Shucky darn, no trip to Missouri scheduled for Friday, which means it’s back to the grind. And, oh, what an episode to come back to. Those of us privileged enough to have access to the Super-Secret Writers’ Forum were greeted with a screed from Fingers concerning this episode that made us check for pods. The mild-mannered supremo going batshit over an episode of Smackdown? Say it ain’t so. But he did, with good reason. One must shake one’s head sometime. In fact, I have no clue why I’m doing this. Heroes of Might and Magic V is there, calling out to me, drawing me in with its irresistible goodness. I’m leaving the review to someone else, since we try to avoid fanboys reviewing the games they spooge over on this site. Unless your name is Lucard and the game has the word “Pokemon” in the title, of course.
And we’re heading into a PPV weekend…yes, there is a PPV this weekend, as I said on Tuesday. I still haven’t done my Round Table entry, mostly because I’m two weeks behind on Impact (although I don’t plan watching those) and I want to get a more firm indication on where they want to go with this one. I do have a sneaking suspicion on one thing that’s happening, though: Joe’s looking at the expiration date on his contract, considering other options, and wondering if he can get shunted to ECW or if they’ll stick him on Smackdown to be Mark Henry’s bitch. Oh, wouldn’t Joe look soooooo dreamy wrapped in the mantle of Extreme…
…look, folks, when you’re my age, this is what passes for erotic fantasies. Take ’em where you can get ’em, like that grizzly who got a piece of polar bear ass and produced a hybrid offspring. First mix found in the wild, they say. That should give some hope to you useless geeks out there; there’s a mate for everyone, except me, since I’m still holding out hope for cloning. Why mess with perfection by diluting my genes? In the meantime, hell, JJ’s back, so you can satisfy yourself a little with that too.
Well, I actually had an advantage with this week’s entry into the realms of Satan. I downloaded Impact on Thursday night and finished that off at about 4:30AM. By that time, the satellite feed of Smackdown was uploaded, so I started downloading that. Then I was awoken from a relatively sound sleep at 8:30AM by a recruiter (the same one who got me the job in Nebraska, so he f*cking owes me big-time for putting me into that mess) telling me that a company in Indiana wants to see me on Wednesday without doing a phone interview. The thing is, I don’t have this confirmed yet, but I’m flying into Chicago on Wednesday morning to do an interview on Thursday for a position in Pennsylvania (have to interview at corporate HQ in the ‘burbs), so since I’m only a couple hours away, why not? Now I just have to get the old bat to loan me the SUV That I Get When She Croaks to save me from renting a car…
Oh, I have no clue what I’m writing right now, do I? I’d better get on with the shows…
THE SMACKDOWN SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Super Crazy over Kid Kash and Nunzio, Triple Threat Number One Contender’s Match (Pinfall, Crazy pins Nunzio, rollup): Please take note of this match. I really wouldn’t mind seeing a Cruiserweight title defense at One-Night Stand despite its status as a WWE belt (hell, it’d get the belt some necessary attention for a change). If so, I wouldn’t mind seeing Super Crazy win the strap at Judgment Day and defending it against these two guys again. Of course, it’d be a Three-Way Dance, because, hey, it’s ECW. Give them fifteen and a spot other than jerking the curtain and let them be their old selves. Of course, all three will be headed to ECW anyway, so there’s no problem with it. The only question is, do they take the belt with them? Only if they don’t reestablish the ECW TV title. They’re in the same boat as TNA in regard to TV time (that’s if that 2AM ET Sunday slot that AM Raw’s being moved to falls into their lap), and TNA has smartly kept away from adding a secondary strap to its non-X Division scene. Too many straps with too little time means that some guys are going to languish. So, make a choice between the cruiser belt and a secondary title. Of course, I’ve already fantasy-booked Van Dam bringing a primary and secondary belt with him, so take that for what you will.
By the way, I do give credit where credit is due. Big Johnson over at 1bullshit Junior did a column earlier this week that had some practical and intelligent suggestions on how WWE should approach setting up and running ECW. What happened over there? Did Scherer lower his dosage or something? Or is it just blind pig/acorn time?
You know, I finally noticed that Kash’s entrance music is a riff on “American Woman”. How could I peg the Diamonds’ entrance theme being a riff on Simon’s old ECW theme immediately and miss this?
Oh, had to mention this, since the pimp happened during this match: WWE’s going back to Australia after SummerSlam, and they’ve already started the plugging (tickets do go on sale this weekend, so it’s fine by me). Thank f*cking God they aren’t going to Brisbane again. I was just waiting for Cole to say that again, since he got me reams of material on the last Aussie tour.
