Observations & Obsessions:

TLC PPV results!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:55:05 GMT

Tables, Ladders, & Chairs PPV (Dec. 13)

My Man Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin, ECW championship - ladder match: The first match on the card, the warm-up? Really? Grr, stupid booking. Anyway... Action-packed from the start! They go for the ladders early. Christian goes up the ladder to reach for the title, Shelton stops him; Shelton goes for the title belt, Christian dumps him out of the ring. Christian picks up the ladder, Shelton takes him down, and the ladder bonks Christian on the head. Oh noes, My Man is bleeding! Quick, where's the medic? (planningmyxcape: "im not gonna lie...the blood? kinda hot...") He gets cleaned up (crowd chant: "WE WANT BLOOD!") and the match is back in action. They beat on each other for a while longer, taking turns grabbing for the title belt and getting the ladder knocked out from under their feet. Shelton pulls Christian down and powerbombs him off the turnbuckle onto a ladder (DUDE!). Back and forth some more. Shelton eventually lands on a ladder that's propped up between the announce table and the ring; Christian hits a big splash and the ladder breaks in half! (THEY ARE INSANE!) My Man Christian drags himself back into the ring, climbs the ladder one last time, and grabs the ECW belt for the win. HOT DAMN. My Man is totally The Man.

John Morrison vs. Drew McIntyre, intercontinental championship: Great match! Morrison is tough, and looking fantastic as always, but Drew fights dirty; when the ref isn't looking, he goes for the eyes and then hits his finishing move for the win.

Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool, women’s championship: Layla is here to lend moral support to McCool. Mickie fights like a woman scorned. McCool just wants to win and will do whatever it takes. In the end, Layla tries to interfere, Mickie kicks her off the ring apron and then gets a two-count on McCool, but McCool recovers and kicks her in the face to get the win.

John Cena vs. Sheamus, WWE championship - tables match: Cena kind of fails at using the tables effectively. They end up fighting on the ropes; Cena tries to set up a superplex off the turnbuckle, but Sheamus knocks him off and Cena goes through a table in the ring. Sheamus wins. Cena looks seriously bummed out.

Sheamus! Argh! *sigh* rant:// Listen, WWE, here's my big problem with Sheamus: he's BORING. He has no chemistry. He's like a black hole that sucks all the charisma out of the scene. He even manages to suck most of the charisma out of John Cena, for pete's sake, and Cena is nothing if not charismatic. Fix this, or stop pushing him so hard. //rant

Undertaker vs. Batista, heavyweight championship - chairs match: They brawl out of the ring, over the barricade, and back to the ring. After a little while, Undertaker hits a chokeslam for a two-count, then goes for the tombstone; Batista shoves him at the ref, and Undertaker manages to not squish the ref, but Batista hits him with a low-blow and then nails a chair shot to the head. Pin, three-count for the win.

Teddy Long comes out to do some hand-waving. He says the low-blow was out of line, and orders that the match be re-started. Batista heads back to the ring, where he eats a kick to the head followed by a chair shot. Tombstone, pin, Undertaker retains the title. Whatever. That was a lame re-start.

Backstage, Kofi Kingston is warming up. The Legacy boys come in to pass on a message, but Kofi says they don't intimidate him. Kofi walks out (and the Fanboyz follow) and goes to find Randy Orton; he calls Orton a coward, and tells him that he doesn't deserve another title shot. Orton just stands there, and Kofi storms off while Orton and the Fanboyz glare after him. That was kind of an odd promo. But eye-candy-licious. :)

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston, grudge match: Back and forth. Kofi is energetic, Randy is hot, and it adds up to a fun match to watch. In the end, Kofi goes for Trouble in Paradise and misses, and Randy hits the RKO to win. Clean. No interference? Kind of strange, but it's nice to see every once in a while that Randy can still win without cheating. Because he's awesome like that.

Backstage, Batista tracks down Teddy Long to express his displeasure over being robbed of the championship. Batista takes a false swing at Teddy with a chair; he threatens that if Teddy doesn't remedy the situation, next time the chair will be aimed at his head.

JeriShow vs. DX, unified tag team titles - TLC match: Jericho and Michaels throw each other around while Show and Triple-H trade blows. Eventually they all end up on the ramp, where Jericho tries to clobber Triple-H with a chair, but Michaels comes to the rescue with another chair. They beat on each other with chairs and ladders and fists. Back in the ring, they start trading attempts: guy goes up the ladder, other guy stops him, first guy (or partner) retaliates. Triple-H hits Show with a chair, so Show punches the chair into his face. LOL. One by one, the ladders are destroyed. Jericho climbs up on Show's shoulders to reach for the belts, Michaels hits Show with Sweet Chin Music, and Jericho goes over the top rope and hits a table on the way down. Owies. Show is still on his feet, so Michaels & Triple-H use half of a broken ladder to take him out. H sets up the half-ladder and holds it in place for Michaels, who climbs up to grab the title belts. DX wins. Jerks.

The Christian-Shelton ladder match was AWESOME. Sheamus winning the WWE championship was NOT awesome. JeriShow losing the tag titles was a bummer, because they were greatly entertaining, but maybe this means that now Jericho can go feud for the heavyweight championship. We'll see how this all plays out.

Coming up on Monday Night Raw: the Slammy Awards!

--
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s WWE TLC 2009 PPV Report
Jason Powell: Powell's WWE TLC PPV report
wwegirls: Girls Talk TLC
--

Weekly recap

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:13:44 GMT

The week leading up to the TLC PPV.

Raw (Dec. 7)

We open with tonight's host: Mark Cuban. Then out comes John Cena, for the opening match of the night (weird!):

John Cena vs. Carlito: Ooh, Carlito is toast. Actually, he gets in some offense before Cena takes over. Then Sheamus comes out, but Mark Cuban calls out some security guys to keep him away from the ring. Carlito tries to capitalize on the distraction, Cena counters with the Attitude Adjustment, and that's it for Carlito.

Next, we get Randy Orton and the Legacy boys. Ooh, yes. Randy expects Mark Cuban to name Orton as the next challenger to Cena's title; Mark says it's not going to happen. Further, Mark himself will act as special guest referee in a match tonight between Orton and Kofi Kingston. Ted Dibiase reminds everyone of when Cuban appeared on Raw in 2003 and Orton hit him with an RKO. Cody Rhodes says he wants Cuban tonight (no, not that way, get your minds out of the gutter), stipulating that if Cody wins, Orton gets another shot at Cena. (Cody is a loyal fanboy.) Cuban declines.

Ted Dibiase & Cody Rhodes vs. Evan Bourne & Primo: Oh, god, anybody but Primo. He's ruining the sex match. Ugh... At any rate, Ted and Cody tag back and forth on Primo for a bit. Then Evan (YAY EVAN!) finally gets tagged in against Teddy. They go back and forth, Cody tries to be sneaky but Primo stops him (BOO!), and then Teddy hits Evan anyway with Dream Street for the pin. Legacy wins it. Yay fanboys. :) (Evan, I'm sorry you got stuck with such a crappy tag partner. Call Teddy after he turns face, yeah?) After the match, Cuban bans Legacy from the arena, and here come the security goons to escort them out.

Maryse vs. Gail Kim: Gail is tough, but Maryse fights dirty. Maryse wins, and gets into a catfight with Kelly Kelly (special guest announcer for this match), and then Melina comes out and Maryse leaves.

Backstage with Shawn Michaels and Triple-H, decorating a Christmas tree and exchanging presents. Shawn gives Triple-H a copy of the SD vs. Raw videogame; H gives Shawn his very own Hornswaggle, complete with DX-style "World's Littlest Member" t-shirt. Shawn and Triple-H get into an argument over this, and while they're thus occupied, Hornswaggle climbs up the tree. When they notice him, he dives onto them and steals Shawn's cowboy hat. Run away, Hornswaggle, run!

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston: With special guest referee Mark Cuban. Gee, I wonder how this is going to turn out? Kofi gets offense to start, then Orton takes over, but Kofi makes a comeback; then they go back and forth, Orton goes for the RKO and Kofi counters, and Cuban gives him a super-fast three-count for the win. Boo-hiss. Randy, if you kill them all now, you can claim temporary insanity and I will totally back you up.

Miz v. Mark Henry, U.S. championship: If Henry wins, I'm rioting. Just a heads-up. And... hey, look at that, Miz is holding his own. Go Miz! Finally, he counters the World's Strongest Slam with a tornado DDT, and Miz gets the win. Awesome.

Hornswaggle & Eve Torres vs. Chavo Guerrero & Jillian Hall: Urgh. Hornswaggle and Chavo face off, but then Hornswaggle tags out and the divas are in. Eve wins. Post-match, Chavo goes after Hornswaggle; Eve tries to talk him down, but Chavo throws Hornswaggle out of the ring, and Eve gets in Chavo's face. Then Chris Masters comes out. (Andy Wheeler: "Please help me, this can't be a Chris Masters face turn. This will cause a rift in the space-time continuum for sure.") Masters does the man-boob-dance and then slams Chavo. Eve swoons for her hero.

Chris Jericho discusses how he's awesome and will surely be named Superstar of the Year. Also, he promises, DX is going to lose at TLC, and Jericho will stay on Raw as long as he wants, thank you very much, no one is going to tell him which show he can or can't appear on. You tell 'em, Chris.

Chris Jericho vs. DX, handicap match: Shawn Michaels and Triple-H tag back and forth on Jericho for a bit. Then Jericho gets pissed and throws the ref at Triple-H, and Michaels comes back in, and here comes Big Show. The ref is out of the picture. They brawl, then a chair and a ladder come into play, and JeriShow use their awesome teamwork to take out DX. Teamy goodness for the win. :)

John Cena, Sheamus, and Mark Cuban are in the ring with a couple of microphones and two tables. Sheamus bellows angrily about how he's so tough and he hasn't lost yet and he's going to kill Cena with tables. Ok. Cena finally has enough and reiterates what he's been saying all along: Sheamus is mean and he talks a good game, but he'd better be ready to take it to the next level. He says that Sheamus impresses him, but doesn't intimidate him. Sheamus doesn't like that, so he flips a table; Cena throws a chair in response. Sheamus shoves Cuban (hey, dude, that was rude and uncalled for), and then kicks Cena and goes to set up a table in the corner. Cuban gets up and shoves Sheamus on his ass (HA!); Sheamus looks shocked, and then he gets up and slams Cuban through the table. Sheamus declares that he's the new WWE champion. (Andy: "No Sheamus, you're not. You attacked an NBA owner. You're probably wanted by the cops.") Then Cuban's basketball team comes running, Sheamus gets himself outta there, and Cena glares after him.

End of show. Nothing really big happened; it was mostly setting things up for the PPV this weekend.

--
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report -- 12.07.2009
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration... Maverick
--

ECW (Dec. 8)

Vladimir Kozlov calls out Ezekiel Jackson, who responds, ready to fight. William Regal manages to break it up and begs them to get along. Then Shelton Benjamin comes out and picks a fight. Regal points out that it's three-on-one, so My Man Christian and Yoshi Tatsu come out to even the odds. Christian and Shelton challenge the heels to a six-man tag match. Regal says they don't have the authority to book matches, so then GM Tiffany comes out and they get their match.

Christian, Shelton Benjamin, & Yoshi Tatsu vs. William Regal, Vladimir Kozlov, & Ezekiel Jackson: With the ECW title hanging over the ring (literally), they go at it, around and around and around. It ends when Jackson goes to tag in Kozlov, and Kozlov walks away; Jackson chases after him and attacks, and Regal follows to break up the fight. Meantime, the ref does the ten-count and they lose the match thanks to their in-fighting.

Post-match, Shelton leaves the ring to attack the heels. Christian grabs a ladder and sets it up in the ring to collect his title belt from its lofty perch. Shelton sees him, jumps up onto the ring apron, and springboards onto the ladder. The ladder almost goes down, but it holds. Shelton meets Christian at the top of the ladder, where they both grab the belt and start arguing.

I can't wait for their match at the PPV. I don't want My Man Christian to lose, of course, but if he dropped the title so he could jump to Smackdown or Raw... I would be ok with that. (Assuming, of course, that he jumped into an interesting plot and got weekly screentime.) Erk, I am SO NERVOUS.

--
Chris Shore: Shore's WWE "ECW on SyFy" Live Coverage
--

Smackdown (Dec. 11)

Batista is in the ring to denounce Rey Mysterio, Evolution, the fans, and your mom. He doesn't need them or care about what they think of him; it's really just about Batista, in the spotlight, winning the championship. He disses Undertaker, too, for good measure.

Then it's CM Punk's turn to cut a promo. He's back with Luke-formerly-known-as-Festus, and some Jeff Hardy DVDs. Punk says that any parents who buy it for their kids are horrible parents, and might as well give their kids magic mushrooms. As our Straight-Edge Saviour, he symbolically destroys the DVDs. Then R-Truth and Matt Hardy come out with a bag. Truth says it's a "bag of magic" ("mushrooms," my brain adds). Hardy makes like Santa and opens the bag to start handing out Jeff Hardy DVDs to the crowd. Truth sings his "What's Up" song (to which Punk replies, "Straight-Edge!" LOL) and attacks Punk with the microphone.

CM Punk & Luke Gallows vs. R-Truth & Matt Hardy: They fight. Luke wins it for the Team Straight-Edge.

Backstage, Eric Escobar and Vickie Guerrero are arguing in Spanish. Teddy Long pops in to ask for a translation, which Escobar happily supplies: Vickie's fatter than Texas, her breath stinks, and he hates looking at her face. In a fit of rage, Vickie books him against Chris Jericho. Teddy laughs at her.

Elsewhere, Kane runs into Mike Knox. Knox says they're two of a kind, both monsters; Kane says that's not true, only Knox is a monster, and Kane will beat him again. Knox says that Kane will leave as a "broken monster," so Kane starts choking him, but stops when Knox makes some reference to autoerotic asphyxia. Kane walks away. That... was totally weird. And not in a good way.

Chris Jericho vs. Eric Escobar: Escobar holds his own, until Vickie comes out and says that it's now a handicap match. Big Show comes in, and Escobar is toast.

Drew McIntyre cuts a promo about how he's better than John Morrison. He says that the idea of Morrison beating him is as fictional as the Loch Ness Monster (which is TOTALLY REAL!!!) or the movie Braveheart (he feels that William Wallace wasn't faithfully represented). Cue Morrison, dressed as William Wallace, waving a sword and spewing a Scottish accent. They argue and Morrison uses his sword to keep Drew at bay (not like that, geez, you have such dirty minds); Drew challenges Morrison to drop the sword and fight, so Morrison drops the sword and attacks Drew, and Drew runs away.

Kane vs. Mike Knox: Kane wins with a chokeslam.

Mickie James & Maria vs. Michelle McCool & Layla: The heels are wearing "Piggy James" t-shirts. Matt Striker, playing the heel announcer, says that Mickie's hat smells like bacon bits. McCool and Layla lose due to a miscommunication, and they argue after the match.

Batista vs. Rey Mysterio, street fight: Batista takes control to start, but Rey comes back and they battle in and out of the ring. Eventually Batista grabs a chair, and they fight over that for a bit, but Batista finally clobbers Mysterio in the head for the win. After the bell, Batista goes to crush Mysterio for good, but the lights go out and then Undertaker is in the ring. Undertaker beats down Batista and then goes for the chair, and Batista escapes to the floor.

End of show. Street fight? What street fight? Chris Shore: "It was kind of a wussy little street fight."

--
Chris Shore: Shore's WWE Smackdown Live Coverage
--

Weekly recap

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:36:13 GMT

Raw (Nov. 30)

Tonight's host: Mini-Me! AKA Verne Troyer.

We open with JeriShow talking trash about DX. They list off a bunch of reasons why they're better than DX and why they're going to keep the tag titles. Then DX comes out to argue. Also, they'd like Chris Jericho to kindly get lost and never come back. Triple-H challenges Jericho to a 1-on-1 match; Jericho says ok, but he further stipulates that the loser will face the winner's team in a handicap match. Jericho swears that he'll never leave Raw.

Melina & Gail Kim vs. Maryse & Jillian Hall: Maryse is back and she's gunning for Melina's title. Gail and Jillian are just filling space here, it's all about Melina vs. Maryse. Maryse wins it.

Sheamus comes out to talk. Sadly, this doesn't help the fact that he still has NO PERSONALITY. Blah, blah, blah, he put John Cena through a table so everyone would take him seriously. Well, Sheamus, that's great. Really.

Sheamus vs. Santino Marella: Santino doesn't stand a chance. Sheamus puts Santino through a table. Is this going to be a theme? Because it will get old really fast. Oh wait, that's right, I'm already tired of it.

Now we get to meet Verne. He says that everybody's been great, except the Miz. So Miz comes out to apologize, and they make fun of each other, and then here's Mark Henry. Verne would love to sock Miz right in the face, but he decides instead to book Miz vs. Henry for later.

Kofi Kingston comes out for a match against Randy Orton. On his way to the ring, he gets ambushed by Cody Rhodes. The ref breaks it up and asks if he still wants to do the match; Kofi's still game. Then Ted Dibiase comes out for another attack. The ref intervenes again, and again Kofi still wants to face Orton, despite an apparent knee injury. So...

Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton: Orton goes after the bum knee in his methodical killer fashion. Hot, hot, hot. Orton finally hits the RKO for the win.

Backstage, MVP and Verne are playing the Smackdown vs. RAW game; Jillian comes in and wants to sing. MVP decides to be gracious, so Jillian starts belting out some Beyonce. Mark Henry starts dancing (oh god), and then he falls over and squishes Jillian. Ouch. Henry and MVP look concerned, and hustle out of the room. Verne looks at Jillian, says "Uh, guys? I think she's dead." And then he goes back to the game (in which, BTW, MVP was playing himself and Verne was playing Undertaker; I approve!).

John Cena arrives in a hot car, and then he comes down to the ring after the commercial break. (Andy Wheeler: "The Champ is Here. The Champ is also OVER AN HOUR LATE.") Cena reminds us that Sheamus hasn't won anything yet; even if he does, Cena gets a rematch. In fact, he wants to go RIGHT NOW, and then if necessary he'll take his rematch at the PPV.

