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!
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