If I have scared the enemy, even if I haven’t looked him in the eye, then I’ve already won half the battle. – Mikhail Suvorov
Enemies are where you find them, and where you make them. Just make sure you’re on firm ground when you do so.
THE RAIN, THE SPORTS, AND OTHER THINGS
That’s it. I’ve got to stop listening to oldies radio.
I ended up spending a few days in Chicago to get the last of the stuff out of my apartment there. Of course, I’m still on the hook for said apartment until 1) they sub-lease it or 2) March, whichever comes first. I do enjoy spending more than half my pittance of a salary on rent, especially when it’s paying for a place I’m no longer living at. This is karma jumping up and biting me in the ass. Whenever I’ve changed jobs before, I’ve been fortunate that it’s been at the end of a lease period. I’ve never been stuck moving in the middle of a lease before (and no, there’s no out clause for moving out of state). Well, I’ve been through worse, so I’ll live through this too. Especially if these cocksuckers come through with the raise they’ve promised me in January. And for what I’ve already done for them, it’d better be a substantial one.
That’s because I put Plan B into effect when I was in Chicago. Before I was hired by these goofs, I had signed up for the federal meat inspectors’ test, and I took that last Thursday (you literally have to sign up three months in advance, and it just so happens that one of the locations for the October test was Chicago, so naturally not knowing at the time that my destiny lay in the fields of Nebraska, that’s where I signed up to take it). Since I’ve only been doing this shit for eleven and a half years now, it was kind of a no-brainer type of thing. Between a good score on the test and my additional veterans’ points, plus my experience, it should be an instant-hire situation. If these guys stiff me, I become a double defector and return to my inspector’s life and the nice guarantee of a cushy federal job until retirement age. No, I can’t be assigned to the place I’m working at now (for a year), but it’d still be a nice “thanks for the relocation check, now f*ck off” thing. Considering the treatment I’ve received since I entered private industry, it’d be only partial justice.
By the way, I do have an observation to make: when you’re speeding through a driving Midwestern rainstorm in the darkest hours before dawn on a November morning, the last f*cking song you want to hear on the radio is “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”. Now, I like Gordo’s work and all that, but while listening to that song, twice on two different stations no less, all I could think about was “The Wreck Of The Damn Vaninator”. Next time, I’ll find the money from somewhere and fly.
So, that brings me up to date on the never-ending crime against humanity that is my life. Anything else interesting? I’ll concentrate on sports in order not to bore anyone with further iterations of the Dubbaya -> Chicken-f*cker meme as well as to avoid digging up some rather unpleasant flashbacks to a few months ago by mentioning the words “gay bishop”. Well, the Bears won, but they were playing the Chargers. That’s as honorable a victory as clubbing baby seals. The Sox have Ozzie back as manager, which is great for the team, great for Frank Thomas’ ego, and great for the press, since he gives great conference. I was fortunate enough to be in town for the ultra-high comedy that was the Jerry Krause Tribute Night at the Bulls game on Halloween, and I have to admit that I admire Scottie Pippen for his act of restraint in not strangling the son of a bitch at center court (You want a pair for a Buried Alive match? Fuck Vince and UT, put Pip and Krause in there and watch the shoot happen.). The Goose stopped Veej from clinching the money title, thus setting up an epic showdown next week between Veej and Tigger at the Tour Championship. And Nebraska got whomped. So, all in all, not bad from my standpoint.
But what about wrestling? Anything there? A little, so let’s see what I can work with…
THE NEXT BIG DRUG SCANDAL IN WRESTLING, AND WE’RE GETTING IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR
Will the John Miller case have some major repercussions? As Ashish’s blurb says, the police have the names. Unfortunately, the two sites that I thought would have that info, BadJocks and the Smoking Gun, don’t. That’s a pisser.
I don’t want to indulge in idle speculation here, but we can make some guesses. First of all, Ash’s blurb doesn’t say which Hillsborough County Miller was arrested in. However, I think we can assume that the state in question is run by an evil piece of election-stealing, brother-fellating shit. Hmmm, Tampa is in Hillsborough County, isn’t it? There are a large number of wrestlers who make their homes in the Tampa area, including one Mistah T. Bollea, who it has been rumored has had some intimate knowledge in the past about use of anabolics.
Now this could be interesting. If Miller’s squeaked out Hogan’s name to the cops, who knows where this one’s going to lead? It’ll definitely make the Jarretts look like complete idiots for getting into bed with him, and may end up screwing their chances at a cable deal. And that’ll just be the beginning. If there’s a “mainstream” name on that list (the most likely being Hogan or Savage, to name the two most well-known wrestlers with Tampa connections), that means mainstream coverage, and that means a black eye for wrestling as a whole. With ratings in the doldrums, the last thing the industry needs is bad publicity. I will, however, will put down hard cash that Fleabag knows half the wrestlers on that list personally. In fact, he might have some inside dope, so if he contributes something this week, he can give you more of this story than you’d want to know.
Of course, if there’s no one big on that list, then this is going to generate interest among us sad individuals and have no ripple effect. We’ll all look at the names and go, “Gee, no shit, X was doing ‘roids. Like we couldn’t tell.” But Joe Public won’t know who the hell these guys are, so it’ll be a blip on the radar, if that.
