Friday, May 31, 2013

WWE SD 5-31-13

ORTON. SHEAMUS. KINGSTON. TEAM HELL NO. ALL HAVE FALLEN TO THE HOUNDS OF JUSTICE. Holy Hell - SD's opening video is actually making last week's SD seem important! All 3 Shield members are in singles matches and this video would look even cooler without the WWE bug on it. Kane-Rollins is up - I'd prefer Bryan-Rollins, but maybe that would be best served on Main Event. JBL is putting the Shield over huge talking about how they got all the gold they wanted at the PPV, defended them all on Raw, and STARTED at the top of the card. All true. Rollins hit a sweet DDT out of a super chokeslam, and they came back FROM THE APP with a half crab. Loved Bryan helping Kane to win - furthers him NOT being the weak link. Loved JBL getting flustered when Cole brought up the Shield being upset over the loss.

Reigns-Bryan starts up instantly. ECW! ECW! Loved Bryan kicking the ropes into Reigns's face. Great kneeling figure 4/forearm combo by Bryan. I hope that move winds up being in the next WWE game. Nice basement kick/elbow strike combo too. Nice smooth Windham-style lariat from Reigns. More app bullshit. WATCH SD ON A 3 INCH SCREEN - IT'S THE NEW WAY TO WATCH TV...meant for 30+ inch displays. Reigns got some nice height on a Stinger splash attempt. Sting may actually be hitting that thing more than anyone else now. Loved JBL talking about Bryan's determination being either great or crazy, and that more people should have it. New wrinkle in his comeback with a crucifix into a No Lock instead of the Hart attack. Kane getting Bryan DQed was a different, and furthers their issues. I really don't like the idea of them breaking up now though - having them as main event-level guys in a team is a better option than either guy possibly floating around the mid-card aimlessly. Kane calling Bryan the best in the world was great though and they seem to be zooming to a breakup soon with Bryan ranting that he doesn't need Kane. Awesome first half-hour to the show so far.

YAY! SANDOW WACKY SKIT REPLAY! Good lord did Striker take a shitty bump in that. Dammit, Damien's just trying to play a shell game and Sheamus came out to ruin things. This skit was worth doing just to have Sheamus mocking him for having cups and tiny balls. Very un-PG reference to 2 girls, 1 cup by Sandow. I'M PULLIN FOR YA, BIG GUY! Sheamus has a big gash healing on the right side of his forehead. Loved Sheamus using his SILENCE! against him. A huge SHOW YOUR BALL chant is breaking out. THE BALL IS MISSING, but he's also a magician - IS THERE NO END TO HIS TALENT!? This skit was amazing. Sheamus was actually kind of fun-loving here instead of just an asshole, and JBL was great saying the shell game's never been on the up and up. CURTIS AXEL LOOKS TO KEEP HIS MOMENTUM OF...not really beating guys...going. Good for him.

Highlights were shown of Axel doing a couple of moves and "winning' via countout. Also, it should've been a DQ win for Cena given the clips they showed of Ryback and Cena brawling before the 10 count was finished. Sin Cara's gradiented blue gear looks awesome. Not sure why they waste pyro for him though since they clearly have no desire to push him. Axel's got his dad's rock remix theme back after losing it on Raw. I can buy Axel being told that HHH's...thing called a loss would be tantamount to a submission, while the Cena one really was just him being distracted by a shiny object. Digging the use of "perfect" as a mocking term for the fans. Orton's shitty new movie comes out Tuesday. Loved JBL bringing up not only Heyman managing the original Midnight Express at 21, which is astonishing in part because he looked 30 then, but also that if you're counting RVD, Heyman's managed five world champs. Lots of RVD references lately. Generic squash win with the Perfect Plex. This was functionally fine, but didn't do much for me. The elbow to the back of the head off of the springboard elbow looked terrible, and shouldn't have been replayed.

DID YOU KNOW that the Rock is a huge movie star?! Lilian's cleavage introduced Ricardo and his hetero life partner, Alberto. After going through season 3 of the Office this week, it's apparent that Michael Scott and WWE have similar approaches to subtelty. Big E's out to continue their best of nine million series that no one cares about. I'm digging Alberto's new white, black, and gold gear. Super-smooth belly to belly from Langston after avoiding the back stabber. Sweet German suplex from Alberto onto Big E, who took a great bump for a big guy. Great Rampage powerbomb attempt led to a huge Vader-style bodyblock. JBL put him over as being a big deal now, and he'll be even more deadly in a year. AJ's eye rake helped give Big E get a win with the Big Ending - this was easily their best match yet. 3 stages of hell video is up next.

It's weird to see so much hype on WWE TV for Rock's show on TNT, even with the Monday night wars being over for 12 years and realistically over for a while longer. Cena exposited annoyingly during the Raw Rebound, and they've yet to show Ryback talking ONCE about deserving to be champion. Also, if he felt that, why didn't he dictate the match stips instead of just letting Cena do it? These stips really don't work for these guys or accomplish much of anything. They really played up how much Ryback gave Axel a...thing called a win here. Lordy. Ambulance came out, which they're really getting over. The sirens playing before his theme works far better than the FEED ME MORE bit - they should mix those in permanently since they make him seem more menacing. Also, according to JBL, "he's getting in better shape ever week." Maybe he's eating a lot of horse meat. Kofi's getting way too much wacky offense in on Ryback here. Nice springboard missile dropkick from Kofi there. Ryback has gotten about zero offense for two minutes so far. He's hit the boom drop, escaped some sort of wacky slam attempt, a crossbody, and then FINALLY Ryback got some offense. This would've been a great match to start off a bigger push for Kofi since he looked dominant in there before he took himself out and Ryback hit the lariat and shell shock. Great powerbomb through a table to Kofi. Crowd chanted one more time, so he obliged. While a table was used at the PPV against Ryback, it seems like they should've waited a week to introduce that stip to the PPV match since this was so intense and came off as a big deal, while that was an afterthought. This was a tremendous deal though - great for both Ryback and Kofi in the end.



Heyman-Jericho highlight reel replay ruled. And then Jericho said a whole bunch of words leading to a MANGE payoff. Did love him bringing up Bob Barker's spay and neutering deal to build this up. Bizarre deal though. Jericho's out for a match against...someone...I really hate that practice. Poor Cody is his victim. Should be a good match though. JBL calling Cody "one of WWE's future great stars" annoyed me. He's been on the roster for SIX YEARS and is a multi-time champion - shouldn't that alone make him great? JBL not being sure about Cody's stache when he himself had a terrible-looking beard was something. I love Cody STILL using Hardcore Holly's moves to great effect. It's such a relatively little in theory, but really make their team seem more important in hindsight than it appeared at the time. Disaster Kick into the walls was a nice finish. Really fun match here. The JBL and Cole show has ZIP LINING! Great hype for the Wyatt family from Cole, and that video is amazing. Orton's out to face Ambrose, so the main event is up, sadly without an Ambrose promo. Digging the cute blonde in the blue shirt singing Orton's theme.

Ambrose didn't get much of an intro here. THIS IS MY YARD NOW, RANDY and ALRIGHTALRIGHTALRIGHT from Ambrose ruled as did Orton countering Ambrose's forearm face rakes in the corner with a boot-lace rake of his own. JBL describing both guys as nuts because one hears voices and the other wrestles like a psychopath was great - sick backdrop on the barricade from Orton to Ambrose. I dig how Ambrose clutches any limb he can to attack - using a hand grab to give himself the opening for a headbutt after a break. Orton countered with some headbutts and good body shots of his own. Sleeper attempt from Ambrose led to a back suplex and some tremendous mat-slapping selling from Ambrose, who excels at the little things like someone out of the '80s. He knows all the tricks to make everything seem important. PERFECT dropkick to the jaw off of a double axe handle from Ambrose here. It couldn't have hit any better. Shield interference led to a DQ, and this match was great for both guys. Orton is seamlessly back into main events and Ambrose fits in perfectly there too. Bryan WIPING OUT THE SHIELD ON HIS OWN ruled. YES chants came back here in a major way and Bryan came off like the company's biggest star here. He's now able to admit that he's not the weak link, and it's a real shame this didn't happen on Raw, because on SD, it seems like it will be swept under the rug on Raw.


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Thursday, May 30, 2013

TNA Impact 5-30-13

Pre-show vid has AJ's powerwalk being all wacky with an X-ray effect, while the opening vid shows Hogan talking to Sting from last week, Brooke's terrible lipstick and her confusion over what "I still love you" means. The formation of GUNSTORM also got some coverage, and AJ's DDP-esque turn on the Aces did too. Bully wants AJ STYLES, AJ STYLES, AND AJ STYLES. D'Lo's in a ShopTNA shirt, and he's sorry about what happened to Ken, bro. Real sorry bro. Anderson kicked his ass for that. They show D'Lo clutching his jaw in almost a still frame shot for like 30 seconds. The Tie Dye Guy is creepy. IN 3 DAYS, DEVON TAKES OUT JOSEPH PARK, AND IN BOSTON, LIVE ON PPV, THE ICON STING FACES THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION BULLY RAY! That right there was great. He's really putting Sting over like a million bucks, too. Saying he's done a lot to be an icon, that he's beaten a lot of great world champs, including Hardy - WHO BULLY TOOK OUT. Main event is up next...well that sure is a bit odd. I should really make Joseph Park in FPR. The Atlas security guy is the timekeeper and Hogan's wife and her giant boobs are in a very revealing red dress in the front row. A little girl in a bright dress is overjoyed to see Park get mangled. They're just doing a bunch of brawling here. Punches. Slaps. Chops. Plunder. Big collision between Bully and Sting led to a break. Well, that sure that was a good use of 11 minutes as they established all of the major things for the show AND got a big match going too.

Loved Bully trying to do a version of that Sin Cara kick while Park was up top. FOLLOW DIXIE ON TWITTER TO FIND OUT THE LOCATION OF BFG! They hyped up tonight's new start time, which they did a terrible job of hyping up last week since I forgot about it until earlier today. Devon did a Hogan legdrop, complete with posing, ear cupping, and kiss being blown to Hogan's wife. Loved Taz saying Hogan should take notes on Devon's posing. Tenay's DID A STUTTER was about a .4 on the Stanley scale. Loved Taz saying that Bully's dropkick was like...A GUY WHO WAS REALLY GOOD AT DROPKICKS. Todd tried to save by referencing Brunzell. Great spot where Sting locked on the deathlock, but Park couldn't do it to Bully and got wackily kicked into Sting. Abyss's theme hit, which led to Bully getting distracted and Sting hitting the deathdrop to pin Devon. Well, that was a bit disappointing - in part due to a comedy act holding back THE WORLD CHAMPION. Park's look of confusion after this ruled though. We hear from Dixie next!

