The Wrestling News Experience: 11.13.06

Hey, it’s entirely possible.

Once again, I have to apologize for the suddenly abbreviated episode of the Experience last week. Rest assured I have completely recovered from a bout with food poisoning. Pizza Pizza will not be receiving any free advertising from me for quite a while, let me tell you.

And just to prove that it is me writing this, hello Andrea. *waves*

That’s right, I just used my column to impress a woman. You all wish you were me.

Moving on.

Around The Horn

An interesting story developed in Connecticut this weekend, as TNA was forced to cancel a house show. Rumours swirled that WWE had something to do with it, but those were started by less than reputable sources and were completely false. In fact, the show was cancelled due to the building where the show was to be held failing some part of the fire code. Whups.

That hasn’t stopped TNA from filming a video involving the newly christened VKM stable of BG and Kip James outside WWE Headquarters, taking shots at the big dog. If there were any doubts before that Russo is booking TNA, this should erase them. Seriously, aside from stupid booking that he forgot about seconds later, what was Russo’s trademark? That’s right, copying old angles he ran in WWE. God bless you, Vince Russo, because I’m fairly sure no TNA fans are.

WWE has been announcing the card for the upcoming Survivor Series online all week, and thus have the entire card lined up without having to set up half of them on TV. That’s some strange sort of efficiency there. Anyway, if you’d like to know the matches announced, here they are:

Batista vs King Booker (c) – World Heavyweight Title

The Undertaker vs Ken Kennedy – First Blood Match

Chavo Guerrero vs Chris Benoit (c) – United States Title

John Cena, Lashley, RVD, Sabu, and Kane vs Big Show, Umaga, MVP, Finlay, and Test

DX, Matt and Jeff Hardy, and CM Punk vs Edge, Randy Orton, Mike Knox, Johnny Nitro, and Gregory Helms

Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, and Sergeant Slaughter vs The Spirit Squad

Ooh, classic Survivor Series matches return in force. Now add a giant tag team elimination match so we can explode with pleasure. Oh wait, that would require you to have a bunch of tag teams. Never mind.

Another note from that, this continues my theory that they really have no challengers in mind for Cena now that Edge is out of the picture, and are playing for time by having him face the champions of the other brands. Which begs the question as to why they put the belt back on him so soon. But hey, I’m just talking crazy here.

And Kevin Federline’s divorce from Britney Spears appears to have been at least partially WWE’s fault, although it’s not entirely their fault he plays a great scummy dirtbag heel. How bad must K-Fed be as an artist that appearing on wrestling shows actually raised his profile? If he could wrestle, I’d pick Cena-K-Fed as the Raw main event at WrestleMania. And don’t think they’re not considering it.

I just felt a great disturbance in the Force…

Ashley is set to pose in Playboy, conveniently just in time for WrestleMania. I seem to recall that she has already done that prior to being hired by WWE, under a different name. No, I’m not going to find you the pics. Perverts.

And before I leave this segment, there are rumours that Bobby Lashley wants off of Smackdown and onto a different brand, likely ECW. Apparently he doesn’t get along well with new head writer Michael Hayes, who was the reason Lashley’s No Mercy title match was changed to a fatal fourway. Hey, speaking of people that are public enemies backstage, what’s Johnny Ace been up to lately? He’s been strangely quiet, and Matt Hardy’s even been getting a semi-push in the last few weeks. Maybe he’s gone into hiding or something.

The Injury Bug Bites

Inactive List as of 11.06.06

WWE

– Beth Phoenix, RAW, out two months as of June 6 (jaw)
– Chris Jericho, out indefinitely (kayfabe, fired)
– Joey Mercury, SD!, out indefinitely as of May 22 (Wellness)
– Mark Henry, SD!, out 6-8 months as of July 15th (patella)
– Paul Burchill, SD!, out indefinitely as of May 29 (shoulder)
– Squire David Taylor, SD!, out 4-6 months as of October 27th (leg injury)
– The Great Khali, SD!, out indefinitely (double knee surgery)

TNA

– Gail Kim, TNA, day-to-day as of October 22

Transactions

– Amy, SD!, made Smackdown debut November 10

Well, it worked for Noble and Nidia. Who is Amy, anyway? Is that Angel Williams, or just some random blonde girl? Readers who pay more attention to the indies than me?

– Elijah Burke, SD!, moved to ECW
– Sylvester Terkay, SD!, moved to ECW

I’m a little shocked that they couldn’t find a damn thing to do with Terkay (or Burke, for that matter) on Smackdown, considering he’s another real life champion athlete. They knew what to do with Angle and Lesnar, after all. And they keep trying it with Mark Henry, and he hasn’t legitimately won anything…ever.

– TJ “The Stampede Kid” Wilson, signed to WWE contract

Hey, maybe now they’ll have something for Harry Smith to do. Seriously, how hard is it to push a guy who descended from the Hart family tree by way of the British Bulldog? I think monkeys with typewriters could figure that out way before they wrote the works of Shakespeare.

One Year Ago This Experience

Originally posted 11.14.05. I’m not recapping what happened, because it’s pretty much burned into the brains of most wrestling fans. Go ahead and read it, I’ll wait.

