Hidden Highlights 03.10.08: Issue #132

All and all, I’m disappointed to see TNA forgetting some of the little things that set it apart. They better plan on keeping the six sided ring. I’ve talked about it before, but I really used to like the Fox Box giving the time limits for the matches and having a judge decide winners when matches went too long. As anyone who has read me long enough knows, I am 100% for making wrestling more “sports-like” and having at least one organization/brand be different from the rest. TNA would be served well by using a slightly modified version of my point system combined with the show style of Global Impact. That would truly differentiate the TNA brand and give them something to put their hat on and say, “See, we are a true alternative!”

The bottom line is, I want TNA to succeed. Being a WCW-mark, I still loath much of the WWE. There are things about the WWE that are never going to change so long as Vince McMahon is in charge, and many of those are not to my taste. I want something to truly be in my taste, and I think TNA has the potential to do it. But they must be willing to take chances and make themselves different.

And they have all the tools to do it. Just look at these Hidden Highlights and tell me the pieces are not there.

(3) An apropos choice of words:

During the opening of the show, Jim Cornette was in the ring with Matt Morgan going over Destination X and adding stipulations to the card. One of those was for the Booker T and Robert Roode match where the winner’s lady would be able to hit the other lady with 10 lashes of a leather strap. Jim Cornette let the world know that he would prefer that Peyton Banks be the recipient of those lashed by getting “10 lashes that she so richly deserves”. Did you see what he did there? Just using the world “richly” to associate with Peyton Banks and Robert Roode was such a smart little note to add into his speech.

(2) I’m busy over here:

Later in the show, the aforementioned battle royal took place with a large number of the undercard stars. As the bell rang, many of the people paired off to fight. But one man sat off in the far left corner not ready to get underway, and that man was Petey Williams. Since no one came over to fight with him, Petey did what he knows how to do best now: pose down! I was impressed that Petey did not just stand there looking on, but actually used to the time continue to put himself over and pose for all to see.

Also not fighting anyone when the bell rang was Eric Young. He ran across the ring to get away from the monsters and hid there for a while. Which brings us to our next one…

(1) Deadpan… get it?:

Before the battle royal, Jeremy Borash was out back interviewing Eric Young about his fear of monsters. Per usual, Eric was quite perturbed by the idea of Rellik eating his face off. And as he has done so well in the past, after saying Rellik’s name he did the line, “that’s killer spelled backwards”. Except this time, Eric didn’t even pause when he did it and said it in such a deadpan manner that I can only call the delivery one thing: brilliant! The way he did not skip and beat and said the line like it was just a part of Rellik’s normal name made me smile and say that is how you do it!

Mathew: Oh come on, that point system crap again?

JP: My memory is a little hazy, you have something to say on that?

Mathew: It’s a stupid idea.

JP: Huh, I don’t remember you coming up with a solution instead of just being a whiny IWC nerd. I’m fair, let’s hear your idea.

Mathew: Simple, hire a large dude, or get one already on staff, and have him stand behind Russo with a big stick. Whenever Russo has an idea that doesn’t fit with a short list of workable, sane concepts the large man has on a small card, have the big guy hit Russo with the stick and say ‘NO’ in a loud, clear voice.

JP: Typical IWC nerd, always blaming Russo for everything. Don’t forget Mantel is back there, too. That Dixie lets them do what they want! And you don’t think there is some awful booker that is not going to come along in the future. You have to think long term! How do you build a solution that is going to able to be carried over no matter who is in charge and acts as a check and balance system. I know you come from a government founded by prisoners who were deemed too unworthy to be caged in their own country, but you have to understand some idea of that system.

Mathew: At least my country isn’t being run by criminals!

JP: Your’s isn’t?

Mathew: Ok, bad example… don’t you have another show to do? Let’s move this thing along here!

Friday, March 7, 2008 by JP

JP: Fine, fine, moving on.

For once, they finally did it right! When you have a 3-on-1 handicapped match, it is ok for the “1” to loose. As a matter of fact, it makes more sense! I’m very glad to see it happens, though it gives me a bad feeling for WrestleMania. I’d rather see Edge go over as he deserves (from a professional perspective) to be the man to beat the Undertaker and be a cemented top tier champion for a generation. Edge almost never gets the big clean win, and more often than not looks like the loser even when he does win. A clean win here would do everything here for Edge’s career and provide for the WWE for years to come. Of course, that is why they won’t do it.

