Scott’s Blog of Doom

Gotta admit, I was curious to see where they went with the “no World title” thing after the PPV,and although I had thought they’d do the CM Punk pretty much as they did, except at the wedding (Batista objects, beats the crap out of the groom, CM Punk reveals himself as the organist or something and cashes in the shot), but I guess they REALLY wanted someone to get the belt right away.   I still don’t think they believe in Punk as champion and he’s probably there to transition the belt into the JBL-Cena feud, but he’s now World champion and that’s something I didn’t think they’d pull the trigger on, so good for them.  However, that aside, I REALLY enjoyed what they did with John Cena tonight.  Normally he’s the guy who defies the odds and annoys the men in the crowd, but they did a pretty brilliant twist on his usual MO and found a way to make him the overwhelming underdog for once, by making the situation so unfair that you HAD to cheer for him.  And making Cryme Tyme into his backup is a pretty good way to use their “street cred” to help Cena and set up a natural dynamic against ultra-rich, ultra-white JBL.  So hey, even if they’re bombing, they’re trying new stuff, because did you ever think you’d see World champion CM Punk, IC champion Kofi Kingston, and tag champions Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase at the same time?  This exactly what they need to do with ratings down — concentrate on building new stars and make the fans buy different people as stars. If it works, you’ve got new blood, and if it fails, then it probably couldn’t get much worse anyway.  So big ups and here’s hoping they don’t fuck it up.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Night of Champions 2008

- Really, you’d think that “Clash of Champions” would have been a better name. I think it’s an interesting idea to try to put more focus on the titles by making every match here a title match, but it kind of defeats the purpose when there’s so many titles that you can do a whole PPV of title matches in the first place.

- Live from Dallas, TX

- Your hosts are many and varied.

(more…)

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Champions of the AWA

- I can’t remember if I ever saw this one when they were doing the lame AWA "best of" stuff on PPV years back, but it’s short so what the heck. The connection with the Gold theme is pretty obvious.

- Hosted by Gene Okerlund, so it’s obviously part of that series.

Madusa v. Sherri Martel. From May of 1987. Sherri would have been champion at this point, but this isn’t a title match. Madusa’s hair is teased beyond belief here. Madusa overpowers Sherri to start and Sherri runs away and seeks refuge with Kevin Kelly. Back in, Madusa takes her down with an armbar. Sherri reverses and works on a headscissors, but Madusa pounds the arm and takes her down for two. Madusa cranks on the arm and pounds away on the ropes, then grabs a headlock. A really bad dropkick gets two. Madusa was clearly super-green at this point. Sherri knees her out of the corner and follows with a small package for two. Weak clothesline gets two. Sherri rams her into the corner for two. Jackknife cradle gets two, but Madusa suddenly no-sells and comes back with a slam for two. Sherri goes low and it’s a draw at 7:35. That’s a pretty short draw. Madusa was just brutal here, but Sherri held it together well enough. *1/2 Sherri never lost the title, giving it up to jump to the WWF and leaving Madusa to win it in a bogus tournament months later.

AWA World tag titles: Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens v. Crusher & Bruiser. From June of 1973 in Chicago according to the graphic, but if it’s the title change then it’s June of 1975 in actuality, and it’s film footage rather than the usual videotape. Dick the Bruiser holds Stevens in a neck vice and goes to a surfboard, and Bockwinkel comes in and gets abused in the corner. Crusher gets caught in the corner, however, and double-teamed, and the tape starts jumping forward with clumsy edits. Crusher stomps on Bockwinkel’s stomach and applies a stomach claw to win the first fall. Greg Gagne, on commentary, goes on about how the champions had held the belts for "three years" at that point, which makes no sense because if it WAS 1973 then they would have just won it in January. If it’s 75 then they’ve been champions for 10 months at this point, which is impressive but hardly the length claimed by the Gagnes here. Anyway, Crusher stomps on Bockwinkel in the second fall and pounds him down for two. It’s a donnybrook in the heel corner and Crusher starts bleeding as we jump forward again. Crusher runs into a cheapshot from Stevens and Bockwinkel pins him to win the second fall. Third fall sees Crusher bleeding all over the place, but he rams the champions’ heads together and tags Bruiser back in. Bruiser whips Bockwinkel into a punch from Crusher, then they ram the champions together and Bruiser gets two on Stevens. The champs try to run, but Bruiser hauls Stevens back in and then tosses him before slugging away on the cut. Back in, Crusher and Bruiser double-team him, but Bockwinkel hits Bruiser with brass knuckles and Stevens pins him to retain at 12:41 aired. I’m not a big Crusher/Bruiser fan. *1/2

