Happy Not One Damn Dime Day!
Breaking news! Britney Spears claims to be pregnant! Check it out here!
Man, I never realized that I had momentum before the month long 2004 re-cap. I tried my darnedest to write a column last week, but I didn’t want to write just anything and turn it in. PLUS this week I bring back Tivo Gems, and I introduce you to the Download of the Week.
Maybe you missed it, but I was a part of two roundtables this month. Take a look to see how accurate I was on those matches. New Year’s Revolution and Final Resolution. Let it be known to Eric S. that I predicted a title change in the Ultimate X Match.
And if you need a reason to be jealous of me, here it is:
I was watching the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD and FOUND MYSELF ON THE DVD. I was at the Dudley Boyz’ last ECW show and if you look for the guy with the Ozz Fest 99 shirt, glasses, long hair and a backwards hat in standing room only, that’s me. I had won tickets to that show, a WWE house show and a Nitro (where Berlin was debuted, and Luger accused Hogan of driving the white Hummer. Full results see them here. Now THAT was a crappy show.
Kurtis is my news hero. Give him some praise when you get a chance. Also, he’s gotta put up with the pay sites as well, and no one deserves that fate.
Not that they need the extra attention, but I enjoyed FLEA‘s column last week, and Widro and MM are back with the daily pulse’s for Monday and Friday respectively.
As always, read the other n00b who writes columns the same day as Hyatte as well. He’s also known as Dan Hevia, and he’s kicking my fantasy roster ass at the moment.
Funny I haven’t gotten any reader mail recently. But here are some questions for you:
What’s the difference between Jindrak’s old angle, PerfectShawn Stasiak, The Narcissist, and the Masterpiece Chris Masters?
Which character will die out and need to be repackaged first: Snitsky, Heidenreich, Hassan, Carlito, Simon Dean, Chris Masters or Eugene
Skip Tivo Gems
My DVR misfired this week and I only had room for RAW, so I missed Smackdown!, Heat and Velocity. But I did catch Impact.
Gem #1 Courtesy of RAW
Bizarro World’s hometown hero – The Highlight Reel
Jericho brought some much needed comedy into the Hassan angle and continued his streak of getting attacked on his own show.
Gem #2 Courtesy of Impact
The reason to watch TNA – Sabin vs. Daniels
The X-Division is reminding me of the cruiserweights as WCW went under. This match was brilliant and the last five minutes were an absolute pleasure to watch as a wrestling fan.
Gem #3 Courtesy of RAW
The bitch had it comin! – Trish is flattened by Kane
THAT was an awesome choke slam! Trish is a champ for taking it like she did (watch it again, she landed perfect). This was also a short return to the non-husband, non-daddy Kane that PK likes. It’s good to see the WWE anticipating who the crowd will cheer for. No seriously, I think it’s a great thing. But pardon me as I’m gonna go watch Trish get choke slammed STRAIGHT TO HELL one more time.
p.s. I also dug the whole Kane/Snitsky match. I like big men brawling matches, and this one was pretty good, even if we have seen it a lot in the past few months. I hope these two are just figuring out each others styles until they have one massive slobber knocker, cause it’ll be a good one when it happens.
Skip Download of the Week
My suggestion from my week of downloading
WWE BackLash 2004 – Intercontinental Championship Randy Orton vs Cactus Jack.wmv
After downloading the Mick Foley Ring of Honor Straight Shoot mp3 I looked this one up because I realized I’ve never actually seen the match but wanted to. On watching it, this match is straight out of the 1999-2001 era of the WWE, obviously paced by Foley and still awesome. It almost makes me forget that Foley and the Rock lost that 5 man tag match at Wrestlemania XX (drink!).
Flair Vs. Steamboat 2.wmv
Man, if you haven’t seen this one, you need to right now. It’s a treat of a match and Terry Funk and Jim Ross do it absolute justice by announcing it. It’s Flair at his peak and there’s no recommendation on this one, because this is like recommending you breathe oxygen. You just have to see it at some point.
Chris Jericho Vs. Chris Benoit (RR – 01).mpg (drink 2x!)
