Hidden Highlights 06.22.09: Issue #199

Posted by JP Prag on 06.22.2009

Randy Orton already has his name on the WWE title, Josh Matthews and Matt Striker remember classic ECW PPVs, AJ Styles deals with his hairline fracture, Jeff Hardy tries a different reversal for the Walls of Jericho, and more!

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #199

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

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Commentator: The countdown began to a major even in Hidden Highlights…

CJ: What are you going to do for issue #200? Like a list of 25 Hidden Highlights?

Guest#6352: Issue 200 should consist of the HH Hall of Fame, with a couple of classic Hidden Highlights for each person.

Guest#0202: it should be the top hidden highlights of hidden highlights! jp can finally tell us his favorite hidden jokes that only he gets.

Stenographer: Wait a minute! That last guest was Jeff Small pretending to be a commentator. Besides, he already gets all of the joke that no one else does.

JP: True that. But the more important question people should be asking is what am I going to do with Issue #201?

Commentator: While you ponder what's to come, there is still a bit of the past to contemplate.

matt: So who is from Randolph? It's weird seeing my high school listed on here… Just curious if anyone I know.

Stenographer: Both JP and his brother Doug were from there. Of course, neither of them live anywhere near that place anymore.

JP: And thank goodness for that! But I was out with a few people from the ‘dolph last Saturday night in Boston. You know, the ones that aren't in jail or died in gang warfare.

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





JP: Hello everyone whose weatherman lied to you for the past four days, 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!


WWE Extreme Rules – Retro 1 Week

JP: We'll kick it off this week with a little extra from last week's PPV. This is not to be confused with this week's PPV… or next week's PPV. Yikes, good thing I read The Hamilton Ave Journal and have learned quite a bit about PPV streams.

Joey Riot: At Extreme Rules, when Vickie announced that the Hog Pen match was going to be a Handicap match, you could hear Santino off-camera going "but that's not fair!" in his Santina falsetto.

JP: Santino and Santina (since they are twins) have both shown an amazing ability to stay perfectly in character and react to everything that is going on in the moment. Most of the time it looks so natural and seamless, even when either one knows exact what is coming.


ECW – Retro 1 Week

JP: Stick in the past, we go a little extreme!

neverAcquisce: When Evan Bourne went for a pin attempt on Tony Atlas he pushed up on his feet to exert further pressure after the ref had already slapped one. Even if he didn't feel he was going to get the win there he was damn sure gonna make the old timer work for every kickout.

JP: Not only that, but because Bourne is so much smaller than Atlas he needed whatever leverage he could in order to try to make the pin attempt. From a kayfabe perspective, that is what he was trying to accomplish.


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Getting a little closer to the presence, we make it all the way to SmackDown.

Dennis: During the Edge vs. Hardy match (when CM Punk was doing guest commentary), Edge launched himself at Hardy, but ended up landing awkwardly on the ropes. As a result of this move the camera changed such that Punk was in the background of the shot for about 5 seconds. Even though he probably didn't know he'd be on camera at that time, he was shaking his head, kind of a "well that was pretty stupid Edge". Way to stay in character even when no camera is on you.

JP: Punk is another one of those guys who "gets it" that you have to always act like you are the character, especially in public situations. This is why you are seeing praise from people like Paul Heyman, Eric Bischoff, and—of course—myself.


RAW

JP: Moving on to RAW of this week, the three hour extravaganza featured several title bouts, including this one for the World Heavyweight Championship.

Fixxer315: The triple-threat SmackDown title match featured one very nifty Hidden Highlight. When Punk went in the ring, he did not do a normal pin, where he is draped over the guy, which would probably put a lot of pressure on his knee. Instead, he did a sit-out pin with his feet over Edge's feet. I thought that was very cool, especially if the injury was kayfabe.

JP: The injury was totally kayfabe, which makes it even better. As noted above, Punk is doing all of the little things right.


RAW

JP: Of course, the World Heavyweight Championship was not the only title on the line as the WWE Championship changed hands earlier in the evening. At the end of the show, there was a battle royal to determine the new number one contender to the new WWE Champion Randy Orton. As such, Randy Orton came out to watch the happenings. But if you noticed when Orton came out his name was already back on the title belt! Now that is a quick turnaround!


RAW

JP: Among the ten participants was none other than current United States Champion Kofi Kingston.

Steve: When Kofi Kingston was introduced. Lillian Garcia introduced him as the Intercontinental Champion, not the United States Champion. You could see Kofi kind of laugh at her with the goof up.

