ENTRANCE SPIEL:
Top 50 – Part 1
Top 50 – Part 2
Top 50 – Part 3 (Tuesday)
Hello.
“You’re funny.
You’re my new Hyatte.”
So says somebody anonymous from Australia with the e-mail moniker of lev1822stw. I’ve got a bad cold and I’m vaguely hung-over and currently doped up on PILLS and this does nothing to improve my mood. Can’t this site go for one week without mentioning the H-word? But, yeah… appreciate the intended kudos.
It took me four attempts to spell “intended” and two attempts to spell “attempts.” I am so not in the right frame of mind today. But hey, being surly and altered and not knowing why I didn’t write down her number is apparently My Thing, and My Thing is the only way to write a wrestling column, right? So, here’s some stuff about wrestling from Inside Pulse’s very own Buffalo Brickhouse, Andy Campbell. At least, I think he’s from Buffalo, my memory is still in bed. The lazy f*cker…
“This is from Spike TV’s press release about TNA:
‘TNA’s roster includes some of the most exciting and recognizable stars in wrestling today such as, Jeff Jarrett, Raven, Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles, Abyss, Christopher Daniels, Monty Brown and others.’
Now, if Raven is listed right after Jeff Jarrett and Daniels is listed shortly after AJ Styles – thus denoting their importance in the company – why couldn’t those guys have kept their titles going into Impact? Doesn’t make sense to me.
Friggin’ TNA.
On a totally unrelated note, can I tell you how pumped I am that Bryan Danielson won the ROH Title?”
I do love that press release. Can just imagine Don West, clad in a shirt so vile even Jackson Pollock would have said “Uh, dude, what the f*ck?”, belting out this hyperbole in his loudest, gruffest voice. TNA! It’s really good! There’s The Almighty Greater Power Jarrett – and he’s got a guitar!! And that Pearl Jam guy!! You remember Pearl Jam, right? They sang that song about that guy that time? And another Jeff for all the gays!! And some guy that jumps around a lot!! And Kane!! Kinda!! And some guy that used to dress up like a curry!!! How cool is that?? And a black guy!! And… uh… some other guys…
Your older brother fought in the Monday Night Wars for this, so have some respect.
And, yup, good ol’ Bryan Danielson and his non-WWE flavoured ROH Championship. Tastes like welfare! Yum!
Okay, I somehow get the impression that this column is going to be a train wreck of vastly belligerent proportions, so let’s just blow through it quickly and see what happens…
WWE UNFORGIVEN 2005: AFTERMATH
Intercontinental Title Match:
Carlito vs. Ric Flair
Has anything good ever happened at an Unforgiven event? Let’s see…
1998 – Well, that Inferno Match was enjoyable in a primitive “Ooooh, fire…” sort of way. Made me think of barbeque, and I haven’t had a barbeque in a long, long time, which makes me sad. Thanks a bunch! Fucking dead people, christ…
1999 – Not only did we have Chyna competing for the Intercontinental Title… not only did we have Davy Boy Smith competing for the WWE Championship… but we had the brutality of the Kennel in the Cell Match to boot. Not even Neil Young would have been able to salvage this show, and he has big sideburns.
2000 – This was when they pissed all their good work with the Hunter/Stephanie/Kurt love triangle away and just blew it off in a fairly dull match on a throwaway PPV due to Kurt’s injury and Hunter’s apparent need to inflate his imaginary penis. In fact, it pretty much ruined what had been one of the company’s greatest calendar years ever, with the rest of it just limping along to the bitter end and pushing Rikishi as a legitimate contender. Well, gee, thank you.
2001 – This was when there were precisely seven thousand, one hundred and sixty-two WWF and WCW titles still active, which was mightily confusing. They had a decent Angle/Austin match but it was marred by misguided post-9/11 propaganda. We also got Christian going over Edge for once but it was all let down by the Worst Match Ever. You know which one I mean. Don’t make me say it. Just ask Ross, he was there. It took him years of therapy to get over it. Be strong, man. Be strong.
2002 – Everything Rob Van Dam could have been was ended once and for all by Triple H, and Brock and Taker ended their title match in a no contest because Taker double parked his bike, or something. Lame…
2003 – Jim Ross!!! Wrestling!!! Run the f*ck away very, very quickly!! Michael Moore’s bikini wax zone will HAUNT YOU FOREVER, NOW!!! Too late, I told you to run away, oh you don’t care…. Loser….
