Bleacher Report - Articles by Mike Valentyne

Matt Hardy To Jeff Hardy: "Where's My Rent Money?"

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:39:42 -0500

So, the Royal Rumble ends and as things change, the more they stay the same. For example: Jeff Hardy gets screwed over by his brother, Matt and loses the WWE title. How is this the same story, you may ask.

Simple: It's the WWE pulling out the worst possible reveal that they can for a much anticipated story.

Jeff was attacked back in November by a mystery attacker and Edge was blamed. Someone tried to run Jeff off the road in his hometown and Edge was blamed. Someone sabotaged the pyros and Edge was blamed. So, instead of the WWE revealing that the mystery attacker was Christian, the big reveal was Matt Hardy.

Granted, Christian might not be signed, but wouldn't someone else from Jeff's past that is in the company been a better choice to help push someone else? Someone like Greg Helms. But no, Matt Hardy is apparently the best choice.

Really? Matt Hardy? How does this make any sense? Matt is Jeff's older brother and has said time and time again that he would do anything for him. Jeff even moved into Matt's house after Jeff's house burned down. This was stated on the WWE website. So hitting him with a chair and costing him his title is a little strange.

But wait, the WWE might go with the "I wanted to be world champion and I'm jealous" story. But didn't Matt have the ECW title before Jeff won the WWE title? Didn't Matt come down during Jeff's title match and remove Vladimir Kozlov from the ring to make sure no one interfered?

And didn't Edge take Lita away from Matt in real life which ended up with Matt being fired, rehired, and putting on some of the best matches of his career with Edge? Why would he help him win the title? I'm confused.

I'm sure the WWE will pull a very contrived story out of nowhere and try their hardest to make me care. But what they fail to see is the fact that they tried this before when both the Hardy's where huge faces and it failed. Why take the momentum that Matt has right now, and has yet to lose since he was rehired, and try to turn him heel?

Is two face Hardy's such a hard concept for Vince to write around? Is Vince still mad that Matt blew a story line when his girlfriend cheated on him? Or does Jeff owe Matt months of back rent for living in his house for so long?

Either way, it's going to be really awkward at the Hardy house tonight when Jeff gets home and finds all his stuff outside and the locks changed.

RAW Recap 11/24/08 Or Back To Basics

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:55:09 -0500

The first show of the new "season" of WWE wraps up and it's time to see if there will be any differences this time around.

The show opens up with Shane driving into the arena. I really liked the tracking shot they did with it as it created a sense of urgency. It was funny to see Shane give Ziggler his coat as he walked by.

Surprisingly enough, this talking segment between Shane and Stephanie didn't bother me like most talking segments. Probably because it wasn't as long as most of them and a match started right after in the same segment.

I am a little bothered that they're going with the same sibling rivalry story between the two of them. Especially since there wasn't much build up for it. It just came abruptly.

The first match of the evening sees The Miz and John Morrison versus Shawn Michaels and Rey Mysterio in a rematch from last week. As good as this match was last week, they shouldn't have done a rematch or at least not this quickly.

The match was more or less the same as last week. Good spots and nice pacing, which sadly made it boring because we just saw this match.

The end sees Rey hitting a sunset flip power bomb for the win. I didn't understand the point of having Miz and Morrison job. Why push these guys as the best tag team in the company and have them lose big matches or take away big wins from them?

After the match, Morrison relentlessly attacks Shawn. JBL comes to the ring and it was blatantly obvious that he was going to attack Morrison. The WWE is getting too predictable.

Backstage, JBL tells Todd Grisham that he made a deal with Shawn and leaves it at that. Sounds like another convoluted story is about to begin.

Mr. Kennedy makes his return to promote his new movie and run a strange and pointless video about Barak Obama. This segment really could have been cut out.

The first match in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament is next seeing Kofi Kingston versus Kane. This match was decent at best.

Kofi was all over the place like you'd expect him to be. There really wasn't anything special about this match. Kane gets himself disqualified by not breaking a hold.

Kane continues to attack and Stephanie comes out and shows why she shouldn't be allowed to talk. She gave Kane two choices. Beat up Kofi or fight John Cena next week on RAW. How does anything she just said make sense? Kane already beat up Kofi and the match next week is non title. This was the most pointless thing of the night.

Also, after looking at the bracket, I'm very disappointed that Jamie Noble isn't involved in this. The WWE just completely dropped the story between these two, which is terrible because this was the best feud they had on RAW.

Chris Jericho versus Batista versus Randy Orton for the number one contendership is next. I don't understand why Jericho doesn't automatically get a rematch clause. He just lost the title to someone who didn't earn a title match. Jericho should be given a rematch.

This match was the typical triple threat with one person out so the other two could work. They did have some good pin breaks and reversals but other than that, not exciting.

Jericho gets the win after Batista spears Orton and Jericho gets the cover. Now that Jericho won the match, this number one contender thing really didn't make sense. If the plan was for Jericho to get his rematch anyway, why waste time on air for something like this? Couldn't they have given someone else the TV time?

Santino Marella versus Goldust is next. This match was actually longer than I thought it was going to be. I personally think that Goldust's time in the ring is over and he shouldn't have been resigned as an active wrestler and the fact that he beat Santino bothers me.

Santino has been jobbing out and generally being disrespected as a character recently. He's nothing but a comedy gimmick and the fans don't take him serious. I could see the point of this if he was a publicity face that went on talk shows all the time to promote the product, but he doesn't.

Backstage, Orton walks past Priceless and they stare each other down before Orton walks away. The way this story has been going, I'm surprised Orton didn't beat them up. This whole Priceless thing is getting old and Priceless looks incredibly weak. I don't understand how anyone can take them as a legitimate threat anymore.

The next match in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament sees C.M. Punk fight Snitsky. William Regal came to ring side to watch the match which indicates that C.M. Punk will win the whole thing and fight Regal.

As much as I want to see this feud, I really want the Regal/Noble feud to continue. Those two had the ability to perform the best matches of the year and they were never given the chance.

Punk gets the win with the Go To Sleep, which I found kind of funny. The last time Punk used the Go To Sleep on Snitsky, he broke his nose.

Rey Mysterio is backstage talking about being in the tournament when Mike Knox shows up and stares him down. I'm getting really tired of the new big guy showing up on a show and attacking all the smaller wrestlers. It doesn't give Knox and credibility and it makes who ever he goes through look bad.

Beth Phoenix, Jillian, and Katie Lea versus Mickie James, Candice, and the returning Melina is next. The blown spot with the titantron revealing Melina's name early was really funny and the fact that Jerry Lawler just called it out was hilarious.

This match was designed to showcase Melina and it worked very well. She looked good and doesn't seem like she lost a step. Not saying that she was one of the best wrestlers in the locker room but definitely better than Candice because she didn't get worse with an injury.

Melina gets the pin on Jillian after a split leg bulldog pin. It was also great to see Milena Roucka as a plant in the audience. The fact that she was holding up a "Glamazon in Training" sign says that it's going to be awhile before she gets in the ring as they need to build the story.

Hopefully, the WWE will pull the trigger faster with this than TNA and Rain. Rain was planted in the audience for almost three months before she got together with Robert Roode. If Roucka is in the audience that long, than this story is pointless.

Jericho comes out and talks smack about John Cena. Cena is seen in the hallway with a bunch of kids as he responds. It really seemed weird to have Cena surround by kids, but I guess they would be his loudest fans.

Cena comes down and does the typical wrestling rebuttal. Jericho calls him a coward and Cena beats the hell out of him. The style of attack that Cena did was that of a heel but the fans ate it up. I thought this was very strange and seems like creative is telling Cena to do whatever because they can't seem to keep the fans on one side.

Overall, a decent show. No single match that came off as amazing but also nothing too terrible. The return of Kennedy and Melina with the introduction of Roucka makes this RAW slightly different from others. But I'm getting tired of waiting for Gail Kim to make her return. John Cena only coming out once was a good idea. My rating: C+

Bret Hart Book Signing Review (11/16/08)

Mike Valentyne — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:26:25 -0500

Today, I had the "honor" of heading down to Sterling, Va., and meeting Bret Hart for the first part of his U.S. book tour. It only took me an hour to drive down to the local Borders and get details of the event.

As I walked into the establishment, carrying my own copy of Bret's book that I ordered months ago from a Canadian bookstore online, I approached the information desk.

The kind gentleman behind the counter informed me that they were going to give away bracelets to people who buy Bret's book that day at the store.

Okay, a minor setback and a miscalculation on my part. I should have assumed that a bookstore would want you to buy the book from them to have it signed by the author. No big deal.

I purchase my new copy of the American printing of Bret's book and decided to hit town as I had about 4 hours to kill. I venture off and come back around 3 o'clock to see many, many wrestling fans standing around waiting to see Bret.

No surprise here because whenever a wrestler shows up to the Virginia area, they get swamped. So I go and wait around the signing table, as the official line hasn't formed just yet, when the manager of the Borders shows up with the rules.

Apparently, Bret will only sign one piece of memorabilia for every book you bought from the store. So if you purchased one book, he'll sign one thing. If you bought 20 books, he'll sign 20 things. This makes sense. Why wouldn't Bret try to upsell his book?

Then the manager said, Bret will not be signing anything that came from the WWE or the WWF. What? Apparently, the reason behind this was Bret didn't want Vince to be making any money off of him so he refused to sign these items.

Okay. I'm not following anymore. If someone is standing in line with an action figure that they bought, let's say at anytime, wouldn't the WWE have already made the money off of the item as it has been sold? Isn't this just now a piece of memorabilia in someones collection and not something that Vince will sell later?

Keep in mind that the only thing I wanted Bret to sign was my book. Well, two books now. I could see the disappointment spread through the store as everyone had something that came from the WWE that they wanted Bret to sign.

And why wouldn't they have it? Bret's longest wrestling run came from the WWE. He has more merchandise from this company than anywhere else. Of course, this leads to small protests and questions. The manager informs the crowd that this is Bret's rule and he will not make any exceptions.

Then the manager announces that if you are standing in line with any of the forbidden merchandise, you will be asked to leave. That's right. They were planning on kicking people out of the store if they broke the "No WWE merchandise" rule.

But to the bookstore's defense, I personally didn't see them kick anyone out, but I wasn't watching them as they went through the entire line.

So we all get in line and waited about an hour for him to show up. He was about 15 minutes late, but his plane landed late. So you really can't blame him for that.

Another Borders employee walks through the line to check your items and leave you a post-it with the exact phrasing of what you wanted Bret to sign in your book. Kind of strange if you ask me, but I guess if someone has a weird name, it's good to have it already spelled out.

