Oy vey, what a horrid f*cking weekend. I spent four and a half hours freezing my ass off on Saturday morning doing a physical inventory of what we had on hand at the plant because someone f*cked it all up the week before. Then I get back to the office area to do some of my real work, and find out that the rent-a-guru missed a configuration file when he hooked me into the AIX system that controls our sales programs, which prevented me from logging on, thus preventing me from doing a good portion of work. Fortunately, as I was leaving in disgust, he was there earning his retainer and I told him my situation (he finally fixed it on Monday). Sunday, I spent all day lying down popping Tylenol for the cluster headaches caused by Saturday, only interrupted by me having to learn Visio ASAP to do a flowchart that the potential new job wanted me to do. The potential new job is the only thing preventing me from either saying “Just shoot me now” or actually going out to do that viz. anyone who pisses me off. The first target will probably be my idiot boss or Mister “We’re Still Evolving Your Job”, aka the VP of Operations. And they don’t understand why I post Dilbert cartoons in my virtual cubicle.
And then came Monday, where I achieved the perfect combination of stress, weather, and viral load to trigger a nice little case of tonsillitis. So I left early, and I’m sitting here at home right now trying to stay warm, having popped a Claritin (now OTC, baby!), two Sudfed, and a tranquilizer, then I’ll try some nice, salty Jewish penicillin to burn the hell out of the open sores that are now covering my tonsils and the pus that’s running into my inner ear (talk about the itch you can’t scratch). Ah, my life is so damn wonderful.
That should have alienated the “why don’t you talk about wrestling” crowd enough to prevent a batch of hate mail, so let me move on to please the majority of the audience…
SUNDAY’S BIG HERO
Wayne Chrebet. Bravo, Wayne. Nice little brain cramp you had thinking you could jump over the Bears’ secondary. A victory for the Bears, and a blow against a team that carries the name of the Most Evil City On Earth. What’s not to love?
NEWS THAT REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS ARE BOTH HAPPY ABOUT
Al Gore isn’t running again in 2004. Thank heavens. The last thing the Demos needed was to nominate Mister Charisma again, and the last thing the GOP needed was flashbacks to Florida. Now the way is clear for an interesting election in two years, especially if the economy’s still in the toilet and it’s John Kerry on the side of the Good Guys. Remember, like Gore, he served while Dubbaya pussied out in the National Guard.
Hey, it’s never too early to start. Politics, like golf, has no off-season.
IF SO, WHY HAVEN’T I GONE AFTER TRENT LOTT?
Mostly because everyone says something in public that he or she regrets saying, which on its own dismerit is alone no reason to lapse into schadenfreude. The remark he made was undeniably stupid and borderline racist, and if he thinks it was a legitimate tribute to Strom Thurmond, he’s sadly mistaken. However, compared to some of the lulus that members of his own party have said in the past (like Reagan’s “we did not trade arms for hostages”), this is a tempest in a teapot. Besides, Lott’s Old-School Mississippi, and he probably has it in the back of his mind somewhere that it’s the White Man’s Right to kill niggers any time he chooses. You can’t kill youthful conditioning easily, and sometimes the suppression doesn’t work.
That being said, when a yoyo like Don Nickles essentially says that he should resign as majority leader, it’s time to pull up the tent stakes (of course, Nickles is the prime candidate for Majority Leader if Lott departs that position, so there’s a wee bit of self-interest creeping in there). If it leads to Lott’s resignation from the Senate, I’m all in favor, since the Democratic governor of Mississippi will appoint a Democratic replacement, and we’re back to the status quo ante. Anything not good for Dubbaya gets my full support.
Speaking of Don Nickles, memo to Oklahoma: maybe people outside the state will take you seriously if you stop electing yoyos and ex-football stars to Congress. Think about it, why don’t you?
THE PIMP SECTION, AS PIMPED BY THE FIRST PERSON IN IT YESTERDAY
I dunno about the “Boom Shakalaka”, but the closest thing I can think of is Was Not Was’ “Walk the Dinosaur”. That’s “Boom Boom Akalakalaka Boom”, though, and they’re definitely not hillbillies. As for me being a Grade A Prick, hey, it comes out on occasion, but it’s mostly at work, where I have a license to be a prick about certain things. I’ll try to pull some out next Wednesday. I have this thing about spouting off on holidays.
Also, with the rest of GnR essentially reunited and looking for a lead singer, is Axl really worth it? Personally, I think that “Chinese Democracy” will come out after the real China goes to real democracy, so f*ck him. Just as long as the rest of the guys don’t pick Gary Cherone, I’ll be happy.
Daniels is, as usual, godlike in his vision. Read and obey. Although I used the “Alf outacts Hogan in the commercials” thing a few weeks ago. However, he’s forgiven because he’s Daniels.
Williams is on the “Matt Hardy’s Getting Fucked” bandwagon, and makes some good observations. How long is it going to be before we regard this argument as beating a dead horse?
Mansfield didn’t get pimped by Flea, so I’ll do it.
Neither did Alessi, so, again, I have to do the heavy lifting.
Raw won’t get a pimp from me, but I’ll still cover it.
