Post by devildevil on Jul 31, 2008 1:08:40 GMT -5
Well it's good to be back in BOOK business here. And to throw myself back into the fray, I'll start with reviewing the latest chart toppers from the Holy Binity of BOOKING, Den & Tennessee. This 1st installment, going in chronological order of release, is for Raw is War 5/29 - "State of Emergency". We're going 80 mph on the road to KOTR 2000 now, and after last weeks show, can't wait to see where we twist & turn next! So here goes.
First, I love the visuals. The building where the show is being held, the opening credits package, it all helps to set Den's series apart in its own way, like this series is a world unto itself. That's the kinda stuff we couldn't see at the old BOOK site, so here's where the trade-off can work in a viewer's favor.
- The Rock to the Ring: This is classic Rock here. Leave it to Den to capture a character, ANY character, that we know and love from an era in wrestling. I was laughing my ass off at the comments, seeing & hearing crowd reactions as if I were watching this show with my own 2 eyes. Great Vancouver references & I like how Rock is putting the Fed on notice that he's hunting them, not the reverse. Gives the impression there may be new feuds upcoming?
I love a proactive champ who welcomes come-1-come-all & even initiates sometimes, rather than the guy who just passively sits back, fending off challenges only at title defense time. Hear that, WWE? Paging John Cena, there's a memo on your desk. Rock was tremendous in this promo, only to be joined by Mankind, who did nothing but add tremendousness to the promo because of Rock & Sock's classic interactions, which were captured picture-perfect here. Jericho arrives, gets clowned in memorable fashion, followed by Austin to add to the tensions, so it's clear our natural feuds are still running here. Oooh, let's get it on here!... No wait, here's Vince to interject in classic Vince fashion, before Mick Foley clowns him & we got total anarchy.
What a great brawl, total chaos, high drama, great stuff. That's the way to set the tone for a show, and we have a big main event now set for later. Vince even gets too close to the action & gets a Socko Sammich for his trouble. All bases covered. And it feels like we just watched every second.
- Great JR & King interaction to set the table for the evening. And looky here, Shane-O-Mac's in the building.
- Vince in his dressing room with the Stooges: Vince hacking up a lung in that familiar Vinnie Mac way. Comical exchange between the stooges, who are realistically hilarious in this series. I still chuckle at the whole sports betting situation @ Den's Judgment Day with HBK, Vince & the stooges. Uh-oh, Shane arrives, tells us HBK is not here tonight & here's the Shane-Vince verbal sparring session. Long-running feud in this series. Vince figures he'll put the screws to Shane by booking him against the stooges tonight. Shane screws back by saying Vince'll be facing the stooges tonight too, if Shane loses. If ... Shane loses? Is that so that it forces Vince to have to root for Shane? Otherwise, it'd make more sense to me if the stip was for the stooges losing. Great dialog however, as usual.
- KOTR Qualifying Match: Edge v Albert. I'm loving the way this KOTR tournament seems to be shaping up, with Tazz, Sid Vicious, Hardcore Holly & Perry Saturn all qualifying already in previous weeks on Raws/Heats. Edge, the homecountry boy here who clearly is in semi to main event status, taking on a pretty tough Albert. Like the realistic action between these 2, shows Edge's real versatility & Albert's high-impact arsenal, the subtle interferences from Bossman. As I expected, Edge prevails into the tourney as 1 of the favorites, but not before the heels try to make him pay for his successes aftermatch. But Christian runs in before it gets too ugly & helps clean some house. Solid. ***
- Kurt Angle Backstage: Refer to what I said earlier about capturing characters effectively. The articulateness, the confidence, the nerd-dom, the unintended humor that is Kurt Angle. Great promo from our I-C Champ for his match with Christian later on.
