Serious Tommy Dreamer Bandanna Update!

Apparently, I am a major asshole for making fun of Tommy Dreamer and his bald spot obscuring bandanna. Never mind that the cynical side of me thinks that this story is about as believable as the stunt granny from that "Secrets of Wrestling Revealed" show (especially since the kid's ailment is left incredibly vague in the column). I'll go along with the idea that Tommy's wearing a bandanna to raise a kid's spirit. Hopefully he'll pull a Babe Ruth and call his shot on Elijah Burke on Tuesday; a ball shot, that is. I'm still gonna laugh at his bald spot, too, although that's just petty. Mainly, I just wanted to use that title and this post is just here to kill time. Self indulgent, sure, but it's my blog, damn it; the whole thing just exists for me to indulge myself anyway.

Links Blogging, some of which contains some spoilers. Maybe.

Although these things are about as reliable as a deadbeat dad, apparently the two main event matches for this year's Cyber Sunday are being promoted in Canada. One of them sounds like it could okay, if superflous, given the fact they probaly ought to blow off the damn fued this month; the other sounds eye gougingly awful. At any rate, it looks like we won't be getting another Champion of Champions match, if this is to believed. Given that there have been commercials for the last two PPVs that have taken considerable advantage of the "card subject to change" disclaimer, take this with a grain of salt but Vince has enough of a sadistic streak to put that World Heavyweight Title match on PPV, I am sure of it.

Also on the Pulse:

To get the idea of that Four Way out of your head, have some cheerleading for a popular indie promotion, thanks to Aaron Glazer! All kidding aside, when he doesn't go too overboard in talking about how great ROH is, his columns can be extremely informative for folks who have yet to take the plunge in to full ROHbot-dom but are still interested in learning about the company. This one is no different.

Troy Hepple talks about viral marketing and what that might have to do with some Canadians making their return to (or debut on) WWE programming soon.

Scott Keith reviews the latest Monday Night Wars installment from WWE 24/7, the Raw side of things featuring a pretty momentous main event segment, which wound up happening quite a bit around this time.

Iain Burnside answers only two questions this time. It's still worth reading.

The most erudite man in the IWC, Kyle David Paul, doesn't want to party like it's 1999. He also provides YouTube videos of Paul Heyman attempting career suicide and Mick Foley trying to kill Randy Orton, which are never bad things.

Hell, you might as well just go to their main page. Maybe one day I'll get the hang of this link blogging thing. Although that would require going to other wrestling sites. Not sure I'll ever be ready for that.

Random Musings About Pop Culture Instead of Wrestling

Hey, Scott Keith does it! Sure, he's earned the right to do whatever he wants and is a published author and all, but I'm nothing if not presumptuous. Hell, I presume I spelled that word right. Anyway, on to the musings.

So, like pretty much everyone who owns an Xbox 360, I pre-ordered Halo 3 months ago and picked up my copy this week. I was planning on being in line at 9 to wait for the midnight opening, but then I realized that all I was going to be doing was waiting in line for three hours to buy a game I couldn't play until the next day anyway. So I waited 'til the next day. Of all the people there to pick it up, I appeared to be the only one who wasn't a soccer mom.

Anyway, after grabbing a ridiculously late lunch, and running in to a fifth grader whose class I substitute taught in at the pizza place I went to, who was duly impressed with my purchase, I got the game home. And proceeded to fall asleep while playing it. Mind you, that's probably down to my late hours not synching up with the substiute teaching jobs I've been taken on, but it wasn't a good sign.

Also not good; a myriad number of problems keep me from connecting to Xbox Live at the moment, cutting off the most popular aspect of the game, and the one that's made it a cultural phenomenon; the multiplayer. I'm a little disappointed that none of these new FPS/shooter games don't at least offer bots, like all the old console shooters used to, for really sad simulated multiplayer matches; c'mon game developers, meet us friendless schlubs without a Live subscription (or an ethernet cable that fits in to our fucking outletes!) halfway!

All that said, I was finally awake enough recently to play the single player game without dying every two minutes (I'm up to ten), and I'm really enjoying it. Since I never owned an original Xbox, my Halo experiences were few and far between; I played a friend's copy a few times, and enjoyed it, especially the second one, but not enough to want to buy an Xbox. Of course, sort of tying in to this blog's main theme, my console purchases have been based on which one had the best wrestling games, so that's where my head is at. Thankfully, Smackdown vs. Raw and the TNA game are multiplatform now. And did you know that they're apaprently porting a Fire Pro game to the PS2? I'm excited for that, even if I never quite learned how to play the rom I downloaded years ago.

Anyway, back to Halo. I was leary of the fact that single player was going to be my main (well, only really) way of playing this game, especially after I bought the original after pre-ordering the third one and wound up trading it in because I couldn't get in to it. I'm thinking that owes more to the fact that a first generation Xbox game just does not stack up well at all to stuff like Gears of War, Bioshock, and the Darkness, because I'm starting to really get in to the game now. Hell, maybe it will even pull me away from my consumptive obsession with Smackdown vs. Raw 2007's general manager mode. I doubt it, but it's got a shot!

The game's absolutely gorgeous; setting the early levels (at least as far as I've got) in Africa was a nice decision. It's a real change of pace from the usual urban setting you find in these kinds of games, even in the dystopian sci-fi subgenre that games like Half Life 2 and Gears of War inhabit. The twitch gaming can be a little hard to get used to after Gears gameplay, which was more strategic; I kind of miss ducking behind cover in other shooters, which is how you can tell a game's really made a contribution to the genre. But still, there's nothing quite as satisfying as clubbing a charging alien in the face with the butt of your gun, and Halo delivers visceral thrills like that with gusto. I also love the ambient chatter of everyone from your fellow marines to the hapless grunt soldiers; bringing in considerable voice talent like Keith David and Ron Perlman just sweetens the pot (I swear I heard Firefly/Serenity's Nathan Fillion, too). So, yeah, count in me in with Halo lovin' masses. If I can ever join them on Xbox Live, I might really have some fun.

I was rather less impressed with the other game I picked up recently, the new Guilty Gear XX for the PS2. It had some fruity subtitle, but I can't be bothered to look it up. Which shows how little I care for the game so far. I'm a 2D fighter afficienado; I logged a ridculous number of hours in the various Street Fighter sequels and spin offs, and I've always dug SNK's serieses, from Fatal Fury to King of the Fighters, as well. Guilty Gear's about the only series in the genre I haven't at least sampled, so when I found a copy at Game Stop and had the credit to cover a purchase, I pounced on it.

That said, so far I'm not that in to it. The button commands alone look like someone decided that the problem with SF2's controls was that there weren't enough motions, and all of the different techniques in the instruction manual made it look like it would take me awhile to get the hang of this game. I guess you could make a case for a game actually demanding patience and commitment being something different these days, when most everything out there will take the time to walk you through the basics before throwing you to the wolves. That said, I'm not the type that considers inaccessability a challenge; I'm more likely to chalk it up to being tedious and look elsewhere for my digital entertainment. So we'll see if this game joins many others I've culled from my collection at my local Game Stop, or if it can gain a permanent spot on my entertainment center.

As far as fall TV goes, I've mostly stuck to my old favorites, although I have enough series premieres to last me from now until next fall. I kind of hate to admit it, but hell, I was pretty open about my OC fandom; I liked the first episode of Gossip Girl. The combination of Kristen Bell (I already miss Veronica Mars; damn you CW!) and OC creator Josh Schwartz was enough to get me to tune in, sinking feeling I'd dislike it and stupid name be damned; while the show has yet to display most of the qualities that made me hop on the OC bandwagon (and quite possibly derail it, since its ratings precipitously dropped once I started watching it); it lacks the humor Adam Brody provided as Nerd God Seth Cohen, or Ryan's point of view character in to the oppulence and absurdity of Orange County. It is, however, just as insidiously addictive, at least at first blush, and despite the fact that I don't particularly care for any of the kids portraying the lead characters, I'll give it a shot.

I also have to admit to liking what looks for all intents and purposes like another really guilty pleasure (in that I should probably be ashamed for liking it); Moonlight, CBS's new vampire private eye show. Now, I don't blame you for whatever thoughts you may have regarding me and my taste when I admit to liking this. The words "CBS's new vampire private eye show" sound horrible to me, too. That said, I had space on the old Tivo, and Veronica Mars alum Jason Dohrin was in it (I see a theme emerging here), so what the hell, I have it a shot. I really enjoyed it. The leads are really engaging and really, I'm just happy to have another vampire show on the air. Buffy was a long time ago. I have my doubts it will last, but then again, Ghost Whisperer is still around, so who knows?

I'd talk about comics, but I do enough of that here. That's right; comics, video games, trash TV, and wrestling; I'm a quadruple threat! If I get in to Fantasy Sports, I'll have all the dateless male niche obsessions covered in my writing. But there are some things to geeky for even me, and I do believe that's one of them. Next time, I have some ideas for an actual column. But I'll probably just snark about Raw and/or talk about Candice's boobs. I've got to keep it real, folks.

Past Sell by Date TNA and Smackdown! Blogging

Yeah, so, I wrote out notes for recaps of both shows, but two nights later, it feels like an exercise in futility to type the whole things. Well, more so than blogging usually is, given whatever theoretical audience I have probably has already had their fill of analysis of these shows, and I'm just writing this stuff for my own amusement anyway. Also, it helps clear my head of useless wrestling minutia so I can fill it with useless minutia that's more culturally respectable, like Presidential Birthdays, baseball box scores, and porn. Lots and lots of porn. Still more culturally acceptable than watching wrestling, much less blogging about it. I know; I asked a panel of experts. Sure, that panel of experts was composed of porn stars, but would Jenna Jameson lie to me?



And now that I've depricated myself within an inch of my life and gone on a bizarre, Burnside-ian tangent, here come the blog!


TNA- Okay, this was probably my favorite episode of Impact in a dog's age; certainly this year, at least as far as I can remember. The match between 3D and Seafood and Curry (Shark Boy and Sanjay Dutt, for those of you who didn't know the tag team name I just came up with for them) was a fun little comedy match diminished only by the fact that 3D had to go over to keep their storyline going. Mind you, I'd rather they be heels (if for no other reason than that it keeps Bubba from talking every week), and I don't consider them dead weight like a lot of other 'net pundits, but I was really digging Sanjay and Shark Boy's offense in this one, and the generally goofy vibe of the match.



