Pre-show notes:
– If you guys don’t mind clicking the like button on this post or sharing it on Twitter, I’d be greatly appreciative. Comments are also appreciated, especially if they have something to do with anything in the column, and not just what you think of John Cena’s pink shirt.
– Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.
– Subway is a terrible restaurant.
– I wasn’t able to watch Night Of Champions, so the existence of that report is pending. Not a lot happened, honestly, that wasn’t indirectly recapped by this column. I might just call it and prep myself for a massive Hell In A Cell report. Or I might skip that too and just start reviewing Kaiju Big Battel DVDs. Regardless, tons of writing in here, so enjoy.
The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for September 17, 2012, is after the jump.
Worst: Just Start The Shows With Tag Team Main Event Graphics And Save Us 20 Minutes
I could attribute the fact that the opening 20 minutes of Raw sounded like a filibuster from Charlie Brown’s teacher to any number of things, including:
1. A magical weekend at Chikara pro wrestling’s King Of Trios tournament in Easton, PA, with a solid dozen old and new friends from the With Leather wrestling community. Night 3 of the event was legitimately one of the best wrestling shows I’ve ever seen, live or not, and coming back to Raw with the kind of enthusiasm you need to write six pages of Bests after tearing up twice (twice!) at an emotional, visceral live event is hard. Also, Raw will not end with me posing for a picture with a Japanese Colonel Sanders-themed wrestler. (Note: I’m writing a Best And Worst Of King Of Trios column for later in the week, so look out for that.)
2. Jet/travel lag. I flew into Philadelphia from Austin, Texas, then slept for like 40 minutes before driving two hours west-ish to Easton. The most substantial thing I had to eat between Thursday and Monday afternoon was a Ruby Tuesday salad bar.
3. Raw’s had a terrible tendency to go trough the motions on certain things, but taking way, way too long to go through them.
Number three is the big one, because “wrestling can be happy elsewhere” and “I got to go to wrestling shows” are terrible excuses. I don’t necessarily mind Paul Heyman wandering out to compliment a referee on his decision-making skills (I don’t mind Paul Heyman doing or saying anything) or the pay-per-view “controversy” recap and eventual “Teddy Long Operating AJ Like A Puppet” tag-teamery. I just hate that they have to take so freaking long to do it. Would any wrestling fan in the world have felt less satisfied if they’d just had Michael Cole go BREAKING NEWS ON A BLOCKBUSTER TAG TEAM MATCH ALBERTO DEL RIO TEAMS WITH CM PUNK TO FACE JOHN CENA AND SHEAMUS, IT’S LIKE THE PAY-PER-VIEW MATCHES BUT BOTH OF THEM?
You aren’t even robbed of “seeing” anybody. Everybody involved in this segment was involved elsewhere. It might’ve even made things better, if the folks who came to see Sheamus hadn’t seen Sheamus until LOBSTER HEAD kicked in for the main-event. You can sorta give us the benefit of the doubt on these things, WWE … if you have a one-segment match build and it ain’t that great (i.e. “it’s like the pay-per-view matches but both of them”), just have the match and let us figure it out.
If there was a single trope I could remove from pro wrestling forever, it would be “we have something scheduled for later or somewhere else, but let’s do it RIGHT HERE TONIGHT”.
Best: The Tag Team Division Might Actually Be Happening
I think most of us had probably written off “they’re rebuilding the tag division” as one of those “Ultimate Warrior died and was replaced” situations where it keeps getting reported as facts that only stupid people believe. But here we are with Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara going up against Epico and Primo to open the show, Titus O’Neil and Darren Young getting involved after the bell AND a tag title run featuring two persons of legitimate import in a story (good or bad). And they’re defending against the former champions, who didn’t just start hitting each other when they lost the belts. Teams are forming and staying together, and matches are happening. More importantly, they’re SAYING the tag team division is getting its shit together, which in WWE terms in a thousand times more important than wrestling or wrestlers.
And yeah, maybe this is all just a smokescreen to get Sin Cara and Rey Mysterio involved with each other enough to split them apart and run them at WrestleMania for a dumb “most masks” World Record or whatever, but it’s something, and it’s substantial. Sin Cara gets to look great every week, allowing tag matches to hide his WWE weaknesses and looking like the most fit and athletic dude ever next to Viscera-pants Rey Mysterio in his mysterious, sleeveless Spanx.
