The Wrestling News Experience: 04.15.07
Posted by Stephen Randle on 04.16.2007
I've seen better examples of people getting electrocuted in old Frankenstein movies.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I'm Stephen Randle, finished exams and ready for summer. I understand if you hate me. I'd hate me too. No, no I wouldn't, I love me.
The Raptors have clinched home court advantage for the playoffs, and still, nobody in Toronto cares. The hockey playoffs continue, and the Jays are muddling their way through April. There'd be more witty commentary here, but I just worked for ten hours, so you're lucky I even have an intro.
In case you've been living in a hole, every match at Lockdown takes place inside the Six Sides of Steel because this way Russo doesn't have to add as many stipulations. In theory, anyway, because only 3 matches on the card had no additional gimmick.
Chris Sabin defeated all comers in an X-Division Xscape Match to retain the X-Division title
I know they're trying to make him something, but Sabin seems like the total wrong choice to be holding the X title at this point. He has minimal charisma, and his moveset seems to have totally stagnated with his heel turn. I figured they would use this match as a way to move the belt onto someone else, but I guess not.
Robert Roode defeated Petey Williams
Team Canada EXPLODES! Into a dull little match that really didn't belong in a cage. I'm sure I've mentioned before how dumb this concept is when you get matches like this inside a cage. The real feud is with Eric Young, and cage matches are supposed to be pay-off matches.
Gail Kim defeated Miss Jackie Moore
As good as a women's match in a cage could be without involving Trish Stratus.
Senshi defeated Austin Starr
Boy, Starr's push has really evaporated, if it ever, in fact, existed at all. And can we get off this "Bob Backlund dislikes Austin Starr" treadmill already? It can't possibly end in a match anyway.
James Storm defeated Chris Harris in a Prince of Darkness match
Wow, what a triumphant return for Chris Harris, after being brutalized by his former partner he…doesn't get any revenge whatsoever. And I'm having trouble with the play-by-play a little, but it seems like the blindfolds kept inadvertently coming off. Yes, because blindfold matches didn't suck enough.
Christopher Daniels defeated Jerry Lynn
Think they'll ever explain why Daniels has started imitating Sting, or just forget about it or never have Daniels face Sting in any meaningful match?
Team 3D defeated LAX in an Electrified (Riiiiight) Cage Match to win the NWA Tag Team titles
I'm still not sure why they kept getting rematches even though they kept losing to LAX, plus there's really no other challengers on the horizon. Also, and I realize this is becoming repetitive, but it can't be said enough, Team 3D, in any form, has become so horribly stale that it's getting like the last days of LOD, when even having Sunny with them couldn't save the act.
Team Angle defeated Team Cage in the Lethal Lockdown match when Sting pinned Abyss
So Sting gets the next title shot, which I guess makes sense, since he was the least likely choice on Team Angle and Russo is booking. The match itself seemed like they skipped right to the end of a normal match at the very beginning, with everyone hitting finishers at random (which, for Tomko, meant two minutes of big boots. No wonder everyone wanted him on their team), and then just hit each other with increasingly dangerous weapons for the second half of the match. Although I have to question how putting tacks inside a guitar makes it all the more deadlier when you're already crushing someone's head with a guitar.
Overall, the one thing that really stands out for me is the lack of pacing. I understand, undercard before main event, but that gives you two hours of smaller matches, several of which were definitely mediocre, followed by two huge gimmicks in a row. You're essentially asking the crowd to not fall asleep for the first part, in order to expect them to be riled up for the last two matches. And then, you burn them out on big spots in the first gimmick match, so they don't have anything left for similar spots in the second match. Oh, and let's not forget the silliness that IS the Electrified Cage. Or let's do.
I have to give this PPV a recommendation to avoid, due to a mediocre undercard, too many stupid gimmicks, and no real blowaway match or angle. But hey, if you want to see Team 3D win another title, go right ahead.
Around The Horn
Big news this week is WWE pulling the plug on the "marquee" Hulk Hogan-Jerry Lawler match in Memphis, due to the fact that they aren't the ones promoting it. Anyone who was shocked by this, feel free to raise your hand so the class can laugh at you. Anyway, the match has been changed to Hulk Hogan vs Paul Wight, the former Big Show, and is being billed as "the match that should have happened at WrestleMania 23". But then there would have been another match on the card for Carlito to complain about bumping him off the show, and nobody wanted that.
The former Disco Inferno was arrested for running a casino in his basement without being a Native American. Claims that he was 1/24th Cherokee on his mother's side failed to dissuade police from making the arrest. I guess I'll have to find a new place for my Tuesday night poker game, then.
Last week WWE released a new edition of WWE The Music in an online only format. As of yet, I haven't been able to find any of the tracks on my usual downloading places (remember kids, illegal downloading is wrong). Somebody get on that for me, would you? (what did I just tell you kids?)
The Basham Brothers were allegedly supposed to be Christy's team last night at Lockdown, but due to the fact that they're under a no-compete clause until the 20th, we got Serotonin. Speaking of which, is Serotonin ever going to accomplish anything, or are they just an excuse for Raven to beat the crap out of them every week for no particular reason?
