ROH Wrestling 25th Apr 09 reviewed

Tag Match - Grizzly Redwood & Andy "Right Leg" Ridge vs Dark City Fight Club (Kory Chavis & Jon Davis). Last time we saw Fight Club it was a short squash match against Cheech & Cloudy so hopefully we'll get to see a bit more of them this time. Ridge was selling like crazy for Chavis & Davis who were hitting every move making them all look as stiff as possible, Redwood had a short run where he was selling for Fight Club as well but if I'm honest you can only watch a team dominate a match for so long before it gets boring like it did here. Ridge came back in & was double teamed in a powerbomb where Davis took the win for Dark City Fight Club. These kinds of matches are pointless and don't help to get the more powerful team over unless there is some kind of opposition and don't do much good to ROH.

Alex Payne vs Nigel McGuinness - No introduction for either guy here and several minutes of McGuinness bad mouthing the fans, it seems that despite the fact that McGuinness needed time off for an arm injury he has only been off 3 weeks and that arm was still heavily taped here. Payne was on top from the get go & rather oddly enough the colour guys were saying they weren't impressed with him last time they saw him so clearly they don't have a f**king clue as he was far more entertaining than Claudio Castagnoli who he was working against and jobbed to in that match.

McGuinness made a predictable comeback with Payne selling well on the armholds, the 2nd of which slowed the match down a litttle too much for my liking. Payne got a 2 count off a roll-up which McGuinness responded to with a stiff looking Lariat clothesline, McGuinness took the win off the Tower Of London (ddt off the top turnbuckle). A fairly average match for both guys.

Tag Match - Chris Hero & Eddie Edwards (with Larry Sweeney) vs Jay Briscoe & Kevin Steen. Hero & Edwards preempted the bell & jumped Steen & Briscoe, Hero was given a sharp exit over the ropes curtesy of Briscoe leaving Edwards & Steen to start working a proper and fair match (although I noticed Sara Del Rey had come to the ring with the heels). Steen was owning Edwards & Heros attempt at a sneak attack earnt him a clothesline to the apron from Steen, Briscoe came in to give Steen a breather as Edwards was still getting worked over but eventually managed to get a tag to Chris Hero.

Hero didn't fare much better against Steen and was being seriously f**ked over by Briscoe when he tagged in until a foot grab from the floor by Larry Sweeney slowed Briscoe long enough for Hero to mount an offence taking Briscoe off the top turnbuckle with a sloppy looking dropkick which allowed Sweeney & Edwards to work over Briscoe outside the ring who was saved from a bigger beatdown by his brother Mark.

Briscoe was worked over by Edwards then Hero took charge getting a near fall, Briscoe managed to tag Steen back in who just missed getting the win from a great reverse Moonsault for such a big guy. Steen got double teamed for a fair while until Briscoe took Hero out of the equation by yanking the top rope and then hitting a clothesline off the apron, Steen took the eventual win off the Package Piledriver. A decent enough match for both teams but a little too long in terms of duration.

Tyler Black vs Bryan Danielson - So again ROH are firmly sticking to a long main event (20 minute time limit according to the guy doing the introductions), this hasn't worked in the previous 4 weeks of tv so it remains to be seen if it will work this week or not. The problems have been that everyone working the main event have been unable to fill the 20 minutes with solid action for the whole time, on the main it has been 15 minutes of padding with the only real action coming in the final 5 minutes of the match.

Yet again not much action from the start, mainly holds & mat work. I am not a big fan of technical wrestling at the best of times so generally find matches like this very boring indeed. The match did have a brief period of aerials and out of ring work but it only lasted a few minutes before they were both right back to slow holds and mat work again slowing the match down after a brief but entertaining interlude where both guys took it to the wire on weardown moves, the ref was laying a count on both men when the time limit expired and the match was called as a draw.

To whoever was commenting about Ric Flair appearing in ROH, it won't be on tv until next Saturday so I will reserve any judgements until I have seen what happens.

WWE Superstars 23rd Apr 09 reviewed

I assume the show was coming from somewhere in England judging by the black cab & the double decker bus?

