Welcome, cats and kittens, to yet another installment of the only wrestling review blog that isn’t pro puppy kicking (its true, I have pictures) Cewsh Reviews! We have a special treat for you here tonight as we are off and running into the summer of wrestling, and are well on our way to extending an entire year’s worth of driving metaphors with WWE’s Over the Limit 2011. Tonight, the Miz finds himself trapped in what has become John Cena’s signature match, the I Quit, Randy Orton and Christian will clash again to see who the better man really is, and in the main event, Sin Cara will do his best to battle against the indestructible force that is Chavo Guerrero. It’s a stacked show (so is your mom) and more importantly, its our first WWE show back from vacation. So, you know, exciting!
So without any further ado, let’s do a motherfucking review!
First and foremost:
Cewsh: It’s the summer time now, more or less (summer in WWE terms meaning the time between Wrestlemania and Survivor Series in November). Summer in WWE means that you never know what you’re going to get from them in terms of effort. Sometimes things will be up to their high standards and sometimes they will mail that shit in so thoroughly that you will think Karl Malone took over the production team. Here, luckily, they go for it and produce a video built around the two title matches that makes them look incredibly important, and puts special emphasis on the Christian/Orton match, and Christian’s long strange road to the main event. Its compelling, its concise, its good shit. Rock on.
Cewsh: “Its all about parking lots” said the mad hatter of promo cutting prior to his match with new found rival Rey Mysterio. You see, when he arrived at the arena on this very morn, he was aghast to discover that he was bereft of his usual parking privileges.
As a result of this tragic oversight, he was forced to park with the mindless riff raff attending the show and walk in the rain, which, as the good man says “may be good enough for you stankville hippies in Seattle.” He feels, unlikely though it may be, that this is indicative of the greater conspiracy he has theorized of previously. He then alerts the fans to the fact that he feels this to be their fault, as his persistent attempts to entertain their children named Jimmy have not netted him significant profit in the past. But he refuses to be daunted by this and go “cuckoo”, because he is, in fact, an adult. Rey Mysterio, for his part, is not an adult, seemingly. As a result, R-Truth will be taking his position of relative importance on the card. He wishes you a nice day.
Fuck I love R-Truth and his crazy promos. He actually got me laughing out loud when he said, very solemnly, “I don’t play games. Games for kiiiiiiiiiiiids.” Another fun fact? Before the match even started I had to mute the audio because the commentary was mind numbingly hard to listen to between Lawler and Cole. Off to a good start.
These guys get going and I’m going to be honest, I really, really enjoyed this match. R-Truth is a miserable face wrestler because the crowd never really got into him and he has too many different signature moves with no real set ups so the crowd couldn’t pop right for them. But as a heel this is a fantastic quality, because it makes him come off as dangerous, and the crowd HATES him now, which puts so much heat on the whole deal. So playing off of this Rey and Truth just have themselves a really fun and laid back opening match where they fly around the ring and gel really well together. It was a great choice to start the show and a great use of both guys. Oh, and when R-Truth wins and no music goes off, that is just such a different thing for WWE and it makes him stand out in such a positive way.
I’m so far on the R-Truth bandwagon at this point that I’m actually driving it. And we’re going to Tijuana.
79 out of 100.
Cewsh: The Miz has apparently developed a master plan to defeat John Cena in their I Quit match tonight. A plan that comes as the result of him being smarter than all the people that John Cena has beaten in those matches before combined. Seeing as those people also chose to fight John Cena in an I Quit match they obviously weren’t all THAT smart, but he seems proud nonetheless. But will he tell us his master plan? Nooo. Its like he wants it to be a surprise or something. I wonder what it could be. Remote controlled cheeseburger? Threaten to burn his rap albums? Jesus with a knife (which may be funnier if you DON’T remember the club fiasco from years back)? I DON’T KNOOOOOOOW.
Cewsh: At some point somebody told Ezekiel Jackson that it okay to do nothing but body slam people over and over and that that would work as a signature move. Now I don’t mean he does a bunch of slam related power moves, as would be typical and ideal for a man of his size. No. I mean that he picks the guy up, and delivers a text book body slam like he was in day 3 of wrestling school, and does that 30 times in a row. I can even see the line of thinking. Chris Benoit got hugely over doing his repetitive German Suplexes, and Eddie Guerrero’s Rolling Suplexes are one of his most fondly remembered moves, but those were cool looking moves you wanted to see more of. This is a fucking body slam. The last time a body slam was cool was when Lex Luger body slammed Yokozuna on an aircraft carrier so far back in the day that you have to remember it in Technicolor. So yeah. Lame.
