wrestling / Columns
The Cheers and Jeers of Wrestling 10.26.08: Ric Flair, Evan Bourne, The Raw Main Event and More!
Hi everybody! So I took a Kizarny inspired trip to an amusement park last night and had a ton of fun. Rizides? Kizzoton Kizandy? It was all there, just as the soon-to-debut carnival enthusiast had promised, in addition to a few spook houses that were probably lame in actuality, but seemed really freaky under the influence of drizugs and dizippin’ dizots. Anyways, let us get on with the cheers, ’cause according to my timepiece, this was supposed to be finished several hours ago!
CHEERS
to Ric Flair for not jumping at the opportunity to make his return to the ring in Japan and giving his promise to Shawn Michaels due consideration. Frankly, I had wanted to JEER Ric for even thinking about taking a vacation from his retirement from the squared circle and I know Ric will never read this, but I’m not taking any chances so I’m going to go the extra nice route. Ric, you got just about the greatest possible sendoff that you could conceivably get with a memorable final match in front of 74,000 people at Wrestlemania and an emotional, unprecedented farewell ceremony the following night on RAW. I know you’ve fallen on some financial hard times in the recent past, what with the divorce and all, and I understand that you don’t really owe the WWE anything, but you know deep down that whatever the price tag is, it’s not high enough.
Please don’t take any matches and force me to give you the biggest jeer I can muster…Jeers of the, uh…millennium? I’ll think of something, anyways…Ric! Don’t do it! You’ll never get a better finale than you did this year and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you piss a priceless moment for a lousy few million yen or whatever it would be. A lifetime supply of chicken fried rice? Mmmm, that almost sounds worth it.
Delicious!
JEERS
to the main event of RAW, which saw an absolutely awful gauntlet match pitting Cyber Sunday opponents Dave and Chris against the same three opponents. I can’t give a good reason as to why William Regal needed to be squashed twice or how either the champion or the challenger really benefited from winning or losing a quick succession of bad matches. I’ve been into just about every other “Adamle original”, but this poorly paced gauntlet was a bad idea with even worse execution.
Dumb
CHEERS
to Evan Bourne for taking the win in a terrific triple threat match against Finlay and Mark Henry on this week’s episode of ECW. Evan has continued to look like one of the few new stars, er, sorry, “entertainers”, that the WWE actually seems interested in getting over and big wins such as this one will certainly accomplish that. I’m kind of expecting Mizark to get the Cyber Sunday vote, just ’cause, but I’m rooting for Evan and hopefully the triple threat did it’s job of swaying the vote toward the little guy. Really, there is no way that Hardy is going to lose, so hopefully people will go with who the champ can potentially have the most interesting and exciting match, and, sorry Fit, but that is most likely Bourne in my estimation.
If he still looked like this, he’d have my vote!
JEERS
to downers, which Kevin Nash appeared to be loaded on during his interview segment with Kurt & Booker for this week’s live Impact. Now calm down, Nash’s legal team, I’m not actually making any allegations here, but “Big Sexy” seemed to be on the verge of nodding off at several points and is it not his humor and vivacity in these bits that causes TNA to keep him around to begin with? It certainly isn’t for his wrestling, which looked even more like it was taking place under water than usual in the main event. Just pretend you can hear the loud sound of the check clearing and wake the fuck up, Nash!
“Do these pants make my ass look big?”
CHEERS
to Hulk Hogan, who will be receiving the Humanitarian Award from the National Indian Gaming Association (that’s NIGA for all you fans of gansta rap lookin’ acronyms)at this year’s 2008 Global Gaming Expo. Hogan earned the honor through his work with the Dreamseekers foundation, a non-profit that provides much needed assistance to Native American youth and their families. Better still, ‘The Hulkamania Experience’ is expected to debut at the expo and if there is any thing this world has been missing, it’s a Hulk Hogan themed slot machine. In all seriousness, Hogan has been doing great work and deserves recognition for it.
