Ok, so I haven’t had any time to record ANYTHING this week, and since this weeks video was going to be the second “Week in Review” video, I figured I would at least write down my thoughts on the last week of TV that I would have talked about lol.
Bragging Rights 24/10/2010
The opener sees Bryan Danielson (or Daniel Bryan, whatever you want to call him) face off against Dolph Ziggler, in a Raw Vs Smackdown, US Champ Vs IC Champ match. I mentioned in my predictions that these two, given the time, could put on the MOTN, and holy FUCK did they deliver on my prediction. Not only was this an incredible contest between 2 great wrestlers that ended up being the MOTN, but its also a top 5 match of the YEAR for me. Just had exactly what I look for in a match; tremendous action without going spot heavy, a nice story (basic as it gets here, but basic is better than non existent), and some great false finishers without going into overkill. These two have some great chemistry, and I remember at the time thinking how awesome it would be if these guys could have a series of matches. Boy was I in for a surprise :D. Oh, and before I forget, to anyone in attendance at Bragging Rights, you were awesome. Hearing a crowd react the way they did to a great wrestling match made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Shows me that there ARE plenty of fans out there who can appreciate a great wrestling match when they see it, and don’t requite SPTOTZ~! and blood and weapons all the time (though they do break out a “we want blood” chant later in the night, but I’ll get to that). Since I haven’t reviewed this yet (I probably well at some point), I haven’t come up with an official rating or anything, but right now **** seems perfect for it.
Following such a great opener like that would be hard to do. And WWE failed. What do we get to follow up on that match? The tag titles being defended and raped as John Cena single handedly beats the TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS to make him and, of all fucking people, David Otunga, the new tag team champions (and the raping of the titles continues on Raw, but more on that later). I was happy that the tag titles were getting some PPV exposure… at first… but when Barrett announced Otunga and Cena as the opponents, I stopped caring and was no longer happy.
Ok, so the last match made me happy and then killed that happiness in seconds. I’d quickly get a smile back on my face as GOLDUST gets some PPV time! Goldust and DiBiase had one of the funnest matches of the year so far over on Superstars a month or so ago, and given how great Goldust is at carrying opponents, and the ability of DiBiase (that he does have but rarely has the opponent to show it), I had high hopes for the match. Once again, like the Superstars match, the commentary was funny as hell to listen to. For some reason whenever Maryse/Goldust/DiBiase are out there together, King and Cole decide to just have fun and be entertaining rather than forcing excitement like they normally do. When the commentators are clearly having fun like that, it helps ME have fun watching the match too. And while the actual wrestling isn’t as good as the Superstars match, its a solid midcard match and I’m glad both men and this feud got some PPV exposure. That and the fact the feud is continuing, with potential for more PPV exposure for Goldust, makes me extremely pleased :).
The WWE Divas title is defended next. It doesn’t change hands. Moving on…
Ahh, time for Buried Alive. The Undertaker Vs Kane for the WHC. I started off really loving this feud, and really enjoyed their NOC match too, but since then, aside from the return of Bearer, this feud has been going downhill faster than TNA in 2010. They had a pretty bad match at HIAC, which on paper I honestly felt had potential to be good, but it didn’t deliver AT ALL. So with this match being buried alive, which limits a lot of what they can do, and the poor build to it, not to mention Undertaker’s shoulder injury (which I am assuming is real after seeing this match), there was no way I was looking forward to this. That being said, I did kinda enjoy watching this match. I wouldn’t call it great, or even good, but the hot crowd kept me into the match. Its just a shame the match itself didn’t do a damn thing to warrant the fans being so crazy. Undertaker couldn’t do much other than kick and punch, and I don’t think he actually picked Kane up at ANY point due to his apparently injured shoulder. The fans chanted “we want blood” here, and while a chant like that would normally bother me, given the feud behind this match, and the match type, if this wasn’t a PG show it would have DEMANDED blood. But it is PG, and we don’t get blood. Not that it would have helped, but its not like someone bleeding would have been meaningless (like Flair bleeding in every single match and segment he is in these days seems to do). The finish is Nexus attacking Undertaker, allowing Kane to bury Undertaker alive and retain his belt while also “ending” his brother’s life. Except nobody believes that, especially when The Undertaker’s symbol shows up on the Tombstone. Not as obvious as his hand coming up out of the dirt like the first BA match in ’96, but lets face it, everyone knew 100% that Undertaker would be back when that happened (though most people knew 100% before that anyway lol).
