The Ominous Thoughts News Report 4.15.07
Posted by Stuart Carapola on 04.15.2007
Live ROH thoughts, a preview of TNA Lockdown, and all you could ever want to know about Disco Gambling, Inc and the Hogan/Lawler/Wight/WWE situation in Memphis!
Hi guys, me again. It's time for your dose of Sunday News...OMINOUS STYLE! Actually, there's not a whole lot to talk about this week except for a couple of moderately big stories, a preview of TNA Lockdown, and thoughts on ROH's live shows this weekend. Let's get to it...
The Real News
The de facto big story of the week seems to be the situation surrounding the Memphis Wrestling show that was meant to be headlined by Hulk Hogan vs Jerry Lawler, but has since changed and will now feature Hulk Hogan vs Paul Wight (aka WWE's Big Show).
The match was rumored, but finally announced last weekend, originally as being in the Mid-South Coliseum, but it was later moved to the FedEx Forum with the move said to be because of the demand for tickets to the show. The trouble began at Wednesday's press conference for the show, as JErry Lawler regretfully announced that he would not be allowed to do the match since it would be filmed for Hogan Knows Best on VH1, which is a competitor to the company that runs WWE's shows (I believe NBC/Universal). It was announced that Paul Wight would be taking Lawler's place in the match.
It gets better though, as WWE seemed determined to just stop the show altogether because of the friction between them and Hogan at the moment. They pulled Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, and the Boogeyman from the show and at one point tried to get the show cancelled outright, offering promoter Cory Macklin his deposit on the building back. Macklin declined, as he felt it would be in the best interest of his company to go ahead with the show. Hogan was deeply critical of WWE at the press conference, positioning Hogan vs Wight as a match WWE "should have given us at Wrestlemania." Paul Wight was also pretty tough on WWE, saying that he was going to go by his real name instead of, as he put it, his slave name of the Big Show. He said that from now on, his business is going to be his and he's not going to have anyone taking 97% of his merchandising revenues and having him do stupid things they think are funny.
Know what I think? I think this is total carny bitchfighting. Bottom line, WWE ruined what would have been the biggest show to hit Memphis in years because they're sore at Hogan. Lawler did his best to try and frame it in such a way that nobody got buried too badly, but Hogan shot that all to hell by coming out with his rant, and Paul Wight just put the icing on the cake with his comments. It's pretty clear that Hogan has lured Wight to his side of the fence in this rift between the two sides, but to be honest, I'd be surprised to see anything come of it after this show is over. Neither Hogan nor Wight is financially in a position where they have to work, so if they want to have sour grapes, fine, let them go home and moan. I feel no pain for either of them after all the huge checks they were both cashing while they were being treated so horribly by WWE.
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The other big story of the week was the arrest of "Disco Inferno" Glenn Gilberti in Roswell, Georgia on felony gambling charges. He and a partner were running a high stakes poker operation in the basement of the partner's house in Roswell, and the cops were tipped off when neighbors began receiving complaints about large numbers of people going in and out of the house all the time. The cops went in there on Monday and arrested 27 people in the house, discovering that the basement (where the games took place) had been converted to look like a casino. Word is that people had to put up ten grand just to be able to get into the poker game, and would register online. Felony charges have been filed against Gilberti and his partner.
I am not a gambler (finding a sewer drain to toss dollar bills into seems like a much easier way to lose all your money) so I don't have much to add to this except to say that I'm not big on a lot of government interference, and I feel like people should be able to gamble if they want, except that the government wants their cut and that's the only reason it's illegal. But in the case of Gilberti, word is that this operation was no secret to anyone who knew him, and putting aside for the moment how dumb it is to run an operation like that in a residential neighborhood, I would just think that getting involved in something like this is asking for trouble, either from the government or some unhappy former player. Basically, I think it's a stupid thing to do in every respect, although I support people's right to do it if they want. However, much like Ken Patera, Crush, and Nailz before him, he's got a built-in jailbird gimmick for after he gets out of the joint.
The Other News
WWE
Jus a couple of injuries to report on:
The injury angle King Booker did on Smackdown was done because he needed knee surgery due to problems he has been having for a while now. The surgery was performed this past week and was successful. He's expected to be out until June.
As I recall, these problems go way back, so it's probably good that he finally got around to getting that taken care of. At least he's got a built-in feud for when he gets back.
Hardcore Holly underwent surgery last night to repair nerve damage in his arm, and he is expected to miss 3-4 months.
I think I heard somewhere that the damage was so bad it was thought they might have to amputate his arm at one point. Nerve damage is nothing to mess with, just ask Paul Orndorff.
