Michael's Extreme Review #2
(Thought I would take some advice and give the matches a letter grade. I don't want to use the star system, that is already in play. )
We have pyro presented in High Definition coming from Richmond, Virginia.
1.YOSHI TATSU VS WILLIAM REGAL
* Regal grabs the mike and says he hates all foreigners. Racial, fair enough. Regal works the arm and Yoshi hits a back kick. Regal grabs a full nelson, but he didn't lock the fingers, did he Gorilla? Regal uses a vary of submission holds to the tune of Regal sucks. Regal hits a Butterfly suplex for 2. And then 1 and 1 and 1. Yoshi elbows out and hits a Pele kick. Striker makes a Piston Honda reference. Yoshi goes up top and Regal crotches Yoshi. Regal goes for the running knee and Yoshi ducks and nails the Kick O'Death for the win at 6:05.
Winner: Yoshi Tatsu
**Ok match, but all the submission holds watered it down. Plus, why build Regal up two weeks ago to job him out now? I give it a C.**
2. EZEKIAL JACKSON VS MIKE WILLIAMS
*Bell rings and Jackson nails a big boot. Williams is done. He picks him up for the a stiff lariat. Williams is done. Standing Urinage and Williams is done @ 0:46.
Winner: Ezekial Jackson
WHO HAD VLADIMIR KOZLOV? Kozlov and Jackson stare down as Kozlov grabs the recently deceased Mike Williams. Choke slam plants him and Williams is done. Hit the Ramstein, Kozlov out!
**Match gets no grade due to squash.**
*Matt Striker is sitting on Josh Matthews knee this week as they introduce Ask the Divas. First question is: What do you look for in a guy? Eve likes the athletic type. Maria isn't interested in looks. Seriously, I can't take this shit!!!!*
.24 Karat Productions present...
3. GOLDUST VS SHELTON BENJAMIN
*Goldust vs the Gold Standard...very genius. It's like the Cat vs the Dog from WCW. Shelton starts off with knees to the midsection. Goldust fights back and has to back out of the corner. Shelton hits a short clothesline for 2. Shelton wears down with a bridging chinlock. Here comes Goldust with an inverted atomic drop and a bulldog gets 2. They call him the Natural! Shelton jumps up top and turns in mid air to eat an uppercut for 2. Goldust not paying attention and gets a guillotine for his troubles. Shelton back in and hits Pay Dirt for the win at 4:09.
Winner: Shelton Benjamin
**Good crisp wrestling from Shelton and Goldust actually kept up. Ill give it a B-.**
*Wow, it's Sheamus. He says beware, he is no Finlay. The guy looks like Richard Christy at a rave.*
*Gregory Helms with Paul Burchill and Katie Lea in the back. Goldust interrupts with loud groaning. Burchill is pissed and lets Goldust know it. Goldust apologies and blames it on his electrocution. He yelps again and backhands Burchill.*
4. TYLER REKKS VS PAUL BURCHILL (with Katie Lea)
* Burchill comes out still selling the backhand. Striker makes a Dynamic Dude reference as Rekks hits some high impact moves to start. He must have blown up because we have our first chinlock at 1:10! Rekks busts out with a turning bodypress and gets 2. Burchill no sells and hits a Samoan drop. Yet another chinlock and Rekks comes back again. Rekks gets a springboard dropkick for 2. Burchill botches a Saito suplex. Rekks sells like a champ and is slow to get up. Burchill misses a corner charge and Rekks gets the schoolboy and win @ 5:18. Burchill attacks Rekks after the match with either an axe handle or knee knocking him off the apron.
Winner: Tyler Rekks
**Too many chinlocks for my liking. How about a D.**
*Time for the Abraham Washington show. Love the music...where is Ernest Miller when you need him? We are up on the entrance ramp as Washington talks real slow to set up our guests. Washington with about 5 fat jokes and out comes Tommy Dreamer in an all white 3 piece. Washington calls Christian ugly and Christian says he has a show made for public access. More fat jokes and Christian joins in about Dreamer crying after he won the belt. Dreamer says that was like a slap in the face. So Christian really slaps him in the face. Dreamer does the same and that will do it for ECW this week.
***Decent show for what they had to do to set up Night of Champions. I would imagine a Paul Burchill vs Goldust match next week.***
Related Posts:
- Michael’s Extreme Review
- Tryout: Michael’s Extreme Review
- Michael’s Extreme Review
- Michael’s Extreme Review
- Michael’s Extreme Review
Tags: 24, ECW, Impact, Shelton Benjamin, WCW
Off topic, this is actually related to your poll, Scott.
Best PPV of all time? I know two that get NO LOVE AT ALL
1. Canadian Stampede, where there was nothing that sucked.
2. the Royal Rumble 2000 gets no love, and that’s sad because it really rocked with three ****1/2+ matches (I went higher on the Duds/Hardys Table match, as I think they hit every spot perfectly and it was a career-maker).
You pick almost any show from 2000 but I lean towards Judgment Day or Backlash as the best shows from that year.
Not to disparage the Royal Rumble but I didn’t like that year’s Rumble match…it was sleep-inducing boring until Rocky showed up.
