The WWE Smackdown Short Forum 07.17.04

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The Open Championship is on right now, and instead, I’m watching Smackdown.  Yet another on the list of sacrifices that I suffer for your sake.  And you’re still ungrateful bastards.  However, there is someone who was able to watch the first round (I couldn’t because I was called into work early again on Thursday; I thought the days of 50-plus-hour weeks were over once I became a gummint employee again) and do a recap.  Take it away, The Proud Graduate Of Dartmouth…

YOUR FIRST-ROUND ACTION

And he even throws in some wrestling commentary at the end…

You know, having you doing a Smackdown Short Form is actually even better than I realized…it means you get to comment on the first (and possibly second, depending on how long it takes you to get the show) day of every Major.  Well, maybe not the PGA, because no one really cares about the PGA, but I’ll be very surprised if you pass up the opportunity to comment on the Open, especially now that I’ve read Mr. Feinstein.

So, how about it?  Boring Ol’ Ernie actually wasn’t boring…shot of the day with that ace on 8.  Veej is up there, and of course, Forsyth is the feelgood story so far…well, him and the amateur who shot 3 under. Tigger was underwhelming, but I’m not going to root for Tigger unless he ditches IMG.

Good lord, they’re still breaking down Tigger’s day on TNT.  Tigger this, Tigger that…the man shot -1, for Mick’s sake!  There’s 39 guys who are within four strokes of the lead!  Which means there’s 40 guys who are just as deserving of the attention his first round is getting.  You’ve got a hometown hero in Forsyth, Veej within two shots of the lead, a hot amateur, a defending champ who was an unknown this time last year…and meanwhile, they fawn all over a guy who shot -1 (they’re showing him at practice, for crying out loud), and no one even knows if he’s got it anymore.  Plus, he’s represented by IMGreedy, and after reading “First Coming,” I hate IMG.

But you know, all that aside, I can actually get into this golf stuff.  39 guys within four shots of the leaders, unpredictability…I like it.  Now if only they stopped fellating Tigger every chance they get.

And I’m damn sure that what I’m watching right now is more interesting than what’s going to be on Smackdown tonight…oh wait, Kurt’s return is beginning.   That will be interesting.  A bit of Angle and Cena, Angle and Eddy, and we’ll actually have WRESTLING on that show again.

And Leyfield still has the Title…you know what?  Fine.  If they wanted to give this character the title, they should have done it in the 80s with Dibiase, but given the garbage they’ve been throwing up on the screen, they don’t have all that much to lose.  And this way, if things get worse, Eddy will realize that it’s not his fault, which is good, because Eddy’s the best thing going on that show (although I do like London and Kidman as tag champs), and it just wouldn’t do to have him crack.


Thanks, El.  I agree with you on the subject of Saturation Tigger.  It’s gonna be this way until he gets another major (it won’t be here, but maybe at Whistling Straits, in which case there will be Saturation Tigger in my columns because people just love the guy).  As for IMG, again, I’m in agreement with you.  People used to complain about CAA being too powerful in Hollywood, essentially creating movies for their clients.  IMG is worse in the realm of sports representation.  But, hell, Tigger makes tens of millions a year in endorsement cash, so he’s not complaining.

By the way, if you’re in the media industry and you have a job opening for a recent graduate of an Ivy League university with some practical experience in the media area, contact me and I’ll hook you up with the Proud Graduate of Dartmouth.  Trust me, he’s good.

ANSWERING THE CRITICS

From what I understand, the Forum is a hotbed of criticism toward me and especially toward this particular column.  Their criticisms, though, from what I’m told, are on the level of “OMG!  ERIC S IS TEH SUCK!”, only less coherent.  When someone does criticise me in a coherent fashion, though, I do like to respond.  That’s what WtT14, an AOLuser, did, and he does bring up some valid points.  So let’s give him a say…

Eric, Eric, Eric

Yes?

Six single-spaced pages in your column,

By what standard?  I don’t use Word for anything except for guest appearances in people’s columns where they want Word-format documents (like Gagnon this week and Fernandez next month).  I use a standard text editor (UltraEdit, in case you give a damn), which doesn’t do pagination.

and exactly one dedicated to the show you are supposed to be reviewing.

Who said I’m “reviewing” anything?  I’m covering the cogent points of the show.  The Short Form has been around for three years now, and it’s always been the same format.  And here’s a fact:  it’s the SHORT FORM.  That means it’s short by definition.  So in order to get some more column out of it and give it a good read, I put in filler like Mailbag! and Elliot covering the British Open or Colin Pigeau doing stuff about Euro 2004 or that wonderful discussion of ethnic stereotypes of bestiality.  It gives the column some actual size.

And I remember when I LIKED the Short Form. Now you are just “mailing it in” (always late) so you can suck readers in to reading your political agenda.

Huh?  I’ve been printing political commentary in my wrestling columns since November 2000.  So this isn’t a Leftist Master Plan to corrupt people’s minds (I leave that to Michael Moore).  It’s a continuation of a tradition that’s lasted almost four years and three sites.

As for being “late”, you, AOLuser, must be fortunate enough to have UPN in your area.  I live in East Bumf*ck, Kansas and do not.  In fact, I don’t even know if SD is even broadcast here in a weekend slot.  This means I have to download it.  And that means that I’m at the mercy of someone uploading it.  I’m writing this at 10AM on Friday, and I happen to have Smackdown already downloaded and ready to watch.  I’ll have this done by the time I leave for work at 2PM (whoops, just got called into work for a 12:30PM start, thus necessitating another delay).  Now, what time it gets posted is up to WidShish.  A lot of times, the lateness is caused by a delay in posting because, hell, they have lives too.  So there are reasons for everything.

