News to Start Your Weekend 10.20.06
Posted by Nick Marsico on 10.20.2006
Another word-filled column!
I have some pizza cooking in the oven and I just finished listening to Wednesday's Opie and Anthony show, which means I'm now listening to the very beginning of yesterday's show. Of course to me, it's today's show, because I write this column on Thursday evenings. Fuck, the pizza's got like another 6 minutes to go… I'll give you an update as soon as it's ready for consumption. So anyway, what happened in wrestling over the week? Shit if I know. I scour all of the wrestling sites every day and I still have no idea if anything important happened. I think Kurt Angle put his foot in his mouth during a conference call but he later corrected himself (or TNA corrected the statement on his behalf), and then he talked about his erections among other things on Tod the Love Sponge's show. YUCK. Piece of garbage that hack is. "Ooh oooh I hate Howard Stern!" Flash to a short while later "Ooh ooh I love Howard Stern! Let me kiss his feet! He's the best!" Fucking radio phonies. When I get into the business, please don't let me become a piece of shit like most radio hosts these days. An asshole sure, because I already am, but don't let me be a phony piece of shit, ‘kay?
I got another minute or two on the pizza, by the way. Shit, that's gonna be good. I'm quite looking forward to it. So what's going on… Jericho's got a video showing on iMPACT to hype Bound for Glory (and I'm hearing something may or may not be going on with him as it pertains to being a part of TNA… just sayin') and everybody's going crazy about it. For the most part, people are either gung ho that he's definitely not going to be a part of TNA, not a chance, or they're saying he's gotta be going, it only makes sense. Those saying he's definitely not going have different reasons, though. Some people are saying it's because he's too loyal to Vince and some are saying that he's just distancing himself from wrestling and has so much stuff going on and he doesn't want to come back at the moment – some are saying both. Everybody is speaking with quite high levels of conviction, though, as if everybody knows that they're right. Only I can do that.
By the way, the pizza's done. It's good, too. Regular tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on a sort of English muffin style crust. I had a couple earlier with white sauce, mozzarella cheese and bacon, and it was definitely different, although I can't really say that either is better. I don't know that it's a tough call between the two… they're both equally good for the kind of pizza they are. Moving on…
Speaking of people being in the business, Jimmy Garvin, who just got hired on as a SmackDown writer last week has already quit. There's no word on why yet, though, and the news broke all the way back on Monday. Oh well. I guess I can't take that month to see what that team working together can do, although it still applies to Hayes as the head of the team. Also, Rebecca DiPietro, who either is, isn't, was or wasn't Batista's girlfriend (I guess he got divorced from his wife) debuted with ECW this week as the very, very, very slow talking backstage correspondent. At least she was dressed hot.
They also want to bring back an unnamed "legend" for Cyber Sunday because they're afraid that, like most of their PPVs, it's going to bomb, even with the tri-brand main event. So who is it? The Rock? That would be my choice, but then that's always my choice. My number one dream match is The Rock vs. The Rock at WrestleMania. MAKE IT HAPPEN VINCE~!
