In Memoriam: the French, Argentine, and Cameroon soccer teams. Buh-bye.
Speaking of that, let’s look to the second round for the US’s possibilities. The Group D folks, including the US, get to play the guys from Group G in the second round. Right now, Group G is a dog-fight. Mexico’s sitting on top at 2-0, but they have to play 1-1 Italy, always dangerous. Croatia’s also 1-1 and they get the patsies of the group, Ecuador, in the final game. Let’s give Croatia a win as an assumed. If Mexico upsets Italy, the Italians go home. In fact, and I’m a little unsure on the tie-breakers, but if head-to-head comes before goal differential, if Croatia wins, the Italians go home regardless because Croatia beat them. Oh, this is a major bullet-dodging if that’s the case…
Screw it, let’s head to wrestling (yes, he’s late for work again…)…
THE PIMP SECTION
Rivett is wasting more space on that waste of space Warrior. The guy keeps appearing out of nowhere with his deranged ramblings and ravings about this and that. At least at 411 you get your deranged ramblings on a regular schedule.
Murphy talks about Shawn Michaels’ ego and tries to justify his existence. Nope, I can’t do it either.
Case debuts a new column.
SMACKDOWN REFLECTIONS…AND, YES, THESE ARE SPOILERS, SO SCROLL DOWN IF YOU WANT TO NOT BE SURPRISED…
Must we endure yet another “contract signing” skit? They always end up the same, and they’re a complete waste of time, especially when there’s a history of animosity between the participants, as there certainly is between Trip and Undertweener. Rule of thumb should be: if it doesn’t add anything to the feud, don’t do it.
Speaking of getting stuff over, why is it that WWE feels that the only way that women can get over is if they’re playing sluts (no, Molly is not getting over with the virgin act, unless you equate ridicule with getting over)? Okay, Nidia needed a personality, but I think they could do better by her than having her get wet for any cruiserweight that gives her eye contact. And she should have better taste than to go after guys who are, at best, borderline heterosexual.
I could go into a whole thing about the wisdom of not having Tajiri advance in the tournament, but the poor guy’s been through such booking hell lately that this is just a minor sin in that particular catalogue.
Apparently the Great Masturbation Feud between D-Von and Faarooq has been blown off due to a rare spasm of good taste by WWE. Or maybe it hasn’t; I have no idea at this point. You know, on that subject, there’s a real difference between ethnicities when it comes to sexual practices. I remember being in Basic Training, talking with the guys in my platoon about sex (gee, what a surprise), when the subject of cunnilingus came up. Every single one of the white guys stated that they’d done it, while none of the black guys said they’d done it, and a few were disgusted by the fact that us white guys were eating out at the Y. Also, I’ve never heard a black guy admit to flogging the hog. That’s why the participants used for this feud seem to be a little strange to me. Just a bit of off-track reflection there.
Anyone who believes that wrestling is “choreographed violence” should check out the choreography in the mess they’re calling the main event. Apparently, there’s a match involved somewhere in here, but I’ll be damned if I can find it in the Rajah recap.
AND IN OTHER WRESTLING NEWS, THE SLIGHTLY LONGER-FORM EDITION…
Okay, so Page has finally decided to retire due to his back injury and age. Any chance of getting him behind the mic on Smackdown? God knows they need a little entertainment factor behind the desk with Cole’s presence, and Page can still yak his mouth off.
Speaking of shows in trouble, let’s talk about the rewrite of Raw and its effects…
First off, does this mean the end of the Split? According to all sources, no. The talent, especially in the lower card, almost went into a panic on Monday when the rewrite was announced, but they were quickly mollified by the suits saying their slots were still secure. In reality, though, there really wasn’t much of a split to end the moment that the bookers in their infinite stupidity decided to put Flair as the heel against Austin. Even the marks knew that we were trying to be sold on yet another rehash of Austin/McMahon, only with Flair. No one was buying it. WWE’s historical propensity for riding deceased equines (see Hogan, Hulk) was coming to the fore yet again, enough so that Austin, who had thought his concerns were answered after the first walkout, decided to walk again to note his disgust.
