Just John

Back in February, I wasn't about to believe it either. Honestly, I don't either guy would be in my top 15 or 20 again, but I haven't seen a better match this year than the Angle/UT NWO match. And I'm talking overall, not just WWE. They work a great striker/wrestler dynamic with good build, nice spots, and all the anklelocks actually make sense. It could very well be the best match of both men's careers.

Wrestler of the year: Fit Finlay Tag-team/Stable of the year: MNM Match of the year: Kurt Angle vs. The Undertaker (No Way Out) Best heel: Edge Best face: CM Punk Most improved wrestler: Johnny Nitro Quote of the year: "They're gonna let you back into Germany?" (Michael Cole) Markout moment of the year: Edge winning the WWE title at NYR Funniest moment of the year: King Booker meets Cryme Tyme ("I DON'T SPEAK E-BONICS!") Worst moment of the year: Vince McMahon no-selling what should've been a feud ending ass-kicking at Mania and challenging Shawn Michaels and God to a match Worst wrestler of the year: The Great Khali Best brand: Smackdown Worst brand: ECW Best PPV: Judgment Day Worst PPV: December 2 Dismember Biggest disappointment: The total collapse of the Trish/Mickie program right around Backlash ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For new awards that should be included, I'm adding: Total Package (For best promos/wrestling/everything): John Cena Best Comeback: Finlay Best feud: Trish vs. Mickie Worst feud: McMahon vs. Michaels (also encompasses McMahon vs. DX) Best Diva: Mickie James Worst Diva: Ashley

I forgot to rewind my tape all the way, so I missed the last two matches, but from what I saw, this was a fine show. The Cena/AAE match dragged a lot. Took way too long to get to the finish we all knew was coming. The Carlito/Lawler vs. Masters/Vis tag was hilariously bad. Carlito has looked terrible lately, and the other 3 don't exactly bring much to the table. The finish was just awful, as no one looked like they knew where they were supposed to be. I did like the Cryme Tyme skit. CT vs. TWGTT is a perfect midcard feud. The guys actually have a reason to be fighting, but Politically Correct Charlie Haas gives it a comedic touch so it's not too heavy. Should be an alright match too. The skit also effectively set up WGTT vs. Highlanders, which was more of a WGTT exhibition than anything, but I loved it. I'm glad Haas and Benjamin have something to do. The HHH/Edge match was what it should've been (short with a non-finish) since that could be a big ME match later on. The following 6-man was good fun. Kenny eating the fall again is not surprising. If I had to guess where it's going, I'd say Kenny tries and tries but Edge and Orton never accept him, leading to a Kenny face turn. Or he just brutalizes Flair and helps R-RKO beat DX at NYR and he's in. Psycho Victoria is a good angle. Biting Torrie's nail off was a great touch for her character. I wish Mickie could still be psychotic and then we'd have a great feud on our hands. Masters running out and putting Torrie in the Masterlock was totally random and funny. I guess they're going for Carlito vs. Masters at NYR? Sounds like Umaga beat Jeff by ref stoppage. I believe the last time that happened in WWE was Edge vs. Matt at Summer Slam 05. I know some people hate it, but it's one of my favorite finishes in wrestling. Makes the match seem so much more legit and hate-filled. And Cena went over Nitro as well to no surprise. Oh well, I could've done without seeing that anyway. Like I said, solid show all around. PPV build up, furthering angles, lots of wrestling, what else do you need? I'll even tolerate the first two bad segments because the intent was good for furthering Cena/Umaga and Carlito/Masters.

This brings back memories of the 2003-04 season when the 9-6 Bills met the 14-1 Steelers B-team led by XFL MVP Tommy Maddox.

I think the idea is to build to Misawa/Kobashi, but who knows anymore?

I'm surprised NOAH put the belt back on Misawa. Not really sure where they go from here besides the obvious Morishima match.

The national tv games look pretty good this week. Sure, Wednesday is unoriginal teams, but at least the matchups are good. However, on Thursday there's Orlando, Charlotte, and NO/OKC who I never get to see. I really want to see the good Orlando Magic, Chris Paul, and Adam Morrison in the NBA. Friday has the AI-less Sixers getting raped by Dallas, but that is automatically negated by the fact there is a Rockets game in the late spot.

