The Andy Holland Experience

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The Andy Holland Experience

Well, well, well look who’s back on the internet dishing out his weird perspective on the world of professional wrestling. Yes that’s right, after over a years absence I Andy Holland have teamed up with insidepulse to bring you back the Andy Holland Experience.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that 99.9% of you wont have a clue who I am so a brief introduction if you will. I’m Andy Holland and as far as I no I’m the only English writer on insidepulse but I could be wrong due to the hiring going on at the moment so if I am fee free to correct me. My columns are a little different to the other writers here as I read a few whilst thinking about what to write for my first and one thing I noticed was the amount that some people have wrote, so if you think my columns a little shorter than everyone else’s your probably right, but then again don’t good things come in small packages?

What I like to do in my columns is basically ramble on about wrestling in and outside the ring and occasionally throw in a review here and there, topped off with a bit of music now and then if I’ve got an album that I feel deserves a bit of attention. So there’s the basic outline on what to expect from me, if it sounds like something that interests you continue reading this column and my others in the future, if it sounds like something that doesn’t interest you fair enough don’t read on but you’re the one missing out.

Right so here we go, hold on tight, keep your arms and legs inside the monitor at all times and prepare yourself for The Andy Holland Experience.

Ok so what’s been going on since I last wrote a column? Well as that was about a year ago I’m going to say quite a lot so I’m not even going to try and cover everything as we’ll be here all day, and none of us want that. So instead of trying to cover the main talking points I’m going to jump right into the present time and just cover the recent stuff, see its just like I never left.

So the last Raw I caught in full was absolutely ages ago as it airs at 10pm on a Friday night here and who isn’t down the pub or in some alley by then? But as of September Raw’s been moved to Thursday’s so ill be able to throw in my thoughts on that in the next few weeks, aren’t you all lucky?

Enough BS so its time to get down to it, Where to start? Where to start? Oh I know, How about Summerslam!?

Summerslam

So we opened with The Dudleys vs Billy Kidman, Rey Mysterio and PAUL FUCKING LONDON, yeah I’m a London mark no doubt about it, people who haven’t watched him tear down the Ring of Honor arenas are seriously missing out, the second coming of Shawn Michaels? Quite possibly. So the match itself served its purpose which was to liven the crowd up a bit, obviously I was impressed with Paul London but he can do no wrong in my eyes, especially his somersault dive over the top ropes but if you‘ve seen him in RoH you know that’s tame. Kidman did his job without any cock ups so thumbs up to him and same to Mysterio so its all good there as well. The Dudley’s did their bit as well and eventually won when Bubba and D’Von hit the 3D on Kidman and Spike got the cover. Good match but should have been given about 10 minutes longer to really showcase what the faces can do.

Next up was Matt Hardy vs Kane with the winner getting to marry Lita, now all stupid booking aside this match wasn’t bad. Hardy showed good intensity and has got to be given props for going out there and giving it his all whilst being injured. Kane is still seemingly sleep walking through his matches but that will change when HBK comes back to drag him kicking and screaming to his best match ever although Benoit currently holds that Title so Shawn will have to be on top of his game if he hopes to out do The Crippler. Anyway Kane won with a very cool top rope Chokeslam to set Lita’s fate in stone.

Before I continue I just want to say that this isn’t my usual review style, I’m a bit like Scott Keith with the snowflake ratings and everything but I thought id save a full on review for the next PPV.

Following Hardy and Kane was the first in the Best of Five series for the US Championship between the champ Booker T and John Cena. Now I’m not going to get into how Booker isn’t as good as he used to be and Cena isn’t Benoit as its all been said already so I’m leaving that one alone. The match itself wasn’t bad but considering how many matches these two have had you would of thought that they would have it down to a tee by now. Cena’s lost his edge and badly needs to do something before he gets stale. Cena won with the FU to lead the series 1 to nothing but by the time you read this you’ll all know I’m sure that Booker is leading 2-1. The juries not out on these two yet but they have really got to step it up in the final match if they are to justify the air time this feuds been receiving.

Next was the Triple Threat between Batista, Edge and Chris Jericho. Not a bad little affair but it just seemed to be there. The finish was flat and out of nowhere and didn’t even involve Batista. If you don’t know Edge pinned Jericho following a spear for the clean victory to retain his Intercontinental Title. Batista wasn’t involved enough for my liking as he can be very useful if used in the right capacity but as the WWE never seems to listen to me I’m not holding out much hope on him. The crowd reaction to Edge is what made it for me, as getting booed in your home town when you’re the face isn’t the usual response, but hey it made me chuckle so its all good.

