WWE/TNA: My Top 10 Moments of the Week (Feb. 12-17)

Another week of professional wrestling has ended and it was quite the interesting week.

TNA Against All Odds was a solid pay-per-view event, though, it did have some low points.

WWE Monday Night Raw was an interesting show. It wasn’t bad, but it was necessarily good. It was kind of a weird show overall.

TNA Impact Wrestling was another solid showing from the Dixie Carter-run company, but it too had some low points.

WWE Friday Night SmackDown was a good show and featured quite the interesting moment in a certain someone qualifying for the SmackDown elimination chamber match.

Overall, I’d say the show of the week goes to Impact Wrestling. This is the second week in a row that TNA takes the top spot, and I hope they can keep up the good work!

Come on, WWE, you're on the Road to WrestleMania! Your shows should be great every week! Hopefully things will improve upon after the Elimination Chamber.

Here are my top 10 moments of the week!

10. Santino Marella Qualifies for the Elimination Chamber

A lot of you may think I’m crazy for choosing this as a “top moment,” and I may be.

I thought this actually was a great moment, especially the reaction from the crowd.

In fact, it was the crowd reaction that made this special.

The audience went absolutely nuts when Santino won the battle royal. He may just be a comedy character, but the WWE Universe loves him!

Santino can be very good in the ring, he has proven that in the past, but his character doesn’t really allow him to showcase those skills as a wrestler.

Hopefully, WWE will let him put the comedy aside for one night since he’ll be competing for the World Heavyweight Championship.

I actually wouldn’t put it past WWE to give Santino the title on Sunday, but he would of course lose it the next night on Raw to Daniel Bryan.

Giving him the belt would be a real “feel good” moment and would show that everyone in WWE really does have a chance to be world champion. 

9. Chris Jericho vs. Kofi Kingston

I thought this was a good match that saw some nice back-and-forth action and kept a good pace throughout.

I just wish it was a bit longer, though.

I wished that with all of the matches on Raw. Out of the four matches on Monday’s show, this was the only one I felt was any good.

Orton/Big Show was decent, Ziggler/Truth was short and ended with the rollup of doom and Punk/Miz took a backseat to the Cena/Kane/Ryder/Eve feud and love fiasco.

Anyway, Jericho has still got it in the ring. It was hard to tell last week in the six-pack challenge, but being in a one-on-one match really showed that he could still go.

Kingston looked great in the ring and performed very well.

He always performs great so that’s not really a surprise.

Kingston really has been overlooked for far too long and he showed that he can perform great in the ring with a main-event star like Y2J.

I have a feeling that he’ll be the standout performer in the Raw elimination chamber match, but he obviously won’t win.

8. New York Giants Running Back Brandon Jacobs Gets Physical

After James Storm picked up the victory over Bully Ray, Super Bowl champion Brandon Jacobs hopped the guard rail to celebrate with the Cowboy.

As the two began to share a beer, Bully Ray knocked Storm to the ground and took Jacobs’ beer.

After a bit of trash talking, the bully spit beer in the running back’s face. That resulted in the bully getting knocked on his ass very hard with his back hitting the ring apron as well.

Brandon Jacobs is a big dude! You never really know how big NFL players are until they take off their pads.

TNA has had many celebrities come in and get physically involved, but none of them were as awesome as this.

It was so simple, which is what I loved about it!

I highly doubt Jacobs will get in the ring for a match, but I can definitely see him getting more physically involved next week.

7. The X-Division

The X-Division got showcased three times this week.

The first time was the opening match between Zema Ion and Jesse Sorenson at Against All Odds.

It had the makings of a great match, but an unfortunate event occurred when Sorenson got his face bashed in by Ion’s knee and was sent to intensive care.

Thankfully, he’s out of the hospital now and is on the road to recovery.

Ignoring how he won, I was glad to see Ion win the match. He has a lot of charisma and is good in the ring.

A match between him and Austin Aries will be great, whenever it happens!

Later on in the night, Aries defended the X-Division Championship against Alex Shelley.

These two X-Division stars had a great match. It had some great wrestling, some nice high-flying moves and was just great action throughout the entire match.

