Why Cody Rhodes Is So Dashing

Cody Rhodes

In a previous blog post, Making New Ground. Sort Of, I wrote that under the wings of Randy Orton the members of Legacy - Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase - didn't make much, if any, ground during the time of that particular stable. That's undoubtedly a miserable failure if one of your main eventers can't elevate two mid-card wrestlers -- when it's specifically what he's supposed to be doing! What was the point of Legacy in the first place if it did nothing for the younger guys involved?

Cody as a member of Legacy

It was Randy Orton who eventually went over at Wrestlemania 26 in a Triple Threat match between himself and his former protegés. But when the feud ended there, the beaten men were back at square one. It was now completely up to them to try and elevate themselves up to the upper-mid-card or main event level.

Ted DiBiase stayed on Raw and found it hard getting a push at the best of times. On one episode, he was totally jobbed out by John Cena, who showed the second-generation superstar absolutely no respect. It was the low point of his post-Mania solo run. In an effort to put his career back on track, he resurrected the Million Dollar Man persona that his father used to such great effect in the eighties. It's not a great sign when you have to resort to a gimmick that your dad employed several years ago. . .

Cody, on the other hand, didn't seem to be going anywhere either, at first. He was moved to Smackdown! in the WWE Draft and then paired with a Rookie, Husky Harris, on NXT. It was apparent that he was not high priority for Creative.

In need of a push in the right direction, Cody revealed his brand new disposition:

I must admit, I love this new side of Cody. It's unleashed something in him that we're only beginning to see. He's brash, confident, cocky and tremendously suave on-screen right now. In my opinion, a lot of the best stuff in pro-wrestling is the really simple stuff. Cody's personality is simple: he's a good-looking guy and he knows it. There's nothing that a crowd finds more boo-inducing than someone who likes to tell you how good he is while insulting the viewers at the same time. The same goes for someone who continually tells you how handsome and "dashing" he is, and then says the opposite about his audience. Rhodes has just about perfected it really, and generates a great deal of heat on SD! now. The real test will be to stick him on Raw, and if he can make it work there, then he will have synched it.

I just hope he can continue to be as entertaining in his promos as he has been over the past two months:

His character has also been moulded effectively in a number of ways as well. Most notably, there's the mirror beneath the titantron that he uses for his entrance...

...and, of course, his fantastic Grooming Tips that we've been seeing for the past six or so weeks on SD!

Considering how SD! was practically pillaged in the aforementioned Draft, Cody Rhodes is one of the best things on display every Friday night. Even better is the fact that he's getting a bit of a push at the moment. He recently defeated both Matt Hardy and Christian in consecutive weeks and it now appears that he'll be in a mini-feud involving them, himself and Drew McIntyre. Hopefully that will go somewhere, but with the "sinister Scotsman" involved, Gods only knows if it will go anywhere at all.

As I said earlier, Cody has also been appearing on NXT, where he was mentoring his Rookie Husky Harris until he was eliminated just over two weeks ago. In my estimation, Rhodes has been one of the best Pros in the show's entirety, perhaps only bettered by The Miz, which is understandable once you consider the roll that Mr.MITB has been on this year. He's shot some amusing and entertaining promos on this Tuesday night programme, including this one: 

I always got the feeling on NXT that Cody did the best job at trying to put his Rookie over, aside from maybe LayCool (Michelle McCool and Layla) and their great work with Kaval. I think that's partly evidenced in his reaction (or overreaction, depending on how you look at it) to Husky's elimination. And Cody is still going great on the show without Harris, cutting another good promo last week and won in a decent, if long, match against MVP.

It certainly looks as if the son of Dusty Rhodes and brother of Dustin "Goldust" Runnels is finally getting somewhere. Let's just hope he can stay. . . dashing!

Wham, Bam, Summerslam!

Summerslam took place on 15 August in Los Angeles

Up until the August 9 edition of Monday Night Raw, only three matches had been booked for Summerslam (SS), one of WWE's Big Four pay-per-views. It just goes to show that three weeks is far too short a time to promote such a high profile event. It also points to slack booking, which we've been seeing from WWE in recent times and saw throughout this PPV.