Got a 12 Rounds 2 ad. Angle cut a promo in the...yellowest room in history saying that while AJ didn't join the Aces, HE STILL HATES HIS FRIGGIN GUTS. Dixie came out in an orange dress to talk about how great it is that TNA has been in business for 11 years. She's hyping up the Hall of Fame, and they're panning to way too many old people in the crowd. Aces interrupted her, with Doc waving wackily. Doc's silly facial expressions and body language have really stood out with me. Taz, as expected, claimed gimmick infringement over her wearing orange. Garett might've been worse on the mic than Dixie. Dixie, the middle-aged woman, showed no fear being in there with members of a violent biker gang until they backed her into the corner. Joe and Magnus saved her. Great, NOW PUSH THESE MEN DAMMIT. Joe yelled a lot. Okay. Maybe just push Magnus. I did like Joe's line about beating Garett into the man he'll never be. Match was made, and despite THE COMPANY PRESIDENT BEING RIGHT THERE, Taz wondered how this could be made. Match went a minute before an ad break.

They came back and a big brawl between everyone led to...I guess a count out. Joe predicted this somehow, and made sure to make Garett, Wes, and the "shaved ape" against Magnus, Joe, and Hardy. Hardy was just like a dude in this and seems wasted in this. Gunner kicking ass last week was shown, and they're at least trying to get over an Irish curse backbreaker and torture rack for him. Better that than trying to get over 'IMMORTAL'S MR. INTENSITY GUNNER". Storm picked Gunner because HE'S KILLED PEOPLE, and if he'll kill people for a country, he'll do it for him. Holy shit, the babyface WANTS PEOPLE DEAD. That was something they definitely should've done a retake on.

Taryn and Sabin face Kenny and Gail later. Hulk met with Brooke, in a very pink dress. HER HEART STRINGS ARE BEING PULLED. Apparently, Bully looking into her eyes IS A SIGN FOR HIM TO RAPE, PILLAGE, AND PLUNDER. Jesus Christ. Bad Influence is out, and it just hit me that this week's PPV marks a year that the tag division really seemed like a big deal again thanks to their match with Kurt and AJ. They should've used that whole deal to further the Angle-AJ feud going on now. That'd be better than the Aces thing since they wound up turning AJ against the Aces before the PPV. 8-man tag is up with the heels from the PPV facing the babyfaces, and Storm's leg is covered up heavily in tape and he's in a shirt. Gunner's gunning pose looks too much like air humping.

Hernandez and Chavo came out after the break. Their theme is among the most generic in TNA history, and fits them about as well as Jerry Lynn's first country theme here. It's easily the worst theme Chavo's ever had and a step down from any LAX remix for Hernandez. Dirty Heels got no intro. BI's red, gold, and white gear looks awesome. Aries's blue and red gear makes him look like Superdick - and he fittingly tagged Roode in the second he hopped in the ring. Chavo's basement dropkick didn't look good, and I question the logic of setting that up with a tag since it adds to the time the move takes to be done. Loved Aries saying he had no idea what's going on after sneaking in a dropkick to Chavo on the top. Sweet slap to Roode's chest from Supermex, who sent Aries flying into a helicopter pose with a pounce. Marching trainwreck rules. Ryback should steal that spot. Actually, Hernandez doing Ryback's gimmick now would be pretty good. Sick corner dropkick to him from Aries. Uranage backbreaker into the torture rack got the win for Gunner. Storm, wisely, did nothing, but Gunner was able to shine nicely here. AJ arrived on his TRON light cycle at 10:05. Given that the show only goes until 11, that sure is late to come in. The Aces met in Kane's lair to discuss their PPV plans. Also, the Aces OFFICIALLY declare war on TNA. Because that wasn't clear over the past year. Bully wants VICTIMS. Maybe he should've hired Gunner since he wants to kill people. Mickie's celebration is next.


FOLLOW DIXIE CARTER ON TWITTER, THEN YOU'LL KNOW WHERE BFG IS! Great BFG vid, and oh yeah, the show is in San Diego. Taz compared Mickie's knee clip to Theisman-LT. She cut a great overly-happy and thankful promo that was just glorious. SHE IS SO SUPER THANKFUL, but takes issue with the super-small, teeny-tiny minority who have taken issue with how she won the title. So she called out her good, dear friend Velvet. Velvet came out with her knee taped up, and...walking in heels. Is that a wise move if you've got a bad knee? Seems like something that would make walking harder. Mickie was willinig to wait until Velvet was about ONE THOUSAND PERCENT READY. Velvet wants her rematch...and Mickie's willing to do it ANY TIME and WILL BLOW THE ROOF OFF THIS MUTHA...but unfortunately, there's already a match at the PPV. Mickie would luv luv luv to give her the match, but ya know, she can't. Gail came out and Velvet was really annoying, so Gail kicked her leg out from under her leg the ringpost figure four was avoided so the mixed tag could get going.

Sabin came out and he really needs new music. Just hearing HAIL SABIN over a generic tune sucks. Match started with Taryn hopping around before a takedown. Crossbody led to a tag. Taz said that the flask was either...in ODB's rear end or her pocket. Hopefully the latter. Taryn has the most amazing gear in wrestling. Loved Sabin using Palumbo's WWE finisher, the over the shoulder backbreaker>cutter deal. Cradle Shock 2.0 that has no name yet got the win. I sure hope that doesn't mean Kenny's retaining, because he's doing nothing with the belt. Sabin's promo was pretty good until Kenny broke it up. Tiger codebreaker from Suicide saved Sabin.


They ran down the PPV and next week's "live" Impact. Sting talked about his favorite world title opponents, naming Flair, Hogan, Angle, and Jarrett. This made the PPV match seem important, and the epic trumpets worked well. The BFG recap included Shaw-Bradley in the Gut Check BFG Series Tourney finale. Doesn't feel like much of a tourney or a finale. The graphic for Park-Devon ruled. AJ's black and grey NO ONE shirt is shockingly subdued for a wrestling shirt. I rather like it. They're doing some moves. More moves. Corner stomps. Ad break. Loved hearing Taz talk about Tenay calling every match AJ has had in TNA, which is kind of amazing. Sick apron DDT bump. Amazed to see Anderson bust that out, although he has been putting more effort into his matches now that he's a regular TV main eventer again. Loved Taz using wacky cliches to describe Ken, then copping to it. Nice hard kick to the chest from AJ would've made for a great near-fall if Anderson stayed down. Shonie Carter referenced from Todd had Taz talking about restaurants. Also, CABLE. CROTCH. PAIN is not good on a Thursday night according to Taz. Angle came in and attacked AJ...kind of a dick move. This ended a really good match and was annoying.

AJ attacked the knee, and then the Aces attacked them both. Maybe they'll get into the tag title picture at BFG or something. Then everyone involved with the Aces matches at the PPV came out to brawl. So the show ended how it began - with mayhem. Also, with another Sting-Bully punch back and forth deal like they closed the show with a few weeks ago. Sting no-sold a clothesline, which really seems like something they should've saved for the PV. Also, a scorpion deathlock was done before a 3D closed the show. The veins in Bully's legs are crazy and DOC is as orange as Dixie's dress. This...was indeed a way to end the show before the PPV.


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Monday, May 27, 2013

Raw 5-27-13

Very classy Memorial Day tribute video opened the show. Cena will officially start the show...after a recap of last week's events that also aired on SD. So since nothing on SD was covered here, I suppose it's safe to say nothing on it matters. Cena came out in his FAVORITE PLACE IN THE WORLD while Cole talked about Cena loving the military. Digging the MAKE AMBROSE WWE CHAMP sign. Cena exposited a whole lot, and brought up how Ryback thought he should be champion. Despite that, he didn't feel the need to mention that WHILE CUTTING A PROMO ON TOP OF AN AMBULANCE last week. This crap led to a huge WE WANT BRET chant. Cena insulted Ryback, called him an idiot in so many words, and now the ambulance match is a 3 STAGES OF HELL MATCH! Stage 1 is a lumberjack match - a match they've killed. Cena begged for a we want tables chant and got it so he could make a TABLES MATCH. Stage 3 is an ambulance match. Wow. Cena's "HE'S GONNA DRIVE YA STRAIGHT TO GET MEDICAL ATTENTION." line was amazing. Ryback called himself "Lucifor", also Satan. I'd have preferred Hercule. Heyman came out and introduced Axel, who has a redone theme already. Heyman wanted to make Cena-Axel. Can Cena kick the ass of a man a concussed HHH could beat up last week!? Axel took the mic and yikes, he's not good at promos. Cena's good, but can be annoying - he was annoying here. Oh, and Axel beat HHH. They just didn't say how. Alberto-Langston III is up, and hyped it with clips of their ME match.

JBL talked about Big E saying he should be the top contender. Big E did a crazy Warrior press slam to Alberto ON THE STEPS. Wild spot. They hyped up THE APP by...showing the match and also Dolph cutting a promo that they cut off terribly. Cole said it was odd for the Canadian fans to chant Si. How is it any stranger for Canadians to chant Si than Americans? So after showing the clip of Alberto beating Big E with a schoolboy on ME, they did THE EXACT SAME FINISH HERE, only with a slam into the buckle first to set up AJ and Big E friction. Tag title AND US Title rematches are up tonight, and Cole said the tag title one might be harder now. How? A tornado match has more chaos than a regular one. So we've had one rematch and two more (at least) to come. Wow.

Bryan and Kane did a wacky sit before Bret just showed up...when the camera moved to the right and he gave advice in a wacky powder blue shirt. Loved seeing Bret and Bryan together since they haven't been on-screen since Summerslam '10. Ambrose came out for his re-rematch with Kofi. I forgot that they had a rematch on SD that was turned into a traditional HOLLA HOLLA 6-MAN TAG PLAYA! Cole called this a huge night for Kofi. Yup, could become a 99-time meaningless singles champ. They did some stuff, but went to another ad break to kill some time after the fake out head-rope spot. During the break, ON THE WWE APP did a stun gun. They showed this minutes after coming back with Ambrose doing a straightjacket choke and a sweet snap elbow. Reminded me of Waltman's snap legdrop mixed with Muta's elbow. We saw Orton and Sheamus watching the screen ON THE APP. They did an outstanding finishing deal with a trip up slamming Kofi's face on the steps before the headlock driver, which got a JUSTICE yell before hand.

Tag champs came out to lead to a seamless tag title match. This was a lot like an ECW PPV. NATURAL BORN KILLAZ FROM HELL! Tag title match officially began ON THE APP. Great exchange between JBL and King on cliches. ON THE APP, the PTPs are upset to not be the top contenders. This tag match rules. Tons of great action, inclduing HEADBANGING BEFORE THE CORNER DROPKICK, a huge German suplex, and they chose a HUGE back suplex off the top to go to a break with. Seth did Bryan's surfboard on him to mock him. Bryan landed RIGHT ON HIS HEAD for a giant shoulderblock from Reigns. Kane got a great hot tag, while Bryan kicked tons of ass on the ground, leading to some aruing and a flying knee from Rolilns beating Kane. There was also a tremendous spear from Reigns off of the flying knee from Bryan on the floor. JBL called this deja vu, and Cole talked about Cena opening up Raw - tremendous. HHH health update is up next.

