As of tonight, the total number of Survivor Series matches sits at…six. Some value for money, huh?
When the Taliban suddenly withdrew from the city Tuesday morning, disturbances by “irresponsible people” with weapons forced the alliance to march in and secure the city. – cnn.com, November 13, 2001
No truth to the rumor that the Northern Alliance has been asked to do the same with Belfast and South Central.
It’s Liberation Wednesday here at 411, so let the bickering begin. Just a reminder: the war’s not over. This is something that seemed to slip the mind of a certain president’s father ten years ago. The next phase of operations? Gillette will be air-dropping disposable razors over Alliance-held territory. This is the first time in history that shaving has become an act of defiance. We live in interesting times, don’t we?
THE PIMP SECTION
Grut has a new rumination out that includes a dialogue between a mark and a smark. Some home truths in there, so read it.
John Nason has some thoughts about having to watch the B-team in a split house show. I can empathize, but living between Milwaukee and Chicago, and seeing that the next shows in my area are going to be a Raw/Smackdown combo at the beginning of next month, I can’t fully do so.
Scott on Raw. PK on Raw. Brower on Jakked. Mahaud on Heat. That should get you caught up with the weekend stuff.
YET ANOTHER CLARIFICATION FROM YESTERDAY
My remarks about the fact that September 11th wouldn’t have taken place without a Dubbaya election were, as I thought, misinterpreted by some, despite the disclaimers, but that’s not the issue. I left out one assumption that I thought would be obvious enough that I didn’t have to say it, but I guess that I do. My theory was predicated on the fact that bin Laden, being a master planner, had more than one thing in the works. Yes, September 11th took a lot of pre-planning (and, correspondents, please decide on whether it was three years, four years, or seven years), and it was certainly in the works prior to Inauguration Day. What I’m positing is that bin Laden decided to go with the most devastating of his possible plans (and the hardest one by far to coordinate) in response to the current administration being in place. Remember, we’re dealing with an obsessed nut-job here (the first person who says “takes one to know one” gets it). Who knows what his thought process might be? It just seemed to me to be an overly dramatic and Mission: Impossible-level complicated statement to make compared to the embassy bombings and the USS Cole. There had to be something more behind it than just another “damage America” thing. Hope that helps clear up some stuff.
CY YOUNG GRABS JOHNSON AGAIN
I’m sorry, I needed to stretch a little for the sexual innuendo on that one; I’ll do better next time. It’s three in a row (four overall) for Randy Johnson as he wins the NL Cy Young in a walkover over Curt Schilling. I think Johnson’s made about a million from incentive money this post-season when you combine WS shares, bonus cash for being WS MVP, and the 250 large he’s getting for the Cy Young. Nice bit of extra in the pocket any way you look at it. Roger Clemens gets his walkover on Thursday.
SOMETHING TO LOOK INTO
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Dmitri Vassilaros caught KDKA television doing something naughty and illegal during the Steelers/Chiefs game on October 25th. It seemed that the radio play-by-play wasn’t synching with what the TV was showing. Specifically, the radio was ahead of the TV broadcast, describing things before they happened on the tube. Well, Vassilaros, being a good reporter, decided to look into it, and he found that KDKA was running the broadcast on a slight tape delay, killing out dead moments in the game in order to put in more commercials. This is against FCC regs, and they’re going to get their pee-pees spanked. I have a suggestion for them: sell the delay equipment to the WWF so they could cut out dead time on Raw. The only problem with this is that Raw would end up being about seventeen minutes long.
SMACKDOWN, ETC>
Okay, what was more confusing, Raw or the end of the Ravens/Titans game? Let’s see if they can come up with something less confusing and more coherent for Smackdown, and let’s also see what matches they come up with for SurSer on Sunday…
Dark Matches
Lita over Jazz (Pinfall, Litasault): No surprise at the result. What’s the odds that when Jazz comes on camera, she’ll be put with Booker?
Randy Orton and Ron Waterman over Stevie Richards and Rico Constantino (Pinfall, Waterman pins Richards, powerslam): Now Stevie’s jobbing to the developmental talent in a tag match. Can someone tell me if there’s a storyline reason for Constantino being with an Alliance member? I know they’re doing Alliance-angle subsidiaries in the developmentals, but I don’t have access to the programming.
Heat Tapings
Rajah’s Dan the Man speculates that this is for International Heat, given that this week’s MTV Heat should be SurSer pimp all the way.
Scott Taylor, Spike Dudley, and Albert over Raven, Justin Credible, and Lance Storm (Pinfall, Taylor pins Credible, I believe, Worm): Keep killing those Impact Players fantasies some of us are still harboring, why don’t you?
Perry Saturn over Billy Kidman (Submission, Rings of Saturn): Old lover’s tiff from the WCW flock days?
Farooq and Bradshaw over Shawn Stasiak and Tommy Dreamer (Pinfall, Bradshaw pins Dreamer, Clothesline From Hell): Gee, what a surprising ending.
Smackdown Tapings
Rob Van Dam over Kane, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, Five-Star Frog Splash): Booker does the run-in again, just like on Raw. I have no idea what the match here and the match on Raw is supposed to do for Van Dam.
