
1020
1021Drew came out and cut a promo simply saying that he wasn't going to waste his breath on the people. Drew vs. Matt. It was fine. Drew worked him over for a long time, then Matt hit a side effect out of nowhere that people actually bought as a finish. Still astounds me that they buy it every time. He made his big comeback and they traded nearfalls. They ended up outside and Drew gave him the underhook DDT on the mats. He threw Matt back inside and covered him for the pin. "Big win!" said the Teacher. In what sense?.
1022
1023Punk and his crew came out, including his NXT dude, Darren Young. Serena cut a promo about all the fans leading miserable lives of excess. She told us to find straight edge through the grace of Punk. Gallows was next, telling us the moment of cleansing was worth a lifetime of pain. He said when he realized straight edge was his destiny he was saved. Someone had a "CM SKUNK" sign. Punk got to talking to Darren about how he needed to embrace straight-edge since he was currently ranked dead last and was on his way to being eliminated. Darren facially looks shockingly like John Cena. Punk sat him down in a chair and told him he needed to shave his head. He asked if he was ready. Surprisingly, Darren was ready. Well, to be honest, if my hair looked like that I'd be fine with it getting shaved as well. Punk made him raise his hand and pledge allegiance. Darren got his hand up, began to pledge, but then slowly lowered it and said he'd changed his mind. Punk got on him so Darren shoved him. Gallows attacked him from behind, they started stomping on him, and they were about to do the deed when Rey hit the ring and made the save. It was funny because they piped in a buzzing sound effect for the clippers which, if real, would have made them the loudest clippers in the history of man. The clippers ended up on the ground and Rey grabbed them. He was about to shave Punk when the disciples pulled their man to safety. Rey cut a promo accepting the match at the PPV, saying he was not going to beat Punk but he was going to shave his head and break up the Straight Edge Society. I can't believe this is a one-stip match, meaning Rey, the babyface, has absolutely nothing at stake except a loss.
1024
1025Trent Baretta and Caylen Croft, who are still employed, came out and cut a promo on the Hart Dynasty. They're actually referring to themselves as THE DUDEBUSTERS. They talked about how awesome they were. Trent, it was noted, beat Call of Duty IV in one day. They told fans to call their friends and tell them to TiVo them. That had to be a knock on TNA. Harts vs. Croft & Baretta. The Teacher was talking about how Trent and Baretta were big into Facebook and other forms of social networking. I am not into video games much, but I recognize that a lot of people in the 18-to-34 demo are fans of video games, the Internet and Facebook, which makes it kind of baffling that the wrestlers who supposedly like those things are portrayed as geek heels. Harts made a comeback and Harry put Trent in the sharpshooter for the submission. This was actually a lot of fun.
1026
1027Josh interviewed Dolph. He wanted to know how it felt to have put Great Khali to sleep last week. Dolph said it felt like this, and proceeded to choke Josh out. Commentators sold this like Dolph had, I don't know, sprayed him with water or something equally non-violent. Dolph's technique, I should add, was awful. Shouldn't there be some sort of punishment for attacking an announcer without provocation?.
1028
1029Swagger ran into Edge backstage and said he hoped Edge won tonight. Edge said listen, when I first cashed in my briefcase years ago I was much like you, young and cocky, and I ended up losing the title three weeks later. He said he was going to win the match against Jericho tonight and then in, coincidentally, three weeks, he was going to go to the PPV and beat him with the spear. Or, more precisely, he said, the "thpear." He left and Swagger insisted he didn't have a speech impediment.
1030
1031Edge vs. Jericho. They had a good, long match. Not to the level of WrestleMania or anything like that, but a hell of a TV main event. Got about 20 minutes, including going through two commercial breaks. Edge made a big comeback but Jericho cut him off with a bulldog. He went for the lionsault, Edge got his knees up and Jericho turned it into the walls. Striker said this was the most painful submission hold in WWE today. Jericho hit the codebreaker but Edge fell out of the ring. Jericho rolled him back inside and made the cover but Edge kicked out. Edge hit the DDT and set up for the spear. Jericho leapfrogged and ran outside. Edge followed him out and into the crowd. The ref rapidly counted them out. Since this was the number-one contender's match it looks like it'll be a three-way at the PPV, which is for the best since Swagger is a weak champion and his title match will need all the help it can get. Show ended with Jericho going to get a chair but Edge speared him out of his boots to a big pop.