Best: The Prime Time Players Are Srs Bznss
Hey Darren … “nobody gonna take any wang from us”? You mean like KOBE BRYAN IN A COLORADO HOTEL ROOM?
If you haven’t been enjoying the Prime Time Players as dancing football enthusiasts, perhaps you’ll enjoy them as HYPER-VIOLENT TERRY CREWS and his weird friend Darren. I don’t love the change in attitude, mostly because the announcers going THIS IS A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE makes me think we’ll never see Titus calling personal fouls again, but I like to see them sticking around and being a thing. Pretty hilarious that the worst guy from NXT season 1 and the worst guy from NXT season 2 teamed up and made something out of themselves. Hey, Kaval and Johnny Curtis aren’t on TV anymore, and Kaitlyn was only around on Raw as an accident. All they’ve got to do is take out Wade Barrett and they’re better than every winner.
Best: JBL Is The F**king Best
My heart!
Jerry Lawler’s heart attack gave us two really great things: a new era of announce teams where they all get along and want the best for each other instead of challenging one another to barbecue foot eating matches or whatever, and JBL returning to “keep the seat warm”. I hope he keeps the seat warm forever, because f**k Jerry Lawler, Bradshaw is the shit.
Last night’s commentary team (when they weren’t briefly arguing about Twitter) was focused on talking about the matches, making the competitors seem important, getting over storylines and, most importantly, not saying CHIMMINNYCHONGA at the Mexican wrestlers until I had to change the channel. At one point during the Ziggler/Santino match I realized JBL had gotten over both wrestlers as legitimate athletes in like 30 seconds. Have they ever put as much emphasis on the “Santino is a goof, but he’s a shoot judo champion” thing before? It was great.
Stay forever, JBL, and keep Jim Ross with you. Only Southern people should be allowed to speak into a microphone during wrestling matches.
Worst: Good Luck On Mars, Beth Phoenix
I’m giving the match a Worst because it was two minutes of awful wrestling. There are, however, a couple of Bests.
– Eve remembering the last however many years of watching Beth Phoenix wrestle and utilizing a roll-up as soon as possible for an easy victory. Beth Phoenix is for real a turtle and cannot move if she’s slowly rolled backwards onto her back. Watch when she loses, she doesn’t even kick out all angry after three and jump to her feet, she just languishes there on the mat. SOMEBODY GO ROLL HER BACK OVER.
– Layla + real people clothes = Jesus
I also liked that WWE is so ashamed of Kaitlyn “accidentally” winning a Divas #1 Contenders Battle Royal that they not only had her get Tonya’d Harding at the pay-per-view, they had the announcers on Raw spend the entire Divas match explaining how nothing shady happened, and Kaitlyn just got injured by a masked person backstage because it’s wrestling and that shit just happens.
Worst: Whoever Had The Temerity To Put Heath Slater In A Match Against Brodus Clay Is An Ignoramus
Heath Slater is not Curt Hawkins, no matter how much they look alike, and should not be used as such.
I hate giving Worsts to Heath Slater matches. In theory this could’ve been good, but Brodus has kinda plateaued in the ring, and even the One Man Band (Baybay) can’t sell spectacularly when his opponent’s moveset is “stand still” and “move forward slightly”. The match had its high points (Heath’s attempt at explaining how he’s the One Man Band at the beginning of the match, humping up and down like he was trying to churn butter from Clay’s neck during a front facelock and crawling across the ring on his knees with his hand over his face to sell a forearm), but no, it was literally nothing.
Also, let me try this out:
English: “I do not want to see children dance with Brodus Clay.”
Spanish: “No quiero ver a los niños bailar con Brodus Clay.”
French: “Je ne veux pas voir les enfants danse avec Brodus Clay.”
Swedish: “Jag vill inte se barn dance with Brodus Clay.”
German: “Ich will nicht zu sehen, Kinder Tanz mit das Fettschweinmann.”
Now if I could figure out how to translate it to Tout. The only sentence I know in Tout is “ah lack wartchin’ Raw” followed by six consecutive crotch-chops.
Worst: MizTV
I don’t say this a lot, but the guy who chanted “boring” during Miz TV was on the right track.
I can’t think of a more straight-up boring four minutes in recent memory. Triple H doing that thing where he closes his eyes and lowers his head between sentences to remember his lines (“this business”) and/or absorb real or imagined crowd response is more entertaining than Miz TV. It wasn’t necessarily BAD, but man, my brain at that moment in time was not prepared to handle it. Everything before the ending was as bad as the ending was good. Maybe I couldn’t recover from him failing to mention Carlito’s Cabana, I dunno.
