THE BIT AT THE START:
Last week was the WrestleMania fall-out special, which included a little look at how much or how little progress the good people of Raw and Smackdown have made since WrestleMania XXI. From the sounds of things, most of you agreed with my comments in a spectacularly polite and forthcoming manner, which was rather nice but ultimately just leaves me feeling bad when I get drunk and unleash my inner belligerence at people who don’t really deserve it. The moral of the story escapes me, as do most of my stories, but feel free to just call me a wanker or something. I’m sure I deserve it. Hey, I’ll go and wank right now if I have to. I’ll wank so damn much my shoulder will fall off. Literally. Wank, wank, wank in the midnight sun.
Thank goodness potential employers are Googling people’s names now. It just gives me another excuse to never leave university. That and the fine example of Dr. Venkman. “But the kids love us…” Classic.
There’s a black cat outside my window eating a bird. I’m not sure if this means good or bad luck for me, but it seems like the sort of thing that will crop up on a Lost flashback at some point.
Speaking of Lost, Matt Basilo covers it along with a bunch of other shows in his Monday columns. There used to be a specific Lost recapper but he got eaten by Hurley or something, so never mind. By the way, is it wrong to find Rose attractive?
Speaking of what I believe I was talking about in the first place, somebody claiming to be called Casey Cornelius disagreed with my summary of Chris Masters from last week. Here’s what I had to say about the man who will hopefully get to drive a big bus named after himself around the country at some point in the future, possibly after slamming a fat Samoan wrester (hello, Umaga)…
“Chris Masters:
This Time Last Year – Still doing the insipid Masterlock Challenges, which at least did not involve him trying to work a wrestling match.
This Time This Year – Still trying to work wrestling matches, which at least could involve some interesting parties rather than the Masterlock Challenges. No matter what, it isn’t enough.
Verdict – Thumbs Down“
And here’s what Casey had to say…
“Are you out of your mind?
The guy gets a tag shot at WM and a brewing feud with Carlito and he is doing WORSE than he was last year? You did a good job being critical of 99 percent of the others but this is crazy.”
This raises an interesting moral dilemma… at what point does it become socially acceptable for an intelligent person to give praise to Chris Masters? Sure, he got to be on the WrestleMania card to compete for a title… but he was also the curtain-jerking job-boy made to look like a complete klutz. Sure, he gets plenty of air-time on Raw by feuding with Carlito… but Carlito’s steady improvement since the turn of the year just continually highlights the lack of progress from Masters. Philosophers will debate this one for years to come, but I guess it is not outwith the realm of reason to admit that Masters is in a better situation now than he was a year ago. Personally speaking, however, I just cannot bring myself to say such things. If I did I would expect a Monty Python foot to squash me from above (and let’s all hope they can work that into the Michaels/McMahons match at Backlash somehow). Still, it’s interesting that it would be Chris Masters of all people that would lead to the one e-mail in disagreement. After all, he’s just some regular dumb person with a Full Nelson. The physique? Well…
This is worse than that time when Chris Masters adhered to the Wellness Program…
Anti-situational comedy rocks. Fuck South Park.
Anyway, welcome to this week’s column. Your regularly scheduled bout of wrestling news is down below somewhere, along with the return of the grading bit, which this week focuses on the first Thursday edition of Impact. But before we get into all that, it’s nearly time to start thinking about the WWE Draft Lottery…
Click above for comic book review goodness type sentence structure better read!
THE DRAFT 2006:
I posted about this in the forums during the week but I recommend you don’t bother checking it out as they appear to have been flooded with morons recently.
Assuming the current plans don’t get changed, the Draft Lottery should be hitting Raw and Smackdown at any point between May and July. Last year’s draft came at a time when both rosters were already linked together due to the ECW feud over One Night Stand. In the aftermath of the lottery, the Raw vs. Smackdown feud was consequently beaten into the ground with several inter-brand matches at Taboo Tuesday, Survivor Series and Armageddon – as well as on TV events – to the extent that the saturation point for such matches was reached long before WrestleMania, when they were supposed to occur in the first place.
