ROH in Liverpool Night 1

03/03/2007

So this is the second ROH event I’ve attended and this show had a lot to live up to given we had McGuiness/Danielson Pure and World title unification match. On paper the card seems very good and I’m sure the crowd will be hot so it should make for a good show.

Doors open at five so I figured if I get there for quarter to I’ll be queuing for twenty minutes max. Quarter to six we started moving and by five to six I was inside. It’s a damn good job it wasn’t raining and the entertainment of a couple of kids wrestling and having a football match with a lucozade bottle made the hour pass by pretty quickly. They say queuing is the Great British pastime; I can see why that’s true because there was no problems whatsoever with people trying to push in, this is very unlike Disneyworld where non-Brits don’t get the concept of a queue.

Once inside I was able to get a couple of pints (in plastic cups) down me and after chatting to a few fellow fans half six rolled round and it was bell time. So I took my very good third row seat and waited for the action to start,

Davey Richards vs Homicide
Davey came out first to a decent reaction but the notorious 187 blew his reaction out of the water. They had a decent opening match which consisted of both guys doing a lot of moves on each other. Homicide did a dive into the crowd (opening match!) to a big pop. This was not the most technically sound match in the world but the crowd were really behind Homicide and Julius Smokes comedy, including after a young lad if he had a knife on him, made it a pretty entertaining match. Homicide won after hitting the Cop Killah.

Shimmer Special Attraction Match: Sarah Del Ray vs Alison Danger
Why do the words ‘special attraction’ put sadness into the hearts of wrestling fans? With no offence to the women, they tried very hard, but nobody came to see this. Yes, we clapped at the appropriate times and remained in our seats rather than taking a toilet break but nobody gave a crap about this. Sarah won.

Colt Cabana & BJ Whitmer vs Jimmy Jacobs & Jimmy Rave
One name does not fit and it was abundantly clear. Colt is miles ahead of the three other guys in this match. It started off with crowd brawling and Colt throwing Jacobs into the rail and then BJ giving his a powerbomb onto it. That was absolutely stupidly ridiculous by young Jimmy. They then did the most annoying thing in wrestling history; after a brawl it turned into a regular tag match. I hate that. The heels had the heat on BJ and the highlight was Colt screaming “stretch” when BJ was in their corner. Eventually he got the hot tag and Colt did a double wacky comeback but it wasn’t enough as Jacobs was able to pin BJ to ensue victory for Team Jimmy. It wasn’t the best of matches but the crowd love Colt and he delivered so you certainly can’t fault him for that.

2 out of 3 Falls: Matt Sydal vs Delerious
I’ve had a go at Sydal before for being the most generic babyface ever but my god has he turned that to his favour. He’s now a great cocky heel who has that ‘why don’t you love me?’ type of face. This was a really good match and the crowd were totally into both guys although Delerious was the guy they loved. Sydal was doing some old school heel spots like using Delerious’ ribbon things to choke him and then claming it was part of his own attire. Sydal won the first fall with a low blow and roll up and Delerious evened things up tapping Matt. It went back and forth through the final fall until Sydal was able to hit the Sydal press for the three. I though this would be a total spotfest with my opinion on Matt Sydal but he managed to flip my thoughts 180 degrees and I look forward more from him.

We got a brief interval where two more beers were consumed and more chat with a crazy Fin ensued. After the interval two British women wrestlers, Jetter and Eden Black, got in the ring and tried to cut an American promo challenging the two Shimmer girls to a match the next night.

FIP ‘World’ Title: Pac vs Roderick Strong
Apparently now the FIP title has been defended in two countries it is a world title. I guess to most the UK and the US are the only countries in the world. I thought these two did a really good job considering they got the death spot. The crowd were well into Pac and into Strong’s chops. Pac did a crazy twisting dive off the apron to the outside and this was the factor of getting the crowd into it. After this they mainly did spots and nearfalls with Strong retaining the belt (surprise, surprise) with the Gibson driver. Post match Strong put Pac in a boston crab but Delerious hit the ring and chased off Roddy. The crowd chanted “bring back Pac” to try and send a message to Gabe.

ROH World Tag Team Title Match: The Briscoes vs Naruki Doi & Shingo
This was one of those matches where all guys worked really hard (meaning they beat the snot out of each other) but the lack of psychology meant I didn’t really enjoy the match that much. But, that said the crowd were really into it with loads of “this is awesome” chants. I think the tag style I like is very old school and these guys didn’t really adhere to it but that said the atmosphere was really good and it great to experience that. The crowd went wild for the title change and after the match there Jay challenged Mark to a match the next night as they had some aggression to take out.

Samoa Joe vs Nigel McGuiness
Boy oh boy oh boy was this great. The crowd loved Nigel when he came out but the tide soon turned to Joe’s favour when he hit the ring. The heat was amazing and they had a really good match. It was one of those matches where nobody has the heat for too long and they both kept on doing awesome comebacks in each other. Eventually Joe hit a muscle buster on Nigel to the apron (it looked awesome) and the crowd went wild. Referees came down and carried Nigel to the back but Joe called him a ‘pussy’ prompting Nigel to hit the ring and hit Joe as hard as humanly possible. This was the turning point as the crowd got behind Nigel and Joe beat the fuck out of him. Nigel kicked out a muscle buster at two and got a great nearfall himself with a rollup. But it was all too much as Joe made the Londoner tap. After the match Joe put over ROH and Nigel telling him the company is in his hands and he’s glad he’s leaving it with a guy like him.

After the show whilst waiting for my lift Colt Cabana came out and I asked him where Matt was tonight but apparently he was doing push ups in the garage and couldn’t make the show. Delerious also came out in his mask which was pretty cool but he did speak English to me.

