Useless Link of the Day

Generally, this is not for those of you who are cat people.

I must have a death wish...

This morning, I came across New Jack's email address and decided to give him the full LFAN treatment. My thinking at the time "Hey, he's in prison. What's the worst that can happen?". Then I remembered he's got to get out eventually...

It's nothing worse than most of my other ones, but still, I hope he has a sense of humor...

Latest ITR

Oh, sure, on TV they act like Gene Snitsky grievously injured Kane... but we all know the real reason Kane's on vacation is to make a movie ("Eye Scream Man"). And wouldn't you know it, our intrepid investigative journalist, the Canadian Bulldog, is the very first man to dig up an EXCLUSIVE~! sneak peek at the film! You don't want to miss the preview of Kane's major motion picture debut! Nor do you want to miss all Bulldog's other news, an open letter to Edge, a "big" interview, or a completely genuine e-mail outburst from King Kong Bundy! It's all available to you in the latest edition of Inside The Ropes.

ITR (Online Onslaught)
ITR (The W)

Yuck!

From the following press release...

Just in time for the holidays, Pepsi will launch Pepsi Holiday Spice - Pepsi-Cola with a spicy finish of ginger and cinnamon - to give consumers a new seasonal treat during a time of celebration. Testing revealed that the spice concept fits with Pepsi's image as "new," "different," and "innovative," while the flavors have a strong connection with cola. Featuring nostalgic package graphics, Pepsi Holiday Spice will be available in the U.S. for an eight-week period (November 1 - December 31) in 20-ounce bottles, 2-liter bottles and 12-packs of 12-ounce cans.

Coming next year - carbonated carrot juice (which be repackaged as "Pepsi Vegiburst" or somesuch).

Useless Link of the Day

Finally -- the long-awaited sequel to the 'Man With A Fish HeadPouring Soy Sauce On People' videos!!!

Recommended Reading

Looks like I found someone else who's harassing people via the written word...

Check out Rich Mackin Dot Org for some of his sample letters. Hilarious stuff!

First Dave Barry.... Now This!

From the OO message boards:

Originally posted by Jeb Tennyson Lund

Realistically speaking, there's almost no chance that I'll ever write three columns per month anymore, let alone once per week. My heart's not in it: not for wrestling, and not for response. I could go into my disaffection with wrestling, at this point, but I won't. Aside from the good people at OO, I get scant replies these days. I blame the paucity of reader mail on my tendency to exhaustively look at something (to the tune of 8 to 11 pages), such that I defensively cover every possible counter-argument when making my point. I've worked so hard to head off the "You forgot to mention THIS!" counter-argument that my columns have swelled to unwieldy and unentertaining proportions, while silencing most dissent. This is not to say that I've gotten too good at what I'm doing; rather, that I've learned to undercut anyone who would knee-jerk say that I've made a mistake.

It’s been fantastic doing this, but I’ve made an agreement with myself that I will no longer, in solitude, think about what I [i]should[/i] be writing about wrestling… no more moments after TV, after the wife’s gone to bed and before I find a book, where I think, “You know, you really should be formulating or crafting or just hacking out [i]something[/i]. You owe it to [i]something.[/i]” If the will comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, I owe it to my own standard of quality to keep mum.

Please, too, keep in mind that this isn’t a total walkoff. I despise the Wrestling Writer (or sports star) declaration of retirement, especially when it results in a “DRAMATIC RETURN TO THE GAME” just months later. If I really want to say something, or feel that I can offer a comment without echoing another (especially myself), I’ll chime in again. No sense in wasting an idea by leaving it unsaid due to an asinine restrictive principle.

More to the point, I long ago promised myself that, if I got within striking distance of 100 columns, I would see this exercise to a nice rounded end, leaving a semi-reasonable block of work. Well, I am within that striking distance, and I think I’ll go for it. I guess this is a long [i]apologia[/i] as well as an explanation that, though it took me around 18 months or so to hit 50 columns, it might take me the next two years to write another 20 or so. I don’t want to become stale, or another exemplar of the Wrestling Writer Repeating Himself to the Satisfaction of Only Himself.