Furthermore, the people that were traded last year have largely failed to benefit from the switch. Let’s have a quick recap:
Drafted to Raw…
John Cena – was a massively popular face at this time, yet his popularity has nosedived in an astonishingly hostile manner since.
Kurt Angle – wound up back on Smackdown after just seven months.
Carlito – live TV does appear to have finally made him start working.
The Big Show – spent a lot of time with Kane rather than Kane’s brother.
Rob Van Dam – about to benefit come Another One Night Stand, which could just as easily have happened by keeping him on Smackdown.
Danny Basham – who?
Rene Dupree – where?
Chavo Guerrero – Kerwin White says hello.
Mark Jindrak – gone.
Kenzo Suzuki – gone.
Hiroko – gone.
Drafted to Smackdown…
Chris Benoit – carried on doing his thing. Officially the draft-slut of the promotion.
Randy Orton – officially burnt out his light, if you will.
Muhammad Hassan – gone.
Daivari – had to go back to Raw for a bit anyway.
Christian – gone.
Batista – body falling apart.
Simon Dean – jobber with special ‘tag team manager’ status.
Sylvain Grenier – what?
Candice Michelle – back to Raw with you and your amazing ability to turn around.
William Regal – what is it with people finding cross-dressing Englishmen funny?
Steven Richards – not gone, but forgotten.
So really the only person to have made any substantial benefit from being drafted is Carlito, and possibly Batista, since he did manage to escape Triple H and survive as a headline act in his own right. If the company will insist on hosting a draft on an annual basis, and on drafting so many people each time, and on running so many Raw vs. Smackdown matches outside of WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how anybody on the rosters could benefit from the draft. There certainly aren’t a great deal of ‘dream matches’ that we haven’t seen already – and most of those involve people that obviously aren’t going to change brands and probably wouldn’t happen satisfactorily anyway(Shawn Michaels vs. Paul London, for instance). Still, with the CW network signing up Friday Night Smackdown for at least two more years, WWE will continue to ignore the obvious benefits of merging the rosters in favour of continuing the brand extension. This means that 2006 will bring another draft. This means some people are going to move from Raw to Smackdown and vice versa. This should mean that these same people are going to benefit from it.
So… who should these people be?
Well…
Move to Raw:
Melina
Because we just can’t possibly have a draft without splitting up a tag team… well, technically speaking, MNM would still be together. They’d just have to get a new moniker or another third party with a name starting with M. The benefit of having Melina on Raw far outweighs the drawback for Mercury & Nitro, but only if they go ahead and do something that I suggested a while ago and make her into Raw’s first female General Manager. Eric S seems to favour Mama Benjamin for the position but I don’t see the point in turning the GM role into more of a comedic role when she can just do that in her skits anyway. Melina could then segue quite nicely into a feud with Trish Stratus, which we saw a tasty teaser of last year, over who is the ‘dominant female’ on Raw (similar to the very enjoyable Stephanie/Trish feud from ’01). Since this doesn’t even need to involve the Women’s Title, it also leaves Mickie James and Victoria free to try and out-psycho one another over the belt and have two genuinely entertaining, smut-free programs involving the Divas on the go at once. Something of a breakthrough, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The Boogeyman
Because fifteen minutes can only last so long, but he might be able to make it to a grand total of half an hour if he hops over to Raw. He could also ally himself to Eugene and form the oddest tag team of all time. Well, except for these two guys:
Situational comedy rules. Fuck Family Guy.
