Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc. 05.11.04

Archive

In Memoriam:  Alan King, one of the true great ones.

Joey Sindelar won a tourament?  What’s wrong with this picture?  The guy hadn’t won since Bush was president…the first one.  Yet he pulled it out at the Wachovia in what I have to say was a terrific tournament in general.  It should have been over after Friday.  Tigger hadn’t lost the last eighteen times he had a 36-hole lead, but he did his now-usual Saturday whoops, but then pulled out a Sunday charge like the Tigger of old, and if that chip had sunk on 18, he’d have been in the playoff.  Lefty got another Top 5.  Veej was in it until he barfed on his last two holes.  Arron Oberholser proved that he’s now someone to watch out for (forget about the wilt on Sunday, his Saturday round was a thing of steady beauty).  This tournament’s only a couple of years old, yet it’s starting to get some cachet.  If they keep getting fields like this and play like this, in a decade, it’ll be regarded up there with the Players’ and the Western.  It’s now on my Must List for watching every year.

It’s better to think about golf than tennis.  The Frogs are getting knifed already for their annual soiree at Roland Garros.  Kimmy’s out, and now Venus might be out as well.  Justine’s sick, Serena’s going to have court rust big-time, Jen-Jen’s back is hurting, ditto Mauresmo…will there even BE a women’s field there?  And no one gives a shit about the men; they’re going to have to give Smarty Jones a seed to get any attention, and we’re not sure about his backhand.

Ah, but let us stop speculating and move to the world of wrestling, shall we?

THE PIMP SECTION

Nute goes for the Texas Cloverleaf, one of the few finishers in wrestling that can be legitimately included in the Kama Sutra.  Although I’m sure that’s not what Matt had in mind the night he put it on the Clown.

Memo to Urciuolo:  there’s nothing wrong with Athens that depopulation and a 50-year ban on leaded gasoline can’t cure.  But there’s one thing that’ll remain.  I mean, I smoke, and I smoke a lot, but the Greeks are f*cking ridiculous.  Cigarette butts:Athens::dog shit:Paris.

Yes, I will be appearing as a guest in Gagnon‘s column in July.  I wanted to wait until after the move/get used to the new job until I tackled that.  And I’ll be doing a shot in Fernandez’s Jukebox in August.  Just wanted you to be able to look forward to something.  And if you were wondering, Gagnon is on my Good Guys list despite certain things he said during one of his numerous hiati (which have already surpassed Statute of Limitations anyway) because he and I said the same thing about the Trip/Benjamin match during the Special Round Table.

Foist gets some corporate slurp to cover for him.

Campbell, David Variant proves that knowledge is experiential.

Obal enjoys his B show.  Well, it at least gets a glow from the unexpected and shocking improvement in Raw lately.

On the other hand, Fried‘s B show is so taken down by its A show that he can’t even think of a good teaser.

Laflin is my droogie.  And I still think that Wids and Pank should have done something to pack him and me in Pank’s baggage so that we could all get out of the oppressive hellhole and head for E3.

Melchor mentions Ministry and Rammstein.  This is the first time in a long while that I’ve actually heard of any artist in a 411 Music news column.

Read Erhardt.  Or don’t.  He doesn’t care.

At least Fernandez hit an oasis where there’s some actual food available, unlike every other one on 294 (damn renovations).  Wendy’s, if memory serves.

Presiloski echoes my thoughts concerning POW camps and anal insertion of chemical light sticks.

Hayhurst admitted to something wrong when he wasn’t wrong.  At the time of Natalie Wood’s death, there were rumors floating around about RJ and both Jill St. John and Stefanie Powers.  The Powers rumors were discounted because of the fact that rumors always float around about two co-stars on any long-lasting series.  And I would take out Platoon and put in The Deer Hunter or Coming Home.  Of course, the assignment did read “in the person’s lifetime”, and undergrads in college today weren’t born in 1978.

Due to timing, I never get to pimp any of Cameron‘s work.  Let me try to make that up.  BTW, KFC is now the official corporate name and franchise name.  And you don’t want to know what they do with the grease…all right, you do.  They filter it and reuse it, then once a week they drain the machines and clean them.

