Know what I’m gonna do? I’m going to get a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. Hot f*ckin’ pink, with whaleskin hubcaps, an all-leather cow interior, and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights. I’m gonna drive that baby around at a hundred and fifteen miles per hour, gettin’ one mile to the gallon, suckin’ down Quarter Pounder Cheesburgers from McDonalds in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers, and when I’m done suckin’ down those greaseball burgers, I’m gonna toss the styrofoam container right out the side, and there ain’t a goddamn thing anybody can do about it! You know why? ‘Cause we got the bombs, that’s why! – Denis Leary, back when he was funny
In Memoriam: Lance Armstrong’s career. Hey, the guy pulled off a miracle surviving cancer, then came back to dominate the world’s most important race. Shit, there’s nothing left for him to do. So let him enjoy his time off (he’s got enough endorsements to keep himself in the public eye and make some more cash), and thanks for the memories.
Well, it was a refreshing time off for me, I have to admit. It was great to be back home for a few days and to not have to go into work or anything like that. The only real negative about it was the fact that the chapped upper lip I had for a week and a half ended up turning into two big honkin’ cold sores. However, I had to come back for some unknown silly reason. Probably having to do with money, which hasn’t stopped me before, actually. Those two long drives that I had gave me an oppotunity to clear my head (as much as that’s possible) and realize a few things that I wasn’t admitting to myself but that I now felt I should, because it gives me a better perspective on how to react to things here:
1) I’m too good for this job.
2) I have nothing but contempt for plant management, and I don’t care if they know it. Ditto my bosses for giving into every single thing the plant wants.
3) I’m glad I have no real relationship with my fellow inspectors, because they’re a bunch of cliquish, whiny rednecks whose entire world doesn’t cross the borders of Kansas except to extend a little bit into Missouri.
4) Crossing Missouri on I-70 is a helluva lot better than going anywhere in Iowa. Glad I decided to take that way back.
The only way I’m getting through this now is that I know it’s only going to be temporary here. There are a few possible things that’ll happen, and they’ll occur within the next few months:
1) I get fired sometime within the next eight weeks. After that, they can’t do it except by jumping through hoops. I hope they do. I’ve got a little money saved, and I can claim unemployment, which will stretch things out nicely.
2) They f*ck me on my upcoming annual review, in which case I quit right on the spot.
3) I get promoted out of this job and somewhere else.
Ideally, #3 would be the best solution, but I’ll take the other two as well. My patience with this bullshit has grown thin.
Gee, and you expected me to be in a nice mood after my time off? Fuck that. It got even worse at work yesterday. It was the most miserable day this year on the floor, very hot and extremely humid. So much so that I went into the first stages of heat exhaustion (I’m prone to heat injuries anyway, and I damn well know the symptoms because I had to teach heat injuries to other soldiers in the Army). Fortunately, that enabled me to do most of Raw live. I walked in during the Trish/Lita promo and had the rest on tape. You can expect late Tuesday columns the next three weeks, though.
On to the fun…
THE PIMP SECTION
The College of Cardinals, who are conclaved under lock and key to elect the next Pope. You know, personally, I think that they’ve already cut a deal for somebody before they get locked in, then spend the next three or four days dipping into the sacramental wine and perusing the best of the Vatican’s legendary collection of porn. Jenna Jameson and Christy Canyon are given dispensation to be there, and…well, you can fill in the blanks.
Big pimp to the new book by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne, “The Other Hollywood”, which details an oral history of the straight porn industry in America. I don’t like Legs because of his insistence of being Arbiter Of All That Is Punk, but he does a great job compiling this stuff and putting it into a chronological and entertaining format. Wrestling connection? Of course. Rob Black comes across as a complete asshole in here, which we all knew, but it’s still good to get confirmation.
Lucard gets people to supply some pepper recipes for the Vatican Shriners’ Convention.
I always tend to ignore Stein by buring him deep in the Pimps, so I’ll give him the Right-Hand Slot beneath the current Daily Pulse this week as recompense.
Paul hits the Heat Beat and does Bottomline to boot.
Welcome aboard to Pandich, who takes over Epilepsy.
Hollyric does his usual great job on Impact.
Blatt comes back from his sabbatical.
Misha is heavy on PC game releases for this week. Still ain’t much, but I may check out Stronghold 2 for kicks.
Fingers wants to turn Michaels heel vis-a-vis Hogan to set up a future money match. Sounds like a great idea to me (Raw desperately needs upper-card heels considering the hard sell they’re doing to the audience with Edge). Unfortunately, they never learn. They could have done the same with Flex using Hogan as leverage and didn’t.
Urciuolo commits mild sacrilege by partially criticizing God In A Basketball Jersey.
Rogers talks about Michael Vick’s STDs.
Sutton recognizes the true greatness of The Magnificent Seven.