Regardless, I’m mostly done....I’m going soon, but I’m not totally gone.
Thank you.
- Jeb

Wow. I can't say I didn't see it coming at all -- certainly, no one can crank out masterpieces like he has forever. At the same time, I'm more than a little sad to hear this, in a very selfish way.

As I've mentioned to Jeb just now: "Hopefully this will be a true wrestling retirement, where you show up again in six months writing under a mask." Whatever that means....

I (Detest) Huckabee's

Okay, I don't detest it, and I've certainly seen worse movies this year (Envy springs to mind immediately). But it was just.... just... trying too hard to be different and intelligent. I'll give it credit for certainly being an original film and at times, Mark Wahlberg was quite funny, but that's about as charitable as I'll get.

I don't like this trend of films purposely trying to confuse their audience. If it all comes together in the end (for example, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I loved), then fine, but if you walk out of the theater thinking 'What the FUCK did I just spend two hours watching?', then it really is pointless.

Maybe if you're stoned or something this might be 'out there' enough to click for you, but other than that, I'd give it a serious miss. In fact, I came very close to seeing Team America instead (even though I just saw it last week) and would have been well-served to do so...

Latest ITR (a/k/a Letters From A Nut III)

What's it take to get Kurt Angle to endorse your product or service? Well, it seems like a little creativity, a penchant for tomfoolery, and the proverbial Giant Grapefruits will do the trick. The Canadian Bulldog found this out first hand when he entered into Actual Negotiations with Kurt Angle's business manager regarding Kurt's possible guest appearance for Bulldog's (fictional) weight loss clinic. Partnerships were proposed and phony websites were built to further the ruse, but at the end of the day, Team Angle got Dog'd! It's just PART of the fun that you can enjoy in the third installment of Bulldog's "Letters from a Nut" pranking if you check out this week's brand new Inside The Ropes.

ITR (Online Onslaught)
ITR (The W)

Holler If You Hear Me...

So I'm among the test-researchers for a new BlackBerry pager/email for the next 10 days. If you wouldn't mind, anyone who reads this, drop me a line at demo73@rogers.blackberry.net. The trial is basically to evaluate some new functions, that sort of thing, but I'm also interested in finding out how much capacity this sucker has, whether it can handle attachments, and just how fast emails can arrive to it. So if you're not busy anytime between today and Oct. 30, email me at the above address. Even if it's just to say hi.

In related news, I met Toronto Maple Leafs forward Darcy Tucker (at the launch party for this test marketing thing). Not that I'm really a hockey fan, but he seemed like a cool guy...

New DVD Review

FMW Ring of Torture

Distressing News

According to the Miami Herald (which would kind of be the authority on this), Dave Barry is taking a leave of absence, and may not return to the paper.

As someone who reads his column and his blog religiously (and has owned, at one time or another, most of his books), this is huge news. Certainly, he'd been at it for a long time, and he deserves a retirement from the weekly grind, but that doesn't make it any less painful.

That said, I have a feeling once his Guide 2 Guys movie bombs next year (and don't get me wrong - I LOVED the book that it was based on; just have a feeling from what I've seen of it so far that it's a bad sitcom in waiting), he may be back...

Taboo Tuesday Thoughts

Here's one - WORST. PPV. EVER.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad (Heroes of Wrestling was wayyy worse, for example), but I really didn't walk out of that one with a good feeling at all.

Change of venue notice: Because this wasn't a regular Sunday PPV, the movie theater my brother and I regularly frequent wasn't showing the events. So we moved down the road to a Cineplex Odeon. These people are NOT set up for PPV (at least that particular venue). The screen was a widescreen format, which made most of the wrestlers look extremely fat. The first wrestler I think I saw was Molly and was thinking "have they gone back to the fatass gimmick again? She looks like she's pregnant!" Nope - it was just the horrible screen format. Famous Players is soooo much better than this place.

