ROH Wrestling 6th Jun 09 reviewed

Tag Match, Dirty Ernie Osiris (with Prince Nana) & Claudio Castagnoli vs Colt Cabana & Brent Albright - To be honest ROH are starting to take the p**s with constant rematches, you can only watch 2 guys like Albright & Castagnoli fight each other even if it is in the occasional tag match so many times before it gets majorly dull. Extremely boring match, Cabana took the win off The Billy Goats Curse (Sharpshooter using both legs).

Overly long video package on all 4 guys involved in tonights main event.

Sal Renaro vs Bobby Dempsey - It seems ROH really don't like Renaro at all, as yet again its another match where his opponant got a vocal & banner introduction but Renaro was already in the ring & got no intro at all other than the colour guys telling us who Dempsey was up against. Renaro had a short run on top until Dempsey took the quick win off The Death Valley Driver.

ROH World Championship 4 Way Match, Austin Aries vs Tyler Black vs Bryan Danielson vs Jerry Lynn - If things were honest Aries wouldn't be in this match at all, he never wrestled the #1 contender so really doesn't deserve this title shot at all. By the time the start bell rang they had exactly 26:45 to fill so another of ROH's long main events that as yet they have been unable to fill with constant action and somehow I doubt this will be any different.

To my immense surprise and great pleasure they pretty much filled the whole match (with only a few lulls for matwork) with pretty fast action, so much in fact that I won't even try and recount who did what but it was a pretty impressive match with Lynn taking the win off Danielson with the Cradle Piledriver.

NOTE:- Due to general indifference to the product this was my last weekly review of ROH.

WWE Extreme Rules 7th Jun 09 reviewed

Fatal 4 Way US Championship Match, Kofi Kingston vs William Regal vs Matt Hardy vs MVP - So Kingston finally got himself a title? I've been telling you he was talented & over since day 1, this only proves how right I was. Matt is still as fat as ever & if he had a broken hand surely they couldn't medically clear him to wrestle so thats a total work. For an "Extreme Rules" PPV there was F**K ALL Extreme about this match and it wasn't remotely exciting, Kingston was probably the best worker on show and retained his title after hitting Trouble In Paradise on Regal. Very weak way to open an Extreme PPV.

No Holds Barred Intercontinental Championship Match, Chris Jericho vs Rey Mysterio Jr - I don't know why WWE are making such a big fuss about Mysterio being unmasked here unless they think their fans truly are as thick as pigshit because I'd wager most smarks would be aware that Mysterio was unmasked by Kevin Nash in a WCW match back in the 90's. This went out of the ring to the floor a few times, Mysterio's Suicide Dive was nice but if WWE fans think they were getting Extreme action then they need to be switching to TNA because this kind of move happens as standard on a weekly basis in X Division matches there. The various uses of the chair were fairly nice (by the way the Legdrop with the chair is the Arabian Facebuster which Sabu made famous in ECW & the Drop Toehold into the chair is a move made famous by Raven also in ECW), Jericho managed to ruin the whole match by looking over to see when Mysterio was coming to avoid the 619 and completly f**ked the selling of the avoidance. Jericho took the eventual win after a simple roll-up to become new Intercontinental Champion.

Samoan Strap Match, Umanga vs CM Punk - So to win this you have to touch all 4 corners of the ring one after another with your hand. Punk had a chance to touch a turnbuckle in the opening minute & didn't so you knew they were going to drag this one out especially after Umaga touched 2 within moments of each other. The trouble with this match was not only were the rules not explained very well, they were overly complex & they seemed to be making new rules up as they went along. Punk took the eventual win, the match was as boring as hell and the only remotely Extreme thing was the occasional use of the leather strap. P**s poor excuse for a match if you ask me.

Triple Threat Hardcore ECW Championship Match, Christian vs Tommy Dreamer vs Jack Swagger - Triple Threat rules mean you don't have to pin the champ to win this and Hardcore rules apply as well so weapons are legal (it normally also means no DQ and falls count anywhere but I'm not sure if thats the case here or not). This did at least get Extreme but under Hardcore rules I'm not remotely surprised it did with Dreamer favouring the Singapore Cane (which Matt Striker kept calling a stick and was chastised by his broadcast colleague for continually f**king up) and Christian intially went with a garbage can lid. The 3 man suplex into the 3 garbage cans was pretty cool (and I don't think Dreamers reaction was a work either, he really did jar his ankle as he landed), but Dreamer took the win after nailing Swagger with a crutch then hitting a beautiful DDT to become ECW Champion for only the second time ever (not that this was an unexpected outcome after all the talk of him leaving if he didn't win).