1032
1033
1034Raw
1035Show opened with David Hasselhoff coming out. People made fun of me when his name was announced and I made a Knight Rider reference, but as it turns out his entrance did, in fact, involve both the car and the Knight Rider music. He had dancing girls with him, the whole nine yards. The man has barely aged. He made a bunch of Hoff references, like how we were going to have a HOFFSOME NIGHT, etc. Finally, he said, THE HOFF has returned to Monday Night Raw. People chanted "HOFF!" He was wearing a black glittery jacket and looked like he was doing some sort of stage show in Vegas. As you'd expect, he signed a Baywatch Babe Triple Threat Tag Team Match. He claimed he'd been watching Smackdown the other night and he realized there was no number-one contender for the World title. That's something else, as I didn't even notice that. He said it only made sense to him that if you beat the champion twice in non-title bouts you should get a title match. So yes, at the PPV, it's Swagger vs. Orton for the belt. Jesus, he's a better booker than the people in TNA. He signed Orton vs. Batista for later in a battle of number-one contenders. He said let's kick this off with the Divas Title match. Hoff needs to host every fucking show. He was great here.
1036
1037Maryse vs. Eve for the Divas title. Eve ran wild, then went up top for a moonsault. Maryse moved out of the way and then began wildly cackling. She started slapping her around and went for her DDT when Eve turned it into a wacky cradle for the pin. I am probably the only person in the entire world who thought this, but when I saw it I thought it was a message being sent to Maria after Maria did all those interviews talking about how sad she was never to have won the belt. Anyway, this was fine while it lasted.
1038
1039Show and Miz came out and Show cut a promo saying when they were first teamed up he was skeptical about whether it would work out, but after WrestleMania and last week he'd concluded that they were actually pretty special. Miz said that's right, we are special, and nobody has been able to take these titles from us. He proclaimed them the greatest team in WWE history. Crowd booed. Miz was appalled. "WHO BETTA THAN SHOWMIZ?" he asked. He repeated his statement when Bret's music hit. He came out and said he could name two teams off the top of his head that were better than them -- the Hart Foundation, voted best WWE Tag Team of all time, and the British Bulldogs. Miz said if he'd been around in the '80s they've have beaten both those teams. Show told him to hit the bricks. Bret said I'm not ready to leave, and in fact I've got a tag team back there that could beat you right now. Hart Dynasty came out. Miz said no, this wasn't happening. Harry actually got to do a promo. He said everyone knew his father was there watching tonight, and so he was issuing a challenge for a one-on-one match with Miz. If I win, he said, we get a tag title shot at the PPV. Show called Miz over and appeared to be telling him they didn't need to do this. Miz, meanwhile, was all cocky. He said Show thought this was a mistake but he considered it an opportunity. He said he'd accept on one condition -- when he won, then next week live on Raw Bret would have to declare that Showmiz was, in fact, the best tag team of all time. Bret consulted with his team and then said, "You're on. Deal." Good stuff.
1040
1041Miz vs. Harry Boy. Crowd wasn't much into it until Harry started his big comeback. Miz cut him off and came off with a double sledge but Harry kicked him right in the face. Harry put on the slowest sharpshooter ever. Big Show jumped up on the apron to distract him. Tyson tried to make the save but Show punched him in the face. He then proceeded to punch Harry in THE BACK (they claimed kidney) allowing Miz to hit his finisher for the pin. So next week, they said, Bret would have to go on TV and admit that ShowMiz was the best tag team of all time.
