Hey guys,
Nice internet show. Wokka watched the whole thing, he loved it. This post will probably be my last for a while. Looking forward to an SCW slumber party sometime! Chikara's season finale iPPV "Under the Hood" takes place on Dec. 2nd, the day I move. That would be fun to watch together at some point, eh?
Smackdown
Was better this week, but still pales in comparison to it's halcyon days of the reign of Mark Henry and rise of the babyface Daniel Bryan. It opened just like Raw this week, with the Impact-style narration, and covered all the Raw storylines as well as the Smackdown ones. There was a heavy Raw presence in general, but it didn't do much to help the show; the opening segment was Miz TV with John Cena and it SUUUUUUUCKed! The best match of the night was Hell No taking on BS in a handicap match (guess who won). Ziggler pinning Orton in the main event was also nice, but the victory was short lived, as Ziggler got trounced by Cena up on the ramp to close the show. Booo!
Thanksgiving Day Impact
Was an Open Fight Night for Gut Check winners. I don't have anything to say about Impact this week, but I didn't want to only post about the WWE.
NXT
Brody Lee made his NXT in-ring debut as Luke Harper while Bray Wyatt watched from the ramp in a rocking chair, how awesome was that? I also liked the renewed rivalry/match between Ohno and Steamboat. Paige and Big E Langston also impressive.
Slam
More El Local... R-Truth commentary... Pie Eating Contest... 3MB. Bizarre. Kind of funny.
Main Event
Was great. The best all-around show of the week, no doubt. Heated promos between Dolph Ziggler and the Miz warmed the crowd up for a really good, long, ppv-quality match. Ziggler got back on the mic afterward and cut an absolutely killer promo on Cena, Miz, and the whole roster. It ruled. Then Wade Barrett and Justin Gabriel had a shorter, decent match. The show closed with Damien Sandow coming out to cut a promo on Cena, hyping their Main Event match next week. It was a great, solid hour of pro wrestling goodness.
Raw
In respectful homage (not to be confused with blatant gimmick infringement) to the Rusty Report, I want to do a good/bad/ugly thing this week. I want to end on a good note though, so I added one more.
THE GOOD
-After the narrative opening (which we'll talk about later) the show started with a wrestling match. Action! I liked it because usually the show starts with lots of talking. It set a different tone, and right away I was wondering if the 3 guys were going to come out and jump Ryback.
-A short backstage segment sets up an impromptu feud/match with ADR and Khali. Obviously, this wasn't the wrestling highlight of the evening, but that minimal storyline was successful in giving the audience a reason to care about the outcome of the match, which made it more fun to watch. I wish there was a LOT more of that throughout the undercard.
-Cole interviews the 3 guys, or The Shield. Good talking from all 3 guys, their motivations were interesting, and we got a sense of their individual characters. I can't believe they kept Roman Reigns' name. He's totally stuck with it now. Maybe he can just be "The Roman" someday, like how Rock was Rocky Maivia at first.
-Alicia Fox was great in her losing effort against Tamina, who was much less impressive.
-Mixed feelings on this one. Kingston taking out Tensai was another big win, and it was a good little match. Wade Barrett was absolutely fantastic on commentary during the match. Still, I'm not into their feud. I really like them both, maybe I just don't want either one to lose. I want them both to be winners. And the Intercontinental belt somehow seems like a step backward for Barrett, who's got main event written all over him.
-WWE Universe voting. Now, I don't for a second think that Kane got more votes than Bryan, but I don't really care. It's just a way of adding relevant context to an otherwise throw-away match. I like that WWE does the twitter voting thing, and I like that they juke the numbers. That's pro wrestling!
THE BAD
-When Raw extended to 3 hours, one cool thing they stuck with for a while was having vignettes throughout that would have their own story and add kind of a theme to the show. The pre-Hell No skits were instant classics, Sheamus stealing ADR's car or meeting with Otunga in a lawyer's office were not classic, but at least they were original content that added to the watchability of the program. It seems like the vignettes have been replaced by long replays of previous Raws, or even replays from an hour before. We all knew it would happen, and it's the pits. They make me feel like I'm wasting time.