Hog Pen Match, Santina Marella vs Vickie Guerrero - Basically this is mud wrestling in a pig sty, 1st person to get a pin wins the Miss Wrestlemania title. Before this even started Vickie declared it a handicap match and ordered Chavo to fight, I can only guess at how many phone calls to the American Humane Society this match caused with Chavo scaring the poor innocent pigs whose only crime was to be hired for this joke of a match. Chavo was taken out with a slop bucket to the head (the only remotely Extreme thing that happened) and Santina made the pin off the easy roll-up on Vickie to become the new Miss Wrestlemania in this truly AWFUL gimmick match.

WWE Championship Steel Cage Match, Randy Orton vs Batista - Since when have cage matches been won by pin or submission? I guess WWE really have gone to PG status then if they added that to the "only way to win is by escaping the cage with both feet touching the floor" stipulation. P**s poor match with ZERO action, nothing Extreme occurred and Batista took the win off the Batista Bomb to become new WWE Champion. I wouldn't have given this match away for free on tv.

Submission Match, The Big Show vs John Cena - This was very long, extremely boring and totally devoid of anything even vaguely resembling action. Cena took the win off the STF (isn't that actually the Crippler Crossface?) in a f**king AWFUL match where nothing Extreme happened.

World Heavyweight Championship Ladder Match, Edge vs Jeff Hardy - Can anyone explain to me why the old WCW belt is the main event? No doubt somewhere in the world Ted Turner is laughing his ass off that Vince values a WCW belt over his own WWE main title. With roughly 26 minutes to fill from opening bell to the end of the show I expected this to be balls out and all action but the first few minutes was pretty slow until Hardy set up a ladder but Edge flubbed the landing by bailing out of what I assume was supposed to be a backdrop onto the ladder against the apron instead hitting it with his wrist with no-one but himself to blame for losing the confidence to not to do the backdrop Hardy had obviously set up for.

Hardy had the much better match here hitting a nice Whisper In the Wind from halfway up a huge ladder, what the colour guys thought was a running neckbreaker by Hardy looked more like an attempt on a Bulldog driving Edges head into the guard wall in front of the crowd. The double bump from the top of another big ladder breaking a 2nd ladder as they fell was an excellent spot where Hardy definately injured his shoulder.

The mid-air Twist Of Fate was truly brilliant but Hardy climbed the ladder after trapping Edge between the rungs to unhook the belt and Jeff Hardy is the new World Heavyweight Champion. Hardy had a few moments to celebrate & JR came into the ring for an interview when CM Punk came down with his Money In The Bank case and a ref to cash in his title shot against Hardy right there and then.

World Heavyweight Championship, Jeff Hardy vs CM Punk - Punk made a 2 count in moments & Hardy responded with an Inside Cradle that also only got a 2 count, Punk kicked Hardy in the head then hit the Go To Sleep to take the win and CM Punk is the new World Heavyweight Champion.

On the whole this was a p**s poor excuse for a PPV, considering it was Extreme Rules nobody bled at all and only Jeff Hardy made any kind of risky moves although Mysterio gave a vague nod to classic ECW with his use of the chair. If WWE class this as Extreme then they are going to hemorrhage fans to TNA if they see what kind of hardcore style matches go on there. Even ROH is more hardcore than this was. If you class yourself as a wrestling fan and aren't one of Vinces s**t eating sheep give ROH and TNA a look for a few weeks to see what else is on offer in the world of wrestling that isn't sports entertainment.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 4th Jun 09 reviewed

Tag Match, Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Daniels & Suicide - It seems no-one told the in-house announcer this was a tag match, we didn't actually find out until West & Tenay told us moments before Bashir walked out. Kaz in the Suicide costume is still not doing the zipline entry yet so it seems he is still not sure about that leg injury being fully recovered. Suicide was taken out of the match near the end by Lethal Consequences & The Motor City Machine Guns beating him down to the backstage area as Bashir had the ref distracted with a fake ankle injury which also allowed Shane Douglas jump into the ring to hit Daniels with the chain letting Kiyoshi make the easy pin. Very weak match indeed, the finish didn't help either.

Tag Match, Consequences Creed & Chris Sabin vs Beer Money - The weird team of Creed & Sabin is only together to have a pop at Storm & Roode, it was probably explained in more detail during the interview that I skipped past. If I'm honest this started s**t & got worse when The British Invasion tried to do a run-in that was stopped by Team 3D. Beer Money took the win off the DWI on Creed. P**s poor match.

