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12January 2007
13F4W~!#606 - Undertaker wins 2007 Rumble - February 5, 2007
142007-01-31
15The 2007 Royal Rumble was a great show capped off by one of the more memorable Rumble matches in company history.
16
17F4W~!#605 - Bam Bam Bigelow passes away - January 29, 2007
182007-01-23
19Bam Bam Bigelow, one of the big WWE stars of the late 80s and mid-90s, and arguably a bigger name in other territories and promotions around the world, passed away on January 19th of as-yet-unknown causes. He was 45.
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21F4W~!#604 - Couture to challenge Sylvia for UFC Title - January 22, 2007
222007-01-16
23F4W~!#603 - Hunter tears other quad, undergoes surgery - January 15, 2007
242007-01-10
25F4W~!#602 - Chuck beats Tito in biggest UFC fight ever - January 8, 2007
262007-01-03
27
28~~~~~
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32F4W~!#604 - COUTURE TO CHALLENGE SYLVIA FOR UFC TITLE - JANUARY 22, 2007
33BY OBSERVER STAFF | STAFF@WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM | @WONF4W
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35Coming on the heels of Rocky Balboa’s $65 million box office haul, it was officially announced on last week’s Inside the UFC that Hall of Famer Randy Couture, 43, is coming out of retirement, having signed a two-year four-fight deal. His first fight will take place in March against current UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia.
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37Couture is the only man in history to win the UFC Heavyweight Title and then drop down and win the Light Heavyweight belt. He’s got a 14-8 record with six TKOs, two submissions and six decisions. A world class Greco-Roman wrestler (two-time NCAA finalist and three-time Olympic alternate), Couture broke into UFC on May 30, 1997, winning a one-night tournament with victories over Tony Halme (formerly Ludvig Borga in WWE) and Stephen Graham. He won the UFC Heavyweight title in his fourth match in the company, beating Maurice Smith via decision on December 21, 1997. He left the company due to a contractual issue and returned three years later, beating Kevin Randleman for the Heavyweight Title in his first match back. He defended the belt until March 22, 2002 when he lost via TKO in the second round to Josh Barnett. However, Barnett then tested positive for steroids and was stripped of the title. This lead to a decision match on September 27th between Couture and Ricco Rodriguez that Couture lost via TKO.
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39Perhaps the real story of Randy Couture begins in June of 2003. UFC had been trying to put together Light Heavyweight Champion Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell for some time. Tito, however, came up with every excuse under the sun not to take the fight; injuries, movie commitments, etc. Finally, Dana White decided they’d make Chuck the champion one way or another. He announced a match for the UFC Interim Light Heavyweight Title. The idea was that Chuck would win, and then they’d do Chuck vs. Tito to unify the belts, or if Tito never returned Chuck would just be the champion. Couture was basically asked to move down to the 205-pound division to lose (not on purpose, of course) to Chuck.
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41Instead, he won. In an amazing performance, Couture, who had done amateur boxing while in the military and was two weeks shy of turning 40, outclassed Liddell on the feet en route to winning via TKO in 2:30 of round three. Presumably, Tito felt that Couture would be an easier fight than Liddell, because he was suddenly ready to return. They set up the battle for the belts, a unification match between the two. Couture not only won, but in an all-time great UFC moment he actually mocked Tito in the final round by spanking him on the ass. Tito wept profusely afterwards. Couture dropped the belt to Vitor Belfort on a blood stoppage that likely should have been deemed a no-contest (49 seconds into the fight, the leather on Belfort’s glove ripped off Couture’s eyelid, nearly ending his career), but then Couture stomped him in the rematch and won the belt back. He lost the belt back to Chuck on April 16, 2005 (which I attended live), setting up their third and final match on February 4, 2006.
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43This third match was the one that turned UFC around and started the historic 2006 boom. Their coaching of respective teams on season two of the Ultimate Fighter allowed for 12 weeks of TV build, and it culminated in the biggest UFC PPV of all time, a show that drew a record 400,000 buys. Couture, after losing via TKO, announced his retirement, and four months later was inducted into the company Hall of Fame.
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45We mention 400,000 buys, but at the time he announced his retirement nobody could have predicted a number that high. Nor could they have predicted 600,000 a few months later for Gracie vs. Hughes (a domestic number topping WrestleMania), and if you had asked anyone in February if a PPV in December of 2006 headlined by Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell would likely top 900,000, it would have been the source of much comedy.
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47But that’s what happened. And Randy missed out on all of it. He was one half of the main event that turned it all around, and he spent the vast majority of his career working for five figures to show and five figures to win. Since his retirement, main eventers have been making six figure base salaries and seven figures on bonuses alone (Liddell and Ortiz are both looking at likely $2 million each for that one fight).
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49Obviously, Couture is in better shape for his age than most, and never stopped training. In fact, several months back he did a submission grappling match with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, a world champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and even at less than 100% he fought to a draw. He’d been talking about making a comeback for awhile now, but always said it wasn’t a sure thing and he’d like to wait for the right match to come along. Clearly he thinks that Sylvia is a weak heavyweight champion and he can beat him for the belt. Maybe he’s right. Sylvia is weak in many ways, but he’s also got the strength of being ten feet tall with a huge reach and decent takedown defense. It won’t be a walk in the park for Couture. Randy replaces Brandon Vera, who was believed to be next in line for the title shot until he showed up at the Showtime EliteXC press conference and announced that he had one more fight on his UFC contract and would then go to the highest bidder. UFC has not re-signed him and isn’t giving him a title shot in his last contracted fight.
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51The two-year deal also sets up a number of potential dream matches for hardcore fans. Time is working against him, but as noted before, if Mirko Crocop could become the second man to win both the heavyweight and light heavyweight titles, a match-up between the two for either belt, if built up properly, could break records. The problem is, such a scenario requires time, and Couture will be turning 44 soon and will be approaching 46 when this contract expires. The difference between 43 and 45 will be significantly bigger for him than it will be for Crocop, who is only 32 today, and personally, a high kick to the head of a 45 year old man isn’t something I want to see.
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53Regarding the decision to return as a heavyweight, Couture said: “It’s the right opportunity. The people at 205 right now are the same people I was fighting against when I was retired. Chuck and Tito (Ortiz), they’re just not terribly intriguing to me. I want to fight someone else. Basically I fought Chuck three times, nobody really wants to see me fight Chuck again.” He also said life was better for him now than when he retired. “When I retired, I was in the middle of a nasty divorce, had a lot of issues with my family and other people that all kind of revolved around that. So one that was kind of settled and I kind of came out the other side, I started feeling a lot more like myself. As soon as that happened, the competitive juices were still there, they were still flowing.”
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56Angle/Joe feud goes out like a lamb
57The TNA Final Resolution PPV was quite the oxymoron as pretty much nothing was resolved.
58
59The big match on the show for most fans was Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe III. After two four-star-plus encounters, this match was in the ***1/2 range. Part of the problem was that they did a 30-minute Iron Man match where the decision was to have five falls, meaning there was an average of one finish every five minutes. That hardly gave them time to build the match, and while they explained that guys were tapping to submissions faster than usual to avoid injury, after watching two falls in a combined 35 or so minutes over the past two months, seeing one every five minutes was total overkill. Worse, Angle suffered a concussion taking a hard kick to the head and couldn’t remember most of the match afterwards. He told people that Joe basically carried the whole match for him. The finish saw Angle, who was up 3-2, locked in his own ankle lock and tapping out 1 second after the time limit expired. I guess the idea was that it would get both guys over. Instead, you had the winner of the match saved by the bell in a fluke finish and the loser looking like he’d gotten screwed, and this determined the number-one contender to the World Title. Once again, TNA is handicapped by being too nice, always trying to make sure that nobody is booked to look weak, which of course in the end results in nobody actually looking any stronger than anyone else. When you try to make everyone a star, no one is a star. So in the end, what should have been one of the great feuds of the 21st century was burned through in three months and did nothing for business after the first encounter.
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61That was the story of the main event as well, a three-way elimination match with champion Abyss vs. Sting and Christian. Abyss was eliminated first, meaning your champion is the weakest guy in the match. Of course, so as not to hurt Abyss, they had his “friend” Sting sneak up from behind and surprise him for the pin (and then inexplicably offer a handshake, as if to say, “I’m sorry for beating you in an underhanded manner.”). So now you’ve got two guys fighting over a devalued belt, and of course you can’t have one guy actually beat the other clean for it. Instead, Sting had the win but there was no ref as usual, then Abyss hit him from behind with a chain and Christian stole the pin. Between the handling of this belt (this match, plus Sting losing it via DQ last month) and the X-Title (of the five title changes in the last three months, the champion has only been pinned twice), the belts in this company are all pretty much useless. This all leads, of course, to Christian vs. Kurt Angle for the WWE Title. It’s pretty telling when a company that claims to be the alternative to WWE chooses to run the equivalent of a Smackdown brand PPV semi-main event as opposed to, for example, the first-ever Sting vs. Kurt Angle singles match for the title.
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63The show also featured some of the worst angles and booking in years, including: Christy Hemme trying to speak on behalf of all the women in the wrestling business (including “Chyna”); the fat oily guy going from being a spoof on DX in the VKM skits to being just another member of the roster that we’re apparently supposed to accept now; and a wrestler trying to put one over on his opponent by letting his opponent win.
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65Despite the company drawing its most viewers ever for last Thursday’s Impact, judging from feedback this PPV appears to have done in the 25,000 to 30,000 range as usual. Clearly there is a major issue as far as the booking is concerned, because adding hundreds of thousands of free TV viewers and convincing zero of them to actually buy the PPVs is not the fast-track to growth in a company that has yet to make a dime in nearly five years.
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67Comcast update for the week. I not only pre-paid my bill, but I called in advance and asked, “Do I have enough credits to order this PPV?” They said sure, I had 80 credits used and my limit was 250, so I had plenty. “GREAT!” I said. And then, at 4:59, the little screen came up saying I did not have enough credits to order. So I had to call back. Luckily, it’s TNA which no one buys and so I got right through and only missed the first 3 minutes of the show. Still, this is well past the point of absurdity.
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691. AJ Styles vs. Rhino in a last man standing match. The way this match worked was that you had to pin or make your opponent submit, and then if they didn’t get up within 10 seconds they lost. There’s nothing like submitting to an armbar and being unable to get to your feet within ten seconds. They botched a spot early on, but otherwise as good as you’d think. AJ took his wrist tape off and strangled Rhino with it. Apparently there are no DQs in a last man standing match, which could result in some wacky booking ideas. Can you pin your opponent and then have a bunch of Egyptian slaves come out with a 2-ton block from the Great Pyramid and put it on top of your opponent so that he can’t get up? Is there a weight limit to the gimmicks that can be used in this match? I was alerted the next day that Chris Jericho had, in fact, put a heavy object on Kane in order to win a last man standing match years back. Rhino pinned him with a spinebuster. AJ was up by eight. I should hope he’s up by eight after a spinebuster. On the bright side, Rhino did not tear a quad. AJ hit a sunset flip powerbomb but Rhino kicked out. Why not just stay down for the pin and then get up at 2 or something? Do you lose points for being pinned? Rhino got crotched on a table and AJ hit a springboard forearm. Rhino kicked out. AJ went for a springboard and Rhino shoved the ropes, causing AJ to gut himself on the top rope. AJ was on Observer Live an hour later and said it felt like his stomach went out his ass. Well, that’s not good. Rhino immediately powerbombed him to death for NOT THE PIN. Rhino finally gored him twice, the second of which flipped him completely over, and got the pin. AJ was bleeding from the nose. Ref Earl Hebner began giving him the ten count. Rhino was waiting for him to get up so he could gore him. AJ saw this, didn’t want to get gored, and just sat down and lost. Somehow, his losing the match was supposed to screw Rhino. Welcome to TNA. So afterwards, Rhino vowed to kill him before the night was over. Well, the wrestling was good. (**3/4)
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71They cut to the announcers and Don West was wearing the suit and tie to end all suit and ties, an absurd red and white striped monstrosity. Suddenly, Rhino came out again with AJ. I guess Rhino outran him. He gave him a piledriver on the ramp and then prepared to gore AJ through a table on the ramp. AJ sidestepped him and Rhino went through it, so basically in the end both guys looked like fools.
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73Latisha interviewed Jerry Lynn. He was upset that she called him a pioneer. Apparently he felt that this meant he was old. I could have sworn he always called himself a pioneer. He threatened to HUMBLE both young punks. He said wrestling 101 was about to begin and when the night was over they’d both be calling him “teacher”. Sounds old to me.
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752. Chris Daniels vs. Chris Sabin vs. Jerry Lynn for the X-Title. Since Vince Russo only knows one finish to any three-way encounter, we’re guaranteed a title change when someone steals the pin on the guy who’s not champion. Lynn, who doesn’t want people to think he’s old, has a shaved undercut. He was in great shape for a 43-year-old. They were plugging TNA Mobile. For 99 cents, you can tell TNA who you think will win Angle vs. Joe. Not a lot of heat early. Your basic three-way where one dude gets sent outside and the other two dudes do some spots, then everyone switches places. Lynn finally made a big comeback on both guys. Announcers spent the entire match talking about how he didn’t like 43. I guess this is fine, but it’s pretty funny that Lynn wrestling is a big comeback story and a testament to old-timers, meanwhile Kip James, who is supposed to be young and hip, is the same age. Lynn hit Sabin with a big powerbomb but Daniels broke it up. Match was pretty vanilla up to this point. Lynn stole Fit Finlay’s Celtic cross for a nearfall on Daniels. He then hit him with the cradle piledriver, but then Sabin rolled him up and grabbed the tights for the pin. (**3/4)
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77Nash did a promo with his head judge Bob Backlund. This was the same Bob Backlund from about 1994, with the white shirt, red suspenders and red bow-tie. He looked like he had no idea what in the hell was going on. This was so fantastically horrible that it was funny.
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79Nash came out to host the PCS finals. They had a TROFEO. It was a bowling trophy. Nash looked like he was drunk or something. Or he was still aghast about the promo he’d just done with Backlund. They introduced the judges. First guy was a skinny fat guy called Samolian Joe. Second guy was, and I quote, “Big Fat Oily Guy”. Third guy was Backlund, who got a good ovation.
