RedJed

I think that was the point of it though, to be out of place and random, that was the deal with the whole movie, it was just a wild train wreck of a debacle of sorts, just like the first Crank. Over the top craziness. It was also written and directed by the same guy as the first Crank, which explains the similarities and the heavy tie-in to the first one.

Can they please stop using their blonde interviewer be the concerned girlfriend of Abyss? It comes off just ridiculously bad, in a bad way. They should have her just stick to the interviews and do something with Daffney and Abyss instead.

Hell of a tornado match there, lots of good highspots using the cage. Much better of a match overall than the previous two. Hell, even No Limit looked good here. Hernandez continues to look strong as well.

Yeah it was another very average match, akin to the opener in that nothing really stood out as neither really bad or really good. It was just kind of there. This tag team tornado match should be pretty solid stuff, I would think. This is kind of unofficially somewhat of an X division tag title match in essense when you think about it. Makes me wonder how long New Japan will let the titles be defended in TNA.

Suicide retained in the X division opener, pretty average match finishing with Suicide doing a dive from the top of the cage to security and Kiyoshi on the floor to win. Some stuff with Suicide/Lethal was good though. Funny to see TNA trying to make it look like Daniels isn't Suicide anymore (even though he clearly still is working under the mask in this match) by immediately cutting to a promo with Daniels and Styles, which I'm sure was taped much earlier in the day. But I'm sure it was no coicidence they laid out the show like that. Up next is the Queen of the Cage

Not that it probably means anything, but Nash wasn't shown in camera with the rest of the crew showing up to the arena. I wouldn't be shocked to hear he is still not ready to wrestle though. Surprising to see they actually got Billy Corgan to cut a promo of sorts (reciting the lyrics to Bullet with Butterfly Wings inside the cage) to open the show. That was a cool touch.

Yes and no, just because it wasn't his move, yet he needed to work with Young to make it smooth and he did the farthest thing from that. To give him credit though, he looked better in there than I expected him too.

Now that the car crash is over, some quick predictions, and I will post the lineup in the order that apparently it will happen on the ppv. Supposedly, TNA is going to debut two former world champions on this show tonight and Taz is not there. Hmmm....I'm still thinking RVD will show up (which should be huge if it happens), but not sure of the other. X division Xscape match - Creed/Lethal/Suicide/Bashir/Kiyoshi (Pretty sure Suicide will take this one, sounds like Daniels is still wearing the mask here.) Madison Rayne vs. Sojo Bolt vs. Daffney vs. ODB in a Queen of the Cage match (ODB will probably win, if I recall correctly this is kind of like a reverse cage match in a way, the first two chicks to actually get IN the cage have a singles match) Motor City Machine Guns vs. No Limit vs. LAX for the IWGP Jr. Tag Titles (This should be good, I will go with the Machine Guns retaining) Abyss vs. Matt Morgan Doomsday Chamber of Blood (Would imagine the buttons and whistles will be big here, probably some big bump off the cage to end it. Given the build, I'm thinking Morgan wins) Awesome Kong vs. Angelina Love vs. Taylor Wilde for the Women's Title (Have a feeling Angelina Love is going to win the title here for some reason) Beer Money vs. Team 3-D for the TNA and IWGP Tag Titles in a street fight (aka NOT a cage match) (3-D will probably win, expect big things from this one since its a fight outside the ring and its in Philly) Lethal Lockdown with Jarrett & AJ & Samoa Joe & Chris Daniels vs. Angle & Nash & Booker T & Scott Steiner (Going with the Jarrett team winning somehow, looking forward to this one alot) Sting vs. Cactus Jack for the TNA Title (Somehow, I'm expecting Sting to retain solely just because I can't see Foley working a regular schedule at all, even if it is just working matches on the TV shows. Haven't been looking forward to a TNA main event like this since Joe/Angle as last years Lockdown, though)

Ugliest rollup for the win EVER. Horrible match, but did anyone expect anything less? Bonaduce got thrown for a ride by the Gore, though. Ouch!

What was up with that fan plant? Again, WEIRD.

I'll be here posting thoughts on and off.... They are doing the preshow live right now, Bonaduce and Eric Young is up, and Danny Bonaduce is cutting a promo before the match talking about having Johnny Fairplays that tooth he knocked out of his mouth, which he has hanging on his necklace. Kind of weird to say the least.

That's too bad about Crank 2, I saw it yesterday and it is even more over the top (and in a good way) that the original Crank. Had pretty much everyone from the first one, and was a straight sequal, literally taking place seconds after the first one ended, with a fun, yet pretty unbelievable storyline. But I really enjoyed it, in the same vein of Shoot Em Up, etc.

Agreed there, I will say that much...