Motor City Machine Guns vs. Rave and Hoyt (the first appearence of Christy Hemme, in what appears to be her attempt to prove VKM right with her blatant sluttiness), on the other hand, was great all the way through. They crammed a ton of action in to the short period of time they got, which is what I liked about the X-Division matches TNA used to toss out there on a weekly basis before Kevin Nash and his merry wisecracking pranksters became the focus of the division. If Sabin and Shelley are planning on leaving, it will be a boon to whoever gets them (more so to ROH, but could you imagine if we some how miraculously got them vs. London and Kendrick?), but it will go a long way to making thos TNA is WCW analogies stick. But that's for the future; right now, I want to bask in the best tag match I've seen on free TV in a long, long time. I mean, Rave pedigreed Shelley on to Sabin! And then did an STF on both of them! Lance Hoyt, meanwhile, did what he does best; stand on the apron and take the fall. Which is the only way he could contribute much to the match, unless they let him do the Van Terminator. If you haven't seen it, scour YouTube or torrents sites for it; it's that good.

I was also really impressed with Women's match. Other than Ken Anderson, I may be the only Gail Kim mark on the 'net. I'd like to think that's because we both have much better taste than everyone else, but I'm not sure, since he's the only person I've seen admit to liking the first Punjabi Prison Match. Anyway, I like women's wrestling more than your average smark (at least more than most of them tend to admit), so despite the pretty valid concern that they already have too many people for even a two hour show, I was cool with the fact that they were introducing a Women's Title and Bound For Glory. They have solid workers in Kim, Jackie Moore, and Tracey Brooks, along with the incoming Amazing Kong and Angel Williams, to put on entertaining matches; Christy can provide the red headed sluttiness, and Roxxy is ... well, she's pretty much a female Boogeyman, although she looked considerably normal compared to her earlier appearences, so good for her. Maybe she can divorce herself from the festering uselessness that is VKM (who cut a shoot promo that called the X-Division and smarks at large, but still came across as incredibly lame, this week)

At any rate, if this match is any indication, they could have something with their new women's division. I tend to overrate matches if there's a cool enough high spot; Mick Foley vs. Edge is one of my favorite matches ever, but the only thing I remember from it (other than Lita taking a bump) is Edge spearing Mick through the flaming table, so that makes me wonder if it was as good as I thought it was. So that five woman tower of doom went a long way towards impressing me. That said, I thought it was a good little match, and Gail Kim's offense alone was enough to differentiate this match from the WWE's more T&A centric offerings, which I also have a soft spot in my heart (or at least another part of my anatomy). If they can keep up this level of energy and work in those kind of cool spots, their women's division can stand out from the WWE's as much as the X-Division used to stand out from Vince's half assed crusierweight offerings. This is as close to having a really deep roster of women who can work we've seen in mainstream wrestling since the embarassement of riches that WWE had for a couple years before they fired most of them and were further diminished by Trish and Lita deciding to hang up their boots.

If TNA can give me these kind of fun matches over the course of two hours, my opinion of them will be considerably changed and I will happily tune in to TNA every week. This episode, depiste the massive overpush of Judas Mesias (even if he is a former "world" champion) and the appearence of Karen Angle (at least she didn't talk!), went a long way in winning back my goodwill towards TNA, to the point where I'm almost excited for the two hour debut. They've been so moribund for so long that I'm not going to get too hyped up, but they do have a history of putting on good debut shows. It's following up on their momentum that they've struggled with over their five year history.


Meanwhile, over on Smackdown, they have no problem remaining consitent. Consistently mediocre, that is! Keeping that in mind, there is something to be said for putting on a solid wrestling show, which Smackdown usually is. This episode was no different. Following Teddy Long's heart attack, Vickie Guerrero's in charge of things, which is apparently what the whole courtship between Teddy and Kristal was meant to set up all along. She's apparently still a face, although I am still convinced she slipped Teddy some kind of poison in that viagra she gave him in the most disturbing part of the otherwise fairly inoffensive relationship between the extremely thin young woman and the extremely old bald guy. So I fully expect we'll be getting Evil Vickie back soon. Really, I can live with that as long as they don't go digging Eddie up again to draw cheap heat for her and Chavo. Figuratively, I mean. Anyway, other than stripping my favorite midget in entertainment today of his gold, she didn't do anything heelish, so I may be totally off base here. I may really just want to write about poisoned viagra every chance I get. I'll leave that up to the reader to decide. As in the one reader I assume I have. Hi, mom! Aren't you glad you paid for my college education, so I could be doing this!

What of the actual show, you might say? Well mom, and anyone else possibly reading, there's not much to say one way or the other. JBL was entertaing as always, whether it was his awesome no selling of Cole trying to put over Torrie Wilson's improved ring accumen by more or less saying "Who cares if she can wrestle; all anyone cares about is how she looks!" Or, to quote some random jerk on the Simpsons, "Hey lady, you're an object!"

Anyway, Old Lady Wilson and Victoria had an okay match that was going to be overshadowed by the Women's match I had just watched on Impact, unless Trish Stratus had made her triumphant come back and taken Torrie's place. I do think she has become noticably better in the ring, mind you (although it did take her long enough), but she's still just okay, and a lot of that is probably down to being there with a solid hand like Victoria. Post match, some new, leather clad blonde beat Old Lady Wilson down. She looked sort of like a slutty Super Mario. They didn't even attempt to indentify her, other than the old "She doesn't wrestle here" saw that they really should retire. Anyway, all that made me wonder if they grow these women in a vat somewhere in Titan Towers.

MVP celebrating his one year anniversary brings to light how far he's come from where he was when he debuted. While the series of matches that played a large part in getting him there has been deleted from history by the 800 pound Gorilla in the room, never mind that; he's come a long way in the ring, and can finally back up his mic skills, which were always considerable (even if he does have one of the laziest heel catchphrases ever; at least it's to the point). He's like what I imagine they wished Carlito would have been by the time he'd been around for a year.

I'm also really digging this feud with Hardy. Despite the whole thing more or less being "Wacky Missmatched Partners Who Hate Each Other" boilerplate, the dynamic between Hardy's hard working, blue collar everyman character and MVP's flashy, trashtalking caricature of mega ego atheletes like Terrell Owens makes these segements genuinely entertaining, and keeping them a tag team builds the anticipation for their rematch, which is something that would have been nearly impossible otherwise given the current PPV model. Matt's being able to show a personality beyond "intense and broody" or "not Jeff Hardy" is a real revelation; he hasn't been this entertaining since the Version 2.0 days.

All that being said, I ignored good chunks of the MVP/Kane match. The parts I was awake for were solid, but these guys wrestled roughly 3,000 times last year, and I wasn't particularly excited about seeing them do it again, no matter how much better Porter is in the ring. I did like the idea that being in there with his old tormentor (they guy did set him on fire, after all) completely deflated Porter for awhile, and they did a good job working in each other's signature moves. The cheap finish was a little too reminiscent of last year's interminable series, but overall, a solid match; I'm just not really excited to see that pairing.

Speaking of overdone parings, Chuck Palumbo beat Kenny Dykstra. Again. They're both solid workers, but the only entertainment value I derive from watching them work together is thinking about their old gimmicks, and how, of course, a former gay gangster is a perfect opponent for a former male cheerleader. Palumbo can take Mark Henry's slot and just beat up local indie guys until they have a decent feud for him (or wind up moving him to ECW with all the other misfit toys), while Dykstra, who went from going over Ric Flair regularly to jobbing out for like 6 months, really ought to be working with the cruiserweights, given the fact that his only discernible talent is the ability to jump really high (and apparently resembling some cranky liberal over at Inside Pulse).

So, with Hornswoggle stripped to placate lame, humorless jerks (or conversely, anyone who isn't 11 years old or me), we'll see if they can give us the crusierweight division I doubted they ever would not long ago. Signs are not promising, as Jamie Noble and Shannon Moore had another rushed, heatless match in a series of them. They pulled out some nifty moves, including Noble's fireman's carry gutbuster and a lion tamer (that must mean Jericho's coming back! Or not! Or maybe it has nothing to do with him at all!), but still; it was just kind of there.

The only reason people cared about Noble was that he was was going after Lil' Horny, and it was funny when he failed so miserably; without the little fella around, his winning the belt won't mean much. I mean, think of the heat he'd get were he allowed to wail on the little fella, with Vince's approval no less, in an actual blow off match on PPV. He'd be a legitimate heel, erasing the buffoon image he accured by being outsmarted by a leprechaun. .

But no. They just vacated it. Seems like a wasted opportunity to get some guys over out of the Hornswoggle Imbroglio, which I am enjoying, mind you. If this leads to a tournament, though, I will mark out, 'cause I loves me some tournaments. And hey, maybe Jimmy Yang will get a push. That would be cool too. But really, they have a lot of ways to try and get the cruisers over here, even without Horny around; a tournament would at least give them some easy booking opportunities; a ladder match would give a different set of guys a chance to show off than usual, especially if they tossed some guys from ECW and Raw in there; they could even do an elimination/gauntlet kind of thing. Mind you, I'm expecting they'll just do a battle royal or multi-guy spot fest on Smackdown and go back to business as usual (complete with Chavo getting a run with the belt some time next year), so I'm pretty cynical about the whole thing.

I like the brewing Rey/JBL verbal feud. If they aren't going to give Rey another title run, or at least some main event matches, they might as well have him fighting surrogates against one of the best heels in recent memory. Rey more or less held his own with the best verbal performer in the company, despite misspronouncing hatred as "hatrage". Or maybe that's a new compound word I haven't heard of. I'm not up on slang from the 619. I'm also looking forward to the Finlay/Mysterio PPV match; it could either be a really good match, or a total trainwreck, given their disperate styles, but that along with the presumptive Cena/Orton blow off is enough to make me want to watch No Mercy at the local sports bar.

The main event was short and sweet, at least. And it made a hot goth chick in the front row really happy, so there was that. It didn't outlast its welcome, which I believe it would have had it gone on a minute longer, but for a match that made me question the existence of a kind and merciful God just by existing (and being a main event that people were apparently supposed to be pay $40 to see), it was okay. The 12 some odd video packages that hyped it up were infinitely better, but you know, this did its job. It makes me wonder if they'll be holding on to Mark Henry and his beard (which resembles a chia pet) now that his latest interminable push has led to a big job to someone who is actually over; he may very well wind up in ECW and become CM Punk's luggage (he'll have to carry him, you see). Given that there was an inexplicable Viscera promo on Smackdown, maybe they're just gonna trade fat, inexplicably long tenured black guys between the two shows. Which means they'll be in the same touring companies that work the same tapings, they'll just stink things up on TV on different nights.

