Saturday Evening Post 1.26.02

Hello. I’m Flea and thank you for joining me! I will try not to freak out every time a f*cking bell rings during the Jazz / Kings game. See, the latest craze in basketball appears to be “some asshole ringing a bell when the other team is at the foul line”. This will ruin your buzz quick -like. If the Fed can delete “crowd noise” at whim (more on that below) how can NBC not get rid of this goddamn bell? Would you fans please think of something else to distract these players. I’m partial to the old “full size poster of a chick in a bikini”. Anything but a bell.

Did you guys have a nice week? Good. Glad to hear it. You didn’t? Sorry about that. Things will pick up. Why, just a couple weeks ago it was 40 and 50 degrees here. Today? Flea’s day at the beach. Low 80’s and sunny. Doesn’t that just put you in the most wonderful mood? Oh, your under snow and just want to read some wrestling news instead of getting weather reports. No problem because, it’s me, Flea and I’m here for YOU!

Message to Grut: Put periods (these things here {.}) in between the letters N.W.O. Fools those nasty spell-checkers all the time!

Let’s get to it .

TOP STORY

Once again we start the weekend off with the N.W.O. For those of y’all that actually WATCH the show vs. spoiler or recap reading, you most likely saw the breakdown of Vince and the shocking, surprise announcement of the N.W.O. Well, shocking to everyone but BOB who “broke” this story a couple weeks ago and is now crowing about it. For you fans of Six Degrees of Ryder Fakin, therein is the rational behind it. Anyway, according to reports Hall and Nash have signed and Hogan is about to put (or maybe has, by now) his Terry G. Bollea on the dotted line. All three are reportedly in CT at the Fed’s headquarters making plans for ye ol’ hostile takeover.

My opinion hasn’t changed. I’m all for this and think it will make for some good TV and do great business for the WWF. If it brings back a 6.0 rating, well then good. As it stands RAW the highest rated cable show and Smackdown consistently is on top over at UPN so things are not as bad as you have been led to believe. The angles have been nothing to write home about but are not “horrid” “intolerlable” or “the stupidest thing ever on TV” as some folks have said. Everyone agrees that the Invasion was rotten but I think the year of 2k1 will be largely forgotten over the next couple of years. Kinda like how no one really talks about how 93-95 WWF unless they are trying to make some bird-brained point. Sometimes things sorta suck, it’s a fact of life.

So what we have now is not an act of “desperation” or the “last resort”. Vince and the boys are raking in plenty of dough and are still pretty much in the same spot they were during their 98-99 boom. They are, of course, not pulling a 6.0 rating but who gives a flying f*ck? What matters to me is a fun, interesting product with quality matches. All the wrasslers are there to provide the matchup, now the angles need to be kicked into gear. The injection of the N.W.O. will give a strong angle to build on and blows the door open for the whole split promotion thing and the twists, turns and subplots that all the “sports entertainment” folks dig. Me too, but I’m big into seeing the payoff in the ring, which is why the TV product was so enjoyable: Good solid matches and a nice build to another Austin vs. Angle battle which I hope gets a good 18-20 minutes on Monday. The only benefit of the “general public” watching the show is that popluarity = more wrestling shit gets put on tv. Damn. Only 2 years ago we had 20+ hours of programming and I like it that way.

So outside of all the political bullshit and the “harmony of the WWF locker room will break down” crapola (99% of which I don’t buy and could give a f*ck less about) , I see no real downside to this whole N.W.O. angle. Again kids, the New Year Resolution was just to sit back and enjoy through Wrestlemania.

It’s fun if you do it. Really, it is.

HEADLINES

In other WWF news it looks like Maven will get jiggy with Some Other Guy on RAW Monday Night. Now then if Guy squashes this kid will people bitch that he is “holding people back”? I’m trying to figure out at what point you become a member of the elite club that wields their backstage power and keeps the “glass ceiling” in place. Everyone flipped out when HHH refused to play along with Jeff Hardy and his push from hell (don’t you guys feel silly now for even thinking that?) so how will Other Guy’s burial of Maven be any different? It’s still holding someone back ain’t it? All apologies if I am not seeing the forest through the trees here.

Speaking of HHH, the theory going around is that he’s staying babyface for now and will NOT be joining “the band”. Makes sense to me as he is going to be dumping Steph soon and will be cheered out da place just by default. Going back to my question from a couple of weeks ago “How is Jericho going to be heel in Canada”. I think my question has been answered: have him shack up with Stephanie. I know it’s going against common logic but I definitely see Other Guy vs. HHH at WM. Most folks are still thinking that Austin vs HHH is the money match but I disagree. Austin and Rock will probably team with Flair to fight the N.W.O. with Vince lurking around. THAT’S your money match, I believe. Plus all of you Other Guy fans will agree than a victory over Austin at No Way Out would do wonders for the Guy’s credibility.

