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Column: Week vs Week
By MnM This is a recap of the news and happenings of the WWE and TNA. --WWE-- -Raw *Turn about is fair play Remember when Batista and Undertaker had that rematch, you know the one where Edge cashed in his MitB after Mark Henry came out and slaughtered Undertaker? Well it looks like that’s the formula for the MitB. CM Punk pulls this out and takes it from Edge after Batista slaughters him. I guess the MitB isn’t supposed to be a build or push for anyone, it’s just supposed to be an “instant win” button. When was the last time the MitB was cashed in, and they LOST the match? Exactly. However this makes perfect sense, were they really going to have two main titles on the same brand? Well that just would have meant they’d have to work harder at a storyline with it, but we know WWE doesn’t do that sort of thing. *First of many Kofi rematches Y2J for the IC title, and although he wins it’s too bad they didn’t give him a clean win to make it known that the PPV win wasn’t a fluke, but you can’t give a non-white wrestler TOO much, right? Good news, anyways, as Kofi does retain, either way, and we’ll see him more and hopefully this is the last of Y2J and Kofi, they should have left that part out anyways. *GM anyone? They still play up Vince as some dead guy, or in a coma, or something, but none-the-less there’s no GM on RAW now, oh boy. So what, right? After all the stuff JBL talked about (see: being the richest guy on the roster) it wouldn’t surprise me if he ‘took’ the title, or something. Good to see CM Punk cash in the MitB, personally I would have liked some build to the fact that he was getting so good that it became suspenseful with when, and who, he’ll cash in against. Not really sure of what the direction is for RAW, but I must say I’m happy that Punk has the title, even if it didn’t happen my way. Everything else seemed pretty useless and not so important. -Ecw *The new guy New talent already, Atlas Ortiz, no relation to Tony Atlas, gets a match against the biggest jobber in WWE: Armando Estrada. Good to see new blood and even T.Lo says they have a “New Talent Initiative”, which could turn out to be interesting, or total crap, remember this is WWE. Remember when I used to talk about awesome matches and wrestlers on this show? Well no more with that! The opening match included Hornswoggle, thus it must be at least ‘bad’. Henry makes some stipulation about facing Tommy Dreamer, who hasn’t won a match since before I can remember which never happens anyways. Aside from the NTI announcement and Atlas, this was a lame show. It seems they’re tapped for talent right now, hence Evan Bourne, problem was he wasn’t even mentioned tonight. -Smack Down *I still have a hard time caring The divas are no where near the Knockouts (not even Minor vs Major league kind of way), so even though McCool won, and will probably win the title later on, I couldn’t possibly care less…oh wait I think I just did, did you see the belt? This belt looks NOTHING like what a prestigious champion would be wearing. It doesn’t look like something you’d care to see fought hard and won by someone you love. It doesn’t look like anything someone would say “Wow, now that means something”. It looks like Barbie meets WWE. They might as well make this belt only defendable in a ‘bikini/playboy photo shoot’ match, it looks completely worthless in a WRESTLING ring. I’ll stop now, not because I’m getting too harsh, but because I need to go vomit in complete and utter disgust. *Talk about the Golden Pun “Fatal 4th of July Way” match for the … get this, US TITLE! If that’s not pun filled than my name’s not Dave…which it isn’t but that’s still true! Some puns make you cringe, but I love this one. How many Fridays fall on the 4th, of any month, then how many happen in July? The US Title is a no-brainer, and I guess you could do this match at any show and call it the same, but STILL it’s gold. Nothing to really complain about the match, it was what it was. *Give his wait time to cool Before Edge’s waist had time to cool off from having the World Title removed by Punk Monday, Vickie already gave him a WWE Title shot at the Great American Bash (which looks more generic this year than ever seen before, what no red/white/blue???). And since we’re on talking about Edge, he and Vickie finally have that cherished “first fight”, which ends with a meltdown and breakup. You think this will have Vickie ‘stacking the deck’ AGAINST Edge now? That would be something to enjoy watching. Side note, when Vickie was whining in her office about all the injuries she’s sustained helping Edge keep the title she emphasizes “being confined to a wheelchair the rest of her life”, yet after the main event and Edge whines in-ring, she WALKS OUT on her own two legs! Talk about a subtle, probably-don’t-know-it’s-there slap in the face to paralyzed people everywhere! Good job WWE. By the way, this is the only match confirmed for GAB. WWE Star of the Week: CM Punk Was there any doubt? He goes from ‘god of ECW’, to mediocre “shouldn’t he be mid carding” to World Champion. Granted that all took a much longer time than implied, but never mind that. It was a pretty nice setup, even if it didn’t make much sense (Edge had problems with a commentator that never even commentated for him yet??). It was still fun and JBL helped put Punk over Punk worked JBL in the main event to retain and show his skill. There seems to be some promise this week of new things to come. CM Punk is a great turn, and maybe Vickie turning on Edge will be great too. “Hell hath no fury” eh Edge? (Don’t miss the Canadian pun there, I worked hard on it) HHH being paired against new faces could be nice as well, MVP soon? Maybe? Hopefully they do something different than “replace HHH with CM Punk” and have the same guys face him for the belt (see: Cena). What, easily, would have made this week much better is to have your heavy hitters wrestling, and that would include Evan Bourne. Not a bad week and a lot of change that seems to mean something now, that is always good. --TNA-- -iMPACT *Bimbo-tastic I said it last week, and I’ll say it again. It doesn’t make much that Moose “hates bimbos” and goes on to fight someone who’s NOT a bimbo! Velvet Sky, Traci Brooks, Salinas, Jacqueline, Christy Hemme, Angelina Love, there’s a list of “bimbos”, yet not one has been an opponent of Moose’s. I realize some of them are involved in other story lines, and others are doing “outside” work (see: Christy’s band ‘HEMME’) but can’t she at least start out by fighting ‘bimbos’? I realize that if this was WWE, she’s have almost an entire roster to go through before reaching the 2 non-bimbos in the Diva ‘division’ (see: stretch of the imagination). *X-Cup action Great action, again, but in the end Team Mexico is on top with 3 points, Team Japan 2 points, Team TNA (who is still waving the USA Flag despite having an oriental member (see: Curry Man), meaning they really should have a TNA Flag) with 1 point and Team International with zero. Still very good matches, it seems like TNA or International are going to make a ‘come from behind’ win at Victory Road in Ultimate X. *The ‘obvious’ planet Just to set the record strait Taylor (see: Shantelle Malawski) is a 2 time women’s title champion, just not in any major promotions. None the less, she picked up the win against Saeed, but the best part about it was that Kong interfered which shows that she’s actually concerned with fighting her for the title. Granted Taylor’s got a snowball’s chance in Hell at wining it next week, but still it’s nice to see this kind of subtle effort put into the feud. *Fan Interaction No this isn’t Cyber Sunday, but TNA’s letting the fans pick the match for the 6 man ‘war’ with Rhino/Cage/AJ v. Angle/Team 3D. No more ‘TLC’ huh? It’s Full Metal Mayhem? Unless ‘TLC’ is copy written by WWE, I don’t see why not go with it, did you hear the fans chanting “TLC, TLC, TLC”? I guess ultimately it doesn’t matter, they just want to separate from the WWE, which is understandable. I always find it funny (in a “who cares??!?” kind of way) when we’re given the choice between these matches, aren’t they all basically the same? They’re all No DQ, and they can all include any type of weapon, but I guess it’s the stipulation of winning. Maybe for once instead of hyping the ‘gimmick’ angle of the match, they can hype the actual differences. Falls count anywhere: self explanatory and obviously No DQ. Tables Match: anything goes again, but match ends when someone is put through a table. Full Metal Mayhem (see: TLC) isn’t this where something is hung from the ceiling that must be retrieved by way of a ladder. How would that work in this match? *Add some color to your cheeks Among all the bickering between Joe and Nash, Sting shows up in the rafters with a little more red on his face than usual. This is pretty interesting actually, why