Monday Night Raw 1/11/10

So let's be real clear. A Tyson-Michaels confrontation does not have the same appeal as a Bret Hart-Michaels confrontation. Yeah, Tyson punched Michaels, and prior to that cost him the title. And the idea that Tyson's punch is what put Michaels out of commission for years is a little amusing. But that was 100% storyline, where Bret and Shawn had some legit bad blood. But at least there's some legitimate history here. Thoughts on each segment:

Nice to see them actually do something with the WWE Champion for a change. I'm not really sure what their intention for Sheamus is, since it doesn't really feel like he's actually getting a push - his current position is more about the title being on someone new and young than it is about him in particular. Right now he's more of a device, an inanimate prize for top stars like Orton and Cena to chase. Also, putting Kofi in that group helps to close the gap between those two vets and an up-and-comer like him. What doesn't help close that gap is Kofi coming out and saying "I don't know if I deserve to be here." It's sort of like calling your own bluff. Truthfully, Kofi probably doesn't deserve to be there yet, but it doesn't help him get there if he's saying that the other two are better than him, but please oh please Mr. Tyson give me the shot instead. At least the triple threat match will be interesting... funny that they're still finding ways to put Cena and Orton together, even though they seemed to get the message that everyone was sick of that pairing.

Divas tournament. I don't really care. It does seem most appropriate that they're trotting out Kelly Kelly because she's nice to look at, but consistently burying her in actual matches. She should be no where near that title.

Teasing dissention between DiBiase and Rhodes. Everyone knows it's coming. They might want to hit it more on the head to make it look intentional, and not reactionary. The Legacy program with Mark Henry and Evan Bourne is nice, because it puts a bit of a spotlight on four guys who deserve it, no doubt. I just wish it were actually about something. DX does not need the tag team titles. They're going to be over no matter what. The belts should be used to push people higher, either but putting them on up-and-coming teams (especially ones that won't have their own individual storylines like DX always will), or by keeping them on DX and giving shots to the up-and-coming teams. I think a tag team tournament is pretty desperately needed. I'm very afraid right now that since the JeriShow thing is basically over, the tag belts are going to disappear until after Wrestlemania, since Michaels will be spending his time building the match with the Undertaker. Guys like Mark Henry and Evan Bourne would be great holding the tag belts and jumping over to the other two shows. Since winning the belts in the summer, I think DX has shown up on Smackdown and ECW once apiece. It's a burial of tag team wrestling, and that's a shame.

As for the match... Cody Rhodes's finisher looks more sick on Evan Bourne than it does on anyone else. I've said it before: the man can take a nasty bump.

More DX with Tyson and Jericho. Jericho gets his eighth last shot to stay on RAW. And Tyson back in the ring? Swerve. Also, these backstage segments look really poorly edited. Kinda sloppy.

The Swagger-Santino thing was fun. The nice thing about the Royal Rumble build-up is that even though neither of these guys will win, it gives the midcard something to do for a couple weeks. It's the same reason I miss the annual King of the Ring. It gives one guy a shot at credibility they wouldn't otherwise get. Of course, you'll have segments like this building up to the Rumble, but then very few real surprise eliminations during the Rumble match itself, which is a shame, but not really unexpected.

The triple threat was... OK. The WWE-style triple threat (and actually, TNA does it too) is less a triple threat and more a series of one on one matches, with the odd man out breaking up pin attempts. They played a little with Kofi and Cena double-teaming, but even that only served to establish Orton as the first odd man out. Overall, the timing here was really, really bad. Something just didn't seemed to flow right, and I think that centered on Kofi. Before going into the finish, Orton had a moment where he looked legitimately pissed off about the match. It could be he just plays his part very well, but he looked frustrated before hitting the RKO, so I wonder if the match hadn't gone as smoothly as planned. It certainly didn't look as smooth as it could have. At that point, it could have been Kofi, or maybe Legacy missed their mark to interfere. I don't know.

Miz started his segment off really well. The transition from the back to the ring worked nicely, but once again, the timing slipped badly when MVP came out. It seemed like MVP was dropping lines left and right, and it really killed the flow of the promo. Had they cut MVP's promo in half and upped his intensity, I think it could have come off pretty well, but that wasn't the case. The brawl afterward righted the ship a little, but since this will probably be a two-week rivalry through the Royal Rumble, every moment needed to be sharp, and I think they missed an opportunity here.

More Divas. It's a shame Katie Lee is deeply boring, because if she were repackaged with a better gimmick, she's got the actual wrestling skill to dominate the rest of the women's division. Eve does not. It doesn't really matter, because the Divas tournament is pretty clearly heading toward Gail Kim vs. Maryse, as well it should. But Katie Lee moving on might have made the semi-finals a little more interesting.