Overall this was a great show. I think any show live, with a great crowd like this makes a show really enjoyable. Some of the matches weren’t great and were spot fests but they certainly weren’t horrible and the crowd was into everything. Unfortunately, I can’t make the Sunday night show, but I wish I could. Was it better than Unified then? I don’t know. Last time we had an awesome main event and an alright undercard but the experience was great. This time we had a great main event and a very good undercard and the experience was really good so I have to say as an event yes, but nothing can touch Dragon/McGuiness from last time. Sorry.

WWE No Way Out Review

18^th February 2007

The ladder match has been pulled but the build for the main event has been great. I’m not expecting the best show in the world but I expect something big from the main event.

Chris Benoit & The Hardys vs MVP & MNM

I guess if you’re promised a PPV payoff it’s unfair to go back on it so the Hardys and MNM meet again in six man action. Good guys run wild early on until Jeff gets cut off and the heels get the heat. Nitro and Mercury are really good and MVP isn’t too bad given his lack of experience. Eventually Jeff gets the tag to Matt (this won’t be the hot tag as Benoit is the comeback king) and just as he starts his comeback he gets cut off. Another heat segment followed a hot tag to Benoit. Benoit goes crazy hitting a double german on Mercury and Nitro, Cole (who seems to be loosing his voice) screams he has never seen the spot despite calling the mania three way from last year where Angle, Rey and Orton did the same spot. Matt hits the twist of fate on Mercury and Jeff follows it with a swanton followed by a headbutt from Benoit for two as MVP breaks it up. Crossface on MVP broken up by Mercury who gets one of his own for his trouble for the tap out. A very good opener for the show. They seem to be going with MVP and Benoit for mania and I expect the Hardys/MNM feud to culminate in ladder match.

Vickie Guerrero tells Krystal she has an opportunity coming her way straight from words memorised earlier in the day.

Cruiserweight Open

The rules are simple, two guys start, you win, you continue. Raw’s Scotty Too Hotty is out first and Daviari will join him to open the battle. After a couple of minutes of Daivari offence Scotty hits the worm and gets the victory. The cruiserweight champ is out next and pins Scotty straight away with a his new weird looking finisher. Funaki charges the ring but gets booted in the face by Helms and after some good offence hits a cross body but the rule of being able to role through and always get a three count works for Helms as he continues in the gauntlet. Shannon Moore is out next who I haven’t seen for yonks and does a cool hurricarana spot on the outside but Helms pins him with the new finisher again. It’s Smackdown’s resident redneck next who after a brief battle manages to roll up Helms for the pin. We have a new cruiserweight champion ladies and gentlemen. Before leaving Helms hits the eye of the hurricane on Yang allowing Jamie Noble to go to work on him. Noble takes Yang up for a superplex whilst shouting “what’s my name” to which ONE fan replies “Jamie Noble” ( I know it’s not that funny written down) but Yang manages to push him off and hit a moonsault for the three. “Here is you winner and new… Ooooh Chavo!” I guess Chavo is a surprise entrant (I’m sure he was announced in the week) and he goes straight to work on Yang. Chavo hits the three amigos and Cole screams about it being disrespectful, JBL argues that he can do what he wants considering he’s a Guerrero as they invented the three amigos and camel clutch. Chavo goes up for the frog splash to which Cole says Eddie invented that so Chavo shouldn’t be doing it, he missed the frog splash and Yang climbs the turnbuckle for a moonsault but misses allowing Chavo to hit the frog splash to the back to win the match and the title. The whole match was pretty good (at least as good as a match of this style can be) but I have to say I was surprised that Helms lost. I guess with Vickie’s “opportunity” the two things are linked. Definitely a disappointing way for Helms to loose his belt though.

John Cena cuts a promo saying he’s going to work alongside Shawn tonight and worry about Wrestlemania later.

Finlay & Little Bastard vs Boogeyman and Little Boogeyman

Match of the year potential in this one. Boogeyman beats on Finlay and tags in his mini who jumps on Finlay but little bastard comes in and distracts big Boogey. This allows to Finaly to kick little Boogey in the face. We then see Finlay apply hold to the mini. This is awesome! Remember when Finlay beat up the whole junior division on Smackdown? That was great. Little Bastard runs away and Boogeyman chases him allowing Finlay to use the shelleleigh to pick up the pin on the mini Boogey. Finlay’s performance and the fact he had no problem beating up the little guy in this match means it gets a thumbs up from me.

Shawn Michaels cuts a promo and tells us he has Cena’s back.

Kane vs King Booker

This is god damn boring. Kane wins clean with the chokeslam.

Batista cuts the worst of the three promos saying he’s not scared of anything.

WWE Tag Team Championship: Brian Kendrick & Paul London vs Deuce & Domino

Deuce and Domino get the heat on London forever and it’s pretty boring. Eventually London gets the hot tag to Spanky who after a mediocre come back hits rolls up one of the heels after they try the doomsday device for the win.

ECW Championship: Bobby Lashley vs Ken Kennedy

Kennedy cuts a horrible generic heel promo but is interrupted by Lashley who said something I didn’t catch then hits Lashley with the weakest punch ever. Lashley makes hi entrance but gets cut off by Kennedy on the ramp straight away. A brief bit of brawling in the aisle is followed by your usual boring Kennedy offence. Lashley eventually gets a comeback but Kennedy tries to hit him with a chair behinds the refs back. After connecting Lashley grabs it and hits Kennedy for the DQ. Why have a match of this length if this is all that’s going to happen? Where’s this going? Boring, boring match.

Diva Talent Search

I’m still searching.