You know, the wrestling fan half of me is wishing for the latter, but the controversial IWC god in me is wishing for the former. There’s nothing I could get my teeth into more than Hogan having to take the stand again in a ‘roid trial, and everyone from Milord on down is starting to sharpen their Zahorian analogies to a fine point at the prospect of this. We IWC writers can use a good circus, but the industry can’t use any more mud flung in its face.
And speaking of having mud flung in our faces, let’s turn to Raw and see how it insulted our intelligence this week…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Chris Crass over Booker T and Rob Van Dam (Pinfall, Jericho pins Van Dam, spinning bulldog): It’s always great to see the Kings of Ass Cream ™ in action, regardless of the cynical motives of the match. It’s also always great to see Booker T in action, regardless of the quality of the booking of the match. Van Dam, though, bores me. Why hasn’t someone done for his routine with Scooter did for Bret vis-a-vis the Five Moves Of Doom? I’m not the one to do that, though, since Keith did it out of a sense of affection for his fellow Albertan, and I possess no affection for my fellow Pole. One other thing: during women’s matches, Ross always makes a point about saying that so-and-so is a former women’s champion, which can only be true since every woman wrestler on the Raw roster has held the strap. But he only obliquely mentioned the fact that every participant in the ring is a former Intercontinental champion, never outright saying it. Unlike the women’s strap, there are still people out there who still care about the IC strap, so give them their propers for one, okay?
Dave Bautista over Maven (I Have Nothing In Common With Booker Other Than Our Last Name) Huffman (Pinfall, powerbomb): It’s weird that the blowoff match between Maven and Flair should be fought by Batista, but, hey, Maven got the shit beat out of him, and that’s good.
Mark Jindrak and Lance Cade (Hey, JR said it was Lance Cade, and who am I to disagree?) over Buh Buh Ray and D-Von Dudley (Pinfall, Cade pins Buh Buh Ray, clothesline): Okay, so this will lead to a little bit of new blood in the tag title “ranks” (what little they are). So no problem there. However, if you want Cade and Jindrak to look legitimate, try to come up with a better distraction than Big Sump Pump using My Beautiful and Beloved for military presses. That’s just plain silly.
Lance Storm over Rico (Submission, Testicle Ecstacy): Oh, God, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to use that term again. So, you may ask, why do I call Storm’s half-crab Testicle Ecstacy? It goes back to Storm’s debut appearance on Nitro after he came over from ECW. To Nitro’s eternal detriment, Mark Madden was doing his heel announcer bullshit, and Storm was being brought in as a heel, so naturally the Fat Fuck had to drool over him like his seventh hamburger of the night. When Storm hit the half-crab on his opponent, Madden attempted to say “This is technical ecstacy!”, thus emphasizing that Schiavone and Tenay didn’t even know quality wrestling when they saw it. Unfortunately, Madden tripped over his own tongue, as usual, and it came out as “This is testicle…technical ecstacy!”. Knowing a good spoonerism when I hear one, I decided to take Madden at his literal word and started calling the move “Testicle Ecstacy”. Besides, I hated “Canadian Maple Leaf”. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to use it as a finisher, and it’s great to see it back. Almost like I’m experiencing Testicle Ecstacy.
The Joe In Me has some actual comments concerning Storm and a good question to follow that up with:
What are your thoughts on Lance Storm’s character as of late? I don’t yet know what to think of it. I kind of like it, but I have always been a fan of Lance Storm’s “In all seriousness…” character. So I’m a bit torn. I am glad that Storm is finally getting over and is getting the push he very much deserves. The thing is though, if Storm goes in this direction, what does that leave for William Regal? Personally, I think they should just move him to SmackDown! and give him somewhat of a fresh start. They could stick him with Brock Lesnar, working for Paul Heyman. Would help build heat on Lesnar, and give Regal some fresh faces to feud with. I remember suggesting to you a year ago that Regal should be moved to SmackDown! You made a good point about his SE abilities keeping him on RAW, and I agree with you there. The thing is though, that Regal’s mat style would just work better on SD, I believe.
First of all, anything that helps Storm is a good thing. The guy is a class act, both in the ring and out of it, and deserves any success he can get. The problem is that he does need someone to play off of. The whole act works a lot better with Goldust there as a foil. With Goldust, Storm’s routine is comedic. Without him, he just comes off as a sad little nerd trying to act cool, no matter how many hot women you surround him with.
Now, as for Regal…the SE situation on Raw has decayed so much that a returning Regal would be a great fit at anywhere from midcard to upper-midcard provided that he doesn’t turn into a Bisch toady. They could even pull it off if he did, but it’d have to be with Austin playing the WCW card: “How could you work for him after what he did to us when we were down in Atlanta with him?”. Regal would be overwhelmed on Smackdown. He’d have to compete with Heyman and Cena on the heel side, and Eddy’s got the tweener ground sewn up. Better that he stay on Raw and find himself a decent fit there. There’s lots of room to go there, especially as a mouthpiece for Conway and Dupree.