ALL OF THE GOOD SHIT HAPPENED LAST WEEK
Damn, Burnside covered all of the juicy stuff during the Weekend Report (and it’s great to have Ian back with Wrestling, to be frank). So I think I’ll just do some short comments on the releases that happened last week in WWE and some comments about Kid Kash’s shoot interview:
First of all, Jesus. Carly has been demonstrating through some great promos and skits that he doesn’t need a crutch to rely on. He definitely needed one during his adjustment period to WWE and his feud against Cena, which was designed to make him look like a serious threat. However, he’s now considered as a quality comedy act and a wrestler to contend with at the same time (one helluva trick, believe me). So the release of Jesus is no surprise. They don’t need any more power guys in WWE, even on Smackdown. The upper card is loaded with them (Cena, High-Quality Speaker Boy, UT), so there was nowhere to go for him there to break into the upper-mid-card. The cruisers occupy the spots he might have had. Let’s not even talk about him remaining on Raw. Snitsky has his spot, period. Without any career progression and no need to act as Carly’s bodyguard, there was simply no place. He can get into TNA as competition for Apolo, so he’ll be back on our screens pretty quickly, but I expect the Sonny Siaki treatment for him there.
Molly Holly quitting…no surprise here, really. Thanks to the concentration on the Divas (and with a second Diva Search happening, the concentration will get larger), the Women’s Division has come down to Trish, Lita, and Everyone Else (let’s not even talk about Victoria; I’m surprised she hasn’t walked yet). Molly has always been serious about her wrestling, and with her near-exile from Raw (she was being used as enhancement talent to get Trish over, period), there was no place for her anymore. The only place she can go is Japan, and with the lack of attention there on distaff wrestling thanks to companies going into near-self-destruction mode, her chances of finding a job may be slim. Her WWE exposure will definitely help her there, but I don’t feel confident about her prospects. Shame for her, really. I always found her to be entertaining, except as Mighty Molly, given my hatred for Novocaine Helms.
And now we come to Matt Hardy. If you’re a regular reader, you know that I saw this coming, except that I was certain he’d ask for his release due to the fact that he couldn’t cope with the Edge/Lita situation. But with his repeated mouthing-off in his blogs and his post-Version 1 pushes failing like lead balloons, I don’t see that the upper echelon had any choice. He was never a good fit on Raw; like with Jesus, he was crowded out, but in his case it was due to that misfit and not a place for him. He was the round peg in the square hole. A transfer back to Smackdown made no sense either, given the same situation. Who was he going to feud with there, Eddy Guerrero? Frankly, I’m glad to see him gone. This way, he can explore career opportunities.
And speaking of other career opportunities…the question becomes how quickly Jeff Jarrett got on the phone with him after the firing. I’d say less than five minutes. Jeff’s solo push is dead. He’s stuck with Abyss with nothing else on the horizon. Thanks to them breaking up XXX (and I have to admit, the slow push to the Daniels/Skipper match was executed well), there’s no one serious left for AMW (give me a break in re Team Canada). A reunion of the Hardy Boys makes sense. There’s only one problem with this scenario: the Hardys will come in as faces and stay that way. They couldn’t turn AMW if they electrocuted an opponent in the ring. At least XXX showed heel tendencies prior to the final confrontation with AMW. I’m not confident that TNA can do a face-versus-face match in re setting it up and building it up. And I just KNOW that they’re going to throw in Abyss/Trytan as a build-up match for the Hardys. That one has to be booked very, very carefully. With TNA’s split personality on reviving the 80s and pretending to be WCW Lite, they’re going to screw this up. So allow me not to have faith in a Hardy Boys reunion.
Rhyno…hmmmmm. Well, he was stuck too. They never did a damn bit of character development with him. Face, heel, who knows? His finisher was already taken by Edge a long time ago, and Edge made it look better (of course, that didn’t stop Eddy and Van Dam, but they’re more equals on the food chain). His upward mobility was cut off by Kane on the face side and Hassan on the heel side. Maybe he’s going to be headed for TNA as well. But I swear to God if Aldo Montoya shows up for the ECW PPV, I’m going to kill them for this release.
As for Kid Kash, gee, he shot his mouth off. What a surprise. It’s all about him, you know. In his mind, he hasn’t been treated well by TNA. How many blowjob pushes has he received from them? How often have he and Lance Hoyt been pushed to the moon as legitimate tag team challengers despite the fact that the two have zero chemistry together? I’d say TNA treated him pretty well for someone in his position. The most hilarious part of the whole shoot, I believe, was him bitching and moaning about AMW. Yeah, him and Hoyt could have been legitimate contenders for the tag belts except for two little factors: Hoyt’s a stiff, and Kash can’t keep up with either member of AMW. His contract runs out in September. He’s essentially burned his bridges with TNA thanks to this interview and many other childish outbursts. WWE doesn’t want him. Where does he go, Japan? That seems to be the only place. It must really gall him that Nova is getting a moderate push in WWE and he’s stuck in Orlando being “unfairly treated”. Well, shit, honey, that’s life. Sucks to be you, Kash.
