Greetings everyone. Welcome back to your weekly installment of the Internet Wrestling Community’s only happy place, Look on the Bright Side.
In the recent issue of Sports Illustrated, Rick Reilly wrote this article, which has raised quite a ruckus. A quick summation: 9-10 year old baseball league championship game, team at bat is down by 1 run with 2 outs and a man on third, the best batter is at the plate. The worst batter on the team is on deck. They intentionally walk the kid at bat, the next kid strikes out, game over.
Complicating factors: the kid on deck was a cancer survivor who actually had one of those “Make a Wish” things last year. And this is one of those leagues where everybody has to bat, max 4 runs per inning, you can’t steal until the ball crosses the plate, etc. So – was it the “right” thing to do?
Going from pure baseball strategy, it’s a no-brainer. Of course you walk the slugger when you have first base open. Hell, Barry Bonds once got intentionally walked with the bases loaded in a two-run game.
But morally – is it “right”? In my opinion – absolutely.
First off – the fact that this is supposedly not an ultra-competitive league: well, if that’s the case, why is there a Championship Game in the first place? Obviously, winning and losing means something – otherwise, don’t keep score, and hand out trophies to everyone. (Leagues like that, by the way, are the leading cause of The Great Wussification of America. I despise the very thought of it – if your kid plays in one of those leagues, you have failed a prime tenant of parenting.) So, throw that argument out the window right away.
Now, it would be tough to defend picking on a cancer survivor – if this was, in fact, an example of truly “picking” on him. If he hadn’t gone through cancer treatments, and was just a regular kid who wasn’t as good a hitter as the current batter – would that be considered “picking” on him? Were all of the pitchers who intentionally walked Bonds a couple of years ago “picking” on Moises Alou? Grow up. The first thing we always hear about kids in this situation is that they just want to be treated like everybody else. Well, guess what – that’s exactly what happened here. He was treated like anybody else who couldn’t hit the ball as well as the batter in front of him. (Besides, what kind of idiot coach puts his worst batter right after his best? Unless, of course, you are hoping for this very kind of situation, to ensure that your slugger actually gets pitched to. Cynical, I know – but it’s a fact that setting the lineup that way is almost indefensible if you don’t consider that.)
Please join me in the space next week for another essay, titled “Why Tripping Blind People is so Funny”.
The You Tube Video of the Week
Somebody had fun with this.
The People’s Front
Okay – so, in the Hard Justice roundtable, I said that if TNA did a few things “correctly”, I would start covering them again in this column. Well, apparently they did, or at least tried to: Nash’s “neck injury” prevented Sabin from beating him, which is rumored to be the planned result of that match. So, while my opinion of Nash has gone down quite a bit, my opinion of the booking committee has gone up slightly. So, I’ll be expanding to the Happy Twenty next week.
And speaking of TNA, I received the following email from Serge Levesque, up in the Great White North:
I’d like to submit a little something, from the french broadcast of Impact. I know you don’t cover Impact anymore, and the french show is broadcast a week behind the american show, but it’s so worth it!
During the 5 man match for the X-Division #1 contender, the color commentator (Pierre-Carl Ouellet) mentions how TNA’s merchandise sales seem to be improving, pointing to the good number of Sting masks he sees in the arena. The play-by-play guy retorts to him: “Well, did they pay for them, or did Ted Turner just have a bunch of them that he wanted to get rid of?”
I honestly had no idea that there was a separate French broadcast of Impact. And the guys who cover it are actually amusing? Didn’t see that coming.
Norma writes in to give the distaff side:
I agree with your wife, that is the first thing I noticed about Big Show was that his pants were too short. [He] needs a new tailor.
Wait – I have female readers? Wow, two lessons learned today. Cool.
Around the Pulse
We’ve got a new guy covering TNA, Joel Garaghty, and his coverage of Hard Justice is really outstanding. I certainly hope he lasts longer with TNA than I did.
(I’d also like to point out that I went 7-1 in my predictions for the TNA PPV in the roundtable. The only match I got wrong was the one I cared least about (the women’s match). Unfortunately, that doesn’t count, because Fingers picked half of the matches wrong, and decided to start tracking the staff’s record with SummerSlam. Convenient, eh?)
