VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review 06.26.06

VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review

So.. lots and lots of wrestling took place this weekend, one event being much more interesting then the rest. WWE Vengeance took place yesterday, and according to the interweb it was a very hit or miss affair. ECW had their house show at the ECW arena, where reportedly half the crowd turned on the show, chanting “this show sucks” and even shouted “sellout” at Philly deity Paul Heyman as he stood in the ring.

But MOST interesting was a very special guest star on Night 3 of Chikara Pro’s own Young Lion’s Cup tournament. Chikara features lots of weird masked wrestlers, and this tourney was open to all wrestlers under the age of 25. Was the best part of the tourney the new character called El Hijo del Ice Cream, the man who is, yes, walking ice cream? No. Was it the fact that he uses a sack of sprinkles like TNA’s Abyss uses thumbtacks? No. Was it the fact that Arik Cannon is doing a Kool-Aid Man gimmick and actually burst through a brick wall as an entrance, and won the whole tourney? NO!

The BEST part was that after years of joking and teasing, BOB SAGET made his Chikara debut! The former Full House star and America’s Funniest Home Video host made an appearance on the big screen at the ECW Arena show, announcing a Jigsaw vs. Icarus bout for next month’s Hellertown show.

In this depressing time of wrestling where bare asses are owning the WWE, where Jeff Jarrett is trying to slip the NWA title back over his shoulder in a way that won’t cause ratings to plummet and where ECW’s return is going almost as badly as the Invasion, it’s good to know that there are some innovative, clever, crowd-pleasing things going on.

I’m so tired of TNA’s mediocrity and Quadruple J shenanigans I’m just gonna do Raw and ECW this week. I can’t believe they found a way to give Senshi the X Title in such an uneventful fashion, but as always, TNA FINDS A WAY~!

WWE Raw

Yay, Mickie’s in the opening.. so’s Torrie. So’s.. Kenny. JR and King tell us we’ll see DX vs. The McMahons and Cena vs. RVD for the belt.

Women’s Title Match – Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James©:

– Well this is out of nowhere. We see a replay of Trish’s injury from a few months back.

– Mickie’s got Paris Hilton high hair, now. Lita didn’t stick with it.. she’s got the boob curtains, after all.

– Crowd pops for Trish’s Thesz Press. Trish hits a decent rana into a pin.. It’s like Gail Kim when she was from THE MATRIX~!

– Mickie works the shoulder and hits the “impaler” DDT for the.. clean win! Wow. Cool…

OK. Too short, but good for what there was of it.

Winner: Mickie James

Hey… as Mickie celebrates, Melina and Nitro hit the ring! Awesome… wait.. Trish is in the ring, Mickie is gone. D’oh. I was thinking Mickie and Melina would feud for some reason. Melina points out that Nitro is the only Raw wrestler with a singles title.. Good lord she is good on the mic. Melina says that Trish’s time has passed and Trish attacks. Nitro holds Trish down… Carlito makes the save. Crowd is into it!

Wow.. seems like they have something here with Carlito vs. Nitro. Who’d have thought? Melina/Trish sounds great, too, as long as Mickie isn’t lost in the shuffle. This is Mickie’s prime, so here’s to hoping they don’t waste her.

Back from commercial, Carlito and Trish talk about what just went down. Carlito rants in spanish. Then, once they get it out of their system, Trish points to Carlito’s shirt (“Do you spit or swallow?”) and whispers something to him. Crowd pops big for this. Wow.. off to a good start tonight! Carlito is suddenly catching on, it seems.

Shane and Vince are in the back with the Spirit Squad. They mug and caper to… somebody’s delight.

Umaga vs. Kamala:

– Kamala gets a couple chops in, then he’s hit with a neck thrust and gives it a silly, Thriller-dance sell. Umaga then attacks Kamala’s manager, Kim Chee. THUMB TO THE JUGULAR~! Umaga wins.. It’s pretty clear that Vince would have screwed up Samoa Joe royally if this is his take. Estrada is three times more over than his client.

A pretty fun idea.

Winner: Umaga

We see a Diva Search clip… lots of hotties. There’s just no spots for them, though.

GRISH is in the ring with Torrie Wilson. We are to unveil the cover of the new Maxim-minus-the-wit-WWE Magazine. Crowd doesn’t react to a big poster-sized magazine cover mock-up. Here comes Edge and Lita to interrupt. Edge kicks them out of the ring and points out that he’s the MVP of Raw. He gets a mild reaction, actually. He says if he doesn’t get another shot at the title, he’s going to leave this show. So Edge is ECW now? I just can’t get into ECW as RAW TWO. Or I guess it could be called Tuesday Night Heat-CW.

