Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc. 05.18.04

Archive

If they’re going to allow this, then why not incest?  Why not have people marry animals?  Why not polygamy? – retard protester Ben Phelps, who traveled all the way from Topeka, Kansas to Boston to protest the inevitable, courtesy of Reuters (the quote, not the trip)

This doesn’t bode well for the move, does it?  And I think that someone from Kansas would have a much more personal perspective on incest and bestiality than someone from Massachusetts…well, bestiality, anyway.  I had a look at some of the women there while driving through town.

Ah, what an interesting weekend and beyond.  The president of the Iraqi Governing Council was blown to bits.  The pro-Dubbaya retards are already crowing about the sarin shell, claiming that it’s “proof” of WMDs (uh, guys, it’s one shell, and there was only a small amount of sarin in there, not enough to qualify for the “mass” part of WMD).  The crowing is covering up the weeping from the same neocons as legal gay marriages are going over like gangbusters in the Commonwealth.  A Gandhi is running The World’s Largest Democracy again, and the markets don’t like it, thinking that capitalism is going out the window.  Movie producers are already making plans to go directly from Cannes to England to see if they can negotiate deals with the idiots who got caught trying to rob forty million pounds worth of gold from Heathrow.  The Feds are doing something on P2P networks instead of harassing file sharers; kudos to their efforts for busting the kiddie porn downloaders, which is only now getting widespread attention.  South Africa 2010 is a go, which is great for the country.  Smarty Jones is the latest horsecock-tease, becoming the third nag in a row to win the Derby and Preakness.  The PGA Tour is officially in its Year of the Comeback; first Chubby-Boy and now Sergio, surviving Triple Threat OT at the Lord’s (don’t be surprised about Damron being part of that; he always plays well at Las Colinas), with Tigger just again coming up a stroke short of the playoff (for the second week in a row).

And we had a PPV this weekend that featured Bradshaw in a main event that had a DQ ending.  Why aren’t all the people who are protesting gay marriage drive over to Stamford and protest that?  It’d be more beneficial to society.  And speaking of beneficial to society…

THE ADS ARE STILL GOING, THEREFORE I CONTINUE TO LINK

The moral lowlifes who publish SpyHunter are still advertising here on 411.  So I’m going to keep on discussing the fact that SpyHunter, despite being advertised (using panic ads) as an anti-spyware tool, is in fact spyware.  Plus, it doesn’t do a good job of removing spyware that it finds (other than the spyware it installs itself, which it leaves intact).  And they want you to pay $30 for it.

Fuck you, scumbags.  These alternatives are free (as in, you don’t have to pay dime one for them and they’re not pirated), and they work:

Spybot and AdAware.  The ONLY two spyware removal tools to trust.  Do NOT buy any spyware removal tools, because none of them work better than these two, and all of them except these two are suspect.

(Due to a bunch of letters I received over the last week, I want to clarify something.  Do NOT, repeat, do NOT, use any other spyware removal tool other than Spybot or Ad-Aware.  I don’t care what’s up at download.com or whatever.  These two and no other.  Spybot released their newest version, 1.3, last week, and it contains some proactive resident tools to prevent things like changing your homepage.  If you’re already running it, download the new version, uninstall the old version completely, install the new version, update, and run.

By the way, speaking of download.com, for over two years, the spyware-laden KaZaA has been the top download from CNet’s little “I can’t use Google properly” repository.  Two weeks ago, KaZaA lost that title.  What’s the new Number One?  Ad-Aware.  In fact, Spybot is the #4 program on download.com’s list, behind Ad-Aware, KaZaA, and ICQ.  So people are getting the news.  And I’m going to make sure that people keep getting it.

Also, I should actually credit download.com users for one thing.  Their latest poll up there is “What’s the greatest first-person shooter of all time?” and Halo was one of the choices.  Thank God, though, it’s not in the lead as I write this.  Half-Life, The Greatest Fucking Game Of All Time, Period, is.  The console retards haven’t taken over completely, but they’re close, since Halo is actually running ahead of Doom.)

SpywareBlaster.  Will nuke twelve hundred different potentially malicious ActiveX controls, and now has the ability to prevent a number of non-ActiveX methods of installing spyware for people who use Mozilla/Firefox.

SpywareGuard.  From Javacool, like SpywareBlaster.  It’s a real-time scanner for spyware.  A decent first line of defense.

IE-SpyAd.  Throws numerous ad-related URLs into IE’s Restricted Zone, where they won’t display or affect your system.  Bookmark this one, since it’s the only one that doesn’t have an in-program update.