JBL
This is unlikely to happen since he’s meant to be keeping the United States title for a good few months at least and the only titles that stand a chance of moving this time around are the Tag Team Titles (it makes little sense to have the WWE version on Smackdown and the World version on Raw nowadays). Moving JBL also fails to help Raw with their lack of main event faces. At the moment they have the dismantling Flair, the part-time Michaels, the kept-at-bay RVD and little else to counter the collective hatred of Edge, Cena and HHH. Then again, could JBL be that face? Such a development is hard to imagine… then again, back in early 2004, nobody could possibly have thought of Bradshaw becoming WWE Champion. He made a success of that, though. All he would need to do is rely less on his Ted Dibiase side and more on his quick wit (he still gets plenty of pops for his jibes as a heel) and his admittedly impressive ability to thoroughly lamp the shit out of people (always a pleasant sight for the average fan) whilst playing off some cheap patriotic, and perhaps alcoholic, face heat. There’s also the chance to add Jillian Hall to the Women’s Division since, supposedly, she knows how to wrestle. Couldn’t be any worse than Torrie and Candice, I guess…
Finlay
We never expected Finlay to wrestle again, let alone to be so enjoyable to watch. It might be a bit harsh to take him away from Benoit and Regal but, let’s face it, the guy really doesn’t have that long left in terms of useful active competition. It’s kind of like the Boogeyman’s situation, only less stupid and a lot stiffer. Since WWE should try and get as much out of Finlay while they still can, they may as well move him over to Raw. There’s an easy feud between him and RVD, the man that took the Money in the Bank briefcase away from Finlay, waiting to be done that could lead to some brutal Hardcore Matches. Finlay could perhaps be the guy to drag the old-school goodness supposedly stored in some secret part of Trevor Murdoch out into the open. In fact, he could be used to toughen up a great deal of the younger talents on Raw. Who wouldn’t like to see Finlay take on the Spirit Squad with his strange Irish weaponry? Better yet, putting him on Raw means he will also be able to advise the women on their wrestling skills once again.
Paul Burchill
I have no grand plans for Burchill, it’s just that the draft always needs the token youth-vote, so to speak, and Lashley and Kennedy both have long-term plans in place on Smackdown. Then again, don’t rule out WWE going for the shock value of switching either of them (which also has the hidden bonus of pissing off the supposed smarts). Burchill’s gimmick is goofy but he does do a decent job with it, he can wrestle really well, and the imminent arrival of that Johnny Depp movie is, using WWE Lojik, precisely the sort of thing they need to capitalise on. WWE Lojik also tells us that nothing says ‘capitalising’ like getting promoted from Smackdown to Raw. Anyway, Burchill could certainly become a firm favourite with the portion of the audience who keep their tongues firmly in their cheeks.
Move to Smackdown:
Kane
According to several different rumours that I don’t believe, Kane is going to defeat Mysterio for the belt. More likely is that there is so little left for him to do on Raw that he has to feud with yet another tag team partner so, what the hell, just shift him to Smackdown. At least then he’ll be able to job to The Undertaker in Detroit next April, possibly after feuding with Batista at some point beforehand. Plus, if Boogeyman winds up on Raw, we’ll be needing somebody freaky to freak-out the usually unfreakable Teddy Freakin’ Long.
Ric Flair
Hands up everybody that wants to see Ric Flair get one last reign as World Champion? I’m sure that even the sensible people with their hands down would admit that there is money to be made in the chase if nothing else. With the Raw title scene getting increasingly crowded these days, Flair stands a better chance of getting a shot on Smackdown. The fact that he would get to do this a) without Triple H’s involvement and b) over the Big Gold Belt simply adds to the potential goodness.
Chavo Guerrero
Nobody beats a dead horse quite like WWE, and Eddie Guerrero is the most profitable deceased stallion they have ever encountered. In other words, Mysterio & Guerrero can wear tag team gold once again.
Chris Masters
I don’t know why. It just seems strangely appropriate for the occasion. We can look forward to his epic feud with Road Warrior. It will be exciting. Like that time Chris Benoit followed through…
The true winner in the Cartoon Wars? Futurama, naitch. No needless preaching or random jokes there, just a wry acceptance of the inevitable in all its stupid glory…
Ashley
The next Diva Search will infect both Raw and Smackdown, so the rationale for moving Ashley is different from what happened to Christy Hemme. No, this is simply just to give Matt Hardy someone more attractive to hang out with on-screen than Fatanka. Some people would see this as finally giving Hardy a decent program in his post-Edge days, yet to the people that matter it would simply be an elaborate inside joke given the horrific end result of Hardy’s last workplace romance to be acknowledged as part of the show.
