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Best: You Delivered That Promo All By Yourself, John! I’m So Proud Of You!

It’s been said in this column before, but John Laurinaitis is absolutely hysterical. It almost feels like a violation of my Smark Credibility to revile the man as a human being but love him so much as a performer, but there’s just something so funny about the way he mumbles through his segments with absolutely no adherence to any sort of cadence. He just speeds up and slows down his speech patterns with no regard for things like “timing” or “delivery,” and instead of asserting himself as an authority figure, he sounds more like a divorced father trying to discipline his fighting children while not wanting to seem “uncool.”

I don’t know whether it’s natural or if he’s the most brilliant thespian of our generation, but I can’t wrap my mind around how every time he picks up a microphone it’s like he’s just discovering he can do this thing where his vocal chords vibrate and resonate off his tongue, projecting sounds for other people to hear. And every time he manages to prattle off nonsense about “dubduuheee unnivursss” his plastic caricature-of-a-President-mask face lights up like he can’t believe he did it.

His current run as GM in itself was almost enough to make me forgive him for subjecting the world to like a billion straight weeks of watching the lesbian incest twins attempt to bang prestigious celebrity talent like the non-Single Guy guy from Weekend at Bernie’s or whomever, but then he had to go and give me (ME!) a Christmas present in the form of a swank six-man tag. It’s probably the best gift I’ve received since the year my mom got me that box full of non-refundable aluminum cans and liquor store receipts.

Best: Wade Barrett: King Of The Midway Heels

I’ve watched hundreds of desperate indy wrestlers throw themselves through tables, fly off of ladders and get stabbed in the face only to transform magically from robots into blingwads; all in an effort to make names for themselves, and in one fell swoop Wade Barrett plugs Randy Orton in the eye with his thumb, undoes all that and transports me back to a time where I’m marking because George Hackenschmidt is wrestling a bear on the carnival midway. Also, I’m wearing a punched-out top hat and roasting a single bean over a fire in some transient work camp.

It’s such a simple thing, but there’s nothing wrong with going back to the classics. Hell, Wade’s current run works so well specifically because he’s gone back to the drawing board. He’s a heel motivated by a desire to win a championship, because championships equal money, and money equals not subsisting upon cat food once he’s sixty-five years old. Some might call it underhanded, but I call it fiscally responsible.

When did Wade get so good at being an actual wrestler, by the way? He could always talk, obviously, but I’m 100% convinced his in-ring ability holds a direct correlation to how foppish his hair is becoming.

Frankly, I think they should go all-out and fit him for a doublet, frilly shirt and a pair of buckled breeches. Wade could become the 1600′s equivalent to when Brent Albright started wrestling for Ring of Honor and would come out in these ridiculous leather-daddy trench coats. We used to call Brent the “gay basher,” because he looked like an openly homosexual male who wouldn’t tolerate any guff given to him in regard to his sexual proclivities. That’s what wrestling needs if it really wants to get progressive. An openly gay wrestler who doesn’t define himself by his sexuality and will bloody your ignorant nose if you try and start some shit.

Worst: Your Beth Phoenix Match Doesn’t Jive With My Reality

Sorry, but any Beth Phoenix match which doesn’t end in five seconds via Beth employing a Mortal Kombat fatality and ripping her opponent’s vertebrate out through their mouth isn’t a match I’m interested in watching. I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic, either. I understand we’re in the PG era and all, so I wouldn’t be upset if, say, WWE were to pull a Nintendo and only allow Beth to gingerly uppercut Alicia Fox into a pit of Punji sticks covered with diseased animal stool. Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to grant concessions.

Best: Foxy SHAZAM!

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I really hope Alicia Fox’s attempt to get “foxy” over as a thematically-appropriate adjective extends beyond the holiday season. I can’t wait until she’s wishing us all a “FOXY Amelia Earhart Day” or whatever.

Best: Jamster

Does anyone think it’s totally hilarious that at this very moment, thousands of parents’ cell phones are being stuffed full of spam texts on account of the Jamster ads they were running last night? Basically, Jamster bought commercial time during Raw and used it to promote their pay-per-text “find out your wrestling name” service. It’s not unlike any of the hundreds of other banal services they offer, but what made this one great was that they went so far as to license the Raw theme and design a partially-obscured knock-off “U Can’t C Me” t-shirt. It was all a thinly-veiled ploy to trick children into charging absurd amounts of money to their parents’ cell phone bills, and they did so knowing full-well that Michelle Tanner wouldn’t be around to educate kids about proper phone etiquette.

Worst: No J.D. Roth, No Dice

Oh, cool! A show on WWE Network called Legends House! I can’t wait to watch J.D. Roth coerce a team of brain-damaged cripples into writhing through a kiddie pool full of cat food where they’ll grope wildly for hidden bottles of Oxycodone! Wait, you mean that’s not the show’s premise? Am I at least going to get to watch Iron Sheik piss himself and threaten to rape the CGI visage of Bruno Sammartino? No?

Yeah, I’ll pass.