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813. Alex Shelley vs. Austin Starr in a TEN MINUTE TIME LIMIT MATCH. TNA noted that Backlund had won the WWF Title from Bret Hart at Survivor Series over a decade ago and then lost it a few days later to Nash. The funniest thing was the commentary by Nash. He was talking about how huge and memorable his match with Backlund was. He claimed it was an hour long. Tenay said try eight seconds. “It was longer than that,” Nash said. “It felt like an hour.” Backlund was watching intently and taking notes. Starr threw the most awesome tornillo dive you ever saw. He actually started doing a plancha, and then at the peak of the dive did a super fast full twist. It was unreal. Hopefully Backlund gave him points for that one. Shelley wiped him out with a scary tope, then walked over and wrote a note on Backlund’s pad. Starr spit water into his face. “HE CAUGHT HIM PERFECTLY!” Don proclaimed. How do you perfectly hit a foe with a fountain of water? They didn’t bother putting a clock up on the screen, by the way. Shelley had a bloody nose. Shelley hit an awesome springboard DDT but Starr kicked out. Finally the clock appeared. One minute left. Starr put him in the CAMEL CLUTCH with 20 seconds left. What a shitty way to try to win points with Backlund. Time limit expired. Crowd chanted “ALEX SHELLEY!” as Borash collected the decisions. “Sounds like the crowd is split on this themselves,” Nash said. Samolian Joe voted Starr. Fat Oily Guy voted Shelley. Backlund hit the ring, since he had the deciding vote. Bob said he’d broken things down. For conditioning: Austin Starr 92, Alex Shelley 95. For takedowns, Starr 82, Shelley 95. “What does it all mean?” Nash asked. Backlund was now ranting and raving and throwing out sentences that made no sense. Somewhere in here, “Alex Shelton” got an 85! Finally, his verdict was that this was a tie. Someone needs to book the Iron Sheik vs. Bob Backlund rematch for 2007 and build it up with six months of promos on TV. So Nash finally ruled that both guys would have five more minutes. Shelley won in like 30 seconds with a super wacky cradle and the place went nuts. All the PCS guys came out afterwards and gave him his trophy. Austin was devastated. He finally snapped and went nuts and Nash just shoved him away like a fly. He finally cut a promo saying he’d had it up to here with this crap. He said he didn’t come here to play stupid wacky games or get Nash over. He said the only person in the ring he respected was Senshi, the Warrior. “So let’s go, Senshi!” Senshi just stared at him. Now Starr was irate. He slapped Senshi across the face and they got into a huge brawl. With Nash in there this was like a fight on the playground. For a fight on the playground it worked. Afterwards, Starr went outside and was jawjacking with all the judges, and finally Backlund grabbed him and put him in the crossface chickenwing. Place went nuts, but I have no idea how that was supposed to get Starr over. They INSTANTLY cut away, of course.
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834. James Storm vs. Petey Williams. Funniest heat ever. Petey went for a pescado, but Storm pushed him in mid-air and Petey pescado’d himself right into the apron. Nothing gets a babyface over like getting the heat on him because he did something stupid. Crowd chanted “KILL THE COWBOY!” Actually, about thirty people chanted this and everyone else just sat there. Vinny was trying to explain to me why this match was taking place. He claimed that Petey was mad because Storm turned on his partner. “Why the fuck would he care?” I asked. “Because it’s the wrong thing to do,” he said. What a troublemaker that Petey turned out to be. The other story to this match was that Gail had the opportunity to attack Petey behind the ref’s back but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’s REFORMED. Petey made his big comeback and went for the Canadian destroyer. Storm cut him off and hit a reverse DDT. Storm as a singles wrestler pretty much just exists. He’s not horrible, he’s not really that good, he’s just there. He missed the superkick and went for the catatonic. Petey slipped out and went for the piledriver, but Storm swept his legs, covered him and grabbed the ropes for the pin. Petey claimed Storm used the ropes afterwards and the ref polled the crowd. I guess the crowd was wishy-washy because nothing became of this. Storm attacked Petey and handcuffed him to the ropes. He went for the beer bottle but Gail stopped him. Storm went mad and GOOZLED HER, so she gave him a low blow and WENT ALL APE-SHIT ON HIM. Crowd actually went nuts for this. She grabbed the beer bottle and was about to whallop him when JACQUELINE’S BREASTS FROM WWE made the save. Yes, that Jacqueline. She destroyed Gail and gave her the death sentence afterwards. Looked like she crushed her with it too. So it looks like we’ll have Harris & Gail vs. Storm & Jacqueline. (*1/2)
84
85VKM came out. Oh, here we go. BG said that they had won this feud with WWE, and so they were going to have a victory party tonight. He said they’d done it all. They’d spent the night on the front porch of Titan Towers. He said they ambushed a house show and what did they do, not a damn thing. And then BG James said: “On a side note though, Paul, nobody likes to see one of our boys go down, heal your wheel, bro!” And the fans applauded. Jesus Christ. DO YOU HATE THEM OR NOT? And finally they went to the Alamo and Shawn wasn’t there. Yeah, no shit, he was with the guy who went down. He said they were COWARDS and they were STUPID because they didn’t accept the challenge and lost out on ratings and a million dollars. BUT GET WELL! He said no matter how much they paid John Cena, “He still did a job for that rapping piece of crap” Kevin Federline. He buried the Trump vs. Rosie skit on Monday night. Crowd chanted “TNA!” BG said their war with WWE may be over, but he was still upset about the war that was being waged by WWE against wrestling fans. No one likes to see their intelligence insulted, he said. Now he was burying Raw. Yes, Raw. Not ECW or Smackdown, Raw. He told the fans to scream “WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT!” They screamed it and then began a rabid “TNA!” chant. BUT GET WELL PAUL. BG said there was a new sheriff in town, and its name was TNA. And then suddenly, out came Christy Hemme. She said she didn’t mean to interrupt, she just had something she needed to say, even if she got fired for it. She was all choked up. She said she’d been watching them for three months talking about how they were the foundation of DX. She said they kept talking about how Shawn and DX were the foundation in the WWE, but they kept leaving out one name. Oh Christ. “What about Joanie Lauer?” she said. “What about Chyna?” Everyone was booing now. “Why is she just a blip in the foundation of DX? Because she’s just a woman in a man’s world?” VKM was flabbergasted. “Why do we have to feel like we have to run from this business? Because we’re disposable?” Now she was ranting about Gail and SoCal Val, who no one outside the Impact Zone live knows. Crowd was so sad they chanted “SHOW YOUR TITS!” She said she was not disposable and would continue to fight every day for her right to get into the ring and wrestle. “And why? Because I love it. I love it that much!” I’m laughing my ass off. “WE WANT WRESTLING!” crowd chanted. She said: “I DO TOO!” She said if this was the last time she was in the ring, it was worth it. Oh yes. “Women deserve respect!” Crowd was loudly chanting “BORING!” She was about to leave when BG told her to please get back in the ring. BG said they all loved this business, but half the things she was saying simply weren’t true. There was plenty of room for everyone he said. Kip finally grabbed the mic and said he couldn’t handle any more bullshit. “Let me tell you something you little slut!” He told her to go back to the strip club she got fired from and never EVER interrupt him again. “Girls are good for two things!” he said. The place was going nuts. He did a crotch chop and BG grabbed the mic from him. She turned red and screamed yes, they were good for two things: “Our bodies, and putting men back in line when they step out!” She slapped him across the face. Kip went nuts and went after her but BG made the save. She bailed up the ramp. Worst shit ever. And for what? To build up KIP JAMES VS. CHRISTY HEMME?
86
875. LAX vs. Team 3-D for the NWA Tag Team Titles. I still can’t get over that last segment I just saw. Holy fuck. Bubba had cut a promo before this match talking about young guys that had never been anywhere or done anything. I guess he’s a grizzled Hall of Fame veteran. He was out here working in a t-shirt and jeans, the most indyrrific outfit there is. In fact, I can’t even say that because most indy guys nowadays if they don’t have gear at least wear athletic attire and kickpads. Apparently there has been heat between Bubba and Hernandez. I don’t know the specifics but I know that Bubba has a reputation for working stiff with younger guys. They tagged in together early, did some jaw-jacking and spit at each other, but then Homicide tagged in. Heat on D-Von. And then suddenly D-Von was making a comeback. What the hell is going on? The best part was when he hit the ropes 1 foot away from his partner and didn’t make a tag. D-Von finally ended up near his corner and just sort of tagged Hernandez. This was the worst “hot tag” of the year. Broke down into a four-way. They hit Homicide with the 3-D and tossed Hernandez outside. Suddenly, out came Runt. He was “drunk” and in his Santa outfit. He did a splash on Homicide and the ref called for the DQ. Dudleys worked this match like they couldn’t have given a fuck less. (1/2*)
88
89Samoa Joe cut a great promo about how he was going to kill Angle tonight and then win a shot at the NWA World Title. “Kurt Angle, I promise you this — you will be broken.”
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916. Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe in 30-minute Iron Man Match. This match went into the ring at 9:55 and there was still a World Title match to go. Because of the time issues they drastically cut down the ring intros. We spent the first few minutes trying to figure out who the mystery woman was that was with Joe a few weeks back. Tradition will say 1,000 years from now that this girl was Samoa Joe’s girlfriend. But we don’t know that for sure because TNA never officially identified her. She was just a GIRL and she was THERE WITH JOE. It’s like Mary Magdalene. So we have therefore determined that this girl with Joe was, in fact, a prostitute. It makes sense. I mean, seriously, who would bring their girlfriend to a wrestling event? Only a fool. And that would explain his being so upset with Angle for putting her in an ankle lock. If you’re paying $300 an hour for a girl, a trip to the hospital is really going to do a number on the pocketbook. First ten minutes of this match were solid but unspectacular. There was likely concern that Joe, coming off an ankle injury, might not have the cardio to go a rapid 30. Which of course begs the question why it was booked. The answer is because NO ONE THINKS. Joe did a tope and hit his EYE BALL on the metal leg of the barricade. If he doesn’t have a broken orbital bone he’s the luckiest guy on the planet. He seemed to be fine. Joe got the choke and Angle tapped with 17:06 left. The story was that Angle knew he had to tap so he could save himself for the rest of the match. He went for another choke but Angle slipped down into the ankle lock and Joe tapped at 13:58 to “save his leg”. Crowd was chanting “YOU TAPPED OUT!” every time someone submitted. Loud dueling “LET’S GO JOE!” and “LET’S GO ANGLE!” chants. They killed the chants by botching up a cradle spot. Angle put on another ankle lock and Joe tapped at 11:05. Dueling chants started up again. Joe was selling the leg like a mother. Less than 10 minutes left. Joe hit the muscle buster with 7:40 left, so now it’s a tie. Crowd chanted “JOE IS GONNA KILL YOU!” Angle clipped his leg running the ropes and then scissored his leg with the ankle lock. Joe kicked his way free. Angle came off the top and Joe caught him in mid-air and went for a German. Angle rolled forward into a cradle and got the pin. The one thing I hate about these matches is that we see Angle and Joe wrestle for 13 minutes and 20 minutes and in that entire period there are only two finishes, and now here we are 25 minutes into a match and we’ve had FIVE pins or submissions. So basically, there was a finish every five minutes. Joe hit another muscle buster with 1:35 left, but Angle got his foot on the ropes. We’re not going to have another draw tonight. With a minute left it was time to trade ankle lock and choke attempts. Joe fighting for the choke MMA style while Angle curled up in a ball was the best part of the match. Joe put him in the ankle lock and scissored the leg with 30 seconds left. Angle held on and then tapped at 30:01. It was one second over, though, so Angle won and also got the title shot against the winner of the main event. (***1/2)
92
93Sting cut a promo and mentioned “CHRIS”. I love that. Jim Mitchell walked up for more of the whacky soap opera bullshit that nobody on Earth could possibly care about. He said the END TIMES were coming tonight. Sting goozled him and basically threatened to KILL HIM later.
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957. Abyss vs. Sting vs. Christian for the NWA Title. Tomko was locked in a cage at ringside. You know, the one that was RESERVED. Apparently this is an elimination match. Very little heat. Tomko, in the cage, reached through the bars and was choking Sting. This distracted the ref. In the ring, Abyss hit the black hole slam, but no ref. Typical overbooked main event TNA bullshit. I sit here every week and just ask myself, “WHO BUYS THESE PPVS?” Sting ended up sneaking up on Abyss and pinning him with the Scorpion death drop. So yes, the champion is out of the match and we’re guaranteed a new champ. Sting tried to apologize to the monster afterwards but the monster would have none of it. He goozled Sting as Mitchell screamed to kill him. But then the monster just let go and walked to the back. What a shitty title reign that was. Christian worked over Sting for awhile, then Sting made his big comeback and ran wild. I love how Sting will just stop selling every now and then after getting kicked in the face and such, but then he misses a splash and bonks into the padded buckle and he’s DONE FOR. Mitchell came back out. He was there, Tenay said, “to survey the situation”. Sting put on the Scorpion but then Mitchell hit the dude with the key and set Tomko free. Mitchell took the ref and Tomko clubbered Sting. Christian made the cover but Sting kicked out. Abyss ran down to attack Tomko. Question. Since the title can change on a DQ, if Tomko hits the ring and both guys get DQ’d, who gets the belt? Will Abyss get it back? If so, why not have Abyss interfere? Sting hit the unprettier on Christian for a hot nearfall. Ref took a bump. What next? Sting put the Scorpion on Mitchell. Abyss clonked Sting with the chain. Crowd chanted the Abyss song. Christian then splashed Sting and got the pin and the title. As he was celebrating, a giant graphic appeared on the screen for 0.5 seconds in M*A*S*H lettering that read: “GOOD NIGHT FROM TNA WRESTLING FINAL RESOLUTION”. I have NO idea what this was but it caused me to laugh like a moron. (*)
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123
124WWE
125Rumble participants so far: Shelton, Benoit, Carlito, Dykstra, Edge, Finlay, Flair, Chavo, Jeff and Matt Hardy, Hardcore Holly, Kane, Booker, Masters, Michaels, Miz, Nitro, Orton, MVP, Punk, Sabu, Sandman, Undertaker, RVD, and Viscera. Still five more names to be announced. Hunter was going to be in there and might have even won (Hunter vs. Cena was one of the planned matches for WrestleMania), so Undertaker is probably the favorite now (Batista vs. Taker title vs. streak looks to be the Smackdown main event).
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127Hogan was on Bubba the Love Sponge this week and got a call from Ann Russo, Johnny Ace’s secretary (not Vince’s as has been reported). She didn’t know she was on the air and asked Hogan to pick ten names from a list of WWE Hall of Fame candidates. The list consisted of the Von Erich Family, Ultimate Warrior, Original Sheik, Ric Flair, Curtis Iaukea, Ken Patera, Howard Finkle, Ted DiBiase, Jake the Snake, Mr. Fuji, Nick Bockwinkel, Muhammad Ali and Mr. T (well, Pete Rose is in), Rick Rude, Bushwhackers, Rocky Johnson, Brooklyn Brawler (swear to God), Dusty Rhodes, Macho Man (yup, on the list), Honky Tonk Man, Dick Ebersol (seriously), Wild Samoans, Big Bossman and Bob Backlund. This was a giant story for about half a day because the list was 100 percent legit, Russo really had no idea she was live on the air, and when Vince found out he was positively irate. It was one of his usual blowups where he insisted he would NEVER use Hogan again, they were DONE, blah blah blah. Later, he calmed down, mostly after getting word that Hogan was drunk when the segment occurred. When Ann found out what had happened she was so upset that she started crying and almost quit the company. Hogan’s picks, by the way, were Bossman, Iaukea, Dusty, Savage, Samoans, Von Erichs, Rude, Bushwhackers and Finkle.
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129Speaking of Hogan, there really has been talk of doing Hogan vs. Great Khali at WrestleMania. Khali would basically be replacing Big Show, who will not be at Mania. We’ve had another source in WWE confirm what we wrote last week, which is that Show is about as close to being done as a person can be in this business where nobody ever retires. No word on how he’s doing, but usually when folks go off the road they either gain or lose a ton of weight, and with his eating and exercise habits it’s more likely, unfortunately, that he’s gaining weight. I’d always heard his wife was a good cook, but apparently Show is a hell of a cook as well (he makes a mean pot of chili), and I guess that shouldn’t be surprising when you think about it. Basically, WWE has approached Hogan with two matches, one being against Khali and the other being against, seriously, SHANE MCMAHON. They’re waiting to hear back from Hogan.
