John Cena walked out of WrestleMania the WWE Champion, MizShow walked out as Unified Tag Team Champions, Jack Swagger walked out as Mr. Money In The Bank, and HBK walked out and headed for the unemployment line. What’s going to happen tonight on RAW? We’ll find out!
Hey everybody. I’m back with another invigorating review (and by review I mean my rants about how these guys should be used instead of how they are being used) of WWE Superstars. Let’s get this thing started shall we?
Kofi Kingston def. Chavo Guerrero
This match is for two guys who can’t get on TV anymore. Somehow, Kofi got lost in the RAW shuffle and is not even in the Money in the Bank Match at Wrestlemania. How does this kind of oversight happen? One minute the guy is on fire in a very hot feud with Randy Orton and then the next he is delegated to random matches against Chavo Guerrero on Superstars without even a hint he will be on the biggest show of the year. Is it just me or does Kofi seem like another Elijah Burke, destined to be in TNA? Anyways, Kofi wins with the Trouble in Paradise.
Evan Bourne def. William Regal
This is the type of match that should get some time. It’s really hard to explain a comeback from a beatdown in a short period of time. William Regal dominates this match and then out of nowhere, Bourne hits a knee and the Shooting Star Press for the win.
Kane def. Mike Knox
Ok. Kane is in the MITB match at Wrestlemania. Mike Knox is on his way to the unemployment line. Who do you think won this? Kane wins with the Chokeslam.
Chris Jericho vs Goldust
This was a highly entertaining match. Jericho even praised the Bizzare One on his Twitter account after this match was recorded on Tuesday night. With Goldust being in good shape and still being able to perform on a high level, maybe he can hang around for a little while and do for Drew McIntyre what he did for Sheamus on ECW. Jericho wins with the Codebreaker.
That’s it for this week. Tune in again next week.
Well, my first ECW review seems to have gone over well. So here’s the second. Tonight’s main event is Christian vs Yoshi Tatsu for the ECW title. William Regal and his crew and Zach Ryder probably won’t like that. Shelton Benjamin should be looking for something to do with Sheamus running to Raw. And there’s a new announcer.
We open with a video for Yoshi Tatsu, promoting the title match.
And the show proper starts with Abraham Washington. The one part of the show I can’t stand. His guest tonight is Tiffany.
They’ve got a big show tonight so he’s going to do something he never does. Stop running his mouth. Tony starts laughing so much Washington threatens him with the unemployment line. Tiffany’s theme is “Insatiable?” Did someone forget to mention the PG thing.
When asked about ECW not having an impact at Bragging Rights she points out the number of stars on the show who had their first break on ECW. She promises that next year it will have an even bigger impact. The reason Sheamus left is because she doesn’t want people who don’t want to be here. So he got to leave. Provided he wrestles one last match, tonight against Shelton. And her arm is healing well.
Regal comes out and demands a title shot. She refuses and says he may never get one. After she leaves Regal has a tantrum tossing around the furniture.
We’re then introduced to Josh Matthews new partner, Byron Saxton. They then show another video about Yoshi.
Time for Sheamus’ last match on ECW. There’s a replay of Benjamin pounding Sheamus last week. And interview with Shelton talks about Sheamus saying he was mediocre. He says Sheamus is a coward and he’s running to Raw without doing anything to impress anyone. He’ll leave with a new respect for the Gold Standard. One of Shelton’s best promos.
Sheamus with several shots to the head and slams Benjamin’s head into the corner. Shelton fights out of the corner and then clotheslines the Celt out of the ring. He steps to the apron and then delivers a springboard split leg moonsault to the floor.
When we get back Sheamus’ arm is wrapped around the ringpost and Shelton is working it. Hammerlock and he rams him into the turnbuckle. He wants to snap it on the top rope but Sheamus slams him to the ringpost. Then on the floor he picks Shelton up and rams him backfirst into it. Kneedrop tot he back by the Celtic Warrior. Chinlock. Shelton elbows out, but ends up in a tilt-a-whirl slam. Hard whip to the corner and then he steps on Benjamin’s head. Another knee to the back and another variation on a chinlock. She stops an attempt to fight out short.
Overhead belly to belly by the Gold Standard. And they’re trading punches. Shelton takes the advantage. He’s whipped to the corner, leaps to the top and comes off with a clothesline. A couple of clotheslines then he hits Stinger Splash. Sheamus ducks a Dragonwhip but Shelton ducks a clothesline and hits a German Suplex.
Sheamus hotshots him into the ropes the hits the pump kick for the win.
Rosa is babbling about clothes to Gregory Helms. She then wonders what he wanted to ask her. “I just said hello” Paul Burchill and Katie Lea show up. She tells Rosa to leave. Birchall wants Helms to pass a message onto Hurricane to meet him in the ring next week.
A video of the Bragging Rights tag match
Savannah interviews Christian. He says Yoshi is the most deserving guy on ECW cause he went out and got some wins unlike some people, cough, William Regal. Yoshi makes him excited for the future. He will be a champ in the future. Just not tonight. Christian has been mentoring him and tonight he’ll learn the most important lesson any young talent can learn. How to cope with defeat.
Christian comes out wearing a T-shirt rather than his ring jacket. I really prefer the jacket. Yoshi Tatsu has yet another new set of tights. Gold would be appropriate on any other show but ECW with their supposedly platinum belt. He’s carrying something, I thought it was a microphone at first.
Sexton even points out the tights on commentary.
Tatsu with a waistlock. Christian backs him into the corner. Tatsu gets one kick. He tries a second but Christian dodges and gets a waistlock. Tatsu take him down. Christian works a headlock against several attempts to escape. Tatsu slips out and slaps on a headlock of his own.
