Pre-show notes:
– I mentioned in yesterday’s Best And Worst Of WWE Elimination Chamber ’12 that I’m looking for a fill-in for Best and Worst of Wrestlemania. The response has been overwhelming, so please, if you don’t get a personalized response in the next few days, don’t worry — I’m terrible at e-mails and am considering you. I promise!
– Don’t be afraid to leave a comment on this report. Not really afraid of that on the “Eve Torres is a bitch” week, but still, we’ve build a great community of intelligent, funny wrestling fans and you should be a part of it, because seriously, you aren’t gonna find it anywhere else.
– Big thanks again to Casey/THESTINGER for helping me out with gifs and pictures. Be sure to visit his brand new gifs Tumblr for the stuff I didn’t use.
– Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.
– This is a late edition to the report, but the greatest thing other than a sign on Raw has happened to me. I participated in today’s #AskAGM hashtag, and got this response:
/swoon
Please enjoy today’s Best and Worst of WWE Raw for February 20, 2012. It starts off a little heavy, but it gets stupider, I promise.
Worst: Slut Shaming
I’ve spent all morning and most of last night trying to figure out what to write about this. As a guy with a semi-reputable mainstream sports blog and passionate opinions that don’t always vibe with what passes as the Internet Wrestling Community, I run the risk of typing the entire column from a high horse standing on a soap box, balancing myself a few feet above its saddle on the stick crammed knob-deep up my ass.
I’m a wrestling fan. I’m also trying to be a decent human being. The rub here is that I haven’t always been one, and I know it. I grew up in southern Virginia, the child of two black sheep, the only white kid in my block of Section 8 housing. I forced religion on myself. By the time I hit puberty I was racist, homophobic, overweight and pissed off at a world that didn’t understand and constantly disappointed me. I was a different person back then, but before, during and after it, I was a wrestling fan.
Wrestling has done way, way worse than what happened last night. Let me get that out of the way early. This is not some self-righteous thing I decided to feel because of how offended I was, and yeah, I know that every f**king variety of Molly Holly having junk in her trunk, Lita having her sex toys auctioned off until she’s embarrassed into leaving and Trish Stratus on her hands and knees, forced to bark like a dog by the guy who pretend and for real employs her have been worse. A lot worse.
The problem I’m having is how much wrestling makes me feel like that fat awful kid who hated everything sometimes.
WWE in 2012 is TV-PG. The suggestion there is that a kid should be able to watch a show with parental guidance, but they aren’t going to hear the darker side of curse words or see anybody bleed. Mattel cares about that. Apparently what they don’t care about are the things that hurt the development of children much more deeply than seeing someone bleed heavy with a cut — there’s an attitude called “slut shaming” that happened here, and it’s the kind of thing you have to type on a brick wall.
Slut shaming is the idea that it’s okay to shame or attack a woman for being sexual, acknowledging sexual feelings, acting on sexual feelings or having one or more sexual partners. If you’re a woman and you have the sex that traditional society disproves of, you’re bad and you should feel bad. If you wank dismissively hard enough at it, it can be caused by things that don’t even have to do with how much sex you’re having, like wearing tight clothes, drinking, “asking for it” or the myriad of other bullsh*t excuses men with no goddamn sense or compassion use to keep their slippery position at the top of the social food chain.
Shaming a woman for being sexual contributes to rape culture. Rape supportive culture. The kinds of things you don’t want to read about in a comedy wrestling blog, and more importantly, things you shouldn’t have to read about in a comedy wrestling blog.
To open last night’s show, Eve Torres told the Bella Twins that she was using Zack Ryder, and that now she was going to use John Cena. Cena overheard the conversation before she could act on it, so he decided to go out to the ring and lay Eve’s betrayal bare. That in itself is fine, I guess. Eve was doing something bad behind our backs, and the Lead Good Guy on the program wanted to clue us in so we wouldn’t support her.