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131As horrible as the Trump/Rosie deal was, I continue to find positives in it. For example, this week they got some press, including on TMZ.com, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight. The good news about this is that they didn’t get press the next day; people seemed to hear about it later in the week, and at that point they’re only HEARD about it and maybe seen a clip or two. Therefore, instead of just utterly burying it, mention was made, a cackle or two was heard, and life moved on. So basically, WWE got some publicity out of the deal and it wasn’t horribly negative publicity, which is one benefit of being cold enough that the mainstream doesn’t hear about what you do until days after you’ve done it.
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133TMZ, I should note, filed it under “WACKY AND WEIRD”. I can think of no more perfect category.
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135Howard Stern spent about two minutes talking about it last week. They had a clip of Rosie backstage with Vince and then when she was being called down to the ring, and he lost interest both times and basically asked how anyone could possibly watch this stuff. He was alerted that during the skits, the WWE fans were chanting that they wanted wrestling.
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137Trump just happened to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the day we went to press. He did not mention Vince McMahon in his speech, but did bury Rosie.
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139There was an issue with Sky in the UK and WWE after WWE didn’t edit out footage of guys brawling on a barbed-wire board from the opening of the TV show that was scheduled to air at 7:00 AM. What saved the company and Sky from major issues from Ofcom (the arguably fascist OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS) is that they aired the “Please don’t try this at home” deal, and Ofcom concluded, amazingly, that “people generally understand that violence in wrestling is not real violence”. Sky determined that the show will not be able to air again prior to 9:00 PM because it would require too much editing.
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141Raw did a 3.7 Monday going head-to-head with the college football finals last week. This will be the first week without football competition, so the number should be up a bit from this point on. ECW did a 1.4 rating, down from a 1.6 the previous week. It’s a question we’ve been asking a lot lately, but we’ll ask it again here: Why would anyone watch that show? This is the lowest number they’ve ever drawn in their usual timeslot, so I guess that should answer that question a bit.
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143Sylvan Grenier was arrested for speeding last week. He was late for the Smackdown tapings at the Peoria Civic Center and was driving 96 in a 55. The article I read didn’t specify, but I strongly suspect that 40 miles over the speed limit would be cited as reckless driving. This theory is backed up by his being incarcerated with a $200 bond. An unnamed WWE co-worker had to drive out there and pay his bail at about 4:30 PM, two hours before the show was scheduled to start. Not sure if he was booked on the show, but if he was they pulled him as he didn’t work. He’ll also have to return to Peoria to attend a court date.
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145WWE has a new DX DVD coming out in February which is three discs’ worth of stuff from 2006 alone. That means basically every match and angle they were involved in through all of last year.
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147WWE will be doing auditions for season II of Who Wants To Be A Superhero during the Fan Axxess tour. It basically will run through March 10th and 11th at the Dulles Town Center in Washington, DC.
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149Tank Toland is now working as the trainer of the amateur (goof) class at OVW.
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151The final draft of Chris Jericho’s book, A Lion’s Tale, is done and headed to publishers. Release date is October. I believe it mostly covers the first several years of his career.
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153Stanley Shenker, 61, admitted Friday to participating in a $1 million kickback scheme with former WWE Senior Vice President James Bell. According to an AP article, “Shenker was the sole corporate officer of Stanley Shenker and Associates, Inc., which provided licensing services to WWE. He admitted that he agreed with James Bell, WWE’ senior vice president of licensing and merchandising, to defraud WWE by paying kickbacks to Bell for future business, and then concealing the secret payments from WWE. During the conspiracy from 1998 to 2002, Shenker secretly paid Bell about $950,000, a fraction of commissions Shenker received from WWE. Shenker and Bell disguised the payments by falsely suggesting in invoices that Bell had earned the payments by providing consulting services, prosecutors said. With the fake invoices, Shenker was able to deduct the payments on his tax returns as purported business expenses, authorities said.” Shenker faces up to five years in prison and $4 million in fines. He will be sentenced in April. Bell already plead guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
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155Kane’s movie is up to $14.78 million in rentals.
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157Austin should be returning to WWE TV at any time, both to help promote Condemned, which comes out this spring, and also because he will be playing some sort of role at WrestleMania (almost certainly not in-ring).
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159Cyber Sunday buyrate is coming in at 235,000 buys, which would be about 141,000 domestic. In other words, my prediction of about 130,000 domestic for the ECW PPV may end up being very close to accurate. Due to improved PPV reporting techniques (finally, in 2007), these numbers are very close to final.
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162UFC
163Tim Sylvia on Randy Couture: “Chuck [Liddell] and I are a lot alike. I believe I’ll knock him out.” Well, they do both have Mohawks. I cannot WAIT to see the hype special on this one.
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165UFC actually got a front page story in the LA Times on January 14th, the first of a two-parter (I only saw part one, sadly). The article, by Scott Gold, was largely accurate, though it did claim that weight divisions and “professional judges” came along after Zuffa bought the company. This part was intriguing: “Before a recent fight, White hopped into a trailer used as the editing bay for that night’s pay-per-view broadcast. At a computer, White reviewed fighter interviews that were being used as a pre-fight television segment _ a critical portion of the broadcast because it plays up the soap opera between fighters and keeps the audience hooked. White demanded to know why one fighter was not talking enough trash about his opponent. ‘We’ve tried,’ director Anthony Giordano told him. ‘He won’t.’ ‘It’s weak,’ White told him. ‘Fix it.’” A young Vince McMahon, that Dana. It mentioned nine fighters had failed drug tests since 2002, including two of the sixteen that fought at the last Pride show (Pawel Nastula and Vitor Belfort), “and a third was alleged to have submitted a urine sample that did not contain human hormones — meaning, officials said, that it was lifted either from an animal or a dead person.” Well, that doesn’t sound good. This was Kevin Randleman, by the way. It revealed that after the free Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock fight on Spike TV, White wrote both guys a check for $2 million (basically, without any PPV revenue to get a cut of, they’d have otherwise been fighting for a combined $310,000, which wasn’t about to happen). It was noted that UFC lost $44 million before things took off. Fascinating. Consider this. Zuffa bought UFC in 2001. TNA started in 2002. Both had no TV and ran PPVs that nobody bought. TNA had lost about $35 million by 2005. UFC had lost $44 million. Then they both ended up on Spike TV. UFC made hundreds of millions of dollars last year. TNA lost another $10 million or so. Basically, one group made the most of what they got and the other did not.
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167UFC finally scored a major video game deal, announcing Monday that they’d signed a five-year deal with THQ. This was a major topic of conversation in WWE Monday. THQ also does the WWE video games, though the two sides have been involved in a number of legal battles over the past few years. The most recent came about in October of 2006 when WWE filed suit claiming improper sales of video game titles in Asia. THQ, of course, claims these allegations are without merit. WWE has also filed a complaint a few years earlier alleging bribery and racketeering. The UFC deal gives THQ “the rights to create videogames for all current and next-generation consoles, PC and handheld platforms, in addition to certain wireless rights. Rights also include online, downloadable and multi-player capabilities in connection with the various gaming systems”. UFC’s MMA operations were far more successful for their company than WWE’s wrestling operations in 2006, but WWE did just fine due to the success of all their ancillary products, such as video games, DVDs, books, etc. If UFC can follow that business model, they could easily leave 2007 the top sports entertainment company on the planet.
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169Tickets for UFC 68 on March 3rd at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, OH went on sale this week. This is the show headlined by Sylvia vs. Couture for the UFC Title. Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes are also scheduled to fight. According to the company press release, the show will be $39.95 for standard definition and $49.95 for HD. That fascinates me, because that’s a hell of a way to add $10 to a price tag with very little added expense, and I think people will pay it.
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172TNA
173Konnan had his hip surgery on January 11th in Monterrey. He told El Norte: “I am excellent, I feel very well, the operation was a success. The service that they gave me here, the treatment was excellent, first-class doctor care and they say me that in from four to six months the hip should be just like new.” He said he’d still have to undergo dialysis to prepare him for a kidney transplant operation somewhere down the road. His mother will donate her kidney if the blood type matches and she’s healthy enough for the operation. He was listed in stable condition and will be able to return home this coming Wednesday. Rey Misterio Jr. flew down and visited him after the operation.
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175Impact did a 1.13 rating last Thursday with an 0.93 in males 18-49, an 0.96 in males 18-34, an 0.92 in males 25-34, and an average audience of 1.5 million viewers. This is the largest audience in the history of the show. It was the number two show that hour in males 18-49 and males 18-34. Inside the UFC with the big Randy Couture announcement did an 0.42 with an 0.64 in males 18-49, an 0.84 in males 18-34, and an 0.88 in males 25-34. Show did 490,000 viewers.
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177Very strong chance that when Raw is pre-empted for the Westminster Dog Show in early February, TNA will get the two-hour 9-11 slot on Spike TV. This has been discussed internally at Spike for at least the past two weeks. Personally, I can see zero downside to it, and if nothing else it will give everyone in the company an idea of where they really stand.
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179It should be noted, though, that regarding rumors that Spike is higher on TNA than UFC these days, the Impact show next Thursday is being pre-empted to Wednesday because UFC has Ultimate Fight Night Thursday night.
180
181New Japan announced that Kurt Angle would be working the February 18th Sumo Hall show. The appearance was booked through TNA. No opponent has been listed yet but names thrown out include Yuji Nagata (who has an amateur background) and Manabu Nakanishi (who is big). The company had been trying to get him in the for the Tokyo Dome show on January 4th.
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183Hermie Sadler’s UWF, which is no longer officially associated with TNA but uses a lot of TNA talent, is running February 2nd at the Bill Ellis Convention Center in Wilson, NC and February 3rd at Hanover Hall on the campus of UNC-Wilmington. Among the matches are Team 3-D vs. The Steiner Brothers, which a few years back would have been a pretty big deal. Steve Corino, Jerry Lynn, Brother Runt, The Diamonds in the Rough, D-Lo Brown, Bull Buchanan, and Maven are also scheduled to work the show. Last I heard Maven was hosting some kind of show on BET and not doing much wrestling.
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185TNA signed a new mobile deal with New Motion to provide exclusive content including wallpapers, ringtones and alerts. It’s similar to the WWE mobile service. We tried one for a few months and it was a spectacular failure. I guess if have the capacity to advertise it to hundreds of thousands or even a million hardcores, it’s worth the trouble. They were already doing polls on the PPV, asking fans to spend 99 cents to vote on who they thought would win the main event. It flabbergasts me that people participate, but at the same time, especially Sunday night, it flabbergasts me that people buy these PPVs.
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187Don’t think nobody noticed that Team 3-D was told they weren’t getting the belts at the PPV and then had a match where it looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world. Harris and Storm used to have this reputation as well, of half-assing it and looking sad when they were told they had to LOSE A FAKE MATCH.
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189Notes from a Nash interview last week on James Guttman’s radio show. He said he was currently recovering from a shoulder operation and was doing better. He said the skits they were doing were very loosely scripted so that the guys were free to be themselves, or at least be the way they wanted to be portrayed by the company. He said the WWE scripts on his last run were too stifling. He said some guys needed that but others did not, and heavy scripting should be ton on a case-by-case basis. Nash said the tough part of the business was learning the psychology, and it was harder now than it was back in the day because guys used to work 300 DAYS A YEAR, and now they got to work maybe 10% of that. He noted that the world moves on and that some people in wrestling don’t realize that. He said he’d never try to recreate the NWO because it was 2007, a different era. Same with the girls. He said if he wanted to see hot girls, there were plenty of places he could go for that. He has a point there as the WWE ratings during women’s segments over the past year has made abundantly clear. Nobody gives a shit about hot girls in wrestling anymore. It was one thing in 1996 when the Internet was just getting started and access to photos and videos of hot girls wasn’t five seconds away for anyone with the capacity to type. Not to mention the fact that you only had two girls, Sunny and Sable, unlike today where there are so many girls in so many horrible segments that they all blur together. Nash said the biggest problem with DX was that they were babyfaces. “Like if Scott and I were to do the NWO right now, it would work because we’d be acting like we were 30 but we’re like older 40 guys. Now we’re like the drunk dad at the birthday party. It’s like, “Aw, Dad. Stop.’ It works because you get heat off of that because you think you’re young, hip, and cool, but you’re not.” He said Jay Strongbow was the one who told him and Hall: “In this business, you can make friends or make money.” He said you had to separate business from personal, and that you had to be selfish. He said it drove him nuts that people called it “the business”, but then when someone treated it like a business they were vilified. I think the problem is when people are so selfish that it negatively impacts the whole business. Steve Austin made a lot of demands when he was on top and sometimes acted in what would be described as a selfish manner, but his demands ultimately ended up being not only good for himself, but good for the business in general. Hogan made a lot of demands, and until he wore out his welcome in WCW those demands were the best for him and helped shoot business through the roof. The problem is when people are so selfish that they help themselves short-term, but also destroy the company they’re working for and in the end everyone — including themselves — is out of a job. Those people deserve to be vilified. Nash said if he left his home and family for a few days, he expected to be paid well. Like on movie sets, he said, you’re treated like the King of France. I guess that means they put a powdered wig on you while you sit around, since France hasn’t had a king since the 19th century. They asked him about a dream match, and I guess he was still on the subject of France as he suggested Andre the Giant. Funny guy, that Nash.
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191
192Lucha
193Perro Aguayo Jr. and Hector Garza returned to CMLL on Friday night January 12th at Arena Mexico. Show drew 12,000 fans, and one reporter when trying to get out of the building passed by a merchandise stand and said it was so packed with kids that he couldn’t even see the front counter. Main event was Aguayo Jr. & Garza & Mr. Aguila beating Heavy Metal & Rey Bucanero & Dr. Wagner Jr. when Perro pinned Wagner after a foul behind the ref’s back. The guys were so popular and the place was going so crazy that they could do a highspot and then milk it for 30 seconds before moving on to the next one. Perro actually stopped the match at one point after Garza did a cool move, grabbed a camera from a ringside photographer (relatively politely, unlike Kid Kash) and started snapping pictures. A tecnico fan who was not down with these hijinx got upset and threw a bottle at them. It didn’t hit anyone, and security, which is usually not on top of things, actually found the guy and ejected him rapidly. Los Perros destroyed and unmasked Wagner afterwards. Semi-main, which also had super heat, was Alex Koslov & Sangre Azteca & Ultimo Guerrero beating Volador Jr. & La Mascara & Shocker after Guerrero took off his own mask and threw it at Shocker, and when the ref saw Shocker standing there with it he DQ’d him. Only problem was that the timing was off, so Shocker had to stand there with the mask in his hands like an idiot waiting for the ref to turn around. Shocker’s teammates were screaming at him afterwards for unmasking Guerrero, and right then the replay was showing on the big screen, so Shocker pointed out to them what really happened and all was forgiven. Guerrero, being the super rudo, also destroyed Midget Blue Monkey during the match and the doctors had to take him away.