So, how do we follow a match where one of the biggest legends of all time is buried alive? With the second half of the show! Seems kinda dumb that the buried alive match didn’t end the show. But whatever.
The match that DOES follow Undertaker “dying” is the Team Raw Vs Team Smackdown match. I was looking forward to this one ever since they announced it would be elimination. Plus there are a number of guys in the match I really like. Unfortunately this one didn’t turn out to be that great, rather it was only decent. Santino getting eliminated first was great, because he didn’t deserve to be in a match this big, but on the other hand it just goes to show everyone that Santino really didn’t deserve to be in a match this big lol. Was kinda pointless having him there. One thing I always hate about tag team elimination matches is when nobody on a team tries to break up a pin or submission. Are they fucking retarded? If this shit was real, I’d damn sure try and break up every single pin and submission attempt that I could to make sure my team didn’t fall behind. But no, this is wrestling, where logic seems to get lost along the way more often than it should. The finish was a big shock for me, with Smackdown actually winning. Given how much they had dominated Raw for the last week or so, I felt for sure that Raw would win. Not complaining too much, because Team Raw sucked for the most part, and all we need is The Jiz boasting every week how he was so awesome he single handedly made sure that Raw won or something.
With Raw Vs Smackdown out of the way, it leaves us with only one match; Orton Vs Barrett for the WWE title, and Cena in the corner of Barrett. Barrett had ordered Cena to make sure he won, otherwise he is fired from the WWE. One thing I am confused about with that stipulation, is how does the Raw GM have the authority to make sure Cena would be fired from WWE and not just Raw, and making it so SD couldn’t sign him? Again, just the lack of logic in wrestling. The match isn’t that good, but I wasn’t expecting it to be anyway. I was more interested in the whole Cena angle, similar to the HBK/JBL angle against Cena at the 09 Royal Rumble (which was done way better than this tbh), and in the end that seems to be what the focus was on for the finish. Cena gets Barrett the win via DQ when he attacks him before Orton can RKO him. Makes sense for the story and build up to Survivor Series nicely, but a DQ ending to a title match, and a main event at a PPV, is ALWAYS bullshit.
Overall, I did have a lot of fun watching this PPV, but in terms of quality and re-watch value, only the opener holds up.
Raw 25/10/2010
Raw starts with Nexus, where Wade talks about how Nexus won the tag titles at Bragging Rights, and how he won his match with Orton… but didn’t win the title, so he forces Cena to explain his actions. Yawn. The GM then decides to email Cole so he can tell us of a match tonight between Randy Orton and any member of Nexus, and whoever wins gets to pick the gust referee for Survivor Series in the title rematch between Orton and Barrett. Oh, I wonder who Barrett will pick… of course its Cena. John Cena. John Cena Vs Randy Orton. In a match. AGAIN. AARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I am fucking sick of WWE making matches with these two over and over again. They have only ever had ONE good match, and that was at NWO in 2008. The rest? They sucked. And yet they continue to book matches between the two. Over and over again. And they are never good. FUCK YOU WWE.
Remember how I mentioned WWE were raping the tag titles at Bragging Rights? Well, they continue it here, as Otunga brings up Cena F-U’ing him at Bragging Rights after they won the match. So Barrett decides that since they obviously can’t work together, they need to drop the belts to Gabriel and Slater. But since the Nexus don’t fight each other… Otunga is ordered to lay down. And he does (eventually). So we have new tag team champions. Again. In a bullshit match. Again. Did they watch Impact the other week and see how they were killing the KO title, and decide “Hey! We can outdo them when it comes to shitting all over a title! Not only will we shit on a title, we’ll shit on a title that already means fuck all so it means even less! Take THAT TNA!”. AAARRRGHHHH!!!
Again, remember what I said at Bragging Rights? This time about Ziggler and Danielson, and how I would love to see them have a series of matches. So what do we get on Raw? A fucking rematch between Ziggler and Danielson :D. Not quite as good as the Bragging Rights match, but fuck was this awesome. Probably the best Raw match of the year, and a top contender for TV MOTY (top 5 I’d say). And just when I thought things couldn’t get any better… out comes CM Punk for commentary during the match, and he then stares down Danielson at the end of it! Punk Vs Danielson? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YEAH!
Blah blah blah, lame backstage segments with some cowboy or something, followed by Cena and Barrett… followed by a divas match.
