Interesting that all three major networks gave Bill Clinton all the air time he needed to tell us all that “he did not have sex with that woman.” Yet, W wants to give the world some info on the Iraq situation… where people might, you know, die… and gets snubbed. Makes you wonder where the media really IS coming from.
Also, the reason Football is now America’s Pastime instead of baseball. Tickets at Rich Stadium, 10 rows off the field $38.00 each. Tailgating starting at 10 am football is the only sport that realizes they still have to cater to fans, and keep their dirty laundry behind closed doors. When’s the last time you heard an NFL football player gripe in public about how much the millions they make isn’t enough? Baseball is full of greedy pigs, basketball is full of criminals and so targeted to kids that the general population can’t stomach it anymore, and hockey has too many commentators that say “aboot.†Football doesn’t alienate everyone, and you can afford to take a family to a game and not have to take out a second mortgage.
Then again, if you live in Montreal, you can get $1 Canadian seats to see the Expoes and they can STILL only draw about 5,000 people.
Also, I narrowly escaped a business trip to DC this week. Thank God. If there’s one place in the US I don’t want to be right now, it’s there.
Raw
The show opened with a cage match. Could that wheel be….. GIMMICKED? Booker won the cage match and ended up busted open when Chris Jericho attacked him. The match was more a mean to an end, that being a new Jericho/Booker feud… and honestly, I just have no problem with this.
Skeletor interviewed Jericho, who reminds us that the reason he’s angry with Booker is because Booker called him a SUCKA, which made him lose the IC Title to Kane.
And, in the Wrestlecrap moment of the week… (I’m writing this section on Tuesday, if it isn’t, it should have been) the return of the blindfold match. Who thought this was a good idea? HeMan vs D’Lo Brown in a blindfold match? It was, however, mercifully short… even though it would have made a lot of sense for Kane to come out and beat up HeMan while blindfolded… but who needs sense when you have HeMan? Actually, they did play it off for mostly comic relief, so it was ok.
Actually, Regal vs Goldust in a Drag Queen match is more a Wrestlecrap moment, isn’t it? Decisions decisions. Goldust got to wear a leotard over his jumpsuit, whereas Regal had to wear just the jumpsuit. For a show that needs to focus a bit more on wrestling, it’s been a whole lot of nonsense tonight.
Trish has some new music which is another attempt from the WWF to reach a new audience… that being the ghey one. Trish beat Stacy in a thrilling paddle on a pole bra and panties match… after which Victoria came out to beat the hell out of Trish. We still don’t know what Victoria’s angle is… other than she hates Trish. Coach caught up with her backstage and asked what the deal was. Victoria is doing this because Trish has a sketchy past and did bad things to nice people… and now it’s Victoria’s time for revenge. However, of course she won’t tell us what it was because, in a soap, you just don’t do that for at least a year and a half after the start of a storyline.
Al Snow made his stunning return to Raw to pimp Tough Enough. It was a Las Vegas Streetfight and TEST lost to him with a bowling ball shot to the grill. Hey, I like Al Snow and have since he was the lunatic in ECW.
Lawler’s match turned out to be an “It’s Legal in Nevada” match… which is a standard match where the winners gets the Godfather’s Ho-Train. I’m beginning to stretch for good things to say about this show.
Nevermind… during the post-match celebration, one of the hos had a nipple slip. I can’t find enough good things to say about this show. The Ho with the leather biker hat I want to do bad, bad things to. I want her for a good, dirty, thirty seconds to show her what a man I can be.
JR has officially started calling Orton a Blue Chipper. The difference is, now they’re TRYING to piss people off with it. With Rocky, they actually thought it would work.
The TLC match turned out to be quite the little spot-fest, but it was Kane without the Hurricane, as HeMan and Flair-At-Arms decided beat Hurricane before the match. Of course, it was just fists… but since it was HEMAN’s fists, it crippled Hurricane. I mean, they didn’t even throw him into or through anything… nor did they even use a chair. Pathetic beating, since it was supposed to take him entirely out of the match. This actually turned out to be quite senseless as Kane won the match anyway, thus making all six of the other guys look bad.