194
195There is a Lucha Libre VIP show at Mexico City’s Salon 21 on January 20th with Dos Caras Jr. & Hijo del Lizmark vs. Kenzo Suzuki & Marco Corleone on top, and Super Muneco vs. Coco Rojo in the semi-main. They’re trying to get 1150 pesos for ringside, which is about $115. I guess if you can get it, why not?.
196
197Solar I is working on a movie in Mexico called Las Calles Sin Nombre.
198
199Last week’s CMLL show at Arena Coliseo was headlined by Shocker & Heavy Metal & Hijo del Lizmark beating Ultimo Guerrero & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 when Guerrero unmasked Lizmark right in front of the referee. Semi-main was Felino & Satanico & Virus beating Okumura & Pierroth Jr. & Hijo del Canek when Pierroth fouled Satanico right in front of the referee for the DQ. Some really shitty finishes here. The big story is that the show drew only 1,500 fans, which is about a quarter of the house.
200
201Arena Coliseo TV taping on January 14th before a claimed sellout of 5,500 was a show for the ages. Get this finish of the semi-main. It was Mictlan & Lizmark Sr. & Satanico vs. Emilio Charles Jr. & Pierroth Jr. & Okumura. Someone is on a fuck finish kick as both the first AND second falls ended via double-countout, the first time this has happened in the 73 year history of CMLL, and perhaps the first time ever in the history of lucha. It gets better. After two fuck finishes, in fall three Pierroth Jr. faked a foul. The referees determined that he was, in fact, faking it, and DISQUALIFIED HIM FOR LYING. I can’t remember a match ending like that since about five years ago at the peak of Los Infernales when it happened to Satanico. Main was Mistico & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Volador Jr. beating Averno & Mephisto & Universo 2000. Mistico challenged Averno for his CMLL Middleweight Title afterwards.
202
203Nicho may be returning to AAA full-time, or he may not. There were rumors that he was looking in that direction earlier this week, but then he did another interview and said that he was hoping to reunite with Damian and Halloween in CMLL. May have been a deal where he wanted to get into AAA and was turned down. His other goals for this year are to work more for Luchas VIP in Monterrey. Silver King has been offered a spot in AAA and they’ve asked Latin Lover how much it would take to bring him back full-time. He’s currently being booked through CMLL. His answer was 25,000 pesos per show, which is about $2,500. He probably will be working some dates for them, but only house shows and nothing on TV.
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205One of the first big shows of 2007 will be at the Cancun bullring on January 20th with Hijo del Santo & Latin Lover vs. Blue Demon Jr. & Nicho el Millonario (what a sad irony that name has become) in the main event.
206
207Hardcore AAA fans in Mexico are said to be very happy with the current product, which features more wrestling and less showbiz wackiness. This was a call from Konnan and the Pena family, and was one of the reason that they moved Arturo Rivera off their TV.
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209El Diablo Jr. debuted on January 7th at the IWRG show at La Arena Naucalpan. He’s the grandson of Hijo del Diablo (Juan Carlos Gonzalez Pina) and is 15 or 16 years old. He was said to be very nervous backstage, which according to lucha tradition is a good omen and means you’ve got a bright future ahead of you.
210
211A show on January 14th in Merida City, Yucatan, headlined by Latin Lover & Hijo del Santo over Shocker & Blue Demon Jr., drew 15,000 people, said to be the biggest crowd for any event in the history of the Poliforum Zamna, and that includes concerts and other sporting events. The crowd is being attributed to the Santo/Damon feud, which is hot, and the fact that Shocker worked his first match here in over a year. Semi-main was Villano III & IV beating GROON XXX & Hijo del Solitario, perhaps the worst team in pro-wrestling today. It’s believed in March they’re doing Villano III vs. El Solitario mask vs. hair, so Villano will be in for a scalping as it’s believed Solitario will never lose his mask.
212
213There is talk that Ultimo Dragon will be bringing Atsushi Onita (we’ll see about that one), Tiger Mask IV, Jushin Liger and Great Muta to Toryumon Mexico later this year.
214
215There is a show in Nuevo Leon next week where they’re claiming the main event is Hector Garza vs. Super Parka in a Vale Tudo Rules Match, which would basically mean MMA. Parka, real name Ramon Ybarra, is renowned as a tough guy, so basically for Garza’s own sake as a pretty boy this better be worked.
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217
218Other MMA
219SUN Management Group announced that they would start promoting MMA and take over the timeslot that WEC used to have on HDNet. WEC will now be airing on Versus, which I actually get on my cable system. It’s half Versus and half The Golf Channel. They’re claiming that they’ll be running a show (“ART OF WAR”, Undisputed Arena Fighting Championship) at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on March 9th with Pedro Rizzo vs. Justin Eilers in the main event. Semi-main is Carlo Prater vs. Dennis Levensky, which should give you an idea of the depth of the rest of the card. (Never heard of Levensky? What’s wrong with you? He’s listed as 50-0.) Lester Bedford, a boxing promoter, is involved, which makes sense because the group is planning to promote both boxing and MMA. Guy Mezger is the booker. Frank Shamrock will supposedly make a special appearance. There may be a tie-in with Mark Cuban as he owns HDNet and the American Airlines Center is the home of his Dallas Mavericks. We’ll see what happens. I suspect in 2007 we’ll be hearing a lot of stories like this, and then after a few weeks never hear about them again. They do have a schedule all the way through December: April 28th at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX; June 8 at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso; July 28th at the AT&T Center in San Antonio; August 3rd at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, TX; September in New Orleans, October in Las Vegas, November in London, and December at the American Airlines Center again.
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221IFL is worth $458 million this week. I laugh each time I read this.
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223There were rumors running rampant last week that Zuffa had either purchased or was about to purchase PRIDE. To the best of my knowledge no sale has gone down yet, but it is believed that a sale may be imminent. Most likely, Zuffa would open up a brand new company in Japan and then purchase the PRIDE assets. The belief is that a new, untouched company buying the assets would open up the door to the new group getting a TV deal again. Zuffa would like hire a staff and continue running the promotion as a separate entity, similar to the WEC deal.
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225PRIDE held a press conference on January 11th to officially announce Wanderlei Silva vs. Dan Henderson for the PRIDE Middleweight Title as the main event of the February 24th PPV from Las Vegas. One report claimed that President Nobuyuki Sakakibara’s English was improving. I’ve been told many times that he can speak perfectly English and often puts on the façade that he cannot. He said PRIDE was here to stay. Sherdog asked about rumors they were for sale: “It’s just a rumor. I haven’t had any close conversation with (UFC president) Dana White so far. But since the Fertitta brothers bought the UFC we’ve had a very close relationship and we have had friendly conversation. We’re just trying to come up with the idea on how we can make this sport grow. That’s our main concern. I think that is where the rumors are coming from. We’re constantly having a conversation with the UFC.” He said they had a friendly relationship with WWE, and that Vince McMahon was his hero.
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227It was announced that the Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama fight from New Year’s Eve has been officially ruled a no-contest. As reported last week, Sakuraba was screaming during the fight that Akiyama had oiled up his legs, making him impossible to take down. The referee pretty much ignored him. The reality was that Sakuraba is so old and hampered by injuries that he probably wasn’t going to get the takedown either way, but that’s beside the point. Akiyama admitted to putting lotion on his legs prior to the fight, citing a dry skin condition. As a result, he will have to forfeit his entire purse for the evening, and they’re also taking half the purse of the referee who ignored Sakuraba’s pleas. Of course, the entire idea of the fight was for Sakuraba to pass the torch to the new young star, and now not only did the new young star not get the rub, but he’s a cheater, which is not the kind of reputation that endears you to the Japanese public. Plus, this almost guarantees yet another fight between the two, and the last thing anyone needs is for Sakuraba to fight again.
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229IFL in Houston at the Reliant Arena on February 2nd has Pat Miletich’s Silverbacks vs. Bas Rutten’s Anacondas, and the Tokyo Sabres vs. Don Frye’s Scorpions. The Sabres are allegedly coached by Antonio Inoki, though I’m not sure Inoki has actually appeared at any of their events (I went to an IFL show in Portland and he had Kendo Kashin of New Japan in his mask coaching the team – they were obliterated). I should also note that the IFL press release calls Frye a “World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and MMA World Champion”. Frye never even worked for WWE much less won the title. In fact, as crazy as this sounds, in his entire MMA career he never won a single traditional world championship, though he did win two UFC tournaments. Superfight on the show is Carlos Newton vs. Matt Lindland. As of this past week, they’d sold about 500 tickets to the 8,000-seat building. Get ready for a solid year of that.
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231February 23rd IFL show at the Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, GA has Matt Lindland’s Wolfpack vs. Carlos Newton’s Dragons, and Renzo Gracie’s Pitbulls vs. Igor Zinoviev’s Red Bears (the Russian team based in Chicago). Superfight for the night has Eduardo Pamplona of Sao Paulo, Brazil vs. Robbie Lawler, who UFC wanted to be the next big thing a few years back before flaming out and being released.
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233When it was announced that Adam Carolla would be involved with EliteXC (Showtime group), boy did the bitching on the MMA boards start. The reality is that Carolla took over for Howard Stern on a number of powerful West Coast radio stations and can get the group valuable publicity. In fact, he did a segment on EliteXC on Tuesday that I did not hear, but was told about by a number of people including my friend Ryan, who is a very casual MMA fan to the point where he comes over for PPVs but that’s about it. He called immediately after this segment and wanted to know when we were going to watch this show. That’s the good news. The bad news, and I don’t know if this is Ryan’s fault or Adam Carolla’s, is that Ryan was under the impression that the show aired this coming Saturday. It actually airs February 10th (which also means I need to order Showtime like today, because God knows Comcast will find a way to fuck this one up). Main event is Frank Shamrock vs. Renzo Gracie. Shamrock on Observer Live this week said despite being part-owner of the group, he’s so busy training that he doesn’t even know if the matches will be held in a ring or a cage. I believe all of these things are still to be hammered out.
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235Wallid Ismael has field suit against EliteXC, claiming they “raised $10,000,000 and secured the ShowTime event based on his efforts and reputation, with an event known as Jungle Fight Championship and then ‘squeezed him out.’” His lawyer added that this one was going to be settled in the courtroom and not the ring.
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237The Gracie Fighting Championships show scheduled for this coming weekend at the American Airlines Arena in Miami was cancelled, almost assuredly because nobody bought any tickets. They’re claiming it has only been postponed. Well, WFA took like four years off after running their first two shows.
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239After losing to Takanori Gomi in dominating fashion at the PRIDE New Year’s Eve show, Matsuhiro Ishida officially vacated his SHOOTO Welterweight Pacific Rim title. It was a combination of being destroyed and because his KO loss would not allow him to defend the title within 60 days, and his next title defense was scheduled for February 17th.
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242Indies
243Steven Gauntley, the former promoter of 1PW who announced last week that the promotion was shutting down and going into liquidation, announced Tuesday that there would be a GREAT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE FUTURE~! on Wednesday night. It is believed they found a new money mark to step in. “Basically, as you know, I was scheduled to sign the company over to the Liquidator yesterday, and I did not do it, due to a series of bizarre and wonderful and completely un-fathomable events,” he wrote. I was approached by two separate potential investors, and have been involved, along with the company solicitor, in some serious talks with both parties over the last day or so. Things are looking very promising indeed. I feel like such a tease, but there is one more issue to be addressed prior to me being allowed to share with you all the most amazing news I have ever heard. I can tell you that our two investors are not connected to wrestling in any way at all, aside from their new association with 1PW. I can also tell you all that one of the potential investors was actually in the crowd at WND, and was completely taken aback by the passion, enthusiasm, pride and sheer love that our family/ fans has for our beloved 1PW.” He said if the company was saved he vowed to tell the WHOLE STORY of the place going down the first time, who was owed what, how they were paid, etc.
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245Speaking of 1PW, 3CW took over for them this weekend, running a “1PW WILL NOT DIE” show at the Doncaster Dome. They drew 1,200. None of the All Japan contingent actually booked for the last 1PW show appeared. The big story was an incident involving Kid Kash. He was getting heckled quite a bit (lots of “STEROID!” chants), and ended up losing his temper. He was working with Pac and was very stiff with him (Kash has a reputation for being a bully), and then suddenly reached through the ring ropes and pulled a photographer named Amy in by the hair. He grabbed her camera and threw her out of the ring, and she took a bad bump. Eventually, security came out and demanded he hand over the camera, and so he left the ring, grabbed the headsets from the commentators, and started cutting a promo on the desk. The photographer, who shoots pictures for, among places, Fighting Spirit Magazine, was not a plant and was clearly shaken up by it. People who tried to contact her the next day couldn’t get through to her, but she was said to be OK. Kash tried to babyface himself after the match by cutting a promo saying he was American, but his roots were in England. I believe he also apologized to Amy after the show. Davey Richards vs. El Ligero was said to be match of the night.
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247Human Tornado beat Joey Ryan at the PWG show on Saturday night to win the title. They had thumbtacks, barbed wire, gimmicks, etc. Tornado gave him a tornado DDT and half nelson suplex into the tacks for the pin.
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249WSX debuts next Tuesday, January 30th, at 10:30 PM on MTV (head-to-head with the second hour of ECW), with replays airing throughout the week. The press release, which has to be the best in the history of Earth, claims the show “throws out the glam of wrestling and piles on the grappling action every week from an undisclosed bunker where danger is never far away.” YEAH~! “The most talented warriors the world has ever known will battle each other and their surroundings, creating an experience that will alter viewers’ lives irrevocably. Featuring an onslaught of death-defying feats, aerobatic maneuvers and truly athletic performances, Wrestling Society X will showcase the unique talents of some of the best in the business.” Cody Michaels of the creative team explained it thus: “It’s not going to be like the current (wrestling) where you have to sit there for 20 minutes while they do the monologue and everybody comes out and passes the microphone back and forth. It’s action. MTV spent a lot of money to get a real underground feel. It’s kind of like the underground fight club in an old warehouse with concrete pillars half broken down. We purposely got an old, dirty, taped-up ring with concrete broken on the floor. It’s got a real rough, different look to it. It’s great, energy-filled entertainment. It’s not garbage wrestling and it’s not totally gimmick matches. It’s good, young, fresh talent that can wrestle that people will like and want to keep seeing. You’re going to turn it on at 10:30, and within two minutes you’re going to be right into a match and some action. There’ll be three matches with high impact and a lot of wrestling. There’ll be some stipulation matches and lot of pyro. We had an exploding cage, time bomb death match, Hollywood style, with the ring going boom. But I don’t want that to overshadow the match, because the match was excellent. It was great wrestling.” The WSX website (MTV promotion) is up now at wsx.mtv.com.
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251Lance Storm issued a statement about the future of Dallas Hart. Basically, there is no future. “As most of you should know, Bret contacted me last year and asked me if I would train his eldest son Dallas. I was of course thrilled at the prospect and invited Bret and Dallas down to my facility and after sitting in on a class, Dallas decided to join my September 2006 training session. Due to some work related commitment issues Dallas was struggling to find enough time to properly dedicate himself to training at that time and decided he needed to better organize his schedule in order to fully commit himself to training. Dallas thought the January 2007 session would allow him the time needed to prepare so I moved him to that session. The January session has begun and I’ve posted the class photo and many of you have noticed Dallas Hart is not in it. This is because he has not shown up for training, and I can only assume (he has not returned my calls) that he has decided against a career in pro-wrestling. I wish Dallas all the best in the future.” The only possible answer is that Dallas found a girl. I mean, seriously, if he had any interest in wrestling whatsoever this was his in to perhaps free training and pretty much a guaranteed WWE developmental deal, and he flaked out twice and wouldn’t even call Storm back to explain himself.
