Seriously, from "awesome" to "terrible."

The title of this entry is something I'll address later on. First thing's first, Pokemon FireRed has a new episode uploading as I type this. I was going to do 2 episodes yesterday but I decided against it at the last minute due to various circumstances happening at that point in time, so it ended being 1 episode yesterday, and 1 episode today.

I said in yesterday's entry that I would talk about Monday Night Raw and TNA Impact and I plan to do just that. I'll start off with Raw since I watched that first. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the show. The show starts off with Batista coming out to cut a promo about how he was screwed at Extreme Rules due to John Cena using duct tape to win the match. He then talks about how both he and Cena have to have a "Beat the Clock" challenge to decide what their stipulation is for their rematch at the next pay-per-view Over the Limit. Sheamus comes out and tells Batista that he is the one that deserves the title shot because unlike Batista, he actually won his match at Extreme Rules. Batista then tells him that Sheamus lost during the triple threat match from last week's show, despite never actually being pinned or forced to submit. I like that they're throwing Sheamus in the feud, even if it's just as someone who is trying to get into the actual match. The fact that they have him standing up to Batista and not acting like a cowardly heel is a good sign since it makes Sheamus look like a credible threat. After that, Batista has his match against The Miz. At least that was supposed to happen. Turned out Miz had a doctor's note and couldn't compete due to the trauma placed on his jaw after The Big Show decked him last week. He decides to send his NXT rookie, Daniel Bryan, to face Batista in his place. Now the whole premise of the "Beat the Clock" challenge is that one wrestler will have a match and the time it takes for him to win will set the time to beat for the next person to take that challenge. Daniel Bryan got some nice bits of offense in during the match, managing to almost make Batista tap as well as almost getting a pinfall victory. He was looking pretty good during this match, but yet it was obvious from the start that Batista would win, and he did win after hitting the Batista Bomb (his rendition of a power bomb) on Bryan and pinning him for a time of 5 minutes and 6 seconds. After the match, embarrassed by the fact that he took that long to beat Bryan, he went back into the ring and gave him 2 more Batista Bombs. Next thing we see is Wayne Brady, who is the guest host for this week, talking with Eve backstage during a photoshoot. Of course they had to do a comedy skit where Jillian Hall comes out and tries to sing for Wayne Brady as horridly as humanly possible, but of course they were pretty quick to get her out of the room. Wayne Brady leaves and Eve is attacked by Maryse who wants the Diva's Championship back. All in all, the segment wasn't that bad and it's the first time in a long time that a diva rivalry had some sort of build. Next they show Edge in the back talking with either a stage hand or some kind of production assistant about clips to use for some kind of video reel. Edge is listing some of his previous accomplishments he wants in the video, yet the guy he's talking to keeps telling him that these clips can't be used because of the TV-PG rating. Edge then does an interview with Josh Matthews saying that he's the "Rated R Superstar" and that he wants to bring back controversy to the WWE like it was known for "back in the day." Ted Dibiase Jr. then comes to the ring to have a match with John Morrison, but first he cuts a promo saying how R-Truth is stupid for refusing to be his assistant (his Virgil) and that he will find someone and the first thing he will order that person to do is to beat up R-Truth and teach him a lesson. John Morrison comes out and the match begins. Some decent back and forth action that leads to a spot where Ted Dibiase is out of the ring and John Morrison stands on the top rope, not the turnbuckle, to do a 450 splash to the outside. After that, John Morrison gets back in the ring and Dibiase leaves, accepting a countout defeat. Morrison then gets on the mic and says that he won't accept that kind of win. He proposes that the match continues, and if he loses, he will become Ted's Virgil. Of course that intrigues Ted and he comes back and the match continues. Again, lots of back and forth action, however in the end John Morrison wins. After the match, Dibiase attacks Morrison and