VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review 06.19.06

VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review

WWE Raw

Vince is backstage and is nice enough to recap the whole DX thing for us. His hair is molded up like Vanilla Ice’s old eraser ‘do. Vince says that tonight DX will be destroyed. He goes to strut off camera, and some random guy pops up. He has a rooster. He says that apparently vince loves cocks. Vince brushes the guy off.. and he continues walking.. and there’s an ALIEN. Hahahaa! It makes a funny noise and follows him until Vince stares the alien down. Vince continues walking and is met by two male strippers. And a fat one. They dance.

Vince continues walking.. and he is interrupted by Dusty Rhodes, who plugs his DVD. Vince continues walking. A guy has a package for delivery for Vince. It’s a penis enlarger. Vince swats it away and storms off. Pretty funny! Vince is coming out to the ring. It took me like 3 bits to realize DX was involved in these pranks.. I’m a little slow, I guess. But that just makes me their target audience.

Vince is in the ring. He says he’s going to make DX’s lives a “living hey-yell”. “Asshole” chant. Shane interrupts him and waves for him to go to the back. Shane comes in the ring. Shane says Steph is in labor, I guess.

Vince in the back is heading out of the building. He tells Coach he’s in charge. Vince says Stephanie has the worst timing. She’s in labor. “That bitch”.

We see a video of Torrie Wilson doing a photo shoot. Her abs are disgusting. She poses with a hot dog, but clearly hasn’t eaten one in years. The cover of the new Maxim-for-slow-kids-WWE magazine will be revealed next week.

Bra & Panties tag match – Torrie Wilson & Maria vs. Candice & Mickie James:

– I don’t know why, but in almost every bra and panties match Torrie busts out an awesome reversal sequence that ends with a top removal. Mickie tags in and tears everyone’s clothes off right away.

– Mickie poses with Candice and then turns on her to not much reaction. Crowd is confused as Mickie tears off Candice’s shorts, poses and tells Candice to get out of the ring.

Winners: Mickie & Candice

Mickie puts JR’s hat on, and a model in the crowd leans over to harass Mickie. Mickie tears her top off too. OK then.

We see a video reminding us that Vengeance’s big match is a lame 5 on 2 sportz entertainment ha ha-fest.

Those damn evil tobacco executives want to BAN SLEEP!?! BUT WE’LL BE SO TIRED!

The Superman-is-gay-sentiment is not helped when the commercial for the movie features one plane mounting another, possibly filling it with fluid.

Poor Charlie Haas’ replay is brought to you by Just for Men. And his entrance took place during the commercial break!

Viscera vs. Charlie Haas:

– Before the start, Haas informs Viscera that Lillian accepted his apology over “pillow talk”. Geez. Somebody throw these writers a bone. How about saying she went to the “Haas of pleasure”, huh? Hard?

– Vis doles out slow strikes, makes an “I will hump you, Charlie Haas” motion and is suddenly jumped by the Spirit Squad. This is an exceptionally juvenile episode of Raw so far, huh?

Winner: Raw finish©

The Squad beats down Charlie, too. They gfve Viscera the 5 man lift. They almost get him as high as their heads, looked OK. “DX” chant as the squad poses. The squad calls out DX.

We see DX backstage chewing gum and mugging. They touch each other intimately. HHH puts his hands on HBK’s cheeks and tells him not to worry, because they’re just cheerleaders. They have two words for the squad, who are still in the ring.. “look up”. Green.. slime falls into the ring. Kind of like when WCW did the blood falling into the ring, except this stuff actually hit the target. You can’t do that on television..? Anyone remember that show? The Squad cartoonishly capers in the slime, falling over and over and over as HHH fake-laughs for an eternity. Seriously, now. Is the WWE for kids again?

Moments ago, we saw something we are seeing again. Remember that? Well here it is again.

Coach walks into Vince’s office.. and there’s Paul Heyman. He says he has a busload of ECW guys in the parking lot. Is The EXTREME ZOMBIE there?! Will the Vampire chew on more taffy?! Will Kelli finally get her bra off? Paul wants an interpromotional match on ECW tomorrow: Edge & Orton vs. Angle & Rob Van Dam. Coach agrees to it. Paul also wants..ewww…noooo… Balls vs. John Cena tonight. Well, the “balls” thing seems to have caught on , so maybe the crowd will sing along. But poor Balls is probably gonna job in 2 minutes flat. Supposedly WWE staffers Michael Hayes and Brian Gewirtz want to make sure Raw looks “strong” in comparison to ECW. I guess that means that ECW guys must be made to look completely inferior. Hey, it worked with the Invasion, right? Oh wait…

JR and King start talking and then we abruptly cut to the back, where Kane is standing in a hallway lit red. We hear JR asking Kane a question. Kane says he knows who the Kayfane is. Kane says he’s someone who he grew up with. Kane says he’s afraid of him. Kane doesn’t want to talk about him.