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253At the NAPTE convention, First Look Studios was pushing VIVA LA LUCHA, “the first ever lucha libre program shot entirely in English with a Mexican flare”. Don’t know much about it other than that. I know there is a group in San Diego called Viva La Lucha, and this might be tapes from that organization. There was a trailer on the web that probably won’t be there for long, as aside from clips of guys like Santo and LA Park in Mexico it also featured footage of guys in TNA and Smackdown, including Rey Misterio Jr.
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255Samoa Joe won the Pure Wrestling Association Title on January 11th in Cambridge, ONT from Eddie Osbourne. So much for having his first match back be with Angle at the PPV. Also on this show they did a battle royal with FORTY ONE WRESTLERS, including Johnny Devine from TNA, who was unadvertised. God bless the Pure Wrestling Association, but that right there is everything that is wrong with indy wrestling. Forty one guys in a fucking battle royal and a dude from TNA that shows up unadvertised. Do people think that fans go home and say to themselves, “Boy I got my money’s worth tonight, I saw 84 different wrestlers on that one show!”.
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257FIP (Florida indy booked by Gabe Sapolsky) ran Friday night in Inverness, FL with Roderick Strong & Jack Evans beating Jimmy Rave & Shingo in what was called one of the best tag matches in FIP history. Brent Albright, formerly of WWE and OVW and now with ROH, worked the show beating Eric Stevens. Larry Sweeney, who just started with ROH as a manager, wrestled on both this show and the Saturday night show, and on Saturday night they set up an angle for him to return in February to face JAKE ROBERTS. Oh yes. Heartbreakers, also formerly of WWE and OVW, debuted Saturday night as well.
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259Armed and Famous started this week. It’s a new reality show that takes celebrities, including TRISH STRATUS, puts them through some basic training, and then puts them to work on the real-life Muncie, IL police force. The reviews have been comically awful. The Courier Press, in an article by one VERNE GAY, wrote: “By name alone, one can infer that ‘Armed & Famous’ is a particularly awful show. By concept, one can deduce that it’s even worse than that. La Toya Jackson or Jack Osbourne packing a Glock 22? Need we say more? But to watch — ah, to watch. That’s the final confirmation. ‘Armed & Famous’ is completely, joyously, riotously abominable. This is the perfect score: a show so bad even Fox wouldn’t touch it. CBS is to be commended. Shows this dreadful don’t pop up every day, which means - assuming ‘A&F’ survives - this could become a classic of sorts, reality TV’s own ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space.’” Carmel Carrillo in the Chicago Tribute wrote: “There ought to be a law about `Armed & Famous’ recruits. It’s one thing for a handful of C-list celebrities to live in a house and have their every skirmish and belch caught on camera. But to enlist them to serve and protect the 67,000 residents of Muncie, Ind., is sheer folly. And CBS is banking on such folly with ‘Armed & Famous’ (7 p.m. Wednesday, WBBM-Ch. 2). The ‘brave new recruits’ — Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuna (‘Jackass’), Erik Estrada (‘CHiPs’), LaToya Jackson, Jack Osbourne (‘The Osbournes’) and WWE wrestler Trish Stratus — arrive at the diminutive Muncie Police Headquarters by stretch limo and a two squad-car escort (sirens blaring), looking, unsurprisingly, totally out of place. Training director Sgt. Rick Eber puts the recruits on notice: ‘Jack around once during any of this training, and I will do everything I can to see you’re gone.’ The cadets try to prove their mettle, practicing ‘physical tactics’ on each other. Former TV cop Estrada is overzealous with his trainer/driver; Jackson accidentally shoots the trainer with a pellet gun; and Stratus gives herself a bloody nose trying to pull her gun out. These people are entrusted with stopping crime?” I may have to actually watch an episode or two of this program. Trish is actually said to be doing a really professional job.
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261A few ROH notes. Chris Daniels vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Chris Hero has been added to the January 27th show in Edison, NJ.
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263Naruki Doi & Shingo have been added to the ROH shows in Liverpool on March 3rd and 4th.
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265Both Nigel McGuinness and the Briscoes are undefeated on the current NOAH tour.
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267
268Bryan’s Friend Vince’s Tape Review and Karaoke Showcase
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270VINNY WATCHES TV~!
271Because Final Resolution sucked and I don’t want to watch any more wrestling this week; because I’m tired and want to get this over with as quickly as possible; because it’s my video review and I can do what I want with it; and most of all, because for some reason the last time I did this it was really popular, it’s time for another edition of Vinny Watches TV. It’s 12:40 a.m. on Monday, January 15, and here’s what’s on.
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273We begin with NFL Network, where they’re breaking down the Bears-Seahawks and Pats-Chargers games. Here’s all I have to say about the first game: I wish the Seahawks had won, but it probably doesn’t matter in the long run because Drew Brees and the Saints would have carved up this secondary like roast beef. As for Pats-Chargers, I hope you all got a chance to see it, because it was a game that will go down in the annals of history. Never have I seen one team so clearly outcoached. I won’t go on all day about this, but the Chargers jumped ahead early thanks to their superior talent, then made stupid mistake after stupid mistake after STUPID FUCKING MISTAKE until, finally, they’d lost. Afterwards, Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, visibly distraught, said his team didn’t lose, they “ran out of time.” Well, gee, Marty, maybe if you hadn’t wasted one timeout on a foolish replay challenge and a second timeout on poor communication, you’d have had more time. Beyond that, there were dumb penalties, dumb fumbles, dumb interceptions and dumb play calls. Even when they intercepted the ball, they were dumb enough to do it on fourth down, when they would have gotten the ball anyway, and THEN dumb enough to fumble it. And when every single player seems devoid of anything resembling a brain cell, when they’re ALL so miserably prepared and surprised by everything, well, doesn’t that all go back to the head coach?.
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275Discovery Home has a show called Garage Makeover. Three guesses what this is about, and the first two don’t count. The first step of the makeover was to throw out almost everything this family kept in the garage. The owner was “allowed” to keep three things. One of the things he kept was his Speedy Gonzalez collection. That seems like cheating, to choose one thing as a collection, but it’s not my show. They brought in a backhoe to crush everything else, but the only backhoe they could get was too puny to do any real damage. Hey! That’s a sombrero! You can’t crush a perfectly good sombrero! Well, they did. I’m turning the channel in protest.
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277ZeeTV is showing a movie entitled “Oonch Neech Beech.” I don’t get this channel and can’t watch this movie, but I wanted to type out “Oonch Neech Beech.”.
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279The Biography Channel is showing an episode of The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, which I don’t think counts as any kind of biography. The mystery this week is “The Blue Carbuncle.” Apparently it involves an innocent man accused of a jewel heist. Oh hey, Sherlock just found the missing jewel in a lamp. Well, that was easy.
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281Premiership Soccer! Newcastle United vs. Tottenham Hotspur! And I tune in just to see that Newcastle won 3-2. They showed the goals, then showed that a player on Newcastle is named “Butt.” In other words, I saw all the exciting parts. Apparently, I actually get the Fox SOCCER Channel. Yeah, I’ll be back to this one real quick.
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283VH1 Classic is showing (appropriately) classic alternative stuff, and I mean CLASSIC, like The Cure and Jesus And Mary Chain. MTV Hits has Chamillionaire and Justin Timberlake. Advantage: VH1 Classic. While I’m in this neighborhood, let’s check the other music channels: CMT Pure has a blond girl sitting in a rocking chair singing in an empty theater. I swear this is true. That’s about what I figure a country music concert would draw. She’s singing about enjoying a ride as a little girl is shown riding her bike around town. That’s nice. Anyway. VH1 Soul has a commercial for Tamia’s album. No, I’ve never heard of her either. MTV Jams is playing “Soldier” by Destiny’s Child. I love Beyonce, but this video makes it abundantly clear that I am too old, too fat, too poor, and WAY too white to ever get ther. This is getting depressing. Turn it! Quickly! Fuse is showing a video warning us not to try these stunts. It’s Fort Minor with “Remember The Name,” and it’s just a clip of guys doing skateboard tricks and motorcycle wheelies and backflips out of trees and things. Hey, I know this song! This is the song CBS uses for their NFL show! This song rules! I learned something today! And there ends the music.
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285Twenty minutes gone!.
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287TCM has “I Want To Live!” Yes, including the exclamation point. And boy, is this a classic movie. This is every movie your grandfather ever put on TV, then got drunk and fell asleep too. OK, maybe that was just my grandfather. Anyway, it’s got sleazy ladies and cheap dialogue and card dealers, and a man and woman fighting while a baby screams. Perhaps I was wrong about this being every old movie ever. “Convicted of murder, drug-addicted shill and prostitute Barbara Graham lands on death row.” Jesus. I was very, very wrong. Regardless, all that’s happening now is a baby crying while a man and woman scream at and hit each other, and that’s a recipe for bad times.
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289Oh, wait, I have to note that when the woman said something to make the man pause, the baby also stopped crying. Must have been some profound words.
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291FMC is showing “Fatso” starring Dom DeLuise. Shut up, all of you.
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293OK, wait, I have to report this write-up: “A man must choose between his girlfriend and his fondness for hot dogs, cake and Chinese food.” I don’t know what to say to that, so we’ll just move on.
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295ELOVE is showing “Fiddler On The Roof.” YEAH!!! I’m pretty sure this is the greatest musical about Russian Jews ever. And it’s just getting started! Sing along! Traditiooooooooooooooooooooooon! Tradition! TRADITION!.
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297OH MY GOD. EACT is showing Alienator, which appears to be some sort of horribly hybrid between Terminator and Revenge of the Nerds, and it stars JAN-MICHAEL VINCENT. (You know, from Airwolf? Stringfellow Hawke?) Regardless, IT FUCKING SUCKS. There’s a nerd and two hot chicks, and a jock, and two cops, and they’re holed up in a cabin as the evil robot from the future is walking on the roof and threatening to come and kill them. One of the hot chicks responds by – I am not exaggerating in any way – WAVING HER ARMS OVERHEAD, SCREAMING AND RUNNING OUT OF THE HOUSE. Flies are gathering in my room as I type this. Now she got into a truck and drove away. Now the cops are following her. Now the jock is off on his own. Oh yeah, he’s fucked. Sure enough, the ALIENATOR got him. How can I describe the Alienator? Well, I’m pretty certain they got a big dude, shaved him and put him in makeup so he’d look (ahem) “like a woman.” Now they’re all shooting at the Alienator. She’s selling them, but the timing between her movements and the special effects are totally out of sync and unrelated. Now the nerd is throwing a net on the Alienator. He’s screaming something about electromagnets and the earth’s axis. Hey, the jock lived! The townsfolk gather and discuss what to do with the Alienator. Finally one guy takes charge and decides to, and I quote, “put her in my truck.” I should note that this movie did NOT get the lowest possible ratings, which would indicate that there is an entire TIER of movies out there worse than this one. I don’t even think the girls are gonna get naked. Well, enough of this.
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299It’s 1:20! Twenty minutes to go!.
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301I’m not going to purchase it, but there’s a film on pay per view entitled “Sexy Nude Coeds Behaving Badly.” Do they ever behave any other way?.
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303We’re into the Digital Music stations now. There’s a million of these, but I’ll hit the highlights. Arena Rock, always one of my favorites, is playing “Shelter Me” by CINDERELLA~! Old School Rap is playing Heavy D and the Boyz, and now Big Daddy Kane. Metal is playing CRAZY TRAIN~! by OZZY~!~!~!~ OSBOURNE~~!~!~!!~!!~~~~! Excuse me for a few minutes while I RAWK!!!.
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305OK, I’m back. That is FAR AND AWAY Ozzy’s best song, and I don’t see how this can be argued. Up next is something called Cradle of Filth, and it fucking SUCKS. I’m done with music, after Crazy Train nothing can compare.
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307Home Shopping Network is having a clearance on NFL gear. They’re selling REALLY FUCKING UGLY NFL leather jackets. God, those are hideous.
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309Travel Planet has a show called “Living With the Kombai Tribe” in which two big clumsy white men try to live among a primitive tribe of small dark skinned folk. All I can tell you is that apparently, entirely due to the white guys’ incompetence, they failed to catch any fish, and then failed to catch any shrimp. This resulted in the village’s resident old woman (who was ripped and muscular) to sing – SING, mind you – about how the strange white men came from far away to live with them, and made everything go wrong, and now they had to work too hard. AWESOME. THIS is entertainment.
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311MSNBC is showing a special on the search for Atlantis. Are people still looking for this? What will they do when they find it? Don’t they have anything better to work on?.
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313A&E is showing the interview of a mob hitman. I believe Admin Tony watched this and loved it. He talked about bumping into a target on a dance floor and subtly injecting him with “a heart attack.” That’s nice.
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315CSI is on. This fucking show sucks and I can’t believe that anyone would ever watch it, let alone that it would have not one but TWO spin-offs.
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317Hey! It’s an infomercial for life insurance with Meredith Baxter Birney! Yep, she’s old enough now to sell a product to people who are about to die.
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319VH1 is showing “I Love New York,” a spinoff of “Flava of Love.” I could easily write another thousand words about this, so I’ll just move on. But before I do, I must note that there is an ad on this program to receive yo momma jokes on your cell phone.
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321Three Amigos is on! This movie rules! It’s El Guapo’s birthday party! And soon Amigos will fall from the sky! This movie is awesome, and I’m going to watch the rest of it. We’ll be back next week with guys in their underwear pretending to fight.
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324Television Reviews
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326ROH TIME TO MAN UP~! from August 4th on Long Island
327Davey Richards opened up the show saying his goal has always been to become the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion. He said you can imagine the thrill that of all the guys in the company, KENTA chose him to both team with and defend the belt against starting tonight.
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329They’re doing an angle where Colt Cabana was in the van with a rat, and the rat may be LACEY~!.
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331Joe cut a promo promising to destroy AJ Styles later, and said if Bryan Danielson had any balls, he’d meet him face-to-face tonight and have words. Soon they would meet, he said, and when it was over the world would discover why Joe was the scariest man alive.
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333Bryan Danielson vs. Jack Evans. I have literally been waiting weeks for this match so I pray that it delivers. What a fucking battle, Aberdeen, WA vs. Parkland, WA. Both men are going in losers. Well, I guess Danielson has the advantage because at least Aberdeen produced Kurt Cobain. Though he did ultimately take his own life. “The Final Countdown” is THE greatest entrance music ever and it completely fits Bryan Danielson. The first thing he did when he got in the ring was a back flip off the top rope, mocking Jack. This is already the latest best match ever. Crowd chanted “YOU GOT SERVED!” Jack was appalled. He was also bitching nonstop about how the belt wasn’t on the line. He did some wacky breakdancing before the match. Danielson teased dancing, but then flipped of the crowd. Dragon slapped him across the face early, so Jack did some chain wrestling, dragged him to the corner and slapped the piss out of him. This was the beginning of the end for young Jack. Fans chanted “SAME OLD SHIT!”, so Danielson looked at them, grabbed Jack, and gave him five bodyslams in a row. So now the people chanted “HOLY SHIT!” and gave him a standing ovation. I love ROH. “ONE MORE TIME!” Jack made a big comeback with a whacky quebrada and a springboard 450 to the outside. He went for the 540 off the top, but Danielson cut him off and hit the superplex. Jack went for a Sasuke special, but Danielson just sidestepped him and he crashed and burned. Danielson gave him a million-rep airplane spin, the Kawada rolling elbow, and a brutal STF (Jack is very flexible) for the tapout. This was so much fun. ABERDEEN WINS, ABERDEEN WINS, ABERDEEN WINS! (**3/4).