Carlito comes out. (His music is way too mellow and peppy to suit his character right now. It made me ROTFL.) Carlito says he's sick of Cena being champion; in fact, he says, most of the locker room feels the same way. They don't particularly care for Sheamus, but they all hope he beats Cena -- "Sheamus represents us!" (in response, my friend said: "Oh, you mean the nobodies?") Cena has had enough, and he tells Carlito to put up or shut up. Carlito attempts to put up, but Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment and that's that. Sheamus puts in an appearance on stage, and Cena is ready to rumble, but Sheamus decides to let Cena simmer for a while longer, and he leaves.

Verne is back. He brings out MVP and Mark Henry, who... start to rap? I'm skipping this part.

The Miz vs. Mark Henry: Henry wins. Bleh. To celebrate, Verne brings out the ladies, who start dancing. Eve is getting up close and personal with Verne, which reminds me that she did that with Hornswaggle, too. It makes me wonder if she has a thing for midgets.

Backstage, DX describe an apparent shared hallucination in which they were summoned to Little People's Court. They agree that it was a bizarre dream. Hornswaggle comes in, and he's pissed that they ignored his attempt at civilized recourse. He swears that he won't relent (in leprechaun-speak, of course, which is helpfully translated by subtitles); Shawn Michaels says that he speaks leprechaun (LOL, Shawn, of course you do), and insists that Hornswaggle has nothing on them. This whole storyline is just surreal, but I'm entertained enough to pay attention.

Chris Jericho vs. Triple-H: Jericho dives out of the ring early on, and Triple-H gives chase, only to step back when Big Show comes out. Jericho attacks while H is distracted; Show takes a seat at the announce table to join Shawn on commentary, and the match continues. Finally they start going back and forth with pin attempts; when the tide turns in Triple-H's favor for the second time, Show stands up; Shawn gets up in response, and Show drops him, and H comes to the rescue only for Show to punch him in the face. The ref kicks Show out of the arena. While Show is leaving, Shawn jumps into the ring and hits Jericho with a superkick. The ref turns around and kicks him out, too; Shawn looks like he might disobey, but then he leaves as well. In the ring, the ref goes on with the ten-count, but Jericho and Triple-H both get to their feet before ten. Jericho attempts a Codebreaker, Triple-H counters with a Pedigree attempt, Jericho counters with the Walls, Triple-H counters with a roll-up for the three-count and the win. Eh? The main event ends with a roll-up? That was weird.

Shawn comes back to pronounce doom and gloom on Jericho, and DX leads the crowd in a "Suck It" chant. Lovely. Jericho looks like he wants to cry. End of show.

I totally thought they were going to do Cena vs. Sheamus. But then they didn't. What if Sheamus gets the win next week, and Cena is set up for the big rematch at the PPV?

...I just realized: no Evan Bourne tonight. Boo.

--
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time Coverage of WWE RAW – 11.30.2009
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration...A Full-Sized Review of RAW
--

ECW (Dec. 1)

Stuff happens. Jackson is still being primed for a face turn, it looks like.

Backstage, Shelton Benjamin is playing the SD vs. Raw game (actually, he's playing himself in a ladder match against Christian -- practicing, I guess) when My Man Christian comes in. Christian wants to talk. Shelton says there's nothing to talk about; he's going to watch Christian's back until the PPV, at which point they'll steal the show and Shelton will win the ECW title. Then Shelton goes back to his game. Christian is irritated. He asks if he can play too, and then he hits the power button to kill the game. "Oops," he says. Heh. Christian says they'll have to wait and see who wins at the PPV.

Christian & Shelton Benjamin vs. Vladimir Kozlov & Ezekiel Jackson: Unspectacular (aside from My Man, of course, who is ALWAYS spectacular) but good match. Near the end, Jackson is working on Christian, and Kozlov blind-tags himself in. Then Christian turns it around on Kozlov and tags in Shelton, but when Kozlov goes to tag in Jackson, Jackson walks away. Shelton pins Kozlov for the win.

--
Chris Shore: 12/1 Shore's WWE "ECW on SyFy" Live Coverage
--

Smackdown (Dec. 4)

CM Punk vs. R-Truth: Punk is here with his new acolyte, Luke-formerly-known-as-Festus. Luke interferes, and Truth wins by DQ. Then he gets beat down by Punk and Luke.

Kane vs. Mike Knox: Meh. Kane wins. Apparently he's really a face now.

Mickie James vs. Natalya vs. Beth Phoenix, #1 contender to the women's championship: Mickie gets launched outside, and Beth & Natalya face off. Ooh! Yes! ... Eh. Or not. Natalya tries for a submission hold on Mickie, but Beth breaks it up and hits Natalya with the Glam Slam, and then Mickie kicks Beth out of the way and steals the pin on Natalya for the win. Stupid Mickie, go away.

Backstage, Teddy Long doesn't like what Batista did to Rey Mysterio. Consequently, Batista will face Mysterio in a street fight next week. Batista is displeased.

John Morrison vs. Drew McIntyre: Near the end of the match, Drew hits the floor and rolls into the ring apron, and Morrison gives chase, only for Drew to slam his head into the side of the ring. Morrison's out for the count. Drew drags him back into the ring, hits his finishing move, and gets the win.

Vickie Guerrero is here to demand that her newly-ex Eric Escobar come out to apologize and beg her forgiveness. Instead, he comes out and insults her. In retaliation, she books him in a handicap match.

The Hart Dynasty vs. Eric Escobar: What? Is this supposed to be a face turn? He's nobody! And nobody cares! Ugh. Escobar loses, and Vickie slaps him. Whatever. Vickie was great as one-half of the ultimate power-hungry power couple, with Edge, but now she's just kind of pathetic and petty. She needs a better foil to play against, and she needs to have enough power to be threatening. Until that happens, this is dumb.

Backstage, Luke-formerly-known-as-Festus tells the sad story of his old life, how his friends let him sink into a drug-induced stupor, and he praises the wonderful CM Punk for saving him.

JeriShow vs. Cryme Tyme: Jericho gets into trouble with JTG, and they both go for the hot tag. Shad runs in and Show knocks him out with one punch. Ha! Another win for JeriShow.

Undertaker comes out to cut a promo. On his way to the ring, Batista attacks! The beat-down commences. Batista hits a spinebuster onto a chair in the ring, and then grabs Taker's title belt and clobbers him in the head with it.

Is it just me, or was Smackdown kind of random this week?

--
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 12/04/09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration...SmackDown!
--

Weekly recap

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:41:47 GMT

Raw (Nov. 23)

For the big Thanksgiving show, our host is Jesse Ventura.

But we open with Randy Orton. He says that Jesse Ventura has a decision to make tonight, about the WWE title. Orton thinks Jesse should let Orton challenge for the title, despite the rules that Orton agreed upon with John Cena. Jesse comes out to say that he likes Orton, respects him and admires his style. However, Jesse thinks that the same people have been in this title picture for too long; tonight, he declares, the new #1 contender will be chosen from a pool of candidates, none of which have ever held the championship title. After a series of matches between Smackdown and Raw roster members, the winners of each match will contend in a battle royale, the sole winner of which will challenge for the WWE title or the world heavyweight title (depending on which brand they belong to). Huh. Ok, this should be interesting.

Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler: Kofi wins it to earn his spot in the battle royale.

The Miz is backstage. He says that he's thankful for everybody giving him respect, among other things. On second thought, he says, he expects these things; furthermore everyone else should be thankful for Miz being so awesome.

Sheamus vs. Finlay: They brawl. Finlay gets in some good beating on Sheamus, but then Sheamus fights back to win. Sheamus will be in the battle royale. Post-match, he continues to attack Finlay. Maybe he should consider seeing an anger management therapist.

Backstage, Orton badgers Jesse to let him into the Battle Royale; Jesse says he'd love for Orton to be in it, but sorry, no can do.

CM Punk comes down to the ring to delcare that he's thankful for being straight-edge. Also, he's glad he's not like the rest of us gluttons, because he's better than us. Also, he calls John Cena a turkey.

CM Punk vs. John Cena: Kickass. Punk throws his t-shirt at Cena. Cena takes off his own shirt and chucks it into the crowd. (No offense, Punk, but it's more impressive when Cena does it, because Cena is a serious hunk of man-flesh. lesson_in_love: "Cena's abs are particularily awesome tonight.") Then, the match: Nice. They go back and forth for a while; Punk gains the upper hand, then Cena, then Punk again, but in the end Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment for the win.

Chris Masters, Jack Swagger, & Chavo Guerrero vs. MVP, Mark Henry, & R-Truth: MVP gets beat on by the heels. Henry doesn't do much of anything. R-Truth wins the match for his team, all three of whom have now been entered into the battle royale. Lame.

Backstage, Triple-H is glaring at Shawn Michaels. H feels betrayed over the sudden turn in the PPV triple-threat match; Shawn says that he thought Triple-H would turn on him and therefore made a preemptive strike. ...Or maybe it was just his dodgy eye, right? Then, seriously, dude, in comes the real Mini-Me, Verne Troyer. He serves DX with a notice that they're being sued by Hornswoggle in the Little People’s Court next week. Ha!

Evan Bourne vs. Primo: When Primo comes out, Orton ambushes him from behind! Good-bye, Primo! Orton says he's taking Primo's place in the match. On the jumbotron, Jesse says that rules were meant to be broken; if Orton wins the match, he gets to be in the battle royale.

Evan Bourne vs. Randy Orton: Ooohhh. (planningmyxcape: "this match is SEX") Orton is ready to rumble and goes after Evan for an early two-count. Then Evan comes back, goes for a pin attempt and gets a two-count! Then Orton turns it around again, Evan eats a powerslam, and Orton nails the RKO! (Once again, owies for Evan, but also, hhhott.) Orton gets his wish to enter the battle royale.

Backstage, Ted Dibiase and Cody Rhodes talk strategy. *sighs dreamily*

There's a divas' match. I don't care.

Degeneration-X vs. The Hart Dynasty: The Hart boys team up to do some damage to Michaels early on. Eventually, though, Shawn gets the hot tag to Triple-H, who cleans house. The Harts try to save it, but one eats a superkick, the other gets a Pedigree, and DX wins.

While DX celebrates in the ring, Chris Jericho comes out to give them some lovely sarcastic applause. Then Jesse Ventura is back to announce DX vs. JeriShow for the unified tag titles at the next PPV in a TLC match. Dude, that should be good. Jericho promises that as long as he holds the tag titles, DX won't touch them.

Batista comes out to Rey Mysterio's music to announce that Mysterio won't be here tonight, he’ll be spending Thanksgiving in the hospital. (That's not quite true, but I do believe that Mysterio is slated for surgery the following week to address some lingering knee problems.) Batista is here tonight to put everyone on notice: If anyone from Smackdown dares to win the battle royale tonight, Batista will make them regret it because the Undertaker and the world heavyweight title are Batista's for the taking. Then Kane comes out for a face-to-face chat. Kane wants to know what, exactly, constitutes disrespect to Batista. Kane challenges Batista to make an example out of him. They glare at each other for a few moments, but eventually Batista backs down and leaves, watching Kane over his shoulder.

Legacy vs. Cryme Tyme: Yay! Go Fanboyz! Legacy has things under control for a while. Then Dibiase gets into trouble against Shad, but Rhodes breaks up the pin attempt and JTG gets clobbered out of the ring. Then Dibiase hits Dream Street on Shad for the pin and the win. Dibiase and Rhodes are the final entrants in the battle royale.

For tonight's main event, Jesse Ventura and Vince McMahon will be on commentary, just like old times. Jesse admires Vince's suit and red bowtie and they trade insults.

Battle Royale: Kofi Kingston, Sheamus, R-Truth, MVP, Mark Henry, Randy Orton, Ted DiBiase, & Cody Rhodes: It starts off with Dibiase & Rhodes going after Kofi. Sheamus is chilling out of the way in one of the corners; Orton is cruising, shark-like, outside the ring, waiting for the opportune moment. (Vince and Jesse are keeping up a running commentary on the match, but I'm more amused by the steady back-and-forth volley of insults.) One by one, the match participants gets eliminated; Dibiase & Rhodes finally get cleared out in one shot, quickly followed by Mark Henry, and then it's down to Orton, Sheamus, and Kofi. Orton and Kofi go at it; Sheamus goes after Orton after a bit, Orton drops him and goes back to Kofi. Then Sheamus comes after Orton again. Orton finally goes out, and then Sheamus takes out Kofi. Sheamus wins the match. Really? Damn. (Paul Marshall: "Grade: A+ (mainly due to the commentary)" LOL!) Outside the ring, Orton looks like his head might explode with shock and rage.

Jesse and Sheamus are in the ring with a table for the WWE championship match contract signing. Sheamus looks impatient and angry. Cena finally comes out to take his seat at the table, all smiles and sunshine and confidence. Then Sheamus demands that Cena stand up and face him, and Cena gets serious. He stands up and faces Sheamus to tell him that Sheamus might be a bully, but now he's facing real competition and he'd better be ready for it. They glare at each other and sign the contract. Then Jesse claims that there's a conspiracy at the top of the WWE, a conspiracy to keep the championship on John Cena. Jesse feels put out that he himself never got a title shot; Cena steps up to challenge him, only to eat a kick in the face from Sheamus. Sheamus proceeds to beat the crap out of Cena.

End of show.

I don't get this huge push for Sheamus. He has no personality. He randomly attacks and destroys whoever is a convenient target. All we know about him is that he's a large, angry man. And...? What? So? If they're going to spend this much effort on catapulting him to the top, he needs to grow a personality to go along with the exposure.

--
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report -- 11.23.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration...Slapsgiving
--

ECW (Nov. 24)

Shelton Benjamin wins against Zack Ryder to become the new #1 contender to My Man Christian's ECW title.

Christian comes out to discuss this turn of events. Like me, he's a little put out by the fact that ECW hasn't really been represented at the last few PPVs. To fix this, he challenges Shelton to a ladder match at the next PPV. Shelton asks if he's sure he wants to do that; Christian says that he doesn't care about impressing anybody, that his goal is to steal the show. Shelton agrees. HELL YES. WANT. (Christian's smirk? SO HOT.)

Later, it looks like they might be setting up Ezekiel Jackson to break away from William Regal and fellow goon Vladimir Kozlov. We'll see where that goes.

--
Chris Shore: 11/24 Shore's WWE "ECW on SyFy" Live Coverage
--

Smackdown (Nov. 27)

We open with Josh Matthews, who announces that tonight we'll get Batista vs. Kane for #1 contendership to Undertaker's heavyweight championship.

Then Chris Jericho comes out to talk smack about DX and the TLC match at the next PPV. He also wants to complain about not being in the Batista-Kane match. Cue Teddy Long, who instead offers Jericho a match tonight against Undertaker himself. Careful what you wish for, Chris.

The Hart Dynasty vs. Cryme Tyme: The Hart boys win it. Pretty decent match. If Cryme Tyme can drop a little bit of the over-the-top lame gimmick, I might be able to take them more seriously.

John Morrison and Teddy Long are discussing Morrison's awesomeness. Icky Vickie Guerrero interrupts to demand that her boyfriend, Eric Escobar, gets an intercontinental championship match against Morrison. Teddy reluctantly agrees, but declares that it will be Escobar's one and only shot at the title.

CM Punk is in the ring with Festus. (Festus??? He's still around?) Punk re-introduces Festus as Luke, explaining that Luke's former condition was caused by drug use, and Punk helped Luke to kick those habits. Then Punk waxes poetic about the evils of people like Jeff Hardy, which brings out Matt Hardy to come to his brother's defense.

CM Punk vs. Matt Hardy: Matt looks like he's going to win it, but then Luke-Formerly-Known-As-Festus interferes, the ref awards the match to Hardy by DQ, and Punk and Luke proceed to give Hardy a thorough beating.

Backstage, Mickie gives an interview to denounce the juvenile tactics of her opponents: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." This is one of the stupidest diva feuds I've seen in a really long time.

Batista vs. Kane, #1 contender to the world heavyweight title: They go back and forth. Eventually they brawl outside the ring, where Batista hits Kane with something that the ref doesn't see. Batista beats the ten-count back to the ring; Kane doesn't. Batista wins by count-out.

John Morrison vs. Eric Escobar: Vickie is here to cheer for her man. Also, she's Vickie, so she distracts Morrison, which lets Escobar get in some extra hits. But eventually Escobar misses his attack at a critical juncture, allowing Morrison to set up and hit Starship Pain for the win. Post-match, Vickie is pissed at Escobar and breaks up with him.

Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho: Batista is here to watch. Undertaker takes control of the match from the start. Then Batista distracts him, and Jericho hits Taker with a dropkick. Now it's Jericho's turn to take over and go to work on Undertaker. Finally Taker fights his way back and goes for a chokeslam, but Jericho escapes and hits a couple of his own moves. But then Taker gets him by the throat and goes for the Tombstone. At this point, Batista comes back in to attack Taker and the calls the match for Undertaker by DQ. Jericho nails Taker with a Codebreaker, and then he's had enough and he leaves. Batista grabs a chair and pounds away on Undertaker.

End of show.

--
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 11/27/09
--

Weekly recap and Survivor Series PPV results

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:34:20 GMT

Raw (Nov. 16)

Tonight's host: Roddy Piper.

The Miz vs. MVP, United States Championship: Things look dicey for Miz for a few moments, but finally he hits the Skull-Crushing Finale for the win. Can we turn MVP heel again, please? At least he's more entertaining that way.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Santino Marella: They have an actual legitimate match... until Hornswaggle comes out. Chavo is distracted, Santino wins. Chavo is pissed.

