In Memoriam: Candy Barr. The moment that Saint Peter saw her tits, he obviously had to let her in.
Ah, boredom strikes again. No real wrestling news, nothing major in the world news. Nothing really catching my eye per se, except for the fact that the Bears are the only team in the NFC Centra…sorry, North to not fire their coach this year. Pomazak will have more on that as the blood continues to flow in the NFL coaching ranks, so I’ll leave it to him.
It’s at times like these that I thank God for the Queen’s New Years’ Honours List. It’s always fun to read it and try to spot people who are famous and wonder, “How in the name of God’s green earth…”, etc. Of course, I wasn’t honoured this year, again. The fact that I’m American is purely incidental. However, there were some “names” who were. Not as weird as last year, when Roger Daltrey got a CBE, or when Brian May got the same treatment in last year’s Birthday Honours List (along with Midge Ure getting an OBE), but it’s still worth notice:
Tom Jones got a knighthood to go along with his OBE. How f*cking cool is that? Let a thousand panties bloom.
Dr. Michael Pepper got a knighthood. He’s one of the most important guys in semiconductor physics in the world. Hey, I feel good for him.
Lady Vivienne Westwood, DBE, OBE. That’s gonna take a while to wrap around my brain.
Sebastian Coe has a life peerage and an OBE. Isn’t giving him a KBE in addition to that a little bit of overkill?
TV host Bruce Forsyth got an upgrade, a CBE to go along with his OBE.
Jonathan Ive, CBE: the man who gave us iWhatever. Oh, he’ll be burning in hell for some sins.
Some Scot named Alexander Gibson got a CBE for “services to food safety”. See, there is hope for me yet.
Robbie Coltrane, OBE: Okay, now we’re getting a little bit weird. Good.
The Beverly Sisters got MBEs. They were quite a popular group in the late 50s, from what I’ve been able to research. Sort of the British answer to the Andrews Sisters, only a decade later.
And, of course, the entire England cricket team who won the Ashes got OBEs or MBEs. Watch as the retards at ESPN try to get the Medal of Freedom awarded to Tom Brady based on this.
Hmmmmm, not too much weirdness this year, regrettably. Shucks. You can usually count on Brenda for some good stuff, but after using her in the Short Form over the weekend and now this, I’ll lay off of HM for a while.
Yeah, folks, I’m stretching. Really, the two weeks around the holidays absolutely blow for news. The only exception was in 2001, and I don’t think we can get that lucky to have two major feds go out of business at the same time again. So bear with me. This is gonna be another “Short Form and Jack Shit Else” column. At least Battlestar Galactica starts back up on Friday. I need a fix. And golf season starts this week too…no, it still doesn’t help for today.
Let’s just hit the pimps and see if everyone’s back from their long winter’s nap…
THE PIMP SECTION
There’s only one person who can get a guaranteed pimp above Lucard, and that’s me. There’s an interview with me at Buttonhole that you might enjoy. So go there and read it.
Lucard goes to the lighthouse.
Hevia has another guest writer, a total mark this time.
Hatton and his drunk friends are at it again.
Zarur doesn’t have to bother with “leaving you with his PPV picks”. He could do it in the Round Table like the rest of us, but, no, he’s f*cking special, isn’t he?
Basilo got drunk on Saturday and can’t remember a damn thing.
Pandich says that BAXLEY! left the site on supposedly less than amicable terms. People never tell me jack shit. Pandich also did the live Raw. We’re still having problems getting people to volunteer for that. Gee, with such wonderful events at Shelton’s Mamma and Trip/TBS, you think people would just bolt at the chance.
Semi-pimp here since he publishes on Wednesday: Truncellito wrote me about a remark I made in the Short Form speculating about Rey-Rey calling his Bronco Buster the “1904”. Essentially, what he said was “right track, wrong destination”. I was right about “1904” being numerical shorthand for “SD”, but Vin-man had a better idea about what that stood for than “Smackdown”. He thinks it stands for “San Diego”, to parallel the 619. Yeah, I’ll buy that, and plead guilty to blinders. After all, I was concentrating on getting an article involving Smackdown done at the time. However, I was the only person who seemed to talk about that this weekend, so that puts me one up.
SO THERE REALLY ISN’T ANY NEWS? YOU’VE SAID THAT BEFORE, YOU KNOW…
There isn’t any news. Honestly. What do you want me to talk about? WWE signing Giant Singh? Please, it’s just another tall stiff. Like we don’t have enough of them on the roster already. Maybe a notice can be made for Milord swallowing his pride and admitting that his sources bullshitted him about Charlie Haas coming back to WWE. It’s always fun to see Scherer squirm. But there’s only so much schadenfreude that one can muster. I’ll comment about Charlie coming back, if it happens, in the Short Form later on.
Not much later on, because due to the lack of everything, it’s next…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Kane over Shawn Michaels, McMahon’s Revenge/No Superkicks Allowed Match (Pinfall, chokeslam): Well, there are worse ways to pimp a PPV. It wasn’t a bad match. Kane seemed to be on his feed, which helped the situation. However, it’s the angle surrounding this that has everyone in a tizzy. So many people have said over the last week that this will set up a McMahon/Michaels WM match. This isn’t necessarily true. This angle could be blown off at Royal Rumble. It doesn’t necessarily have to be anything long-term. Frankly, I’ll keep saying this until I believe it, then mourn my hometown when it happens.
