Welcome to another week of Deconstructing the Moveset!
Or as Dan Hevia calls it “The WWE Fantasy roster I was ahead of for a day!” But more on that later.
David Gorforth shares my opinions on Kidman/London AND Carmella (the bitch). And as we know, if I agree with you, than you can have a link in my column, but if we disagree, no link for you!
For those of you who were bothered by the Internet’s sudden love for Ray Traylor, use the Rodney Dangerfield example from this week. All the news organizations on each one of their shows ran a tribute to the man. Now he wasn’t the most successful actor/comedian ever, but he had a minimum of 20 hours of combined coverage since he’s passed away. CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, all the evening news’, all the local news shows, etc. No doubt someone will show a string of only Dangerfield movies. Well, in wrestling we don’t have major news outlets. We rely on the Internet to be our news source. So we’re just doing our best to inform our readers what happened. And you can find high points in anyone’s career, many of us can find a lot of those. Yes, the Kennel in a Cell match was bad. So was the WM 15 match against the UT in a Hell in the Cell. But I’ll be damned if seeing him back in the 80’s wasn’t enjoyable.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in this week.
I’m gonna jump right into the reader mail this week. Because I�m off to sunny Puerto Rico!
READER MAIL
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Joe Selders wrote in:
Question of the Week:
Angle at his best (pre-neck surgery) may well have been the best wrestler/sports entertainer ever. He had a good look, he could cut a wicked promo, and he could carry the proverbial mop to a quality match. He was the total package and I’m not talking about Lex Lugar there. Even after the neck surgery he can still cut a good promo, has a great look, and a can still carry that mop to a good match it’s just a diffrent style of match now. So is Angle is good as he says he is. Yeah IMO he is. It’s just to bad the injuries are wearing on him and he’s probably not going to be around as long as I’d or for that matter he’d like.
See ya next week. Until then keep on pumping out that quality entertainment for those of us who get bored at work sometimes.
Strong opinion on Angle, Joe. His earlier style is certainly going to catch up to him, a la Austin, but much quicker. He’s wrestling smarter now, but the question is will this wear down as time goes on and will be he be trying bigger and bigger things? Only time will tell. Thanks for writing man!
William Ricks is jealous that I saw Tito Santana (and you should be too):
BTW back in the day when my best friend and I used to hold daily cards with the old LJN WWF figures, Tito was the one guy who was always a face. Even Hogan was a heel (he actually started out as one, managed by Jimmy Hart. This was in the 80’s mind you). Tito was our Ricky Morton–the guy who gets double-teamed by the heels for ten minutes straight in tag matches. He also holds the record I think for most times busted open (we used red food coloring for blood). His whole gimmick was that he’d get in his own Five Moves Of Doom to start the match (3 hiptosses, a dropkick and a flying headscissors), get annihilated the rest of the time, then win in the end with a rollup. We conducted all our matches using dice rolls to see which wrestler would get in a move, and Tito’s matches would go pretty much the same way every time. If you want to know more about our wacky LJN figure fed, just e-mail me :-)
“#2 Courtesy of Smackdown!
Kidman/London
The kids got legs, like Zach Gowan, who just had leg.”
You’re going to hell for that one. You know that, right?
That’s impressive. However, I think I have you beat. Me and my friends (Jared, Murph, Lerman, Keith and Starr) have been playing WCW Revenge since it’s release back in the mid to late 90’s. We’ve done almost everything on this this list, but I just found it today. The game is now known as the EWF, which has ALL new wrestlers based on our own made up stuff. We’re talking about everyone from Dave Ogetti (DDP) to Andreas Pavlovski (Rick Steiner) to Fred (Hawk Hana) to Bu Jo Mon (THQ Man) to H. Randolph Scott XIV (Curt Henning) to Boom Boom Coletti (Scott Norton). You get the idea anyway. We’ve been playing this game nearly every week we are around, sometimes for up to 6 hours on end and I’ll put money on that if there was a world wide tournament, the last two matches would be down to two of the six of us. We’ve had storylines going for years now. As a matter of fact, right now the DAW has returned from Japan and has declared war on the EWF with the help of the commissioner Dr. Frank and ex-commish the Doggman. They now have the Dirty Deagos on their side. And Billy Berkowitz is challenging Dr. Frank with the pre-mature death of his father! Yeah, were all a bunch of losers like that. Thanks for writing!
And oddly enough, that’s it for the e-mails this week!
LAST WEEK’S CHALLENGE: Rating = IMPOSSIBLE
What arena was the last WWF show in, what city was it in AND what was the absolute LAST WWF wrestling match ever?
Many people guessed May 4th, 2002. The PPV from England, Insurrection. It was a Saturday night. However, that is incorrect.
Many people guessed May 5th, 2002. A house show in Worcester MA, apparently because obsesssedwithwrestling.com had that listed as the last WWF show ever.