At least, that’s how I would spread things out this time around. It won’t be anywhere near as eventful as last year’s Cena/DAVE swap but then the numb nature of the brand extension at the moment makes such drastic developments all-but-impossible for the moment.
Feel free to send me your own suggestions…
TOP 5 NOUGHTIES MOVIES… SO FAR:
1. The Lord Of The Rings
2. Donnie Darko
3. Lost In Translation
4. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
5. The Incredibles
THE ANTI-NEWS:
“I just want to say to everyone that, even though I suplexed an eighty-two-year-old pregnant woman, I am still a role model for children, not to mention elderly people as well.”
It is with deepest regret that I inform you all that the DIVA SEARCH is going to return to pester us once more this year. Even worse is that there will be no respite from it on Smackdown, since this time the skankometers will be fluctuating wildly on that show as well as on Raw. Some of you might wonder whether or not the winner will go to Raw or Smackdown but, let’s face it, they’ll wind up hiring about half a dozen of the finalists anyway. You know, even though they probably won’t be able to fulfill either the Wrestling or the Entertainment part of the marquee. I’m sure most of them would be ready, willing and able to be fulfilled by the World but this would just get poor, misguided Randy Quagmire Orton all excited again.
An RQO update for RNN starring RKO. With hepatitis. And misogyny. Oh me, oh my.
*****
“Well, let’s face it, Undertaker, unlike you, I love my brother! I didn’t set my brother’s face on fire and force him to wear a scary red mask the rest of his life.”
In keeping with their current theme of making the past seem like a far more attractive proposition than the present, WWE is planning to release a three-disc HISTORY OF THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP DVD and has put up a selection of matches from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s for people to vote onto the collection. The nominees are fine and dandy. No doubt we all have certain matches that we would have loved to have seen included, no doubt there will be people at loggerheads over whether the release should focus on historically important matches rather than genuinely classic matches or vice versa, but at the end of the day such arguments are meaningless. If it bothers you that much, get busy with some torrents and compile your own DVD. I’m more interested in learning whether or not they will do a History of the WCW Championship DVD. Lord knows there are plenty of classic matches like Sting/Vader, Goldberg/Hogan and Bret/Benoit, to name but three, that deserve to get the lavish DVD treatment. Hell, they could even throw on the likes of Russo and Arquette winning the title if it will satisfy Vince’s petty nature. I’d just like to get a bunch of entertaining WCW matches. Back in Titanland, there is certainly more than enough material to pad out a History of the Intercontinental Title set as well. Who knows, it might even make them start paying attention to it more often…
******
“I’m not gonna let a guy like Triple H, a guy that tore his quadricep… I mean he was out for eight months! I tear my quadricep all the time! I tore it this morning, I’m fine, I’m here, I’m jumpin’ around!”
BACKLASH 2006 is lumbering towards us from the safe distance we would prefer to keep it at. All that has been confirmed so far is Cena/HHH/Edge for the title, Carlito/Masters for some secret reason, and the McMahons taking on HBK and God. Technically speaking, this must mean that God is a member of the Raw roster and could be drafted to Smackdown. Then again, judging by the official roster lists on WWE.com so could Chloe, Eddie Guerrero and The Rock. Other all-but-confirmed matches for the PPV are Shelton/RVD in a jumping contest, Mickie/Trish in another rematch, Show/Kane in a YBHB showcase (that’s Yeah But He’s Big, a standard rationale for WWE booking), some of the Spirit Squad against Goldust/Snitsky for the tag belts, and Flair/Umaga for tax purposes. So, it has come to this for Flair. I suppose it isn’t the first time that a bona fide headliner has hit upon hard times…
You can try and enjoy Backlash 2006 on the 30th April.