That said, the good thing about going to a new venue is that our gang can try out new obnoxious chants, etc. and see how they play out. I've got to say, my brother and I were definitely "over" in this new theater. We started a "WE WANT SNITSKY (Clap Clap Clap Clap Clap)" chant that caught on and my Mr. McMahon impression of "You're FIRRRRRRRRRRED" also went over well.

Shelton Benjamin Vs. Chris Jericho
Don't get me wrong; I definitely think it was a good idea to give Benjamin the I-C title at this point. But this match didn't seem to click. Perhaps it was the dead crowd, or my eyes getting used to the widescreen format, but this way a boring, plodding match, the first of many. And one face giving the other face the belt is fine when its Hogan-Warrior, but not Jericho-Benjamin.

Divas Bullshit Battle Royal
At least they picked the right winner. That's about all I'm going to add to this nonsense.

Kane Vs. Snitsky
My brother and I must have set the record for the most "SNIT-SKY" chants in one evening last night. Sadly, it was more exciting than the match itself. What was the point of having a chain match when it was the chair that played into the finish? And, even in storyline purposes, I have to ask -- why was Lita supporting Kane? Yes, I have been watching WWE TV so I've heard the explanation they've given us, but uh.... nah, I'm just not going to go there. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And I seriously think Kane should have gone over there.

Eugene Vs. Bischoff
We actually went out to get snacks for this match, and by the time we got back, they were already deciding the stipulation. Scary fact: Mr. McMahon's entrance got the biggest pop BY FAR in the entire theater. Hopefully, this is one time WWE doesn't listen to its fans and try to give Vinnie Mac more TV time.

Chris Benoit and Edge Vs. La Resistance
Played out pretty much like I figured it would, and the idea of having feuding tag team champions is not a bad idea at all when used sparingly. The problem was, the match stunk. And as for JR making Benoit sound superhuman.... he defeated La Freaking Resistance! Come on... I will say this, though, winning the tag titles by himself on PPV will only help add to Benoit's legend during a career year. So... great idea, poor execution.

Christy Vs. Carmella
When you don't even know how to get pinned properly, maybe you can take that as a hint you should get the HELL out of this business.

Shawn Michaels Vs. Triple H
I'm not going to be too hard on this one for the simple reason that if Michaels was as badly injured as they say he was (the overacting aside, who's going to question him? Besides Triple H that is), then that's probably the best they were going to get out of him. It wasn't a terrible match, but because the two of them have had so much better, it was disappointing. But understandably so. And the finish -- well, that was exactly what I'd called earlier this week. Let the era of Edgevolution begin!

Randy Orton Vs. Ric Flair
THIS was the last match? Well, I guess considering the alternatives, they didn't have much of a choice. But... given that this was the main event and that the cage was already hanging above the ring... was there ANY DOUBT what the choice would be for the stipulation? I mean, how could you have accomplished the finish that they were going for in, say, a submission match?

That said, it was an *okay* match. I understand that they wanted to give Flair one last ME and give Orton the rub at the same time. But it just didn't have a main event feel to it. Besides knocking off an old man who's been beaten by basically everyone on the Raw roster in recent years, what did Orton accomplish? And where do they go with Flair from here? Or was this his grand finale? Either way, it didn't seem fitting for a legend like Flair.

Am I being too hard on this PPV? Maybe. But this is one I just couldn't justify the money I spent on it...

Taboo Tuesday Predictions

Because OO isn't running a team-coverage set of predictions for tomorrow's PPV, thought I'd throw in my picks here:

(Quick note: I don't honestly believe that they'll book this on the fly, so between telling the fans what they want to vote for, and not actually counting the votes, I'm working under the assumption the entire PPV is already booked.)

