All right, this will be week two of me rebeaking off of a recap (or two,) since after heaving a sigh and reformatting my harddrive, I learned that a physical fault in the harddrive is the actual problem. I’m gonna be a few hundred bucks poorer before this is settled, but it should be settled by next week. Oddly, two weeks from now, a completely different happenstance is going to weird-up the Rawbeak.
STAR TREK: will be replaced by Dynasty Warriors until I completely burn out on the game, which may happen any time, or when I actually see an episode of any Star Trek show, which may never happen again.
DYNASTY WARRIORS: Though the omg heels of Wei are still my favorites, I’ve played enough Shu campaigns to develop a certain fondness for the goofiness of Shu’s origin. I especially like how Liu Bei visits Zhuge Liang 3 times, and Zhuge Liang is so impressed with his “politeness” that he pledges his life to Shu. A play:
SCENE: SOME JAPPY RICE PAPER HOUSE. ONLY IN CHINA.
Zhuge Liang: On this, your third visit, I present you with this carton of Neapolitan ice cream.
Liu Bei: Would you please pass me a spoon?
Zhuge Liang: I had hoped to hear such words from you. I pledge my life to your vision of rebuilding the Han. The ice cream, must be split, into three sections.
Liu Bei: The ice cream split? Into three?
Zhuge Liang: I call strawberry.
END SCENE.
Mideon already made a “Knock knock knockin’ on Heaven’s door” joke on instant messenger.
SAILOR MOON: Oh, I think you’ve suffered enough.
I didn’t even see the beginning of RAW because of some shittiness involving my real-world job that I don’t want to get into. It suffices to say that some fucking idiot turned off a computer while trying to remove her floppy disk, then told me off for being rude about it when I asked her not to do that. How, she asked, was she supposed to know which button was the power button? Wait, that fell apart, it suffices to say something that aggravating happened to me Tuesday, but Tuesday still went way better than Monday.
However, RAW apparently began well. MY NAME MEANS “LITTLE CARL” tried to open the show by interviewing Shawn Michaels, the man everybody wants to talk to after last week. Guess I’m not “everybody.” But before Carlito can summon that queerest of turncoats (the coat has these frilly ruffles and shit,) MY NAME MEANS GOD HATES ME AS MUCH AS A BIBLICAL CITY HE ORDERED JOSHUA TO BURN TO THE GROUND. I don’t know much about the Bible, but I know the Walls of Jericho fell so the Israelites could kill every man, woman and child in the city. The Old Testament…weird. They weren’t even sodomizing each other. Or Gomorrohizing each other. So, yeah, Carlito apparently said the following: “Let's face it. The Highlight Reel is just like you. Really boring. Really outdated. Basically, it really SUCKS. Look at you. You're a little older. A little sadder. A little fatter. Seriously, you might want to give me that apple back. Look at your love handles. Have you seen yourself when you wrestle? They just pour through your tights. It's a good thing you're covered up. Seriously. Love handles? That's not cool.” Haha, that sounded like fun. Jericho fires back (courtesy of whoever writes these up at 411:) “Love handles, huh? Maybe you should do up your shirt. You don't exactly got the abs of steel yourself, DORKO. You don't tell me what's cool. I'm the epitome of cool. You don't dictate what's cool to me. I'm CANADIAN! OH YEAH! I'm CHRIS CANADIAN COOL. You -- look at me. You just don't get it, do ya, Sideshow Bob?" [Pop!] "Oh yeah. With your little imitation flowery shirt and your fancy purple pantsies, oooh.” Jericho didn’t say [Pop!] though. I’m not sure how one pronounces brackets. I’m not sure which is sadder, “DORKO” or “Sideshow Bob.” It’s always cool when wrestlers diss each other’s panties, though. But then, shockingly, JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS, I BABBLE INCOHERENTLY invades because an interview this big (read: boring) can only happen in Piper’s Pit of Dispair. Piper says more stuff as 411 dude assures me we get a run-down of tonight’s “loaded card.” Carlito vs Benjamin, Edge vs Kane, and Diva Stuff. Two matches. FULLY LOADED *Triple H crotch-chopping*.
The local Blockbuster has very few wrestling DVDs but they always have a copy of FULLY LOADED from whatever year had cover-art consisting entirely of DX HHH chopping his crotch. I have never, and will never rent that.
There were presumably commercials here.
