We all generally liked the former No Way Out. If Elimination Chamber was a two hour show, it might’ve been one of the great PPVs of our time. Sadly, there was a middle hour that dropped it down a notch.

Here’s what we had to say about the show:

Big D
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Smackdown Chamber
Worst Match: Maryse and Gail Kim vs. Michelle McCool and Layla

We talked about it in detail on the last edition of FGB Radio. Show had an awesome opener and closer with the chambers and successfully set up a multitude of matches for Wrestlemania without sacrificing match-quality. I liked the surprise of Batista and HBK (even I predicted it verbatim on our Rumble postgame) and it’s good to see Jericho with the belt again.

Duan
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Smackdown Chamber
Worst Match: Drew McIntyre vs. KaneContinue Reading »

UFC’s first trek down under was a huge success as the Ultimate Fighting Championship held UFC 110 before a sold out crowd of 20,000 in Sydney, Australia at the Acer Arena. It was the second fastest international sellout in UFC history behind UFC 83 in Montreal. PRIDE went 2-1 on the show, as we saw Wanderlei and Crocop earn victories, but Nogueira ultimate fell to the hands of the younger, faster, stronger Cain Velasquez.

So today, for the first time ever, all five core members of FightGameBlog will comment on the event.

Cactus Jim
Thumbs up.
Best Fight – George S. versus Joe S.
Worst Fight – Cro Cop versus Perosh

I’m still a little pissed that we’ve only seen one title fight in the last 8 events spanning 4 months. I certainly appreciate a good fight, title or not, but there just seems to be something missing for me when I’m paying $45 and not even getting a title fight. Let’s hope nothing causes delays to the title fights scheduled for the next 3 PPV’s. Now that I’m off my soapbox, I really enjoyed UFC 110. While there wasn’t really anything I’d consider a classic, all the fights were entertaining, even the fight I picked as worst of the night.

Alan
Thumbs up
Best Fight: George vs. Joe
Worst Fight: CroCop vs. Perosh
Continue Reading »

2010’s Super Saturday UFC show is now just a recent memory fading, fading, and fading into history. In fact, this show probably NEEDED to fade. But oh well, let’s see what the Gods had to say…

GG

Thumbs down
Best Fight: Chael Sonnen vs. Nate Marquardt
Worst Fight: Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller

Well, this wasn’t exactly the kind of card we hoped for, but it wasn’t all bad. I did enjoy seeing Matt Serra get a knockout win. Frank Trigg didn’t look good at all and retirement may be in his future. I was befuddled that they’d put another decision on from earlier in the night right after Demian Maia’s boring win over Dan Miller, but they wanted to showcase Mr. Wonderful. They shouldn’t waited until after Swick vs. Thiago. Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt was very fun, but not your regular fun fight. There wasn’t a lot of back and forth and it was mostly a wrestling destruction by Sonnen. I think Marquardt made the fight by continuing to fight from his back, but Sonnen really schooled him on this night. And Couture knocking out Coleman was anticlimactic because the second you saw Coleman react slowly to Randy’s punches, it was only time before he was going to be finished.

Cactus Jim
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So the 2010 WWE Royal Rumble is now in the history books. The winner this year was the returning Edge, whom I knew would return and eliminate his rival Chris Jericho, but really had no clue that he was going to go on and win the damn thing. There were numerous people who could’ve won and numerous top guys that made sense and it seemed like the WWE overly telegraphed Shawn Michaels to win the thing and he infact did not.

Unfortunately for me, I missed the first 90 minutes or so of the show because DirecTV is run by a buncha Helen Kellers. Amazing that a company that has been around for 2 decades manages to make the same mistakes they made then. Is Michael Cole a VP? I was extremely pleased when Triple H got eliminated and wasn’t one of the final four like he always is, much less the winner. You know how much I hate that man and more importantly you all know how happy I am to see Edge back and what a huge Edge fan I am so yes, it was indeed a good night for me.

What about the rest of the Fight Gamers?

Let’s take a looksie!

Duan a.k.a. “Tall D”
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The first TNA PPV of the Hulk Hogan era is in the books and is getting all sorts of mixed reviews all throughout the interwebs. GG and I were the only ones who got to see it from FGB, so here are our thoughts:

GG
Thumbs in the middle
Best match – Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles
Worst match – Tara vs. ODB

I don’t mind sacrificing great wrestling to push angles if you deem them important first off. But none of the stuff they pushed as huge was really all that big. Ken Anderson was a huge let down. There were only two matches that were really good. I liked Desmond and Pope because it was something different. It was long and had some boring spots, but it was easy to follow and they told a good story. Angle and AJ was good, but not great. I don’t like AJ as a heel or as a Ric Flair like character. It looks like something that’s doomed to fail.

