The Wrestling News Experience: 04.23.07
Posted by Stephen Randle on 04.23.2007
Come celebrate the birth of the newest international holiday! What is it? I bet you can guess.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, master of massive html errors. For anyone who attempted to read last week's report up until sometime Monday evening, I apologize. It seems that I screwed up an html tag and it didn't show up on my posting preview. So really, I should blame Ashish for his lousy code-recognizing website. But I would never do that, because he would fire me. And have me killed. And if I'm lucky, he'd do it in that order.
The second round of the hockey playoffs sure got here quick, and I officially no longer care who wins. Too bad the Blue Jays are discovering that, shocker, we should have spent money on pitching. Meanwhile, the Poker Gawd has returned, as my first night back to my weekly poker game netted me a first place finish and a ticket to the big tournament of champions. If you're in the Waterloo area this Tuesday night and want to watch me defend my title, or possibly try and take it from me (not bloody likely), the action is at Golf Without Limits on Northfield Drive, with registration starting at 6:30 pm. Bring your best, because I'm bringing aces.
Moving on.
Around The Horn
Big news this week, news that was surely created only to give me waves of glorious pleasure. Seriously, it's like a tingling feeling. It seems that TWNE's biggest fan in the entire world and my sole reason for being, Randy "Dorkboy" Orton, has been sent home from WWE's European tour in a disciplinary action, essentially one year and one week after the last time he was suspended for out-of-ring problems. In fact, in honour of this developing tradition, I declare the second Monday after WrestleMania, from the year hence, shall be declared "Dorkboy Day", where we will all gather to remember the many times that Randy Orton has derailed his seemingly un-derailable push to the top of WWE due to stupid actions on his part.
Early but unconfirmed reports have something to do with Orton trashing a hotel room as the reason for his suspension, though you have to believe there was a little more than just that behind it. No word on how this affects Orton's presence in the title match at Backlash, or how harsh his punishment may end up being, but for now, I'm all tingly again, so I'm going to need a second.
Okay, let's continue.
TNA continues to expand its PPV locations, as Bound For Glory is expected to take place in Chicago this year, making it the third non-Orlando PPV this year. As well, TNA ran a house show event in Louisville this weekend to some success. This shows that at the very least, TNA has learned that they need to run their events in places where they can actually charge admission. Anywhere you can put black ink in that ledger, at this point, is a massive step forward. And for more cost-saving tips, if they need to cut some salary, I think I heard that the TNA fans have a suggestion for who they could easily drop. Oh, no, wait, those are just the hardcore fans who don't know what they want. Never mind that they're the core of the people who watch your stuff religiously. For example, take 411's own Larry Csonka. Larry, you like TNA to an admittedly psychotic degree, right?
Wait, what?
I said-
I know what you said, I thought we did this at the end of the column. I'm not prepared. I don't know my lines yet.
But Larry-
Damn you, Randle.
Okay, we'll get back to Larry later, I guess.
Also in the news, this past week WWE severed all ties with Deep South Wrestling, a developmental organization that they helped start up two years ago and which numbers among its graduates MVP and (I believe) Snitsky and…actually, that's all I know. Apparently WWE was unhappy with how DSW was being run, so chose to pull out. WWE sent Mike Bucci to DSW to organize the re-assignment of WWE developmental talent. Because, as we all know, Nova invented inter-developmental restructuring.
The worst part of all this is, with no DSW to cover, Larry has two less columns a week to write.
Dammit, Randle, not yet.
And before I leave this segment, there are plans to unite Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley in a tag team due to their apparent chemistry together. If true, I would expect Sabin to drop the X-Division title by the next PPV (if only I could think of who's getting pushed in that division lately…oh yeah…or should I say, ooooh yeah). Sabin and Shelley are expected to go by the name "Two Cruisers To Do Jobs For The Heavyweights Once We Fire The Naturals".
The Injury Bug Bites
Inactive List as of 04.16.07
WWE
- Ashley, SD!, out indefinitely as of April 13 (leg)
- 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
- Abyss, TNA, out indefinitely as of April 18 (kayfabe)
What, you mean wrestlers no longer shake off beatdowns and appear the next week with taped ribs and/or a giant bandage on their foreheads? What kind of world do we live in?
- Austin Starr, TNA, out 90 days as of April 18 (suspension)
Apparently, Starr has a horrible attitude backstage, which may be in part to playing job-boy to everyone since he came back, but who can say. Boy, and I thought he wasn't getting pushed before this. They may actually have him lose cleanly to Backlund when he gets back.
- The (Former) Basham Brothers, signed to a TNA contract, debuted at the TNA house show
They're expected to be Hemme's final mystery team, and probably would have done the deed at Lockdown had they not been under no-compete clauses. Maybe this time, they'll have personalities!
- Randy Orton, WWE, sent home from European tour, status uncertain
Yep, it still makes me tingly
- Ric Flair, WWE, day-to-day (ankle injury)
Note that with an ankle injury, he probably still wrestles better than at least a third of the active roster.
- Santino Marella, RAW, debuted on April 16th Raw
Well, there are worse ways to debut someone out of nowhere, but given his status as an Italian and the location of WWE at the time, I have to suspect that Marella's reign will be short-lived. But one can hope that they've decided to freshen up the IC division with a new unknown quantity instead, since Umaga immediately taking the title back does nothing for anyone.
