Best: Mark Henry Is My Favorite Wrestler
I don’t know what universe I’m living in, but here’s a sentence: The Big Show versus Mark Henry match at last night’s pay-per-view was fantastic. How did I get here? This is not my beautiful wife.
But it was. It WAS my beautiful wife. As a supporter of North American and Japanese independent pro wrestling I love and appreciate a couple of little guys jumping around and dance fighting, but occasionally the red-blooded fan needs to see two hoss-ass monsters being fat and beating the sh*t out of each other. In just under six minutes, Mark Henry (continuing his month-long streak as the second-best booked person in the company) dismantled and dispatched The Big Show, most notably in my favorite type of finishing sequence — Big Show kicked out of a World’s Strongest Slam, so instead of standing up and yelling C’MAWN THAT WAS THREE THAT WAS THREE REF until Show could roll him up and win, Henry picked him back up, hit him with two more World’s Strongest Slams and splashed him repeatedly until he won. THAT is awesome.
If you are not on this big motherf**kers bandwagon yet, get on it, because if he’d wrestled like this in 1996 we’d be talking about one of the all-time greats.
Best: Big Show Gets Henryized
We need to rename the act of getting “Pillmanized”, because it’s quickly becoming this generation’s O’Connor Roll. Do you know where that move’s name comes from? If you’re me or Mike Quackenbush, you do. If you were Twittering your friends to ask them if CM Punk’s worked shoot was a work or a shoot, you probably don’t.
I move we call it getting “Henryized”, possibly with an alternate spelling, because a 400 pound World’s Strongest thing dropping its stuff on your leg and breaking it to sh*t is great. Last week Mark Henry was the rhino from Donkey Kong Country Returns, and this week he’s a Thwomp. Gotta love it. Next week he should be a Linda from Double Dragon.
(that means he should attack somebody with a chain whip)
Best: Big Show is Frank the Tank
Watch Will Ferrell take a tranquilizer dart to the neck and flop around in a bunch of chairs and tell me it doesn’t sound exactly like The Big Show when he’s injured.
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the idea about wwe ring boys is utter brilliance!
I’ve been watching “rasslin” since David Von Erich and it’s been a long time since I can say “I am excited for the next show”. And, like you, Bryan Danielson is my favorite wrestler and the off chance of them even just hot-shoting the belt on him would be amazing.
Daniel Bryan is a nerd, but it doesn’t matter because he’s also the best in the world.
Good article. I think we need to wait and get some perspective a bit before we call this a Greatest of All Time PPV. I’m confident it will hold up but I would err on the side of caution.
I completely agree about reducing the number of competitors in the MitB matches. I was saying that when they increased the number from six to eight. High numbers mean the matches have to be spotfests, which they probably will be anyway but any real story that could be told goes out the window to get each guy a moment in the spotlight.
Totally wish I was there. I’m glad I’m on vacation but what kind of luck is it that I’m out of town the day they decide to get things right a couple miles from my house?
I had to put my head down the second time Cena put on the STF. I was too scared to look, and relied upon my headphones to hear a slapping hand on the mat and a chorus of boos. Then the audience erupted, I lifted my head, and there was CM Punk with the Anaconda Vice.
God, that’s what professional wrestling should be.
I know why you were watching a torrent this morning instead of watching it live last night, but a lot of people don’t, and I think it taints your message. Otherwise, great writeup!
I was there last night in the 10th row and it was fuckin phenomenal! Best show I’ve ever been to and was so good I decided to buy the repeat of it today on PPV to watch it again tonight with my son who didn’t go and because I can’t wait a month to see it again.
I have no voice from yelling for Punk last night and picked up an exclusive Punk shirt with last night’s date on it. Awesome show……bout damn time
I think you should watch Smackdown if only for the chance to make egregious American Dream references every time Cody Rhodes shows up. Cody Rhodes is the son of a son of a plumber. Daniel Bryan doesn’t know about HARD TIMES!
John Cena is the Ned Stark of the WWE. Always going out of the way to do the honorable thing, and it all ends with his head getting cut (or kneed) off.
A John Anderson reference on With Leather…this is one of those rare boom periods for With Leather.
@coked_up_jesus – I hope you aren’t kidding, because tomorrow’s Best and Worst of Raw is going to have the video for “Seminole Wind” in the middle of it.
It was glorious…
Pretty sure you’re thinking of Bash 89, because Bash 90 was the worst PPV ever.
@CW – Shit, you’re right. I was thinking 89, but I do like 90 because that’s the one where Vader shows up.
Been waiting for this since last night–and as always, well worth the wait.
(but dude, I say “dude”–well, not all the time, but I do.)
@Jade – YOU’RE A NERD JADE (but seriously, watch this video [www.youtube.com] followed by this one [www.youtube.com] . Makes me want to headbutt something)
@Brandon – I want to request “Straight Tequila Night” for the upcoming feature on TNA Wrestling.
@coked_up_jesus – If this Punk match had happened on any other PPV, I would’ve used “I Wish I Could’ve Been There”
It was great. It was a blast from the past, like an Ufford helmed With Leather
@Brandon – “Black Sheep” would’ve worked too. Side note: Now I’ve been thrown into the horrible world of Joe Diffie videos…thanks a bunch.
@Brandon I prefer “geek”, thank you. :)
As for Michael Cole, any time I actually have to listen to him, I want to headbutt something. Gimmick or not, he gets on my nerves.
I don’t have much to add to all that, but goddamn that show was fun as hell. Here’s hoping they’ve got something close to that good planned going forward, because after something like last night all those Dolph-Kofi matches somehow seem worth it.