I finally get to the front of the line and I am ecstatic. Bret Hart has always been a personal hero to me and this was the first time I ever met him face to face. Sadly, I wish I never went.

The Borders employee took my book and handed it to Bret. Bret began to sign my book before I ever approached the table. I began to tell him how much I appreciate him and everything he has done for the industry and he never looked up at me. Not once. He said "Thank you for coming out" held my hand as someone took a picture and gave me my book.

Let me stress the fact that he held my hand in a shaking position. He didn't shake my hand. When he handed me my book, he was already signing the next one as a Borders employee began shuffling me off to the side.

Being the apologist that I am, I assumed that Bret was having a long day and he had a ton of people to get through. I decided to watch his interaction with everyone else and it was the same. Every single person that went up, Bret barely said anything to them and went through the motions for the pictures.

Finally, a large group of children showed up and I thought to myself "Well, he has to be nice to kids." I was wrong. They got the same treatment. Everyone did and it surprised me that everyone seemed okay with this.

Everyone just excepted the fact that Bret Hart was blowing everyone off. He didn't care that these people made his career. That these people are the only reason that he is still relevant today. That these people spent there Sunday standing in line and driving from as far as Chicago to come and see him.

I walked away from the store feeling terrible. One of my wrestling hero's from yesteryear was exposed for what he truly is; An arrogant, egotistical, bitter old man.

RAW Recap 10/27/08 Or Batista Dominates Monday Nights

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:00:14 -0400

It's the aftermath show from Cyber Sunday and it's time to see if the WWE is going in the right direction for Survivor Series.

We open the show with the now infamous talking segment. Jericho comes out to no fan fare to address the audience. I found it strange that Lilian Garcia announced him as former World Champion. I don't see a reason to introduce any wrestler as a former champion or why Lilian had to give Jericho a receipt for last week.

Jericho blames everyone for losing his title and Adamle is comes out to discuss it. Jericho demands a rematch and Adamle makes it a steel cage match next week.

As Jericho leaves, Randy Orton makes an unwanted appearance. He tells Adamle that he is a terrible GM and that if Stephanie and Shane don't fire him next week, Orton's going to quit.

I thought this was kind of interesting. I don't know where this story is going so it makes it very interesting for me. Adamle is getting paid way too much to get him off such an important role on TV but they're not going to move Orton off TV or to Smackdown. Next week should be interesting.

The first match of the night was C.M. Punk and Kofi Kingston versus Priceless for the World Tag Team Championship. When they announced that this match was going to take place on RAW because it didn't happen at Cyber Sunday, that was the biggest tell that Priceless was losing the titles.

The match had some really good tandems and was very fast paced whenever the faces were in control. Overall, a good match that really showcased all four men.

C.M. Punk wins the match with the GTS. I'm wondering now how much longer this feud is going to last seeing as Punk has gotten his revenge. Hopefully not much longer as I think it would be better for The Miz and Morrison to chase this title now.

The next segment sees Roddy Piper, Goldust, and Honky Tonk Man come out to do commentary. I thought it was pointless to have all three of them come out as none of them really talked.

Santino comes out and continues to claim that he is the greatest Intercontinental Champion ever. Charlie Haas comes out for the match dressed as Beth Phoenix, which was one of the funniest things I've seen. Haas was never introduced.

Santino throws Haas to the outside and follows him. He then slaps Honky Tonk Man to instigate a fight. Piper and Goldust surround the ring and Honky hits him with the guitar.

This segment came off too quick and seemed misplaced for whatever reason. I don't think there should have been as many people as there was for this.

The next segment sees an in ring interview with Batista. Nothing came from this. It was the typical "I'm champion now and no one will beat me" promo. They shouldn't have wasted TV time on this.

The top of the hour match sees Kelly Kelly, Candice Michelle, and Mickie James versus Jillian Hall, Layla, and Katie Lea. The first thing I have to talk about this match is Candice's entrance.

As much as I don't like Candice, it was terrible to cut off her music right before she hit her beat. This came off as the WWE just not caring about her anymore. Which in turn means that everyone that was pushed to the side when she returned looks bad now. If the WWE doesn't want to spend the time on someone that they pushed heavily on return and took away TV time from other women from, why should the fans care?

It must have also been such a terrible feeling she had to be embarrassed like that on national television.

The match went the way I expected it to. Mickie James and Katie Lea went out of their way to make everyone look good while some with little talent, like Kelly, gets the pinfall.

I'm upset that Layla was in this match as she should have involved with a segment that had William Regal and Jamie Noble in it. That story is possibly the best one going on RAW right now and it's losing a lot of steam because it's never pushed.

Rey Mysterio versus Evan Bourne is next. I like the fact that this match was in the spirit of competition and not a feud. Bourne goes for the ROH open and shakes Rey's hand before the match. I thought that was a great touch.

This match was very quick paced and very well done. These two worked so well with each other that it's a shame they're both faces.

Bourne showed how quick he can think in a match when he turned a botched move from Rey to a near fall and submission situation. Rey falls off the middle rope and without missing a beat, Bourne is on him for a cover. When Rey kicks out, Bourne immediately goes for a leg lock on the knee Rey was holding when he fell.

The end sees Rey counter a sunset flip for the win. They both shake hands and Kane comes out. They double team Kane before Mark Henry runs down. Kane and Henry lay both of them out. I'm assuming this is the main event match for the next ECW show.

The Miz and John Morrison come out and continue to rag on D-Generation X. They challenge them to a match next week. I'm actually looking forward to the match but not to the fact that DX is going to bury another young tag team.

Chris Jericho and JBL versus Batista and Shawn Michaels is the main event. Before the match, JBL beats the hell out of Shawn and leaves him locked in a room somewhere. This is obviously the handicap situation when the tag partner comes down for the save at the end.

The match was not done well. Batista came off way too strong and he easily fought off two top heels on RAW like it was nothing.

The momentum shift was done over the break but the heels didn't have control long. By the time Shawn came back, it really didn't matter if he tagged in or not. Batista really had everything under control.

The end was planned perfectly. When Jericho goes for the title and JBL is holding Batista, the typical spot is Batista ducks and JBL gets the hit. Instead, both men ducked and Batista hits the Batista bomb for the win. It was different and unexpected, which is always good.

Overall, it was an alright episode. Mysterio/Bourne really stole the show and the Punk/Kofi title win was so early that it lost it's shock value by the end of the show. The 800th Celebration is next week and they're really going to need to turn it up if they want people to stay on the channel for three hours. My rating: B-

Smackdown Recap 10/17/08 or Kozlov Continues To Rule Friday Night

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:16:58 -0400

Friday Night Smackdown finishes another edition and just like always, it's time to see what worked and what didn't.

We open the show with none other than talking; the bane of wrestling's existence. This time, it's The Big Show and Chavo Guerrero in the ring. Show talks about how he's not scared of The Undertaker and is going to have a match for with him at Cyber Sunday. He announces the three matches as a Last Man Standing match, an I Quit match, or a Knockout match.

Show then invites three random jobbers to participate in all of the match types as a demonstration of what will happen to Taker.

Here's what always bothers me about these segments. Why waste all of this TV time on something that fans already know? Everyone knows what a last man standing and I quit match is.

The fans can also piece together what a knockout match is as well. Why take the first 20 minutes of the show to do something like this?

These three jobbers aren't The Undertaker so the fact that Big Show is dominating over them doesn't make him look any better. It just comes off as boring.

The first match of the night sees Carlito and Primo Colon versus Hawkins and Ryder. The fact that Jim Ross referred to Hawkins and Ryder as an underrated tag team was hilarious. They never did anything with the titles. They were the definition of transitional champions.

The fans really didn't seem to care too much about this match and in all honesty, why should they? Hawkins and Ryder have no credibility as a tag team as they don't have any credible wins under their belts. The Colons are still too new and haven't built the following behind them just yet.

Primo is exciting to watch in the ring but other than that, these four men don't offer anything else. The Colons need to begin a feud with The Miz and Morrison. This should provide some very interesting matches and promos.

The Colons retain their title after Primo lands a missile drop kick off the top. The match was a little over eight minutes long. This was a title match and it wasn't given as much time as the opening segment of Big Show talking and beating up jobbers. This is proof positive that Vince doesn't like the tag division.

We get Eve backstage with MVP. This is the first time that MVP brings up the incentive storyline. The only good thing that can come out of this is the fact that creative has a reason for MVP to go on a losing streak. This won't damage his credibility now as the fans expect him to loose.

The next match sees MVP versus R-Truth. MVP really showed that he is the best performer on Smackdown. He was able to take a limited wrestler like R-Truth and make a very interesting match out of it.

This match had MVP dominating the entire time. After one quick counter, R-Truth hits the Scissor Kick and picks up the win. I don't think it's ever a good idea for a wrestler to job after one move. It really makes them look bad.

Backstage, we get Vickie Guerrero and The Big Show waiting in the office for someone to come in. Every time I see Vickie in the wheelchair, all I can think about is The Cowboy Bob Orton and his cast.

The first person to walk in is Funaki, with his new gimmick. I don't see a point in changing Funaki's gimmick this far into his WWE career. Unless they're planning on giving him matches now and highlighting him on TV, they shouldn't be wasting their time on something like this.

Maryse comes in and asks why she has to fight for number one contendership if she already beat McCool in singles competition two weeks ago. This is actually a very valid question. Maryse pinned McCool clean in a non title match. She should automatically be the number one contender. At least creative acknowledged this win as opposed to pretending that it never happened.

Finally, The Great Khali enters and Vickie tells him that he will be fighting The Undertaker. Khali says he doesn't want to get involved and Vickie bullies him into the match. It really looks like Khali is a the verge of turning face.

The next match sees Ezekiel Jackson versus Super Crazy. It's always good to see Super Crazy on TV but not when he's cannon fodder. The match was too quick that it didn't even show what Ezekiel could do. It was a typical big man dominating match.

Eziekel wins the match with a Rock Bottom like manuvier. What I found interesting is that Tazz called it a Ura-Nage Slam. It appeared that he was trying to be more like Matt Striker and calling moves by their Japanese names. What makes this interesting is the fact that it's not a traditional Ura-Nage Slam.

We get Eve backstage with Triple H as he hypes Cyber Sunday.

The next match is The Undertaker versus The Great Khali. It was good to see The Undertaker's entrance at the top of the hour. It's a good marketing move to have someone as big as The Undertaker show up when people might be tuning in.

The match was uneventful and worked as a typical big man versus big man match. Eventually, Big Show comes out and causes a disqualification after he choke slams Taker.

Show gets a chair and demands that Khali hit him with it. Khali refuses and walks out. I think that this is his official turn but we'll see what he does next week. Taker gets a hold of the chair and attacks Show.