DX comes out to pimp the upcoming triple-threat PPV match. Triple-H promises that DX will work as a team to defeat John Cena; they don't care who wins the title as long as it's one of them. Then they change the subject to Hornswoggle. Triple-H offers to make Hornswaggle an honorary member of DX if he comes back to the ring right now. Here comes Hornswoggle in his favorite DX fan gear, excitedly showing off his crotch-chopping skills. They let Hornswoggle be a happy fanboy for a minute before they turn on him, and Triple-H hits the Pedigree. Hornswaggle gets carted away on an official DX backboard. Dude, H, pick on someone your own size. That was way, way uncool.

Melina vs. Alicia Fox, Diva’s Championship: Melina is still irritating. Alicia is still apathy-inspiring. Melina wins.

Roddy Piper is in the ring to issue a challenge to Vince McMahon. Vince comes out to announce that, sadly, he's officially retired from in-ring action. Roddy calls him a coward. Vince kind of blows him off and leaves.

Sheamus is in the ring to issue an open challenge. No one responds, so attacks some poor random staff member. Jerry Lawler gets up to go after him and eats a big kick in the face. Michael Cole is horrified; luckily, Matt Striker was available on short notice to fill in for Lawler on commentary.

Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger: Swagger looks pissed about losing last week. Run away, Evan, run away! ... Nope, he's a brave toaster. He gets in a little bit of offense, but Swagger eventually finishes him off with a sick-looking powerbomb. Owies.

Roddy Piper is in the ring, waiting for Vince McMahon to show up. Instead, he gets Randy Orton. Roddy escapes an untimely demise when Kofi Kingston runs out to make the save. Granted, Kofi seems more interested in killing Orton than saving Roddy, so Orton makes the smart decision and tries to leave. Kofi chases him and they brawl, despite the refs' valiant efforts to break up the fight. Kofi finally seems satisfied after he hits the Boom-Boom Drop on Orton through a table.

John Cena is backstage to hype tonight's main event. He's confident about his chances, despite his perhaps unwise decision to choose Undertaker as his partner. He thought Taker would be a great partner, until he figured out that Taker's pretty difficult to talk to because he's, you know, dead. LOL, John, you always make me smile. :)

JeriShow vs. DX vs. John Cena & Undertaker, triple-threat tag team match: Round and round they go. At one point, Cena blind-tags himself in, which seems to displease Undertaker, if the look on his face is anything to go by. Eventually we get to the big finish: Triple-H hits a spinebuster on Cena and goes for the pedigree, but Big Show breaks it up; Shawn Michaels hits Sweet Chin Music on Show; Chris Jericho hits the Codebreaker on Michaels; Undertaker chokeslams Jericho; Triple-H clotheslines Taker out of the ring. Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment on Triple-H and gets the pin and the win. He celebrates, but then Undertaker gets the last word and hits the Tombstone on Cena. Undertaker is the last man standing.

End of show.

--
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report - 11.16.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration...It’s RAW from MSG with Piper. What more do you need?
--

ECW (Nov. 17)

We open with CM Punk, hailing his own return as a conquering hero, and informing the fans that he expects a standing ovation.

Later, CM Punk tracks down My Man Christian for a face-to-face confrontation. My Man makes fun of Punk and calls him a nerd. Punk attempts to carry on a conversation, or at least an argument, but Christian only has one word for him: "Nerd!" Punk demands respect for his myriad accomplishments; Christian counters with the fact that he's a champion and Punk's not.

Main event: CM Punk & William Regal vs. Christian & R-Truth: It's Punk and Christian to start, but Christian quickly takes down Punk and goes for Regal. Then he and R-Truth tag back and forth on Regal for a bit until Regal gets in a cheap shot on Truth while the ref is distracted. Then Regal and Punk take turns beating on Truth. Finally, though, Truth gets the hot tag to My Man Christian, who gets Punk under control. Then he goes off to take a swing at Regal, which allows Punk to recover and come back. Regal tries to make an assist; R-Truth keeps him out of the way long enough for Christian to set up the Killswitch, but then Regal gets in a hit, Punk nails the Go-To-Sleep on Christian, and that's the end of that.

Would it be too corny to say that this was the Revenge of the Nerd?

Also, a random mid-week interjection: according to Chris Jericho, "Christian knows the lyrics to Backstreet Boys songs." ...OMG. OMG, really? That's AWESOME! *happy fangirling*

--
Aaron Glazer: The Wrestling Guy’s Live ECW report
--

Smackdown (Nov. 20)

Smackdown was strangely non-compelling this week, aside from one or two exceptions.

Batista vs. Matt Hardy: Hardy almost capitalizes on Batista's over-confidence, but then Batista destroys him.

Fit vs. Drew McIntyre: They brawl (again) until Drew finally wins.

In the ring, CM Punk stages a "Straight Edge Intervention" for the benefit of all those watching, offering his version of a "why-drugs-and-alcohol-are-bad" seminar. R-Truth interrupts and takes out Punk.

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler, Intercontinental championship, best-of-three-falls: Morrison gets the first pinfall with a roll-up. After some more back-and-forth, Ziggler hits the Zig-Zag for the next pinfall. Then things start looking bad for Morrison, who's still nursing the ribs, but he eventually hits Starship Pain for the final pin and the win.

Mickie James vs. Layla: Mickie gets a quick win. Then the pre-teen drama continues as Layla points out Michelle McCool on the jumbotron; McCool shows a video of Mickie's face on a picture of a pig, "Piggy James." Mickie starts to cry and runs away. Oh please, I put up with worse than that in the third grade.

Rey Mysterio vs. Tyson Kidd (of the Hart Dynasty): Natalya accompanies Tyson to the ring. (And BTW, Natalya's hair? is totally awesome.) Batista is at the announce table as a guest commentator. Not that he actually says anything. Finally Mysterio sets up a 619 attempt, and Tyson ducks out of the ring to avoid it, and Batista has had enough. Batista tosses Tyson out of the way and goes for Mysterio; the ref calls the match by DQ; Mysterio launches himself off the announce table at Batista, and Batista goes flying backwards over his chair. Batista is looking sort of apoplectic by this point, so Mysterio wisely takes off and heads backstage after a short moment of gloating from the top of the ramp.

Backstage, Chris Jericho insists that Big Show focus on their match tonight, but Show would rather fantasize about the upcoming championship match. He teases Jericho for being afraid of Undertaker.

Brothers of Destruction vs. JeriShow: Towards the end of the match, Jericho and Undertaker are battling it out. Jericho locks on the Walls hold, Taker reverses it into Hell's Gate, and Show breaks it up. Then Kane comes in and it's a brawl. Taker and Kane go for a chokeslam on Show outside the ring, but Jericho breaks it up, and Jericho gets tossed back into the ring for his trouble. Kane hits Jericho with a chokeslam; then Show takes out Kane, and meantime Taker goes for the Tombstone on Jericho. Show makes the save, hitting a chokeslam on Undertaker. Then Show goes to check up on Jericho, and Jericho nails him with the Codebreaker. To celebrate, Jericho grabs Taker's championship belt from ringside and runs away with it, only stopping to gloat once he's reached a safe distance atop the stage. Chris, that was really kind of rude.

--
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 11/20/09
--

Survivor Series PPV (Nov. 22)

Team Miz (The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, Drew McIntyre, & Sheamus) vs. Team Morrison (John Morrison, Evan Bourne, Finlay, Matt Hardy, & Shelton Benjamin): YAY EVAN!!! *ahem* I mean, gee, what a star-studded match-up! (Eh, who am I kidding? Go Evan!) Evan hits the Shooting Star Press on Ziggler to get the first elimination. Kickass! Then Drew takes out Evan with the double-arm DDT. Boo. Finlay takes out Sheamus, Morrison takes out Swagger, Miz takes out Shelton, Drew takes out Hardy, Sheamus takes out Morrison, and Team Miz are the winners.

Backstage, we get a promo with Team Kofi: Kofi, Mark Henry, MVP, R-Truth, and My Man Christian. Christian points out that he's not like the rest of them: he’s from ECW, for one thing, AND he’s Canadian. And Canadians, apparently, are great rappers. He offers some freestyle verse: "Four of us are black, and one of us is white. What's up?" *snort* LMAO! He totally went there. I love you, Christian. ROTFL *applauds*

Batista vs. Rey Mysterio: For the last week, I've been saying that Mysterio is toast. And I was totally right. Mysterio holds his own for a little while, but Batista has deep reserves of resentful anger to draw on. Finally, after Batista hits three Batista Bombs in a row, the ref ends the match. Batista's not done, though. He throws a folded-up chair into the ring, grabs Mysterio, and hits a spinebuster onto the chair. The crowd approves (and honestly, so do I, because I totally agree with Batista's accusations of back-stabbing). Aaron Glazer: "Batista seems a step above the other heels in the company through sheer dangerousness." (And it's pretty awesome. What can I say, I like that intensity.)

Backstage, we get a promo with Team RKO. All is not hunky-dory within the Legacy. (And it's about time, too, because Ted's movie trailers are scheduled to debut on the next Raw.)

Team RKO (Randy Orton, CM Punk, Ted Dibiase, Cody Rhodes, & William Regal) vs. Team Kofi (Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, MVP, R-Truth, & Christian): Orton takes out Henry, Punk takes out Truth. My Man Christian launches off the turnbuckle to take out Dibiase. MVP takes out Regal, Cody takes out MVP, Christian hits Cody with the Killswitch for another elimination. Christian almost pins Orton after another Killswitch, but Punk breaks it up, and Orton hits Christian with the RKO (oh noes! but... so totally hhhottt). Then Kofi takes out Punk and Orton in quick succession for the win. Bah. (Kofi is kind of cool, but nowhere near cool enough to get away with this. Crush him, Randy!!!)

Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho vs. Big Show, World Heavyweight Championship: Jericho and Show use teamwork in the early going to keep Undertaker down. Eventually Jericho locks in the Walls of Jericho on Undertaker, but then Show breaks it up and hits Jericho with a chokeslam. Then Show and Taker go back and forth and they both end up on the mat, so Jericho crawls over to try for a cheap pin on Show, who kicks out; then Jericho gets a two-count on Undertaker before Taker throws him out of the ring. Taker and Show trade hits, and then Jericho's back with one of the title belts; he takes a run at Taker, who ducks, and Jericho clobbers Show instead. Taker dumps Show out of the ring and goes for the Last Ride on Jericho, but Jericho grabs the belt again and finally clobbers Taker in the head. He goes for the pin attempt, but Taker kicks out at the last split-second. Jericho steals Taker's signature throat-cut gesture and goes for a Tombstone! Undertaker reverses it, and Show's back in with a knockout punch to Undertaker! Show goes for the pinfall and gets a two-count before Jericho kicks him off, and Jericho tries for the pin, but Taker kicks out yet again. Jericho goes for the Codebreaker on Show and eats a knockout punch instead! Show turns back to Undertaker, goes for a move, and Taker counters it with Hell's Gate! Show holds out as long as he can, but then he finally taps. Undertaker retains the title. Woo-hoo! (I like Undertaker, I really do, but he's getting old and hurt and sometimes it shows. Jericho totally made this match, and that's why he gets one or two main events every week.)

Team Michelle (Michelle McCool, Layla, Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, & Alicia Fox) vs. Team Mickie (Mickie James, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, Melina, & Eve): Team Mickie wins. The only moment that I really cared about (aside from the moments when Beth was awesome, of course) was when Mickie pinned Beth and then Beth dropped her with a clothesline before she left the ring. HA! I love it when she's spiteful. :)

John Cena vs. Triple-H vs. Shawn Michaels, WWE Championship: Triple-H and Michaels come out together with the DX intro, tossing glowsticks into the crowd as they go. (Somebody throws a glowstick back at them, LOL.) Cena faces a united front. Then the bell rings, and Michaels nails Triple-H with Sweet Chin Music! H topples out of the ring. Cena looks stunned. Then Michaels comes after Cena and they go back and forth. Cena looks for the Attitude Adjustment, but Triple-H breaks it up; Michaels hits a clothesline on Cena, and then H hits a spinebuster on Michaels through the announce table! Payback's a bitch, baby! H drags Cena back into the ring and goes to work on him. Then Cena makes his comeback (Chris Lansdell: "You are unable to visually perceive his person!" which was just, LOL, I almost spit out my drink all over my keyboard when I read that); Cena sets up the Attitude Adjustment on Triple-H, Michaels breaks it up and throws Cena into the corner post, and DX faces off. They go back and forth; then Michaels goes to the top rope, Cena knocks him off and then it's a merry-go-round: Cena misses a drop on Triple-H, Michaels hits an elbow-drop on Cena, H throws Michaels outside, Cena locks in the STF on H, and Michaels sneaks up behind Cena to lock in a crossface! Cena breaks free, only to lock in the STF on Michaels, who almost taps but then grabs the ropes, and fights his way up and nails Cena with Sweet Chin Music! Another Superkick to Triple-H! H falls on top of Cena, Michaels falls out of the ring, the ref finally sees H's sort-of pin and starts counting, and Cena kicks out. Cena and H stagger to their feet, Cena manages to hit the Attitude Adjustment on H, and Cena and Michaels both try for the pin on H, who kicks out. Then they're all back on their feet; Michaels goes for Sweet Chin Music on Cena, who blocks, so next Michaels goes for a piledriver on H, who also blocks, and Michaels gets knocked right back at Cena. Michaels gets away, H goes for a Pedigree, Michaels hits H with Sweet Chin Music AGAIN! Cena hits Michaels with the Attitude Adjustment, and goes back to Triple-H for the pin, and he gets the three-count for the win! Cena retains. DX imploded, big time.

End of show. Well, we have a lot to look forward to, most notably Ted Dibiase's pending face turn and the looming twin trainwrecks of JeriShow and DX.

Can't wait for Monday night: Jesse Ventura hosts Raw! And the sure-to-be-juicy backlash from Survivor Series.

--
Chris Lansdell: 411's WWE Survivor Series Report 11.22.09
Pulse Wrestling’s WWE Survivor Series 2009 Report
Aaron Glazer: The Wrestling Guy’s Survivor Series Report Card
--

Weekly recap (x 2)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:50:14 GMT

Raw (Nov. 2)

Guest hosts: Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne. Rock 'n' roll, baby.

Miz comes out to complain about his match last week; Legacy comes out to complain about Kofi Kingston; Big Show comes out to complain and demand an apology from the Raw roster; DX comes out to make fun of everybody and conspire with Ozzy & Sharon to book some grudge matches for tonight.

Miz vs. Evan Bourne, US Championship: Yay Evan! ... Aw, damn it. In the end, he goes for the Air Bourne and misses, and Miz hits the Skill-Crushing Finale for the win. I mean, Miz is entertaining, but I want to see Evan kick some ass.

Sheamus vs. Jamie Noble: Jamie Noble got the shit beat out of him. (He retired at the end of the week, after this match put him in the hospital and he basically asked himself, "What the hell am I doing? I have kids to raise. Screw this.")

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston: They fight, and then Legacy comes out, and the Osbournes call for a six-man tag:

Randy Orton & Legacy vs. Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, & MVP: Oh, god, the Kool-Aid twins are back. Seriously, WWE, can we stop with this stupid shit? Please? On the plus side, hey, the other team really brings the eye candy. Henry slams Cody for the win. Lame. And I'm still waiting for Dibiase's face turn.

Raw's Got Talent: Ah, the goofy guest-host segment; Ozzy & Sharon are the talent judges, along with Khali. Santino has not got talent. Chris Masters does an artform to "Crazy Train" and flexes his manboobs, which earns him Sharon's vote of approval. Chavo & Jillian do a duet, which Chavo makes less horrible because he can actually sing, but the judges no likey. Chavo & Jillian get pissy, so Sharon bitch-slaps Jillian, and Khali chops Chavo. Then Hornswaggle comes out to pile on. I thought we were past this? Arg!

Nikki & Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres, Gail Kim, & Alicia Fox, Battle Royale for #1 contendership to the diva’s championship: Alicia wins. Why is she getting another push?

DX is still being mean to Hornswaggle, who's just an excited little fanboy. Enter John Cena, who rescues Hornswaggle from the jerks and proceeds to talk some smack about the upcoming triple-threat championship match. DX claims that statistics are on their side (yeah, guys, but only if you can agree on which one of you is going to get the win) but Cena is confident.

John Cena vs. Chris Jericho vs. Big Show: JeriShow takes control of the match. Jericho attempts a pin, Show breaks it up, Jericho gets in his face about it and Show launches Jericho out of the ring. Show gets back to Cena, Cena turns things around and Show goes out of the ring. Cena goes to town on Jericho, Show clobbers Cena with his massive fist, Jericho gets the pin and the win. But they're not done with Cena, so DX comes in to make the save, and Jericho & Show take them out too. A big victory for JeriShow.

ECW (Nov. 3)

My Man Christian is pissed about the beat-down that William Regal arranged for him last week, and he's ready for a fight right now. GM Tiffany comes out to talk him down, apologizing for last week as she feels responsible. Regal comes out to accept Christian's challenge, but on his own terms: the match will be for the ECW title, and it will be held next week, on Regal's home turf of England. Christian accepts, and Tiffany okays it, but declares that Regal's thugs will be banned from ringside. Hell yeah, My Man is totally gonna kick his ass!

The main event:
Christian & Yoshi Tatsu vs. Vladimir Kozlov & Ezekiel Jackson: Yoshi gets tag-teamed for a while, then finally gets the tag to Christian, who cleans up. He eventually hits the Killswitch on Kozlov for the win.

Post-match, of course, here comes Regal. He mixes it up with Christian, then Jackson hits Christian from behind and it turns into another beat-down. Dudes, this is not cool. I foresee a decisive win in Christian's near future.

Smackdown (Nov. 6)

We open with Undertaker orating in the ring. Then Chris Jericho comes out to talk smack, and Undertaker kicks him in the head. (Note to self: Undertaker does not seem to appreciate being interrupted.)

John Morrison & Cryme Time vs. Dolph Ziggler & The Hart Dynasty: Morrison seems to be favoring his ribs; eventually, Ziggler goes for the cheap shot to get him out of the way and Ziggler gets the pin on Shad.

Backstage, Rey Mysterio does an interview. It seems that Batista has gotten under his skin; Rey swears that he'll show Batista a side of him that Batista's never seen.