They showed clips FROM THE APP last week after the show, and credited Brock's sledgehammer shot on the PPV for the injury. Axel literally DID NO DAMAGE TO HHH according to the doctors during his match and HHH could be medically cleared by next week. Miz came out to be as Cole said, "something", because he could be either an announcer, commentator, or ref. Miz will be a ref for Fandango-Barrett. King found it odd that CANADIANS WOULD DO THE FANDANGO! Cole referenced Miz being the Calgary Kid - when everyone thought it had to be Lance Storm due to the red trunks. Miz got shoved, so he hit Barrett with his finisher to give Fandango the win, then he kicked Fanango to have Summer pin him. HBK with a giant, bushy salt and pepper beard made him look way older.

Tons of Funk and Khali face 3MB. They showed Nattie's birthday being interrupted, and spent much of the match talking about the networks Raw is on. Faces won and Khali sang something close to Happy Birthday. I wonder if the owners of the Happy Birthday song will sue over that. They showed a Cena video dedicated to Memorial day. Don't forget what the holiday is really about - WWE bringing up how great they are. AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT HOW MUCH WWE AND JOHN CENA LOVE THE MILITARY! Jericho came out for the Highlight Reel back in Calgary. Heyman said he gave Jericho his first big break...so I guess the Thrillseekers didn't happen. Great wacky Olympic girl look from Jericho there. Love Heyman saying he's waived his normal fee to be on this show to make up for not paying Jericho. Jericho brought up his other client, which led Heyman to talk about BROCK LESSSSNNNAR, THE ONLY NCAA HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION...but he meant Punk. I loved them setting up Punk feeling forgotten and used by Paul here. Also loved them pointing out that Heyman wears the same suit, and Jericho was tremendous with his blah blah blah bit. Jericho challenged Punk to a match at Payback, which should be quite good. I was kind of hoping they'd do Jericho-Ambrose, but this should be awesome too. I'm amused by this feud partially involving Jericho being upset about someone taking a break. Jericho-Punk was made for the PPV. Interesting, since he'll be cheered a ton. Great segment, but it went on a long time.

Kaitlyn's new, more revealing gear rules. She's teaming with Nattie to face the Bellas. Big Happy Birthday chant here. A Bella did a rope choke to Kaitlyn using her ass. That's new. Nattie lost after Katilyn accidentally speared him, and the Bellas laughed while singing happy birthday to her. Bret met with Axel, who was in gym shorts for some reason after already being in his full gear. Celtic Vipers face the Rhodes Scholars for some reason next. Awesome Bray Wyatt Family vid aired. Their theme is amazing and the vid was creepy. Loved JBL talking about poor Bob Orton Jr's arm never healing. They talked about Cody's tan resembling Sheamus's hair, and JBL asked for the doctor when King just stopped talking for a while. Tremendous disaster kick during the white noise. Brogue kick got the win. Loved the disaster kick spot. Rest of it was just a match. Kinda liked them setting this team up for the Shield, even though they still feel like a makeshift unit. Axel-Cena is up next.

Orton will face Ambrose in a TITLE-FREE MATCH on SD. Should be pretty awesome since it'll either lead to a good singles match, or some kind of HOLLA HOLLA tag. Axel came out doing the Brock/Rock jog in place and Lashley's arm-stretching pose on the ramp. Loved Cole bringing up RVD, while JBL talked about Tommy Rich, and that led to King referencing the head shaving deal with he and Austin Idol. Match went to a break after a few minutes. Axel took Cena's knee out ON THE APP. Bray Wyatt was apparently trending worldwide - even without them saying his name before. That bodes well for him. Loved the fan in a bright red shirt behind Heyman doing Khali's dance. Axel locked in an armbar for a long time. VINTAGE BRET elbow from Axel, led to his taunt, then a missed Bret elbow. Perfect plex countered into the STF, then a Perfect plex. AWESOME missed Stinger splash from Axel led to a clothesline. Sirens blared and brought out Ryback and not Scott Steiner. Cena opened the front door and got counted out as a result. Hell of a win for Axel. At least it's an actual win on TV instead of being turned into one after the fact. They tried to recreate the PPV, but it was countered, and Ryback shoved Cena off the stage. Why they'd do that when Cena's so injury-prone, I have no idea. And then Cole admitted they all just forgot about Axel.


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Friday, May 24, 2013

WWE SD 5-24-13

LOLing at the intro video focusing on HHH and Brock...who won't be on the show. Also, the Shield won gold at the PPV. OH GOD, Miz TV is starting the show. Miz is going to be versatile...when? He does the same thing all the time. Miz put Fandango over, but the best part here was a kid with a Scott Steiner shirt. Loved Miz accidentally flipping Fandango off during the twirl with Summer. New best part was Dango's subdued "yes" every time Miz said REALLY? to him saying his name properly. Miz knows the between the sports and entertainment. Barrett waited until this went on for ten minutes to come out and be upset about losing on Raw. Loved him saying Fandango would rather tiptoe through the tulips than fight like a real man, then threatened him within an inch of his life. Standing elbow shot, a version of BARRETT'S FINISHER was largely no-sold by Miz, who just hit him with a double-leg afterwards. They came back with a chinlock and a backslide, while Fandango is on commentary. Fandango cued his music during the match, really killing the match. And then it just ended in a minute due to him kicking Miz in the head. This was a real waste of TWENTY MINUTES outside of Barrett elbowing Fandango. Bryan talked to himself while Kane tried to console him by saying that THEY lost the tag titles, and that he lost on Raw. I love Kane trying to make Bryan feel better. Kane's look of confusion during all this ruled.

Got a Cain-Silva ad showing Cain demolishing Brock, WWE's current top draw. ZEB SAID THINGS ON WWE APP! Swagger got a jobber intro here against Bryan. Loved Bryan just bringing the offense immediately. Having him doubt himself really makes the tag titles seem important. Loved him doing his usual kicking combo while Swagger was against the railing. JBL said he held tag titles with Dick Murdoch and Windham...maybe MAYBE the new Blackjacks won the NWA titles during that WWF/NWA deal. Swagger doing the Vader corner splash to the knees...leading to the stomach being sold was weird - although it does give me something to put in his NM moveset.  Zeb putting his head in his hand and shaking his head back and forth after a sick corner dropkick ruled. Gutwrench led to a No Lock, into a Patriot Lock counter. Swagger bomb was met with two feet to the face, then a buzzsaw kick. Then he looked all evil, did a reverse curb stomp over and over into the No Lock. Holy shit, this new super-pissed Bryan rules. Then he kicked some more ass. I love this gimmick, and Bryan doing the YES deal while a fan held up a DANIEL+BYAN=WORKRATE sign. A graphic asked WHO WAS THE LAST MAN STANDING...in a match from five days ago. As if anyone watching this show wouldn't have at least heard the result.

They showed little highlight screens of the match to show the non-finish. The doc's official diagnosis is "Cena is banged up". Wow. Ryback on the ambulance highlights. I liked the whirling siren video effect over Ryback, didn't so much like the close-up of Cena's wacky facial expression on the post-show. Cena-Ryback IN AN AMBULANCE MATCH is offically the main event of Payback. Sandow suddenly didn't approve of THE TRUCK PULL...even though he was there for it. Sandow looks so great in a suit. He also gave the history of the Gordian knot. Sandow mocked Striker for being a substitute teacher, which led to JBL using him as an example for America's education system being so bad. Sheamus, apparently annoyed by all of this bullying, came out to bully Sandow. Sandow's facial expressions here were tremendous. Loved JBL calling "Shemist" a knotsmith, Cole saying it's not a word, and Josh saying neither is "Shemist". Loved Sandow using bolt cutters to solve the knot, then holding it up like a spine in Scorpion's fatality. Sheamus went for a cheapshot, but Sandow LEPT OVER THE TABLE to avoid it. I adore this feud. Then Sheamus threw poor Striker at Sandow. That looked painful. Jericho is up to face Show next, in a match that is happening with no hype and...for some reason or another.

Great HHH-Brock vid - shame it was meant to put over Axel. Josh brought up Show being a past Heyman guy, which seemed a tad odd. Then he compared Jericho to JOHNNY DEPP, which led to the commentary going totally off the rails for a while. Josh said Jericho has a puncher's chance...no, he doesn't really do punches. Show hit one of his loudest mid-air chest slap counters ever here. Missed flying elbow led to a Lionsault to the back - nice cahnge there. Double chokelift off the mat led to a sloppy DDT from Jericho. Cole's strained commentary while Jericho TRIED..TO PUT BIG SHOW...ON HIS BELLY...was amusing. Codebreaker on the floor sent Big Show OVER THE TIMEKEEPING BARRICADE to give Jericho a countout win. This was short, but sweet. Show tried to use a chair, but it got used against him. This was an outstanding build for an extreme rules match between the two...shame it happened right after that PPV. This was the strongest Jericho's been booked since returning. Seems like a good time to put him in a secondary title feud since he's got some momentum. Jericho's ENTIRE CHEST was red after that chop. Amazing.
Medical update on THE GAME, THE KING OF KINGS, THE ASS-KICKER, THE COO, THE MOST BELOVE WRESTLER IN THE WWE UNIVERSE, HHH is coming up.

It's bizarre to see WWE hype up Rock's show on TNT, even if it has been over a decade since the Monday night wars.  Travel Channel is just now getting into the Pimp My...genre with ROCK MY RV STARRING BRET MICHAELS. SONIC HAS SHAKES FOR EVERY OCCASION THIS SUMMER. THAT'S SONIC SHAKES. MADE HAND-MADE! Outstanding video for Axel, largely focusing on Heyman and it was aided by clips of Brock limping and Axel's family. Instead of showing HHH bury him by telling him to let the adults talk, they just showed him slapping him. Way better. They played up the dropkick, corner elbow, and grounded elbows as being the key blows to HHH's head. Cole hyped up the sledgehammer shot as being THE big deal. HHH is suffering from "post concussion symptoms", so they basically di the same thing as the Michaels deal, just less believably.

JBL hyped up Heyman bringing us Punk, Brock, and Austin - but didn't mention Taker, so I guess he was told to never do that again. Heyman was amazing putting himself and his clients over - he's so going into the hall of fame, as is Brock according to this at some point. Axel said he did more on Raw than both his father and grandfather ever did...well that's absolutely ridiculous. There's something about this act that doesn't work for me, but I'm not sure if it's just the name, or them now overhyping him by saying he's a first-ballot hall of famer. They're basically setting him up to not be a failure, but an under-achiever based on some of their wording. He faces the ever-mysterious "someone" after the break.