Well, now that I'm done badmouthing large men who would make me shit my pants were I ever to meet them, I'll sum things up. TNA was exciting and fast paced for the first time in a dog's age, and hopefully that will carry over to the 2 hour shows. It was my favorite show of the week. I'm as surprised as you are. That said, Smackdown was the same as it always is, and really, shouldn't consitency be rewarded, even if it is only consistent medicority? That may actually be WWE's mission statement, now that I think of it. With Fergie's cover of Barracuda in the background (yeah, I don't know why either), I take my leave. Until I find something else wrestling related to write about.

Raw and ECW Tandem Review

Because the title "Double Team Short Form" is taken.

Raw- I was pretty underwhelmed by this week's episode, even keeping in my pretty low standards for Raw over the last few years. Given that the biggest surprise of the week was Bob Holly's triumphant (well, in theory) return to Raw to be surly with Dusty Rhodes' younger, thinner kid, that only makes sense.

Other random musings, in bullet point format:

• I noticed Booker's still in the opening video. I'm not sure if that means anything, but maybe they're giving him time to change his mind. Or maybe the rumors that he's quitting were crap. Who knows? It turned out that way with Flair, and it would be a shame to lose the King Booker character, and a potentially good color commentator once he does finally hangs up his boots, so I hope the WWE tries to convince him to change his mind if he is planning on quitting.
• Speaking of Booker, I remember him jobbing every time they went back to Houston. Candice got to be the latest person to lose in their hometown. I can live with it, because they need to make Phoenix look like a nigh-unbeatable challenger if they're going to keep having them feud and Candice had around a two month winning streak when they elevated to the belt, but it still makes me wonder why they do that so often in general. Is it supposed to put heat on the heel? It was interesting when they had Cena Edge trade title match wins in each others' home towns in consecutive PPV main events last year, but it rarely ever works out like that.
• As an aside, doesn't that mixed tag sound like a pitch for a wacky sitcom, back when they made wacky sitcoms? "What happens when a dayglo haired daredevil, a former Playboy playmate, a really athletic mama's boy, and whatever the heel a glamazon is share a house together?" I would watch that. Then again, I watch Heat.
• All that said, at least Candice or Booker have never had the massive fuck you (or at least that's what I read in to it) that Kennedy recieved recently in his hometown.
• Poor Carlito; I guess. This is probably as high up the card as he's going to get at this point, and while they haven't made much of an attempt to present him as a threat to HHH during this apparently blow off feud, he still seems to be in better standing with the company than he was after talking shit about creative because they couldn't be bothered to give him more than a dark match at 'Mania and being put on job duty for a few months.
• As wrong headed as it seems to transition from Carlito to Vince as far as in ring feuds goes, the Vince/HHH match next week is just setting up an Umaga beat down, I bet, although given the way Hunter's been booked since his comeback, I wouldn't be surprised if he just squashes the portly fellow again, lest he let anyone look good or get over at his expense. You'd think that the massive beating he recieved before going on suspension, and the fact that they haven't built up the match at all, would mean that Umaga would get some heat back on him, but I wouldn't rule out Hunter pedigreeing him and forcing him to compose a sonnet in his honor between now and No Mercy, either.
• Hornswoggle can make matches now? I guess it makes sense, keeping in mind that Shane, Stephanie, and Linda used to do the same thing when the only decent storyline reason was that they were related to Vince.
• Speaking of the little fella, I hope they do more skits with him and Melina in the future. Her uber-bitchy character interacting with the rabid little bastard could lead to some amusing skits, like the ones a heel Trish Stratus had with Viscera when they were teamed up for like a week.
• I totally called the Highlanders turning heel in my Heat recap! Okay, all I said was that Rory was playing a good heel, but still; it's nice to see something from Heat carry over to Raw, especially if I'm going to be watching the former now. A three way tag match between these guys would be a nice change of pace, even it would probably take a Herculean effort from Londrick to make it anything but a train wreck.

ECW is too short to merit bullet points, but there's some stuff I feel like talking about anyway. The three way was surprisingly good considering the fact that we've seen different combinations of these three guys fight roughly 16,000 times in the last year. This still wound up being a good match, and it's nice to see them using the hour format for a good long match lately; I hope they keep it up. I also hope that Tommy Dreamer's bandanna keeps falling off. For some reason, his growing bald spot amuses me to no end. Given the paring they've set up for next week

After the three way, we got two matches made for the fast forward. I feel bad that Nunzio is stuck on Smackdown jobbing to Mike Fucking Knox when he could be working in the newly resurgent Cruiserweight division, although at least it won't take any effort for him to switch between the two shows if he's fortunate enough to get the chance. The Miz rating a generic local worker jobber for a squash is kind of puzzling, although at least they didn't make Stevie Richards do it (although the guy who did the job did seem to be borrowing his hair, circa 1995). The only noteworthy thing about the continuing Balls Loves Kelly storyline, other than Balls's frightening purple bicycle shorts, was that Miz smacked him in the head with the microphone. I never get tired of that. What's really shocking is that two of the best built feuds in recent memory are between this group of misfit toys and Boogeyman and Viscera. I'm not saying that they led to good matches or anything, but they were allowed to build in a reasonable manner and, at least in the case of Vis/Boogey, had satisfying blow off matches. Hopefully they can pay this one off well. The main event was good, solid stuff. They kept it simple, which played to Striker's strengths in the ring; he always impressed me with how smoothly he did the basic stuff when he was first starting out in the WWE, before they decided to make him Dean Douglas for the new milennium and he gradually became more of a mouth piece and less of a wrestler. They told a story pretty well in there, and at least they went with an unconventional body part to do it with; you don't see a lot of people working over the hand, although the fact that most of Punk's offense involves kicks, it didn't make a lot of sense in the long run. That said, this match did its job well, elevating Striker as a worker bit by virtue of how long he kept Punk down, while still putting Punk over strong in the end; that's all you can ask for, really. I wasn't thrilled about Viscera getting in the beatdown to end the show, but you had to expect that, and if it leads to Punk being the first guy to get a win over Mabel since he took his shirt off, I can live with it. If Vis gets an ECW title push, it will also officially make ECW the fat guy recclamation show, given the fact that it was also the place where Big Show went from being a middling mid carder to a dominant main event heel in his final main event push before putting over Bobby Lashley and leaving the WWE for... I'm not sure what, exactly, other than subbing for Jerry Lawler in Memphis in his fight with everyone's favorite VH1 reality TV star. Nah, I'm just kidding; it was Hulk Hogan, not Flava Flav. Now Show vs. Flav? That's a match that could draw. Anyway, if nothing else, it could set a precedent for big fat guys main eventing that would lead to more Joe vs. Punk, should Joe's reluctance to renew his contract with TNA mean that he wants to jump to WWE in a year's time, which I think we could all be happy with. Even if they give him a stupid gimmick. I'm betting on him being Umaga's cross dressing cousin, Umargo, myself.

When I start talking about dream matches with washed up, but verile, '80s rap stars and Samao Joe dressing like a woman, it's time to call it a day. I'll try to come up with something besides show recaps next time I post, but since I bought Halo 3, don't bet on it.

Are these words from the future?

From the desk of Vince McMahon,

In order to show the serious nature of the current incarnation of the Wellness Policy, I, the Chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, have drafted this statement to the media about the recent group of superstars to be suspended by the WWE.

Following the last battery of tests and subsequent suspensions, a decision was made to increase the frequency and randomness of the tests, if for no other reason than to placate the vast beauracracy in Washington. This proved to be a great step towards cleaning up the wrestling business, although a terrible miscalculation on the business side of things for WWE.

The testing was so debilitating to our roster that Paul Heyman, who was just rehired, suggested I simply list the names of all the people not suspended. After firing him again, I decided it was a sound idea, so I will do so now. The list of currently active WWE wrestlers is as follows:

Undertaker (the only abnormal thing he tested highly for was surliness, and we have yet to ban that substance; that also explains why Trevor Murdoch remains on the active roster)
John Cena (who is the only superstar exempt from testing, because he is too busy making me money)
Batista (I am as surprised as you are, I assure you)
Randy Orton (For some reason, he really wanted us to test his stool, and he gave it to us in a gym bag with the name "Melina" on it. Odd.)
HHH (who passed a special test administered by Nepotism Labs Inc.)
CM Punk (I was surprised by this one, too; I thought his "straight edge" gimmick was some kind of rib that Jim Cornette came up with before I fired him; I mean, what sober man has that many tatoos? And yet here we are)
Rey Mysterio (his muscles are literally fake; they're prosthetics)
Brian Kendrick (I have no idea who this is)
Jamie Noble (him either)
Jimmy Yang (Given his ring attire, when I first saw him backstage, I assumed he was one of my gardners who had somehow wound up at the show by accident; boy, was that awkward!)
Laila El and Brooke (they were clean, but Kelly Kelly wasn't, as I will go in to greater detail about later)
Kenny Dykstra (he looks very youthful for someone who played baseball for so many years)
Stevie Richards (Wait, he still works here?)
Cody Rhodes (The lack of the Rhodes paunch is suspicious, but his total lack of muscle tone made up for it)
Hornswoggle (We sent him to the same labs as HHH, for kayfabe reasons)

Despite the currently unemployed Mr. Heyman's advice, I do feel it behooves me to explain some of the more suprising suspensions. I do not feel that I should have to explain to anyone why Bobby Lashley and Christ Masters will be spending the next month at home, for instance.

However I do feel some of these suspensions deserve more of an explanation, and given the WWE's new policy of total transperancy (and the fact that I am highly inebriated at the time of this writing), I will offer reasons why your favorite midcarder will not be on television for the next month.

