is "good wrestling match" on the wheel somewhere
Pre-show notes:
- Be sure you’ve read The Best And Worst Of Royal Rumble 2013 before you read the Raw report.
- Comments, shares, likes, and especially Reddit submissions/up votes are appreciated. Those SquaredCircle Reddit types are nice people, and they need YOU, the valiant Reddit/With Leather overlapped demographic, to submit and support the column.
- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.
- Don’t forget, I’m going to be live at National Pro Wrestling Day this Saturday, so if you’ve ever heard of wrestling and Pennsylvania, get there and say hi.
Sorry, I couldn’t find a HQ episode of Nitro to review. Click through for the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for January 28, 2013.
Collect all the WWE badges!
The more WWE related content you read, discuss, and share on Facebook or Twitter, the faster you earn the best show moments. First Up: "Mark". More details
How To unlock:
Log into UPROXX or create an account and participate.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/1245/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.wl.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/SHIELD-180x180.png)
![[image]](http://cdn.wl.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/the-bella-twins-and-jill-thompson-yes-t-shirt-gallery-180x180.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.wl.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/Wrestling-Fan-180x180.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.wl.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/starring-brock-lesnar-180x180.png)
Thank you once again for making Tuesdays exciting Brandon, I feel for you now that Rocky is back and appreciate you not abandoning us.
This
Dagotron, your Ocean’s Eleven quote was the nail in the coffin.
That Bo Dall YouTube thing makes me like him a ton more (sincerity!) which means he’ll be fucking terrible in a few weeks.
I still think his hair looks like it came straight off a character model circa SmackDown 2 on PS1.
Half the show made me want to watch Nitro, yet the other half keeps me watching. I don’t like it.
I audibly yelled at Miz to tuck in his shirt, too.
Blue shirt shoulder shimmy camera pointing guy totally makes me not hate that Jackson Hewitt commercial.
Agreed.
I’m with ya B, about having “better guys” beat mid-card champions for no good reason. It is supposed to work like European soccer. The guys at the bottom work their way up and win lesser championships. And then those championships are basically “cashed in” for the chance to go for the better one in the top tier. The top tier guys don’t go for the lesser championship and they absolutely do not play the lesser teams. Having more structured tiers makes development and improvement meaningful and makes the IC and US belt meaningful markers.
It also means you can see some clear as day relegation when the Miz is striving for the IC strap.
We kind of got that with Bo Dallas and NXT.
True. And with the “up and coming NXT stars to watch” articles on dotcom. But that just makes me want the consistency even more. I understand that we wouldn’t want the same few guys wrestling all the time, but don’t have Wade Barrett lose 4 consecutive non-title matches to Sheamus because they just want to make Sheamus look strong and can’t figure out where to put him at the moment.
Very good, but I thought you’d have more to say about Punk’s responses to The Rock last night, especially being all “yeah, cos swearing is cool!” and doing the sarcastic “whatever fits your schedule” stuff.
Also, I reckon Brock gets at least a semi when he stands over someone he’s just F-5′d like that.
Heavens to murgatroid as Santino’s catchphrase, now.
Exit! Stage left even!
“is good wrestling match’ on the wheel somewhere”
HAHAHAHA! Congrats! You just won the “Make me laugh” competition!
If they were ever to release DVD sets of Nitro episodes in chronological order I’d quit watching Raw and watch 96-98 episodes on a loop every Monday. But only if Benoit was included.
Benoit segments would be replaced with Hardcore Holly’s body.
I love the Brock jig, so very much.
I tried to actually write my own Best/Worst this week and it turned out to be 6 pages of fart noises and sad trombone. You’ve bested me again Stroud!!!! *shakes fist*
High Quality episode of Nitro? That’s an oxymoron right?
No, The NWO was great foir wrestling because it really was a force. You had your pecking order sure like if someone was going to lose a match it was going to be Virgil or Buff Bagwell. But the NWO “destroyed” longstanding wrestling stpales… broke up the Steiner Bro’s and killed the four horsemen… you were left with DDP and Lex Lugor and you actually wanted to cheer for them. Sting had to attack by using guerrilla tactics and you actually felt all the other wrestlers were in peril.
Well, the NWO was great *briefly.* Before half the roster was in it, and before there were feuding factions within the NWO.
It’s just a joke. I loved WCW, from Arn Anderzon to Zbyszko.
jk.. nobody loved Zbyszko
I was a big fan of the Cruiserweights and a lot of other guys on the undercard, even when the main events were filled with guys I couldn’t care less about. Which sounds familiar, now that I think about it.
I’ll even give Zbyszko a pass, just because of the Dangerous Alliance.
Wolpac 4Eva homes! Cause we rowdy rowdy and…
Malenko v Jericho, Booker T v Jericho, Benoit v anybody, 90% of the Cruiserweight division… WCW had the best WRESTLING of the era going on and it goes unheralded because of the nWo stuff. If there had ever been a shoot WCW v NWO war the WCW guys would’ve won hands down.
Meh I preferred DX and all of attitude era over wcw
Some of them were alright, like that one where The Giant joined the nWo? Or that other one where…God, there’s like only two good episodes.
I got home last night just in time to see Jericho, Ziggles & DragonFire. After that I took a shower and then came back in time to see the Heyman performance review. Apparently that was the best possible viewing option.
Also, watching the Backstage Fallout thing makes me realize that if Tensai just totally Ron Swansons it up from here on out I’d be totally happy. Have him be a stoic monster who secretly enjoys things but is ashamed to admit it, but also has friends who he loves but can’t admit to loving.
If Tensai has a jazz koto album under the name Bloom Silver, I’ll eat my hat.
If Tensai begs Vickie to set up an elaborate scavenger hunt next week I take back everything I’ve ever complained about regarding his return.
sadly the Backstage Fallout segment features Brodus Clay just outright saying “we’re gonna get you a tracksuit and a hat.”
Yes, but it also showed him trying to be friends with Tensai and complimenting him so he wouldn’t feel so bad! Friends and sincerity is all it takes for me to like someone.
DOES HE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT A SERIES OF CLUES TO FIND THE TRACK JACKET AND HAT?
Tensai and Brodus as a tag team might just be awesome. I don’t care if they wear all the tracksuits, just let them destroy guys.
Tell him the dog from The Artist is the RAW GM and watch him slap his thigh and giddily yell “AHAAA!”
I think you heard, ‘bring me a lot of sushi.’ What I said was, bring me all the sushi that you have.
Well, it certainly appears that Tensai orders all the bacon and eggs in every diner he goes to.
If Brodus and Tensai turn into a best buds tag team, It’d be a disgrace not to have Big Show go after Tensai afterward out of blind jealousy.
Is there a reason they have has-been celebrities there in the crowd? I get that they might have some guy from an upcoming film behind the announcers but why Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi?!
Because WWE thinks credibility can be acquired via osmosis.
My guess is that Graf and Agassi wanted to be there. That’s not hard to figure out, is it? WWE probably said, “Sure, we’ll give you free tickets– mind if we put you on camera once?”
They do have a pretty sizable house near the Hoover Dam, so the 40 minute or so drive probably wasn’t too bad.
Okay, is it just me, or was the Heyman segment disturbingly anti-Semitic? I know that’s a weighty accusation to just lob out there in the comments section of Internet wrestling talk, but as a Jew I’m not sure I can even watch this show anymore. I like wrestling, so please convince me I’m wrong that: (1) the script has Heyman juxtaposing an explicit reference to his Jewishness with that long speech about how he’s a lying, scheming worm of a man (and I agree Brandon, as a piece of acting, it did have a Shylockian gravitas to it); and (2) in the same segment as #1, Vince harps on Heyman’s “untrustworthy face” as the camera zooms purposefully in on his large nose.