The first problem with this, ignoring the ten paragraphs I wrote before it, is that it was INCREDIBLY lazy writing. Last week WWE wrote themselves into a corner by having Cena save Eve, Eve respond to it in the heat of the moment by kissing him, Zack Ryder finding out and Kane manipulating everything to get the emotional drop on Cena before their match at Elimination Chamber. Because WWE only writes things a cycle at a time, they found themselves with a problem — they had three babyface characters in a complex emotional situation (written like the worst episode of ‘All My Children’ in history, but complex nonetheless) and needed
1. Fans to cheer John Cena again, because he’s got a match coming up with The Rock
2. Fans to continue cheering Zack Ryder, because he makes them a lot of money
So, instead of introducing any imaginable shade of grey or brief expository conversation between Cena and Ryder that could cause one or both of those things to go wrong, they blamed the woman. The woman who had been kidnapped and abused for several weeks. The woman who got kissed by Cena as much as she kissed Cena. Who simply kissed John Cena.
The idea is that Eve had been “using” Zack. This doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense by itself, because Eve is a former Divas Champion who had turned down Ryder’s advances for weeks, and only recently had come around to not wanting him to be violently injured. Hell, even last week she watched him angrily wheel away as she claimed she “just wanted to be friends”. The explanation for how exactly that used Zack Ryder to boost Eve’s popularity or role in the company remains to be seen.
Anyway.
What happens next is one of the most socially uncomfortable moments I’ve had the misfortune of tuning in for in a long time. Cena comes out to the ring and is immediately followed by Eve. He calls her a skank, a whore and a diseased bitch in the span of maybe two minutes and the entire situation between Cena, Ryder and Kane gets blamed on Eve, as if her cuntish meddling had led to Cena being glovemouthed for a month and Ryder being hopsitalized and nearly burned in Hell.
Keep in mind that this is John Cena doing the slut shaming. Not CM Punk. It would’ve been disappointing to see Punk do it, especially given how weird his reactions to women can be, but Punk isn’t the clean-cut do-gooding child-inspiring WWE franchise Superman. Punk isn’t the guy hugging handicapped little girls in video packages. He’s not Mr. Make-a-Wish, the guy that cares so much for the well-being of others that he’s willing to devote 300 of his 365 days a year to making sick kids feel better.
THAT’s the guy telling Eve Torres she’s a “hoeski” for kissing him once and suddenly having ulterior motives for it. Because she kissed him … again, kissed him, it’s not like she tricked him into having a clandestine orgy somewhere in the bowels of the Staples Center … she is worthy of scorn, not for being manipulative or a liar, but because she’s a skank, a whore, a bitch, everything you can call a woman for specifically being a woman.
It makes the crowd go “oooh” and get a little behind Cena, because they want to see the slut punished for being bad to the guy they like. That’s what it accomplishes. The guy in the Rise Above Hate shirt who tells you not to bully people is openly and unabashedly hating a woman for being a whore she’s never actually been. And at home, Zack Ryder — the loveable guy who spent the last several months pining over Eve and repeatedly expressing how much he loves her — types “broskis before hoeskis” on Twitter and makes it trend.
And that’s what we’re left with. Even the best of our characters are reducing women to objects, then condemning them for being objects when they get misrepresented or rejected.
The worst part of it all is that the people who don’t care think you should “get over it”. You should just accept that things are they way they are, that The Rock and CM Punk and John Cena calling each other gay as the biggest insult they can muster is fine, that Eve shouldn’t be called a bitch “unless she’s acting like a bitch”, that you’re thinking too hard and that we’re all just having fun.
I guess we are.
Wrestling has done worse things to women, and it’ll do worse things in the future. I remember how it felt to be the hateful, lonely kid I used to be, and my desperate need to glorify and cling to every stupid thing that made me happy back then will keep me watching. I’m looking down at the shows from a much higher horse these days, and from up here it feels like it’s not that bad of an idea to shout “stop it, you’re hurting people” sometimes, because hey, maybe somebody down there can hear you.
To put it another way,
Thanks, guys.
Best: Vegan Propaganda
As you may have gathered from the banner image that opened this post, my second ever Best And Worst Of Raw-themed sign appeared front-row-center on last night’s show: “@MrBrandonstroud Doesn’t Even Eat Meat”, courtesy of reader Joey Hudson. Joey becomes the third person in my “holy sh*t I’m on Raw more than Kaitlyn” hall of fame, and you should follow him @jo3yhuds.
If you don’t follow him for being awesome to me, follow him for wearing a pink bow tie to Raw to look like Ron Donald and rocking a giant ARE WE HAVING FUN YET sign. Yes, we are having fun again. For the record, this sign and the upcoming clapping-with-delight David Otunga stuff are the only things that kept me watching after Skankapotamus-Gate.