THE SHORT FORM
Jennette goes live, Keith goes into my doghouse for using the words “Stephanie McMahon” and “bipolar” in the same sentence (Scott, that’s hitting a little too close to the bone for me, you know), and I just bullshit for a bunch of paragraphs…
Match Results:
Trish Stratus and Test over Stevie Richards and Victoria, Intergender Tag Match (Pinfall, Test pins Richards, Big Boot): I still can’t believe they pulled off getting Test over as a face with the whole Testicles routine…of course, most of the credit to that goes to My Beautiful and Beloved, who’d probably be able to turn me face. I love Victoria’s video and entrance music; hopefully that means she’s in for the long-term, title or not. She can ride the psycho bitch routine out for a while, especially since her main competition is Miss Purity, Trish. I was disappointed, though, that neither JR nor Lawler mentioned the fact that Trish managed Test at one time. Another case of convenient amnesia, since no one wants to remember T&A (and Trish’s horrible promos when she came into WWE).
Chris Harvard over Maven, Postponed From PPV Match (Pinfall, reversed sunset flip): Keith made a good point when he said that ten minutes could have been shaved off of Michaels/Trip without anything being lost. So why was this match done on Raw instead of giving these guys a little PPV exposure. They weren’t too bad. Not great, but pretty good for where they are at this point in their careers.
Christian over Goldust, Half-Rematch From The PPV (Pinfall, rope-assisted rollup): Just there. But I do have to ask myself this: how come it took Dustin Runnels a decade to find a work ethic? What’s the change in motivation now as opposed to then? I don’t think even Dustin can tell you.
Kane and Rob Van Dam over Rosey, Jamal, and Batista (Pinfall, Kane pins Jamal, chokeslam): Gee, weren’t Kane and Van Dam world title contenders a couple months ago? And now they’re playing bitches to Three-Minute Warning? Hopefully it’s lack of something to do for them rather than a purposeful depush. Or is it that Kane’s taking the punishment for Katie Vick and Van Dam shows up everyone? Now, more than ever, we have to look at WWE’s motivations for the actions they do to performers. We’ve all become too aware of their backstage manipulations not to speculate.
The Commonwealth Connection over Buh Buh Ray and D-Von Dudley (Pinfall, Regal pins D-Von, brass knucks): Speaking of guys who need something to do, here’s four of them. In the Round Table, I predicted this feud would happen. I just thought the Dudz would have the belts at the time, hoping against hope that this feud might lead to a tag title reign by Storm and Regal, who deserve a chance with them to show what they can do as champs.
Anyone read that article on the main page about Regal losing his “tough guy” image? He’s losing it because he’s getting his muscles worked on by trainers and he’s taking less stiff shots. Gee, folks, it’s called “aging”. He’s getting older, he’s been through a lot of hell in his life (like the boozing), he’s attained a degree of success in his chosen field, one in which he’s worked in since he was fifteen. If anyone’s allowed to go a little soft without second-guessing his desire, it’s him.
Jeff Hardy over D’Lo Brown (Pinfall, Swanton): Push for D’Lo? Depush for Hardy? We can only hope it’s both. But not with the racism thing, please (and Rick McBride is probably right in saying that they’re trying to do a Ron Killings routine to get D’Lo some heat). That kind of shit we don’t need. However, it does fit in well with D’Lo’s history as a member of the Nation of Domination.
Booker T over Chris Jericho (DQ, Christian-ference): Why is Raw losing its audience? Well, maybe it’s because they treat and sell Booker/Jericho matches as filler instead of as legit main events.
Angle Developments:
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: So Bisch and Morley get into an argument over whether Big Sump Pump or the Ego Monster gets to replace an actual wrestling match. If any of you remember your reading of The Odyssey, think back to Scylla and Charybdis. That’s the imagery I had when they did that promo.
The Deep Blue Sea Part Of This: Okay, how many people, when Trip made his threat to walk, were thinking or saying to the screen, “Do it! Walk! Please!”?
The Devil Part Of This: Okay, I don’t like Trip. However, I loathe Steiner. For once, I’m rooting for Trip to pull his normal burial bullshit and make Big Sump Pump look like a little whiny bitch.
An Observation: Chris Harvard was trained by Killer Kowalski after TE ended. What did Kowalski instill in him? From the match with Maven, apparently it’s knee-based offense and lots of restholds. Remind you of any other Kowalski-trained wrestler we all know and hate?
Cynicism Abounds: Remember back to August 9th, 1999. Remember the Millennium Clock counting down, and Jericho emerging in the Rosemont Horiz…dammit, Allstate Arena to take on The Rock (before he became Flex) in dueling promos. Remember that the future looked so bright for Jericho at that moment. The very next week, that future was pissed away, and Jericho went spiraling. Now Jericho’s involved in a feud with Michaels. This might be seen as good news by some, but if you’re a Jericho fan, it’s very bad news indeed. The Glass Ceiling is still in place, and there’s no way that Trip’s Buddy is going to be overshadowed by Jericho. However, full credit goes to Jericho for his near-effortless gear shifting during that promo. For one brief moment, the Jericho of old appeared. Please, Chris, stay inspired enough during this farce to maintain that momentum.
The Return of Ass Cream(tm)!: The implications of Christian receiving New And Improved Ass Cream(tm) from Goldust…my head isn’t capable of going through those permutations right now.
In fact, I’m sick as a dog and trashed, so I’m going to try to get some sleep before I decide whether to go into work or not. I’ll be back tomorrow with more comments (and my normal Raw correspondents, Rick McBride and The Joe In Me, had some great ones about the show), Smackdown Somewhat Spoiled, Beating A Dead Horse, and others. Until then, enjoy yourselves.
About Eric Szulczewski
