Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request

A new week and an absent WWE champion on Raw. The brands are coming together and TNA seems to be on the brink of collapse, at least if you judge it by the quality of the programming, so the wrestling world looks to be getting a lot smaller. Guys may soon be scrabbling for televised spots and only a few will get them. Still let’s make hay while the sun shines and count our chickens before they hatch, and err…let’s get on with the report!

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: Mark Henry (10/10)

Del Rio misses both Raw and Super Smackdown and instead the number one contender to the World title Mark Henry makes a grab for the top spot. The World’s Strongest Man made an impact in both shows main events and displayed exactly how dominant he can be when he had the Viper trapped inside a steel cage. I still think there is about zero chance of him actually defeating Orton and becoming the World Champion, but at least he is getting a good showing in the main event scene in what perhaps could be the last big push of his long running career.

2nd Place: Kevin Nash (9/10)

The Click is back but it’s a bit arse-backwards as due to a failed medical Nash is no longer able to wrestle with Punk at Night of Champions, so instead Triple H is stepping into the ring with the Voice of the Voiceless. I’m hoping Punk vs. Triple H will be replaced by Austin vs. Punk at Wrestlemania and that will make this botch in the flow of story worth it. Punk has been doing some great work as of late and deserves to go over Triple H clean if anyone does, and if The Game is really trying to do what is best for business then he damn well better let him get over.

3rd Place: R-Truth (8/10)

The Truth takes the sneaky route into the chart this week by earning almost all his points on Superstars in a great match against John Morrison. This was a well fought match with a good enough runtime, after the McIntyre-Bryan main event last week it’s established that Superstars is the place to see good wrestling, or at least it will be when the Super Smackdown format turns Smackdown into Raw and replaces all the decent matches with over-long promos, then again there was the Christian-Orton cage match, but how many weeks can we expect that quality from a main event, on any of the shows.

4th Place: Christian (7/10)

Speaking of the Super Smackdown main event, even if the Christian-Orton feud has seen Christian coming up short a few too many times the quality of the matches has been good enough to perhaps raise Christian’s status to being a legitimate main eventer. Then again we’ll have to see next week if he hasn’t been demoted to wrestling mid-card matches. Captain Charisma has certainly done enough to justify keeping him waiting in the wings of the title picture at least, but with the WWE’s tendency to punish those who found their first real success elsewhere I wouldn’t be surprised if he was pushed down to mid-card status for the foreseeable future.

5th Place: The Miz (6/10)

The Miz gets into the middle of the chart after wrestling a decent match with the newly face-turned C.M. Punk, much to the confusion of the fans. Some people have argued that Raw’s crowd was just dead but they didn’t seem that dead for the Ziggler-Orton match so my theory is that most fans were just confused who to root for, kids and women for the most part not liking either and men for the most part liking both.

6th Place: Sin Cara (5/10)

I’m not too sure if Sin Cara actually is a heel yet, especially since he was supposed to go up against Del Rio instead of Bryan so this outcome must have been thrown together at the last minute, but there are slim pickings this week so Cara gets into the chart, for perhaps one time only…or not.

7th Place: Brotus Clay (4/10)

More slim pickings in the form of the one-man squash machine; Brotus Clay. With the new brand remerging people have been talking about wrestlers getting lost in the shuffle, Clay is surely going to be one of these wrestlers and I’m not so sure that is a bad thing. There is just no need for another monster heel at the moment, the WWE seems to be heading more towards a faster paced product with smaller guys, if you look at some of the more recent hires, or at least if they are big then they are big in muscle as well as size. I’m just not sure that there is room for Clay in an already bloated roster.

8th Place: Beth Phoenix (3/10)

One of the two Divas of Doom takes a step towards redemption after losing to Kelly Kelly at Summerslam by beating her and Alicia Fox in a tag match on Smackdown. The dominant diva managed to get the best of a newly face-turned Fox quite easily, as would be expected, and I’m sure somehow that will lead towards another title shot in the near future, but the WWE will probably mess things up by having Beth feud with Natalya over who gets the shot, which has been done a thousand times, rather than having the two work as a cohesive unit towards their collective goal.

9th Place: Brie Bella (2/10)

Not a good week for Kelly Kelly as the Bella Twins pulled twin magic and took her down for the one-two-three on Raw’s Super Show. The points go to Brie because it was her match but this is equally Nikki’s victory, then again who gives a crap really.

10th Place: Wade Barrett (1/10)

Another case of slim pickings this week but in some ways through no fault of his own. Barrett has had a great month in many ways, only to then turn around and be made to look like a chump by John Cena on Smackdown. This is honestly what fans hate Cena for, when you forget and start defending him for anything then just remember this moment. Cena could easily have sold Barrett to be a legitimate threat like Orton did for Ziggler, but instead he just elected to bury him. Sure this is the booker’s fault as well but don’t tell me Cena doesn’t have enough stroke to get his match the adequate time needed to put Barrett over, especially since it was supposed to be one of two main events. The whole thing is a mystery to me outside of bad booking and a massive ego.