(3) More apropos words:

Speaking of the 3-on-1 handicapped match, the opening segment saw the Cutting Edge featuring special guest Ric Flair. Because Flair decided to mouth off during the segment, he got himself booked into a 3-on-1 handicapped steel cage match for next week. But when Vickie Guerrero set up that match, she said that it would “not be a regular 3-on-1 handicapped match”. Did you catch that? A “regular” 3-on-1 match? I guess 3-on-1 matches have become so normal during her reign that there is such a thing as a “normal” one!

(2) I shouldn’t be here:

The opening contest of the night saw CM Punk team up with Jesse and Festus to take on the ECW Champion Chavo Guerrero and the WWE Tag Team Champion the Miz and John Morrison. When the bell rang, Festus began his transformation into the monster we see in the ring. The issue? CM Punk was standing right in front of him! You had to watch CM Punk really closely to catch all this, but at first CM Punk was smiling. Then, as he realized the Festus was changing it turned into a frown. And then, he took a step back, realized Festus was right behind him, and ducked out of the way so he would not get bowled down! It was a perfect series of events from CM Punk so show that even his teammates had reason to fear Festus.

You should also probably note that CM Punk stayed as far away from Festus as he could while both where on the ring apron. Nice work all around by the former ECW champion.

(1) That’s not in my rule book:

MVP finally defended his United States Championship against the former World Heavyweight Champion Batista. During the match, MVP managed to knock Batista down and went for the pin-cover. At the two count, Batista got his hands to the rope and referee Jimmy Corderus broke the count. Then, MVP ripped Batista’s hand off the rope and tried to hide it under him, but the ref refused to make the count! Finally, someone enforced the rules! When someone grabs the ropes, a hold or cover has to be completely broken before attempted again. I used to go nuts when Kurt Angle or Chris Benoit would drag their opponents back to the center of the ring after the opponent got to the ropes. You have to break the hold, and no submission of pin-cover should count again until you do! Nice work by the ref to enforce the rules the way you are supposed to, which also worked well as a foreshadow to the perfect count-out that came later in the match.

Mathew: Well, if Styles is still going on about how 3 ways aren’t elimination when from memory there hasn’t been an elimination 3 way on the new ECW since… ever, normal 3 on 1 matches is a sane enough statement.

Hidden Highlights are not just about what was written above, but about what you have seen as well. This article strives to not only spotlight the best Hidden Highlights, but to engage you, the viewers, and make you the best audience in the world.

JP: I need a nap, and you people don’t provide it for me. So, *GENERAL WARNING*:: some parts of the following Reader Write-in Hidden Highlights may be edited for grammar, spelling, and English translation…

We’ll kick it off this week with Hidden Highlights Reader Write-in Finalist (gosh that was a long time ago) Trevor Alexander and all of last week:

Jeff Hardy’s hair actually looked like a rainbow this week (I don’t have HD but I could count at least 3 different colors) and Jim Ross never called him the rainbow haired warrior.

JP: He seems to wafer back and forth on that one every since we called him out on it.

Jericho resorted to some of his heel tactics in his match by doing his signature punk kicks to the head of Jeff Hardy. (Heel Chris > Face Chris) Hopefully we get a heel turn so we can have the long awaited return of Ralphus.

JP: I remember reading all these interviews with Chris Jericho talking about the guy who played Ralphus. I could not do them justice, so I recommend tracking them down. On the same end, yes, I much prefer a heel Jericho.

So Vince never got a blood test for Hornswaggle. If all it takes to get a piece of the McMahon fortune is a lawyer who likes to speak in riddles then it’s time to cash in.

JP: Hehehe, if I learned anything from Veronica Mars (I miss you!), it is that there are ways to fake a blood test one way or another.

Reunited: Nice to see them bring Burchhill and Regal back together after their history on Smackdown. Regal semi acknowledged their past by saying “I’ve always thought highly of you”.

JP: I completely noticed that little nod to their history, too. Regal is a master of Hidden Highlights and slipping things like that in. Did I mention how much we love Regal in these pages?

Where is ECW in the battle of brand superiority…HA HA HA!

JP: Where are ECW competitors at WrestleMania period? Last year at WrestleMania, the Originals made their entrances right next to me. Of course, they distracted from what was going on in the ring, but oh well, it was cool for me!

J.R. and The King were talking about how Lance Cade probably watched a great deal of Shawn Michaels growing up. So much so that Lance Cade was actually trained by HBK and I thought that was a great little “throwback”. Cade even went for HBK’s elbow drop (even tried the bicep slap on the way down that HBK does), and they both wore the same color scheme of red white and black, great to see a teacher and his student in the same ring together as colleagues.