Best of IYH is the #1 sports DVD in the country, so after hyping up Raw as the #1 entertainment show, now they're sports. Must be that "balance of sports and entertainment" Miz talked about. Goddammit, he's facing Sin Cara - which could be great without THE STUPID LIGHTING. Nice fireman's carry and behind the back takedown from Axel. Drop toe hold...okay, generic Fire Pro CAW offense here. Sin Cara looked awesome here. THERE'S ALWAYS ACTIVITY ON THE WWE APP - now with Orton cutting a boring promo on Axel. Heyman's also the only manager to manage three consecutive world champs - I think it went Brock, Show, and Angle. Sliding McGullicutter got the win. Nice finisher. Needs an official name again that is better than that, because it's terrible. Something like Axe Crusher would fit the move...at least as much as McGullicutter did. Sin Cara shined brightly here, Axel didn't really look all that good. Kofi-Ambrose main event is up.

THE WWE SHAKDOWN, PRESENTED BY SONIC SHAKES recapped the U.S. Title win by Ambrose. In theory, seeing Kofi in a main event on TV should be odd, but thanks to this Shield program, it doesn't. Loved the Believe in Ambrose sign, and AMBROSE chants. Great leapfrogs by Kofi - who really makes them his own simply by how he does them. Flying splash bodyblock got 2 for Kofi. TREMENDOUS bump from Rollins to the floor, while Kofi's flying clothesline to Reigns was beautiful. This led to a beatdown and a HOLLA HOLLA 6-MAN TAG PLAYA when Orton and Sheamus came out to help. Impressive tilt a whirl from Sheamus to Reigns started the match off nicely. Cole hyped up Kofi being more aggressive now. I loved Josh calling out JBL for doing his usual 'go to the dressing room and ask em!" bit when they were IN THE RING WRESTLING. Sheamus busting out a regular neckbreaker was new. Shield dominated the match ON THE WWE APP! Loved Rollins immediately tagging himself in after Reigns missed the tackle in the corner. Crowd went batshit crazy when Orton came in. Like crazy batshit crazy. It was amazing. Superman punch to Orton from Reigns looked great as a punch - seemed to mess up Reigns' left ankle though. Josh played it up as an example of a Shield member sacrificing themselves for the greater good. I love that spect of this group and that Josh tied it into that happening. JBL called Sheamus ONE OF THE GREATEST OF ALL-TIME. Wow. Flatliner into the corner stunend Orton. Superplex from Orton stopped Rollins from going for...something off the top. Sheamus has added a little Savage-esque finger twirl to the clubbering spot. Crazy spear ended White Noise, but led to an RKO on the floor. Kofi got tagged in and got the froggy crossbody. Flying front dropkick from Ambrose led to the headlock driver, and the best match on SD in a while. This was the best SD show since the Taker-Ambrose one. Outstanding show overall.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013

TNA Impact 5-23-13

WILL AJ GET PATCHED IN, OR DOES HE HAVE SOMETHING UP HIS SLEEVE!? I think they've figured out a way to guarantee some sort of swerve here. Nice little graphic for the OK tornado victims, along with a Red Cross number for donations. The opening video shows off Abyss's O Face, which no one ever needed to see. Hogan came out to start the show and suck the oxygen out of the room right from minute one. Taz talked about how Hogan does this crap to get a cheap pop - nice of the heel to tell the truth. Tenay talked about A HOGAN POP, AND A HOGAN HOMETOWN POP...which really wasn't much different. He told a wacky story about Shark Boy and him drinking at Hogan's Beach Shop, where he was a lot - THAT'S HOGAN'S BEACH SHOP IN TAMPA BROTHERS! Lots of beach metaphors so he can just keep saying words. Sting came out and grabbed a mic, but first, HOGAN HAD TO TALK SOME MORE. Sting stumbled over some words, clearly due to the power of Hulkamania. Brooke Hogan came out in a white and black prison dress. Between that and the bright red lipstick, she really didn't look good. She doesn't want to see guys fighting and offered to resign as VP of the KOs. Loved Bully's "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WIFE!" when Hogan grabbed Brooke. Then Bully said he'd always love her...this really came out of nowhere. This took up 15 minutes and was not exactly good. It also felt like another TNA storyline where major chunks of the story are missing.

ShopTNA lets you save money ON THE ALL-NEW ACES AND 8S VEST! Joey Ryan's a sub for Ion, while Petey got a big pop I'm sure was due to the Steiner-esque tron. Newicide is a skinny motherfucker. Taz ranted about guys throwing each other on their heads, and then Ryan hit a swank pumphandle suplex. Love the Muta lock>ab stretch on Ryan and Petey by Suicide. Ref cam is gone. Suicide did a sweet somersault dive off the apron and landed on his feet perfectly. Vader's reverse powerbomb>codebreaker finisher was cool and this was a great showcase for whoever's playing the role. Sabin met with Storm and volunteered to be his partner, but Storm turned down Gun Money 2.0 to let Sabin cash in the X Title to win the world title. So I guess that's still a thing despite the D-X PPV being done. I'm fine with that since I dug the stip. The PPV is in less than two weeks, so they really should name the partner tonight, but they'll probably wait until next week.

Velvet taped up her knee...which you could kind of see after they spent an hour focusing on her tits. She's got some wacky deal on her shoulders for some reason. Mickie came in, wished her luck, and told her she loved her. That's either the start of a heel turn or a great porno. Sam Shaw came out in Partridge Family bus gear, leading to Wes coming out and saying that he beat up Alex Silva, because I guess they didn't feel like getting him a visa. Wes put himself in this match. Um, hello? HOGAN!? The Aces B-team came down to beat him up. Magnus came out to make things 1 on 3 AND THE ACES RAN! Magnus said a bunch of words. More words. For some reason, the violent biker gang is just letting him talk instead of beating him up. Wes with the beard looks nearly exactly like either Jerry Lynn or Mickey Rourke.

Just as I was thinking TNA should show footage during the break on BELLATOR'S APP, they say they have their own...with Jeff Hardy doing a workout. That's probably a lot more entertaining than watching WWE guys cut boring promos, or look at a screen. Wes did some stomps, then a chinlock. Nice body shot>hook>back elbow combo in the corner from Wes. Very impressive catch from a top rope crossbody, with Magnus during the powerslam position into a suplex. The Aces attacked Magnus, and Joe made the save...okay then. Joe didn't yell, because Angle-Anderson is up next. YAY, MORE ACES AND 8S! This took eons and at best sets up a vague Joe/Magnus vs. Aces B-Team match at the PPV.

A new hall of famer gets announced at Slammiversary. This led to the Aces meeting in what would appear to be Kane's lair in every arena. They showed Kurt in New York trying to save Olympic wrestling. TNA's Save Olympic Wrestling shirt is quite outstanding. Given the timing of everything, I'd say that maybe Kurt goes into the HOF this year. AJ rode in on a Batcycle and they cut back to the match with Angle throwing Ken around. Anderson responded by doing an Irish whip and Hall's shoulder-to-shoulder smash. Tenay reminded us that Anderson's a TWO TIME WORLD CHAMPION. Amazing. Todd talked about THE VIOLENT BIKER GANG. Yup, so violently that they waited patiently on the floor for ten minutes before taking advantage of a 3-on-1 advantage. Anderson locked on an armbar. Not the Rousey kind, but the boring time-killing kind. Taz called Todd "girlpants" just to be a dick. This isn't a bad match, but there's nothing exciting about it at all. Loved Todd saying Angle pops up like a monster in a horror movie for the superplex. AJ came out, hugged Taz, and Anderson low blowed him and cradled him for a win. This adds sufficient fuel to the AJ-Angle fire at the PPV. Anderson was near some fat guys drinking and impersonating him. Storm will be out next to say who his partner is...even though AJ's out there WITH THE ACES AND 8s.

Gail did an interview and got jumped by Taryn. I love this angle. A huge Storm highlight video aired - showing off his tag team accomplishments, which is good, but pigeonholes him too much as a tag guy and not a FORMER WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION. Storm came out, and for some reason, Chavo was on commentary FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT. Storm's mention of AMW got a shockingly big pop for a team that broke up in '07. Chavo called himself the king of the mountain and Aries came out in a fabulous striped polo shirt. I liked Roode bringing up not only him being world champ, but beating Storm for it. Bad Influence came out, bringing out yet another group of dudes in jeans. Does anyone in TNA own pants that aren't jeans? Kaz leered over at Aries while talking about people pretending to be offended, which was...something. Stone Cold Shark Boy came out as Storm's partner. Then ROBBIE E came out. This went from really good and somewhat serious to wacky bullshit way too quickly. Gunner came out. I originally thought that Morgan shrank and got more back tats. Yay. GUN MONEY 2.0...in a totally different way. As long as they drop Mr. Intensity, this could be good.

Joseph talked to Sting about GETTING THE STRAP, which scared him. Sting sure hoped that Abyss could be his partner next week, and asked him to not kay-fab him. They ran down the PPV, which is a decent lineup, and Velvet came out without her knee taped and moved around fine. ODB's tits are all over the place here. They've briefly mentioned the show moving to 9 next week a few times, but haven't really drilled it home much. Velvet did a wacky spinning headscissors and landed on her own head. Knee clip and a kneeling DDT won the title. YAY! Then they cut away from Mickie's ass, to cut to it again, and then cut to an AJ vid...poorly. Serg is singing a song during this video that is amazing. Bully cut a promo at 9:52 to ensure this doesn't take forever, unlike everything else on this show. I wonder if AJ will turn this down with a diamond cutter ala DDP when the NWO wanted him. Bully ordered him to drink, he did, and hilariously said WOW, THAT BOY CAN GUZZLE! Angle came out to prevent AJ from turning...by insulting him. AJ hugged them, and then Angle flew into the ring via beatdown that the camera guy mised. Bully ordered AJ to de-brain Angle with the hammer, which he did. Then they turned their backs to him and he beat the shit out of the entire group with the hammer. So no diamond cutter, but he did make the similar P1 sign at the end.

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Raw 5-20-13


An ambulance is going into the building to start the show. Ryback came out of it and they showed some pics of the LED spear, including one that made it look like Ryback speared him through a lit up vagina. They showed footage FROM THE POST-SHOW ON THE APP of Cena refusing to go to the hospital. Ryback looked pretty cool standing on top of an ambulance in his vest and shirt. Ryback said he'd send Cena to the medical facility, BUT THAT THE FANS WOULDN'T - THEY'D GO TO THE MORGUE. Then he just said a bunch of stuff insulting them. THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT NUTRITION OR EDUCATION! So they're idiots and he's going to murder them all, apparently. They made Ryback-Cena IN AN AMBULAMP MATCH (according to Ryback), and it's in Chicago. So I guess that's when we'll get the return of Punk. Also, Heyman's third guy returns/debuts tonight. Miz and Jericho team up tonight against Fandango and Barrett...wow.