Aries continued to prove why he’s the “Greatest man who ever lived,” and Shelley gave the champion a hell of a fight.

I would love to see these two go at it again.

On Thursday’s Impact Wrestling, Aries teamed with his future opponent, Ion, to take on Shelley and Shannon Moore.

While the match was a bit short, I thought it was quite good. All four wrestlers performed great, and Ion should take some notes on the moonsault delivered by Moore so we don’t get another accident like at the PPV.

It was interesting seeing the champion and challenger together as a team, but you could definitely tell that there was a lot of tension between them.

Both wrestlers’ gimmicks have them having very high opinions of themselves. It’ll be interesting to see them go one-on-one with their similar gimmicks yet different styles.

I was glad to see Moore actually get some television time.  He’s a solid performer and could be utilized very well in the division if given the chance.

With Jesse Neal gone, I hope TNA uses Moore more often as a singles competitor.

Shelley, while a great singles wrestler, needs Chris Sabin to come back soon.

The Motor City Machine Guns could make a much bigger impact than Shelley can solo.

With the exception of what happened to Jesse Sorenson, this was a great week for TNA’s X-Division!

6. Bobby Roode Retains the TNA World Championship Twice

It’s been a challenging week for TNA world champion Bobby Roode.

At Against All Odds, he had to defend his title against Jeff Hardy, James Storm and Bully Ray in a fatal four-way match.

The match itself was quite good and there were moments that made you think that there would be a new champion.

I actually thought Bully Ray would be walking out the new champion at one point.

The ending really added to the Roode/Sting feud. When Roode ducked and hit Hardy with the title belt, I was quite surprised to see Roode finally get to Sting enough where he was going to screw him out of the title.

Either way, Roode was still the champion, so I was happy.

This past Thursday, though, Sting forced him to defend the title again, this time one-on-one with Hardy.

Roode managed to cheat to win again with help from Kurt Angle.

Roode’s title reign has been one cheating victory after the other, but that’s why I think his reign is great!

Roode is a phenomenal heel and the way he wins, talks and presents himself is making him one of the best in the business today!

5. Samoa Joe and Magnus Win the TNA Tag Team Championship

I literally celebrated when this happened!

When Matt Morgan and Crimson won the titles in November, I had hopes that the tag division in TNA could become great again. Two young talents had the belts and seemed like they made a great team.

Unfortunately, they had zero chemistry and they were boring.

The tag division in TNA was still dead in the water.

Then the Wild Card Tag Team Tournament came along and Samoa Joe and Magnus won it, gaining a shot at the belts at the same time.

Joe and Magnus had never teamed before, much like Morgan and Crimson, but they had something the champions didn’t.

The challengers had chemistry as a team! Their styles meshed very well together and they worked great as a team.

As soon as they won the tournament, I had hoped that they would win the titles, and they finally did this past Sunday at Against All Odds!

TNA could really build the division around Joe and Magnus; they just need some more teams.

Morgan and Crimson should just break up. Their team was a bust and both would benefit more as singles stars.

TNA should do the rematch right away to get it over with and bring in a new team to feud with the champions.

Personally, I can’t wait until Chris Sabin is able to return! A Motor City Machine Guns/Samoa Joe and Magnus feud would be great to see!

4. New No. 1 Contenders

This Thursday on Impact Wrestling, TNA presented two No. 1 contender’s matches.

The first was a 10-Knockout’s battle royal to determine who’d be facing Gail Kim for the Knockout’s Championship at Victory Road.

Featuring every woman on the roster, the 10 Knockouts battled it out to get a shot at the title.

Velvet dumped Sarita out of the ring to win, or so she thought. Madison then slid in to knock out Velvet to become the No. 1 contender.

I was hoping for a Sarita victory here. She’s probably the best wrestler in the Knockout’s division, but she’s barely used.

I thought this was going to be her time to shine, but I was wrong.

While I would have preferred her to win, I’m actually quite happy with Madison’s win.

Madison has been Gail’s lackey for too long; it was about time she got the chance to shine on her own.

When she was champion throughout 2010 and the early part of last year, she was a great heel champ, and she was much better than Gail is right now.

