In Memoria: Archibald Cox and Sam Dash, two men whose dedication to the principles of the law helped rid America of a criminal conspiracy masquerading as the government of the United States, and who helped us realize that criticism and skepticism of the highest office in the land is a good thing. They’re a good part of the reason why I can and do say the things I do about Dubbaya, because I was an impressionable kid during Watergate watching those hearings. It’s very easy for me to accept criminal behavior by a Republican “administration” thanks to Dash’s revelations and Cox’s act of principle.
In Memoriam II (or is it III?): Alberta Martin, no longer the Oldest Living Confederate Widow.
Ah, Memorial Day Weekend has closed, along with its attendant activities. The official kick-off of summer here in the States, and the beginning of June and all that. The world is a-twitter with the warm weather coming in (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, cooler weather’s coming in). I’ll probably end up discussing the Mad Dog Cheney Smoking Gun E-Mail tomorrow. Cardinal George shamed me as a Chicagoan by his denial of communion to gay activists; you know, Cardinal Bernardin would have given them communion, and Cardinal Cody would have brought them back into the vestiary for a drink. Shrek 2 made it over the quarter-billion mark at the box. Fans of sports on wheels had eleven hundred miles of orgasmic thrills to get them through Sunday (and congrats to Jimmie Johnson at the Coca-Cola 600 and Buddy Rice (and his team owners Bobby Rahal and some guy named Letterman) at the Indy 500). Nobody’s crying for Argentina; their men make up half of the eight left in the draw at Roland Garros, and they’ve been upsetting the top guys right and left. They’re the new Spaniards. NFL free agency starts today, and there are some names out there to be had (of course, the Bears won’t get anyone substantive). David Toms bored everyone by charging out to a big lead and coasting in to defend his title at Memphis, but Chubby Boy couldn’t finish high enough to get an automatic exemption into the US Open. Hale Irwin saved the seniors’ first major from going even longer after all the weather delays by birdieing the 72nd hole to knock out Jay “I Kick Ass On The Regular Tour Too” Haas. The woman I want to mother my children, though, came charging back to win at the Corning (and please note this: Annika has eleven more wins on her tour than Tigger does on his). As for me, if I’m not packing or doing columns, I’m playing Thief 3. Good game.
And wrestling just continues on as if nothing is happening. TNA’s coming off a major high considering the general excellence of the Ladder Match and the Ultimate X tiff, but that was a freak show, in more ways than one. This week, it’s back to normal, and everything hinges on the booking for the King of the Mountain Match and how it sets up Impact for its premiere on Friday. And WWE is staying the course, apparently, satisfied that their house shows aren’t drawing flies and believing someone, somewhere will buy a PPV in which Bradshaw main-events, despite evidence to the contrary. Since this is happening, I must continue…
AND WE HAVE NEW REASONS FOR THE ANTI-SPYWARE PIMP
I don’t know what upsets me more about Hyatte’s column from yesterday. Was it him indirectly pimping laetrile (WHICH DOESN’T FUCKING WORK!) or him pimping Alexa? Alexa is defined as spyware by Ad-Aware, Spybot, and most right-thinking people. So, thus, to counter this, and to counter the fact that our advertisers are becoming even more pernicious, your links on how to protect yourself from these rapacious vultures:
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.
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.
Of course, only download them from the links provided above.
With AdAware and Spybot, check for updates using their internal update function at least once a week. Run them at least once a week or whenever you think you might have problems. Remember, the new version of Spybot has browser protection capabilities, so have that run at startup and leave it running. Check for updates to SpywareBlaster once a week. It only needs to be run once initially in order to establish protection. Then, after it downloads updates, just click on the line that says “Enable Protection For All Unprotected Items” (definitely run that one, since they just put in another database update in the last couple days) and kill it. It doesn’t need to be active. For IE-SpyAd, bookmark the site and check for updates twice a week, since it has no kind of internal updater. Since all it does is add Registry entries, it doesn’t eat up anything.
