Look on the Bright Side

Archive

Howdy, y’all. I hope nobody has a case of the Mondays. If you do, you came to the right place.

No, it’s not Initech, it’s not Chotchkie’s , it’s Look on the Bright Side: a weekly column written by that rarest of creatures: a member of the IWC that actually likes wrestling, and isn’t afraid to let everybody know. We’re in a “snark-free” zone here, kids — sit back and enjoy.

For a longer explanation of my inspiration for this concept, please see last week’s column.

Love the concept? Email me. Hate it? Email me. Think I missed something important from last week? Email me. See something this week that you think should be here? Email me by Sunday evening.

First off: thanks to everyone for the feedback last week. In what really didn’t come as a shock to me, it was 100% positive. There’s definitely a void in the coverage of sports entertainment, and hopefully I can fill that up with the positive vibes here. Also, thanks to Eric Szulczewski and Gordi Whitelaw for the pimps – I appreciate the traffic, guys.

It’s a little tougher for me to be in a positive mood this week, after the Flyers’ painful overtime loss on Friday night. Great game, and Esche absolutely stood on his head – but still, ouch. Combine that with the Phillies’ slow start, and the fact that I had to listen to Jerry “I’m A Raving Hypocrite But At Least I Admit It” Jones talk about Terrell F’in’ Owens earlier today on Sportscenter, and believe me: I could use a little bright side myself. (Yes, I’m from Philadelphia – did I fail to mention that earlier?) But hey – for you, I will suck it up and get to the good stuff.

Monday Night Raw

1. Matt Stryker freaking RULES. “Hyperbole.” “Verbatim.” “Epicenter for ignorance.” I really wish he had stopped after “Anyone? Anyone?” instead of adding the “Bueler?”, but still – great stuff. And he did something that I was surprised to see no one mention in any of the recaps: in the midst of the promo, he was saying something about anyone who disagrees with him: “I am forced to give each and over one of you…” [here, he was pointing at the audience with his index finger] “….an F.” [at this exact moment, he “scratches his eyebrow” (allegedly) with his middle finger]. Very subtle, and got right past the censor. (Yes, I may be getting dangerously close to one of Haley’s “Little Things”, but still – that was pretty slick.)

2. Maria should patent that little “bite the corner of her lip” move that she did right after her interview with Trish: it’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

3. Number of sightings of Trish’s thong this week: three. And all three brought a smile to my face.

4. I wasn’t sure anyone could lay claim to this title more than Randy Orton, but Edge is definitely “King of the Guys Born to Play a Cocky Heel”. Look at him on the walk down to the ring: the head-bob, the smirk, the eyebrow-raising thing, his body language during the walk itself. He is totally the guy you knew in college would take out your girlfriend while you were home for the weekend, get her drunk, and try to sleep with her. (And, sadly, succeed.)

5. Cena’s entrance has now fallen into a pattern, and one that cracks me up every single time: the music hits, the cheers and squeals start up, and then the boos rain down on top of them. Then, he appears, the cheers and squeals get even louder, and the boos get louder STILL to drown them out again. It’s almost like the smarks are sitting out in the audience going: “Boooo! Boooo! Oh, hell, I hate these teenage girls… BOOO!!!!! BOOOO DAMMIT! I WILL NOT BE DENIED!!” Once you resign yourself to the schadenfreude, this becomes the most amusing ongoing storyline in the show.

6. BONUS: Edge hits one spear on HHH, and gets the pin? Anyone wish to keep arguing how Trip doesn’t lay down for anybody? Gosh – how will he ever get his heat back now?

TNA Impact

1. Sonjay Dutt pulls out at least one move every time I see him that makes me literally exclaim “holy shit” out loud. This week, it was that handspring he did over the top rope, straight into a hurricanrana. That was just sweet, and there were about 2 dozen ways it could have gotten screwed up.

2. TNA’s video packages (while obviously still not up to par with WWE’s) have improved leaps and bounds. The one promoting Samoa Joe and Sabu is especially effective – that one alone made me think about buying the PPV. (I didn’t, in case you were wondering — too many recent purchases, and the wife would have killed me.)

3. Once Jackie got out from behind Jarrett and Gail Kim, and I saw the top she was wearing… oh my goodness.

4. Brother Runt’s two-foot stomp on JJ from the top rope – okay, ow. He landed right on Jarrett’s arm/ribs, and there’s no way to “fake” that. Now, I realize he only weighs about a buck forty or so – but that’s still a fair amount of weight, on a small landing area: the pounds/square inch were pretty damn high.

