What a horrible night to have a curse. What curse you ask? The responsibility to take out great evil. Through mires of swamp beasts, dungeons of unspeakable undead, and ancient stone structures filled with ghouls I must trek. With nothing but this whip, I will destroy every single candelabra I see in hopes I find holy water or battle axes to aid me in my quest. Or… fuck it, I’ll just watch some wrestling. I’m not getting paid for either, anyways.
Hopple me Elmo?
Preamble and stuff. Yadda Yoda yolo yadda…
Always check the bike first. Always.
Hopping time…
OH NO! THE ROYAL RUMBLE WAS PREDICTABLE!!?!? THE FUCK?!?!? IT’S ALMOST AS IF THE WWE HAS BEEN BUILDING UP STORIES FOR OVER A YEAR?!?!?!? Seriously, if you can’t accept the outcome, I have to call you out as not having watched wrestling during the Hogan/Macho Man Rock and Roll Wrestling era of the WWF. Just because the IWC is up in arms and joining in the Culture of Outrage, doesn’t mean shit to the WWE. Most of you steal their PPV’s anyways. They are trying to tell a long story, and most of you shit on them for fast-tracking their story-telling. And then you get off on whining about it being predictable? WTF? Think about how awesome The Lord of the Rings would have been if Frodo failed? OF COURSE HE TAKES THE RING TO MORDOR AND DESTROYS IT. Fuck. And many of these are the same people who complain about Vince Russo swerving the story all the time. GET OVER IT.
I enjoyed the 2013 Royal Rumble. With that rant out of the way, let’s see what the “E” serves up for Smackdown this week. Now this is generally a show you can take a massive dump on… but perhaps not tonight? Only one way to find out. Go Go Gadget Hopping Shoes!
Who gets buried… tonight?
I did a live Raw blog last night. I’m not sure how it was received or if anybody thought it was nice. Looking over Raw I wanted to point out some things I really liked.
1. John Cena. I liked this John Cena. Let’s be honest. John Cena is not going to be Ric Flair or The Rock or Macho Man. He is a charismatic larger-than-life star, but he’s not on the level of some of those great talkers. I won’t say that he never will be, but right now he’s built like the Pied Piper of Hamlin leading the kids away. He has recently sounded like he was trying to get all the other kids to gang up on Little Jimmy (See what I did there?) in the schoolyard. But last night he was different. He seemed honest, transparent, self-depricating. He championed free speech. He sounded like John the guy you would find in the bar, rather than Captain Kangaroo gathering up the rest of the Children of the Corn.
2. Sgt. Slaughter. I enjoyed seeing Sgt. Slaughter last night. Done that way, it was perfect. We got to see our legend, our villain got to crush our hero and then a new hero came out to save the old one. I was going to rip them a new one, but it was fun and it gave Swagger and Bourne a nice rub.
3. Vicky/Lawler. I preferred Jerry Lawler calling Vicky an “old bag” rather than fat. Vicky has worked really hard to lose a lot of weight. Matter of fact, I think she looks a lot better than Lawler. It’s one thing for the Bellas to bully Kharma. They’re heels. It’s another thing for a babyface commentator to make fun of somebody for being fat, especially when they make David Otunga’s soulmate look like an underachiever (Jennifer Hudson reference).
4. Commentary. The commentary was very good last night. Jerry Lawler told us what “Rey Misterio” means, like he was Jim Ross or WCW Mike Tenay. The commentators were summarizing Miz’ losing streak. Michael Cole was fine in his heel role. Commentators should not be involved in matches because they spend all their time putting over their own storylines other than what is going on in the ring (and outside of it).
5. Questions. Raw answered some questions. But it also left a lot of questions unanswered, but in a good way. What will CM Punk say the next time he gets a mic? Why did Zack Ryder come out at the end of the tag match? Since Alberto del Rio won the triple threat, what does he get? Can Dolph beat Kofi alone? How will Riley react with Miz’ beatdown.
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Ring of Honor “The Best in the World” is in the books. I’m beginning to put my thoughts into words. I enjoyed all the video recaps. I needed those to keep myself up-to-date on the current storylines.