Tag Match - Rey Mysterio Jr & CM Punk vs The Big Show & Kane. This appeared to be a pretty pointless squash match on the face of it, I expected it to be utter sh**e and WWE didn't disappoint. It was overly long (by at least 5 minutes), all the decent action came from Punk & Mysterio but Kane took the win off a Chokeslam. VERY weak start to the show.

Mixed Tag Match - Finlay & Hornswoggle vs Tyson Kidd & Natalya. It seems from the prematch video that they now have someone as talented as Natalya jobbing to a gimmicky a***ehole like Hornswoggle, thats pretty f**king pathetic and shows how little WWE value their female talent. Thankfully this pile of s**t that they laughingly called a match was over in a few minutes after Finlay used the Shillelagh on Kidd and Hornswoggle took the win off the Tadpole Splash. Ultra f**king weak and idiots like these shouldn't even be on tv let alone being put over at the expense of good talent like Natalya.

A "Raw Rebound" telling us what happened on RAW recently. If I wanted to know whats happening on RAW I'd WATCH f**king RAW! This is just more proof that WWE hasn't got enough talent to fill 4 shows a week (they can barely fill 3 shows a week!).

Edge vs Kofi Kingston - It's nice to see Kofi getting a main event against someone as currently high profile as Edge, hopefully it shows their taking his ability seriously (unless the match has a s**t finish for the sake of an even s**ttier storyline that no-one cares about). Of the 10 minutes they had to fill Kofi was on top for about 5 of them and made 5 near falls before Edge finally took the fairly predictable win off the Spear.

This was the 2nd week of this show and on the whole it was just as s**t this week as it was last week if not worse (the mixed tag match was unforgivable quite frankly) and if they'd not bothered with the RAW rebound Edge & Kofi could have had a 15 minute match.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 23rd Apr 09 reviewed

Jeff Jarrett comes out with the TNA Heavyweight Title to present Mick Foley with the belt, Jarrett books Foley to defend the title at the Sacrifice PPV in a 4 way match and Foley books Jarrett against Scott Steiner for later on in the show. Team 3D announce a tag tournament to earn the right to compete against them for the TNA Tag Titles as a well as winning a trophy and a cheque for $100,000.

3D Tag Team Invitational Quarterfinals - Beer Money vs Lethal Consequences. Lethal & Creed pretty much owned this match from bell to bell, sadly Beer Money took the win off the DWI on Lethal.

LOTS of video packages and backstage c**p.

No DQ Knockouts Ladder Match - Sojourner Bolt vs Taylor Wilde. Its a standard ladder match, whoever gets the contract from the ladder wins a shot against the current Knockout champion Angelina Love. Wilde was on top at the start for a very short time, Bolt tried but Wilde reversed the Back Whip into the ladder that Bolt sold well. Wilde was suplexed from halfway up the ladder, Wilde sold like she landed on her neck but a check on slow-mo showed it was all shoulders. Wilde hit Bolt with a nicely sold backdrop from her shoulders and Bolt took some brass knucks from her bra (lots of bra to hide that in!), Wilde gave a volley of punches but Bolt used the knucks once and Wilde took a dive from the top of the ladder to allow Bolt to get the contract to take the win and we will see Sojourner Bolt compete for the Knockout Title at some time in the near future.

The Beautiful People celebrate Angelina Loves win and Madison Raye is officially a member of the Beautiful People, they celebrate with male strippers (who dont get very far) but Awesome Kong comes down and the Beautiful People run for it. One of the strippers gets an Awesome Bomb for his trouble so they were clearly all local jobbers.

Legends Championship - Kevin Nash (with Jenna Morasca whoever she is) vs AJ Styles. As a match this was pretty even with all the good action coming from Styles which is no surprise, sadly once Sharmell came down to distract the ref away from Booker T coming in hit the axe kick on Styles it kind of proved they didn't really know where they were going with this match hence the unneccessary interference. Nash went to hit a Powerbomb but the ref stopped it and called for the bell having seen Booker getting out of the ring so the win went to Styles off a DQ by outside interference.

