Sunday, JULY 13 – 11:23 A.M.

-Just in case anyone had forgotten, and that could be many of you, TNA presents their Victory Road pay-per-view tonight from Houston, Texas. Given the fact that many of the wrestlers involved did not appear on last Thursday’s Impact, such as Christian Cage, Rhino, Team 3D, and Kevin Nash, and due to the utter lack of hype surrounding the booking leading up to tonight’s show, TNA should not be too optimistic about a high buyrate.

-The main question going into tonight’s show should be whether or not Samoa Joe can retain his TNA World Heavyweight Championship against hometown challenger Booker T. However, the spotlight is all over the place. There is the situation with Kevin Nash and Joe. Additionally, Sting has interjected himself back into the title picture (seemingly). Just like they frequently do, TNA has managed to overbook yet another situation.

-As I mentioned on one of my TNA Impact television reports many weeks back, Booker T was doing very little for me as a main event level heel. However, he quickly turned that around and as a result, I could definitely see him walking out of Houston tonight as the TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Do I think TNA should book the title change? Yes.

I would not be surprised if I received a bunch of emails saying I would be crazy to take the belt off Joe. However, I see this as a long term opportunity for him as a babyface champion. Booker is hot right now so as far as him becoming the champion, it is now or probably never. Since TNA has not been booking Joe all that well as champion, it would make a lot of sense to stack the odds to nearly insurmountable levels against him. Thus, Booker can have his title reign, Joe can win back the title in dramatic fashion, and he can then enjoy a long title reign, assuming TNA can book him correctly at that point.

-Also on the PPV horizon is The Great American Bash, which is shaping up to be a solid show. C.M. Punk vs. Batista, Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho, and Triple H vs. Edge seem more like Summerslam main events to me. John Cena vs. JBL has been done to death and probably will not be popular for the live crowd, but given the match stipulation, it could be and should be very good. I will definitely have more to say about the show as the week progresses.

-WWE.com has a poll up asking fans to vote on who they think Kane was referring to when he repeatedly asked, “Is he dead or alive?” While Vince McMahon and Paul Bearer predictably made the list, I was surprised at the inclusion of Tupac. Kane contemplating the whereabouts of the deceased rapper is just funny to ponder.

Wednesday, JULY 9 – 7:35 A.M.

-Last night’s ECW show was horrible for the second week in a row and ironically, it was not the fault of two week long ECW Champion Mark Henry. Henry has been a pleasant surprise to me. Not too long ago, I basically compared his mic skills to a bedtime story. However, he has been entertaining on the stick, both last week with Tommy Dreamer and Colin Delaney, and this week with Tony Atlas. The fact that Delaney is not on the disabled list shows Henry is improving in the ring. I would not call him the “savior of ECW,” but he is doing well in his new role.

-As for the show itself, the roster is just so painfully thin. As long as the show is scoring ratings for the SciFi network, the show will remain on the air. However, ECW is portrayed as a joke even within WWE. Even when ECW was treated like the Jan Brady of the company, it was presented as a serious product, but now, they seem to be making fun of their own show.

Case in point: Mike Adamle. He was a historic wreck during his debut week and in the few weeks that followed. Once he settled in, he was unnoticeable, which for him was a good thing. In my weekly ECW TV reports, I did not write anything about Adamle for awhile, which meant I did not notice any glaring mistakes. He was not good by any means, but not being a disgrace to the wrestling business is a suitable goal for Mike every week.

Last night, Tazz went out of his way, even more that usual, to make Adamle look like a complete jackass. Adamle does a perfectly good job of this on his own. Tazz is bordering on being unprofessional, but it is acceptable in this case because Adamle brings the treatment upon himself with his lack of skills and preparation. Also, it is damn funny.

When Tazz moved to ECW, back when Rob Van Dam, Big Show, Kurt Angle, and Paul Heyman were on the show, it seemed like a logical and decent move for him. Once the show was internally bitchslapped by the company and all of those big names took off, poor Tazz was left behind. It was like the tenth season of Happy Days when Chachi and Joanie left to do their own show and Fonzie was left with next to nobody to work with. Tazz is Fonzie. Ayyyyeeee.

Five years ago, people called Tazz the best color analyst in the business, and he was. If it was not for the long standing partnership and friendship of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, he probably would have been moved to the flagship show. If it was not for his ECW past, he would have at least stayed on Smackdown. Granted, Tazz still has a great job that a lot of us would love to have, but being where he is compared to where he was has to be an extreme (no pun intended) letdown.

-Look at it this way: Jonathan Coachman was the color analyst for the main event at Wrestlemania XXIV. Beyond that scary fact, we all know that Adamle is making $300,000 a year and WWE is trying to get a return on their “investment.” I understand that. What I do not understand is why they gave Adamle so much money to begin with. Even if he was the next Jim Ross, giving a guy that much coin who knew so little (virtually nothing) about the product was crazy. It is like giving an unproven NFL rookie millions of dollars. If that is the going rate, Jim Ross should be making about 30 million dollars per year.

Tuesday, JULY 8 – 6:24 A.M.

-Raw was definitely an interesting show last night. It was not as good as last week’s show, but it certainly provided some interesting moments and left me very intrigued as to where they are going in certain areas.

-Rightfully so, I will begin with World Heavyweight Champion C.M. Punk. Not many people are going to love the fact that he wrestled Snitsky, but if they are presenting Punk as someone who will wrestle anyone for the love of competition, I like it. It was a non-title match. If Punk is constantly wrestling on the show, he will become more recognizable to the fans and they can “pad his stats” with multiple victories. Also, they will accumulate plenty of footage to make a video stating how well his title reign is going.

I also like the fact, with a little bit of subtlety, they continued the “Whodunit” angle with Punk. The fact that someone went after Vince McMahon and is now going after Punk could lead to something potentially very interesting. At the very least, people will talk about it. They could completely blow it but we will have to wait and see.

Where I felt WWE messed up last night was when they did not let Punk join Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler on commentary during the main event. It would have made perfect sense to have him there because he is very good on the microphone and his PPV opponent was being determined in the match. Since John Cena, Batista, and JBL mysteriously disappeared after the conclusion of the match, Punk could have done the same. I found it to be a wasted opportunity to further put over the new champion.

-Of course, the ending of the show last night will prompt a lot of discussion. When Kane was drafted to Raw, I felt as though he would linger in the midcard like he has in the past. While I hope he stays there, at least they can make him interesting again. I could see him working a PPV main event like he did back in 2004, but I hope they do not go down that road.

No one will ever believe that Kane is actually going to win one of the major titles, so having him main event a PPV would not really sell a lot of shows. Building him up to challenge Punk on a main event of Raw would be a better way to go. Needless to say, it is imperative to create and establish interesting personalities for everyone on the card, so I am anxiously curious to see who Kane is talking about when he asked “Is he dead or alive?” and to see where they take him from here.

-Moving on, Raw needs an authority figure and not surprisingly, William Regal is eligible to come back soon. I had been clamoring for a Regal push for years and was happy when he won the King of the Ring. I am hoping WWE shows the confidence in Regal that they have shown in Jeff Hardy since his return from strike two. I doubt he will be pushed to the point he left off at right away, but I hope they will at least put him back in his General Manager role. Of course, they could put him back into the ring, retire JBL again, and have JBL become the General Manager. That could work too.

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