If I wanted slanted leftist politics, I’d be watching Tom Brokaw or Crossfire instead of reading a wrestling column.

And if I wanted shit from some right-wing loony, I’d squeeze his head.

It seems to me that you are taking advantage of the column space Widro so kindly gave you. If you want to commentate on politics, save it for 411Black or your local call-in show.

This, of course, could be said for all of those Tuesday and Wednesday columns prior to the creation of Black.  You have noticed that I’ve shunted most of the political material into Black, haven’t you?

It’s not like you care about the show anyway: your teaser is about Star Trek and you trash Smackdown! the same way Scott Keith (good riddance) did.

Caring about the show is mutually exclusive to doing a column about the show.  And the Trek teaser has relevance because they’re both on UPN.  They’re the only shows on UPN that get ratings that can actually be measured, in fact.  So it’s more of an in-joke playing off of my Trek fandom, my disgust with Enterprise, and my disappointment with Smackdown.

“And we, the WWE audience, is taking it up the ass every time we sit down to watch Smackdown and watch the E roll around like a dog in its own ordure, happy as a clam to be smelling like shit and not caring who the odor offends.”

Great quote, isn’t it?  I come up with some wonderful ones on occasion.

Seriously, not only is it not that bad, it is in fact very good. In fact, its better than anything WWE did before the Attitude Era and it’s better than anything NWA/WCW did other than the original Horsemen and the original nWo.

And then there are those of us who don’t wear rose-colored glasses when watching WWE programming.  I think this is at the level of WWE circa 1995, actually, and I have no fear in saying so.

I don’t understand why you are still writing the Smackdown! Report if you hate it so bad. Yayowonder and Melchor have it pretty well covered; and they’re far better writers.

Bullshit, and it’s something that Melchor and Yayo would both admit to.  I happen to be a better writer than either of them.  I just work in a different vein.  Now, let me tell you a little secret.  When the subject of Keith’s replacement came up in the super-secret writers’ forum, we wanted to keep the structure of Raw going, namely a full recap plus a “features” column on the show.  In the case of SD, Melchor would do the full recap while I’d translate the Short Form into a features column.  Yayo came along after I started the Short Form, and that wasn’t my decision.  I don’t do hiring or assignments here.  Yayo does a good job, but the original plan was Melchor and myself.  So now you know the rest of the story.

Hang it up, Eric.

No, but thanks for demanding.

On to the show…

THE SHORT FORM

Match Results

Rey-Rey and Spike-Spike over Chavito and Redneck (Pinfall, Dudley pins Noble, Buh Buh Ray ball shot):  Very nice flow to the entire match.  In WWE, too many cruiser matches turn into spotfests immediately, but this was a true tag match, with Chavito and Noble in particular showing some great work with quick tags and nice double-teams.  Ruined only slightly by the yucky Tiger Driver by Noble and the silly SE ending, which is tolerable because Buh Buh Ray gives the best ball kicks in the business.  Extra credit for him hitting a small a target as Noble presents.  After a hot opening promo, the match could have been a big letdown, but the boys came through.  Nice.

Booker T, Rene Dupree, and Kenzo Suzuki over John Cena, Gauntlet Elimination Match (Cena over Suzuki, DQ, blatant choke past the five-count; Cena over Dupree, Pinfall, rollup; Booker over Cena, scissors kick):  There’s only one thing I can say about this match:  slooooooooowwwwwww.  It didn’t kick into second gear until far into the Booker section of the match.  One other thing bugged me.  The competitors were allowed to tag in and out, but none of them took advantage of it.  I can’t decide whether or not this was lazy booking or a Haley Little Thing showing the egotism of the heel side.

Paul London over D-Von Dudley (Pinfall, rollup):  Short and sweet, especially for Paul London fans, which means the entire IWC.

High-Quality Speaker Boy over Eddy Guerrero, WWE Championship Steel Cage Match (Layfield escapes, Lucha-ference):  Until the SE ending, this was a surprisingly good match.  I was shocked to see High-Quality Speaker Boy handle an extended match without blowing up and even get some decent spots in.  He was also intelligent enough to let Eddy have all of the good spots (including the obvious but still mark-out-quality frog splash from the top of the cage, a.k.a. “Blow Me, Van Dam, This Is Five-Star”), although this had the negative benefit of showing the massive talent gap between Eddy and Layfield.  Kudos to both guys, and kudos to a decent set-up for the Eddy/Angle match to come.  Just goes to show you can’t really go wrong with a steel cage.

Angle Developments

Follow The Yellow Brick Road:  I loved the dynamic presented in the opening promo.  Three heels in the ring at the same time, cutting a great comedy promo on each other (although Suzuki is damn close to being a tweener at this point).  Of course, who better to take part in a comedy promo than Cena?  Hell, even Luther getting thrown through the fake wall was funny.  One of the best SD openings we’ve had in a long time.  Congrats to all on a job well done.

A Semiotic Moment:  The guy in the third row with the sign showing a silhouette Booker pre-Spinaroonie pose…at first, I thought it was a swastika.  Thanks, Layfield.  Now I’m reading stuff into the audience signs.

I do have other material to present, but, hey, it has nothing to do with Smackdown and thanks to the intervention of real life, the column’s late.  So read my guest shot in Gagnon, and I’ll see you next Tuesday.