2004 – Triple H killed Randy Orton and bestowed upon us four months of lameness thanks to his infallible logic before we were saved by DAVE. I think this was also the debut of Orton’s wonderfully cheesy entrance theme. HEY! Somethingsomethingsomething HEY! Somethingsomethingsomething HEY! Somethingsomethingsomething SAY! You know the words, don’t resist it… Neil Young wishes he had material that good.
So, yes, all in all, Unforgiven has a fine, upstanding tradition of being completely and utterly embarrassing to everybody that watches it. I’m just pointing that out so that we can all see how comparatively ‘okay’ the 2005 effort was. Sure, there was a lot of filler and a lot of crap matches, but I skipped over 80% of the PPV, so I managed to make it out alive. The best moment in the entire show did of course happen here, with Flair winning the Intercontinental Title.
And he beat Carlito to do it.
And he hit a move off the top.
And he actually won a match with the figure-four.
It wasn’t a classic match by any stretch of the imagination, but you just have to switch the critical side of your mind off and embrace the vintage flow of a Flair match these days. Really, the guy is a legend. In wrestling, he is pretty much the legend and he’s still capable of doing much more with his craft than someone like Paul McCartney can do in his. Plus, those little skits throughout the rest of the night more or less stole the show. The little post-match speech was a nice touch too, and if they treated all their titles with such due care and attention then more people might give a crap about them. I stole don’t give a crap about the IC belt since the real one died in 2003, but I give a crap about Flair and thus by proxy the belt gets elevated too, which is precisely what they wanted. We would all prefer to see him get one last token world title, I’m sure, but that probably won’t happen, so let’s just enjoy this run and take bets on whether or not Lillian Garcia has blown him yet. I’m thinking not, but she clearly wants to…
Crotch Tease Match:
Trish Stratus and some other people
Yeah, okay.
Wanted: an opponent
Some Kind Of A Match:
The Big Show vs. Gene Snitsky
Well, at least it wasn’t Tyson Tomko. I didn’t bother watching this match either because, well, why would I? Why did anybody? Seriously, if you did watch it then… why? What is so drastically wrong with your world that watching this match seemed like such a good idea? Or were you just That Damn Bored? Too many questions, there’s just too many questions…
In other news, Big Show is apparently going to be phased out into a ‘novelty act.’ This supposedly means that he will not work any long-term programs, he’ll just turn up now and then for random appearances and quick squashes so that the fans can go “Damn, he’s big” and be suitably impressed to spend their money on T-shirts instead of nachos, or something. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense unless you interpret it as the writers being lazy and the company losing a shitload of money on his contract if they just fired him. They should just team him up with Mark Henry in a tag team called The Suck and be done with it. They could roam the country in various skits, fighting hillbilly midgets and sleeping with pensioners whilst eating chow mein. It couldn’t be any worse than this feud, which I think was built around Snitsky liking feet while Big Show likes salt.
An Epic Feud For The Ages, To Be Sure:
Shelton Benjamin vs. Kerwin White
Falls firmly into the category of Nice Enough. The match was definitely good enough not to warrant any criticism, but they have effectively written off the Kerwin character already. Then again, it’s not like they could actually just have him go around pissing off the black guy, making fun of the black guy, and then beating the black guy because, hey, Chavo is not Triple H. I’m betting that after the next draft lottery, Chavo will either wind up back on Smackdown in his, err, ‘classic’ Chavo persona or he’ll have been released. As for Shelton… well, I guess it would have made too much damn sense to have aligned him with Kurt for the past month instead of Tomko, wouldn’t it? And to have added him to this ‘young gun’ alliance with Carlito and Masters? And to have let him and Flair have some IC matches? Huh? No, no, we need to let him go to waste because he plays video games. Riiiiiight…
Cage Match:
Edge vs. Matt Hardy
