A Super British Point of View
by Martyn Nolan
Here are all my thoughts over the past week of WWE television compacted into one SUPER article! Sound familiar? Well I realise that this past week wasn’t exactly super but it was again a solid effort in keeping everything moving and displaying some good action in-between those ropes!
Let’s take a look at some of the events of the most recent shows…
Friday Night Smackdown 26th August 2011
The opening of this show was Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart. Being on a taped show seemed an obvious choice for Bret as we all know he’s not exactly comfortable on the mic, especially to a live audience. The one thing that did impress me about this segment was Mark Henry. He only had a small role in this but he looked far more comfortable on the mic than he has in recent years.
Daniel Bryan had a great match with Christian and shows that pound for pound he is one of the company’s top talents. Another loss for Bryan seems to becoming a big theme and something I will look into in more detail shortly.
Randy Orton faced Ted DiBiase. This match proved to me that DiBiase is being underutilized and can hang with some of the big boys in the ring. The match was well paced and the finisher attempts were inventive and entertaining.
Cody Rhodes betrayal on Ted DiBiase seemed to be lining up for Ted to challenge for the Intercontinental Championship. Hopefully a strong, fresh rivalry could bring some needed attention back to this championship.
Kelly Kelly continued to show her improvement in the ring when she faced Tamina and the match was a lot better than it looked on paper.
Ezekiel Jackson has finally moved away from looking like this generations Ahmed Johnson as he has started to wear black trunks! Shame that the match between him and Khali couldn’t have been better booked. I can appreciate Jackson’s show of strength by getting Khali on to his shoulders for the torture rack but he struggled to hold him up there and the move looked uncomfortable for Khali rather than painful.
Sheamus faced Mark Henry and one thing I must point out is the awesome gorilla press turned into the DDT, full credit to both men as this was an impressive display!
Overall this Smackdown was fairly generic in its story telling but the in ring action made it an enjoyable effort.
WWE Super RAW
The show was opened by our usual entrance from Triple H. He informed us about a match between Kevin Nash and CM Punk. The segment was then thrown into usual Punk mode when he decided to simulate the act of vomiting in the ring… for nearly 3 minutes! A move which genuinely looked to bother Triple H. Some cruel and harsh remarks (But very true remarks I must say) regarding Kevin Nash’s knees were made by Punk and more buttons were pushed with Punk’s usual calling of Stephanie McMahon. The segment was another example of moving a story along slowly but enough to keep your interest.
Orton then had a match with Dolph Ziggler. This was another example (same as Smackdown) that Ziggler is well capable of being pushed into the main event scene. It’s nice to see such good matches which give credit to the up and comer and also keep credibility with the champion. We all fully expected Randy Orton to win these matches but he managed to put over his opponent with accurate and well executed techniques, my hats off to these gentlemen.
RAW had other matches but I must say that I didn’t really take much of an interest to a lot of it. None of it was particularly appalling but it didn’t have the same drive as other shows. The end segment where Triple H revealed himself to be CM Punk’s opponent was all well and good but it didn’t make much sense to go back to John Cena celebrating in the ring. The show could have quite easily been finished with Punk and Triple H having a stare down.
WWE Super Smackdown:
Aired Live on Tuesday night this show seemed to be RAW version 2. John Cena and Wade Barrett was the opening match and they were officially classed as one of the double main events. The match didn’t feel like a main event and Cena obtained the victory over Barrett far too easily in my eyes. We have just looked at how Randy Orton can put his opponents over yet Cena doesn’t seem to be able to carry his opponents in the same manner, disappointing to say the least.
Daniel Bryan and Sin Cara had a good match and Bryan lost again. Daniel Bryan is now on a losing streak which can be compared to John Morrison’s recent return. I do however feel this part of his direction. Whether were going to get a heel turn from Bryan or whether they are trying to make him less of a threat to make a cash in feel more shocking is unknown but it is slightly worrying at how long they can keep having him lose cleanly to people without damaging his reputation.
Then we had a segment where Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne were talking about winning the tag team titles. They mentioned their tag team name and it is Air Boom! Air Boom!? Seriously!? Really? Really? REALLY!? (Sorry but you know that Miz would react in the same way!) One of the podcasts I was listening to recently described it as a term a mother would use for their newborn baby when they farted and now I cannot get this image out of my mind! Thank you!
Beth Phoenix got the pin fall victory against Alicia Fox in a Divas tag team match and I think this was quite important as Beth has seemingly lost some momentum after her match at SummerSlam and hopefully this will lead in to a more directed programme for Night of Champions.
We had the Contract signing between CM Punk and Triple H and although you could see many mistakes being made with both of them cutting each other off and certain sentences not leading into the next point they wanted to make, I felt the segment did quite well to continue to move this story along. We had Nash interfere and push Triple H over so it will be interesting to see how this plays out on RAW tonight.
The (Not so) Great Khali has got his evil music back! That’s enough said about that one.
Jinder Mahal also got his ass handed to him by Sheamus and I’m not exactly sure where this leaves him now. I’ve never really got the direction they were going in with this angle and hopefully this might signal some closure and possibly a new direction for this man?
Randy Orton and Christian faced off in a Steel Cage for the World Heavyweight Championship. The match was again, a solid encounter between two solid performers. The match had plenty of high points and considering this is the 6th meeting between the two in recent months I am still impressed that they have managed to provide something different in each match. The result seemed obvious and with Henry getting involved at the end I’m unsure as to where this leaves Christian. He can feud with Sheamus but it wouldn’t surprise me if he ended up in the world title picture and Christian falls down the card.
That completes what was 9 hours’ worth of wrestling action within 5 days. It wasn’t all great but some of the matches which were put on display was well worthy of a PPV performance. I’m hoping the story continues tonight on RAW and this brand unification can be used right to give storylines the right amount of time to build in to what could be a fantastic Night of Champions PPV.
Did you enjoy this past week’s action? Are you bothered about tonights RAW or do you think WWE is dropping the ball? Email me at [email protected] or get in touch via Twitter at @BeansOnToastUK
Martyn.