Bret's never going to be in a WWE ring again... riiiiiiight. I can understand selective ignoring of the internet buzz, but if you all but confirm that Bret has signed a new deal, right down to the timeframe (through Wrestlemania), doing something in a storyline that is entirely contradictory isn't really smart. That's just coming out and blatantly lying to the crowd.

The tag match did pretty much everything expected. Swerve, with Tyson landing on the face side once again. The literal knockout blow to Jericho's time on RAW will hopefully stick this time. I think the timing was off yet again, because it seemed like DX, Tyson and Tyson's son were in the ring celebrating for a long time before the USA overrun concluded.

Not sure what was up this week. The whole show felt really unpolished. Timings were off, things felt unrehearsed... just not a great show. I'm also a little worried about the blatant lack of build to the Rumble, outside of the WWE title match and the Rumble match itself. And now, what do you do with Cena and Kofi for the next couple weeks? Are they just going to enter the Rumble match? Or can we expect them to square off for a title shot at No Way Out. I actually hope that doesn't happen, because it would mean they're not doing an Elimination Chamber this year, and considering Kofi never got his shot at the Chamber last year, thanks to Edge, I'd like to see him mix it up with all the top stars on the brand. The show as a whole needs to ramp up the build toward the pay-per-view, and actually get to adding some undercard. There really ought to be one more from each show. I think we can expect MVP vs. Miz, unless they move the title shot up to before the pay per view.

Also... where are they headed with the WWE title? I don't see Sheamus holding onto it to Wrestlemania, because new talent push or not, they're not going to have someone that green headlining the flagship show. He's already gotten past Cena, so I think a win over Orton would help establish him a little bit more... and then maybe have him drop it to someone in the elimination chamber, so he can lose a little less directly? Even with the involvement of Kofi and Sheamus, this still feels like it's heading toward Cena and Orton at Wrestlemania, which would be painful. We've seen it. Many times. And from what I've seen online, Shawn Michaels is the favorite to win the Rumble and head to Smackdown to face the Undertaker. So we'll see, but there's an element missing to the build. Hopefully they'll be able to get someone (Kofi) a little more over between now and Wrestlemania so they don't need to fall back to Cena and Orton.

Smackdown 1/8/10

Unfortunately, Smackdown is the show I have the least interest in at this point. I feel like it's an unfortunate middle child - definitely treated like a B-show, and doesn't even have the benefit of the true up-and-comers that pushes ECW a little bit. They're also having some transitional issues, since their current main feud (Batista vs. Rey Mysterio) has very little to do with the brand's world title. It's really the only consistent, ongoing feud with any real motivation to it, and that's an issue they need to solve, or else they're going to become a one-match brand for pay per views... which still puts them one match above ECW, but that's not the point...

Starting off this week, like every other week for the last couple months, with Rey and Batista. I do enjoy Batista's current heel gimmick. He pulls off the elitist arrogance really well, and it's different enough from Chris Jericho's particular brand that it doesn't get too overexposed. One would think Batista and Jericho might have an issue at some point, but I think that juxtaposition would result in one of them taking a premature face turn, and WWE (and Smackdown in particular) really needs the bad guys right now. Anyway... Batista and Rey tonight... again... to face the Undertaker at Royal Rumble... which is pretty clearly going to become a triple threat anyway... which will bring the feud full circle, and hopefully put it to bed. Hopefully.

Ziggler and Kane was more interesting than I expected, simply because Ziggler has gotten a lot better than he used to be. Kane is experienced enough to work with any style, and Ziggler's little-aggressive thing plays off the monster angle well. Every once in awhile, WWE will use a countout well - I remember Evan Bourne vs. Mark Henry, which made Bourne look smart and accentuated the quickness. Same payoff for Ziggler here. Not sure if they're trying to push a feud with the two of them, but if they are, someone needs to get on a microphone quick. Right now, there's really no emotion here, just a couple pretty decent matches.

The Beth-Michelle-Layla stuff is pretty funny. I don't care about the Piggy James stuff, but the way they're using Beth Phoenix is fun - in that she just gets annoyed with the stupidity of it all, but doesn't really care who lands on their feet. It's a clear transition to a face push, but hopefully it'll end up with her taking the women's title off of Michelle (cause an injured champion is a useless champion), and they've give a decent amount of time to a face vs. face diva feud, which they haven't had in quite awhile.