My Beautiful and Beloved comes on to Test, and Flex and Jericho make up for the nonce.
Matt and Jeff Hardy and Edge over Buh Buh Ray and D-Von Dudley and Test (Pinfall, Edge pins D-Von, spear): Whassup victim is Jeff. Lita gets jealous because Matt has momentary bodily contact with Stacy. 3-D victim is thus Matt. Nothing we haven’t seen before in other packaging.
The only persona of TBS that we can stand, the comedy Show, returns. His impersonation will be one Diamond Dallas Page, who again gets nailed for his troubles when he comes to ringside to object.
Heyman cuts a kick-ass promo and calls Vince to the ring, where Paul E. proceeds to go into total shoot mode about how Vince ripped him off. Tazz is then dragged into it and forced to choose sides once and for all.
Booker T over The Undertaker (DQ, Tim White fat-handling): But not before Booker is made to look like ‘Taker’s bitch again.
Commissioner Regal and Ivory over Torrie Wilson and Yoshihiro Tajiri (Submission, Wilson submits to Regal, Regal Stretch): Women get most of the ringtime. Ivory gets misted. The ending makes sense since a promo right before this has Regal implying a little sexual harassment might be necessary for Wilson to keep her job after Sunday.
The Battling Bickersons over Kurt Angle and Steve Austin (DQ, Austin manhandles Hebner): Match is only an excuse for the chain run-ins at the end, in which the main-eventers at SurSer all get their licks in. Austin’s the only one left standing, and Vince gives him one of those “you’re still turning Sunday, right?” looks as fade-out hits.
AND IN OTHER WRESTLING NEWS…
More matches announced for SurSer at the SD tapings. First of all, we’re going to have an actual Woman’s Champion again, as Lita, Trish, and Jackie will represent the WWF, Molly and Ivory the Alliance. There will be a sixth surprise entrant, an Alliance member (Jazz, perhaps?). The other match will be a twenty-man battle royal with an interesting stip: the winner is immunized from being fired for a year. This is not upping my buy interest any.
I was going to go for some predictions on SurSer, but with only six announced matches and many of them dependent on whatever drugs the bookers have or haven’t taken, I’m not going to risk it. We don’t have a list of who the twenty men in the battle royal are going to be (although we can make a preliminary guess based on the principle of no women, none of the men in the main, no Test or Edge, and no Hardyz or Dudz). I have no clue on where they want to take Test or Edge. I really don’t care about the Dudz or Hardyz. I love Regal and Tajiri, but they can’t carry this entire show. And I think that the Alliance is going to win the main just because I can’t see what kind of plotline they could have going without them.
Well, we can forget about that Eddy Guerrero comeback. According to Da Meltz, he got his release from the WWF on Monday after D-ing U the I and getting caught at it on Saturday. Let’s see, how does this rate on the Stupid Meter? Guy just gets out of rehab for a drug addiction, is ready for his first prelims in HWA, is due to get back to the majors no later than Royal Rumble, and then gets loaded and drives. I’ll give it a .9 Steph.
Widro told everyone that Raw went up negligibly to a 4.1 this week, thus maybe saving us from 1) more Karaoke Nights and 2) Powell spooging all over the place over more Karaoke Nights. I will make an exception for another Karaoke Night if it’s Regal doing “Anarchy in the UK” and Jeff Hardy chimes in with “Suicide Blonde”.
Here’s some other XWF developments: Kid Kash won the XWF Cruiserweight Tournament to become Your First XFW Cruiserweight Champion. Josh Matthews, Tough Enough loser, was put over A. J. Styles in one of the two dry run-throughs that opened the “taping schedule”. Roddy Piper’s your commish, while Rena Mero’s your CEO, and she gets to cut the major shoot promo. There were some actual alleged positives. Some people are even saying that if you liked WCW circa 1994-1995, you’ll like this. What’s the attraction for those of us who didn’t like WCW back then because of what Hogan was doing to it, though?
Let’s face it, when your fed’s opening match is Barry Horowitz versus the Demon, there’s something very, very wrong (that being said, I’m a big Horowitz mark). Those of you who were rooting for Josh on Tough Enough get your wish to see more of him. Give him a blowjob face push, put him over, then bring in Harvard Chris to feud with him. The mark factor in me sorta blew out when the one tag match I was interested in, namely Juvy and Psychosis teaming up, ended up involving Konnan. Disappointing lineup, Meltz? Shit, I’m having flashbacks to Thunder (especially with Schiavone and Penzer involved, not to mention Doug Dellinger (where’s Hyatte when you need him?)), and that qualifies as full-blown depression. I think the only person who’s going to get any mileage out of XWF will be Keith, since the return of Johnny B. Badd can only mean the return of the Fag-o-Meter (or considering the wife’s around, maybe the advent of the P-Whip Meter). They’re going to hold a press conference on Thursday to discuss details. Meltzer gives the cast list for this road show of Night of the Living Dead: Gene Okerlund, Roddy Piper, Rena Mero, Jimmy Hart, Jim Duggan, the Nasty Boys, Greg Valentine and Curt Hennig. Again, make of that what you will.
I’ll throw it over to Grut. Enjoy your weekend.