3D Tag Team Invitational Quarterfinals - No Limits (with Kiyoshi & Sheik Abdul Bashir) vs Jethro Holliday & Eric Young. This was a pretty good match, nothing super special but it was nice to see someone new in TNA in the shape of Holliday who I know nothing about and sadly can't do any internet research on as my f**king broadband connection is down YET AGAIN! (Now its finally back up 3 hours later I found its Trevor Murdoch formerly of WWE) Young had a good match and No Limit were both excellent as usual, Young took the win off the Crucifix Drop even with the interference from Bashir & Kiyoshi.

Interview with Christopher Daniels.

Cactus Jack Smack Attack Match - Scott Steiner vs Jeff Jarrett. Mick Foley came to join West & Tenay at the colour desk to get a close up view of the match he'd booked Jarrett into at the top of the show, essentially its a hardcore weapons match and there was barbed wire on the ropes of one side of the ring.

Jarrett went right to work using a kendo stick and only then did I notice they had foam rubber all over the ring ropes where the barbed wire was meaning anyone getting sent back or face first into those ropes were never going to touch the barbed wire. The fan who had written "Use My Sign" got his wish (I'm assumming he was a plant as it turned out to be a Dead End street sign with the paper message over it) and Jarrett beaned Steiner over the back with it twice.

The match had jumped the shark once Steiner was clotheslined off a pogo stick (possibly THE funniest thing I've ever seen in wrestling ever) and Steiner started hitting Jarrett with a plastic Santa Claus garden decoration also hitting Jarret with a great suplex into a garbage can on the floor which left both guys grabbing at their elbows. Coming back from commercials they'd managed to get back into the ring and Steiner got sent head first into a chair then took a shot to the head from a garbage can lid before Jarrett hit a nice double underhook DDT into a garbage can.

Steiner levelled the field from a good belly to belly suplex & as Jarrett set up for the Stroke into a chair he & Steiner briefly exchanged words as to what moves they were going to do next before Jarrett was sent face first into the chair. Jarrett hit a lowblow then nailed The Stroke but Steiner kicked out, Steiner got a 2 count after hitting a good backdrop off the 2nd rope then locking the Steiner Recliner onto Jarrett who came back by hitting Steiner with another good backdrop off his shoulders.

After beaning Steiner with the guitar Jarrett hit the Stroke yet again this time to finally take the win. Angle came down and hit the Angle Slam whilst Jarrett was celebrating (I had wondered what they were going to do with the 4 minutes of air time they had left) and hooked the Ankle Lock as Steiner synched in the Steiner Recliner which finally got Foley out of his seat to make the save by swiping Angle across the back with a chair (possibly one of the lightest chairshots I have ever seen) which sent Steiner running out of the ring and Foley also nailed Jarrett in the head with the same chair.

Jarrett shoots on Foley and tells him he's going to fire him, we then have the overly long intro for Bobby Lashley and it seems he might be coming in as a friend to the MEM.

ROH Wrestling 18th Apr 09 reviewed

Well its almost a week late but here it comes, currently my internet connection is down due to a local network outage so I figured if I couldn't go online I'd use the time productively to review this. Connection came back after at least 4 hours gone so at least I can post this now.

Jimmy Jacobs vs Necro Butcher - This one started with Jacobs jumping Necro as the ref took a staplegun off Necro & Jacobs was on top for a while from there, I'm not exactly sure what the colour desk thought the fans were chanting when they said they didn't dare repeat it ("Bonk Bonk Necro, Bonk Bonk" that "Bonk Bonk" chant is one of the very old fan chants from early ECW when it became Extreme so god alone knows what colour thought they were hearing) and it displays their lack of knowledge about wrestling history or other promotions, clearly all the historical facts they cite are written down for them.

Necro took the match to the floor using the bell & choking Jacobs out, Jacobs came back with the worlds scrappiest suplex on Necro (who either didn't trust Jacobs to sell it or didn't go with it at all as Jacobs clearly struggled to take Necro over convincingly) who clearly hit the back of his head and Jacobs did a dive over the top rope out of the ring onto Necro who was sitting on a chair with Jacobs selling that he'd hurt his hip. Necro countered a Spear by punching Jacobs then hit the Tiger Driver, he went out to get the staplegun which caused a run-in by Brody Lee and the ref threw this one out as a DQ (he DQ'd Jacobs for outside interference) giving the win to Necro Butcher.