THE UGLY
-Worst narration opening ever.
-Cena/Vicki/AJ/Dolph blah blah blah WTF
-Ziggler losing to Cena. After all the time spent building this feud, it ends with a whisper in the middle of a tv show? This should have been a PPV match (and Dolph Ziggler should have won). This was by far the most frustrating thing that happened this week.
THE WONDERFUL
-Sheamus versus Antonio Cesaro. A really good, athletic wrestling match with plenty of time. The announcers put both guys over, and some of the spots in this match proved to be among the most memorable from the entire show. A classy affair all around.
I did an EVOLVE post today in the forums. I have been keeping my EVOLVE posts spoiler-free, in case that matters to anyone.
That's the final word from SCW's Canadian branch. We're boarding up now, soon to join the rest of the SCW Universe down in beautiful Oregon, USA. Hooooooooooo!
November 27, 2012
November 21, 2012
Outdated RR TV
Finally! Here it is. For some reason my wireless will randomly cut out every once in a while. And because this video takes awhile to upload, 30 minutes, I could never get it fully uploaded before my internet would die. So it took me about 7 tries to get it to work. But now it's up. And now you can watch, in vivid color, Frax, The Poncho Man (sans poncho) and the ECW champ Rusty Nickles talk wrestling in my living room.
November 20, 2012
SCN: 3MB Eclipsed
Greetings my little Lunas and Bam Bams,
No high-production affair this week, just gonna share some of my notes, then go back to stressing about moving and stuff. I didn't finish last week's material, so I'll start with...
Last week's Raw
I totally marked out when Punk's music interrupted Lawler's return speech. Punk's acidic promo on Lawler, and Heyman feigning cardiac arrest was gold, I loved every second of it. My favorite was when Punk said something like "if you don't sit down I'll beat you to death... again!" Awesome.
I was expecting a swerve with the Brad Maddox match, but it ended pretty flat, just the one-way beatdown that was expected. I don't know why they keep showing Maddox packages, I guess he might not be gone for good, but his Chapter One is certainly done.
Daniel Bryan's jealousy of Miz teaming with Kane was really funny. Their match versus the Scholars was entertaining, mostly due to Bryan's antics outside.
The main event was Cena versus Punk, a quality main event, and they had a good match. I thought the show ended with each guy looking good going into the 3-way at Survivor Series. Cena had his win over Punk, Ryback has lots of steam, and Punk always seems to have an ace up his sleeve.
One confusing thing about the show was that some of the feuds seemed mixed up. Ziggler was feuding with Cena, and Punk was feuding with Foley. However, Ziggler and Foley were the ones having the match at S.Series and there wasn't any kind of feud or even one promo to hype a possible rivalry, or build any heat for the match. Just thought that seemed off.
Smackdown
blah blah. Smackdown did NOT get me excited about Survivor Series.
Impact
There was more Jeff Hardy voice-over narration. So goddamn corny and bad. Kind of comically bad, except that it makes him seem so much more important than everyone else, which just ain't right.
Robert Roode stole James Storm's #1 contenders spot in a match he challenged him to. Confusing, pointless bait-and-switch booking from TNA? What?
NXT
No Regal on commentary, that was hard to get used to.
Ironically, the worst match was with two signed Divas, Layla and Aksana, which was so bad it was funny.
Prerecorded promo of Bray Wyatt preaching. So cool. Yesterday he tweeted "2 months" which has us internet bitch-marks all excited for him to debut on TV around Elimination Chamber time. I'm not too optimistic, most of the WWE's attention after the Rumble is strictly building Wrestlemania events, so it would be an awkward time to debut, but we'll see.
