Hey kids, sorry about last week but I usually use the website’s archive to recap Byte This. Because of wwe.com’s new look, they didn’t do anything with the page all week and I didn’t hear the show at all. They just posted it last night, so I promise I’ll do a recap sometime this week for the two people who even care.
Generic theme #2001 brings us to… Byte This! And damned if I’m not actually beginning to like this stupid two riff song. We start the show with just Mark Lloyd, and in the interest of fairness I’m going to try not to be so cynical towards Mark this week. Josh Matthews is on the way, but who cares because Survivor Series is only days away! And what better way to promote the PPV than to have Rob Conway and Eric Bishoff on today’s show!? Yes, I’m quite aware there are much better ways to promote the show. Anyway, Mark dishes out the phone number tells us all about the stuff he’s gonna talk about minutes from now. Smackdown talk immediately leads to Tough Enough. Mark immediately gets defensive about the Angle/Puder situation, and tell us that Angle easily defeated him. Ugh. For the record, I’m with Meltzer on the idiocy of not making a bigger deal about what happened. Raw talk floats over to the jam that Triple H is in, weighing in the various feuds that have popped up recently. Apparently Droz isn’t here to give his usual dead-wrong PPV predictions, so instead we get solo Mark Lloyd. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! Sorry, sorry, try to be fair, try to be positive…
Mark pimps Edge’s book and the new theme song CD before getting to the real shit, The Rise and Fall of ECW. What a swank looking DVD! I’m personally excited about it, especially all the dirt I hope they drag out about Shane Douglas. I hate that guy. Anywho, Mark doesn’t say of that, instead he jumps into magazine talk and manages to call Snitsky a dirtbag without really saying anything of note. Before the break we get a mercifully short update on the fantasy game, which at least announces the end of this game’s “season.” Sadly, the season restarts only a week later. I guess the winner of this season gets a belt, which is kinda cool. Break time!
Long clip of Team Angle vs. Team Lesnar from last year’s Survivor Series. I miss Brock Lesnar so much. Seriously, he was the closest thing to a Vader that the WWE has ever created, and I loved it. Remember when he told Zack Gowen that his wheelchair was magic and could fly, and than proceeded to throw Zack Gowen and his wheelchair? That was awesome. Hee hee. Speaking of awesome, Cena throws Big Show into the FU, which always blows my mind.
Mark is back, and he jumps immediately into Survivor Series talk. Rob Conway is suddenly with us, and demands that his name be pronounced “Ro-Bear.” I’m sure there’s a more appropriate way to spell that, but I don’t know it. Mark asks how he felt about the loss at Taboo Tuesday, and Rob says that they were beside themselves but they’re back in fine form. He throws out a crazy statistic in which he claims they’ve been champs longer than anyone since Owen/Bulldog in 1996. No shit? Mark asks about the chemistry between La Resistance, and Rob gives a nice generic answer. When asked about possibly splitting, Rob talks about paying dues before he starts to go after the big gold belt. He tries to namedrop current Raw tag teams and only spits out Rosey/Hurricane and Eugene/Regal. Eek, that’s pretty pathetic. Eric from Indiana calls about the Eugene/Rob Conway fight that’s coming up at the next OVW event, and Rob basically blows it off to talk about how embarrassing his loss to Eugene was. Mark prompts more OVW talk and Rob tells us that he gained everything through hard work and intense training, since it took him five years to prove himself because he was so small. Mark asks about Rob’s training, and Rob praises Danny Davis for the job he does at OVW and talks a bit about how good Al Snow is as a trainer as well. Mark kills all this interesting talk and begins to talk about Sylvan singing the national anthem at every event. Rob thinks that Sylvan will have a huge singing career someday, and feels that they are paying tribute to the underrepresented French Canadians. Mark asks Rob what his dream match would be, and he thinks it would be a fatal four way between Benoit, Michaels, and Triple H. What a totally political answer. Seriously, if only fighting the Raw main eventers from 2004 is his dream match then he must truly be the product of the WWE mindwash. Phil from Montreal praises Rob’s performance when they initially won the belts, and then asks if the WWE isn’t pushing the tag division enough. Rob goes totally kayfabe and blabs on about how great he is and what a great singer Sylvan is before briefly saying he wishes there was more emphasis on tag team wrestling. Mark and Rob begin to talk about how the Survivor Series stipulations would affect La Resistance, but Rob is confident that the heels will win and everything will stay cool. Mark then pushes Snitsky’s craziness, saying “He’s demented, he’s kicked a baby doll into the audience!” Alright, I know I was trying to be fair today, but what a dumbf*ck. Anyway, Mark asks Rob what he’d do with a Raw of his own. Rob just slays me, saying it would be a tribute to great French Canadian wrestling with the Quebecers, the Rougeaus, and the Mountie in an hour long Iron Man match with La Resistance. Oh man, that would f*cking rule! Mark brings up some autographed belts or something that Rob has on sale at the website. Rob tries to pimp these items but he doesn’t have much to say. Mark tries to drop him but Rob fits in a “someday I will be the WWE Champion” remark. I wonder if they do shit like that so they can play that clip someday? Nah, that shows way too much insight on their part. Break time.
