Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not a damn thing. Nothing on cnn.com worth noting, nothing in wrestling worth commenting about (until I catch Raw and see those two fat delusional assholes who dress up like Raiders fans on hallucinogens come out). I’m even going to save Mailbag for tomorrow due to me trying to pin down some of the functions in Dreamweaver that would actually make the money my old company’s paying me to do their website given a slight patina of legitimacy. When the only news that even remotely gets you excited is that McRibs are back for a limited time only, you’re f*cked.
Other than that pathetic observation, I do have one wrestling-related fear right now: Vince is going to hire Luger just to have people chant “You Killed Liz” at him. The son of a bitch is cynical enough to do it.
In other words, this one’s on autopilot, folks. I really hate to do columns like this, but sometimes it just happens that way. I have zero energy, zero motivation, and zero hope that anything good is going to come out of this. I will endeavor to try, but I’m already admitting failure, so let’s self-fulfill that prophecy.
This is a day when trying to cover the wrestling world or the world at large will trigger one’s hemmorhoids. Now I just have to find the Preparation H that I stashed somewhere to take with me to Iowa and proceeded to get lost in the unpacking…
ONE MILD BIT OF WRESTLING NEWS
Andrew in Orlando reminds me of this fact: the termination/mercy-killing of Jeff Torborg as manager of the Florida Marlins over the weekend, naturally, had a wrestling-related consequence. Jeff’s son Dale was the team’s strength and conditioning coach, and the sins of the father blah blah blah. So now Dale’s looking for a job. Of course, we all know Dale. He thrilled us so much as the Demon in WCW, and I have this strange feeling that WWE might want to pick him up off the scrap heap (look, they brought in those two fat over-the-hill-in-1990 f*cks, and Billy Fucking Gunn is coming back). Well, they can’t use the Demon anymore because that deal’s surely ended and not worth reviving. However, there is one way that WWE can get a Dale Torborg connection to work: bring back Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz.
THE PIMP SECTION
I’d better be one of those “prominent IWC members” who will be criticizing ranters, Bower. And in one of the later rounds, too. After all, one of the most important qualities for being a 411 columnist is to not be a pussy, and if they can stand up to the creator of You’re A Moron, they’ve stepped carefully through that minefield.
Just a few notes to Williams: 1) You were right about Goldie and bottom-feeders. How many times did we see him on Nitro pummel the shit out of poor Jerry Flynn? It had to be over ten. Flynn became a running joke in the IWC, and all he got out of it was one minor mid-card push that definitely didn’t get over. 2) Both Angle and Jericho work better as heels than faces, so I’d definitely not be in favor of turns. However, the other thing they have in common is that they’ve had to make the most out of shoddy material and, in Jericho’s case, being shoved out of the spotlight for various reasons. 3) I don’t think that You-Know-Who is awesome, so you won’t find me in the Hallmark section for his benefit, thank you.
This may be my only chance to ever pimp Robinson given his announced schedule, so enjoy the afterglow while it lasts, kid.
Memo to Brower: You can borrow YAM if you’d like. That guy in your Confidential report looks like he deserves a LART of that magnitude.
Speaking of people who deserve ten-megaton LARTs…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Rob Van Dam and Kane over the Drunkards of Doom (Pinfall, Van Dam pins Hawk, Five-Star Frog Splash): It’s another of those fun matches where I try to figure out what kind of substances the wrestlers are on. We all know about Van Dam. Seeing that this is Philly, Van Dam hooked up Kane with something in the same vein (not stuck into a vein, mind you, but just some variant of C. sativa). Animal is obviously drunk. Hawk is on some type of heavy-duty tranquilizer. Actually, I’m hoping that Animal was drunk and Hawk was on ‘ludes, because this match needed some kind of excuse on why it sucked sewer gas.
The Ravin’ Cajun’s viewpoint on those two: Bad enough we had the never-ending cluster-f*ck of an opening skit, but then we get a Legion of Doom match to go with it. Does the WWE hate Philly that much? Oh, and props to the LOD for keeping in such exquisite physical shape. They looked more like offensive linemen than badasses from a 20-year-old Mel Gibson movie.
Very offensive in my opinion, Beau.
Rodney Mack over Two Anonymous White Guys Apparently Paying Tribute To Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell (Submission on both): Can we just have Teddy Long go to do commentary and forget about seeing Rodney Mack wrestle? This isn’t getting old because of Long; it’s getting old because no one gives a f*ck about Rodney Mack. The best thing for the whole Back The Mack Posse right now might be to bring in Gillberg. Just do the Akeem act on him; it’ll work, trust me.
Bill Goldberg over Christian, Steel Cage Match (Pinfall, Jackhammer): Well, duh, like we didn’t expect this. Nice juice job by Christian, though. As Slick Rick said, he’s gained a lot of respect from this Raw for going hardway into the fence face-first.
Ric Flair over Novocaine Helms (Submission, Figure-Four): Do I resist saying it? Can I resist saying it? Ye…ye…ye…NO!!! Shane Helms taking off another guy’s pair of pants! How’s that different from any other night?! YES! YES! GAY JOKES ABOUT WRESTLERS LIVE! FUCK YOU, JEFF HARDY!