Again, every column I write will have these links until such time as the shit-suckers stop their ads.

A CLARIFICATION

A lot of people, especially Slick Rick, have been upset at me for supposedly “supporting” Michael Moore over the past few weeks.  I just want to make this perfectly clear:

1) I do not support Michael Moore.  He’s a provocateur with a big mouth, and it’s very difficult as a liberal to disassociate his blatherings from constructive philosophical statements.  I thought his activities in Cannes over the weekend were embarassing.

2) I took Moore’s side on the release issue because a) political speech should never be censored (First Amendment absolutist here) and b) it was Disney doing the censoring, and you know how I feel about the Mouse.  On the first point, people seem to agree with me.  The result of cnn.com’s poll on the subject showed this.  By a three to one margin, people feel that Disney isn’t justified in their actions.

3) I took Moore’s side on the subject matter of Fahrenheit 911 because anything to expose and drive out the Junta is good.  And I think that anyone who lambasts Moore for skewing the truth while supporting the Junta is a hypocrite of the first order.  Is Moore’s use of Iraqi bodies and American soldier amputees any less manipulative than the Junta using images of September 11th to bamboozle the American public into a war that only the myopic and ideologically blinded understand was not in America’s best interest?  Moore, in fact, gave more credit to the events of September 11th than the Junta did by fading to black and letting the soundtrack tell the story.  But both are manipulaters.  I don’t like to be manipulated and prefer to make up my own mind, thank you.  That’s why I don’t like Moore (or for that matter, the Junta’s spin experts or Fox News).  Tell me the facts, period (or “full stop” for my UK fans).

4) I’ll admit that I want to see it.  The great reviews it got from the critics at Cannes, even the Moore haters, enforce that view.

So it’s simply a case of supporting the lesser evil in the name of destroying greater ones.  What was Churchill’s comment about allying with Stalin?  “I’ll make a deal with the Devil himself to defeat Hitler?”  Well, if it gets the Junta out, I’ll make accomodation for Michael Moore.  But not support him.

THE PIMP SECTION

Nute‘s so pretty, oh, so pretty….VA-CUNT!

And now Nute’s got a reason, now he’s got a reason, now he’s got a reason, to pimp Fernandez.

They pulled Evocator out of the oxygen tent, and he asked for the latest party.  Strange man.

Okay, stop that, right now…

With the B Show Cavalcade, it’s Campbell, David Variant, Obal, and Fried.

Shannon has balls.  Coleman, ironically, does not.  Congrats to both for their Black debuts, though.

My advice to high school kids, Erhardt?  Don’t vote Republican.  Ever.

Don’t worry, Presiloski.  Ashish ignores all of us here.

Coogs puts Big Daddy as the lead letter in his column, which deserves a pimp by itself.  Kyle McCowin as the second letter deserves another pimp, but I don’t feel like doing a second link to the same column.

Ziegler looks at in-laws in films in a humorous vein.  However, he was being much too charitable to Home on the Range in his review of that.

Hayhurst is right.  Anyone who gives a f*ck about who the Architect and the Oracle were have way too much time on their hands.

Morrison skewers a spider.

Lemoine will have his on the rocks.

And if you’re wondering, BFM’s out of the hospital, back home, and trying to catch up on everything.  Tells me he came out of the hospital with eighteen inches.  “Lucky bastard,” I thought, until I realized that he was talking about a scar.  And tell Maria that I’m kinda hoping that I get to turn the clock back fifty years when I move.  That way I can hear Elvis as he’s starting out.

JUDGMENT, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER

“They are the most prolific tag team in the history of sports entertainment”, Cole?  What the hell does that mean?  That Buh Buh Ray, his goddamn shorts, and D’Von have left little Dudleys in every city they’ve toured in or something?  It’s such a misuse of English that I even heard this, even though I trained my mind to ignore anything Cole says.  Look, Cole, don’t pretend to be an intellectual if you’re not.  Just stick with “most honored tag team” or even “most successful tag team” and most people will buy it as being simple hyperbole and not a slam against the Road Warriors.

The Dudz/Van Dam-rey-rey match illustrated the difference between Nick Patrick and Mike Chioda.  Both of them overact in the ring tremendously.  However, with Patrick, his overacting gives you a sense that the match is important, even if it’s a shit curtain-jerker like this one, and he tends to stay out of the match as much as possible.  Chioda, on the other hand, insinuates himself into the match, disturbing the flow.  Look, it’s either talking about that or talking about this match.  Spot, spot, spot, slow down so the Dudz can get some offense in, spot, spot, lather, rinse, repeat if necessary.

