Kingston vs. Benjamin: This was the start of a good match when it abruptly ended. I was thoroughly enjoying seeing what appeared to be Kofi Kingston’s best match to date. The early chain wrestling was very good. Kingston has an energy that is starting to really catch on with the crowd. Shelton Benjamin looked good also. The end was a very cool sequence as Benjamin missed the spinning round house kick only to get a Jamaican Buzzsaw from Kingston. The problem is that the end came only about 4 minutes into the match. I would have loved to see the match go longer. My hope, and part of the reason I am giving the match a Hit despite the short length is that this leads to a feud between these two. Because of the surprise nature of the finish, especially with Benjamin dominating most of the match, he will be able to call it a fluke and the feud can take off from there with hopefully longer matches.
Cutting Edge: Kane’s facial reactions to everything Edge said during the interview segment were enough to rate this a Hit. I laughed out loud, especially at his reactions to Edge describing his new family. Edge did a great job in a short amount of time of recapping his and Kane’s history over the years. I am intrigued by the idea of the Brothers of Destruction vs. La Familia. The attack on Kane’s knee after the interview broke down was well done. Chavo Guerrero needed something to give him an edge over Kane at Backlash and having Kane’s knee injured is a good way to go. All in all, it was a good segment that made an otherwise inconsequential PPV match seem like a bigger deal.
ECW MISSES
Too Much Raw: I missed a few ECWs and read that they seemed to be having less replays from Raw and more original content. Reading that made me happy. Watching what happened with all the Raw replays this week made me less happy. What happened? We saw a condensed version of the Presidential candidates from Raw, the Raw Rebound that showed a fairly lengthy recap of the King of the Ring tournament, a replay of the Obama vs. Clinton debacle, and a replay of the video of the recent European tour. I gave that tour video a Hit on Raw, and I understand how big it was to actually get the candidates to address the WWE fans (even if those addresses were cheesy and patronizing). So, I have no problem with those replays. But, two replays is enough for one show.
Mike Ademle: I missed Ademle’s debut last week, so I looked forward to seeing his horrible announcing this week. I was actually disappointed that he didn’t make as many silly mistakes like the ones I read about last week. He was still bad though. He just isn’t a good wrestling announcer. He still made mistakes, even if not as many. His clichés were ridiculous. I could point out a number of stupid things that he said, but I will limit it to the one comment that stood out the most to me. At the end of the show, when Chavo and Bam Neely joined in the attack on Kane, Ademle said that he didn’t expect all hell to break loose. What wrestling has he been watching? That was a terrible line that epitomizes what his wrong with his announcing.
Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.
For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.
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LATEST PRO WRESTLING TORCH NEWSLETTER #1045 (20 PAGES)
This issue begins with a cover story by Wade Keller on Jake Roberts's indy show meltdown... Keller's BBL looks at WWE's decision to put all three World Champs in a Triple Threat on the MyNetwork debut of Smackdown... Page 2 Buzz with Jason Powell features tons of insider news items from WWE and TNA... Part three of the "Torch Talk" with Lanny Poffo... Pat McNeill's "At the Bar for Unforgiven" column... In-depth coverage of the TNA No Surrender PPV including the newsletter-exclusive Roundtable Reviews from Keller, Mitchell, and McNeill... Plus WWE Newswire, TNA Newswire, and ROH Newswire, Keller's reports on Raw, Smackdown, and Impact, the Top 5 Stories of the Week... PDF EXCLUSIVE features include the Greg Parks's review of the new Mr. Perfect DVD and Brian Hoops looks at pro wrestlers with Olympic backgrounds........