Since Vince was actually on screen during this, I would bet my JACKSON HEWITT processed tax return that it was intended.
I think you’re probably reading too much into it. Heyman just said he had a Jewish accent. I don’t think Vince was saying “LOOK AT THIS LYING, JEW” though now that I think about it, he totally would.
Vince McMahon and “Bigot Asshole” go hand-in-hand like John Cena and “Ruiner of Everything I Enjoy About Wrestling”
I can’t tell you how to take it, but I didn’t get that out of it. I think Heyman’s built up enough on-screen scumbag equity over the years that ethnicity wouldn’t even register with most people. I know it didn’t for me.
Not saying Vince wouldn’t go there. Hope he didn’t, but if he did I happily missed it.
I didn’t pick up on that as I was watching, but it takes sense, and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if it was intended, given that Vince/Booker T exchange years back where he said the n-word because comedy.
*makes sense oop
As a former vice president of my college’s Hillel I see where you’re coming from, but think that it has more to do with Heyman being Heyman than anything.
I thought the zoom was on his eyes, not his nose, because that’s the window to the soul and telling of a liar.
It is professional wrestling. A place where racially based gangs, men in Native American garb and black servants are common place.
Yeah, I almost feel like if Vince was going to go racial, he’d have gone full-on racist, if only because he’s 0-for-history in subtlety.
Yeah, if Vince was gonna go anti-Semitic, he’d probably be more along the lines of a Mel Gibson meltdown. “Gimme your Jew gold, Heyman! YERRRRRRR FIIIIIIIIRED FOR STARTING ALL THE WARS!”
“he’s 0-for-history in subtlety”
If Vince still carries business cards, I really hope that’s on them.
FWIW, people in my family around Vince’s age have this weird notion of getting close to your face and studying your eyes to discern if a speaker is lying. I always found that very peculiar, but I don’t think its necessarily prejudicial towards anyone.
The WWE is anti-everything. So it wouldn’t surprise me if Vince were to go an anti-Semitic route. However, I didn’t see it last night. I thought they were focusing on his fat face then to his eyes. It should also be mentioned that Heyman pointed out his thick New York Jewish accent. He didn’t just deliberately say it was his Jewish accent.
Now, if next week if Heyman stutters and Vince McMahon suggests to improve his concentration, Heyman should go to a concentration camp, then you might be onto something.
Pretty sure the camera was zooming in on the eyes. Considering how much WWE has used racism/bigotry as “comedy,” it wouldn’t be surprising…
I think if this was Heyman’s first ever appearance I could see where you’re coming from but considering he’s been a shifty, conniving, lying, manipulative character for well over a decade now with no mention of him having a Jewish accent that would be one hell of a long set-up for a disappointing racist joke at the end.
But again it’s VKM people have put less effort into fighting wars than he seems to put into belittling minorities.
@IrishCream’s Mel Gibson reference: The Rock has more or less called Paul Heyman “Sugar Tits” on more than one occasion.
That Jackson Hewitt commercial makes me wish Montell Jordan hadn’t given the designated driver the keys to his truck.
Haha Nicely done
Someone in the comments yesterday said how they should have just paid Montell Jordan to re-record the song with, “THIS IS JACKSON-HEWITT…” and now I can stop thinking that everytime I see the commercial.
“The Divas division continues to fall apart without Eve Torres around to anchor it.”
I can’t believe this is a real sentence that has become factual. Imagine saying this last year.
It would’ve made your brain explode. Such fallacy.
Isn’t it crazy how Eve’s work ethic got better after that interview with WL?
Also, Jericho’s in ring segment with Ziggler was better than anything he did last year.
I get the whole argument against faces slut shaming and calling heels fags, it drives me nuts, but Jericho didn’t really do that last night. He said something about AJ being a puppy who peed on the floor, which I thought was funny because AJ does kind of remind me of the little dog from the cartoons with the giant friend who goes around barking a lot with the hopes that her big friend will back her up. The bra size thing wasn’t that funny, but he did qualify it afterward, so it wasn’t a “HEY UR A GUURLFAG” situation to me. I think since WWE, time and again, has been so brazen with their racist, sexist and homophobic undertones, that we are conditioned to see any insult by a face in that way. Were they base insults last night? Yeah. Were they sexist? I don’t think so.
Yeah, I was actually surprised Jericho pulled back and used the word “pecs.” Maybe he realized he was sounding too much like the Rock.
^ More like the Rock told Jericho not to use boobs could it would steal his thunder.
I’m glad Jericho didn’t go that route with AJ.
This is Jericho, people. He called her a dog because only Rocky has enough pull to get away with actually saying “bitch” on tv these days. 10 years ago she would have been a dirty, disgusting, no-good, bottom-feeding, cum-guzzling ho, or whatever the line was. It was his standard awful misogyny dressed up for the PG era.
So you’re saying Jericho can’t get away with saying this shit, but Ryder can? He could have called her whatever he wanted, as obviously this shit is still cool with WWE, yet he didn’t call her a ho or a slut. Stop projecting your perceived misogyny onto everything.
I just know now that Jericho is gonna lead with cum-guzling ho next week.
My perception is based on a long, documented history of sexism and misogyny both from Jericho and WWE at large. You’re saying, essentially, to give him the benefit of the doubt, but why would I at this point?
I’m saying he can’t get away with the old routine. Ho-ski is gibberish, so it slips through the filter, like how Rock can call Punk cookiepuss instead of a pussy. The intent is clear, even if a token attempt at obfuscation is made.
@shabbydude:
Yeah, except Rock really never said “pussy”, he always used “pie”, which he also used on television last night. Cookiepuss was just another gibberish word designed to get people chanting and hashtagging. You’re reading too much into things.
It might not be gibberish. Cookiepuss is an ice cream clown. That’s actually a good burn. Did Rock mean it this way? It’s possible.
I don’t think it’s read too much at all. If the Rock wanted to create a gibberish word that wasn’t suppose to be a substitute for “pussy,” he would have ended up with something that wasn’t “pussy” without the “y.”
I love that the Teddy Long/ Rodney Mack theme has 89 youtube views. I wonder how many of those are from the link in this column? I’d wager half.
You’d be wrong. The correct answer is 100%.
I’m only through Page 2, but “we miss you gay Twix cops” is outstanding.
What are we making of 5 Hour Energy guy and his ping pong mastery coinciding with the recording of his deeeeebuuuuuut aaaaaalbuuuummmm?
Just knowing the debut album bit’s coming makes me change the channel as quickly as possible, because if I actually hear it it makes me furious. So I can’t say I’m a fan.
I, like Matt Ufford, will be highly disappointed if 5 Hour Energy Guy doesn’t release his debut album.
I can’t get over the fact that due to the cyclical nature of pop music and the internet’s ability to instigate and promote trends at a breakneck speed, his album is going to be autotuned. It seems so 2009, but also so of the moment.
Without going back to check with the official counters, the “This Is How We Do It” counter finished at a grand total of 11, right?
yes, but it felt like eleventy hundred
Michael Cole’s sole function is to follow the face/heel path of The Miz so that they’re always in agreement. JBL pointing out that Miz was instigating was dead on. Having Cole turn into Lawler as a response was painful.
“Tuck in your shirt, Miz. THIS IS YOUR JOB.”
I cracked up pretty good on that.
TB! Do you have a Twitter account?
