2006 or 2005? Take your pick. I think those two have a plan, namely that they’ll just trade off from now until Lefty goes to the Senior Tour.
I don’t like Phil Mickelson.
I’ll be honest about that. I think he’s a smarmy little bitch who’s overexposed in mainstream ads and has excessive mainstream popularity. He sucked on the tit of Best Player To Win A Major until everyone started asking “Why exactly hasn’t he won one?” Then, suddenly, he sinks that long-ass putt on the 72nd at Augusta two years ago, and that monkey’s off his back. Now he’s won two majors in a row, the first person since Nick Price not named Woods to do so. Now, he’s living up to his full potential, say the commentators, not noticing the two dozen plus non-majors he’s put in his bag over his career.
The fact is, he was a reckless son of a bitch on the course and, much of the time, still is. We cognoscenti knew exactly why he couldn’t win a major: he was bound to f*ck things up someway. It was actually fun to see how he’d do it this time. He’s like Daly, only with a gambling problem instead of a booze jones. Then, suddenly, the light went on inside his skull, and he settled down and started to concentrate on what he was doing. Then he started winning majors. And I stopped liking him completely.
The stupid grin, the air of self-satisfaction now that his legacy is secure…it creates a package that makes me prone to vomiting. Naturally, I’d prefer if the f*cker didn’t win anything. But fate will not conspire to make me happy (unless something comes through with those phone interviews I had last week or the ones yesterday and today). And so Lefty gets another green jacket and has to decide on a menu for the Champions’ Dinner next year. At least he won’t serve Mexican like Tigger did this year. We must thank God for small blessings.
Shot of the Tournament? Well, you always cut that award down to Sunday anyway, unless it’s a total freak shot like a double eagle. I’d say HoThayCanYouSee’s second shot at 15. The only three-word phrase in golf that is almost as joyful as “hole-in-one” is “tap-in eagle”. And when it puts you within a shot of the lead on the back nine at Augusta? I think it might just be better than a hole-in-one. Of course, he’s eagled that hole before in victory, so it might not be as special for him. Putting in the round of the tournament must have been satisfying for him, as satisfying as that tie for third. He’s shown at times he still has it.
What can you say about Rocco Mediate and 12? Poor guy. I mean, you really, really have to feel for him. Close to the lead, almost getting the lead if that shot at 9 had gone in…and then to hit three balls in the water and take a 10 on a par 3. I’d rather be ass-raped by a platoon of Marines just coming back from Iraq. Eighty in the final round of a major…well, ask Jason Gore and the Goose how that feels. And speaking of the latter…
As for certain predictions, neither Price nor myself have anything to be ashamed about. We both said if not Tigger, then the Goose. That wasn’t a bad pick. They both ended up in that logjam at four under tied for third. But that pick was really a reach considering one little fact. Look at the thirteen people in red figures. Lefty, Tigger, Freddy, HoThayCanYouSee, Veej, and Weir, nearly half of them, have permission to enter the Champions’ Locker Room. They own eleven tacky pieces of tailoring between them now. The rest of the Hispanophone contingent, Cabrera and Jimenez, always play great at Augusta. Clark and Chubby Chad are on the short list of Best Players To Never Win A Major. In other words, it was the Usual Suspects. Whether or not you can include the Goose in there is up to you. A lot of the guys who are supposed to know better were split. Either they were writing him off or installing him as second favorite behind Tigger. Of course, this still leaves Goose a problem: he’s the only one of the Big Five to not have won at least two different majors.
Now we move on in two months to Winged Foot. I’m putting Goose here as the favorite. He plays long, he plays straight, he’s won two US Opens. This one’s supposed to be Tigger’s bitch, but I don’t see it in the cards for him now. When he blew those two short eagle putts on the back nine and looked at his face, you knew he was thinking, “Okay, I don’t have it today, but just wait”. We’ll wait, though. Oh, we will. Goose takes the US Open, Tigger takes the Open Championship and the PGA. Try to come up with a contrary prediction.
Okay, I’ll do it myself, but only for the US Open, since I think Tigger’s a lock for the other two. For some reason, the Commonwealth has a near-hammerlock on the US Open lately. So I’ll look for other Commonwealth golfers that can win this. Luke Donald, definitely. Tim Clark must be high as a kite with that solo second, and he’ll come in to the US Open as someone to watch. Adam Scott has got to live up to his potential sometime. Geoff Ogilvy is wondering right now where he could have picked up one stroke to get the automatic invite for next year, so he needs to ride his momentum to another way to qualify. Appleby? No, he can’t win anywhere other than Hawaii. Clarke? I’d write him in for the Open Championship if his wife dies. David Howell? He’s got to somehow avoid the third-round collapses that occur at the majors and bigs that have been happening to him lately.
Well, since that f*cker Goober talked about the Masters heavily and since he’s actually in the Sports section, I’ll just cut it off here.