JP: Remember when they were going to make him H.B. Cade? They should totally still do that, even though he doesn’t have the hair anymore. It’s not like Shawn Michaels really does, either.

HBK threw his bloody HBK wrist band to the crowd… WTF? I hope that ends up on EBAY and someone finds a way to clone HBK. I mean he spits a ton during his matches so we have that, he’s balding so we can get his hair as it falls off , and now some lucky fan has his blood covered merchandise.

JP: I’m pretty sure there are some rats that have more of his DNA from back in the day that we don’t need a bloodied rag from him.

Impact

KUDOS to Mike Tenay for doing something that I have been wanting announcers to do for years. When Shark Boy and Curryman called out any team to face them Black Reign and Rellik came out to accept the challenge. Since it was “unexpected” Mike Tenay actually asked if the guys in the production truck could run the video from the previous week. KUDOS! That is the way you make it seem that they did just accept the challenge and not already have the video already cued up.

JP: I know I brought this up last week, but it was a really good one so I’ll let you do it again.

Smackdown

Michael Cole said that The Miz was the winner of Tough Enough years ago… Daniel Puder who?

JP: Well it’s not like Puder got that $1 million. He was cut after a year of the downside guarantee. Take that for shooting on Kurt Angle! Todd Vote didn’t win a million dollars, but he tries to win something else.

Hidden highlight for This past Thursday’s Impact (2/28/2008): How about after Kong gave Love the Awesome bomb we had a titty pop out. Not hidden enough for ya? How about the fact that nobody seemed to notice this until shortly after the three count when Velvet Sky ran in and she can clearly be seen adjusting the top for her fallen friend. Even more of a highlight, I have not found a comment where anyone else has noticed this wonderful boobage!

JP: I don’t know, I checked the forums that specialize in this stuff and NOBODY mentioned it. Maybe it just looked like it was out but I don’t think we got a nip slip. Maybe she popped out a little, but was still well in bra that nobody cared. And where are your screen caps, huh? This is the type of thing that requires visual evidence! Get on that!

By the way, I have seen Maria’s playboy pics. A couple are good, but as typical they are waaaaay overdone. I know some guys like that fake Photoshop look, but I prefer things a little more natural. Still, I’m glad to see it looks like Maria has not had any enhancement surgery. It looks much better on her that way. One man who finds his own enhancements is Mike Labbe:

This past week on Impact I noticed the Curry Man’s mask has a marking on the eye area that is the same as the paint that Christopher Daniel’s painted around his eye… I realize they are the same person. Thought it was a cool way for Daniels to subtle say “hey, it’s me under here”.

JP: A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned in the commentary section that when Curry Man was speaking, all he was doing was listing names of legendary Japanese wrestlers. Classic! Almost as classic as Cenzo:

On Smackdown last week, there was a two-way Hidden Highlight in General Manager Vickie Gurrero’s office.

Mathew: Sounds kinky!

JP: I knew it couldn’t last.

Mathew: Hey, a guy has needs.

The Hidden Highlight was especially noticeable in the segment where Batista asked to face Umaga at ‘Mania and Maryse was flattering Vickie. If you look at Vickie’s wall, she has a new WWE Magazine cover on her wall, nothing new there, the GM’s always have the newest cover on the wall. But the cover on her wall was featuring Batista, Not ‘Taker, HHH or Cena. To me this is three-way Hidden Highlight.

Mathew: Wow, it’s gone up in kinkiness!

1: It showed that Vickie would not choose ‘Taker because of who he was challenging at ‘Mania. Her man Edge. 2: It foreshadowed Batista was going to make his challenge to face Umaga soon.

Mathew: Awwww… that was only two again!

JP: I’d also say she can’t have the Undertaker on the wall because he gave her a tombstone and destroyed her neck! She didn’t like that too much. But first time Keith Rogers certainly did:

I’m a week late on this one, but on last week’s Smackdown we saw some new (I think!) actions out of Cherry in the Deuce & Domino tag match. Instead of acting passively (as an untrained sister/girlfriend), she attempted to pull Shannon Moore down off the ring apron. Unfortunately she didn’t have the muscle or moxie to get the job done and got shaken off with only a bemused look. Later, at the very end of the match, she made a motion to leap into the ring and break up a pin, but hesitated on the apron and watched the count finish. Hopefully what we are seeing here is her character slowly learning the ropes and making steps towards taking a more active role.