*****
“Canada is lacking two things. It’s true. Don’t make me say it again. The first is Olympic Heroes. The second thing that Canada is lacking is Memorial Day, which is today by the way, where we in the States celebrate our war heroes by having barbeques. And I realize here in Canada you can’t have barbeques because you’d probably be attacked by a moose, or caribou, or even a grizzly.”
SURVIVOR SERIES 2007 is being held in Montreal to ‘celebrate’ the events of 1997. Well, whoop-de-f*cking-doo. This news thrills me so much that I just cannot sit still and take it anymore. No, no, no, I must rise up and dance the merry jig of the little people.
Jeebus, ten years later and they still won’t let it go.
WHO THE FUCK IS TOM BOMBADIL.
*****
“Not to mention our former tag team champions lost their titles after my good friend Christian was hit in the genitals with a hockey stick by a midget! I mean enough is enough.”
TIM WHITE didn’t die. He might have killed Josh Matthews. Wake me up before you go-go so I can tell you how decidedly not interested I am and then poke you in the eye for disturbing the tranquility of my rest. You suck harder than a post-millennium episode of The Simpsons.
*****
“Hey, I drank milk that was a DAY past the expiration date. Now THAT is Extreme!”
ECW will cheat death once again with ANOTHER ONE NIGHT STAND on the 11th June, giving it a far more profitable afterlife than WCW. I’m sure not even Heyman would have expected that in 2001. Anyway, more or less confirmed to appear so far are:
RVD, Heyman, Joey Styles, Benoit, Malenko, Foley, Terry Funk, Tazz, Mysterio, Nunzio, Kid Kash, Simon Dean Nova, Stevie Richards, Al Snow, Sandman, Roadkill, Psicosis, Super Crazy, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Tajiri, Axl Rotten, Beulah, Lance Storm and the WWE Champion. Foley and Funk are expected to have a Scaffold Match.
Yes, Sabu may very well make a lot of wrestling geeks cross-eyed with confusion by being the first TNA wrestler to compete on an ECW show for WWE. Not that I can criticise people for being wrestling geeks when Koko B. Ware is currently singing “Piledriver” on Winamp…
Moving swiftly on, the following are on the shopping list to appear at the event:
Justin Credible, Tanaka, Awesome, Jericho, Dawn Marie, Corino, Francine, Pitbull, Balls, Whipwreck, and anybody that is not The Blue Meanie or Juventud Guerrera but that did appear in ECW at some point, which probably includes Austin.
I hope that all the people spending money on this thing realise that they are not so much raging against the machine as they are pumping gas money into it.
TOP 5 NINETIES MOVIES:
1. The Big Lebowski
2. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
3. Before Sunrise
4. Pulp Fiction
5. The Matrix
THE ANTI-REPORT:
Grade A – SAMOA JOE
Anybody tuning into Impact for the first time this week (and I’m sure there must have been… ooh, dozens of you) would have been impressed the most by the stellar, if abrupt, Joe/Daniels match that opened the show. Daniels put in a fine performance but it was Joe that was once again positioned as the superior wrestler, unleashing a torrential flurry of crisply executed and hard-hitting violent offense that built to a glorious crescendo with the TNA debut of the Island Driver. As far as defences of quasi-serious titles are concerned, this was the closest one to a squash in a long time. The way that the outcome was determined was a bit of a shame, but a title change is seemingly inevitable in TNA when they have a change in their TV scheduling and/or an unplanned alteration to their available roster. Daniels never stood a chance. The best thing for him to do would be to ally himself with Sting after Lockdown, bringing out the darker elements of the Fallen Angel character along the way, and tackle Shelley while Sting goes for Jarrett. For now, there is simply no point in trying to resist the momentum of Joe as X Division Champion. Like gravity, it just feels right.
