Okay, Hyatte lost it. He succumbed to the whole Wrestlemania “back to the womb” reversion thing and did a Mop-Up. What is it about Wrestlemania that causes all wrestling fans to decide, as a community, to give up on their maturity, intelligence, skepticism, and taste (assuming that each individual involved had any of the above in the first place)? Just because it’s the f*cking High Holy Days on our calendar doesn’t mean that we have to become a bunch of gibbering marks…except when Benoit wins a world title.
There’s hope in that fact. There’s hope that Big Daddy’s New Arrival, Little Daddy, will grow up in a better world than what we have today, all because Chris Benoit is the Heavyweight Champion Of The World. Maybe that’s why the entire IWC had to clean the screens of their TVs on Sunday night. For the first time in a long time, there’s optimism in the community. “Creative” did something Right for once, something we can’t argue with. But, Goddamnit, I’m still going to try to criticize, and I’ll even leave my Bracketology comments for tomorrow in Black to do so…
BUT FIRST, LET’S GET THE PIMPS OUT OF THE WAY
Nute had this one ready to go just for this moment. Good for him.
It’s Widro‘s site, therefore he gets to put up anything he wants, including WM reflections.
Da Coogz rates Law and Order‘s incredible number of mutations. It’s handy if you need a guide to figure out which show is which, which, for the life of me, I can’t.
Melchor has no views he needs to disclaim. Unless you think that Anal-Ass Moron-Shit is, like, a good singer or something. In which case, I pity you.
Hayhurst doesn’t like me, but you still should read him anyway. Besides, he did good summaries of three of the four guys I In Memoria-ed last week.
Whosoever knows fear will burn at Sebert‘s touch.
And, as if it needs to be said, Bill Simmons of espn.com is the biggest f*cking retard in the history of sports journalism, and not only because he calls “America the Beautiful” our “National Anthem” in his ESPN column on WM. Doesn’t he know that Michael Cole criticisms are soooo 2002? He’s near the top of my list for the Edward II Treatment. My only fear is that we’ll run out of pokers trying to fill up that big Boston asshole of his.
AND SINCE IT’S THE ONLY STORY ON OUR PLATTER RIGHT NOW…
I haven’t watched WM yet. You may have wondered why Fleabag called Hyatte to kibitz during WM. Well, that’s because he called me first and found out I wasn’t going to buy the damn thing, so he begged off on me and decided that Hyatte was more of a sucker to part with his money to the cable company. Glad it paid off for both of them, Flea to have someone to trade off bon mots with and Hyatte to get some material for his column.
Instead, I did the smart thing and waited for someone to throw up a torrent of the f*cker, which someone did late Monday morning (Usenet is not an option, since I have Time-Warner, and if you have any familiarity with what their binary newsgroups are like, you know it’s not an option). Someone did, however, create a separate torrent for the first quarter of the show, which I’m watching as I type this. I’m typing this in while the Harlem Boys’ Choir is demonstrating the advantages of castration among the African-American population and vomiting as the pass-over of Noo Yawk, The Cesspit Of The Known Universe, was presented.
By the way, everyone knows that I have no sympathy toward children, but seeing Shane’s newborn with Dad and Granddad, I do feel sorry for the kid and siblings. When the time comes to take an on-camera role in the company as the Fifth Generation, they’re going to have to deal with their cousins. And considering who the parents of those cousins will be, I’d seriously recommend that Shane and Marissa start making plans to get them out of the family business. It’s going to be the ultimate in Glass Ceilings.
I will reflect on the results, though, since I won’t finish the download until after Raw finishes and I get this puppy inserted into the queue…
The tag matches first, I guess. Since I predicted Booker/Van Dam and gave good rationales as to why they were going to keep them. Yeah, there’s no booking there for them at this time, and no realistic challengers for their titles. Most of my fellow pundits who decided not to see the obvious declared themselves for Jindrak and Cade…people, were you serious? What purpose would throwing the titles on Jindrak and Cade have? The only advantage they have is that they’re malleable enough in the ethos category to make feuds with a heel La Res or a face Dudleys possibilities without stretching too much. Besides, they’ve already had a pair of non-entities holding tag title belts recently, and look at how far Benjamin and Haas have descended.