THE PIMP SECTION
Oh, stop trying to justify the unjustifiable, Haley. But, then again, I was put on this world to torment Mexicans. That’s why I work in the meat industry. Also, a Trip win at Wrestlemania would have been exothermic in nature (for those idiots out there, that means it would have generated heat, mostly positive heat from Cena losing). As for the whole “jungles in Cuba” thing, yes, they do have jungles in Cuba, but you can always claim that there’s a connection there with Cuban military activity in Angola in the mid-to-late 70s (in a “my father and his father knew each other” way), despite the fact that Jamal doesn’t look like an Angolan. Of course, I know about this and they probably don’t, so it’s a dead issue.
I owned a copy of Realms of the Haunting, Lucard. Half-Life is still better. Why? Because a physicist is the lead character. And other reasons. For that matter, System Shock is better, but it’s not horror, so you don’t give a shit, do you?
Hevia doesn’t realize he doesn’t have Katie Couric’s tits.
Wallace needs a little edumacation on the subject of Classic Rock.
Hatton and his idiot friends are back yet again to make fools out of themselves.
Good, Goober, keep on licking Lefty’s ass. That should be enough to get you hired by SI as a golf columnist.
Paul pimps his new book.
Basilo tries to take a mulligan. Regrettably, he and I are on opposite sides of the South Park/Family Guy war. Family Guy is just too much sugar-high humor for my taste.
Stevens gets his DC material in at the buzzer.
LITTLE THINGS BRING LARGE RAMIFICATIONS
Okay, this is a spoiler, so don’t scream out, you little pieces of shit. Just scroll down if you want, because I’m not changing text color or anything like that.
As has been reported, Jushin Liger had some committments in the Land of the Rising Yen, and was unable to attend Lockdown to face Daniels for the X Division title. So what did TNA decide to do? Move the X Division title back on to Samoa Joe. You’ll be able to watch that on Thursday. Now, it’ll apparently be Joe versus Sabu for the X Division title at Lockdown, while Daniels doesn’t have a dance partner (gee, wouldn’t he look good on Team USA right now?). No, putting Daniels in there for a three-way isn’t possible due to Larry Z’s announced purpose for this match. Of course, making it for the X Division title also goes against Larry’s purpose. Remember the whole “you’ve got to move beyond the X Division” spiel? TNA’s going to conveniently forget it. So, we in the IWC feel that it’s now our moral duty to remind them of it every chance we get.
You’ve got to wonder, though, how much of this decision was made because of Liger’s no-show and how much of it was to create a splash with the first Thursday Impact. I’d say 50/50, really, but it was Liger’s conflict that pushed them over the edge for a title switch back to Joe. Otherwise, they could have done a hinky ending with Sabu showing up or the threat of Sabu showing up. So, therefore, everything’s back to the way it was, thus rendering the Ultimate X Match useless in retrospect and the Sabu match useless in advance.
Don’t blame TNA for this mess. They thought they had Liger signed free and clear. They wouldn’t have announced the match otherwise. The person to blame is Liger. If he or his people can’t keep track of his calendar, that’s his fault. In the meantime, feel bad for Daniels, because he just got f*cked up the ass big-time.
Oh, yeah, Spike Dudley showed up too, so expect the Anthem Match to become a six-man.
CUE METALLICA
According to Big Johnson at 1bullshit Junior, Sandman is definitely signed for One-Night Stand. This year, his deal will include a little more exclusivity to prevent another Hardcore Homecoming situation from cropping up. The same goes for the independent contractors who have or will sign (like Tajiri).
Who cares? Yeah, okay, we’re all going to mark out over the entrance, but all we want to do is see him enter, not wrestle. Or try to do something in between kendo stick shots.
That’s pretty much it. We’re still suffering from Wrestlemania Hangover, and since I’ve already tapped out everything I’m going to say about Cena…well, no, remember, Raw’s on, so let’s go right to the insulting of our collective taste…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Rob Van Dam over Rob Conway (Pinfall, Five-Star Frog Splash): Once upon a time, Rob Conway could wrestle. So could Van Dam, actually. It’s now back to the Van Dam Formula, I see. Fleabag reminded me exactly why the Van Dam Formula exists recently. Van Dam said that going formulaic was a compromise between doing one twenty-minute match a week and four five-minute matches. The high spots have to go in, so the matches were boiled down to a basic sequence. That’s a reason. It’s not a justification. The fact is that, boiled down to bare essence, Van Dam is essentially boring in the ring. He can actually use the WWE title, since that’s virtually the only way that his matches will ever get beyond five to six minutes on Raw.
Johnny Jeter and Nick Nemeth over Kane and The Big Show, Tag Title Match (DQ, Flying Chairs Can Put Out An Eye, I Swear It): About ten different people wrote in to me last week wondering whether or not the Spirit Squad would do the old Demolition routine and rotate people in and out of tag title matches at will. I didn’t answer any of them because the answer was obvious: they’d have to, unless they were going to break up the SS. And so they did. Huzzah.
And they finally pulled the trigger on the Kane/TBS break-up. Yeah, we knew it was coming. We also felt that it would be insane for them to do it due to the fact that there’s no f*cking tag teams on Raw. How long will it take “creative” to realize this fact? Given the TBS/Kane reign, probably a long time. Again, huzzah.