When I heard the first match was Tommaso Ciampa vs. Colt Cabana, I almost died of smarkdom. I really enjoyed most of the first match. Ciampa played a nice “straight man” to Cabana’s comedy. I thought the two had very nice back-and-forth. The ending just didn’t look right.
Next was “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett versus Jay Lethal. Jay Lethal was fresh off his TNA/Impact Wrestling/”It’s Still S*** No Matter How Many Times You Change The Name Because Vince Russo Still Works There” run. He was famous for the Black Machismo and it was his first time to appear on an event this big after the Macho Man’s untimely passing. The crowd was very into this, but the match did not click for me. Prodigy has looked good in matches to me before; this just was not one of them. It almost looked like he wasn’t on Lethal’s level.
The Rhino-Homicide “Barrio Street Fight” was really good. Plunder matches have their places in wrestling. Rhino really brought it. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad Homicide match. We had some tables and some really awesome, intense “OMG” moments. Homicide got the win, but we got to see the gore through the table. It was nostalgic. It was like Old School (no Corino reference intended) ECW Rhino back again.
The Steve Corino-Michael Elgin match was really interesting. I did not watch ROH during the Kevin Steen era, so I really didn’t grasp the magnitude of his return. I was really amazed at how my opinion of Elgin changed during this match. Elgin reminds me of a stiff WWE would try to get over. But I got to admit-Elgin impressed me. He’s a power wrestler. If there’s a place for plunder matches, there’s a place for power wrestlers. Steve Corino sold like crazy, and Elgin looked like he had a spot in Ring of Honor. I personally think Elgin will be a better fit for the WWE, but I’ll keep him. The Kevin Steen post-match segment was greatness. The Corino rehabilitating himself storyline I think is one of my favorite storylines in all of wrestling.
The Daniels-Generico match really didn’t grab my attention. The commentary was pretty good for this match. Kevin Kelly and Dave Prazak made it important. I do love the El Generico gimmick. It’s one of my favorite all-time gimmicks. My 2-year-old woke up during this match and wanted the laptop, so I wasn’t able to dedicate the time I wanted to watching this. I am happy for El Generico winning. Christopher Daniels should be in the place now where he’s building talent, which is exactly what he did here.
The four corners tag team match was off the charts. Now granted, I haven’t seen every ROH event, so excuse me if I break out some hyperbole here. This is the greatest match in Ring of Honor I HAVE SEEN. I’m sure there were greater matches somewhere along the way. But this was insane. There were at least 4 “Holy s***” moments. The All Night Express looked great in this. I finally saw Kenny King for what everybody else does. This is most likely Match of the Year, barring some sweet miracle.
And finally there was the main event. There was no possible way that I could ever understand all the emotions that went into this match, but it sure felt like it. This match never seemed to end, mostly because my wife was over my shoulder waiting for it to end. Nothing I could write here could ever capture the emotion, the drama, the work these guys put into this match. This is now in second place for match of the year for me.
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Hey hey! Turns out Alykat couldn’t make it tonight, and ThinkSoJoE has had a fun, but long week getting married and whatnot. And it turns out that I was at the right place at the right time to put up a RAW review for you fine people. I have to note in advance, I wasn’t planning on doing this and prepared to go live. Good thing the WWE was not either, as our opening segment was kind of screwed up. At the end of the article, I’ll post the latest Power Poll results which I’ve neglected due to Savage’s passing just making me sad.
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Well with then end of the world not happening or now not happening until October, I guess we are here for a few more months I guess. Well that’s not really a bad thing since we are still up and running to give you the best at what we do, what ever that may be. So now without further ado, here’s what I do: (more…)
This was a very big step for MPX tonight. The crowd was packed. I felt like a lot of wrestlers really brought it. There is some great improvement, plus we had some nice debuts. They opened the night with a 10-bell salute for the Macho Man with all the wrestlers coming out and surrounding the ring. The best part was all the wrestlers holding Slim Jims up. Perfect tribute.
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It’s a bit late, but it’s here.