The Gorilla Press: Vince Does to Smackdown! What He Did to the Territories, But Was This a Good Thing?
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Sunday, May 2, 2010
THE SHEET
Bubba the Love Sponge fired from TNA [TNAwrestling.com]
Report on WWE’s Annual Shareholders Meeting [PWTorch]
Jim Ross addresses WWE status after contract expired [JRsbarbq.com]
Former WWE Wrestler Chyna accused of battery [TMZ.com]
GORILLA CLIP OF THE WEEK
In honor of the WWE Draft taking place this past week, here’s a controversial gem from the 2008 draft that saw Jim Ross get drafted to Smackdown! Shoot style.
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SHOWSTOPPER
RAW
Jack Swagger, alive and kickin’: See, Jack Swagger is fine. If anybody needs to die, it’s Jack Swagger apologist. Swagger’s clean win at Extreme Rules over Randy Orton, followed up by a strong win on RAW legitimized the fact that the WWE is firmly behind Jack Swagger as their champion. With so many stars being moved off of Smackdown, Swagger will now have room to breathe and come into his own. He’ll be fine.
No Punk, No Problem: Of all the draft moves made this past Monday, it was the move that wasn’t made that stood out the most to me. CM Punk stays on Smackdown. The King Goth remains on the thrown next to the portable classroom. No Spring Ball RAW for Punk. The Straight Edge Society will continue to be booked as a serious unit and I’m all for it.
Preempt THIS: Smackdown Stars Jump Ship: It’s no secret that the WWE has grown frustrated with all the Smackdown pre-emptions on MyNetwork TV in favor of baseball games. With Smackdown moving to Syfy in a few months, leaving the program in lame-duck status with MyNetwork TV, it was not too surprising to see so many of Smackdown’s top stars (Jericho, Edge) go to RAW.
This, however, looks to be a good thing for Smackdown. Smackdown can continue to run as a traditional wrestling show that concentrates on wrestling, feuds, and building up young talent.
While Smackdown continues to run as a glorified developmental territory for the time being, expect the top stars to migrate back to the blue brand as Smackdown gets closer to moving to Syfy.
Big Nasty’s WWE NXT Ratings
Big Nasty’s WWE NXT Poll can be found on the Bleacher Report. The rankings read as follows:
- Wade Barrett
- Darren Young
- Daniel Bryan
- Heath Slater
- David Otunga
- Justin Gabriel
- Michael Tarver
- Skip Sheffield
IMPACT
Matt Morgan doesn’t believe that sharing is caring: Matt Morgan’s con man gimmick is one of the best angles currently in TNA. It was good to TNA show attention to detail, with Morgan convincing Jesse Neal to to team up with him by using Neal’s personal tragedies against him. TNA could have just as easily walked out to the ring with a different partner with no explanation as to why these guys are trusting him.
TNA needs to keep this angle going and have it culminate with Morgan partnering up with the wrong guy, perhaps Samoa Joe?
Who hit Abyss with that car? Among the many questions that TNA continues to leave us with, one of the key questions regards who hit Abyss with that car a few weeks back. This incident has been scarcely mentioned (if at all) since it happened on the go home show for Lockdown. Are we just supposed to forget about it? Will it be randomly rehashed, Russo style? Why does TNA continue to book such ambitious angles if they refuse to follow through on them?
Why was Samoa Joe gone for a month? After it was advertised that Samoa Joe would explain his whereabouts over the past month, Samoa Joe’s only appearance on Impact was the standard destroyer spot. Joe preceded to lay waste to X-Division Champion Kazarian and then walked off. No explanation. The longer TNA waits for things like this to be explained, without the proper build up, the less people will care.
Why isn’t Abyss the holder of Flair’s Hall of Fame Ring? This match was advertised as Ring vs. Ring. As in the winner would receive the loser’s hall of fame ring. Simple, right? Nope. Upon Abyss defeating Ric Flair by pinfall, Hulk Hogan big footed the floundering giant by taking Flair’s Hall of Fame ring and announcing that he would choose who really deserved it.
If you thought fighting over rings was ridiculous, just imagine the craziness that will ensue when Black Machismo is parading around with Ric Flair’s WWE Hall of Fame ring.
SMACKDOWN
Back to basics: At the risk of hyperbole, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this past week’s Smackdown was the best wrestling show of the year.
The objectives were simple: Put over new Smackdown talent, build up incumbent Smackdown characters through vignettes, and keep a particular on your young champion and his newest challenger (The Big Show).
There was very little, if any, silliness on this show. Smackdown this past week served as a business model of how to do business in wrestling. Build up feuds, build up characters, make a healthy pay per view pay day.
While I am the antithesis of a pro wrestling purist, the old school style of booking used on this show was highly effective. I hope to see more of this type of wrestling show going forward.
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TIP THE HOST
No host this week, so we’ll leave RAW with a $10 tip for the much deserved break.
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THE SHOOT
Bubba the Love Sponge was fired from TNA this past week. Rejoice! Read Big Nasty’s take on this real life heel.
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FINISHERS
We leave you with the Monday Night SpreadSHREDDER!
RAW (-2.3) over Impact Coming off the heels of a bad ratings week for both RAW and (especially) Impact, expect both RAW and Impact to rebound in the ratings. I know I always go with RAW in these things, but if it’s any consolation I was extremely close to picking Impact this week.
RAW will be debuting a new look roster, including top stars Edge and Chris Jericho, with Edge set to give his RAW rendition of the ‘Why Edge, Why’ Address. Expect RAW to see a strong rebound in the ratings with its added star power, sans Wayne Brady.
RAW 3.35, Impact .78
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Tags: CM Punk WWE Draft, Jack Swagger Smackdown, The Gorilla Press Pro Wrestling Blog, TNA, WWE Draft, WWE News