Overall, this was an up and down show. Seemed like the major feuds were developed and some new ones were started. Unfortunately, there were some really stupid things going on as well. The opening promo was pretty bad, with Cena doing a TERRIBLE Rock impersonation with the random gibberish speaking. Masters getting his first and probably only major title shot was random, but I guess it couldn't be bad for a one show thing. We'll find out later... I like Kenny severing all ties with the Spirit Squad. Some will complain about being R-RKO's bitch, but that's really how it should be for now. Edge and Orton are way above Kenny and are supposed to be arrogant pricks. Why would they accept Kenny with open arms? The Highlanders/Rednecks match would've been better if the crowd gave a damn. Not that they should care about either of these teams after the way they've been booked for the last few months, though. It was sad when the Highlanders couldn't even get a "Hot Rod" chant started. I like Victoria the "anti-diva." I don't think they should've done the Mickie beatdown here. Should've just let Maria get killed, and make it look like Mickie's the last line of defense for sexy divas. Oh well. What happened to getting Cryme Tyme over as wrestlers? They certainly weren't bad in the ring, and Raw needs a face tag team. Oh well, why do that when you can steal another wrestler from SD and reduce CT to lame comedy skits. Seriously, the "old lady speaking street slang" bit is so tired and played out that only the WWE writing staff would be unoriginal enough to use it. At least it led to Shelton developing his character as the Jesse Jackson of WWE. It's probably a good thing he made some racist comments to Super Crazy, because telling the fans to boo a minority for not approving of blatant stereotypes is ridiculous. Not like WWE wouldn't do it, but at least Shelton's hypocrisy adds more depth to his character and makes him a legit heel. It was also nice to see Shelton get a win, and a WGTT re-union tease. Maybe than can run with "Politically Correct" Charlie Haas to get a feud with CT going. Shelton would be a much better black partner than the one Haas was teaming with for months. Alright, back to the random Cena/Masters stuff... Could it be good? And, the answer is... No. Cena makes Masters look like a bitch by making him tap to the second goofy facial-expression submission this year. Remember he debuted the STFU against Masters in January in 3-way with him and Angle (My how times change). Maybe he'll start using this full time and call it the "Master-Beater." I am interested in Cena/Umaga, but not Cena/Armando or the restraining order. Carlito's match and skit with Vis were both terrible. Carlito was throwing some horrible punches and botched the Lionsault to boot. On a side note, I think Jerry Lawler and Matt Hardy should hold a seminar for WWE wrestlers on how to throw a good worked punch. The HLA/Eugene shit was beyond lame. Eugene's heel turn is textbook in terms of its build, but could WWE have picked a worse or more heatless character to try it on? HHH standing up for Ric Flair was amusing. One year ago HHH was the one trying to cripple him with a sledge hammer, if I remember correctly. At least there was no lame DX comedy. Maybe Road Dogg and Billy Gunn are making a difference! The ME was pretty fun, I thought. Good fast action, and a fitting finish. Edge owns Matt Hardy. Could've done without the additional Kenny burial, but whatever.

Oh, ok. My bad then. I have no idea when Helms defended the title last. Before GAB?

Helms defended the title, ironically against Jimmy Wang Yang, the week before Survivor Series I think. And how quickly people forget the Angle/Taker feud. UT was doing all his dark powers shit, but Angle never backed down and still got right in his face telling him how he was going to break his ankle. It was simple and effective, and it's exactly what they should do with Batista.

Even if the opposition isn't that great, the Rockets have a tough week with 4 games in 5 nights, 3 of which are on the road. The national tv games are completely uninteresting to me. Philly and Shaq-less Miami twice? Yuck.

I went to my local Buffalo Wild Wings to watch this show. I hate to be unoriginal, but man did it suck. I'll admit it got off to a great start with Hardys/MNM. The match got tons of time and Nitro pulled out some big new moves. Plus, there were all your other favorite Hardys and MNM spots throughout the match, dive sequences, double teaming, etc. Oh, and Melina absolutely ATE IT on a dropkick from Nitro. The finish was nice with the double top rope cutter from Matt and the stacked Swanton from Jeff. *** 1/2 and probably ECW's second best match this year. However, once this ended, the show proceeded to go downhill in a damn hurry before falling off a cliff and not just hitting rock bottom, but crashing into it creating a crater several feet deep. First, we get filler match #1 with Balls and Striker. For god's sake, someone get Striker tights that aren't two sizes too small. I guess this match wasn't that bad, per se, but it was total free-tv material. Whatever, moving on... Filler match #2 with Burke and the Manbear vs. the FBI. Total Velocity-quality borderline squash match. Didn't belong on ppv at all, but when your roster is only 15 people, I guess there's no choice. Filler match #3 with Dreamer and Daivari was also a worthless Heat-quality match. Only worthwhile moments were Khali slamming Dreamer on the ramp after the match and Daivari's music. Filler match #4 (the mixed tag) was atrocious on pretty much every level. Kelly was the most over person in the match, but also wrestled like she was trained by Jackie Gayda and Ashley. Thorn, Ariel, and Knox really didn't bring anything to the table here. Finally, we get the Chamber. It started off promising with RVD hitting some cool (even if recycled) spots, and the Punk getting in on the quality spot work as well. However, once Test entered the match, the match died. RVD eliminating Punk first was one of the most retarded booking decisions I've seen this month. And that's after watching Survivor Series AND Genesis. Remember Punk's ovation last week? WWE: We listen to the fans! Yeah fucking right. Then there was a fucked up elim on Holly where the ref clearly did not count to three, but showed Holly the door anyway. Total business exposer there. Test's elim on RVD was pretty cool, but the fact RVD was eliminated most certainly was not. Then Lashley comes out kills Test and Show and wins to no crowd reaction. Lashley gets some pyro and the show ends... 30 minutes early. What a fucking joke. There was at least 2 minutes of dead time in the chamber, and I'm not talking about 3 guys laying there. I'm talking about 1 guy walking around the chamber because there was no one else in there. Who booked that shit? And you're telling me they couldn't have run Sandman/Holly then eliminated Sabu first in the chamber? Terrible booking all around. All in all, this was one of the most piss-poor efforts of a ppv I've ever seen. I feel bad for the Hardys and MNM because their solid match will be overlooked due to everything else on this show that was terrible. I hope the buyrate is miserable and tv ratings drop big next week. I feel dumber for watching this show. I don't think fans can shit on this one enough.