Beth Phoenix vs. Britney Carter: Britney is a dancer. WTF is this crap? Why are you throwing random, meaningless squashes at Beth? And it is a squash.

Drew McIntyre vs. Jimmy Wang Yang: Drew the Jerk blindsides Jimmy during his entrance, and then talks smack before turning to leave. Jimmy still wants the match, but it doesn't go too well for him. Drew gets the pin in short order.

Backstage, Batista is in a foul mood and manages to scare off the interviewer.

Rey Mysterio vs. Mike Knox: Eventually, Rey hits the 619 and follows it with a big splash to win.

CM Punk vs. R-Truth: Uh, random match? Truth looks strong, but Punk gets the upper hand after a little while and gets a two-count. He bitches at the ref (Scott Armstrong) about it, and Truth takes the opportunity to hit Punk from behind and roll him up for a pin attempt; Armstrong does a quick three-count, awards the match to R-Truth, and runs away. Punk seems displeased.

Batista vs. Matt Hardy: It's a clean match to start. Hardy gets in some sporadic offense, but Batista pretty much controls the action. Then Batista gets fed up, apparently, and instead of following a spinebuster with a pin attempt, he follows it with a beating that ends up going outside the ring and involving the furniture. Batista clobbers him with a monitor and the ref finally declares Hardy the winner by DQ. Batista doesn't care. He keeps beating on Hardy for a while, until eventually Batista gets bored and leaves.

Raw (Nov. 9)

Tonight's host: Ricky Hatton. The English locals love him. Big Show dares him to try to knock him out, offering Ricky a free shot. Ricky almost goes for it, but Chris Jericho interrupts to tell Show that he should be focused on their upcoming PPV match with Undertaker. Then Jericho takes a moment to explain why he's the greatest, and Show calls him Napoleon. :) Then DX comes out, makes fun of JeriShow, Shawn Michaels takes out Jericho, and Show decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and he leaves.

Kelly Kelly vs. Alicia Fox: Ugh. Alicia wins again.

Sheamus vs. ?: Sheamus crushes the jobber of the week.

Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger: Yay Evan!!! But, oh shit. Swagger's on this undefeated streak. This can't end well for Evan. Swagger beats on him for a while, and then Evan gets him with a kick to the chin, and Air Bourne connects! He goes for the pin and OMFG EVAN WINS!!! YAY!!!

The Kool-Aid twins are hosting the VIP Lounge in the ring. Kofi Kingston is here and they all agree that they're tired of getting pushed around by Randy Orton and the Fanboyz. Speak of the devil... Orton and his two shadows come down to the ring to look menacing. Orton talks smack, calling them all low-class street thugs; Cody Rhodes adds further insult, and Ted Dibiase says that he's richer than they are. (Uh... face turn? What face turn?)

Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry: Orton wins with an RKO. You know, under almost any circumstances, watching him do that move is totally hot, but Mark Henry is just ew.

Ricky Hatton vs. Chavo Guerrero: Can we give Chavo something to do other than feuding with the guest hosts and the comic relief? Chavo loses when Ricky hits a knock-out punch.

Backstage, John Cena is with Hornswaggle. DX shows up to bitch some more about "gimmick infringement" and Hornswaggle runs away while Cena tells DX to get a life. Hornswaggle comes back dressed as Mini-Cena, and then when DX leaves, he trades the Cena look for his DX gear. Can we get Cena & Hornswaggle vs. DX?

JeriShow vs. DX: This will do, I suppose. They go back and forth; for all their "frienemies" wishy-washiness, Jericho & Show are working well together here. Jericho is offering suggestions to the commentators again: “Tell him! Tell him that he’s a giant destroyer.” LOL. (He's such a great cheerleader! I wish I could have had him at my high school soccer games.) At the end of the match, Show goes to take out Shawn Michaels and accidentally clobbers Jericho instead. Triple-H gets Show out of the way and gets a cheap pin on Jericho. Lame, H, really lame.

Next week: JeriShow vs. DX vs. John Cena & the Undertaker. Whoa. My brain might explode.

ECW (Nov. 10)

Christian vs. William Regal, ECW championship: They go back and forth, but My Man Christian's superior speed, agility, and smoking hotness eventually hit the Killswitch for the win. Yessss.

Smackdown (Nov. 13)

CM Punk wins over the English fans by making fun of them, declaring he's better than they are, and P.S. Scott Armstrong is a crappy referee. R-Truth comes out and tells him to shut up.

CM Punk vs. R-Truth: Random match-up is still random, even if they're doing it for the second week in a row. Punk wins by dubious means.

Natalya Neidhart vs. Mickie James: Natalya owns the match for a while. Then Mickie starts to turn it around, and Michelle McCool and Layla come out with some of Mickie's clothes and start trashing them with scissors. Really? Mickie is distracted, and Natalya gets her in a submission hold. Mickie taps, Natalya wins.

Finlay vs. Drew McIntyre: They get into a fistfight, the ref calls the match, and they keep brawling. Finlay goes for his shillelagh, but Drew grabs it. (HA HA! Finlay the cheater fails at cheating!)

Rey Mysterio and Batista have a contract signing for their upcoming PPV match. Batista has some extra paperwork that says Mysterio can't sue if he gets injured in the match. Mysterio seems irritated, but signs that as well, and then throws the table at Batista. Well, Batista might have possibly deserved that.

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler, intercontinental championship: They go at it for a while, and eventually they end up throwing each other over the top rope to the floor. The ref calls the match a draw by double count-out.

Beth Phoenix vs. Yet Another Random Jobber: Beth hits a cool-looking sequence of moves before nailing the Glam Slam for the win.

Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho: Cool match. They go back and forth, and back, and forth, and eventually they lead up to trading finishing moves and pinfall attempts. Then Taker locks in the Hell's Gate and Jericho finally taps. Big Show comes down after the bell, and he and Jericho team up to beat on Undertaker until Kane puts in an appearance to break it up. Hello, Brothers of Destruction! Next week, we get the hell-raisers vs. JeriShow.

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report – 11.02.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration…Oz-Man Cometh
Kevin Innarelli: ECW Real-Time Coverage for 11/03/2009
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 11/06/09
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report – 11.09.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration…The Best There Is, The Best There Was
Aaron Glazer: The Wrestling Guy’s Live ECW Report, 11/10/09
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 11/13/09

Weekly recap

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:11:44 GMT

Raw (Oct. 26)

We open with Chris Jericho & Big Show; Jericho is lugging around Smackdown's brand-new Bragging Rights trophy like a proud parent, and Show points out that he himself is a proud member of the Raw roster. Jericho says that Show's loyalties to the JeriShow team take precedence. Show disagrees, and says that he turned on Team Raw for the sake of his own career; in gratitude, Smackdown GM Teddy Long has granted Show a world heavyweight championship match against the Undertaker. They argue for a bit until we meet tonight's guest co-hosts: Kyle Busch and Joey Logano, two of NASCAR's young guns.

Kyle and Joey seem to be divided on the subject of Show's treason; Joey thinks that what Show did was wrong, but Kyle supports Show's decision. Joey books Show vs. Triple-H for later tonight; Kyle books Jericho vs. Kofi Kingston.

Chris Jericho vs. Kofi Kingston: It's a good fight, but Jericho loses.

As Kofi is walking back up the ramp after the match, Randy Orton runs out and throws him off the stage. (Apparently, Randy's harboring some ill will over the fact that Kofi chased the Legacy boys away after their interference in the Orton-Cena match.) Later, in a backstage interview, Randy says that he blames Kofi for Randy's loss at the PPV, and he's just getting started with Kofi. Then the Legacy boys show up to offer Randy a sympathy gift: his own racecar. It's a hot car. (lesson_in_love: "OMG RANDY CAR WANT *GRABBY HANDS*" - teddysbabymama: "i want that car....wow... nevermind. i just want legacy. and that car. in that car. with me. wow...")

Elsewhere, Kyle & Joey are with Eve Torres when Jack Swagger swaggers in to demand a title shot against John Cena. Kyle & Joey opt to deny his request, stating that they will name a new challenger tonight. The Miz comes in to demand his own title shot, seeing as how he was the only other Raw superstar to win his match at the PPV. He has a point.

Santino Marella & Melina vs. Chavo Guerrero & Jillian Hall: Why can't Chavo ever wrestle a comedy-free match? This is unfair. However, HILARIOUS moment when Santino makes like Melina and drops into a split to duck a swing from Chavo. Hornswaggle interferes, dressed as Shawn Michaels again, allowing Melina to get the pin on Jillian for the win.

After the match, Hornswaggle gets an envelope which contains a written "cease & desist" order for his gimmick infringement of DX. Apparently DX are a little freaked out by Shawn's Mini-Me. Hornswaggle looks totally crushed by this. See that, DX? You jerks made Hornswaggle sad!

The Legacy comes out to offer themselves in challenge to John Cena in lieu of Randy Orton. (And that right there... that sounded incredibly dirty the way I phrased it; but I like it anyway. :) ) Cena puts in an appearance to decline their challenge; he says that they have to earn their shot, like everybody else. They can start by facing the Kool-Aid twins right now.

The Legacy vs. MVP & Mark Henry: Legacy loses. Bah. (teddysbabymama's icon says it all.) They argue the outcome with the ref, and Randy Orton comes out to interrupt. Orton demands his rematch against Cena, f**k the stipulations of the previous match; he'll go to the WWE board of directors if he has to. Then Kofi appears on the Jumbotron to say that Orton lost and nobody cares what he has to say. Orton challenges Kofi to come out and face him, but Kofi declines; rather, Kofi trashes Orton's shiny new racecar. Orton looks rather angry.

Evan Bourne vs. The Miz: Yay Evan! But he gets hammered at the start of the match. Then he makes a comeback, only for Miz to power out and beat him up some more. Then Jack Swagger comes out to flirt with Eve, the guest referee, from ringside. Eve is distracted, and Miz hammers on Evan some more before going out to deal with Swagger. Evan gets up and launches himself at them both, they go sprawling, and Evan beats the ten-count back into the ring to win the match. All-righty, then. That was just weird. *sigh* Evan deserves better than this kind of jobbing-out.

Sheamus vs. Jaime Noble: Sheamus is a new acquisition from ECW; I have to admire his fiery orange hair. Sheamus beats the tar out of Noble.

Big Show vs. Triple-H: Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels are here to support their respective teammates. Then Triple-H announces that the match is now a lumberjack match, with the entire Raw roster as lumberjacks; Jericho makes a strategic retreat with his Smackdown trophy. It's also a No-DQ match. They get rid of the ref and replace him with John Cena. Show holds his own in the match, and it finally looks like he's got it won when Cena makes a two-count and then stops, and wanders off out of the way to study his hangnail or something. Then the Raw roster takes turns hitting their signature moves on Show, and Triple-H wrangles him into a Smackdown shirt before hitting the Pedigree, and Cena gives him the full three-count. Triple-H wins (kind of). Today's moral: Comeuppance is a bitch, folks.

Post-match, our guest hosts are here to make a big announcement: the Survivor Series main event will be John Cena vs. Triple-H vs. Shawn Michaels. And Hornswaggle helped to decide this. See what happens when you piss off the leprechaun? Cena looks not pleased about this -- sorry, dude, you're totally collateral damage here.

Next week: Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne co-host. You know you're excited.

ECW (Oct. 27)

GM Tiffany promises that ECW will play a part in Bragging Rights next year. Yes! The gods have heard our prayers!

William Regal comes out to demand another title shot against My Man Christian. Tiffany denies him once again, and Regal throws a fit.

Christian says he's looking forward to his match against Yoshi, because Yoshi is awesome and he earned this title shot. However, Christian promises that Yoshi won't win tonight.

Christian vs. Yoshi Tatsu: (Yoshi's music is this hilarious peppy Japanese pop tune. And he's wearing shiny gold pants.) They shake hands before the match, and I can see that this could be an awesome passing-the-torch dynamic, but PLEASE NOT TONIGHT, not while I'm watching. The match starts off slow, but they work up to a lot of back-and-forth near-falls towards the end. (Here I am on the edge of my seat, yelling at the TV along with the live crowd. SO EXCITING.) My Man finally hits the Killswitch for the win. When it's over, Christian checks up on Yoshi and gives him a sympathetic hug. Awww. Then Regal's goons, Kozlov & Jackson, run in and beat the hell out of Christian; Yoshi tries to help and gets hammered. Regal comes into the ring to gloat while Christian lays there looking unconscious and totally smoking hot.

This Regal thing has to be coming to a head. And Yoshi is primed to be the next great face. Christian has had a great title run, but maybe we'll see him jump to one of the other shows in the near-ish future?

Smackdown (Oct. 30)

Matt Striker has returned to Smackdown's announce team! Praise the powers-that-be! On the other hand, I will miss JR, because he's always awesome.

Teddy Long opens the show. Chris Jericho interrupts, and right off the bat Teddy tells him that the Bragging Rights trophy is Smackdown property, and Teddy takes the trophy (LOL!). Jericho lets it go, if only so he can discourse on why he and not Big Show should get a championship match against Undertaker at the next PPV. Then Kane comes out to lobby for his own title shot. Jericho tells Kane to get out of his face, Kane gets angry and grabs Jericho by the throat. Before it can go any further, Teddy books Jericho vs. Kane for later tonight, declaring that the winner will be added to the Show-vs.-Undertaker championship match.

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler: They exchange some trash talk before the match (Morrison was the only Smackdown member who lost at the PPV, Ziggler's lousy in bed, etc.). Then the match goes back and forth, with both guys getting in some good shots. Toward the end, Morrison goes for Starship Pain but Ziggler bails out of the ring; when Morrison comes after him, Ziggler trips him and hits a face-buster on the announce table. Morrison stays down, and Ziggler makes it back to the ring to win by countout.

Backstage, Vince McMahon congratulates Teddy on Smackdown's victory at Bragging Rights. CM Punk comes in to complain that he's not in tonight's main event or the championship match at the next PPV; Vince sympathizes with Punk, but doesn't change Teddy's booking. Vince does, however, set up a match for Punk vs. referee Scott Armstrong, claiming that all of Punk's recent loses have been this guy's fault.

Beth Phoenix vs. Jenny Brooks: Apparently, this Jenny is the only person to have defeated Beth in high school wrestling. Beth definitively kicks her ass this time.

Matt Hardy vs. Eric Escobar: Vickie Guerrero is here, dressed as a princess, to introduce her "Prince Charming." *blegh* Hardy wins the match.

They recap the PPV incident in which Batista finally reached his snapping point and kicked the snot out of Rey Mysterio. Mysterio comes out to say that he still considers Batista family, but he wants Batista to come out and explain himself. Batista comes out, but he's insulted that Mysterio has the gall to call him out. Mysterio stands his ground; he wants to know what Batista expected him to do in the fatal-four-way match. Mysterio actually apologizes for being in the match, but he still stands up to Batista when Batista gets threatening and tells Mysterio to get lost. Myaterio asks him to consider all that they've been through; Batista says that now he's only looking out for himself. With that, Batista leaves the ring. Later, backstage, Matt Hardy tries to talk to Batista. Matt says that he now regrets some of the things he did in his feud with his brother Jeff, but he can’t take them back. Batista walks away from Matt without responding, but when Matt turns his back, Batista attacks him. (Oh, yeah, I am digging this heel turn. Batista is going to be a killer heel. YES.)

Drew McIntyre vs. Finlay: Drew grabs a microphone to congratulate Team Smackdown on their win, but says that he didn’t really want to be on the team anyway. Gee, I think someone's a little bitter. Drew attacks Finlay outside the ring and Finlay is toast. Hell hath no fury like a Scotsman scorned.

CM Punk vs. Scott Armstrong: Punk backs Armstrong into a corner and bitches him out until Armstrong gets fed up and slaps him. Punk retaliates with a brief beat-down, then hits the Go-to-Sleep for the pin and the win.

Chris Jericho vs. Kane: Jericho talks smack to start; then they get to actual fighting. Jericho looks good, then Kane makes a comeback, and then Jericho comes back again and finally hits the Codebreaker for the win, thus earning himself a spot in the triple-threat championship match.

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report – 10.26.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Raw
Chris Shore: Shore's WWE "ECW on SyFy" Live Coverage (via ProWrestling.net)
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 10/30/09 (via Pulse Wrestling)

Bragging Rights PPV results!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:20:57 GMT

Bragging Rights (Oct. 25)

In a dark match before the PPV went live, Christian won against Paul Burchill with the Killswitch to retain the ECW title (I thought Yoshi was the #1 contender? whatever). My Man Christian, according to the live-in-person report, got one of the biggest pops of the night. Hell yeah. Unfortunately, this was the only ECW showing. Alas, my dream of Team ECW barging in was not realized.

The Miz vs. John Morrison: They go at each other hard. Near the end, Miz goes for the Skull-Crushing Finale, but Morrison reverses it into a leg-sweep and then goes for Starship Pain, and Miz cuts him down again for the win. (As learningforever said, "MIZZY WINS!! THE WORLD IS AWESOME!!!") Miz is going to be completely insufferable on tonight's Raw. Can't wait. :)

Beth Phoenix, Natalya, & Michelle McCool vs. Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, & Melina: The Smackdown divas win it when Beth pins Melina. Ha. Go Beth.

Backstage, DX is with the rest of Team Raw for a team bonding moment. DX are wearing what look like fuzzy bunny slippers. WTF? but also, LOL.

Undertaker vs. CM Punk vs. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio, World Heavyweight Championship: They go around in circles for a while: somebody hits a big move, tries for the pinfall, somebody else break it up, repeat. Then, however, Mysterio tries to steal Batista's pin on Undertaker; Batista doesn't approve, and he shoves Mysterio to the floor, and turns back into a chokeslam by Undertaker. Then Taker & Batista take each other out, and Punk tries to sneak in and steal a pin, but Batista throws him out of the ring; Mysterio goes for a high-flyer on Batista, but Batista catches him and throws him at Punk on the floor. Undertaker is waiting for Batista; he hits the tombstone, and gets the pin and the win.

