Will keep them all in mind - eyeing a few different options now, definitely be watching another TNA PPV in the next few days.
Yeah, running a little late on this one, not really had the chance to stop and take notes for three hours the past couple of days. Doesn't help I get to experience the joy of WWE in 2009 for it.
The Bash
- Why would you want to put Mysterio's mask on the line in a match? That's a guaranteed way to lose.
- Y'know, Punk earned it too, he just did it in Money in the Bank.
- Was that promo implying this is the first Three Stages of Hell match? That seems like they were trying to pass it off that way.
- Orton doesn't look hurt there, he looks annoyed.
- Six titles on the line the PPV before Night of Champions, makes sense.
Christian vs. Jack Swagger vs. Finlay vs. Mark Henry vs. Tommy Dreamer- Oh, hey, I get to watch my first Scramble match!
- Did Christian swipe his outfit from Disco Inferno?
- It'd be really nice if they'd mention all of the participants at once instead of me having to go look them up.
- Uh, why did the graphic of the ECW title have the corners awkwardly chopped off of it?
- Well, I
would look up who's in the match but Chrome is fighting me hard on it for some reason.
- I love how no matter what, you throw a counter on a screen and the crowd will go nuts for it.
- Man, that was quite the pop for Finlay.
- Seems weird to have Swagger stand around posing for awhile after getting the first win and not have it lead to Christian immediately blindsiding him and taking the title.
- It's weird how often the commentators are just going silent for long stretches during this. Also, really amateur not to immediately take Dreamer's entrance as an excuse to talk about how Henry gets to come in last. Not even mentioned him yet, I had to look him up as the fifth guy.
- So the only falls so far have been Finlay and Swagger pinning each other. Did they feud out of that? Know they feuded earlier in the year when Swagger was champion but don't remember offhand.
- Why are they acting like Henry being in is a surprise?
- Huh, damn, kind of a dull match but that powerbomb / suplex combo on top of a standing Dreamer looked pretty awesome.
- Henry should have thrown him at the podium, that'd have been badass.
- Oh, it's a guy lifting weights. I have never been able to tell before now what the hell that design on Henry's singlet was.
- It's no DQ, why isn't Tony just hanging around ready to break up any pins?
- Has Henry climbing to the top rope to jump on somebody on the floor ever not been interrupted?
- Seems weird to do all of that to build Henry up as a beast on first coming in only for Swagger to pin him within two and a half minutes of his entrance.
- Odd when building up how Christian wasn't pinned to lose the title not only to have Dreamer pin him here but have him be the guy Dreamer pins here?
- Idiots! Why break up Finlay pinning Dreamer? Neither of you's the current champion, so it doesn't matter if Finlay gets it.
- And why did Henry break up that pin? This is idiotic. At least it makes sense for Dreamer to break it up.
- Yeah, that ending was godawful. Something must have been botched there, I have no idea what they were going for with that and it makes no sense to have the last minute of the match basically be useless filler without any real teases anyone might actually keep Dreamer from retaining. And why did Christian never get a pin?
- And Dreamer joins the prestigious So Proud to Be Champion He's Holding the Title Upside Down Club.
- Christ, cut away already. This celebration's going on like it's the end of WrestleMania.
- Teddy's texting somebody, presumably himself.
- Oh, hey, this was the show where Edge and Jericho won the tag titles, alrighty.
- Oh yes, the neverending Teddy Long probation.
Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio- I really hate WWE accenting Mysterio to sound more Spanish in introductions and stuff when even he doesn't pronounce it that way.
- Ah, yes, the days of Mysterio's stupid entrance hood.
- Okay, just learned of the stupid post-Raw match thing (skipped this week) and I figure I might as well interrupt for the end of that so. . .
Sheamus vs. Rusev- Rusev really needs differently shorters, the red text on blue looks awful, just looks like he has this big purple smear around the waist.
- Really awkward jump forward suddenly.
- Rusev needs to do something different with his hair but I'm not sure what.
- Ten Beats of the Stupid Name No One's Ever Going to Use Without Being Named Michael Cole.
- Sheamus's beard looks really terrible lately.
- I like how giddy Lana looked there.
- First time Rusev's tried to pin somebody as far as I'm aware.
- Sheamus has never tapped out? Ahahaha, no.
- Another awkward cut forward.
- I'm guessing this'll end in a nonsensical DQ, but maaaan Sheamus needs to lose that damn belt.
