Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc. 11.05.03

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Wrestling?  I’ve hardly watched since I’ve been back here.  Partly because I hardly have time, and partly because WWE just isn’t bringing the goods to get me to switch off of MNF.  Now, when you consider that I’ve been a wrestling fan for over 10 years, I have a shitload of wrestlng DVDs in my room (and the entire published works of Mick Foley), and I used to be a columnist, the fact that they can’t get me away from MNF should be kind of disturbing.

Fuck Andrew Hall.  This kind of kick-ass quote is why Elliot Olshansky is still and will always be the Pride of Dartmouth.

It’s a very disconcerting feeling when you work in an environment that’s regulated by the government, you’re the point man in your workplace vis-a-vis contact with them, there’s the local head honcho tagging behind a higher-ranking auditor in the place, and they don’t bother to contact you about anything.  Fortunately, they’re going to be there for the rest of the week.  So I’ve heard from other people.  No, I’m not going to go and introduce myself to them.  Fuck that shit.  They’re in my place, they come to me, simple as that.

Well, f*ck ’em.  Hell, I got my jollies today by calling their two leading inspectors in the plant incompetents.  On official paperwork, no less.  And I have the photos to prove it too, which is even more fun.  Remember that disconcerting feeling I was talking about last paragraph?  Imagine being an inspector, an “infallible” authority figure.  Now, imagine seeing a former inspector follow up the job you just did, and start taking pictures of said job with a digital camera.  Someone told me that when I started doing that last week prior to my trip to Chicago, all of the blood drained out of said inspector’s face.  The realization that there’s someone from the South Side of Chicago badder than Leroy Brown is about to hit them right in the face, and I’m going to enjoy every single sadistic second of it.

The simple rule to go by is this:  the only one allowed to go on a power trip is me.  Break this rule at your peril.

There’s no real wrestling news again.  I do have to recommend Ashish’s breakdown of PPV buyrates, though.  It just confirms what I’ve been telling you for the longest time:  the audience for wrestling is now down to its core, the people who will watch wrestling no matter what else is on (unless you’re the Pride of Dartmouth and can’t drag yourself away from Monday Night Football), and thanks to the sad-ass Dubbaya Depression, people don’t have discretionary income to spend on monthly PPVs and no compelling reason to prioritize them over other things.  I’ve beaten this point into the ground so many times, though, that I don’t feel like rehashing it in detail.  I’ll just say those magical words, “I told you so”, and move on.

Unfortunately, there’s no real non-wrestling news either.  Yeah, there was a Democratic debate, but my mind’s pretty much made up on that point at this time, so I didn’t have any impetus to watch.  The Matrix Revolutions comes out today, and it’s getting pretty bad reviews all over the place, but it’ll still make $200M plus (see my last column at Fleabag’s for more on that issue).  Of course, there are other people who will be commenting about this subject like, oh, say, Grut and Daniels.

Nothing else interesting, so let’s get the plugs out of the way…

THE PIMP SECTION

I knew I forgot something yesterday, so let me get the mutual backscratching done…

Cole doesn’t like it when I make fun of Cleveland.

The greatest wrestler in history deserves the greatest finisher in history, and Nute agrees.

And, of course, Gamble.  And in answer to your question, Noo Yawk was always Dudleyville, but they chose to be in denial until recently about that fact.

I’d also like to tell Baxley to hang in there.  I’ve been through this a few times in the last five years, and, yes, it does suck.  However, eventually, you will land up with something.  Do it enough times, and you’ll fall upward into a job with the salary and responsibilities that you deserve, so long as you find the employer willing to take a chance on you.  Hey, if it happened to me, the person with the worst luck in the world, it could happen to you too, Lee.

Finally, I wanted to point out the fact that I actually like Raw more than Scooter did this week.  This may be a first in the long history of our appearing on the same site.  Mark your calendars, because this is probably a Halley’s Comet type of thing.

SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED

Cena’s face turn continues in a very dramatic fashion this week, but all it results in is something we figured out:  Albert’s part of Team Heyman now.  So, we can wait until something important, substantial, and affecting a wrestler that we actually like gets tangented by the Cena turn.

TBS/Bradshaw!  Feel the apathy!

Eddy’s Foreign Object Of Choice To Frame The Opponent this week:  Shaniqua’s cat-o’-nine-tails.  Oh, they could do so much more with this one, couldn’t they?  If only there was a clue to be purchased among “creative”, huh?  Just have Eddy steal the damn thing and give the feud with the Bashams some new impetus.  Feuds have been fought over weirder items before.

I’m kind of a sucker for setting up a title match through a tag team match.  The CW strap match at SurSer gets that particular honor on SD.  But will it be Dragon or Noble facing Tajiri?  You’ll have to tune in to find out, I guess, since this is Smackdown Somewhat Spoiled, not Fully Spoiled.

Do you want a clue on why Happy Fun Brock has been unmotivated, listless, and seemingly pissing away his talent in the ring lately?  Put yourself into his shoes for a moment, and you’ll probably figure that out.  Along with the torrent of abuse his booking’s taken, he gets another insult added to insult this week.  How would you feel if you got to face Benoit and Angle in a main event tag match, then got Nathan Jones and Albert to be your partners?  It’s still a handicap match, but the handicap has turned the other way.  Yeah, if I’m stuck with those stiffs on my side, I’m not going all-out either.  So I don’t blame him.  But it does make it that much harder for Benoit and Angle to carry the match like they’d need to anyway.

