Back once again with more answers to your questions…
“ 1. Where do you think Samoa Joe is better off plying his trade: ROH, where he made his name, had his greatest success, and seems to genuinely love working; WWE, where he could either become the monster heel badass TNA seems unwilling or unable to make him, or Umaga’s wacky cross dressing cousin Umargo, depending on 1,000 variables involving backstage politics and whether Vince has had all of his medication on a given day, but hey, either way, maybe we could get more matches between him and Punk; or TNA where he gets… a lot more time off than he would working for WWE, thus allowing him to pursue his true passion; scrapbooking; and hey, does ROH do their Pay-Per-Views at an amusement park? I don’t think so! Or should he just say nuts to all of it and join Brock Lesnar in the world of MMA? Or follow Lesnar’s career path to ridculous links and try out for the Minnesota Vikings? Also, how long will it take you in your reply to use the compound word moobs? I have a paragraph.
2. Is it just me, or does the Sandman currently look terrible? I mean, he was never in what you’d call good shape, but he looks emaciated. It also looked like he could barely stand up during quite a few of his matches recently, but maybe he was just selling the beer can shots to the head or the fact that he’s supposed to be drunk all the time. Also, are you going to just blow this off and post a clip to the Spider-Man cartoon or Thomas Hayden Church? I’m okay with either.
3. Can Saturday Night’s Main Event be made in to a compelling show again? Well, I guess I should rephrase that, since they can’t seem to get Raw, Smackdown, ECW and any pay-per-view without the words “Wrestle” and “Mania” out of the grinding cycle of medicority they’ve been in for f*ck knows how long, and instead ask “How could they make SNME worth watching to anyone besides completists like me?” I’ve probably spent too much time thinking about this, and the only thing I could come up with is that it could be the only place where they had interpromotional matches, but even that doesn’t seem like it could make much of an appreciable difference, especially since they’re a world title unification match away from killing off this whole grand brand extension experiment once and for all. Are they being perfectly reasonable by making it a place where Eugene, Doink, Viscera, and Kevin Thorn can main event, or should they use it as a vehicle to do… something?
4. Given the fact that such luminaries as a well past her prime Madusa, cruel inside joke on J.R. that no one but Russo found funny Oklahoma, Prince Iaukea (who sucked and deserves no qualifiers), and the entertaining but come on Daffney all held the Cruiserweight Title within a year in WCW; and a well past her prime Jacquelene, a holy shit he’s still alive Chavo Classic, Spike Dudley, and Funaki (I’m just too tired to think of anything to say about them, besides the fact that I was quite fond of Spike’s evil goatee) all held within a year in WWE, does Hornswaggle even rank in the top ten dumbest choices for Cruiserweight champion, and if so, where? Also, did Jackass pulling out of Summerslam deny us Wee Man vs. Hornswaggle for the crusierweight title, and if so, how should we feel about that?
5. Given Vince’s love of any celebrity, no matter how flimsy that word may apply to a given entertainer, and given the fact that he seems to be juicing heavily, do you think that Carrot Top could make his WWE debut any time soon? Also, am I crazy or genius for thinking that he, the Miz, K-Fed, and let’s say Flava Flav should be signed to long term deals, put in a stable called the Celebutards, and allowed to run rampant all over, let’s say ECW. Shit, Miz is already what passes for the second or third best heel there, and maybe John Morrison would look less sad trying to talk like Jim Morrison while still wearing his old MNM outfits if he had to be on screen with them.”
– Homercutio
Ah, the old Numbered List. Classic.