The Great Kahli- His results for curry were dangerously high.
The Major Bros.- To be honest, only one of them tested positive, but can you tell them apart?
Jeff Hardy- He's basically a walking contact high at this point.
Matt Hardy- The reason he won't die? Copious amounts of peyote.
Jim Ross- Actually, it's just time for his bi-annual demotion. Expect his triumphant return to Raw once I actually have to sit through Todd Grisham on commentary.
Jim Ross- I had no idea a man could take that much viagra and still live.
Maria- The reason why she plays such a great ditzy character? She was on Stupid Pills.
Kelly Kelly- She was the supplier of said pills. As well as a frequent user. Apparently, she was also distributing them to a lot of our creative staff, which explains things like Big Dick Johnson and John Morrison's promos more clearly.
Tommy Dreamer- His blood tests revealed EXTREME levels-- of marijuana. He insists that it's Rob Van Dam's fault, but I already used the walking contact high joke for Jeff Hardy, and I'm damn sure not repeating material so Tommy Dreamer can hobble around the ring on Tuesday nights.
Shelton Benjamin- To be honest, his tests were clean, I just couldn't believe that some form of barbituate was not involved in that dye job. So he can go hang out with his mother. His real one or the one we created for him. I don't care.
Victoria and Beth Phoenix- They're not on steroids or anything, they just do not give me an erection, which is a cardinal sin for the modern diva.
Candice Michelle- To be honest, Stephanie rigged her tests out of spite, because she hates anyone with a better boob job than her.
Torrie Wilson- Old lady Wilson has to be on something to still be around. She's been here for what, 6 years? What a prune! Why couldn't she take the hint from Stratus, Lita, and Stacey Keibler and move on to failed reality shows, bad punk music, or succesful reality shows?
Melina- She tested extremely high for being an insufferable bitch.
Kristal and Jillian Hall- So did they, but I think it was just their "time of the month," unlike Melina's persistently high levels. That said, we must remain consistent. Unless it involves someone Hunter really wants to beat on PPV.
Mick Foley- His levels of Krispy Kreme were far too high to permit him back in the ring any time soon. He wants to write another whiney book about how we should have pushed his septugenarian idol more anyway, or so I hear.
Paul London- Apparently you can hide a lot of pills in that beard.
The Highlanders- The amount of Haggis in their system was staggering. I don't know what that is, but it sounds bad, so they're out.
Daves Taylor and Finlay- We just have too many Daves, so they'll alternate time on the road with Batista.
Super Crazy- He wears a poncho to the ring, so he must be on something.
Jim Duggan- We're actually still punishing him for being found getting high with the Iron Sheik in the '80s, more because I still don't know why a super patriot like Duggan and virulent anti-American like the Sheik would hang out together.
Elijah Burke- He tested positive. For everything. Also, those beads in his hair aggravated me to no end.
Carlito- I was just really pissed off that he cut that magnificent hair. That'll teach the son of a bitch!
Big Daddy V- Apparently he got those large "moobs" from taking the same combination of female fertility drugs and bovine hormone that Barry Bonds did. I just thought he was a gluttonous pig!

I could go on, but will anyone even miss Lance Cade, Snitsky, Daivari, Kevin Thorne, Mark Henry, The Miz, Matt Stryker, Shannon Moore, or anyone else I can't be bothered to remember at this point? I thought not.

Given the extreme blow to our roster depth, I have tried to rectify the situation as best I could. After realizing that everyone in our developmental territories was, to be charitable, excruciatingly awful, I realized that drastic steps had to be taken.

To that end, I have decided to purchase the preeminent independent wrestling organization in North America, Ring of Honor, and promote their performers to our three brands immediately.

"Vince," you might say, "how could you purchase Ring of Honor when they were not for sale." I would reply first by saying "It's Mr. McMahon, damnit!" Then I would laugh at your naivette; I am a megalomaniacal billionare; under our free market economy, I can do whatever I want with no consquences! Which explains why I got away with not doing drug tests for so long.

Some of you may be worried that I will "missuse" your favorite talent from ROH. I would assure you that that is the farthest thing from my intention. These newly acquired superstars will be allowed the same chance as everyone else to rise to the top of our promotion. They will be allowed to showcase their unique individual talents on our worldwide media conglomerate platform. At least until the suspensions are over. Then it's back to Heat or the bingo hall circuit with the lot of them.

Except for Bryan Danielson, the reputed "Best Wrestler in the World". I plan on placing him in a stable with Snitsky, Kevin Thorne, and Fox News Pundit John Gibson. They will be known as the Palest Men in America, and will wreak havoc on anyone who does not live up to their milky white ideal. I am hoping to include Conan O'Brien in the angle when we do our next Saturday Night's Main Event taping. They will be a dominant heel force; right up until HHH feels like squashing them. I give 'em a month.

In closing, I would urge our wonderful, magnanimous, completely hygenic fans to continue their support of our product. We plan on continuing to give you the best in sports entertainment (which is why I decided to not buy TNA as well, despite a lot of hilarious text messages from Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett where they groveled in an attempt to get their jobs back). And really, what are you going to do, watch UFC instead?

I should have said that, should I?

Sincerely,

Vincent K. McMahon, God of All Sports Entertainment

Heat recap for 9/21/07

One of the web's best Heat reacaps. Because it's literally one of the only ones. But hey, this week, everyone's favorite monosyllabic legend of wrestling, Ron Simmons, is in action. That's something, right?

Our hosts are Jack Capello (I think that's what he said) and Coach, who is still stuck hosting this show. I liked him on commentary last week so no big deal. It gives me a chance to apologize to Todd Grisham for confusing him with Josh Matthews the whole show last week. I just have a hard time telling the difference between a skinny, nerdy announcer and a skinny, effete one. Anyway, on to the show!

Opening match: Cody Rhodes vs. KC James- Jeez, Rhodes has gone from regular Raw appearences to jerking the curtain on Heat? James was last seen jobbing to London and Kendrick on Smackdown, who are main eventing against the Highlanders.

Coach plugs his being a dick to John Cena's dad on Raw while James gets a wristlock. Rhodes reverses and they do some stuff that leads to a whip and a shoulderblock and arm drag. He stays on the arm for a bit before James pushes him to the corner to ge a break, and then follows with the obligatory heel cheap shot. Rhodes slugs away, and they do another basic sequence, which ends in a knee to the gut from James to Rhodes. Single arm DDT gets two. Announcer I've never heard of calls it a nice manouver. Apparently he graduated from the VInce McMahon school of broadcasting. James goes to the arm, but Rhodes rolls him up for two. More stuff on the arm for James leads to a two. James is sticking with the damn arm, so points for consistency, but I usually fast forward through this kind of stuff. Coach no sells new guy's advocacy for Cena having the title with a yawn. He is awesome on this show. Rhodes comes back with a dropkick, backdrop, and bulldog for two. That's like his whole moveset, other than Dusty's punches and the DDT. Which he finishes with. This was a solid, old school match, which is fitting for two rather green guys.Please don't try this at home PSA that you have to sit through on every single DVD, including Hardcore Holly's gory cut in that ECW match with RVD from last year.

Ron Simmons is out for his match. It's amazing how over he is just from saying one word. His opponent is Johnny Parisi, who I think is Johnny Swinger from TNA. They acknowledge that he's the first African American World Champ, which is one of the cool things about Vince owning everything. Spinebuster finishes Parisi pretty quickly, and Ron gets in his crowd pleasing catchphrase. How is he not in the new Smackdown vs. Raw game, exactly? Headstand over the top rope seems pretty risky for middle aged guy. More than squashing a former NWA Tag Champ.

WWE Divas magazine ad, which I have too much dignity to own. Yet. Soapy Maria is kind of hard to pass up.

Main event time! New guy mocks Todd Grisham as Coach puts over London and Kendrick. He's no JBL, but nice try anyway. The only other tag team on RAW besides the champs (who are dominant in tag matchges but really suck in handicap matches, apparently) are out. Maybe turning heel would be a good way for the Highlanders to go. Viscera went from goofball jobbery to being a bad ass heel, twice, so it's not unheard of. Although that took it being 1995 and going to the small pond of ECW, so maybe he's a bad example. Chain wrestling between Spanky and Rory starts us out. That goes on for a bit. Kendrick flips out of a backdrop and runs the ropes but gets a knee to the guy for his trouble. Robby takes over. I'm Robby! That was always amusing. Basic double team stuff, as they continue to put over London and Kendrick on commentary, comparing them to Rey Mysterio. Works for me.

Highlanders work over the arm on Kendrick, which is a theme tonight (even though it's afternoon here), but he comes back with a hip toss and tags in London, who resembles a guy I hung out with in college with his beard. More basic chainwrestling, which is fine, given the Highlanders limitations and the fact that it's a face vs. face match, so you can't have the Highlanders just tossing the little guys around. London slides through Robby's legs and rolls him up for two, giving us a rare male upskirt shot. Or upkilt, as Roddy Piper might protest if he didn't have better things to do. London gets another two of a crossbody. Robby does a cool flip out of the corner but gets caught with that bitchin' back kick that Punk, Joe, Mickie James and seemingly every other ROH alumnus does, and Kendrick gets a sloppy looking roll up for two after tagging in. I think that one was Robby's fault, but it still looked awkward.

More shit with the arm (please, pick another body part, for variety's sake!), and Robby does a chest bump in the corner off a charge for two. Lots of near falls for Spanky follow before Robby breaks a wristlcok and makes the tag, as Coach make an allusion to the fact that this new announcer guy is getting fired pretty soon. How can he be so funny here and have bombed so bad on Raw? Rory's in, apparently taking time off from covering the Obama campaign, and he takes a Spanky roll up for two. For those not in the know, Spanky and Kendrick are the same guy and I will use those names interchangabely. I will also make at least one Gilmore Girl reference in every Highlanders match. Anyway, Spanky seems deadset on doing every roll up variation he can think of. Tag to London, but Rory gets pissed off and dumps London with authority, as we get a commerical break. On a web show?Jeff Hardy video package for no apparent reason. They didn't even shill his shirts or anything. Back in, Paul London is your face in peril. London fights back from the ropes, but Robby cuts him off before he can get the tag and clubbers away. Double suplex gets two, as they reference that long title reign on Smackdown. They will always have that, which is good. Coach explains that Raw is different from Smackdown without putting over Raw, which is nice of him. Crowd participation chinlock by Rory, but London can't get the tag. Falling headbutt following the face slap tag by Robby, and he gets the backbreaker stretch submission which Melina busted out last week, I think. London fights out with kicks, but Robby gets the tag and continues the punishment. Robby's a really good heel, actually, as he stays on the back. I mean Rory. The bald one who looks nothing like Alexis Bledel. They reference HHH's douchey Pedigrees on London and Kendrick after they made the save and put him over as a lone wolf, which is a good character for him. Then they go on to verbally felate their potential new boss before London gets out of a bearhug with an atomic drop and a pretty 'rana. Kendrick cleans house with his "blitz of moves" as the Coach puts it. London enziguri puts Rory out, and Kendrick finishes off Robby with a corkscrew press, HBK esque superkick (according to Coach), and the sliced bread #2, or the best finisher the WWE hasn't banned yet. That's enough to keep the goofy Scottsman down. Show ends with Londrick celebrating the hard fought victory. I'd go for ** on this one, if I did star (or asterik, really) ratings. Again, this was a fun show, and the main event was probably the best tag match I've seen on free TV in awhile, as they kept it simple, played the formula, and put over the right guys. The other two matches were perfectly acceptable wrestling, so I'm still on board for recapping this show, at least until I develop an actual social life.

