411’s WWE Confidential Report 07.12.03

REMEMBER: IF YOU SEE AND HEAR IT HERE, WHAT ARE YOU CHEERING ABOUT?
I feel like I’ve been dipped in amphetamines and fired out of a cannon into a beehive of activity on the sun. It’s like I’m a big battery full of not-hating-doing-the-Confidential-recap instead of a corrosive acid. Could it be the return of commercial recaps? Or maybe the cool Pirate movie with the adorable Keira Knightly, whom I love? Perhaps its all thanks to revisiting Portastatic’s “The Nature Of Sap”, where I pulled this week’s heading from. God knows it isn’t from the quality of this show. It’s Confidentialicious!

SEGMENT #1: WHAT’S GAIL KIM ALL ABOOT?
You lousy Canadians. How many of our wrestling belts must you have before you leave us in peace? You’ve got Gail Kim, the new Women’s Champion, from Toronto. One of La Resistance (Sylvain?) is French-Canadian. Rey Mysterio is from Saskatchewan. What’s next? Well, I may be apprehensive aboot Gail being the new Women’s Champion, but Gail isn’t angry. She’s “honored” to be “blessed” with winning the belt. She was nervous before her Raw debut, but once she heard the crowd response, she was at ease. I’d never realized that feigned interest constituted a response. Maybe that’s why I’m not Women’s Champion. Gail, much like every other belt holder besides Chris Benoit on his last day at WCW, called winning the title “a dream come true.” And that dream started in America’s Heartland, Toronto. Gail grew up a wrestling fan, watching it every week while she went to school and played every sport that she could. Seriously. Soccer, field hockey, track and field, it’s like the “club montage” from Rushmore. It just keeps going. I think she made up a few in there, but I’m not sure what the Canadian public schools are like. Zero gravity football, is that an elective? But despite excelling at sports (I assume. Her successes, scholastic, athletic or otherwise, are never mentioned. I’m even assuming she graduated high school.), Gail set her sights on attending wrestling school. She made a life-altering decision like that for the best reason in the world: she sort-of thought she’d be good at it. That’s it. Not that she’d had an epiphany while watching a match at Madison Square Garden or bravely became a novelty act after losing a leg. She just wanted to see if she could do it. Wow. Can’t wait to read that biography. So after finding out that she was good at it, Gail started working for Squared Circle Pro Wrestling. She prefers the lucha libre style of wrestling, but also likes technical wrestlers like Chris Benoit. Gail thinks her Asianosity is an asset. Speaking of asset, Gail recently had her first Diva lingerie photo shoot. I’d like to thank Confidential reader Jerry L. for submitting that amazingly tactful segway. You’re the best, Jerry. Just don’t get your heart set on Gail. Velocity recapper and #68 on this year’s IWC 100, Patrick Brower, hereby calls “dibs” on Gail Kim. So any other wrestling reporters or pundits who try to snuggle up verbally to Ms. Kim will be hunted down and forced to recap A-Train matches. “Truly, a fate worse than a fate worse than death.”

