MID-WEEK MAYHEM 87

Greensboro, North Carolina

I was going to post something on Saturday about how I seem to only post on Saturdays. But then I couldn't be bothered, which must really disappoint you my imaginary readers of this blog. As it’s now Wednesday the post about me only posting on Saturdays isn't really going to work. Maybe if I was posting from somewhere else and due to time difference it’s actually Saturday. But for 4 days time difference I guess I’d have to be on Mars or in the centre of the earth with the devil. Yeesh, here’s someTHING.

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I was thinking today about wrestling t-shirts, about how awesome they could be and about how crap the WWE ones are. They just have big writing on them and a shitty looking cartoon picture. They also usually say stuff like “YOUR ASS IS MINE”. Who the hell wants to walk around with a t-shirt that says that, with a cartoon picture of a wrestler on it too? Not even sane wrestling fans should want that. Anyway, I decided that if I wasn’t so inartistic and if I wasn’t so lazy I’d do a “WILDFIRE STILL RULES” t-shirt in the style of Hogan’s. Even though I haven’t seen him wrestle for 6 or 7 years I’m sure that statement’s still true and not in a horrible VH1 pimp-to-my-daughter type of way.

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I watched The Great American Bash and here are my concise, thought provoking views.
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Candice Michelle’s a slow Rick Steamboat and I love her for it. Her match with Melina was like Flair vs. Steamboat from 89 but slower. Candice tries loads of different things each match which is a rarity when most guys pretty much do move for move every week on Raw or Smackdown. I think Chris Jericho (apparently he was good for wrestling during the whole Benoit TV freakathon because he looks like he should be in Days Of Our Lives and not in a Carnival) holds the record for wrestling the same TV match in WWE every week (2 years, 4 months, 7 days). Why can’t women run the ropes? I don’t get it. Rey Mysterio always looks like the ropes are going to eat him but the women just go dead slow and look stupid.

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Great Khali rules. People diss the guy because he’s an awful wrestler but that’s not the point. He’s some huge Indian dude who can only shout-speak vowels, so badly that they had to pretend he couldn’t speak English and had to have an interpreter. His legs go on for ever, like he’s got huge lifts in his shoes or midget wrestlers down his pants. Kane/Batista/Great Khali should have been a train wreck but Khali took a bump through the announcers table for the team and managed to carry the other two to a decent match. I wish his interpreter would have been Roland Alexander and he ate greasy cheeseburgers as he interpreted Khali’s Punjabi musings. And he wore a “Modest Still Rules” vest covered in burger grease.

Khali brings prestige to the Smackdown title which Cena and Lashley could only dream about. Their match was pretty good but I don’t get why either’s a big deal. Lashley did some good amateur go-behinds and mat work for a few seconds that he should do more often. Instead he uses power moves because he’s a generic WWE monster. I think Cena’s a pretty crappy wrestler, everything he does just doesn’t look right, he’s too muscle bound. The finish was weird, Cena sort of body dropping Lashley of the second rope. In Jim Ross speak that equals "BUH GAWD KING!!! F U FROM THE TOP ROPE!!! THE TOP ROPE!!!"

MacGyver & Springer: Slow Saturday TV Viewing

MacGyver is so hit and miss. It’s great when it’s in America and he’s doing something like helping out a guy on the run from gangsters, making bombs out of coat hangers and beer cans, running in and out of empty buildings. But other times it’s set in some nameless South American country dealing with something stupid. Todays episode was even worse, MacGyver helping out some teen gang members in the mountains. Apparently it’s some scientific experiment to rehabilitate these gang members. None of them look like gang members, more like a united colours of Benetton group of RADA trained actors. A pilot has a heart attack because the Hispanic gang member was being a knob and MacGyver had to land the plane. Basically they all squabble amongst themselves but then all work together to fix the damaged plane so MacGyver can fly the Hispanic guy to hospital because he’s got internal bleeding. Everything works out in the end and the kids aren’t going to be shooting each other anymore.

