Weekend Update

3/7 Friday Night Smackdown Results

(Pics from WWE.com)


~The show starts with WWE World Champion, Edge, and Smackdown GM Vickie Guerrero, in the ring inviting Ric Flair down for an interview segment. Ric Flair starts talking reckless and says he’s gonna beat Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania. It is then announced that next week it’ll be Ric Flair vs. Edge and his two associates, Zack Ryder & Kurt Hawkins in a 3-on-1 steel cage handicap match.


-CM Punk, Jesse & Festus beat WWE Tag Team Champions, The Miz & John Morrison and ECW Champion, Chavo Guerrero.

-Jaime Noble breaks up with Michelle McCool.


-After getting completely handled throughout the match, MVP finally picks up a win over Batista via countout.

-Jamie Noble demands a match with Chuck Palumbo, who beat him in a match last week, for later that night. However, Noble must have not been watching ECW last Tuesday where it was announced that Palumbo would be facing Kane on this episode of Smackdown. Instead of facing Palumbo, Vickie Guerrero puts Noble in a match against The Big Show.


-A swimsuit contest is then held between Eve Torres, Cherry, Maryse, Victoria and Michelle McCool for no reason, but who’s complaining. The fans are supposed to vote for who they think the winner is by texting. If I had the money to waste, because standard texting messaging rates do apply, I’d vote for Eve Torres.



-Kane beats Chuck Palumbo.


-Big Show wins his match after Jaime Noble kicks Show low and gets himself disqualified. Big Show then beats Noble up and talks more trash about Floyd Mayweather.


-Edge and friends beat The Undertaker in a 3-on-1 handicap match.

Edge is a really good heel (which means he plays a really good a-hole) and I found his segment with Ric Flair at the beginning of the show to be very entertaining.




Way to bury your champions, WWE. The Miz & John Morrison have lost for the second time in two weeks in non-title matches on Smackdown. Like I said last week, if everyone can beat your champions, why, oh why, are they title holders?

The segment with Noble and McCool was hilarious. I thought they were going to let their relationship last a little longer but, oh well.

Finally MVP gets a win but I bet he loses to Batista next week.


ROH Rising Above PPV Results


(Pics by Scott Finkelstein)

~Ring of Honor's sixth Pay-Per-View event, Rising Above, premiered last night. Overall, it was a pretty solid show, here's what went down:


-The show starts with Adam Pearce, Brent Albright, BJ Whitmer and Shane Hagadorn (together known as the Hangmen Three, and yes, it is very apparent that there are four people.) calling out Delirious to have a match with Albright.


-Delirious defeats Brent Albright.


-After the match, the Hangmen Three beat down Delirious. El Generico and Kevin Steen come out to help Delirious out and brawl with the Hangmen Three. While the two groups brawl, the Age of the Fall come out and demand a shot at the ROH Tag Team Titles, currently held by The Briscoes. They are then interrupted by the Vulture Squad (Jack Evans, Ruckus, Jigsaw and Julius Smokes) who come down to the ring. They challenge the other three teams (Hangmen Three, Steen & Generico and the AOTF) to an impromptu tag match.


-Kevin Steen & El Generico beat Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs (AOTF), Jack Evans & Ruckus (Vulture Squad) and Adam Pearce & BJ Whitmer (Hangmen Three)


-Daizee Haze beats Lacey and Sara Del Ray in a three way match.


-Davey Richards defeats Erick Stevens


-Claudio Castagnoli beats Chris Hero


-Bryan Danielson beats Takeshi Morishima by disqualification after Morishima knocks down the referee. They start trying to kill each other after the match.


-The Briscoes retain the ROH Tag Team Titles against Roderick Strong & Rocky Romero.


-Nigel McGuinness successfully defends the ROH World Title against Austin Aries.

Notes:

The transition between the Delirious/Albright match to the 4 team tag match was just crazy. I can’t remember ever seeing a match start off like that.




As a matter of fact, that whole tag match as a whole was just crazy. I don’t think there was a dull moment throughout the whole thing.




Seeing someone get hit in the groin should never be a funny thing, but I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when it happened in the Davey Richards/Erick Stevens match.




The crowd was all over Nigel McGuinness during his match, no wonder he recently turned on them.



Speaking of the match, there were parts where I thought one of them had killed the other person.




Despite all the stellar in-ring action, anything else ROH produces continues to seem very amateurish.

