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RAW (Apr. 23rd, 2007) – RAW Is Wrestling?

One of the better shows put out, RAW saw an hour-long bout between ol’ Shawn and “Useless” John Cena. I’ve enjoyed the match much more than their Mania encounter and was surprised that it would last as long as it did. See, this is the match they should have had at Mania with the right guy winning. The only thing that would have made the win sweeter if it was a title bout and if it featured someone other than John Useless, but you can’t have everything.

All in all, the show, while filled with useless time-wasters not named Cena, was better because of that one single match. Maybe if useless lugs like Orton were sent home more often, we’d have quality products such as this.

DTM BLOG Classics #28 – Even Europe Hates John Cena

So last Monday’s RAW was an okayish show… made possible by the Italian crowd who booed the fuck out of John Useless Cena. Good stuff.

The fashion show was useless, but they got an Italian guy hosting the festivities, so that’s okay.

Generic jobber posing as an Italian fan wins the Intercontinental title from Umaga. Thus rendering both the former titleholder and the title itself a joke. But hey, it’s not like Umaga and the title weren’t a joke already.

All in all – perfectly acceptable show. Can’t wait for the London show.

Oh, by the way, here’s a fairly interesting newsbit from rajah.com:

As WWE continues their European tour they ran into some shear disappointment in Germany. Yesterday’s attendance at the RAW/ECW house show event in Munich’s Olympiahalle was said to be more than disappointing. Tickets did not sell and people did not show! The Olympiahalle had a webcam online yesterday afternoon which showed this disappointment. It doesn’t appear WWE will be appearing in the southern region of Germany again.

WWE disappointed because people didn’t show up? Must have been that goose-stepping stint JBL did a couple years back. Or maybe even Germans don’t give a shit about John Cena.

Good news, though. John Cena is still loved by the American public for reasons beyond my comprehension. And people are warming up to Lashley too.

Lashley might have a chance after all… he could be the “nice” Black Lesnar (since he can’t get angry or even remotely fake it). But it’s time to abandon the dead weight called Cuck Fena.

DVD Review – History Of The WWE Championship (3-Disc Set)

Recently picked up the 3-Disc History set. For those who don’t know, this set contains a bunch of title matches stemming from the WWWF days to the WWF days to the current WWE days. Thankfully, we only get one John Cena match, which means plenty of room for true champions to show their stuff. I’m going to do you folks a favor and give you a quick little review of this thing;

THE GOOD
I dig the presentation on the DVD. There’s even a nice little montage showing off (almost) every (W)WWF/E title change up to the current day, which is a nice touch. Each of the three discs cover specific eras; the first disc cover everything up to the 80s, the second disc 1990s, and the third disc is everything up to today-ish. A good selection of championship matches, with some important stuff featured here.

THE BAD
If there is any real criticism to be had, it’s that there’s no footage of the earliest title change from Sammartino’s first win to anywhere before Billy Graham. Instead, you get a little text blurb describing the event. It’s entirely possible such footage is lost to the annals of time and that’s why they’re not included. Still, it’s something whose omission is felt immensely, even if it might not appeal to the more modern fan.

IS IT WORTH IT?
Overall, it’s a good collection of title matches and it was nice to be able to see Andre the Giant’s only world title win. If you haven’t picked this up, go ahead and do so. In any case, it’s way better than the crap calling itself sports entertainment that on TV these days.

24 and Quebec Terrorists

I found an interview online with one of the writers of the hit show 24. Of particular interest is this quote:

“We are absolutely evenly employing all the bad guys of all nations,” Cassar says. “Some told me, because I’m Canadian, they said, ‘Hey, why are you leaving us out? Why can’t we be the bad guys?’ I’m like, ‘Good idea. Quebec separatists could be the terrorists.’

Actually, if they went along with that, 24 would be my new favorite show.

If you want to read the whole thing, click here.

DVD Review – McMahon (2006 DVD)

In memory of Vince McMahon’s hair, I present a quick review of the McMahon DVD. This’ll be the first DVD review I’m doing (goodie) and also the first review that works under a different format than I usually do, so we’ll see how this works.

For some reason, people at World Wrestling Entertainment felt the need to compile a DVD retrospect on Vincent Kennedy McMahon. I don’t know why, but the DVD was made and I picked it up, just for a few laughs on how they would explain some of Vince’s mishaps.

THE GOOD: For the most part, the DVD is pretty extensive, as they talk about Vince’s uprising and the expansion of the WWF, as well as discussing a few “questionable” angles of recent years. Nothing flaky there, but then they bring up the WTBS deal with Ted Turner, spinning it as though they were getting great ratings to a point where Ted wanted to buy a piece of the company (many other written accounts tell a different – more accurate – story). There are just many things that are given a different spin here that it’s absolutely nuts (the XFL didn’t cost a lot to do, but lack of support from UPN forced the project to be canned… QUE?), but it makes for an entertaining romp. For those interested, the DVD includes Vince’s Slammy dance number in its entirety.

THE BAD: They skimp over the early-90s for some reason; it would have been nice to heard Vince’s thoughts on the WBF (his short-lived bodybuilding company) and the steroid scandals. The extras aren’t anything to write home about; just some more interviews and a select few of McMahon’s matches. None of them are great, although I did enjoy watching the first Austin/McMahon non-match from 98, as I hadn’t seen it the first time around. Other than that, nothing special.

OVERALL: If you want a good retrospect on the history of WWE, McMahon isn’t what you’re looking for. Revisionist history aside, this offers a good look behind the scenes as well as brief snippets of what goes on in Vince’s head. Worth a look if you’re remotely a fan of McMahons.

RATING: 6 / 10

RAW (Apr. 9th, 2007) – Slightly Less RAW-Ful This Week.