Speaking of Benjamin and Haas, I refuse to call them by their common collective cognomen because I think it’s asinine to do so. Not because I disagree with the statement’s fact (although I do), but because it’s…well, it’s a stupid f*cking name. I wish that people would stop using it, but there are some times that I just can’t fight the sheep-like mentality of wrestling fans (in fact, I regard anyone who uses the term to be the equivalent of a computer user who, despite having seen Bagle-A through M show up in their in-box, decides to click on the attachment that allows Bagle-N to propagate). That didn’t stop me from taking them in the SD portion of Tag Team Follies on Sunday for one reason: for the first time, in the APA sketch, they showed actual personalities and mic skills. It sure as hell has taken WWE long enough to give them the mic and see what happens. They have this tendency not to learn from history. They prevented Edge and Christian from doing promos for a long time, long enough that a lot of people discounted them and started to ignore them. When E&C finally did get a chance to hit the mic, though, they were pretty bad, Christian especially. It still amazes me to this day that Christian’s grown into such an accomplished promo guy considering his first efforts. However, they learned. If they would have been given the mic sooner, their title runs would have increased in importance. Instead of learning from this lesson, though, they repeated the same process with Benjamin and Haas. Then the problem was compounded by giving them an intense initial push, leeching heat off of Angle. That caused a severe credibility gap with the audience after Angle turned face and the boys were given nothing to fall back on. So, now, like Edge and Christian had to do, they’re forced to play catch-up.
Of course, it would have been better for them had they been allowed to take the belts. As I stated in the Round Table, the insta-feud with APA, who still have some heat to pass on to them, was available. Instead, “creative” left the belts around the waists of Too Much (Weight), a pair that no one can f*cking stand. And how creative was the booking here collectively? Two sets of four-way tag matches for the two tag titles, and the champions retain in both? That’s another good reason why I went with Benjamin and Haas, the fact that I thought they’d at least have one of the sets of titles change hands. Instead, they decided to achieve balance by looking at the overall picture in the two “brands” and switching one title from each, and doing it in the first and last matches on the card to boot. And people keep writing into me defending these people. Don’t bother, folks; there’s not a convincing argument in the world that you can make.
As for that first match, it was obvious Cena was going to get the strap. But is there criticism to be found in how they did the switch? No, not at all. They were trying to preserve a very tricky balance. They had to get the belt off of TBS without discrediting him. By providing TBS with most of the offense during the match, and by forcing Cena to hit his finisher twice and use an international object, TBS gets to keep all of his bruiser credibility. Meanwhile, the brass knucks helps Cena to retain something that’s being taken away from him: his edge. It’s straight out of the Guerrero Cheat-To-Win School, but it works for Cena just as well. This is an example of Haley’s Little Things in action; it’s the way things are done that matters moreso than the results.
I will foreswear comments on Evil Trish until more evidence comes in. Say, during the Short Form. I will not, however, make remarks about her alleged sexiness or her ability to produce steel-hard erections and excessive ejaculations from Hyatte, because 1) we all know that Trish is Missus Hyatte to begin with, so this is to be expected, and 2) I have pledged my troth to another of Raw’s beautiful women, who can turn evil on me any time she wishes. That being said, this whole “twist” is so cliched and asinine that I never thought that Jericho and Stratus, if they really are writing this, would resort to it. I was hoping that an angle that the performers have a large level of control over might turn out to have some more interesting divergences in the plotline than the standard “Good Girl turns on Good Boy to join Bad Boy” bullshit. I still believe my idea that Trish giving an okay to a menage-a-trois with Jericho and Christian would have been the way to go. At the very least, it would have proved to have an interesting dynamic, unlike Christian getting stuck with the big-titted blonde millstone that he now has to drag around. Come on, Trish, it would have been so easy to get in touch with me for ideas like this. Just ask your hubby to act as a go-between. Unless he thinks that I’d lure you away from him…no, no, that wouldn’t be the case. Everyone knows that I’m committed to My Beautiful and Beloved. It would have been perfectly safe, really.
As for the other interesting female in the bunch on Sunday, bravo to Molly for taking one for the team and getting her head shaved. Pat Benatar to Sinead O’Connor in one shot, bang. I was just unhappy that my Regal scenario didn’t play out. But it does firm up Victoria’s face credentials, enough so that turning Trish heel becomes less of a risk. Now Victoria and Lita have to be able to carry out the face side of the women’s roster, and I’m not truly confident in their ability to do it, especially in regard to Lita. But if the focus stays on Victoria and Molly, all’s cool.
