Look on the Bright Side

Columns

Greetings everyone. Welcome back to your weekly installment of the Internet Wrestling Community’s only happy place, Look on the Bright Side.

So, I attended the Eagles/Steelers pre-season game on Friday night – a chance to be amongst “my people”. (As it turns out, I was amongst a lot of my people, and a whole lot of Pittsburgh fans too: the number of those incredibly annoying yellow towels was almost disturbing.) Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, but it reminded me of why I enjoy watching football on TV so much more.

There are only a handful of sports that I believe are infinitely more enjoyable in person: hockey being the most obvious example, with baseball a close second. Ironically, they are for totally different reasons: you have to see hockey live in order to appreciate how fast the players are moving, and to see how plays develop and such – TV simply can’t get this concept across. Baseball, on the other hand, is such a slow-moving sport that it’s unbearably (for me) boring on TV, while in person (at least at a good stadium) you have a thousand distractions: the other fans, what are players are doing in the field, and of course the food and beverages. On TV, I find myself falling asleep when nothing happens for 40 minutes at a time in your typical ball game.

But for football, give me my basement anytime: better view, much cheaper beer and food (I make my own wings for Eagles’ games), and no lines for the bathroom. And two inventions in recent years have made it even greater: NFL Sunday Ticket, and TiVo. Sunday Ticket is an absolute must for people like me, who don’t live in their team’s market (if you can’t get DirecTV because of difficulty getting the satellite signal, I have one suggestion for you: move). And even if you do, it allows you to choose any game you want to see at any time. Here in DC, the CBS affiliate always goes with the Baltimore games: there’s nothing more annoying than being forced to watch Ravens/Texans when there’s a Colts/Patriots or Chargers/Chiefs game going on.

And TiVo is, quite simply, the greatest invention of the last 20 years. You younger readers out there can’t truly appreciate it yet. Simply being able to keep a Sunday noon tee time, or taking my kids to the park on a sunny fall Sunday afternoon, and still being able to catch every single play of the Eagles game that day – ahh, heaven.

The You Tube Video of the Week

So, did you ever wonder what it would look like if someone set off 8500 bottle rockets at once? Wonder no more.

Around the Pulse

John and Blatt put their own unique spin on the ECW show. I’m not sure why the two of them have a problem with Hardcore Holly, but hey – that’s one of the things that makes the Wrestling Zone so enjoyable: we don’t all march to the same drummer.

Eric went to a Ring of Honor show, and you get to read all about it. (I’m very much looking forward to catching one of these shows once I move up to Delaware.)

Daniels shows Bill Simmons what’s what, by giving a clear, concise, unbiased view of how badly the Red Sox have f*cked up with their management decisions since 2004.

Pomozak covers the NFL pre-season in exhausting detail.

Greg Wind writes a very interesting article on the concept of being second to a true musical innovation. (Although his assertion that the Rolling Stones were bigger and/or better than the Beatles is simply ludicrous.)

And The 50 Club takes on Die Hard.

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.

TNA Impact

1. That was one hell of a promo from Christian. But honestly, I most admire Rhyno for being okay with letting Christian bring up everything from his past – especially his wife calling and threatening to leave with his kid. That is some seriously powerful and personal stuff. I’m not sure I’d be okay with that being on out national TV if it was me. So anyway — they’re going with a Rhyno/Christian feud, while Jarrett/Sting plays out for two more months. And Samoa Joe gets to do… what, exactly? Seems a terrible waste, doesn’t it?

And… well, that was about it, actually. Nothing else on the show stood out to me strongly enough that hasn’t already been commented on elsewhere. I think the show is hamstrung by A) the one hour format, B) pre-taping, so we all know what’s happening well before it gets on air, and C) the WCW-esque backstage politics and egos (honestly, what was the point of Jarrett showing up to not sign a contract, other than simply making sure his face got on-air?).

Friday Night Smackdown

1. So, King Booker – is that a sword in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? (Honestly, I think swords should become a more regular part of all wrestling shows. Hey, it worked great for the Operative in Firefly.) And needless to say – Regal’s facial expressions stole the whole bit.

2. I’m glad they’re recognizing that The Miz is a truly annoying git, and will let him just play that as his character. The crowd is definitely ready to boo the crap out of this guy.

3. Hey, whichever audience member let loose with that whooping scream at the beginning of the Tatanka/Terkay match – kudos.

4. Just when I was starting to think, “Man, are they going to build every single feud with London and Kendrick in the exact same way?”, in run The Pitbulls. Well, that just made this whole situation a LOT more interesting. As long as they can find a way to keep the tension between the Pitbulls and James & Stevens, we have the potential for several more months of entertaining matches just with these 6 guys.

