johny-ace-texting

Best: I Hope He’s Texting Mrs. Baba

The best part of last week’s live Gail Kim shoot interview on iPPV (because I’m the type who would spend 13 dollars to listen to a stranger talk about other strangers) is that John Laurinaitis had a threesome with the Bella Twins, and that that’s why they (collectively, as Mecha-Shiva) won the Diva’s Title. The worst part is that nobody asked her about the first time she had sex with celebrity chef Robert Irvine, and whether or not he put his hands on his hips and stood there disgusted, tossed out all her underwear, showed her how to make her own cheap but comfortable to wear underwear and then reopened to the bedroom for intercourse. Or whether or not he used plastic bins full of lemons and limes to visualize his ability to orgasm.

Anyway, the point here is that John Laurinaitis as a television character is starting to grow on me. He’s a wrestling bad guy you actually hate to see. “X-Pac Heat” became a thing on the Internet several years back and is used to explain a wrestler who you don’t enjoy hating, but one you simply do not want to watch, and would rather stop watching than boo. I feel like in today’s Internet Wrestling Community, where we love every bad guy who is moderately entertaining and are sorta shackled to the reality that we’re going to watch this every week no matter how bad it gets, a wrestler with X-Pac Heat is the only one who truly has heat. The fact that WWE refuses to let their bad guys be formidable and HAVE to portray them as wimpy scaredy-cats doesn’t help. As of now, John Ace isn’t scared of anybody, and his only role on the show is to usurp power, stick these starf**king twins and clandestinely text.

Oh, and if you need a handy power chart for Raw:

* Vince McMahon was CEO and COO, was fired as COO but kept on as CEO and replaced by Triple H
* Triple H became COO and was fired using the same language he’d used to fire Vince, but he’s still COO and was only fired as the general manager of Raw, which he never was
* John Laurinaitis was promoted to interim General Manager of Raw from an Executive Vice President of Talent Relations position you’d think would give him more power, so it’s like getting demoted from the Four Horsemen to Raw. Despite not being COO and having only a small portion of Triple H’s old job in an interim capacity, is more powerful than both COO and CEO
* Teddy Long was promoted from Smackdown General Manager And Janitorial Services Specialist to Smackdown General Manager Who Can Make Impromptu Tag Matches On Raw, but only on the fly, and only if he convinces every player to hold on a minute there.
* The anonymous Raw General Manager computer was promoted from Raw General Manager to inanimate prop
* ECW General Manager Tiffany was promoted from ECW General Manager to Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling commissioner
* Eric Bischoff was promoted from Hulk Hogan’s Friend to Guy Who Hates Hulk Hogan
* TNA President Dixie Carter was promoted to “lady who goes to wrestling shows”
* Daniel Bryan left the Money In The Bank briefcase in a hotel somewhere and we’re just gonna forget about it

Worst: What’s Going On With All This Ass Slapping

I thought that when Kelly Kelly added Dominant Ass Slap to her moveset, she was doing it as sort of a meta statement about her position in the world of wrestling and the attitudes and gestures expected of her, like the Stink Face … but, uh, nope, jump to about 0:55 and watch Natalya shove Eve to the ground and slap her in the ass about half-a-dozen times. The moment gets a small “best” for the production crew jumping over to Kelly, who makes an “oh my god I can’t believe she’s slapping somebody in the ass, who does that, honestly” face that made me laugh, and a huge, difficult-to-express Worst for continuing to revert WWE’s “we wear pants now” Divas division back to its origin of “custom matches” and apartment wrestling. If the match was on Eskimo Tube I wouldn’t be complaining, but this is a part of Raw I’m supposed to enjoy.

There’s really no psychological reason for Natalya to start whomping Eve in the ass cheek, unless that “we’re not jealous of Kelly and Eve, we AREN’T, we REALLY AREN’T” thing and the Beth “we’re just girls, we’re gonna get hurt by the mean boys” thing from a couple of weeks ago are leading to a weird socially abusive thing where Beth and Natalya are gay and are doing this to shame Eve, and because they really want to touch her butt. If Gaspar Noé guest hosts Raw, sure, we can go that way, but until then we need more lucha leg submissions and fewer games of grab-ass.

Best: Michael Cole Is Spreading Gossip

I don’t like Michael Cole or anything he does or says, but I have to admit I laughed when he was trying to trash talk Jim Ross in the most Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue way possible. “Heh, there’s a, there’s a rumor he’s, y’know, smoking some cigarettes!” I think the phrase “smoking some cigarettes” is what did it. He sounded like Lamilton from The Boondocks. King’s silence made it even funnier, when he should’ve just said “OH NO, NOT CIGARETTES” and punched Cole in the dick.

Worst: Eve’s 120° Moonsault

eve-moonsaultEve does a moonsault, and because we’re ten years removed from the Maven and Nidia season of Tough Enough where they learned to do moonsaults on like the second day of wrestling school and exposed the fact that falling backwards from a high place isn’t actually athleticism, we’re supposed to think it’s cool.

And yeah, moonsaults can be pretty cool, but what bugs me about Eve’s is that she never commits. She never (and this is going to sound weird, but stay with me) does things the Kenta Kobashi way by really throwing herself backwards and splashing her opponent with her body weight, she does a back handspring so blatantly that her hands almost touch the ground and her feet hit the mat before her body. She’s doing an elaborate version of that Crash Holly splash where he’d jump off the top, land on his feet, walk a few steps and the just hop on a guy. Your butt shouldn’t be higher than your head at the end of a moonsault, and if you’re trying to hurt somebody with your thighs and torso you can’t have your ass in the air at full Girl Push-Up when you connect.

Best: Beth Phoenix, Diva Of Legion Of Doom

They’re about a creative lightyear away from letting Beth and Natalya toss pumpkins off a scaffold so show what’ll happen to Kelly Kelly’s head and even farther from poking out Eve’s eye with a spike, but Beth in Road Warrior shoulder pads (or arm pads, whatever) is a nice step, and at least the sexiest attempt at the look since Alexis Laree.