Morrison has a terrific review of City of Heroes on tap.

Batesman does fumetti with Fantastic Four dolls.  Definitely worth a look.

JUST A WARNING…

Depending on whether or not you’ve listened to me about how to batten down the hatches browser-wise, you may be seeing an ad on one of our pages about your machine having spyware (Regular Derrill Guilbert pegged me to this one, since I’m surfing with Shields Up and Hull Plating Polarized).  Some crapware vendor called Enigma Software bought some ad time through the guys who sell ads for us, advertising a product called SpyHunter using scare tactics like this.  Advertising a product with that particular name on a wrestling website is actually a pretty slick move considering Flex’s movie career.  Apparently someone thinks that wrestling fans are complete morons who will download something called SpyHunter because Flex is starring in a movie of the same name and there’s OBVIOUSLY a connection…oh, bullshit.

Anyway, let me tell you this:  do NOT, repeat, do NOT download any spyware removal tool that advertises.  Most of them (hell, let’s just say it, all of them) are actually spyware in disguise.  They’ll remove competitors’ spyware and install spyware of their own, thinking correctly that consumers will be confident that there’s no crap on their systems and get confused when pop-up ads still appear out of nowhere.  The only spyware removal tools you should trust are Ad-Aware and Spybot.  Also grab SpywareBlaster and IE-SpyAd while you’re at it.  Those four and a good pop-up blocker will maintain your sanity and improve your browsing experience as long as you keep them updated (be sure to benchmark the link to IE-SpyAd, because there’s no internal update function in it).

(No, FOSS retards, I am not going to pimp Mozilla or Firefox.  It’s hard enough getting people to understand that there are alternative browsers let alone pimp them.  Until you change your shit-don’t-stink attitude, I won’t alter this policy.  And screw RMS and the GPL while you’re at it.)

And if someone from Enigma Software is reading this, seeing where their ads are put up, I have a message for you:  f*ck you, your scare tactics advertising, and your piece of shit spyware in disguise.  Pull your ads from our broker, because I’ll keep on your asses until you do.

SOMETHING PERSONAL

All right, which one of you little cocksuckers signed me up for Maven’s fan spams?  If I find out who it is, I’ll rip your nuts off and stuff them down your throat.  Either that, or I’ll call up an MP or two and have them play Iraqi POW Camp with you.

HUH?

From the dead-tree Torch:

WWE is already souring on Kenzu Suzuki due to his poor in-ring work.

The guy was supposed to make his debut on Raw last night, and didn’t.  Here’s the official excuse.  Couldn’t they have figured this out before starting to promo him and saddle him with a stupid-ass gimmick?

The feeling is that he is not “mechanically fit” for wrestling.

This coming from the company who felt that Nathan Jones was “mechanically fit” for wrestling.  This guy must be f*cking atrocious.  That should blow apart the old DVDR theory that “Jap=good”, shouldn’t it?

WWE actually considered pushing Kenzu’s Hirohito gimmick all the way to the main event in a program with Chris Benoit right upon his debut, but eventually decided against it.

Well, thank God for small favors.  Although, really, it would have lasted for a week or two, it would have been a nice distraction until the PPV push began, and it would have thrown all of the frothing fanboy mark-wannabe bitches in the IWC into a paroxsym of keyboard bile-venting that would have been fun to read.

Actually, this sounds like someone at WWE is spinning Keller, providing yet another bullshit explanation that no one’s going to buy for problems that WWE themselves caused.  They’re the ones who insisted on the “Hirohito” gimmick because they don’t understand how to push Japanese wrestlers, and they already figured out from the backlash from fans that it’s not only not going to work, it’s also mildly offensive.  You want proof that they don’t know what they’re doing?  Tajiri has made it despite anything WWE’s done, not because of it, and his pushes have always been half-hearted (I do hold out hope for this one, though; it does look like they’re serious about it).  Akio and Sakoda, two vets, are stuck on Epilepsy because of lack of anything for them to do on Smackdown, like, oh, try to revitalize the tag team situation there.  Come on, you’ve got Paul Heyman hanging around.  He got Masado Tanaka over, which was a more difficult job than any of these guys.  And don’t tell me that not debuting him in San Jose, in a geographical area that has a large Oriental population, has anything to do with the implicit racial insensitivity of the gimmick.