Worst: A Disappointing End To What Was Awesome At SummerSlam
One of my very favorite matches from last year was the hossknocker from SummerSlam wherein Sheamus couldn’t throw bombs big enough to put Mark Henry down but was getting too close for comfort, so Mark powerslammed him through the security railing and made him crawl his ass back toward the ring for a count-out win. It took things you’re supposed to hate about wrestling — fat guys doing a whole lot of nothing, count-outs, contrived set spots — and made them compelling, appropriate and fun.
I held out hope for a while that Mark Henry’s World Heavyweight Championship run would last until Wrestlemania, and that if my hopes for a Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima ROH feud rehash with Henry as Morishima and Daniel Bryan as Bryan Danielson were dashed at least we’d get a fitting, brutal end to the Henry and Sheamus issue. Part of that ended up exceeding expectations, but part of it ended with Mark Henry losing to a Brogue Kick in the first match on a Raw in like two minutes.
Of course, Sheamus won the Royal Rumble and is heading into a championship match against Bazooka Kaboom and Henry is treading water because he isn’t 100%, so I understand it, but it doesn’t make it any less disappointing.
Worst: Teddy Long Has Obviously Never Heard Of Fastidiousness
I will give Teddy Long a pass for suggesting that David Otunga’s bowtie makes him look like “Pee-wee Herman’s fairy god-mama” because it’s too stupid to even make sense, for reasons such as “Pee-wee Herman doesn’t have a fairy godmother” or “fairy godmothers don’t wear bowties”, but I will point out that no man who dresses in his dad’s attic suits should condescend on another man’s fashion, and that no man who had a framed picture of Martin Luther King Jr. on his Smackdown office curtain wall for years should throw shade at a piece of clothing so closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement. I’ll also give him a pass because he didn’t put David Otunga and his bowtie into a tag team match against John Laurinaitis and Randy Orton.
The worst part was Jerry Lawler saying, “THAt’s tellin’ ’em, Teddy!” or whatever, because “your clothes make you look gay” is what a 60-year old guy in a sparkling rhinestone lion t-shirt should say. Thankfully, a much greater man than me was there to shut Teddy down.
Best: John Laurinaitis Gives Zero F**ks
I think what I love most about Executive Vice President Of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager Of Raw Mr. John Laurinaitis is how he reacts to people trying to cut promos on him. Normally a guy like Teddy Long shows up and is all JACK SWAGGAH, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHIN PLAYA, TONIGHT, YOU’RE IN AN OVER THE TOP ROPE CHALLENGE, WITH GAY and Swagger turns to face him and gets all close and sneers, but it doesn’t end well for him and he still gets dumped out of the ring by gay.
In contrast, Laurinaitis just keeps smiling and goes about his business as if to say, “loool, whatever, stupid”. I love it. It’s what Mike Adamle would’ve done had Mike Adamle had the brain steam of a functioning man.
Best: Rosa Mendes, Still The Brains Behind The Operation
In addition to expressing her distaste at #hoeski being the world’s top trend, Rosa Mendes once again managed to be the best looking part of the Colon.
Although the suggestion that the developmental Diva yelling Spanish 1 vocab words and shaking her butt is the brains of an organization doesn’t say a lot for the MexiUncools, but hey, maybe she’s the one that pulls them aside backstage and says, “try doing lots of hurricanranas”.
Best: Ron Simmons Beating Vader Is Still Awesome
I’m one of the biggest Big Van Vader fans you’ll find, but it doesn’t bother me at all to say that Ron Simmons beating the dog mess out of him to win the WCW Heavyweight Championship is one of the coolest moments ever. My Dad and I still bring it up with reverence. I remember a twofold shock; that Ron Simmons had beaten Vader, and then that Ron Simmons had DESTROYED Vader.
You can watch that gif a hundred times and keep finding new things to love. The kid in the powder blue shirt who runs up from out of nowhere and does jumping splits because he’s so excited. Simmons rolling off of Vader and going into a Victory Worm. That’s the guy you wanna put in the Hall of Fame.
Best: Whoa, Seven Black Guys In 40 Minutes
This might be a new record. I wanted to say that they’d beaten it during the Attitude Era, but remembered that Owen Hart and f**king PG-13 were in the black militant stable. Anyway, in the first 40 minutes or so we saw
1. Mark Henry
2. David Otunga
3. Teddy Long
4. Kofi Kingston
5. R-Truth
6. Ron Simmons, via video package
7. Ezekiel Jackson
That’s pretty cool, and helps offset the Worst of WWE finally getting around to putting Truth and Kofi in a tag team because “black guys”. Next week they should put the Funkasaurus in a match against Willie Mack and let my heart explode.