The Hulkster and his lack of move set and desire to make new stars has been IWC fodder since, well, since it’s inception, actually, but Hogan’s record for charity work is beyond reproach and even his harshest critics will never deny that he pretty much has never met a sick kid that wasn’t worth making time for. So here’s to Hulk for adding to his plump resume of charitable achievements, and for seeming to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of what used to be his family life with his fabulous new celebrity wrestling show.
Benevolent ruler
CHEERS
to the WWE and the Young Adult Library Services Association for launching a Wrestlemania reading challenge and ensuring, by way of sending 15 lucky challenge winners to Wrestlemania, that there will be at least 15 people in Reliant Stadium who can actually read. Hey, that might be some kind of record! Just kidding, Texas. You may have produced the worst president this country ever had, but you also produced at least three of the greatest wrestlers who ever lived, so we’re even/Steven as far as I’m concerned.
Sorry big guy, but I wasn’t talking about you.
CHEERS
to Vince McMahon for fighting the good fight (well, one of them) and not relenting to the pressure from USA (the network, not the country) to change permanently increase RAW’s running time by an hour. We can all talk long and hard about how out of touch Vinnie Mac has been over the last several years, but at least he recognizes that the public has pretty much hit their weekly tolerance for WWE programming. If the network has such a hard-on for more wrestling, maybe Vince could let them run some sort of WWE “classics” show on the weekend, which could also serve as a promoter of the WWE 24/7 deal and wouldn’t feel like another show that fans have to watch to keep up with current events. That is such a great idea, I think I’ll let the WWE have it for free. One caveat, though….I would need lots of this guy:
Stealer of dignity
JEERS
to the dueling announcements on TNA’s live Impact, courtesy of Kurt Angle & Mick Foley, who promised to change the face of TNA and pro wrestling in general, respectively. First up, Kurt’s earth shattering announcement that, and I suggest you grab a seat for this one if you haven’t heard, Sting will be joining forces with he, Booker & Kevin Nash in their battle against the youngsters. Shocking! Don’t you just love it when exactly what you already think is going to happen, happens, but in the form of a much-ballyhooed announcement? I sure don’t.
Next up was Mick, whose announcement that he is now (kayfabe, I’m sure) part-owner of TNA was at least hype worthy, though not necessarily worthy of the OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE THE HUGEST ANNOUNCEMENT IN WRESTLING EVER hype that preceded it. Of course, big announcements in wrestling rarely, if ever, live up to expectations but TNA doesn’t want to catch a reputation for disappointing declarations, if it doesn’t have one already. It just makes people shrug when the next big announcement comes along and TNA can’t afford that, not if they want increased viewership.
Read this!
CHEERS
though, to the new TNA legends belt, which is perhaps a silly idea for a title considering the company has been around for 6 years, but at least it looks better looking than the Divas belt. It remains to be seen if the title will be booked to last, or just serve as a vanity piece for Booker T, but it doesn’t spin, and that’s enough for a new title to get a cheers from me.
You gotta love that new belt smell…
JEERS
to Gabe Sapolsky, who was given his walking papers from Ring Of Honor, the world renowned indy and North America’s de facto third biggest wrestling organization. Gabe has been ROH’s booker since the company opened up shop in 2002 and a somewhat terse statement was released today, thanking Gabe for his contributions but noting that no further comments regarding his departure will be forthcoming. Sounds scandalous to me, but I’m sure we’ll all have to sift through several days worth of unfounded speculation before anybody has any real answers. Maybe I’m a dumb ass for jeering Mr. Sapolsky in light of the lack of explanation surrounding his departure, and for all I know this may have been an something Gabe wanted, but the ambiguity and the suddenness of the announcement tell me there is much more to the story and it probably isn’t good. Stay tuned.
CHEERS
to Miz & Morrison for making fun of D-X before their match against CM Punk and Kofi Kingston on RAW.