Flapjack by Christian after some rope running. Springboard sunset flip. Tatsu with backbody drop and a flipping senton. Backslide. Back to a headlock. Tatsu sent outside but pulls himself in and rolls into a schoolboy for two.
Christian’s working a headlock on the mat. Yoshi shoves him into the corner, but runs into an elbow. Christian goes up top but is thrown off. Yoshi leaps over the top, but misses the champ and lands very awkwardly. Christian hits his own move over the ropes.
Crossbody by Tatsu. His leg looks fine. Christian with a neckvice. Tatsu elbows out. Christian hits a backbreaker out of a reverse DDT. Chinlock with a knee to the back. Christian rams his head into the turnbuckle
Yoshi blocks a tornado DDT then goes up top and hits a spinkick off the top rope. Rapid fire kicks by Tatsu. Christian sends him into the corner but misses a charge then Tatsu hits a roaring elbow.
Kilswitch blocked by a kick to the back. Tatsu sent into the ropes and Christian stands on his back, heads to the outside and decks him.
Second rope dropkick by the champ, but a top rope misses and Tatsu jackknife covers him. Double knees in the corner by Tatsu. Reverse DDT by Christian. Killswitch blocked by a kick to the back
Tatsu rolls through a springboard sunset flip and hits a kick. Another Killswitch blocked after Christian ducks the finishing kick. Pendulum kick after dodging a corner charge, followed by a diving Euro uppercut by the champ.
He finally hits the Killswitch for the win, then checks on Yoshi. Ezekial and Kozlov come down and flatten both men, hitting a double Uranage on the champ. Regal hold the belt and stand over him.
Despite only two matches in an hour ECW felt jam packed tonight. Both matches were excellent.
I do feel sorry for Shelton. It seems like he’s going to be in line for a push but with his and Sheamus’ feud cut short he didn’t get much chance to look good against the Celtic Warrior. And at one point during the match, when they were getting ready to transition the advantage back over to Sheamus he was pretty much wrestling like a heel. That’s something he’ll have to work on.
Meanwhile Christian did several nasty spots, such as choking a friend on the ropes without seeming like he was going to cross the line. I’m almost surprised that Regal’s crew didn’t attack before the end of the match, sparing Yoshi the pinfall loss.
I still feel they’re going to far with the pushing Regal to the head. His best role outside of authority figure as a heel is coldly calculating. Making him crazy doesn’t really work for me. I do hope Tiffany decides to make him earn his title shot.
I’ve been neglecting my duties as host of ThinkSoJoE’s Thoughts as of late, but I’m going to make a quick go at it this week.
We just launched all new forums here at BoredWrestlingFan (and I will fix any remaining links to the old forums soon), and we kicked them off in grand fashion with a discussion of this past Thursday’s iMPACT! Big things are brewing in TNA, with Jeff Jarrett being sent home by Dixie Carter and a couple of his buddies being sent to the unemployment line. This could be the spark that sets off the powder keg that is professional wrestling. A hot angle from a fresh writing staff can be the catalyst TNA needs to make themselves truly look like a credible threat to the WWE – which, in turn, will cause WWE to fight back. That’s what started the Attitude Era, competition from WCW.
Speaking of WCW, Kevin Nash used to work there. So did Rey Mysterio. Now they work for TNA and WWE, respectively. Mysterio mentioned Nash by name last night on SmackDown. Now, if I were Mr. McMahon, even if I am friends with Nash, I’m not going to let Mysterio mention Nash by name when he works for TNA, no matter how minuscule of a threat I thought they were. People who aren’t aware of the TNA product could hear Nash’s name, remember him from WCW (or even his last WWE run), think, “I wonder what ever happened to that guy,” look him up on the internet, and see that he’s working in TNA, as part of a group with other well known wrestling names like Booker T, Scott Steiner, and Kurt Angle, and decide to tune in next Thursday night. Then again, maybe Mr. McMahon wants to help the competition, maybe he thinks what I think – that strong competition will inspire the WWE product to become much better.
This is the last time these names will be typed by me here on BWF – Jeremy Piven & Dr. Ken. I wish I had one of those Men In Black style mind wipe devices and could erase this past Monday’s RAW from my memory. If this week’s show sucks nearly as bad as the last one, I might have to stop watching RAW entirely.
One of these days I’ll start watching ECW again. It’s not that it’s a bad show, I just don’t get around to watching it. This past Tuesday I forgot to set my DVR when I went to see “Funny People” starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. A lot of dick and fart jokes, but it wasn’t bad.
WWE MSG Classics used to be a good show, but then they started showing the same 6 episodes over and over and over again.
I got nothing else, really. Stay tuned, somebody might do a Random Randomness at some point (maybe), and tharvey1’s WWE Superstars review will be up sometime tomorrow-ish (he’s running a bit late this week, but we forgive him.)
Due to the length of today’s post, I have edited it to better suit the front page. The draft picks will be listed here by brand at the top of the post, and the in-depth analysis will be found after the jump. This is done in Real-Time, so click your browser’s refresh button every 10 minutes or so for the latest picks!
RAW
Mr. Kennedy
Primo
Nikki Bella
Chavo Guerrero
Hornswoggle
Carlito
Festus
The Brian Kendrick
Brie Bella
SmackDown
Shad Gaspard
Alicia Fox
Mike Knox
Candice Michelle
Ricky Ortiz
Layla
John Morrison
JTG
Dolph Ziggler
Charlie Haas
ECW
Ezikiel Jackson
Zack Ryder
DH Smith
Natalya
Hurricane Helms
Full analysis of the 2008 supplemental draft picks, after the jump! (more…)