We follow Edge and Lita through the crowd and back by the vendors. It looks like they’re lost, actually, like in Spinal Tap, but they find the exit. Edge grabs all his t-shirts from a vendor before leaving, heh heh. They walk into the night. What, no rental car?

Commercial.. on A&E, there’s a special on the history of Ku Klux Klan. An expert says that their motto was not “Join the Klan and we’ll lynch a black”, hahaha. What an odd way to say it. Well hell, that motto would at least be right to the point.

We see clips of the REBEL EXTREMIST GENIE SAH BEWWW as he taps clean to John Cena from last night’s PPV.

Maria’s in the back with Cena. John says that One Night Stand was not his finest hour. He says he could have done like Edge did and leave with his stack of t-shirts that smell like fart juice.. wtf? hahaha awesome. But he didn’t whine. He “earned the respect of RVD.” He cuts an awesome, intense promo on how he’s going to get the belt back tonight. Unfortunately, for this promo to work, he has to first win back the fans he lost when he became the WWE babyface hometown suck-up, and he hasn’t done it yet.

King pimps Hogan’s daughter for some reason.. the Hulkster on his way back?

Cade & Murdoch vs. Val Venis & Viscera:

– JR says one of these guys is back from surgery.. I missed it. WWE.com should have an injury list or something. To put over just how banged up these guys get.

– Charlie Haas comes to ringside, talking to Lillian. Charlie suddenly tries to give her a back rub, and she flinches him off, heh heh. Charlie gives her a rape-y kiss, which distracts Viscera and causes him to lose. Looks like Haas actually dropped her after he kissed her, haha. Or she tripped or something.

Well, it’s something for Charlie, I guess. Which is Vince’s top creepy fetish? Rape angles or hyper-gay domination segments?

Winners: Cade & Murdoch

We see a clip of Brooke Hogan’s video. It’s not my thing, but it sounds like a hit if people can get over the fact that it’s Hogan’s daughter.

We see Randy Orton watching on a monitor backstage, aroused. Yikes. Hogan vs. Orton? They wouldn’t try to put Randy over Hogan, would they?

Meanwhile, on A&E, a Klan bigwig named Stevenson had politicians in his pocket.. but then he raped a girl in a train car, “biting her like a cannibal” in the process. Yargh.

“It is go time”, says JR. “Are you ready for a slobberknocker?”, he asks. It’s time to be Sportz Entertained~! Vince’s music hits, and here comes HHH dressed as Vince. He power-waddles his way to the ring. Whoa… He pretends he’s Vince and talks about how what DX did to him was more embarrassing than the XFL. OUCH! From Ebersol to Cheney to Clarke.. “I love Dicks”. “I like fat ones..black ones..I’ll even do an asian”, crowd wasn’t too keen on that line. Man, listen to this suck-up Lawler fake-laughing himself into a headache.

HBK comes out dressed as Shane. Crowd is not exactly popping huge as HBK dances in the ring. HHH/Vince points out that he’s not leaving his money to Shane when he dies…. he’ll be leaving it to Steph and whoever that guy is she married. Boy, HBK keeps doing Shane’s dancing and it just dies right on screen. Holy cow… it just gets more and more awkward as he keeps dancng and the crowd just looks on in silence.

They play that old video of Vince singing “Stand back”. Man, they couldn’t even come up with anything new for this? Crowd pops for Hogan’s appearance on guitar in the video. They play almost the whole song.. this is getting TONS of time. Out come the real Vince and Shane. Vince announces that the Spirit Squad will be at ringside as “observers”. Poop falls on them from the rafters. “Holy Shitaquah” says JR. Crowd chants “Holy shit”. One squad guy looks like he’s actually worked up some vomit. Such dedication, so mis-used.

It really felt like HHH and HBK were desperately trying to bring the funny, but it just wasn’t there to be had. Maybe that’s just me, though.

In Klanland.. the Birmingham police worked WITH the klan. When a church congregation of mostly kids marched against segregation, the police unleashed their attack dogs on them. The Klan then BOMBED THE CHURCH.

How depressing.. Back on Raw, we see a super-slow motion replay of Vince having poopie dropped on him. POOPIE! This is edgy humor, really makes you think.

JR says Foley said he would outwrestle Flair at the PPV. No, he said he was going to stink up the joint. We see stills of the match, in which Foley got himself intentionally disqualified. Standing by in his home in Charlotte is Ric Flair. Flair says that Mick took the easy way out in his career all the time. He plugs both of their books. Buy our books! WHOOO!

Rob is shadowboxing in the back. Heyman comes up to him. Heyman says he’s concerned. Yes, we must put over Cena. What REBELS!

We see some fans talking about who will win the Cena/RVD match. Heh.. very “kayfabe”-y. I’d like to see the responses they didn’t use, heh heh. There had to be some “smart” fans in there.

