• Wrestling News & Wrestling Rumors – WWE & TNA

Well, I finally broke down and decided to start my own blog site. I’m going to review and make my opinions on the WWE and TNA shows. First and foremost, these are my opinions, so you don’t have to agree to them. Some information on me, I’ve been watching wrestling for over 25 years, since the days of Hulk Hogan, Iron Sheik and Roddy Piper. No matter how bad the shows get, I stick it out. I stuck it out through the God awful mid 90’s crap with Godwinns, wrestling plumbers and the resurrection of Undertaker, and I’m still here. Guess you can say I’m a diehard fanatic. OK, now for starters, I’m not a fan of John Cena, Triple H or Batista. I was a fan of Shawn Michaels back in the day, but now I think it’s time to step down and let the new generation have a shot. As for the previous 3, I find Batista annoying and just an Ultimate Warrior clone, Cena is just frustrating to watch and is not entertaining to me. Triple H, I used to really enjoy watching, but ever since his return after the blown quad in 2001 he’s just not the same. Between the politics and injuries, he’s gotten worse, but still on top. When he’s with Shawn Michaels backstage they are hilarious, but in the ring not so much. Anyway enough back-story, let’s get to this week’s edition of Monday Night RAW.

We open RAW with Randy Orton, and there’s the first issue with RAW. Do we have to open with a promo every week, especially when the promos are just same tired garbage every week? Anyway Orton talks about all the usual crap, and out comes this week’s guest host, Jesse the Body Ventura. Jesse talks about doing something new and innovative, a breakthrough battle royal. Well this should be good, at least we should someone new pushed, I hope.

Match 1: Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler. I’m not going to go over the match blow by blow. Other people do that, so no point. Kofi comes out to a huge pop and lock eyes on Orton as he leaves. I’m surprised Orton didn’t attack Kofi just then. Surprisingly a good match between two talented young athletes, but was no surprise in the end. Kofi wins with the Trouble in Paradise.

Ok, I’m not even going to bother with the silly Thanksgiving things backstage. This one seemed to be pretty lame if you ask me, and I assume we’re going to do these all night, just a reason to get Miz to say his catchphrase. I guess no Miz tonight?

Match 2: Sheamus vs. Finlay. This would be a rematch from past Friday’s Smackdown. It was quite a nice brawl, but a little too quick and decisive for my liking. Sheamus hits the Border Toss for the finish and joins Kofi in the battle royal tonight. After the bell, Sheamus gets back in and tosses Finlay around before hitting the big boot knocking Finlay into the crowd.

Jesse Ventura and Randy Orton backstage, Orton whines and complains he’s a victim or conspiracies? Ok, whatever on that, you headline how many PPVs and there’s a conspiracy? Sure, maybe if you’re Shelton Benjamin or Gail Kim but not Orton k?

Match 3: CM Punk vs. John Cena. Ok, here’s another problem with WWE, first time matchups on free TV. They did this with Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho on Smackdown and now this match. Either one would have made for a good PPV match. Reminds me of when Goldberg vs. Hulk Hogan headlined Nitro back in 98 instead of being on PPV, mistake! Anyway, a surprisingly good Cena match, thanks to CM Punk. Pretty lengthy match, with both guys hitting some great moves. End comes with Punk missing the knee in the corner and Cena hitting the previously known as FU from the second rope for the win.

Jesse Ventura backstage is visited by Mr. McMahon. One of the better backstage segments of the night as Jesse says he’s not here to challenge Vince like Roddy Piper did last week. Instead Jesse basically rips Vince apart and humiliates him, talking about Vince’s dad having no confidence in him and making him an announcer. Wow, I bet Michael Cole, Matt Striker and the others feel great about being announcers now! Jesse then says he and Vince will be doing commentary tonight and hands Vince a tuxedo and a little red bowtie. This would have been priceless had Jesse given Vince a powder blue or pink suit instead, those were classics of Vince in the 80’s.