There’s breaking up a pinfall, and there’s breaking up a pinfall emphatically
Jake and Jesse (Shane) over Mike Wellington and Joey Ryan (Pinfall, the one identified by Tazz as Jesse pins Ryan, double-team throwdown): And in honor of them getting separate Superstars pages over at wwe.com, they get to squash jobbers. But where was Simon Dean? We want Bucci! Pubic hair jokes from Tazz just won’t suffice!
Well, the New England kicking job is up for grabs…
Bobby Lashley over David “Fit” Finlay, King of the Ring Semi-Finals (Pinfall, spear): Okay, this is really sad. KOTR is going exactly as I predicted it would. Seriously. Let’s take a look back at my April 7th column and a gander at my KOTR tournament predictions:
Angle/Orton: Orton’s suspension starts right after this match, so I think we can make a pretty firm assumption about who’s going to win.
Booker/Hardy: Could be an Angle Advancement Match, might not be. The question is who’s getting buried worse at this point. That would have to be Hardy. But Boogey-ference is written all over this thing. I think that’ll wait until the second round, if at all. Booker goes over.
Benoit/Finlay: Obviously the best first-round match. I’m split as to whether Benoit’s going through or some shenanigans are going to happen. We should know next week if the Benoit/High-Quality Speaker Boy program is continuing. Angle/Benoit in the finals is such an obvious choice to restore the profile of KOTR that it would be a surprise if they didn’t do it. However, Finlay’s the type of wrestler they always used to promote in KOTR. Oh, I don’t know. I’ll go with Finlay for now, mostly due to the person who would be his second-round opponent.
Lashley/Henry: Like Finlay, Lashley is the type of guy that a KOTR push was suited for. Besides, you still have the UT situation to take care of, so Henry’s otherwise occupied. Lashley’s going over.
That gives us the following second-round matches:
Angle/Booker: A pair of five-time world champions meet in what Cole will probably end up calling a “Pay-Per-View-quality match”. If they give it time, it’ll be good. Regardless, Angle goes over.
Finlay/Lashley: The showcase match for KOTR. Here’s where Lashley’s major push begins. Finlay’s going to make him look very good, but he’ll still come out on the losing end.
And your finals:
Angle/Lashley: Yeah, it’s face/face, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. They want to push Lashley. Who better than Angle to give him a mark-cred boost and an “endorsement” (as in the post-match handshake and arm raise)? Angle will have no problem giving the rub to him here, but does he have to lose to do it? I think so. KOTR is traditionally a jump-off point for bigger pushes, and they want Lashley at US-title level by no later than SummerSlam.
Your winner – Bobby Lashley. Not the person I first thought of, actually, but the one that makes the most logical sense.
First round, perfect. Second round, perfect; you know that if Angle hadn’t been injured, he would have gone over. If not for that, he’d be facing Lashley at Judgment Day and jobbing to him, just like Booker will. Given my abysmal track record at anticipating what WWE will do, this is an incredible shock. What wasn’t a shock was that this was a good match. We expected it to be. Lashley’s getting very comfortable being a brawler, and he’s had some great on-the-job teachers to help him (okay, not Mark Henry, but the rest of them). The time that they gave the match to develop really helped; frankly, if you spooged over the Angle/UT match at Wrestlemania (which I didn’t), you have no room to criticize this one on any basis. Lashley’s going to get elevated after High-Quality Speaker Boy wins the title, and that might end up being a mixed blessing. Let’s hope it’s not too much, too soon.
Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1919
Mark Henry over Paul Burchill (Pinfall, fat-ass slam): I don’t think I’ve ever seen a midcarder on the rise squashed so badly by such a marginal talent in my two decades plus of watching wrestling. Dear God, give Burchill a little reward for having to be sacrified on the altar of Henry. The US title will do.
Henryville: the land where heat goes to die
The Not-So-Great Khali over Rey-Rey, Non-Title Match, Thank God (Pinfall, shitty powerbomb with arrogant cover): A common occurrence when watching a sporting event is to mute the sound and turn on the radio commentary while watching. This is an example of blacking the picture and listening to the commentary while imagining something more palatable in your mind. If it wasn’t for High-Quality Speaker Boy, I would have screen-capped and FFed to the end.
This is what made Fingers freak out courtesy of the spoilers. Yeah, it’s one thing to job in your hometown (just ask Booker about that; every time they’re in Houston, he jobs). It’s another thing to be on the end of a squash in your hometown. It’s yet another thing to be on the end of a squash where you get no offense in your hometown. It’s the ultimate thing to be on the end of a squash where you get no offense while holding the world title in your hometown to a guy who’s going to get canned after his PPV match because he’s too goddamn awful, sloppy, and dangerous in the ring in your hometown, and have a PPV Pimp heel promo cut over your supine body. The idea of an underdog champion is a good one. However, it requires careful execution. Feeding Rey-Rey to Henry and Khali is the antithesis of careful execution. It’s horrible booking. What did Rey-Rey do to deserve this? First his final elevation was fed by tasteless borderline necrophilia, now his championship reign is going to be cut short due to a need for surgery, with the most vivid images of it being on the receiving end of beatings. I now have my sympathy back for him. I didn’t think I’d ever say that.