COMMERCIAL BREAK:
-The commercials! Dear God, the commercials. I’d say I’ve missed them, but, you know. First up is the Rey Mysterio Fanatic PPV.
-Gary The Rat begs the question, “Why would you make a show where Kelsey Grammar is even LESS likable?”
-Some androgynous kid wants to race me on behalf of Nike.
-1-800-CALL-ATT stretches credibility far beyond breaking as HWMNBN picks up not one, but two hot chicks. And they aren’t even all that skanky. Hmm. I’ll say hookers, then.
-Johnny English. Look, I know this doesn’t look all that funny from the commercials. But it’s Rowan Atkinson! Would it kill you to have a little faith? I know, I know, you’re a wrestling fan. It’s in your nature to tear apart and revile everything you see. But man, it’s friggin’ Blackadder.
-A fat, greasy version of Nicholas Brendon tries to hit on a cute girl by giving her a free demo disk and Zelda game when she buys a Gamecube. There must be some awful way to turn “demo disk” into a sexual innuendo, but I can’t think of it. Christ, where are you when I need you Lawler?
-Comcast Digital Phone… man, I’m so out of practice with these things. They used to go really fast, one time through, no hassles. Now I’m busting my ass and all I have to show for are really bad, non-jokes. Have you been reading these? “Hookers”? That’s supposed to be funny? God, these better get funny in a hurry or I resort to working blue. Ah, fuck it. Why keep handicapping myself? Sorry, Zach.
-Comcast Digital Phone assumes that people will be so fucking ecstatic about their damn phone bills being so low that they’ll be shitting their pants in excitement. Ah, vulgarity. The last refuge of the lazy. Or, often, the first refuge. Some sort of refuge, anyway. I can’t be bothered to find out which.
-TNN tries to trick you into watching the same damn Bond movies every month by changing the name of the ad campaign. This time it’s “The Spy In July”. Spike Lee’s trial must have been quite a distraction if that’s the best they’ve got.

WWE REWIND:
-Three weeks ago on Smackdown, Matt Hardy Version 1 beat Fatu Version 3 to advance in the US Title Tournament.

SEGMENT #2: OUTSIDE THE ROPES: VERSION 1
Josh Mathews is responsible for asking Matt Hardy ten questions, but I only count nine. I guess we’ll have to wait for next Confidential DVD to find out what the tenth question was. I hope it was about why Matt is so dreamy.
1) When can we expect to see another version of Matt Hardy?
a) Version 1, stage 1 is still doing well.
2) What will the marketing strategy of the next version be?
a) That’s confidential.
3) Can Mattitude bring peace to the Middle East?
a) “Mattitude believes in miracles.”
4) In Mattimatics, what is the square root of Version 1?
a) Mattitude.
5) What are Shannon Moore’s duties?
a) “Whatever I need him to do.” Generally washing his car, fixing his meals, mowing the lawn.
6) What’s required to be an MFer?
a) Just looking up to Matt is a start.
7) Will Mattitude be spreading into other fields, like a movie?
a) Possibly. “I’m a lot more talented than the Rock.”
8) Where do you get these pants?
a) They’re “an ancient Chinese design for meditation and concentration.”
9) How about a Matt Fact for Confidential?
a) “Matt Hardy is the attraction in the sports entertainment industry.”

COMMERCIAL BREAK:
-Gatorade, for that deep down body need for something bright green and liquid.
-When did the lowest common denominator stop being entertained by Grand Theft Auto? Big Mutha Truckers, available on most video game systems.
-Castrol GTX… that’s it. No more commercials. These suck so bad. And I don’t mean that in a self-pitying way. They’re just unbelievably bad. Probably the least-funny stuff I’ve ever written. That’s counting the depressed mood I was in following the Columbia disaster. I’d usually refrain from saying this kind of thing in case they entertained anyone reading this, but let’s be realistic. I can’t see anyone missing the commercial recaps if they are this unfunny. I’m not saying they’ll never return, but don’t hold your breath. So let’s just stop wasting each other’s time and move on, shall we?

