Hidden Highlights 06.08.09: Issue #197

Posted by JP Prag on 06.08.2009

The Miz keeps an eye on the Big Show, Evan Bourne makes every attempt to go for the ropes, Dolph Ziggler also wants to know what’s up, Michelle McCool gives Maria fair warning, and more!

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #197

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

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Commentator: Everyone had an opinion on what the numbers meant on each wrestler's jersey.

Tony A: Read on JR's blog that King wore #44 to honor their friend Travis Hafner of the Cleveland Indians.

Bucksinnc: No doubt The King wore #48 for Travis Hafner. Him and JR have made it no secret they love the Indians and have mentioned "Pronk" quite a few times in the past.

Marco: The King Wears 48 cause his favorite team is the indians and his favorite player on that team is TRAVIS HAFNER who is #48....

Rupper: I thought Orton wore 15 since that's the number of the biggest star on the Nuggets, Carmelo Anthony. Since he's the champ, it makes all sorts of sense.

ajdoran: In reference to the NBA match...

Randy Orton wore a #15 Nuggets jersey. #15 on the Nuggets is Carmelo Anthony, who would be the superstar/leading scorer/marquee man on that team. 3rd pick in the 2003 draft, first freshman to win the NCAA championship's Most Outstanding Player and then bolt for the NBA, etc.

Rhodes and DiBiase wore #6 and #4, the numbers of Jason Hart and Kenyon Martin. Jason Hart is a scrub who is just hanging on in the NBA, and Kenyon Martin is Carmelo's badass, tattoo'd enforcer. Just a thought.

Also, Batista wore a #7 Lakers jersey. #7 is Lamar Odom, who can best be described as a mercurial big man. When he feels like it, he's unstoppable, but when he's being lazy he's a disgrace. I doubt he meant it that way, but it certainly fits. #4 is the number of Luke Walton, a medium talented, white role player on the Lakers. Maybe Kennedy was being introspective and honest with himself?

#54 was Cena's college football number, fyi.

Commentator: More than the numbers was the material of the jerseys themselves.

Steve307: Working in sports retail, I personally enjoyed how Vince bought the heel team the shitty cheap screen-print (aside from the custom name/number on the back) replica Nuggets jerseys, while the face team got the more expensive adidas Swingman jerseys with the letters/numbers stitched. Another small dig at Denver.

The Legend: Maybe they only got the GOOD Laker jerseys because they were actually in LA ?

Ghost of JT: You can get any good jersey of any team in any big city, especially one like LA. Heck, you can even get my favorites the Yankees in Boston.

JP: That's enough out of you! I won't have that disgusting talk of Yankees in a Red Sox Nation article!

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





JP: Hello everyone who is trying to decide if bands are good enough for use with the P90X or if you should splurge on some PowerBlocks, and welcome back to Hidden Highlights! If you've never been here before, let me tell you what we are doing in these pages.

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

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

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

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

Now let's get on with the Hidden Highlights!


SmackDown vs. RAW 2006

JP: We'll kick it off this week with a little action from the Game Zone!

Jasper Gerretsen: One of the areas available for a backstage brawl is a bar, where various pieces of furniture can be used in 'interactive grapples' if you Irish-whip your opponent into them. One of these objects is a darts machine, and if you perform a certain grapple there the score on the machine will read 316, which is of course a reference to Austin 3:16.

JP: Might be more of an "Easter Egg" than a Hidden Highlights, but it comes from the same breath. But I don't think we are done playing games yet…


SmackDown vs. RAW 2009

JP: Moving along to the most recent model, Jasper continues.

Jasper Gerretsen: In Chris Jericho's Road to WrestleMania storyline, he is repeatedly attacked by a masked assailant who costs him the WWE championship several times. Finishing Jericho's storyline unlocks the masked assailant as a playable wrestler. The Hidden Highlight here is that the exact outfit of the masked wrestler (black ski mask, black sweater, camo pants, black army boots) was what the masked men who accompanied Muhammed Hassan to the ring for his match against The Undertaker at The Great American Bash 2005.

JP: Something has to be done with that intellectual property!

So, just to get you up to speed with my video game skills, it took me weeks to finally defeat one boss (Galaxy Man) in Mega Man 9 for the virtual console on the Wii. Then, I've been playing around with Punch Out and I'm afraid to face Disco Kid because I really don't feel like I have the controls down. My main problem with this, though, is because I've been doing cardio boxing. I want to do real movements, dodges, ducks, punches, and the like and that just is not how it works. That, and the balance board is crazy sensitive!