Main Event
Hell No versus The Scholars was a really good match EXCEPT that Cody Rhodes got fucked up. It was scary, he looked terrible. He was on the apron for the last 5 minutes looking like he was about to pass out or puke. He's since tweeted that his injuries aren't that bad, so he won't be sidelined for too long, which is great news because the Scholars are a phenomenal team.
ROH
The ROH tv show was uncommonly good this week. It started with Jay Briscoe cutting a great promo about how great ROH is, and he announces that in Jim Cornette's absence, the new "matchmaker" is Nigel McGuinness. Nigel comes out, puts the promotion over some more, and makes some matches for Final Battle: Steen vs. Generico in a ladder war for the world title, a 3-way for the tag titles, and Jerry Lynn's last match with ROH.
The main event of the show was another really good match between Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly, after which the victor is awarded a brand new, snazzy looking TV title belt. All around, this was my favorite wrestling show of the week. Which includes...
Survivor Series
Pretty "blah" overall. The 5 x 5 matches were cool, and the main event was okey. The AJ-Vicki segment was atrocious and a major waste of PPV time. In the Diva's match, Eve was acting exactly like Madison Rayne, doing the queen wave and acting flattered when she got the win. There was another TNA reference during the 3-way, when Punk used the Last Chancery (Austin Aries' submission) on John Cena, which I thought was pretty cool. Eve's gimmick infringement was not cool. Alice popped big time when Ziggler pinned Randy Orton after nailing him with a superkick, which would have been the highlight of the evening if not for the debuts of Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns. That was my big pop of the night for sure! I first mentioned Ambrose on the MMS last year in July, and I've been a big fan since. Seth Rollins is awesome in the ring, and it's exciting to have him brought up. Reigns I'm not as excited about, he's likely the one that WWE will push the most, even though he's much less experienced, but he doesn't suck, and I think I'll be a fan of his as well eventually.
Raw
Boy, would I be pissed if I had bought Survivor Series. Not so much for it's own merit, but because Raw was exactly the same stuff all over again. Can you imagine paying $60 for something, then getting it again the next day for free? Holy shit. AJ and Cena making out was GROSS. I was grossed out. And AJ's already kissed Primo, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, and Hornswoggle, so what's the big deal this time around? I did like Dolph's locker room promo, that was his best within memory, and I'm into his rivalry with Cena, even if the story around it is bogus.
I also liked Heyman's promo for Punk, and the 365 video package. Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns attacking Ryback again wasn't that exciting because I'd just seen them do that already. The whole show I was just waiting for them to come out and make a statement, but I guess I'll have to wait some more.
It's interesting that William Regal was taken out right before Ambrose's debut. They had a hell of a rivalry in FCW, and Regal stated many times on that show that he would like for Ambrose to be the guy to retire him. A Regal-Ambrose program on tv and ppv might be the 'smark' wet dream at this point. Here are their matches, if you'd like to see them, plus my favorite promo from the period:
In my extracurricular pro wrestling watching, I finished up the recent Dragongate USA events with Freedom Fight, the third show from the first weekend of the month. The production was much improved, and I think the storm must have been to blame for the shoddiness of the first one. They were still noticeably understaffed however, as Arda Ocal was the ring announcer, time keeper/bell ringer, and was solo on commentary. He was on top of it all though, and deserves a lot of credit for keeping the show fun to listen to. The matches were all solid, I'm sure if you just glanced at the card you wouldn't have much doubt that it was a really good wrestling show. Match of the night was the main event, a 4-way for the Open the Freedom Gate championship (their primary singles title) with Richochet, AR Fox, Akira Tozawa and defending champion Johnny Gargano.
I've also been catching up on EVOLVE shows, and should have another post up in Forum Smash soon.
Oh and Rusty, you've got a video Report? WITH the Poncho Man who I can't wait to meet in person? Do you know how many times I've looked at this webpage since Friday, hoping that there would be a new post? You tease!
No high-production affair this week, just gonna share some of my notes, then go back to stressing about moving and stuff. I didn't finish last week's material, so I'll start with...