1042
1043Batista met with Otunga backstage. He said he was tired tonight and could use an energy boost. "Why don't you go get me a cup of coffee?" Otunga was like, HAW HAW YOU GOT ME, but then he realized that Dave was dead serious and said well, I was thinking of going to get a cup of coffee myself. As he was leaving he ran into Hoff. He made some jokes about how old Hoff was, so Hoff signed him to a match with Cena later. KITT predicted that Cena would beat him in 22 seconds.
1044
1045Carlito vs. Evan Bourne. They had a match. It was fine. Evan hit the shooting star for the pin.
1046
1047Cena vs. Otunga. They're putting David Otunga in a singles match with John Cena. This could be ugly. Cena schooled him on the mat early. This was strangely entertaining. John Cena, shooter. He did some holds, then he punched him a few times, then he put him in the STFU for the submission. Complete squash match. Batista on the ramp was irate, so irate that he began taking his clothes off. He teased heading to the ring but then changed his mind and said he'd decide when they'd fight. People chanted "YOU TAPPED OUT!" Dave was wearing the most absurd pair of pants. Made him even greater.
1048
1049Sheamus came out and did a promo. He said he knew that HHH only brought out his sledgehammer when he was facing a guy he didn't think he could beat. He said he'd just gotten the official word that at Extreme Rules the two of them were going to compete in a streetfight. He said he grew up in the streets of Dublin, Ireland "where real men come from". He said it was tougher than anywhere in America and certainly tougher than "anywhere in this fallen empire." Them's fightin' words. He said if HHH showed up at Extreme Rules he'd be the one making the mistake, and it would be one he'd regret for the rest of his carer. Great promo and Sheamus was so visibly happy at having drawn so much cheap heat. Kofi came out. He said he'd just spoken to David Hasselhoff. I LOL'd. That should have been a vignette. He said if Sheamus thought he could get away with beating him down like he did last week he was sadly mistaken, and The Hoff had signed them to another match here tonight. Kofi vs. Sheamus. Sheamus gave him a lot early. Kofi made his big comeback, fucked up his jumping split into the corner again, and then hit the wacky kick. Sheamus got the ropes. People bought the nearfall. Sheamus ended up rolling outside and hitting Kofi with the monitor for the DQ. He then proceeded to beat the piss out of him, running him into the post numerous times, etc. So they were fine with Sheamus killing the guy, but it was very important for Kofi to not lose via PIN FALL. Sheamus screamed afterwards that this was what he was going to do to HHH.
1050
1051Carlito was looking for Hasselhoff and ran into VLADIMIR KOZLOV, who wants some COMPETITION. Carlito said he was sick of guest hosts who only cared about themselves. He said this was his livelihood and the goofs were fucking with him, and therefore if he didn't get traded to Smackdown in the Draft he was quitting WWE. Kozlov wanted to know who the guest host for next week was. Carlito said it would be the cast of MacGruber, and whatever they did it surely wouldn't involve the two of them. "Next week I will get what I want, otherwise I DESTROY MACGRUBER." MONEY RIGHT THERE.
1052
1053Orton did a promo saying as far as Batista was concerned, he'd been looking forward to this for a very, very long time.
1054
1055Gail & Kelly vs. Bellas vs. Jillian & Rosa Mendez in a Baywatch Babe Triple Threat Tag Team Match. Santino was there as special guest referee. Hasselhoff was out there as the "special guest lifeguard." They had the girls wearing Baywatch outfits, and they ran to the ring and they aired it in slow motion. That was funny. Wedgies right and left here. Crowd was almost dead silent once they began wrestling. Hasselhoff was peering on like an old pervert. That was great. Broke into a six-way. Bellas switched and one of them pinned Rosa. This was horrendous. Jillian shoved Santino and he supposedly swallowed his whistle. The crowd was screaming for Hoff to give mouth-to-mouth. Instead, the midget's music hit and he booked to the ring in slow-motion. He tried chest compressions and then tried yanking the whistle out, but that didn't work. So he did his frog splash and Santino spat the whistle high in the air. This was at least creatively entertaining. Match still sucked a big one though.