Live ROH Thoughts: Lake Grove, New York 4/13/2007
Just wanted to give some quick thoughts on Friday night's ROH show in Lake Grove, Long Island. It was a pretty impressive sized crowd, I guesstimated in the 700-800 range, and the crowd overall was much less disrespectful than they are usually known to be. Sorry LI fans, but Long Island has a reputation for not being the most respectful fans around. The main event saw the UK team of Doug Williams and Nigel McGuinness defeat ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima and Chris Hero when Nigel pinned Hero with the Jawbreaker Lariat. Also, in a pretty long match, the No Remorse Corps defeated The Resilience in a six man elimination match, with all three members of the NRC surviving. It was a good match, but made Austin Aries and his boys look pretty dumb getting totally wiped out like that. There was also a decent brawl between Brent Albright and Homicide, with Albright winning clean after two half nelson suplexes.
There was more to the card, but none of it was really worth mentioning at all, and I think that's a real problem. If you're really interested, here is my live report from the show. This is probably my only complaint about the company, but it's pretty clear that they have their "A" markets (New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Chicago) and their "B" markets (everywhere else). The Friday shows tend to be the ones run in the B markets, and none of them are ever as good live as the Saturday shows. That's not to say that they're bad shows or that I'd rather watch Impact or anything, but it just feels like they always run at half speed on Friday and save all the good stuff for the Saturday, and I think that's a little unfair to the paying customer who isn't going to all the shows.
Sorry if I seem a bit down about the show, but since I have to take off of work if I want to go to most Friday shows, I always end up feeling let down when I go home afterward. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I then get to go to an awesome show the next day which always delivers, but I really think that unless there's something special (ie a big star coming in for a one weekend shot), I'm probably not going to be going to many Friday shows in the future.
The Last Word On TNA Lockdown 2007
TNA is having their annual all-cage match PPV tonight, TNA Lockdown. I've got to be honest, aside from the main event this show seems like it was just thrown together at the last minute, and it wouldn't shock me to find out I'm right. Let's take a look at the card.
The main event is a ten man Lethal Lockdown match, pitting Team Cage of NWA World Champion Christian Cage, Tomko, Scott Steiner, AJ Styles and Abyss against Team Angle of Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Rhino, Sting, and the returning Jeff Jarrett. The announcement was made that whoever scores the winning fall, regardless of which team they're on, is going to get a shot at the NWA Title held by Christian Cage at the next PPV, which I believe is Sacrifice. There's a lot of ways they can go with this stipulation, but I think it's too soon for Jarrett to get his title shot, so I'm going to go with Joe getting the win. By the way, anyone notice that Christian's undefeated streak is now as long as Joe's was when he finally lost? Just saying.
Other than that, the match I'm most looking forward to is Jerry Lynn vs Christopher Daniels. I wish I got to see these two do it in a few singles matches before getting into the cage, but I blame that more on the timing of the PPV. Still, these two are both great workers, Daniels is one of my favorites, actually, and they're both very creative, so I expect to see a lot of innovative spots using the cage in this one. Team 3D puts their legacy on the line against LAX's NWA World Tag Team Title in an electrified cage match. I personally think that Team 3D's legacy is worth about fifty cents. Don't believe me? Are you telling me you think that Team 3D is on the same level as the Steiners, the Road Warriors, the Midnight Express, the Hart Foundation, Demolition, Arn & Tully, the British Bulldogs, and others just because the promoters decided to throw the World Tag Team Title a bunch of times? Yeah, me neither. LAX all the way in this one.
The rest of the show was totally thrown together, so I'm just going to quickly run through the matches. Chris Harris faces James Storm in a Blindfold Match, often noted for being one of the most boring types of matches ever. Gail Kim faces Jackie Moore, VKM faces Christy Hemme's mystery team in a storyline that is getting increasingly pointless, poor Petey Williams is stuck wrestling Robert Roode, Austin Starr faces Senshi with Bob Backlund as special referee, and Chris Sabin puts the X-Division Title on the line in a five way match against Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal, Shark Boy, and Alex Shelley.
411 will, as always, be covering the show live as it happens starting with the preshow at 7:30, so make sure to come by and check out our Live Coverage Center tonight as the show progresses.
We Got Links Out The Ass
In week ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR of Fact Or Fiction, I go head to head with Ari Berenstein on a variety of topics.
Do you like Fact Or Fiction? Are you an indy/Puro/Lucha fan? Good, then you'll like "a href="http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/columns/52937/411s-Buy-or-Sell-4.13.07:-CM-Punk-is-a-KENTA-Clone,-TAJIRI-Challenging-for-the-Triple-Crown,-New-Japan-Gimmick-Matches-and-More!.htm">Buy Or Sell, with this week's guests Matt Adamson and Ryan Mancuso.
More self-pimping, as I look back at Mankind vs Undertaker in Hell In A Cell in That Was Then, and then share my thoughts on CM Punk joining the New Breed and more in Friendly Competition.
Well, that's it for me for now. Actually, it's been it for me for a while since I'm probably halfway to Canada for vacation by the time you read this. And before you say a word, no, I'm going to Ontario this time. I'll be back in time for next week's column, though, so I'll see you all then.
