The Wrestling News Experience: 02.13.06
Posted by Stephen Randle on 02.13.2006
Canadian conspiracy? What Canadian conspiracy?
Good morning, everyone. I'm Stephen Randle, and if you're one of those people who's getting set to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow, you're the worst type of corporate whore and should be very, very ashamed of yourself. If you need the card companies to set a date for when you can show somebody you love them, then you don't deserve to have anyone. In fact, I don't even want you reading my column. Go on, shoo.
No, I'm not kidding. Go giftwrap your twelve dollar box of crappy chocolate that tastes like crap but comes in a heart-shaped box so it means so much more, and order your cliched dozen roses, and ignore the fact that you're dead inside. You all make me sick.
To the rest of you, welcome to the Experience. I love you all. Let's get to the news.
Around The Horn
Larry had the live coverage of TNA Against All Odds, and I'm proud to be able to announce to you that Christian Cage has won the NWA Heavyweight Title, and thus, proving every single person who wanted WWE to push him that they were right and WWE was wrong. This one is going on the list. You know, the list of things that WWE must never be allowed to forget that they screwed up? That list is getting a lot of action nowadays.
Anyway, it is an auspicious day for Christian, and for Canada in general, because we like to take credit whenever Canadians do well. With the Winter Olympics in full swing, we'll be unbearable to be around for a couple weeks. Especially after the hockey games.
But seriously, all congratulations to Christian Cage, it's just too bad that Edge will always be able to say that he won a world title first. Now, it's a race to see who gets to hold one longer.
In case you missed it, tonight on USA will be the annual Dog Show, so Raw will not be seen until Thursday night. However, if you don't live in the United States, Raw will be live tonight at 9. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Canada issued this official statement: Nyah nyah nyah nyah-nyah.
This just in, the Spirit Squad is still very gay. Updates as they are warranted.
The heat is rising backstage, as voices are beginning to be raised about the distasteful use of Eddie Guerrero's memory in segments on Smackdown for the last couple of weeks. Interestingly enough, it's been discovered that Vicki Guerrero and her children will be at ringside for No Way Out. Of course, debate now rages, but all we really have at this point is a bunch of people screaming that it's wrong, and a second bunch of people screaming that it's not that bad. Just like always happens.
Well, I'm not backing down. WWE did a very good thing three months ago to honour Eddie Guerrero. They did a very good thing allowing Rey to dedicate his Rumble performance to Eddie, then having him win. Other than that, they've pretty much pissed on my goodwill in the matter, and I'm a tad upset. Randy Orton did not need to be making these comments, whether they were his own idea or fed by someone in Creative. It's WWE's constant idiocy that they think that a heel, once established, has to keep doing obviously evil things to remind fans that he's a bad guy. We get it, Randy Orton is a dick who doesn't respect anyone. News flash, WE ALREADY KNEW THAT. Would it be so hard for him to, oh, I don't know, beat the crap out of Rey so that Rey vows revenge and puts up his Mania title shot? Ooh, look, mission accomplished and no controversy over possible exploitation of Eddie's death. And I bet you still sell the same number of tickets and PPV buys either way.
Taboo Tuesday, the PPV with the neat concept, low buyrates, and a name that really, made no sense, is no more, as WWE has seemingly realized that buyrates would likely be better if they just stick with the traditional Sunday PPV. Thus, CyberSunday has been born, and while the name makes more sense given the gimmick, is it really necessary to remind us it's on Sunday? Hey, how about CyberSlam. I know, it's been used before, but it was a good name then, too.
Roddy Piper will be performing a one-man show in St Catherines, Ontario, which is near Niagara Falls, which is like Canada's version of Atlantic City, only with a better view and surrounded by picturesque wineries instead of New Jersey.
From the offices of the Brock Watch, nobody cares anymore.
And Warrior Warrior (though he mocks those who dare call him that, because they're obviously crazy) has posted a new commentary on his website. For those without a Nutbar-to-English dictionary, I'll sum up. All wrestlers who aren't him are scum. People who says he's crazy are crazy. He is perfect in every way, and so is his daughter. Now spread that over seven or eight pages.
And before I leave this segment, as you may know by now, OVW trainee and Tough Enough champion Matt Cappotelli was diagnosed with a fairly serious cancerous tumour in his brain, and will be entering treatment immediately. Having just gone through a personal cancer scare in my immediate family, I'd like to offer my own prayers for Matt Cappotelli and his family, in this incredibly tough time. If you'd like to send condolences to Matt and his family, and e-mail address has been set up at keepthefaithmatt@yahoo.com.