Last week's Raw
I totally marked out when Punk's music interrupted Lawler's return speech. Punk's acidic promo on Lawler, and Heyman feigning cardiac arrest was gold, I loved every second of it. My favorite was when Punk said something like "if you don't sit down I'll beat you to death... again!" Awesome.
I was expecting a swerve with the Brad Maddox match, but it ended pretty flat, just the one-way beatdown that was expected. I don't know why they keep showing Maddox packages, I guess he might not be gone for good, but his Chapter One is certainly done.
Daniel Bryan's jealousy of Miz teaming with Kane was really funny. Their match versus the Scholars was entertaining, mostly due to Bryan's antics outside.
The main event was Cena versus Punk, a quality main event, and they had a good match. I thought the show ended with each guy looking good going into the 3-way at Survivor Series. Cena had his win over Punk, Ryback has lots of steam, and Punk always seems to have an ace up his sleeve.
One confusing thing about the show was that some of the feuds seemed mixed up. Ziggler was feuding with Cena, and Punk was feuding with Foley. However, Ziggler and Foley were the ones having the match at S.Series and there wasn't any kind of feud or even one promo to hype a possible rivalry, or build any heat for the match. Just thought that seemed off.
Smackdown
blah blah. Smackdown did NOT get me excited about Survivor Series.
Impact
There was more Jeff Hardy voice-over narration. So goddamn corny and bad. Kind of comically bad, except that it makes him seem so much more important than everyone else, which just ain't right.
Robert Roode stole James Storm's #1 contenders spot in a match he challenged him to. Confusing, pointless bait-and-switch booking from TNA? What?
NXT
No Regal on commentary, that was hard to get used to.
Ironically, the worst match was with two signed Divas, Layla and Aksana, which was so bad it was funny.
Prerecorded promo of Bray Wyatt preaching. So cool. Yesterday he tweeted "2 months" which has us internet bitch-marks all excited for him to debut on TV around Elimination Chamber time. I'm not too optimistic, most of the WWE's attention after the Rumble is strictly building Wrestlemania events, so it would be an awkward time to debut, but we'll see.
Main Event
Hell No versus The Scholars was a really good match EXCEPT that Cody Rhodes got fucked up. It was scary, he looked terrible. He was on the apron for the last 5 minutes looking like he was about to pass out or puke. He's since tweeted that his injuries aren't that bad, so he won't be sidelined for too long, which is great news because the Scholars are a phenomenal team.
ROH
The ROH tv show was uncommonly good this week. It started with Jay Briscoe cutting a great promo about how great ROH is, and he announces that in Jim Cornette's absence, the new "matchmaker" is Nigel McGuinness. Nigel comes out, puts the promotion over some more, and makes some matches for Final Battle: Steen vs. Generico in a ladder war for the world title, a 3-way for the tag titles, and Jerry Lynn's last match with ROH.
The main event of the show was another really good match between Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly, after which the victor is awarded a brand new, snazzy looking TV title belt. All around, this was my favorite wrestling show of the week. Which includes...
Survivor Series
Pretty "blah" overall. The 5 x 5 matches were cool, and the main event was okey. The AJ-Vicki segment was atrocious and a major waste of PPV time. In the Diva's match, Eve was acting exactly like Madison Rayne, doing the queen wave and acting flattered when she got the win. There was another TNA reference during the 3-way, when Punk used the Last Chancery (Austin Aries' submission) on John Cena, which I thought was pretty cool. Eve's gimmick infringement was not cool. Alice popped big time when Ziggler pinned Randy Orton after nailing him with a superkick, which would have been the highlight of the evening if not for the debuts of Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns. That was my big pop of the night for sure! I first mentioned Ambrose on the MMS last year in July, and I've been a big fan since. Seth Rollins is awesome in the ring, and it's exciting to have him brought up. Reigns I'm not as excited about, he's likely the one that WWE will push the most, even though he's much less experienced, but he doesn't suck, and I think I'll be a fan of his as well eventually.