Shawn Michaels & John Cena vs Batista & Undertaker

All four guys tag in and out early on until Smackdown get the heat on Raw. Shawn Michaels is absolutely awesome as the babyface being beaten on. Batista actually looks pretty good, in the same way he looks good when he’s in their with Finlay; he’s in there with someone good. Shawn teases the tag forever and finally gets it and Cena runs wild. He teases the FU on Dave but Taker’s boot ensures it doesn’t happen. Dave teases the Batista Bomb on Cena but a HBK shop block stops that one. This allows Raw to get the heat. God damn Shawn Michaels is an awesome heel (funny that isn’t it) and even Cena does a little stomp on the apron to get some heel heat. Dave gets the tag to Taker and a huge comeback ensues. Taker has both Cena and Shawn prime for a chokeslam but tosses Shawn to Dave for a spinebuster. Taker and Dave pose but Batista nails Taker with a spinebuster! Dave leaves the ring and a superkick into an FU allow the Raw main event to win. Post match Dave stands over Taker’s body with the title in hand. This was a really good match mainly thanks to the awesome Shawn Michaels, but the twist played out really well.

Overall four of the matches turned out to be good and the main event was really good so I’d say this is a definite thumbs up show. I don’t know if Batista is going full fledged heel but this was a great move. I was waiting for Shawn to kick Cena in the chin but it was the other team that disintegrated. Great booking for a decent show.

6.5/10

ROH Weekend Of Champions Night 1 Review

28/04/2006
It's night one of the so called weekend of champions. The ROH/CZW war continues and all three champions are defending their belts, should be a good show.

Jimmy Jacobs vs Colt Cabana

They start out with comedy but Jacobs turns it nasty by pulling Colt into the ring post. The basics of the match are that Colt is awesome and if Jimmy Jacobs didn’t have pink tights he’d be instantly forgettable. Colt wins meaning Lacey is going to sack off young Jimmy.

Colt is still in the ring and Jim Cornette with Ace Steel come to the ring to ask for his help in the war with CZW. Colt initially rejects saying he needs to concentrate on learning how to wrestle as his defeat to Danielson at the last show means he’s only opening show material. He then changes his mind, brands Claudio as a traitor and vows to win the war for ROH.

Jay Fury & Spud vs Irish Airborne

Spud (the better looking, younger and cleaner Spike Dudley) is making his debut here in ROH and his main act is a few spinny high spots whilst screaming a lot the rest of the time. It actually turned out to be a decent little match with Irish Airborne getting the victory and seemingly a push in this company.

Super Dragon runs from the emergency exit and attacks an ROH ring crew dude; legging it before the ROH army get to him.

Nigel McGuiness cuts a fun little promo saying he’ll beat Daniels tonight and Danielson tomorrow night proving he’s the best wrestler in the world. I really like his promos because he cuts them as an Englishman, not an Englishman trying to do an American promo.

Jimmy Rave w/Daizee Haize vs Delirious

My god this match is boring. Jimmy Rave is so boring when he’s on offence. I love Delirious but even he can’t save this match. Fifteen minutes ticks over on the clock and we reach a time limit draw. Thank god it wasn’t an hour time limit.

ROH Pure Championship: Nigel McGuiness vs Christopher Daniels

No Alison Danger with the fallen angel tonight as he challenges Nigel for the pure title. They have a fine little match and I love Nigel as a heel, he was doing all of Danielson’s spots here to setup their match tomorrow; awesome. Nigel and Daniels brawl outside and Nigel gets the win by throwing the photographer into Daniels at nineteen meaning he can’t meet the twenty count. The crowd chant bullshit but this is goof heat not bad heat. I love Nigel.

ROH World Championship: “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson vs Jimmy Yang

Yang isn’t a redneck tonight and is wearing the same white tights he wore at Wrestlemania 20. Watching this match makes you realise that Danielson is actually very small, smaller than Yang. I guess that’s why WWE isn’t begging him to come in and it’s the reason I hope he doesn’t ever go. Selfish I know. They have another good little match, it’s not the main event so it doesn’t matter too much but Yang is a decent worker and what they do is fine. Danielson eventually wins with a crossface chickenwing Bob Backlund would be proud of.

ROG Tag Team Championship: Roderick Strong & Austin Aries vs Matt Sydal & Samoa Joe

Yes Sydal teams with Joe. The story is Sydal wants a title in ROH and is in a competitive rivalry with Generation Next. Last week he had AJ as his partner and this week it’s Joe. The match starts off pretty boring as the man of a thousand moves Matt Sydal does a lot of his moves. Eventually Team Sydal turn kind of heel and get the heat. Sydal is a bad heel, he handles the moves where Joe handles the psychology. Eventually Aries gets the hot tag to Strong and a short comeback ensues. Now it’s Aries and Strong’s turn to get the heat. Sydal is much better at selling as the babyface in distress and Aries and Strong are pretty good on offence. We get another hot tag and Joe cleans house until he’s taken out and a bunch of nearfalls happen in the ring with Aries, Strong and Sydal. Joe makes a second comeback and they get a damn good nearfall with a standing moonsault by Sydal. But Joe gets taken out again and the half nelson backbreaker – 450 combo put out Sydal. In the end this turned out to be a damn good little match.