Oh god it gets worse. Out comes The Jiz. And what do ya know? He’s making bullshit excuses as to why Team Raw lost. Lame heel heat. So, things can’t possibly get worse than this, right? Out comes someone to interrupt The Jiz… and its… Eve? Of all people, its Eve? Urgh. This segment has hit rock bottom… right? Wrong. R-Truth comes out as well. Please, make it stop. Someone just make it stop. Raw GM sends an email, and its The Jiz Vs R-Truth. Whatever. Jiz wins. I’m struggling to care. Wait, that’s a lie, to struggle to care I’d actually be TRYING to care, and I just don’t.
That cowboy guy is back, only this time in the ring. This somehow leads to Sheamus Vs Santino. And WTF. Santino… wins? Santino WINS. Santino. The pathetic attempt at a “comedy” character. Wins. Against Sheamus. Former two time WWE chamption. Danielson, the US champion, couldn’t beat Sheaums, but SANTINO could? I… don’t know what to say. Ok, I do… why hasn’t my head exploded yet?
Backstage, its Nexus. And Otunga threatens to reveal why they attacked Undertaker the night before. Barrett then brings in Mr Charisma himself, Michael McGuilucutyrgfjfhty, and Husky Harris, and tells us they are now part of Nexus, and threatens Otunga right back, stating that Otunga is either Nexus or against us (them). Threatened by being bored to death by McGulihgdgfyt he gives in and bows to Barrett. Yawn.
Pee Wee Herman is the guest host next week on Raw. Again I ask the question “why hasn’t my head exploded yet?”.
Main event time, and its Orton Vs Cena for the 103843757626236737648584874576921757657657632657612110202000297th time. I just can’t bring myself round to watching anything involving these two any more. I skip to the end. Barrett essentially returns the favour, by attack Cena and getting him the win via DQ, so Barrett can choose the guest referee at Survivor Series. Despite the number of brain cells lost from watching this show, its still obvious to even me that Barrett will pick Cena. And he does, with the added stipulation that if Barrett doesn’t win the title (not just the match this time), Cena is fired. So, heel turn at SS for Cena?
Oh my god this show was awful. Aside from the wonderful Ziggler/Danielson match, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was fucking terrible. One of the worst Raw shows I have seen, and given how utterly shit some Raws have been, its really saying something.
Impact 28/10/2010
The show stars in the middle of a Tara/Mickie James brawl in the back, which brings in some more women (I don’t know who the fuck is who lol, and neither does Tazz apparenly), and the fight ends up in the ring where… Ric Flair tried to break it up? Why the fuck is Flair involved in this? He gets slapped a few times, threatens to fuck a couple of them, and tells them to stop because they will have a 6 women tag match later tonight. This whole thing lasted around 10 minutes. Too long for my liking, but the fans actually seemed to be into it, so that’s something I guess. Still don’t get why Flair got involved, and does being an “Immortal” give him the ability to make matches now? Is it just Flair than can do that, or the rest of Fourtune? Wait, never mind, its that whole logic thing again.
Backstage, the head trainer goes into Bischoff’s office to beg him not to let Anderson wrestle tonight. Surprise surprise, Anderson is still made to wrestle.
Pope promo in the ring, talking about Abyss, and something to do with a casket. Not really sure what I thought of this tbh lol. It wasn’t good, but I didn’t want to blow my brains out. I guess when it comes to TNA, and after Raw this week, not wanting to kill myself is a success.
More backstage stuff (20 minutes in after removing adverts btw) instead of matches, and this time Morgan is talking to Ric about his concerns with concussions and Anderson being forced to wrestle with a head injury. Flair tells him to forget this conversation.
Finally, a match. Shame it has that lame arse Jersey Shore gimmick guy than even the TNA fans don’t like. Yeah, TNA fans don’t like him. Can’t get any lower than that in wrestling. Anyway, the match is Lethal Vs Robbie E, and if Robbie wins he gets an X-Division title match. And its a street fight (Jersey Shore Street Fight to be more precise, which is just a street fight with Robbie’s lame gimmick attached to it). What I don’t get is that this match, should Robbie win, is just a lead up to another match between them for the title. So shouldn’t the title match be a gimmick? LOL, silly me, I shouldn’t be questioning the booking and writing of TNA’s fine creative team. An un-promoted gimmick match is bound to bring in the ratings as people will tune in to see it… except they don’t know its happening unless they are already watching the show! After some hair spray or something to the face by the annoying women, and a rather great looking Neck Breaker, Robbie E gets the win and a title shot at the next PPV! I wonder if they will try to out-gimmick themselves by going one better than a street fight, or if the payoff match to a street fight will be a normal match…
More lame backstage shit, and its another Katie Lee aka Winter segment where she shows up from out of nowhere and we only ever see her in the mirror, then she disappears when anyone else shows up. Lots of annoying talking between the women before and after Winter shows up too. The fact that we get this on both TNA and WWE is just… AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!
