In Memoria: Pat Morita and George Best, who can be easily linked through use of feet…
…actually, that’s not really fair. Morita is better known by people of my generation as Arnold moreso than Mister Miyagi. Just points out the differences, I guess.
And WWE’s attempting to point out the differences between Raw and Smackdown in anticipation of this weekend’s tilt at the Thanksgiving Tradition. That means extra work for me, of course, and a probable delay on Tuesday’s column. I do like to cover major PPVs in the Tuesday column instead of saying, “Haven’t finished downloading it yet. May have some comments in the Short Form.” Since they usually turn out to be the big story of the weekend, I believe that the delay is better than a seeming abrogation of responsibility.
Speaking of abrogation of responsibility, here’s something off of the AP Wire:
Bennington, Vermont — A high school teacher is facing questions from administrators after giving a vocabulary quiz that included digs at President Bush and the extreme right.
In Bennington? Which traditionally is so far to the left it makes me look like Tom DeLay? That’s it, I’m going to start the revolution now…
…actually, I’m just going to start covering Smackdown. I think it’ll be safer for all of you that way.
THE SMACKDOWN SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Booker T versus Chris Benoit, US Title Match/Prelude To The Best-Of-Seven (Double pinfall, title declared vacant): I’m still of two minds on this whole situation (see the Round Table). Obviously, any tilt between Our Lord and Savior and Chocolate Christ is a Thing Of Beauty and Joy Forever. However, as some of you obviously found out a few days ago, overindulging in a good thing is a bad thing. Considering the number of matches they’ve had recently, and with seven more to come, this is definitely overindulging. Because of this, I won’t include any screen shots from the match. I’ll be giving you enough of those from now until Royal Rumble.
I will say this, though: if you need a palate cleanser, there are torrents floating around for the Samoa Joe/Kenta Kobashi match in ROH recently. I know I have it downloaded and ready, but I’m saving it to get rid of the taste of the worst of the SurSer matches.
Paisley hopes to take her one-woman show “Liz: A Tribute To The Queen” to Broadway sometime next year
Does anyone else prefer to see Korderis/Lil’ Naitch instead of Bisch/Long at SurSer?
Chad Dick and James Dick over The Legion Of Dumb (Pinfall, James pins Animal, rollup): Oh, my God…I may need to break out that Joe/Kobashi match now. This is just…there are just too many adjectives to use in this case, headed up by “sad” and “pathetic”. And did Cole really use the phrase “Dicks butt heads”? I’m too old and secure in my sexuality to be bothered by homoeroticism in wrestling, but they sure want to test me, don’t they?
By the way, the baby oil squirted into the face may not have been the proximate cause of the fact that Animal lost the match. As someone who’s done acting, I know that baby oil is a good way to remove makeup, and have used it a number of times. The baby oil never really hurt my eyes. But when the now-liquified makeup got in them…damn, that stung.
So which one’s Bagwell and which one’s Riggs?
We all know how painful a kick to the Dick can be
Matt Hardy over FudgePacker (DQ, Fun With Chairs): Oh, they are testing me, aren’t they? I hate FudgePacker, I loathe Hardy, and you know the only reason I’m watching this match is that I have to cover it for this column.
That brings me to the main issue. There have been lots of people writing me asking me why I hate FudgePacker. They think he’s TEH KEWLIES!1!11!1!! because he’s got a nifty catch phrase. My readers are complete retards, though, so I expect stuff like this. Well, let me answer them. I hate FudgePacker because he’s from Green Bay and I’m from Chicago. I need no other reason to do so than that. But you who are not Bears fans or Packers fans won’t understand that, so I need a backup explanation. Okay, here goes: I hate him because he’s one of those throwbacks to the Russo Era who are getting over on a catchphrase without showing any discernable talent in the ring. All FudgePacker has demonstrated is that he can wrestle WWE Main Event style at an adequate level. He also doesn’t have a distinctive look or any kind of visible personality. In other words, he’s a nicely-decorated package that’s completely empty inside. He’s simply the lesser blond version of Wife-Beater or Flex at their worst, and you know how I feel about them.
In other words, he brings absolutely nothing to the table, and yet he’s getting a push because the more imbecilic in the audience are getting off on his catchphrase. This includes other columnists at this site whom I shall not mention. I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen in regard to FudgePacker in the future. Sooner or later, you out there will get sick of the catchphrase and turn on him. We’ll get a flood of “Why Ken Kennedy Sucks” columns at every site, accompanied by the syphillitic brain-farts of whiteboard posters on that subject. And all of you will conveniently forget that I was the first to tell you of his weaknesses and deficiencies. It happened with Flex, it happened with Wife-Beater, it’ll happen again with FudgePacker. I am truly the prophet who is unappreciated in his homeland.
Would it be too distasteful at this time to want him to land on his neck and break it?