Let’s have some non-sarcastic applause because they finally got me interested in this feud. All it took was a good match, shockingly enough. Well, that and the interesting stipulation-filled Loser Leaves Raw Money In The Bank Ladder Match Of Death or whatever we’re calling it, which is happening on the Raw Homecoming show. I thought they were calling that the Night Of Champions a while ago? Because that was a much better name, I thought. Then again, I thought that Dark Knight Strikes Again was better than Dark Knight Returns, so maybe I’m not best qualified to talk about… anything. No, it’s the rest of you who are wrong… Right… Anyway, a very good match and obviously the best thing on this card that didn’t involve Flair f*cking some skank so hard her silicone exploded. I’m such a romantic. It was definitely good enough that it wouldn’t have been out of place on that Greatest Steel Cage Matches DVD that came out last year, and that’s about as high praise as I am prepared to give out in this mood. Bonus, quasi-sarcastic applause for finally doing something with the Money In The Bank stipulation too. The whole briefcase thing is still quite lame, but at least we know for certain it is for the WWE Championship and not the World Heavyweight Title now. You know, that World Heavyweight Title might only be three years old, but it’s still been unified with the Intercontinental Title and, by proxy, with the European, Hardcore, and the real United States Title, which is all very confusing and could cause Chris Benoit to cry. Welcome to the Hypertime continuity of wrestling championships. As for the whole Edge/Hardy thing, there are numerous ways they could take it from here. If Russo was booking then we’d wind up with Bischoff/Hardy for the title headlining Survivor Series, and that’s not stretching the imagination particularly far… It will be interesting to see what happens. I seem to recall an interview with Edge a while ago, before the draft, when he said that both he and Randy Orton were going to be on Smackdown. Half of that came true, and it’s not inconceivable that they just postponed Edge’s transfer to do this thing with Hardy. Edge on Smackdown would be a better result than sending Hardy back there, especially since they were cheated out of one of their draft picks thanks to UPN killing Mohammed Hassan. To do that, though, they would need to give Hardy that title shot, which we all know he isn’t going to win (at least Edge isn’t completely unbelievable as a potential champion). Then again, Edge didn’t take his shot right away so Hardy doesn’t need to either. The solution? Send Edge to Smackdown and give everyone a break from the feud for a few months. It can be kick-started quite easily at the Royal Rumble, after which Hardy can use his title shot and have it ruined by Edge, and then we can do an inter-brand WrestleMania match to finally end it all. I can’t believe I just suggested they really do keep it going that long… At least if they were on different shows it wouldn’t be so overwhelming, especially if they did nothing with it between October and January… Not sure what they would do with Hardy and Lita on the same show, so let’s just cover her in some kind of liquid and throw her into a bar full of Bolivians and see what happens. It’s a sociological experiment. In the name of science, we shall prevail!! Huzzah!!
World Tag Team Titles Match:
Rosey & The Hurricane vs. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
I think I have 32 teeth.
What If Luger Were Here? Match:
Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Masters
Aw, hell, I don’t care anymore. I just keep thinking of this, which still makes me laugh:
Did Neil Young get a bus? Huh? No!! So… yeah…
They really do need to give him the Mastermobile. You know you’d watch him then.
WWE Championship Match:
John Cena vs. Kurt Angle
The match could not have been any better or any worse than you were expecting unless you happen to be stupid. The ending, however, only makes sense if they wanted to hype up a rematch for the Raw Homecoming. Since they have chosen to go with Cena/Bischoff instead – because obviously they have their collective finger right on the pulse of what the average viewer wants to see – the ending was just thoroughly odd and did nothing to help Cena’s credibility as champion or Angle’s credibility as a contender. I accidentally wrote “Angle’s credibility as champion” there originally, which was just wishful thinking. It would seem that my subconscious lives on a happier plane of existence, where it spends its days spanking various attractive ladies who cook me lots of large dinners and stock up the fridge with beer to drink whilst playing poker with Optimus Prime, Guy Gardner, Homer Simpson and John Lennon. Either that or the Land Of Chocolate, whichever. Either way, if we see any f*cking Hobbits, it’s payback time.
In case you haven’t gathered, I have nothing further to say about this PPV and I desperately need to go and lie down before I write anything else.
To be continued…
THE TOP 50 2004/2005:
1996/1997: Bret Hart
1997/1998: Chris Jericho
1998/1999: Mick Foley
1999/2000: Chris Jericho
2000/2001: Kurt Angle
2001/2002: Kurt Angle
2002/2003: Kurt Angle
2003/2004: Eddie Guerrero
2004/2005: ???????????
