Linda's Thoughts - Impact/Smackdown

Posted by Linda Robin on 08/07/04 at 12:54 AM

It’s Friday and Fox decided to show Impact today. I say that since here in the Chicago land area it’s pre-empted quite a bit for baseball. But I wasn’t that thrilled with what I saw. However the main event did it for me and made everything okay. As far as Smackdown, I read the spoilers late Tuesday night, and they read extremely well. In fact I told a few of my friends that I cannot wait until Thursday night. That’s how excited I was about watching this show. But for some reason watching it on TV was a let down. This was one weird show. While most of the matches were good, the show dragged and again the non wrestling segments bombed as far as I’m concerned. I thought the Houston crowd was a very good crowd and came through when they needed too. All right let me get into Impact and then Smackdown.

This was the first show that didn’t grab me. Now don’t think I hated it because I didn’t. But maybe because I don’t watch the shows on Wednesday’s seeing some of the guys they put into matches today didn’t impress me. You’ll find out what I mean in a little bit. The first match I did like. It was Antonio Banks and Sal Rinnauro vs. America’s Most Wanted. Now AMW definitely please me. I was also pleasantly surprised with Banks and Rinnauro. This was a nice way to get things going and AMW came off looking so credible. After the match, there was the typical beat down with nasty Team Canada coming in to take out AMW. Then Three Live Crew came out to aid AMW and finally Triple X showed up to assist Team Canada. This was very effective but I’m still not a 3 Live Crew fan I just cannot get into them, but that’s not important, as I said this was a great way to open the show.

Now I got a few emails two weeks ago and these readers were very high on Monty Brown. See I see nothing in him, yet I was told on the weekly pay per views he does a good job. So today I was a little more interested in watching him. His match against Bruce Steele again did nothing for me. Now I know many of you will take this the wrong way because who am I to bash a finishing move? I mean really what do I know? But the Pounce is so nothing. And prior to this match there was a video basically showing just how “deadly” the Pounce is. I say they are hyping this move to ridiculous levels. For a big man I guess I would like to see something a lot more skillful. I thought this match was okay as far as Monty goes, but Bruce Steele looked rather stiff in the ring. This is one of the matches I’m talking about. Steele wasn’t the guy I wanted to see on today’s show. I don’t think he did a thing for the match.
Jason Cross vs. AJ Styles was another match where I would have loved to have seen someone like maybe Sabin wrestle Styles not Jason Cross. Now Cross was okay the more he worked but I guess I’m spoiled I’m used to seeing the X Divisions top guys on Impact. And finally it was weird seeing Jeff Hardy come out do all his signature moves and wear his war paint ala his WWE days. He’s the same Jeff Hardy and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I would have liked to have seen a change in him you know like he’s grown, but he’s just the way he was all those years with his brother. This match with Gabriel never took off. I didn’t see anything great about Hardy or his opponent. I was totally disappointed. But all ended on a very upbeat note with the fantastic main event. These are some of the guys that make me want to watch Impact each week. The was the eight man X division tag team match with, Frankie Kazarian, Michael Shane, Petey Williams and Kid Kash (Tracy, Scott D’Amore and Dallas are all at ringside) vs. Christopher Daniels, Primetime, Sonjay Dutt and Chris Sabin. What can I say? It was so damn good, so fast paced, totally action filled. This is what Impact is to me, and up until this match Impact seemed to be taking a mini holiday. Let’s see, Jeff Hardy was called out by Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy managed to take Jarrett out and a few elite guard members before Jarrett put the figure four on Hardy. And then 3 Live Crew came out to help Hardy. And I could have really gotten into Sabu and Raven going at it. But it was all done very quickly. So don’t get me wrong the show was okay just not as super as what I’ve seen each week.
Now tell me this, how ridiculous was it to put Vince’s picture next to Martin Luther King and have Theodore Long sing the praises of both men. Okay so I could get past that because Theodore again was just so smooth on the mic. And I still want to see him in this GM role. I want to find out if Long will make a difference in his new role. Now the first match with RVD vs. John Cena for the number contender spot for the U.S. title was a super opening match. I was so pleased with both men and I noticed that RVD seemed to keep a rather low profile last night. As a matter of fact he was damn serious. And then with Booker definitely cheering RVD on from backstage I wondered is Rob going with Booker and turning heel? After what I saw last night I’m ready for a RVD heel turn. Cena won and will take on Booker at Summer Slam, the match will be the best of three out of five for the U.S. Undisputed Champion title. Now I’m all for this, however I can not believe that this match wasn’t made as a triple threat match with Van Dam. It makes no sense to me to keep RVD out of Summer Slam. But I forgot RVD isn’t John Heindenreich. If I see that ad one more time with him I think I will well I don’t know what I will do but RVD should get half the hype that Heindenreich has been receiving.