Ouh seems like you gained a fan mr.bear
If by fan you mean we like to talk about Rupaul’s Drag Race then yes.
I do! (@danmacrae) I haven’t watched the premiere just yet (tonight’s when I’m tackling it) so my contributions may be a bit on the limited side.
Note: I believe that TB was directed at me and not at Terry Bradshaw. (Slightly worried that I might be wrong.)
OK, followed you just now! (@ari_amaru) Let me know what you think!
Huzzah! Twitter pallin’ out.
We need an official Jr Wrestling Bros twitter thread. @KevinNewburn is looking to follow more awesome twitterers
Consider yourself followed, Dino/Kevin.
Holy hell @ the resemblance between Bo Dallas’s theme & Indian Outlaw.
I expect Refried Dreams and Don’t Take The Girl references in the future, Brandon.
I guarantee you one Tim McGraw reference per Bo Dallas appearance until he stops using that theme.
You mean, it isn’t a modified version of Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy?
I will hold you to that (how, I don’t know). If Joba Chamberlain is to remain beached somewhere, I’d like for someone I enjoy to give me a Tim McGraw fix.
I was scoffing at it until I went back and listened to his theme. It’s uncanny.
Also, thank you for reminding me of the term for “Just changed enough to avoid copyright” version of a song. I was just talking about it the other day to the gf.
Who would be world Champion if WWE was “real”? Have to still fight in the Main Event Style, and everyone keeps their movesets. Entertaining this thought distracted me from a boring date last night (my fault). Poor girl. I eventually decided on Big Show, because the WMD.
If they’re retaining their kayfabe powers, then it’s obviously Cena. If we’re talking a real fight, then Del Rio amongst the full time performers.
No kayfabe powers. Del Rio is a good choice. The Shield if we count them as one.
I guess I’d go with Brock. Del Rio is a good choice too. The only reason I’d pick against Big Show is that I figure he’s too slow and a good fighter could take out his knees without too much trouble.
That’s why I qualified my Del Rio pick with “among the full time performers.”
He did MMA before pro wrestling, and I’d take him over anyone but Brock.
Only using their current WWE movesets, though. Does Del Rio use enough MMA stuff? An second rope moonsault wouldn’t do much.
Big Show because of his size advantage (and skill) or Brock because he used to be an MMA fighter.
Dark Horse pick: D-Bry since he was trained in grappling by LeBell or Ziggler because he was a wrestler in college.
I’ve often wondered what it’s like for a performer to get in the ring with Del Rio, Swagger, or Ziggler- guys with credentials in legit wrestling. Any of them could probably put anyone on the roster on their back for a 3 count and not have any trouble with it.
Lesnar, of course, amps that up, as he’s also ridiculously pedigreed in actual wrestling, along with that whole UFC Heavyweight Champion MURDER MACHINE thing (and the fact that he outweighs the biggest of the guys listed by at least 60 lbs).
I wonder if, like, Cena or HHH had actual fleeting moments of terror when Lesnar was on top of them, elbowing away, because, well, what the fuck could you do if that guy decided to shoot on you?
Del Rio has the armbar and several varieties of kick to the head.
Big Show would get wrecked in a real fight. Go watch some of the early UFC stuff with no weight classes if you want proof that a massive size differential has little bearing on the outcome of an unevenly matched fight.
If we’re applying real outcomes to WWE moves then Ziggler also has nothing, unless you modify the sleeper to a rear naked choke.
Daniel Bryan would be the best because he’s basically American MINOWAMAN anyway (Dropkicks n leglocks, red underpants)
I agree with Brock, because of the things mentioned, and also, Brock employs that MMA “ground and pound style” in his WWE moveset. At least since his part time return.
This all takes me back to 8 year old me realizing pro wrestling was “fake” because I finally realized “dude he’s on the ground just STEP ON HIS HEAD. AND NO, DON’T STOMP YOUR OTHER FOOT ON THE MAT AT THE SAME TIME THAT”S TAKING AWAY POWER TRUST ME I USED TO ALWAYS STEP ON ANTS.”
Brock’s a good choice, until someone hits him back. Then he falls over himself trying to flee and does a Brocksault and everyone laughs.
Okay Mobster, I’m a huge Lesnar mark, and I just laughed loud enough for those in my office to shake off the morning drudge and look around.
For some reason Brocksault made me lose my shit.
Since we’re talking about ADR and MMA, here’s a fun fact most folks may not know about: He actually legit broke an opponent’s arm during a fight (NSFW, graphic):
[www.youtube.com]
He wasn’t that great of a submission artist, but his finisher being a wink at his MMA career is pretty cool factoid.
Without Brock? Feels like he’s spoiling the fun a little. I’d say Del Rio, then, taking into account his holds and kicks. Wade Barrett, maybe? Lots of strikes and such. I wouldn’t want to fight Regal, ever, even at his age, plus, again his moveset would be effective if actually used.
Thank you for getting the screencap for the Fred Flinstone thing up, I was upset I didn’t get to it in time. Also thank you for putting up with this to write about it all. There was a great Nitro floating around yesterday in the discussion involving the New Blood. By great I mean terrible of course, but nostalgia! The Rock is the Jeff Jarrett of today (does that make sense??)
Also @JoelVinson is a man with brass balls and he deserves all the credit in the world for that spacesuit!
I finally watched that Nitro this morning… WOW I don’t remember it being that awful. Everyboy’s “shooting” and the wrestling was god awful. They should have just shut it down half way through the show.
Thanks dude!
As someone who either watches the delayed Canadian broadcast, or the streamed broadcast where all of the commercials are in German, I appreciate the link to the Jackson-Hewitt commercial.
I mean seriously, do you know how long it took for me to understand why everyone was celebrating over their dicks no longer getting shredded?
Lol, I’m glad you know know the perils of V shaped crotches in jeans.
+1! LOLOL!
While we’re confessing…I never saw a single Chocolate Wonderfall commercial.
You don’t know what you are missing, Snrub.
I think I saw a Golden Corral commercial, but no Wonderfall.
Also, ads on wrestling are warping my sense of humor. Lately I’ve been making Chocolate Wonderfall and Dick Wrangler jokes to friends who don’t watch wrestling and they’re horrified because of the lack of context.
I think I would be horrified too if someone randomly started using words like “dick shredding” without context.
@Diamante Danielle – unless they were talking about Nixon’s legendary guitar prowess.
[www.youtube.com]
I want to watch Raw with the commercials entirely in German.
See, I love my British feed, because English TV commercials, even for American shows, are so much more classy.
I like to pretend they’re all talking about how sad they are that their dicks get shredded in their jeans, unlike those lucky Americans Brett Favre and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Lobster, this might be too late, but “I’m meeting you halfway, you stupid hippies.”
The best part of Tuesday is up!
I almost feel betrayed that you gave Bo a best.
That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen in one of your reports.
I second that
Pretending for a second that we don’t know who *else* is in NXT that they could have brought up to the main roster; is he really that bad?
Miss Heatheris just upset that he beat her kayfabe boyfriend.
He’s Lucky Cannon 2.0, this time with nepotism.
Yes.
IBut I’m highly opposed to all things Bo Dallas, he’s bland as hell and then when you do take into account his time in NXT it actually somehow gets worse.
Him almost throws a tantrum during a promo because someone mentions Edge is a personal favorite. Not to mention you set him beside Bray you realize Bray stole all the charisma as he was born and left nothing but suck behind for Bo.
The only good thing about Bo is the fact that he and his sister have like the same face and it’s terrifying. It’s like one of those memes where they photoshopped his face over hers.
