Ah, Tuesday morning…it’s quite fortunate that my Monday was pretty much ruined. Off to work at 2:15 AM, out of work at 7:30. Over to Wal-Mart to get some soda and a pair of dress pants that I spotted there on a previous visit that perfectly matches a suit jacket I own. Then to Fry’s to f*ck around. I’m getting very lucky on stuff on sale at Fry’s, actually. Last week it was a pair of new hard drives that I haven’t had time to install yet, this week the memory card for my camera’s on sale. Then a little apartment hunting (which I then blew off and just hit rent.com when I got back). Got home, crashed, got woke up by the phone at 3:30 PM by a co-worker, which was a good thing, because I had to be at one of my plants at 4. Did that, got home at 5:30, crashed again, slept until 11:30 PM (again, woken up by a phone call, this time from one of my subordinates). Went to work, hit IHOP at 3:30 for a little food (you notice that eating was not mentioned in any of the previous entries), got home, where Raw was waiting for me. It’s now noon on Tuesday, and I’ve only done a half-hour of Raw so far, mostly because of the standard IP server problems. Now, I have to be at a plant at 5PM on Tuesday, which means no sleep at all, and I have to be out until at least 6:30AM on Wednesday morning. Again, you wonder why I’m still looking for a job (and took a recruiter’s call on Tuesday morning about a possibility). One of the demands that the EU is placing on Romania joining next year is improving in the sanitary/veterinary fields. Maybe they need an experienced inspector over there. If I have any Romanian readers, any chance of some info about that?
That being said, I’ve already enquired about four apartments, paid a couple credit card bills, made a dentist’s appointment for next week (which is when my dental insurance kicks in), and ordered new floor mats and touch-up paint for the Damn Vaninator. Thank God I get back on medical insurance on Sunday, because I need to hit a doctor and get some of my pills again. That way I can at least focus a little. And it’s also nice that not only did the Bears win a good one on Sunday, but that the Madden Curse has struck Shaun Alexander right before the Seahawks come to town. Gotta love it.
After last week’s interview/ambush with Chris Wallace, let me remind the American people that there is nothing preventing Bill Clinton from becoming president again other than your stupidity. Maybe he really should run again. He’s still young enough, Hitlary would be occupied in the Senate and wouldn’t annoy as much as First Lady, and say what you will about Chelsea’s looks, at least she isn’t a boozing druggie like some First Daughters we can mention (two of them in particular). Condi Rice can spin this as much as she wants, we all know who’s telling the truth on this issue, and it isn’t the Junta. And just to make you Republicans happy (instead of putting you in concentration camps like you should be), Clinton’s ass buddy Dubbaya Senior can get involved someway in the Third and Fourth Clinton Administrations, maybe as an Ambassador-At-Large or Unindicted Co-Conspirator or something like that. So, yeah, Bill, run again. You know you want to. And you know that the first thing you’d do is sign an Executive Order shutting down Fox News and arresting every person who works for it or appears regularly on it. However, do make one exception: release High-Quality Speaker Boy’s wife as an act of clemency. We don’t need him worrying about things and ruining Smackdown in the process.
Now, let us pimp, before I have to explain that knighthood isn’t nobility…
THE PIMP SECTION
I’ll be one of the participants in the 50 Club this week over in Popcorn Junkies, so head over there later this week, okay?
It’s All Angle, All The Time from Hevia, Weavil, Zarur, Pandich, Vin-Man, Anderson, Biscuiti, and Gardner. Even if they’re talking about Raw. My opinion is below.
Pandich in Games mode discusses Tokyo and other events which true gamers, namely PC and paper RPG gamers, don’t give a shit about.
Burnside is back in Comics mode.
Newman has an interview with some MMA guy I’ve never heard of.
Mathan actually writes about music made by white people. Color me shocked.
Gotta pimp Fernandez bringing back the Swindle Sheet. Now if he’ll only bring back the Jukebox…
Mark and Matt start in on listing their thirty-two worst horror games. Mark I trust on this matter, he being the resident expert on crap games.
(By the way, vote for an SSI D&D retrospective next month in Retrograding and f*ck with Lucard’s head. You KNOW he wants to write the Pokemon one so badly it hurts.)
