Hidden Highlights 08.11.08: Issue #154

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #154

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

Commentator: After weeks of struggle, the compromise has led to an era of relative peace with the new format.

Drue: I definitely like the added bit about what show it is, I read them all, but it makes it a bit more organized than the 15 countdown!

Matt: This is getting much better.

Joyce: I love this column and was not sure about the new format, but I like that you use the top reader write-ins.

Commentator: Still, the dissenters exist, although smaller in number.

RJ: I hate this new format.

eRIC: Can we put an end to multiple people talking in one highlight?

Commentator: But with their number dwindling, more insight and interesting comments were able to break through:

Jeremy: I was at the RAW/SNME taping. They literally were chanting “Cena” and cheering for him. He got the boos on Raw because he was opposite Batista who is from DC.

Commentator: Will this era of peace and prosperity continue, or is this just the calm before the storm?

Commentator: And now, 411wrestling.com proudly presents…

JP: Hello everyone who has spent the weekend hanging out with the likes of Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Eric Young, and many more, and welcome back to Hidden Highlights! If you’ve never been here before, let me tell you what we are doing in these pages.

Hidden Highlights are about the little things that make the product great. They are about showing the positive motions all those involved in wrestling do to make a better show. The Miz may hold his opponents hands down to make a pin attempt better. Charles Robinson may let a little tear shed from his eye every time someone mentions Ric Flair. Mike Tenay may tell you about the 17 year history of a visiting wrestler and make them sound huge in one sentence. These are all examples of little things that make the product far better.

Every week this article spotlights the Top 15 Hidden Highlights of the week, whether the be from television (RAW, ECW of SciFi, iMPACT, SmackDown!, and a PPV or television special if there is one), the past, small shows, tapes, or the indy scene.

This article may have an author, but it is also dependent upon the readers and true fans of professional wrestling—those who love what they watch and want to tell the world what they have found. The Top 15 are chosen from what I see and what readers write-in. Whatever is the best is what you’ll see!

And who am I? Well, I am JP Prag, and I bring you Hidden Highlights with one goal in mind: to appreciate all those little things that make a huge difference.

Now let’s get on with the Hidden Highlights!

[Saturday Night’s Main Event] Excuse me, kind sir

JP: We’ll kick it off this week right where we left off.. on Saturday Night!

David Pettyjohn: During Saturday nights Main Event when MVP did the run in and kicked Jeff Hardy, if you listen real close after he jumped the wall to escape he was saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me!” as he made his way down the front row of fans.

JP: I am so glad you wrote in with this one because it was on my short list, too! I literally ran out of space for it, but MVP deserves the kudos for his courtesy.

[RAW] Doing business right

JP: Jumping into RAW, I would just like to say I’m proud of Mike Adamle. Why? Well this week he had another great little detail that I think has been sorely missing from the authority figures on RAW. Most of these guys talk on little flip cell phones, which is generally fine. But when Mike Adamle was on his phone, I quickly noted that he was talking on a Blackberry! Since Mike Adamle is a true manager and knows how to be smarmy just by existing, this additional detail to act like the boss really set the whole image home.

[RAW] Being careful

JP: At the end of RAW, Batista and John Cena had defeated Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase to win the World Tag Team Championships. The two then paraded around the ring trying to get the crowd to cheer for one or the other. In the middle of their act, Batista went to the side and was about to hold the title over his head. But before he did so, he actually looked down to make sure the title was facing the right way so that when he held it up the title would go in the right direction. We have caught so many people holding the belt the wrong way that it was good to finally see someone be careful out there!

[RAW] Pure shock

JP: Much earlier in the evening, CM Punk was in a handicapped match against unlikely partners JBL and Chris Jericho (thank goodness they did not try to make those guys friends like Booker T and Robert Roode). Before the match got underway, General Manager Mike Adamle came over the HD-Tron to let everyone know that the match would be ten minutes long and result in a Triple Threat at WrestleMania if nobody was pinned in that timeframe.

After Adamle said goodbye, CM Punk was standing there, arms outstretched behind him, with the World Heavyweight Championship in his hands. He was in such shock, that he stood in the awkward pose until the referee took the belt right out of his hands. And even when the ref did so, he turned and still looked lost—holding his hands out and basically saying, “Hey, where did that go?” I thought that was a nice bit of sell of the shock, especially since he obviously knew it was about to happen.

[RAW] A blast from the past

JP: I really did not want to include this one because I thought it was a little on the nose, but so many people sent it in, who am I to deny?

Awesomeman: During the surprisingly good 2 on 1 Handicap match between Punk, JBL and Jericho, Jericho flew off of the second rope with a fist drop early on into the match.

Seemingly under his breath, Jerry “The King” Lawler said: “Well that looks familiar.”