Dawn Marie…Memo to Pat Kenney:  You may be trapped in a horrific mid-card angle down in Yeehahville involving Disco Fucking Inferno, but you get to come home to that.  I regard this as Instant Karma, and you as a lucky, lucky man.  And Memo to the Ten-Buck Tramp:  to go along with a couple of the pimps up there, let me give you some advice:  no fuscia for you.

They should have given Mordecai the Gangrel entrance.  Pitch-black arena, elevator, flames rising up from the floor, all that.  And, of course, given him an opponent other than Scotty Go Potty.  Oh, poor Taylor, from tag champ a few months ago to noob fodder.  You think this is connected somehow to the Brian Lawler firing?  As for Mordecai’s religious symbol, it’s the crossed bat’leths of the First Church of Kahless mounted on a convenient pole.  He definitely has the Klingon facial hair thing going.

Hope that Chavo’s “check the panties out to see if they’d fit” routine makes Haley’s Little Things.  I smell a Bra and Panties match coming up between Chavo and Jacqueline after this and the depantsing…

Oh, WWE, you’re doing such a bad job at wiping out the audience’s collective memory of the past.  I can assure you that everyone in the audience was wondering exactly why Billy Gunn, a guy who calls himself “Mr. Ass” and was punked out at the altar while marrying another man, would be reluctant to wrestle Rico.  Too fem for him?  And speaking of gay-looking, Haas really needs to consult a facial hair specialist.  Mustache or full beard would look good on the guy, but not the chin stain he’s wearing.  In fact, I’d go with full beard.  With his style, it’d bring to mind Arn Anderson, only with a full head of hair.  And that’s not a bad comparison to be made.

Memo to the guy in the front row:  unlike you, we know CRZ, and trust us, no one fears CRZ.  Suck our Wienerboard.

Memo to the guy in the second row:  too bad that people were reporting that Sabu had signed with TNA when he actually hadn’t.  That would have opened you up to a smarmy remark by me.

Memo to the guy in the third row:  no, the “you” part of “we” wants Teddy Hart.  The “I” part of “we” does not.  And since I have the column, I get my way.

I’d like to have a look at Lil’ Naitch’s contract.  Does it say in there somewhere that he gets first shot at any match with a chick in it?

You know, it’s been so long since I’ve watched Smackdown, I thought that the “Chavo Classic” thing was a Keith joke that other people started to use.  I didn’t know it was for real.  I think I could actually forgive its existence if it was a Keith joke, but now that I know it’s what they’re actually calling him…it’s almost as disturbing as Chavo doing the DX crotch chop.

After the ending of the Cena/Dupree match, I became convinced of something:  WWE believes they’re doing nothing wrong with the Smackdown booking and are willing to stay the course rather than make changes to improve the show.  It’s been proven that Cena does better work as a face when he’s on the short end of a feud (he even made TBS acceptable as an opponent).  Dupree is getting phenomenal heat that they needed to take advantage of.  Swapping the strap made sense from a booking standpoint.  Cena gets put into the position as challenger, Dupree gets to draw some incredible heat as the anti-American US champion.  Why not do it now?  What the hell is there to lose?  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  And you idiot fans had better not write in with some defense of Cena still holding the US belt (“build it up and wait until GAB” is not a valid defense considering Cena’s exponential decline and the fragility of Dupree’s position).

“It’s often debated, the question of whether or not the Undertaker is really alive or dead…”  “The Undertaker puts himself into a different world, a different dementia, so to speak…”  Cole threw those two doozies out in eighteen seconds (I timed it).  WHY THE FUCK DOES MICHAEL COLE HAVE A JOB AS AN ANNOUNCER?!  Not even Vince in his most-deluded carny-announcer period would have said something as imbecilic as that, and the Dustyism in the second remark is just the cherry on top.  What a f*cking idiot.  At least when Tazz misquoted Jim Croce a little later, he played it off with a typical Noo Yawk “whatevah”.

UT clearly is now in the phase of his career where he lives up to his opponents.  Having Booker in there as his opponent really brought his game up.  His last truly great match before this was his Match of the Night against a near-his-peak Trip at WM17.  If Calloway can pick and choose his opponents for “special appearance” matches from now on like this, it’ll mean a restoration of his reputation and a good legacy as long as he chooses guys like Booker.  I was impressed that he put out the effort that he did.  Booker looked good, and he looked good.  Bravo.

