Upsets are on people’s minds. Duke lost to Florida State this week, Federererer lost a hardcourt match for the first time in over a year (okay, he lost to Nadal, which, to translate tennis to wrestling, is like Kurt Angle losing to Chris Benoit). Given the bunching up at the top of the leaderboard at Doral, someone might come up and ruin the chance for Tigger/Lefty II: Electric Boogaloo (in point of fact, Lefty ruined it himself courtesy of some bad shots down the stretch on Saturday). UNC over Duke at Cameron was an upset, but let me reiterate this fact: Duke is the only college basketball team that matters, because it’s the only one that has a Polack from the Southwest Side of Chicago as its coach. And there’s the Oscars coming up, which always provides some tension. I did go against the chalk on a couple of my predictions (most notably Felicity Huffman for Best Actress and Matt Dillon for Best Supporting Actor, although a good portion of the Movies guys agree with me on the latter), so I’m rooting for a couple of them.
And, of course, be sure to read the Oscars Roundtable. We Wrestling guys are so wrapped up with our High Holy Days right now that we tend to tunnel-vision and don’t see that other people are also celebrating theirs. I’m definitely not averse to pimping them at times like these. In fact, I’m probably going to end up to contributing to the TV section’s May feature, due to the fact that I’m an expert in one of the subcategories of the thing they’ll be covering. As for this, McCullar asked me at the last minute to contribute if I wanted to, then I reminded him that I made my picks last month in the Short Form in the Big Eight, so he decided to incorporate them into the Roundtable. No problem by me.
(Memo to Bob Sutton: It’s not enough to remember Clooney as “that guy on E. R.“. You’ve got to remember him as “that guy on The Facts of Life“. Which, tragically, I do.)
And back to the subject of underdogs, everyone’s now talking about Marty Jannetty’s termination. I’m split on this. Of course, it could be real, but this just screams “work”. Jannetty comes in for a couple weeks, doesn’t wrestle a match, and plays appendage to the Vince/Shawn angle. He then fails to become a member of the Kiss My Ass Club, which was a condition to his employment, as was repeatedly stated on Raw. So, a terse announcement on the website about WWE no longer having any kind of professional relationship with Jannetty seems to me to be them using the newly-established work-shoot reputation of wwe.com to their advantage. They were so caught up in having Michaels smooch the Most Powerful Derriere In Sports Entertainment that they failed to account for Jannetty’s status as part of the show. They’re just using the website to fill in that plothole, and as a bonus, wwe.com’s new rep as a primary news source gets people to think it’s for real. Would anyone be surprised if, either on Monday, a week from Monday, or at SNME, Jannetty comes out of the audience to help Shawn? Would anyone be surprised if he’s in Shawn’s corner at Wrestlemania to counter Shane, especially if he interferes in the Street Fight? Shawn’s going to need somebody there for that purpose, and if it’s not Jannetty, it’s going to be…you know who. After all, he’s in town, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if the first enemy in question is my second-biggest enemy. I’d prefer Jannetty, thank you.
(And in another demonstration of my near-neurotic devotion to not step on other columnists’ toes, I stopped writing the column and read Burnside to make sure that he didn’t cover this particular direction. He didn’t, so that saves me the trouble of deleting the above.)
Okay, the Observer and 1bullshit Junior are saying this is a shoot, and that storylines were changed midstream which didn’t require Jannetty. But they’ve been worked before. Witness just a couple of weeks ago when they were told that Animal would be Hardy’s partner at No Way Out, only to find out a few hours before the PPV that it was Tatanka. So, accept this as real, but be wary.
That’s all I can really think of for a lead on this one. I’m not too enthused about watching SD and being bored silly by the Angle/UT rematch. Those spoilers that came out Monday really spoiled any appetite I might have for this one. Oh, screw it. I’ve finished downloading Galactica, so I’ll watch that first. Hot Chick Cylons always take priority…
“Moore said that since we didn’t have Cylons like these back in my day, I could keep this one. That okay?”
…well, that was f*cking weird. Dean Stockwell playing a priest? However, you knew that Stockwell had to show up on Galactica sooner or later. It’s like an immutable law of the universe or something. Well, if Wong and/or Closs are still doing their thing, I’ll let them tell you about it. In the meantime, I’ll move on to the shows I cover on a regular basis…
THE SMACKDOWN SHORT FORM
Damn, snagged the Canadian feed, but the Aussie one wasn’t uploaded in time. So, we’re getting a bit of wide-screen as I have to edit out the summar bar at the bottom. Well, at least I missed the last chance for Cole to mispronounce “Brisbane”.