1056
1057They showed clips of the European tour.
1058
1059Big Dave vs. Orton. On Raw. For free. Well, they do have to beat Impact in this quarter. Oh, wait. Orton missed his knee and Dave tossed him shoulder-first into the post. It was funny because Dave set up for the spear at the end and a few people actually screaming "SPEAR!" Orton gave him a boot in mid-move and sent him shoulder-first into the post. They traded punches and got the "YAY!" "BOO!" chants. Orton gave him a fast-rotating powerslam, which was pretty impressive. He set up for the RKO but then decided to try the punt instead. Dave rolled outside to avoid it. As he was heading back in, Orton punted him and hit the draping DDT, but Dave kicked out. I remember when that was a deadly finisher. Orton set up for the RKO again. Dave turned it into a spinebuster and set up for the powerbomb. Orton turned it into a flash RKO and was going for the cover when Swagger hit the ring for the DQ. Not a bad match. Swagger tried to get Orton up quickly but was going too fast and struggled badly. He finally hit it. Cena hit the ring and put Dave in the STFU. Dave tapped repeatedly. Geeks ran down to break it up. Show was designed to build matches for the PPV in two weeks and they did a pretty good job with it.
1060
1061
1062Impact
1063Show opened with Jarrett coming out. I'll bet he starts yelling about something. I was right. He was mad at Sting. He made sure to remind us that he was the founder of TNA. I'm not sure what is funnier, the fact that he reminds us of this every single week or that he actually takes credit for it. He said he wanted Sting and was gonna go git him. He went upstairs into the rafters, found him and started stomping a mudhole in him. People chanted "TNA!" Jarrett was screaming that he wanted an answer for why Sting had turned heel. They finally got down to the ring and the lights went out, and when they came back on Sting had his bat. He beat the crap out of Jarrett. Jeff Hardy, Abyss and RVD ran down to make the save.
1064
1065Team Flair was backstage to hype up the PPV on Sunday. He said what just happened with Sting was what was going to happen all night tonight. He ranted and raved about how much he hated Hogan. In St. Louis, he said, they'd destroyed Team Hogan and Hulkamania. This was like a promo right out of the '80s. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Bobby Roode said he was going to wipe out Hardy tonight. Desmond vowed to maim Abyss. He said the ring would be his. Chelsea said no, it will be mine. Yeah, sure, he replied. Chelsea is an enigma to me.
1066
1067Brother Ray came out and grabbed a mic. He said they just got out of Hogan's office and Hogan was just as mad at the Band as they were. He said their match tonight wouldn't just be a regular match, it would be a six-man New York Streetfight falls count anywhere in the building match. Any why not? What better stipulation for the first-ever match in a feud on free TV? Of course, it's not like a straight match would have been any good. Team 3-D & Jesse Neal vs. Hall & Nash & Waltman. Shots to the head galore with various instruments. This went on for fucking ever. And it wasn't even back and forth. The babyfaces beat on them over and over with instruments for minutes on end. The fans were going nuts, I'll give them that. It was finally time to get the tables. "This might be kind of anticlimactic," Taz said. I love Taz. They set up the table anyway. Who should come out to make the save for the heels but Bubba the Love Sponge. Really. He distracted Bubba the Other Sponge, allowing Pac to hit the X-Factor off the top through a table for the pin. So since this is TNA I presume they go from here to a straight no-stip match. Eric Young then ran down to clean house and make the save. He cut a promo. Apparently the match and finish we just saw was done to lead to -- wait for it -- Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young in a singles match in a cage. What?.
1068
1069Christy interviewed Hogan. He said his team was going to prevail at Lockdown. Just then he looked behind a curtain and saw Eric talking with Flair. Eric Bischoff, that is. Two Erics and two Bubbas on this show is no buys. Hogan told Eric he wanted to talk about this in the office.