The Chargers have a legit shot at home-field now. Along with the Colts, Pats, and Ravens, the AFC playoffs should be really good. If Denver loses tonight, the wild card race will be very interesting.

Well, it only took 14 games for T-Mac to get hurt, but at least the Rockets are still winning. Tonight they shut down the Cavs in an ugly game, holding them to just 63 points.

This'll look great for TNA when they air it on Impact and we see WWE out-drawing TNA's weekly TV show and ppv's with a fucking house show that only features 1/2 of their roster.

No, they broke it up over a few shows. They planted the seeds for his turn when Umaga beat up Eugene about a month ago. Duggan went to check on Eugene in the back, and Eugene snapped on him. Then they did a handicap match with Umaga vs. Duggan and Eugene, with Eugene staying out of the ring the whole time while Duggan got killed. Then they lost the match to the Spirit Squad where the losers would never team again (lot of good that did for the SS) after which Eugene attacked Duggan with the board. Fundamentally, there's not much wrong with the angle itself, as it's being built in a fairly logical manner. Yeah, they could stand to drop the retardation, but honestly, how much sense would that make? The biggest problem is that no one has cared about Eugene for over a year, and it's been much longer than that for Duggan.

Does Lita not understand kayfabe? When you're a face, you get a friendly, celebrated exit because the crowd loves you. When you're a heel, you get the bitch exit because it makes no sense kayfabe-wise to do a mushy celebration for a character most of the crowd hates. You should get the bitch exit if you're a heel no matter how good you are (See: Chris Jericho). You can come back later for the mushy stuff.

WWE will ignore this. TNA will continue to look bush league.

In turn, Sullivan never wrestled in WCW after losing a retirement match to Benoit. Saturn wore a dress after losing to Jericho at Souled Out 99.

I only got to see the first hour since my VCR decided not to record after that point. Only worthwhile things were Candice getting her face kicked in and Mickie's reaction (Oh Jesus), and the burial of a lifetime given to the Spirit Squad. Now, while I admittedly laughed at the OVW bit, I can't in anyway condone that segment. Sure, it's funny to the smarks, but did you hear the silence it was met with in the arena? I'm pretty sure only like 20% of the audience got it. The whole thing reeked of another HHH ego-jerk like his comments towards Cena and Masters earlier this year. For someone who "hates the internet" like Hunter, he sure does try to appeal to net fans a lot with his smarky, business-exposing comments. Of course, when nothing else he does funny or interesting, I can see why he'd resort to saying shit like that.

If Matt goes to Raw, SD better get Shelton and Carlito or something. There's no excuse for the constant talent rape of SD.

How is Memphis not the worst team in the league? And what the hell has Phoenix done to warrant being ranked ahead of Houston, Orlando, and the Lakers?

When has home-field advantage ever helped the Colts? Baltimore could easily beat them in Indy with a power runner and a solid D. I think the Colts are at the point where they'll at least have to make it to the SB before anyone takes them seriously. How many years in a row have they pulled off the "We're awesome in the regular season, then bend over in the playoffs" routine?

Interesting late games today, even if two of them looked very unappealing on paper. Two more turnovers end the Bears/Pats slop-fest, giving the Pats a huge win. Oakland was about 10 minutes from pulling the biggest upset of the season until they remembered they're Oakland. LT is pretty awesome. I like the Titans heart. They don't have the most talented roster, but they've been playing hard every week since Vince Young came in. I'm aware the Giants are filled with underachievers, but give the Titans some credit. Getting 24 points in a quarter is no easy feat. The Titans should be proud, though the Giants should be ashamed of themselves as well.

The Seau injury was sick. Obviously, with a broken arm, he'll probably miss the rest of the season (depending on how far the Pats make it in the playoffs), but the angle of his arm was just hard to look at.