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Archive for December, 2009

The Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV was a game-changer as far as WWE is concerned. Instead of reinforcing the status quo of the last three or four years, some new talent was elevated and some fresh faces brought to the forefront of WWE, and while no breeches were split in the effort, perhaps a few heads were.

In match one, Christian defeated Shelton Benjamin to retain the ECW title, with a rousing, high-spot-heavy 18-minute match.

In the next match, Drew McIntyre defeated John Morrison for the Intercontinental Title in a solid 10-minute match that put one new face into the title mix.

Next, the women’s title match was given a respectable nine minutes to develop and Michelle McCool won the woman’s title from Mickie James.

Shock went through the crowd at 16 minutes when Sheamus upset WWE Champ John Cena to become the new champ! Sheamus’s rise has been quick and took some by surprise, but has been handled well and as long as they let him keep it a month or two, it could prove an interesting way to launch Sheamus’ career… however, the odds of him holding it until WrestleMania are quite slim.

Next up, Undertaker defeated the new heelish Batista at 15 minutes to retain his World Title, but this has got to be the most boring feud on WWE TV today. Move on, please!

At 13 minutes, Randy Orton predictably defeated Kofi Kingston.

Finally, at 24 minutes, JeriShow (Chris Jericho and the Big Show) lost their unified tag titles to DX (Triple H and Shawn Michaels) so now it’ll be DX appearing on both shows for a while…

All in all, some nice title-change surprises and a couple still-predictable results. But WWE is showing improvement in how they handle integrating new talent, so… that’s something!

Break out the external hard drive for your DVR, folks! Stone Cold Steve Austin is scheduled to appear on the January 25 episode of Chuck on NBC, according to various news sources. Austin will portray a close-combat expert named Hugo Panzer on the episode.

Chuck is one of the shows NBC is looked toward to rescue the network from a dismal season; Heroes has plunged in the Monday night ratings since moving to 7 PM Central and being paired with the bland medical drama, Trauma, which ran for 10 episodes.

When Chuck returns to NBC’s schedule, it will take over the 7 PM hour and return Heroes to its traditional 8 PM time slot, which the network hopes will result in better overall Monday night ratings, despite the horrid budget-slashing move of putting Jay Leno at 9 PM Central five nights a week, making NBC a bit of a joke as a major network… and a bad Jay Leno joke at that!

Beginning Monday, January 4, we just might be witnessing the birth of Monday Night Wars, Take Two. That’s because TNA and broadcast partner Spike TV will be taking the Impact show to Monday night on that day.

No, Spike TV isn’t moving TNA Impact to Monday nights permanently, at least not yet. But if TNA does well against RAW, don’t doubt for a second that TNA will press Spike TV to give them that time slot on an ongoing basis.

And TNA is going all-out to make the three-hour episode of Impact as Impact-ful as possible, with both Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan scheduled to appear on the show. Hogan cut a promo promising that TNA is “going to war against WWE.” That might be a bit premature, but if the ratings for Impact hold and Raw’s drop as a result, well… stranger things have happened. Like that time Elvis took slimming pills while on the john… umm… never mind.

Pro wrestling lost another performer at far too young an age last week as we learned of the death of Umaga, otherwise known in real life as Eddie Fatu. The so-called “Samoan Bulldozer” came from a wrestling family and only a couple years ago was featured in one of the top matches at WrestleMania, in the Vince McMahon-Donald Trump “hair” match between Umaga and Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania 23.

Fatu was only 36 and had been released by WWE last June for having violated the company’s Wellness Program and refusing to enter rehab. Since then, he’d toned down his wrestling schedule and had just completed a tour of Australia in a group headed up by Hulk Hogan. His final opponent on that tour was Ken Anderson, known in his WWE days as Mr. Kennedy.

In an ironic but unrelated note, Mr. Kennedy was also the last person Eddie Guerrero wrestled prior to his own premature death by heart attack, back in 2005.

Fatu’s family includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, The Wild Samoans of 1980s fame, The Tonga Kid and Rikishi.

Umaga will be missed by fans who cheered and fans who boo’d him. He nearly always played a monster heel, even though off-stage he was a gentle, likable family man who made sure to look after his kids and take care of the at-home details like garage flooring.