As for the match that did not involve body slams, what there was of it, it was pretty good. They want to make Big Zeke a killer, and Barrett has surprisingly good chemistry with guys who are bigger than him, selling well and producing some nice aerial offense. This match didn’t get a ton of time, so they did what they could and moved on with nothing resolved. More body slams to come.
71 out of 100.
Cewsh: Mason Ryan and CM Punk are wandering down a hallway backstage talking about the bagels they just ate, when they happen across the Nexus locker room with McGullicutty and Otunga down and out of the floor. Ryan runs over quickly, concerned, and goes to storm off in pursuit of their attackers, but Punk defuses him with some good old fashioned boob groping.
Ryan questions whether or not Punk even cares about the Nexus members, and Punk says that of course he does, but he cares about the title more. A boob squeeze later and Ryan seems convinced, and they head off to start some serious business. But the story here is the continued evolution of Mason Ryan as a character, with him playing the role of a simple, but honorable, warrior who is brainwashed, but chafing under a way that is foreign to him. I like it. I like that shit A LOT, and I see big, big things coming from it. Mark my words.
Cewsh: Much has been made since Sin Cara’s debut, of his propensity for botching, with some even going so far as to assume that he’s going to be released as a result. This is purely ridiculous, but lucha is a very hit or miss style, so it has been a concern to this point.
He’s been paired with Chavo, seemingly to see if that would help, and Chavo has been brilliant in working a “I taught him everything he knows” storyline where he tries to cheat to help Sin Cara against Cara’s will.
Sin Cara and Chavo get in the ring (one of them accompanied by slightly more explosions than the other) and then the lights dim down to Cara’s signature blue and gold, making the whole ring area much darker and more stylish. We then proceed to get Sin Cara doing moves one at a time with no transitions whatsoever to Chavo, while he occasionally reigns things in with a brief submission move before he is hurracanranafied again. This happens for awhile, until Cara goes for a complex hurracanrana that Chavo can’t get him fully up for, resulting in Chavo getting spiked on his face (which may or may not have been intentional, its hard to say). Then Sin Cara preens for a bit, and everybody goes home.
Okay, here’s the book on Sin Cara right now. His gimmick is cool, his moves are breathtaking, and I’m a big fan. However his timing and placement in the ring seems to be an issue. It would be easy to write this off as a lucha guy being unable to adapt, but having seen plenty of Mistico matches in the past, this isn’t a problem that usually plagues him nearly so often as a it has here, so I have to believe that its just trouble adapting and its something he can get past and improve on. I have to believe it, because he’s way too fucking cool to be shelved just because he doesn’t throw enough regular punches and kicks.
But all of my faith and support won’t make this a good match. It wasn’t. Not at all.
60 out of 100.
Cewsh: Randy Orton and Christian are backstage staring lovingly into each others’ eyes while each man assures the other that they (meaning themselves) are totally winning the match tonight no matter what. It gets a little steamy.
Seriously guys, don’t leave us in suspense. Don’t worry, Todd Grisham wont tell anybody. Shh. Shh.
Cewsh: For some reason out to the ring comes Alberto Del Rio and he wants to talk. Mainly he wants to talk about how he’ll be challenging the winner of the I Quit match tonight because it is his destiny to blah blah blah yammedy yammedy doo. Unfortunately for him, 800 pounds of buzzkill comes lumbering down the ramp to get all up in Alberto’s face. Alberto is quite perturbed by this, so you can pretty much imagine that this is going to result in trouble of some kind.
(Cewsh Note: Apparently that trouble was ATTEMPTED VEHICULAR HOMICIDE. So, you know, I might have undersold it a bit.)
Cewsh: CM Punk is amazing.
Have I mentioned that before?
The brilliance of the Cookie Monster knows no bounds in this match starting from the very second the bell rings and Kane comes over to begin, where Punk tags in Mason Ryan and waggles his finger scolding at the crowd instructing them that they have to wait. The man has such a perfect grasp of how to keep attention him at all times with the smallest of mannerisms, that it doesn’t even seem like he’s putting in any effort to do it.