A woman wearing only her knickers, missing her two front teeth stands face to face with her mother. This is Jerry Springer. I missed the start but I think the big secret is that the daughter’s a hooker. Mum can’t believe it but while they’re shouting at each other it really looks like their trying to keep a straight face. Now it’s the turn of some dude who’s two timing his girlfriend. How come on Springer women’s tits always fly out when they start to fight? The guys always love it when two women are fighting over them, no matter what the women look like. Jerry picks up a wig that one of the combatants has mislaid. Jerry asks the bit on the side why she’d do this to her friend when she was about to get married. “Look at him Jerry, he’s so fine.” I can never understand how much is real and how much is fake. All I now is that Jamie Dundee books some of this crazy nonsense and that’s alright with me. What he’s learnt from his days in the Memphis TV studio has been put to good use.

RANDOM WRESTLING

Just some random matches from stuff I've watched recently and some random comments.

SABU IN JAPAN
Sabu’s a god, admit it. Sheik and Sabu are against some Japanese guys and one of them cracks Sheik on the head with a wooden stick because he likes that sort of thing. It’s loads of clips and I see Onita’s name, who's about as crazy as Sheik and nephew. Japanese fans run in fear of Sabu and uncle. While Sheik makes his mark on some unfortunate, Sabu gets the pin. Sheik runs after the cameramen with his metal spike. “WILD THING, YOU MAKE MY HEART SING“. Barbed wire match against ONITAAAAAA. Onita took the Memphis concession stand brawl and added 4th of July fireworks to create this crazy madness. So basically, Japanese death matches are as American as apple pie. Barbed wire to the balls. A balding, mulleted Horace Hogan helps Sabu to get the pin while Onita lies prone outside the ring, covered in barbwire. Why wasn’t there ever a tag match with Sabu and his crazy uncle against Horace and his crazy uncle. I bet Onita tried to book it but the Hulkster couldn’t agree on the money or wasn’t prepared to get blown up. After the match is over Onita gets in and barb wire clotheslines Horace and Sabu because they haven’t earned their money yet and the front row Yakuza want more.

CMLL June 1998
Lizmark/Emilio Charles jr/Fiero vs. Bestia Salvaje/Scorpio jr/Violencia
Man I used to love when Emilio, Bestia and Scorpio were Los Taliban and they also went through a faze when they were trying to be 1000% Guapo like Shocker, which is pretty funny when you look at them. But this is pre 9/11 so Emilio’s still a technico here. He's also the ugliest dude on show because Scorpio’s still got his mask on, although the spots on his back hint that he’s got his fathers looks under the hood. I think my favourite wrestling myth/legend is that Scorpio Sr had sex with the ugliest woman he could find to make sure his son could carry on his gimmick. That and the Rock N’ Roll Express walking in on a woman taking a dump on a glass table with Jimmy Valiant underneath it. Bestia and Emilio go at it back and forth until the three rudos beat the pulp out of Charles jr. But all of a sudden it turns into the Keystone Cops with the rudos running/bumping into each other. Funniest thing is when Violencia is outside the ring and Bestia falls out on top of him. So Violencia’s giving him a piggy back and as they walk back to their corner Bestia bumps into the ring post! Seriously, they must all sit around the dressing room watching old Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle one reelers for inspiration. In the midst of all this hijinx Emilio pins Scorpio with a rana.

Mr Aguila/Ultimo Dragon/Negro Casas vs. El Hijo Del Santo/Blue Panther/Black Warrior
Santito’s going through his dirty dress up as Felino rudo faze here. The Mexico City crowd is pretty much 50/50 with boos and cheers when his name is announced. And Santito’s pretty much 50/50 with his rudo turn because he knows it’s not gonna last long. Mr Aguila and his back street tattoos are playing with the big boys tonight and I hope for his sake he doesn’t do one of his knee in the balls/elbow in the face 360’s, although nobody in lucha seems to care too much about slightly off finishes. If he did it to Undertaker in the WWE the locker room court would probably have him losing to Funaki on Heat for a few weeks. That’s why lucha’s the sport of kings and WWE’s Vince McMahon’s jacked up fantasy world. Or something like that anyway. Ultimo Dragon and Blue Panther start off and go at it hold for hold. Head locks, leg locks and reversing them. It’s slow but beautiful and lasts longer than a whole three fall CMLL match does today.