Vinny gives an excellent re-telling of one of the many, many reasons why WCW is no more. My God, was that promotion a train wreck in its last year or two.
Daniels covers the over/unders in the AFC. (For the record, he is big, BIG wrong about Indy and KC.)
Omar Padilla gives us some NHL news. (Wait… NHL? August? Omar? Which of those three shocked you the most?)
Kennedy writes a very intersting article about a very, very bad movie. (Those are so much more fun to write about anyway. I should propose the idea of The Five Club to Michaelangelo, as a balance to The 50 Club.)
Gloomchen writes a treatise on bands that are defined by their Greatest Hits album.
The Happy Fifteen (or so)
And now, we get to the meat of the column. The idea is fairly simple: I point out (at least) 5 things from each major show that should be getting more attention, but aren’t. (And occasionally, I just point out some absurdity just to tweak the rest of the IWC.) There’s way too much negativity infused into columnists who write about pro wrestling: this is just my little attempt to balance it out a bit.
Love the concept? Hate it? Think I missed something important from last week? See something this week that you think should be here? Email me by Sunday evening.
Friday Night Smackdown
1. How’s this for a positive viewpoint: at least Vicki Guerrero is a better actress than Linda McMahon.
2. Undertaker chokeslamming the Great Khali had two benefits: there were lots of 10 year old kids talking about it on Monday morning, and it highlighted the WWE’s editing talents – I had to watch it twice to figure out that Khali’s feet came approximately 2″ off the ground.
3. Troy Hepple is out of his mind – the quick tags in the London & Kendrick vs. James and Stevens match were the very definition of proper tag team technique. I also like the fact that the heels are somewhat bigger guys – it always bugged me that “The Pitbulls” were two cruiserweights. How would they pull that kind of routine on a true large sized team like, say, the Road Warriors, let along Big Show & Kane?
4. However, Troy was right about one thing – this week’s Diva Search very well might be the worst segment ever. But, watching Layla almost slip on the spilled beer from Jen at the VERY START of her dance routine was quite amusing.
5. Kennedy patting Rey on the head after backing him into the corner was a very nice “arrogant heel” move. I have to admit – Kennedy has been steadily growing on me.
6. After the Boogeyman video played, we got the following exchange. JBL: “He’s coming back here?” Cole: “Yes, to Smackdown.” JBL: “Why?” I love shoot comments that aren’t supposed to shoot comments.
Monday Night Raw
1. Micki James seemed to definitely enjoy her first full face reaction from the crowd since Wrestlemania. I wish WWE had found a way to work off of what happened back then.
2. JR was talking about Cena’s father being assaulted, and mentioned what he’d do if Edge pulled that on his own (late) father. Umm, JR, after you became a member of Vince’s Kiss My Ass Club, we kinda lost all respect for your ability to stand up for yourself, in or out of the ring. Thanks, though.
3. Micki was wearing a gold-sequined thong. You don’t see that a lot, and it can’t be comfortable – but it did go shockingly well with the belt she was wearing. Kudos.
4. Never seen that before: Micki goes for a pin with her foot on the ropes, Edge pushes her feet off, and she only gets a 2 count. Good psychology – another heel knows how that works. Right afterwards, the ref then sees Lita put her feet on the ropes in the corner – damn, the women have better psychology than the men.
5. Mick Foley has been opened up only 4 times in his WWE career? Really? Just 4? The King of Hardcore? Are you kidding me?
6. Umaga, after his splash in corner, led the jobber out to the middle of the ring by yanking on either his tongue, or his lower lip. Either way – ow.
7. Johnny Nitro – a corkscrew moonsault? Who knew he had that in his repetoire? Has Carlito’s recently expanded moveset pushed everybody in the Raw mid-card to add something new every couple of weeks?
8. Foley going for Flair’s head with the steel steps, and his facial expression right afterwards – I think we’re seeing the return of the “real” Cactus Jack. Jack started off as a ruthless heel, and only turned became face because the crowd demanded it. I have exceedingly high hopes for their match at SummerSlam.
9. After the Diva water thing, we get from JR: “Who won Miz, ya idiot?” And then Miz proved Ross right when he was totally unable to handle the Divas soaking him after the “contest”. C’mon, Braniac – everybody in the audience saw it coming – you didn’t? Really? You’re as dumb as your character? (Oh, he is? Oh.. well, shit. Don’t mean to pick on the mentally handicapped.)
