Sunday Afternoon Smackdown: Bonus Super Smackdown Double Shot Plus TNA

Welcome to Sunday Afternoon Smackdown!  Since nothing happened on February 10th edition, I decided to hold off and include the next episode as well as some TNA fun as well.  However this will not include the latest episode of Impact because, well, I don’t want to hurt you like that.  

Sunday Afternoon Smackdown Twists your Fate in our traditional WOO! vs BOO! format.  Everything WOO! was better than Bully Ray’s calves.  Everything BOO! deserves to be breathed on heavily as well as drooled upon by The Big Show.

WOO!

THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TALENT RELATIONS AND THE INTERIM GENERAL MANAGER OF RAW MAKING APPEARENCES ON FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN

Having Mister Excitement on the phone for Smackdown was brilliant.  Somehow, his voice sounds even better over the phone.  WWE.com could make a killing selling Johnny Ace recording personalized outgoing messages for people.  Just 5 minutes of boring before the beep. 

Then he shows up again next week, bringing Otunga’s Thermos with him and shows Teddy Long how a real general manager works.  You never see people destroying Mr. Laurinaitis’ office, do you?  You never see him getting run over in videogames, do you?  I didn’t think so.

RANDY ORTON: MAKING PEACE WITH THE INTERNET

Randy Orton used to be loved by the internet back when he was a terrible shitty wrestler.  It was pretty much based on three things: 1) cutters are cool, 2) large gesturing taunts are cool 3)getting thrown in thumbtacks is cool.  Then he started winning matches and everybody got super jaded about him.  In the last year or so, Randy has been having good to great matches with internet darlings like Christian, The Artist Formally Known As CM Punk and now Daniel Brian Danielson Bryantson.  Their match on Smackdown was certainly an example of that. 

And sure, it looked like Danielson was really pulling his punches in that match, and understandably so because Randy Orton was born with glass bones and paper skin.  But Randy actually let Danielson look like  a legitimate contender.  Even being dominated in certain parts, which makes perfect sense if it was their first match.  Then the toss to the apron into the DDT was smart, instead of having the dude just wait out there for an eon, and finally Randy attacks Big Show by jumping a table like Randy Savage while Danielson lays in the ring dead like Ric Flair.  Everything worked, and now with Randy being taken out of the match, I only want to see them wrestle again that much more.

THREE WORDS: “CALVES AND ABS”

TNA, be smart and put that on a shirt.  Bully Ray and Bobby Roode are far and away the two best things in TNA right now, and putting them together, even for such a brief time, is something I will always cherish, like Bully cherishes his calves.  Everything about them.  From Roode screwing Bully time and time again, only to try to reform the alliance with promises of title shots, to Roode slapping Bully on the chest lightly saying “you follow my lead okay?” only to have the Bully responds with slightly harder chest slaps saying “stop hitting me”.  Natural villainous chemistry, and I hope they are given a lot more time to screw each other over. 

“Brothers don’t shake hands, brothers gotta hug”—Bobby Roode

SAMOA JOE: CHAMPION

Our boy has gold again!  After Magnus cut a pretty good promo about England on Impact, and weeks of Joe and Magnus trying to look legitimate over the dual brick shit houses, it is really great to finally be rewarded and see something kind of new happen in the tag scene in TNA that isn’t racist or Shannon Moore.  Between that and the X Division matches kicking ass, there was actually a fair amount to like on Against All Odds.  Except Gunner.

A TNA MAIN EVENT TO LIKE

I know, it’s insane.  But TNA actually put on a compelling main event match.  Bully Ray abstaining for the first portion while the good guys gave us catharsis at the expense of Roode was nothing but logical.  The teased Beer Money taunt, Bully Ray popping up from Hardy’s messed up Twist of Fate Stunner like he was the reincarnation of Scott Fucking Hall, (don’t email me saying Scott Hall is alive, we both know that’s barely true). 

And then finally, Roode  got under Sting’s skin.  He made Sting lose control.  Anytime anyone gets spit on in wrestling, I love it.  And while it was sort of telegraphed with Hardy stumbling in the background briefly, it was still cool.  And the placement was perfect, where Sting couldn’t see Storm getting to his feet in the back ground, and screaming at Jeff to get up.  I thought it was going to be Business As Usual after the ref got bumped twice, but then Sting had to have his moral crisis and it was actually really compelling.  Certainly more compelling than whatever Champ vs Authority Figure they have over in the WWE right now.  Sting made a mistake unintentionally and couldn’t do the wrong thing intentionally.  It was the perfect tone to strike for a clusterfuck TNA ending.  And sure, it could all end in Hardy winning the title at Victory Road where he stumbled through all of his 30 second match just a year before, but still.

Honorable mention: AJ Styles travels with a Nintendo 3DS

I guess Steiner’s taunts about AJ sleeping in a race car bed with Winnie the Pooh sheets actually held some water.  He plays Zelda to get over the hurt of Kaz and beats the hell out of his kids in Mario Kart.

BOO!

SHEAMUS: IN GENERAL

I can’t remember the last time I forgot somebody won the Royal Rumble within a month.  How am I supposed to remember?  He comes into the Rumble with only months of beating up Muhammad Hassan and his only narrative in the match is “OYM GONNA WIN THE ROYAL RUMBLE…MATCH”, which is a far cry from the Ric Flairs and Shawn Michaelses before him.  Then he wins it, and all he does after is say “OY WON THE ROYAL RUMBLE…MATCH!” and goes back to beating up dudes like he’s the general manager’s hired gun. 

Not to mention his Great Shite shirt makes me uncomfortable, aside from it being washed out and terrible.

Then he cuts this promo, which I guess is supposed to be his Hate Me Now thing.  Is it just me, or does it seem like Sheamus learned a fair amount of his moveset from beating up his childhood bullies?  Also, was it JBL that told him his skin was too pale?  Did they haze him?  Did Bradshaw hog tie him in the shower and let Randy Orton rub tanning oil all over him?  I hope we get all these answers and more in his autobiography It’s Not Easy Being White…It’s Not Easy Being Red.

