Oh, boy, I’m in trouble. There’s a certain particular zone that the world exists in right now where there’s really nothing happening in the world of wrestling, the world of news, or the world of sports. That leaves me with nothing to pontificate about. So this one’s gonna end up being Smackdown Spoilers and as much more as I can comment on in the standard Hour Before I Have To Get Ready For Work. That is, unless you want my opinion on conjoined twins or the Mutumbo-For-Van-Horn trade. Dear heavens. I was told there’d be days like these. I just hoped that they wouldn’t happen on Tuesday or Wednesday.
THE PIMP SECTION
Gamble has a good excuse to post early this week, and that’s good enough for me to give him his first pimp here in a long time.
Aw, come on, Murphy. I’m not just a human heat machine. But I know where you’re coming from.
Damn, it’s really dead here. Raw just sorta sucked the life out of the site. Well, maybe Smackdown can revive it a little. Let’s see if that’s possible, courtesy of Rajah…
SMACKDOWN SPOILED SOMEWHAT
Angle/Cena opens up the show with the patented WWE Rolling Run-Ins. This show’s already in big, big, big trouble if that happens. Even worse, that’s followed up by a complete clusterf*ck involving Henry, Rikishi, D-Von, and Bautista, setting the stage for the Bautista face turn that we’ve all been expecting. You know, when the Split was about to happen, I said that every single tag team should be broken up, with one exception: the Dudleys. I said that they wouldn’t get over on their own. Guess what? They haven’t. Buh Buh Ray’s stuck on Raw telling himself to get the tables, and D-Von’s doing a program with two of the fattest men on Earth. I feel really sorry for them. Hell, just turn Bautista and have Bisch steal D-Von. With the tag titles now on Raw, it gives WWE their old safety valve back for when they have no clue what to do with the tag division.
Speaking of tag teams, the team that everyone creamed their jeans over back in WCW returns, as Shane Helms and Shannon Moore take the stage against the Gay Boys…hold it, that’s redundant. Sorry, I never got their appeal. Of course, they were trying to perform on a lower-rated show during the peak of Hardymania, and unfair comparisons can abound. But now that the Hardys aren’t the Hardys anymore, maybe they have a bit of a chance. Hell, import them to Raw and give the four sexually-ambiguous ones about fifteen minutes and a ladder. Or give them eighty minutes and a good gay porn director.
Okay, you have Smackdown’s three biggest heels in Our Lord and Savior, Latino Jesus, and The Whitest Guy On The Planet, It’s True. You decide to put them together in a match. Under what conditions do you have them wrestle together and who do you put them up against?
a) On PPV versus Flex, Hogan, and Special Guest Partner Ric Flair as a main event, knowing that you can get tons of attention and bring some nasty-ass cred to the heels courtesy of a major beatdown either during or after the match.
b) In the middle of Smackdown, as a prelude to a mixed tag match, against John Cena, Rey Misterio, and Edge. And job them.
If your answer is b, Steph is still looking for writers, so go apply.
I’m usually not sad about the lack of crossover between the shows. However, the one thing that could make the Noble/Nidia angle explode right now would be Chris Harvard as their antagonist (the Trailer Trash Couple Of The Year are ambiguous enough in their status to accept the face role, which is what they’re moving toward anyway). Chris out there relating stories to Noble about his true love’s exploits during Tough Enough, making the claim that she could have had an Honest-To-God Harvard Graduate instead of a dropout from Double-Wide Community College…oh, it could have been incredibly nasty. Ah, c’est la vie.
I have the feeling that the negotiations backstage for the Hogan/Lesnar match went as follows: “Hulk, will you make Lesnar look good for a Scooby Snack?…alright, TWO Scooby Snacks?”
So, will I end up taping it? No Flex, which is a positive, but no real reason to watch either. So I’ll end up saving my electricity again.
HIS NEXT JOB WILL BE AT BLOCKBUSTER
So Bagwell’s up to his old tricks again. Every time some new buzz hits the world of wrestling, Marcus Alexander Bagwell hears it and is attracted to it like a mosquito to a fat, sweaty guy on a hot summer evening. Inevitably, he ends up pissing his chance away due to his oversized ego and sense of self-importance that’s overinflated more than Scott Steiner after his latest injection.
Yet, wrestling companies still want to sign him for some unknown reason. Well, it’s not really an unknown reason. They think he knows how to pop a crowd, and he has some name value. That was enough for NWA: TNA to take a flyer on him, seeing as they’re picking up everyone who’s been discarded by WWE under the belief that WWE might have accidentally let someone with some talent go (and they have). However, all they’ve become is just the latest entry on the list of Companies That Buff Has Fucked Over.
I have to ask Jerry Jarrett this: are you surprised? You’re dealing with a guy whose ego got in the way of the biggest match of his career. He ended up essentially aborting what was the most-anticipated angle in years, possibly ever, and the WWF/E has not recovered from that debacle even fifteen months later. His behavior in WCW was deplorable. In a locker room full of whiny prima donnas all out for their own benefit (when they could have made a lot more money by setting aside the egos and working together for the company’s well-being), Bagwell stood out. He’s the living paradox: what came first, the character or being a mark for yourself? He is a guy that no promoter in his right mind would deal with.
But Jerry Jarrett did. I have no idea why he thought he could succeed where Vince McMahon failed. Vince is better than most at keeping egos under control backstage, because he learned his lessons with Hogan and his cronies and then the Clique (although he will give leeway when there’s money on the back end still to be made; see Austin, Steve). Jarrett’s trying to put his foot down on costs and to have everyone behave in a professional manner, and here’s Bagwell going through his china shop like a bull on Viagra. It’s no wonder they’ve decided to ditch him before more damage can be done.
Multiple retakes on a promo? Yeah, if you flub a line or soemthing, I can understand that. But a promo isn’t something you need to do multiple retakes on. It isn’t really challenging, especially if you’re using idiot cards. Demanding control over your booking? Jarrett’s already trying to hold back the whirlwind in that department courtesy of having Russo on his staff. He has no room for the armchair bookers who put on tights and think they know what’s best for the organization (when all they’re out for is what’s best for themselves).
Jerry Jarrett is a good diagnostician. He saw the first warning signs of the WCW Bacillus coming in, ready to kill his young promotion and devour its corpse. Fortunately, he gave it a nice dose of antibiotics just in time and got rid of one of the main carrier vectors. Good for him.
As for Bagwell…look, Bagwell, just go away. Leave. No one wants you or your Brother Of The Needle Scott Steiner around. You’re poison in the machine. Vanish and never enter our airspace again. Guess what? Wrestling will survive without you. It was here before you and it’ll be here after you leave. We don’t care anymore. You’ve made a failure of yourself in the majors. Now go off on the indy circuit and try to get those guaranteed payoffs from those sharpies on the local scene. Maybe that will deflate your ego once and for all.
Buff Stuffs Gerbils, indeed.
That’s it for me for this week. Grut comes in next, followed by Ashish, Flea, and Hyatte. I’ll be back next Tuesday, where hopefully I’ll be a lot more awake than I am right now.
About Eric Szulczewski