Umaga vs. John McChesney:

– Didn’t McChesney beat Low Ki in the IWC promotion last year?

– McChesney super-sells a couple chops. Butt to the head. Armando wants the DOOMSDAY~! Black Hole Slam and it’s over!

The WWE likes McChesney’s selling so much they play a couple bits over and over again.

Winner: Umaga

The crowd sings along with Armando, and it’s awesome. He didn’t say his last name, and the crowd said it for him, complete with accent. I still say people are DYING for more catchphrases. That’s part of the fun of going to a wrestling show.

So is the WWE ignoring their own champion or WHAT? I mean, jeez… at least address it. Makes the belt look totally worthless.

John Cena vs. Balls Mahoney:

– Balls comes out to the ECW theme holding a chair with the words “Cena must pay” written on it.

– At first Cena is getting big pops. Then a “Cena sucks” chant breaks out.. followed by little kids chanting “Cena”.

– The “balls” sequence gets 35% participation. Cena sells for a bit then hits his three moves.. Balls tries to use the chair, drop toe hold. STFU. Balls taps.

Really short. Crowd was hot though.

Winner: John Cena

After, Cena advances on Paul.. and it’s SABU! He throws a chair at John… Sabu lays John on the announce table, does the triple chair jump.. Sabu’s MOMENT OF GRACE: He goes to spring off the rope and perches on it, balanced for a good 4 seconds… time stops… this is better than when he did that during Monster’s Ball 2 (probably one of my favorite matches of 2005, easily), then hits a picture-perfect leg drop through the table.

It’s 2006 and once again.. SABU IS GOD.

Cena has a line of blood across his forehead. We see a replay as John tries to get to his feet. He’s mostly cheered when he does get up. Wow.

We see a replay of Sabu’s spot as we come back from commercial. And you can sense the Sabu DVD being in the works.

Randy Orton vs. (gene)Snitsky:

– Randy hits two moves and then cinches in a headlock to total silence. Where’s a “rest hold” chant when you need one? “Let’s go Orton” chant??

– Snitsky hits a sidewalk slam and then tries to do Goldust’s “crowd heat” dance to minimal effect. Neat reversal sequence leads to the RKO and the fans are pleased.

I wonder if this is it for Snitsky? With Goldust gone, what’s Gene to do?

Winner: Randy Orton

Lawler goes to ringside with a mic and interviews Randy. He asks Randy for his thoughts on the ECW tag match. Randy: “I’m more tough than John Cena”. Not an inspired promo, to say the least.

Green is the official color of the DX reunion!

This Week in Wrestling History: Dusty Rhodes vs. Harley Race. While I am really glad they do these things, it’s weird to see on a show where wrestling matches are usually an afterthought.

Carlito’s in the ring. He says Coach caught him laughing at the DX antics, and booked him in a handicap match.

Carlito vs. Shelton & Nitro:

– Carlito and Nitro do some nice acrobatic stuff, shocking to see on Raw. Nitro and Shelton get into it.. Carlito tries to steal a win with a roll-up but Nitro rolls through in a very realistic-looking sequence.

Much better than expected.

Winners: Nitro & Shelton

DX has graffitti’d Vince’s office! Coach is upset! DX is there! They want to watch the rest of the show with Coach.

Maria’s in the back with Eugene. Eugene says Hacksaw is home recovering. Rob Conway interrupts. Conway just starts to cut a promo when Eugene suddenly snaps and mauls him.. heh heh. Eugene going crazy, seems like it could be a fun angle.

They run down the Vengeance card but ehhh.. there’s too many PPVs these days. Who can afford all these things?

DX chats with Coach. They put him head first through the wall so his butt is hanging out. And then, the most openly gay faction in pro wrestling proceed to pull his pants down and we see Coach’s bare ass on TV. Horrible. God… can we keep wrestling’s gay undercurrent under the surface a bit more please? Who is entertained by that? Seriously?

The wayward time-traveling braveheart-ripoff Highlanders are at a motor lodge. They don’t know how to use the key card. Rory breaks the door down. He must have a strength of at least 16. They order a porn movie.