- Rusev's actually my US Champion in 2K14 right now. World Champion too. And he's face.
- Tap! Tap!
- Passed out, good enough!
- Why are they acting like Rusev is the first Russian to win the US title? He's not. Now then. . .
Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio, Continued- Why did he have to be dressed as a Mysterio fan for that? Irony?
- It'd have been awesome if that led to Jericho mistakenly beating the shit out of a kid.
- I know this feud gets praised a lot but maaaaaan I'm not remotely interested in watching this and wasn't even back then.
- What exactly is keeping Mysterio from unmasking offscreen then just starting to wear a different mask?
- Okay, the barricade swing was pretty cool. Managed to not look contrived either.
- Is kind of funny hearing the crowd being firmly behind Jericho here.
- Uh, yeah, JR, duh that Rey's the only Californian in the match. What's your point?
- You won't, Rey, don't worry.
- Why did Jericho have to agree to the match? Rematch clause, bitch.
- Yeah, I'm finding it really hard to care about this. Match is pretty good but it's two guys that I just really don't give a damn about.
- The early Save Me trunks with the chains were the only good trunks Jericho's ever worn.
- That powerbomb spot was pretty neat.
- Nice to see somebody realize how to avoid the 619.
- Really cool counter sequence out of it too. Will grant this match is kind of starting to warm up to me, though not enjoying it as much as I might just out of disillusionment with the people involved.
- That was a pretty sick Codebreaker.
- Like the time Kevin Nash made him unmask for forever.
- I'm really liking the various ways Jericho's finding to dodge the 619. It happens so many times it just becomes amazing.
- Yeah, now this is hitting the spot.
- Though I don't like that second mask bit. I know it's a reference to their previous match but something about it just bothers me.
- Ha, who the hell wore a Slap Nuts shirt in public in 2009?
- Credit where it's due for winning me over as the match went, that's always impressive.
- Have to love how Rey made sure his masks matched. Then again that makes sense, it'd be harder to notice there are two on if the design from the bottom one matches the top so it doesn't clash as much if it pokes out from the bottom.
- Did they play Mysterio's theme over top of the 12 Rounds trailer in the arena, or did they stop the theme then start playing it again? Or just not show the trailer on the tron?
- I hate that Trump theme. Hate hate hate hate HATE it. Every single time I've ever heard WWE use it no matter what it's for it annoys me.
- Why do they need to recap this Vince buying Raw back segment on a PPV?
- BILLIONAIRE'S BUUUUUUTTTT!!!
- So between segments Vince went from heel to face.
- Triple H's hair looks really bad here. Enough so it's kind of amazing it took three more years for him to cut him off.
- Well, if you ignore how in the middle of that he was GM of ECW for awhile.
- What are those pairs on the Superstars poster? Could easily look up a better picture I guess but going to try and guess it off it being in the background in this segment... Triple H / Morrison, Michaels / MVP, then Jeff / Taker and Batista / Rey are obvious. Only ones I'm not really sure on are Triple H and Michaels, Triple H kind of looks like Khali and Michaels I can only tell it's him because it's as photoshopped to hell and back as most promotional pictures of him are.
- Ha, I thought Carlito was about to come out.
Dolph Ziggler vs. The Great Khali- How did I remember this feud? And why is this getting a recap video?
- Why did they show that clip of Khali brain-chopping the chair? It clearly missed by a mile.
- Well, the premiere superstar until he loses to Mysterio over and over again then when he was about to win the title Rey got himself suspended so the title got moved to Morrison and by then they'd gotten bored with Ziggler and had Drew win it instead, leading Dolph to flounder for the next year or so.
- He had I Am Perfection at this point? Thought he still had that awesome instrumental.
- Kind of funny hearing absolute dead silence for Ziggler's entrance given how over he is now. This crowd is soooo dead for Dolph here, you can't see a soul moving during his entrance.
- Ha, his Titantron has more than one clip of him beating up Santa Claus.
- JR got hit with a skillet one time.
- Is it really an upset when Ziggler'd beaten Khali three times in the month leading up to the match? And the recap video showed that? Man, 2009 JR just did not give a crap.
- Yeah, I genuinely don't remember what Kane had to do with anything here.
- What's even the point of this Kane run-in, honestly? It just taints Dolph's win when he was already dominating the match as it was.