Joe is in the ring alone and calls out CZW. Necro Butcher obliges and they start to brawl. Super Dragon and Nate Webb hit the ring to make it three on one to CZW but Colt Cabana and Ace steel even things up. Joe drags Necro to the back only to be tied up by Webb meaning he’s out of the brawl. Claudio hits the ring to give further advantage to CZW but BJ Whitmer broken neck and all cleans house with a chair and Adam Pearce evens things up. A mass brawl ensues with tons of crowd brawling and Pearce giving Nate a piledriver on the concrete. Back in the ring Necro slams Ace on a chair and covers him for a two count! THIS IS A MATCH? It would appear so who are the competitors? I guess Necro and Nate are and it appears Super Dragon and BJ are as another two count happens between these two. Is BJ booked in this match considering he’s meant to be out with a broken neck? At least they’re not doing a normal tag match now like they would in TNA. Super Dragon, Claudio and BJ tease a spot where Dragon will break BJ’s neck with a chair that Claudio holds in place. Ace breaks it up once and Colt the second time but they eventually hit it and it doesn’t actually look that brutal. Claudio picks up BJ and hits him with Joe’s muscle buster for the pin setting up their match tomorrow. CZW win again.

Overall this show was pretty damn good, especially the second half. For the second show on the trot they’ve done the brawl in the main event and it works. It’s one big fight with guys doing spots and taking crazy bumps but the heat is off the charts. The booking is prefect throughout this whole card; Nigel winning to face Danielson in a title for title match, Sydal just missing out again and CZW winning so we want to see ROH kick their arses. Good, good stuff and I’m looking forward to watching night 2.

7/10

ROH The 100th Show Review

So Ring of Honor reaches it's 100th show and Philadelphia will be the place that gets to witness it. This is the place where I've decided to watch these shows in order, I've seen a load of ROH shows but always random shows and considering how great the booking is in ROH it's a shame not to watch them in order. So, here we go:

Christopher Daniels defeated Claudio Castagnoli
Certainly not a great match but not a bad little opener. The key here is that Daniels finally shook his opponents hand after the match. When ROH first began there was months of angles based on the fact that Daniels wouldn't shake hands therefore disrespecting the code of honor. Notice whose hand he shook and who he showed respect to; this will be important later.

Four Corners Match: Delerious defeated Jimmy Jacobs, Jimmy Rave and Jimmy Yang
Your usual ROH four way with high spots galore and tons of nearfalls. Delerious makes me laugh so much for doing stupid things liek running round the ring and scaring his opponents. The story here is that if Jimmy Jacobs won Lacey (his girlfriend?) would strip naked but he didn't want her to so as he had the win he broke the cover and Delerious jumped in and got the win.

ROH Tag Title Match: Austin Aries & Roderick Strong defeated Homicide & Ricky Reyes
Short but told a good little story. Homicide lost to Colt Cabana at the last show and failed to win this match so is getting pissed at ROH. This is the key here.

ROH World Title Match: Bryan Danielson defeated Colt Cabana
In fact he beat him in four minutes. They did the usual chain wrestling like they would for an hour long match but Danielson rolled him up and pinned him. This was done to teach the ROH fans that matches can end quickly and to send Cabana down to the bottom of the card and have to work his way up to another title shot (which sometime down the road he will get). Colt was angry backstage.

Top of the Class Trophy Match: Derrick Dempsey defeated Pelle Primuea
Two students from the ROH school have a battle. It's a decent little match to have after intermission when the crowd really isn't ready for anything big. Primuea is very small and needs to attend the solarium. Dempsey won with a spinebuster into a bridge for the pin.

After the match Bryan Danielson comes out and takes the piss out of the CZW fans giving the ROH fans things to chant at them such as "you're going to get your fucking head kicked in." I love Dragon. When he finally stops getting heckled with the air horn ("I hate guys who think they're cool blowing air horns") he says as head trainer and ROH World Champion he believes he runs the place, but he's going to be a fighting champion. Because he beat Colt in four minutes he's going to defend the title again against somebody who son in the first half of the show. It's not going to be Danielson, Aries or Strong because he's already beaten them so it's...

ROH World Title Match: Bryan Danielson vs Delirious
This was a very good match with Delerious selling his arse off for Dragon and Dragon just being Dragon. Danielson went after the mask and when Delerious used Danielson's aeroplane spin Danielson picked him up and threw him into the ring post in a nasty looking bump. Delerious kept making the ropes on cattle mutulation and after a great babyface comeback Danielson locked it in again, but Delerious was able to make the ropes, again. So Dragon layed in the forearms leading to a ref stoppage. Delerious looked great here with his mask ripped and bloodied up and the crowd were still cheering him as he left the ring.

The Briscoes vs AJ Styles & Matt Sydal
Decent little tag match with the Briscoes getting the heat on Sydal. After the hot tag to Styles and few high spots Sydal is eventually pinned by Jay courtesy of the Jay driller.

Jim Cornette comes to ring backed up by Adam Pearce and his baseball bat. CZW's John Zandig is out and a great debate ensues. Well not really. Cornette owns Zandig putting over ROH and Philadelphia to loud cheers and trashing CZW with a passion. Zandig tries to take shots at Cornette taking the piss out of Smokey Mountain but he just hasn't got the skill. This was a little bit of fun but it was only to get the crowd riled up for the six man 'tag' match next up. Zandig calls his CZW crew to the ring but Joe and BJ appear on the ramp leading to...

ROH vs CZW: Samoa Joe, Adam Pearce & BJ Whitmer vs Necro Butcher, Chris Hero & Super Dragon
The best way to describe this match is guys doing shit. Lots of shit. My god was it messy. It starts with a huge brawl outside the ring with chairs being used by everyone and people being thrown into the barriers. If this was TNA after ten minutes of brawling all the guys would have got on the apron and had a normal tag match. Luckily this is ROH so the brawl just lasted forever. Pearce get busted open big time by Necro (who I'm sure is just a dude of the street with no training whatsoever) and Super Dragon did a reverse brainbuster on BJ off the turbcukle through a table to the floor. This looked terrifying. The finish came when Zandig interfered beating up Joe. The ROH referee said this was a DQ as in ROH not intereference is allowed but the CZW referee said this was under CZW rules so it didn't matter. Claudio (told you the handshake would mean something) hit the ring to even up the sides but turned his back on ROH and nailed Joe with a boot eventually allwoing Chris Hero to pick up the pin and get the win for CZW. The CZW crew scatter and Joe gets on the mic and warns them the war has only just started.

