Hidden Highlights 03.09.09: Issue #184

Posted by JP Prag on 03.09.2009

The Barbarian checks his arm before finishing off Tito Santana at WrestleMania 6, El Zorro spits out his gum before biting his opponents, Vladmir Kozlov gets painted in Soviet red, Jack Swagger hold on to his championship, Abyss has a friend named Huey who is much like himself, Mayse is extra evil in her pincovers, and more!

Hidden Highlights
By JP Prag

Issue #184

Commentator: Previously, on Hidden Highlights…

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Commentator: Sting's entrance music in WCW brought out all the metal heads lost to the 90's.

AsoTamaki: Sting's theme was "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica. If WWE wouldn't fork out the money for "Enter Sandman", they sure as hell aren't gonna do it for a a song Sting only used for few months.

stryper2000: For the record, Sting use to use a live version of Metallica's Seek and Destroy back in WCW.

Anonymous Smart Mark: Sting's entrance theme in the original broadcast of Halloween Havoc? You're right, it does belong to someone else -- namely, Metallica. In the last couple of years of WCW's existence, Sting used a live version of "Seek and Destroy" as his entrance theme. And if you believe the dirt sheets, Metallica and Vinnie Mac have a bit of a history going back to WWE's usage of the song "St. Anger" for the SummerSlam 2003 theme; Metallica wanted to play the show live to promote the "St. Anger" album, but Vince (behind the times as he always is) allegedly didn't know just how big a band they were and refused to let them.

Then when it came time for ECW One Night Stand, Metallica told Vince he could use "Enter Sandman" so long as he paid them a million or so a pop each time they used it (which is why you'll never hear that song on any future airing or release of that show; on the ONS DVD, "Enter Sandman" is replaced with a production track called "Cave Rat", and on the "Extreme Rules" DVD, it's replaced with Sandman's WWECW theme -- both times, the crowd's singing is dubbed over and Foley's reference to the crowd's singing is removed).

In fact, WWE redubs a lot of older themes they either no longer have the rights to or don't want to pay to get the rights back (a prime example is the origial nWo theme; another example is Rob Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop", which was overdubbed with Edge's first WWF theme on Edge's DVD set).

neverAcquiesce: For more of the record, the version of "Seek & Destroy" used was from Woodstock '94. Never heard about the Metallica/Vince thing but it doesn't surprise. But, and I say this as a huge Metallica fan, Vince did save us from having to hear St. Anger live.

"Never Gonna Stop" was one of those themes that was always deleted, even on the released-a-month-later PPV discs.

Commentator: Sting was not the only fun on YouTube, as Miz and Morrison also show up on there quite often.

Alec: JP - Obviously you have a life otherwise you might know that this uninflected Colons/colons stuff has been happening on The Dirt Sheet for a little while. MnM eve have some disturbing masks they bust out when impersonating the brothers.

JP: Usually Small fills me on such things since he has much less of a life than anyone else I know.

Commentator: But people with more life than Small wonder some things.

The DaGreene: Another sweet week of HH!! What's the record for most consecutive reader write in's anyway?

Stenographer: That would be 36 weeks. People like Bill Bumgarner, Fixxer315, Chris Jacobs, Jim McDaniel, Nick Noel, Nikolai Nygard, Rick Landis, Trevor Alexander, and many others have made themselves known for months at a time. Then, it seem, they disappear. Perhaps they are tapped out, perhaps they have moved on, or perhaps they are just sitting back and giving others a chance. Or worse yet, perhaps they have been sucked into a world where Cook resides. Who knows?

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





JP: Hello everyone who can't quite figure out their state taxes, 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 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!


Classic Hidden Highlight

JP: Being it WrestleMania season, we'll kick it off with some old school WrestleMania goodness.

Conor O'Boyle: I found a Classic Hidden Highlight from allllllll the way back to Wrestlemania 6.

The match was Tito Santana vs. the Barbarian. Just before Barbarian hit the flying clothesline to end the match, you could see him just give he arm a little shake. Then he hit the clothesline and Tito bump perfectly. I just thought that little shake was brilliant by the Barbarian to make sure the arm was alright before he hit it.

