The Week In Wresting 5.6.02

Archive

Hey all, and welcome to a new installment of the Week in Wrestling. I’m Daniels and Spiderman rules. It has definitely been my favorite movie of the year so far and will probably remain so for at least 10 more days. Sam Raimi did a good job following both the storylines they touched on in the beginning. They updated it be more a 2000-ish storyline, rather than the time it was actually made replacing a genetically engineered spider for a Irradiated Spider he also went the route of saying the web came out of Peter Parker instead of from “inventions” he attached to his wrist. Probably a better idea. He then jumped into the Green Goblin storyline nearly perfectly, and setting up the Hobgoblin for the next movie, which I’d like to see come out next week, if possible. Hobgoblin was always my favorite of the two goblins anyway.

Got a Gamecube yesterday for a College Graduation present. Look for me to start posting some game reviews over Hurtado’s head. Watch Hurtado’s head explode! It will be fun for all!!! Rented the Spiderman video game on the way home. Pretty fun so far. Of course, the system cost 200, then I had to go out and buy $200 more in peripherals. Next might be the portable screen, which just plain rocks. I saw one of these the first time on a PS1 (Playstation 1 up in the RIDE!) and thought it was a cool idea then. If I actually swing getting a job sometime soon, I might have all sorts of cash.

Speaking of phat cash for a phat job good luck boss.

Raw

Anyone have any idea what happened to Jeff Hardy? I mean, a year ago, people had him pegged to turn on Matt and make a run at the top. Now, he’s skinny as a crack addict with more ribs showing than Over-eaters Anonymous night at Chilli’s. Anyway, he had a somewhat decent match with Eddy over the IC title, but mostly because Eddy carried him. I point out that Eddy also knocked the wind out of himself on the Frog Splash, but still managed to immediately cover Jeff. RVD, on the other hand, flits around for ten seconds before covering.

Big Show was hot off a turn from last week so they didn’t even have him on Raw this week. What fine scheduling. Austin demanded Big Show, but Flair said Show had been sent to Papau New Guinea (or something) for promotional work. Austin was not too happy with this, but Flair relieved us all by informing us we’d get THE SAME DAMN MAIN EVENT AS LAST WEEK!!! Way to pack in the viewers guys. This comment will become even more ironic in a couple paragraphs you may even get deja vu.

Booker T and Goldust had a pretty funny skit between the two of them. People seem to be almost digging on this team, so they made the next logical step. What’s that? Push them let them get some tag team heat going on Raw. Hell no, silly! They broke them up!!! Duh. Of course, I continue to also stand behind the fact that there is no reason for new tag teams to be forming on Raw. Why? So they can enjoy each other’s company?

Bradshaw informed us that it was Big Show who beat him down last week. How did Flair then know to assign Big Show as Austin’s partner? I will point out, though, that every time someone “assigns” a face partner, it’s always Big Show or every time someone calls out “anyone in the back.”

Austin/Bradshaw vs nWo finally went off only to have Flair, this time, count X-Pac down even though his foot was clearly on the ropes.

Undertaker gave an interview that I very much enjoyed. He spoke about how kids used to cheer for Hogan, but how they’d hide behind their Daddy’s legs when Taker came out. I can vouch for this, though it was my uncle’s leg I was hiding behind but the point was there. ‘Taker was one scary dude back in the day. I’m not quite sure, but I think Undertaker is my favorite wrestler right now. He’s definitely the coolest someone needs to let him know that “Rollin’” was over and done about 18 months ago, though. Give Scorpion King some more promotion and give him “I Stand Alone” by Godsmack as his new theme. Not only does it fit the character 1000000 times more than Rollin currently does, but it’s infinitely cooler and from a band who hasn’t completely sold out quite yet. Sully still has the sideburns that say “I’m anti-f’n-social, buddy.” Regardless, Rollin has to go. They sold a CD with it, now let’s move on, shall we? Taker had the line of the night with “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, Brother. I’m going to beat you down like the bitch you are.”

