Hidden Highlights 01.26.09: Issue #178

Posted by JP Prag on 01.26.2009

Chris Jericho gets removed from the RAW intro, Matt Striker contemplates what championship the Miz will go after, Sojourner Bolt let’s everyone know exactly where she’ll hit them from, Matt Hardy finds a TV under the ring, and more!

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #178

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

---

Commentator: The Main Event Mafia has a little t-shirt throwing contest, though not everyone was quite as impressed.

PO: I wonder if they had to shoot that segment 40 times in front of a stunned TNA live-audience pondering why they are wasting their life watching grown men trying to pull off a sequence of T-shirt-throws.

hombre: Well, I hate to correct you but the whole T-Shirt throw wasn't as complicated as you made it

Booker T wasn't involved in it. Hernandez took it off, Shane Sewell threw it in Steiner's direction and Steiner threw it in Hernandez' face. Still it was a perfect throw from Steiner that had to be mentioned!

Townie: Don West identified Booker T as the man who threw the shirt but it indeed was Steiner who threw it.

JP: That's what I get for actually listening to Don West!

Commentator: Outside of this, we did learn quite a bit about the precognitive abilities of IRS.

Jaysin Magus: Razor was fighting Bam Bam Bigelow in the first round, no way anyone could be betting for him. I believe this is around the time that IRS and Razor had a mini feud going on though.

Commentator: Of course, there have to be a few people around that don't like to take part in the fun.

Hardcore Holly: Damn, as usual some really obvious and crappy HH that only serve to illustrate that today's fans don't know what makes for a convincing role played by the wrestlers. Maybe this should be a biweekly thing or something. Sorry, but William Regal stroking his title is NOT groundbreaking or even good. It's standard stuff.

JP: Geez kid, sometimes you forsake an "A-minus" Hidden Highlight for a "B-minus" Hidden Highlight to help keep people involved. It's called writing an interactive, conversational article. Also, the whole point of Hidden Highlights IS to point out all of things wresters are "supposed" to do; those little things that go highly under appreciated yet add to the show. This is not about pointing out amazing new innovations in the world, but just about the smallest details that are so easy to overlook yet add to the enjoyment. Just because you consider it "standard" does not mean it should not be appreciated. And where are all of the "groundbreaking" Hidden Highlights that you are pointing out? You know this is an open forum, so put your money where your mouth is and let's see what you've got!

Commentator: Luckily for agitated JP, he has someone to help him… relieve… the stress.

Michelle: Rawwr JP. When and where? :P

---

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





JP: …



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 up to 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!


iMPACT – Retro 1 Week

JP: You know, I could actually go this whole article with just user content, but I think I'll chime in here and there. For now, though, enjoy some things we didn't get to last week!

Michael: When Lethal and Creed made their way down to the ring for their tag match against Abyss and Morgan if you watched the titantron in the background it showed a mixture of both of their videos helping to show that they are a team now instead of just random partners

JP: First off, it's TNA so it's the HD-tron. Don't think they'd like it being called a Titantron! But more importantly than that was Creed's reaction! He turned around when they started showing clips of him and pointed at it saying, "That's me!" Still, that wasn't even enough for that intro!

jim: On Impact, Lethal Consequences was coming to the ring. Lethal's pyro went off, and as Creed got to the bottom of the ramp, he looked at the camera and said "Look, ma! I got pyro!"

JP: Creed is really excited to be there!


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Sticking with the past, someone was quite sad that I had not finished watching Smackdown by article due time.

Mathew Sforcina: For shame! Victoria retires and you can't mention a HH from the match? Sigh, guess I better find one.

Early on, Victoria stood over Michelle, who was covering up. Victoria slapped her around, and screamed "You think your better than me?"

Generic you might say. Well, perhaps, or perhaps more likely is that Michelle has, in recent weeks, gone mental, attacking women with no mercy and generally showing some rage. But who presonified rage in the WWE women's division for years? Victoria. If Michelle wanted to play that game, Victoria was going to remind her of just who she was.

The fact that she failed has nothing to do with it.

JP: Meh… I think we can do one better for the departing Victoria…

Rupper: A couple of other things about Victoria this week. If you go to the retirement video on wwe.com, she sells being hurt from the match even though she had just broke character to announce her retirement. That's a true pro.