In terms of pure wrestling this wasn't the best ROH show you'll ever see. But in terms of storytelling and great angles this was a fun show. There were no classic matches but the main event did a great job in setting up the ROH CZW war and the storytelling leading up to this is the key in making the show great.

6/10

January Clearout

As Christmas takes it's toll on our bank accounts meaning January can be a slow and boring month as we have no money to do anything it's good to know that evil billionaires face the same problems. This past week has seen no less than 18 WWE contracts have been terminated. Releasing wrestlers is a common occurance in the company but why so many at this time? I think it's just a case of trimming the fat and getting rid of the people who aren't any use plus it opens up spots for some OVW guys to step up and make their mark in the big time. Let's look at the casulaties:

Sylvester Terkay - Arguably the most untalented of the knock out tap out connection so he's the one who gets the chop. With ECW house shows being cancelled there's no need for a huge roster and with no tag teams in ECW there was really no need for him to be around much longer.

CW Anderson - Christopher as he became known in his latest WWE run is one of the many ECW originals who gets the chop as the ECW roster is thinned out.

Jazz - Yes she was back with company. I remember seeing her in the ill-fated WWE vs ECW show back before the ECW PPV in June and apart from that I can't recall seeing her on TV at all. With no women's division on ECW and no need to have one Jazz is a goner.

Rodeny Mack - Jazz's husband is gone as well. I didn't even see him at all during this latest run.

Tony Mamaluke - The trimming of the ECW roster sees one half of the FBI hit the bricks. No loss.

Doug and Danny Basham - The Bashams are two guys who had rave reviews out of OVW but when they got called up were nothing more than two dudes who won the tag belts. This is another case of creative having nothing for them and letting them go rather than keeping two decent workers around to do jobs here and there. Both got little starts after they spilt in 2005 with Doug moving to Raw and getting a new gimmick but with injuries and the like and the lack of any decent tag division the Bashams are gone.

Al Snow - This is a surprising one on the surface but this simply releases him from his ECW duties, Al will be sticking around in his current OVW role.

The Gymini - An untalented tag team who made it on to TV for about three weeks before being pulled. No use them sticking around.

Gangrel - He was still employed. This is probably a case of a dude sitting at home being paid and somebody looked at the roster saw his name and decided to send him his release.

Also gone are Bill DeMott, Seth Skyfire, Jack Bull, Ryan Reeves, Mike Taylor, Tracy Taylor (his wife), Johnny Suede and Tony Santarelli all from OVW or Deep South. DeMott is the former Hugh Morris who was under fire from the office as his general behaviour towards the trainees was appaling so it's no surprise to see him gone. As for the others; I have no comment as I know nothing about them.

So the fat has been trimmed and costs have been cut. I'm sure there'll be some new signing in the very near future (Ace Steel who played Donald Trump is heavily rumoured to sign), a few people will be called up to the roster and this time next year eighteen more guys will be released.

Cena/Umaga Tonight

I don't think I've looked forward to a match this long in a hell of a long time. Yes as a match it isn't going to be a five star classic with 72 different types of armbars being used by each competitor but it's a match that WWE fonally has me excited about. The beauty of it is it's so simple. Nobody has pinned (or even come close to pinning) Umaga since he debuted and Cena has been unstoppable for nearly two years so when these two forces collide and make the gesture that they want to kill one another - it creates interest in a fight. Who would have thought?

New ROH Champ

Bryan Danielson's 15 month reign as ROH Champion has come to an end thanks to the man who calls himself Homicide! It remains to be seen if ROH will go with the TNA star as their long term champion or if somebody else will step up to make a name for themselves. This is pretty big news (if you like ROH) as title changes are very rare and the belt in ROH is of upmost importance.

ROH Unified DVD Review

I just watched this show on DVD and it was almost as good as it was live. The main event rocked the world with Danielson and Nigel beating the crap out of each other. Nigel's bumps on the ringpost must have given him a concussion or something; my god he headbutted it so hard. Diving into the crowd isn't generally recomended but somehow ROH manage to get away with and Bryan Danielson's awesomeness allow him to do anything he wants in the world.

Colt Cabana continues to be great and this night was no exception scaring Spud at every opportunity in the four corners match. Matt Sydal has the potential to be really great, his spots are awesome but improving how he uses them will make him even better. Plus he's a sound guy after chatting to him at the show so he deserves some recongnition.

Roderick Strong and Austin Aries defenidng the world tag belts against the Briscoes was an awesome match live but seemed to have something missing on the DVD. All four guys are really really good but they're not going to last much longer if they continue to do half the stuff they did here. Chopping each other as hard as they can and being dropped on your head isn't exactly a carrer prolonging activity.

All the other matches on the card were pretty decent undercard matches with Colt doing double duty going against Chris Hero, Robbie Brookside defending his FWA belt in a match that was far better on DVD than it came across live and Davey Richards defeating Jimmy Rave in a match that was good but had far too many near falls.

Overall this show was awesome live and this trnasferred to DVD. You have to love the unification match simply for the passion from both men and the tag title match is excellent. ROH's first event outside the US had to be considered a success and that's why they're coming back!