A SHORT MAILBAG

I’m running a little later than I like to for work (no, I’m not “late” anymore, because, hey, I run the department and I can come in when I damn well please), so I’ll keep the noise level down here…

Sean Fri, a real professional thespian, adds some comments to mine regarding Kane’s eerie effectiveness in his promo on Raw:

Glenn had one other thing going for him last night: costumes.  Ever since he’s gone to the maskless psycho, he’s shaved his eyebrows off, which is a subtle but very effective way to look just a little off without anyone being able to put a finger on why.  (In fact, I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone even mention it yet.)  And last night he added (for the first time?) non-matching contact lenses with made one pupil look larger than the other.

The look has been evolving over the last month or two, and there’s been some good rationales for it that haven’t been mentioned on TV but that the audience could figure out (Kane lost his eyebrows in the dumpster fire, his pupils are off because he still has concussion damage from the limo accident).  The key, though, is to not go too far.  Kane has to remain recognizably human to the audience.  It’s a lot scarier and a lot more effective if you can establish that Kane is the Mister Hyde present in all of our Doctor Jekyll souls, the walking id, so to speak.

Mistah Chisholm is back, and wants to talk cartoons:

Just got through watching the “Looney Tunes Golden Collection” and I want to know just one thing: Bugs Bunny jobs less often than Triple H, so how come he always jobs to this Cecil Turtle? Does the Turtle have pictures of him or something?

Pictures won’t do it for Bugs.  Bugs is in women’s clothing more often than most women are.  The problem here is a matter of timing.  Cece was one of Bugs’ earliest antagonists.  As late as 1945, WB directors were booking him in a tweener mode.  He didn’t become a major face until Friz Freleng looked in the mirror and created Yosemite Sam (Sam is simply an exaggerated caricature of Friz), and Chuck Jones got a good portion of his booking.  So, early on, Bugs would be the active antagonist, especially against a very sympathetically-portrayed Elmer Fudd in a number of cartoons, and like every good tweener, he did have to lose once in a while.  Enter Cecil Turtle, since we all know that Hare cannot beat Tortoise.  Tex Avery created Cece, and I regard him as Tex’s beta test of Droopy.  Cece is a minor character, but still fun to watch, and very devious in a way that Droopy rarely is.

Just imagine Bugs between 1940 and 1945 as Eddy Guerrero is right now, and I think you’ll be fine.  Bugs even does Cheat To Win, and could teach some lessons to Eddy in that department.

Biscuiti, Matt Isomer asks me, now that Orton’s in the Team Match and Trip’s involved with the world title, what are Flair and Batista going to do for SurSer?  There might be room for one more Raw match on that card, and it’d seem natural for them to face Cade and Jindrak, as you implied.  The way I’d book it is as a Number One Contenders match to face the Dudleys on Raw the next night.  A victory over Batista and Flair, plus Flair’s usual “make the kids look good” routine, will do a lot toward giving Cade and Jindrak a little mark cred.  That fluke win over the Dudz on Raw didn’t do anything for them in that area.  As you said, Matt, the very least that’ll happen is a match on Heat.  Count me not surprised if we get a Number One Contenders Match on either the Heat or SurSer cards.

Michael Wehrman doesn’t really get the joke:

Lance Cade wrestled as Lance Cade for two and a half years in HWA and OVW.  The WWE, of course, decided that more than one common name
confuses the viewers.  More than one Lance would easily stymie the most ign’ant wrestling fan, clearly.  People on the payroll worked together, and they came up with Garrison.  It’s intriguing because he was Lance Cade the week before he made his Raw debut (on heat versus Lance Storm…boy howdy were Coach and Al in rare comedic form that night…yup).

I want to suggest that if the WWE thinks we are incapable of separating a short Canadian grappler and a tall Texan brawler, how do they think we are capable of processing the three entire syllables necessary to pronounce Cade’s name?  Lance was just one…that’s easy, while Garrison is a bit too much for the amateurs to try, if you will.


First of all, we all know the story of how and why Lance Cade became Garrison Cade.  It’s pretty common knowledge.  What I was doing yesterday was goofing on Ross for his slip of the identity, so to speak.  He just came out and called him “Lance Cade” during the match, and it was jarring enough to comment upon.

I don’t think that WWE is being insulting to our intelligence here.  I find the reason perfectly acceptable, especially when image counts for so much in the business.  Remember, at the time Cade came to Raw, they were still marketing Lance Storm as “Mister Boring”.  They obviously thought that they’d got the message through enough that the audience would think Lance=Boring (now, they’re probably patting themselves on the back for thinking of Cade’s name change in time because they believe the message is out that Lance=Geek).  So, playing off the Texas origins, they stole the last name of one of the Dallas Cowboys’ most legendary players/smokeless tobacco shills and gave it to Cade as a new first name.  Again, a perfectly acceptable action.  After all, wasn’t this the same group of people who gave a certain wrestler the first name of his father and the last name of his maternal grandfather in order to boost his image when he first came to the then-WWF?  That seemed to work out nicely for them after a bit of refinement.  And I have to admit that it’s worked out nicely for me considering the amount of column fodder I’ve got from that cocksucker.

And that’ll be a good note to send this out on.  I’ll throw something together for Fleabag this week (in order to make up for last week, of course, when I was out of town and unable to contribute to the fun and games), and I’ll join you again when Raw sets up its final SurSer push.  Until then, enjoy.