1~ I’d be remiss in not opening this article without drawing attention to the horrible suicide that happened today. The world lost a legend in Robin Williams to severe depression. Depression is real and is something I’ve only begun to deal with. I had to miss work from December 2013-February 2014 because I was learning how to manage it. I still struggle with it every single day & it certainly kicked up when I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia, plus they found a node on my lung. If I didn’t have my friends and family throughout this year, I don’t know what I would have done. Williams was obviously suffering from something that no one was going to be able to help him with and life just became too much. I understand it & hope that, if nothing else, his death brings more attention to depression sufferers and we’re not just brushed aside any longer.
2~ Sorry now back our regularly scheduled program. As far as the opening segment goes, that was by FAR the great Paul Heyman rap ever. Besides that I thought it was a lot of the same. It would have been the perfect time to mention that Brock Lesnar beat John Cena way back with Lesnar was the SmackDown champion and Cena was first making his name for himself. Instead we were subjected to the same footage and the same promo (except for the rap). I AM looking forward to see these two finally in the ring later in the shower. I just hope it isn’t a bait and switch.
3~ As awful as the Lumberjack Match stipulation is (why not a cage match?!?!?) and how campy Dean Ambrose jumping out of gift box was, I loved it. Yea it was cheesy and a little cliché but that’s exactly why it worked. You’d never think the Dean Ambrose character would wrap himself up in a gift box and yet here he comes. The Network plug-in his promo was a bit overkill but at least he tried to make it work.
4~ How awesome would it be if “Megan” turned out to be “Claire Lynch” ? Actually that couldn’t happen since TNA probably still has “Claire” under contract. Either way, this segment was as bad as expected. Although it did answer why Stephanie came out dressed in nurse’s scrubs.
5~ It wasn’t a lot but I liked the sitdown interview that Chris Jericho and Bray Wyatt had. It was an unlikely format for both men as they usually thrive in front of a live crowd but I think that’s exactly why this segment worked. It was definitely a different way to go for Wyatt but both men were able to use their tone, word connotations and expressions to sell a match instead of the typical hype around a big match (Cena/Lesnar).
6~ It seems like everyone gets a bit excited when John Cena is able to enter his “intense & serious” mode and is able to let out some non-PG verbiage but it’s just going to end after SummerSlam. Whether he wins or loses at SummerSlam, the baseball cap wearing, bright red, K-Mart spokesperson will just be on TV the following week. This edgier Cena has never lasted longer than a month since he’s turned into this cartoon character and I don’t believe that will change anytime soon.
7~ Stephanie might run into some legal problems here when she was the one who invited that woman in the ring. How many times have we seen a wrestler or referee put the boots to a fan that was trying to get to the ring (Eddie Guerrero, anyone?) They never could press charges. At least the last arrest was actually dramatic.
8~ For a week of promotion, Hulk Hogan’s birthday celebration was basically a nice tribute video and a Scott Hall nostalgia promo before Brock Lesnar’s music hit to cue the birthday spoiler. Of course this just led to an awkward stare down until John Cena made his entrance for the more important stare down between the main event players at SummerSlam. Not too much special on tonight’s show & even worse considering it was the go-home show for SummerSlam.
Well, either way, former WWE writer Andrew Goldstein will be joining us live at 8 pm est on the HTC Wrestling Pulsecast to predict and debate our choices for SummerSlam.
