Thanks for all the folks who sent me info on Montreal last weekend. Some of you I took the advice of some of you I didn’t primarily the ones who sent me info on the good strip clubs. You go with a yak, you don’t get to really do the strip club thing. Bitches.
Had a surprisingly easy time getting across the border. I was considering bringing my passport to make it really easy for me, but then realized that I’m going to Cancun next week, and it would be just my luck to lose my passport in friggin Canada two weeks before I was scheduled to actually need it. So, in that, I’d like to thank the border guards for not being total douchebags as I have had a couple over time. Everyone feel free to tell me their worst border guard story, I’d be interested to hear it. Mine was being held up at the border for more than three hours, and then being forced to put a $1500 deposit down on a four-wheeler to ensure we weren’t bringing it across the border to sell. THAT was an amusing trip.
Or the exact opposite of amusing.
Another thing, the porn spammers finally caught up with this email address after using it pretty solidly for about two years. I’d like to give props to Yahoo! Mail’s SpamGuard, which is doing a fine job catching the 10 or so messages I get per day. Porn sites, the first people to figure out the onUnload() event. Asswipes.
As for the blackout was certainly an adventurous week, and I’m really impressed with the way the power people handled it. We here were only out from 4:14 when it happened till 12:01. Could have been much worse. Unfortunately, Albany got it’s power back far too quickly, which means I didn’t get the blackout snow day like some other folks did.
No mail worth printing this week, so lets get to it.
The Week in Wrestling
Raw
JR made his return threatening to sue Eric Bischoff for putting him in an unsafe work environment rather than press charges on Kane for assault. People have been noting that JR was noticeably NOT burned when he came out, but I counter that with: the back of his shirt was lit on fire the only noticeable burns he SHOULD have would be covered by the black shirt which, while uncomfortable, we probably shouldn’t see anyway. And, on that vein, JR was walking gingerly and selling the fact that his back was probably goo at the moment. Austin then came out and had JR sign away his right to sue Eric Bischoff in exchange for facing Kane tonight on Raw.
The contract Bischoff signed could be a decent plot device in the future if the WWE writers care to think that far back. The thing was four or five pages long and Bischoff never even read it. By that token, they could make Bischoff do a lot of dancing in the next three months and base it on that contract.
Steiner/Stacy vs Miss Jackie/Rico was pretty much awful and Test emerged to continue his feud with Steiner. Next week, Stacy is on the line! Who can say “it was a setup all along?†I thought you could.
Thirty second match between the Duds and the Fags before the Fags used the US Flag to draw the DQ. Then a beatdown ensued. Boring.
Possibly one of the more disturbing things I’ve seen on television in recent weeks is Lance Storm painted like Golddust. However, seeing him do the Golddust bark at Molly made me laugh for a couple minutes. I will reserve judgment on how funny it is until I see where they go with it next week.
Christian won the IC title from Booker T in a house show on Sunday night. Booker is no-where to be seen. I suppose I understand they wanted to do the title switch at a house show in an attempt to create interest in house shows but it won’t work. No one cares about house shows and likely never will again. And I still don’t understand why they didn’t do the switch on Raw, unless Booker T was in such bad shape he couldn’t do it on television.
Christian’s first, hand selected, opponent was Spike Dudley for Spike TV. They put on a really decent match given it was only five minutes long. Unprettier finished Spiker out of nowhere.
Kane decided not to take it out Bischoff and lose the match by countout. Why? Because the people wanted to see him destroy Bischoff and he’s done doing what the people want. Standard heel motivation, I guess.
The Nash/Jericho hair match is on Raw NEXT WEEK!
Goldberg/Flair rematch was a huge mess that Goldberg ended up winning, even with the crowd turning on him continually. Here’s the thing that bothers me about Goldberg people already want to boo him, that’s obvious if they were to turn him heel and unleash him on Raw and just have destroy faces and I mean DeStRoY them, he could easily turn into the biggest heel the WWE has right now. The fact people are already starting to turn on him + making him a heel + making him a really BADASS heel = super heel. The problem is, they still have this hard-on for HHH being the only badass heel on Raw, with Kane coming up slowly but surely and Kane continues to be the best piece of writing they’ve had on the show in maybe two years. The development and descention of him to what he’s becoming is great.