Lucky 2.0 is right on the money.
Just remember: the NXT track record has as many Otungas, Slaters, and McGillicuttys as it has Ambroses, Rollinses and Barretts.
So really only one miss?
Haha. I meant in terms of actually being *good,* not just being on TV.
Oh I’m aware of that, I’m more so disappointed in the fact that we – or most people anyways – know who else is in NXT and I don’t understand the concept of choosing the blandest dude you have to represent your roster.
Any of the other 7 would have been a better choice and I count Oliver in that since he’s British and that would have given him something to go with against Wade.
I dunno, I’m just not behind Bo at all.
Which one of those guys is a miss? Otunga is awesome on camera, Slater makes gold with the straw he’s handed, and McGillicutty is killer in the ring.
–Otunga is fun in backstage segments where he’s wearing an argyle sweater and holding a travel mug. Is that what he was hired for?
–I agree that Slater makes gold with abosolute shit. Maybe I’m down on Slater right now because they saddled Jinder and Drew with the same shit, and it doesn’t work for them.
–All I remember about McGillicutty from when he and Otunga were tag champs is that everyone made fun of him. Is he that much better now? If so, that’s great. I haven’t personally seen it yet.
Haha. Touche on Otunga. He certainly is terrible in the ring. McGillicutty really took off after they lost the titles. I saw a lot of him on the awesome, never-ending last season of NXT. He’s got all the little tricks of wrestling as a heel down pat.
Brock Lesnar is the fireworks factory.
last night is one of the only times that i felt SO BAD for tensai. he deserved better.
I don’t like the character, and I don’t enjoy watching him, but I pretty much always feel bad for Tensai when he’s on Raw.
Poor Tensai, I say.
I think I like Tensai better as a long-suffering, put-upon veteran who realizes he shouldn’t have to do this dumb stuff.
Or, alternately, someone who realizes he enjoys the dumb stuff. One way to make Brodus tolerable to me again would be to stop having him dance with kids, and start having him dance with Tensai. Imagine the Funkasaurus and the Hip-Hop Hippo vs. Hell No. =D
That might salvage this WWE run. I just wonder what he has done to deserve the level of disrespect by the writers. I’ve been waiting for him to be released so he can take his appointed place standing around in the ring with the rest of Aces and Eights.
I hope he goes back to Japan and murders people again…
I’m only on page three but I have to give the BEST OF BEST for the correct use of the accent on Théoden. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU from someone who’s iPhone auto-corrects to add the accent before I can do it because I’m a person who actually uses the words Théoden or Éomer on a regular basis. Because nerd. Also, my hypothetical son will be named Théoden Kingsley because of reasons. Sorry… back to reading :)
Have it correct to whose as well :P
This is why I hate it when I have to use IE. Firefox does that crap for me, yo.
One of my friends is named Yavanna. It took me years to make the connection.
Brock Lesnar – Your appearance in Raw always makes my SO scream and shout a shitstorm of excitement. Stop bringing down my game you beautiful piece of meat.
Holy shit, that is one handsome astronaut. Thanks Brandon!
That picture is fantastic. The utter confusion it must have caused warms my heart.
Lots of nasty looks given, zero fucks given. Eheeh!
I am still honored that I got to be the victim of that MarsLock.
You sell better than Cena, FWM.
That still doesn’t say much for me. But YEAH I DO!
The more I look at it, the more I think that’s the picture of the weekend.
WANNA FRAME THAT PICTURE
You guys are the god damn best.
Jack Swagger of Marth ankle lock brings me much joy. Here’s all my +1s you magnificent bastard.
My only regret from Royal Rumble now is not finding this man before the PPV for a photo.
We were hanging at Tilted Kilt with Pseudo-Doink, Little Sandow and Dos Del Rios(not the mariachi band). We tried to get all the WL folks to meet up!
Oh, and check out Brandon’s B/W of the Rumble. I make an elongated post about my run-ins, and Brandon has linked my twitter. Lots of JSoM picth!
I will definitely be adding you on Twitter. @PopCulturalist
Can we agree that US Airways Center is devoid of any logic insofar as allowing patrons to enter the building?
I was with two of my friends outside as Eurosport showed up to interview people. The worst person was chosen, screaming into the camera: “IF YOU WANNA SEE ROCK BEAT PUNK FOR THE TITLE, GIMME A HELL YEAH.”
Someone behind me yelled “IF YOU WANNA HEAR SOME MORON CONFUSE THREE CHARACTERS ALL AT ONCE, GIMME A HELL YEAH.”
Damn, we got to the arena around… 3:30-ish. We tried Cooperstown and it was a 1 hour wait. Tilted Kilt looked packed so we went around the corner to Five Guys. Either way, nicely done all around sir. We’re not worthy.
Tilted Kilt was packed. I found one chair to hide my stuff on, suited up on the patio. Fun commenced. You gotta hang with the WL folks! They’re fun!
“The other part of me wants to devote my life to photoshopping WWE vs. Hanna-Barbera tales of the tape graphics, just to set up a bout between Santino Marella and Snagglepuss. They are basically the same guy.”
I disagree. Much love for Snagglepuss, but Santino is actually a live action Strong Bad.
Is the this is how we do it thing so bad because its played so often?
Every ten seconds, three hours straight.
Jackson Hewitt is the Anonymous GM
one of the options on the Wheel should have been an IRS audit.
Especially because Mike Rotunda is right there and everything, and I assume still dresses like he’s a wrestling tax agent anyway.
I prefer to think of Mike Rotunda as a boat captain.
The lighting in the Paul Heyman secret footage segment was fantastic. Very noirish.
That Jackson Hewitt commercial makes me wonder: Will Montell Jordan replace Guile’s theme as the new “goes with everything?”
I dig these columns every week, but, man, you gotta let it go with certain issues. You’re bitching about the make-shift tag team match without discussing the cool ending where Jericho slaps Kane in the back of his head after tagging in Ziggler leaving Kane to believe that Ziggler hit him. Ziggler gets the full brunt of Kane’s anger while Jericho slips away like Bugs Bunny and that furthers their feud. If anybody still wrote for 411, that would be a “Hidden Highlight” for sure. Christ, remember when Daniel Bryant was losing to EVERYBODY while he carried around that Money in the Bank briefcase? Yeah, he’s suffering. Ziggler will be fine. Oh, and you’re starting to turn into the J. Jonah Jameson of internet wrestling blogs with the One Man Crusade to end The Rock, stop it. Still a fan, not trying to be a dick…even though I think “Jack Swagger of Mars” sucks…and whatever the fuck that Joseph Park nonsense is every Thursday. Fan fiction sucks, in general.
FICTION HAS NO PLACE IN WRESTLING!
Shorter: Hey man, love your column, but why does everything about it suck?
I appreciate the feedback, but I assure you, I am not trying to write something that might show up on 411.
Brandon’s no J. Jonah Jameson of anything. Now, if Chris Sims ever became a regular contributor here, he would take on that title in a heart beat.
I have read 411 for years, mainly because I liked wrestling and couldn’t find lots of great places to see good wrestling news and discussion. It’s mostly been terrible, and the writing(talking just general syntax) has been atrocious, but again, I checked it cause I liked wrestling and it gave me news and information and recaps of shows. Since I found withleather(thanks to The Masked Man), I barely check it anymore(except Wednesdays for Sforcina!), as the writing on that site(compared to Mr Stroud’s and Mr Shoemaker’s. Jesus what am I the NYT?) now seems like it was written by 12 year olds and barely literate Nebraskans. I totally understand why Brandon would not ever aspire to that website.