The Divas Las Vegas Match is next or, as I like to call it, the random item on a pole match. These are always a recipe for disaster.

The fact that this match was for fuzzy dice really shows what creative thinks about the Divas Title. There really wasn't anything memorable about this match. It was just all the women in the corner the entire time. Granted, it was clever because that's how all these matches should work.

Maria eventually gets the win and becomes the number one contender for the Divas title at a none disclosed date. I'm wondering if creative will remember that Maria has this or if they'll just drop the story in a few weeks.

The next match is Ryan Braddock and Kenny Dykstra versus Jesse and Festus. Again, another quick match but it did have a strong opening. As soon as the bell rang, Festus threw Jesse at Braddock. What made this so good was the fact that Jesse looked terrified as he had no idea what Festus was going to do.

The fans were dead for this match, which is strange as Festus is usually over in whatever town they visit. This match was too quick to really highlight anyone. Festus gets the deciding fall for his team.

We do get an interesting backstage segment with Maria and McCool. McCool says that she's so happy that Maria won the title and pinches Maria's cheek. This is an interesting story as it shows that McCool isn't taking Maria serious. Looks like we may have a title change soon.

The main event sees Jeff Hardy versus Vladimir Kozlov. Kozlov dominated almost through out this match. Jeff showed some good retaliation at times but other than that, he was destroyed.

Kozlov continues to look good in the ring but Hardy continues to lose credibility. He's been wanting this match for weeks now and he can't get his revenge. Hardy is losing steam and hopefully creative won't let him cool off too much as the fans really want to see him as champion.

Kozlov gets the win with the driving head butt. Triple H comes into the for a face off to end the night.

Overall, a weak show. Nothing too memorable and no real progression in any direction except the Divas Title. With a pay per view less than a week away, the WWE really needs to turn it up to get people interested. My rating: C-

The Terrible Decisions That TNA Makes

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:28:46 -0400

As far back as I can remember, pro wrestling has been in my life. I've watched it through the good and the bad. I've witnessed many stories unfold and pay very close attention to the patterns that it follows. All of pro wrestling follows the same formula, whether it is on screen or behind the scenes.

Through these years, you start to notice little things. Certain decisions that are made and can damage a wrestler or the companies name. Last night, at TNA's Bound For Glory, that mistake was made.

Bound For Glory is the biggest event that TNA puts on every year, if you choose to believe them. Now, for months, Samoa Joe has been the TNA champion. Aside from the fact that he received the title way too late in his TNA career, he was representing the fact that the younger talent was on the rise.

Samoa Joe begins to show a lack of respect and prompts some of the veterans to question him. Enter Sting.

Sting, a 23 year veteran and one of the more well known names in pro wrestling, decides that it's up to him to teach Joe a lesson and take the title from him. And that's exactly what Sting did. Sort of.

You see, Sting was all over the arena and successfully getting beat by Joe through out the match. After over 20 minutes of this, Sting goes for his baseball bat, which Kevin Nash stops him from using. Nash than hits Joe with the bat which sets up the Scorpion Death Drop. Three seconds later, Sting is the new TNA Heavyweight Champion.

Let's analyze this. Joe has nothing but offense during the entire match and gets a baseball bat to the back. Now, when Joe got hit, he fell on all fours and turned to face Nash. He gets up and gets hit with the Scorpion Death Drop. So after two hits, one of which he practically no sold, he's out. Joe looks incredibly weak in this exchange.

Sting doesn't look much better either. Seeing as how he didn't put up much of a fight, how are we to believe that Sting even deserves the title right now?

Sting's age also comes into play with all of this. Don't get me wrong, it's great to see someone at Sting's age still be able to work for as long as he has, but his time has come and gone. Now is the time for the younger talent to hold the title. Which is what part of this feud was about.

The commentators mentioned several times during the match that whoever wins the match will have all the power. So if Joe won, the younger talent would be in charge and finally be able to step up. If Sting won, the veterans retain power and continue to hold everyone down. Sting won.

The pattern should have been obvious through out the night as to who would win the title. Booker T won his match defeating A.J. Styles. That match was all about younger talent versus veterans. Jeff Jarrett defeated Kurt Angle earlier in the night. So the cards were in place.

Now, it seems that according to the story lines, TNA is being run by the veterans. I thought TNA was suppose to be where the younger talent had a chance to excel and become something. I thought there was no glass ceiling.

Apparently, I was wrong. TNA has successfully solidified as the place for older stars to go before their careers fade away and go over on younger guys that still need to become something.

Now, for those who think that this is just a good story starting up, consider this: if the younger talent is suppose to be the underdogs coming up and eventually taking power, why was Joe booked as the heel and Sting as the face? Why would TNA want the audience to see the younger talent as the bad guys?

This is just going to make the audience want the veterans to retain the power. That's why Sting has the title.

Now, this problem hasn't reached the point of no return. I know there are several people who think that TNA will destroy themselves within a year. I'd have to disagree. TNA is just making lots of small bad decisions but it is all still salvageable. Right now, they need to get the title off of Sting and put it on an up and coming star; like A.J. Styles or Robert Roode.

TNA has all the talent they need to become the top wrestling company in America. They just need to think about the stories they are doing and what the long term outcomes are going to be.

RAW Recap 10/6/08 or JBL vs. Batista, 47

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:53:00 -0400

It's the RAW after No Mercy, which should provide an outlook of where the WWE is heading throughout the rest of the year. Let's see what worked and what didn't.

We open up with talking. Again with the talking. This time it's Chris Jericho talking about how he beat Shawn Michaels and he's acting GM. Batista comes out and wants the title match. Jericho says Batista has to fight JBL again tonight for the No. 1 contender spot he won last night. Batista hits him with the Spinebuster to end the segment.

These segments are getting way too predictable. Once Jericho was out, you knew Batista was going to lay him out by the end. It bothers me that they have to take 15 minutes to get to something that everyone already knows is coming.

Our first match of the night is Jamie Noble and Mickie James versus Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix. William Regal and Layla are at ring side to watch. The match was much quicker than it should have been. It's sad to see someone as talented as Jamie Noble not get any time to showcase himself on TV.

Mickie and Beth did a good job for the limited amount of time they had in the ring. Jamie Noble's arm bar still has some legitimacy behind as Beth broke it up before it was applied. So far, no one has been in that move for more than five seconds, which is how it should be.

Santino gets the quick roll up after Regal distracts Noble. Noble goes after Santino which causes Regal to attack. The brawl that they had started well but quickly turned. The intensity was great but it was separated way too quickly. It doesn't seem like creative is behind this story 100 percent.

Noble really should have won this match. Santino isn't going to lose anything by jobbing, but Noble still needs to build his wins so the fans can get behind him.

We get a quick backstage promo with Shawn Michaels calling Jericho a coward for putting him in a match tonight. It looks like they're going through with the Shawn/Lance Cade feud.

Kofi Kingston versus Ted DiBiase is next. The commentators made reference to Cody Rhodes and Manu, stating that collectively they were known as Priceless. It's about time they made an acknowledgement that this faction is forming by officially keeping the name. It is interesting that the name is still about Ted DiBiase.

C.M. Punk comes down to be in the corner of Kofi. This match was decent for the amount of time it was given. Both men looked really good and worked well together. The end sees Kofi being distracted and DiBiase hitting the Million Dollar Leg Sweep.

Jericho is backstage talking to Orton, trying to convince him about a plan to stop Batista later.

They run a John Cena recovery promo. Now this is how an injured superstar should be showing up on TV—in a vignette. Cena wasn't on TV taking away time from other wrestlers like Randy Orton.

We get a quick comedy spot with Kane and Mark Henry walking backstage and then Dolph Ziggler tries to introduce himself. As funny as this is, he needs to have a match really soon. Otherwise, his notoriety is going to wear off.

Rey Mysterio and Matt Hardy versus Mark Henry and Kane is up next. It seems that the Hardy/Henry feud is still going. No Mercy was the natural end of the story, and now it seems that they are going to beat a dead horse.

Hardy and Mysterio worked well together and had some nice tandem moves. It was good to see both Hardy and Mysterio taking turns being the face in peril and getting the hot tag.

The fans were really behind the match and it was really good. The end was different and exciting. While Matt goes to the top rope, Henry tosses Mysterio at the rope to knock Hardy off balance. This gives Kane the opportunity to Choke Slam him for the win.

I don't think this match should have ended in a pinfall. It should have gone to a no contest with all four men beating the hell out of each other. No one in this match could afford to lose their momentum.

Next we have Shawn Michaels versus Lance Cade in a no disqualification match. It's good to see that creative is finally trying to do something with Cade.

It was surprising to see them go for the table spot so early in the match, but the match itself was rather short. This makes sense because Michaels can't be doing two hardcore matches back to back.

The end sees Michaels going ballistic with a chair and pinning Cade. After the match, Michaels continues to hit him with the chair for a total of 19 shots.

This actually didn't damage Cade's credibility at all. No one is expected to kick out of that many consecutive chair shots and Cade did put Michaels through a table earlier. Hopefully, Cade can get a win next week. Otherwise, he will lose his momentum.

Jerry Lawler is in the ring and announces the first match for Cyber Sunday. The match is Santino Marella versus either Roddy Piper, Goldust, or The Honky Tonk Man. It's good to see the WWE and The Honky Tonk Man are back on speaking terms.

But just like every year, the WWE is pushing votes in one direction. They clearly want Santino to fight Honky Tonk Man. Otherwise, they never would be pushing the Honk-A-Meter.

We then get The Great Khali in ring to do a cross promotion with Johnny Knoxville and his new online show. Khali challenges him to a match next week.

Jillian Hall versus Kelly Kelly is next. Out for commentary is The Miz, John Morrison, and Cryme Tyme. This was a huge mistake. As funny as it was to hear these two argue with each other, they were talking so much that the match was never called. This is very disrespectful to the two women in the ring.

The match was actually well done, with Kelly Kelly only blowing one spot with the back body drop. This is much less than Candice Michelle in any given match. Kelly wins with a roll up counter.

The main event sees Batista versus JBL for the No. 1 contendership. Jericho makes himself the special guest referee, William Regal the special guest time keeper, and Randy Orton the special guest commentator.

Aside from Batista working the leg (which is out of character for him), the match worked just like any match with a heel referee. Jericho was slow on the count when Batista was going for a pin and fast when JBL went for one.

Regal attacked randomly whenever he could, and Orton just seemed to be taking up space. He barely said anything on commentary and didn't get involved in the match.