It was a brilliant display of commentary skills, because I was instantly reminded of Lawler when Jericho flew off of the SECOND rope, just like “The King” used to do back in the day.

Joshua Garren: Another Hidden Highlight from me on Raw this past week. This one comes from Jerry “The King” Lawler as Chris Jericho hits a flying fistbut from the second rope, you can hear Lawler mutter “That looks familiar” after he completed the move. Significant because one of Jerry Lawler’s trademark moves was the diving fistbut from the second rope, and Jericho mimicked him very well, even down to blowing on his hand before the attack.

Jeff Thiessen: I just caught today’s edition of Raw. It had a little bit in the 2-on-1 handicap match between Punk / JBL and Y2J.

Jericho went up to the second rope and hit Punk with a fist drop. Lawler came in and said, “That looks familiar.”

It was classic, let me tell you.

JC: On tonight’s RAW during the JBL/Jericho/Punk match, after Jericho had hit Punk with a flying fistdrop, The King mutters, “that looks familiar”. He would know, since the fistdrop was and is one of Lawler’s (two?) Moves of Doom.

JP: I’m just amazed how differently everyone described the exact same thing!

[RAW] La la la la la

JP: From one everyone caught to one no one caught, here’s Peter Clay!

Peter Clay: Yet another music HH. During the Cena video package on this week’s RAW, they reused part of the music from the video package that played just before the WWE title match at Wrestlemania 24. They seem to be doing this more and more. Is this just continuity or budget cuts?

JP: More likely they produce so many videos that they re-use pieces of them over and over for time sakes. Pretty common occurrence in any type of development environment ::shifts eyes::

[ECW] But he didn’t turn his back

JP: Over in the land of TV-PG Extreme, Finlay continued his timeless feud with King of the Beard Mike Knox. As Finlay was dressing Knox down, he told Knox that the would turn his back on Knox and give him the opportunity to hit him from behind. The funny part was that even when Finlay turned around, he kept his head spun and his eyes on Knox! So even though he said he would turn his back on Knox, Finlay was not actually stupid enough to do so.

[ECW] Epic proportions

JP: Later in the evening, Armando Estrada took on Tommy Dreamer in Armando’s last chance to get an ECW contract. Late into the match, Colin Delaney made an appearance and attempted to take Dreamer out the match. He succeeded to some degree as Estrada was able to capture a win over the former 10-minute ECW Champion. As Colin continued his attacks against Dreamer, you had to listen to Matt Striker on commentary. He actually compared Colin Delaney turning on Tommy Dreamer to Larry Zbyszko turning on Bruno Sammartino! His exact quote was, “Colin’s betrayal is of Zbyszko-Sammartino proportions!”

For those not in the know, here’s what that was about (courtesy in summary form by Wikipedia):

At the end of the decade, Zbyszko became frustrated with his inability to shed his label as Bruno Sammartino’s protégé. He challenged Sammartino to an exhibition match, claiming this was the only way he could step out of Sammartino’s shadow. Sammartino eventually agreed to the match after Zbyszko threatened to retire if he was not granted the match. The trainer and pupil faced one another in Allentown on January 22, 1980, with Sammartino dominating the early stages of the match. After Sammartino threw him out of the ring, an irate Zbyszko seized a wooden chair and struck Sammartino, leaving him in a pool of blood in the middle of the ring and instantly turning Zbyszko into a reviled heel. So despised was Zbyszko by partisan Sammartino fans in the northeast that his car was repeatedly damaged and taxis in which he was travelling were overturned by fans. Zbyszko was struck with an iron pole following a match with Ivan Putski, and was stabbed in the buttock following a match with Pedro Morales in the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany, New York. After turning against Sammartino, Zbyszko was approached by the WWWF’s “Unholy Trio” of managers (Fred Blassie, The Grand Wizard, and “Captain” Lou Albano), but he decided to continue wrestling without a manager. Sammartino and Zbyszko fought one another repeatedly in a lengthy feud that stretched throughout 1980. In the course of the feud, Zbyszko began referring to himself as “The New Living Legend” (a reference to Sammartino, who was often addressed as “The Living Legend”). The feud culminated in a steel cage match at Showdown at Shea at Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York on August 9, 1980 that saw Sammartino defeat Zbyszko in front of an audience of 36,295.

So you can see how big of a deal that feud was, and the comparison from Striker just made that comment even more hilarious!

[ECW] Another gem from the Palace of Wisdom

JP: Every so often, we are able to catch an exchange by the Miz and John Morrison that happens off-mic just a little bit. These two are great at continuing the conversation even when they aren’t part of the main action. In their segment of the Dirt Sheet on ECW this week, Matt Hardy came down to interrupt the fun. After saying a bunch of stuff, Matt Hardy then finished with Miz’s trademark line, “Be jealous!”

