The Side Russian News Sweep 12.04.13

Hello Sweepers! You know, The Big Val Sweepski is a lot like black Friday shopping. I’m an early riser and I drive a hard bargain…into a fanny. (Full credit to @kefinmahon .)

Welcome to another edition of The Side Russian News Sweep, a brief yet not brief enough journey through all the midweek news that’s fit to copy and paste. As we all know, Wednesday is that most hallowed and exciting day in the week of any true wrestling fan. Sure, Monday has Raw, Friday has Smackdown, Thursday has TNA, Sunday has PPV’s…OK, so Wednesday isn’t the most exciting of days. In fact, the unmistakable stench of the midweek slump is lingering in the air like a fart trapped in a cupboard full of broken dreams.

It isn’t all bad though. There are certain things on which a midweek jobber like myself can always rely upon. For there will always be news on Ryback and his constant struggle to get out of the dog house. There will always be reports of Hulk Hogan and his Wrestlemania involvement. There will always be shit TNA ratings. Sin Cara woes. Chris Hero fat jokes. Davey Richards being a prick. JR blogs. Goldberg sightings. More Ryback. Yes, even on slow news weeks, these security blankets will always be there. Ninety percent of it is wrong, made up and blatant BS but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Before we get to all that though, it’s time ONCE AGAIN to welcome the best warm up man in the business….

Sorry for interrupting, but I have some bad news..

The bad news is that Gorilla Monsoon cannot be here tonight. He’s too busy rolling in his grave due to Michael Cole’s commentating in Oklahoma this past Monday. I’d much prefer it if Cole was left in the Gorilla position, by which I mean underground.

There’s bad news for Davey Richards who won’t be appearing at RoH’s Final Battle event. It’s a real shame too because Richards has been on fire lately, mostly because he’s been busy burning bridges, but on fire nonetheless. RoH have said that a huge mystery opponent will replace Davey. It’s going to take a brave man to step into Davey Richards shoes, especially after the majority of the roster have taken turns crapping in them. Yeah, it seems Davey wont be missed by most of the Ring of Honor roster, partly because he’s admitted in the past to purposely trying to tire his opponents out. Somewhere in Florida, Mason Ryan is praying to God that Richards doesn’t get a developmental deal.

There’s bad news for Sin Cara, who is so terrible that WWE replaced him with somebody else. You know you’re shit when fans actually prefer the fake version. Cara appeared on this weeks Raw, but the observant amongst you quickly realised that it was in fact Hunico under the mask. I was kinda hoping that Xavier Woods was going to come out as Sin Cara given his penchant for stealing people’s gimmicks. He needs to become the Kirby of WWE, going around sucking up crap mid carders and gaining all their powers.

And there’s bad news for WWE stock holders as stock prices continue to fall despite showing promising signs of growth earlier in the week. But why is it happening? Here are the top three reasons why WWE stock prices are falling.

Number Three: Vince McMahon finally got around to watching his Betamax of Wall Street and panic sold all his shares.
Number Two: Fans voted with their wallets after the most popular superstar of the year was consistently screwed out of the WWE championship. WWE should know better than to mess with Abeyance fans.
Number One: Sin Cara tripped and broke the stock market.

Lastly, I have one more piece of bad news. I’ve finished my segment and I’m handing you back over to that other wanker who writes about midgets.

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Bad… News… Barrett

On with The Sweep!

Chain Wrestling

It’s week four of our user generated, thematically linked chain of kick ass wrestling. Last week you voted for Rey Mysterio vs Eddie Guerrero from Halloween Havoc 97 which opened up a lot of possibilities. You came through once again with some fantastic suggestions but there was no clear winner in the voting this week. As such, I’m going to go with a match that is very, VERY different than the previous three matches in the chain. We’re going from some of the most fantastic, straight up wrestling matches of the nineties to an absolute war from 2004. Thanks to August for the suggestion.

Eddie Guerrero vs JBL, Judgement Day, 2004. The Blood Bath.

So that’s our fourth link in the chain! JBL and Eddie in a match the likes of which we are unlikely to see in WWE ever again. So where do we go from here? Do we include another JBL match? Perhaps an APA tag match? Does Eddie make it to the chain two weeks in a row? Do we go for another bloody brawl? Please let me know in the comments section below and be sure to upvote your favorite suggestions.