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335Christopher Daniels & Matt Sydal vs. Irish Airborne. Good guys ran wild early with all sorts of highspots and flying moves. Sydal finally went up top and they THREW HIM OFF for the heat. That’s my kind of match right there, simple and effective. Irish Airborne still do a ton of indyriffic wackiness. You watch Daniels and Sydal work and you understand well-placed highspots. You watch Irish Airborne when it’s their turn and it’s like, “What was the point of that flip right there?” And the answer is that there was no point, they just decided to do some flips. Sydal was dropped RIGHT ON HIS HEAD with a dragon suplex. That didn’t look comfortable. He finally made the hot tag and Daniels ran wild. It was a hell of a comeback, but then Airborne cut him off with a big boot/neckbreaker combo. Broke down into a four-way. Sydal is going to kill himself one of these days taking these wacky flip bumps onto his head. I’d argue too many nearfalls and kickouts for a second match on the card, but that’s just me. Good guys finally hit sequential moonsaults for the win. Crowd was into it and it was good. (***1/4).
336
337Nigel cut a promo saying he was still the Pure Champion and still the best champion in the whole company, and unlike that geek Bryan Danielson, he didn’t have to rely on cowardly or underhanded tactics. Tonight, he said, it would be no different with Delirious. “I’m going to kick your ass, you wanker,” Nigel McGuinness said in the belated best quote of 2006.
338
339Colt Cabana vs. Claudio Castagnoli. Have I told you how much I love Ring of Honor? I love it with all my heart. I love Colt Cabana and I love Claudio Castagnoli and when Claudio’s music switches to “SLEDGEHAMMER” I mark out every time. Apparently he mixed this song himself. Colt is just great. He cut a promo beforehand saying Claudio was no longer hanging with those jackoffs from CZW, and was now an ROH contracted wrestler. This meant, he said, that he was one of the best wrestlers in the world. He said he wanted Claudio to know that he liked having good wrestling matches, and hoped Claudio would be willing to acquiesce. They shook hands. Then they did the best wrestling ever. I watch these matches and I want to steal every wacky spot. Colt actually did a reversal that involved MISDIRECTION, like he was a magician. He outwrestled Claudio here, there and every where, and Claudio could finally take no more, offered a handshake, and kicked him in the legs. IT WAS ON. I love when Colt does something and the announcers laugh at inappropriate times. For example, one of his hope spots was to throw some judo chops, and since judo chops are funny the announcers laughed, even though this was, when you think about it, no laughing matter. Colt finally made his comeback and pinned him with what can only be described as a wacky lucha cradle. WHOO HOO~! This was everything I could have hoped for, which was nonstop fun. (***).
340
341Austin Aries & Roderick Strong vs. Homicide & Ricky Reyes vs. BJ Whitmer & Adam Pearce vs. Jimmy Rave & Sal Rinauro in an Ultimate Endurance match for the Tag Team Titles. Some moments of hesitation early, mostly involving Whitmer. Big dive spot. We’re like three minutes in. Homicide ended up killing Rinauro with a lariat of death to eliminate his team. So now it’s a TAPOUT MATCH~! Homicide was hilarious screaming at Whitmer to cut his hair. This long hair really offended him. Pearce ended up getting his team eliminated via DQ after using a metal chain on Homicide. I guess it’s tapout or DQ. So we’re down to Strong & Aries vs. Homicide & Reyes for the belts. I don’t know how long he held him up, but Roderick held Reyes up in a delayed vertical suplex for a loooooooooong time. This match was really missing something. Kind of like last week’s Homicide match where there were a ton of big spots and such, but the crowd wasn’t into it and it seemed to affect the guys. Aries in particular tried a tornillo dive into the ring and botched it up. The only person that didn’t seem to be affected, in fact, was Homicide, who continued to work this match like it was WrestleMania. Tag champs did a CHOP/BRAINBUSTER combo. I think part of the problem was that there was no real story to the match. It just went back and forth for a long time. Ref ended up getting distracted and who should run out to hit Homicide with a roll of quarters but STEVE CORINO, Homicide’s arch-nemesis. “STEVE CORINO’S NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!” Dave Prazak screamed. Tag champs then hit a combo missile dropkick/powerbomb for the pin. (***).
342
343Danielson cut a promo backstage. He said Joe felt like he owned the place, but the reality was that he was the ROH Champion and would do what he wanted when he wanted. He wasn’t meeting with Joe tonight, he was going to meet him face-to-face tomorrow night and prove it. He also said if Nigel wanted a unification match with both belts on the line, he was down for it.
344
345Corino came out and cut a promo. Well, he was going to cut a promo, but there was a jobber in the ring for a “dark match”. The jobber attacked him so Corino kicked his ass. “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” He said he’d been in the back for two hours listening, and this was the lamest ROH crowd he’d ever seen. “You guys are the biggest idiot nerd virgin losers I’ve ever seen in my life!” He said a thousand people were in the building and altogether there were maybe six sexual encounters, and in fact they all belonged to a girl in the front row. OH~! Green Lantern Fan was in the front row and made fun of Corino’s hair-do, so Corino buried him and said if there was one guy in the building more hated than him, it was GLF. Crowd chanted “FUCK YOU LANTERN!” Corino wanted to know where Homicide was now. Well, he’s right there, attacking Corino. Adam Pearce ran in and the two-on-one beating was on. BJ Whitmer ran out and wanted to know what the hell Pearce was doing. Pearce told him he only worked for one man, and that was James E. Cornette. IT WAS A HIT! The Homicide/Corino brawl continued and Homicide eventually cleared the ring with a chair. Crowd chanted “PUSSY!” at the heels. This went a bit too long.
346
347Nigel McGuinness vs. Delirious for the Pure Title. Tons of wackiness early as you’d expect. Delirious gave him 50 straight lariats in the corner, which got a “THIS IS AWESOME!” chant. I should note that he did 49, paused prior to 50, and during the pause Nigel put his head down, and so number 50 hit him right in the face. That was brutal. Seeing Delirious in a PURE WRESTLING match is goofy in and of itself. Nigel got two “accidental” rope breaks early. Delirious hit the crazy knee into the corner and the SHADOWS OVER HELL, then put on the cobra stretch. Nigel used his last rope break to get free. Nigel beat the crap out of him outside and then darted back into the ring, hoping for the countout. Delirious got in at 19 (20 count in ROH, not 10) and the place went nuts. Nigel hit the tower of London, but Delirious kicked out to another big pop. Delirious finally got him in the cobra stretch again and Nigel was out of rope breaks. He managed to squirm his way free. He hit a second tower of London but Delirious kicked out. Crowd was really into this at this point. Huge pop for a small package by Delirious. Nigel MURDERED him with a lariat for another nearfall. So Nigel put him in Bryan Danielson’s own cattle mutilation. Delirious got the ropes, but he was out of rope breaks and was forced to tap. That was a damn good match right there, and you could tell that it was around this period that Gabe really decided to push Delirious hard. (***1/2).
348
349KENTA & Davey Richards vs. Briscoes. Some miscommunication early, but overall fine. Match went back and forth. Crowd was into it to the degree that every now and then they’d chant “LET’S GO KENTA!” or “LET’S GO BRISCOES”. I was warned to skip this show. Now, granted, it was better than any TNA show I’ve seen all year, and perhaps in all of 2006, but I’m still very much looking forward to the next two DVDs, which feature Danielson vs. Joe in the Fight of the Century and Danielson vs. Nigel from the UK. The latter match in particular is said to be Match of the Year caliber. KENTA made a comeback and nobody cared and it was sad. What was really sad was that these guys were punching and slapping and kicking the SHIT out of each other and it didn’t mean a thing to the fans. Finishing sequence was good. Davey hit a tope and KENTA got a nearfall with a tiger suplex. Broke down into a four-way and everyone hit a big move. Crowd really got into it at this point, it just took a long while to get here. Davey missed the shooting star press and the Briscoes killed him with the spike Jay driller. (***).
350
351Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles. They noted that this was AJ’s last contracted ROH match for the time being, plus next week it was Joe vs. Danielson for the ROH Title, so the finish was hardly in question. But that’s one of the keys to Ring of Honor, THINGS MAKE SENSE. Of course everyone knew Joe was going to win, but Joe HAD to win, because the other dude was leaving and the other dude wasn’t fighting for the title on the next show. Yes, you would have FOOLED people for one night by putting AJ over, but then you fuck up your main event for the next show, and then who’s the fool? I realize AJ will be in a wheelchair by 40, but at least he’ll have earned his way into the wheelchair, and hopefully it will be plated with gold. When he sells, he takes a fucking BEATING. Joe beat him with such fury. Already this was the best match on the show and we’re five minutes in. Both of these men are so great. Joe was drenched with sweat. AJ went for a dive and ate a diamond cutter in mid-air, then Joe turned him inside out with a lariat. Awesome spot. Someone shouted for Joe to make him humble. Joe went for the musclebuster but AJ managed to switch it into a Styles clash. Joe got his foot on the ropes. AJ was on piggy-backed on him and Joe fell straight back a la Foley and Big Show, CRUSHING him. That has to suck. Joe put him in the choke and turned it into an exploder suplex for the pin. Shorter than you’d think, but a hell of a match while it lasted. (***3/4).
352
353DVD ended with a Thank You AJ Styles video package. It was awesome and it’s amazing no one has been killed. A very nice little deal.
354
355We’ll be back next week with FIGHT OF THE CENTURY!~!!!
356
357
358Guerreros del Ring
359Mima Shimoda & Amapola & Hiroka vs. Marcela & Lady Apache & Sahori. Apache recently lost a hair match and is just starting to grow her hair back. The girls in Japan work super stiff with each other (Nattie Neidhart on our radio show basically said your job in these matches was to protect yourself), and it was no different here. It’s funny because you’ll watch the men in CMLL and half the time they’re barely touching each other, and then these girls come out and it’s like UWFI. For some reason all women’s matches are only one fall. In between the manhandling there was a lot of standing around and talking. Huge dive spot to the outside, then Amapola reversed a cradle and pinned Apache using the ropes. DEVILISH WOMAN~! This was something else.
360
361Volador Jr. & Felino & Sagrado vs. Alex Koslov & Mephisto & Averno. Koslov did a promo before the match in either real or fake Russian. Either way, he was speaking Russian on a Mexican TV show I was watching in America, and that was wacky. A GIRL came out to do commentary during this match. I have no idea what she said or who she was but she sounded cute. Koslov is a perfectly fine wacky Russian luchador. The whole idea is absurd, which is perfect for CMLL. I just noticed Volador Jr. standing there on the apron. What the FUCK is that man wearing!? It’s a pair of lime green bell bottoms with banana yellow suspenders. That has to be grounds for a legit commission fine. Luckily, he can work like a mother. He hit a huge dive to the outside, then Sagrado pinned Mephisto with a rana. I love when Koslov does a cool spot and then is so happy that he cannot help but start doing his kick-dancing, at which point he is always thwarted. Averno and Mephisto tried a wacky spot with Sagrado. It’s the one Ultimo Dragon often does with Shocker where you give the guy a hip toss and his feet hit the top rope on the way over, and he flips over into an armdrag or something. Well, Sagrado had TWO MEN giving him the hiptoss, and when his feet hit the top rope he didn’t flip over, he just went half-way over so he was upside down, head facing towards the mat, and at that point they just dropped him on his stomach. It was so absurd. They didn’t bother trying it again, they just pinned him. He wasn’t the captain, though, so all the bad guys did a human pyramid on Felino and tapped him out. Rudos continued working on Felino in the third. This is a long match. Koslov sells like Randy Orton in the ring with Hulk Hogan, these giant exaggerated motions, wacky facials, and arms flapping around like he’s about to take flight. Volador, who does a lot of handsprings, tried a handspring elbow and got kicked in the ass in mid-air, then the bad guys pinned him clean and won the match. Not the best match I saw all week, but perfectly fun.
362
363
364TNA Impact
365We had both TNA and ECW to watch on Thursday and I let my buddy Vinny take his pick. He chose TNA. Make of that what you will.
366
367Show opened with a quick recap from last week, with Don West screaming that it was the craziest Impact he’d ever seen. It was crazy, but there was a show about a month back that was significantly crazier, and that was not a good thing.
368
369Cornette met with Angle. He said tonight he needed Angle at ringside when he needed him. Angle wanted to know why he should do anything for Cornette. JC said well, I’m the guy that can arrange for you to get a world title shot. Angle said: “You got me there.” He said OK, but it better be worth his while. “It’ll be worth my while,” Cornette said.
370
371There was a cage at ringside with a sign on it that read “RESERVED”. I guess there was concerned that someone uninvited would go and lock themselves in the cage without permission.
372
373Kurt Angle vs. Maverick Matt. I love the line that Angle is the only gold medalist in professional wrestling history. He’s not, but to me, doesn’t that sort of make the whole pro-wrestling business seem kind of hokey? I mean, technically if this were real pro-wrestling would be where you go after you finish up with amateur wrestling, and in the 100-plus year history of pro-wrestling, only one gold medalist ever moved up? What did the rest of them do? Maverick Matt got heat on Kurt Angle which is utterly absurd. They edited in the loud boos, and some fans were chanting “LET’S GO ANGLE!” This never should have happened. Angle selling for Maverick Matt doesn’t bring Maverick Matt up to his level, it brings Angle down to Maverick Matt’s level. I guess it doesn’t matter though since it only took them about four weeks to kill off Angle’s special aura. Angle finally made a big comeback and hit the rolling Germans. Kazarian and Johnny Devine both hit the ring right in front of the ref and Angle gave them Germans. I guess if two men hit the ring, as long as they’re thwarted it’s not a DQ. Angle then tapped out Matt with the ankle lock.
374
375D-Von and Brother Ray were on a tank outside. “LAX, WE WANT YOU! YOU ARE THE ENEMY! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO YOUR FLAG, TO YOUR COUNTRY, TO THE NWA TAG TEAM TITLES.” I’m glad the titles held precedence over the flag and their country. D-Von was humming “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory”. OK, that was funny.
376
377For those that want more example of what wrestling could learn from MMA, watch the Pros Versus Joes commercial with Randy Couture. Best promo of the year so far, and it’s like 5 seconds long.
378
379Joe promised to kick Angle’s ass before the night was over. NO PLEASE DON’T.
