VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review 07.25.06

VIOLENT PANDA Weekly Review

So… Steph went into labor on the day of Raw, which means that HHH, Vince and Shane are all gone from the show tonight to be at her side and to witness the coming of wrestling’s answer to the spawn of Britney Spears. Supposedly Johnny Ace is on vacation in the Bahamas to boot, so who knows what kind of show we’ll get?

WWE Raw

JR welcomes us to Cleveland, Ohio. King gives us a pop culture reference to show us how hip and “with it” the WWE is. The Drew Carey Show, how long has that been off the air? I don’t know, but King points out that “Cleveland rocks”. I don’t know if it actually does rock, but Drew Carey’s probably soiled every one of their strip clubs by now, I’d wager.

The DX theme hits and here comes HBK. King and JR wonder where Triple slip is. The DX hyper-intro reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to point out to you people. Now I could be wrong, as I haven’t actually slowed it down, but… if you have the time and inclination, check out the WWE safety notice at the start of their DVDs – the one that urges you to “not try this at home”. Between scenes of injury, watch frame by frame. What word, what subliminal image is planted in two separate segments? We see Angle get injured on a pedigree, and somewhere around then, a word flashes on the screen: “ERECT“. Now, I could be wrong, as I didn’t feel like putting the DVD in my computer to go frame by frame, but I’ve been watching the Jake the Snake DVD a few times and I’m pretty sure that’s the word, there.

Between that realization and reading the chapter on homosexuality in wrestling in the book “Slaphappy”, it’s seriously making me want to watch Hell’s Kitchen or something instead of Raw. Which I did tonight, actually, and it was awesome.

HBK tells us about the pregnancy thing, kinda cool. Pretty funny stuff, weird to see how they’re handling this. Coach interrupts. He’s got Vince on his cellphone. HBK snatches the phone and talks to Vince, pretty fun. How cool would it be to be on the other line of that call? Heh….

The segment dies from there, as HBK hams it up to noone’s enjoyment. Vince books a Coach vs. HBK match, which prompts an “HBK” chant. HBK awkwardly fake laughs at this announcement, and it goes on forever and it’s painful to watch.

WWE Tag Title Match – The Highlanders vs. The Spirit Squad©:

– I don’t get really get why they bother with tag titles any more. A team debuts, and if they get over, they win the belts off of the one other pushed tag team in the fed. But then there’s nowhere to go and the team flounders. Why do they bother?

– The Highlanders are just totally plugged in. They’ve got their shtick down cold and have a very fleshed-out moveset. Rory even busts out a Roderick Strong uranage/backbreaker.

– CHICANERY ensues, and Squad guys interfere. Kenny hits that swinging DDT finisher that never gets over for the 1, 2, 3.

A WWE tag match. Really, what is there to say at this point? They did what the WWE wants them to do – wrestle a 4 minute match with mostly safe moves and lots of goofiness.

Winners: The Spirit Squad

Mick Foley joins us from the WWE studios in Stamford, Connecticut. Mick says that Ric has the intellect of a 4th grader, using weak verbal jabs like “fat boy” last week when talking about Foley. He says Ric has nothing left but clichés and that he’s become a circus sideshow, falling on thumbtacks in ECW. Foley gets all pissed and says stuff about Ric hurting his CLOSE FRIEND~! Melina, and books himself in some verbosity on next week’s Raw. I like these promos, but the emotion feels really forced. The issue is still pretty muddled. I’d like it better if Mick truly acted disinterested in Flair, planning on wrestling the Diva search girls and ignoring Ric or something. Then Ric could foil the diva thing by taking all the diva girls to his hotel room or something to piss off Foley and then hook us through that.

This Week in Wrestling History: 1989 – Flair vs. Funk at the Great American Bash. Gary Hart accompanied Funk to the ring. Flair won, then the GREAT MUTA ran in! Awesome! Sting runs out to make the save. I can’t believe they showed TNA’s own Sting on a WWE show. I guess there’s a million possibilities – Trying to show that TNA is totally off their radar, or perhaps peaking Sting’s interest, whose contract is up at the end of the year, or even trying to show newer fans how Sting used to wear neon and had a rat tail.