Combine this little blurb with Ross opening his fat yap about the Jap promotions, and you know how much of a lie it is.

THE WORMS CRAWL IN, THE WORMS CRAWL OUT…

From 1bullshit Junior:

USA Network’s Jeff Wachtel recently confirmed to Television Week that a movie on the death of Owen Hart and the subsequent lawsuit filed by his widow Martha Hart is being produced and will be titled Ring of Lies.

Wachtel says the movie will focus on how a “5-foot-2, 110-pound woman who basically brought the WWF to its knees.”


Thus proving that revenge is truly a dish best served cold.  Martha’s still incredibly upset despite the de facto win in court.  USA’s still pissed at Vince because they thought he was dealing in bad faith.  Anyone surprised that they’d hook up for a project like this?

Of course, this is in the prelim stage, so it may never reach our screens (like FX’s efforts to put an Owen flick on TV for the past year and a half).  I’d love to see the casting, however.  If it’s half as good as some other “in our time” movies (viz. Pirates of Silicon Valley), it should be very, very interesting to watch.

NOW WE KNOW WHOSE HAND WAS COMING OUT OF THE GRAVE ON SMACKDOWN

Back to the dead-tree Torch:

WWE will likely bring back Bobby Heenan to provide voiceover work for the upcoming WWE 24/7 video on-demand service that will feature a lot of matches from Heenan’s days as WWE’s color man. He will also probably provide commentaries on the matches and shows.

Okay, first of all, any Brain sighting on TV is a good thing.  Let’s get that out of the way first before I say anything negative and have hundreds of people writing in saying “How dare you dis Bobby the Brain?!”  I’m a fan of his, always have been, think he’s wonderful, and even liked him during his darkest, drunkest days in WCW.

But…

I caught him on Cold Pizza during the pimps they were doing for Wrestlemania.  I was shocked at his appearance and the way he was tripping over his tongue constantly.  He looked bad.  Really bad.  He looked so bad that I went to our super-secret writers’ forum and commented about it.  I was worried that we’d be losing him soon and said so.  He looked…well, terminal.  Remember how Gorilla looked a few months before he died, and how Blassie looked in that wheelchair?  Same look on Heenan.  And that came across during the WM skit with Gene Mean and the two harpies, no matter how much makeup he was wearing and how limited his lines.

Now, they’re saying that he’s recovered a little more from his medical ordeals and blew the house away at the Cauliflower Alley Club dinner, where he was honored with the organization’s equivalent of the Lifetime Achievement Award (“surprised” would be more accurate; he didn’t know he was the honoree).  But I wasn’t there and I haven’t seen him since the WM skit.  Is his voice up to this?  The way he was on Cold Pizza, it’s going to require a lot of takes to get a coherent voiceover from him.  I know it’s not as difficult as going on TV every week and doing color, but it’s still a strain.

It’s still in the talking stages and everything, but I hope that they’re not doing this as a make-up for past mistreatments or something like that.  And I hope that he has the capability to do the job well and wants to do it (not has to do it, if you know what I mean).  I don’t want to see Heenan exploited by them.  He deserves a lot better than that.

ADVICE FROM THE ONE WITH THE CLUE

From the dead-tree Torch yet again:

Jim Ross has had talks with Jeff Hardy about bringing him back in. Right now, the main issue continues to be that WWE wants Hardy to go into rehab for his drug problems while he doesn’t feel he needs to go.

Advice to Jim Ross:  if you’re at an impasse in which you believe that you need to exert some influence on someone in order for them to comply with cetain conditions, don’t do shit like go on f*cking Byte This and say that you want Jeff Hardy back.  You lose all of your leverage that way, you stupid Okie f*ck.

