TNA Impact Thanksgiving Edition
Leave a CommentI had bacon sandwiches for lunch today. No turkey for me.
I had bacon sandwiches for lunch today. No turkey for me.
Ésta noche, estamos en México D.F. para Raw. Pues, voy a blogear totalmente en español para celebrar.
According to my professors, I couldn’t write good in Spanish so I better quit while I’m ahead. (And yes, my grammatical error is there completely for irony.) All I said was tonight, we are in Mexico City for Raw. So, I’m going to blog totally in Spanish to celebrate. (Or something equivalent to that)
Last week, we suffered through one of the worst Raws since Katie Vick. If I were personally not committed to do the Raw blog, I would have switched to Fox and watched House or something. I still have faith that somehow they will turn this around.
We start off the night with Super Dave Osborne in the ring. He is so awful on the mic. The wrong Dynamic Dude is speaking. (Shane Douglas, where are you?) He brings back Jim Ross. I haven’t seen a more emotionless hug since Hollywood Hogan hugged “in-the-rafters” Sting. He makes a match. Cole/Del Rio vs. Ross/Cena. At least we know who’ll win.
Randy Orton comes out. The crowd acted like it was Juanes. In accordance with the art of Lucha Libre, we get a 6-man tag. Orton/John Morrison/Sheamus versus Christian/Cody Rhodes/Mark Henry. The crowd hung off of every move Randy Orton made. Orton & Rhodes were not long for this match as they got to go to the back and fight. It was a nice match. I really feel that Henry is coming into his own as a top guy. The John Morrison Future Endeavors tour continued as he was probably killed by Mark Henry.
No matter what happens here, it could be worse. I could be seeing that awful movie In Time.
We got some more time with Broadus Clay. He isn’t a bad speaker. After the Bellas hung on Johnny Ace, they can only go up. Eve is making her way to the ring. I will take this opportunity to pee. It took longer than I intended. I have no idea what happened.
After the commercial, we got CM Punk and then Awesome Truth came out. They cut a promo on Punk and he just stood there and smiled. This was a decent match. My satellite went out so I have no idea what happened. Punk got a roll-up and won.
We had Jack Swagger escorted by Dolph and Vickie. She looked really nice in her traditional Mexican dress. And yes, she said “Excuse me” in Spanish. They really got the crowd going. They were very good with them. Then we were saved by my daughter’s favorite wrestler, Zack Ryder. My daughter doesn’t know any wrestlers. She just says, “Woo woo woo.” Zack Ryder get a pin in record time. After they start a beatdown on Ryder, he is saved by Matista.
Ziggler did a good job carrying the Walking Wellness Violation. Matista got disqualified for… I have no idea.
Then JR and John Cena had a little back and forth and then Cole heeled the crowd.
The main event turned out to be an ok match. For it to be a good match, I have to believe Cena can lose.
This was not as bad as last week’s Raw. We are still stuck with Super Dave Osborne, but the crowd was hot and made the wrestlers seem important. There is plenty that can be improved, but for tonight, I’ll rest on not hating it.
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Well, last night’s Raw was dismal. Not every episode can be life-changing, but it was just not good. We weren’t at the “Hot Lesbian Action”/Katie Vick/Test calling his fans testicles level. (In my opinion, that was the worst Raw I’ve ever seen.) But the past few Raws blew me away. This one did not. Matter of fact, it almost swung into the bad side.
Good:
-In their defense, the WWE had one purpose last night-Sell Wrestlemania. That part, I believe they did very well. I was ok with the Cole/Lawler build-up (and by the way, I love Cole’s Fortress). I do not like Grandmaster Sexay (or the Man Who Ate Brian Christopher or Ken Anderson’s fatter older brother or whoever that was), and I will pay the WWE money to never have him appear on my tv again. (I have the same agreement with them on Sean Waltman, Ashley Massaro and Hardcore Holly.) But they are selling the PPV. Cole and Lawler will be a nice chance to pop the crowd and let them settle down after seeing a major match like Triple-H/Taker or Edge/Del Rio. Plus, Lawler deserves his Wrestlemania match and putting him against Cole doesn’t hurt anybody. Also, when Austin gives his 9,000 stunners, it’ll be against Cole and maybe a few on Swagger. Austin won’t bury Swagger because he’s Austin. Austin will stun all kinds of people. He’s not beating them. That’s what the crowd wants to see.
I also liked the build-up for the Cena-Miz match AFTER a certain point. If you thought Cena was actually broadcasting from his home, I have some nice ocean-front property in Las Vegas for you. The room looked like a room in an arena backstage. Also, usually, they’ll say “Via satellite: [City he’s in].” That’s what makes it so dumb to actually think he wasn’t at the arena. It was so cheesy and so transparent, and Cena got to talk about how much better he was than The Rock because HE showed up at the arena. (And I don’t see what all the debate is over who paved the way into Hollywood. We all know it was Tor Johnson.) A lot of people hated the Miz turning the WWE logo upside down. I was ok with it. The part I liked the most was the fire that John Cena showed by attacking Alex Riley. Cena is going to put on an intense, focused face. I’ll take that John Cena. Just don’t give me SuperCena who makes poop jokes.
And then there was the Triple-H/Undertaker video package. That was (I think) the greatest video package I have ever seen the WWE do. They interviewed Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Harley Race (He looked like he lost a lot of weight. I said that to my wife, and she responded, “Yeah, he does.” My wife recognized Harley freakin’ Race. That is perhaps the sexiest thing she’s ever done.) and anybody who was anybody in the WWE. I got to see Arn Anderson, who is one of my all-time favorites, if not THE favorite. Any time I get to see Double-A, it’s automatically the greatest Raw ever. Plus, I forgot how good on the mic he was about cutting the cool, collective promo. I marked out for him, to be honest. I cannot echo enough times how good that video package was. I’ve never thought a non-title match should be a main event at Wrestlemania. Until now…
-So I’ve watched around 4 Raws in a row since giving it a try again. Used to if one was good in a 4-week period, we were happy. But I received 3 really solid Raws in a row. I’d forgotten how much I loved it. I’m even watching Smackdown! again. I’m beginning to have faith in the WWE again, which at one point, I had lost all faith in them.
Not-so-good:
-What’s up with Triple-H burying people? Did he go back to the Katie Vick era and say, “Yeah, that seemed to work?” He squashed Sheamus like bug and obliterated Ted DiBiase Jr. The only way this will work is for Ted Jr. to attack him during the WM27 match and cause Hunter to lose. The writing looks to be “on the wall” for Sheamus. I’m pretty sure he’ll be pinning AJ Styles or Doug Williams on Impact! in a matter of months.
-How does Abdullah the Butcher not get a video package? I know he didn’t wrestle for the WWF/E, but surely we can go through some old WCW libraries and find SOMETHING!!!!!!!! He has something to plug (his rib place in Atlanta). Give the man his true due.
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Much has been written about the misogyny inherent in professional wrestling, the violence against women, and the general exploitation of females in the wrestling business. Almost all of these writings, however, have been penned by men. As a female wrestling fan, this subject has taken up quite a bit of brain space recently, and the fact that I couldn’t remember reading a woman’s thoughts on the matter compelled the putting of fingers to keyboard. (more…)