Oh, God, they gave High-Quality Speaker Boy a goddamn DQ to extend this piece of crap angle.  No matter how many Mutaesque blade jobs Eddy does, it’s not going to justify its existence.  Let me just shake my head, go off into a corner, and moan.  The only thing that can counter this is an NHB at GAB.  If High-Quality Speaker Boy is in it, it’s going to be a garbage match anyway, so make it official.  Seeing Arn and Malenko as part of the post-match break up routine makes me realize that they’ve got guys there who know how one should be booked, so maybe it’d be cool.  But a straight wrestling match?  Not again.  Never again with these two.

Thank God that Raw will get the taste out of my mouth.

THE PROGRAMMING CAROUSEL

From the dead-tree Torch:

WWE’s current TV deal with Viacom ends in 2005 and it is a general assumption that the company will not land anywhere near the money that they got in the Viacom deal since TV ratings and wrestling interest have both gone down drastically over the last few years.  Most believe that Vince McMahon will shop around the WWE TV rights, possibly to FOX, in hopes of starting a bidding war with Viacom (which still wants WWE programming).

No shit on both counts.  Vince signed a contract while still on top, performance decayed, but he still believes to be paid in the top echelon.  We’ve seen this story way too many times with aging and decrepit sports stars to be surprised about any of this.  If Vince thinks he can get a better deal, he’s going for it.  But is there enough interest to supply a bidding war?  In Vince’s case, maybe.  Interest in wrestling is down, but there’s still the WWE name.  If someone wants wrestling programming, Vince is who they’re going to turn to for that.  It’s irrelevant about TNA, ROH, or your local indy.  When you talk wrestling to the pinheads in network programming, there’s only one name, and that’s WWE.  Hell, it was that way when WCW was around.

And Viacom’s desperate for programming, especially for UPN, the walking shambles of an alleged television network.  There’s nothing on UPN that anyone wants to watch, and they’ve house-cleaned so many times over the past decade that’s it’s become pathetic and counterproductive.  Of course, the ultimate housecleaning is yet to come.  We’ll know by Thursday whether or not Enterprise has been cancelled.  If so, it’ll mean that UPN will have no Trek programming for the first time in its history, and that’s a big signal.

Obviously WWE moving to FOX would be a disaster for TNA which is now on the Fox Sports Network. WWE would likely use their influence to get TNA buried on FSN if they did in fact end up going to FOX.  WWE did the same thing to ECW back when ECW aired on TNN years ago. WWE moved to TNN and ECW quickly fell out of favor with the network.

This, of course, is bullshit.  The bad relationship between ECW and Viacom was there from the beginning.  It started when Viacom bought the rights to the weekly show and stuck it on the then-Nashville Network on Friday nights, a graveyard considering the array of programming possibilities.  It was exacerbated by the lack of assurance that Viacom gave to Heyman as they were doing their mating dance with Vince, and then broke down completely after the announcement that WWE had signed with Viacom.  Vince didn’t need to bury them.  Viacom executives and Heyman himself were already doing that quite well, thank you.  Also, it wasn’t the same TNN that broadcast ECW and WWF.  The Nashville Network was revamped into The National Network for the sake of Vince, and all its programming was scrapped in favor of a broader demographic than rednecks.  They couldn’t get rid of the stench of cowshit, though, so they revamped the channel again, this time into Spike.

An incredibly disingenuous statement, even by Torch standards.

One good point about WWE moving to FOX or another network for TNA is that it opens the door for a new wrestling promotion to air on Spike TV, which clearly wants wrestling programming.

Only because it’s a real bitch to find four hours of programming each week, two of them in prime time with a show that doesn’t show ratings degradation when Monday Night Football airs.  Considering the whole “network for men” thing, anything else they would put on would get mashed by MNF.  They actually turn a profit from Raw.

One thing that the Wadester doesn’t bring up is this fact:  Viacom owns 10% of WWE.  If Vince decides to move, the offer is going to have to be substantially more than Viacom’s offering, because he’s going to have to pay out the ass to get that stock back.

I’d consider this story to be a trial balloon from the WWE camp planted in the Torch to check out reactions from Viacom.  Of course, why they’d do it in the Torch and not, say, Daily Variety is beyond me.  Maybe they know that Wade’s dumb enough to print shit like this and DV isn’t.

