The Gorilla Press: HE GONE! (ECW), and our Elimnation Chamber Preview
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Sunday, February 21, 2010
THE SHEET
It’s official, iMPACT! to move to Monday Nights[Miami Herald]
WWE making wholesale changes to PPV Lineup [PW Torch]
WWE NXT Cast announced [PW Insider]
Ed Harris to star alongside Randy Orton in upcoming WWE Film [Cinema Blend]
“Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase’s HOF inductor announced [PW Torch]
GORILLA CLIP OF THE WEEK
A reader passed this along. WWE Champion Sheamus is featured in a very believable prison fights scene in the Irish film The Escapist. I guess this answers the age old question of whether this guy every wears street clothes.
SHOWSTOPPER
FROM RAW
Women are bad drivers. The curios blonde who shattered Bret Hart’s ankle into pieces and broke his leg, according to WWE.com, has added yet another wrinkle into the plans for Bret Hart at Wrestlemania. I like this angle. This will give the WWE an excuse to keep Bret off TV for a few weeks, thus preserving his novelty. It also adds to the speculation of what exactly Bret will be doing at Wrestlemania, which is always half the fun (and in some cases more fun) leading up to the pro wrestling spectacular. Some have said that the blonde could be Shawn Michaels’ wife, which would be pretty cool but could complicate things if the plan still is to have Shawn and Taker face off at ‘Mania as it should be.
As much good as I think this car accident did for the Hart/Vince angle, it takes away from Bret Hart a bit to see him interacting with the faces of WWE’s obscurity. The fact that less than a handful of WWE’s de-pushed talent bid Hart farewell as he was on his way to the ominous made it seem like it wasn’t all that big of a deal that one of the biggest names in WWE history was saying goodbye forever. When Ric Flair said goodbye forever (yeah right), the entire locker room poured out to tearfully wish him his best in his future endeavors. Maybe the boys learned their lesson about nobody being able to retire from wrestling.
Jerry Springer approved for 15 minutes of cringeworthy filler. The WWE has developed a pattern of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ in the past couple of month, and this week’s episode was of the one step back variety. This was never more apparent than when a who’s who of WWE’s back-end talent was filling the ring to re-enact 15 minutes of what used to be pop culture’s favorite guilty pleasure (I’m talking about The Jerry Springer Show, not the attitude era).
The guest hosts have been utilized very well in weeks past as they have been sprinkled into the product and not featured as prominently. While Jerry Springer wasn’t the star of the show in any stretch of the imagination, his involvement did just enough to leave a bad taste in the mouth of anybody over the age of 10. Springer’s ‘final thoughts’ being used to build towards The Elimination Chamber was clever, however it may have fallen under the too little, too late category as the show itself didn’t do too good of a job building towards its upcoming pay-per-view.
FROM ECW
Daniel Bryan to be paired with Miz. Smarks cry foul. While I raised my eyebrows at the pairing of Miz and Daniel Bryan, a staple on the independent circuit and fan favorite of the internet wrestling community, the pairing definitely has potential to bring the best out of both Bryan and The Miz. The main concern with Daniel Bryan, as pointed out in our Scouting Report of The Artist Formerly known as The American Dragon, is his lack of promo ability and ‘star power’. Miz is a very hot character right now, and Bryan will be able to benefit from what Miz has to offer when it pertains to being a WWE star along with being a good worker.
Always remember, performing on national television in big time sold out arenas is a lot different than tearing the house down at a gym filled with 1,500 die-hard wrestling purists. A WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT.
Either way, the pairing has created a central buzz, gotten people talking, and will be sure to translate into more curious eyeballs on the TV set for at least the first couple of weeks of this show. Purists be damned.
RIP ECW. Congrats, Big Zeke.
FROM iMPACT!
Insert rocket. Light wic. Pope is receiving one of the strongest pushes in the entire wrestling business. After his strong performance in The 8 card stud tournament (which was part of an Against All Odds pay-per-view that we actually enjoyed), and his compelling promo with Ric Flair and A.J. Styles, it’s obvious that The Hogan administration has pegged The Pope as their ‘star of the month’. With The Lockdown pay-per-view over a month away, this will give Pope, Styles and Flair ample time to create a strong build towards what should be a fantastic match at what has grown to become one of TNA’s better pay-per-view events. I’ve never seen a Pope promo that didn’t entertain me, and with Flair taking the promo reigns from Styles for the most part, we should be in for some fantastic ‘back-and-fourth’ segments from two men who exemplify the past (Flair), present (Flair) and future (Pope) of wrestling.
For some reason, Hogan chooses Abyss. Hogan implicitly putting over The WWE Hall of Fame by praising his HOF ring as the only thing that’s never left him and then giving it to Abyss had potential to be a truly poignant moment. The first 15 seconds of that promo had me locked in, until Hulk started going off into a tangent about ‘the heavens and the earth…’. That’s when the whole thing got weird. It was like Tony Robbins meets The Ultimate Warrior. Motivational, yet incoherent.
Many are wondering why Hogan is choosing Abyss for such a strong rub. We have a theory. *SPOILER ALERT* Hogan is set to team with Abyss to wrestle against Flair and Styles at the upcoming March 8th live iMPACT! show (*END OF SPOILER*). It seems these two will develop some sort of a bond, only to have Abyss slowly degenerate into a monster heel who eventually attacks Hulk Hogan. The end game? A possible match between Hulk Hogan and Abyss, whose simplistic style of working and ‘Monster Heel’ character would be perfect for a feud with The Hulkster.