Holy shit, has anyone heard of this yet? I was just reading about the story behind this new GLOW or WOW-like company, only much more cheesy from what I've seen so far. They do a parody of the Wrestlerap song from 25 years ago that needs to be heard and seen to be believed in just how bad it is. But the whole deal with the company is some 19 black kid won the lottery....here is what I think is their first press release ever...how did I just find out about this? 19 YEAR OLD WON 35 MILLION POWERBALL, STARTED WRESTLICIOUS IN 2008 Los Angeles, CA-Saturday March 28, 2008 The Executive Producer of the new Jimmy Hart’s Wrestlicious TV show creating a huge buzz on the internet, , 19 year old Jonathan Vargas, is excited about the overwhelming response. Vargas, the youngest Powerball winner ever, won 35.3 million in May 2008, and wasted no time pursuing his dream of being involved the wrestling business. Vargas, who lived in Gaston, South Carolina at when he bought the winning Powerball ticket recently moved to Tampa, Florida to be closer to the Wrestlicious production. “It definitely always been a dream to be in the wrestling business. I grew up watching Jimmy Hart, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and Nasty Boy Brian Knobbs, and it seems surreal that they are all part of Wrestlicious now. We have assembled some of the best producers and talent in the business, I know in my heart Wrestlicious will be a home run” Vargas will appear in the show as “JV Rich”, the laid back and affable Rapper/Owner of Wrestlicious. Regular features will include “JV’s CRIB”, a look at the goings-on inside JV’s mansion frequented by The Wrestlicious Girls. “I thought he was very nice, and doesn’t seem to be affected at all by his good fortune. He was totally respectful to all the ladies on the set. He seemed to me to be involved in Wrestlicious solely because he genuinely loves wrestling and not as a vehicle to meet young women” said Wrestlicious star Lacey Von Erich. “Mr. Vargas has been a pleasure to work with since he first expressed his interest in women’s wrestling to me last summer” added Wrestlicious Senior Producer and GLOW alumni Johnny Cafarella “He’s a very smart young man and surprising business acumen for a guy his age” You have to see the Youtube videos to believe how ridiculous this shit is, Jimmy Hart has a big part in it and is hosted by one of the old Diva Search chicks, who was on Deal or No Deal also (Leyla Milani). Some notable women wrestlers are on the roster like Lacey Von Erich and alot of the old WOW ladies in different gimmicks. And some familiar names with a a complete gimmick and name change here too. I guess they are trying to go national in the fall, wow......just wow. http://www.youtube.com/user/WrestliciousBaby

Yeah, that was good shit there. If he would have winked or nodded after saying it, would have been even better. Speaking of comedy too, as goofy and over the top that it is, I'm loving this ODB/Cody Deaner stuff. Particularly, that mixed tag match was actually not unintentional humor (which is normally the only stuff that makes you grin or laugh a bit during a TNA broadcast), and yet was pretty funny stuff. That Deaner guy totally has that redneck spaz gimmick down perfect so it works. The Daffney/Abyss pairing could work too in some over the top "so fucked up its good" level. Yeah, regarding Tenay, he really hasn't hit his spot at all either lately, so I guess I shouldn't have knocked on West particularly. I'll say it again, when Daniels came out, Tenay didn't react hardly at all, which should have been a given for him to be a little shocked and play it off as significant. Plus when West asked Tenay about Jarrett's actions and stuff, Tenay didn't react like a no gimmick babyface announcer should, it was more like a guy that felt uncomfortable in his "role" (and rightfully so) of having to read lines, or at least it appears like it. My big problem with them both, particularly lately, is that they feel like they are reading from a script more than ever, and West coming off so green in the new role. But I guess that's to be expected early on with the change.

Has anyone here even been able to catch this show at all? I have seen all weeks so far and they are still in the first tapings stage of developing all of the characters and whatnot, so its very much a simple formula on the shows still as it was initially. The main events have been getting much better though week to week, Aries/Danielson was strong a few weeks back for sure. The undercard matches have started to slowly turn away from competitive squash matches and more to legit back and forth bouts that are better than the norm as well. One thing to note from these shows is Larry Sweeney must have really been on some good drugs because his personality is way way way all over the place (which is saying alot since he's normally acts kind of wild) when he's on TV here, be it cutting a promo for the people he manages or just going overtly brash at ringside when he would be out there. Judging by where he is now (out of the company and it looks like they are done with him) you can kind of see where it led a bit by when they did these tapings and he was clearly way out of it on some serious shit, or else really just going a little crazy train a bit....either way it was in front of the cameras. Kind of surreal.