Bisman is still flirting with eternal damnation by waving his saggy ass in the face of Touchdown Jesus.
Daniels is crying in his beer over the abrupt end of his love affair with Jeremy Shockey. He’s going to go all Glenn Close on Shockey, you just know it.
Now that the Sox have been eliminated, this is the last time Tierney gets pimped until April.
Cameron is right when he says that Trevor Hoffman isn’t the greatest closer of all time. Bobby Thigpen is. And Bobby Jenks is second. And no one who has ever pitched in the AL East Coast Bias is on that list.
Ah, on to the fun stuff.
GEOMETRY 101
This is what sucks about having a Tuesday column, the potential of major news happening on a Sunday and everyone else jumping in ahead of me to say things. So what the hell is there left to say about Kurt Angle’s arrival in TNA? Just take a gander at the Wrestling section here. Hevia’s already writing his death certificate, Pandich is saying this situation is wonderful, Vin-Man’s justifying it with his usual impeccable logic, Anderson’s saying “Big f*cking deal, TNA’s dead anyway”, Fingers’ Bro is going “Yeah, great, but Trish’s tits are bigger news”, Weavil’s saying, “Yeah, Angle’s great and he’s going to make me watch TNA, but look at what WWE is doing to black people!”, and Gardner’s waving his dick around going “Hey, I predicted this was going to happen and devoted two entire columns to it! Look at me and my big swinging cock! Go green from envy, all you mouse-hung IWC columnists!” Well, let him has his fun. We rarely let him out of his damp, darkened cell, and this is a good opportunity for him to reintegrate with society in his own way.
Due to all of this (and that’s only this site; all the columnists at the inferior sites, not to mention any poster with access to a whiteboard and two active brain cells to allow him to type, have posted their particular take already), it’s very difficult to come up with some kind of new slant on this story. So therefore I really won’t. I’ll summarize the points that most people have made and give my two cents on them. This is because I have most of you well-trained enough by this point that you can’t make up your own mind without guidance from me. My readers are a cult that Heyman would have died for back in the day. Well, here comes your lesson:
Kurt Angle is going to die if he stays in wrestling: Hevia has already received one very interesting response to his screed (possibly; we’re still trying to verify the sender), and may be presenting that point of view in a special Crucifix in the very near future. His hypothesis is sound, but it still denies a few basic points. First of all, my dear Daniel, never underestimate the amount of stress and strain that travel puts on a body. Let me just give an example. During 2000, when a Democrat was in the White House and the economy was still good, during a two-week period I did four round-trip flights and an eleven-hour drive for various job interviews. It killed me. Wrestlers do this all the time unless they’re hurt, and if they’re hurt, they’re not making money, so they put up with it. It’s no wonder that they turn to drugs, legal and otherwise, to help them cope with the travel (not to mention the performances). Kurt’s twice-a-month trips to Orlando (and elsewhere for the occasional PPV should they do more than just Bound For Glory outside of the Impact Zone) will assist in this matter compared to the schedule that he was keeping with WWE.
Then there’s the whole matter of his injuries. He can’t do anything about his neck and back; they will always be problematic. However, the other nagging injuries that he has will also benefit from the reduced activity. Whatever angle he’ll be involved in (and it will almost certainly be with Jarrett considering his Bret-esque introduction in TNA) will be a slow-burn with very little in-ring activity. He’s going to make Sting look like 80s Flair in terms of level of in-ring activity for the first six months or so. He’ll have time to heal physically.
Healing mentally? For some people, family is a great comfort (not me, of course, but I’m told that it is for others). Now he’ll have time to continue doing what he loves and spending a great deal of more time with Karen and the kids. That can only help him in that regard. Remember all of the stories over the past year about “a certain wrestler” in WWE essentially being put on suicide watch? Those were about Angle, in case you didn’t read the follow-ups.
In other words, the TNA deal is a win-win-win-win for Angle: he’s getting paid (and it’s almost certainly Sting Money), he has a reduced schedule which helps him physically, he gets to spend time with his family and to watch his kids grow up, and the travel is severely reduced.