After the match, they do an in-ring interview with Batista & Mysterio. Mysterio says they were both close to getting the win, but they didn't and they'll get more chances down the road. Batista disagrees; they weren't close to the win, only Batista was close, and Batista is tired of getting close only to get stabbed in the back by his supposed friend. Batista tells Mysterio that he's gonna take his head off, and then he does just that with a hard clothesline. Batista then throws Mysterio out of the ring, goes after him and grabs him by the neck and throws him into the retaining wall. Then he kicks Mysterio in the face. I guess he's pretty angry, huh? Heel turn! Heel turn! (Ok, meta time... I thought that when they brought Batista to Smackdown, it was to make up for the current dearth of main-event faces. If he's turning heel, does this mean that Edge will be a face when he comes back? And -- And -- AND THEN HE CAN BE FRIENDS WITH CHRISTIAN AGAIN!!! OMG YES PLEASE!!! E&C 4EVER)

Team Raw (Shawn Michaels, Triple-H, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, & Cody Rhodes) vs. Team Smackdown (Chris Jericho, Kane, Matt Hardy, R-Truth, Finlay, DH Smith, & Tyson Kidd): Everybody gets in on the action. Eventually, though, it's Jericho vs. Kofi in the ring; Smith & Kidd interfere, Henry takes them out, R-Truth & Hardy take out Henry, Rhodes comes in and gets taken down by Finlay, Swagger takes out Finlay, Kane takes out Swagger, Big Show takes out Kane. Then Jericho's back in, and Kofi looks for a high-flying move, but Show grabs Kofi and chokeslams him off the top rope. Triple-H tries to come to the rescue, but Show clobbers him with his massive fist. Jericho gets the pin on Kofi; Team Smackdown are declared the victors, thanks to JeriShow. Go Team! Oh, delicious irony. :)

They replay the epic Orton/Cena promo of slashy goodness. (oth_leyton_love: "does the wwe realize it says "meant to taste your kiss" LOLZ - wwe ships centon" - lianasvea: "oh my god this feels like some sort of soap opera retrospective what with the soft glow and the piano" - rkowhore79: "oh but they ARE a soap opera..you didn't know??") Then it's time for the main event:

Randy Orton vs. John Cena, 60-minute "Anything Goes" Ironman Match for the WWE championship: (The crowd is totally into this. learningforever: "I love how the girls got louder as Cena took his shirt off" - teddysbabymama: "they'd only get louder if randy took off his pants" ...I think I need a moment to compose myself. Oh, yes, we would get VERY loud.) Cena gets the first "pin" a few minutes in when Orton taps out to the STFU. Then Orton nails the RKO to get his first pin. Later, Cena gets hit in the head with a microphone and the ref wants to check out his awesomely bloody head, but Cena shoves him off and gets back to fighting. Cena gets the FU on Orton, but as Orton's going down he grabs Cena's head and turns it into an RKO (KICKASS!!! oth_leyton_love: "it was beautiful"). The ref counts it as a double pin, and they're still tied. Then Cena hits the FU again and gets another pin. Legacy runs out to beat on Cena, and Orton gets the pin. (I thought Dibiase was beyond this...?) Kofi runs out to chase off Dibiase & Rhodes with a chair. Cena & Orton end up over by the stage, and Cena gets slammed into the pyro control board and some pyro goes off on the stage; Orton throws Cena around some more and gets another pin. Then Orton gets the bright idea of trying to fry Cena with the pyro, but he's foiled by the pyro technician long enough for Cena to escape. Then Orton throws the steel steps at Cena's head, and Cena goes down, but he's playing possum and he pops up to get another pin on Orton. Orton throws a fit (metalgoddess415: "Randy throwing a hissy fit is hot"), goes after Cena again, and gets another pin. Then Cena tries to come back, but Orton beats on him for a while before Cena finally makes his comeback; Orton runs into the crowd, Cena follows, and they brawl through the crowd. Cena gets the upper hand, beats the crap out of Orton, and gets another pin. Now they're tied again, 5-5. Cena carries Orton back into the ring and sets him up for a leg-drop through a table, but Orton rolls out of the way; then they trade punches for a bit, Cena goes for a move and accidentally mows down the ref, and Orton hits him with an RKO, but Cena kicks out. Then Orton goes for the punt, but Cena ducks it and locks on the STFU with less than a minute to go. Orton panics, tries to hold out, but finally taps a few seconds before the timer runs out.

End of show.

Hmm. Orton/Cena was EPIC and I hope we get to see lots of them together in the future, whether they're on opposite sides or not (tag team!!! OMG PLEASE! So hhhottt!!!). Also, JeriShow is alive and well, and soon to be feuding with DX, I think. Looks like Batista is turning heel. And I KNOW Dibiase is turning face, but I'm confused as to how they're setting that up.

Sources:
PK: Pulse Wrestling’s WWE Bragging Rights Report
Jake Ziegler: Bragging Rights Live Report (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Bragging Rights

Weekly recap

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:50:12 GMT

Here's what happened last week in WWE, leading up to the Bragging Rights PPV:

Raw (Oct. 19)

Tonight's guest host: Snoop Dogg! Snoop is trailing his posse for tonight, the Bella twins and Eve Torres. Then he brings out Triple-H and Shawn Michaels, who talk smack about Team Smackdown (and Shawn attempts ghetto-speak with spectacularly bad results), and then they're very pleased to bring out Team Raw. They're not as pleased about Cody Rhodes being on the team; Cody says that he doesn't feel compelled to be a team player, and he could probably beat Team Smackdown all by himself. Big Show begs to differ. Then Mark Henry gets in Show's face, and then Jack Swagger wants to make himself out to be the star but Kofi Kingston doesn't think that's cool. Triple-H and Michaels rein in the ego parade by announcing a 5-on-5 tag match for tonight, where the guy who gets pinned will lose his team spot to the guy who pins him.

Big Show, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, & Cody Rhodes vs. MVP, Primo, Evan Bourne, Chavo Guerrero, & Chris Masters: Yay Evan!... and he's in the ring for a very short time and gets taken down by Cody. Swagger pins Primo to win the match, and then all the members of Team Raw start brawling. Go team. :)

Ted Dibiase Jr. is backstage for an interview. He says that when he pinned Randy Orton last week, he was only doing what Orton would have done, taking advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. But Randy didn't see it that way and hasn't been returning Ted's calls all week. (Aww... I sense an imminent breakup.) Randy comes in and says that Ted betrayed him. He warns Ted that he'd better respect him, Or Else.

Ted Dibiase v. Randy Orton: a.k.a. the soon-to-be-ex-boyfriends' match. And it shows. (teddysbabymama: "omg im going to spontaneously combust!!!") Orton goes on the attack, but Dibiase doesn't want to fight back. Eventually, Dibiase gets fed up with Orton's taunting and shoves him (teammatt: "OMG. TEDDY! KICK HIS ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!"). The crowd approves (teddysbabymama: "yes baby!!!!!!! yes!!!!!!!!"). They Glare Meaningfully at each other some more; then Orton hits Dibiase with the RKO, and that's it. Ladies and gentlemen, Ted's long-anticipated face turn has finally come to fruition!

Backstage, Snoop is chillin' with his Diva posse when Hornswaggle stops by to make a new friend. Chavo stops by to bitch about not being on Team Raw, Jillian stops by to sing, Santino Marella stops by to pretend he's Charlie Brown.

John Cena vs. Triple H: This match went on forever. It was seriously epic. And pretty good. Backstage, Orton was watching the match on a TV screen, looking really intent. (Andy Wheeler: "Orton starts staring at Cena on the monitor with the same hungry/gay look he gave Teddy. Seriously, this is getting out of hand." See, us fangirls aren't just imagining this. It's true love!) Triple-H wins the match; Cena looks all bummed, but they shake hands like good sports.

On Smackdown last week, Miz & Morrison made fun of each other and some other people, including Marty Jannetty, which sets up the next match:

The Miz v. Marty Jannetty: Marty doesn't look like a total jobber, but he still loses to Miz and his Skull-Crushing Finale.

Jillian Hall vs. Melina, Diva’s championship: Before the match, Chavo gave Jillian a pep-talk and now he's ringside to cheer her on. Melina, during her grand entrance, trips and almost eats it on the steel steps. HA! During the (mercifully) short match, Chavo acts as a distraction to help Jillian but then Mini-Snoop (a.k.a. Gangsta Hornswaggle) comes out to attack Chavo. Melina wins the match. Snoop comes out to save Hornswaggle from Chavo; he takes Chavo down and Chavo departs in shame; Snoop and Mini-Snoop party with the Dive Posse in the ring. Hornswaggle tries to dance all up on Eve, but his head comes up to her crotch so this looks way more dirty than it would otherwise.

Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels: This was booked as the main event. They stand in the ring and try to out-talk each other; then Cryme Tyme comes out, and Jericho looks awesomely smug as they join him in the ring. Michaels wisely backs out of the ring, and then here comes Kane with the rest of Team Smackdown. They all stand there in the Smackdown shirts, putting up a united front, and then Triple-H comes out with the rest of Team Raw. Now it's Shawn's turn to smirk at Jericho. Triple-H says that Team Raw can agree on one thing, it seems: they don't like Team Smackdown.

Then Vickie Guerrero comes out to demand that Team Smackdown step out of the ring and leave Right Now, because this fight will wait for Sunday. Team Smackdown seems to see the wisdom in this strategy, but before they can actually turn away, Triple-H says he doesn't work for Vickie. Brawl On!

And that's the end of the show.

ECW (Oct. 20)

Yoshi Tatsu defeats Zack Ryder to become the new #1 contender to My Man Christian's championship.

Chris Jericho shows up to do some talent-scouting for Team Smackdown, but GM Tiffany won't let him cherry-pick from the ECW roster. Later, Tiffany catches him trying to recruit Kozlov & Jackson, and she decides that Jericho will face My Man Christian in the main event.

Other stuff happens. Then:

Christian vs. Chris Jericho: YAY!!! This match was totally awesome. They beat on each other for a while, back and forth, but Christian finally hit the Killswitch for the win.

I'm still hoping (unrealistically, perhaps, but it's fun to imagine) that we'll see a Team ECW standing up for themselves at the PPV tonight.

Smackdown (Oct. 23)

We start off with Chris Jericho, one of Team Smackdown's co-captains, who proclaims his & Kane's ultimate authority. To prove it, he announces that the rest of their team, in order to remain on the team, must win a tag team match -- or else their opponents will steal their spots. The rest of Team Smackdown (minus Shad, who's home sick) comes out one at a time to proclaim their own superiority, and end up insulting each other because their egos demand it. Kane finally comes out to declare that none of them are worthy of being in the ring with him. ("Or me," Jericho is quick to add. LOL.)

Finlay, R-Truth, Matt Hardy, & The Hart Dynasty vs. Dolph Ziggler, Drew McIntyre, Eric Escobar, & JTG: With Shad absent, his mates are fighting a lopsided battle. Of course, Finlay CHEATED again, slamming JTG with the shillelagh so Matt Hardy could get the pinfall. Why, oh why, WWE? I thought the heels cheated to win, not the faces!

Backstage, CM Punk, Teddy Long, and the infamous Referee Armstrong are arguing about what should happen in Punk's submission match tonight against Undertaker. Armstrong puts his foot down and says he won't cheat. Then Vince McMahon comes in with a creepy smile and says, "We need to talk."

John Morrison vs. Mike Knox: Mike Knox. Ew. Morrison wins.

Last week, there was some debate (i.e. Batista and Rey Mysterio had a spat backstage) over who won their match; from the highlight video, it looks like Batista kicked out but the ref gave it to Mysterio anyway.

Batista & Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho & Kane: Batista & Mysterio seem to have put aside their differences for now, and they cooperate pretty well in the match. At the end of the match, Kane hit a big boot on Batista and went for a chokeslam; Mysterio jumped on Kane, Kane hit him with the chokeslam, and Batista hit a spear on Kane for the win.

Backstage again, Vince, Punk, and Teddy Long are all trying to stare down Ref Armstrong, who totally wants no part of this conspiracy. Vince dangles the carrot that Armstrong's father could be a future Hall of Fame candidate, which seems to tip the balance, and Armstrong falls in line.

Mickie James vs. Layla: Crush by Mickie. Bye-bye, Layla.

Undertaker vs. CM Punk, submission match for the world heavyweight championship: Teddy Long takes a ringside seat by Punk's corner. Armstrong gets a nasty glare from Undertaker, and then the match is on. They go back and forth; then Teddy distracts Taker so Punk can take him down, and then Punk wants a chair, which Teddy gives to Armstrong. Punk grabs the chair from Armstrong, charges at Taker, and Taker kicks the chair into Punk's face. HA! Then Taker chokeslams Armstrong, takes a moment to glare at Teddy, and Punk hits him from behind with the chair. Punk locks in his submission hold; Teddy calls for another ref; the new ref slides into the ring, and Taker flips Punk into the Hell's Gate submission hold, and Punk taps out. Teddy looks upset. What I want to know is, where's Vince?

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s WWE RAW Report – 10.19.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: RAW is Snoopy
Kevin Innarelli: ECW Real-Time Coverage for 10/20/2009 (via Pulse Wrestling)
Chris Shore: 10/23 Shore's WWE Smackdown
Live Coverage (via ProWrestling.net)

Weekly recap

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:04:56 GMT

The last week in WWE:

Raw (Oct. 12)

Tonight's co-hosts are Access Hollywood's Nancy O’Dell & Maria Menounos.

Chris Jericho comes out to pimp Team Smackdown (of which he is team captain, of course) for the upcoming PPV. Triple-H comes out to interrupt. (Shawn Michaels isn't here tonight, so H drags along the timekeeper to play the part. Stupid humor abounds. Also, Shawn has the best voicemail recording ever: himself singing his own version of the "Sexy Boy" theme. LOL.) Apparently H is the captain of Team Raw, and he makes some disparaging remarks about the Smackdown roster. (Andy Wheeler: "On a side note, how cool would it be if this is going to lead to a situation where ECW just bands together and interrupts the main event?" Oh, yes, please! That would be AWESOME!) Now Big Show's here. Jericho says that Show might be officially on the Raw roster, but Jericho wants him on Team Smackdown; Show wants to be on Team Raw. Also, Jericho & Show argue a bit over which one of them is the True Power in their tag team. Triple-H says Show can be on Team Raw if he beats Jericho right now.

Big Show vs. Chris Jericho: They shake hands and get to wrestling. Things aren't looking good for Jericho, and he starts getting upset; Show tells him to calm down, Jericho thinks Show should shut up. Finally they end up out of the ring, and as they race back in to beat the count, Show pulls Jericho back onto the floor and gets himself into the ring just in time. Show wins by count-out.

Mickie James vs. Jillian Hall, Diva’s championship: Jillian actually wrestles? Huh. And then she wins. Wow. And then she wants to sing. Thankfully, she's stopped by guest host Nancy O'Dell, who just arranged a three-Diva trade with Smackdown. Then we get:

Jillian Hall vs. Melina, Diva’s championship: Very short match. Melina wins. Oh god, does this mean I have to see her every week now?

Backstage, Triple-H is chillin' with a cardboard cutout of Shawn Michaels. Then Hornswaggle shows up, dressed as Shawn, and H calls it "gimmick infringement." Hornswaggle-Shawn hits the cardboard Shawn with a superkick. Ok, that was funny.

Elsewhere backstage, Beth Phoenix is pissed that she just got traded to Smackdown. She's kind of scary when she'd mad. After she leaves, Santino says that he faked the orgasms when they were in bed. LOL, I miss Glamarella. (However, teddysbabymama expresses an enticing impossibility with her awesome icon.)

Aaaand... here's Legacy! "WOOOOOOH CODIASI!!! And the fangirls go wild!" (-teammatt)

Ted Dibiase vs. Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena, Triple-Threat match, winner joins Team Raw: To start, Dibiase & Rhodes team up to take down Cena. (lesson_in_love: "This is hot." Oh yeah.) But then they can't seem to agree on who gets the winning pinfall. Finally Cena makes his big comeback and goes for the finisher on Dibiase; Randy Orton comes out to distract Cena. And then Rhodes sneaks in and rolls up Dibiase to get the win. Uh-oh. Cena looks amused while Orton tries to keep Dibiase and Rhodes from getting at each others' throats. (saturniia: "Wait... Randy's the voice of reason in the Legacy stable? Randy? ... by "Reason" I meant "Sanity and Ethics" not "the boss". I know Orton thinks the show revolves around him (and sometimes it actually does), but I'm surprised he was talking at Cody and Ted rather than just shoving them apart or knocking their thick skulls together." Hmm, good point.) Meantime, Nancy O’Dell books tonight's main event: Orton & Cena vs. Legacy. (teammatt: "Oh my God. My brain is seriously going to explode.") teddysbabymama sums up my feelings pretty well: "how did i manage to go from totally shocked to totally upset to totally excited!?!?!?! wow! just...wow."

Jack Swagger vs. MVP, winner joins Team Raw: MVP is still bleh. Swagger wins; the undefeated streak continues.

Backstage, Dibiase and Rhodes are still bitching at each other. Orton steps in (again) and offers them another shot at Cena; Orton says he won't tag himself into the match. (splendory provided some screencaps of this delicious eye candy.)

Kofi Kingston vs. Evan Bourne, winner joins Team Raw: Yay! Evan! He is awesome as usual. Unfortunately, he loses the match. (But he's won the hearts of fangirls everywhere, so maybe he wins in the long run?)

Backstage, Triple-H is back with the cardboard Shawn, which is wearing bandages after Hornswaggle's earlier assault. Then Chavo arrives to complain that he's not on Team Raw... and... I'm going to ignore the rest of that segment. Chavo's life continues to suck.

Beth Phoenix, Alicia Fox, & Rosa Mendez vs. Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim, & Maria Menounos: Yay Beth! Beth dominates her portion of the match, but then Maria pins Rosa for the win.

Miz comes out to announce Miz vs. John Morrison at the PPV. Then he makes fun of Morrison. And I'll note that Miz is wearing street clothes again... yummy...

