[Ultra Mantis]

The Best and Worst of Armchair Warfare 2: Week One

Since some of my fellow judges have the in-depth reviews covered I'm going to present my three highlights of the night and my three biggest ICW complaints for each show. That doesn't mean I only liked or disliked three things per show, maybe I even had less than three and started clutching at straws.

Here we go.

New Age Pro Wrestling

SPOILER: show

+ Use of win / loss records is a good way to stand out and put the emphasis on the actual importance of winning matches
+ Good job pushing talented guys who haven’t been taken seriously elsewhere such as Primo and Yoshi Tatsu
+ Tag division looks to be an important part of the company

- MVP as owner and Santino as backstage announcer could turn out to be a double edged sword, the latter could use a counterpart to handle the more serious interviews
- Sheamus using the sword gimmick doesn’t seem to fit the style of the promotion
- Lack of huge stars could hurt the way the promotion is perceived, it seems very indy which may put some people off

Universal Carnage Enterprises

SPOILER: show

+ Heel Cena is fresh. UCE seemingly has a lot of money (and Cena merch) to burn.
+ Secondary title tournament is a good way to showcase the midcard. Seems to be only half made up of serious contenders however, due to the “name the belt” stipulation.
+ Strong women’s division.

- Cena losing his spot in the title match without actually losing / AJ winning a spot in the title match without actually winning. This does nothing for Styles and makes Cena looks like an idiot for throwing away his spot.
- Darren Young was overused, pulling double duty. His place in the tournament would have been better going to James Storm.
- Three matches on the opening show end after run ins, including the opener and the heavily hyped women’s tag match. Somewhat disappointing that we got nobody legit qualifying for the PPV world title match and the two biggest stars losing their spots.

Impact Wrestling Corporation

SPOILER: show

+ This show is not starting off as a new promotion, giving Dustin Rhodes an unseen main event push
+ The focus on the stable gives the show continuity, I’m interested to see if The Family is all going to fall apart come PPV time
+ Strong showings for Danielson, Husky, Low Ki and Matt Morgan that could be capitalised on in coming weeks

- World Champion Randy Orton losing to Kozlov in a single move
- Danielson / Low Ki feud is mentioned but not elaborated on
- I found heel / face alignments to be unclear. Are the family heel? Is Danielson or Low Ki the heel? If the family are face does that make Jey Uso a face?

Bad Ass Wrestling

SPOILER: show

+ I like that the company is established before making it to TV, giving it somewhat of an ECW vibe
+ Mr Kennedy gets a strong debut and it really puts over the IC title
+ Samoa Joe looks like a beast in the main event and could be the hottest act on the show

- Feels like this show was trying to speed through things. A slower build would have helped some of the angles, such as Daniels vs. Joe being scheduled for the following week (maybe with Daniels assaulting Joe with the chair in McIntyre’s place) and the tension between Slater and Skip having some time to brew before Heath snapped.
- World Champion is not physically on the first show. I would have liked to see him destroy Jesse Neal or somebody else low on the food chain just to drive home the point that he is the man.
- Daniels looks too weak to be a threat to The Undertaker on PPV

Hard Knocks Wrestling

SPOILER: show

(Neutral observation: “Hard Knocks Wrestling: Cram Sessions” sounds like a Japanese women’s wrestling porn show. The presence of Matt Striker and Val Venis supports this image)

+ Punk getting into a feud with Ric Flair should provide a guaranteed hot promo segment for the rest of the shows run
+ MCMG hype has me interested to see next week’s show, it was a smart move holding them off until next week
+ Batista heels it up like a champ in the opening segment and I would have liked to see him go further about his reasons for not wanting to wrestle tonight.

- Big Show vs. Angle is not a PPV main event I’d want to see, especially with Show stealing the win during a clusterfuck and a teased Angle vs. Jericho feud.
- Swagger getting squashed was a huge disappointment, especially when he and Kurt could have easily put on the best match of the week to start this show very strong.
- It’s unfortunate that Batista switches to a failed stand up comedian gimmick after his tease at the start, I feel he should have just used the promo time to talk about how great he is. Maybe then had a face dare to interrupt him, call him out on not wanting to wrestle and not wanting the title thus setting up a feud.

Until next week, stay classy TPWW.