Meanwhile, in the future, Flair hits the ring. He taunts Mick with what he did to Foley’s hero, Funk. Awesome. Flair doesn’t even address what Mick said, and instead asks Mick to be just half a man. Edge’s music hits. Edge comes out with Lita, who’s dressing like the former band slut~! ~! That she supposedly used to be. She even has an appropriate shirt that says “7 seconds” on it, just waiting for someone to correlate that time to Edge’s ability to last in the bedroom. I still say they can do so much more with Lita. She is getting tons and tons of heat and really doing a great job in her role.

So Edge says generic heel stuff, and Nitro slides in and tries to blindside Ric. But Ric fells the kid who wasn’t Tough Enough with a single chop. Edge comes in and it’s a two on one on the Nature Boy. But the girls and children in the crowd squeal as goofy old John Cena makes the save, looking like a 10 year old wearing his brother’s over-sized clothes. The heels vacate the squared circle as Cena enthusiastically hops around the ring on one leg, saluting and pointing. The heels snarl on the ramp, mistakenly thinking it’s 11:05 PM, I guess.

Carlito’s in the back with Trish. I’m probably being a wrestling conspiracy theorist in this review, but consider this. Trish is the foundation of the women’s division. She is leaving, possibly for years, to get married. In wrestling, it is often the case that when a male and a female are booked in a romance, the romance also occurs in real life. See one Crippler Chris Benoit/Woman/Kevin Sullivan for evidence of this phenomenon. Is it not possible that Trish was booked in a romance to “test” this real life relationship, perhaps even in the hopes of shattering it?

Carlito is all flirty and says stuff in Spanish to her. Machinations!? McMahon, you diabolical… I’ll pay you $2,000 for the swarm.

Coach is in the back, dressed as DON WEST?! In a purple shirt and nearly-matching tie. He books a tag match with Flair and Cena blahblah.

Here’s GRISH~! He announces Stephanie has just given birth to a baby girl. 8 pounds, 7 ounces. That’s a big baby, isn’t it?

Carlito vs. Shelton Benjamin:

– Carlito goes for the press-me-I-dropkick-you spot, but again it comes off like the X Division underwater. Carlito hits a sweet rana from a standing position. JR praises the fact that Carlito is starting to bust out more aerial moves. Something tells me if I sat down and watched Carlito’s work in Puerto Rico, it’d be all sorts of neat, speedy lucha-style stuff.

– Carlito goes up top.. Shelton HOPS ONTO THE TOP ROPE FROM THE MAT! Holy.. that was awesome. Shelton ends up taking a sweet back bump off the top. Carlito comes off the top, but Shelton locks in the FUJIWARA on the way down! Now, the Fujiwara armbar has made an insane comeback in the last year or two.. I’m just waiting for someone to actually book Yoshiaki Fujiwara on an indy show so that he can show everyone how it’s done.

– The finish is clever, involving a missing turnbuckle, a big air backflip and a mule kick low blow which leads to Shelton picking up the cheap win.

A bit of an eye opener! These guys are clicking and really showed they could put on a heck of a pay per view match. Lots of clever, athletic spots. These two wrestling a main event title match would SMOKE the super-lame Edge/Cena stuff in terms of actual ring action.

Winner: Shelton Benjamin

Hulk Hogan hits the ring to a good ovation. He has a mic and says Orton will feel the power of the largest arms in the world, brother. Orton comes onto the ramp and ever-so-slowly spouts a couple sentences about Brooke thinking he’s hot. Randy eventually makes his way to the ring, and King forces Randy into the ring. Randy escapes before Hogan can deliver the LEGDROP OF HELL! You gotta pay to see that shit connect, brother! More sneering on the ramp. We’re going for a record when it comes to WWE show-ending ramp sniveling tonight.