The man just bleeds charisma. In return, his partner Mason Ryan very much does NOT bleed charisma thus far, though the man has come a long way very quickly as far as developing a presence about him. While we’re listing off people in this match, for the record, Kane and the Big Show were the same as they always are. Dependable, enjoyable, but by the numbers. Also, the ref did a good job, the ring technicians performed capably, the ring bell ringer was right on cue, and Michael Cole caused me to put yet another segment on mute as he derailed things into ridiculous overblown rants for no reason.
The jury is still out on how the hot dog vendors did, of course. But then, it always is.
67 out of 100.
Cewsh: Before we get to the match here, I feel as though there are two things that really ought to be addressed before we go further.
First of all, Kelly Kelly may actually be the most underrated professional wrestling in World Wrestling Entertainment. Now before you get all up in arms, I’m not saying she’s a wrestler of astonishing quality, or even that she’s one of the best of the Divas. But when people look at Kelly Kelly they seem to either see an attractive young lady that they find likable, or a slutty bimbo who couldn’t get her bra off 6 years ago. Somewhere lost in there is the woman who has worked tirelessly for the past several years to improve in the ring, and has borne out the results by being easily the most over of all of these women with the crowd. So going in, I just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page that when I talk about Kelly Kelly, I’m talking about her as a wrestler. Not some kind of objectified blonde mass of tits floating about inside of the ring.
Secondly, I would like to address the decision to have Michael Cole actively burying this match as it happens, referring to it as boring and not worth his time. That is our main voice in WWE telling us that Divas wrestling is shitty and pointless. When he tells us that the Miz is a saint, we know not to believe him. When he says these women with little credibility deserve even less, we don’t. Knock that shit off, WWE. Either stop having them wrestle or give them a shred of something to be proud of. But don’t keep knocking them down and mocking them to their faces while asking them to do their best with the shit hand you’ve dealt them. Its fucked up. For realz.
Oh crap, we’re almost to the end of this match review and I haven’t actually talked about the match at all yet. That is very likely problematic. Okay, so here we go, actual journalism time. KAPOW.
The match centered mostly around Brie Bella working over the arm of Kelly Kelly. I say that it centered mostly around this, because the vast majority of the 3 minutes these women were given was spent with Brie hammering on Kelly’s arm, only for her to win with a twin switch and a facebuster. So after two paragraphs of defending women’s wrestling, I can barely fill out one with information about the virtually nonexistent match here to prove any kind of point I had.
Sigh.
59 out of 100.
Cewsh: The backstory to this match is, if you were to ask me to sum it up in one word, Supercallifragelisticexpiallawesome. Luckily I have more than one word to work with, so let’s delve further. See, after Wrestlemania, where Edge successfully retained his title against Alberto Del Rio, Christian started to make a concerted run towards the top of the card to try to become the champion he had never been able to be before.
He got to the point where it looked like he was going to start feuding with Edge for the title, when trouble struck, and Edge was forced to retire due to his old neck injuries. This left a void at the top of the card, and when Christian defeated Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match at Extreme Rules, he filled it once and for all, and became a WWE World Champion for the first time in his career, while Edge cheered him on, and passed the torch to his oldest friend in the process.
So naturally Christian was riding high when he showed up on Smackdown the following week, belt in tow to make his celebratory speech. But he’d never get to finish it, because Teddy Long, in the spirit of good programming, booked him in a title match against Randy Orton that very same night. And Orton won. So then Christian, his 17 year long dream shattered after a mere 5 days, tried to take it in stride. He took his rematch here at Over the Limit and tried to convince himself and the world that he really could beat Randy Orton after all, as his patience and confidence started to fray at the edges. If he wins the title back here, then all will be well in Christian land. But if he doesn’t…
The match starts off with a feeling out process. These guys respect each other and they’re here to see who is the best, not wreck each other to bits. It becomes evident incredibly quickly that these guys are very, very evenly matched and that each has studied the other. Every time either man goes for one of his signature moves, it is instantly countered, playing on their previous contest. Christian reverses the Olympic Slam, Orton reverses Christian’s jump to the outside and punch thing, and in a brilliant stroke that caused the capacity crowd to actually audibly gasp, Christian went for the very move that Randy countered to beat him in the first match and Randy went for the very same RKO counter that won it for him, but Christian faked him out completely, nearly snatching the win then and there. All the while, as the minutes tick by, both men start to get more and more involved in the match.
These guys try every trick in the book to try to one up each other and they simply can’t, and both start to get visibly agitated as they struggle to find any opening to exploit. Finally Christian decides to go for the Spear, seeming altogether out of sorts and ready to commit the kinds of acts that make you turn off an episode of CSI.