- Christy over Carmella.
Reasoning: They just paid her $250,000. They better damn well give her the full-blown push.
- Stacy wins Diva Battle Royal.
Reasoning: All of this mini-push is recent weeks would be for naught unless she could "surprise" Trish, Molly, etc. in a match like this which doesn't require a pinfall.
- Eric Bischoff over Eugene, with the haircut stip in effect.
Reasoning: Nick Dinsmore already had close-cropped hair, plus losing a haircut match builds sympathy on the Eugene character, which they could certainly use right about now. I don't see Bischoff having a perfectly good hairpiece shorn for the sake of a storyline.
- Edge and Chris Benoit reclaim tag team titles over La Resistance.
Reasoning: I'm assuming HBK is in the main event. Giving Edge/Benoit the titles could come in handy if the rest of my scenario plays out...
- Kane over Gene Snitsky.
Reasoning: Time to squash the babykiller. Nuff said.
- Batista over Chris Jericho to win I-C title.
Reasoning; I mean, who else are they going to put in there? Tyson Tomko? Coach? Tajiri? Palumbo? At least this makes for an interesting match; and I think they can use the element of surprise to save face for Y2J later on.
- Randy Orton over Ric Flair (would be cool if they choose a cage)
Reasoning: Well, duh.
- Triple H over Shawn Michaels
Reasoning: Edge interferes, costs HBK the match. Afterwards, he joins Evolution, or perhaps... Edgevolution!!! Then he can carry on a storyline with Benoit (tag team partners who are on opposite sides) for the next little while, setting up Survivor Series as:
HHH, Flair, Batista, Edge Vs. Michaels, Benoit, Orton, Jericho

Shoulkd be a decent show, if nothing else.

Best Movie EVER!!!

Well, last night I caught the critically acclaimed Team America: World Police and I am STILL laughing this morning. It is honestly one of the funniest films I have ever seen, ranking just behind the original Naked Gun for me.

It's obviously not for everyone, because the language, visuals and concepts will undoubtedly offend many people, particularly some of the more patriotic Americans out there. Chances are, though, if you at least giggled a bit at the South Park movie a few years back, this will be right up your alley.

What's more impressive is the actual soundtrack (I MUST get this CD), featuring some of the most hilarious tunes I've ever heard. Every last one of them was laugh out loud funny.

There aren't too many movies I'll consider going to the theater to see numerous times over, but this is certainly one of them. Take my advice -- if you have a sense of humor in the slightest -- SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

Latest ITR

With a Presidential Election mere weeks away, and with HHH reportedly wielding STROKE~! in quantities heretofore unseen, fans and voters had best prepare for some shocking swerves. In fact, OO's own Intrepid Investigative Journalist the Canadian Bulldog (in association with the always-accurate Dan Rather, perhaps?) has gotten his hands on Election Spoilers! Or perhaps I should say "Evo-lection" Spoilers! Bulldog has got a full transcript of the excitement and drama of Election Night a full three weeks early! You can check it out (along with Bulldog's Taboo Tuesday PPV preview and lots more) in the latest edition of Inside The Ropes.

ITR (Online Onslaught)
ITR (The W)

Useless Link of the Day

Hey, no fair! Only, like, maybe four of these are true...

Letters From A Nut .... III?

Yes, it's true. Plans are underway for the biggest, baddest and best installment in my LFAN trilogy. If all goes according to plan, I should have enough material to publish the column on OO next Thursday (October 21). Without hyping to death, I'm fairly confident this will be my best one yet.

But still..... I NEED NEED NEED more wrestler e-mail addresses/websites to keep my little gimmick going beyond next week. If you happen to have an email that you collected at some indy show stashed away, or if you can think of any fairly obscure websites out there (for instance, I just found the official Jim The Anvil Neidhart site recently), please email them to me, or deposit them here in this blog. Even if it's some webmaster who can get to said wrestler, let me know.