R-Truth comes out to make the save. The two pose together in the ring and Ted makes his way to the back. Solid match overall and I wouldn't mind seeing it again. Next we have John Cena who is supposed to face Chris Jericho for his own "Beat the Clock" match. He was supposed to face off against Chris Jericho, but Jericho decided that his own NXT rookie, Wade Barrett, should face him instead because Jericho felt he was above the match. Wade also did one hell of a job and almost made John lose the challenge. Of course though, John Cena no sold (which means acted as if he wasn't hurt at all) Wade at the last 27 seconds he had, locked him in the STF and made him tap out. After the match, Cena says he won't make the audience wait and was about ot announce the stipulation for his match against Batista, but Sheamus comes out and knocks Cena out with a bicycle kick. Next we have a diva's match between Maryse and Nikki Bella. The match wasn't that memorable and to be perfectly honest I didn't care for it. Maryse won, but after the match she decided to show off a photoshoot of her own that was taken after knocking Eve out earlier. Of course it was Maryse posing with Eve's Diva Championship while ontop of her unconscious body (That statement sounds rather perverted, but that's literally what happened.) After that, we cut to the back where Wayne Brady is talking with Vladimir Kozlov who was demanding competition. Santino comes in dressed with hippie clothes and an afro wig claiming he was a major fan of The Brady Bunch but Wayne tells him he was never a member of that show. Santino's gimmick is that he's a stupid foreigner who doesn't have a clue about actual American culture. It's a stupid gimmick, but meh, he at least makes it funny. Anyway, Santino claims that he wants to be a tag team partner to Vladimir Kozlov, but Kozlov wants nothing to do with Santino. William Regal comes in, who is tagging with Kozlov, and Santino says that Regal screwed Kozlov over back when ECW was still around. He claimed he was one of the 7 people who watched that show. Regal claims that he and Kozlov have settled their differences and things were just fine. Santino makes another Brady Bunch reference by yelling "Regal! Regal! Regal!(similar to Marsha Marsha Marsha)" Santino then leaves and the camera zooms out and you see Goldust in a dress similar to the character Alice. Wayne says "What are you supposed to be Alice?" Goldust then says "Who's Alice? I'm Goldust you witch!" He then walks away, which I thought was pretty funny. We then cut to Chris Jericho and The Miz talking backstage about how they both carried The Big Show during their respective tag team title runs and that he was just ungrateful to them for punching them both in the face. Miz says there is nothing they can do now since Big Show is on Smackdown and they're both on Raw, but Jericho says he has a plan and Miz should follow him. This pretty much signified that Miz and Jericho are going to form their very own tag team, which I have mixed feelings about. Jericho and Miz would definitely make an awesome team as both of them are easily 2 of the best promo men in the business and Jericho is one of the best period. On the other hand, Miz is the United States Champion and hasn't defended that title on television or a pay per view in months which is totally devaluing that title. I know titles are nothing but props, but they really should put some emphasis on Miz as the United States champion. Next there is a match between Vladimir Kozlov teaming with William Regal vs. The Hart Dynasty who are the newly crowned Unified Tag Team Champions. It was a pretty decent tag match but it was rather obvious the Hart Dynasty would win. During the match Chris Jericho and the Miz were on commentary and I loved that they were both shitting all over Michael Cole, because I can't stand the man at all. He's a tool and a terrible commentator. After that match, as the Hart Dynasty were celebrating their win, Jericho and Miz ran to the ring and attacked them knocking them both out. Good match, good segment, and I anticipate where it goes from there. We finally hit the final segment of the night where Edge hosts The Cutting Edge, a talk show similar to Piper's Pit or The Highlight Reel. His guest is supposed to be Randy Orton, whom Edge speared last week costing him a shot at the title. He says that the reason he speared Orton was that he had a plan to take the World Heavyweight Title from Jack Swagger back on Smackdown, but due to the fact that Ted Dibiase won a battle royal he was drafted over to Raw, which ruined his