1. You know, somehow it never occurred to me that the TNA boys and girls could just wander off from the tapings and check out the rest of the Universal Studios theme park. C’mon, who wouldn’t be tickled pink by the sight of Samoa Joe stomping around Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster or A Day in the Park with Barney & Friends, looking for victims? And the comedy of Team 3D dining at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co writes itself. They really are missing out by not incorporating this into their shows. Alcoholic Rhino is one thing; alcoholic Rhino punting children into the candy floss vendor is pure gold. Back to Joe and the best answer is – depends what he wants. If he wants to try and make a load of money before it’s too late, he should go to WWE. If he wants to be able to work his preferred style on a regular basis without worrying about politics or idiocy, albeit for a smaller audience, he should go to ROH. If he wants to hide under a pile of coats and hope that somehow everything sorts itself out, he should stay with TNA. Really, it’s hard to figure out a reason for someone like him actually wanting to stay with TNA by this point. I’m sure empty promises about being given the title and made the figurehead of the company hold no water with him now. Rumour has it that his TNA contract is up fairly soon. If I was in his shoes, I’d tell them to go waste their money on signing more of Kurt Angle’s mates and start fishing for a WWE deal. Between ROH, Japan and the NWA, he’d have no shortage of work in the interim. Even if WWE do nothing with him, or, even worse, put him in feuds like arguing with Big Daddy V about who has the sexiest moobs (wahey!), it’s not going to diminish his standing in the eyes of the die-hard indie fans that keep the likes of ROH going.
2. It’s 2007. Sandman changed from a surfer to an alcoholic sado-masochist 14 years ago. How could he not look terrible now?! And, no, I’m far too professional to blow things off for Spider-Man or Thomas Hayden Church. Instead, here’s Timmy Mallett admiring Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikinis:
3. There’s an easy way to make Saturday Night’s Main Event a must-see show. Cancel Raw. Move Saturday Night’s Main Event to a different time slot and ditch the word ‘Night’ from the title. Then move Saturday’s Main Event to a different day. Monday, for instance. Then drop the ‘Saturday’ part. Then, on a mad whim, replace the phrase ‘Main Event’ with the word ‘Raw’. After that, the show would almost certainly be more keenly received. Also, ditch ECW and bring back Tuesday Night Titans. Just imagine it… Booker T performing Macbeth… Ron Simmons and Funaki team up on Damn Rush Hour… Bobby Lashley reports from the streets of Harlem, where he cruises around looking for Pokemon… Shelton Benjamin enters WWE Idol with a rendition of “When Will I Be Famous?” by Bros, which reduces Jim Ross to tears although nobody can tell… Steve Austin goes on a brewery tour and Scott Hall is in the background for no reason whatsoever… William Regal serves afternoon tea for Umaga… Gary and Hornswoggle forge a bond to rival even that of Homer and Spider-Pig… Of course, the real comedy lay in the inadvertent and the inept, both of which would be numbed by the modern writing team and render the whole thing pointless. So to answer your question, hmm.
4. I think we should feel angry, Brad. Angry and tired. The ten dumbest Cruiserweight Champions would be the following, in order from pretty stupid to hard-on Russo…
Disco Inferno – included for no reason other than he must surely have sucked Kevin Nash’s big sexy cock…
Funaki – impossible to hate the guy but, hey, c’mon…
Elix Skipper – awarded the title by Lance Storm for no reason other than being Canadian… or black… the two are often interchangeable…
The Artist – nothing like riffing on Prince at the most irrelevant period of Prince’s career…
Crowbar & Daffney – dual title holders are always stupid, especially when they arise from mixed tag matches…
Hornswoggle – needs more leg humping…
Jacqueline – anything that reminds me of Franz Ferdinand has to be idiotic…
Madusa – kewl b00bzies…
Chavo Classic – he really wasn’t… okay, the name is, but that’s all…
Oklahoma – the most amazing thing about it was seeing JR’s mate Steve Williams standing right there as it was happening…
5. It would not surprise me in the least if this had been suggested in some form by a writer or producer (n. road agent) working with WWE. One thing that could conceivably work given the inexplicable popularity of such things and the number of folk they have under Legends contracts would be if they did their own version of Big Brother. Hell, even those not currently under any form of contract would not take that much persuading to return. Just imagine having Mae Young, Moolah, Kamala, Hillbilly Jim, Iron Sheik, Lita, Mick Foley, Steve Austin, Francine, Hacksaw, Jake Roberts, Tammy Sytch and (please, please, please) WOYAH shacked up in the same house for a month or two. Now that’s classic.