Switching gears for a moment (who the crap says ‘switching gears' anymore? Yuck), Ring of Honor's got some things going on. Shingo Takagi (going just by Shingo) is going to be joining the roster basically full time for a while. I'll assume it's a good thing – I've heard lots of good about him but I've still personally not seen him work a match yet. I'll get on that as soon as possible, though. Also, some former WWE talent (no, not Zach Gowen) are going to be a part of some upcoming shows, as the former Dick, Tank Tolland as well as the former Gunner Scott, Brent Albright are both going to be wrestling for Ring of Honor. Albright's first match is going to be October 27 in Dayton against Christopher Daniels. Well that could rule. Tank is going to be in a Four Corner Survival vs. Roderick Strong, Mark Briscoe and Chris Hero. Tank's debut is going to be amidst some rivalries and grudges, so he's going to have to step up to make an impression here. I'm hearing that he's coming in with a good word from an insider of some sort, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does. I did like the Blond Bombers in OVW and thought Tank was the better of the two, so he's already got the benefit of the doubt with me. Here's the card for 10/27:
Tag Team War
Homicide & Samoa Joe vs. Steve Corino & Adam Pearce with Jim Cornette
Rematch Of Survival Of The Fittest Finals
Delirious vs. Matt Sydal
Grudge Match #1
ROH World Tag Team Champion Claudio Castagnoli vs. Austin Aries
Grudge Match #2
Davey Richards vs. Jay Briscoe
Special Challenge Match
Christopher Daniels vs. Brent Albright
Special Attraction Match
Jimmy Rave vs. Shingo
Four Corner Survival
ROH World Tag Team Champion Chris Hero vs. Roderick Strong vs. Mark Briscoe vs. Tank Tolland
Non-Title Match
ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson vs. Sal Rinauro
Tag Team Attraction
Colt Cabana & Jimmy Jacobs with Lacey vs. Irish Airborne
Speaking of the Tenacious Z himself, though, Gowen will be facing Delirious in a match on the upcoming Video Wire (which you can see on ROH Videos dot com), which should be coming out today. It might already be out by the time you read this. Check out last week's episode for the back story, and to see Gowen playing what could be an interesting character but butchering every one of his lines. Did they only do one take for that? Geez. It would be pretty awesome, though, if they did like 15 takes and the one they used was the best one. Fucking rehearse, son! I'm liking the angle they're taking with the new Video Wire format, though. It's their version of a weekly TV show, as they're calling it. We need a little more than 10 minutes a week, though. Give us 20, at least.
I don't know why Gowen made me think of the Ultimate Warrior, but there's some more shit going on with him and his endless box of wacky unwinnable lawsuits. I've been over him for about 5 years, though, so whatever. If you care to see what's going on, it's out there.
Jim Ross' blog is pretty cool in that it's someone prevalent with WWE who isn't ignoring the fact that there is more out there in wrestling than just RAW, SmackDown and the new ECW. Granted Al Snow references Ring of Honor when it's applicable (he did it all the time back when CM Punk was down in OVW), but this is on a much bigger scale, because JR is actually speaking with an open forum about this stuff. I criticize the man a lot, and even though I enjoy reading when he speaks so freely as he does on his blog, I stand behind the fact that to me, he's just not fit to be on television any more, at least not with such a weak, weak, weak partner in Jerry Lawler. He showed some fire and was pretty entertaining during the RAW Homecoming when challenged by JBL, but with King there, JR really suffers because he has nobody to play off of and he has nobody to help guide the ship. Please, please get rid of King, because he's really dragging JR down. I really want to like JR because he seems like a really good guy and he's got great knowledge of the business, but the King is basically a joke at this point. GET RID OF HIM.
Oh, and the point I wanted to make at the beginning of that paragraph is that I have trouble reading JR's blog because the sheer number of replies is just way too massive for me to even bother caring. Somebody send Ross a link to this column so I can speak to him without having to sift through all of the garbage in the comments, although it does appear that some pretty intelligent people post questions and thoughts there. There are just too many, though, and it really takes me out of it. God bless JR for doing it, though.
Wow, I just read that Torrie Wilson is divorcing Billy Kidman. It's a real shame for Kidman. How can you mess that up, man? Maybe being a jobless fuck for so long was what caused Torrie to finally show a little common sense. Hell, she would have been better off with friggin' Shane Douglas. I liked that pairing better in WCW anyway. Good for you, Torrie.
TNA is going to be releasing a theme music CD eventually. I'm kind of confused with how they list "prequels" with some of the songs, though. Are they things like the Godzilla Theme for Samoa Joe or is it the remixed kind of things they do before main events on PPVs while the guys walk or pace backstage before entering the arena? Too bad you can listen to all the songs on TNA's website, though. Not that I'd buy it anyway, although I'll give them one thing… a lot of the songs are much better than people give them credit for. Some of them are quite catchy and have grown on me. Even Jay Lethal's song has become quite recognizable. Not Petey Williams', though.
The Television Section
RAW was actually pretty decent this week. The opening segment was pretty meh, though. It went on way too long for what it was. There were a couple decent jokes in there, but it was just more of the same. Cryme Tyme's debut was actually a lot better than I expected. JTG actually looked really impressive, and Shad did some decent power stuff as well. Maybe it helps that the show was taped and maybe there was some editing done, but they appeared really smooth and didn't come close to botching a single spot. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks with them. The Intercontinental title match was a fun set of spots and it actually flowed well, although I was quite annoyed that Hardy just decided that he hadn't been partaking in a 10 minute match where he had thrown his body around and just popped up and casually went up to the top rope and hit the Swanton. Jesus, man, sell something a little bit, would you?