Flair later asked Austin if everything was kosher between them now because Flair gave him a stunning upset over Syxx, or something. Anyway, to prove himself to Stevie, Flair booked wait for it THE SAME GODDAM MATCH FOR NEXT WEEK’S RAW! Now, though, it gets to be Flair/Austin/Bradshaw vs the nWo. Excellent. For all the folks bitching about the Big Show being in the nWo, I’d like to say while not necessarily huge, it makes as much sense as X-Pac being in it. He turned on them once (twice?), but whatever.

There was supposed to be some sort of main event between Hogan and Regal, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Undertaker came down and pounded the holy hell out of Hogan. Bloodied him up but good.

Smackdown

I could talk about Smackdown this week, but I didn’t watch it. Neither did any of you, apparently, as the show scored it’s lowest rating ever. I don’t know my guess is because Smackdown’s more of the same old then Raw is. You got the superstars on Smackdown, but you also have Vince fulfilling more fantasies on camera with Stacy with everyone conveniently forgetting the fact he’s married and his wife isn’t currently in an institution being drugged into comatose conditions. This would go along with the whole “coherent storytelling” thing the WWF doesn’t really seem to be all that interested in. I also see that Jericho lost to Hogan. Not really a surprise when a Hogan/UT main for Judgement Day is already being promoted. I’d like to see them put together the four way main, but whatever. I’ll watch Hogan/UT just as much as I’d watch the four way.

The Week or Two in Wrestling

Heard some rumors about Goldberg being a free agent. My response: f*ck cares. I certainly don’t. Oooooh, Goldberg’s a free agent now. Big friggin deal. Let’s see Goldberg not only has two years-ish of ring rust on him, but already hated on HHH at some radio function AND managed to put one of the top stars of all time out of the business when he WAS wrestling at the top. Yeah, it’ll sound just like Vince to risk one of his major stars against Goldberg. I say, let him work the indies I won’t miss him.

Will he be good for a rating? Probably. I find it infinitely amusing that the guy who not only lashed out against the WWF not six months ago for doing nothing for 9/11 victims AND for calling Vince all sorts of fun names, now has “no objection” to working for him. I believe (know) I predicted, at some point, that Goldberg would lose his objections to working for Vince when he realized that, once out of the spotlight, no one gave a goddam about him anymore. And, suddenly, it happened, and now he’s trying to be buddy/buddy with Vince. I hope Vince invites Goldberg for a contract talk and proceeds to shit in his mouth. It all comes full circle and everyone has to suck Vince’s dick eventually. It’s his world, we just live in it.

On the lawsuit front, Larry Zybysko is suing the WWF over the use of the “Living Legend” name. Makes perfect sense since Zybysko is oh so relevant that there’s sufficient competition between them for the use of the name. This is like Van Halen suing the Pointer Sisters over the song name “Jump.” Pointless. The WWF is suing a lawyer (YEAH!) for slander. The dude that tried to get his client off by saying he killed a little girl because of wrestling. I hope he has to declare bankruptcy soulless f*ck. And the WWF vs WWF suit is finally coming full circle as the WWF is backing down and renaming the federation the WWE. Expect no one to type that, because WWE is much harder to type than WWF. Of course, no one was going to type Tazz either, but everyone has acquiesed. VINCE CONTROLS YOUR MIND. See the above comparison about Van Halen and the Pointer Sisters for how I feel about this.

Are they sure the same writers are putting together both shows? Because, while Raw seems to be able to put together a decent, coherent, episodic screenplay Smackdown certainly isn’t. It’s random and out there, and they seem barely able to put a story together from week to week. We still don’t know if they’ll be any “Smackdown” variety matches at Judgement Day or what they’re doing. I don’t even think they know what they’re doing. It’s a shame, too because now they’re not even top of the heap on Monday anymore. They’ve lost to Ozzy. This should tell them something.

It’s tough to get into something that does the same thing every week.

Hope they learn that soon.

End Transmission.