Entertainment Report
Issue #4
10/11-17/12
Welcome to another jammed back edition of the Entertainment Report. This is why I love doing this thing, there's always alot of to cover and talk about in a given week. So without further ado, let's get started...
Wrestling PPV Rundowns
Before I get into the show one quick note, TNA added the X-Division Title match hours after press time last week. As for the show itself, there were alot of title changes, a hot crowd and a few surprises.
Rob Van Dam defeated Zema Ion to win the TNA X Division Championship
Samoa Joe defeated Magnus to retain the TNA Television Championship
James Storm defeated Bobby Roode
Joey Ryan defeated Al Snow to receive a TNA contract thanks a returning Matt Morgan hitting the Carbon Footprint on Snow
Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez defeated Kurt Angle and AJ Styles and Daniels and Kazarian to win the TNA World Tag Team Championships
Tara defeated Miss Tessmacher to win the TNA Knockouts Championship, Jesse from Big Brother was revealed as Tara's "Hollywood Boyfriend"
Aces & Eights defeated Sting and Bully Ray to gain full access to TNA, Devon revealed as a member of Aces & Eights
Jeff Hardy defeated Austin Aries to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship
Thoughts
Let me get this straight. After a month of hype by Tara playing up her "Hollywood Boyfriend". So she plays it up like it's someone kind important. I wasn't expecting an A or B level celebrity, but there had to be a D level celebrity that TNA would use to help pop the ratings.So Tara wins the Knockouts Championship and she reveals her boyfriend and it's...Jesse from Big Brother. What the fuck?!?! Seriously TNA?!?! Now as a fan I hope to watch that useless piece of shit wannabe model/wrestler every fuckin week?!?! This is thebest you could do? Just aggravating.
Moving on to actual important storyline developments. Devon was revealed as a member of Aces & Eights. That is actually a stranger choice than Garrett Bischoff. Hopefully this makes some kind of sense, or else this has been a complete waste of time.
One question I'm actually curious about is why Matt Morgan helped Joey Ryan beat Al Snow out of no where?
As for the title changes the only two I understand are Jeff Hardy and Tara. Having RVD win the X title doesn't need it, hopefully this will work for the X Division as a whole. Also why did Hernandez and Chavo win the tag belts? They weren't on the radar to actually win.
At least Samoa Joe and James Storm won, which is a good thing.
Caprice Coleman and Cedrick Alexander defeated The Bravado Brothers
Mike Bennett defeated Mike Mondo
World's Greatest Tag Team defeated Rhett Titus and B.J. Whitmer
Jay Lethal defeated Davey Richards
Tadarius Thomas defeated Rhino (Rhino replaced Roderick Strong after he quit he House of Truth)
Adam Cole defeated Eddie Edwards to retain the ROH Television Championship
S.C.U.M. defeated The Brisicoes to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championships
Kevin Steen defeated Micheal Elgin to retain the ROH World Heavyweight Championship
Thoughts
It looks like Jay Lethal and Micheal Elgin came out of this show like made men. I'm still stunned that Lethal defeated Richards the way he did. As for Elgin, it looks like he's going into a rivalry with Roderick Strong who left the House of Truth. That should be a great matchup.
After Steen won his match and Nigel McGuinness handed him a box and it had El Generico's mask in it. I'll be honest I didn't see that coming.
Now ROH can relax a bit since their next big IPPV isn't till Final Battle in New York in December. If this show, and even this weeks TV show, is a sign of things to come, I'm kinda excited about ROH again.
Sports News
On Tuesday, as a fan, I was glued to Twitter trying to get information on the deal that the NHL offered the NHLPA to end the lockout.
Here's the basic details so far to make it easy...
- November 2nd start date. 82 games with additional games in April to make up the difference.
- 50/50 split between the players and owners.
- For the season to start on 11/2, the lockout has to end by 10/25, so training camp can start on 10/26.
That's the update as of now. If news breaks between now and next Thursday, I will post up a special edition of the Report.
The American Hockey League started its' season last week. The Admirals opened up their 35th season on Friday night in Grand Rapids. After going down 2-0, Chris Mueller put the Ads on the board in the last minute of the second period. In the 3rd, a new start was born as rookie Patrick Cehlin scored twice to lead the Ads to a 3-2 win.
Next Week: Friday night is the home opener vs. Charlotte and I will attending with Scotty so I will have pictures int he report next week. After that game the Ads will be going on a four game round trip through Texas to play San Antonio, Houston and Texas.
On Monday night, Mike Modano, Eddie Olczyk and Lou Lameriello were officially inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame. This is a huge honor that put in the background because of the lockout. So congratulations to them.
TV News
In the past I've said that I love when this show breaks from the norm. This week was so out of the norm it was awesome. I men the show included the Charleston, the Mambo, the Jitterbug and even a Bollywood act. It was very free-form and even guest judge Paula Abdul seemed to fit in well.
Best Performances: Gilles/Peta, Shawn/Derek, Kelly/Val
Worst Performances: Kristie/Maks, Bristol/Mark
Bottom 2: Kristie/Maks, Bristol/Mark
Eliminated: Bristol/Mark
Thank you America! Finally got this one right! Bristol should have been gone on week two.
Next week should be fun, guilty pleasures dance and the group numbers, they are going Gangham Style! Sorry I'm looking forward to that.
Episode: Stash Bashes
Before I get into the show, I really liked the show being a half hour instead of a hour. It was just enough show without getting boring.
As for the show, in what world is having a four year old's birthday party in a comic book shop a good idea? Only Ming would think that one up. This was a hilarious clusterfuck, with Walt's facial expressions making it for me. Bryan as "Four Color the Comic Book Clown" actually had me roaring in laughter, especially "attempting to make balloon animals".