The push for the Hart Dynasty is nice, but wouldn't have happened without Bret's return. They should feel all kinds of lucky.

The six-man tag was fine, except that it seems like Jericho is the only one here who ever gets any legitimate direction. Cryme Tyme and the Hart Dynasty have always just been used as guys you plug in when you need to fill out a tag team match - which is well below either team's charismatic ability - and R-Truth... no one knows what to do with him. They used him as a stepping stone for Drew McIntyre, and now that Drew has the US title, Truth doesn't go anywhere near him? And yet I'm supposed to believe that Truth had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Batista to earn a world title shot last week? No way. Anyway, the match ends precisely how it should, with Jericho getting the win. Now that he's been banned from RAW, they need to reestablish him on the blue brand so that he can get back into the title conversation quickly. Edge can't come back soon enough.

Punk's heel gimmick continues to be awesome, but I feel like he's a little directionless right now. Especially now that Jeff Hardy mentions on air are somewhat verboten, he doesn't really have a target (or a built-in simmering feud with Jeff's brother). I've heard they might try to build him toward a mask vs. hair match as Wrestlemania with Rey, which would also serve to get Rey away from Batista, but until they give him a decent program, he'll just keep coming out and running down whatever crowd he's in front of - which is actually working pretty well, it just doesn't translate great to in-ring momentum. The ECW title might actually help him prove his point, even if it's just a quick reign to get the belt off of Christian and onto one of the other top ECW faces without Christian needing a loss to Yoshi or Shelton. It would give Punk something to parade around for a week or four, and give a little more focus to the "I'm better than you" rants.

The Gallows-Matt Hardy match after the Punk promo was typical. Not bad, not great, but serviceable. Good heel win to drive home the point of the previous promo.

The divas match was negligible, but Mickie's eye-for-an-eye kick to Beth was a nice touch. There's a tag-team match coming, I'm sure, followed by a triple threat for the women's title, but by then Beth's full face turn will be done, and it'll bring a different dynamic to the whole thing. It's good that they're still letting Beth maintain some of her edge, since she is still the scariest woman on the roster.

McIntyre I could give two shits about. Morrison is getting better on the mic, though, which is only going to help him climb. Morrison probably won't get the IC title back yet, if at all, but he'll probably come out of the feud looking a lot stronger than McIntyre, because they're going to need Morrison in the world title picture sooner rather than later. That is if he doesn't end up on RAW. I think he's done all he can with the IC belt, so I wouldn't be shocked if he ends up switching brands to go after the Miz and the US belt, basically to give him all possible mid-level exposure before the main event jump (see Kofi Kingston's US, IC and tag team title reigns).

Aaaaaaand of course there's still no #1 contender for Royal Rumble. We can assume that the only fair thing to do this week is to make it a triple threat match. Which (again) is how the whole mess started in the first place. Spice it up by putting it in a cell, maybe?

They either need to elevate some more heels (Jericho, most likely), or they need to get the belt off the Undertaker so they can create some more interesting pairs. There are very few people that can stand in the ring with the Taker and be believable as having a shot to win. As nice as it is to have the title on someone as long-tenured as Taker, it doesn't make for interesting feuds, especially since the only two heels that are built enough right now and Batista and Punk, and we've seen both of them against the Undertaker. Likely, we only need to have this issue through Wrestlemania, when the Undertaker will probably take another well-deserved break and disappear for a few months, hopefully after another fantastic match with Shawn Michaels. After that, they need to elevate some talent on Smackdown, or else they'll run into the same Orton-Cena-Triple H issue they had on RAW. Get Jericho back up to that level, maybe bring over Christian from ECW, bring Edge back... hell, send Orton to Smackdown. Let Orton beat up on Jericho and Rey for awhile. Same tune he usually plays, but new partners always make things more interesting.

ECW 1/5/10 - What to do with Christian?

I think that's ultimately the question they need to figure out. It's a pretty well-documented fact that Vince McMahon doesn't like Christian, or at least doesn't see him as a main eventer. One would think matches like he and Shelton had at TLC would demonstrate otherwise, but to each his own. Anyway, they brought him back almost a year ago, quickly elevated him to being the face of ECW, and now... there's not a ton to do with him. He's really the only champion in WWE who defends his belt on a near-weekly basis (there was a time when this was commonplace, and you didn't need to jump through 30 #1 contender hoops to get a shot at the champ), but in his case its more because a match with the champion at a really early stage in your push elevates you, even when it's pretty clear there's no chance you're going to win (see Zack Ryder, Yoshi Tatsu, Vladimir Kozlov, et al). Truth is, for a very long time there was no one in ECW that was nearly over enough to carry the title, with the exception of Tommy Dreamer and maybe William Regal. Now that Dreamer's gone, and Regal is more involved in the Kozlov/Ezekiel Jackson feud, Christian is sort of left without a feud partner.