- DX to the ring: With Kane back from the HHH sledgehammer assault last month & on the warpath, DX has been running for zee hills. But it seems they're plenty confident in public in a pack. HHH cuts the classic Trips intense promo here, complete with inflection & timing gaps
But it's clear he hasn't forgotten about Benoit either, who is undefeated against DX-ers by my count. The fact that he also seems to be allies with Kane certainly isn't helping the DX cause, and it ain't goin lost on Trips. But Mr. Ass seems out to change Benoit's good fortune tonight. Good DX stuff here. Uh-oh, before DX can make it outta there, here's Shane-O on-tron, announcing HHH/Pac face APA tonight. The thick plot is always gettin thicker, eh Denster?
- Shane warming up in his dressing room: HHH comes in to protest the tag title match, and manages to crowbar into a play for him getting a title match with Rock instead. Shane sees right through it & exposes Trips' intentions, nice try, thanks for playin' Hunter. Great exchange here. Again, in a series where character capturing is so important, no one nails that art form better than Den.
- Ditto as the APA arrives with Anthony.
- Euro Title match: Eddie Guerrero[c] v. Hardcore Holly. 1 good thing about Den's match writing is that we can follow all the action, and we get a feel for each guy's style in there. Solid defense so far for Eddie, but Holly's holding his own. Action spills outside & here comes Jarrett from the crowd to homicide Holly. It was a matter of when & where, after what happened to Debs last week. Oooh, a Stroke on the exposed arena concrete. This has gotten personal with those 2. Eddie just sits back & enjoys. Once JJ leaves, Eddie picks the bones with a Frog Splash on Holly from the top to the floor. Wow, should Eddie have saved a spot like that for a PPV? Without a Cell or something, that's gonna be a touch act for Latino Heat to outdo. Holly got the DQ win in all this, but that's almost an afterthought here. **1/2
- I-C Title match: Kurt Angle [c] v Christian: Loved the action in this one, the tempo, the way both men used their arsenals. Great near-falls, very exciting stuff. For a second there, I thought Kurt might actually get beat, but he managed to reverse out of the Unprettier & hit the Olympic Slam for the pinfall. Great action, and coulda even stood it going longer. Based on what happened earlier, I thought we might see Bossman & Albert reappear at some point, but that wasn't the case.
- Jeff Hardy visits D'Lo Brown & Mark Henry: Well, D'Lo really, not so much big Mark. This match upcoming, aside from it being a KOTR qualifying match, now has a bit more juice to it. The visit, the tension, gave the match an extra human component. That's a good thing. Besides, the Hardies were speaking more by 2000, right?
Big Show comes out of Shane's dressing room in a Don Corleone suit & cigar. What's the occasion? And he's headed for a limo in the garage. What's this?
Steph and Sid arrive to a luxury box in the arena. This has to be bad for somebody.
- Spike & Meanie come to the ring on a mission: They've devised a new match, just for official & unofficial Dudley family members - Dudleyville match. No rules. All weapons welcome. Pinfalls only after someone's put thru a table. Sounds good to me, I'll buy. Apparently, so will D-Von & Bubba. Don't think this match ever officially happened, but the plunder damn sure did. Saturn & Tazz both wind up in the fray to draw lines in the sand. The bad blood here is awesome. That Tables Elim match from Judgment Day was match of the year for me at the time, so I can watch these guys kill each other any time. Saturn with a DVD on Tazz off the table is just sick! Gimme more of these 6, please! Tazz is in the KOTR tourney with Saturn, so I assume we'll see these 6 settle this before or after the PPV? That is, if Tazz is still even alive now!
- Austin visits Y2J: Austin thanks Jericho for including him in tonight's tag match with a punch right to the kisser. Jericho reciprocates & Austin likes it! Great that the tensions in this situation aren't just across party lines.
- Vince must face stooges if Shane loses, Shane v. Stooges: This wound up not being much of a match, but more an angle, as we'd expect here. Shane makes it real interesting in how he does the job to get under the skin of dear old dad. And just when we figure Vince now has to kick the shit out of his own lackeys, the Corporate Vixen finds the loophole & bails out dear old dad. Steph: 1, Shane: 0. I still say this mighta been better served if Shane had to win, for Vince to have to get in there. As an angle, ***1/2. As a match, *1/2. Match wasn't what you were going for obviously here.
