The Wrestling What I Watched: Week of 6/29/2009

This was the first week in a while that I was actually able to make time for non-Memphis/Texas wrestling, so thought I'd take another shot at this.

WWE TV

DVR still won't record Smackdown. There doesn't seem to be anything overriding it. I guess I could just try to watch it live, but I am a slave to technology now, so that's probably not happening.

Well, if nothing else, the "special guest host" thing is a pretty fresh idea for the GM role. I could do without Batista in that role, but DiBiase should be fun.

Most of this show was kinda unremarkable. I was all set to complain about people complaining about Miz getting "buried", but I read the tea leaves wrong, and people generally seem to agree that Miz looked strong in defeat.

The gauntlet was really well put together, and probably the highlight of my wrestling watching week. Orton and Bourne did some really nice stuff, with Bourne looking like he could've taken the champ if Orton hadn't found that one key opening at the last moment. Swagger goes down without looking weak by intentionally getting counted out after dropping Orton once "just to make an impression", which was really well done. Swagger is a guy I have complained about having a lot of great matches that happen around him rather than happening because of him, but this actually got me interested in seeing what they do with him. And then of course there was Mark Henry and THE WORLD'S STRONGEST FACE TURN! Again, kinda misread the tea leaves, as I was ready for prople to be outraged at the potential of another Henry WWE Title program, but he really seems to be largely accepted now. And well, I dug mean and angry heel Henry, but also remember when he World's Strongest Slammed Chavo before WresleMania 24 and thought that face-turned Henry vs. Chavo for the ECW Title could've been fun. Babyface Henry was really fun here, too, and the beauty is that when he wins, he doesn't look like a chump who beat a guy who had been worn down by two prior opponents. Swagger's countout and subsequent promo gave Orton a breather, and Henry's promo and subsequent teasing of getting intentionally counted out as well gave him a bit more, which certainly helped matters. But really, it's mostly down to how both men carried themselves - Mark Henry didn't come off as a guy Orton should be scared of because Orton was worn out, he came off as a guy he should be scared of because Mark Henry will fuck you up. Yeah, they nailed this.

I really had no way of reading how people would react to the 15-man trade - and specifically how it would impact ECW - ahead of time. And well, reaction seems to be split down the middle between the two most likely possible reactions. You have your guys talking about how ECW got raped with all the talented guys getting sent away and replaced with FCW call-ups. It's kind of a silly complaint, because ECW has been established as WWE's AAA league for a while, even making it a selling point in recent months ("youngest and hungriest locker room in the WWE"), with all their developmental call-ups, a couple of good veteran hands to lead the way, plus various lower midcarders sent in from other brands where they couldn't think of anything else to do with them. Bourne, Swagger, and the Hart Dynasty weren't going to be in ECW forever, though I kinda expected Bourne and the Dynasty to stick around a bit longer than they did. Henry and Finlay got subbed out for Regal and Goldust, which is probably a step down, but not a showbreaker. Not sure if Benjamin qualifies as a good veteran hand yet. My estimation of him has gone up quite a bit in the last few months, but still. Not sure they ever got around to actually figuring out what to do with Paul Burchill, but he did take some big steps forward in his ECW run. Shelton might be his replacement in the "guy we ran out of ideas for" category. I don't know. Point is, it's the same story it's always been, just with different names. There's also a group of people who seem to understand this, and are OK with it. But the outrage is there, and I just don't get it. At least we're past the point where people were getting outraged over Vince McMahon raping Heyman's brilliant vision of pure wrestling genius or whatever. That was really embarassing.

So, first episode of newer look ECW was pretty good. I never saw any of Naofumi Yamamoto's New Japan stuff, and kinda hard to get a read on a guy based on that match. Looked good getting outraged at Benjamin's awesome racebaiting (yes, not only did he figure out how to work, he actually has a personality now!), and his kick was nice. So far, so good, I guess.

Abraham Washington seems like a guy who's gimmick should be pretty straightforward, and yet, it took me a little while to wrap my head around it. And really, I get the sense it took a while for Washington himself to figure out what his gimmick was. I mean, yeah, "talk show host", I think that much was easy to get. But then I start wondering if they are actually being topical and referencing the Tonight Show changing of the guards. OK, so he's Conan O'Brien. But wait, this is WWE. Since when has the WWE been topical? Surprised if Vince McMahon even knows Conan just took over as Tonight Show host. Surprised if Vince doesn't still think Jack Paar is behind the desk. OK, so he's Jack Paar. Then comes the monologue, and good God almighty, that hurt. I was having nasty flashbacks to nWo Nightcap watching that mess. I was actively cringing at that stuff. OK, so he's Magic Johnson. And this is the guy who was doing the Barack Obama gimmick in FCW, and he's still delivering his shitty monologue with the cadence of an Obama speech. And I am kinda amused at how shook Vince is over having a black man as president, but not enough to save this. Fortunately, the actual interview with the Bella twins finally starts, and I think Washington finally figures out that he's supposed to be Arsenio Hall, and I think he might've saved the segment when he asked them where they got their weaves. From that point on, he was actually pretty fun. Still, jury is out on him.

Christian vs. Regal is a match-up that I am really super-psyched to see more of. Dreamer vs. Kozlov.....not so much.

Akiyama vs. Sasaki

Finally finished watching this card. Last wrestling show ever on NTV, and it is the story of 90% of big NOAH shows ever: really fun undercard, shitty overblown title matches at the top of the card. I saw the really fun undercard months ago, so I can't talk about that. And really, not much to say about this match other than that it was dreadfully dull. So, um, yeah. Let's move on.