Hopefully this will be the last-ever edition of Miz TV, and next week will start with Miz walking out in a suit with a microphone and Ryback rushing out to immediately crush his body with the big light-up M. Too bad the live mic that ended up in the crowd fell into the hands of a troglodyte and not somebody who could’ve spat out PUSH DAMIEN SANDOW or something before it was whisked away. GAULDBARG, GAULDBARG, GAULDBARG~! At least shout your blogspot URL, dude.
Best: F**K YO COUCH
I’m not kidding, I would pay good money for a ‘Storage Wars’-type show where Vince McMahon bids astronomical amounts for storage units at auction, then just opens it up and tells Ryback to throw everything he can find inside. Just a show about him throwing couches and partially-built jet-skis and old arcade cabinets and shit.
We wanted Ryback to move on to something other than squashing the Stans Stansky of the world, and here it is. Whether it’ll lead to an ersatz Goldberg vs. Raven United States Championship Match or not, it’s enough to make me tune in next week and see where it goes. Miz’s Backstage Fallout interview should be two sentences: “I am not prepared for this” and “has anybody seen Alex Riley?”, only to find that RYBACK has seen Alex Riley and that ALEX RILEY HAS BEEN EATEN.
Best: You Know, Honestly, If The Sock Gives His Arm Magical Striking Power He Shouldn’t Be Able To Use It In Matches, It’s No Better Than A Loaded Tennis Racket Or Whatever
I really dug this match, even though the WWE Fan Nation video starts with that weird botch/Lex Luger forearm attack Ziggler did and just rolled with. For some reason (as you might’ve picked up) I’m fascinated by Santino Marella and extremely into any match featuring him getting beaten up. It just feels right and makes sense to me. Ziggler screwing around with him before Zig-Zagging him twice was glorious, as was the continuation of Santino’s story about being too distracted by prop-hand shenanigans to win a wrestling match. You established that the Cobra was just a puppet on your arm, bro, there was no puppet for like the first two years you did it, just do the Cobra and win without the puppet.
The “Let’s Go Ziggler” chants were encouraging, although they’re starting to feel more like what a WWE audience thinks they’re supposed to say when Ziggler’s wrestling, rather than an actual cheer for Ziggler. Regardless, everyone looked effective here — Ziggler got to actually show off in a match without looking like it was gonna make him lose, Vickie got to be a useful hand at ringside by keeping the snake puppet away from Santino, and Santino got to make 12,000 people go AHHH HE’S GONNA DO THE HAND JIVE WE PAID TO SEE before getting super disappointed. Win, win, win.
I feel like Santino needs to get back into a tag team and get shuffled back into the growing tag division. Put him with Brodus again, that was fun for a minute. Tag him up with Big Zeke and call them “E-snake-ial”. Put him with Sgt. Slaughter and have them feud within the team because of how much Sarge hates Cobra. Who cares? Everything’s a good idea.
Worst: Bring Me Jared From Subway
Usually when Subway shows up on Raw, it’s great. Remember Santino stealing JELLY STUPID LOLLER’s “delicious Subway sub”? Remember CM Punk telling Luke Gallows and Serena to bring him “Jared From Subway”?
Those were both good, but this one (save for the Ryback ending… because Ryback’s job is to show up at the end of terrible skits and threaten people until it gets good) was terrible. It presented too many questions. Was Truth manipulating the politeness of a stranger by making Jared assume he was out of his mind just to get two subs instead of one? Why were those subs hanging out of their wrappings? I worked at a Subway, we don’t just wrap the ass end of it and hand it to you. If Subway doesn’t think an off-white paper tube looks appetizing, why wrap it like that in the first place? How is Jared from Subway still a fitness and health spokesman when his boobs are bigger than AJ’s? How did Kofi not know Truth was talking about Subway’s birthday when he walked into the Subway sandwiches room and it was full of balloons? WHO THINKS WE’RE STUPID ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THAT DAMIEN SANDOW WOULD EVER EAT AT A SUBWAY. It should’ve just been Jared going “hey Truth and Kofi, it’s Subway’s birthday! Here, eat this loaf of garbage”.