Dan Freaking Severn?

In his always fun Pulse Answers Column, the second most entertaining Scottsman in the world, Iain Burnside provides a list of the longest combined world title reigns, in honor of John Cena's latest run, which now clocks in at over a year.

On his list of the 31 longest tenured champs in the history of the business are some interesting entrants. The top five is more or less who you'd expect, even if Bob Backlund is kind of a surprise at fifth, ahead of Harley Race. I had no idea Dory Funk Jr. had a longer run than his brother. I also thought Terry Funk had more than one title reign, even ommitting the ECW title.

Other than not knowing who Orville Brown, Naoya Ogawa, and Dick Hutton are, the biggest shocker here came from Dan Severn's place in the top 10. I mostly remember Severn as the guy who wasn't as successful as Ken Shamrock or as amusingly awful as Tank Abbot in the early UFC to pro wrestling crossover attempts. Funny how no one's really doing that anymore, and instead guys like Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle are instead trying to go the other way.

Owen Hart's whole bit in Mick Foley's first book, about how saying Severn was a nice guy was the only good thing you could say about his WWF stint during the Attitude Era, sums up that run. I never even saw him wrestle at that point, but his style clashed enough with their garbagey house style at the time that it doesn't take a genius to see that not working. I knew he was NWA Champion for awhile, before Jarrett rented the belt out when he started TNA, I just didn't know it was for that long. That's kind of amazing, seeing him mixed in with some of the biggest names in the history of the business And Jeff Jarrett who, as Burnside points out, really benefited from running his own company and having the excuse that he was one of the few guys with main event experience or heat on the roster for the first four years of the promtion's existence. We'll see if he makes it back to being "the King of the Mountain" again, but he was smart enough to realize how sick to death the crowd is of him and has mostly stayed away since jobbing the belt to Sting, showing up only to hit Abyss with a guitar in a cage and use Eric Young's cult following to become miraculously sympathetic again; with Angle, Sting, Joe, and Christian all established as main eventers and guys like Abyss, AJ, and Chris Harris all poking around the edges, it will be interesting to see if he has the balls to put himself on top again, or if he's going to stay in the background like he has lately.

As an aside, I knew a guy who worked in a comic/sports card shop around here. He's big on MMA, which I am barely a casual fan of. One day, we were talking about it, and he brought up that he trained with Dan Severn when he lived in the midwest. Somehow, this lead to his talking about Severn showing off all his title belts. I remember saying I'd be more impressed with his NWA Titles than all of his legitimate MMA awards, which he got a good laugh out of. Then we went back to talking about Garth Ennis comics. Good times.

Smackdown! Postmortem

I'm piggybacking off of Troy Hepple's recap, because I already deleted the show from Tivo and am not taking notes on shows anymore, after the TNA recap I did nearly broke my wrist. I'm also using a lot of exclamation points, because it's! The! Season! Premiere! Which is pretty meaningless in a wrestling show, but whatever. Teddy and Kristal are getting married in the ATL, according to Cole. Whenever a white guys says the ATL, I waver between rolling my eyes and snicker very quickly. Cole can take solace in the fact that he sounds less lame than Mike Tenay did when he said Bound For Glory was taking place there, at least.

It occurs to me that Mike Tenay may exist solely to make Cole and Joey Styles feel less lame. Cosmic balance and all.

Maria was there! I'm just always happy to see Maria is all. Even if that one guy in the Ying Yang Twins was apparently trying to replace Lil' Jon's monosyllablism with gutteral noises as the most annoying sounds in hip hop.

Looks like they're still using spot illustrations of the main eventers for the intro, which is considerably less Edge-centric than I remember it being, but that happens when you're on the shelf (and probably due for a suspension).

Dave interview! He likes his shoes and Rey Mysterio! He's having a Punjabi Prison Match with Khali the WWE already announced on their website! And I fast forward soon after Mark Henry shows up. I stick around just long enough to hear him butcher the phrase "I couldn't care less." Unless he meant that he literally could care less, it's just not likely. That seems like a valid usage.

McMahon/Hornswoggle tomfoolery! That stuff always cracks me up.

Jimmy Yang is back! And he did a cool variation of his moonsault press. I also like that they're setting up a feud between Moore and Noble, since Lil' Horny (my new nickname for Hornswoggle) will likely be busy annoying the Coach and Vince. Maybe this whole thing will make the crusierweights matter? Wouldn't that be crazy?

Deuce and Domino vs. MVP 2.0! Holy crap, the greasers are getting better, aren't they? I still hate that gimmick with a passion, though. Really digging the Hardy/Porter feud. Hopefully MVP's heart can handle an actual singles match soon.

Black guys talking about sex! I feel like I should know Bruce Bruce from somehwere.

Mysterio interview! JBL referencing Cole's apparently substantial journalism career is interesting. The Finlay vs. Mysterio match they set up (and the possibility of a Mysterio/JBL verbal feud) are all butter to me, extreme style clash or not, and I'm always a sucker for people getting hit in the face with microphones.

Chuck Palumbo still likes his motorcycle! We get it, Chuck, you're not gay or Italian anymore.

Batista vs. Mark Henry! They're really pushing their luck putting these guys in the ring together, considering every time they've tried to do this feud, one of them has gone on the shelf. That, and if it runs any longer than this one did, the suckitude might create a black hole and implode the universe. Or it could just be awful and boring like Dave's singles matches with Khali. Speaking of everyone's favorite Indian giant, he finally serves a purpose and ends this match before someone breaks something, and debilitates Batista with the head squeeze and tree slam, which I thought he'd stopped doing because it legitimately hurt people. It would be kind of funny if that happened here, given the history of injury I just referenced.

Wedding Time! Half the fun of these thing is seeing who is too big a star to bother to show up. On that list are HHH, Orton, and Cena (Dave and Rey have a pass, because they both got laid out earlier, and they're holding 'Taker back for next week; I get the feeling that him being there would hurt his whole spooky mystique anyway). Kane wasn't there either, but I imagine that's because he's had bad experience with weddings. and he'd look weird, even in a crowd where there's a 2x4 with a bowtie and Trevor Murdoch in his dress redneck attire. Punk doesn't get the main eventer treatment, but he is really just a midcarder with an old belt and a new beard anyway. He was at the taping and gets to see Maria, and probably sex her up in a closet or something, so I still think he's coming out ahead. Especially since HHH has to go home to Stephanie and his demon baby, who's probably already refusing to job to baby food and wanting the finish of his bedtime stories changed, I bet.

When my wedding day comes, I hope Jillian Hall, Hornswoggle, and the Godfather all do run ins. Is it sad that I was more impressed by the hold Mickie James but on Hall to get her to stop singing than anything she's done in the ring since her feud with Stratus? Also, I was really digging Candice's trashy powersuit. Leopard print at a wedding?

JBL was his usual awesome self through this whole thing, from namedropping Doom to continually bringing up the age discrepancy between Teddy and Kristal. And the enthusiasm with which he joined the Ho Train? Priceless.

The way Patterson looked at Briscoe, keeping him from going with the Ho Train, makes me wonder about those two. It also kind of makes me miss them from their Stooges days. Their Toadyism makes Coach look even lamer. Although I also remember their "match" for the Hardcore Title back in the late, lamented Crash Holly's heyday with the belt, so I don't miss them that much.

Teddy's heart attack at the end of the thing was an absurd tonal shift, though, and I have no idea where they're going from here. If it turns out that Vickie Guerrero gave him poisoned viagara and its another heel turn for her, though... well, that actually sounds kind of funny. I'm guessing this leaves her in charge of the show, and maybe this means Teddy's going to join Al Wilson in the old man with hot young woman section kayfabe heaven. At any rate, America's Favorite Gay Wrestling Recapper is right; this was a fun segment, probably the most entertaining (or at least least crap) wedding they have ever done, even if it lacked Trish Stratus in the hottest bridesmaid's outfit ever.

Impact Recap; I typed it, so you have to read it

I decided to do a full recap of Impact. I have no idea why, and all I really got out it was a massively cramped hand. That said, I might as well transcribe it here, lest it be a total waste, despite the fact that show is well past it sell by date. I know it was only last night, but trust me; this shit is stale.
We open with Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, and Kurt's Useless Lump of Silicon of a wife Karen hanging out backstage. Kurt aplogizes to Nash for whatever he did to him at the pay-per-view I didn't watch, and they hug it out. Nash eventually lets Kurt know when it's become creepy. This is why I still like Nash. It also makes me wish he'd been around when Vince, Kurt, and Stone Cold did nothing but hug for like a month back in 2001.


Anyway, Kurt and his useless wife celebrate the beatdown of Sting last week that I fastforwarded through because Karen Angle appearing on screen just makes me want to do that, and I'd already read the spoilers anyway. Nash warns them that they've pissed off the wrong guy, talking about there being two Stings, the nice one and the angry one, name dropping the nWo in the process. Desperately clinging to past glories rules! But that was a nice bit of continuity, though. This causes an argument between the Angles which might be funny if I didn't hate Karen with the intensity of a thousand suns, and long story (slightly shortened), valiant American hero Kurt sends his wife to smooth things out with righteous, baseball bat wielding avenger Sting, before asking Nash to pray for him. All of this makes me think that maybe they'd be better off just playing the whole show for laughs.