Dixie Carter did an interview for The Sun in the UK, where she essentially attempted to shift all blame for TNA's bad booking decisions off of Vince Russo. Wait, no, actually, she also denied that there have been bad booking decisions. It seems the real problem is that hardcore fans don't know what they want. Wow, I barely saw Vince's lips moving on that one. Oh, and also, WWE is the devil for not letting poor Kurt Angle heal himself better, despite the fact that they fired him when it became apparent that forcing him to take time off in other ways only made him push himself harder to come back.
Slow news week, so we'll go to the finish.
And before I leave this segment, from the offices of the Brock Watch (yes, they still exist), Brock gave an interview this week where a conspiracy-minded fan might note that he portrayed WWE in a more positive light than he has since leaving the organization. Could a WWE comeback be in the works, or am I just stirring stuff up for my own amusement? The answer may surprise you!
I'm just stirring stuff up. Oh, and BOO! Surprised?
The Injury Bug Bites
Inactive List as of 04.09.07
WWE
- Beth Phoenix, RAW, out indefinitely as of June 6 (jaw)
- Chris Jericho, out indefinitely (kayfabe, fired)
- Hardcore Holly, out 3-4 months as of April 3 (elbow surgery)
- King Booker, out two months as of April 6 (knee surgery)
- Mark Henry, SD!, out 6-8 months as of July 15th (patella)
- Paul Burchill, SD!, out indefinitely as of May 29 (shoulder)
- Rene Dupree, ECW, out indefinitely as of March 2007 (Wellness)
- Rey Mysterio, SD!, out indefinitely as of October 2006 (knee surgery)
- Triple H, RAW, out 4-6 months as of January 7 (torn quadriceps)
TNA
No major injuries.
Transactions
- Ashley, SD!, out indefinitely as of April 13 (leg)
She'll be having a pin from when she broke her leg last time re-inserted, since it fell out, which is pretty gruesome when you consider she's not even a real wrestler in the first place.
One Year Ago This Experience
Originally posted 04.17.06, and I started a new job, which caused me to miss poker. Fortunately, this Tuesday, after a long absence due to money-grubbing bar owners kicking us out, free poker returns to Golf Without Limits in northern Waterloo. Registration is at 6:30, game starts at 7, come out and play. Tell them I sent you and I get an extra 500 chips for bringing in new people. Plus, you'll get to meet me, and I know some of you have dreamed of that day.
Anyway, Stacy Kiebler was dominating Dancing With The Stars (but lost because of lousy 49er's fans voting for Jerry Rice) but rather than milk the publicity, WWE released her. Makes sense to me.
And in my never-ending attempt to find new features to annoy people with, I took my hatred of Randy Orton over the edge in the first of a series (of two, I think) of chronicling the suspension of Orton. The series was horribly unfunny, even to me, so I canned it quickly and never brought it up again (just like WCW!). Except for bringing it up right now.
The Wrestling Fan's Experience
This week's Experience comes from Chris Morciglio
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Why I am a wrestling fan and how I got into pro wrestling are just about one in the same for me. It happened one random Saturday morning. I was the industrious kid. You know, the one who did his homework on Friday night before bed so I could have the whole weekend with no worries. Anyway, I woke up one Saturday morning without a care in the world and flipped on the TV in order to play River Raid on my Atari 2600. For about 85% of the audience, you are going to have to google that. So, as I flipped my manual-dialed TV through the channels in order to get to channel 3 to play my video game, I saw some pretty big dudes jumping around some boxing ring and smashing each other with moves that were making me cringe. Oh my god, that guy is dead!! Some guy laid on top of his chest, pulled up on his leg and the guy underneath squirmed before the guy in the striped shirt slapped the floor a third time. Sounds pretty silly, huh? Yeah, it very well might. But, I was hooked. I was determined to find out the rules just by watching, because it was so goofy, I could never ask anyone else if they saw this, too.
But, for me, there were good guys and bad guys. There was a clear distinction between the two. Hell, I didn't even have to think for myself. I cheered with the crowd and booed with the crowd. In much the same way that life for a small kid in the Bronx was pretty "cut and dry" every day, this world of professional wrestling was similar, but, although I didn't know it at the time, a playful jab at reality too. Pro wrestling gave me hope as a little kid that the big heel could be defeated. Never mind my Catholic school lessons of David slaying Goliath. That was something that they had to teach me and I had to swallow at the time. We were 7, give us a break!! But, then we saw this little Greg Gagne dude beat this monster Colonel DeBeers guy, and maybe that stuff we were taught was not entirely inaccurate.
Then that day comes when you find out that pro wrestling came to town in the same car as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. For me, it happened when my friend Paulie (I know, hard to believe I had a friend in the Bronx named Paulie, whose mother used to scream, "Paolo!!" when I came calling for him at their basement door where she was working from home as a seamstress) threw me another monumental Monopoly beating on his front porch. My reply was an attempt at a body slam which was met with a knee to the side of the head and a headlock that made my ears ring for a week. That day, I found out that Paulie was a pro wrestling fan, too. And Richie across the street. And Joey, Richie's brother. And Rodney.............................