5. I don’t care if he is a walking violation of the Wellness Policy – watching Lashley press slam Finlay into Regal is still an impressive sight.

Monday Night Raw

1. Excellent shirt from Lita. And I agree with Hatton and his crew – she definitely should have wrestled in that.

2. Shane to Cena: “I didn’t dismiss you!” Now that’s a good line. If they’re going to play with Shane-O-Mac’s ego gone wild, I’m down with it.

3. Okay, so there’s been lots of comments from the IWC about Masters’ new look and lack of size. Honestly, he doesn’t look that much smaller to me, but he certainly has gained quite a bit of body-fat, which is making him look a lot lighter. (And yes, the facial hair does look terrible.

4. I do appreciate the fact that every single time Edge runs down to the ring, even when carrying a chair, he carries the belt in his other hand. It’s like he’s afraid Randy Orton is going to defecate on it if he leaves it backstage for even 2 minutes.

5. Getting hit from behind while in the midst of a kiss has got to be the most emasculating move ever.

6. Torrie and Candace in school girl outfits, and the winner gets to spank the loser with a paddle? The winner of course – is all of us. There wasn’t nearly enough plaid in the girls’ outfits, though. (Though the entire match did remind me of my favorite Chasing Amy quote, from Banky: “I wish I’d have went with more Catholic school girls when I was a kid. As it stands, I have no ‘…and then she unzipped her jumper…’ stories.”)

7. And hey, how come no one ever thought to counter Rikishi’s Stinkface by biting him on the ass?

8. So, was the choice of the Summerslam 92 Davey Boy vs. Bret Hart match chosen as a build-up to the eventual TV debut of Smith’s nephew? (And man, they made that match look stiff.)

9. And we hit yet another of the wrestlers that Eric steadfastly refuses to say a good word about: Jeff Hardy. To me, he certainly does look motivated – and it also looks like he put on a few pounds though. But that, to me, is the biggest sign that he’s definitely off the crystal meth – good for him. And he actually seems to be hitting his moves more crisply now – that Springboard Whisper in the Wind to the floor was damn near perfect. And let’s face it – these are two really big names to be going for the #1 contender to the IC title. Plus, Hardy is getting a TON of offense on an ex-world champ, and a guy that I was sure was going to be pushed to the moon within the next 6 months. I don’t understand the booking in the WWE sometimes, but it is nice to know that I can be this surprised by a match result on occasion, even to this day.

10. I’d like to thank WWE for the Lita vs. Micki James match, if for no other reason than to remind Vinny that there are more than 2 competent female wrestlers in the WWE. (Really, this is the greatest collection of female wrestlers since the GLOW heyday.) Very nice Fisherman’s suplex from James, with a bonus up-skirt shot right afterwards – women’s wrestling can be appreciated on levels the men can never approach.

11. Some of those lead pipe shot actually looked somewhat nasty. And I really like Vince using the camera as a weapon, then throwing it out of the ring – a good way to get across the fact that he’s totally lost it here.

ECW on Sci Fi

1. “Next on Sci Fi – ECW”. And this is said in docile tones, over a picture of white fluffy clouds, with light piano music in the background. That is just.. so… wrong.

2. RVD vs. Hardcore Holly as the opening match? Not taking it easy on Bob’s first match back, eh? I know there will be the usual complaints about a DQ finish to an ECW match, but I actually like this ending – Holly “wins”, but RVD shows that he doesn’t care about getting DQ’ed. Very effective all around.

3. TBS will be challenging D-X on ECW next week? Well, that should pull in some ratings, *and* piss off the hard-core ECW smarks who still refuse to change with the times.. Pretty sweet all around.

4. I do appreciate the slow build on CM Punk. Although I’m sure that Taz calling CM Punk “The King of Chicago right there” is really, really going to get Eric fired up. (And are they sure he’s not just “the Sausage King of Chicago”?)

5. Matt Striker debuts – and I LOVE the tie. Taz: “An extremely hate-able little man.” Uhh, Taz – you might want to re-think height-related insults.

6. So Sabu threw a chair at a guy wearing a helmet – and he decided to sell it? Love the idea. “I got his blood on my hand!” Wow, Paul’s pretty good at playing a total dork.

7. Having RVD do the run-in was smart. I was trying to figure out who, hoping for a combination of maybe Sandman, Dreamer and Balls. But this makes more sense, and keeps it focused on the “top guys” now. The visual of TBS breaking up the triple-jump onto the table was really well-done. And Holly’s involvement also made sense – the Alabama Slam through the table is a good move for him.

And that’s it for this week. See you next Wednesday.