Both of those answers were wrong.
May 6th, 2002 the WWE had a house show in Lowell Massachusetts in the Tsongas Arena on a Monday night at 6 PM. The show was over before RAW began. The SAME night the WWF unveiled their new company name as WWE. It was a Smackdown! house show headlined by Angle vs. Edge. I spent a few hours staring at WWF turnbuckles then went back to my dorm room to watch my beloved WWF be “raped of it’s dignity” to steal a popular phrase on Smackdown!, and got the “F” out.
I know that cause I was there.
TIVO GEMS
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#1 courtesy of RAW
DECONSTRUCTING THE MOVESET ON RAW!
That’s right people, I was one of those lucky bastards who got to be on TV all night long. My original seats were only a few sections over from where my Wrestlemania XX seats were. Section 306, which is not only behind the cameras, but it was as far away from the ring as you could go in MSG. During Arch Kincaid’s Heat tag match (Arch Kincaid is a Chaotic Wrestling talent) a guy came around asking for three people together. Me, Jared and Phil were three people, and being the obnoxious person I am, I scream out that we’re three. They take us to our new upgraded seats ACROSS THE RING FROM THE CAMERA LOW ENOUGH TO BE ON TV ALL NIGHT LONG. I’m in the Cactus Jack shirt next to a guy in a white shirt (Jared) and behind all the pink signs. One seat to the left of where Orton ran out to make the run in at the end, two rows up. I’m the guy doing the Foley arm raise all night. So, I am the Tivo Gem this week.
#2 Courtesy of Smackdown!
John Kerry pimp-hands George W. Bush
Well, not really, but there was no Smackdown! in NY this week. Which was a wonderful move going into a PPV. Ugh.
#3 courtesy of No Mercy
Paul London vs. Billy Kidman
Now what did I say last week about this feud? What did I say? I’ll tell you what I said.
I quote me by saying:
“London is a good wrestler, and oddly enough, all he needs is a good run on Smackdown!, to get inured and come back a little bigger and as a bigger face than he already is”
Well, except for the big run thing the WWE has been following my advice to a T on this one. London could be the future of the mid-card if they let him. And with Chavo coming back soon, we have our weekly question. Whose side do you think he’s gonna take in all of this? London or Kidman?
#4 Courtesy of RAW
Snitsky the stroller carrier
Come on. That was friggin hysterical.
TIVO BOMB OF THE WEEK
Courtesy of No Mercy
A dead main event, courtesy of Heidenreich
Now I’m all for creating new story lines when it seems like current ones have run their course and hit a brick wall. There was nowhere for JBL Undertaker to go unless something happened. HOWEVER, outside interference like that to end a main event match is unacceptable. Introducing a new story line during the main event is not necessary. Let’s look at Vengeance 2004 as an example. It ended with outside interference but (in my opinion) it wasn’t a bad outside interference. It was something that was involved in the story line the whole time. Not something new. A travesty, by Heidenreich.
WWE FANTASY ROSTER UPDATE:
Because you all are about how MY team is doing.
Billy Kidman $2,750,000
Charlie Haas $2,750,000
Christian $3,500,000
Christy $1,000,000
Mark Jindrak $1,000,000
Rhyno $2,500,000
Spike Dudley $3,500,000
Sylvain Grenier $2,750,000
Total: $19,750,000
Here’s the logic this week, I knew Christian was going to have a match on RAW, and usually, he’s on the show more than once. I mean he IS Captain Charisma after all. I dropped Shelt off the roster this week (he was on my first three rosters) because after his win over Triple H, he couldn’t be having a match this week and I was right. He fought on Heat and was spotted on RAW for the main event and the lumberjack segment.
Spike Dudley has been one of the top guys every week now. There’s no arguing with picking him week in and week out. He’s the second point grabber and he’s three million less than JBL. Jindrak earned a surprising 24 points last week for appearances, so I went with him last week. Team Angle needs a boost after their losses at the PPV.
Look at the champions that aren’t gonna be dropping their titles any time soon. La Rez is ONLY going to drop their title at a PPV after a major story line (or so I think).
DECONSTRUCTING THE MOVESET OR: HOW I GREW FROM A LITTLE BOY WHO WATCHED WRESTLING TO A MAN WHO LOVES WRESTLING
I was thinking that almost no one who reads this column understands why I love this sport enough to spend hours and hours of my time on a weekly basis writing about it.
when I was a little kid, it was the mid 80’s. Hulkamania was running wild when I was 2 years old. I can’t be sure, but I’m almost positive that I’ve been exposed to wrestling since I’m about that young. My grandfather, my father, my brother and my uncle all watched wrestling to come capacity. Pretty much every male in my family had watched wrestling. This was my first exposure to the sport, obviously.