- Super Crazy, RAW, out indefinitely as of April 21 (torn MCL)
Ay dios mio!
Okay, I've been saving that one.
One Year Ago This Experience
Originally posted 04.26.06, and ECW was coming back. If only we knew then what we knew now…well, actually, we were so full of foolish optimism, we probably wouldn't have cared. Of course, in the end, the inaugural ECW champ got publicly busted driving while high, Paul Heyman ended up butting heads with McMahon and got sent home again, and the first ECW PPV drew the worst buyrate of the modern era by a large margin. But there was hope once.
And Umaga faced a "local jobber" in a pre-taped London match. So you can't blame him for not being wary of those potential "wrestlers on vacation" they have hiding in the audience nowadays.
The Wrestling Fan's Experience
This week's Experience is from ReY.
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I am a wrestling fan because I like the physical drama. I tell my anti-wrestling friends, it is like watching a Jackie Chan film. The fight scenes aren't real but it takes alot of athleticism and courage pull it off. And every once in a while, they might get hurt.
I watched wrestling literally all my life but I never really paid any real attention to it. But I didn't become a hardcore fan until 1987. I was in the afterschool program at my school. I was in the 2nd grade. One day, the class gathered in the auditorium. One of the teachers put in the tape of Wrestlemania 3 into the video projector. Then I saw Savage vs Steamboat on a 20 ft high screen. I was in awe. I became a rabid fan since then.
I told everyone I could about wrestling. Then my cousins from North Carolina told me if I like wrestling, then I would absolutely love what they were about to show me. They sent me tapes of Ric Flair. The rest is history.
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You know, I had a teacher in grade school who showed us that year's Royal Rumble during lunch one day. I believe it was 1991, but I can't remember for sure. If only I had the Royal Rumble Anthology DVD set so I could find out. Hint, hint.
You know you want to contribute, so here's your chance. Send me your best response to one or both of the following statements in order to get yourself printed in the best damned Monday news report on the entire Internet.
1. Why I am a wrestling fan.
2. How I got into pro wrestling.
A special thanks to my semi-retired tag team partner, the Arn Anderson to my Ric Flair, Michael Melchor, who came through almost immediately and got me access to the latest version of WWE: The Music, available only on iTunes (illegal downloading will get you in trouble with Lars Ullrich). I tell you, it takes a special friend to willingly give you a copy of Rob Conway's "Just Look At Me" for no charge whatsoever.
Speaking of the tracks, the only one I wish was included is Umaga's, because I like the beat. Also, I wish Cor Von's theme didn't suck, but that's a faint hope.
Friend of the Experience and newly-appointed guest submitter at rspwfaq.com (which hopefully doesn't mean less fan mail for me) Matthew Alan Roberts deserves thanks for telling me that I screwed up my HTML last week. Where were the rest of you on that? And we'll pick out one of his main points this week, which is something that's been bugging me for a while: what the hell is the deal with Serotonin? They never win, they just hang around Raven and get beat up for losing. I agree, they're supposed to be Raven trying to recreate another version of The Flock/Raven's Rejects, but it was never the guys in the Flock that were important, it was Raven, who could still wrestle at that point. Now he's out of shape and broken-down, so there's no way he'll be in the ring again. At this point, he might as well come back as Johnny Polo, because that was damned entertaining.
And Louis Jones wonders, citing how WWE jumped all over Cor Von, who WWE would leap at signing away from TNA if they had a chance. He cites Abyss and Joe, both of whom WWE has previously attempted to sign (I seem to recall some huge swerve involving Abyss' contract). Well, I actually don't know what they'd do with Abyss, since they wouldn't use his TNA gimmick, but we'll move away from that for now. I think they'd sign Angle and Christian back in a minute, but I doubt they'll get a chance. Honestly, aside from Joe, there's nobody who really stands out in my mind, but I have two dark horse picks: AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Styles has a disadvantage in that he's really, really short, but I think Daniels has the skills and character that I'd be shocked if he doesn't get at least a small amount of interest from WWE someday. He may never leave TNA, but he's a guy who I could see drawing money if built up as something huge.
And One To Go On
411 will have live coverage of a taped Raw from London, England, tonight starting at 9 pm EDT. That's our show, before we go, we check in with our good friend, Larry Csonka, over at Your News, My Views. Larry?
I told you I wasn't ready, Randle.
Larry, it's the end of the column. This is the normal time that we do this.
What? Dammit, where's Cook? He was supposed to warn me when I had five minutes.
I couldn't say, Larry.
Damn. Okay, I'll wing it. Ahem.
So Larry, as we were-
Thanks, Randle. That's right, fans, it's me, Larry Csonka. The Csonkanator. Csonkazilla. The Csonk…um…guy. Dammit! What do people call me again?
Er…Larry?
No, no, the title they use all the time, when they think I'm not paying attention.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Don't lie to me, Randle. I know you know. You're deep with that funky in-crowd. Those kids think you're the hip for some reason. Tell me!
…
…Grumpy Old Guy.
That's the one. That's right, you people, I'm always watching. I will have my vengeance. I know one of you stole my bike.
Thanks, Larry. Larry Csonka, ladies and gentlemen. He's in tomorrow, I'll be back next week.