Foley is a guest commentator. Foley says he’s going to have the worst match of his career against Flair on purpose hahahaha! Awesome. Mick says the card is loaded. Mick says he can do these things because of his status.

Flair vs. Edge:

– Mick says their match will be a debacle. Now I think it’s funny, but I don’t understand.. are they openly acknowledging the fakeness?

– It goes a minute and a half, and Lita distracts the ref. Foley gets on the apron and gives Flair the mandible claw. Edge hits a spear, and Flair gives it a pathetic flop sell. Edge wins.

Winner: Edge

After, RVD runs in and frogsplashes Edge. Rob does the thumbs and all the fans chant along “Rob Van Dam”.

DX comes out to their old entrance with graphics flashing on the screen. No clips of Chyna, though. Poor BG James must be biting his knuckle right now. JR again mentions that Steph is in labor. Now.. are they acting like HHH is not the father?

Well wait now… HBK asks who is Steph’s dad. HHH says whoever it is, he’s hung down to here heh heh. A midget Spirit Squad interrupts. This thing is barely holding together. The DX chemistry is shaky at best. Hey.. HHH makes the same “came up short” midget joke that his buddy Nash made on TNA a few days ago. HHH superkicks a midget.

HHH introduces real female cheerleaders and creepy-ass Lawler wants them on his lap. For some reason, there’s only four cheerleaders. The women do a cheer and expose their bras.

The real squad comes out and two squad guy take DX finishers to a medium-sized pop. Awww… what is the deal with Raw and men’s naked asses? All the midgets take off their pants and have “Suck it” written on their asses.

OVERALL: There was, what, 7 minutes of wrestling on this show? That’s really sad. The humor here is perfect for 14 year olds, and I am really starting to wonder if the WWE is just shooting to entertain them. I mean, have you seen the Smackdown crowds? It’s all little kids. A TWO out of FIVE.

ECW Episode #1

Paul hits the ring to what sounds like a mixed reaction. Joey is at ringside with Tazz. Jeez this looks a lot like a Raw broadcast. He introduces RVD, who comes to the ring with the WWE title. Sign: “Mr. Tuesday Night”. There’s a bit of an RVD chant. Rob grabs a mic. He points out that he beat Cena… 60% BOOS. Rob cuts a quick.. probably scripted.. promo. Heyman presents Rob with the new ECW title belt. Rob has a title slung over each shoulder. Flat crowd so far. A few vocal fans chant “Throw it down” at Rob.

Lita and Edge hit the ring. Edge says he respects Rob, and points out how similar they are. He says they both broke the glass ceiling. And Edge wants to face Rob at Vengeance. Crowd is cold. Edge suddenly knocks Rob on his ass, and 75% of the crowd cheers. Edge and Lita leave into the crowd… and there’s Cener. Cena and RVD take turns beating down Edge.

Well… that was not so great. The crowd’s not rabid for ECW whatsoever, and the exciting anything-goes feeling from the PPV is nowhere to be found. Frankly, this is just your average crappy Raw segment in the Velocity slot.

They even have the same WWE voice guy hype the touring schedule.

Argh… Paul tells his ECW boys that if Raw is coming to ECW, then ECW will go to Raw on Monday. Dammit.

Oh Lord… The Zombie. A fat guy in a torn shirt with black under his eyes walks to the ring. Tazz goes “is this a rib?”. Zombie gets a mic and groans a few times as channels are changed the world over. Sandman’s not-Metallica theme hits, and Sandman is here to defend ECW from stupid Sci Fi gimmicks. Sandman bashes himself in the head and busts himself open

Sandman vs. The Zombie:

– Sandman gets 60% boos when he poses pre-match. He canes Zombie, gives him the White Russian legsweep and it’s 1, 2, 3.

So they’re already messing with The Network, huh? They should have made the Zombie be Zombie Frank Gotch. That would have ruled.

Winner: Sandman

In the back, a woman who I believe is model Barbie Blank, a generic Torrie Wilson-looking woman, claims she is an exhibitionist and is going to take off all her clothes tonight. And presumably we’ll boo whoever stops her from doing it. This is sad.

Meltzer has reported that the entire WWE creative team is now working on ECW, not just Paul and Dreamer. This is fairly evident so far tonight.

Now we are seeing Tazz vs. Lawler from Sunday. ECW has ONE HOUR to get over a whole roster, and they show us THIS? Something we already saw? The molten hot crowd from this just makes tonight’s Trenton crowd sound that much deader.