And yes, I continue to be in denial about the Funkasaurus. They wouldn’t do that to me.
note: you can tell which people in the crowd read this column because they’re the ones jumping up and down and cheering when Otunga wins.
Worst: No Bodyslams From Big Zeke
Dear Ezekiel Jackson,
Hi, how are you? I am well. I saw your match on Raw last night and was extremely upset that you had time to throw 14 clotheslines and executed 0 bodyslams. I came to terms with you bodyslamming guys all the time and can now no longer enjoy your in-ring product without them. Should you participate in a match on Raw in the next 10 months, please consider slamming your opponent’s body as many times as possible.
Warmest Regards,
Brandon Stroud
Best: David Otunga’s Ridiculous, Literate Victory Pose
David Otunga is the reason I wore argyle shoes to Anarchy Championship Wrestling this weekend. When he avoided Big Zeke’s 77th clothesline and palmed the sternum, I yelled THE VERDICT, THE VERDICT at my television. I’m so happy he has his lawyer-themed spinebuster back and no longer rolls with the gentleman’s neckbreaker he broke out during that multi-man tag finisher rush on Raw a while back.
Anyway, a Verdict was reached, and to celebrate, the wrestler who is Literally All I Care About broke out the most amazing win pose ever. Proof:
I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing, but it (with John Laurinaitis acting as the pose’s Diesel moments later) was glorious. Suggestion: David Otunga should win more matches, Jennifer Hudson should sing America The Beautiful at this year’s Wrestlemania and somebody needs to sell me an argyle travel thermos.
There was only one moment greater in this segment than Otunga’s Living Nativity version of Auguste Rodin’s The Age Of Bronze …
Best: John Laurinaitis Wants You To Know How Few F**ks He Still Gives
Owned.
Worst: Listening To Undertaker Speak Is A Physical Hail
Say what you will about the Undertaker’s abilities in the ring, but the guy has never been good at speaking.
If you think the Undertaker cuts “cool promoz” or whatever you may be too easily swayed by occult imagery and metal lyrics to see things objectively because saying “gates of hell” or whatever isn’t cool when you’ve grown out of your “drawing the grim reaper on my folder” stage. In fact, the only two Undertaker promos I can remember enjoying are that long rambling one where he and the Big Show drive motorcycles out into the desert and the one where he says he’s gonna stab Jerry Lawler in the face.
He’s always had a habit of turning into your super tall pot smoking uncle when he grabs a microphone, and last night was no exception. You hear his dong and the lights go out and you get all excited, and there’s a MYSTERY in the air and SMOKE IS RISING and lighting strikes and here comes this 7-foot blue gent in a hooded leather trench-robe and he can CONTROL THE LIGHTS and you’re all AHHHH OH MY GOD and then he starts talking and he’s two f**king seconds away from yip yip yip what it do.
It feels weird saying it about a guy who’s been on three shows in the last 11 months, but less is more, man. Or at least get reborn as some amalgamation of your personalities and justify that meandering hickcent.
Also, call that amalgamation “Booger Blue”.
Worst: Allow Me To Spend The Next 20 Minutes Mentioning This Business
You don’t need me to analyze this again, do you? The same talking points apply. Triple H takes 19 minutes to say what he could say in 20 seconds, Undertaker takes 20 to say what he’s already said more effectively with some bug eyes and a gesturing throat-slash. Neither man is sure whether they live in the real world or the kayfabe one, whether it’s a business and they’re performing roles or whether it’s a legitimate sporting contest to prove which guy is tougher. They are both in their 40s, but their brains are in their 60s. This was mostly boring, as the “what” chants suggested.
Not that I’m condoning the “what” chants, but the crowd had to do something to get Taker to speed the hell up. Being an important legend shouldn’t allow you to stand around on TV doing nothing.
Worst: We’re The Only Two Left, For Serious!
