Best: Kharma’s Implant Buster ’91
Every move performed on Eve from now on needs to involve her being pushed a little higher into the air, then dropped directly on her face. If I didn’t have tons of reasons to love the Awesome Kong (her run in HUSTLE, being best friends with Cheerleader Melissa, making ten minutes of TNA fun to watch for about a year and a half) this would be near the top. Look at this thing. She should start trying to legitimately hurt these girls* so the Divas division can be her, Melissa, Miyako Matsumoto and, I don’t know, Portia Perez? Ah screw this report, I’m gonna go play Fire Pro.
*I do not endorse anyone other than John Morrison being hurt on purpose.
Worst: Kharma Needs To Do Something Now
While I do enjoy her slowly walking to the ring and staring people into submission while Divas scatter, we’re a few weeks into Kharma now and should probably start establishing who she is and why she’s doing what she’s doing. We don’t need a novella detailing her backstory or anything, but a quick piece where Scott F’n Stanford asks her why she’s stalking Kelly Kelly (of all people) and gets scared away would go a long way. I really don’t want her to fall into WWE’s very real trap of thinking “mean person!” is a legitimate television character.
Worst: Stop Letting Kane Wrestle
Kane, in some form or another, has been around since 1992. He had one okay match with Bret Hart and one okay match with Chris Benoit, and that’s it. He’s tired, lost any sort of gravitas when X-Pac and Tori made jokes about his “burnt wiener,” and is starting to look like Baron Von Raschke. You guys are all into retirement matches now, have Triple H and the Undertaker in a Career vs. Streak match at next year’s Wrestlemania, with the added stipulation that Kane must retire no matter what happens.
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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?