Kurt Angle vs. Justin Credible:

– Angle busts out the shoot style with a big takedown, some wrenching and a couple stiff strikes. Credible is dumped to the floor.

– Credible comes back in and goes nose to nose with Kurt. Kurt unleashes a nasty headbutt and locks in.. the Tazmission.. for the tap out win.

I love Angle’s new grapple offense. UFC stuff is getting popular, and it seems like a real good idea to utilize the style. Especially when you consider that a FAKE shoot fight is going to be much more entertaining than a real one 9 times out of 10. I’ve been watching some UFC lately, and my theory still holds. Most real fights are boring. That’s why they started faking wrestling in the first place, right?

Winner: Kurt Angle

In the back, Paul looks into the camera and says he is booking a weapons-legal battle royal next. The winner goes on to face Cena at Vengeance.

Kelly is somewhere else, reminding us we’ll see her assets. Francine better show up and cane this broad into oblivion. I mean, what the fuck.

Hope we get to see the Punker tonight. I am sorely disappointed in the new ECW thus far.

We come back and see the outside of the arena.. where some vampire guy makes the stupidest-looking face I’ve seen in some time. Good lord. Taz laughs it off. I ended up watching this bit a few more times, and each time it got more hilariously bad. The vampire looks like he’s chewing taffy, and the camera lingers on him for an awkwardly long period of time.

On a one hour show, do we need to see what happened earlier tonight? Apparently, the answer is yes. They must think we’re real stupid.

Then Kelly walks out and onto a small set that looks like a strip club kind of thing. She dances, struggles to remove her bra, and finally lowers it and puts her hands over her nipples. And that’s it. XTREEM~!~!~! Now, she’s hot and all. But she’s the exact same barbie doll woman you see on Smackdown and Raw. This is ECW. We liked it because it was DIFFERENT. ECW’s women were unique characters and hot in a non-Playboy way. I am severely disappointed. This is what I get for putting my faith into a WWE project. Fucking A.

I’m gonna guess Big Slow is going to be in this battle royal and eliminate a whole bunch of those lesser ECW guys.

Battle Royal – Dreamer, Sabu, Al Snow, Stevie Richards, Roadkill, FBI, Balls Mahoney, Big Show:

– The FBI comes out with TRINITY! Finally, something to enjoy. She’s wearing a variation of that badass black sliver-suit that I bugged her about a few years back when she was in TNA.

– Big Show comes out last and immediately destroys everyone. He gives Roadkill a fallaway slam as we cut to another commercial.

– ECW weapons are suspiciously similar to WWE HARDKORE weapons. Shiny trash can lid! The dreaded cookie sheet! EC DUB!

– Guys tee off with flimsy cookie sheet shots and it’s a parody at this point. Show eliminates 3 guys. Then he tries to give Balls a cobra clutch slam but they mis-time it and Balls barely gets off the ground. Show sends Dreamer out of the ring and through a table.

– Show eliminates EVERYONE, except Sabu. Sabu knocks Show out to win.

What a mockery. Someone’s having a big laugh at our expense.

Winner: Sabu

OVERALL: A laughable effort. A total ECW sportz entertainment nightmare. Seriously. Fuck you, Vince. What the fuck? A ONE out of FIVE.

TNA Impact:

This episode is the hype show for the PPV that took place yesterday. The PPV sounded like it was pretty good, up until the end where Jarrett half-won the NWA Title. Fans supposedly threw lots of garbage into the ring.

Again, that reaction is unfortunate in that it can be construed by TNA management as heel heat instead of “you’re ruining my enjoyment of this company” heat.

Chris Chun hits the ring. “Christian Cage” chant. Christian runs down the wrestlers he will face in the King of the Mountain match. He says he hopes Truth can wrestle better than he can dance, heh heh. a small deuling chant breaks out of “Truth is better”/”No he’s not”. He’s about to start talking about Sting and Sting hits the ring. Christian accuses Sting of stealing his thunder, Sting says he has one mission in TNA – to get rid of Jarrett. So what are the odds of Sting jobbing to Jarrett on his way out?

We see a short video of Jarrett explaining that Sting and Christian’s egos will cost them the match. My audio is going in and out on this now.

Nash and Shelley are backstage with BORSH! Alex Shelley says he’s found a Sabin clone for Kevin to wrestle tonight. “He might as well be a clone from the future, because I know they can clone people there.” hahaha. Kevin sings some weird song.. it’s all in the delivery. Hilarious stuff.