Hey look, more in ring segments instead of matches! 30 minutes into the show now (not including adverts) and we’ve still only had one match. This segment includes… EV 2.0! Yeah! Has-been and never-was guys! Tommy calls out RVD to talk about RVD not trusting anyone after his BFF Jeff Hardy turned on him. Why is Raven wearing some old army style jacket? Looks like a General or something lol… with jean shorts… and make up. I always hear people praise Raven for his promos, and tbh I’ve never understood it. He uses big fancy words a lot, but I wouldn’t say that makes his promos good. Here he doesn’t even seem to try to make his short promo good, he just throws out words that rhyme. Old man Flair comes out to save us with his mic skills, announcing some matches, for tonight and the next PPV. One of the Fourtune guys (not Morgan) doesn’t seem happy. Fuck, are they trying to make as many people in Fourtune not happy with Fourtune? Backstage, its more talking (SHOCK~!), with lame English stereotypes creeping in as usual because one of them is English lol. Flair calms everyone down and makes a point to say he won’t get “iced” again. Don’t get me started on that who “iced” shit.
40 minutes in now, and its the second wrestling match of the night (guessing about 50-55 minutes in total after adverts?)! Its the 6 women tag match, and it starts off as a big brawl just like earlier in the night, but finally slows down and turns into an actual tag match. I skip through it, because I don’t give a shit about women’s wrestling. Kinda hard to care these days thanks to WWE, and as good as TNA’s division might be, I don’t know 99% of the women and I honestly don’t care enough to sit down and get to know them.
Next up, more wrestling! LOL, got ya! Backstage segment. Pope and Abyss. Pope gets stuffed in the casket, and Abyss beats it up with the board with nails.
A couple of kids are in the ring with a mic. Shouldn’t security stop them? Oh wait, its Generation Me. Its a triple threat tag match, but before any wrestling happens we have to have a promo! God forbid we waste precious talking time with than annoying wrestling! Plenty of moves in this one, and I didn’t really like the match. Why do the commentators make a big point of asking what one of Gen Me was doing by pulling the ref out of the ring? This match was for the tag titles. Gen Me weren’t about to win, Ink Ink was. I think it was pretty FUCKING OBVIOUS why he pulled the referee out of the ring; to stop the count so the match would continue and maybe Gen Me could WIN. Guns win, and Team 3D show up for more talking, building up to their “retirement” match at the PPV against the Guns for the tag belts.
BACKSTAGE SEGMENT~! Morgan is talking to Bischoff now about what he spoke to Flair about. Bischoff, like Flair, doesn’t care.
MOAR BACKSTAGE SEGMENT~! MOAR Morgan too. This time he’s talking to Anderson… except we don’t see him talking to Anderson, we just know he’s going there. Ok. LMAO at Tazz saying that Morgan being concerned about the well being of Anderson has gone too far.
Jeff Hardy has a… ummm… promo I guess. Not in the ring, instead its a pre taped segment. And its awful.
Tag Match next, with AJ and Doug Williams against RVD and Raven. Yeah, none of the matches that have taken place have been something I wanted to watch, but at least this show actually HAS matches this week. They tease Williams being upset with AJ to continue with what happened earlier in the night, and they made it so RVD thought Raven was trying to screw him and shit. Yawn.
Main event time (what? no talking in between 2 matches?). A steel chain match between Jeff Jarrett and Anderson. And Morgan comes out instead of Anderson. So much for a match talking place without any talking first. Morgan is continuing with the whole concussion stuff, trying to convince Jarrett not to go through with the match. Instead Jarrett tells him to fuck off basically, causing Morgan to take Anderson’s place… and he loses. Ummm… what? Why? Fourtune show up to beat the hell out of Morgan, so wouldn’t Morgan winning have been a more logical choice? Ooops, sorry. Logic. I keep forgetting that it has no place in wrestling.
