Botched!: Stone Cold’s Kick, Penelope’s Ford’s Missed Rana, More

Hi, hello & welcome to Botched! We live in interesting times, and to be honest, sometimes the entire state of affairs feels like a gigantic botch. WWE & AEW are doing their best to give us something, and their effort deserves some applause.

Here are some moments that don’t deserve applause…

1. We no longer wrestle during commercials.

Personally, I’m fine with this. There’s no good reason for WWE Superstars to continue their wrestling match in an empty arena during a commercial break. I mean, ideally they would be continuing in front of an audience, but in these times certain concessions have to be made.

The international feed of SmackDown shows they just stopped wrestling while the show was in commercial breaks! pic.twitter.com/ygZIWjZTpT

— SI Wrestling (@SI_wrestling) March 14, 2020

They just need to make sure they aren’t being shown on television while the pause button is in effect.

2. Villano Fail

This is probably the first time I’ve seen everybody sell a move except the person who was originally intended to.

deep sigh pic.twitter.com/jauw2tOD2w

— luchablog (@luchablog) March 14, 2020

3. Penelope didn’t quite get all of that one

Personally, I’m all about having more Penelope Ford on my television. AEW should do some stuff with her. The four-way match on Dynamite two weeks ago wasn’t bad at all, but did have one rough spot:

https://twitter.com/ThaVibezz/status/1240444016317128705

At least Riho was also there to do the move.

4. Kick WHAM Stunner

Stone Cold Steve Austin can’t hit those kicks to the chest like he used to.

In other news, it would appear that Byron Saxton has recovered from his stiff kick to the balls by Stone Cold Steve Austin last week on Raw.

I still laugh and wince every time i see this 😂#RAW pic.twitter.com/Q8OhU8Q9ZQ

— Owen @ WrestleNews365 (@365Wrestle) March 24, 2020

Corey Graves hasn’t been on television lately because he’s been laughing about this ever since it happened.

5. A Reader Dedication

Been meaning to send you this for weeks. Shockingly, I’m home now with tons of time on my (frequently washed) hands.

I first noticed this during our Royal Rumble party. Felt it could be a spoiler at the time, and it of course seemed confirmed given how things “claymored out”.

However, given that the “E” hasn’t atoned and corrected this and used the same ad several other times is all the more reason for me to shine a spot on this blunder.

https://youtu.be/BlTVy6WWJTQ

A variety of wrestler footage appears in the commercial: some in ring. Some of the promotional variety, the canned actions we’re accustomed to (Braun or Seth posing/screaming).

But then there’s Drew. At 15 seconds in is our Botch. Undoubtably, Drew appears as an awful CGI image, a fabricated version that wouldn’t even cut it for WWE 2K20.

My highly likely hunch is that once Drew’s prominent role in the Rumble and ‘Mania was made known, it became an imperative to include him in the spot, even if doing so was corny, embarrassing, and amateur Photoshop level at that.

Thanks for finding a slot in the week for this along with all the inevitable “empty arena” blunders.

Take care of yourself Steve. No Mandible Claws or Eye Rakes for you :-).

To be fair, Drew looks like a CGI image most of the time.Thanks to Brian for contributing this week!

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. See you next time!