Classic Hidden Highlight

JP: Right. Well, moving on to some actual wrestling, we head back in time a decade.

NickNitr0: Check the Scott Hall vs. Bam Bam Bigelow Ladder Match from 99.



NickNitr0: Before the match Hall talks about being the king of ladder matches, obviously from WM10 w HBK as Razor. But later in the match, when Hall is on the ground, his left nWo elbow pad with the red and black, slips down and he has his purple and gold Razor pad on underneath. Pretty cool.

JP: Knowing what you knew about these two even ten years ago, would you think Bam Bam would have been the first to die? It's really scary thinking about how many wrestlers I used to watch in WCW are no longer alive! It's like going through my high school yearbook (take that Randolph Jr./Sr. High School Class of 2000! I'm not only alive, but thriving!!!!).


Washington Nationals

JP: Now that you got your wrestling fix, let's get back to what this article is really about: BASEBALL!

Steve B: Actually a baseball Hidden Highlight that took its cues from WWE. At every Washington Nationals ballgame, a highlight is the "Presidents Race," in which guys dressed up as the Mt. Rushmore presidents with giant heads race around the field. After Thomas Jefferson won the race June 2, he went to the camera and did the Batista entrance, from thigh slap to machine gun, pyro point and chest pound.

JP: Did he hit the timing right for the pyro point? Because Batista is not so good at getting that one.


RAW – Retro 1 Week

JP: Moving back into wrestling, we just can't get enough of that 5-on-5 match from two weeks back.

Guest#8676: In the five-on-five Nuggets/Lakers tag, when Cena makes his entrance, he pretends to ball, but before he can make a shot, MVP stops him, presumably to tell him that's his gimmick. I thought this was a funny little touch, owing to both Cena's sports interetsts (he was noted for wearing atheltic clothes during his hip-hop/thug days) and MVP's still-continuing arrogance.

JP: But at the end of match MVP told him it was ok for Cena to be ballin', so it looks like they made up!


iMPACT – Retro 1 Week

JP: Also from last week, Victoria made her debut on iMPACT to confront the Beautiful People and the Knockouts Champion Angelina Love.

Rupper: As Victoria was coming down to beat up on that trio, you could see her take her earrings off. She meant business!

JP: And those were some big hoops, too! Well, Ric Flair takes off his watch and Victoria takes off her big hoop earrings. It all works for me!


ROH on HDNet

JP: Moving on to this week (yes, it was "this week" in the Hidden Highlight cycle), we have a little something something from that show on a station that is no longer on Time Warner Cable.

Zac Lambert: Now, all us smart marks know the ROH HDNet program is taped, but it is given live during the actual show.

During the "tables are legal" main event, Steen had Davey Richards in a sharpshooter. Shane Hagadorn had been powerbombed through a table earlier that night (in the tapings), so when he ran out to make the save he was selling the back injury. Now, that was smart, but the real Hidden Highlight is that neither Hogewood nor Prazack mention it.

Smart by those two, keeping kayfabe intact.

JP: That's why I say it is sometimes the little things you don't do that make all the difference!


Ready to Rumble

JP: Still sort of in this week, we have one that I found just too funny to pass up.

neverAcquiesce: More of a hidden coincidence, but in the midst of making Rey Mysterio's mask mean something I saw the epic Ready to Rumble was on TV. Actually, it was on TWICE on Saturday, and just so happens to feature a maskless Rey Rey. Even further on the ironic scale, one of the showings was on WGN.

JP: I cringe every time they talk about how the mask is so important to Rey and how he'd never want to be unmasked. I saw him wrestle for two years without a mask on! Heck, Jericho was in WCW when Mysterio lost his mask! It was the same night that Jericho defeated Perry Saturn in a "dress" match. True, they never got to fight after Mysterio lost the mask (at least on television), but Jericho certainly saw Mysterio's "Leave it to Beaver" face.