Well, since there’s no other news, let’s head to the Short Form. I’m sure you missed it last week…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Edge versus Chris Benoit (ND, Bischoff-ference): Okay, this was all done to set up the LMS match at Backlash. You know what? I don’t care. We know how great Benoit is with utter mayhem. Edge has a good reputation in that area. These guys can make an LMS match something transcending the gimmick. If this isn’t MotN at Backlash, I’ll be shocked.
Mister Regal and Yoshihiro Tajiri over the New Dynamic Dudes (Pinfall, Tajiri pins Romeo, rollup): It took me a while to come up with the proper analogy for the Heart Throbs. The Heel Rockers? Shit, we just saw the real thing in action a few weeks ago, and they still looked good. The New Heavenly Bodies? No, the HBs actually had some masculinity going. The only person who should utilize a feather boa in the ring is Hogan, and that’s because it’s his trademark. Actually, I’m a little apprehensive about using the Dynamic Dudes for the analogy. After all, I’m a fan of Shane Douglas, and this is an insult to him. Sorry, Shane. Oh, by the way, the match sucked, but kudos to Regal for selling like a trouper.
KC Evers (no relation) thought of some more options:
Okay, so we’ve got the Fabulous Ones, Two Cool and Billy & Chuck all meshed into an Indy Tag Team on Raw called the Heart Throbs. This match is a good argument for Mandatory Drug Testing in Professional Wrestling.
Hell, bring in TeknoTeam 2000 and the Ding Dongs, and we’ve got a list of some of the stupidest ideas for tag teams in wrestling history. Methinks the Heart Throbs will be headed for Wrestlecrap within a year or so.
Shawn Michaels over Muhammad Hassan (DQ, I presume…I don’t know the exact ending): The reason I don’t know the ending is simple: I was writing the stuff about Kid Kash above during the last part of the match because I was dreading Hogan’s appearance, which was the worst-kept secret in the known universe. Fortunately, I could type this part out and listen to see if “Real American” died out. As for the match, it was angle advancement, so it didn’t matter. Regrettably, thanks to Hogan, Backlash is going to pull big numbers compared to recent PPVs, thus showing yet again the stupidity of the marks. I hate going on and on about that topic.
Shelton Benjamin over Simon Dean, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, T-bone suplex): Another angle advancement match, but Jericho was at his best in his promo segment, so it sort of mollified the sucky nature of the match itself. Bucci just can’t seem to get it together as a solo performer. The whole
Simon Dean angle seems to throw off his timing, and it certainly limits his moveset. Maybe teaming him up with Maven on a more permanent basis might be a good solution…wait a second, I’m condemning him to spend time with Maven in a tag team? I’m a sick puppy.
Jim Ross over Trip, No Disqualification Match (Pinfall, DAVE-assisted drag over Trip): Yes, folks, nothing says “wrestling” like someone beating up on a sixty-year-old announcer. But give Ross credit for blading. Actually, this was a harmless bit of fun and a reasonable set-up for the Backlash main. Not necessarily angle advancement given DAVE’s limited involvement, so no downgrade due to that. And it’s always nice to see the “mutual respect and affection” thing that Ross and Lawler show each other on these types of occasions. So, don’t complain. We’ve had worse mains on Raw recently.
Angle Developments:
Booking, Like Trish, Is A Bitch: What did Kane do to deserve a program with Viscera? What did Trish do to be allied with Viscera (even in the quasi-kinky way it looks like they’re going to do it)? Meanwhile, Lita f*cks Edge behind Matt Hardy’s back, setting off a chain of events that leads to Hardy’s release, and she’s only used as the fulcrum to get both of these miserable, disgusting angles started. Who deserves greater punishment? However, there is a bright side to this, as KC Evers (no relation) put it quite eloquently:
Well, I guess we get to look forward to seeing Viscera squash Val Venis, The Hurricane and Rosey for the next few weeks.
Messterpiece: So they think they can get Chris Masters over by doing a variant of the Kurt Angle Invitational? Guys, get a dose of reality: there is nothing, nothing in the world that can get Gym Bunny over. You can throw Shawn Michaels at him if you’d like, it still wouldn’t help. So just give it up before you lose any dignity that you and Masters might have.
Drafty: Again, we have another worst-kept secret in the known universe: there’s going to be another draft. Well, we know that Cena and Batista are not going anywhere (although it’ll provide a big shock if they do either one). However, there are some trades I’d like them to make: Trip to Smackdown for High-Quality Speaker Boy, for instance. Tazz and Lawler switching places…no, wait, I still do the Smackdown Short Form. Take that one back. Well, we’ll have a better indication in about a month about who’s flexible enough to switch shows and who isn’t. If they wrap up the Eddy/Rey-Rey angle, Eddy’s going to Raw, period. I’m not making any further extrapolations right now.
And I’m not making any further column right now. Thus, we call it closed for today. Let’s see if I can pull something out of my hat for tomorrow. Until then, ta.