The Intercontinental Championship match between Dolph Ziggler and challenger Kofi Kingston was the curtain jerker. Kofi was trying to regain a title that he had only lost 9 days previously -- did anyone really believe that he was going to win? Answer: no. WWE made the same mistake at Fatal 4 Way. The Miz defended the US Title against R-Truth, whom he had just defeated for the belt on that week's Raw. Needless to say, Mike Mizanin retained on that occasion. I bring this up because you need to give fans a reason to buy a PPV in every match, not just the top two or three on the card.

On top of that, this match was just stale if you had seen any of their other bouts over the past month. So, why couldn't they just wait until SS to put the belt on Ziggler? There was a simple answer to that, as we were to find out. The match was reaching its climax when Kofi missed with Trouble In Paradise and Dolph slapped on the Sleeper Hold. At that moment, Nexus came out of nowhere, attacking them both. The faction of NXT Season 1 Rookies, in trying to make another impact in yet another 7-on-1 beat down, caused this encounter to end in a no contest. . .

Nexus gangs up on Kofi

Following that was the Divas Championship match between Melina and Alecia Fox. This was better than their dour meeting on last week's Raw, but it's too bad that not too many people care that Melina won her first title since returning from an injury that kept her out for a year. The celebrations were interrupted by the self-professed co-Women's Champions, Layla and Michelle McCool, who proceeded to hand her a harsh beating. Alecia will surely be handed a rematch, but a feud between the new Divas champion and the entertaining Laycool could be appealing. Then again, this is the WWE Diva's division, so let's not get our hopes up. . .

Melina

Next up was the 3-on-1 handicap match between the Straight Edge Society (SES) and the Big Show, which was hastily put together the week of the PPV. Once again, just more sloppy booking. I liked the match itself, but at the same time, there was no real reason for it to be on this card other than to fill time.

Show looked dominant from the beginning, before the SES ganged up on him and took the advantage. Inevitably, the World's Largest Athlete gained the double pin over Joey Mercury and Luke Gallows as CM Punk scuttled away from the ring with Serena. All im all, nothing special, but I did like it all the same.

It will be intriguing to see where Punk and the SES go from here. In all their time together they haven't done a whole lot other than shave a few peoples' heads. In recent promos, the Straight Edge Superstar has looked fantastic, but he hasn't been able to take his three cronies anywhere above where they already were. In the context of this match though, CM Punk played the cowardly heel masterfully I thought. This would set up a defection from the SES by it's members quite nicely in my estimation, with the possibility of a Punk-Gallows rivalry or something along those lines. I quite like the sound of that idea, but that begs the question, what do you do with Serena, Gallows and Mercury after then? I guess that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we reach it. . .

Big Show -- Paul White has been great as a face so far

The midway point of the night was marked by two promos, the first of which greeted us to the sight of Kane standing by an empty coffin. He was soon joined by Sheamus, who is continuing to show more and more confidence on-screen.

That was followed by The Miz in the ring, who cut a fantastic promo over his decision to join Team WWE for the main event or not. All I can say is, go look it up and watch it for yourself -- well worth seeing. I did think he was going to turn down the offer, the typical heel thing to do, but it set up the angle for the Daniel Bryan return later on in the show perfectly. . .

The Miz

In last week's article, "Making New Ground. Sort of.", I wrote that both Randy Orton and Sheamus needed a good match in their fight for the WWE Championship, but that Sheamus also badly needed a clean win here. If we look at his title matches, his first reign was won via an accidental fall through the table by John Cena, his Royal Rumble clash with Orton ended in a DQ, he regained the title at Fatal 4 Way after a run-in from The Nexus and retained it at Money In The Bank in almost identical circumstances. Add to that list a DQ loss to The Viper at SS.

Now, if you're trying to push a fresh, new champion as fearsome and powerful in the ring, then the last thing you do is hand him an unimpressive record such as the one I just listed. I was even enjoying this match up until the point where Sheamus shoved the ref when attempting to bring a chair in. He got an RKO on the announce table for his troubles, of course. I don't see The Celtic Warrior retaining the belt at Night Of Champion and I don't envisage anyone else believing he can either. If he can't get a win over an established headliner (such as Triple H, with whom he is expected to feud with in the near future), then he may slip away from being a fixture in the main event level altogether. . .