Raw
Boy, would I be pissed if I had bought Survivor Series. Not so much for it's own merit, but because Raw was exactly the same stuff all over again. Can you imagine paying $60 for something, then getting it again the next day for free? Holy shit. AJ and Cena making out was GROSS. I was grossed out. And AJ's already kissed Primo, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, and Hornswoggle, so what's the big deal this time around? I did like Dolph's locker room promo, that was his best within memory, and I'm into his rivalry with Cena, even if the story around it is bogus.
I also liked Heyman's promo for Punk, and the 365 video package. Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns attacking Ryback again wasn't that exciting because I'd just seen them do that already. The whole show I was just waiting for them to come out and make a statement, but I guess I'll have to wait some more.
It's interesting that William Regal was taken out right before Ambrose's debut. They had a hell of a rivalry in FCW, and Regal stated many times on that show that he would like for Ambrose to be the guy to retire him. A Regal-Ambrose program on tv and ppv might be the 'smark' wet dream at this point. Here are their matches, if you'd like to see them, plus my favorite promo from the period:
In my extracurricular pro wrestling watching, I finished up the recent Dragongate USA events with Freedom Fight, the third show from the first weekend of the month. The production was much improved, and I think the storm must have been to blame for the shoddiness of the first one. They were still noticeably understaffed however, as Arda Ocal was the ring announcer, time keeper/bell ringer, and was solo on commentary. He was on top of it all though, and deserves a lot of credit for keeping the show fun to listen to. The matches were all solid, I'm sure if you just glanced at the card you wouldn't have much doubt that it was a really good wrestling show. Match of the night was the main event, a 4-way for the Open the Freedom Gate championship (their primary singles title) with Richochet, AR Fox, Akira Tozawa and defending champion Johnny Gargano.
I've also been catching up on EVOLVE shows, and should have another post up in Forum Smash soon.
Oh and Rusty, you've got a video Report? WITH the Poncho Man who I can't wait to meet in person? Do you know how many times I've looked at this webpage since Friday, hoping that there would be a new post? You tease!
November 14, 2012
Brass Thumbtacks
There's a part two, but I probably won't finish it til tomorrow. Part two will be all Raw. This one's everything else, including Chikara and DG USA. I'm trying to cram as much wrestling as possible into my last 3 weeks here, before I move.
Donst Stop Believin'!
I'm planning on sitting on the couch for another video episode later today, but right now I just wanted to direct you guys to some cool things I've seen and read on the net recently.
Here's the third in a set of three interviews with Tim Donst, the best promo guy in Chikara (and a very solid wrestler). Watching this video this morning wasn't the first time he's made me feel like a total mark. I love it.
Here's a really cool open interview Donst did on an online forum (an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit). There are a lot of dumb questions, but a lot of good ones too, and (more importantly) good answers.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11it68/iama_professional_wrestler/
If you think that's cool, Johnny Gargano is doing the same kind of thing later today.
Here's another interview I liked. It's with Chucky T and involves much less reading.
http://www.wrestleenigma.com/wrestle-enigma-exclusive-interview-with-dgusa-pwg-and-chikaras-chuck-taylor
Okey, that's it. Back later.
Here's the third in a set of three interviews with Tim Donst, the best promo guy in Chikara (and a very solid wrestler). Watching this video this morning wasn't the first time he's made me feel like a total mark. I love it.
Here's a really cool open interview Donst did on an online forum (an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit). There are a lot of dumb questions, but a lot of good ones too, and (more importantly) good answers.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11it68/iama_professional_wrestler/
If you think that's cool, Johnny Gargano is doing the same kind of thing later today.
Here's another interview I liked. It's with Chucky T and involves much less reading.
http://www.wrestleenigma.com/wrestle-enigma-exclusive-interview-with-dgusa-pwg-and-chikaras-chuck-taylor
Okey, that's it. Back later.
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