Thumb to the Mind's Eye: A blog about Pro Wrestling and other "trash" culture

WE-ELL, IT'S A COMEBACK!

2008-01-16T20:49:00.000-06:00

The Big Show is coming back to WWE. It's hard to get excited about it, even though I do have some affection for the big lug (certainly more than your average smark, I wager). For one, I thought he had a pretty good exit; he had the longest main event run of his career and then left on his own terms after putting over Bobby Lashley. Second, as entertaining as his matches could be when he was working with the right person (Brock Lesnar, mainly, but I remember his stuff with Cena being good), the matches that I can imagine them booking him in isn't exactly inspiring. Beyond that match with Hogan that we apparently have to see again (for the 20th anniversary of the Hogan/Andre rematch, I guess?), you have to assume they'd put him up against Khali at some point, and also factor in their perverse desire to put him in feuds with Kane every few years (although they did have a really fun match in ECW. No, seriously!).

That said, it sets a good precedent that guys like he and Jericho can take long chunks of time off, away from the business, and recharge their batteries before coming back; hopefully more guys will follow their lead. And, if nothing else, he has shown he's willing to put younger guys over, and he hasn't been jobbed out so much that it's lost its impact, so that's certainly something good. Also-- well, I really like his ECW entrance music, so hopefully they held on to that; and maybe they'll let him be funny again! I always did enjoy the post-SNL phase in 2000 where he was a happy go lucky impressionist, and I could really go for another round of skits with a 500 pd. stand up comedian. Most of all, we get yet another round of announcers trying to get him over by talking about how big he is in person, and how his hands resemble cookwear! Come on, we all missed that, didn't we?

Joe's Gonna Kill You-- On youtube! (And other

2008-01-12T14:08:00.000-06:00

For reasons I don't care to elaborate on, here are some random Samoa Joe matches on youtube, which I am totally using for research purposes.

Joe vs. Essa Rios- From Jacked in 2001. Or Jakked; I could swear WWE went with the edgy (mis) spelling there, because that's where they were at in 2001. As opposed to their more understated, nuanced product today, of course. This could join Danielson vs. Cena and Styles vs. the Hurricane on a "When they were lowly jobbers on C-List WWE shows" DVD. Highlights include Joe sporting a really heavy dye job and wearing a t-shirt, denying us of his trademark doughy physique and impressive moobs; Rios fitting a jaw dropping plancha over the turnbuckles and his awesome moonsault in to this four minute squash; and a lot of hype about the about the XFL and the feud between Chris Benoit/Eddie Guerrero that preceded Wrestlemania 17, which may surprise you, since they never happened, according to the WWE's new version of reality. Which, all things considered, isn't all that hard to accept. It's easier than thinking about what Benoit did. Or all that awful football.

On a lighter note, here's Joe (sporting basically the same look) vs. Masato Tanaka. Ignoring any thoughts related to Tanaka's series with Mike Awesome that might lead you back to thinking about how things with Awesome ended up, of course. Man, watching wrestling sure can be depressing. Or maybe I'm just excessively morbid, even considering all the people that died last year, and how you don't even have to do six degrees of seperation between other wrestlers to be reminded of that.

All right, I'll get off that downer of a tangent and talk about the match now. It's from Japan's Zero One promotion, complete with Japanese commentary; pretty much all I've been able to make out from it is ECW. Joe looks positively svelte here, and hits some really agile moves I haven't seen him do in TNA, including a float over to the apron off a whip, a Muta like snap elbow, and even a somersault plancha! That was just crazy on a number of levels Anyway, following that insane plancha, we get some ECW-esque chair antics, as Joe statrs pulling them out of the crowd and tossing them Tanaka, which turns out to not be a terribly bright idea, given that using him is his bread and butter and all. That leads to one of those goofy chair fencing sequences that Tanaka used to do in ECW all the time, which is pretty much the only ECW I could ever be nostalgic for.

That said, all of this chair related stuff is kind of hard to mark out over after the Benoit toxicology reports and all, which sucks. That's right, I'm angry because Benoit ruined my enjoyment of guys wailing on each other with chairs. They don't go as nuts with the unprotected shots to the head as Tanaka and Awesome used to (which, again, makes those matches hard to watch in retrospect, considering how all that abuse probably contributed to Awesome's suicide), but it still reminds me of them. The spectre of that fun ruining, murderous bastard rears its head a little later when Joe hits a german, then rolls over and hits a dragon suplex, and then follows that up with a brigded german for a near fall. Which brings up the point that no matter how well the WWE's done in their attempt to wipe him out of existence, his influence will still be around. I'm not trying to advocate this or anything, I'm just acknowledging that it's there. Maybe too much in the face of a pretty good match that obstentially has nothing to do with him or other dead people, but I still felt like it was worth mentioning.

Anyway, this had a lot of near falls, which I always like, even if they feel a little forced in a relatively short match like this. Tanaka busts out Diamond Dust, a pretty awesome finisher (if you've never seen it, the guy performing it slaps a rear chancery on his opponent from the top rope, like he's going for an inverted DDT, and then flips over and does a stunner instead). Joe gets his foot on the rope before the three. Being that this is Japan, Tanaka tries it again, only for Joe to block it and hit an over the shoulder slam (I remember Tenay calling it an Island Driver when he's used in TNA) for the pin. Despite the fact that it came nowhere near my expectations of what it could have been, given that Joe was still pretty early on in his career and did none of his signature spots, it was still fun and worth watching.

And, for no reason other than I found it on the sidebar when I was watching the Essa/Joe squash, Essa Riso (as Aguila) vs. Super Crazy (as Super Loco, just in case you weren't sure if he was a Mexican or not) from RAW. No, seriously.- Yes, this was actually on RAW, as an attempt to counter WCW's use of Luchadors. Ah, for the days when Vince had competition he had to actually react to. Crazy (er, uh, Loco) was spottier here than I can remember him being in ECW, although to be fair he was weighed down by about 10 pounds of tassles here, as well as the fact that Aguila/Rios was supposedly 19. This was very spotty and everything, but if nothing else, it's nice to reminded of a time when Vince and co. were not only willing to do things outside of their comfort zone, but basically had to in order to compete with WCW. That, and while it was no Mysterio/Psychosis, it was a nice slice of lucha, ignoring Brian Christopher's obnoxious commentary (from the "things are funnier when they're louder" school of comedy, or at the very least, a very bad version of his dad back when he was a bitter heel and thus fun to listen to) and Jim Cornette's verbal felating of him, which if nothing else shows how good a company man he was. And hey, no reminder's of dead people for me to fixate on!

WWE Mark Stuff

2008-01-10T22:01:00.000-06:00

The Hardy/Umaga cage match is one of my favorite RAW main events in a long time, and the best cage match I've seen on free TV since Benoit/Angle before one was an infamous murderer and the other was trying to be the new Jeff Jarrett in another promotion. Much like Edge vs. Mick Foley at 'Mania 22, I'll cop to the fact that I may be overrating it because of some cool spots at the climax of the match, but I'll be damned if those weren't some damn cool spots; I was especially happy with the bits where Hardy was chanelling Sabu with his use of the chair, but nothing's going to top that somersault off the top of the cage. Hardy celebrating at the top of the cage was a great moment to end the show on.

Admittedly, it's kind of sad that Umaga went from a nigh-unbeatable monster to looking like a jobber to the stars in a matter of months, but hey, that's what happens when you got with your hand in the HGH jar these days; remember when Kennedy looked poised to be a world champion and Wrestlemania headliner? Me either. Oh, and there's that whole "feuding with HHH" thing that also seems to have deflated everyone's second favorite portly Samoan badass (well, third if you're really fond of Meng/Haku). That said, between that whole 7 month undefeated streak and how well he plays the character, Umaga should at the very least settle in to a role similar to Kane's, where he's believable as a threat and will be used as an upper mid carder but will mostly be used to put over main eventers which, when you think about it, is no bad thing, really.

I also really liked the HHH/Regal First Blood Match, especially when Regal realized he could fight back. There was a real moment of clarity for him there when he remembered he was a badass brawler which I thought was a nice touch. Of course, he wound up jobbing, but it was nice that he at least got some offense in, which seemed doubtful for awhile.

ECW also had a couple of noteworthy matches. Throw in Layla dancing and that's pretty much all you can ask for. Admittedly, both the tag title and Punk/Chavo had cop out endings, but that's just goes with the territory of free shows. It would great to see either of these feuds get a blow off at the Rumble, but it seems unlikely, given how stacked the card already is. Besides Orton/Hardy, there's also Mysterio/Edge for the World Title, JBL/Jericho, and Flair/MVP and, you know, the hour+ Royal Rumble, well, there seems like there isn't room for anything else. ECW tends to get the short end of the straw in the time alotted depratment, so maybe it's for the best that they keep these going on ECW instead of squeezing a rushed Punk/Chavo or Mizorrison/Dragon Count (that's the best combination for Wang and Moore I could think of) in there just to give ECW something to do on the PPV. Or, you know, at least save it for No Way Out. At any rate, I'm getting dangerously close to be excited about WWE programming again. I'd better watch that ROH DVD I won off their E-Bay store in order to rectify that. Or just remember they still employ Mabel and Mark Henry. Whichever's quicker.

Video Game Review Hullabaloo!

2007-12-16T20:11:00.000-06:00

Because that's really what I've been spending my time with. And they fit under the banner of trash culture, especially if you're Roger Ebert. I'm going to try to go over every video game I've played in the last two months or so, whether I have any business doing so or not. So that should be fun.

Mass Effect- Other than the fact that some of the various alien races sound like they belong to a Canadian Theatre Troupe, I am completely in awe of this gang. The level of production value and design is amazing here; all of the aliens feel like they're from distinctively, well, alien cultures, and more so than any other game (especially one so steeped in as well trod ground as the Sci-Fi genre), it feels like there's a living, breathing world here. So yeah, I'm very impressed by this game, especially as some who usually doesn't care for RPGs. The action elements of the combat and the interactive nature of everything from your character's backstory to every conversation you take part in certainly goes a long way in overcoming the prejudices I have against RPGs, and they also make this one of the few non-sports or fighting game I can see myself revisiting multiple times. It also one of the few games I've ever really not wanted to beat, because I don't want it to end. So yeah, color me impressed here.

Assassain's Creed- The gameplay on this one is incredibly intuitive despite being so different from every other platformer/open world game on the market. Much like Mass Effect, it's an incredibly polished product. I haven't been able to dig as far in to it as I have ME, but from what I've seen, it lives up to the hype. Even if it's as redundant as its reputed to be, I could live with that, because the experience is so damn polished. Beyond that, how many other games have you played that are set in the Middle East during the Crusades? I really appreciate novelty in games, and this has it in spades. Also, it has Kristen Bell as a voice actress, so that's one for the plus column right there, even if she isn't playing my favorite sluething teenager. At least she's not an amoral social retard who shoots lightning.

Fire Pro Wrestling R- Well, at least something here can tie in to the nominal theme of the blog. This incarnation of the venerable Japanese wrestling franchise has made it state side as a budget title for the venerable PS2, and as much as I enjoy the Smackdown games, I'm really glad to have finally have an alternative again, even if it lacks Funk Master Flex as a playable character.

It does have almost everyone else you can think of not under contract with WWE, though. Every Japanese fed is represented, including ROH regulars Takeshi Morishima and KENTA, with hilarious, copyright evading monikers to avoid lawsuits. There are quite a few American guys in there, as well, from Sting and Vader to AJ Styles and Petey Williams. Hell, even the Great Kahli and Andre the Giant are present, so you can put on that anti-dream match if you so desire.

The game's an anchronism compared to the Smackdown series in a lot of ways. The graphics are sprite based, and not even super detailed Capcom sprites; the diffrences between this and a really polished Super NES game is negligible. While this means that you can get 8 wrestlers, a referee, and a variety of weapons on screen without any slowdown, the characters lack detail, more important to me, personality. No one seems to have any distinctive mannersims or animation.

There's also the gameplay, which leads to some annoyances, the main one being that you have to be in just the right position to hit any of your strikes, lest you wind up flailing around like an dead fish on the mat. While it comes across as a nice change of pace compared to the ultra sim direction the Smackdown games have gone in, I've never been a huge fan of the quirks involved in Fire Pro's unforgiving, timing based gameplay, although it seems less punishing with a controller than it was trying to play it with a keyboard via an emulator.

There's also the lack of bells and whistles. While it's not really fair to compare this game to the Smackdown games, it's kind of hard not to, given the fact that it's the closest basis of compairson. Things like the Mactchmaker Mode (the closest thing to Smackdown's addicting (for me) GM mode) have too many annoying quirks to make them fun; the translation is Engrish at its most broken, which applies to everything form the game menus to the instruction manual (which makes figuring some things out a real pain); and things like the entrances and arenas are strictlt no frills.

But, given the price tag and the sheer depth on display in the roster, create-a-wrestler mode, and gameplay, its failings in the technical categories are middling at worst. The animations of the actual moves are beautiful, the action's intense, and with the use of the Landmine Deathmatch, you can finally relive Mick Foley's explosive Japanese Missadventures in the comfort of your living room. This is the closest thing to the vaunted No Mercy that's been released since its heyday (well, other than the download of the game on the Virtual Console for the Wii), and worth checking out if you're a wrestling fan with a PS2 (especially if your an ROH fan and/or someone bemused by the Smackdown vs. Raw games).

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men- I wasn't so in to this one. Not as much as this guy, mainly because I don't mind how "ugly" the story was, given that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips crime comic Criminal has given me a primer on the crime/noir genre, and encountering it in video game form was the whole draw of the thing for me. I wasn't looking for anyone to root for, I just wanted a compelling story that hit all the notes you accept from this sort of thing; broken people looking for a sliver of redemption and not finding it, with all of the double and triple crosses that entails. I shouldn't give the guy too much shit over this, given its probably why he was apparently fired over it and all, but still.

The story more or less gave me the jet black sensibilities, but it wasn't quite compelling enough to make me put up with the flawed gameplay that any longer than I had it out for a rental. In its attempt to throw you in to the action, it veered to close to incoherence for my taste, as opposed to the in media res quality I assume they were going for. But mainly, I just wasn't in to the whole idea of a squad based shooter where your squad isn't functional. With these kind of games, I always wonder if it's the game or me, since I'm not sure if I'm playing it the way it was intended to be; given that the reviewer had similar complaints, I don't
feel so bad about giving up on the game. It also means I feel obligated to put the reviewer up if he needs a place to live after losing his job and all.

I've played a lot of other games lately, but after making light a of a man's missfortune, I don't feel like talking about them in any depth. I just can't top/go any lower than that, especially when talking about solid but unspectacular games like Conan and the Simpsons Game (especially since I said everything I need to about them already in a sentence apiece earlier anyway), or the very good Tomb Raider Anniversary, which is a great spin on the acrobatics/deathtrap-centric gameplay I loved so much in the Ubisoft Price of Persia games; which is pretty amazing, given that it's a remake of a ten year old game at this point. While there's still some trial and error based gameplay that leads to some nasty deaths in there, it's nowhere as random as the sequels that followed it (I know developer Crystal Dynamics streamlined the game a bit), which took frustration to a new level. So its worth giving a run through. That went on longer than I wanted it to.

Hey, Remember How Great We Used To Be? (RAW 15th Anniversary Show)

2007-12-16T14:40:00.000-06:00

I don't write here too much these days, mainly because whatever spare time I have to write about wrestling online is going towards Inside Pulse. That, and I have my rampant video game addiction to keep up. And I even occassionally go to work! So, yeah, kind of pressed for time. That said, the WWE had a couple of things all internet wrasslin' wags are required to write about, and who am I to shirk that duty?

So, yeah, that RAW 15th Anniversary Show; it sure did a good job reminding you how fun the show used to be, and how much it isn't, by and large, now. I mean, sure, Scott Keith said it better because, you know, he's Scott Fucking Keith, but I think that's another thing you have to mention when writing about this. It was pure nostalgia, but what the hell else do you ask from an anniversary show. There was all of the requisite "Hey, it's __" moments, from a totally surprising RVD appearence to Tammy Sytch being really, really hot again. On a further libidinous note, I have to begrudingly agree with Papa Smark and say that Trish looked borderline unhealthy but retirement seems to agree with Lita (by the way, her punk band's coming down here; I'm not going, but it's happening).