is Sting getting in on this feud? Now THAT is intriguing. TNA Star of the Week: Taylor I really thought it would be impossible to put a Knockout in this spot, but she’s earned it. I feel inclined (it’s not the chair I’m sitting in either) to point out why in bullet points. -she does the “helpless broad flailing about” thing very little which helps her look strong -she’s intense and relentless going after Kong -she won even after Kong interfered, by taking Kong down and getting the clean pin -she won using a GERMEN SUPLEX PIN, when was the last time THAT happened…in a women’s match?! Exactly! Did you see the news about Booker and how he “sits in the back and plays video games”? How awesome would it be to have him on your Xbox 360 friend list? I can just see it now: (Playing against Booker T in Halo 3) You-Yea Book, how you like that, it’s like I dropped an Axe Kick on yo’ head…’cept it was a sniper shot! Booker-Yea maybe playa, but I gotta go win myself some serious, REAL LIFE gold yo. Now can you dig THAT…sucka? (Booker proceeds to go win the next wrestling match, which is a title match, and you’re left feeling very little) It would happen JUST like that, I’m sure! Anyways, some high’s, some low’s but such is the world in TNA. Angle’s segment seemed to be going OK, but then got dirty, and then weird, and then typical of any wrestling promotion run in’s. Not really an impressive show, however the stories seemed to move along nicely and I’m feeling the build to the PPV and how it’s “feeling” important. No matter how you do it, this should be how you feel about PPVs, just don’t forsake the real wrestling the other 3-4 weeks out of the month (see: WWE). I’m pretty happy about Sting’s return though. The way he did it is very reminiscent of his ‘dark’ WCW era. I liked the ‘striking fear into people’s hearts’ gimmick that Sting used to have. I didn’t like him doing his “surfer attitude” gimmick before he took this little vacation. Maybe they’re making him more serious; hopefully they’ll keep it that way. Speaking of serious, where is Abyss?!?? He makes a few run in’s and he’s gone again? I know there isn’t much time on TNA, with needing to move stories along and the X-Cup, but I’m sure they could squeeze a little Abyss in there somewhere. Heck even good ol’ JR on RAW missed him so much he called Umaga’s “sidewalk slam” the black hole slam! (In all honestly it WAS the BH slam, but they don’t say that on WWE) --Final Grade-- WWE looks to have some serious upside with all the fresh moving around they’re doing. Sure some of the “same old, same old” is still happening (see: Matt Hardy wrestling on SD when he’s the newest man on ECW’s roster) but then there’s the new stuff (see: HHH v. Edge w/o deck stacking girlfriend). And don’t forget about CM Punk getting the World Title off Edge a la Edge-cheatary-style (funny how nobody said anything about him being an “opportunist” at all yet he pretty much did it like Edge did last year against the Undertaker). Wrestling Star of the Week: CM Punk Honestly, who else could it be? After months of wishy washy wrestling and so many questionable losses I began to wonder “will he be the first to lose when he cashes in the MitB?” I like how Punk was kind of shocked and happy he got it, but this wasn’t a long journey like the Benoit won at Wrestle Mania, this was just above a fluke thing. I mean talk about stacking the deck. But none the less, this was perfect timing for all of this, we knew 2 major titles couldn’t last long on the same brand, and we knew Punk had to get some sort of push eventually or else the MitB would be just a waste. I commend them for wrapping it all up in one nice little gift. And to even top all of this off he beat a very tough opponent in JBL in the main event giving him ample creditability. If you ever start finding yourself “wanting more” for the column, just remember, IT’S FREE. But seriously, keep in mind that all of us writers are doing this voluntarily and we have lives like you do. Too many times we become very critical of people and say their stuff sucks and how “unfunny” (see: MnM) they are, but realize we’re willing to do this and it’s not always easy but we try to make this ‘wrestling entertainment’ business, just a little more entertaining. Till next week, I’ll be hoping to turn 50 in some alternate reality that you’ll never know me in. ~MnM Mnm2317@aim.com This article has been viewed 465 times.
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