John Heidenreich and Trish Stratus over Tatu’ed Love Gods, Mixed Tag Match That Was Essentially An Intergender Tag Match (Pinfall, Heidenreich pins Richards, snap sidewalk slam): Nothing to say about this one, really. Dull, dull, match overshadowed by the Jericho/Trish angle.
Shawn Michaels over Mark Henry (Pinfall, superkick): You know, Bischoff used to reveal the results of events like this on Nitro. Why couldn’t he have done something like reveal it earlier in the show or something? That way, we wouldn’t have had to suffer through the experience of Michaels trying to carry Henry. Yeesh.
As for the larger of the participants in the main, I will let Slick Rick have the last word:
Mark Fucking Henry?
Mark Henry couldn’t get a successful push from a wrecking ball.
Mark Henry couldn’t get a rub from a horny white deer buck.
Mark Henry couldn’t get heat from a wildfire in SoCal.
What’s next, “Main Event, WrestleMania: Goldberg vs X-Pac”?
I guess it could be worse.
It could be Mark Henry vs A-Train.
Please, Albert, not A-Train. I don’t want Anthony Thomas insulted by comparisons to Albert. Thomas is embarassed enough having to play on the Bears.
Angle Developments:
Cleveland Sucks: But we all knew that anyway.
Memo To The Guy In The Third Row: Great timing on the HLA sign. No, really, it was. All props to you.
All Fired Up: Ah, after only one week with that perfect Pat Benatar look, Molly has to go back to being Sandra Bernhard. Damn. And she has to give Terri flashbacks to her marriage to Dustin on top of it. What gods did she offend by looking so hot last week? They seem to forget Molly’s secret of success: the reason she’s popular among the cognoscenti is that she’s the kind of girl we’d be able to pull in high school. We could never get a Trish Stratus or even a Gail Kim, but Molly…she was the accessible type. And like any girl like that, with the proper make-up and outfit, she could be hot as hell and sweet as all get-out. So get her back to Pat Benatar, quickly. For all our sakes.
Teasy-Weasy: That was damn sweet of Michaels to bring up Wrestlemania 14 in his promo with Austin. If he’d had followed that up with the “fact” that the match “forced” him to retire for years, it would have been truly perfect in that good old fashioned kayfabe kind of way. However, the pacing and Michaels’ facial expressions made up for that small omission. It’s definitely the best promo Austin’s participated in in quite a while (with not a “What?” in hearing range; the two facts are connected), but the whole fake humility thing just didn’t work on a fundamental level. Austin’s not good enough of an actor to pull that off. Besides, didn’t he look a little bloated? Jesus, take a diuretic or something.
Slick Rick, though, wants to focus on the promo, and who am I to deny him?
Nice vignette. If they only kept the kind of sense of “history” like that exchange between Austin and Michaels more consistently.
The mini-swerve at the end was good as well, as having built the past-history up, it was completely buyable that HBK would walk away.
Every so often Creative shows that they are vestigially aware of the product they write for.
Secrets Of Great Acting: Glen Jacobs, on the other hand, may be a better actor than we give him credit for. He definitely knows a little something about how to portray a psychotic. Keep a deadpan expression at all times, an emotionless mask. It makes the impact that much more frightening. Despite the fact that the ambulance promo was hokey, again, we have a case of perfect delivery. So mad props to him too. Glad that someone’s been taking hints from Anthony Hopkins.
Special Enforcer? Oh, Jesus H. Christ…: I can’t do this idiocy justice. I’ll therefore let the Ravin’ Cajun handle it for me:
So, let me get this straight. Not only has Spanktravision been used as a word in public entertainment for the first time since “Tommy Boy” was unleashed upon the masses, but now we get the added joy of Stone Cold being the special enforcer during the main event? How does that fit logically? He can’t touch unless provokes- and forget that crap about “anyone who comes down the ring is physically provoking me.” Every other time he’s been out in the ring or near it or pretty much in the general vicinity of a camera, it’s been stressed that someone has to TOUCH him. They’ve made that abundantly clear. So, what attraction does someone have in attacking him, eh? Oh, that’s right – he’s a middle-aged fatter shadow of his former self who got winded jumping around a tv set a few days ago. See, I forgot about that. Oh, and this means the real estate game is on. First, the ring was The Undertaker’s Yard. Now, it’s Austin’s House. I just hope to god it doesn’t become RVD’s smoking lounge or God help us, Big Show’s bathroom.
Well, on that last one, we’re pretty safe, because after the whole Eddy Guerrero spiked burrito routine, it’s been established that the Big Show’s bathroom is, indeed, a bathroom, albeit one with stalls far too small for him. And I wouldn’t really mind the ring becoming Van Dam’s smoking lounge too much. At least it’d inject a little honesty into a Van Dam match for a change. They’re about yay far right now from telling everyone that no, no, Rob’s not high in the ring, he’s just doing a tribute to his old friend Sabu by blowing all those spots. I’m just worried about the ramifications of the fact that Austin’s built his house in UT’s yard. Some state court in Texas is going to be surprised by this upcoming property suit.
And that’s it for me. Time for go to sleep. See you tomorrow.
About Eric Szulczewski
