From the Bowery: WWE Countdown: Biggest Blunders

From the Bowery: WWE Countdown: Biggest Blunders

-Another week and another countdown on the Networks as voted by the WWE Universe. This week we look at the biggest blunders and this should prove to be funny if nothing else. The talking heads put iver their ideas of blunders and we get some great examples of mics that don’t work, lights falling, promos being messed up, etc…..yeah, this is going to be awesome.

10: Sid Babble

-They put over the persona and look of Sid, but bury his promos. We get some examples of him flubbing lines and saying off the wall crap. Jericho mentions that Sid should have just looked intimidating and kept quiet and then admits Sid may kill him when he sees this. They show Sid cutting a live promo with JR and he wants to do a retake, but JR tells him “we’re live pal.” Awesome! Next we get the awesomeness of Sid saying “I have half the brain you do” to Nash on Nitro. Tremendous! Sid shows up as a talking head and even he has to laugh at himself. I am going to love every second of this countdown! Hayes mentions Sid is a legendary character and the promos only add to that legend.

9: The Dungeon of Doom

-Oh boy this should provide a lot of material. When Heath Slater is crushing your faction, you know you have problems. They ask when Earthquake became a Shark. Too funny! They all discuss how they were all former WWE stars in different gimmicks (outside of Kamala). Hugh Morrus defends the DOD and mentions that they had more potential on screen, and had fun behind the scenes. We get the awesome acting of Hogan as he makes his way into the Dungeon the first time and it is glorious. Jericho mentions they were all misfits, but Big Show bucked the trend. They say Show hated it, but it was his debut. Cena calls it good entertainment in its failure and he watches it all the time. Daniel Bryan closes with a great line about wanting to stab himself in the head with a fork anytime he saw the DOD on TV.

8: Lights Out

-Here we go with the power outage at In Your House: Beware of Dog. Hayes doesn’t know if it was a blunder or just an act of God. Austin puts over the strap match he was going to have with Austin and then everything went black just before the match started. JBL relates that lightning hit a transformer and it knocked out the power. The younger guys give their reactions to as they were sitting at home as kids trying to watch the show. Austin and Savio continued to work the match in the dark and only the fans were able to see it. The rest of the show continued and they were hopefully that at some point the lights would come back. They tell a funny story of Foley being under the ring and he thought it was his fault so he had to stay under the ring in the dark for hours. Because of that experience the WWE always keeps a generator on hand for emergencies.

-We take a break and discuss Okerlund’s infamous blunder at SummerSlam 89. Fantastic! Okerlund is interviewing Heenan and Rude and the SummerSlam sign falls causing Gene to drop F bombs. So insanely funny!

7: Scott Steiner

-YES! YES! YES! Dean Ambrose calls Steiner the best, worst interview of all time. Man, I wish they owned TNA just for the math promo. Cody asks if any of Steiner promos can even being aired. Big E says his promos may have been crazy, but they were funny and kept him entertained. Cesaro laughs his ass off and says he can talk about Steiner for hours. Jericho talks about how Steiner butchered their meeting on an episode of RAW and somehow ended up calling Jericho, King Arthur. Cesaro owns this section with his Steiner impression. Hearing Cesaro saying “when I go behind and do the bump and grind” still has me in tears laughing. Road Dogg says he still fears Scott and hopes he doesn’t watch this show. This whole hour could have been spent on Steiner and I wouldn’t have complained.

6: Kennel from Hell

-Jericho has no clue why they think of things like the Kennel from Hell match. Preach on Chris, preach on! You know the story as Boss Man kidnaps Al Snow’s dog Pepper and feeds it to him in a meal during a period when he was super evil villain. Renee Young was horrified by it and others mention that the idea sounded good and seemed like a proper blow-off. Daniel Bryan says anytime you involve animals on live TV you can’t guarantee what they are going to do. These dogs weren’t even close to vicious and spent the entire match pissing on the ring and humping each other. It gave Lawler a lot of material to work with to entertain the crowd at home watching this disaster unfolds. Sadly no Mick Foley to bury the match, but it’s in his book.