If Alan Moore cared about film adaptations of his work, I doubt he’d be too thrilled to see V for Vendetta ads on WWE shows. Fun fact: Alan Moore may have once set fire to a few thousand dollars in a “magic ritual” of some kind. He also got kicked out of school for selling LSD.

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

– Man, does Candice look great tonight. To contrast Candice’s sparkly ice skater/stripper outfit, Mickie has on a brown renaissance faire plain skirt. Let us see if even this stacking of the deck is enough to get fans behind Candice… er…

– Mickie hits a takedown, then a kick. She poses and.. yes.. the crowd applauds her. Mickie cinches in the chinlock but the crowd does not rally for Candice. Mickie hits some shoulderblocks. Candice hits the hanging choke, and even that doesn’t get a pop.

– Candice does the godaddy dance and finally gets a bit of a response. She climbs to the top and hits a body press! Howsabout that… Mickie rolls through though, and uses a handful of tights to secure the pinfall.

I like Candice. I don’t know why. She has yet to click with the fans, though. This was actually just fine as far as WWE diva bouts go

Winner: Mickie James

Coach vs. HBK:

– HBK with punches… puts on a black swimming cap, we”ll leave it to you to figure out what that’s about… Coach gets pantsed. Squad guys run in, HBK chucks them all. One Squad guy takes a sick flip bump to the floor. Crowd is on their feet.. Superkick?

– ..no. Umaga is here. He hits a press into a samoan drop. HBK basically did the move for Umaga, but it still looked really cool. THUMB TO THE NECK.

Very sportz entertain-y. Got all the crud in one segment, so not too shabby, IMO. Umaga couldn’t get a reaction if he swung Suri Cruise over his head by her umbilical cord.

Winner: Raw finish©

YES! Umaga sneered on the ramp! I swear! What’s that, 4 sneers so far?

Maria’s in the back with John Cena. John works on the Rock/”Hermie” dynamic with her, asking her if she ate paint chips as a kid. Heh heh, he runs down the show thus far, and mentions something about Lita being NC-17: “No cold sores in 17 days”. The promo may not be funny, but it is fun. And John makes a “call me” hand gesture at Maria at the very end, pretty cool.

Miz is out for the Diva Search elimination. Jen looks hot.. Layla seems to be the only one who “gets it”, dancing around like a maniac (ala Christy Hemme, making the most of every second on camera), and I proclaim that the unfortunately-named Milena has the hottest lower torso in the WWE. Maryse, the French Canadian generic blonde, is ousted. She takes no time all to walk off the stage.

John Cena & Ric Flair vs. Johnny Nitro & Edge w/ Lita & Melina:

– They brawl for a minute until it’s time for the commercial-break-bump-to-the-floor…

– A little back-and-forth leads to an Edge spear on Flair. Cena breaks up the pin to a very big pop. Flair is super-sympathetic IN PERIL, and eventually does a flop into a HOT TAG (***).

– Cena hits his twisting, powerbomb-type-thing, and I’m dismayed to see Nitro blatantly reach back and put his hand on the back of his head for protection on what was already a soft-looking move to begin with. I guess that’s easy for me to criticize, though. Rock took lots of pussy bumps, especially his chairshots, and it didn’t exactly hurt his career at all.

– Crowd sings along with “You can’t see me”… Cena eats a chairshot, but kicks out of a pin to a big reaction. Cena hits a neat counter into the STFU, and Nitro taps. Crowd was MOLTEN.

Fresh stuff! Flair and Cena together is just a great combo. Cena excels at the hot tag, and Flair can and does bump like a freak in the meantime.

Winners: Cena & Flair

And one more rampway sneer to end it.

OVERALL: A fun show. Not anything too exciting, though. Carlito/Shelton showed tons of promise. An easy, high TWOOO out of FIVE.

ECW Episode #6

A new breed of old midcarders has been unleashed. Tonight, Taker takes on the Big Show.