YOU’RE A MORON:  IN OFFENSE OF JEFF HARDY

As I said last Wednesday, I’ve got a YAM for you.  It’s courtesy of some guy named Alex, who’s domiciled in the same state as World Wrestling Entertainment and YAM Legend Jason Gallo:

First off, I talk to Jeff’s cousin online and she is very nice, and she has let me talk to Jeff a couple times before.

Sure you have.  How do I know you haven’t been Hyatted?  And how do you know?  Did you get any proof?  If you did, good for you.  I’m not impressed, but good for you.

I asked Jeff about getting released last year and he said he had been doing some stuff that he shouldn’t have been doing and he regrets it now and he wants to come back to the WWE.

No shit.  He could easily be pulling in about four hundred large a year downside.  But he likes his s00bstances more.

The stuff about Jeff losing his passion and not being interested or whatever is just a load of b/s.

And anyone who watched any match featuring Jeff Hardy in the last six months of his WWE tenure has a large body of evidence that contradicts your assertion.  You could feel the apathy.

He is a really great wrestler who has put his body on the line day in and day out.

Big deal.  So does every wrestler.  So do policemen, firemen, soldiers, and, as demonstrated in the California court case I talked about, meat inspectors.  I’m a really great meat inspector who puts his body and reputation on the line every day, but if I do a pissload of drugs and show apathy, I should be fired just like he was.

And, yes, I would want to see another match with Jeff v. RVD because they are two fantastic wrestlers and they can put on a five-star
match.(Invasion 2001).


Your five snowflakes are obviously on a different scale than mine.  I don’t give imbecilic spot fests five snowflakes.  If I was like you, Sabu would be the greatest wrestler in history.  And that match was four years ago.  There’s a lot of pot and tootski under the bridge since then.

You shouldn’t be mean to RVD either because I met him at an autograph session and he is a really nice guy and he seems to be doing fine
now.


As a fellow Polack, he embarasses me with his antics.  And I met Shane Douglas at an autograph session, and he’s a really nice guy who seems to be doing fine now.  But that doesn’t stop me from criticizing him for his well-known attitude problem.

His family will be happy with him whether he is going to have a match with Eddie or be at the bottom of the card or whatever because he has a loving family who cares about him and they wouldn’t care if he’s on the bottom of the card.

Exactly what relevance does that have to me?  I’m not Jeff Hardy’s family.  If I was a member of his family, I’d tell him that if the difference between a six-figure downside with steady pay and a life of trolling indies was a trip to rehab, I’d take the trip to rehab and start ringing the bling-bling.

And Matt isn’t “lost” right now, the creative writers just haven’t got him something yet and gave him the feud with Kane for now.

That, in the wrestling business, is the epitome of “lost”.

I don’t think you have ever wrestled in EVERY SINGLE fantastic TLC match.

First of all, I’m 39 years old with bad wheels that need a second round of surgery to follow up on my 1997/8 set, so being in the ring is contraindicated.  Second of all, there’s been a grand total of one good TLC match, and, yes, he participated in it.  Big whoop.

I don’t think you have a pinfall victory over HHH.

No, but I played my part in knocking him off his pedestal.

I don’t think you are a former Tag Team, IC, European, Hardcore, and Light Heavyweight Champion.

It was the Russo Era.  If I’d been on the WWF’s roster, I WOULD have held those belts eventually (and since I weigh in at 200 on my six-foot-even frame, I do quality for the LHW strap).  Remember, at the same time Jeffykins was winning those, Val Venis was becoming a four-time IC champion.  In other words, belts and match results don’t count.

I don’t think you are apart of one of the most popular tag teams of all time.

Are the Hardys on the same level as the Freebirds, Anderson/Blanchard, the Road Warriors, Misawa/Kobashi, or even Demolition and Edge/Christian?  No.  They’re popular among young girls and sexually-undetermined teenage boys.  That’s it.  Which category do you fall into?

Jeff will prove you wrong and be back in the WWE and be just fine.

Not if he doesn’t go to rehab.  That’s Ross’ deal here.

How would you like it if someone was saying your articles were horrible and that you should give up the internet?

Look, oogums, I had a good portion of the guys on Delphi (when Delphi was a hotbed) on my case because I threatened to kill The Alleged Baseball Team Fan (something I could follow up on because we lived in the same neighborhood for six years).  I had the entire staff of the Gooney Bird’s piece of shit site taking potshots at me every week for about a year.  I had thousands of people screaming to Scooter, Becker, and JJ that they’d go to The Smarks’ advertisers and threaten a boycott if I wasn’t removed during l’affaire Babs.  When I started here, I heard that a huge portion of the Forum wanted me gone.  So, guess what?  People have said that.  And guess what the second?  I don’t give a flying f*ck what they say.  I pull in six figures of readership, I have a four-year tenure as a weekly columnist (the last two and a half here) in a biz where a year and a half is a long time, and my readership loves me.  That counts more than anything some asshole who can barely scribble an e-mail can say.

