News to Start Your Weekend 5.11.07
Posted by Nick Marsico on 05.11.2007
Lots of stuff going on, with Money in the Bank, some TV thoughts, injuries and more.
What a busy week this is. I've been busy with finals and papers and whatnot, and a lot has happened in the world of professional wrestling. A decent portion of my business is behind me, but I'm taking a break from that for a little while to handle this wonderful menagerie of expletives and the massive wrestling geniousity that I bestow upon you weekly. Oh, and I got my hair cut on Wednesday. Since so many other people have opening pictures for their columns, I decided to whip one up right quick for this week's edition of the News to Start Your Weekend.
And we begin.
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So Mr. Kennedy got hurt and misdiagnosed. He was originally supposed to be out for 5-7 months, and now it's down to 6-8 weeks. His triceps weren't torn off the bone as originally suspected and reported, therefore he doesn't need surgery. Now this makes me curious. We all know by now that tonight on SmackDown they're going to air Edge cashing in his newly won MITB briefcase after the cage match to win the World Title from the Undertaker. Does that mean that the original idea was for Kennedy to do the same? With how hastily they reacted in taking the briefcase from Kennedy and having Edge take the belt, was ‘Kennedy: World Champion' the plan, or did they just decide on the fly to give Edge the belt, capitalizing on the opportunity they had with the already booked cage match, thus allowing Edge to be the biggest opportunist ever for the second time?
I really don't believe that Kennedy was going to wait all the way until WrestleMania to cash it in, and the way they went about taking the briefcase off of him seems like a bit of proof. That doesn't mean that he was going to win it on SmackDown this week, but that says to me that he was going to do it at some point in the near future, I'd say SummerSlam at the latest. They reacted VERY quickly to his injury. He got hurt on Saturday, and on Monday he lost the briefcase. If he was scheduled to cash it in at WrestleMania, it seems to me that they would wait a little while, weigh their options and try to figure out a way to keep the briefcase with him and work him into storylines without having to wrestle. At the same time, that means he wouldn't be back to active competition until December, which wouldn't end up leaving much time for Kennedy to be elevated and pushed up to a point where he would become a thoroughly legitimate threat to the title.
It's tough to figure out where they might have been going with Kennedy, but it is a very interesting situation. I do like that Edge is the champion once again, and he is already booked to defend his title for the first time, as he has Batista at Judgment Day. With Kennedy due back in wrestling shape in 2 months or less, Edge has a feud already set up for the summer. In the end, I find this whole situation to be a good thing, because chances are high that everything that has transpired due to Kennedy's injury and everything that is going to be happening over the summer is going to be much more interesting that what we were going to be seeing. My interest has all of a sudden been raised for SmackDown after a couple months of not caring so much. I was a huge fan of the show, probably the biggest on this little internet community, but it has been kind of boring for a while. It looks like the show will be anything but boring for a while now.
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- The big announcement Austin Aries was promising for this past Monday has been postponed indefinitely, probably because his lawyers told him it wasn't a good idea to say whatever he was going to say. Chances are by the end of the summer, there will no longer be an Austin Starr.
- Joe vs. Styles has been added to the PPV this Sunday, as well as a 4 way between Tiger Mask, Jerry Lynn, Senshi and Alex Shelley. The card for Sacrifice has actually turned out to look pretty good, and these two matches will only add to that. I just hope they do it right and give Joe and Styles at least 20 minutes, and the 4 way should get a good chunk of time as well. I'm just glad we're finally getting to see Shelley wrestling again. He's been on PPVs and TV a lot. Plus, last night he was on Impact teaming with Sabin. I haven't seen it yet, but at least he's in the ring again.
- Apparently, former WSX Champion Ricky Banderas is going to be Jim Mitchell's replacement monster for Abyss. I haven't seen any episodes of WSX since the one he debuted on, which was the fireball episode, but I doubt that would have given me much insight on his wrestling ability. I hadn't even ever heard of him before that, though, so I don't know anything about him. I just hope they give him a better name, because Ricky Banderas is a shitty name for a dude who looks like him. It's too bad all of this stuff between TNA and indy promotions has gone down, because I was really hoping that Mitchell was going to bring in the Necro Butcher. That would have been awesome.
- Warrior and the Iron Sheik got into a bit of an altercation at a convention in Edison, NJ. I didn't even know about this thing, because I would have tried to go had I known. Edison isn't that far from me. You can find the video elsewhere on this site.