Kane vs. Randy Orton:

– Supposedly Randy went chinlock-crazy last night and Kane’s match with the fake Kane was awful. Let’s see if these two can put something better together here.

– I wonder if they’re benching poor fake Kane. Maybe they should get Daffney or someone to manage, maybe say she’s Paul Bearer’s niece or something. Though supposedly that twat CM Punk soured her on the business while on one of his hump-a-holic rampages.

– Wow, this match is in the merchandise-crawl shill spot. Punishment, maybe? After a minute or two of WWE style physicality, Kane’s music hits. Fake Kane comes to ringside, and our Kane stomps him down.

– Kane is distracted by the Fake, and Orton hits an RKO. Kane gives it an awesome, leaping sell.

A storyline dealie. I can’t believe Orton’s getting pushed like this.

Winner: Randy Orton

After, Kane chokeslams the fake in the ring and the crowd is into it. Fake gets up, Kane chokes him again. The fans actually chant: “Take off the mask”! Awesome. Kane brings the fake up the ramp and chokeslams him on the stage. Ouch! Kane drags the fake out. Cool stuff.

We see an ad for the WWE magazine. There’s an article in there: “How to make your own announce table”. Haha.

In the back, Kane tears off the fake’s mask & wig. We see only the back of the guy’s head. Then Kane throws him out of the building like he’s Buff Bagwell.

We see more Diva stuff. One woman, super-hot, a cancer survivor, is cut. She’s the most memorable part of the whole thing… hopefully there’s more to that.

We see clips of ONS and man that crowd makes these WWE crowds look absolutely pathetic.

The Highlanders deliver some more scatalogical humor. They’ve never seen a urinal, see. So one of them poops in one. The gimmick seems to me to be too 80’s to get over. Though who knows, maybe theyll be embraced as modern-day Bushwhackers.

WWE Title Match – RVD© vs. John Cena:

– The champ came out first. A kid in the crowd, with a mullet – honest, is a member of the Chain Gang! So’s his mom.

– Girls and kids are wayyy behind Cena. Rob gets tons of boos from them to start. King says they’re not out here for a popularity contest. Yes they are.

– Cena dominates and then dumps RVD to the floor. Commercial time. I am wondering if maybe the males who once booed Cena so vociferously are now simply not going to the live events? I was shocked to see a recent episode of Smackdown where the crowd was mostly made up of kids. Maybe something similar is happening to Raw?

– What’s up with Cena getting busted open so much? He takes a sweet jumpkick, sending him to the floor. Rob hits a BALLS OUT flipping senton to Cena on the floor.

– Rob grabs a chair and the crowd is not happy. Announcers point out this is WWE rules, not ECW. Why the hell wouldn’t Rob’s character know this? Ref takes the chair from Rob, which allows Cena to exhaust his moveset with his three moves. Rob escapes the FU, both men down.

– Rob floats into a BEAUTIFUL bridging german. Gets two. Split-legged gets two, Cena fans love it. Cena hits a strange neo-Angle takedown, looked improvised and awkward. RVD jump kick…. John rolls too fa for Rob to try a frogsplashr… Rob goes for a big rolling thunder, Cena gets the knees up! FU.. Awww no… STFU…….. And here’s Edge. He attacks Cena.

SWERVE~! Edge says he’ll see Rob tomorrow on ECW’s crappy Sci Fi show. A heck of a fun match. No boredom, molten crowd, lots of seesaw action.

Winner: Raw Finish©

OVERALL: I just want a free TV wrestling show that has good wrestling and fresh ideas. I can’t believe not one of the four weekly shows even ATTEMPT to offer this. That said, I could see myself watching the main again, so I give this a THREE out of FIVE.

ECW Episode #2

They’re not “wrestlers”. They’re not “Superstars”. They’re “REBELS”©! THAT IS SO EXTREME!

We open week 2 of the ECW nightmare with the tarot-reading newcomer witch woman serving up a Raw recap for us. That was crappier than the sci fi movie that was on just before this. The movie had a guy with a cut-up face and he stabbed this woman between the breasts. She got up and stepped on his severed head. SELL THE STAB! GOD!

We are in Albany New York.

Sabu vs. Tony Mamaluke:

– Tazz thinks that Sabu’s attack of Cena on Raw was “off da chart”.

– Trinity’s with Tony. She’s got heels on, so I guess we won’t get to see her do what she does best. What a shocker.

– They dimmed the lights around the ring, looks cool.

– Sabu hits a dive on Tony, looked very careful.

– Ha ha… Tony gets the upper hand and goes for a splash and Sabu chucks a chair in his face on the way down. Sabu does some kind of splash out of the ring putting Tony through a table. Looked awesome, though it looks like he missed Tony completely with the weird camera angle we get of it.

