Monday Night Wars II

[legendkiller003]

I wasn't too impressed with either show. I seemed to fade away from TNA a bit at the end, but once RAW ended I got to see the ending of Impact.

Missed the beat down of Hogan & Abyss because I was into the HBK/Taker promo. Hogan bleeding is always a pleasant sight.. and blood in general.

Great to see RVD, but obviously the match was nothing. No frog splash? Lame. Then he gets beat up for 12 hours. Also, gotta love Taz spoiling RVD. What were you doing at 4:20? Also, the finish to the X Title match was sweet. Never seen that before.

So RAW had a Divas match, meh. A no contest WM preview tag match with a quick beat down. Ok it served it's purpose. Orton/Legacy was ok, but no clue where they're going with it. HHH/Sheamus promo was alright and served it's purpose.

Kinda lost touch with TNA. I know Angle had the troops after Anderson, the Knockout tag title match.. got to see TBP entrance so saw what was important. Didn't see much of Beer Money/Jarrett and the Nash/The Band segment.

Back to RAW, short MITB qualifier.. all cool with Bourne in the match, but what about Kofi? Oh, Criss Angel also appeared to me that he was just Cody Rhodes impersonating a magician. Umm, what else happened before the main event? I don't know, let's go there.

So McMahon makes it a gauntlet match, surprise surprise with something like that. What the hell kind of gauntlet match is this? Kozlov, McIntyre, and Swagger seemed to disappear out of thin air. I guess Cena kicking out of Vince's pins somehow eliminated everyone. Henry coming out was odd.. however Batista was not seeing as he's in Vince's back pocket and faces Cena at Mania. Kofi was a surprise, but he'd been kinda teaming with Cena for a week or two a few weeks back before EC. Still odd. Weird match.

Ending of TNA.. more blood. Must they bleed twice a show every week? I guess they gotta make up for the blood WWE doesn't use. Hogan was pathetic. After the Hulk-up the punches and big boot were atrocious. Random run-ins from Wolfe and Pope.. and then Jeff. Vintage TNA!

So yeah, nothing overly impressive. But looking forward to HBK/Jericho and HHH/Orton on RAW next week. Austin as host should be fun as well.

[D-lo]

The first ratings information on last night's WWE vs. TNA head-to-head battle is that WWE Raw scored a 3.4 rating and 5.1 million viewers. TNA scored a 1.0 rating and 1.4 million viewers

Not good for TNA

[BSU]

Not really good for wwe either. Usually ratings are higher around mania time. I think TNA should really consider going an hour earlier than Raw. Then again perhaps they will slowly begin gaining week by week ala wcw.

[Kurtis]

Just need to wait a few weeks and see what the trends are. More info is needed to make a decent decision on how each is doing...

[Ric]

I REALLY liked the buildup on Raw for Taker/HBK and Cena/Batista. The segments were very well executed on the part of all wrestlers and served to really heighten my interest in these matches. As has been said, they both have an air of unpredictability about them.

Raw's main event WAS hilarious though. All this stuff just happened, and even though it had a concrete final point, it could have been done without turning a gauntlet match into something completely different and making people care even LESS about McIntyre and Swagger (yeah, when wrestlers just leave and don't cause the victory in a main event, they don't benefit from it). LOL at Kozlov suddenly appearing and being really dominant against Cena again. Wasn't he getting owned by Ezekiel Jackson and everyone else only two months ago? And a babyface? What? Why? Who? Where? How?

CONFUSION.

I watched Impact and I must say that I actually watched a FULL two hours without feeling like I shouldn't be. Given some of it was still deriviative (Ric Flair just being there and hurting AJ Styles, Beer Money suddenly being heels, Scott Hall's face) it did feel like a VERY punchy and unpredictable show. RVD, Sting and Jeff Hardy returning were all great and I loved the X Division match, and the Angle/Kenneson segment. Kenneson is so much better as a heel, right on for making him that way. At least Jeff Hardy appeared at the RIGHT PLACE in the card this time, I just wonder if he's actually sticking around. Whoever is TNA's VT director needs to be shot, WHY finish the show 2 seconds before a Swanton Bomb?

I'm more excited about wrestling now than I have been in months, basically!

[BSU]

I'll give WWE the edge this week. Though, in most cases I'll always take a live show over a taped show especially when Steve Austin is hosting.

Not having those crappy guest host/hornswoggle/bellas segments also helped Raw. Pretty sure creative team gave Austin a bunch of ideas and he told them to fuck off.

[legendkiller003]

Just like Batista told that ref to fuck off.

[BSU]

Heel Tista has been awesome and him refusing to take the towel and clean the blood off was great.

[legendkiller003]

They're a bunch of pansies over blood.. yeah ok no one will blade, but is there a need to put on gloves and clean it up immediately. Come on.

[Kurtis]

They used far camera angles to minimize the blood on tv, but you can't help it if it happens accidentally. Raw was not bad besides the finishes to all the past Wrestlemania matches, and I thought Austin could have appeared a little more. TNA was a crammed show like usual.