Again Eddie Guerrero was giving crap to work with. Last week his promo auctioning off some of Kurt Angle’s things went on to so long that the fans seemed to be falling asleep the more it went on. And again last night the items were back in the ring only this time along with the items and Eddie were Sable, Torrie and Dawn. This thing went nowhere, and while I know Eddie and Kurt will have a terrific match at Summer Slam, last night there was absolutely not interaction with these two. Having Eddie come out and go through basically everything he did last week was a waste of time. I will say this Houston loves the man and it was great hearing them pop big time for him. Now the next match was one of those filler matches. But I think it also kind of told a little story. The story? Renee Dupree seems to have fallen from grace with the WWE. I’ve been reading that ARE not happy with him like they were. And believe me it showed when he lost in a very quick match to Orlando Jordan. That’s right Orlando returned, wait did we know he was gone? Well in his first match in quite a while Orlando beat Dupree. Again I have to say I can’t stand Renee’s look, I’m so sick of the whole gimmick and if they were lake him off TV for a while to change gimmicks, I would be all for it.

As I said there was a very good opening match and the next three I’m going to mention all came off very well. How great was it to see Kurt Angle wrestling again? And it was an even bigger treat for me to see Charlie Haas as Kurt’s opponent. Kurt showed absolutely no ring rust whatsoever, but then again every time Kurt comes back from an injury he wrestles like he never left. Haas looked very good out there and I really wish Vince would give him enough of a push to keep him on weekly and give him some strong opponents to work against. Paul London and Billy Kidman again showed why they deserve to be Smack down’s tag team champions. Against The Bashams all four worked a very good match and Paul London is becoming quite the guy to keep an eye on. I was in awe of the 450 Splash he did on Doug Basham for the win. To be honest with you that’s the first time I can recall ever seeing that move, and what a move it is. And the last match, Spike Dudley and Rey Mysterio taking on The Dudley’s was not only a good match but didn’t I tell you that Spike would turn on Rey and join his brothers. As I said last week had that not happened last night I would have been totally shocked. The turn was handled perfectly. For those that don’t read the spoilers I think it might have been a surprise. A nice surprise. Now I dont remember ever seeing Spike as a heel but then again there’s a lot of things I don’ remember and it’s you my readers that enlighten me. I am happy about the heel turn. I see Spike vs. Rey coming up and I think they will give the fans a great feud.

Okay so Smackdown came through with their matches, but unfortunately Vince or someone decided to make the main event a very WEAK talking segment with JBL and a little person imitating Undertaker. This thing went nowhere. It was far from funny and Taker showed up I would say for 30 seconds giving JBL a boot to the face and just when he was about to tombstone Layfield guess who came to the rescue? Orlando Jordan, I guess he’s getting RVD’s push. Anyway after the save, Taker then picked up mini Taker and choke slammed him. The end. They could have used Kurt and Charlie’s match or even Cena and RVD’s match for the main event but unfortunately they chose a very poor way to end the show. The matches saved last night’s show, Impact’s main event made that show worth watching and unlike Smackdown, Raw built up Summer Slam very well, so all in all it was another good week for all of us. Okay I’m taking a week off and I will be back next Sunday for my Summer Slam predictions. My husband took next week off we will be around here and trust me I’m not missing Raw, Smackdown or Impact. And my husband is well aware of that. So definitely check out my predictions next Sunday. Now one last thing, one of my readers Brandon asked me where he could get a copy of the Evolution theme by Motorhead. So far I haven’t been able to come up with an answer so if anyone knows where to get the song would you please email me.

Email lvaccarp@hotmail.com

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