Out of curiosity, what do you like about the columns?
Also, comparing The Rock to Spider-Man is completely missing the point. If anyone he’d be Flash Thompson.
Good point, he is at Flash Thompson levels of douchebaggery right now.
Oh, and Brandon, not 411 now, I haven’t been to that site in years since I don’t have a good enough Malware prevention program. I just really liked the “Hidden Highlights” column from a few years back, so it got the reference. One more thing, I could have used a better way to criticize the “Marth” stuff than “it sucks”. I really like it when people send in pictures dressed as characters from it, so I realized I was kind of a hypocrite there, I just thought it ran its course. Eh, what’s done is done.
Anyhow, I hate that Brandon missed that bit because I thought it was a nice bit of storytelling and he just breezed over it by talking about the death of the tag team division which was only born out of Team Hell No to begin with. Oh, and the mis-use of Sandow, Rhodes, etc., look, I don’t like it when they lose all the time either, but I know that as incompetent as the WWE seems, they trust THOSE GUYS to deliver and to make their top guys shine. Even if we’re sick of those top guys. I’m patient, guys like Sandow, Rhodes, and Cesaro, their day will come. But when you’re writing about it almost every week, saying the same thing over and over, you just sound like a cynical Internet fan and less like a writer…and if you take exception to that, consider that fans write Comments, writers write Columns.
But, sincerely, I am a big fan of the “Best & Worst”, I get a laugh or three out of it every week. I’ll make sure to post a positive instead of a negative every now and then. Thanks for not ripping me to shreds with my flimsy criticism (“This sucks”).
Awesome! I got the Mark Henry badge from my reply, thanks With Leather!
Hey, I write for 411 (in the MMA Zone), and I’ll admit that the writing there isn’t what it used to be when I started reading it. I’d even go so far as to say that without Hidden Highlights, there’d be no Best and Worst of RAW, but that’s from 411′s glory days.
I do take umbrage when Brandon makes comments like he did in the B&W of the Rumble about 411 breaking news that isn’t news. 411 isn’t a news site, per se – we don’t actually break news (except, very VERY occasionally, in the MMA Zone, but that’s because some MMA fighters are incredibly cool on Twitter), we just copy it from other sites, with credit given to the site it’s copied from at the bottom of the “story”. So when I read “news” on 411, I look at the source and then decide how much faith to put into it.
And, for the record, you don’t need a malware program to visit the site (I do it multiple times daily), just a solid enough web browser that you can run Ad-block Plus (I use Chrome).
So yeah, now that I’ve defended the website that I write for, please continue with your scheduled discussion.
I think the bigger point here is that Brandon doesn’t write about these things because he’s an (insert Bleacher Report commenter insult) asshole. He writes about these things week after week because WWE turns out lazy, stupid, derogatory shit week after week and we all know they can do better. If WWE gets their shit together, no one has problems and we read an all-best article.
You made great points about the Show/ADR segment and feud Brandon. Wrestling can make sense and be great when they tell stories like that. The WWE forgets that (and what makes a person’s behavior good or bad) way too often.
The Jackson-Hewitt commercial gets more heat in this house than John Cena.
yeah, but it’s x-pac heat
I wasn’t aware that x-pac heat involved dancing.
I missed ScooterMcGooch’s comment in the Open Discussion last night, but holy hell.
I’m not even going to bother attempting to explain to my coworkers what that sudden burst of laughter was all about.
+Rhodes to all of you, I missed this place so much.
This show turns me into the Patton Oswalt insane super computer that’s going to destroy Earth. I HATE. I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.
How do things like the ADR/Big Show and Heyman segments happen on the same show as John Cena, the Divas match, and Tensai?
I’m legitimately confused. Do the wrestlers have that much autonomy in making their storylines? Or is the writing staff that wildly inconsistent? One would think that there would be more consistency in quality. That even if the execution varied, that the concepts underlying the action on screen would stay relatively the same.
I’ve been working on a half-assed theory that basically the best storylines are produced when Vince and his lackeys aren’t involved directly. But when Vince and the top writers/producers take over some “hot” angle that’s when things start to suck.
For example, I always assume Vince doesn’t really get D-Bryan so, when he first started the Team Hell No stuff, the promos and vignettes were actually funny because Bryan & Kane were just screwing around and having fun. Then, they get popular, and Vince and his guys force their way in and it starts getting lame.
This is also the reason I feel like Del Rio and Show are doing such great things right now. Because racist, dickhead Vince knows it’s good to have a Mexican champion but isn’t really interested in “running it” himself so he stays out of the way.
Good theory, and probably generally right. But that doesn’t account for the horrible-ness or karaoke segments, or dance parties. I think there’s also some aspect of trying to be all things to all people. Goofy shit for the kids, and serious stuff for the parents who brought them.
For the past hour, I have literally had the image of a tale of the tape between Santino and Snagglepuss stuck in my head. “Heavens to murgatroyd, he’s got a COBRA on his arm!”
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Brandon, I loved your comment about crowd chanting for the Rock to come out during The Shield attack. I mentioned this in the chat last night, like why would he seriously come out to help those chuklefucks?
Chucklefuck? I add a new word to my vocabulary every day.
was the footage before or after The Shield robbed the Armenian Money Train?
I think it was right before they thwarted Antwon Mitchell’s immunity but since there’s three of them, I’d have to say it’s after Lem died.
‘the future Looper version of himself’
*slow clap*
DAMNIT! That got me the World Champ badge.
NOOOOOOOOO not Cena!!!!
That was an excellent line. Hopefully Ziggler doesn’t get the wrap sheet Jericho got the past 10 years.
yeah, that line was brilliant.
Outstanding once again.
“Thank you fer sayin wot needed to be said!”
SWEET!
LEGEND BADGE!!!! Vader!
NOOO! now you caught up with me!! I don’t wanna know about someone that reached the final badge before me!!!
I’m on the same page as Showgirl Rosa.
OUR LOVE IS DESTINY. *points to Rosa in the rafters*
Now I have to find a way to turn you, Rosa, and Medina into a take on Ethan Frome to keep my literary reputation alive.
LEAVE FWM OUT MY LOVE LIFE
I’ll wear a mask or something. Wait, that kinda sounds worse.
I actually hate Ethan Frome, but it was the first thing that sprung to mind. Alex and Eve got The Great Gatsby, Ziggler and crew got The Sun Also Rises, so I was trying to keep my American literature streak going. I kind of like the idea of Jack Swagger as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockthingbird, but it’s not a love story.
I think everyone hates Ethan Frome.
Wow that last top 10 comment made me crack up.
Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t watch.
Honestly, it wasn’t that bad.
Am I the only one tired of the Teddy Long jokes? They’re as lazy as the matchmaking that inspired them at this point.
And the Randy Orton no pants jokes.
And the Rey Mysterio fat jokes. Yep, there are alot of over-used wrestling jokes. But once in a while there will be some funny ones.
I swear I’ve heard that Top Ten comment Teddy Long joke before.
Cause I remember when I heard it before I think I laughed for five minutes.
But if I don’t have old jokes to run into the ground, what comments can I make?
I’m not really against the making of old, shared jokes. They’re the language of a misfit community like ours. But maybe we can have a moratorium on them making the top ten for a while.
We all know that Orton hates pants, Teddy Long makes nothing but tag matches, Sin Cara botches everything, etc. But especially since the LR threads have been so big recently that it’s hard to read everything, I think it would be nice to reward originality over the standard jokes we could all make in our sleep by now.