Next time, why don’t you say something like that to Jeff’s face and see what happens?

Because I don’t live near him.  But, rest assured, I would say something like that to him, and I wouldn’t care about the reaction.  You know what?  I’m sure he wouldn’t care either.  That’s part of being in the business, both our businesses, in fact.

Jeff is one of my all-time favorite wrestlers and if you are going to talk crap about him, then you’re just not worth it.

But you are, since I get a YAM out of it.  And my fans absolutely love that particular spot.

Now on to Raw…

THE SHORT FORM

Match Results:

Trish Stratus over Lita, All The Guys Are Involved In The Battle Royal Tonight Match (Pinfall, rollup):  Yeah, like we haven’t seen this one eight billion times before.  Apathy reigns supreme.  Move on.

However, Raw Regular Derrek Croney doesn’t want to:

What’s this?  Ring Psychology(tm) in a match involving Lita (WTF?) and Trish?  And a hot (for the most part) supportive crowd, and a “feet on the ropes” pin to boot?  And who’s been giving Trish “How To Be A Heel” pointers, as it looks her heel persona is coming along right nicely to the point where she really doesn’t need Christian.

I think Trish can pull it off.  It’s been a while since she’s been a heel, but she knows how to do it, with or without Christian and Tomko.  But I think the psychology was thrown in there in order to slow down the match and minimize any chance of injury for Trish at Lita’s hands.

Kane over Val Venis (Pinfall, chokeslam):  Hey, continuity from last week!  Of course, it was all in service to the whole Kane/Lita/Hardy angle, so they had to maintain some continuity.  I’m just hoping the question is something more provocative than “Will you go out with me?”  “Will you have my child?” would be a good one.

The Ravin’ Cajun, though, must chime in:

Is Amy Dumas screaming down the ramp the aural equivalent of a squealing pig? I swear, I was in the other room and thought some animal was being slaughtered.

No.  I’m an expert on the latter, and let me assure you that the sounds of animals being slaughtered are much more pleasant than any Lita promo.

And The Joe In Me has a good idea about what the question might be:

Maybe Kane’s question to Lita was for her to stop being such a shitty worker, or else he would have to keep torturing her.  Just a possibility.

We can only hope.

Our Lord and Savior and His Chief Disciple over Dave Batista and Dorkboy (tm Randle), Tag Team Title Match (Submission, Orton submits to Benoit, Crossface):  Compare this match to the tag championship at Judgment Day.  The Sunday match was a comedy match featuring four singles wrestlers ill-matched and poorly booked.  This match was deadly serious, and the in-match booking didn’t go farther than Orton or Batista could go.  There was no stretching, no exposure of the business, no incompetence displayed.  Flair even stayed out of it except for one short bit of interference.  This match, unlike Sunday, was damn nice.

The Joe In Me asks this one:

Why is Evolution the only team that ever challenges for the World Tag Title anymore?  Raw DOES have a decent amount of tag teams, enough that someone else can challenge for the titles.

There’s a difference between having teams and having good teams.  Novocaine and his fat bitch?  Please.  Conway/Dupree I can see, but not Conway/Grenier.  Anyone else I’m forgetting?  Probably.

Kane over, in order of elimination, Johnny Nitro, Stevie Richards, Rosey, Rob Conway, Maven, Val Venis, Sylvain Grenier, Lance “I’m Still Being Called Garrison For No Reason Anymore” Cade, Rhyno, Novocaine Helms, Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, Dave Batista, Edge, Randy Orton, Shelton Benjamin, and Trip, Eighteen-Man Number One Contenders’ Battle Royal (Matt Hardy and Christian were supposed to be the other participants; Hardy was kayfabed out earlier in the night, while Christian…dunno what happened to him):  Well, we’d all heard the rumors about it being Benoit/Kane at Bad Blood, so this isn’t a surprise.  The match did what it needed to do, namely three particular goals:  1) Get Kane the win so he can face Benoit, 2) Exacerbate the situation between Michaels and Trip to set up their rumored HitC, and 3) Build up Shelton Benjamin to the level where he can be accepted as an IC contender.  Number Three, in my opinion, was the most successful.  Benjamin is now seen by the marks as being real, and that’s what important to WWE right now.