Just as a point of reference, I've sent roughly 150-200 emails since July in this project, with a healthy chunk being returned as undeliverable. I've picked through the massive website listings at 1wrestling.com, but even if you think I may have seen it before, send it along anyways.

My ultimate goal in this is to collect enough responses to make some sort of book out of this, or at least create a sub-site of my ITR site dedicated to LFAN.

Thanks!!!

Useless Link of the Day

Virtual Etch A Sketch

Picked up a bunch of DVD's....

I've been busy for the last four weeks or so scouring used bookstores and video places for cheap DVD's, and I have to say I've been pretty lucky. I've attached some mini-reviews, and also how much I snagged them all for:

Hardy Boyz: Leap of Faith ($7.99)
Okay, I'm not a huge Hardy Boyz fan, but for that price, I certainly couldn't pass it up. The story itself is pretty lame, though it is interesting to see their backyard wrestling footage (or rather, backyard promos). The matches, from what I've seen so far, aren't bad at all, though nothing other than the famous No Mercy ladder match I watched with any particular interest.

Raw X ($5.99!)
...and that's the ONLY reason I bought it. Don't know if I've relayed this story before, but I was actually supposed to be in New York, travelling on business, the morning after Raw X. So I switched my flight to the night before, and figured I'd try to get in at the last minute (After all, my hotel was all of 20 minutes away from The World). But then customs in Toronto hits a major snag and I didn't even land at Laguardia until like 11 p.m., missing the entire show.

As I've since seen, that probably wasn't a bad thing. The awards ceremony was nothing short of horrible, especially given the lack of surprises they had. The Rock's cameo was terrible and received by the fans accordingly (cementing his later heel turn), and there was nothing on the show that did it for me. That said, the extras, tons of Raw moments and skits, were fun to relive, and for that reason, the purchase was worth while.

Wrestling Gold: Busted Open ($12.99)
This is another one of those Cornette-Meltzer deals that repackages old footage and has insider commentary taped over it. Well, the commentary is great, but the matches mostly suck. Larry Zybsko vs. Scott Casey, Gino Hernandez and Tully Blanchard Vs. Two Masked Jobbers, Adrian Adonis vs. Bob Orton... even the few that had some potential fell short. Still, seeing as you can't get this kind of non-WWE owned footage anywhere, I had to at least check it out.

Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story ($26.99)
Okay, I paid full price for this one, but for good reason. It had several of my favorite Eddie Guerrero matches on it, plus a few that I've wanted to see, AND I'd never seen the actual UPN special when it first aired.

Like The Hardyz one, the story part was very overwhelming. Compared to the Stone Cold, Hogan and especially the Chris Benoit ones, you'd think they could have done something special with this. I mean, Eddie's life is a fascinating story, but given that, they don't really work overtime to make it SEEM spectacular. If that makes any sense.

But the real reason to buy this one is for the matches, and I wasn't disappointed here. In fact, I almost bought No Way Out a few months back, solely for the awesome Guerrero-Brock Lesnar match. But seeing as its on here already, there was no need. Plus his Hallowe'en Havoc match with Rey Mysterio was fantastic -- even if I already had it on another DVD (the Rey one). But the Michael Cole, Rey and Eddie commentary was very good.

Which brings me to another point. WHY do they let Todd Grisham do any of these guest commentaries with the wrestlers? Is there no one else available? His drab, pointless remarks make for a slow and dragging commentary, and he brings the wrestlers (on this DVD it was Eddie and Dean Malenko) down with him. Cole was fine, let him do it from now on. PLEASE!

Anyways, this one was certainly my favorite of the bunch, just because it's one I know I'll be watching several times over. Now all we need is a Jericho compilation and I'll be thrilled.


Walking Tall (rented it)
I didn't catch this one in the theaters, and apparently, neither did 99 % of the moviegoing public. For good reason -- it just wasn't anything special.

The first thing you notice is, the movie is short. Really damn short. As in it feels like it's an hour in total. In reality, its a bit longer than that, but not much.