Knockout Match, Daffney vs Taylor Wilde - Wilde took this out of the ring right away introducing Daffney to the steel steps in a nice bump, they cut to a different camera so you wouldn't see Wildes scrappy series of punches to Daffneys head then clearly Russo had a storyline inspired brainfart and sent Dr Stevie & Raven out which distracted Wilde long enough for Daffney to get the upper hand. Stevie distracted Wilde a second time and Daffney took the win off The Lobotomy (its a spinning suplex and looks great!), this would have been a better match without the interference though. At a time when Jimmy Hart is trying to start a women only wrestling promotion called Wrestlicious (by basically hiring the entire SHIMMER roster) TNA needs to be letting their women have matches with no gimmicks and clean good finishes if they want to stay ahead as far as womens wrestling on tv goes.

Prematch interview with Jesse Neal, for those wondering the USS Cole was a real ship & it was bombed by Al-Qaeda and Engineman Second Class Marc Nieto was killed in that bombing, Jesse Neal was aboard when it happened too. Is this a 1st in professional wrestling where a wrestlers entire character is based on 100% fact?

Matt Morgan vs Jesse Neal - Neal is a product of the Team 3D wrestling school as well as having received some personal training from Rhino, whats surprising is that TNA didn't use Neals Navy nickname that he was given aboard the USS Cole "Real Deal" Neal (I expect now I have mentioned it here TNA will conveniently "discover" he was called that & start using it in the near future but remember I used it first right here. Initially Morgan sold & jobbed fairly happily to Neal who WAY oversold his first bump from Morgan who took the expected win off The Carbon Footprint. Neal needs to work on his selling, if he wasn't taking bumps this hard from Devon & Ray during training then I would be VERY surprised but I am sure we'll be seeing more of him hopefully against some more evenly matched opposition next time.

King Of The Mountain Qualifying Match in 6 Sides Of Steel, Kevin Nash vs Samoa Joe - Lethal Lockdown rules apply here which means the cage is sealed and weapons are legal but the win is still by pin or submission. Joe went at it with a kendo stick from the bell flooring Nash who was trading Joe shot for shot with a kendo stick of his own too. This was never going to be a great match as they had only been given 5 minutes to fill anyway and insanely enough they took a commercial break less than a minute into the match? I have the exact same issues with WWE and it needs to be said to TNA too, Impact is pre-recorded ahead of time, can they not work matches around the commercials as surely I can't be the only fan on the planet who is sick to death of matches being interupted by commercial breaks taken at incredibly stupid moments? When we came back from commercial Joe was on top and Nash was looking glazed until he hit the low blow to give himself breathing room, Joe took the eventual win after breaking a hockey stick across Nash's back to make the pin.

I've already worked out exactly how Tazz is going to debut, once Joe beats Scott Steiner & Booker T next week there will be a match against either Sting or Kurt Angle. Samoa Joe will come out as he has done in the last few weeks in the same outfit & towel over the head but keep his head covered until both men are in the ring and when the bell rings the ref will come over to make him remove the towel which will be taken off to reveal Tazz.

I'm already predicting it right now so when it happens you can say you heard it here first weeks before it ever happened.

WWE Superstars 4th Jun 09 reviewed

Tag Match, Hornswoggle & Goldust vs The Brian Kendrick & Jamie Noble - Noble is STILL working for WWE? I thought he'd long since fallen off their radar. Goldust was probably the best worker here by far with one of his best moves suplexing Noble out of the ring over the ropes to the floor, Hornswoggle had a decent enough but very short run of moves and seemed to be VERY over with the crowd. Hornswoggle took the win off The Tadpole Splash but there was a visibly obvious flub where Kendrick had to grab him with 1 arm and repostion him for the 3 count, it was an ok match other than that howler.

Overly long video package schilling Cena vs Big Show at the upcoming PPV.

David Hart Smith (with Natalya & Tyson Kidd) vs Tommy Dreamer - Smith worked ok, Dreamer wasn't anything special. Smith certainly did a decent job of selling for Dreamer including taking a nice flying clothesline off the apron. Dreamer seemed equally content selling for Smith including some nice elbow drops, my only complaint about this match was it was a bit too slow. Smith took the easy win after Natalya distracted the ref allowing Tyson Kidd to kick Dreamer in the head and Smith made a roll-up.

Overly long video package advertising the upcoming PPV.

Tag Match, Chris Jericho & Dolph Ziggler vs R Truth & Jeff Hardy. It seems Ziggler fell into the WWE dressing up box and found Jeff Jarretts shorts and Sid Justice's vest? And Truth is still doing his "Whats up" entrance gimmick, rather surprising that TNA haven't put a stop to that seeing as he started it there unless WWE bought Truth and his gimmicks outright when he signed to WWE?

This started slow and stayed slow, the commercial break was taken at the worst possible time as well right during the match. If WWE events are pre-recorded can they not time matches to ensure commercial breaks don't happen whilst matches are on? Its not f**king rocket science, get someone to look at when ad breaks are scheduled for each show then work the matches around them.

