Glamazon Barbie and Chain Gang Ken

WWE has apparently signed a deal with Mattel as far as toys are concerned. Meanwhile, Jakks Pacific, the company doing the WWE toys now, has signed a deal with TNA to do their toys. Just what we always needed; Barbie in a Diva Search contest. The sad thing is Barbie could very well be the most talented Diva of the bunch should she enter.

Sadly, both of these deals are expected to take affect in 2010.

(2024 Update: We took this piss out of this deal happening, but the WWE/Mattel relationship continues to be a beneficial one as of this brief update. The TNA/Jakks Pacific deal, on the other hand? Not so much. Oh well. Maybe they can fire that up again now that TNA is no longer a joke… or not. Whatever. I don’t care.)

Quick Thoughts On UFC81

You know the funny thing about hype? Chances are you’ll never live up to it.

I say this about Brock Lesnar: he had put up a good fight for a minute there, even getting a foul for a shot to the back of the head. Unfortunately, all it took was a simple little leglock from Frank Mir to put down the former WWE champion. It was a complete embarrassment of a fight and one of the reasons why I prefer watching “scripted” entertainment as opposed to a real fight.

In any event, I went past the Brock match and tried to watch the rest of the show, on which a friend of mine foolishly blew fifty bucks on and taped the event for me. Other than a few quick moments, I couldn’t really get into the show. It just seems like after watching a bunch of sports-entertainers trying to make scripted entertainment seem real for a whole bunch of years, I’d expect a real fight to even more intense, only to be sorely disappointed as I watch two grown men in their boxers swatting each other like flies with about as much ferocity as a ball of cotton. Maybe I prefer my action to be scripted.

But let’s get back to Brock for a minute. Obviously his first UFC outing didn’t turn out too well, as after a minute of solid punches, he was caught in a leglock and forced to tap out. While I mentioned this already in a previous blog post, Brock is far from the next big choke. It’s his first match and naturally, you can’t win them all. But from the short time he was offensive, he didn’t look like a complete idiot and may do very well in his new UFC career.

So best of luck, Brock.

(2011 Update: May do very well? Brock Lesnar would eventually win the UFC World championship; the only guy to hold the top championship in both WWE and UFC… I severely doubt anybody else is going to repeat that feat.)

Monty & Sonny Gone From TNA, One Year Of John Worthless World Champ

Don’t know if anyone realized it, but today marks the one-year anniversary of John Worthless’ reign of terror as WWE Champion. Don’t know if anyone actually cares, either.

Apparently, family emergencies doesn’t fair too well when having a career in WWE. It was recently announced that WWE had released former TNA/ECW star Marcus Cor Von (Monty Brown) and developmental talent/former TNA star Sonny Siaki. That’s just too bad.

Apparently, Eric Bischoff is back in power and I didn’t know about it.

The TNA in TNA Wrestling stands for “Transparent Numbingly Awful”booking

So last night, at TNA’s Hard Justice PPV, TNA World champion Kurt Angle defeated X-Division/Tag Team champ Samoa Joe to win all the TNA Titles. This happened due to Angle’s wife pulling a swerve on Joe that was so predictable you had to be a total idiot not to see it coming.

What happened to being the wrestling alternative? The thing that was DIFFERENT from WWE, not copying the same bullshit. Instead, we’ve got a bunch of stupid storylines for the sake of being stupid. WWE’s storylines tend to be pretty moronic as well, but at least they end up producing entertaining matches even at the expense of young, fresh talent. Instead, TNA is slowly becoming a second coming of WCW. I mean, it absolutely boggles the mind how progressively bad they’re becoming.

All that talent and they have to push this shit down our throats? That’s just sad.

Then I watch their TNA Today Youtube show which took place at the tail end of their shitty PPV and you have Mike Tenay and Don West complimenting Kurt Angle on his wonderful swerve, suckering everyone into almost feeling sorry for you. Congratulations, guys. I never thought it possible, but you’ve won idiots of the year award… and the year’s not even over yet!

No wonder – Mike Tenay isn’t wearing his signature bow tie. Probably got released from its contractual obligations.

(2024 Update: I got around to watching this show recently. You can check my thoughts here.)

RAW Woes: A Word On The Recent Ratings

If you’ve been following some of the wrestling sites, you’ll know that the last episode of RAW has scored its lowest rating in nearly TEN years. This is obviously bad news for WWE and USA Network, who are trying as hard as possible to come up with something to regain interest in the program.