If you’re having trouble with spyware or a browser hijacker, or think that you do, head over to the SpywareInfo Forums, where the pros there can help you diagnose and get rid of stuff. Currently, I’m in training over there as an assistant (and taking the test for promotion to Full Helper), and they’re good, knowledgeable people.
THE PIMP SECTION
Nute sticks it in, right on target. And he got the kinetic energy equation correct as well. But he didn’t correct for relativistic effects, so that’s a half-point off.
The Cavalcade of Sweeps Month B Shows concludes courtesy of Fried, Obal, and…where’s Campbell, David Variant? I want my Experience report, dammit!
Campbell, Mike Variant reviews the Kevin Von Erich shoot interview. Now this one I want to see, given my love for WCCW. He also has a Tenth Anniversary Edition of a truly incredible and classic Misawa/Kawada match. “Greatest Match Of All Time”? You don’t have much competition with this one. Misawa pulling the Tiger Driver ’91 out of retirement…shit.
According to one of those adult magazines, which published a list a number of years ago that you can easily find reprinted on the Net, Larry Csonka is uncircumcised. However, that’s the Hall of Fame running back and not our new TNA recapper. I’m not certain about the status of our Larry’s penis. He could write in and tell me, though, because I’m sure we all want to know.
Bradford should share some of my medication.
Murrey goes retro with more Roseanne.
Adesanya comes through with a great debut, focusing on Billboard and video.
Presiloski asks, I answer: I don’t have any personal stake in a draft revival, since I turn 40 this year and have an honorable discharge to my name. In some ways, I’m actually in favor of it. A little military discipline might do some of these slackers some good. Personally, I dropped 50 pounds while in the Army, got in great shape, learned a trade, and ruined my knees for life.
The reason I love Melchor is that he does news bits about artists I’ve heard of. Four items in a row from people I know! Unbelievable!
Hayhurst and I actually do have something in common: we both love Bubba Ho-Tep.
Lucard didn’t ask me what I thought about FF7 for two reasons: 1) There’s not enough room on the server for my comments and 2) There aren’t enough obscenities in the English language.
The Comics Roundtable continues its Geoff Johns worship, and why not? Johns made Morse an assault zombie in a recent issue of JSA. I have the panel saved as a JPEG, so I can verify it.
Baker has a great review of X-Men #157…shit, it’s been so long for me that the issue number means Claremont and Cockrum.
Kaye is a robot in disguise.
And, finally, do you miss Monroe? Come on, I know some of you do. Well, that link goes directly to his blog, so you can have the pleasure of reading him again.
SO, ANY WRESTLING NEWS?
Not too damn much, actually. So I’ll go with some shorties.
Milord’s been able to scan Mike Mooneyham’s latest newspaper blurb. Mooneyham’s latest interview is with Bill Watts. In it, Watts says he knows exactly who’s to blame for WCW’s death: “The bottom line is that wrestling on Turner Broadcasting was destroyed on Eric Bischoff’s watch.” What Watts doesn’t say is that Bisch’s excesses were prompted by Watts’ own failures to make money with wrestling on Turner Broadcasting and his bullshit, outmoded ideas about what makes for good wrestling, like the infamous “no using the top rope” rule. And notice that he’s not saying anything about Vince Russo, Jeff Jarrett, or anyone involved in pushing or paying his no-talent kid. Good old Cowboy Bill, always up for a bit of hypocrisy.
Naturally, Milord can’t help but stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong, in this case, right up Cowboy Bill’s rectum. Here’s his commentary about Watts’ statements:
Many people have tried to pin the fall of the company on the in-ring product during the company’s final years, but I have always felt that the serious damage was done when ridiculous amounts of money were spent during the nWo years and no time was spend developing new characters. When that angle died and the pushed workers got stale, business dropped precipitously. When it went south, it took all of the extra revenue with it and contracts that were viable, if not pricey, before were suddenly running the company tens of millions of dollars a year in the hole. To me, the seeds for the death of WCW were planted then, long before the product became abysmal at its end.