Sheamus -- Laoch (see trunks) is the Irish for "hero"

Possibly one of the most anticipated matches of the night was the World Heavyweight Championship contest between the holder Kane and Rey Mysterio, who was striving to prove his innocence (although I'm not sure how winning a match would do that). Once again, this was another good, solid bout that was marred by bad booking.

Rey competed well for the most part against the Big Red Machine, so in desperation Kane turned to the casket. On the first attempt, he failed to close the lid on Rey, who looked as if he would eventually find a way to overcome the odds. For once, however, the WWE's Biggest Little Man couldn't find a way past a devastating Chokeslam. The clean pin and the ease with which it was picked up was surprising, but just in case you had forgotten, Kane drilled this big win home with a further Chokeslam as well as a Tombstone Piledriver.

Naturally, Kane went back to the casket once more, only to find The Undertaker inside. Taker looked at his brother, before turning to Rey. At this point, we thought he was singling out the masked man, as he said, 'did you ever hear of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?' Before.. before I make things right.. why? Why'd you do it, Rey?" Mysterio's response was inaudible, unfortunately, but it was all a swerve anyway -- The Phenom swung around and stared menacingly at Kane. He slapped a choke on his apparent attacker, but was hit back and ended up on the receiving end of a Tombstone.

Much like everything else on this PPV, there were good and bad things about this particular angle. First off, I doubt anyone was truly surprised by The Undertaker's return -- one way or another, he was coming back at SS. The way WWE went about it was slightly confusing though. Why did Taker confront Rey in the manner he did if he wasn't the attacker? Was it just for the swerve or did Rey have something to do with it after all? I guess we'll find out more on Smackdown! this coming Friday.

It was also important to make Kane look superior in the way they did. People have to believe that he can beat his brother, as he has been made to look inferior in past feuds, but above all else it's believable -- having just awoken from a storyline coma (notice how he staggers out of the casket), Taker would be susceptible to any competitor, not just a monster heel. There was nothing particularly special about this match or the events immediately after it.

Taker and Kane partake in a choking war

Aaaaand your main event!
The heavily hyped 7-on-7 elimination tag team match between Team WWE (as advertised -- John Cena, Bret Hart, Edge, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, R-Truth and an unconfirmed seventh member) and The Nexus (Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel, David Otunga, Skip Sheffield, Heath Slater, Darren Young and Michael Tarver).

After his awesome promo earlier in the night, it had looked as if The Miz was certain to be that seventh member. But just as Team WWE had made their way to ringside with Miz in the wings in anticipation, John Cena brought out Daniel Bryan in one of those very rare moments in pro wrestling these days -- something that you simply don't see coming.

Cue huge pop, melee in the ring and a crossface from Bryan on Young, thus forcing a submission in the early moments of the 14-man crunch match. The American Dragon didn't reenter the squared circle until Team WWE were down to just himself and Cena, but when he did, he absolutely kicked ass until The Miz ran in and hit him with the briefcase. It's amazing that Michael Cole continues to bury him on commentary. This was a performance good enough to win even the harshest critics over, so to continue on insisting that AmDrag "got lucky" in this bout, that all his in-ring capabilities were conjured up by the Internet and that he is a "dweeb" and a "twerp" is incredibly baffling. Perhaps taking the US title off of his former Pro would change Cole's mind...?

In the final sequence, John Cena was left in a two-on-one situation against Gabriel and Barrett. Gabriel went for the win with his ever-impressive 450 Splash, but Cena moved out of harm's way and subsequently pinned the South African, which looked weak. So did the finish, however, when Barrett tapped out to the NPSTF (No Pressure Stepover Toehold Footlock). All in all, a fairly entertaining match where arguably it's only downfall was in the ending.

This PPV was stuck in an unfotunate pattern. On the whole it was an enjoyable event with good matches. However, nearly all of those matches were marred by sloppy or poor finishes. As I wrote before, the viewer needs a reason in every single match to buy the PPV.