The Naturals vs. Diamonds in the Rough (Elix Skipper & David Young):

– Naturals bust out a bunch of smooth double teams. Simon slides in and hits a Natural with a foreign object, ref doesn’t see it. He lies David Young on top and the Diamonds win.

Too short to be much. The Naturals have chemistry, but have nothing going on whatsoever in the character department.

Winners: Diamonds

The Naturals chase after Simon, but the LAX attack them. Come on.. don’t tell me Homicide is gonna have to job to these guys. TNA can sign so many great teams that are out there today, and for some reason out of all of them, we have to see the Diamonds and the Naturals wrestle on TV?

My video is cutting out now… wait, here we go. Shane Douglas is running down the Naturals in the ring. He says something about Chris Candido taking those two under his wing. Dammit, it’s cutting out. This looks good. After a minute, my video comes back in. Shane says he swears he will take the Naturals to the top of this business. Cool, I guess.

West and Tenay talk about how The Naturals lost their way. I love how Tenay calls Don West “Dee Double-You”. I would love to hear a “DEE DUB” chant some day, heh heh.

The ref who gets more mic time than most of the X Division, Slick Johnson, says meaningless stuff about the new authority figure.

Samoa Joe/Steiner video. Steiner calls Joe a “half breed”…! What? Joe asks “who are you in my world?”. Awesome stuff. Steiner says he “smashed Nash, smashed HHH”. Joe “I will show you why I am pro wrestling”.

Kevin Nash vs. Mr. X:

– Sign: “Nash = mediocre big man”.

– Mr. X is a midget in a mask. Nash grabs the mic and is sure that X is actually Sabin wit lifts in his shoes. Crowd laughs.

– Nash gives X a chokeslam from his knees and does a splash off the 1st rope. The crowd is cracking up, but Tenay is acting all indignant. The “voice of the fans”? If that’s true, then Tenay’s reactions tell you just how little TNA understands their audience.

– Crowd breaks into a “that was awesome” chant. Nash sits on a chair and gives Mr. X a not so big boot. He sarcastically throws up an “X” sign, and Tenay says “How dare he!?” heh heh. Nash wins this with his wimpy jackknife.

Funny stuff. Tenay is just annoying.

Winner: Nash

Global Impact: We see clips of their show at the ECW Arena. They definitely should have taped a TV episode there. The crowd is MOLTEN. We see clips of a lot of awesome spots. We even see Hat Guy, who won’t even go to WWE’s ECW even though he’s been invited, and the mother fucking GLF in attendance. GLF was actually sitting behind Cole and Tazz at the first ECW show. He had his head in his arms after the striptease-gone wrong, heh heh.

Tenay asks us if we’re ready to see a star-studded 8 man tag. And then Bobby Roode walks out. Hey, I thought this match was going to be studded with stars, you LIAR!

Roode, Monty, & AMW with Gail vs. AJ, Daniels, Raven & Rhino:

– I can’t believe Rhino is staying with TNA. I mean, not that ECW was anything but awful, and in fact McMahon probably would have buried him on his way out, but what’s Rhino going to do in TNA? He already got his 2-second run with the title. Where can he go from here but down?

– Back from commercial, Bobby’s doing his trademark channel-changing stomps in the corner. He jaws with the crowd to no reaction.

– James Storm is always good for at least one mis-communication per match, and in this one he delivers with a spot where AJ wants a charging clothesline but Storm won’t stop leaning.

– Roode gets back in and cinches in a chinlock. In an 8 man. AJ hits a sweet enziguri kick, and Roode gives it a really silly sell. Monty comes in and gives Rhino a HUGE fallaway slam… man, Rhino is so WIDE.

– Harris and AJ do a cool thing where Chris swings AJ all the way around his body into a catatonic.

– Daniels is looking to finish, and Gail hits the ring and hits a HUGE tilt a whirl into a DDT! HOLY~! That was awesome! She is so under-used, it is now bordering on criminal.

– PUUUOOONNNCCCCEEEE

Got good at the end.

Winners: Monty, AMW blahhhh

TNA boss Larry Zbysko just happens to be walking around in the parking lot when a limo pulls up. He looks inside. Who is driving the hummer? The end.

We see a great video recap of the show, as usual.

OVERALL: Another OK show. Same old stuff. TWOOO out of FIVE.

Match of the Week: Man this is a tough one. There weren’t any good matches this week! Guess the TNA dull 8 man gets it.

Show of the Week: TNA Impact. ECW was a violation. Raw was both overtly gay and aimed at junior high schoolers. TNA at least TRIED to put on a wrestling show.