AWA World tag title: The Road Warriors v. Jimmy Garvin & Steve Regal. Regal and Garvin work Hawk over in the corner, but Hawk no-sells it and tosses them. Over to Animal, who overpowers Regal and no-sells his offense. Animal grabs a headlock, and Regal can’t escape. Over to Hawk, but Regal rakes the eyes multiple times and walks into an elbow. Hawk slugs away and adds a kneelift, but Garvin tags in and chokes Hawk out with the tag rope. Hawk fires back with knees and puts Garvin down with a powerslam, but Regal comes in and prevents a tag. Regal slugs away, but Hawk no-sells it, forcing the heels to double-team again and allowing Garvin to use the tag rope again. Hawk slugs back on Garvin and makes the hot tag to Animal, who comes in with a shoulderblock for two. Clothesline gets two. It’s BONZO GONZO and Hawk puts Regal down with a big boot and gets two. The Freebirds hit the ring and Hawk leaves to deal with them while Animal powerslams Garvin and clotheslines Regal, but when he goes for a slam on Garvin, Michael Hayes nails him off the top rope and Garvin falls on top for the pin and the titles at 9:37. Even in losing the titles and leaving the promotion they still wouldn’t let anyone else look like anything but total jobbers. *

AWA World title: Nick Bockwinkel v. Buck Zumhoffe There’s not really much rhyme or reason to these choices. This is from the All-Star Wrestling TV show in 1979. Bockwinkel controls with a headscissors on the mat, holding him there by using the hair. Buck fights out, so Bockwinkel forearms him in the gut. Buck gets fired up and works the arm, but Bockwinkel rams him into the turnbuckle and pounds him with knees. Buck fights back, but puts his head down and gets caught with a knee by Bockwinkel. Nick drops a knee from the middle rope and finishes with a piledriver at 5:55. And we care about this match, why? *

AWA World title: Rick Martel v. Stan Hansen. They don’t even spell Hansen’s name right here, as they’ve got it as "Hanson". JIP with Stan holding an abdominal stretch before Martel dumps him to escape. Small package gets two for Martel, but Hansen stomps him down again and puts him in the boston crab, bracing his head against the turnbuckles to prevent Rick from breaking out, thus winning the AWA World title at 2:00 shown. This was considered controversial at the time, but really it’s perfectly legal.

And we finish with a roll call of tag team champions and World champions, as they omit several of them.

This was pretty awful, nuff said.

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for World Championship Wrestling - May 17 1986

- Man, another short show this week. Weren’t the Braves usually out of contention by May anyway?

- Your hosts are Tony & David.

- Jim Cornette immediately butts in, offering the "Mama Cass Elliot Workout Tape" to Baby Doll and ranting extra-loud this week about the James Boys and rednecks in general. Man, he’s one to talk.

(more…)

Here’s the rest of Jerome’s three-part story on Benoit.

http://nationalsportsreview.com/2008/06/28/chris-benoit-one-year-later-part-2/
http://nationalsportsreview.com/2008/06/29/chris-benoit-one-year-later-part-3/

Thanks, Jerome, good stuff.