And now, what the fangirls have been waiting for! (teammatt: "Man. I can't even. There are no words for this. I swear Creative lurks in wwegirls chats. How else do you come up with this?!?!" - oth_leyton_love: "they have to! i mean they have to! how long have we wanted this?!")

John Cena & Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes: Orton leaves the ring and watches from the floor by Cena's corner as the match begins. Cena gets the upper hand against Dibiase until Dibiase gets to the corner tags in Rhodes. Then they take turns working Cena over. Orton is still chilling outside the ring, looking totally bored out of his skull (LOL!). Then Cena makes his comeback, and he tags in Orton! (Orton looks surprised; Cena has a big shit-eating grin on his face. HA!) Rhodes gets a two-count, then Dibiase tags in and he almost pins Orton. Finally Orton tags in Cena and Cena goes to work. Until Orton blind-tags himself back in and attacks Cena! But Dibiase and Orton are the legal men in the ring; Dibiase interrupts the beatdown to get the rollup and the pin on Orton!

Next week: Snoop Dogg! And Cena will go up against Triple-H. Cena looks concerned at this news.

Well. I think this is finally the start of Ted Dibiase's face turn. It's still unclear whether Cody Rhodes will turn as well, or if the BFFs are going to break up. We also need many more matches with Cena & Orton teaming up. :)

ECW (Oct. 13)

Christian & Yoshi Tatsu vs. William Regal & Zack Ryder: Regal and Ryder defeated themselves. Regal wants to call the shots, but Ryder's having none of that. While they're arguing in the corner, My Man Christian hits the Killswitch on Regal for the win.

Smackdown (Oct. 16)

Chris Jericho, captain of Team Smackdown, opens the show. He bitches about everybody on Raw, and then Kane comes out and announces that he's now the co-captain of Team Smackdown. Jericho doesn't argue.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Finlay vs. Mike Knox, winner joins Team Smackdown: Ziggler proposes to Knox that they team up on Finlay; Knox hits him with a clothesline. (I guess that's a "no," then.) The match goes on for a bit, and Finlay eventually hits Knox with the shillelagh (evidence point #37628 that Finlay is a dirty cheater), but then he blows his opportunity and Ziggler pins Knox for the win.

Cryme Tyme vs. the Hart Dynasty, winners join Team Smackdown: I'm still just irritated by Cryme Tyme's gimmick. They win. Boo.

Backstage, Jericho and Teddy Long assure Michelle McCool that she will be the diva representing Smackdown at the PPV. Then Mickie James and Beth Phoenix show up to inform McCool that they're both gunning for her title.

CM Punk goes to Vince McMahon to complain about the unfairness of the Fatal Four-Way championship match scheduled for the PPV. Vince says he agrees with Punk, but can't change the match; instead, he offers Punk a submission match against Undertaker next week for the championship.

Eric Escobar vs. Matt Hardy, winner joins Team Smackdown: Vickie Guerrero is here to support her boyfriend Eric. Hardy looks strong, but then Vickie distracts the ref and Escobar cheats to win.

The Miz and John Morrison are here for a special edition of "The Dirt Sheet." They discuss The Breakup and then start arguing over who the fangirls like better, and then they get into whose show is better. Finally Morrison gets fed up and wants to throw down right here, but Miz backs off for now.

R-Truth vs. Drew McIntyre, winner joins Team Smackdown: They go back and forth for a while, but finally R-Truth takes a nasty-looking spill on the steel steps outside the ring and loses by count-out.

Batista vs. Rey Mysterio: Before the match, they swore that they're still now & forever BFFs, but Batista is maybe not as cool with that as he pretends. Hm, impending heel turn? Mysterio tries to get in some early offense using his Speedy Gonzales mojo, but Batista seems merely amused by his attempts and he flings Mysterio out of the ring. Mysterio bounces back in and they exchange shark-like grins before getting back to business. Batista avoids a 619 attempt; Mysterio gets hit with a big spear and barely beats the count back into the ring. Then they're at it again. 619 connects to Batista, but he comes back and avoids the next hit; Mysterio slides out of a Batista Bomb attempt, hits a hurricanrana, gets the pin and the win. After the match, Batista disagrees with the ref's three-count, arguing that he kicked out; but Batista eventually concedes, and he congratulates Mysterio before leaving the ring and heading up the ramp so Mysterio can celebrate by himself. Then Punk darts out of the crowd and hits Mysterio with the Go-To-Sleep; Batista runs back to the ring to avenge his little buddy, but Punk escapes back into the crowd. Devious little bastard.

End of show.

I'm looking forward to Raw tonight. :)

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report 10.12.09
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Raw 10/12/09
Brian Eison: Smackdown recap for 10/16/09 (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Smack 10/16/09

Weekly recap

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:39:14 GMT

I meant to post this over the weekend, but I didn't get a chance to until now. Here's what happened last week in the WWE.

Raw (Oct. 5)

Tonight's guest host: Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Oh man, here come the over-the-top football metaphors. Big Ben brought his entire offensive line with him as backup. His first idea of the night:

The Diva Bowl: Seems to be one huge tag team match, faces vs. heels. Mickie James cleans up. The good girls win.

And after that, here's Randy Orton. (splendory: "SEX is here :D" Oh yes, yes, he is. lyndasty: "But he just doesn't get the appropriate amount of worship befitting his sexiness. That's why WE'RE here!!") He makes a speech about how everybody expected him to cheat or need backup, but no, he just plain beat John Cena to win back his championship, thank you very much. And here's Cena himself. He wants a rematch -- but not just any rematch, he wants an Ironman match. For 60 minutes. Orton says ok, but further, if Cena loses he has to leave Raw. And it's going to be No DQ, No Countout. Cena accepts. Yee-haw! It's on for the next PPV. (Bones Barkley, on Cena: "He is this generation's Wile E. Coyote. I expect Orton to drop a piano on his head on the PPV and for Cena to overcome the ivory odds.") (Me and quite a few of the wwegirls are really looking forward to this. oth_leyton_love: "SIXTY MINUTES OF SEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY BRAIN IS FRIED" - lesson_in_love: "i might literally have a heart attack." On the other hand, if Cena actually leaves Raw? No more weekly Cena/Orton would make me very sad.)

Jack Swagger vs. Primo: Swagger promises to go undefeated for the rest of the year. And he delivers for tonight. Good. Now go away, Primo.

Backstage, Miz explains to Big Ben how he's The Miz and he's awesome. Miz wants a U.S. title shot tonight; Big Ben gives it to him, with the stipulation that if Miz loses, he has to tell everybody, "I'm the Miz, and I'm awful." Aw, Miz, you'd better not lose.

Chavo Guerrero & Chris Masters vs. MVP & Mark Henry: I'm still on the fence about Chris Masters. Still hoping the Kool-Aid twins will fade into oblivion. Alas, the Kool-Aid twins win the match. Afterwards, Chavo and Masters argue. Masters takes down Chavo and... Hornswaggle to the rescue? What?

After the commercial break, Big Ben is in the ring. Chris Jericho & Big Show come out to say hi, and Big Ben's offensive line comes out to look big and intimidating. Jericho makes some snide remark about how the WWE are Real Men and don't wear helmets and pads; Big Ben and his posse go to a huddle and come out ready to go. Show lines up against them... and then he decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and Show & Jericho bail out. Then here comes DX to the ring; from a safe distance, JeriShow exchange witty barbs with DX over the microphone, and Big Ben decides that tonight's main event will be DX vs. JeriShow. DX approves. To celebrate, Big Ben & co. do the crotch-chop with DX, complete with pyro. Wow, they are so cool (OMG, NOT).

Miz vs. Kofi Kingston, US championship: This match was totally awesome. Kofi puts up a good fight, but Miz finally wins. He gets the belt and looks like he might cry. Then he gets on the microphone and declares that he's the Miz and he's AWESOME. And the crowd totally says it with him! Go crowd! (And take that, Big Ben! :P)

Main event: JeriShow vs. DX: Jericho and Triple-H start things off. H doesn't dominate (YAY!); then he tags in Shawn Michaels and I enjoy some fond memories of the awesome Jericho-Michaels feud from last year. More tags, more back-and-forth. Finally DX team up on Show to knock him out of the ring, and then they turn to Jericho; Jericho isn't stupid, and he runs. Big Ben & co. make their appearance, all wearing DX t-shirts, to block Jericho's escape. Jerks. Michaels hits Sweet Chin Music and Triple-H gets the pin. Then Big Ben & co. and DX all get in the ring with their matching shirts and share some man-hugs and then they all do the crotch-chop-pyro routine again. They kinda look like a complete bunch of tools.

ECW (Oct. 6)

William Regal declared himself the interim manager and the new #1 contender to My Man Christian's ECW title. Christian and Zack Ryder come out to disagree. Then, GM Tiffany is back! And she's not ready to declare a new #1 contender, but she sets up some matches for the night, including Christian vs. Ryder in the main event.

Christian vs. Zack Ryder: Ryder is still rocking the half-pants. I still think they look incredibly weird. Before the match is over, Regal sends in his thugs, Jackson & Kozlov, to attack Christian; so Christian is declared the winner by DQ, but he doesn't get to enjoy his victory, seeing as he's laid-out in the middle of the ring. Ryder bitches at Regal about the DQ, so then Jackson & Kozlov take him out too, and we're left with the ominous image of Regal & co. standing tall in the ring over the fallen Christian & Ryder. Face turn for Ryder? Or just a new reign of terror by Regal? We'll see.

Smackdown (Oct. 9)

We open with Teddy Long, who gives a shout-out to John Cena: if Cena loses to Orton at the PPV and leaves Raw, Smackdown will welcome him with open arms.

Then CM Punk comes out to demand his title rematch against Undertaker on his own terms. Vince McMahon comes out to announce a Fatal Four-Way for the PPV: Undertaker vs. Punk vs. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio. Vince blames Teddy Long for this. I'm still waiting for Undertaker to confront Vince.

Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho: Back and forth for a while. Mysterio sets up and misses two 619 attempts before finally hitting the third, and he gets the win.

Michelle McCool vs. Eve Torres: Eve does OK, but McCool wins.

Backstage, Vickie Guerrero and her new boy-toy are snuggling in Teddy Long’s office when Teddy comes in. Vickie's new haircut is really horrible. She's not exactly Miss America, but her old long, layered hairstyle was kind of pretty, and I miss it. Vickie bitches at Teddy about how badly he's been treating everyone. So, is this going somewhere? Vickie's back and perhaps this will evolve into some ongoing storyline?

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler: Maria comes down and takes a seat to cheer for Ziggler. When the guys brawl out of the ring, she jumps up and backs out of the way; Ziggler grabs the chair she was sitting in and stashes it next to the ring. They get back to wrestling, and Maria reclaims her seat. Then Ziggler rolls over to the apron, looks for the chair and can't find it, and while Ziggler is distracted, Morrison gets up behind him and hits a flying kick and that's the end of the match. Morrison celebrates and heads out; Maria checks on Ziggler in the ring. Later, backstage, Maria wants to talk and Ziggler dumps her and leaves her in tears. I noted two things: Maria's hair is awesome, and she has really huge baby-doe eyes that make her look really young and adorable.

In the locker room, Batista and Mysterio discuss the upcoming PPV match. Batista is all, "Hell yeah, I'm gonna be the new champion!" and Mysterio is all, "But... I wanna be the champion." Hm, awkward. They smooth things over by making a mutual promise to remain BFFs no matter what happens at the PPV.

Kane & Drew McIntyre vs. Matt Hardy & R-Truth: The feud that started out of nowhere continues to progress in a similarly random fashion. Drew gets the pinfall on Matt for the win.

Undertaker comes out to make the longest speech I've ever heard from him. He admires his championship belt and says that he's going to collect the souls of all three of his opponents.

CM Punk vs. Batista: Punk looks crippled, hobbling to the ring like an arthritic old lady. Batista looks like he's going to win several times, but each time Punk squirms out of trouble. They end up outside the ring, and Batista goes for a finisher again, but Punk grabs the ropes and slides back into the ring just as the ref finishes the ten-count, and Batista loses by count-out. Punk smirks for a bit while Batista looks startled, and then Batista goes from startled to pissed and goes and nails a Batista Bomb on Punk.

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s Real-Time WWE RAW Report – 10.05.09
wwegirls: Girls Talk Raw 10/05/09
Brian Eison: Smackdown Recap for 10/09/09 (via Pulse Wrestling)

Hell In A Cell PPV results!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:25:25 GMT

Hell In A Cell (Oct. 4)

CM Punk vs. Undertaker, Hell in a Cell, World Heavyweight Championship: (lyndasty: "CM Punk can kiss my ass... Taker all the way baby!!" Amen, sister, amen.) Punk puts up a valiant effort, but Undertaker finally Tombstones him for the pin and the win. New champion! (I'm a little surprised, like dreamscarred: "Holy crap he won clean. I totally thought it would be Punk via another screw job.")

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler, Intercontinental Championship: Good match. Morrison wins it to keep the title. (alex_royale: "STARSHIP PAIN HAS LANDED!" LOL.)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are in the house! In one of the arena skyboxes. And they're dancing. LMAO!

Mickie James vs. Alicia Fox, Diva’s Championship: Nobody cares about Alicia Fox. Why is she getting the spotlight? Mickie wins it to keep the title.

Chris Jericho & Big Show vs. Batista & Rey Mysterio, Unified Tag Team Championships: (Batista/Mysterio bromance is back!) Jericho and Mysterio are going at it when Jericho tags in Show; Batista wants to tag in, but Mysterio's all, I got this! Show laughs at him. Show knocks Mysterio out of the ring, and drags him back in by the head. Jericho tags back in and tries to de-mask Mysterio (ah, continuity!), but Mysterio escapes and gets the tag to Batista, who clears the ring. The match continues. Eventually Mysterio sets up and hits the 619 on Show, then goes for another move but Show nails him in the head with his fist, and Match Over. (lyndasty: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! DAMN YOU BIG SHOW AND YOUR MAMMOTH HAMHOCKS FOR HANDS!!!!!") Jericho & Show keep the titles.

Scott Keith's read on this potential feud: "JeriShow are really clicking as champions now with the awesome dynamic of Jericho being the little guy hiding behind the big guy. Plus Batista/Rey have the dynamic of the little guy who REFUSES to hide behind the big guy and gets his ass kicked as a result." I almost agree with this; I'm not sure Jericho really hides behind Show. I mean, we've seen that Jericho is willing to stand up to Batista on his own. Regardless, it's an intriguing match-up.

John Cena vs. Randy Orton, Hell in a Cell, WWE Championship: (lesson_in_love read my mind: "can we please have handcuffs again? although laying around drooling while my best friend is sitting there would be slightly embarrassing." Yeah, it would be embarrassing. But the handcuffs were HOT.) They beat the shit out of each other for a while. Orton kicks Cena into the ref, who goes down, and then Cena locks on the STFU, and Orton taps, so Cena lets go, but the ref is in la-la land. Cena goes over to fetch the ref, and then turns around and gets hit with the RKO for a 2-count. Then Orton gets Cena wrapped up in the ropes and chokes him out. (saturniia: "Do you think they do it on purpose? Centon and the BDSM subtext, I mean?") Orton finally lets go, and the ref frees Cena, but Cena face-plants on the mat, out cold. When Cena finally starts to pick himself up, Orton punts him in the head and it's all over. The title goes to Orton again. (Please dear god don't let Triple-H come back into this title picture.)

R-Truth vs. Drew McIntyre: Does anybody really care? I don't. So far, this feud has not been compelling. Drew wins the match.

Backstage, Legacy congratulate Orton on his win, and they invite him to go out later to celebrate. Orton gives them some cautionary advice: win or lose, this is still Hell In A Cell and you don't just walk away from something like that. The boys give him some attitude, and Orton pulls the "I'm the champion so I know what I'm talking about" card. Dibiase & Rhodes aren't buying it; they're sick of being underestimated and they want some respect. (lyndasty: "Ooooh...bitchiness within Legacy!! I LOVE IT!!")

Kofi Kingston vs. Miz vs. Jack Swagger, US Championship: Chaos. Kofi wins it to keep the title.

Degeneration X vs. Legacy, Hell in a Cell: DX are making their big entrance, and Legacy sneak up on them from behind. DX gets the advantage; Rhodes goes after Michaels, Dibiase takes on Triple-H. Rhodes eventually grabs the chain off the cell door and uses it to take Michaels out at the knees. Triple-H is delivering a beat-down on Dibiase, and it's Rhodes to the rescue! He clobbers H with his fist wrapped in the chain. The tables are turned; H gets double-teamed and whooped and they leave him out cold on the stage. Dibiase & Rhodes go back to the ring, shove Michaels in and lock the cell door behind them. Then, according to Scott Keith, Michaels "gets the everloving shit beat out of him for about 15 minutes." Eventually Triple-H gets up and realizes what he's missing, tries to get into the cell, and can't. Dibiase & Rhodes are excellent bullies, taunting H and continuing to manhandle Michaels. Triple-H admits defeat and leaves. (We all know he's going to come back and get in that cage!) Dibiase & Rhodes get back to destroying Michaels, and just when it looks like it's all over, Triple-H comes back with bolt cutters and chops his way into the cell (Honey! I'm HOME!!!) and takes over. H grabs the door chain and punches Dibiase with it, then hits a Pedigree. Michaels drags Dibiase out of the cell and they lock the door; Rhodes is on his own against DX. Rhodes gets taken out with a combo superkick/sledgehammer to the head, and DX gets the win. After the match, the cell lifts up and Dibiase goes to check on his BFF Rhodes, and gets hit with a superkick for his trouble. Aw, poor babies! (Scott Keith had one complaint: "This needed Shawn bleeding like a exploded tomato in the worst way." WWE, however, stuck to their TV-PG goal for this show. Lame. As Tony said: "If you’re gonna have a PPV called Hell In A Cell then you need to have some of the ol’ ultraviolence to go with it.")