Joe vs Angle Tonight

Potentially the biggest match in wresting this year is tonight with Kurt Angle taking on Samoa Joe at TNA's Genesis PPV. The fact that I really can't say anything about it shows TNA problem; I have no clue what is going on and for a man that follows this business very closely in terms of backstage goings on and reading show reports it's a really bad thing.

It has the potential to be the hottest TNA angle of all time but it cries the inherent problem of TNA PPVs; they'll be great to watch but nobody will know this because nobody has bought it. If they wanted to capatalise on the signing of Angle this is the time to do it but the 1.0 rating from Thursday's prime time special shows that no person actually knows about TNA. Unfortunatly it's a problem that lies in the hand of TNA themselves.

This match will be great. But who will care?

Monty Brown Signs With WWE

As expected Monty Brown has signed with WWE. He's a good talker and showed promise in TNA but the fact he was working three dates a month held him back from progressing. On the road with WWE working four times a week with the likes of Finlay, Regal and Benoit will do him the world of good and we could see something out of Monty.

I Went To Smackdown (CAUTION SPOLIERS IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN SMACKDOWN)

And it was a fine fine show. So you can see the show for yourselves; so I'll give you a bit of info about the live show.

Chris Benoit is the best wrestler in the world. The crowd were so into his match and for a guy who doesn't really get any promo time it goes to show what work rate can do for you. Regal is exactly the same. Regal is so good that over half of the crowd booed him (in his home country). Indy guys need to watch him work and see how he sells and builds to his spots.

The crowd were into Big Dave the most out of anybody there and he did the celebration at the end of the show and shook everybody's hands (I gave him a slap on the chest) and the crowd were mad for him. He looked good in the ring and the crowd errupted to the hot tag. This guy is winning the belt at Survivor Series.

Funaki was the first babyace out and got a huge pop and a even a chant. KC James doesn't actually look that bad. Maybe it was just me.

Seeing the Undertaker live was pretty cool. He didn't do the long entrance so I hope he's going back to the more human (and realistic) gimmick.

Mr Kennedy is over huge but his promo on the screen got booed after a couple of minutes because he's so boring when his promos go over the 60 second mark.

Michael Cole got in the ring and got some people to do football chants. This guy is such a goof trying to tell us he was watching the football at the weekend. Don't make me laugh. JBL was well over. I was sat right by him and every so often we got a JBL chant going. I tries to get a Michael Cole chant going but nobody joined in. Surprisingly.

As always I had a great time at the show. The matches certainly anywhere near the ROH level earlier in the year but the atmosphere and the laughs made it a fun show. There's no TV from the UK in April and only three house shows so I think that's it for me until next year but ROH are back in Liverpool soon. Yay.

Raw is Boring (Again)

I'm sorry to say it but it totally was. The whole DX thing is really boring me and although their stuff with the bounty was mildly funny (tell that to Chris Masters) it's doing nothing for me in terms of 'wow I can't wait for DX to turn up next week!'

Cena and Umaga wasn't bad for the three minutes it was on but I like the fact they're doing an angle for Survivor Series.

Jeff Hardy won back the IC Title. Most people have moaned that it switched hands but I like it. It's only a secondary title and as long as it's switching on a semi-regular basis most people will remeber there is a belt.

Jerry Lawler is the man at taking the masterlock, it even got over. It's shame three minutes later Masters was destroyed (by Hunter shock horror) and Todd was in the booth for the rest of the night.

Why couldn't Edge and Orton beat Piper and Flair decislvely for the tag belts. Just put Flair in there selling for ten minutes, hot tag to Piper, heels screw the faces and get the tag. Putting the belts on 'Rated RKO' (what a shit name) is a good thing as they obviosuly look better as tag team champs but having them have to beat a guy who won't wrestle for another twelve months (hopefully) and a guy who can be beaten week after week after week but still be over. They're meant to be the top heels; do something to show me you are.

Overall I was glad I had tickets for Smackdown and not this show.

One Year On

I'm sure this isn't the first story you've read regarding the death of Eddie Guerrero twelve months ago. I'm sure it won't be the last and that's a testament to the life of Eddie and his impact on the wrestling world. But what has been the impact of his death on the wrestling world? In storyline terms it has been shitty. In terms of Smackdown it has been shitty. But what about the problem of drugs abuse in wrestling? I want to take a look:

Not long after this tragic event Vince McMahon gathered the roster in the locker room and announced drug testing would begin to take place. The policy wasn't implemented until April of this year, but giving WWE their due it has been very thorough and in my humble opinion has been very successful.

Straight after the announcement we saw a number of guys loose quite a bit of muscle including Chris Masters, Batista, Rey Mysterio and most noticebly Kurt Angle. Six months later after the official testing began we've seen a number of people taken from the road due to the various issues with pills. Joey Matthews and Chris Masters have been to rehab, Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam both recieved 30-day suspensions for their violation of the policy and Super Crazy disappered for a while to. Randy Orton completed an almost 60-day suspension for smoking something other than tabacco. Going by these numbers and the level of guys affected it seems the policy has worked, at least to a degree.

However there has been a few other violations that have seemilngly gone unpunished. Sabu was in the car with RVD when they were both arrested for possesing weed. Only RVD was suspended. Bobby Lashley and the Great Khali were pulled from the Great American Bash pay-per-view in July for elevated liver enzymes, a common side effect from taking steroid pills. They were only pulled on the day of the pay-per-view and this wasn't announced before people bought it. They were also back on the road within a week.