So, wrestling was still about good guys and bad guys, but now it was fake? I now started to watch with a more critical eye and saw some punches coming up short, or just tapping the guy and the guy was whipping around like he was struck by lightning. And, you know what, it was still fun. But, the stories were "of the day". US vs. evil, little guy surviving insurmountable odds to win, and the cartoon world of the lovechild of TV and music.......that was the 80's.
Coincidentally, wresting grew and changed as I grew and changed. In my surly teens, pro wrestling graduated into the Attitude era. There were no more faces and heels, and the guys on screen seemed more passionate, more real than the cartoon character guys I remember promenading around in feather boas, red-and-yellow bandanas, and pink and purple silk scarves (RIP Adorable Adrian). These guys connected with the audience, had the same issues with society and The Man that we angry teens did, and lived on the 3-way razor's edge of good, alternative, and evil.
And now I'm older and disgruntled with the hypocrisy of the world and the self-servedness of the human race. We hear people continue to talk out of both sides of their mouth and we are pretty hesitant to trust. So, now our characters are real. They recognize that the crowd may boo them and that's OK. They realize that they are untrustworthy, yet cannot trust anyone else either. There are partners constantly at odds with each other. Can the 21st Century be described any better?
And I still watch like I'm 7 again.
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Wrestling as the Fountain of Youth, I like it. And I'd like it if more people sent in their responses to one or both of the following statements.
1. Why I am a wrestling fan.
2. How I got into pro wrestling.
Every time I ask, I get more people, so I guess I'll still a little relevant. Which is good, since I'm offering a chance to get yourself printed in the best damned Monday news report on the entire Internet. Act now, because the next Experience could be yours!
Links For Fun And Nonprofit
As mentioned before, Larry had live coverage of Lockdown.
Chris Jacobs has emerged from his St Patty's Day drunken stupor a little sheepish at his drunken rantings, but he reads 411 all the time now, so it's easy to forgive him. I can't get mad at people who read me more often than most people watch the real news. If I had cooler graphics, I could probably outdraw Fox News. Or at least CTV News. Who am I kidding, I could never outdraw Lloyd Robertson. He's like Canada's version of Tom Brokaw.
Jeff Bathurst has also emerged (word of the day calendar, okay?) with the long-promised footage of Pierre Carl Ouellette, former Quebecer, doing French commentary for TNA on RDS in Canada. The link is right here, and I suppose it should go without saying, but you should probably be able to understand French to really understand it.
And for more on last week's news, we go to newly appointed Wrestling News Experience Senior Recap Analyst, Matthew Alan Roberts. Matthew?
Thank you, Stephen. Just some quick hits from last week's news that you posted. How does Forbes magazine know who is a billionaire or not? I really doubt McMahon himself knows his exact net worth since investments are always fluctuating. Once you reach $500 million you probably stop counting.
God knows I would. Anyway, WWE is a publicly traded company, so they have to release financial records to their stockholders, which is, I assume, where Forbes gets their numbers. Granted, Vince probably has lots of money squirreled away in Cayman offshore holding companies from back in the old days, but Forbes doesn't know about those. Well, they didn't.
Okay, so secondly, I'm pretty sure TNA is still doing terrible business wise losing millions per year. The television negotiations are the same rumors they have floated for years that go no place.
Oh, I have no doubt that TNA will never leave Spike unless forced out. I also have no doubt that TNA is haemorrhaging money to a certain extent, although to a lesser extent than they used to. Unfortunately for us, TNA is not publicly traded, so there's no way we'll ever see a real set of books on them.
And hey, Kanyon himself admitted the stuff with him saying he was fired because he was gay was a dumb worked shoot thing he was doing to try to get his job back and he was not fired because he was gay. Personally, I never got why Kanyon was supposed to be such a big deal and never liked him.
You, my friend, missed the absolutely beautiful days of Positively Kanyon. Only problem is, that gimmick only works when DDP is around. Myself, I can't wait for the day when being a gay athlete is no big deal. It's a long time coming, though, due to some weird stereotype about athletes having to all be "men's men". So why do football players slap each other on the ass all the time, then?
Finally, Dana White is just working people because he knows he is going to bring in Angle to fight him if nothing else (White already fought Ortiz). Dana White is the poor man's Vince McMahon and he is trying to make himself the top star of UFC.
Well, you can't argue with how he's successfully marketed UFC thus far, and I think he knows that personalities are what sell, not so much the actual fighting. Bottom line, he's got some charisma that he's putting to good use, and I agree that if Kurt Angle were never going to fight in UFC, Dana White would not be talking about it every chance he gets.
Okay, so I just edited his email to look like a stimulating back-and-forth discussion, but at least it looks sort of like a feature segment. Okay, I admit it, I have too much time on my hands. Let's go to the big finish.
And One To Go On
We're late, we gotta go, that's our show, 411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EDT. Stay tuned for Larry with Your News, My Views tomorrow, and I'll be back next week.