But sometimes finding a new spin on a well-worn joke can be satisfying in its own right.
Like when they were advertising about the Doomsday Preppers show and I said
“I’ll go to the Preppers if I have to!” – Randy Orton
That was like the best comment I ever made.
Ok…I’ve watched the Jackson Hewitt commercial 36 times and I still like the song.
What does that say about me?
YOU’VE BEEN BRAINWASHED!
I also realized as I’m still singing it that I know the words to ~97% of the entire song without even listening to it in years.
I’m starting to be concerned.
ALL THE WORSTS: AT&T Uverse for taking away the USAHD East Coast feed, so that I have to stream Raw on a shitty website in order to participate in the Open Thread (if I’m even available at all due to work).
Thank you all for giving me a place to enjoy wrestling again, and thank you Brandon for inclusion in the Top-10 this week. As someone who now usually doesn’t get to Raw until 10PM PST and has to say jokes out loud to myself, I truly understand the value all this provides. I’m going to stop now before the Rock starts calling me names.
Brandon, as always, loved the column. I didn’t hate the Tensai Dance thing as much as I thought I would. I wanted to hate it on principle, but the it ended up working overall for me. I would never call it good television, but sometimes with the WWE, better than I expected is all I can really hope for.
I’m with you, I thought the segment turned out ok… WAY better than it had any right being. I think it was because Tensai sold it so well. For a brief shinning second he looked like he was having fun.
when he said “promise?” to jerry-f*cking-liar-lawler I imagined daniel bryan instead of him saying so for some reason, and it made it all that much better !!
Not to pressure anyone or anything, but I’ll be major sadness if one of these badge rankings, preferably the highest possible one one could get, isn’t ‘Executive Vice President of Talent Relations & Permanent General Manager of Both Raw & Smackdown’.
I will also accept ‘John Cena’ as the highest, for realistic ranking reasons.
These write-ups are seriously the only reason I can watch Raw every week even after they put out things like this Royal Rumble or Raw Roulette
Jack Swagger of Marth was totally short this week!
So not awesome. This may turn me against Jackson Hewitt.
Also, why is it not Jack Thwagger of Marth (JThoM)?
Finding out that Swagger hates the JSOM bit ruins it for me.
Well, more than it already is terrible.
That kind of bummed me out too. Then again, if I had a lisp, I wouldn’t be too keen on fans making jokes about it. I’m sure he didn’t get enough of that in high school.
I guess we all assumed he wasn’t such a stick in the mud.
Ah man, what did he say?
So this week is officially the worst week ever for us.
Does he hate the whole thing or just the over-the-top lispiness?
I asked what he thought on twitter, and responded ‘Thanks for nothing #IDontTalkLikeThat “
I figured at least Swagger Soaring Eagle confirmed that he could have a sense of humor about things, and why wouldn’t he appreciate having any sort of fanbase considering how long he’s been off television now.
Wait, so does that mean he hates “Of Mars” or just us making lisp jokes?
It certainly seems the bulk of the complaint is about the lisp cracks. I can understand why he wouldn’t think that was awesome.
He retweeted a Jack Swagger of Mars thing a month or two ago. I don’t think he hates it. I think maybe the lisp-typing (“Team sthmart brainth”, “The ethenthe of ecthellenthe.”) was what he was saying thanks for nothing to.
That’s my hope anyway. JSoM is awesome.
Yeah, I don’t think he hates the tumblr, just our lil exchange.
I agree with Dagotron. The guy is bland as shit on tv, we’re making him interesting!!!
Right the best thing for Jack Swagger is to steer into the skid man. Show up wrestling as an astronaut , your prop is a giant thing of Tang and just roll with it.
Its pretty much set in stone that the WWE product is gonna be shit for a while (newsflash!!), but reading these B/W columns, gives me a glimmer of hope and the strength to go on…
I like reading comments like these ! it makes me feel like we all truly share the same thoughts, feels and pain together !
It’s a shame that Bork/HHH is set in stone, because Punk flipping out at Heyman over the revelations on this RAW, and Heyman unleashing Bork to cost the “ingrate” his rematch against Rock, would set up a glorious Bork/Punk WM29 match.
I dread seeing Punk as a face again, though; so I hope this doesn’t happen. Not yet, I mean.
It depends on how Punk’s booked. He can be a face and not be a five year old.
Have him take a page out of the Del Rio Playbook for Faces. He’ll be golden.
Well, I’m less concerned about “clown shoes” and “wearing Triple H’s jacket” than some folks around here. I just prefer Punk as a self-righteous asshole. We wouldn’t get “In your face, jerks!” from a face Punk.
Punk would be amazing as the acerbic, smartass face calling the heels out on their bullshit if they had the right heel to go up against.
Unfortunately, the only guy they have good enough to keep up with face Punk in a war of words is heel Punk.
WWEFanNation messing up the segment between The Rock and CM Punk? AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!
Great article, as always, Brandon.
Between 2 B&Ws and a Grantland article from The Masked Man (David Shoemaker), it has been a great week to be a wrestling nerd.
Can someone link the Grantland article? I can’t find anything he’s posted this month.
It just dawned on me that WrestleMania is in New York/New Jersey and isn’t that area full of “smart” fans instead of “herded sheep” fans.
Suddenly I am looking forward to The Rock and John Cena fighting. If the fans can somehow go full Goldberg/Lesnar on them, I will die a happy man.
…and with that, the Dark Era of Redshirt the World Champ is at an end.
Now I’m getting the urge to book my Legend Badge and my World Champ Badge against my +Rhodes Badge and my PEOPLE POWER Badge.
i hope so. I’d feel reeeally silly booing them alone
Nothing would make me happier than the crowd booing both of them, or chanting for someone who’s not in the match (a CM Punk chant, for instance).
I fear they’ll shit on Cena and will chant for the Rock.
Maybe they will just chant “ASS HOLES” and “WHAT” the entire time. The match will suck, and then Stone Cold will come out and stunner them into oblivion.
Your writeup on the Big Show/Del Rio segment was absolutely perfect, my friend. Well said.
Maybe its because your very anti treating women as objects but I found that ” best: Rosa Mendez as a show girl: hey sup girl” hillarious
Hey everybody, just a quick heads up. I won’t be around as much in the near future. Wife got a new job back home in NY and we’re in flux. And by “in flux” I mean sharing a small brooklyn apartment with her mother in law who only watches Criminal Minds and the News. This is a step up from TV Land b&w re-runs but no ‘rasslin for me. On the plus side I’m closer to lots more events than used to be so maybe we can meet up at some of them. Also if any of you Metro-NYers have any off the books work that would be killer also.
Good luck with everything!
So basically you want to see some sort of KEEP YOUR FORKED TONGUE BEHIND YOUR TEETH promo at some point.
Great read again, Brandon! I’m giddy like a schoolgirl over that pic of JSoM and me making the report.
Greetings Brandon and B/W crew. I’ve been reading a good while, but this will be my first comment. I signed up for Uproxx for the Best and Worst exclusively, as I have little interest in other sports, and wanted to have the opportunity to pop by and comment once in a while. Specifically, I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your columns.
Very much, in fact. They’re at least half my anticipation for a given Raw happening.
That said, I have one criticism to offer: “criss-cross applesauce” is becoming your Cubito Aequet. You can just say cross legged, we’ll allow it.
Along with that, my salient comments on this article:
I didn’t feel like Tensai’s bit was that bad. Once he kind of accepted it and rolled with it, I was a lot more comfortable with the whole deal. Plus, comedy heel is probably the best route remaining to him.