OK, I’ll probably catch hell for saying this, but for me Wanted is the best movie of the year thus far.  Going in, it looked like a really badass action movie with Angelina Jolie, sure, but this one was a rare case where the previews actually served their purpose:  They got me interested in the movie without giving away a damn thing.  The best way I can sum up this movie is "joyous".  This is a joyous movie about how fucking wonderful it is to be alive when others around you are dead.  If I was going to do one of those lame Hollywood buzz lines, I’d call it "Fight Club by way of the Matrix", although it lacks the pretension of either one of those movies.  This one truly had everything I’d been waiting for in a summer movie this year:  GREAT death scenes, interesting characters who you actually CARE about, Morgan Freeman at his most calmly badass, a HUGE plot twist that isn’t even hinted at in the previews, and naked Angelina Jolie.  I don’t think it’s gonna do anything against the Wall-E juggernaut, but I’m totally going to see it again next week, and it’ll probably get that cult buzz thing going when it comes out on DVD, like Fight Club. 

Highly, highly recommended.

Well, JD Dunn dropped my name in his Backlash 2002 review, so I thought I might as well repost my own rant because I remember being super-snarky in the Austin-Undertaker match, but didn’t recall being particularly mean to Hogan-HHH.  Hoo boy, was I wrong!  That was a couple of weeks before I went to Vegas, too, I should have been in a better mood, so they must have really stunk it up to piss me off like that.

(Edit to add:  "Choked like Osgood"?  Boy, that one came back to bite me this year, I guess.  Non-hockey fans, carry on…)

- Live from Kansas City

- Your hosts are JR & King

(more…)

So with the HD package I subscribed to came a free preview of all the HD channels for two months, which meant WGN HD and thus I could watch Smackdown in all it’s HHHD glory if I wanted.  But then Vickie Guerrero came on in 1080i and scared the shit out of me so I stopped watching and switched to HDNet for Inside MMA instead.  Granted Bas Rutten looks scary as well at that resolution, but he’s supposed to. 

On with the letters…

While watching many of the WWE DVDs, it seems Flair is always willing to say nice things about Dusty, but not so much for Hulk Hogan.  Do you think this is because Dusty was a genuinely a better draw and worker than Hogan or that Flair was jealous of Hogan’s success with his limited tools?  Or was it just that Hogan was with the rival promotion at the time?  How would you compare Hogan and Dusty?

Well, Dusty appears to at least be a decent human being with some concept of compassion, unlike Hogan, who said that this guy (warning: yucky stuff there) got what he deserved.  Good to know I can now the hate the person as much as I hated the character. 

Anyway, despite their professional rivalries, Dusty and Flair were pretty close.  If Flair had truly hated Big Dust he wouldn’t have agreed to drop the title to him.  Yeah, they stopped seeing eye-to-eye after they ended up on opposite sides of the power struggles in WCW later on, but they both were fine with doing business with each other.  I would imagine much of Flair’s problem with Hogan comes from his association with Eric Bischoff in WCW and all the problems that caused for Ric, but that’s just speculation on my part since it’s not like they’re all talking about it.

And comparing Dusty to Hogan?  I’d actually call Hogan the better worker and he certainly proved to have the longevity.  Dusty had that weird charisma and was never really a top-level heel, while Hogan was on top in both heel and face positions, so I’d have to call it a sweep for Hulk, brother.

   Long time reader and triple crown book owner, looking forward to being a grand slam owner.  I had a couple of questions for you. I started watching wrestling towards the end of 92 and am well aware that 93 sucked, but I think it could have been so much better.  I may be biased because it makes up some of my first wrestling memories, but when it comes to hart/lawler, was this feud a legitimate draw?  Did it deserve an actual payoff  (or should they have let summerslam be the payoff? I am aware that this was one of those "keep bret busy" feuds and the lawsuit messed up the payoff, but I remember being way more into this than anything that main evented in 93.

The feud drew OK but it was never in a top position on the card or anything so it’s hard to make any blanket statements about it one way or the other.  The payoff was supposed to be Survivor Series 93 with the Hart Family getting their ultimate revenge on Lawler, but as you noted the whole rape thing messed that up.  I think that it was pretty awesome in 93 with the Vince Russo-ish booking of the Summerslam match, but it was definitely diminishing returns after that, especially when it dragged into 1995 with the Kiss My Foot stuff.  Nothing else in the WWF in 93 had the kind of pure crowd heat that they did, though, even if the actual in-ring was a night off for Bret every time.