Was Austin justified in doing it? In a way, yes, but not in the way you might think. The Torch is stating that Brock Lesnar has become a bone of contention in the locker room due to his rocket-ride elevation. There’s no way that the alleged creative team could miss the “Goldberg” chants coming from the audience at every Lesnar appearance. The last thing that the creative team wants is to be perceived as repeating WCW’s second-biggest creative success (the NWO is tops in that category; the Dangerous Alliance would be a close third). They had two solutions available to them: tamp down Lesnar’s heat or accelerate the pace of his elevation in order not to be seen to be doing a slow Goldbergian build. They decided to do the latter by having him beat Austin. Austin may have felt that he was reflecting the locker room’s opinion on that decision by refusing to job. However, he miscalculated the effect of his previous departure. Everyone is seeing his vanishing act as being egocentric rather than a protest against general conditions.
This puts Austin in a major, major bind. He has two options available at this point: retire, or come back with his tail between his legs and take his punishment. And he will be punished for this one, since he has no support. Not even Vince will forgive him for this; his comments in the opening promo on Raw viz. Austin are being seen as a shoot. Austin is 37 years old and has suffered major injuries. He essentially has a perpetual offer to star in a TV series (whether it be Jake Cage or not). He could do one final match at King of the Ring, the PPV where Austin 3:16 was born six years ago, versus his mentor Ric Flair, a retirement match that he loses (book it as you wish; I’d personally prefer a McMahon screwjob that would keep Flair as a face and reignite a McMahon/Flair feud). Austin goes out in a memorable way with a little dignity and goes on with his life.
I know that people are already writing in saying that with Flex not around, if Austin leaves, WWE is devoid of major star power. Well, that’s exactly what’s needed at this point. Without Austin and Flex around, Jericho, Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, Regal, etc., have an opportunity to shine. They also have an opportunity this way to make new upper-mid-card stars that will have some longevity like Test and Lesnar (ironically, Edge’s injury helps in this regard). The ripple effects move down all the way to the developmentals. If they want to repeat something, repeat the personnel moves done during the Attitude Era. In this situation, Austin is playing the role of Bret Hart, the key piece of wood in the logjam. Remove it and let the flood begin.
Is the rewrite going to help Raw? Doubtful. I don’t think Vince is egotistical enough to hold the attitude of Vince = Ratings!…wait a second, we’re talking about Vince. Yes, he is egotistical enough. However, is it going to bring back the audience? No, of course not. We’ve seen The Return Of Vince plotline too many times to believe that this will hold anything new. What can a renewed Vince-Flair feud bring to the table? We’ve already seen them fight for the company. What else is there to fight over? Linda? We’ve all seen Flair’s wife; she’s a lot better looking than Linda is, so it’s rather unrealistic to think that Flair would leave his wife for Linda. Unless they book it for the half of Vince that Linda would get in the divorce, but that makes Flair the heel again…wait another second, this is WWE in 2002. Leaving your wife for money makes you a face. And since it’s done to Vince, that makes you a mega-face. Never mind, I’ve just confused myself. Let’s just write this off and say that they can’t do anything new that doesn’t involve me having mental images of a guy in his mid-50s taking a post-menopausal CEO for a ride on Space Mountain.
I guess that the point of all this is that what was done on Raw was yet another ratings-popping hot-shot from an organization that has moved from one hot-shot to another for over a year now with no clear plan in mind. Unlike the others, though, this was done out of necessity. However, they blew a PPV main event in doing so, and set in motion events that require a massive amount of pre-planning. It took them a year to commit to the idea of the Split, only turning to it when everything else failed. They proceeded to misexecute that, and now they’re nullifying its effects if not reversing the decision.
So what can be done from here? I have no idea at this moment. They’re so directionless right now that any direction they might take is equally as valid as the ones they don’t. This is one of two Ultimate Fantasy-Booking Scenarios going on right now (the other is with NWA-TNA, an organization starting from scratch with major players involved). The effectiveness of the direction taken can only be determined by the level of creativity of the booking team and the amount of risk they’re willing to take. Since both have been proven to be rather low, we can only dream of the possibilities that won’t be used.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Grut takes you into the weekend, Ashish takes you through it, and Hyatte provides the coda. Until yet another episode of Raw that has me reaching for the Prevacid, I remain yr Humble Scrivener…
About Eric Szulczewski
