News to Start Your Weekend 2.02.07

In the spirit of busyness due to procrastination, this column sets forth on yet another journey, albeit two weeks following my most recent endeavor. I was sick among other things last week, but all’s well now. Let’s see where we can get with this one.

==========

This week’s big news, I think, is that Scotty 2 Hotty has jumped from SmackDown to RAW. Therefore the SD tag division has taken a hit, as the prospective next championship team was apparently him and Funaki. At least Cena has an opponent for WrestleMania now, though, since RAW didn’t win the Rumble match. Thus continuing to prove that SmackDown > RAW.

The Armed and Famous reality show has been picked up by VH1. I heard they were going to do cross promotion with Hogan Knows Best. Maybe somebody can use the taser on Nick Hogan’s balls. Or Brooke’s. Whatever. Oh, and on the ever-awful Bubba the Love Sponge Show, it was revealed that Hogan’s ‘reality’ show is all scripted. Let’s all be thoroughly surprised.

Kurt Angle, as I’ve mentioned before, will be wrestling in Japan for the New Japan promotion on February 18. His tag partner has been announced as former WCW wrestler and former IGWP Heavyweight Champion Yuji Nagata. They will be facing Giant Bernard and Tomko. Giant Bernard, of course, is Albert/A-Train from WWE. He’s awesome, by the way. I wanna see him vs. Joe. Somebody make it happen.

Apparently, Vince McMahon is afraid that ECW is going to be challenged by WSX. Well the MTV show did get a 1.0, which is basically TNA’s average, and it was only their first episode. Maybe Vince should be afraid, and maybe that could make ECW better. I did happen to enjoy this past Tuesday’s episode quite a bit.

Mick Foley’s new book, Hardcore Diaries, will be released in hardcover on March 6. I think I’m gonna get it along with Mike Quackenbush’s two books. You should get those as well, by the way. Get those at Chikara’s Store.

==========

One half of the real big news of this week is that TNA will be running a special on Monday, February 12. RAW is being preempted by the Dog Show, so TNA is capitalizing on it by both making fun of that fact and by running a show that will feature some past PPV matches. It will also introduce a bunch of aspects of TNA and reveal the newest concept match that will happen at TNA’s March PPV Destination X.

RAW, however, will be airing that week, only on Thursday night. It will air from 9 to 11 PM, opposing TNA’s Impact, which airs, of course, from 9 to 10 PM. I wonder if either show will be anything like the WWF’s famous “Thursday RAW Thursday” from February of 1997, which ran on that night for the same reason as this one will. That was the night where Shawn Michaels “lost his smile”.

==========

Samoa Joe is done with Ring of Honor. As of March 4, there will be no more matches, at least in the immediate future, for Joe, as he will close this chapter of his wrestling career facing an as yet unnamed opponent in Liverpool, England. His last match in the US for ROH will be teaming with long time friend and rival Homicide against Takeshi Morishima and Nigel McGuinness. His final run will feature:

2/16 vs. Takeshi Morishima
2/17 vs. Davey Richards
2/23 vs. Jimmy Rave
2/24 w/Homicide vs. Morishima & McGuinness
3/3 vs. Nigel McGuinness
3/4 vs. TBA

Looks like a fuck of a lineup. I’ll get to see his matches against Morishima and Richards.

As far as how this will impact Ring of Honor, Joe said it best himself. ROH is about young guys stepping up and making themselves stars, and right now they have Davey Richards, Chris Hero, Rocky Romero and Jimmy Rave as guys who are going to be elevated huge this year, and guys like BJ Whitmer, who is on the cusp of main event stardom, and Nigel McGuinness, who is right up there.

Much like new guys had to step up after the Rob Feinstein incident in 2004, now is the time where new talent is going to have to step it up to the next level. Joe is certainly a loss, but there’s a shitload of talent in ROH. There’s nothing to worry about. He’ll be missed, but losing him isn’t the end of the world.