Over 170 million vids are viewed on WWE's site, Hulu, and THE WWE APP! Then they did some bizarre Sonic shake product placement deal. Summer's yellow dress really brought out her tan nicely. They showed a few fans Fandangoing, and one girl just making devil horns to do it. Barrett has a new theme with chanting and a hard rock sound to it. I demand this hit iTunes right now. They made Barrett-Cara for Main Event - nice of them to hype that up at all. Shame they didn't show Sin Cara winning despite talking about it. They'll show guys talking on the app, but not that. They talked about Ryback bullying Josh ON THE APP during the break, then showed Road Dogg talking to hype up the app. Did you know it's the new way to watch TV?

They came back from a break with the usual chinlock from Barrett. Then Fandango abandoned Barrett to dance. They did a bunch of stuff - nothing dangerous thank God since it was impossible to pay attention to the match. Miz won with the figure four after a Codebreaker. Why? I have no idea other than to set up maybe a 4-way for the IC Title with Miz, Fandango, Cara, and Barrett. Miz and Jericho went after Fandango, who left Summer and danced seductively with Jericho, who is old enough to be her dad. Luckily, Jericho told her off and this ended without too much quickiness. RAGE IN THE CAGE graphic showed the wacky silver hammer, then they showed Ryback bullying Josh to hype up the app. Seriously, that shit's free - stop killing the show with it.

Vickie came out with a red jacket like Lupin III, but with a black and white polka dot shirt. AND THE WWE APP LETS YOU CHOOSE SWAGGER'S OPPONENT. He could face Khali, Truth, or Orton. WELL GEE, THIS IS A TOUGH ONE. ZEB COMPLAINED TO VICKIE ON THE APP! They showed the Shield winning titles and Kane and Bryan had an amusing wacky skit. They've apparently got a 6-man with Kofi against the Shield tonight. Sheamus is out to face WWE's most common superstar - someone, after the break. There's a movie using DMX for its ad in 2013. Amazing.

They showed a couple of pics of the Sheamus-Henry match - they couldn't make it seem exciting even then. Henry said he's going home on the post-show. Titus is out to face Sheamus because he's his training partner - as shown during the truck pull. SHOCKING example of continuity. Loved the clubbering spot here - Sheamus put some extra fire into it tonight. Titus threw him overhead with a fallaway slam without bumping and said "you think you tough? YOU THINK YOU FUCKIN TOUGH!". They muted it, but still showed it. This was shockingly used to put Titus over as something special - in which case they should've mentioned him beforehand and the history behind this match so it wouldn't feel like an afterthought. White Noise>Brogue Kick finished off Titus. This was a very good little match - very fun to watch and better than expected. It's bizarre that they picked now to build on the momentum Titus had after doing commentary what, five months ago? Heyman's reveal is next.

Kevin Jonas is the social media ambassador of the show, so they can plug his E! show and do synergy and shit with their show. Heyman ruled it all with his promo and introduced his newest Paul Heyman Guy - Curt Axel - Joe Hennig with a rock remix of his dad's theme and a mix of his grandfather's nickname and his dad's name. This is a great repackaging and basically what things should have been for him from the start with him. HHH's theme hit, so I guess he's out to re-kill Hennig's career. Cole is amazed that HHH is here AFTER TAKING AN F5 AND SLEDGEHAMMER TO THE JAW! HHH didn't even have makeup on his jaw to make it look battered. They talked about Axel like he's a young guy, even though he's in his '30s. Hennig tried to speak and HHH buried him by saying he's a kid. HHH had jokes to respond to his VIOLENT ASS KICKING IN THE MAIN EVENT OF LAST NIGHT'S PPV. They did a close-up BEARD VS. BEARD faceoff. Hennig has grey in his beard. HHH slapped him and just like Silent Rage, he took a bump for it. HHH demanded a match with him...not on the PPV oh no, TONIGHT. THE NIGHT AFTER A VIOLENT BEATING. He's seriously killing his own sledgehammer gimmick with this. And well, many other things too.

I got a UFC ad after this, and it made me want Cain-HHH. Alberto's facing Big E next. CURTIS AXEL IS TRENDING WORLDWIDE! They did Rampage powerbomb>armbar spots here while JBL talked about Heyman leading Austin in WCW to a TV Title run, and managing a very young Taker too. They went to the floor with the armbar where Big E swung Alberto into the ringpost. That was tremendous and could've have been a great countout finish that Dolph could brag about. Instead, it got a 1. They brought up Punk leaving after WM and Henry leaving last night. WWE - the company that everyone wants to leave. Big E won with the Big Ending after an eye poke...well, that was probably better than a countout win after all. Good stuff and it leads to more dissention with Dolph. They replayed Ryback. Saying words. Like this. When the show opened. I think Big E might actually be better in Ryback's role right now than Ryback is.

We got an ad for the WWE app, which WWE really hasn't mentioned enough. Use it to CHANGE THE COURSE OF WWE. Yes, Swagger-Khali COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF WWE. Layla's out and it's time to pimp Sonic more. She'll face AJ. For whatever reason, they replayed the stupid skit from last night. I love how AJ sits between the second and third ropes like a swing. They cut away to the Bellas ON THE APP watching the show, and hyping up TOTAL DIVAS ON E! Black widow won in like a minute via lots of ass tapping and groping. Randy OHTON could face Swagger.

Ryder faces Cody in a jobber intro vs. jobber intro match. Cody won after the disaster kick. Good to see him on the better side of a squash. Ryback, who Cole called the Beast Incarnate, and then The Intimidator came out and was less of a bad-ass than either Dale Sr. or Brock. Ryback murdered Ryder, which Cole called HARASSMENT! Ryback hauled him off into the ambulance, just like he did to Maddox. This was an effective deal for Cody, Ryback, and the next PPV main event. JBL said history wouldn't write about Ryder. Ouch. Shield 6-man tag is up next.

Ambrose cut an amazing promo on the Shield destroying Cena, Taker, Ryback, and the Rock - even taking credit for his surgery. Rollins followed up with some good stuff on his own, and even Reigns was good. According to the Twitter crawl, Axel's theme is #fire. I guess that's a good thing. Cole stumbled over more words and said it was a long week. King asked how that could be when it's only Monday. Good question. GIGANTIC amateur-style takedown counter from Reigns to Kofi. Rollns' corner Flatliner looks so much more damaging than Fandango's spinning version. Rollins took a backflip bump for the Hart Attack and damn near landed on his forehead. They did an awesome No Lock ad break with the faces looking strong AND OF COURSE, THE ACTION CONTINUES ON THE APP. This match rules. Love Ambrose's head to body punch combo in the ropes. VINTAGE TAJIRI tree of woe dropkick from Bryan to Ambrose got 1. Bryan is makign the Shield look so many kinds of amazing here. Loved JBL putting over Reigns' lariat. Nice back elbow on the ropes from him and a high knee too. He made good contact with it unlike Sheamus.

Ambrose channeled Raven with a finger-breaking spot. Kofi got a hot tag, hit a big dive, and it led to Kane and Reigns going at it. Flying knee from Rollins saved Reigns from a chokeslam and let him hit the spear for the win. They showed a replay with Kofi taking the best back bump ever off a face smash into the ringpost. This was better than anything on the PPV. Cole awkwardly rattled off stuff being yelled at him about the Shield. Some guy named Larry told HHH that THE DOCTOR didn't want him to wrestle. HHH threatened to fire the doctor...who probably wouldn't have trouble finding work elsewhere.

They came back and hyped up HHH VERSUS PAUL HEYMAN'S NEW GUY without mentioning his name. Kaitlyn met with Nattie's cleavage and talked about the mystery guy. There's a blue and pink ladder behind Cody that is distracting. They hyped up OVER 100,000 PEOPLE voting on the app. I call bullshit on that many people giving a shit about this match. Loved JBL calling Cole annoying for rattling off numbers. JBL ranted about THE TOWEL. TOWELS DON'T SPEAK. Cole said he wasn't making sense, which was true, since he was upset over the towel despite IT GIVING SWAGGER THE VICTORY, and Swagger then quit anyway, so the towel wound up not mattering. The match started with some holds being done. Then some LEG HOLDS. They did a smash into the barricade as a high spot before leg hold #193 - the same as leg hold #39 in this. Everyone talked about each other while Cole talked about watching the show on the app. Something I'm sure USA should be thrilled about as they hype up the final season of Burn Notice on this show.

They came back to show one of Orton's fingers with a big cut on it. Swagger kicked out of a superplex at 2, resulting in a great look of relief from Zeb. This match is going on quite a while and is pretty darn close to being into main event time - far too long for a nothing match storyline-wise and action-wise. RKO was countered into the ankle lock on the right leg and at a weird angle. Then he changed legs and did it so it looked good. RKO got the win. SWAGGER'S MEGAPUSH CONTINUES! Orton's definitely getting into the world title picture sooner rather than later. They replayed the Ryback-Cena challenge. HHH faces JOE HENNIG, in his first main event. NEXT.

SD gets hyped up with Ambrose-Kofi - YAY! HHH came out, and of course, they brought up him getting hit in the jaw with the sledgehammer. Apparently, HE HAD TROUBLE CHEWING earlier. Didn't seem to affect his ability to cut a long, wacky jokey promo earlier though. Weird to see HHH in there with a guy who has Benoit-esque slash marks on his gear. Axel's got a scar on his stomach that is distracting. Could've done without HHH dominating from the start, but I loved HHH's big left-right combo. Weird to see such rapid-fire offense from him. Bret-esque elbows from Axel, but with a unique spin to them. Axel got some offense. HHH dominated. Dominated some more. JBL talked about HHH trying to shake something off WHILE HE KICKED HIS ASS. HHH sold extreme fatigue, making me think we'll get a finish ala HBK. It would be fitting given that he was in a medical room surrounded by brain stuff earlier. HHH took a break, got some water and it actually prevented him from kicking more ass. The doc said he couldn't continue. BUT BY GOD, HHH WANTED TO KICK MORE ASS until he fell down. And then he just kept doing stuff and the show ended. This was weird.


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Extreme Rules 2013

Disappointing show. Jericho-Fandango was fine, and I liked the finish. The highlight was definitely Summer's dress. Ambrose-Kofi was a pretty awesome showcase for not only Hulu, but Ambrose, and Kofi managed to still look good in defeat. Henry-Sheamus has more action in the buildup than in the actual match. The Kaitlyn-AJ skit was pretty stupid. Looney Toons and the Coppertone baby referenced in one skit. Cole's expository commentary during the I Quit match was annoying. THIS COULD BE IT. WHAT. CAN. HE DO!? Match wasn't as good as either their WM one or the really good TV one. Instant replay felt like a way to "protect" Swagger with a loss, but the leg/armbar finish looked terrible. Don't try this at home ad on PPV...

