In Memoriam: Warren Spahn. Screw you, Steve Carlton, he was the greatest lefty of them all.
God, I don’t need this shit. I’m scribbling this at 8:30 on Tuesday night, having just got home from work, with food waiting for me since I haven’t eaten all day. Honest to God, Gumby couldn’t stand being pulled in the number of directions that I am. And some of those directions are toward keeping the plant open and running. This is driving me batshit. All I have to do is survive until next Monday, when my medical insurance kicks in, and then find a good shrink to get back on the pills. If that doesn’t solve the problem, I’m f*cked.
(It was enough of a problem that I ended up finishing this on Wednesday afternoon/evening after I got home from yet another f*cked-up day. Oh, thank God tomorrow’s a holiday. And thank God I found a little time to pick up the 4-DVD set of The Two Towers and X2. And, oh, yeah, the Flair DVD.)
A lot of people have been asking me why I’m moving Wednesdays over to Black as of next week. It’s quite simple: Widro asked me if I wanted to, and he asked me nicely, so I said yes. I’ve always been a “whatever’s best for the site” guy, and I think that Black has the potential of being a good addition to the mix here, so I’m happy to contribute. No, this isn’t going to be the end of my writing for Fleabag’s site. I have a nice separation of church, state, and whorehouse going on: Tuesday with wrestling here, concentration of one topic at Fleabag’s, and whatever the hell I want on Wednesdays at Black. So it’s good for the site, good for me, and good for you, my ever-loyal audience. Remember, the venue may slightly change, but it’s still the same me.
Let’s head out to newsland to see what the hell’s going on…
JACK SHIT, AS USUAL
So therefore I’ll go and pimp Gamble in this space so it won’t be wasted.
ACTUALLY, THERE IS SOME NEWS, SO TO SPEAK
Instead of waiting until Wrestlemania to start having interbrand matches, WWE’s going to start having them at Royal Rumble, so sayeth the Observer. Da Meltz’s rumor mill is hearing things about Kane/UT being blown off here instead of at WM (which can only mean that UT’s decided he wants to stay around instead of retiring), as well as a collision between Happy Fun Brock and Goldie, presumably with neither title on the line. Sounds like Da Meltz is being fed a line of bullshit, since he’s also saying that there’s the probability of Happy Fun Brock facing Our Lord and Savior at the Rumble, with his time between being occupied by…oh, shit, Bob Holly.
Why do I bother wasting column space on Meltzer’s crap?
SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED
It’s Thanksgiving, so that means lots of turkey jokes. The biggest turkey joke is, of course, the main event, which Paul E. decides to turn into a 20-Man Battle Royal for a shot at Happy Fun Brock. No, sorry, the biggest turkey joke is the fact that Benoit has to qualify for the Battle Royal against Matt Morgan and Cena has to do the same with Albert.
I still can’t decide what’s worse, Shannon Moore having to face that stiff Nathan Jones or the continual abuse to his self-esteem that his old OMEGA and WCW partner takes on Raw every week.
Speaking of WCW flashbacks, how about this one? The Yung Dragons explode on Smackdown! Jamie Noble versus Jimmy Yang!
Eddy Guerrero behaves like an asshole, gets mammoth face pops for it, and WWE can’t figure out a way to take advantage of this. Hold it, didn’t they make two guys into the biggest things in wrestling via this method? So why not try it with Eddy? Are you afraid that you’re going to make me hate him just like you made me hate those other two guys? Don’t worry about it, “creative”, Eddy’s untouchable in my book right now.
Ernest Miller actually makes a successful (re)debut (as a wrestler, sort of), but it’s only due to Torrie Wilson’s breasts. You’ll understand when you see it.
Should I blow the ending to the Battle Royal? No, this is Smackdown Somewhat Spoiled. I will say, however, that it is reminiscent of another past legendary Battle Royal. That’ll make you think.
MAILBAG!
The last non-wrestling-related Mailbag in the Wrestling zone…what better way to start it off than with Big Daddy His Own Self:
OK, on this whole Patriot Act thingy…we’re now seeing the ramifications of that the pols assured us would never happen: government investigations under the auspices of the Patriot Act that have nothing to do with terrorism. Case in point: Newsweek had a tasty little story on how the Govt used the PA to investigate illegal funds paid from a Vegas strip-club owner to local Vegas politicos. Not for terrorism, but for things like their consideration on shooting down a bill that would have taken the “lap” out of lap dancing! That kinda stuff. Great little one page read. I remember getting e-mails from my ex-patriate buddy in Prague that had him worried about how the PA would affect us. It’s starting, people! That warm feeling around your balls is Big Brother’s hand getting ready to rip ’em right off.
Amen, brother, amen.
BFM and Regular Antwon Jackson, of course, have to be a part of this too. They both wonder what 411 Black is. I’ll let Widro handle that one, thank you.
