It's that time of the week yet again, so please join me now in waxing nostalgic about pro wrestling's recent happenings. I didn't make any clever pictures, so enjoy some random old wrestling screenshots I've taken instead. Here's a Ricky Steamboat:
Smackdown was not its usual strong wrestling program this week, focusing more on gimmick matches probably meant to hype Wrestlemania. Santino and Swagger in the steel cage was the early high point of the show. I wonder if that was Santino's first cage match. Drew McIntyre's rehiring was another plus, and I did get some sick satisfaction out of his beating the hell out of Hornswoggle. Most of the show focused on the GM feud, and the Orton-Kane feud, which doesn't even have a storyline. I think I'll take that as an opportunity to make one up for them. OK, so this is what's up: Kane became bitter after losing his own gimmick match to John Cena, and he started feeling like maybe he wasn't embracing the hate enough. He looks at Randy Orton and thinks "There's a guy who's embracing the hate, he's got some serious anger management issues." So he gets all jealous of Orton and decides to reinflate his self esteem by besting him in combat.
If you think that's a good idea, you'd have loved Impact this week, cuz it was FULL of good ideas. Garrett Bischoff was in the main event, and indeed was the focal point of the main event storyline. There were two title matches on the show, both were heel versus heel, both had DQ finishes. Eric Young proposed to his tag partner/girlfriend ODB in the ring (prompting a heavy make out session) after winning the Knockouts tag titles together. Yup, EY is a ladies champ. EY is a ladies champ, and Garrett Bischoff is a wrestling megastar in the making. What a crock!
WWE shits out better shows than TNA can muster, as proven once again by NXT this week. It wasn't the best episode ever, but it was decent. I'm really enjoying Johnny Curtis' new character, he cracks me up every time he's out. His gimmick is basically that he's a creep. He's got this somewhat off-putting body language that I'd describe as a full-body leer, also he's often seen wearing an open leather jacket, rubbing Jergen's lotion on his chest, and last week on commentary it was revealed that he drives a brown 1982 Astro from arena to arena. That's a good character. He's solid in the ring too, as illustrated this week in match against Yoshi Tatsu.
That all being said, the real gem of WWE programming this week was Superstars. I was impressed with the strong opener of Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater, followed by a fairly cookie cutter Mahal-Dibiase match, but stealing the show and then some was a match between Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler that was nothing short of epic! You would've thought it was the main event of a PPV the way they were working. If you skipped Superstars this week, I'd highly recommend putting this match on your list of things to watch. I think I just talked myself into rewatching it. Okey, I just made sure it was saved on my computer. It was 18 minutes long! That's a long match for WWE TV, the crowd was totally into it, too.
FCW was decent this week, nothing too special.
ROH the same, although their next iPPV is shaping up to be a lot better than their last one.
Raw was very different this week, it was interesting. Cena says "boobies", chickenshit (!), and suggests that the Divas have had plastic surgery (really?) HBK and Taker shake each other down with some pretty harsh words, Jericho takes Punk down a notch by exposing his "loser alcoholic" father to the audience, and Rock ended the show with a smile and a wink as he sung a song about how he was going to give it to Cena's mom so hard that she wouldn't be able to walk. No wonder they had Brodus Clay make a return to lighten things up a bit! I mean, I love a healthy side of shit-talking with my pro wrestling, but this show was full to the brim with it! I'm not saying I hated it, I liked each segment on their own, it was just a lot to digest right before bedtime. It was actually pretty great, but my favorite part of the show was still the Punk-Miz match, which was short but sweet. I'll always take a wrestling match over a promo, even a 4 minute match over an hour of promos. But they all served their purpose, they each built some more interest into their respective storylines, and deepened the feuds a bit more. Wrestlemania seems like it's going to be really incredible this year. I am glad, by the way, that John L and Teddy Long aren't going to wrestle each other like I thought they would.
That's this week's news as I see it, thanks for tuning in. I didn't do a podcast again because it takes way more time to make those, and I have things I'd like to get done today. Imagine that! Take care, condition your hair, woo woo woo you know it.
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