- Again, not really, Dolph was already dominating and had it well in hand as it was.
- "Literally and figuratively pinning the Great Khali at the Bash." I know what Todd was trying to say but the way he said it came out completely wrong.
- What exactly is a GM supposed to accomplish?
- Okay, I'll give you Adamle and Bischoff, they created new match types. What the hell did Heyman and Coach do?
- Being around Teddy Long makes Vince want to kill himself.
- I admit I laughed at Vince doing the dance. It was the look on his face.
Carlito & Primo vs. Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase vs. Chris Jericho & Edge- That Priceless minitron looks kind of absurd for how big the letters are. They're just enormous.
- Remember when they for some reason had Jerishow's first title defense be against Legacy?
- I like Cody's Legacy logo trunks. Should've worn those more often.
- Should've just been Edge, that'd have been funny.
- Who the hell did you think would be Edge's partner, Cole? Was there some other guy who went to yell at Teddy demanding a shot at a title?
- Was Primo trying to grow out an afro himself here?
- They really should have tried repacking them as a pair of guys who hit on people in bars, the Colognes.
- That holding dropkick was pretty cool.
- Why does Cole sound so quiet here?
- Were they ever going to give Jericho and Edge a team name? If so, what? R2J? Ultimate in the World?
- Primo sold that Codebreaker like a champ, give him that.
- Ha, that ending was kind of clever.
- And thus possibly the most forgetable Mania World title match ever was born.
- Does sort of make the nonexistant tag division look like a joke to have two guys who've never teamed up before, one of which already had a match, be added at the last minute to a title match and effortlessly win the belts.
- Man, I really wish I'd get some more Randy Savage as part of this project. Barely seen him doing this.
- Orton looks really rough here, easy to forget how thin he was at this point.
- God, did they drag out hinting at the Legacy break-up over and over and over and over. . .
- It's bad form to try and get a guy on your side by saying, "No, you're wrong. This was never a partnership, you're my lackey."
Melina vs. Michelle McCool- Foxcool? McFox? I don't know what to call this partnership. Has Alicia Fox been the flunky of every single other woman who's been on the roster since her debut?
- Love how the only movement at all in the crowd is one guy swaying a bit with a YOU SUCK! sign and another playing with his phone.
- Yes, having a Master's degree makes you more qualified to stomp on someone's leg.
- How do you botch an Irish whip that badly? At least McCool did pretty quickly cover for it.
- Yeah, this show is a major event.
- If Jericho and Edge aren't your problem, why did you bring them up out of nowhere with no prompting, JR?
- It's kind of telling how much they're talking up McCool like she's a legend who can offer Alicia a lot by being aligned with her while basically completely ignoring Melina's existence.
- What's even the point of this match? It's basically just a straight-up squash.
- I love how you can see the crowd counting along with the pin on McCool and raising their hands for the victory while looking completely unenthused. It's like they're being sarcastic.
Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk- SmackDown's main event, halfway through the show.
- Why did Jeff kick out of the GTS after the cash-in anyway? With Cena it made sense as a tease he was going to pull it out yet again with how absolutely invincible he was, but it seems just specifically designed to make Punk look weak in this case. Particularly given they recap it, though I'd started to rant about it before they did.
- What was up with having that triple threat on Raw anyway?
- Man, I hated this feud. I know it's not a popular opinion but I really, really did, just because almost every step of the way Punk seemed to be entirely in the right but the narrative was insisting he wasn't. Even in beating down Jeff with the chair, Jeff was the one who attacked him first. Then of course there's how when you bring real life stuff into it Punk wound up being entirely correct in everything he said about Jeff.
- Ouch, Misawa sign directly next to an Owen Hart sign.
- CM PUNK IS NOW CM CHUMP.
- Yay, No More Words! Maybe I should complain about not getting to hear some other theme in the hopes it'll pop up soon after like this one did. Maybe I should hope for Another Me. Foreshadowing!
- So why is Jeff out second? Do like the touch of him skipping on the face paint and nnot taunting as much as usual, looking more focused.
- CHEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!
- Meh, I didn't really like their ladder match that much.
- I like how they ignore how Punk mentioned he was going to cash in that night regardless of who won. Plus he was obviously waiting for his moment, he tried cashing in on Edge every week for like a month straight.
- Yeah, one's straight edge, the other main evented Victory Road 2011.
- Did he say live and die by the three?
