Scott’s Blog of Doom

“

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for ECW TV - August 20 1995

So WWE’s ECW sucks, you say? I have a cure — the real ECW, on WWE 24/7! Have I mentioned that I love this channel?

- The show is introduced by Joey Styles & Tazz, who are really laid-back and funny, making fun of “insider terms” and riffing on each other.

- As for the actual show, it’s the usual interview-o-rama to start, beginning with Cactus Jack turning on Tommy Dreamer because Raven feels his pain. This was the start of some awesome promos from Mick.

- ECW champ Sandman and Woman let Mikey Whipwreck know that he’s messing with people he ought not to be messing with. Well, Mikey would get the last laugh there.

- Francine and Beulah go all Jerry Springer on each other, much to the delight of Stevie Richards. Beulah clarifies for us that she’s hot. OK.

- Eddie Guerrero hypes the upcoming 2/3 falls match against Dean Malenko.

- 2 Cold Scorpio may have broken Taz’ neck, and he’s OK with that.

- And FINALLY, the opening 15 minutes in, although NIN and White Zombie have been changed to a super-generic rock song, since Paul Heyman spent 5 years ripping off the original artists and all. If it helps you sleep at night, his cheque to ASCAP would have bounced anyway.

- Meanwhile, Public Enemy sends Mikey into a dark alley to learn the fine art of stealing wallets, while they cut a promo on the Gangstas. Mikey ends up getting mugged, so Public Enemy bails him out and steals the wallet back while Mikey cuts his own dazed promo. Unlike Cryme Tyme, this was actually quite witty.

- 2 Cold Scorpio, Dean Malenko & Cactus Jack v. The Steiner Brothers & Eddie Guerrero. There’s all sorts of substitutions going on here. Jack is a gift from Raven, you see, because Raven “feels the pain that Scorpio’s people have endured.” And after being lobbed a hanging curve like that one, Jack decides to hit it out of the park by adding that he’s here because he heard that the Steiners are the most over team in wrestling — overrated and overpaid. Oh, SNAP. That’s like an Al Snow-worthy burn. Oh, and Eddie isn’t a wrestler, he’s an acrobatic midget. However, despite being given the gift of awesome that is Cactus Jack, the arena still pops like a bunch of marks for the Steiners.

Scott starts with Dean and they do some mat wrestling, with no advantage apparent. Steinerline and press-slam puts Dean on the floor, as a pop-up with wrestling birthdays informs us that Hawk and Animal were apparently both born on 1/26. Huh. They head out, as Dean gets a baseball slide, and back in Dean dropkicks Scott into the corner. Scott recovers with a belly-to-belly, so Dean brings Scorpio in. Eddie tries his luck and gets pounded down, but gets some neat armdrags to put Scorpio on the floor, and follows with a dive. Back in, brainbuster and Rick comes in. He casually powers Scorpio down while a pop-up lets us know that the Steiners won 15 tag titles in their career. Criss-cross and Scorp takes him down with a headscissors, but messes it up and gets chanted at by the crowd. He comes back with a superkick, but misses a high cross and Rick bulldogs him for two. German suplex follows and Jack comes in.

They brawl to the floor and Rick hits the railing, but comes back with the kind of sick belly-to-belly on the concrete that only Jack would be crazy enough to take. Back in, Steiner powerslams Scorpio for good measure before bringing Eddie back in. Eddie slugs away on Cactus and tries a victory roll, but Jack turns it into an electric chair. Dean comes in and Eddie quickly goes up, but misses the frog splash, and Dean gets two. Butterfly powerbomb gets one. Eddie gets another victory roll, for two. Jack comes in and drops a leg for two. Backdrop gets two. The heels triple-team Eddie and Cactus drops the elbow to the floor, and we take an ad break.

Back with Scorpio dropping Da Bomb on Eddie for two. Powerbomb gets two. Flying splash hits knee, but Scorpio cuts off a tag. I like that they’re sticking with what works here, keeping it old school. Eddie gets a rana, and it’s hot tag to Rick Steiner. Belly to belly superplex on Scorpio gets two. The faces give each of the heels a triple-team Doomsday Device, which gets two on Dean in the end. However, they do a quick reversal sequence and Dean rolls up Eddie for the finish. ***1/4 There was a major-league style clash looming here, with power guys, brawlers, and mat wrestlers all mixed together, but they went with the old “cut off the ring and distract the ref” stuff and it WORKED as a result. There is a lesson to be learned here — if in doubt, stick with what has worked for the past 50 years.

- We finish with highlights of Mikey v. Sandman from WrestlePalooza 95, as Mikey beats him in a non-title match and gets to cane him as a result. However, Sandman retaliates by caning the shit out of Mikey, and Public Enemy is forced to intervene on Mikey’s behalf. So do the Gangstas, and a brawl erupts, setting up a six-man for the 8/26 show.

The Pulse:

Well, it was a one-match show, but it was a pretty darn good match.