plans entirely. Wayne Brady interrupts the segment claiming that he is a huge fan of Edge and wants to hang out during the show and follow in Edge's shadow for a bit. Edge is saying how cool it is that Wayne Brady is there and they're talking like every thing's cool, then Randy Orton comes out and doesn't say a word. He gets in Edge's face as he's ready to attack him, then Wayne Brady comes and tries to cool Orton down, but Orton locks him in and drops him with an RKO. Props to Wayne Brady for taking a bump like that. Anyway, he backs Edge in a corner and Edge says on the mic that he's angry that the fans cheer for Orton despite the fact that he's similar to Edge in that he does what he wants when he wants. He also said that when Edge came back he tried to do everything he could to appease the fans and yet they wouldn't fully accept him, despite that being completely untrue. Anyway, Randy Orton tries to hit Edge with an RKO, Edge escapes, kicks Randy in the face which stuns him for a minute. Edge then goes to the corner to attempt to hit a Spear on Randy. As Edge is coming, Randy quickly hits the RKO which looked awesome. Randy then stands above Edge in the middle of the ring and the show ends. All in all it was an excellent show and I hope Raw continues in the same direction. Wayne Brady did a decent job hosting this week and I hope Flava Flav can do just as well. TNA Impact on the other hand was not as good.

Actually, TNA Impact was a train wreck and a half. We start off with Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan riding in a limo, in broad daylight despite the fact that it's 8:00 pm and the shot looks as if early afternoon and this all takes place in Florida, on the east coast. Anyway, we then cut to the ring where we hear Ric Flair's theme music hit. Jay Lethal comes out in a nice suit wearing Ric Flair's Hall of Fame ring that Hogan gave him and is doing easily the best Ric Flair impression I've ever heard or seen. Anyway, he's then interrupted by Ric Flair who is very angry that Jay Lethal is disrespecting him. Lethal then gives the ring back to Flair and says he idolized Ric Flair and had no intentions of disrespecting him. Ric Flair is unimpressed with Lethal's bullshit and decides to slap him in the face and starts attacking Lethal. Lethal then starts defending himself, but suddenly Beer Money, Desmond Wolfe, and AJ Styles hit the ring and start attacking Jay Lethal. After that, Abyss wobbles to the ring and attempts to save Lethal, but he starts getting his ass beat, then Team 3D tries to make the save but that doesn't help, then finally RVD comes in with a chair and scares the attackers off. They then cut to a commercial. When they come back, Ric Flair and crew are standing at the entrance while RVD and crew are standing in the ring. RVD gets on the mic and says that he wants to keep fighting so they invite Flair and company to hit the ring and start fighting again. Low and behold, Ric says that's a good idea, and the clusterfuck continues. Hulk Hogan gets a text about what's going on and decides to turn the limo around and head back to the arena. Hogan then comes out, and I'm not kidding, knocks all the bad guys out in 1 punch. We're talking about a 60 year old Hulk Hogan knocking out the top 5 heels of the company out in 1 punch when even the World Heavyweight Champion was having trouble fending off one of these guys. It was a giant clusterfuck and looked horrid. We then cut to a commercial again. When we come back, the clusterfuck is STILL going on and this time we see security and referees trying to break everything up. Hogan then gets on the mic and decides to make some matches. The first match he makes is RVD vs. Desmond Wolfe for the TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam. The fans, including myself, voted for Desmond Wolfe to get a title shot and so he got one. The next match Hogan announces is AJ Styles vs. Abyss in a "Monster's Ball" match, which is just a hardcore match with a fancy name. Hogan then announces that Beer Money, who were originally supposed to face The Motor City Machine Guns in a tag match will now be facing Team 3D as well, making it a 3-way Tag Team Match. The clusterfuck is finally over and that's already the first half hour of the show done already. Mike Tenay and Taz also made the announcement that Impact will be moving back to Thursday nights, meaning I don't have to record it anymore. They claimed that the reason they're moving back is because the fans "demanded it." While that is partially true, it's rather obvious the reason they are moving back