So what happens? We are getting ready for a failed HHH face turn, and who’s he going to feud with? Kane? Big deal. The key right now is to stop trying to get people to cheer Goldberg. It’s not going to happen in the WWE, and I’d like to say I predicted it, right here in the Weekend Hotline. I said “The WWE fans will turn on Goldberg.†It has happened. I’m too lazy to pull the quote.
Smackdown
In an interesting twist that I was unaware of, I was in St. Louis for Smackdown. Go figure. I mean, it’s gotta be a good thousand miles away, and I certainly don’t remember the flight out or the flight back. The only reason I know I was there is because I was in the crowd on Smackdown!
Yes, so apparently if they don’t like the crowd reaction for someone, they just edit in shots from other events. They edited in my friend Matt and myself into Vince’s entrance to make it look as though we were in the crowd in St. Louis cheering for him. Now, while it’s cool to put me on TV when I wasn’t even there, doesn’t that strike anyone as somewhat gay to create crowd reaction from people who aren’t even fuggin there and, on top of that, using shots of people cheering for HOGAN for Vince? Talk about insecure.
My not-so-bold turn prediction for Kidman back at Vengeance seems to be getting put off longer and longer for good reason. Rey and Kidman have a great little vibe going between them as a tag team, and I see no good reason to split them up. The turn would immediately go nowhere for Kidman as he can’t talk and would just eventually job to Rey to end the feud. The new tag team has been a great addition to an already strong roster. Now, they just have to get the cruiser belt off Rey and let someone else have some fun with it. Fucking Ultimo for instance?
Anyone named “Danny Basham†is never going to get over. It’s a jobber name. Even with a giant, black, semi-hot in a scary sort of way Amazon walking around with them. And, have they explained the name-change to Shaniqua? At all? I mean, did she discover her long-lost African Dominatrix roots? Also, is it just me, or was Smackdown the first time you’ve ever heard the term “vicious scoop slam?â€Â
In a freakin hilarious segment, Bradshaw is pretty sure Shelton Benjamin and Shaniqua are the same person, since you never see them in the same place at the same time.
Show/Taker #237 headed up the hour. I started watching Real Extreme Challenge.
Cena, after last week beating the Undertaker, is back to the mid-card and beating Zack Gowen. The next logical step, god help me, is to feud him with A-Train and have him come out solidly on top. It would be a face turn without actually being a face turn, since he doesn’t have to change the gimmick at all.
Brock Lesnar beat Spanky possibly worse than I’ve ever seen anyone beaten on Smackdown. The visual of Spanky busted open with blood all over him was a great shot. Went a long way back to establishing Brock as a bully heel.
Steph and A-Train I refuse to recap on the grounds it was retarded.
Newsbits you don’t care about
Mizzark Henry is scheduled to make his debut at tonight’s house show in Evansville. No word on how this has affected ticket sales in Evansville.
WWE is working on a Ric Flair DVD for a possible release early next year. No excuse for this DVD not to be a two disc set and no reason for it not to be their best one yet. The amount of Flair footage must rival the amount they had for Hogan. Interesting to see if they put the Steamboat/Flair match on it, since it was already included as a bonus match for HHH’s DVD.
Jim Cornette says the rumors started on other, less correct, websites about the WWE pulling developmental people out of OVW and starting a new developmental promotion in Connecticut is false. Cornette says the rumor was started by Wade Kellar, and that Kellar is a “lying sack of shit.†The rumor comes ten days after Cornette refused to comment to one of Kellar’s reporters since Cornette said he would never comment on anything for Kellar’s trashy newsletter.
And that, my friends, is just about that.
In Other Reading
One new column this entire week? What the f*ck?
In Conclusion
I’m going to try and generate the week in wrestling part of this report for posting on Saturday. I’m heading out to Cancun on Saturday morning. Should be a good time.
Till then.
