Michael's Extreme Review #18
November 9, 2009
Sheffield, England
-Well folks, I haven't even finished watching RAW yet from last night, nor does it seem like a priority at this point. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to a very big card tonight. Plus, I'm going spoiler-free, so I'll be as surprised as you. On a side note, I have a review for last week's show floating around somewhere, but the board went haywire last week. Let's head down to the ring and wrestle.
-Pyro in High Def and we are joined by Josh Matthews and Byron Saxon.
-Let's kick it off with the Abraham Washington show. Yoshi Tatsu is tonight's guest. This is now the INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED Abraham Washington show. Washington starts off with limey teeth jokes. Abraham thinks its funny. Atlas thinks its funny. Sheffield is livid. Regal gets a nice pop when his name is mentioned. C'mon England! Out comes Yoshi in a nice three-piece. Yoshi says his Engrish is not so good and he is very narvous. Yoshi and Abraham start bowing and exchanging thank yous. Atlas is laughing until Abraham tells him to shut up. Yoshi says tonight Christian will win. Yoshi and Abraham blatantly rip off Rush Hour jokes. Yoshi calls him a dumb Chris Tucker. Now Yoshi and Atlas are laughing together. Abraham tells him end the segment and Atlas says good night to everybody. Yoshi is left on the stage by himself. This segment has lasted about 3 minutes too long.
-Here comes a Regal-Christian video package. Could WWE be building up too big and they have to pull the trigger on Regal winning the belt? I can't say enough prayers!!!!!
.24 Karat Pictures Presents...
1. Paul Burchill vs. Goldust
- Goldust is announced at 238 pounds? Since when? Black ears for Goldy tonight. RING THE BELL! Goldust starts with a side headlock. Hits a tackle and gets 1. Goldust working the arm Burchill pounds out of it. Goldust goes back to the arm and Burchill backs him to the corner. Burchill hits a STIFF kick to the back of Goldust and works the arm. Goldust misses a Stinger Splash and Burchill drops him. Works over the ribs now and dropkicks him against the post in the corner. Cover gets 2. Burchill with a body scissors and the crowd couldn't be deader! Goldust elbows out and Burchill goes back to work on the ribs. Cover again and only 2. Announcers hype next week's match that I swore was tonight. Goldust on the comeback and attempts a bulldog and Burchill throws him off. STAND BACK THERE'S A HURRICANE COMING THROUGH! Hurricane circles the ring and distracts and FINAL CUT is hit and will finish off Burchill @ 3:55. (Wow, jobbed out in his own country! D+)
- This Thursday, Shelton Benjamin vs. Zack Ryder on Superstars. So sad I'll have to miss this. Not that I have anything to do, just don't care. Backstage, Ryder tells Rosa Mendes he likes her. Says he welcomes her to be in his corner anytime. Now a DAYDREAM SEQUENCE on LIVE TV!?!?!?!? Seriously! How much drugs did the writers smuggle into England this week?
- Backstage Regal is baby facing to Tiffany. Crowd is absolutely bananas! Regal clears the air and Tiffany says that is refreshing to hear, whether he is ECW Champion or not.
2. Vance Archer vs. Jason Blackwell
- Archer sporting the Tramp Stamp. We see last week's pre-recorded comments, this week. Lockup and Blackwell is pummeled. Archer is stomping away and picks him up and plants him back down. Bodyslam into a snap Inverted DDT does it @ 1:28. Crowd could give 2 fucks less! (D-U-Capital D!)
-Christian is headed to the ring. Here we go!
MAIN EVENT
ECW CHAMPIONSHIP
3. William Regal vs. Christian
- Fans are on the side of Regal. Christian has maybe 28 fans in Sheffield tonight. Regal looks like a fat woman while he squats in the ring. Sorry for all the Regal jabs, but seriously! Lauren Mayhew does some Buffer-like announcing. Again, Regal is announced at 240 pounds? No F'ing way! Matthews says the crowd is 50/50. No chance, piped in crowd noise for Christian is in full effect tonight. First lockup is a stalemate. Regal grabs the arm and Christian reverses. Stalemate again and WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!
-WWE is actually going ahead with the Hulk Hogan DVD! Holy SHIT! Back on ECW now and Christian with a baseball slide on Regal to the outside. Back in and Regal takes the upper hand. Hometown uppercuts connects to Christian's grape, but here comes Christian dropping Regal...cover gets 2. Christian grabs a chinlock. Regal fights out quickly and Irish whips Christian sternum first to the corner. Regal with knee strikes backs Christian to the corner. Regal places him up top. Christian fights back and hits a cross body for 2. Christian stands on Regals back on the ropes and hits a Bossman uppercut. Both battling on the top rope and Regal hits a double underhook butterfly superplex! Kinda ugly, but nice spot. Cover gets 2. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!