Last night’s episode was okayish. Certainly an improvement over last week’s piece of dogshit episode. A couple of noteworthy points:

– Shane McMahon winning the ECW World title would have made my night if it had happened last night. Instead, they went the cheap route and gave a DQ and a beatdown instead to pimp a silly 3-on-1 title match. I still don’t care enough about Lashley (and there isn’t a whole lot of people who do either – despite the meager chants that are popping up here and there) and his overcoming two McMahons and a monkey penis isn’t going to change my mind. At least the match was mildly entertaining, although it was a given Shane did all the work.

– So the next main event for Backlash is a four-man title match booked by a Make A Wish kid. If a Make A Wish kid was general manager on every single episode of RAW, the show would be doing better ratings than it is now.

All in all, a slightly better show than last week. Nothing great, but can’t complain really.

DVD Review – Star Wars Limited Edition DVD Release (2006)

2004 saw the release of the “original” Star Wars Trilogy onto DVD for the first time ever… and with a new format comes further changes and “updates” to the films, such as minor graphical edits and the swapping of Force ghosts. While people were thrilled with having these films on DVD, there were those who would rather have the original, unaltered versions of these classic films on DVD instead; a point of contention that still exists to this very day.

Fortunately, Lucasfilm threw the fans a bone with this 2006 Limited Edition DVD release and the results were… well, it’s something.

THE GOOD: Each movie includes 2 discs; the first disc being the then-latest 2004 DVD release with further changes added to the film (in fact, these are exactly the same discs you’d get from that initial release.) And the second disc includes the original theatrical version of the film; which means Star Wars is just Star Wars and not Episode IV, Ewok music ends the Trilogy, and the Emperor is depicted by an old lady in monkey make-up in Empire. Doing it this way provides a nice compare-and-contrast for those into details and minutae while making two camps (updates vs. original) mildly satisfied for the short term.

THE BAD: While the original theatrical releases are indeed included as a bonus feature, the same care that went into the DVD restorations of the “updated” versions obviously didn’t apply to the original versions, which are apparently ripped from the Laserdisc releases. Now if you don’t care about the visual quality, then this is no biggie since it’s not completely terrible… but it’s also not on par with the restored version. Also, since the movies were released separately, you don’t get the bonus DVD of bonus material that came with the original DVD release.

IS IT WORTH IT? I got the 2004 DVD release, but then eventually got the 2006 re-releases because I wanted the original versions of these films on DVD, even if the transfer quality isn’t fantastic. I don’t know if it’d be worth it today since Blu-Ray is a thing, these things are harder to come by, and most would prefer the Unspecial Special Edition that’s been on the bootleg circuit for years on end, but if you find one in the wild for cheap, sure why not?

RAW (Apr. 2nd, 2007) – Good God RAW-ful

If you love battle royales, the first hour was for you. Otherwise, the show blew. Apparently, Lashley/Umaga for fifty bucks wasn’t bad enough, so we have to suffer through it for free. Fuck you, McMahon. Fuck you and your disproportionately tinny weeny peaball-sized bald head.

Shithead.

(2019 Update: You know, something like this normally wouldn’t make the cut or would just be stuffed away in a compilation post. But this gave me a good, hard laugh. So, for that, it gets its own post.)

As a bonus, I’ll toss in some quick thoughts on Mania 23. Despite the promising card, the show really didn’t do much for me. The Lashley/Umaga match was unsurprisingly shitty and the main event (Cena/Michaels) left me a bit deflated. On the bright side of things, Batista/Taker was a fairly good match for what it was and Money In The Bank was also pretty good.

All in all, it’s a better show than what was given to us last year, but hardly a show worth writing home about. I’ll have a more detailed review later tonight.

DVD Review – WWE: The Best Of Intercontinental Championship (2004)

WWE’s Best Of Intercontinental Championship is not a new DVD release, but rather it’s a re-issue of an old Colosseum Video compilation from 1993, featuring five matches from 1992-93. Beyond that, it’s a very barebones, very basic release with no additional features or bonuses of note. For what it’s worth, you’re getting the following matches.

– IC Champion Shawn Michaels vs. Crush from a ’93 show in England.

– IC Champion Bret Hart vs. Skinner from a 1992 episode of Prime Time Wrestling and pretty much the oldest match on the tape/disc by virtue of featuring Bret Hart as the champion.

– IC Champion Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Janetty from a July ’93 episode of RAW.

– IC Champion Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. Perfect from Summerslam ’93.

– IC Champion Shawn Michaels vs. “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan from a May ’93 episode of RAW.

THE GOOD: Well, it was a relatively cheap DVD. I think I only payed about ten bucks for this thing. Also, if you’re an HBK fan, you have a nice collection of matches from his first two IC title reigns. The matches against Janetty and Perfect are the highlights.

THE BAD: It’s a straight-up re-release of an old Colosseum Video release with no extra bits and very basic menus to navigate. Not only that, but there’s only five matches and other than the two I mentioned in the “good” segment, the rest of the matches aren’t exactly worthy of being dubbed the best of anything.

OVERALL: For a cheap re-release, it’s something for old-timers. But anyone who wants a collection of good Intercontinental championship matches should probably get the History Of The IC Championship DVD set that was released years later, where there’s not only more (better) matches, but there’s also variety, which this re-release lacks.

Classic Bite Commentary #62 – March 20th, 2007

Welcome to the Bite. On the agenda are some random pieces, some blog reposts and expansions, and some news concerning certain web projects. Also, there will be a new commentary in a couple weeks, sometime during the whole Wrestlemania fever. And yes, there will be predictions and a full review to follow.

Continue reading “Classic Bite Commentary #62 – March 20th, 2007”