Maria Kanelis over Missus Hevia (Pinfall, rollup): Fortunately, this will make Maria ineligible for Best Non-Wrestling Performer of 2006. You don’t know how damn close I came to having to write about that bitch for our Best Of awards column (which should be up soon). Thank God that there are enough sane people left in this world. Vince isn’t one of them, though. A Bra and Panties Gauntlet Match?
Chris Masters over Shelton Benjamin (Submission, MasterLock): Well, no Shelton’s Mamma interfering in the match. No Charlie Haas interfering either. If either of those had happened, I could have mentally justified the existence of this match. But without that interference, why did it happen? I guess we’ll never know.
(Okay, she showed up later, and if she’s really that way physically, I can see why they didn’t do a run-in. Her run-ins would take as long as Sandman’s entrances. And I’ll lay you odds that one of my Raw Regulars will use the name “Sapphire” in conjunction with this…)
(Yet another parenthetical: Tone E Atlas recognized Shelton’s Mamma as Thea Vidale, a comedienne who had a short-lived sitcom on ABC between 1993 and 1994. This series is best-known for foisting Brandy on the world. I checked her official site and, yes, it is her. Poor Thea. Life could have been so much better. Chris Arrington said that he saw her host the AVN Awards and she was funny as hell, so she may be able to pull this off. The problem here is that Shelton’s not in her league, so she’s going to outshine him, and that can’t be good for Benjy. Here’s an idea: after she’s established, how about making her GM of Raw? If she could handle a network sitcom, she could definitely handle this. And her tete-a-tetes with Teddy Long would be platinum. By the way, Milord’s unpaid stringers started sending him mails regarding her identity, so this is no scoop by me. But at least I’m not caught flat-footed. Thanks, Tone and Chris.)
And, DING DING DING, we have a winner! Step up and claim your prize, KC Evers (no relation):
And so the unwanted Shelton’s Mother storyline kicks in. Joy…almost makes me long for the days of Sapphire.
Steve Murray didn’t identify Thea Vidale, but he did have one very good observation:
This is getting pathetic. Shelton Benjamin was working his way into the status of My Favorite Wrestler in the World. Now, I hear his music and just cringe — how is he going to get screwed this week? And now I get my answer: Chris Masters. Jesus Palomino – I think the WWE hates me. How can anyone back stage watch this match, notice Benjamin’s efforts, see the fact that Masters blows *TWO* spots blatantly on-camera, and still feel comfortable with Masters getting the big push? How do they sleep at night?
Masters not only blew two spots, he made Benjy blow a couple as well, mostly missed holds. I am hoping against all hope that this Sunday is simply a charity push for both him and Carly, and they’ll be back to the mid-card afterward, especially after their heat spots in the Elimination Chamber match get zero crowd reaction. Of course, in my Buttonhole interview, I made some remarks about Vince’s denseness regarding when to end pushes, and used Masters as an example. I fear for us, I really do.
Kurt Angle over John Cena, First Blood Match: Meh. Yeah, Cena showed signs of life, but, really, it was nothing special. It just shows you how hard it is to pimp an Elimination Chamber match. Not even the apres helped. This is going to be one sad PPV on Sunday.
Slick Rick is getting a mite upset at the antics of one John Cena:
Between the apron slams and the chair shot, even the attempts at prettying it up via camera show him blocking with his forearms blatantly. I’ve seen more professional selling back when they still had that reality show with inexperienced people training to be wrestlers.
And some of them turned out to be pretty adequate wrestlers. What’s Cena’s excuse? The guy went through school and OVW and has been with WWE for three years now. There’s no excuse for him not to have learned the basics.
KC Evers (no relation) paid attention so I didn’t have to:
Slight difference in the crowd reacions here. Angle’s getting those “Boo, you’re a heel” boos. Cena’s getting those “Boo, we’re tired of you being pushed” boos.
Oh, absolutely. They really have to get the strap off Cena Sunday. If they don’t, despite having booked an Elimination Chamber, which provides no end of heat-preserving excuses, something is very, very wrong with that system. And you’re also right about Cena attempting to counter the crowd by attempting cheap heat through rapping.
Angle Developments:
Tone E Does Me Proud: Tone E. Atlas, he of the Thea Vidale identification, has a wonderful description for this particular episode:
For five years I couldn’t watch the E because I didn’t get TNN/Spike and now I have the privilege of watching the same shit I was watching when I was in high school? Fuck VKM. Fuck Stephanie and her early 90s WWF fetish. Fuck the entire writing staff. And finally f*ck brand loyalty. There’s always Law & Order reruns on TNT.
It’s really weird to hear you say that, because I brought up Steph’s early 90s obsession in my interview with Buttonhole, in passing. But I’m glad I’m not the only one still seeing it.
The Perfect Storm: So, it’s going to be Novocaine Helms versus Lawler at New Years’ Revolution. Gee, how much disinterest does it take to collapse upon itself and form a Black Hole of Apathy? I think I’ll be finding that out on Sunday. By the way, Chris Arrington and KC Evers (no relation) both remarked about Joey’s line to Lawler about the Piledriver, and remembered that it was banned in Memphis (except on special occasions). Betcha it’ll be pulled out on Sunday.
Road Raves: Well, okay, Edge, that was cute, I’ll give you that. I loved the nice touch of “Flair”‘s “victim” wearing an Edge T-shirt. It’s details like those that count. However, I’m still not that interested in the match on Sunday. I know consciously that it’ll be Match of the Night, but it doesn’t spark me, you know. Good luck next time.
Seriously, that’s it. Maybe next week we’ll have something juicy. Well, at least Sting should be debuting on Impact, which will liven the weekend Short Form a bit. I’m sure I’ll have something nasty and bitter to say. Until then, ta.