History is written by the winners, and just like “WCW sucked”, Triple H and Undertaker can say they’re the last two of a generation (wrestling on a show headlined by The Rock, on a Raw about a month after Booker T and Road Dogg wrestled in the Royal Rumble) (also, pretty sure Goldust is still on the roster) until we believe it. Their Wrestlemania three-match is now THE END OF AN ERA, and after that match the Era will be over, and we can spend the next two or three wistfully remembering how cool it was when wrestlers were tough and not gay ladies and “left it all in the ring”.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’ve got a month of this left to report, and if we don’t start setting cameramen on fire with roofborne lightning bolts next week I’m replacing the Triple H/Undertaker moodlight serenades with kitten pictures and Hayley Williams gifs.
Best: Hell In A Cell
I can think of one reason why Hell In A Cell won’t work at Wrestlemania:
1. Hell In A Cell hasn’t been “good” since like 2006, and you can’t bleed and neither guy is healthy enough to do anything athletic, so it’s basically just a normal match with a shell.
But I can think of several why it WILL:
1. It’s cool!
2. Fancy Wrestlemania visuals.
3. It allows HHH and Undertaker to have another “no holds barred” match without rehashing the same stipulations as last year.
4. It will make it more difficult for me to see what’s happening in the match from the crowd.
Best: It’s True, The Memory Does Remain
“The Memory Remains” by Metallica is way less fun to sing than “Ain’t No Grave”, but it’s fine as a theme song they won’t pay enough to include on the DVD. Hopefully they use Mae Young in the Marianne Faithfull role for the video package at Wrestlemania.
Seems like “Hell And Back” from Death Magnetic would’ve been a better song, given the stipulation, but I guess H stopped listening to Metallica in 1997.
Best: Daniel Bryan Vs. Santino Is The New Daniel Bryan Vs. Mark Henry
oh hey can anyone read that sign behind bryan, what does it say
Anyway, this is the kind of match Daniel Bryan should be having more often, where he gets to take a little bit of offense before kicking it into overdrive or reversing something into a submission for a decisive championship victory. It’s also the kind of match Santino should be having, especially after his crazy crowd response at Elimination Chamber, wherein he gets to act a little goofy but still gets in some credible offense before sorta succumbing to the fact that he’s Santino Marella and losing.
In fact, I’d go as far to say that was one of the best two minute matches I’ve ever seen. It certainly got the crowd more excited than anything pre-Shawn Michaels taunting in the Taker/H dialogue. If I’m in charge of WWE (and I’m not), I’d reenforce the “Daniel Bryan is a wormy champion!” thing by having him plow through guys like Santino instead of accepting challenges from guys like Show and Sheamus, instead of fighting guys like Show and Sheamus all the time and expecting people to think he’s a coward.
Best: Santino As Triple H
I know it wasn’t a purposeful thing, but I loved seeing the finish of Bryan/Marella follow the Triple H V Undertaker shenanigans with a retelling of how H/Taker 2 ended. In that match, Undertaker had Triple H in Hell’s Gate, and H could’ve escaped if he’d been able to grab his sledgehammer, but he couldn’t, so he lost. Here, Santino was caught in the LeBell Lock and could break free if only he could reach The Cobra, but he couldn’t, so he taps.
Although I’ve got to wonder what Santino was thinking as he reached for that sock. What was he gonna do, slide it onto his trapped arm and escape by snaking his arm back independent of how bones work? Anyway, it was funny.
Worst: Where The Hell Is Aksana’s Porn Sax Mood Lighting
If Sin Cara can get in-match mood lighting and The Undertaker can make everything blue, dip out for Triple H’s entrance and return when it’s done, Aksana’s backstage porno saxaphone entrance should be happening when she’s in the ring. Maybe she lost that when she got the job of “Kelly Kelly’s one friend” when Eve was forced to wear the Scarlet R and driven out for public humiliation.
Best: Aksana’s Elbow Drop Of Doom And Fear
The best part of the match is undoubtably the elbow drop that occurs at the 1:09 mark of the video. Here, let me gif it for you:
If you say you’ve seen a worse elbow drop than that and you aren’t Lacey Von Erich, you’re lying. Holy sh*t. The only elbows I can think of that’re worse are in commercials or sitcoms when a character is fighting and decides to end things hilariously by clasping their hands together, jumping as high as they can and dropping an “elbow” on someone just out of view.
What I’m saying is that if Aunt Becky was to drop an elbow on someone, it would look like Aksanas, but Becky is a f**king infotainment journalist and hasn’t been training to do this for like two years.