THE ROSS SAYS THIS

In the latest Ross Report, JR starts off by kicking your old pal Flea right in the f*cking balls. Check this out:

Greetings from under the 200X black Resistol hat from a BBQ lovin’ Sooner who’s lucky enough to have the best seat in the house.

How am I supposed to compete with an intro like that?

Benoit and Rhyno have several things in common: a hurt neck, a doctor’s appointment and no solid date to return. Benoit’s WM return may be delayed pending his prognosis while the man that makes a living running his head into things will most likely not be around again until after the summer.

In television news, another edition of Weakest Link will be taped soon. Tough Enough wrapped things up and will stink up a TV near you soon. JR likes it though. He ain’t seen it, but he likes it!

Hey Eric S.? Did you get your tickets? Now Way Out went on sale today in Milwaukee. You readers should hook Eric up in my opinion. He provides some damn good work for you. At least comp him “nosebleed seats” for christsakes.

Goldust, Perfect, Jackie, Trish, Spike Tazz, Jackie and Regal get mad props from Good Ol’. Also, the Hardy;s are doing the life story thing and that skank with the tattoo is up to something but I don’t care.

To all you fans of Kaz Hayashi, he’s been released. Yes, I agree with what you are thinking right now.

That wraps things up for another week from Good Ol’. Doncha wish he’d just say what’s on his mind about Hogan, Nash and Hall?

RADIO GA GA

Many of today’s wrestlers choose to express their opinions and gripes on various radio programs, be it the standard AM/FM stations or the up and coming Internet talk shows. Here is a run down on who said what

Over on WWF.com Edge and Rikishi have a couple of kick ass interviews up. As I mentioned last week the interview section of the Fed’s website is becoming one of my favorites. I get tired of hearing and reading the same unemployed/indy motherf*ckers talk and talk and talk about the same shit over and over. I mean how many times do we have to hear Vito and Disco? Zenk is a rat f*ck prick and Cappetta is just making up shit to get copies of his book sold. You didn’t hear about that? Well, on the Radio here in Orlando we have a little show called “Between the Ropes” and Cappetta was in town promoting his book. He pretty much compared the Nasty Boys to the characters in “Deliverance” and I don’t mean Burt Reynolds or Jon Voight. The hillbilly Ned Beatty f*ckers for those of you that have seen the movie. He went on and on about their “hazing” rituals, obviously not getting the memo that “hazing” is, like, so last month. He should be coming up with stories of Nash, Hall and Hogan if he wants to be current.

Point of all this is drop your preconceived notions about WWF.com being a “mark” website. Get over there and prowl around. It will be worth your time.

Speaking of people that always seem to be available for an interview, here is Disco Inferno. Nothing out of the ordinary but it seems as all of the talk of the WWA going out of business may not be entirely accurate. Why are people so hyped on seeing the federations fail? I enjoyed the WWA PPV and am looking forward to original content, but everyone is breaking their legs to declare these guys dead in the water. Jeez. In a side note to this story, reports are circulating that their PPV in Vegas may be moved. Additional details are not available as of this writing. Hmmmm

ROLL THE DICE

DDP will be on EXCESS this evening, which should be entertaining to say the least. I will be here to give you the full lowdown on everyone’s favorite show that they never watch. Although, the rating for EXCESS was WAY up this past week proving that Hurricane draws like Picasso. Good luck to DDP continuing the trend. Come back tomorrow for the report.

IN OTHER WORDS

Now available on 411

Netcop and McCluskey do the Smark / Smack – down thing.

E.C. has a new Mind Squeezin’s available and Byte This should be up soon as well!

What do Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg, Coolio and Art Martinez have in common? Yep. And they all makes rhymes too.

OY VEY! – YOU should know what column that is!

More plugs to come tomorrow, I am sure.

PAGE SIX

That’s all from me today .until I read the following:

I am sure that the missing chants will get conspiracy theorists buzzing and in this case, they may have something to buzz about.



– Dave’s (not him! The other one.) opinion of the supposed “removal” of RVD chants from Smackdown’s TV product.

Here’s the short story. RVD apparently got his “pop on” and a bunch of folks were chanting the normal chant when RVD appears. These same folks were a little miffed that their voices were not heard on TV. So they wrote Dave and complained. Which begat a “conspiracy” that PROVES RVD is being held down by the evil forces in charge.

The match in question? RVD’s 40 second squash of the brand new Intercontinental Champion, William Regal. Yes, it was non-title, but how often do you see a Champion chumped out like that, especially after a PPV?

I think RVD is going to make it through this one. Don’t you?

And please get off of Billy Gunn’s back. He’s trying, you know.

This has been Saturday Evening Post and I’m Flea.