Umaga over Some Jobber (Submission, Magic Thumb): Next.
MickieLexis LaJames over Maria Kanelis, Women’s Title Match (Pinfall, Chick Kick): So why couldn’t they do this last week, when they could have taken advantage of a hometown pop for Maria? Mostly because Trish’s hair wasn’t ready for her MickieLexis impersonation, I guess. Okay, that’s a great twist. But how do you continue this from here? It would tax the creativity of someone like me to figure out where to go with this. God knows “creative” isn’t nearly as talented.
Trip ‘n Cena over Edge (Submission, Edge submits to Cena, STFU): Okay, I have to admit that it’s an interesting way to promote a Triple Threat. But all the Edge/Trip sequences did for me was make me realize that if Trip had properly gone over at Wrestlemania, we wouldn’t need this Triple Threat, and we could have had a very interesting Trip/Edge match at Backlash. And to all the Cena defenders, you can STFU.
Fortunately, Slick Rick has my back:
I haven’t really watched a Cena match in a while…I was under the impression he had been impressive in OVW. I can’t see how. Even the hicks in Southern Ohio (Hilljacks) and West Virginia (Hillbillies) and northern Kentucky (I can’t think of a word more derogritory than “Northern Kentuckyans”) wouldn’t be entertained by this guy.
Angle Developments:
Permutations: Ignoring the surprisingly effective opening promo (if you leave out Cena’s monologue), I’d like to bring up another subject. It’s so rare in WWE these days that the Best Match and the Best Booking coincide, when it actually happens, you have to take note of it. We have that exact situation coming up at Backlash and One-Night Stand. We all know the plans for ONS, so there’s an inescapable conclusion to be made. A couple of them, actually:
1) Edge must win the title at Backlash.
2) The Edge/Van Dam title match at ONS must be ECW Rules.
Edge/Van Dam is simply the highest-quality match out of the three that you can have. That’s self-evident. An Edge win also creates the most uncertainty among the three. If Trip wins, you know Van Dam’s going down, ECW PPV or not. If Cena wins, you know Van Dam will take it. And that’s why the ONS match has to be ECW Rules. Tell me if you can who’s going to win a match between Edge and Van Dam where there really are no rules. We know Edge can do that type of match now, having proven himself against Foley. He and Van Dam would be great in the ring under those conditions.
I’m actually not afraid of putting this into print. This one’s so obvious that the “If Eric Says It, It Won’t Happen” principle won’t come into play. If “creative” doesn’t go on this path, even the marks will figure out they’re complete idiots.
Echo Echo Echo: Memo to Glen Jacobs: I can recommend some medications for those auditory hallucinations if you’d like.
Epistemological Issues: When Vince did the Trip Spit Take with the holy water, did anyone else think his flesh would melt? Now that would have been fantastic. And congrats to Shane, not only on a great performance in the promo, but on becoming a daddy last week again. He’d better teach those kids to be tough, because their cousin(s) are really going to dominate them unless precautions are taken.
As for the promo being offensive, I wasn’t. But then again, I believe that Christianity is the greatest force for evil in the history of the world, so I’m not unbiased enough to judge correctly.
However, KC Evers (no relation) has a question in this area:
I’m a little lost on certain things when it comes to organized religion. So by all means, please elaborate for the ignorant among us what that was Vince was doing with the water and why it was bad.
That was holy water. In true Christian (what you heretics call Catholic) tradition, when entering a church, you dip your fingers in holy water and do the Sign of the Cross. You do not wash your hands with it, and you certainly do not drink it. Question thus answered.
Shaky Ethical Ground: And if you thought the confusion over whether Cena was face or heel was something, let’s turn to Carly and Gym Bunny. Normally, smashing a chair into someone’s head without warning is the sign of a heel. Certain exceptions have been made over the years on this front, though, and it looks like that’s what they might be going for here. Considering the mild face pop from the audience, their decision might be justified. Carly is now going over well-trod ground. In other words, they’re going to try to make him into Eddy. That might nauseate me more than the Rey-Rey push.
One more thing: thanks to Tigger, a piece of dead slang has now been revived and is thus in play again. Personally, I can’t think of a better word to describe Gym Bunny than “spaz”. Thank you, Mistah Woods.
The Proud Graduate Of Dartmouth His Own Self has his usual interesting observations on this issue:
It’s going to take some work to get Carlito over as a face, though. He did too much of the cowardly heel act for fans to buy him as an effective face, and making an effective and believable transition is going to be tough.
However, his matches should get better the same way Triple H’s did when he became a face, because the heel will be carrying the match, and Carlito will be able to go through his offense without being too boring. Two problems, though:
1) His offense doesn’t have any real crowd-pleasing moves. I mean, he can make that DDT bigger, maybe, but that back-cracker thing isn’t going to pop a crowd.
2) In this case, the heel in question is Masters, and he sucks.
Well, I think it’ll be less tough, because they have viable templates to do something like this, and wrestling talent was not required in those cases, only charisma, which Carly allegedly possesses.
That covers that. Since I’m tired, I’m going to break off right now and let this go until the weekend. Until such time, ta.