Intro video, now with 100% more Pacman Jones! I'm surprised Goodell allowed that. On the docket tonight: Eric Young vs. Ricky Banderas! Er, I mean Judas Mesias. I assume the WSX Title won't be on the line.
AJ Styles vs. Ron Killings in a Who the Hell Are We Supposed to Cheer Match!
Christian Cage vs. Not Rikishi Fatu in the Main Event, no, we're not kidding, and yes, this was probably a main event on Heat sometime in 2000. How sad is it that the fact that they might be dogging it before the two hour expansion is the less depressing alternative explanation for why the show's been sucking? I apologize in advance for the poor formatting, but Blogger has apparently decided that it doesn't acknowledge enter for paragraph breaks anymore, so I'm doing the whole thing manually. Opening (squash) match- Judas Mesias vs. Eric Young- Mesias is billed as being from "The Pits of Hell." That's old Mr. Subtlty Vince Russo for you. I have to wonder if Mesias's home town is adjacent to The Boogeyman's, the Bottomless Pit. I bet they went to rival high schools. There's a "We Want Hogan" sign in the crowd. I bet that would improve morale backstage a lot. Although the more morbid among us can always hope that he gets Nick to drive him to the shows if and when that comes to pass. Yeah, I'm not recapping this match. It's sad, but I think using Young as a sacrificial lamb for Mexican Abyss is probably the best thing they can do with him at this point, after wasting so much of his time with Bobby Roode. I can't comment on the body of the match, but Mesias has one of the lamest finishers I have ever seen. I think it's supposed to be a running downward spiral/flatliner, but it looks like Mesias is thowing himself down and his opponent just incidentally making contact with the mat. That gets the pin on a busted open Young, and then Shark Boy comes out, showing commendable balls according to Don West, and he takes that stupid finisher too. Mesias bites Young's open cut, which just seems unsanitary as opposed to evil to me. Rhino finally proves to be an intimidating enough opponent to make Mesias back off, and that ends this segment. Don't tell me he's going to have to put this mook over at Bound For Glory. To the back, and AJ is throwing a luau for Christian, which for some reason is supposed to prepare him for his match with not-Rikishi. Stick in the mud Tomko cuts the hilarity short because he wants AJ to focus on the match with Killings tonight. Christian cuts an ultra serious promo on the fat comedy wrestler with the giant ass, further harshing my boner for fun. I mean, if I can't get cheap laughs from those three, there's pretty much nothing on this show to hold my interest. Steiners/3D video package. That's all my notes say. I forget when this happened and, again, kind of don't care. Having the Evil Dudleys back again is nice and all, but sticking them with the dead weight that is the 21st Century Steiners seems like a waste, although I guess they might as well blow off the feud at BFG anyway. AJ Vs. Killings came on next, and it was a solid, longish free match, with all of the uneccessary flipping and flopping you'd expect from Killings, some cool reversals, and the requisite cheap finish, as Pacman shoots AJ in the eyes with spraypaint to block the Styles Clash, which is as good a counter as any. I guess that doesn't count as contact. That set up the Axe Kick from Truth, which is now finaly the sole property of Ron Killings (at least until Booker comes down to Tampa or is convinced to worth with the WWE again). I'd say it would be worth watching the replay for this match, but I can't quite go that far. As an aside, who else thought that when they announced Team Pacman that it would be Killings and someone else, with Pacman as a manager, instead of Pacman just standing on the apron? Although, the difference between Jones being legally not able to wrestle and someone like Soppy Gunn or Fat Dogg James or whatever their names are now being physically unable to do so is negligible, so I guess I can live with these guys as champs, especially if they're just transitioning to AJ and the World's Tallest Straightman. Next, we got more Karen talking, as she apologizes to Sting for lying about his hitting her and breaking up that long running partnership he had with Kurt of all of two weeks and then slapping him. Or so I guess, because I didn't listen to anything she said. Fast forward, how I love thee! Anyway, the pay off is that Sting has a restraining order against her, so she gets arrested. Now there's a stipulation I hope sticks. Although knowing Russo, he'll probably have her show up via satelite, so we can still get our half hour Kurt Angle's wife that we're all clamoring for, while people like Kazarian and Chris Sabin play Nintendo Wii and balance their checkbooks backstage or something. At some point, they announced Daniels vs. Lethal for the X-Division Title and an inagural Women's Title Gauntlet at BFG. I can get behind both, especially if Gail Kim gets the gold in the women's match. Knowing Russo, it will probably Roxxy (or, as I have dubbed her, Boogeywoman) or Jackie Gayda or something. Does Jackie Gayda even work there anymore? If so, and they've paid her to do sweet fuck all for a year and a half, then they really are the new WCW. Main event time! Rikishi is dubbed as Jr. Fatu now. Okay, they called hin that the whole show, I just wanted to call him not-Rikishi for awhile. Of course, I greatly amused myself by dubbing a Brock Lesnar CAW Not Brock in a Gamecube WWE game, and seeing awesome dialogue like "I hear you're a great wrestler, Not Brock." So that's where my head's at. Tenay name drop Fatu's title reigns in WWE. You ever notice that WWE never, ever, once has ever name dropped TNA on any of their shows? I wonder why that is. The match was solid, big man vs. little man stuff. Totally watchable, and even if Fatu looked a little gassed at times, it held together pretty well, if for no other reason than that it was pretty much a formula match and Christian's facial expressions were priceless. I spent half of it preoccupied with the possibility that we're Scott Taylor and Brian Lawler signings away from a Too Cool reunion, but otherwise, it was decent stuff. End came when AJ interfered, allowing Christian to get the rollup. Tenay protested that tight pulling was involved, but I literally didn't see it, and again, didn't care enough to rewind. Poor sport Rikishi gets revenge for having to do a protected job to a main eventer by stinkfacing both AJ and Christian, which if nothing else paid off the main storyline of the match. Tomko makes the very untimely save (good job bailing your boss out of the embarassing situation, doofus. Christian should totally fire him for that) but Joe makes the counter save before a beatdown can get going, clearing the ring of non-Samoans and looking pretty motivated for a guy who doesn't want to renew his contract. Our parting shot of the evening is Mesias appearing to choke Sting to death with a noose backstage, which West calls "a great debut." So, apparently the way to get ahead in TNA is to attempt murder on the promotion's resident Born Again Christian and iconic main eventer. Good to know. I hate to state the obvious, but using a song called "the Biggest Letdown" is definitely an unintentional shoot comment about the promotion. Or maybe even the guys doing the video packages are bored with the product. Okay, I'm putting TNA on notice, Colbert-style; once we get to the two hour shows, I'll give you a month. If things don't pick up, I'm out. I'm talking one good X-Division match a week, angles give time to breath, or at least two segments devoted to Christian and AJ's wacky misadventures. If you can't give me that, I'd done with you. At least until I hear you've stopped sucking. Or I cave and start watching again, like I did with ECW. I'm no good at threats. But this show is the one I can most easily see myself prune from my season pass, which given the fact that I watch ECW, is something I never would have expected to happen.

ROH Videowire and random match recap

Due to the fact that I do not live where they run their shows, refuse to buy their DVDs, and DirecTV does not run their PPVs, YouTube is about the only place I can actually watch Ring of Honor, instead of simply reading about how great it is. So, in the spirit of my stream of consciousness Heat recap from all of five days ago, here's one for ROH's video wire show, in addition to a random match from their archives. I don't know everyone in the company's names, so if I don't acknowledge your favorite wrestler by his full name, his signature move, and place of birth, I'm sorry.

Still footage of... some shirtless guy (would it kill them to identify these people for ROH neophytes?), and some guy talking about the Age of the Fall's beatdown on the Briscoe Bros. and how ROH is pulling it from the PPV because it's too graphic and not representative of what they're about. This is actually kind of a cool way to build heel heat for these guys, as it gives all kinds of sinister connotations to the beatdown and makes it sound so bad that the people in charge consider it morally reprehensible, which is an interesting change of pace from the people running WWE and TNA tacitly approving of Abyss getting cut up with glass shards and Randy Orton attacking innocent bystanders like John Cena's dad, at least on a kayfabe level. Although they're showing it in the video wire, because it's a significant moment fans want to see. So they're sort of giving the fans the bloodshed they want to see, they just don't want paying customers to see it. The fact that these guys are so much smarter than Paul Heyman was when he ran ECW never fails to impress me.

Footage of Morishima and some guy in a mohawk (Erik Stevens? Eddie Edwards?) opens things up. Looks like a fun match.

Danielson vs. McGuinness is their selling point for Driven, the next PPV I can not order on DirecTV. Now, I know the WWE is the devil and all, but would it kill ROH (or TNA, for that matter) to at least offer webcasts of these things like Vince does? It's probably not cost effective or feasible for a scrappy DIY indie group like ROH or a bloated regional promotion like TNA, but still, I want to see it, and I'm a male, ages 18-34, everyone listens to my suggestions no matter how stupid they are!

We get another viewer discretion advised warning for the beatdown, as there are apparently terrorists in the front row beating on the barricades. They're wearing black ski masks and bandannas, so the connotation is there, although it's not as explicitly offensive as when Val Venis was pretending to be a murderous Arab and slit Undertaker's throat for Muhammad Hassan, so point to ROH. Shirtless guy from the VDA bit, Jimmy Jacobs (in swank white suit), Lacey, and some crazy looking hick who I assume is Necro Butcher hit the ring and we get highlights of actual wrestling moves.

"I told y'all if you let me out of my cage, I'd pile up bodies to the sky." So says crazy hick guy. What, did he just walk out of a Rob Zombie movie or something? Is he one of the rejected Devil's Rejects?

One of the Briscoes is hung by his feet from the cable that held the tag titles during the apparently amazing ladder match from last weekend. I'll buy that DVD. Maybe. The other is merely choked out in the corner. "You sick fuck" chant as Jacobs cuts a promo. He pushes Lacey, who he apparently doesn't love because love doesn't save. I bet that would mean more if I'd bothered to follow that angle. Shirtless guy's name is apparently Tyler Black. Briscoe's blood dripping all over Jacob's suit is a cool, if overly gruesome, visual. Jacobs explains that they went after the Briscoes first because people cheer their ability, ignoring that they're beer swilling idiots. I thought that was ROH's whole hook. Hog tied Briscoe is lowered, as "the Age of the Fall has just begun." The impact of all of this is blunted a bit by all the damn streamers in the ring (and around Briscoe's feet), but still, cool heel promo.

Morishima/McGuiness is advertised for the next PPV taping, before Jacobs and friends add a coda to the promo. "And this, is just the beginning." I have to ask, does drinking blood and talking about how your psycho hick friend is misunderstood and your other friend can't find a spot anywhere make you more or less emo? And how does that cane shift the balance of things?

Shilling for ROH DVDs I may have to break down and buy leads us to a Briscoes promo. It can be summarized as "Fuck shit tits bitch asshole fucking kill ourselves fuck y'all come from the crowd match of our lives fucking bullshit it's a war!" I may have missed a fuck in there, but you get the drift. That's all for the Videowire. There's a link to a NOAH match between the Briscoes and ROH competitor Marifuji &... it doesn't say. I'll save that for later, because it's time for a random ROH match!

Let's go with current NWA Champion (at least the last time I checked) Adam Pearce vs. Pelle Primeau, since I've seen Pearce wrestle live before. He was tagging with Rob Conway, who looked like he would rather be almost anywhere else. Admittedly, if I had gone from the WWE to the McAllen Civic Center, I might be a little disgruntled, too.

