I half expect a few bonus matches on the card Paul, as that's a pretty thin card. Including..."Arrrgh Matey, Paul Burchill" And The Boogey Man.
Incidentally, is there any chance of an index of the Capsule Reviews you've on on the X-Axis? On occasion I've been reading through them and they're pretty interesting to read, especially when i'm reading the trades of a series you review in the capsules (like the Bruce Jones run on Hulk), but there's no order to the reviews
Indexing the capsules would take forever and a day, although the capsule reviews for actual X-books are listed in the relevant review index page.
God only knows where they're going with Paul Burchill. According to Bryan Alvarez of F4Weekly (who is usually pretty reliable), he asked a WWE insider why Burchill was just saying "hello" instead of acting like a pirate. The answer, believe it or not, is that Burchill is NOT meant to be a comedy character and that he's supposed to be a realistic pirate. That's why he doesn't have an eyepatch.
For some unfathomable reason, the WWE are convinced that Burchill is going to be the next British Bulldog and massively popular in the UK. Not with this gimmick, he won't be. He's actually a very good wrestler who WOULD get over huge if he was booked as a Chris Benoit-style killer - which he could certainly carry off - but I just don't see the half-hearted jobbing pirate getting anywhere.
You are rather optimistic about Matt Hardy's chances! I can't picture them taking the tag titles off of MNM yet again, especially for a filler match like this. The latest rumours have Tatanka as the mystery partner rather than Animal, though neither one is going to lead to a particularly decent match. There was also apparently an earlier plan to bring in C.M. Punk as a new partner for Hardy but that was scuppered. I wish they'd do *something* with Punk, though he'd also be used far more effectively in TNA. I'd love to see a Punk/Christian feud for the belt, actually.
Punk has, apparently, been down in OVW quietly dodging as many awful gimmicks as he can. Be glad that he hasn't been called up - he only narrowly avoided membership in the Spirit Squad.
MNM's standing open challenge has to be a reference to the comments Melina made before their match against Brian Kendrick and Paul London a couple of weeks ago. I didn't realize it was a standing open challenge myself. THat does seem to be something that happens in wrestling a lot though. Someone opens their mouth once and they have to deal with it many times
But there is an out to give Matt and his partner the win, but not the belts. The match Kendrick and London got was non-title.
There is no way Scott Taylor has been with the WWE since 1991. As for the CW is it really that much worse than TNA's multiple man x-division matches that aren't even announced? I expect Chavo Guerrero's presence at ringside to have some sort of impact on this match. What lead to this match is not that Helms said he could beat ANY of the CW's but that he could beat ALL of them.
As for Birchall, he does have an out. The Boogeyman is the most over thing in the WWE right now. He can admit that he was just doing this to draw attention and they can use his former partner William Regal to beat some sense into him
There was a plan to bring Punk in as a deaf wrestler too, due to an ear injury he picked up a while back. Then there was the story about Triple H and Shawn Michaels being unimpressed with his workrate... the match he did for Heat that wound up being pulled from the TV edit... the confusion from management over how he wound up working an ROH show last weekend... the inevitable heat he will get from dating Maria... It's not looking too good for him, really.
Wasn't he going to be Orlando Jordan's bisexual friend at one point...?
"There is no way Scott Taylor has been with the WWE since 1991."
That's what the WWE's website says, possibly in reference to him working as a jobber. However, according to Wikipedia, he's been under WWE contract since 1993 and spent five years as Scott Taylor before getting the Too Cool gimmick.
Yes, Punk was probably on the shortlist for Orlando's significant male other. The last I heard about that one, they were going to hire an actor for the role rather than a wrestler, which makes me wonder what the pay-off could possibly be.
I'd heard they'd actually hired a friend of Jordan's.
Vicky being ringside only cemented that Rey was losing to Orton. Which in itself says something about WWE.
The WWE Cruiserweight division is treated worse than the TNA X-Division in that the X-Division actually gets matches aired. The CW division only gets matches on TV when there is going to be a title change, they are using a battle royale filler, or a larger wrestler is set to interrupt the match for his own promo. (In the last case, he will invariably eliminate both CW competitors in one move each.)
TNA tries to at least imply the best X-Division wrestlers would be competitive against the best regular division wrestlers. Vince doesn't do that with the WWE. A regular division wrestler can beat two or more cruiserweights with ease. And Vince wonders why people don't care about the CW division beyond certain personas like Funaki. (Similar is done with the tag division versus the upper heavyweight card, with guys like Undertaker and Angle beating two and three man top tag teams.)
On Lashley vs JBL, don't forget that JBL was just squashed by Boogeyman in the last PPV.
I can't see Lashley going too long, but I can't see JBL being able to successfully do his normal out of the ring brawling without hurting Lashley's image.
Has JBL dropped from being Vince's possible favorite non-son? (Since HHH is obviously his favorite son, with his actual son Shane forgotten until they want to do a family promo for a PPV.)
Hate doing multiple responses...
The cruiserweight title match is something of a mess in planning. I believe there are two different factors at work.
Vince (or someone else) was supposedly hot on Kid Kash as the new face of the Cruiserweight Division. Kash won the title, but was apparently injured, so the belt was moved off of him. Kash is the only CW that the WWE has shown actual interest in as of late, so he may be up to win the belt again.
(Possible monkey wrench in the Kash situation is the reappearance of Scotty 2 Hotty, whom Vince appears to have undying love for, despite the crowd having tired of him years ago.)
The second factor is Helms. Helms lost his gimmick, then got forgotten, then his winning the Cruiserweight belt was used as an excuse to ship him to Smackdown. Being shipped to Smackdown generally means you are either being pushed to the side (as Raw is in WWE opinion the flagship show,) or you are about to be released. I believe Helms falls into the latter catagory, and shedding his Hurricane gimmick was only the beginning of his release process.
I don't think the crowd have tired of Scotty at all. The Worm is still one of the most consistently popular spots in the company. In fact, you could make a good case that because they use Scotty so rarely these days, he's actually quite fresh. He could be a valuable player if they ever made a serious effort to get the Cruiserweight or Tag divisions on course again.
Incidentally, going back to one of the earliest comments: The difference between a gratuitous nine-way in the WWE and a meaningless X-Division match in TNA is (a) the TNA match will be better because the wrestlers aren't so limited by company policy, and (b) TNA would never even consider doing a meaningless match for their X Title.
The problem TNA has wound up with is that Joe, Daniels and Styles are clearly being presented as working on an entirely superior level to the rest of the X Division. They'll have another three-way at Ultimate X next month and one more in the Six Sides of Steel in April. Good matches but very little chance of someone like Shelley, Lethal or Dutt getting moved up into the title mix anytime soon.
The Worm is about the only pop Scotty gets though, unlike a few years back. It is enough for the WWE to keep bringing him back, but it isn't an indication that the crowd is actually interested in him.
And TNA's biggest problem is that the main belt is always built around Jarrett. Just one example is that when they want to give a belt to someone to build them for the heavyweight scene, they often use the X Division belt. The very top tier of the X Division is also part of the top tier of the heavyweight division, but the rest of the X Division isn't really presented as as credible in the main belt rankings. (And even the top guys often have a harder time than the top tier dedicated heavyweight contenders.)
It is still better than the WWE treatment though, where the holder of the CW belt *might* be considered as able to beat a jobber or eternal middling in the heavyweight division. Just as any dedicated tag team, even the champions, *might* post a threat to a heavyweight if they work together. And half the time the US and Intercontinental belt holders are treated in similar fashion.
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