Best: Wait, Does Wrestling Matter?
TNA Wrestling changes their name to “Impact Wrestling” and gives themselves the motto “wrestling matters.” The next show features Abyss winning the X-Division title and Eric Bischoff pinning the Young Bucks. TNA jumps on Twitter to explain how “wrestling matters” means “wrestling shows are important to people,” not “wrestling is an important part of wrestling shows.” TNA continues to exist, and I ignore it as much as possible.
Then! WWE, the show everybody goes to as an example of how wrestling sucks now and is only a bunch of dick comedy and backstage segments, puts on a two hour program with Kingston vs. Ziggler, Punk vs. Mysterio, just over three minutes of Evan Bourne against Jack Swagger, and R-Truth stalling like it’s 1986 and we’re on ESPN2. He might as well have been fleeing from Crusher Blackwell. From fun, technical back-and-forth to aped puroresu kicks, it was an encapsulation of everything people like about wrestling these days. Only, you know, most people fast forwarded through it and jumped on the Internet to talk about how it was a C-minus.
The shows are good sometimes, guys, I swear. I’m sorry nobody from 1997 is around to make it enjoyable for you. Well, Mark Henry I guess.
Best/Worst: Every Minute of the Day, Somewhere in the World, Kofi Kingston is Wrestling Dolph Ziggler
I like watching them wrestle, but I’m also extremely tired of watching them wrestle. Ziggler/Kingston is like trying to make out with your girlfriend at two in the morning on a Tuesday. It’s fun and you like your girlfriend a lot, but part of you just wishes you could go to bed. Hi, I’m Dave Barry, and I review pro wrestling.
Ziggler countering Kingston’s SOS by holding on to the top rope and letting him flip over onto his own head was awesome, but part of me just wanted to remember an old Smackdown down a sixer of NyQuil. I want there to be a lot of other guys on the show who are good at wrestling so I never have to watch them wrestle again. They are the Tajiri and Super Crazy of Raw, and yes, Kingston is the Super Crazy in this analogy.
Worst: Hold on a Sec, Guys, is that Little Guido?
New pet peeve – every week some inattentive guy on a forum notices that Little Guido is a WWE referee. It never fails. He’s been on the show for WEEKS, and every Tuesday morning on DVDR or Wienerville or the Lethal Injection Forums some guy with a handle like “bruiserbrodysbeard” types “hey guys, call me crazy, but was that LITTLE GUIDO as a ref during the women’s match???” And I’m like, first of all you’ve never even WATCHED a Bruiser Brody match, so f**k your user handle, and second of all YES THAT IS LITTLE GUIDO, and Big Sal is the ring announcer, and the bald fat guy rapping by the fireworks control panel is PN News.
This is a formal announcement: Little Guido the wrestler is now a WWE referee. Remember this for next Monday.
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I swear. I’m sorry nobody from 1997 is around to make it enjoyable for you. Well, Mark Henry I guess.
THANK YOU. This is the reason why I want to strangle most people who bash RAW.
@TH – Raw in 2011 is like Saved By the Bell: The New Class. Sure, you don’t recognize anybody, but it is THE EXACT SAME SHOW.
…despite the fact when it’s obviously a good episode.
Do the Lethal Injection Forums still exist?! Damn, that takes me back. Of course, I’m old and remember when Lethal was an actual site and not just forums.
@Jade – I don’t know, but as someone who used to write there (and Wrestling Uncensored), I sure hope not.
I missed Raw this week and that final Best makes me legitimately sad about it.
yes, b but what do you think about good morning miss bliss
@Chris – Miss Bliss was more ambitious, but looked cheaper and was boring. So it was more like the WWWF.
I feel ashamed even typing this, but I am an Eve Torres apologist. You can get away with stuff if you’re attractive I guess.
The Bella Twins remind me of my little sister and her friends, all the way from 11 year old girls to 20 year old drama queens, trying to be “gangsta” and “tough”. Nothing is convincing, they just put their elbows parallel to their shoulders and move them backwards, trying their hardest to not break into laughter and ask to go out for drinks later.
1. R-Truth on negative five second delay was amazing. Like they finally got him to agree not to curse, but then realized he might be flipping birds left and right and had to delay his video instead.
2. Alberto Del Rio’s hyperexpressive Play-doh face is absolutely incredible, and should be sold at boutique shops nationwide.