Nothing to say about the Cruiserweight Open. A lot of people, though, seemed to be pegging their anticipation of the match on some surprise entrant or two, hopes that wouldn’t have applied if not for the way this match was being shoved down our throats. The fact that there were no surprise entrants may have been a cause of some of the disappointment you’re reading about.
Brock/Goldie? I’m going to reserve my comments until I watch it. However, I think my reaction is going to be simple: laughing my ass off over the biggest non-ECW crowd turning since Great American Bash ’91. Exactly how much does Vince hate the IWC right now for breaking this open? Without the news getting out, he could have done an injury angle to Brock or something to get him out long-term or permanently from a kayfabe standpoint. Of course, we knew that Goldie was leaving, so that would have REALLY confused all of us and got us speculating about The Wandering Jew coming to a deal with WWE or something like that. But there were ways other than having Goldie go over to deal with this (and make Vince look a lot less petulant in the process). We expressed some of them during the Round Table. A lot of people wanted the match to be resolved in the same way as the apres-match. I didn’t want that, because giving any attention to Wife-Beater is evil.
Of course, evil was already on display courtesy of Fuck & Suck. What I said in the Round Table was the absolute truth about Flex having to need plastic surgery and Foley pissing blood and all that. I wanted a beatdown of cosmic proportions. I didn’t get it, and I’m upset. However, unlike most of the addled idiots in the Round Table, I picked the winners of the match. Yes, I did it because I can’t stand their opponents, but I still picked them. So yah, boo, sucks to you.
The fact that more speculation was wasted on how UT would make his entrance than over the results of his match makes any comment about it irrelevant.
I’ll also wait on Angle/Eddy, because I want to make sure my superlatives are backed up by facts rather than by going off someone’s recap, which I don’t trust in the least (even Pank’s).
Memo To Scooter: I’ll find something flawed in the Triple Threat. Trust me.
That’s all I have to say for now. And since there’s no other wrestling news in the pipeline, I’ll go straight to how they followed it up…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Victoria and Lita over Jazz and Baldy Holly (Pinfall, Lita pins Jazz, DDT): So Hyatte’s crowing about his prediction regarding Trish turning. Well, I predicted that Molly would get shaved, start wearing a wig to the ring, and have the wig being removed used for humiliation. In other words, big f*cking deal to both.
Matt Hardy over Chris Jericho (DQ, Fun With Cable): Other than the obvious “snap” routine, there’s no real observation to make about this match except one: can we now consider it official that Matt Hardy is the roster’s official bitch? Every time someone needs to take it out on someone else or they need the moral equivalent to a squash, the “extremely underrated” Matt Hardy is the target. Who didn’t he f*ck to get into that position? Why not someone else? Steve Lombardi looked pretty good backstage at WM. Can’t we just put him back in the Brawler outfit and have him do stuff like this?
Kane over Val Venis (Pinfall, chokeslam): Okay, I was wrong. Sean Morley is the roster’s official bitch. Not only does he have to get squashed, he also has to wrestle on Heat regularly. And considering when Kane interrupted the festivities, I’m now certain that he works for Clear Channel. Fuck those motherf*ckers for f*cking with the extended family.
My Beautiful and Beloved versus Jackie Gayda (ND, Vinceus Interruptus): Well, despite the fact that it was short and not finished, you can still mark this one down on your calendar as the first and probably only time that Jackie Gayda was the best wrestler in the ring in a match…oops, sorry, forgot about Wrestlemania. Of course, that wasn’t a wrestling match. If Gayda has to wrestle in anything other than a mixed tag, she should be in the ring either with My Beautiful and Beloved or Fifi. That’d be her level of competition.
Booker T and Rob Van Dam over D-Von Dudley and Buh Buh Ray’s Goddamn Shorts, Tag Title Match (Pinfall, Booker pins Buh Buh Ray, scissors kick/Five-Star Frog Splash combo): Okay, I have to admit it. This is the best match the Dudleys have had in a long, long time. I don’t know why that’s so. No tables or threat of tables, maybe? Perhaps they were told backstage, “Look, guys, do it like it was ECW. Rob knows how to do that, and Booker can keep up.” Maybe it was because Van Dam stayed away from his usual spot-fest bullshit. All I know is that it was a much better match than I expected, and credit goes to everyone involved. Except for Buh Buh Ray’s goddamn shorts, of course. I think they’re viral in nature, and Van Dam’s singlet got infected by them. Sartorially ugly, but wrestling-wise of good quality.