Which is where the ECW homecoming idea comes in. For once, it actually is more or less wide open as to who might win this. The four guys from RAW or Smackdown are over enough that they could easily come back to ECW and rule the roost - those being Matt Hardy, Evan Bourne, Kane and CM Punk. The four guys from ECW's roster are viable too - Shelton seems like a company guy with charisma to spare, and is bound to end up with the belt eventually. Yoshi Tatsu looks to be on the underdog path where every win seems like an improbable upset. Vance Archer is in the middle of a massive push to get him quickly introduced and over as a silent heel, so a title match would help that, win or lose. And Jackson, though the least likely of the bunch to pull off a win, just got out of the pair of cronies angle with Kozlov, meaning he's ready to move to something more significant, but I don't think he wins here because they want to stretch out his issue with Kozlov.

Onto segments:

Christian and Punk's opening was pretty good. Punk has settled into his heel role very well, and he can berate a crowd with the best of them. All Christian has to do is smirk and defend the crowd a little bit to make the segment work, because Punk is still a step away from being a threat. The problem with Christian's current position in ECW is that there's a dearth of people who can play this antagonistic role for him. Regal can and has, but they can't keep going back to that well. Punk would do it well, but in order for it to make sense, he'd need to win the title, and if that happens I can't see them dropping Christian back into chasing the ECW belt. It would just lead to more of the same, and it's just about time for Christian to move onto another brand.

Shelton and Chavo put on a good-to-great match. Say what you want about Chavo, but there's a reason the guy has been hanging around in the WWE for almost ten years: dude's very good at what he does. He's another one who has that Evan Bourne-like position of being a name brand jobber: I don't see it likely that Chavo will ever hold another WWE title, but he'll always hang around, because he'll always put on a good show, and always be able to sit on the fringes of contention. These two guys put on a great match, with good spots for both, and Shelton goes over Chavo as he needs to if there's any intention of putting the ECW on Shelton at any point. The homecoming idea is sort of a testing ground for future champions, I think, and Shelton ought to be on that list.

Zack Ryder ripping on Dreamer's departure will likely and hopefully be the last reference made to Dreamer on ECW. Since he's likely to end up in TNA within three months, they'll want to sever the connection, and Ryder needs to move onto someone else pretty quickly if the bump he gets from retiring Dreamer is to be worthwhile.

Kozlov vs. Jackson was typical of every encounter they've had... that's to say it was kind of boring. Jackson's got appreciable intensity, but in order to make use of it he needs to be in the ring with smaller guys he can throw around more than Kozlov. Hopefully this feud wraps up soon and they both move onto something else.

Punk vs. Mark Henry was good. The cheap shot ending furthered Punk's heel momentum and might have made Luke Gallows matter for the first time. There's no way Punk was going to be able to beat Henry without some outside involvement, and Punk brings more to the battle royal next week than Henry would. There's already two monsters in the match (Jackson and Kane), so Mark Henry would be redundant. Besides, face big men aren't quite as effective in an over-the-top-rope situation. There's no upside to having a bunch of heels team up on them. Jackson as a heel and Kane as a tweener are more useful.

So what happens next week? Everything I've read says Punk wins the title shot, which has its ups and downs. Punk's role on Smackdown isn't quite clear right now - he's not really in the title hunt, and you can bet he'll be dropping all the references to Jeff Hardy he's been using to get heat since Hardy showed up on Impact. A move back to ECW as a heel champion might not be a bad thing, but you have to wonder where it leaves Christian. For the amount of time they've dedicated to the ECW Homecoming angle, whoever wins the title shot sort of HAS to win the title at Royal Rumble. A month of build just to have Christian win and reassert his dominance on the brand (something that isn't really in doubt) doesn't do them a lot of good. If he does lose the title, I don't think it makes a ton of sense for him to drop back into a title-chasing role, since he's been the top of ECW for so long, and there's really no one else on the roster that would make a proper new feud for him.