Must…resist…making…”not needing to kneel to give a blowjob”…joke…
Angle Developments:
And You Thought “Bird Flu” Was Bad…: Did High-Quality Speaker Boy really say “el polio” when attempting to use the Spanish word for “chicken” (“pollo”, pronounced “POY-oh”, in case you didn’t know…yes, I know that word. For Christ’s sake, I work in the meat and poultry industry. How could I NOT know it?)? I can appreciate a bilingual malapropism as much as anyone, but, if that particular pronounciation was done on purpose, that was verging on brilliance. Hell, that alone is worth giving him the world title at Judgment Day (which is going to happen anyway, of course, but still…).
With this promo, I think we have to face reality: is there anyone better (with the possible exception of Trip) at drawing heel heat these days? Yes, it was pretty cheap heat in this case, and yes, he does have a tendency to go overboard (viz. Germany), but he’s become a master at it. He’s the erudite shit-kicker, an archetype that served another Texan, Lyndon Johnson, very well (which may explain Flea’s dislike of High-Quality Speaker Boy…just something that’s come up in conversation between us in the past, nothing to dwell upon). It makes me wonder why he played (or was forced to play) the stereotypical lug for so long. It may just be the jock/brain dichotomy at work; since I haven’t had to deal with that since high school (on the latter side, of course), I’m out of practice at recognizing it. The point is that, with this promo, High-Quality Speaker Boy did nothing to dissuade me that he’d be Van Dam’s best opponent for One-Night Stand.
He’s to Mexicans what Tamiflu is to H5N1
If you think I’m going to say “Get a room”, you’re right
Two Pictures Say Less Than Two Thousand Words, But All That Needs To Be Said:
Alternative Lifestyles: So, they put the kibosh on the Jordan bisexual angle, but now they’re using him as a fulcrum to do a “Is Vito A Tranny?” angle? I really would love to see a scholarly report from a psychologist regarding Smackdown’s “creative” team one of these days. Lagana or whoever is coming up with this stuff really is in need of some serious therapy if he has to resolve his gender confusion issues by projecting them on to the wrestlers.
Yeah, this is some meeting of the minds, huh?
THE IMPACT SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Chris Sabin over Puma, World X Cup Second Round Match (Pinfall, Cradle Shock): Okay, a little hesitant, but not bad. I really hope TNA is looking seriously at bringing in Puma full-time. If Puma can get used to the particulars of the X Division style, and I think he can, boy, would he be an asset. Of course, given the limited number of pushes anyone in the X Division can have these days, and how they’ve stymied up the top with Joe, it might be better if he didn’t come to TNA on a permanent basis. But the kid’s good, there’s no denying it.
Now I have to decide something before doing my Round Table entry: the result of Liger/Williams has a direct bearing on who wins the gauntlet match, and I can’t decide the winner of that one. I’ll think about it.
Insert Pumaman joke here
Abyss over Chase Stevens (Pinfall, chokeslam through table): A year ago, a multiple tag champion. Today, enhancement talent for a PPV Pimp Match. Pray for Chase Stevens. Pray long and hard.
A few weeks ago, I used the line “Beware of flying Naturals”. Somehow, I don’t think that applies in this case.
Christopher Daniels, Rhiyno, and A. J. Fuckin’ Styles over Chris Harris, James Storm, and Bobby Roode (Pinfall, Rhiyno pins Storm, Goar Goar Goar): Well, for a Double PPV Pimp Match, this wasn’t so bad, but that’s simply due to the quality in the ring. Due to Rhiyno’s not-so-secret plans, this may have been his last bit of glory in a TNA ring. Of course, I knew some kind of schmozz was coming considering that when the match started, there was six and a half minutes (not counting commercials) left in the show. That necessitated some kind of hinky ending, and that’s exactly what we got with Jackie and the hot coffee.
By the way, with Jackie now having a Haas in the oven, how happy do you think TNA is that they signed Christy Hemme?
A. J. flies Air Canada
Angle Developments:
Welcome to Has-Been-Palooza!
The Little Nash Rambles: So, what’s the purpose of having Kevin Nash go around and kill X Division guys? Is there any beyond giving the old Ego Dildo ™ a workout? Is this something for the faces in the X Division to do while Joe f*cks around? Does anyone in Orlando really think that this would give a rub to any of them? Too many questions, too many answers, none of them good.
Shut up, shut up, shut up
Why aren’t the right-wing morons screaming that TNA’s trying to take us back to the Clinton Administration?
And I’ll close this off with a hearty salutation and wave of the hand. Until Tuesday, go get laid or something.
