To avoid any continuity snafus, please read The Best and Worst of WWE Over the Limit 2011. It will get you caught up on absolutely nothing, because you don’t need to pay fifty dollars or watch the pay-per-views to understand anything happening on Raw.
The following is a largely positive review of a largely negative episode of Raw. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, and it will drive a car into you and make you lie on the ground screaming for ten minutes.
Best: The Sad Ken Burns Version of Pomp and Circumstance
The death of the Macho Man didn’t effect me as much as some. I grew up following the NWA (and later, WCW) and only had a passing interest in the Rock and Wrestling of the mid-80s WWF. I remember getting the Wrestling Album on vinyl (because I’m old) and the Hulk Hogan workout set with instructional cassette tape (because I am INCREDIBLY old), but that was about it. I liked Hart Foundation-era Bret Hart and the Killer Bees a lot, but mostly I was a little Stinger, a little Steiner, and whatever the little version of the Great Muta is called.
Savage was a part of that 90s influx of WWF guys to WCW, where Hogan and Macho and the Nasty Boys and Jim Duggan showed up and replaced all of my favorite guys (Cactus Jack, Ricky Steamboat, Vader, Stunning Steve). I knew he was a good wrestler, but when he’d do those ten minute punchfests against guys like Roddy Piper on Nitro I was BEGGING for some Ultimo Dragon or Chris Jericho (or even Blitzkreig, I’m not going to be picky here). As he aged, he became a guy who was a corny part of Spider-Man and slapped around women on TV. He came out with a rap album, and he was one illogical run-on sentence from just being the Ultimate Warrior.
I’ve learned to appreciate Savage’s work as I’ve gotten older, and I think his WWE DVD release is one of the best they’ve ever done (right behind the Saturday Night’s Main Event DVD, which is also mostly Savage). I like his matches. I like his drug-addled, hyper-intese interviews. I like that he had fans throwing sodas and popcorn at him two minutes into his WWF debut. I like him, but he was never my favorite. I didn’t cry when I found out he’d died.
But yeah, when the Ken Burns’ Civil War version of “Pomp and Circumstance” started up in the tribute video last night, I sorta lost it.
Best: Punk, Obviously
As a Guy on the Internet™ I am contractually obligated to love everything CM Punk does, including Maria Kanellis. Sometimes I go a little far with it (“look at his smarmy haircut!” “this match with BJ Whitmer isn’t terrible!” etc.), but I don’t think I’m out of line saying Punk’s Macho Man trunks were the best part of Monday night’s Raw. I wish Serena was still around to have been his Miss Elizabeth. Luke Gallows as Hulk Hogan would also be funny, especially if he’d spent the whole match tending to Miss Elizabeth. Imagine Colt Cabana in a graduation gown, reading poetry and throwing frisbees to people. It would be the most Colt Cabana has ever done in the WWE!
Hopefully Punk’s tights don’t become the Black Rider of the WWE. I don’t want to read TMZ’s report of Greg Maddux dying with a big horrible on purpose picture of Greg Maddux at the top any time soon.
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Nice Leaping Lanny Poffo aka The Genius aka Macho Man’s brother reference.
I was hoping they put the Tag Straps on Imperfect and Mr. Hudson because they were building towards Kharma and Phoenix going straight FATALITY on the other Divas and heading straight for the tag division. Yeah, silly me.
Imagining Michael Cole falling off of a scaffold made me giggle. Well done sir.
Enough with the wrestling. This is fast becoming exclusively a WWF site (or whatever it is now). This was fine when we were all 9, but let it go. There are plenty of a-holes to mock in real sports anyway.
@Scott – Sorry you don’t like it. With the exception of last Friday (which featured death), we’ve never had more than one pro wrestling post a day. “Fast becoming exclusively a WWF site” is exaggerating a little. For example, today we’ve also had a post about baseball, basketball and football.
Best: Dolph Ziggler bleached his hair.
@Scott
I don’t think you know what “exclusively” means.
Yeah! One reader doesn’t like it, so rather than that one reader not reading the site anymore, THE SITE SHOULD CONFORM!!!!1111111111111111111
completely with you on McIntyre – best match of the night.
Since when is less than 5% of the posts here about wrestling considered exclusive?