- That stairs spot was pretty cool.
- I have to admit, knowing this ends in a DQ really is impacting my ability to care that much about it.
- Why bother letting him go from the body scissors? Just elbow him for like an hour straight, nothing's stopping you.
- Slams aren't simple if you're receiving them says JR.
- "Quicken the pace. Quicken the pace. Hardy's better at a more rapid. . . At a more rapid cadence." JR's pretty impressively bad on this show honestly.
- Why is Jeff wrestling with a necklace on?
- Punk doesn't have buzzsaw kicks, that's Tajiri!
- Why would Punk need to prove he's a true champion? He already retained the title against Jeff and Edge in the triple threat.
- What, they couldn't even bother to have Punk's foot on the rope? The under it thing is brought up so rarely it basically doesn't register.
- Did they ever actually announce that the match was continuing? Crowd seems to get it but I wouldn't be surprised if some people didn't follow.
- You seriously should be able to waive a DQ win in wrestling. I know it'd force the writers to be more clever but it makes no sense that there's a condition of, "Nope, sorry, you won in the wrong way, no title for you."
- Given the ending of this match, shouldn't they have cut some time from it instead of Cena / Miz?
- Did that sign say THANK YOU STEEN?
- Damn, I'm looking at like 45 minutes of Triple H / Orton, aren't I?
- Stop recapping it and stalling for time! Why's Punk's music playing? He lost the match, he's not out there at this point, and he just got his ass kicked.
- Just cut away already!
- Uh, he'd been champion twice at this point JR.
- "Lemme tell you something, you're no good!"
- Shit, why does Orton have so many outfits hanging up in his dressing room? Has he been sleeping there for a few weeks?
- Wait, really? They mention Rev Theory doing Voices followed by cutting to Adelitas Way and don't mention that they do Legacy's theme?
- Seriously, why is this show so padded out?
John Cena vs. The Miz- Your future WrestleMania main event!
- Ha, what? The promo video is showing a parade of pro-Cena signs and playing chants while acting like Miz is the only one with the gaul to disrespect Cena? What? That pretty much flies completely contrary to the story of the feud.
- See, even Cena's promo they're recapping here's pointing that out.
- I forget all about the period where miz's hair was purple.
- Well, the main event match with Cena was a couple of years off. Though it was bad news, yeah.
- Huh, shit, Miz just called his face the moneymaker.
- Would it be cool if I just watched their match from Raw the next night instead? It was way better.
- Convenient Adelitas Way and Rev Theory were sitting right next to each other, huh?
- Did they ever sell those No Cena shirts?
- Honestly Miz should maybe switch to his old theme with the current intro. It'd fit his current character better and it's a very instantly recognizable instrumental.
- Holy Shot sign. I don't know what that means. Sounds like porn.
- Admittedly I am kind of digging Cena just carrying himself like the coolest guy in the room here.
- Honestly for as short as it is this is a pretty decent match. Fits their story well with Miz getting shown up early but once he manages to pick his spot managing to get some decent offense in.
- What's with the design on the back of Cena's shorts?
- Twitter was around in 2009?
- And that's the end of that. If they had given it about ten minutes more it probably would have been a great match like their one the next night was. Had kind of the makings of it.
- "I think Miz just got put in the litter box." So Miz is cat shit?
Randy Orton vs. Triple H- I think this was the last one-on-one PPV match between Orton and Triple H, at least to date. Thankfully.
- Still waiting for an explanation on why exactly Batista won the title at Extreme Rules.
- And for that matter why Triple H walking out with a sledgehammer meant Orton wasn't awarded the title for Batista not showing up to defend it like he was supposed to be.
- But not the Man With a Plan.
- Man, this video package makes Orton look like the victim. The only real violence they show is what he did to Batista, outside of that it's just Triple H torturing him at every turn.
- Another PPV where every single title match didn't have the champion coming out last.
- "He's heading into uncharted waters for him - a traditional wrestling match!"
- Half an hour left, about half of that should consist of Triple H's entrance.
- What was with the move to having sweeping dramatic camera shots of Triple H during his entrance in 2009, anyway?
- Still amazes me that not only did they have a Last Man Standing match with no commercials six days before the PPV, it was the third time they'd faced each other in one.
- Why did Cole say it like beating Michaels was more impressive than beating Austin?
