The WWE made one of two-or-three yearly swings up to Albany tonight and, for the first time in a while, I kinda/sorta felt bad that I didn’t live up there. It didn’t do much for me when I was on blackout, but now that I’m back in to Raw and Smackdown, I wished I was up there to go. Of course, my in at the Knickbocker Arena Pepsi Arena Times Union Center moved to Boston, so extra close tickets probably wouldn’t happen this time. As the evening progresses, I’m on the lookout for an “I’m Naked” sign.
Albany, from personal experience, has a history for liking Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Undertaker, and Bradshaw regardless of their allegiance and . Let’s see if this remains true.
1) Props to me, just as I was typing “How is that they’re having a main event at Backlash, which is generally Wrestlemania’s re-match PPV, without one of the other two guys?” Triple H’s music hit. Also, points to Triple H for pointing out the fact that JBL just kind of “declared” himself a title contender. Which I also did last week… and was flamed for. Love you guys =)
2) Part of me kind of feels bad for Val Venis. I mean, the guys a decent worker, pretty good on the mic, and an all around B- wrestler. But they saddled him with a crappy gimmick during Attitude! era (because penis = comedy!) and it just kind of ruined him. On the other hand, he gets to be a pro wrestler. I have no idea what kind of guy Val is, but I do feel like they should repackage (haw!) him and give him another shot at something. It’s not like they couldn’t use extra fresh faces at the top. On the third hand, maybe he’s a happy, card-carrying member of the Bob Holly “I’ll stick around and cash paychecks and be a good company guy for as long as you let me” Club.
3) They take us back for Ric Flair’s farewell address. They don’t have to. It’s achieved “save until deleted” status on my DVR. At current count, I’ve watched the Horsemen’s entrance 536 times. I could actually delete the rest of Raw… it’s fast-forwarded to the 10:57 mark and I can’t ever see myself rolling it back. It also occurs to me if last week happened in Albany, and I missed it, I probably would have shot myself in the face.
4) Props to King for mentioning Trevor Murdoch’s horrific tan. If you happened to miss it, Murdoch’s entire body was fake orange-tanned, but it looks like he wore a face mask… so the oval around his face was completely pale. His entire body was a different color than his face. It was very, very weird.
5) Bradshaw’s entrance was not televised by my on-site spies tell me that it was cheers bordering on indifference. My Albany: MSG-lite.
6) After pointing out Trevor Murdoch’s creepy tan earlier in the evening, King later points out Santino Marella’s love handles. Who pissed him off today?
7) I’m pretty sure the Crime Time skit could not have stolen any more from In Living Color if it had Fly Girls, a Fire Marshal, and a siren at the end. On the other hand, I wish they filmed it outside the arena… there are plenty of sketchy places in Albany where this skit would have been 100x more hysterical…… to me anyway.
8) Is everyone pretending that JBL isn’t even in these matches a precursor to him winning? Let’s hope so. It’s funny that the difference between the brands are such that while JBL was a perfectly legitimate champion on Smackdown, the idea of him as RAW champion seems almost impossible. Then again, according to my on-site spies, two-time TNA champion Ron “The Truth” Killings was the curtain-jerker on Heat… so go figure.
9) Remember what I was just mentioning about them being desperately in need of fresh faces? Yeah, when there are two women’s matches in one night, it’s time to start making sure you have some new faces in the men’s division. Matter of fact, I’ll even give Beth Phoenix and Maria credit… their match was worth watching… the early tag match was total garbage. Also, what did Albany do to deserve three tag matches in one night?
10) If they use the Ric Flair match to give me one more chance at seeing at full-fledged evil Shawn, I’m going to be a happy guy. Unfortunately, the way it’s turning right now, the crowd is going to turn against Batista. It’ll be interesting to see if they just keep going with it despite the crowd reaction or if they start to tweak the story a bit.
10 Thoughts is cross-posted on The Wrestling Blog. If you’d be interested in becoming a contributer to The Wrestling Blog, e-mail a writing sample to pulsedaniels at gmail.