Okay, let’s accept this for a moment, shall we? Spending ridiculous amounts of money that they weren’t earning, not creating new characters, pushing the same old guys for years on end until they got stale…does that sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about WWE. I’m talking about ECW. You remember them, Dave? You only had a f*cking business relationship with them. You were also their biggest ass-kisser. I’m not ever going to forget how you blamed ECW fans for New Jack getting injured because of a botched balcony dive. Same cause of death, Dave. But you’re not going to pin this one on them because you would have to take a minor role of culpability, and, no, no, no, you can’t be at fault on any level.
Fuck you, Scherer. You and Watts belong as a pair. Hypocrites of a feather flock together.
By the way, Da Meltz did a poll on who people think is really responsible for WCW’s death, and here’s the results:
Vince Russo 27.2%
Eric Bischoff 27.0%
Brad Siegel 19.1%
Hulk Hogan 11.3%
Kevin Nash 9.6%
Bill Busch 5.9%
Personally, I think the 19% who voted for Brad Siegel are being a little too harsh, but that’s only because I think he’s doing a good job with Cartoon Network.
More from 1bullshit Junior and Moron Mike Johnson:
After several weeks of negotiations, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced yesterday that it would host a weekly studio wrestling program on Southern California television station KVMD- TV channel 23. The timeslot for the show has not yet been announced.
The plan is to tape three episodes of the show at a time starting Saturday 6/26 at the Inoki Dojo, located at 3200 Olympic Blvd. in Santa Monica, California.
Scheduled to appear at the first taping are Vampiro, American Dragon Bryan Danielson, Puma, The Havana Pitbulls, Adam Pearce, Aaron Aguilera, Bobby Quance, ROH champion Samoa Joe (listed as making his first West Coast ROH championship defense) and IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion Heat.
First of all, I’ve always recommended that Jap feds attempt to get some kind of US TV deal. A show from, say, NOAH wouldn’t come close to hurting WWE, but they’d give TNA a case of the loose shits. What NJPW is doing sounds like a good beginning.
Except for one thing: except for the involvement of Inoki’s gym, what the f*ck does this roster have to do with NJPW? It’s a good roster with some great indie talent, but it just doesn’t scream “NJPW” at me, if you know what I mean. What exactly happened to the “Japan” part of “NJPW”? This roster is gaijin, gaijin everywhere. If I watch something from NJPW, I want Japanese wrestlers.
And in case you were wondering, I don’t go over to the revived Whine. It’s still the Whine, especially with the Gooney Bird there. It’d be a waste of my precious time, Denny.
And speaking of wastes of my precious time, it’s time for Raw…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Rob Conway and Sylvain Grenier over Chris Benoit and Edge, Who Are The Faces? Tag Title Match (Pinfall, Grenier pins Edge, double-team twisting neckbreaker, New Tag Champions): Well, we saw the post-Bad Blood spoilers showing title matches between La Res and Flair/DAVE, so this result was to be expected. And, let’s face it, Montreal was the only place to pull this off credibly. They calculated it well. The crowd did its job in making La Res look more serious than they’ve appeared in a long time. Good booking, and frees up Benoit to concentrate on Kane, and as Raw Regular Derrek Croney pointed out to me, the ending leaves the possibility for a Benoit/Edge feud afterward.
The Joe In Me, who did a phenomenal job covering last week’s Wednesday Night Slapnuts for Gagnon (and I mean that sincerely; he truly did a wonderful job), feels slightly more negative vibes than I do:
What’s with Ross and Lawler talking about how odd it is for hometown fans to cheer La Res? Not “welcome to Bizarro World”, welcome to their hometown. Why can’t they just SAY that La Res was getting a positive reaction. And it seems that Ross will do ANYTHING to avoid actually giving credit to La Res. I mean, “the fans had a big hand in La Res getting the upper hand”?? Just SAY that the FUCKING FRENCHMEN won the match because they were the better team! His commentary was literally just making me sick. Even the finish, with La Res winning only because of an error on the parts of Benoit and Edge, cheapened their win. I mean, god forbid they just f*cking win clean. And why were they harping on being in Canada at the opening of the show? They were just there not even two months ago. Get over your goddamned jingoistic selves. Jesus Christ. Idiots, all of them. They make me sick. However, Lawler making Ross look like a moron, asking him things about Canada was pretty funny.