"This Is Awesome" -- Daniel Bryan Returns!

S.S 2010 Part 10, S.S 2010 Part 12 and S.S 2010 Part 13

Uploaded by WWEKingHD. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.

You know, it was talked about during the past few weeks about how awesome it would be for Brian "Daniel Bryan" Danielson to make his return at Summerslam as the seventh member of Team WWE in the 7-on-7 main event contest. But not for one second did anyone believe that would happen. In fact, one person called into Smart Wrestling Fan on Tuesday, suggesting that Daniel Bryan would be in the elimination tag match instead of The Miz, thus turning Bryan into a massive face and creating a great feud. Even that particular caller, though, admitted that WWE Creative would never go for that.

However, when Cena revealed that Bryan would be partaking in the main event, I think everyone was in disbelief at what we were witnessing. The American Dragon made the first elimination early on when he made Darren Young submit with a crossface. He remained on the apron for the majority of the match, but when he finally re-entered the fray, it took me back to his ROH days. This truly was awesome while it lasted.

And the great thing about it was, unlike the Kane-Undertaker-casket angle, this was completely unexpected. I even read the other day that Danielson was booked to be on an indie card at the end of September, so seeing him back this early was surprising to say the least.

This should have been the point where Michael Cole stops burying him on commentary once and for all by the way. At a certain point, it stops being amusing and entertaining, and becomes plain annoying.

Either way, things are looking good for the American Dragon Brian Danielson.
Welcome back Daniel Bryan.

Superstars Scrapheap

First off, anybody out there actually watch Superstars?

*crickets followed by tumbleweed*

Right so, on with the article then. . .

I noticed lately that the ratings for the show in question has been getting lower and lower every week, bit by bit. Of course, I ended up coming to the conclusion that Superstars has become just like Heat and Velocity before it.

What set it apart from those now defunct shows is that, at first, storylines with mid-carders such as Dolph Ziggler were teased out in the ring. Now that isn't the case anymore, but at least it gave people half a reason to tune in. Superstars is also more concentrated on the actual matches, whereas Heat was more of a Raw highlight show with meaningless matches in between that usually involved low carders like Val Venis or just complete jobbers who we'd never see again. Notwithstanding that, Chris Jericho has appeared on it several times as well.

The choice of commentators is also different. Whereas they used to put the likes of Todd Grisham, Josh Matthews, Jonathan Coachman (remember him?) and Jack Korpela (oh god) on the announce desk, WWE actually puts Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and Matt Striker on commentary for this Thursday night programme. It's only a small thing, but it does matter to wrestling fans.

So on the basis of that evidence, it would seem as if WWE did put some stock in it at the beginning. But when I tune into it on Friday evenings (when it airs in Ireland) I don't get the feeling that anyone cares about this slot anymore (that is, of course, if anybody cared about it in the first place).

In all honesty, it's a bit of a black hole for any talent who are unfortunate enough to end up on it these days. Many of the wrestlers who now appear on Superstars, seem to be perpetually affixed to it. Chris Masters, for instance, returned a few short months ago to Raw, but ever since has wrestled solely on Superstars. Maybe that's a bad example, because I actually don't want Masters anywhere near my television screen to begin with.

If we take, say, Chavo Guerrero, who has been out of the loop since his feud with Rey Mysterio really. In the last month or two, however, Chavo has been missing from Smackdown! and is now on a "winning streak" on Superstars according to Grisham. I actually like Chavo, I've always been a fan of his. I've watched a few matches he had back in WCW and I think WWE have really missed the ball with this guy. He's so good, and yet he hasn't been used in the right way on so many occasions. I just don't see how the Santino and Kozlov double act makes it onto Raw, supposedly your flagship wrestling show for the week, when Chavo should at least have a good spot on Smackdown! instead of doing this crap.

Just as we see weekly in NXT, where Rookies are made to do idiotic tasks, it is yet another example of WWE misusing their talent.

Making New Ground. Sort Of.

Summerslam, the first Big Four pay-per-view in the lead-up to WrestleMania, is this weekend and there's one match in particular that I am very curious to see. . .