The biggest casualty of the policy has been Kurt Angle. Suspended for thirty and being told to go to rehab wouldn't stop Angle from taking his pain killers. Based on the fact that he may well die very soon WWE released him. Minutes later TNA were on the phone wanting to negotiate. It's that external factor that killed the policy last time round. WCW were simply picking up the firees and putting them on their show; with no drug testing. The fact is this will always be true. Angle certainly isn't making as much money in TNA as he was in WWE but he is Kurt Angle and wants to compete. As long as there is somewhere to compete he will compete. Unfortunalty Eddie's death won't save Angle's life.

For the most part however, I believe that the impementation of the policy has had resounding benefits. Angle is an anomoly, a guy who will work wherever he can work. But most of the roster is smartened up to the fact that WWE will remain for a long time their biggest pay day so sticking to their rules keep the cheques coming in. There will be those who flounder those rules and will continue to get away with it, I'm sure in later life they will feel the affect of this themselves but the drug policy has mostly had great affects on the whole of the roster and if anything good has come from the death of Eddie, this is it.

Survivor Series Card

If you haven't been on WWE.com and lets face who hasn't they've been announcing matches all week for Survivor Series and so far it's looking pretty damn cool. They've scrapped the triple threat survivor match between Raw, ECW and Smackdown and have mixed the teams up and upto now we have THREE traditional Survicor Series matches.

DX, CM Punk, Jeff Hardy & Matt Hardy vs Randy Orton, Edge, Mike Knox, Gregory Helms & Johhny Nitro. Punk and the men who said he couldn't work on the same team? One name does not fit here: Mike Knox?

John Cena, Bobby Lashley, Kane, Sabu & Rob Van Dam vs Umaga, Finlay, Big Show, Test & Finlay. This is going to be great.

Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Sergant Slaughter & Dusty Rhodes w/Arn Anderson vs The Spirit Squad w/Mitch. Yay the Spirit Squad are going to get squashed.

Chris Benoit vs Chavo Guerrero. A fine match for the undercard.

The build for the PPV hasn't been existent so far but I guarnatee this PPV will be great. I'll post my prediction nearer to the date.

Cena Is Raw

Nothing was more apparent than statement on Raw this week. When he popped up in Umaga's beating of Maria segment (not a bad little way to get heat I suppose) the crowd went wild and Cena cut an awesome promo which was the highlight of the show.

The rest of the show was hit and miss. From what I remeber the first hour was good, the second bad and the main event was fun for what it was. I wasn't a fan of the fat stripper; that's what you get from beating Vince in the voting Bischoff.

Like I said, the first hour with the Eugene and Hacksaw segment (ratings), the Cena stuff and Hardy vs Nitro along with the opening segment were all fun but the second half with Shelton, Carlito, Masters, Lita and Mickie (the same gimmick on the same show great!) all sucked.

The reason no matches were announced for Survivor Series is because they're doing announcing the matches on the Internet given that 14.4 million (different) people visited for the voting last week. They believe they're owen hype. That's why Raw was all about Bischoff and not promoting Survivor Series. Two weeks to promote but the card is shaping up to be very nice. More about that later.

Cyber Sunday Sucked

I had very little interest in this show going in and usually this leads to a good show (No Way Out, Judgment Day) but this show sucked.

Umaga vs Kane was a match I didn't want to see againand we got it again. A shocklingly high number of people voted for Kane, I don't get it. Their match wasn't terrible but it certainly wasn't worth paying for.

The texas tornado tag match was exactly what you'd expect; a cluster that Cryme Tyme won.

Carlito won the vote (as predicted) and wrestled a shitty match with Jeff Hardy. Carlito wrestled as the heel and didn't do much of the horrible high flying (he looks far better as a heel but still sucks). Hardy went over clean in a competitive match so it looks like Carlito is off to ECW.

Bischoff got voted in in a landslide. This would have been a great moment to see Vince's face. It took Orton and Edge forever to get the heat on DX and Hunter kicking out of an RKO was pointless in a tag match that was fourth on the card. The result finally went thr right way though. Overall n under par performance from the people involved in the match, it was mianly Orton and Hunter who pissed me off so when they pair off I hope Edge goes with Shawn. The sgment where Shawn was superkicking dudes in the hall was the highlight of the whole show.

Lita and Mickie wrestled in the lumberjill match and my god this match fucking blew. Lita won.

Flair and Piper won the tag belts! Yay. The Spirit Squad are splitting up! Roddy Peiper hasn't seen the sun since 1987!

The main event was what you'd expect from a triple threat with the people involved. Booker's title was on the line and he won so I doubt we'll hear about that victory considering they wanted Cena's belt on the line. K-Fed's apperance and interferance made perfect sense and allowed King Booker to become the champion of champions.

Overall it was a boring show with no brightspots except from the DX backstage deal. Faarooq made another appearnce but it has lost all it's comedy value by now. They were pushing that 14 million people voted. 14 million votes were cast, not by 14 million people. I reckon with seven stips to vote on and each person voting for each stip once it gives 2 million. Once people voting twice is taken into account I think a fair estimate is around 1.5 million. Not bad but certainly not great. Story of the show really.

Smackdown Happened on Friday

Considering Michael Cole opened the show with "we're 48 hours removed from Cyber Sunday" boy did Smackdown do a shitty job in promoting the PPV. The key angle in the show was that Big Dave was protecting Booker (and thus the title he wanted back). Apparently guys from ECW and Raw were attempting to take out Booker (I heard no mention of this angle ever before this night) and I believe four goons turned up at the end of the night but I have no clue who they are. The show's clsoing angle with Batista and Finlay made little sense as it was promotion for next week rather than a show on Sunday. Yes it's a Raw PPV but they've been doing a ton of build on Smackdown so why not for one more night?