I think we'll see Punk win the title shot, and then maybe get into a short in-and-out program with Christian through Wrestlemania. I'd like to see it end with either Shelton or Yoshi involved (as they're more representative of ECW than Punk is), get Christian away from the belt for good at Wrestlemania, and have it end up with one of the two of them. If Edge is ready for action by Wrestlemania, have Christian interfere one way or another to kick off an Edge/Christian program, either as friends or enemies. If Edge isn't going to be ready, get the ECW title off Christian by No Way Out, and have him step in as Edge's defender if Jericho has been setting the table for a Jericho/Edge match, and let Christian take his place. Either using that or the draft, get Christian to Smackdown to work with Edge and Jericho, and then you could move him into some other interesting program there as well - Mysterio, John Morrison, or put Christian into the IC title hunt.

He's done ECW worlds of good, but now he's languishing, and so long as he's on the top of the card over there, none of the young guys they so desperately need will step up as they should. Look at Sheamus or Evan Bourne: a jump from ECW to another brand isn't terribly effective if you leave without getting a chance at the title. Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, Jack Swagger (prior to his faltering on RAW), Morrison (and Miz by connection), CM Punk - they've all done much better for themselves after being involved with the ECW title for a time. No one else gets that shot until Christian is onto another brand. Time to send him onto bigger and better things.

Monday Night Wars 2.0! WWE RAW - 1/4/2010

At least WWE didn’t waste any time getting to the good stuff this week. They’ve made a big deal of the guest host thing, but too often the “host” shows up halfway through the show to deliver a stipulation or something, and has no real impact on the show as a whole. Bret Hart is clearly the focus of this show, and Bret came down to the ring about twenty seconds in. He kinda looked like crap, but it got a little better as the night wore on.

As a long time wrestling fan, and a long time Shawn Michaels fan, Bret in the ring with HBK was probably the best moment I’ve seen in the WWE in a very long time. I think they played it pitch-perfect. Sean never admits fault, Bret never admits forgiveness per se, and the segment ends with a handshake, a hug, twelve years of unresolved issues at their conclusion, and both guys come off looking great. It was great to see, and really makes me wonder what their first meeting was like earlier in the day when they arrived at the arena. I hope it was as cordial and respectful, and that everything they said in the ring echoes their actual feelings about their professional relationship. They’re probably both at the point in their lives and careers where they can see that burying any lingering hatchet would benefit both of them and the business as a whole. Good to see they didn’t try to throw in a swerve, and just gave a certain amount of closure to the situation, though I wouldn’t put it past anyone to keep that option on the table.

Maryse vs. the Bellas was awful. I was happy to see that they had Maryse catch the twin switch so that didn’t work, but come on… this was miserable. Also a little amusing was how terrible Maryse was in hiding positive feelings toward the Miz, cause they are apparently dating.

I'm not really sure why these four got tapped for the US title shot. Actually, the only one I have any issue with is Carlito. He's done nothing the last couple weeks. They had him come out and "speak for the locker room" against Cena right after Sheamus won the title, but he's been a ghost since then. They could do a lot better by replacing him with someone like Evan Bourne, or at least someone who might get half a push after not winning this match - one of Legacy? Paul Burchill? Chris Masters? I think the story of the match was supposed to be MVP attacking Mark Henry before pinning Swagger, but they hadn't really been an active tag team for a couple months, and a face hitting another face during a four-way match doesn't really constitute controversy. It didn't really get any sort of crowd reaction, so I'm hoping it just gets dropped.

Bret and Jericho was fun. Jericho's been around for so long, I forget he got his start in the dungeon. A nice moment for Bret.

God help me, the Hornswoggle-DX stuff amuses me sometimes. I feel a bit bad for Hornswoggle. I wonder if some day they'll let him be literate and articulate...

DX vs. JeriShow was OK until the end, when it got great. You don't typically see that many finisher fakeouts in a top card match. It made it decently exciting, and Jericho's brutal-looking boot to Hornswoggle's face was unexpected and well played. This should be the feud's blowoff, I think, since they're going to start setting up Jericho-Edge over on Smackdown. I will certainly miss Jericho on RAW, but I also wouldn't be shocked if he ended up back over there after Wrestlemania. They're going to need a more-established top heel, since Sheamus can't pull that off yet, and it looks like they're using Randy Orton to put over some top-level midcarders...

• Side note: ... as they should - Randy has had a lot of time at the top in a short career. He'll no doubt get back there many times over the years, but one thing the WWE is starting to be more cognizant of is holding a handful of people at the top for too long. They even had Jesse Ventura comment on it when he guest-hosted. Sadly, that led to Sheamus's world title win, but you can't get them all right, I guess. They're doing better with that balance on RAW than they are on Smackdown, but they're still going to need a relative vet heel in the title hunt on RAW, and Jericho is over enough that he can do that bounce up and down the card really well. He'll get the same heat in a tag team match as he will in a world title match. Shockingly enough, Triple H has pulled off that transition pretty well, too, after so very very long at the top. I'm sure he's glad to have a slightly less strenuous work day, so that helps a lot as well. I've read it may be Edge who jumps over to RAW, who can do the same thing as either heel or face, so that'd work too.