I adore Ricardo continuing his run as the biggest kid in WWE. From his reactions to Santa, to Bret putting the glasses on him at the Rumble; something he always specifically did for a child in his entrance (I don’t know if this needs to be pointed out, but it diminishes my point if it’s not acknowledged). My one wish is that he’d go back to introducing Alberto while his music is playing. I enjoyed the sound of Ricardo’s voice over the top of Alberto’s theme, and I miss it. My other one wish is that Alberto would receive aid from the mysterious Chimaera time to time, obviously knowing who it is but feigning ignorance because he doesn’t want to burst Ricardo’s bubble.
Lastly, I was very near to screaming at the TV “He doesn’t *$@%ing work for you!” during Heyman’s segment. I dearly wanted Brock, post F-5, to declare “He works for ME” before leaving. That was after dearly hoping for another Heyman lacerating Vince promo. It’s not like he’s short on material these days.
Still, we could get a new Heyman faction from all this? Brock as the Sword (credit to The Wrestling Blog), the Shield defending the centerpiece in CM Punk. It has a lot of potential, but it completely ruins the Shield’s “justice” talking point to have it on camera acknowledged that they’re for hire.
Sad part is this show was the best rated show since July. WTF?
The sad thing is the WWE will now think this is what we want and it’s just going to keep going like this until Brodus and Tensai are booked as cross-dressing conjoined twins who share a camisole as wrestling attire while The Rock calls them both Flan Jugglers and the crowd laughs as Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Antonio Cesaro huddle together, crying in a corner; the lone survivors in a world they no longer understand.
That Shield beatdown on Maddox seemed like something from FX’s The Shield.
+1 for the Carol Captain Marvel profile pic!
Did anyone else see how pissed Cameron was to be a Vegas Showgirl Lumberjill or whatever? But seriously, even though I know that the Lesnar attacking Vince thing is just to set-up a rematch with Triple Heitch, I’m hoping that they go for the monster heel stable a la The Dangerous Alliance. But Heyman still pretends to not know what’s going on and holds the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to control his confusion and rage. But of course he knows what’s going on!
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind WrestleMania 29: THE REMATCH(es) as much if they had a cogent story-line in which there is a Dangerous Alliance, and they are very much in each others corners, but they all have their separate beef with other wrestlers. And they focus on them and give them the detailed insight they deserve.
Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that Brad Maddoxxxxxx will be re-hired by a McMahon or a representative and it’ll be as the new GM or something. I certainly like Madddddddooxxxx’s creepy sleaziness and I think it’d be fitting as a GM, but as a good guy? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Great as always Brandon.
I actually left during the Sheamus vs. Sandow match, so I missed pretty much everything good about Raw. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.
My hope for the Heyman story all along was that Punk was absolutely honest; he had nothing to do with the Shield. He had nothing to do with Mad Ox. Paul Heyman had hired them on the side to keep his guy champion without Punk ever knowing, because as much of a bastard as Punk is, he’s honest about it. He could’ve just gotten himself DQed to keep his title many times, or walked away and took a count out. He never did that. He always wanted to beat them in the ring, however it came about. Heyman knew that Punk deep down believed in Wrestling and wanted to win by Wrestling, but didn’t believe he was as good as he thinks. But since Punk was his meal ticket, he found ways to keep him in the limelight.
This would’ve led to a Punk face turn probably when it was revealed that he was telling the truth all along, and a Heyman-led Alliance of Danger with the Shield, Mad Ox, possibly Lesnar, and anybody else they picked up along the way. With whom Punk could then feud, and have a legitimate gripe that Heyman, behind his back, tarnished the legacy of his “life’s work”.
I love this plan so much I want to have sex with it, and raise it’s little plan babies.
This comment is part of the reason why I still watch wrestling (this column is that reason). For as awful, awful, awful as most of the product is the, the intrigue of what COULD BE given the palette of characters in a gladatorial situation is the money. Brandon gives so much shine to what “could be,” and theories like yours are what keep me interested.
So, thanks for that (and you too, B-Stroud).
Love it
My props to you, good sir for writing a decent B&W from a really, really, possibly 2nd worst Raw Episode ever. You are truly a King amongst men for having to watch that episode twice.
Scary thought that’s probably true: The writers knew that they were going to have the Rock and Lesnar show up so they just made shit up on the fly because all people were going to talk about is Lesnar and Rock the next morning at the playground anyway.
What, you didn’t think they thought people wouldn’t talk about Great Khali singing SEXY BOYYY?
“WHERE THE F**K WERE YOU YESTERDAY”
Oddly, this was my exact thought, at the exact moment pictured
With Del Rio as WHC and The Rock as WWE champ I’m anticipating some interaction between them soon.
Can I copyright the churros look kinda like dicks joke now before The Rock gets to it?
I enjoy these columns, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head with your ridiculous expectations of characters in wrestling. It’s wrestling, my guy. Even the Big Show’s and Alberto Del Rio’s characters aren’t as nuanced and compelling as you make them seem. You want compelling, nuanced, 3-dimensional, blah-blah characters or whatever go watch Breaking Bad or something.
I do agree that Paul Heyman and Brock were great though, I especially liked Paul Heyman getting his Tony Soprano on with Brad Maddox and The Shield. I’d like to see a Canadian Stampede kinda match with all the “Paul Heyman Guys” (Brock, Punk, Shield) against all the WWE’s All-Stars or whatever they wanna call it. (Sheamus, Ryback, Cena, Triple H, The Rock). Anyway, nice write-up.
Wrestling is a medium. It doesn’t have to be stupid any more than paintings have to be sexist or trombone playing has to be xenophobic. The idea that wrestling is supposed to be dumb by its very nature is pretty self-inflicted pigeon-holing, the wrestling equivalent of calling an educated black person an oreo.
Never said it had to be dumb. But, based on reading Brandon’s columns every week and reading the comments, pretending it’s supposed to be some complicated work of art apparently hinders people’s enjoyment of it. As I said, if someone is looking for something more along those lines maybe it would be more enjoyable to watch something that actually IS more along those lines.
If I hadn’t gotten a chance to see wrestling live up to my expectations, I wouldn’t keep wishing for it. Wrestling has been everything I want it to be. It’s not an impossibility to want the low-brow fake fighting to be better than it is comfortable being.
Always a pleasure.
I am not a sheep, I’m a man….fight the machine people, fight the machine…
Great review, and I have to say, I legit LOL’ed at the insertion of that fuckawful Jackson-Hewitt commercial into JSOM, as well as your Brock comment. A special LOL to burgermike’s comment as well.
You know, part of me wishes I had turned the Rumble off after Punk “won” and pretended they cancelled wrestling forever.
Everyone wants a Dangerously Alliance, but let’s all be real, do we think that will ever happen? Will Vince/Stephanie/HHH ever allow something that sounds so great on paper come to pass with Heyman involved?
Gracias, Brandon.
Great report as always!
Every time I think the WWE is full of shit, they redeem themselves by letting me watch Vince get murdered by Brock Lesnar.
Vince is somewhat of a genius for finding a way to please two different fan demographics in 2 days. “HHH RULES AND WE LOVE CENA AND ROCKY AND HAHAHAHA VICKY IS UGLY” fans got treated at the Rumble. And the awesome fans got treated last night when Bork killed McMahon and saved Heyman for the time being.
“We miss you, gay Twix cops.”
SO MUCH :(
I like that during Brock’s entrance, after his hilarious stand in one place trot, he throws his arms up and down in a pyrotechnic inducing motion, but nothing happens. It gets me every time.
at least Ryback gets a loud noise.
