Lets start off with this week's WWE RAW, coming off what many have been calling the best booked episode of RAW all year.
The opening segment went a long way to help mould the lines that have been metaphorically blurred from last weeks alliance between the heels and faces of the brand. Chris Jericho is still very good on the mic, and although he always comes off well, the 'hypocrites and parasite' lines have been so over used by him over the last year that they barely gathered any cheap heat at all last night. John Cena was okay, his voice does grate on me at times, constantly either being really hyperactive or really mellow. He need's an extra dimension in the way that he uses the mic, but overall, the segment (bar the ridiculous interruption by the 'Anonymous' GM) did what it set out to do.
I assumed the Randy Orton vs Jey Uso match was going to be a squash, and it was...kind of. Uso managed a small amount of offense but in the end it was obvious to everyone that Orton was going to come out on top. I thought the rKo on Shaemus was obvious but I love the fact they teased another Miz cash in only for it to be foiled again by Orton. Very good close to a short match.
The Nexus' match against the RAW lower card (bar Evan Bourne) was okay, not great. It had its moments, I just don't think they did a very good job of protecting the one man (Bourne) who has been getting a good push recently. The match ended very quickly when it was him by himself. An okay promo by Nexus to finish off the segment, although Skip Sheffield still doesn't sound too good on the mic, and Otunga's spinebuster still looks sloppy and horrible.
By now, I choose not to waste my breath on the Diva's segments.
Ted DiBiase getting a win against John Morrison was quite a shock for me, although it did go quite far to further the implosion of Cena's group angle.
The main event was good, Shaemus and The Miz actually make quite a good team. Was nice to finally see The Miz in a main event, and, even more than that, win it. He looked strong, and picked up the sneak win after Jericho's turn on Cena. The Miz looks like a true main event player and deserves a title at some point. The last scene in the show did well to bring it to a close, having all of Cena's group in conflict.
A good RAW this week, not quite as good as last week, but still strong in the places that it needed to be. Nexus still look like the undefeatable stable and Orton is still the most over thing in the WWE right now.
Moving onto TNA iMPACT last Thursday.
Wow! AJ Styles is in the elite group of pro wrestlers that have held the Global Championship. A proud day for pro wrestling? Probably not. AJ Styles is one of the two best things about TNA right now and to bog him down with the Global Title is ridiculous. But on the plus side, at least the 'Walking Wellness Policy' violator Rob Terry no longer holds gold. And, the relationship between AJ and Kaz has been very entertaining these last few weeks. Here's hoping that AJ can bring some prestiege to that belt. But it looks like its going the same way as the WWF European title...in the bin.
On any given normal week, I would praise the Knockout Division for making the women of TNA look awesome. This week however I have to be critical. The clusterf**k surrounding the Knockout's title has me confused. So now they have stripped Angelina Love of the title and given it back to Madison Rayne because they couldn't prove who the biker was at Victory Road. Why not just strip her of it at the PPV? I don't get it. Okay tag match with The Beautiful People (bar Velvet 'smoking hot' Sky) running off with the mystery motorcyclist. Weird.
Kurt Angle vs Hernandez was a very good match. Big man against a technician. Wrestling 101 here with Angle wanting to move up the TNA rankings. Angle went over clean, as expected but made Hernandez look very credible. Good simple stuff from TNA.
The Kevin Nash/Jarrett segment was a little idiotic in my opinion. I did get a laugh out of the 'log in the punch bowl' remark, but other than that, if they are building to a Nash vs Jarrett at HardCORE Justice then, well...its going to be a long match.
Jeff Hardy vs the second best thing about TNA right now, Samoa Joe was excellent. Another PPV match on free TV. I know they have to make the best of it all, but seriously, Jeff Hardy vs Samoa Joe is a good feud that they could easily pull off. The whole time limit draw thing was okay with me, but was I the only one who noticed that this match was the only match to have that stipulation? Talk about spoling the end of the match before you have even started. And why did JB count down from twenty at the end? Poor booking to what was a truly excellent match up.
Matt Morgan vs Mr Anderson was an okay match. I am really enjoying Anderson in TNA at the moment and the 'Asshole' gimmick is really getting over.
Another good match from Beer Money and the Motor City Machine Guns in their best of five series. THis time it was a street fight at the discretion of Beer Money, who came out victors again to put themselves up 2-0 in the series. I wonder who is winning the next two matches between these two awesome teams??? hmmm
Finally Dixie Carter's announcement ended up turning into another group of ex-WWE guys shitting all over Vince McMahon and the 'legacy' it destroyed with the newer WWECW. Dreamers tears looked about as real as a hookers fake orgasm (apologies if they were real) and now they have systematically made TNA all about ECW. Not such a bad thing to try and attract a new audience but the old ECW faithful are now mostly in their late 50's and looking at Raven, Dreamer and Co. they are not far behind. A bit too nostalgic for me when you could be giving the time to guys like AJ Styles and Ken Anderson. Also hearing through the dirt sheets that the ECW faction in TNA is now to be called EV2.0 which stands for Extreme Version 2.0. I'm not going to say anything. There's no point.
Overall a good showing by TNA in the wrestling department, I always enjoy watching Styles, Joe, Angle and Anderson in featured matches, but in TNA's case it's 'what they do, they do well, but what they do badly, they do terribly'. Wrestling was very good, segments were still very poor.
That's me for this week, will be back next week for another round of reviews, thanks for reading.