Advice to Tutti Fruitti:  Go to f*cking rehab, will you?  Everybody who watched any of your matches in the last six months of your WWE tenure had only one question:  “What exactly the f*ck is he on?”  It got to the point where we wanted a whole series between you and Van Dam because one or both of you were going to be so stoned in the ring that we might have seen a fatality, and if not a fatality, a match so filled with blown spots that Sabu would have watched it and been envious.  Are you worried about a post-rehab push?  Two words, Jeffie:  Eddy Fuckin’ Guerrero.  You’ll get a push.  Look, if not for you, do it for your family.  Your brother and his regular partner are so damn lost they’re in a program with Kane.  If not for them, do it for the sake of the tag ranks on Raw, which needs an actual honest-to-God tag team.  If not for them, do it for me.  You know I’ll be here for you, gay jokes in tow.

Oh, Jesus, I can’t believe I did a whole graph on advice to Jeff Hardy.  What a waste.

And speaking of waste, let’s head over to Raw…actually, that wouldn’t be fair.  We had a good slate of matches announced for this week in advance, enough so that we did a Round Table on it.  This should be a good one…

THE SHORT FORM

Match Results:

Trip versus Shelton Benjamin (ND, Michaels-ference):  Well, for once I agree with Lawler.  Michaels did ruin a perfectly good match, or one that would have been given the evidence of the last two.  And Trip STILL doesn’t have a win over Shelton.  I’d say that they were trying to protect Benjamin, except for the fact that they have to start setting up this little HitC thing between Trip and Michaels.  A suspension, by the way, is a good way to do that.  Keeps Michaels fresh (or rather reverses the overexposure we’ve been getting of him) and builds anticipation, not to mention the fact that it keeps Michaels’ string of match only against A-List players going.

And in the words of the Ravin’ Cajun:

Trips actually has an opponent that has NEVER LOST TO HIM. That says enough for me. I’m convinced- either Trips got replaced by a Pod Person, or marrying into the family is what finally dulled the edges of the knife in the back that was “Triple H’s position hold.” Hell, he even got the SMARKS off his back and ready to proclaim him the greatest thing since sliced bread- that says it all to me.

Kyle McCowin makes this point about Shelton:

I’ve heard J.R. mention J. Robinson several times over the past weeks while talking about Shelton. Most anybody with an amateur background knows this name from the J. Robinson Intensive Training Camps. Coming back from Robinson mobile is a badge of honor and earning enough points to come home with the black shirt is awe inspiring. Any connection to the name J. Robinson is impressive for a wrestler but I think it’s way too obscure to really get Shelton over.

It is very obscure.  I don’t have an amateur background, and I had no clue what Ross was talking about.  Their problem is that they’re kinda lost when it comes to getting a well-respected amateur over.  Kurt Angle was able to do it by himself with his mic skills.  They were able to use Lesnar’s size and look as the fulcrum.  But Benjamin doesn’t have any of those.  He needs another template, and for his sake, I don’t want it to be Chris Benoit’s.  There are very few guys in wrestling who can withstand that level of abuse from bookers and still come out on top.

And The Joe In Me has this to say:

For once, Lawler was right, when he said that Shawn Michaels ruined a perfectly good match.

I already said that, Joe, but go on…

Also, and I don’t know if anyone else picked up on this, the referee (Chioda) never rang the bell or disqualified Shelton Benjamin, so that match is technically still be going on.

Yes, I did, which is why I labeled it as an ND rather than as a Trip win due to Michaels interference.  Yet again Chioda screws the pooch.

Dave Batista over Yoshihiro Tajiri (Pinfall, spinebuster slam):  Psychology in a Batista match?  What has the world come to?  Regardless of who I said would win, I am pleased with the image that they’re giving Tajiri.  Small but can take a beating from a bruiser and still have a chance.  And like the Trip match, they gave him enough offense in this one to show his prowess.  The beatdown afterward, though, did not help Batista as much as people might think because Tajiri’s image hasn’t been fixed enough to give a good “Holy Shit” factor to the situation.  Not bad all around, though.

Randy Orton over Edge, Intercontinental Title Match (Pinfall, rollup):  “Hi, you must be Randy.  I’m Adam, and I’ll be carrying you tonight.”  It’s amazing what Dorkboy (tm Randle) can do when he stays out of the way and reacts more than acts.  I was skeptical about Edge’s ability to make a match between him and Orton look good, but all of the ring rust must be off now.  Nice match, ruined by another f*cking hinky ending.  Edge is one of the few guys on the roster who don’t need to be protected, so why bother with something like this?  Even if it’s Flair involved.