TED DIBIASE IS A CLASSIST JERK

Seriously, if he would have just gotten over his hate for his gardeners, we wouldn’t have to watch the same kind of boring match every week.  All bullies really just want to be loved and accepted, not beaten up and made to look like fools covered in silly string, (or poop if you’re bullying DX or Eddie Guerrero).

On a side note, Ted wears his tights way too tightly.  I can see his bank rolls.

But bless Hunico for trying to turn shit into Shinola.  He came in as Earth 3 Sin Cara and now is trying to tell Ted that he has an evil plan to ruin his bbqs by breaking his wrist.  “NO MORE BURGER FLIPPIN FOR YOU ESE, YOU’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO HOLD SOLID FOOD AGAIN”

ERIC BISCHOFF IS STILL NOT IN THE ELIMINATION CHAMBER VIDEOS

This has been bothering me for awhile, and is almost as big a travesty as nixing “THE WORLD IS WATHCHING” and trying to retcon Jim Ross out of continuity. 

But seriously, the soundbyte of him saying “THE ELIMINATION CHAYMBURRRRR” has to be in the top ten best things that Easy E ever did.  Right before getting on his knees to propose to Hulk Hogan and right after getting on his knees to blow Hulk Hogan.

SPEAKING OF HULK HOGAN: HULK HOGAN SPEAKING

I’m only going to provide a part of the exhaustion infused quote that Hogan gave during one of the U.K. events.

“If I gotta be the hood ornament that you put on front of the ship to bust through the ice cubes, to see through the fog, to feel through the darkness of the night.  I can be the guy because I smell the greatness already.  And if they don’t smell it, I’m going to take everybody in TNA and stuff their heads in it because greatness is their destiny.”

I expect Garrett Bischoff to have the Hall of Fame ring by this summer.  I guess that’s what “Hulkamania stroke” really is: lateral nepotism.  Or at least that’s what it will be until Hogan has his first stroke.  Damn that Jeff Jarrett!  New Blood 4 Life!

By the way, who is even in Immortal now?  Horrace Hogan?

JEFF HARDY IS CLEARLY STILL ON DRUGS

There is no way a person can possibly be this delusional.  How can he stand there with his Worst Birthday Ever facepaint and say that the odds are always against him?

I don’t even have to say it do I?  On no less than 3 separate occasions have you been on a meteoric path of stardom, chance after chance to “GO FOR THE GOLD KID” and “MAKE YOURSELF FAMOUS” and you squandered it to smoke and make horrible videos with your Never Was brother. 

Also, stop calling your fans enigmas, I know exactly who they are, from their kid size chewing tobacco to their hot topic rewards cards.

WWE’S OBSESSION WITH SMELL

Natalya cost herself a match last Friday because she apparently farted in the ring and the ref couldn’t make the count because his eyes were screaming or something.  Just when I thought we were past this.  What is with the writers these days, it’s all bad breath and bad farts and lawyer stink. 

TEDDY LONG IS A RACIST, DREW MAC GOT SCREWED, AND SOMEBODY SHOULD START A PETITION TO SUSPEND BIG SHOW

So let me get this straight:

Mark Henry is taken out of the Chamber match because he wrinkled Teddy Long’s tie, and then is replaced with The Great Kahli off screen because they have to keep up a weight/chamber ratio, then Randy Orton gets taken out because he’s FRAGILE, so they need a replacement, then Mark Henry shows up despite being suspended indefinitely, so Big Show kills him after killing Kahli and destroys Teddy’s office and somehow DOESN’T get suspended OR taken out of the chamber, so then they have a battle royal featuring the J.O.B. Squad and Mark Henry is still not in it, I guess because he’s seeing little Big Shows flying around his head.   They eliminate Drew Mac and David Otunga, the only two people who could go into the chamber with some semblance of a story and put Santino in it, who has only been jobbing to farts in the last few weeks, am I getting this?  Am I understanding this correctly?

I just don’t see how this isn’t the worst chamber match ever.  That is, unless the Cobra gets caught in the chains while Daniel and Cody take turns kicking Santino in the kidneys until he vomits on the front row.

Honorable Mention: Wade Barrett’s music sucks because it sounds like the first song some garage band wrote, and then they got big somehow and decided to give it a proper recording because their girlfriends liked it.

Logan Stallings (also known as Garcian Smith) is a Psychology student at the University of Florida.  He’s working on an English minor.  In his spare time he likes writing prose and poetry, as well as fantasizing about wrestling Chris Jericho and stealing all of Raven’s gimmicks.

Sunday Afternoon Smackdown (2/3/11)

Welcome to Sunday Afternoon Smackdown on Sunday After Friday!  It’s our two week anniversary, and like a psychotic romantic partner, I ask you where is my present? Say you love me!

Sunday Afternoon Smackdown downs the smack in our trademark WOO! vs BOO! format.  Everything “WOO!” made me hear voices in my head in the voice of Ric Flair, while everything “BOO!” filled my head with the sound of WRESTLER DELETED reciting poetry to Raven.  

WOO!

SHEAMUS EXERCISES HIS BULLY DEMONS/THE NEAR ASSASSINATION OF THEODORE LONG BY THE COWARD MARK HENRY

Bully demons is a fun concept all on it’s own.  It sounds like what Kane would be if he stalked Zack Ryder to stuff him into various lockers instead of trying to fist his mouth.

Sheamus certainly has a score to settle with Mark Henry, and like Triple H before him, he wrapped up months of history with one finisher. He didn’t talk too much, he didn’t break out a bunch of green blarney stones, he just kicked that dude in the face.  Those are the best Sheamus moments. When I saw Sheamus kick Lucky Cannon in the face.  When he kicked John Cena in the face.  When he kicked Hornswoggle in the face.  

My only regret is that Mark Henry didn’t eat Teddy right there in the ring.  Seriously, it needed to rain pain.  Not only can he not understand mathematics, keeping him on par with Scott Steiner, but he’s out of the Elimination Chamber!  

Sheamus looks like a beast right now.  Henry exploded on that kick, I thought stuffing was going to burst from his face.  

Stuffing is blood in the PGverse.

So who is going to be in the Chamber Match now?  The Great Kahli.  That’s the best Smackdown can do right now.  Seriously.  The next guy on the rung would be Ted DiBiase.  Can Christian come back from injury and take his spot please?  ONE MORE MATCH!

