WWE DVD Review: The Best of King of the Ring

WWE DVD Review: The Best of King of the Ring By Phil Allely King of the Ring was at one time one of the jewels in the crown of the WWE pay-per-view calendar. KOTR was an event where superstars battled it out in a tournament to crown the company’s newest King, this accolade usually meaning the winner was being groomed for greatness. Many winners of the crown went on to raise the World title and embark on the best period of their career alos. This three disc set takes us on a nice ride through the 20 years of the KOTR PPV events and also helps fill in the gaps between the mid-1980s televised ones too. The tournaments early days saw the likes of Don Muraco, Tito Santana, Ted DiBiase, Harley Race, Randy Savage and Bret Hart raise the title. This is covered briefly here and makes for interesting viewing. Host Booker T (a former winner) is on nice form here throughout. The matches featured range from superb to decent and all are fun to re-view. Watch out especially for Bret Hart battling Bam Bam Bigelow, Owen Hart versus Razor Ramon and the infamous Stone Cold Steve Austin final against Jake The Snake Roberts. There are also a few pretty good more recent matches form the revamped PPV’s. Also on offer here are other matches from the KOTR events. These include Hulk Hogan tackling the huge Yokozuna, Shawn Michaels’ classic encounter with The British Bulldog and Undertaker’s WWE Championship scrap with The Rock. Of Course no KOTR DVD set would be complete without the much repeated and truly amazing Undertaker/Mankind Hell in a Cell match, the one by which all HIAC encounters are now judged. The Best of King of the Ring is available now from www.silvervision.co.uk and all good retailers.

ECW Original Talks TNA Payoffs

ECW Original Shane Douglas spoke with Mister Saint Laurent on MLW Radio, the official podcast of Major League Wrestling. Douglas talked about his Extreme Reunion, thoughts on Vince McMahon as a promoter and more. The full interview can be heard on MLW.com or iTunes. Douglas talked about TNA President Dixie Carter paying ECW Originals a low amount of money for the TNA Hardcore Justice pay-per-view: “After Dixie Carter did her show [Hardcore Justice] and paid the guys a ridiculous sum of money, $250 to go out there and do what we do better than most people do, that to me was just so disrespectful. For somebody who has been born and raised in a billion dollar household with a silver spoon in her mouth and up her backside, to ask guys to go out there and do that, for that little bit of money and then when it did better than any pay-per-view event in the last five years, didn’t even offer so much as an extra penny on top of it.” “I said then and I stand by it, shame on you Dixie Carter that you’d expect anybody to do that in this day and age. At the same time she pays Ric Flair, 62, 63 years old, $35,000 a night. 60 year old Hulk Hogan, $75,000 a night and then somehow figures that these guys that come from ECW just don’t have any value or worth at all. I plan on disproving that.”