I loved Bryan's new gear and JBL referencing May 19th not being Kane's favorite day. Great all-action match here - definitely aided by the tornado rules. Loved the sideslam/Hart Attack combo. Great springboard dive from Rollins to allow Reigns to escape the No Lock. Nice flying knee/spear combo got the best nearfall of the show so far. Slingshot/kick combo was a nice setup to the rack/knee drop one. Nice to see a tag match filled with double team moves. Show-Orton was a good, if generic extreme rules match. I fucking hate JBL calling all of the weapons toys. It bugged me on SD weeks ago and it bugged me now. It's just a really stupid thing to call items that are supposed to be treated as dangerous. The ladder bridge Vader bomb spot was crazy - good thing Orton moved. Show kicking out of the RKO helped make this seem like an important match. Orton winning with the punt was a nice surprise, and with Dolph's concussion, I'm surprised they did it - but it did make the move seem more devastating.

Ryback-Cena using the Backlash '07 finish with Batista and Taker was a bit odd, but probably the best way to get out of beating either guy. Hard to believe that was six years ago. Cena's giant leaping...hug/neck lock thing was wacky. Loved the idiocy of Cole saying THE REF IS HALFWAY TO FIVE while we're hearing him count. Thanks, Cole. The spear through the LEDs was at least impressive visually, but they've done these stunt show finishes too often to take it seriously. Show chokeslamming Cena through a bat signal was better-looking, and a bit more plausible. The Orton Payback ad was better than the wacky 12 Rounds 2 one. The Brock-HHH vid from SD was re-aired to further fill time, since the ads and wacky medical stuff with Cena and Ryback weren't enough. Bizarre to hear Cole say that Brock made his name in the UFC since that really downplayed his THREE WWE TITLE WINS.

Great opening for the cage match with Brock getting tossed right into the cage back-first instantly. HHH doing a double sledge off the top period, let alone the second he entered the cage, was a surprise. Flying knee into the cage looked good. Cole saying HHH was GOING INTO GAME MODE was amazing. Brock's knee injury was a great way to set the wheels in motion for a face turn since Heyman didn't really care much. The knee also gave them a chance to actually focus one of these Brock-HHH matches on something, instead of just doing a bunch of stuff and hoping it works. Chairs and clips to the knee ruled, as did the VINTAGE MIZ figure 4. I was hoping HHH would break out the reverse Indian deathlock here too. Loved the wacky HIDDEN SILVER SLEDGEHAMMER! Terrible leg placement for the Sharpshooter, and towards the end of it, he did it EXACTLY like Sting does now at his worst. Loved Brock's THAT'S MY MANAGER! when Heyman low blowed him. SLEDGHAMMER TO THE JAW sure would've seemed more effective if they hadn't shown numerous shots of Brock covering it with his fist. F5 got the win, and it was nice to see Brock actually win at Extreme Rules (and also odd to hear them not mention his past at the PPV). Best HHH-Brock match yet.

Friday, May 17, 2013

SD 5-17-13

I'm hoping they eventually do a "did you know" graphic on SD having the most amount of "well, that sure was an episode of a show" reviews than any other show in TV history. TAKE THAT, BART SIMPSON! I love the focus on the opening video being on the world title. Sure, it's defended on Raw now, but it's never made to feel like a big deal, so this helps make it seem important. Show-Orton still feels like just a match even with it getting a big segment in...MizTV instead of the Highlight Reel for whatever reason. Miz's goal is to make SD memorable. I applaud that goal since every ep since the Taker one has been forgettable - like most eps before that one over the past year. Feels odd to have Orton-Show as the namesake match for the PPV given that it just doesn't feel like a big match even though it kind of technically should due to the guys involved. Sadly, MizTV didn't begin with Show KOing Miz for delivering exposition in an annoying manner. YOU DEFEATED TENSAI...BUT THE VIPER...STRUCK! Miz was a fairly cocky shit here. I dug Show's THERE AREN'T NO RULES bit. I hope he wins this, but I'm expecting Orton to win this to eventually get a world title shot.

Zeb interrupting Orton saying words was a fine break from things. Zeb's gotten more of a reaction than anyone else so far, and of course, him saying stuff led to Alberto coming out. I'm sensing a HOLLA HOLLA TAG MATCH, playas. Alberto calling Zeb Jumanji Man made him seem really out of touch with pop culture. Henry came out continued the trend of guys coming out to say words. Sweet Christ, now Sheamus is out to talk. Sheamus whooped guys with the strap who didn't even do anything to him. Shocking dick move from him. This set up nothing - not even a holla holla 6-man. Teddy waited until after the break to come out and make an announcement. He's READY FO EXTREME RULES and created a HOLLA HOLLA 6-MAN TAG!

Reigns and Rollins are out with Ambrose for a tag match against the Usos, who they've had beef with before. CONTINUITY! I dig it. Shield duo won in no time with the spear. Kofi came out to save them with a chair and actually wasn't made to look weak here. Amazing. Ryback-Cena recap is up next. Teddy met backstage with Sandow, who wants THE DAMIEN SANDOW SHOW, and will instead get a match with the Miz...no thank you, Teddy. They showed the Shield costing themselves the match via DQ, but by tying it into them being willing to sacrifice for the greater good, I don't mind it too much. They willingly cost themselves the match to do damage. I think Josh is now a heel, or something close to that, because he's totally supporting Ryback now. THE FUNKYDACTYLS (as Lilian called them) came out with Tons of Funk for a match against some team. Rematch against the PTPs. Loved the big 3 point stance charge from Titus. Shame it missed because he'd be a great choice to resurrect the Pounce in WWE. Tenta-style powerslam got a 2.9999/possible 3, but the faces didn't win until the double splash. Jericho-Cesaro is up next, with zero hype or build-up. Should be awesome, but COME ON - both guys are good on the mic. You can do SOMETHING for it. Maybe sacrifice an app or WWEShop plug to make the show better. Speaking of the app, an ad for it aired geared towards advertisers who will want to advertise on WWE programs because the app encourages people to not change the channel.

Fandango's deal with Jericho was summed up nicely in 30 seconds instead of 20 minutes. Loved Josh comparing Cesaro to a Swiss Army knife, leading JBL to ask if that's like Batman's belt or FELIX'S BAG OF TRICKS. Has Felix even been a thing in 20 years? I remember an NES game with him. Summer Rae moaned on the WWE app - THE NEW WAY TO WATCH TV. This was done to mock Jericho with another feigned injury. I liked that, and JBL saying that he's known Jericho since the early '90s and he's never seen him more upset or more focused. DON'T CHANGE THE CHANNEL, IF YOU DOWNLOAD THE APP, THE SHOW CONTINUES ON IT. Ugh. Got a UFC 160 ad showing Cain massacring Brock. How dare they do that and take away from HHH doing that. They came back and Cesaro did some nice stuff - including the sweet GIANT leaping double stomp. Very unique selling of the corner enzuiguri from Cesaro - he kind of crumpled to his knees. TREMENDOUS European uppercut counter from Cesaro off the top rope leap from Jericho. Karelin lift was countered into the Walls for a win. Very good match overall...and then it kind of meant nothing when Summer Rae immediately distracted him before Fandango came out and got spinebustered and Codebreakered. Loved the shot of a guy in a Hogan shirt behind the announcers, who had a grey Hogan-stached guy in a Cena shirt right behind them. Langston-Swagger recap show stuff being done to generically build up the match. A new Zeb video aired with them in front of the green screen...which really killed this whole deal. Zeb wants to know why schools are closing, why criminals are running rampant, and why the IRS is targeting groups for their views. Well, other than him being a bit of a racist, this character is making some fine points.

Cody's at ringside with a wacky jacket on - Sandow-Miz is being used to build up the pre-show match, which I'd never figured out until now. Miz is MORE POPULAR THAN THE JONAS BROTHERS...are they still a thing now? Miz's goal is apparently to be world champ or WWE champ. Luckily, he didn't specify the year. Cody doesn't understand why it's bad that he and Damien express their FRIENDSHIP for each other. JBL commented on Cody's jacket, and good lord, THERE'S MORE STUFF WITH THE APP. Wade Barrett is talking - you know, the guy who loses a lot. Miz and Cody had a generic SD match except for Cody's mid-match promo. Miz won with the figure four - I like that they're protecting a finisher, but the move seems so odd for Miz to use. Josh said that the main event had EXTREME RULES SUBPLOTS in it.

Aksana's silver catsuit is tremendous. Kaitlyn set up a snap suplex with a slap to the ass. Josh said that people who use eharmony are ugly, while those that use Match aren't because they have photos, so it HAS TO BE SIN CARA! I loved JBL saying if he wanted a date on eharmony, he'd put up a photo of his wallet. Loved Cole implying that Josh is busy sexting at 2 AM. The commentary of this match was amazing. They talked about the HHH-Brock rivalry being epic, which seemed absurd until I remembered that it's gone on since April of last year, and Brock's only been back since March. Good to see HHH make great use of a massive draw to really spread his drawing power around with as many pieces of talent as possible. Kind of surprised that HHH's bitch line wasn't muted here. Fine video overall. Loved Ricardo getting his own big intro from Lilian - very surprised to see the main event starting at about 9:30 or so - it's clearly going to be given plenty of time, which should allow it to be good. Or rather, time for a 12 Rounds 2 trailer to be shoe-horned into things. After that and intros, which weren't even all shown, this match went from having nearly half an hour devoted to it to about 15 minutes tops. Loved Show's giant elbow drop leading to an ad break. Cena-Ryback ad aired, and was really the only major hype for the title match here. They did a bunch of stuff to Alberto, leading to Sheamus getting a tag and doing the White Noise to Show - this is routine now, but fit the story for his match with Henry nicely. Loved Henry whooping Sheamus. TAKE THIS WHOOPIN LIKE A MAN, BOY! Also loved Swagger saying HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, FELLA! Loved the enzuiguri to Henry, the Brogue to Show, and Swagger getting RKOed. It was exciting, even if it doesn't bode well for Swagger's future if he doesn't win. Maybe they'll replay Zeb saying NO MAS tonight as the finish to that.

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Thursday, May 16, 2013

TNA Impact 5-16-13

The show-opening vid showed Kurt being a complete asshole to AJ, who "turned his back on TNA"...because Kurt was a dick. They managed to show Abyss's return without exposing his slip too much. Hogan sauntered out and did every generic intro he's done in TNA. Having just watched Uncensored '95 on WWE 24/7, I, like Hogan, am amazed Hulkamania's still running wild in Tupelo. Somehow, Abyss's return tied into TNA being under a microscope. Abyss didn't come out, and boy does his current theme not work as well as his prior one. I know he's had it for like two years now, but it doesn't seem to fit as well as his other one. Loved Joseph come out here and Taz saying "well that's definitely not Abyss!". Devon and D'Lo came out when Joe started talking - I'm digging Devon's look as a biker. Works better than a lot of guys in the group. Hogan had his hair extensions in this week, so he looked a bit better than he did a few weeks ago. Loved loved LOVED Joseph Park getting super-pissed and basically saying he was tired of their shit and challenged them to a fight. I loved Devon asking who he's beaten because didn't he START by beating the current world champ? Hogan said he could face D'Lo instead of the TV Champ Devon, who is obsessed with taking a chunk out of Abyss's ass. Park's wacky leap of joy ruled. Storm was a bit of a dick to the backstage interviewer asking what he was going to do after superkicking the guys last week. All he said was "watch", and despite showing clips, they didn't do a good job of filling in the blanks here.