Michael Cole's commentary is starting to really piss me off. In the London/Kendrick tag match it was obvious someone was in his ear saying "get London and Kendrick over, they're exciting and fun to watch" so Cole said "boy London & Kendrick are fun to watch!"

Tatanka's new look and his reading from a script on his head had to be one of the highlights of this boring show. Then again Jimmy Wang Yang was on the show and that can only be a damn good thing. Cole's continuance is saying that Yang is a red neck is grating me, do you not get the joke?

Cyber Sunday Preview

Cyber Sunday continues the tradition of bad build for PPVs with me caring about no match but Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes vs a team that didn't even appear on Raw last week.

Women's Championship - Lita vs Mickie James
This has to be a submission match. Has to be. Other than that Lita is probably going over with Mickie winning the title before Lita leaves at the end of November.

Umaga vs Benoit/Sandman/Kane
I hope Benoit gets voted in to see a Benoit match. Sandman winning would be funny as hell as Umaga vs Sandman in an impromptu match would suck so bad it would be great. I don't want to see Kane/Umaga part 34 so don't bother voting for him. Either way Umaga wins.

World Tag Team Championship - Ric Flair & Dusty Rhodes/Roddy Piper/Sergant Slaughter vs Spirit Squad
For comedy and nostalgia value Dusty must win this vote but Piper would be good to. Slaughter I don't really care for. Spirit Squad are splitting and we're going to have new tag belts which thse boys will make seem important because it's Ric motherfucking Flair and Dusty fucking Rhodes.

Intercontiental Championship - Jeff Hardy vs Johnny Nitro/Carlito/Shelton Benjaman
Carlito unfortunatley is winning the vote, Shelton would provide the better match (we've seen Nitro/Hardy a million times) but Hardy has to retain.

DX vs Edge & Randy Orton - Special Referee Vince McMahon/Eric Bischoff/Coach
Vince will be the ref but I want Bischoff hust to piss him off. I beg for the heels to go over and actually make this feud worth while but it seems they're intent on having DX beat everybody so it wouldn't surprise me if they won this one.

Champion of Champions Match for the World Championship/WWE Championship/ECW Championship - King Booker vs John Cena vs Big Show
Booker's title will be on the line and that's great because it basically means Booker has to win and I'm sure they'd rather have Cena or Show win over Booker. Unless they put the belt on Cena for the interpromational angle going into Survivor Series allowing them to have Cena on Smackdown every week.

Apparently there's some four way tag match as well. Cryme Tyme win.

I'm sure when all is said and done this PPV will be decent with a few good matches BUT the key problem is my (and most others) interest in it is absolutley nil.

Raw Sucked

As a go home show for a PPV, a show that is meant to make you fo holy fuck I can't wait for DX to kick those damn dasterdly heels arses Raw freaking blew.

The ideal way to sell a PPV is for the heels (with a two on one advantage with chairs) to beat up the babyface in distress thus we pay to see the babyface(s) get their revange on Sunday. Of course the babyface was Hunter so he gets by the special ref stipulation and thr two on one with wepaons situation so on Sunday you're paying to see him do the same with his buddy HBK. Great job.

So the champions of champions match is Sunday. Raw vs Smackdown vs ECW's world champion, the first time ever they will be taking each other one (well they've been doing stupid interactions for weeks but nevermind). This is a historical moment. One brand could be left with no world champion and one brand could have two world title belts. So how do they promote this match? A stand off every week until you finally can't wait for them to scrap? Or how about killer promos on each other explaining how great and superior they are? Or how about telling stupid jokes and on the final push have one of the guys beat up a former (shitty) announcer. One of those three options stand out as sucking. Guess which one they went with.

Sure as hell I can't wait for Cyber Sunday! The women's submission match is going to be a classic.

KISS TNA

Watching TNA's Bound For Glory Pay-Per-View one thing was clear; Keep It Simple, Stupid.

A card full of gimmick matches blended into one another and the result is the same as it is always; TNA have a huge roster of guys and you got to see every single one of them. However you don't care about any of them.

You don't need a fancy looking video package for every match on the card. When you do play a video package for three matches then they seem important and the crowd will get into them. We don't need a five minute explaination of the Monsters Ball or a throw away four corners tag match. Show us the match, have a good match and warm up the crowd for the reason we paid for the show.

If you're main event is going to be a typical Jeff Jarret vs Sting match in 2006 then don't load your card with spot fests and gimmicks. Everything has been done before the main event so the crowd will be silent in a high-spot free match.

I'm not even going to review every match on the card because in all honestly the THREE hardcore matches wore the crap out of me. I wanted to see men exchanging arm drags not high-spots. The battle royale was fun but shouldn't have been first on the card and no angle was played out after Austin Starr's victory. Monsters Ball was a throw away as was the four-way tag match in which AMW didn't care about. Eric Young vs Larry was what you'd expect but took away from the main event stipulation and Eric Young couldn't beat a man three times his age clean.

Christian vs Rhyno was a street fight which started in the back and ended up an in ring spot fest. Not good. The X-Title match was easily the best match on the card and is an example of what the undercard should be doing in TNA right now. The tag team cage match was very good but isn't a cage match no rules? So why was it a traditonal tag match where foreign objects weren't allowed? The main event sucked up until the last thirty seconds which was awesome. Jarrett clocked Sting with the guitar, the crowd thought they were getting the usual bullshit but Sting roared, the crowd went mad and the deathlock was applied and Sting was the new champion.

Of course the focus was on the fact that Jarrett lost the belt not that Sting had won it. Overall it was disapointing PPV with only two decent macthes all in all. The future looks good (at least next month) with Joe and Angle and Sting and Christian. We'll see if TNA fuck this one up like they did with this PPV.

Verdict: Could have been more.