And for good measure, she made one final gesture reminiscent of her psycho days before she goes to the back.

JP: See Mat, that's how you should watch Victoria. No wonder she'd never give you the time of day.

Stenographer: And stop calling me, too, Sforcina! Gross!!!


ROH Rising Above

JP: Not all Hidden Highlights are necessarily from things I would normally see… or places you'd normally except. These next few will demonstrate that perfectly!

Jimmy: Best HH on the week was Larry Sweeney on Rising Above. During the 6-man, Chris Hero slipped out of the ring and walked back towards Sweet 'n Sour's corner, stopping on the way to say something to Sweeney, who was intensely watching the watch.

Sweeney's eyes did not move and he didn't even turn around as he shot back what appeared to be a non-committal answer to Hero, who then continued to the corner. Sweeney is such a super-manager that he never strays his focus from the match at hand. Pure entertainment, that man.

JP: So the story goes! Look forward to perhaps seeing him on HDNet one day, though I'd prefer G4. ROH, don't give in to the first offer you get, please!


WWE.com Advertising

JP: That was not the only ROH related moment of the week.

hbahar8: I don't know if you ever had a hidden highlight from WWE.COM, or if this is even counts as a Hidden Highlight, but if you see The Wrestler story on the main page, in the picture (left hand side) there is a very clear shot of a ROH banner, with rohwrestling.com on it. I found it funny that WWE was (unintentionally-or is it intentional?...hmmm) promoting ROH even if it is very subtle. The more ironic part is that it's on the WWEs website and it's of ROHs website.

JP: Well the ironic part would only be on the WWE's website, but don't doubt yourself otherwise. Hidden Highlights can come from anywhere and we always love to hear them!


WWE Magazine

JP: And just to prove that point, here's a little nifty one.

Jeremy from Palmdale: A double Hidden Highlight from WWE Magazine:

In the February 2009 Issue of WWE Magazine, there is an interview with Jesse and Festus. During this article, I noticed two hidden highlights. One of the questions they "asked" of Jesse(assuming this interview actually took place) was

"You and your big buddy have a unique tag team style. We'd describe it as the Hart Foundation meets the Godwinns. What do you think?"

The HH here is that before being called up to the main roster, Jesse was teaming with Henry Godwinn in Deep South Wrestling.

The answer to that question supplies an even greater Hidden Highlight.

"I'd say we resemble the Fabulous Freebirds. We have the same southern style. We were always big fans, and I think that Festus resembles Terry Gordy a lot. He's a big brawler who likes to beat people up, just like Terry did."

The significance of this is while Jesse may be comparing Festus to Terry Gordy, Jesse is actually the late superstar's son.

JP: That was just awesome! Kudos to you on the pick up!


RAW

JP: Jumping into the regular content this week, let's get to RAW right from the intro!

Chris Walkup: In the opening video for Monday night RAW, At the end when the song goes "I just wanna be loved" when it's only vocals, they took Jericho out of the video and replaced it with Orton. Continuity with the Jericho is fired storyline is always good, and it's nice to see that they're covering all their bases.

JP: The production department is simply amazing at pulling off little details like that. Removing his WWE.com bio and disabling his WWE Universe account also worked really well with the storyline, so I was impressed all over the place.


RAW

JP: RAW really did seem to center around either Jericho's fun or the JBL/Michaels storyline. Like this part illustrated here:

Adam McCormack: On Monday night, when JBL was talking nonsense about Shawn Michaels, Micheals cuts him off mid-sentence with a firm "SHUT UP." If you watch the famous Ric Flair/Old Yeller promo from right before Wrestlemania, when Shawn is talking nonsense and pissing off Flair, Flair cuts him off mid-sentence with a "SHUT UP" of his own. Great throwback to one of the promos that really started this phase of Shawn's career.



Go to 4:40 to see the promo from back in March…

JP: I always enjoy references and continuity, which you will see from me later (which will also be continuity because I'm mentioning it now).


RAW

JP: Sticking just a few more seconds from that point, The DaGreen is back. Or rather, he was back about a dozen times but I picked out my favorites.