I’ve never said this but thanks Brandon for all your time and effort. I’m over in Singapore and have to sneak watch Raw at work tuesday morning. To borrow a feeling or quote from Lance Murdoch ” you’re (articles ‘using Mr Black voice”) are like a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.
Swagger is back in the WWE, FYI
On Thursday, I’m really afraid of being let down, though.
To me the most frustrating part about these raws is that they can do so much better.
I appreciate you writing about the commercials as I’m sure everyone else hates them equally as much. However, no one in Canada or the UK or the rest of the world get those commercials and I’d rather have you write more about the stuff we all see.
Having said that, I love this column to death. Thanks :3
And that earned me the “Developmental” badge :3 :3
I live in Canada and I got the horrible commercials…
Yup, that sure was a show.
I feel like they have really stalled out on what to do with Ryback but his obliteration of Matt Striker was a good start towards keeping him an unstoppable monster.
Brandon, after two months of only mild interest in the ‘E’s product, I have to say that your columns are the only thing keeping me tuning in. I didn’t even bother to stream the rumble until Ryback showed up (and the infinite sadness began). Rather than watch the Punk match, I just watched the live feed.
I say that as a guy helping a former wrestler write his memoirs about being one of Killer Kowalski’s students in the late 80s, so it’s not like I don’t have other forces compelling me to keep up with THIS BUSINESS. But, that said, Brock Lesnar can only show up to make MURDER every six months, so between those, I rely on your column to keep interest.
sweet, delicious murder.
I tweeted last night that I hope all of Lesnar’s dates for the next year are just to show up at the end of RAW and incapacitate VKM so that he can’t fire Heyman. Far, far better than jobbing to the Hs.
also, congratulations for breaking the record of the most comments on a thread (6000+) on last sunday’s rumble thread ;D !!!
do you guys remember what happened when we finally reached just 1500 comments on last years’s rumble thread ?
am I gonna wait a lot for my 9th badge ?
nevermind, it just poped ! THE LEGEND BADGE !!
I had a dream of Tensai wearing a nighty the night before RAW. I officially have the worst super power ever.
you mean you didn’t figure out that wwe is putting those goddamn bad commercials on porpuse so that you’d buy the wwe app, yet ?!
I never watched raw live because I live outside of the U.S. and after watching that commercial for just 2 freakin’ times I HATE MY LIFE ! may god have mercy on your souls while watching raw live, folks …
I just unlocked ‘diva’ and now I kind of never want to post again.
Your profile is the coolest profile I’ve ever seen here. Just sayin.
But there are some pretty sweet badges coming that are even better than the divas badge!
Heyman is just too good for this product.
truth
This show was a poopsicle sandwich served with a side of caca couscous
Jack Swagger commercial break had me laughing so hard. I was reading it in Cole’s voice before I realized where it was going.
I came back here for BADGES.
God I’m such a badge whore.
YES! Just got level 10! Assistant GM, playa!
Badges bring me great joy.
sweet candy-like badges
I see what you’re doing…
Personally I’d never do something so cheap just to get badges.
I mean the nerve of some people.
The first three letters of badge are BAD. Coincidence?
I love watching Vince get slammed. That was great.
So, maybe people have talked about this a lot (because I’m a bad reader that doesn’t pay attention to the comments that much…even though I still love you deep down in my heart), but what’s with all the stupid-ass quick-zooms and shaky cameras during the Shield/Cena/Sheamus/Ryback thing? Is that something they do whenever the Shield comes out? Because it’s dumb, and it needs to stop.
Yeah, that seems to be the way they shoot the Shield. I rewatched their match at TLC, and even it’s shot that way in the beginning, when they’re brawling. It’s kind of hard to watch. But it’s kind of cool that they’re apparently committed to shooting certain things certain ways.
Thanks for making those couple hours worthwhile, Brandon.
just came here to get my 10TH FREAKING BADGE !!!
NOW HOLD’ON A MINUTE PLAYA !
the 10th badge is tag-team-teddy-long’s-gm-assistance badge ?!
HOLLA HOLLA HOLLA !!!
The 11th is scott steiner’s “big poppa pump’s your hook up, holler….if ya hear meh!”
really?! must comment to check it out then!
TWIST! it’s the celebrity guest badge!! you fooled me!!! it was you all along!!!
Enjoyed the article. You actually hit on many good points as to why this current WWE product is so stale right now. Not because of the talent, but b/c the writers either think we’re stupid or have super short term memories. Cena’s character sucks, but will never change because he sells to much merchandise and the kids love him. He’s this generations’s Hogan. Totally agree with you that the way he smashes up and coming talent makes them take like 10 steps back. As much as I like the Rock, he definitely needs to go back to the drawing board with his material. But hey, if the current roster would step up their intensity and on-screen characters, maybe they wouldn’t have to put the strap on someone that hasn’t wrestled full time in over 10 years+. Punk, Bryan, Cesaro, Rhodes, Sandow and a few other are the present and future of wrestling…if properly pushed and marketed.
But seriously, Rosa. Wow.
a “supervisor” badge ?! you’re really covering up all the positions of the jobs in wwe, aren’t you?
I think my secret favorite part of the Heyman segment is the little shuffle Bork does while he’s standing over Vince’s lifeless body. This is made even better by the fact that he keeps dancing while Paul E is screaming “What did you do?! What did you do?!”
you MUST see this : [botchedspot.com]
I feel extremely stupid for asking this…
But is any part of McMahon’s injury legit?
Usually I know well enough when a work is a work, but he did take the bump on the F-5 wrong and landed on his side pretty hard. Unless, you know, that was on purpose.
Sigh… I hate not having common wrestling sense.
His injury is legitimate, but it’s not from the F-5. He knew he needed surgery on that hip, so he went out and took an F-5 to work his time away from TV into the story.
Whatever failings you find in his character, and I find many, nobody can doubt that McMahon is a tough old bastard.
I NEED to know what the 13th badge looks like !
the general manager badge ?! sweet !
but who’s the one in the picture ? I didn’t recognize him well
OH! now I figured who’s (or in this case, what’s) in the general manager badge!! and HOLY SMOCKY THIS IS AWESOME!! THE LAP TOP ANONYMUS GM!!!
do I not get another badge for replying to my own comment ?!
commissionar ?! GREAT 14th BADGE !!!
only 6 more to go :D
come’on ! COME’ON !! I want the 15th badge NOW !!!
I . WANT. MY . 15TH . BADGE ……. NOOOOOW !!!
OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD !!!
THIS IS THE BEST BADGE I’VE GOT OR WILL EVER GET EVER !!!
miss you big jhonny … wwe isn’t the same without you …
BRING BACK PEOPLE POWER !!
ok now, I wonder what the 16th badge looks like !
why hasn’t my 16th badge appeared yet ?! I can’t accept this !
on to the 17th badge now !
what’s it gonna be, the 18th badge ?
not sure if the “YOU PEOPLE” badge is meant to be wwe’s “you people can choose whatever you want” or cm punk’s “you people suck” …
The way the current storyline is shaping up with Heyman, Punk, Brock, and The Shield, I’m wondering if the writers might be trying to re-hash the “Dangerous Alliance” stable. I am not sure whether to be happy or sad about this.
why would you be sad if this was true ?!
i was really hoping the “You’re Fired” line would’ve been followed by a Cosmo Kramer-esque “But I don’t even really work here.” type of thing.
but i’ll settle for a monster crippling an old man or whatever.
You really should do something about the malware on the site, guys.
I waaant baaadgeees~