Orton counters him again, and in time readies himself for the punt that will end this for good.
But he hesitates.
For the first time, Randy Orton has found an opponent he respects to much to punt and it causes him to falter. He makes up his mind to do it anyway and he eats a huge spear for his mistake. But even that earns only a two count, and Christian falls on the ground, throwing a tantrum eerily similar to those he threw in his heelish days or yore.
He then makes his entire game plan all about the Killswitch, going for it at every opportunity as Orton struggles to fend him off. Counter, counter, counter, counter, BOOM, Orton hits an RKO out of fucking nowhere mid counter, and Christian simply never saw it coming. 1…2…3. The dream is delayed again.
Now look, I’ve been skeptical about Christian as a main eventer before and I may well go on doing so. But the story told here with Christian’s descent into desperation to prove himself and Orton’s newfound unwillingness to injure someone he respects so much turned this from a simply good match to an outright great one. Add that to the off the charts chemistry that these two guys have in the ring, allowing them to effortlessly flow from counter to counter almost faster than you can follow with your eyes, and the crowd that was ELECTRIC for every near fall of this match, and you have something absolutely special.
If you listen to not one other word I say about this show, find this match and watch it. I implore you. Because this is exactly what we’ve been begging for.
90 out of 100.
Cewsh’s Download Seal of Approval.
Cewsh: There are two things about this match that I really shouldn’t have to do much to explain. The first is why these two are feuding, since this feud has been going on for longer than the Buffalo Bills have been terrible. The second is why this is destined to not be a classic match, because c’mon. Not only are they coming off of two matches that plumbed the depths of my patience and forgiveness, but this match is a “Kiss My Foot” match, which has never been anything but randomly gross for anyone ever (notable exceptions include Randy Spears and your creepy uncle).
As they get ready for this titanic slugfest, Michael Cole comes out in a suit and promptly states that he has a doctor’s note to get out of this match (now that Jack Swagger is no longer willing to help him) which he reads at length. At the conclusion of this, Cole hands the note to the referee, who acknowledges that it is legit, and then becomes the biggest babyface referee since Earl Heber screwed Triple H as he tears that shit right up and throws it in Cole’s face.
Lawler proceeds to beat 8 kinds of hell out of Cole while tearing his suit right off of his body (which is more than we really needed to see I feel). Cole then no sells this completely, fights back and TAKES THE ADVANTAGE to the extent that he pauses for a full minute to take off his shoe. Because, you see, Cole has some nasty stuff all over his foot that he badly wants in Lawler’s esophagus. Lawler responds to this as you might expect, by grabbing Cole’s silly ass and throwing him through the Cole Mine.
One top rope fist drop later, and Cole is contractually forced to kiss Jerry Lawler’s foot.
What follows is a study in how not to do this sort of thing. First King preens to the crowd who are loving this and can’t wait to see Cole get humiliated once and for all. Then he stops, considers, and calls Eve Torres down to the ring. See, Cole has been running down Eve and the entire women’s division for months now, and Lawler wants to give her a chance to get some retribution. But the thing is, the fans a) don’t really have much invested in Eve and b) don’t really remember the storyline as it hasn’t been referenced at all outside of when it was happening and Cole has been a dick to everybody. In fairness, though, she is a distinct and immediate improvement on the scenery, and she delivers a nice looking moonsault to Cole just to rub it in.
Then King takes his shoe off and the crowd are right back with it, but then HERE COMES JIM ROSS, to also settle HIS grudge. JR has brought a bottle of his famous barbeque sauce, and promptly covers Cole with it from head to toe, which compares to sucking on some sweaty dudes toes, is like going to Disneyland and nailing every supermodel on the way there. Cole then tries to escape.
BUT NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND, here comes Bret “The Interrupter” Hart.
Now see, Bret Hart’s attachment to this is he once beat Jerry Lawler in a Kiss My Foot match. Hmmmmm, yep that’s it, that’s the whole connection. Now the crowd is certainly happy to see him, and when he throws Cole in the Sharpshooter and forces him to suck some toes they enjoy themselves.
Warning: You may not want to be eating anything with barbeque sauce on it when you look at this.
But by this point this segment has gone on for nearly half an hour and really hasn’t gotten a more than cursory reaction. And then its over, saddening the 346 other people who had their hearts on running out next to douse Michael Cole with things.