Worst: So Much For That Bella Twins Character Development Thing
The show opened with the Bella Twins being used as a foil for Eve Torres’ borderline personality disorder, but an hour and a half had passed and H and Taker went 48 minutes too long and nobody told WWE Creative to wipe KHARMA PREGNANT DON’T USE off the dry erase board so we got another 70 second Divas tag match. Because that match didn’t feature the Divas Champion (and therefore could not contain the “Divas Champion is dominant” or “Divas Champion loses unexpectedly!” options) we had to go with “Twin Magic, Bellas call other team losers”.
It directly contradicted our assumption from earlier than the Bellas weren’t the CRAZED JEZEBEL Eve Torres had become and managed to simultaneously retread of at least 51 of last year’s 52 Raws, so hopefully this is just a quick reminder that the Bellas bully people so Kharma can come back next week and pay off that Dark Brotherhood contract she set up for them before she left.
Sweet mother, sweet mother, send your child unto me /stabs Nightshade, or whatever
Worst: John Cena Has Something To Say About The Rock, But First, Eve Is A Whore
Get it? Her name is “Eve”. Eve was banished from the Garden of Eden and blamed for something the Devil did because God is just kind of an indiscriminate dick at times, Eve Torres was blamed for something Kane (or nobody?) did and banished from the Hate Riser Abovers Club on Raw and called a Spanankopita or whatever because John Cena is just kind of an indiscriminate dick sometimes.
I’m happy he made a point to reference Eve’s Bobble of f**king Skank Juice or whatever, because we might’ve tried to forget it and enjoy the rest of the show.
Best: Cena Recapping The Same Tired Points, But With FIRE~
Not sure I can completely move on from this guy right now, but anyway, he has exactly one point about The Rock:
1. The Rock is not here
and while that was a great point to make when Rock was saying he was FINALLY HOME and would never leave and immediately left, it’s not necessarily as great a year later. You already build that part, didn’t you?
At the same time, I appreciated how fired up he got, and you can always tell when Cena’s speaking for real because he drops the preacher voice and the rehearsed “comedy delivery” voice and sounds like the antagonist of Fear. OH NO MISSA WALKAH THE RAWKS NOT HEA, THE RAWKS NEVAH HEA
The Rock IS only showing up to win back the audience he lost making kids movies. The Rock DOES have a ridiculous team of Tweeters and handlers who want to protect him and write all of his jokes for him. The Rock IS taking away a main event Wrestlemania spot from a guy who’s been there all year busting his ass. Rock showing up prevents Cena/Undertaker. Rock showing up cost us the first 25 minutes of last year’s Mania, and will probably cost us another 30 minutes from the next one. He needs to get SHUT DOWN verbally, and when his only retorts are “I electrify people” and “you are gay” like he’s Homer Simpson reading a f**king globe, anybody with any amount of indignant fire and public speaking experience should be able to do it.
For the record, I’m rooting for the Rock now. Rise above my asshole, John.
Best: Santino Santino-Walking With An Injury
It wasn’t exactly Jumbo Tsuruta, but I appreciated Santino Marella selling his Dino Damage from earlier in the night, but not enough to prevent him from still being Santino. The “hurt” version of his walk was a dozen times funnier than the normal one.
Best: Getting Excited For Battle Royal Eliminations
I think the thing I’ve typed the most in these reports is “I love battles royal”, and last night was no exception — the 10-man over-the-top-rope challenge to find an opponent for CM Punk at Wrestlemania was super obvious but INCREDIBLY fun, made so by the fact that there were actual stakes involved that the crowd could understand. That allowed them to get into the story of the match and lose their mind when guys like The Miz got eliminated. Effective and easy.
Miz was on a roll there, too. It was nice to see him follow his pretty great performance in the Elimination Chamber with a smooth one on Raw. Hopefully his brain has been temp-fixed again and he can contribute something deeper than “really” and dropping babies.
That’s not a reference, I just wouldn’t let Miz hold a baby.
Best: Buck “Rock n’ Roll” ZumHofe References
In addition to adorably making this girl’s life:
CM Punk returned to a place where he’s nigh-infallible — the WWE announcer’s table — to help slowly renew my faith in his ability to be constructive and funny, capped off by an out-of-nowhere reference to AWA sorta-great Buck “Rock n’ Roll” Zumhofe.
You may remember Zumhofe from such films as “getting destroyed by Yokozuna once”.
