wrestling / Columns
Hidden Highlights 7.16.12: Heath Slater, Punk/Bryan, AW, more
Hidden Highlight (n) – a small, hardly noticeable point that makes a big, positive difference. This could be anything from a wrestler putting extra emphasis into his moves to make it believable to a person in the background reacting while not the focus to the cameraman shaking the picture to create an effect. There are just so many unsung heroes of wrestling that it is impossible to cover them all.
And with that, welcome to Hidden Highlights. I am your host, Dimitri Dorlis. Each week on Hidden Highlights, we’ll be looking back on the week of wrestling, taking a look at our top 3 highlights from each of the major wrestling shows (Raw, Impact, and Smackdown) and a ppv if one occurs.
Also, as with the original Hidden Highlights, we’ll also take a look at reader-submitted highlights, and post our favorite ones at the end of the columns. How do you get your submissions in to me? Well, you have two options. The recommended option would be to send me an email at [email protected] with the title Hidden Highlight. The second option would be to leave a comment here with your highlight, although I can’t guarantee that I’ll read all the comment highlights, so if you really want to get your submission in, send me that email. The best 10 submissions will get posted, so make them good!
And with all the housekeeping out of the way, let’s get down to business.
4. The Anonymous Raw General Manager is back! – And it brought the script with it!
Seriously? They couldn’t even be bothered to hide that? Welcome to the beginning of a Raw that was just attempting to try my patience.
Oh, and thank god they decided to recreate the same Wrestlemania match between Cole and Lawler that went over so well the first time.
3. This is what you get for building a city so high up – And, for those of you wondering why all the matches seemed to last a total of 5 minutes this week, Raw was in Denver, which has a problem with elevation. Sure, if you live there, you get acclimated, but when you combine it with the fact that the WWE ended up taping both Raw and Smackdown in the same night, meant that the WWE didn’t want to overextend everyone. And you guys say that the WWE doesn’t care about the wrestlers.
2. Heath Slater: Secret Highlight Machine – First off, Backlund looked amazing for his age (take notes, Ric), and I was hoping he’d go off on a crazy rant for no reason. But anyway, credit goes to Heath Slater for his selling of the final pin in his match with Sin Cara. Instead of just lying down and taking a pin, Heath kicked one of his legs weakly, selling the fact that La Mistica was able to put him away, but Heath might have been able to kick out. It subtly makes Heath look a bit better, which is definitely something that needs to happen since he’s getting destroyed by former legends week-in and week-out.
1. Your UFC on Raw Main Event – I’m sure there is at least one person reading this column who saw the Anderson Silva/Chael Sonnen UFC match from last weekend. Well, anyone who saw that match would notice the end sequence where Chael missed a back fist only to get destroyed by Silva ended up making an appearance in the Punk/AJ vs Bryan/Eve match. Early on, Punk went to attack Bryan in the corner, which Bryan attempted to counter with a kick, which was caught by Punk. At this point, Punk went for a back fist, only for Bryan to duck it in a near replay of the Silva/Sonnen fight. It was really impressive that Punk and Bryan were able to work that sequence in less than 2 days after it happened.
Samoa Joe’s Trying Too Hard Meter – Here’s a new segment we’ll be doing for the BFG series. Every time that Samoa Joe loses a match because he tried to go for a submission too often, we’ll add to the meter. Let’s see what we’re at so far:
Not bad, considering he still has a month to go.
2. The Full Long Island – Last week, Zack got some form of revenge by eliminating Kane in the GM Battle Royale, thus becoming the General Manager for Smackdown this week. So how does he begin his reign of Smackdown? By changing the final 10 seconds of the opening video to be a Zack Ryder montage. Smackdown continues to add small things to its production.
1. The evolution of AW – There’s an obvious attempt by the WWE to make AW more of a heel. Or at least try to add a spin on an old manager style. See, during the Darren Young vs Primo match, AW was talking throughout the match, which wouldn’t be that shocking, but the WWE kept AW’s mic on, which meant that his words of encouragement were being broadcasted to the entire arena. It reminded me of the managerial style of Jimmy Hart, who used his megaphone to great effect back in the day. It’s a nice callback from the WWE to the managers who came before AW.
Reader Highlights
Joe K. starts us up with some RoH. And here come the RoH comments in 3…2….1….
During the Jay Briscoe/Charlie Haas Texas Death match that aired on 6/30, Haas hit Jay over the head with an orange road/parking cone. Jay was unfazed by this and went on the attack. Jim Cornette was amazed by Haas’ stupidity on commentary and remarked “Maybe he’ll hit him with a bag of popcorn next!” I have to think Jim was fondly remembering Owen Hart with that comment. In Foley’s first book, he wrote about how he (as Dude Love) and Owen did a house show loop of Hardcore matches where they would use non-hardcore weapons such as…industrial size bags of popcorn! Might have been a coincidence but knowing Cornette’s fondness for Owen Hart and his encyclopedic wrestling memory, it had to be a remembrance of sorts.
Aaron in GR (is that Germany? I have no idea) gives us a Cesaro highlight, and a Swiss citizenship lesson.
The last couple of times Antonia Ceasaro has had matches on Superstars and SmackDown the announce team mentions that he has told them that he is a former member of the Swiss Army and Cole and Sanford have acted impressed. Ceasaro is having fun at us “dumb Americans” because all citizens of Switzerland are members of the militia.
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And with that, the 19th edition of Hidden Highlights v2.0 is in the books. Make sure to send in your reader Highlights so we can return this to being the most reader-inclusive and positive article in the IWC.