Eventually, Batista spears Jericho and Adamle sends down another referee. Batista wins with a Batista Bomb. Adamle then announces Jericho versus Batista for Cyber Sunday with a special guest referee being either Orton, Shawn Michaels, or Stone Cold Steve Austin.

RAW was okay. It could have been better and I found myself bored most of the time. All the stories seem to be moving forward and only one actually started tonight. They need to hurry up and finish some of the feuds before they begin to get stale. My rating: C+

No Mercy 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Mike Valentyne — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:38:13 -0400

If the WWE did their job, then every wrestling fan watched No Mercy. So it's time to figure out if it was worth the price.

The first thing I want to bring up is the set. Ever since the WWE went to HD, there normal set was always better looking than most of the pay-per-view sets. Tonight, the No Mercy set actually looked really good. It was very simple as it was a modification of what they usually do, but it was different enough to state that tonight was bigger than your normal wrestling event.

The opening match sees Matt Hardy defend his ECW Title against Mark Henry. It's starting to bother me that ECW gets the opening matches at most of the pay-per-views. I understand that everyone has already paid to see the event and placement isn't as important, but it does seem a little disrespectful that they only get one match and it opens the show.

The match itself was very slow paced. It was the typical big guy story that they told. Hardy would get in some offense before Henry would take control. Henry did sell his knee attacks very well and the limp progressed through the match.

The Side Effect that Hardy gave Henry looked amazing and really got the crowd going. The end was very well planned. Henry goes for the World's Strongest Slam but Hardy attacks the knee and reverse to the Twist of Fate. Hardy retains in a decent match.

It's really good to see that the Twist of Fate is being protected. It's going to be a big deal when someone finally kicks out of it.

We get a backstage interview with Triple H and Jeff Hardy. It was interesting to see that Triple H wasn't taking Jeff serious during the interview. He was playing around with his phone and saying that he was pulling for Jeff to win. This was interesting but would only work if Hardy wins the title tonight, otherwise it just makes Jeff look bad.

The next match is Beth Phoenix versus Candice Michelle for the WWE Women's Title. Candice continues to show how bad she is with everything she does. Even in her opening, she's missing all of her music cues; coming out at the wrong time in her song and pulling off her jacket at the wrong beat.

The match wasn't as bad as I was expecting but Beth is an amazing worker. She kept the match interesting. However, they never should have went for the arm bar. Beth applied the arm bar on Candice's bad arm. She was in the move for a long time and effectively mad her one of the strongest people in the locker room.

We've seen for the past few weeks how legitimate the arm bar is because of Jamie Noble and now Candice stays in the hold for over a minute. Everyone else taps out in a matter of seconds.

The match ends with Candice going for the Candy Wrapper and Beth reversing it to the Glam Slam. It was a smart move to have Beth retain the title. Now, for continuities sake, Kelly Kelly should be the number one contender. For better stories sake, either Mickie James or Katie Lea should be fighting for that title.

We get Kane doing a promo backstage about his up coming match. I didn't think that any of this is needed on a pay-per-view. The point of a promo is to get people to buy your product. Everyone watching already ordered the pay-per-view, so now is not the time to talk. It's falling on deaf ears.

Rey Mysterio versus Kane is up next. This match added nothing to the night. This feud has been so convoluted from the beginning that it's just not entertaining to watch. With the WWE throwing in the stipulation that Rey has to remove his mask if he loses but not heavily promote, it makes the match, and Rey Mysterio, look second rate.

The match had some good counters from Rey but it was just like all of the matches that these have been in before. Mysterio continuously attacks Kane until he gets a power move in. Kane beats on Rey for a short while before Rey counters and takes control. Continue this pattern until the end of the match.

The ending was actually well thought out. Mysterio goes for a dive off the top while Kane is on the floor. Kane hits Mysterio with a chair and gets disqualified. It was a good way of making Kane look strong and keeping Mysterio's mask on him. The only thing I didn't like was that fact that Kane left right after that. He should have continued to beat on him if really doesn't like as much as he claims.

We get a strange backstage segment with MVP going to Vickie Guerrero's office trying to figure out why he doesn't have a match. The Big Show tells him to leave and MVP finds his way to the ring.

MVP cuts a promo stating that he's the best thing to happen to sports entertainment and should have a match. This prompts Randy Orton to come out. Orton is really starting to wear out his welcome and he's not even cleared to be in the ring yet. I can only imagine how much he's going to be talking when he finally gets back.

Again, this is a pay-per-view. People have already paid their money to see this and there shouldn't be any promos during these three hours.

Priceless and Manu eventually come down to the ring and begin to talk smack to both Orton and MVP. The fans begin a very loud boring chant but I know creative wasn't listening to them.

Orton says that Priceless still hasn't done anything to prove their worth. This story is loosing steam and Priceless keeps looking bad. They never get the upper hand and they keep trying to get Orton's approval. I don't know how many people can continue to care about this when the story has been the same for weeks now.

MVP tries to tell Priceless that they're all right in his book but they say that they want to have nothing to do with him. This makes MVP walk out as C.M. Punk and Kofi Kingston come out. This segment is just ridiculous now. There is no reason for this to be happening on a pay-per-view.

Punk convinces MVP to attack Priceless as the odds are even now. The three charge the ring only to have Punk and Kofi bail out on MVP so he gets attacked. Then, Punk and Kofi decide to get in the ring and clear it out.

This made absolutely no sense. There was no reason to have Punk trick MVP to get beat up if he was going to come in the ring to make the save. It really doesn't seem like creative likes MVP. He hasn't done anything since loosing the U.S. Title and he's quite possibly the best wrestler on Smackdown. He seems to be a waste of talent right now.

Up next is the number one contenders match pitting Batista against JBL. There really wasn't anything special about this match. These two are still working the same match they did a few years back. The fans seemed to be really behind it so whatever they're doing is working.

Batista gets the the win with the Batista Bomb to become the number one contender. After the match, JBL gives a thank you speech to congress for the bail out. I honesty thought he was giving a good bye speech.

Cryme Tyme is seen in the back stealing JBL's limo and inviting a bunch of the Divas to join them. As bad as this segment was, it became worse to see Michelle McCool, the Divas Champion, involved in this. She should be trying to build credibility for the title instead of using her body to try and capture the audiences attention.

The Undertaker versus The Big Show is next. Both men showed great aggression during the match and had some good spots. The flying lariat was done in a way that hadn't been seen in awhile with Taker having to dodge three attacks before hitting it.

The end sees Big Show exposing the turnbuckle and taking Undertakers head to it. He then begins to punch Taker until the referee stops the match and awards it to Big Show. This really made Show look great and didn't take anything away from The Undertaker. Hopefully, this feud will end now as the undertaker has been defeated.

Triple H defends his WWE Title against Jeff Hardy. This match was very well paced and actually came off very well. The fans were behind it one hundred percent and the two worked very well with each other.

Triple H was working a heel style which seemed a little strange. The end to this match was terrible. Hardy hits the Twist of Fate and connects with the Swanton Bomb, but at the count of two, Triple H reverse the pin and retains.

Both of these moves have so much credibility behind them and to have Triple H easy counter the pin was a bad idea. Triple H has effectively buried another star. No one is going to take Jeff serious after this. He has had so many opportunities to win the title but has never been about to pull it off. I can't imagine that anyone can see him as a legitimate threat to anyone holding the title.

Backstage, Triple H bumps into Vladimir Kozlov. Kozlov congratulates triple H on the win and walks off. It looks like Jeff Hardy was just dropped from this storyline.

The main event sees Chris Jericho versus Shawn Michaels for the World Title. This match had so many new spots never seen in a ladder match. Both of these men tried their hardest to make a memorable match and it worked. This was one of the best ladder matches I've seen.

The intensity and the violence that both of these men showed was amazing. For a story that's been dragging for the better part of the year, this was a nice match to have. Hopefully it will end the feud.

The end sees Shawn going for the title when Lance Cade runs in. While Shawn is distracted, Jericho has enough time to get to the top of the ladder. Shawn meets him up there and they unstrap the title and have a tug of war contest with it. Jericho eventually head butts Shawn and gets the title. This end spot was amazing and will go down as one of the best endings to a ladder match.

On a side note, Jericho lost a tooth during this match and at the end, he looked a lot like Chris Benoit when he smiled. It was a little creepy and I'm more than willing to bet that Vince is going to have Jericho get that fixed as soon as possible.

Overall, the show was pretty good. With the exception of a random talking scene with Orton, everything seemed to fit. Some of the outcomes could have been better and Jeff Hardy was the only person effectively buried. My rating: B

Smackdown Recap 10/3/08 or Welcome to MyNetworkTV

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:33:41 -0400

Smackdown kicks off on their new network and it's time to figure out if they made the right choices to try and keep an audience.

First thing that needs to be discussed is the new open. Now, something just didn't feel right about it. It didn't scream WWE. It was actually kind of simple in comparison to what the WWE editors can do. I was slightly disappointed with. But it also didn't look like it was the final version of the open. Maybe there will be a new one next week.

We open the show with a huge 8 man tag, the way that a show should open. We get Jeff Hardy, Rey Mysterio, Finlay, and Batista versus MVP, JBL, The Brian Kendrick, and Kane.

This match was amazing. They were given enough time to showcase everyone in the match and made everyone look good. For the new audience at home, this had to have been very exciting to watch, especially Rey Mysterio. JBL shows some good ring strategy during the match; when Kendrick is getting beat, JBL grabs Kendrick and slides him in the ring on his corner. JBL then tags himself in. I always wonder why wrestlers don't do this more often when their partner is in danger.

Batista had some good spots with the Batista Bomb as he gave Kendrick a back body drop from that position. Batista look very strong in this match as he dominated almost throughout.

The end sees Jeff Hardy hitting the Swanton Bomb on MVP for the win. This is a great move because Jeff needed the momentum going into No Mercy this Sunday and MVP can't lose anything because he doesn't have a match.

Backstage we get Adamle and Teddy Long talking. Big Show comes in and tells them that because Vickie Guerrero is injured, he will be taking over the GM duties. Chavo Guerrero comes in and says he's scared of The Undertaker showing up tonight. Show blames Chavo for what happened to Vickie, so he puts him in a match later that night. It looks like they are starting a face turn for Chavo. Only good thins can come from that.

Santino Marella versus Shelton Benjamin is up next. Santino does his typical Honk-A-Meter skit and Shelton gives his strange promo before the match. Shelton's promo is really of putting as it disrupts the flow of the entrances when they run these.

The match itself wasn't too exciting. The fans really didn't know what to do because both men are heels. After a few minutes of Shelton beating on Santino, R-Truth makes his full entrance through the crowd. The distraction allows Santino to get the quick roll up for the win.

