Wrestling with Consciousness

Rey Mysterio - MVP

That was just a fantastic performance by Rey, wrestling the whole of his Elimination Chamber match, being the highlight reel for the match, taking some crazy bumps. What is more, is that I really felt his MMA-style kicks added something to convincing that despite his lack of size, he was causing damage to much bigger wrestlers. This is always a problem with Rey against heavyweight wrestlers, so it was good to see him addressing that.

Mixing things up

Starting with the Smackdown elimination chamber? What was going on? Goodness, that’s what. Obviously given what happened with Edge, it was mainly planned to allow that to happen. It really shook things up as well though, gave the show a very different feel. They also got a fantastic reaction from the crowd from it.

It was just a shame though they couldn’t keep that going all the way through. You could hear how dead the crowd got during the ECW title match (should have had Christian instead), and the Shawn Michaels - JBL match (should have had anyone other than JBL) didn’t ever seem to come alive either. Improve those matches, and a better stunt during the Orton - McMahon match, and you could have had a classic PPV all round. As it was, there was plenty of goodness in the two Elimination Chamber matches to go round. I’m not normally a fan of these, I prefer Hell in a Cell, but these were two rather good installments.

Thanks to the Wrestling Bard for this tip, via their Favourite Matches of the Year list. It’s a fantastic match with a load of moves I’ve just never seen before. I think it’s the combinations of finishers towards the end that did it for me, just haven’t seen that used so well before. The match is from Dragon’s Gate, and pitches the champions Speed Muscle (Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino) against New Hazard (Shingo Takagi and BxB Hulk).

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411mania.com: Wrestling - The Wrestling Bard 01.10.09: Favorite Matches of the Year

I happen to believe that Evan Bourne is one of the top new prospects on WWE Raw at the moment. I love a good high-flyer, and he is about as spectacular as you are going to get in the WWE at the moment. He’s had a good mini-feud with Kane to get him known to the fans, and once he is over his injury, what he needs is a nice set of matches with a mid-card wrestler with some similar skills to build on that. What he didn’t need was the attack on him this week by Mike Knox.

Knox is one of those classic Vince signings, a huge man that has the right look, but without anything else to make him appeal to fans in any way. He’ll get a push for a while, not attract much interest, then fade away for a year or so until Vince remembers that he is paying him, and will be released to little protest. He simply does not have “it”.

So Bourne finds himself moving from a feud with a big man where he is the clear underdog, to a feud with a big man where he is the clear underdog. Except this time it is with someone really lacking the appeal of Kane. This will only serve to damage his development in the long run.

But Seriously, What Does Mick Foley Think About Barack Obama? | Indecision2008 | Comedy Central

It’s been said that people in America are turning to the Daily Show and the Colbert Report for real insight into current events at the moment. But to TNA as well? Possibly one of the strangest things you’ll see on a wrestling show ever, a serious and thoughtful discussion of the upcoming presidential election.

Well I’ve just watched RAW, and I have to say, that was a fine way to finish. All his true peers, including the four horsemen, and Ricky Steamboat in the ring, every single wrestler in the WWE in or around the ring. Magnificent. Given all the losses of wrestlers we’ve had in the past few years, I just hope that a few more can grow old, and get a similar send off.

Is as follows:

Nothing whatsoever. Why? I was foolish enough to move to Virgin Media recently, and have paid my £14.95 to watch it live tonight. However, I have had a blank screen since the first five minutes, no reboots will solve it. I’ve established from some UK wrestling forums that other Virgin customers are having the same problem. There is no-one available at Virgin to help, as they close their helplines at midnight. Further reading also established that they messed up last years Wrestlemania too. So what the hell is going on? Why haven’t they learnt their lesson from last year? Put a few people on just in case the same thing happens again. Last year they refunded everyone (according to what I’ve read). Don’t Virgin want my money? Are they stupid? I’ll update when I’ve actually spoken to them about it tomorrow.