And it’s time for another One-Hour Special. Yes, I know, I should be more responsible. But, believe you me, I needed the damn tranquilizer yesterday after the last couple days. Translating legalese into pure math isn’t easy, people, especially if you haven’t done the theoretical math part in about sixteen years or so. Well, at least I had a good night’s sleep. Let’s see what’s on the docket for today…
THE PIMP SECTION
Gamble has both an exclusive and another challenge. Personally, I think they should watch the new, updated movie version of I Spy and do a team-up between the nerdy white guy and the wacky black dude. Lance Storm and D’Lo Brown, perhaps? The nerdy white guy has to be someone from Calgary…Alberta, Canada due to the fact that Owen Wilson bears more than a name resemblance to Owen Hart.
Livingston tries to steal the Pimp Section from me, which makes this sort of a meta-pimp. And the phrase is “yin and yang”, kiddo.
Nason. Indy Update. Must-read as usual.
SO THEY’RE TALKING…SO WHAT?
Bret and Vince are said to be back on “speaking terms” now, huh? You know, if this had been a couple months ago, a Bret Hart return, stroke or not, would have worked for WWE. The guy obviously can’t do it in the ring (and I don’t think there’s anyone here heartless enough to recommend that, not even me), but could you imagine him as the spokesman for the Un-Americans?
They could have put the UAs on a near-main-event program that would have included massive interference in main events. After a few weeks of that, Storm grabs the mic after one of those run-ins and introduces the mastermind behind the plan, cue the riffs, and hear the roof blow off. Bret gets ten minutes on the mic and the clearance to shoot on Vince for the five years of agony he’s suffered since Montreal. Thanks to WWE continuous references and the “You Screwed Bret” chants every time they cross the Longest Unguarded Border In The World, even the marks know about Montreal, so it wouldn’t be a smark thing (the smark thing would be the revival of an aborted six-year-old angle, which every writer would cream their jeans over). The NWO was nothing, he’d say. He’s the real poison in the machine. The UAs could have still added Regal on the basis of common cause and Commonwealth.
This angle would have had to be done on Raw, since Bret could also have gone after Bischoff for the f*cked-up introduction into WCW at the same time. This could have provided Raw with a meta-storyline to mitigate the soap opera shit (and if Kevin Dunn is responsible for this after all the pimping we’ve done of him over the years for being the voice of sanity behind the scenes…oh, Kevin, how you’ve betrayed our trust). It would have given Bisch and Ric Flair enough impetus to paper over their differences (now that’s a smark moment). Imagine Bisch giving the green light to Flair to do the obvious…Un-Americans versus Horsemen at Survivor Series in a WarGames match. It’s a helluva lot better to think about than Lesnar versus TBS, isn’t it?
Forgive my delving into fantasy booking, but there was no way I could express this non-story of interest in terms that would actually interest me.
SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED
Of course, like Gamble, I’m doing my own boycott, namely of Smackdown. Look, I don’t want to spend my Friday afternoon with two hours of this, especially with me working most Saturdays. It’s a simple bit of planning and time booking. The fact that it happens to fit in with my negative feelings for the product is a happy coincidence. So let’s go over what they’re doing and try to parse out why.
The whole show is designed around two things: to set TBS up as the new challenger to Lesnar, and to get rid of UT so that he can be with Sara when she gives birth. The first one…nothing needs to be said about that, really. TBS isn’t going to get over under any circumstance other than him going all-out comedy like with the Showster. The second…well, you do have to admire Mark Calloway for wanting to be there. We all know that the guy’s a hard worker and a loyal company man (he’s worked through a lot of injuries until it came to the point where he had to have surgery or risk permanent damage), and if wants to be with his wife in their mutual happy moment, all the best for him as a person (and all the best for the boys in the back, since UT won’t be around to f*ck up their pushes). Besides, we all know what happens when wrestlers have children and aren’t around to see them grow up. They end up dressing in gold body suits and getting involuntary erections at unopportune moments.
Edge/Mysterio versus the Guerreros appears to be the one match designed to get me to want to tape this, but not enough to actually do so. You’d think that the honor would fall to the Angle/Benoit main event, but you can smell the schmozz coming like a garbage dump on a hot day. Noble/Tajiri comes in a close second, since they’ve worked with each other enough to become comfortable in the ring facing each other, and there’s enough trust available for each guy to open up their bag of tricks. Besides, Noble’s at his best when working with non-occidentals.
That’s pretty much it for Smackdown this week.
