Last week we debuted the first installment of our weekly and possibly infinite series This Week In Horrible-Looking People, dedicated to the best and worst of pro wrestling 8×10 promotional photos. It featured (among other things) Linda McMahon looking like a U.S. President, the happiest photo Kevin Nash has ever taken and a Triple H/Chyna promo shot that is clearly just two cardboard cutouts propped up side by side.

This week is loosely dedicated to remembering the good old days, back when Kurt Angle was a regular looking dude, Mickie James was a psychotic lesbian stalker and Dolph Ziggler entered the ring via trampoline. I think he was the trampoline one. Anyway, I’ve gathered 51 more random, amazing WWE promo photos from the 1990s, 2000s and today, and I hope you enjoy them.

Except the Michael Hayes one. Nobody could enjoy that.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-show notes:

- The With Spandex podcast experienced a few technical difficulties over the weekend, but we’re working through it. Expect that as soon as I grow a brain that isn’t 70 years old and figure out how computers work.

- As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d leave a comment on the report. You left almost 700 on the Open Discussion Thread last night, so I can’t bother you about it too much. If you don’t feel like commenting, click the “like” button up there or share us on Facebook or Google Plus or Pinterest or whatever the new thing is. Take a picture of the column and share it on Instagram, I don’t care.

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- Gifs contained within are, as always, courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

- Unrelated A.J. gif contributed by @ajB_real.

- Additional reading: UGO’s Raw Report.

- I apologize for the relative lateness of today’s column. I had to change a tire, and things got weird.

Anyway, please to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Halloween H20 Edition for January 9, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my continuing efforts to make you okay with our professional wrestling coverage, here is a video of two kittens fighting in a toy WWE ring.

That’s one of the great things about Buzzfeed Sports. They aren’t breaking any insider college football stories or anything, but if you go there and find something like this it enraptures you for the rest of the day. I’ve spent the last twenty minutes analyzing the workrate (catrate?) and trying to decide my favorite moves … it’s either the right hand combo from Orange at :30 or the jumping ass bite from Black that follows at :34. I love that the cats apparently took out John Morrison and Edge (I think that’s Edge) before we joined the match in progress.

I’m going back and forth on whether “mouth breathing” is better or worse commentary than what we usually hear in wrestling. Oh, who cares. Cats playing! Squee!

Your now standard pre-report bullet points.

- As always, you are this column’s voice. Please take the time to drop a comment if you read, and know that you sharing it with your friends (who are hopefully sane, like-minded individuals who appreciate attempts at entertaining wrestling writing on the Internet) is the coolest thing ever and deeply appreciated by the author. I also like “likes” and retweets and +1s, but not as much. Okay, I’m lying, I need those too.

- I paid $55 for this and did not stream it illegally on the Internet. That’s why the screen caps are so pixelated, I have an old TV. I mean a new one. Whichever excuse you believe. Also, to my knowledge, everyone involved in this PPV was 18-or-more years old. And no animals were harmed, unless you count Michael Cole’s weird thing against vegan athletes.

- I don’t have a third bullet point, so I’ll use this space to say “keep Derrick Bateman on NXT”. I don’t know how redemption points work, I don’t know how long this season is supposed to run (we’re on week 40-something right now, I think) and I’m still not 100% on how to vote, but do what you can to keep this guy on WWE TV. Even if it’s WWE TV on the Internet.

Enjoy the Best and Worst of Summerslam.

Read the rest of this entry »