You’ve got to love that early-90s WWF crowd, talking quietly amongst themselves because they can’t believe how fat that guy is.
Worst: The Reality Of Dolph Ziggler’s Shirt
One of the most exciting moments of the battle royal was during the ring entrances, when Dolph Ziggler trotted out with a hot pink shirt tucked into his Jiffy Pop shorts. I thought OH MY GOD WHAT DOES IT SAY and spent the match trying to read it. It had a “D” on the sleeve and read IT’S NOT SHOWING OFF down the front. Excited, I jumped on WWEShop.com to order it.
Two unfortunate realities:
1. The actual shirt is BLACK, which is a bummer. Every wrestling shirt is black, and a hot pink shirt would’ve fit Ziggler’s vibe a hundred times better. And yeah, the normal wrestling fan isn’t going to order a hot pink shirt, but the normal f**king wrestling fan isn’t going to buy a Dolph Ziggler shirt in the first place.
2. The back of the shirt says IF YOU CAN BACK IT UP. That is also a bummer, as that comes in somewhere behind “I could care less” on my list of least favorite commonplace phrases. You could NOT care less, and it IS still showing off (or bragging) if you can back it up. Whether or not you’re telling the truth is irrelevant, your boastful attitude about it remains and is the problem.
Oh well, at least it doesn’t say DOLPH ZIGGLER ATE MY LUNCH across the back.
Worst: Everyone You Love Is Dead
As fun as the match was, things started to fall apart near the end.
Big Show decided to eliminate Dolph Ziggler by giving him one of those Mason Ryan press slams where you don’t really lift the guy up, you just lug him over and drop him. Ziggler went flying, because Ziggler goes flying when a stiff breeze rolls in, and it ended with R-Truth getting hurt, Ziggler landing chin-first on the announcers table and Wade Barrett doing God’s work to protect Dolph from death and getting a dislocated everything in the process.
Now Wade is going to miss Wrestlemania, which means the Big Show + Shaq vs. Wade and Cody thing that might’ve happened is gone, and maybe Ziggler gets put in Wade’s spot, or maybe Shaq and Big Show put on ceremonial diapers and slap each other in the moobs for 15 minutes while I sit in the crowd and tweet about how I want to kill myself.
Best: Finally, The Punk/Jericho Feud We Expected A Month Ago
Here’s what the plan was:
CM Punk is champ -> Jericho wins Royal Rumble -> CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho
Here’s what we ended up with:
CM Punk is champ -> Sheamus wins Royal Rumble -> debate skit with specious reasoning -> Elimination Chamber -> weird injury angle -> Raw battle royal -> Cody Rhodes helping Jericho win -> CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho
Some motherf**kers always trying to ice skate uphill. Anyway, the match is finally set, and hopefully now we can get into that cool new character Chris Jericho was talking about and CM Punk can feud against someone who has no qualms about carrying around his balls in a purse. It should be good.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
For your enjoyment:
Greg White, cutting to the heart of the matter:
…and THAT’S how you masturbate to a woman crying in the ring. What’s next?
papermint, who knows what I’m talking about:
I feel like we as an audience could more effectively slut-shame Eve if she started to fart.
Joelski. I can tell that we are gonna be friends:
This Sheamus/Mark henry match should be the cover of the next White Stripes album.
radwithaB:
I’m not sure I’m happy with anyone who’s related to Carlito being a champion of anything
Lobster Mobster and Jo3yHuds, who gets to be in this whenever he wants now:
I like the @MRBRANDONSTROUD sign guy going apey. He’s all waving and smiles.
It was hard for me to contain my enthusiasm in the presence of a Boom Drop.
Oops Pow Surprise:
I really wish Zeke had pointed to the Wrestlemania sign and made Laurinaitis frantically shake his head “no.”
RumHam, who speaks to me with my words:
Oh man Otunga and Body Slam Jackson at the same time? It might be hard to comment with such a huge, throbbing erection.
Jamielorance, with the new new best reference:
Undertaker just pulled the ‘McFly Gambit.’
Space Monkey Mafia:
“And now … Metallica! Because f**k you, that’s why.”
DocZeus:
So in the end Kane got Cena to embrace dropping his g’s?
He did indeed.
See you guys next week. Don’t forget to hit “like” on everything, leave your comments and tweet the twoot out of this to everyone you know.