I know that this is intended to not be some quality chain wrestling action. Hell, you know me, I enjoy the story and the flash and awe more than anything. But this was so forced that it was painful to watch, and the angle was so long dead before this that to give it half an hour here for no reason was show suicide.
35 out of 100.
Cewsh: This is the official blowoff to the feud that main evented Wrestlemania. Miz got his rematch with the help of Alex Riley despite simmering tensions between the two, and John Cena got to pick himself his favorite match stipulation. He chose an I Quit match, and as well he might, because I Quit has become John Cena’s definitive match, like Hell in a Cell for the Undertaker and Triple H and the ladder match for like 12 guys. Cena doesn’t lose these, and he has a title match date with the Rock a year from now, so the result isn’t much in question here, but the how is the question, as it always is with Cena.
Now the story of this match is that, since interference is entirely legal here, Riley and Miz just beat 86 flavors of fuck out of John Cena. They gang up on him at every turn, keep him from hitting big moves on the other, and shut him down like few people have been able to. Add this to the fact that the Miz turned his vicious bastard dial up to 11, and you have a match that is not only great and compelling, but which makes the Miz look like an absolute monster, having out thought Cena entirely and taking out his frustrations however he pleases. This part of the match is so fucking good that Vice actually liked it, and extracting a piece of praise from him for something John Cena does is like stealing a gift certificate for a shopping spree at a candy store from the first man cured of diabetes. But, naturally, the ending had to come eventually.
After taking 30 minutes of an ass beating that would leave Stan Hansen wondering who he could say he was sorry to, Riley holds a microphone up to Cena and asks the question, at which point Cena, with his head turned carefully away from the camera, is heard to, in an unusually aggressive way, say “I Quit”. The match is awared to Miz and the ref goes to grab the title, when he notices a tape recorder on the ground that had fallen out of Riley’s pocket.
Putting this together bizarrely fast for a ref, he figures it all out and immediately restarts the match. At this point, John Cena is granted full hit points for the next phase of the boss fight, whips Miz with a belt all the way up to the stage, locks in the STFU and Miz promptly quits.
…okay.
I know that some may complain about the whole fake I Quit thing, and it did suck the life out of the crowd, true enough, but that isn’t even remotely the biggest problem here. I’ve accepted A LOT of no selling from John Cena over the years. A lot of hopping up and winning when he shouldn’t and shrugging off beating and whatnot. But this is one of the single worst beatings ever given to anyone in WWE history, and he treated it like it was a fucking mosquito bite. The Miz and Alex Riley put in 30 minutes of the best in ring work of their careers, only to be made to look like second rate henchmen in a Superman cartoon. This is not only harmful to the match and to the crowd, its actually harmful to their fucking careers, and it all could have been averted if Cena had just bothered to look TIRED after this was all done.
I’m finally really starting to see what it is that has been turning people against this man in such droves. For the longest time I didn’t and wouldn’t, but fuck man. The decision to have John Cena be a Terminator robot dropped this match 12 points all by itself. Fuck.
80 out of 100.
Cewsh’s Download Seal of Approval.
Cewsh: This was an odd show, made even odder by the fact that I essentially reviewed it over the course of three weeks a bit at a time because somehow I just couldn’t make myself want to see any more of it. Add that to the fact that I’m reviewing this alone because Vice and Mrs. Cewsh have both jumped ship from WWE entirely because they found it so frustrating to watch and you have a real problem that extends outside of just this review team. WWE has come to a time here where they aren’t just lacking young talent or main eventers, but are simply lacking people who are interesting to any degree. There aren’t any beloved characters. No real hated rogues. Not even any charming sidekicks. There’s just a bunch of guys who march out and try their best to make something out of nothing.
And it isn’t really working.
All of you be on the lookout. This review here marks the beginning of the Cewsh Reviews Comeback Tour Week of Debaucherous Musings And Precipitous Bruisings. What that means is that after weeks of uncertainty and waiting on reviews, we are going to stuff you so fucking full of reviews that you’ll long for the days of off weeks. A review today, a review tommorrow, a review Saturday a review Sunday, ONE DAY OFF, and a review Tuesday followed by a short hospital stay for me will cap the most bizarrely ridiculous week in Cewsh Reviews history.
On the way you’ll meet new friends, be introduced to new and exciting wrestling, and we’ll get caught up all official like. So stay tuned and don’t miss a minute of our descent into insanity. So keep a close eye out, keep reading and be good to one another!
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