The weekly awesomeness meter, this week depicted through the remaining people in the UK Big Brother house
A – Anthony
B – Eugene
C – Kinga
D – Craig
E – Mekosi
Bear in mind that the best of them would get a grade C at best for their general talent and entertainment value at best but the dregs are SO very low that it makes the average people look better. Also, fair play to Kinga, anyone who sticks a wine bottle up their cunt on national television deserves some fearful respect.
Match One: Eugene vs Kurt Angle
We get the ball rolling this week with the Eugene Invitational and, naturally, Kurt is out of the gate to a massive babyface pop, immediately followed by the “You Suck” chant. I guess it must be a sign of respect? Either way, 150 seconds doesn’t give them time to do anything of worth and when Angle collides with the ref by accident, the ref, having been pushed around by him earlier and also believing that Kurt hit him on the back already (it was actually Eugene) calls for the bell and disqualifies Angle. Kurt goes to work on Eugene anyway until Hogan does a run in that meets with a rather mixed reaction.
The Verdict:
Nothing really to be said here – Angle and Eugene did what needed to be done without any real vim or vigour and seem to just be coasting towards an uninspired outing at SummerSlam. The best thing about this match was the monster reaction Kurt got, followed by the crowd turning on Eugene – this is the start of the end for Dinsmore, I believe. The majority of the fans are going to tire of him very soon and then it’s curtains for old Nick. Good job they held off on the Hogan/Angle match until next week when Hogan will be the clear face.
Match Two: Shelton Benjamin vs Chris Masters
Masters mule kicks Shelton and then slaps on the Masterlock for the win via stoppage.
The Verdict:
This is actually quite interesting – for the first time in a singles match, the Masterlock actually got a reaction. I also will not argue with Shelton being beaten, I think the dude has been pushed too hard too fast. I still don’t rate Masters but you’ve got to wonder what they’re up to, sacrificing the guy who held the IC belt for 8 months to someone who struggles to string together two cohesive moves in less than 5 minutes!
Rob Conway cuts an interview with Maria, who is unnecessarily ugly. It looks like her face was squashed. A whole lot of nothing, with Viscera turning up to eat crisps and make notes on Conway’s wardrobe, sing the YMCA and then bugger off.
Edge cuts a bloody good promo, especially for him – but unfortunately makes Matt Hardy look like a twat in the proceedings by pointing out how lifeless Hardy’s interview was last week. I don’t agree with the point entirely but he’s not a million miles off.
Match Three: Viscera vs Rob Conway
After the briefest of offence periods focussed on Vis’ knee, Conway falls foul of some flab related moves and we move to the finish, when Vis’ wheel gives out halfway through a back suplex and Conway twists and sort of falls onto him for a dumb looking three count.
The Verdict:
They’re killing Conway already! I just don’t know what the heck they’re trying to do here but Viscera ain’t the key I’m afraid. Here’s a couple of tips – firstly, alter Conway’s music so you can’t hear the total silence of the crowd when he first appears. Secondly, give him guys that he can look impressive against – Val Venis was a decent step last week (although shouldn’t have been given such an amount of offence), putting Conway against someone like Tajiri would have been a better second step. RAW really needs some decent lower card faces who aren’t currently the Tag Champs.
Match Four: The Hurricane, Rosey and Stacy Keibler vs The Heart Throbs and Victoria
After some fun and games at ringside, which involves Victoria slamming Stacy into the ringside barriers, the ‘Throbs hit a double STO on Rosey for the win.
The Verdict:
Dribble. Little reaction from the audience and the only thing they actually wanted to see was the girls going at it, which didn’t even happen. The Heart Throbs have no place in the big leagues except as jobbers and Victoria is being criminally wasted. Surely she’d be better off alongside Rob Conway or something? Heck, there’d even be an easy storyline reason for her to align with Matt Hardy against Lita and Edge.
The Highlight Reel featured Jericho and Bischoff shooting the breeze in a segment that goes nowhere fast, Jericho plays clips of him beating Cena up to the strains (and I do mean strain) of Fozzy’s “To Kill A Stranger” which is a dreadful song and shows that Jericho really ain’t much of a singer. This somehow end up in Jericho vs the referee that ran in to count Carlito down last week.
