Hit or Miss Volume 15

More anticipated than 3.3.11…its Hit or Miss Volume 15! Matt Waters and Jerome Cusson join me this week for some great discussion…so read on!

Matt Waters: Hit. There was no way in hell Homicide was going to put on a PPV main event quality match at this point in his career, and the most logical thing to do would be to just not book it for this show at all, but they did, so the next best thing was to make sure it wasn’t the final match of the event, particularly due to the anti-ROH finish.
Jerome Cusson: Miss. It’s not really a miss because WGTT and Briscoes should have been the main event, but ROH did a terrible job building up to the championship match. The HDNet angles were weak, and Homicide has not been putting up the kind of quality matches that are expected out of a challenger. Plus, Roderick Strong doesn’t have near the level of skill as a heel to build the match.
 
0 for 1


Hit or Miss: The ending to the Daniels/Edwards match:
 
MW: Hit. Worked for me as it kept both guys looking strong. They’re grooming Eddie Edwards (and to a lesser extent Kenny King) for the main event, but obviously he couldn’t win the TV Title right back again, but nor could he lose clean to Daniels. The draw allowed both to save face and it demonstrates character evolution for Edwards; they’ve faced off three times now and the results have been a clean win for Daniels, a 15 minute time-limit draw in which Daniels won in overtime, and now a 30-minute draw that Edwards appeared to have in the bag. So each time Edwards has improved, and along the way he won Survival of the Fittest and is challenging for the world title, so it’s important to point out this isn’t the same man that debuted with the company a few years ago, this is a wrestler who has steadily upped his game. Besides, Daniels is better suited to drop the title to Mike Bennett than Eddie.
JC: Miss. Taken on its own, the finish wasn’t terrible, but within the context of this show, it didn’t work. The time limit draw was a bad idea, and ROH never should have booked themselves into this corner. I can’t fully blame ROH to a certain extent because Daniels suffered an unfortunate injury, but this match just continued an unfortunate trend of bad finishes on the show.
 
0 for 2


Hit or Miss: The slate of trios announced thus far for KOT 2011:
 
MW: Hit. A cautious hit though. I feel we’re one more “big” trio away from this being a truly awesome line-up. QuackenSaw and Toyota is nice, Team Michinoku Pro is fantastic, Team Osaka Pro made a big impression on the Chikarmy last time around, and the new versions of the Osirian Portal and F.I.S.T. will be interesting to see, but we’ll likely see the same BDK trio that Donst captained last year, we saw the Throwbacks already, and the Colony are hardly anything new. Not that any of those trios are bad, and the Colony are likely the deserving favorites, but each year it seems we get a couple of outside trios that make the tournament a must-see. The Batiri working with Sinn Bodhi will be intriguing, and Da Soul Touchaz have never been hotter, but I don’t have a great deal of faith in Team Australia. Five slots remain and UltraMantis and Incoherence seem a lock to get one of them, leaving the final four to guest stars and the likes of the Olsen Twins, 2.0, the Roughnecks, and the UnStable.
JC: Hit. Team Australia was a questionable decision. Team Michinoku Pro makes the three DVDs a must buy and a must watch show.
 
1 for 3
 
Hit or Miss: The HHH/Undertaker segment from 2.21.11:
MW: Hit. All kinds of Hit. I loved it. How many performers can get that kind of crowd reaction without saying a single word. I’m sure everyone was disappointed it was “just another Undertaker return” after the weeks of hype videos, but Triple H’s music hitting the second the Deadman got in the ring was amazing, and their face to face confrontation was pretty electric. Also, Michael Cole was inadvertently hilarious with his commentary; Undertaker did the throat slash and Cole suggested that might be Triple H’s fate, and The Game responded with the crotch chop to which Cole said that may be what happens to Undertaker. Glorious.
JC: Hit. There’s been a lot of talking on the last couple of Raws, and this was the perfect way to counter balance that. I’m a huge fan of this segment and thought it was one of the more effective segments leading to Wrestlemania. It can be argued whether this is a good Wrestlemania match or not, but they got it off on the right foot.
 
2 for 4
 
Hit or Miss: Sting returning and winning the TNA World Title:
 
MW: Miss. For many reasons. Firstly, to borrow the opinion of friend of the site Ari Berenstein, TNA copying the 2.21 videos wasn’t cool or edgy, it was just flat out plagiarism and while this may not be a shock considering it’s TNA, it was completely classless. There are times TNA try to compete with the WWE by pointing out perceived flaws, and then there are times when they just flat out rip them off but while trying to pretend they’re doing it better. This is an instance of the latter. Even if you ignore that tastelessness of the cloned angle, it’s Sting with the TNA World Title… again. After winning the world title at three straight Bound for Glory’s I hoped that the days of Sting turning up and immediately winning the gold were behind us, but it seems not. I know we’re all begging for the title not to be on a man that’s probably going to prison, but on the list of people the belt should be on instead, Sting ranks pretty low. Oh but hey, it’s Sting vs Hogan in 2011! Yaaaaayyy!!!!!
 
JC: Miss. TNA sucks. They ripped off WWE. Next question.
 
3 for 5
 
Hit or Miss: Homicide going from the ROH World Title picture into the ROH Tag Title picture:
 
MW: Hit. I don’t see this as a step down for him, more of a step sideways. The ROH Tag Team Titles have always been booked as being equally as important as the World Title, and tag teams have main evented countless shows over the years, so it’s hardly a demotion. Besides, the Kings of Wrestling are legitimately the best team in the world, and are comprised of two of the best individual wrestlers in the world, so you could say this is even bigger than when Homicide teamed up with Joe to take on the Briscoes years ago. Also, the Kings seem posed to drop the belts in Atlanta, the New York card might need a bit more punch to go along with Eddie vs Roderick, and it makes sense to book one last dream tag match before the Kings lose their titles. LAX vs Kings is one of the few such dream tag matches left and it’ll be intriguing as Hero and Homicide trade strikes and Claudio and Hernandez have a test-your-might contest. Look for Homicide to take the pin to get around another Kings/MCMG finish.
JC: Hit. I’m not sure if Homicide is going to be in the tag team division full time, but I guess this is a good way to get him in a big match for the New York city show. Homicide in tags is still better than him in singles for sure.
 
4 for 6

Jerome and Matt went 4 for 6 this week. Check back in a couple weeks for more Hit or Miss! Be good all!
 
Contact Me:
msgalyon@gmail.com
twitter.com/matgalyon