10. Michelle pulled Victoria’s top apart, and I thought “Wow, some of the Divas must have gotten drunk – I believe someone is now topless.” Unfortunately, no – but hey, the thought was there for a fleeting moment.
11. As bad as the Diva segment on Smackdown was, the water fight made up for it. All of the Divas and Diva Search Contestants really seemed to enjoy themselves out there.
12. Someone held up a sign behind the commentary team: “Bring back Honky Tonk Man”. Just a few seconds later, it got pulled down by a WWE staffer. Seriously – they think we won’t notice that? You’d think Lawler at least might have said something heelish.
13. HBK: “Other than getting the opportunity to witness to a couple inmates, and work on my prison ministry… last week was pretty undesirable.”
14. Vince: “The McMahons will bring down the wrath of Satan upon you.” Alrighty then – nothing like worship of the Dark Beast to bring in the ratings.
15. Trish is wearing jeans (cuffed several times at the ankles), a half-shirt, and what look to be 5 inch stilletto heels. You don’t see that kind of outfit every day. (And how did she manage to actually run around the outside of the ring wearing those things?)
Wow, 15 items – guess I kinda liked that show, eh? Then again, it might have been all the single malt…
ECW on Sci Fi
Words cannot describe how irritated I am that I’m not at tonight’s show. Unfortunately, family obligations prevented me from doing so. I hope the crowd is able to represent without me.
1. On the one hand, it sucks that Angle got hurt and can’t compete in the Ladder match. On the other hand: 1) he really needs more time off to heel (everywhere in his body, not just his groin) and 2) the main event is now made up of only “core” ECW guys, which hopefully will shut the ECW smarks up for a few minutes.
2. You could tell by the look on Foley’s face during his entrance that he was thinking: “What in the hell do I have to do in order to get a heel reaction?” But, you could also tell that he was appreciative of the fact that people love him, no matter what.
3. Oh, c’mon – you laughed at Mick Foley dancing. It’s okay to admit it.
4. Why is it that Foley is the only person in the wrestling industry that gets thrown into the stairs in the exact same manner that he gets thrown into the ropes and/or the corner? (Seriously, big ups to Mick for this spot – it just looks incredibly painful every single time.)
5. My first thought on seeing Justin Credible walk out: “WHAT? The same freaking opponent? This sucks!” Then, they pop up Justin’s promo, in an attempt to justify the match as his attempt to prove that two weeks ago was “a fluke”. And that, right there, is the difference between “necessary business decision” and “insulting the audience’s intelligence”. (Go ahead, pretend like WCW wouldn’t have done the same thing, with no attempt to explain it at all.) (Also, I like CM Punk’s entrance music. Anyone have a clue who the band is?)
6. Yes, Credible was legitimately hurt on that springboard attempt from Punk that he turned into a gutbuster: Punk landed with too much weight on his knee. As someone who has Chondromalacia Patellae in both of my knees, let me assure you: it hurt. The fact that he was able to shake it off in less than a minute speaks greatly to Mr. Montoya’s toughness.
7, The smack on Punk’s running knee in the corner and the following roundhouse were simply awesome. Those moves alone could get him over with the 60% of the crowd that doesn’t know who he is yet.
8. I really enjoyed the fact that Big Show put Angle’s gold medal back on after Angle got cuffed by the cops.
9. RVD jumping off the corner and attempting to grab the contract in the beginning of the match really threw me for a loop — I’d never seen anything like that before in a ladder match, and I thought it was a complete and utter f*ck-up the first time. Thankfully, the power of TiVo saved me – and if it hadn’t, Joey did a good job of walking the TV audience through it right afterwards.
10. Okay, so Sabu really blew his triple-jump attempt using the ladder. A) The two of them had nailed every single spot up to that point (and there were, what – at least 20 already?); B) it gave the crowd a chance to chant “You f*cked up”, which they live for; and C) RVD covered for it right away with his legdrop. All in all – the best of a bad situation.
11. RVD monkey-flipped the ladder into Sabu? To quote my man, Jules Winnfield: “Mother f*cker.”
I’m not going to talk about the ending of the match, because it goes against the concept of this column.
And that’s it for this week. See you next Wednesday.