This came off as weird because R-Truth had everything going for his entrance. The lights and the music were going but the match continued. It's rare that they go this far with someone coming out to provide a distraction and it always seems that the match should end in no contest.

Big Show comes out to announce the next match. We apparently get Chavo versus Mark Henry and The Great Khali in a handicap match. I really didn't see the point of a squash match on a night like this. Squash matches shouldn't be on special nights like this, when the WWE is trying to capture a larger audience.

This match was a typical squash. Chavo attacks first but immediately gets stopped. The rest of the match is Henry and Khali taking turns beating him up. Eventually, Khali gets the win with the Vise Grip.

After the match, Big Show punches Chavo and knocks him out. It really looks like Chavo will be turning face soon. Hopefully he goes back to his character that he had when he team with his uncle, Eddie Guerrero.

As Big Show gets back in the ring, he tells Taker that this is what will happen to him. The bells chime and Show begins to walk away. The lights cut and when they return, The Undertaker is standing in the ring. I thought this was weird as The Undertaker is such a huge name in wrestling that I thought he would get a match on a night like this. It's good that he showed up, but it feels like a waste of resources.

The next match is Priceless and Manu versus Carlito, Primo, and C.M. Punk. This was a decent match with lots of action. Everyone did a good job showcasing themselves. DiBiase specifically looked really well. He has the potential to go far in his career. Hopefully the WWE will give him the chance when he's ready.

The end sees C.M. Punk hit the GTS on DiBiase for the pin. I'm not too sure where this feud is going as it seems that C.M. Punk keeps coming out on top. It looks like he's just going to tear through this faction.

Beth Phoenix versus Michelle McCool in a lumberjack match is up next. It was funny to see Beth holding up her title and McCool holding hers. The Divas title looks so bad in comparison. I don't see how that title can be taken serious.

The match looked very awkward. It was clear that even with all the improvement that McCool has been showing, she is still nowhere near the level of Beth Phoenix. Sadly enough, the fans didn't really seem to care about the match as there wasn't much reaction.

The end sees Beth hitting the Glam Slam for the win. McCool really didn't come off looking good in this match. The entire time she seem to be on defense, even when she was the aggressor. Beth never looked to be in danger. This really elevates the threat level of Beth but destroys the credibility of McCool.

The main event sees Matt Hardy versus Triple H versus Chris Jericho. The match was decent but there were a few things that came off as strange. Triple H dominated a majority of the match no matter who he was against.

Triple H was also in the Walls of Jericho for too long. It always seems that submission holds aren't respected anymore, with the only exception being Jamie Noble and his armbar.

The end sees Triple H hitting the pedigree on Matt Hardy. Triple H really didn't need to win this match. Either Hardy or Jericho could have benefited from the win a lot more. If anything, Matt should have pinned Triple H to bring up the question if Jeff can do it too.

After the match, Jericho attacks everyone with a ladder. Eventually, Jeff Hardy comes down and forces Jericho out. Triple H tries to get Jeff's attention but he's hit with a Twist of Fate.

As Jeff climbs the ladder, Vladimir Kozlov comes down and lays out Jeff. It's good to see that this story hasn't been dropped, but hopefully he won't cause a disqualification on Sunday during the match. That would be such a cheat to the audience that has been wanting Jeff to win the title.

Overall, this was a good show. I think they did a good job show casing as much talent as they could with 54 characters being shown in two hours. Granted, this really is confusing for anyone who may have just started watching but if they saw someone they liked, they'll tune back in next week.

Not much progressed this week but it was expected as this was a show to highlight all the wrestlers. They did a good job to promote No Mercy and hopefully people will be buying it on Sunday. My rating: B+

No Mercy 2008: Rundown and Predictions

Mike Valentyne — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:24:57 -0400

WWE will be holding ninth annual No Mercy from the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. With the direction that the WWE has been going and only a few shows left, it's time to take a look at the final card and see where everything might go.

Rey Mysterio versus Kane: Now, this match has had a terrible build up. It was a month of Kane and his nonsensical rants about "is he dead or alive?" that lead to a very anti-climatic return of Rey Mysterio. However, with the new twist of Kane calling Mysterio a coward for hiding behind a mask, things are starting to change. Maybe not for the better.

It seems that the WWE is leaning toward the idea of unmasking Mysterio. I can't even begin to explain how bad of an idea this is. For tradition and marketability, Mysterio needs to keep his mask on. The kids really like it and you can see in the audience how well those masks sell.

I don't think it will happen in this match, but it will probably end the same way that one of the Kane versus Undertaker matches ended. Kane will remove the mask from Mysterio and Mysterio will run to the back and hide.

If this isn't how it ends, than Kane will dominate and win this match. It's the only way to keep the story going otherwise Mysterio got his vengeance and he moves on. Expect Evan Bourne to interfere.

Beth Phoenix versus Candice Michelle for the WWE Women's Championship: Aside from this being the worst match of the night because of Candice botching moves, it can really go either way. I can see Candice regaining the title because the WWE loves her, for whatever reason, and feel that there champions shouldn't be protected.

They have already announced on several occasions that it was last year at this same pay per view that Candice lost her title to Beth. They would never mention that unless they were planning on making it into a moment of redemption.

There is a good chance that Beth could retain only because the WWE likes to have their faces chase the title for a little while. But expect Beth to be selling some of the worst moves imaginable in a match that will probably last less that 10 minutes. Entrances included.

If Beth retains, than the WWE still has some hope in trying to regain credibility to the Women's Title that Candice and Melina took away from over a year ago. If Candice wins, which seems to be the most likely outcome, than this title is going to drop in importance. Much further than it already is.

Big Show versus The Undertaker: This match should be interesting. Mainly because The Undertaker has some nagging knee problems right now. So expect a limited match on his end. Because of the injury, I'm going to predict that Big Show gets the win so they can write Taker out of the show so he can heal.

This match will set up Big Show as a top contender and he will probably be added to the Survivor Series title match. Either way, Big Show will become a major player in the main event scene after this.

Batista versus JBL for number one contender: Expect this match to be slow. There's been a good build up for it but these two don't really have a good reputation of putting on exciting matches. They've had their feud a few years back and they never should have tried it again.

The winner of this match will give away the winner of the ladder match. The WWE loves the typical face versus heel story. It is very rare that they go face versus face and I don't think they've ever done heel versus heel as a main event on one of the big four pay per views.

If Batista wins, expect Chris Jericho to retain. If JBL wins, expect Shawn Michaels to win the title. By the way things are going, I'd have to say that Batista is going to win the match.

Matt Hardy versus Mark Henry for the ECW Championship: This match should be good. ECW has consistently put on some of the best matches on pay per view in the last few months. Both of these men can work and the story leading to this is brilliant. Henry has never been pinned by Hardy so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I'm almost confident that Hardy will get a clean win and move on to another feud in the company. Mark Henry will probably continue to work the mid card, which is sad really, because he deserved to have the world title.

Triple H versus Jeff Hardy for the WWE Championship: This match is going to show whether or not Triple H is holding down talent. There is no reason for Jeff Hardy to lose this match. The fans have been wanting a title run from him and the announcers have been hinting at it for so long. Plus, it would be an interesting photo op for the WWE to have two brothers hold world titles at the same time.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any hope in Jeff winning the title. Triple H is build too strong and hasn't helped anyone get over properly on Smackdown since his jump. Add to it that Jeff Hardy is one more suspension away from being released from the company, and it doesn't seem like he's going to win.

The WWE needs to be careful with this. If Jeff keeps getting title shots and losing them, than the fans will stop caring about him. They won't believe in him anymore and there's no money in a superstar that the fans have no faith in. For the good of the company and the morale of the younger talent, Jeff Hardy should win. But he won't.

Chris Jericho versus Shawn Michaels in a ladder match for the World Heavyweight Championship: This match should end the pay per view. It's the only gimmick match and it's the only title match that has a lot of hype behind it. This feud got a small boost of life now that Jericho is champion but it needs to end after this. It's been running for five months now. It's over.

I'm expecting to see a lot of unnecessary spots. Expect Shawn to do some scary dives off the ladder and the return of the Walls of Jericho on top of the ladder. There won't be any table spots because the WWE is getting careful with adding tables to a ladder match. They're trying to protect the threat level of the TLC match.

This match should be good, but these two have work with each other for so long now that it's probably going to feel like all their other matches. Expect Jericho to retain the title and defend against Batista at Survivor Series. They will probably do an injury story with Shawn as well.

Overall, only one title really seems to be locked for switching hands. Everything else will be the same. This pay per view seems more like a filler before Survivor Series, which is going to make Cyber Sunday feel like a waste of time. Hopefully, the show will have some good matches and it won't feel like a waste of money. We'll see where the WWE wants to go come October 5th.

WWE or OCD? You Decide

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:39:54 -0400

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is described as: "an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions)." What does this have to do with wrestling? Appearently, everything.

You see, over the years, I've noticed several things in wrestling. The most prominent of these things is the repetition involved in everything in professional wrestling. And I mean everything. From recycled stories to mannerisms of the wrestlers themselves.

Let's look at Triple H. Great worker, maybe not the best when it comes to helping the younger talent, but that's beside the point. The point is he gets people to pay to see him. But we always see the same thing.

Let me run it down for you: Music hits. Triple H comes out and stands on a colored light and spits some water forward. At that time, there's a simulated explosion on the Titantron. Triple H walks down the ramp and stops at the bottom. The camera then swings around his head in a clockwise direction. When it reaches his face, the camera drops down so we can see his title.

Triple H walks to the far corner while taking a swig from his water bottle and tossing it into the crowd. He hops up on the apron, does his little turn to face the hard camera, looks left, looks right, then spits his water as soon as the music revs up.

He does this every week. If that's not repetitious behaviour, I don't know what is. But it's not just Triple H, it's everyone.

MVP flies through his entrance when the words "I'm coming" are heard from his theme music. C.M. Punk comes out slapping his wrist asking what time it is. Melina will only enter the ring the first time one way; doing the splits. Randy Orton has to pose before walking down the ring. Shawn Michaels prays.

Michelle McCool slides on the apron and shakes her hips. Maryse does her model pose. Undertaker has to do his Undertaker entrance, with the fog and lights. John Morrison makes everything go into slow motion.

And it's not just the entrances, it's the matches. Matt Hardy has to stand and scream before hitting the Twist of Fate. Festus has to hit his thighs before doing the seated senton. Shawn Michaels has to nip up after a flying elbow. John Cena will signal the "you can't see me" before the five knuckle shuffle.