Anyway, what little I've seen of Pearce entertains me, because he never shuts the fuck up, so this could be fun. He's wearing goggles, which he assures us give him "X-Ray Vision." How that's an advantage in a wrestling match, I don't know, but okay, whatever. Primeau is from Alaska. That is literally the only remarkable thing about his intro, because hey, how many wrestlers are from Alaska? I'm kind of suprised either Vince, McMahon or Russo, hasn't given us a wrestling Eskimo by now, with all of thet stereotypes that would surely embody. Or did they and I missed it? I haven't visited Wrestlecrap in awhile, I must admit.

Primeau rolls around to avoid the much larger Pearce, so Pearce responds with "Hey, would you just stand in one stinkin' place and quit moving around?" I dig this guy. Primeau responds with a slap. Primeau sort of looks like an even skinnier, smaller CM Punk, so I guess that's something else remarkable about him. He springboards off the rope and headscissors Pearce out of the ring, which really strains my suspension of disbelief, given the size difference. I say this as a big Rey Mysterio mark who loved his giant killer days in WCW, though, so take that how you will. Primeau then follows with a springboard plancha off the top, nailing both Pearce and his "manservant" Shane Haggadorn (Hagadorn? Hag-a-Dorn?). The momentum takes him up the ramp, and then he steps on both guys on the way back to the ring. Okay, good on you, Skinnier Punk.

Back in, Primeau plays to the crowd while Pearce regroups, allowing the kind of lame announcers to fill us in on the back story. Primeau with some clubbering and yells "I'm gonna kill him!" Good luck with that, pal. He calls Pearce Repo Man, which is pretty funny if also incredibly obscure, before hitting a fore arm. More fore armery, but a charge is cut off by a massive bitch slap from Pearce. Chokeslam follows. Pearce does some more talking while the announcer shills ROHVideos.com. Scoop and a flinging slam from Pearce. Suplex variant from Pearce, as he just sort of flips Primeau over without falling back, and we're in squash territory.

Off the ropes goes Primeau, but a running front dropkick attempt is reversed in to a double leg, and Pearce hits the giant swing, a move we don't nearly see enough of in the "majors". That puts Primeau on the apron. Cocky pin with a knee, but he picks him up at two. That shit's a cardinal sin for a heel in most cases, but I think Pearce will be okay here. Whatever happened in this match, it didn't keep him from winning the oldest belt in wrestling, at least. Crowd's chanting some shit I can't understand as Pearce tosses Primeau across the ring again. Crappy announcer gets in a funny comment, asking if Pearce is just going for distance at this point. He still sounds like a pubescent fifteen year old, but a good line's a good line.

Primeau finally does something that doesn't involve selling by sunset flipping out of an apparent finisher attempt by Pearce. That gets two but Pearce is right back on him with a forearm. More clubbering as the match slows down again. Primeau blocks a charge with boots and hits a Mysterio-esque flying senton press off the top (pubescent announcer calls it a Thesz Press, but I like my description better) and hits a Low-Ki esque, except that isn't as good as Low-Ki's, double stomp immediately after. That outburst has him gasping for air, so he tries to get the crowd behind him in lieu of doing anything to capitalize on getting Pearce down.
A Primeau charge is reveresed a couple times, which is the kind of shit I mark out for, going from a tilt-a-whirl from Pearce, to a DDT from Primeau, and ending up with a suplex from Pearce. That leads to a cool looking jumping piledriver, and that's all she wrote. Well, at least Pearce doesn't have to worry about getting challenged for the NWA Title by this guy. Hagadorn adds insult to injury by stepping on Primeau's chest and then hitting him with his trophy, which does not look homoerotic at all, given that the trophy's resting precariously near Hagadorn's crotch. Of course, all of pro wrestling is homoerotic (except Divas matches, and sometimes not even then), so I'll just shut up, lest I make any heterosexual folks in the audience question their leanings. Okay squash, but you know, you get what you paid for. If I felt qualified to give star ratings, I'd go *3/73rds for this one. It had a beat and you could dance to it.

Next time, maybe some TNA and Smackdown! thoughts, if either show gives me anything to work with. And no, I doubt Kristal and Teddy's marriage will be part of that, and it's pretty sad that I've read the TNA spoilers and already forgot what was going to happen. I can see why people turn to this piddly indie stuff.

Just Random links now: The Simpsons Game Super Sneak

I want this real bad now. EA better not screw it up.

Another WWE.com link

I'm starting to look like a shill for them. Which I would be if they paid me. Or at least sent me some free DVDs and a CM Punk shirt. I'm a cheap date like that.

Anyway, my corporate masters at WWE.com currently have a poll about famous midgets in history, tying in to my boy Hornswoggle's ascension from human foreign object to Crusierweight Champion and McMahon family member. Really, I just wanted to write the phrase famous midgets in history, and this link was the best way to justify it. I notice a lack of Wee Man from Jackass on there, which amuses me, because I would love it if that meant that Vince held a grudge against him for their pulling out of Summerslam. I really do hope he's that petty, that's he's sitting in his office, yelling at staffers for even acknowledging that particular famous midget. Hey, maybe that's why Cor Von was released! Also, I'd say little person, but midget is a much funnier word.

A true show of No Mercy

They're doing a Punjabi Prison Match at No Mercy? I guess we can always hope that they replace Khali with Big Show in this one, too. Isn't it bizarre that we live in a world where you could actually imagine someone saying "We have to change the booking, because Big Show will make this match better"? And yet here we are.

Anyway, even if they can't coax Paul Wight out of retirement and Khali has to wrestle in his own gimmick match, maybe Dave will swing from a rope. That will make it all better. That's all I remember anyone saying about the first match, between Show and the Undertaker, other than how awful it was; that 'Taker did his Tarzan impression. And with chair shots (hopefully) on their way out, maybe bamboo will be the new steel. This sets up a lot of possibilities for panda intereference, which could only liven things up. I could definitely see them making a Panda ECW Champion, provided it wasn't on the 'roids.

This match being on the card makes me wonder if Rey Mysterio's already lost in the shuffle in the main event scene. Dave's got another transitional championship run going here, and you have to believe either the triumphantly returned Undertaker or the soon to return (unless he has to serve a suspension) Edge will be winning the belt from him to set up that excessively obvious match at Wrestlemania.Between those four, the now-and-forever a world champion Khali as a threat to get another main event push, Hardy and MVP on the cusp of really breaking out as singles stars, and Kane and Finlay ready to fill in at a moment's notice, Smackdown has a real log jam developing in the main event scene, something unfathomable when they were running with a skeleton crew over the last couple years. I guess barely scraping by is ECW's place in the food chain now. But, keeping the suspensions (and possible further burial of Umaga and Kennedy) in mind, they have a deeper roster of main eventers than Raw, and more interesting prospects coming down the pipe. I mean, who are they going to elevate, Snitsky? Jeff Hardy? Carlito? Sure, Lashley and Shawn Michaels (and possibly Chris Jericho) have returns in the near future lined up, but I'm just mainly impressed that Smackdown has a good upper card (aside from one glaring, 7'3, 400-some odd pound exception), and want to bask in that for a minute.

Coming up later, I'll review some ROH matches from Youtube, just as a change of pace.

Wrestlemania IV: Scattergun recap

Rented this one this weekend and finally got around to watching it last night. Since I had no interest in sitting through the whole 4 hours or so of it (back when that was a novelty in a Wrestlemania), and couldn't anyway, lest I incur a late fee, I made liberal use of the chapter menu and just cherry picked the matches I wanted to see. Here are my thoughts:

Setting a precedent that Vince McMahon would later follow, Bad News Brown screwed Bret Hart in the Invitational Battle Royal. Somehow, Bret dropkicking Brown from behind and breaking the trophy got a pop from the crowd, led to the Hart Foundation face turn, and eventually led him to main event status. Weird, isn't it.

Speaking of this match, it's really weird to see a Battle Royal just for the sake of a Battle Royal these days, considering they only do them for title shots these days (and, on Smackdown!, World Title changes). I used to consider myself a fan of this match, but after seeing enough of the older ones, I think it's the modern, made for TV quick, creative elimination vintage of them that I'm a fan of, because they can be boring as hell otherwise. I will cop to liking the fight for your right variation in TNA, which apparently everyone else thought was the worst thing ever. I dunno, it amused me that they had to fight just to get in to the match.

Watch all four Macho Man matches reminded me of how beautiful Elizabeth was (their original run was before my time, and she was considerably skankier in WCW, especially after she hooked up with Lex Luger) and how radically different she carried herself from the modern, oversexed Divas. Not that I mind the current model of "talent enhancement", I'm actually quite fond of a lot of them, but there's a stark contrast between even someone like Trish Stratus and Liz. It's also interesting to hear the announcers more or less treat her with respect; even when Jesse Ventura was talking about who was hotter, Liz or Vanna White, it was still more respectful than Jerry Lawler's over the top objectification of every woman in the company. And, of course, her presence became more of a downer as the show went on, considering how things played out.

The Honky Tonk Man/Brutus Beefcake IC Title match was better than I expected. Shockingly so, considering how bad Ed Leslie was for most of his career and the fact that Honky wasn't known for his work rate. The finish kind of blew, but I didn't care, since, you know, it's been almost 20 years.

Speaking of crappy finishes, Bam Bam Bigelow was totally screwed. How do you get counted out when you're on the apron? Again, this was even more of a downer given his fate, and the fact that he's one of the biggest cases of wasted potential in the history of the business.

I thought Demolition did their finisher on Rick Martel on the outside in their match on this show, putting him on the shelf and leading to Strike Force's break up? Must have been another show. It was interesting to hear the crowd get behind Demolition as the match went on.

Hulk Hogan's promo was hilarious, on a Warrior level of incoherent absurdity that made you wonder what he was on, exactly. The only thing that made me think he was in on the joke was the fact that he was talking about cracking a fault line that runs from New Jersey (where the show took place) and Tampa, Florida, and causing everyone to fall in to the ocean. Anyway, at the end, he's talking about getting Donald Trump and apparently the rest of the Eastern Sea Board to hold on to his arms while he dogs paddles to safety, and he does the backstroke off screen when the promos over. I don't remember Warrior ever doing anything that self awarely goofy, but I haven't seen a lot of his promos, either.

It was interesting to see how over Warrior was during his match with Hercules, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The disk cut out at the end, but I can re-read Scott Keith's rant if I desperately want to find out what happened. It makes Chris Masters look even lamer when you realize he's ripping off Herc's finisher, complete with his mannerisms, somehow.