Melina over Christy Hemme (Pinfall, face-first plant): A lot of people are worried about what the state of the women’s division would be like if Melina takes the title at SurSer (which I have her doing). Don’t be too worried about it. Hemme is proving every time she goes in there that she’s working at her wrestling. She might have been a joke at WM20 when trying to wrestle Trish, but not now. In fact, I’d put her progress at in-ring work ahead of Trish’s at the same time in Trish’s career. Also, you have Jillian Hall over on SD, and she can wrestle quite well. You also know that if Melina wins the title, MickieLexis LaJames will start something up with her in a cross-promotional feud. And I haven’t even talked about Trish being involved in the title situation; she’ll have a rematch clause in the contract. A Melina title win could be just the spark the women’s division needs right now.
The difference between Christy and other divas we can mention is that Christy is willing to go up to keep her job, rather than going down
I will graciously allow you fourteen-year-olds of all ages out there to fantasize over this. Masturbate away.
Juventud Guerrera over Nunzio, Cruiserweight Title (Re)Match (Pinfall, Juvi Driver, New Cruiserweight Champion): Okay, now we have to question the cynicism of the title switch in Rome. It also points out a failing of Americans that I’ve found to be depressingly common. The way Americans deal with foreign countries is, as an American myself, embarassing. They truly believe that if a country shares a border and a language, the culture is monolithic. In this case, since Nunzio is “Italian” in origin, a title switch in Rome is a tribute to said origins. However, aren’t Nunzio and Vito supposed to be Sicilian? The culture in Sicily and the culture in Rome are so utterly different that virtually all they share is a language and an Italian passport. Sicily and Rome spent their entire history from the fall of the Roman Empire to 1861 as part of separate nations. Even Roman pizza and Sicilian pizza are vastly different. In other words, a wop is not a wop.
You know, if they did the title change in Naples, I wouldn’t have bitched, because Naples and Sicily are culturally and governmentally linked in history. But not Rome. And certainly not Milan or Turin.
This is an attitude that’s still prevalent in Europe that we’ve mostly got away from in the US, namely regionalism. Our Civil War pretty much spelled the end of regionalism here. Prior to the Civil War, the term “United States” usually received a plural form of a verb; in other words, the emphasis was on “States”. People identified themselves with what state they were from rather than as a citizen of the US (viz. the state-based units of the Civil War). After the Civil War, “United States” started to be recognized as a singular unit. The last bastion of regionalism here in the US is in college football, usually in the South. Other than that, though, we Americans tend to think of ourselves as Americans first and whatever area we’re from second.
Not so in Europe thanks to centuries of conquests and switching allegiances to rulers. The rule of thumb is that the later a country was unified, the more regional it is. That being said, the two most regional countries in Europe tend to be Italy and Germany, which weren’t unified until the mid-19th Century (we’ll conveniently ignore things like the Castilian/Catalan situation in Spain to make this point, thank you). I know that regionalism is alive and well in Germany from personal experience. After living in Frankfurt for a bit, the hochdeutsch that I learned in school became peppered with regional terms and a Hessian accent. I had a lot of difficulty making myself understood and understanding others when I went to Germanophone Switzerland and Bavaria and spoke German, and it wasn’t really because I was trying to speak a second language. Imagine, if you will, a Quebecois who speaks Quebec French as a first language who emigrated to, say, Chicago and learned English there. Now imagine said immigrant going down to rural Georgia and trying to communicate. Now you might understand what I went through. But it’s worse in Europe because of the greater differences in culture between different regions, and that’s difficult to explain to a modern American due to our common cultural situation as given to us by mass media as opposed to the European cultures that developed along long historical lines. This is something that wasn’t thought about by WWE when they did the title change in Rome. All they thought was that since Nunzio was “Italian”, it would be a nice sop to the audience, similar to Tajiri getting the tag strap in Japan.
You know, I blathered on about cultural differences and didn’t even talk about the match. That shows you how much the match really stood out. Or maybe I’m angling for the Duke of Castro to make me a member of the Constantinian Order by educating you in how Sicilians are different from Italians. Hell, I deserve some kind of honor from an ancient and noble house for what I’ve done. I’d prefer being made a Knight of Malta, but the Church would really have to forgive me for a lot. And I think we can count out an honorary knighthood from the Queen after the remark about Paisley above.
Are the lawnmowers right-hand drive this week?
Sometimes, this move doesn’t work. TNA, please take note.
Rey-Rey y Muchacho Del Altavoz De la Alta Calidad versus Mister Regal and Paul Burchill (ND, Raw-ference): Now, continuing along this line of thinking, here we have Burchill, who’s from London, and Regal, who’s a good Lancashire boy. Do the fine folks of Derbyshire in the audience care about them as much as you’d think? Again, cultural differences apply. You can stretch the definition of Midlands to include Blackpool, which would explain their fondness for Regal, but that still doesn’t cover Burchill. Again, the common UK passport doesn’t paper over the regional differences.