Sami Callahan vs Eddie Kingston - More a brawl than anything else, Kingston took the win off a Backdrop Driver into a Spinning Backfist and made the roll-up.

Bobby Dempsey vs Orange Cassidy - Cassidy got no intro at all, I wouldn't have even known his name if the colour guys hadn't said it, sadly this one was over in less than a minute after Dempsey hit the Bodyblock then the Death Valley Driver to take a very fast win here.

Cheech & Cloudy vs Rhett Titus & Kenny King - Cheech pretty much owned the 1st half of this then the heels took over when Cloudy came in. I say heels but they weren't drawing any heat and weren't selling very well either, Cloudy sold a fairly decent clothesline off King but f**ked up landing the Super Hurricanrana off Cheech's shoulders onto King who still sold it even though it barely made contact. Titus made the pin on Cheech off a Blockbuster but Cloudy certainly took a bad fall off the top turnbuckle into the guard rail.

Claudio Castagnoli vs Brent Albright. Well their having yet another longish main event (with around 14 minutes of tv air time left to fill) and Castagnoli jumped Albright before he ever got in the ring but Albright got the upper hand pretty quickly and gave Castagnoli a quick tour of the ring introducing his head to several sides of the apron. Albright hit a nice Backbreaker before he finally got a chance to take his robe off but Castagnoli came back with a series of European Uppercuts, Castagnoli was sent outside the ring but caught Albright in his attempt at a cross bodyblock and rammed Albright into the guardrail covers back first.

After Albright came back into the ring Castagnoli hit a weardown move (far too late into the match and slowing the action down exactly when they should have really been winding up to a finish), Albright sold a stiff looking clothesline and Castagnoli toyed with Albright for about 5 minutes not doing much but enough to stay on top. Albright hit a good belly to belly suplex outside the ring but Castagnoli took him right back into the ring with a side headlock slowing the action down again at the wrong time, Albright mounted a fairly decent comeback and we had a couple of c**p attempts at finishers from both men but Castagnoli took the win off a Victory Roll and a big assist from a handfull of the bottom rope.

Again this week it wasn't a great main event and 2 matches left a lot to be desired with Kingstons boring slugfest and Dempseys sub 60 second win that helped neither guy get over as we didn't really get to see any kind of offence from either man.

Portal Problems

It seems that I am not the only person having isses with the Valve game Portal, most of us seem to have the same issue. Namely the game crashes as soon as you go through the very 1st Portal giving the same memory address error, another common factor appears to be we all have the same Intel onboard graphics chip (Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family).

I've tried all sorts of stuff, removed AVG as an Anti Virus solution (useful as its slow, memory hungry, crap compared to the previous version and have now started using Avast!), updated the device drivers (also helpful as it unlocked a boatload of new resolution settings my monitor was capable of displaying) and finally Googled for command line settings.

Now these work but BEWARE! They got me out of the 1st room and I stood there having a look around for a few moments only for my PC to totally crash and reboot itself so they MIGHT work for you but BEWARE (you can't say I haven't warned you!) that they may crash your PC too. I added these to the command line of the Portal exe.

-applaunch 400 -steam -dxlevel 81 +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +mat_forcemanagedtextureintohardware 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1 +mat_softwarelighting 1 +mat_reducefillrate 1 +mat_bumpmap 0 +mat_picmip 2 -w “1024″ -h “768″

Call me insane but I have a feeling sound and NOT graphics is the issue here, the original crash used to happen exiting the 1st room (as that happens a sound is supposed to play) and I noticed in the 2 times my game totally crashed my machine they were both when a triggered sound event happened, the last one being the voice of GLADOS. So I'm wondering if the sound were disabled would it fix the crashing issue?