Great job as always B.
I kinda wished you were talking about Bash 90 instead of 89, just because I thought it was kind of a ballsy statement. I mean it would’ve been wrong, but I’ll fight a dude who doesn’t think Southern Boys vs Midnight Express is the best tag team match of all time.
Why didn’t you write anything about what’s going to happen now with Punk?
Can I just say that I never expected a glowing reccomendation of Ricochet from you?
In any case, this review encapsulates everything I wanted to hear about last night’s show. Pro wrestling is great, and people talking about how great it is is great.
@Dr. Obvious – I’m not sure. Part of it is that I was writing about this show and am not the type to fantasy book (seriously, at least). Part of it is that I’m trying to stay positive, and you get less positive the longer you think about what WWE is gonna do with somebody.
Plus, I covered a lot of my thoughts on where he’d go and what he’d do after winning the belt in Best and Worst of Raw from last week.
I live in southeastern Wisconsin and it takes me, roughly, an hour and a half to get to and from the Allstate Arena. I mention this because I went to the show last night and I did not stop talking or thinking about this show for the duration of that ride and for several hours more until I finally went to bed. CM Punk deserves everything people say about him and everything he gets. He deserves the match with Stone Cold, but not as an undercard to Cena-Rock because everyone knows that there is no way The Rock and Cena could top it. (And this is coming from someone who thinks John Cena is one of the best workers in the world.) This was the best wrestling I’ve seen in a long time, possibly ever and it’s the kind of wrestling that makes me want to watch more and more wrestling until my eyes fall out.
Great stuff, Brandon. I am not ashamed to admit that when Punk won the match and blew Vince a kiss before ascending the stairs past fans in his hometown, that I legitimately marked out. I, for one, look forward to my CM Punk WWE Ice Cream bar.
I haven’t watched Raw in ages, since I don’t have cable. But I’m heading out to the bar tonight to watch. This Punk storyline is on of the best they’ve done in years. And Vince is still my favorite WWE performer. I saw a clip of the last five minutes of last night’s show, and Vince was awesome. He even did the big gulp!
I marked out a little for Randy Orton’s gutwrench neckbreaker, not because it was new and innovative, but in fact because it’s a classic Orton move from ’04 that I haven’t seen in forever.
Bright Lights Big City is a good song. Kick rocks on that. Otherwise, love these recaps
Was that a Rude Dog and the Dweebs reference..? I think it was!
@RichMahogany – It absolutely was.
Great article Brandon.
But finally saw something I disagree with you about. And it’s the littlest thing.
Bright Lights, Bigger City is really good song. Appropriate enough for the city of Los Angeles. I like rock ppv themes but this song has it’s own kind of epicness.
Enough of that, I’m not going to argue musical tastes. We all differ on what we like. Here’s to feeding your writing ego, You did a great job.
what’s about to happen on Raw is R-Truth vs. Kofi Kingston final, 1st black champ guaranteed, and then Del Rio cashes in.
wishful thinking
Good job, Brandon.
wtf was page five?
Great article brotha. Favorite part was the MVP joke (obviously)
I never watch the PPVs because I don’t want to pay for a casual thing I only sort of watch, but I slightly regret not buying this one!
As always, awesome article. I think this actually might be one of my favourites that you’ve done, if only because the show itself was so good. I obviously like wrestling humour and a large part of that is making fun of stupid stuff, but reading so much positivity (especially the part about Punk) was pretty cool. Not that you don’t ever find the positive aspects in all the shows anyway, but you know what I mean.
Other highlights for me –
- Getting across my exact views on John Cena and his defining heroic moment in a far better way than I ever could.
- Christian as a male WWE diva, which I never realised but is amazing.
- Chavo Guerrero sucks.
- Big Show being injured sounding like Frank The Tank, which is hilarious.
- Basically all of that, to be honest.
Oh and the only thing I sort of like about Cole constantly harping on Bryan for being a nerd is how much Booker T springs to D-Bryan’s defence.
I was there for this PPV and it was amazing. By the end of the Punk Cena match I was so physically exhausted from Chanting CM Punk, screaming, and clapping that I almost couldn’t stand. High fives and hugs happened between complete strangers in the crowd when Punk won. It was the most amazing and emotional thing I’ve ever witnessed at a live wrestling event.
I know you always talk about Randy Orton digivolving into an armed snake man, but that gif continues to prove that Randy’s at his best when he’s digivolving into that weird Muppet thing that would always eat Kermit in those old black and white commercials.
@Brandon My bad. Bash 91 was the worst ever. (Luger/Windham with the belt that might have been the uwf western states belt passing as the wcw belt)
The whole Punk idea was just a storyline people. Punk’s not going anywhere. He never was. The whole purpose here was to take everyone’s money (or make as much as they could)! McMahon and his writers just took what they know from internet posts about McMahon and turned it into a storyline involving Mr Punk. Furthermore knowone cares about where a stupid belt goes because McMahon can easily makes dozens of these belts. You’ve all been had and that’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Goosebumps on the inside
I was lucky enough to be there on Sunday, and I grant that I’m not a wrestling encyclopaedia and I can’t name a bunch of indy guys outside of ROH (and that’s only because it used to be on TV every week), but I can honestly say that the emotion of that crowd, along with the quality of the match and the outcome, made it one of the more special nights of my life.
I know how you feel, B.
Honestly… I don’t usually like “recap” articles, and I don’t know how long you have been doing this article, but hell you are good man….one big favor….start watching smackdown….get familiar enough and do that too, getting your take, once a week won’t be enough
I queefed so hard when Punk won it blew the plate of nachos on my lap across the living room