The Great Impact Experiment
I didn't watch it, forgot to tape it, and Spike showed an old Kung Fu movie instead of a 2 am repeat. Good job, Spike. I'll watch it at midnight tonight, for real and stuff. Unless something comes up, like me watching my tape of 24, or CBC showing the Canadian women's hockey team waxing another bunch of scrubs.
One Year Ago This Experience
Originally posted 02.14.05, and Billy Gunn debuted for TNA! Yeah, well, they can't all be good ones.
But in brighter news, JBL got married. Hey, I've lightened up on the big guy a bit. And a WWE executive had admitted to embezzling money. Because they really, really needed help throwing away cash at this point.
Other than that, my columns were in a small slide, which would be looking up in time for WrestleMania. Hey, there's got to be news around Mania, right?
The Injury Bug Bites
Inactive List as of 02.06.06
- Batista, SD!, out indefinitely as of January 13 (triceps injury)
- Chris Jericho, out indefinitely (kayfabe, fired)
- Eric Bischoff, RAW, out indefinitely as of December 5, 2005 (kayfabe, fired)
- Ken Kennedy, SD!, out six months as of December 5, 2005 (torn lat muscle)
- Rene Dupree, RAW, out indefinitely as of September 20 (hernia)
Transactions
- Mama Benjamin, RAW, out indefinitely (kayfabe, heart attack)
Apparently Thea Vidale had some real life medical issue and needed time off. Best part of that angle, besides Big Show snapping and yelling at her in frustration? The medics opening up her dress to, I guess accidentally but who knows, reveal the bodysuit she wears to appear fatter. Good job, guys.
- The Heartthrobs, RAW, released from their contract
Leaving behind an impressive record of absolutely no wins and a whole bunch of losses. No, wait, I think they may have beaten Viscera once. Proof that photographic memory isn't always a good thing.
Links For Fun And Nonprofit
This week, a Tip of the Hat to J.D. Dunn and the most entertaining TNA Impact recap you will find on the entire Internet. Come for the squash matches, stay for the truth.
JP and JT, however, unfortunately get a Wag of the Finger, because the Hidden Highlights this week included over 1000% less of my presence, when compared to last week's column. It's a shame to see young promising writers stumble while reaching for the stars, but I fully trust that JP will be able to pull out of the slump.
411's Countdown to WrestleMania is underway, as Ryan Byers looks at the craziest...um...stuff to ever happen at past Manias.
As mentioned earlier in the column, Larry covered Against All Odds live for your viewing pleasure.
Small had news on Sunday, and Boman covered it Saturday. Thanks, guys, for keeping my chair warm.
Asteroid Boy says Foley sold out. I don't see why that's bad, but then, I've made it quite clear that I would sell out to anyone for the right amount of money.
Andy Clark wants more celebrities at WrestleMania. And I mean real celebrities, not random girls who don't even have names, just "The Miller Lite Catfight Girls". That's not celebrity, that's the Raw Diva Search.
Ari has Column of Honor...in his pants. I don't get it.
Small covered Heat, Byers covered Velocity, and Larry also covered Impact, albeit much less spectacularly than J.D.
Carapola reviews WWE's February PPV's through the ages.
And covering Smackdown, we've got the team of Byers and Dunn. Like Brooks and Dunn, but no country music. I think.
The Gab Bag
Plenty of reaction from the 2005 edition of The 411's, which has the distinction of getting the people at my free picture hosting site very upset, since within four hours, I exceeded my allotted 1 GB worth of data transfer. So I guess they were popular, yes?
Justin Downing idly wonders why John Cena didn't receive honourable mention for Wrestler of the Year, and he's not even that upset, because he hates John Cena, just curious, because Cena did have a very good year. See how easy it is to ask questions nicely? Well, as the guy in charge of the vote counting and writing up the awards, I can tell you that honourable mention was given to any nominee that received at least ten points worth of votes. For Wrestler of the Year, John Cena and Shawn Michaels both finished with nine points, just shy of our cutoff line. Cena did receive two first-place votes, but the combined powers of Batista, Joe, and Styles, pretty much took the rest of the first-place votes.
