wrestling / Columns
Friendly Competition 7.21.07
ECW On Sci Fi Results 7/17/2007
The big news this week was that ECW World Champion Johnny Nitro would not be appearing on ECW On Sci-Fi after tonight, confusing several people. The truth is that Nitro decided to stop hiding behind his ring name, and instead would now wrestle under his “real” name of John Morrison, complete with an image change that looks strangely familiar. Now going under his “birth” name, he begins making fun of CM Punk’s name, wondering what the CM stands for and calling him a punk kid with tattoos. This brings out Punk (who, earlier in the evening, defeated Elijah Burke in a good match) and, after assuring Punk that he has no intention of getting physical, asks him what his name means. Before Punk can respond, Morrison nails him with the microphone and gives him the rolling neckbreaker (which, until I think of a better Doors song title, I will call When The Music’s Over).
In other action, Big Daddy V squashed a jobber, Kevin Thorn defeated Tommy Dreamer, and The Miz doesn’t know why girls like him. Neither do I, Mike, neither do I.
ECW Thoughts
-As stupid an idea as it might seem to turn Johnny Nitro into a poor man’s Jim Morrison, I never cared for the MNM gimmick and actually think this look works better for him. I hope they don’t change Nitro’s character in such a way that he’s constantly wasted, though it might be entertaining if he started exposing himself in the ring like ol’ Jim was known to do. Before you start emailing me, yes, I realize how gay that sounded. One thing I am worried about is that this is going to limit what they can do with Morrison as a character. Can any of you picture a guy with a Jim Morrison gimmick headlining Wrestlemania? Obviously they have plenty of time to tweak it, but I’m really going to be interested to see what they do with his gimmick going forward.
-Jesus Christ, as if being forced to watch Extreme Expose every week wasn’t bad enough, now we’ve got Miz in the mix, too. Actually, Miz isn’t that bad. He’s developing into a decent worker and he sure as HELL knows how to work a crowd. But then again, Extreme Expose is the endless angle that never pays off, so hopefully this will lead to more than just Miz getting lap dances every week. Actually, between the prospect of weekly lap dances and John Morrison exposing himself every week, I’m really starting to wonder just what kind of show they’re trying to turn this into.
-I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tommy Dreamer, Most Over Jobber In History.
TNA Impact Results 7/19/2007
This week was the Kurt Angle In His Underwear Spectacular as Angle, who was stripped down to his underwear while tanning, finds that his clothes and stuff were stolen while he caught some rays. TNA Commissioner Jim Cornette wants to see Angle in his office, threatening him with a $10,000 fine if he doesn’t attend, but Angle decides to look for his stuff instead. He spends the entire rest of the episode storming around backstage questioning some and beating up others, but finally Cornette gives him a robe and sends him to the ring. When Angle gets there, he discovers that it was Samoa Joe who stole everything, including Angle’s championship belts. Joe lays down the biggest challenge in the history of TNA: Joe’s X-Division and World Tag Team Titles against Angle’s World Heavyweight Title, winner take all, at Hard Justice. Angle accepts, and…get ready for this…THEY BRAWL!
Team 3D was not happy with the result of the Victory Road main event, and blame the Steiners for ruining what was supposed to be the greatest night of their careers. They challenge the Steiners to show up next week if Scott’s over his little injury. In other action, Triple X defeated Serotonin, after which Frankie Kazarian attacks Serotonin with a cane and then runs. Kip James defeated Lance Hoyt, James Storm and Christian Cage defeat Chris Harris and Rhino after Dustin Rhodes runs in and nails Harris with a chair, after which the heels beat down Rhino and are about to pour beer on him when Abyss and Sting run out to make the save and chase off the heels.
TNA Thoughts
-I’m sure that everybody who’s ever been a wrestling fan has, at one point or another, fantasy booked somebody to win every title in a federation at the same time. It seemed really cool when we were 12, but now that we’re actually faced with it happening for real, I’m not so sure it’s such a good idea. Sure, whoever gets them will be put over huge, but you’re taking what has the potential to be three top matches on the card and condensing them into one, and now you’re left with an undercard of matches that are really for nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there will be some good matches down there, but I think a Team 3D vs Steiners match, for example, would be even more meaningful if it were for the TNA World Tag Team Title than just as a straight match. Also, Chris Sabin seemed a LOT more over when he was holding the X-Division Title than he ever has when he wasn’t holding it. I will say to everybody that’s been bitching about how poorly Samoa Joe’s been handled in recent months, if he does walk out of Hard Justice with all three titles, nobody will have ANYTHING to complain about.
We Are The Champions
ECW World Champion: John Morrison (Champion Since 6/24/2007)
TNA World Champion: Kurt Angle (Champion Since 6/17/2007)
TNA World Tag Team Champions: Samoa Joe & ????? (Champions Since 7/15/2007)
TNA X-Division Champion: Samoa Joe (Champion Since 6/21/2007)
Dickhead Of The Week: Lance Hoyt
One would have thought that the “Lance Hoyt is VKM’s buddy, but ends up turning on them in the end to align himself with a hot slut” angle would signal the beginning of some kind of push for Hoyt, but one would have been mistaken. He lost to Abyss last week, but at least you could qualify that by pointing out that Abyss is in the midst of a big push himself. But losing to Kip James two weeks after starting a feud with him? Come on, man! Forget for a moment that Kip James is at just about the very bottom of the card in TNA, but if having Hoyt turn on VKM and then job to them on free TV two weeks later is their idea of pushing the guy, then I’d hate to see what they’d do if they wanted to bury him. Well, at least he got some pussy out of the deal.