JP: It is so odd to think about the Barbarian not only being the WrestleMania card, but winning his match. Odder still was that that WrestleMania had 14 matches on the show (plus a dark match). Right now, I'm not sure there are going to be 6 matches this year!


Classic Hidden Highlight

JP: Sticking with WrestleMania, sometimes the WWE brings up their own memories.

neverAcquiesce: During the WrestleMania Rewind (or whatever they're calling it this year) they showed the Iron Man Match from WrestleMania XII. During the highlights they played snippets of commentary including a call by Jerry Lawler describing a move as "Vintage Shawn Michaels." Could the guys in the truck be trying to make "Vintage" Michael Cole feel better by showing him that others have used his Phrase de Résistance?

JP: I caught that, too, and had to give a little chuckle. For all we knock Michael Cole for, the King and JR are just as equal over their many years of announcing.


Classic Hidden Highlight

JP: Leaving behind WrestleMania, we get an oddity from an even odder place.

Jeremy from Palmdale: I was looking at Scotty Goldman highlights from FCW earlier this week on Youtube and one segment had him, as a roving backstage reporter interviewing a mysterious masked "Girl From Mexico", while I only saw a short amount of this, I did catch a Hidden Highlight. The mask that this "female" was wearing was the same design of the one that Scotty Goldman wore during his short lived Wrestling Society X run as Matt Classic.

JP: Well, after 13 episodes that mask had to go somewhere!


iMPACT – Retro 1 Week

JP: Getting closer to the present, Donners has us brace for some iMPACT (I owed Lansdell a plug after crushing his dreams concerning Awesome Kong).

Donners: Loved the camera work on the opening women's match on Impact. When one of the Beautiful People was slamming her opponent's head into the mat, the camera bounced with each hit. Reminded me of a ship getting hit in Star Trek.

JP: In a double Hidden Highlight, I'm actually watching an episode of TNG right now. I think TNG a good background show to have on while I'm writing. Sometimes Worf just inspires me!


iMPACT – Retro 1 Week

JP: Sticking with iMPACT, we can stick with Donners, too.

Donners: Oh yeah, and how could you miss the Milk poster on Impact? Great subtle jab at Micky Rourke.

JP: Now if Mick Foley walked into the office and said he just got back form watching Milk it would be even better. But if anyone were to take a jab at Rourke you'd think it would be ROH. They helped create so much of that movie but have gotten almost no mainstream mention by Rourke. Looks like the guy has really taken to being back in Hollywood.


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Leaving iMPACT and moving to SmackDown, we get one in a very uncomfortable place.

Ghost of JT: What? Like the back of a Volkswagen?

LOLZ: You missed the Hidden Highlight after Tazz mentioned "Miz and Morrison referred the 'Cologne's to the Colons. Who does that right?" JR responds, "Right, I am colon sensitive." A play off the surgery he had a couple of years ago.

JP: You know, that was a little low brow for this article. Let's class it up a bit!

Jimmy: The MM/Colons skit. Morrison's cheesy delivery of "The Colons!", as if his dastardly plan was foiled, was awesome, but the true HH for me was the fact that Miz and Morrison KNEW that the food was terrible. Primo eventually revealed he had deliberately sabotaged the meal, but M&M are clearly used to the finest, given their success, and so they KNEW their food was sub-par. I imagine the idea was to make them look like jerks, but I think it showed how classy they are.

JP: And of course you have noticed the tear in the Bella twins. Where one Bella seems to happily skipping off with the Colons, the other one was looking wistfully behind her to Miz and Morrison.


SmackDown – Retro 1 Week

JP: Sticking with SmackDown and everyone's favorite Miz and Morrison, Empire of Ownage chimes in.

Empire of Ownage: I also enjoyed in the Colons/Miz & Morrison match that one of the Colons Irish Whipped Morrison, and the Miz reached over to try and make a blind tag. He didn't make it because it wasn't planned, but it was a great way to demonstrate that it's a real athletic contest, and the outcome isn't predicted. (I know it is, but it helped make it feel that way).

JP: We've caught something similar more than once in these pages, but it's always worth pointing out. When these guys act naturally and try to make it into an athletic contest then the details shine through.


AAA

JP: Moving ahead to this week but not to the regular stuff, let's have some Lucha Libre!