- Benoit Backstage: A simple straightforward promo. I'm not liking Mr. Ass' chances.
- Ivory comes to the ring: That's a smokin hot picture of Ivory, btw. So she's got news for Steph, that the ink's drying on her title shot next week. Hmmm, Steph: 1, Shane: 1? Ivory then ring announces the next match.
- KOTR Qualifying match: D'Lo Brown v. Jeff Hardy: Great match, great drama. Less than a minute in, we're already at a crescendo. So many changes in momentum, the scales titling both ways. Great match. Looked like Jeff had it, then D'Lo, then Jeff, then DLo. Jeff gets the victory roll win & off to KOTR Jeff goes. Wow. Something cooking for Jeff? ***1/2
- Tag Titles: APA[c] v HHH/Pac: Solid tag match here, good back & forth. Everyone gets in their stuff. I sense a fire explosion coming. Chyna gets yanked under, the heels are distracted & the APA get the double spike spinebuster win. Chyna from underneath. Where's she been, a dungeon? Heels try to flee. BOOM comes the fire & out comes the big red machine. Kane pulling double duty, pulling Chyna down to the depths under the ring & now here he comes from backstage. Classic Attitude era mystical gaming. DX scatters away like roaches & Trips couldn't escape. Kane gets his hands on him & tries to literally kill him, before Dogg makes the save. Fire shoots up at the stage when he & HHH try to escape, Kane sits up in the ring, and the chase is on. Ahhh, the Attitude era, how I do miss it. ***
- DX flees the building: Dogg wants to stay behind for his friend Mr. Ass, Trips wants to leave him behind. Good character stuff with HHH here, we see his fear of the vengeful Kane & his semi-willingness to even leave a fellow DX member to the wolves if necessary. Dogg is loyal to his bro. HHH... did he leave or not?
- Chris Benoit v Billy Gunn: Wow, Benoit surprises Mr. Ass with the Crossface out of nowhere & taps him out in 30 seconds flat! Rest of DX run in, but even 30 seconds was too late. Obviously Trips decided to bite the bullet & stay. We can feel the DX frustration. **
- Rock n Sock Backstage: What can we say here, other than it's Rock at his best. Mankind's the #1 fan who gets to call Rock Partner. Great interaction, this was everything.
- Rock/Mankind v Austin/Jericho: 1 helluva main event tag match. Again, the great show of styles & arsenals & individual ring tendencies. We can see this happening second by second. Great drama, great tag work, huge crowd involvement, a climactic finish with the heels finding a dastardly way to get the cheap victory. All the while, it's clear that Rock/Jericho have more heat than ever & same for Austin/Foley. Not to mention some of the interpersonal stuff from earlier. Dramatic close. ***1/2
OVERALL: This was 1 helluva kickass Raw! Storyline/angle entertainment value was thru the roof, and there was some very good wrestling on the show too - Angle-Christian, D'Lo-Hardy, the main event tag. I don't think any of those matches were able to match the 2/3 Falls Angle-Guerrero match from last week, but I'd imagine a match like that wouldn't be a weekly occurrence. Not to mention Edge & Jeff Hardy both got into the tourney tonight. The KOTR PPV build is reaching a zenith, with 2 Raw shows so far building towards it and 3 more full Raws left, by my count, before KOTR. So this PPV will have a monster buildup going in. The main situations on top are over stronger than ever. The fact that they're longrunning feuds adds to that sense of momentum. Still not sure what the announced KOTR main event will be out of all this, but the situation(s) are certainly in place to go in a number of directions with it. I'm also loving the DX-Kane-Benoit saga. I didn't love the Shane-O-Mac/Vince deal so much tonight. A match with the stooges is funny in theory, but the stipulation was a little off for me. Though I do get the idea of Shane wanting to torture Vince by forcing him to root for him to in. Overall, with a night of great entertainment, solid to very good wrestling in most instances, and continuing a great build to what's shaping up to be a huge PPV, this Raw in Vancouver gets a solid 3.5 out of 4 stars for me! Can't wait for Raw 6/5 - "Domination" to hit the air! Awesome job as usual, Mr. Den.
