So, I’m slowly coming to the realization that the Saturday news report sucks all kinds of ass since there’s never really anything fresh to talk about. So I guess I’m going to clone the Week in Wrestling again this week, maybe with a little extra content, I don’t know.
I won’t be in next week, as the Hotline will be on the road in Montreal. Strong beer, strippers, and good clean fun is just what the doctor ordered. Which Doctor? Well, Doctor Feelgood, obviously.
Yes, I did just reference a Motley Crue song, and good for you for noticing.
With that, let’s look at the top stories:
Well, the ONLY Top Story
Someone got ahold of the four most well paid people in the WWE. Vince being, obviously, the number one at $1 million base per year which isn’t all that great when you think about it but then you have to realize that all the WWE assets are at his disposal, too. So, if he needs an extra couple hundred-thousand, he can pull it out of the WWF accounts and give himself a “bonus.†I would assume the million dollar salary is some sort of tax work around probably just enough to pay his bills. I’m somewhat surprised he doesn’t officially pay himself one-dollar a week to really f*ck with the federal government.
Linda McMahon makes about $750,000 per year. You know, even when a bitch is the CEO, she still can’t make as much as a man.
Head Producer Kevin dun pulls in just about a cool half million per year, clocking in at $497,917. 917? Who the hell got these figures down to the dollar? Regardless, Dunn deserves all this and more. He gets guys over before they even get to the ring. Nathan Jones, for example was super over until people saw him actually wrestle. The FBI skits were so well produced, I thought they were real commercials.
And, good-ol JR brings in 318,333 as head of talent relations. Nothing really to comment on here other than the fact I think JR should stay as head of talent relations and give the play-by-play to a fresh voice but that’s just me.
And that’s not to say JR isn’t a good announcer, it’s just to say that the Lawler/Ross relationship is played. It’s time to change things booting King in favor of Heyman would be a good start.
How fun would a Heyman/Styles booth be?
The Week In Wrestling
Raw
Opening 15 minutes went to Vince, who wants to confront Kane. This is implied from last week when Kane TOMBSTONED THE MAN’S FUGGIN WIFE. 15 minutes was not needed to tell us this it would have been better served elsewhere.
A new pet peeve what’s the deal with breaking matches for commercials nowadays? I hated it when Nitro did it, and I hate it now that WWE is doing it of course at least the match they broke this time wasn’t a good one. Can you answer me a question? Why, after all the shenanigans to get the Intercontinental title back, do you have Booker T wrestling in stupid tag matches that mean nothing, when you SHOULD be using the time to build the IC title back up. How about a feud? I dunno, with Test maybe? Or maybe Orton? Someone? Bueller?
Goldberg squashed Stevie officially got programmed with HHH for Summerslam and is wrestling Ric Flair next week, ie: two days from now.
Val Venis v Rico these guys should be a tag team, not wrestling each other. They need to play off each other’s gimmicks because they are NOT working alone. They each need time to build the gimmicks up and the singles thing just ain’t doing it for them. Put them together (Team Manlove? Flower and Horny?) and have them come out with Linda it’ll work itself out eventually.
Speaking of possible new tag teams, we have Mark Jindrak and Garrison Cade jobbing out to the World Tag Team champions. Are these guys here to be jobbers, or to be a new tag team? Anyway, I still don’t understand the company’s total disdain for Jindrak and it pisses me off even more that they market him as a “raw rookie†when he HELD THE FUCKING WCW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP WITH FUCKING SEAN O’HAIRE.
Molly took the title off Gail Kim in a forgettable match while I suppose the whole Gail Kim thing was to enforce the “anything can happen on Raw†mindset, it would help if they did it with a belt someone cares about . Like HeMan’s but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.
Vince calls out the shackled Kane and talks him up, then Austin comes out to say he will, in fact, remain at the GM position, which means he can’t attack a superstar unless physically provoked so he begs Kane to provoke him but HERE COMES THE MONEY and Shane McMahon makes his triumphant return to Raw where he hands out a McMay-hon Haymaker to his dad, knocking him out cold and some Flying McMay-hon chairshots to Kane, which knocks him off the stage and through a table. Nice to see Shane-O back absence makes the heart grow fonder and he’s still the least offensive McMahon when not doing color commentary, that is.