If you read Inside Pulse at all then you should know by now that the esteemed Ross Williams and I have been continuing our annual tradition by bringing you – yes, you – the ninth Top 50 countdown! If you didn’t know this then I also have some other breaking news for you – grass is green, human beings need oxygen, and chocolate muffins are tasty. Anyway, it’s up now for your viewing pleasure.
– Who did we say “…should bring a smile to the face of every wrestling fan in the whole wide world”?
– Who will “…be turning up in TNA any time now to spin, leap, flip and possibly perform “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” at Karaoke”?
Go and read Part 1 of the Top 50 to find out the answers to these undeniably important questions and see who made the list from #50 through to #31.
– Who is Captain Smug?
– Whose wife should Kurt Angle teabag?
Check out Part 2 and see for yourself, as we check out #30 right up to #11.
The vital Part 3, complete with the prestigious top ten, shall be with you on Tuesday.
Honestly – Tuesday.
Any comments? Send ’em here or head on over to the forums.
TOP 5 R.E.M. ALBUMS:
1. Around the Sun
2. Up
3. Life’s Rich Pageant
4. Document
5. Automatic for the People
THE ANTI-NEWS:
Okay, so after a nap, a greasy fry-up, some more pills, a big bag of peanut M&Ms and several hours of cheap TV, I’m ready to get the news out of the way…
“It won’t last. Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!”
MUHAMMED HASSAN is clinically dead after WWE released Mark Copani this past week. For those of you who are wondering, Copani is the real name of Hassan. They didn’t just kill Hassan and then fire some other guy, although if they could find a suitable scapegoat then it might be an interesting way to get rid of Mark Henry.
I’m sure we’re all meant to bitch and moan about how WWE, or more specifically Vince McMahon, showed an uncharacteristic lack of testicular fortitude in backing down to UPN over the Hassan character and how this wound up costing somebody their job, but I would much rather bitch and moan about the people who are bitching and moaning as there are fewer things as interesting as a self-perpetuating vicious circle of antagonism. Besides, your stupid Constitution should cover me here. But really, why the hell should any of us give a toss about Copani’s situation when he himself says that “…the split was very amicable. I just thought that it was in my best interest, as well as WWE’s best interest, for us to go our separate ways”? Sure, that quote came from a WWE.com post but still, Copani doesn’t seem to have been overly passionate about wrestling in general and even if he was, well, they would still have let him go as the character had hit a dead-end several months prior to the network interference and would have required severe repackaging to last much longer anyway, which WWE would have been too stupid to realise. Then I would have just had to bitch and moan about how stupid WWE was being, when I could have been using that bitching and moaning time to put down the idiot people that care about this instead.
Honestly, is there anybody out there that isn’t related to Copani who has an urgent, pressing need to see him back on Smackdown, or even Raw? Hell, even Heat or Velocity or, heaven forbid, Impact? He was staggeringly consistent at being barely competent at best in terms of wrestling. Yes, he could cut a good promo from time-to-time but, like I was saying, the Hassan character had joined the walking dead a long time before The Undertaker got his hands on him. Besides, this is wrestling. Some wrestler getting an amicable release from his contract is not bad treatment as some seem to think it is. Hell, it’s f*cking Shangri-La compared to the treatment some poor bastards get. He has all four limbs, all five senses and a place to live, so he’s doing just dandy.
Anyway, he’s apparently going to try and make a go of it in Hollywood. If they ever need to get a terrorist on Joey then he’ll be right in there.
***
“I love children, particularly their young supple organs.”
THE DUDLEY BOYS have not signed with TNA. Mark Lamonica and Devon Hughes, a.k.a. the fat one and the black one, have signed with the company, however, and are due to make their first appearance on Impact’s Spike TV debut. All this paranoid manipulation of the Dudley trademark is just ludicrous, so they may as well embrace it and call their finisher Not the 3D. And the fat one can tell the black one to “not, not get the tables.” And then they can get new entrance music. Hell, they could sing it themselves too. “We’re not the Dudley Boys… we’re handsome, we’re brave, we’re strong… We’re not the Dudley Boys, cos we enforce the law…”
Okay, so it needs a little work, but you can see what I mean. I’m guessing TNA will offer up it’s usual premature ejaculation form of booking and rush them into meeting AMW straight away, possibly in a three-way with The Naturals at Bound For Glory. They would be better off just waiting and letting this Naturals/AMW thing blow over at long last at the PPV while The Not-Dudleys face Team Canada or something in a cheap, throwaway match that will do nothing more than just let the TNA crowd lap up the Not-Dudley style, which is all they really need to do at this point. After that, build up to the inevitable Not-Dudley/AMW feud for the following PPV. This one is already fairly stacked, and TNA does emphatically not have enough scope to blow all their most interesting matches at once.