Charlie,
No love from who? Both of those PPV are consistently ranked in top 10 ppv’s of all time…especially Canadian Stampede. Maybe your friends are a bit young to remember them?
I agree, those PPV’s are often regarded as some of the best in WWE history.
One PPV that I think is criminally overlooked is IYH Final Four: The main event is a killer 20+ minutes of crazy action with Vader doing his best work ever for the E. Marc Mero and Al Snow have a good opening match. HHH vs. Rocky is a bit dull, but amazingly interesting to watch knowing how they both matured as wrestlers. The tag title match is impressive, despite the ending. Even the six man tag is a fun, disposable brawl.
BTW: I know I’m in the minority here, but I dont care for WM X7 that much. Yeah its a good show and all, but somehow it feels watered down over time. For a WM, most of the undercard was meaningless. The TLC match was fun at the moment, but is sort of unremarkable with all the variations on it now. And, while the main event is a great match, the ending awkward heel turn that wasnt a turn always bothered me.
Canadian Stampede is on all sorts of best-of lists that I’ve seen.
what are you talking about? especially Canadian Stampede is pretty much ALWAYS mentioned when it comes to back-to-back awesome PPVs.
Great Piston Honda reference by Matt Striker in the Regal match.
Here’s what bugs me about ECW – they gut the roster, moving Swagger, Bourne, and Henry over to RAW, and get little in return, thus leaving the roster with a bunch of no-names or has-beens. Then, we’re supposed to believe that Tommy Dreamer and (especially) Christian care so much about the championship of a brand full of nobodies. I mean, Christian has been a relatively big name for years, has won numerous tag team titles and was NWA World Champion. Now he’s obsessed with the title of the C-show? It just doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to gut ECW, do it all the way – move all of the big names to RAW or Smackdown, and make ECW a true developmental brand. Having two up and coming wrestlers going all out for the ECW title makes a lot more sense than two veterans who could do much better for themselves.
I disagree with your take on the ratio of vets to less experienced talent – my take is that this is a great opportunity for a lot of the greener workers, a fresh break from the stagnant (in my opinion) main event onslaught of Raw, and provides the chance to have an all in all high quality pro wrestling program. For a kayfabe reason why anyone would care about the title, how about that the wrestlers should want that top spot regardless of where they are wrestling? But if Christian is going to go heel for a bit, he could do worse than the “I’m above this show” shtick.
Hopefully this will be it for the Christian/Dreamer feud, and soon Tommy can pass on the belt to someone who needs it (Kozlov?).
Perhaps Christian isn’t obsessed with the title of the C-show so much as he is with being recognized as the best wherever he goes. It’s been a while since we’ve had a champion who was proud of being the champion.
What about Tommy? Although I’m sure it’s bittersweet since ECW is not the ECW of old. But still, he seemed to be legitimately moved when he won the belt.
I’m kind of fickle on this point.
I agree that it’s nice when they take the title seriously and are proud to carry it. At the same time though whenever someone goes completely over the top in a promo about “living and breathing” for the title or something like that I can’t help but think come on you’re a grown man and it’s a fake title, find something better to “live and breath” for.
The only man I can see this working for at the moment is Jeff Hardy. He could be all Gollum-like with the title as his precious that keeps getting taken away. All day long he jonses for another hit and salivates whenever he gets close to the belt. Its his new addiction, and he lives for that high of being champ. Its not his fault, he’s built up immunity to tag/IC titles, and he craves something stronger. Sadly, I dont think Hardy has the acting chops or character commitment to get it over.
Tomorrow Scott is the 20th anniversary of The Great American Bash 1989. Cannot believe it has been 20 years!
Also what are your guys thoughts on remastered Star Wars? It has been pouring today so I decided to watch the original trilogy.
Terrible review again Michael… I commended you for effort last time, but your running on fumes now. Seriously typing ** everywhere does not help and is rather distracting. You don’t put any insite to why they are putting ‘wrestler A’ over ‘wrestler B’……. its bland, boring and not insightful.
Seriously go study the Princess Smackdown report she looks at the shows from a booking perspective as well as a quality perspective.
Plus there was no wit or sarcasm! All in all Scott let this trial come to an end.
Yea, I’m going to sadly agree and give this poor lad a thumbs down. Lacking any wit or practical observations, plus the formatting is terrible. Nice try kid, maybe in a few years.
Better than that Blandy Borton guy. Or Charlie for that matter. Sometimes less douchey smarkism is better.
Edit from Scott: You’re on thin ice. Quit with the personal attacks on other posters or go elsewhere.
Anybody else get the feeling Scooter is the only one who likes this Charlie douche?
Begging the question exactly what kind of pictures does this guy have on him?
Nothing incriminating.
I actually typed something to this effect earlier today (at work), but I wasn’t signed in, so it didn’t post, and well, I was too lazy to type it again, but ANYWAY…
Michael, I’m going to give you a big ole thumbs up. I got a good review of the show, a great jist on what went down, and it only took me a few minutes to get through. Great stuff. I’m not really big on star ratings for t.v. shows, so the fact that most matches got ** didn’t really bother me.