- Brock Lesnar is very confident going into his first MMA fight in under a month. He's fighting a 7 foot tall gentleman.
- Saturday night's main event, which is actually airing on NBC the same night that the card Lesnar is fighting will air on Showtime, June 2, will be a 90 minute program that starts at 11:30 PM. It will now be taped with RAW the night before, and the SmackDown/ECW taping will be done as usual on Tuesday.
- The bandage on Batista's leg is to protect a new tattoo. I like that they gave Batista a very good reason to be wearing it, and even worked it well into the story of his match with ‘Taker. Well, that part was probably just JBL, since Undertaker didn't spend a second trying to attack the leg that Kennedy and Finlay spent 3 weeks destroying.
- Lilian Garcia will be returning to her RAW announcing duties on this upcoming Monday's show.
- Ozzy Osbourne has a new song out, and it's the theme song of Judgment Day. He's going to be performing it live on SmackDown next week.
- The Naturals have finally been released from TNA. They were supposed to be gone months ago, but they kept them around for whatever reason without using them. I think one of them may have been hurt, so they kept them around so that at least they could make some money while he couldn't work. I may be wrong, but if that's the case, that is pretty good on TNA's part. It's not like they were making much money anyway.
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- Candice is really improving in the ring. She could end up showing the same kind of evolution that Trish did. That would be awesome. It's just too bad that Candice is already 28 years old in the early stages of her development and will be 29 in about 4 months. Trish improved very rapidly, joining the company in 2000 and was on top of the women's division in overall talent in 2002. She was 27 at that point, and Candice is still a good ways away from that. She also isn't aging that well, either. She had some major plastic surgery on her face after that broken nose, and it was probably a bad move for her, because she really isn't as good looking as she used to be, and it isn't just because of a broken nose. Trish broke hers on a few occasions and the only thing that changed about her was her nose, and that was due to it being broken, not due to surgery to make it look pretty again. I hope Candice holds up and stays around long enough to become as good a wrestler as she can be.
- I'm looking forward to Santino Marella's title reign.
- Wow, Shawn Michaels just gave Khali the best match of his career. That's not saying much, but it was damn entertaining and it looked like Khali came to play.
- The Cade and Murdoch ‘killing them with niceness' angle is interesting.
- Hey, look, another thoroughly underwhelming and short Cena vs. Orton match!
- I'm a fan of ECW, but it was REALLY boring this week. Punk and Cor Von had a pretty good match that would have benefited from being a couple minutes shorter, and that's really about it. I didn't even bother watching much else. I fast forwarded through the rest.
- I didn't want to see Sandman get jobbed out to Snitsky, who has probably the worst looking clothesline and big boot of any pushed monster ever ever ever. I was always on Snitsky's side, especially during the Kane feud and while he was just another generic big dude and got to main event the Survivor Series, but since his debut on ECW he has been nothing short of awful. None of his offense looks credible at all, especially his big boot, which is his finisher.
- The Lashley/McMahon storyline is way too similar to the Austin/McMahon feud. Vince has done the whole boss vs. wrestler storyline a bunch of times since Austin/McMahon, but none of them have been as reminiscent as this one is. The segment at the beginning with Lashley getting arrested was done really poorly, too. They didn't even handcuff the guy.
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- I'm doing some more scouring of the ‘net for some more news and tidbits, and apparently the original idea was to have Kennedy cash in the briefcase and win the title on SmackDown. Thankfully that didn't take place. I don't know that he isn't ready, at least with his ability as a performer, because as far as that I think he is, but I don't think as a character on TV, he is ready to be the World Champion. It sucks that he got hurt, but it's not a bad injury and he won't end up missing any TV time, and the feud he's going to get out of it is going to be much better. Kennedy vs. Edge is light years better than Kennedy vs. Batista.
- Triple H will be feuding with Randy Orton upon his return. I guess that's the follow up to his feud with Rated RKO over the winter.
- Apparently, the producers of the Four Horsemen DVD baited Arn, Tully and Roma into tearing into each other for the DVD. They apparently told Roma that Arn and Tully and Flair had said negative things about him, so what is on the DVD is Roma's response to that. Then Arn and the boys were shown Roma's comments and were filmed responding to those. Paul Roma's original comments were positive toward the group and being a part of it. I guess that lends to some good entertainment, but it's a very unprofessional thing to do.