Inter-Office Memo to Aussie Bureau Chief Brett Wortham: I think that TNA’s one-month offer is decent, but it’s still only $5 less than if you purchased them at normal price. I don’t think it’s enough of an enticement to blow off a WWE PPV in favor of TNA. TNA’s always been good value for money anyway, so there’s isn’t really any imperative there to go out and get it. Nice idea, though.
Memo to Regular Ian Wright (viz. my latest over at Fleabag’s): No, the events of Day of the Daleks cannot be used to explain the presence of Daleks in Area 52 in Looney Tunes: Back In Action. Only the events of Remembrance of the Daleks can be used to explain that, and I can’t imagine any self-respecting Dalek being imprisoned anywhere for forty years by a low-tech species like ours. And further Memo on that subject to Semi-Regular Heath Peek: hey, I still care about maintaining some semblance of Doctor Who continuity. It helps me maintain subjectively happier memories of younger days when I could devote the energy and brainpower to those types of things, instead of trying to find difficult-to-locate information on a do-it-or-the-plant-closes deadline like I did today, and will be doing Friday and Monday.
Jason Hart also goes over to Fleabag’s to ask me something:
In your latest piece on Flea’s site, you said “Take the Canadian Dollar, for instance. It’s monetary kayfabe.”
I was just after some clarification as to what the quote meant. Is it the whole “it’s not really that worthless, it only appears that way in comparison to the U.S. dollar” theory or something else? I’d appreciate any feedback, even a simple “yes that’s what I meant”.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Plus, I can’t resist tweaking the Canadian corpus once in a while. It happens every time I see a story about a Bret Hart potential comeback, for some reason.
Mark Rankin would like me to throw a pimp out to HatTrick an online soccer sim that’s got a lot of worldwide popularity but not too much in the US. Go ahead and try it. It can’t hurt. And just to reassure you, I don’t think I have one item of red clothing in my wardrobe. However, if I find one, I can always wear it as camo during football season in order not to be spotted here in town.
Just to show that there’s some wrestling going on here still, during-Raw contributor Joshua Crawley was otherwise occupied Monday night, but was able to shoot me a question:
i’d meant to email this queston last night during raw, so that maybe you could address it in the column… but i suck. oh well. anyways, here it is: has any contestant in a bra and panties match ever tried putting clothing back on? and not just covering themselves halfassed. i was wondering because at one point last night, it looked like if jackie had had half a brain, she’d’ve realized she had plenty of time at one point to put her shirt back on.
I would guess that it might be against the Unwritten Rules to do that. Although, let’s be honest, are you really complaining about the situation as it is now?
also, just because i’m a dork like that, any clue where i can find the nipple slip?
I had stills sent to me by a very devoted fan. As for where to get them, there’s enough deves on KaZaA who probably have that shared. Search for “Jackie Gayda nipple” or something like that. Someone has to have it.
And, finally, David Black (what a coincidence!) writes in:
Totaly agree with your comments on the Golf with regards to it “most exciting event of the weekend”. Great viewing.
Could you please tell everbody in England this as they would seem to think that there Rugby world cup win over the oz team might be more exciting.
Okay, everyone in England, you just watched thirty guys beat the shit out of each other over a piece of leather, with the biggest piece of excitement being the betting over whose shorts get pulled enough to reveal his bragging rights, and you thought it was exciting because your guys won. No, sorry, there’s nothing like what the President’s Cup featured over the weekend. That was edge-of-the-seat stuff. But, then again, I’m not a big rugby fan, so what do I know?
As for football comment I don’t get it. Americans would want non-stop free-flowing attacking football and this would help get the sport over? Yet us Brits try to watch the NFL with its stop start rules and 3 hours to play one game. Hardly a free flowing sport or was it not always like that when the sport was first invented? or just more of a american tradition?
Just seems your major sport is as slow as a week in the jail.
The major criticism in the US over soccer is lack of offense and apparent lack of action. I discussed this last year during the World Cup. To the trained eye, there’s a lot going on, but because of that big friggin’ field and those teeny twenty guys outside the goal, it seems like there’s nothing happening. The MLS Cup final had a LOT going on, there was a great deal of physical confrontation (well, for soccer), and it had a bunch of scoring, which is an American addiction (see Run, Home).
No, American football wasn’t like that at the beginning. It was TV that essentially dictated the three-hour run time (that’s how games are booked on Sundays). But the stop-start rules, as you put it, plays into strategy heavily, especially at ends of halves and games. The strategy is a lot more blatant than that of a soccer game, and it’s easier to comprehend why a quarterback chucks it away or tries to complete near the sidelines. Just like all sports, it’s appreciated more when it’s explained to you and you grow accustomed to it. And it’s only slow when it’s badly-played (see Bears, Chicago). A good game seems much shorter than it is, trust me.
And sometimes a good column is much shorter than it is too. This isn’t one of those, of course. However, I’ll have more coming down the pipeline very quickly, depending on whether or not I can pull myself away from the Flair DVD and another marathon session of Knights of the Old Republic. I’ll be back sometime soon, so stay tuned for the latest developments.