And it’s a win-win-win-win for TNA as well: TNA is the retarded child of wrestling, constantly doing outrageous things in an attempt to attract our attention. In fact, they just did one last week by bringing back Russo (and, man, have people been jumping through hoops to justify that; the sad part is that most of them are right, because TNA’s SE has been so shot to hell that the rot is seeping into the in-ring product, and Russo can help in that regard). Angle would have been virtually the only available wrestler who would have given them the mark and smark credibility they desperately need right now after pissing away so much of it thanks to their imbecilic booking. Goldberg would have given them some mark credibility, but the smarks would have been laughing (“Just another attempt for Jarrett to pretend that this is WCW”). Jericho would have satisfied the smarks, but WWE pretty much destroyed him with the marks on the way out. Angle, though, has a title reign in this calendar year and still has his smark reputation intact (in fact, enhanced in some ways due to his working through the injuries and pain).
There is no way in hell TNA loses, especially if Angle goes out there and shoots on WWE. Guess what? Vince would allow him to do that and welcome him back with open arms, unlike with some other guys currently on the TNA roster (Christian and Rhiyno, I’m looking at you). Vince knows that if Angle shoots on him, Angle’s reputation would be enhanced among marks and smarks. All he has to do is say that Vince was the one preventing him from going into the ring and entertaining the fans that he loves even more than his wife and kids (and given Angle’s past, that’s probably the case), and we have an instant winner. And when he’s ready to come back to WWE, he’ll be fit, healthy, ready, and able to transition directly into an upper-card position again.
But there’s that one niggling little issue…: The TNA locker room, since the beginning, has been a druggie’s paradise. No, not steroids; geez, take a glance at the X Division guys and ask yourself if any of them are juicing. Everything else, though, is fair game. Look at some of the guys in that locker room, please. Raven’s successfully taken the cross-addiction torch from Jake Roberts and run with it; he’s been through more lines than a Shakespearian lead player. They employed Sabu when no one else dared to. Road Hogg is the biggest pot fiend in wrestling (even more so than Van Dam, and that’s really saying something). His buddy Killings is known to toke up on occasion (like, frequently). Jesus Christ, look at who’s showing up on Impact this week: Buff Stuffs Gerbils, the poster boy for ‘roid abuse (and, again, that’s saying something when they’re already employing Big Sump Pump), and Luger (I don’t think I have to elaborate on that one, if only for the memory of Elizabeth).
Angle not only needs to get healthy, he needs to get clean as well. Yes, I’ve had very little good to say about the Wellness Program. I still believe thar it’s more smokescreen than substance (abuse), but there have been some positives that have come out of it. Less Chris Masters on our screen, for one thing. Of course, there are negatives that have come out of it as well. Take a glance at Joey Matthews’ extended stay in rehab, which has led to Johnny Nitro, Intercontinental Champion. As part of Angle’s rehabilitation, he has to get off the pain pills. Do you really think TNA will provide him with a sympathetic environment to do so? I have my doubts.
Of course, it’s all worth it, because they HAVE to do Angle/Joe sometime: True. That’s pretty much a given. Of course, WCW also had to do Bret/Goldberg sometime as well, and look how that turned out (and I’m saying that as a believer in the principle that Bret was the most overrated wrestler of our time). The problem here is timing. Bound For Glory is their biggest PPV of the year. The biggest money matches have to be done there. Obviously, Angle/Joe is a license to start printing currency like Germany in 1923. But a match like that needs build-up, and one month just isn’t sufficient. The target date has to be Slammiversary for the first encounter, by which time Angle hopefully will be healthy and Joe will have the title. But you never know. Given the evidence with Christian and Sting, Angle will have to get into a program with Jarrett first, because, gosh darnit, he owns a piece of the company and he’s made a copy of Nash’s Ego Dildo ™ for personal use with it. But Jarrett’s just about the only one not to see the value of an Angle/Joe program. A lot of the fanboys are going to be pissed when it doesn’t happen right away. Be patient; it will.