I’ve been watching the AWA’s ESPN shows, and we’re now in 1988. So here are some questions
#1) Were the Top Guns really that awful? or am I comparing them to the rest of the roster (which mainly sucked). The Top Guns were bland and couldn’t give promos, but they didn’t almost kill people like Rocky Mountain Thunder, or continually cut promos like Soldat Ustinov, or anything like that. So, are the Top Guns being overly compared to the sort of teams they replaced (The Rockers and the Rock’n'Roll Express)?
#2) Who/what made the AWA the most money? Big K, The Celebrity Interviews, Rocky Mountain Thunder, or interviewing amateur wrestlers? I’m guessing RMT made the AWA the most money since he probably paid Verne. Although the AWA would have lost money if they paid RMT in foodstamps.
#3) Which 80s wrestler constantly produced the worst interviews? For the AWA, I think it’s Soldat Ustinov. Ustinov’s godawful accent and the tendancy to keep giving him interview time every week makes him a strong contender. The Top Guns weren’t as awful as Ustinov. Paul Diamond sucked on the mic but had a manager. Madusa also sucked on the mic.
#4) Why didn’t Badd Company make it somewhere else? Were they just considered good since the rest of the AWA sucked? or was it a mullet-related issue?

1)  I’ve gotten this question or variations thereof a lot lately, so ESPN must be highlighting a lot of Top Guns or something.  I think that people, myself included, are comparing them directly to teams like the Rockers and Rock N Roll Express precisely for the reason you mentioned — they were marketed as a direct replacement for those teams and clearly they couldn’t match up to them.  Ricky Rice was a decent worker and everything, but it was just the wrong time in the wrong place for those guys.

2)  Everything in that list trembles before the might of Greg Gagne’s pasty white complexion and AWA TV title.

3)  I’ll skip the obligatory joke about Madusa sucking on other things to advance in the business and just note that indeed Ustinov was bad, although to their credit there were a lot of really good promo guys because I don’t remember too many of the bad ones. 

4)  Mullets can only help, my friend.  But I mean, they did make it, kind of, as the Orient Express II in the WWF, but I think their overall lack of success had to do with Pat Tanaka not looking like a star, because god knows people have been trying to get Paul Diamond over as long as he’s been wrestling.  Keep in mind that Badd Company were a big fish in a small pond by that point, too.

I have been a fan of yours for at least 10 years now - Please keep up the great work.
I was just checking out www.wrestlinggonewrong.com (very cool site) and saw a match from Summerslam 2005 where Shawn Michaels was just openly over-selling for Hogan because of some behind the scenes beef.  It is some of the most hilarious selling I have ever seen.
I wanted to see your opinion on it, and checked out the rant archives link, but the link is currently dead at Inside Pulse.  Did you do a Summerslam 2005 rant?  I would love to see it.
Also, since I am a horrible shill, I run a website called SeatsPro.com.  I offer some of the cheapest prices on Sports tickets, Concert tickets, etc. (and an extra 5% off with the code "special")  If you could see your way to giving me a plug, that would rule.

Nice stealth plug there, man.

Here’s my original review of the show:

  http://pulsewrestling.com/2006/08/19/42131/

Shawn’s selling was just playing the game, nothing more.  He was the 80s meanie heel and Hogan was the conquering hero for the night, and it was no big deal.  Maybe it’s just because I’m a child of 80s wrestling that it didn’t particularly bother me, I dunno.

Long time reader here, never commented on your board before.

Would now be an accurate time to take the "poochie" nickname away from Kevin Nash and officially award it to John Cena? Not in terms of laziness, but in reference to the Poochie character on The Simpsons. Obviously WWE wants John Cena to be so many things to appeal to as many people as possible, very much like the rappin’ surfer dog with attitude. Thoughts?