I had to take a look at the roster pages to make sure I was right on about the problem on Smackdown.  Also, looking at RAW, it seems we’re still paying Mason Ryan money.  He should really be moved to Smackdown to confuse Booker T.  Or maybe…ugh, you know, it’s easier to just say Mason Ryan sucks.

In all seriousness, Sheamus is going to have to become an actually interesting and likable character outside of bicycle kicks and lifting Finlay’s moveset, (celtic cross now!), because I just watched Edge/Jericho Mania 26 again, and there aren’t many ways to build a good program around a finishing move.

Also, I’m pretty sure most people don’t know what Brogue means.

TEDDY LONG DOESN’T WATCH HIS OWN SHOW

This is a minor WOO! for Teddy, because he mentioned to Drew Mac that predictable television is no good.

I feel like this is a low hanging fruit, but I’ll take a shot anyway.  Let’s try to work through all the predictable things in WWE right now and maybe we’ll have a clear understanding of how The Character Teddy Long feels about WWE TV.

• John Cena: Winning
• (4 Superstars + Opening Segment) X Teddy Long = TAG MATCH PLAYA
• KEVIN NASH is going to EXPLAIN HIS ACTIONS and BE OLD and TAKE THE PROGRAM NOWHERE
• People wrestling
• YOU PEOPLE
• Longest Running Weekly Episodic
• Something racist
• Something sexist
• Sugar
• Spice
• Everything Nice
• These are the ingredients to create the perfect little girls

Seriously, you can make a bingo board.  It gets so repetitive, it tampers with your memory.  2002/2003, in my head, feels like Groundhog Day, where I wake up every day expecting Triple H to lose the title only to see that he’s in the ring again talking about his dick and genes for thirty minutes.

EPICO Y PRIMO LLEVAN PONCHOS

Those ponchos are awesome.  Like, not really, because they have their names in Bad Tattoo Font, but the fact that they would rather people see their names and merch over those science museum souvenir belts says a lot for their characters.  Which is great, they should do more things like that, because their spokesperson is Rosa Mendes, who can’t say anything.  I mean, her hips always tell the truth, but it’s nothing I can understand.

Also, that backstabber variant is sick.  I really hope Primo has a nice, tidy little career.  And you know, doesn’t get on drugs or hire a guy to stab John Cena.  

Also, Rosa should blow more kisses.  In a Maryse-free world, I am missing the one taunt that causes me to say uncomfortably perverted things outloud to people reading me on the internet.

BIG IS A FAILURE WHO RAN OVER DANIELSON’S MEAT FLAVORED GIRLFRIEND

It’s really hard to do SD reviews because nothing happens.  You can literally never watch Smackdown ever and never miss anything except Randy Orton doing jumping splits and making weirder faces than Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and if you’re on tumblr you don’t even miss that.  Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett are spinning wheels and everyone else is just sort of punching each other.

So in a world of nothing, Daniel Bryan has finally made himself out to be a something.  He makes Smackdown, at least his parts, must see TV.  And sure, nothing is still happening, but it’s like Austin Aries on WCW Thunder, he just says amazing things and then has a great match sometimes.  Danielson has been so on fire that for once his wrestling is secondary.  He’s almost at a point now where if he wanted to, he could just get beat up the whole match like a Flair/Hennig fusion monster and not lose a step.  He just keeps poking the bear, he knows he’s right, and he doesn’t care what happens to him as long as he has the strap.  

The other best part is that Danielson made it more than clear that Big Show is the only person he’s really concerned about right now.   And then, to top it all off, AJ came out.  Now I have this really great feeling that AJ can become Daniel’s villainous hench-wife.  We can dress her up like Talia al Ghul and she can drop kick people in the balls.  

BOO!

IN ADDITION TO BEING BAD AT HIS JOB, BOOKER T IS ALSO SEXIST

I’m tired of all this nonsense about Michael Cole being eliminated “by a girl”.  Kong is a female, yes, but she’s also bigger than most guys.  Bigger than me at least.  She mashes her own potatoes with her fist.  She can stop speeding bullets with a headbutt.  She was in a match a month after giving birth to a baby that will probably be choking snake’s to death in it’s crib like god damn Hercules and all you guys can do is sit behind your desk and go “lol women”.  

Also, major kudos go to Ziggler for making the effort to make everyone look good, including a “Diva”.  Probably because Ziggler does business.  I was going to call him professional, but he models his life after pornstars and makes obnoxious twitter posts.  Still, he never called anybody by any slurs on Twitter like a certain person who is undefeated at WrestleMania.

Not Taker of course.  Taker’s in character twitter feed would probably be a lot of ellipsis.   It will read like the script of a brooding Final Fantasy character.

PHYSICAL COMEDY IS RUINING MY LIFE

I’m not sure why this is happening with Nattie.   It’s telegraphed now.  She says that she feels it in her gut, and then boom.  Fart.  I’m not sure if this is actually a gimmick.  I guess it could be in the same why “eye twitching” and “lisping” and “murdering fetuses” is a gimmick.  You have to understand, I already said that like 4 things happen on Smackdown, and when one of those things is farting, it leaves me with little else to work with.  The RAW review wasn’t up, so I posted unopposed, and I still lose in quality comparison.  

I’m not against physical comedy, but there is no precedent in the character or appearance of Nattie for it to be happening.  Chris Farley was fat and oafish, so he would fall on tables.  Unless I’m missing something about Nattie’s connection to her father, there is no reason we should be having 90 second diva matches, farting capable wrestlers and women who think it’s cool to wear a whole fox carcass on their head.

Sunday Afternoon Smackdown 1/27/11 (Special Monday Entry!)

This is the Special 1^st Edition Edition with Holofoil  FairToFlair Trading Card featuring Mitch and KSP riding a Pikachu themed roller coaster together.

This feature will normally appear on Sundays.

Sunday Night Smackdown smacks you down in our trademark WOO! Vs BOO! format.  Everything “WOO!” was froot and reeked of awesomeness, while everything “BOO!” was teamed up with Santino to do racial humor on Martin Luther King Day.

WOO!