So what does this all mean, children? I don’t have a damn clue. All I know is that Kurt Angle is going to be wrestling on…when is TNA’s new time slot and what day will they be on? That was the other big announcement on Sunday, and I already have forgotten it due to their “oh, by the way” follow-up. He’s going to be “special enforcer” for the Jarrett/Sting match at Bound For Glory, which will kick off his program with Jarrett (because there is no f*cking way that Angle can be booked as a heel at this point; he’ll have to wait eight months like Christian for that). And all we can do is hope that somehow, someway, he gets his health back, gets off the pills, and gets his life back together. Don’t worry about his presence in WWE either; somehow, Cole and High-Quality Speaker Boy will somehow work his name into every Sylvester Terkay match until Terkay gets nailed by the Wellness Program. He’s out there. We’ll just see less of him in the ring. I hope.
PPV? WHAT PPV?
Actually, that’s pretty much what all the normal wrestling video release groups said too. No Surrender is the first PPV that I can remember since BitTorrent became popular that didn’t have a release up right away. In fact, Tuesday afternoon, there wasn’t a release up at the major wrestling torrent sites. Since I need a release that I can use for screen shots, I wasn’t going to download an NSV version to watch with Winamp just to be informed about it. I’ve done that before, and been very dissatisfied by not giving my audience what they want. Hey, kids these days love the bling of having screen caps plastered all over my articles. They’re easily distracted by shiny things, you know.
Therefore, I’m not going to bother with it. Considering what Anderson said about it, I’m pretty firm on my convictions regarding this and the fact that it’ll probably be a waste of three hours. Think about it, folks: Anderson was negative about the entire damn show. Anderson, the same guy who loved Cena’s entrance at Wrestlemania. Anderson, who gives three and a half snowflakes to two guys having a five-minute fart contest in the ring. He hated it. Therefore, how atrocious is this show?
It was so atrocious that Mother Nature, in her ineffable wisdom, made absolutely certain we here at IP wouldn’t embarass ourselves in the Round Table by making sure that Brashear’s DSL got wiped out by massive rainstorms. Actually, I’m a little upset about that, because I think I did pretty well in the Round Table this time. As far as I know, the plan right now is for Brashear to dig up the results and wing them over to Vin-Man at first opportunity, and they’ll be counted.
I’m not even going to bother. Everything was incredibly obvious from start to finish. Just reading the results could cause intense pain in a wrestling fan. The only good thing to come out of this is that the fans are calling out TNA “creative” on the Jackass promotion. The problem with this is that they doth protest too much. Yes, we want to get rid of this angle, but not at the cost of destroying what little remains of the X Division. As I said last week, when longtime members of the IWC are writing that Vinny Ru can only be a positive influence for TNA at this point, something’s incredibly wrong.
Fuck it. Let’s see what TNA has in store for us over the next couple of weeks…
IMPACT SOMEWHAT SPOILED
Okay, so what’s gonna happen not involving Angle in TNA? Well, their tapings were last night, so let’s take a little bit of a peek.
Lance Hoyt will be wrestling. Further, Lance Hoyt will be wrestling Jeff Jarrett. You have been warned. Personally, I forgot that Hoyt was still employed by TNA, so this is a shocker. Of course, Hoyt also wrestled Savory Steak Sauce Boy for an Xplosion match, so his employment status can still be argued.
Since Joe has nothing to do other than parade around with the belt whose title he should also be possessing, he’s going to get involved in the fun and games in the Grievous Bodily Harm Division, since it’s been a while since we’ve seen Abyss be someone else’s bitch.
It looks like the tag titles affair at Bound For Glory will be Six Sides Of Steel. Too bad that the No Surrender Round Table never got put up, because I mentioned that exact thing happening as the aftermath to the A. J. ‘n Chris victory that I predicted. No, seriously, I did. Ask Brashear if you want verification. Remember, I don’t lie to you in here, and if I do, I make it clear that I’m lying.
And Eric Young is unemployed. At the hands of, believe it or not, Shark Boy.
That’s pretty much it. The next two weeks will be a hard sell for Bound For Glory, and the two weeks after that should be the ludicrous sell for Bound For Glory. Again, this is not a surprise. After all, TNA has been pimping it since before No Surrender. At least WWE has the respect to acknowledge that No Way Out exists. No Surrender was just thrown to the wolves in that regard. And there’s still no sign of a title for Joe, especially now with Angle in there. Now Joe’s going to find out how Monty Brown felt a year to a year and a half ago. Poor Joe.