Heres an improved version of the command line with some new tweaks added:-
-applaunch 400 -steam -dxlevel 81 +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +mat_forcemanagedtextureintohardware 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority +mat_softwarelighting 1 +mat_reducefillrate 1 +mat_bumpmap 0 + mat_specular 0 +mat_picmip 2 +mat_max_worldmesh_vertices 1024 +map_background none -autoconfig

Yet another improved version with even more commands:-

-applaunch 400 -steam -dxlevel 81 +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +mat_antialias 0 + mat_disable_bloom 1 +mat_forcemanagedtextureintohardware 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority +mat_softwarelighting 1 +mat_reducefillrate 1 +mat_bumpmap 0 + mat_specular 0 +mat_picmip 2 +mat_max_worldmesh_vertices 1024 +map_background none -heapsize 1024000 +datacachesize 128 -autoconfig

-nosound (in case the Glados is the issue)

My TNA Catch-up, Lockdown PPV 09

I was lucky enough to see the preshow as well so we are kicking off with this:-

Special Challenge Match - Danny Bonaduce vs Eric Young. I assume the "fan" whose finger Bonaduce bit was a plant from some local Indy fed? Bonaduce had already made himself look a twat in the opening minute by dropping the nunchucks and didn't fare much better from then in, his Senton barely made contact and he didn't do a good job in going with the small package that allowed Young to take the win. I assume they'd already agreed beforehand that Young wouldn't use the Death Valley Driver on Bonaduce who jumped Young with the nunchucks postmatch to choke him out but Rhino made the save with the Gore.

X Division Championship Xscape Match - Jay Lethal vs Kiyoshi vs Consequences Creed vs Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Suicide. Tonight its Kaz in the costume finally back from his injury rehab and I was wondering how he was going to enter the cage but they did a lights out/lights on to avoid him having to drop from the zipline and potentially reinjure himself again. Rules are simple, its elimination by pin or submission until there are 2 guys left then the 1st to escape the cage wins the title. 1st to be eliminated was Kiyoshi by Creed & Lethal working together followed by the exit of Creed who was eliminated by Bashir who also eliminated Lethal leaving Bashir vs Suicide. Suicide took the win by jumping from the top of the cage onto the security guys who had come out to stop Kiyoshi interfering. Not a great match and its pretty clear Kaz is far from recovered as he didn't take many bumps in this match at all.

Queen Of The Cage Match - Madison Rayne vs Sojourner Bolt vs Daffney vs ODB (with Cody Deaner). It was painfully obvious from the get go that 1 referee wasn't enough as he totally failed to notice Daffney hitting the bridging suplex on Madison Rayne right near the start of the match. Daffney bumped well (the snap off ODB's back was well sold) and was certainly getting into the mix as well. If anyone was wondering Daffney wasn't waiting for a cue or the right time, she hurt herself on the missed elbow drop as she was still rubbing that elbow when ODB hit the sideslam on Madison Rayne but with a Powerslam on Sojourner Bolt ODB took the win to become Queen Of The Cage.

3 Team Tornado IWGP Junior Tag Title Match - LAX vs No Limit vs The Motor City Machine Guns, the rules here are that everyone is on the ring together and whoever makes the pin or submission gets the belts. A decent amount of action and West & Tenay making an extremely rare catch on Homicides flub where he overshot the backdrop, you rarely hear them point stuff like that out as they normally try to cover for flubs. Sabins Tornado DDT was pretty cool and Hernandez hitting the belly to belly sending Sabin into the cage (check Ref Slick Johnsons reaction!) were the highlights of the match and The Guns took the win off Made In Detroit to retain their titles.

Doomsday Chamber Of Blood Match - Matt Morgan vs Abyss. You can only pin your opponant if they are bleeding. Abyss blooded fairly early (with the colour desk trying to sell that it'd been off Morgans use of the chair which he then threw out of the cage) and the match went downhill once the ref was taken out (Andrew Thomas took one hell of a bump from Matt Morgan!), Abysss used the glass (and Morgan was a bit TOO obvious putting his blade back into his right boot) and Morgan bladed pretty deep, Slick Johnson ran out and came into the cage to take over as Ref and as Abyss tried to take a chair back into the ring "Dr Stevie" (Steven Richards) stopped him allowing Morgan to hit the Carbon Footprint that Abyss kicked out of. The crowd were chanting "E-C-Dub!" at Richards and Morgan looked genuinely pissed off (I think he gave the crowd the finger?), Abyss bought in thumbtacks and Stevie took his jacket off and got in the ring and started paintbrushing Abyss which allowed Morgan to hit the lowblow and powerbombed Abyss into the thumbtacks which allowed Morgan to take the win.

