Socko's week in wrestling

There was a lot to take in this week with Survivor Series and the fallout from that, so let’s take a quick look over this last week:

WWE Survivor Series:
The best way to look at this is to revisit my predictions:

-
“- Team Del Rio vs. Team Mysterio - Rey Mysterio, The Big Show, Kofi Kingston, M.V.P & Chris Masters vs. Alberto Del Rio, Jack Swagger, Drew McIntyre, "Dashing" Cody Rhodes & Tyler Reks.
Don’t watch Smackdown, so don’t care... flip a coin...
Del rio to win.”

So, the babyfaces won. Oh well. To be honest, this wasn’t a bad match. Drew McIntyre is possibly the most boring thing in WWE at the moment, but most of the others put on a decent match. I’m not sure what the WWE have against MVP, he got the biggest crowd pop of this match when he entered and yet he was quickly eliminated.
Match rating: ***


“- John Morrison vs. Sheamus
This match is stupid. Sheamus has been going after Santino for weeks, so he’s having a match with Morrison... who gives a fuck. Potential to be a half-decent match though.
Morrison to win.”
This was a really solid match, but I’ll admit that when I was watching it I was hoping that Triple H would do a run-in. There were some pretty innovative moves by Morrison in this one, but the ending felt a bit flat. Morrison won this one, so 1-1 on the predictions.
Match rating: ***½


“- 2 on 1 Handicap Match for WWE Unified Diva's Championship
Team Laycool (Michelle McCool & Layla) vs. Beth Phoenix
Don’t care about Divas...
The first one to win.”
I was wrong, but don’t care. I went to get a drink during this one. 1-2.


“- WWE United States Championship Match
Daniel Bryan vs. Ted DiBiase (w/Maryse)
This could be pretty good, but can see bullshit with Maryse. I’d like to see Danielson keep the strap.
Danielson to win.”
Danielson won and the match was great. I’ve decided that a dream match would be Danielson versus Angle, but I know that’s never going to happen. Just imagine how good that match could be? I think this match has put DiBiase up in my estimation: the guy can work. 2-2 on the predictions.
Match rating: ****


“- WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Dolph Ziggler vs. Kaval
This could be the best match of the night, Kaval (Low-ki/Senshi) has been floundering a bit of late, so would like to see him win and have some matches with Danielson.
Low-ki to win”
It’s a shame that Low-ki is getting buried in the WWE. He didn’t get the title, and probably never will now . Though the match took a little to get going, it was truly excellent. There was one spot where Ziggler got kicked in the face pretty hard and his nose started bleeding. This was definitely the best match of the night. 3-2
Match rating ****½





“- WWE Tag Team Championship Match
Nexus (Justin Gabriel & Heath Slater) vs. Santino Marella & Vladimir Kozlov

Really? Is this the best they could come up with? TNA gives you Guns/Beer Money/Gen Me... WWE charges you to see Santino and the generic Russian guy versus the ones without personality who stand in a line with Wade Barrett wearing the same T-shirts. WWE tag team division is a complete joke, it really is.“
A joke with a bad punchline... this match was piss-poor and the Nexi retained. No prediction for this because I cared so little about this match.
Match rating: *



“- World Heavyweight Championship Match - Kane (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Edge
Who cares, will probably be less painful to watch the Kane/Taker... hope Edge wins.
Edge to win.”
This match was bullshit, Edge won, but then the decision was reversed. I didn’t realise they had Dusty Rhodes on the booking at WWE. The match itself was also awful. I’ve always thought that if you have the strap on a wrestling show, you should be able to put on a good match. How many good matches has Kane actually been in? No really, think about this. How many? Maybe his first few with Undertaker, maybe one or two decent ones when he was a dentist. This match was Kane by numbers, and shouldn’t have been on a PPV, let alone high card. Please fire Kane, he’s just rubbish. 2-4.
Match rating: *