TNA Lockdown 2012 PPV Review

By Phil Allely TNA’s annual all cage match extravaganza Lockdown hailing from Nashville, TN was a PPV made up of a few good challenge matches, a Lethal lockdown team scrap and the much anticipated rematch between current World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Roode and his former tag team partner James Storm (also a former World title holder and Nashville native). The big thing was could these matches maintain our interest and keep viewers glued to their screens. The opening Lethal Lockdown match saw Eric Bischoff’s team face his son Garett’s, this stipulation being the loser would leave TNA and would lose the rights to use the Bischoff name. A decent cage brawl and weapons scrap this was a showcase for a few talents at best, RVD made a well-received return and a newly shorn Kazarian made an Impact too. Garett pulled off the win after a beat down on his dad to send him packing from TNA. The Motor City Machines Guns gave their all in their challenge for the Tag Team Titles next, unfortunately for the reunited Guns, the champs (Samoa Joe/Magnus) were too good this time around. A well placed snap-mare/elbow combo putting Sabin/Shelley away. TV Champion Devon then retained his title against opponent Robbie E and overcame his associate Robbie T too. Devon pulling off a decent spinebuster for the three count, Robbie’s E & T did perform a beat down post match. Velvet Sky’s race to regain the Knockouts Title fell short once more as she fell to champion Gail Kim. The ladies fared well here, Sky nailing a nasty move or two, before Gail capitalised and stole the win. Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan then took to the ring/cage to exchange words and more. Flair resenting Hogan’s General Manager role and the fact that his ally Eric Bischoff was now gone for the company. The segment ended with Flair decked by Hogan and the Nature Boy dissing fans at ringside. Former tag team champions Matt Morgan and Crimson’s encounter was a reasonable big man affair, but overall gave nothing of interest to fans. After some back and forth action Crimson took the win to retain his undefeated streak. Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy took things to a new level next, both risking life and limb (as always). Blood flowed and dangerous moves transpired as the duo went through a high wire act of career shortening exchanges. The end came as Hardy capitalised on a reversal on Angle and hit a pretty good looking Swanton from the top of the cage. The Knockouts Tag Team Title Match was a throwaway one unfortunately. Co-champ ODB took control here as partner Eric Young performed his comedy routine. Challengers Sarita and Rosita had no real chance in this one. ODB got the pin for her team to retain the gold. The main event was a decent and violent effort by both combatants. Storm bled badly and took a serious beating as Roode took control from the get go. The pair finally got into a rhythm and exchanged near falls and finishers. The final sequence saw Storm nail a few super kicks and Roode kick out, Roode strike Storm with a beer bottle and eventually the title holder was kicked to the floor to retain his belt. Lockdown was a reasonable PPV, but many matches fell below expectations. Storm’s title win was a cert in many fans minds, whereas the Hogan/Flair stand-off was an unnecessary one. TNA have all of the tools and roster members to excite a crowd and fan base, they just seem to miss the mark sometimes. Let’s see where the storylines take us now.

TNA Lockdown 2012 Review

TNA Lockdown 2012 Review

By Phil Allely

TNA’s annual all cage match extravaganza Lockdown hailing from Nashville, TN was a PPV made up of a few good challenge matches, a Lethal lockdown team scrap and the much anticipated rematch between current World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Roode and his former tag team partner James Storm (also a former World title holder and Nashville native). The big thing was could these matches maintain our interest and keep viewers glued to their screens.

The opening Lethal Lockdown match saw Eric Bischoff’s team face his son Garett’s, this stipulation being the loser would leave TNA and would lose the rights to use the Bischoff name. A decent cage brawl and weapons scrap this was a showcase for a few talents at best, RVD made a well-received return and a newly shorn Kazarian made an Impact too. Garett pulled off the win after a beat down on his dad to send him packing from TNA.

The Motor City Machines Guns gave their all in their challenge for the Tag Team Titles next, unfortunately for the reunited Guns, the champs (Samoa Joe/Magnus) were too good this time around. A well placed snap-mare/elbow combo putting Sabin/Shelley away.

TV Champion Devon then retained his title against opponent Robbie E and overcame his associate Robbie T too. Devon pulling off a decent spinebuster for the three count, Robbie’s E & T did perform a beat down post match.

Velvet Sky’s race to regain the Knockouts Title fell short once more as she fell to champion Gail Kim. The ladies fared well here, Sky nailing a nasty move or two, before Gail capitalised and stole the win.

Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan then took to the ring/cage to exchange words and more. Flair resenting Hogan’s General Manager role and the fact that his ally Eric Bischoff was now gone for the company. The segment ended with Flair decked by Hogan and the Nature Boy dissing fans at ringside.

Former tag team champions Matt Morgan and Crimson’s encounter was a reasonable big man affair, but overall gave nothing of interest to fans. After some back and forth action Crimson took the win to retain his undefeated streak.

Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy took things to a new level next, both risking life and limb (as always). Blood flowed and dangerous moves transpired as the duo went through a high wire act of career shortening exchanges. The end came as Hardy capitalised on a reversal on Angle and hit a pretty good looking Swanton from the top of the cage.

The Knockouts Tag Team Title Match was a throwaway one unfortunately. Co-champ ODB took control here as partner Eric Young performed his comedy routine. Challengers Sarita and Rosita had no real chance in this one. ODB got the pin for her team to retain the gold.

The main event was a decent and violent effort by both combatants. Storm bled badly and took a serious beating as Roode took control from the get go. The pair finally got into a rhythm and exchanged near falls and finishers. The final sequence saw Storm nail a few super kicks and Roode kick out, Roode strike Storm with a beer bottle and eventually the title holder was kicked to the floor to retain his belt.

Lockdown was a reasonable PPV, but many matches fell below expectations. Storm’s title win was a cert in many fans minds, whereas the Hogan/Flair stand-off was an unnecessary one. TNA have all of the tools and roster members to excite a crowd and fan base, they just seem to miss the mark sometimes. Let’s see where the storylines take us now.

WWW WrestleMania Revenge Tour Review Belfast April 2012

WWE Live Review: Smackdown – WrestleMania Revenge Tour 2012 (Belfast)

The WWE tour the UK/Ireland twice a year and each live show receives a huge amount of attention. These shows feature many of our favourite WWE superstars and divas, they also offer us the opportunity to get up close and personal to the action.

Belfast’s Odyssey Arena was as usual sold-out for the WrestleMania Revenge Tour by the Smackdown roster. Unless it is a TV taping/recording what’s nice about a WWE live show is that the entire crew seem intent on having fun and whilst storylines do still exist they are not as strictly stuck to here.

Glamorous ring announcer Lillian Garcia took mic duties for the night and really did make a difference with her nice attitude to proceedings and willingness to join in the fun throughout the night.

We’ll not review each match here, but we will give you an idea of just what a live WWE show can offer you.

Firstly you’ll be very close to the action and get to see the event in full context no matter where you sit, although the prime seats are slightly above ringside with a view of the whole ring or the aisle where you can briefly shake hands with your heroes.

Next thing you’ll see just how huge some of the wrestlers are, for example opening match-up winner The Great Khali was unbelievably massive, looking even bigger than his seven foot plus real height. His opponent Jinder Mahal had no real chance here, but did try his best.

The Tag Team encounter was pulled above mediocre by the unique pairing of high flyer Tyson Kidd and UK star William Regal. Regal especially was on fine comedy form and as he has done before stated that he may not have many more matches in him.

Alberto Del Rio is a fun character and a nice return to the sneaky heel of old. It is however his stooge/personal ring announcer Ricardo that maintains the flow and entertains us, the old tee-shirt throw tease went down a storm.

The highlight of the Divas match between Natalya and AJ was the addition of Hornswoggle as guest referee. The little man went through as many comedy spots as he could and loved being the centre of attention.

The Big Show was also in superb comedy form this night, something many people never really get to see these days. He is also another very large competitor that you really do need to see live to appreciate how big he is.

What’s always interesting in these shows is that the company rarely send over jobber s and low card grapplers, the norm is to send as many mid-top of the roster guys and girls and again with a few exceptions this was the case.

Rounding off the night were two encounters firstly Kane and Randy Orton in a NO DQ battle that went in and out of the ring, incorporated weapons and looked awesome.

Finally was the Mania re-match between former World Title holder Daniel Bryan and current champ Sheamus. Ireland’s own Sheamus worked very hard here and it really did round things off on  a high note.

WWE live be it the April tour or November tour always deliver the goods and did so once again here. Roll on the next one, we cannot wait.

WWE Live in the UK November 2011 DVD Review

WWE DVD Review: WWE Live in the UK – November 2011

By Phil Allely

The WWE tour the UK twice a year, these tours have grown bigger each year and recently the company have decided to record live versions of their hugely popular Raw and Smackdown shows on UK soil too.