All of the fun bits aside (I think Mike Shaw may have been more svelte than Tammy, especially compared to his Bastion Booger days), it is hard to escape how much the current product pales in comparison to the best moments, even keeping in mind the fact that nostalgia is so intoxicating because you're only think about the best times, and not remembering that there was a whole heap load of medicore crap endemic to WWE even in their best days. Their were two title matches and a main event caliber six man that all felt rushed, but the matches were beyond the point. I dunno, it was a fun show, but kind of depressing when compared to the current product, even for someone like myself who finds it not totally without merit these days.

Oh yeah, there's also a PPV today, but I think it's telling that they ran the big anniversary show in lieu of doing a hype job on it this week. It is, after all, Armageddon, which always feels like the least important show of the year, due to its placement at the end of the year and before the Royal Rumble and the beginning of the Road to Wrestlemania. This year isn't terribly different, although at least they're trying harder than TNA did with their December offering, which would have made a good Impact.

There are some matches I have a decent interest in; HBK vs. Kennedy foremost among them, just to see how much working with Shawn will do with the Annoited One (or annoying one) of up and coming young guys. Khali vs. Finaly is on a similar, if even more extreme, level of "how good a match can the veteran get out of the new-ish guy." MVP and Rey have shown good chemistry in the past, although the fact that they've had a couple good, long-ish matches on Smackdown dissuades me from paying money to see them. I'm sure the title matches and Hardy vs. the Hs will be solid at the least, too. Kane and Punk vs. Men on a Mission 2K7 is the only real stinker announced so far (not the least of which because Matt Stryker is no Moe), but that's to expected as long as ECW's a repository for guys who don't get over. It actually sounds like a better than average card; I just don't want to pay money for it. My priorities are elsewhere anyway; it is the season of giving, after all. So, when I am being a selfish prick and spending my money on myself insted of others, I want it to be on something better than an WWE PPV.

In the "Things That Aren't Suprising To Anyone Category", Here's Another One:

2007-12-03T22:17:00.000-06:00

Scott Hall no showed TNA's Pay-Per-View last night. I'm sure I wasn't alone in my initial reaction when reading the results of "so what else is new," followed by a wave of indifference and mild happiness that Eric Young got to main event (although you can ask Chris Harris how that kind of spot leads to a serious push). And then I read this, and remembered that this kept Nash out of a main event years ago in TNA, and remained sort of indifferent, but thought "well, at least he didn't just wander in to a bar or get stuck on a Spider-Man rollercoaster or something."

And then I read this. That's all kinds of interesting, and not just for the awesome typo of "foot poisoning" from Aaron Glazer, but because this shoot interview may have actually been a shoot, in the sense that it really did piss off Nash and Dixie Carter.

Mind you, between the fact that this came from a dirt sheet and is at this point third hand gossip, and the fact that Russo so overused the idea of shoots during his WCW run that it became a running joke between a friend of mine that endures to this day, despite the fact that he no longer watches wrestling unless I drag him to a PPV; it sort of sounds like it could all be bullshit, is what I'm trying to say, although it has a ring of truth, especially since Nash apparently pushed to get Joe in to TNA in the first place.

That said, it's nice to see something of genuine interest out of a TNA PPV besides Kurt Angle winning so many belts you worry he'll further cripple himself carrying them around, all in his attempt to become the new Jeff Jarrett. Too bad its not from the actual matches, but instead Scott Hall being Scott Hall. Seriously, even for TNA, this was an extremely underwhelming card, which is pretty hard to reconcile with how much I've enjoyed the 2 hour shows. It should be interesting to see how this all plays out; apparently Low-Ki is on his way out, all though that is:

a) Not surprising, since the dirt sheets have been saying he's wanted a release for awhile now.
b) Given how little he's done since he came back, for whatever reason, I wouldn't really miss him; he's more or less a jobber at this point, so they might as well just let him go back to Japan or ROH (if he's welcome). I enjoy the guy's work, but I think it was telling that he and Skipper were standing in the background of Daniels' promo a couple weeks ago.

Glazer made the parallel between what Ki did here and what Raven did during the beginning of the end in WCW in '99; we'll see if the morale level is comporable. I've never wanted to be the guy who compares TNA to WCW, but it's hard to avoid it sometimes.

Having now seen the promo via Glazer's youtube link, I'm not convinced it was a shoot; it was very good, mind you, but it reminded me a lot of Russo's speech at Bash at the Beach 2000, and I have a hard time believing they'd let him go on like that, especially after the "fire me, I don't care" bit. Not that my disbelief means it didn't actually happen, but I'm expecting this to lead to another of Russo's beloved shoot angles. Once again, we'll have to see.

Oh wait, there is one thing to get excited about besides putting Johnny Nitro through flaming tables!

2007-11-19T15:38:00.000-06:00

Jericho's comeback is tonight, unless everyone on internet wrestling pundit is completely wrong. Or they want to fake the audience out because they've already figured it out. Or this is bullshit.

So, yeah, Jericho's coming back tonight, and not a moment too soon (several moments later than I would have liked, really, but it was nice that he got a chance to recharge his batteries, write a very interesting sounding book, and job on Celebrity Duets). That's something to get excited about, even if it says a lot about how moribund WWE has been lately that a guy who's been gone for two years return is the most exciting event oustide of Wrestlemania in recent memory. Being a pretty big Jericho fan (more of one since he hasn't been around to class up RAW; absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that), I prefer to not look at it that cynically, though; at least not for long.

This second coming has a pretty high standard to live up to, given how great his first debut was, but I'm (perhaps foolishly) hoping that given the time, build up, and the fact that it's Chris Fucking Jericho, it will give us our first really great RAW moment in a long time. And hey, this time his hair will look less ridiculous and he won't be verbally eviscerated by the Scorpion King, so he's got that going for him. Otherwise, RAW looks like business as usual, but for once it doesn't matter at all what's on the show; it could be a an hour and a half Khali/Big Daddy V Iron Man Match and I'd still be excited. I'd of course wait 'til RAW was over and fastforward through the shitty match, mind you, but still; excited! That's something I haven't been for an episode of RAW since I had to adjust my medication; taking chemical imbalances off the table, I can't even remember when the last time I was actually looking forward to an episode, as opposed to just watching it out of habit. Before I can think about the implications of that, I'll take my leave, lest I have to become a whiney ROH-bot. (Just kidding, new Inside Pulse colleague! But seriously, how does that Kool-Aid taste? If it's grape, I'll shut the fuck up and start marking out for Bryan Danielson.)

How I spent my weekend

2007-11-19T14:57:00.000-06:00

Didn't watch Survivor Series last night. I was too busy painting, and had pretty much decided I wasn't going to make the trip down to the local sports bar before I got stuck holding a roller most of yesterday anyway. I haven't even checked the results yet, really, and I'm kind of okay with just finding out via the shows, just like back in the old days when I couldn't watch the PPV. The fact that my internet is about as reliable as Scott Hall at this point has little to do with that, too. (Speaking of Hall, I'm recapping his appearences in TNA for Inside Pulse now, in case you didn't know.)

I was, however, totally immersed in a WWE product for the last few days, when I wasn't holding a brush. It just happened to be in the form of the new Raw vs. Smackdown game. I was a little underwhelmed with it at first to be honest. But then I learned how the new control scheme works, and it's been all gravy since. The new career mode looks incredibly deep, as you can really build up your wrestler. The General Manager mode, my favorite part of the recent games and the one thats eaten up the most of my time, to the point that it's almost an World of Warcraft-esque addiction, also has star building features, but really, as long as I can run my own wrestling promotion without actually having to be in this scummy business, I'll happily waste my life on THQ's annual grappling offerings. I mean, I have Edge as the ECW Champion, with Rey Mysterio and Monty Brown breathing down his neck, and Jack Evans and Kaz on the roster! You just can't beat that kind of masturbatory wrestling nerd joy. Also, you can set tables on fire. So, yeah, that'll keep me busy for awhile. Longer than the Conan game (so slavishly devoted to trying to be God of War that it's about as long as the first game in that series, but still a head cracking good time) and the Simpsons Game (a must play for Simpsons fans, for the inside humor, but pretty much a generic platformer otherwise). Although I'm going to try and fit in the 15,000 other high profile new 360 games in to my busy, sedentary schedule. So don't expect much blogging. I hope my one confirmed reader can forgive me. And I really need to finish this monster paragraph.

RAW is Moolah (and Maria covered in beer)

2007-11-06T21:00:00.000-06:00

With Andy Wheeler having answered a slightly burning question of mine about how the WGA strike affects WWE (apparently, not all, as long as most of the booking team isn't in the union, HHH's line about no one writing DX's crappy opening promo notwithstanding), I can get down to the important business of talking about another underwhelming but completely watchable two hours of WWE television.
So it turns out Moolah did get a nice, long video package, which was good to see. It covered all the bases it needed to, and filled in fans who were ignorant of her outside of her appearances in recent years as a sex crazed geriatric as to why she was such a big deal. It was interesting to learn that she was the first woman to ever wrestle in MSG (well, one of two, presumably), on top of the factoids I already knew about her.

The two big tag matches were solid, unspectacular formula stuff. The DX match was about what you'd expect, and continues both feuds it encompassed at pretty much the same pace as they've been going for the last month or so. HHH as the face in peril's a decent change of pace, although they need to take every opportunity they can get to make him sympathetic if he's meant to take the belt off Orton. Also, it does never get old seeing Orton kicked in the face, so that always earns at least one snowflake for any match in my book.

Hardy/Mysterio vs. Finlay/Kennedy felt pretty short, despite being spread out over a commercial, but I guess they needed the time for the main event and the Austin/Marella confrontation. Kennedy and Finlay's tension reminds me of the feud it looked like they were going to have before Smackdown's upper card went to hell in a handbasket during the spring, and hey, we did at least get that 619/swanton combo. The Survivor Series match these four will be part of could be fun, although I have a feeling it will lack the sheer hilarity of last year, when CM Punk cheers drowned out HHH's attempts to do DX's schtick. Coincidentally, Punk was buried in ECW a couple weeks later.

As far as that goes, you're either going to see it as a fun bit of nostalgia or the pointless wheeling out of a hoary old act that gets no one over and leads to matches, depending on your perspective, with the reference to the classic "beer bath" skit from the heyday of the Attitude era on top of Stone Cold's familiar/tired schtick. I'd be more willing to lean toward the latter if we didn't get Maria in a wet dress. That pushed it towards acceptability to me. Now Santino can move on to directing his powers of annoyance towards someone he can have an actual match with. Even if that's Ron Simmons. How weird is it that he's still wrestling in 2007?

Other than Shelton Benjamin jobbing to Super Crazy for no particular reason (he and Haas don't even rate an intro anymore?), there's not much else to say about the show, other than that it lacked Kevin Federline being FU'd and the Jackass guys pissing off a 300+ pound Samoan and getting stiffed for it. I leave it as an exercise to the reader as to whether that's a good or bad thing.

Best RAW Match Over the Last Year

2007-11-05T19:11:00.000-06:00

And, while I may or may not have the attention of whatever audience I've accumulated here, why don't you tell me what was your favorite RAW match over the last year? I ask, because watching the Eddie/RVD and TLC RAW matches on the Ladder Match DVD made me think that there hasn't been anything like those (and a few other gems from the post brand extension era) in the last year or so, since Kurt Angle jumped to Smackdown, and probably even before that, to back when he whose name must not be spoken (Benoit, not C'lthu) was hanging around. So, anyone want to take a stab at it? The best ones I can think of are Orton/Edge and the hour long Michaels/Cena match in London, but even those don't really fit the bill (I think the latter one was more impressive because they went so long, and the latter probably wouldn't have rated as highly with me if there hadn't been a lack of good stuff recently). I can't remember anything from 2006 impressing me at all, but maybe someone (anyone) has a different opinion.

Hey! Is there anybody out there?

2007-11-05T19:01:00.000-06:00

Any and all potential readers; let me know you exist in the comments section. I am in desperate need of validation that someone besides my hardcore fans (hi mom!) are reading this. I swear I'll read and respond to your comments if you do! It can be dual validation!

Wrestling Minutia Link Blogging!

2007-11-05T16:11:00.000-06:00

Answers to burning questions you didn't even know you had, such as:
Were there two big debuts and Cyber Sunday and did your multiple votes for the Irish Walking Stick on a Pole Match count?

What chairtable endeavor has America's favorite tough guy transvestite been up to since being released by WWE?

How many pop ups are you willing to sit through in order to see how well Hulk Hogan's kid photographs?

Link Blogging about deaths, steroids, and less depressing things

2007-11-05T15:27:00.000-06:00

The Fabulous Moolah has passed away at the age of 84. My condolences to her family. Her run as Women's Champion (28 years!) makes Trish Stratus's one year and change recently look like a hiccup by comparison, although it must be said that this happened in an era when Bruno Sammartino could hold the WWF Championship for seven years. She'll always be remembered for that, to the point where Whoopie Goldberg mentioned her on The View this morning; not that I saw it or anything.

She was from a completely different era of women's wrestling, before everything from GLOW to bra and panties matches made the requirements for being a female wrestler were more about how you looked than how you could actually, you know, wrestle. Hopefully the WWE will give her more a decent tribute tonight, especially since her appearences there in later years made her look like a total joke to a whole generation of fans (myself included), as she was pretty much relegated to innane comedy skits as Mae Young's sidekick, in skits that I presume Vince (and only Vince) found absolutely hilarious. WWE.com already has a tribute page up for her, and I expect Trish Stratus and other non-WWE affiliated folks to offer their memories and condolences, but hopefully they can work at least a video package in to RAW in to all the stuff they have lined up for sweeps.

On a completely different note, the fact that they were worried that Jericho might come to blows with Jim Norton (detalined further on in the article I just linked to) is hilarious to me. Mainly because Jim Morton looks like this; he's one of the few celebrities Jericho could seriously intimidate. Well, okay, that's not entirely true; maybe it's just the mental image of the buggy eyed fellow in the Liontamer that popped in my head that's making this situation funnier than it should be.

In news related to people who have been on WWE TV lately (but won't be much in the next couple months), Chris Masters and DH Smith have been suspended as part of the Wellness Policy. The announcement is on WWE.com (along with their real names, which is an odd touch), as part of their new transparency in handling drug violations or, as I like to call it, "hey Congress, get off our back!" It's pretty sad to see Smith get suspended this early in his career, but given who his dad was, it's not entirely surprising. I wonder if they were suspicious of him and that's why he didn't get the huge debut you'd expect, or if the scuttling of the New Hart Foundation was the catalyst for that. At any rate, he's out for a month. Masters is out for two, and I really have to wonder why they're still bothering with him at this point; if they keep the guy around when his physique is obviously the only thing the guy has going for him, and it's obvious how he's maintaining it, then how does that make the Wellness Policy look like it has any teeth? Although Lashley is a walking undermining of it, and he'll probably be main eventing when he gets back, so I guess that answers my question.

Finally, in something that actually pertains to the onscreen product, on top of dusting off a bunch of old guys to pop a rating instead of building up new talent, WWE has an interesting inter-promotional tag match lined up for RAW. If nothing else, I always thought Jeff Hardy and Rey would make a good team, so it should be fun to see them work together (and see if they do a 619/swanton combo). So there's that to look forward to, and make me feel like I'm watching RAW for a reason besides habit, which is pretty rare these days.

