One Wild Week

Talk about a crazy week. When last we ranted Ring of Honor was coming off a great iPPV and Monday Night RAW was ramping up. Then the rollercoaster began. I moved this week from my shoe box apartment to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Ok, a nice townhouse in the burbs, but still feeling like George Jefferson. That meant I lost my internet for the week because I had to switch providers. Hoping Xfinity is as a good as Cox, which shouldn’t be hard because Cox sucked.

Then when I got my Internet on Friday, the worst storm outside of a hurricane in Virginia’s history came busting through the state like Shockmaster goes through a brick wall. In short, it was a big disaster. We lost power until the end of the weekend. Now it looks like things are back to normal. Just in time for a new Monday Night Raw tonight.

Instead of writing a ton about old news, I figured I would do a week in review to get everyone caught up in the wacky world of wrasslin’. Monday Night Raw was one of the best episodes in months. TNA again goes up and down with great moves and boneheaded decisions. Plus the spirit of ECW won’t die.

First, Vickie Guerrero should be the GM of RAW and Smackdown after her showing last week. I missed Smackdown due to the storm, but RAW was hands down one of the best episodes in months. The beginning talk was limited to five minutes, and the opening three way dance was off the charts good. Again if CM Punk and Daniel Bryan wrestled for all three hours every week, the WWE couldn’t go wrong. They are hands down the two best talents in professional wrestling today. There is nobody who is even in their league. Then Austin Aries right behind them.

No better example of this is Kane. Do you remember the last time Kane looked this good? How about never! I think you could put the Great Khali in a feud with Bryan & Punk, and he would look like a stud. That’s literally possessing the ability to have a great match with a broom.

The match set the whole tone for the show, and it seemed like the rest of the talents felt the need to step things up. When Ziggler turns face, I really hope Albert Del Rio is in his future. The two could have some great mid-card matches that would add to any pay per view. The hot potato gimmick at the end of their match was a little bit of stretch, but they made it work.

Sheamus being excited about defending his belt in a triple threat is a little stupid. Who gets excited about defending a title in a match where you can lose your belt without being beaten? I guess ginger the moron ghost does. Then again he probably saw the booking sheet, and realized no champion gets beat on a taped show.

Even John Cena’s promo was good. I’m a Star Wars geek, and Cena had me cracking up. I might be biased, but his Yoda was sweet. It was a good moment to showcase the WWE title contract ladder match for Money In The Bank, which is making the PPV tip towards the “buy list”.

At the end of the day Monday Night Raw had good matches, some storyline advancements, and set up the pay per view with interesting tid bits. It did everything a free wrestling television show is supposed to do.

Bryan pinned Punk, so now we have them wrestling for the title at the PPV. It makes sense, and on Smackdown we found out AJ will be the ref. That makes even more sense. The former WWE champs compete in the ladder match, and that gives viewers an All Star cast who don’t usually wrestle in these danger matches. Plus I wouldn’t be surprised for a Rey Mysterio inclusion this week. Finally new talent is getting highlighted with the World title ladder match. Yup this was a good week for the WWE.

On the other hand TNA continued its rocky boat ride. The Gut Check segment last week was a highlight, but having Taeler Hendrix win this week ruined it all. Her showing was subpar at best. Her look isn’t that good. It just screamed, “This is a huge work”. She didn’t cut the mustard, yet TNA gave her a contract. It just took a giant dump on the whole angle. These judges were worse than the blind mice scoring the Bradley vs. Pacquiao fight. It ruined an entire angle that I will have a hard time taking serious in the future.

On the bright side the X-division tournament is a great idea. Using current TNA wrestlers and outside talent is another awesome way to show all the promising young talent on the indie circuit. There is potential for unique matches that bring a new perspective to the X-division. This has me excited to see the Destination X PPV that already has promise with Austin Aries & Robert Roode.

The Bound for Glory series is still going on. It’s still over complicated. It still makes no sense. Does the booking committee get ten points for making me tap out and change the channel when they start talking about the ins and outs of this convoluted brain child? If so then they’re on their way to 100, and quick.

Oh and Boobs Hogan had more camera time. Anyone else notice her face is what Hulk Hogan would like if he wasn’t going bald? Yeah that’s what I found out when I put it on mute. Poor Knockouts have to pretend they care what she has to say. No wonder Angelina Love left the company.

I refuse to talk about the AJ and Dixie segments. That’s talent abuse. AJ needs to be in one of those Sarah Mclachlan SPCA commercials after this whole angle is done. Just show his face in black and white with a sad song in the background. Then we can donate money so TNA never does this again.

TNA needs to figure out a lot before they commit too much to going down the over booked bad segment trail. This week’s episode was not going in the right direction. Just like Extreme Rising.

For those that don’t follow the indie scene, then you might not know about the ECW bastard child known as Exteme Rising. It is a cash grab by Shane Douglas to squeeze what is left out of the beaten corpse of ECW. After the first show that ended up being a trainwreck, they had round two over the weekend. It was two shows in New York City and Philly.

The concept is to take old ECW stars and mix them with new stars. This weekend was a positive start in rebuilding from the flaming crap storm that was their initial show. Yet this need to somehow associate the promotion with ECW only hamstrings how the shows will be seen. It will always be compared to ECW, and that won’t help the promotion. ECW was not as amazing as people remember, because like when people die, nobody remembers how big a douche bag they really were, but only the good moments. The same can be said for ECW.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved ECW. It was one of the reasons I got into wrestling. Yet people today seem to forget that ECW had its bumps. It had its failings. Anyone remember their deal with TNT? Yet now it is thought of as this promotion that did no wrong, and having Extreme Rising live in that shadow is going to make fans hold this new promotion to an unreachable standard.

I think that covers the week that was. I’m looking forward to RAW tonight, but history doesn’t look favorable as pre-holiday shows usually tread water instead of advancing storylines. Then again Punk & Bryan will deliver, and Jericho is back. Plus we should get some Ziggler love. All that is a good base for a quality RAW, and that is all I can ask for. That and AJ Styles getting traded to the WWE for Tensai. That should be part of the lawsuit settlement between TNA and the WWE.