Womens Knockout Championship - Angelina Love (with Velvet Sky) vs Taylor Wilde vs Awesome Kong (with Raisha Saeed). Kong hadn't done anything to the hair that Love had cut this week on Impact so Kong went straight for Love who tried to climb out of the cage. Wilde & Kong teamed up until Kong hit Wilde with a front face slam, the action was just above average on the whole but for Love this was probably the best match she has had since she worked as Angel Williams (before she got the implants and was better known for her talent than her fake large breasts).

Kong made an outstanding somersault flip from the top rope which hit nothing but canvas (still an outstanding move as well as a great bump from such a big lady) and that allowed Sky to tie Kongs braids into the cage keeping her on the mat, Wilde hit a nice flying cross body block (I assume this hurt Love somehow as both Wilde and the ref were checking on her during the various counts), Wilde released Love from a side headlock (put on to conceal whatever injury Love had sustained and allow some recovery time) to go and work Kong (to allow Love even more recovery time as the crowd were chanting "You f**ked up") who kicked Wilde back to allow Love to make a quick roll-up to take the win and become new the TNA Knockout Womens Champion.

Philadelphia Street Fight for IWGP Heavyweight & TNA Tag Titles - Beer Money vs Team 3D. Falls count anywhere and whoever wins gets both sets of titles. Whoever set up the split screen clearly didn't bother checking it on any kind of tv or monitor as those images were TINY! If you have action in 2 places at once then split your screen down the middle and give each set of guys half the screen so the viewers can see. It was tough to tell if Devon was actually hurt or if it was a work from the suplex through the table by Beer Money, it gave Ray a chance to blade off camera (selling the cage door to the face from earlier) and Ray worked Beer Money in the cage on his own as Devon was still on the floor exactly where he'd fallen after the suplex. Ray hit Roode with a great Bubbabomb off the top turnbuckle and Devon made it back into the ring and was able to hit The Doomsday Device (yet another move that the colour desk failed to call correctly) as well as the Wassup but Team 3D took the win after putting Roode through a table with the 3D and are new TNA & IWGP Heavyweight Tag Champions.

Lethal Lockdown - Team Angle vs Team Jarrett. Starting off for Team Angle was Kurt Angle and starting for Team Jarrett was Chris Daniels (just introduced as Daniels), it was pretty even with Daniels coming out on top putting Angle into a headscissors lock and the 2nd guy in for Team Angle was Booker T. Booker and Angle worked on Daniels and next in for Team Jarrett was AJ Styles and that evened the playing field as the 2 former tag partners beat on Booker & Angle to wear them down as much as possible. Next out for Team Angle was Scott Steiner who took charge on his own (making a well sold Frankensteiner on Styles), next in for Team Jarrett was Samoa Joe or so we thought but he was standing backstage talking to someone we couldn't see behind a curtain. Joe did eventually come out after a minute and took care of business allowing Styles and Daniels to catch their breath and get back on top. Kevin Nash came down as the last guy for Team Angle and Joe took him out by kicking the cage door into him and they duked it out on the floor until it was time for the last man to enter, Jeff Jarrett as Team Captain.

With everyone in the cage the door was locked and the roof lowered and the weapons came into play, Jarrett made sure he handed everyone in his team a weapon (the 6 split screen idea in this was even worse than the 2 split screens in the tag match, they've done this before and it didn't work then either so it appears they haven't learnt from their mistake yet. Hopefully this WILL be the final time we see this stupid split screen idea where all the screens are so small you can't actually see anything at all). Angle and Styles got onto the top of the cage and were fighting up there and Angle hit a lowblow then came back down into the ring but Styles dived through the roof onto Team Angle with an insane flying crossbody block (that hurt Steiners left knee, watch him grab it!).

Joe hit the Musclebuster on Steiner but Booker stopped the pin and Jarrett managed to bean Styles with a chair whilst swinging at Booker but Styles kicked out of the attempted pin. Steiner managed to hurt himself sending Daniels into a chair (watch the stupid f**ker grab the back of his own head), Jarrett then nailed Booker with the guitar allowing Styles to make to pin and take the win for Team Jarrett. No clue why Bobby Lashley came out afterwards, nor do I care.