Random DVD Reviews: The Ladder Match

2007-11-03T16:02:00.000-05:00

Okay, random's not the word; I had a very specific reason to watch one of these. That said, I can't think of a word to describe watching three matches on one disc of three disc set and then reviewing them, so random is the adjective I'm going with at this point. It will also probably recur, since this is the way I watch WWE DVDs. Trying to do a whole one in one sitting (or even a handful of them, spread out over a few days) can be tedious due to repitition, especially in the case of one based solely on a gimmick match with as many conventions/cliches as the ladder match.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rob Van Dam, Intercontinental Title- From RAW in 2002, this is a match I somehow missed despite the fact that I have been watching RAW religiously since 1998. That must have been one of the few times when my social life intruded on my obsession with pro wrestling. Anyway, this one was pretty well recieved at the time, and made it on to Eddie's DVD despite the fact that he lost the match (oddly enough, it's not on RVD's). So, I had pretty high expectations for it.

It lived up to them, although it has a couple of glaring flaws, one of which only presents a problem in hindsight (in other words, they didn't anticipate the unanticipatable). The first is Rob's less than stellar selling, which has always been his biggest flaw. Eddie worked over his legs quite a bit throughout the match, with everything from kicks to ladders and chairs, and yet Rob was still throwing kicks and jumping around at the end of the match like nothing had happened. I mean, he could always sell how damaging his own frog splash was, so it's a little hard to handle the fact that he can't even limp around. Also, Chris Benoit makes a cameo that would have been intrusive even before he became a pariah. It's a RAW match, though, so it makes sense in the context of giving them an easy commerical break when both guys were down in the ring.

That said, between Eddie's awe inspiring mullet and Rob's willingness to throw him at the ladder in pretty every move he did in the last ten minutes of the match, you do have a pretty damn good to great match here. Eddie was able to keep it from being a total spotfest while contributing some breathtaking moves, including his flipping senton of the top of the ladder. The match was conspicuosly absent of frog splash attempts although, given the fact that from that high up it almost always looks like a regular splash anyway, I can't blame them. At any rate, it's one of the better one on one ladder matches I've ever seen, and is easily in the **** club. ****1/2 if you factor Eddie's mullet in there, and ****3/4 when you factor in the fact that we haven't seen anything as good on RAW since (although RVD vs. Christian a year later was pretty damn close).

Edge vs. Christian- To be honest, I didn't finish watching this one. You'd think that these two would put on an amazing match, given how their experience in these kinds of matches, but the pacing totally killed this one (at least from what I saw). I'll have to go back and watch this one again, to see if they really were just building up to something or if it really was as tedious as the first ten minutes indicated. Given the fact that, if I remember correctly, the WWE (although they were still the WWF at this point) were trying to make the matches less of spotfests and slow down the pace so that they built to finishes, I can't really blame either guy if the match wound up sucking (or at least not living up to any of my expectations at all); they were just trying to wrestle in the house style, which was starting to seem really oppresive at this point (perhaps because it was the only house style in North America at that point). I mean, there were some cool spots in there, but everything just felt so lethargic. TLC 5- Another RAW match, and the complete opposite of the preceding one, as this was pretty much nothing but one crazy spot after another. It was a pure sugar rush kind of match; extremely exciting to watch, but I barely remember a thing from it. This was pretty much Jeff Hardy's last big time match in the WWE during his first run with them, and he got all of his requisite high spots in, including a pretty cool use of the rail runner clothesline (which I haven't seen him use in awhile, come to think of it). Everbody played their part to perfection, from Chris Jericho and Christian being the vicious (and only, in this match) heels to Spike Dudley more or less serving as a projectile with his amazing ragdoll bumping. The fact that this match's only real purpose (other than trying to pop a rating, presumably) was to get Kane over as an unstoppable double champion (he was also the Intercontinental Champion at this point, and he wrestled the whole match without his partner, the Hurricane) for his big title unification match against HHH (which he, of course, lost) puts a bit of a damper on the fun. The fact that the Katie Vick angle statred immediately after this match (although I think it would be a few weeks before Hunter had sex with a mannequin, to the delight of Vince McMahon and other plastic necorphelia enthusiasts everywhere) is also kind of a downer. That said, it's still an incredibly entertaining match and one of the best matches in RAW history on sheer spectacle value alone, so I'll go ****1/2 stars here, even if I can barely remember a damn thing that happened in it right now.

Extreme Expose EXPLODES!

2007-11-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

Brooke has been released from WWE. If you're having a hard time remembering who she is, she's the one in Extreme Expose. Who isn't the blonde one who has a hard time dancing. And stripping. And talking. And presumably walking. But she sure is cute! Also, she isn't the black girl with the great body and the curly hair who won their talent search contest and has proceeded to earn her pay by gyrating her ass occasionally. She's the other one. Is this the end of ECW's answer to the Nitro Girls? Or will they find another woman of questionable talent to hang on the Miz's arm? Will she get a spot in TNA? Most of all, does anyone care besides me at all about any of this? Answers to that and more to come. Provided anyone even remembers Brooke at all by the end of the afternoon. Signs are pointing towards no.

Wherein I Begin Completely Contradicting Myself

2007-10-31T19:50:00.000-05:00

Oh wait! There's some wrestling related stuff I want to blog about.

The Rock Confirms Retirment- Well, given the fact that the guy hasn't wrestled a match since Wrestlemania 20, it doesn't come as that big of a surprise. That said, it's still kind of sad to see, if for no other reason than that there are still a few dream matches I'd like to see him in (HBK, Cena, and Sting are all things I'd mark out for, even if the latter two sound dodgy even to me) and any random compilation of his greatest hits on youtube is enough to make you really bummed out that he's moved on to Hollywood completely, even if no one can begrudge the guy, especially since it's something everyone from Hulk Hogan to Bret Hart's at least contemplated. Well, unless you're this guy, who is probably still doing a victory lap around Chicago. Or died from the joy of it all. Or whatever the hell he's doing instead of writing his incredibly bitter, nasty, insulting, and yet also undeniably insightful wrestling columns for the Pulse. By the way, that was the best example I could find of his hatred of the Rock via Google. Which is one of the reasons I'm sure he'd call me a retard. Beyond the fact that I, you know, really like the Rock.

Daviari and Teddy Hart released- Daivari I was a little bummed by, because I liked him quite a bit; he could work, he drew heat exceptionally well (even if a lot of it was of the cheap, "he's foreign!" variety), and he busted his ass to get Muhamad Hassan, Mark Henry, and the Great Kahli over, which alone should get him nominated for some kind of wrestling saint hood. I mean, could you ever imagine their being a career progression in which you kept getting paired with increasingly worse guys when you started out with Muhammad goddam Hussan? Although he did get to be Kurt Angle's personal ref and manager for a couple months, so that sort of evened things out. So it's a little disappointing to see him leave, even it's probably a good move for him, given how totally lost in the shuffle he was as a singles competitor. A good reason why the Cruiserweight Title should probably be retired? They never tried to extract some cheap heat by giving him a run with it.

Teddy getting fired for being a dick is pretty much a non story. It's on the level of inevitability of Kid Kash getting sacked; you knew it would happen the moment they brought him in. With Harry Smith having had his big debut already (although calling it big is stretching it considerably, given how the guy didn't even get a vignette to hype his debut), it looks like the New Hart Foundation angle may have ended prematurely. Although it may have made for some great heat for all of them and a cool mark out moment, it's probably better they all get to establish themselves in their own right (well, as much as the children of the Bulldog, the Anvil, and maybe Ted Dibiase can being that they'll be as much in their fathers' shadows as Cody Rhodes is right now) before pushing them in to the exact roles their parents made famous.

It is kind of a buzzkill to see someone as talented as Teddy Hart get the boot before he could even get on WWE TV. The guy made a hell of an impression on me in extremely abbreviated circumstances (his WSX matches, and some TNA X-Cup stuff I've seen on youtube); he can certainly do a mean spot fest with the best of them, and has a unique look on top of it. But the guy was first released by the WWE for this kind of thing when he was a teenager, and he's been through pretty much every major promotion you can speak of; although the massive double standard of having Captain Gymbagshitter holding the top belt in the company while letting guys like Hart go exists, I can't get that worked up over it considering I expected the guy to find a way to screw it up for himself again before long.

And there's a fairly newly broken one I feel like commenting on, too; Rikishi's left TNA, apparently over money (at least that's the initial report). While he had some fun matches in this extremely brief return to mainstream U.S. wrestling, I don't think I'll have much time to miss him with the bloated roster of guys that are currently plying their trade in Tampa. Booker's on his way, so they've already got a much bigger name (and proven main event commodity) to take his place. Besides, it was seriously pushing it having him do as many main events as he had since coming in; he always worked best as a midcard comedy act, and while I could handle him get a solid push beyond that, they have way too many people more deserving than he is of that spot to keep him there. They also don't need to be sinking a lot of money in to him.

Man, I totally buried the guy there. I didn't mean to go that far. Even if I think pretty much everything I wrote there is right. I did enjoy his work on Impact lately, I just don't think it's a major loss that he's moved on. I do hope TNA isn't screwing him over, too. Yeah, that seems like the right thing to say there. He does have a gigantic ass and every Samoan wrestler ever as a family member to support, after all.

Reasons Why I May Not Be Blogging Much For Awhile

2007-10-31T19:32:00.000-05:00

I rented the Conan game for the XBOX 360 last night. Well, that and I may be painting the house this weekend. But mostly Conan. While it borrows so heavily from God of War it's basically Homer to Kratos's Flanders (a deity murdering Flanders, mind you), and it probably won't live up to the original R.E. Howard stories and the Roy Thomas comics adaptations of them, but, you can totally cut a guy in half! And Ron (Hellboy) Perlman does the Cimmerian's voice. Which doesn't really fit with my conception of the character, but fuck it (or butt fuck it, I guess, depending on your preference); it's Ron Perlman! I can see how the game could be pretty frustrating as it goes on, which a lot of the reviews have criticized it for, but being able to chop hapless pirates in half as Conan the god damn Barbarian (as everyone would surely call him if Frank Miller wrote him) mitigates that. At least until I get to a part of the game where I keep dying; then I'm dropping it like Hugh Heffner drops a girlfriend after she turns 30. But even if I give up on Conan's latest attempt to conquer a new medium (this time not including either Grace Jones or any current governors), there are so damn many cool looking games out or soon to be on the shelves that I'm probably going to be playing my 360 until the red rings of death carry it off to Valhalla (or wherever Microsoft repairs the things) like a funeral pyre. So yeah, I can totally see myself slacking off on talking about wrestling here. Or on maintaining a healthy social life. Or life, period. I may not see my loved ones much either. So bicthing about Big Daddy V and whatever TNA's up to; not so much of a priority for awhile. Of course, having said that, I will probably totally contradict it by blogging up a storm around here. After all, nerd can not live on escapist fantasy alone; we have to bitch about it on the internet, too.

Tommy Dreamer: Great Paul Heyman, or the Greatest Paul Heyman?

2007-10-31T19:13:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, Dreamer's Paul E. costume (and Joey and Tazz burying their old boss without ever mentioning his name) is the best thing on ECW ever. In any incarnation. The rest of the show was the usual, although the Miz/Morrison match was shockingly pretty solid stuff (for serious!) until the abrupt ending. The Battle Royal, well, it was only five minutes and I still fast fowarded through it. Mark Henry going over was kind of a surprise, almost as much as the fact that after the first ten years of his career, the WWE decided to renew his contract. That said, he's the kind of mid-drawer guy who never caught on anywhere else that the old ECW used to get over when the real Paul E. was in charge. Of course, he hid everyone's (often glaring weaknesses), while the WWE just keeps pounding away on pushes for people like Henry and other people who generated less heat than a meat locker until the crowd either gives in and accepts them at the level Vince and co. are convinced they deserve to be on or they finally throw up their hands and give up. Test is the best recent example. But anyway, to bludgeon a deadhorse with a barbwire wrapped kendo stick (because that's one extreme metaphor), I'd be willing to take Mark Henry as an ECW main eventer over Viscera at this point. I used to kind of like Vis, too; maybe it's his jiggly moobs that have unleashed my fury on him. Or hanging out with Matt Stryker. In any event, I'm at the point where Black Predator is looking like a good alternative, so things are dire. Almost as dire as the length of this paragraph.

I wring some snarky humor from a Sandman Interview at PWMania

2007-10-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

It can be found here. It's not really revelatory or a shoot or anything. According to old Sandy himself (which is something I'd never call him to his face, but will totally use here), he didn't quit over a beef with Ricky Steamboat, but instead because he wanted to spend more time with his family, presumably because Raven needs a break from them. Apparently Tod Gordon is taking his bookings. Yes, that Tod Gordon. So, if you want a cane swinging drunk to appear at your next birthday party or quincenera, then now you know how to set it up. You're welcome. Now that I've brought that idea up, I'm wondering how much money it would take to get Brad Armstrong to dress up as Archnaman and fight him in my backyard. I would totally do that if I won the lottery. Which is why I should never have money.

Reactions to the last two WWE shows, which I've barely watched and the next one, which I kind of don't want to

2007-10-30T20:02:00.000-05:00

Cyber Sunday- I'll be damned; they did finally put Batista over the Undertaker decisively. Admittedly, it took three Batista Bombs, but that's about par for the course as far as what it takes to beat the Undertaker goes. It was also nice to see these two finally get the main event after being stuck in the middle of the card during their first two PPV matches. I wonder how much that will happen now that Cena won't be around for awhile?

The rest of the card sounded solid, and if nothing else, CM Punk got to wrestle and Finlay vs. Rey actually had a finish, so it sounds like a better show than No Mercy was last month. I may give this one a rental at some point, but that's about as far as I'd go on spending money on it.

I haven't finished watching RAW yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to. It doesn't seem like much interesting happened beyond the first hour, which I did catch. Battle Royals and Diva matches are already guilty pleasures for me, so put them together and add goofy costumes, and you've got a good time that makes me feel sort of like an asshole for enjoying. There were a lot of fun little touches here, from Maria getting her tail tied to the rope, to Mickie James apparent Tatanka worship, to Victoria's banzai drop, that made this one of the more enjoyable openers in recent memory. It was also cool to see Mickie and Melina (who should always wear a showgirl outfit, I think) go at it in the little series they worked in there; it's a shame that they've both been depushed so severely, as they have a good chemistry and can do stuff none of the other Divas are capable of.

Devoting more words to the Divas than are probably neccessary, Beth Phoenix's promo sets up a pretty interesting direction for them to take with her feud with Candice, as they could really build it up while Candice is on the shelf and make her return a big, triumphant thing. That could make the usually filler-tastic Women's match at Wrestlemania mean a little more than it usually does.

I did catch the end of the show, and the one night return of DX is an interesting idea, and one I expected them to save for Survivor Series given that Umaga and Orton vs. HBK and HHH was advertised as the main event wherever they're holding the show. Of course, those things are about as reliable a deadbeat dad at Christmas, but it seemed like something they would do. It will be interesting to see how long Shawn and Orton will be working together and whether they'll be headlining the show or stuck in the middle of the card (assuming the next matches in the series don't end with low blows).

Speaking of Shawn, I've always liked the dynamics of the feud between he and Vince. While it degenerated (no pun intended) in to dumb crap like Vince putting himself over God and, well, the entire DX/McMahon feud, I liked the idea behind it, that deep down Vince resented the peace Shawn had found through his family and religion, and wanted to drag him back down in to the mud with him because of that. They quickly abandoned that in their original feud last year in favor of dick jokes and roofies in Shawn's water, so it was nice to see all that resurface in their interview last night.

ECW tonight promises a Monster Mash Battle Royal, a.k.a the only match in history where Kane is far and away the best worker and will hae to carry the whole thing to watchability. Good luck and godspeed, Mr. Jacobs.

Random Wrestling Thoughts Hulabaloo

2007-10-28T01:46:00.001-05:00

Been awhile since I've been on here. Which is weird, because a decent amount has happened in wrestling lately.

