Greetings everyone. Welcome back to your weekly installment of the Internet Wrestling Community’s only happy place, Look on the Bright Side.
There’s a rumor that the Eagles and the Giants played an NFL game this weekend. However, all memories of this game have been permanently purged from my memory, so I can’t comment on it. Rationally.
In other news, the higher-ups here at InsidePulse have been so impressed with my ability to submit my Tuesday night column on Wednesday afternoon (on the weeks that I actually do submit a column, of course), that they decided to add me to the sports staff over at Tailgate Crashers. I plan on taking full advantage of the new blogging style of the site in order to keep you all updated on the latest breaking stories of the day (with a full splash of my attitude sprinkled throughout, of course). So, check us out daily.
The You Tube Video of the Week
Jon Stewart is a freakin’ genius. Click here for his send up of those Geico “We hired a celebrity interpreter” commercials, using President Bush and Little Richard. It’s a scream.
Around the Pulse
I didn’t purchase the Unforgiven PPV, because I really wasn’t that excited about most of the card (at least, not $40 excited). It turns out that I may have missed an excellent show, according to Ken Anderson. We have got to lock this guy in a room with Eric S, bring up the topic of John Cena, and see who makes it out alive.
Hatton brings the goodness and the funnies.
Check out Popcorn Junkies’ launch feature, “Unhappy Endings” – good movies that were ruined by terrible endings. The first two movies are Heat and A.I.. These will continue on for the rest of the week (I believe my entry will show up over the weekend.
Shameless self-pimp: check out my Off the Beaten Path column for the criminally underrated In the Mouth of Madness (and as a bonus, read about my adventures running a LARP back in the 90’s).
And be sure to give all the new zones a look through. Just use the drop-down menu (the one that says “– jump to zone –“) at the top of page.
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. The fact that the Little Bastard started flailing his arms around and trying to attack as soon as he heard Lashley’s voice (and Teddy’s, for that matter) was a nice touch.
2. Wow – the Miz vs. Scotty 2 Hotty. Well, at least they stuck all of the truly annoying white guys into one match. Although you really have to go out of your way to make Scotty freakin’ Hotty give you the “what an annoying putz” look – remember, this guy had Brian Christopher as a tag-team partner for years.
3. The whole character of The Miz is somewhat interesting to me. The Rock and Stone Cold are just the inner personalities of Dwayne Johnson and Steve Williams, but turned up to 11. From everything I hear, The Miz is constantly at a volume of 11 – both on- and off-camera. I have no idea how this is going to work for him. So far, at least, he seems to be feeding off the crowd’s hatred, which is a good sign.
4. JBL: “That’s clubberin’ somebody, as a fat old Texan used to say.” A shout-out and a dis in the same sentence. Nice.
5. I am still in shock that they’ve managed to go this long with Vito’s storyline without crossing the line into true offensiveness. The “sexual discrimination lawsuit” angle is fairly tasteless and insensitive to a very real issue – but at least it just got mentioned at the beginning of the match, and then never brought up again. Letting Vito keep his tough guy personality, without one single effeminate trait, and letting his use his opponents’ hang-ups against them: honestly, it’s brilliant.
Monday Night Raw
1. Wow. What a crowd reaction for Cena. I really think that the heat he was getting
2. Edge is really doing a great job selling the injuries from the TLC match. In fact, in retrospect, he made Cena look somewhat unprofessional for acting as if nothing hurt at all.
3. “This isn’t Canada. This is the cheese eating, wine-sniffing inbred cousin of Canada, Montreal.” Well, that was easy, eh? (See what I did there? Canada, eh? Oh, nevermind…) Dammit, and I was enjoying Cena’s performance as a forced-into-heel character.
4. Wait – they’re putting Cena, HBK and HHH together? Well, sitting here at home watching on TV, it feels somewhat forced. But to be fair, if I was there in person (and assuming I’d have consumed at least 6-8 beers by now), I have to admit I’d be marking out like a 12-year-old. But, umm – doesn’t anyone remember the Wrestlemania main event? Oh, wait, HHH does: check out the look he gave Cena right after the 6-man tag was announced.
5. Having Johnny wear the backwards visor was a perfect move: I can’t think of a more useless, annoying thing a person could do with headware.