NAME DROPPING WHEN IT IS HISTORICALLY RELEVENT

A lot of great things were happening.  Daniel Bryan has been having great appreciation for his girlfriend and Big Show was outed as a sinning freak.  Great things were really happening when Daniel Bryan was smacking The Bully Show in the face with a arguments and philosophy textbook.  He was saying everything short of “you should just kill yourself you big ugly jerk, nobody will go to prom with you” because I guess he has to Be A Star or whatever. 

In the mist of crocodile tears and offhanded references to “genetic freaks”, which could mean The Hulk but I prefer to think of Scott Steiner, Bryan name dropped Andre The Giant.  Now that’s certainly something that Big Show invites as a comparison, because how many other giants are there on the planet Earth?   There have to be more than there are Funkasauruses.  Bryan told Big Show to his face that he will never be Andre.  Which is a fair thing to say.

1. Big Show and Andre the Giant are different people, and can’t be the same person until science catches up with our language.
2. Andre only needed to be in one really good movie to be remembered fondly by the whole world, where as only a few people on tumblr and whatever fans 10 years from now who were young now and like to blog about nostalgia on whatever site they’ll have then about the really tall guy that went poo poo on da bus. 
3. Andre transcended championships.

It’s that last one that is the most important for Daniel’s character arch.  When Andre won the WWE championship, he pawned it off to The Million Dollar Man in like 6 seconds like it was Ric Flair’s Hall of Fame watch.  He didn’t need it.  It wouldn’t fit, it was a trinket and he just liked beating up people and grinding their bones to make his bread. 

Daniel Bryan clearly doesn’t subscribe to this idea.  Neither does Henry.  Neither does Show.  They all need that big gold hunk of implied intrinsic value in order to validate all of the torment they’ve put themselves through.  Yes, I am equating Daniel Bryan losing most of the vision in his eye to Mark Henry having to cover Mae Young’s fake deflated-blimp boobs.  They all did what they had to do and no struggle is any more valid than the other.  The Big Show of course double teamed Hogan with a mummy while Jimmy Heart acted as the voyeur. They aren’t like Andre, they need this belt.

It’s a cleaver way to get us to associate Bryan with guys like Show and Henry.  Clearly the belt isn’t enough because it still has lingering Swagger stink on it, but now he seems like them in motive.  Daniel Bryan isn’t like Andre because he wasn’t given the same gifts.  Big Show has some of those gifts, but squanders them to high five The WWE Universe and kill 95 pound girls. 

Honorable Mention: Mark Henry going full Scorpion and barking at Daniel Bryan to “GET OVER HERE”.  How in the hell is Mark Henry the strongest actor on the roster right now?  He’s so fleshed out, especially last week when he was getting upset over silly things in wrestling despite being a silly thing in wrestling.

GOOD MATCHES ON TELEVISION FOR YOU

Smackdown has a bad habit of being on Fridays, (it’s like, every week or something with these guys) so I generally have to watch it later.  Despite being someone who writes about wrestling, I actually have a pretty full life, (how do ya like thatLawlernerds, huh? ) so I have to watch it later.  This affords me the luxury of having the option to fast forward or skip things all together if it’s too much farting and RAW rebounds.  It’s nice not to move up to 1.5 speed because I actually sort of like what’s happening in the ring.

Specifically, Justin Gabriel and Cody Rhodes having a fun few minutes of jumping and rolling.  It was great, somebody would roll, then somebody would jump.   It was like Mario and the barrels in Donkey Kong manifested their properties into people, which is oddly appropriate because the beginning of Justin Gabriel’s theme sounds like a menu screen in Ape Escape.  I’m not really a fan of J-Gabe outside of That One Match He Had With John Cena, but I have been missing a time when Smackdown was a strong wrestling show in lieu of RAW trying to shove all these verbal narratives down our throats, or alternatively up our (candy/monkey) asses if the Rock is there.

They bounced around, Justin made one mistake and it was in line with Justin being over eager and a risk taker to Cody’s calculating serial killer style, eventually leading Cody to say “Aww Funk It” and leave Justin at the crossroads.  Bonus WOO! For the way Cody backs off his opponents almost immediately as if he can’t stand to touch them for more than the 3 seconds he’s pinning them for.  I can’t say I blame him, Justin looks like a goof in those Kid Icarus boots he was wearing.

As much fun as I had with that match, I still would love to see these two in a Vegas Showgirls Match.

THE UNEARTHING OF THE FUNKASAURUS HAS BROUGHT OUT THE REST OF EARTH 2

Brodus Clay sheeplexing WWE’s C-Team has been a great way to remind us that these people are still employed.  Sure, we have to deal with seeing Alex Riley’s goofy living-in-the-past-erman jacket, but we also got to see Yoshi Tatsu come out and cut people in half with his hands.  Sure, he was sans Kabuki and risks becoming a permanent half of Racial Team 2k12 ver 1.0, but he’s still better than Koslov.  His chops sound like shotgun blasts.  He hands are scaled down Kenta Kobashis.   And yeah, Trent Barreta had to deal with Randy Orton working through his backed up of voices, but we still see them, and maybe, just maybe it will lead to Drew McIntyre winning a freaking match.  Speaking of which.

BOO!

LET DREW MAC HAVE ONE

Okay, well, we’ve been doing this for awhile now.  Drew MacIntyre is wrestling every week, Randy Orton doesn’t even do that, and at this point it just seems like Terry Long is still mad about Drew running his MLK picture party.

Think about it.  Drew takes one for the team, he stays down for the cobra, when did we stop living in the world of “Pin Me Pay Me?”  What about all those goofs that Randy Orton Randall Keith Orton’d in the ring.  How does he afford those guys?  Do they get paid in Fleer trading cards? 

And then you put him against Sheamus?  Why?  So I can be reminded how much better these guys deserve?  Sheamus has almost completely assimilated Fit Finlay’s moveset and is one Actual Celtic Cross away from pile driving Regal on top of a car.

And how does it make sense for Teddy to care anyway?  Does he know that everyone can’t be winners all the time?  That was the hardest part of GM Mode in SvR, making sure everyone was happy and didn’t have broken necks and stuff.    If Drew’s stock lowers, doesn’t somebody else’s rise?  KSP and I still want to believe that wrestlers that win matches get a sack of money from Mr. McMahon, complete with hokey dollar sign on the bag.