Post match, HeMan came out to inform Kane that his dirty little secret is out. HeMan knows for a fact that Kane is guilty of murder. The collective groan you hear is the crowd saying “are they kidding?” No, apparently they are not. Kane committed murder, even though he was supposed to have been in an insane asylum until Paul Bearer freed him in 1997 to mess with the Undertaker’s life. Ah, Vince… you can’t get that storyline researcher fast enough.
Smackdown!
It took till this week to figure out that Matt Hardy was making a V and a 1 with his hands when he holds them up. They also resurrected the “Desire†videos for him, properly named “Mattitude.†I never thought I’d be foreced to say it, but Matt Hardy rules. If they let him get a couple of cheap wins, it’ll help him out immensely, but I don’t know if I see it happening. ‘Taker would need to put him over, and I just doubt it. My way to go would be having Matt help Brock win at No Mercy, leading to a feud with Taker so Brock can move on to something else, and then Matt getting a cheap win. They don’t seem to have any interest in doing that, though rather just let him be funny and get squashed so he has no believability. Just a thought.
I have to say that the Benoit/Angle stuff is just garbage. Neither guy needs to be saddled with tag belts. The entire thing is a set up to try and turn one of them face, but they can do this without ruining the tag title tourney. When you have “tag partners that can’t get along†it’s a guaranteed title win. To catch you up, Steph slapped a Benoit/Angle team together for her Smackdown Title Tourney so they would stop messing with each other and if they get in a physical confrontation during a match, they will both be suspended for a year. The “Suspension for a Year†is a stupid argument anyway, because both of them will immediately go to Raw, which if we were paying attention to storyline, all parties involved would know that, and they could use it as a bargaining chip. So, instead of a Benoit/Angle ongoing feud (which people would like) we get ongoing wackiness and one-ups-manship (which people are generally indifferent about).
Nidia and Rey spoke Spanish I believe they were discussing Konnan’s music videos and if Rey had the car. Then I think Nidia asked him if he wears the mask when he’s bumpin nasties, to which I think Rey responded “not on his face.†I leave it to the reader to figure it out.
Angle/Benoit went over Kidman/Cena because, obviously, the Tag Titles will help Angle and Benoit more than Kidman and Cena. This is where having a “secondary†title like the IC comes in handy. Guys not involved in the main event feud have nothing to do now. I’ve suddenly realized I’m WAY overusing “quote marks†this week.
Brock and Paul brought out Playboy model Tracy Dali because Undertaker is apparently cheating on his wife with her. I fail to see what this accomplishes in the storyline other than Brock playing mindgames. There are plenty of other mindgames to play, though, that doesn’t result in a “how am I supposed to react to this†by the fans. Is Brock the good guy for bringing this to light? Is Undertaker supposed to be a bad guy for cheating on his wife? Is he even more over now because he gets Playboy models? So many questions Undertaker, btw, said he doesn’t have any idea who the woman is. Apparently, he doesn’t rent softcore.
Billy Gunn is not gay, and he’s grown a beard to prove it. He’s also not blonde.
Chavo and Eddy are apparently facing Benoit and Angle next week, because the Guerreros set Benoit up for an ambush. Benoit should know better, because he knows Eddy and speaking of that, didn’t Eddy and Benoit come over to Smackdown as a Unit? Any explanation to why they decided to stop being a tag team? Nope? Big surprise.
Dawn Marie apparently wants Torrie’s father. Again, I fail to see what this accomplishes. Are we trying to get Al Wilson over has a face? Because it’s working. Dawn may be a heel, but it don’t matter. What guy’s going to turn down free sex from a hot chick, besides Jeff Hardy?
Also, Edge and Rey Mysterio survived the tag title tourney against Brock and Tajiri. Somehow, this was a semi-final when every other match tonight was a quarterfinal. Bah, who needs brackets, right?
The Week In Wrestling
I’m not going to condemn the murder storyline right away. They want to make episodic television, I can’t fault them for it. I’d rather have a storyline I can follow and look forward too from week to week, but I see three problems right now:
- The WWF’s inability to remember what they put on television any longer than a month ago.
