The Shoot: Professional Wrestling's Weekly Recap

TNA follows PPV with some twists; WWE bores us to tears

Another week is in the book for professional wrestling. With no PPVs on the table, this past week lacked some pop, and seemed to really lull on almost all television. TNA started moving past Sacrifice, and WWE continued setting up Extreme Rules, a PPV that has almost an identical card as Judgment Day.

WWE

Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment promised us an exciting week with the shows all taking place in Los Angeles following the fall out with Denver. Unfortunately for us, they did not deliver.

RAW was contrived, and having all their stars running around dressed in basketball jerseys in the Main Event was just ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as Mr. Kennedy coming back, getting hurt again ... and subsequently getting his WWE release, but ridiculous nonetheless.

I am not a big Mr. Kennedy fan, and seeing him leave really is not a big loss. He was nothing but an over-hyped, always-injured, could've, would've, might've been. But, at least he would have been something different.

RAW has just been a bore without Triple H around and Randy Orton begging for anyone to steal the star spotlight from him. Orton is a certified star, but with John Cena locked in a pointless feud with Big Show, there is nobody there to match Orton.

Batista certainly is not doing it, and even with Ric Flair around, they don't seem to be drawing much interest.

On ECW we saw the ECW Championship match for Extreme Rules become a triple-threat between Jack Swagger, Christian and Tommy Dreamer. The Innovator of Violence has said he will retire if he does not win this one.

I think they might put the belt on his waist, but I am not sure. I will not be upset with any of these three guys winning. ECW is actually quite watchable right now because of these three guys, Finlay and the newly formed Hart Trilogy, which looks quite exceptional early on.

On Smackdown! we got more of the same old. Rey Mysterio looking silly trying to cut a promo on the promo king, Chris Jericho, Jeff Hardy vs. Edge picking up some steam, and a look at The Great Khali and R-Truth threatening to make a supergroup and drop a multi-platinum album.

I like the World Heavyweight Championship feud and think that The Charismatic Enigma might actually take the belt off of Mr. Copeland's waist. They should tear the house down at least with a Ladder Match at Extreme Rules.

Not a super eventful week in WWE all-in-all, but we can always look forward to next week as they continue to build toward a PPV.

TNA

Impact! was a fairly interesting show as we saw the debut of a hot former-WWE diva, and the return to TNA of two former ECW superstars. It was also a post-PPV show, so everyone was eager to see what Sting was going to do as the new leader of the Main Event Mafia.

Of course, Sting did nothing. He said "women are banned from the Mafia" and fired Kurt Angle's crappy security guards. Nothing really important here, and in general a waste of show time. And, nothing else really happened. The group went to the back and that was that.

The rest of the night was continuing the pointless feud between Mick Foley and Jeff Jarrett and randomly introducing new people to the show.

Who the hell has anything to gain from Dude Love facing Double J? Nobody. Not the fans, not the two wrestlers in the program, not TNA's pocketbooks, nobody. It makes no sense to me.

They continued to tease all of us loyal TNAites by letting A.J. get into the King of the Mountain match, where he will no doubt fail to win the world title.

The Phenomenal One and Daniels simply put on the best in-ring show of the week. Their match for a spot in KotM was great and you could really see how much each and every show means to these guys.

Daniels was assaulted by Shane Douglas afterwards for some reason, bringing Douglas back on television. I can't really figure out why.

Raven also returned to get involved in the boring Stevie Richards vs. Abyss feud. The return that is notable is Victoria, who looked smoking-hot, attacking TNA Knockout champion Angelina Love.

Victoria never looked this good in WWE ... and we all know she is great in the ring. It will be nice to see what she does in TNA's ranks.

Ring of Honor

ROH normally does not get a mention here in The Shoot, but there was a great tag-team title match this week between the new champion American Wolves and Kevin Steen/El Generico.

These guys put on a great show in a table match and really tore the house down. Makes me really look forward to seeing the four-way ROH World Championship match next week between Austin Aries, Bryan Danielson, Tyler Black and the champ, Jerry Lynn.

Weekly Rankings

WWE — 1. Edge, 2. Randy Orton, 3. Jeff Hardy, 4. John Cena, 5. Batista, 6. Christian, 7. Chris Jericho, 8. Jack Swagger, 9. Rey Mysterio, 10. CM Punk

TNA — 1. A.J. Styles, 2. Daniels, 3. Kurt Angle, 4. Sting, 5. Samoa Joe, 6. Suicide, 7. Jeff Jarrett, 8. Mick Foley, 9. Booker T., 10. Eric Young

Tag Teams — 1. Team 3D, 2. Beer Money Inc., 3. British Invasion, 4. Motor City Machine Guns, 5. American Wolves (ROH)

Overall — 1. Edge, 2. Randy Orton, 3. A.J. Styles, 4. Jeff Hardy, 5. John Cena, 6. Batista, 7. Daniels, 8. Kurt Angle, 9. Sting, 10. Samoa Joe