Fighting Toothlessness In Appalachia – Teaser for an article at cnn.com
But isn’t that, like, cultural tradition there or something? Actually, according to the article, it is. And you wonder why we urbanites treat hillbillies the way we do…
And for that matter, wrestling fans. We can be so easily distracted, can’t we? As soon as the whole Hassan kerfluffle started, all of a sudden, the name of Matt Hardy sorta disappeared, didn’t it? Well, that’s a benefit to the cultural psyche, admittedly, but it shows that wrestling fans tend to have zero attention span, something I’ve been complaining about for years. Nice to see all of you live up to the stereotypes. It makes you so much more easier to disdain. Well, admittedly, that’s been something that I’ve had no trouble with over the years, but I like my work made easier.
Oh, and apropos to nothing, Memo To Haley: Do you know why I call Bradshaw “High-Quality Speaker Boy”? It isn’t because of the level of his promos.
And since that appears to be the centerpiece of Smackdown this week, I’ll just treat that as a segue and move right in…
THE SMACKDOWN SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Rey-Rey over Super Crazy (DQ, Eddy-ference): Too much Mexican content in here for me, so I paid attention to the only white guy involved, Brian Hebner. It must have been an interesting week for Brian, what with his father and uncle getting the chop. I was expecting him to completely crack or something. However, except for a little overacting, nothing really untoward occurred. Damn him, at least this match could have been interesting if that had happened.
And here goes Rey-Rey, doing one of his flippy-yippy reversals…
Demonstrating the easy way to get across the Rio Grande
Animal and John Heidenreich over A Pair Of Unidentified Jobbers (Pinfall, Animal pins One Of Them, Doomsday Device): Nothing to talk about here considering the length of the match. I think we can just sit back in amazement that Heidenreich hit the Doomsday Device without killing anyone.
As Hawk proceeds to roll over in his grave…
Our Lord and Savior over Latino Jesus (COR): Sorry, Haley. Slow or not, sucky ending or not, Benoit/Guerrero, any Benoit/Guerrero match, at its worst is still better than 95% of the crap that WWE puts on. Look, Misawa/Kawada at the Tokyo Dome was slow, and it had a sucky ending, but I’d still prefer to watch it over almost anything WWE’s put on since Wrestlemania with the possible exception of Michaels/Benjy. That’s because the performers are some of the greatest in the world, period. And that’s the case with this match. It actually entertained me, and it takes a lot to do that. The one major flaw was in the commentary. There were a grand total of three oblique mentions that Benoit actually has a match on Sunday, and it’s a title match at that (albeit for a title that doesn’t mean shit right now). That match needs some serious pimping. Eddy/Rey-Rey doesn’t.
No matter how many times you see it, it’s still beautiful
Booker T over Simon Dean (Pinfall, scissors kick): I have to admit this: Paisley’s brought a lot to Booker’s recent resurgence. Given the evidence of this and the fact that Goldust was never more popular than with Terri at his side, why hasn’t WWE given a chance to guys to have their wives as valets and see if that gets them over? Yes, I’m thinking of Kidman and Haas…well, Haas had Jackie and it didn’t help much. Maybe the wrestler in question has to have charisma in the first place. But it does have a good opportunity to add something. Especially if the wife in question is hot.
Booker tries to end this quickly, for all our sakes
Angle Developments:
A Valid Comparison: One goes to visit an SS cemetery, the other goose-steps in the ring. I’ll buy this analogy.
Two evil f*cks, one incorrect caption
Oh, yeah, I’m taking him so much more seriously now
One Other Thing: In the Short Form, if Fingers decides to print the predictions for the Hassan/UT match, you’ll notice that I made a few comments in there which seem…well, out of place considering the situation. I wrote those predictions on Thursday morning, prior to the news about Hassan’s future coming out. Obviously, things are different now than they were. Let’s just put them down as what WWE should have done about the situation, instead of giving up on the Hassan character and being Viacom’s bitch. Shame on Vince. But as Fingers said on the Wrestling Blog and in his commentary on the latest Hassan story, definitely keep Daivari and turn him face. All he needs to do is cut one promo saying about how he’s an Iranian-American, and that he’s had to live all his life with Americans thinking of his people as evil, and that he just wants to prove everyone wrong. No big thing, and if he busts ass, the audience will love him.
THE IMPACT SHORT FORM
Video capture was too shitty to do screen caps. Sorry, folks, but there was really nothing new to see anyway.
Match Results:
David Young versus Lance Hoyt (ND, Abyss-ference): Special thanks to Abyss for cutting this one extremely short. And for nuking the two guys in the ring as well. I’ll send you the check, Mistah Mitchell.
Samoa Joe over Sonjay Dutt, Super X Cup First Round Match (Submission, STF): First Sabin at the PPV, then Dutt here…they’re really trying to push Joe as an X Division wrestler. The problem is that while there are no supposed guidelines for the X Division, there are expectations on what an X Division wrestler does and is able to do. Joe doesn’t really meet them. He doesn’t seem to fit into the mold of what we perceive to be an X Division wrestler. It showed with Sabin at the PPV, where the two of them had a match that seemed to have no real flow to it, and it certainly showed here, where the match booking was almost spastic. Of course, all of this will end with Joe getting a shot at Daniels. Yeah, they can do it together, as their ROH history indicates, but it’s going to be against the grain rather than with it.
The Full Monties over Sonny Siaki and Apolo (Pinfall, Brown pins Siaki, Pounce): Screw this Kip James shit; it’s back to Monty Sapp for him in this column. TNA’s also supposedly trademarked “The James Gang” for when Road Hogg’s heel turn is belatedly pulled. I think Joe Walsh should pop a cap in their asses for that one.
A. J. Styles over Matt Bentley, Super X Cup First Round Match (Pinfall, AMW-ference): They’ve fought each other often enough to be used to each others’ styles (no pun intended) and methodology. So, they established and kept up a very good match flow. Nothing spectacular, but very, very solid. I also like the decision of interference causing the ending. It not only kept continuity to the results of No Surrender, but also caused Bentley not to be seen as weak (despite the fact that a loss to Styles is extremely forgivable). Interesting match that left a lot of options open.
Angle Developments:
Ungrateful: I love a good shoot-style promo that brings up history, and Jerry Lynn and Sean Waltman cut a decent example of one. What I don’t love is a promo that makes me sympathize with Sean Waltman. Yeah, when you’re in the ring, it’s every man for himself, and he shouldn’t give a f*ck about what he did to poor widdle A. J. In fact, I’d prefer if Waltman beat him up more than he did for that born-again bullshit that Styles puts out every chance he has. Just don’t remind me of the fact that Waltman’s the one dealing out the punishment.
I’ll break this off, since my sleep cycle is so disrupted that I’m almost suffering from narcolepsy. I’ll see all of you on Tuesday, okay?