What is Drew even worried about?  Do “Cena Things” not happen on Smackdown?   Can people not just pull an Office Space and show up for work anyway and still get paid? 

I hope this leads to Drew Being Something and doesn’t backfire on him.  If he goes psycho killer with an ax Braveheart on everybody, then great, I take it back, but I feel like we’re on a one way path to Christian Cry Baby jobber.  WWE doesn’t do losing streak stories differently too often.

Also, why laugh at his job being in jeopardy Booker?  This guy has rent to pay.  Speaking of Booker.

BOOKER T’S COMMENTARY DAWG RIGHT THERE MAN YEAH BABY

Booker T gave me one good moment where he repeated Batista’s name in a way that made me wonder if he still thought Batista was down. 

And does Booker not understand basic merit based contendership?  He seemed so shocked and appalled that Cody doesn’t just hand out title shots.  The guy wrestles every week, he can’t go full 100% every week, that’s insanity and it’s how you get injuries in real sports. 

Is he still trapped mentally in WCW?  You either just demanded a title shot from The Powers That Be and got it, but it might have been the 3^rd match for that particular title that night, or you have to beat Miss Elizabeth multiple times in a 67 person tournament that will be invalidated by a title vacation the next night anyway.

Also, it’s not a pterodactyl.  Pick up a children’s book.

HAW HAW WHO FARTED WAS THAT AKSANA’S SAX?

Seriously, why did Nattie have to fart in a way that nobody does?  What does that add to her character?  Are we going to make fun of her now?  Will she see the error of her bully ways and start crying when we call her terrible names?  Here are a few for reference.

• Nattie Neidfart

That’s all you need.

At least Santino isn’t a hypocrite who wont sell smell when he expect others to sell getting touched in the throat by his fingertips +/- sock snake.

JOHN CENA IS GOING TO ROCK YOUR ROCKS OFF

 

This has gone too far.

Honorable Mention: Michael Cole said “Shiggy Diggy Wiggy”.  God, it’s like when your parents pretend to like Pokémon.

Logan Stallings (better known by his ring name, Garcian Smith) is a psych student at the University of Florida who has dreams of writing, wrestling and writing about wrestling. In his spare time, he performs spoken word and catches Pokémon.

Thursday Raw Thursday Review: 01/16/12

Thursday Raw Thursday comes to you in our trademark WOO! vs. BOO! format. Everything “WOO!” was awesome, while everything “BOO!” was killed by that murderous, scary, serial killing wrestler guy Kane John Cena.

WOO!

ANGRY WRESTLERS SPEAKING ANGRILY TO EACH OTHER

It’s weird that I have to applaud that (angry, reluctant applause), but when today’s wrestlers usually speak to each other in some combination of winks and punchlines and G-rated filth, anger is suddenly refreshing.

This past Monday, Raw was bookended by two segments based around two people being angry with each other. There’s two key parts to that sentence: the angry part, and the with each other part.

The “angry” part is refreshing because we live in a world where John Cena can’t stop talking about underwear when Kane is trying to for real murder him. So when Dolph Ziggler rips Mick Foley a new place to hide his sock, or when CM Punk takes a page out of Big Johnny’s book and tells him to shut his mouth just like Eve should (show some goddamned respect, Eve), well, my pro wrestling boner grew three sizes that day.

The “with each other” part is refreshing because we live in a world where every wrestler is hyper aware of the people watching the show. It’s come to a point where John Cena has literally walked out to the ring to stand there and hold the microphone out to the audience as a promo. So when these four guys are all angry with each other over an issue that isn’t based entirely on how much “we people” like or hate John Cena, or how John Laurinaitis is or isn’t Mr. Exciting to “us people,” my pro wrestling boner grows three sizes more.

Now, I don’t want things to get carried away with anger and have everyone screaming and stabbing each other like in TNA (I haven’t watched TNA in a long time, okay [ed. note: this is still how it is over there]) because that would totally devalue what happened on Monday. But if we could dial back the self-awareness and the unfunny comedy, I think everyone would benefit.

Alternatively, we could just run rapid-fire replays of John Laurinaitis telling Eve to shut her mouth and I could giggle myself to sleep every week because that was so fucking funny.

BIG JOHNNY STUDD

In addition to being this close to telling Eve to shut her fucking mouth, Johnny Ace also launched into what I was hoping would slowly turn into a Will Ferrell “I drive a Dodge Stratus!!” dinner table speech. He just kept getting more and more frustrated with how he was being bullied, I felt like it had to end with “YOU DO NOT TALK TO ME THAT WAY! I CAN DO 100 PUSH-UPS IN TWENTY MINUTES! BIG TIME STUFF”

Also, The Squared Circle wrote a nice paragraph on why Big Johnny is so easy to hate (when you’re not choking on your own laughter at the things he says):

I love to hate Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim RAW General Manager John Lauranitis. Just that whole fuckin’ title. It gets heat like a furnace.

I think he’s a better evil boss than Mr. McMahon, because Vince is so transparently Evil and Johnny Ace is a much more recognizable form of evil everybody has seen in a shitty boss before, the evil of incompetence. You can’t tell if he’s trying to fuck you over on purpose, or if shit just keeps rolling downhill, and there he is on his fuckin’ BlackBerry again, what a motherfucker.

And it’s true. Despite all of his Eve-silencing comedy, it’s not hard to get behind CM Punk when he’s calling him a douchebag. He even stumbles over his words (I swear he almost called Punk CP Munk), and while I don’t think that’s intentional, it seems to at least give Punk’s shots at his charisma a leg to stand on.

DANIEL BRYAN APPRECIATES AJ

I love seeing the wheels spinning in Daniel Bryan’s head as he grows as a heel.

When AJ says “I love you” and he says “how much” you can see a little thought bubble pop above his head with a clip of Big Show running her over and ending the match playing inside of it. When Big Show actually does run her over, you can see the gears turning in Bryan’s head until he finally realizes how he can use this against Big Show and then he makes him fucking cry.

He. Made. The Big Show. Cry.

The best part of this is that Daniel Bryan essentially showed up on Raw to tell a live television audience that the Big Show is an unapologetic, crying, blithering idiot. That makes him my favourite person. To be fair, he already was.