Next up, a review of Tenn's CWF Redemption.
{devil}
First, I love the visuals. The building where the show is being held, the opening credits package, it all helps to set Den's series apart in its own way, like this series is a world unto itself. That's the kinda stuff we couldn't see at the old BOOK site, so here's where the trade-off can work in a viewer's favor.
- The Rock to the Ring: This is classic Rock here. Leave it to Den to capture a character, ANY character, that we know and love from an era in wrestling. I was laughing my ass off at the comments, seeing & hearing crowd reactions as if I were watching this show with my own 2 eyes. Great Vancouver references & I like how Rock is putting the Fed on notice that he's hunting them, not the reverse. Gives the impression there may be new feuds upcoming?
I love a proactive champ who welcomes come-1-come-all & even initiates sometimes, rather than the guy who just passively sits back, fending off challenges only at title defense time. Hear that, WWE? Paging John Cena, there's a memo on your desk. Rock was tremendous in this promo, only to be joined by Mankind, who did nothing but add tremendousness to the promo because of Rock & Sock's classic interactions, which were captured picture-perfect here. Jericho arrives, gets clowned in memorable fashion, followed by Austin to add to the tensions, so it's clear our natural feuds are still running here. Oooh, let's get it on here!... No wait, here's Vince to interject in classic Vince fashion, before Mick Foley clowns him & we got total anarchy.
What a great brawl, total chaos, high drama, great stuff. That's the way to set the tone for a show, and we have a big main event now set for later. Vince even gets too close to the action & gets a Socko Sammich for his trouble. All bases covered. And it feels like we just watched every second.
- Great JR & King interaction to set the table for the evening. And looky here, Shane-O-Mac's in the building.
- Vince in his dressing room with the Stooges: Vince hacking up a lung in that familiar Vinnie Mac way. Comical exchange between the stooges, who are realistically hilarious in this series. I still chuckle at the whole sports betting situation @ Den's Judgment Day with HBK, Vince & the stooges. Uh-oh, Shane arrives, tells us HBK is not here tonight & here's the Shane-Vince verbal sparring session. Long-running feud in this series. Vince figures he'll put the screws to Shane by booking him against the stooges tonight. Shane screws back by saying Vince'll be facing the stooges tonight too, if Shane loses. If ... Shane loses? Is that so that it forces Vince to have to root for Shane? Otherwise, it'd make more sense to me if the stip was for the stooges losing. Great dialog however, as usual.
- KOTR Qualifying Match: Edge v Albert. I'm loving the way this KOTR tournament seems to be shaping up, with Tazz, Sid Vicious, Hardcore Holly & Perry Saturn all qualifying already in previous weeks on Raws/Heats. Edge, the homecountry boy here who clearly is in semi to main event status, taking on a pretty tough Albert. Like the realistic action between these 2, shows Edge's real versatility & Albert's high-impact arsenal, the subtle interferences from Bossman. As I expected, Edge prevails into the tourney as 1 of the favorites, but not before the heels try to make him pay for his successes aftermatch. But Christian runs in before it gets too ugly & helps clean some house. Solid. ***
- Kurt Angle Backstage: Refer to what I said earlier about capturing characters effectively. The articulateness, the confidence, the nerd-dom, the unintended humor that is Kurt Angle. Great promo from our I-C Champ for his match with Christian later on.
- DX to the ring: With Kane back from the HHH sledgehammer assault last month & on the warpath, DX has been running for zee hills. But it seems they're plenty confident in public in a pack. HHH cuts the classic Trips intense promo here, complete with inflection & timing gaps
But it's clear he hasn't forgotten about Benoit either, who is undefeated against DX-ers by my count. The fact that he also seems to be allies with Kane certainly isn't helping the DX cause, and it ain't goin lost on Trips. But Mr. Ass seems out to change Benoit's good fortune tonight. Good DX stuff here. Uh-oh, before DX can make it outta there, here's Shane-O on-tron, announcing HHH/Pac face APA tonight. The thick plot is always gettin thicker, eh Denster?- Shane warming up in his dressing room: HHH comes in to protest the tag title match, and manages to crowbar into a play for him getting a title match with Rock instead. Shane sees right through it & exposes Trips' intentions, nice try, thanks for playin' Hunter. Great exchange here. Again, in a series where character capturing is so important, no one nails that art form better than Den.