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for World Championship Wrestling - June 15 1985

Oh, baby! With the state of wrestling such as it is these days, I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to WWE 24/7, because I figured that at least I wouldn’t have to watch The Great Khali there. Little did I know that they’d be tossing entire episodes of World Championship Wrestling my way, along with entire RAWs, Nitros, ECW TV shows, Boston Garden house shows, and pretty much anything else you could stand to watch within a month. I’m HOME!

So this of course the original Muthaship, which aired on TBS in the timeslot that eventually became WCW Saturday Night, and generally featured all the big angles and such. The studio is tiny, but the crowd is very vocal, which I think was an inspiration for the original run of Monday Night RAW.

- Hosted by Tony Schiavone, as David Crockett is out because of an injury angle with Nikita Koloff.

- US champion Magnum TA joins us to start, letting us know that he really is on Ric Flair’s level and he’ll prove it.

- “Mad Dog” Buzz Sawyer & Dick Slater v. Mark Hill & Ron Rossi. Slater & Sawyer are pretty upset at the Andersons over an attack on Brett Wayne Sawyer, and they decide to take out their frustrations on these poor jobbers. Sawyer pacing around the apron like Warrior on a caffeine binge shows a weird kind of charisma that he had, although his untimely death in 1992 obviously cut that short. This is mainly Sawyer pounding away on the jobbers and Slater working the arm, until Slater DDTs Hill and finishes with a figure-four.

- Manny Fernandez joins us with words for the Koloffs, just before turning heel actually. A pop-up trivia balloon informs us that he held the NWA World tag titles with Dusty Rhodes in 1984 and then with Rick Rude in 1986. Cool.

- Manny Fernandez v. Randy Barber. Ironically, Barber is bald, and that’s about all you need to know here, as Manny finishes fast with a flying forearm.

- Dusty Rhodes, fresh off another eye injury, lets us know that indeed he’s still the biggest star in the business, without equal, but Tully Blanchard gave him a boo-boo and now it’s time for some pain blues and agony. Yes, he really did used to cut promos where he called himself the biggest star in the business while booking the shows.

- Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant v. Larry Clark. Usual squash for Jimmy, as he chokes the jobber out and then finishes with the back elbow/elbowdrop combo.

- Ric Flair, in his Sunday best, lets Nikita know that he now has Flair’s full attention after attacking David Crockett, and then runs down the list of challengers he’s going to beat, finishing up with a run about how snazzy his suit is. Flair was so cool, kids; you can’t even know from the joke he’s turned into.

- Kamala v. Alan Martin. Pop-up trivia: Kamala started as “Sugarbear” Harris in the 70s. Total destruction here, ending with the flying splash.

- Magnum TA v. Carl Styles. Magnum, in no mood to dick around after Flair ran him down in the previous interview, finishes under 20 seconds with the belly-to-belly.

- Slater & Sawyer have more words for the Andersons and Flair to set something up later tonight.

- National tag team titles: Ole & Arn Anderson v. Joe Lightfoot & The Italian Stallion. Stallion was one of those jobbers that they were always trying to find excuses to push, but just never found the way to do it. Stallion grabs a headlock on Arn to start, and tries to work Ole’s arm. Lightfoot continues that thread, but the Andersons return the favor on Stallion. Classic Andersons ensues, as they trap Stallion in the corner and work the body part, showing textbook examples of everything that commentators always stress when there’s a tag match going on. Lightfoot comes back in and gets double-teamed, and they destroy the arm while distracting the ref and cutting off the ring and all the other stuff right out of tag team 101. Arn with the gourdbuster to set up Ole coming off the top onto the poor guy’s shoulder, and the ref stops the match. Textbook.

- Tully Blanchard joins us to express his deepest sympathies for Dusty, and tells him to back off or suffer another eye injury.

- Nikita Koloff threatens Ric Flair from backstage at the Omni a few weeks before this show. Man, I’m glad he at least got the Russian accent down later on.

- The Barbarian v. Jason Walker. Very early in Barbie’s career here, as he dispatches Walker with a press slam, big boot and falling headbutt.

- Tully Blanchard v. Gerald Findley. Findley actually gets Tully on the run with an attack from behind and a dropkick, but Tully finishes him quickly with the slingshot suplex, still one of my favorite old-school finishers.

- Ric Flair joins us for more rhetoric about how no one is on his level, so Magnum interrupts and tells him to put up or shut up: $1000 cash if Flair can beat him within the 10 minutes left in the show. And we’re on.