1070
1071Shannon Moore vs. Kazarian. They had a pretty damn good TV match. Taz was talking about how goofy both Shannon and Jeff Hardy were and said there must be something in the water over there. Yeah, something like that. Douglas Williams came out and did commentary. He did his usual promo about how this wasn't real wrestling, it was flip-flopping and wackiness. He was the champion, he said, and he won the title with catch-as-catch-can grappling, not flips. Tazz asked him if he knew what dilligaf meant. Douglas said he had no idea. He should have said no, but he knew what a wristlock was. Shannon hit a huge moonsault off the post. Lots of nearfalls. In a great TNA moment, they got a shot of the announcers from behind and I'm not sure if Tenay was aware of it because instead of looking angry and stern as usual he was instead giggling at Douglas' commentary. They ended up going to a time-limit draw. Fans were NOT happy about that. This was one of the best Impact matches in months. "LET THEM FIGHT!" Douglas grabbed the mic and was completely appalled that these two spot monkeys (almost his exact words) hugged and kissed after their match. They chased him to the back.
1072
1073Velvet Sky's breasts did a promo. I mean, you should have seen these things. She said tonight's match wouldn't be for the belt. Why? Because it would be on the line Sunday in a three-on-two tag match with Velvet & Madison & Lacey vs. Tara & Angelina with the person getting the pin becoming the champion. Well, that makes no fucking sense. She could try to win it tonight by stripping Angelina down or she could pass on it and try to win it Sunday in a match with FOUR OTHER WOMEN where any of the four could get a pin and win the belt.
1074
1075Hogan was bitching at Eric backstage. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here. Bischoff said he wasn't going to apologize for being himself. He said he was who he was and Hogan had to know that going in. Hogan said he didn't want an apology but he wanted to know why Eric was conniving with Flair. Eric said they weren't conniving. He said Team Hogan was getting their ass kicked and he was trying to gain Flair's confidence so that he could help Hogan and they could get this thing back on track. He said if Hogan knew him he knew he could believe that. I don't believe that. After Eric left Jay Lethal rushed in and wanted to know what they were going to do about the Band. He wanted to team up with Flair against them. After Lockdown, Hogan said, if Lethal could find his tights they'd do it. That match sounds HORRENDOUS.
1076
1077Angelina did a promo. She's a serious wrestler now and said she didn't come to TNA to "parade around the ring like a lady of the night." She really said that. Tara walked up and was really mad that Angelina won her belt last week by opening a box. They got into an argument and cut away in the middle of it. Guess it wasn't important.
1078
1079Christy interviewed Abyss and the Pope. Pope hyped up the PPV and Abyss hyped up the tag match he and Pope are doing later. Aside from the Moore vs. Kazarian match this was the best thing on the show by far.
1080
1081Angelina vs. Velvet in a non-title leather and lace match. Rules were that you had to strip your opponent down to her undies to win. Velvet came out and since she was allowed to choose the stips she said this wouldn't be a leather and lace match after all, but rather a match where Angelina was handcuffed and she whipped the piss out of her. The ref immediately handcuffed Angelina. This made Velvet's decision to not make this a title match even more fucking stupid. Well, her gimmick was never that she was smart. Angelina jumped her as she was coming through the ropes and stomped on her. Velvet hit her with the belt, knocking her out, then added another stipulation -- it was an I Quit match. Velvet beat on her and demanded she quit. Angelina kept refusing. Velvet said maybe if I strip you naked you'll quit. She tore her shirt off exposing her bra. Angelina still wouldn't quit. The other two Beautiful People ran down and were tripling on Angelina when Tara ran down to make the save. So yes, we got an I Quit match without a finish. Also, Tara somehow had the key to these cuffs and was able to free Angelina. And why not? Angelina wanted a handshake from Tara afterwards but Tara walked off. TNA Special ™ here, the tag partners who hate each other.
1082
1083Christy was outside. Abyss was dead. Apparently he was hit by a car. Then they cut away. Guess it wasn't that important.