And now on to the show that Joe probably wishes he was on (and the one that Monty will probably be on sooner than later)…
THE SHORT FORM
Match Results:
Lita over Candice Michelle, Rated R For Ref Women’s Tournament First Round Match, (Pinfall, Edge spear): Well, all of you “Candice should get the Women’s title” freaks can now shut up. And, really, that’s all that can be said at this point. Obviously, we’re looking at Lita/LaJames for the final at Cyber Sunday with the fans allegedly getting to vote on what type of ridiculous, soul-scarring, insult-to-womanhood outfit they get to wear. Yay. You know, Trish wouldn’t have retired if she knew that it would mean that this abortion would happen.
Edge goes right for the Go Daddies
Kane over Johnny Nitro, Intercontinental Title Match (DQ, Jamalga-ference): What does it say about Johnny Nitro when an Intercontinental Title Match keeps getting used as Angle Advancement, and the angle doesn’t involve you? Actually, I shouldn’t put it on Nitro personally. The IC strap has been less than worthless for years now, and, let’s face it, he’s nothing compared to the human steamroller known as…
(By the way, the ultimate fly-on-the-wall wrestling moment for 2006, even with everything else that’s happened this year, would definitely have been if Jamalga had showed up in costume, make-up, and character to bail out his brother Rikishi. How many cops would have sent their uniform trousers to the dry cleaners after that?)
Fly, Nitro, fly. Up, up to the sky.
Ric Flair over Mike Mondo (Pinfall, right cross): Oh, boy, was Flair off his game. He was literally moving in slow motion during this match. He’s usually pretty eager about getting the younger guys over, but I think he knows that he’s outmatched this time. Too many young guys, too green for someone his age to have any patience with. This feud is going to bomb horribly. He knows it, so he’s not going to put any effort into it, period. Well, that’s his right, really. He’s earned it.
Better men than you have tried this, Mondo, and better men than you have failed
Trip ‘n Shawn over Rory McAllister and Robby McAllister (Pinfall, Michaels pins Rory, Sweet Chimp Music); Trip ‘n Shawn over Viscera and Charlie Haas (Pinfall, double pin, proximate cause being Sweet Chimp Music on Viscera); Trip ‘n Shawn over GarriLance Cade and Trevor Murdoch (DQ, Fun With Chairs): Well, that was much ado about nothing. Pretty much camera time for the other tag teams on Raw instead of putting them on Heat again, and a ham-fisted attempt at giving them a rub, which our intrepid duo had no interest in doing. Sometimes, big egos are a good thing to have.
Apparently, the concept of divide and conquer hasn’t penetrated Scotland yet
Jeffykins over Benjy (Pinfall, inside cradle): Yeah, like I paid attention. Matches like this are what news websites are made for. Sorry, Benjy, I still love you, but you’re going to be involved in a feud with the Toxic Fairy. I’ll start giving a damn about you when you move on to someone worthy of you.
I’d pay him, but I’m saving my money right now
Carly Colon y Super Crazy over Chris Masters and Randy Orton (Pinfall, Colon pins Masters, backcracker): Nota a Super Loco: Te quiero, realmente, pero si usted guarda el conseguir implicado en fósforos con los hombres como estos tres, yo voy a ser forzado para no hacer caso de usted totalmente, apenas como estoy con Benjamin ahora. Consiga tan lejos de ellos.
It’s a shame when former tag partners are forced to fight each other. Except when it’s these two.
John Cena over Lita, One Arm Tied Behind His Back Match (Pinfall, F-U): Of course, this meant nothing. It was all in the apres and the pimp for Smackdown. Of course, Smackdown needs the pimp right now, so it was totally acceptable. I’m not going to say anything more about that, though. Discretion is the better part of valor.
And to think, if not for a stupid booking decision, we could have seen Cena having the piss beat out of him every Friday night
Angle Developments:
And they’ve never looked better
Now Benjy knows how I feel when I go through the West Side
I told you he’d be back. Of course, I didn’t believe it’d take nine months for him to be back, but still, I was right yet again.
Okay, I’ll close this sucker up and you can prepare for the weekly barrage of Short Forms starting tomorrow.