- Ditto as the APA arrives with Anthony.
- Euro Title match: Eddie Guerrero[c] v. Hardcore Holly. 1 good thing about Den's match writing is that we can follow all the action, and we get a feel for each guy's style in there. Solid defense so far for Eddie, but Holly's holding his own. Action spills outside & here comes Jarrett from the crowd to homicide Holly. It was a matter of when & where, after what happened to Debs last week. Oooh, a Stroke on the exposed arena concrete. This has gotten personal with those 2. Eddie just sits back & enjoys. Once JJ leaves, Eddie picks the bones with a Frog Splash on Holly from the top to the floor. Wow, should Eddie have saved a spot like that for a PPV? Without a Cell or something, that's gonna be a touch act for Latino Heat to outdo. Holly got the DQ win in all this, but that's almost an afterthought here. **1/2
- I-C Title match: Kurt Angle [c] v Christian: Loved the action in this one, the tempo, the way both men used their arsenals. Great near-falls, very exciting stuff. For a second there, I thought Kurt might actually get beat, but he managed to reverse out of the Unprettier & hit the Olympic Slam for the pinfall. Great action, and coulda even stood it going longer. Based on what happened earlier, I thought we might see Bossman & Albert reappear at some point, but that wasn't the case.
- Jeff Hardy visits D'Lo Brown & Mark Henry: Well, D'Lo really, not so much big Mark. This match upcoming, aside from it being a KOTR qualifying match, now has a bit more juice to it. The visit, the tension, gave the match an extra human component. That's a good thing. Besides, the Hardies were speaking more by 2000, right?
Big Show comes out of Shane's dressing room in a Don Corleone suit & cigar. What's the occasion? And he's headed for a limo in the garage. What's this?
Steph and Sid arrive to a luxury box in the arena. This has to be bad for somebody.
- Spike & Meanie come to the ring on a mission: They've devised a new match, just for official & unofficial Dudley family members - Dudleyville match. No rules. All weapons welcome. Pinfalls only after someone's put thru a table. Sounds good to me, I'll buy. Apparently, so will D-Von & Bubba. Don't think this match ever officially happened, but the plunder damn sure did. Saturn & Tazz both wind up in the fray to draw lines in the sand. The bad blood here is awesome. That Tables Elim match from Judgment Day was match of the year for me at the time, so I can watch these guys kill each other any time. Saturn with a DVD on Tazz off the table is just sick! Gimme more of these 6, please! Tazz is in the KOTR tourney with Saturn, so I assume we'll see these 6 settle this before or after the PPV? That is, if Tazz is still even alive now!
- Austin visits Y2J: Austin thanks Jericho for including him in tonight's tag match with a punch right to the kisser. Jericho reciprocates & Austin likes it! Great that the tensions in this situation aren't just across party lines.
- Vince must face stooges if Shane loses, Shane v. Stooges: This wound up not being much of a match, but more an angle, as we'd expect here. Shane makes it real interesting in how he does the job to get under the skin of dear old dad. And just when we figure Vince now has to kick the shit out of his own lackeys, the Corporate Vixen finds the loophole & bails out dear old dad. Steph: 1, Shane: 0. I still say this mighta been better served if Shane had to win, for Vince to have to get in there. As an angle, ***1/2. As a match, *1/2. Match wasn't what you were going for obviously here.
- Benoit Backstage: A simple straightforward promo. I'm not liking Mr. Ass' chances.