Well the Poochie joke with Nash was for one specific line in the Simpsons about Poochie ("Also, when Poochie isn’t on screen, everyone should stop and ask ‘Where’s Poochie?’…"), not because of the character of the dog or anything.  And I can’t blame them for trying to spread Cena’s appeal to everyone in the fanbase, because no one creates the kind of fan reactions, positive or negative, that he does, so he SHOULD be pushed as the top guy.  In fact, he should be pushed as the top face against Vickie Guerrero judging by the reactions she gets.  If anyone could turn him into the hero of the entire crowd, it’s her.  I wouldn’t pull out the term "nuclear heat" for many people, but for her I would.  It’s an awesome heel gimmick and it’s just a shame that she’s not an actual worker because she’d make millions if she was.

Anyway, we’re off track here again.  Back to the mailbag.

Oh, god, not an NWA lineage question to finish…

Hey Scott this is Poopy Sean from the blog of doom. I’m writing a column for the cool kids table on the NWA title being brought into ROH. I started thinking back about  the history of the title and I’m good up until the WWF era. I know that Turner bought out Crockett and not the whole NWA. So who exactly did Vince buy the license from, and what happened after the angle failed?

Are we talking about the 1998 failed angle where Vince Russo humiliated Jim Cornette via the New Midnight Express?  No one bought anything there, it was just a case of the NWA looking for free publicity and the WWF trying to appeal to the traditional WCW audience.   It worked out for no one.

Or are we talking about Black Saturday?  Because that was just Vince buying one specific promotion and the TV time that came with it.  It was never said to be NWA-affiliated. 

OK, one last one.

Have you watched much wrestling from the 50’s -60’s?  If so, do you find that it’s too different from the stuff you grew up with to be enjoyable? Are there any guys from that era whose matches still stand out?

Most of it is just too different for me.  Even 70s wrestling tends to be tough to sit through because there’s no emotional investment for me with any of it.  I tend to like the "high flyer" style guys from that era, though, like Carpentier and Ricky Starr and Sammy Steamboat, because their gymnastic take on it is closer to the modern style. 

Next time:  Rocky/Angle, the Hall lawsuit, MORE Bret Hart, HHH on Smackdown, and other stuff. 

Jerome Cusson writes…

"This is part one of my Chris Benoit story. I will also send parts two and three whenever they are posted."

http://nationalsportsreview.com/2008/06/27/chris-benoit-one-year-later-part-1/

And of course you should all check it out because I’m one of the people interviewed for it! 

In other book-related news, I got which is basically the final proofs from the publisher today and the book looks fantastic.  We’re still looking for as many endorsements as we can get in the form of quotes from notable people, although we’ve got some great feedback from Derek Burgan and people in ROH, and I’m hoping that Trish Stratus is able to get back to us in time to use something from her as well.  Once I get the proofs finalized and get off my ass to put the dungeonofdeath.com website up, there’ll be excerpts from the book to read as well. 

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for WCW Thunder - August 13 1998

- OK, so a bit of background before we start. I’m going to assume that not everyone is a longtime follower of my stuff, so let me just preface this review by noting that way back in 1998, when a bunch of us formed an idealistic young wrestling website called Wrestlemaniacs.com (and later CBS Wrestleline.com), my part in the machine was reviewing the most god-awful show to grace prime-time television, aka WCW Thunder, and it became the bane of my existence over the course of the two years that I recapped it. Apparently a lot of people quite enjoyed my pain because my reviews were popular and I eventually took over RAW when CRZ left the site, but Thunder was always hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles or something. So they pulled this one, seemingly at random, to show as part of the "Gold Rush" month because there’s a title change on it (a rarity for the B-Show to end all B-Shows, believe me), and I figured "Ah, easy review, I’ll just pull up the original review and call it a repost." Well, wouldn’t you know, for whatever reason I skipped that week back in 1998. I bet the guys who pick the shows for this channel are just fucking with me now.

(more…)