Since my thoughts are chemically mellowed, I allow Slick Rick to provide my darker side with release: I’d still pay real money to see Flair burn the Green Lantern symbol off of hurritwat’s shoulder with a Cigar. Now if that was on PPV, I’d buy it. Make it the main event of Bad Blood.
Goldust, Test, et Big Sump Pump défaites Rene Dupree, Sylvain Grenier, et Christophe Nowinski (Pinfall, Steiner pins Nowinski, reverse DDT): I like Goldust. I like La Resistance. I really like Harvard. Why all four of them are in service to this asinine Test/Sump Pump angle involving My Beautiful And Beloved should be considered a reason for capital punishment.
Trish Stratus over Victoria, Hardcore Match (Pinfall, Stratusfaction): So, exactly what was the tribute to ECW here supposed to be? The hardcore nature of the match? Tommy Dreamer and Stevie Richards at ringside? The whiff of the traditional catfight (unfortunately without Gertner’s exclamations)? Oh, wait, of course: Trish blowing spots one second and acting like Trinity the next, almost as if she was trained by Sabu.
(BTW: In the “great minds think alike” category, both Slick Rick and I made Matrix connections to Trish’s bridge quickly and separately. Of course, I think everyone else in the audience did. Go see the film when it comes out on the 15th and get it out of your system.)
Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Nash (ND, Clique-rference): Well, Slick Rick said that it wasn’t too bad, except for the oh-so-gentle powerbomb at the end. I’m going to ignore the match and look at the meta-reasons, like I normally do when I don’t give a f*ck about something.
Jericho’s involved in the IC Battle Royal, right? The only way he’s involved in anything dealing with Nash and Company is as a hangover of the six-man at Backlash and the WM-related feud with Michaels. However, Jericho seems to be in the position of helping out Trip and Flair a lot, especially when dealing with the former Dudes With Attitudes. So what exactly is his position right now in the grand scheme of things? Is he an independent operator waiting for the post-JD feud with Booker over the IC strap (and the in absentia announcement of Booker’s entrance makes it clear that one of them will win it; I’ll figure who by the Round Table)? Is he an adjunct of Trip and Flair, and are we going to see another addition to the mix to restart Evolution?
How long can the Clique keep f*cking with each other? With only three of them, there are only so many permutations. Everyone’s pretty much convinced that Trip’s going to drop the belt to Nash (and I’m one of them). There’s only one thing that can prevent this from happening, and I’m saying this in here because you know that if I do, WWE will never do it: Trip retains due to a Michaels turn. That’d stretch out the whole Clique Circle-Jerk for a couple more months, and if Jericho’s really on that team…who would have ever thought of Flair, Trip, Michaels, and Jericho as demi-Horsemen?
There’s also a corollary to this, and that’s the fact that Nash can’t play lone wolf against those guys. So, Nash gets a mini-posse together. The first person on board would be the guy who has the second-most issues with those people: Novocaine Helms. This would be an incredible reward for me: leather, daddy/boy, role-play, uniforms, another Summer Of Suck…those two together are a walking Folsom Street Fair. All that Jeff Hardy inventory would not go to waste, people. It would be a disaster for the creative aspect of the show and for the audience, but I don’t give a f*ck about them if I’m happy.
Unfortunately, there would be one casualty in this whole scenario: somehow, someway, Booker’s going to get dragged into it, whether it’s part of a Jericho feud or to get revenge on Trip for changing the booking of the WM match. I don’t want to get Booker involved, but if this thing’s heavy-duty marquee stuff courtesy of Steph’s Living Dildo and his butt-buddies, it can’t really hurt either Booker or Jericho.
There are silver linings if you look hard enough. Or I may just be being optimistic for a change. Okay, you cocksuckers who keep badgering me about not saying anything good about WWE, that was your fix. So shut the f*ck up for a few months.
Angle Developments:
When Death Is The Only Option: This might be a record for WWE. This show lost cardiac activity about two minutes in (and, oh, what irony it is that the two men who initiated the “What?” phenomenon with a back-of-the-curtain phone conversation would be one to kill a show with it). Brain activity ended about six minutes in. The body went into rigor the moment Hawk and Animal walked out. This show isn’t fit for burial; it’s only fit for a cat to come bury it under pine-scented sand.
Apparently The Definition Of “Class” Has Changed: Freddie Blassie is a true legend trapped in a set of rather sad, declining days. Fortunately, before he goes, either physically or mentally, he’s been able to get a book out describing his colorful life in wrestling. The organization he’s devoted most of his life and career to has given him face time to promote it in a town that still harbors a lot of great memories of the Classy One. So what does WWE go and do? Puts him in the middle of an angle between Three-Moron Warning and the Dudleys. I think that, vis-a-vis the “creative team”, Pencil-Necked Geek is such an understatement it’s almost approaching a compliment.
As I said, I’m just going on autopilot on this one. I’ll try to prep something a lot better tomorrow. Mailbag is a definite, YAM a highly-probable, ratings bitching an assurance, Smackdown Somewhat Spoiled natch, and…oh, I’ll wing it. Have a good one, and see you tomorrow.
About Eric Szulczewski