The crowd claps and then Santo and Negro Casas get in, speed it up and IT‘S ON. It’s weird because Santo’s sort of a rudo good guy and Negro’s a technico prick. His small white boots and black speedo like shorts will always creep me out. I’m not sure why but they always do. Black Warrior’s in now and bumps over the turnbuckle, clipping a camerawoman in the process. She sort of no sells it and walks off to the other side of the ring, her head just missing getting hit again by Mr Aguila diving onto Warrior outside. This woman’s got a death wish, I just hope she doesn’t get in the way of a Black Warrior tope. Meanwhile back in the ring, Negro does the roll up out of a power bomb thing on Blue Panther while Ultimo Dragon makes Santo submit for the first fall.

Second fall starts with Aguila getting beat up by all the rudos. Casas makes the creepy technico save but gets punched to death in the corner by Blue Panther. Santo whips Dragon into the ropes, causing him to tope Panther on the outside. Mr Aguila does his 360 on Black Warrior for the second fall and the win. I was wondering why Warrior was the captain at the start and now I know why. Old guy regulars in the front row argue/console the rudos (“I’m a Lagunera boy too”)

WrestleWAR 92
Freebirds vs. Valentine and Taylor (U.S. Tag Team CHAMPS)
Doug Dillinger loiters stage right as the wrestlers make their entrances. Some black kid in a knitted jumper gives Taylor and Valentine the thumbs down. I guess Hayes’ best days were behind him, but by 1992 he would've been running out of Von Erich’s to feud with anyway. Even in this not so legendry Freebirds pairing, the guy seems to be enjoying himself. The original Freebirds were a bit before my time but I used to love Hayes and Garvin when I was a kid too and lets be honest, there’s something wrong with you if you don’t like a wrestler whose middle name is Purely Sexy. Actually, maybes there’s not. God, why did they get rid of Badstreet as their entrance music, this new one sounds like a b-side Hayes took about a minute to come up with.

The WCW crowd was always wet for the DDT. Two rings side by side for some WCW shenanigans later on. Did the Red Rooster finish Taylor’s career or was he just some perennial decent mid-card worker. Money aside I’d stick to the mid-card. These old timers can just work a simple decent match with their eyes closed and the crowd are really into this. It’s sad but today a WWE crowd would probably be chanting boring at these guys. Valentine’s got little creepy Negro Casas boots on, thankfully they’ve got G V on them and not N C because that’d be REALLY creepy. Valentine runs at Hayes in the corner but misses and nearly falls out the ring. Jesse Ventura: “We almost had the hammer in our lap Ross”. With his long blonde hair Valentine’s got the look of some ugly, past it stripper and I’m trying not to visualise him giving J.R. a lap dance in the hope of a WWE contract. “DDT DDT DDT DDT.” Hayes was one of those guys who couldn’t help being over. Freebirds are on top, working Taylor’s arm. Even as the faces their pulling Taylor’s hair and double teaming him behind the refs back. “Do unto others before they do unto you Ross”. So speaks future politician Jesse Ventura.

I always loved the WCW PPV ramp that was level all the way to ring. Hayes back body drops Taylor back into the ring off it. Taylor throws Garvin outside and the Hammer goes to work on him, swinging the balance back in the champs favour. Hayes goes for a DDT on Valentine but Taylor catches him with a flying forearm for a 2 count. 15 years on and Taylor's pretty high up in TNA and Hayes is booker for Smackdown. Jimmy Garvin’s got a forum on Wrestling Classics and Greg’s probably dancing the cooch in Vegas. Taylor does that neat gut wrench into power bomb move but only for two. After Valentine gets him in a figure four, Hayes finally makes the tag and Garvin cleans house like a slightly hairier chested Robert Gibson. Garvin goes for a DDT on Taylor but Valentine tries to stop it, only to get back body dropped. Garvin DDT’s Taylor for the win and new U.S. Champs. Man, their music sounds even worse now.