We start with Kelly’s expose! She’s gonna get naked this week, I can sense it! Wait! Mike Knox stopped it! What the?! Knox leads her to the ring. She doesn’t look upset at all. Mike gets a mic and introduces a replay of last week of how Sandman caned him. Tazz calls her an “expositionist”, heh heh. Knox says she will never take her clothes off and the crowd actually has a loud reaction, booing heartily.

I feel the need to point out that Kelly actually looked really hot this week when dancing. Boing.

“Extreme Rules” Match – Sandman vs. Mike Knox:

– Knox with punches. More punches. Another punch. Ringside brawling. Back in, Sandman hits a bulldog. Heh, I love how Sandman gets busted open by bashing the beer can against his head. Sandman accidentally canes Kelly. Wow, he got her good.

– Knox uses a low blow or something to win. Ugh.

A crappy brawl. Might as well have been regular rules. Why is this Kelly storyline in slow motion?

Winner: Mike Knox

Once again, Shannon Moore turns and gazes at us as someone presses “play” on a casio keyboard demo.

Paul Heyman hits the ring with two riot police. How many weeks until a babyface reveals himself from under the riot gear to attack Paul? Heyman cuts a boring line or two about confused fans. He’s rarely looked so unenthusiastic. Tommy Dreamer hits the ring. Fans give a faint “Tommy” chant. Tommy demands an explanation… spit it out, geez…. Paul plants a kiss on Tommy. Test runs in and hits a hossy big boot on Tommy. I don’t understand why the progression of angles is at a snail’s pace here in EC DUB. It’s awful. Crowd popped for the kiss, but then died during the beatdown.

Balls Mahoney says he likes himself.

Sabu vs. Stevie Richards:

– Styles again calls Sabu “Evel Knievel”. Do younger fans have any idea who that is?

– Sabu tries a couple quick roll-ups, then cinches in a leg hold. “We want tables” chant. But this is not an extreme rules match…..

– Stevie locks in an arm hold. Sabu rallies with a great-looking punch, a spinning back heel kick and a somersault leg drop. Then he hits a sweet leaping DDT and uses the camel clutch to win it.

This whole extreme rules thing is terrible. But, Sabu proved he can be entertaining without the hardcore props.

Winner: Sabu

CM Punk is in the back and talks about how he’s traveled the world perfecting the craft of wrestling and he will savor his debut. Sorry Punker fans, maybe next week!

This stuff… seriously, is Vince dead inside or what? Does anyone in the WWE have any idea how exciting wrestling was and can be?

Fertig’s in the back with Ariel. We hear a howling wind, it’s like.. Silent Hill scary. Ariel draws a tarot card – death. Fertig says it’s for the Big Show. Why does Fertig get a shot at Show? He’s BIG, of course.

ECW Title Match – The Undertaker vs. Big Show©:

– Note that the champ, Big Show, comes out first.

– This show has been really bad. Worst since the first, probably.

– They went through a whole commercial break with Show standing in the ring. We come back from commercial, and THEN Taker’s entrance hits. They’ll have killed about 8 minutes of TV time with this by the time we get through the intros. Stretch it thin, baby!

– Tazz says this will be a “war of the gargantuans”. Styles says this is a “Wrestlemania quality” main event, ho hooo.

– Punch. Punch. Punch. Headbutt. Punch. Kick. Headbutt. You get the idea.

– Taker tries to get Show off his feet with clotheslines. But Show ends that with a big boot and yes, they made it to the final commercial break.

– Lots of punching and ringside nothing. Show starts selling his knee with a great hobble.. Taker cinches in a leg hold. Wait, Show escapes and now his leg is fine. Stomps.. wandering. “Taker” chant.

– Taker hits a DDT and gets two… Show is EXHAUSTED. Show hits a superplex. Taker sits up at two. Crowd pops. Chokeslam? No… Show gets out and makes a weird lunge toward Taker, Taker doesn’t know what’s coming… sells.. but no strike was thrown.

– Here comes Khali.. yep this show is officially awful. Bell is rung. Taker goes to town on both guys with chairshots. Show and Khali double chokeslam Taker through the announce table.