380
381Rhino & Chris Daniels & Petey Williams vs. Chris Sabin & AJ Styles & James Storm. Storm is now just a random X-Division guy, and worse, guess who came out with him? Gail Kim. I guess the story was that she believes Chris Harris is never coming back, so if she doesn’t go with Storm she’s unemployed. You know you’re a shitty manager when you have exactly one option in a company. TNA special, meaning it was such a blur of action in like three minutes that it’s impossible to remember a single thing that happened. Crowd liked it and I’m sure it held the audience for those three minutes. AJ went for a moonsault and supposedly tweaked his knee, but then when Daniels fell for it AJ rolled him up for the pin. Gail was forced to stand outside and look forlorn. I hope this leads to a crying wolf angle where AJ “really” gets hurt and nobody believes him.
382
383Jim Mitchell had a message for Abyss backstage. He said for the first time in 18 months he was standing here alone. He said he didn’t know where his monster was, perhaps he was sleeping in an alley or wandering the streets. He said if Abyss did not prove his loyalty to him once and for all, he was going to reveal the secret. “I’m your only friend, I’m the only one you can trust.” He said he didn’t need to yell and scream because he didn’t have to. “It’s time, Abyss, for you to come home, once and for all. I hope you make the right decision.” This was a great promo. But then immediately afterwards Christy said that Abyss would be wrestling in a few minutes. She’s on top of things. She knows where Abyss is and Jim Mitchell has no clue, and the answer is that Abyss is in the dressing room.
384
385Nash and the X-Division geeks were playing Texas Hold-em. Somehow, after like 30 seconds, Nash saw that Austin Starr and Alex Shelley were tied and announced that they would have a ten minute match at the PPV.
386
387They did an interview with Chris Harris, who was wearing an eye patch and thus may now have a PIRATE gimmick. Sad music played. He said he had a risk of losing his vision, and as an athlete his first thought was whether he’d be able to return. He said at this point there were no guarantees. He was “HURT AND CONFUSED” about the whole thing. “This was my brother,” he said. He said he never wanted AMW to end like this, and then they immediately cut away.
388
389What they cut away to was Konnan DOWN in the crowd. LAX was out there and Team 3-D was in the ring in camouflage screaming. The announcers said that Konnan had been taken out with a sniper attack. WHAT!? They shot him!? This led to 3-D challenging LAX to a tag titles match at the PPV. They immediately cut away. Yup, after all these months this was how they got rid of Konnan, a phantom SNIPER ATTACK. I wish I could make this shit up. They could AT LEAST have done it outside and had the big mystery be who was behind the grassy knoll.
390
391Eric Young walked up for a wacky skit with Borash. Borash wanted to know if he’d gotten the “protection” he’d asked about last week. Eric said yes, and produced a pill bottle. He was talking about how his nipples were feeling tender. Then he ran off. This was a joke for 1% of the world that would have been funny had they at least explained it. I’ll explain it for you. Borash wanted him to get condoms so nothing would go wrong fucking Traci. Young is so stupid, though, that instead of getting condoms, he thought the “protection” was a birth control pill. Birth control pills are basically doses of estrogen, which, if taken by a male, will cause him to develop gynecomastia (“bitch tits”). HA HA HA. Hence the tender nipples. Team 3-D immediately walked up. Brother Ray said it was one down, two to go for LAX. They said Konnan was going to be out for a long, long time. I guess they did shoot him, with a gun. They cut a passionate promo about wanting to win the belts. After two years, if they win the belts on a three-day build, what a waste that will be.
392
393Clips aired of VKM at the Alamo. About 30 seconds of the whole day aired. Michael Hickenbottom wasn’t there. Well, duh. He was with HHH getting surgery. He said all they could do now was declare victory. “We’ll see you Sunday!” See who? DX? Shawn? Not sure who he’ll see, but he’ll be hearing from Jerry McDevitt after that line.
394
395Cornette met with Christian. He said Tomko would be banned from ringside Sunday, and to be fair tonight, Christian would be locked in the cage for Tomko’s match. Christian wanted to know who was going to put him in there. Cornette said if he didn’t get in, he’d lose his title shot Sunday. And second off, if he didn’t go willingly, Angle would put him in.
396
397Abyss vs. Tomko. Welcome to the fourth WWE brand. Christian did a better job selling in the cage than either guy did in the ring. With that said, this was better than you’d think, though I’d think it would be pretty bad so there you go. Tomko not only got a chair, but he got a chair in front of the ref and then shoved the ref down when the ref tried to stop him. Not a DQ. Abyss kicked the chair into his face. Not a DQ. Joe ran down to attack Angle and they brawled for about a minute before security broke them up. Nobody even paid attention to the ring. In the melee, Angle dropped the key and Christian was able to escape. Abyss hit the black hole slam on Tomko, but Christian hit him with a chair. This, you see, was a DQ. And then the lights went out and Sting made the save. Tenay was talking so fast it was like someone pushed his fast-forward button, trying so desperately to get all of this over that none of it got over. Of course, it wasn’t over. Abyss raised Sting’s hand, but then grabbed him and gave him the torture rack drop. So the show ended with Mitchell and Abyss back together again. Wasn’t the WHOLE POINT of the last four weeks to build intrigue as to what Abyss was going to do? And in the end, they gave it away free on TV instead of waiting three days to do it at the PPV? Welcome to 25,000 buys Sunday.
398
399
400Hogan Knows Best
401The story this week is that the Brooke and Nick were going all over the place in Miami and all they could find were folks that spoke Spanish. Brooke said she didn’t understand anything here and wasn’t sure she was in her own country anymore. Hogan said the universal language was friendship, and he’d just bought some Mexican beer to prove it. Linda decided it was time for them to take Spanish lessons. Hogan said hell no, he could understand all his fans. They said: “Hulk Hogan, numero uno, greatest lucha libre ever!” This, he said, meant they thought he was the greatest wrestler of all time. Pretty accurate, in fact. The next day, Linda discovered that her housekeeper didn’t speak English. She basically told her to call a friend who spoke English to help her out. So then Hulk went to a Subway and the girl only spoke Spanish. Watching Hogan attempt to communicate with this woman was the funniest thing I have seen in wrestling all week. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said, “does everyone here speak Spanish?” So now he was at GNC and couldn’t find what he was looking for because nobody spoke English. “Wow, I’m stressed out, man!” He asked if they had anything for sex. “Grrr,” he explained while flexing. He was offered a product. “That’s gonna make my cobra bigger?” I like the idea that Hulk Hogan went to GNC and didn’t know what he was looking for. Hogan got home and tried to read directions on the cock expander, but it was all in Spanish. That’s it, he said, we must learn to speak Spanish. This was the catalyst. I watch this show every week and every week it becomes clearer and clearer why Hogan ended up such a gigantic star.
402
403The next day Linda was looking through the phone book for Spanish lessons. Brooke said she wasn’t interested unless the guy looked like Ricky Martin. Don’t hold your breath sweetie. The next day the teacher showed up. She was not Ricky Martin. Hogan said he wanted to speak to the locals and Linda said she needed to be able to speak to “the help”. Everyone had wacky sentences they wanted translated, such as Linda asking how to say, “Not tonight, I have a headache.” The woman advised them to go to local restaurants for a crash course. They want to Little Havana, a Cuban area. Hogan put on his Armando Alejandro Estrada outfit. It is never not funny to see Hulk Hogan behaving in the real world. It was the best here because he was wearing the wacky Cuban hat and shirt, smoking a cigar, and around his waist was his leather fanny pack.
404
405Nick eventually lost his mind and went to order some food. He actually did a hell of a job doing it in Spanish. He claimed his last name was “Penis”. The teacher returned for more training. Nick revealed innocently that he’d ordered a sandwich in Spanish. Hogan said they’d all gone to dinner and did just fine. Linda said this wasn’t going fast enough, they needed INSTANT SPANISH. Teacher advised them to speak Spanish as much as possible, such as during dinner. So Linda said she’d make Mexican food and everyone could spend the evening speaking Spanish. Well, they tried, I’ll give them that. What flabbergasted me most was that I believe I speak more Spanish than either of them, which is really saying something. Linda finally gave up and suggested they all go to Taco Bell. A useless show.
406
407
408ECW on Sci-Fi
409CM Punk vs. Bob Holly. They noted that Punk was undefeated going into this match. Brad Armstrong was out there doing commentary again. As Bob was coming to the ring and fan tapped his arm and Bob gave him the look of death, and this dude, a young lean fellow probably close to his athletic peak, backed off like he was afraid the 40-plus-year-old Bob was going to jump the rail and humble him. I should note that I watched this Friday and had heard about this match nonstop for three straight days. All I’ve heard all week is how Punk has “IT” (people keep mentioning this mysterious “IT”) and that Rock had it and Austin had it and Shawn Michaels had it and Kurt Angle had it and Punk has it and thus WWE is filled with fucking idiots for having him lose clean to Bob Holly. Here’s the deal. Every one of those names that had “IT” ended up being a gigantic superstar. Nobody said, “Punk has ‘IT’, just like Val Venis”. The reality is that if Punk has it, then some day he’ll be a giant superstar. If he does not become a giant superstar, then he doesn’t have it. Period. WWE, despite what some people will say, has traditionally had a pretty goddamn good eye for folks that have it. Right now, they don’t see that in Punk. This is why things like this happen. He’ll always be a lightning rod because he’s an Internet darling and a) Internet fans are the most passionate of all and will bitch the loudest over these “injustices”, and b) WWE hates fans like this. Do I think he has it? After following WWE for two decades, and very closely for the past 11 years, my answer is no, at least not to the level of a Rock or Austin. I don’t care about ANYTHING outside WWE. None of that matters because he’s in WWE now. Hijo del Santo fucking has it if anyone does, and he lasted a month in WWE because they didn’t see it at all and tried to get him to unmask and be a generic Mexican. If you disagree, fine. I have nothing against the guy and maybe in the end I’ll be proven wrong. But right now I don’t predict him ever getting to a level above, say, a Chris Jericho. So anyway, Holly pinned him clean with the Alabama slam.
410
411And speaking of folks that don’t have IT, Test cut an angry promo about how he’d been overlooked, how he was the man, how he’d beaten RVD several times and should be getting the title shot instead. Therefore, he said, he was refusing to work tonight. “I have nothing left to prove!”.
412
413Elijah Burke cut a promo saying he was going to knock some sucka out all by himself tonight. Sandman accepted the challenge. What a segment this was. Sandman took two hours getting out. Elijah, who does the boxing gimmick, threw some lackluster punches. Sandman hit him with the cane a few times. Elijah went outside. They looked at each other for awhile. Then they played Sandman’s music. Utter waste of my life.
414
415A Great Khali highlight video aired. I use that term, “highlight”, loosely.
416
417Great Khali vs. Tommy Dreamer. Khali beat the crap out of him early and went “AAAAAAAARGH!” They showed replays of, you know, clotheslines. “The guy is massive all over!” said Armstrong. Please don’t tell me more. He also noted that he was not clumsy at all given his size. This is great comedy. So Khali is leaving ECW. But he also worked Raw and went toe-to-toe with the World Champion. Does he do a job on the way out and thus make Cena look like a goof? Does he beat Dreamer and make ECW look stupid? Well, if you guessed the former, get real. He used the tree slam (“Had to be over ten feet in the air!” — Armstrong) and got the pin with one foot on Dreamer’s chest. RAW SQUASHES ECW. I’ve seen worse. Styles said Khali was barely human.
418
419REBECCA INTERVIEWED RVD! “I was wondering if I could get your thoughts,” she began. He said people accused of him being too cool for his own good, of not caring about anything. This was not true, he said. He rattled off a list of things he cared about, such as the ECW Title, and did it in such a fashion that no rational human being could conclude that he was telling the truth. He vowed to win the belt back tonight. Odds are 1000:1 he doesn’t.
420
421The Vampire vs. the Prince of Punk. Let’s see if Vampire can work a match without fucking killing anyone this week. I don’t know what is more amazing, that there is a Vampire in ECW or that we’re supposed to care. Thorn used his top rope neckbreaker thingamajigger for the pin. They’re calling it the DARK KISS. Where are these wins by the Vampire leading?.
422
423Kelly’s Expose returns next week. I love how she and Mike Knox broke up, and after all those months of flirting with CM Punk, he never made his move. They must really hate him.
424
425Lashley vs. RVD. Very strange match. RVD dominated the entire thing with all his wacky spots. It wasn’t like he was wearing the guy down, it was highspot after highspot after highspot. He was clumsier than usual this evening, nearly landing on his face doing his back handspring spot. RVD went for his twisting moonsault off the apron and wacked his leg on the announcer’s table. He sold it for all he was worth. Crowd was not into Lashley’s comeback. He hit a delayed suplex and speared RVD out of his boots, but then Test ran in and clonked him with a chair for the DQ. Imagine that WWE watched RVD vs. Lashley for two weeks and decided the best course of action was to add Test to the mix. Crowd chanted “YOU SUCK!” at Test. “I’d have to concur,” Armstrong said. That nearly saved he show right there. They said Test had ruined the match. Well, not sure I’d go that far. What a C-show.
426
427
428Smackdown
429The time to beat in the Smackdown Sprint this week is 5:07 set by Ken Kennedy. Fit Finlay vs. Matt Hardy. They had a fun little match as you’d expect. They did a great tease at the 1:07 mark where the midget distracted the ref and Finlay hit him in the leg with the gimmick. Crowd went nuts when Matt kicked out. Finlay went to work on the knee, hoping to tap him to the Indian deathlock before the time limit expired. Matt held on and the buzzer of doom went off. Who should hit the ring afterwards but Joey Mercury in a giant face mask. He put a chair around Matt’s head and went up top to stomp on it, but all the refs ran down to break it up. Good stuff so far.
430
431Krystal interviewed Joey about what he’d just done. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED OUT THERE?” she asked. Joey said he’d never stop until Matt’s face looked worse than his.
432
433THE REDNECK VS. THE INDIAN. This feud must continue. I am fascinated that Tatanka is on TV every week with that mullet. The best part is that it’s not just a mullet, but you can tell that he runs the hair straightener through it. Think about that. He WORKS to make his mullet look like that, and all that work indicates that it is his belief that he looks good with that haircut. The wrestling was WWE 1994-worthy. Yang did what he could but Tatanka called the whole match and did lots of elbow drops and chin locks. This was not a beat the clock match so they were just taking their time. Yang made a small comeback and then the Indian pinned him with the fucking EIGHT SECOND RIDE. I guess that makes sense. He killed the redneck with a redneck hold.
434
435You know what they need to do is give Tatanka the old Brutus Beefcake barber shears and have him SCALP his opponents afterwards. Why not?.
436
437LONDON AND KENDRICK HAD A MEETING BACKSTAGE. Goofiness was about to ensue when up walked William Regal and Dave Taylor. They wanted to remind these two youngsters that it was not a ladder match tonight, it was a WRESTLING match. Regal was cackling and it was awesome.
438
439Chris Benoit vs. Mr. Kennedy. Benoit ran wild on him early. Weird spot where he went for a German and Kennedy dead-weighted him, so he hurked him over anyway. Chris Benoit is a machine. Later, he hit the three Germans and Kennedy jumped this time. Chavo came down to do commentary. He was still talking about Benoit and Vickie, which is so weird. He beat up Vickie and she apparently bailed on him, and Benoit beat him 48 times in a row, so what is left? Kennedy finally got the heat and went to work. He was less boring than usual, but again he was working with Chris Benoit, which skews the equation. Benoit finally hit the rolling Germans and the diving headbutt for a nearfall. Lots of nearfalls at the finish. Kennedy actually threw a top rope dropkick. Benoit hit five more Germans and went for the sharpshooter. Chavo hit the apron for the distraction. Benoit sent him into the ring with a slingshot and went for the sharpshooter on him, but Kennedy rolled him up from behind using the tights. Despite all the hijinx, the ref counted the pin anyway. So there’s your Smackdown Sprint winner in advance. Benoit went after Chavo afterwards and was clubbering him, but Chavo escaped and ran for his life through the crowd.