End of show. I was quite pleased that Undertaker won, Morrison retained, Jericho/Show retained, Cena/Orton got it on!, and DX/Legacy was pretty sweet. This puts me in a pretty good mood. :) *happy thoughts*

Sources:
PK: Pulse Wrestling’s WWE Hell in a Cell Report
Scott Keith: The SmarK Q’n'D Rant for WWE Hell In A Cell 2009 (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Hell in a Cell

Weekly update

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:58:38 GMT

Here's what happened on ECW and Smackdown this week, leading up to the Hell In A Cell PPV.

ECW (Sept. 29)

William Regal opens the show, announcing that GM Tiffany had a car accident and won't be here, and that Regal himself will be running the show tonight. Sensibly, he's not allowed to make any decisions about the ECW title; however, unluckily for my man Christian, Regal sets up a 4-on-1 handicap match for tonight: Regal, Vladimir Kozlov, Ezekiel Jackson, and Zack Ryder vs. Christian. Whoa, this could go badly.

Later, backstage, Regal gets chewed out over the phone by the home office. He gets overruled, and the 4-on-1 match is now 4-on-4; Tommy Dreamer, Yoshi, and Goldust will be joining Christian's team. Aw, *phbbbtt*. :P Yay for Christian having friends in his corner, but I'm kind of a sucker for the pre-PPV heroic stand against lousy odds, e.g. John Cena's gauntlet match on Raw.

Just before the big match, Christian is seen rallying the troops backstage. He tells Tommy that they're going to war; he tells Yoshi that they need him to step up tonight; he finds Goldust and calls him a freak. LOL.

Match time. Lots of tagging in and out; everybody gets in on the action. After a while, things start to look bad for My Hero, but he manages to tag out; then the traditional all-in brawl happens, and Yoshi takes down Regal for the win. Go team. :)

Smackdown (Oct. 2)

For this show, I had the rare opportunity to introduce a friend of mine to WWE fandom. She seemed to enjoy the show, so I count it as a success.

It's Smackdown's 10th anniversary! A plethora of superstars are partying backstage.

Batista vs. Kane: It's a match. Batista wins.

Backstage, Michael Cole is a dumbass; Hornswaggle slaps Maria's ass; Finlay proposes a toast, but CM Punk shows up to interrupt and declare a new era of prohibition on Smackdown. Everybody looks at him like, "Are you delusional?" and then they get back to their drinks. (Finlay actually downed his shot in the middle of Punk's rant, which made me laugh.) Vickie Guerrero is also here. Then Santino makes an entrance dressed as Undertaker, scaring the crap out of Teddy Long in the process.

The Miz & Dolph Ziggler vs. John Morrison & Kofi Kingston: Jack Swagger is on commentary. Miz and Morrison are in the ring to start, which reminds me of how irritating I found Miz when he was tag partners with Morrison. The new Miz is way cooler. Miz and Ziggler get the win.

Backstage again. Chris Jericho and Big Show arrive, both wearing suits (yay!), to announce that they are the real stars here. Then somebody stumbles over to throw up on Jericho's shoes, and Jericho puts on the best totally-grossed-out face ever, while Big Show takes one look at the mess and dives off-screen for some sympathetic hurling.

The Rock does a long and fairly entertaining piece on video. He makes fun of Dolph Ziggler and CM Punk, admits that he's a little afraid of Undertaker, and states his intention to guest-host Raw one of these days. Yes, please!

Michelle McCool vs. Melina, lumberjack (lumberjill?) match for the women's championship: Melina is less irritating tonight, but still irritating. McCool wins it to keep the championship. (Granted, Beth Phoenix hit Melina when the ref wasn't looking, which set up McCool's final blow. Beth Phoenix needs another title shot.)

Backstage, Drew McIntyre introduces himself to the room at large as the future champion. This is R-Truth's cue to attack him. Drew doesn't look like much, but he does have a really cute Scottish accent.

Now for the main event.

Undertaker, John Cena, & DX vs. CM Punk, Randy Orton, & Legacy: Whoa, lots of eye candy to keep track of. I had trouble deciding who to watch at any given moment. Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a long moment of Meaningful Glaring at each other (ha!). Dibiase & Rhodes, rather than bowing out to Orton like they used to, are totally in this match for themselves. LOVE. After the traditional end-of-match brawl clears up, Orton is trapped like a rat, alone in the ring with the other team, and Undertaker hits the Tombstone for the win.

After the match, there's a flurry of confetti. Ooh, sparkly! Undertaker just seems irritated by it. Punk runs away, clutching his title belt like a teddy bear while Undertaker gives him a Meaningful Glare.

Sources:
Kevin Innarelli: ECW Real-Time Coverage for 9/29/2009 (via Pulse Wrestling)
Brian Eison: Smackdown Recap for 10/02/09 (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Smack 10/02/09

And tomorrow night, Hell In A Cell!

Weekly update: ECW, Smackdown, & Raw

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:07:29 GMT

I seem to be out of sequence here, leading up to the next pay-per-view. I think I might try to do a weekend post from now on, with special dispensation for PPVs. We'll see if I can stick to that schedule.

In the meantime, here's what happened since my last post.

ECW (Sept. 22)

Christian vs. Zack Ryder, ECW Championship: Sweet match. Christian wins it to keep the title. Ryder's wearing these weird half-tights, they're tights on one leg and just trunks on the other side. Eh. Christian is bringing the pretty, as usual, in his rough-and-tumble way. After the match, William Regal comes out to say that he's not done chasing the ECW championship. Christian gets tired of listening to Regal pontificate, lets fly with his fists, and Regal finally escapes to roll back out of the ring. I would like to point out that Christian is smoking hot, in general, and it just gets better when he turns on the intensity like this. Mmm-hmm.

Smackdown (Sept. 25)

CM Punk opens the show, being all smug and "I'm better than you." He demands that someone from the office come out, give him his due respect, and tell him who his next challenger will be. Some druids put on a processional, bringing a casket to the ring. Merry Christmas, Punk! After giving the casket a few good whacks with a handy chair, Punk opens it to find Teddy Long gift-wrapped inside. Punk makes fun of him, but gets him out of the casket, whereupon Teddy announces that Undertaker's submission move has been un-banned, and that Punk will face Undertaker for the championship at the next PPV; furthermore, Punk will face Undertaker tonight. Hmm, methinks Teddy had a nice long chat with Undertaker. I'm still waiting for them to confirm that Vince (or another McMahon, perhaps) is the real mastermind behind the Montreal conspiracy.

John Morrison & Finlay vs. Dolph Ziggler & Mike Knox: Ugh, they had to cram Finlay and Knox into this? Way to ruin the eye-candy factor. Morrison eventually hits Knox with his new finishing move, "Starship Pain" (I can't say that without a huge smirk), to score the win. Of course, he was set up by Finlay clobbering Knox with his shillelagh behind the ref's back, which just underscores why I dislike Finlay so much: he almost never wins without cheating. And he's supposed to be a face? Am I missing something? (Also, a sympathetic LOL moment -- upon Ziggler's entrance, lyssmich reported: "I just loudly yelled "I AM PERFECTIOOOOOON"...thinking I was home alone. Turns out I'm not." I get weird looks from my family all the time for stuff like that.)

Backstage, Punk has a chat with Vince McMahon. Punk is apparently concerned about Teddy Long's behavior tonight. Once again, it is implied but not stated outright that Vince has been behind all of this, but Vince shuts down that line of discussion and wishes Punk good luck tonight.

Batista vs. Big Show: Chris Jericho is ringside for moral support. While Batista and Show rumble back and forth, Jericho is really into this whole supporting-your-teammate thing, which I find just delightful. At one point during the match, Jericho tells the announcers that now Big Show is "The Animal" and demands that they pass that along to the audience. LOL. Finally, Batista gets the upper hand on Show and Jericho jumps into the ring, the ref catches him, and Batista wins by DQ. Sadly, Jericho & Show just got owned.

Some other stuff happens, and then Batista is backstage to challenge Jericho & Show for their tag titles, on behalf of himself and Rey Mysterio. To be decided at the next PPV, perhaps?

CM Punk vs. Undertaker: Punk starts the match by running around like a little girl to avoid Undertaker, but eventually they get down to business. They end up brawling outside the ring, and Punk escapes back to the ring just in time to beat the count-out, and thus wins the match. Punk grabs his title belt and runs up the ramp, getting some safe distance between himself and Undertaker before he stops to gloat.

End of show. My prediction: Punk keeps the title, but only through some further trickery. I'm still waiting for the McMahons to come into it.

Raw (Sept. 28)

Tonight's guest host: Al Sharpton. Um. Really? Well, we'll see how this goes.

MVP and Mark Henry are still rocking the matching red spandex as they host the "VIP Lounge" with the Rev. Sharpton. Chris Jericho and Big Show interrupt, so MVP asks the Rev to book Jericho & Show in a tag title match tonight; the Rev asks Jericho how he feels about that, Jericho doesn't care, and they're booked, up next!

Chris Jericho & Big Show vs. MVP & Mark Henry, for the unified tag team titles: Huge long match, almost 20 minutes. LOVE when Henry tossed Jericho and Show caught him -- GO TEAM!!! Jericho & Show win it. Thank you, WWE, we don't want to see Mark Henry and MVP as tag champions, that is 10 kinds of DO NOT WANT.

Other stuff happens: More Chavo-Hornswaggle crap. Randy Orton is so smoldering-hot that the interviewer's suit catches on fire (or not, maybe that was just my imagination going into overdrive); Orton discusses how things will go badly for John Cena tonight. Mickie James wins against Rosa Mendez.

Legacy comes out to talk shit about DX. Then DX put in their appearance. Dibiase & Rhodes bail out of the ring and into the crowd, so it's DX's turn to stand in the ring and talk shit about their opponents. What, no real action? I'm a little disappointed. On the plus side, hey, newsflash: Legacy is hot! Legacy doing nothing is better than no Legacy.

Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne: Swagger still has the U.S. title belt that he stole from Miz who stole it from Kofi Kingston last week. Heh. Also, hello Evan!, bringing the pretty wherever he goes. Tough match, but short; Jack tries to twist Evan's knee in ways it's not supposed to bend. Owie. Powerbomb to finish, and Swagger wins. While Swagger is telling the crowd how great he is, Miz comes down to assert his superiority (and wow, Miz is looking fine tonight in actual clothes, complete with a cute vest & tie); they get into a fistfight, and Kofi runs out to snatch back his title belt. Kofi smirks while Miz and Swagger look surprised and irritated. Hee!

Santino Marella & Hornswoggle vs. Chavo Guerrero & Chris Masters: I'm kind of on the fence about Masters; my knee-jerk response is to feel some revulsion (and I'm not sure why, either), but then I have to stop and admire his incredible-looking thighs. Anyway, the match: despite a valiant effort by Santino and Hornswaggle, they lose. Then Masters goes after Hornswaggle for good measure; suddenly Chavo looks uncertain, and then he runs over and decks Masters! Hornswaggle runs away and Chavo gets the hell out of the ring. Masters looks confused and angry, and Chavo just confused and shocked, like "WTF did I just do?" Could this be a face turn for Chavo? Hmm.

Stuff happens backstage with the Rev: Jillian Hall sings badly, the Bella twins are fangirls for the Rev, and the Rev sings better than Jillian. He's not the worst guest host we've had (*cough* Cedric *cough*).

Time for the main event.

Gauntlet match #1: John Cena vs. Chris Jericho: There are decent moves back and forth, but finally Jericho locks in his favorite submission hold. Cena grabs the bottom rope, the ref waves Jericho off, Jericho ignores the ref, the ref calls the match for Cena by DQ. Jericho doesn't let up, and...

Gauntlet match #2: John Cena vs. Big Show: Jericho is still sitting on Cena when Show comes in. Then Show proceeds to beat on Cena for a bit, while Jericho is jumping up and down at ringside and yelling encouragement. Teamy goodness. :) Cena manages to power up and bench-presses Show across his shoulders (srsly, Cena is a monstrous beast); Jericho hits him from behind and Show lands on top of Cena. The ref calls the DQ, so Cena wins again, but he looks pretty wasted at the moment, which I'm sure was the whole point.

Gauntlet match #3: John Cena vs. Randy Orton: Me and the girls I watch with are firmly on the slash bandwagon at this point, so YAY! Orton is looking for the kill. Cena is looking wasted, still. Then Orton gets into the ring, Cena starts smirking (that's HOT), and the steel cage descends! Orton freaks out and tries to run for it, but he's trapped. But wait, the door is open... Orton makes a break for it, and fights his way past Cena to escape! Cena follows him out; Orton makes like Spiderman and heads for the top of the cage. Cena is in pursuit. They have a face-off on top of the cage, and then "They GET IT ON! OH MY GOD!" (-Paul Mitchell, really, I love his phrasing sometimes!) Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment on Orton, and Orton is down for the count. Cena stands tall in victory.

(Apparently, Cena is not a fan of heights? This must have been a fun segment for him. They're up there pretty high.)

Hell in a Cell, here we come. As oth_leyton_love said, "DX/legacy and cena/orton in a cell on the same night. excuse me if i don't make it past sunday night."

Sources:
Kevin Innarelli: ECW Real-Time Report for 9/22/2009 (via Pulse Wrestling)
Brian Eison: Smackdown Recap for 9/25/09 (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Smack 09/25/09
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling’s WWE RAW Report - 09.28.09
wwegirls: Girls Talk Raw 09/28/09

Weekly-ish update: Smackdown and Raw

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:47:18 GMT

This weekend was bracketed by two shows with some really interesting things going on.

Friday: Smackdown!

Batista is back! To be honest, he's not my favorite anymore, but he was my instantly favorite wrestler when I first became a WWE fan. He will always have a special place in my heart. :)

That said, I loved it when Chris Jericho came out to bitch. Apparently, Jericho is The Face Of Smackdown, so everybody else can please step back in awed wonder. Batista disagrees. Spinebuster to Jericho! and the microphone goes flying. Shortly thereafter, backstage, Jericho has a little chat with Big Show. Jericho states that in his match against Batista later, he's going to show everybody what a REAL superstar can do. Their relationship cracks me up: Jericho is the egotistical, confident rockstar with a chip on his shoulder the size of New York, and Big Show is "whatever, dude, you need to relax." LOL. (Also, side-comment on Jericho's current look: Yay. I'm not a big fan of the trunks; I miss the tights. The suits look GOOD. And LOL at lyssmich's description of his "boy band hair.")

John Morrison vs. Mike Knox: I kind of zoned out here. I love looking at Morrison, really (who doesn't?), but this little feud with Dolph Ziggler just hasn't managed to capture my interest. The "Mister Ziggles" name-calling is amusing, but that's the best they can come up with? Really? Meh. And Mike Knox is brutish but otherwise boring. At any rate, Morrison wins and looks HOT. "Friday Night Delight," indeed.

Melina vs. Michelle McCool: McCool is selling her bad knee pretty hard with a big beefy knee brace and an exaggerated limp. Even if she's a heel now, I still admire her. Melina, however, I could do without. The high-pitched shrieks sound like an over-excited teeny-bopper at a teeny-bopper concert. However, she does have great hair. Melina wins the match.

There have been segments sprinkled throughout the show, regarding the Montreal Screwjob Take 2. At the top of the show, Teddy Long came in with a large contingent of security guys for company. Later, in an interview, the ref who called the match says that he knew what he did was wrong, but he did what he had to do to keep his job. Another segment showed Teddy Long and Vince McMahon having a discussion backstage. Vince asked why Teddy would double cross the Undertaker; Teddy was telegraphing that we should all point the finger at Vince, but Vince kept cutting him off whenever it sounded like Teddy was about to come out and say it. Vince finally demanded that Teddy give everyone an answer in the ring, and that it better be The Right Answer. (I would so very much love to see Undertaker go up against Vince McMahon. Undertaker is made of WIN.) In the ring, accompanied by his large contingent of security guys, Teddy launched into a long speech about how everything was indeed planned to make sure that Undertaker didn't win the championship (no way, really? I never would have guessed!) and that he's not proud of what he did, but he's got a family and he only did what he had to do to keep his job and he's Really Really Very Sorry and hopes that Undertaker can find it in his heart to forgive Teddy Long. No appearance by Undertaker yet. The security guys escort Teddy backstage to his limo; Teddy breathes a sigh of relief and asks the driver to get going... ominous silence from the driver... the divider rolls down... Surprise! Undertaker glares at Teddy over his shoulder and growls, "Buckle up, Teddy." AH HA HA!!! The limo sails away, spilling purple effects lighting and smoke, with poor Teddy locked in the backseat, flailing ineffectually and screaming for help. This kind of crazy shit is why I love WWE. :D

CM Punk is in the ring. (Is it weird that I almost always mis-type it "CM Puck"?) He won like he said he would, so He Told Us So. Also, America is over-medicated and we are all unworthy and "straight-edge means I'm better than you." Oh, well, that's nice to know. Thanks, Punk. (Is it also weird that Punk's big heel campaign strategy seems to be this straight-edge thing? He's anti-alcohol and anti-drug, so he's a bad guy? I can appreciate the heelish-ness of the "I'm better than you" slant, but I think that might be a little too subtle for small children.)

Cryme Tyme vs. the Hart Dynasty: I didn't like Natalya when she first came into the WWE, but now she seems kind of awesome. Cryme Time irritates me (black guys from the hood are "Cryme Tyme"? (a) geez, what great role models, and (b) learn how to spell). Therefore, go Team Hart! (Also, I'm digging the pink-and-black color scheme.) Team Hart wins the match.

Kane vs. Khali: I'm ready for this feud to be done. Kane loses by DQ when he goes after Khali with a chair, and continues the attack until he crushes Khali's leg with the steel steps. Ow. Kane seems pretty pleased with himself over this.

Charlie Haas vs. R-Truth: R-Truth is a no-show. Drew McIntyre strolls in, announces that R-Truth had an "accident" backstage and will not be appearing here, thus Haas wins by forfeit. McIntyre congratulates Haas and then takes him down. Maybe this will go someplace interesting, but not tonight.