The story is interesting enough, and it certainly kept my attention. But really, other than The Rock, there were no strong characters here (Johnny Knoxville was passable as comic relief, but the villian was a joke). And by the time things really get cooking, they've wrapped the film in a nice, neat little package.

Hopefully, Rock's next movie will be a hit, because he needs it if I wants to keep landing big roles. But this one, sadly, wasn't the right vehicle for him.

Then the terrorists will truly win...

If you've been to the OO message boards in the last 12 hours or so, you would have seen this message..

For the time being the OO Forums have been disabled following yet another hacker attack. I don't know when this happened, I only know that between the time I shutdown to enjoy SD! and baseball tonight, and a quick e-mail pop-in, the forums were re-hacked by the same idiotic douchebag who is hitting XMB-scripted forums all over the 'net. And as I'd feared, this time, the attack was more severe.
Now you know me, I'm the Rick, which means I might have had a few cocktails tonight while enjoying my night of TV crapulance. Bottom line, I'm kinda sorting through all this, and it looks like we've lost a bunch of data; he/they actually attacked the board's posts/threads DB this time, and didn't just change templates/lay-out. I will examine more closely and with a clearer head in the near future, but for now, wading through the mounds of scripting to figure out for sure how much (and what) might have been lost seems a precarious proposition. So I'm simply suspending operations, and at least taking El Grande Morono's pretend-terrorist bullshit down.
Worst case scenario: on Friday or over the weekend, I'll have to restore everything from my most recent back-up, which would mean all posts since October 1 will be lost. Which ain't SO bad, right?
Hugs and Kisses,
Rick

Aaargh!!! This is so annoying; not just to me, but the hundreds of people who frequent OO and other message boards, by the sounds of things. This is now (at least) the third time this month the "Abo Karim" people have hacked the boards.

I have yet to understand why idiots like this get their jollies from ruining other people's hobbies.

Hey, you fucking bastard Board Terrorists -- a challenge to you on the off-off-off chance any of you morons (or your disciples) happen to frequent this blog.

Send me your e-mail so we can discuss your little cult. Doesn't have to be a primary e-mail address; I don't care. I just want to communicate with you. I have a feeling I could change your minds about things.

Muhuhahahahahahaha....

Latest ITR

A lot of people have said a lot of things about Poetry Enthusiast Jon Heidenreich lately. Some have railed against him because he clearly sucks. Others were not fans of the final car-crash skit at last weekend's No Mercy PPV. But it takes a singular intellect to isolate the REAL problem with Heidenreich: that by attacking the Undertaker, he's just flat-out barking up the wrong tree. Our very own Canadian Bulldog has broken down the situation, and has come up with a few important words of advice to Heidenreich, which he proudly presents IN VERSE (along with tons of other EXCLUSIVE~! goodness) in the new Inside The Ropes

ITR (Online Onslaught)

Useless Link of the Day

Incredible optical illusion

New T-Shirt Design

Bulldog Still Rules

Stern Gets Sirius

In case you haven't seen it yet, Howard Stern has jumped to satellite radio, Siruis to be precise. I am certainly not his biggest fan (Nor do I dislike him. I admit; the odd time where I use the car to commute to work in the morning, I will tune him on through the Buffalo radio station). But I think it's ludicrous to be taking away his rights to say what he wants on the airwaves.

Will he lose a huge chunk of his audience moving to a relative new medium? Absolutely. But it's not like he could grow his audience on traditional radio, what with the number of affiliates that had been dropping him on Clear Channel. I figure, he probably has nothing to lose signing such a lucrative deal anyways. Plus he can stick to his principles, as twisted as they are.

I'll miss listening to him, as not only is satellite radio through this network largely unavailable in Canada, but also I couldn't afford it, even if it was. But like I said, at least he's still doing the kind of things he wants to do, and probably boosting the exposure for satellite radio by leaps and bounds.

Between this and the wussification of MOJO radio (see my blog entry from like a month ago), I'm running out of reasons to listen to the radio anymore...