- Ivory comes to the ring: That's a smokin hot picture of Ivory, btw. So she's got news for Steph, that the ink's drying on her title shot next week. Hmmm, Steph: 1, Shane: 1? Ivory then ring announces the next match.
- KOTR Qualifying match: D'Lo Brown v. Jeff Hardy: Great match, great drama. Less than a minute in, we're already at a crescendo. So many changes in momentum, the scales titling both ways. Great match. Looked like Jeff had it, then D'Lo, then Jeff, then DLo. Jeff gets the victory roll win & off to KOTR Jeff goes. Wow. Something cooking for Jeff? ***1/2
- Tag Titles: APA[c] v HHH/Pac: Solid tag match here, good back & forth. Everyone gets in their stuff. I sense a fire explosion coming. Chyna gets yanked under, the heels are distracted & the APA get the double spike spinebuster win. Chyna from underneath. Where's she been, a dungeon? Heels try to flee. BOOM comes the fire & out comes the big red machine. Kane pulling double duty, pulling Chyna down to the depths under the ring & now here he comes from backstage. Classic Attitude era mystical gaming. DX scatters away like roaches & Trips couldn't escape. Kane gets his hands on him & tries to literally kill him, before Dogg makes the save. Fire shoots up at the stage when he & HHH try to escape, Kane sits up in the ring, and the chase is on. Ahhh, the Attitude era, how I do miss it. ***
- DX flees the building: Dogg wants to stay behind for his friend Mr. Ass, Trips wants to leave him behind. Good character stuff with HHH here, we see his fear of the vengeful Kane & his semi-willingness to even leave a fellow DX member to the wolves if necessary. Dogg is loyal to his bro. HHH... did he leave or not?
- Chris Benoit v Billy Gunn: Wow, Benoit surprises Mr. Ass with the Crossface out of nowhere & taps him out in 30 seconds flat! Rest of DX run in, but even 30 seconds was too late. Obviously Trips decided to bite the bullet & stay. We can feel the DX frustration. **
- Rock n Sock Backstage: What can we say here, other than it's Rock at his best. Mankind's the #1 fan who gets to call Rock Partner. Great interaction, this was everything.
- Rock/Mankind v Austin/Jericho: 1 helluva main event tag match. Again, the great show of styles & arsenals & individual ring tendencies. We can see this happening second by second. Great drama, great tag work, huge crowd involvement, a climactic finish with the heels finding a dastardly way to get the cheap victory. All the while, it's clear that Rock/Jericho have more heat than ever & same for Austin/Foley. Not to mention some of the interpersonal stuff from earlier. Dramatic close. ***1/2
OVERALL: This was 1 helluva kickass Raw! Storyline/angle entertainment value was thru the roof, and there was some very good wrestling on the show too - Angle-Christian, D'Lo-Hardy, the main event tag. I don't think any of those matches were able to match the 2/3 Falls Angle-Guerrero match from last week, but I'd imagine a match like that wouldn't be a weekly occurrence. Not to mention Edge & Jeff Hardy both got into the tourney tonight. The KOTR PPV build is reaching a zenith, with 2 Raw shows so far building towards it and 3 more full Raws left, by my count, before KOTR. So this PPV will have a monster buildup going in. The main situations on top are over stronger than ever. The fact that they're longrunning feuds adds to that sense of momentum. Still not sure what the announced KOTR main event will be out of all this, but the situation(s) are certainly in place to go in a number of directions with it. I'm also loving the DX-Kane-Benoit saga. I didn't love the Shane-O-Mac/Vince deal so much tonight. A match with the stooges is funny in theory, but the stipulation was a little off for me. Though I do get the idea of Shane wanting to torture Vince by forcing him to root for him to in. Overall, with a night of great entertainment, solid to very good wrestling in most instances, and continuing a great build to what's shaping up to be a huge PPV, this Raw in Vancouver gets a solid 3.5 out of 4 stars for me! Can't wait for Raw 6/5 - "Domination" to hit the air! Awesome job as usual, Mr. Den.
Next up, a review of Tenn's CWF Redemption.
{devil}