Joe was and is great, but he hasn’t been the face of the promotion for a while. People thought ROH was going to die when TNA pulled AJ and Daniels and through the Feinstein incident in itself, and they became 10 times the promotion they ever had been after that. It’s not too early for Joe to leave, as he’s been in the backseat to a bunch of guys for a while now. He’s the “ROH Legend”, and for the past few months especially, he’s been like the ROH past who has just been sticking around and doing some good stuff, but not carrying the company. He will be missed, but not as much as some people may think. And yeah, eventually he’ll be back for a big match here and there.

If anything, this better mean that Joe is going to be winning the NWA Title belt soon.

==========

I saw the Royal Rumble live on Sunday. I thought it was a really good show, and that makes it two in a row for WWE on pay-per-view, as I also enjoyed the New Year’s Revolution show. As far as the Rumble is concerned, the opener was good, but not as good as it was at the ECW PPV. It was a shame that MNM had to lose, and I think the match could have stood to go another 5 minutes, as it was still going strong when it ended. The ECW Title match was uninteresting and I basically didn’t watch and Batista/Kennedy was pretty good, but only thanks to Kennedy kicking major ass.

The WWE Title match is officially my first Match of the Year Candidate. It was just fucking awesome. I thought it was going to end a whole crapload of times, but it didn’t. Lots of just great near falls, and the finish was damn creative and it made sense. Umaga was going to do a mega Samoan Spike, but Cena foiled him and had to use the ropes to choke him out and win. Not only that, but Umaga was beginning to get up after the first attempt. The match was just great, and Cena once again proved that he can deliver in a big match situation, especially against an able opponent.

I enjoyed the Rumble match itself, although it wasn’t great. The ‘Taker/Michaels segment at the end was great, though, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I didn’t know who was going to win, and it was just a lot of fun to watch. I expected Michaels to win over ‘Taker, but the final four men in the match were exactly who I expected. I’ll just say that I breathed quite the sigh of relief when Orton got eliminated. Well, I’ll just say that in addition to all of the other stuff I’ve said here.

==========

In email news, Cyrus Krapf-Altomare, someone who has been reading and responding to my stuff for a while now, has this to say about Russo. Yeah, we’re drudging all of this up again:

I am writing to agree with the call to stop the blind Russo hatred on the web and here at 411. I agree with you totally that Csonka has a problem where he substitutes the phrase “I don’t like it” for the phrase “This is bad for business” all too often. It’s why I hardly read anything he writes anymore. I can’t stand him acting like he knows better then Vince McMahon what will make the WWE money, and better then the TNA staff what their goals are.

I also agree that a high rated TV show should be TNA’s goal, and that Russo, properly edited, is the man to get for that. Wrestling fans pay money to watch long, deep wrestling matches on PPV or live at events. Television viewers want bite sized pieces of action, and unpredictability. This is different then 20 minute technical classics.

Anyway, thanks for standing up for TNA. Last I checked, their ratings were up. And for that matter, last I checked, the WWE’s profits were up as well.

It’s not an attack on Larry, but that’s kinda the way it comes off. Label dislike as dislike, not as something being wrong.

And from fellow staff member, mister Ari Berenstein, who writes the Column of Honor:

That was freaking awesome that you plugged my column on RBR… I was actually listening to the podcast on my way back from running errands and I heard it and a huge smile came over my face. Then I broke out into a huge fit of laughter as you went “power mad laughter” with that Op status (or whatever its called). Thank goodness no one was around to see me, or I may have wound up surrounded by padded walls.

Anyway, aside from the occasional audio / technical glitches (and the racist language, young man, bob backlund voice> ), I really enjoy listening to RBR. You can send word to the other guys I’m a fan, but you tell that Anthony Skatz to stop acting like a dork! No more lame jokes! But he’s a good guy for supporting ROH. heh.

That’s right. Everybody listen to RocketBusta Radio on RadioTGO. We got some pretty big-like guests coming up. So listen. It’s awesome.

So read the Column of Honor. It’s good stuff. And read Fink’s Payload for more goodness from myself as well as Mathew Sforcina.

==========

That be the end. No PPV so no quick picks. Be emailing, or somesuch. Bye now.