Hidden Highlights 10.27.08: Issue #165

Posted by JP Prag on 10.27.2008

Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling features people who can see the future, Rey Mysterio won’t let being dumped on his head stop him, JTG makes a flinch when he sees the Miz, Mike Tenay and Don West sit at a real casino table, Kung Fu Naki goes to hold down the loose arm, and more!

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #165

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

---

Commentator: After getting out early for good behavior, Nick Hogan decided that he could not live off only half his father's fortune and instead had to supplement his income in some way.

Nick Hogan: JBL if you need a new driver you know my number.

Commentator: But within the squared circle itself, it was Raisha Saed who was delivering the most damage… and controversy.

Kaos Karma: The move Saed used is really called The Curb Stomp, it is used by Super Dragon the most.

Guest#9657: Yea Saed's move was the curbstomp which is more devastating than Burchill's version. She does it as Cheerleader Melissa in Shimmer and ChickFights and Super Dragon is credited for it. I've seen that move get used so many times in indie matches with the same set-up and if done right it is brutal looking.

Commentator: But there was only one man who was suffering from the grand conspiracy.

Chris Jericho: Skeeavone, you and all these raving lunatic Jerichoholics know that Dean Malenko was never officially registered in the cruiserweight battle royal, the whole thing was a conspiracy against me to steal my WCW Cruiserweight Title, a conspiracy so vile that WCW must do everything possible to ensure that it will nevvvvvvvvvvver, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER happen again!

Commentator: While Jericho's woes may be troublesome, there were those that did not even know they were being called out.

TheRhyno665: Holy crap, despite being very close to Michigan and seeing it all the time, I never thought the MCMG's hand-point gesture referenced that. I just thought they were mocking Hogan's "This is where the power lies" promo.

Guest#1021: Bashir wasn't mocking with his left hand because of a map. He's portrayed as being from Iran. In many Arab and Persian countries, you always greet or pass objects with your right hand or with both hands. It's considered an insult to do anything with your left hand alone. This is because the left hand was traditionally used for hygiene before modern conveniences were available (i.e. wiping your ass). So it was a cross-cultural insult you wouldn't pick up on unless you were aware of the culture itself. Same way many hand gestures are specific to a certain culture like the middle finger here in the United States. Which makes it an even bigger highlight. He was basically comparing the Guns to shit.

Commentator: Will anyone else be compared to fecal matter this week? There's only one way to find out…

---

Commentator: And now, 411mania.com proudly presents…





JP: Hello everyone who finally made it home after two weeks to only catch a cold and not enjoy a single day without tissues up your nose, and welcome back to Hidden Highlights! If you've never been here before, let me tell you what we are doing in these pages.

Hidden Highlights are about the little things that make the product great. They are about showing the positive motions all those involved in wrestling do to make a better show. The Miz may hold his opponents hands down to make a pin attempt better. Charles Robinson may let a little tear shed from his eye every time someone mentions Ric Flair. Mike Tenay may tell you about the 17 year history of a visiting wrestler and make them sound huge in one sentence. These are all examples of little things that make the product far better.

Every week this article spotlights the Top 15 Hidden Highlights of the week, whether the be from television (RAW, ECW of SciFi, iMPACT, SmackDown!, and a PPV or television special if there is one), the past, small shows, tapes, or the indy scene.

This article may have an author, but it is also dependent upon the readers and true fans of professional wrestling—those who love what they watch and want to tell the world what they have found. The Top 15 are chosen from what I see and what readers write-in. Whatever is the best is what you'll see!

And who am I? Well, I am JP Prag, and I bring you Hidden Highlights with one goal in mind: to appreciate all those little things that make a huge difference.

Now let's get on with the Hidden Highlights!


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Since I was not able to give much love to SmackDown last week, plenty of other people picked up the slack. First up is jasonel!

jasonel: I noticed that the "bad news" The Brian Kendrick had for Super Crazy was that his opponent would be Zeke who was totally sporting the look of the late Bad News Brown.

JP: Hmmmm… Let's compare.

Zeke:



VS.

Bad News Brown:



Ghost of JT: Yeah, I can see the resemblance… in the pants.


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Well, for one looking less at someone's pants, here's… errr… I'm not going to type this name twice.

markhenrysquash0282139: During that Big Show segment where he demonstrated the three matches that people could choose from he quickly destroyed some jobber in an I Quit match (shortest I quit match ever?). After the jobber said "I quit" multiple times Chavo said "I think he said I quit." It was hilarious.

JP: Chavo has been right on his game these past few weeks. You can bet we're going to hear more from him later.


Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling – Retro 1 Week

JP: I have to say, I'm quite entertained by this show. I just can't believe that after two weeks they are already going in to re-runs! I'm just saying!

Anyway, my bet is on Dustin Diamond. Although Danny Bonaduce has the strength, smarts, and character to go all the way, he lacks the dedication and focus, which will come back to haunt him. But I digress, the real point is the Hidden Highlight

On the first night, the celebrities went to compete in the first ever CCW event at the CCW arena. I was scanning the signs in the crowd and one of them said, "Go Team Beefcake!". How could on the first night of shows ever the audience even know that Team Beefcake exists? I thought this was one of those funny continuity / crowd plant things that just made me laugh at the idea of "reality" television.


RAW

JP: Early in the evening on RAW, Rey Mysterio pulled off one of his few true wins over a big man when he took on the mostly forgotten Snitsky. Right near the end of the match, Mysterio went for a hunicarrana on Snitsky, but Snitsky missed holding on to Mysterio's legs when they were around his neck. Mysterio, essentially, got dumped straight on his head. But much to his credit, Rey Mysterio did not let up for one second and immediately popped up, acted like the move went perfect, and delivered the 619 to his larger opponent. Kudos to Mysterio for not letting an error or a pain stop him and to keep up the momentum and the moment in the match.


RAW

JP: Mysterio may have been the master in the ring, but Peter Clay thinks that Santino Marella was the master on the mic.

Peter Clay: My favourite Hidden Highlight for the week is from Santino dissing Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Santino says that Hacksaw is sad because he doesn't have a HONK-A-METER! and then says Duggan was never the IC Champion and the best he could do was a gold medal in the Goodwill Games. As I'm sure we all know, Ted Turner created the Goodwill Games.

Subtext: Second string title in Vince's promotion is better than first prize in anything created by Billionaire Ted. Therefore Vince is better than Ted.

Marvellous.

JP: Wow, that is a stretch for me! I thought he was just calling Duggan retarded and crippled.

Stenographer: We will strike your grossly non-PC words from the record!

JP: What? This is wrestling! If I wanted to be culturally insensitive, I'd talk about how on SmackDown they cram all their cultural minorities in matches against each other. Don't believe me:

Carlito and Primo Colon vs. Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neely: 3 of the 4 Latinos on SmackDown were in this match (not including Vickie Guerrero, who would make 5).

MVP and Shelton Benjamin vs. R-Truth and Kung Fu Naki: 3 of the 4 black/African-American on SmackDown and the only Japanese guy (1 of 2 main continent Asians)

The Brian Kendrik with Zeke vs. Super Crazy: The remaining black man and Latino man here.

Khali Kiss Kam: Featuring the only two Indians in the WWE The Great Khali and Ranjin Singh.

Scotty Goldman: Jews aren't even allowed on the show.

So who's the racist now? Huh?


RAW

JP: Ahem. Back to the show at hand, Josh Huff had a good one from my current favorite wrestler John Morrison.

Josh Huff: On RAW, during the tag match between Miz/Morrison and Punk/Kingston, Kingston missed on his leaping corner mount. Behind the ref's back, Morrison nailed a high kick to knock him off. Morrison then returned to his corner, but went the extra mile and went all the way around the ringpost to the far side so Punk's accusations of foul play seemed ridiculous!

JP: That CM Punk is always trying to blame things on the Shaman of Sexy. Just because that one time he got kicked out of the Palace of Wisdom for going against the movement for turning Pizza Friday into Tofu Tuesday, CM Punk is still trying to get back at the former ECW Champion. Not cool.


RAW

JP: The main event of RAW was… errr… some type of gauntlet match. Never saw someone loose a gauntlet match before, nonetheless twice, but that does make it an Adamle Original! Luckily, Tim Halliday caught something for us.

Tim Halliday: In the main event on RAW Y2J was getting ready for his 2nd match and Adamle came on the mic and said " Ok Chris...." Then Y2J looked over in Adamle's direction and screamed "I KNOW, I KNOW!"

JP: I'm glad Jericho knew, because I had no idea! Still, great being in the moment and reacting to what was going on around him. Classic Jericho always proves why he deserves his spot in the Hidden Highlights Hall of Fame.


ECW

JP: Over in the land of Extremertainment, Cryme Tyme made an appearance as Shad Gaspar took on the Miz. Part way into the match, Shad was on the outside and Miz launched himself to the same location to take Shad down. But Miz landed backwards, so his back was to JTG on the outside. Instead of just standing there looking like a chump, JTG actually made a flinch move towards the Miz like he was going to try something.