The Wrestling Fan’s Experience

This week’s Experience comes from Bill Mulligan.

—

1. Why I am a wrestling fan –

I got out of the E for a while, actually it was right before the Attitude era. I’ve never liked the smut aspect of wrestling and I still don’t, because really, if you’re tuning into see marginally hot women in bikinis getting drooled on by a 60 year old man in a crown, then you have some emotional trauma that should really get looked into.

I would watch Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart go for an hour in Anaheim and almost piss myself at every pinfall attempt, even if it wasn’t because of a finisher. (Speaking of which, the old videos of matches have the crowd popping at every pinfall attempt no matter what. Whatever happened to that?) I would watch the Undertaker and Mankind go at it in a boiler room brawl and I would wear a black glove because I knew that Diesel only gives high fives to people wearing black gloves.

After reading Scott Keith’s Wrestling’s One Ring Circus, I got back into the thick of things. I’ve been reading 411 for about 2 years now. I may stopped watching RAW on a regular basis, but that’s because nothing has happened since One Night Stand that matters.
I like to mark out. I like plot twists (what’s that?!). I like staring in awe at the stamina of two men beating the hell out of each other, yet both men know that the other guy has their back.

2. How I got into pro wrestling –

1994 Royal Rumble. My cousin’s birthday party, and we ordered the show. I didn’t care about anything that was going on because I would about 7 at the time. Then this one man came out with all of his hair over his face. He had this HUGE wooden casket and he was telling this sumo wrestler to rest in peace. I watched what many have called one of the worst matches and subsequent angles in amazement. This guy was superhuman. It takes 10 men to take him out and he still comes back for more. Only without his urn (obviously!) does he lose his power.
I was hooked by the Undertaker. Many call 94-96 the dark ages of wrestling. I call them my golden age. Looking back, where the matches terrible? If they didn’t have HBK or Hart, definately. But I still watched them all.

—

This feature keeps on trucking, and I need your help to keep it running. All you have to do is send me your best answer to one or both of the following questions.

1. Why I am a wrestling fan
2. How I got into pro wrestling.

As past readers will agree, I’ll print every single Experience sent to me. This is your chance to have your words in electronic print inside the best damned (and most positive) Monday news report on the entire Internet.

Links For Fun And Nonprofit

Taareq Elsokari and Scott Rutherford highlight an all-fillin weekend of news reports.

From the glowing box, Slimmer has Heat, Larry has Hogan Knows Best, Dunn, Larry, and Rutherford have Smackdown, and Byers and Larry have Impact.

Clark has The Shimmy.

Hamflett looks at Tonight…In This Very Ring in Story Lines

Triple Threat rants on all the wrestling on TV.

JP and JT are gracious in defeat, and have Hidden Highlights.

Boo has Ringside or Cheap Seats.

Ari has Column of Honor

Linkous needs your help with WWE vs TNA

Feltham has The Quick Talkdown

And Carapola has the Week in Hardcore.

The Gab Bag

Okay, we have to dig back a bit to get at these, let’s see what I’ve missed.

Will Bryant recognizes that my reference to a talking pirate was an anti-pot ad, but I guess it’s a Canada-only one. And he wants a description, which was what I was waiting for. It’s a MADD commercial, and there’s a guy standing in his room, listening to a disembodied voice tell him he can’t drive because he’s messed up. The final shot is of a package of rolling papers with a pirate on them, and the pirate animates and says “Trust me, my friend. You…are high.” Then there’s a pause for the MADD logo, followed by “Way too high”. It’s all the voice, and it’s hilarious.

Oh yeah, kids, winners don’t do drugs. Except for people in extreme sports, and those aren’t really sports anyway.

Clinton Boneschans has his WrestleMania main event predictions, and Batista vs Booker seems to be becoming the consensus pick for Smackdown. Meanwhile, he goes for Orton-Cena for Raw, and just a hope that ECW will still be around for Mania. I sense WWE might be headed for Orton-Cena as well, though I’d prefer Edge-Cena again, but I’m willing to bet they’ll give Orton another kick at the can, unless he manages to screw up massively (again) between now and then.

Rose Dobrowolsky offers a near-complete card for Mania, one that seems to imply a few roster shifts before the big date (my smart-assed remarks in parentheses):

Benoit vs Edge – World Heavyweight title
Cena vs Batista – WWE title
RVD vs CM Punk – ECW title
Hogan vs Show
DX vs Hall/X-Pac (hell, let’s fire up those rumours again, why not)
Carlito vs Nitro (presumably for the IC title)
Taker vs Boogeyman (oh please, let Boogeyman end the streak, just to please me)

As much as I like those top two matches, I don’t foresee that drastic of a roster shift occuring. And I highly doubt Hall will ever wrestle again. Other than that, it’s probably not that bad of a prediction. Disagree? Got a better one? Well, I’m still looking for reader predictions for the WrestleMania 23 main events. Go for it.

And Chad Smith gave me some free info about FFXII, and from the fact I’m 19 hours in, I’d say his information was very helpful. I even got the collector’s edition. Mmm…shiny metal box.

And One To Go On

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EST, and live coverage of ECW tomorrow night starting at 10 pm EST. Larry will be in tomorrow, and I’ll be back next week.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.