6. I really enjoyed watching Super Crazy almost attack Carlito during the big scrum at the top of the hour. It can’t be a language thing, since Carlito speaks Spanish: Super Crazy is just, well, crazy enough to go after anyone near him. He’s like a value-sized, Hispanic Little Bastard.
7. Man, I am falling into some serious short attention span issues — it took me until halfway through the 6 pack challenge to remember that Carlito and Masters were challenging for the tag team titles back at Wrestlemania. Wow, did their respect career paths bifurcate, or what?
8. JR: “The springboard moonsault! The damage done!” Hey, sweet Neil Young shout-out, Jim. (What, you don’t think that was what he was referring to? Oh. Well, nevermind.)
9. Super Crazy was responsible for two consecutive “Whoa!” moments for me: the first when he hit the springboard dropkick on Masters, and the second when Hardy threw him off the top rope and he slammed his head off the exterior wall. Holy crap.
10, *sigh* I’m always disappointed when Lita doesn’t wrestle in the same outfits that she wears earlier in the show. I guess there just isn’t enough double-sided tape in the world to keep those funbags in place.
11. There was a part of me that was hoping the crowd would “forget” they were supposed to cheer Cena (after that incredibly manipulative opening promo), and would boo him right back out of the building when he got introduced for the main event. From the sound of it, I think about 30% of the audience did just that, but most of them stuck to the script. Silly, impressionable Canadians.
12. Obviously, I am still stuck in the crash-TV, late 90’s mindset – because I was totally expecting a massive swerve at the end of the match, when Edge was surrounded by HHH, HBK and Cena. I was actually prepared for Shawn to deliver his superkick to Cena, thereby moving himself and Trip right into the WWE title picture. Honestly, I’m glad they didn’t go that way – but you just know somebody suggested it during at least one creative meeting, right?
ECW on Sci Fi
1. I’ll say this for test: you know a heel is really staying in character when he almost takes a swipe at a fan in the front row who’s trying to shake his hand. Especially when that fan has Down’s Syndrome. Yee.
2. Oh, c’mon – the Sandman takes a headshot into the outer rail, and needs medical attention? The freaking SANDMAN? This guy has take dozens of cane shots and chairs to the head in a single match before – and we’re supposed to buy that he’s incapacitated from one simple blow? Wow. First he gets pinned after two groin shots, now this. They are just neutering this character. Maybe they think they’re building up some sort of slow burn storyline between Sandman and Striker, with the idea being the building frustration of Sandman’s inability to get his hands on the “hatable little man”. But, as we’ve been reminded over and over again – this isn’t the old ECW. This isn’t 411 waiting to chokeslam Bill Alphonzo. With the short attention span of the current audience, I just don’t see how that can work.
3. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Mike Knox takes the best DDT in the business, hands down. He hasn’t been in much of a position to do so, but this guy really can sell.
4. What the hell is up with Test’s boots? Is there some kind of “flap” on the front of them, or did they come untied during the match, or what? Honestly, that distracted me for the last 2 minutes of that match, and I still can’t figure out what the hell it is, despite multiple viewings in TiVo.
5. I do appreciate Paul E’s attempt to stay hip and current with the Kevin Thorn and Ariel characters, and the whole “bite club” thing. But, he does realize that there have been Vampire LARPs around since, like, the early 90’s, right?
6. Wow. Francine looks a LOT better than I remember, from her last appearances. I hated the outfit she was wearing, but I did appreciate all of the skin she’s (still) willing to show. You go, girl.
7. Trinity’s BACK!!! Yup – screen shots coming next week. Sharmell called her a “jezebel”. Dictionary.com defines that as “a wicked, shameless woman”. All I have to say to that is: God, I hope so.
8. Wait – is that a new D-Generation X DVD? Really? Well, guess I’m going to Best Buy tomorrow. (Yes, I often find myself trying to recapture my lost youth – what’s it you, punk? Eh? EHH?)
9. The monkey flip onto RVD from Booker into the chair in the corner was one seriously awesome visual/audio treat.
So, why can I find 9 items from ECW for a one hour show, but I actually struggle to find 5 items from the two hour Smackdown? Is it because writing about solid but unspectacular wrestling matches goes against the thesis of this column? Eh, yeah – probably.
And that’s it for this week. See you next Wednesday.