-Recap of the countdown to this point

5: Mike Adamle

-Everyone thought it would work because he had a background in sports and entertainment (mostly notably as host of American Gladiators). He makes his debut at the Royal Rumble and immediately butchers Jeff Hardy’s name: Jeff Harvey. They moved him to the commentary team and they bury his “Jamaican me crazy” line for Kofi. The poor guy gets booed for sucking so much, so Vince makes him the GM of RAW thinking the heat would help in that role. That didn’t work well either because he continued to suck. Steph mentions that in essence they had to make fun of themselves for admitting they hired someone that didn’t work. Steph and Vince then put over that he was great guy and he did try to get better.

4: Brawl for All

-Hell Yeah! It obviously seemed like a great idea at the time to see who the toughest bastard in the WWF was, but they soon realized having talent legit beat the piss out of each wasn’t the best idea. The talking heads discuss the convoluted rules and make fun of them. JBL mentions that it wasn’t his idea and then we see Dr Death get knocked out by Bart Gunn. They put over how Bart knocked everyone out and that wasn’t in the plans. In the finals he rocked JBL and he recounts the fight and he knew he was toast after the first knockdown. He then says when he got to the back he thought he had won the fight. Funny! They thought this was going to be Bart’s ticket to getting his career on track, but they put him against a pro fighter, Butterbean, at Mania XV. Bart gets his head knocked into the fifth row and everyone admits they didn’t do Bart any favors by putting him in the ring with a pro fighter. No shit! That knockout is still sick though!

-Another break as they show various bloopers from the talking heads doing the countdown. Nice touch! Most notably is CM Punk putting Mike Tyson in a head lock.

3: Papa Shango and Ultimate Warrior

-The cover the Papa Shango character and how he would set jobbers feet on fire and other tricks, but soon he was targeting the Ultimate Warrior. Bryan kills with “maybe voodoo only works on people who are stupid.” First we get the green slime pouring off the Warrior’s head and over his face. Jericho laughs and mentions he could have just taken a shower. Next we get Papa Shango going into a trance causing Warrior to double over in pain and start vomiting. This is so horrible, but you can’t help but laugh. Matthews says he still has nightmares about it to this day. Jericho buries Warrior by saying his matches caused him to vomit and Bryan says it was the stupidest thing he had ever seen. Stupid sure, but memorable!

2: The Shock Master

-Damn, and I was thinking this would be #1. Jericho, Henry, and Cena all think it should be in the top spot as well. Fred Ottman left the WWF after a run as Typhoon and he was brought back to WCW. Sting promised a surprise partner and it’s The Shock Master which is Ottman in a glittery storm trooper helmet. He trips breaking through a wall and the helmet falls off and you can hear Ventura on commentary laughing his ass off. Ambrose does his best Dusty impression putting over the whole ordeal and how for next 50 years that clip will be played and poor Fred has to live with it. They turned his character into a loveable screw-up as they had no choice but to roll with it. Just great stuff there and I am kind of at a loss thinking of a moment that would top that one.

1: McMahon’s Million Dollar Mania

-Yeah, this was pretty hilarious as well, but not nearly as memorable as The Shock Master. Anyway Vince figured he could improve ratings by giving away $1,000,000 and while a great idea, the issue was Vince and technology. Vince is such a good sport as he crushes himself for being old and out of date with way cell phones work. He hangs up on a poor guy because he was confused by his ringtone. Then the whole thing ended with the stage falling apart around on Vince and then part of the set collapsing on him. Jericho says he couldn’t help but laugh as Vince was placed on the stretcher and yelled “Paul, I can’t feel my legs” to HHH. Funny sure, but can’t see this one being in the top spot.

The 411: Best show of the lot so far just because I couldn't stop laughing. It's telling though that even in a "worst of" countdown, WCW still couldn't get the #1 spot. Vince battling with technology is funny, but I agree with several of the talking heads that had Shock Master as the top blunder. Fun show though and definitely worth a viewing or two.
Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]