I just realized that last week I made a joke about Big Show looking like a camouflage fake penis, and then this week Big Show started crying (you know, out of the tip of his face, his eyes), which means Big Show is pretty much forcing me to make a semen joke I don’t want to make. 

SECOND FUNKASAURUS VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST

Okay, it’s the same match twice, but it’s still funny as shit to watch.

I think it might get better and more fun if it keeps happening this EXACT way. Same moves, same catchphrases, same timing, same jobber opponent making “what the actual fuck” faces at the camera, same everything. It’d be like the shortest cult movie ever where people go to the theatre and shout out punchlines and sing a long to the songs, except everyone would be shouting “SHEEPLEX” and answering “YEAH” in a sassy voice to “SHOULD I… GET HEE-YIM?”.

What’s even better about this is that he’s had three matches as the Funkasaurus, and with the dance routine, the booty shake, the opponent feel-up, the big headbutt, the SHEEPLEX, the avalanche in the corner and the “Aw, Funk It!” he’s already got more moves than Diesel (and that’s including the hair flip).

CHRIS JERICHO, MR. SPARKLE

It looks like the ‘Quiet-ollah of Rock and Trolla’ (I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me) is on board with my “Every WWE Heel Needs A Non-Verbal Catchphrase Initiative,” which I started last week. Crying invisible tears would’ve been a good one, but Big Show already aped that, so he went with turning off the lights of whatever room he’s in and illuminating his Flyerman jacket.

I wonder when the cheers will fully stop, and how he’ll keep them that way. Don’t think for a second, no matter how hard he trolls people, that the crowd won’t go apeshit if he wins the Rumble.

Speaking of the Rumble, I’d love it if one of two things happened:

1. Jericho enters at number one and manages to never actually enter the ring or the Rumble by continuously milking a crowd reaction for the duration of the match. It would be a social experiment so see how many times over the course of an hour people would cheer, start booing, then slowly start to laugh, then cheer again, then start booing again, etc.
2. Jericho enters the Rumble, lasts ‘til the end with one other jobber like Tyler Reks or someone, then eliminates himself so people have to deal with Tyler Reks winning the Royal Rumble. No one could cheer that.

Honourable Mention: Tag Team Match, Play— URRRGHHHHAAGGH NO! NO!!! I CAN CHANGE!!!

Teddy Long did the unthinkable. He saw four guys in a ring, in conflict with one another, came out, and didn’t make a tag team match. In therapy this is called a “breakthrough”. 

I can’t stop picturing Teddy Long watching Sheamus, The Miz, R-Truth and Wade Barrett all fight in the ring, vibrating in place at the thought of a tag team match. Part of me wishes that after he announced the Over The Top Rope Battle Royal, he went “just kidding, tag team match playa!”

Honourable Honourable Mention: This Teddy Long “Tag Team Match Dubstep Lolz” video that for some reason I laughed at.

Honourable Honourable Honourable Mention: Dolph Ziggler referencing John Cena’s hilariously awkward run from last week. 

BOO!

JOHN CENA MIGHT BE A SOCIOPATH

I understand that this whole thing was supposed to be John Cena “embracing hate,” but it sure as shit was the weirdest thing to embrace hate over. 

He’s just a sociopath. Kane tries to murder him and the next week he comes out to wish everyone a Happy New Year and make underwear jokes. Zack Ryder loses a match and John Cena attempts to FUCKING KILL Jack Swagger while everyone screams STOP STOP HE’S ALREADY DEAD.

What’s also weird is how he referenced Johnny Ace’s “my bad” when confronting him backstage, which means he was watching Zack Ryder’s backstage promo. NO OTHER WRESTLER seems to watch these backstage segments, but no, John Cena is somewhere backstage, eyes glued to the monitor as Zack Ryder is being tended to by doctors. I don’t know why I find that so weird. Everyone else is off preparing for matches while John Cena has his thumb up his butt watching the show he’s on.

Point is, John Cena is a crazier crazy person than Kane, who is still pretty crazy, because he did his “ringpost pyro taunt” from backstage to a camera, as if that’s what actually sets off his fireworks.

All of this stuff is in the BOO section, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I liked it at least a little bit for how goddamn funny it is.

CM PUNK CAN DO BOTH FUNNY AND SERIOUS!

Brandon Stroud of the Best and Worst of Raw tackled the shit out of this already. He made great points about Punk’s awkward jabs at Ziggler, and I was certainly caught off-guard by his “hiding behind a woman, and a poor excuse of a woman” comment towards Vickie Guerrero, but somehow I’m more offended by his unfunny comedy.

Coming out and saying things like “turd in a punch bowl” and making fun of a guy’s spray tan and highlights reeks of so much John Cena that he was one Shouty Preacher Voice away from evolving into him. John Cena’s “funny voice / serious voice” on-off switch doesn’t work for him, so it’d be sweet if no one else, especially CM fucking Punk, would give it a shot ever again.

ZACK RYDER HAS FIGHTING SPIRIT

Remember two years ago when Jack Swagger won the World Heavyweight Title by beating Chris Jericho (with injured ribs) using one Gutwrench Powerbomb? How the hell am I then supposed to believe that Swagger needs THREE of those to beat Zack Ryder (with Kane-injured ribs [BBQ ribs?]) for the US Title?

This is nit-picking, but it was just a bit odd to see him kick-out TWICE when his ribs are injured, and it’s a totally acceptable loss if he were to just take it once and get pinned. If Ryder can kick-out of finishers like that, let’s line him up against Undertaker this year at Mania.

PEREZ/PARIS HILTON

Whichever one the announcers want to go with, I guess.

Anyway, nothing needs to be even said about this, nor does any penis or cocaine need to be drawn on a picture about this. It was more than uncomfortable watching him sell a Bella shove like someone yanked a rug out from underneath him. It was a bad idea from the second they announced it, all the way through to when it was over. It went exactly as we expected, ninety seconds of plugging his website, a roll-up finish, everyone booed. 

Now we can all go back to having that exact same match without him next week, and he can go back to, I don’t know, mashing the exclamation point key?

Honourable Mention: Evan Bourne’s second wellness strike.

