This 30 minute special has been out for a few days already, but I didn’t have a chance to check it out until now.

I’ve never thought about this before, but this fight has a man from the Philippines fighting a man from Ghana, neither of who speak English very well, fighting in a stadium for America’s Team. Boxing is truly a melting pot sport.

The show immediately goes into the Pacquaio/Mayweather fight that never happened. Freddie Roach immediately went into denial about the issue instead of tackling the issue, which is what he’s done. Pac’s strength and conditioning coach said Pacquiao thinks giving blood is a bad thing and blames his loss on giving blood. Basically, the same BS we’ve been hearing since late last year.

Clottey says that he couldn’t sleep after hearing that he was fighting Manny Pacquiao. Clottey runs the streets of NY before the city starts. But I thought the city never sleeps? He says he should be right at the top of the welterweight class.

His fight against Antonio Margarito put him on the map and then he beat Zab Judah to win the championship.

They show the fight with Cotto and Jim Lampley says that Clottey had a dead man in front of him and let him throw enough punches to take the last two rounds and win the fight.

Clottey’s cut man Lenny De Jesus has to act as his cut man and trainer because his trainer can’t get a visa to get to the states. He was also Pacquiao’s cut man from 2003 to 2005. He thinks this is the reason why he has the inside edge on how to beat Pacquiao.

Pacquiao has to eat a ton just to keep his weight up while Clottey will outweigh him by 15 pounds probably in the ring.

Roach says he’s waiting for the day as to when Pacquiao doesn’t have his immense work ethic and that day hasn’t happened yet.

This countdown wasn’t anything special, but it did give fans a great look at Joshua Clottey. It’s going to take a money making performance by Clottey to win this fight.

Raw and Smackdown were such by the book shows that they’re really not worth discussing in full. They were fine shows, but none of the story lines really advanced and everything was pretty logical and I have no complaints or really much praise. Thus, I decided to look at the card as it stands today. I took the matches as they were listed from WWE’s WrestleMania XXVI site.

World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho vs. Edge
I had an idea of what they could’ve done that would’ve been better than what they’ve done so far. Instead of Bret Hart hurting his ankle, why didn’t they do the injury angle with Edge? It would’ve kept him out of the ring, making his in ring comeback at WrestleMania rather than on regular old Smackdown. They could’ve even built all of his promos around coming back from injury early. It would’ve kept Jericho strong rather than how weak he’s been portrayed since winning the belt, and we wouldn’t have to see that ridiculous “Spear! Spear! Spear!” gimmick.

WWE Champion Batista vs. John Cena
I thought they’d run out of ways to keep Cena as the underdog, but they didn’t. I’m not sure that having Mr. McMahon pin Cena was the right thing to do, but it did put heat on him and Batista. Not like Batista needed it though. This is the only match that could main event Mania if they choose not to main event with Taker/HBK.

The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels
I liked their promo on Raw, but it was a tad bit on the boring end considering all the great stuff HBK has been doing of late. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. But it always weirds me out to see The Undertaker do serious promos about matches when usually his promos are about wacky and meaningless stuff that his character usually says.
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Leonardo Zappavigna vs. Fernando Angulo
In the opening bout, Australian lightweight prospect Leonardo Zappavigna (23-0) took a hugely controversial unanimous decision over Fernando Angulo (22-7). It was a really competitive fight, but I felt Angulo had done enough to pull off the upset. One judge scored the fight 114-113 which I could have seen an argument for. The other two turned in cards of 116-111, which are just completely indefensible.
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I think if polled, most people would say that the WWE has dropped the ball with the Bret Hart and Vince McMahon feud. Though I’d acknowledge that for whatever reason they decided to add something to it that wasn’t necessary, I still think the peak is coming.

Yes, for whatever reason, they chose to mess with what should’ve been one of the single easiest angles to book in the history of wrestling, but if it goes the way I think it goes, I think it’ll be ok. It won’t be ground breaking, but it will still work. On Raw, Bret Hart made his return supposedly to say goodbye to the fans, but because he was injured, Vince McMahon now wanted the match and he was rabid for it. So rabid in fact that he made Bret look pretty weak.

From the looks of it, Bret will reveal that he’s not really hurt, but he hasn’t even give the fans a wink wink, nudge nudge yet. What I hope happens is that Vince McMahon makes Bret sign a contract for the match and then at that time, Bret lets it be known that he’s not really hurt. To give that wink wink, nudge nudge, I’d even have him walk backstage before the commercial before the segment and have him wink at the camera or even walk properly for two steps before going back to his crutch limp.