Match 4: Jack Swagger, Chavo Guerrero & Chris Masters vs. MVP, Mark Henry & R-Truth. Well, it’s easy to see who’s going to win this match, anyone think Chavo or Masters have a chance? We’re supposed to take Chavo seriously after being beaten by Hornswoggle for the last four months? Anyway, not a bad match, but almost felt like an old squash match from WWF Superstars. Truth pins Masters with the flying forearm for the win, earning his team the chance to be in the battle royal.

We go backstage once again, this time with D-X. The only time they entertain me is when they’re not in the ring. Triple H asks Shawn what was up with kicking him last night. Shawn says sorry but says HHH was going to pedigree him anyway. A midget arrives and hands them a letter, they’re being sued by Hornswoggle and going to “little people’s court” next week. Oh for crying out loud, do we really need this garbage, seriously? That is going to be fast forward time next week. I’m so tired of Hornswoggle and his crap, he ruined Finlay, he ruined Chavo and he’s not entertaining or interesting. Just go away already, OK? D-X makes short jokes as we go to commercial.

Match 5: Evan Bourne vs. Primo. Guess we need a jobber to make Evan look good since he’s been doing nothing lately. Of course neither has Primo, who comes out he’s attacked from behind by Randy Orton. Bet they don’t even mention it next time we see Primo. Booking idea for Vince, have Carlito come out next week and attack Orton for attacking his brother, thus pushing Carlito! Ah, never happen, he’s not in the inner circle of Vince’s so Carlito’s the forgotten one, just like Charlie Haas or Jimmy Wang Yang. Anyway, Orton in the ring demands to be in the match, and the show drops in quality as Jesse allows it. Well, this was a good RAW till now. Jesse says is Orton wins he’s in the battle royal, yippee! Orton basically squashes the much more talented Evan Bourne and Orton is now in the battle royal.

Match 6: Mickie James, Melina & Kelly Kelly vs. Michelle McCool, Layla & Jillian Hall. Well I’ll be honest only two divas I care about Mickie & Jillian. Melina has been the queen of botched moves for last few weeks, Layla & Kelly were better off as Extreme Expose on ECW and Michelle…well I don’t see the appeal to her at all. I hate how Smackdown announcers praise her constantly and say she’s the best Diva ever. That was Trish Stratus people; Michelle McCool is not and will never be close to Trish’s talent. Before team Mickie is introduced, we get a special Time Keeper, the Gobbledy Gooker…gee I bet that’s Maryse under there. The match starts and the match ends. No seriously, that’s how quick they did it. Mickie and Kelly didn’t even get in the ring. What the heck was the freaking point to making it a six diva match when two of them are not even in the ring at all? After the match Jerry Lawler gets in the ring to interview Melina, when’s the last time they did an in ring interview after the match and someone didn’t get attacked? Gooker is behind Melina, just off camera, can see her removing the gloves then the head, and Gooker nails Melina. Of course it’s Maryse. Maryse beats down Melina, has a better match with the costume then six divas just had, and does her hair toss thing.

Match 7: DX vs. Hart Dynasty. Natalya looks great as always! This don’t bode well for the Hart Dynasty, you really think Shawn or Hunter would lose either of these two? Not happening as Shawn superkicks DH Smith and HHH hits the pedigree on Kidd for the win. Yeah, that went about as well as I expected it. After the match Chris Jericho comes out and says at the next PPV it’ll be DX vs. Jerishow in a TLC match. I hate how close together these PPVs are getting; we get no build up, just a quick match thrown together. At least this keeps HHH, Shawn and Show out of the main event spots!

As we come back from the commercial Rey Mysterio’s music comes on. And out comes…Batista…they should’ve had him come out from the hole like Rey does, that would’ve been funny. Batista cuts another boring promo about beating the crap out of Rey last night and then challenges Undertaker. Out comes Kane for a brilliant rebuttal that sounds like a Harvard scholar. Wait no, never mind he just challenges Batista and Batista leaves the ring as Kane does his pyro.