What I'm trying to get at is this: the WWE hires a lot of people with OCD. They can't seem to get through the day without having to do what they always do. That or trademark gimmicks are becoming a little over done. It's fine to have them here and there, but when they're seen every time the superstar comes down, it can get pretty boring. Not that the live audience gets bored when Triple H spits his water but I know for a fact that it's not the same effect sitting in the arena and sitting on the couch.

Either way, it would be nice if Vince allowed his wrestlers to deviate from the monotony just so that every entrance is special. Or we should start a collection to help cure OCD in the WWE.

ECW Recap 9/16/08 or Slowly Getting Better

Mike Valentyne — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:43:40 -0400

ECW has a lot of catching up to do since last week. It's time to figure out if they're on the right path.

We open the show with an actual match this week. Matt Hardy faces off against Mike Knox in a non-title match. Usually, I think the champion should always be in the end of the show, but this was a good way to kick off ECW. Matt wasn't defending his title, so it was fine to have him in the opening match.

The match itself makes Knox look fantastic. We finally get to see him work and he had some creative offense. It really makes me sad to know that his feud with Finlay is probably over, as those two would have had some great matches if they were given the time.

Knox introduced the simple counter to the Twist of Fate in this match, which is great because that move needed a counter. Matt gets the pin with a successful Twist of Fate in a good match. He continues to look strong and hopefully he'll be given a decent run as champion.

We get a quick segment with Mark Henry and Tony Atlas backstage watching the match. Henry is getting better with his promos, which really showed this week. He's not at Jericho's level, but that's not really expected of him either.

The Miz versus Evan Bourne is next. Ricky Ortiz accompanies Bourne to the ring, which is very random. Last I checked, it was Rey Mysterio that owed Bourne a favor. The match was highlighting The Miz and came off as much slower than a typical Bourne match. There is no problem with style as Bourne shouldn't be expected to do all of his crazy spots every week.

Bourne wins the match with a quick modified school boy roll up. He's now beat both Miz and Morrison in consecutive weeks.

Ricky Ortiz being introduced would indicate that he'll get involved in this feud for tag matches. I find this very interesting because Bourne is already in a program with Kane and Mysterio. Now he has another program on another show.

The WWE is putting a lot of faith in him as I don't recall the last time someone was involved in two different story lines at the same time. Hopefully, he's up for the challenge.

Jack Swagger comes out to face Chase Stevens. This match had the same problem that Swagger's first match had—no one cares about people they don't know. Chase Stevens hasn't been on TV in months and I don't think he has a contract with the WWE. No time is invested in him which means the fans could care less about this match.

Swagger dominates the entire thing and shows that he's really impressive when it comes to powerhouse moves. He's not coming off as anything special just yet and he has more of a heel look than anything else.

His style tonight was a faces style so I'm thinking that creative still doesn't know what they want to do with him. On a side note, his smile is really creepy. If he becomes a heel, that would be a perfect gimmick.

Our main event sees Mark Henry against Finlay. Finlay needs to change his music. It really doesn't portray someone who's ready to fight.

This match was very slow. Henry dominated the entire time with some random spurts of Finlay getting in some offense. It didn't seem believable to me.

Finlay is one of the toughest fighters in the company and for him to be dominated the whole match made him look bad. Usually, Mark Henry will destroy his opponents and it doesn't hurt anyone's credibility. But if the person he fights is supposed to be a brawler, he should have had more offense.

The match ended with Henry hitting the World's Strongest Slam. Again, there was nothing interesting or memorable about this match. It really shouldn't have been picked to end the show, or at least should have been worked better so as not to make Finlay look bad.

Overall, ECW was pretty good. Nothing sticks out as terrible and there's nothing that can't be fixed next week.

Four matches in an hour is very impressive and the fans seemed to be very entertained. ECW has found a good formula of getting matches on and pushing stories through the commentating as opposed to people standing around and talking. I admire that in the show. My rating: B

RAW Recap 9/15/08 or Hot Shot Booking

Mike Valentyne — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:11:11 -0400

One of the more hyped RAW's in recent memory takes place and like usual, it's time to figure out what creative got right and what went wrong.

The show actually opens with wrestling. Not just any match though, but a world title cage match seeing Chris Jericho defend against C.M. Punk. As happy as I was to see a match open RAW, the fact that they put the advertised main event as the opening was a bad idea. The entire show was advertised for this match. Why would anyone want to continue watching if they already got their main event?

With that said, this match really could have been better. There were some good spots, especially with the Walls of Jericho, but something seemed flat about this match. Maybe it was the fact that they were in the open and had less than 20 minutes to work. For the story that they created, this match should have been over 30 minutes and very violent. It felt like creative just gave up on C.M. Punk by not giving him a legitimate shot at his title.

The end was terrible. If they wanted to have Jericho fall out of the ring and continue the whole "barley retaining his title" story, they could have booked it in a way that didn't make Punk look bad. Punk giving him a headbutt next to the open door made Punk look stupid. He should have known that Jericho was going to fall in that direction.

A better ending would have been Punk delivering the Go To Sleep, have Jericho stumble back and in between the ropes. He hits the cage door, which is rigged with a trick latch, and he breaks out of the cage to the floor. Then the claim could be made that Punk had him beat but it just turned out that Jericho is really lucky.

Adamle is backstage talking to Kelly Kelly, who he refers to as K-Squared, When the newest superstar, Dolph Diggler, introduces himself. Jericho shows up and begins to complain to Adamle about being overworked, which sounded more like a shoot than anything else.

Kane is backstage wearing his old mask, which got one of the biggest pops of the night. He then begins to talk about why he pulled off the mask, claiming he did intentionally, to try and better relate to the fans. Appearently, WWE forgot their own storyline. Kane lost the mask in a title versus mask match, that Rob Van Dam got him involved in.

After Kane lost the match, he removed the mask and beat the hell out of RVD. If Kane was trying to connect to the fans, why would he attack RVD unprovoked? Kane has never had continuity in his character and it's really sad to see this happening to him.

Even Bourne shows up and says that Kane will lose his match tonight. Kane laughs at him, as he should because Bourne does not come off as intimidating and shouldn't have walked in on Kane like this.

Jillian Hall comes out for her match against Candice Michelle. Beth Phoenix comes out while Candice makes her entrance and gets no fan fare from the audience because of it. This match was abysmal. Candice can not wrestle and it's sad to see her getting the push when there are so many more talented women on the roster.

I don't understand why Vince is pushing her down everyone's throat. The fans didn't care about this match at all. There was no reaction and a small "We Want Puppies" chant began.

Candice hits the Unprettier, or the Candy-wrapper, for the win. I was really hoping she forgot about this move, seeing as she jumps backwards to do it as opposed to dropping straight down like you're suppose to. Jumping backwards doesn't give the opponent the proper room to land and you could cause an injury doing it this way. There was a guy in the front row that signaled for Christian Cage, which was very appropriate.

Beth tried to get in the ring only to be caught off guard by the sloppiest drop kick I've seen in awhile. Beth refused to enter, which I don't blame her. Candice is working unsafe and I wouldn't want to be injured by her either. Storyline wise, this was a good move having Candice sneak attack Beth. It still shows how dominate Beth is in this feud.

JBL versus Tommy Dreamer is up next. I feel really bad for Dreamer. He's one of the more talented guys they have on the roster and he keeps getting job duty. The match was quick, which doesn't make sense because Dreamer is an ECW original and it should take a lot to put him away. Not a Clothesline From Hell.

JBL sits in the ring and demands to be named number one contender. Orton comes out and continues to insult JBL and the entire roster. Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix come out and demand an apology from Orton as does JBL. It's good to see some people standing up for themselves against Orton. It never made sense to me that people fear him, when he is literally a one armed man right now. It just makes the roster look bad.

Batsita comes out and claims that he'll win the title soon and take everyone down that gets in his way, including Beth Phoenix. Adamle announces that he will name a number one contender at the end of the show and that everyone needs to wait. Batista then attacks everyone, except Orton.

The segment sees a great spot with Batista giving Beth a Spinebuster on Santino. This came off very well and hopefully they'll start having Beth fight in the men's division.

Priceless and Manu versus Kofi Kingston, Jerry "The King" Lawler, and Charlie Haas is up next. Haas is pretending to be Jim Ross this week, which doesn't make sense seeing as how he isn't a wrestler. It would have made more sense if he came out as Elvis because they were in Memphis tonight.

The fans seem to be behind Haas one hundred percent with this gimmick. If Haas has found his connection, I hope he runs with it and makes everyone realize just how great of a wrestler he really is.

The match itself was pretty solid. Decent amount of time and showcased all six people in the match. The end sees Haas on the wrong side of a Million Dollar Lag Sweep.

JBL and Jericho have a good exchange of dialogue backstage when JBL asks for a title match. Jericho brings up his match with Randy Orton back in December that JBL got involved in. It's strange that the WWE will remember certain things in the story line but can't keep continuity in others.

Jamie Noble squares off against Paul Burchill. Just like Burchill's last match about a month ago, it really didn't show case him at all. But it did make Noble look great. He got the win with an armbar and the tap out came quick, the way that all submissions should work. Layla comes out and officially turned heel by claiming she never liked Noble. Regal comes out and takes her to the back.

This story is starting to grow some legs but the fans don't seem to be behind it just yet. Creative needs to find a way to spice it up so we can get Noble versus Regal at a pay-per-view. It was interesting to see Noble involved with all British affiliated workers tonight; William Regal, Layla, Paul Burchill, and Katie Lea. I'm beginning to wonder if this was intentional.

Adamle is backstage talking to Lance Cade when Batista comes out and demands a title match. This segment really shows just how useless Cade has become. He hasn't done anything since he joined Jericho and I don't understand why they continue to have him follow Jericho around. He should be focusing on the intercontinental title.

Kane versus Rey Mysterio is the main event for the evening. Picking this as the main event was rather insulting to C.M. Punk. For whatever reason, it feels that the company lost faith in him. He's still one of the more over wrestlers in the company yet he doesn't get main event spots and loses his title in a demeaning way.

The match was pretty good with a lot of back and forth action. No one man had the advantage for a controlling portion of the match. The end sees Kane being DQed when he wouldn't stop attacking Rey in the corner. Evan Bourne comes to the rescue and the two take out Kane.

It's great to see Evan Bourne playing a role in a big feud on RAW. He needs as much exposure as he can get. Bourne has the ability to bring in more viewers if worked properly and he should be officially moved to RAW for this purpose.

The end of the night sees Jericho in the ring doing a promo about how great he is. Adamle comes out and works a 4 star match with the microphone. It was awkward listening to him stumble over his own words. He seemed very nervous for whatever reason. He announces that Jericho's opponent at No Mercy will be none other than Shawn Michaels.