This double DVD set offers up the live shows from last November that were recorded in Liverpool for broadcast in the UK and the US respectively.

As anyone who has seen a live WWE show knows these are always fun events, there’s never a sad face in the crowd at the end of them.  We the fans get to see our heroes in the flesh and get to see the big spectacle of shows that we usually only see on US TV.  The shows on DVD here however are far slicker affairs than non-recorded/televised ones, these are after all live shows which were being recorded for broadcast. So storylines were followed, scripts were adhered too and the entire roster were on the ball throughout.

Disc one features The November 7^th Raw episode and it features some pretty decent matches and segments. Highlights here are John Cena whipping the crowd into a frenzy, Zack Ryder’s appearances and the main event scrap between Cena/Ryder and The Miz/R-Truth.

This disc also houses an episode of NXT featuring a few nice matches and a retro match between Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Dude Love from the UK PPV ‘One Night Only’ in 1997.

Disc two on the other hand has a reasonable episode of WWE Superstars (10^th November) as its starting off point. There’s a very nice match with Daniel Bryan and William Regal here also.

The rest of the disc is taken up by the November 11^th Smackdown episode and it is a pretty good one too. Up for perusal here are a fine outing with Sheamus and Christian, Mark Henry Versus Daniel Bryan and an enjoyable Randy Orton and Wade Barrett brawl.

WWE Live in the UK – November 2011 is a very good collection of live shows and one that fans will lap up if they were in attendance or not. This is perhaps the best introduction to WWE live shows for anyone who has yet to witness them.

WWE Live in the UK – November 2011 is available now from www.silvervision.co.uk and all good retailers.

WWE PPV Review: WrestleMania 28

WWE PPV Review - WrestleMania 28

By Phil Allely

WrestleMania is the event of the year as far as the WWE are concerned, it gets a huge build up and the company always try to pull out all of the stops to ensure the card has the odds stacked in the companies favour.

2012’s event was centred around two mega match-ups, movie star The Rock’s return to the ring against company figurehead John Cena and the return match between Undertaker and Triple H. Both matches were highly anticipated and well prepared for, the question was would a Hollywood star, and two part-time wrestlers (alongside the only full time roster member Cena) be able to maintain the crowds attention and keep everyone interested in proceedings?

The dark match opener saw the combos of The Uso’s and Justin Gabriel/Tyson Kidd tackle WWE Tag Team Champs Primo/Epico in a fun encounter. This was of course left off the PPV, but will undoubtedly feature on the DVD release. The champions retained the gold after some nice exchanges.

WrestleMania proper kicked off with the World Heavyweight Title match-up. Challenger Sheamus made short work of his opponent Daniel Bryan here. Bryan spent a short while stalling and then caught a hard ‘brogue kick’ to lose the match and his treasured belt. Shamus is now once again flying the flag for Ireland as world champion.

Next up Kane and Randy Orton had a decent scrap, both men tried their best to keep things moving along and they did it admirably. Kane pulled off the win with a second rope ‘choke slam’.

The Intercontinental Title was on the line next, champ Cody Rhodes defending his gold against the mammoth Big Show. This was good David/Goliath stuff, show overpowered Rhodes with ease and Cody used his wits and skills to bring the big man down to his size as often as he could. A spear and knockout punch from Show finished things though, giving us our second title change of the night.

As per usual the Divas were given very little time to build momentum in their match. Here we saw Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres face Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos. The teams worked well, the moves were reasonable performed and each got a few moments to strut their stuff. Menounos rolled up Phoenix to pick up the win for her team.

The Hell in a Cell match between Undertaker and Triple H was a much hyped affair and one that we all hoped would match that build up. Undertaker had been off TV and out of the ring since Mania 27 and Triple H had been semi-retired since that brutal match-up too. Adding the cell and special guest referee Shawn Michaels to the mix was sure to help gloss over any ring rust the competitors had. We also got to see the new short-haired Taker too.