For one, I actually watched, and enjoyed, Bound for Glory, probably more than any of the other TNA PPVs I've ever seen. The fact that all the faces won (and I'm counting AJ and Tomko as faces) in their biggest show of the year was a nice touch; I don't think I've seen that in a big time wrestling show in years, especially one where Vince Russo was on the booking team. I was going to do a full recap on it, but, well, it's kind of late now, and besides, I deleted it from my Tivo already. So here's some quick thoughts on what little I remember of the show:

LAX vs. XXX was a solid opener, with Hernandez totally stealing the show from where I sat. Sure, Elix got his patented bat shit crazy high spot, Homicide did some cool stuff (including the Don West markout inducing mid rope tope con hilo, which hurts 'Cide's street cred, but you can't blam everyone's fourth favorite wrestling color commentator for going nuts for it), and Senshi alternated between kicking people and looking around like a tool, but Hernandez looked like an absolute stud here. Of course, it helped that he had two guys he outweighs by a hundred pounds or so bumping like madmen for him, but I was really impressed by what he brought to the table. More performances like that, and he'll look like someone worth pushing as a singles act instead of just the parsley to Homicide's main dish.

Frankie Kazarian did the flux capacitor, which was cool, but that was pretty much the only memorable moment of the Fight For Your Right Battle Royal. I still like the idea of guys fighting to get in the match, making me apparently the only person outside of Tampa to think so.

The Tag Match was solid, although I thought it was dumb that they waited until then to give them a stand in for Pacman. On top of that, it looks pretty bush league to toss some random indie guy whose only distinguishing feature is an Afro Thunder-esque 'fro. I was also surprised that Pacman would reference the incident that led to a riot in a strip club that paralyzed a guy (an ex-wrestler, no less) and helped get him kicked out of the NFL, but then again, he's a grown man who calls himself Pacman, so that explains a lot. I did love that Hebner ignored the fall to pick up the money. Some people may not like Tomko having a belt, but the guy's improved a lot in the ring (admitedly, he used to be my least favorite wrestler in the world, so his being able to do more besides play the world's tallest straight man impresses the hell out of me), so I say good for him. Besides, it's better than having a disgraced cornerback holding a belt, so hey, progress.

Daniels/Lethal was solid, but not much more than that. It was nice to see Lethal get the win; they really need to try and establish a new star in the X-Division, even if it's the black guy who thinks he's Randy Savage. I also loved the top rope Lethal Combo; that was pretty slick. That said, I wasn't particularly blown away by this one. It was perfectly good, but Daniels in particular has established a higher standard. It helped that he had Joe and AJ to work with when he did, though, and neither of them was impersonating an insane legend of wrestling.

The Women's/Knockout/Wrestlers with Boobs! gauntlet was solid, and I was really happy to see Gail Kim win the belt; I've always liked her, and it's nice to see her get a run at holding a belt now that she's got a little experience under her, um, belt. I really overused that word there. They did a good job making Amazing Kong look like a monster (complete with Christy Hemme's hilarious intro); although her facial experessions and hairstyle make her resemble Booker T (if he were a large black woman), she's seriously imposing, and should make a good opponent for Kim, especially if they want to build up their Women's Division as a place for solid wrestling instead of T&A. It will be interesting, for someone like myself who actually likes women's wrestling, to see how the booking of Kong dovetails with the suddenly less imposing Beth Phoenix, who is playing a similar character. Hopefully no one will take as sick a fall as Candice did this week in the process.

I was expecting the tables match to suck, but it was a decent brawl (despite some lame weapons shots from the Steiners), reminscent of ECW in the way that the current ECW will probably never be again. It would be nice for the Steiners to go out on a high note here, but I think I saw them in them in the spoilers for this week's Impact (haven't had a chance to watch it yet), so apparently they're sticking around. 3D's apparently embarking on a mission to destroy the X-Division; hopefully this will help put over a new star better than the whole "Kevin Nash vs. the X-Division" experiment did. I mean, at the very least the Motor City Machine Guns' beating cries out for a revenge match, doesn't it?

Joe vs. Christian was indeed the match of the night, like I expected. It was nice to see Joe finally get a big, clean win over one of TNA's current main eventers, and the heat throughout the match was unreal; it really shows that they need to get out of the Impact Zone more, as the crowd has cooled on Joe tremendously there, but were rabid for him in Atlanta. Christian played his part beautifully, and everything clicked. It was also nice to see them not do the "shocking turn" with Matt Morgan, although hooking him up with Christian eventually would probably be a good idea.

Monster's Ball was okay for what it was, a bloody, garbagey brawl. They had a solid mix of veteran hands in there, which made for a better match than it would have been had Mesias (where the hell did he go? Not that I miss him) been in there, although an appearence from Sabu would have been cool (his no compete clause may have held that up). It was nice to see Abyss pick up the win, as he'd been in all of them but never gone over. If you view a year in TNA as going from Genesis to BFG, then it punctuated things for the big guy well. The broken glass always strikes me as being absurdly over the top; the kind of thing Bret Hart was bitching about years ago, when the WWF first strated moving toward the hardcore style, is coming true when fucking thumb tacks are no longer painful enough. That said, it was a solid match, and I felt like the right guy went over, which was a pleasent theme of the night.

The main event was pretty entertaining, too, although it was extremely overbooked. That can work when executed well, though, and I thought they did that here. Although Sting going over isn't a big picture kind of thing, especially since he's apparently planning on retiring soon, it worked well in the moment, especially in his old stomping ground. They've already put the belt back on Angle, anyway, which actually seems a little wrong headed to me, as Christian vs. Sting is still a novel enough main event, and he and Joe could easily get a main event program going given that they have some bad blood in the past. All that aside, both guys busted their asses here, pulling out everything from blade jobs to botched 450 splashes (have to give Angle credit for trying, and at least he didn't land on his head) to make this work, and not even the Kevin Nash power walk in and Karen Angle's continued on screen presence hurt things too much. Although Nash is wrestling in the main event this month, so fuck all this good feeling stuff. I did enjoy BFG a lot, though.

On the WWE side of things, ECW's gone from its potential deathbed (at least on Cable TV) to getting renewed in the time it's taken me to post again. In the process, they've intiated a talent exchange between ECW and Smackdown, which if nothing else gives Smackdown someone to look down upon, which is nice. Given ECW's paper thin roster, they really should have done this before. In theory, this sets up the possibility of some cool challengers for CM Punk; I would love to see him work with Finlay or Rey Mysterio, for instance, and this at least dangles the possibility in front of us. In practice, it's given us the Of Mice and Men tag team continuing Nunzio's three year jobbing streak and a horrible four way on the next episode. Kane being moved over permanently is a bit of a wash; if nothing else, it's his best chance to get a real title reign, a la Big Show, and if nothing else, I think he and Kevin Thorn could have a fun feud. I've finally warmed up on Thorn, by the way, even if I miss Shelly Martinez as his valet. All it took was 90% of the old ECW roster being fired or leaving and a different combination of him fighting Tommy Dreamer and Stevie Richards to do it! Much like Chuck Palumbo, I've gone from being incredibly bored with him to seeing him as a solid midcard big man. Maybe it's the Viscera effect; by comparison, I'd rather see the vampire guy than the one with bouncing moobs every week. That applies to everyone in ECW, and most everyone in pro wrestling, really. I'd take him over Karen Angle as Kurt's bitchy wife, though.

Beyond the continued existence of one of them, I don't have much to say about the WWE's weekly shows. Friday's Mysterio/Finlay vs. MVP 2.0 match was a lot of fun, but that's the only real stand out in the ring, and Troy Hepple can tell you more about it than I can. The previous week's MVP/Rey encounter was also really good, so much so that I'd like to see them get a PPV main event some day (which isn't as far fetched as it might have been one day). Outside of that axis of guys, though, I'm not much impressed by what's going on in WWE programming lately; it's nice to have Shawn back, but there's only so much he can do with Orton, although I can live with some combination of those two, Kennedy, and Hardy main eventing. The latter two at least inject some relatively fresh blood in to things, and could combine for some interesting matches; I expect HBK vs. Kennedy at some point in the near future, and Orton surviving a ladder match against Hardy could help get some more heat on him.

Which leads us to the PPV on Sunday, which I have no intention of watching. It doesn't help that I'm broke and have a cold, but even if I wasn't, I wouldn't be moved to check this one out. The Smackdown matches all sound solid to good on paper, although I imagine we'll be getting some form of non-finish in the Batista/Undertaker match, with JBL doing something to fuck things up (his main event interview segment on Friday was hilarious, by the way), if for no other reason than that I can't imagine they'd do a title change or Batista finally getting a win over 'Taker at this show. Edge is supposed to be back next month, so they've go to keep the belt warm for him in any event.

MVP and Hardy will surely be entertaining; everything they've done outside of that stupid pizza eating contest at No Mercy has been, and I'm kind of hoping that MMA match wins, just to see what a worked WWE version would look like. That said, it won't be for the title, so I ain't paying to see it.

Finlay vs. Mysterio could be awesome, too, which their match at No Mercy was until they did the lame "heel fakes injury, and we treat it seriously until he pops up and attacks the face" bullshit that makes you question legitimate injuries like Candice's on Monday. The stipulations eleminate the possibility of that kind of lame ending; at six matches, the card is not so overbooked that they won't have time to put on something cool. This was the one matchup I was excited for at No Mercy; okay, fine, this one I would be up for if not for the lack of money and the being sick.

The Raw and ECW offerings are a mix of things that provoke apathy in me, though. The choices for Punk's challenger remind me of Richard Pryor's classic Brewster's Millions, and the campaign slogan his character had when he ran for office (which one, I can't remember, and damned if I'll look it up; it's almost three and I'm sick, cut me some fucking slack, theoretical demanding audience); "None of the above!" Would it have killed them to mix Burke, Thorn, or Dreamer in here instead of King Moobs or the other two guys that I can't even be bothered to make derisive nicknames for? Hopefully Punk retains, although they do like to have at least one title change at these things, to make the "interactive" element count, and Punk's the most likely suspect. I'd vote for the Miz just because I'm 99% sure they wouldn't put the title on him. We know they have some inexplicable hard on for Morrison, and given Vis's push and Kane coming to ECW, I wouldn't be shocked to see him getting the belt, either.

All this brings us to the main event, Orton's first with any real build. I'm pretty sure Shawn will carry the vote, although I wouldn't be shocked to see Hardy sneak in there, given his popularity. The only time Kennedy ever gets face heat is when he's not on screen, so that says it all for him. Orton against either face will be solid, and Orton vs. Shawn would the best match up, because it has an actual storyline and Shawn is fucking Shawn. That said, I remain extremely underwhelmed by Randy Orton, as I have been for three years; Foley nearly killing him elevated him to the main eventer status he has by default today, but it's also the zenith of his career thus far; everything else, including going over Benoit for the World Title, has been downhill. So, yeah, I'm not that enthused by him or this title reign he will surely have until Wrestlemania unless he pees on some nuns (and it's Orton, so even odds), which colors the whole card, since he'll probably be main eventing every show from now until HHH wants the title back. All of which is my way of saying I miss John Cena. That sound was you hearing any credibility I might have had in the Smart Mark community imploding. Might as well call it a day (or late night) after that.

Wrestling in Pop Culture

2007-10-22T18:44:00.001-05:00

Stuff I missed when I wasn't blogging, Part 1: Can You Dig That (Release), Sucka!

2007-10-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

King Booker and Sharmell get their release- This isn't much of a surprise, given that the dirt sheets were saying this back when he was first suspended. While it's a shame that he won't be playing the incredibly entertaining King Booker character anymore, he was apparently unsatisfied with his direction in the company, and had been making noise about retiring for a long time, so it may very well be for the best. Also, and it pains me to say this since I was a huge fan of the guy for years, he was really starting to succumb to the law of diminished returns in the ring. I'm sure he's got a spot in TNA if he wants it, but it doesn't sound like he really needs it. He's got an indie promotion and other business interests in Houston, he's in good health, and, according to that second link, has saved his money well, so really, it sounds like he's in a great position to retire. I'll remember him best for his work in WCW and his hilarious partnership with Goldust, but he also deserves credit for being on the few WCW mainstays to really catch on and create a niche for himself after Vince bought them out; Rey Mysterio's the only guy from that group that's done better for himself, but it must be said that it's pretty much been nothing but up for Rey Rey, where as Booker had to work his way back to the main event after he was pretty much buried upon coming to the WWE.

Champion vs. Champion (if the match were held two years later)!

2007-10-13T00:37:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's ROH's lynchpin vs. WWE's; the best wrestler in the world vs. the most profitable; a really tan guy vs. a really pale guy; the American Dragon vs. the Doctor of Thuganomics; the-- you can already see it's Danielson vs. Cena, right?

This is from early 2003, as made clear due to the fact that Cena is still on Velocity, Edge is still feuding with A-Train (who have taken very divergent paths since this happened), and the Cat is still employed and doing commentary. I can't believe he was so bad here when I liked him so much in WCW. Of course, it's hard to believe I was watching WCW at a point when he was one of its biggest stars.

Cena's sporting some canary yellow pants, instead of his trademark jean shorts. Or anything else that doesn't make me naseous. He also has music that predates his original rap entrance, the one he used before "My Time is Now." That was actually a better song, but lacked the cool horns. Or being on an entire album of Cena rap songs. Danielson is basically a generic jobber in white trunks. I assume he didn't get an entrance because, you know, he was a generic jobber.

They do some stuff with the arm and that goes on a bit. Apparently Cena had called out Brock Lesnar by this point. Man, I bet they wish they could do that match today. Also apparently, Danielson had been on Smackdown at this point. Cena charges after the arm work and gets drop toe held (toe holded?), and we go back to the arm. Top wristlock, called by Josh Matthews. No ownder he never caught on. Still on the damn arm, then a knuckle lock, and they work on that on the mat, and Danielson impresses the Cat with his strength. Danielson monkey flips out of that, but Cena counters with a nasty clothesline, with Danielson adding a flip to make it look really impressive, in the style of his trainer Shawn Michaels. Kick, forearm, and hard Irish Whip in short order, and then he adds a back elbow. It gets two. Bearhug, because that's what you need in a four minute match, but Danielson gets out, goes to a standing switch, and hits an enizguri to the shoulder, and then some European Uppercuts and a running knee to the gut. The commentators are plugging Rock/Hogan 2, which wound up unleashing Sylvan Grenier on an unsuspecting world. Kick to the back gets a near fall. Well, near-ish. Whip to the corner, but Cena gets the boot up on a blind charge and hits the spin out powerbomb to pick up the win, proving once and for all that he's better Danielson.

Might as well review Danielson vs. fellow future ROH Champ Jamie Noble, too, since it's right here. Or Jaime, as he's indentified here. I'll just give you the link instead of imbedding this one. Jamie makes out with Nidia to start. It's kind of sad that her career went downhill after she left this role. The Cat is going to bet all his money on Big Show in the Royal Rumble. I hope Bischoff let him sleep on his couch after that. Noble is apparently wearing Cena's jean shorts, while Danielson is sporting slightly longer hair with his generic trunks. I have no idea why I'm describing how they look when you can watch the matches. Or why I'm doing the post at all in that light.

Collar and elbow tie up to start. Noble grabs the arm off a standing switch and takes him to the mat with a headscissors. Danielson reverses out of that to a bow and arrow kinda thing for two. Knuckle lock, but Noble goes to the arm. Danielson rolls around, but Noble stays in control. Danielson uses a judo throw to get out of that. Given the commentary istalking about the Rumble (and Al Wilson's wake), this took place before the Cena match. Headlock on the mat and then they stand up. They trade collar and elbow tie ups and then Noble slams him. Knuckle lock gets one count. Noble with a Northern Lights suplex. Still in the knucklelock and Danielson uses some headbutts. Stiff running kick to the back gets two. Chops and a pair of stiff kicks for Danielson, but Noble blocks a third and comes back with some forearms and drop toe hold in to the bottom rope. Clubbering leads to a backdrop suplex gets two. Chokeout on the middle rope and Noble follows with the rope straddle Big Bossman used to use, God rest his soul. Nidea adds a kick, and that gets two. Straightjacket sleeper is your resthold, and it's a cool as far as restholds go. Lots of Benoit talk, as this was the night before he had a 5 star classic with Kurt Angle. Sunset flip by Danielson leads to some pinning combos and near falls. The video needs tracking as Noble hits a running knee on a charging Danielson. Headlock slows things down. They get to their feat, and Danielson gets a European Uppercut and Benoit-esque elbow thing to come down. Whip and charging elbow in the corner, but Danielson runs in to a powerslam for two. Cool running flip off the turnbuckle to counter a whip by Danielson, which puts him behind Noble. They fight over the switch a bit, but Danielson wins with a roaring elbow (called by Matthews!) and he gets a german with a bridge for two, which no one seems to do anymore. Danielson flips over in the middle of the count, which is weird. Maybe he was trying to do the roll up variation I've only seen in video games. Danielson goes for a Trish-esque high kick (hey, she's my base of reference here) but misses, but he's able to throw Noble off a tiger bomb attempt anyway. Roaring elbow attempt ducked and Noble gets a swinging neckbreaker for the pin. Okay. Never fear, Danielson would get the win back a few years later, and win a belt in the process. I'll be covering more youtube matches in the future, if for no other reason than that it's the only way I can watch indie stuff. And apparently there's a Danielson/X-Pac match out there. That should be worth watching, in all its bootleg glory.