3. I want the Bellas to still be in that anti-bullying commercial, but I want them to reshoot it so they’re snickering the whole time, and then Brie (note to the commentators: it is your JOB to know which Bella is which) holds up her championship at the end.
This was the first episode in a long time that got to me. When I mean “got to me”, I mean I was talking about it after it over(and that rarely happens). I had a lengthy discussion w/ my roommate about the Kharma situation and what she said Jim Ross told her got my blood boiling but I had to think it out, she said she used that as inspiration. And she has turn out to be one of the best. I think no matter what “IWC” says, she doesn’t need a “push”. Her name is enough to be noticed and stand out. Last thing, Lawler got my blood boilng, I almost threw my shoe at my tv for being such a hypocrite.
I watched the Ziggler/Kingston match with great anticipation. I’ve renewed my fandom recently so seeing them wrestle is not stale to me yet. I know they can both wrestle so I was excited.
They did punch-kick-stomp/punch-kick-stomp for 6 minutes. Then they went to a decent finish. Not impressed. I want russian-leg sweeps and abdominal stretches.
It’s nice to see Punk pick up straight wins in matches two weeks in a row. Straight Edge Society was fun and all but it feels like he’s been relying on a bunch of dorks for his wins for years. All I want is to see him go “wait, I’m a 3-time World Heavyweight Champion” and Go2Sleep David Otunga’s head off.
His new knockout kick still looks pretty crummy though.
In related news, Big Vito works behind the catering table spooning out heaping amounts of pulled pork to sate Mark Henry, Johnny Stamboli is in charge of babysitting Hunter and Stephanie’s kids (Aurora recently made headlines in the Levesque-McMahon household by calling him a “doodiehead”), and Salvatore Bellomo makes brooms somewhere in Nebraska.
More importantly, where is Salvatore Sincere? Tom Brandi shoulda been a star!
Great as always, Brandon.
thank you for this article. best/worst is my favorite raw review and that Stalling like it’s 1986 and we’re on Espn2′ was the funniest line I have read in awhile. Can’t wait for next week’s review.
“AND WE ALL FORM ONE DARK FLAME”
Thumbs up for remembering CM Punk’s roots. I always feel he never got a good hand dealt by Vinny Mac, ever since I had to watch him come out as one of Cena’s mafia thugs in his Wrestlemania match vs. HHH
Absolutely hilarious as ever. AND thought provoking!
Yeah, it was a pretty good show, I’ll say that much. It’s good to see wrestling on a show about wrestling.If people cant see why CM Punk is the best thing going right now and deserves to be featured every week, then they’re not paying attention. He can hold his own with anyone in the WWE and make it look good.R-Truth has been killing it the last few weeks. I’m just waiting for the inevitable meltdown that is to come.Should be interesting.Oh yeah,and “Bleached asshole stink-face” made me crack up for like five minutes!
P.S. Maryse or GTFO.
@Brandon–you wrote at those sites as Swandive, didn’t you? Last I checked, Lethal was just a forum board. I stumbled across it a few months ago. WU isn’t still around, is it?
@Jade – I did. WU stopped being a thing around the time Matt and I left to make X-Entertainment.
Good stuff. I watched the videos and it seemed like a good show. Anytime Punk vs. Mysterio happens it ups the wrestling quality of the show and Punk actually winning clean is awesome.
“Eve should stop wrestling completely and try being someone’s sort-of pretty rec league soccer-playing wife.”
Was this a reference?
@Ragingape – Nope, just my idea of what she’d be exceptional at doing.
‘To compensate, here is a giant picture of Maryse that has nothing to do with the next few bullet points.’
…this is a good idea, and I would like it to become a regular feature.
I haven’t seen the show yet but once again this is a brilliant review. Constantly hilarious as usual, as well as being the most intelligent and well thought out thing about wrestling on the internet. I think I’ve said this before I find myself agreeing 100% with almost everything you say, but even if I didn’t, these would be consistently great.
I don’t know if I can even pick out any highlights because it’s all so good, but I did love the reference to Jerry Lawler being the chucklemonster.
This episode reminded me of that one WWE Raw episode. You know — the one where a black guy plays a heel.
He’s been on the show for WEEKS, and every Tuesday morning on DVDR or Wienerville
“Wienerville”? Is that a CRZ reference?
@Al – It is. CRZ won’t read my column because it’s on more than one page. So here I am, getting compliments from The Cubs Fan and being ignored for arbitrary reasons by CRZ. Feels like it’s 1998 all over again.