5. A fair amount of the feedback I’ve seen/read about this show around the web has been of the “eh, whatever” type, because nothing really stood out. This is a pretty good example of how spoiled the current wrestling audience is: that first 8-man match alone featured more solid wrestling and high-spots in it then you would have seen in an entire month of programming as recently as 10 years ago. You know how Scott Keith, when he’s doing his Retro Rants, often talks about how revolutionary Dynamite Kid was because “no one was doing this stuff in 1983”, or some such? Well, the thing is: now *everybody* is doing it. (And please remember, Dynamite Kid can’t walk now, because of what he was doing back then.) And don’t even get me started on wrestling before that – have you ever seen a match from before 1970? Oh my Lord – zzzzzzz. If you transplanted a wrestling fan from 1986 to today, and sat them in front of this show – they would absolutely lose their mind.

6. BONUS: I don’t care if they revoke my IWC license — I absolutely love the “everybody on the roster does a run-in” to end a big show. And judging from the crowd reactions – so do most people. I still remember a huge run-in back on Nitro in the heyday of the WCW/NWO wars, when there were approximately 40 guys fighting it out everywhere in the building. I marked out like a 12 year old.

(allegedly) Friday Night Smackdown

1. Okay, I realize that they were basically responsible for him getting fired in the first place: but Matt Hardy really does owe his spot in the upper-mid card to Edge and Lita. If they hadn’t played his music during their ‘wedding’, and the folks backstage hadn’t heard the crowd’s reaction that night – he would have been lucky to have been partnered with his flaky brother on last night’s TNA PPV. I mean, the man is in the King of the Ring tournament: could he have been there before the Lita break-up? He’s been back for months now, and he still gets as big a face-pop as anyone on that roster (which I can confirm from personal experience at the last supershow).

2. Actually, Hardy’s entrance and the crowd’s reaction also made me wonder: why has the crowd turned so viciously on Cena, but still gives up the love for Matt every week? I mean, aren’t they playing almost the same character now? And don’t they have the same “punch, kick, set up my 3 finishing moves” offense, too? Okay, sure – I think Cena’s schtick has gotten stale, too. But c’mon — Hulk Hogan had the exact same match for 10 years as a babyface in the WWF, never learned a single offensive move past punch/kick/legdrop, gave the same exact promo no matter who his opponent was, and the crowd *never* turned on him. And yes, I understand that the smarks have turned on Cena – but they had done so months ago, and the boos really only started raining down from the house crowds a few weeks ago. (Plus, I was on rec.sport.pro-wrestling back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and trust me: the hatred for Hogan was rampant there, amongst the people that would eventually become “smarks”.) So, why Cena? Why now?

3. In the very beginning of the Mercury/London match, you could hear a relatively faint “Boring” chant starting up. That just killed me – these idiots are impressed enough with themselves to make a decision on this match 30 seconds in, and then let everybody sitting around them know it, but seemingly have no clue that one of the participants used to be serenaded with chants of “Please don’t die!” from the audience. And, considering how the last 5 minutes of that match went, it pleases me to know that everybody sitting near those guys knew how truly clueless they were.

4. JBL is playing the most unsympathetic, cold-hearted, pull-no-punches heel I’ve seen in a long, long time. And I’ve loving it. His comment about the marching band (“refugees from a Big Brother program”), his dismissal of Jillian, and his reaction to the “Eddie!” chant (“They won’t even chant your name!”) were all “Oh no he didn’t!” moments. It takes some nerve, and some commitment, to truly play a heel that well (even HHH gives an occasional wink and nod to the audience). Now, granted – he also has a tendency to go overboard in his commitment (the trip to Germany springs to mind), but least you can say: he really doesn’t care what you think of him.

5. There’s always a fair amount of discussion on the Super Secret Writer’s Forum when the rankings come out. But something I’ve never seen discussed is why the secondary title holder (U.S. or Intercontinental champ) is always listed as being the de-facto number one contender, when you almost never see them actually challenge for the main title. JBL challenging the winner of Rey/Angle seems completely logical, and the fact that he treated it as his “right” made my heart warm.

Hmm – not as easy to come up with the Happy Fifteen this week as last. But, even in a down week, there’s still more than enough positive developments to keep you coming back. Which you’ll hopefully do with me next Monday. See you then.