Hogan gave Abyss that ring so that you care about him as the stage sets for a possible feud between these two.
FROM SMACKDOWN!
Better build, but still not enough. Smackdown! did a better job of building up towards The Elimination Chamber event than RAW did, however having the Undertaker screw with his opponent’s matches and then finally appear from the shadows at the end was a bit underwhelming for the official go-home show for The Elimination Chamber. The WWE seems to be content with slapping the name ‘Elimination Chamber’ on a pay-per-view and expecting that to translate into buy rates. Although I am interested in seeing how the Morrison ankle injury plays out.
Dave Batista, so nice of you to join us. Batista is somewhat of a bridesmaid in this whole thing. With his feud with Cena being slow-burned until after Cena loses in The Elimination Chamber, he’s been mixed and matched and underutilized to a certain extent. Batista’s match with Edge (which was no more or less than your typical television contest) was so-so and reminded the viewing public of his presence, but with Batista not prominently featured in tonight’s pay-per-view, it will be interesting to see how and if The WWE uses him.
TIP THE HOST
To quote Jim Ross, who adheres to the ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say…’ principle, concerning Jerry Springer’s performance on RAW: “Interesting night for Jerry Springer.” We leave Jerry Springer with a $4 tip.
THE SHOOT
Pay-per-view overreaction Shakeup continues. In case you weren’t paying attention, The WWE has completely shaken up its pay-per-view lineup including the addition of three new pay-per-view events (WWE Wildcard, WWE Fatal Four Way, WWE Money in the Bank) and the dropping of The Backlacsh pay-per-view in favor of the Extreme Rules event.
What stood out to me was that The Money in the Bank match will now be featured in its own event and will seemingly be scrapped from The Wrestlemania card. This will figure to hurt the Money in the Bank match as we foresee the WWE having two MITB matches (one for each heavyweight title), thereby devaluing the briefcases themselves.
Another way a standalone MITB pay-per-view would hurt what has been one of the highlights in each of the past five Wrestlemanias, is that the event will no longer be at Wrestlemania where superstars risk life and limb to have their Wrestlemania moment, thereby creating more special matches. Nobody grows up wanting to have a ‘Money in the Bank Pay-Per-View’ moment. Shelton Benjamin almost kills himself every year doing some crazy spot knowing he will not come close to winning The Money in the Bank event. Why? Because it’s Wrestlemania. I have a hard time believing that the superstars will be interesting in ‘stealing the show’ at a standalone pay-per-view that will not be in front of the biggest crowd of the year.
The WWE’s pay-per-view changes are understandable as the brand always needs to grow and evolve. Getting rid of non-gimmick pay-per-views such as Backlash and Armageddon makes sense, but if The WWE wants their pay-per-view ideas to work they need to do a much better job building up feuds and storylines that will get significantly paid off with a gimmick match befitting of a gimmick pay-per-view.
FINISHERS
We leave you with our Elimination Chamber Preview. Try not to blink.
RAW Elimination Chamber: Sheamus wins it.
Smackdown! Elimination Chamber: Chris Jericho wins it.
Intercontinental Title Match: Drew McIntyre over Kane.
Diva’s Title Match: Maryse over Gail Kim.
…Okay, okay. Since the card is so short, we’ll provide in-depth predictions as to how we see both Chamber matches playing out.
Smackdown! Elimination Chamber
CM Punk eliminates R. Truth
Rey Mysterio eliminates CM Punk
Shawn Michaels eliminates Rey Mysterio
Chris Jericho eliminates Shawn Michaels
Chris Jericho eliminates The Undertaker
You’ve probably noticed that we substituted Shawn Michaels for John Morrison. Well, that’s how we see the whole Morrison injury angle playing out. With Shawn Michaels attacking Morrison during his entrance (in slow motion), and Morrison being unable to go.
The WWE, however should really play up Shawn’s descent into insanity. Shawn should be wearing the same thing we last saw him in two weeks ago as if he didn’t wash his hair or do anything but obsess over how he would get his chance against The Undertaker. He should start the match, and have one eye on The Undertaker for the entire match. The Undertaker should come out last, and when it seems that Shawn will finally get his shot at The Deadman, he should get rolled up by Chris Jericho and go even crazier. Like Mick Foley crazy. Pull a hair plug out or too.
RAW Elimination Chamber
Ted DiBiase eliminates Randy Orton
Sheamus eliminates Kofi Kingston
Trilpe H eliminates John Cena
John Cena eliminates Ted DiBiase
Sheamus eliminates Triple H
Ted DiBiase and Randy Orton should start the match to add to the forever-growing tension between Legacy. Triple H and Sheamus figure to end the match with Sheamus gaining an important pinfall victory and more momentum heading into a Wrestlemania which he figures to headline against The Game. Batista will likely have something to do with John Cena’s elimination, and as for Kofi Kingston? Well, Kofi’s just there to get pinned. At least he’ll actually be competing in the event this time…we think.
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Tags: Did Hogan Propose to Abyss?, Hulk Hogan Abyss, The Gorilla Press Pro Wrestling Blog, TNA News, Wrestling News, WWE Elimination Chamber, WWE News