- The WWF’s lack of storyline ideas.
- The fact the WWF can’t decide what just the fans see, what the characters see, and what everyone sees. If I’m not being clear here, I’ll expound in a moment.
I mean, think about it they tried to introduce two “episodic†storylines on Monday, and they both were the “deep dark secret buried in the past.†Kane with a murder that he must of committed while imprisoned in an asylum (which reverts back to problem number 1) and Trish’s dark past, and how many people she hurt to get to the top (I’m assuming).
Then, we bounce to Smackdown where Dawn is trying to seduce and get railed by Torrie’s father which isn’t bad in theory, as Vince McMahon tries to now vicariously live his fantasies through OTHER old men on television. And, Torrie doesn’t know any of this is going on? No one backstage tells her? She doesn’t see it on monitors? This is problem number 3 above. Who sees what? If it goes on backstage, do we assume that only the fans know about it?
Also, are we now moving to entirely assuming everyone on the show is a character? We use a known figure as Undertaker’s mistress, but not refer to her as “Playboy Model Tracey Dali.†I mean, I’ve seen her (and touched myself) in Voluptuous Vixens 2 (Thanks Baker, I’ll get it back to you eventually recommended for Download, btw). I’m sure there’s some no one (ho quality) somewhere they can use to be a mistress. It’s like when wrestler’s used to jump promotions and announcers would have “no idea†who they were. It’s the same thing.
If the WWE is trying to hire a storyline researcher, they need to to it NOW. “Casual Viewers†will quickly get disgusted with storylines that are unfollowable. They need to have it planned out way ahead of time and have to be willing to stick with something if it isn’t working. They also have to be willing to have the payoffs people want to see. Stuff like the HHH/Steph/Angle love triangle, suddenly dropped and forgotten about, will disgust casual viewers.
And Vince blaming the talent for these problems is ridiculous. The talent will put on great matches regardless of the story put around them. WRITERS make it interesting, it’s just the wrestlers job to sell it. When you’re invalidating everything you do from week to week, it’s tough to sell anything. If the Kane/HHH stuff stops working, they have to be willing to stick with it and, for God’s sake, don’t pretend it never happened like the Invasion or Test/HHH/Steph or Steph telling her father that she can’t wait till he died or any of countless other things. Austin and Vince had great writing and a great story to go with it. That writing maintained the product, BY ITSELF for a year. It was a power struggle between a boss and an employee and it spoke to people. You wanted to see what would happen next, and you knew it would fit into what was going on. Austin, granted, had an incredible presence to sell the story, but writing kept it interesting. Now, they can’t maintain a storyline for two weeks before trying a new angle nevermind a full year.
And what’s the deal with Lennox Lewis? Wrestling vs Boxing? Him vs Brock? What do they then do to their golden boy when (yes WHEN) he loses. Much in the same way as Kurt Angle vs Brock in a “shoot†fight, a professional boxer vs a college trained wrestler is just a bad idea. It’s two entirely different styles of fighting, and how do you mesh those rules? Besides the fact, Brock has to GET to Lewis first, which means he has to step into Lewis’s reach.
Speaking of boxing, ESPN Classics has been running early Tyson fights from the mid-80s. It’s amazing to watch the guy when he was under Cus D’Amato and not under Don King. Tyson was hungry and actually amazing. Of course, he was fighting nobodies at the time, but he was a nobody, too. Tyson failed once he started getting challenged, because he got lax. If D’Amato didn’t die, and Tyson ever got involved with Don King, I fear what Tyson could have become.
People were wondering why Farooq is going by Ron Simmons. The answer: because “Farooq†was f*cking stupid.
There will be one member from OVW who will “earn†a spot in the Royal Rumble this year. This is a good idea why? Oh, so we can add ANOTHER person to the Rumble that has no chance of winning. I have yet to figure out why they never brought Nova in to team with Hurricane. I have yet to figure out why they never brought in Nova.
That will cover me for this week. We step into a new week of “episodic televsion.†Let’s hope it’s worth watching.
End Transmission