None of the Above!

2007-10-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

You can now vote for the challenger in the ECW Title match at Cyber Sunday. Your choices? Big Vis, John Morrison, and the Miz. Truly, those are three people. I really think that Vis and Miz in the running just to make Morrison look better by comparison. Not to say it isn't working, but still. I was impressed by that top rope inverted suplex he pulled off against Punk (even if Kennedy did it not too long ago, and they both surely stole it from a Japanese/Indie guy) last night, but I'm sick of seeing them work together after so many months of them feuding exclusively; I made my thoughts clear on Vis recently; and the Miz had to work very hard (and be moved to ECW) to go from being fastforward on sight material to being watchable, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's attached at the hip to Extreme Expose and involved in a surprisingly solid storyline with Ball Mahoney. In a better world, none of these guys would be up for a title shot, and we might instead be choosing from RVD, Kurt Angle, and Monty Brown (or hell, Elijah Burke would at least be in the mix). Sadly, we do not live in that world. That's a downer note to go out on, but hey, ECW just puts me in that mood right now. Which makes me feel really dumb for thinking it was a good show for a few weeks. Maybe the watchability factor is entirely contingent on the amount of Stevie Richards appearences?

I Watched No Mercy in a Sports Bar, or: Three World Title Changes! Batista Channels Spider-Man! But No Jericho, So Fuck 'Em.

2007-10-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of thoughts and musings on a show that may or may not deserve them, the first being that the place was still standing room only by the time I got there (half an hour before the show), despite the fact that Cena wasn't on the show, which surprised the hell out of me. Whenever I watch a Pay Per View, I go to the local Buffalo Wild Wings, and I usually will not find a table if I get there later than an hour before the show, so it wasn't a total surprise, but I did expect a slightly smaller crowd with Cena on the shelf. We'll see if the crowds dissipate more once it's really sunk in that he really be out for awhile and it's not a work. Given the popularity of Rey Mysterio down here (I live in South Texas or, more accurately, Northern Mexico), maybe Cena's not the biggest draw for my area. There were certainly a lot of Rey shirts in the audience, and even a couple masks (making me sort of wish I'd worn one of mine). Anyway, here's my stream of consciousness review of what I remember of the show, which is going to be even less thorough than my usual reviews, because I was unable to pause the show when I was preoccupied (or, in other words, on the toilet; why do I keep eating those damn wings?). Opening segment- I was playing a Golden Tee machine in the somewhat meager arcade, so I have two observations: one, I would sure be annoyed if I paid $40 to open the show with Vince talking; two, I really suck at Golden Tee. I was like Jean Van de Velde on a few holes. Anyway, as annoying as it was to get a Raw opening segment on a PPV, I can see the need for it, especially given what was to come. It's also mildly annoying to see they're keeping the spinner belt (although it was hilarious to see traditional wrestling nerd HHH wearing it later on), but I imagine that it's probably a bigger merchandise item for them, and if nothing else, Orton could probably destroy it tonight for some decent heat and a way to signify that Cena's run is over and he's the top dog now. I was always kind of hoping HHH would break it with a sledgehammer, but that seems more like a heel thing to do. One big observation I have to acknowledge how over HHH is as a face. I'm not particularly fond of him in this role, even if he's funnier now than I found him during the DX Reunion last year; the only thing that kept me from hating their comedy segments was Shawn playing the straight man, and all the bits where they had to write around his being a Born Again Christian. But the crowd was definitely in to him, reacting well to his verbal sparring with Vince and popping pretty huge for his title win. They did a pretty good job putting some sympathy heat on him; as tedious as "the rebellious baby face vs. evil owner" storyline is, especially did it last year, it's probably the only way they can build to a title chase for him.

The opening title match was solid; about what you'd expect in an impromptu match between Young Randal and his future boss. If nothing else, it was a nice change of pace to see a WWE title match in the opening slot; it helped throw everyone off a bit, which they really ought to try and do more of; that kind of thing is what made the Monday Night Wars era wrestling so exciting; there was a sense of the unpredictable. Having HHH win was also a nice surprise; I kept expecting an Umaga or Vince run in.
The six man tag was nice filler, and as a big mark for them, it's always nice to see London and Kendrick get on PPV. That was tempered a little by the fact that they basically said that Shelton's been shuffled back down the card again, but you had to expect that. Hopefully we can still get a ladder match between he and Hardy someday. Kennedy taking his spot makes a decent amount of sense. As much as I enjoy watching Shelton, Kennedy's much more over, and at this point, he probably ought to be feuding over the IC title; while his botched main event pushes were missed chances to make a new star, given the fact that he's still only serviceable in the ring and hasn't even logged a full year on the road yet, it's probably for the best that he hone his craft in the midcard for a while. Besides, he and Hardy had a shockingly good match on Raw a few months back, before they started trading suspensions, so I wouldn't mind seeing more of that.

CM Punk vs. Viscera was bullshit. Not much else I can say. Absolute crap. I mean, by all means, let's keep Vis strong. It's not like he's been proven to be a total bomb in a main event push before or anything. It makes total sense for him to beat the crap out of Punk, because he needs the rub. He's surely the future of the business. I mean, for fuck's sake! Couldn't they have at least thrown Punk a bone and let him win with a role up or something? In his hometown? Or let the match go on a little longer before Viscera squashed him? Seriously, if this is a ploy to make everybody want John Morrison (as an aside, spell check suggested replacing Morrison with moron; no lie) back and accept him as a main eventer, then it's working. Maybe it's leading Punk's first big win that doesn't involve a steroid suspension, but given the fact that they're dead set on making the former jobber in silk pajamas look like an unstoppable monster, forgive me if I am not looking forward to the road that leads us there. I don't want to come across like an overly precious ROH fan who freaks out every time one of their heroes jobs, but seriously; Punk is one of the best performers they have and may be the best of his generation. Viscera has grotesquely large moobs and used to wear what resembled a garbage bag. I guess I can kind of see how, due to how lame he's been over the years, he needs this monster push to be considered a serious threat to the title; I just wonder why Viscera has to be considered a serious threat to the title. I mean, and I can't believe we're at this point, but what about Kevin Thorne? At least he'd be a different flavor of failed monster heel, in that he might actually get over and be effective for years to come. But no, by all means, let's build an entire show around the fat black guy.

And then there was the MVP/Hardy segment; I've liked this feud and all, but when the pay off to a segment is undigested pizza ... well, at least we got to see Maria. And it did fill up the requisite amount of time. It would have been nice to see, you know, a match, on this wrestling show, especially since they had all week to plan for Cena's absence, and the card was pretty thin anyway, but I guess it was vitally important that they not spoil that MVP 2.0/Kanertaker match on free TV on the show people paid money for. That sort of reminds me of WCW promoting their house shows over the Clash of the Champions when Mick Foley worked there.

I've been interrupted roughly 17 times in the process of writing this, so I'll just jump around at this point:I was in the bathroom for the first quarter of Khali/Dave, in the middle of an epic bowel movement. Normally, that would seem a great segue, but this wasn't as bad as I expected. Maybe it was diminished expectations (I think I went in to a coma during their Summer Slam match, so this had to be better), maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, but I thought this was solid; even if it did turn in to a climbing contest, which amuses me, because I remember Mike Tenay giving WWE unending shit during that XXX/AMW match of the year about how all of their cage matches were, and that's exactly what this was. The lack of rope swinging was also a bit of a downer, since that was the only joke I could make about the original. Dave's leap was still pretty cool, even if it ranked pretty low on the Shelton Benjamin scale of impressive jumping. Of course, Dave has a big gold belt and is one of the top stars in the company, and all Shelton has is lame gold hair and just lost his spot to a guy who is only proficient at saying his name, so I guess we know who's coming out ahead on that one. Hopefully they finally have the Khali main event stuff out of their system, although he's probably going to be involved in the Cyber Sunday title match in some capacity.

Rey/Finlay was as good as I expected, as they jelled really well and Rey looked great out there, hitting his spots crisply. However, I have to go on the record right now that I despise the ending they use here. If I never see another match where a heel fakes an injury, everyone acts like its real (complete with somber commentary), only for the heel to pop up again, it will be too soon. That dragged down what was an otherwise entertaining match. This one really had no excuse to go this way; couldn't they have given Finlay heat by, you know, letting him win the match through elicit means? He has a big wooden plot device for that, for God's sake!

Umaga/HHH was another solid, unspectacular match. Given what happened on Raw and the fact that HHH's not among the choices in the Cyber Sunday main event announced on WWE.com today, I imagine we'll see more of this pairing. It also creates an interesting bit of Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday trivia around Shawn Michaels, since he's been in the title match every time he's been in the running, and I doubt his streak will be broken this year. Although if anyone could galvanize the voting, it's Jeff Hardy and his messianic sway over prepubescent girls of all ages; they need someone to get behind now that Cena's on the shelf, and he's just the androgynous daredevil to do it. But anyway, HHH and Umaga should have a lot of time to put on something special in the next few months (provided they don't ship Umaga over to Smackdown to be Undertaker's bitch like they were planning), and this was perfectly good in its own right, even if it was an angle advancement match on a PPV.

Candice vs. Beth Phoenix, or the match only I cared about; it was solid, again, and played to the same forumla Trish and Jazz used years ago. That said, as much as I like Candice, she still has a long way to go before she can actually compare to Trish; those kicks she was throwing were not terribly sharp, and while she's certainly enthusiastic and has improved immensely from where she was. Hopefully she'll be able to further improve from here, but unlike Trish, she doesn't have a great roster of female talent (of Finlay) to help hone her skills. The same thing can be said for Phoenix; she's not as polished as Jazz or Victoria were when they played similar roles, although she can probably be a solid champion doing this whole powerhouse routine for a while, given that most of the rest of the Divas are still just really enthusiastic underwear models. It will be interesting to see how the apparently imminent debut of Natty Neidhart will shake things up. Well, for the five of us who give a crap about the Divas, that is.

The main event wound up being pretty compelling stuff, I thought. The Last Man Standing gimmick played in to that a lot, as did HHH's two previous matches, but I thought they did a good job with the false finishes; the match could have credibly ended 3 or 4 times. While people usually equate an out of nowhere finisher as a baby face thing (since DDP built up the Diamond Cutter that way), but I think Orton could get a lot of heel heat by being on the brink of defeat but hitting a fluke RKO out of nowhere and crawling away with the belt, which is pretty much what he did here.

I thought this was a solid show. Which is really a nice way of saying mediocre. Other than Wrestlemania, that's pretty much all I expect (or ever get) out of a WWE PPV these days. That said, I liked the fact that they made the title situation in to a self contained storyline that ran through the whole PPV. While I (and the crowd, given the Y2J chants during that first segment) would have preferred to have seen Jericho at some point, I can live with the fact that they're trying to make HHH in to a sympathetic babyface, since he's most likely going to fill that role for a long time. Iain Burnside came up with a nice way of doing the same thing WWE did in a slightly more exciting fashion, but I wasn't displeased with what they did. As much as I can understand his reasoning for moving Shawn's return up a night, I like the fact that, for once, a big comeback was a genuine surprise (if I believed that the second hand Meltzer/Alvarez rumors had much bearing on the audience, I'd almost think this story was a plant to throw people off. But I don't). While they didn't really do anything to shake up the status quo or make a new star, I'm fine with the direction they're taking on Raw right now. Of course, we'll see how I feel once we've had a month of HHH, underdog babyface against evil authority figure Vince McMahon and his hand picked champion Randy Orton; with a storyline that fresh, surely I will remain happy with the product! But hey, Shawn's back, and he's even sporting something that looks like it's from the Stalker's wardrobe, so we can at least expect some better than average matches from him. And maybe he'll start integrating some hunting in to the equation.

I'd recap Raw and ECW, but really, all you need to know is that Shawn Michaels came back and kicked Randy Orton in the face. Sure, that excludes all of ECW, but trust me, that is all you need to know.

Spoilers of Honor!

2007-10-06T23:36:00.000-05:00

No, seriously, spoilers.

So, according to a phone call from Inside Pulse's head ROH cheerleader Aaron Glazer (reported by someone going by the handle of Supersonic; surely a reliable source), there was a big title change at the Pay Per View taping tonight. It was in a world title match. In which Nigel McGuinness beat Takeshi Morishima. I told you there would be spoilers.

So, they beat WWE to the punch on the new champion/big title change thing (not that I'm trying to imply that that was their motivation; seriously) even if the show won't air for awhile. Unlike WWE, ROH has yet to post the results on their website, but I guess they don't want to have a giant flashing banner spoiling the results of their next PPV. WWE, on the other hand, is perfectly okay spoiling title changes for their taped Smackdown episodes. On ECW, no less.

Anyway, this result must come as a big suprise of the people who posted on this thread, which is pretty amusing. To me, at least. I'm kind of a dick, though. I don't even watch ROH (although I did take the step of trying to win some DVDs from their Ebay store, so I'm at least making some sort of effort); I just felt like spoiling something. From what I gather, Nigel's a very good wrestler with a fondness of clotheslines (or lariats, if you will), and he's got a running feud going with Danielson, so they're probably good with a long reign out of him. Or, conversely, he could turn out to be a transitional champion like Homicide was. Time (and a growing number of writers at Inside Pulse) will tell.

There's one thing beyond that to be taken from the report (other than that Austin Aries may be insane); Glazer didn't sound impressed with the show (in that he called it bad; subtle things like that), which isn't a good sign, given they haven't been doing PPV that long, so they can't really afford missfires, even at $10-15 a pop. However, a non-ROHbot audience may not hold them to as high a standard as Glazer does, so the reaction from the uninitiated should be interesting. They seem to have won over a lot of people with their first two shows, which I would totally have bought if DirecTV offered them.

Will I have any Mercy for this Pay Per View?

2007-10-06T17:21:00.001-05:00

You get a lot of milage out of this show's name, apparently. I plan on watching this one, mostly to see how they resolve the title situation, which as you can tell I've probably put more thought in to than the actual people booking the show. Keeping that in mind, I'll go over the whole thing here, and maybe talk myself out of going the "dinner and a show" route I take at the local beer and wings place, which lets me watch these things legally without paying full price for them, and just read the results on the 'net and snark about them, which I did last month.

WWE Championship Match- ? vs. ___, in a match TBD

At the very least, I can hope that it's somewhere between the dream match I could cobble together from their current roster (Jericho vs. Mysterio, maybe?) and the worst thing I can think of (Khali vs. Big Daddy V to become the Undisputed Champion). HHH vs. Orton's the most logical choice, but you know how often actual logic enters in to these things, especially when there's the possibility for a swerve! Nothing like surprising the paying customer! Anything from a Battle Royal (although that's more of a Smackdown! thing) to a Ladder Match wouldn't surprise me, especially with Jeff Hardy not doing anything, and the general idea of "you want the vacant title; go and get it!" appealing to me..

I've already taken up a lot of space with the speculation about this match. What about the rest of the card? Well, it's... a WWE pay per view midcard in the latter part of this decade, so it's a mixed bag of medicority, mind numbing crap, potential, and potentially mind numbingly mediocre crap. Let's look at it anyway.