Okay, I’m not going to say much here. Everyone’s piped in and gone “lol dumb” or whatever enough. I might take some flack for this, but here goes.

I agree. It is dumb. He probably should’ve had his shit together knowing he’d be tested again. My problem is more with the reaction it got online. Sure, everyone was correct that he was stupid for getting busted (probably for pot or fake pot or whatever, although I don’t think it was ever actually said what it was). But it’s also not exactly flattering to see your timeline fill up in seconds with people leaping at the chance to point and laugh at a guy, who’s done nothing but hurt his own future.

I feel like I can’t really say that and come off like my hands are clean or whatever, considering how much fun I’ve made of Matt Hardy in the past or whoever, so I know I’m no different, so all I’m going to say, in this run-on sentence, is for whatever reason, to see the news break and how everyone immediately reacted, it irked me, and now I’ll move on, enough preaching, especially since I’ll probably ruin it within the week by pointing and laughing at Matt Hardy or something.

And, even I can’t deny that this was funny. So there.

Mitch is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of PIZZABODYSLAM. He is also on Twitter, where he talks about how he watches and writes about and thinks about wrestling all-day everyday. He is also a grown-up.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul.

Thursday Raw Thursday Review: 01/09/12

A quick intro - I’ve come to realize that my reviews, if one even gets done, get done late. So, I’ve decided to brand my own tardiness! Every Thursday you can find my review of Raw here, and over on my blog, PIZZABODYSLAM. If you haven’t seen the Thursday Raw Thursday, please watch this video so whenever you read “Thursday Raw Thursday” in this or any future post, you can say “Thursday Raw Thursday” in your head in that weird stilted phrasing, like I always do.

Thursday Raw Thursday comes to you in our trademark WOO! vs. BOO! format. Everything “WOO!” was awesome, while everything “BOO!” is still changing a tire at the American Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi.

WOO!

THAT’S GOTTA BE KANE (MAYBE NOT, BUT LET’S RUN TO OUR RENTAL CAR ANYWAY)

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been gone ever since Kane returned and forcibly caved John Cena’s mouth in on itself. But now, like Kane, I’ve been resurrected (I guess you can be resurrected if Mark Henry sits on your leg and you take ‘er easy for a while), and I too am wearing a big silver Vega mask.

I’ve already missed some instant Kane classics in the time I’ve been gone. Such as Kane Hadokening John Cena. Or when he stood around trying to get a “Cena Sucks” chant going, but mostly failed and had to just sit there idly twiddling his yarn pants (I wish he started it with a falsetto “let’s go Cena!”). Even last week’s promo from backstage (I hope he was in full gear with a microphone just sitting there poking at the lights and pyro board trying to spook Cena) had me in stitches (like his yarn pants).

And now he’s claiming he almost brought Zack Ryder to “hell” with him (hopefully the same “hell” that Edge was in and later made fun of). 

But nothing was funnier than watching Zack Ryder change a tire while Eve squirmed in the passenger’s seat for like three commercial breaks. There was absolutely no logic or voice of reason in this segment (which I’ll get to), and I died laughing, much like Zack Ryder presumably died when he was chokeslammed onto a grocery skid, and like John Cena died when Kane suffocated him with the cup your hand around your fart and make someone smell it move.

BIG JOHNNY VS. LITTLE JIMMY

In an instance of perfect timing, R-Truth stops being funny just when BIG JOHNNY steps up to the plate, texting and quipping like a boss Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw. Even Jerry Lawler was casually calling him “Big Johnny” by the end of the night - that shit STUCK.

More importantly, I’d like it if every heel could have a non-verbal catchphrase. Kind of like when you play Sonic the Hedgehog, and if you do nothing for long enough he’ll start tapping his foot, but if you were playing David Otunga the Hedgehog, he’d whip out a hot beverage thermal mug and take a swig. This would all build to one show where they could do one of their “DAMN” backstage sketches that would actually be funny, where Johnny Ace texts, Otunga slurps, Del Rio winks, maybe Swagger gets his facial twitch back and Jinder Mahal pets a cat or something.

DANIEL BRYAN IS MICHAEL COLE

He is.

It’s both alarming and amazing, but he is. At first he was just a douche, and I hate Big Show so he’s a douche to me, so it was two douches feuding for a week or two, so that sucked for me. But now, it’s better (except for Big Show, who I still hate, and will get to later).

It’s a bit odd that DB’s celebrating exactly like Michael Cole would (endless shouting of YES YES YES YES [he may as well be saying WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER]). I’m bracing myself for Big Show eventually squashing Danielson and Michael Cole standing up and going “YES YES YES SEE HE IS A NERD WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER” and farting on his head.

But for now, I can enjoy the slow potential return of “I have ‘til five, referee” Bryan Danielson heel World Champion.

HAS BRODUS CLAY DEBUTED YET?

So now we know why he took so long to debut. He had to come all the way from Planet Funk.

WHAT. THE. (RESISTING THE URGE TO SAY FUNK) FUCK. I’ve only watched this segment once, so it’s still spinning around my brain like a fever dream. I once had this dream when I was ten where I was Owen Hart and I was wrestling the Ultimate Warrior, but then I looked up and saw Vader climbing the seats in the crowd like King Kong scaling a skyscraper, but his red singlet was all sparkly and he was wearing all kinds of gaudy gold jewellery. It’s stuck with me forever. Now I know why.

I don’t want to ruin this already for myself by saying this is something that will probably get less and less fun as it goes on, so I’m just going to say that I laughed for the entire duration of that match, and hope to do so in the future. 

BONUS WOO: “Should I get ‘im?!!??!”

PUNK VS. SWAGGER, ZOLPH ZIGGLER, PREMATURE JACK DOAN

Okay, a lot of names to get to. I’ll get Zolph out of the way first, because John Laurinaitis flubbing his name made me bust a gut.

CM Punk has finally made it back to where he should be. No more weird Triple H and Kevin Nash heart-breaking, no more goofy John Cena forced humour, he’s just the WWE Champion and wrestling in the best match of the night, each night. 

It’s so much more simple now. He has legitimate beef with John Laurinaitis for his constant “good intentions” interference in Punk’s affairs, and everything else seems to fall into place nicely. Nothing is too convoluted, it’s simple enough, and Punk is more than good enough to make simple good. 