Match 8: Cryme Tyme vs. Legacy. This is the last qualifier for the battle royal tonight. With 4 faces and only 2 heels in the battle royal it’s kind of a given who’s going to win here. Honestly not a bad match considering who’s in it, Ted hits Dream Street on Shad for the unsurprising win.

Ok, the only good Thanksgiving skit of the night. Of course that means it can only be one man. The man…the myth…the legend…SANTINO!!! Ok this guy is too damn funny, he needs his own show, seriously, I think put him and Jillian in a comedy together and you got gold. Think about it Santino as an old school Italian and Jillian as a wanna be singer, they could be the next Desi and Lucy. OK, so Desi was Cuban, it’s still a funny accent, right? Damn, I can actually the crickets. Ok, but it was funny to me though. Anyway, back to the skit, it starts with the underutilized Gail “Should’ve stayed in TNA” Kim talking about what she’s thankful for. Out comes Alicia Fox, as they both pick up pies that are conveniently left nearby, Santino interrupts saying they should make meals for the husbands or boyfriends, this gets him not one but two pies in the head. The Bella Twins come in and he tries to get a meal from them, that sounded dirty, and he eats more pie, ok that sounded even dirtier, you know what I mean. Santino asks for a napkin and Eve comes out to help clean Santino up and Santino says that’s what she’s good for. BAM! Santino takes yet another pie to the face. Santino can’t see as Vickie comes up with yet another pie, how many pies have to die to make you people laugh? Santino throws his hands up on these women and knocks the cake into Vickie’s face without even realizing it. It was goofy but funny as Santino just has that ability.

Match 9: The Breakthough Battle Royal. Before the match starts we get our guest commentators. First out is Jesse Ventura to a nice pop. Jesse says he wants to turn the clock back twenty years and introduces his broadcast partner, Vince McMahon, who comes out in the tux with his little red bowtie. Very Bob Backlund like. In the battle royal we have Kofi, Ted, Cody, Randy, Sheamus, MVP, Mark Henry, & R-Truth. Randy does the classic heel move of hiding outside the ring, ala Vince McMahon or Jerry Lawler. Sheamus gets the first elimination as R-Truth goes out, Sheamus then eliminates MVP next. Henry tries to toss Sheamus, but Legacy gets involved. Mark double clotheslines both Legacy members out and then Sheamus gets his third elimination as he takes out Henry by himself. That was a very impressive feat by the Celtic Warrior. We’re down to the final three, Kofi, Orton and Sheamus. I fear the worst as I can see TLC headlined by Orton and Cena again, the horror of it all. Thankfully Kofi spares us the pain of Cena/Orton chapter 2654 as Orton goes out. Sheamus immediately knocks Kofi over the top and we have a new number one contender, Sheamus!

We come back from commercial for the official contract signing. Cena has a seat while Sheamus stands on the other side of the table. Sheamus demands Cena stand up and face him. Cena does his usual blah-blah about conquering the odds, blah-blah-blah. Sheamus signs and so does Cena, Jesse holds up the contract, and then says to Cena, there is a conspiracy, a conspiracy to keep the tile on Cena. Jesse says all the things people have been saying for years about Cena, and I love it. As Cena is distracted Sheamus kicks Cena in the face and slams him through the table. Jesse says look at your champion and the title match in three weeks will be a table match. Sheamus grabs the title and holds it high as we go off the air.

Overall an interesting RAW, the opening was great, some interesting matches and an amazing ending. When Orton was added to the battle royal I honestly thought the worst and was very happy to see someone new as top contender. Worst part of the show was the diva match, as usual with the divas very rushed and should’ve just been a one on one match with Melina and maybe Layla to bring back Maryse. I was very happy to see Mickie James, but she didn’t even get in the ring, so… After a very surprisingly good Survivor Series last night this was a nice change of pace for RAW. Guess we shouldn’t get used to it, next week Verne Troyer, aka Mini-Me is hosting. I assume we’re going to have lots of midget jokes, plus the “little people’s court”, should be a fast forwardatahon for next week. Well, that’s my first blog, hope you liked it. I’ll be back with my first ECW recap. Later!