Michaels comes out and says that they will have a ladder match. Now, this makes sense in the story for Shawn to get a title shot seeing as how he beat Jericho the night he won the title. But this really is a slap in the face to C.M. Punk. Punk clearly lost his match earlier in the night to questionable circumstances, but he's not allowed another match. He's just put on the back burner and will probably be forgotten about.

Overall, this show was decent. Some good areas here and there but a lot of random nothing and pretty boring segments. Jericho/Shawn is already so old that adding the title doesn't make it any better. It just makes me not care about the World Title right now. The show could have revolved more around the former champion and Jericho as opposed to who will be the number one contender. My rating: C

Tyler Black: The Silent Assassin

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:15:15 -0400

Once in awhile, a wrestler will appear seemingly out of nowhere with an uncanny ability to perform in the ring. They're usually few and far between, but right now, Ring of Honor has found one. His name is Tyler Black.

Associated with The Age of the Fall, Black is quite possibly the best all around wrestler on the entire team. He has speed, grappling, chain wrestling, and power moves. He has the uncanny ability to adapt to styles, as seen in his matches against "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson and he knows how to keep the audience entertained.

Now, someone like Tyler Black has many possibilities in his career, seeing as he's still very young. Black can continue to work the independent scene with Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and Full Impact Pro and continue to hone his skills. He can try to land a job with Total Nonstop Action or the WWE, but neither one of them would push him properly or in a deserving way.

But let's say that he did get picked up by the WWE. Many people would think that someone like Tyler Black wouldn't fit into the WWE style, but I think that he would be a perfect fit, if the story is done right.

Introduce Tyler Black in the middle the World Title feud. Let's say, for the sake of argument and the fact that these two dominate the main event, John Cena versus Randy Orton. Have an episode of RAW where Orton gets to hand pick Cena's opponent.

Introduce The Silent Assassin, Tyler Black. Black would do no promo or pandering to the crowd. He would come down to the ring and work John Cena in his own style. Have the fans see Black take Cena to the limit with the style that Black works. Run the match for 20 minutes before Cena gets the win. Have the commentators push the fact that this new guy comes out of nowhere and almost beat one of the top guys on RAW.

If done properly and depending on what city they are in, Black will come off as a major heel.

The next week, have Cena pick an opponent for Randy Orton. Out comes the Silent Assassin, Tyler Black. Same thing as the week before, have Black take Orton to the limit in another 20 minute match before Orton gets the win. This time, Black plays the face and should be able to get over with the audience based on his wrestling style.

From this moment, have Tyler Black as the hired gun of the company. Bring him in sparingly to the other brands and use him to punish wrestlers that are messing with the GM, heel or face.

Work Black through this story long enough until someone hires him to be their tag team partner. They win the tag titles but Black still has no alliance with anyone and will willfully attack his partner if someone hires him to do so. Make Black the ultimate tweener as he goes through the roster of any given brand. Wins and loses won't mean anything for him because he is only used to hurt his opponent for someone else's gain.

Eventually, have Black approach the GM and demand a World Title match. The GM refuses for one reason or another and have Black go off the deep end. He begins attacking the main eventers during their matches at the end of the night. He lays them all out by any means necessary and claims that he is no longer for hire and that no one can reign him in.

Have Black continue to disrupt the main events until the GM gives him what he wants. If done right, the audience will be behind him 100 percent because of his work ethic. He could do no wrong, much like Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Chris Jericho. Have this be the story where he wins the title and someone with a credible wrestling background will be holding the belt.

Then the new question arises, "Who can beat Tyler Black?" The fans would pay to see him wrestle and also to watch him lose. He would be the most marketable champion, as he would have the quality of both a face and a heel.

Of course, this is all running under the assumption that the WWE could follow a long and drawn out story like this one without scumming to the urge of burying him at some point or people backstage trying to sabotage his entire run.

I only bring up Tyler Black for a role like this because he has everything that it takes to become a champion in the big leagues. He has the skill level, the ring psychology, and the looks of a champion. If he ever gets his shot, something along these lines for a story would be a great way to get him over.

The TNA Identity Crisis

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:40:34 -0400

Professional wrestling is a business that has to remain on the cutting edge. It has to be one step ahead of the curve to keep fans excited and wanting to see more. Professional wrestling needs to adapt and make new stars whenever any wrestler begins to show signs of popularity. Any successful company can tell you that if you give the consumer the product they want, they will continue to come back and pay for it.

With that said, there seems to be an identity crisis over at Total Nonstop Action.

Now, when the company first started off in May of 2002, they were a small upstart company trying to make a name for themselves. Understandable that they would go to other companies and secure stars from yesteryear to fill out their main events. I mean, if you think about it, no one will pay to watch a new wrestling promotion that has a bunch of names that no one recognizes.

So TNA begins pulling in names like Jeff Jarrett (co-founder and owner), Ricky Steamboat, Raven, AJ Styles, and other names from other recognizable companies to fill out the main event. With old WWE, ECW, and new ROH stars on the rise, this is a great way to bring in a new audience to watch your shows and hopefully capture their attention with the younger guys on the mid card. Once the mid card begins to expand, move them to the main event so they can become the face of your company.

But TNA didn't really seem to grasp this concept too well. Now, TNA has a lot of talented people on their roster, but it seems that anyone who is TNA branded will never get their shot in the company. It seems that whenever someone leaves WWE, TNA is bending over backwards trying to get them on their show.

Best examples are Kurt Angle, Booker T, Christian Cage, Bobby Lashley, Chris Jericho, and most recently, Mick Foley. Now, TNA has been riding a solid 1.0 to 1.1 rating on Impact for maybe two years now. In this time, we've seen several WWE main eventers show up to TNA and the ratings never increasing.

So why would TNA keep spending money on talent that isn't improving the show?

We've seen many guys hold the title on TNA that have been huge names in other companies. Kurt Angle and Christian Cage both came from the WWE. Ken Shamrock was big in the UFC. Sting and Jeff Jarrett made a name for themselves in WCW. Rhino and Raven were huge in the old ECW. Fans recognize Samoa Joe and AJ Styles from ROH more than any other company.

It would seem that the only two stars that TNA made themselves and became champion were Ron Killings and Abyss. Out of the 11 different world champions they've had, only two of them were homegrown talent and the last time one of them held the title was in 2006. This is their world title, and it's suppose to represent the company. So far, it looks like the company represents other companies stars.

Now, it's not just the list of champions but a list of all the people who get pushes as well. We see people like Booker T, Team 3D, and Jim Cornette getting all the attention on TV. Almost the entire women's division comes from Shimmer, were they've already made a name for themselves on the independent scene, which TNA fans are familiar with.

What doesn't make sense about all of this is the fact that TNA has a very solid roster, possibly the best overall roster in a wrestling company today. But they don't want to push anyone they already have.

The Wild Cat Chris Harris was an amazing worker and knew how to draw in the crowd, but TNA never gave him his due and he left the company. Robert Roode was named by Pro Wrestling Illustrated as a man who will one day main event Wrestlemania but he's stuck in go nowhere story lines when he should be fighting for the World Title. Petey Williams is an amazing athlete but he's stuck with the Scott Steiner gimmick that isn't helping him become his own person.

Granted, some of their homegrown talent has won the tag team titles and the X-division titles on many occasions, but people aren't buying the pay per views to watch the X-division anymore. So these titles are coming across as placement holders to keep the locker room from rioting because they never get their chance at the big time.

Kurt Angle coming in ended anyone's chance of ever getting a proper push. When he walked into the company, the first thing he did was beat Samoa Joe's winning streak. This showed to everyone that the WWE makes better wrestlers than TNA.

Now, people will argue that Angle is a Olympic gold medalist and it makes sense that he beat Joe. But think about this, Angle hasn't been in the Olympics for 10 years at that point. The only new training he has in was pro wrestling. His body is far more damaged than it was in the summer of 1996.

Angle beating Joe came off as a very big mistake. Then, to top it off, Angle pins Joe three times in a 30 minute Iron Man Match. So the guy who is undefeated for 18 months somehow loses three times in 30 minutes. Ever since this booking, anyone who comes over from the WWE has always come out on top and pushed straight to the main event.

The bottom line is this. Whenever anyone looks at TNA all they can think about is the WWE because that's were most of their main event comes from. TNA has some incredible wrestlers on the roster, but their refusal to push any of these men to the main event will eventually become their down fall. It happened with WCW and history will repeat itself again.

Hopefully, TNA can solve this problem soon and actually provide some legitimate competition to the WWE.

Smackdown Recap 9/12/08 or Triple H Dominates Friday Nights

Mike Valentyne — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:34:26 -0400

The first Smackdown after Unforgiven takes place and it's time to see how the damage control was handled with Jeff Hardy.

Of course the show opens up with Triple H talking in the ring. Why should a wrestling show start with wrestling? I have still yet to see it happen on a normal basis. Triple H talks about how great he is for overcoming the odds and retaining his title. He forgot to mention that he was only in the match forfive5 minutes.

Jeff Hardy comes out and the two begin to start their feud. It's always interesting that whenever someone wants to pick on Triple H they immediately talk about his marriage to Stephanie and whenever someone wants to pick on Jeff they always go straight to his addictions. These two topics are old. They need to come up with new ways of getting under each others skin because these promos are boring.

First match of the night sees Maryse, Natalya, and Victoria versus McCool, Maria, and Brie Bella. To say this match was bad is an understatement. It's sad to see talented workers like Natalya and Victoria have to sell to wrestlers with the talent levels of McCool, Maria, and Brie. It's also sad to see Maryse be the dominate heel on the team. Natalya and Victoria should be owning the women's division on Smackdown.

With that said, none of the faces looked good in the match. They all looked sloppy and still need a lot more ring time. This is what house shows and FCW should be used for, not TV time. The match ends with Brie rolling under the ring to switch out with Nicole. A quick roll up on Victoria and the faces win the match.

What I don't understand is why they are using this gimmick for a face. These are clearly heel tactics and hopefully The Bella Twins will start a feud with McCool before they reveal that they are twins.

R-Truth squares off against Chavo Guerrero. R-Truth gets a better reception when going through the crowd this week. It seems that people are starting to understand the gimmick and want to play along now.

It does seem that R-Truth is trying too hard to get over. With the elaborate entrance and him always shouting "What's Up" to the crowd after every move, he's coming off as desperate. He's not the best wrestler that Smackdown has, but he is entertaining. He'll be able to get over based on that alone, but the harder he tries, the quicker he'll disown the fans.

The match itself was a good contest. Chavo usually puts on solid work and tonight was no different. I still don't understand why the fans boo Chavo when he does the 3 amigos. He's paying homage to his uncle, Eddie Guerrero. He shouldn't be booed for this. The end see Bam Neely getting involved which leads to a DQ on Chavo.