They showed a York highlight reel vid to hype him up in the Gut Check BFG series deal. Roode came out to I guess give his thoughts on what Storm did. Nope. Turns out it's a match with Chavo. Taz showed how little he paid attention to the other guys when Tenay said that Roode had more big match experience over the past few years, and Taz asked Tenay...how he could say Roode hadn't had high profile matches...WHAT!? Loved Roode taking a stomach-first bump off of a shoulder to the gut from the apron leading to the slingshot senton. Storm came out and spit beer at Roode, leading to a DQ. Storm just...stood there angrily. Maybe he's going to join Sting and AJ in the rafters. Maybe there's like an HOV lane for them that requires 3 guys or something.

They recapped AJ's deal. He's facing Angle at the PPV, BTW. Lots of repeated stuff from show-starting vid. Kurt came out to talk. Taz rightfully called him a highly confrontational man. Angle whined about wanting to face AJ now and not at the PPV. He wanted AJ and got Anderson, who came out with a wacky carnoonish scowl and was sucking a lollipop. Helluva badass biker. He did a nice wacky THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAY intro for AJ getting "patched in" next week before cackling. Good lord, the man is about as annoying as Miz, if not moreso. Angle sucker-punched Anderson before AJ came out from the...vague direction of the Aces and 8s area and cheap-shotted Kurt. Well, he deserved that. They did a good job building up AJ being patched in next week, even if it is pretty sudden. 

THE SLAMMIN SALE gives you UP TO 25% off on DVDs. Whoopdeedoo. The Gut Check guy with Boomstick on his elbow pad, whose name wasn't said or shown, cut a decent heel promo about having the hot girl now, getting paid to be in the gym and get better and be THE MAN. Boomstick guy was Jay Bradley The guy who wins this gets a shot at Slammiversary to be in the series. Well, that's different than what they said before, where it seemed like the winner of this would get in the BFG series. York's tan is very Hogan-esque. Nice flapjack and running big boot from Bradley. Looked very sharp. Given that Tenay talked about York's biggest win being at the Xstravanza PPV, they should've shown clips from it. Sick snapmare>elbow to the chest combo from Bradley. Boomstick lariat got the win here. Bradley's gear is really generic-looking, but he was quite good here. York was fine, but needs to either lose weight or modify his style. Bradley was quite cocky in his post-match promo. He was great here. Best he's looked yet in TNA. Gail and Velvet, whose lips couldn't be more pink, walked backstage before their match up next.

Storm bitched and moaned more and then Anderson cut a bad promo where he lost his train of thought, then talked about "patching AJ's ass in next week.". AJ might not like that much. KOs just had time to do their intros before the break, but they also showed off Gail's path of destruction, so I'm fine with that. Brooke Hogan's giant orange boobs in a more orange dress talked about great Mickie's album was, but she's bitter over being excluded from the PPV. Valid point, so Mickie was given a match next week for the title. Bully and his underarm blubber intimidated Brooke. Bully leered at her like a date rapist after saying he'd never divorce her. The match began with Velvet IN DIFFERENT GEAR THAN BEFORE, and also throwing things resembling armdrags. Then she walked around a bunch to wait for Gail to get up for the next spot. Velvet's knee got a kneeling DDT and apron smash, resulting in VINTAGE RVD owwie owwie owww! selling. Velvet sold her knee a ton, which didn't result in the crowd caring enough to stop whistling at her. Taz called a half crab a cloverleaf, which led to a nice stretch muffler. Throughout this, Taz talked about ODB having a walkman in her back packet along with the flask in the other and having that make sense since she gets clothes from the Salvation Army. Velvet JUMPED UP AFTER GAIL to get her off the top. She seemed to have no problem doing this.

Velvet's knee went out in the most comedic way possible as she just threw herself on the ground, and she got a fluke win, leading to Gail killing her knee with the figure four on the ringpost. I'm hoping this leads to Mickie not only winning the title, but holding off her heel turn for a bit since Tara just turned sorta-face. Camera man zoomed in on Velvet's tits quite a bit here. Sabin said that King was only the king of male strippers, which was a great line. Fantastic recap vid of their deal last week, and it made their X division title match seem way more important. I love that with Sabin around, they're actually giving a shit about the division. Shame they made a ONE ON ONE FEUD for a division with mandatory 3-ways.

SUICIDE returns next week, hopefully cutting wacky Ole Anderson voice box promos. Kenny King defends the X Title next against Petey and Sabin, who got no intros. OUCH. Now is not the time to be giving THE ENTIRE DIVISION jobber intros. Match began with King leaving so Sabin and Petey could do some swank-looking technical exchanges that were more impressive than anything seen in the division since the days of the Guns and GenMe. Nice capoiera kick from King - Sabin looks great in there with both Sabin and Kenny. They showed the ref with the wacky camera on his head, which made him look ridiculous. Thankfully, they didn't show anything from it this week..so why use it? T-bone flatliner from Petey looked wonky, but a bit cool too. Only got two for that and the La Mistica Russian Legsweep>cradle combo. Sweet dropkick to the top rope while Kenny was on the mat by King to Sabin. Spinning Irish Curse got 2 for King. Hesitation dropkick was interrupted by Petey, who then got DVDed onto King in the tree of woe - nice spot there. Flying knee from King took Sabin out while King hit the Royal Flush to Petey to take him out of contention. This was Kenny's best match in TNA yet and the best 3-way they've had in a while. Kaz and Daniels had a great wacky meeting backstage. Kaz is now the secretary of offense and SUPER KAZ!

D'Lo thanked Anderson for not allowing Bully to CAVE HIS SKULL IN WITH A HAMMER. They did a nice job making D'Lo sympathetic by showing he's remorseful for hurting Garett and Wes by big-footing them,a dn trying to make up for things. Hernandez's new Texas-state flag gear rules. Loved Taz talking about Bad Influence: The Movie's trailer being great, and Tenay asking who lives in the trailer. Air Mexico off the ramp to the ring now gets built up with a ton of clapping, and it worked nicely here. He's also got new ink on his back. Dixie's always breaking THE LATEST NEWS ON TWITTER, FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER (and don't forget to buy her action figure either). Storm distracted Daniels, who got Pounced for a loss. Storm came out, recapped him being told there were consequences for his actions...and instead of that being brought up, he talked about a 3-way for the tag titles, but with a twist...IT'S A FOUR WAY, with Storm and a mystery partner of his choosing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Harris since the match will be at Slammiversary and they were on the first show.

The MAIN EVENT OF IMPACT is D'Lo Brown vs. Joseph Park. Sure, the contract signing really is, but wow. I loved Tenay getting excited over the idea of D'Lo cooling beer. Todd called D'Lo a "time-tested veteran". Yup. Former WWE mid-carder. Former ROH mid-carder, and TNA main eventer in 2003 and 2013. D'Lo ruled it here though, busting out a shining wizard and a sliding basement lariat. Then he busted out the flying leg lariat, clearly feeling his oats here. He appears to have lost a bit of weight in the past month or so too. D'Lo "busted Park open", leading to him Abyssing up and winning with the Black Hole Slam. Now he can get a match with Devon whenever he wants, I guess leading to him becoming TV Champ at the PPV. I wouldn't mind that. PPV rundown - tag title 4-way is an elimination match. X title will be on the line in an Ultimate X with Suicide. Bully came out, did his deal, and said he's from God's country - HELL'S KITCHEN NY! He called Hogan out too, and I just noticed that Hogan's shoes match his outfit. Bully was an outstanding asshole here talking about how he screwed Sting over, screwed Hogan, and how EVERYONE KNOWS HOW GREAT HE SCREWED BROOKE. Sting then talked about him wanting Bully to snap his arms, why? Because if he doesn't, THAT'S WHAT HE'LL DO TO BULLY. Tremendous. This was the best Sting promo since '09, and I liked Bully agreeing to Sting's no holds barred stips ONLY if he would never wrestle for the world title again. Also loved Bully saying he's doing this and not demanding him to retire if he loses because he wants Sting to wrestle until the day he dies knowing he can never hold the world title again. This ruled and really put over the importance of the world title. They exchanged punches for a few seconds before the show ended mid-stuff. Weird bit there, but a great angle overall.

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Monday, May 13, 2013

Raw 5-13-13

Show opened with SD's opening Shield vid. I hope Cena cuts a promo on the VO guy for saying he's injured when he was so clear about just being hurt - not injured. Brock recap, also from SD airs. The show is starting with a dance floor on the mat, and according to Lawler, Fandango-Jericho is set for the PPV. They showed the finish to their match and pimped the WM DVD/Blu-Ray, so that was efficient. King is just saying words here - no passion, just words being said. Summer Rae's in the brightest pink dress in history, while Fandango's gear appears to have had the '60s explode all over it. Jericho's dance partner is hot, and his gear is dress slacks, a white tanktop, and a Lite Brite jacket. More words. Jericho is rambling and being kinda clunky on the mic here.

They did a coin flip, and I'm astonished they didn't show us the coin being minted to pad this out more. FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO THE SHOW and they teased dancing - Fandango was going to dance, but was unhappy with either the music or people making noise. It's the people - this music is hilarious though. Fandango threw Summer down and hurt her. Jericho showed concern and got his ass kicked. Jericho took a tremendous bump into the barricade. Fandango grabbed a piece of the easy-fit dance floor and hit Jericho on the head. JBL sold this with the indifference it deserved. Summer Rae got up and was fine - so she's still a heel and this took up TWENTY MINUTES. They showed the destroyed announce area, complete with script pages. I wonder if green pages are for rewrites. The main event is Team Hell No and Cena vs. the Shield in an elimination match. Well, that's fairly shocking and should be quite good. Ryback kills someone, perhaps named Ryder, next.

Holy crap, he's actually facing Ryder. Amazing. This started and Cole calling Jerry John. Whoops. Ryder has new long tights that are basically like his old stuff, only with two full legs instead of one. THE WWE APP IS A NEW WAY TO WATCH TV...not on your TV. So yeah, that sounds ridiculous. Ryback won in a couple of minutes with the Shellshock. They hyped up Cena being unbeaten at the Extreme Rules PPV, which I guess is true since they're not counting when it was One Night Stand. History of Brock-HHH hype begins when he was CEO, no COO according to Cole. Then the vid calls him the CEO. Good lord that was a stupid and convoluted deal with him as an exec.