Thanks for posting that article, that was actually a pretty fun little article by Heyman there, I had major nostalgic vibes when reading that in just realizing how significant the Arena actually is in terms of wrestling history, still want to go to it someday, even if it's way different now. But considering ROH basically calls that place unofficially their homebase right now (by all intensive purposes at least, since all ROH weekly TV continues to just be from that location) it should be interesting to see the Dragon Gate promotion compete with them a bit. CZW definately did this years ago, and it turned into a nice interpromotional feud by the end of it, but chances are this wont happen here because of the legit heat between the companies, and ironically enough now they pick up Gabe, who was the guy trying to salvage the relationship with the companies when shit went south. All I know is I wish I lived in Philly, especially lately. TNA is there this weekend too, and it just is THE wrestling hub of the United States for sure.

Fun fact #2: Shane McMahon was also in the main event of the first ever episode of Smackdown. Are you sure about that? I swear it was Rock/HHH with Shawn Michaels as the special ref.

I mentioned it in the other thread already, but really, the only glaring negative from the show last night (and I'll get more into the positives later) was Don West's job trying to be a true heel commentator more than ever. The guy just doesnt have it in him to be convincing in that role whatsoever. Then again, the guy just needs to move on from color commentary more than anything. And this duo needs to be broke up finally, they have tried far too long with little results. His bad overselling of things during the end of the great Sting/Foley segment really annoyed me, as well as him during that entire main event. Tenay, as well, could have done a lot better when Daniels came out....both guys just kind of treated it as a ho-hum deal.

I'm hoping she will just make an appearance for whatever reason and not turn into an actual on-air character. Can't see that being anything but a negative to the company as a whole if she turns into an actual character.

It's really hard to say if Taz will head to TNA or not, I really would like to see him take a role as commentator alongside Tenay though, after Don West was the only glaring really bad part of the strong Impact show last night (he just doesn't come off like a believable heel at all and ruins alot of important angles and such by his lack of credibility) and West would be much better off as an actual heel manager or even as the ring announcer, taking over Penzer's spot. But judging by the end of his post there, he's essentially hinting he could go to TNA, UFC, OR ROH there. So who knows what's up there. For what it's worth, at Lockdown on Sunday a former "world champion" is coming into the company, and there are alot of rumors it is Taz given it's in Philly and the timing of it all. Honestly though, I don't think it's him given it sounds like he wants to take some serious time off from the business by his post (then again the post could just be a swerve too). I'm hoping/banking it on this new "world champion" being RVD.....I think it's long overdue that he gives the company a shot, and debuting at a pay per view in Philly makes just as much sense as Taz coming in.

I'll comment more later but finished watching the go-home Impact to Lockdown tonight and that was one damn good show overall. One of their best jobs in building last minute to a ppv they have ever done, will post more thoughts later, but Daniels/Angle was one hell of a fun main event.

The show as a whole wasnt that bad, has the potential to have some substance to it if they air matches like this (or hopefully better) every week, but ultimately other than the fact that the Christian/Finlay match was for a title shot at the ppv, the hour came off like major filler material to me. I can see the show being hard to balance the quality of it without watering down potential weekly TV main events on any of the three other shows. But time will tell on it, one thing that can be said it is definately a pure wrestling show and one would assume since the gimmick is to air one match from each brand every week, that it will continue to be. Can't really complain about that. With that said though, there wasn't anything really that good here in terms of action, nor was it bad either. Very mixed feelings on the whole concept. One has to wonder that in due time, especially if rating sag, they may try to experiment with this hour a bit and maybe make it an all women show. It's probably doubtful but it would be nice to have this show stand out a bit more long term, even if it means making it an all Diva show or whatnot. WWE has over 20 women in the company, so it wouldn't be that hard to do. Does anyone in the country even have WGN America in HD anyway? Never knew they even had an HD feed of that channel anywhere.

Are your Raw downloads in HD or is it just the standard definition feed? Just curious since I see the ECW one is in HD. Please keep posting these week to week if you can since I can't record shows off my dish anymore onto DVD for some reason, so I'll have to start downloading them and then burning the good shows onto disc from now on.

Taker also main evented the first Raw if I recall, against Damien Demento of all people. Anyway, a day late and a dollar short on posting thoughts on the show as has been usual with me lately, but I thought overall, it was alright (some of the matches were interesting pairings, but nothing much to say in terms of action), but the beginning and ending of the show relating to the HHH/Batista/Shane/Legacy shit was pretty bad stuff if you ask me. I've never seen such a phoned in promo segment on Raw in recent memory compared to the one they did with Vicki to kick off the show, and that main event was just very hard to get into because of the previous build to it, plus the fact that DiBiase and Rhodes are already way cut off in the knees and the least they need to do is then put them in a handicap match against three babyfaces. As far as thoughts on the draft, I'll be collecting thoughts on that in the draft post in a bit.