Rob Conway sighting! It's a real shame that he's being wasted as a jobber when Chris fucking Masters is wrestling in Intercontinental title matches on the same show. Not that Masters has any chance of winning, but come on now. I'd prefer they just keep Conway wrestling good matches with guys like Venis on HeAt if they're just going to do this to him when he shows up on RAW. I just checked, and Conway hasn't even been on RAW in three months. He was last seen teaming with Matt Striker losing to the Highlanders two weeks in a row in the Highlanders' debut and second match on RAW. Boooo for not using Conway.
If they're going to make Edge and Orton job boys for DX (as much as I dislike Orton, I could get used to him being aligned with Edge), then I'm going to just not bother trying to care about the feud.
One thing I do care about, however, is that Steve-O is awesome and took a hell of a stiff beating from Umaga and also did a sweet backflip from the top rope. Plus, K-Fed got his ass kicked, and who doesn't love that. The time he got to spend on the mic was torture, though. I really hope the whole segment was just making fun of him, though. PLEASE don't actually think Kevin Federline is a serious pop culture Hollywood figure, Vince. Please don't think that.
I thought ECW was really good this week, certainly, to me, one of the better episodes thus far. The matches, aside from the main event, were all pretty short, but quite good as they lasted. I believe that five is the greatest number of matches they've had on the show yet, and it didn't hurt the flow at all, as everything still got some decent time to develop. It's possible that due to nothing getting too much time it made everything come off as more interesting because none of it got a chance to go on to long and go into the realm of sucking. I'm not going to bother going through everything on the show, but overall it did come off really well, although I do watch it without commercials, which helps the flow probably. I will say that I am looking forward to seeing Knox and Punk eventually fight; are they going to stretch it all the way out to December to Dismember before they get into the ring together? I don't think so, but they might have a rematch there. I enjoyed the Sandman/Striker match, too, and the Holly stuff was quite well done. The main event was really well booked, actually. Very good show this week from the boys on Tuesday night.
My thoughts on SmackDown are here, where I wrote more than just a play-by-play SmackDown report. I liked it as always, of course.
Speaking of SmackDown, here's the match listing for tonight's show:
MVP vs. Kane
Elijah Burke vs. Vito
William Regal & David Taylor vs. Scotty Too Hotty & Funaki
Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero (I Quit Match)
Undertaker vs. Gregory Helms
King Booker vs. Batista (World Heavyweight Championship)
Stuff To Check Out
- Team Game Online
Just check it out, would you? Plenty of good stuff there, including the forums, and there's a lot more goodness on the way.
- RocketBusta Radio
Hear my voice weekly! Woo! Listen live on Saturday nights or download the podcast, available Sundays every week.
- Ask 411 Wrestling by Steve Cook
You ask questions, he answers them. This is one of those columns that I don't read weekly, but that I really enjoy when I do.
- Just S'pose by Ron Gamble
He's talking about the Ultimate Warrior, so I don't care, but Gamble rules, so read his stuff.
- The Fink's Payload by Matt Sforcina and Nick Marsico
It's my debut writing in a column that I had never read once before actually participating in it. You get to read me getting angry about people wanting to bring back factions from the past. I think Matt actually asked for that the week before, but I hate it anyway, so I ripped it apart. Read it now!
- Crazy Ace Steel
Because he fucking rules and you know it. I know somebody here came down a little bit on him in a review, as was brought to my attention by a friend of mine (who I will be attending 11/4's ROH show in Philly and 12/23 in NYC with). Ace Steel is crazy and awesome, and don't you ever deny it.
That's gonna be all this week. Oh, and TNA Bound for Glory this Sunday… they haven't been promoting that Austin Aries is coming back in a couple weeks. Well he's coming back. Not all of the matches have been announced as I write this, although maybe I'll edit in some more predictions after I see iMPACT this week. Maybe. As for now, though:
Sting, Styles & Daniels, Senshi, Rhino, Joe, Eric Young