HE’S THE CLOWN THAT MAKES THE DARK SIDE FUN, TORGO! is out. I seem to recall JR saying: “Do we still have to be quiet?” Two weeks ago, Tajiri tried to one-up Sergeant Slaughter as far as making a Masterpiece segment kinda fun for a while. Because with all due respect to Mideon, the fact that he poses like a gork and can’t talk is hard to get behind during a slew of firings from which Masters is almost certainly safe. WHEN YOU FIRE ME, COULD YOU PLESE DO IT DURING THE JAPANESE TOUR? comes out to have a match with this clod. Apparently, Tajiri was tasked with wrestling this guy a billion times at house shows to help him improve. And it really shows here, as Masters doesn’t break a single person’s nose en route to winning via choke out. He broke plenty of married people’s noses, though.
Alex O’Bal, 411’s wacky Irishman, had this to say: “Nice to see Tajiri back on Raw. I guess this was a match with many surprising twists and turns, though it didn't have quite the same energy of that Val Venis match from a few weeks ago.”
I should even rebeak, I should just quote “news” sites and let everyone take in my implied disdain. In fairness, this match did have Tajiri in control for a bit. But it was also three minutes long, which makes “many surprising twists and turns” sound sort of “stupid.”
I missed some scene where Snitski’s foot fetish is revealed. I think that’s just as well. Apparently Edge used Lita’s “magical” feet to manipulate Snitski. Here’s the thing though: from a purely character motivational point of view, this is actually good. A lecherous desire to suck Lita’s feet (just…ugh) explains why Snitski has been Edge’s on-again off-again lackey for almost a month. They had never made any effort to explain why Snitski would help Edge, or anyone else. It’s also good because I think FilmCans pretty much drove baby-killing into the ground. No offense, but a horoscope by a one-trick-pony demands twelve variations on the same joke, and leaves me pondering nicknames related to the retarded “evil Captain Lou Albano” goatee.
Footage of Triple H leaving the cell at Vengeance airs. Triple H dead? Not dead the way you know it. He is with us always. Not dead the way you know it. He is with us always.
I enjoyed that almost as much as that awful Dynasty Warriors play.
THE SLEEPING DRAGON OF SHEL TON PLAINS got yet another match for HIS, intercontinentaltitle! No one is meant to get that, except maybe Super Asia. Shelton has the dragon panties back, which justifies the stupid name. His opponent is, of course, DORKO HAHAHAHAHA BURN. I saw most of this. It combined Shelton being an awesome wrestler with Carlito having the fucking greatest goofy-assed facial expressions since Bunkhouse Buck. Highlights include Carlito getting hit with a neckbreaker, and Carlito sitting there for like ten seconds doing “the lights are on but no one’s home” before falling gently onto his cushiony afro. They also did this neat spot where they made it look like Carlito was dangling out of the ring, and Shelton was hanging his by his chia-hair. Carlito’s attempt to pull the tights to win failed, so he bailed out, took the belt, and walked out for the count-out loss and title retention. Shelton looked mega-pissed. That’s some OLD-SCHOOL heel work there. None of that “trying to be badass so I can sell vaguely racist T-shirts to biker-types” bullshit. Carlito has some serious cowardice. And he brings the sneaky.
Backstage, on-camera but off-mic, Cena and Bischoff yell at each other. This kind of scene always reminds me of Dusty Rhodes wandering into shot and blathering incoherently at Vince Russo while making “angry” hand gestures. By the way, Cena, could your ani-establishment persona get any more ninth-grade?
After the break, THE CHAMP IS BLAH came out and talked about how Windows Media Player won’t install the codec to play Realplayer files but real recognizes real. Did I use that already? It would be ironic if I got really repetitive and boring while discussing John Cena. Take note, 411 staffers, of my correct use of the word “ironic.” Cena says Eric is trying to hold him down by saying “you can’t say that and you can’t do that” and blahblahblah. Cena’d make a great Nickelodeon host, sucking in those kids sick of school putting them down all week. His catchphrase could be “there’s no rules when you watchin’ Rug Rats, ya heard!?” Or he could host Cartoon Network Fridays. “Come on Chain Gang, make some noise for 4 hours of Kids Next Doooooor!” Anyway, MR. MCMEAN THE CROTCHETY MATH TEACHER WHO MAKES YOU DIVIDE FRACTION comes out and bores the shit out of me. They perform a little sequence trying to undermine everyone’s complaints that Cena isn’t a worthy champion (because he can’t wrestle for shit) by changing it to “you don’t like his basketball jerseys and spinny-belt.” They’re right about the jerseys and belt, but still. I CALLED CARLITO “SIDESHOW BOB,” DID YOU HEAR ME? comes out willing to fight Cena, but Bischoff decrees a match at whatever the next ppv is for the stupid belt. Cena says something stupid about “a mansion in Cheapland where the Cheap sauce flows like wine.” Man…awful on so many levels. Can’t “cheap sauce” and “wine” be synonyms anyway? Jericho leaves, but not before doing this odd “look into my crystal ball” prediction bit that can only serve to set up some hilarious ball jokes next week. Cena gives Bischoff the F-U OMG WHAT A REBEL NO ONE HAS EVER ATTACKED ERIC BISCHOFF BEFORE. Hitting your finisher on Bischoff has about one one-zillionth the impact of hitting Heel Vince. I wonder if that’s by design?