Useless Link of the Day

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted the last ULotD here. I mean, I keep finding them, just forgetting to post them. Anyways, here's a couple of discovered recently:

http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-477.htm
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/soakamon.shtml
http://www.matazone.co.uk/animpages/bouncing_cow_luck_test_game.html
http://www.morphases.com/editor/

Weird Wire Story of the Day

From our friends at DPA (Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH):

SEX TOY SHUTS DOWN AUSTRALIAN AIRPORT

Sydney (dpa) - A sex toy left in a rubbish bin that was mistakenfor a bomb forced the evacuation of an airport on Australia's eastcoast Monday.
Mackay airport in far north Queensland closed down for an hourafter a security officer became alarmed about what turned out to be avibrator.
``It was rather disconcerting when the rubbish bin started hummingfuriously,'' cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said. ``We called securityand the next minute everybody was being evacuated while they checkedit out,'' she told Australia's AAP news agency.
She said, in retrospect, the humming did sound exactly like avibrator, but that it was better to be safe then sorry. ``You can'tafford to take chances,'' Bryant said.

BULLDOG WINS! BULLDOG WINS! BULLDOG WINS!!!

Was there ever any doubt?

(Edited 10/12/04) -- Apparently, the OO Hacker Attack caused the previous link to send readers elsewhere. Sincerest apologies.

No Mercy Thoughts

Color me impressed.

This was really the first time in a while that I was even remotely interested in anything SmackDown wise. And that's just on paper. In practice, the PPV exceeded my expectations.

Eddie Guerrero Vs. Luther Reigns
Weird choice for an opener, considering you had the six-person match that had 'PPV opener' written all over it. Still, Reigns wasn't nearly as bad as I figured he'd be in his first big match. And no matter how many times Eddie pulls out the 'fake the ref, then cheat' finish, it's always a classic.

Spike Dudley Vs. Nunzio
Not bad at all. Glad they gave this the time to develop. Surprising that Johnny The Bull wasn't more aggressive until the very end. But nice cruiserweight match.

Paul London Vs. Billy Kidman
Easily match of the night. I like that they're finally going to give Kidman a decent heel push, and it doesn't even necessarily that they have to keep him in the cruiserweight division to do it. Great action and you can't help but like the beatdown afterwards.

RVD and Rey Rey Vs. Suzuki and Dupree
Ehhh. Not bad, but nothing terrific, either. Predictable; I'll give it that much.

Big Show Vs. Kurt Angle
Terrific match; one of Show's best ever. The new look kind of makes him look like an extremely tall Bastion Booger, but whatever. Angle showed signs of his usual brilliance, and Show was in the zone.

John Cena Vs. Booker T
I actually was falling asleep during this one - not because it was overly boring - but I was just kind of tired. By the time I'd grabbed a Pepsi to recaffienate myself, the match was over. Hard to judge that one, on that basis.

Rico, Charlie and Jackie Vs. Dudley Boyz and Dawn Marie
I actually missed Rico's antics. Though I didn't know it until tonight. The kiss spot was utterly and nonetheless hilarious. Match itself wasn't bad at all, though again, I would have used this as the opener, not the second-to-last match.

Undertaker Vs. JBL
Ok, I admit it: Bradshaw is FINALLY growing on me. As soon as Heidenreich didn't appear backstage, I knew what the finish was going to be. Still, that didn't detract from this match at all. Both guys worked their asses off for a change, and it made for a nice little brawl. Sure, the aftermatch was cheesy as hell, but nothing wrong with it if it makes sense. I can see the following feuds from here: Bradshaw Vs. Big Show, Undertaker Vs. Heidenreich, Cena Vs. Angle and Guerrero Vs. maybe Booker T. Which makes for much better prospects on SmackDown then, well, most of 2004.

I enjoyed the show much better than I thought I would.

Newest T-Shirt Design

Compliment Killer Tour