Sheamus vs. Evan Bourne actually got my girlfriend interested in wrestling for ten minutes, cause Evan Bourne is disgusting. He hits hard, and gets hit harder. I would have liked to see him pull off a win, for a couple reasons: I feel like Bourne has become the name brand jobber. He can get beaten by anybody without losing much face, because so long as he gets three minutes during the match to shine and do some ridiculous things, he'll send the crowd home happy. But the brutality they're trying to associate with Sheamus needed to be inflicted on Bourne, cause Bourne can make a clothesline look lethal, so give him Sheamus's boot to the face or the powerbomb, and you'll make him look like a monster. It's a shame, though, because the Royal Rumble is probably the only pay per view they could get away with Sheamus vs. Evan for the WWE title. They already have their built-in main event with the battle royal, so they can afford to have some lower-card wrestlers in the impactful title matches. It also allows more main eventers into the Royal Rumble match, which makes one more person with a realistic shot of winning. Instead, Cena and Evan will likely switch places, meaning Cena will probably win the title back - I just don't see Sheamus getting two PPV wins over Cena, unless it's a DQ, which is lame - and Evan will go into the Royal Rumble match, and not win. Cause they don't need him to actually accomplish anything to get fans. It's a great deal for the company, but I have to think it would get frustrating for him. Hopefully he's one of those guys who just likes what he does, and doesn't necessarily need the push to be fulfilled.

Randy vs. Kofi should be just about done, which is good - Kofi has gotten the boost he needs, and should ideally move onto Sheamus if he manages to hold onto the title. I'm a little worried that they don't know what to do with Kofi, since there's not room in the world title picture until they can give Cena something else to do. Cena needs to be high-profile, since he really is the face of the company right now, but Kofi can slide into any position they need him in. That should be the world title hunt soon enough, but again, Cena has to come first. And Randy needs to move on soon to get him into a feud to turn Ted Jr. face. The match was pretty good... Kofi hit his high spots, Randy stomped a little less than usual, and the Trouble in Paradise block was a nice touch - makes Randy look strong without Kofi looking weak.

Vince and Bret... I'm not sure what to make of this yet. If you look at the history here, Vince already won. He got what he wanted in 1997, which was the title off of Bret. Bret jumped to WCW, and Vince began kicking ass on Monday nights shortly thereafter, and didn't let up until he bought WCW. They tried to play it like Vince was afraid of Bret, with Vince giving up concessions - Stu Hart in the hall of fame, where he should be anyway, Vince's "best there is, was and ever will be" bit, and even tried to make it look like Vince was afraid Bret might hurt him, which was never going to happen. That's not the persona Bret put out at any point during the night. So the end result was good, with the pretty much inevitable low blow, I'm just not crazy how they got there.

It's also sort of interesting that they've given no indication about how this feud will continue, even though Bret has a talent contract through Wrestlemania. Does he show up next week and overshadow Mike Tyson? Does he jump to Smackdown and continue to chase McMahon down on Fridays? I think going to Smackdown is most likely, since it'll also let him stay close to the Hart Dynasty, which might make him a bit more comfortable in a locker room filled with guys he's never met before. I'm not crazy about Bret-Vince at Wrestlemania. I think I'd rather see Bret as a special referee for the HBK-Undertaker match. Give a little echo of Summerslam '97. It'd be cool to have Bret tease screwing Michaels, and then count a legit three to give him the win, but that would also involve sacrificing the Undertaker's WM winning streak, so we'll have to see if they're ready to do that.

I had a bit of a comparison between Impact and RAW half-written, but I think I hit a lot of the points I wanted to hit in the two separate commentaries. I might come back around to that later, but as it stands now, I think the WWE is still pretty secure as the #1 company in the business, simply because too much of TNA's current issues revolve around a history in WWE-owned properties like WCW, ECW and the WWE itself. The best we can probably hope for as fans is that TNA will at least climb a couple notches and make the WWE notice them, forcing Vince and the creative teams to raise the bar a little bit. TNA's advantage is most definitely the younger talent, and WWE has already taken steps to elevate some of their own, so hopefully little things like that will continue. Ultimately, it will hopefully mean a better product from both companies, and a better experience for the fans all around.

Monday Night Wars 2.0! TNA Impact Live - 1/4/2010

The first hour of Impact was a complete waste. Complete. Waste.