440
441The History of Batista part II aired. I wonder if Mark Henry is returning at Royal Rumble or shortly thereafter. It’s about that time of year again.
442
443Kendrick & London vs. Regal & Taylor for the WWE Tag Team Titles. Ashley was out there with the babyfaces wearing hot pink. This is always a good thing. Bad guys cut off London and went to work. By “went to work” I mean they beat the fuck out of the guy. JBL, instead of burying the fans this week, buried everyone who wanted to get into the business. He said they needed to sit down and watch Regal and Taylor and realize that these guys would kick your ass. Kendrick made an awesome hot tag, and he might not even have been supposed to. It looked like they were going to do the spot where London dove to make the tag and Regal caught him in mid-air and stopped him. However, Regal stumbled backwards and London basically fell into Kendrick, so Kendrick had to make the tag or look like a fool. I could be totally wrong, but it looked to me like they had to improvise for a few seconds and then go to the planned finish, which was Kendrick pinning Regal with a schoolboy. A good match.
444
445MVP vs. the Dress Wearing Freak in a Beat the Clock Match. MVP had his supposed burns all taped up. “WAS FUNAKI BUSY?” screamed JBL. MVP was selling his burns like a mother and Vito worked them over with hard shots and such to the back. Because there was a story to this match, it was better than you’d think. JBL was going apeshit on commentary, saying if Vito got a title shot he’d burn his boots, he’d burn the announcer’s booth, he’d burn down the ring, and we’d never hear from him again. They did some worked jiu-jitsu. Seriously. You should have seen it. Some dudes were yelling “BORING!” Guess they didn’t care about the story of the match, they were just paying attention to the fact that this was, you know, the Dress Wearing Freak against the MVP. JBL was putting MVP over as a big hero who was going all he could despite being racked with pain. Cole said “if he was a real hero he’d win.” WHAT!? God, what a moron. MVP beat him up after the match, but then the Freak did a reversal and sent him burns-first into the steel steps. “WHERE’S TEDDY LONG NOW? WHERE’S THE JUSTICE IN THIS?” screamed JBL. I wonder where this storyline is going? I am intrigued, believe it or not.
446
447They interviewed Big Dave about the Royal Rumble title match. Krystal said in all likelihood, he’d be facing either Undertaker or Ken Kennedy. In all likelihood? What other options are there? Dave said: “Well, as far as facing the Undertaker goes, that’ll be a first.” There’s your WrestleMania title match.
448
449Undertaker vs. Miz. JBL was marking out in the booth. So the story was that Undertaker had to beat 5:07 to get a title shot and his opponent was the goofball Miz. Taker signaled for the chokeslam, but Kennedy ran down the aisle and distracted him. Miz briefly got heat, but was then killed. OK, if you’re Undertaker, why not just ignore the guy and win? I mean, worst-case scenario the guy finally runs in for the DQ, which is actually best-case scenario because a DQ win is still a DQ win and you get your title shot. I’m overanalyzing this, I know. With 50 seconds left the ref took a bump. Taker hit the chokeslam but no one was there to count. Kennedy then grabbed Miz and threw him up the aisle. Taker went after him and threw him back inside. He hit the tombstone and the ref dropped to count, but the buzzer went off as his hand was on the way down for three. This was PERFECT TIMING, as in, with a hundred tries I don’t think they could have gotten it more perfect.
450
451A well-booked show, mostly because they’re planting the seeds for Batista vs. Undertaker which is a solid two and a half months away.
452
453
454Raw
455Show opened with the annual WWE Martin Luther King Day video.
456
457Cena came out to a big ovation. Coach was there to host a Cena vs. Umaga WWE Title match contract signing for the Royal Rumble. Holy crap is that this weekend? Umaga came out with Alejandro. He was not about to sit down patiently in a chair. Crowd loudly chanted “CENA!” Coach said he knew that Cena wanted to get this over with but there was something he needed to know. This couldn’t be just any match, he said, it had to be something special. So Armando, he said, was going to be allowed to choose the type of match. Cena was gobsmacked. Alejandro said he was full of surprises. No fluke win this time, he said. “John Cena in two weeks at the Royal Rumble you are going to defend the WWE Title in a Last Man Standing match!” BOOOOO!!!! Estrada said the only way to win was to take Umaga, who Cena had barely ever taken off his feet, and beat him so badly that he couldn’t get up by ten. Estrada signed for Umaga. Cena took it and wanted to know if anyone thought he was crazy enough to sign for it. Crowd chanted “CENA!” He said well, the people knew him all to well, because he WAS crazy enough to sign it. Second, he said, he was full of surprises. He leaped over the table and tackled the Mad Samoan, then they got into a huge brawl outside. Cena clonked him with the steel steps, then put Estrada through the table with the FU. Ross was screaming about how this would all be legal at the Rumble. Umaga, I should note, stayed down for like 30 seconds, which did a pretty damn good job of killing interest in the match since the whole point what was Cena had barely ever even knocked the guy off his feet. Not the stupidest thing I ever saw because I’d watched TNA the night before, but pretty dumb.
458
459Jeff Hardy & Maria vs. Johnny Nitro & Melina in a mixed-tag. Melina and Nitro have the greatest ring gear. The rules were that the guys had to be in with the guys and vice versa. Nitro still got Maria with a knee to the back as she was running the ropes to set up the heat. Melina put her in the CAMEL CLUTCH. Nitro got the tag and went after Maria, but she stomped on his foot and made the tag to Jeff. The IC Title is like the X-Title in that Jim Ross will mention, say, that Jeff Hardy is the champion, and I will think, “I would not have remembered that in fifty years”. Maria went after Melina outside, then Jeff threw Nitro off the top and hit the senton for the pin. Fun little match.
460
461Backstage, Vince was calling Donald Trump. “Just tell him ‘Vince’,” he said, then added, “‘McMahon’.” Then he had to spell it and explain that he was the Chairman of WWE. He got very upset and told the person that they were friends and Donald had known him for years. Turns out Trump was at dinner. Vince told them to make sure to have Trump call ASAP. He was about to give the number, but then noticed Coach was there and said, “He knows the number.” Coach had that look on his face like he didn’t believe any of it. Both guys were awesome here.
462
463Orton and Edge came out. Crowd chanted “YOU SUCK!” They played a long bleep of a flatlined heart, which was so annoying. Orton said he and Edge had teamed up with the sole purpose of taking out DX for good, and tonight they were going to finish the job against Shawn two-on-one. Nobody would be able to stop them, he proclaimed. He said Triple H couldn’t help him because he was sitting at home with a torn quad. “Triple H is done!” He said compared to what they were going to do to Shawn, Hunter got off easy. He said they weren’t going to stop until he was down and out for good, permanently. Suddenly, Randy said hold on, I’ve got take care of something backstage. And he left. OK then. Edge said he’d take over. He said Shawn’s TV debut took place right there in Cajun country, and that was fitting because his last match was going to take place there as well. Then he said he’d better go check on Randy. He went behind the curtain and then they both came out dragging the body of Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Edge explained that Duggan would not be helping Shawn tonight. Shit, that was my pick for the DX replacement, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Edge grabbed a chair and said it was time to teach this old fucker and everyone else backstage a lesson, that being that if you helped Shawn Michaels, you would be DEAD. Edge gave him the concerto, then all the refs came out to save the day. This was weird.
464
465Flair vs. Kenny Dykstra. Dykstra is now mocking Flair spots. He put on the figure four but Flair got the ropes. Dykstra is the luckiest man alive to be 20 and working matches regularly with Ric Flair. Also, boinking Mickie James. Anyway, Flair made his big comeback and ran wild. He went up top and Kenny tried to cut him off, but Flair raked his eyes and hit, I guess, a JUDO CHOP off the top. Dykstra tried to pin him using the ropes, but the ref caught him. Flair then scored a roll-up of his own and put his feet on the ropes for the win. Huge pop for that. This is the best feud ever. It’s so simple. Young guy keeps beating the old legend, often by cheating. Old legend then beats young legend also via cheating. FEUD MUST CONTINUE. Perfect.
466
467Shawn arrived. Grisham walked up and told him about Hacksaw. Shawn said he had no intention of doing anything with Jim Duggan. No, seriously. He said he went out there with one partner and one partner only, Triple H, and if Hunter was out for six months then he was going to have to deal with them alone. Flair walked up. He said he’d dealt with these guys before, they’d hospitalized him. He said he knew Shawn didn’t need him, but he loved DX and he’d be there for him.
468
469Vince couldn’t figure out why Trump hadn’t called him back. Coach said maybe his battery was dead. Vince said there was nothing wrong with his batteries. Coach wanted to know what he wanted with Trump. Vince said last week Donald sent him a letter. It read: “Dear Vince, as a lifelong fan of WWE I feel compelled to comment on last week’s Rosie O’Donnell/Donald Trump skit. I found the skit poorly produced, inept, lame and quite frankly not up to your standards.” The letter concluded that it appeared to Trump that the fans would rather watch wrestling than a poor attempt at comic satire. Vince was seething. He said if Donald wanted to see compelling television, he had compelling television for him.
470
471After commercial, Vince came out and was on fire. He was ranting and raving about Donald’s letter. He said the skit last week was, in fact, brilliant. He showed the goddamn thing again on the big screen. No “TNA” or “WE WANT WRESTLING!” chants. “THAT WAS BRILLIANT!” Vince proclaimed. People were actually cheering. Now he showed it again in slow-motion. I love when Vince gets obsessive. He said he and Trump had some things in common, but not everything. He said Trump asked the audience what they wanted and then gave it to him. Vince McMahon, however, TOLD them what they wanted, and they LIKED IT. Vince mentioned the Miss USA deal, saying this was where the “HEAT” started between Trump and Rosie. He said he would have handled that situation differently. He called out Miss USA. It was Torrie. She had a script written for her on fortune cookie paper. She said she was a very naughty girl, and she wanted to know what she could do to Vince to make it up to him, “America’s favorite billionaire”. Vince said she’d been bad, very bad — and then suddenly out came Carlito. NO. HE’S THE ONE GETTING THE RUB FROM ALL THIS? I take back everything bad I said about TNA giving Lance Hoyt the rub with the baseball players. Carlito said he knew Vince was the boss, but despite what he might think, “You, you’re not cool. I mean, that thing with Rosie and Donald last week was bad.” BAD. “Really bad. No, no it sucked. And this thing with Torrie, even though she does look beautiful, is brutal. Trump was right about you. You don’t know what these people want. If you did, you’d know that they don’t want to see stupid skits, they don’t even want to see you talk. What these people want to see, they want to see people fight.” Vince was red-faced and started taking his jacket off. He said if Carlito wanted to fight, he could fight THIS GUY. It was GREAT KHALI. Khali killed the hell out of him. Carlito tried the slowest springboard spot in modern history, but Khali swatted him out of mid-air. A tree slam later it was over. Vince grabbed the mic afterwards. “Now that, now that is cool!”.
472
473Mickie James vs. Victoria. Mickie was wearing a hell of an outfit again. This was the funniest match. Victoria hit her and Mickie fell into the splits, so then Victoria started working the GROIN. You don’t see that one every day. Lawler said he hoped Heaven was something like this. Shitty matches for eternity? Mickie finally kicked her right in the face for the pin. Thankfully, no one cut a promo about Joanie Laurer after this match.
474
475Chris Masters was in the ring cutting a boring promo. He said he was going to win the Royal Rumble. Bet you he doesn’t. “And you wanna know why?” he asked. Tell me, Chris Masters, tell me why you are going to win the Royal Rumble. This was his answer: “Cuz no one can beat me.” He had a letter from Vince McMahon saying that due to outside interference in Iraq, the Masterlock had never been officially broken. OK, this is what has to happen. People need to start breaking the Masterlock every week, and then every week he can have a new letter from someone else. Next week he could have a letter from Martin Luther King Jr., then the week after that Confucius, and so on and so forth. So anyway, who should accept this week but Ron Simmons. Masters was like, how about someone else? So Simmons slapped him across the face. And it was on. Simmons fought and fought and fought. Ideally he will lose, then grab the mic afterwards and say, “DAMN!” It appeared he was about to break it, but then SUPER CRAZY ran in and dropkicked Masters in the back, pummeled him, and gave him the moonsault off the top. Simmons teased it forever, then got his “DAMN!” in. Announcers were claiming Simmons had broken the hold. Maybe they will do my idea!.
476
477Flair, in a DX outfit, had been laid out backstage. They said they were taking him to the hospital.
478
479JTG vs. Shelton Benjamin. JTG is definitely the worker on his team, but he’s clearly still green. The good thing is that he’s got a lot of potential and a ton of personality, which counts for a lot. He got the pin after help from Shad on the outside. Thank God we didn’t get a promo about racism from Shelton after this match between two brothers here on Martin Luther King Day.
480
481TCS said they had an update on Flair. He was on his way to the hospital. Shawn ran up. He said yes, the odds were impossible, but that meant he had nothing to lose. Ok. He said this might be the end of DX, but if it was he was going down in a blaze of glory and taking everyone with him. By the grace of God that includes TCS, who Shawn superkicked right in the chops. YAY!!! I should have liked that more than I did.
482
483Clips aired from Hunter’s surgery.
484
485Team RKO came out and recreated the DX promo. They told the fans to raise all their DX signs in the air, then Orton said he had two words for everyone: “GET THEM!” He said by order of Vince McMahon, all DX signs were to be confiscated, and anyone who refused would be ejected. That was new and different. Shawn vs. Team RKO. Shawn was super over as you’d think. He is so amazing. He’s out there looking like he can barely walk at points, and sometimes he runs so gingerly that it hurts me, and then when it’s time to hit the ropes for a highspot he hits the ropes like he’s 20, takes a low bridge like he’s 20, and takes a 360 bump off a clothesline outside like he’s 20. And he probably does the best job playing babyface in peril of anyone in America today. He whipped out his Ray Stevens’ bump into the corner, which he hasn’t done in awhile, and then immediately threw a clothesline and collapsed. Great spot. Edge accidentally speared Orton off the apron, then Shawn made his big comeback. He was covered in blood. The best part was that he actually continued to sell total exhaustion while doing the comeback, which 99% of the guys in this business would completely forget to do. He hit the flying elbow and set up for the superkick. Orton hit the ring so Shawn gave him a Thesz press. Edge cut him off with a spear and went outside to get two chairs. Ref threw it out before the chairs had even got into the ring, which was super lame. Don’t you have to USE the foreign object first? Shawn kicked the chair into Edge’s face and fought back with low blows. “HBK!” He found Hunter’s sledgehammer under the ring and laid out both guys with it. You’d think Hunter died or something. Shawn went Orton up for the concerto and Edge bailed on his friend. Shawn clobbered him and Orton did a great job selling it. This was GREAT TELEVISION. Thumbs up Raw.
486
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