Commenting on Number Two is The Joe In Me:

You know, in all (storyline) fairness, Trip does deserve a title shot.  If Shawn Michaels was allowed a shot after Backlash (because Benoit had never beaten him one on one, and he made him submit at the pay per view), then Trip should get the same treatment: He took the loss at WMXX, and Benoit has never beaten him one on one.  Just saying.

That’s true, and I expect him to get one within two weeks (we do have four weeks until Bad Blood), or reserve his shot for the winner of the Kane/Benoit match to take place at Vengeance in July.  Remember, we’re on a PPV-per-month-per-brand schedule now until SummerSlam, and we need programs.  Trip has to blow off Michaels before he gets Benoit.  Or they could do the smart thing and set up the rumored HitC as a Number One Contender’s Match.

And Adam Stewart spotted something that would make Haley drool:

During the 20-man battle royal, was I the only one who took notice that during the final eight, if you just eliminated someone, then you were the next eliminated.  Here, take a look.  Jericho eliminated Flair.  Jericho is then himself eliminated by Batista.  Batista gets eliminated by Edge next.  After that, Orton eliminates Edge.  Soon Orton is eliminated by Shelton Benjamin.  As soon as Orton is gone Shelton gets thrown over by HHH.  Before HHH has a chance to eliminate Kane, HHH is himself eliminated by (the suspended) HBK.  HBK then jumps over the top rope, “eliminating” himself.  The only reason that Kane won was because he didn’t eliminate any of the final eight himself.  By the time Orton was eliminated I started calling who was gone according to my little hypothesis.

And if you also noticed, this time period was neatly bracketed by the final commercial break and the end of the show, which provided a separation period in the action, almost as if the final eight were involved in a distinctly different match.  Also, Kane was dominating the early part of the match.  He eliminated the first three guys, remember.  So there was that foreshadowing, despite the fact that it’s Kane in a battle royal; he’s going to be there at the end unless something hinky’s going on.  Lazy booking, pure and simple.

Angle Developments:

Delayed Fuse:  Well, they finally pulled the trigger on the Orton/Benjamin feud, the one I’ve been saying they should have been doing since WM.  It’s good to be right.  However, I don’t really appreciate the blatant racism implicit in Orton’s promo.  Yeah, they backed off of it, but by pairing “uppity” with “you people” in close proximity, you knew what they were going for.  There are better ways to have done it without that particular combination of words.  Orton could have just done his egotist thing and Benjamin could have reacted the same way.  Let’s not have the audience reflexively insert the word “nigger” into a promo.  Doing the subsequent Evolution promo in front of a mural of Bob Marley doesn’t ameliorate the situation one bit.  They’ve touched on this before with Evolution and Booker, and none of us wanted them to go there at that time.  There’s no need to do it now.

The Pride of Dartmouth His Own Self agrees with me:

I guess they want an Orton-Benjamin feud. Not a bad idea, but if they want to make Shelton the next big star, this race angle isn’t necessarily the best route. Using racism as an attribute of the heel is ok – racists SHOULD be heels – but I’d be a bit worried about pigeonholing Benjamin. They want this character to appeal to everyone, so if this feud gets into too many lines like “you’re uppity” and “that’s what’s wrong with you people,” that may hurt Shelton’s chances of making it to the next level. I hope I’m wrong, though, because I really like Shelton’s look and in-ring charisma, and he cut a nice promo against Orton.

Well said.  And I’m crossing my fingers, El.

Keeping Up The Tradition:  This week’s Mike Chioda criticism comes from The Joe In Me:

Picking on Mike Chioda some more, I have to say that while I think he is good at taking bumps in a match, he is TERRIBLE at setting them up.  He’s the only referee I’ve ever noticed who makes it so obvious when he’s about to get bumped.  He may as well hold up a sign that says “I’M ABOUT TO TAKE A BUMP!!!!!”  Seriously, a blind man could see Chioda’s bumps coming.

How Dare He:  Coach’s object lesson in how to treat retards properly was going quite well until that curse, Flex, showed up.  If you don’t think I hated this angle before, I absolutely loathe it now.  Although this extended bit of horseshit did allow me the time to get some of the in-show mail into the column.  FYI, Mistah Dinsmore will now be referred to as “Former Multiple-Time OVW Heavyweight Champion, ‘Mr. Wrestling’, Nick Dinsmore” (tm BFM), just to rub it in your faces.

