Hello wrestling fans and welcome to the first ever written edition of Ring Rewind! Unfortunately, I’ve had to take a bit of a hiatus to deal with such real life issues like school, work, the girlfriend, eating, and sleeping. But now that those things are taken care of, at least for the time being, I’m ready to return to my first love- professional wrestling. And boy is there a lot to talk about!
Raw sucks.
Moving on to Smackdown, I really li-… ok I’ll talk about friggin’ Raw. Um. Yeah….Raw sucks. Normally, I’m the most optimistic wrestling fan in the world I think. But since Backlash, Raw has taken the proverbial “back seat” (did you catch that? It’s a play on words. Backlash, backseat; it’s beautiful. That’s why I get paid to write) to every other wrestling show, Impact included. That’s saying something. If I have to see one more Legacy handicapped match, I will find Vince McMahon, swim in his pool, eat his food, kick him in the nuts, steal his grandchild, and hold her hostage until Vince can somehow find a way to give me back hours of my life… Ok, I wouldn’t do all of that. It’d be rude to eat his food.
Seriously though, folks; Raw used to be one of the highest rated shows on television. It used to be my favorite thing in the world. “Sorry guys, I can’t go out tonight; Raw’s on,” was a familiar statement my friends would hear on Monday nights. “You’re pretty and everything, but I have to watch Raw tonight,” was something I wish was a familiar statement to a girl; any girl really. The point is, I stood by Raw for 12 years. I was there during the height of it (the Monday Night Wars) and the low points (Katie Vick, DX Redux, etc.). No matter what, I would sit in my faithful chair almost every Monday night. But after the past couple months, I’m getting scared of what I’m going to be doing on Monday nights. I hope rock bottom was last Monday’s show. I don’t like Basketball. I don’t get the fun of it. That’s fine. People don’t understand why I like wrestling. Whatever. The “Denver Debacle” was interesting, especially because I was planning on going to that Raw. When the stuff hit the fan, I was disappointed. Knowing now that WWE will probably never come to Colorado again, I’m super bummed. Colorado is the only place I could justifiably travel to to see WWE live. Now it looks like I’ll never see a live WWE show ever again. What added insult to emotional injury is that I had to spend two hours watching a show that reminded me that I’ll never get to see WWE live again. In addition to that, I was bored. As stated, I don’t like basketball. The fact that it plagued what was already a show on a thin wire for me, was too much to bare. If things to change drastically next Monday, I’m going to be reading the results right here on wrestlezone.com. That way I’ll save two hours of my life. The only plus side I noticed was that the United States Heavyweight Champion of the World, Montel Vontastic Voyage Porter, MVP, got the pinfall. It looks like WWE is finally starting to turn MVP into the star he was destined to be…Oh, and also, Mr. Kennedy returned, and promptly injured his wrist. I like the guy, but maybe he’s just not cut out for professional wrestling…says the man who would cry if I stubbed my toe on the turnbuckle.
ECW looks to be on the rise. Evan Bourne, Christian, Jack Swaggah, The Hart Legacy, etc make ECW kind of a glorified independent show, and I mean that in a good way. I’d rather see Christian VS Swagger, or Evan Bourne VS anybody, than another Legacy main event on Raw, so that says something about both ECW and Raw.
I have a soft spot in my heart for TNA this week, as there were a few interesting surprises on Impact (which I’m actually watching right now as I type this, so we’ll see what else happens) and because TNA is actually running a house show in Cheyenne, Wyoming this Saturday. The chance to see Samoa Joe and the Motor City Machine Guns live has me salivating. I’m going to try to produce some sort of coverage of the show, so be sure to check wrestlezone.com throughout the weekend to see what I came up with! Impact has already put on a better show than Raw, and there’s still about twenty minutes left. Raven returned to TNA and Victoria debuted, both of which ruled. A little birdie by the name of wrestlezone.com not hiding spoilers well enough told me that Shane Douglas is back with the company too, which is exciting. Mick Foley is still the TNA Champion, which to be quite honest, surprised me, because I guess I didn’t know the rules to the Sacrifice match well enough. I thought that whoever got the pinfall in a championship match became the champion, but evidentally not. Regardless, Mick Foley is an interesting heel. He only wants to defend the belt once a year, which is a definite heel-like behavior, but he speaks in such a way that I can’t help but still like him. I’m interested to see where this goes. Whoa, Eric Young just turned heel. In a week, nobody will care. I don’t know who the heels are between Team 3D and Beer Money. I guess it doesn’t really matter. AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels just had a great match, well, as good of a match as they could have had in ten minutes. And yep, Shane Douglas did return and he laid out Daniels with a chain. I didn’t think I would ever say, er, write this, but TNA Impact was better than WWE Raw.
I realize that I’m kinda doing this out of order, as the Smackdown I’m going to be talking about is the one that happened before this past Monday’s Raw. Let’s make Thursday our official cutoff date k? K. So. Smackdown, as is habit since the draft, rocked. There were some down moments, IE Dolph Ziggler, The Great Khali, Cryme Tyme, etc., but not everything can be a hit. Chris Jericho and CM Punk can put on a good match with each other in their sleep. So can Edge and Jeff Hardy. Come to think of it, so can John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin. A quick note on Morrison if I may- it took about 5 years for this guy to grow on me, but he finally has, and he may be in the top 10 list of my favorite current wrestlers. That’s how good he is. I watched him from the time he was John whatever on Tough Enough to the phenomenal wrestler that he is today, and there is not a better current example of someone following their dream and making it to the big time. And the best part is, he has years before he hits his peak. So Jeff Hardy will be taking on Edge in a Ladder Match at Extreme Rules, which may be the only match that people would actually pay to see. I’m debating getting this PPV, just because of that match. Advice?
Thank you for reading this, hypothetical reader. This may be the beginning of a new format for Ring Rewind until a few other things get solved. Be sure to check back with wrestlezone.com for up-to-date backstage news, rumors, and results. Also, an article I’m writing about “Heel turns” will be up in the next day or so, along with whatever I’m able to do with this TNA show. So be sure to come back. This has been Ring Rewind.