- Has the only one since this been Cena / Ryback? I hope I don't have to see that one incidentally, I'm sure it sucks.
- Trippulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.
- RanDAY Ortuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
- What happens if the second fall happens on a stretcher past the finish line?
- STOP SAYING LOOKIT.
- No, no, Orton's the Cerebrum Assassin. There's a difference.
- What, it wasn't personal when Triple H had Orton violently beaten down by a gang every week for months or when Orton punted Triple H's best friend and seemingly ended his career?
- If Triple H was just going to get DQed so he could beat Orton to a pulp, why on earth didn't he just do it from the word go? And isn't that more something a heel would do?
- That shot to the head would be pretty sick if not for Cole screaming, "LOOKIT, LOOKIT LOOKIT LOOKIT!!"
- And if Orton bothered selling it.
- What was even the point of it being a Three Stages of Hell match if the first two falls were both going to happen about five minutes in?
- Why was the stretcher not already out there?
- Ditto for the finish line, why didn't they prepare that in advance?
- "Will the Game back in the game."
- Shock and awe, an Orton / Triple H match is pretty boring and aimless.
- HE HIT HIM WITH THE FOAM OFF THE BARRICADE, THAT VICIOUS SON OF A BITCH.
- Have they even touched the stretcher yet?
- Why didn't Orton just slide the steps in given he was clearly having serious difficulty trying to throw them?
- And why's this being done as Orton wearing the noble face down instead of Triple H beating him to a pulp for his various evils, especially given how the second fall went?
- How did that hurt Orton's back? He hit his leg.
- What's with the green-haired Triple H sign?
- King doesn't know the difference between the ramp and stairs.
- Don't try and punt somebody while they're in front of something, Randy, it never works out well.
- Honestly to give them credit they are doing some neat stuff with the stretcher and come up with some good spots for it, but the match is just dull anyway.
- How does a backdrop on a padded stretcher knock someone out?
- Why isn't everyone's strategy in a stretcher match to take the thing to the stage, grab a weapon, and just bludgeon a guy until he stops moving? Or put the thing past the finish line then just shove them on top of it for a second?
- Why's Orton going for the RKO? He could win right now without it.
- So time for Legacy to show up then.
- Yep.
- Uh, why didn't Triple H just pull back on the stretcher than shove it forward? He'd have knocked Cody away then and won the title in the process.
- Have to like how Cody alone beating down Triple H when he's barely able to move isn't believable enough and Triple H has to dispose of him leading to DiBiase also showing up.
- Whoops, stretcher just accidentally crossed the line with Orton on it. Guess if the guy's not booked to lose it doesn't count.
- This is a really impressively bad ending, how it manages to make all four guys look bad - DiBiase deciding that he's fine after all with being Orton's bitch after chewing him out earlier, Orton for needing to be bailed out more than once, Legacy as a whole for Triple H repeatedly managing to fight them off before he finally goes down, and Triple H for not having a plan in place for if they showed up when he's usually smarter than that.
- Why the f*** are you two helping Orton up? Put Triple H on the stretcher and finish it for him.
- Why was there a sledgehammer there? Was Triple H psychic?
- How did Orton remove part of the stage.
- I'm inclined to think that the only reason they had so much interference at the end was to remind you Orton was the heel since Triple H was the one fighting like it the whole match.
- That's not shocking at all, King.
- Why the hell are you standing waiting for him to turn around, Hunter? Hit him in the small of the back and cripple him.
- And the PPV ends with Orton and his stable laid out at Triple H's feet with him posing triumphantly, which is a suitable lead-in to the next month where Orton tapped out in front of the referee who just ignored it leading to him to win due to his flunkies doing all of the work again.
- There's two and a half minutes of Triple H celebrating left on this show? Yeah, screw that.
Eh. . . There's a reason nobody ever brings this show up. There's some good stuff here - Jericho / Mysterio in particular, but Punk / Jeff is fun too before the stupid ending and Cena / Miz is pretty decent for what it is but way too short. Pretty much every match here's been done better elsewhere though so I'd pass on this one. Nothing really awful, even the main event is tolerable enough, but the most interesting thing about the show is how amazingly bad JR is on commentary throughout it.
Feel free to keep recommending TNA shows, I'm thinking I'm going to take all of the ones suggested and randomize them to come up with two more to watch. That being said, next up is. . . Uncensored 1999. Gee, I wonder if that will be any good.