Batista vs. Chris Jericho: They seem pretty evenly matched. Go Jericho! No interference from Big Show, per Jericho's earlier request backstage, and Batista finally wins it. Afterward, Big Show says Batista only got lucky; Big Show challenges him to a match next week.

End of show. So far, we seem to have a pretty clear separation between the Punk-Undertaker situation and everything else. I kind of hope it stays that way, because I am totally suckered into seeing how this turns out.

Monday: Raw

Tonight's host: Cedric the Entertainer. Nice.

To start, "Are You Ready?!" *sigh* (teddysbabymama: "DX? Sure, I'm ready! But only because it most likely means it's TEDDY TIME!!!" Agreed! Yes, please!) DX is so cornball and so inappropriate. I have to roll my eyes at DX's "World's Biggest Member" shirts every time I see them. They brag about their Hell-in-a-Cell prowess; they promise us that they are going to END Legacy at the PPV. And now we get the flipside of last week's Dibiase-vs-Michaels match:

Triple-H vs. Cody Rhodes: They go back and forth, Triple-H actually sells an almost-ass-kicking by Cody. Hooray. Then Triple-H gets the upper hand again, Dibiase and Michaels get into a little tiff outside the ring (good-bye announce table, Go Ted!!!), and then Dibiase returns the favor from last week by going after Triple-H with a chair and thus causing Cody to lose the match by DQ. Ted & Cody team up to deliver some whoop-ass on Triple-H until Michaels chases them off with H's sledgehammer.

Evan Bourne vs. The Miz: Evan gets a real match again? Finally! YAY! Some real action to go along with the pretty. Mmm, I am appreciative. Pretty good match, fun to watch, and Miz wins it in the end.

Backstage, Randy Orton graciously tells Ted & Cody that they can have the rest of the night off in return for their hearty efforts against DX. Then Orton goes out to the ring for his Hell-in-a-Cell contract signing with John Cena. Jerry Lawler thoughtfully declares that Cena and Orton are off-limits to each other for this signing, so instead they exchange some heated and vaguely dirty-sounding taunts. (I am doomed. I don't think I'll ever again be able to watch Orton & Cena without the slash factor tinting my view. Thanks, wwegirls, for corrupting me. oth_leyton_love: "oh god. they aren't even touching and it feels like live porn xD seriously." lesson_in_love: "I don't even GET how they have so much sexual tension. It's pretty ridiculous.") Cena cues up a video recap on the big screen of the kinky handcuffed submission match from the last PPV, complete with Orton's grand "I Quit!" moment at the end. Orton is not amused (teddysbabymama: "lol randy's tantrum, kicking the chair."). Cena makes some more thinly-veiled dirty remarks. (They have to be doing this on purpose. This is just overt feeding of the slash devil.) Orton says that he'd love to RKO Cena through the table right now, but since he's not allowed to (and since when do you kowtow to the authority figures, Randy?), he's invited some friends to step in for him. Out come Jericho and Big Show (it makes me happy that we get to see Jericho so often!); Show throws the table out of the ring and it's on. Then MVP and Mark Henry (ugh) come to Cena's rescue. Cedric the Entertainer decides to set up a six-man tag match for later this evening.

Mickie James vs. Beth Phoenix: Alicia Fox is ringside to observe, which just reminds me of how irritated I am that she has a title shot. Beth wins the match.

Kofi Kingston vs. Jack Swagger, for the U.S. championship: They fight, and then Miz comes out and grabs the title belt, and Swagger goes after him, knocks him down, and takes the title for himself. The ref ends the match, no winner.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Cedric the Entertainer: OMG. Somebody really hates Chavo. Bullshit ensues with a fake Cedric and Hornswaggle, and then the real Cedric pins Chavo. Well, that sucked. Paul Marshall: "Seriously. F*** this s***."

Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, & Big Show vs. John Cena, MVP, & Mark Henry: Jericho cooked up some extra fun for Orton & Cena: loser has to go through a gauntlet match. Orton seems kind of irritated by this. Match starts: Cena gets into trouble early on, then gets the tag to MVP, who gets in a couple of moves on Jericho for an attempted pin before he gets into trouble himself. Then Henry's in to clean house, but in all the mess Orton hits the RKO on Henry (HA! Yay!) and gets the pin and the win. Cena will have to run the gauntlet next week.

End of show. Lots of crap, but kind of balanced out by pretty Evan, Ted & Cody getting another one over DX, and entertaining tension between Orton & Cena. And Jericho, because really, he's always a good thing.

This was Lilian Garcia's final Raw. I'm going to miss her awesome voice and spiffy outfits.

--

Sources:
Brian Eison's Smackdown Recap (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Smack!
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling's WWE Raw Report
wwegirls: Girls Talk Lilian's Final Raw

Mid-week WWE update: Raw & ECW

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:41:24 GMT

More fun with Orton; Trish Stratus hosts; Batista returns; my dream tag teams; and more!

Sources:
Paul Marshall: Pulse Wrestling's WWE RAW Report
Andy Wheeler: For Your Consideration…Stratusfaction Guaranteed
wwegirls: Girls Talk Raw with 20 Time World Champ
Matthew Michaels: ECW Real-Time Coverage

Monday night Raw:

Batista is here! Aw, I love him, but he's starting to look his age. And his arm is still in this huge brace. It sounds like he might be working up to a retirement announcement, and Orton comes out to talk smack, and then Batista rips the brace off -- surprise! He's back, and he's making the jump to Smackdown, and tonight he gets one last match against Orton: No Holds Barred. Ooh. (Think what you want about Batista moving to SD, but it makes sense: their big stars have been dropping like flies, e.g. Edge, Mysterio, Jeff Hardy. They're a little light on established main-eventers at the moment.)

Trish Stratus. I get the impression that the fans have been looking forward to her appearance, but I didn't start watching until after she retired. What gives? Was she just that awesome? The Toronto crowd is into it, but she's Canadian, so that's to be expected. She makes fun of Jericho getting owned by Bob Barker last week. Hee. :)

Kofi Kingston & Primo vs. Miz & Jack Swagger:
Is it just me, or does Primo need to go away? He's irritating, not cute, and his music sucks. (Andy Wheeler seems kind of irritable in his recap, but he made me laugh here: "Primo has new and incredibly crappy theme music. Just when you thought he couldn't suck more donkey balls.") On the other hand, I can't really hate this match because Mr. "I'm Awesome" himself is here! And Miz & Swagger win, yay! I'm still digging Miz's new look.

Gail Kim vs. Alicia Fox, #1 contender match for the women's championship:
What? Are you kidding me? Where's Beth Phoenix? Gail Kim is ok, but Alicia Fox? Has done nothing to impress me whatsoever. Alicia Fox wins. This is crap.

Ah, here we go, Beth Phoenix storms into Trish's office backstage to give her a well-deserved bitching-out. Beth wants to know why she wasn't in the match. Before Trish can come up with a snappy comeback, as Andy Wheeler says, "a hurricane of awesome blows into the room in the form of Chris Jericho." YES. Beth and Jericho are totally ganging up. I love it! Trish decides to schedule a tag match tonight: her and a partner of her choosing, vs. Beth & Jericho. YES! Pretty please will Christian be here? PLEASE???

Legacy comes out to brag about their win against DX. Cody steals Triple-H's "Are You Ready" line -- LOVE. He has an incredibly sexy voice, which makes the lisp that much more adorable. Ted looks gorgeous as always. Backstage, DX looks pissed.

Ted Dibiase vs. Shawn Michaels:
YAY!!! Ted opens up a can of whoop-ass. I approve. They go back and forth in the ring while Triple-H and Cody glare at each other outside the ring. Finally Michaels looks for Sweet Chin Music, but Cody grabs his leg to pull him off-balance, the ref calls the DQ, and they all start brawling. Triple-H throws Cody into a camera -- poor cameraman.

My thoughts on the match: I want to know if Ted is going to take this as "Cody cost me the match" or "my BFF saved me from getting kicked in the head." Or both? I keep hearing that Teddy's going to turn face, but I haven't really seen any solid groundwork for that yet. Cody, however, has been firmly set in a heel role. We'll see what happens. Andy Wheeler had this to say about Sunday's PPV: "this progressed what I talked about last month; Legacy getting the job done while Orton falters. Let those seeds of dissention begin to grow."

Hornswaggle & Evan Bourne vs. Chavo & Carlito:
I am so ready for this Hornswaggle-Chavo feud (if it can even be legitimately called that) to be over and forgotten. I was ready for it to be over with their first match. Hornswaggle is entertaining, sure, but let's not pretend that he belongs in the ring with these guys. Chavo's a decent wrestler and he doesn't deserve this kind of stupid ritual humiliation. After losing, Chavo finally declares "I Quit!" Please let this be the end of it, PLEASE!!! P.S. Rosa (formerly known as Beth Phoenix's #1 Fan) accompanied Carlito & Chavo to the ring in a black leather minidress and really cute black ankle boots. Rosa is HOT.

Backstage, Cena discusses Sunday's PPV match and sets up the Cena vs. Orton hell-in-a-cell for next month's PPV (splendory: "WOOO!!!! Yes Centon hell in a cell sex match" - oth_leyton_love: "or sex in a cell. same thing"). With the raving over-the-top slash overtones dancing through my head, this whole thing just took it further. I was rolling on the floor laughing, with really dirty mental images skipping through my head (lesson_in_love: "As long as there's handcuffs, you can do anything you want at HiaC, Johnny."). I have decided that Cena & Orton would make the BEST TAG TEAM EVER: kicking ass and glaring at each other meaningfully. And doing unmentionable things behind the scenes.

Jericho & Beth Phoenix vs. Trish & ... MVP. Srsly? Such a let-down.
MVP irks me. He's not as cool as he thinks he is. Also, WTF? I wanted Christian! ... Anyway. Match: bleh. Beth Phoenix is AWESOME and Jericho is a great tag partner! LOVE! MVP is meh. Trish is ok, but she's so tiny compared to Beth that Beth really could have just squished her like a bug. (No offense to any Trish fans, but seriously, look at Beth Phoenix. She can probably squish most of the women in the WWE.) Big Show comes out to help and gets the match DQ'ed. Trish gets pissed and decides to make it a 3-on-3 match, re-starting immediately. Cue Mark Henry. (Am I the only one who thinks "ew, gross!" every time he shows up? MVP & Mark Henry might be one of the worst face teams EVER.) Trish & company win the match. Whatever, lame. However, LOL at Beth bitching out MVP! And I LOVED how well Beth & Jericho & Show worked as a team; they were looking out for each other and fighting dirty and everything. LOVE!!! More, please?

Batista vs. Randy Orton:
Batista seems to have some anger he'd like to work out here. They beat on each other some, Randy decides he's had enough and heads out, but then Cena puts in an appearance and Orton looks like he can't decide which death he'd prefer. Eventually he heads back toward Batista and gets powerbombed for his trouble; pin, 3-count, end of match. End of show.

Tuesday night ECW:

I'll be honest, I really don't care about anything on ECW except Christian. Please, WWE, move him to one of the other shows, it will make my life so much easier.

10-Man Battle Royale, #1 contender for ECW championship:
We have Shelton Benjamin, Kozlov, Ezekiel Jackson, Tommy Dreamer, Goldust, Tyler Reks, Sheamus, Yoshi, Paul Burchill, and Zack Ryder. Eh. Tommy Dreamer has crowd favor on his side; Kozlov & Jackson have the recent feud; William Regal was neatly cut out of things earlier in the evening by GM Tiffany. Shelton Benjamin is still made of awesome. Zack Ryder wins it. I thought we were getting Christian & Dreamer vs. Kozlov & Jackson -- but no. No Christian whatsoever. I feel totally gypped. Not cool, ECW, totally not cool.

Breaking Point PPV results!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:11:23 GMT

Sources:
Paul Marshall: WWE Breaking Point Report (via Pulse Wrestling)
wwegirls: Girls Talk Breaking Point Without John Morrison

Big Show & Jericho vs. MVP & Mark Henry, for the unified Tag Team titles:
They go back and forth. Nothing really notable happened. Jericho & Show get the win. HA. Yay. :)

Miz vs. Kofi, for the U.S. championship:
Kickass match! They both looked awesome (no pun intended), but Kofi won the match.

DX vs. Legacy, "falls count anywhere" submission match:
Dibiase has a black eye and a "busted ear" (not sure what that means); the wwegirls are all over it because he's Dibiase and we love him. Somebody mentioned that there's a subway right under the arena, so this match could end up... anywhere? Imagine how awesome that would be!

To start the match, they brawl all over the place; forget tagging in and out, it's a free-for-all, and the refs are just following them around keeping track of the action. They dive into the crowd and chase each other through the stands out to the concourses. Ha, Rhodes stepped on Michaels' head! They beat the hell out of each other some more, eventually end up back down at the ring. This is actually going back and forth pretty evenly. Then Triple-H hits a spinebuster on Dibiase through a table, then goes after Rhodes, but Dibiase to the rescue -- he knocks Triple-H silly with a water cooler to the head! And Rhodes clobbers H with a chair! This is excellent. Legacy teams up again to go after Michaels and beat on him some, then Michaels hits Sweet Chin Music on Rhodes, and it looks bad, but then Dibiase to the rescue again! Rhodes takes a header into the ring post and Michaels & Dibiase face off. Dibiase goes for a big move on Michaels, but Michaels gets out of it, only for Rhodes to catch him at the ring post. Rhodes locks in a Figure 4 on Michaels on the ring post! DiBiase locks in another killer hold! Triple-H tries to get back in time to save Michaels, but MICHAELS TAPS! OMG YESSSSS!!! LEGACY TEAMWORK FOR THE WIN!!! Paul Marshall: "I don’t care what anyone says: A+."

After the match, some upset DX fan throws their glow sticks at Dibiase. LOL.

Kane vs. Khali, Singapore cane match (they beat on each other with sticks):
Nobody really cares. Kane wins.

Christian vs. William Regal, for the ECW championship:
To start, Kozlov and Ezekiel are banned from ringside. Boo-yah. Go Christian! Nothing extraordinary happens; it's a clean match, Christian survives some awesome-looking throws and gets the win. Kickass! YAY HOTTIE!

Orton vs. Cena, submission match for the WWE championship:
(Even before it starts, the wwegirls are getting all hot & heavy with anticipation. rkowhore79: "ok. yeah. sex times. brb. no commenting. too..stimulated.")

The match starts. Yowzer. Beating the crap out of each other with any and all ringside props (chairs, ring posts, table, stairs, etc.). OMG, Orton comes up with a set of handcuffs and cuffs Cena to the turnbuckle (learningforever: "Oh god, this is going to get very kinky, very fast." I'm glad somebody said it so I didn't have to!) and Orton doles out some punishment. (teddysbabymama: "mmmm...scandalous" - oth_leyton_love: "OH SHIT RANDY. THAT'S NC-17 not PG." - teddysbabymama: "omg!!!!!!!!!!!!!! kiss already!!" - rkowhore79: "ohgoddddddddddddddd john's screamsssssssss. it's just like i wrote it. oh god. this is all too much. i'm ded.") Eventually Cena grabs the keys back from Orton, gets one of his hands loose and locks the free cuff around Orton's wrist (!!! and they wonder where the slashers get their ideas??? rkowhore79: "this is the sexiest thing i've ever seen.") Cena gets the upper hand and locks on his favorite submission hold (omg, my brain is so in the gutter), and Orton taps out!

Bah. Well, maybe he can go start another interesting feud instead of getting stuck with Cena and/or DX every week.

Paul Marshall: "I can’t buy Cena beating Orton quickly after being raped for 15 minutes with handcuffs and kendo sticks." Wow, he actually said that. Some parting gems from wwegirls: lyssmich: "I feel dirty after watching that. lol" - rollofquarters: "Don't you just love it when the fan fiction writes itself?" - oth_leyton_love: "it was 20 mins of the hottest porn i've ever seen. and they were clothed. WTF." Ah, the slasher fangirls are getting their kink on tonight, LOL!

Punk vs. Undertaker, submission match for the heavyweight championship:
Some big moves go back and forth, it's a pretty good match. Undertaker finally locks in his killer hold and Punk taps out! Undertaker is the winner and new champion! ...But wait, here comes Teddy Long to remind us that Vickie Guerrero banned that hold a while back, and that decision was never reversed. Whoa, continuity! So... they restart the match. They go back and forth a few more times, and Punk locks in his submission hold, and the bell rings but Undertaker NEVER TAPPED! You have got to be kidding me! Screwjob!!! The referee and Punk run away. Teddy Long seems to be in on this. Undertaker looks seriously pissed. (And rightfully so!)

End of show. Dude.

So... I can be on-board with the Orton-Cena thing. Wow. That was hot. Totally kinky and weird and hot. *must cleanse brain of dirty thoughts*

Mission statement and disclaimers

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:39:56 GMT

For a while now, I have been composing a weekly(-ish) e-mail digest, for just a few friends, of any and all things in the wide world of WWE which have caught my interest. I have finally decided to go public.

Generally, I only cover the things that I care about or find pertinent to an interesting storyline. I have very firm opinions on which characters I like and dislike; I am aware that these people are indeed playing characters for an audience, and I am pretty well able to separate my opinions of the people from my opinions of their characters.

That said, my fangirling tendencies may or may not align with yours. Feel free to disagree, but any inappropriately derogatory comments or flames will be ignored and deleted.

Currently, my fangirling tendencies are as follows.

Love: Christian; Chris Jericho; Edge; Randy Orton; Batista; Ted Dibiase Jr.; Cody Rhodes; John Cena; Evan Bourne; Undertaker; Miz; John Morrison; Beth Phoenix.

Love to hate: CM Punk; Triple H; Shawn Michaels (of course, when they team up as DX I find them generally amusing, but I still boo them as loud as I can); Dolph Ziggler; MVP (but only as a heel -- see explanation below); Chavo Guerrero.

Please go away: MVP (as a face -- he's just not as cool as he thinks he is, and the "ballin' elbow-drop" is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen); Mark Henry; Finlay; Melina.