Clips of Edge/Benoit from Raw. I thought that match sucked, so I’m getting some nachos. Man, J.R. is going so far into Schiovane-style hyperbole these days that I’m starting to hate him. “New levels of physicality?” C’mon. They are playing the shit out of this clip, I’ve already made and heated up my food.
Josh appears and immediately says that he’s now like the Undertaker, he shows up then he doesn’t show up. That’s such a loaded comment that I just have to let it go for my own sanity. Josh takes over the show and acts all hyper and goofy, which is surprisingly better than his usual banter. Josh makes it sound like his first match was really great before blabbing about the JBL/Booker plotline. They start to talk about ECW and the first Barely Legal but somehow Josh twists it into promoting WWE Jukebox and WWE 24/7. Josh recaps everything we’ve talked about already on the show in a wild coked-up spew of words before talking about the damn fantasy game more. They beg for Bischoff (as if he’s listening) but nothing happens so they go back over the Survivor Series Raw stipulations for the fourth time on this show. Back to Tough Enough talk, as they avoid the obvious Puder discussion and instead discuss if they should give away Tough Enough spoilers. I’m glad we’re privy to the intense moral decision they’re faced with. Mark champions Puder a bit but Josh clips it short and goes to the phones. I didn’t catch the guy’s name, but he just congratulates Josh on his Smackdown win. They go back to the damn Survivor Series stipulations before going to the break.
Brief Survivor Series promo.
Eric Bishoff is on the line! His vacation starts immediately after the PPV and he’s going out to Hawaii to chill the f*ck out and think about Vince’s teasing his hair color. Okay, I made that last part up. Anywho, Mark pushes the hair color issue right after I type that, so Bishoff calls him a numbnuts and says it’s not white, it’s silver. Josh brings up the stipulations for Survivor Series so Bishoff gives his usual speech about being different and trying to make innovations. Tyler from New Jersey calls and asks if Bishoff was embarrassed by his head shaving at Taboo Tuesday. Tyler also sounds like Betty Boop. Eric admits that he thought about quitting but he finally came to peace with it. Mark talks about the various superstars who could end up running Raw for a week, so Eric defends his theories about chaos = cash. Wow, so many loaded comments this week I don’t know where to start! Just make yer own WCW jokes, I’m sure they’re funnier than mine. Mary from Massachusetts calls and asks why Bishoff is having a change of heart and who’s gonna win on Sunday. Bishoff doesn’t care anymore, so he plans on doing what he wants and part of that is not really caring who wins any given match. He doesn’t want to please anyone else anymore, and kissing Vince and Triple H’s ass for years hasn’t gotten him anything so why should he care. Sometimes I wish this whole show wasn’t so kayfabe, because otherwise this would be a boffo interview. When asked about Smackdown, Bishoff goes into a big pro-Booker T speech before pimping Heidenreich. Christian vs. Benjamin is brought up, but Bishoff thinks Shelton’s the better athlete. Josh asks Bishoff about his various outside projects but Bishoff is unusually quiet about his upcoming TV shows. What’s wrong Eric, trouble in reality show land? They quickly talk about the Road Wild match between Hogan/Bishoff and Jay Leno/DDP, but Bishoff says it was just him beating up the cast of the Tonight Show and drops it. Interview is grinding to a halt so they say goodbye to Uncle Eric and sputter to the end. Blade:Trinity preview ends the show.
What a yawner this week! Bishoff is usually so much more interesting than this, and Rob Conway just sounds like all the other midcard shills these days. Plus they were trying to promote a PPV with two virtual non-characters from Raw and they barely talked about Smackdown at all. We need a crazy Austin-style interview where someone goes off on the product, or at least another Mr. Fuji appearance. Either way, Byte This is still running on empty for the umpteenth week.
And read my damn movie column! It rules! You can click on my user profile below and check it out.