I really liked this "react in the moment" bit and thought JTG did a smart thing instead of just standing around looking bad.


iMPACT

JP: Over in a place where I think they are still called wrestlers (though I'm not sure), the aforementioned Raisha Saed was backstage giving an interview for Awesome Kong. During the interview, Saed called TNA Knockouts Champion Taylor Wilde a "fair-haired American". The issue with that? Taylor Wilde is Canadian! But looking at this as a positive spin, I think it makes Saed and Kong look even more racist because they don't differentiate between large groups of diverse people. Calling Wilde "American" actually makes Saed more closed minded and works well with her character.


iMPACT

JP: Of course, as you know iMPACT came Live in HD from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Thankfully, we got a like report from Kirk M!

Kirk M: I was at the Joint for Impact, and I noticed something while looking for my seat that screamed "Hidden Highlight". Any time a wresting show is in Vegas, they usually decorate the set with Vegas themed stuff like slot machines, cards, showgirls, etc. But one very subtle decoration was at the announce table. The table itself was decorated like a craps table. Very good way to keep with the theme, even though you couldn't see it that well on the because of all of Tenay and West's paperwork.

JP: I noticed this one, too, and wrote it down. They actually had game chips and everything in the table. From my vantage point, though, it looked like a blackjack table, not a craps table (that would be pretty bid to set up). Also, what was the deal with those TNA slot machines in the back? Were they just generic slot machines given a TNA logo or does TNA now have some machines there?


SmackDown

JP: For SmackDown this week, a deported man we've been missing for a while finally made a resurface. I guess he got a TV after all this time. Here's Nick Noel and the also aforementioned match featuring 3 of 4 Latinos!

Nick Noel: As Carlito hit the backstabber on Bam Neely, Primo started to go through the ropes to (I assume) to protect from Chavo costing the pin again. But as he noticed Chavo staying where outside, Primo waited halfway through the ropes and counted along with the ref, only coming in AFTER the 3 so as to not HIMSELF cost his brother the pin.

JP: That was not the only thing that happened in that moment, as you will soon see.


SmackDown

Chris Jacobs: One HH that stood out to me during a replay of the finish to the Bam/Chavo vs. Carlito/Primo match was they simple actions of Carlito. After the argument, slap, and Backstabber combo, if you watch Carlito's eyes, he never once took them off Chavo from the second his finisher hit, to the pin, to standing up after the three count. Carlito knows Chavo is a crafty veteran, and doesn't always know what is up the sleeve of the sneaky bastard. He kept his eyes locked to make sure he didn't suffer a cheap shot, and did not look away until his brother Primo came in for the victory pose. Then it was safe since Chavo would be very un-likely to attack during a 2 on 1 scenario that wasn't in his favor.

JP: Carlito was on that night. The backstage stuff with Primo was great as well ("What are we talking about?"), so I'd say the E was right in this case: teaming Primo with Carlito has motivated him.


SmackDown

JP: We have gone off course a bit, as Nick does have one more!

Nick Noel: Funaki pinning MVP, he grabbed the leg, leaned back, and used his other hand to hold down MVP's arm to stop him getting leverage to get his shoulders up.

JP: Was this the week that everyone read my notes? Either I'm doing a good job and you guys are seeing what I'm seeing, or this cold medicine is hitting me much worse than I think it is!


SmackDown

JP: One that no one wrote in about was for The Brian Kendrick. During his match with Super Crazy, The Brian Kendrick delivered a spin kick to Crazy over the referee's back, to which the referee started admonishing him. Seeing that his chance to finish off Super Crazy was about to disappear, The Brian Kendrick stated yelling "I'M SORRY" until the referee let him by. I liked that The Kendrick would say anything and do anything just to win his match, including just blatantly apologizing to keep things moving instead of sitting there and arguing.


SmackDown

JP: Finishing us off this week is another lost soul in Trevor Alexander.

Trevor Alexander: The ending of the HHH/Taker match was the same as their Wrestlemania match (minus the Big Show interference).

JP: I knew the match felt familiar, but once again, just for yourself:

WrestleMania 17:



SmackDown:




Well everyone, that wraps up this week's show. Thank you for reading the 165th ISSUE of Hidden Highlights!

Do you have a Hidden Highlight from this or any week in history that you would like to share? Please e-mail this article at [e-mail] with your thoughts! Send them by Saturday afternoon to be considered! And remember, they can be from any show, live or taped, or any house show, or anything you saw. The best of the best will be featured among the top 15 next week.

In the meantime, be sure to catch my very own Saturday morning news report The Hamilton Ave Journal: the only wrestling news report focused on the business of wrestling.

Until then, you have just experienced the most positive article in all of the IWC: Hidden Highlights!