Matt: On the March 1st episode of Lucha de Vuelta (AAA), El Zorro had El Gronde's arm wrenched between the ropes, then he held the arm in place with one hand, took the gum out of his mouth with the other, then proceeded to start biting Gronde's hand. Just awesome.

JP: It really is tough to bite someone when you have gum in your mouth? Personally, I don't have to worry because I'll never have gum in my mouth; I have TMJ.


RAW

JP: Now we can move in to our regularly scheduled shows.

Jeremy From Palmdale: During his rant on Superfly Jimmy Snuka, Jericho mentioned how Snuka and Piper's involvement in the 2008 Royal Rumble meant that more deserving superstars were left out. If you recall, one of those superstars that was left out of the Royal Rumble was Chris Jericho.

JP: To be fair, Jericho was fighting JBL at the time. Then again, that match ended in DQ so Jericho really didn't get much out of that night!


RAW

JP: All right Jeremy from Palmdale, we'll give you another shot!

Jeremy from Palmdale: During RAW, they showed Vladimir Kozlov backstage stretching, but what stood out was not Kozlov but his surroundings, to his right was a red semi truck, the pipes on the ceiling behind him were red, there was a red cooler on the ground behind him and there was red light on the wall and ceiling. The HH here is that Kozlov is Russian, Russia was a communist country, and the defining color of communism is red.

JP: Now if only someone walked in on him playing Tetris and it would have been perfect!




ECW

JP: Leaving behind the RAW and the Jeremy's, we move on to a much cuter Rachel, who has spent far too many weeks away. Oh yes, and all of this loveliness takes place in the land of Extreme!

Rachel Pritchard: Matt Striker pointed out that Natayla Neidhart is the only woman other than Beulah McGuilicuty ever to survive 'dungeon style training'. The highlight here, of course, is that Striker is remembering what show he's calling - ECW. It was a good way to shout out to ECW's past even through the WWEified nature of the current show, like when he compared Christian/Swagger to Awesome/Tanaka last week.

JP: Ah, but there are a few more layers to this. The only ECW original left in there is Tommy Dreamer whose wife is none other than the aforementioned Beulah. And here's how they met:




ECW

JP: Of course, ECW is about the New Breed. No, I mean… errr… the new talent initiative!

Krow: Something I've noticed over the last couple weeks during Swagger's entrance.

When Swagger comes out and starts doing his weird chest pound jumpy thing, immediately afterwards he puts his hand on the bottom of the title and takes it off. It looks like he's a bit paranoid of dropping his title again after it happened the first time!

JP: Poor Jack Swagger. That'll be remembered for a long long time. And I'm not going to help matters.




iMPACT

JP: Over on iMPACT, Dr. Stevie was in and with his favorite patient Abyss. Abyss was telling an interesting story about the parables of Tom and Jerry. But did you happen to catch who Abyss' friend was who told him of the inner workings of the cat and mouse team? It was "Huey", a subtle reference to the Baby Huey cartoons. If you don't know who Baby Huey is, you can watch this:



Notice the similarities in the way Baby Huey is and the way Abyss is? A big guy who is out of place and just wants to get along with everyone but yet can resort to freakish strength when he needs it.


SmackDown

JP: On MyNetworkTV's only show SmackDown, Michelle McCool sat down at the announce table to watch Maryse take on Eve Torres. As she got into position, JR started to say, "Good to see you" but actually cut himself off at the "Good" part and just said, "Thanks for joining us". Of course, since McCool is a heel (and a self-centered one at that), JR could not say it was good to see her. It was actually quite smart of him to catch himself before he said that it was good to see her and instead just thank her for coming. Overall, it was a very subtle jab but one I was able to pick up on.


SmackDown

JP: During the aforementioned match, Maryse finally managed to put away Eve Torres with the hair flip DDT. As she went to pin Eve (in a very delightful pincover), Maryse actually grabbed a handful of Eve's hair and pulled on it. Maryse is so evil that she would dish out extra pain (of the illegal variety) even when she had the match won. That is why Maryse won a Hidden Highlighter of the year award and why we'll continue to watch her very closely as this year goes on.


Well everyone, that wraps up this week's show. Thank you for reading the 184th 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!