As for the items that were sold and bought, there weren't nearly as obscure as last season but that's not a bad thing. I really loved the massive Darth Vader helmet.
Good start for the new season.
The all star format seems to be working for DWTS, so of course Donald Trump would want in on the fun. This week the cast for the show was announced:
- Trace Adkins
- Stephen Baldwin
- Gary Busey
- Penn Jiliette
- Lil Jon
- Dennis Rodman
- Dee Snider
- Marilu Henner
- LaToya Jackson
- Claudia Jordan
- Omarosa
- Lisa Rinna
- Brande Roderick
- Bret Michaels
Now that's an awesome cast. Also announced is that Mr. Trump will have additional advisers in the boardroom, along side Ivonka, Don Jr. and Eric...
- Joan Rivers
- Piers Morgan
- Arsenio Hall
- John Rich
This is not even a joke. This could be the most entertaining season of this show ever.
In honor of Gary Busey returning, I dipped into the archives of this blog and decided to reprint the top ten Gary Busey from the 2010 season. Hopefully we get some fun ones this time around.
#10 "A righteous truth, A-R-T is the defination of art. Because you need heart for the art and the art brings the heart."
#9 "What we did better is what we did on the day of the task."-Gary
"What do you mean?"-Donald
"It means we did better on that day,"-Gary.
#8 "Like freedom, Facing Real Exciting Energy Developing Out Miracles."
#7 "I know nothing's free but my heart to your heart is free."
#6 "I think they should be used to be looked at to be usable."
#5 "Pizza makes you put on your clothes like you're a fish"
#4 "The team I have, everyone is like a different color of the rainbow."
#3 "Where the pepperoni lands that where the miracle will happen!"
#2 "There were no mistakes made. If there was a mistake made, it was to understand that a mistake is a gift so you just brush it away and achieve it in another way."
#1 "It's like having the best ingredients in the world to make the best cake you can make. It's gonna come out tomorrow, it's gonna be warm and fluffy and put a drop, put a scoop of chocolate or vanilla ice cream on that cake, it'll melt, and oh yi-yi-yi, it'll be fun to eat!"
Wrestling Newsbytes
Sting inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame
As much as I still don't get why TNA has a Hall of Fame, it's cool to see Sting get honored. It has made me wonder if this is going to be yearly and if it's only going to be one person at a time. Just seems weird to have the whole big ceremony for just one person.
Gail Kim named the #1 woman wrestler of the year in the PWI Female 50
While the list isn't as big of a deal as the PWI 500, this is a big deal for her. This is the surprisingly the first time she got the honor. Congrats to her.
DVD Review
It has been a long time since I was really excited about getting a DVD. I'm not one of the people who rush out to get a DVD the week it comes out, this DVD is the exception. It took three stores to find it but when I got home to watch this set I was looking foward to it. It was not disappointed.
First thing I noticed was when it started it felt like a ESPN 30 for 30 documentary. Honesty was the keywod in this presentation. Punk was very open about his family issues and starting a backyard wrestling organization, Lunatic Wrestling Federation, with his brother and friends.
This led to being trained by Ace Steel and moving onto the Independent Wrestling Association. It was really cool to see the old footage that Punk gave them. It also showed us how he discovered his straight edge character inspired by his then girlfriend. It's also awesome to hear from Colt Cabana and Chris Hero through this.
Moving onto ROH, yeah WWE actually should Ring of Honor footage, including step-by-step through the now famous Summer of Punk storyline starting with pinning Austin Aries to the epic emotional final match against Colt.
This leads us to the WWE portion of the DVD. I'm not going to do the blow by blow commentary. But I will say I liked how they actually showed both points of view on every topic. They had Michael Hayes & Triple H talking on behalf of WWE management and Punk and Paul Heyman taking Punk's side. t was actually very informative while not entirely destroying the business.
Extras
On the first disc there is an extra hour of clips that were cut from the documentary. Included is talking about December to Dismember, what his name means and really interesting stories.
The other two discs are 11 full matches, including pre-match videos and the "commercial free" version of TV matches. Included are the amazing Cena/Punk MITB match, Punk/John Morrison on ECW and the rivalries with Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio.
Final Thoughts
This is one of my favorite WWE produced documentary DVDs ever. It was well put together and told a great story even a non-wrestling fan would enjoy.
Grade: A
Quick Hits
- I guess it was a good idea that I decided not to get into Made in Jersey. CBS made it the first show to be cancelled of the fall season after two episodes
- Why does it shock anyone that a re-run of a web show, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, is getting bad ratings on the CW? Even the most uber NPH either didn't feel like watching it again or just didn't know it was on. I mean it's on the CW after all.
- I have to admit I found the Justin Bieber "secret footage" publicity stunt hysterical. I can't believe how many people fell for it.
- Thank you NFL for announcing that Beyonce will be performing the Super Bowl halftime show. It gives me a built in bathroom break like I had for the Black Eyed Peas and Prince.
- Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are going to host the Golden Globes this year and I might actually consider watching the show this year for the first time.
Podcast Plug
With Comic Book Men returning this week that meant the return of the companion podcast, The Secret Stash. For SMod fans it's actually combines SModcast, Tell 'Em Steve Dave and I Sell Comics. The hosts are Kevin Smith, Walt Flanigan, Bryan Johnson, Ming Chen and Mike Zapcic. This week's return episode was recorded at the Gramercy Theater in New York, and included talk about childhood toys and television shows. It's a really funny and worthwhile listen this week.
That's it for Issue #4. If you have any thoughts or comments on anything covered here or in the past issues, drop me an email at entertainreport@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @Reilly21106.
Next week I will be covering WWE's Hell in a Cell PPV, DWTS going Gangham style and hopefully happy news from the NHL.
Till then, thank you for reading.