So What Else Is Going On?
So of course you all know by now that John Kronus passed away this past week. I don’t know how many of our younger readers even know who he is, but he’s a guy I always felt like he could have amounted to way more than he did. He only ever really meant anything in ECW in the 1995-97 period when he was teaming with Perry Saturn as the Eliminators, and I remember at the time how much they were hyped as the greatest team in the world, and even looking back now as a slightly smarter fan, I would say that it wasn’t far from the truth. I’d definitely put them in the top three to five teams of the 90s, and even though I later came to notice that Saturn was totally directing Kronus in EVERYTHING they did in their matches, I still appreciated how good their matches were as a fan. I was really bummed out when Saturn went to WCW without Kronus because I knew it was the end of what I absolutely thought at the time was the best tag team I had ever seen. Of course I later found out how much Saturn hated Kronus, and then saw how badly Kronus let himself go after Saturn wasn’t around to babysit him, but even as a singles guy I thought Kronus had at least some potential to be a solid midcarder, but it just never worked out for him. It’s too bad that the Eliminators never had the chance to make their mark on a national level, but given how some other ECW tag team fared in WCW and the WWF in the 90s, maybe we were better off left with the memories of them in ECW. Thankfully, the mainstream media hasn’t latched onto Kronus’s story like the fucking pirahnas they are, at least not yet.
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Oh, and speaking of those very fucking pirahnas, was I the only one who felt totally vindicated by the results of Benoit’s toxicology reports? When I was watching the original news reports and press conferences when the incident first came out, I was in the cafeteria with a coworker who just said “Steroids.” and walked out of the room. As it happens, that very same coworker was in the cafeteria with me for the toxicology report, and when it came out about how clean he actually was at the time of death, I turned to him and was like “No steroids, huh? Gee, how can that be? I mean, he IS a wrestler, right? And they’re all on steroids, right? Dumbass.” Then after the press conference was over, the newscaster said something to the effect of “It seems that some people were jumping to conclusions…” and I thought “Gee, really? Why would you say that? Because every one of you fucking buzzards was running full speed ahead with the roid rage story even though there was nothing to support it, and now you look like a bunch of assholes?” It really is disgusting how it turned from a story about a murder-suicide into a story about a steroid-crazed wrestler wiping out his entire family due to chemical influences, and by the way, they were chemical influences that turned out to NOT BE PRESENT. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out he had used steroids at some point (especially considering how much they found in his home), but I think we all on the wrestling side knew that even if steroids were a factor in some way, it wasn’t “roid rage” that caused all this. But that’s not what people wanted to hear, they just wanted to hear that it was steroid-induced so they could point and say “See? All these wrestlers are on steroids and look what it does to you.” And goddamn if we haven’t heard a FUCKING PEEP out of the mainstream media about the Benoit story since the toxicology report came out. I guess a story about a guy who was just a crazy asshole killing his family isn’t sexy enough to get people to tune in if you can’t keep stereotyping the situation, is it? Fucking pricks. Fuck them.
Links To Stuff You Can Read
Larry’s got the Regular 4R’s and the 4R’s of Victory Road.
Daniel Wilcox has a column called Schmozzes & Screwjobs, but in this week’s edition he talks about neither Schmozzes nor Screwjobs. I feel screwed.
Mike Minotti books the next six months of the TNA World Championship in Can They Be Champ?
Mat Sforcina takes a look back at the early days of Steve Corino’s career in Evolution Schematic.
Steve Cook answers all YOUR questions in Ask 411 Wrestling.
Julian Williams leaves no doubt as to how many ROH shows he’s seen this year when he picks The Top Ten matches of 2007…so far.
Bayani Domingo looks at the frequent trading of talent between the US and Japan/Mexico in Truth B Told.
And finally, some self-pimping! This week I make 411 Wrestling history by being the first writer to appear in both Fact Or Fiction AND Buy Or Sell in the same week! Also, the final edition of That Was Then takes a look back at Curt Hennig fighting through a major injury to put over Bret Hart at Summerslam 91.
What Did We Learn This Week?
In all things, there is at least one lesson to be learned. Here I will impart upon you what I took away from the weekly television of ECW and TNA. You too can learn important life lessons from Kevin Thorn and Maverick Matt, and are encouraged to send in your own revalations.
This week on ECW On Sci-Fi, I learned that…
-If women are willing to work for WWE, that means they’re willing to do basically anything.
-WWE Creative doesn’t understand the concept of dated references.
-Viscera’s been wearing a shirt for 14 years for a reason.
This week on TNA Impact, I learned that…
-Lance Hoyt might not be in line for that big push after all.
-Men in their underwear beating up production assistants is FUNNY!
-Fantasy booking doesn’t always translate well to a real wrestling product.
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That’s it for me, I’m off to Six flags Great Adventure with my lovely girlfriend (by the way, I Love Her Madly) for a fulfilling weekend of being flung at high speeds in directions and at elevations at which the human body was not designed for. It’ll be the first time I’ve been there since my senior trip ten years ago, so it’s a little something to look forward to. Hoorj. I’ll see you all back here next week, so until then, have a good one.
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