TNA World Heavyweight Championship - Mick Foley vs Sting. According to Foley this was actually Cactus Jack vs Sting and in a "tweak" to the already established rules of winning by pin or submission you can also win this match by escaping the cage. Foley blooded himself in the opening seconds and this was fairly dull to be honest as Foley took the large percentage of the bumps, Foley putting the figure 4 leglock on Sting was quite cool but as Sting put the same on Foley it allowed him to get the barbed wire baseball bat and bring it into the ring. Foley hit Sting twice in the back of the knee but after a lot of bat work on both men Foley took the win by escaping the cage 1st to become the new TNA Heavyweight Champion.

WWE Friday Night SmackDown 17th Apr 09 reviewed

Jeff Hardy vs The Big Show. Kind of a pointless match on the face of it and proof that WWE's brands don't have enough talent for all 4 shows (yes, you now have to get used to saying WWE has 4 shows a week now) if he's working here on Smackdown as a RAW wrestler. Unsurprisingly this match was all Jeff and went on for too long (proved by the fact they had to send out Fat Matt to do a run-in) with The Big Show taking an exceptionally WEAK win off a right hand. The match would have better at half as long with a clean finish (no run-in, that heat is s**t, cheap and already old after Wrestlemania) but it appears that WWE are determined to kick the arse out of the Hardy Brothers feud regardless of whether its entertaining or not. Fat Matt's post match bulls**t was precisely that.

WWE persist in the "Santina" gimmick even though it got a lot of bad heat at Wrestlemania from the fans? I assume everyone could hear the spinning as Rick Rude turned in his grave with The Great Khali stealing his "kiss a female fan" gimmick.

Maryse vs Gail Kim. I thought WWE didn't copy TNA but here we have Maryse who couldn't look more like Angelina Love if she tried. Kim did all the work and took all the bumps in this one having to sell and put the champion over, Kim did get a decent comeback with a good neckbreaker but Maryse either wasn't ready or wasn't willing to selling the flying cross bodyblock from Kim who landed badly due to the flub by Maryse. Kim took the win off some kind of jawbreaker using the foot and she certainly did the most work in this match.

R-Truth vs John Morrison. R-Truth is of course Ron Killings who has always been a jobber in WWE right back to his days as K-Kwik after the WCW buyout so I don't expect to see him winning here against Morrison who has just gone solo after the Draft. Truth still has all the ability and agility but sure enough he was on the wrong end of a job to Morrison so he'd clearly been told to put the new guy over and sell for all he was worth which is pretty sad as Truth on his worst day is a better wrestler than Morrison will ever be. Truth did get a brief comeback to be on top but as predicted Morrison took the win off The Moonlight Drive. Truth was the much better worker here and it goes to show WWE just do NOT recognise talent when they have it.

Was Triple H vs Randy Orton supposed to be an actual match (guessing at no by the 2 stools that were in the ring)?

Shelton Benjamin vs The Undertaker. Taker hadn't gotten much in the way of an actual match against Fat Matt Hardy yesterday on Superstars so he wasn't really going to be very tired here. This was a fairly even match with Shelton & Taker both getting time on top and Shelton made a great belly to back suplex on Taker who made the best sell of it he could, Undertaker took the eventual and pretty quick win off the Tombstone but was holding the back of his head. Is he still suffering the effects of that fall in Wrestlemania but STILL working matches?

MVP vs Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler looks like he fell into the WWE dressing up box and found Jeff Jarretts shorts and Sid Vicious's Jacket. A fairly humdrum match that was at least 3 minutes too long, Ziggler took the win with the help of a handfull of trunks.

Batista vs Ted DiBiase Junior who they are STILL refusing to bill by his correct name? Get over the whole junior/senior thing WWE and let the guy out of his fathers shadow for f**ks sake. This match started out pretty boring and stayed that way, WWE took a commercial break during the match that I really couldn't see any point in as the show only had 9 minutes left on air anyway. It was hard to believe this could get any duller but these 2 elected to run mat work with only 3 minutes of airtime left, good old reliable Dave took matters into his own hands and hit a powerbomb to get the win and end the boredom. I guess its the 1st and only time I've ever been grateful to Batista for anything, thanks for ending a very boring match.