More thrilling than Michael Cole’s dogpen announcing booth…it’s Hit or Miss Volume 16!
Hit or Miss: Shelton Benjamin wrestling a dark match for WWE
Matt Waters: Miss. It’s a Hit for his career no doubt, but as the resident ROH geek I have to hop off the fence of impartiality and take the stance of my chosen promotion. Haas & Benjamin seemed a lock to capture the ROH World Tag Team Titles in Atlanta, but given how Shelton spoke about the match the next day it seems he will be returning to the WWE full-time and if that happens it kind of derails the WGTT story. Then again they could win the belts and vacate a-la Bryan Danielson with the PWG World Title which would inevitably lead to a tournament, and indie fans love a good tournament. It kind of leaves Charlie Haas out in the cold, but his technical wrestling prowess will serve him better as a singles competitor in ROH than it did in the WWE.
Chris GST: Hit. It means nothing. He got a payday in his home town and got to see some of the boys. End of story.
0 for 1
Hit or Miss: Jakob Hammermeier going over Green Ant
MW: Hit. He was going to have to beat someone during the course of this story, and hey, it’s only Green Ant, am I right?… ahem. Seriously though, Green Ant has improved since his initial debut but he needs to take more steps forward, so they’ve protected him as best they could by having the loss come via heavy interference.
CGST: Hit. This guy was the Vickie Geurrero of CHIKARA and now he went over a CHIKARA talent and when he gets his, the roof will blow off…an ant hill.
1 for 2
Hit or Miss: The TNA World Title match from Victory Road last night
MW: Hit… just kidding. MISS MISS MISS. I won’t go on about this too long as I’ll be writing about it at length elsewhere, but I’ll just say that it was reprehensibly bad management by TNA to let it go down that way. If Jeff turned up in no condition to work they should have sent him home and made it a triple threat main event rather than taking a wait-and-see attitude and at the last minute throwing together an on-air punishment that Sting should have had no part in. TNA’s handling of the situation sums them up perfectly.
CGST: Hit. In the sense that this SHOULD BE the end of Jeff Hardy in TNA until he cleans up. This is ridiculous, but at the same time there have been plenty of times before when they should have gotten rid of him. They probably won’t though as I write this PWInsider.com is reporting that many behind the scenes want him to be sent home.
1 for 3
Hit or Miss: No Money in the Bank match at this year’s WrestleMania
MW: Hit. I’m in about six minds about this – that’s right, two minds weren’t enough. Money in the Bank has provided Wrestlemania with some truly special high risk, must-see moments that fit with the vibe of the show as the biggest of the year. Taking that away is going to be a bit of a shame, and I’d rather they just did one MITB at Mania and there wasn’t an entire PPV dedicated to it. But the WWE are intent on sticking with the themed PPVs and for the sake of shaking things up, I think it’s a good thing to return to just straight-up matches with no gimmicks. That being said I’d appreciate it returning down the road.
CGST: Miss. I understand using it as a PPV gimmick. But this also got the crowd hot for the event. What other match is going to do that? It was a ncie set up to what is supposed to be an exciting PPV and really WM is lacking that special something already.
1 for 4
Hit or Miss: Johnny Fairplay coming to DGUSA
MW: Hit. The last time Gabe booked Fairplay he got his face destroyed by Nigel McGuinness. There are several hard-hitting gentleman on the DGUSA roster who I’m sure would be happy to oblige this time around. First Flash? If only.
CGST: Hit. Why not. He is a big wrestling fan and even though I don’t think it will add any more buys to an iPPV. It could add some butts-in-seats.
2 for 5
Hit or Miss: The Osirian Portal is the darkhorse to win KOT this year
MW: Hit. That’s a pretty fair assessment. Aside all the “obvious” teams, the Portal probably have the strongest chance, more-so than the Colony who many tipped to win it months ago. The former are fresh and click very well together, the latter are dare I say it… getting a bit stale and have been on a pretty bad losing streak in terms of a trio. My vote still goes to The Spectral Convoy, but the Portal are the darkhorse, yes.
CGST: Hit. With the new trio reportedly doing very well and looking great in the ring, I would say so.
3 for 6
Chris and Matt went .500 this week. Join back in a couple of weeks as we have a WrestleMania edition of Hit or Miss!
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You know what’ll get the fans into Mania more than all the Money in the Bank matches combined? The Rock.