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Missy's Manor: Wrestle Mania/Strike Force/Guliver's Travels Match/WSU

Posted: Apr 15th 2009 By: CMBurnham

I had such a blast this past weekend announcing for NWS & WSU for their annual Women J Cup Tournament and Queen & King Tournament. I love wrestling when you have a motivated roster that wants to present good matches & develop characters. Besides having decent matches, they also built towards future matches & storylines for upcoming shows. What a novel approach in comparison to slopping some random matches at the last minute.

The first night in Bergenfield, NJ was awesome. I'm a sucker for tournaments. It makes the wrestlers work harder in trying to work different spots and moves in order to entertain an audience for multiple matches with the same talent.

I thought the tournament roster of Angel Orsini, Roxxi Cotton, April, Annie Social, Rain, & others put together enough entertaining matches to make this DVD worthy of hunting down. Rain is such an underrated heel & got a great look. I saw her have two great matches against Angel Orsini & April. This girl got the ring skills and knows how to work a crowd. I hope TNA uses Rain again in the future, since everybody forgot about her failed Payton Banks gimmick. I like Rain so much now, that I even brought her clothes to have on Saturday.

Angel Orsini continues to be the most underrated woman in the business. Angel opened up the tournament by having such a great match with Annie Social. Annie has really improved her craft over the last year. Angel had an awesome tournament final match against Rain that had psychology, brawling, near falls, and a great storyline. They even started building towards an Angel Orsini three way program with Rain & Mercedes Martinez. I LOVE LONG PLANNED OUT BOOKING!

The second night had such a hot crowd in Kearny, NJ for the King & Queen Tournament. Jay Lethal & Miss April [still in her rookie year] won the tournament and had three decent matches. Black Machismo entertains me, but unfortunately he is no where near as great as Giant Silva was in entertaining me on the prior night. April is going to be the next Gail Kim if she keeps working regularly. She got the ring mechanics down. She now got to develop how to show expression and more personality to take her talent to the next level.

I finally got the chance to see Shawn Michaels VS. Undertaker from Wrestle Mania #25 [better late than never]. I thought they put together a master piece of a match that will have a future generation & old school wrestlers both raving at their story telling. Over the years I became immune to wrestlers hitting every move in the book and not selling anything. This would go on for minutes and by the time they get to the finish, the crowd has already been burnt out.

Shawn & Undertaker knew how to milk kicking out of every near fall and have the crowd recognize that the next move could be the finish. Instead of rushing from move to move, they hit a big move and sold it. Every super kick or tombstone might be the finish. When the match was over, I felt like giving my television set a standing ovation for the great story telling. I especially loved the clean finish. Clean finishes are not harmful, in fact I would love to see a reduction of the over clich? of run ins, swerves, ref bumps, etc. on big matches. Kudos to Shawn & Undertaker for stealing the whole F'N show. I wonder if Ole Anderson still remembers his idiotic comment that Mark Callous will never draw a dime.

Luckily Jim Ross called another epic match, since he's the soundtrack to some of the greatest matches from the 1980's to the present. I got the chance in comparison to call the epic encounter of Giant Silva VS. 4 opponents in a "Gulliver's Travels Match" this past Friday. Luckily I used "Vintage Missy" to explain the greatness of this match. A "Gulliver's Travels Match" is when you take a great worker like Silva and have him avoid being caught with nets by his opponents. Luckily NWS subscribed to "Missy's Guest Booker Rule #245" that Giants against goofs with nets equal a hideous classic that is perversely amusing to only myself. I gave this match four stars for all of the opposite reasons that I would for a well worked match with decent workers. I know my career is now near completion, but I must now call a match with Giant Silva against four midgets with nets.

I got the chance to check out Strike Force on Showtime. I am far from a MMA expert, but I make the attempt to try to stay in touch with popular television trends. I thought the television presentation and fight quality was excellent for a regular MMA fan and a occasional MMA fan like myself.

I watched the show intently in order to see what nuances that I would love to see in wrestling. I thought the announcing crew did a great job. Mauro Ranallo even did a great job, despite "The Ranallo Curse" [every company he worked for went out of business: Elite XC, Pride, Stampede, & more]. Hopefully Ranallo's streak has came to an end.


I loved how by having Chris Cyborg squash her opponent & by showing Gina Carano on the screen that they had the fans clamoring to see a potential match. I wish wrestling could revert back to the formula of teasing matches for months, but in the process build up both draws to mean something when they finally get there.

I was very impressed with the story of Frank Shamrock VS. Nick Diaz. You got the cocky legend that is protecting his reputation and verbally knocking the up and coming youngster who feels it is his time. The end result is Nick Diaz beat a legend that makes himself in to a bigger drawing card for the future. I hope somebody in wrestling recognizes this simple recipe in elevating talent.

I'm going to be working on my first 'Deaf Wrestle Fest' on May 3rd at 6 PM @ Western Pennsylvania School For The Deaf, 300 East Swissvale Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. You got local legend in Domenic Denucci and James J Dillon coming out of retirement to wrestle. Plus you got Brutus Beefcake/Booty Man/Zodiac/Man With No Name/Brother Bruti/Disciple/The Butcher, MISSY HYATT, womens wrestling, & more. You can get more info @ naw75lins@yahoo.com or call (412) 678-3287

Tags: Missy Hyatt, TNA, Jim Ross