Match Results:
Tatanka over Booker T (Pinfall, rollup): I’d questioned how low Booker had actually descended on the food chain by jobbing to Tatanka. This, of course, made me wonder exactly who he’d lost those five WCW titles to. In case you’re wondering, it was Nash, Vinny Ru, Big Sump Pump, Angle, and Flex (the latter two after the Merger, of course). So, in other words, he’s used to having to descend to the depths in his career, especially with that last title loss. And you thought that G. I. Bro was a humiliation. No, I’m afraid that Booker’s been through much worse than having to job to Chris Fucking Chavis.
Native-American on African-American Violence is a seriously understudied subject
Randy Orton over Super Crazy (Pinfall, RKO): Exactly what meaning does this match have in the grand scheme of things? Orton needed something to do, MNM were otherwise occupied so the Mexicools couldn’t face them…that’s just about it. So I ignored it, as most of you probably did. By the way, Orton’s new theme is horrid.
Normally I don’t mind someone beating up a Mexican. But this is Super Crazy, and the guy doing the beating is Orton, so…
Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro over Matt Hardy and Animal, Non-Title Match (Pinfall, Mercury pins Hardy, Snapshot): A match so thrilling and exciting that my eyes were drifting to the curling scores scrolling across the bottom; yea, verily, this was a Butcher of Brisbane Match. Jesus, they even started repeating some spots they did last week, like the “Nitro’s in the corner grabbing on to the ropes, Hardy and partner grab Nitro by the legs, and they flip Nitro over” thing I used as a screen cap. But this one will be known for the Animal heel turn. So what reason does Animal have to ally himself with MNM? Lame-ass wacky face communication doesn’t cut it. Nor does sending the booker’s brother to the top rope. I suspect that this involves Melina and another locker room assignation. We already know she’s turned on to guys in their 40s because of Batista, which gives me a glimmer of hope. But this is the Road To Wrestlemania, where we can’t dwell on motivation for long, since those thoughts are quickly drowned out by “What will this lead to?”. Obviously a six-man, but who partners with Hardy? Tatanka seems an obvious choice, but who else? Jed, I believe, brought up the topic of Jeffykins, but he promises to shoot everything in sight when that happens. Age before beauty, Jed. Besides, it’ll be in my hometown, so that gives me rights.
Hardy will do anything to get his face near another guy’s crotch
Bobby Lashley versus Fit Finlay (Double DQ, Fun With Chairs): I will never, ever understand the principle in booking that says that, when doing something in the midcard on a PPV, you require a match beforehand between the competitors to build up expectations. For the discerning wrestling fan (meaning me and none of you), a green-but-willing rookie with potential facing an experienced, savvy, smart, talented veteran is anticipation enough, especially when their styles mesh pretty well. It’s going to be a better match between them at WM than most people think. It could be better, though, if the US title was involved. And if it was a Fatal Four-Way.
That being said, I’m going to write my silly controversial comment for this column right now: Bobby Lashley has the potential to be Samoa Joe if he ignores the way WWE is trying to fit him into the big-man mold. Size, strength, look…we don’t know about the agility because WWE won’t allow him to move off the ground, but the rest is definitely there. If they ruin Lashley, maybe all those Joe-to-WWE boosters that were around until Joe signed his TNA extension might just change their tune.
One more idle observation: when they were doing the pull-apart, on at least two occasions, all of security converged on Lashley, while all of the refs were holding back Finlay. WWE, home of Racial Profiling.
Two months ago we would have said that Finlay was being fed to Lashley. How times change.
Just to remind the audience of how much Edge and Christian are missed. Well, Edge is still there but…oh, hell, you know what I mean.
The Undertaker over Kurt Angle, World Title Rematch That I Didn’t Want (DQ, Mizark-ference): Did I hear Tazz misuse the word “angst”? There’s no amount of head-shaking that can clear this from my head any time soon. As for the match, dear God, another twenty minutes of this bullshit? The same flaws that populated the first match were present in this one too: slow pace, weird spots, etc. (at least this one didn’t present the AngleLock as a neurotic fetish), and the fact that this one was ten minutes shorter was neutered by the run-in ending, which, as I said Tuesday, was what we all expected to happen at No Way Out and were pleasantly surprised that it didn’t. It tilted the whole match into Angle Advancement Match territory.