JP: I think the real Hidden Highlight is Kofi showing such a good attitude about it and laughing it off with Lillian. Lillian has been known to make some goofs, so it's real nice of Kofi to just make her feel better about it.


RAW

JP: As the battle royal began, Legacy member Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase immediately went after Triple H. A the same time, MVP then went after Legacy to help Triple H out. You might be asking yourself why would MPV want to go after Legacy and help Triple H instead of going after his enemies like Matt Hardy or Kofi Kingston. Well, if you recall MVP's losing streak came to an end when Triple H helped him defeat the Big Show. So it MVP's mind, this was a great bit of continuity to help out the man who really got his career going again.


ECW

JP: In the land of extreme, this exchange took place at the end of the show:

Josh Matthews: Anarchy rules in the land of extreme.

Matt Striker: No pun intended, huh?

That Matt Striker is always on his game. Way to pick up on the name of the old ECW PPV and throw in a little quip to go along with it.


WWE.com

JP: As you know, Hidden Highlights don't just happen on television. They can take place anywhere!

David: I found a small Hidden Highlight on wwe.com today.

See the pic below:



The IC Title does not have Jericho's name on it, but instead has 'Johnny Nitro', John Morrison's pre-ECW Champion persona.

May be a highlight of things to come...

JP: Or more likely they are using an old picture of the IC belt. In case you don't know, the actually take pictures of all the wrestlers in various poses and then superimpose title belts over them at later dates. They most likely took a picture of the IC belt when "Johnny Nitro" was the champion. Boy, that was a long time ago!


SuperStars

JP: Leaving all the extreme and dot com behind, the mix show (with four matches, how odd) was underway.

Steve: Over on Superstars, during the 6-man tag, while Primo was playing face in peril, trying to get the tag, Carlito was standing on the bottom rope, trying to reach further. Charles Robinson would have none of that tag attempt which was nice, because while sometimes they are admonished for not holding the tag rope, but rare to see them call wrestlers out on that.

JP: I caught this one, too, and was quite impressed with Charles Robinson. Even after all these years the guy manages to pull out a few new tricks every time.


SuperStars

JP: Amazingly, that was not the only thing that happened during that same match.

neverAcquiesce: As Carlito went for a pin he kept his eyes focused on the enemy corner to watch out for any attempted breaks. It's a great, easy thing that I rarely see in tag matches.

JP: Carlito often gets a bad rep, but I've seen him do so many small details over the years that I know this guy is capable of much more.


iMPACT

JP: Leaving behind all that WWE programming, TNA also put forth their show of the week.

neverAcquiesce: After Joe mentioned AJ's hairline fracture (kayfabe, I believe) I noticed Styles favoring his left leg during his entrance for the main event. The highlight is that AJ didn't overly limp and, had the injury not been mentioned by Joe, one might never have even noticed. It was just the perfect amount of selling, and also worked as a way of hiding it from his opponents.

JP: AJ Styles is in top contention for my favorite wrestler of the current era. It's a toss up between him and John Morrison, so I'm just waiting for one of the other to do that one little thing to push them over the edge.


iMPACT

JP: Also on iMPACT, So Cal Val was again in a backstage interviewer role, this time talking with Lethal Consequences and the Motor City Machine Guns. In a rare bit of excellent continuity, everyone acknowledged the past relationship between her and Jay Lethal and reacted accordingly to it. Now this is great, but it was not the Hidden Highlight. No, at one point Val was talking to Alex Shelley and Jay Lethal was off mumbling to himself and talking to Creed when he said, "All I hear is a chicken going ‘quack, quack, quack'!" If you don't get why that is funny, I'll have to buy you one of those barnyard animal sound games for two year olds.


SmackDown

JP: Getting towards the end of the week, WWE Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho was facing Jeff Hardy in a non-title contest. About halfway through the match, Jericho was setting up Hardy to be put in the Wall of Jericho. As he did so, Hardy managed to reverse by using the leg flip to get out. But did you catch what he did before that? Hardy actually tried to grad Jericho's ankle to reverse the hold that way. Even though Hardy knew the next spot was to reverse the move with the flip, he still went through the realistic action of trying to reverse the move. Nice little touch by Hardy there.


SmackDown

JP: Wrapping us up this week is a bit of goodness from the commentary crew.

neverAcquiesce: I really appreciated JR saying that they hoped to get confirmation from Teddy Long after Mysterio accepted Jericho's mask/title match for The Bash. So often matches are merely made by the competitors it's nice to see Ross mention the legal structure behind making them, especially title matches.

JP: That is an excellent touch, and a great one to go out on!


Well everyone, that wraps up this week's show. Thank you for reading the 199th 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!