I wasn’t necessarily happy with where they went, but wasn’t as bothered as everyone else seems to be either. Vince was great and probably more over-the-top than need be, but was very entertaining. I still think this is going to end well.
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Well, if there’s going to be a blame placed on when the money angle for WrestleMania XXVI went off the track (if it does go off the track), many people are going to point to the day that Bret Hart’s leg was smashed into by a car in the parking lot. There have been other silly angles involving cars and accidents that didn’t necessarily derail plans such as when Hulk Hogan and his nWo cronies nearly killed The Rock with vehicular manslaughter. Because McMahon and Hart are so good at doing what they’re doing, I don’t think this ruins the angle. Much like Rock/Hogan, even the dumbest writing won’t hurt the angle because they can talk so well and build it back up. So count me as part of the group of folks who didn’t truly think that it was the end of the greatness of the Hart/McMahon angle. It was bad, but not throwing money down the toilet bad. At least I don’t think.

But I want to first back up to Smackdown before I get back to Raw. Smackdown is such a good show stuck on such a bad night for wrestling and though it misfired somewhat in the middle, it had two good wrestling matches bookend a really tremendous segment with Batista. Even though Batista isn’t the greatest babyface, he’ll always get cheered like crazy and it stems from WrestleMania 21 and his turn against HHH. They did such a great job with that back five years ago that even today, the fans treat him like gold no matter what he’s doing. But in his current heel role, I think he’s doing better work than he’s ever done.

He came out for a segment in which he was going to let folks know why he decided to allow Punk to win their match and go into the chamber. He came out, got booed and didn’t say a word. He left, came back in the ring, picked up the mic, dropped it, didn’t say a word, and left. The heat was tremendous. No one had to write a word for him to say and he got over better than anyone in TNA or WWE today. It was excellent. Fast forward to Raw and he and Cena had a great back and forth with him being despicable Dave and Cena doing the kind of mic work that we all know he can do, but usually doesn’t get the chance to. I didn’t think anything was going to touch Vince/Bret or HBK/Undertaker, but this is coming pretty close.
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TNA Against All Odds 2010 is in the books and the show was quite… strange. The show was primarily focused on an 8-man “8 Card Stud” single-elimination tournament with the winner becoming the #1 Contender for the TNA World Heavyweight Title at Lockdown in April. Looking at the show on paper, you’d expect a wrestling-heavy show with very little gaga. Well it certainly was, and it bombed.

Against All Odds can perhaps be seen as a conundrum; an extended metaphor for this entire Bischoff/Hogan regime. For all of the complaints that fans had about the Russo/Jarrett era mainly due to the logic holes during Impact, almost every PPV was pretty solid-to-great. With this regime, it’s almost completely backwards. The TNA Impact television show has certainly improved tenfold; better timing, virtually no shenanigans, but still failing to really hook the audience (and when I say the audience, I mean me and a few select people I’ve spoken to). It almost seems like TNA went from being bad to boring and to be frank; I don’t know which is worse.

This couldn’t have happened at the worst time considering that TNA has been on a streak of fantastic PPVs since all the way back in September. The reasoning behind this is odd though. Why? Is it that the talent is fed up with the management change? Is it that the new/old people brought in can’t hack it with the young talent, bringing the overall match quality down? Could it just be that the talent is had two off nights, two months in a row? I don’t know; but match-wise, Against All Odds was a failure, and that’s something I haven’t said about a TNA PPV since last summer.
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Usually, Smackdown isn’t a newsworthy show. It’s just a good wrestling show heavy on the matches and not as heavy on the angles. But come Mania time, Smackdown can be just as newsworthy and angle-worthy as Raw, in addition to having the strong wrestling. Last Friday’s show was really good in this way.

They were able to keep the intrigue alive of who Edge was going to challenge, as he teased spearing The Undertaker at the end of the show. He also went face to face with Chris Jericho, giving Chris Jericho the “how dare you?” for being happy that Edge was injured and unable to continue doing his childhood dream. Edge was in total babyface mode. CM Punk was also made strong as he danced with Jericho, Edge, and Taker in the main event segment.

