October 19, 2012

SCN: Hiatus Wrap-Up

Greetings all,

So, I haven't posted in a while, and my notes are piling up.  Here's the last 3 weeks worth:

SMACKDOWN
Week 1: Punk>Ziggler was a good match.  BS and Sheamus feud=zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Week 2: Bryan<ADR was a good match.  Rest of show=zzzzzzzzzz(literally fell asleep)zzzzzzzzz  JBL joining Josh Matthews was fun, though.
Week 3: Better.  Miz opens with another great promo on Kofi.  Two good tag matches.  Cesaro.  Cool Wade Barrett promo, another decent match with Sheamus.  3MB cut a promo so bad I half expected Ryback to appear and job them out.

Conclusion:
Most of Smackdown blows, but it's worth watching if you've got your finger on the fast-forward button.


TNA IMPACT
Week 1: Samoa Joe>RVD retaining TV title=good match.  Also liked a short X-Div. match, Zema Ion>Doug Williams.  Bully Ray cuts a couple great babyface-ish/tweener promos (same basic character, he's still awesome), winds up being chosen as Sting's tag partner vs. Aces & Eights for BFG match.
Week 2: Pretty dull until end segment.
Austin Aries theory:
There are many comparisons to be made between A-Double and CM Punk.  Both fan favorites with Indie/ROH roots, both basically used as paper champions for long stretches for their respective promotions.  Week 2 of Impact ended with a work-shoot by Aries which was reminiscent of Punk for obvious reasons.  He came out with a script, announced he wouldn't be reading it, but it's live TV so he's gonna do what he wants, went on to cut a promo on Jeff Hardy, his BFG opponent, which gave an interesting spin to the end of the show.  My theory is that the work-shoot was staged to take any previous comparisons with Punk even further, in some kind of attempt by TNA to be purposefully unoriginal.
Week 3: Decent follow-up to the PPV.  Nothing stood out in particular.
TNA BOUND FOR GLORY
Very cool to see TNA outside of Impact Zone, very hot crowd with their own opinions.
Zema Ion<RVD New X-Div champ.  RVD the bigger star, but was plainly outperformed in this match.
I wasn't looking forward to Storm>Roode, despiteit being the culmination of a year-long feud.  TNA dropped the ball with this IMO, it could have been built a lot better.  They had a cool match nonetheless, it got me into it, Roode having an especially good performance.  The most impressive part was when he got a superkick, and landed into a puddle of thumbtacks.  The impressive thing was that the camera was zoomed in on his face, and he didn't flinch when he landed, as though he was truly KOed.  Usually not a fan of bloody, gimmicky matches, but this one used it all well.
C Daniels,Kaz<Hernandez,Chavo>AJ,Angle was a good match for the tag titiles, but horribly booked.  Hernandez and Chavo are the new team on the block, they had no feud and no momentum.  It was just a babyface win, meant to pump up a crowd that didn't need that pandering shit the way the Impact Zone does.  CD&Kaz should have retained with a pin over AJ or Angle, sending them into a singles feud, and setting up Hernandez&Chavo to chase the titles proper.  You guys know I hardly ever do armchair booking, but this one just seemed obvious.
Tara>Tessmacher another title change.
Sting & Bully Ray<Two Members of Aces & Eights.  Last minute change to being a no-dq match.  Dumb, the stip makes it obvious A&8's will win.  With win, A&8's gain full access to the Impact Zone, whatever that means.  Sting and Bully were an awesome team, at one point pulling off a perfect Doomsday Device.  Bully came out in old school Sting-ish facepaint, and is somehow a radical babyface.  Devon is unmasked as A&8's leader, which is a great reveal only because Bully is the best character in TNA, and it gives him something really worthwhile to do.
The crowd is split for Aries<Hardy, which was a good match.  Hardy's used to being unanimously cheered, but there are a lot of anti-creatures in the crowd.  Both sides of crowd were very hot.  Hardy winning the TNA title is a horrible joke, and a shit smear in the face of contemporary pro wrestling.  Wonder if having Aries feud with Hardy is another way TNA would like him to mimic Punk.
TNA Conclusion:
Bully Ray rules.

SUPERSTARS
Week 1:  Barrett>Kidd good, both were cool.  McGillicutty<Otunga former tag champs were actually pretty decent versus each other.  Tensai>Tatsu was an okay match, Tatsu was really good.
Week 2: Barrett>Kidd, Gabriel<Cesaro were each okey.
Week 3: I have not watched this TV show yet.
Conclusion:
I dunno.  I watch wrestling.

NXT
Week 1: Kidd&Gabriel(really cool)<Ascension(so corny, audience was laughing at them) was a good tag match.
Week 2: Punk promo, joining Regal and JR on commentary was a treat.  I loved Johnny Curtis' character, entrance, and in-ring work, but he lost to worst spear ever by Bo Dallas, looked like he fell on him.  Good divas match.  Rollins>McGillicutty=great match.
Week 3: Damien Sandow promo and match, always a "welcome" addition to the show.
Conclusion:
Always has something going for it.

MAIN EVENT
Week 1: First ep.  Punk>Sheamus surprisingly weak.  Worst Punk match in a long time.  Notable because Sheamus was pinned for the first time in over a year.
Week 2: Kofi cuts solid promo on Miz.  Really liking Kofi on mic lately.  Skipped BS v. Orton.
Week 3: JBL and Cole great on commentary.  Nice Kofi package, great Miz "is annoying" package.  Kofi>Miz great 15 min. match for IC belt.  Great post-match promos by both.  All in all, excellent 25 minutes of pro wrestling TV.  I got a little emotional.
Conclusion:
Cool for having it's own production (unlike Superstars), and for giving a match a good amount of time (for WWE), but dependent on quality of match for show to work.

ROH GLORY BY HONOR XI
Bravados<Alexander&Coleman was a really good opener.
Lethal>Richards good
Rhino<Tadarius Thomas was cool.  TT's new, and was really impressive.  Very cool looking offense.  Future player for sure.
Eddie Edwards<Adam Cole good
Briscoes<SCUM good
Steen>Elgin great main event.  Steen was whatever, but Elgin was awesome.  After match, a box is delivered to ring, Steen opens it, pauses with look of fear and disbelief, pulls out El Generico's mask!
Conclusion:
Was almost ready to give up on ROH, but Generico, Lethal, and Elgin will keep me coming back.

RAW
Week 1: What a maneuver!  Best main event in ages.
Week 2: JR is fantastic on commentary, Cole very good also.  BS>Bryan, Cesaro>Gabriel, SheamusxBarrett, Scholars>E&P all good matches.  Ziggler chokes on the mic.  Striker is killed.  Miz finds perfect foil in Kofi, they have great promo segment and a good match.  Eve>Layla match of the night.  Eve kicked ass.  
Week 3: Hope Rusty will cover this, and I can just comment on his post.
Conclusion:
Hits and misses.  Pro wrestling marches on.  Right now I'm more excited about Kofi and Miz than anything.  Weird, huh?

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