1084
1085Back from commercial, Christy confirmed that Abyss got hit by a car. Remember when Hernandez got kicked into the post and they stopped the show for 10 minutes tending to him? Well, Abyss got HIT BY A CAR here and they spent 30 seconds on it before cutting away to something much more important, Matt Morgan talking about how great he was. He said he was all cool with defending the tag titles by himself but TNA management was demanding he get himself a partner. So he got Red. So basically we've got a fighting babyface who is a heel in Matt Morgan.
1086
1087Morgan & Red vs. Machine Guns. There was an awesome spot where Red ended up outside and as he was avoiding a dive Sabin kicked him right in the face and Red took a full flip bump. That was the coolest spot I have seen on this show in years. Should have been a finish it was so great. Morgan dragged Red to his corner and made a one-man comeback on both Guns. The people putting this show together have literally no idea how to promote faces and heels. Guns made their big comeback but then Morgan hit the ring and cut them both off. He went for his finish on Shelley but he was taking too long and it allowed Red to pin Sabin with the code red. This made Morgan upset so he killed the little bugger. Morgan was about to give him the boot against the post when Sabin made the save. Gotta help a brother out.
1088
1089Christy was outside saying there was security camera footage of what happened with Abyss and we'd get that when we came back. So they showed the footage and it did, in fact, show Abyss getting hit by a car. So they showed it twice and then zoomed in and basically said MY GOD LOOK WHO'S DRIVING. I rewound it like three times and I have NO fucking idea who that was supposed to be. It was a human, I know that. They came back and Mike Tenay was like THAT FACE LOOKS FAMILIAR!, but then he said he didn't want to point fingers so he wasn't going to name names. WAT.
1090
1091Jeff Hardy vs. Robert Roode. Good match. I will say that it does, in fact, appear that there is a TNA Jeff Hardy and a WWE Jeff Hardy and that they may not necessarily be the same human being. Roode did a great job with him. Jeff hit a Stone Cold stunner and went up top but James Storm cut him off. This was right in front of the ref and it wasn't a DQ. Jeff shoved him off and CRUSHED Roode with the senton. I have no idea what happened at the pinfall but something happened where it appeared Roode was reversing the pin into a crucifix but the ref counted three anyway. Storm got in the ring afterwards and supposedly blew a fireball in Hardy's eyes. Apparently it took three takes live and I guess the third one still didn't work because at least on my TV the screen froze during the spot and we never saw any fire, only the post-fire smoke. The referee gave the raised fist to indicate Jeff was fine. RVD ran down to make the save and the heels beat him up as well. This was pretty good stuff.
1092
1093Angle did an interview in a hospital bed or something. The acoustics were awful. He was talking about troops and the medal he'd been given. Kennedy then did a promo saying he wasn't here to make friends, he was here to make money and win titles. This was a good video package, but the problem was we've already seen them wrestle 100 times, we've already seen Angle get his revenge, we've already seen the entire US military get their revenge, and so I'm not sure why we need to see it again.
1094
1095Pope did a serious promo. He said his prayers were with Abyss. Jay Lethal ended up walking up, calling him Reverend Slick, and then saying he'd be his replacement tag team partner tonight. This made Pope happy.
1096
1097Pope came out for the main event. Before Lethal could come out he was attacked by Beer Money backstage. He started making a comeback but then James Storm killed him with what was hopefully a fake beer bottle to the head. So it was Pope vs. AJ & Nigel in a handicap match. AJ cut a promo before the match basically saying it sucked to be Pope. As Desmond was coming out Hogan laid him out with a chairshot to the back. Pope and AJ started brawling. Tenay said Hogan must have concluded that Nigel was the one who ran over Abyss. He also said Jeff Hardy was OK, his face was seared by the fireball but he was responding and OK and would be good to go Sunday. I guess this was a match because they rang the bell repeatedly after Flair hit the ring and clonked Pope with the title belt. Beer Money ran down for the four-on-one. AJ threw Pope outside and he took this huge flying bump to the floor. That was nuts. Show ended with Hogan coming out on the ramp and staring at the heels. Per TNA standards this wasn't a bad go-home show, but it's not doing near the numbers of Lockdown in year's past.
1098
1099wrestling news
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