I’ll let Derrek Croney have his say:

Them MF’ers had yet another golden opportunity to turn Flex (babybace) back into the Rock (heel) and missed it.  All he had to do was
clothesline Eugene and VOILA! — all’s right with Flex… well, close.


Bingo.  Being a Raw Regular, you, of course, know my distinction between the two.  Those of you who weren’t around last year, you can consult the archives for last March and April and see that when Flex was turned heel, I did refer to him by the other name.  I’d promised years ago that I would do so, but the opportunity never came up until then.  I would have loved to have seen it, but, of course, I left the room the moment the music played.

And The Joe In Me agrees with Derrek:

How f*cking awesome would it have been to see a heel Rock go to town on Eugene?  I honestly can’t imagine the stuff he could come up with.  You KNOW he’d end up offending someone.

But instead, I have to pick up the slack in that department.

And just in case you think I’ve brainwashed my Regulars, here’s a missive that I received just prior to submission of this column from Dan Ranes:

This is the first email I decided to send. Perhaps part of it is trepidation as the response I may or may not receive will be unsettling. But after watching tonight’s episode of RAW, I feel that I must provide some feedback.

Firstly, I must say: I am a Rock fan.

While this statement would probably send this electronic transmission straight into the Recycle Bin, I will state that I have been reading your columns for nearly two years. I feel that I have lurked enough to send you this with knowledge of your preferences. Everything throughout the entire promo was scripted well. The mannerisms by Mr. Dinsmore was top notch in every aspects. I especially liked the exchange with him and the fan holding the sign. With only innocence he took the sign and held it up proudly, but continued onward to the ring “returning” the sign to another fan further downwards. I thought the Coach interruption was very well done (and I personally don’t remember that particular theme music for Coach) and his commentary to Eugene absolutely brought the crowd to a seething boil. Speaking of with, Coachman certainly has come a long way since his beginnings in the company. I truly feel that the heel turn for Coachman was ultimately in his best interest of his continued employment with the company. But I digress…

The beauty of the entire segment was the intensity of the fans in the audience. They were truly inspired with what was going inside the ring. I would daresay that for a fleeting moment, even the most jaded smart on the Internet forgot that Eugene is a gifted chain wrestler and a former champion in OVW, but saw him as a mentally challenged man, being assaulted with venomous verbal lashings. The emotions of the crowd was pure unadulterated heat, and the very best heat a wrestler can possibly hope to obtain.

And then the Rock came out.

Not to dull your mind with my compliments of Flex, the chemistry he and Eugene had on the microphone was beautiful to watch. Flex had the crowd in the palm of his hand just molding their thoughts like a lump of clay. Everything was so absolutely perfect except for one small thing. If only he had brought the crowd to a feverish pitch and…

Rock Bottomed Eugene.

Now, I apologize for making an assumption about your opinions, but I would think that Flex would have changed into the Rock instantly. He would have gained an ungodly amount of heat from the audience that probably would have scorched off his eyebrows. He would never again be forced into his inferior face persona, catering and joking with the crowd or force feeding us cynics with his nauseous diatribes. He would have instantly and irrevocably turned heel and the outrage of the crowd would have blown off the roof.

For one instant the WWE had the perfect storyline in the palms of its hand and they blew it. I may have said that I am a Rock fan, but ultimately the heel version is infinitely cooler than the face version.


As I have said, Dan, many times, I prefer the heel known as The Rock to the face known as Flex as Duane Johnson’s ring personality.  It was the fact that he turned face without changing his personality, along with his reliance on dull catchphrases and variations on the same one-note promo, that turned me against him in late 1999 (among other things).  I would not have objected to your scenario, and as per this column’s policy, would have referred to him as The Rock until such time as he turned face again.  And, let’s face it, if he’d beat up on a retard, I would have lionized him.  So, no fear of flames from me.

The Closet Is Loaded With Robes And Crowns:  The Ravin’ Cajun has a cogent observation:  Should Jerry Lawler just go ahead and come out already? I mean, he’s been overcompensating for years with the barely-legal female variety but his latest Orton obsession has me wondering. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but like you said last week – even JR is pointing it out.  No, just transfer him to Smackdown and have him say stuff about Rico, segueing into the real reason he kept Adrian Street around so long in Memphis.  You know them, they have to make everything obvious.

And I’ll segue out of this and into Haley, if you don’t mind.  I’ll be back tomorrow in Black.  Until then, keep it loose.