SEGMENT #3: STEVE AUSTIN ON VH1 CLASSIC
Taped a few weeks ago, airing next week, recapped right now. Who says time travel is impossible? C’mon, you eggheads. You wanna go? Huh? Punk. I thought so. Hey, what’s that on my TV? It’s Steve Austin, America’s favorite spousal abuser, after Tawny Kitaen. That girl’s a treasure. Steve’s got an hour to fill on VH1 Classic, picking the videos he wants to see. VH1 Classic is available on most digital cable services. For me, it’s around channel 470-something. No, I won’t tape it for you. You never return those tapes. I mean, I’m just getting the Buffy season finale back NOW? I could’ve used that blank tape, dick. And how long did you keep “Bottle Rocket” for? Between that and “Bring It On” being kept for a year, you’ve got a chance in hell of getting anything of mine. But that’s not to say you can’t watch Steve Austin yourself. He’ll be playing some of his favorites, like “Peace Sells” by Megadeth, and “I’m The Man” by Anthrax. Steve gives a little story before each pick, which was hard for him to do right. He’s used to live fan interaction, so taping something in a studio threw him off. Luckily, no one will be watching him on VH1 Classic, so that’s a lot less pressure. Steve recounts the time he first learned he wasn’t a good singer. He was wearing headphones, singing along to an Ace Frehley Kiss song (for God’s sake, don’t be “Beth”) when his brother came over to talk to him. His brother told him that he couldn’t sing. Steve was shocked. His brother told him that, with the headphones on, he thought he was singing well. But it was actually terrible. Steve tried singing along with the headphones off, and well, anyone who watched Raw a few weeks back knows the rest. Still, how bad must he be to the untalented one in an Ace Frehley duet?

SEGMENT #4: JIMMY HART IN THE STUDIO
Straight from Tampa, Florida, it’s professional hanger-on Jimmy Hart. In addition to sucking up to Hulk Hogan, Jimmy’s other talent is writing music for wrestlers. Along with his writing partner Howard Helm, Jimmy wrote a big mess of entrance themes, some good, some for WCW. There’s a fairly boring section where they try to explain the writing process, but it’s mostly done from instinct, so let’s leave it at that. Jimmy talks about his creation of the 3-Count gimmick for WCW. The three wrestlers from WCW (Gregory Helms, Shannon Moore and Randy Savage) were about to be let go, but Jimmy thought they could be useful in a boy-band style gimmick. So he went to then-booker Kevin Nash (which would make it Thursday) to get permission. Kev said yes, so 3-Count was born and no one got fired. Well, for a few weeks at least. Besides writing the theme for 3-Count, Howard and Jimmy also composed entrances for (big breath): Brutus Beefcake, American Males, Rockers, Prince Icantspellhisnamea, Glamour Girls, “Big Bertha Booty”, Greg The Hammer Valentine, Eric Bischoff, Buff Bagwell, Konnan, Koko B. Ware, Four Horsemen, Kronic, Heartbreak Kid, Repo Man, Tugboat, Dusty Rhodes, “Buzz Foreman”, Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, Ted DiBiase, Honky Tonk Man, Randy+Liz’s wedding and Madusa. And where are their Grammies?

SEGMENT #5: FROM THE VAULT
A-Train doesn’t bother putting on a shirt to pick this week’s match. It’s Undertaker versus Yokozuna in a casket match from Survivor Series ’94. ‘Taker wins, despite interference from Jeff Jarrett, Mister Fuji, King Kong Bundy, Bam Bam and I.R.S. Ugh. A-Train can’t even PICK a good match…

SEGMENT #6: WWE BENEFIT FOR ARMED FORCES FAMILIES
The WWE held a fundraiser for the Benefit For Armed Forces Families, a charity so nice I typed it twice. Shawn Michaels took time off from belittling Canadians to organize this event. I picked up the slack for him, by the way. At a FYE store in New York, Shawn signed a special poster sold for the event. Also signing autographs were Bill Goldberg, Ric Flair, HHH, Kevin Nash, Steve Austin and cute but foreign devil Trish Stratus. What are those crazy Canucks up to? You rascals! Shawn wanted the event to be a success, so he brought a bunch of big names. And Kevin Nash. Ha ha! I only kid because I hate Kevin Nash. Anyway, despite Kevin Nash being there, the WWE managed to raise $15,000 that day for the Benefit. That was only the first signing, so check WWE.com to find out when they’ll be near you. And make sure that Trish isn’t subverting our government.

NEXT WEEK ON CONFIDENTIAL
Mick Foley talks about writing while I talk about Keira Knightly. He has his passions, I have mine. Have a good week.