I’m also really upset that Daniel Bryan dropped his veganism a week before the Subway promo, so he couldn’t storm in and start yelling about how Subway advertises “fresh food” but their only options are salted meat-approximations and the “veggie delight”, which is f**king high school cafeteria salad good at best. These guys are so ignorant to how vegetables work they treat an avocado like f**king Ripley had just stumbled out of the jungle with it in a butterfly net and dropped it off at Subway HQ. I’m also sad that Kane didn’t show up and set Jared on fire.
Fun fact: I am 99% sure that Destiny once dated Jared from Subway. He looked exactly like that and ate Subway every day.
Best: NEXUS CHANTS
Welcome back, half of Wade Barrett!
If you’ve been reading this column longer than a week (hi, Jerry Lawler column friends … wait, you don’t have to go, stay, you can call me a mark in the comments section) you’ll know that one of my favorite things from the last decade or so of wrestling was the Nexus. It was this great coming together of nobodies to form a massive, hell-bringing unit of wrestlers, and while it only led to a couple of good things (Wade Barrett’s “you can’t see me” goodbye to John Cena among them), their initial attack was stellar television and the kind of grand ass-whomping WWE (and WWE audiences) have been missing out on for years. So yes, my heart swelled when a f**king Nexus chant started up during the Wade Barrett/Justin Gabriel match.
I’m going to type this in every column where it is applicable until it happens: the best thing WWE could do right now is reform the Nexus with its original members. When it started, they were nobodies, but now we KNOW everybody and it could be the GREATEST THING EVER. Bare-knuckle elevator brawler Wade Barrett, Capetown Werewolf Justin Gabriel, smarmy lawyer David Otunga, Prime Time Player and wang-hoarder Darren Young, RYBACK, “repeat after me” megastar Daniel Bryan and the goddamn One Man Band. Hell, throw backwards-hat McGillicutty and Bray Wyatt in there for kicks. Let them choke the shit out of everybody they see with their own neckties. Make it a real thing.
Anyway, next week let’s put Wade against Heath Slater and see if we can get a “Corre” chant going. CORE-REE! CORE-REE! CORE-REE!
Best/Worst: I’m Happy Jerry Lawler’s Okay, But Can We Be A Little Less Exploitative About The Whole Thing
I don’t want to type too much and make you think I’m throwing shade at Jerry Lawler, because I’m happy that he’s seemingly fine and that he’ll make a 100% recovery. I just don’t completely totally see why we need to see his shirtless hospital Tout on TV multiple times, see footage of him shaking peoples’ hands at the airport or have multiple instances of Michael Cole and whoever going JERRY LAWLER’S WATCHING TONIGHT!!! HI JERRY!!!!
It seems less like being happy for the guy’s health and more like “this generated a lot of mainstream interest so let’s milk it as much as possible”. That’s probably me being jaded, but I wish they could’ve just started the show with an update, wished him a speedy recovery and moved on with the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if next week we get slow motion video of him collapsing in gritty black-and-white.
Also, how funny is Raw for advertising an “exclusive interview” with Jerry Lawler? What, was he gonna show up on Impact for a sit-down with Jeremy Borash on Thursday?
Best: I’M THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS, or
Best: I Guess I’m Wearing Anything Daniel Bryan Says On A T-Shirt
I missed Night Of Champions so I didn’t get to see the origin of I’M THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS~!, but I’m willing to send WWE.com 30 dollars to wear it on a t-shirt. Forget how difficult it is to cheer for him already with the YES and NO chants, in a few years Daniel Bryan’s going to be completely mute, because every word out of his mouth will be a catchphrase. He’ll be exactly like The Rock. CM Punk will be all, “Daniel Bryan, I want to wrestle you at Royal Rumble” and he’ll stand there silently for 20 seconds before yelling CHINESE FOOOOOD to thunderous applause. Punk will have to sell it by collapsing to his ass and scurrying away.
Anyway, hanging out with wrestling fans over the weekend gave me lots of time to discuss Daniel Bryan and Kane, and these are the two absolutes I think I’ve come up with:
– For anyone asking, I’m disappointed about Daniel Bryan not being vegan anymore. The upsides to that are 1) Daniel Bryan was vegan when he was World Heavyweight Champion and wrestling Kofi Kingston in copper penny tag bouts when he wasn’t, so we’ll always have that, and 2) I didn’t start liking Daniel Bryan because of his diet, I liked him because he’s one of the best wrestlers in the world. He still is, so I keep liking him the same. Him being vegan was a great plus, but whatever, there are suddenly a solid amount of vegan role models in pro wres, so I’ll live.