Now here we go, next up was Eddie Guerrero vs Kurt Angle, this match was the match I was banking on to steal the show and if I’m 100% honest it didn’t live up to my expectations. Don’t get me wrong it was a good match easily 3 ½ to 4 snowflakes but for these 2 that’s a pretty low grade. I know Angle was coming backing from injury and Eddie wasn’t fully fit so I will forgive them. I liked the mat wrestling between the 2 and there were signs here and there that showed that this could have been a truly memorable match. Unfortunately Sky in the UK f*cked up the feed so I lost about a minute of the last minute and a half which is a shame but I did see the ending which was Angle winning with ankle lock. Now some people have jumped all over this about how Angle shouldn’t of used the ankle lock so much to build to the ending but I can understand it as he was weakening his foot which would allow him to remove the boot so when he locked on the ankle lock on a bare foot Eddie had no where to go, makes sense to me but maybe I’m just more intelligent than some people. Well thinking twice, maybe not.

And now the match that got the biggest build up and attention by far, HHH vs Eugene. Firstly the match, could of and probably should have been better. It was given roughly about 15 minutes and it just felt like it was being stretched to that time. HHH had his moments as did Eugene but ultimately it was HHH who took the win with the pedigree after Eugene was distracted by Regal knocking out Flair with the brass knucks. Now I’m not going to jump all over Nick Dinsmore here as this gimmick has nothing to do with him, and like many people I know how good he can be if he just wrestles, but come on. We’ve been force fed Eugene for months now and you can tell by the crowd reactions that people are starting to get sick of him, if you cant stay over after the Rock has put you over and your using his two finishers, as well as the Stunner there’s a problem. Repackage time for Eugene? I’d say yes.

I’m going to bypass the Diva Dodgeball crap because it was just pointless, I’m all for the Diva’s getting the time they deserve but this was just pathetic.

Ok so on to the penultimate match, that being John Bradshaw Leyfield defending his WWE Title against The Undertaker. Now I was honestly expecting a full on car crash here but thankfully all we got was a knock to the bumper, smashed windscreen and some body damage. Lets call it ata bout 1 to 1 ½ snowflakes as I’m feeling quite generous. Thought the time was a bit long and the finish was a bit dodgy especially the chokeslam through the limo roof but going by reports that could have been because a fan ran onto it beforehand. The brawling between the two wasn’t bad and at times it did seem like there was genuine effort but when a midcarder is your champ facing someone 5 years past his sell by date you know not to expect anything special. Bradshaw won via DQ when Undertaker used the Title belt and was caught by the ref, expect a rematch down the line unfortunately, hopefully with some sort of stipulation and the match time kept to a maximum of 10 minutes and yes that does include Undertaker’s 4 minute walk to the ring.

And now the main event, time for Orton’s to prove if he is worthy of this push, and if this was anything to go by he certainly was, Obviously major and I mean MAJOR points to Benoit as he made this match what it was. Rating wise I’d say about the 4 snowflake mark which makes it the match of the night which it truly was. Several nice spots all done by Benoit, the dive to the outside of the ring and the diving head butt to Orton’s boot just to name a couple. Finish came when Orton hit the RKO after he rolled out of the Crippler Crossface. Nice that they let Orton do it on his own and not have Evolution even at ringside which I feared they might do. There is certainly a long list of names growing who Orton has to thank for his overness and Benoit is certainly second on that, just slightly behind Mick Foley.

Well that was Summerslam not what I expected but still good enough to justify you spending 3 hours watching it if you haven’t. Just want to reiterate my point that that isn’t my usual review style so if it seemed a bit flat I apoligise as the next will be better.

Right, think that wraps up my first column here on insidepulse. What’s next in store? Not sure to be honest but I’m thinking about throwing in a review of random matches that I’ve downloaded each week, just one though so it shouldn’t be to review heavy. If that sounds cool feel free to drop me a line at andy@4sternstaging.com (hopefully that will be all set up to forward to my email address so if I don’t reply there was more likely a problem with the system than me being lazy) if it doesn’t sound cool or you have suggestions on what I could do instead your opinions are just as welcome.

So there we have it, your first taste of The Andy Holland Experience, if you feel like washing your mouth out I recommend Colgate’s new anti bacterial mouthwash.

Until next time”¦”¦”¦