Smackdown
Start up getting Angle and Brock put into a tag match with a team of Vince’s choice. OK, who smells a turn or a turntease coming? I sure do. And who is it on Smackdown when it’s someone of Vince’s choice. If you said Big Show, you get five points. I don’t know what you’ll do with said five points, but you get them anyway. That leaves only the mystery partner who turned out to be A-train.
Hmmm, let’s see Angle/Brock vs Big Show/A-Train. Yeah, this is a kwality main event. Especially when you have NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN OR WHO’S GOING TO WIN!!!!
But we’ll get back to that.
Great match from Shelton Benjamin and Rey Mysterio, that saw the partners get involved and Kidman just keeps looking better and better every week. The WWF seems to finally be ready to rebuild their tag division, which took a beating after the split. Of course, that was pretty obvious considering they broke up just about ALL their established tag teams. This will be another thing that will go to Smackdown as time wears on simply because all or most of the tag teams on Raw are totally played out, (see also: Dudley Boys and the APA), while Smackdown has Haas/Benjamin and the new Mysterio/Kidman team which seems to have a great chemistry together and can rile the crowd right up to the point they were changing BULLSHIT at Vengeance when they didn’t win the belts. I can almost believe that Kidman was supposed to turn at the PPV but plans were changed when they heard the reaction.
Benoit got fed Doink the Clown in a 2 minute squash. Wasn’t the real Doink, but some OVW scrub according to Keith. I guess a couple jobber matches per show can do nothing but help the star in it but it’s also not the best idea in the world when there’s other things on TV to watch.
The US Title is BACK baby, with a great match from Tajiri and Eddy. Eddy, where turning him heel made him a bigger babyface. Has he ever been MORE over in American wrestling? I think not.
Cena 2-minute squashed Orlando Jordan. And Undertaker is nowhere to be found.
See, this is my problem with Cena losing at Vengeance if Undertaker wasn’t going to be around on Thursday anyway, what the f*ck was the problem with giving Cena the win over the Undertaker? I mean, honestly Taker was going to take a week off to sell the injury anyway Cena could have used the win FAR more than the Undertaker could have and Taker could have gotten the JOB back at Summerslam, which will, theoretically, have a larger audience even more so, he could get a revenge beat down on Smackdown next week, which would have a bigger audience than both Pay Per Views Cena gets a much needed top card win, and Taker gets his revenge.
I just don’t get it.
St Anger is YOUR official Summerslam song. As if I didn’t hate the song enough already, I get to hear it 15 times a week as bumper music.
The nonsense that was Jamie Noble’s night with Torrie turned in to a ménage-a-quatre with he, Torrie, Nidia, and Billy Gunn. Whatever.
The main event tag match went just about where expected, ending with Kurt tagging himself in to make the pin after the f5 put Big Show down and then seeing Brock turn on Kurt and F5 him which makes me wonder exactly who was supposed to be the heel in the turn and who was supposed to be the face because the self-tag is more of the heel thing to do, but the F5 on your partner is heelish, too so I dunno. The long and short of it had Vince v Brock in a steel cage next week with Angle as the guest referee. Well, there’s your answer, whichever guy aligns with Vince to beat the other down next week is the heel.
NWA: TMF’nJ
Yeah, I haven’t watched it in months, so I’d totally be going off Scotty 2 Hotty’s recap so I’ll pass on that. Maybe if I keep rolling with this TWIW gimmick, I’ll start watching it again. The half price PPVs I get makes it $5/week so I can handle that.
In Other Reading
Ross Williams uses the world Loggerhead in a column. It may be worth reading just for that.
Haley looks at Little things. Insert obvious joke here.
Ross Williams again here.
David Murphy with a quick and dirty review of Tietam Brown.
In conclusion
Probably won’t hear from me next week, as I will be in Montreal. Until we meet again, enjoy the rest of the news crew.
