Stuff from the archives. Long lost material or behind the scenes stuff.
Never has a WWE B-Show PPV felt more depressing and more worthless than this year’s edition of Judgment Day. I know I tend to crap on their previous efforts in recent years, but at least they have some semblance of redeeming value. This show… it just touches me the wrong way… okay, that didn’t come out right. Let’s just get to the predictions and ranting before I lose my mind.
Note: Quickly updated to include results
This would be the third Backlash in a row that I’m doing predictions for. Doesn’t really mean much, but let’s get that bit out of the way. This year, Backlash features superstars from RAW, Smackdown, and that other show. In a strange occurance, all matches are title matches. Not sure that means anything, but whatever.
One of the better shows put out, this week’s 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.
Some wrestling site posted a news post about Steve Austin admitting he doesn’t know who Paul London and Brian Kendrick are in an interview. Apparently, a major wrestler not knowing who the (former) tag champs are is news. So let’s recap this ground-breaking interview in traditional style (note Austin responses in Italics)
INTERVIEWER: So, Austin. What do you think of London and Kendrick?
AUSTIN: What?
INTERVIEWER: London and Kendrick.
AUSTIN: What?
INTERVIEWER: The tag-team champs in WWE.
AUSTIN: What?
INTERVIEWER: Never mind.
AUSTIN: What?
Finally, in a bit of unrelated news, long popular message board Rangerboard had recently placed a ban on porn fanfics. Meanwhile, Mystech Rangers (a mindfuck of a “story” if you want to call it that) is still on the boards. So it’s okay for poorly-written incoherent stories with tentacle sex to be posted, but straight up porn stories are inappropriate? Someone explain the logic behind that for me.
No wonder I never go to that place.
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.
One thing I want to comment on before getting on the predictions is the way WWE handles its various websites. Now I understand the need for uniformity within the web structure, as most of the previous Webstation designs were geared towards a single layout, but when it comes to promoting major events such as a new PPV or spotlighting a major WWE superstar, you would think that something a little extra would be done to emphasise the importance of a talent or event. It wasn’t more than a couple years ago when Wrestlemania had its own website with its own design independent from the rest.
Now the WWF/WCW/ECW Invasion of 2001 is something I’m sure every wrestling fan or fanatic would like to forget about, but when the websites for WCW and ECW were created, they had a different design from the old WWF website. It was as if the companies were separate from the WWF (even though they owned one and were paying off debts for the other one). Compare it with the web design of the current ECW.com, which is similar in layout to the rest of the WWE site. It’s as if all creativity was thrown down the shitter when they got their legal asses kicked by the Panda people.
But I digress. We’re not here to talk about websites; we’re here to talk Wrestlemania 23. So let’s do this thing.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of arguably the most famous wrestling event to ever take place, Wrestlemania 3, WWE has decided to make sure that this show is completely Hogan-free. Hell, I’m happy already. But to celebrate the event, they’re bringing back Aretha Franklin to sing America The Beautiful (just like she did in ‘Mania 3).
Okay, so in an attempt to be different (and failing miserably), I’ll be doing picks for a TNA PPV. These will mostly come out of my ass since I’m not as well informed on TNA happenings… although I do have some idea what’s going on. Anyway, let’s try this again…
So we’re getting snow for the weekend. About 20-25 centimeters of the stuff. Just a painful reminder that winter is still around for another two-three weeks.
Business as usual.
In other news, WWE has reportedly moved the ECW One Night Stand PPV from its usual location in New York (Hammerstein Ballroom) to the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. Obviously, this is an attempt to keep away the old-school ECW crowd and Florida is as far from the old-school ECW crowd as you’re going to get.
Of course, this particular plan was implemented with the last piece of shit PPV when they moved it to Georgia and we all know the story there. Because when you’re selling ECW, you’re selling an open atmosphere which means the crowd will just chant whatever the fuck they want.
Finally, according to rajah.com, MTV has apparently canceled their short-lived Wrestling Society X show due to nagging ratings and some inappropriate content such as fireballs. I had always known that MTV were run by a bunch of pussies.
Of course, now that MTV’s wrestling show is canceled and no longer competing with the other one-hour piece of crap show known as ECW, Vince can stop caring about ECW… as if he even cared to begin with.
Okay, it’s cutting a little close to the PPV start time, but cut me some slack. I’ve got the flu and didn’t realize there was a PPV tonight until I browsed WWE.com a few hours ago. Despite my less than happy conditions, These predictions are going to be nice and quick, since I want to get back to bed. I may miss a match or two here, but at this point, I don’t really have the energy to do further research (as opposed to not having the energy to make an effort to do further research). I just wanna go to bed.
So here we go:
Spanning five or six posts, I wrote quick comments on matches and the Rumble as they occurred. Kept for prosperity.
Continue reading “DTM BLOG Classics #26 – Royal Rumble 2007 Live Comments”
So the Royal Rumble is this weekend. Somehow, I thought it was last weekend and didn’t bother with predictions. Oh well. Let’s get on with it. Quick picks for this offering.
dtm666 