– Sabu locks in the camel clutch for the win.

A fine showcase for Sabu. It feels like Tony Mamaluke has a lot to offer, actually.

Winner: Sabu

Kelly says I’M AN EXHIBITIONIST, because WWE is very subtle like that. She says she couldn’t get her bra off last week, but this week she’ll show us some other body part minus genitalia. Supposedly, the word on Kelly backstage is that she’s really nice but “doesn’t have the beginnings of a clue”.

We see RVD in the back wearing both belts. He talks about “rolling” stuff and hypes up the tag against Orton and Edge.

“Unofficial Match” Match – Big Show vs. Tommy Dreamer:

– Tommy comes out to no reaction. He has a “Man in the Box” rip-off as his new theme. Styles tells us there will be an ECW Arena show on July 4th.

– Show wanders around, punching Tommy every ten seconds or so. He does a cobra clutch thing on his knee and then flings Tommy aside in a really cool spot. Big Show walks out.

So.. Big Show has one new move. Wow. His negatives have yet to be hidden, and I do not believe his positives have truly been accentuated.

Winner: Big Show

Back from commercial.. IT’S THE VAMPIRE! I didn’t realize they could be filmed, but there you go. 411’s own Larry Csonka has nailed why this guy is stuck out in front of the arena – vampires have to be invited in! He also can’t cross running water. True.

Macho Libre vs. Sandman:

– It’s Nacho Libre plus Randy Savage. Heh.. kind of funny as he gets on the mic. “Snap into it” he says.

– Sandman hits the ring and Macho says: “Let me tellya something, something something…” Sandman canes him a bunch and hits the White Russian legsweep for the win. Tazz and Styles try to force themselves to cackle like hyenas.

It’s a potentially funny concept to have Sandman cane some lame gimmick every week as long as they can make these one-off characters entertaining for 30 seconds or so. This is a situation that screams for the likes of Twinkie the Kid, Ken the Box and Razor Ramon Hard Gay.

Winner: Sandman

John Cena walks into the ECW locker room. Crowd is about 70% cheers. John makes Sabu an offer. The idea of a guy in a motorcycle helmet under the ring makes him “salty”. John Cena wants a lame-ass lumberjack match at Vengeance. God.. so lame.

Time for Kelly’s “expose”. They play that Snoop/Pussycat dolls song.. but the WWE won’t pay for Balls’ theme, Sandman’s theme or Rob’s Pantera theme. Go figure that one out. Kelly really can’t dance at all.. so basically she shifts from side to side and shows less buttcheek then half the male Raw roster did last night. Her bra opens from the front this week.. still looks like she has trouble getting it open. Some wrestler makes her stop. So there was a purpose…

We see a video that tells us goofy old Test is coming to ECW. Ugh…

Edge w/ Lita & Randy Orton vs. RVD & Kurt Angle:

– Lita did something with her hair and look hot as always. Edge gets on the mic and says he thinks ECW sucks. Crowd has not much reaction.

– Angle opens up with a takedown and he immediately goes for the anklelock. Edge gets a rope break. Angle’s shoot style is one of the only good things about the new ECW, IMO.

– RVD hits a leaping sidekick sending Orton to the floor. Judging from the weird camera angle and the lack of reaction, he must have barely connected. Crowd is still with it, though, chanting along with Rob’s thumb pose.

– Lita pulls down the ropes and sends Rob to the floor in a real nice looking spot, sending us to commercial.

– ECW is back “live”. In the sense that the people on the show are “alive”, I guess.

– Edge sends Rob through the ropes to the floor, and Rob takes a nasty flip bump.

– Randy hits his nice super-high dropkick on Rob for two. Angle comes in and hits the rolling germans and Randy makes them look awesome, waving his arms in a ballsy manner for each bump.

– Angle locks in the Tazmission, Lita breaks it up in full view of the ref. “She’s a crack whore” chant heh heh.

– Angle ends up giving Lita an angle slam kind of thing. Orton RKO… it’s a brouhaha. Man… Lita and Trinity on the same show… awesome. RVD hits the frogsplash on Edge.. 1, 2, 3.

A decent match. Crowd not very into it, and certainly not in the style of an old ECW bout.

OVERALL: A much better show than last week, but it’s clear that this company just doesn’t have much to do with the old ECW. I’d like to see the WWE change the name, like how ECW went from “Eastern” to “Extreme”. The whole thing is just so very disappointing. a TWOO out of FIVE.

Match of the Week: John Cena vs RVD – it was fun.

Show of the Week: Raw – always a mixed bag. But this week’s nuggets were surprisingly delicious.