Gail’s reign as champion has been extremely boring, as she only seems to wrestle on PPV and never on Impact Wrestling.

When she does wrestle on Thursdays, it’s always great to see, but it’s very rare.

I don’t know who will be the face and who’ll be the heel, but I really hope Madison Rayne comes out of this as the new champion!

The other No. 1 contender’s match was James Storm vs. Bully Ray, where the winner faced Bobby Roode, though it wasn't revealed as to when until later.

I was hoping that TNA was saving the big Roode/Storm match for Slammiversary, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as Storm picked up the victory.

At the same time, I’m quite happy with Storm’s win because a one-on-one match between the two is something I really want to see.

Later on in the show, it was revealed that the match would take place at Lockdown in April. That really adds to the match I think!

Roode has been cheating his way to victory in one way, shape or form since winning the title.

There will be no escape inside the steel cage, and it will force Roode to come up another way to win.

I’m hoping Bully Ray does get a one-on-one title shot later this year, though. He has really come into his own as a singles star and is one hell of a heel!

3. Daniel Bryan’s Promo

Daniel Bryan delivered another great promo on SmackDown!

Speaking of taking out Randy Orton, the Big Show leaving the building and himself as champion, Bryan was very good on the mic and was getting under the crowd’s skin.

When he first started to act like a heel, I was confused as to what his alignment actually was. There’s no mistaking it now—Daniel Bryan is a heel champion!

And what a heel champion he has become!

Whether he’s weaseling his way out of a match or playing with the minds of the WWE Universe, Bryan has really become a great heel.

When he had Lillian Garcia announce him as the winner against Orton by forfeit, it really added to his character. He’ll take a victory any way he can, even if it’s by forfeit.

It’s a shame that he and Bobby Roode work for different companies, as I would love to see the two interact in the middle of the ring.

Bryan’s mic work went from subpar when he started with WWE to truly superb in the span of a few months.

Daniel Bryan is, without a doubt, the best mic worker on SmackDown and one of the best in the WWE!

2. The Shawn Michaels/Triple H Segment, Plus the Undertaker Video

Overall, I really enjoyed this segment. It was quite good and the mic work was great.

Thankfully, Triple H didn’t bore the hell out of me like he did last week. The Game delivered a great promo and really sold that he didn’t want another match with the Undertaker.

The star of this segment, though, was Shawn Michaels.

He delivered a great promo, but it was the ending that really stood out to me.

The Heartbreak Kid really hasn’t lost a beat on the mic.

How great would it be if Michaels became the general manager of Raw? He’s still great on the mic and can still put the audience in the palm of his hand with every word.

The new Undertaker video was great. I specifically loved the ending when he started to cut his hair.

It was another very well done video and is exactly why I love the Road to WrestleMania; the WWE editors pull out their best work, especially when it pertains to the Undertaker!

While this new video is most likely being done to explain his overall lack of hair, it’ll be very interesting to see where they go from here.

Will the WWE Universe get a short-haired Deadman much like WrestleMania XX? How about the return of the American Bad Ass?

Only time will tell I suppose.

All I know is this: I can’t wait to see what happens next!

1. Bobby Roode Takes out Sting

When I discovered that an in-ring segment was going to close the show I thought to myself, “Come on, TNA, you’re better than this!”

I did a complete 180 by the end of the segment, though.

Sting revealed that Bobby Roode would be facing James Storm at Lockdown and the champion finally snapped, much like Sting snapped on Sunday.

Roode kicked the Stinger right in the family jewels and proceeded to beat on the Icon.

By the end of the segment, Sting was left busted open and out cold.

This was actually a great way to end the show!

Both Roode and Sting have been pushing each other’s buttons since Roode became champion, and you knew one of them was just going to snap.

We saw a glimpse of Sting losing his cool at Against All Odds, but the world champion went all out and left the man in charge of Impact Wrestling down and out.

It was only a matter of time before this happened, and I think it happened at the perfect time!

It gets the inevitable Roode vs. Sting match out of the way sooner rather than later.

I can’t wait for next week to see where TNA goes from here with this.