AND THE WINNER IS…
James Lawson, who was the first to write me to say that TBS was moved to Smackdown to become, in his words and my sentiments, “Lesnar fodder”.
SO RAW REALLY CAN GET THE WORST OF THIS TRADE?
Derrill Guilbert, the winner of the Get Eric To Watch Raw Instead Of A Bears/Packers Game Contest over at Gamble’s place, said that, yes, Raw could get the worst end of the deal to get rid of TBS. They could get Undertweener. Unfortunately, that idea’s out the window now. However, Levez really triggered the ol’ Hyatte-esque piss shivers in me with this trade-off: Rikishi. Okay, I rescind that statement from yesterday.
STUPID MAIL OF THE WEEK, BUT NOT BAD ENOUGH TO GET YOU’RE A MORON STATUS
From RedWingsLvr76:
why you called stacy keibler your beloved and behold?
In pink lettering, no less.
This, folks, is what happens when you let Babelfish translate something into English (works pretty well going from English to Spanish; my Mexican colleagues at work tell me that it’s a very formal, school-like Spanish, but comprehensible to the less-educated employees under them, so I continue to use it for memoranda designed to be passed to the floor personnel). Either that, or someone decided to prove that there should be a required intelligence test to get Net access. Let’s see if I can translate this into English.
Are you, perhaps, asking why I call Stacy Kiebler “My Beautiful And Beloved”? I’ll give you your choice of a few answers:
1) I just do. Live with it.
2) It’s an in-joke for the IWC guys I was in an e-fed with when I had Stacy managing my character.
3) I happen to like blondes with hot legs.
Now shut up and go learn proper English.
AN INTERESTING QUESTION
JoeCaff asks this:
…can we create a category for guys who can never REALLY get over because of multiple face/heel turns that have left the audience drained and confused as to what side they are really on? These guys include Luger, Kane, Big Show, Test. Just wondering…
Actually, we should create a category like that, but some of your entries don’t really qualify in that area. Let’s go over each of the guys you mention:
Kane was over both as a heel and a face, but he had to play second fiddle to Undertweener in both, so his push was more subdued, and we all know what the poor guy’s going through right now that UT’s shadow has been removed. I’d say “leave him off this list”.
TBS was never over, and the person I blame for that is Schiavone. Fat Tony overhyped the guy so much during his initial WCW run that he couldn’t live up to expectations unless he was a 7’2″ Kawada. The repeated face/heel turns were more a Bischoff overreaction to audience failure to get behind this guy than anything else. Then he moved to the WWF because Vince Loves Big Guys, and after his initial run there, no one there could figure out what to do with him either. Thus, the cycle repeats. Paul Wight, though, has figured out that the secret to survival in the Land of Vince is to be a loyal company man, and he’s been enough of one to keep getting chances, like this latest one.
As for Test, he was a victim of the McMahon modus operandi. Give a guy a solid push upon introduction for six months or so, then tamper it down and see what he can do with what he’s been given. Test…well, failed. Andrew Martin never established enough of an in-ring personality to keep his popularity going when the heat machine was turned off. He’s also been a victim of aborted angles. Does anyone remember that he still has until January to do what the f*ck he wants and not be fired due to the Immunity Battle Royale?
Luger…well, there you have a point. He’s the most obvious main-eventer to put into this category.
As for others, how about Dustin Runnels? WCW wrecked him by repeated turns so much that he had to invent Goldust to have any heat at all, and then the process was repeated in the WWF. Paul Wight’s an obvious entry here, as I’ve already discussed. Jeff Jarrett, perhaps? How about the wreck in progress named Yoshihiro Tajiri? I’m sure that others can come up with additional candidates (and I encourage you to write in and tell me).
There’s one way that repeated face/heel turns work, and that’s when a performer has enough rep and mark credibility to go from one to another in the blink of an eye and make it seem natural. Ric Flair is the template. The Undertweener, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, and Shawn Michaels fall into that category as well. Kevin Nash can do it, but it’s mostly due to the fact that he keeps getting programmed as a heel and wants to be a face, so he stagnates in Tweenerville while the face/heel inclinations are like a dying man’s EKG. I’m sure that others can list people in this category as well.
So what do we call people who fall into the Luger Trap? Kleenexes is an obvious choice, except that it’s technically a trademark of Kimberly-Clark and I don’t want to piss off the lawyers. Again, I’ll leave it up to you.
Is that lazy of me? Yes, but this is a One-Hour Special and the hour is up. I gotta get to work, you gotta get back to your lives. I’ll give it over to Grut and see what he comes up with. Until next week, ta.
About Eric Szulczewski