– After arguing about it from every perspective, the best approach to Daniel Bryan and Kane as a tag team is that My Boy D-Bry Right There is talented enough to spin shit into gold so he’s a valuable hand for stories like this, but everyone in the world would rather see him wrestling well. That devolves into the grand “WWE vs. everybody else” mentality of “do you wrestle for art or money”, and WWE’s idea of wrestling for art OR money is saying asinine phrases for t-shirt success. The good Daniel Bryan wrestling won’t go away, so we should do our best to enjoy the dumb crap he sludges through and try not to get too down about it.
It’s good to see important wrestlers holding the tag team titles in a story revolving AROUND the tag team titles, though, and not just two main-eventers being thrust into it against their will as a placeholder. These guys are PROUD to be the tag team champions, even they don’t like the other guy. We could get a lot of really good stories out of this if they can sustain it, especially if it ends with a big WE ARE THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS.
Best: Hugging It Out As 2012’s Hulking Up
The joy of the Hug It Out spot hasn’t gone away because they keep finding new ways to reintroduce it. Sometimes they have to do it in the middle of a match to get their act together. Sometimes they do it afterwards to cool down a hostile situation. Sometimes they do it by order of the WWE Universe.
But every time there’s such a weirdness to it that I can’t look away. Two guys are hugging on my TV … one is wearing underpants with dragons and shit on them, one’s wearing a sirloin mask and fire pants. They’re arguing over giant copper belts. This is interesting television. I also like that I can never fully tell if they’re okay with the hugging, hugging only to get a better shot at screwing the other over (like when Bryan tried to steal both tag title belts) or if they’re okay with the hug, then forget about it mid-way through and THEN get manipulative.
Ah who cares, they’re gonna end up wearing pantsuits as co-Smackdown GMs in like three weeks anyway.
Worst: Kofi Kingston Is A Terrible Professional Wrestler
Maybe it’s time for Kofi to bring Evan Bourne out of weed stasis or whatever and give it a better go. If you can seriously watch a Kofi Kingston match with an objective eye and tell me he’s not terrible at pro wrestling, I don’t know what to tell you. Being mildly athletic does not a “good wrestler” make. If he didn’t have the legs of an Olympian he’d be Jenna Morasca.
Best: Damien Sandow Doing Anything
Did You Know? I enjoy Damien Sandow segments.
Watching Damien Sandow have to deal with Zack Ryder interrupting him to be all, BRO, WHY DO YOU LIKE, NEED TO LEARN WORDS BRO, YOUTUBE, then watching him beat Ryder with authority was pretty gratifying. It’s like watching someone stop a mugging. You were imagining all these horrible things, but it worked out okay in the end.
I don’t ever want them to wrestle again, and not just because nobody’s bothered to teach Zack Ryder an additional wrestling move in the last two years. The idea of Sandow losing to Zack Ryder terrifies me. I know it’s probably the least serious thing that could happen on Raw (including someone’s snake glove being stolen), but it represents almost everything evil I can imagine in the world. A stupid guy getting one over on a literate scholar and having 10,000+ people be super happy about it. It’s exactly like [political joke].
The only thing I didn’t like about this was the announce team acting too good for the victory cartwheel. The victory chartwheel OWNS you, anybody seeing it.
Worst: This Whole Pink Thing
Here’s what should happen when John Cena wears pink:
1. A video package highlighting every time John Cena’s called somebody gay for wearing pink/having a non-buzzcut haircut/looking ugly/being his opponent.
…and that’s it.
This is not the place for a discussion about what I think about human rights or whatever, but it’s not super surprising to see WWE come out in support of breast cancer when they find out Susan G. Komen Foundation is operated by a bunch of right-wing nutbags. I’m the type who thinks charity work should be charity work, and not something you put on a pamphlet about yourself to show the world how great you are. But yeah, WWE does a lot of charity work, and breast cancer awareness and support is a good cause that needs as many eyes and dollars on it as possible.
That all being said, how terrible is it from a wrestling fan point of view that all the guys who normally wear pink for heel heat (because pink = gay to the WWE Universe, assuming pink does not also = Canadian) don’t get to, because the guy who never wears pink decided to wear pink? Cena puts on a pink hat, so suddenly Dolph Ziggler’s t-shirt is the black one nobody should’ve bought and Damien Sandow’s trunks are purple? That’s terrible. Can pink ONLY exist as a breast cancer thing now? If Bret Hart shows up to wrestle again, does he have to wear the old Hart Foundation blue? And furthermore, what’d be so terrible about me thinking about how much cancer sucks when I look at Damien Sandow’s hips?