World (Midcard) Heavyweight Championship Match- Batista vs. the Great Khali in a Punjabi Prison Match (or, less impressively, Big Fucking Bamboo Cage Match)- Hopefully Dave will dispatch of everyone's favorite cast member from Adam Sandler's football movie remake in his gimmick match he didn't actually wrestle in the only time it's ever been on a card before, and he can move on to jobbing the belt to Edge or the Undertaker and setting everything right with the world again. We can always hope that rope swinging will be involved in this one, much like the original, although I'm not sure if I want to see Batista's swashbuckler impression. It would be nice if all of the gimmickry involved won't lead to 15 minutes of the usual Khali nerveholds and clubbering just in a bamboo cage, but I am not that optimistic. This could be the most elaborately staged bathroom break match ever, but given that Dave is a student of the game, I have a feeling he will bust his ass to make it go down otherwise. Not that I probably won't treat it as such anyway; I'll just feel bad for poor Batista that he has to be in it.

ECW (curtain jerker) Championship Match: CM Punk vs. Big Daddy V w/Matt Striker and his abnormaly poofy hair- Oh, fuck off.

All right, that's not entirely fair. There's potential here for a cool "slaying the giant" moment here, especially if Punk brings back the Anaconda Vice, his old finishing move. Hell, even a roll up would be something, given how they've booked Vis since he took his shirt off to the disgust of-- everyone. I'd even take a Boogeyman run in; after all, I can fast forward through their matches if they start fighting on ECW again, and it would keep Vis out of the title hunt.

But really, this is where we are; it is 2007, and Viscera, a guy who bombed as a main event heel 12 years ago, is getting a title shot against one of the most talented wrestlers of his generation, in his home town, and there's a concievable chance he will win. Which gives me one overwhelming thought; come back, John Morrison! All is forgiven! I can only imagine how people who got into Punk in ROH must feel, when they aren't watching five star matches and writing down details about every thing the promotion does (or has ever done) on any website that will have them. They must really be pissed. Or not care at all. Who knows?

HHH vs. Umaga- Well, they sort of built this feud Monday, and sort of gave Umaga his heat back in the process, and it will probably be sort of good (if it even happens), but I sort of don't care at this point. I can't see HHH not going over here.

Rey Mysterio vs. Finlay- I'm really excited by this match, despite the fact that a high flying luchador and a rough and tumble mat wrestler do not seem like the best pairing in the world. I am a huge Mysterio fan, and while I'm not quite as enamored with Finaly's ground and pound style as some 'net pundits, I do enjoy his work quite a bit when there's a little movement in there between his pounding on a body part. Hopefully these two have the same kind of chemistry Mysterio achieved with guys who work a style somewhat similar to Finlay's, like Kurt Angle and that diminuitive Canadian guy that did that awful thing which makes it easy to go along with the WWE's attempt to pretend he never existed.

Anyway, veiled Benoit references aside, I'm hoping these two get the time to really steal the show. Rey should win here, but Finaly picking up the duke wouldn't shock or disturb me either, especially if everyone's favorite investment banker/color commentating god gets involved.

Women's Championship Match: Candice Michelle vs. Beth Phoenix- Just in case anyone doubted how shallow I am, I want to say how impressed I was with the way Beth Phoenix looked on Monday. While I still won't objectify her like her opponent, she was definitely looking more attractive. Which is the only way I judge the Divas.

Can you blame me, since Trish and Lita moved on, and Molly, Jazz, and Gail Kim were fired in favor of a legion of women with no discernible talent who happened to look good in a bikini via the Diva Search. Keep in mind that Maria didn't develop her endearing character until she'd been struggling to speak as a backstage interviewer for a few months, and it's taken Candice until recently to move beyond being the sexpot who can move in a circle and take off her clothes. So really, I'm just going with the flow here.

That said, again, I like women's wrestling, for a combination of libidinous and less creepy, actual wrestling related, reasons, and so I expect this to be at least watchable. They probably have to put the belt on Phoenix at some point, at least if they want to keep building her up as some kind of hard nosed powerhouse, which is at least something different in the current Women's Division, but I can see Candice holding on to the belt again here through some kind of fluke pin or maybe a DQ. The next PPV is Cyber Sunday, where they traditionally have some kind of gimmick match involving everyone with breasts on the roster in some kind of battle royal where everyone dresses in skimpy outfits. I could see Beth getting the strap there. Or maybe Jim Neidhart's daughter, if she's debuted by then. Who knows? I tend to put way too much thought in to these matches, anyway, since they basically serve as filler between the big title matches.

And that's the whole announced card. Given the uncertainty around the WWE title, I can see why the wouldn't add a lot of stuff at the last minute. Hell, just giving everything her time to tell a story and build to a satisfying finish isn't a bad thing. But I would really like to see something involving the Cruiserweight Title or the Benjamin/Hardy IC Title feud become an added bonus match, which is what Tony Schiavone used to call crap they just tossed on to WCW PPVs to fill up time. Of course, the WWE are much smarter than that, and so will probably fill the space with skits involving Hornswoggle's wacky misadventures instead. And I can live with that, really. A lot hinges on who they pick to fight for the vacant belt in the main event, how the match goes, and who they're going to build Raw (and, by virtue of that, the company) around until John Cena's man boob heals. Maybe he can teach everyone how to "saviourself"? He might be a real Ayatollah, you know? The type who tames lions. Of course, I'm refering to the Iron Sheik. Because, really, couldn't Randy Orton use a humbling?

No Mercy for a really boring Smackdown!

2007-10-06T16:35:00.001-05:00

This episode almost put me to sleep. Well, that's not entirely true; I was already dog tired, and this episode just kind of compounded it. We did get a longer than usual cruiserweight match between Yang and Noble, which was cool, even if it did evoke the kind of crowd apathy that makes me think that retiring the title might not be a bad idea after all; at least until they need something for Teddy Hart to wear, that is. Provided the New Hart Foundation shows up on Smackdown and Teddy doesn't get fired immediately. Both things are possible.

There was also a Deuce and Domino/MVP 2.0 tag title match that was-- long. Not very good, but it certainly filled up time! I dunno, maybe it was me, but making MVP the face in peril seemed like a dumb idea, and I was half asleep through most of the show. That match with Kanertaker next week should be fun, and even if the Greasers run in, hopefully they'll get splattered by the old, tall guys with supernatural powers. That would amuse me to no end.

The Mysterio/Khali match was not as bad as I thought it would be, though, so thank goodness for small miracles. Although the modern miracle that is Tivo helped alot there as well, as I sped through all the nerve holdery that Punjabi's favorite son is so proficient in. But any match where Rey does the ringpost 619 is okay in my book. As long as I don't have to sit through the dull parts, that is. I really feel like I could clip matches for the WWE at this point, though, having been fastforwarding through all their shows for the last 2 years to get to the good bits.

Some weeks have more of those than others, but this wasn't one of those weeks, and the future; not looking so bright these days. I mean, Chuck Palumbo vs. Chris Masters is an actual feud they're building up? That people are supposed to watch? I like Palumbo all right; he's always been a solid big man, and although his current gimmick seems to be overcompenasting a bit for his years as Billy Gunn's gay lover, I don't mind him getting a big push and a blonde to ride around on his motorcycle. And isn't it nice that the woman who had like 2 months of promos about how much she enjoyed living has found love with the man who had 2 months of promos about how much he enjoys motorcycles? I'm getting kind of choked up just thinking about it.

However, given all the steroid problems, don't you think they ought to just cut their losses and move on with Masters? Now that someone's broken his deadly full nelson (try to type that with a straight face; I dare you), he's pretty much outlived his usefulness. He had an okay match with Kane awhile back, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever sat through anything he's been in, and aesthetically, he looks like just another guy now that he's had to cut back on the juice, so the whole Masterpiece thing doesn't really wash anymore, either. Something tells me Vince or Dusty has a chubby for the guy, but still; they've given up on guys who had "the look" of a future star a lot quicker than they have with him, and when it was someone like Matt Morgan or Brent Albright, it was also a guy who was already more polished in the ring than Masters is. But then again, I just devoted two paragraphs to his new feud, so I guess the joke's on me.

This week also saw the debut of the new, Of Mouse and Men inspired tag team of Jesse and Festus. The smaller one seemed to actually be pretty good in the ring, and they have a cute dynamic, but I will eat a hat (as long as it's made of steak or gummy worms) if they don't wind up exactly like every other wacky tag team to debut in the last few years; not over and jobbing within a year. Although Crime Time seemed to finally be turning the corner before they committed career suicide at a house show, so who knows? I am kind of hoping that these guys, the Greasers, and the Highlanders are all in some kind of match in the near future, just because I think we really need something that combines elements of Deliverance, Highlander, and Grease. It could save the business! From what, I don't know; I just work here. For nothing.

So, anyway, there's a PPV on, one I am actually planning on watching live, so I'll do a preview of that. Right about now, actually. But in another post. So this last paragraph won't actually transition in to that, because that post will be over this one. Aw, the hell with it.

WWE Title Update with Possible Spoilers!

2007-10-04T22:46:00.001-05:00

According to Brian Alvarez (well, according to him according to Inside Pulse's Matthew Michaels), Vince wants to build up Randy Orton as the top heel, which makes sense. It helps that everyone he wrestles keeps going on the shelf, either because of freak injuries, nagging injuries, being semi-retired, wanting some down time, or a combination of all of the above. As much as I'm still underwhelmed by the guy, I really do think they ought to let him run with the belt until Wrestlemania, just to see if he can handle a full blown title run.

That said, between his history of having sure thing title runs snatched away from him at the last minute and the fact that they may want to put someone new and/or suprising over given the fact that they have an open spot (see Khali, the Great on Smackdown recently) and not many appealing options, young Randal and his punt of doom may be denied yet again. Alvarez speculates that we could see Ken Kennedy finally get his big push out of being able to take some credit for injuring Cena. I'd be more willing to believe that if he had not both jobbed like the biggest jobber to ever job in said match and if he weren't coming off of suspension. Surely, they don't want to set an example that there are no consequences for serving a suspension after you come back. Although the alternative may be putting the belt on a guy who smokes joints backstage and shits in gym bags, so they're in a bit of a bind there.

I'm leaving HHH out of this round of speculation because I get the feeling that, with Cena now out for upwards of a year, and Shawn Michaels apparently ready to hang up his boots for good, I imagine they would want to build up to Wrestlemania for his big title win. Bobby Lashley's status in the company probably has a lot to do with things, but it certainly seems smarter to make HHH chase whichever cocky young heel with questionable mat skills they put the belt on for awhile, if for no other reason that HHH with the belt is basically just asking for a heel turn, and they really can't afford for the crowd to turn on him at this point. Of course, if someone like Rey Mysterio or Ric Flair jumps to Raw to take the title (Rey's probably the most over face and merch mover they have next to Cena, and this would be a great not for Flair to go out on; one last title reign and a chance to put someone like Orton or Kennedy over on the way out), all of this will be moot. I also would not leave out Hornswoggle winning the belt either. Who the hell knows what they're thinking in Titan Towers at this point, other than "A torn pec muscle? Seriously?" At least Austin and HHH's big injuries set up years worth of drama in their matches. How are they going to book around Cena's; make the purple nurple or tittie twister constant threats in his matches. Of course, that would actually improve Khali's move set, now that I think of it.

The one idea that no one's floated, because it will probably not happen at anything but Wrestlemania, is Batista winning the WWE Title and becoming the Undispute World Champion. Yeah, I'm slighting the ECW Title here, but when Viscera is considered a main event threat, not even CM Fucking Punk can rescue a belt from being just another title. It would be an interesting turn of events and generate some excitement (setting up a dream match between the annointed ones of Raw and Smackdown that's you could trace back to 'Mania 21), but it seems like the wrong thing to do to waste it on No Mercy. So, even money on that one, I'd say. That the speculation over who's getting the belt is more interesting than anything actual matches for it since what may have been Shawn's last hurrah in the main event continues to be sort of depressing, but at least it gives me more material to talk about than Candice's boobs. Which are usually enough, mind you, but a change of pace is never a bad thing. You get the feeling that whatever we do get will probably not live up to whatever ideal match anyone has in their head, but that's only because suprises in wrestling always suck. Scott Keith said it once; it must be true.

TNA's 2 Hour Debut: A New Beginning Or Two Hours of the Same Old Crap?

2007-10-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

I'd say the former, with some caveats.

First of all, I'm just tired of wrestling bookers taking perfectly good feuds and trying to make them "personal." TNA does this a lot (Angle's plot to mess with Sting's head is very similar to what Jeff Jarrett did last year, except without Alex Shelley and his handi cam, making it less cool, somehow; there was also the stupid crap that unleashed Karen Angle on an unsuspecting world that used to think Stephanie McMahon was the most annoying woman in the history of the business, because a match over every damn title in the company as well as a Japanese one wasn't enough to build a feud on), but they aren't alone; the worst example I can think of is when WWE took a perfectly good, if redundant after a few months, Rey Mysterio/Eddie Guerrero storyline and series of matches (Eddie couldn't beat Rey no matter what he did, which drove him nuts) and threw in the stupid melodrama of Eddie being the real father of Rey's son. It set up a good ladder match to blow off the feud, but really, was it necessary? It's even more depressing that it was part of the last extended feud of Eddie's life, but I digress. I was impressed with Angle's whole "I'll leave this to your imagination" bit at the end, but, you know, isn't a match for the title enough? At least we have had to mostly Karen Angle-free weeks. That's something positive, at least.

Another thing that bugged me is something that can serve as metaphor for TNA's one step forward, two steps back progress in the last few years; the show opens with a typically excellent video package, putting over the importance of the show and really pumping me up for it. The first match to follow the intro? Rhyno vs. Black Reign. Now, I'm as big a fan of everyone's favorite stumpy legged, greasy haired human battering ram as you'll find, and as Aaron Glazer said in his very good column you'll find at the link, Dustin Rhodes is a great performer stuck with a stupid gimmick he doesn't seem to care for. I don't have any problem with these guys having a match. That said, these guys seem like two of the worst to put out there when you're trying to make the right first impression about your product and try to hook anyone who might be tuning in for the first time, a lapsed fan, or anyone else who isn't a regular viewer of TNA who's curious about what they'll do with 2 hours. Again, nothing against these two guys, but they're both WWE expatriates, and Rhodes case, a fairly worn out retread at that. Wouldn't something like that gauntelt match have been a smarter opener, since it gave a bunch of athletic, most likely unknown to a wider audience between the TNA faithful, guys a chance to show of what they could do for 15 minutes?

Other than those two sticking points, and the 3D/Team Pacman match I missed most of due to being on the toilet but doubt I actually missed anything at all by not watching, I was impressed with the show over all. Gail Kim vs. Jackie Moore was a good choice for a women's single match, because they're the two best female workers on the roster, and have a good chemistry after all the matches they were in this year; this match reminded me a lot of the kind of thing Trish Stratus and Victoria could put on with each other at the drop of a hat, which makes it miles ahead of anything WWE's put on since Trish and Lita hung up their boots (no matter how enamored I am with their current Women's Champion and the cute redheard who bumps around for the heels every once in awhile). Although calling Kim's finisher the Happy Ending has such tasteless connotations that I have to wonder if Paul Heyman isn't at least contributing ideas; that would somehow make it better to me, for some reason.

The gauntlet match I alluded to was also enjoyable. So much so that I wonder why they're using the Fight for the Right match at the PPV. While I happened to be one of the few people, from what I can tell, that liked the first itteration of that match, the Royal Rumble with a twist format of TNA's gauntlet is straightforward and leads to enjoyable matches. The Fight for Your Right-- amuses the hell out of me, because it's an inside out battle royal! But in the end, it's still ten guys standing around punching each other until the eliminations start. That format seems more limiting that this one, which allowed everyone to show a little of what they could do and event advanced a storyline while still holding together as an entertaining match.