The DaGreen: During the contract signing for the main event of the Rumble after JBL has kicked Cena in the head he take off his jacket and hands it to Shawn. Shawn may not be so whipped that he takes his bosses jacket with him, but he's still a good enough employee to put the jacket on the top rope out of harms way so JBL will see it when he leaves the ring.

JP: I think Shawn is Sting now where he doesn't actually connect or hit the "bad guy" shots, but just turns his back and pretends he's not a part of it.


RAW

JP: Like I said, the other big focus of the show was on Jericho, and Jericho is now quite the fan of using 50-cent words.

Shawn Meredith: Another reason why Chris Jericho rocks. His use of the word "actionary" during his promo with Vince/Stephanie.

Jericho: So I implore you Mr. McMahon.....please be actionary....

Actionary
Ac"tion*a*ry\, Actionist \Ac"tion*ist\, n. [Cf. F. actionnaire.] (Com.) A shareholder in joint-stock company. [Obs.]

JP: All I know is that Word is giving me red squiggly lines all over the place on this one, so I'll take your word for it!


RAW

JP: You want to hear from me? Sure, why not!

Just before Jericho did come out to the ring to use the word "actionary", I caught a sign in the audience that gave me a good chuckle. As you know, RAW took place in Chicago, IL, a state in much controversy due to their governor allegedly trying to sell President Barack Obama's Senate seat. In the spirit of the state's controversy, someone had a sign that said "I bought my seat from Governor Blagojevich". That was just classic!


ECW

JP: The main event in the land of extreme this week was a fatal four way featuring John Morrison, the Miz, Finlay, and Mark Henry. During the match, Matt Striker started talking about the Miz possibly winning the Royal Rumble and what he could do from there. He then said the Miz could go on to challenge for World Heavyweight Championship or the WWE Championship. Blatantly missing from Striker's list was the ECW Championship! It appears that not even Striker believes that an ECW wrestler would use the Royal Rumble win to go after the ECW Championship.


iMPACT

JP: Over on iMPACT, they finished up the most recent series of "Rough Cut" starring Sojourner Bolt. When Sojo was giving a self description of her style she said, "… when I kick you in the back of the head…". Normally, people say things like when I hit you in the face or something such like it, but here Bolt was specifically playing up here heel character basically saying that she does fight dirty and she is proud of it. I like that she was able to get this little comment in and really portray where she is coming from.


iMPACT

JP: I did say I liked more than one from The DaGreen.

The DeGreen: Bubba can't hear.

When them 3-D are getting interview from "Japan" and Mike Tenay starts to inform then about Jim Cornette's match making, Bubba put his finger up to his ear so he can better hear Tenay. This also works for when they lose audio to set up losing the audio showing possiable problems.

JP: Good point there! The checking the ear piece really worked out with how the segment ended (which I also particularly liked how they did that).


iMPACT

JP: Later in the evening, Petey Williams and Eric Young came out to take on Main Event Mafia members Scott Steiner and Booker T in an elimination match. As the Frontline team was coming to the ring, Don West started talking about history of the two as a tag team as part of Team Canada. Kudos to West for bringing up the history and continuity of the two despite it having nothing to do with their current characters. As you know, I love when they involve true history and actually talk about it, so that put a smile on my face.

People should give Don West more of a chance. Sure, he's very excitable but the guy has become a student of the game and a lover of history and Hidden Highlights.


SmackDown

JP: Over on SmackDown, we got Chapter 4, section 12, paragraph 3 of the Matt Hardy and Edge feud when the two fought in a No Disqualifications match. As they did so, Matt Hardy went under the ring to get a trash can to hit Edge with. When he was under there, I noticed something quite off. Next to the trash can under the ring was a monitor… and it was on showing the match! I have no idea why there would be a monitor under the ring or why it would be on, yet there it was! Maybe Hornswaggle needs something to watch under there, but I was quite confuzzled.

Wow, I can't believe that is it. I had to throw away A LOT of content this week including more from SmackDown and iMPACT that I wrote, not to mention a number of write-ins. This was a great week of excessive content, so let's keep it up so I can go on a real vacation one day.


Well everyone, that wraps up this week's show. Thank you for reading the 178th 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 Thursday 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!