This one’s in honor of their excellent match this week. Jim Ross calls all three matches, and this match was from when the “hardcore” style was all over the WWE and this match showed the Chris’ dedication to the sport. I don’t know why Jericho’s not more over than he is, maybe it has something to do with HHH, but he and Benoit are both gold. Absolute gold I say.
Suggestions for downloads? E-Mail Me!
This is where I will concede to Hevia and his fantasy roster. He kicked my ass this season, and my excuse will be that I missed the deadline more than 3 times this time. But in all fairness, he’s doing REALLY well this season. We will see next season, which starts the week after the Rumble and ends at Wrestlemania.
For those of you who don’t know how the fotnotes thing works, click on the footnote number to see the note, then click on the number to return to the same spot in the column.
Let’s talk respect. No, not respect for kayfabe although I think wrestling could use a little more of it. No not respect for the writers, although they do deserve more than they’re given. No, not for HHH who is the only man who could hold the belt this time of the year, but people will barely recognize that. I’m talking about respect for me, the wrestling fan.
Well, not me personally, but me, and you, and that guy over there, all those “pimply faced snot nose kids” and even the “pencil necked geeks”. Even the bandwagon jumpers. Respect for those guys too. The wrestling promotions need to show us the fans that they respect us.
So how do they show respect? It’s pretty simple. Don’t insult our intelligence1, but I’ve covered that already. The next is to follow through with your word. I attended the RAW recently from the Nassau Coliseum 2, and the Heat and RAW portions of the show were good. But the reason I purchased my tickets was to see the added special attraction advertised on TV only a week earlier.
Triple H vs. Randy Orton with HBK as special guest referee.
Now it’s not like I was chomping at the bit to see this, but it pushed me and a friend over the edge to decide to purchase my tickets. For the price of cheap seats, it was worth it to watch it live instead of on television, especially with some dark matches and this bonus main event. And then when the start of RAW happened some very odd happened. They announced the main event as Randy Orton vs. Triple H.
But weren’t we gonna see this after the show? Well maybe they were just promoting it to remind us that it was gonna happen after the show went off the air.
The show continued, and it was pretty good live. Let me tell you that the “debate” between Lawler and Hassan was one of the largest heat drawing segments I’ve ever been a part of. My friend Lerman and I decided to hang back and just watch the crowd’s reaction to Hassan, and it was beautiful. The WWE whipped the New York crowd into a mob 3, just like they wanted to.
And then the main event hit and it ended with the six men who were going to fight in the Elimination Chamber brawling and Orton getting the pin on HHH after an RKO with HBK coming out to make the pin.
There we were all of the components of our special attraction main event. The match that changed my mind from “I’m not going” to “I’m gonna be there”. Orton’s music played and the heels left ringside and so did HBK. Jericho and Benoit shook hands with the crowd and made their way to the back.
This was the time. Eric Bischoff (who had not made an appearance live yet) was going to come out and say that the fans deserve more and he was going to restart the match with HBK as the referee. Well, Orton’s music played and played and played and he went to the back, the lights came up and Lillian announced that that was it and we should all have a nice night and get home safe.
I know it says the card is subject to change, but come on! If you advertise something as big as that match and not pull through with ANYTHING extra for the crowd that is something that needs to be discussed. The week before the crowd was treated to the aforementioned match, and the weeks after were given Orton, Benoit (drink!) & Jericho (drink!) vs. Evolution. But us? The people at the site of Wrestlemania 2? NOTHING!
Needless to say the WWE received “BULLSH*T” chants from the upset fans and the oblivious fans went home completely happy.
I felt disrespected and sent a letter to the WWE saying how disappointed I was, but for them not to be mistaken and think I didn’t enjoy the show, because I did.
Whew, I needed to get that off my chest.
FOOTNOTES:
.1 I’m referencing an old column of mine regarding John Cena. No stab wounds, end of story.
.2 How come they don’t make a big deal of the Coliseum as the site of Wrestlemania 2? Each time they’re at the Garden they boast about Wrestlemania 1, X and XX (drink!), but not the Coliseum.
.3 So much so that everyone was drained by the rest of the night.
Is anyone going to the Road to Wrestlemania in Stamford this Saturday? I’ll be one of two guys wawlking around in a button up shirt taking notes and whatnot, the other guy will be Hevia.
