Best: Superstars on Raw

I’ve read a lot of negative criticism about the wrestling on this show (including the 411 Wrestling recap, which says the show was “energetic” but “held back” by the wrestling), and I can’t disagree more. I was in love with last night’s presentation of Raw, and the biggest, most sparkly BEST ever to the production guy who decided to start going to commercial break between entrances instead of crashing to break in the middle of the match. Cole even did his elevated CAN EVAN BOURNE CAPITALIZE WHEN WE COME BACK voice, but they stayed on the action. I was, lit-trully? In love with it.

So I also enjoyed the Santino vs. Michael McGillicutty match. The Attitude Era created a certain mindset about what does and doesn’t make a good TV match, and I understand I’m in the minority when I say THIS is the kind of match we should be seeing more often. If I want to see John Cena wrestle Randy Orton, I should have to pay for it, because those are the top dogs in the company. I should be taught to WANT to see this by matches like Santino/McGillicutty, where lower level guys go back and forth and we’re sort of allowed to form our own opinions. Situations like this make wrestling feel like a real thing, where guys are sometimes just paired up because that’s the schedule. I hate feeling like the Raw GM shows up without any matches planned and waits for main event guys to meander out at the top of the show and challenge each other. Sometimes he should have “Otunga vs. Sheamus” written in his planner, you know?

McGillicutty sucks a dick (don’t get me wrong, he totally does) but I’m enjoying the recent Santino singles matches, especially the one on Superstars against Ryder featuring the Cobra to the leg~.

Worst: A Complete Waste of Beth Phoenix

The team of Kelly Kelly and the diva that beat the pink candyfloss stuffing out of Kelly Kelly for like two and a half years are the perfect pair to teach us a story about bullying. Beth Phoenix is pretty good at her job, and a great, contextual explanation to why WWE mostly hires Hawaiian Tropic girls instead of independent wrestlers — the stories they want to tell in the ring and best performed by bikini models. It’s the truth. It’s why Gail Kim fails whenever she steps into a WWE ring. You’d think wrestlers would be the best at wrestling, but nope, when “wrestling” means “clapping your hands, pointing at nothing and sometimes doing a cartwheel,” who is going to be better at that, Christina Von Eerie or a high school cheerleader?

Beth Phoenix should cut her losses (and her hundreds of thousands of dollars) and head to Japan, or convince the guy who runs Wrestleicious to give like 1/10th of his money to SHIMMER so they can be a real thing on television. Or, I guess she can keep getting paid to do almost nothing, which is probably a great job.

Best: Kelly Kelly’s Boobs

I’m going to say it. I try not to get any more lecherously Internet sounding than “Maryse is hot,” but Kelly Kelly has fantastic breasts. A lot of it has to do with her wrestling in a water bra (or whatever they’ve upgraded to since the last time I dated a girl with a flat chest), but real, actual boobs are a great thing for a woman to have. They’re as rare in pro wrestling as a good Kane match, and I wanted to take a paragraph to calmly, maturely express my appreciation for them. Whenever I see Natalya choking herself to death with her own internal chest protector, I consider that Kelly might look like a Hebrew school kid with the sun in his eyes, but at least she didn’t do THAT.

And of course, this isn’t mean to condemn fake breasts, because I’m also mature enough to understand that fake breasts are perfect breasts, and that Maryse has orange skin and horse extensions and her incredible falseness is sort of what makes her hot. I think you have to shoot for one side of the spectrum or the other, so you land NEAR the edges, but not too close to Chyna or a grizzled naturalist. Or, you know, you can do what you want. I’m just going to keep calling myself mature until I can get through these paragraphs about boobs.