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From TheSmartMarks.com TNA Live from Binghamton, New York. Shelton Benjamin � vs. Mohammed Hassan (w/Daivari) (Intercontinental title match) We join it in progress with Benjamin using the ropes to escape an armbar and countering with an armbar of his own, but the 10 punch turns into Hassan taking control and hitting a snap suplex for 2. Benjamin counters another one with a small package. Hassan takes control back and hits the chinlock, but Benjamin fights out and sends Hassan out. He follows, but Hassan pushes him into the post and grabs a chair, but of course Austin takes it from him. Hassan locks in an abdominal stretch, but doesn�t grab the ropes or Daivari for leverage like he should so Benjamin quickly fights out and does a nice counter off a suplex attempt, landing on his feet behind Hassan with one hand still around his neck and hitting a neckbreaker. He tries the splash, but Hassan moves and cradles him for 2. Hassan tosses him to the apron and Shelton comes in with a bulldog but instead of going for the pin, he flips Daivari into the ring which allows Hassan to low blow him and lock in the Camel Clutch, but Austin comes in and kicks him off. He declares Hassan the winner by DQ and has Stunners for both of them. Austin and Benjamin then share some brews. Rating: 4/10 Thoughts: Pretty much all Benjamin here, as Hassan still can�t deviate from the basic offense and chinlocks. Benjamin continues to shine, but they really need to give him some better competition, since the RAW midcard is still horrid. Da Coach apologizes to Bischoff about last night, but to Eric, last night never happened. Jericho comes in and asks about a rumor he heard about a WWE title match at Vengeance and Eric officially announces Christian vs. John Cena. Jericho declares he will change Bischoff�s mind about that. HHH heads in and wants to know the second draft pick, but Bischoff is mum. Apparently the pick will be able to speak to Batista tonight and he doesn�t like that. He�s worked too hard setting Batista up for the Cell to have some second-rate Smackdown �jackoff� ruin it. Chris Masters out. He�s upped the reward of his challenge to $11,000. Sgt. Slaughter heads out saying he doesn�t care about Masters� challenge but has a challenge of his own: the Cobra Clutch challenge. He attacks and slaps it on. Masters fades and the arm drops twice, but Masters keeps it up the third time and gets the ropes. He low blows Slaughter and slaps the Masterlock on. The ref lets the arm drop once and calls for the bell. Wait, how come he let Masters� arm drop TWICE and didn�t call for the bell? Can we make up our damn minds about the rules here already? Via video, we recap the HHH/Batista feud from Batista�s face turn to last week�s contract signing. John Cena and Chris Jericho vs. Christian and Tyson Tomko Jericho and Christian start, and there is an obvious increase in tempo and intensity from these guys. Christian kicks out of a Walls attempt and tags Tomko. Jericho dropkicks him and tags Cena, and HE�S keyed up as well, treating Tomko as his own personal punching bag before sending him to the floor and pressing Christian onto him as we take a break. Christian controls on Cena as we return but he puts his head down too soon and Cena hits a shoulderblock. Jericho tags himself in (can�t impress Bischoff by standing on the apron), but Christian and Tomko take control. The match slows down at this point as the heels methodically take turns working Jericho over. Christian hits the chinlock, but Jericho fights out only to eat a DDT for 2. Tomko tags and tries a powerbomb, but Jericho escapes and hits an enziguri before tagging Cena. Jericho keeps Christian at bay while Cena finishes off Tomko with the Five Knuckle Shuffle and an FU for the pin. Suddenly, Jericho pounces on Cena, dropkicking him to the floor and locking on the Walls. He releases the hold and stares at the WWE title belt. Rating: 5/10 Thoughts: Hot start which fizzled a little bit as things went on, but considering you had a couple of weak workers in Tomko and Cena in there, they kept things fairly interesting throughout. We see footage from the Diva Search casting call. The 8 finalists will appear next week. As long as none of them are the black hole of charisma that Carmella was, I won�t complain too much. Jericho catches up with Bischoff in the back, asking him if what he did to Cena changed his mind. Bischoff says it had, which draws in Christian and an argument erupts. Bischoff demands quiet and announces that the WWE title match will be Cena vs. Christian vs. Jericho. Cena jumps Jericho and they brawl around some equipment marked �ECW�. Viscera vs. Maven Viscera brings out Lillian Garcia and apparently they�re a couple now. All right then. Squasheriffic for Vis here. No rating. Ric WHOO Flair and HHH talk about the draft, and HHH wants to make a stand and send a message to whoever�s coming from Smackdown. Really the only mention of One Night Stand is right here, with a commercial plugging encore presentations of the event all week. Kane vs. Sylvain Grenier All this time I�ve been spelling Sylvain�s name wrong. Another squash, but Grenier does get a tiny bit of offense in. No rating. Lita comes out, wanting to clear the air about a few things. First, she brings out Snitsky. She now realizes that what happened to her baby wasn�t his fault; it was Kane�s, since he put her in danger in the first place. She didn�t want a demon-spawn baby running around anyway, so she thanks him with a kiss. She brings out Edge next and announces that they aren�t going to wait until after Vengeance; they�re getting married next week. Odds are there isn�t going to be a midget ring bearer and Trish Stratus isn�t going to show up to this one, so pass. HHH and Flair come out. �I�m going to beat Batista, blahblahblah.� He demands the next pick come out��and it�s Kurt Angle. There goes another reason to watch Smackdown (that crap with Sharmell aside). Angle tells HHH his days of being on top of RAW are over and gets into a �Whoo-off� with Flair. Angle remembers that the last time he saw HHH was at Wrestlemania, you know, when he made Shawn Michaels tap while HHH lost the title in the first place? HHH congratulates him on getting back to �the big leagues� but tells him that he calls the shots on this show. He reminds Angle about getting beat up by Sharmell, so Angle brings up making out with Stephanie behind his back, but according to HHH �everyone made out with my ex-wife� (they�re divorced in the WWE-verse, remember). Angle is impressed with Batista, but not that impressed. He wants a match with him the day after Vengeance. This draws the champ out and he gets into it with Angle so HHH proposes they fight next week. Batista accepts and suddenly Michaels comes out. Since everybody�s making matches, why don�t he and Angle go one more time at Vengeance? Angle accepts, and a brawl breaks out as we fade to black. Final Thoughts: A couple of pretty decent matches, but after how many people were exposed to the more fast-paced ECW style at the PPV (which is a lot according to the preliminary numbers), people might start tiring of squashes and chinlocks. It might be a good idea for Vince to incorporate a bit of the ECW style into his company. I don�t mean all the garbage wrestling and diving off balconies, of course; I�m talking about the up-tempo ringwork and intensity. See you next week. Send feedback to: [email protected] © Copyright by TheSmartMarks.com |