JEERS
to Miz & Morrison for getting squashed by D-X in the near future.
Are you ready…to get jobbed the fuck out?
JEERS
to Death, who claimed the life of legendary wrestling promoter, wrestling wife, and wrestling grandmother, Leah Maivia. She will be missed and sincere condolences to any and all.
*CHEERS* of the week
to comedy gold, which the WWE has struck this year in some unexpected places, and which played a key role in the enjoyment I derived from this week’s slew of shows. First up was RAW, with “Stone Cold” Steve Haastin, who did such a fine job with his impersonation that the crowd didn’t even turn on him when he flubbed a line. That’s called “over”, brother! I don’t know if it will last if he keeps getting squashed, though. Later, we had a conspicuously heat-less, but no less hilarious segment featuring Santino Marella (dressed in equal parts Piper, Goldie, and Honky), Beth Phoenix and later, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, who took exception to Santino poking fun at his generation. The crowd seemed into it by the time Duggan took the guitar shot, but I do hope that the silence was due to the crowd hanging on Santino’s words and not a product of mass apathy.
Lastly, it appears that the WWE has taken me up on my suggestion and turned the Great Khali into a full-time lover, and his Kiss Cam was a definite highlight of Smackdown for me. Some are questioning the logic of allowing one of the top monsters to become a comedy act, but these are mostly the same people who don’t want him stinking up the main event scene and he’s done it all with Hunter and Taker anyway, so it’s win-win from where I sit. And let’s face it…eventually, all three of these guys will either continue to mine laughs in the mid-card, or assume their previous roles should the laughs die down. Santino, Charlie and even Khali are just not cut out to be main event mainstays, so why not let them see how far they can go using the better parts of their personalities? It worked all the time in the Attitude era.
Ladies man!
*JEERS* of the week
to Cybore Sunday’s even more inconsequential than normal offering of “choices” for fans of the most interactive PPV in all the land (though perhaps a lot of horndogs would argue that there are plenty of other “interactive” PPV’s available as well, but that’s neither here nor there). I decided to reserve judgment until the card was finalized, but I can’t believe they are making people pay to choose from a fairly bland assortment of stipulations and surprise opponents after . The Smackdown and ECW title matches make you feel a little like you’re actually helping to determine the events, but the special referee for Y2J/’Tista? Who cares, there’s no way Chris is losing. So it’s basically, pick your moment: “Stone Cold” return pop #438 or Shawn screwing with Jericho for an entire PPV main event. The selections available between the feuds of Undertaker/Big Show and Undertaker’s brother/Rey are downright insulting. You’ve got those two freaks and there’s no ‘inferno’ or ‘buried alive’ options? AND it’s week away from Halloween? For shame! Pick your own tag team match? Cool, I get to pick which match will be on while I go to the bathroom or reload my bong! At least I have the first confrontation between Santino Marella and (theoretical until now) rival The Honky Tonk Man to look forward to. Unless the WWE Universe manages to fuck that up somehow, which wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.
It’s really not such a terrible card and the even itself could certainly turn out to be memorable, but I think people ultimately want a little more interactivity than what’s being offered and there is very little to be on the edge of your seat about. Which bimbo wins the Halloween costume contest or which RAW match would you rather see tonight instead of tomorrow night on RAW? Decisions, decisions.
Don’t forget to vote!
What’s good in the hood or this is what I read on 411 today:
THE ONLY NEWS REPORT FOCUSED SOLELY ON THE BUSINESS OF WRESTLING
MORE FREE PORNO!XXX HARDCORE! GANG BANG STYLE! FILTHY STUFF!!!
That about does it for another week of cheering and jeering. Randle will be by later with the news experience and I’ll be back in a little while myself, filling in for Slimmer with Cyber Sunday’s Instant Backdoor Access, so be sure and check that out as well. In the meantime, take care of yourselves…and each other.