RAW

JP: Getting in to the actual shows of the week, William Regal and Matt Hardy teamed up to take on the Colons in a non-title tag team match. During the match, Carlito hit Regal with a couple of strong moves in a row so that Regal ended up back first on the mat. Carlito then went down to grab Regal, but you could not quite tell whether he was just going to grab him or attempt a pin. As it turned out, Carlito was just going down to pick Regal up by the neck, but as he bent down the referee actually ran over and got into the pin-count position! I really like that the ref acted naturally and that even though it was not the point in the match to go for a pin attempt, the natural motions in the ring made it look like a distinct possibility. Heck, he even put his hand in the air ready to slap the mat for a one count! That was a great bit of realism to add to the match.


RAW

JP: Speaking of pins, later in the night John Cena teamed up with Chavo Guerrero to take on the Miz and the Big Show. After the Miz tagged himself in, he went for an attempted pin on John Cena. But the entire time he kept his eyes on his own partner, knowing that he could not trust him as much as he could trust Cena's partner. Smart thinking by the Miz there!


ECW

JP: Over in the land of extreme, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne once again fought in an exact replica of the Mark Henry and Rey Mysterio feud from a few years ago on SmackDown. As Mark Henry went for a pin on Bourne (seems like we are running a theme this week), Bourne managed to grab the bottom rope to break up the count. But Bourne was not sure the ref had seen it (he was out of position, so he also wrapped his legs around the bottom rope near where the referee was. That was a good choice by Bourne to show his desperation to break the count but still be wise enough to know that sometimes ref miss appendages not directly in their view.


ECW

JP: In the main event, Christian was taking on one third of the Hart Dynasty Tyson Kidd. When Christian went for a pin on Kidd (see what I'm talking about), Natalya immediately ran from the other side of the ring over to where they were to see what she could do. And as Kidd managed to kick out, Smith-Hart put his hand over his heart and gave a sigh of relief as Natalya started running back around the ring in nervousness. Those two really showed the wrestling acumen out there by being constantly involved with what was happening in the ring and reacting to it, but not being so over-the-top that they stole focus away from the competitors. Excellent work by the blood Harts out there.


SuperStars

JP: When WGN was not showing Ready to Rumble, they were showing WWE SuperStars. On the show, Chris Jericho had teamed up with Dolph Ziggler to take on R-Truth and Jeff Hardy. Early in the match, Jericho was in the ring and smack-talking R-Truth, asking him over and over again, "What's up, R-Truth?"—something he would also do on SmackDown. Then, if you listen really closely, you could just make up Dolph Ziggler saying, "Tell him what's up!" Great work by Ziggler to stay involved in the match and get involved with the smack-talking!


iMPACT

JP: In the non-WWE show of the week, TNA iMPACT featured the odd team of Chris Sabin and Consequences Creed taking on the number one contenders Beer Money. Part way into the match, Sabin managed to push James Storm into his corner where Creed was and began to choke him with his foot. You could then see there Creed asking Sabin what he was doing. It was great to see that little moment to demonstrate the tension between the teams because of their different styles and philosophies. They may be on the same page when it comes to Suicide, but they are still completely different in their approach in the ring and life.


SmackDown

JP: Finishing us off this week is a little SmackDown Diva's action.

John Madigan: Smackdown featured a 6 diva tag match with Maria as the special guest referee. The first time Michelle McCool tagged into the match, she wasted no time in yelling at Maria to call the match straight. It appears Michelle still holds a grudge against Maria from months back when Maria refereed the match where McCool lost the Divas title. It's always nice to see the wrestlers remember their own history even if the occasionally WWE forgets.

JP: Oh, I wrote this down and caught a bit more, but Michelle herself explains…

Michelle: During the 6 six diva tag, when Michelle McCool tags herself in, she tells Maria to 'call the match fairly this time'. Back in December, Michelle lost the title while Maria was reffing her match and (in Michelle's eyes) cost her the title!

JP: I had to give massive continuity props to McCool for dropping this one in, and massive props to you to for finding it.


Well everyone, that wraps up this week's show. Thank you for reading the 197th ISSUE of Hidden Highlights!

Do you have a Hidden Highlight from this or any week in history that you would like to share? Please e-mail this article at [e-mail] with your thoughts! Send them by Saturday afternoon to be considered! And remember, they can be from any show, live or taped, or any house show, or anything you saw. The best of the best will be featured among the top 15 next week.

In the meantime, be sure to catch my very own Thursday morning news report The Hamilton Ave Journal: the only wrestling news report focused on the business of wrestling.

And don't forget to bookmark 411mania.com and perhaps even make it your home page. You can do that by clicking here!

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