Pre-show notes:

- Welcome to my second ever Best And Worst Of WWE [Insert Older Pay-per-view Show Title Here] report. The first effort, in case you missed it, was last month’s Best And Worst Of Royal Rumble 2000. That went over pretty well, even if it burned me out so much I couldn’t do a report for the 2012 edition, and Elimination Chamber is only a few years old so let’s consider “February PPV” time sensitive.

- Comments are appreciated. Clicking “like” is appreciated, tweets and retweets are appreciated, showing and sharing this to and with the people you know are appreciated. Older show reports are sketchy because nobody’s googling for them, so our traffic goes way down and they take like 80 hours to write, so why bother? But I WANT to write them, so if you support them and make them a success, I’ll keep cranking them out. At least make me popular enough to do a Best And Worst of that Glory Days Of Wrestling tin I bought at Half Price Books for like negative 2.99.

- Don’t forget to come back on Sunday and participate in our open discussion thread for Elimination Chamber 2012, happening live. I won’t be around for it, as I’ll be at ACW’s show in San Antonio, but I’ll be back in time to skim through and steal your jokes.

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

- A.J. was only three years old when this pay-per-view happened so she is not featured, but don’t worry, this is when the Divas were nearly naked 24/7, so if you’re That Guy you’ll enjoy it anyway.

But for now, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE No Way Out 2007.

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Pre-show notes:

- If you love The Rock and think he’s the best wrestler of all time, be sure to leave us a comment. That should cover my commenting hype-beg for the week and entitle every living human who isn’t me or Billy Jack Haynes to post something.

- An important thing to remember while reading this report is that I had a weekend literally full of awesome wrestling. I spent Friday night and Saturday and Sunday mornings at Wizard World Austin loitering around Darin Childs’ table in the 1600 aisle, commissioning professional art from my favorite wrestler in the world. Saturday night I went to Anarchy Championship Wrestling’s Lone Star Classic, which featured Portia Perez winning their heavyweight title only to lose it an hour later. ACH ended up with it, which was the second happiest thing that could happen. Also, the Nasty Boys were there. Sunday was CHIKARA’s High Noon iPPV. I was too worn out by then to cover it effectively, but it was one of the best shows of the year and Peck/Cabana II was simultaneously the best and worst match in history. So then Monday night comes along, and it’s three hours of Raw getting Rocked. My brain may not be processing this correctly.

- Oh, and before I forget, after the jump you can see four of my five (or six) favorite WWE Superstars appearing in one segment together on Friday’s Smackdown. Why am I not Besting and Worsting this show instead?

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No numbers this week, but I do have some bullet points.

- We didn’t get to our 200 comments goal for last week, but thank you to everyone who reads these every week and takes the time to comment. I really appreciate it, and the Voice Of The Voiceless is an important part of what makes these columns worth reading. I can’t form a decent opinion without weighing it against the opinions of my peers. I think that’s constructive, and the last thing I want to be with a wrestling column is deconstructive. So drop a comment, share this on your Facebook, Tweet about it, send Kaitlyn a sternly worded e-mail about how she has rational, normal fans who don’t want to take her to Heaven, they just want to talk about wrestling, and possibly bodybuilding.

- If you don’t want to click through the pages, here’s the short version: Triple H

- I think the podcast is going to get started in the next couple of weeks, so if you’ve got any pro wrestling connections or are a literate, wonderful pro wrestling personality yourself (Kyle Durden, I’m looking in your direction) contact me via e-mail or over Twitter and let’s start setting up some appearances. Finally, a wrestling podcast! Why didn’t anyone else ever think of that?

One of the more unheralded events in a pro wrestling fan’s life is the semi-annual WWE Fire Sale, wherein the world’s most profitable sports entertainment and Slurpee cup company realizes it is paying a bunch of people hundreds of thousands of dollars to do nothing and starts firing everybody. For the performers, I imagine this to be a stressful time of uncertainty. For the fan, it’s great for a few reasons; we get gossipy stuff to talk about (in a world where only deaths and on-screen results constitute real news) and an improved chance of seeing some of our favorite superstars at independent wrestling shows and comic book conventions. Usually the cuts come around Wrestlemania in the Spring, but the rosters remained mostly unchanged until the WWE quarterly report rolled in.

The only thing wrestling news sites like PWInsider.com are reporting is that I’ve just won a free iPad, so here’s a quick rundown of the performers who caught the axe today. In case more releases happen after this post goes live, I’ll update it, so keep checking back.

Melina
Melina (real name Melina Perez) is the biggest cut announced so far, as she’s a two-time WWE Divas Champion and three-time WWE Women’s Champion who has been with the company since 2004. She’s the real-life girlfriend of Raw star John Morrison and hasn’t done anything better than being the object of affection for Zack Ryder’s dad on Z! True Long Island Story since about 2008. She currently runs a Twitter account that makes you feel weird about her real-life personality and informs you of her love of Skittles.

WWE wishes her well in her future endeavors, but they say that to everybody. There is a 1:1 chance she will be TNA Knockouts Champion before Wednesday.

Chris Masters
Masters joined World Wrestling Entertainment in 2005 and was a regular contender for both the WWE and Intercontinental Championships until his release in 2007 for multiple violations of WWE’s Substance Abuse and Drug Policy. “The Masterpiece” returned to WWE in 2009, reinventing himself first as a muscular guy who could make his pecs bounce to music (don’t ask) and then as a legitimately fantastic, under-the-radar pro wrestler on their “Superstars” show. Masters is most famous for his submission finisher “The Masterlock”, a full nelson that couldn’t be broken until Bobby Lashley showed up and started ruining everything for everybody.

With a great look and a new-found passion for pro wrestling, Masters should be able to find a job competing anywhere, especially Japan. The joke about him showing up in TNA as “Masterful” Chris Mordetzky (“we know who THAT is, Taz!” etc.) would’ve been funnier a few years ago.

More after the jump.

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