Honestly, how does Kurt Angle feel right now? He’s holding the world strap, albeit under less than ideal circumstances. But he’s playing second fiddle in this match to the UT/Henry set-up for Wrestlemania, and in his own world title defense at The Granddaddy Of Them All, he’s playing second fiddle to the repulsive Rey-Rey/Orton mess. There hasn’t been anyone who’s been downgraded in his own title reign like this since Jericho. Yes, we all know that he asked for the ball again. But I don’t think he would have expected them to let him have the strap and then do this sort of thing to him. Kurt Angle isn’t important enough to WWE to warrant changing the long-term booking? Bullshit. He’s gone above and beyond for them so many times (including doing a moonsault and taking a Tombstone in this match, with that neck of his), and this is how he’s treated. Bullshit.
Move #130: Japanese left arm bar
Angle Developments:
What a very strange episode of Smackdown. The only real developments were Animal’s heel turn, Henry establishing himself as UT’s Wrestlemania victim, and the one backstage vignette with Regal and Burchill, the latter being the only one people actually cared about. It’s like they were purposely putting the brakes on until SNME to do the final build-up to WM. Don’t you people in “creative” realize I have to fill this section of my column too? Are you going to be like TNA and splurt out your booking plans for the next PPV the week after the last one, then proceed to underdevelop things? Bastards.
What did that tie ever do to Burchill?
THE IMPACT SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Abyss, James Storm, Chris Harris, and Jeff Jarrett over Shark Boy, Cassidy Riley, Buck Quartermain, and…no, it couldn’t be, but it is…NORMAN FUCKIN’ SMILEY!!! (Pinfall, Jarrett pins Smiley, Stroke): Okay, so this is a practice pimp match for Destination X. Yeah, it’s a complete squash. But Norman Fuckin’ Smiley is in it! Is this going to lead to a full contract? Dear God, I hope it does. If there can be one positive about Jarrett’s inexplicable desire to revive WCW, let it be this, please. I need more Big Wiggle, dammit!
Do it, Norman! Kill! Kill!
To those of you who don’t remember WCW, this looks gay. To those of us who do, it’s bringing back fond memories.
Lance Hoyt over Kenny King (Pinfall, Texas Tower Bomb (oh, Jesus H. Christ…)): Now that Black History Month is over, let’s credit TNA for its racial diversity in placing African-American men in all areas of their roster. You’ve got Monty in the main event, Killings as an upper-mid-carder (when they figure out something for him to do), D-Von in the main event tag scene, Skipper languishing in the tag scene, Lethal moving up quickly in the X Division, and now Kenny King of the Jobbers. Tokens? Actually, no, they’re not. God knows they’re better off than Benjy, Lashley, Booker, Paisley, and Kristal, especially if Kristal jobs to Hall, a real female wrestler, next week.
Hey, better to think about that than Mister Useless and his match against Bentley and Brooks’ tits on the PPV.
Kenny King fails in his mission to resupply the International Space Station
Petey Williams, Bobby Roode, and Eric Young over Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt, and Jay Lethal (Pinfall, Williams pins Dutt, Canadian Destroyer): So how much can a good spotfest forgive? Here we had an Angle Advancement Match that doesn’t concern five of the six wrestlers involved (and only tangentially concerns the sixth). It was a complete Spot Without Plot Match, with no better excuse than “these guys were in the building”. There was no content to hang on to in order to provide an elevation for the three X Division guys on the face side of this (and the fact that they didn’t go over just buried it completely). Everyone knows that Style Sans Substance is one of my top sins in wrestling, and this match was the epitome of that. Not even seeing the Destroyer for the first time in a while helped.
It’s amazing the results you get when you electrify the mat surface
Samoa Joe and Shannon Moore over Christopher Daniels and A. J. Fuckin’ Styles (Pinfall, Joe pins Daniels, Clothesline From Samoa): So, let’s see, a free TV match between Angle and UT gets twenty minutes while a match featuring Joe, Daniels, and Styles gets seven minutes. The universal priorities are a little out of whack, aren’t they? Maybe it was the presence of Mister One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others, Shannon Moore, in this match. The other three have built up a decent dynamic, through sheer repetition if nothing else, and Moore in the mix just throws things off. Maybe it’s good they kept it short. After all, they can’t give the good stuff away, can they? The saddest part about this? Joe makes a better tag partner for Moore than Novocaine Helms.
Oh, give it a f*ckin’ rest
Oh, that’s gotta hurt
Angle Developments:
Again, nothing, really. However, we were left with some tempting propositions for Lockdown in potential Christian/Abyss and Rhiyno/Monty cage matches. Or maybe one match depending on whether or not they want to have a title defense. Could be intriguing how this develops.
Ah, well, that’s all there is for this week. I think I’ll go grab some sleep right now after pushing myself to finish this early for a change. Until Tuesday appears on your calendar again, ta ta.