2011-2012 Season Top Ten: Overall Top Ten:

1st Place: R-Truth (146/220) – 1st Place: The Miz (672/1220)

2nd Place: The Miz (128/220) – 2nd Place: C.M. Punk (666/1220)

3rd Place: Alberto Del Rio (99/220) – 3rd Place: Chris Jericho (564/1220)

4th Place: Cody Rhodes (95/220) – 4th Place: Jack Swagger (353/1220)

5th Place: Christian (90/220) – 5th Place: Cody Rhodes (332/1220)

6th Place: C.M. Punk (88/220) – 6th Place: Dolph Ziggler (311/1220)

7th Place: Mark Henry (67/220) – 7th Place: Alberto Del Rio (294/1220)

8th Place: Wade Barrett (64/220) – 8th Place: Sheamus (294/1220)

9th Place: Sheamus (51/220) – 9th Place: Wade Barrett (267/1220)

10th Place: Jack Swagger (45/220) – 10th Place: Randy Orton (224/1220)

Weekly Filler:

The Face-Off: Mickey James Winning The Knockouts Title

This was just an arbitrary win by an over-hyped footnote. I’m not saying that Mickie James isn’t a good wrestler or that she doesn’t deserve to be champion, but just not in the way that the belt and title shots always seem to gravitate towards her like they do to Cena. This was also terrible just because it seemed like such a pointless change with not enough build or consequence. TNA are making the Knockouts division as big of a joke as the Divas division in the WWE and they had so much going for them for so long. Limiting the X-Division to a glorified cruiserweight division and trivialising the division that used to be one of their biggest draws, TNA seem to be doing everything they can to run themselves into the ground.

Face the Facts: Booker T

Now I don’t really like Booker T’s commentary style but he is here just for saying that he tried to put Cena over by saying that he has gone far for someone with limited ability. If others said that more about him then he would be a hell of a lot easier to stomach, because it’s true. Cena is a guy with limited skills who has dominated the business and I can give him credit for that, I just don’t want to have to hear how he’s the ‘best in the business’ over and over again when it’s just not the case. He’s a guy who has worked the system and taken full advantage of the many, many opportunities given to him. Now I’m sure most everyone would do the same thing but I’m not sure if they would have stood on completely as many people in such a big way…well apart from the other top guys in the company of course.

On the Rise: Dolph Ziggler

Despite the inevitable loss and thus lack of points, Ziggler impressed this week on Raw with a great showing against the World Heavyweight Champ. Orton seems to have had a wakeup call somehow and has been putting on some decent matches in the past couple of weeks. This is how a face champion should wrestle, not just bury an opponent, or be dominated for the whole match and then pull off a comeback victory with one move. Instead you need to have matches where the commentators can say that the challenger took the champion to the limit, where they get in a decent amount of offence, but the champion has a counter for almost everything. Apart from anything else there match on Raw showed that Ziggler has the ability to make the transition into the main event, and not just in a fake ‘hold the title for all of five seconds’ filler kind of way like he did almost a year ago.

Flat-Footed: Kurt Angle

This was absolutely pathetic. TNA have sunk to a new level of crappiness in how they hold no stock in consistency and storylines that actually make sense. Kurt Angle comes out a few weeks ago as a freshly turned heel and basically says that the reason he turned on Sting was because he was betrayed by Dixie Carter and now wants to take revenge by taking out the new talent in TNA, which makes little sense to begin with. Now he has come out and said that taking out a Legend like Sting will help him in his quest, even though he’s already done it and it goes completely against what he has been saying. Then they switch it to Angle wanting to take out everyone on the roster and the whole of the network. Not to mention the end of the match which was just a shambles and cheapened the title even further by having Hogan come in, hit Sting with a chair, who no-sold it and stood there like a Superman until Angle slammed him on the chair in front of the ref and then got the three count. Jesus Christ, bring back Jeff Hardy, let’s make this shit sandwich a double decker shall we.

That’s all for this week, maybe a bit too much TNA hate but they really are plumbing the depths right now for the most part. With the announcement that the Raw and Smackdown rosters will be joining together for the foreseeable future we will just have to see whether the quality of the WWE in general improves or diminishes. I for one think it might improve, only because it was before the brand extension that the WWE was better, partially because the writers have more airtime to play with and the same characters to work with over two shows it might lead to more sensible and interesting storylines. Here’s hoping anyway, for now this is James Wright signing off.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com