The HIAC match was as expected a back and forth violent encounter (of course with no blood). The pair utilised the steel structure to their advantage and Michaels kept the pace moving well too. The combatants worked well together and made the magic from last year happen once again. Undertaker’s Mania winning streak was on the line of course and the audience did think it was possibly going to come to an end. The match ended after numerous trademark moves, near falls and ref bumps. Taker eventually nailed a ‘Tombstone’ to put Triple H down for the three-count. With the 20-0 sign flashing Taker, Michaels and Triple H embraced on the stage to huge applause.

After a Hall of Fame video package, featuring The Four Horsemen, Edge, Ron Simmons and Mike Tyson, amongst others. We were once again back to the matches.
The unnecessary team match between Team Laurinaitis and Team Long was up next and even with the winning team leader becoming both Raw & Smackdown GM it didn’t set the world alight.

This enjoyable, but at times plodding scrap saw Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, The Miz, Drew McIntyre and David Otunga (Team Laurinaitis) face Zack Ryder, Kofi Kingston, The Great Khali, R-Truth, Booker T and Santino Marella.

With so many bodies around the ring this was a match of short set-pieces, near falls, swift tags and comedy moments. The end saw The Miz hit the ‘skull crunching finale’ on Ryder to win the match for his team.

Post-match Eve struck a low blow on Ryder to hint at a heel turn.

Picking the pace up after the previous encounter were Chris Jericho and CM Punk. Here they were battling for Punk’s WWE Title and the speculation was that even with his band on tour over the Summer Jericho was on form to take the gold home with him in this one.

Punk and Jericho pulled off a superb match, thy built it perfectly, gelled wonderfully as opponents and traded near falls with ease. This was anyone’s match it seemed, the fans were really into this one. Punk eventually overcame the sneaky Jericho for the tap out win via ‘anaconda vice’.

After a one year build-up the main event between John Cena and The Rock had an awful lot to live up to. Fortunately it did just that and more, this was a match for the ages and one that saw The Rock roll back the years and highlight just how good he is as a performer.

The crowd were firmly behind Rock throughout, Cena receiving an unhealthy amount of boos. The pair went through their routines well, it may have been a meticulously planned match, but to casual fans this looked awesome in its delivery.

Rock looked slick as ever and delivered each move as crisply as he did in his prime, Cena for his faults went through the motions and both hit their trademark moves for near falls too. The match finished as predicted with the Rock successfully nailing a ‘rock bottom’ for the popular pin.

WrestleMania was a very good card from the WWE, we saw some new champs crowned, one man become the Raw/Smackdown GM and two epic encounters play out before our very eyes.

Some of the matches will be re-enacted during the upcoming WrestleMania Revenge Tour, but the big results here were Undertaker once again holding on to his winning streak, The Rock beating Cena in their grudge match and in the subsequent Raw the return of Brock Lesnar to the company.

By Phil Allely

New JR Blog Highlights

WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross is back with a new blog on jrsbarbq.com. Here are some highlights:

- I sincerely appreciated Michael Cole's handshake welcoming me to the announce table [at WrestleMania 28]. Very classy.

- Brock Lesnar's return to WWE is significant to say the least. I'm excited to see where the future takes the former WWE & UFC Champion. In mere minutes, Lesnar became a force to be dealt with in WWE. Interesting days certainly lie a head for the F5 machine.

- I covet my time in WWE's developmental program. Been here all week. Working with the enthusiastic, talented young athletes is so rewarding. Great things are on going on Dale Mabry in Tampa. Tonight is the FCW TV taping and I can't wait. Several FCW talents are either being introduced or on the cusp of such on a WWE roster. Expect to see several new personas in the coming weeks on RAW & Smackdown. Congrats to all who've earned an opportunity.