- Ric Flair v. Magnum TA. Flair throws a chop, but gets slugged down and dropkicked. Flair slugs away again, but gets backdropped. He tries tossing Magnum and following with a suplex, but it’s reversed for two. Flair drops a knee to finally take over, while the Andersons join us for commentary and reveal that Flair is their “cousin”, thus sowing the seeds of you-know-what. Flair takes over with an abdominal stretch, but TA cradles for two. They slug it out and it’s a Flair flip to put him on the floor, but he goes up and gets a flying axehandle for two. They fight outside and Flair sends him into the post to isolate the arm. Back in, he goes to work on it, but TA sends him into the turnbuckle. Flair backs off and gets backdropped again for two. Big splash misses for Magnum, but the backslide gets two. Press slam gets two. They slug it out, but TA whiffs on a dropkick and Flair gets two. Flair goes up and gets slammed in the days before that was cliched, and Magnum gets the figure-four and holds on until time expires at 10:00. Solid TV main event. *** The Andersons attack to make a point about protecting their own, but Slater & Sawyer make the save, and we’re out of time!

The Bottom Line:

Ah, the old days, when they’re get people over by giving them promo time and build feuds by logical actions.

So yeah, watching the hour-long preview of the MSG show on the 24/7 preview channel (with uncut Dragon-Roma, Harts-Nasties and Roberts-Quake matches) convinced me to take the plunge, so while setting up the service change to the new apartment, I subscribed and put $10 a month in Vince’s pocket.  However, from what fellow Saskachewanite James Kalyn tells me, it’s not currently macrovision protected so at least I can record the crap out of it if nothing else.  From what I can see, however, it looks fabulous and it’s pretty much exactly what I”m looking for in a wrestling channel — a mix of old and new school and not confining me to specific timeslots, like having to catch Ring of Honor at odd hours of the day on The Fight Network. 

I’m sure Wrestlemania month will be pretty damn awesome, too.

http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=18328

Really, you had to know that he’d tear another quad sooner or later.  Although maybe Vince can hook him up with whatever superhuman healing powers he used in 2005.  Still, this pretty much hoops the obvious DX v. Cena triple threat match at Wrestlemania, leaving them to actually be creative or something.  I think Cena v. Michaels could still work.

Onto other topics, I was watching the free preview bits of WWE 24/7 last night, which I still haven’t gotten around to ordering yet because of the impending move, and the Monday Night Wars preview in particular is a pretty good chunk of awesome for no money.  This month you get the 11/28/96 shows, cut down to about 30 minutes each on the preview show.  RAW is featuring Mankind v. Austin in a match hovering around ***1/2 and Sid’s lame attempt at a babyface interview following his win over Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series.  Then the Nitro portion gives you Juvy v. La Parka (in his debut) where they get like 15 minutes and also hit ***1/2, with the crowd going crazy for La Parka at the end but nothing coming of it.  Then you get Jeff Jarrett v. Bobby Eaton in a nothing match, but it’s where Flair brings him into the Four Horsemen and the universe nearly collapses in on itself, followed by the closing angle with Eric Bischoff joining the nWo and screwing over Roddy Piper. That’s an hour of stuff, all really good, for zero dollars, and I haven’t even checked out the MSG preview show yet. 

Check it out — Macho Man v. Dragon from 1987, with classic windpipe-crushing action for the finish.  Awesome, I haven’t seen this in forever except for brief clips of the throat-carnage during Wrestlemania III, and I forgot how great the match leading up to the big angle was.

Part one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhoCLtEd9PM
Part two:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn7MnXFhM6s

My email is jvc113@gmail.com. My AOL IM is jvc918. Feel free to drop me a line, although I’ve got to say I have been ignoring some chat requests.

I GET LETTERS. Answering Todd’s question (for everyone) on Vince Russo. I don’t think he’s the “epitome of evil,” but I do think he marginalizes the tag division and X-Division, TNA’s strengths over the WWE, and the stuff I’d prefer to be watching when I tune in on Thursdays (or early Fridays, or late night Saturday’s). The X-Division has been marginalized and the tag division is non-existent. That’s why I complain so vehemently about his booking.

Here’s some random TV thoughts… I love The Knights of Prosperity, but In Case of Emergency should probably already be cancelled. Also, I can’t believe I just started watching a show as funny as Scrubs this week.

(more…)

“

Ha, I knew that Charlie Utter wasn’t really the miniature killer, and I figured that taunting Grissom would be just too tempting for him to resist.  This has been a really great season of CSI thus far and it’ll be worse off without Gil for a month, especially with moments of geek love like the one at the end of tonight’s ep.  They should promote Hodges to supervisor just to annoy everyone.  And Catherine’s interrogation technique — AWESOME.  I know I’d talk. 

Scrubs and their tribute to House was pretty good, too, although the orange skin thing was a bit obvious from the clues given and the broken heart didn’t feel like a satisfying payoff.  Dave Foley was great in his recurring role as Dr. Headtrip, however. 

Yes, the speculation was true, Fox is cancelling The OC.  Now, I know it’s a show that was very important to a lot of people, but please don’t go all emo and start cutting yourself. Remember, there’s still The Real World on MTV to satisfy your need for crappy TV. 

This has been a public service message from Scott’s Blog of Doom.