This week saw pro-wrestling provide us with two PPVs, with Night of champions from WWE and TNA’s PPV that will not be named by me. TNA actually produced what they call a PPV quality show, free. Again, all that tells me is any other episode of Impact is sub standard, and the quality is improved a few times a year for these events.
One big difference between the two events, for me at least was something I touched on last week, predictability. TNA produced a show where everything that happened was obviously going to happen. The tag series went to the fourth match, Joe retained his title, Lashley beat Roode and the one legged wrestler continued his winning streak.
After I suggested last week that TNA at least looked like they were prepared to take chances, they produced a PPV quality pile of ordinary, where not even a hint of a chance was taken.
WWE on the other hand seem to have decided that every PPV needs a shock, and NOC needed lots of them. Just because.
The tag belts finally came off the twins, to go to the brothers Dust. This team still confuses me a bit. Gold Dust came about when Dustin met Gold paint. Was a bit stupid, but made a bit of sense. Following that logic, his brother should have become Gold Cod, but instead became Stardust.
I have no problem with them becoming champs, except that if you are going to take the belts from the Usos, why not give them to the Wyatts? Surely they could have used the belts better than Dustin and Cody? It certainly made more sense for them to win the belts two months ago than the Dust Busters winning them now.
Seamus and Cesaro, I will concede was fairly predictable. Cesaro seems to be in that position where he is a great opponent for a champ, but never quite good enough to BE the champ. WWE seem to have major commitment problems where the Swiss superman is concerned. They always look like they are ready to give him that push, then Vince gets cold feet halfway through the title match. The fans like him, he can certainly produce the goods inside the squared circle and he cant be any worse on the mic than Seamus, but for some reason he has become the nearly man in WWE.
Ziggler and Miz continued their game of pass the parcel with the IC belt, I am sure there is a reason for that, but honestly, I am so bored with this feud. I could not imagine they would take the belt off a hot Ziggler to continue a feud with a room temperature Miz. Even Sandow looks worse in this feud, and that is saying something. from MITB winner to Miz’s sidekick is a fall from grace that is the envy of 3MB…
The Divas title match, kettle went on, Paige should retain, AJ won. Continues the feud between the only two divas worth watching, but it would have continued anyway. At least I had a coffee now though.
Now we are down to two matches, both a bit surprising, but got different reactions from me. I will start with the title match…What the bejesus was that all about?
I get Cena wont allow himself to be booked for two ass kickings in a row, but no way, no how, no chance could Cena go from that ass kicking last month to a win, even by DQ. Do WWE not realise I have a prediction league to win? Why would Rollins even interfere at a time when Cena was on the front foot? Why not wait another few minutes? Even if Cena won, hitting him in the back of the head with the case would have given him an easy victory.
But this match should have been different anyway. Cena could have done better than last time without really coming close to winning, Rollins has no need to cash in right now anyway, so had no need to interfere. Brock should have won, but with visibly more effort than last time, he should have looked like he worked for it as opposed to his walk in the park last time out.
Cena would have looked better, Brock would have looked stronger, and I would have got 25 more points. Win,win,win…
What we got instead makes you wonder where Russo got a job after he was punted from TNA.
And finally on NOC, Mark Henry V Rusev. Technically this was not a shock, but to the American audience it was. WWE showed that despite all the crap we were fed during this PPV, they do know how to get things right.
We had Big show doing his pep talk, telling Henry about the 318 million people who were counting on him. We got the red white and blue ring gear, we got the national anthem. I actually thought we were gonna cut to Henry eating apple pie before the match such was the show of Americano. WWE on the night told its audience that this match was all about America,that Mark Henry would be their Saviour, then further stoked their already massive national pride with the star spangled banner. Then the ‘Russian’ won.
Of course he won!Whatever anyone thinks about it, WWE knows that racism sells. America hates Russia, so get an American in the ring with a Russian to get the most heat possible for a match.They sat and watched as an overtly racist ‘Real American’ gimmick got over with the fans, then turned it on its head. Because you get good racism and bad racism apparently…
Rusev is the guy that beats Americans just to annoy Americans. Rusev will continue to beat Americans till Wrestlemania, and he will only lose there if he faces Cena. Unfortunately for Rusev, that will probably be him done in WWE, kill the gimmick, kill the character…
Night of champions was actually OK, despite all of that. Cesaro and Seamus are familiar enough with each other to put on a good match, Orton and Y2J did well enough to keep me watching, and I was intrigued as to how close Henry would come before losing. Getting me to have an interest in three matches is probably as well as WWE have done for a while, I only managed about an hour of Raw on Monday, I saw what was coming and decided to swerve the rest of the show.
To finish, as always, go read everything that is here on sltdwrestling.com, and remember to come back later in the week to see the final tables for this season of the predictions league, if only to see how far I dropped because of that stupid Cena finish at NOC.
I am off to watch the mighty Dundee FC face their biggest rivals, and hopefully emulate Cena. After we got our ass handed to us by the same team on Sunday, I would quite happily take a DQ victory tonight. Oh yeah, after the referendum in Scotland, i will now be finishing every article with the same word (may only be this week)…
FREEDOM!!
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