Steamboat vs. Valentine was solid, entertaining stuff. It's hard to believe there was a time that chops weren't accompanied by a "woo!" from the crowd, but maybe I just couldn't hear it due to the fact that Steamboat hit really fucking hard. This was pretty much Rick's fairwell to the WWF, which he acknowledged by waving to the crowd before leaving. I wonder what he did between then and his short comeback in the early '90s? If only they put that stuff on DVD.

Speaking of Valentine, how hard is it to believe that of all the people on this show, he's still wrestling? I know he was going to be at an indie show down here, at least.

We could have had Savage vs. Steamboat II, but apparently having two faces fight in 1988 would have ripped the fabric of space and time or something.

Speaking of hard to believe, of all of the dead people in this show, how is Jake Roberts not one of them?!?!? That's one I'll never understand, how Jake survives while so many other guys drop like flies. Maybe he's cleaned up his act since the Beyond the Mat/Heroes of Wrestling days, but still; the guy all but drank turpentine, and he's still alive and kicking?

The starkest contrast between then and now was the fact that the main event of this show led in to the year long Mega Powers angle and the eventual pay off in the following year's main event, setting up months worth of matches between the Powers and Dibiase/Andre. They just don't make 'em like that anymore. In fact, I can't think of a 'Mania main event in the last ten/fifteen years that flowed out of the previous one so beautifully. Of course, given the monthly (and some times twice monthly) ppv schedule and the 5 hours of original TV, everything's accelerated, but it's still sad that they can't do anything like this anymore. Kennedy's title match was the closest they've come to even trying in the last few years, and we all saw how that went to hell, so it takes a lot of good fortune (that neither Savage or Hogan got hurt, for one, and that no one cared about steroids back then, for another) to pull this off.

RELEEEEEEEEASED! PERIOD!

So, Marcus Cor Von is gone from WWE. Although it's good news for the likes of Kevin Thorn, Stevie Richards and Balls Mahoney, it sucks that we never got to really see what he could do on the big stage with a serious push. I don't know what this means for his wrestling career; I'm not sure he'd fit in in ROH, and going to TNA at this point is probably not very appealing, 2 hour expansion or not, because they don't have any room for all the people they have now (not to mention that he seemed more interested in his work as a personal trainer than working in TNA when he left last year). Hopefully he's been able to take care of his family problems and we'll see him pouncing jobbers again somewhere soon, but it sucks to see another talented wrestler wash out of WWECW.

ECW! ECW! ECW! Sucked.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. The four way was fun, and even if they're taking their booking ideas from old Smackdown! games, I like that they're setting up the match at No Mercy with something a little different than the series of rematches we've had since the Morrison/Punk feud started. Punk's interaction with Burke was funny (although his lack of appearence in an actual match was disappointing). And I may be the only one, but I was happy to see Extreme Expose dance again, even if they still have to "protect" the rythmically challenged Kelly out there by having her do cartwheels while the other two girls actually dance. I am also amused that they've set up Layla and Brooke turning heel on her, for some reason. Probably because "Extreme Expose EXPLODES" is so utterly absurd that it appeals to my sense of humor immensely.

That said, Balls Mahoney vs. Mike Knox and the Boogeyman vs. and Viscera were the reason that fast forward was invented. It is particularly sobering to realize we live in a world where Boogeyman vs. Viscera is a main event on a nationally televised wrestling show, while Brian Danielson is still wrestling in high school gyms. (Okay, he's on PPV, too, but I don't fucking get to watch it.)

Random, less depressing, observations about the four way:

I was impressed that Tommy Dreamer changed up his look a little with the bandanna, until it fell off and I noticed his bald spot. Come on, Tommy; male pattern baldness is hardcore!

Tommy saying he was THE ECW Original was funny, because he literally is the only one left, at least of the guys that they pushed under that moniker.

With Angle down in Florida and Benoit persona non grata, the triple germans are now attributed to-- Karl Gotch? It was kind of unsettling seeing Burke pull them out at first, but that call by Joey Styles made it weirder. I mean, I'm no expert, but did Karl Gotch throw a lot of triple germans on Lou Thesz?

I liked the psychology of not wanting to be pinned being the main motivation in the match, which explained why Thorn would help Burke win. Also, is it just me, or is Thorn shockingly good on the mic? I still think they should find another slutty goth chick to be his valet (since I'm guessing Shelly Martinez/Ariel probably won't be invited back), or hook him up with a James Mitchell-esque manager, but maybe he doesn't need one after all.

I was kind of disappointed that Stevie was the first guy out, but I'm guessing he's in a "just happy to be there" mood, since he's barely even rated jobber status before getting this push by default.

Has there been any news on where Cor Von is, beyond vague mutterings about him having family problems? This show is in desperate need of some pouncings.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to watch the whole show, but a good match is a good match, so I'll call it a wash. Coming up later, I'll talk about a couple of matches I watched on DVD recently.

Half Assed Raw and TNA Responses

Not much to say about Raw last night, because there wasn't much there to really respond to. Despite being a big London and Kendrick fan and being bemused that HHH made them look like tools (especially after they saved him from a beatdown), I don't want to get all apoplectic about it or anything. That said, I do have to wonder; between that and basically squashing Carlito and the tag champs (I mean, Cade didn't even rate a Pedigree?), do you think it would literally kill him to give one of these younger guys the rub? Does he have a physical condition, and was tapping out clean to Cena at 'Mania 22 a heroic act of life risking peril? That said, I did find his ripping on Vince for sleeping with a mythical creature funnier than his usual babyface schtick, so I guess I'll call it a wash.

Other than a good Shelton/Jeff Hardy match, there's not much else worth talking about. All the feuds are continuing, for better or worse.

I also finally watched the last half of last week's TNA Impact last night. When sitting through half an hour of a wrestling show is a chore, you know things have become bad. I did want to see Lethal/Daniels and Abyss/Angle, and they were solid matches, but the whole show has just become such a malaise that if the two hour shows don't drastically improve the quality of the product, I'm done with TNA, at least until I hear it's less sucky. Or I cave and start watching again like I did with ECW.

As far as the show itself, unlike Lance Storm, I had no problem with Lethal jobbing to Daniels, because it was a good match and they need to set up a challenger for him. Daniels did a couple jobs to him to set up his push at Angle, so quid pro quo as far as that goes. As much as I like the idea of giving Joe a Samoan stable, bringing in Rikishi adds fuel to the fire that TNA will hire anyone who once worked for the WWE. Angle and Abyss are incapable of having a bad match together, I think, but is there a better example of why Russo should not be head booker than having a DQ ending in a fucking cage match? Also, with this latest gory beatdown, is Abyss now the new Mick Foley and if so, what does that make the old version?

I'll be back tonight with my thoughts on that thrilling Boogeyman/Viscera showdown on ECW, which has actually become a watchable show despite running that workrate nightmare as a main event.

Reaction to the Results of that PPV I totally don't care about

Via Inside Pulse:

CM Punk over Elijah Burke via roll up to retain the ECW Championship- All of the European Title allusions are looking pretty accurate now that they're making them curtain jerk. Having him win by roll up doesn't exactly give me confidence that they're behind Punk (well, that and he only got the damn belt because they had to suspend Morrison), but if it means more matches between these two, I'm cool with it. Also, good to see someone bring back the cloverleaf. Malenko must be proud.

MVP 2.0 over Duece and Domino to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship- Works for me. I hate the stupid greasers, and they might as well keep Hardy and Porter teamed up until they get the singles matches rolling again.

HHH over Carlito in foregone conclusion match with foregone finisher(one in a series tonight)- It is what it says on the tin. Hopefully that rumored Umaga match next month will help the pudgy fella get his heat back. Yeah, I couldn't say that with a straight face. I wish they'd not even bother with Orton as a middleman and do Cena/HHH II at Survivor Series or whenever Hunter's meant to have his triumphant 11th title win.

Candice over Beth Phoenix via rollup to retain the Women's Championship- Works for me. I like Candice, and the fact that she had to win with a roll up doesn't hurt Phoenix's powerhouse rep much, since it's kind of flukey.

Batista over Rey and Khali to finally win the World Heavyweight Title after like a million consecutive unsuccessful, via a spinebuster to Khali- Well, I'd rather Rey had won, but whatever; our long national nightmare is over, and Gary can back to doing his shitty chops and nerve holds to jobbers. I hope. I think they're pushing their luck if they do another 'Taker/Batista match, since it was a minor miracle that their trilogy earlier this year was so good, and 'Taker is just coming off an injury, but I'll take them over more Gary in the semi-main event. At least they're not going to put UT/Gary on PPV. I hope.

Rednecks over Londrick to retain World Tag Titles, via Cadebuster- This will probably go on for awhile, so again, whatever. PK at the Pulse made it sound like a squash, which is sort of distressing for a big London and Kendrick fan like me, but since the only other existing tag team on Raw right now is the Highlanders, I doubt they'll lose their spot yet.

The King of All Chinlocks over John Cena via DQ in WWE Title Match, Cena still has the belt- Okay, given the fact that Orton already kicked him in the head, why the hell would you let your dad sit in the front row again? Sure, it lead to symmetry and poetic justice and what not, but it's still pretty fucking stupid, given that Cena was so torn up about the first punting of doom that he promised Vince he'd rip Orton's leg off and beat him about the head with it last Monday. As for the DQ finish, at least it wasn't the main event (although I'm not sure putting Undertaker and Henry on last was neccessarily better), and it makes sense, given that Orton's name being on the Signature Pharmacy list doesn't make him the ideal guy to be holding the top belt in the company, but they still need to milk this feud another month, so jobbing him again wouldn't do. What's funny is that a lot of the IP Roundtable guys called this finish, so it's not like anyone who didn't have a total hard on to see Orton take the belt off Cena didn't see this coming.

Undertaker over Black Predator (what, he looks like the Predator!), Corner Last Ride, in our second and final foregone conclusion of the evening- I guess this sends the fans home happy. Pretty sad that Big Dave's long road back to the title and pinfall victory over the monster heel Gary was smack in the middle of this thing, but 'Taker fighting the big strong guy (I'll assume he's like the Kingpin and it's all muscle) he's handily beaten before gets the main event. I guess Dave finally winning, after all of these shots, isn't much of a big deal (especially since Rey is probably the bigger face) so much as a mercy killing of Gary's Rampage of Sucking, but still; shouldn't the only title change on the show gone on sooner? Eh, fuck it, I'm showing too much interest in a show I spent a lot of time bitching about, so I'd better quit before I pull a Kennedy (Kennedy!) and look like a stupid hypocrite.