ECW Results, Upcoming ROH PPV and Wednesday Wrestler Spotlight

3/5 ECW Results

(Pics from WWE.com)


~The show starts with The Miz & John Morrison defending the WWE Tag Team Titles against Tommy Dreamer & Colin Delaney. Dreamer and Delaney were doing alright, until Delaney gets a chair and hits Miz and Morrison with it. This causes Dreamer and Delaney to get disqualified and allow the tag champs to retain their titles.


-Shelton Benjamin ends Stevie Richards’ three-match winning streak.


-Kane beats James Curtis in 2 seconds. For some reason, Chuck Palumbo decides to stalk Kane on from his motorcycle throughout the match.



-It is announced that Tommy Dreamer & Colin Delaney will receive a rematch for the WWE Tag Team Titles next week in a no-DQ match.

-Then, it was time for the main event of CM Punk vs. Chavo Guerrero for the ECW Championship.





-Chavo Guerrero pulls out the win and remains ECW Champion.

This episode of ECW was definitely built around the ECW title match. Thankfully, Punk and Chavo delivered and saved the show because other then that, the show was VERY uneventful. The match starts off a little slow but the pace picks up near the end.



Chavo Guerrero vs. CM Punk (Part I)




Chavo Guerrero vs. CM Punk (Part II)

Why the plug was pulled so quickly on Stevie Richards’ winning streak is a mystery to me but it was kind of hard to imagine just what Richards would be doing once he stopped beating no-names.

It seems Kofi Kingston took the night off to try and pick up Kelly Kelly. I bet this line works all the time on the “island”.



ROH Pay-Per-View Airing This Friday

(Pic from rohwrestling.com)

~Ring of Honor's latest Pay Per View event, Rising Above, is set to premiere this Friday. This show will be the sixth PPV event in the company's history since all ROH shows made are distributed via DVDs.

The show was pre-taped and originally occured on 12/29/07 in NYC. Here's the card for the show:

ROH World Title Match
Nigel McGuinness (Champion) vs. Austin Aries

ROH World Tag Team Title 2/3 Falls Match
Jay & Mark Briscoe (Champions) vs. Rocky Romero & Roderick Strong

Grudge Match #1
Bryan Danielson vs. Takeshi Morishima

Grudge Match #2
Claudio Castagnoli vs. Chris Hero with Larry Sweeney

Grudge Match #3
Erick Stevens vs. Davey Richards

Three-Way Women's Match
Sara Del Rey vs. Lacey vs. Daizee Haze

Tag Team Scramble
Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jack Evans & Ruckus vs. Adam Pearce & BJ Whitmer

Grudge Match #4
Delirious vs. Brent Albright

In terms of in-ring action, the ROH PPVs have been extremely good and have been right up there with WWE and TNA. However, their shows are very poorly advertised and unless you already are a ROH fan, you probably won't know when their shows are released. This, of course, is the opposite of what you are supposed to do when you expand, try to reach out to the casual, non-fan to add to your fanbase instead of just catering to your loyal following.

Here's a 10 minute preview of the show released by ROH:



Wednesday Wrestler Spotlight

~The wrestler in the spotlight this week goes by a couple of names. "The Washington Warrior", "The Prince of Parkland (Washington)", and "The Aerial Emperor" are just a few. Personally, I perfer...

Jack Evans, from the Heavens.

Jack Evans is a regular in ROH and has been since 2004, but he's also made appearences in Japan and in other promotions across America, including TNA.

Evans is notable for mostly his breakdancing and his fast-paced wrestling style, which consists of a bunch of flips, twists and other high flying manuevers. Like the Springboard Skytwister Press Suicida



And the Space Flying Tiger Drop



And the 630 Senton



And even more breakdancing



Although all the high flying stuff is pretty entertaining, many people don't like Evans' style because he doesn't set anything up and just performs a bunch of moves like a choreographed movie fight scene.

I think Jack Evans is great and he's one of the few wrestlers that makes my jaw drop almost everytime I see him in the ring.



In ROH, Evans is the leader of his own group called "The Vulture Squad", which also features Julius Smokes, Jigsaw and Ruckus.

Evans is currently out of action after suffering a facial injury while taking part in a match in Japan. He's been out since January and I don't know when he's scheduled to make his in-ring return, but from the pics I saw, the injury was pretty brutal.



(clip of how Jack Evans got his injury)