Writing this does of course mean the fat guy and the black guy will probably wind up being tag champs by the end of October. You gotta love the Anti-Pulse booking curse.
Of more interest than who they wrestle is what they do beforehand though, i.e. berating the audience in their classic ECW style. Since they’re clearly being brought in as faces following the AMW turn and TNA is trying to smarten itself up a bit for Spike, they probably won’t get away with it right now… but if they turn heel at some point down the line and they get a PPV slot to cut loose with… well, for old times sake, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Especially once they start on those little idiots down the front that always dress up like Jeff Hardy. They deserve added verbal pain.
More important than all that, however, is what happens backstage. Can the company possibly provide enough caffeine to satisfy both Devon and Monty Brown??? And what happens if/when they bring in the other legally-challenged Dudley family member, ALF Dudley???
Devon! Get the cats!
What an age we live in…
***
“Now, the kilt was only for day-to-day wear. In battle, we donned a full-length ball gown covered in sequins. The idea was to blind your opponent with luxury.”
HEAT and VELOCITY are going to live forever, or at least for as long as foreign TV markets want them. Oh, almighty McMahons, thank you so very, very much for deigning us worthy enough to accept your kind gifts of Tyson Tomko and Scotty 2 Hotty matches. Truly, you have enriched our poor non-American lives with your majestic tokens of kindness.
Oh, and they may also use these matches for exclusive web-based content or DVD extras should the USA Network continue to show no interest in putting them on air. Well, quite. Why should the paying customer waste his or her money by purchasing Flair/Steamboat or Foley/Vader from the vast WWE 24/7 video library when they can see the likes of Striker/Parisi or Holly/Jordan instead? That would indeed bring The Stupid along for a double date with The Dumb and The Moronic.
In potentially happier news, it means that a lot of the undercard wrestlers will get to keep their jobs because, well, crappy wrestling TV shows for foreign markets and WWE.com need wrestlers. That’s just wonderful, but despite the obvious warm and fuzzy feelings inside me, I still just want to point out that the following people could quite easily be let go without me giving a shit…
Raw – Antonio, Ashley, Candice, Chris Masters, Danny Basham, Eugene, Gene Snitsky, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, Johnny Parisi, Kerwin White, Lance Cade, Lita, Maria, Matt Striker, Rene Dupree, Romeo, Rosey, The Hurricane, Todd Grisham, Torrie Wilson, Trevor Murdoch, Tyson Tomko and Viscera.
Smackdown – Christy Hemme, Doug Basham, Hardcore Holly, Heidenreich, Jillian, Joey Mercury, Johnny Nitro, Melina, Michelle McCool, Orlando Jordan, Road Warrior Animal, Scotty 2 Hotty, Sharmell, Simon Dean, Stacy Keibler, Steve Romero, Sylvain Grenier, Vito and that Burchill guy that doesn’t appear to be on the WWE.com Smackdown superstar page yet. Oh, and the network guy too.
So don’t rush into anything, there’s plenty of scope to be cruel and vindictive without pissing me off. I’m being mightily generous here, so I hope you appreciate it.
***
“And now, in the spirit of the season: start shopping. And for every dollar of Krusty merchandise you buy, I will be nice to a sick kid. For legal purposes, sick kids may include hookers with a cold.”
MATT BENTLEY put up a message on his official site to clear up any confusion over his recent TNA sabbatical and exactly why he changed his name. Here’s what he had to say:
” First off the rumor mill has been running rampant lately about why Matt Bentley did not re-sign with TNA and that I was heading up North. Whenever you read something on the internet it is kind of like reading the National Enquirer. Until you heard it straight from the source, don’t believe it. TNA and myself never parted ways in any way, shape or form. My contract with TNA was not up until September 17th so there was no way that I could contact any other competitor of TNA until my contract expired. TNA and myself were in negotiations the whole time leading up to my return, so it was never really an issue of me leaving TNA, it was just doing the right thing and trying to get what I wanted, that’s all. So for future reference, never believe what you read until you read it hear on my site.