The main event was formula tag stuff, but it was certainly more energetic than anything I've seen in a WWE main event in quite awhile, even if no one tore their pec or used a Leprechaun as a foreign object. But considering the talent involed, you had to expect this match to be above average. I mean, come on; Christian, Low-Ki, AJ, and Daniels vs. LAX and Joe? How could that not be a ton of fun. Speaking of which, that was an easy segue to Rikishi; he held his end of the bargain admirably, even pulling out the first Fire Thunder Driver I've seen on TV since... well, the last time he did it. Which has to have been 7 years. It would have been nice to see Jay Lethal in there, given that he's got the big match with Daniels at the PPV, but at least he got some promo time.

I do have to say that you can tell LAX have lost their street cred when Don West is openly marking out for Homicide, but then again, wouldn't you if he hit a tope con hilo from the middle rope right in front of you? Low-Ki doing the job was kind of lame, but predictable; he was probably the lowest man on the totem pole in there. I mean, Joe used him as a projectile. Which is, admitedly, the quickest route any match can take straight to my heart.

I thought this was a good show with some small but notable flaws. I forgot to mention the possibility of new interview girl feuding with old interview girl; while I'll take that over Gene Okerlund vs. Mark Madden, I watched Thunder in 2000 and saw Gene Okerlund fight Mark Madden, so I have no right to criticize anything ever. That said, it's dumb. That said, TNA has a good track record with their two hour shows and debuts; it will be interesting to see if they can maintain the momentum they've started to build up, or if the buzz will wear off like it did last year, when Russo's fast paced booking and Angle's arrival gave the show a temporary shot in the arm, only for it to coming crashing back down to Earth and not really stop until last week. I really hope so; with this talent roster and the current staidness of WWE's product, I want these guys to succeed enough to give Vince and company some competition to fire them up outside of Congress again. If they can build on this show instead of resting on their laurels or getting bogged down in crap that only Vince Russo finds interesting again, they may finally realize all their potential. Or at least make me feel like watching them isn't just a habitual thing. Hell, I'll take that.

WWE Title Match Update for people who might be inexplicably reading this blog but not watching ECW!

2007-10-02T21:19:00.000-05:00

Much to Rob Blatt's chagrin, Vince did open ECW by addressing the Cena situation and stripping him of the title. He went on to announce a match at the pay per view. Not the competitors or the kind of match, just a match. So all of my conjecture has yet to be invalidated. I guess the mere fact that we'll have a new champion is supposed to be a selling point. Which, to be fair, is why I'm more interested in watching the show than I was, although Finlay vs. Mysterio is more of a selling point for me, oddly enough. More as it becomes available, as long as I happen to be at the computer and feel like it.

If you had a torn pec in the pool, you won!

2007-10-02T20:24:00.000-05:00

I was going to talk about my ambivalence towards Raw a bit, but I didn't have much to say about it, other than a rare Val Venis sighting, a token lascivious comments about Maria and Candice, something about London's awesome, holy shit worthy running shooting star plancha and Ken Kennedy's auspiciously quick job to Cena, there wasn't much to say. Everything was moving just as efficiently on the pay-per-view treadmill as always.

Until this happened, that is.And so at least half the fanbase is happy, although I have to imagine the rabid Cena haters will feel a little cheated that he's just vacating the belt instead of doing a job for someone. He'll be out six months; that's the current assessment, at least. That puts his return in April, which would likely rule out a Wrestlemania match, the first time that's happened since his rookie year, when all he did was rap at a cardboard cut out of Jay Z. He's been in title matches ever since.

The WWE can't be happy with this; the guy's been a workhorse, he sells merch (although will likely not change; it's not like people stopped buying Stone Cold stuff when he was out for an extended period of time), and they've been booking their flagship show around him for two years now. It also pushes HHH in to the number 1 face slot by default, and if you remember the last time he was the top face on a show, you can see how that poses a problem. This does open the door for someone like Lashley or Hardy to step up, but neither one is that much of an appealing replacement, at least to me; of course, I happened to not entirely hate Cena, and respect his work ethic and the fact that he could have solid matches with anyone. I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I at least sort of liked the guy. That said, after a cumulative 2+years with the guy on top, it is nice to get a considerable breather, even if that's likely to come in the form of the Chinlock Kid or the King of Nepotism.

At any rate, Sunday's show has become more interesting than it was, and I was already planning on watching it (although they were kind of tenuous plans, and ironically enough, wanting to see the presumptive blow off between Orton and Cena was a big part of that). It's kind of sad that one of the only things that can generate interest in the rote, staid modern day WWE is freak injuries are among the few things that can generate excitement, but hey, you gotta take what you can get. Vince will be announcing their plans for the title match on ECW in about a minute. HHH vs. Orton, or something involving them at the very least, seems very likely. Other than Jeff Hardy, who doesn't have any plans on Sunday, come to think of it, there aren't any considerably over faces to throw out there, unless Lashley's ready to come back, and even then, you'd think they'd like to build up his big title shot (although they just tossed he and Cena out there on a traditionally dead PPV, so who knows?). I'm leaving Jericho out of my prognostications, because we're not entirely sure he's meant to be returning at all, much less at No Mercy, and again, I'd think they'd rather keep the build up going (like they've done with everyone else who's made a comeback) than just toss him out there for a hastily put together replacement match. I doubt they're moving anyone from Smackdown either; Mysterio and Undertaker are too integral to the show, Edge isn't due back for a month, and beyond them, there's Finlay, Kane, and a lot of undercard guys, none of whom are trun main event guys or even close to it. Everyone on ECW is a big fish in a small pond at best.Putting the belt on Orton and having HHH, Lashley, and anyone else they feel like elevating chase him 'til Wrestlemania seems like the best course of action. I've long thought they should give him a big run with the belt; not because I'm a fan of his, but because I think it's the only way they'll know if he's worth putting up with the next time he shits in a diva's gym bag, trashes a hotel room, or smokes a joint backstage, and treat him accordingly. I imagine the only reason he's received this huge push is that they don't want all the work they put in to him go to waste, but you know, they need to piss or get off the pot with him eventually, if for no other reason than that Kennedy is probably primed to take his spot as the guy they push to the brink of being a top heel but pull back on at the last minute.

Of course, knowing his history, he'll probably be all set to win the title before pissing someone off backstage and they'll have him job to Hornswoggle or something as punishment. So stay tuned, folks; even if Vince announces his presence in the main event, he may still screw it up again! That's another thing that generates excitement; we wouldn't have had Batista and Rey's title runs without it!

Serious Tommy Dreamer Bandanna Update!

2007-09-30T20:41:00.001-05:00

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.

2007-09-30T19:36:00.001-05:00

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

2007-09-30T18:33:00.001-05:00

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

2007-09-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-26T14:32:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-09-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-22T15:13:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-09-22T14:42:00.001-05:00

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

2007-09-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-20T17:43:00.001-05:00

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

Another WWE.com link

2007-09-20T17:25:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-20T17:08:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-20T12:17:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-09-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-09-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-18T12:06:00.001-05:00

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

2007-09-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

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.

Sunday Night Heat Recap for 9-14-07

2007-09-16T19:53:00.000-05:00

I've always wanted to do show recaps/reviews, and what better place to start than with the one WWE show no one watches! The only wrestling show in a window tinier than the pasties presumably on main eventers Melina and Candice Michelle's boobs! That's right, I'm going to recap Heat.

As an aside, how many people remember when Heat actually had first run matches with Main Eventers, back before Smackdown! came in to the picture? Anyone? At all? All I know is, the Rock, the Hardys, and Edge and Christian did some really memorable work there before it became the B-show (I think the Hardys/E&C feud was a fixture there before they started getting TV time on the main shows, but I may be making that up). And now, it's a web exclusive show where Candice vs. Melina is a step up in profile. Such is life in this crazy, post-McMahon Monopoly world.

I've stalled enough. Might as well get it over with. Your hosts are Josh Matthews and the Coach. Crap, Coach is still doing Heat! I would think being the sort of GM would elevate him past that by now.

Opening Match- The Highlanders vs. Cash and Lynch (and I'm already regretting this idea)

I do like how Lillian announces the Highlanders weight in stone. That's cute. Matthews notes that you don't want your first match in the WWE to be against the Highlanders, which is one of those great "Shoot comments that aren't meant to be shoot comments" Scott Keith always flagged up. Coach at least explains that he's distracted by Unforgiven before ignoring the match on commentary. Robbie hits a dropkick. That's something. Robbie scoop slams Rory (unfortunately, not Rory Gilmore, but his bald brother), which is an okay-ish double team. The jobber taking the beating now, Jason Cash, seems to have borrowed a Spirit Squad member's pants from wardrobe. How sad is it that I miss the Spirit Squad? Mainly, I'm just disappointed that they never had a crazy spot fest ladder match with the Hardys and London and Kendrick. Robbie does a flip counter out of a back drop, which reminds me that everyone in the Smackdown! vs. Raw games, including Big Show, does that. Matthews: They trade kicks. Coach: Is that what it was? Ha! Coach, lacking JR's tact, just says that the match is getting sloppy. He doesn't use a euphemism like "It's bowling shoe ugly" or "Well, it's not catch as catch can". I like Coach on color here. Double inverted slingshot suplex finishes off jobber in Spirit Squad pants in 6:21 in show time. That's a cool move. Why did the Highlanders not get over? Oh yeah, that's right, they're the Bushwackers in kilts. I do like that finisher, though.

Divas commerical for no particular reason.

Davari vs. Super Crazy- Hey, I like both of these guys! If nothing else, it's always a pleasent surprise to see that Super Crazy is still employed. Daivari cuts a promo in Farsi. I think that's how it's spelled. Unlike Khali's Punjabi or whatever, this sounds like an actual language instead of gibberish. Super Crazy's out in his awesome entrance pancho. I will totally buy one of those if they sell them next time I make it to a house show. The arena down here they play once a year is basically in Mexico, so it would probably do gangbusters. Tie up, clean break, Super Crazy chant, which I have to assume is legitimate because, really, why would you use canned heat on Raw's equivalent of Funaki?

Hopefully more people can get suspended so Crazy can get on Raw again. I mean, he had a really cool match with Mr. Hypocrite (Hypocrite!)... I mean Kennedy, a couple months back. Hammerlock by Crazy, elbow out by Daviari, shoulderblock, but Crazy trips him up on a charge, takes him down with an armbar, and stays on the arm a bit. Flippy floppy stuff leads to Crazy blocking a charge to the corner with an elbow, but gets dumped on his back off a top rope attempt.

Daivari chokes him out as Matthews and the Coach debate the merits of high flying vs. technical wrestling. Daivari applies an abdominal stretch, but in one of those "exposing the business" bits, Crazy very obviously lets him do it. Daivari works him over with some solid mat wrestling as Coach actually references Daivari's matches with HBK and Hogan before they go back to hyping Unforgiven. Crazy fights back, hitting a running dropkick and a cool press in to a facebuster for a near fall. Daivari comes back for the jawbreaker, but Crazy counters the head down off a whip (the second dumbest move that always gets countered next to the chin drop off the top rope) with a kick to the jaw, which leads to a scoop slam and a moonsault attempt which Daviari avoids, but Crazy lands on his feet and hits a standing moonsault seconds later for the pin. I missed the transition move, but what am I supposed to do, rewind the show just to see it? And besides, here's what's important; Crazy won! Ker-razy won! He beat the guy of Middle Eastern Descent! USA! USA! Or Me-hi-co! Me-hi-co! I guess that's more appropriate. Especially since Daivari's billed as being from Minnesota, and not Arabia or Sand Nigger Land or what not.

What, Sand Nigger Land is a real place! Considering various statistics, I doubt you'll be able to tell me that I'm wrong, especially given that horrible map shortage we U.S. Americans are suffering from, that Miss Teen Wherever she's from was courageous enough to highlight. I'd inbed a Youtube of it, but you've likely seen it and I'm lazy anyway.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Undertaker video that was on Smackdown! It's actually pretty cool.

The hilariously outdated WWE Magazine with Kennedy on the cover sponsors the Raw Rebound. The only thing that could make Kennedy's various "There's no more steroids in the business, no sir" interviews funnier is if he was coming out with a book titled "I, Ken Kennedy, have never taken performance enhancing substances." Or if that's a plot line in the new Smackdown! vs. Raw game. Anyway, for anyone who doesn't know, Vince's kids is a leprechaun. Hilarity will surely ensue.

Unforgiven hype- Matthews calls MVP and Hardy the "most unlikliest" tag champs of all time. What about the most good, huh, you ungrammatical dork? Of course, I'm not even sure ungrammatical is a word, so let's call it a draw.

Main Event: Candice Michelle vs. Melina- Melina is rocking some pretty cool tights. For a jobber! I can only imagine what she must be like if they hated her so much that they decided to go with the Go Daddy Girl as champ instead of her.

Matthews comments on how it's like being in a club, with the strobe lights and hot women as Candice makes her entrance to that awful techno remix of her song. I do love her little strip tease reveal, as all virile, red blooded American men should. That doesn't explain why I like it, but still, I think that's a pretty valid statement. More unintentional shoot comments, as Matthews says that this could be a total stinker of a match. Okay, that's one out of context, but he was just fawning over Candice's (admittingly wondorous) boobs anyway, and mine's funnier. I think.

Melina's reaction of disgust to Candice's disrobing is a nice touch. It's nice to see her still trying, despite the burial. Or maybe Candice has awful B.O. I'd still gladly have sex with her, mind you. Matthews and Coach make a good point about Candice's evolution as a wrestler as she and Melina do some chain wrestling. Cool roll up counter out of a full nelson by Candice. Charge and a neck breaker/necksnap variant on a seated Melina by Candice, but Melina takes over. Corner clothesline and headscissor choke in the ropes by Melina, but Candice gets out of it and does her hanging choke in the corner over the top rope, which used to be her only move. Candice pounds on her on the mat with UFC-esque strikes, but this is better because it's hot chicks, before going back to time honored women's match stuff like the head pound on the mat, as the match slows down. Melina picks thing back up a bit with some kicks before doing a hair slam. Weird submission, which sort of looks like an Indian Deathlock, but Melina lets go, opting for a rope choke. It's weird that she's not milking the five count to break, but that could be the time constraints. Back breaker in to stretch submission, a la Jericho, but Candice fights out for a bit, only to wind up in a half crab. She crawls to the ropes but can't quite make it, as Melina drags her back to the middle of the ring. Crowd getting in to it a bit before Candice counters out, which doesn't happen often enough. Sure, reaching for the ropes adds drama, but as the King used to point out, it's the coward's way out. Coach describes a slugfest as the girls "laying the wood to each other", which Matthews acknowledges for its innuendo purposes, but Coach no sells it. Candice with her spin kick, which apparently isn't her finish anymore, but she takes too long to hit a cross body and whiffs, allowing Melina to get a two count. Spinning Headscissors out of a tilt a whirl slam by Candice, and she blocks a cool looking Melina kick, causing Melina to do the splits and getting an "ooh" from the crowd. That sets up her version of the Unprettier, with Matt Hardy=esque yelling for emphasis, which apparently works, as it gets the pin.

Keep in mind that I have a Divas fetish and actually like Women's matches most of the time, but I thought this was pretty good, and given more time than I remember them getting on Raw or PPV. Too short to give a star rating to, but perfectly enjoyable. Show over.

So, despite my missgivings, this wasn't bad. I could see myself making this in to a habit. I mean, what with Raw, Smackdown!, ECW, DVDs, youtube, 24/7 online, and TNA, it's not like I watch enough wrestling; might as well add Heat!

Link Bloggering While A PPV is going on

2007-09-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

Sure, Unforgiven's going on, but come on, Iain Burnside's pitch for a new WWE cartoon (spurred on by some doofus named Homercutio's e-mail) in the latest installment of his always worth reading Pulse Wrestling Answers Column is way more entertaining. Here's a snippet to scientfically prove it:

Never mind cartoons about Hulk Hogan's mates beating the bad guys with whacky counter-schemes or comic books about The Undertaker's primordial essence conquering the mortal realm, this is the way forward. Carlito laces the catering truck with ayahuasca, so after a nice chilled glass of grapefruit juice Vince McMahon is next found infiltrating the spectral matter of his left small toenail whilst yodelling the Belgian national anthem to his beloved pet fruitfly. Jim Duggan gets tired of all these young whippersnappers and, spurred on by Indiana Jones and the KOCS, replaces his wood with a whip to have at the wooden packages of any young men found half-naked backstage. Santino Marella keeps crank-calling Pizza Hut to make deliveries to Jimmy Snuka's house, except of course Snuka is so wasted that he thinks he really did order pizza, so he eats them all becomes so constipated that he ruptures his stomach lining and fecal matter enters his bloodstream and, some period of time later, he suffers the most convoluted suicide of all time.

