Welcome to the rundown! After taking last week off for my Night of Champions adventure and honeymoon, I’m back with the four B shows and ready to review!
NXT 09/19/12
Trent Barreta defeats Johnny Curtis
Paige defeats Alicia Fox
Conor O’Brian defeats Jimmy Uso
Michael McGillicutty and Bo Dallas get into a scuffle backstage.
Kassius Ohno defeats Oliver Grey in a sparring session.
A Leo Kruger promo is shown. Kruger can’t wait to meet his new friends.
Seth Rollins defeats Rick Victor using the blackout(curbstomp).
Thoughts: Packed show. It’s nice to see Barreta back in a WWE ring. Paige looked solid and should be on the main roster. The Usos/Ascension rivalry continues and I’m okay with it; I like it when tag team wrestling is given relevance. I like the McGillicutty/Dallas brawl; both guys are top contenders for Rollins’ title and will make for excellent wrestling matches. I can’t wait for Ohno and Steamboat to have another match; Ohno is one of those guys you just can’t get enough of when he’s wrestling. Rollins and Victor put on an awesome match. Both guys are actually considered ready for the main roster by WWE officials, but the first step is to get their names out there to the masses before they’re pushed too hard.
WWE Superstars 09/20/12
Ted Dibiase defeats JTG.
Drew McIntyre defeats Jinder Mahal using the future shock DDT.
David Otunga defeats Tyson Kidd after a big spinebuster.
The Prime Time Players defeat the Usos.
Thoughts: Nice to see Dibiase back on a show; his talent could really shine if he could avoid the nagging injuries. Otunga defeating Tyson Kidd is a crime. Otunga isn’t even good enough to lace up Kidd’s boots as far as I’m concerned. The PTP and the Usos define tag team wrestling at the moment, and this match was solid. Both of these teams should be challenging for the gold.
IMPACT Wrestling 09/20/12
Shaquille O’Neal tells Hulk Hogan he’s got his back with Aces and Eights tonight.
Styles and Angle call out Chavo and Hernandez for open fight night. The match is wrecked by Daniels and Kazarian. Hogan declares a three way tag match for the titles at Bound For Glory.
Al Snow is interviewed about Joey Ryan. He says he is getting called to the principal’s office right now. The 18 year old gutcheck contestant is shown warming up.
Hogan is shown talking to Joseph Park and telling him he wants him to bring the evidence straight to Hogan.
Dixie Carter is shown talking to Bruce Prichard about strategy with Aces and Eights.
Evan Markopolous loses to Douglas Williams in a gutcheck challenge.
James Storm calls out Bobby Roode. Roode declines. Hogan is shown telling Roode he doesn’t have a choice but to accept. They brawl to a no contest and fight to the back.
Hogan is shown talking to security about the whereabouts of Joseph Park. Hogan answers a call and finds out that Aces and Eights have Joseph Park.
Austin Aries takes a heel-ish tone and is shown talking with Jeff Hardy backstage. Aries says he wants to prove that he can do anything Jeff Hardy does.
Tara calls out Christy Hemme. Tara attacks Hemme until Tessmacher makes the save. Brooke Hogan and Tara exchange words backstage after the incident.
Hulk Hogan comes to the ring. He says he will accepts Aces and Eights invite to their clubhouse next week. He demands Joseph Park(now Hogan is calling him ParkS instead of Park, you have to love TNA’s attempt at continuity) be returned. Aces and Eights are shown destroying Park’s computer and smashing Park with a hammer.
Austin Aries calls out Bully Ray for the main event. Bully Ray defeats Aries after hitting him with the chain. Aries and Hardy face off in the ring to close the show.
Thoughts: Far too much Hulk Hogan, and far too much Aces and Eight storyline with no progression. Boring! The tag match to start the show was good, but the finish ruined it. The main event was good, and I like the possibility of Ray being added to the main event as part of a triple threat. The overall show, however, was terrible. Yeah, TNA marks are going to jump all over me for saying this, but the show lacked new storyline development, creativity, and anything new in general. I’m bored with it right now. Am I repeating myself yet?
WWE Smackdown 09/21/12
Edge opens the show(to promote Haven) and interviews Kane and Daniel Bryan. The three end up in a group hug until Damien Sandow interrupts. Booker T pops up on the tron during the commercial and books Kane vs Damien Sandow right now.
Damien Sandow defeats Kane after a Dbry distraction.
Dr. Shelby helps keep the peace between Bryan and Kane by promising to try to get Booker to put Dbry in a match tonight as well.
Booker T is shown telling Alberto Del Rio that he’s going to have to earn another title shot against Sheamus when he teams with Dolph Ziggler to take on the World Champ and Randy Orton.
Layla defeats Natalya while Eve is on commentary.
Randy Orton and Sheamus defeat Dolph Ziggler and ADR. Sheamus brogue kicks Ziggler for the win.
Cody Rhodes defeats Dbry after Kane’s pyro distracts Daniel Bryan.
Kane and Dbry are shown arguing backstage. They are taunted by Rhodes and Sandow and Anger Management challenges them to a match tonight.
Brodus Clay is attacked by Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre to defeat Heath Slater by dq. The three men beat him down.
Santino defeats Antonio Cesaro in a non title match using a roll up. Cesaro dumps Aksana after the match because her distraction stopped him from winning the match.
Cody Rhodes gets himself and Sandow disqualified when he hits Kane with a steel chair during their tag team match. All the current tag teams hang out around the ring and they are taken out by Kane and Dbry using steel chairs after the match.
Thoughts: First of all, I love the pink middle rope for breast cancer awareness. WWE shows what a classy organization they are with this move. I loved the wrestling here, and I loved the Kane/Dbry segments throughout the show. My only problem with the show is the order of events. The World Title scene was treated with the littlest of importance and the match centered around the storyline was placed in the middle of the show. This isn’t acceptable practice for a company that wants their World Titles to be most important. Outside of that fact, the show was funny but it didn’t really have a whole lot of wrestling. There was a lot of short matches with no real endings to them. I would definitely have to call this a below average Smackdown.
News Items:
John Cena: Thug life had some bone chips removed from his elbow. He’s supposed to be out of action 6-8 weeks. It’s hard to know exactly how severe the extent of his injuries were because WWE loves to keep us guessing. I’m willing to gamble that the surgery was strategically planned to occur right after Raw so that he could heal up in time for the ppv that is a little over five weeks away. Mark my words, John Cena will face CM Punk for the WWE Title at HIAC.
CM Punk/Batista: Punk put over Batista and plugged his movie The Man With The Iron Fist. I thought this was a classy move on Punk’s part to jump out of character and do that for an old friend.
3 Hour Raws: WWE is happy with the overall success of the three hour shows, and there is no change in the foreseeable future for this. I’ve personally enjoyed the majority of the three hour shows. I’d say maybe two or three of them were a bit dragged out, but for the most part I’ve been happy with the increase in matches on the program.
Ziggler: The word is that Ziggler might wait until Sheamus drops the title before cashing in the briefcase. I hope this doesn’t take too long. While Sheamus is a good fighting champion, people are getting tired of his run. I’d like to see Sheamus chase Punk for the WWE Title at some point and see Ziggler running the World Title scene with a possible feud with John Cena or Randy Orton.
I’m pretty sure NXT was the superior show this week of the four, and that’s saying something odd. I’ll be back with Raw this week and we’ll start gearing up more for HIAC with some sort of specialty column. Until next time, thanks for reading!
Facebook.com/mike.lightning and facebook.com/thunderstruck11
^add us!