Chavo gets upset and pushes around Neely, who pushes back. Seems that they just broke up this team, which may be for the better depending on which way they go with it. Neither one of these two should turn face but they should just stay out of each others way. R-Truth attacks both men and comes out on top at the end of the segment.

Backstage we see Shelton Benjamin talking to Eve Torres. Triple H comes by and suggests that Shelton can't beat Hardy in the main event. This comes off as strange because it feels that Triple H is scared of Hardy becoming number one contender.

Also, they're wasting the U.S. Title on Shelton Benjamin. He shouldn't be involved with the WWE title right now. He should be in his own feud. Shelton going after the WWE title while holding the U.S. Title makes the U.S. Title look inferior. Why should anyone care about it if Shelton clearly doesn't.

Festus versus Dykstra is next and this match was a waste of time. Dykstra had some good heel tactics by attacking Festus before the bell. But the match itself was literally three moves. Fetus dominates Dykstra and then Jesse and Festus tie him up and wheel him off.

I understand that it was a whole advertising thing with Smackdown changing stations, but to use up this much time on it was ridiculous. Dykstra is a natural when it comes to pro wrestling. He's not used much on house shows and he has matches like this on TV. How is he suppose to hone his skills if they don't give him any time?

Vickie Guerrero comes out at the top of the hour to explain what happened at Unforgiven with her and The Undertaker. They decide to show almost the entire segment that aired at Unforgiven, which makes me wonder why they even had it on the pay per view if they were just going to take time on TV to show it.

Big Show comes out and says that he wants a title shot, so he agreed to protect Vickie from Taker. This story actually makes sense, so I'm behind it 100 percent. Now, if creative can remember that Big Show is Vickie's personal bodyguard and no one should mess with her, than there is no way to mess up this story.

Vladimir Kozlov is in a handicap match with Scotty Goldman and Funaki. I don't understand the point of handicap matches. It doesn't make anyone look good. The two jobbers look totally inept and the person on top looks pathetic because they're beating up on jobbers. The match is not even worth mentioning as it didn't provide anything new to any one's character.

Kozlov then demands a real challenge in the WWE. Several things go through my mind as he makes this announcement. First, why isn't he going after Big Show anymore? Weren't they about ready to fight last week? Just because Big Show is a heel know, shouldn't mean that Kozlov doesn't remember him. Secondly, Kozlov has been undefeated for six months now. Why hasn't he had a title shot, either U.S. or WWE?

This continues to show that a win/loss record doesn't exist in the WWE which makes me wonder why they always bring up winning or losing streaks. If it doesn't mean anything, then don't talk about it.

Ezekiel Jackson is backstage with Triple H. The Brian Kendrick comes out and Triple H continues to behave strangely. He claims that Kendrick is an amazing athlete and he should have won the scramble match.

I understand that Triple H is trying to play mind games with everyone but he's just coming of weird. Why would Triple H go around the back and keep picking on all the younger talent? He always gets the last word, which makes everyone else look bad.

A non title tag team match sees Hawkins and Ryder face off against the Carlito and Primo Colon. It was interesting to see Hawkins and Ryder coming out looking a lot like Edge and Christian. Makes me wonder if creative is going to push them like that and if Christian does resign with the company, are they going to feud with each other?

The match was very solid whenever the Colons had control. Very innovative moves and spots from these two. The Colons may be the answer the the tag team division problem on Smackdown. Whenever Hawkins and Ryder had control of the match, they really slowed things down. They really shouldn't be tag team champions and if they can't keep their matches interesting.

The end sees Carlito hitting the back stabber for the win. Hopefully creative will give them a tag team title match next week seeing as how these titles haven't been on the line for quite some time now. This whole division needs a shot in the arm.

Triple H is backstage picking on MVP, claiming that he's not a contender because he never got a fall during the scramble match. Triple H is really going out of his way to make all the younger talent look bad this week. For someone who doesn't have a match on tonight's episode, he really has a lot of screen and time and is destroying the credibility of many workers. I don't understand why the company feels that this is a good idea.

The main event sees MVP versus Jeff Hardy versus Shelton Benjamin versus The Brian Kendrick in a Fatal Four Way. The match was very slow considering who was involved with it. Hardy kept getting knocked out and tossed to the outside, Kendrick proved that he was the smartest wrestler in the match by waiting outside for a good time to come in and steal a victory, and Shelton and MVP worked the entire match.

It's interesting to note that ever since MVP had that complaint filed against him regarding the drug testing, the company seems to be using him as a stepping stone. He really didn't come off as aggressive as usual and he seemed to look weaker in comparison to a few weeks ago. Also, he was the only superstar not to get a pin fall during the scramble match, therefore never becoming interim champion.

The match was solid but not interesting. The end sees Jeff picking up the win over Kendrick to become the number one contender to Triple H. So now it really doesn't make sense for triple H to make everyone else look bad all night seeing as how none of the other wrestlers will be getting revenge anytime soon.

Before we go off the air, Kozlov comes back out and attacks Jeff Hardy. So now, Hardy is working two programs, which doesn't make sense. If Kozlov wanted a challenge, why go after the number one contender and not the WWE champion? Isn't the champion the guy to beat on the brand? Jeff came off looking weak again because of this attack. It seems that creative really doesn't want Jeff to succeed.

Overall, a lackluster Smackdown. Triple H was all over this edition and he didn't even have a match. New stories were introduced (Big Show/Taker) and old ones keep moving along (Brie Bella). Nothing too big except the last 20 minutes of the show. Other than, bland. My rating: B-

ECW Recap 9/2/08 or We Really Only Have Eight Stars On This Show Edition

Mike Valentyne — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:25:29 -0400

The ECW go home show before the pay-per-view is over, and it's time to see if they made anyone want to buy this Sunday.

The show opens up with none other than talking. Now, I like The Dirt Sheet. I find it very entertaining, but I can't keep stressing the fact that there should never be talking at the top of the hour. I don't know how many times this needs to be said or why the WWE can't figure it out.

With that said, the segment was like any typical "let's set up the main event for tonight." Every member of the scramble is called out one by one to be mocked by Miz and Morrison. Some of it was funny, but a lot of it was really bad.

Whoever wrote Matt Hardy's script for tonight really needs to work on his insults and if it was Matt Hardy that thought of it all, then he needs a writer.

Finlay needs to go back to his old music. There is nothing threatening about Hornswoggle's music and it just doesn't work for his character.

The segment ends with everyone beating the hell out of each other when suddenly Evan Bourne and Tommy Dreamer come running in to help Finlay and Hardy. It was very contrived for those two to show up. The commentators say that they've had problems with Miz and Morrison but seriously, it looked more like creative needed to throw in two more superstars to make their match.

Now Dreamer really should have been in the Scramble. He's such a mainstay with ECW and no matter how long he's gone, the fans are always behind him. He easily could have replaced Finlay who, because of storylines and not wrestling ability, shouldn't be in the match at all. Finlay already lost a qualifier and should not have been in contention for another.

After the break, we see that all 11 men are still fighting backstage. Teddy Long comes out and announces an eight man tag match. The first thing I thought was how are they going to fill the rest of the show if all eight of their top superstars are in the main event?

This was going to prove whether or not the rest of the ECW roster is even worth the time and will allow them to capture the audience based on their work rate.

Our first match of the night sees Super Crazy versus Gavin Spears. Spears somehow already has the entire audience hating him. He comes out to some decent heat but quickly loses the audience. No one cared that these two men were in the ring. You could see people wandering around in the background and looking in other directions.

At one point, Super Crazy tries to get the fans behind him when he's in peril, but he gets no reaction. Spears then screams at him "Look. No one cares about you." This worked great. Spears acknowledging the fans lack of reaction shows that he's well aware of his surroundings and this is the first step of becoming a great heel.

Hopefully, he'll be able to hone this skill and make it work for him. Spears also used an old school gimmick when he removed his knee pad to knee Super Crazy in the face. It's little things like this that show how much potential he actually has.

The match ends with Super Crazy hitting a moonsault from the second rope for the pin. The fans seem to still be behind Super Crazy whenever he's coming out or wins a match, but he can't seem to keep them during the match.

Ricky Ortiz versus Ryan Braddok is up next. This match had the same problem as the last. The fans loved Ortiz coming in the ring but they didn't care about the match until the last few moves.

Ortiz and Braddok compliment each other so well. These two must have worked with each other many times in OVW or FCW. They just worked so well together and I don't think either one of them could duplicate that with anyone else right now.

Other than that, this match was very basic. Neither man tried anything out of the ordinary to help try and capture the audience. Ortiz has the makings of a upper level mid carder and possible main event some day. If they work this undefeated streak properly, he could go far.

A RAW rebound promo airs. Usually, these are supposed to push the major stories that are going on in the other brands. My only question was why was the Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho feud highlighted?

Isn't there a scramble match that just reintroduced one of there biggest faces, Rey Mysterio, that happened on RAW? Shouldn't that take the RAW rebound seeing as how this Jericho Shawn feud has already been shoved down our throats enough.

If the Jericho-Shawn match isn't the main event at Unforgiven, then the company really needs to figure out how to prioritize.

A Smackdown Your Vote promo airs. Nothing wrongs with this segment. Keep advertising that everyone should vote come November. It's a good public service that the WWE is doing.

The main event rolls through and we see Matt Hardy, Finlay, Tommy Dreamer, and Evan Bourne versus Mark Henry, Chavo Guerrero, The Miz, and John Morrison.

It was interesting to see that only Hardy and Bourne got their entrances played on TV while all the other faces came out during break. That kind of shows you what the WWE thinks about Finlay and Dreamer right now.

This match was full of workers and it showed. This was the most exciting match this week so far and Smackdown is going to have to try very hard to top this one. The crowd was behind it 100%.

The heels had very quick tags and they utilized Mark Henry like they should have; the ultimate weapon. Whenever the heels needed to turn the tide, Henry tagged in and dominated the scene.

Everything about this match was great, from the psychology to the work rate and the end was perfect. Henry comes in and gets side stepped by Hardy, which set up the Shooting Star Press, the Frog Splash, the Running Seated Senton, and the Twist of Fate for the pin.

Hardy getting the pin was a great way to end the show as all the fans were on their feet. This doesn't look good for Hardy come Sunday, but he's still on a roll and the fans will continue to be behind him, no matter what the outcome.

Overall this show was rather boring, except for the main event. It really showed that ECW only has eight people that are carrying the brand and they can't put them all in one segment without hurting the show. The ending does make people want to buy the pay per view, unlike RAW the night before. My rating: B