is because they were getting destroyed by Monday Night Raw in the ratings. Raw got a 3.1 rating whereas Impact got a 0.5 rating last week. It's obvious that Impact needs to go back Thursdays in order to survive. Anyway, we finally get a match in which Douglas Williams and Brian Kendrick team up to face the newly formed team of Ink Inc. made up of Shannon Moore and Jessie Neil. Before the actual match starts, Douglas Williams gets on the mic to talk about TNA management stripping him of the X-Division title. The reason he was stripped of the title was due to the fact that he was trapped in Europe after the volcano erupted in Iceland and couldn't make it to Lockdown to defend the title. The man couldn't come back to defend the title due to conditions out of his control and thus the title was stripped. Of course he still wears the title because he feels he is still the champion, and never actually lost the title, and rightfully so. Anyway, Ink Inc. come out and have their match and of course they win after Douglas Williams ditches his partner. During the match, the current tag team champions Matt Morgan...and...his ego I guess, go out and do commentary. Technically, his partner was Hernandez, but Morgan turned heel and injured Hernandez, claiming the tag titles for himself. He now refers to himself in plural pronoun, so instead of "I" or "me" he now refers to himself in "we" and "us." I actually kind of like that gimmick, but the problem is every time he defends the title he has to find a partner. Anyway, it was announced that Ink Inc. were getting a title shot and Morgan was told that Hogan will decide Morgan's partner when he defends those titles at Sacrifice, the next pay-per-view. Morgan says to Hogan that he demands to know who is partner is by the next show or else Morgan will spread chaos and carnage. Anyway, after the match Samoa Joe comes out for no reason and just beats the shit out of Douglas Williams and Brian Kendrick. They still never actually explained what happened to Samoa Joe after he was kidnapped by ninjas. Yes, that's right, Samoa Joe was kidnapped by ninjas and managed to escape and TNA haven't shed light on it at all. After that, we cut to Mr. Anderson attacking Pope Diangelo Dinero in the back and stealing his sunglasses. He's wearing an alter boy robe while doing so and it looked pretty funny actually. After coming back from a commercial, Anderson comes to the ring and cuts a funny promo about how he beat the hell out of Pope and then Jeff Hardy comes out and spews nonsense about how Pope won't be able to face Anderson at the next pay-per-view so Jeff Hardy will take his place. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less by this point. Next we have a match between Tara, Sarita, and Taylor Wild vs. The Beautiful People in a 6 Knockout tag match in which both the Knockout single's title as well as the Knockout's tag titles were all on the line. The Beautiful People won. During the match Tara was heeling it up and saying how she was better than her tag partners and what not, also attacking Taylor Wild and Sarita. We then cut backstage where Tara is being interviewed by Christie Hemmie. Tara says that the company isn't taking her seriously and that they've done nothing but screw her over ever since she got there. She then challenges Knockout Champion Madison Reyne to a title match at Sacrifice and Christie then says, "Well how do you expect the company to decide that you are worthy of challenging for the title." Tara says "I'll challenge Madison and put my career on the line." Seems to me that Tara is leaving soon and I don't blame her. We then cut to a backstage segment where Hulk Hogan is talking about his family issues and then breaks down into tears. To be perfectly honest, this wasn't necessary. Jeremy Borash tries to get an interview out of Ric Flair, but Flair refuses an interview and tries to shut the door. Of course the door manages to stay open just enough so you can see and hear everything he's saying. He tries to give encouragement to AJ, Desmond, Robert Roode, and James Storm. Ric Flair then suddenly slams the door shut once he realizes it was still open. We then cut to the 3-way tag match and to be perfectly honest it wasn't that memorable until the very end. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash come out and attack Team 3D causing the match to end in a "no contest." Eric Young comes out to make the save, but it turns out to be a swerve (surprise twist) and joins with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. This made absolutely no sense if you've been paying attention. When Scott Hall and Sean Waltman first came to the company, Kevin Nash tried getting them jobs but it wasn't working out. Hogan wanted nothing to do with those guys. Hall and Waltman kept sneaking into the building and what not and suddenly they attacked Kevin Nash. Nash and Young started decide to team up and take those two out for attacking Nash. They had a pay-per-view tag match at Destination X, if Hall and Waltman won, they got contracts to work for the company. Nash swerved on Eric Young and helped Hall and Waltman win and get contracts. Angry about it, Young challenged Kevin Nash to a match at Lockdown and lost. Suddenly Eric Young joins Kevin Nash and gang? That's illogical booking if I've ever seen it. Again this turns into a massive clusterfuck as the MCMG decide to attack Eric Young, Hall, and Nash, then they're attacked by Beer Money and the two groups decide to pose in the ring. It was stupid and I remember pulling my hair from it. Next we are introduced to a new talk show hosted by Orlando Jordan called The O-Zone. Orlando's gimmick is semi-based on his real life bisexuality. The difference is that the character is supposed to be bisexual on a very creepy/disturbing level. He claims that Rob Terry is his guest and then pulls out a cutout of him. He then starts touching the cutout in various locations and is admiring him. It's very creepy and I'm not a homophobe in any sense of the word, but it was way too gay and made me as well as everyone else feel very uncomfortable. Rob Terry then comes out and rips apart the cutout and punches Orlando Jordan. When Rob is turned around and posing, Jordan gets up and knocks Rob Terry out. Luckily the segment ended. Next we have the match between AJ Styles and Abyss. The match was short burst entertainment and barely lasted 5 minutes with AJ winning after Ric Flair and Chelsea come out causing a distraction and AJ hitting Abyss with a low blow while wearing brass knuckles. To be honest, the distraction seemed pointless since there were no disqualifications anyway. We finally move on to the World Title match where Desmond Wolfe faces RVD. It was a 6 minute squash. RVD beat Desmond quick and clean and after the match AJ Styles comes out, attacks RVD and claims he will get his rematch at Sacrifice. What kills me about this is that they just implemented a Top 10 ranking system based on voting. Desmond Wolfe came in first place and got his title shot. Next in line is supposed to be Jeff Hardy. I mean, I'm glad AJ is getting the title shot, but what's the point in having a voting based contender's list if you're not going to follow it? It makes absolutely no sense, which seems to be a running theme with this show. The final segment is a promo between Hulk Hogan and Sting where Hogan asks why Sting has been heeling it up as of late. Sting claims that Hogan was protected in all the companies he's worked with and that he was a politicizing asshole back in WCW. Hogan's all like "well you just want to be a bad guy brother" and it leads to Jeff Jarrett attacking Sting and that's pretty much the whole show. It was horrid.

Speaking of horrid, that brings me to NXT. I want to know what the hell happened to this show. It used to be awesome in the first couple of weeks. You had great matches like Daniel Bryan vs. Chris Jericho, which is basically like a dream match to fans of pure wrestling, like myself. Now the show is filled with nothing but stupid gimmicky challenges similar to the old show Double Dare, literally, last night's challenge was an obstacle course. What does any of that have to do with wrestling?! I don't want to see Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver trying to drink soda. I want to see Wade Barrett and Daniel Bryan wrestle people. The other half of the show is Daniel Bryan losing. He hasn't won a single match on the show, yet somehow we're supposed to believe that this is an underdog story? Seriously, I could believe that with the first 3 or 4 losses, but now we're on loss number 10 and he lost to Michael Tarver last night, who also never won a match and is expected to be eliminated next week. There's really nothing more to talk about for this show because it pisses me off how it went from being awesome and one of the best wrestling shows on television to complete and total garbage. I'll keep watching it because it's wrestling related, but to be perfectly honest, I'm tempted to stop watching it all together.

I made you guys read enough for today so I'm going to stop it here. Again, enjoy the playlist and until next time, take care.