I think I like different styles for different shows. I love Smackdown, so I love Princess’ reports, as she seems to really enjoy the stuff. I love Scott’s stuff, especially when he spends more time explaining the feuds, the backstage atmosphere, and then inserts some great humor in as well. For me, this was the perfect ECW review. I wanted to know what happened, but I wasn’t looking for an 8 page review, and this was EXACTLY what I was hoping it would be.
Again, I’m just one more opinion, but great stuff.
I’m not a frequent commenter but I wanted to weigh in on this; I don’t think the writing is that bad at all, it just seems to be formatted specifically to injure my eyes. What’s with all the stars and the ALL CAPS NAMES? Then in the one place where I look for stars, there’s a letter grade instead?
People are generally reading this to see if they should bother checking out the show or not. I know you mentioned that stars are already “in play”, but there’s no plagiarism issue involved with speaking our language during the review. Everyone uses stars, sir.
And Charlie, I’m a fan of your reviews for the most part, and I may be in the minority as I also enjoy a good dead wrestler joke from time to time. You’re certainly better than that MRob character, even if you two do share an inclination for insisting that dodgily-cited rumours are irrefutable facts.
What offends me greatly as a reader, however, is a bad joke – or rather, a lazy dead wrestler joke with no attempt at a punchline other than “ooooooh, look how bad I am! I just made a dead wrestler joke!”.
I’m begging you, Charlie, cut that shit out. The one you had when Test died about Shane getting his win back had me laughing for at least 3 minutes. Stick to the good ones, eh?
“What offends me greatly as a reader, however, is a bad joke – or rather, a lazy dead wrestler joke with no attempt at a punchline other than “ooooooh, look how bad I am! I just made a dead wrestler joke!”.
I agree that occasionally my timing has been off lately with the death jokes… in fact the only one I’ve liked lately was the Rhodes/Sapphire/Sherri/Macho/Liz one. I toned it down in the Tag Team review, which I’m fact checking as we speak as I *know* there was a televised match with the Steiners shooting but after rewatching the match I’m not sure if this is the one. Anyway,
“even if you two do share an inclination for insisting that dodgily-cited rumours are irrefutable facts.”
Funny that you mention that, because I can’t win either way. Half the time I’m *busting* rumors on people (Bret Hart/Hogan at Summerslam) and people get pissy because “Bret Hart said it was true and therefore must be true. Othertimes I post rumors and people yell at me because they’re not true. Again, I can’t win. Scott Keith or any other person is just as guilty, because there’s really no truth ever in wrestling. These guys live in the wrestling bubble and have created a new ‘kayfabe’ for the internet age. They lie 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can never sort out what’s real.
I don’t treat any rumor as fact, and sometimes I post rumors in a joking way and sometimes sarcasm doesn’t translate well on the internet. Do I believe in the stuff I post? Yes, if it makes sense. There’s WAY too much bullshit in wrestling to ever get to the *real* truth. Do I believe… Crush was going to win the title at Summerslam? Yes. Enough people who would have known it to be true have said it. Do I believe Randy Savage boinked Stephanie McMahon? No.
It’s the gray stuff where I make a judgment call. I’ll go back to this one since this is BY FAR the thing I get the most heat over: Do I believe Bret Hart was going to face, and beat, Hulk Hogan at Summerslam? No, even though 50% of the wrestlers I’ve talked to have said yes he was and 50% said it’s bullshit. You just have to put your thinking cap on and think of it logically. Bret had bombed hugely as champion and did not fit the mold of what a typical WWE Champion looked like at this point. Bruce Pritchard and Pat Patterson both said Crush, then Lex Luger, at Summerslam. For that to be true, Hulk Hogan could not be the champion and thus could not have faced Bret for the championship at Summerslam. Do I think Vince McMahon misled Bret Hart about what his intentions were? Maybe… even likely perhaps. But because Bret himself was misinformed does not mean the entire situation is fact. It’s the best example of how the truth never gets 100% out and how you can have two sides to what should be a simple, logical, straight forward answer.
I think the rumors as facts thing is strongly colored by the recent “dark warrior” post. It felt to me that you were repeating crazy ass rumors you heard as fact in that thread. I’m no repository of wwe rumors but I do frequent plenty of forums and don’t recall much of any of that but, again, I’m not the arbiter of rumors.
If I wanted a basic review of the show I’d go to the bazillion wrestling sites out there.
When I come to Scotts blog and especially when it comes to match reporting I expect SMARKISH sarcasm throughout. This guys humour is well pretty ‘basic’ sure that sounds smug but it’s true!
I like to think that most of us here have a slightly more sophisticated sense of humour and understanding than the average pro wrestling fan and I think if someone is gonna post reports on the almight SK blog they have to be top notch rather than passable.
I mean if Scott or Princess had watched that last segment between Christian/Dreamer/Abrahams they’d of written a whole paragraph to the absurdities of what was said and a few pop culture refrences chucked in at the same time.
Geez next weeks ECW I will just go and tell you what happened, stick in lots of stars everywhere.
Perhaps you will all commend me on what a good job I’m doing?
Well yeah, as long as you stick LOTS of stars in there.