Best: John Cena Likes Zack Ryder
I like him, too! Zack Ryder has become the first New Media WWE Superstar, and if he’s popular enough to stay employed and keep getting paid but unpopular enough to never be on television, I say good for him. He gets the Beth Phoenix job coast, where he doesn’t have to do anything and still gets ten years of groupies and huge houses. Not that Beth Phoenix gets groupies. That world would be too beautiful to live in.
As for now, he gets a bunch of front row fan signs, he gets to pump his fist in onscreen cameos because people like Cena (but not The Rock) like him, and he occasionally gets to kick ass against somebody like Yoshi Tatsu (or whoever) on Superstars. That’s a good life. You know it.
Worst: Santino Has Three Moves, Total
When Santino first got the Cobra over as a thing and was the 39th person eliminated from the Royal Rumble, I convinced myself that he was going somewhere, and that he was living up to that impossible precedent he set for himself as a low-level comedy creep. The Cobra started showing up in every match — even Tamina was doing it — and I laughed. Then he stopped wrestling (almost entirely) so he could just stomp into the ring and do the Cobra, and I made an unpleasant face and realized the Creative Monster that we’d helped create by enjoying him. Dolph Ziggler had the easiest job of the night: take Santino’s hip toss (one move), try to hit him and miss because of a James Brown split (two moves), and try to avoid move three, a poke to the head with fingers. He did that, and was able to win in about a minute forty.
Santino Marella is now Bachman Turner Overdrive, and the WWE Universe is Homer Simpson, yelling “GET TO THE WORKING OVERTIME PART.”
Worst: Why is Everybody So Orange
I guess there’s one day every few months when the ol’ Tanning Spray Truck backs up to a WWE Arena, and Vince McMahon opens it up and starts windmilling his arm, yelling COME AND GET IT, BOYS. Mason Ryan breaks a bottle of it over his head, and Dolph Ziggler starts swimming around in it like he’s some sort of perverse Jersey Shore Scrooge McDuck. I made a joke about Ziggler looking like Evan Bourne with his new haircut, but no, last night he looked like f**king Tigger. All he needed to do was hit the Zig Zag on Santino and yell THAT’S WHAT ZIGGLERS DO BEST!
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“Dolph Ziggler starts swimming around in it like he’s some sort of perverse Jersey Shore Scrooge McDuck. I made a joke about Ziggler looking like Evan Bourne with his new haircut, but no, last night he looked like f**king Tigger. All he needed to do was hit the Zig Zag on Santino and yell THAT’S WHAT ZIGGLERS DO BEST!”
…every single part of that is hilarious.
Another hilarious Best/Worst, especially early on with the trope examinations.
“Imma kick your cat” is a reference to Jay-Z, if you didn’t catch it. Justify My Thug, I think.
Starting a petition to make WWE Champion Archibald Peck a real thing.
The faces everybody else in the ring made while Truth was doing his “hospital food” speech were great. The Miz legitimately looked like he wanted to interrupt him and ask what the hell he was rambling on about.
“I Don’t Write Best and Worst of Smackdown”
You should. You’re good at this stuff.
btw… you think Truth’s stuff is scripted, or do they just say… “grab the mic and be crazy”…?
@Mitch – I would, but we don’t update on Saturdays. I could do “best and worst of Smackdown spoilers,” but that’d be pretty assumptive. As for the Truth stuff, I think it’s one part “grab the mic and be crazy” and one part “Ron Killings isn’t sure how to insult people without cursing.”
I really enjoyed this but maybe that’s because I have always hated Kane.
A No Limit Soldiers joke! It’s my little brother’s birthday all over again!
So, who was Ricardo Rodriguez in CHIKARA?
@Brian – “Chimaera.” Hard to believe it’s the same guy. [www.youtube.com]
I was thinking the same thing when I saw Ziggler last night. He looked painful, and by painful I mean his tanning bed burn looked horrendous, and because his “new and improved Dolph Ziggler” facial expression makes him look like he just ate a flatbed full of John Morrison’s hospital food.
Also worst: why in the fuck did we have to watch Riley walk a mile and a half to get from the dressing room to the ring? If that was Truth he’d have stopped for a smoke.
Not only is the Miz from Cleveland rather than L.A., but he’s actually from Parma, which is a nice enough little suburb but chiefly a place where old Ukrainian men sit around in Denny’s and plot in their own language to take over the world.
A grand dismantling of a fairly ridiculous wrestling program, as always. Better than last week’s abortion though, I’d have to say.
it’s crazy when they have a guy like rodriguez (mediocre high-flier) and all they have him do is announce. reminds me of shawn daivari doing nothing with mohammad hassan doing all the work, and i’m pretty sure armando alejandro estrada was the same deal?
I want to remind Jericho that his only amazing storyline post-return was written by him and Shawn Michaels and had almost nothing to do with the howler monkeys in WWE Creative.
Brandon, you’ve disappointed me for the first time. I was expecting to read a “When a angry black man is talking, you shut it up” joke.
@David – I didn’t want to make him any angrier, I own a cat and love it very much.
Uh yeah, if I wasn’t married, I’d totally be a Beth Phoenix groupie.
Awww… I like Kane!
You have me actually interested in wrestling again. I tried to watch but your review is still more entertaining. Bonus for Fire Pro references. Which was your favorite Fire Pro? I played “D” the most and pretty much everything pales in comparison to its glory.
Anyone else notice in the segment when A Ri was talking to the Miz in the locker room, that his shirt was dirty? Then he barges out to call out Cena and his shirt is clean?
Little things like these make me realize that I should start paying attention to the NBA playoffs instead.
I would give anything to have Shawn Daivari back on my television screaming in Arabic. It’s possibly my favorite gimmick of all time…
A+ coverage of the wrasslin’ show!
See, what I like about your style overall, Bran-man, is that you drop in a Wire reference when appropriate, whereas a drooling moron masquerading as a sportswriter might craft an entire sports op-ed piece around quotes from The Wire. But that would just be crazy!
I was a fan of A-Ri’s endless walk to the ring. I bet Kevin Dunn was screaming “Gahdammit thish ish takin too long!”
Lot of sites are giving this Raw bad reviews, but I had a blast watching it. Squash match after squash match, followed by a cool main event.
Being in the business, I’ve gotta tell you, love these recaps. (and the Homocide/Danielson title change, wasn’t a fan when we did that either)
@Kyle – Thank you, that means a hell of a lot to me. People in the business reading the recaps and not thinking I’m full of shit is the best. And yeah, I knew the Homicide thing was coming when it happened, but I was so sad. I’m such a Dragon fanboy, you can see me on like a quarter of the DVDs during his title reign, screaming and cheering like an idiot for him.
Okay, that backstage segment between Miz and Alex Riley was giving off serious Smithers/Mr. Burns vibes. Will The Miz ever realize that A-Ri loves him?