WNS Column: Wilds' War Cry: How Does the Pole Work?

This was a much better week for wrestling, and I started it off right with the hilarious HHH/Rock promo from Smackdown, laughing harder than I should have at it. The rest of the show was not bad. It almost made me forget the horrible Today Show segment with the wine bottles, which I look back upon like some type of horrible traumatic experience. What’s that? They have someone else this week? I can stomach having someone out during a match to promote breast cancer awareness, it could be worse. Crap—I spoke too soon and now there is some redneck with a bad accent out there, and he will not shut up about his damn kids. I am starting to hate celebrities again.

Let us move on to NXT, which reminded me that I still like Becky Lynch, with all due respect to Sasha Banks. I really feel like Banks just needs a little something else, a new element to make her more interesting. Thankfully the Vaudevillains versus Enzo and Big Cass was entertaining, and both teams here interest me. I want to see more with both of them. It is good that NXT is building up the tag team rivalries, because it looks like they are getting ready to lose The Ascension to the main roster soon. They deserve it, but I am enjoying the classic story progression back-and-forth between Ascension and Hideo Itami. My big surprise for the night though, was that Titus O’Neil actually won the main event.

TNA hit it out of the park again this week with a decent episode of Impact that ended with the amazing conclusion to the triple threat tag team match series. I am elated to say that The Wolves came out on top in an action packed TLC/Full Metal Mayhem match. I said they needed to retain, and they looked damn good doing it. There were so many high spots for this that the highlight reel looked like a cavalcade of human destruction. I was a fan of this entire series, and though I am not trying to compare it to any previous matches, I recommend fans give it a shot. I do kind of hate that the promo for the next episode built up Impact more than it did their PPV, but that is a small annoyance.

Bound for Glory was a fun PPV event that felt different from the normal WWE lineup. I know some of you have jokes about the Japanese arena being the same size as the Impact Zone (haters gonna hate), but I liked the venue change and the different feeling of the crowd, especially with Taz explaining a lot about how the Japanese perceive wrestling. My only complaints were the bottled commentary again, not having their commentators on site, but they did a better job with it this time. Also, I applaud team 3D for making it into the TNA hall of fame, but there were better matches to showcase their history in the company, and all of that could have been cut down to include another match.

The matches were great. I knew I was in for a treat when the opener, Manik versus Minoru Tanaka, was so good, and EC3 fighting Ryota Hama had me laughing. MVP and Sakamoto tore the house down, with both men looking good, especially MVP with his crazy ass boot on the outside. Sakamoto impressed me. Why did this man get stuck as Tensai’s bullshit valet in WWE when he can go like that in the ring? WWE wastes as usual. Also, the comic book fan in me wants to point out how cool that Punisher ring gear is. The triple threat match was good, and let me know that Kaz Hayashi did improve after his WCW run. Wrestle 1 has some amazing talent, demonstrated by their tag team match, and TNA tried their hand with Team 3D versus Abyss and Tommy Dreamer. There was a decent Knockouts match that led up to the main event, which I was surprised to see featured The Great Muta and Tajiri versus James Storm and The Great Sanada. It made sense with them being in Japan, and I like seeing Storm’s group in the main event. It was a slow match at first that built well, and I popped for that double mist ending.

I think we can all agree that TNA has owned it with their last two events (stop hating), and Raw this week was better than it has been in a while. The opening lead to a good match, and I am a sucker for a Trading Places reference—it was the dollar bet thing, don’t play—but it looked like everyone wanted to go off the top rope. And Poor Dust Brothers, as I shall now call them, looked good. We saw some great Wyatt promos, watched AJ Lee destroy a beautiful Layla, and I popped for that toss up RKO, because love or hate Randy, he is one of the most talented wrestlers in that company.

I saw something even cooler this week though, something that has seemed lost in WWE lately. We had Cena and Ambrose mixed in with two feuding tag teams, Ziggler versus Orton, and Swagger taking it to Rollins. It felt like the lines between the mid-card and main event were weakened and the worlds were merging, which is awesome. I like that old idea that any competitor can beat another under the right circumstances. I want to believe an Uso could beat Lesnar, or that Zack Ryder could put the Broski Bootto Rusev—they just are not likely. This is why I promote people like Orton or Jericho occasionally fighting for the second tier belts. It is a good feeling and makes the product look better. This also helps when someone powerful starts jobbing out to everyone or vice versa. I would love WWE to do more like this and keep it up, but I cannot trust them to do so…they did try to put something on a pole for a match this week. 

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