Welcome to another edition of the Hotline. I’d like to open with a small thanks to Jay Bower who let me be part of Rant Wars Week 4. I got to critique the loser of the week. Good Try, Bucko.
Brandan asks: I thought your critique of the ousted writer was very interesting, because a number of the originally selected articles (after Week One) made a the same errors you called that guy on. There were a few of those top 8 that did not address the subject, and lacked any sort of clear introduction, thesis statement, or conclusion. I wrote Jay Bower a number of weeks ago asking exactly what criteria was used in the original selection process, as I was one of the 500 entrants who didn’t make the cut, so I would have an idea what to improve on if you guys have a Rant Wars II, but he did not respond. The reason I’m now asking you, is because a problems you cited with this other guy’s article were applicable to some of the original eight your site selected. So, basically, my question is why is the level of writing being taken into account, when some of the original eight articles the columnists selected out of 500 had the same exact problems? Thanks for your time! I hope to hear back from you, but I understand you are busy. Keep up the great work at 411.
Folks, I have no idea what criteria Jay used to get to the final nine. I’m just the critique monkey this week. Not my column. Submit any and all questions to Bower himself. I don’t remember his email, but it will be at the bottom of the Sunday News.
Moving on I screwed up and said Insurrextion was last weekend and they didn’t have a card for it yet.
Road to Insurrextion Results
Not much usually happens on non-American television in the WWF, but Let’s give it a look anyway. This was a Euro House Show leading up to tomorrows PPV
Austin stunners Bischoff to open.
Hurricane over Lance Storm.
Maven over Al Snow.
Goldust over Rico.
Test over Val Venis.
Rodney Mack and Chris Nowinsky over The Dudleys. Hmmm, Nowinsky isn’t black, is he? Or is everyone from Harvard considered black? Kinda f*cks up the character continuity for Mack/Long doesn’t it?
Christian over Booker T.
Grassfire over La Resistance.
Jazz over Trish and Victora in a three way dance.
Nash and Steiner over Jericho and HHH.
Insurrextion
The UK only PPV is this evening. A look at the Official WWE Insurrextion Website still says, as of 11:30 EST:
Matches
Check Back Soon for the Complete Card.
Now I can fairly say: Way to promote, guys.
New Developmental Wrestler
WWC Universal Champion Carly Colon has signed a WWE Developmental Contract and will begin working with OVW to learn how to wrestle as boring as possible.
He will learn the finer points of putting over HHH down in Ohio for a bit.
He is the son of some Puerto Rican wrestler none of us have ever heard of, but whose last name is Colon.
Borash’s Column
Not much to say, but he did point out that NWA:TMF’nJ is approaching its One Year Anniversary. Not bad for the company/business model that most people predicted wouldn’t last three months. I actually don’t remember what I predicted, but it’s probably back in the Week In Wrestling Archives somewhere.
Congrats to the Jarrett’s on actually building a fanbase and rolling with some steam. Even if Vince Russo now looks like a Fat Steve Richards.
JR’s Column
JR quit the web writing scene a while back, but now he has his very own website section on WWE.com. You can visit JR.WWE.com to see a bunch of top ten lists. At this moment it’s six top ten lists and a book plug. Whether or not anything else comes out of this remains to be seen.
I have no idea what this new book is about.
Vengeance PPV
As you all know, Vengeance will be the first Smackdown Only PPV, which will air in July. So far they have announced two matches for it. One being Kurt Angle vs Brock Lesnar in a rematch for the Smackdown World Title. The other is Mr McMahon vs Mr America. Loser has to stop using the Mr Title.
I find this mostly interesting because Bad Blood is next week, and the Vengeance already has one more match than I care to see on Bad Blood. Go figure.
In Other Reading
As it’s a non-PPV Saturday, there’s not a whole lot to report on, and not a whole lot happened this week worth editorializing on. That, or I missed both shows this week and didn’t have the motivation to watch the DVR. Ah well. Regardless, some other folks wrote some stuff.
Chris Robinson takes a look at Bad Blood, a week early to beat the rush.
The Aforementioned Rant Wars Week 4 guest starring, ME ME ME ME!!!!
Murphy praises the Greatest Wrestler in England’s History. Regal?
John Haley takes his weekly look at The Little Things. No, not Grutman’s junk. (ZING, BABY!)
Ron Gamble hands out his hippie view of history in The Official 411 Almanac for June. All joking aside, Ron puts a lot of work into these almanacs and you should all read them and if you know something he forgot, let him know, and he’ll include it next year.
Bob Barron reviews Canadian Stampede.
In Conclusion
That’ll do it for me this week. I have to build some shelves and find some studs. Maybe in that order, maybe not.
I’ll see you all back here next week for the Official 411 on Bad Blood.
Till then, stay safe and see ya back.