You guys are weird.
Best: I Kinda Liked Orton/Tensai, I Guess
The only thing I remember about this match is the finish, with the RKO reversed into a shove into the corner, followed up by a charge into a dodge into an RKO. That’s what Orton matches should be. He should come to terms with being the DDP of the WWE and just Frankenstein walk around the ring in jeans and wrist tape until he can think of some convoluted way to grab somebody’s head and fall down.
Tensai should probably wrap up this run. Somebody on Twitter mentioned that he breathes like a pug. That’s really all you need to know.
Jack Swagger Of Mars
Chapter 30
Jack Swagger looked up at the stars.
They reminded him of the lights in the Allstate Arena, or the Quicken Loans Arena, or any of the tens of thousands of arenas where he’d lied silently and stared up into lights. As the remaining oxygen drained from the crack in his space helmet, he imagined if only for a moment that he could see Earth. He imagined it like you see it in maps … green land, bright blue seas, a perfect marble hanging effortlessly, miraculously in the vacuum of space. He closed his eyes and smiled. When he opened them again, the Earth was gone, and all he could see was darkness.
He tried to roll over onto his side, but the sand around his body held him still. He wasn’t sure what’d become of the Swagger Soaring Eagle. The explosion knocked him hundreds of yards across the surface of the red planet, but he’d never seen the machine go down. “Maybe it’s still operational,” he thought. “If I could just crawl to it, perhaps I could still reach the descent shaft in time and…”
His thoughts drifted away as those final precious drops of air left his helmet. He could feel curved glass against the back of his head.
Life began to flash before his eyes. Just over 30 years ago, his daddy had celebrated his greatest achievement — the birth of a picture-perfect, 15-pound, 2-ounce, blonde haired, blue eyed, future World Champion. “You win, you always do.” Five years later after being born, he’d won his first youth state wrestling title. “Way to go there, champ. Pound it.” He was better than all your children. He thought about his time in the Order Of The Arrow and The Eagle. He doesn’t suck. He’s from Perry, Oklahoma. A third state wrestling championship. Greatness was his neighbor and success was his best friend.
Swagger dug his taped fingers into the red sands. King of high school. Ballroom dancing master. Leading his high school to its first football championship in over 50 years. Staying true to the one thing that mattered. Having a delicious sandwich named after him. He could taste it still. Like freedom. He tried to remember the other championships he would’ve wanted to touch on, but images of his WWE career began to swirl and congeal against the front of his brain. ECW Champion. 2010 Money in the Bank Winner. World Heavyweight Champion. United States Champion. Then, Vickie. Her clapping. Her voice. Dolph Ziggler’s face. The dreams and accolades continued to swirl as if they were being sucked down a drain … as if the devil himself, here represented by a gigantic fat guy with a goatee in a camo singlet, had shown up to break these accomplishments in front of him.
“I need to help them,” he uttered. These were his last words as the All-American American American. His hands went limp, and Jack Swagger of Mars lay silently under dark skies.
—–
From high at his position on Ceraunius Tholus, General Ryan could see the smoking remains of the Swagger Soaring Eagle.
“A direct hit,” announced the radio dispatch. “Jack Swagger of Mars is down. Mission accomplished.”
General Ryan turned to address his troops, but it was in Welsh, so I’m not sure I can type it. The men had their orders: they were to move in immediately, take the final descent shaft, make their long-overdue descent into the great Martian city of Hellas and slaughter every Martian Superstar, Diva or universality standing in the way. This was to be Earth’s greatest victory. President Barack Obama Impersonator would be pleased.
—–
The news of the explosion could be heard across the great valley, and as the mumbled worlds of the Earthling announced the falling of Swagger, Kaa’orri lowered her head and clutched her slender hands across her chest. Her eyes closed as she longed to be with him, lost there in the Martian sands, staring up at the darkness.
“So it’s done,” Sachie uttered, his gills quivering. “The city will be taken. We must make our peace.”
Kaa’orri shook her head in denial and opened her mouth wide, hoping the right words would come and that the same divinity that had brought Jack Swagger of Mars to her would grant her the gift of reason, hope and inspiration. They couldn’t. She closed her mouth and sank deeper into the shadows of the Descent Shaft’s control room and cried, silently.