Derrick Bateman just directly referenced this article on Twitter. Which is pretty awesome.
Hmm I actually like the idea of Kharma and Phoenix going tag team. Anyways, I thought it would be a few more weeks before they screwed up Kharma(besides the new name). It’s only been what? 3 weeks? The most dominating woman in wrestling is crying in the middle of the ring after 3 weeks. And what happened during the commercial? Did they give her a group hug and she pouted her way out of the ring? Kong is not your average Diva(obviously) so stop treating her like she doesn’t matter. Also, she should wrestle. Sigh…
I could have sworn Truth said “I want my SONG back”, which kind of would have made sense.
I would rather watch a thousand Blitzkrieg matches than a WCW Ultimo Dragon match, how dare you refer to him so flippantly.
Also, the Macho tribute was 1000x better with The Scientist rather than whatever song they have here.
@Probably – You’re right, I linked it without realizing they’d changed it. Fixing it now.
The thing about that Kharma segment that bugs me the most is that Gail Kim was right there. Couldn’t Kharma wreck her and then have a nervous breakdown?
I’ve been on the Drew McIntyre bandwagon for a loooong time. Go back and watch his Superstars match with Evan Bourne from last week.
Awesome stuff. The juxtaposition of those Cena and Orton gif’s made me lose it. JORTS CONVENTION
You are also the first person I’ve seen point out the racist ass poster. I mean seriously, just look at that thing.
No wonder this guy is a fucking Cena fan…. he grew up watching WCW.
All my questions have been answered
@Pam’sRack – I’ve been nothing but negative about Cena the last few weeks, not sure how closely you’ve been reading. And don’t believe the revisionist WWE history of WCW, history has no greater wrestling than the NWA between 1984 and 1990.
Dude, if you stop at 1990 WCW, you leave out the Dangerous Alliance and Vader, and I know you’re not going to disparage Blitzkrieg, Vader and the Dangerous Alliance in one day.
@Probably – I like all of it (even the bad parts everyone agrees on), I just can’t say in good conscience that it was the best when Big Josh was around. Besides, I specifically name Vader and Stunning Steve as two of my favorites.
One point that was not touched on that was a best for me: Punk on commentary during the tag match. Punk blamed his loss to Kane and Show the night before on his having a fever of 120. Fantastic.
I don’t really want to shit all over Cena, but I’m thinking more and more that everything he touches is going to turn to shit. He got mixed up with the Nexus and it became terrible, then he did the same with Punk and New Nexus. Miz and Riley had a better segment with each other than the two of them had in four months of nonstop segments with Cena. So help me, if he ruins what Truth has going now, I’ll kill. Cena used to be good, not even that long ago, but as a great man once said, used to is a rooster from Brewster.
Punk attempting the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM and getting a Sharpshooter for it would deserve its own best if anyone on commentary had bothered to mention it. Something something Cole something something Jim Ross exclamation point.
@Brandon – My brain may be mushy but I think the old UWF ranked right up there with the NWA / WCW of that ERA.
@Brandon- PLEASE keep doing what you’re doing. I used to read WL once a week, and now I’m up to twice a day.
I don’t even watch wrestling, but as long as you continue to type lines like ” DON’T TELL LIES TO R-TRUTH THE BLACK WRESTLER.” and “Cole should’ve fallen into the mystery spot, or he should’ve bought a tennis racket and started following around antiquated Southern-style tag teams.” I will continue to read everything you write.
Also, I might start watching wrestling again. But I’m kinda worried your recaps are way more amusing than the actual events.
Thank you, Trent, I’ll do my best.
@Silver King – And we can’t forget early 90s joshi.
Seconding Trent. I’ve gotten into this weird routine where reading blogs about wrestling is probably more enjoyable than actually watching wrestling, and this is just great writing about a subject that I was keenly interested in for a few teenage years and has inexplicably kept going. Kudos for being a delightful bridge to a guilty “pleasure.” (Ha ha, just kidding, there is no pleasure allowed in Vince McMahon’s universe.)
1. I think R Truth is my new favoritist wrestler.
2. I agree with your assessment of Drew McIntyre, but my girlfriend doesn’t like him because he “looks like Marsha Brady.”