JP: I think that goes along with when she pushed Deuce a few weeks back after he used her as a human shield. Besides, I had to include this one just because you used the word “moxie”. Speaking of moxie, my main gal Tammy has quite a bit of it for me:

On Monday’s Raw (3/3) during the Playboy segment there was a very brief shot of someone holding a sign about Chris Benoit: “Benoit was my biological dad. Thank God he didn’t know.” It was only shown for a couple of frames, so it was probably not seen by too many of the guys watching the show as they had other things on their mind at the time.

JP: Yow! Normally I’d use this time to hit on you, but that is just not cool. I can handle a bad taste Benoit joke, but geez, what the hell was that kid thinking?

PS I can get you a screenshot if you want one

JP: Oh baby, you can send me a screenshot anytime!

Mathew: Wow, that serious streak and respect for ladies lasted a long time!

JP: Weren’t you just talking about three-ways?

Mathew: This isn’t about me, it’s about you! At least you expect wackiness from me, you’re meant to be the serious one. You’re the Ace Steel/CM Punk to my Colt Cabana.

JP: Even if I understood that reference, and this isn’t about me, it’s about readers like Matt Eli:

I must confess that I am not up to date on my Hidden Highlights, so I do not know if Carlito is still a favourite with your column, but the man is really a HH machine. I have two from him this week:

The first is when Carlito first came to the ring. He generally didn’t overact, or do anything fantastic. He didn’t pose on the ropes. He looked generally unmotivated. I like that he’s making this part of his character. But that’s not the Hidden Highlight. What I first want to report is the reaction Carlito had when a single fan could be heard screaming. The crowd was pretty dead for Carlito, but someone made some noise, I think (I hope so, or else I am hearing things). Carlito then just stared in the direction it came from. Priceless! It was easy to miss, because I don’t believe the sound was very notable, and Carlito’s expression didn’t change. It was his way of reacting (something Carlito does very well), without overreacting and looking like an idiot.

JP: First off, of course Carlito is still a favorite of this column. Second off, nice one.

Mathew: Third, would Santino please hook up with another heel woman (Mickie James maybe) and win the damm tag belts already?

The second Carlito HH came during his surprisingly great match with Cody Rhodes (have these two always matched up so well on their RAW and Heat encounters?). Carlito, at one point during the match, hits Cody Rhodes with a swinging neckbreaker. It was a sharper version of the swinging neckbreaker, and I may be wrong, but it was very similar to the variation Santino Marella uses to finish his opponents on Heat. Who is Santino Marella’s tag team partner? Why, Carlito, of course. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but the slight variation of the move made me at least think of Santino, and I’m going to give that to Carlito as more than coincidence. A silent homage to his tag team partner, and a suggestion that they actually train together, practice together, and teach each other moves.

JP: I just like when Carlito beat up that seagull and the feathers were flying everywhere! That was truly cool. But not as cool as the man finishing us off this week–Tim Schmidt:

Has anyone noticed Big Show not wearing knee pads, and the new tattoo on his leg?

JP: Well apparently you have my friend. Apparently you have.

Mathew: The tattoo is neither here nor there, but for a big guy like Show, he really should be wearing knee pads. Unless he’s borrowed Cena’s wonder-stuff and they have healed up like Cena’s injury.

Do you have a Hidden Highlight from this or any week in history that you would like to share? Please e-mail this article at [email protected] with your thoughts! Send them by Saturday afternoon to be considered! And remember, they can be from any show, live or taped, or any house show, or anything you saw… readers just like to know!

JP: What, do I need to thank this guy again? Fine, fine. Damn good work there Aussie! Keep it up!

Mathew: That’s what Victoria said to me last night.

JP: … UGH.

Mathew: Hey, that’s no worse than that point system.

JP: Oy, and writing an Evolution Schematic of video games is a good idea?

Mathew: It was! Check out those comments! And it looks to me like someone was a little commentary shy this week…

JP: You know what, fine, it’s time to go. We had such a nice time, but not anymore. Get out of my column!

But if you do want to write some comments (weird that it was so quiet), be sure to catch my very own Saturday morning news report The Hamilton Ave Journal: the only wrestling news report focused on the business of wrestling.

Thank you for reading the 132nd ISSUE of Hidden Highlights! Be sure to drop a line with all the other Hidden Highlights not covered this time around and everything you catch in the week to come.

Until then, you have just experienced the most positive article in all of the IWC: Hidden Highlights!

Stenographer: What? No me? Come on, I need the work! Ah, screw you, you fat Aussie bastard. Some of us LIKE that point system idea you know.