Jazz, Baldy Holly, and The Walking Disaster Gail Kim over My Beautiful and Beloved, Victoria, and Nidia, Pimp the DVD Match (Submission, Victoria submits to Kim, hammerlock/Vaginal Ecstacy* combination):  Look, screw the DVD.  Just go all the way and get some good hardcore.  Hyatte can give you tips on what to get.

* – Well, you can’t call it Testicle Ecstacy considering the participants, can you?  And the name stays as the standard for any half-crab in tribute to the career of Lance Storm.

Nick Dinsmore over Rob Conway (Pinfall, rollup with bridge):  As I said in the Round Table, the more the match stuck to wrestling, the better it would be.  Dinsmore didn’t stick to wrestling and the match sucked.  Point proven.

Yet quoth the Ravin’ Cajun:

And now, Vince McMahon has one Steven Regal and one Nick Dinsmore to thank for the unbelievable success of the “Eugene” character. You listen to the crowd go nuts for Eugene in the match against Rob Conway, and it can be directly attributed to Nick being a respectable wrestler in the ring and Regal selling the entire angle like nobody’s business. This is gonna succeed in spite of itself, and I’d have to commend all involved for how they managed to pull it off.

Of course, in two weeks they’ll manage to screw it up by turning Eugene into an evil genius who was faking out his Uncle Bisch to get a spot in the roster, leading to the inevitable Regal-Eugene “Chairs to the head until one guy shits himself” match at the next cross-brand PPV.


I hope they do.  Nick Dinsmore doesn’t deserve to be known for the rest of his career as a retard.

The Joe In Me verges into Haley territory:

How about Eugene paying tribute to Uncle Eric by doing the “airplane” walk that Bisch did down in WCW during the nWo days?

I didn’t notice it, really.  You need the porno music to sell that one, not the bullshit whatever-that-was that Dinsmore had.  It’s almost as stupid as the non-evil Doink music.

Chris Jericho over Christian, cage match (Submission, Walls of Jericho):  I despaired a bit when I saw the boys making their entrances at 55 past the hour.  Ten to fifteen isn’t enough time for a cage match, although I have to admit that they crowded a lot of action into it.  Nice blade job by Christian, definitely of near-Michaels quality if not Muta.  And there was a great Haley Moment in there with Jericho’s little shrug before he did the cross-body from the top of the cage.  Not fantastic, but not bad either.  Pretty much just what you’d expect from these two.

Angle Developments:

Twelve-Pack:  First of all, I will not comment on the crudeness of fans, who cannot express their appreciation for a good catfight without starting a “We Want Puppies” chant.  And you wonder why wrestling fans are thought of as crude plebians.  I will, though, comment on the fact that My Beautiful and Beloved was struck by Baldy Holly.  I’m afraid there’s only one way to settle this, ladies:  a pillow fight.  In my bedroom.  I’ll bring the Hershey’s syrup and whipped cream.

Jalapeno:  Nice of them to mention Pepper Gomez, one of the real stars of the territorial days on the West Coast.  He would never get the national rep of his contemporary Ray Stevens, but he was a great competitor nonetheless.  He’ll be missed.

Abort The Angle, Not The Match:  Did Kane sniff Val Venis before pummeling him too?  I’ll lay you odds Morley smells better than Lita does any day.  So what was the question that Lita has a week to answer?  Does anyone care?  It’s just going to be something stupid like “Will you go out with me?”, thus giving us another stupid series of date vignettes that we got sick of a long time ago.  And where the hell were our Matt Facts?!  We want our Matt Facts!

The Same Old Song:  First Flex, then Austin, now a retard.  Wrestling fans, you are doing nothing for me to lower the level of my well-deserved contempt for you.  You’re only encouraging them, you know.

And I’ll encourage you to stay tuned to this very website.  I’m going to be spending today in Kansas looking for a place to live, but I’ll be back in Black tomorrow.  Until that time, have a thrill on me.