Victoria over Jazz, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, rollup): Should have been a lot better than it was. Really dragged tremendously. So disappointing that I can’t even make a good smarmy comment about it.
KC Evers, no relation to Lance (maybe), had a great observation: Victoria reminds KC of Ivory when she was still Tina Ferrari. Victoria is a GLOW Girl up and down now. She started doing her dance routine last Monday and I kept waiting for Spanish Red to attack her from behind. I think KC’s right, and more tragedy for Victoria if that’s the case.
Raw Regular Joshua Crawley asks this about said subject:
Victoria’s lame-ass dance i saw for the first time tonight… as much as she has a nice ass, the whole gimmick has to go. and it actually got me thining, if she could go over as a face like this… maybe it’s too soon… but could trish and victoria actually have a seat at where ever that perpetually over place is? (is it a seat at mount perpetually over?)
The Summit of Mount Perpetually Over is specially reserved for those people who are completely over with a crowd no matter if they work face or heel, and have shown that ability over an extended period of time. Neither Trish nor Victoria qualify yet. Flair, Michaels, Flex, and maybe UT are the only ones on the active WWE roster I’d put on there.
Shelton Benjamin over Randy Orton, Yet Another Non-Title Match (Pinfall, powerslam): Well, no shit. We needed an IC title match for Bad Blood, and here it is. Good for them. Now let’s make sure it’s better booked than this match was.
Matt Hardy over Lance, Dammit, Cade (Pinfall, Twist of Fate): Considering how I feel about his faggy brother, the fact that I’m completely apathetic about anything Matt does should be considered by a him a blessing. And if you think I feel apathetic about Matt, The Joe In Me feels equally apathetic about Cade:
Ross: “Matt Hardy getting a win over the red-hot Garrison Cade.” Wearing red does not make Garrison Cade “red-hot.” And perhaps if his face didn’t look like it was hit with a frying pan, he might be a little more marketable and, thus, a little more over.
“Trained by Shawn Michaels” is not equivalent to “Has the charisma of Shawn Michaels”, that’s for certain.
Nick Dinsmore over Kane…wait a second…yeah, Nick Dinsmore over Kane (DQ, Fun With Refs): This is getting too sick. Stop it right now. Making Kane look like a bitch is just the last straw for this crap. Of course, it’s worse than that. The Joe In Me spotted it:
Kane looks like he’s got a little herpes on his lip tonight.
Specifically Herpes zoster, which causes cold sores. Well, Jacobs wasn’t going around kissing Dumas tonight, so it’s okay.
Angle Developments:
Memo To The People In The First, Second, and Third Rows: No one gives a f*ck about Bret anymore. Let it go.
Did Lawler Actually Say Something I Agree With?: Yes, he did. As a person whose degree is in Physics, I’m a great deal more comfortable working with the metric system. It’s difficult for me to work in Imperial measurements. I’ve even found myself converting shit to metric in order to do equations properly. So, yes, let’s convert. At least gas prices would look sane if they were in dollars per liter.
Let Me Put It Clearly In Case I Was Too Oblique For Some Of You: Retards Must Die: Thank you, Mister Jacobs. Your check is in the mail.
Political Abilities Beyond Those Of Your Average Dumb Blonde: Leave it to Trish to reopen wounds between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians. Tactless, yes. Cheap heat, yes. True? Maybe. Good heel-mode promo by her, though. But The Joe In Me has to get off one more great one-liner:
If Trish had a frog in her throat, does that mean she was sucking off Sylvain Grenier?
Now you know why he could cover for Gagnon that well.
No one needs to cover for me this week, however. I’ll be back tomorrow in Black and Friday for the Smackdown Short Form. Next week, though, is a whole different kettle of fish. I’ll be communicating my schedule to the others in the super-secret writers’ forum, and we’ll see what’s going on for then.
About Eric Szulczewski
