Wrestling News September 22, 2005

A couple of interesting occurences the last few days that I wanted to hit upon.

WWE News & Notes

-As per many wrestling news sites, the wrestler formerly known as Muhammad Hassan, has been released by WWE. There appears to be some speculation as to whether he legitimately asked for his release -- the rationale being that he wanted to pursue acting opportunities in Hollywood and/or he refused to work in OVW (he is living in LA currently), or that he was fired at the time of his removal from television in late-July following the train bombings in London.

James Ray's Thoughts: It is abominable to me that Copani has, in essence, been fired or released (however you'd like to phrase it) for simply doing what was asked of him. The blatant PC-ism that led to this incident is absurd. The company seemingly made no effort whatsoever to reward the fact that Copani loyally did what was asked of him at the Great American Bash on the alleged promise that he would be briefly sent back to OVW and repackaged. Instead, clearly, none of these things have actually happened. The WWE can allow a "personality conflict" spin all they want to, but in the end they've let an "offended" minority allow for the termination of an employee. If I were Shane Helms, I'd be shaking in my green and purple boots right about now.

- A minor note, "The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD has been released. Reviews are fairly mixed as to how badly Warrior is, ultimately (pun intended), treated.

TNA News & Notes

- TNA has signed the former "Dudley Boys" to multi-year contracts. The current plan has them debuting on September 27. It will be intersting to see if TNA uses the "Team 3D" concept or tries some other method to take a jab at WWE. For those unaware, the WWE has pressed their trademark rights on the "Dudley Boys" name and therefore Bubba Ray and D-Von can no longer use them.

WWE Unforgiven 2005 Results

A day late and a dollar short as usual.

1) Ric Flair def. Carlito to become the new Intercontinental Champion. He grabs the mic and says that win means as much to him as any of his 16 World championships. He regrets that his bestt friend Triple H wasn't there to see it. He then grabs some ladies from the crowd.

2) Trish Stratus & Ashley def. Victoria and Torrie Wilson

Flair led the women into his limosine. He waited outside and took some viagra and washed it down with champagne.

3) Big Show def. Gene Snitsky.

4) Shelton Benjamin def. Kerwin White.

5) Matt Hardy def. Edge in a steel cage match. Fantastic match that build towards its finish. Among the best of the year IMO.

6) Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch def. Hurricane & Rosey to capture the World Tag Team Championship.

7) Shawn Michaels def. Chris Masters.

The women left Flair's limo. He then climbed out backwards covered in sweat, ass hanging out of his tights. Pulled his tights up. Took a swig of champagne from the bootle. Was about to "Woooo" but stopped. Flair flopped onto the cement. Ha!

8) Kurt Angle def. John Cena by DQ when Cena hit Angle with the WWE Championship belt in front of the ref. Cena retained.

WWE Unforgiven 2005 Preview

Later tonight we'll see the next Raw-only pay-per-view, Unforgiven. Looking over the card you get the feeling that the company could possibly have a few plans in place or just threw a few matches/feuds together just to fill some airtime. Sometimes when I think it is one way it turns out to be the other. With a (mostly) new creative team in place I'm betting this will be a bit more story oriented than filler. There's really no way of knowing at this stage. So let's take a look at the matches and my predictions.

John Cena(c) vs. Kurt Angle - WWE Championship
Do you know how much I love Kurt Angle? The man has it all. Mic skills. Workrate. Psychology. He’s comedic. He’s dramatic. He’s what John Cena should strive to be. But he’s also what John Cena won’t strive to be. Cena has no reason to improve his game to be as good of a performer as Angle is. He’s over (even though there seems to be a backlash growing against him). This match will show us if Cena really wants to improve his game or if he’s satisfied being where he’s at now. I should also note how I find it frustrating that the Raw writers refuse to acknowledge this rivalry that started on Smackdown. It’s these little things that would make the shows that much better. Ah well.
Prediction: Cena pulls it out but will look worse for wear.

Ric Flair vs. Carlito(c) - Intercontinental Championship
WOOOOOOOOOO! Dass not cool. There’s been relatively no build-up for this match. Why are they even feuding? I don’t remember. I know it turned into Carlito taking Flair out in the back. Did it start with Flair saving Ashley? Whatever. If they are trying to build Carlito up to be a respectable champion than he needs a feud. A small rivalry with Flair won’t cut it despite Flair’s fanbase.
Prediction: I can’t imagine why they would put the belt on Flair for any reason than he has never held it before. And if that’s what they are shooting for then they went about the angle way wrong. If Flair wins, the title then expect the feud to keep going. But that would only make the backstage assault meaningless at that stage of the feud. Sigh.. Carlito. Gotta go with the Bad Apple.

Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Masters
Legend versus Hype. And despite my thoughts of how I believe where Masters will be in a few years, at this stage it is still all hype. I’ve insisted all along that he’s in the wrong gimmick. It’s holding him back a lot. Right now Shawn is carrying this feud entirely on his own. Shawn uses enough of his own crafted abilities to make it seem as if at least his half of the feud isn’t totally scripted.
Prediction: HBK doesn’t need the win but a loss to Masters at this stage won’t benefit either of them. Masters needs a clean loss to get to the next stage of his career. Shawn doesn’t have to break the Masterlock but putting Masters down will be just as meaningful. I’ve gotta give it to HBK.