Next we have the issue of my former name Michael Shane. As everyone knows by now there is a wrestler up North who’s name is Mike Shane and he trademarked that name back in 2001. I had been using the name Michael Shane nationally longer than he had, but since that was his real name there was really nothing I could do. TNA and myself came to the conclusion instead of fighting it in court we would just start over from scatch and it would give me something good to work with on T.V. and also be something fresh when we hit Spike T.V. I am not anger nor bitter about it at all, I am actually kind of relieved that people can start referring me by my giving name instead of a made up one.”
You just have to love the unintentional comedy of that last sentence in the first paragraph. Or even the last sentence of the second paragraph. Who would have thought that having a career based around getting dropped on your head would have left you grammar bad ungood gone? Anyway, you bet your ass he’s glad that he is using his real name now. With certain people now going on a trademark collecting spree, guys like Bentley would be wise to just start making a name under their real name. It saves them from being visited by the legal hit-squad at some vaguely possible post-WWE point in the future. Not that Bentley was going “up North” and, obviously, if they asked him to come “up North” then he would of course turn it down immediately, lest Universal Studios collapse without his presence. Can we please get the TNA guys to stop referring to it as “up North”? Can we please get them to stop referring to it on-screen at all? It only serves to remind the viewers of how bush league TNA really is in comparison to WWE, and that’s not at all what you want to do when so many of the viewers are likely to have been so impressed with their first X Division experiences that they will have temporarily forgotten the bush league status. I keep mentioning this curious habit they have of shooting themselves in the foot, but they seem determined to keep on doing it, so f*ck ’em.
***
“Have you ever seen that Blue Man Group? Total ripoff of the Smurfs. And the Smurfs, well, they SUCK.”
SHAWN DAIVARI will of course not be able to use that first name when he gets called back up to WWE from OVW, but at least he stands a very good shot at getting called back up at all. We all know the story about what happened to his associate Hassan (see up above) and Daivari suffered by proxy. However, he took to his role as Hassan’s Arabic spokesman exceptionally well and was almost unanimously praised where Hassan was criticised, both for his character work and for his wrestling ability. The words “he’s a nippy little bugger” may have been uttered by certain people upon seeing him in the ring for the first time. He did a great job getting his less-talented mate over, and he’s certainly passionate about getting the opportunity to put himself over instead, as this interview at WWE.com proves. Speaking about his comeback, he says:
“I would prefer [to return to] Raw. I’m thinking just business-wise because I would hate to get a good steam going on something and then have some jerk-off write in to the network saying, ‘This is just that ‘terrorist’ character; they just changed his character and name, blah, blah, blah.’ And then have the higher-ups say, ‘Hey, I thought I told you guys we don’t want this person on television anymore,’ and then I’m gone.”
Since they are currently billing him as “Sheik Daivari” in OVW, it could well be asking for trouble by putting him back on Smackdown. Then again, there have been Sheiks in wrestling for a long time and if they brought the revamped character back without any of the terrorist nonsense and UPN still had a problem with him, they would certainly be a tempting target to the increasingly litigious WWE legal department…
Then again, WWE is apparently interested in bringing in Sabu for one of these “Legends” contracts in addition to a Sabu/RVD action figure double-pack… And we all know that it would just be utterly inconceivable to have Sabu and RVD in the same promotion without interacting… and RVD is on Raw now… so Sabu would go there… and if he went there they would be crazy to bring back Daivari as a Sheik without letting him work with Sabu…
So, yes, despite how much fun we could potentially have from Daivari nipping around the cruiserweights on Smackdown, it does make more sense to put him back on Raw. At least, for the short-term, since Sabu isn’t going to stick around for too long so Daivari can head back to Smackdown in the next draft lottery. Also, unlike the recent Diva trades, it actually makes sense for Daivari to come back to Raw since, in storyline terms, he was released from Smackdown and, besides, it was Hassan that was drafted, not him.
So, basically, pencil in Sabu & RVD vs. Daivari & Carlito for some Raw PPV in the coming months.
***
“If it was up to me, I’d let you go; but the Gods have a temper, and they’ve been drinking all day.”
