Yeah, I skimped on the content last week. I usually work on the column throughout the week in short spurts in order to provide plenty of stuff for you to read and less hassle for me; after all, there’s a lot of times that I see something floating around and figure someone out there might enjoy it, but if I don’t go ahead and add it to the column, then I usually forget about it and it vanishes into the ether-net. Last week, however, was absolutely and positively crazy. Any readers of mine who have had or are in the midst of having military careers will know exactly what I’m talking about — a lot of standing around and waiting for something to do, but not actually GETTING something to do.
Speaking of the Army — bear with me while I put out some information here.
There’s a bunch of people who’ve been emailing me, asking about Iraq and questioning whether or not I actually served there. There’s even the usual gang of idiots in a forum that will not be named here that don’t believe I was ever actually there. I don’t think there’s anything I could say to any of THOSE guys that will make them believe anything I say, partly because of our past history and partly because, well, most of them are morons (Justin excluded). I really shouldn’t be doing this, because it’s going to send my bandwidth through the roof, but if you want to view the CBS Evening News interview with me from February, you can download the WM version here and the Real version here. There’s also the Guardian UK interview for your reading pleasures. I’m offering these up for those who didn’t follow my Letters From Iraq blog/photo album. Granted, the video clip available from the CBS website (the one you can download) is a scant few minutes long, but I’m in the process of digitizing the full segment from a DVD sent by CBS, so whenever I get that done I’ll have it uploaded. Astute readers will note that I have links to both 411mania.com and The-W, which was somehow changed in the editorial process to W Crave.
THE WEEKLY WRAP
New segment here in the Friday Update. Given the nature of this column and the fact that I write it throughout the week, it only makes sense that I go through and cover the news stories and TV shows while I’m doing it.
<> Raw pretty much ruled. The show was bookended by two outstanding wrestling matches, and even though some fans were ticked off about the finish to the main event, it was really the only logical one they could have done. Did Jericho give away the original finish? Perhaps, but we’ll never know the full story. Man, is Triple H good at working a crowd or what? It’s called TIMING, folks, and the man has it. You know who else has it? Chris Benoit. Oh, and Shawn Michaels, too.
<> Tommy Dreamer is done wrestling with the WWE. Tommy announced on Byte This that when his contract expires in July, he’ll be working in a managerial role and possibly do some announcing.
<> Friends was awesome. Ross and Rachel, together at last. Why didn’t they give Joey a storyline reason for moving to LA? He wasn’t packed or nothin’.
<> Mick Foley’s gone all crazy on us and will be headlining the Hustle III show this weekend in Japan. The Hustle events are promoted by Dream Stage Entertainment, the very same company that brings us the awesome Pride FC events. If you haven’t seen Pride yet, do yourself a favor and buy some DVD’s. They have the best production values of ANY sport, wrestling (and WWE) included. Every single event is presented like a WrestleMania XX, except with FAR better production. Anyway, Foley is taking the place of an injured Bill Goldberg, who legitimately hurt his hand and had to withdraw. Foley will be facing Toshiaki Kawada in the main event, which could either be REALLY good or really bad. The Outsiders will also be reuniting on the Hustle show, and I’m not really sure what to think about that. On the one hand, yes, Nash and Hall are over in Japan and it will do well there; on the other, they really suck in the ring. Hustle seems more oriented towards sports entertaintment, though, so I guess it’s par for the course. You can see press photographs of Foley, Hall and Nash right here if you want.
<> Ring of Honor DVD’s are on sale until Sunday at midnight. Most of them are retailing for $16.95, so you can finally pick up some ROH if you’ve never done so before. Just think — you’ll get some good wrestling action, and in turn you’ll be helping finance Rob Feinstein’s thirst for young men. Oh, I know that he’s supposed to be out of the company, but when you’ve got a “secret owner” that isn’t revealed on any paper or official documents, then my guess is that he’s still running things and getting our money. Well, he’s not getting MY money, at least.
SMACKDOWN
Ugh.
I was wondering when Scott would finally get around to issuing The Thunder Ultimatum. When your show becomes so bad that recappers decide they don’t feel like sitting through it anymore, you’ve got some serious issues. <> Booker T got help from Miss Cleo, who told him that a dead man was looking for him. Booker ended up going out to a remote graveyard, where a hand came from the ground. Is this Taker and Kane’s long lost brother? Do they even HAVE a long lost brother? The idiocy of the entire angle makes my brain hurt, and that doesn’t make good television.
I thought it would be fun to sit down and come up with a plan for WWE to turn Smackdown around, but I’m not going to do it. It should be completely obvious to everyone that they don’t give a crap about Smackdown, even though they’ve got some great workers and a few real chances to make new stars. When you’re out there putting a 40 YEAR OLD WOMAN over your cruiserweight champion instead of letting someone like Paul London have a shot at getting good television and ring time, you’re beyond any help that ANYONE could give you. Actually, you could turn things around by giving Paul Heyman the book and giving him whatever he wants, but for some reason, they just won’t do it.
Maybe they’re intentionally writing Smackdown to be awful so that Raw looks that much stronger? Stranger things have happened and you’d be a complete fool to do something like that, but I wouldn’t put ANYTHING past Vince at this point. EXCESS PLUGGAGE
Curses be on Hyatte’s home for the link he posted yesterday.
The Movies crew has a list of the films opening this weekend. Van Helsing? Nope, I’ll be seeing New York Minute.
Go and check out the first song (that I’m aware of) ever written by Don Becker.
SO LONG
That’s it for me. Stay tuned to 411 on Saturday for Rachel’s news update and stick around for the rest of the weekend crew.