-Back for the final time on ECW. Regal hits the Exploder Suplex on the outside of the ring. Back in and Regal gets 2 on the deal. More hometown uppercuts. Another cover gets 2. Regal with an half-nelson and the match is getting sloppy. Christian is fighting back and Regal drops him back down with a hard forearm. In the corner, Regal hammers away. Christian hops up to the 2ND rope and Regal pulls him off hard. 2.5 on the cover. Nicely scouted. Series of near-falls and Regal grabs Christian and pounds him with forearms to the chest. Another cover gets 2. BLOWN UP, ANYONE?!?!? Christian with a springboard sunset flip and Regal grabs the rope and ref won't count. Sheffield looks the other way and heels off on the ref. Regal with another hard suplex and gets 2. FULL nelson now and Christian gets pummeled. Christian turns it into a KILLSWITCH ENGAGE! Slow cover and we get 2.99/100's. Randy Savage reference. Both men down and Regal boots him right in the FUCKING mouth. Both men on their knees and Christian is up clapping. Drops a series of elbows on Regal and we get a long 2. Backed into the corner and Christian goes for the Tornado DDT and Regal dumps him over the top to the floor. 20 minute mark hits. Regal tries to pull Christian back in but Christian fights off and hits a missile dropkick. SLOW ASS count and only 2. STIFF forearm drops Christian. Only 2. Knee Trembler coming, misses and Regal hits the other way. Only 2. Killswitch attempted and now a REGAL STRETCH! Christian is under the ropes but won't grab it. Christian elbows out and hits a running dropkick. Christian on floor 2, turning elbow connects. Killswitch on the way, Regal turns and hits a head and arm suplex. Regal measures, Knee Trembler misses, KILLSWITCH hits! That will do it @ 23:18. (No pop whatsoever for the finish. The match looked damn good although. Regal can go, just has to pick and choose his spots. Christian looked blown up at the end and the false finishes were sharp. I'm going back and forth on this one but, B-.)
Final Thoughts...
I was maybe confused, but could have sworn we were getting Burchill-Hurricane tonight. Regal was over in Sheffield, but I have heard better pops for him in his home country. Maybe the British are tired of his half-assed matches. Pretty decent show and the main event did not disappoint.
Sounds like a good show, very smart to have a long Regal match in the UK.
You didn’t miss much on Raw – just try and catch the opening segment with Jerishow and Hatton as well as anything involving the Miz. The Orton-Kingston feud took a turn for the worse in my opinion.
I’ve been really disappointed with the build up to Cena-HHH-HBK, which has centred completely around bad humour. Cena tried to salvage the match last night by talking about how Shawn is the wild card and that the outcome of the match will heavily depend on whether Shawn turns up as HHH’s buddy or the guy that retired Ric Flair and took the Undertaker to the limit at WM. Dear God let it be the latter!
Agree with thebeast don’t waste your time with Raw it was pathetically bad.
Yeah, I thought it was going to be Mask vs. Career…Huh…
I’m surprised they didn’t have Regal go over, since it’s rare their overseas, and I was sure they’d go for the easy pop. I’m shocked Christian is STILL in ECW at this point, I mean, c’mon. Didn’t the WWE hear that him and Edge just went all the way to the finals in the Lou Albano Memorial Tag Tourney? Talk about shunned…
- Caliber
scrublife.wordpress.com – a story of me being a Hulkamaniac on a bitch who pulled a traffic no-no, top 5 reasons why nachos are better than chicks, as well as a mess of awesome wrasslin’ stuff and things for the whole fam.
I’m probably the only one who feels this way, but I thought there was a lot of gratuitous swearing in this review. It didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than failing to convey how cool the author was.
The daydream thing happened last week as well.
Stop sucking Regal off. The crowd was clearly 50/50.
Agreed…the entire front row stood up and applauded when Christian got the 3 count and they cut to at least 4 or 5 different “Peeps” signs in the crowd before and after the match…
I do think, however, they should have played up Christian as a heel more in the match, i.e. give him the heel offense and have Regal make the comeback, only to have Christian playing possum, side-step the knee, and then hit the Killswitch…
By the way, has everyone else noticed the Christian is putting on ***+ matches just about every time out? Can’t wait for him to (hopefully) be on the blue brand next year…
Ok, I will admit that Christian still got his face pop. But go back and watch the tape when he is announced out. They are shooting from the corner of the arena and no one is standing. No one. And please don’t get it twisted, I am not sucking off Regal by a longshot. He steps his game up in the UK, but I don’t think he has been good since his first TV title reign back in 93.
From what I saw Regal definitely got the better reaction and the ending though the crowd had joined Christians side somewhat it was a minimal response to a clean victory… if Regal got the pin I would of expected the place to explode.
I’ve seen the match twice and it seems like Christian receives the (marginally) stronger pop with his entrance, and then, after he wins, the crowd largely supports him. It was more divided than the mid-August Superstars match between DH Smith and John Morrison in Canada; and this match was a little similar to it insofar as the babyface ultimately prevailed and was cheered by the crowd after the fact. Point is, the crowd seemed to like Christian just fine, though there were many Regal fans in the building as well.
Like many others, I have no idea what they do with Christian from here. Regal can go back to simply running his little heel faction and generally running amok, but Christian has run out of opponents as ECW Champion. He’s plowed through Jack Swagger, Tommy Dreamer, William Regal, Zack Ryder, Yoshi Tatsu and now…? Shelton Benjamin seems unlikely since he’s a face now and he’s stuck in a horrible program with Ryder and Rosa Mendes (those “point-of-view” segments are the worst thing WWE has produced since Jack Swagger walked away from a chance to beat Kofi Kingston clean some weeks back).
The only two possibilities I see are Goldust, which would again be face vs. face, or they are building up Burchill as something if he beats Hurricane next week. Or Lance, er, Vance Archer is built as the big baddie in record time.
ECW in general has to be rebuilt, though, with some fresh characters, because the roster is like eight guys deep at the moment.
I think that Christian is just biding his time until Edge is ready to return. Then they can rush Edge back early as part of the E&C team to beat Jerishow for the titles, letting Christian do the bulk of the work (and also allowing him to appear on RAW and Smackdown) until Edge is 100%.