The Steel Asylum joke of a match exemplifies it. TNA has rightly identified the X division as one of its best assets, calling it a spiritual successor to the WCW Cruiserweight division. I wouldn't argue against that. Even better that they open it up to guys like Samoa Joe and probably Suicide or Homicide who might not meet a particular weight requirement, but will still do crazy shit with the best of them. So what does TNA do? They take eight of their most exciting, HOMEGROWN stars, put them into a situation that for better or worse threatens/promises legitimate danger, which will always get people buzzing... and then end the damn thing with a DQ at four and a half minutes? Because Homicide hit everyone with a stick? Inside a STEEL CAGE?? Whaaaa? It's not a good sign when the first match of what you've heavily promoted as the new era gets a "This is bullshit" chant from the live crowd, unless you intend for that to happen to illustrate a point. This was just a waste of these eight guys. Apparently Hogan has been on damage control since the show, talking about how he was misled as to how the Steel Asylum structure worked - he thought there was some sort of legitimate door somewhere, not just the hole in the roof. If you get there, and it's really that bad, scrap the gimmick. I certainly would have preferred a normal 8-man X Division match than the crap with which they opened the most important show they've ever done. More than that, the DQ ending, apart from not making any sense, took all of the young guys that Hogan and Jarrett would go on to praise later, and not allow them to be showcased at all. Instead, it's used as a gimmick to bring Jeff Hardy back... a day before he gets indicted for a slew of drug charges. Also, climbing to the top of a cage and sitting there is not a big, impactful return. If there had been any significant heat between Hardy and Homicide at any other time in TNA history, it might work. Have Jeff hit Red. At least he's the champion. Instead, you bring him back, shove him on TV, and in a manner that would become a theme for the night, did nothing more than say "look who we have! This will be important soon! We promise!"

The ODB vs. Tara match was... fine... another thing for which TNA has been praised is the knockouts division, and the New Year's Eve tournament worked pretty well. They got a good showcase then. This was a Kelly Kelly match compared to that, but it was still serviceable until the end. I don't know if its production's fault, the camera guy's fault, Spike's fault or ODB and Tara's fault, but if you're going to do a tight-pulling rollup to the hard camera side, make sure the truck is ready to censor, or Spike has given you the OK not to censor. The cut they made was so awkward and amateurish that it lends to undercutting the legitimacy of Impact as a professional wrestling showcase. Also, they cut away from the three count. That's useless. Especially on a title match that you want to show was illegally won.

Flair's appearance was protected pretty well, but I think most people assumed he would end up there. Not sure why they put the camera on him at this point, and didn't let him just show up after the main event like he did, but I'm sure they had their reasons.

Does anyone in wrestling care about Bobby Lashley? Honestly? Somehow his two and a half year run in the WWE gave him a couple titles, but since he beat Vince McMahon for the second ECW title reign, I'm gonna go ahead and say that doesn't really count. I can't remember the guy ever picking up a microphone, which is fine if you've got a decent gimmick. He never did. It takes a long time to build a non-verbal unstoppable gimmick (see Goldberg in WCW), and Lashley never got that sort of build. Krystal as his mouthpiece is fine, but I suspect he's going to be frustrated with what he gets in TNA, and want to spend more time with Strikeforce anyway. He'll either quietly fade away, or get forced out in some sort of retirement match in the not-too-distant future.

After a couple clear nWo reunion teases (Eric Bischoff, Scott Hall & Sean Waltman), Hogan finally came out. I actually liked the promo he gave, especially since it broke from the idea that Nash had been pushing for months that this would be just "getting the band back together." I don't really know how much of it I believe - this is still Bischoff and Vince Russo we're talking about here. The nWo-style stable is the well they have gone back to time and time again. Russo's used it at least 3 times in TNA, right up to the Main Event Mafia thing from last year. I still hope that TNA might be very purposefully setting this up as similar to the original nWo invasion, come up to where Hogan's heel turn would be, and then take a left turn that no one could really predict, but after Hogan's TV time and Jeff Jarrett's promo last night, I think it's a lot more likely that we're heading toward a Hogan/Nash/Bischoff nWo vs. a Jarrett/Flair/Styles TNA showdown, likely with Kurt Angle in the middle of it. They've had Angle going back and forth between the Main Event Mafia guys and praising the young guys for months, so they've set up that uncertainty already. Either way, I fear we're going toward fresh faces with the same old black and white coat of paint.