And before you ask: NO, it's not the Team WWE versus Team Nexus 7-on-7 main event I'm speaking of. Rather, it's the WWE Championship bout between Sheamus and Randy Orton that I'm looking forward to.

As you may remember, these two faced off for the same title at Royal Rumble in a lacklustre match-up. Back then these two men were on different paths to the ones they are on now.

Firstly, Orton was still a heel! Quite hard to believe it was such a short time ago. Secondly, he still had The Legacy tagging along with him. Thirdly, this was Sheamus's first title reign, so he was extremely green both in the ring and on the mic. 

Looking back, and it's very easy to be wise after the event, but I think it was fairly obvious at the time that Orton wouldn't be taking the title off The Celtic Warrior on this particular night. We all knew that the triumvirate he had with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr. was nearing an end, so what sense would it have made to put the title on him so close to 'Mania? He certainly didn't elevate Rhodes and DiBiase to main event level, so there was never going to be a face-off between the three for the championship. It's never a good sign for what should be a big match when one can work out the finish with relative ease.

And lo' and behold, Sheamus won via disqualification after Rhodes attacked him.





The idea here, of course, was to speed up the division between Orton, Rhodes and DiBiase, while keeping the belt on the Irishman. Now, I've no problem with trying to progress an on-screen storyline, but I was seriously pissed off at the time with how WWE went about it in this instance. I don't think anyone buys a PPV to watch crappy finishes to headline contests such as these. It did nothing to generate heat with the audience for the Legacy feud and it certainly didn't give Sheamus any credibility as a champion, despite his squashing of the Viper afterwards. All I could think was, "this has transitional champ written ALL OVER IT."

Subsequently, Sheamus dropped the title to John Cena at Elimination Chamber,thus setting up a feud with Triple H, while Legacy finally split from Orton in the same match.

Sheamus lost to Trippers at WM, and while he eventually beat The Game at Extreme Rules, a win on the 'Grandest Stage Of 'Em All' would have given him the push of a lifetime -- nothing builds up a character quite like a victory over an established superstar at 'Mania. The Triple Threat match on the same card was enjoyable, as Orton gained the win by pinfall, but it wasn't the kind of ending that this rivalry deserved. Not looking great for these supposed main eventers so.

Fast forward five months, Sheamus holds the WWE Championship once again and Orton has since turned face. So, what's changed in the meantime? What's the difference between then and now?

Well, it would definitely seem as if Sheamus has grown in confidence as well as stature in the intervening months. He's become a lot smoother in the ring than he used to be and can now create genuine heat from the audience. He has undoubtedly improved since his first title reign in my estimation.

Orton, on the other hand, has been treading on new ground -- he's been living life as a fully fledged babyface! This was unthinkable after the ill-fated face turn following his split from the super heel faction Evolution. The lesson learned from that storyline was to keep The Legend Killer a bad guy -- until now.

There were many sceptics who predicted that he would not be able to cut it as a so-called good guy, that he was just too hateable to make it work. And truth be told, he did struggle to connect with the fans at first and I felt this would end up much like Edge's short lived face turn earlier on this year. Over the past few weeks, however, he's been receiving huge pops from the crowd each and every time he steps into the ring. I reckon it would be fair to say that he hasn't been this over in quite a while. As a face, it would seem, Randy is loved by the fans.

But what does all this mean for their encounter this coming Sunday?

It's been asserted by other writers I've read and podcasters that I've listened to, that Sheamus is simply keeping the belt warm for Triple H, who will no doubt be looking for revenge after being attacked by The Celtic Warrior at Extreme Rules. If this is the case, I imagine the Irishman will gain the victory here, but it all hangs on the finish for me. If it ends in a non-finish or another DQ, it could potentially ruin a perfectly good contest. Hopefully it won't come to that.

My best case scenario is that Sheamus wins cleanly. Ultimately, though, these two guys need to have a good match. This PPV and their year almost depend on it.

Podcast Of The Week: Smart Wrestling Fan

Welcome to podcast number three in the POTW series!