The votes are in. The results have been checked and verified by our independent adjudicators and we have a winner. Mini Batista was looking to solidify his place in the Small of Frame Hall of Fame against the mighty Mini Boogeyman but in somewhat of a shock result, he fell at the first hurdle. That’s right, Mini Boogeyman defeated Mini Batista by one vote. ONE VOTE! So close yet so far for poor Mini Batista who gave it his all. I imagine the midget thing has run its course now. To be fair, I’ve done well to drag three weeks of material out of a weak concept! To think, this all began because of The Steiner Brothers…I don’t know though, if you want more Small of Frame Hall of Fame then let me know!

Hogan and Cena Teaming Up?

Rumor has it that Hulk Hogan will be returning to the ring in time for Wrestlemania 30 as part of a tag team with none other than John Cena. I don’t know about you guys but I could definitely get behind that. Hogan is in no position to work a singles match no matter how much his ego might want him to, but he certainly deserves to be a big part of the show. Cena and Hogan together might just be the best scenario. WWE have put so much focus on tag team wrestling lately that it wouldn’t feel too much like a demotion to have them wrestle a tag match and by Wrestlemania time there would be plenty of credible teams for them to face. I guess The Real Americans would be the natural opponent and Cesaro and Swagger would make for great opponents. Just don’t expect either of them to sell the big swing.

Slammy Awards Announced

A list the Slammy awards that will be handed out on next week’s edition of Raw has been announced. Purists will be disappointed to note the lack of a Best Bow Tie category and Best Buns category. Triple H would have probably won both of them anyway. Him and his massive ego, eh? Anyway, here’s the list along with my predictions. It’s like my own mini roundtable. Wait…did somebody just say MINI roundtable?

Wrestler of the Year: Mini Abeyance
Match of the Year: El Torito vs Heath Slater’s net
Extreme Moment of the Year: Mini Booker T getting knocked out by Mini Batista on his way to the Small of Frame Hall of Fame ceremony
Double Cross of the Year: Triple H turning on Mini Daniel Bryan. As if we need a Mini Daniel Bryan lol ha
Insult of the Year: Making you fine people sit through four weeks of bad midget humor
Rookie of the Year: Min E Langston
This is Awesome Moment of the Year: The fact that I get away with writing this rubbish instead of providing real content
Total Diva of the Year: Owen Hart
LOL! Moment of the Year: This whole segment.

Podcast of the Week

It seems like every man and his dog has a podcast these days, which is strange, because most dogs can’t talk. Admittedly, a lot of them are a bit rubbish but some of them are pretty damn good. Most people know about the big ones like Steve Austin and Colt Cabana’s respective podcasts but there are so many lesser known shows out there that I’d like to use my position here to shine a spotlight on.

The first podcast I want to talk about is The Attitude Era Podcast in which three friends (or cohorts, colleagues and comrades as they’d have you believe) chronologically review the entire attitude era. The guys are covering every PPV from the era except one, and understandably so. Instead of covering the Over the Edge PPV during which Owen Hart tragically lost his life, the AEPodcast fellas instead took the opportunity to record their own Owen tribute. If you have a spare hour and a half I really recommend giving it a listen.

The Week in Pictures

And I leave you with news that Sin Cara’s permanent replacement has been officially announced

Ring of Honor roster club together for Davey Richards leaving present

And finally, in a nod to the fake Razor and Diesel angle, RoH are set to introduce fake Richards and Edwards over the coming weeks.

Final Thoughts

Well there you have it, another Side Russian News Sweep is in the record books. If you’re into the whole social media thing and want to contact me directly, be sure to follow me @pilkingtron and let me know what you think of the column so far.

I did my first Fact or Fiction last week! It was a blast to be a part of and I thank everyone who voted for me..even if most of you voted for the bastard Gobbledygooker. Also if you want to read more of my inane ramblings, and who wouldn’t, please check out Calling Spots who produce an amazing fanzine. I wrote an article on Tank Abbott winning the WCW title. That’ll put butts in seats!

And just as our very existence is a conundrum unto itself, sometimes in life you’re a Bad News Barrett, sometimes you’re a Good News Barrett, but at the end of the day always remember that Cesaro is considerably better than you.