As you can imagine, the two were quick to respond. Off-mic, you could just barely pick up the Miz go, “That’s my line!” But this was quickly followed up with the Morrison’s true gem, “He wrote it on the back of a napkin!” Only Morrison would think to use a line like that, especially when he didn’t have to say anything at all!

[Comedy Central’s Root of All Evil] Would he pass Wellness?

JP: This one I’ll just let sit on it’s own!

Jeremy: Going along with the recent trend of wrestling highlights in other forms of television, I’ve got one. On the August 6th edition of Comedy Central’s Root of All Evil, they were discussing Boob Jobs vs. Steroids. They said how steroids could be used by actors (they showed Arnold Swartzenegger) and wrestlers (they showed Jesse Ventura) and even governors (showing both Arnold and Jesse). The HH is they put Jesse’s head on another wrestler’s body. The other body was Chris Jericho. I recognized the sparkly vest that he wore from his debut.

JP: Makes us wonder what you are hiding under that three-piece suit Jericho. And what is up with wearing the underwear all of a sudden? Put some pants back on!

[iMPACT] A sign of respect

JP: Back on TNA iMPACT (which will be a video game by Midway Games to be released in September, donchaknow), The Motor City Machine Guns took on “Black Machismo” Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed. Towards the middle of the match, Shelley and Machismo decided to show each other some respect by shaking hands. Just before they shook hands, though, Alex Shelley actually wiped his hands on his pants to get the sweat off. That was awfully nice of him!

[iMPACT] That’s a good girl

JP: Further out in the night, we got a second Knockouts match when Awesome Kong took on Salinas in a short squash. Before the match got underway, I caught something quite odd. Off in Kong’s corner, Raesha Saed was watching her friend and Angelina Love was standing behind Saed. While standing behind her, you could catch for just a brief moment that Love was actually petting the back of Saed’s burqa, almost like she was petting Velvet Sky’s hair. I have no idea what that was about, but boy was it interesting to see.

[iMPACT] That’s a calm king

JP: In the back, Booker T was sitting idle in the champ’s dressing room waiting for the Gauntlet Match later in the night. As he was talking to Jeremy Borash, I noticed that Booker T’s boots did not even have his laces in them yet! So either he was in the midst of getting ready and JB did interrupted him, or he was so relaxed that he did not feel the need to lace up his boots at all until it was time to go!

[SmackDown] Khali be really smarted

JP: Moving on to SmackDown this week, Keith comes in with a gem among many, many, many options.

Keith: In the aftermath of the arm-wrestling contest, when HHH was trying to Pedigree Khali, the announcers missed an important detail. HHH wasn’t having trouble hitting the Pedigree solely because of Khali’s bulk. Khali was blocking the Pedigree by hooking his arm around HHH’s left leg and holding on to prevent the double underhook. So not only will Khali’s size, height, and viciousness be factors, he evidently has some calculating countering ability to worry about, too!

JP: I picked up on that as well, but really felt this had to be included in honor of Jeff Small.

Small: He wrote about Khali?! You HAVE TO include that one!

[SmackDown] Living the gimmick

JP: Earlier in the evening on SmackDown, the Divas came out for a special “Olympic” themed match with each of the girls wearing a sport of their choice. Perennial favorite Victoria was wearing a gymnast outfit, but came to the ring with more than that. As all the competitors got into place, Victoria threw something at Michelle McCool who then in turn threw it back. When the object came back, that is when I realized what it was: one of those chalk packs that gymnast put on their hands to have better grips! And wouldn’t you know? As the match got underway Victoria then chalked up her hands. It may have been a throw-away costume, but Victoria still took it to every single little detail.

Well everyone, that about wraps up this week’s show, except for one thing:

Make sure you come back later this week for a special Small-For-All / Hamilton Ave Journal crossover to give you the real scoop on the upcoming TNA iMPACT Video Game and to read uncensored comments from Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, AJ Style, Eric Young, Jeremy Borash, Christian Cage, Hernandez, Selinas, Alex Shelley, and Chris Sabin!

Small: And… Mike Johnson!

JP: ESPECIALLY, Mike Johnson!

Thank you for reading the 154th ISSUE of Hidden Highlights! Next week, we’ll have LIVE Hidden Highlights from Hard Justice, so you all are in deep competition with me and Small.

Small: Who says I’m going to write anything?

JP: Grrrrrrr… this is because I made you walk the stairs, isn’t it?

Small: That, and drive you back to RI!

JP: Ah… yeah… that’s right…. Well, anyway…

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. The best of the best will be featured among the top 15 next week.

In the meantime, 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.

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