If you've been following this column, you'll know that it is usually found on my main blog, The Novelty Act, but this week I wanted to do something a little different and, considering the content, felt it deserved to be posted on The Unfinished Article.

As the mere existence of this particular blog will suggest, I'm a big wrestling fan. Unfortunately, it's not terribly easy to follow pro wrestling in Ireland unless you have Sky Digital, which I don't. Instead I must catch up on the week's WWE action every Sunday morning on Sky1 or watch it illegally on the Internet. That's where the AWARD WINNING Smart Wrestling Fan comes in. . .

SWF is a weekly wrestling review show that airs every Tuesday and subsequently podcasted on Wednesday. The show is hosted by "Smart" Joe Negron and Max Laughton, who is affectionately known to listeners as The Dshban. Notwithstanding that, Dshban co-hosts the show all the way from Australia. Even more incredible in my mind is the fact that he's only 18, a mere two months older than myself!

Dshban meets Layla at a WWE signing in Australia

Joe Negron and his other hobby -- video games.

I had never been one for wrestling podcasts until I found SWF. For months before then, I had been a subscriber to the CHIKARA Podcast-A-Go-Go, which is how I came across Joe Negron's SWF, but that was about it. You see, most wrestling podcasts are far shorter (SWF is usually an incredible three hours long) and rather than run through all of the week's action from each show in full, they tend to skim through the finer details. SWF, on the other hand, covers each show on their programme, from NXT to Raw and even TNA iMPACT! They even covered Chris Jericho's game show, Downfall, while it was on the air and towards the end of each show there is a brief recap on the week's Ring Of Honor.

Joe and Dshban don't just cover the week in pro wrestling though -- they cover it with considerable proficiency, which is why it's considered one of the best podcasts around by their fans and separates it from many other ones as well. They know their wrestling, that's for sure, but they also don't enter the obnoxious smarky territory that can be a real turn-off for the casual listener. They're not afraid to give their opinions either, as can be seen by this clip where Joe criticises TNA:

That extract is from a slightly old episode sans Dshban, but it is Joe at his best -- himself and Dshban are not afraid to tell it as it is, and they certainly don't shy away from criticising TNA. Of course, it is argued that they let each other go a bit too far with their antics, but I think that's a matter of opinion. I, for one, find it amusing and enjoyable.

So beloved of SWF are their fans, that they go to great lengths for one of their favourite shows. Some of them make one-off or weekly donations in order to keep the show running from week to week. . .

. . . some fans create fantastic artwork in dedication to the show. . .

. . . some fans even go as far as composing songs!

These creative fans have made such an emotional investment in SWF, because it is simply one of the most enlightening (as enlightening as pro wrestling can be) and entertaining podcasts around! Three hours can be a bit much for even the best of us, but it definitely grows on you as you begin to listen in on a weekly basis. Like I said before, I never was one for wrestling podcasts/radio shows. But now, whenever I finish one episode, I want to be able to download the next one right away!

And if you just so happen to be a big fan of SWF, then you can help out the show while looking good at the same time by purchasing some merchandise at Café Press.

You can also help the show by buying items from Joe's Crazy Auction Store (ebay) or his Amazon wishlist.


iTunes Description:

Joe Negron and Dshban discuss the week in Pro Wrestling. WWE, TNA, ROH and MORE.

Joe Negron and Dshban bring you show number 267 of the AWARD WINNING Smart Wrestling Fan Wrestling Review Show. Monday Night RAW, Friday Night Smackdown, TNA Impact, NXT, Lucha Libre USA, Ring of Honor, Mr. Mutant Larry's Song, and lots more!

 
If you want to find out even more about Smart Wrestling Fan there are plenty of places for you look. Their official website is brilliant and there are plenty of links there too, of course. Undoubtedly, they have a fan page on Facebook, so you can join up there and take part in the forums. Join SWF on Stickam as well, which is where the show is broadcast live every Tuesday.
 
 

 
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Chikara Podcast-A-Go-Go
Smart Video Game Fan
Pro Wrestling Ponderings
Angry Marks
A Wiggly World 
We Talk Games
Pro Wrestling Report
Off The Ropes