Yes, I promise, that’s the last I’m going to mention of this.
Okay, it’s a Roller. But after seeing the stretch limos all the time, there’s a dick size joke to be made here.
Regal demonstrates how easy it is for American tourists in England to get run down while they’re looking the wrong way while crossing a road…hey, don’t laugh; it almost happened to me in London, and I was taking a lot of care.
Before you ask, yes, they do have area codes in the UK
Bobby Lashley over Orlando Jordan (Pinfall, Dominator): So, can we now officially feel sorry for Orlando Jordan? Look, it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t do anything with the US title; he wasn’t allowed to. He’s not that bad of a wrestler either. Can we have him snap at some point and start doing run-ins and beating people up? Just to get something positive going in his life?
I’ve seen worse dye jobs on Mexican women
You know, I’ve already made a black-on-black violence reference in the Short Form, so I have no idea what to say here
Angle Developments:
Nothing except for
the Raw/SD rivalry, really, and that’s only to be expected with SurSer this week. So I’ll just plant a couple of pictures here to take up space.
Is it safe to say that we can all live with him doing his routine without ever having to see him wrestle?
“Look, man, this is getting ridiculous! We have to do something about the fangirls who keep writing stories about us being their older brothers or boyfriends! Or both!”
Will you please button up your f*cking shirt, Masters? Being steroidal is bad enough; you don’t have to add “white trash” to the list of crimes.
Please note this fact: If not for Eddy, this man would be getting the piss beaten out of him in a Buried Alive match on Sunday. So instead we’ll have to wait a month to watch him get the piss beat out of him in the Cell.
Makes you appreciate the efforts the FA has made in cleaning up football hooliganism
THE IMPACT SHORT FORM
Fuck it, I’ll do it live, get it over with, relax on Sunday to prep for the Tuesday column…
Match Results:
Monty Brown over Helvis (Pinfall, Pounce): It was a Monty squash, it lasted less than a minute. What do you expect me to say about it?
A. J. Fuckin’ Styles over Chris Sabin, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, Styles Clash): Oh, we’ve seen this puppy too many times to exercise any more superlatives over them than have already been given. Look, if both these guys came out there in a coma, it’d still hit three snowflakes. So I really can’t add anything more. Well, I could, so I will. We are considering TNA rankings to go along with our WWE rankings, but so far, no one’s put out any hard rankings except for myself and PK. I’ve got Sabin at #4 on the X Division list (behind Styles as champion, then Joe, Williams, and Daniels), PK has him at #3 (behind Styles, Joe, and Daniels). So we’re giving props where props are due, and Sabin deserves them.
Jeffykins over Abyss (Pinfall, Twist Of Fate): And here’s our Grievous Bodily Harm Division match for the week. Since it involves Jeffykins, I don’t give a shit about it. I will note, however, that if wrestling was in any way realistic, Abyss would turn Jeffykins into a multicolored smear on the floor. Well, at least the Barbed Wire Match won’t involve him.
Jeff Jarrett over Monty Sapp, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, Stroke): And here we plow new furrows in the enormous, fertile field called Suck. I’m sure that the furrow marks aren’t new; they had to have had some kind of IC title match back in ’99, when everyone held the IC strap for ten minutes. But this is new ground, so to speak, where Jarrett’s the owner and attached to the NWA title belt with cyanoacrylate, and, somehow, Trip is now black (and a talented wrestler again) and Chyna’s a fat Hispanic dude. Honestly, did Jackie Gayda have to do the run-in and associate herself with this nightmare? I thought she was able to put her past history of horrendous activities behind her. However, I’m sure she can rationalize it; she’s obviously making more money than Charlie at this moment. I’d say something about Bobby Roode disgracing himself, but he’s doing enough of that by being in proximity to Alastair Rouse.
I think it’s best not to contemplate anything in or surrounding this match. It’s much safer for one’s sanity.
Angle Developments:
I don’t even know why I bother with this section for Impact. They set all the matches for their next PPV during the first episode of Impact after the last one, then they hardly do any angle development. They usually just tell the story in matches or things like guest commentary. Hence, no real “developments”. Maybe I should just keep it in for unexpected bullshit in the future.
This is as opposed, of course, to the expected bullshit, which anything involving 3LK (or is it 4LK?) gets filed under. I’d say “Just go through with the New Age Outlaws reunion already”, but I’ve been saying that ever since Monty Fucking Sapp showed up in TNA, and I’m bored with it, thank you.
And that closes this one. Enjoy Survivor Series, and I’ll see you Tuesday. Except for one thing: my birthday’s Monday, so I’d better get some appreciation from you sons of bitches this time.