That's how the entertainment business is, though. Nobody's truthful and so much crap is done to make money in a way that people can be lazy and uncreative. It's a faux-reality culture we live in when it comes to entertainment. No reality TV is real and everybody is baited into doing things that can be edited to look interesting. It's laziness that spawned it. Maybe WWE's writers should just spread rumors and claim that one guy said something about another guy, then put the two guys in a program together and tell them to let loose. That would take no work at all. As it is, the creative team ends up lucking into most of the interesting stuff that goes on, case in point the Kennedy/Edge stuff that happened this week.
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Ant-Lox responds to my question about the Ring of Honor PPV:
I've never seen much of ROH, only a handful of clips on YouTube. I heard about the PPV deal, but didn't know the price. If it is $10, then I'll buy a few.
Good man. You won't regret it.
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Paul Shaw thinks the world title is cursed:
Is it cursed??
Batista had to give it up through injury
Angle didn't run to long with it, (was injured aswell yes?)
Rey won it and didn't fair to well and part of the reason he gave it up was through injury
Booker faired better but was also injured
Taker is currently the champ and guess what?? He is now injured!
Id advise Mr Kennedy to stay clear of the title and head to Raw
On a related note I think benoit should drop the US title to MVP and take the world title from Batista who I assume will be champ after the upcoming smackdown cage match. I know it would be a quick couple of title changes but quite frankly Benoit deserves another run and Batista doesn't. (no matter how much he has improved in recent matches)
Alternativly, thank Scotty To Hotty for his long service and give him a run....
I actually saw someone bring this up recently. Maybe winning the World Title is like being on the cover of Madden.
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Daniel Moore weighs in on the ROH PPV:
Great move on ROH's part as they understand that you cant build a wrestling empire in 5 years like TNA is trying to do, I honestly haven't heard much positive things about TNA since Angles debut. I've heard nothing but negative things about IMPACT each week, and yet WWE has been booking a lot better and have been leaning more towards wrestling than they have in quite sometime. They still need to do something that'll shock the fans as a lot of people where wondering who attack everyone on RAW. Khali gets a lot of negative feedback because they say he's big and slow, I think he moves pretty well and having a HUGE guy like that just stand there and effortlessly beat people up is ok with me, Andre wasn't that mobile either yet he never gets that kinda criticism. He is no where near as bad as Giant Gonzalez. Anyway ROH will continue to slowly grow and not rush into mainstream exposure; I think they have a better handle on there product than TNA has. PPV will get them more hardcore fans that didn't buy every DVD or get to catch it on The Wrestling Channel in England like I have, (glad I got stationed here) and/or Canada and Japan. They'll be more popular and will probably out due TNA without ever actually trying to. If you ever get a chance go to youtube and type WWE Suck TNA rules. These 2 guys (Matt & Doug or Bill & Doug whatever) believe nothing TNA does is wrong and while I respect there opinion most people never agree, I think you and the other writers on 411mania wrestling should watch. They fail to mention anything TNA does wrong but never mention what WWE does right, like 07 has been a great year for the E, I mean a few WTF moments but a lot of good focus and direction on there product as of late and I'm happy to see that. Anyway keep up the good work.
Andre was a very well trained and good wrestler back before the mid-80s when his size began to debilitate him. Khali has had WWE style training and was trained to be a big man, not a wrestler. It's almost insulting to compare Khali to Andre. Andre was an amazing performer and could put on a very good show and match when he was younger and healthy.
I've seen a lot of the "youtube shooters", I guess Kent Jones was the first one I saw. Nothing he said bothered me because just the way he spoke and the ridiculousness of it all was just very funny and entertaining. The rest of the guys are just a bunch of idiots who have the internet and a camera. They're the bottom of the barrel of the internet wrestling community, even worse than the biggest dope on any message board you've ever been to. They're very uninformed, they know nothing about wrestling, they're not well spoken and are overall a bunch of idiots who aren't worth anybody's time. It's not worth getting annoyed with them, because they aren't smart enough to understand any criticism. All they know is how to angrily yell and type back in all caps to people who do the same in commenting on their videos. It's not even entertaining any more because there are just so many people who do it.
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Ring of Honor is having its biggest weekend ever this weekend. Saturday night is the first PPV taping, and there isn't even an announced card. It's fucking exciting. You know where to go here on 411 if you want some in depth analysis of tonight's show in Connecticut, as Ari will be doing that tomorrow in the Column of Honor. I'm sure he'll have some more of his stuff concerning Saturday night's big event.