Wow. Ummm… what a weird fucking show. It didn’t anger me as much as Raw did, but there was absolutely NOTHING worth seeing at all. Hell, without looking at what I have just written, I can barely remember anything that happened on this show except for the last 2 or 3 segments… and I JUST watched it. I’m not sure which is worse; a terrible show that I will remember, or a show that is just so “meh” I forget as soon as I’ve seen it.
Smackdown 29/10/2010
Didn’t get chance to see Superstars this week, so its onto SD, which starts with some very very very very very weird video of Undertaker being buried alive, and then walking in a dark empty room to a door, which he opens, releasing lots of light, and he walks through the door and into the light. I guess Undertaker really is dead then, if he was able to RECORD A VIDEO for the beginning of Smackdown! LOL, do they even have a reason for how/why that video happ… wait, more logic. Dammit.
SD officially starts with Kane and Paul Bearer talking about the last episode of CSI. Ok, fine, he was talking about The Undertaker being buried alive. Duh. He gets interrupted by Alberto Del Rio… who at the time I thought they were going to try and turn face, and I almost threw something at the screen. Until Rey showed up and it became clear it was just a way to build to a multi-man match for the title, or a match between Rey and Del Rio… and now Edge who also shows up. Kane gets taken out, Paul Bearer gets taken out, and Edge stands tall in the end. Great way to make Kane look like a pussy, getting his arse kicked on 3 separate occasions by Del Rio, Mysterio and Edge, after he just “ended” The Undertaker’s life.
Danielson and Ziggler had an awesome match at Bragging Rights, then on Raw they had a great rematch… and now on Smackdown we are getting a third match between them! Awesome. Just awesome. Thanks to Vickie Guerrero I am now deathly afraid of animals with spots. Match is good, but a big step down from the other two tbh. Not saying its bad, but the other two were way better. Being as good as this is though, being called the “worst” match of their series just tells you how good the series has been.
Jack Swagger and Kaval have a nice little match. Nothing amazing, but enjoyable for sure. Shame Kaval loses yet again.
The divas are out next, dressed like idiots, and they have a short match. The less said about it all the better.
Dashing Drewo are facing Big Show and Kofi next. Honestly I didn’t care enough to watch it. Show gets the win for this team with a massive chokeslam, and Drew ignores Cody asking for help, and lets him get slammed and pinned. In a backstage segment, they break up (Awwww… lol).
Main event time (what? no talking first?), and its Rey Vs Del Rio Vs Edge for the #1 contendership. Fun triple threat, but nothing more tbh. Triple threat matches for me are rarely “great”. Most of the time its just a one on one match with someone laid on the outside, then he comes in and send someone else to the outside and we get another one on one match, then some crazy moves towards the end. Triple threat matches are supposed to be one on one on one, so why do they ALWAYS insist on leaving a guy out most of the time? Sometimes it works, but most of the time it just kinda seems pointless. Very few triple threat matches do it right imo, and this wasn’t one of them. Some good stuff in it no doubt, and its far from a bad match, but its limited by the formula most guys go with for this kind of match. Shame really. Still, it was much better than anything I saw on TNA this week, and aside from all 3 Danielson/Ziggler matches, this one was of the best matches of the week too, so its not bad by any means lol.
Overall, a solid show. WAY different from TNA, and its even more apparent given the fact I watched them back to back. TNA is just filled with dozens of pointless backstage segments, and the matches are usually around 5 minutes max, whereas SD has one big main segment, one of two backstage ones, and 4 or 5 matches that are actually given around 10 minutes. Ziggler/Danielson, Swagger/Kaval and the triple threat matches are all worth seeing, which is more than I can say for anything on Impact and anything on Raw and even Bragging Rights (aside from Ziggler/Danielson).
So, that’s everything wrestling I watched this week. No ROH, haven’t watched that since the beginning of the year, and no Superstars as I didn’t have the time. Overall… aside from Ziggler/Danielson, it hasn’t really been a good week at all. Raw made me want to shoot myself, Impact was forgettable as hell, and Bragging Rights had one match worth seeing. Thankfully SD once again proves to be THE wrestling show of the week though :).
. BUT, their HIAC match was pretty trash, and now it seems Undertaker is injured again (shoulder) 
. With Undertaker injured, its easy to predict Kane to win and keep the belt, but this is WWE, and the reports of Undertaker’s injury have come from teh interwebs so we don’t know how trusted they are, so Undertaker could still walk away as the winner. And hell, I’ll predict The Undertaker to bury his brother and win the WHC, then drop it at the SS, putting someone else over for the WHC on his 20th Anniversary show so he can go heal up and come back for WM.