From when I could decide what I watched on TV, I would tune into All-American Wrestling and Superstars weekly. I knew that that they wrestled other times, but I was never sure, so I pretty much saw recaps and squash matches all of the time, but I loved it. I didn’t know about jobbers then. Although, my grandfather used to see me watching the show and told me I was watching “$100 jobs,” because they would tell the jobbers “Here’s $100, go get beat up.” Because of this, I picked my favorites based on what I saw. Mr. Perfect, Bret Hart, Demolition, Jake “the Snake” Roberts, the Ultimate Warrior, the Macho Man, and eventually the Undertaker all captured my imagination. I loved the wrestlers with some mystique or an air of mystery about them.
I would play in my yard with my friend Jared from the age of 7 and on, pretending to do wrestling moves to each other, he would usually be the Macho Man or Jake the Snake, I’d always be Hulk Hogan or Mr. Perfect. This went on for a while. Until we graduated high school that is.
Then he dropped a huge bombshell on me. “We have a cable box that let’s me watch all of the Pay Per Views.”
Could you imagine? I would get to watch Wrestlemania, the Survivor Series, the royal Rumble and Summerslam live! I couldn’t believe it. No longer would I have to wait for my library to carry the latest Coliseum Home Video to see main event wrestling action!
I continued watching weekly and the Pay Per Views at Jared’s house until my dad told me that wrestling was going to come to the Nassau Coliseum on February 14th, 1992! For an 11-year-old kid, this was huge. I wasn’t big into music at that point, so wrestlers were my idols. So my dad, my mother and myself all went over to the home of the New York Islanders for a good, ol’ fashioned wrestling event on Valentines’ Day!
I remember going to the Coliseum earlier in the day to get tickets and being really excited to even be in the same building that wrestlers were going to be in later that day. We had floor seats and I was able to run up to slap the wrestlers’ hands in between matches. Oddly enough, the first wrestler I slapped hands with was none other than Tito Santana. Little did I know 14 years later, a signed photo of Tito Santana and myself would be hanging in my living room. Here was the card:
February 14th 1992 At The Nassau Coliseum In Long Island New York:
Tito Santana pinned The Barbarian
Skinner defeated Chris Walker
The Big Bossman defeated The Repo Man by Countout
Owen Hart defeated Blake Beverly
Jim Duggan defeated Typhoon
Beau Beverly defeated Jim “the Anvil” Neidhart
“H.B.K.” Shawn Michaels defeated Jim Powers
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair defeated “Rowdy” Roddy Piper by DQ to retain the WWF Championship
Roddy Piper was the IC champion at that time and it was an absolute blast. that would be the last wrestling event I would see for nearly two years, when my brother one day said to me “Hey, guess what? I have tickets to Wrestlemania X!” So at the ripe old age of 12, I went to Wrestlemania X to see one of the greatest live events I’ve ever been to.
Then wrestling fell off the map for me for a few years. 1994 to 1997 were dedicated to comic books until Dave Weinstien told me one day at summer camp that Hulk Hogan was a bad guy.
Hogan? A bad guy? No way!
So I tuned into WCW Monday Nitro to see Hulk Hogan, Diesel and Razor Ramon in this nWo thing. And then I was hooked again after watching on and off for a few months. Jared came back into the fold, as well as our friend Keith.
But this time it was different. It was like the veil had been lifted from in front of my eyes. I was able to see this complex world of good vs. evil inside of every wrestling match. That inside of those three ropes tightly pulled to four pieces of steel above a canvas padded piece of plywood reinforced with more steel, was another universe. Where monsters and outcasts were cheered and where the rules didn’t apply. that was my new draw to wrestling. Rather than the Rock and Roll wrestling era where Cyndi Lauper reigned supreme, Motorhead now reigns supreme. Instead of going to the ring with a smile on your face, the personalities are darker. Everyone jeered Mankind for a specific group of reasons. But suddenly, he got cheered for the same reasons. Vince McMahon, the former announcer was finally acknowledged as the owner and would get involved. The matches were more intense, the people were more intense.
And I’ve been hooked hardcore ever since. I have most of 1998 and 1999’s RAW’s and Nitro’s on tape in my bedroom. 100’s of hours of wrestling I’ve watched 2 to 3 times. Most of my Internet time is spent reading wrestling news or opinions or reviews. I write for the Inside Pulse weekly, a column, which usually takes me a few hours to complete, simply because of my love for this sport. That’s how I fell in love with wrestling.
Do you remember how you fell in love with wrestling? The first match you ever saw? Why do you watch it today?
For the month of November, I’ll be publishing a few stories on how people fell in love with wrestling each week. November will tentatively be Wrestling Appreciation month here at Deconstructing the Moveset.
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE: Rating = Medium
In honor of me seeing Mick Foley referee an INDY MATCH this past week, I have this question. Who has had more tag team partners AND been champions? Mick Foley or Arn Anderson? For extra points, name their partners.
THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Which side of the fence will Chavo return to? Kidman or London?