Something funny from WWE.com

2007-09-15T21:30:00.001-05:00

I visit WWE.com a lot, but that's usually to check out their photo and video content. And by that, I mean masturbate to photos and videos of the Divas. Crap, I really need to work on that too much information problem I have.

Anyway, I don't often read the various articles there because, well, they suck. They're written in the time honored tradition of the kayfabe wrestling magazines that are still on the stands, but not the current WWE Magazine, oddly enough. It has been very entertaining over the last year, at least the parts that I have quickly read through at the grocery store before putting it back on the rack and trying to pick up something less embarassing, and then realizing that all of my interests are at least sort of embarassing and walking away.

That being said, I found this little theoretical interview with Vince pretty funny. As lame a pay off as Hornswaggle being a McMahon is in storyline terms (as in, you spent that much time on a midget gag?), there's some great comedy inherent in Vince's son being a filthy leprechaun. If nothing else, he and Shane could probably have a very entertaining garbage match over the Cruiserweight Title, if Shane could be bothered to even pretend to want to be the Cruiserweight Champion. But come on; aren't we all waiting for him to do something horribly embarassing to Stephanie (who, I must say, is looking quite hot since giving birth to HHH's demon seed)? This could be hilarious. Or it could be swept under the rug until Kennedy's done serving his time out and they do the storyline they really wanted to. Either way, I'm just twisted enough to really like the idea of Hornswoggle McMahon and hope that it leads to many a backstage skit.

Hell, at least it wasn't the oily fat guy, Lashley, or Khali; the midget has the benefit of being entertaining and over. Which could be why he has gold and ROH hero Jamie Noble is his bitch. Although, hey, at least Jamie's on TV every week. Couldn't say that before he was taking pies in the face and tripping on marbles. Which is why, unlike the esteemed Lance Storm, I had no problem with that title match a few weeks ago between them. Hell, the WWE treats the Cruiserweight title like a joke anyway; in the past, they've had such luminaries as a past her prime Jackie Moore, total jobbers Funaki and Spike Dudley (although I did like his evil beard when he turned heel), and holy shit he's still alive Chavo Guerrero Sr. holding the belt. Why not make it in to the comedy belt? And, you know, midgets are inherently funny. That's why they exist. They are God's littlest, cruelest joke, and should run around wrestling rings for our amusement. Also, even in WCW, where the title had its glory days, there were much worse champions than Finaly's midget pal, such as:
total jobber (and future boy band member and trivia question answer) Evan Karagias,
past her prime Madusa,
awful, mean spirited joke that no one but Vince Russo found funny Oklahoma (guess who he was meant to parody?)
Prince Iaukea with a lame Prince gimmick but the same total lack of wrestling skills (and Booker T's future wife as his valet, oddly enough)
the awesome yet not meant for this belt Daffney Unger
Disco Fucking Inferno. I have no descriptive text for him, I just really dislike Disco Inferno.

Anyway, I like the damn midget. And Lance Storm has no discernible sense of humor. So there.

Okay, that's not fair. It's not like the Hornswaggle/Noble stuff has been side splitting. But I find it at least mildly amusing, and as much as I hate to say it, I'll take that over interchangable jobbers doing flips for five minutes, which is what the Cruiserweight Title had come to before this, even when someone like Paul London or Nunzio had it. Velocity dying in favor of ECW didn't help in that regard; at least back when it was around, you'd get one good, solid cruiser match a week. But take Noble/Moore from this week; solid stuff, but no heat, and very rushed. Might as well just turn it in to pie tossing and marble slipping. Look, as nice as it is to say that they could put on a ton of awesome matches, it's just never going to happen, at least as long as Vince doesn't get cruiserweights unless they make him money (like Shawn, Rey, and hopefully Punk), and moves the ones that do far away from the belt to actual success. The Cruiserweight title's glory days are as dead as ECW's, they just care so little about them that they didn't spend six months telling us so. They aren't comng back. You don't have to like comedy matches over the belt, but after this long, we all have to accept that they're probably never going to have the kind of cruiser division that made WCW watchable when the main event was so awful, and that could have a similar effect now. I would love to see Rey vs. Punk, London vs. Kendrick, and Noble vs. Yang, Helms vs. Moore, et al. as matches over the belt that were treated seriously and given a chance to really knock the crowd's socks off, but I just don't think WWE's the place where it will happen. What's really sad is that neither is TNA with their resident cruiser talent, which is the only use I ever had for them.

Wow, this went so far away from where I started it that I have no idea what it was originally about. This posting shit can be pretty weird. I think I'll go back to ignoring this blog for awhile.

So there's a WWE Pay-Per-View Sunday--

2007-09-15T20:39:00.000-05:00

-- and I don't care.

I'm sorry. I didn't start this blog to be the stereotypical jaded wrestling fan who bitches about how much they hate the WWE. And I'm really not here to do that today. But somehow, my apathy for this month's WWE offering has motivated me to write more than the breaking drug scandal, TNA's move two hours, or whatever supposedly mindblowing thing ROH is up to, or anything else this month, and I think I should run with that.

Here's a little secret I'll let you in on, theoretical reader; I don't watch a lot of PPVs. I don't have the money to shell out $39 for every WWE pay-per-view and I don't have the interest to pay for TNA. I would have bought ROH's first PPV, but apparently DirecTV thinks XPW's a more viable commodity (I shit you not, they had an XPW show on PPV the same month Respect is Earned debuted), and don't carry them, and I am not changing cable services just to watch an indie wrestling show, no matter how good it may be. I am against downloading shows from the net on ethical grounds (well, that and I don't have access to a computer that I could download a show on over the course of a day).

The only viable option I have for watching PPVs is going to the local sports bar, a la Ken Anderson, and watching the WWE's latest PPV offerings. It's actually a pretty good deal; cover's $5, and the meal usually runs me about $15. So, for half the price that WWE charges, I get dinner and a show!

I'm pretty choosy about which shows I go to even under those conditions though. Generally, if there aren't two matches I'm really excited about, I skip it, unless a buddy wants to go (usually I have to try and round people up to go, which can be pretty fruitless, especially because I usually waver on whether I want to go to a WWE show until three hours before it starts). There are exceptions; I'll go to Wrestlemania no matter what the card looks like, and if there's one dream match (Punk vs. Benoit at this year's Vengeance; that's a horrendous example for a number of reasons, but it was the only match I wanted to pay to see on that card) or something like Trish Stratus's retirement match last year, I'll overlook a card I wouldn't care for otherwise.

This year's edition of Unforgiven, however, firmly falls in to the miss pile. The two headlining matches are a big part of why; Orton vs. Cena was a good, solid main event, but I'm not really excited about paying to see it again, despite the fact that Cena cut a really awesome, intense promo that would have convinced me otherwise were he not fighting the king of the chinlock. As for the other world title match, look; I'm the biggest Rey fan you'll find. I like Batista. But Khali is such a massive ball of suckitude that I can't imagine that this match will be any more watchable than Batista/Khali last month, despite Rey's presence. It would be nice if the triple threat stip lead to Rey or Dave taking the belt off of the Punjabi Resthold King (especially because I think there's money in a Dave vs. Rey feud, with Dave turning heel on Rey and fighting over the belt with him), but they seem dead set on giving him a long title run. Or at least keeping it on him until the Undertaker can take it off him.

And that's another thing! As good as Undertaker's matches with Batista were before he went down with that injury that prematurely ended his title run (and added to the growing World Heavyweight Title curse mythos), I doubt that his big comeback against Mark Henry will be any better than the stinker they had at Wrestlemania last year. That match was tolerable because it was part of a four hour show and was just there for 'Taker to keep the streak going and try to justify that ludicrous contract they signed Henry to and have probably regretted since. But as a major selling point? I fart in the general direction of that.

The rest of the card looks solid. Punk/Burke and London and Kendrick vs. The Red Necks could be really good, with the eternal caveat of whether they have enough time to put together decent matches. I'm betting no on both, though, given that Punk and John Morrison, who they apparently really wanted to get over before being on the 'roids became unfashionable, got about 7 minutes for their PPV matches a piece and they suffered for it, whereas they tore the roof off in their two long matches on ECW (what's wrong with that picture?). The World Tag Title Match will probably have enough time to be okay tag formula, and it's great that London and Kendrick are finally back on PPV again, but again, I can't see this being good enough to warrant a night out.

I also wouldn't rule out Candice Michelle and Beth Phoenix being a solid match. The dynamic here reminds me a lot of the Trish Stratus/Jazz matches years back which helped Trish transition from eye candy to legitimate performer. While I don't think she's there yet, Candice Michelle seems to be on a similar path, and Phoenix has the tough gal act that Jazz used to great results when she wasn't hurt down pat. But again, it probably won't go on very long, and they will likely wrestle 5,000 between now and whenever they find a new Diva of the moment. It looks like Michelle McCool's being groomed for that role, and Maria could make a great underdog champion. She'd be like Mikey Whipwreck, but hot! But back to my point, this match won't make me pay to watch this show either, despite Candice's great pair of breasts. They were worth every penny you spent on them, honey!

The other two matches don't sound awful, but they really underwhelm me. I'm enjoying the MVP/Matt Hardy feud, but I instinctivly hit fast forward on my Tivo whenever Duece and Domino show up on Smackdown!, so I sure as hell don't want to watch them live. I'll begrudingly admit that MVP's better in the ring, but I draw the line at having to give a crap about the greaser tag team. Maybe I'm still just bitter that those doofuses beat London and Kendrick, but I can't stand them, and I usually don't get irrational hatreds worked up for wrestlers.

I used to have on for Carlito, mind you, but I really warmed up to the guy when he worked more lucha stuff in to his offense, stopped hanging out with Chris Masters, and started making out with Trish Stratus and Torrie Wilson on a weekly basis, all of which seemed like excellent career moves at the time, but wound up leaving him in a weird bubble of aimlessness on Raw for a good chunk of the fall of 2006. His teaming and inevitable feud with Ric Flair looked like it might turn the corner for him, but then he went and badmouthed his employer before their biggest show of the year and wound up spending a few months jobbing and fighting Sandman and Torrie for it (admittedly, weren't we all wondering why the hell Kane vs. Khali and Ashley vs. Melina were on Wrestlemania but Flair wasn't?). Now he's appearing on PPV again, with a match against HHH... and you kind of wonder if he wasn't better off jobbing to everyone from Flair to Shelton Benjamin.

I'm guessing that the suspensions of most of Raw's top heels forced them in to doing this match (and certainly led to Umaga getting demolished with the sledgehammer and Booker deciding he'd rather run his indie promotion), but it's been put together in such a way that Carlito looks like an ineffectual pussy. I have a hard time buying HHH as a babyface without Shawn around to play off of as it is, and stacking the deck against him doesn't work for me, although it does at least take his tried and true solution to all problems, the sledgehammer to the face, out of the equation. Since Kennedy and Bobby Lashley had a good match on Smackdown! during Lashley's absurd overpush on the role to Wrestlemania using this stip (during which he cured cancer, walked on water, and impregnated all of Extreme Expose just by looking at them, and yet still could not cut a decent promo to save his life), I'm sure Hunter and Carlito can get something watchable out of it, but I just don't care about babyface HHH. I'm wondering when the goodwill will wear off and we can start booing him again, as God intended. Or Shawn can come back, they can tell lame dick jokes, and have garbage matches in the mid card. Whatever.

So, yeah, I'm probably sitting this one out. Cards like this expose the weakness of the "all three shows on every PPV" thing. While all the shows have been hit or miss (and mainly mediocre) since they did the brand extension, at least when they were alternating Raw and Smackdown! on PPV we would get fresh undercard matches along with the usual suspects in the main event. While the inclusion of both tag titles is a nice way of getting some new blood in there, familiarity does breed contempt, and if if Orton, Cena, Dave, and Khali are all main eventing again next month, I'll be down right contemptous toward WWE PPVs. I'll still watch all 5 hours of their free TV shows, pay $4 to watch old matches online, and play Smackdown! vs. Raw far too much, but my disdain for the PPVs still stands!

As is, I'm just apathetic about this month's offering, and just hoping that we get some damn competition. I really hope that TNA going to two hours means that they'll have more room to breath and give us some cool X-Division matches and better developed feuds, instead of increasing the amount of frustrating crap to two hours a week from just the one. Or, you know, maybe I could write a very polite letter asking DirecTV to carry ROH. That could work too. Maybe they'd even tell me why in the blue hell they would have an XPW pay-per-view if I ask really nicely.

Starting out with something (that I think is) funny

2007-08-17T12:32:00.000-05:00

It might be true: Completely Fictional Stories about Pro Wrestling Legends that have a ring of truth!

Scott Steiner was convicted of manslaughter in Mexico. It's a long story, but needless to say, it started out as a harmless game of midget tossing with the Big Show and ended messily.

X-Pac will come to your house and point at his crotch for a pack of cigarettes and a copy of TV Guide. He even does Quinceneras!

The Sandman runs his own rehab center in Philadelphia. The main form of treatment; singapore caning the holy hell out of people until they swear off drugs and alcohol. Lindsay Lohan will be sent there if she gets arrested again.

Lex Luger isn't an entirely terrible person. If fact, he has occasionally done things that aren't completely morally reprehensible.

Every time Jeff Jarrett breaks a guitar, a dead wrestler gets their wings. Or maybe a Wings CD. I'm not sure.
Jeff Hardy doesn't know what the hanky code means, either, he just keeps one on him in case his nose runs in the middle of a match.

Kamala earned his doctorate in linguistics from Stanford during his babyface run in the WWF in 1993.

Rikishi once failed to finish a plate at a buffet. Big Daddy V did not finish it for him.

The Honky Tonk Man once won a match cleanly.

The Iron Sheik is a seven time winner of the Tehran Invitational Spelling Bee.

Paul Heyman once paid an ECW wrestler on time.

The Boogeyman thinks he sucks, too.

John Cena can apply the STF correctly, he just chooses not to, lest he kill his opponents instead of merely forcing them to tap out from the pain of his goofy version of the hold.

Shawn Michaels really did lose his smile, and did not find it until 2005, when Shane McMahon sheepishly admitted to having borrowed it without asking and not having the guts to bring it back because he was too embarassed.

Chris Jericho could have totally won Celebrity Duets, he was just asked to job in the first round, so as not to completely embarass Lucy Lawless and Hal Sparks, who, come on, really needed something to go well for them.

Another WWE superstar wanted to follow in Stacy Keibler's footsteps and become America's Sweetheart by competing on Dancing with the Stars. Unfortunately, the producers just didn't think Snitsky could do the two step.

Undertaker will not even let someone cut him off in traffic without stiffing the hell out of them.

Sting the wrestler and Sting the singer? Totally the same guy.

Candice Michelle will not sleep with anyone who shows her a shiny object.

Randy Orton will.

Low Ki is actually the Norse God of Mischief; Elix Skipper is actually the Greek God of Flipping; Christopher Daniels is just some guy. Together, they are XXX!

A time travelling Stone Cold Steve Austin ran for the Anti-Federalist Party Presidential nomination in 1892 on a ticket of BMF, DTA, a total disregard for authority and corporate decorum, and fiscal responsibility. He lost, but was named ambassador to Spain. It was his Stone Cold Stunner to a Spanish dignitary, and not the sinking of the Maine, that caused the Spanish American War. He was later buried alive by a time travelling Marxist Undertaker and presumed dead. He was on the failed $2.50 bill, but was replaced when Christian Fundementalists objected to his double bird salute. This one is all true. Crack open a history book, people!

Sabu is deathly afraid of spiders, toy poodles, and breakfast sausage.