Our Lord and Savior and Shawn Michaels over Ric Flair, Dave Batista, and Randy Orton, sort of, Handicap Main Event (Submission, Batista submits to Benoit, Sharpshooter): Yeah, the match was formulaic. Even Foley’s run-in was formulaic. However, if its purpose was to give Benoit a little more mark cred, it worked. The triple Germans and the Sharpshooter on Batista did that very well, thank you. Of course, they really didn’t need the last part, as The Joe In Me recalls something that most of the audience probably doesn’t:
I figure someone should comment on the fact that Chris Benoit has forced Dave Batista to tap out twice now, and those are the only two times that Batista has ever submitted in a WWE match.
Ah, yes, even I forgot about that. Of course, with the way Benoit was booked after the whole Michaels thing started, a lot of things slipped. And I just download a copy of Passion. I’ll probably watch it this week.
Angle Developments:
Your New World Heavyweight Champion, Savion Glover: Oh, hearing the crowd pop for Benoit’s music, watching him get to interrupt an interminable Trip promo, having him beat the crap out of Trip before the save was made…life is, on rare occasions, good.
A French Poodle Named Fifi…How Creative: Okay, the poodle I can stand. After all, didn’t Dynamite and Davey Boy have a bulldog? But what I do want to know is this: does the dog have more in-ring talent than Grenier? Odds are pretty good that she does. Of course, she’d have to wrestle in the women’s division, but I’m sure she can score a pin off Lita any time.
The Joe In Me agrees:
Oh man, La Res’ dog is f*cking hilarious. Though, with Sylvain back, they don’t need the dog, as he fits that role quite nicely. He better have improved since September.
That’s One Mystery Solved. Now Let The Speculation Begin: Speaking of The Joe In Me, he comments thusly regarding the whole Vince issue:
This is weird. I think I see “I read Eric S.” tattooed on Vince’s forehead. What do you think this decision of a new draft means?
Well, let me tell you…we were all wondering how Vince would overreact to losing Goldberg and Brock. Well, our answer was given to us: another draft lottery. The first time it happened, I remember that we were all excited about the prospect, what with the Brand Split being something new and interesting. Now, it’s going to be nothing. We’ll all wait and see where the upper card goes and try to speculate what they’re going to do about the booking. Too late for something like this, Vince; no one’s going to be convinced that this’ll help the root cause of the audience’s boredom, namely the shitty writing and booking. Playing to the audience about “creating new stars” (in other words, parroting the IWC’s line of thought for the past few years) isn’t convincing anyone. The proof will be in the pudding. Of course, that line about “family members” scares the crap out of me. There’s the window for the Bitch of the Baskervilles to come back. But as what? Please, please, not GM of Raw. My stomach can’t take that.
There’s Another Mystery Solved: Okay, Evil Trish is pretty hot. Of course, the studded tank top didn’t hurt matters any. However, her payoff line would have been a lot better had Lawler not stepped on it during the Jericho/Hardy match. That’s the sign of a low-class performer, and I’m not sure who to blame, Lawler or the director for feeding it to him. Of course, their promo could have been written after Lawler said it, in which case I blame whoever wrote the promo (probably Trish, since she’s been co-writing this with Jericho). Oh, hell, just blame somebody for that bullshit.
The Repulsive American: So Wife-Beater calls a man a French bitch, then beats him up in the middle of the ring without allowing the guy any offense when he takes umbrage. You know, when I lived overseas, a lot of people didn’t have a good image of Americans. I tried my best to counter that, making sure that I put on my best face so that people could see America and Americans through me as being something other than caricatures. You can imagine how these jingoistic little sketches piss me off. It feels like a direct assault against me, my views, and my efforts, and using Wife-Beater to perform that assault just infuriates me more.
That’s it for this one. Tomorrow, Haley will be in for his views on WM, maybe even a WM edition of The Little Things. I’ll be over in Black talking about whatever the hell tickles my fancy. And I’m sure Hyatte will still be masturbating to thoughts of Trish. Some things never change.
About Eric Szulczewski