Grade B – ERIC YOUNG
The focus of the show was on Sting more than anybody else, but the main event would have been extremely lacklustre if it wasn’t for Young’s performance. His gradual change into a real-life Butters has made him the most interesting one in Team Canada. Who could have predicted that a year ago? Let’s hope he makes it through any future throat surgeries without any complications.
Grade C – CHRISTIAN
Sting, Sting, Sting, Sting, Sting, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe… wait, who is the NWA World Heavyweight Champion again? Oh yeah, that funny Canadian fellow. Nice of TNA to spare a whopping total of three minutes to breeze over his feud with Abyss on their big Thursday night debut. I can’t even remember Tenay and West doing their usual “Belarussian used car salesman on commission without fashion sense” hype job on the Lockdown title match. We’ve still got Sting/Steiner and Sting/Jarrett to get through on PPV, plus whatever Joe decides to kick. Maybe Christian could just go to the concession stand and get everybody some refreshments while he’s waiting for them to pay attention to him again?
Grade D – STING
Okay, so he didn’t do that badly and his mic work was very effective but he still can’t do the Scorpion Deathlock properly!! Come on, even I can apply that hold better! At least Styles, Killings and AMW are involved in this Lethal Lockdown malarkey, albeit rather arbitrarily.
Grade E – WHOEVER THIS HAND BELONGS TO
One word… three letters… much accuracy… eww.
Other than that, there really wasn’t anything in particular bad enough to warrant the wooden-spoon grade. They managed to make probably as good a start to their Thursday night schedule as could realistically have been done considering they had a pre-planned PPV line-up to sell. I guess the only major complaint people might have is the usual one about the show simply moving a bit too fast for its own good. Certainly it isn’t good to have a major title change short-handed in the manner that Samoa Joe’s was (they couldn’t have at least thrown in a brief backstage interview afterwards?) but then with so many people to fit onto the show and only an hour a week in which to do it – and, more importantly, only an average of four Impacts to promote each PPV – this won’t change anytime soon. Spike TV is apparently going to be putting a couple of new sitcoms into the 10pm slot once their fighting show ends, which makes little to no sense to me. There’s no reason to think that Impact will lose viewers in their new slot, or that these sitcoms will perform well enough to justify their cost, so perhaps by the end of the year TNA will be able to squeeze a two-hour show out of the deal at long last.
For that matter, does anybody know if TNA has tried to get a better TV deal in the UK than The Wrestling Channel? TWC is fine and dandy but the number of people that can get it that actually want it is ridiculously small. Perhaps a major channel like ITV or Five would be interested in using Impact as cheap, late-night filler on Saturdays. The advantages to TNA are self-explanatory, so they should really give it a shot.
One last random thought… why the hell did they have to name him Runt? I get that they can’t use the name Dudley anymore but why not just Spike? How is that possibly any different from using the names Ray and Devon? Has the legal penny not dropped regarding the name of the network they’re on these days?
Id-i-ot-ic *clap*clap* *clap*clap*clap*… Id-i-ot-ic *clap*clap* *clap*clap*clap*… Id-i-ot-ic *clap*clap* *clap*clap*clap*… Id-i-ot-ic *clap*clap* *clap*clap*clap*…
TOP 5 EIGHTIES MOVIES:
1. Ghostbusters
2. The Shining
3. Back To The Future
4. The Thing
5. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
THE BIT AT THE END:
– GORDI talks to the common people, the common people like you…
– BRASHEAR braves the wilds of WCW booking in the year 2000 and lives to tell the tale…
– BAMBI is a girl’s name, so go read her column… I can’t remember – do I like Patty Therre or not?
– HEVIA has a short one. We all do now and again, man…
– MANOLIS and my good self interview the Luna Brothers about their wonderful comic books, which include naked, egg-hatching, cannibal girls… intrigued?
– RANKINGS are up for this month, diminished slightly by ignoring my votes…
AIM: KingKongBurnside
IAIN BURNSIDE is currently avoiding the spell checker…