Also, Daniels losing to Morley was terrible. That kind of stuff is a what makes people change the channel and what doomed WCW. I give them a bit of a mulligan because they don’t have their stuff together, but also can’t give this anymore than a thumbs in the middle.

Big D
Thumbs in the Middle
Best match – The Pope vs. Desmond Wolfe
Worst Match – Tara vs. ODB

We saw a bunch of changes, including a new set, ramp, and now FOUR-Sided ring. But these are NOT necessarily the changes I hoped for with Hogan and Bischoff in control. The “WWE jobbers” as I call it were put over way too often, with Ken Anderson flopping in his victory over Abyss and the former Val Venis botching in HIS win over Chris Daniels, who by the way was MAIN EVENTING the last two TNA PPVs and having classic matches in both. Some good stuff though was the main event and the awesome Pope vs. Wolfe match, which I think stole the show. At first I was lukewarm to the idea of AJ Styles as a heel, then I realized he’s too short and not believable as a bad guy. I’m a wrestling fan and I’m supposed to BOO AJ Styles and Ric Flair? Huh? Big mistake. There were a LOT of mistakes made on this show, and some small improvements… so it’s gotta be in the middle.

WWE’s first ever TLC is in the books. WWE’s shocking attempt at actually pushing young talent had mixed results, with Sheamus winning the WWE Championship from John Cena in a finish that none of us could predict, but also with Kofi Kingston losing to Randy Orton cleanly, something that we all feared would happen, but deep down knew it was the route they’d go.

GG:

Thumbs Up
Best Match: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian
Worst Match: Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool

I didn’t think they were going to give Shelton and Christian enough time to steal the show like they wanted, but they did and this was a tremendous match. What it really cemented in my head is that Shelton Benjamin is the single greatest athlete in WWE and he’s wasting his talent. He needs to go into MMA right now. I thought Christian was excellent too. I was fine with the way they put Sheamus over. I just hope they have a plan for him. I don’t think Randy Orton should’ve won the match and I think they’ve pretty much put Kofi in his place. Such a bad botch job with him these last few weeks. Didn’t care as much for Taker/Batista, but Taker worked his butt off. Big Dave is just too slow. And they needed to pull the trigger on that title change. I thought it worked when it happened and thought it was deflating when they restarted the match. DX vs. JeriShow was pretty good, though you knew beforehand that HHH and Show were going to slow it down and they did. I loved the DX double team spots and the finish was really creative.

What bothered me most about the show is that they were building the Mickie/Michelle match to where Layla would help Michelle, which makes complete sense being that the entire angle is 2 on 1. But then when she didn’t even factor into the pin and Michelle pinned Mickie clean, I was just frustrated. Basically, the skinny people can make fun of the non-skinny people and then get away with it. Idiotic booking.

Big D:

Thumbs In the Middle, Leaning Up
Best Match: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian
Worst Match: Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool

This was a really fun PPV. I’m not a huge fan of doing more than one or two ladder matches per year and this year we have seen about six. Regardless, the matches on this show were all decent to great for different ways. The main event between DX and Jericho was most certainly more toned down than I expected, but still a fun main. Batista and Taker had probably the worst match that they’ve ever had (and they HAVE had some great ones) made even worse by the overly played-out “restart the match” crutch that they apparently use every other PPV. Sheamus winning at first looked like a botch (I assumed he was supposed to fall through the table on the outside simultaneously), but once I saw the replay I knew it wasn’t. Shocking, to say the least. In addition, Drew McIntryre continued his push and Kofi ended his. Overall though, a fun show, but probably not worth 40-50 bucks. Get the DVD.

Your crew at FGB had some differing opinions on UFC 107. Out of the five of us, three really liked the show, while two just thought it was so-so.

Here’s what we had to say about the show:

Big D
Thumbs Up
Best Fight: Diego Sanchez vs. B.J. Penn
Worst Fight: Mike Pierce vs. Jon Fitch

Penn vs. Sanchez is in the books and I have to say it was truly the first UFC that I absolutely loved since UFC 101, but I expected that. Other than Jon Fitch (who should never be on a main card again) every fight was exciting and gave me my money’s worth.