Tons of Funk theme is blaring, and Brodus is dressed like a creamsicle here. It's a tag match against the PTPs. Heels won via cheating and a cradle while JBL insulted JR - the ultimate job security. The replay showed DY using the fro pick to the eye, which is pretty cool. Loved DY stealing a pom pom and doing the MILLIONS OF DOLLAS dance. They showed THE WORLD CHAMPION GETTING A CONCUSSION nearly 40 minutes into the show. Teddy will make an announcement about that next. Way to make the title seem like an afterthought. Also, Teddy and not Booker will be making the announcement.

They talked about Booker being injured and that's why he's been out. Zeb came out and demanded that Dolph be stripped of the title, while AJ demanded that Swags be fired in the greatest way possible. 3-way is now a one on one I quit match between Alberto and Swagger- so no ladders, and it'll be a number 1 contender's match. Big E faces either Swagger or Alberto - AND WHOEVER HAS DOWNLOADED THE WWE APP will be qualified to vote on his opponent. The best part of this was a graphic for MARK HENRY'S HALL OF PAIN! Kofi faces someone next. These Guy X versus Unknown Man matches really kill the importance of matches.

If you haven't downloaded the WWE APP, do it now so you can vote on Big E's match - IT'S THE NEW WAY TO WATCH TV! They showed Ambrose pinning Kofi, and used it as a reason to give him a title match at the PPV. YAY! Ambrose gets to win gold! Kofi collects comics, which offends JBL. He's largely dumbfounded by Kofi enjoying Turkish comics though. Then they discussed sea snails for a while. According to the Twitter crawl, Brock is a Cage Fighting Carnivore - pretty great nickname to get in something similar to UFC without fearing any legal action for it. Kofi beat Sandow fairly quickly. Henry's got his giant strap and is preparing to induct Sheamus into the hall of pain.


They showed clips of Eddie-JBL to hype up the strap match - they're keeping the same wacky lights for it. Ugh .  Sheamus getting killed last week was far better hype. They also showed Henry pulling the trailers, which was a lot more impressive without Cole rattling off stats about the weight and such. Henry ordered Josh to "put this strap on", and he then tugged him around violently. This ruled. He called out Sheamus for a fight, who responded by...talking a lot. Sheamus grabbed his own strap and whipped Henry for a few seconds. Brock's attack on Vince was shown - they're really building this match up as the main event for the PPV. They showed the "Why Me?" 12 Rounds 2 trailer - I love that every one of his trailers has some unintentional comedy in it. Randy's character seems to just talk on the phone a lot in this film.

The 20 minute dance-off was recapped in one minute. Cesaro's in the ring randomly to face someone. Orton, it turns out, in a rematch from their ME match. They rattled off generic praise about Cesaro-Orton from there without showing any clips of it. The dance-off was worthy of clips, but a match dubbed AN INSTANT CLASSIC wasn't. Good lord, THERE'S A NEW WAY TO WATCH TV - THE WWE APP - DOWNLOAD IT NOW! They're interrupting this rematch of AN INSTANT CLASSIC to pimp an app and show Striker interviewing Show WHILE TALKING ABOUT STRIKER INTERVIEWING SHOW. The match is impossible to focus on as a result of all this crap going on. Orton brought back the punt in basic standing form to setup the clotheslines. Smooth counter to the draping DDT led to a schoolboy and an instant RKO defeat. Fuck. The booking of Cesaro is just deflating. 

 
Miz returned from making shitty movies with a shitty new shirt. Miz faces Cody on the PPV pre-show...for some reason. Slater's gyno is crazy - he's the 3MB-cup. Wade Barrett is cutting a promo on the WWE APP. IT'S THE ULTIMATE SECOND-SCREEN EXPERIENCE, and they're hyping up this as an example of multi-tasking. I don't mind multi-tasking during Raw, but the idea of asking EVERYONE to do it is a bit ridiculous. Loved Slater being thrown off the top onto the other guys. Dropkick to an area near the leg region of Slater led to the figure four and a win. A Komen race ad aired. WWE actually downplayed their involvement in this.

That tremendous HHH-Brock brawl from Raw with the Heyman-Vince "fight" was shown. That was by far the best thing they've done together. They hyped up tonight's deal as having ANOTHER CANT-MISS MOMENT! Cole said WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE WWE APP ALL NIGHT. Yeah, no shit buddy. 6-Man tag is up next, I guess to give them time to announce Reigns and Rollins vs. Team Hell No at the PPV for the tag titles. Nope, instead of using this match to make that, they're just going to announce it beforehand. It'll be a tornado rules match - that should be quite awesome. The PPV card is really shaping up to be quite great...on the last Raw before it. They hyped up the WWE Magazine touting Cena as THE KING OF EXTREME. Kane faces Rollins on ME. They brought up Bryan training in MMA with Randy Couture. They went to a break with Cena doing a front facelock EXCEPT FOR THOSE WHO DOWNLOADED THE WWE APP - THE ACTION CONTINUES THERE! They came back for the Bryan surfboard>Kane basement dropkick spot ala Kaientai. They hyped up THE NEW WAY TO WATCH TV with Ryback...watching TV...on a little phone graphic on a TV. That had to be a meta joke at their overselling of the app. Bryan landed a knee to Ambrose's gut that was sold tremendously - he just flew for it. KANEAMANIA RAN WILD on the Shield, with a running DDT, double choke toss to the floor, and general ass-whooping. This led to a DQ since he bonked Ambrose with the top of the announce table. Why that's a DQ and slamming a guy's face into the top of it isn't one, I have no idea.

Ambrose hit Cena with the Tiger Mask DDT when the show came back. Reigns hit a Superman punch - called that by JBL. Cole asked if you can you imagine the beating Bryan will take if it's 1-on-3 - no, but I can imagine the beating the Shield will take if it's 3-on-1 against Cena. Tremendous sequence with Bryan hitting the backflip, catching Ambrose with a dive to the floor, nailing Rollisn with a forearm shot,t hen a diving headbutt for an awesome nearfall. Snap dropkick from Rollins led to a super-safe version of the headlock driver from Ambrose getting the win over Bryan. Cena took out the other members then pinned Rollins with the AA. Reigns shoved the ref, but speared Cena after, leaving it down to Ambrose-Cena. The nearfall for the Spear was tremendous - Ambrose's brain appeared to be breaking bit by bit with each passing second that passed, and then they lost via DQ. So...the Shield's undefeated streak ended in a Raw match that wasn't built up at all. And it wasn't even the main event. Wow.

They destroyed him with the triple powerbomb, but this was a bit weird. Great match, and they'll all be fine with a hollow loss, but now they've got to go with "the Shield has never been pinned" instead of never been defeated, that hurts a tad. Massive Goldberg chant broke out when Ryback came out, teased an attack, left, then grabbed a chair. Cena tried to prevent Ryback from hitting his injured leg with a chair by...gently grabbing Ryback's ankle. Well, that luckily failed and he got hit anyway. Cole was very concerned about this, BUT NOT AS CONCERNED AS HE WAS ABOUT THE WWE APP - VOTING IS UNDERWAY NOW...for a match up next. They showed highlights of HHH kicking Brock's ass at WM.

They came back with Ryback cutting a promo and not taking a single breath throughout it. Big E and his giant Chun Li thighs came out. LOL. Swagger, the heel, got the nod over Alberto. That poor fucker. King's bright orange skin looked even worse next to his light purple Affliction shirt. Clearly no one in the building voted for this match, because they gave less than a rat's ass about this. They did some moves, then went to a break...UNLESS YOU'VE GOT THE WWE APP. They came back during the triple backbreaker spot. Still zero shits given by the crowd. THE WWE UNIVERSE SET A RECORD ON THE WWE APP, DOWNLOAD THE WWE APP. THE WWE APP IS A NEW WAY TO WATCH TV. WWE APP WWE APP WWE APP! IF YOU HAVE THE WWE APP, YOU CAN WATCH DOLPH DISCUSSING HIS CONCUSSION ON THE WWE APP! Big Wedgi-E Langston hurked Swagger up with ease for a superplex. The best part about this was Austin putting the Shield over on Twitter. Big E lost via countout due to being taken out on the floor. Swagger "builds momentum" via countout. Alberto came out, still no shits were given. Armbar to Swagger, no one cared. Big E broke it up to at least a minor reaction. They aired an awesome Ryback-Cena hype vid focusing on Ryback being hyped up by Cena, then thrown into his shadow. Shame they waited until now to air it.

Miz's beard vs. Cody mustache was hyped. Nattie-AJ is up. Bellas, Kaitlyn, Hornswoggle, and Khali were out. Nattie lost via Octopus stretch - now called the Black Widow. Nattie lost by literally tapping that ass. Between the action and the commentary, this was an amazing and amusing trainwreck. The Bella with the boobs said that "there were two" ways to tell them apart now. Greatness. According to the ad, astronauts love WWE Shop and Fandango's theme. Also, WWE MAGAZINE HAS MORE READERS PER COPY THAN ANY OTHER MAGAZINE...ever involving the name WWE.

HHH came out for his face off. HHH did his full intro while the camera focused on his ass on the ramp. And then they zoomed in underneath his crotch while the cage was lowered. FRIDAY'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL TALK SHOW is apparently the Highlight Reel, which will have Orton and Show on it - they weren't anywhere on this show, so yeah, that feud seems like nothing. HHH, the big badass, talked a bunch. According to HHH, "it all gets settled" in this match, and not the one with a career on the line. HHH learned to hate, and learned to thrive on that hate - and he's never felt so at home as he does when he's in a ring surrounded by steel. Which really means the cell, but for the purposes of this, it's a basic cage match. Brock came out and just yelled. YAY GO BROCK! Heyman came out and was told to shut up and called Tubby Gutman. That is lame, and Be A Star, Hun-tor.

 Heyman talked about hate being a dirty word, and how his client WAS ON RAW AND READY FOR A FIGHT...that you'll have to wait until Sunday to experience because Brock does NOT fight for free! HHH said that was because Heyman couldn't afford it...what? WWE pays him, not Heyman. HHH talked a lot. Talked some more. Crowd died down quite a bit. HHH talked about Brock's mystique flying out the window if he loses. Well, given that he LOST A YEAR AGO AT EXTREME RULES, that's kind of a stupid thing to say. HHH called him a bitch and not a destroyed, and then shit was on. They teased up Brock ENTERING THE CAGE marvelously, brawled for a bit before a snap German from Brock. HHH's HHH'd up after shirts were removed. Thanks to the power of exposed skin, he was able to toss Brock through the cage door. After that, they did a close-up on Brock's bacne. Brock just left after getting thrown through the door...well that was kinda lame.

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