Winner: ECW Finish©

OVERALL: Dull, uninspired, nothing worth seeing whatsoever. That main event was TERRIBLE. A ONE out of FIVE.

The VIOLENT PANDA SUMMER OF MALAISE trudges forward. I’m going to skim TNA. I usually avoid spoilers, but I always read TNA’s because they’re so boring that I forget what happened by the time the shows roll around.

TNA Impact in a nutshell

BORSH is outside Sting’s locker room. Shane Douglas tries to rip on Ric Flair, though Ric is 1,000 years old and can still wrestle circles around the Franchise. His new protégé’s, The Naturals, defeat Kazarian/Bentley with a nice neck-snapping powerbomb. Douglas slaps The Naturals in disgust.. possibly venting his rage over the viagra on a pole fiasco from not so long ago.

Tenay says one of the most sick and disgusting things he ever saw in TNA was when some dude sprayed gasoline in Sting’s eyes at the pay per view. Sicker than the Dupp Cup? Sicker than the midget beating off in a trash can? Sicker than Disgraceland vs. Jorge Estrada? Sicker than Disco Inferno main eventing a PPV? Your mere hyperbole has been exposed, Mike Tenay! Now stop yelling so much.

Tenay gets his weekly visit from an agitated wrestler. Once again, it’s JJJJ and Steiner jabbing fingers in his face. They seem to think Tenay has an answer to some query despite 4 years of Tenay not ever knowing anything in these segments. Being that supposedly Tenay is meant to be the “voice of the fans”, then these segments are basically Jarrett getting in our faces or something.

Finally, something I want to see. Nash, Shelley and Devine are hanging out somewhere. Nash wants to know more about what X Division wrestlers think. Shelley says he has footage for Nash to watch – from Mexico, Japan, and Madagascar! Shelley plays a tape and explains the psychology of a double reverse ninja kick, but Nash is confused by the two-sided ring he’s seeing. Shelley says he’s going to fly in these Madagascar guys in business class to train with Nash. Nash is so moved he clutches Alex to his bosom. They share a moment.

…awesome. That was better than the last month of Raw combined.

Rhino squashes some guy who looks like Supreme Lee Great – the best-smelling pro wrestler in the world today. Rhino grabs a mic and says that wasn’t the extreme challenge. Enter: Samoa JOE! “Joe is gonna kill you” chant. These guys will wrestle next week. Rhino wants to go right now, but security breaks it up.

BORSH is on TV AGAIN, this time with 3D. ffwd is a TREAT!

Gail Kim, the foreign object, is in the back with.. yes, BORSH! She wants Sirelda one on one. Man, they couldn’t even get Nidia for this? They’re risking killing their women’s division right off the bat by putting a bodybuilder in the ring with Gail. There’s a laundry list of good women wrestlers in the indies right now. Pick one!

AJ and Daniels cut a promo in the ring, belts over their shoulders. Daniels takes a while to say…ffwd… Konnan grabs a mic and calls them over-rated. Again, what is the hurry? LAX just caught fire at the PPV, why not put them in a long feud with the Jameses or 3D to get the rub before getting a title match?

Homicide hits the ring and hits the cop killa.. err.. gringo killer.. finally! Homicide’s finally on his way!

BORSH has been on one hour of Impact as many times as WWE wrestlers scowled on the ramp to end their segments on two hours of Raw. Bobby Roode gets a hype video. He is YOUR generic heel.

Jay Lethal takes on JJJJJJJ for the NWA title. There’s actually a dueling “let’s go Lethal/Let’s go Jarrett” chant.. the Orlando fans have just doomed themselves to a 5 month Jarrett babyface title reign. Good luck with that, fellas.

JJJJJJ wins with a top rope Stroke. Steiner beats on Jay after, but Sting makes the save. And then, The Afterthought Christian Cage helps Jeremy BORSH get on camera one last time.

OVERALL: Same old TNA. A TWWOOO out of FIVE.

I’m not even going to pick a match of the week because it’s all just a blur. It’s summer, go do something fun. Stick your finger in a naughty place, perhaps!