Truth had a decent match, he always works well but was jobbing to Ziggler big time here which is really sad considering the amount of talent he has. Could he not replace the less talented member of Cryme Tyme? Hardy won this off the Swanton Bomb on Ziggler after Truth took out Jericho with a nice suicide dive, despite being on top for the whole match Ziggler & Jericho weren't remotely entertaining.

ROH Wrestling 30th May 09 reviewed

Better late than never.

Rhett Titus vs Roderick Strong - Titus might wanna have his eyes checked or not wear sunglasses in a darkened arena as I am pretty sure the "woman" he gave the room key to was a guy in drag. Strong has worked in TNA before & he was entertaining as hell last time I saw him work in the X Division. Titus is all about showboating & hasn't even got cheap heat he's that s**t, schilling a gimmick that HBK, Rick Martell & Rick Rude all stopped doing over a decade ago and were all far better at it than he will ever be. The only decent move of this match was Strongs reverse flying cross bodyblock, Strong took the win off a Gutbuster, kick to the face then roll-up. Pretty weak match really.

Video package about Austin Aries that wasted far too much time.

Non-title SHIMMER 3 Way Match, Sara Del Rey vs Daizee Haze vs Mschif (with Jimmy Jacobs) - Normally these 3 ladies are fairly talented but Haze flubbed going over the top rope right at the start, Mschif's drop toehold on Del Ray was very poorly executed & sold even worse. Haze raised interest a little when she got back in with a nice facebuster on Mschif although Del Rey flubbed being dropkicked between the ropes a few moments later. Del Rey was badly out of position for Haze's crossbody block and it showed when Haze bailed out of the move before hitting the ground. Haze got a facefull of green mist from Mschif who took the win off The Desecrator (a rather nasty looking modified DDT) but this match was more about what went wrong.

Overly long video package about Tyler Black. Prince Nana & Ernie Osiris (The Embassy) recruit Claudio Castagnoli.

Sami Callahan vs Erick Stevens - Far too long, Stevens took the win off the Doctor Bomb.

ROH Tag Title Match, The American Wolves (Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards) vs Kevin Steen & El Generico - According to the stipulations tables are legal & Tornado Rules apply meaning no tags are needed. The Wolves jumped the champions before they were barely out of the entrance, again ROH were doing their far too tiny split screens which make watching the action utterly pointless as you can't really see whats happening on either screen.

As per usual this was one of ROH's "however much tv time we have left" so they were trying to fill 30 mins and did sod all for 20 of those, The American Wolves were under for 75% of the match until El Generico was german suplexed into a table that failed to break properly. The suplex was a major flub & Generico was holding his head from the bad bump, Generico bailed from the ring & Steen was dropped on his "bad" knee onto the table that finally broke it. I'm not sure if Steen was really hurt or selling it really well as he pulled the ref over to him & they exchanged a few words very quickly, judging from how lightly The Wolves then worked that knee leads me to believe he was injured as the ref checked on him every time he took a bump to it.

Steen did his best to try & put up an offense but Generico finally made it back into the match after having taken a HUGE breather to recover hitting a really nice modified Brainbuster on Richards following up with a nice Tornado DDT moments later as well as risking a Somersault Splash onto Edwards from the top turnbuckle to the floor. Steen power bombed Richards onto the fallen table breaking it and the cameraman was in the wrong place catching Richards repositioning himself on the canvas to receive double splashes from Steen & Generico with Edwards barely making the save during the pin attempt.

The Wolves had a brief comeback but Generico splashed Edwards through a table going from the top turnbuckle to the floor as Steen put Richards into the Sharpshooter Shane Hagadorn (crony for The American Wolves) ran in only to get The Package Piledriver off Steen. Richards got up only to be Superkicked back down and Steen lay Richards on a table but was pushed off the top turnbuckle landing through the 2 tables he and Generico had set up earlier. Generico tried for a finisher only to get a lowblow off Edwards and Generico was given the Doomsday Device through a table which allowed Edwards to take the win and The American Wolves become new ROH Tag Champions.

As predicted all the action was at the end of this match and it took Generico getting injured twice & Steen getting injured at least once to make a match of this quality. Next week Jerry Lynn defends his title in a 4 way match so that might be half decent hopefully.

The worlds most important question

Internet Explorer 8 and its dirty tricks!

Its doing the same shit that Google Chrome does.
To make the browser appear to load stuff faster it loads up 2 instances of iexplore.exe for every browser window you have open allowing it to parallel process IE browser requests.

Lags your bloody CPU to hell and back just like Chrome does too. I'm gonna see if I can roll it back or not.

EDIT:- 3rd Jun 09. The sneaky little bastard set itself as default browser without being asked to.
Fucking sneaky Microsoft bastards! I just told it to get fucked and put Firefox into its rightful place as lead and best browser.