Edge vs. Matt Hardy – Steel Cage Match
Wouldn’t it be great if this was handled right? Even accepting that the situation was turned into an angle they’re still not properly doing it. The announcers aren’t selling the angle as it is nearly enough. And if they were it would make the angle that much stronger. The angle is about Edge being the WWE’s next golden boy and how his actions resulted in a friend getting screwed. On top of that, Matt returning only because of Vince McMahon is seen as an insult to Eric Bischoff (the on-air representation of Johnny Ace) going out of his way to ruin Matt’s career getting him beat up, making him lose, etc. It’s not only going on backstage but it’s going on on-screen as well. Just acknowledge it. We all see it. Have JR sell it more!
Prediction: Does it need to be said that Matt needs the win? He has yet to get a victory over Edge in his revenge story. And he was even pinning Edge after the Side Effect off the ramp that got them loaded into an ambulance. Why the hell didn’t the ref count the pin anyway? But yeah – Matt needs to win. Edge wins.

Big Show vs. Snitsky
Why is this a feud? It was only a month or two back that Big Show was squashing the Snit. I’m probably the only person that enjoys the ringwork of both men as well. And why are they feuding? It’s not enough to know that they just are.
Prediction: I can’t imagine the Big Show not winning. That said, a win for Snitsky could be big for him if they followed it up with Snitsky being dangerous and on the loose. Still – Big Show wins.

The Hurricane & Rosey(c) vs. Cade & Murdoch - World Tag Team Championship
Stale versus Not Quite Ready. Does anybody really get excited when Hurricane and Rosey come out anymore? They’ve been treated like a joke for so long now. They were finally starting to build up momentum again with Super Stacy in their corner, but now that is over since she moved to Smackdown. Cade and Murdoch have great chemistry together and a lot of charisma to boot. I just wish their theme music hadn’t been changed this past Monday.
Prediction: Hurricane & Rosey holding the tag titles are doing the belts no favor. It needs off of them at least 3 months ago. Cade & Murdoch need the win and the WWE needs the belts on them. Just give it to them and find something new for Hurricane & Rosey stat.

Trish & Ashley vs. Victoria & Torrie
TRISH! HEEL VICTORIA! Oh. It’s a tag team match. At least they aren’t on the same team. There is a lot of truth in this angle they have going with the women not liking the Diva search. It’s apparent in how much weight Torrie has lost unnecessarily. What happened to her ass anyway? It’s gone! Anyway, coming off of the poor match Ashley and Torrie has last week expect some nerves to be a bit raw going out there tonight. We’ll see if Trish is ready to go or not yet/ Still. It’s great to see her back and wrestling against Victoria.
Prediction: They’re certainly not going to job out a returning Trish Stratus and somebody they just paid $250,000 for a year of work. The feud(s) continue on Raw when the heels get a small measure of revenge.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Kerwin White
Chavo’s new gimmick will never be anything more than lower midcard at best. But that’s fine because the WWE will never see him as anything more than that anyway. He’s done enough oddball gimmicks that people are used to it by now. Meanwhile you have Shelton Benjamin who should be in the upper midcard at this point getting held down until his mic work improves a bit. Nevermind the fact that he is already better on the stick and in the ring than Chris Masters who sure as hell won’t be putting on nearly as good a match with HBK and Shelton did on Raw a few months back. Bah. Anyway, the racial implications of this match are so wrong but so hilarious because it is so wrestling. And the feud is built only on the racism as well. You have two great wrestlers in a feud based solely around a joke centered on racism. And you know something? I’m just glad they’re on the pay per view. Now let them do a great technical match, I beg you!
Prediction: I have no idea. I really don’t. Neither can afford to lose and a win for either won’t help their careers much. Let’s give it to Kerwin.

Wrestling News September 18, 2005

WWE News & Notes:
- The Million Dollar Tough Enough winner, Daniel Puder, was released by the WWE this week. He still went home with his guaranteed $250,000 for his first year. It’s expected he will return to MMA.
- The weekend wrestling show on USA will be called WWE Weekend Raw
- There will be a few preemptions for Raw in 2006 because of the move to USA. They are:
*February 13, 2006 will have the Westminster Dog Show; Raw will be shown Wednesday, February 15.
*The US Open will be on August 26 and September 24, 2006. There will not be a Raw the week of the 26th. Raw will air on Friday, September 8th.
- USA will air a special called "10 Best Raw Moments" on 10/7 at 10 PM
- WWE made efforts to have court records sealed involving the civil suit with Brock Lesnar.
- Speaking of Brock, his in-ring return will be for Japanese promotion IHGP in a triple threat match against IHGP Champion Kazuyuki Fujita and Masahiro Chono.
- Candice Michelle is the next WWE Diva to pose in Playboy.

ROH News & Notes:
- Jimmy Yang will make his ROH debut during the big Kenta Kobashi weekend on October 1st in Manhattan and October 2nd in Philadelphia. His opponent on October 1st will be “the Fallen Angle” Christopher Daniels. Yang is also signed for the October 14th debut in Cleveland.
- It looks as if Spanky's last ROH show was the 8/27 "Dragon Gate Invasion" event as he is booked on upcoming WWE house shows
- Last night was also Mick Foley’s final ROH appearance. He’s also signed again with WWE

Last night’s ROH show featured the crowning of a new ROH World Championship
1) Low-Ki d. Jay Lethal
2) Austin Aries d. Azriel
3) Nigel McGuiness d. Roderick Strong to retain the ROH Pure title
4) Colt Cabana d. Homicide via disqualification
There was a brawl with The Rottweilers, Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal
5) Jay Lethal d. Low-Ki with a top rope dragon suplex
6) Samoa Joe d. Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer and Rickey Reyes in a Four Corner Survival
7) AJ Styles d. Jimmy Rave to win the rights to the Styles Clash
8) Bryan Danielson d. James Gibson with a chicken wing to win the ROH World title!