I really don’t care when I’m not doing play-by-play. It at least presents me with the illusion that I’m adding more than my own bitching.
The Diva Search Shit hit the Diva Search Fan (who is not me) at this point. I spent most of this looking for other things to do, though I saw a little. The heel who was awful but distinguishable from the others at least was voted off. Thought you’d wanna know. This week was a “talent show” and was brutally unscripted. One of the girls monkey-flipped Christy Hemme, then hugger her to show there were no hard feelings. According to 411 dude, whoever got “disqualified” last week for popping out of her top gave Earl Hebner a nut-shot (even though Coach decreed the DQ out of nowhere.) Someone else had sex with a chair. Somebody also pranced around with a pretend sword, and her intro speech made it sound like she was gonna choppy-choppy Coach’s wee-wee but for some reason she kissed him. To boos.
SNITSKI IS NOTHING, I WON A GOLD MEDAL IN FOOT-SUCKING comes out with SLATER VAINS. Fuck me, he’s bringing back the Kurt Angle Invitational? Did they suddenly remember what they had planned to do with this on Smackdown? SOME GUY WHO CALLED IN SICK FROM HIS TEACHING JOB TO…FORGET IT comes out. I guess this guy was in the news for ducking out of his real job to train to wrestle. I never heard of him. Anyway, Kurt kills him for awhile, then Palumboizes himself. They sell it as Kurt knocking himself silly, and the jobber wisely stays in the ring to try and wait out the count. Kurt recovers, but the jobber nutshots him. It was actually getting pretty fun with only four seconds to go, but Ankle snags the Anglelock with two seconds and the guy fucking taps. That’s stupid. Book a last second pinfall or something. Even I could bear pain for 1 second if it meant I got to hock Angle’s medals on ebay. Get your very own “You Suck Kurt Angle” medals.
Edge walks around backstage, but gets shot by the finger-guns of FIRST YOU GOT ME FIRED, BUT THEN YOU HAD TO GO AND GET SHANNON FIRED! Matt. I’m tired. I was kinda happy to see Matt, but I can’t help but feel this is many weeks too late. Fit Finlay and his leprechauns pull him off. For what it’s worth, I disagree with the idea that this means less than an in-match run-in, because this late in the game you have to do everything you can to make it feel “real.”
After a commercial break, DUDE, WAS THAT REALLY MATT HARDY? came out with DOMON KASSU, HOW WILL YOU FIGHT MY SILVER FEET? Edge was taking on THE PURPOSE OF MY CHARACTER’S GONE. Sing Kane’s nickname to his music. NOW. Fuck man, I watched this and I don’t even remember how the official match ended. Oh, ok, SUCKY SUCKY YOUR FEETY came in for a DQ. Then UNHHHHHHHHHHHH did another run-in on Edge, and the commentators clammed up which was a nice touch. Matt grabs a mic and yells that Edge is an ass, Lita is a whore, the WWE can kiss his ass, etc. Then he mentions ROH and security brings him down in a really nice touch. Other than the camera not cutting away (and come on, they can’t do a storyline that way,) this was pretty perfect. But it’s still Matt “Lower Midcard” Hardy, so let’s not wet our pants until we see where this goes, shall we? If it goes well, we can all wet our pants.
The final segment saw DAMN IT THIS SHOW SHOULD BE SCOTCH GUARDED interviewing I THINK I’M CUTE, I KNOW I’M SEXY, I SPELL MY NAME, THE WRONG DAMN WAY. I know “Scotch” refers to a drink and not to people. Shut up. Anyway, Piper uses his fucking brilliant celebrity presence and interviewing skills to simply asks Shawn “why” and hand him the mic. Shawn sez the fans want “one more match” from Hogan, and this ensures that will happen. Didn’t that chant mean Hogan/Hickenbottom vs Hassan/Daivari? I know they play the “one more match” card a lot, but isn’t this like, twice in two months? Anyway, Piper says that’s bullshit and HBK was a coward for cheapshotting Hogan, so HBK cheapshots him with a superkick. WAY TO PROVE HIM WRONG, DORKO!
Final Thoughts: Man, that would have been rough to do “in-depth.” I stopped caring even enough to mock 411 about halfway through. I even lack the energy to italicize stuff.