Unfortunately, with the recent wrestling-related tradegy from back in June, it seems that any attempt to regain interest will be useless. I generally don’t like blaming outside forces for low ratings unless it’s justified, but this tragic state of affairs is causing people to tune out and disassociate themselves with wrestling in general. It’s one of those things that can’t really be handled in any good way.

There have been some mentions of a possibility that RAW might get cut down to a one-hour show. For the moment, I feel this is the best course of action, because it’s impossible to come up with good content for two hours on a weekly basis. Let’s be honest here: as enjoyable as the product tends to be, the consistency of quality in the product is lacking. This isn’t a result of the tradegy; it’s been like this for quite some time now. By cutting the show to an hour, you have less time to fill and thus more time to refine the stuff that will make it to air.

On the other hand, WWE currently has a one-hour show on the Sci-Fi channel and it’s not doing well on either a creative or rating standpoint.

Who knows what’s going to happen?

Big Apple Takedown Gave Me The Flu.

Anyone up for a funny story? Yeah, me neither, but here goes nothing.

So last Friday, I picked up the WWE book, Big Apple Takedown. For those who don’t know, it’s a novel about WWE Superstars as government agents to bust a drug ring. It is a concept that is absolutely absurd and can only be conceived within the somewhat delusional WWE universe that the company occupies.


So I pick up a copy of the book and gave it a quick read for a bit before dozing off to bed. Yes, the concept is as absurd as you’d think and comes off even moreso when you read the first couple chapters explaining the backstory behind this thing.

The next morning, I wake up with a goddamn flu.

It’s horrible, it lasts through the whole weekend, it keeps me in bed for a good chunk of it, and I ended up staying at home as a result… which is totally fine by me. The weather is kinda shit at the moment.

So Saturday’s sudden flu attack had consisted of lots of coughing, a slight fever, and a running nose (not that kind of running, dumbass). Despite extended hours of sleep, said flu apparently got worse the following Sunday as my slight fever became much worse and I had lost all energy to move. It was an effort to just to make it to the bathroom which is only a few feet across and it usually doesn’t take much to go there from the minute I wake up. As a result, I had to skip work yesterday… which meant another number of hours staring at a fucking ceiling.

Of course, after a while, the bedroom got too hot and it was thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to have me lay there. So I put on some warm clothes and made my way to my den (where all the computer stuff is) and just aimlessly browse the Internet. As time passed and many forms of medication were taken, the fever died down with only a sore throat and snotting nose remaining. Not much, but better compared to how I was feeling that morning.

So I went back to work. Business as usual. Now the coughing’s been  dropped down a bit thanks to some timely interference from Halls and some cough syrup. It’s still a long way to a full recover, but it shouldn’t take any longer than the end of the week to get there.

Mortar Attack in Iraq injures people… fortunately, none were WWE employees!

The following is a post from WWE.com:

WWE personnel were setting up a makeshift arena in a parking lot at Camp Victory, Baghdad, when three mortars were fired into a crowded street less than a block away. A number of people were injured in the attack; luckily none were members of WWE.

Well, we’re certainly thankful that while a number of people were injured and in need of critical aid, it’s nice to hear that no WWE employees were injured.

Oh well, I guess I should vent on who was stupid enough to publish the article as it was presented, but you know what? I’m not. It’s nice to hear that while some people were injured, none of them were killed or mutilated… nor were they members of the WWE family.

I guess I can rest easy knowing that now.

Big Show “Retires”

It’s been confirmed by WWE.com what was speculated by the IWC: Paul Wight, known as the Big Show, is “taking time off” to heal injuries. He might be retiring, which if he is, I thank him for many great moments, such as getting stuck in the crapper.

But some believe he may be “healthy enough” to face “healthy” Hulk Hogan in a Wrestlemania 23 match to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the historic Hogan/Andre confrontation at ‘Mania 3.

Yeah, that’s right. They’re going to celebrate the biggest wrestling match in history with a match that has been witnessed by many who were watching WCW years ago. And they weren’t even good matches back then, and with Show’s injuries and Hogan’s old age, what makes them think that this’ll do any good?

Whatever man.

(2024 Update: He’d be back two years later to earn a Wrestlemania payday with Floyd Mayweather. And then he’d stick around for another decade-plus before jumping ship to Tony Khan’s All Elite Wrestling promotion.)