Until then, here’s Spidey:
“Alright Burnsy, here’s a classic.
What matches were ten times better than they had any right to be given the participants/stips/circumstances?”
– Cash Kerouac
Well, as mentioned in the forums, there was indeed such a match in January, so let’s start with it…
John Cena vs Umaga; Last Man Standing, WWE Royal Rumble ’07 – way back in the halcyon days of earlier this year, Umaga was still a fearsome and unstoppable savage. Then he became a billionaire’s stooge en route to getting all HAPPYSAMOA. Other things never change, like Cena. He has two types of good match — being carried by the likes of Michaels or Edge, or playing the eager superhero who pulls out all the stops to defeat the supervillain. This match was the latter type and one of the best examples of it that WWE has produced in many a year. He came in with a rib injury, he used the stairs as a weapon, he did a blade job, he used a monitor, he let Umaga flop through a table in a nifty spot, he still couldn’t win, Umaga’s handler tried to get involved, it backfired, he took the opportunity and choked Umaga out with the top rope”¦ eventually”¦ all very heated, all very well-paced and, frankly, the most fun match we’ve seen this year.
Hulk Hogan vs Shawn Michaels; WWE SummerSlam ‘05 – did you ever see a man bump like a broomstick salesman?
John Cena vs JBL; I Quit, WWE Judgement Day ’05 – the same basic formula as the Umaga match, though of course JBL was an altogether different variety of dominant heel and so most of the mark pleasure here came from seeing him get his comeuppance rather than Cena triumphing against the odds. This was a patented WWE Main Event Brawl, the sort that helped sustain Austin’s star status, and it gave Cena some much-needed momentum to propel his first title reign onwards and upwards after the apathetic way in which he won it.
Stephanie McMahon vs Trish Stratus; WWE No Way Out ’01 – the first time Stephanie had a ‘real’ match to work and it was with a Trish who was still at least two years away from knowing what the hell she was doing in a wrestling ring. It did involve ref bumps and run-ins but for the most part it was played a lot straighter than expected, with both women having meticulously rehearsed the match beforehand to the point that they could surpass expectations. Sadly, Stephanie would not do on to match her brother’s track record of surprisingly decent matches. By the way, this card also involves what experts refer to as ‘fan-f*cking-tastic’ matches like Rock/Angle and Austin/HHH and is one of the few must-see, non big-four PPVs in WWE history.
Goldberg vs Scott Steiner; No Disqualification, WCW Fall Brawl 2000 – just image, a post-roid rage Steiner match that is enjoyable in a non-ironic sense, featuring actual wrestling holds, against one-note Goldberg minus the heat of his initial streak. In WCW. In the year 2000. Featuring a Vince Russo run-in. And yet it happened!
Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior; WWE WrestleMania VI – billed as ‘the Ultimate Challenge’, which is surely must have been for Pat Patterson. He deserves utmost credit for saving WrestleMania VI, having beaten each and every beat of this bout into the addled brains of Hogan and WOYAH in the run-up to the event. The end result was an absolutely perfect way of showcasing both men’s unique charisma and signature moves without making either of them look weak and racking up tremendous heat along the way. Then Hogan went and nicked the veritable heat swag after the match”¦ then WCW put on a rematch that was 180 degrees removed from this one”¦ but, still, the original holds up very well.
If anybody can suggest any more like this, drop me a line.
“Burnside,
My question is simple. How awesome was HHH vs. TAKA Michinoku for the title on Raw?”
– Geoff
Simple answer — pretty damn awesome. One of these days we’re going to get a pretty damn awesome Funaki DVD set containing many such pretty damn awesome matches.
Sorry to cut things short but there’s a pretty damn awesome Celtic vs Spartak Moscow game on the telly that demands my attention”¦
If you have a question you’d like to pester us with, send it here. Look out for another update in a few days!