The knockouts tag team title match was pretty good. Hamada and Sarita are both nuts, so keeping them on opposite sides of the ring is a great way to guarantee fun matches. The titles were a good idea in theory, but I just don't think there are enough consistent, formed female teams to keep them going in a meaningful way. Sarita and Taylor Wilde are fine since they were the first champions, but beyond that, the only other regular women's tag team is the Beautiful People, and let's be honest, none of them have contracts because they can wrestle really well.

Val Venis? Really? Did Hogan bring the entire Australia tour with him? If so, where's Ken Anderson? He's the only one I give a damn about.

I've heard that Dixie Carter is really high on Hernandez and Matt Morgan. Hernandez I can take or leave, but I've grown to really like Matt Morgan. His program with Angle last year did him WONDERS, and once he settled into having a personality (something he never had a chance to develop in his short WWE stint), he handled it pretty well. All that said, I don't think either guy needs more building as a powerhouse. Crushing Raven and Stevie Richards - two guys TNA might want to have credibility sometime down the line - doesn't really do any good. Waste of 30 seconds.

At what point did Orlando Jordan become a special invited guest? Honestly, I kind of forgot the guy existed. Although, if they can do for him what TNA did for Elijah Burke (aka make him almost interesting), maybe it'll be good.

After Desmond Wolfe's heavy debut push against Angle, I don't think they know what to do with him. They've teased him and Daniels in some sort of program, sort of ancillary to Daniels's program with AJ Styles, but it never really went anywhere. It should. That'd be fun. The Dinero win actually might give him a little bit of build, but I don't know if TNA will have the time to do anything with it, given everything else they're giving precedent too.

Hogan against Jarrett is interesting, considering their match at the end of Hogan's WCW run. Apparently this was intended to have both guys coming off as faces, but of the two of them, Hogan clearly got more heat. At this point in Jarrett's career, having been pretty open about what TNA means to him as founder, it would be hard to put anyone opposite Jarrett and have them out-face him in the eyes of TNA fans. Jarrett's just got that spot reserved at this point, though I'm not sure it's something he would have earned had he not started the company.

Samoa Joe vs. Abyss seemed to be an odd pairing. I know Joe was supposed to be a "last-minute replacement" because Rhino was laid out in the back, but I don't think either one has a solid spot in the roster hierarchy right now, so a win over the other doesn't really mean anything. Joe comes out looking strong against a larger opponent, I guess, which is probably as much as you could ask for a result of this match.

More Jeff Hardy, Shannon Moore, and... the Nasty Boys? Trashing 3D's locker room? OK... I guess...

AJ vs. Angle was, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. Styles is one of the few people that I would love for the WWE to steal away from TNA. He's a superstar in waiting, and the last couple months (strangely enough, since after Sting's involvement and AJ won the TNA title), he's been sort of treading water. The series with Daniels and Joe was good, but I think with better writing it could have been stretched longer for greater impact. AJ and Angle are always going to put on a show, and they didn't disappoint here. Flair's appearance, had it been the only one on the show, would have been a lot more interesting, but as they booked it, he kind of just looked lost. Wandered out, watched what was going on for a few seconds, and wandered away again.

The overrun was purposefully ambiguous, but not in any sort of unpredictable way. Mick Foley finally gets into Hogan's office, and the nWo beats him up, as they'd clearly been doing to people all night. The fact that Bischoff told Foley he'd have to fight for his job is worrisome, because it means we might have to see Foley try to run around a ring again. It's not pretty at this point. Hogan comes in to end the show, and looks at what happened... aaaand blackout. I bet if the cameras had stayed on for one or two more minutes, like Tenay had said they were going to, Hogan would have said something that gave away his allegiances. But they didn't stay on! Cliffhanger! Imagine that.

Overall, I was unimpressed. TNA has a knack to throw out one great match a night, because they have enough crazy talented people on the roster that they could throw darts at the roster and come up with a great pairing every time. Tonight, that was AJ and Angle, but even that awesome match has been seen a hundred times since Angle came to TNA. The rest of the show seemed a lot less important than they made it out to be, mainly because a lot of the people who debuted - and there were a ton - didn't actually do anything. Of everyone who debuted on Monday - Jeff Hardy, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, Sean Morley, Flair, Hogan, the Nasty Boys and Orlando Jordan - none of them actually got in the ring and wrestled. I feel like they would have been better off to have all this happen on a regular, prerecorded Impact, and then let the internet buzz for a week about what all those guys are going to do, and put that show up live against RAW. Stuff might actually happen then.

Of course, since the Impact results for next week are already up, we can already see that none of the people on that list wrestle next week either. Morley gets the closest, cause he at least has a physical altercation in the ring. But no match.