Every time Clay Guida loses, I feel bitter sweet. I know he’s going to lose, but it makes me sad when it happens. He deserves more, but just isn’t that great of an actual fighter. Still though, he entertains and deserves a job for life in the UFC. It was a fine fight to rehab Florian as a serious guy.

It was Venni, Vetti, Vecci for Frank Mir. He came in at 1/2 a pound under the weight limit and looked jacked to the gills. Kongo also looked good, but even more of his flaws were shown here. He got caught and choked completely out by the Mir the Master. Then the icing on the cake, Mir’s promo to Brock. It must happen. I don’t care what anybody says – this is money. Mir sells tickets. Do not ignore this man.

The main event was just… a massacre. I’ve been telling people for weeks and weeks that BJ was going to dismantle this man piece by piece (and you know how much I LOVE being right), and this was even more of a slaying than I thought. BJ outboxed out, stuffed all 603 takedown attempts, and dodged all of the stupid high kicks attempts, made his face a contender for “Biggest Combat Sports Possum-Face”, right up there with Miguel Cotto last month, and then LITERALLY peeled his cap back – LITERALLY. You could tell by round 3 that he had no idea what to do and he went into “let me keep trying the same thing over and over again”. It was literal. Tito, your skull wasn’t cracked – DIEGO’S WAS! Diego was utterly humbled.

Alan
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: Stefan Struve vs. Paul Buentello
Worst Fight: Mike Pierce vs. Jon Fitch
Continue Reading »

I thought UFC 106 was a really strong show based on the action and number of fights we were able to see. D was a bit so-so about it, but Cactus Jim and I thought it was strong. It simply might be a case of too much MMA and nothing really standing out, but to me, this show stood above some of the others we’ve seen lately.

Here’s what we had to say about the show:

Big D
Thumbs in the Middle
Best Fight: Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin
Worst Fight: Paulo Thiago vs. Jacob Volkmann

To me, this is the fourth numerical UFC in a row that has been ehhh.. just okay. There was some good stuff on the card, such as the ultimate triumph of Little Noguiera, the first two rounds of Ortiz/Griffin, the post fight promo of that fight, but also some bad such as the replaying of the same undercard fights for both the special and for the PPV (I could’ve done without one), Baroni/Sadollah and that awful Thiago fight. Overall, not worth the hefty price tag.

Cactus Jim
Thumbs Up
Best Fight: Luiz Cane vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Worst Fight: Josh Koscheck vs. Anthony Johnson
Continue Reading »

WWE presented their annual Survivor Series event last Sunday, traditionally highlighted by multi-man elimination tag matches. This year, we got three of those, plus one grudge match and two championship threeways. Was it any good?

Big D:

Thumbs Up.
Best Match: Team Orton vs. Team Kofi
Worst Match: Batista vs. Rey Mysterio

While the title matches were decent and the Batista/Rey match was simply an angle to get Rey off of TV and establish Dave as a relentless monster, it was the 5 on 5 Traditional Survivor Series Elimination Matches that made the show and more importantly – established new stars. Since the onset of the concept in 1987 with Bam Bam Bigelow battling Andre the Giant on his own in an effort to make him a big star (this was before he jobbed to a football player), WWE has used this event to introduce as well as catapult new stars. Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, and Kofi Kingston were all made huge here. Kofi Kingston got a pin over two former World Champions and they established a future CM Punk vs. Christian program.

Overall, a pretty fun show!

Duan:
Continue Reading »

Can we say that UFC 105 was another ho-hum show? It sounds a little spoiled to criticize a UFC show that was on cable television and one that I didn’t have to spend $45 bucks on. But I have to say that after watching Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto, this show was a complete afterthought.

Here’s what we had to say about the show:

Big D
Thumbs in the Middle
Best Fight: Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang
Worst Fight: Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera

Interesting show that really saw Bisping re-establish himself as a contender and put over the TUF 9 guys. It worked once, but not the other time. We also saw how Brandon Vera might hit hard, but if you don’t have the brains behind it – you will get beaten by a crafty old man, even if the crafty old man is in his mid 40s.

Cactus Jim
Thumbs in the Middle
Best Fight: James Wilks vs. Matt Brown or Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang
Worst Fight: Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera
Continue Reading »