Speaking of which, Andrew Critchell was a little surprised that the awards were not as TNA or ROH-centric as many people probably expected. After all, isn't 411 the official butt-buddy of TNA? He didn't say that, I'm being sarcastic. Anyway, TNA nominees did finish second in a lot of categories, and many of the votes were very close. The fact of the matter is, in the battle of pro wrestling, WWE is still the top federation, and the one watched by a vastly larger number of people. It only makes sense that the 411 staff also has that skewed demographic. I watch TNA, sure, but in most cases, I still prefer WWE's wrestlers and product. It doesn't mean TNA isn't good, WWE is just more polished and entertaining. To me. And to a lot of people, it seems. Anyway, Andrew was tickled that Samoa Joe, "Internet darling", didn't win a single award. Well, part of that came from TNA supporters splitting the vote between Joe and Styles, while WWE supporters were big on Batista. Another part came from more writers preferring other "Internet darling" Christian to Joe, mostly due to superior promo work, I assume. And as for Match of the Year, no matter how good Joe-Kobashi or the TNA 3-way was, it's hard to top the two acknowledged top wrestlers in the business at the biggest show of the year in one of the best-built matchups of the year.
Oh, and there was that little thing involving Rookie of the Year, where DrZaius510 pointed out that Samoa Joe's years in ROH should have disqualified him from consideration. Actually, I did mention that when laying down the voting rules, but several of the staff ignored me, so I just waffled and qualified Rookie as debuting in TNA or WWE, even though I, personally, didn't see Joe as anything like a rookie. Plus there was the threats of rabid Joe supporters who will remain Larry.
And now this:
"I'd like to take the time to do something internet fans rarely do: offer you congratulations. I was perusing your Tag Team of the Year award for America's Most Wanted when I came upon this little turn of phrase,"In an era where tag team wrestling has almost become a shadow of its former south".
That's such eloquent terminology of reminding us of the glories of southern tag teams and the way that region responded to tag teams back in the "good old days". Thanks for that little reminder."
I'm sorry, Todd McCracken, but I can't in good conscience accept your congratulations, because it was a typo brought on by working feverishly to finish the awards column. However, I will say that AMW is indeed the prototypical southern-style wrestling tag team, and they do bring back some great memories of the glory days of tag wrestling in the south. That's why I feel they rightly deserve 411's Tag Team of 2005 award.
Not like this guy, Ray Tugman, with our only real negative feedback to the awards:
"You have got to be joking that AMW is the tag team of the year. They are the most overrated tag team in history. Hell, why Jeff Jarrett has such a hard on for these two is beyond me. As far as I am concerned, the Naturals should have won the honers. Also, why was Jarrett absent from your list? He should have won the most overrated superstar award. Good day."
We didn't actually have an Overrated Superstar category, because defining that one is always so freaking hard, since we'd have to say "overrated by who", and that just opens up whole kettles of stuff. Plus, why give Jarrett credit for anything we don't have to?
Anyway, you are, as always, entitled to your opinions, and The Naturals did have a fairly good year, so it's not like you were pushing for the Heartthrobs or something.
Moving on from the awards, Chris Pineo suggests that Team 3D vs Team Canada could have come about with a stipulation that would actually make sense for Team 3D to go after Canada before AMW. And I bet he wasn't even thinking that hard. I'm just saying, here. Title shot, no title shot. Let me think...
DaveSingh89 had his own WrestleMania card, and I'll run through some quick thoughts, just for him.
First of all, the matches were mostly good, but there were 11 of them. Sure, Mania's four hours long, but that's because they've made a bunch of the matches longer. 10 matches, and that's tops.
In the same vein, Lashley vs Finlay and Kane vs Big Show would be better served on single-brand PPV's, as they're pretty much filler. This is more an indictment of WWE Creative's inability to create good midcard storylines, but it's a fact of life.
And Orton-Cena for the WWE Title shouldn't happen, because at this point, Cena should win the match (Orton is NOT ready for a title again yet), and then you've rushed into a quick one-off match that Cena wins. This match, if those two ARE definitely the future, should be built up for next year.
Other than that, it's a solid card, a little paint-by-numbers, but hell, that's about the level of the writing team anyway.
And Abarker20 got the Hurricane thing. Also, he's happy that they finally moved Helms back to Smackdown. I'm still not clear why they moved him in the first place. Oh yeah, it was to play Kane's little buddy for like three weeks so that Kane could have weaknesses during his feud with Triple H. Besides, you know, his thing with Terri. And the whole psychological problems. Oh, and having sex with corpses.
And One To Go On
Hey, I'm not telling you not to have a good Valentine's Day, I'm telling you to have Valentine's Day every day. You know that person you love? You're very lucky that they're with you. You shouldn't need a specific day to let them know that.
Just a thought.
411 will have extensive Raw coverage...Thursday. Except for those of us in Canada, America's much cooler neighbour. We don't watch no stinking dog shows. Now, if only we had a Canadian working on staff who could provide a recap tonight. Hmm...
Larry's in tomorrow, I'll be back...sooner than you think.