The other intriguing angle from Smackdown was Dave Batista losing to Punk in the match to be the participant in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber. After showing footage of Batista attacking John Cena after Raw went off the air, Batista walked out of his match and was counted out, taking him out of the chamber match and adding more intrigue to the John Cena/Vince McMahon/Bret Hart storyline. Why did Batista opt out? Did Vince want him to opt out? We got a little bit of progression on Monday when Vince admitted that he paid Batista to attack Bret Hart, but it’s not yet transparent.

Now that both Elimination Chambers are set, here are the main events for the formerly known as No Way Out PPV.
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I consider the Monday after the Royal Rumble to be the start to what the WWE likes to call, “The Road to WrestleMania”. It’s generally where the the booking to the biggest show of the year becomes more clear and since the winner of the Rumble dictates at least one of the main events for Mania, it’s a good place to start.

With Edge winning the Rumble, we were all thrown a bit of a curve ball. One would think that it would be logical to assume that Edge was going to face Chris Jericho since they seemed to be leading there ever since and even before Edge got hurt last year. Jericho cut a promo on him that Edge referenced in his comeback interview on Raw last night. Injuries suck for the performers, but it’s actually ok for the product. Edge came back as a fresh character and the fans loved seeing him back. His promo was just the beginning of his storyline and it didn’t need to be anything other than the beginning of what they have planned. It was good to see Sheamus in the ring with him as they need to continue to get Sheamus in there with the big stars and show him as their equal.

I really like what they’re doing with Shawn Michaels and I think it’s an interesting parallel to the Bret Hart storyline. Though I feel that we saw this broken down Shawn last year during his angle with JBL, he plays the guy who has to overcome odds better than almost any guy can. He gets sympathy very easily. But it’s a interesting parallel in that Michaels wants something so bad and can’t have it, seemingly a bit down on his luck and Hart is trying to gain respect from Vince McMahon and is being manipulated and comes off a bit weak. However, because he’s so good at being the Bret Hart character, you desperately want to see him succeed, just like you do Michaels. It’s going to be fun to see where both of these storylines are headed and with Batista and John Cena thrown into the Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon angle, my intrigue went up. However, I don’t think they can go away from Hart and McMahon now settling their feud at WrestleMania in the ring. They can’t have Cena and Batista fight for them.
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Bernard Hopkins (50-5) returned to the ring tonight with a unanimous decision victory over Enrique Ornelas (29-6) in his hometown of Philadelphia. The judges scorecards after 12 rounds read 118-110, 120-109, 119-109 in favour of the 44 year old.
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A sold out crowd showed up for the first authentic Dragon Gate show on UK soil, and the final leg of the company’s European tour. Some quick notes first on the non-match related stuff:

-The meet & greet was remarkably well run. Mark Sloan and his crew did a great job organising it and the wrestlers were really great and friendly. Everyone got tons of awesome photos and autographs.

-The venue was very cool and helped in creating a great atmosphere. It’s definitely somewhere I’d love to watch wrestling again.

-Aside from a couple of sound issues, the production was first class. Looked very very sharp.

Dark Match: Stixx vs. The Lion Kid

Lion Kid gimmick got over huge in, what I believe was it’s debut. Total big man vs. little man match and they put together some cool stuff. I particularly liked Stixx’s shoulder block based offence – he hit some big big tackles, including an awesome one to the back of Kid who was sitting on the apron. There was a lot of flying and catching which for the most part looked good, but none of it was as good as the KILLER Boss Man Slam by Stixx towards the finish. Finish played off that, as he went for another and was cradled for three. Fun match!

1. Real Hazard (Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito) vs. Jonny Storm & Marty Scurrl

Went way longer and was way better than I expected (and I was expecting a good match to begin with). Genki was absolutely hilarious throughout – he’s such a fun live act, getting offended at H-A-G-E chants, slipping odff the ropes, selling the twisting of his dreadlocks and repeatedly seeking comfort from Ryo. Both Brits looked right at home in there with the DG vets, and Scurrl in particular with how young he is, could really fit nicely into the roster in a way similar to PAC and The Young Bucks. Dude has tons of potential. The match was real fun interactive babyface/heel stuff for the first two thirds, but then they went nuts down the stretch with some big BIG moves like a German Suplex into the corner, a tope into a tornado DDT, a SWEET brainbuster by Genki and plenty more. Finish after all that was a double low blow by Ryo, but trust me, it worked. His reaction after getting the pin was awesome! Crowd ate this up.

2. KAGETORA vs. Mark Haskins
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