TNA has announced three main matches for the BOUND FOR GLORY PPV on the 23rd October…
30 Minute Iron Man X-Division Championship Match:
A.J. Styles vs. Christopher Daniels
Ultimate X #1 Contender Match:
Matt Bentley vs. Chris Sabin vs. Petey Williams
Samoa Joe vs. Jushin Liger
There’s nothing that needs to be said about any of those matches other than “hurry up and happen so I can enjoy you.”
Still, the utter stupidity of the NWA World Title scene needs some drastic damage repair or this big show of theirs will be mocked with as much glee as most people give to their other big shows, regardless of how good the X matches are. The possibility of Jarrett/Nash headlining the show that headlines the year is terrifying.
By the way, I haven’t seen Liger in years. Is he still good?
***
“We can’t bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Now where was I… oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn’t get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…”
My new best friend JIM ROSS has yet another one of his little reports up at WWE.com, so let’s see if he has anything mock-worthy to say this week…
“We have not had too many eight-man tags on TV and with the star power involved and the raw numbers alone in the match, it felt that big to me.”
This is in response to his hyperbolic selling of the Cena/Michaels/Hardy/Show vs. Angle & 3 Other Blokes tag match from Raw this past week. I agree, it was a fun match. If only there was some sort of an annual PPV that allowed these kinds of fun eight-man tag matches to take place…
“Flair is obviously at the twilight of his long-and-amazing career but this title victory seems to have invigorated the ‘Naitch’ who still firmly believes he could have one last run with the WWE Championship before he hangs it up.”
Damn right, he could. You know why? This is why…
Greatness.
Now, that would have been the definitive Evolution line-up.
JR’s pretty much taking it easy this week, although he does take the time to mention that Shawn Michaels has been behaving himself backstage lately and not ripping the piss with a vengeance as he has been known to do in the past. Well, that’s disappointing. I may be a cruel person, but I want Michaels back on the hooch with several thousand dollars up his nose, hot twin sisters on either arm and several happy pills for midnight snacking, which would technically be his breakfast. I want the classic HBK back. I want him to stop wearing those utterly lame jackets and hideous ties. I want him to hump the Canadian flag in Canada again. I want him to ruin his life to benefit mine. Die for me, bitch.
Oh, I’m serious alright. And so say all of us.
TOP 5 BEST SHAWN MICHAELS MATCHES:
1. vs. Mick Foley at In Your House: Mind Games
2. vs. Kurt Angle at WrestleMania XXI
3. vs. The Undertaker at In Your House: Bad Blood
4. vs. Bret Hart at Survivor Series ’92 (that’s nineteen-ninety-two)
5. vs. Kevin Nash at In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies
EXIT SPIEL:
– Ross Williams continues the unstoppable roll of the Ross Report, which sadly means that he has to actually watch Raw whilst paying attention. Do you appreciate the sacrifice this man makes on your behalf??
– Gordi takes a look at some of the unknowns in the PWI 500 this year.
– Kevin Bufton also gets mail from that cyberslut Andy Campbell, and checks out the potential of one… more… title… for Ric Flair. The big title, not the little one. And you have to say it with the dramatic pauses for added effect, or Shawn Michaels will kick you.
– Phil Clark & J.D. Speich debate who should make a comeback – Mick Foley or Steve Austin? The correct answer is, of course, The Berzerker.
– David Brashear spends far too much time writing about Mark Henry. It could be harmful to your health, David…
Man, that sounded sinister, didn’t it?
– Go check out my review of All-Star Batman & Robin #2 here. It’s written by Frank “Sin City” Miller and drawn by that Jim Lee guy!! And it’s god-awful!! It’s the comic book equivalent of the Heroes of Wrestling PPV…
– Lost is back and John Duran has the recap of the second season’s debut. I don’t want to ruin anything for those of you that haven’t seen it yet, but it would seem that the bad guy is Hulk Hogan’s long-lost Scottish cousin, Desmond McHogan, brother.
– If you want to laugh at the insanity of women and the stupidity of men, then go and read some of these pathetic grumblings. Insane behaviour and criticism, it’s the meaning of life, folks… deal with it…
– Did I mention our Top 50 yet? No? Well, you’re just highly gullible then. Here you are once more – Part 1 and Part 2 and that’s yer lot until Tuesday…
AIM: KingKongBurnside
Iain Burnside is currently concerned about this stuff that’s just dripping right out of his nose… yeuch…