Sachie stared down at the self-destruct button.
Worst: THIS MAIN EVENT IS LIKE TWO MAIN-EVENTS PUT TOGETHER AND WE’VE NEVER DONE THAT, THIS IS SPECIAL AND SUPER
And it was fine, just like every other match like this.
Alberto Del Rio taking the Irish Curse Backbreaker and Cena learning from his Night Of Champions mistakes by countering Punk’s kick from his back into the STF were pretty cool, but yeah. Stop commanding our Chickbuster-In-Chief, Teddy Long’s Ghost.
Worst: I’d Like Our Moral Code Back, Please
Okay, so the match ends with John Cena throwing CM Punk sideways toward the ropes (very specifically so) with an Attitude Adjustment and covering him for the three. Punk gets his foot on the ropes at two, but the referee (who looks like an extra from The Outsiders) (the movie, I’m not saying he looks like Syxx) doesn’t see it and awards the match to Cena and Sheamus anyway. He didn’t just “not see it”, he saw his error, had it explained to him, then, instead of restarting the match or showing any sort of responsibility or remorse, just walked away going “welp, sorry, you lost”. Cena and Sheamus leave to go hug (or whatever) and Punk gets stuck “whining” about the loss all the way to the back.
I want to see bad guys get defeated in pro wrestling. I don’t want to see them lose unfairly and complain about it.
I feel like I’ve written a Russian novel’s worth of Worst paragraphs about WWE losing its moral code, but stuff like this is just getting tiresome. Good guys can do whatever they want because the fans like them. Bad guys get cheated but shouldn’t complain about it, because they’re bad guys. It doesn’t make sense. Back in the long long ago, that foot-on-the-ropes finish was to either get you excited for a guy you like winning only to have it snatched way by reality (or worse, by a guy who put his foot on the ropes AFTER the three and pretended like the ref missed it, because he’s a scumbag) or to give the guy you like sympathy for a rematch. With this and the Sheamus match from SummerSlam, it’s become a thing for bad guys to complain about, because ONLY PEOPLE YOU BOO CAN FEEL AS THOUGH THEY’VE BEEN WRONGED. Everybody else has to just move on and challenge the guy who cheated them to a MATCH HERE TONIGHT~!!
Fan favorites are the ones who should be generating crowd sympathy. They should be people we want to see win, because they’ve been wronged in some way, or treated badly by someone, or underestimated. They’re Dusty Rhodes, a common man trying to take wrestling’s top prize from rich socialite cheating prick Ric Flair and his gaggle of asshole friends. The way things are set up now, WWE heels are the ones who attempt to generate sympathy, and WWE babyfaces are guys who smile and wave and clap and just destroy everyone. You know why? Because modern wrestling audiences are callous as f**k, and have no interest in living vicariously through a good person … they want to live vicariously through someone who wins all the time and doesn’t think too much. Were you just treated unfairly? WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING ABOUT IT, THIS IS ALL ABOUT ME
It’s a devaluation of class, intelligence and integrity, and a pretty sorrowful example of how WWE has taught its audience to think what WWE does is what’s best. WWE doesn’t play fair, they just win all the time and do whatever they want with whoever they want. Are you complaining about it at all? Shut up, loser!
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
BigBearGottaEat
Did You Know?
WWE has cured as much cancer as every other company and scientist in history…COMBINED!
Lester
It would have been neat if Chad Patton randomly had an awesome metal song and pyro entrance.
SHough610 and MH360
AJ is graduate of the Teddy Long School of General Management. She graduated Summa Cum Hole On a Minute Playa.
I don’t know whether to +1 this, or report it for sexual vulgarity.
Harry Longabaugh
Antonio Cesaro will now say ‘bribing a cop’ in five languages.
HeyYouWrestler
That couch was two days away from retirement!
DocZeus
In the next segment, Jinder Mahal is going to throw some lawn chairs at Alex Riley
Tobogganing Bear
Nice to see Big Show taking time out from being Honey Boo Boo’s mom.
Abraham Washington Dollar Hunter
I wish at the end of every show Stat Boy comes out and points out all the factual errors of JBL’s commentary.
John John The Bastard
I thought Tamaraty was the sister of Tia Mowry.
Dagotron
John Cena makes me want to donate to cancer.
That’s it for this week. See you later in the week for a little TRIOS~ action, then next week for another chapter of Beth Phoenix: Jungle Adventurer or whatever.