“WWE Championship - Orton (c) vs. Barrett w/Cena as ref.
I’m hoping for a Cena heel turn and Barrett to take home the strap. I can’t stand Orton, the guy is as wooden as, erm, some wood and looks like one of the muppets (Beaker?). I can see a lot of bullshit going down in this match, maybe even a good few swerves, but I hope not.
Barrett to win.
(then Miz will cash in his Money in the Bank case)”

I got this one all wrong, Cena shoved Barrett at the end to allow Orton to get the win. The match was decent enough, it just wasn’t that great. I’ll admit that the ending took me by surprise (as it evidently did with Matt Striker who called that Cena was free, only to be quickly corrected by Lawler). As for the Miz, I was wrong... for 24 hours, at least...
Match rating: ***

So my predictions were way off on this. As a pay-per-view, this was a mixed bag. There were some stand-out matches, and some stinkers. The finale to the Cena/Nexus angle will be the biggest swerve in history (cue Cena in a match for a WWE contract as a masked wrestler at Royal Rumble.)

WWE Raw:
The fallout for Survivor Series and another decent Raw. There was another match with Danielson and BiBiase which was very good. There was also a long goodbye segment with John Cena which was probably one of the best babyface promos I think I’ve seen (he even called for the “Let’s go Cena/Cena sucks” chant.) Of course, this angle has no choice but to fail. Unless Cena is genuinely fired, or at minimum takes some time off, this could seriously damage Cena’s position. The promo ended with Cena walking out of the door... for good...
It was also good to see CM Punk on the announce team. At points he sounded very “broadcast journalist” offering quite a lot of generic play-by-play commentary. It was only when he started to allow his personality to come out that he became interesting. I hope that the WWE encourage Punk to be more of himself.
The main event of the evening saw a return match between Orton and Barrett, again it was a decent match which was won by Orton due to a run-in by... John Cena... the guy who had said goodbye and walked out of the WWE made his triumphant return on the same fucking night. Now I hope that this is a one-off, that this was Cena’s last bit of revenge against Barrett and only returns say when Barrett actually has the title. With Orton and Barrett both exhausted from their match, the Miz came in and cashed in his MiTB case and in now the WWE champion. Thank God the title has been stripped from Orton (even though it will blatantly go back to him at TLC.)

Next week is King of the Ring. I’m not sure why they still do this, but it means a 3 hour Raw, so who’s complaining. I hope they don’t have Kofi Kingston to win (King Kingston, eugh). I think a good heel character should win this, hopefully Sheamus or Del Rio, but we shall see. If I’ve learnt one thing from watch Raw recently it is that the storyline which would make most sense and make for better future programming isn’t the way they’ll go, so who knows?


TNA Impact:
TNA does not care about its international fans. The management are so focused on US ratings that they ignore the fact TNA Reaction isn’t aired in many places. This is why the main event, and the main angle of the show didn’t appear on Impact. So you watch the show on Bravo on a Saturday night. Most of the programme sucks, the matches are bad and the main event (a Survivor Series style elimination match, FFS) cuts off near the end and that’s it. UK viewers are say wondering “what the fuck was that? Where the fuck was the Dixie Carter stuff they’d be going on about all episode?” So I end up downloading it from an illegal torrent site so I can watch the fucking ending. I’ve said it before: why should I waste my time watching a show on TV that doesn’t even have the ending when I can download it for free and watch it all? It makes no real difference to me, but to the TV station, who is losing viewers week-after-week because they are choosing to just download it rather than watch it on TV, this just seems stupid. Advertising revenues go down with ratings, and I’m sure I’m not the only person getting sick of this. This just stinks of desperation on TNA’s part and is very short-sighted.
I watched some of Reaction and realised that it wasn’t worth my bandwidth. The elimination ended with a run-in by the NWO (Jeff Hardy) and Dixie Carter had an injunction for Hogan. Yeah! An injunction, wooo! FFS, are you serious? I can’t wait for the courtroom drama that will play out over the next few months. Who cares about wrestling when we can have courtroom drama? Maybe they could bring Judge Judy, maybe Hogan will be hit with a summons rather than a steel chair... oh dear.



On another note, just watched the Best of Tyler Black DVD by ROH, some awesome stuff on there.