Leave of absence from the military is a sweet, sweet thing — particularly when you’ve just spent six months in the sweltering heat of Kuwait and Iraq. You *might* have noticed that I missed last week, and it was mostly due to pure, unadulterated laziness. My apologies to Widro for not keeping him informed, and I can promise that won’t happen again (for at least two more weeks).
SMACKDOWN
I really hate to waste my time talking about Smackdown, because it’s butt-tastic. I watched about 10 minutes of the opening segment with JBL and Eddie and decided that watching American Idol reruns would be a better use of my time. Stop and think about that for a second — me, a guy who has never seen a single episode of American Idol and HATES the stuff they put on there and call “music”, deciding that watching Idol would be better than subjecting myself to Smackdown. Scott even threw in the towel after merely seeing the SPOILERS for this episode.
However, I promised Widro that I would recap Smackdown, so I’ll do my best.
– Eddie Guerrero challenged JBL to a match after losing to JBL at Judgment Day. JBL didn’t win the title, though, as the finish was a DQ, so you’d think that JBL would want a chance to right that wrong and win the strap. The belt IS what everyone is supposed to shoot for, right? Apparently not, as JBL denies a title challenge from the World Heavyweight Champion and instead gets involved in a six man tag team match where he cannot win the belt.
– Two good workers in Kidman and Akio get destroyed by a guy who is supposed to be the new Undertaker, except he’s not tall or physically impressive.
– Renee Dupree beats John Cena by countout.
– A senior citizen beats his own son, who he manages, for the cruiserweight title. The other participant in the match was a woman, who also was the recent cruiserweight champion.
– JBL and the Dudley Boyz….forget it. I can’t even bring myself to finish talking about this show. It’s so uninteresting and boring that even the most hardcore fans of the WWE product are starting to turn off in droves, and it’s even obvious in the ratings. Smackdown pulled a 3.7 in the overnights, which has to be considered PATHETIC since they literally have no more competition from the first-run sitcoms.
Raw, on the other hand, ruled AGAIN this week. They made a huge new star out of Eugene, had several great matches, and even surprised the heck out of me with an appearance by The Rock and a great main event. I don’t really dig Kane as a World Title contender, but as long as he’s simply fodder for Benoit, I have no problem with it. Everything just CLICKS on Raw, and it’s a shame that they are purposefully neglecting Smackdown, because it could be JUST AS GOOD. In fact, it WAS the better show for a long, long time during the brand split, but now it’s just the black sheep of the family. Way to go, WWE.
GREAT AMERICAN CRAP
“Our troops and their families have shown great courage and strength during this very difficult time, and we’re proud to offer them the opportunity to watch SmackDown!’s The Great American Bash pay-per-view on June 27 absolutely free through their local USO,†said Kurt Schneider, Executive Vice President, WWE Marketing.
Let me tell you something, Kurt. We don’t WATCH Smackdown OR Smackdown-related PPV’s. There’s a HUGE group of us who get together every Monday night to watch Raw, and we even throw parties around the Raw PPV events (or at least the one we’ve had a chance to see since coming back from Iraq), but we do NOT order Smackdown PPV events. Even the fact that you’re bringing out the nostalgia and giving us an old WCW PPV name won’t help — and NEITHER will you offering to give it to us for free.
MMA
K-1 has their first true MMA event tonight from Japan, and here’s the lineup:
** Bob Sapp vs. Kazuyuki Fujita
** Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Alexey Ignashov
** Don Frye vs. Yoshihiro Nakao
** B.J. Penn vs. Duane “Bang” Ludwig
** Josh Barnett vs. Rene Rozee
** Genki Sudo vs. Royler Gracie
** Predator vs. Gary Goodridge
** Sam Greco vs. Lyoto
** Tom Howard vs. Blue Wolf
There’s also a PRIDE PPV on Sunday, but I’ll let one of the weekend guys handle it…that is, of course, if they are MMA fans and feel like covering it. I’ve only recently started to dig MMA stuff, and the last PRIDE event is what really did it for me. Check it out on Sunday, as Cro Cop is scary good and always fun to watch.
VARIOUS
<> Moolah and Mae Young will be on Jay Leno this coming Monday night. Joining them on the show will be Snoop Dogg. Yeah.
<> The Houston Astros are going to win the World Series this year.
IN CLOSING
Surprisingly, there just isn’t much wrestling news to cover today. I usually get all kinds of good stuff dropped in my lap, but today just isn’t the day. It’s a good thing, though, as I’ve got two Disney DVD’s Widro sent over that I need to review, and I’ve got some sleep to catch up on. Everyone have a good one, and come back Saturday for the Saturday News from Ross.