Chikara "Revelation X": First Couple of Matches

I had seen the Equinox/Gerard ladder match that main evented this show and really liked it, so I thought I'd check the rest of the card out. Much has been made about the merits - or lack thereof - of Chikara, and the last full card of their's that I saw was the 2006 Tag World Grand Prix, so hopefully now I can give a more informed opinion about this than I could have otherwise. Really, it only takes one match for me to be able to do it: the opener with FIST against The Future is Now. I want to quote two points by TomK here:

"Anyway, he comes out and announces that Chikara has the right to remove anyone from audience who uses foul language because this is a family friendly promotion. Which brings me back to my original point. He says this and you look around and notice “Family friendly? This audience doesn’t have the age diversity of a CZW show” CZW show will have pudgy ponytailed guys from 15-70 plus a bunch of future pudgy pony tailed guys in the 11-15 range. Chikara crowd is almost completely missing the 15-18 year olds that normally attend CZW shows (both as fans and well backyarders admiring fellow craftsmen), the older guys and fewer kids. Show dominated by one age bracket. It felt odd like I wasn’t actually at a family friendly show but at something along the lines of “The Real Live Brady bunch” shows. Not a show aimed at audience of families but aimed at audience of adults who fetishize youth."

"I got early Chikara tapes with the pop up video commentary and have been watching indy wrestling tapes for ages. I think Ikarus was in the first class, Akuma maybe second, Cannon may have been wrestling a year before Ikarus started. So guys who've been wrestling 7, 8,9 years. Player Uno something like five or six years. On the other hand: Lince Dorado who I liked has probably been wrestling 2 or three yearsand RicOshea/Heliso something like 5. I don't think there was a complaint about green wrestlers so much as guys who've been wrestling longer than other wrestlers but who still stink."

I'll preface this by saying that I thought this was an OK match, and also that I liked Icarus' pre-match promo. His face and his delivery reminded me of Toby from The Office, and I kinda felt that laid back, matter of fact style worked for him really well. But then he comes to the ring and gets in the faces of various people in the audience. GLF and his crew...guys like that. And they all respond in kind. They get into the act. Then he gets in the face of a little kid in the front row, and the kid just doesn't react at all. Just gets nothing from this guy. And well, that's basically how I feel about FIST. Lince Dorado and Helios have a similarly manic entrance, but it connects with me more. Match has a lot of big moves from both sides. I think The Future is Now's stuff is more impressive. Really liked Lince's in-ring tope to break up a pin. In any case, FIN's stuff connected with me, whereas FIST's largely didn't. I don't think it was just a matter of execution, although FIN's execution was better. I just found them very easy to connect with, they made me want to root for them. FIST was just very vanilla, despite desperate attempts not to be on their way to the ring.

Daizee Haze and Sara Del Ray actually had a pretty great match. I mean, it kinda feels like their touring match, but it is about as good of a touring match as you could hope for. It is a match between two of the Shimmer girls, and on a certain level you go into US indy women's matches like it is the Special Olympics. They're not actually good, but you applaud them anyway because they're trying really hard. This wasn't that. This was the Little Mr. T vs. Little Tokyo match I nominated for the Texas set. If I were working on a hypothetical DVDVR Best of the 00's Non-ROH Northeast US Indies set, match I probably wouldn't have nominated if two dudes were having it, but might give the go-ahead to because it is legitimately great wrestling coming from a place you don't really expect to get it. Particulary from Daizee Haze, who I remember first seeing in '04 and thinking was absolutely atrocious. Looked like one of the worst wrestlers in the world. Kinda charismatic, but blew every other move, and couldn't even connect with me on sex appeal, as she looked as emaciated and worn out as the worst of the WWE Divas. It is five years later, and she is still really scrawny, but at this point seems more like a girl who is just kinda scrawny by nature, rather than a bulemic model getting eyed by John Laurenitis. But more importantly, she has made huge strides forward in the ring, and this is really her match. Bout is largely technical, with a lot of stuff on the mat, and the story of Sara trying to overpower Daizee but Daizee being quick and evasive, finding counters to all of Sara's stuff. Great looking takedowns, a nifty escape from a front facelock where she gets a headscissors and turns it into a victory roll-style pin, really cool looking stuff. Really great working from underneath in general, both in finding counters, and later in just selling Sara's holds. Sara, for her part, looks like a beast here, dropping Daizee throat-first on the guardrail, headbutting her shoulder while holding her in an armbar, cranking on an abdominal stretch while clawing at her side, and then turning that into La Swastika. The whole abdominal stretch segment is really great, actually. Sara has her more "powerful" versions of the hold, and then Daizee manages to counter it into an octopus hold, but Sara is able to roll that over into a pinning combination. All sorts of neat stuff here, and it actually makes me want to see them in something that isn't just wrestling in a vaccuum.

Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw vs. The Order of the Neo-Solar Temple was another really strong match. I dig Quack and Jigsaw. Not really surprised I enjoyed their work together here. Like the opening bit with Quack working over UltraMantis' arm while interrogating him about giving the secret of the Chikara Special to Dr. Cube (I won't even pretend to know). Crossbones is kinda bad here, but I was really pleasantly surprised with UltraMantis Black. Heels take over after that initial face run, and Crossbones is set up as the real bruiser of the team, but it's UltraMantis that comes up with the strong offense. Nothing fancy, but he throws a spinebuster better than anyone in the WWE, and his gutwrench suplex was nothing to sneeze at either. Pretty contrived bit near the end with Crossbones inexplicably putting UltraMantis on his shoulders on the outside and Quackenbush hitting him with a Doomsday tope. Looked good, but the set up was baffling. Still, they otherwise kept this simple and it worked great. Really enjoying this show so far.