Match Five: Chris Jericho vs Chad Patton
Jericho slaps him around, scores a spinebuster and gets the submission with the Walls of Jericho. Bischoff referees casually and Carlito swaggers around ringside for no reason other than so that Cena can attack *someone* when he does the run in to save the ref. Decent pop for JCs run in this week though.
The Verdict:
I’m getting increasingly bored with this show, but Jericho is doing a stellar job getting Cena over as a babyface.
The Diva Search continues with Krystal getting the boot about 6 weeks too late (seriously, adequate looker at best, zero aptitude for wrestling and seemingly nothing in the way of personality or talent – how the heck did she get on the shortlist?). We then get to see each of the remaining three cutting a 60 second promo to get fans to vote them to win – but to test how they react to adversity and unexpected situations, they all get the custard pie in the face routine about 35 seconds in. Elisabeth and Leyla do well with it, Leyla even working it in to her speech, but Ashley throws a right wobbler and looks like a total berk in the process. Surely Leyla must win this one, given that Ashley proved that she’s a prat this week and Elisabeth, despite being the most talented and charismatic of them all, is considerably less attractive than Leyla. Let’s get this over and done with next week – in fact, it’d probably just be best if Leyla came to the ring, stripped naked and let us all take pictures of her minge, since that’s about the only thing of use she’ll be doing in the next year, albeit through the medium of Playboy instead.
Match Six: Matt Hardy vs Snitsky
Punch, kick, punch, kick, Twist of Fate with Snitsky perched on the second ropes, pinfall.
The Verdict:
Auspicious start to the Matt Hardy movement, with Snitsky stinking up the ring good and proper and Matt not looking quite as unstable as you’d hope. Still, the finish move was decent enough. Unfortunately, he probably should have thrown another move on top of it as his alternate finish, a submission hold probably would be best, perhaps even the Edgecator as the ultimate screw-you to his mate Copeland. All I’m saying is that Hardy is going to have to put in an extremely strong performance at SummerSlam or it’s going to be downhill for him from there. His new T shirt is number 6 on the best seller list right now, so that bodes well for him at least.
John Cena’s newest video airs, which is so remarkably gay that it would not actually manage to be any gayer even if it had him stuffing cock after cock in his mouth.
Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels show up for the face to face show down. Michaels delivers some interesting points about Hogan being a twat, Hogan replies by telling Michaels that he is a twat also, Hulk brings up Bret Hart, which gets a massive pop, and then Michaels superkicks Lawler, Hogan smacks Shawn around and flings him over the top rope, wherein HBK channels Curt Hennig and flails around like a fish out of water. Hogan and Michaels spend about a minute yelling at each other and Hogan totally ignores the prostrate Lawler. Bloody marvellous! This segment was better than I’m making it sound, and decent build towards their match for SummerSlam but HBK is still carrying it on his own and it wasn’t a patch on the skit with Michaels playing Hogan last week, which I have a funny feeling will be the high point of the whole feud.
The Overall Verdict: C+
Enough variety to keep it moving this week, although the quality of many of the segments dragged the show down overall. A bit of mix and match of the performers would have given us:
Rob Conway vs The Hurricane
Chris Masters vs Viscera
Matt Hardy vs Romeo
Shelton Benjamin vs Snitsky
Rosey and Stacy vs Antonio and Victoria
And then you put Conway over quite well, Masters looks good for making Vis tap to the Masterlock, Matt Hardy just goes schizo and murders Romeo (not literally), pretending he’s Edge the whole time, Shelton gets a hard fought clean win over Snitsky to help up his stock again and the mixed tag can either be dropped or follow the same format. I also would have liked it if they’d have either Brian Knobbs or Steve Blackman come out to usurp Angle’s “hometown hero” status. I know they’re not from Pittsburgh, but they’re from Allentown and Anvil, PA respectively, so I’m not that bothered.
The Grades
B
Edge – showed some long-dormant range in his backstage interview that had me wondering quite where he got so dull that I can’t be bothered to watch him. I’m even more interested in the SummerSlam match now, this promo really helped make it a 3D affair rather than just a one-sided throwaway.
And everyone else was just going through the motions, so no commentary for them.