Punk vs. Swagger was great, and somehow made even more great with Jack Doan’s premature “1… 2… 3! WHOOPS SORRY FUCK”. The announcers replaying it and treating it as something that actually happened instead of ignoring it like they usually would made things feel that much more real, even if it was a mistake. It’s something that makes you look up from your laptop or put a stop to the conversation in the room (who am I kidding, we’re all on our laptops, NERDS! TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER) and pay attention because the wrestling program has stopped continuing on as a normal wrestling program would.

Honourable Mention: Chris Jericho

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You can’t see me right now, but I’m crying.

BOO!

BUT SERIOUSLY, KANE (AND ZACK RYDER AND EVE)

WOW. Okay, Razor handled this whole “horror movie” storyline in his Raw review (he also handled “Raw” in his Raw review, so I’m here to just, y’know, beat that dead Funkhorse!) but I do have a few things to say about the logistics of this.

On the one hand, Eve running out of the ring, out of the building, into a car and attempting to get away is AMAZING. It’s what you (maybe just me) always want a wrestler to do (or at least just calmly walk away) whenever The Undertaker starts slowly making his way to the ring to standing 69 him. Just walk away. Theme music is not paralyzing. 

On the other hand, once she and Ryder made it to the rental car and spent forty minutes replacing the wiper fluid, shouldn’t one of them have gone “oh, he’s not coming, let’s just go” and leave? I’m still not sure what they expected from driving back to their hotel when they’ll just be seeing Kane at the next live event anyway, where he’s free to palm their mouths as much as he so pleases. 

But when Eve was standing in the ring all giddy, primed and ready to air-hump, and then Kane’s music hit and she instantly took a knee and shit herself, I shit MYSELF laughing (seriously, best reaction to Kane since John Cena’s scared face from two weeks ago).

There’s still no proof that Kane was ever coming out. He could’ve been in the washroom watching Superstar after Superstar brush their teeth while the light and pry guy was like “whoops, hit the Kane button” and all of a sudden Eve and Zack are bookin’ it for the parking lot before he can hit pause.

This has to be the biggest and most hilarious overreaction in wrestling history. I kind of wish it was taken even further. Maybe next week Zack can shoot Kane with a real gun because he’s still overreacting.

At the very least someone should follow Eve around playing Kane’s music until she has a nervous breakdown.

A NEVER ENDING LACK OF LOGIC

I don’t want anyone to think this bothered me that much, but sometimes the way this show is shot is dumb. I understand that this is a television show and it’s fake, I just hate when things happen to remind everyone it’s fake. 

Like the camera panning to a closed door, seemingly for no reason, after Zack Ryder makes idle threats about Kane, and then the door creaks open and out pops Kane’s head. Or when the cameras cut to Zack Ryder CHANGING A TIRE during the main event. Why is this important, unless, yep, here comes Kane to MURDER — NOPE — CHOKESLAM him? The only other noteworthy reason to cut to Zack Ryder changing a tire during the main event is to go, “haha, ho man he’s still changing that tire, okay carry on”.

A GOOD R-TRUTH

It’s subtle, but allow me to illustrate the differences between A Bad R-Truth and A GoooOoOoOoOoooD R-Truth:

A Bad R-Truth: Requires water.

A Good R-Truth: Is still trying to get an open water bottle over as a believable weapon.

A Bad R-Truth: Punctuates his crazy actions with goggly eyes.

A Good R-Truth: Punctuates his crazy actions with a wink and a smile.

A Bad R-Truth: Hates Little Jimmy.

A Good R-Truth: Wants Little Jimmy to wish The Miz a Happy New Year.

A Bad R-Truth: Is funny.

A Good R-Truth: Is not funny.

FELLLLAAAAAAAA

I laoch Sheamus. In fact, his DUSH DUSH DUSH DUSH DUSH style of wrestling has somehow caught on with me. I like how he makes the same noise when he hits someone as when he’s being hit. But when he walks out on the ramp and yells “FELLLLAAAAAA” instead of “LAOCH”, I laoch him a little less.

It just doesn’t really make sense. Sure, Sheamus, I realize you like saying “fella” a lot, which is cool, but would it make sense for me to walk out on the ramp and go “DUUUUUUUDE”? At least laoch sounds like something you would scream to get psyched up because you’re Irish and that’s an Irish word meaning “powerbomb” or whatever and I can run with that. Screaming “fella” directed at no one in particular is a weird battle cry, so stop doing it. But please continue kicking Jinder Mahal in the face because fuck that guy.

BIG SHOW IS ACCIDENTALLY MORE OBNOXIOUS THAN THE GUY TRYING TO BE OBNOXIOUS

No matter how hard Daniel Bryan tries to be an annoying doucher, Big Show always manages to one up him. What’s worse: Bryan celebrating after winning a match in two minutes, or Big Show interrupting said celebration to come out WITH FIREWORKS, cheering and pointing like he’s at some National Cheerleading Final, slapping hands with everyone, going “OH YEAGGHHH”, putting his toque on a soldier, to only get in the ring and go “now, about last week”.

Are you really THAT PUMPED UP to talk about last week? I hate when Big Show is like this. I hate his Kevin Nash Just For Men: Beard beard. I hate how no matter how many times Daniel Bryan takes him to the limit, every time a new rematch is announced, Big Show is all “HAHA YEAH WHATEVER UR DEAD”. 

P.S. Stop dressing like a camouflage dildo.

Honourable Mention: Wait, I forgot the most important part - TWITTER!

I understand that the WWE is really proud of it’s social media accomplishments. I get that they are pushing Twitter on their TV shows and what have you. But I can’t handle one more WWE Superstar or announcer saying to another WWE Superstar or announcer “sure, you may have [done something actually important like win a title or match] and you may be [concerned with something actually important like your current storyline], but who cares?! YOU ARE [TRENDING ON TWITTER / FOLLOWED BY MORE PEOPLE THAN SOMEONE / TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER]

On that note, here’s the end of my review where I tell you to follow me on Twitter.

Mitch is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of PIZZABODYSLAM. He is also on Twitter, where he talks about how he watches and writes about and thinks about wrestling all-day everyday. He is also a grown-up.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul.